Dreams of a thriller

I was thinking about my childhood, I guess, on the long ride home from work two weeks back, all the things that have fallen apart over the years, the notion of one day achieving rock or pop stardom a la early 1980s Michael Jackson, the other silly dreams of being a fireman, a policeman, a truck driver, a fiction writer. It got me a little sad, really, and it was all sparked by the news reports about my home state’s governor’s disappearance. That’s right, South Carolin gov. Mark Sanford was fresh from defeat in battle with the state’s courts and legislature over federal stimulus money. And now he was gone, and nobody could say where he went, though there were rumors he was hiking the defeat off, sweating it out on the Appalachian Trail, they were saying, and so I thought that here was a man in need of a break, or on the verge of a breakdown, say, sick, and I felt pretty sick at life myself so, primed for empathy, when I got home I found in my mailbox a letter from Zach Dodson, one half of Featherproof Books and organizer of the Dollar Store reading series’ tour, ongoing as we speak, which included the item I was to have written from. Zach had mailed it like four weeks before, and it’d finally forwarded to my new address, which probably shows you how out of touch with humanity I’ve been, but nonetheless I was delighted to note that it was a Get Well Soon-type gift CD. “Sick As a Dog,” it was dubbed, or so was dubbed the track on the CD, a little dog singing to the receiving, sick party a ditty to the tune of “Farmer in the Dell” that goes a little like this:

I am your puppy dog.
I was sitting here for you
When I heard someone say
That you were feeling blue.

 They say you’re sick as a dog.
Well I don’t what that means
To you but this is
What it means to me.

And then the chorus:

Yeah I’m feeling blue
So I must have the flu
And I guess I am
Sick as a dog.

But I’m getting ahead of the story here, because I didn’t even open the clear-plastic sort of packaging the doggy CD was contained in — I’m really only guessing at the Farmer in the Dell tune, too; you can sing anything with any rhyme scheme whatsoever to that tune, in any case. The reason I didn’t open it: I didn’t think I would be able to actualy make the Nashville or Atlanta readings on the tour, and, in my misery, I sent the CD where I figured it might do more good — in an envelope direct to the Governor of South Carolina’s office:

 “Governor Sanford,” I wrote in an accompanying letter, “Don’t take this wrong way. I don’t really see myself as your “puppy dog,” but I do think there’s some relevant comparison — here’s hoping you get over the shit that’s clearly piling up over your way. I got a ton of my own, here. I’m probably more a Democrat, by the way, but I grew up upstate in Rock Hill, in case you’re wondering why I might care a little. Here’s hoping they find you.

“Sincerely…”

Yeah Mark was feeling bad
So he must have the crabs.
And I guessed he was
Sick as a dog.

It was that fateful Friday for the governor when I sent the letter off, and by the time I got the reply the full extent of Sanford’s “sickness” was known to the state of South Carolina, all of our great nation and, yes, Argentina. Sanford had joined the that great vanguard of politicians who succumb to an extramarital-affair-type scandal, this one notable not only for its international character but for released e-mail exchanges between Sanford and his Argentinean lover, Maria, in which it was made quite clear he’d fallen head over heels in the manner of maybe a teenage or early-20s boy longing to be a pop icon. In one he even conjured an image of the receiver of the mail with her hands holding “two magnificent parts” of herself, which reminds one and all no doubt of embarrassing mentally rehearsed conversations between oneself and the object of one’s affections from like 10th grade.

The governor’s office’s reply showed up in the mail a week on, the following Thursday, its sentences positively pregnant with the kind of unintended irony that can only be the product of time, events providing the rub, bearing out the comically false nature of what was known about the past, in the past. Or maybe the staffer writing the letter was a joker. In any case,

“Dear Mr. Dills,” it read, “We assure you the governor is in fine health. We have, however, received both magnificent parts of your missive, letter and musical ‘Get Well Soon,’ and will deliver them to Governor Sanford at the appropriate time.

“All best…”

And so I felt like a dud
So I must have had the crud.
And I guess I was
Sick as a dog.

I wanted go out into my tiny little backyard and howl at the moon with delight! I wanted to quit chewing shoes and socks and toys and digging holes in the yard, to sit real still while I get my bath and not make a mess on the floor. All for gloriously promiscuous Republican Governor Sanford, I do say! But I did not do any of that. I am not a dog, it’s true, so I wrote once more to the governor, that “Yes. Yes, ‘magnificent’ indeed, Mr. Sanford’s office, how magnificent so! But can I tell you I regret sending the CD? Really it sounds like Sanford’s doing better than most of the governors out there (which is to say nothing of all the other humans) in terms of life and love and all that. Send my regards, and enjoy the puppy dog, no doubt.

“Sincerely…”

Because, yes, by the time I actually made the time in my hurdy-gurdy-hurry-up-wait increasingly complicated existence — the at least partial source, perhaps, of my own sickness – to write that final letter and maybe to ponder the implications of this slapdash chain of events, time itself had proven me stupid. I knew that I’d picked the wrong recipient for my ‘Get Well Soon’ Dollar Store reading series item.

I should have sent it to Michael Jackson.

The Chicago-based Dollar Store reading series summer tour makes stops in Nashville, Austin, Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta, NYC and a few other cities. Visit www.dollarstoreshow.com for the full details.