A Note about the posting dates

You may notice that the date of each post appears to be about 50 years in the future. I wanted to have the chapters show up in order and Blogger doesn't have any easy way to make it show up that way. It always wants the newer posts to show up at the top. A couple of different people pointed out that the easiest way to trick the system was to fake the posting dates and place it far enough into the future that they don't start reverting. You'll probably find this site easiest to navigate from the archives beginning in "December 2054". The posts are labeled by chapter number. Read more!

The Book

This is a book I started writing toward the end of the Clinton Presidency. At the time, I was working toward an ending where the hero of the story would win the popular vote but lose in the Electoral College. It seemed like such a far fetched idea that it could never happen in real life. Real life mocks the best of us.

I put the book aside, pulling it out periodically to update the social references, but always got bogged down somewhere around the 40,000 word mark. I've never gotten past there.

Eventually, I decided to stop trying to update the story and to anchor it in the year 2004, but in a very different 2004 than you remember. In this version of 2004, MacKinzie Harper has been President since 2000. Within four months of taking office Harper ordered the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit into Afghanistan where they quickly ousted the Taliban and took custody of Osama bin Laden and most of his top lieutenants. The original charges related to the bombing of the USS Cole, but further charges were added later. At first, there was great deal of disagreement in America about whether or not this had been overly aggressive and heavy-handed, but then when documents were found linking bin Laden to plans for attacks on NY and Washington, most people applauded the action. Further arrests were made as more people were linked to various plots. All defendants are in the custody of the U.S. Justice Dept. and awaiting trial.

Saddam Hussein continues to be a thorn in Harper’s side.

This is not an alternate history. It is fiction which requires a fictional and somewhat nicer 2004. So, briefly, let’s forget all that unpleasantness.

I'll be posting chapters daily (yeah right)until I get to the end of what I've written. Hopefully, having this out there for all to see will spur me to finishing the damned thing. I like much of what's there. Some parts, less. I'll leave comments open so you can express your admiration or loathing of me and/or my story. Real critiques from any of you who fancy yourselves writers will be greatly appreciated.

Those of you who know me (in an intertooby kinda way), know that I am pathologically unable to stay on-topic in other people's blogs, and I completely expect you to abuse my comments as well. Just be entertaining.

Lastly, I'm putting this out there for free and have no intentions of getting paid for it, but if I see The Movie come out and I haven't been paid, I'm gonna sue someone's ass. Just sayin'.

So, without further ado, heres... Read more!

There's No Crying in the War Room


Copyright © 2007 By Nathan Gendzier

Chapter One

Unless you live under a rock, you know about the year I’ve just experienced. You’ve seen all the T.V. show, news reports and ads. There’s been enough ink wasted on me to float a super-tanker. What you don’t know about is my side of the story.

Before I start, I just want to say that the story you’re about to hear could have happened only in America. There’s really nowhere quite like this country. It’s corny and hackneyed and you’d never catch me saying this out loud, but it really is true that in America, even the poorest immigrant mother can dream that her child will grow up to be President. More than any other idea, America has embraced the radical idea that every citizen has a voice and every voice should speak up. I suppose the problem with that with that is that you end up with 250 million or so people talking and nobody listening. Democracy has been called a “grand experiment”. We’re still waiting for the results.

Anyway, it all started exactly a year ago today. I’m in my car on the Capitol Beltway headed toward one of my stores. I own a regional chain of auto parts stores: 23 shops in four states and D.C. I inherited all of this from Father, who had inherited it from his dad. Actually, Father, (never Dad), only got two stores from Grandpa. Grandpa was a real pioneer but he wasn’t very ambitious. Opening the second store was more or less a charitable affair. Grandma Manya’s brother needed somewhere to work, and providing a job for a member of the clan was fine….as long as Grandpa didn’t have to actually see him every day. So, he opened the second shop halfway across town in Falls Church and hired Uncle Herschel to run it.


Grandpa only went over there once a week or so to repair the damage. Herschel meant well, but he was either lazy or stupid; the family was always too polite to say which. Myself, I always thought it would have been the polite thing to go ahead and say which; that way at least we’d be able to remove the onus of one of the two things. But instead, the best we could tell ourselves was “Hey, that Herschel, he may be stupid but he’s sure not lazy….or is it the other way around.” Whatever.

When Father came into the business, he was just a ball of fire. Grandpa was proud of him and all, but I think he was a bit bemused by the whole thing. Within a month of going to work there, Father was talking about expanding the business. As far a Grandpa was concerned, things were just fine the way they were. The two stores provided the family with a very comfortable living. There was money in the bank…enough that he could make a big donation to the schul every once in a while and be a “Macher”. (That’s a geometric progression over “Mensch”, and being a Mensch isn’t half bad.) Grandpa took Grandma to one of those resorts in the Catskills once a year; they had two new cars, and the house had been paid for years ago. Father was a married man with a 17-month-old daughter, a second child on the way (me as it would turn out), a college education (business and accounting), a great job and a beautiful house. Why should we fool with the business?

Well, Father was never exactly a shrinking violet and he badgered Grandpa mercilessly. Finally Grandpa gave in. Father could open one new store. If he could make a go of it, he could do all the expansion he wanted from the profits and any loans he could get on the new properties. They formed a new company, Harkness Automotive, Inc., so that the original company wouldn’t be affected if Father tanked.

A brief moment to address the issue of names. My name is Paul Harkness. I was born in Falls Church, Virginia in 1958 to Abraham and Lucille Harkness. You may have noticed that names like Manya, Herschel and Abraham mix a little oddly with a good WASP name like Harkness. Grandpa making donations to the schul might have been another red flag. The story is (and I don’t know how true this is), that my great grandfather Artimus (go figure) came to America from Lithuania in 1892. The original family name was something that started with an “H” and the rest of it sounded like an old woman preparing to hock up a huge gob of spit. The guy at Ellis Island wrote down “Harkness” and Harkness, we remain. Incidentally, Great Grandpa Artimus worked as a door-to-door typewriter salesman. Now, picture this guy tromping all over Dixie, schlepping a 40-pound typewriter around. He’s dressed like the Hassids you see in New York in the Diamond District trying to sell typewriters to a bunch of illiterate dirt farmers who mostly keep big mean dogs in the front yard. To my knowledge, he never made it past the front door, much less made a sale. My Great Grandmother must have been one hell of a woman. But that’s probably another story.

Anyway, Father turned out to be such a success, that within five years, ha had opened four more stores, all of them going like gangbusters, and Harkness Automotive bought up control of the two original stores. Everybody was pretty happy with the deal. Father became a Captain of Industry, Grandpa went into semi-retirement (he came in one day a week ‘til he was 86), and Herschel was kept on for the sake of family peace.

Father kept building on his success. My sister Rachel and I each went to a nice private school, Jewish summer camps, and eventually college. Rachel majored in Music at Julliard and is actually the 2nd chair violin with the National Orchestra here in D.C. I majored in Poli-Sci at B.U. and came home to take up my rightful place in the family business. Father never forgave me for taking such a useful Major. Which brings us back to the events of a year ago.


--One year ago, today—

So, I’m in my car on the Capitol Beltway headed for one of my stores. I like to pop in unexpectedly now and then. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not trying to catch them with their pants down. I just like surprises. The fact is I’ve got a bunch of great people working for me and I may be the most superfluous part of the operation. When I first came to work for Father, one of the first jobs he entrusted to me was to make periodic checks on the different stores (to catch them with their pants down). Not that I was supposed to take any action if I found something amiss. My job was to call Father and rat out the offenders.

After performing this miserable task for about five months, I started a little conspiracy with the various store managers. We’d start keeping all misdemeanors between ourselves if they’d stop hating me. I’d pretend to discipline them and they’d pretend to have reformed their evil ways. Well, little by little, they started to feel sorry about the position they were putting me in with Father, and the mischigas mostly disappeared.

Just so you shouldn’t get worried, you should know that I’ve about exhausted my Yiddish vocabulary. The way it works is…..Grandpa and Grandma used to speak Yiddish whenever Rachel and I weren’t supposed to hear what they were talking about. Father and Mom understood all of it but they weren’t about to deign to actually speak the language…..”Pop, we’re American ferChrissakes”! Rachel and I ended up picking up about as much Yiddish as your average Catholic kid growing up in the Bronx.

Anyway, flush with my success, and with my New England educated idealism, I started to make suggestions to Father on more liberal ways to run the business. I reminded him what he had told Grandpa when he started in the business; that “you can never rely on the previous generation’s ways of operating; You’ve always got to try new ideas if you want to succeed; New blood equals progress”. Father reminded me to shut up and maybe I’d learn something.

So I mostly shut up for the next ten years. In 1991 Father had a minor heart attack. Most of the family suspects he was faking, but it was enough for him to justify retirement. After all, Father was never in love with the business for it’s own sake; he was in it for the money. And he had piles of the stuff by then. He signed over 60% of the business to me and basically told me I could run it into the ground for all he cared. He had enough money to play golf three days a week, take month-long vacations with Mom and to take week-long vacations without Mom, which is what he proceeded to do until the day he died last year. (This time the heart attack was real, brought on by hitting 12 straight balls into the water at the 17th hole, island green at Sawgrass.)

Mom has started dating again, and what with the
16 million dollar estate Father left, she’s not short on suitors if you know what I mean. Rachel and I are a little concerned about all this, but Mom pointed out that she spent 49 years with Father (God rest his soul), and she had earned every dime of the money, and she could piss it away if she wanted and she deserved a little fun, and she could date anyone she wanted and……..I don’t know how Rachel feels, but, as far as I’m concerned there are some things about your mother you don’t need to hear.

So anyway, I’m in my car on the Capitol Beltway on my way to one of my stores. During the years since Father retired, I’ve been able to institute most of the ideas I had for reorganizing the business. Some of them worked out fine, some not so great, and some were clearly the rantings of a lunatic. I’ve managed to weather the storms, and the company’s doing pretty well. You should have seen Father’s face when I set up a profit sharing program for all of the employees in 1993. He never managed to acknowledge that it was a success, but, on the other hand, he didn’t complain when the net profits went up 27% in the first two years.

O.K. I’ll get to the point. I’m tooling along doing 70 and this tractor-trailer goes screaming past me; must be doing 95. It really scared the crap out of me because I wasn’t paying such close attention to my driving. I was flipping around the radio trying to find something worth listening to and I practically drove off the side of the highway. Well, about 3 miles further, I came around the bend in the road right before the bridge that crosses the Potomac into Maryland. The truck that had passed me is overturned in the middle of the highway with the ass end hanging over the guardrail. It’s completely blocking all but one of the three lanes and there’s smoke coming out from behind the cab.

Most of the other cars on the highway were just coming to a complete stop while a few morons were trying to squeeze by in the one open lane. As flames burst out behind the cab, even the morons stopped. Since traffic had been light, I was only about five car lengths back from the truck. Like everybody else, I got out of my car and edged forward for a better look.

I could see the driver through the crazed windshield. He wasn’t moving, just sort of hanging limp in his seatbelt. Well I don’t know what got into me then. The flames started getting higher and I took off like a bat out of hell toward the truck. Somewhere in my subconscious, it registered that everyone else was running the other way.

With the way the truck had come to rest, I had to climb up onto the passenger side of the cab, which was now the top. I kind of climbed down into the cab, undid the seatbelt, and pushed/pulled/dragged the guy out of there. From the door/top of the truck, I had to push the guy over to the ground, a fall of about 8 feet….Sorry, Pal. I jumped down and dragged the guy away from the truck as fast as I could.

I got no more than fifty yards when the tanks blew. The explosion mostly deafened me a little and I guess the shockwave did something to bring the driver around. So there I am with flaming shrapnel dropping all around me, a 190 lb. maniac who thinks I’m the source of his problems, and I can’t hear a fucking thing.

I ended up lying on my back, sort of dazed and staring up at the sky. I noticed that there was a traffic helicopter circling overhead, presumably taping the mayhem, probably going out live to the whole metro area, isn’t that nice. At this point, some kind soul ran over and rolled me across the pavement. Apparently, my shirt had caught fire. Scraped the shit out of my elbows and knees, but hey, what’s a little road-rash compared to roasted Paul?

I came to rest facing the guardrail. My hearing was starting to recover and I could hear a bunch of people at the rail yelling about something. They were all leaning out over the rail and pointing at something. Curiosity overcame caution (and pain) and I made my way over to the rail. When I got there, I saw what the commotion was all about.

There was an SUV (Suburban families seem to think you need to be prepared to take on a Serbian tank at the drop of a hat, I guess.), in the water that must have gone over the side in the accident. I searched the water for people. I couldn’t see any evidence of rescuers in the water. What I could see was two little kids pounding on the inside of the rear hatch window. The forest green behemoth was still mostly afloat, but that was obviously not going to last forever. And no one’s doing a damn thing but yelling and pointing.

Look, you’ve got to understand; pulling the truck driver out was pure instinct. I didn’t think about it, I just did it. And now that I’d had a moment to think about it, I was shaking in my Timberlands. Not to mention singed, pierced and scraped raw. I am not jumping off a bridge. I am not diving into that water. I better see someone in that water pretty damned fast, ‘cause I’m not jumping into the fucking river.

I shucked my boots and dove. The first thing I noticed was that the water was cold. I mean melted snow, down from the mountains, knock your breath out cold. Then I realized that the SUV had come to rest on sort of a shallow sandbar. I didn’t have to worry about it sinking any further, which was good. Then again, the sand bar made for one hell of a current, which was not at all good.

The two kids were screaming their heads off and it took a minute or so to get them to pull up the lock knob so I could pull open the hatch. One at a time, I pulled the kids out and swam them over to the ledge at the bottom of the bridge supports. As I started to swim back for a third time, it occurred to me that this must have been going on for at least an hour and WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE COPS?
No cops, but two news cameras are already set up and shooting from the bridge. It’s good to know the important stuff’s covered.

When I got back to the SUV, I took a deep breath and dove under. The kids’ mother was conscious and panicked, her face poking up into a small air pocket where the windshield met the roof. I couldn’t pull the door open because of the way the car had come to rest, so I went back to the surface. The car wasn’t going to sink far, but the rear
Had started to take on water and settle below the surface. I dove again and swam in through the rear hatch. I had to slap the lady to get her to shut up, explaining that the air pockets would be gone soon. She said she couldn’t swim. Great. I told her to just hold her breath until we got to the surface and relax; I’d do all the work.

She did and I did. When we got to the surface, I saw that some cops and an ambulance had finally showed up. Thanks for the assist, guys. I swam to the shore with the lady in tow. As I hauled us up onto the shore a paramedic ran up to us. She put one of those space blankets over my shoulders and started helping the lady up the embankment. I could see that some cops were swimming out to where I had left the two kids perched. As I took my first step up the embankment, I guess the adrenaline ran out and I collapsed. “Hello….little help?”

O.K., so the next thing I know, the paramedics have got me on a stretcher and they’re hauling me up the embankment. As soon as we get to the top, the T.V. cameras and microphones are in my face.

They’re all shouting questions at the same time….”Who are you?”….”What’s your name?”…..”Why did you do it?” My answer to the last question was replayed on every news program, news promo, news magazine, tabloid show and God knows what else over the next three days…… "Someone had to help those people”, I said. The end of the sound bite was always the same: one of the paramedics caught on tape, thinking aloud, “But you’re the only one who did.” Read more!

Chapter Two

A few hours later, Rachel Harkness walked into Paul’s hospital room, a bedraggled bouquet of flowers in her left hand and a small duffel in her right. Paul was sitting on the edge of the bed looking slightly ridiculous in a hospital gown that barely covered his crotch. At 6’5”, he was lucky the gown covered more than a tee shirt. Paul wore his dark brown hair close-cropped and on close inspection, there were the beginnings of crow’s feet forming at the edges of his almost black eyes. His face lit up at the sight of his sister.

In contrast to her brother, Rachel stood only 5’4”, with long auburn hair and a slight build. Ever since the age of 12, when Paul hit his first growth spurt, he had towered over his parents and sister. His mother told him that her father’s side of the family had been mostly tall, but Paul was the only one who seemed to have dipped into that part of the gene pool. As children, Rachel had often teased her younger brother that he had really been switched at birth and was actually the offspring of a thoroughly inbred Appalachian clan.

She approached Paul and gave him a peck on the
cheek. Then she punched him in the arm with all the strength she could muster. “Are you out of your mind?”, she cried. “I’m having a cup of coffee and watching The View, and they break in live with that footage from the helicopter. Then they zoom in on the face of the guy lying in the middle of the road and its you! Next thing I know you’re running and diving into the river. What on earth were you thinking?” The pain was visible in her eyes.

Paul, doing his best to look sheepish responded, “I wasn’t thinking at all.”

“Well, that’s typical for you, I suppose.”

“I’m fine”, he said, “They just wanted to keep me for observation for a little while.” Motioning toward the duffel, he said, “Thanks for the dry clothes”. Suddenly, in an attempt to move the conversation to safer ground, Paul said, “You won’t believe this one. On the way here, the paramedics asked me what kind of car I drove so they could have a state trooper pick it up for me. I left it in the middle of the highway with the keys in the ignition and it turns out someone stole it. I guess no good deed goes unpunished.”

