From: gwb
To: Hank Blakely
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2001
Subject: What I saw
 
Biology is a strange and terrible thing. I'm just glad I don't have nothin' to do with it.
 
All a' this consternation about "stem cells", and my own courageous side-steppin' on the issue, brings back a recent strange experience - maybe the strangest one a' my presidential period.
 
It was this July - Friday the 13th, to be exact. I had a' go to a meetin' at the Rayburn House with Tom DeLay and some a' the other members a' my unofficial congressional advisory group. It was a strange day for a Washington July - not hot or bright like it usual is. Ever'thin' was foggy and gray like a old-time movie. The air was grisly and damp. It seemed to cut right through me.
 
We took the limo. It hadn't rained, but the streets was wet and shiny like it had. There weren't no people on the streets, just a few lonesome dogs lopin' down the sidewalks. Ever' now and then a car 'd go by. At one a' the intersections, a mangy retriever come up to the car and looked at me hard through the window. His eyes was orange and wild.
 
A odd thing happened when we got to the Rayburn. As the driver opened the door, a small brown bird flew inside the limo, and proceeded to lose its mind: flappin' wildly ever'where, swoopin' crazy-like back and forth, dashin' and bashin' against the windows, frantic to get out.
 
But his frantic wasn't no way as big as mine, 'cause it occurred to me right off that this might be some kinda terrorist trick. It'd be just like them bastards to put a bomb in a blue jay or somethin' like that. I was tryin' to smash it with my briefcase so hard I broke a window, and all a' my papers fell out. I was shoutin' at the Secret Service, "Shoot the bird! Shoot the bird!". One a' the agents reached behind her back to get her gun, but another one stopped her and just opened the other door, and the bird flew out straight away. There was feathers and papers ever'where.
 
After that I was not in a good frame of mood. And the sight a' the Rayburn House didn't help none.
 
The Rayburn is where a lotta Congress folk got their offices, and on most days it looks like a splendid old government buildin': big and white and roomy, with proper columns in front, lots a' grass and flowers all 'round. Very pretty, usually, but not today. Today it looked dreadful. In the gray light it was hard to tell where the buildin' left off and the sky began. The walls had a damp, greasy look to 'em, and for the first time I noticed that they had fantastical creatures engraved on them; slimy, repulsive things worse than them gargoyles we saw in Europe. It was very omenizin'. I didn't wanna stay outside, but I wasn't keen to go in, neither.
 
The meetin' was held in the "Usher" conference room, just down the hall from Tom's office. Ever'body was waitin' for me: DeLay, Lott, Dick A, and the rest. We said our good mornin's, and got down to business.
 
Mostly they talked about upcomin' votes on Arctic National drillin', and Patients' Rights. But Tom was real worked up on clonin' and stem-cells, and kept bringin' the talk back to them things. He asked me how Dick C and Karl was comin' with my big deliberation on fundin' cell research. I told him they was makin' pretty good progress, and that I'd know what I'd decided in prob'ly a few weeks.
 
After the meetin' Tom said he understood we couldn't politically outright reject the research, but that we might appear to okay it, and then tie it up with a lotta impossible rules. I said that seemed to be where Dick and Karl was takin' it.
 
"The only problem," Tom said, "Is that even limited research can make a breakthrough, if they cure just one diabetic or MS patient, we're finished."
 
"Finished" seemed to be a hard word to use in this case. I asked him why a cure would necessary be a bad thing. He looked at me for a long moment; like he was makin' up his mind. Then he said, "There's something you ought to see. But this is to remain our secret. I'll let Dick and Karl know about it when it's time. But until then I don't want you talking about it to anyone, understood?". I told him nobody would get anythin' outta me, that he could consider my mind a closed door. He said to come with him, and I said "Sure".
 
What I wanted to say, a' course, was "Hell no", turn around and get outta there, 'cause...well, there just ain't no nice way to say this, I don't like Tom. The way I see it, there's two kinds a' fellas: one is the kind you like to hang out with, easy-goin', good-time fellas who you feel natural and comfortable around.
 
Tom is the other kind. Don't nobody I know feels easy around Tom. Mostly 'cause he ain't predictable. You never know quite what Tom's gone a' say or do. Like the time he explained his not servin' in Vietnam by sayin' so many black and Hispanic boys had enlisted, that there wasn't no room left for patriotic white boys like him.
 
Plus he seems to get into a awful lotta trouble with the law, too - a lotta allegations and investigations regardin' extortion, influence peddlin' and perjury. And a lotta organizations are suin' him right and left so they can get to his records and discover new stuff he done wrong. All in all, he's a pretty creepy boy. Somebody once described Tom as "a shiver lookin' for a spine to run up." But the way I put it is he's a hand grenade with a pulled pin, and I don't want a' be around him when the likely happens.
 
So you can see that goin' off with Tom didn't strike me as bein' a day in paradise. But, as the sayin' goes, he may be crazy but he ain't stupid. And in only a few years he's got to be too important to ignore. So there wasn't nothin' to say against it, and we got on the elevator, and took it down to the second basement.
 
It was dark down there. It was dark and cold. We walked a ways down a echoin' corridor until we come to a gate which Tom had a key to. Then we walked some more, turnin' this way and that, until at last we come to what I thought was just a brick wall. But Tom pulled a plastic card outta his wallet and, after checkin' to make sure nobody was watchin', waved it at the wall, and part a' the bricks slid back to show a big metal door. Tom waved another card at that, and it pulled back too.
 
