I had assasinated
Rutherford Birch Hayes, and yet no one was so much as aware of this. It had started when I was living on the
Canary Islands, and his family would visit annualy as part of their summer vacation. We sat around a campfire and I would tell them legends about the islands, something about the
Canary dog, which I described like a
hummingbird mixed with a
rotweiler. The entire point was, they ate their weight in canaries every day. And the
first lady asked me why canaries were not extinct because of this, and I explained that every time you used an article in your speech, a canary would be born. The entire family was impressed by this and I was aware by their coos and impressed "oooh"s and "ahhh"s. But something was rotten here.
One evening, RBH and I, best friends I suppose, sat out on this dock, and he told me how because of this entire voting situation, I would be forced to move to Yoknapatawpha County next winter if things were not settled out. There was also this large part about him prophesizing World War II but only he was trying to tell me everything in morse code because there were these Austrian spys who could read lips. He turned to me, in the midst of the buzz of crickets and tapped to me, "Read Giteau." I immediately associated this with Garfield, and knew that if I assasinated Hayes, Garfield would be next in line. I also wanted something from his wife, who was giving me saucy kinds of looks. Though once I told her I was heterosexual, she flared fire from her nostrils and I ran off and straight into the ocean. And there, I awoke.