Rachel laughed. Even though she had grown up with it, she was still always surprised at her brother’s ability to laugh off practically anything. Nothing seemed to ruffle him. “Get dressed, hero. I’ll give you a ride home”, she said.

A short time later, Rachel and Paul were exiting the hospital and ran straight into a phalanx of reporters, cameras and microphones. Every news outlet was represented, the networks, the cable news stations, local radio and T.V., newspapers, magazines, even a few who were obviously foreign press. As they all shouted the same questions at the same time, Paul stopped and held up his hands, signaling for quiet. “I’ll say one thing and then I’d appreciate it if you’d back off. I’m more than a little shocked at what a big deal you’re all making out of this. I really didn’t do anything so special. If I hadn’t jumped in, someone else would have. Now, if it’s O.K. with you, I’d like to go home, put my feet up and have a couple of stiff drinks. Thanks”.

Having said that, he tried to lead Rachel away, but the reporters had no intention of giving up so easily. One of them pushed a microphone toward Rachel and shouted, “Are you proud of your husband”?

Rachel laughed and said, “First of all, this schmuck’s my little brother, and second, it took a while to get my heart rate slowed down, but yeah….I’m real proud of him”. She took his arm and led him toward the parking lot, the Press seeming to be temporarily satisfied. Read more!

Chapter Three

When we were little, Grandpa used to take Rachel and I to a Jewish nursing home a few times a year to visit the old people. Nowadays, no one is old, crippled, mentally retarded or any other distasteful thing; they’re all variously challenged. I’m not going to pass judgment on whether or not that’s a good or a bad thing but I sure as hell think it sounds dorky. Anyway, I always thought it was really strange to visit a bunch of people I didn’t know and who didn’t know me but they’d just grab us, plop us on their laps and read us stories like we were next of kin. The fact is, I dreaded these visits. Getting sloppy wet kisses from strangers who smelled funny was not high on my list of how to spend a sunny afternoon. Grandpa tried to explain that it didn’t matter whether or not we enjoyed the visit; we were there to do a “mitzvah”, a good deed. Most of the residents had little or no contact with their own families and the only thing that mattered was that they enjoyed the visits.

As I was getting into the car with Rachel for the ride home, the memory of that talk came back to me so clearly I stopped in my tracks for a moment. I guess somewhere along the line, the lesson must have sunk in. I realized that all I had done was a mitzvah, although on a somewhat larger scale. I had the clearest vision of Grandpa I’d had in years and had a small private smile, thinking He would have been proud of me.

Before I had the chance to get too smug, Rachel started the car and the radio came on, tuned to one of the A.M. talk stations. The conversation was about me; some guy saying, “That man’s selfless act is an example of the best America has to offer”.

I reddened and punched the “seek” button as quick as I could reach it. The next station was talking about me. And the next. And the next after that.

The next one had a commercial for one of those mortgage loan companies that sign up people with horrible credit and then take their homes 8 months later when they can’t make the payments. Surprise, surprise. When the commercial finished, the host came back on saying, “Well, we’ve got the latest on the ‘Beltway Hero’, Paul Harkness, who was released just moments ago from Sibley Memorial Hospital. Randi Mansfield is standing by live”.

“Thanks Reggie”, the reporter replied. “Yes, I’m here at Sibley Memorial Hospital where, as you say, just moments ago, Paul Harkness was discharged and left the premises with his sister. Here’s what he had to say”.

Then I listened blankly to Rachel and myself from just moments ago. I said to Rachel, “This is the most bizarre thing ever. Guess I better exercise some real self control. If I fart in public they’re liable to break in with a special report to play it back”.

Rachel smiled and said, “It’ll all die down in a couple of days. They’ll forget all about you as soon as Brittney Spears takes another drive to the coffee shop”.

As I flipped though the stations, I remember feeling some relief at the thought and hoping Brittney was, at that very moment, jonesing for a ‘Grande double caffe, half & half, latte'. And don’t forget the kids, dear.

I turned to the right, partly to watch the scenery going by, mostly to avoid Rachel’s gaze. The day had begun so normally. The usual routine. And there are few things quite so enjoyable as carrying on your usual routine on one of the few spring days D.C. is allotted. When winter finally gives up its grip on this part of the country, we’re rewarded with, at most, a week of beautiful spring weather. Then, the weather, having no respect for what the calendar says, closes in with our own version of summer. A D.C. summer is a physical being with weight and substance; close, sodden, relentlessly hot. It occurred to me that I had just lost one of those precious spring days. Having little hope of enjoying the next few days, I eagerly settled into a childish pout.

I went back to scanning the radio and settled on an oldies station playing the Stones. You can’t always get what you want. Well, you can say that again. Read more!

Chapter Four

Paul knew the attention was going to be overwhelming, but in his wildest nightmares he wouldn’t have dreamed the reality. At that very moment “The Insider” was pestering Paul’s mother for copies of home movies from Paul’s childhood. The managers at Harkness Automotive had each been contacted in search of background information and juicy tidbits. The Falls Church Police Department had requested assistance from the nearest State Trooper barracks because of the number of satellite news trucks converging on Paul’s neighborhood. The feeding frenzy was on and Paul was the blue-plate special.

A few miles away, in a Georgetown townhouse, Adelaide Rotholz was watching the evening news…plural. As Press Secretary for the president’s reelection campaign, she made a habit of watching NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, and CNBC simultaneously on a panel of monitors. She would sit, remote in hand, bringing up the sound on whichever broadcast caught her interest.

Usually, she did this chore in her office, but today, she had finally surrendered; not so much to her flu symptoms, but to her boyfriend’s badgering. Truth be told, Tim Pratt had been getting on her nerves for the last few months, but there never seemed to be an opportune moment to break up with him. She was much too busy to go through the melodrama of a breakup, not to mention the fact that they were living at his place. Given the alternative of trying to find a new place to live with the campaign in full swing, living with Tim seemed downright idyllic. In hindsight, she was glad she had called in sick. Being at home had given her the opportunity to watch the Paul Harkness drama unfold throughout the day without any other distractions. At first, she had been sucked in like any other person watching at home.

Until recently, Adelaide had worked as second in command for the White House Press Secretary, Alan Gardner. When she’d graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Broadcast Journalism, she had dreamed of one of the few coveted spots anchoring a national news broadcast. She knew she had what it took. She was blessed to be both attractive to men and non-threatening to women. She had excelled in college and came equipped with glowing recommendations from professors and her immediate supervisors at two high-profile internships. She also had a talent for writing and for research that she thought the networks would welcome. She viewed herself as a throwback to the golden age of news anchors, before the age of the coiffed “reader”. Having grown up in rural Louisiana, she was also exceedingly proud of the neutral mid-western speech she’d struggled to master.

She quickly discovered that her skills and talent weren’t enough to overcome a flaw that no amount of hard work would ever correct. Standing 5-foot-nothing in heels, there wasn’t a producer in America who was going to put her on the air. Sure, she’d be fine hidden behind an anchor desk, but the only way to get that seat was by paying her dues first. And paying your dues in T.V. journalism consists of doing stand-ups in the field. Stand-ups….what a joke. She had the knowledge and confidence to stand nose to nose with any interviewee on a seemingly endless list of topics. But you can’t stand on a box while you’re trying to pin down the latest disgraced federal official trying to sneak out of his office without commenting to the press. Someone had left that bit of wisdom out of the Columbia curriculum.

However, with her education and an innate knowledge of her chosen field, she quickly found her niche. Resigning herself to a life working behind the scenes, she found that it suited her. She had come to Alan Gardner’s attention three years ago and since then had become an invaluable addition to the White House Press Office. Gardner himself had recommended her for the post with the campaign. Officially, Adelaide had had to resign her post at the White House to take the new job, but that was mostly a formality. She continued to work closely, if quietly with the White House. At 31 years of age, she was on the fast track and everyone knew it.

More often than not, Addie was able to predict precisely how the press would cover a story. In her office, on a specially reserved white-board, she kept mockups of the front pages of the Washington Post, The New York Times and USA Today. Each day at about 5:00 p.m., she’d mark up her prediction for which story would occupy which portion of the page and how much space it would be allotted. The rest of the staff ran a daily pool for or against her accuracy at $5.00 a head. Participation in the pool was waning because few people were willing to bet against her.

For the Harkness story to dominate the news during the day was to be expected. In a world where local stations interrupted their daytime programming to cover a car chase, a story like this couldn’t be denied. It had everything; danger, drama, bravery and a handsome protagonist.

What surprised Adelaide was the amount of airtime devoted to the story on the evening broadcasts. Of course they’d cover the story, probably as one of their lead stories. Then, considering themselves to be serious journalists, they’d move on to the latest suicide bombing, or the bad news coming out of the Far Asian stock markets. They’d give lip service to the presidential race, which was being covered only grudgingly, due to the foregone conclusion that President MacKinzie Harper was going to be reelected by a landslide. And news of Senator Wyman’s problems with the Robertson Dam Contracts scandal was hardly played out yet.

But it didn’t happen that way. In an age when the average story got 15 seconds of air-time, and 2 minutes was considered “in depth” coverage, the “Beltway Hero” story got an average of 6 minutes on the Networks. CBS was the stingiest with only four minutes, while ABC practically devoted their broadcast to the story, weighing in with a full eleven minutes of airtime. The last story to receive this sort of coverage was SARS “epidemic”. Earthquakes didn’t rate this treatment. Astonishing.

As the news shows ended, (and the tabloid shows took their place covering, guess what), Addie placed a call to Elgin Carmichael, the President’s campaign manager. Carmichael was an unimaginative drone, but somehow, he and the President had maintained a deep friendship since rooming together their freshman year at Yale. Harper’s force of personality, added to the formidable track record he’d managed to rack up during his first term were more than enough to overcome Carmichael’s deficiencies. Addie would have put even money on the President being reelected even if the enemy camp were running the campaign.

Addie was put on hold long enough to listen to the canned pitch for re-election to play through twice. “Pompous ass”, she thought as she waited for Carmichael to come on the line. She knew from experience that it wasn’t uncommon for Carmichael to sit staring at the phone for minutes at a time before answering, the better to create the illusion that the caller was imposing on his valuable time.

Finally, a curt “Carmichael here”, came through the receiver and jerked Addie back from her thoughts.

“Have you been watching this Harkness story on T.V?”, she asked.

Sounding even more officious than usual, Carmichael answered, “I’ve caught snippets here and there. We’ve been quite busy today, you know. Hell of a time for you to call in sick. We’ve all had to take up the slack”.

Addie knew that when she returned to work the next day, she’d find her desk exactly as she’d left it, only there’d be a new mountain of paper on top of what had already been there. She’d be left to wonder exactly what slack anyone had taken up. With an effort at keeping any annoyance from her voice, she said, “Mr. Carmichael, I think we can use this story to our advantage. This story is sizzling and we’re in a perfect position to exploit it”.

“What have you got in mind, Adelaide?” Carmichael adhered strictly to his own sense of the petty privileges of rank. Anyone below him, or perceived to be below him on the food chain was addressed by their given name, and chastised severely if they committed the sin of calling him Elgin. Conversely, he was visibly unhappy about having to extend the courtesy of calling even a Senator by his title. Only “Mr. President” was uttered with no sign of duress.

“I think the President should award this Harkness guy the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He should do it at the earliest possible opportunity”, Addie said.

Carmichael, in his usual fashion didn’t take a heartbeat to stomp on the idea. “We don’t go handing out the Medal of Freedom to every Tom, Dick and Harry who comes along”, he said, as if he was key vote in deciding who received the award. “The Medal of Freedom is this nation’s highest civilian award, not a string of beads at Mardi Gras.”

Being accustomed to Carmichael’s condescension, Addie went on as if he hadn’t said anything. “What Harkness did today would rate the Congressional Medal of Honor if it had been done by a soldier in a war zone. First, he pulls the driver out of a flaming truck. That alone makes him uncommon. But then, what he does next, is what makes him superlative. While no-one, I repeat no-one, manages to pull their thumbs out of their collective ass, he disregards his own injuries and dives into a freezing, dangerous river to save a mother and her two small children. Fighting hypothermia, exhaustion and pain, he swims back and forth three times to rescue them: Live, On Television. You and I both know that everyone in that car would be dead now if he’d waited for the “authorities” to arrive. They would have done their jobs, but it would have been to late. He’s a goddamn hero and we need pictures of the President telling him so.”

Carmichael's silence stretched uncomfortably. Addie was familiar with the tactic. He’d been won over, but now he had to figure a way to convince Addie that this was his own idea. You could almost hear him console himself that even though he couldn’t convince Addie that day was night he would be able to pass off the idea to the President as his own. And there wouldn’t be a thing Addie could do about it.

Finally Carmichael responded, “Solid thinking, Adelaide. I’ll run it by the boss right away. We’ll do it in the Rose Garden before the week is out. Great photo-op. Great publicity. I guess you’ve earned your pay today after all. See you in the morning”.

Addie found herself listening to a dial tone and wondering why she even bothered. “Asshole”, she muttered. Read more!

Chapter Five

Its been my experience in life that there’s no such thing as a person who’s purely good or bad. People like Ghandi come pretty close on the good side and Hitler tips the scales pretty hard on the bad side. Martin Luther King; great guy, but he had his bimbos in the closet. JFK? great guy, ditto the bimbos in the closet. Conversely, I bet Stalin bought his wife some really thoughtful anniversary presents. Other than that, thoroughly evil guy.

My point is that everyone’s only human. Now I may have given the impression that my Father wasn’t such a terrific guy. That’s not completely accurate. I remember lots of wonderful times with my Father. He taught me to fish, play golf, and we tossed a ball in the backyard every once in a while. He’d help me with homework sometimes. The fact is that he was driven by the need to be a success and to amass profits. He considered that his duty as a father and husband, and anything else he did was for Brownie points. He wasn’t actually neglectful, just preoccupied.

On the other hand, there was all of the wisdom he imparted to me. Well, truth be told, approximately 25% of that wisdom was a crock of shit. He didn’t trust his employees and he assumed all of his customers were trying to steal from him. Any returned merchandise was given the highest level of scrutiny before being accepted. He claimed he didn’t have a racist bone in his body, but the term 'Those People’ was used an awful lot in the Harkness household.
By the time I turned 16, I had decided that the 25% bullshit factor justified disregarding the rest of my father’s advice. I was 32 before my father began to make sense on any issue again. Unfortunately, I chose to marry during the period when my father was always wrong.

I met Denise Bostwick during my senior year at B.U. I was waiting tables at Crossroad’s, a saloon type joint near Kenmore Square. Denise was majoring in some obscure Fine Arts specialty, and used to come in with some of her friends a couple of times a week.


She was tall, gorgeous and highly intelligent. (Eventually I discovered that there’s a huge difference between actual intelligence and loudly stated opinions, but by then, it was too late.) Of course, I was smitten. We had a whirlwind romance over the next few months. At spring break, I took her home to meet the family and we announced our engagement.

Mom was gentle, but against the marriage on the basis of Denise being a shiksa and all. Dad, on the other hand was practically apoplectic. “I looked into her family”, he said. “She may try to act like some Boston blueblood, but she’s just trash from Dorchester. She’s only after you for my money.”

With a ringing endorsement like that from Father, what else could I do? Denise and I left the house in a huff and got married that very night by a Justice of the Peace in Maryland. Turns out, Father had hit the nail on the head. How could I have known? How was I to detect the one time he knows what he’s talking about?

We remained painfully married until 1992; about a year after Father had passed control of the business to me. Coincidence? Anything’s possible. The judge gave her 23% of Harkness Automotive in the divorce settlement.

I’ve accepted the way things worked out, and honestly, I’m not bitter about it. Her share of the business frees me from paying her alimony, and she’s never tried to play an active part in running it. Grandpa had Uncle Herschel; Denise is my cross to bear.

What’s my point? She’s only human. On the negative side, she mostly sucks as a person; on the positive side, I almost never have to see her.

Unfortunately, today proved to be one of those rare days when she chose to inflict her personal suckiness on me. As Rachel slowly inched the car through the mass of reporters camped out in my driveway, I witnessed a most unwelcome sight: Denise in My Spotlight!

Now this is one of those moments where, I was doing my bit to preserve the notion of “only human”. I was furious that Denise should be getting any benefit from the circus my life had become today. I had no idea what she expected to achieve, but there she was…standing in my spotlight! I wanted the press to leave me alone; to turn off the damned spotlight, but if that wasn’t going to happen, I certainly had no intention of sharing it with Denise, of all people.

I got out of the car and, with a smile plastered on my face, I took Denise firmly by the upper arm and led her into the house. I dropped my keys twice, trying to open the door and I didn’t respond to any of the reporters other than to wave to them with my “key” hand. Neither my smile nor my grip on Denise’s arm faltered. Her smile never faltered. Later that night, one of the local stations played back the footage of my arrival. My smile made me look like a coyote in a claw trap.

Of course, the phone was ringing when we walked in. Rachel answered it, said, “No Comment”, and disconnected the jack. She looked at the counter on the answering machine and asked me if I wanted to hear the 42 messages it had saved? (There would have been more, but the tape had run out.) I asked her if she wouldn’t mind screening them for me and let me know if I should care about any of them.

A few minutes later, I returned to the room with a healthy glass of Jameson’s in one hand and the bottle in the other. Motioning toward Denise with the glass, I said, “Sit”. I guess my tone was a little severe because she dropped into the chair like a grade-schooler reporting to the principal’s office.

