Dissident Voice

June 21, 2003

Let’s talk about the night The Fat MAN raped you. How old were you, seven, eight, nine? I was eight, I think.

“KABOOM!” the Fat MAN screamed.

“What? What?”

“Only kidding,” laughed The Fat MAN, stroking HIS Bomb. “Go back to sleep.”

“Jesus Christ. How the Hell’m I suppose to sleep NOW?”

“Relax. If I had really let this sucker go you’d be part of the rug by now. A little Rorschach blot of goo.”

“A what?”

“Anyway, I promise to wake you when I come for real.”

“Oh…well…”

“Sissy-pants,” clucked The Fat MAN. “You wouldn’t want to sleep through our Big Night, would you? Wanna be a little boy all your life?”

“To tell you the truth –“

“Good night, sweet-pea,” whispered The Fat MAN. “I love you. Now turn over. That’s right. Show your tender side to ME.”

Such was my deflowering. I’m sure you have stories of your own. Yeah, it sucks to be buggered by the Fat MAN with his giant, steely Bomb. It hurts real bad. And once you’re fucked by the fat man you stay fucked – forever.

But don’t be ashamed. It’s not an act of sex, but of benevolent violence. Cultural initiation, etc. You won’t come to terms with your inner Fat MAN until you admit the truth. Nothing to be ashamed of. We’ve all been through it. To deny it would be un-American. We might try something crazy, like exorcize the Fat Man and his bomb from our psyches and make ourselves selves instead of reproductions of HIM. Then we’d REALLY know the meaning of “terror.” Nope. HE’S jammed that big old Bomb of His inside us all. The Fat MAN thinks with HIS warhead. HE can’t help himself. Deep, deep, way deep inside forever and always, keeping us safe from, you know, The Other.

Of course, innocent that you were, you went to teacher the next morning. How could you have known what unspeakable things the Fat MAN did to HER? You listened, respectfully, as she explained how The Bomb, that hard, cold thing that ruptured what was clean in you the night before, saved millions of lives simply by slaughtering a few hundred thousand.

Too young, too INNOCENT, weren’t you, to imagine the enormity of 20,000 some-odd humans vaporized instantly and another hundred thousand or so to die horrible deaths, or worse, live on as ghosts with the Fat MAN’S spunk like acid in their cells? Too young to think about how many people were in the process of being murdered brutally for a few yen that morning of August 6, 1945 (Bomb to the rescue); how many raped; how many making love; stealing; eating breakfast; going to work; or simply taking a crap while reading an old newspaper like good old life-loving Leopold Bloom, when they were abruptly delivered from sinful mortality, the myriad deceptions of the flesh.

Of course, you were further instructed in the ways of the Fat MAN by old photos of the A-Bomb fireball and mushroom cloud in black and white – so passé. The H-Bomb was always in color when you opened your sacred American History text to Eisenhower or later. Its hellish orange sucked all light and color from the room. You and your classmates stared in darkness, the same darkness in which you were all, yes even cute little Jack or Jill or whomever you had such a sweet, child crush on, felt the Bomb between his tight, butt cheeks, her raw, bald vulva. Even they were taken by the Fat MAN, who whispered, “Love me, love me,” to them too. Don’t feel cheap, used. Nobody’s special in HIS eyes. We’re all part of a team. One Nation under HIM.

If you were lucky, Rod Serling helped you through your temporary confusion, so confident in his black suit and tie and holding his cigarette, leaving Burgess Meredith alone with broken glasses, a smoldering world, and piles and piles of obviated tomes…

Anyway they, the worthless Jap citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – they were the ENEMY, weren’t they? They DID, every single one of them, bomb Pearl Harbor, no? – by accepting the cleansing fire of The Bomb, saved millions of lives, or whatever Harry Truman and Friends said, so fuck’ em. They’re martyrs and they or their surviving friends and family should be proud, damn proud, of all that they sacrificed for peace on earth.

Well, now you have children of your own to offer to The Fat MAN. Don’t bother locking their doors or barring their windows – you can’t save them from THIS Midnight Rambler. They’re HIS, or will be. Why do you think HE let you reproduce?

It’s perfectly natural. The way of things. You’re not a tax-evader, are you? You paid for HIS salary and benefits, his golden parachute and steely Bomb, didn’t you? Might as well let the little tykes enjoy the experience of offering themselves (actually, you offered them) to the Fat MAN.

If you’re lucky they’ll accept HIM willingly and without unnecessary complications, won’t reject him with (yuck, yuck) free-radicals or anti-bodies or some such genetic anomaly. They’ll become like unto HIM and conform unto HIS needs, which, of course, serve the greater good.

If all goes well, they’ll embrace HIM, eventually, just like you did. Maybe there’ll even be schools you can afford and jobs that they can get (not work, jobs; there hasn’t been much real work in this country for decades; think about it: what do YOU do?).

If all else fails, there’s always this MAN’s army…

Give them to the Fat MAN and his …uh…missile…like your parents gave you. Be at peace. Let go. It’s inevitable. Really. For all you know, HE’S already deflowered them. Plunged HIS Bomb deep. Real deep. And for all you know, they liked it (kids today aren’t nearly as innocent as we were).

HIS seed is inside them now, waiting to bloom.

When he’s not re-reading passages from “Deracination: Historicity, Hiroshima, and the Tragic Imperative,” by Walter A. Davis, Adam Engel can be reached in his shelter at bartleby.samsa@verizon.net