Jack Canon's American Destiny

by Greg Sandora

  Sandy hid our relaxation area behind a floor to ceiling bookcase. Then, she tied the two sections together by adding some glass shelves displaying model jets. A hand carved cherry bar was the only part visible from the office. Sandy said, ‘to get this area right, I spent more time on it than the rest of the 7th floor combined,’ but it’s because she wanted it to be perfect.

  ”Sandy, come here a minute. We haven’t had a chance to just sit and talk for a while.” She came over and sat close enough I could smell her perfume.

  “What is it, Jack?”

  “That’s a nice scent; what is it?”

  “Oh you noticed. It’s Clive Christian; I got it at Neiman Marcus. I just thought I needed to treat myself.”

  Taking off one of her gold hoop earrings she laid her head sideways, on the couch back cushion, “I thought of you when I picked it out.”

  “Sandy, it’s going to get crazy around here.”

  “That’s nothing new, Jack. That’s part of your charm; it’s always a Three Ring Circus around you.”

  Sandy turned to look up at me, her big eyes enhanced by a smoky eye shadow, "Jack, I feel like I don’t belong anywhere but with you.”

  I felt guilty - she was so perfect, so deserving of love. “This can’t be everything you had planned for your life, what did you want? I mean when you were younger?”

  Sandy looked straight into my eyes and without her saying a word, I imagined what she was thinking. If our lips so much as grazed a passing touch, would that ignite a fire of passion that would have us tearing at each other’s clothes?

  She looked away and spoke in a whisper, “People who love us as friends would never forgive us as lovers.”

  “Sandy, you know I need you to keep an eye on the Senate staff when I’m on the road.”

  "You can always count on me, but don’t think it’s not going to cost you. I’m still going to tease you every time you’re back in town!”

  I laughed and Sandy shot me a look, like… “You just wait mister!”

  “Tell me honestly, Jack. On the road, have you ever had any close calls?”

  I took a deep breath. “I was weak many years ago and might have fooled around a bit, but never a relationship. None of the women had any substance. That’s why I need you so much; you understand. Be my friend; look out for me. We’re a team and we care for each other.”

  Sandy emboldened, “How can you be so strong, Jack, aren’t you ever tempted, I mean with us?”

  “Sandy, you’re beautiful and talented and I love everything you are to me, but I think of my wife and my girls and pray not to be.”

  No longer able to contain her feelings, teary eyed, “Can you imagine? I love my work because you’re here and I get to be with you...”

  I leaned to her and spoke into her hair, “I promise you’ll find someone. We’ll always be best friends. I’ll always care for you.”

  We just sat there for five minutes. Then breaking the silence, Sandy asked, “Jack, do you remember the day we first met?”

  “Sure I do…close your eyes… imagine this girl pops in through the door of a rented store front, our eyes met and my heart stopped… I remember she reminded me of Marilyn Monroe the way she looked in the early years in soft focus. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.”

  Sandy moved towards me and gently rested her head on my chest, “That was me, Jack.”

  “Yes and I remember a black and white pencil skirt and a white blouse. I thought, ‘this girl must have her own personal designer creating clothes just for her.’”

  Sandy never tanned and her soft white cleavage overflowed whatever she wore. It wasn’t a stretch to tell her a designer could be so inspired.

  There was a knock on the office door, the door opened slightly. Tip was calling in through the opening, “Jack, may I have a word?”

  “Sure Tip, come on in.” Tip walked into the office, came around the corner and took a seat in the chair nearest the couch where I was sitting. Sandy adjusted herself, quickly moving her head to my shoulder.

  “Jack, I didn’t realize you were busy, I apologize, this subject matter may not be something…”

  I said, “Tip anything you need to say can be said in front of Sandy.”

  “He’s right, Tip,” Sandy said, “Jack could pull his gun from the wall safe and blow your brains out right in front of me. I’d stuff your dead corpse into a sack and clean up the mess. Jack is my life and I’m alone in this world without him.”

  Tip said, “I like that about you. But really, Jack, what I’m going to say is sensitive.”

  “You can say it Tip,” I said, insisting.

  Tip asked, “Alright, would you like me to bug the plane, the hotel, the palace - when we go over to Dubai. It would give us valuable Intel in case any other candidate tries to use Oil money against you.”

  I asked, “Don’t they sweep for bugs every day like we do here?”

  “I’m sure they do, for the garden variety listening devices. What I’m suggesting is using chewing gum.”

  Tip knew he had caught our attention. “What, Tip?” I said.

  “I would use a random pulse device hidden inside chewed gum. I would leave chewing gum with the listening device stuck into corners, under tables, seats, the car, the plane, anywhere they might take us. The bug listens but only downloads data after receiving our signal; it’s nearly undetectable. After a few days or weeks, if we’re lucky, a cleaning person will find the gum scrape it off and throw it away. A month or so after we’re gone, we send for the data just one time. We get our download, and the evidence is in the trash without any way to trace it back to us. It’s super high-tech; the signal and download only take a few seconds. The kicker is, once the bug sends its data, it releases a drop of acid that destroys the inside. If anyone was able to pick up and trace the two-second transmission, all they’d find is some crunchy rotten tasting gum - in a dump somewhere.