As I said before, she was tall and gorgeous when I met her, and age had done little to diminish her looks. Seeing the contrite look on her face was enough to mostly deflate my anger. Suddenly, I just felt tired. “What, exactly are you doing”, I asked quietly.

“They called me at home to ask me some questions and next thing I knew, they picked me up in a limo and brought me over here for an on-camera interview. They wanted your house as a background.”

“Denise, We’ve been divorced 12 years. What could you possibly have to say to the press?”

At this, she brightened a little. “On no, Paul. They didn’t call me because we were married. They wanted to interview your business partner.”

I didn’t say anything immediately. Denise had the sense to read my mood and quickly reverted to the contrite pose. Eventually, with a defeated air, I said, “Go home, Denise…now. Just walk out the door, smile and wave to the reporters as you get back in your limo. And go. Don’t speak, just go”.

To her credit, she went. See? I don’t ask for much.

After Denise left, Rachel started reading off the list of who had called. When she got to Mom, I panicked. “Shit, I haven’t called her at all today. Shit, shit shit. She gonna kill me.”

I plugged the phone back in and started dialing while Rachel continued reading off the list. When she mentioned “Nightline” wanted me for that night, I put the phone down. I grabbed the piece of paper and scanned it for the “Nightline” producer’s number.

Rachel said, “What about Mom”?

I found the number and started dialing. The spotlight was a little warm for my taste, but, hey, Nightline wanted me. How cool was that? I wondered who would interview me.

“Mom knows I’m fine. Hell, there’s nothing else on T.V. She can wait a few more minutes to talk to me”.

Hey, I’m only human. Read more!

Chapter Six

Paul did, in fact appear on Nightline. Chris Bury did the interview. Paul tried to look humble and serious, but hell, this was Nightline. He had always been something of a news junkie and Nightline had always been one of his favorites. You could watch the Sunday morning political talk shows, but they were full of well-prepared politicians, economists and press secretaries. Dateline, 20/20, and 60-Minutes were all fine, but they were pre-produced. It might be fun to watch the hidden camera catching security guards sleeping on duty at the nuclear power plant, or to see Mike Wallace jump out of the bushes yelling “Where did you hide the money?” at some schmuck trying to get to his car, but you knew that these stories had been edited.

But Nightline, that was a different story. First of all, its live. They convince a bunch of authorities on some subject or other to come in and beat each other senseless over whatever the day’s hot topic is. The story may have only broken a few hours ago, and no-one’s had a chance to prepare. That’s where the excitement is. You get to watch these guys soar or crash and burn. And then, there’s the rare incredible show you never forget. How about the time Koppel’s got Al Campannis on in what should have been a fairly softball discussion of race in Major League Basball? Campannis sticks his foot in it, big time. Koppel gives him such a chance to extricate it; he’s practically pulling on the guy’s leg. Campannis sticks by what he said. Munch, munch, swallow. End of career. This is a show Paul thought was worth watching.

And now he had his chance to be on it. And he couldn’t think of any downside. “Hell”, he thought “They just want to parade out today’s hero. I can live with that.”
As it turned out, they took up the first segment of the show recounting the day’s events and interviewing Paul, who once again tried to downplay his heroics. This was followed by a panel discussion on the psychology of a hero. The next segment was about some similar events in the past; the guy who dove into the Potomac after the Air Florida plane crash, and Richard Jewel (Hero then Bomber, then “O.K., not a bomber, but you can’t be a hero anymore either”). The show finished with more softball questions from Chris and more humility from Paul.

Throughout the show, Paul thought his face would crack from trying to keep the shit-eating grin off of his face. “Nightline”, he thought, “this is just too cool”.

The interview had been conducted via satellite with Chris Bury in New York and Paul in the local affiliate’s studio in D.C. When it was over, a technician came over and disconnected Paul from his lapel mic and ear-whig. The makeup woman gave him a towellete to mop off the makeup and sweat. One of the producer types walked over and said, “Great show, Mr. Harkness. I’ve gotta tell you, we get a lot of big names coming through here, and I meet them all, but meeting you, it really is an honor. What you did today… that was special. It helps restore your faith in your fellowman, well mine, at least. Anyway, I just wanted to say that and to shake your hand”.

During the course of this speech, Paul had been looking around the room. He was extremely embarrassed; trying to look anywhere but at the producer. Its one thing to be praised to the hilltops on national T.V. Its something else entirely to have to endure this sort of thing face to face.

In the course of his visual wandering, Paul’s attention was drawn to a man and woman standing nearby. Both were immaculately dressed and both appeared to be in their mid-thirties.. The woman had the sort of brown eyes that normally made him lose track of time. She carried herself with an obvious sense of authority and you could see that the guy was careful to follow her lead. The guy looked like any other totally normal guy….just shy of 6’ tall, hair cut very short, skin a shade lighter than coffee, expensive suit off the rack…..totally normal….except that he appeared to have been impaled on a broomstick.

From a few feet away, Adelaide Rotholz, standing with one of the White House Protocol Officers, listened to the producer’s comments. Oblivious to Paul’s attention, she thought, “Jeez, if a Nightline producer is getting all choked up over this guy, the rest of the country is just going to eat him up.”

She approached Paul and stuck out her hand. “Mr. Harkness, my name is Adelaide Rotholz. I work for President Harper. Its my pleasure to inform you that the President would like to formally express the nation’s gratitude for your actions today. The day after tomorrow, we’ll be holding a ceremony in the Rose Garden at the White House. During this ceremony, you will be presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian award. Congratulations.”

Paul stood there, dumbstruck. “I’m sorry, who did you say you are?”

Addie laughed. She and the Protocol Officer each showed Paul their White House credentials. “This is real, Mr. Harkness. No Joke.”

Paul realized he had just dropped into an entirely different universe. The attention from the press was one thing, but this was just inconceivable. This was way too much.

“Why would the President give me a medal? I’m just some guy.”

Addie looked at Paul and responded sincerely. She was rarely in a position to speak so forthrightly so her sincerity was obvious, even to Paul who had just met the woman. “Paul….do you mind if I call you Paul? Did you hear what that producer just said to you? Five nights a week, its his job to hype some guy, to puff him up to the audience and to himself. And nine days out of ten, the guy’s just the flavor of the week. He’s some bloviating politician or movie star confusing fame with depth of knowledge. Maybe he’s some hack scientist talking about how the auto industry is preventing him from producing his zero-emissions car.”

“That producer knows that most people who appear on this show are either pushing some agenda or just full of shit, sometimes both. I just watched him practically bow and kiss your feet. And that’s real. I’ve also watched you on T.V. all day being humble, and that’s also part of why you’re getting this medal. Everyone in America watched you do something truly heroic today and you’re response has been, “Oh, anyone would have done the same thing”. The fact is everyone wants to believe they would have done the same thing in your place, but they know that no-one else did. And they have serious doubts that they would have. Face it, pal, what you did today is something everyone wishes they’d have done, but they know they would have just stood at the guardrail pointing with the rest of the crowd. And the most incredible thing is that you honestly don’t see anything special about it. So, do you want to meet the President, or not”? Read more!

Chapter Seven

As you must be aware, I said, “Sure, I think I’d like to meet the President”.

The Press Babe and the Protocol Officer sat me down and started to fill me in on how the next couple of days would run. “You’ll be picked up tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. and brought to the White House. We’ll do a complete walkthrough of the ceremony. Don’t accept invitations for any more interviews until after the ceremony. Don’t tell anyone you’re getting the medal; the White House will announce it at tomorrow morning’s press briefing…”.

I stopped paying attention. I could hear her, and apparently most of what she said registered somewhere in my subconscious because I was able to dredge it up when it was needed. This was the moment when it finally struck me. My life had spun completely beyond my control. And there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it. I had done a good thing. Hey, I’m not a moron; I know I’d admire someone else if they’d done it. As thanks for my moment of do-gooder-ness, the press was harassing me mercilessly and now, I was about to be singled out by the President for even more attention.

Don’t get me wrong; I felt unbelievably honored to be receiving the award. Hell, how many people get to stand up next to the Freakin’ President of the Entire Freakin’ United States of America and listen to him tell the WORLD, “Paul, you Da Man?” This was definitely a good thing. Having every representative of every form of media (now known or hereafter devised), camped out on my front lawn wasn’t my idea of fun, but you take the good with the bad. The point that was drilling itself into my pointy little head was the fact that, for the foreseeable future, the course of my life was going to be directed by a whole lot of people other than me.

For the moment, I figured I’d ride out the storm and then fade back into oblivion in a couple of weeks. No, actually I was thinking about the new ads I’d tape for the stores. I was figuring on cashing in fairly big time. Something tasteful, of course. “Hi, I’m Paul Harkness president of Harkness Automotive. We’ve got a store near you, and we’ve got parts for every American and foreign car currently in production. We’ve got a huge stock of antique and hard-to-find parts. And if we don’t have it in stock, we’ll find it and have it in your hands in no more than two business days. When you leave Harkness Automotive, you’re gonna say ‘Paul, you’re my hero’.”

O.K. maybe a little over the top. I’d find some high road to take. But, hell, this situation was gonna pay!

I’m not proud of it, but I promised to give you an honest account and this was what was going through my head at that moment. Remember that “only human” thing? Mea Culpa. Mea Maxima Culpa.

Now believe me, I’ve given this subject a lot of thought in the last few months. The question is, when your life moves completely beyond your control, how do you get it back? The answer is, Beats me! Consider the possibilities. You could refuse to speak to the press; They’re gonna hound you anyway. You could try to disappear for a while; say, to Jamaica. They’re gonna get pictures of you with 1000mm lenses from helicopters if they want them and the reporters will pay the cleaning staff at your hotel for a chance to inspect you garbage. You can turn down Nightline; you can decline to meet the President, but the only result will be that everything said or printed about you will come from someone other than you.

So, my advice to anyone who finds themselves in a similar position is to enjoy the ride as much as possible. Do your best to control what’s said about you, and understand that its impossible. Keep in mind, Roger Ebert may say a movie is “an incredible waste of film”, and then the ad for the picture comes out with the Ebert quote: “…incredible…film”. What are you gonna do?

The following morning, true to their word, there was a White House limo waiting for me right on time. I hadn’t gotten much sleep, so I was a little bleary. The announcement about the award had been made about an hour earlier, so the media hordes had new things to shout at me. I ignored them as I was ushered into the car; just like cattle are ushered into the slaughterhouse.

The ride to the White House was quick and I felt a little like a kidnapping victim. Granted, I wasn’t blindfolded or gagged or anything like that, but I still didn’t have any real idea what was going on. My keepers were polite and efficient, but refused to answer any questions. The car moved so fast, I don’t even know which gate we went through. The next thing I knew, I was in a small ornate office on the ground floor of the West Wing.

Rotholz was there with the same Protocol Officer who’d been with her the night before and another man who looked vaguely familiar to me. The Protocol guy introduced himself as Darrell Wainright and then the guy behind the desk stood up. Reaching across the desk to shake my hand, he said, “I’m Tom Douglas, it’s an honor to meet you”. Douglas looked to be in his early 60’s, obscenely healthy, but with skin like leather, as if he was an old cow-hand who’d spent his life on a horse during the 19th century. To add to the image, he stood close to 6’5” and looked like he could have been on the Chicago Bears front line. The only flaw I could see was a pair of tiny mis-shaped ears that made me work hard to avoid staring.

Shit, this was the President’s chief of staff. His reputation was that of a land shark. It was common knowledge that no-one ever managed to cross the guy because he had so many spies you couldn’t take him by surprise. King of the preemptive strike. And when he got you, he got you good. So good that you couldn’t scratch up the juice for any kind of retaliation. So good, you couldn’t pin it on Douglas even though everyone in town knew who got you. And more important, no taint of a Douglas hatchet job ever touched the President. This was his legend and he never said or did anything that might have dissuaded people from believing it.

I was smart enough to be nervous.

Douglas said, “I just wanted to meet you before the ceremony tomorrow. Adelaide and Darrell will fill you in and take you through the paces. The important thing is to stick to the script. The President operates on a very tight schedule and if we go even a minute or two over, it throws the rest of the day completely off the rails. That’s my job here; making sure the trains run on time.”

I stood there feeling a little dumbstruck as Douglas picked up a folder of papers from his desk, our signal that the royal audience was concluded. Rotholz took me by the arm and led me down the hall to another office with Wainright bringing up the rear. With the door closed, Wainright suddenly became human.

“Douglas is scary as hell, but don’t worry, you won’t need to deal with him anymore. You want a cup of coffee or anything”?

I accepted, more from being completely off balance than from actually wanting the coffee. First, one of the most ruthless and powerful men in Washington treats me like I’ve been putting the moves on his teenaged daughter. Then the man in the iron mask starts acting like an old high school buddy. I decided it would be a good idea to do a lot more listening than talking.

Wainright handed me the coffee and said, “Like I said, you don’t have anything to worry about, but as Douglas said in his highly diplomatic manner, the script is the important thing. We’ll walk you through the whole thing, and then, tomorrow, it’ll be a piece of cake. Douglas notwithstanding, you’ll enjoy the show”.

Rotholz said, “I’ve gotta get back to Campaign Headquarters and excavate my office. You’re in good hands with Darrell here, and as you’ve probably noticed, he’s not the tightass he seems. There’s even a rumor that he’s been seen laughing, but threatened violence to the only witnesses.”

I admired the view as Rotholz left. In spite of being a tiny woman, she was clearly used to being in charge. Also, very nice to look at.

I spent the rest of the day learning my lines for the ceremony. After a tour of the impending crime scene, Darrell took me to lunch in the White House commissary. Watching Darrell turned out to be one of the more interesting studies I’ve undertaken. When we were behind closed doors, he was relaxed and affable, a regular feet-on-the-coffee-table, kind of guy. The second we ventured out of his sanctum, Darrell became D.A.R.Y.L. We visited a couple of other functionaries during the day, and depending, apparently, on his relationship with them, he either pulled the plug out or maintained his Marine Corps poster persona.

At about 3:30, Darrell ushered me into another official car. Before shutting the door, he leaned in and said, “I know I haven’t said anything, but I just wanted to let you know I was real impressed with what you did. You’re gonna do fine tomorrow. There’s no reason for you to be concerned, but you need to be aware that there’s a subtext to everything that goes on at the White House. Tom Douglas told you to stick to the script for his own reasons, but that doesn’t make it bad advice. If you deviate from the script, you’ll just be giving some of the people here an opportunity…and it won’t be one that benefits you.”

I looked him in the eye and said, “What are you talking about. I’m just a show here. Why should I even register on anyone’s radar?”

“Listen carefully. Some of these people are ambitious to the level of having forgotten what scruples are. Since they’ve got such a warped view of the world, they’re naturally suspicious of everyone else. If they’d do anything for the sake of climbing one more rung up the ladder…and they would, they assume everyone else would too. Douglas, for instance, considers anyone who gets the slightest access to the President to be a threat to him personally. He doesn’t like it when anyone has a closed door meeting with the President that he isn’t there to monitor. Hell, he doesn’t like the idea that the First Lady has unsupervised visitation. So, the thing you need to keep in mind is that even though you have no aspirations, and even though you just think you’re just here for a party, there are a whole lot of people trying to figure out what you’ve got up your sleeve. They are completely unable to comprehend that someone might be here without a hidden agenda. That said, I’ll pick you up at 8:00 tomorrow morning. Get some rest; you look like shit”.

I rode home wondering what the fuck I’d stepped into. Read more!

Chapter Eight

Paul woke early the next morning and tried to follow his usual routine. He had a queasy feeling about how the day would go. So far, the day had sucked. The shaving cream had run out, so he had to shave with soap. When he went for his first cup of coffee, he discovered that he had put the grounds directly into the basket and forgotten the filter, thus brewing a strong pot of silt. And stepping out the front door to retrieve the morning paper, he could see that the rain from the previous night was beginning to steam on the sidewalk. It was going to be a hot one.

Most of the serious press figured they’d get their fill at the White House ceremony, but the tabloids still had their cameras parked in front of the house. They were there to record the major event when Paul walked from the house to the limo a short while later. Paul leaned into the back and said to Darrell, “You’ve seen this stuff before, right?”, motioning to the cameras. “How long before they get bored and go away”?

Darrell said, “They’re not going anywhere as long as you keep giving them such a lovely shot of your ass. Get in the car”. Darrell handed him a Starbuck’s Grande as the car pulled away. “So, are you ready for your adoring public”?

Paul responded, “I think I’ll be happy when this is all over with. I never realized being famous could be such a ball buster.”

Darrell laughed. “Enjoy it while it lasts. Believe it or not, you’re going to miss it when its over”.

The limo entered through one of the less visible White House gates, Darrell explaining that it would make his “entrance” more dramatic later in the Rose Garden. They had an hour to kill before the ceremony and Darrell used the time to walk Paul through the script one more time.

When the time arrived, Darrell led Paul to a doorway, and there, in the flesh, stood the President. He shook Paul’s hand, and seeing his expression, smiled and said, “Don’t worry. This won’t hurt a bit”.

