Author: Jed Mercurio
Category: Other
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The President gazes out toward the setting sun. He has been keeping track of his withdrawal symptoms, which used to trouble him after a week, but now they seem more acute. “I wonder how it is with you, Harold?” he says. “If I don’t have a woman for three days, I get terrible headaches.”
The Prime Minister grins mischievously and says, “You have her for three days?” and the President splutters with laughter. The PM says, “If I spent three days with a woman, it would be more than my head that would ache terribly.”
They laugh so loudly that one of the cocktail waiters ventures out onto the verandah to check if the two principal leaders of the Western alliance have taken leave of their senses, but they merely wave at him for two more and he withdraws, and once they’ve finished jesting, they begin designing a practical proposal on nuclear testing with which to present the Soviets, their conviction being that a moratorium on the development of new weapons will slow the arms race and lay the ground for meaningful disarmament.
Back in Washington, the news of progress with our key ally in negotiating a test-ban treaty with the Soviets is greeted with appreciation by aides, but a few days later the Defense Secretary requests an urgent meeting. There are rumors within the Pentagon that Strategic Air Command have flown B-52 training missions inside Soviet airspace, the last occurring to coincide exactly with the President’s trip to Bermuda. The President demands an urgent meeting with the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, who defends his policy shamelessly.
“These training missions prepare my crews for war,” he says.
“I’m concerned they might start one, General.”
“They prove to the Soviets we hold strategic air superiority.”
“They encourage brinksmanship, General. Are you familiar with The Guns of August?”
“I’m not, sir.”
“The path to war is paved with avoidable error and miscalculation. Given the stakes, I hope you’ll agree that we should not precipitate a nuclear war with the Soviet Union because a training mission strayed over enemy territory.”
“And I hope you’ll agree, Mr. President, that my appreciation of the uses of strategic air power probably exceeds that of a Navy junior-grade lieutenant.”
The President says, “You’re familiar, General, with the story Lucius Lamar told of Sailor Billy Summers.”
“No, sir, I can’t say I am.”
“Senator Lamar was aboard a Confederate blockade runner sailing for Savannah Harbor, the senior officers insistent it was safe to proceed, but the captain ordered Sailor Billy Summers to the crow’s nest, and Sailor Billy Summers reported ten Union gunboats in the harbor. Yet the senior officers claimed they knew exactly where the Yankee Fleet was and it couldn’t be in Savannah Harbor, so the ship should sail on. The question, General LeMay, is not who holds the highest rank, but who occupies the best vantage point to judge the way forward. And I no longer hold the rank of lieutenant. Mine is Commander-in-Chief. These missions will stop.”
The President turns and punches the intercom, asking his secretary to send in the next meeting. She opens the door and the general marches out without a salute.
The President gets through the next meeting with a raw stomach until he can sit in the head for ten minutes, passing scorching diarrhea. That night, he takes Lomotil and codeine, and falls asleep dreaming of American bombers pointing like daggers at an angry Russian Bear.
For breakfast, he eats lean bacon and fruit juice, but his stomach rejects them violently, and he needs antiemetic injections from Adm. B. before he can face the business of the day.
Through official channels, the Director of the FBI has requested a private meeting, which the President decides to take in the Cabinet Room since the enormity of the table will create a desirable barrier, and when the Director arrives, he sees the room and says to the Appointments Secretary, “The President understands this is a private meeting?” to which the Appointments Secretary is spared a patient answer, as the President enters via Mrs. Lincoln’s office, inviting the Director to sit eye-to-eye across the chamber.
Without preamble, the President says, “What do you have to tell me, Mr. Hoover?”
“I regret, Mr. President, that I must report a delicate matter of national security involving a high-ranking government official.”
“The matter being?”
“Fornication,” says the Director.
“I see,” says the President.
“The man is conducting immoral extramarital relationships.”
