Author: Jed Mercurio
Category: Other
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This deduction did not wholly deliver him from fear. He became unusually tense, convincing his wife he was concealing a relapse of the back condition that had necessitated major surgeries three years earlier and which augured incapacity, plus the abrupt termination of his ambitions for higher office. Although the true cause of his irritability was the caesura in his womanizing, he would regard the prospect of losing the capacity to vent his sexual impulses with the same despair as he would losing the ability to walk.
While his daughter captivated him, he was becoming resentful of his life condensing into a suffocating matrix. Fidelity was making him a worse husband and father than when he was philandering, to the extent that he feared becoming as austere to his child as his own mother had been to him, and therefore some months following the arrival of their daughter he resumed his customary pursuit of additional sexual partners, discovering to his utmost relief that he could continue in this vein under the same conditions as prior to his daughter’s birth. He could be an object of greater constancy in his daughter’s life by virtue of the freedom not to be a constant presence in their home every night and every weekend, and a greater support to his wife because he no longer resented her as one resents a prison warden. Monogamy and parenthood were invented by moral authorities to sublimate the male sexual urge, but in his case the effect resembles pressurizing a gasoline tank.
Today he would regard theirs as an exceptionally happy family. Their daughter enjoys the love of two parents, the comfort of a secure home, and the constant attention of a doting father. When he looks back at those first moments he held his daughter, he realizes what he experienced was impotence, in the form of a repression of his freedom to fornicate, but resilience has won through: he did not desert his responsibilities to his family, nor did he destroy himself in the slow, withering bitterness of monogamy. Free from the dread and resentment of three years ago, he is able to welcome the birth of their next child.
His wife goes into labor three weeks early. On account of her obstetric history, the doctors take no chances and deliver the baby, a boy, by emergency cesarean section. Named John after his father, their son appears healthy, but as a precaution due to his prematurity he is placed in an incubator. His mother remains in the operating room while his father trails the pediatricians, the boy cradled by a nurse, and then the father gazes at the son as he is sealed inside the warm glass box, where he wriggles and howls, a pink quiver of life. When the subject returns to his wife, they share tears of joy; the families gather, and soon the hospital is inundated with gifts for their son, toys and clothes, bouquets for his wife, from friends, celebrities and dignitaries.
The subject’s visits to the hospital represent the first normal social encounters since the election two weeks ago. A few months earlier, he would have appeared a man of some distinction, but no one would have known his name, even if the face appeared somehow familiar. Now people respond to him in quite a different manner. They are nervous; they stumble over their words; they blush when he looks at them; some, he worries, go out of their way to avoid him, while others slink into nooks to watch as he marches within a phalanx of crew-cut bodyguards.
Naturally he’s curious about the women. A year ago he would have anticipated a certain reaction. He’s come to appreciate that he wears the demeanor of an alpha male. He stands just over six feet tall, with a tanned complexion that conveys rude health and sharply tailored suits that flatter his trim physique. He is blessed with thick, light-brown hair, in contrast to the grey heads and receding hairlines of many men his age. It is no vain posturing but a self-evident fact that he is a physically attractive man for his age, and exceptionally so for his status.
In the past, he could have expected some nurse to glance admiringly as he strolled by, or to smile if he caught her eye, or even to flirt a little bit if he happened to engage her in conversation, but today none of them show any such signs, instead dropping their eyes like Victorian servants if he so much as glances in their direction. A gulf has opened. He has become remote from women, an austere figure with whom sex is unattainable, and in these first encounters of this newest phase of his career as a philanderer, he experiences a plunging despair, not only because he is never unwatched, but from the realization that the nurses of Georgetown University Hospital must stand for all women the nation wide in that it appears not one would dare abandon her obeisance and go to bed with the newly elected President of the United States.
THE GULF
On account of the cesarean section, the doctors advise the First Lady-to-be to avoid activity that might strain her abdomen, and, though the President-Elect is deeply grateful for the well-being of his wife and newborn son, the resumption of marital sexual relations is denied. Throughout his adult life, the subject has become accustomed to regular sex, interrupted only by illness and service at sea. While we can debate the definition of “normal” activity, there can be no dispute over the subject’s habitual promiscuity, and therefore abstinence constitutes a dramatic change in his sexual routine.
Since his late teens, the subject has suffered toxic accumulations. Clearly it is a simple matter to achieve release single-handed, but he does not obtain much gratification from this practice. Afterward his spirit is withered by shame at a man of his age and status indulging in these tawdry acts instead of seducing a living, breathing woman. Seduction is a far more stimulating experience and thereby a more cleansing act of release.
