The Ex-President

by Jeff Soloway

  The Ex-President is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Alibi Ebook Original

  Copyright © 2018 by Jeff Soloway

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Alibi, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  ALIBI is a registered trademark and the ALIBI colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN 9780804178181

  Cover design: Caroline Teagle

  Cover photograph: © Steve Stenson/Arcangel Images

  randomhousebooks.com

  v5.2

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Books by Jeff Soloway

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Presidential candidate Carlton Chomp loved foreigners. He loved their food, architecture, and women. He loved ripping them off in business deals. But he wanted them out of his country. He scoffed at those who called for a wall across the Mexican border. Walls were for losers, he said. America should be defended by men with guns. At his rallies, he loved to point out that our country had thousands of virile young men stationed in peaceful allied countries like Germany, South Korea, and Japan, where they passed their time waxing their Humvees, playing Xbox, and wasting their virility on foreign women. Why not, he asked, have them spend their pay at American bars, GameStops, and strip joints? Chomp wanted them stationed at the Mexican border, on ships in the Gulf and off the east and west coasts, even at Canadian border crossings. In their spare time, they could venture into America’s interior to conduct deportation raids on factories, corner groceries, and ethnic restaurants. Critics pointed out that this was both infeasible and unconstitutional. Candidate Chomp didn’t care. His favorite rhetorical device was outrageousness.

  Most of America voted for his opponent. He won anyway.

  The first eighteen months of his presidency were largely uneventful, but around two years in, just after the midterm elections, Chomp began to cut loose. Agents in a new division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement were given distinctive red baseball caps and GoPro video cameras. Live-streaming the raids seemed to inspire them to action-hero levels of high-handedness and violence. Some of the undocumented began surrendering even before the raids were launched; others simply lived in deeper fear than ever before. Congress was submissive. Protests were massive, constant, and ineffective. Chomp’s supporters—known as Chompians—were ecstatic. In one of his frequent tweets, Chomp had promised to make America hard again, embracing the double entendre, and who could doubt his success? People are as potent as they feel, and the Chompians felt great. That Chomp also, in his own spare time, managed to eliminate several public healthcare programs, corporate taxes, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Congressional Budget Office, seemed almost beside the point.

  There was only one problem. The presidency apparently failed to agree with President Chomp. On the Ides of March, two years and two months after he took the oath of office, Chomp, by tweet, announced his impending resignation. Left activists declared that the president had finally had enough of being protested in the streets and laughed at on late-night television. Administration officials claimed, off the record, that those were the only things that had kept him in office that long. Gossip sites blamed the decision on the first lady, who openly longed to trade such traditional first-lady duties as reading picture books in podunk public schools for pastimes more suited to her supermodel-emerita lifestyle, such as presiding over fashion shows in Manhattan and popping in at acro-yoga classes in St. Barts. Rumors of the couple’s separation were only halfheartedly denied.

  Chomp’s own explanation was different. His resignation speech, like all his speeches, was self-pitying, vainglorious, pugnacious, scornful, and somehow, especially to his fans, heroic. He explained that governing had become boring. Half of what he had wanted to accomplish he had done on election night itself. The true goal of politics, he declared, is not policy, but victory. The media professed to be shocked, but the Chompians were sympathetic. They understood that shaking your fist in the bloody face of the defeated was more satisfying than, say, rallying congressional votes to eliminate federal mining regulations or Medicaid.

  Chomp’s last day in office was June 20—the last day of spring. The reins of power passed to his vice president, a party stalwart who’d been selected solely for his statesmanlike demeanor and obeisance to Chomp. Unhitched from his old master, President Farthing proceeded to govern exactly as his new masters, the party elders, wanted him to. As a sop to the new spirit of bipartisanship, deportation raids were (mostly) relaxed. On the other hand, public health spending was slashed even further, and the top tax bracket was eliminated entirely. But at least, liberals reminded the nation, allegedly undocumented immigrants were no longer getting clubbed live on C-SPAN. Massive victory marches took over the photogenic centers of Chomp-hating cities throughout the nation. Chomp’s wife divorced him anyway.

  Political pundits expected Chomp to slink off to one of his estates in the Mountain West and enjoy a life of revenge-dating supermodels and dominating Fox News panels. This he did—but only for about six months. Then with some fanfare—Chomp adored fanfare—he began to hold rallies again. No one understood what their purpose was. Clearly he loved rallies, and clearly he loved pissing off those television opinion scolds who felt that a failed politician should fade decorously into oblivion. Chompians packed the arenas as eagerly as they had before the election. His fans seemed in on a secret kept hidden from the rest of America. They went wild as Chomp railed against the do-nothing monkeys in Congress, President Farthing, and the emboldened immigrant hordes that were now, he claimed, pouring back into the country. The Chompians’ signs urged Chomp to run again. Winning after quitting would be just as gloriously absurd as winning in the first place, and even more infuriating to their enemies.

