by Doug Walker
“Didn’t Curt tell you? He watched me like a hawk.”
“Why in the world do you think I can idly stroll into a coffee shop when I’m supposed to be taking a nap?”
“You’re just a man, you know. Nothing special.”
“Remember what happened to Lincoln and a few other presidents. They were just men also.”
Renee gave him a sarcastic twist of the lips. “So you think you’re Abe Lincoln. You are just a man, but with a super ego.”
They were huddled together whispering. “You’re not enjoying this trip, are you? Maybe you should go back to Washington.”
“I’ll see it through.” She moved swiftly away from him and the master of ceremonies called for the group to file in to the head table. Brooking would enter after a brief introduction. The small musical group that had been entertaining the crowd would strike up, Hail to the Chief.
After the dinner, after Brooking worked the crowd, he boarded a limo, and the rest of the party hurried aboard buses for the airport. They would fly to Buffalo, not too far away.
On board Air Force One, German asked Brooking if he should bring Renee into the presidential section.
“No. Maybe tomorrow. I have nothing against that woman, but when we first met she as well as accused me of hitting on her. How was her talk to the ladies?”
“Great. First class. The Q&A session also went well. She’s a pro.”
“She’s also a sarcastic bitch. I’m going to get some sleep.”
“Better hurry. Short flight.”
“Get me off last after everyone else has boarded the buses and headed for the hotel. No, belay that. I’ll sleep on the plane tonight. Pick me up at the plane for the breakfast event tomorrow.”
“You are acting a bit oddly, Mr. President. But I shall do your bidding.”
“The word is sophomoric, Curt.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Brooking was up just after five the following morning. The first event of the day was not until noon. An odd thing had happened. The advance Secret Service had checked out his hotel room, then moved on to Cleveland for the evening event. The security traveling with the party assumed he was in his room and stationed a man outside.
The only people left with the plane were a pair of Marine guards. Even the cabin staff had gone to an airport motel.
Brooking walked to the front of the plane and surprised the guards who were half dressed and playing video games. Wide eyed, they snapped to attention.
“At ease, men. Are you the only two aboard?”
“Yes, Sir, we had no idea you were on board. Where’s the Secret Service?”
Brooking laughed. “Judging by their past record, I wouldn’t know. But they likely believe I’m at the hotel. I’m going into the terminal to have breakfast. Why don’t you two get dressed and join me.”
“Yes, Sir. Do you want to wait for us?”
“No. I’ll be Ok. It’ll be a surprise.”
The marines opened the door and let him off the plane, then hurried to dress.
A security guard stopped Brooking just inside the terminal. “You been out on the tarmac, Buddy?”
“Yes, I’m with Air Force One, and I’d like to get some breakfast.”
The guard eyed him with suspicion, but let him pass.
The Buffalo-Niagara International Airport is quite complicated, but Brooking eventually found a small coffee bar. He was inside the secure area because he had come from the tarmac.
Scanning the menu, he ordered a couple of eggs, bacon, toast and coffee. The waitress gave him a good looking over and asked, “Are you famous?”
“You’ve probably seen me on TV.”
“I thought so,” she said, then hurried off to place his order. Returning with a glass of water, she added, “We get lots of famous folks here. Just last week there was a fat comedian sitting right where you’re sitting.”
Brooking wondered which plump comic she had in mind. Then there was a slight whispering and stirring among the nearby crowd. The two Marines in dress uniforms had entered, one a staff sergeant, the other a lance corporal. All eyes were on them and their array of medals.
“Have a seat men,” Brooking said. They took stools on each side of him, offering him maximum protection.
“You two are the center of attention,” he said with a laugh. “No one’s recognized me. Order what you like, it’s on me.”
“Yes, Sir,” the sergeant said. “Perhaps we should stand, Sir.”
“No. We’re just three men having breakfast. Nothing out of the way. Have you two ever been to Niagara Falls?”
Both replied in the negative.
“Splendid. Let’s do away with breakfast, then catch a cab. It’s not far away.”
“Would that be safe, Sir?” the sergeant questioned.
“I’m certain it would. I have something of an ordinary look. If I were tall and thin and wore a stovepipe hat it might be a different matter.” Both Marines seemed to relax.
After coffee they wandered through the terminal, out of security and found a cab. No one bothered Brooking with a well-turned-out Marine on either side.
The President sat in front with the driver while the Marines piled into the back seat. “We want to go to the falls. We want to look at the falls. Then we want you to drive us to a hotel in downtown Buffalo. OK?”
“Of course. What hotel?”
Brooking held up a finger for patience and said, “I’ll find out.” Pulling out his cell phone he flipped it on and speed dialed German.”
“Mr. President,” came German’s voice. “I just arrived at the plane. It’s locked.”
Brooking laughed. “I got up and there were only two Marines on board. We had breakfast in the terminal and now we’re in a cab heading for Niagara Falls. We’ll be back in time for the noon event.”
German made a sputtering sound, then said, “This is a joke, isn’t it?”
“No, Curt. The Marines have never seen the falls. All that water. No one recognized me in the airport. Everyone seemed to go gaga over the Marines in their dress uniforms. We’ll be back in plenty of time.”
