Po the Third

By Daniel Arkin, author of “The Dog Who Had Human Features But Was Ultimately a Dog”

“Narcolepsy adds character.”
-r.s. foran

“Tu lascerai ogne cosa diletta
più caramente; e questo è quello strale
che l’arco de lo essilio pria saetta.”
    -dante, “the divine comedy”


It should begin like this: her face consumes the frame – tired as I remember it, defeated as I should like to forget – and laminates the city street with singular luminescence.  But it begins like this: I find her perched uncomfortably on the edge of a straw seat in a precious, petite café, he eyes darting nervously side to side as though she expects catastrophe.  She spots me at the entrance to the sitting room and gestures for me to approach.  In the new light she looks older, downtrodden in a distant way, miles away from me and the rest of the world.

“Coffee?” she asks, straining to sound affable.  I nod “yes” and look around for a waiter or server, although no one comes.  Without missing a beat, she thrusts her cup in my sight-line and smiles curiously.

“Take mine, I do not want it, for it smells of urine.”  I thank her and take out my notebook.

“It is the same,” she says, her gaze lingering on my Moleskine pad, which I last used during our meeting at the height of her frenzied campaign for Student Body President in 2005.  “May I smell it?”

So she does, and I remain genial, as is to be expected of someone in my position.  When she is finished I find my window to begin my line of questioning, although the mood I would have hoped to achieve for the interview has been lost (although in many ways it was never there).  With some trepidation I barrel into the question jazzing across the surface of the American political consciousness: the exile.

“You know, I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who once said, “Exile is like prison, only you are not behind bars and you are not fed slop and you are not raped anally by other men and you are free to roam about the earth as long as you do not return to the place from which you were exiled unless you are given permission to do so,” she says.  With r.s. foran it is never a question, nor will it ever be a question, of factual accuracy.  It’s the way she has always done things.

Expatriates normally carry some disillusionment, certainly those who wind up in Paris, but I find r.s. is composed when discussing the subject, if not all together at peace.

“So I can’t ever go back to America.  Big deal.  Paris rocks, dude.”

She is no longer the President I remember.  She is no longer the same chipper naïf I remember from our extended chats in the Student Lounge, when she seemed baffled by the idea that her reign of power – scandals and all – would not last her forever.  The same young woman who managed to brush off corruption charges, the Erica Rubin tapes, and the Horrendous Halimi Hullabaloo (“Fuckin’ alliteration is, like, awesome!” she bellows) seems irrevocably changed, fueled by new desires and dreams.

The exile has changed her, yes, but so have the rumors of bestiality that have plagued her since her arrival in Europe.  They first surfaced in the States, when a roving reporter for a local Los Angeles tabloid magazine acquired revealing photos of Po’s late-night visits to the petting zoo, whereupon she engaged in acts too lurid and damning to be published in this forum.

“I was exiled for other reasons, not the whole petting zoo thing, okay?” she says impatiently when probed.  In Paris she has been seen carrying on with various animals, including a billy goat and a small turtle with mild dementia. 

Before I can question further she has fallen asleep.  I fixate on a line of drool careening down her chin but I am abruptly startled by the sound of breaking glass in the adjacent entry hall.  I crane my neck to find three uniformed officers – all of whom, I later learned, represented the latest crack-down efforts of the Parisian Beastiality Task Force – breaking three small windows at the front of the café.   The tallest of the three, a mustached man with a surly grimace, demands to speak to the chambermaid.  After a few brief, ever-so terse words, the chambermaid points dramatically to the sitting room and hollers, directing the officers to their target.

By this time, though, in her elusive fashion, r.s. has already fled, leaving behind a tattered bag of Fruit Roll-Ups and pennies.  In the chaos that ensued I was nicked on the forehead by the smallest of the officers, detained for questioning for three hours, and ultimately reemerged into the cool, dark night air for my flight back to the United States.

At the airport terminal, after padding through my coat, I find that my Moleskine is missing.

Daniel Arkin lives in Seattle with a parrot and his homicidal doppelganger Hansel Engelbert.  He has no formal education.