Real World Fantasy

                

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.

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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!

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