President Harper led Paul out to the Rose Garden. There was a podium with the Presidential Seal on a rostrum. Seated behind the podium were a number of dignitaries, including the Vice President, a couple of cabinet members, one Supreme Court Justice, and Tom Douglas looking rather smug. Also seated with the VIP’s were Rachel and Paul’s mother. The audience consisted of a troop of Boy Scouts, a group from a Catholic girls’ school, (identifiable by matching plaid uniforms), a small number of other groups and individuals whose presence was most likely payback for some minor donations or deeds in favor of the present administration. And, of course, there was the press pool. They seemed to outnumber the civilian audience by a fair margin.

Adelaide Rotholz was standing discretely off to the side watching events unfold.

As Paul and the President came into sight, the audience and dignitaries all came to their feet. The applause was significantly more than polite. Paul was in a daze and the President was visibly eating it up.

After waiting a short interval, Mackinzie Harper raised both hands, palms out, signaling for quiet. When the crowd finally took their seats, the President began, “Two days ago, an ordinary citizen like any of you here before me, found himself faced with an extraordinary circumstance. Driving to work, like he does every day of the week, he came across a scene of hellish proportions; a truck overturned on the highway, it’s driver unconscious, with flames threatening. Without hesitation, and with utter disregard for his own safety, this man, Paul Harkness went to that man’s aid.” As he said this, he gestured toward Paul, standing beside him. The crowd broke out in its first interruption of applause.

As the applause died down, the President continued. “Mr. Harkness was able to rescue that man, Jordan Anderson, who is here with us today.” President Harper gestured to a man in the front row and he rose for a moment, greeted by polite applause.

Unbelievable, Paul thought. The guy drives a truck 40 mph over the limit, almost takes out an entire family and gets invited to the White House. Wacky world.

President Harper went on, “Alone, this selfless act would be worthy of our admiration. But what occurred next is what truly elevates Mr. Harkness in the Nation’s Conscious. In spite of his own injuries, Mr. Harkness undertook yet another rescue. And not just any rescue. This was a rescue in the freezing, swift currents of the Potomac River. Robert Jessup has his wife and two children with him here today because of the courageous acts of the man we are here to honor”. At this, the Jessup family stood from their seats in the front row of the audience. Paul hadn’t recognized them until now. The entire family rushed over, Mr. Jessup shaking Paul’s hand furiously, Mrs. Jessup planting a shy but emotional kiss on his cheek. Judging by Tom Douglas’s facial expression, this demonstration was not part of the script. Oh, well. So much for the President’s schedule. They’d just have to knock 38 seconds off the National Security Advisor’s briefing to get back on track.

When the spontaneous applause died down and the Jessups had returned to their seats, the President continued. “Paul Harkness’ actions reflect the grandest image of America, of people willing to sacrifice for their neighbors, even at great personal risk. The Fire Department, Paramedics and Police arrived on the scene in a timely fashion, the first officers arriving within 9 minutes of the first report of the accident. There is no question that those officers would have acted valiantly had there been anything left for them to do. But there was little remaining for them to do by then. Mr. Harkness had already acted. And all of the authorities are in agreement; if not for Mr. Harkness’ quick actions, the outcome of that day would have been tragedy. And so, we are gathered today to bestow on Paul Harkness, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award our government can confer on a civilian. This award is not lightly given, nor was it lightly earned.” Turning to Harkness, he held out the medal, removed it from its jewelry style box, and draped the ribbon over Paul’s neck. He said, “Paul Harkness, I am honored and humbled at the opportunity to present you with this medal.”

This time, the applause was loud and sustained. After a brief round of hand shaking, the press began to shout questions. A Q&A was definitely not in the script, so Paul was surprised when the President began to respond to some of the questions. Harper obviously felt like the event was serving him well and had decided to milk the good will for all it was worth.

One of the reporters addressed Paul. In keeping with the tone of the event, it was a seemingly softball question. “Mr. Harkness, can President Harper count on your vote in the fall”?

Laughing lightly, the President steered Paul to the podium and took a step back.

On any other day, what happened next would not have happened. But at that moment, Paul was overawed by the event. Truth be told, he was a little full of himself, having just been presented to the world as the best thing since sliced cheese. Then again, on any other day, he would have been just bullshitting with the guys at one of his stores and no-one would have given a damn what he said. But this wasn’t any other day.

Paul, without giving it a thought, said, “I haven’t actually decided yet. I usually wait until I can look at one of the candidates and say, ‘that guy’s way more qualified than me.”

Stunned silence followed. Douglas was so pissed off, you could practically see the froth at the corners of his mouth. Rachel was hiding a grin behind her hand and seemed to be bouncing slightly in her chair. Paul’s mother looked like she’d have crawled under her chair given half a chance. Addie’s jaw nearly hit the floor. Paul took in all of this in an instant that felt like an hour.

Breaking the silence, he turned to the President and sheepishly added, “No offence intended”.

President Harper’s face looked as if it might crack from trying to maintain the requisite smile. Leaning into the mic, he said, “None taken, I’m sure”.

At this point, the event ended quietly to polite applause. The President shook Paul’s hand with the least bit of enthusiasm necessary, turned his back and strode back into the White House. Tom Douglas glared daggers at Paul and then quickly followed the President. So much for the script, Paul thought. Darrell came to Paul’s rescue, ushering him into a room where a small reception would take place.

Turning to Darrell, Paul said, “Guess I screwed the pooch on that one, huh”?

Quietly, Darrell said, “They could hear the howling in Tacoma”. Read more!

The Contest

The contest is over and done, but you can read about it if you like.

Here’s the deal. Since Paul fucked up his Rose Garden appearance so badly (in the previous chapter), who do you think wants him as a guest now? David Letterman, of course. After all, you can’t embarrass a president to his face without having Dave want to get in on the joke. Here’s where you come in. On the night Paul appears, Dave’s Top Ten list is:

Top Ten Things Not to Say When You’re Invited to the White House.

I’m having trouble coming up with ten of them, so I need your contributions. Enter as many times as you like, but please make each entry a separate comment.

Remember:
-This story takes place in the Spring of 2004 so keep it appropriate to the period.
-Do your best to inject Letterman’s particular brand of snark.
Update: Also remember that George Bush isn't the President in this book, so references to him won't work.

I need winners by the time I post Chapter Thirteen (or Chapter Thirteen will be woefully inadequate).

This contest will have one GRAND PRIZE winner who will get to graze through my LibraryThing library and choose one of my books. (Once again, I’ll be asking the winner to mention a few books they’d like since there are some books I’m not willing to part with). The other winners will be Honorable Mentions and have they’re submissions included in the book. I'll, of course, be the sole judge (but you guys can tell me if you love someone's contribution), and if I like them enough, I may even replace the ones I've already written.

C’mon you guys. I know how funny you all can be. Try to make us all pee a little. Read more!

Chapter Nine

The reception was mercifully short. Most of the VIP corps ducked out early. A few stayed and introduced themselves, but their bearing indicated that they thought I might be contagious. Andrews, the truck driver had the good grace to at least be embarrassed at his own presence and kept to himself in a corner. The Jessups, naturally, still loved me and gushed appreciatively. The President had pressing business and didn’t attend.

About five minutes into the reception, Rachel, with mother in tow, approached me. Rachel was still trying to rein in her giggles as Mom said, “Paul, in a single moment, you’ve managed to make me, the most incredibly proud woman on earth, and at the same time, I’m mortified that anyone knows we’re related. I always knew you’d grow up to be special.”

Rachel finally lost it and collapsed, giggling hysterically into my arms. At that moment, I looked across the room to see Tom Douglas entering. He brought to mind a charging rhino, the guests fleeing to clear a path for him. Before this vision had firmly registered with me, I felt a hand take my arm in a vice-like grip. Darrell propelled me across the room in the opposite direction and quickly out to a waiting car.

Speeding out of the nearest gate, I turned to Darrell and said, “Thanks for the save. He looked like he could have killed me. Is this going to get you into trouble”?

Darrell said, “No, and you’re welcome, but I did it to save Douglas from himself. I’ve been in the White House since this administration first took over and I have never seen Douglas so pissed off. When he clams down, he’ll realize I saved him from being tomorrow’s headline above the fold. He won’t thank me for it, but he won’t hold it against me either. In the meantime, I think I’ll just take the rest of the day off.

“How about lunch...on me?” I asked.

“Sounds alright by me”.

We ended up at a little pub in Georgetown. It was one of the last working class joints in the area and Wainright said he’d been going there since first coming to Washington. The bartender welcomed him like an old friend as we took a quiet table near the back.

The food was great, shepherd’s pie for me; bangers and mash for Darrell. The beer was served warm, English style, and it complemented the food perfectly. It also suited my mood. The conversation was friendly but punctuated by long silences. I found myself studying Wainright. I was intrigued by the contradictions in him. He couldn’t have been older than 30 or 31, at most. He was a tall black man with a distinctly WASP name and two distinct personalities, one open and friendly, the other formal and forbidding. He was young, but obviously had an excellent understanding of Beltway personalities. In spite of his youth, he seemed supremely confident, but without the ego to go along with it.

I must have been staring because he looked at me and said a simple, “What”.

“I’m just trying to figure you out. What’s your story”?

He laughed easily and said, “Well first of all, once they get the balls, the first question everyone asks is where I got the name. My great grandfather’s mother was a slave on a Kentucky plantation. The Massa was his father, so he adopted the name. It was fairly common in those days. I’m sure it served me well when I was applying to the Ivy League.

“That’s not what I was wondering about. We’re sitting here having a very comfortable conversation, but I can see you checking the door constantly. You do this thing where you pop to attention even though I never hear any screaming ‘Officer on Deck’.”

He smiled and said, “I was a marine. Spent 4 years in after graduation to help pay my college loans. As far as lapsing into that mode, its instinctive. I’ve got a pretty good nose for hidden agendas, so whenever I pick up a bogey on my radar, the Marine comes to attention. And nobody fucks with the U.S. Marines”.

I digested that for a moment and then he asked me, “So what was that all about at the ceremony? Didn’t anyone ever teach anything about self-preservation, not to mention tact? Couldn’t you have just gone with the flow and popped out a little white lie? It’s not like someone’s check up on how you end up voting.”

“I guess I was just caught up in the moment, you know, blinded by the lights….but mostly, I’m just stupid that way sometimes. I’m a sickeningly honest person.”

Darrell said, “What, you’re so innocent, you’ve got no skeletons in your closet”?

I laughed. “Plenty of skeletons, Darrell, I just let ‘em out to dance every chance I get. I’ve made plenty of questionable moves in my life, but I’m not really ashamed of any of them. At least not ashamed enough to try to keep them under wraps. Too much effort for too little reward.”

“That’s different”.

“Look, it’s not something I came to consciously. When I was in High School, I had a friend who abandoned me over something he couldn’t accept about me. I figured, I’ve got as many friends as most people do; not a lot, but more than a few. And every one of them knows pretty much everything there is to know about me, warts and all. For some reason, either they’re not bothered by my blemishes, or they don’t think there’s anything wrong there; whatever the case, they’re still my friends. Eventually, I decided that friends aren’t really friends if you have to constantly keep track of which friend knows which secret”.

Darrell looked at me like I had just stepped out of a spaceship. “That’s a pretty unique attitude. How’s it working so far?”

“Usually a lot better than today.”

We finished lunch and then Darrell had his driver take me home. We shook hands fondly in parting, neither of us expecting to ever see the other again. Read more!

Chapter Ten

The ride home was a wild mix of emotions for Paul.
He regretted embarrassing the President. He didn’t regret what he’d said in particular; he just thought he should have maybe kept his mouth shut.

On the whole, though, he was rather pleased with himself. He’d been riding a rocket of publicity and he thought he’d held his own, (mostly). He’d met some really powerful and interesting people and got to hang out at the White House for a couple of days.

Last, but not least, the reason all of this had happened was that he’d saved four people’s lives. On balance, he felt pretty good about everything.

And now he could go back to his ordinary existence. The way he looked at it, he figured he had 100 positive points on the hero tally sheet and 100 negative points on the Presidential Pariah tally sheet. Doing the math, he assumed 100 minus 100 equals zero, zip, nada. The two things would cancel each other out and now everyone would leave him the hell alone.

On the other hand, he was honest enough to admit he’d miss the attention. A little. Read more!

Chapter Eleven

William Goldman, for those of you who don't know, has written a bunch of terrific books and screenplays. In Stephen King's novel It, he is said to be the only good writer ever to go to Hollywood and remain good. Its been said that Goldman had a rocky relationship with Hollywood. He once said, "Nobody knows anything". He was referring to the fact that the geniuses at the studios through ridiculous amounts of money at pictures like Ishtar and Howard the Duck and then nobody is willing to shell out ten bucks to see them. On the other hand, some nobody (at the time) has a bake sale to finance his movie and...Voila...American Grafitti; ...Shazzam...Blair Witch Project!

The heads of the studios are constantly making Grand Pronouncements about what the public wants to see, and guess what...if they're right two times out of five, they're actually doing really well. For a while, they might even convince themselves that they possess superior insight...but in the end, the fact remains; Nobody knows anything!

Which, coincidentally, is the point of this part of my story. When I got home from my lunch with Darrell, there was an even larger crowd than before. I ducked into the house aided by a flying wedge of State Troopers and a string of "No Comments".

The answering machine was overflowing again, and I was amazed to discover that most of the interview requests had been left after the Rose Garden fiasco. Apparently, one-hundred minus one hundred equals three-hundred in the new math. Who knew?

I've had a lot of time to think about the nature of celebrity over the last year. To me, the most interesting point of debate is whether the media covers celebrities because the public clamors for it or if the coverage itself is what creates the celebrity and thus, the public demand. And I'm talking about all of the media. The serious guys like to claim the high ground, but they're in it knee deep, just like The National Enquirer.

Example? Explain to me the cult-status Princess Diana's death created. The public claimed they were watching every minute because it was the only thing on the air or in print for a week solid. And they had a point; you couldn't avoid it. The media claimed they were only giving in to public demand. Considering the millions of people who got out of bed at 3:00 a.m. on the east coast to watch the funeral live, apparently the media had a point, too.

Or consider our year of All Monica, All the Time! The media spent a year apologizing while the kept trying to come up with better euphemisms for blowjob and dildo. The public said "Enough already", and ate up every minute of the coverage anyway. Monica spend a year running to limos in her sunglasses and ball-caps trying to avoid the cameras and then she showed up on Saturday Night Live. Way to dodge that spotlight, girl!

Anyway, the point is when the coverage of my story began, it was a legitimate news story. At some point, it had become self-perpetuating. As far as I could see, my fifteen minutes should have been up. The original story was about something I'd done. Now, they were covering everything I said. Who the hell was I that anyone should care what I had to say?

So here's the questions I was asking myself. Was he media creating my blip of celebrity or just catering to the public's curiosity? And more importantly, when was it all going to end?

I sure as hell didn't have any answers and I doubt, I could find anyone, even now, who's got a clue, because the fact remains; Nobody knows anything! Read more!

Chapter Twelve

The general attitude at the White House that afternoon was,
"This too shall pass".

The President was pissed off about the whole affair
and he certainly didn't have anything pleasant to say about
"…that ungrateful fucking bastard", but he figured, at
worst, he'd just inherited a small footnote on his legacy.
Clinton had Monica-Gate (far worse); Bush
had Iran-Gate (also worse); Reagan proclaimed
ketchup to be a vegetable and solved homelessness in
America by inventing "Urban Campers"
(nothing stuck to that man); and Jimmy Carter
got attacked by a rabbit. Hell, Ford couldn't take two steps
without falling down…usually on camera. If they could
survive those stories, Harper shouldn't have any problem
getting re-elected in spite of Paul Harkness, (may he rot in
Hell).

The White House staff steered clear of the President
for the rest of the day when they were able to. They were
strictly business when they couldn't. A few people made
jokes about the whole thing (very quietly), and one or two
staffers thought there was a kernel of truth to what
Harkness had said. That opinion, though, was not
expressed out loud.

Tom Douglas, however, was not a man to let things
slide and he'd started his revenge machine about three
minutes after Harkness had left the reception. He'd quickly
seen Wainright's wisdom in getting Harkness out of the
building. His first reaction had involved visions of
Wainright on the janitorial staff, but that had been quickly
replaced with resignation. The President's chief of staff
can't strangle a man who's just gotten the Medal of
Freedom, no matter how richly the guy deserves it.
(Douglas never considered actually thanking Wainright for
saving him from himself; absolution was the only reward
that ever entered his mind.)

He strode angrily through his office's reception area
and directed his secretary, Anne, to get "that moron"
Carmichael on the phone. He didn't even spare a glance
toward the freshman Congressman from Wyoming who
was sitting patiently in the anteroom. (Congressman
Redmond was there to ask for an audience with the
President to solicit support for a pet project he'd brought
with him to Washington. Even he realized he'd have to get
a lot more senior before he could expect any deference
from Tom Douglas.)

Douglas's phone was ringing as he slid behind his
desk. Anne was very efficient. He picked up the phone
and in a growl recognized throughout Washington, said, "I
hope you're happy with how your brilliant fucking photo-
op turned out".

As usual, Carmichael was way behind the curve. He
had been "taking a meeting" with a team of creative
directors from BBD&O Worldwide Advertising. They had
some very exciting ideas for when the campaign heated up.
Thirty-seven minutes after the fact, Carmichael had no idea
what had transpired in the Rose Garden. Oblivious, he
said, "Tom, whatever are you talking about"?