The Director has run the FBI since before the war, contaminating its policies with his own phobias and paranoia, and now the subject begins to fear he has uncovered the reason none of his predecessors dared dismiss him, despite allegations of homosexuality and transvestism. The consensus of informed opinion is that, if the Director is homosexual, he does not practice. A lifelong bachelor, he is one of those tragic individuals living in denial of his own natural urges, with the consequence that his face has turned into something resembling a twisted little fruit. Yet he has exploited all of the Bureau’s capacity for surveillance in order to gather sensitive information on the nation’s leaders.
“And who might the man be?” the President says.
“Do you require me to say, sir?”
“Are you spying on me, sir?”
“The Bureau confines itself to conducting operations in defense of national security, Mr. President.”
“What I do in my private life is no concern of the Bureau’s, nor of yours, Mr. Director.”
“Except where private conduct impinges on national security, Mr. President.”
“That would appear to be a definition over which you and I might be in dispute, Mr. Director.”
The Director says, “Aforesaid high-ranking government official is involved with one woman with un-American sympathies and another connected with criminal elements.”
The President says nothing. He watches the Director consult files he must know by heart; the licking of his fingers as he turns the pages, the adjustment of his eyeglasses, are all rituals measured to unsettle, before he states, “Ms. Marilyn Monroe, a.k.a. Miss Norma Jeane Baker a.k.a. Miss Norma Jeane Mortensen. A former pornographic model. The former wife of a communist sympathizer.”
“If Marilyn Monroe represents a potential threat to national security, then you must investigate her, Mr. Director.”
“I’m gratified you agree, Mr. President.”
“And one would hope that the investigate prowess of the FBI might eventually produce evidence more plausible than guilt by association.”
The Director is unaccustomed to sarcasm. He shifts in his chair. “Mr. President?”
“In the absence of proper evidence, I recognize no threat to national security.”
Mr. Hoover shuffles his files. He clears his throat.
“Mrs. Judith Campbell. Known sexual consort of Mr. Francis Albert Sinatra. Known sexual consort of Mr. John Roselli. Known sexual consort of Mr. Sam Giancana a.k.a. Mr. Sam Flood. Mrs. Campbell has traveled with these gentlemen and cohabited with them in various luxury hotels in Las Vegas, Nevada and Miami, Florida.”
The President does not flinch.
Mr. Hoover states, “These men are thugs, vermin. They would debauch our national character. The woman is a common prostitute.”
The President says, “If you’ve got pictures, you’ll see she can hardly be called ‘common’.”
“I have never in all my years of service, sir, had cause to lecture a President on the morality of his sexual conduct.”
“Nor will you lecture me, sir.”
“Then, Mr. President, may I respectfully seek reassurance that appropriate action will follow?”
“I’ve been advised, Mr. Director. That will be all, thank you.” After the Director has left, the President drops his pugnacious expression. The appointments secretary enters, but he sends him away. He sits for a long time gazing at his own reflection floating in the veneer of the table.
The next
time Judy calls, he begins, “I’m sorry, kiddo. I can’t see you again.”
“Jack?”
After a short silence, the President says, “Has anyone been saying anything about us?”
“Who?”
“Has anyone said anything about your seeing me?”
“Some people know. Obviously.”
The President measures another tense silence and then he says, “Who’s he been talking to about us?”
“‘He’?”
“You know who I mean.” The President stares across the South Lawn, wondering if anyone’s listening in on this conversation, wondering if Frank now thinks of him the way he thinks of some movie actor who’s fallen out of favor and stops getting auditions.
At the other end of the line, Judy is sobbing. “There’s a problem, Jack,” she says.
“What kind of problem?”
“A … medical problem.”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “You need to have it fixed,” he says.
“I know, Jack, I know …” she sobs.
“You should’ve taken precautions.”
“I know, Jack, I know …”
“If you need money …”
“I know a doctor,” she says.
He says, “It’s for the best.”
