CHAPTER 10 – MORALE AND THE ARMY

The sun set into oblivion and at midnight the full moon appeared over Monro's vibrant estate, on a hill near the capital, Demos. The estate is surrounded by a large fence in an area of nearly four acres with security cameras and watchdogs spread out. To prevent the possibility of seeing what happens inside, tall trees with dense branching grow close to the long wall surrounding the estate. The mansion is one acre, four floors of 1000 square meters each. The grounds feature two swimming pools, 3 tennis courts, a basketball court and a football field, sloping lawns, statues, fountains, fishponds, 4 gazebos, and a 200-year-old carriage house where the servants sleep. Near it is the stable for thoroughbreds. 30 uniformed, armed soldiers surround the estate from outside to guarantee that no foreign party will get close. Uniformed hosts and hostesses with the public relations company representative greet guests courteously in the drive before the entrance to the estate: Among the guests are the Chief of Staff, the Command officers and the government members who left their assistants at the Parliament Hall while attending Monro’s party. The Chairman of the Parliament, market tycoons, senior government officials, ambassadors, and celebrities are also present. Hollywood actors who are appearing Monro’s movies arrive in Monro’s limousines since he is giving the party in their honor. The hosts and hostesses serve appetizers, champagne, wine, and liquor, with a smile, to each of the guests who arrives in his fancy car at the entrance. They are received by several of Monro’s bodyguards, as one of them checks their identities according to a prepared guest list. Other security people prevent the paparazzi photographer and other foes and parasites from entering. The guests who pass through the entrance continue along a paved road flanked by big trees until they reach the well-lit lawns in front of the mansion as waiters and waitresses walk around with trays filled with hors d'oeuvres and drinks. Guests who arrive in their own cars are received by parking valets who take their cars to a giant parking lot near the estate. The guests who arrived just now are walking toward the mansion's giant, impressive open door. The ground floor, 1000 square meters in size, includes a sophisticated 200 square meter kitchen with hi-tech kitchen facilities. Chefs and cooks prepare their best dishes, and the waiters and waitresses serve the food to the guests who celebrate enjoyably and cheerfully in the fancy, 800 square meter salon with top quality marble, expensive crystal chandeliers, amazing statues and paintings and full-size pictures of Monro. The DJ station is in one of the corners and the DJ plays music according to the mood and to guests’ requests. Monro, the main celebrant, walks around the room with his chest inflated with pride and self-importance like an aroused peacock while Prof. Cheers and Yeats follow him like shadows...

Monro suddenly stops in front of the Chief of Staff who is talking to one of the army commanders and whispers in his ear:

“What’s up with all those soldiers around the estate? ...How many soldiers are there?”

“There is an order from the C.I.A, the Mossad and the KGB to send soldiers here to safeguard the estate and the celebrants in addition to the undercover agents circulating in the crowd.” Monro patted the Chief of Staff on his shoulder.

“Good for you, now I can sleep in peace-the military keeps me safe and I keep it safe!”

Arthur Shilton, the European ambassador, stops to watch the one AM news on his smart phone and becomes serious. Monro stops beside him and hugs him.

 “Hi, Arthur- How are you? Are you having a good time? Do you need anything?”

“Hi Monro! What’s going on? I’m enjoying it as much as I can.” He winks “especially when the beautiful hostesses...You tell me at your party, but what’s going on at your war? ...I heard reports that the situation at the front is deteriorating.”

Monro answers with indifference, “Nonsense, Arthur... You know better than me that media reporting is always a lie...exaggerated and full of personal interests. My army situation is great. We attack all the time and make progress. We always win at the front!”

“Okay, Monro. I hope you are right...The most important thing is that there is a party.”

They both drink and part affectionately. After Arthur turns away, Monro chuckles.

“Smart ass! Another one who thinks he understand wars!”

His elegantly dressed Hollywood friends walk in, most of whom are already filled with alcoholic beverages. They wave and call out:

“Hi Monro, the Muppet President-what’s going on jackass-be a man, you sissy-give us five...play it like a maniac-what a great war, sorry, great party!”

He waves towards them cheerfully and turns to Yeats and Prof. Cheers with excitement and arrogance, laughing.

“Did you see my friends? It’s a pity I didn’t choose them to be in the government instead of you. They would probably have been more successful than you.”

The two parasites look at each other with frustration and humiliation, planning to react but when they see that he is serious, they shut their loose mouths and continue following him as he walks hurriedly towards his Hollywood friends. They hug with happiness, pat each other’s back with affection and everyone laughs. Then, with drinks in their hands, they invite some of the beautiful hostesses and start dancing with funny, exaggerated motions, good cheer and joy, drunk as they are from the wine, beer, and hard liquor. Monro wonders and thinks about something important while he is sipping his wine. He leans on the Minister of Defense.

