The President's Palm Reader: A Washington Comedy

by Robert MacLean

  “Now:

  “What is the truth?”

  He nodded and looked around, took a stance well back from the podium and leaned on it.

  “Well, the truth is, we have had ourselves a tidy little administration here these last few months. Tidy little administration. This has been a half-year of progress and development for America. We are, once again, the America we need to be.”

  There was applause for this.

  “We got the economy looking so healthy we are a positive danger to the newly emergin’ foreign markets. I see—I tell ya, I see an America comin’ up real soon, an America so wealthy that everybody’s gone be able to go back to the country of his ethnic origin and bah it!”

  Good laugh. Unrestrained laugh.

  “Soon’s we get the Wall Street computer under control.”

  Another laugh. He had them.

  “And we’re doin’ that! We’re working on developments that will have a positive advantage for all of us. We got a weapons program crawlin’ through Congress”—he looked around bitterly—”that’s all digital! All cybernetic. And the spill-over, huh! We gone be sittin’ around at the beach with our feet up while the robots do all the work!”

  Laugh.

  “Never have to blow your own nose again!”

  Big laugh. Big big laugh, in the midst of which he shouted, “Oh, we got programs!”

  He shifted his footing and traded glances with some of his key people.

  “Look at the progress we made in our relations with the Russians.”

  Applause. Brief but firm.

  “And if we don’t have the Russians, how we gone hold off the Japanese?”

  Laughter, overtaken by a wave of applause.

  He rose up over the ovation and thumped the podium with his finger. “We done a lot for this countrah!”

  It was a big audience and everybody was making noise. He was right! Things weren’t that bad! The applause was cheerful, confident.

  “But,” he said, almost interrupting it.

  They settled down real quiet.

  “Ha’ever.”

  Here it came. The bill.

  “We do have a little problem. We got ourselves a iddy biddy little problem. A weak link, as you may say, in the executive branch of the federal govamint.”

  He came forward.

  “And that weak link—”

  He stepped back and held the pulpit, hung his head and hated himself.

  “—is the President. Now I know—”

  He held up a hand.

  “I know. I know I’m betrayin’ the President by saying so, I know that.

  “But the time has come for me to speak out! I told you I was gone tell the truth.” He accused us with a finger. “Didn’t I tell you that?”

  Tense silence. Coughs as in church.

  “It is true we been makin’ solid progress in this administration, but there has been: consistent; and intense: opposition, to that progress.

  “Where? From who?

  “From the President.

  “Now, you will ask, why?

  “Why has the President so consistently opposed everything good that this administration has accomplished? Why has he separated himself from the rest of us?

  “Is it because he has a clear policy direction of his own?”

  He shrugged.

  “No! Why, he doesn’t even sign the bills that come over from Congress for his endorsement! They just pile up!

  “I asked him why he doesn’t sign ‘em and he said he banged his elbow on the bathroom door and couldn’t write nothin’. Swingin’ his arm to smooth his deodorant around.”

  Low laugh.

  “Probly don’t understand ‘em is what it is. It don’t matter, they go into law anyway but you see what I mean.

  “People say the President is wore out by the responsibilities of his office, weh-hell,” he tapped his chest, “I: have been carryin’ the load of the presidency. Ah mahself drafted the terms of our agreement with Moscow, in partnership with the Cabinet, and where was the President?

  “Suckin’ his finger. It’s all been me.

  “Well then, is it because he is a resolute individualist? A powerful lone figure in statecraft?

  “Again I say, no!

  “He can’t even decide nothin’! He can’t act! He can’t handle Congress!

  “He allows Congress to impinge on his authority to act independently! His God-given constitutional authority to act independently when he has to!

  “They push him around! Why even his own Chief of Staff don’t pay him no mind!”

  He turned to half of the room.

  “What we have here in an impotent President.”

  He turned to the other half.

  “A dud.

