The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (8 page)

“Not bad,” said President Rick. “We are really Enjoying!”

“Life for us is rich,” said the First Daughter.

Suddenly Kelli, Citizen #7, blew a whistle.

“Mid-Morning Reversal!” President Rick called happily, and the population of Greater Keller lay flat on the ground so the President could take his rightful place at the front of the line, by stepping very gingerly over the prone forms of his people, after which the First Lady stepped gingerly over the prone population, after which the First Daughter and those behind her in line stepped gingerly over the prone population, until finally the President stood at the head of a line that was now a mirror-image of its former self.

“Who would like to deliver our invitation?” said the President. ” Dale? Would you mind?”

“It would be an honor, sir,” said Dale, and the First Daughter blushed, because, unbeknownst to her parents, she was in love with Dale, who, unfortunately for her, was Citizen #9, which meant there were five citizens between her and Dale, and therefore they never got any time alone, except briefly during Reversals, when he was lying prone and she was stepping gingerly over him.

Dale shot a quick loving glance at the First Daughter, then advanced into Far West Distant Outer Horner via a series of large arcs, which was the only way Greater Kellerites could walk, trained as they were from youth to circular motion.

If this mission was successful, Dale felt, it would put him in an excellent position to approach the President with a Line Position Change Request.

“Shall we?” said President Rick, and Kelli, Citizen #7, blew her whistle, and the Counter-Clockwise Morning Circumambulation began.

All morning and most of the afternoon the Inner Hornerites stood shivering in the Short-Term Residency Zone, waiting for Phil to arrive, deeply ashamed about what had happened to Cal. Like anyone deeply ashamed, they looked for someone to blame, and decided to blame Cal, who they all missed tremendously.

“What was that crazy guy thinking?” said Wanda. “I mean, jeez, what a hothead.”

“When I advocated resistance I certainly didn’t mean that,” said Curtis, looking guiltily over at the little blue dot.

“What did you mean?” said Carol.

“Well, I meant some, ah, conversational resistance,” Curtis said, blinking nervously. “A period during which we would say challenging but polite things, things which might cause them to possibly consider reassessing their positions vis-a-vis us.”

Just then the Inner Hornerites heard a fanfare similar to the Presidential Fanfare, and saw what appeared to be the Presidential Board, being carried by what looked like a group of Presidential Advisors, except that, sitting where the President usually sat, sat someone who resembled Phil, had Phil been wearing a smug euphoric expression and the Presidential Cravat.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Elmer.

Then Phil did something he had never done before: He yanked his own bolt. He yanked his bolt, feeling that, although he was feeling quite Presidential, he would feel even more Presidential once he got the rush of confidence he always felt when his brain slid off.

But when he yanked his bolt, nothing slid off.

His hands flew up to his rack and a sudden look of panic shot across his face.

With a sense of dread he remembered his spasming rack, the slow descent to the bottom of the high-school pool, waking up senseless on the Farley ReMotivator unable to make words, his arms and legs flailing, hydraulic oil running out of his Pan and into the floor drain.

“Boys!” he shouted frantically in the stentorian voice. “Quickly now! Implement Phase I!”

From a huge backpack the Special Friends took a posthole digger and eight stout posts and a roll of barbed wire, then dug eight quick holes around the perimeter of the Short-Term Residency Zone, dropped the posts in, nailed the barbed wire to the posts, and hung a sign reading: “Peace-Encouraging Enclosure.”

“What, we’re in jail?” said Elmer.

“You’re putting us in jail now?” said Wanda.

“How typical of the Inner Horner mindset!” said Phil. “To be unable to distinguish a jail from a Peace-Encouraging Enclosure. Safe inside the Peace-Encouraging Enclosure, you will be protected from your innate violent tendencies, and we will be protected from you. It is a real win/win.”

Just then the little media men came racing up, equipped with flak jackets and new megaphones twice the size of their former megaphones.

“Sorry we’re late!” the first little man said from the mouth near his rear.

“What’d we miss?” said the second little man. ” What’s going on?”

“Phase I of the Border Area Improvement Initiative is complete,” Phil said. “And we are rapidly moving on to Phase II.”