  One television psychologist claimed to know the truth. She pointed out that Chomp had refused the Secret Service protection to which all ex-presidents, including the quitters, are entitled. He even refused to take the precautions suggested by his own private security team. This legendary germaphobe insisted on glad-handing his adoring fans after every event, sometimes for hours. What he was doing, the psychologist claimed, was trying to get shot.

  Chapter 2

  Like me, my mother lives alone in a small New York City apartment. Unlike me, she lives very nic
ely. She makes more money than I do, of course—in a bad year, I qualify for food stamps—and has many friends. They’re all male and all useful in different ways: One is for Knicks games, one for dinner at Jean-Georges, another for a mouse under the stove. She dates online. When she lies about her age, people believe her. In high school, my friends said my mother was a babe, and I accepted their judgment calmly, confident that in a few years she would be old and unappealing. It’s taken much longer than I expected. The truth is inescapable: She is both a talented concealer of her flaws and very beautiful.

  For her fifty-first birthday I met her for blintzes at Veselka in the East Village.

  When I arrived, I found her already seated. She was savvy enough to dress for Veselka like she never went to Jean-Georges, in an old black sweater that was not so bulky as to fail to show off her figure. Her hair—which used to go blond in the summer but now stayed blond year-round—was tied back in a simple knot to show off her emerald earrings, a gift from her current first-string boyfriend.

  As I approached, I saw that her earrings and her face were earning interested glances from Veselka’s male customers, and not just the older ones. She paid no attention to them. Her characteristic expression was one of absent contentedness, as if she were devoting half her concentration to a pleasant reminiscence of social success. Her very manner made people want to struggle for her attention. Even I was a little proud sometimes that I already had it.

  She accepted my kiss. “Where’s my present?”

  “It’s a big one this time,” I said, knowing that she would be impressed to the point of suspicion simply that I had one. “But it’s a project. For both of us.”

  “A project. How festive.” She took a long sip of her Bloody Mary. I could see that she had tried to plaster over the dark shadows under her eyes. She caught me looking—she’s not as abstracted as she prefers to appear. “Went out with Clark and his Michigan buddies last night,” she explained. “Fucking Wolverines.”

  “That’s how I want to be at your age, Mom.”

  I meant hungover. She thought I meant carefree.

  “Ha! You think this makes me happy? Charming the middle-aged friends of middle-aged men I hardly know? Pretending to give a shit about a new set of ex-wives and children every few months? If I could have stayed with your father, I would have.”

  “So why do you do it?”

  “Why do anything? Why not just stay home and watch Game of Thrones? Why not kill myself? Would that make me happy?”

  The threat of suicide, however improbable, demanded at least the appearance of concern. I shook my head slowly, a tired soldier waving the white flag. Whenever I see her, I feel a dual surge of affection and exhaustion. After a few minutes, the affection usually hardens to irritation. But today I was determined to remain sweet, or at least polite. I needed her.

  She slurped up a piece of ice and crunched it like a cracker. “What’s this new assignment?” On the phone I had hinted that it was something special.

  “A cruise review.”

  “I thought you were done with those.”

  So had I. I had written several cruise reviews a few years ago, and though my work was well received (that is, eventually paid for), the cruises themselves were journalist-only “familiarization” trips in which a majestic new vessel sails off to sea and then sails right back to shore without stopping anywhere. Only superstar cruise writers get berths on real cruises to real places. Any more of those rides-to-nowhere seemed likely to inspire an existential crisis, so I quit the cruise game entirely. Latin America, my first love, became my professional specialty. It isn’t the most glamorous region of the planet, but at least my work there takes me to places inhabited not solely by fish.

  “This one’s different.”

  “How so? I’m guessing there’s a woman involved.”

  “Right as always. They’re giving me a plus-one, all paid for.”

  “And who is she? Another one of your beautiful catastrophes?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Good for you, Jacob. Sometimes an ordinary bimbo is all any of us really needs.”

  “It’s you, Mom. I’m inviting you.”

  She picked up the menu to hide her surprise. “Where’s this cruise going? Somalia?”

  “The cruise line is Regal Majestic Britannia. Departs Miami, first afternoon at sea, then two days at Elysian Island. That’s RMB’s private island in the Bahamas. All the cruise lines have private islands these days, but this is the one the closest to Miami. What are you looking at?”

