The Dictator in My Head

I’ve always been drawn to big historical figures—men who seized power through charisma and intellect, who surrounded themselves with followers and yes-men, and who ended up killing thousands. Hitler. An asshole, a tyrant, a mass murderer. A repellent man whose dark world I sometimes can’t stop thinking about, not because I understand it but because I can’t. The full weight of it never lands.

But my favorite dictator is someone else. Nicolae Ceaușescu from Romania. I was a kid, late one night, when I watched a documentary about him and his wife Elena on Arte. I sat paralyzed on the couch, watching the horror he created, and then watching his own people execute him for it. He stalked through decrepit, overcrowded orphanages—places filled with what the state called the irretrievable, disabled children and dying bodies. Women who had abortions in defiance of his ban were left to die, denied any help. He banned television to force up the birth rate. Just banned it outright. No negotiation, no discussion—the state could simply take it away. That part got to me more than anything else. The simplicity of it, the absolute power. That thought never left.

Then I saw him shot. Him and Elena both, pleading on camera, then dead the next second. I was eight. And suddenly I was wondering what goes through your head when you know you’re about to be executed. I shouldn’t have been thinking about that. But I was. Still am.

Goodbye, Mr. Ceaușescu. You changed my life in a repulsive, bizarre way.