  “A President with two powers, and two powers only. One of ‘em is the veto. He vetoed our own arms program after it passed Congress!”

  He shook his head.

  “Our own program.

  “Just for hell’ry, he don’t know what he’s doin’.

  “After that we couldn’t get the two thirds we needed to push it through. That’s what we’re dealin’ with here.”

  No way he was going to bail the President out, that was abundantly clear. Hearing him say this stuff was worse than reading the script. Only question now was how deep he could bury him.

  They were entranced. Mouths hung open as at the movies. Even Norman seemed lifted above his pain.

  Across the stage at the far wall stood Fes. You can usually tell the Secret Servicemen at these things. They’re the ones who aren’t paying attention. Their heads swivel like department store video cameras. But Fes listened with a drooping lower lip.

  He had begun to understand. At my urgent suggestion, at my strongest possible suggestion he had got himself stationed here and had supervised the preliminary combing over of the location. The President was in trouble but being his favorite was still status with the Service and he’d swung it.

  “Two powers I said he had! Want to know the other one? We got a light colonel follows him around, just down the hall at all times, and it’s his responsibility to carry the code box. Sleeps with it!

  “But the President gits it off him and fools with it! I tell you that soldier’s havin’ a breakdown, I don’t like to see it—just ‘cause the President likes to scramble the airplanes and make ‘em go in to drop the bombs!”

  The audience gasped as one.

  “He could blow us sky-high!”

  A swell of frightened murmurs.

  “Huh! He’d never press the button! Him? He dudn have what it takes to in-voke America’s power! He just—”

  He swallowed. One hand came up to grip the podium. Strange leaps in loudness had begun studding his speech. People turned in their seats to see who he might be shouting at.

  “He just likes to play around and pretend,” he said, squeezing his tone out even. The depths of his eyes were somewhere else. The podium quivered under his hold on it and he steadied it quickly, refocused himself.

  “That’s the man we got sittin’—Sittin’ in the big chair.

  “Now:” He turned the page and hung on. Here it was. “Now: just what kinda man—We talkin’ about? What kinda cool? What kinda courage? What kinda control?”

  I couldn’t stop him. Not now.

  “Well I’ll tell you what kinda control we’re talkin about. What kinda cool response. Y’all remember a certain speech the President made when he was campaignin’ for the candidacy?”

  They remembered. Everybody knew that speech. Not what he’d said but the way he’d come out.

  It was one of those New England states where if you win the primary you’re almost guaranteed to win the nomination and the President was nervous. So nervous that he went to the toilet about ten times and while he was standing at the urinal he inadvertently made water down one leg of his pants.

  Fortunately he was alone in there. I mean if it ever got out! Even the campaign workers mustn’t know.

&nbs
p; He ran to the door and secured it, stuck his head into the hall and whisper-shouted for his campaign manager. Reb. When he squeezed through the door the President closed it tight and displayed himself helplessly, soaked to the sock. He tried Reb’s pants but they were a mile too big, he looked like a clown. The other workers were already out front swelling the numbers, it was time to go on! There were no other pants!

  Well, Reb was equal to the moment. He stepped into the hall and came back with a bucket of water. It was an old theatre and in accordance with some theatre-type superstition the fire buckets had been retained. Reb threw water all over the President, dragged him into the wings and pushed him onstage.

  Drenched and dripping puddles, the humiliated candidate squished out there before the stern-faced hay-yapping deciders of his fate. “This,” he said, reaching the microphone, “is my staff’s idea of a joke.”

  Ten seconds of bare-nerve silence passed while they took it in and then the humor hit and they laughed themselves lame. They couldn’t clap hard enough! They loved this man! His staff loved him!

  And he loved his staff, you bet. At the convention he made Reb his running mate and Reb had held the thing over him ever since. This was the secret he kept so dark.

  And well he might. A President who plays Russian roulette with the attack system, all right, but a President who wets his pants?

