He knocked on
the door at 8
p.m. It was
still light
out. He didn’t
think it was
too late. He
had tried
earlier
and no
one
was
home.

No one came to
the door. He
called their
names. The
man came
to the
door
half-
dressed

— a man trans-
formed into a
fiend, a snarl-
ing, slobber-
ing thing
he didn’t
recognize.

The man made threatening
statements, slammed
the door and he
heard the man,
through
the open
window,
say to
his wife
in an
almost
giddy,
hyena
voice,

“How was that?” He shouted back,
“How was that? How was that?
What is that?”

The fiend came back to
the door and snarled,
“What did you say?”
He said that
this didn’t
make any
sense.

The man snarled, “You’re
the friend of a
man I don’t
like and I
just
tolerated
you,

so go back across the creek
and DON’T COME BACK!”

He was then afraid
that the man might
become physically
violent. He went
back across the
creek.

He had been told but
he didn’t know for him-
self that the man
was emotionally
sick and he
didn’t know,
until that
moment,

how sick the man really
was. This went beyond
avoiding a fool in
his folly — way
beyond.

He wouldn’t knock
on that door again.

What was it Bush
got wrong about
“Fool me once,”?

He wouldn’t be
getting this
one

—–    wrong.