The Special Friends disappeared behind the Outer Horner Cafe, and reemerged pushing an enormous wooden cart overflowing with soil, shovels, an apple tree, barrels of water, and what looked like an aquarium.

“Fill in that hole, boys!” Phil shouted. “Then plant the tree. And restore the stream. Make it wider than before. Also, stock it with fish! At last we are reclaiming our ancient ancestral land, and we want it to look nice!”

The Special Friends took off their shirts and put on tanning oil and in no time at all had filled in the former nation of Inner Horner, planted a new apple tree, dug a wider stream, and stocked the stream with fish.

“PREZ TRANSFORMS VIOLENT MUDDY HOLE INTO PASTORAL PARADISE!” shouted the first little man.

“PEACE ACHIEVED AT PROBLEMATIC BORDER AREA!” shouted the second.

“VISIONARY LEADER DAZZLES NATION WITH DECISIVE GREATNESS!” shouted the third.

It was true, Phil thought, he was great. He’d come so far from his humble beginnings. He remembered his pathetic childhood home, the family crammed into the little kitchen, his father sitting in the sink so his mother could open the refrigerator, his mother climbing on top of the refrigerator so his father could let down the ironing board. Then he remembered the dark days after his father left, when suddenly there was more room to get the refrigerator open but no reason to open it, since there was never anything inside. Why had Dad left? Phil knew very well why. One day they’d gone on a family picnic, to the Border Area, and Dad had been playfully throwing some rocks, small rocks, pebbles really, into Inner Horner, just for fun, when one of the Inner Hornerites, apparently unable to grasp the difficult concept of lighthearted playful joshing, claimed one of the pebbles had entered his Exhaust Port, and alerted the Border Guard, at that time a guy named Smitty, a humorless jerk with pronounced Inner Horner tendencies, who’d asked Dad to stop, since, strictly speaking, harassing Inner Hornerites was illegal. The look on poor Dad’s face! He’d been so embarrassed. Phil felt certain that the humiliation of being publicly corrected in front of a bunch of smirking Inner Hornerites while his wife and child looked on had pushed Dad over the edge.

A week later Dad left, and Phil never saw him again.

Oh, if Dad could see him now! Dad had always said Inner Hornerites were the dirt of the world, and now the world was about to be cleansed of dirt, once and for all, by him, by Phil!

It was time for Phase III.

“My people!” he shouted in the stentorian voice. “As long as they are existent, they seem to keep rising up against us! Therefore, for us to be at total peace, they must be totally gone! Gone gone gone! Let us now create permanent peace, while simultaneously demonstrating good fiscal sense, by collecting the taxes in advance for the next five days, via collecting all their national assets at once, right now!”

“All of them?” said Freeda.

“The whole country?” said Melvin.

“Are we not us?” bellowed Phil. “Are they not them? Us being us, do we not, being fully good, have the right to end what, totally bad, threatens us, even in the slightest? Would it not be negligent to do otherwise?”

“Ah, here we go,” muttered Old Gus, who was by now so hungry that whenever he tried to breathe he looked like he was smirking.

“What was that?” said Phil. “What are you smirking about?”

“I’m not smirking,” said Gus. “I’m trying to breathe.”

“Very funny!” thundered Phil, so loudly that Gus’s left antler popped out.

Freeda stood frozen. Gertrude Gertrude Gertrude, she was thinking, what would Gertrude think if Gertrude learned her mother had once stood silently by while a trembling grandpa was disassembled? Freeda had nothing against this trembling grandpa, who actually looked very much like her own trembling grandpa, except her grandpa looked more like a J than a C and had branches, not antlers.

“Phil,” Freeda said hoarsely, several leaves dropping off due to sudden dryness. “I’m not sure about this.”