“I hope so. Renee Camus was looking for you again.”
“Really. If you see her tell her she can ride with the select few if she minds her Ps and Qs. I need to give the cabby the name of the hotel.”
German sounded weary. “I suppose that’s why you called.”
“Really.”
Brooking was again unrecognized at the falls. The three of them stood on the American side watching the tremendous torrent of water, listening to the roar.
“Quite a sight and sound, isn’t it, men? It’s this sort of thing that makes me love America.” He was almost shouting over the noise. “You know I lost my wife not long ago and I have a son, but I didn’t think he should live in the White House. It’s not normal. I appreciate you two coming here with me.”
Then it was back to Buffalo.
On the short flight to Cleveland, Renee Camus managed to collar him and demanded to ride in the limo with him to the Terminal Tower.
“Fine, you me, Curtis German and the driver, a group of jolly companions.”
During the long limo ride she said she wanted to know more about the trip. “Why did we go to Bangor? It’s a small town, not even the largest in Maine.”
“I’m not a one-man show. Curt here has more to do with trip planning than I do. But any appearance is like casting a stone into a body of water, it radiates activity. The national press, the local press, the state press, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and so forth. Bangor is small, but the population of Penobscot County along with it makes for a larger audience. And the University of Maine is just outside the city. We need to bring that young vote along.”
“You mean this is all about reelection?” she said in an almost rueful manner.
“Not at all. It’s to educate future voters, make them think about our country, what role they should play in the future. Twenty years from now some forty-year-old Maine graduate wil
l look back and say, ‘I remember the President’s visit to Bangor.’ He may look back in anger, but he will have some reaction and he will be a part of American politics, which fuels part of our economy.”
That silenced her for a moment until she said, “And what about your running off to Niagara Falls? Was that part of your grand scheme?”
“I’m going to look out the window at the wonders of Cleveland. Please pepper Curt with your juvenile questions.”
They rode in silence for the remainder of the trip. When they were leaving the car, Brooking whispered into her ear, “You can leave the trip. I’ll arrange transport.”
Renee smiled sweetly. “I’m in for the duration. I have a job to do even if you don’t.”
Even though Cleveland had gone through a period of revitalization, the city seemed drab to him, slightly depressing.
Finally, they reached Des Moines and his spirits soared. The motorcade went directly to the fairgrounds for the event. Brooking loved the tall corn song, the excitement and the familiar fairgrounds.
“I feel I’ve come home,” he told the cheering crowd. “You can bet as a boy growing up on an Iowa farm the state fair meant everything to me. It was like a fantasy world. As you know I still have a farm in Iowa and I always will. Some go to Washington and catch Potomac fever and are rooted there. Believe me, I’ve been inoculated against that.”
He was buoyed up by the crowd and did an extended give-and-take from the press and public despite urgings from Curt. The plane was waiting to carry them to the final event of the day in Helena, Montana. Then noon tomorrow it would be Olympia, Washington, and then back to the District.
Someone in the crowd asked Brooking if he considered himself a liberal, obviously the wrong thing to ask according to German, because the President launched into a lengthy dialogue concerning liberals.
He said the stereotypical liberal seemed to have a death wish in that he romanticizes failure, that it is better to lose the entire loaf rather than gain half a loaf. “Today it’s difficult to get anyone to admit that they are a liberal. It’s been branded as a form of fascism, socialism, totalitarianism and over-mothering.
“The belief that liberals believe as fascists do that the state should control almost everything is simply not true. Liberals may favor bailouts for auto companies to keep them running with full employment, but they don’t favor government-run auto companies.”
The CNN reporter asked about health care.
“That’s an exception. An overwhelming majority of Americans favor Medicare, including many classified as conservatives. Those conservatives are the ones who say government doesn’t create jobs. My God, think of the military-industrial complex. You want to talk jobs.”
This drew a stirring in the audience and eventually a tidal wave of applause.
Brooking hearkened back to FDR’s militant and optimistic spirit, and cited some modern day liberals as in bondage to their corporate donors. But, he added, the work goes on.
At this point German insisted the party was over and Brooking exited to sustained applause. Iowa left him in fine spirits.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
After a few days back in Washington, Brooking used his cell phone to call his father.
“I wanted to check on Ben, whatever his name is now.”
“He’s doing great, Bruce. His name is Hans Bruger. He’s serving as our intern and he’s a great help. I don’t know how we got along without him.”
“What about his education?”
“We’re taking care of that. We’re teaching him German and so is a girl his age, Helga Berger. He’s a quick study, and the four of us spend time chatting away in German, just like Rhinelanders. Sometimes we get together with Helga’s parents and the six of us chatter in German, although they have a preference for English. It was hard for them to believe that a boy named Hans Bruger couldn’t speak German. Incidentally, he’s seventeen now, a strapping young man.”
“Dad, I couldn’t be happier by your report. Just keep his nose to the grindstone.”
