Interview With Old Friend

Old Friend sat at his kitchen table, staring out at a snowy midwestern field, part of the land he had inherited from his father hundreds of years ago. The land moved in curves and crags, rolling in places, brutal and rock-strewn in the distance. Old Friend didn't farm much; the land didn't offer much in the way of fertility, having been salted in the Agriterror of the 2050s. But still--it was pretty, and Old Friend could appreciate things for their aesthetics.

The phone rang, and Old Friend picked it up, hoping, as he held the receiver, that he could get this interview out of the way. A male voice was on the other end.

"Hello? Congressman?" said the interviewer.

"Yes," Old Friend said. "I know it's a term of dignity in some quarters, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't call me that--Congressman." He said the title with a shutter.

"Oh," the interviewer said, sounding disappointed. "Well, is there a title you'd like?"

"I'm sick of titles and names. I gave them up a long time ago."

"Can I use that in the interview?"

"I don't mind," Old Friend said, gently as his usual tone was. "It's not a state secret."

"So what's the cause of the...disaffection? Do you mind if I term it that way?"

"Oh, disaffection's probably okay. I mean...a lot of life is poisoned, you come to realize. Did you ever learn about Bayard Rustin?"

"Who?"

Old Friend sighed. "Same as it ever was," he said with a faint laugh. "When he got old, he said this thing. He was this old activist, and he was clearly slowing down a bit, and he said something like, 'After awhile you just get tired.' Well, I just got tired of--I don't know. Politics? Being any sort of personality? It's hard to explain. I just shut off. So I mean, I go by Old Friend sometimes. To Newt--that's what you're after, right? Some quote about Newt?"

"Yessir."

"To Newt, he just calls me his Old Friend. Official title. Official name. And nickname." Old Friend laughed.

"Got it."

"So you want to ask me questions?"

"Surely. Uh." The young man made noises that sounded like fiddling with some device, maybe paper, maybe something else. He cleared his throat. "Okay, well, off the bat: how do you feel about Newt going to the moon?"

"I'm happy for him," Old Friend said with deep sincerity. "He's always been in love with space."

"You don't think you'll miss him?"

"Of course I'll miss him, but it's not forever." Old Friend sounded like he was smiling as he spoke. "It'll be good to get out of his system. And he'll come back, as energetic as ever. This'll make him work harder at getting everybody into space."

"You don't think he's got ulterior motives, do you?"

"Such as what?" Old Friend said sharply.

"Well--he's been claiming lately that there's definitive proof of God's existence up there; that God is in everything. But, like, not really in a mystical or like Spinozistic way. In more of one of those 'I'm pushing Christianity' ways. Like he's going to come back down from space and start making all sorts of wacky assertions about what he's seen, and how he saw this and that sign of a God, and that the Hundred Year Culture War he always talks about should now be an Intergalactic Culture War."

"Well Newt's complicated, and I don't want to get into his motives for anything. And I'm not going to speculate or even touch why he's going up there beyond what I said. He's always wanted to go to space, and he's going. So that's that."

"What do you think about the thing he said the other day--about the self-reliant Moon People who provide the model about everything we should be as a nation?"

"I don't recall anything about Moon People."

"He said it. It's the cover story of the Spectator this week."

Old Friend let out a long, pained sigh. "This sounds to me like a hatchet job. I don't want to take part in this anymore."

"I just want to understand how this guy keeps on getting decent people to vouch for him. I mean what's there? What's worth defending?"

"He has a job. He's had ambitions and dreams that have been with him since he was a little boy. He's good to his friends. He's been loyal. I'm not going to hang him for things he does while he's working."

"Are you saying that you should separate his politics from his real life?"

"I'm saying--this interview is over."