“Do you hear me? I need you to take 300 soldiers with their weapons and place them to safeguard my businesses...I have 100 office buildings and factories. Every three soldiers will guard each business, doing eight-hour shifts, according to my order, sorry, according to the order of the Defense Ministry and of the CIA. As long as I’m in danger, there’s a need to protect my businesses. It’s a  priority until we figure out what’s going on with this fucking situation between us and the Islamic Forces”. The Minister of Defense is embarrassed and hesitant.

“It is a problem...You need government approval. What will happen if more ministers ask for the same thing?” Monro hugs him.

“That’s okay my brother, you have your President's authorization.” He pushes a pack of bills into the Minister's pocket. “I advance you a $5000 bonus. Do whatever it takes and keep it a secret, give me the honor I deserve. Here are the 100 addresses.”

The Minister of Defense smiles from ear to ear and with hungry eyes answers:

“Be assured that tomorrow you will have 300 soldiers. You know that I can always help you with additional issues, goodbye.”

The Minister of Defense leaves the party at the estate with a glowing face. Monro chuckles and says to himself:

“I just lost $5000 but I will save $100,000 a month, the wages for 300 guards employed in my businesses, not to mention that now the Minister of Defense is also deep in my pocket.”

Some boring and bored ambassadors and celebrities sit in front of a giant TV screen on the side of the room and watch a boring movie that’s about to end.

As the party went on Barney woke up in bed with a sheet covering him. He glanced with desire at Elena's nude body sleeping deeply with a babyish smile. He came out of the shower in shorts and prepared himself a cup of coffee. He took the coffee into the living room, turned the TV on and watched a dull movie without any interest but had a ridiculous facial expression of self-importance, lighting a cigarette and mumbling to himself.

“Why do people give so much importance to the after-sex cigarette? I heard of someone who smoked a cigarette after sex, fell asleep and burned himself, his house, his wife and kids, total loss. The insurance company determined: arson and didn’t cover anything.”

Back at the party the movie ended and the signal of a news report beginning brought all of Monro's guests to the TV. The reporter appeared with a strange and mysterious smile on his face.

“Hello to our NBC viewers. We were just informed of a new development from the front and this development...”

Pictures of Islamic soldiers in the front appeared as they rejoiced and danced while eating Hummus, tahini, boiled eggs, meluhia and plenty of lamb meat for shish kebab and famous Arabic sweet pastries that the infamous Aswad sent them. Afterwards, with dessert, the soldiers sat in front of a stage on which an Arabic symphony orchestra played and hosted the famous singer, loved by the Islamic Forces, Fayid al Hantrash, along with belly dancers that shook their stuff and revived injured and tired soldiers. It seemed like the dead would rise and start dancing more than the healthy. Barney at home, Monro and his guests and the Democratic TV viewers were greatly surprised by this sight. In addition, to rub salt in their wounds and pepper on their frustration, Aswad appeared on the screen smiling like a fully sated nymphomaniac and explained:

“The glorious Islamic army will defeat the Democratic army not only because it is better and stronger but especially because of its great morale. I, President Aswad, always take care of my soldiers' morale as opposed to Monro, who only takes care of himself.”

If that was not enough to humiliate Monro, the various reporters appeared on TV and praised the thought, the brilliance, and the strategic wisdom of President Aswad as opposed to President Monro's  lack of imagination, understanding, and his mental dryness. In addition, in order to stick the knife of arrogance and self-importance deeper into Monro’s heart, they again showed the Islamic army's pride, high spirits and joyfulness on TV, opposite the Democratic army's tired, frustrated, and desperate soldiers... Barney burst out laughing, imagining Monro’s frustrated and angry face as the latter screamed at the Chairman of the Parliament, Gargoma.

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“Inform all the army and government representatives to come to my office right now.”

Barney turned off the TV and went up to the bedroom with measured steps, still amazed and surprised by the news on TV relating to the Islamic morale. He tried not to wake Elena up. He got in bed, hugged his wife, and pondered while looking into Elena’s sweet face. Suddenly she yawned, opened her eyes, and immediately noticed the joyful smile on his face and his hands scanning her heavenly body. She leaned towards him slowly, surprised him with a kiss on his neck and asked, teasingly:

“Hi love, do you miss me? Do you feel like tasting me all over again, or are you too tired? It seems like from the moment you turned to politics you've been out of shape.”

“You don’t know what’s going on. I watched the news while you were sleeping, and they showed how President Aswad raises his army's morale. You wouldn't believe it. He sent them plenty of Arabic food that is okay, no big deal. In addition to that, he sent the Arabic symphony orchestra to play to the soldiers with their most boring singer Fayid al Hantrash. Well, that’s also okay, no big deal.” He started laughing. “For dessert he sent them, you wouldn’t believe, belly dancers.” Barney burst out laughing loudly with Elena, “yes, belly dancers.”

