Josiah for President

by Martha Bolton

  Bart finally answered his phone.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Bart, this is Mark Stedman. Harley around?”

  “He’s right here. Would you like to speak with him?”

  “Yes, I would. Thanks.”

  Bart switched the phone to speaker and handed it to Harley.

  “It’s Mark,” he said.

  Harley seemed almost giddy with anticipation, practically salivating over the possibility of locking in Stedman’s endorsement.

  “Mark,” Harley said, “have you finally come to your senses and decided to endorse my candidacy?”

  “Well, that’s what I’m calling you about, Harley.”

  Harley raised his eyebrows and nodded to Bart, signaling, Bart assumed, forthcoming good news.

  “I just wanted to let you know that we’re moving full speed ahead with our campaign.”

  “The Amish man? Come on, Mark. You’re not serious about that, are you? About your Josiah for President charade?”

  “Quite the contrary, Harley. We’re more determined than ever. Oh, and FYI — it will be the Stoltzfus-Stedman ticket.”

  “Oh, this is precious,” Harley said, almost laughing. “You’re running with him now, are you?”

  “I thought I would, yes.”

  “I won’t forget this, Stedman. When I’m elected — and I will be — I won’t forget this. You’re burning your bridges. You know that, right?”

  “See you at the debates.”

  Bart watched Harley as he ended the call. It looked like he needed something to steady his nerves.

  “Eat yet?” Harley asked Bart.

  “No, sir.”

  “Get the car. We’re going to Nadine’s Diner, that place just outside the beltway. Her blue-plate special is just what I need.”

  AS HE LEFT THE OFFICE WITH BART, HARLEY BROUGHT ALONG the proposed budget legislation he needed to peruse and sign before morning. He’d been putting off reading it for weeks now, but the final deadline was here. He figured he’d have some time during the stimulating lunchtime conversation he’d surely share with Bart to glance through its thirteen hundred typed pages. If he couldn’t finish reading it, he’d go ahead and sign it, then read it later, as he often did with lengthy bills.

  But to be honest, he wouldn’t read the budget later either. Harley liked to promise things to himself like that. He enjoyed trying to see if he could pull the wool over his own eyes.

  “What’s the special today?” Harley asked the waitress, who set two glasses of water on the table and retrieved her order pad from her pocket. She was new to Nadine’s and didn’t seem to recognize Harley at all. Not recognizing Harley cut her tip in half right out of the gate.

  “What day is it?” the waitress asked, not-so-discreetly scooting her gum over to one side of her mouth.

  “Tuesday,” Bart said.

  “Then it’s meat loaf.”

  “That was yesterday’s special, wasn’t it?” Harley said.

  “I know.”

  “So what’s on special tomorrow?”

  “Meat loaf,” she said.

  “Is meat loaf the special every day?” Harley couldn’t believe he’d never noticed this before.

  “On Thursdays, it’s chicken.”

  “So Thursday’s the only day chicken’s on special? Why’s that?”

  “That’s when we run out of meat loaf. You fellas gonna order or not?”

  Harley was too hungry to go anywhere else, so he ordered. “All right. We’ll take two meat-loaf specials,” he said, not allowing Bart the option of choosing his own meal. “What all is in it, anyway?” he asked the waitress.

  “Trust me, it goes down a lot easier when you don’t know what’s in it,” she said. “I apologize for the menu, though. It’s about as exciting as the election, huh?”

  The waitress didn’t realize what she had just said and to whom she had just said it, but Harley figured the barb was mostly aimed at the other candidates, so he let it slide.

  “But that Amish fella looks kinda interesting,” the waitress said before closing her order book and gathering up the menus. “I tell ya, we need some fresh meat in the White House. No more of that same ole dried-out, hard-to-swallow, something-don’t-smell-right stuff they’ve been dishing up for us lately! So two meat-loaf specials, then?”

  Harley grimaced. “Maybe I’ll just have the salad.”

  The waitress changed Harley’s order, then walked toward the kitchen. Harley reached into his briefcase and took out the budget, turned to the signature page, signed it, then put the document back.

