The Whitman of Tikrit

by Jarett Kobek

He lives on the farm of Qais al-Nameq in ad-Dawr. His hut is hidden behind high-gated walls. There is a kitchen and a bedroom but no toilet. He is a few kilometers from al-Awja, the place of his birth. Nearby, there is a pen of sheep. It took the Tyrant a week to ignore the bleating.

He has been here several weeks. Or is it months? He has lost track of time.

This is Tikrit, where he was born. In his heart, he had known always that one day he must come home. Be it by foot or by car, by bullet or by gallows.

The Tyrant has returned because of the Americans. The fucking Americans. Another fucked deal, another botched job. Baby Bush, the dog. He will eat the corruption of wounds in Hell and be embraced by Ali Huba, a tragic ghul. The body of Ali Huba is made only of sharp knives. Like the Tyrant, he wants to protect, to bring the damned into his arms and hold them, but instead he hurts, his body cuts those that he would love.

Above his bed, the Tyrant has a poster of Noah’s Ark. This is the not the Qur’anic Ark, a modest vessel, but the decadent giant of the Zionists. A monstrosity filled with the stench of animals. The Zionists say that Noah was buggered by his son, who then laughed at his father’s nakedness. The Qur’an says that the Ark landed in Mosul. A few hundred kilometers north of Tikrit. The Tyrant has been there. He has been everywhere. He has owned everything. Now he shits
in the yard.

In 1404 H, when he warred against the Persians, the Americans had courted him. This is how he met Rumsfeld. The Hollywood actor’s she-hound and Bush’s bitch. The squinting prick carried gifts. The Tyrant gave Rumsfeld a watch. The gifts of Rumsfeld had bored him, for what does a King care of a peasant’s tribute?

“Shall you next give me milk?” he asked.

“Pardon, your Excellence?”

Under palace lights, The Tyrant could see that Rumsfeld had begun to lose his hair. He would notice this again when Baby Bush gave the prick control of the military. Before the Invasion of the Motherland, the Tyrant saw that Rumsfeld had taken recourse to surgery or to sorcery and his hair had unnaturally thickened.

“Milk. Or perhaps a bit of cheese. Your gifts are what a peasant brings to his lord. As your host, I accept them, but let it be known that a man with the resources of a whole people, with whom the entire destiny of Arabia rises and falls, has no need of your trinkets. Your weapons come from my neighbors. From you, the Actor’s servant, I expect more.”

“What would you like, your Excellency?”

“Books,” he said. “I want books.”

The Americans searched for volumes fine enough to present to the Tyrant. They found only one, a copy of the 1856 edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, bound in snake skin. The Tyrant had his linguists translate the text into Arabic. It quickly became his favorite, but this was a secret that he told no one. The original and the translation have been left in Baghdad, but it matters not. He has memorized each line.

The Tyrant has read no other book so like himself.

One of his vassals, a man who had been educated at Oxford, once made the mistake of informing the Tyrant that Whitman was a bugger known to suck at the members of other men. For this, the Tyrant had the man drawn and quartered. He personally cast the body into the streets and made a speech to those that witnessed.

“This jackal, who was one but now is four, dared speak ill of the poet Walt Whitman. He spoke calumnies against the gray bard. Whosever speaks against Whitman speaks against me. Whosoever slanders his name, slanders the name of my father, Hussein. Let those who would indulge in lies come to my palaces and speak them to my face. Let them then reap their rewards.”

Never again did any man or woman or child accuse Whitman of buggery. Even Udai and Qusai, men who took pleasure in violating their father’s every law, knew this to be one rule that could not be broken....