Pubdate: Thu, 01 May 2014
Source: Tucson Weekly (AZ)
Copyright: 2014 Tucson Weekly
Contact:  http://www.tucsonweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/462
Author: J.M. Smith

SOMETIMES I THINK DICK CHENEY SHOULD JUST PULL THE PLUG

Mr. Smith reflects on the life of his caretaker as he rages against 
the dying of the light The End Is Near

He could shut down my ventilator, step back, and calmly watch as I 
depart this corporal plane for parts unknown, leaving behind the 
struggle of paralysis and moral indignation. I know he wants to do 
it. Haters gonna hate, and I grow weary of the fight. It would be a 
small, personal victory in Cheney's lifelong odyssey against freedom, 
truth, justice and drugs. Something tells me he would rather use a pillow.

It's a grim existence lying here, twitching my right middle finger at 
the former vice president of the United States, telling him Fuck You 
in the only way I can and making him tend to my most basic needs. It 
must not be all that great for The Dick, either. He's personally 
perpetuating a man who represents things he fought against throughout 
his decades of public service. Dick Cheney is a broken man, despite a 
new heart, a relic of a time when we were all supposed to Just Say No 
while our government enabled Central American drug smugglers.

But we said Yes.

Dick Cheney didn't always say No. He got a DUI once, way back in 
1962. He was 21 years old, living in Wyoming, if you believe what he 
told the New Yorker some years back. And being a young, apparently 
thirsty man, he drank too much and drove a car. Busted. Then a year 
later, he got thirsty again and drove a car. Busted again.

"Arrested twice within a year for driving under the influence, once 
in Cheyenne, once in Rock Springs," Cheney told the magazine. "And it 
was a sobering (he chuckled here). I'm not sure that's the right 
word. Sobering moment. Sit down and think about where I was and where 
I was headed. I was headed down a bad road, if I continued on that course."

Thank God Dick Cheney chose the road he picked, one where you attain 
the penultimate office in the United States government, lie to the 
entire world to justify an invasion in which hundreds of thousands of 
people die, then shrug it off when the world learns the truth. Just 
think for a minute what the bad road was.

Anyway, I got caught smoking cannabis once, way back in high school, 
or at least I admitted to a judge that I had. She was apparently a 
Just Say No judge, so she ordered me and a friend to spend a couple 
weekends living in a half-way house where street drunks went to sober 
up. It was a sobering experience, so to speak, but it didn't sway me 
from the road I was on.

In the past couple years, I've waded neck deep into the cannabis 
debate, sometimes driving it and sometimes commenting on it, but 
always being affected by it. I stuck my head up for the charge, and 
sometimes I got hit. Sometimes it feels like being on Gunsmoke, the 
old-school TV western. Sheriff Matt Dillon got shot something like 60 
times on that show.

I guess my point in all this is that I am a bit of a broken man, too, 
tended to by another broken man. It's ironic that Dick Cheney is 
sitting in a recliner beside my bed, occasionally rising to pump 
gruel or rub me down with exotic oils and fragrances. It's not easy 
needing him to stay alive, and as often as I wonder if he should pull 
my plug, I wonder why he stays.

Maybe he needs me, too.
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