  “You’re not even going to read it, sir?” Bart asked.

  “It goes down a lot easier when you don’t know what’s in it,” Harley said.

  “WE’LL LEAVE FOR LOS ANGELES FIRST THING IN THE MORNING,” Mark said to Josiah after making a few more quick calls to notify key personnel and the media that the campaign was on and that he would be Josiah’s running mate.

  “I’ve never been to Los Angeles,” Josiah said.

  “No, I don’t suppose there are a lot of Amish living in LA.”

  The truth of that statement struck Josiah as quite humorous, and he began to chuckle.

  “Hang on to your hat, Josiah,” Mark said. “By this time tomorrow, you’ll have seen things you never thought you’d see.”

  But first they had to get there.

  MARK AND JOSIAH MOVED THROUGH THE AIRPORT SECURITY line, which seemed unusually long, considering it wasn’t a holiday. Finally it was Josiah’s turn. He stepped up to the TSA agent and showed the man his identification card. The agent checked it out.

  “Step into the body scanner, sir.”

  Josiah looked at a man in front of him whose hands were raised in the air as he stood in the scanner and was given a full-body X-ray. Josiah turned to the agent.

  “No, thank you,” he said.

  “You want the pat-down, then, sir?” the agent asked.

  “No, I don’t believe I do.”

  “You have to choose one, sir, or you can’t fly.”

  “Okay,” Josiah said but continued standing there without another word or step toward the machine.

  “You do want to fly, correct, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then which security measure would you like us to use?”

  “The one you were doing twenty years ago when I flew to Florida.”

  “We weren’t doing either of these, sir. In fact, we weren’t doing much of anything twenty years ago.”

  “I’ll take that,” Josiah said. He looked back at Mark, who was busy putting his own carry-on luggage through the scanner.

  When Mark looked up, Josiah caught his eye and shrugged his shoulders. Mark glanced down at his watch before walking over to Josiah.

  “Josiah, our flight to LA leaves in thirty minutes. Just do what he says,” Mark pleaded.

  Reluctantly Josiah agreed to the pat-down. The TSA agent escorted him to the examination area and asked him to spread his legs and hold his arms out to his side.

  To Josiah’s dismay, the agent then ran his gloved hands along the outside frame of his body and along his inner thighs. Josiah couldn’t understand why anyone, much less himself, would consent to be subjected to such an uncomfortable and embarrassing violation of his privacy, but he kept his opinion to himself. Security for air travel post-9/11 was a valid issue, he figured, so he went along with it.

  Mark, who’d chosen to walk through the scanner, was also giving Josiah “Hurry up” hand signals, indicating that Josiah needed to comply with the agent so they could get to their gate in time.

  Once the TSA agent completed his task, Josiah gathered up his things, and then he and Mark left the security area and started making their way toward their gate. As they walked, Mark turned to Josiah. “You didn’t leave anything behind back there, did you?”

  “Only my dignity,” Josiah said.

  The two men continued down the corridor toward the plane that would take them to Cal
ifornia.

  Boarding the plane with about ten minutes to spare, Josiah and Mark settled into their seats for the four-and-a-half-hour flight. Josiah leafed through a magazine he found in the seat pocket in front of him and then decided his time was better spent in prayer.

  It was a pleasantly smooth flight, and when the plane landed at Los Angeles International Airport, Josiah stepped onto California soil for the first time in his life. Walking through the airport, he got an eyeful of West Coast culture when a punk rocker walked by with a girl Josiah assumed was his girlfriend. The rocker sported a Mohawk and various body piercings, and his girlfriend had psychedelic pink hair and metal chains hanging from various parts of her clothing. Josiah couldn’t help but do a double take.

  “Are we still on our planet?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” Mark replied.

  “I don’t have to dress like that to win this state, do I?”

  “Why? You don’t think pink hair is the right color for you?” Mark laughed.

  Josiah gave him a look that answered that question, then said, “To each his own.”