What was behind the second door was like somethin' outta the "The Count a' Monty Crisco". In front a' us was a gray stone spiral staircase that seemed to drop down for so long you couldn't proper see where it ended.
 
As we started down the stairs, Tom said "This sub-basement is the last remnant of the old mansion that used to be here before they put up the Rayburn House in the early sixties. Practically no one knows it's here".
 
And if they did know, I couldn't see why they'd care. As my girls is fond a' sayin', the place was "gross". The air was thick and damp, like wet cotton - I could hardly breathe - and it got thicker as we went down. The walls was wet like they'd been cryin', and if you touched them they felt thick and sticky. And the stairs was patchy with a thick moss that sucked at your feet, and at the same time was so slick that you were always in danger a' slippin' that whole long way down.
 
I could see where it was exactly the kinda place Tom might like.
 
By the time we got to the bottom, my legs was tremblin'. My skin felt clammy and cold. The muggy air was still, and there wasn't a single sound except our breathin'. But, somehow, I couldn't get past the feelin' that we wasn't alone.
 
"Tom," I said, "I can't get past the feelin' that we ain't alone."
 
In the thin light I could see that twisted little half-smile a' his. "Well, in a manner of speaking, we aren't," he said, and turned on a dim light over a long, low table, in the center of which there was six glass...bells, I guess you'd call 'em. And then I looked close and I seen it: each a' them bells had a little man in it. And then I looked closer, and I come to realize that they was all little Tom DeLays, each one a exact copy of the man standin' right next to me.
 
And they was each doing somethin' different. One was sittin' in a tiny little chair, readin' a newspaper. Another was standin', sayin' what looked to be a speech, but you couldn't hear him through the glass. Another 'peared to be yellin' at the little DeLay in the bell next to him. And a couple wasn't doin' nothin' just starin' into the empty with dead eyes.
 
"Really something, huh?" he said.
 
It was that.
 
At first I couldn't hardly say nothin'. Finally I choked out, "What...is this, Tom?"
 
"They're me, George," he said proudly, "Flesh of my flesh and spirit of my spirit. Each one a perfect clone of me."
 
I started to feel the room spinnin'. "But, I thought you didn't believe in this kinda thing, Tom. I thought you was dead against this kinda thing."
 
He looked a little put-out with me. "You don't get this, do you George? That's why I wanted you to see this." He jabbed his forehead with a finger, "Think George! Think! Go out in a crowd anywhere in America today. Two out of every three people you see now will be named 'Chan' or 'Jackson' or 'Julio' or "Ahmed' or something. Do you get it, George? We're being out-produced, boy! We're becoming obsolete! And being moral men, we can't keep up in the...uh...natural way. Our only hope is to use technology to gain an edge. If we let everybody have this, we're right back to the starting line!"
 
 
He walked around the table and pointed to a long row a' test tubes with rubber caps and labels on 'em. "What you see here represents two years of work. These clones have been deliberately restricted to the size you see here, but we can make as many full-sized replicas as we want. We don't have to wait for the...uh...natural processes. We can create full adults instantly, without having to go through all that...uh...other stuff!"
 
"But, Tom, I thought you said all this was evil science."
 
"Evil in the wrong hands, yes. But not in the hands of Godly men like us. That's why twenty of us have come together to take on the arduous task of saving people like us. These test tubes contain cell samples from each of them". I had already noticed some of the labels, like "Lott", "Armey", "Hutchinson", "Barr", and so on.
 
In the damp air, his hair had sorta come undone. His upper lip was wet with sweat, and his face and eyes was shiny. "Don't you see?" he almost shouted, "That's why we have to stop the ungodly from getting their hands on this technology. If we don't, we're finished!"
 
"You and the others ain't' scientists, Tom," I said, "How'd you do all this?"
 
"Ah," he said, all excited, "We're working with a genius who understands the problem as well as we do - Alberich Rheingold at the Niebelung Institute.
 
Uh, oh. I had had a few dealin's with Herr Dr. Rheingold myself, and ever' one had turned to disaster. (Remind me to tell you someday about the Incident a' the Giant Rutabaga).
 
Tom had more chit-chat like this, but I wasn't really listenin' no more. I couldn't get outta my mind the picture a' thousands a' Tom DeLays, all workin' together like in that Mickey Mouse cartoon where the brooms kept multiplyin' and pourin' water all over creation. The more I thought about it, the harder it got to breathe.
 
By this time, Tom was real worked up, and seemed to be in too delicate a state to entertain an opposin' view - which I didn't know if I even had one. What I did know was that just then I didn't want to say or do nothin' Tom might find aggravatin'.
 
'Cause it occurred to me that my Secret Service people was upstairs, and I was all alone down here with Tom - and them. So, smilin' and noddin' a lot, I sorta grinned Tom over to the stairs. I started up right away, and Tom followed - still talkin'. I admit I was a little scared to look back at him, 'cause I wasn't sure what I'd see if I did.
 
Eventually we got outta the Rayburn, and Tom had come back to normal - or as close as he was ever gonna get. We shook hands and he said, "I'm glad you know now, George. We're going to need your help to succeed. This can work...if everyone does his part," and he looked at me significant. I said, "You don't have to worry, Tom. I'm your man". He smiled and said, "Yes. Yes you are, George." and walked off down the street.
 
My entire head was in a turmoil as we drove back to the WH. I couldn't sort ever'thin' out right away. The only thing I could be sure about was a thought kept nibblin' at my mind:

All them test tubes with folk's cells in 'em? Not a one had my name on it.
 
Sleep tight, now.