Harry liked being an asshole. He was a natural. The more people hated him, the more Harry liked it. He tormented his assistants. Threw things at his kids. He used sex, money, food, and anything else he could think of to torture his ex-wives. All six of them. He prided himself in being the cheapest, stingiest, nastiest asshole in America, land of assholes. He never gave presents. He never gave a compliment. He’d cut off a finger than hand out a tip.

Harry Jr., Harry’s oldest son, was a heroin addict. At least he was the last time Harry talked to him, which was about three years ago. He’s probably living in some shack with some fag dying of some hideous disease, Harry thought to himself with a chuckle. Hilliard, his next son, used to be in the Army, a real hot shot, until he stuck a shotgun in his mouth and blew his brains all over his unfurnished home, surrounded by thousands and thousands of pieces of child pornography. Harry’s daughter, Hildegard, was a professor of feminist studies at a leading American university until she masterminded blowing up most of the world’s second largest mall in Buford, Kansas. Now she’s on death row, where she has become a cause celebre for the radical left, and wrote a scathing memoir about how Harry started having se with her when she was twelve, and then shipped her off to a boarding school where she was abused and neglected, becoming a sex addict committed to the violent overthrow of the United States government.

He was constantly being investigated and subpoenaed, and grought up in front of this Grand Jury and that, but no one was ever able to legally pin anything on him. A leading satiric writer of the day dubbed him: Harry “Teflon” Tanner. The nickname never stuck. Nothing ever did. In interviews he would never deny or confirm any story, any allegation, any indictment. He would just tap dance, and smile that smile, all the while letting everyone know he knew they knew he’d done everything he was accused of, and more, things that were so wicked the normal human mind could not even imagine them. It was how Harry got his power. And in the end, that is all Harry wanted. All the money, all the sex, all the crooked deals, they were all designed so he could let his vicious twisted psyche rip people to shreds all over the world. Everyone hated Harry, but amazingly enough, a lot of people loved him. In a recent survey by a leading pollster, Harry Tanner was third on the list of men women had sex dreams about, right behind a beautiful closeted Latin heartthrob popstar, and a very wealthy quiz master.

Harry never once fired an assistant. They all quit. One made it 7 months, 13 days and four hours. She was hospitalized for a month, then after six weeks in rehab, went on to have a very successful career as a porn actress, then became a high-powered lobbyist tirelessly devoted to aboliting of sexual harassment in the workplace. Once he stabbed an assistant’s hand into his desktop with a letter opener. Charges were never filed. The assistant was quoted as saying that he had it coming. Another assistant was brained with a glass coffee maker. Full of hot coffee. This assistant received an undisclosed cash settlement. A week later she was involved in a mysterious boating accident. The money was never recovered.

Harry rose to power in the early sixties in the Midwest. He was the eminence gris, the man behind the man, of an ambitious young candidate running for mayor of a large city. In a hotly contested race, the incumbent was ahead by 20,000 votes. Suddenly, just before the polls close, 21,000 votes come in for the ambitious young candidate from District 11, which just happens to be where the ambitious young candidate lived. The incumbent and his people screamed bloody murder of course, and demand a recount. The City Council called a special secret emergency meeting. It was announced that there would be a recount of the vote and if there was any foul play, those responsible would suffer in ways only those in the Midwest can make people suffer. That night the courthouse burned to the ground, and along with it, all evidence of the vote. The City Council held another special secret emergency meeting. This time they voted that the election results would stand as they were, and it was in the best interest of everyone to just try to pull together and look to the future in this time of strife blahblhablah. So all of a sudden the ambitious young candidate is Mayor, then he’s the Governor, and before you know it, shucks golly gee he’s the dad bern President of the United States. And guess who’s behind him all the way, grinning like a cat with a mouthful of canaries, landing big fat government contracts, purchasing enormous chunks of land that suddenly become superhighways, and even brazenly winning $25 million in the state run Lottery, for God’s sake. The Man behind the Man who was actually the Man himself.

Harry had started out a dashingly handsome man. Early pictures of him display a kind of F. Scott Fitzgerald meets Bugsy Malone panache. Stylish, fashionable, beautifully groomed, and a little dangerous. As he grew more and more powerful, he became an exercise fanatic, first financing Jack LaLane, then Arnold Schwartinegger, most recently Taebo. He looked 25 when he was 35, 30 when 50, and 45 when he turned 70. He was an incredible athlete and a breathtaking cheat. Harry was a man who hated to lose. When he was 7 the next door neighbor boy beat him at checkers. The next day the boy’s dog turned up dead. Harry very seldom lost at anything ever again. And if he was a bad loser, he was an even worse winner. He taunted and teased and rubbed salt in every wound he had opened. More than one writer referred to Harry as the Dorian Gray of his day, and hypothesized that the painting hiding in his attic must have been a most hideous thing indeed. Others claimed he must have sold his soul to the devil for the gift of eternal youth. Neither of these theories would prove correct.