  “Believe it or not, there are a lot of good people in this state who agree with your message,” Mark said. “You’re doing well in the polls here. And look,” Mark said as they walked by the airport magazine racks, “your look seems to be catching on.”

  It had been well over a month since Mark had first introduced his Amish candidate to the nation, and if the airport magazine racks were any indication, the fashion-conscious trendsetters of California had apparently welcomed the offbeat addition to the election process with open arms.

  “Are they mocking us?” Josiah said, as he glanced over the various magazine covers featuring Amish fashion and buggy images.

  “Mocking you? Are you kidding? They love you! Why, celebrities would sell their souls for this type of media coverage.”

  “If that’s true, then they put too low a price on their souls.”

  “Well, not all of them. But your look has caught on here,” Mark explained. “Californians are usually the first ones to jump on any new trend — fashion or otherwise. And it would appear they’ve jumped!”

  From the valleys to the shops along Hollywood and Vine to Rodeo Drive, Amish fever was apparently spreading like a Southern California wildfire. Local newspapers heralded Amish-themed headlines, such as “Amish Is In!” “Aprons Are Hot!” and “Buggy Sales Surge!”

  Something was definitely happening.

  True to form, the late-night talk-show hosts had also been cashing in on the Josiah craze. One popular host even walked onto the stage wearing suspendered pants and a wide-brimmed hat in honor of Josiah’s visit to the Golden State. And a well-known pop star’s newest recording, “Amish Love,” immediately began climbing the Billboard charts after its hurried release.

  Apparently, California not only knew about the mystery Amish man long before Josiah ever stepped off the plane; they had embraced him and his fresh and most unusual candidacy. Democrats, Republicans, the rich, the middle class, the poor, and the famous — people from all walks of life in California seemed to be fascinated with the Plain man who would be president. His candidacy was a novelty, to be sure, but it had caught on and was gaining steam in the western state. Who knew how long it would last? For now, Josiah had viral momentum.

  Mark seemed to be basking in it. Josiah just felt overwhelmed. And he missed Elizabeth.

  STORMCLOUD44/BLOG

  Speak before you are silenced. Hold fast to the ideas that unite us before they are lost forever in their Sea of Babble. The waves of their aggression have not drawn back to the sea. They roll over our souls and leave us to wither on the hot sand of time. Are you with me? Or have you already been silenced? Have you already allowed the shutting down of your minds? Have you resigned yourselves to the lesser good and wired your future to their oppressive motherboard? Am I the only one who cares about our future? Who will stand with me, shoulder to shoulder, and say, “We will take it no more”?

  AS MARK AND JOSIAH MADE THEIR WAY THROUGH LAX TO THE baggage-claim area, people started recognizing Josiah. They began cheering him, high-fiving him, and even pledging to give him their votes.

  Josiah looked uncomfortable with all the attention he was getting. Mark knew he was used to his quiet life back on his farm, where, Mark assumed, no one had ever high-fived him before.

  The campaign was now moving very fast. And this was only the beginning. Officially, anyway. Josiah might be new to his own campaign, but thanks to Mark’s efforts, it had already been in motion for weeks before he even knew about it.

  Mark led Josiah to the airport limo that took them to their hotel. On the way, Josiah wondered aloud, “I sure hope I’m half the man they think I am.”

  Mark looked out the limo’s window at all the car taillights as they pulled onto the 405 freeway and basically came to a dead standstill. California freeways had always frustrated him. Why did the state waste money on speed-limit signs when they were so seldom applicable? Either there was too much traffic to go anywhere near the speed limit, or there was no traffic at all, and everyone used the speed limit as the minimum speed they should drive.

  Stressing over the traffic wasn’t helping, though, so he turned his attention back to Josiah. “What was it you said?” he asked.

  “I said I hope I’m half the man they think I am,” Josiah repeated.

  “You are. No doubt in my mind.”

  “I hope so.”

  It was the first time Mark had stopped to wonder if Josiah had anything in his past that could come up to bite them. Mark had simply assumed that he’d found the perfect candidate and that vetting him would simply be a matter of protocol rather than a necessity. Still, he did need to know.

