A Sacred Institution

by Esther Friesner

Leroy Wilberforce was a man of action, proud of his red-white-and-blue heritage, as solid a citizen as one could be without being made out of concrete from the neck down as well, and willing to go to great lengths to step into the spotlight if that meant showing folks they were hellbent (literally) on taking the wrong path. His detractors might call what he did a shameless publicity stunt, but of course they were in the pay of whichever foreign power had been rated Most Likely to Be Evil for that particular week. As his corps de spin doctors would be first and loudest to declare — on all major broadcast networks — it was not a stunt, but a statement.

Silly detractors. Any fool could have told them — as Wilberforce himself did — that if some dumb kid from one of those pansy East Coast liburl arts colleges did something like this, it was a stunt, pure as the driven jackass, but when a man of Wilberforce’s attested patriotism and moral fiber married his dog—

Yes, that’s right: married his dog. Married her all nice and legal and binding, according to the way the law in the small town of East Gila allowed. This is not to say that East Gila had a law on the books specifically permitting or encouraging a man to marry his dog, but neither did it have one saying he couldn’t. No one in East Gila thought much about it — or anything else except beer and why the hell Wal-Mart wouldn’t build within a hundred miles of the place, God knows they scattered their stores damn near everywhere else, like a frat boy’s seed — until the day that Leroy Wilberforce called up the mayor, one Mr. Octavio Perdenales, and informed him of the matter.

Octavio didn’t know Leroy from Adam, personally, but he knew about him, all right. He read the newspapers. They were all full of stories about how this simple, downhome, good ol’ boy was about to toss his billcap into the ring for the upcoming gubernatorial election. And if it was a billcap that had seen less (a.k.a.: none) of the inside of a pickup truck cab than of a BMW, well, that didn’t matter a lick to Octavio. Mayor Perdenales was a small, smart fish in a small, rapidly drying-up pond and after he heard out Leroy’s request and the reasons behind it, he came to the following conclusions in his heart-of-hearts:

1. This was one slick Anglo sumbitch.

2. This s.A.s. was probably going to slick his way right into the governor’s mansion, the voting public being what it was, alas.

3. That being the way the political wind was blowing (which accounted for the smell), it would be no skin off the civic nose of East Gila if the mayor thereof were to play a fast round of Posterior Pucker-Up with Mr. Leroy Wilberforce.

Yeah, give the man what he wanted and the toadying might translate into an economic plum or two for poor East Gila post-Election Day. Maybe. Perhaps. Everyone knows you shouldn’t count your Wal-Marts before they’re hatched. Ah, but don’t play ball with someone like Leroy and Octavio was willing to bet dollars to dry wells that the smarmy bastard would smile, shake hands, say there were no hard feelings, then pivot ‘round on the tips of his ostrich-skin boots and use his clout to drop such a shitload of political wrath on East Gila that there wouldn’t be a tumbleweed left to mark the spot after.

Mrs. Perdenales didn’t raise any stupid kids.

It was a lovely wedding. The bride wore leather. In honor of the occasion, Leroy bought his dog a brand new collar, virginal white. She was entitled; she’d never been fixed, but she’d never been bred either, and whenever she came into heat she was kept so close under her master’s watchful eye that the fathers of teenage daughters everywhere should’ve been taking notes.

Bluebell enjoyed her wedding day. She got an extra doggie biscuit and a free examination by one Mr. Damien Polacco, a representative of the American Kennel Club who pronounced her a fine specimen of the Black-and-Tan Coonhound breed, though not of Show quality. When Leroy asked him whether Mrs. Polacco was of Show quality it got a good laugh from the witnesses and a nervous one from Damien.

Bluebell behaved like a perfect lady throughout the brief civil ceremony, which of course was performed by the mayor of East Gila himself for the benefit of the reporters and tv cameras. She barked up nice and loud by way of an “I do,” and she even wagged her tail lustily, so that none of the witnesses could doubt that she consented to this solemn union.

No sooner had Mr. Perdenales pronounced the happy couple man and wife (the press ate up how Leroy let Bluebell lick his nose by way of a kiss-the-bride photo op) than the newlywed husband launched into his prepared speech about why he’d gone to all this trouble.

