The week has been ... something. I watched it from where I am, in the place beyond. It's wonderful here. I'm working as a lifeguard again, and I love it. It's a little crowded, though, and an awful lot of people seem to want to talk to me, which I'll get to in a minute. But first you and I have to talk. I know what you were trying to do all week, or what you sort of meant to be doing. But, Peg, it's been bad.

Peg. Please, for the love of God -- who's in the next hammock, by the way? -- shut the hell up.

I'm not kidding. The adjustment's been tough enough. First thing, Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney come up and start asking me about kicking off the 1980 campaign down by the earthen dam there in Philadelphia, and about what all that stuff about states' rights was. I tried to be charming, and I used all the sunny optimism that disarmed even my political opponents, as you know. Mostly, though, they just wanted to talk, so we did. You'll be amazed at what I think is one of the best parts about this place. Two words: no grudges.

Seriously. Most of the Founders are up here (though Franklin's still in Purgatory) and James Madison and I had a nice chat about how he was different from Alfonso Calero. We started with their hairstyles and worked from there. He said he didn't necessarily agree that the Contras were the moral equivalents of his bunch; for one thing, he said, he was a lot better at designing a balance of power than razing a hamlet, and that he wouldn't even know which end of an M-16 you blow into. He pointed out that a lot fewer people died at the Constitutional Convention than did in Nicaragua in the 1980s. I told him about how it was Morning in America again, and he said he was glad to hear it. I think we're playing tennis some time next week. I'll be pretty busy until then. A couple of thousand Guatemalans want to say hello.

Which is why, the next time you see him in the Green Room or around town, you should tell old Ollie not to worry about anything. The Nicaraguans are really nice people, especially all their beautiful children. He's going to enjoy meeting them. And I promise I won't spend too much time kidding him about selling me out at his trial. But he's got to expect me to have a little fun. Does he know how to laugh yet?

Peg, I have to tell you, I know things now that I didn't fully know before. First of all, most of that “family values” stuff is bunk. Really. You'd be amazed at how few people up here actually care that somebody's ass is showing on HBO. And if that judge down in Alabama thinks he's got his ticket punched because he put up a two-ton 10 Commandments where it didn't belong, he's got another think coming, I'll tell you. You should hear Aquinas and St. Augustine laughing at Pat Robertson. They all get together to watch the 700 Club the way kids used to get together to watch the Stooges. Even old Luther cracks a smile, and he's the grimmest guy I've met since Andropov.

They'd like you all to love each other. They'd like you all to treat each other as equals. They're really serious about you all being stewards of the world you were handed, so watch out for the rivers and the ozone layer. They don't spend a lot of time worrying about rap music and the Internet. Even in eternity, there's no time to waste on the knucklehead stuff. And I've looked everywhere, Peg, and there aren't any stem cells here. No embryos, either. If you can pass the word, Peg -- nobody here wants anybody to die of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. It's not part of anyone's plan. If you can cure something down there, you should cure something. Tell you the truth, if I'd had the choice I'd have eaten the little buggers out of the petri dish with a spoon.

Anyway, I've been watching the coverage of my funeral and, Peg, seriously, I don't recognize the guy you're all talking about. I mean, you should all remember that I had a high old time with my life. I was a young, good-looking guy in Hollywood at a time when that was a great thing to be. I got around, is what I did. How come nobody mentions that? How come everybody runs clips from Knute Rockne -- All American, a kinda decent movie, but not from The Killers or Kings Row? I did love my first craft a little, you know.

There aren't any statues here, which really says something to me: They take people for what they are. So, the other day, when you were writing all those nice things, there was no need to leave my first marriage, my first wife, and both of my first two children out of it. And that story you told on TV, about how I sent back your first speech all marked up with a nice note and you were dumb enough to think I was being serious? I mean, thanks, but it made me sound like, well, like an amiable dunce -- Clifford's going to love it at cocktails tonight that I quoted him -- and I wouldn't have hired you if that was the case. And, if it's OK, I wish you wouldn't tell that story about wanting to massage my foot any more. Gary Cooper won't shut up about it.

Tell them to stop, Peg. I mean, really. Tell them to stop. That building in Washington is big and ugly. I don't want to be on the dime, if only because my Dad told me while we were walking along the river last night that it would really bother him if I bumped FDR. And I've gotten to like Hamilton. He took the whole Contra thing in stride, and we go riding together a lot. He likes being on the $10 bill, had me explain to him why it was called a "sawbuck." He really wants to stay there, and that's just fine. Tell Grover that, OK? I'd tell him myself but… ah, I don't think I'll be seeing him, if you know what I mean.

Really, Peg, I live in a place without monuments now. I like it that way. We take each other as we are here. No spin, not even from historians, which is why Plutarch and both Durants are running the newsstand together, where I go to pick up the trades every morning. (Geez, that Harry Potter thing is a gold-mine, isn't it?) Anyway, there's nothing here but the essential people, flaws and all. You don't just get your sins washed away, Peg. You have to face them and acknowledge them and forgive them yourself before He gets around to it. So I live in a place beyond flattery, beyond banal rhetorical sophistry, a place that transcends the kind of lilac-scented bushwah I used to pay you for. Hey, I worked in Hollywood and then in politics. I was due for a break from that kind of stuff. I live in a place without monuments and I'm happy here.

You're going to make it, Peg, really, and Paul Wellstone's already signed up for a chat, as has Jack Kennedy, who can't figure out how he got tangled up in that column you wrote a couple of years back, but he thinks you're kind of a looker, so that's OK, isn't it? Be well. I'm off to the movies. Just me and 246 Marines. They told me they wanted to see Bonzo Goes To College.

Who was I to argue with them?

Charles P. Pierce is a staff writer for The Boston Globe Magazine and a contributing writer for Esquire. He also appears regularly on National Public Radio.