All around the ten-year-old,
things were happening that would affect his life. Those who had worked hard to
fan the political flames were now trying to stamp out unruly firebrands.
Foremost Father, a man sixty years older, so old the youngster couldn’t credit
their relationship except through Mother who was very pretty, had a sweet
accent and hugged him so tight sometimes he couldn’t breathe. But why? He
wasn’t running away or being threatened by ferocious bears. It felt like she was
holding on for life.
Then there was Older Sister,
half-sister really, who was thirty-nine with kids of her own. She was pretty in
a cold smooth way and spoke with a silky voice without accent, which was a
reminder to Mother of who was there first. Her kids were older than he. “How’s
our uncle today,” they’d say, ruffling his hair. That too was a reminder that
their father was young and smooth.
The campaign was thrilling and he
enjoyed seeing Father at the debates. He topped the polls, which put him center
stage where he thrust out a stubborn chin while the other candidates struggled
for attention. But when he won the election, Ten-Year sensed a startled
realization before the energy shifted with talk of going to Washington.
He and Mother didn’t go right
away. “Be best he finish school.” Fine, he thought, because he didn’t want to
leave his friends or go to The Swamp where crocodiles and cottonmouth moccasins
thrive.
Father, Older Sister and her
family went down. On TV, they watched Older Sister beside Father and he could
sense Mother’s conflict: not wanting to go but unwilling to cede her place.
“First Lady” and “First Daughter” were the labels she was trying on. Mother
remained silent, which was her way of surviving.
But wait! They might not have to go
down after all, because Father was making a mess. In business, when he stomped
and snorted his staff stampeded to fulfill his wishes. Down there, stomps and
snorts echo back, creating confusion. He’d never seen Father so perplexed.
“Adjust the color, Mother.” She assured him the picture was right.
Ten-Year knew something the world
didn’t. One day when he was five, Mother was chasing him through the Tower
suite. “Where are you?” Round the corner and down the hall he scooted, then
through the master bedroom into the bathroom. Breathing hard behind the closed
door, he thought it strange the light was already on. He wasn’t alone. On the
golden throne sat a figure, fully dressed in blue suit and red tie. Atop the
shoulders lay a two-toned boulder whose pale crown had gray fissures like a
cracked egg, while across the face the orange sheen looked like sunset on a
smoggy day. He donned a blond topper and was so preoccupied he didn’t see his
son approach, forefinger in advance. Ten-Year touched his cheek and drew down
to the jaw then gaped at the stained finger and at the face that bore no trace
of transference. He screamed. Father turned off the light, leaving him in the
dark.
Since then he had a recurring
nightmare in which he turns orange and is catapulted into the sky before
falling into the sea. Now, he summoned a more useful memory: the fear in
Father’s eyes of being pale, weak and old. Inability to overcome the fear kept
him in his predicament: he never wanted to be president, only to con others
into believing he could be. The unimaginable consequence was Father as leader
of the most powerful country in the world. Ten-Year thought he could help.
#
The White House looked stately
beyond wrought iron gates. Inside, though, crazy eyes in taut faces revealed the
carnage. The press secretary was ready to cry over the latest skit mocking him.
Aides avoided each other and scurried from Ten-Year and Mother. They went
unescorted to the Oval Office where a Marine sergeant snapped to attention.
“Next door, ma’am.” They walked through to knock on the door of the adjacent
room. Not getting a response, they opened it.
Father sat behind a long table
stacked with paperwork but focused his attention on the 60-inch monitor on the
wall. “What are you doing here?” Ten-Year was sorrowful. “I know you’re afraid.
No one will think less of you for stepping down, and then you can come home
where you want to be.”
He stood to tower over the boy.
“I’m the president.”
“You’re my father and scared to
admit you don’t want this. You’re tired and used up. Come home.”
From nowhere, Older Sister swooped
in like a stealth bomber to lift him and would have carried him away except
Mother blocked her. “He’s failing. He needs my help.” With flinty eyes and
curled lips she said, “Don’t believe what you see on TV.” As she spoke, they
were shuffled backwards and beyond the closed door. Things were worse than he
had imagined.
##
Father’s rants haunted the White
House. “He told me three times I wasn’t under investigation but he wouldn’t
pledge loyalty. I don’t need a guy like that.” Everybody knew the script by
heart. The words, the pauses and the pleas disturbed them all. “Memos! Memos!
Who keeps memos? Deal or no deal; cash or not cash. He keeps memos of something
that didn’t happen. He’s a nut job. Can you believe it?”