"Your boy Harkness cocked up the whole show. He
stood right there in the Rose Garden and told the whole
damned world that he's as qualified to be President as
Harper is. Right to his face! On TV, Goddammit!"

Carmichael said, "Well, that's just terrible, Tom.
What are we going to do"?

Douglas exploded, "We are not going to
do anything. You are going to have your letter
of resignation on the President's desk by the end of
business today".

It finally sank in to Carmichael that this was not a run
of the mill set back. Heads were going to roll and he had
only one chance to get his own off of the chopping block.
"Now wait a minute, Tom", he said, "This wasn't my show.
This whole thing came from Adelaide Rotholz; you know,
that pipsqueak Alan Gardner stuck me with".

Before Douglas had a chance to respond, Carmichael
added, "If you doubt me, I've got the conversation on
tape".

Douglas was silent for a moment as he considered the
fact that Carmichael might be a moron, but he was a
paranoid moron who probably did
tape all of he conversations. He'd have covered his ass as
usual. Quietly, with a large dose of the menace he was
known for, he said, "One: Rotholz is out. Now.
Immediately. Have security escort her off the premises.
Tell her you'll clear out her office and send her her
personal crap. Two: From this moment on, you don't so
much as take a leak without clearing it with me. Do you
understand?"

Almost a whisper, "Yes."

Douglas continued, "And three: As far as you're
concerned, my name is Mr. Douglas, Sir, you
fucking piss-ant."

Before Carmichael could respond, Douglas had hung
up the phone and was politely asking Anne to contact the
F.B.I. and I.R.S. for additional background on Paul
Harkness. Anne had long ago grown used to her boss's
mood swings.

Douglas was starting to feel much better. Read more!

Yipee, Yipee, OMG Its The Contest Results

Like I said, the contest is over and done. But go ahead and read the results. I know you want to.

I really like you guys and I'm not sure how to say this, but many of your efforts here...ahem...lacked luster. Steve had a couple of great ones for the chapter at the airport and Janiece is writing for ER. Jim and Jeri get points for shear volume. I already had a version of Jim's "First Daughter is hotter in person" and Jeri's "red button" joke.

So, without further ado, there is one Grand Prize winner and one Honorable Mention that will both be included. (That'll leave 3 slots open on the Top Ten List, so feel free to make further suggestions later.)

Grand Prize: I'm altering Todd Wheeler's line slightly to read, "Are the kids home from school? I have a great drinking game we could all play."

Honorable Mention: Jim Wright's "Bill Clinton, Margret Thatcher, and the Pope walk into a bar...stop me if you've heard this one."

Todd, send me an email (its linked on my profile) and I'll send you back a link to my LibraryThing account and you can pick your prize.

And remember everybody, there are no losers here, only people who neglected to win.

Thanks for playing! Read more!

Chapter Thirteen

So, like I told you, I got home to find that the crowds were crowding, the masses massing and the throngs were thronging. My front lawn would never be the same.

The state troopers had been sent to keep the Press in line and the traffic flowing and I guess they decided it was part of their mandate to get me through my front door unmolested. I think I’m like most people when it comes to cops. I don’t actually have an adversarial relationship with them, but whenever I see one, my first reaction is to make sure I haven’t done anything wrong. Having cops there specifically to help me was a new experience. I thanked the nearest one for the help and he said, "No problem at all, Mr. Harkness. We've got your back." Yup, this was different.

Also, like I told you, when I got inside, the answering machine was overflowing. I was either going to have to shut the damned thing off or get a new one with a much longer tape. I poured myself a drink and sat down, resigned to an hour listening for the one or two calls I might want to return. I was amazed, in turn, by the sincerity, ineptitude, and audacity of the media requests. I had no difficulty ignoring them all. Until one message caught my attention.

You'll notice that so far, in this account, I've been fairly quick to acknowledge when I mishandled the situation. Sometimes I've stood by my judgment. Other times I've admitted I could have handled things better. On this subject, you may accuse me of naiveté, but I'll deny it to my grave.

I rewound the message and listened again. Twice. I returned the call. How could I not?

Every call on my machine had been from a producer, secretary or some other flunky...except for this one. E-Entertainment News?...Buzz Off. Barbara Walters?...Not my style. Jerry Springer?....Yeah, right! Nightline again?....Been there; Done that. Extreme Makeover, Home Edition?...WTF?

And then, the one that got me. This was a voice I knew. David Letterman. Himself. Not his booker, not his producer, not even Paul. Letterman himself. The voice said, "call my direct line or you can reach me at home tonight". He left both numbers. How cool was that? Hell, the White House didn't even give me the switchboard number and Letterman gives me the hotline. How could I not return the call?

Before you get the idea that I'm completely star-struck, I want to point out that there was a legitimate thought process going on in my head. I figured, Letterman...He'll show the tape of the rescue, flash a Stupid Human Tricks graphic. We'll laugh. I'll get a chance to apologize to the President. This is a good thing. Softball. Homerun. A few more days and back to oblivion.

Call me stupid but this is what I figured. Since then, I've figured out that I should do a lot less figuring.

So the next day, I found myself in a car the size of Rhode Island, moving through mid-town traffic on the way to Letterman's studio. While I was on the shuttle to Laguardia, there had been a Presidential press conference. They were playing back some sound bites on the radio. I heard Harper telling the world that I've got a past. He doesn't actually say anything slanderous but he closes the subject by saying, "I will say that the opinions of such a man have to be taken with a grain of salt". I found myself rethinking my apology.

So anyway, a little later, I'm hanging out in the greenroom waiting for the show to begin. There's plenty of snacks and I'm thinking "So far, so good". Actually, better than good.

I'm schmoozing with the other guests and they're treating me like I'm the biggest star in the room. Eric Clapton is there. He only has time to shake my hand and tell me its nice to meet me. He's going to sit in with the band, so he has to go.

Tom Selleck is there to plug his new movie and I'm actually sitting there chatting with Magnum P.I. I told him I mostly disagree with his views on gun control but I'm still burned up over the way Rosie O'Donnell treated him on her show a few years earlier. He thanked me. Sincerely. Like what I think makes a difference.

There's four 12-year old kids from some science fair. Their parents are there and they've got these Rube Goldberg contraptions they've invented. Two of the kids and their parents are all over me. One kid is having a meltdown because part of her machine has fallen apart. Dad's trying to console the kid while Mom unwinds a roll of toilet paper all over the room. Apparently, the cardboard core is the required part for the repair. The last kid is completely oblivious to everything else going on. His parents are taking turns holding up flash cards for him. A little Latin here; a little trigonometry there. I feel like asking his Dad why he's so determined to make his son into a locker room punching bag...but I'm not one to meddle.

Regis Philbin comes in. He's there to make one of his ubiquitous cameos. I'm a little tired of him but its still cool.

So, the show begins. There's a big monitor in the greenroom and we're all watching the intro. My first clue that I might have made a mistake? The opening titles run and the announcer reads off the list of tonight's guests. Mine?......"The man who dove into the Potomac and found himself swimming with sharks at the White House...Paul Harkness!"

Cute, but not exactly what I had in mind. A downhill moment.

Dave makes his entrance. Short monologue. Banter with Paul. Introduce Eric Clapton. Banter, Banter. Instrumental version of Layla. Cut to commercial.

Letterman tapes his show in the afternoon, so there's no need to worry about the real length of a commercial break. They just start taping again when the music's finished. Clapton and Paul trade riffs on Layla for about 10 minutes. I'm wishing I was on stage for this. Hey, I'm here with Eric Clapton performing 40 feet away and I'm still stuck watching it on T.V.

Clapton winds it up and we come back from commercial. The crowd goes apeshit. I feel a little foolish when I realize I'm applauding a T.V. set, but I feel a lot better when I notice Tom Selleck doing the same thing. An uphill moment.

Then Dave launches into his Top Ten List: Top Ten Things Not to Say When You're Invited to the White House.

Oops! Downhill moment coming. Truly subterranean.

Number 10: So, is being Vice-President as crappy a job as it looks like?

Number 9: Go ahead without me Mr. President. I'm gonna stay here and talk nuclear non-proliferation with Vladimir.

Number 8: What does this button do?

Number 7: Jeez, the First Lady's much hotter in person!

Number 6: Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher and the Pope walk into a bar...stop me if you've heard this one.

Number 5: Are the kids home from school? I have a great drinking game we could all play!

Number 4: [ INSERT FUNNY]

Number 3: [INSERT FUNNY]

Number 2: [INSERT FUNNY]

Number 1: Cuts to tape of me saying, “I haven’t actually decided yet. I usually wait until I can look at one of the candidates and say, ‘that guy’s way more qualified than me.”.

I have stepped into the abyss. Tom Selleck is going to be the first guest, so he's headed out of the greenroom. His shoulders are shaking as he tries to keep from laughing out loud. I must look shell shocked because he gives me a thumbs up and a sympathetic look as he leaves the room. A real gentleman.

I'm the last guest scheduled so I'll have to watch the whole show from the greenroom. Tom is on. He and Dave talk about Tom's new movie. Dave wants the inside dirt on Tom's co-star, a busty newcomer who's on the cover of half the magazines in America this week. "Come on, Tom; you can tell Dave". He leans over with his hand cupped to his ear like it'll be just between the two of them. This gets a big laugh.

Dave asks Tom if he'd like to hang around for the rest of the show and Tom says he wouldn't miss it for the world. Cut to commercial.

The next segment is a sketch out on the side street. Dave is dropping melons on the street while Regis is dodging them and yelling one-liners up at Dave. It's a lame bit, but Dave and Regis are goofy enough to pull it off. Cut to commercial.

We come back for the science project segment. I'm alone in the greenroom by now. This segment goes well, too. The little girl's machine (it sorts and rolls coins automatically), disintegrates. Change rolls all across the stage and Dave gets into a free-for-all with two of the kids trying to scoop up the money. One kid's machine is an automatic bacon flipper. Hot grease flies everywhere. Very Funny. I kid you not, the next kid's invention is a Doggy Diaper. No need for Pooper Scoopers anymore. We actually get to see a great dane take a dump on cue, shuck his own diaper and deposit it in a trash can. Dave's horrified reaction is priceless. Next up is the Poindexter with the flash cards. He's invented a machine that detects some sort of toxic mold that forms in air conditioning systems. The machine detects a huge amount of the stuff in the studio. The audience is looking worried until the kid explains that the mold he tests for can only occur in a Rain Forest environment and he thought it would be boring for the machine to detect nothing so he's adjusted it to react to oxygen. Ha-ha. You're all safe. Someone is definitely gonna kick this kids ass someday. Cut to commercial.

So, we're back from commercial. My moment of has arrived. I'm standing in the wings waiting for the Stage Manager to cue my entrance. The thing that's running through my mind is how different this is from Nightline. When you do Nightline, you sit in a basically empty studio with a few technicians. Chris is on a monitor in front of you and the whole thing is just a video conference. Easy. Now, I'm about to talk to Dave. Live...with a huge audience. I came back to myself as I heard Dave saying, "And now, a man who last week warranted no introduction, and this week needs no introduction.....Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Paul Harkness.

It all felt like a dream. Not in the really good sense, and not like a nightmare either. It just didn't feel real. I can see the whole thing now. I walk out calmly, like I do this four shows a week and twice on Saturday. The audience is on their feet applauding warmly. I'm waving to them. All very confident and self-effacing.

Dave shakes my hand. Tom shakes my hand. Hey, we're old friends; good to see you again. I sit.

Dave says, "So, Paul, it's great to have you on the show. How ya feelin'"?

I started to say, "Very well, thank you." Instead, I quacked.

The audience giggles.

Dave says, "Can I get you a refreshing beverage"? He's rummaging around on the desk as if he's searching for where he left all the beverages. The audience loves it. Dave looks off-stage and hollers, "Will somebody get this man a damn beverage"?

A page runs in with a glass and pitcher of water. The audience is rolling in the aisles. I take a sip, clear my throat and take another sip.

Dave chastises the page. "If Mr. Harkness here had this much trouble finding water he wouldn't be famous. Let that be a lesson to you young man".

The audience keeps laughing as the page beats a hasty retreat. I laugh politely.

Dave gets down to business. He says, "O.K., so we all know about that little hero thingy you pulled the other day. I want to know, what's the deal with you raining all over the President's garden party. What was that all about"?

Here's my chance. I said, "Well, I've heard what President Harper had to say about me today, and I have to admit to being more than a little surprised. However, regardless of what he may have said today, I still owe the President and all of you an apology for my behavior yesterday. I should have accepted the medal graciously and said 'thank you', Period".

Dave said, "Whoa, Nellie. You're not getting off the hook that easy. That was a lovely speech and all, but did you mean what you said or not"?

I could have said, "I was just running off at the mouth". I could have said, "Hey, I sell car parts. Who cars what I think". I could have said a lot of things.

What I did say was, "Dave, have you been listening to those guys. I mean, give me a break. Do any of them inspire you with all the crap their shoveling"?

Dave said, "Give me an example".

"O.K., I'm being too glib," I said, "Real issues are boring and they take too long to explain. So, every election degenerates into each candidate proclaiming himself America's Messiah with the other guy cast as Evil Incarnate. It's a system that panders to the least common denominator. But the candidates have no option but to campaign within that system. That and they let themselves get talked into some pretty stupid corners".

For lack of any better follow-up, Dave said "Such as"?

We could both see I was losing the audience.

I said, "Well President Harper would certainly be happier if he'd never met me".

The audience liked that. I had them back. Apparently I can go Hollywood with the best of them.

Dave said, "No really, give me a real example.

I hesitated a moment, glanced over at Tom, who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying this. Paul and Eric Clapton and the band seemed genuinely interested.

"O.K.", I said, "Here's one. Remember a few years back Clinton got caught up in that whole thing about a national apology for slavery? I mean, who thought that one up. It got a whole lot of people pissed off for nothing. You had one bunch of people saying they weren't about to take the blame for something their ancestors did a hundred odd years ago; and a bunch of other people were saying "Don't look at me. My family got off the boat last Tuesday". Last, but not least you had a whole lot of Black people asking what good an apology was. They wanted to talk reparations."

"And the biggest shame of all is that it was a fine idea if it hadn't been packaged and marketed so stupidly. How many people do you think would have objected to a National Day of Celebration to commemorate the men and women who suffered under slavery, and to honor those who had the courage to abolish it? Anybody with any objection would have either had the sense to stay quietly under their rock or be dismissed as a wing-nut".

The audience hooted.

Dave wanted to end the interview on a high note. For Dave, a high note is either a laugh or bit of confrontation. He said, "O.K. Paul, one more chance. At the beginning of the interview you apologized to the President and that was all warm and fuzzy and all. But I can't let you leave without telling us what you really think of the President's press conference today.

Few people can look back on their lives and pick out the one instant that changed the rest of their lives. I can. I'll admit I was caught up in the moment. I'll admit that having an audience in the palm of your hand and having David Letterman hanging on your every word is a very heady experience. I'll also admit, that in spite of trying to hold the high ground, I was seriously pissed off about being attacked by the President. All of those things conspired to change the course of my life from that moment on.

I responded in a poor yet recognizable imitation of President Harper. "I will say that the opinions of such a man should be taken with a grain of salt".

The audience was dead silent and then exploded into thunderous applause.

I was a hit. Read more!

Chapter Fourteen

Adelaide Rotholz couldn't remember being angrier. When Carmichael had appeared in her office, he'd had a smug look on his face. He'd also had two security guards backing him up. Rotholz had had the giddy thought that this was the first time she could remember someone being physically afraid of her, and it felt pretty good. Carmichael had delivered the edict and the guards had each taken one arm to escort her from the building. It would have been funny if it hadn't been so pathetic.

At the moment Carmichael had made his majestic entrance, Rotholz had been in the process of trying to decide which sympathetic reporter she'd call on. She'd known that with one planted question in the next day's scheduled photo-op, President Harper would have been able to put the whole Harkness business behind him. All that was necessary was an opportunity for Harper to be magnanimous and funny; "off the cuff". As far as Rotholz had been concerned, the problem rated less than a fart on the Richter scale. She'd solved much more difficult problems without breaking a sweat.

Now, she was sitting at home brooding. Earlier in the day, she'd watched the press conference live on C-Span. Instead of solving the "Harkness Problem", it was now worse. Rotholz had planned to have Harper laugh off the whole thing without saying anything remotely derogatory about Harkness. After all, the man was a hero (we just said so), and insulting him was sure to alienate more than a few voters.

During the press conference, Addie had watched in horror as the NBC correspondent, David Gregory asked, "Mr. President. How do you respond to Paul Harkness' assertion that all of the candidates, yourself included, are no more qualified for the job than he is?"

Of course, the question had been anticipated. On the advice of some idiot, President Harper had responded, "While I don't wish to besmirch the image of a man who so recently performed such heroic deeds, I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you that some facts have come to light regarding Mr. Harkness that paint a somewhat less glowing picture of the man. Now, I don't intend to go into detail, but I will say that the opinions of such a man should be taken with a grain of salt."

The President had than steadfastly refused to respond to any other questions on the subject. The press conference ground on for another highly unsatisfying fifteen minutes and then just sputtered out.