  “HE WENT WEE WEE ALL OVER HISSELF!” Reb screamed.

  There was a stunned and prolonged silence.

  “I ALMOST DROWNDED HIM COVERIN’ HIM UP!”

  It was an awful moment. Rarely had the nation been so horrified. The curtain was coming down for the President.

  “Now, you will say, all right. Could happen to anybody. You can’t—uh. What are you gone say?”

  He paused, dominated by his breathing, until he found his rhythm.

  “Well I say: I won that election for him! He wouldn’t evena bin the President if I hadn’t won that election for him!

  “I was just doin’ my job, all right. But I was DOIN’ my job! And now I’m doin’ HIS!”

  He was barely present, I could see it in his eyes.

  “Now:

  “What are we gone do?”

  He turned to the other half of the audience.

  “What are we gone do?

  “Well, the bi-partisan committee has established cause for impeachment, and will shortly make its recommendation.

  “We have capable people READY: to step in and close up the gap. Fellah by the name of Wayne Tupper—”

  He paused and nodded while a spell of spontaneous applause went up and W.T. stood, bowed his head twice, sat.

  “And I feel we need somebody—We need somebody from the press in the govamint. Gone name a prominent member of the press to one of our vacant po-sitions, ain’t gone say just who yet. Somebody with a north’n accent.”

  Laugh. They were with him. Never had such world-wide attention been trained on one man. On two men—boxers, debaters—but never on one man.

  His breathing was leveling out. Not calmer but smoother. Sliding. The moment was coming.

  “Because the President”—he was sweating—“the President”—breathing like a runner—“thinks he was born for this job! Raised for it like a”—he looked around, licked his upper lip—“like a prize pig! He thinks he is the President, well—We gone see about that!”

  One hand was under there working. “The people,” he panted, pounding the podium with the other, “the people decide that!”

  The podium staggered, wavered. He was surprised but not all the way surprised. Not there.

  Now! The moment was now!

  I looked at Shoop who was already gliding along the wall to the stage.

  But they wouldn’t let him by! A news crew was squatting by an impromptu camera and someone stood up with his arms out and wouldn’t let him pass!

  Norman had got him in that afternoon to hang the Seal after the sound guys put in the mikes, he had enough pull left to do that. Told him I’d turn him in if he didn’t. Shoop had pried the podium apart and put it back together with art-period paste, it was standing there by force of habit. He’d run a trip wire across the carpet, invisible among all the mike cables and Fes had taken charge of the dais and carefully left everything alone. All Shoop had to do was touch the wire and this was the moment!

  A Service guy came down and turned him away with his tray and he stared over at me like it was my fault! Nothing works with you! his look said.

  Terror strained Norman’s face.

  “The possibility. Of impeachment.” The boosts in volume were getting regular. “Is becoming.” He looked around. “The fact. Of impeachment.”

  It was the moment!

  Fes. “Fes!” I shouted, stupidly, behind glass and accoustic tiles. I waved at him. Found a light and turned it on so he could see me.

  Spectators turned to look.

  “What are you doing?” said Belton.

  Come here! I gestured.

  Fes squinted at me.

  I waved wildly. Imperiously.

  “WE BEEN PUSSYFOOTIN’ ON THIS ISSUE—”

  “What are you doing?” Belton demanded.

  Huh? Fes looked.

  You utter oaf! I gestured. Come HERE!

  His face hung at me, limp and inqusitive.

  “THE PIMPLE’S GETTIN READY TO POP!”

  “Turn that light off!”

  You low-brid! You thunderingly stupid zit-brain! I waved. COME HERE! I pointed downward to indicate HERE.

  Belton reached for the switch and I grabbed his hand and thrust across with my left and grabbed his other hand. We struggled as for a knife.

  “AND I SAY GOOD ON HIM!”

  Drawn as by thought transference, the awe of the uncomprehending in his face, Fes now hove himself from the wall and, guided by his gaze, began to cross the room towards us.