As his wife’s convalescence continues, the denial of a sexual outlet challenges the subject’s emotional and psychological wellbeing. Within a few short weeks, the subject becomes depressed. First his prostate, already chronically inflamed following multiple venereal infections in his youth, grows tender from accumulated secretions. He feels weak, and day after day a headache builds. His endocrinologist notes a tremor and a drain of energy, so he suggests increasing the subject’s cortisone dose and adjusting his thyroxin prescription. It is important that the President-Elect appears energetic and vigorous at all times, so he complies with the physician’s instructions, swallowing pills morning and night in an effort to replace the natural flow of hormones his body is unable to produce as a result of Addison’s disease and an underactive thyroid gland. Replacement steroids cause water retention, making his face swell, so he calls Dr. J., a physician his wife nicknamed “Doctor Feelgood,” whom they’ve been consulting since last year, and the good doctor prescribes amphetamines, which boost the subject’s energy without the side effects he experiences from cortisone, conveniently leaving a supply of syringes and vials so he can self-administer shots to counteract the episodes of listlessness that overtake him in the afternoons following long and demanding meetings.
The closed sessions in such meetings allow him to focus on work, but there are women everywhere. Today he glimpses a pretty secretary through a doorway, sitting at her desk, lifting a telephone to her ear, and the idea appeals to him of strolling out at the end of the meeting and finding a quip to make her smile, after which her hand might run self-consciously through her hair, while he watches the sway of her breasts; she’d recognize his need, and perhaps eventually submit in a closet someplace, letting his hands work open the buttons of her crisp, white shirt. But she remains at her post, lost in the halls of his transitional offices, the President-Elect gazing at her across an impassable gulf. And, though he is alone, he is never alone, not for a single minute, as even in his office he is under surveillance by the Secret Service agents, and the casual opening of conversation with anyone, let alone an attractive young woman, is consigned to his past. His secretary used to leave spaces in his diary for assignations, but now it is only crammed with political appointments.
Today’s meeting concerns an island nation and its anti-American dictator against whom his predecessor struggled but never triumphed, thereafter approving a scheme to overthrow the new regime by plotting an invasion, though at this juncture he’s unable to influence progress to any significant extent, a power he will only acquire on taking
office next month.
Just as the President-Elect looks ahead to that day with anticipation, his daughter is excited in the way only a three-year-old can be, and her parents stress that helping her baby brother settle in will be a role of national importance, with the hope that this shameless favoritism will somehow compensate for his arrival overshadowing her birthday only two days later, since when she has veered between curiosity and jealousy for her infant sibling. She worries, for example, that her father will no longer read her bedtime story, to which he assures her that he will continue, though his new job means that he might not be free to do so every night, but on those nights that he is free she will hear two stories to make up for missing out. Later her questioning, which he regards as a far more challenging interrogation than the press ever mounts, branches into other areas of immediate concern regarding their move, such as, “Where will I play?”
The President-Elect states, “I can assure the young lady that under my administration play will improve,” but, more fearful of being caught out by this election promise than by any other, he instructs aides to make contact with the relevant people at the White House to ensure a room is converted into a playroom and to order the construction, at his personal expense, of some form of playground. When he receives confirmation that this will indeed happen as forecast, he breaks the news to his daughter with great pride, before proceeding with her bedtime story.
As she receives her goodnight kisses, she peers up curiously at his face and brushes her fingers on his cheek before he stands back in embarrassment, and he still feels his daughter’s curious touch as he and his wife ensure their son is sleeping soundly in the neighboring bedroom. The President-Elect stands over John Jr.’s cot, gazing down at him, touching his own cheek as their daughter did to explore its unnatural fleshiness and praying that his children do not inherit his curse.
The side effects of the increased cortisone dose include retained fluid, which puffs out the subject’s jowls so he remarks that he resembles “Philipon’s cartoons of King Louis-Philippe metamorphosing into a pear.” He feels ugly but manages to joke with his secretary, Mrs. Lincoln, a middle-aged lady who’s worked for him ever since his days as senator, that he wonders if the President’s fat face can be grounds for postponing the inauguration. “They say the camera adds fifteen pounds,” he says, “and with the number pointed at me that day I’ll look like the Graf Zeppelin.”
Mrs. Lincoln laughs. “Just so long as it isn’t the Hindenburg, Mr. President,” she says.
Long ago the subject could have chosen to make his ailments an alibi for ambition, but instead he has chosen concealment, for in overcoming them without pleading special treatment he has earned the right to be considered the fit, healthy, vigorous man he appears, while the truth would merely be exploited by opponents and doubters to bar his entry to office, reverting him to the lonely little boy reading history books in his sickbed while the other children got to run and play in the fresh air.