Rotholz seethed at the stupidity. The President had done the worst thing possible. He'd given the story a new life instead of killing it. Who in their right minds thought you could infer that Harkness had secrets and then expect the press to walk away from the story.

As the evening dragged on, she mulled her own options for the future. First, she came around to the obvious realization that the President's problems were no longer any of her concern. Regardless of what others might think, she hadn't created the problem and the only reason it wasn't a dead issue was that Carmichael had gotten rid of her instead of letting her do her job. Well, Fuck Him.

Unlike Tom Douglas, she was not, by nature, a vengeful person. She had no problem with getting back at people, but for her, revenge had to be a byproduct of some other achievement. She didn't consider herself morally above it all; she just knew, that for her, success was the best revenge. If, in the course of pulling herself up the ladder, she discovered some way of knocking off the backstabbing sonofabitch who'd walked all over her, so be it. But she wasn't the type to drag the sonofabitch down if it meant they'd both be rolling around in the mud together.

She knew that her possibilities were limited more by what interested her than by what jobs might be available. Unlike many professions, being out with one camp in politics did not translate into being out of politics. At her level, allegiance wasn't a major issue; ability was what counted. She also knew that in a town like D.C., word would get out that Douglas was the one who'd dropped the hammer. Most people wouldn't hold that against her and quite a few would consider it a badge of honor. She'd have offers to choose from.

The problem, as she saw it, was to find a job that had a future, and one she could stand doing every day. Even though the campaign season was getting into high gear, she really couldn't stomach any of the candidates other than Harper, so that avenue was closed to her. Rotholz had never been a huge fan of Harper, but she didn't dis-like him either. The reason she had gone to work for Harper was that Alan Gardner had wanted her. And Gardner was a man worth working for. Unfortunately, Douglas trumped Gardner by a wide margin, so she was out. End of story.

She briefly considered trying to get a job with one of the networks, but quickly abandoned the idea. She knew that she didn't have the stature to get on-air face time yet.

In addition to that reality, she'd come to realize that her interests didn't lie in reporting the new, but in making it. She didn't mind being behind the scenes. She liked knowing that an event was playing out the way she had designed it. She liked it even more when the event was received the way she'd planned, which happened more often than not. She was quite good at her work and she knew her assessment was based in reality, not ego. She was beginning to feel a little better. She had enough money to see her comfortably through about six months before she'd need to start being concerned. She was confident that the right opportunity would present itself if she was patient.

Hell, this was the perfect opportunity to get out of Tim Pratt's life and townhouse. Before she'd met him he'd parlayed family money into a successful private gallery. He didn't have very discerning taste. In fact, he probably didn't know Andrew Wyeth from Mort Walker, but that didn't hold him back. His clients told him what they wanted and he went out and got it for them in exchange for obscene amounts of money. The one qualification he brought to the enterprise was that his family name opened a lot of doors. Sometimes she thought what she did was crass, but compared to Tim, she was the height of taste and refinement.

A creature of habit, at 11:30, she turned on Nightline. Chris Bury was doing a follow-up story looking at the UN peacekeeping operation in Syria. Six months earlier, Syria had grown delusional and tried to grab back the Golan Heights from Israel. Assad had seemed genuinely shocked when Israel counter-attacked so quickly and decisively. After two weeks of hostilities, Israel occupied an additional wedge of territory reaching three quarters of the way toward Damascus. Assad had grudgingly agreed to a cease-fire in place, while the U.N. could sort out who'd get what in the end. The Peacekeeping force wasn't so much to keep Syria in line since Assad had already stretched his forces to the breaking point. The real problem was a series of incursions by Hezbollah militias staging out of Lebanon. The place was a Godawful mess, as usual.

At the end of the show, Bury did a one-minute follow-up on the Paul Harkness story, relying heavily on footage from the President's press conference earlier in the day. Although his demeanor was all business, a savvy observer had no trouble seeing the glee he took in reporting the catfight. It might be a fairly inconsequential story, but it was going to be one with legs.

Addie didn't watch a lot of entertainment shows, but she usually switched to the last half-hour of Letterman after Nightline ended. As she switched stations, Letterman was going to commercial. The announcer said, "When we come back, the finalists from the Eastern Region Dupont Science Competition; And later in the show; Paul Harkness".

This was the first time Addie had bothered to consider Harkness' place in her current situation. In her current mood, she decided that a.) Harkness hadn't said anything that horrible, b.) the problem would have been over by now if Douglas had let things alone, and c.) she had really liked the guy when she met him.

Insider Washington, with its myopic view of the world, thought of Harkness as a political lightweight, when the truth was that he wasn't any kind of political animal. He was just some guy who'd done something incredibly brave and now he was being keel-hauled by a bunch of people who would have done nothing in his place.

Rotholz no longer cared that being pushed aside had prevented her from helping the President keep from making an ass of himself over the Harkness business. She was, however, becoming increasingly angry that Harkness was going to be raked over the coals. He deserved better and he probably had no idea what was coming.

Roltholz paid no attention to the Science Fair finalists. Instead, she was dreading the upcoming Harkness segment, knowing the poor guy was about to be thrown in way too deep. Letterman was certainly not above letting people embarrass themselves if it was good for a laugh, and having been the one to suggest the medal, Addie was feeling partially responsible for what was about to happen.

The segment began.

Addie watched as Paul made his entrance. He looks calm. Confident. The crowd certainly likes him.

Paul sat down after shaking hands with Dave and Tom Selleck. Dave greeted him. Paul choked...couldn't answer. Damn, the guy's falling apart before he even gets started.

Dave rescued the moment joking about beverages. Letterman doesn't always go to the trouble of putting his guests at ease. Classy move. First question. "What was that all about"? O.K. He's was just relaxing the guy to set him up for the kill. I should have seen that coming.

Harkness responded. "Well, I've heard what President Harper had to say about me today, and I have to admit to being more than a little surprised. However, regardless of what he may have said today, I still owe the President and all of you an apology for my behavior yesterday. I should have accepted the medal graciously and said 'thank you', Period". Holy Shit! He's taking the high road. And Harper's gonna come off like a petulant third-grader.

Dave didn't let him off the hook. He wants to provoke a confrontation. Harkness looks like a deer in the headlights...and came out with a fairly lame comeback.

Dave pushes again. Harkness admits he was being glib and follows with a fairly reasoned response about the process pandering and candidates following bad advice. No points for or against on content, nothing new there. 10 points against him for boring the audience.

Letterman asks him to be specific. C'mon Dave, give the guy a break.

Harkness came back with, "Well President Harper would certainly be happier if he'd never met me". Cute. He's got the audience back.

Letterman pushes again. Don't take the bait, Paul. He wants politics and you ain't no politician.

Harkness started talking about Clinton and the Slavery Apology. Who coached this guy? When I interviewed with Gardner, I told him I'd tried to get to Clinton's people with pretty much the same idea and he said it would have been the right approach.

Letterman's audience is actually thinking! They came for laughs and this guy's got them totally absorbed in a political discussion.

Letterman tried once more to get Harkness to say something rude about the President. Paul took the bait. Served up the President's own line. Perfect response! This guy's fantastic. And the crowd is eating it up.

Rotholz turned off the show and sat back, trying to bring into focus an idea that was swirling around her brain. Before going to bed, she called Jackson Duffield's producer. Duffield had been hosting a local Sunday morning political show for the last 23 years. The networks had courted him since the beginning, but he'd persistently turned them down and become something of an institution in the process. There was no-one in D.C. who turned down a slot on Duffield's show. "If I can arrange it, will you put him on the show?...No, let's keep my name out of it for the moment......Its just a little experiment I want to run...Thanks, bye".

Addie went to bed feeling the best she'd felt all day. She just might not have to be so patient after all. Read more!

Chapter Fifteen

Thursday night, after we finished taping Letterman, Tom Selleck asked me if I wanted to join him and his wife for dinner. So the three of us hopped into a cab and went down to the East Village for Indian food. I'm sure people recognized Tom, but no-one bothered us. New Yorkers go out of their way to be nonchalant about celebrities. I was on a huge high from the show and had to keep reminding myself that it wouldn't air for another few hours, yet. None of these people had witnessed my genius yet. After dinner, I caught a cab to LaGuardia for the shuttle back to Washington. Tom and I traded phone numbers and email addresses, promising to keep in touch. I could get used to this.

On Friday morning, Rachel called to announce she'd be bringing a small group of friends to my place that night for a barbecue to celebrate my triumph. My job was to make sure the grill was ready....she'd bring the groceries.

True to her word, at 6:00, she was on my doorstep with seven people in tow. Ronald was her date; a guy she'd met recently while doing research in the Musical Antiquities section at the National Archive. He had stringy gray hair and a dull, self-important expression on his face. Not surprising he'd be found in the antiquities section. I can't say I was very impressed by him but Rachel seemed to be enjoying his company, so I withheld judgment.

The other guests included Ted Banks and Artie Howe, both district managers for Harkness automotive. Rachel, acting on some knowledge no-one else was privy to (including Ted and Artie), had maneuvered them together three years ago, and they'd been together ever since. Rounding out the group were Alicia Greneaux (a friend of both Rachel's and mine dating back to elementary school) and her husband Jordan, and surprise, surprise, a woman by the name of Zelda Kellerman. Zelda was in her late 30's, about 5'8" tall with her dark hair cut in a severe pageboy. Her piercing blue eyes suggested the hair color might be artificial. She was also the date I hadn't known I had.

Rachel has tossed so many women in my path over the last 10 years, that I'm no longer the least bit surprised when it happens. She gave me a brief period to mourn the demise of my marriage to Denise and then started a campaign of military precision to locate the 2nd Mrs. Harkness.

She shows up at family holiday dinners with perfect strangers for me to meet. She gives me single tickets to her symphony performances and when I show up, invariably there's a single woman in the next seat who I'm expected to woo with perfect dispatch. We once rented a ski cabin in Vermont for the weekend. Rachel was with some guy she was seeing at the time and I thought I was solo. When we got there, I was introduced to Teri. Teri and I hit it off right away, which was a good thing, considering the cabin only had two bedrooms. We actually dated for two or three months. Rachel's not only determined, she's persistent as hell if she thinks the situation warrants it. Obviously, I'm a lost cause, so persistence is Rachel's only option.

So, at any rate, I took Zelda in stride and decided to make the most of the situation. Truth be told, Rachel has rarely stuck me with someone I wouldn't have chosen to date on my own. I've dated a lot since the divorce, and usually a relationship of some sort, forms for a while. I've remained friends with a fair number of the women I've dated. Its just that if I have one phobia, it's the fear that I'll end up married to another woman like Denise. I'm always convinced that if I'm so attracted to a woman, I must be blind to some fatal flaw she's hiding...just like Denise.

Hey, phobias are supposed to be irrational.

So, at any rate, a few hours later, we were all sitting around, too stuffed and lazy to begin clearing away the carnage of our feast. The galvanized tub had a few lonely bottles of Bass Ale still bobbing in the icy water. (Ronald stuck with the bottle of '94 merlot he'd brought). We'd consumed an impressive pile of rib-eyes that Artie had picked up from Dean & Deluca. A huge salad, some roasted potatoes, cole-slaw, and a 15 lb. watermelon had disappeared, as well.

The evening had been a rousing success, what with everyone fawning over me about my Letterman triumph. Rachel was a lot more impressed by my new buddy, Tom Selleck, but she's family, so its allowed.

I was just getting up enough energy to offer to make coffee when my doorbell rang. I asked Rachel to make the coffee while I went to answer the door. If we were at her place, I would have had to beg her to make real coffee; the kind with caffeine and no nutty, vanilla, kahlua or any other heathen flavoring. At my place, I was safe. I don't keep any other kind in the house, and Rachel's finally heeded the prohibition against bringing it in with her.

I was amazed to open the door and find Jackson Duffield on my front porch. He'd been kind of a hero to me for years. I loved that he had kept his show local for all these years and I loved even more, that he managed to scoop the networks on a regular basis. I invited him in.

"One more for coffee", I hollered to Rachel as we made our way through the house to the back patio.

I was just finishing introducing Duffield to the other guests as Rachel came out with the coffee. We all sat down. "I apologize for intruding on your dinner, but I wanted to talk to you about being on my show this Sunday," Duffield said.

I asked, "Do you always show up at a guy's house to invite him"?

"In the old days, in person, on my hands and knees was the only way I could get anyone to appear," he laughed. "In your case, Mr. Letterman suggested this might be the most successful approach with you. I spoke to him this morning".

My guests were suitably impressed.

"I know you've had a lot of shows trying to bag you, but give me a minute to make my case," he continued. "I saw you on the show last night, and I have to tell you, I was impressed. You showed a great deal of poise and there were some little flashes of common sense...which isn't that common. What I've got in mind is to put you on for the last fifteen minutes of the show. It'll be you, me, R.A. McKiernan from The Post, and Elaine Cummings who writes for The Nation and we just talk. I get the conversation started and we just go from there. I think you might make a great counterpoint to the usual crowd.

"I'll admit I'm flattered," I said, "but Nightline was just covering an event, and Letterman was a follow-up joke. Why should anyone care what I think about anything"?

He looked at me as if trying to decide which cards to play, then said, "Paul, I'll be honest with you; there's definitely part of this idea that's pure gimmick; I like ratings as much as anyone. Having said that let me ask you a couple of questions".

"O.K.," I said.

"Do you have a view on the death penalty"?

"I lean toward being for it but with some serious reservations".

"Don't tell me your opinion, please, just whether or not you have one. Do you have an opinion on term limits"?

"Yes, definitely", I said.

He went on to ask me about five or six other topics and I did indeed have a firm view on each of them. Then he said, "It's my guess that you could speak intelligently about each issue I've just mentioned. It's also my guess that you may have a unique take on them; something original to add to the conversation. I think it will make for some interesting television and I'd like to try it. Are you game"?

"What do you think, Rachel"?

"It's your decision, Paul," she said.

Zelda piped up, "Oh, do it Paul. You'll be fantastic".

This girl's alright, I thought. Just the answer I wanted to hear.

I accepted, of course. Both the invite and Zelda's offer to make breakfast in the morning.
Read more!

Chapter Sixteen

Duffield left Paul's house in a fine mood. When he got into his car, Addie Rotholz was waiting in the passenger seat.

"Well?", Rotholz asked.

Duffield smiled, "He's gonna do it."

Rotholz said, "I owe you one for this Jackson."

" I rarely let people off the hook for favors, but something tells me we're going to end up calling it even on this one. I should have thought of booking him myself but you're the one who knew what would get him to bite. He barely put up a fight."

Rotholz came back, "Look Jackson, Please don't trash him. I want to see what he's got, so don't go easy, but I'm not out to bury the guy."

"Addie, you still haven't told me what your interest is in this. What are you after?"

"I'm not ready to tell you yet, but I think there's a real opportunity here. And it won't be something at Harkness' expense...he'll benefit too if things work out... and assuming he's interested. I'm pretty sure there'll be something in it for you too in the long run."

"So, how do you want me to handle him on the show?" Duffield asked.

Rotholz said, "Same as you would any other guest. Assume you'll want him on the show again, so don't give him a hard time for its own sake. I want to see how he handles himself on a variety of issues without prep. And you don't need to steer away from the President's allegations. Don't push too hard, but it'll look like a setup if you just ignore the subject. Let Cummings and McKiernan go anywhere they want. If they play rough, I'll get to see how he responds to direct confrontation without him holding you responsible.

Duffield was quiet as he pulled up in front of Addie's Georgetown townhouse. He turned to her and said, "I just hope his Letterman performance wasn't a fluke. In person, he seemed a little indecisive. I wouldn't want him sitting like a lump or coming off as totally uninformed."

Rotholz answered, "I hope he does well too. Look, I need to find out if he's the real deal. I hope he is and I honestly think he is, but if I'm wrong, I need to know."

As Addie got out of the car, Duffield said, "Yeah, well we can only hope. Addie, I know why I hope he's the real deal, but I'll be real interested to find out what's in it for you."

She leaned back in through the open window. "You'll find out soon enough. And don't worry; you won't end up feeling like you've lead some poor innocent to the slaughter, no matter what happens. If anything comes of this, it'll be with Harkness' full knowledge and enthusiastic cooperation."

Read more!

Chapter Seventeen

On Sunday morning, I had to be at the studio at 7:00 a.m. even though we wouldn't go on the air until 10:30. I was discovering that some T.V. shows are more equal than others. Institution or not, Duffield on the D.C. Beat was strictly of the local variety and local T.V. no matter how well respected the show, is a giant leap down from it's big brother at the networks

First clue. They offered to have one of their interns pick me up. With visions of a college sophomore picking me up in his 10 year-old KIA Sedona, I told them I could find the studio on my own. I'm sure KIA means something wonderful in Korean, but in English, I just hear Killed In Action. Hey, Chevy had a disaster in Mexico with the Nova...Spanish for doesn't go; how did KIA get a pass?

I'm a fan of the show and the set always appeared to be simple compared to the network shows, but in person, it turned out to be seedier than I'd imagined. All of the guests went through make-up together (Jackson rated his own dressing room), and we just sort of hung out waiting for air-time. Snacks here consisted of cooling coffee from an urn and donuts still in the Krispy Kreme box.

