Author: Jed Mercurio
Category: Other
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None of this invective should necessarily be construed as a description of Marilyn, certainly not in her current incarnation, having been a starlet ten years ago but long since having surpassed the diminutive (in any sense of the word), and, on that evening in Los Angeles last July, when, having secured the Democratic nomination to seek the presidency, the subject addressing eighty thousand supporters in the Coliseum, it was abundantly clear there was no bigger, better deal in town. His wife was unable to fly to the convention, in accordance with medical caution regarding her pregnancy. His unaccompanied status ordinarily affords an opportunity to call up some old girlfriends and find a couple of new ones, but the intense, round-the-clock workload of horse-trading old votes and campaigning for new ones took precedence, so that he found himself in that dangerously vulnerable state of being alone in a hotel room late at night, ingesting painkillers with whiskey shots, each day growing more tired and more horny, till fortunately he encountered a coed volunteer: later, in private, taking her by the hand, she responded eagerly to the signal, after which he unzipped his fly and apologized that, owing to the convention schedule, there wasn’t time for foreplay.
The invigorating effect of her company was short-lived, however, and he continued to tire, to the extent that he became less forceful in his delivery on the convention floor, this weariness being an intractable problem at that time, prior to receiving the services of Dr. Feelgood, a problem irrecoverable by the roar of the crowd or the excitement of the occasion, since the adrenal surge that his rivals experience never visits him, so instead he relied on the sluggish metabolic shove of cortisone tablets, and in victory he was as much drained as elated, the ascent to the podium sapping his final reserves, whereupon, at a celebration thrown by mutual friends, Marilyn made a surprise appearance and in the possessiveness of her first kiss he understood she regarded his victory as hers too, and, though he should have known better, the subject was in no condition to resist. When a man grows accustomed to a woman sexually, he takes her for granted, beautiful or not, sex symbol or not, and, by virtue of his strict adherence to a policy of not being dazzled by her, he should not be blind to the reason for dumping her, which, in Marilyn’s case, was simply that she was the most photographed woman in the land and he was seeking election to its highest office.
But, now, in reading her card, he strives to recall that body, that face, those lips, feeling a surge of desire and curiosity as one would in discovering buried treasures. Though he doesn’t generally forget the loot he’s uncovered, as time passes, the memory becomes less vivid—less vivid visually but not semiotically—so that he can still ascribe the attribute but can’t quite picture it: the sharpness of her cheekbones, say, when he associates cheekbones with her beauty or the trimness of her stomach when he recalls her athletic figure, perhaps because these memories reside in the primitive pathways of his brain, where they made their first impression, and over a period of absence then a reversion occurs toward their first encounter when, in noticing the girl’s breasts or her rear, he felt that first surge of desire and curiosity. With Marilyn, although he does not deny being motivated partly by the challenge of bedding a sex symbol, an entry underlined on any womanizer’s curriculum vitae, irrespective of how good a lay she was per se: notwithstanding this consideration, the surge he felt in that moment of first meeting and later that moment of first intimacy was still the commonplace desire to explore what lay beneath the surface, but now, as he holds the card in his hand bearing her lipstick greeting, those wondrous discoveries have faded to a dim library of volumes he’s eager to reopen, once more bathed by a gush that ignites his inflamed tubing.
In the hall, he sees the pretty young aide again, advancing with a file of papers from the direction of the Press Staff offices, so he smiles and says, “Pierre’s working you too hard,” to which she blushes and halts in the guilty embarrassment of being caught by the hall monitor, while, presumably on hearing the President’s voice, the agent stationed outside his office turns to check to whom he’s talking and, hearing his name uttered by the President, the press secretary ventures out from his office, all of which causes the President to respond with embarrassment that propels him swiftly through the most immediate exit, the Fish Room (so named as President Roosevelt kept an aquarium here, and the President continues the tradition with a stuffed ten-foot sailfish he hooked off Acapulco—on his honeymoon, an auspice of bountiful catches untrammeled by married life), wherein he finds himself in yet another box, with yet another erection, contemplating how he’s fallen from a man who’s lain with goddesses to one forbidden to utter two words to an intern.
The subject has not suffered this degree of sexual abstinence in twenty years, causing headaches, nausea, diarrhea and urinary inflammation. That evening he hosts a diplomatic reception, with the First Lady resplendent in a new ball gown, charming as ever toward their guests, after which she helps him off with the back brace in their bedroom. He swallows two painkillers, plus his nightly cortisone dose, an antibiotic and a sleeping tablet, the last prescribed by Dr. T. because it also bears muscle relaxant properties. He brushes her belly but she winces, then she kisses him goodnight and rolls over to sleep, while he lies awake, coughing.
In the morning he’s desperate for fresh air, his clothes reeking of liquor and cigar smoke from last night’s reception, but he trudges along the West Colonnade hand in hand with his daughter, where she asks why the pond at the foot of the South Lawn, which has risen with melting snow, is not home to any ducks, because she remembers feeding the ducks when they lived in Georgetown, but what she doesn’t like about her big new house is that the ducks have gone away, so, after he’s kissed her bye-bye, he asks Mrs. Lincoln if they can’t get some ducks for the pond, to which she says, “What breed of ducks, Mr. President?”
