Uncategorized – Page 10 – The Second Term

Thursday, April 1, 2021, 12:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time

“Mr. President, the Acting Acting Secretary of Defense is here.”

The President gelled up his hands before hitting the button on the intercom and sniffled loudly.

“Okay, send him in.”

Larry, the Acting Acting Secretary of Defense entered, a quizzical look on his face.

“How are you, sir? What a crazy turn of events.”

“I’m fine,” the President said.

“How is the security man? Durcan?”

“I don’t know, I guess he’s fine,” the President said. “He did his duty. Saved my life. That’s what they say, anyway. You feeling okay?”

“Yes, sir. It’s been a rather busy time. But I’m okay.”

“Good, good. Gel up.”

The Acting Acting Secretary of Defense reached for his holster, squirted some disinfectant on his hands, and rubbed. Just at that moment he noticed the other man in the room.

“Uh, sir, what is this meeting about?” Larry asked. “I did not get any memo on it. And who is…this?” he said, gesturing to the man at the far end of the curtains. He looked a little like a young Charles Manson, but with a long grayish beard and graying hair. The eyes were serene, however. He was examining the curtain closely.

“There was no memo. This thing last night, it makes you think. This guy? This is my new Special Advisor, Zed.”

“Zed? …Yes, sir, it would make you think.”

“Yeah, Zed.” Another sniffle. “Get the shit out of your ears. Yes, getting shot…toward… it made me think about what was important.”

“Yes sir.”

“So we’re going to do the nuclear drill again.”

“Uh, sir… we just did the nuclear drill last Friday. It is every other Friday, right? That’s what I had on my calendar.”

“Sure, sure. We just did it last Friday. But I was thinking maybe we do it again, what with the Koreans and all that. You can never be too ready, am I right?”

“Are you sure you want to do that, with everything else that’s going on right now, sir? And is Mr….”

“Zed.”

“Yes, sir, hello, Mr. Zed. Is he… is he cleared for this, sir?”

The President bristled.

“I cleared him. And we can’t let these little shooting things distract us from what’s important, right, Larry?”

Larry felt simultaneously alarmed, and unexpectedly moved, that the President had gotten his name right.

“Uh…yes, sir. I mean, no, sir.”

“So let’s call the Military Aide in. I got a new one. Old one had to go back to the Coast Guard.”

“I see.”

“She wasn’t in your department, was she, Jerry?”

Now Larry was crestfallen.

“Uhhh…no, sir, she wasn’t. The Coast Guard falls under the Department of Homeland Security. Except in time of war.”

“Maybe that was the problem.”

“Problem, sir?”

“Forget it. Anyway, I was thinking maybe we skip some of the steps this time.”

“Sir?”

The President gave another loud sniffle. “I think we’ve got the hang of it enough that we can skip some of the steps. And I would like to do the last part, with the dinner roll, myself. Maybe Zed can help.”

“Dinner roll, sir? Oh, uh, the biscuit?”

“What are we, in Alabama? Biscuit? We need to change that name too. Dinner roll. Even though it doesn’t look like a dinner roll any more than it looks like a biscuit. It looks like a plastic card with numbers on it. And the football looks like a suitcase. None of this makes any sense. I’m changing it all.”

“Yes, sir.”

The President gelled his fingers up and hit the intercom button.

“Mrs. Johnson?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Can you send the new Military Aide guy in?”

“Certainly, sir.”

The door opened and the Military Aide strode in. He was a tall Marine, masked, but in full evening dress uniform, with an extremely short cutaway jacket that exposed a bright scarlet cummerbund.

My god, thought Larry. He looks like a fucking waiter.

“You like the uniform?” the President asked the Marine.

“Yes sir.”

“The other girl wore the usual blue dress. I told them I was the President, and I wanted to jazz the place up a little. Formalwear is better.”

“Yes, sir,” both the Acting Acting Secretary and the Marine said simultaneously.

“Now I want both of you on the same page with me here,” the President said. “And you too, Zed.”

“Yes, sir,” the two men said, this time almost simultaneously, Larry struggling to catch up.

Zed merely stared harder at the piece of drape he had been examining.

“We’re gonna go through this, and any steps I think take too long, we’re gonna skip.”

The Acting Acting Secretary looked confused.

“Skip?” he said.

“Yeah, we’re gonna skip them.”

“How will they know to skip them?” the Acting Acting Secretary said.

“I’ve been talking to some of the guys in the siloes at night. I call them on my cell phone. I’ve got all their numbers.” The President sniffled again.

“Uh, sir, this breaks all procedure.”

“Yeah, I know. We got too much frickin’ procedure around here. Drain the swamp, I say.”

“Sir, you can’t do this,” Larry said. “There are a lot of good reasons for the checks we have in this system. A lot of smart people have been involved in designing this –”

“Sure, sure, a lot of smart people. That’s all I heard my entire first term. ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that, it would break precedent, protocol, some other p word.’ Well none of those smart people were president. I’m the president. That’s the real p word. Aside from, you know, the other p word, the one I like to grab. I got elected twice. Hey Marine guy.”