Then Judy says, “Can I never call you again?”
“I’m sorry, kiddo. Take care of yourself. And I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that national security considerations apply.”
The moment affects him less than other men. He’s dumped girls on countless occasions. A wall goes up.
THE BATS
The end of a liaison is not something in which the subject takes pleasure, since a conquest who has graduated into a regular sexual partner will invariably be one who is physically appealing and socially adroit, while unsuitable partnerships he ends early, often after the first encounter, though he will usually persist with a seduction even in the knowledge the woman is unsuitable on account of her physical attractiveness or his heightened appetite at the time. Judy has been an enjoyable addition to his circle, and losing her leaves a hole to be filled, or, more accurately, deprives him of one. Since the subject is also beginning to tire of Fiddle, Faddle and Fuddle, lovely girls though they are, his temptations are beginning to stray beyond the safe confines of Washington political circles. Naturally he must resist such temptations, or else there is a very real danger he will fall back into old habits; any attractive woman who catches his eye is liable to be propositioned, with potentially disastrous consequences for his political reputation. Needless to say, he isn’t remotely concerned that some kind of press scandal would ensue, but instead that the lady herself, or her possessive husband, boyfriend or father, would seek to place damaging confidences in the hands of political enemies. While it’s true the press has no jurisdiction in the personal lives of public figures, an unscrupulous opponent can always find some rationale by which to convince the newspapers that a personal matter lies in the public interest.
While the subject misses Judy, at least he can sleep easy in the knowledge she can do no harm. But it is imperative that he tread carefully, so the present scheme whereby the Beard escorts women into and out of the White House in the guise of his own personal guests must be fiercely protected, not least because their other regular accomplice, the President’s brotherinlaw, sulkily refuses to cooperate.
The President is constantly on the lookout for new conquests, and therefore he’s delighted when a demure young woman appears in Mrs. Lincoln’s office having suffered a canceled appointment with the First Lady. The young woman is a final-year student at the First Lady’s alma mater who had been granted the promise of an interview for the school newspaper, only to be turned down at the last minute because the First Lady is complaining of a head cold, although she is currently on the White House tennis court rallying with her Secret Service agent. The President wanders casually into his secretary’s office on the pretext of scheduling a telephone conference with the Secretary of Defense, whereupon he draws the blushing young woman into conversation, expressing his sympathy at the missed interview, and makes up for it by asking one of the staff to arrange for her to receive an internship at the White House, which she will take up on graduation. The girl blushes with delight, though naturally the President forgets her instantly, as it will be some months before he sees her again, if indeed she decides ultimately to take up the appointment.
Salvation arrives in the form of a pert blonde from a rich, bohemian New York family, whom he recognizes at a luncheon as a girl who was peripheral to his social circle two decades ago, and again just after the war when her husband and the subject worked together briefly. He can’t remember her name, of course, but she says, “Mr. President, we danced together one night about a hundred years ago.” The President was in college, or even still in prep school, and cut in on her dance, but she moved on gaily, and he can still remember her glance back over her shoulder, the look of a woman amused by her power over young men. She must be ten years older than the First Lady, but she has aged well, and she reveals she’s attending the luncheon as a guest of her sister and brother-in-law, the brother-in-law being a prominent newspaper editor.
The President says, “Where’s your husband?”
“I have no idea,” she says. “Divorced,” she says.
She has already stopped addressing him as “Mr. President.” They talk for a few minutes about old times before his aides signal he has business waiting, but not before he gets one of them surreptitiously to obtain her name.