  “AND THAT’S NO PROBS T’ALL—”

  Belton forced me back and hit the switch. Darkness. Technicians restrained us.

  “WE HAVE REACHED—”

  Alternately watching his footing and looking up at the booth Fes moved around the news crew, Baby Huey among humanoids.

  “—THE DECIDING POINT: WILL WE—”

  He picked up speed as the darkness in the booth persisted and stumbled on a microphone cable.

  “—GO FORWARD—”

  He didn’t fall. Not Fes. He kicked the cables with all the duh-where-do-you-want-this-piano-Ma force that accident can contrive and bent anxiously to inspect the damage.

  “—TO A NEW DESTINY—”

  Pieces of podium lay like cards on the floor. Flat.

  “—OR WILL WE—”

  Behind it, or rather, no longer behind it, tilted slightly forward, still forming his next word, a look of executive indulgence verging on impatience dawning in his face, stood the Vice President, hose in hand.

  So sudden was the change in perspective—a flick of the film while the reel changed—and so complete, it was a little difficult to realize what he was actually doing. Holding.

  Fes gaped up at him. Stood staring.

  “Ah,” said the Vice President. A dispassionate remark. A comment on a point raised in discussion.

  “Ah,” he said again, perhaps more urgently.

  “Ah,” he said. His left arm came around to hold the podium. Useless. Not there.

  “Ah.” The lights, the audience. The vistas opening up. He seemed divided against himself, as who is not?

  “Ah!” A cry of pain but also perhaps not a cry of pain. The jacket wouldn’t come around, he didn’t even try.

  “Oh.” He was right there. There could be no going back. You get to this point where, you know, you can’t.

  “Ho, Jesus, I—OH!” His thigh came up and across, Chubby Checker-style.

  “AH!” he insisted. “AH! OH, G- OH!” He wrenched around the other way, no doubt strafed by clarity, trying to cram it back into his pants.

  “OH, PL- AH!” He turned every which way and then
went rigid, bug-eyed, bending but not bending, arm out, trembling stiffly, a statue on a train. His eyelids descended.

  24.

  The media were unable entirely to disguise the nature of the Vice President’s seizure.

  And then, news being news, not everyone tried.

  Anchor people spoke haltingly and then clinically about what might have been taking place and even those who were inclined to throw a cloak of respectability over the episode were outfaced by certain salient features. When the grip of the experience relaxed it had dropped him hunched and spent to his knees. At the last possible moment he had succeeded in forcing his little friend back into his fly but there was a Dream Whip stain on his pants the size of Australia and when he was led off to hospital he didn’t seem to know anybody.

  It must have been the come of his career.

  In the Times and the Post nervous editorials speculated on the sort of personality distortion the demands of office could produce. George Will invoked Nietzsche and wondered if there might be such a thing as going too far to the right.

  The national sense of a gap at the top deepened. Feeling was now general that the President was unfit to preside. Cartoonists drew him in diapers and rubber pants. And with the Vice President in an observation ward it wasn’t clear who might be capable of taking over.

  His office issued a statement that some chemical in the food caused him periodically to go cross-eyed and have spasms and called for an investigation of the catering service. But the country was too dispirited even to be skeptical. Morose, call it.

  The Secretary of State assured everyone that he was in charge but this only touched off a debate about the order of precedence and he was obliged, at least until impeachment, to jerk his hand back from the buffet. These were terrible days.

  There were break-ins at Belton’s studio and apartment and he confessed in televised interviews that whoever was responsible—the FBI, the CIA, the Mafia, a commando force of ex-marines sent by the President himself—was after material to discredit him. For, yes, Belton was the journalist Reb had spoken of who was to take a role in the new administration

  And here was a glimmer of hope! Belton Haines! The nation’s watchdog against white bread! The Ralph Nader of television! He would know how to deal with big government, the corporate conglomerates, the Chinese! Belton Haines was the country’s best chance!