“Yes sir?”

“Marine guy, did you vote for me?”

“I don’t think you can ask him that –” the Acting Acting Secretary began to say.

“OORAH, SIR!”

“Both times?” asked the President.

“Yes SIR!”

“Then you will take any orders I give you, right, Marine guy?”

“Oorah, SIR!”

“Zed!”

The odd man in the corner did not even look up.

“Zed, what do you think?”

“Blue,” Zed said, though the fabric he was looking at in his hand was gold.

The President turned back to the Marine.

“Now the Koreans, the North Koreans, like there’s any real difference, they’re all Koreans, they just shot a missile that came close to my house,” the President continued.

“Yes sir.”

“Sir,” Larry said, in an alarmed tone of voice. “Sir, I have to say –”

“You take your orders from me, right, Marine guy?”

“OORAH,” said the Marine.

“Not this guy. He’s not even really the Secretary. He’s only Acting. In fact, ACTING Acting.” Loud sniffle.

“Yes sir,” the Marine answered. “Zed,” Zed said.

“Technically,” the President continued, “when there’s no real Secretary of Defense, then I get to do the stuff the Secretary of Defense does.”

“Yes SIR,” the Marine answered.

“But the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is also involved,” the Acting Secretary said quickly.

“Yes,” the President said.

The Acting Acting Secretary looked relieved.

“But I canned his ass last night at midnight, after all that stuff went down,” the President said. “So all his stuff goes to me too. But not before I got him to target the Russians and Iranians too. That President of Russia is saying I’m not a billionaire, after I was so nice to him. So I’ve decided I don’t like what the Russians did to those Baltic Avenue countries. It makes me look like a sap. And the Iranians keep messing with our ships. So, I say that Zed is Chairman of the Chiefs. Am I right, Zed?”

“Zed,” Zed answered.

“Listen to the man,” the President said. “So, let’s get this thing going.”

“Yes sir,” the Marine said.

“Just what are we talking about here?” the Acting Acting Secretary said. “Just the usual run-through?”

“Sure, sure,” said the President. “With a couple alterations I made.”

“Alterations?” the Acting Acting Secretary said, his relief replaced once again by alarm.

“You’ll see,” the President said. “Better yet, you won’t see. Seeing as how you aren’t really a Secretary, or even an Acting Secretary, you really don’t need to be here, do you? Why don’t you run along.”

“Sir?” the Acting Acting Secretary said.

“Beat it,” the President said. “Mrs. Johnson?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Show Mr. Jerry here out. He’s not needed here anymore.”

Mrs. Johnson materialized at the door.

“This way,” she cooed.

The Acting Acting Secretary looked back and forth between the President and the Military Aide, then at Mrs. Johnson, his brow furrowed in worry.

“This way,” Mrs. Johnson said.

Larry nodded, slowly turned, and walked out past Mrs. Johnson. The door closed.

“Now just do like I say, kid,” the President said. “I know this whole system like the back of my mind.”

“Oorah, SIR,” said the Marine.

“Come on over here, Zed, and watch.”

The President sucked more air through his nostrils. Then he pulled the challenge coin from his jacket pocket. He held it up in the air. Zed stared at it, transfixed. He began to move steadily, almost floating, toward the coin.

I think we’ll reverse it this time, the President thought. Heads we launch, tails we don’t launch.

“Open the football,” the President said.

“Yes sir!”

“Is this it? Is this the end, Zed?” the President asked.

Zed stared at the open football, his eyes gleaming. Then he fell to the floor and began to go into convulsions.

“I think that’s a big yes,” the President said.

The President felt better than he had in weeks, better than he had felt since before the virus hit him. He closed his eyes. He knew who he was now. He felt himself, the Scarlet Beast, floating high, high above the White House, high above the red-eyed crowds in Lafayette Park, the avenues raying out to the northwest and northeast, the light of dusk white at the horizon, fading to a cobalt blue above, as the first star of evening appeared straight overhead.

He opened his eyes.

“Okay,” he said to the Marine, sniffling.

“Make the call.”

Epilogue

Thursday, April 1, 2021, 1:30-2:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Mary was stocking the Ball-Mart meat counter when she heard the first sonic boom.

Oh, she thought, that must be another tribute by the President from the Blue Angels for the health workers for defeating the virus. He was kind of a jerk to us last night, but he’s always thinking about what Americans really need.

***

Vaneida sat in the jail cell at the D.C. Lockup and thought, I was just bait. Bait to get Okomo to come in. But I didn’t even call him. Janice wasn’t picking up when I called her. Maybe she was arrested and called him. So, is she in here too? And Joe… did they arrest him?

Okomo had come to her cell Wednesday morning, escorted by two guards, not in D.C. Police uniforms. He had said he would do what he could to get her out. But then the Attorney General had come to the cell door and asked Okomo if he could speak to him. As they walked away, it looked to her like Okomo was more a prisoner than an attorney who had come to advocate on behalf of a client.