  “Tip, you’re going to be in charge of security when I’m president! Use the bugs, but it stays between the three of us. Handle it yourself.”

  "Tip," I asked changing the subject, "Why didn’t Barker go after the drone that fell into Iranian hands? Does he know something that caused him to make that decision? Because he’s not an idiot.”

  Tip said, “The drones have no computer on board, at least not the kind you’re used to; there’s just a transmitter-receiver that processes commands. All the software is back at Yucca Mountain. If the drone loses contact, it’s flown around by an autopilot, only a little more advanced than an expensive model plane. It turns for friendly territory until either it runs out of fuel or gains signal back. If the module loses contact with base for too long, or if it is tampered with, it burns itself up.”

  “So, Barker was never worried at all, Tip?”

  “He really had no need to be, the stealth skin is already available to the Chinese and the Russians. It really isn’t all that hard to come by if you’re a country that wants it bad enough. Barker just asked for it back, but he embarrassed America.”

  I said, “He should've shown strength with a surgical strike to blow the thing up. That's the type of decisive action Americans respect. Instead, I think he showed weakness dealing with the Iranians.”

  “You’re right, Jack, perception is nine-tenths of the law.”

  Sandy added, “People don’t know what’s really going on and we’re not able to tell them.”

  “Speaking of perception,” moving my finger back and forth between Sandy and myself.

  “This isn’t what you might think, Tip. We’re really close friends and I rely on her for…”

  Tip interjected, “Jack, everybody has friends. Speaking only for myself, I would walk through fire for you. Don’t feel you ever have to worry about me.”

  Sandy's eyes widened as she explained, “Jack has a vulnerable quality women love.”

  Tip stood up slowly, shaking his head, he motioned to excuse himself and left, closing the door quietly behind him.

  Sa
ndy laid her head back down on my chest, “Wow Jack, he has the sensitivity of a mole rat. I’m going to have a heart to heart with Lisa and ask her to keep a close eye out for you. Too many women will try to throw themselves at you.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Kathy and I stayed up late talking about the plans; she had great ideas and I loved how she thought quickly on her feet. All these years, she was always my closest confidant. My favorite place was at home with her. We always laughed and loved our time together. Kathy was also a very good mother. 'Jack,' she’d say, ‘I’ll take the girls out of school a few days before break and bring their tutors along, so they don’t miss any studies.' I could lose track of the kids sometimes, but Kathy made sure they had everything they needed, even when I forgot. She was like my mom in that way.

  During the evening I explained, “Our message needs a side story about lackluster press to play along with it, the basic idea on its own isn’t that exciting.”

  Kathy said, “I’ll play it to the hilt up there. Think of it Jack, reporters ask why the girls and I are in New Hampshire? I’ll tell them we summer in Maine and we’re here doing a little Christmas shopping. When they get to the real question, ‘Mrs. Canon, is your husband running?’ I’ll give them this,” Kathy gave her best Jackie Kennedy impression, “Oh, I don’t know if my husband is running. I wouldn’t mind, I think the country needs him.” We laughed.

  “Honey, we’re going to run the press around in circles. We only want one major there and maybe a couple of locals. We’ve decided to tell the press the speech is in Lexington at the William T. Young Library, on the campus of the University of Kentucky. Meanwhile, we’ll be on the front steps of Georgetown College, 25 minutes away.”

  Kathy said, still doing Jackie, “Jack, how wonderful! Right in front of those beautiful white pillars, perfect.”

  “Honey, I love it when you do that! When the press finally catches up with us, we’ll give out the complete speech and all the details of our energy plan to take back and tell their editors they got it.”

  “That’s good, Jack. Some things should be read and not said; the details of that energy plan are pretty dull.”

  “The sizzle will be the story I’ll tell about how nobody in the press showed up to cover us.”

  “The public will be incensed.”

  “Carter did it! Imagine, a couple local reporters meet with common man Jimmy, in the rain, on little Main Street in Iowa. Honey, nobody gave the guy enough credit, he was a genius.”

  Kathy said, “Remember the malaise thing? It was poetry Jack, he put on a sweater and blamed the American people and we believed him.”

  “You’re right the country felt depressed just watching the guy. He told us if we’d been more positive, interest rates wouldn’t have been eighteen percent!”

  Kathy laughed, “You’re mother called today and asked us to Thanksgiving at the ranch. I told her we’d love to come, but to have your dad call you to be sure about your schedule.”

  “How do you feel about that? Are you up for it, or would you rather just stay here in Alexandria?”

  “We should go down to Kentucky for Thanksgiving, but when your dad calls you, you have to tell him we’d like to have it over at our place. It will show better for the press. Your dad will understand. Your parent’s ranch will make you look too elitist and out of touch.”

  I thought about what she was saying, the colonel’s ranch had 22 large windows stacked 11 per floor and eight white pillars each two feet thick across the front. My father made no apologies for living well. The main house was over 9,000 square feet with barns and out buildings sitting in perfect white brilliance, behind a twenty acre manicured lawn. He’d built a half-mile long, tree and four-post fence lined drive leading up to the house. She was definitely right - his over the top consumption was as conspicuous as though he had billions, not millions.