“Ones that go ‘Quack,’” he says before proceeding into the Cabinet Room.
According to the CIA, the Joint Chiefs and some Cabinet members, a threat to national security is gathering abroad, in the form of dangerous and extremist ideology. They seem so strongly convinced the President begins to wonder if his toxemia has enslaved him to a delusion that the rationality of government has been usurped and the mice have taken over the experiment.
In the Residence that night, the President reads Caroline a bedtime story, while the First Lady tends to John Jr., who won’t settle, and, once he’s finished the story, the President goes to his lad, grateful that he’s awake so he can hold him while his wife kisses Caroline goodnight and turns out her light. The President carries John Jr. through to the Oval Room, wherein his wife sits on one of the central sofas and he slowly eases himself down into one of the chairs with a rigid, upright backrest, rocking the baby and letting him suckle his finger until he falls asleep, after which the President and the First Lady take supper in the dining room, the First Lady enjoying a glass of sauvignon with their meal, then a cigarette.
After dinner, the press aide returns to the President’s thoughts, leading him to fantasize he is back in his previous life, where such issues could be addressed so simply, whereby he would send an invitation through the press secretary for the staff to come for drinks at a comfortable bar nearby, at which he would make the acquaintance of them all equally, thereafter grouping with the senior males, a calculation to project to his target the boisterous humor of a man’s man combined with vividly comparing the superior physical attributes—height, trim figure, lush hair—of the alpha male, only later in the evening involving her in direct conversation, first by noting some good work she has carried out, then asking her about herself, then making physical contact to gauge whether she might be receptive to an advance, and finally, as he drinks little on such occasions (liquor inflames his stomach lining, causing severe heartburn and peptic ulcers), he will offer to drive her home. Usually, to spare the mutual embarrassment of ending the evening on a rejection, he will signal his sexual interest before they get in the car or, at the latest, before he walks her up to her apartment, with the final p
roviso being that in prior exchanges he has ascertained her domestic arrangements in case he needs to borrow a colleague’s apartment or check them in to a hotel. But such an evening is denied—the presidential motorcade snaking back to a Georgetown apartment block at midnight would hardly allow for a discreet assignation—so the subject suppresses thoughts of the pretty young press aide and retires in a delirium of frustration.
In the morning Caroline wakes to a surprise: instead of their customary walk along the colonnade to the West Wing, they stroll across the South Lawn to the pond, leading her mother who conveys her baby brother in a stroller, where she is delighted to discover a small colony of ducks, and, to add to her delight, the President produces from his pocket a bag of bread bits. She feeds the ducks while John shifts snugly in his chariot, and, when the President returns to the Cabinet Room, some of the members are already discussing how the invaded land can be carved up into lucrative contracts for American corporations.
Toxemia keeps bubbling in the President’s head and gut and back and bladder. His dry cough is keeping him awake at night. He lays out a rainbow of pills and ingests medication to dull the headaches and quell the inflammation, but gets no relief. The next morning delirium fogs his perception of the generals; he cannot distinguish the elephant of analysis from the tiger of advocacy. A woman crosses the hall as he walks out of the Cabinet Room with his advisors, and for a moment he contemplates what it might cost him to follow her into an office and draw the blinds. Instead he spends the afternoon in closed meetings with senior officials, but not one is opposed to the idea of invasion, not one believes it will be anything other than a resounding success, and so he gives the order for the army to cross the Gulf.
THE FIRST LADY
Almost at once the news from Cuba is bad. The popular uprising does not occur, and, despite his delirium, the President is first to comprehend why. He is much traveled, like the military commanders, but they have only ever seen the world from a bunker, steadfastly incurious of foreign culture and ignorant of contrary ideology. Cultures will not bend painlessly, and Americanism cannot be exported like Coca-Cola.
Cuban aircraft begin bombing the beaches, destroying the ship carrying ammunition, while tanks and infantry surround the freedom fighters, so the President orders a further air strike from Nicaragua covered by unmarked U.S. Navy jets, but no one coordinating the operation appreciates that the jets fly from a different time zone than the strike bombers, so the bombers cross the Gulf of Mexico an hour before their cover and are shot down.
Throughout this time, day into night and back into day, the President cannot be still, cannot sleep, because those men are pinned down on the beach being blown to bits. The President calls off the invasion, ordering the men to save themselves by dispersing into the mountains to live to fight another day.
A ghastly silence descends on the Oval Office.
“What’s the matter with you?” the President says. “Send those men into the mountains!”
Mr. Dulles clears his throat nervously. He says, “The mountains are too far away.”
“How far?” the President demands.
The Director says, “The Brigade would have to cross swamps, they’re under fire—”
“How far?”
“Eighty miles.”
