I never met Václav Havel. But during the summer of 2001, while studying political and economic theory in Prague, I was scheduled to meet him. I was there as part of a cohort sponsored by one of the most reactionary right-wing organizations I had ever been affiliated with up to that time.

I can’t even remember if I was aware just how stridently conservative this organization was before I applied. Maybe I just saw that Havel was on the agenda and remained oblivious to the rest of it, at least until I met the other Americans. The program was, after all, cosponsored by Georgetown University, so it seemed at the time legitimate and not solely ideological. And my application, which included a fairly earnest essay arguing for gun control, had been accepted.

“People in Texas love George Bush, don’t they?” was the opening question when I met my colleagues at the airport in New York for the flight to Prague.

Meeting politicians has never much fazed me. My time in the Peace Corps and overseas with other government-sponsored organizations, even my time at the University of Texas’ International Office, meant that I was often in line to shake hands with some ambassador or dignitary or official. Many times already I had been paraded out for some big cheese or other. But Havel was not just another politician: he was a personal hero, he had been an activist and political prisoner, but, most importantly, he was a writer.

“People in Texas love George Bush, don’t they?” was the opening question by one of my colleagues at the airport in New York for the flight to Prague. The fuck?! Then in my most generous and diplomatic tone: “Most people in Texas are oblivious to state politics. Because of the aftermath of losing the Civil War and the botched period of Reconstruction, Texas codified a general distrust of politics into its state constitution, which severely limits the governor’s powers.” Then, when I noticed her lack of interest, a simple, “No. Not necessarily.”

During the three-week program I avoided my compatriots as much as possible. Altogether, the group consisted of about 100 students, mostly from Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The Americans, about ten or so of us, were meant to serve as paragons of individual liberty, personal responsibility, and economic freedom to those newly released from the Soviet yoke. But fuck that. Instead, I was blissfully ensconced among the more cynical Polish, Ukrainian, and Romanian students, so much so that, when we were divided into groups to perform our national anthems, I proudly joined the Ukrainians in singing “Ще не вмерла України і слава, і воля….”

Eventually it was announced that, due to illness, we would not be meeting with President Václav Havel during our tour and luncheon at the Castle. We can imagine the perceptive Havel, who had persevered under communism, developing a cough after having a presentiment about the program’s rather dogmatic bent. Such a ruse would’ve only increased his stature in my estimation.

I had a physical reaction to his evil. I saw a scorched earth, cities in ruins, and bloated carcasses of large farm animals.

Our replacement big-ticket politician and consolation prize would be Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who would hand us our certificates of completion during commencement as well as attend our final reception. At that time, Orbán was not quite yet known for his particular version of low-calorie fascism or for quashing the human rights of—and the peddling of animosity toward—queer and trans people. In the dewy-eyed days of 2001 he was still seen as a freedom fighter of sorts. But I wasn’t fooled.

US President George W. Bush once claimed that when he looked into Vladimir Putin’s eye, he got “a sense of his soul.” Despite otherwise being full of shit, there is some truth behind such an experience: when I looked into Orbán’s eyes and shook his hand, it was as if all the malevolence and ill will that he had been stockpiling in his soul for future use erupted right then, viscerally stunning me. I had a physical reaction to his evil. I saw a scorched earth, cities in ruins, and bloated carcasses of large farm animals. We quickly pulled away from each other, so I know that he too knew what I had seen inside him. Either that, or my acute and uncompromising near weapons-grade homosexuality had sent his gaydar off the charts.

The summer of 2001 was a heady time, a bizarre interlude between America putting Timothy McVeigh to death for perpetrating the greatest terrorist act in American history and the subsequent greatest terrorist act in American history. And I was naively studying political and economic theory in a program administered by a bunch of fun-sized fascists in Prague hoping against hope to meet my hero Václav Havel but instead becoming the butt of some historical joke, the victim to one of the worst political bait-and-switches ever.

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Writer and translator Frank Garrett shops in Dallas, Texas, and is essays editor at Minor Literature[s]. His series Better Shopping Through Living will appear monthly. He saw a bunch of dead cows when he looked into Viktor Orbán’s eyes.