Did Joe have anything to do with this? Vaneida thought.
She had just resolved to re-examine her entire relationship with Joe, from the first SNRM meeting he attended onward, when she heard a loud boom.

***

Mike was sitting across the bar from Janet, still vainly trying to get through to his son’s cell phone, when they heard the boom. The Three Amigos in the corner straightened up and looked around.

“Did a tree fall on the roof?” he asked.

“I’ll check,” Janet said.

***

“Dear Respected,” the military aide said, approaching the Supreme Representative of the Korean People.

“What is it?”

“Dear Respected, it appears that a line of American ICBMs is approaching us at this moment.”

The Supreme Representative laughed.

After a moment he said, “Do you know what this means?”

“No, Dear Respected.”

“It means we have won.”

“We have won, Dear Respected?”

“Moscow must be in flames, and perhaps Washington as well, since the Russians would have launched on alert. But we still stand. Therefore, we have won.”

“Yes, Dear Respected.”

“Don’t you want to kill me, Colonel?”

“Dear Respected?”

“Don’t you want to kill me, Colonel?”

“Why, Dear Respected?”

“Because I have led you and everyone you ever cared about to their deaths.”

“No, Dear Respected.”

“Why not?”

“It seems… it seems pointless at this moment, Dear Respected.”

“Yes,” the Supreme Representative of the Korean People said. “Pointless. Indeed.”

A moment later, he rose, and said, “Let us go see the dogs one last time.”

“Yes, Dear Respected.”

***

“Should we be evacuating?”

“Excuse me?” said the President of Russia, in the underground bunker beneath the Kremlin.

“Should we be evacuating?” repeated Sergei Borisevich.

“To where?” the President said. “Do you have another planet we might go to?”

Sergei shook his head, turned, and walked away. In the corner, General Valery, the Chief of the General Staff, had taken his pistol out and seemed to be in the process of shooting himself.

Slight miscalculations were made, the President thought to himself.

***

In the bunker deep below the White House, the Vice President sat at the head of the table. Several aides and cabinet members occupied the other chairs.

“He would not come downstairs,” the recently canned Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said, flipping up his eyepatch to reveal a perfectly functional eye. “I begged him to evacuate, but he would not come. He said something about ‘I am the Scarlet Beast.’”

“Where is Mother? …I mean, my wife?”

“Sir, external communications have been severed. It’s part of the protocol.”

“Oh,” the Vice President said.

After a minute, he mumbled, “I suppose I am President now.”

“For now,” Max King said.

He stared across the table at the Attorney General, who stared back at him.

***

Jenna Jones sat in a clearing beside a river in the Catoctin Mountains where she had stopped for lunch during a week-long solo kayak trip she was taking to get away from the stresses of Washington.

She had heard the sonic booms and had figured out what they probably meant; her father had been an Air Force captain for Strategic Air Command when she was a child, and later, somewhat of a pacifist.

Now Jenna looked at the sky, so beautifully blue, and wondered how much radiation she had already received. Not so much, at this distance, she thought. Not yet.

Her second thought surprised her.

Did Shakespeare waste his life?

From a certain perspective, she thought, every effort expended by every human being in all of history to create anything lasting was now officially a waste.

All the conniving by politicians for advantage. All the work of scientists. All the money-grubbing by Wall Street tycoons. D-Day. World War II. All the wars. Okomo’s entire… forget Okomo. George Washington’s entire life. Abraham Lincoln’s presidency was pointless. FDR… pointless. Reagan… pointless.

It was all wasted, because one very strange, dangerous man had been allowed to occupy what actually turned out to be what people said it was: the most important job in the world.

If she was right, it looked as though he had succeeded in killing a thousand times as many people as the Holocaust. Possibly everyone.

Every movie ever made. Every book. Every math theorem. Every scientific achievement. Every building ever built. Every university. Every limerick, every joke. Even every murder.

…All music! No music ever again!

But Shakespeare it was who stuck in her mind. All the millions of words, written out longhand, then printed, then published for hundreds of millions of people, learned by heart by fifteen generations of actors and students, all those lovely turns of phrase – every single one of them rendered meaningless because one stupid man was elected president twice. No student would ever read them again. Even aliens could not possibly understand them, should they happen by this backwater of the galaxy in a billion years, by which time the sun would have swallowed the earth anyway.

Maybe the fact that the human race had been able to enjoy them for a limited time counted for something. But there was no more “forever.” No more “eternal.” This one man, and those who had put him in place, had banished those particular words from human experience. And all other words, she suddenly realized.

Jenna heard another sonic boom, this one closer. Maybe she would be spared the long weeks of dying of radiation sickness and starvation her father had described to her, after all.

She stood up and recalled lines from a high school play, from a part she had wanted, but lost to, of course, a boy. Now she might be the last being ever to say them, or hear them. Jenna stood on a large rock nearby and spoke them to whatever animals and insects might be near:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

The rest is silence, she thought.

Then the sky grew very bright indeed.