  “Well, I realize this is a stupid question, but once we start gaining momentum, it’s an open invitation for our opponents to rev up their attacks. So I need to ask … is there anything I should know about? Anything in your closet?”

  A puzzled look came across Josiah’s face. He looked down at his Amish clothing. “Just more of these,” he said, “but they all look alike.”

  “I’m talking about skeletons, secrets, that sort of thing. Anything I need to know about?”

  “Well, I did have rumspringa in my youth.”

  “Rumspringa?”

  “It’s an Amish tradition. It’s where we leave the Amish community and live in the outside world for a while before deciding whether to join the church.”

  “Right, right. You told me about that.”

  “But your world didn’t hold anything for me.”

  “And Elizabeth?”

  “She didn’t even take a rumspringa. Stayed home on the family farm. She’s not the adventurous kind.”

  Mark was nearly satisfied. “Anything else?”

  “Not that I can think of,” Josiah assured him. “Why so many questions?”

  “In politics, we’ve been known to eat our own. Once the feeding frenzy starts, the media jumps on board, and, well, I wouldn’t want someone exposing anything that could hurt you or Elizabeth.”

  “Who would want to hurt us?”

  “Your enemies.”

  “But I have no enemies.”

  “You will now.”

  CHAPTER 15

  “WE’RE BACK IN THE GAME!” CARL SAID WHEN HE CALLED Mark the following day. “Our numbers are climbing again. We must be doing something right.”

  Carl’s assessment was correct. They were doing something right. Mark only wished he knew what that something was, so he could repeat it.

  “Maybe people are listening to Josiah’s message,” Mark said to Carl.

  Josiah’s message was simple, but it seemed to be resonating with the masses. Turning to Josiah, Mark added, “They trust you, Josiah, and what you represent — simplicity, truth, and honor. You’re the perfect candidate.”

  “No one is perfect, Mark,” Josiah reminded him.

  “Well, you’re a lot closer than most.”


  “If I believed that, my friend,” Josiah said, “I would be the least perfect of all.”

  BECAUSE THEY WOULD BE CAMPAIGNING TOGETHER, MARK wanted his children to meet Josiah’s children and, of course, for the wives to meet as well. So he planned a family vacation to Lancaster County during one of Josiah’s trips home.

  Cindy and Elizabeth hit it off right from the start. Cindy loved Elizabeth and her kind and welcoming ways, and she was especially intrigued by the Amish woman’s time-management skills.

  “I thought my day was busy,” Mark heard Cindy say after she watched Elizabeth go through her morning routine. “How do you keep up with all you have to do?”

  “I rise early and go to bed early,” Elizabeth explained.

  “I rise early and go to bed late, and I still can’t get everything that’s on my plate done.”

  “Maybe you’re taking too big of scoops, jah?” Elizabeth said, smiling.

  Cindy didn’t take offense to Elizabeth’s advice, because Elizabeth hadn’t meant to intrude on Cindy’s life. The Amish woman was simply passing along something she’d learned herself about life and all-you-can-eat Amish buffets: “Only take what you can finish.”

  Mark’s kids helped Josiah’s children with their chores but admitted to finding farm life too much work for their video-game-softened bodies. They did, however, thoroughly enjoy a game of tag in the corn maze Josiah had made.

  All in all, the two families seemed to get along well, despite their different backgrounds. So well, in fact, that when it was time to hit the campaign trail again, groans of disappointment actually came out of Carrie and Seth’s mouths. Mark was both shocked and pleased to hear them.

  THE PRIMARIES WENT AS EXPECTED. AT LEAST THAT’S WHAT MARK told Josiah as they tracked the returns from the campaign headquarters in Wisconsin. It was all still a confusing blur to Josiah.

  Harley Phillips took his party’s nomination by a substantial margin and less than a week later asked his former opponent, Anne Kurtzfield, to be his vice-presidential candidate. She accepted.

  As for the opposing party, the incumbent had endorsed Governor Karen Ledbetter, and the governor had easily taken her party’s nomination. She chose Los Angeles mayor, Taylor Harper, as her running mate.