They both continued to laugh and grab their bellies when Elena suddenly said:

“I have an idea. We should send our two great belly dancers to the front: Prof. Cheers and the Chairman of the Parliament, Gargoma.”

They laughed uncontrollably.

Monro walked upstairs to his mansion office with hurried and nervous steps while the others ran behind him trying to keep up as he entered his giant and fancy office and paced nervously near his prestigious couch in front of the remarkable executive desk. The army and government people entered the room in fear and trepidation and sat down.

 Prof. Cheers, Yeats, the Chief of Staff and all the rest sat or stood, filled with terror, trembling at the sight of the threatening Monro punching the table.

“You are all losers, brainless, nothings. Why didn’t you think of the army's morale? Because of you, the TV presented me like a moron, an idiot who does not care about his own army. In spite of the fact that I appointed you as my advisers and you swore to do anything for me. In addition to that, I transferred a lot of money to your secret accounts while you didn’t even move a finger for me.” Hitting the table with a karate chop, “so if that what it is, I fire you all, everyone who is here is fired. You were once government ministers and now you are unemployed.” Angry and frustrated, he continued with his karate exercises (Kata) in front of everyone as he bragged about his power and threatened everyone until they all flinched, shrinking in fear and on the brink of tears. Yeats seemed to be the most scared, but built up his courage and asked:

 “We are not to blame, Mr. President. They are only belly dancers. Are we going to lose the war because of some wiggling belly dancers? Don’t forget that we can also bring our own soldiers ballet dancers.”

“Shut up, you idiot. Are you trying to make a fool of me? Does one win a war with ballet dancers or with belly dancers? Who is going to fight better? Who is going to win, an army of ballet dancers or an army of belly dancers?”

The embarrassed and humiliated Yeats understood that he should have locked his mouth and thrown the key into the sea.

The pale Prof. Cheers answered:

“Mr. President, my dear friend. You must calm down for your sake and for the sake of the country and the people. You know that we love you and adore you. If you fire us all, it will look to the world as if you were admitting your own failure, as if you were surrendering to President Aswad.” She whispered to him: “I will tell you a secret, Aswad has been waiting for this moment.” She said aloud: “Afterwards he will tell the people at the Democratic Organization that you are a nothing and you should be thrown out of office because you led the Democratic Organization astray. Do not do what Aswad, the horse, wants you so badly to do. Don’t fall into his hands like a ripe fruit. Don’t fall into his mouth like a juicy piece of lamb. You are not a lamb, are you?”

It seemed that with her great wisdom and resourcefulness and maybe from her overwhelming fear of being fired and the scary thought of losing her pleasant place in government, she managed to convince him to refrain from firing his people. Monro pondered and suddenly jumped with joy.

“Okay, there are new combat instructions. We will send the Disco and Can-Can dancers and the strippers to the bases to appear with minimal clothing at the clubs of all the horny married men and the hornier single ones. The girls will make a show and will dance during the battle and that’s how they will raise the soldiers' morale and then each soldier's private flag will go higher and higher.”

Everyone clapped with adoration and screamed:

“Good for the adorable leader, Monro. Good for the supreme general Monro. Good for our morale building dancers!”

The Chief of Staff burst out “But our adorable leader, we have a little problem. If the soldiers see this show, they will not fight and if they fight, they will not see the show. We need to look for something else, something COOLER.”

Monro paced, looked broken and down. Suddenly Prof. Cheers burst out again.

“Quiet everyone, quiet!” Monro made everyone quiet with an exciting Karate demonstration over the table and shouted “quiet.”

 Prof. Cheers went on:

“I congratulate our adored leader, Monro, for his great contribution in winning the war and for his contribution to the soldiers at the front.”

Like marionettes hanging on thread-like wires, everyone clapped, and she continued:

"Our soldiers need a different kind of morale. Someone to talk to their hearts, to their souls, someone who can talk to them with love, to make them feel good. I do not mean an orchestra or a singer or dancers. With all due respect, I propose to send those dear soldiers someone very special. It could be only a comedian, the best comedian that exists. We need a comedian talented like “Charlie Chaplin” who will raise army morale to the sky and will drive the army to a complete victory, to the final extermination of the Free Islamic Forces.”

People suggested the name of a comedian they hated but to their great sorrow, that comedian was also the best friend of the other people who firmly opposed. Finally, Monro was the last one and he still did not make a suggestion but smiled deviously, full of happiness, joy, and relief.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have the perfect candidate for this job. I will write his name on the board.”

They all stretched, more curious and tense but also happy and joyful that the comedian problem was solved and looked at the board. They looked around in surprise and opened their mouths without believing. On the board was written Barney, the Joker.”

 

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