“My fellow Americans,” he said, “marriage is a sacred institution, or it was before those people started dragging it through the mud.” At this point, Mr. Polacco hastily left the premises, but no one really cared. “They try to confuse us, asking why marriage has to be limited, why it can’t be something besides the legal union between a man and a woman. Well, my friends, I guess we’ve all seen why that can’t be, why it shouldn’t be. If we turn a blind eye, if we start letting unsuitable elements tamper blasphemously with the blessed bonds of matrimony, if we let people enter into a holy union when they’ve got no more right to be there than — well, than a dog — then where will it all end?” That was where he grinned and rubbed Bluebell behind the ears. “I guess you’ve seen that for yourselves. If the law allows Bubba to have two daddies, what’s to stop some poor, helpless child from winding up with one daddy and one Doberman? That is not what marriage is all about! That is not what America is all about! None of those signs saying ‘George Washington slept here’ is hung up over a doghouse! Some folks out there are going to say that what I did today was foolish, ridiculous, downright stupid. My fellow Americans, I guess I don’t have to tell you what sort of people they are. All I can say is maybe they could stand to pick up some lessons in loyalty from Bluebell here, and some lessons in decency from right-minded folks like you. Because you know the truth, ladies and gentlemen: what I have done today, I did for America, for the sacred institution of marriage, but most of all—”

He struck a dramatic pose to go with that dramatic pause. Everyone who could recall Leroy Wilberforce’s speech afterwards said he looked mighty good, all noble and with his mouth shut, but such folks were few and far between, mostly on account of what happened next.

It was not what Leroy was intending should happen next. He was planning on holding his words and his pose just the few beats his acting coach had said would allow the viewing public to start thinking Now there is a man I’d be proud to have for my next governor. Or maybe even my next President! Just a couple of beats — one Mississippi, two Mississippi — and then Leroy could end his speech with that holiest of holy soundbites, viz.: “—for the children!”

Poor schmuck never got the chance. Somewhere between one Mississippi and two Mississippi the aliens arrived. In Mississippi; Tupelo to be exact. Them and Elvis, what were the odds? A little thing like that tends to blow even the noblest pose and the surefire 110% patriotic soundbite clean out of most folks’ minds.

As per their request — once said request could be heard over the screaming of the unprepared citizens of Tupelo — the aliens were given directions to Washington, D.C. There was some small effort to induce them to make a decontamination stop at NASA HQ, but this was quickly nipped in the bud using real teeth. (Not the aliens’ teeth, though. They didn’t have any as such. But they did have some mighty interesting zoölogical samples from other worlds traveling with them, and they had no hesitation whatsoever about using those critters to make a point. It was both cheaper and more discreet than unholstering their ray guns or warming up their city-leveling blaster-cannons.) The aliens presented bona fide scientific data proving that they were a damn sight cleaner than us, tidied up the spilt blood in a gentlemanly manner, and went to Washington.

It turned out that they came from Corftaz, a planet whose distant galactic position was known to a handful of scientists but whose life-bearing potential had never been fully explored due to budget cuts in the space program. The funds thus diverted had gone to our previous President’s best efforts to relieve women of the need to worry their pretty little heads over the matter of being in charge of their own pretty little bodies. The aliens did not find this amusing as they had a great deal of respect for intelligence, initiative, and the god-ordained decree that there be full and equal partnership maintained between the sexes, lest the Dark Wave engulf the Universe.

Well, wasn’t that a kick in the head.

It turned out that the Corftazians hailed from a theocracy whose level of single-minded devotion made earthly Fundamentalists of any stripe look like pikers. What their god said, went. There was no appeal, because if anyone made so much as a peep of protest— Well, you will just have to imagine the sound a Dark Wave makes as it engulfs an Unbeliever, his planet, and a fair chunk of the surrounding solar system.

You could almost hear the worldwide sigh of relief when their leader went onto explain that although they did have the technology to enforce mass conversions, their god actually found crusades, jihads, street corner harangues, and mass doorbell-ringings to be both anathema and obnoxious. It wasn’t exactly live-and-let-live, more like live-and-let-live-and-shut-up-before-you-make-the-Dark-Wave notice-you’re-out-there-acting-stupid. The Dark Wave fed on stupidity. Our scientists allowed themselves a superior smirk or two over the aliens’ quaint religious beliefs until the aliens’ leader, a female named Gorj, showed them photographic evidence of a cosmic singularity from beyond our budget-slashed ken. Yep, there it was: That was a Dark Wave, all right, and it did seem to exhibit certain idiosyncratic planet-engulfing behaviors that might lead a sentient race to certain conclusions.