My co-panelists had done this many times before. They talked shop with each other and ignored me to the best of their abilities. Obviously, they thought I was there as a novelty, (plate spinner? cat juggler?). Eventually, it became impossible to completely avoid talking to me and McKiernan asked me how I thought the Yankees would do in the season that was about to start. I'm an Orioles fan from birth, so, of course, I knew the Yankees would start strong and then fade by the All-Star break. (This is the fantasy that I hold onto every year.) He told me I was dreaming and, after a moment of silence, seemed to forget I was in the room. Mr. R.A. McKiernan may have been making his current living in D.C., but he obviously pictured himself hitting the big time in New York eventually. Hence the loyalty to his team of the future.

The show runs live, so Jackson was speaking to the camera at precisely 10:30. He opens the show each week with an irreverent commentary on something that's happened during the previous week. This week he went to great lengths to bring to light the numerous pork barrel items that had found their way into a bill to levy an additional 1/8 cent tax on a gallon of gas; the funds supposedly earmarked for completing the cleanup of three superfund sites. Buried in the bill were items that would wean off the funds for everything from paying for improvements to the Iowa State Capitol Building (a federal landmark), to funding a new Head Ranger's office at Yosemite, (complete with a 35-seat state of the art screening room available only to park personnel). If the bill passed with all of the attachments intact, the actual levy would come to three cents per gallon and a two-hundred million dollar deficit for the programs that were enumerated.

Duffield opined that the bill would elicit two reactions in congress. Those with attachments for their own states would, of course, keep quiet about the pork and attack anyone who would "vote against such a modest tax to respond to such an immediate problem." Those who hadn't weighted down the bill with their own pet projects would try to bring the attachments to light in order to explain their opposition but they'd get buried in the sound bites. In the end, they'd realize they had a choice to vote against and lose environmentalists, or to support the bill they knew would do more harm than good. But at least they'd remain electable.

The second segment was a one-on-one with Duffield and Representative Jacob Carlson of Kentucky.

Carlson, running a close second in the Republican primaries and a distant second in overall polls, had been showing his face wherever possible the past week. His people had advised him to take advantage of any possible momentum in the campaign. Even his own people were quiet about his chances against Harper in the general election.

Duffield, true to form, went right to the heart of the matter and asked Carlson if his campaign wasn't just a play at positioning himself well for the next election. Carlson, having no choice really, insisted that Harper could be defeated and that he was the only man who could do it.

All in all, about what you'd expect.

When they went to commercial, McKiernan, Cummings and I were led onto the set. We sat in a sort of living room set, each of us in a wing chair with a huge coffee table in the center, (a demilitarized zone?). The coffee table was below knee level, so when I leaned over to pick up my coffee, my tie fell out of my jacket, threatening to dunk into the cup. People with bad toupees would not be comfortable on this set.

Duffield introduced McKiernan and Cumming, both of them semi-regulars on the show, and then got to me. "My third guest at the round table today is Paul Harkness. He began the week as the anonymous owner of a string of auto parts stores, here in the D.C. area. He shot to national fame with a dramatic feat of heroism, and improbably, here he is at the end of the week, one of the most sought after political commentators in the country."

There's no audience for this type of show, so the silence that followed was jarring.

Duffield filled the silence, saying, "Elaine, why don't you open the segment. What would you like to talk about today?"

Elaine strode right in, "Mr. Harkness, you've gotten quite a bit of mileage out of some fairly outrageous statements you've made this week. Now, we're none of us here exactly shrinking violets, but what reason do we have to give weight to your opinions. What qualifications do you bring to the table?"

"No reason to listen to me, at all," I said, "my only qualification is that I'm a citizen who makes an effort to keep myself informed."

Cummings obviously resented my presence and intended to cut me down immediately. "Mr. Harkness, I majored in U.S. History in college and then completed my graduate studies in Systems of Government. I've spent the last sixteen years deeply involved in studying and writing about our government. My colleagues have similar backgrounds. I mean no offense, but I must question both your qualifications and motives in joining us at the round table."

I could see Duffield getting ready to re-direct the conversation, but I didn't give him a chance. "Ms. Cummings", I began, "I have a degree in Political Science, which, I'll admit, is probably the worst qualification I could offer. However, I'm an American citizen who reads a couple of newspapers every day. I watch CNN and some other news shows when I get the chance. I even read your columns from time to time, although I've never quite figured out what you favor and oppose. You really should read your archives periodically to avoid contradicting yourself. So, if you think I'm not qualified to express an opinion on important issues, the only reason would be that you and your colleagues do a piss poor job of reporting them. As to my motive, Jackson invited me. I thought it might be fun."

McKiernan interrupted, trying to get the conversation back on track. "Mr. Harkness," he said, "Let's stipulate your qualifications. Bearing that in mind, if you're trying to treat the topic seriously, why are you painting politicians as being...well, stupid."

I laughed. "You realize that sound you just heard was Washington at large gasping at the thought of the two of you proclaiming your faith in political competence. And, the fact is, I don't think politicians are stupid. I think they behave stupidly..and there is a distinction. For that matter, the electorate behaves just as stupidly".

Cummings interrupted. "You're really scoring points with the audience now."

I glared at her. "I'm sorry, Elaine, no-one prepped me on the scoring system here. I thought I was here to express honest opinions and maybe tell people something they hadn't heard before. At least that's what I thought Jackson told me."

"O.K. far be it from me to suggest you might not want to insult the audience; just what, precisely, is the Truth according to Harkness?", she asked. If looks could kill.

"The truth is that the only way a politician can get elected is to lie to the people. We refuse to elect anyone who tells the truth. Take the 1984 Presidential debates. Mondale says, 'Let's tell the truth. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did'. He got his ass handed to him. Then, in '88, George Bush rode into the White House on the coattails of 'Read my lips.' Politicians know that they'll only get elected if they say what they know people want to hear. Now, if that isn't stupid, I don't know what is."

Elaine fired back, "And you're trying to lay the result on those two elections on those two statement?"

"Oh, c'mon Elaine," I said, "Now you're just being obtuse." Duffield and McKiernan both snorted. "Of course no presidential election is decided on one event or statement. There are hundreds of things that affect the outcome of an election, some weightier than others. But those two statements had weight."

Duffield decided to steer the conversation elsewhere. "Mr. Harkness, now that you've had some time to think about it, what's your reaction to the President's allegations about you?"

"First off, President Harper didn't make any allegations. His comment was nothing but innuendo; and I don't know how to respond to vague innuendo. I will say this. The reason I was at the White House and ultimately the reason I'm here, is because of a well-publicized incident that happened last Monday. I didn't seek any publicity, but understandably, I've been buried in it. Now, I don't know what part of my background came to the President's attention, but I submit to you that, whatever it is, it couldn't have been more irrelevant last Monday morning. I don't imagine the various members of the media will be able to resist digging; in fact I'm waiting to see the first smears published. But if you expect me to contribute anything to the effort, you'd be mistaken."

Duffield persisted. "Wouldn't it be easier if you just came clean and told us what he was alluding to."

I laughed, "There's so many things he might have been talking about, I wouldn't hazard a guess as to which he might have come up with. Look, I sell car parts. Do you really care if the guy who sells you a cam-shaft smoked pot when he was in college? Or maybe even more recently?"

Cummings saw her opening. "But you're a public figure now. People have a right to know."

"Do they?" I asked. "I don't recall asking anyone to vote for me for anything. I haven't asked to represent you or anyone else. I'll tell you what. If I ever decide to run for public office, I'll "out" myself on every sordid little detail of my private life. I'm not ashamed of how I've lived my life, but if I'm running for something, I guess then you would have a right to know. But until that happens, it's really none of your business. And now, I think I'm completely out of things to say. Thanks Jackson; it's been a hoot".

With that, I removed my lapel mic, got up and went home. I never did find out what they talked about on the last few minutes of the show.

Read more!

Chapter Eighteen

Three days later, at 10:45 a.m., Addie was overseeing the setup of the private back room of one of D.C.'s most exclusive restaurants. At 12:30 her guests would be arriving for a very discrete luncheon meeting. The preparation she was putting in, even the room itself, went far beyond what she would have normally invested for such a small lunch, but it was a miracle she'd managed to get these five men and two women to meet with her at all, much less on such short notice. Everything needed to be perfect...beyond perfect..

In a little less than two hours, this room would be the site of one of the most extraordinary discussions ever held. Her guest list read like an extremely abridged edition of Who's Who in American money and power.

-Evelyn Baumgarten, 86, matriarch to one of New York's wealthiest privately held banks; Direct descendant of Hezekiah Gottsman who founded the bank in 1769.

-Reese Bolling, 73, six-term senator from Michigan; the personification of a Maverick.

-Aldus Racklin, 52, CEO and President of Racklin Mining and Alloys, Inc., the company he'd inherited at the age of 23 on the event of his father's untimely death and brought from the brink of bankruptcy to become a hugely successful multinational corporation.

-Bernard "Chick" Gandolin, 34, Founder and CEO of Straightrazor, Inc., the company expected to overtake Microsoft within the next five years.

-Roberta Langham, 61, CEO of Galactic Artists Alliance, representing the most sought after stable of actors and directors in North America and Europe; survivor of four hostile takeover bids. Currently expanding into Asian Pacific Rim.

-Jordan Phillips, 58, owner of Phillips Investments, a brokerage house catering to a very small, select clientele.

-Bart Jefferson, 77, owner of Great West Timber, Inc., holder of much of the prime timberlands west of the Mississippi.

Each of these people was ambitious and fiercely competitive. They operated at a level of genius most people couldn't conceive. These were characteristics anyone would expect of people in their positions.

Addie, however, knew they had some less obvious attributes. Each of them was fanatically ethical while working in an atmosphere that invited the opposite. And each had the ironclad independence to maintain their positions. Senator Bolling, for instance, had changed party affiliation from Democrat to Republican and then back to Democrat. Immediately before running for his current term, he'd renounced affiliation with both parties, running on the independent "Bolling Ticket" and then took 71% of his state's vote.

During Addie's two and a half years at the White House, each of these seven people had periodically contacted President Harper to offer advice on one issue or another. He always took their calls. And Alan Gardner, being part of the inner circle, was usually privy to the content. Since Addie had a reputation for being able to accurately gauge public reaction to most policies, Gardner usually "bounced" things off her when the President was contemplating their advice.

The opinions of these seven people, while rarely being in agreement with each other, had two points of commonality. One, they always originated from an attitude of independence. Toeing the party line for the sake of toeing the party line was seen as the ultimate weakness. Two, they always displayed a devotion to doing what they thought best for the country, regardless of consequences. In short, they were patriots.

Aldus Racklin, unbelievably, had personally lobbied to have strict limits placed on strip mining. He argued, that without additional regulation, he'd be forced to continue the practice in spite of its calamitous effects, because his competition would still be doing it. He had no problem with the idea that his mining operations would cost more as long as the same rules applied to his competition. Strip mining would be a thing of the past and the mining operations could weather the storm.

Evelyn Baumgarten was a consistently reliable source of back-channel insight into the world of finance. Her usual reaction was that a financially secure institution could endure through most any climate or change in regulations and still turn a profit in the long run. The businesses that might suffer were the ones that were kiting their existence from one week to the next, anyway.

These were two people who could and did look at an issue from all points. Their conclusions, surprisingly, often reflected what they thought would benefit the country as a whole, even if it might cost them a portion of their profits. Unless legislation was going to unfairly hurt them relative to their competition, or might grievously damage the industry as a whole, they would quietly give their nods of assent.

At 12:10, Chick Gandolin was the first to arrive. While not a handsome man, he was anything but the stereotypical computer nerd. His early arrival was typical of the kinetic energy he usually displayed. He'd want to check out the field of battle first; to stake his claim before the others had a chance to get their bearings.

He immediately greeted Addie and thanked her for arranging the meeting; as if it had been at his behest. She'd only told each of them that she wanted to speak to them about an opportunity that might not arise again in this generation. She'd given no details, only promising that it wouldn't be a waste of their time. The fact that only three of the ten people she'd contacted had declined was a measure of her reputation. That alone was a tremendous boost to her confidence.

Finally, at 12:40, Jordan Phillips was the last to arrive. The group silently forgave him this one vanity. It was well known that Phillips would go to any length to avoid being seen as a supplicant. People waited for him, not the other way around.

A light lunch of soup, salad and filet of sole followed for the next forty-five minutes. Addie was not surprised that the lunch conversation never touched on business or politics; and no-one even obliquely tried to ascertain the purpose of the meeting. This was a group of people who took things in their proper order.

Finally, after coffee was served, (tea with milk for Mrs. Baumgarten), Addie rose and started her presentation. She thanked them warmly for attending, some at the inconvenience of cross-country travel. She took a deep breath and began, "As I told each of you when I asked you to be here, if you leave this room without unanimously supporting the action I'm proposing, then this venture will proceed no further. After being privy to some of the ideas you have each shared with President Harper, I'm of the opinion that if even one of you dissents, then my proposal does not merit further action."

She paused. "Before I make my proposal, please lend your attention to this videotape."

Over the next seven minutes, her audience was treated to a masterfully assembled "retrospective" of Paul Harkness' words and deeds. Intermixed were snippets of commentary about Harkness, including the President's ridiculous attack.

As the lights came up, she began again. "In less than eight months, America is going to elect either MacKinzie Harper or Jacob Carlson to be our next President. I know Carlson hasn't officially got the nomination yet, but it'll happen. The ubiquitous Reform Party will certainly put forward a candidate within the next few weeks, but we all know that if they manage to siphon off 6% of the popular vote, it'll be an accomplishment of epic proportions. In the end, we're looking at four more years of Harper."

"By this point, you probably have a clue where I'm going with this, and you'd be less than human if you didn't suspect me of trying to engineer a little revenge. You'll have to take my word for it, but I don't hold the President even remotely responsible for my dismissal; that was the work of Tom Douglas. I'm making this proposal in the firm belief that it is to the good of the nation, not with an eye toward retribution. I hope you'll be able to accept that as an article of faith."

Her audience eyed her with understandable skepticism. By now, they certainly knew where she was leading but they wanted to see what route she'd take to arrive at her conclusion. They had agreed to hear her out, and she'd be given every opportunity to convince them.

"The truth is", she continued, "President Harper has done as fine, if not a better job, than many of his predecessors. Jacob Carlson is undeniably an honorable man who would probably rise to the occasion if he were to miraculously defeat the President. So, if we let the election take its course, the nation will be fine. And that may just be my point. It doesn't really matter which of the two of them gets elected. Aren't both of these men essentially interchangeable when you try to imagine America 4 years from now?"

"I've asked you here to consider an alternative...a real alternative. I want each of you to take a leap of faith and try to imagine America after four years under a Harkness Presidency".

The room was silent. Knowing where the conversation was leading and actually hearing it said out loud were two distinct things. Each of them had nothing but objections swirling in their heads, but they were also each surprised to find themselves unable to utter a word. The idea was so ludicrous they were left speechless.

In spite of knowing exactly what her guests must be thinking, Addie plowed on with a calm confidence that came from knowing that, at least, she had their undivided attention. "Set aside the question of whether or not Harkness is electable. I firmly believe he is, but before we address that question, we need to agree on whether or not getting him elected would be a favorable outcome. I've asked you to imagine America after four years of Harkness in office. I don't know what comes to your minds, but here's what I envision. First, and possibly most important, we could return the country to the system of checks and balances the founding fathers designed. What we have now is either a President with the luxury of a majority in congress, or one who has to deal with the opposition. Either a rubber stamp or a firewall. I've listened to Harkness, and I'll tell you that as a flavor of the week hero, every facet of America loves him. As a politician who holds a variety of opinions that delight and abhor people in equal amounts on both sides of the aisle, he would be a force to be reckoned with".

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not promoting a man I view as middle of the road. That's just code for someone who always looks for the easiest compromise that creates the illusion of progress. Paul Harkness is most definitely not middle of the road; he's doing 65 on the off-ramp and he's challenging everyone else to follow him."

"If Harper or Carlson is elected, the country will be just fine. If Harkness is elected, I think we might experience a presidency the like of which this country hasn't seen in a half century or more."

Addie had rehearsed her presentation to conclude in precisely 20 minutes, the most she thought she'd be able to hold their attention. She knew it was the longest of long shots.

Three hours later, after responding skillfully to every doubt expressed, a candidacy and the birth of a political anti-party had been unanimously endorsed.

Now all she had to do was tell the candidate.
Read more!

Chapter Nineteen

By Wednesday, I thought I might have gotten my life back. Jackson Duffield had called me Sunday afternoon of the show. He told me he'd thought it was a great show, and he had thoroughly enjoyed my appearance, up to and including walking off the set. By the end of that call, I'd accepted that Jackson and I might have a continuing relationship and told him to call anytime. We'd even made plans to play golf the next week. Hey, he's a nice guy.

People were actually starting to try to get their info through Jackson since it was becoming apparent he was the only media-type I'd talk to. He had called twice on Monday with some fairly irrelevant questions. Did I know that a girl I'd dated once in High School had recently been arrested or operating a high class brothel? Did I know one of the wholesalers I bought parts from was being investigated for tax fraud? I asked him if there was any reason I should care about any of it. At the end of that conversation, we agreed that, unless something earth shattering came up, we'd keep the Q & A sessions to once or twice a week.