Harry had one weakness. Food. He loved to eat. The first thing Harry did when he got money was hire a chef. After an exhaustive search, he hired Francois Gilbert away from a leading Parisian restaurant This was the only person in Harry’s life he did not abuse. Because he could make anything. From barbecue chicken to raspberry tarts to rabbit pies to extra thick milkshakes. It was said the only love affair Harry Tanner ever had was with Francois Gilbert. And Harry never denied it.

On the first Tuesday of March, Harry was working out with Nancy, his personal trainer. He was doing squats, telling her what an incredible ass she had and asking how much it would cost him to get in there. The next thing he knew he was in La Scalina, his favorite restaurant. He couldn’t quite figure out how he got there, but there he was. And he was hungry. He was always hungry after he worked out, but today he was particularly ravenous. He scanned the patrons, looking around to see if he recognized anyone, but more importantly, to see who recognized him. Neither event occurred. This was unprecedented. At this point in his life, people always whispered and stared rudely wherever he went, particularly at La Scalina, which he owned and frequented. This was very disconcerting. Harry was a little alarmed by just how disconcerting it was. He realized at that moment how much he depended on people recognizing and reviling him. Like my kid the junkie, he thought with the driest of chuckles, which was wholly devoid of mirth. He studied the menu, although he needn’t have, he knew it by heart. He always went through the same dilemma: try something new, or order duck l’orange with cranberry sauce and garlic mashed potatoes, shrimp salad with balsamic vinegarette, capped by cherries jubilee and a snifter of two hundred year old brandy, which was his favorite meal in the entire world. After a brief moment of hesitation, he decided to order duck l’orange with cranberry sauce and garlic mashed potatoes, shrimp salad with balsamic vinegarette, and capped by cherries jubilee and a snifter of two hundred year old brandy.

Harry noticed he could actually pick out the individual smells of garlic and duck, the twang of the vinegar, and the salty sea of the shrimp from the olfactoric kaleidoscope whirling all around him. He became acutely aware of thick juices dripping down his throat, a rumbling from his stomach, and a profound hunger which seemed to be sucking the life out of him.

After what seemed like an eternity, his waiter finally came. He must be new, Harry thought, before ordering duck l’orange with cranberry sauce and garlic mashed potatoes, shrimp salad with balsamic vinegarette, capped by cherries jubilee and a snifter of two hundred year old brandy. First he took some time to insult and abuse the waiter, calling him among other things, a ferret face with an ass so tight he could crack a walnut between his cheeks. The waiter remained annoyingly unflapped. This was not going well. Harry looked around to see if anyone had noticed how deftly he’d cut the condescending prick down to size. No one noticed. They were all too busy stuffing their fat faces and having their stupifying conversations about their sordid meaningless little lives. Then Harry noticed something odd. Everyone was eating duck l’orange with cranberry sauce and garlic mashed potatoes, shrimp salad with balsamic vinegarette, or the cherries jubilee and a snifter of two hundred year old brandy. Not just one or two people. Everyone. That seemed strange to Harry, but after considering it for a moment he dismissed it as mere coincidence. The power of the mind to deny is powerful. Harry chose to focus on the wafting garlic, the lightly browned duck skin over fragrant fruity orangey cranberry, the liquory cherry sweetness of desert, the musk of brandy. His stomach grumble was reaching an unholy level. This was starting to piss Harry off. And when Harry was pissed off, a head was sure to roll. He looked around for his half-wit dumb waiter, who was nowhere in sight. He snapped his fingers. No response. Now he was really steamed. Suddenly a duck l’orange appeared, sitting on the counter between the kitchen and the dining room, the chef ringing a bell to signal that his order was at last done. I’m gonna have fun chewing this miserable peon a new asshole, Harry smiled. The digestive juices roared over his tonsils and down his throat now as the duck flew his way. God damn, I’m hungry, he thought, as his meal walked right past him and came to rest on the table of the fat man behind him.

“Hey, wait a minute!” Harry screamed. “That’s my God damn duck!” He tried to get up and grab his food. He’d show them. But much to his horror, he found his legs did not work. Would not move. He was glued to his chair. He started to panic. Something strange was happening here, there was no denying it any more. He tried to get up again. Nothing doing. His brain was telling his legs to get up, but his legs would not listen. He started to curse. Softly at first, then louder and louder, until he was screaming a stream of foul profanities at the top of his lungs. He was an excellent swearer, and part of the joy of it for Harry was the reaction it provoked in almost everyone around him. But no one was noticing. No one was paying any attention to Harry. They just went on eating and eating, all that incredible food, as Harry got hungrier and hungrier, and more and more furious. But Harry was completely powerless.

For ever and ever and ever and ever and ever.