Besides, we didn’t have either the technology or the balls to try proving the Corftazians wrong.

The Corftazians were made welcome. Once they explained that they had not come to Earth to enslave us, convert us, destroy our environment or selfishly exploit our precious natural resources (preferring to leave such matters to the local authorities), they were made sincerely welcome. They did not explain why they had come to Earth, and this remained a mystery for the duration of their visit. Some folks claimed it was because they’d gotten lost and Gorj wouldn’t ask directions, but as soon as everyone found out that Gorj was female, that allegation riled the hell out of all women and most sitcom writers, so it was allowed to drop.

The Corftazians were easily accommodated since there was just one shipful to deal with. World leaders flocked to Washington to present their diplomatic credentials, and for awhile the Administration used the promise of an introduction as both stick and carrot until Gorj got wind of it and showed what her people could do with both a stick and a carrot. It was not pretty, and right after that every foreign head-of-state who wanted to meet the aliens got a no-strings-attached invitation.

It was little things like this that endeared the Corftazians to the American public. Sure, they were aliens from beyond the farthest reaches of our galaxy, and yes, due to acute sexual dimorphism the females looked like purple Shar-Peis while the males resembled giant woodpeckers (no pun intended except in certain parts of the South where it was mandatory), but their demonstrated hate for political bullshit won our hearts.

All hearts save one. Leroy Wilberforce hated those wrinkly, purple, feathery, foreign, who-invited-THEM boogers with a mad passion that knew no bounds. They had upstaged all his fine grandstanding (to say nothing of his gubernatorial dreams) and his anger was as hot as it was impotent. He had gone to considerable trouble and expense (white leather dog collars do not come cheap, you know) in defense of the sacred institution of marriage and no one cared. Very well then, bad cess to them: There was nothing for him and Bluebell to do but head over to the nearest purveyor of fine divorces and get one.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wilberforce, sir,” said the clerk. “I can’t process this.” He shoved the divorce petition across the counter back into Leroy’s hands.

“Why the hell not?” Leroy said. All right, shouted. Shouted with flecks of spit flying everywhere. “Unless someone switched states on me overnight, no-fault-no-wait-no-harm-no-foul divorce is legal here.”

“Yes, sir,” said the clerk. His eyes glazed over as he went into Regulation Recitation Mode: “Immediate and legal dissolution of marriage is officially authorized in those cases where (a) there is no challenge from either party and/or (b) there are no minor children.”

Leroy clenched his fists. Only the fact that a swarm of reporters was buzzing at his back kept him from reaching out and strangling this bureaucratic boob where he stood. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and in a dangerously calm voice said: “Do you know who I am?”

“Oh, yes sir!” The clerk practically quivered with the desire to appear intelligent before the Press. “I sure do! You married your dog to keep marriage holy.” A bark from the floor made him lean over the counter and add: “Ooh, is that your wife? Can I pet her?”

“Give me my divorce and you can date her,” Leroy shot back.

The clerk flashed him a nervous grin. “I can’t do that, sir. The give-you-a-divorce part, I mean. You see, it hasn’t been seven years yet since you married her, and so—”

—and so that was how Leroy Wilberforce learned that, hate them or not, he and the Corftazians had a lot in common. They too believed that marriage was a sacred institution. Very sacred. They believed that rushing into and out of marriage as if it were a revolving door was a slap in the face of Sanctity itself, which was both stupid per se and collaterally (vide supra, Dark Wave: Universe engulfed by; attraction to stupidity of).

For lo, the Corftazians’ god had decreed unto them that marriage was not a revolving door but an airlock. You had to give it a fair chance to do its job. If you didn’t, you died. Anyone caught arguing this latter point publicly got on-the-spot firsthand proof of a messily fatal nature. The Corftazians, like Leroy Wilberforce, did not like having their inarguable beliefs field-tested and they had the technology to back up their opinions.

While Leroy, like some modern day Achilles, had been sulking in his split-level fake Tudor-style tent, the aliens had become familiar with the Earth custom known as “divorce.” To be honest, they had divorce in their culture too, but there were certain unique rules governing the process:

1. You had to remain in the marriage for a minimum amount of time which translated into roughly seven Earth years.

2. You had to give the marriage your full, exclusive attention in matters emotional, spiritual, and physical, insofar as this lay within your power.