  Kathy continued, “Anyway, our place is much cozier.”

  I said, “That’s one of things I love about you, you’re always right. We can’t be filmed anywhere near that place until after the election.”

  “Jack have you been working on your stump speech?” Kathy asked sounding really tired.

  “Yep, we’ve got a team of good writers working on it, so far it’s pretty good. We meet to work on it every morning. Want to hear the first line?”

  Kathy said, “Sure Jack.”

  “Americans are called to freedom,” I spoke it like an orator. Punchy and tired she giggled. Then, turning to her side closing her eyes, “I love it Jack.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I must have been exhausted because it was the first night in a long time I slept completely through the night. In the morning, my cell phone rang. I always kept it on the nightstand under my lamp beside the bed.

  Still groggy, I wanted whoever was calling to know they had woken me the hell up, “Hel…lo.”

  The voice on the other end had obviously been up for hours. Sounding like he’d had too much coffee, “Jack, your mother and I would like you and the girls to come down to the ranch for Thanksgiving. How about it, son?”

  My father, Theodore James Canon, nicknamed the Colonel, not because of any military service, it was just a fond name his friends called him. Partly in fun, he lived in Kentucky and partly because he owned five thousand acres there. The colonel was 84 years old and had beginning Alzheimer’s, though only close family knew it, and had been bound for the last few years to wheelchair. Suffering from severe arthritis, he could stand only briefly, sometimes in stabbing pain.

  Other than the chair, the Colonel looked great for a man his age. He had thick white hair, a neatly trimmed mustache, shiny blue eyes, and always a happy smile. His big worn and nicotine stained teeth only added to his charm. My dad had nothing to complain about. He married his high school sweetheart, Mabel Warren, made a fortune in business, and now in retirement, raised prized thoroughbred racehorses.

  My mother, Mabel Warren could trace her roots back to the Mayflower, the Colonel loved that fact, and Mom was a proud member of the Daughters of the Revolution. Mom grew up in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, along the seacoast; it was there she met Dad. Three years younger than the Colonel, they met at a dance put on by her church when she was only a freshman in high school. Mabel was a beautiful woman still, healthy and strong. She was so proud to be the mother of the Senator from Kentucky.

  Theodore Canon had been a bit of a handful for his parents. To keep him out of trouble, the family bought a can company in Portland, Maine. Dad began canning precooked meat at the suggestion of a military man who visited his office to ask if he could help Uncle Sam with the war effort. Always having a keen business sense, once the supply chain was locked, he raised prices every chance he could, factoring in renovations and new equipment. Cost-plus, the military called it, made my father rich.

  A Portland attorney worked it all out so everything was basically legal. Once the factory was at its peak, Dad realizing the war was waning, sold out to Northern Can Company. When the war ended, Northern closed the factory, blaming lackluster sales. By that time, my dad was long gone and had purchased the start of what would be his ranch in Kentucky, the Bluegrass State, where I was born.

  No one ever blamed him for the factory closing. When our family owned the can company it was humming along - the military contract being a cost-plus deal, made Dad look like a hero to the locals. When the military contract ended, the people of Portland blamed Northern for bad management. The press was relentless in its criticisms of the company. The empty shell sits there today, across from South Portland, and the oil tanks along the Fore River. Water has crept in and caused the bricks to crumble around the edges; the buildings are no longer safe or usable for anything.

  My official address for voting purposes is Kentucky. Kathy and I own a beautiful white southern colonial with four thick white pillars spaced across an open front porch with a glossy gray floor. The Colonel built us the place at the southeast corner of his ranch. Kathy flies down to decorate the
house to the nines for Christmas - to the delight of friendly local media who are eager to film the once a year happy story. It’s the highlight of a reporter’s career to land an invitation to this event.

  The grounds, the lights, the holiday spreads, Kathy lays everything out so beautifully. Kentuckians just adore her. She makes gift bags for everyone who visits and writes personal thank you notes. She makes a point to stay in touch with reporters who do a favorable story. Christmas and holidays are really the only time the girls ever stay in Kentucky - after all, they were both born in Alexandria Virginia, which is where we call home.

  We live just a few miles from Pentagon City where Joe Brenner set us up in the new campaign headquarters. The girls spend most the year in school in Alexandria, but we try to get up to Maine for summers at Sebago Lake.

  It’s relaxing up there. I can put on a pair of sunglasses and Boston Red Sox baseball cap and go anywhere in the Portland Area, unrecognized. I fly right into the Portland Jetport, then take a car I keep there and head to the lake to be with Kathy and the girls.

  I love to drive fast up Route 302, a holdover from my time as an A-10 Warthog pilot with the Air Guard. I remember one time in particular, I was stopped by the Maine State Police for reckless driving. The trooper told me he clocked me at over 115 miles per hour in a 55.

  The officer took a slow walk up to the car, “Sir, license and registration.”

  I answered, “Sure.”

  In as condescending a tone as I’ve ever heard, “Did you realize you were driving over one hundred miles per hour?”

  “Sorry, just tryin' to get home to see the kids.”