Adams is a very odd story, about conflict between two neighbors who both seem a little crazy. On the surface level it makes very little sense, but with one assumption, most things fit into place. Take the narrator, Rodgers, to represent George W. Bush. Instantly, it makes much more sense. Adams is then Saddam Hussein (move the s to the front of Adams and it becomes Sadam). The opening of the story is symbolic of 9/11, the infamous terrorist attack on the United States by Islamic terrorists. Saddam Hussein initially praised 9/11 saying, "the American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their crimes against humanity." With this premise, the rest of the short story is then a commentary on the reaction of the United States, led by President George W. Bush.
The narrator's reaction to seeing Adams standing in his underwear, facing his children's room, is to "wonk" him a bit, beating him up and kicking him out. Then, Rodgers takes the fight to Adams' house and goes over that evening to beat him up again. This is symbolic of the reaction of President Bush to 9/11, using it to eventually start a war against Saddam Hussein and Iraq.
Later, Rodgers distributes notes around the neighborhood as well as to his neighbor's children explaining how he found Adams standing in his underwear, facing the bedroom of Rodgers's kids. This is referring to how Bush used 9/11 to gather lots of international support for military action.
When Rodgers breaks into Adams' house and steals all of his weapons, this refers to Iraq's violations of international law regarding development of weapons of mass destruction. Likewise, his subsequent break in to steal all the chemicals in the house refers to one of the ways Bush justified invading Iraq: he claimed Iraq had chemical weapons including anthrax. However, Rodgers had much more success finding chemical weapons than Bush did.
Perhaps this was not truly Saunders' intention for this story, but I think it makes sense for the most part. If this story is read as an allegory for 9/11 and the Iraq war, what sort of commentary is Saunders making? I do realize that this allegory does not fit perfectly, but I think it fits well enough to be worth discussing.