3. All disagreements within the marriage were to be settled solely by the free and courteous exchange of observations and opinions.

4. Failure to observe any or all of the above guidelines would result in the offending party’s precipitous removal from the marriage, society, civilization and breathing.

5. If, upon the strict observance of all of the above guidelines, both parties still found themselves to be incompatible, the divorce would be granted.

It was pretty simple, but the same sentiments had already been uttered long before the Corftazians landed in Tupelo by one Mrs. Robert Hockmeyer of Twin Oaks Trailer Park on the Jersey shore, thus:

“Bob, you bastard, get back in here! Walk out on me and you are a dead man! And if I so much as smell a hint that you’ve been doing that truckstop slut again, I will cut them off and feed them to you for breakfast. Then I’ll kill you! Oh, don’t you dare raise a hand to me, Mister, I’ll rip off your arm and beat you over the head with it, and if I hear you call me that name one more time, you’re gonna find your tongue torn out and stuck somewhere that’d make a monkey blush! Now get your fat ass back to bed and give Mama some sugar.”

Mrs. Hockmeyer has nothing else whatsoever to do with this narrative.

Unlike Mrs. Hockmeyer’s husband Bob, Leroy did not take any of this lying down. He raised a stink of fearful proportions and great dramatic effect, taking full advantage of the presence of the reporters. He inveighed against these intergalactic so-and-so’s just barging in on America and laying down the law according to their beliefs, uninvited. (At this point two of the local reporters with families still living on the Rez laughed so hard that they had to step outside for a minute or twelve.) It was a good speech and a good news story, aired live and kicking even as a fuming Leroy ordered Bluebell back into the car and drove the little missus home.

Two months later, the still-hitched couple got to enjoy a delayed, unexpected, but nonetheless memorable honeymoon in Washington, D.C. They did not get the Lincoln bedroom, since Leroy did not belong to the Incumbent’s political party and that would have looked funny, but the diplomacy of sleeping arrangements was not the first thing on Leroy’s mind.

There was no arguing the fact: The man was not lucky when it came to the Corftazians. Gorj and her wife, Nista, just happened to be watching the news when the network aired the story of Leroy’s thwarted divorce. The clip they ran included his angry speech about busybody aliens. Gorj shrugged it off, but Nista was the sensitive type and began to cry.

“No little Terran pissant upset my wife!” Gorj exclaimed, and stormed off to talk to the President.

You can imagine Leroy’s reaction when he was hauled before the aliens, though the hauling was done by way of an engraved invitation to a White House garden party rather than by truncheon-wielding bullyboys. While the guest of honor’s wife peed in the flower beds, the President took an almost sadistic pleasure in pointing out to Leroy that yes, Gorj was a female married to a female. He just wanted to see how far he could make Leroy’s jaw drop.

“But — but that’s — that’s wrong!” Leroy cried. It was a cry that took the form of a whisper, lest the Corftazians overhear and take bloody umbrage. They had chosen to attend the garden party in company with the same zoölogical specimen that had snapped the heads off those germ-obsessed eager beavers from NASA. Leroy did not want to end up like them. The alien beast was about the size of an adult hippo and it looked cranky as hell, though Bluebell was not devoured when she sniffed its butt in a neighborly manner.

“Wrong?” the President echoed. “Wrong is sometimes just a cultural difference of opinion. Anything wrong with those itty-bitty ham sandwiches you’ve been putting away since you got here?”

“Um, they’re very tasty,” Leroy replied, feeling uneasy. There was merry gleam in the President’s eye he didn’t like at all. Presidents should not look puckish. Leroy was pretty certain it said something about that in the Constitution.

“Anything wrong with the roast beef slices you’ve been eating to keep the ham company?” the President asked.

“Nnnnno?” Leroy fought back the urge to glance upwards. He had the unmistakable feeling that a sixteen ton weight marked ACME was hanging above his head by a frayed thread.

“Mmhm. Now tell me this, Mr. Wilberforce: Ever hear of the Sepoy Rebellion?”