Similarly he presumes he’s not one of those men bound to soldier on to a ripe old age, given that his health has continued to deteriorate, with his back becoming increasingly tender and inflexible, his bowels prone to bouts of bellyache and bloody diarrhea, and his body in general exhibiting greater signs of Addison’s disease, as exemplified by his Palm Beach tan, which in certain lighting doesn’t capture quite enough brown to hide the yellow tinge. The reason he sought the presidency in his early forties, when his youth has been a disadvantage, is that his doctors cannot predict his physical state in four or eight years’ time. Ever since the mixed results of spinal surgery, the prospect of relentless deterioration has hung over him, and on days when the condition is so severe that he needs a painkilling injection every six hours to spare being crippled by discomfort—on days like those he recognizes the possibility that it might not be many years before he’s wheelchair-bound, paralyzed, incontinent and impotent, and given that he cannot alter the future, he must derive as much as possible from the present in regard to the pleasures of physical capability.
But, rather than his denial of infirmity giving license to romp through the wet grass, he commits himself to a schedule of meetings stretching from morning till evening. The President-Elect aims to assemble a court of the best and brightest in the land: to slow down, to take a long lunch and then spend the afternoon in a warm bath unlocking the seized hinges of his back might mean he would miss out on one of those brightest and best, as would the country, so in this cause he invites intellectuals, historians, economists and more to his transitional offices or calls them personally, sounding the same clarion call to each, that he intends to use his time in office to establish a partnership between the world of power and the world of thought, since the men who create power make an undeniably important contribution to the country’s greatness, but the intellectuals who question power can make a contribution just as important, as they can help determine how that power is used. Soon the word is out: the drab, grey days are fading and spring is coming, a spring in which the most colorful flowers can bloom: and even the most cynical in the universities and corporations feel the pull toward public service, a sensation they’ve never experienced before, but one the President-Elect has borne all his adult life, which now climbs toward its zenith. One after another these men feel the pull, and they join.
There are women in the workplace, and the smart ones realize a woman’s sex can overcome even the most powerful man, that in fact the two attributes, female beauty and male power, are often an equal and felicitous match. He would imagine there must be some of those secretaries who believe they’ve got enough to tempt him into bed, if only he could get through the phalanx of bodyguards to send a secret signal that he is not a tedious monogamist.
He welcomes an assignation being initiated by the woman; in fact, he regards a moment of eye contact, a smile, or a greeting to constitute “initiation.” Equally the subject is not at all reticent about being first to suggest sex: ordinarily it is his modus operandi. But he finds himself imprisoned. Sexual toxins circulate in spiraling abundance, causing headaches, nausea and muscle spasms, and the occasional sight of a physically appealing woman releases a spigot somewhere inside that pours more of the effluent into the subject’s system, inflaming his already inflamed genital tubing, so that his prostate surgeon prescribes him a short course of antibiotics to ward off infection of the urinary tract, while Dr. Feelgood advises him the best remedy is ejaculation, not through facile masturbation, but through the process of full sexual intercourse with a stimulating partner, as the only certain method of releasing the suppurating juices that have been accumulating for weeks without remission.
Dr. Feelgood is alone among the subject’s physicians in comprehending that the subject is experiencing withdrawal symptoms, an observation diagnostic of addiction.
The President-Elect and the First Lady to-be resume sexual relations, but what is a medical tonic for him is an insult for her, the cesarean scar remaining sore and her womb bruised, causing her to find the experience too uncomfortable to bear, so he must apologize and kiss her on the cheek, while she reassures him that she has not been injured, only suffering a transient discomfort, and he shuffles off of her and limps to the en-suite, where he discharges the suppuration before flushing with a bitterly ungratified pull of the chain.
One must wonder why his wife does not gently probe the subject’s practices, and that is because the newspapers are not alone in maintaining decorum. Even between husband and wife, there remain grounds not to be trespassed; the subject never took a vow, marital or otherwise, to forgo privacy. Just as children will misbehave, men and women will have affairs: the trick is not to give them attention. A spouse shouldn’t need to know what goes on in the privy, so he or she doesn’t open the door, and ignores the noises.
He returns to bed unable to sleep, because the toxins are already reaccumulating, pounding his head and inflaming his back and bowels and tubing. It is the night before his inauguration, with heavy snow falling,
an excuse to escape parading his steroidal face before the world, but he doesn’t want an escape—he is ready to take office and begin the great work of his life. Before he slumbers, his mind, descending to unconsciousness, imagines a field of lights going dark, and then in his dreamlike state he realizes phrases from his predecessor’s valedictory address are becoming confused, as he pictures the Old Bastard recalling his vision of our country as a thousand points of light. The Old Bastard floats on a podium, in some kind of auditorium filled with men in uniform, saying, “I am about to get on with the rest of my life,” but then the image changes, like a TV changing channels, and he is seated in the Oval Office, his eyes probing a TV camera, saying, “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought . . .” before he disappears in a fog of interference, while the President-Elect wonders to whom he addresses this caution, if anyone, or if it is merely a message he has imagined. Then he sleeps, as the missiles in their silos sleep.