March, 1998

Answering the doorbell had me all out of sorts, a mere nine in the morning and I wasn't all the way awake. Lacking one slipper and with my hair in that strange updraft that sleep does to it, I grumbled and padded my way down to the front gate to sign for the proffered envelope. A subpoena. Ken Starr was ordering me before the grand jury because he's been monitoring dreams and caught me with what he thinks may be a pertinent fact or two.

Pretty scary.

A week ago---yes, I think it must have been just a week ago, on a Tuesday I had gone to bed about two in the morning after fretting my way through the evening newspaper. I mean to be more careful about that sort of thing because today's news too often leads me into a certain amount of tossing and sleeplessness. But what the hell, it's what I was up to and there's no denying it. A glass of wine was also involved as I recall, a rather dry red.

At any rate, I dropped off amazingly well into a deep and restful sleep, one of those pillow-huggers that allow the most mysterious of dreams, the technicolor ones, the few that are remembered when you wake instead of dissipating like smoke before you've got your shoes on. In this first-rate dream of mine I found myself walking up and down the halls of the White House, the carpeting a brilliant green as I walked up them and dazzling blue coming back, but a lovely vibrant shade in either direction as I recall. As I said, it was that kind of dream and required no further proof that this was indeed the White House than my sure knowledge of the fact. Such is the manner of dreams, you know it as well as I.

The doors along those halls were beautifully detailed, the frames and panelling painted in a luxurious off-white that had the glossy eggshell look of just-melted ice cream. Not strangely at all (for nothing seems strange in dreams), the doors that were open each had a brass plate lettered "Bill" and all those closed were identified by a gracefully scripted "Monica." It seemed natural to me then. Actually, it doesn't seem all that strange to me even now.

But there were other people than myself in these halls and all of them, with the possible exception of Henry Kissinger, were asking each other and me as well, "Have you seen Bill?" Instead of an answer, the other person would invariably respond "Have you seen Monica?" That might have been a better response for me as well but, like the fool I sometimes am in my dreams, I said to one questioner, "Maybe you should ask Hillary" and to another, "I may have seen him with Monica, but never alone." I hardly expected that a subpoena would follow. Which of us would dare to dream if the consequences were binding in the daylight?

The dream ended without my actually spending time with the President and that's too bad, because it's not likely I'll ever get that close to real power again. Not unless I can weasel myself into a dream that includes Bill Gates and he's not apt to have me, now that I've been subpoenaed.

So, according to the papers served I'm to show up at the Grand Jury, the biggie in Washington and not that mostly failed little old original in Arkansas. But main show or side show, I plan to come clean. No lawyer climbing those steps by my side, no ducking away from the press to play fast and loose with Meet The Press and certainly no later plea for a legal-defense fund. No taking the 5th, I plan to expose every detail of my dream, no matter the cost to my credibility and esteem among friends of both political parties. Let the chips fall where they may.

This is after all, a serious inquiry into issues that are fundamental to our essential constitutional framework. This is a measure within which our great nation presents its standards to the rest of the world. Damn the demands of the office and damn the smirk on Boris Yeltsin's face, this is serious stuff. Oral sex ought not to be tolerated and if my dreams need to be monitored, it's a small price to pay. Furthermore, to actually deny oral sex when confronted with it before your wife and nation, is for sure a high crime.

At least in my dreams.

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