The President can barely speak, he can barely look at the CIA or the Joint Chiefs or any of them, and, swallowing a gob of vomit that leaps into his throat, he waves them away, out of the room, so he can lean against the desk for support, in case he falls, because those insane, incompetent bastards have done what they’ve always done, only this time he’s the one who gave the order, he’s the one who’s condemned brave men to death in some ill-conceived, ill-planned escapade, and he is so fearful he’ll choke he steps out into the Rose Garden.
His back throbs. His cough set in at midnight and now his ribs ache from hacking. Agents watch him from the colonnade as he paces the garden, giving the appearance that he’s stretching and exercising, but in truth he’s struggling for air, choked by the fumes of murder on an industrial scale, poisoning his kidneys and adrenals and gut and bladder, and he tastes the sting of it in his tears.
He can’t sleep. He intends to explore all the options that exist for saving those men. His aides and advisors say the same thing as the CIA and the Joint Chiefs: “Escalate.” He refuses. Invasion won’t save those men now; it will only cost more lives.
Eventually he returns to the Residence, where his family lie asleep. He lingers beside the children’s beds, reaching out to touch their skin and their hair but stopping himself, stifling his cough, for fear of waking them, but grateful they are alive, grateful they are safe, and not being blasted like those Cuban sons and brothers on the beach condemned to death or imprisonment. Then he swallows more painkillers, steroids, antihistamines and sedatives, promising himself every single one of those mad, murderous chiefs will be gone from their jobs in the coming weeks and months.
After three hours’ fitful sleep, he wakes almost unable to move. His back is so stiff that his wife and a nurse are needed to maneuver him out of bed, yet at the press conference that morning he stands and states: “I’m the responsible officer of the government. Victory has a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan. I bear sole responsibility. I am strongly opposed to anyone within or without the administration attempting to shift responsibility.”
The President returns to his office, where he stares past the Washington Monument, at dense white clouds scudding through the blue spring sky. He tries the latches on the patio doors, but they seem to be jammed. The effort of attempting to release them summons the two agents stationed on the colonnade, whom he waves away, turning from the windows rather than press on out into the Rose Garden and be a spectacle.
Later the President is shocked to learn that members of the Cuban Revolutionary Council, a committee of exiles who would have formed the new government and some of whom had sons in Brigade 2506, are being kept under house arrest by the CIA, on the basis that they are a “disposal problem.” The President orders their immediate release and transfer to Washington, where he meets with them personally in the Oval Office. By now it is late into the next night, as they sit on the sofas and he in his rocking chair, in constant motion to ease his back and with a fist to his mouth to stifle his cough.
The President says, “The operation was my decision. I am very sorry that it has failed, but the Brigade fought gallantly. Your sons were proud to fight for their country. I know you want to know why I didn’t commit our forces to support them, and the reason is that, in the struggle against tyranny, I cannot be hypocritical; I cannot condemn our foes where they interfere in another state’s self-determination yet expect the world to turn a blind eye when we do the same. It was not a decision I took lightly. I have fought in a war, and I have seen brave men die. My own brother was killed. I understand your pain. That is why I will send ships and aircraft to rescue survivors. But the last thing I say to you is this: you are all free men in this country—free to go wherever you want, free to say anything you want, free to talk to anyone you want. That is what your sons were fighting for, and you have those rights here, and one day soon I hope you will have them again in your homeland.”
They leave, muted, mournful, and soon he’s alone again, rocking, with the sun rising on a new day and his expectation that so much must have changed, so much goodwill has been depleted, his reputation rock-bottom, but the city appears the same, the faces in the halls the same, his little girl’s ducks and his son’s teddy bears. He passes the press aide in her first hour of work and asks her name, and, when she answers, she sounds almost embarrassed for him, prompting him to move on quickly, sick with this poison seething deep inside, though the criticisms of the operation, domestically at least, are milder than he fears, some even laudatory, making him think he’s already emulated his predecessor, in that the worse he does the more popular he gets. The cycle of government continues—meetings are scheduled, conferences, public appearances
, pros and cons balanced and decisions made—but the President cannot shift the images of those men on the beach, the din, the screams, the blood and blast of it all, then the fall of night, dark and choked with terror, before it all begins again. He realizes his aides are staring at him, in a meeting, just a handful of them in the Oval Office, where he faces what appears to be an embarrassing silence.
“You spoke, Mr. President,” one of them explains.
“Did I?” he says.
The President has no recollection of uttering a word, but, after the others have left, the Defense Secretary says, “You were thinking aloud, Mr. President.”
“What did I say, Bob?”
“You said, ‘How can I have been so stupid?’”
Only a few days have passed since the fiasco, but already the indicators of failure seem blatant in retrospect. The President hears rumors that some lobbyists had been counting on a limitless bounty for their corporate interests in a newly annexed Cuba (after they’ve first won contracts to clear up the rubble and the corpses). While some parties do appear to lament the President bungling the chance for a lucrative victory, others remain optimistic another opportunity will present itself in short order.