  “I thought I saw Alec Baldwin.”

  “At Veselka? Mom, listen. I’m offering you a free luxury cruise. All excursions and meals paid for.”

  “And I’m wondering why. You’re already in my will. Why do you want me along?”

  “I need you.” Words most mothers are dying to hear.

  “What for?”

  “It’s the Carlton Chomp comeback cruise.”

  A busboy came to refill my water. My mother watched his face carefully. Just the name Carlton Chomp was, in some neighborhoods, as offensive as a racial slur. After the busboy left, she said, “Don’t lie to me on my birthday.”

  “My old friend Will Kooser called me. RMB is giving Kooser’s Cruisers an exclusive review of this cruise, and he wants me to write it. It’s a one-off sponsored trip for Chomp fans only. By contract, Chomp has to mingle with the passengers. He also has to give one interview to promote the cruise line. And I’m the one who gets it.”

  “I just hope you survive to write it up. I’ve seen video of these rallies on the news.”

  “This will be way less dangerous. Passengers are strictly forbidden from boarding with fireworks or firearms. Plus it’s on a highly secure cruise ship, so there won’t be any brawls with protesters. Mom, rumors have been flying about this cruise for weeks. Chomp’s PR people say he’s giving some kind of landmark speech on the island. They want the networks to chopper in and cover it. I hear the networks aren’t buying it. They say Chomp’s had his day. But everybody knows Chomp’s dying to get back in the spotlight. He’s going to do something crazy. The Times and The New Yorker are both begging for a berth on the cruise to do an in-depth on the Last Days of Chomp. But he denied them. And everyone else. Except me.”

  “Why you? Ah—because you’re not a journalist. You’re a travel writer.”

  She was right, of course. Chomp demanded complete control over his publicity. He allowed some latitude to television reporters, but not to print journalists. He would permit nothing more than a fluff review of the cruise itself. RMB had come to Will because of his site’s unique combination of popularity and loyalty to its corporate advertisers, which included every major cruise line. Will’s own online column, “High Jinks on the High Seas,” was funny and casually outrageous, but the site’s cruise reviews were all the same—reliable rehashes of the cruise line’s press packet, lightly spiced with uncheckable personal details, perhaps an offhand description of hooking up with a beautiful Slovenian bartender known for, among other things, her mai tais.

  “Will told them they’ll get final approval on the review. But he says I can write another piece at the same time. He wants me to interview Chomp’s fans and staff. He thinks he can run a multipart series that will dominate the Web for a week. RMB will never work with him again, but that’s okay—everyone knows RMB sucks. Will thinks this piece could be important. Mom, look at me.”

  “Sorry. I thought we were going to talk about my present.”

  I had genuinely thought she would be grateful and excited. “This is your present, Mom. Let’s do something together. Something important.”

  She lifted her eyes and beamed her smile, like a laser, over my shoulder.

  Clark was coming up behind me. “Eleanor!” he cried, and added, with the dregs of his enthusiasm, “Jacob.”

  She
was already angling her cheek for his kiss. Clark, her boyfriend, was a year out from bariatric surgery. The skin on his neck was as rumpled as a backpacker’s shirt, and he was unable to eat any portion of food larger than his thumb. At meals he often glanced down wistfully at his thumb before he started his sad slow chewing. Like many of her boyfriends, he was in finance. In the mid-2000s, he’d been a senior vice president on the mortgage desk at Lehman Brothers, at the very epicenter of the national financial meltdown. He’d once, when he was drunk and my mother in the bathroom, admitted to me some misgivings: “You should have seen the shit contracts we shoveled onto the government. I felt dirty.” It was the most honest moral self-assessment I’d ever heard from an investment banker. Like so many of the really catastrophic Wall Street failures, Clark had resumed his career without much difficulty. It helped that his old boss at Lehman was now an assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Appointed by Chomp.

  Clark possessed three cars, two houses, one ex-wife, most of his hair, and no sense of humor. When the three of us dined together, my mother would resort to toying with him, ostensibly for my amusement. It just made me want to leave early. Perhaps that was what she wanted me to do too. I could hardly regard Clark as a likely stepdad, but then, I never thought Chomp would be elected. Still, I assumed Clark had already achieved the status of buffoon, a favorite term she had for a lame-duck lover. She often kept them around for months while she organized the successor.

  An ungainly waitress, obviously hired for Eastern European authenticity rather than charm, brought us our order of pierogies and blintzes. Clark ordered nothing; he preferred to limit himself to a few bites of my mother’s food, for metabolic reasons.