The President’s explanation can be found in any good World History book. In colonial India, Muslim and Hindu soldiers under British command had to load their weapons by first biting the ends off greased cartridges containing powder and ball. The eruption came when rumor whispered in Muslim ears that the grease came from that forbidden beast, the pig, whereas the way the Hindu troops heard tell, it was the fat of their holy animal, the cow. British commanders handled this touchy situation by the brilliant expedient of shouting “Oh, get over it and load your guns, you superstitious wogs!” Bad move. Bad, bloody, massacre-enabling move.

Suffice it to say, one culture’s taboo is another’s holy duty, the hot button of a third and the what’s-the-big-deal? of a fourth. The final label is usually determined by which one’s got the biggest guns and most hermetically sealed minds at the time. Leroy himself summed it up thus:

“They’ve got the drop on us, so we’ve got to play by their rules?”

The President clapped him on the shoulder. “Bravo, Mr. Wilberforce. Fortunately for us all, the Corftazian presence on Earth is temporary. We’re really just a pit stop for them. As soon as they move on, we can go back to business as usual, and not a moment too soon. You have any idea what this mandatory seven year minimum on marriage is doing to Hollywood?”

Leroy didn’t even know what it was about to do to himself; not until he was introduced to Gorj.

The interview began on a frosty note on account of that speech of his, thawed some when Leroy made his formal apology, and warmed up even more when he promised the alien captain that he and Bluebell would make a real effort to honor the Corftazian guidelines—

“—as much as is humanly possible.”

“Humanly?” Gorj’s embedded translation device had worked even on worlds where the inhabitants communicated via expressive bowel movements. Until this moment she’d never heard a phrase that puzzled her like this one. It was almost painful for her to ask, “What do you mean, humanly possible, Mr. Wilberforce?”

“Well, you know, there are some things in those wonderful rules of yours that I simply can’t do with a dog.”

Gorj thwapped herself in the head a couple of times, just in case the translation device had developed a ham-sandwich-related glitch and asked Leroy to say that again. He did. This time Gorj gave him the Corftazian equivalent of a nod and an Oh-I-get-it-now smile.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Wilberforce. You won’t have to settle for imperfect compliance. We have reviewed the records of your admirable attitude towards the sanctity of marriage. It is so very much like our own that it would be a grave sin if we didn’t do everything in our power so that you and this beautiful female—” Here Gorj gave Bluebell a lascivious leer Captain Kirk would envy. (Well, we did note that female Corftazians look like purple Shar-Peis.) “—can have every opportunity to make your marriage work. We will help. We have the technology.”

And so they did.

Bearing in mind Item #5 of the Corftazian Guidelines for Preserving the Sanctity of Marriage (Getting out of the marriage eventually if you just played by the rules for awhile) and fearing the invocation of Item #4 (Refuse and die), Leroy had no trouble with Item #1 (Waiting out seven years, with the abiding hope the Corftazians would leave well before that) and only a few minor headaches with Item #3. The aliens used their scientific know-how to give Bluebell the gift of speech so that the free and courteous exchange of ideas and opinions would not have to be limited to barks, bites, and butt-sniffings. Sad to say, once she could talk, Bluebell proved to be, well, a bit of a bitch.

That left Item #2. More precisely, that left the yada-yada-yada physical part of Item #2. I hope I don’t need to draw you a picture because I would rather not resort to cheap sensationalism to make my point, if you don’t mind.

It wasn’t so much what he had to do to show the Corftazians he was serious about preserving the sanctity of his marriage to Bluebell, it was that he had to show the Corftazians. He put it off as long as he could — three whole years!—pleading everything from headache to Man’s Troubles, to a death in the family, but he couldn’t avoid it forever. As the Corftazians noted, we had aspirin for the first stumbling block, Viagra for the second, and as for the third, they simply told him that if he didn’t stop screwing around and preserve the sacred institution of marriage out where they could get a good look at him doing so, the next death in the family would be his own. They had the technology for that for sure.

It’s amazing what a man can do when he’s got to, even with witnesses. A bedside cheering section on the wedding night was S.O.P. in many European royal households well into modern times. Captain Gorj kept her diplomatic game face on, but Nista giggled through the whole thing. At least Bluebell didn’t throw the proceedings off by making any snide remarks about her husband’s abilities. This was either due to the fact that the heretofore unbred bitch had no basis for comparison, or because Leroy took the precaution of feeding her a big old tongue-tying dollop of peanut butter before the tender moment.