The First Lady has instituted the practice of hosting periodical dinner dances at the White House, widening the circle from obligatory invitees of previous administrations to include more exotic creatures—artists, musicians, authors and the like— together with the beautiful people of Washington and New York society. Both Mary—she being the President’s former acquaintance—and her sister are familiar to his wife as predecessors at Vassar, so it takes only the subtlest of nudges from the President to ensure they appear on her radar, receiving invitations to the next dinner dance, at which the First Couple greet guests in the East Room with a cocktail reception, followed by dinner in the State Dining Room, at which he spots Mary, seated at a neighboring table, her face radiant with laughter, and finally to the Blue Room, wherein resounds the infectious beat of the Lester Lanin Orchestra, though, on account of his back, the President avoids dancing and instead wanders from group to group bearing a constant flute of champagne that, on account of his stomach, warms in his hand. Eventually he appears to happen upon Mary, but on striking up a conversation he soon feels like the youth she abandoned on the dance floor twenty years before, as she shows the body language of a shimmering fish that knows it will slip the hook.
The President invites her to view a painting in the Red Room, slipping his hand round her waist; she lets it rest there for a moment before turning from the painting, a champagne flute to her lips as she glances back with a quizzical look. She bears rather an ethereal mien, and, as a man accustomed to ingenuous secretaries translating the widening of their eyes into a commensurate widening of more southerly parts, he finds her hard to decode.
He says, “Didn’t you like the painting?” and she says, “You’re so obvious,” then before midnight she slips out to a waiting cab.
Normally the subject doesn’t care a damn if a woman turns him down. Usually there’s a plausible excuse—she’s married, or she’s too close to his wife. But the fact that he can’t fathom a single good reason for Mary to say, “No,” bugs him so much that, instead of exploring pastures new, he determines to try again at the next opportunity. In the meantime, he returns to his usual White House partners, including, obviously, from time to time, the First Lady, with welcome variety occasionally being provided by one of the Beard’s impressionable young escorts handpicked from the back offices of Washington D.C., some of whom are agreeable enough to splash about in the White House pool with the President while the Beard watches from the
side in bare feet with his trousers rolled up to the shin, holding a set of towels at the ready.
At his weekly physical, the President credits these pool interludes with the recent improvement in his back, albeit referring only to the swimming and stretching exercises. The President buttons his shirt while Adm. B. records his findings in the medical log, but then he hangs the pen in the air, strokes his chin as if in contemplation, and says, “It’s my duty as your physician, Mr. President, to comment upon the wisdom of certain practices you’ve been employing.”
The President hesitates over the next button but then quickly goes ahead and fastens it. “What do you mean, Admiral?” he says.
“Personal visits by the backdoor, Mr. President. Secret sessions.”
“I don’t regard this as medically relevant.”
“The visitor is a medical practitioner, is he not, Mr. President?”
Relieved, the President loops his tie nonchalantly.
The Admiral continues, “And you’ve been in receipt of various treatments by this ‘practitioner,’ have you not, sir?”
“Various, yes.”
“These treatments are not prescribed by the vast majority of respectable practitioners in the management of a back complaint.”
“I don’t care if he’s injecting me with horse piss, Admiral— it works.”
The next day the President receives a letter signed by Adm. B., Dr. T., Dr. C. and Dr. K., all expressing their disapproval in the matter of Dr. Feelgood’s methods, with especial concern being leveled at his inclusion of amphetamines in the formulation of tonics and elixirs, drawing the President’s urgent attention to the numerous side effects associated with that particular class of substance, though naturally, in their habitual pomposity, they fail to note the parallel with the medicinal steroids that have obliterated the subject’s adrenal glands, ulcerated his stomach and eroded his spine. They conclude with the observation that unpredictable agents, irresponsibly prescribed, pose a danger to the President’s mental efficiency, and it would be their duty as medical practitioners to take any necessary measures to prevent an insult to his well-being: in short, a thinly veiled threat to communicate his medical problems outside their confidential circle, reigniting the preelection rumors about his chronic ailments, a threat the President takes sufficiently seriously to cancel the forthcoming appointment with Dr. Feelgood, and instead to scheme an arrangement whereby the good doctor will see the First Lady and she will take possession of any treatments that need to be smuggled to her husband in times of crisis.