“You’re not sure about this?” said Phil. “Freeda? Did you sign your Certificate of Total Approval? I believe you did. Although, as I recall, you signed it rather disrespectfully, with your eyes open, while facing it. That should have been my first clue that your Loyalty was suspect. Did you even read your Certificate of Total Approval before signing it, Freeda? Especially Paragraph D, Disloyalty Consequences? ‘When Disloyalty occurs (to be determined at the discretion of PHIL), the consequence for that Disloyalty will be determined by PHIL and PHIL alone.’ Therefore, since I simply can’t have someone Disloyal around me, contaminating my nation, per my determination, will you hereby make things easier on yourself, by kneeling before the Special Friends with your primary connecting parts easily accessible?”

“Me?” gasped Freeda. “You’re disassembling me?”

“You’re disassembling Freeda?” said Melvin.

“Melvin!” said Phil. “Don’t make me invoke Paragraph H, Nipping Probable Disloyalty in the Bud!

Does anyone have a problem with this, other than Melvin? If so, please step forward. And please don’t think I will necessarily consider it Disloyal for you to publicly contradict me at this critical national destiny hour. I mean, I probably will, but if you reference Paragraph N, The President’s Incredible Mercy, you will see that I, and I alone, reserve the right to be as merciful as I choose about cases of Probable Disloyalty.”

No one stepped forward.

“So everyone is fine with this?” said Phil. “Except Melvin?”

“No, I’m fine with it,” said Melvin, a little frantically. “I’m totally fine with it.”

Freeda did not kneel with her primary connecting parts easily accessible, but stood up straight, thinking of Gertrude, while the Special Friends trimmed back her Sternum Foliage, then removed her Personal Boundary Sensor and her Hat-Holding Pin System and her bulbous Left Foot.

Soon Jimmy was down to the last step, which involved removing Freeda’s third arm, which flailed around frantically, as if trying to put out a fire on Jimmy’s chest.

“INSURRECTION NIPPED IN BUD!” shouted the first little man.

“PREZ DOES WHAT PREZ MUST DO!” shouted the second.

“What a sad thing, that Freeda should prove to be a traitor!” Phil said. “Well, let this be a lesson to all! A lesson that the disgusting traits that make those Inner Hornerites so disgusting, such as Disloyalty, such as undermining one’s leaders via constant questioning, can even take root in us Outer Hornerites. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of us didn’t start getting smaller and doing mathematical proofs. We’ll have to watch for that. We’ll have to be vigilant. Jimmy, Vance, please help Freeda remind us to be vigilant, by constructing an attractive yet sobering display of the components of Freeda, so people can witness Freeda’s components, and thus learn from them! What a wonderful thing for Freeda, to be so very educational! In this way, her life will not have been a total waste!”

So the Special Friends made a display of Freeda’s parts, by stringing some from trees and setting others on rocks, placing, near each, per Phil, a sign reading: “Loyalty—It’s Super!”

Then, almost as an afterthought, Phil nodded to Jimmy, who plucked Old Gus out of the Peace-Encouraging Enclosure and disassembled him, which went very quickly, Old Gus being so frail, brittle, and greaseless.

“PROGRESS CONTINUES APACE!” shouted the second little man.

“TOTAL VICTORY IN SIGHT!” shouted the third.

A great high-pitched wailing now sounded from Inner Horner.

It may have been this that caused Phil’s rack to spasm.

Oh shoot, wow, Phil thought, that really hurts.

He had only got this same spasming sensational once before in his life, and that had been the worse, due to, just after that, his speech would began suffering.

Darn, Phil thought. It are happening now, somewhat slight.

He’d better hurry, get this Phase III wropped up, so he could go homer and find that stupid brawn, and re-mont it.

“That one,” Phil gasped, indicating Curtis, and Jimmy yanked Curtis out of the Peace-Encouraging Enclosure, and Jimmy unlatched Curtis’s Lower Half, and Vance unbraided the nine tightly braided ropes that constituted Curtis’s Upper Half, and Jimmy removed the three bolts joining Curtis’s perfectly round head full of thick wavy hair to his Neck Platform, and soon Curtis had been reduced to a twitching pile of parts oozing hydraulic fluid.

At that moment, Dale, Citizen #9 from Greater Keller, burst out from behind the Outer Horner Cafe and sprinted off towards Greater Keller, his shock and disgust at all he had seen causing him to inscribe what was, for him, a remarkably linear path.