Uncertain what to do except
conceal the degree to which he was slipping, staff lied about everything. They
“framed the narrative” and cited “alternative facts.” Well, Ten-Year knew about
alternative lives. Some rode in limos and others walked and didn’t have
enough to eat. Father lived inside a bubble and couldn’t get past losing his
National Security Advisor. “My Flynn! My Flynn. My Errol Flynn! Why did I fire
my general? Why, O why?”
“He lied to the vice-president,
sir.” He turned from the monitor. “You’re the vice-president.”
The V.P.’s colorless persona dwelt
in leftover spaces the president’s hyperbole did not fill. At every speaking
engagement, he was careful to praise his leader while cleaning up the gaffes of
the day; he was the shovel trailing the elephant on stage. “He lied about
meeting Russians during the campaign. He had to go.”
Looking puzzled, he turned back to
the monitor showing CNN’s reporting on the investigation. “That’s B.S., you
know. No one colluded. No collusion!”
“Sir, he made me look outside the
loop.”
“You still here?”
“No sir.” The V.P. bowed and
backed out the door.
Father lost Flynn but still had
Sessions and Bannon, weapons in his arsenal against the Deep State. Each though
behaved contrary to expectation. One day, seated at his desk amid a worshipping
crowd, he was signing executive orders contained in blue bi-part folders. Gold
presidential pens lined the desk like ammunition ready to be discharged. He
signed his saw-toothed scrawl, then raised the pen. “Who gets this one?” An
aide seized and passed it along. He raised the order like a biblical tablet as
an aide slid another before him. “Keeping promises. Not so hard, right?”
That night, the news went wild
about Bannon being named to the Security Council. He hadn’t read any of the
orders and so was suspicious of the mainstream media that carried on and on
about his lack of qualifications. Bannon was his cannon and he was determined
to hunker down against the media storm, but then someone whispered in his ear.
“He nominated himself and is making you look bad.” That point won the day and
he countermanded the order. The next time they met he told him, “I got you on a
leash.”
Senator Sessions was the first
prominent politician to endorse the candidate who then nominated him for
Attorney General. “You’re pure pit bull and you’re going to handle the law. You
know the best thing about you?” The future A.G.’s ears swept the horizon.
“You’re paid for. The government pays, haw, haw.” Early on though he removed
himself from the Russia investigation. “Why did you recuse? You’re loyal. You
burn with loyalty but now you’re a three-legged dog. You’ll do your damnedest
but you only have three legs!”
All around, Ten-Year witnessed
fierce rhetorical combat, backstabbing and outright battery. Bannon railed
against globalist tendencies while Older Sister strived to marginalize his
influence. The media portrayed her as the great presidential whisperer though
nobody ever overheard her counsel. Father pitted aides one against the other
and delivered his own verbal hits, heedless of the dark effects of strife.
Ten-Year knew what needed to be
done and befriended the cleaners who displayed their tools: solvents, stain
removers, cleansers, abrasives and sand blasters. To his gentle heart these
remedies were too harsh, so he ascended to the residence to review Mother’s
wonder works. Atop a polished table in her boudoir sat a stylish globe of
perfume while secreted in its drawers was a potent arsenal: debriders, massagers,
whiteners, polish removers and mascara off. He chose from these, plus the steel
wool he had pocketed just in case.
Ready to get to work, he had to
isolate Father. In early morning he ranted on social media, a direct connection
to The Base that drove his aides crazy. Afterwards he submitted to a make-up
artist who did the best she could. Then he visited the Oval Office to sign
executive orders and meet interest groups. Later was lunch with a cabinet
official. After dining with the family, he retired to a room in the residence
where monitors tracked the news. Ten-Year confronted him there.
“Don’t fight me. I’m your
son.” Fierce eyes swimming in folds of
flesh, Father began to speak. Ten-Year silenced him with a raised finger then
led him to the bathroom and his portable golden throne. The first moist cotton
puff stung like an electric shock and he waited patiently for Father to
straighten up, then applied multiple puffs while dreaming of steel wool. As his
resistance diminished, Father seemed to gaze far and beyond until at long last
his eyes softened to the reality in the mirror.
Early next morning, he escorted
through a side door a pale, overweight bald man in a tracksuit. Hand in hand,
they approached the gate as the sentry puzzled over the stranger. Ten-Year
could not be sure of ever seeing him again, yet savored his unspoken gratitude.
Father was free!
###