“No worry about that. He gets around the dig and increasingly brings us useful information. More now that his German’s improving. Everyone seems to like him. Your Mom and I each spend 45 minutes a day on his studies, seven days a week. The Germans have a small chapel service on Sunday, and he attends that too. You know we’re not far from that mountain where Noah’s Ark was supposedly found, or where it landed as the water receded.”
“You believe that, Dad?”
“Did you call to discuss theology?”
“I didn’t.”
“What’s the state of the union?”
“Still afloat.”
“We need you over here, Bruce. The two of us won’t last forever. This is a lifetime task, more than a lifetime. You can carry on, you and young Hans, or Ben, or the two of them.”
“Don’t count me out.”
Renee Camus seemed to do well at what she did, women’s issues, but Brooking thought some of her actions, not actions really, but things she said, things that entered her mind, were peculiar. He asked Tarot to check up on her private life.
“I will do it, Mr. President. But that’s not something that ninjas do best. If I can have a few bucks in cash for a private investigator, no one will ever know where it came from. We could work in tandem.”
So it was done.
Brooking was struggling with accomplishing anything in an election year. Sure he had Sen. Joe John Conner secretly on his side, but there was little to work with. There had been a clamor for end-of-life legislation. The medical profession’s ability to suspend life in a vegetable state had gotten on many nerves. The problem was that the minute such legislation was proposed the opposition raised the specter of “death squads.” It was a ticklish business, and no one had found the silver bullet. Certainly the AMA was less than helpful.
Over the last few days he had wrestled with the problem with the help of Curtis German.
“Why not name a committee or commission to study the problem and come up with a solution?” German had suggested.
“Come on Curt. That solution is so hackneyed. First of all, there would be a majority and a minority report, then the whole thing would simply be shelved.”
“Ok,” German agreed. “Drop it into Renee Camus’s lap, make it a woman’s issue. Get the right legislation, get the women behind it, it might pass.”
“Worth a try,” the President agreed, “you talk to her.”
“Not a chance. She resents the second string. She wants it from the horse’s mouth. You have to handle it.”
“There’s another way. Ducote is simply sitting around on his vice presidential ass. Why not let him and Renee take it on as a project?”
“Might work. Again, you talk to the two of them. Both are prima donnas.”
“I’ll check with Jairo first. If he’s agreeable, I’ll check with Renee.”
“Ok. What’s next on the agenda?”
“Politics. The way the polls are going I’m tempted to drop out. I have other options, you know.”
“Oh, my God, Mr. President. The entire administration, the Congress and your party, every last man and woman is counting on you to head the ticket. You’re a popular person. You’ve looked at the polls.”
“Yes, I have. They’re not overwhelming. You know I could carry the popular vote and still lose the election.”
“That’s always a possibility. The damned Electoral College. If you carried the populous states with an overwhelming majority, you could lose if the opposition picked up enough electoral votes. If the race was close, that’s true. Our job is to carry the country as a whole, swamp the opposition.”
Brooking sat back in his chair and rubbed his head. “Easier said than done. We seem to be faced with a moving target.”
German chuckled. “It would seem so. Whatever happened to the good old hard-core conservatives? Every time the presumptive candidate seems to take a stand the following day he waffles.”
“Weasel words. And they can outspend us. Of course I’ll stay to the end and do my best. I do have convictions. And I would like to see some sort of an end-of-life bill go through, but I have no idea what the final form might be. We need to get a few more doctors and clergymen on board, but maybe Jairo and Renee can handle that.”
“Meanwhile,” German said, “another big campaign trip in the making, this one to the solid South.”
Brooking smiled. “What the Nixon White House used to call the Cotton South. Jimmy Carter, a true Southerner, always wondered what he meant by that. His was the Peanut South. For others it was the Soybean South. Then there was the Boll Weevil South.”
Two days later Brooking visited his workout room before dawn. He had a hard time sleeping and was alone, save for Fancy, the tiger striped cat, who busied herself rubbing against his leg, then pawing his warm ups.
He was expecting Tarot for his usual workout. It was so much better when someone was there to egg him on. To his surprise, Renee Camus walked in, also in casual attire.
After a careful look at her, he asked, “What have you done with Tarot?”
“I told him you and I were going to have a conference.”
“That’s a surprise, but I did want to talk with you. I have a project that maybe you and the vice president can handle.”
“Jairo Ducote?” she questioned.
“He’s the only vice president I know of.”
“He’s a creepy womanizer. You should have shipped him back to the bayous.”
“He had that name. But I convinced him to live with his wife and hopefully be true to her. He’s a popular guy, good with the electorate and an able congressman. Can do. Gets things done.”
“And a trail of broken hearts. He’s damned lucky some of his exploits haven’t come back to bite him in the ass.”
“You know about the end-of-life legislation I’ve been struggling with.”
Renee smiled and cocked her head to one side. “What legislation?”
“Exactly, there is none. But I thought you and Jairo might get together and come up with a solution. It’s a natural woman’s issue. We need some medical folks and a few clergymen on board. If you’re in a coma and drooling at the mouth, life isn’t all that sacred.”
“I might give it a try, but not with that creepy VP. I’ll do it as your partner.”
