"You won't have Barry Black to ridicule anymore," he announced, plagiarizing the words of a famous predecessor.
In fact, he hoped to acquire the power to cloud men's minds in India. He knew his only ticket back to the governor's office would be to hypnotize the electorate into forgetting his disastrous terms.
Barry Black, Junior never did pick up that unique skill. Instead, he meditated. A decade of meditating on his future brought only flashbacks on his past.
Deciding that his future lay in his past, and after shaving his thick ascetic beard-his only accomplishment during his decade spent seeking wisdom-Barry Black, Junior returned to sunny California.
The return of Barry Black delighted California Republicans. It petrified the Democrats, who made Barry Black an irresistible offer almost before he had stepped off the jumbo jet.
"We want you to head up the party," a nervous delegation told him. "Please."
"I want to serve my party," Barry Black said, "but I also want to serve the people. Mother Teresa taught me that. "
"The party needs you. We need you."
"I don't know . . . ."
"Mother Teresa said it would be okay," a scared delegate said in desperation.
"She did?"
"Her exact words were, 'Barry should go where he'll do the most good.' "
And so Barry Black, Junior became the Democratic Party Chairman of the state of California and hustled a small fortune in campaign contributions. Inside of six months, he was on his way to becoming the most successful fundraiser the party had ever seen.
"I'm really good at this," he said when the coffers had topped three million dollars. "Mother Teresa was right."
Barry Black, Junior raised so much money he succumbed to a distinctly Democratic impulse. He squandered every cent. On an excessive and unnecessary staff.
His grassroots political efforts collapsed for lack of funds and he was canned, forcing Barry Black to run for senator. He garnered an unimpressive three percent of the popular vote, and narrowly escaped being hanged from a eucalyptus tree. By his own party machinery.
The experience created in Barry Black, Junior a sense of moral outrage, a new sense of moral outrage unlike any sense of moral outrage that had ever possessed him.
"I raised millions for those bastards," he howled from the safety of Oregon.
"And you blew it in two years flat," his most trusted advisor pointed out bitterly. "While you were building a useless political machine, the Republicans were outregistering us four-to-one."
"You know, the problem with this country is incumbency," said Barry Black, stumbling on a new campaign theme.
"You were an incumbent once."
"And if I were back in office, you can be damn sure this country wouldn't be in the mess it's in."
"Barry," said the advisor, his voice cracking like that of a bullfrog. "You're not thinking of doing it again. Are you?"
"What's wrong with . . . it?"
The other began ticking off reasons on fingers. "You washed out in 1980. You washed in 1984. California doesn't want you. What makes you think the rest of the country wants you?"
Barry Black squared his well-tailored shoulders. "They don't want me. That's the message. They need me. Washington is full of fat cats wasting the tax dollars. I only waste campaign contributions. It's an entirely different thing."
"Please, please, don't run for President again. I'm begging you."
But Barry Black was not to be swayed. His chipmunk eyes were already aglow with pure populist ambition.
"It's the White House or nothing," he vowed.
"It's nothing," the other man sobbed. "It's nothing."
Barry Black, Junior didn't even bother with an exploratory committee. He just got out in front of the cameras one day, his thinning hair now graying at the temples, and announced that he was a candidate for President of the United States.
"Again?" asked a reporter.
"This is what-the third time?" another wanted to know.
Barry Black became indignant.
"No, not again. That was a different Barry Black. I'm the new Barry Black, out to unseat the incumbents. I'm determined to reclaim the country, and reinvent the system. And the first thing I'm doing is to absolutely refuse any campaign contribution larger than a hundred dollars."
Coming from a man who had raised millions as California's Democratic Party Chairman, this was akin to Donald Trump offering to spend a night in a holding cell rather than squander a cent bailing himself out of jail.
The Barry Black for President campaign was mercifully short. After six months of stumping and speech-giving, and railing against everything from incumbency to what he called the "medical-industrial complex," he had raised a grand total of three thousand, two hundred and twelve dollars and six cents. One of which was Canadian.
"Not even enough to cover our phone bills," sobbed his most trusted advisor, now campaign manager.
"The trouble with you is you have no vision," Barry Black accused.
"The trouble with you is you have no brains. I quit!" said the campaign manager, slamming the door behind him.
That slamming door also closed out his ill-fated campaign. Without a campaign manager, Barry Black, Junior was reduced to doing his own laundry. The burden proved too much.
He was forced to pull out of the Presidential campaign early in the primaries. Back in his Pacific Park home overlooking San Francisco Bay, he once again took stock of his political future.
"Ommmmm. Ommmmm," he moaned, attempting to meditate.
It was in the middle of his mantra that the bulletin broke over the New Age mandolin music wafting from a table radio:
"The Governor's office has just announced that the governor and his lieutenant governor have both perished in an airliner crash. Further details when they become available."
Barry Black, Junior snapped his beady eyes open.
"It was a dream. I dreamed that, didn't I?" he asked the emptiness.
Flinging himself to the radio, he roved all over the dial until he had heard three variations of the same bulletin.
Barry Black, Junior took the next shuttle to Sacramento, to put in a surprise appearance at the double state funeral.