It was just a few months after the enforced consummation that the Corftazians left — bag, baggage, and cranky hippopotamoid menagerie. The instant that CNN declared they’d cleared Earth’s atmosphere, Leroy threw Bluebell into the car and floored it, heading for the city courthouse and that long-deferred divorce. He was in such a hurry that he didn’t even bother to call a press conference. Unfortunately for him, he drove with the passenger-side window open and Bluebell stuck her snout out, complaining at the top of her lungs all the way there about how she’d given him the best years of her life (times seven) and this was the thanks she got. The reporters and a mob of irate housewives more or less materialized after that.

Leroy ignored the jeers, the cries of “Shame!”, the incoming van of paint-and-spittle-flecked animal rights activists, and the frantic questions from the Press. He fairly dragged Bluebell up to the desk and demanded that the clerk wipe this farce of a marriage off the books now, if he knew what was good for him. Bluebell whimpered, but he told her to shut the hell up or he’d have her fixed. When the clerk cleared his throat, as if to offer some objection, Leroy threatened to have him fixed too, on the spot, with his own two hands.

Seeing this masterful demonstration of How to Deal Effectively with a Bureaucrat, some of the folks in the mob were beginning to wonder whether Leroy Wilberforce wouldn’t be a great choice for Governor after all, when suddenly the other elephant muffin hit the fan. Bluebell whimpered again. Then she whimpered some more. Then she lay down, twitched, heaved, groaned, and died before the divorce papers were printed out, let alone signed, sealed, and made a matter of public record. Thus did the noble hound prove that she was ready to lay down her life for the preservation of the sacred institution of marriage!

Oh, did I forget to mention the part where she gave birth before she died? Whoops. It occurred somewhere between heaved and groaned, should you care to pencil it into its proper place, and was the proximate cause of Bluebell’s departure from this vale of tears and Leroy.

Sure, it was a shock when it happened. Leroy had to leave the courthouse under heavy sedation. But before long, folks came to accept the fact that when aliens who can traverse the galaxies tell you We have the technology, they damn well have the technology, be it for retrofitting a distributor cap, a dynamo, or a dog’s DNA.

Cute little sumbitch.

Leroy Wilberforce no longer rode his marriage-is-a-goddam-sacred-institution Trojan hobbyhorse. He no longer yearned for the Governor’s mansion. He didn’t have to. After Bluebell died in dogbirth/childwhelp, he won the election in a walkover, so now he had his eyes on the White House.

It was a mighty interesting election.

He got the We’ll Show Them Galactic Foreigners They Can’t Push America Around vote from the folks who liked to shake their fists courageously at a long-gone enemy.

He got the Oh, That Poor, Dear Man vote from the folks who saw him as either the grieving widower and/or the bereft pet owner.

He got the Tell Me About It vote from those Wedded Bliss longtimers who claimed they too knew what it was like to be married to a bitch.

He got the Dude, Did You Hear What He Did It With? Nasty! vote from duly awed frat boys across the state.

He decided that since he’d gotten what he wanted as far as his gubernatorial aspirations went, he no longer gave a rat’s rotunda whether marriages were committed by a man and a woman, a man and a man, a man and a collie, or a man and a cruciferous vegetable, just as long as all of the resulting cabbage-heads got out there and cast their votes for him.

As for the upcoming Presidential race, Leroy was already laying the P.R. groundwork by making lots and lots of public appearances with his offspring, Travis Blueboy Wilberforce, mostly when the two of them played Frisbee on the mansion lawn or were out on a father/son hunting trip. That Travis sure did like to help his Daddy hunt, and securing the N.R.A. vote that way wasn’t going to hurt Leroy’s campaign a lick.

And because it was never too early to start distracting the voting public from the real issues, Leroy had also started field-testing his electioneering ads out where the grassroots grow.

They’d just shown the one where he and young Travis were posed in front of a montage of stars, stripes, soldiers and cemeteries to a test audience at the East Gila Multiplex when some sharp-eyed reporter spotted Mr. Octavio Perdenales in the crowd. He nabbed the man who’d been in on the whole phenomenon from the get-go, as it were, and asked him what he thought of Wilberforce’s campaign slogan America: Unquestioning Obedience, Absolute Loyalty, Dogged Persistence.

Mr. Perdenales, who was late for his job as a greeter at the local Wal-Mart, was just about to reply when the Dark Wave arrived.

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