The press corps at my house had waned to one freelance photographer who seemed to have set up camp permanently. This particular guy was there whenever I arrived at home, whenever I left home, whenever I looked out the window. I waved to him every time I saw him. He never followed me...just stood there leaning on the hood of his car and shot a few frames of everyone who set foot on the property. I never once saw him eat a sandwich, drink a cup of coffee, smoke a cigarette, sit down, take a walk to stretch his legs or disappear to use the toilet. He was just always there. I couldn't imagine he had gotten a shot of anything anyone might have been interested in paying for, but I got used to having the guy around. Live and let live.

I took a fair amount of ribbing at work and I was recognized on the street a bunch, but that was all pretty enjoyable. On Tuesday, I'd had dinner with Zelda. If I hadn't called her myself, Rachel would have arranged a second date or thrown somebody new my way. All in all, I thought I might be over the hump and that life might be getting back to normal.

I spent Wednesday in my usual routine. After spending the morning in my main office, I decided to pay a visit to our store in Annapolis. It seems that my newest addition to middle management had a soft spot for the military. It had come to my attention that our Annapolis store accepted not only VISA, MasterCard and Discover, but also I.D.'s from the Naval Academy. He also extended a 10% discount for any bill paid within 30 days. Since it sounded like something I might have cooked up in my more idealistic days, I decided I'd give the kid a chance to prove its viability.

My only problem was that he'd just gone ahead and done it without telling anyone. I ended up having to "lead the witness" a little before he realized I wasn't going to fire him on the spot. We ended up deciding to try a program where we'd extend credit to any active duty military personnel under the same terms he was giving Academy Cadets. The policy would be limited to the Annapolis store for the moment. We decided to let it go by word-of-mouth; no advertising. We'd see how it went for six months and then either expand it to include all of the stores, or kill it if it wasn't working. Hell, none of those guys get paid enough and six months at one store wasn't going to break me, no matter how badly things went.

As I was driving back to Virginia, I called Tess, my assistant, to get my messages. I have a cell phone, but I only turn it on to make calls. If someone needs to reach me, they have to call my beeper and only three people have that number; Mom, Rachel and Tess. I've found that there is a direct correlation between the urgency most people feel the need to speak to me and the utter ambivalence I have for what they want to discuss. My gatekeepers know me well.

Mixed in with the usual call list that required my attention was a call from Addie Rotholz. Her dismissal from the President's campaign had rated a mention on the network news shows and in the D.C. papers, so I was certainly aware of it. I had decidedly mixed feelings about what had happened to her. On the one hand, there was no doubt she'd still have had a job if I'd kept my mouth shut. On the other hand, she was the one who had dragged me into the whole thing, so she could just live with the fallout. I felt sorry for her, but I wasn't about to beat myself up over it.

Naturally, I assumed she was coming after her pound of flesh and I was only surprised she had waited so long. The hell with that!

Now, another thing you should probably know about me is that I've got the ability to sort of blow things up in my head. I can start from a perfectly reasonable premise and the more time I have to spin it around in my brain; well, there's just no telling where it'll end up.

Example: I remember this one Sunday morning about a year after I graduated from college. I woke up very gradually, thinking about snow since it had been snowing heavily when I got home the night before. So, I'm lying there in bed all comfortable and warm and knowing there was no rush to get up. I know the paper will be out front and soon I'll be happily reading it, maybe doing the crossword puzzle and having my second or third cup of coffee. I didn't have any plans for the day other than to be supremely lazy. As I was getting closer to having the energy to get out of bed, I remembered I had bought a ticket for the lottery and the jackpot was up to something like 30 million bucks. The winning numbers would be the first thing I looked for when I got the paper. Then I started daydreaming about what I could do with 30 million dollars. "O.K., now don't get carried away," I thought, "even if you won, the taxes would be about 46%. That would leave me...Um, o.k. 50%...15 million. O.K., that's fine, 15 million's still a hell of a lot of money." So, I'm day- dreaming about the party I'd throw...fly 100 people to some private island on a chartered jet...I should give a chunk of change to each of my relatives...well, only immediate family...buy a house or two...new car. So that's the track my mind's following, trying to keep a running tally of how much money's left when...BAM, another thought intrudes. "What if I'm not the only one with a winning ticket." What if there's, like 4 other winning tickets. It happens all the time. If it happened, I'd be looking at only a 6 million dollar jackpot...3 million after taxes. How the fuck am I gonna live on a measly 3 million bucks?"

Well, you get the idea. Sometimes my mind gets started and God knows where it's going to end up. Sometimes, you know you've got a conversation or an argument coming up with someone and you try to rehearse it in your head beforehand. And you think you've got a pretty good handle on it. Only the person you're going to be arguing or conversing with has never seen the script. The first thing out of their mouth and boom, you're back to ad-libbing. So much for preparation.

Anyway traffic had been building steadily since I'd left Annapolis and slowed to a crawl as I approached the Beltway. I'll admit that sitting in traffic is one of the few things that really makes me nuts. I don't start cutting people off or taking pot shots at my fellow motorists, but I do get bent out of shape. I found myself yelling at the moron who kept changing lanes directly in front of me (as if everyone was going to move aside so he could get home first). This, of course made me start to feel foolish. Sitting in traffic, with nothing but time on my hands, and feeling childish made me start to feel cowardly for not returning Addie Rotholz's call. I fought the feeling, but after about 20 minutes had passed (and only about 2 miles), the feeling became unbearable.

I don't like feeling ashamed and I managed to convert my shame into anger at Ms. Rotholz for having the temerity to lay her problems at my feet. Well, she's the one who put me up to that ridiculous performance; she can just live with the fruit of her labors. Who the hell does she think she is trying to make me feel responsible for her whole misguided career? The hell with her.

I went on like this for another 1/2 hour (3 miles!) and found myself just itching for the confrontation. I decided to return her call, but I wouldn't give an inch. She could bully me all she wanted and I wasn't going to give her an ounce of satisfaction. That way, I'd be able to tell myself that I wasn't ducking her but I wasn't taking the fall for her shitty decision-making. Yeah, I'd gotten myself pretty worked up.

Treating it like a precious gift, I was keeping my anger just beneath the surface. I dialed the number she'd left. She answered after two rings, "Addie Rotholz". Terse and efficient.

"This is Paul Harkness returning your call", I said. No hostility in my voice, very businesslike. Good going, Paul.

When she spoke, she sounded very animated. "Paul, thanks for calling me back so quickly. I was hoping we could meet for a drink. Its important".

A drink? What the hell is this? My comeuppance has to be public? This sure as hell isn't the conversation I rehearsed for.

"Paul, are you there?", she said after I hadn't responded for a moment.

"Sorry, I was distracted by a guy who just cut in front of me," I said. Good cover, Paul. "A drink? No offense, but...what for?"

"I have someone I'd like you to meet and something to talk to you about. I promise, It'll be painless."

I took a short moment to try to formulate a smooth response before deciding I didn't have it in me. "Things happen to me when you talk to me and introduce me to people".

She laughed. "Yeah, me too. Look, I just want a drink and conversation. You listen, you drink, then you get up and leave or we talk more. Your decision. I swear."

Since my options would be sitting in traffic for another hour or heading into Washington against the afternoon rush, I decided to accept. Some of my decisions in life are based on some pretty mundane suppositions. I was sure that nothing she had to say could be worse than sitting in this goddamn traffic.

"Where"? I said.

Read more!

Chapter Twenty

Paul walked into the bar about 45 minutes later. As instructed, he gave his name to the Maitre D’ and was shown to the same back room Addie had used for the luncheon.

As the meeting had broken up, the group had agreed that Addie and Senator Bolling should remain behind to plan their approach to Harkness. They’d gone through two pots of coffee and were having their first cognac when Paul showed up.

Addie strode toward him and shook his hand with both of hers. “I really appreciate you coming, Paul. I’d like you to meet Senator Bolling of Michigan”, she said as she gestured toward the man standing at the table.

Paul walked over and shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Senator”.

“Please, call me Reese,” he said. “What’re you drinking?”

“Jameson’s, neat, please.”

Bolling nodded toward the waiter who went to a discrete sideboard and got Paul’s drink. The three of them took seats at the table, Paul waiting for someone else to begin. He was completely on edge about the purpose of this meeting and the presence of Senator Bolling only made him more uncomfortable. He looked toward Addie, the question obvious in his eyes.

Instead of Addie saying anything, Bolling began. “Paul, you’ve made something of a splash this last week or so. It seems as if everywhere I turn, there’s Paul Harkness telling me what’s wrong with the government. I’ve got to tell you, you’ve ruffled some feathers in town. So much so that Addie here, brought me and a few other acquaintances together for quite a remarkable discussion today.

“What acquaintances would those be, Senator,” Paul said. His use of Senator instead of Reese was not lost on anyone.

“Let’s leave their names out of it for the moment. And its Reese, remember”?

“Fine. Give me the story the way you want but I’ll stick with Senator for the moment if it’s all the same to you”.

Bolling smiled at Addie and continued. “Suffice it to say, the people we met with today are some of the wealthiest and most influential people in America. If you’re half as well informed as you claim to be, you know I’ve got a reputation for being a straight shooter. Bearing that in mind, trust me when I tell you that unlike a whole lot of rich powerful people, the group we met with today was composed of people who got where they are through merit and determination. There were eight of us in the room with eight very different political ideologies at work. The one thing each of us has in common is an unquestioned devotion to this country. You with me so far, son?”

Paul wasn’t sure he liked being called son, even by a senior U.S. Senator. Alarms were going off in his head like a pinball machine. Suddenly, his conversation with Darrell Wainright came back to him. Was it really possible he had pissed off so many people so much? It was obvious this was a lot more than Rotholz getting her pound of flesh. He couldn’t imagine how or why she’d been able to get a group like this together just to nail his ass to the wall. He decided to hold his tongue, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Yeah, money, hard work, love of country. Got it”, he said.

“Yes, well anyway”, Bolling continued, “we spent a few hours talking about you. Addie has some rather astonishing ideas involving you. What’s even more surprising is that by the end of the discussion, we were all in complete agreement with her.”

Paul was doing his best to remain calm, but the longer this went on, the more furious he grew. If they thought they could line up a bunch of Washington insiders to teach him a lesson, they had another thing coming. He could feel himself trembling with anger. He turned to Addie holding his finger inches from her face. In a quiet yet menacing voice, he said, “You set this whole thing in motion...you not me. I may have pissed off Harper and Tom Douglas, but I’ve made my apologies. Look, I’m sorry you lost your job, but shit happens when you play with the big boys. If you think you can call in a bunch of your cronies to intimidate me, you’ve got another thing coming.” He turned his wrath on Bolling. “And you, Senator”, he said with venom dripping from his words, “you’re right, I’m aware of your reputation. And the fact that you’d involve yourself in a petty act of retribution like this is just proof of everything that’s wrong with this government. I don’t believe I care to hear what Ms. Rotholz and her friends have in mind for me. I think I’ll leave now.”

He rose and started toward the door. Halfway there, he hesitated, turned back and returned to the table. He spoke in a voice so quiet, they had to listen carefully to hear his words. “And listening you spouting about love of country...don’t make me sick!” He picked up his drink and finished it in a gulp

As he turned once again toward the door, he heard Addie laughing. “Paul, we want to run you for President”.
Read more!

Chapter Twenty-One

Well, that stopped me right in my tracks. I turned on my heels. Addie was still laughing quietly; Bolling had a smirk on his face. "What did you just say"?

Bolling looked me in the eye and said slowly and precisely, "Paul, a very small group of people, a group that includes Ms. Rotholz and myself believe that you should be the next President of the United States. What's more, we believe we've got a better than even shot at making it happen. Hell, you've already got eight committed votes and you're not even running yet."

I walked the rest of the way back to the table and sat down hard. Bolling motioned to the waiter for another round of drinks. Bolling and Rotholz watched me while I sat there in stunned silence. My mind was a blank. Before I could even think about what they were proposing, I had to wrap my mind around the idea that this wasn't some revenge thing. Talk about not following the script! My drink came and I slugged it down. The waiter put the bottle on the table and left the room. Smart guy.

Finally, I looked at the two of them in turn and said, "That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard".

Bolling and Rotholz laughed out loud again, Rotholz said, "It is, isn't it?"

My mind was reeling. "You can't possibly be serious".

"As a heart attack, son", Bolling said.

I just stared at him. He's sitting there with a big grin that's coming more from his eyes than his mouth. If you've never seen Reese Bolling in person, let me tell you, television just doesn't prepare you for the man in the flesh. Sure there's the jarring persona he's created for himself. The country and his constituents have long accepted the incongruity of the Michigan senator who, for some reason, chooses to dress like an antebellum plantation owner. We've all seen the white suits, the black string tie and the bushy white eyebrows that look like they could take you three falls out of five. What you're not prepared for is the intensity of the man. He just looked at me, waiting for a response. He didn't blink. He didn't fidget or twitch. His eyes never left mine. Serene as a sculpture, he seemed content to let time pass.

I turned toward Addie and she nodded.

"You're actually serious aren't you", I said.

They both nodded.

For the next half hour, they reiterated that it wasn't a joke; it wasn't a setup; they were completely sincere. In the face of their protestations, I started to believe them. "I came here expecting this to be some kind of revenge for getting you fired", I said to Rotholz. "I'm not sure I like this any better. I mean really, it's crazy. Absolutely batshit crazy. I've never run for anything in my life; not even student council."

Addie replied, "The Senator and the rest of our little committee had the same first reaction. It was only one element of our discussion, but your lack of government service is actually part of your appeal. Voters have been screaming for outsiders for years, but the only choices they've been offered are people like Ross Perot, and Jesse Ventura. Ralph Nader wasn't crazy, but there's no way he was ever going to get elected. By comparison, you're a completely rational candidate."

"Look", she continued, "you've got a solid record of achievement in the private sector. I did a little research and I wasn't surprised to find out how innovative you've been with your company. In the years since you took over the business from your father, you've got a total of twenty-two consumer complaints to the Better Business Bureau...three of which were judged to have any merit; there have been two civil suits filed against you...both of which were dismissed with prejudice; you've never had an employee sue you or file a complaint with any Federal, State, or Municipal agency. In that same time, your company has shown a steady growth rate, never less than four points above the inflation rate; your employee profit sharing program has always paid a dividend, and you've actually increased their total share of profits without any prompting or pressure. You provide a benefits package to a non-union workforce that compares favorably with any business in the country, large or small. All that while consistently growing the business and its profits. Frankly, your company should be a required course for every MBA candidate in the country."

"Second, we all know that this started because you got caught on camera being a hero. I won't make any apologies for the fact that I set out to use your celebrity to help President Harper solidify his place in the polls. In spite of you pissing off Harper and Douglas, I'd still be doing that job if I hadn't been working for a weasel of a campaign manager. Believe me, I could have salvaged that situation and had everyone come out smelling like roses without breaking a sweat, but that's not what happened, is it? Harper made a moronic response based on moronic advice and just pushed you further into the spotlight."

"Third, every time you popped up on another show, I kept waiting for you to stick your foot in your mouth. I wasn't rooting for you to implode, but let's face it; I know better than anyone how you were plucked from obscurity. You just don't have the background or training to go toe-to-toe with the people you've been facing. But what's happened? You've held your own each time. You've been more poised and confident each time you've appeared."

"Fourth, you've made some very perceptive arguments. You're whole take on the "slavery apology"? I made the exact same proposal. It died without ever working its way up the food chain, but I still think it was the correct strategy. I'm a big enough person to admit that I'm inclined to attribute genius to people who independently arrive at the same conclusions as me."

"Fifth, you're riding a wave of publicity right now. All we have to do is give it a tiny nudge and it'll keep right on going. You're tall. You're good looking. You've got a sense of humor that shows up at just the right moment."

"In short, you are presidential material whether you want to believe it or not", she concluded.

I can only speak for myself, but I've always had a little voice inside my head that whispers things to me like,
"Jeez, look at the mess these guys have made. I could do better than that", or "where do they find these idiots?", you know, stuff like that. It might happen at the bank or the DMV or reading about the latest stupidity in Congress. Regardless of the situation, its rare that in my head, I don't think I've got a better way of getting the job done.

Well, its one thing to have your voice whispering to you; hell, mine rarely shuts up. The voice gets to be background noise. But what do you do when a U.S. Senator, the ex-press secretary for a presidential campaign and an anonymous group of fat cats start telling you that you ought to be President? I don't know about you, but I started listening to my voices. Like a buzz behind my eyes, it's saying, "Paul, this is stuff you've always known; they're not telling you anything you didn't already know".

One the other voices that babbles at me a lot of the time chimed in with, "What are you, out of your mind? First of all, there is no way in hell anyone's voting for you for anything! You sell car parts, you putz!"

Voice #1: "You and I both know you can do this. Go for it."

Voice #2: "You've had nothing but trouble since this whole circus started. Walk away! Walk away now!"

Voice #1: "Oh yeah, sure. Like being on Nightline and Letterman is such a horrible thing".

My voices went on in this vein for a while. I have no idea how long. Addie and the Senator just watched me patiently, no impatience discernable on either of their faces. For all I know, this went on for a half-hour with me drooling...slack jawed...the poster child for catatonia. I have no idea. All I know is that when I finally had something to say, I told them I was willing to think about it.

Addie said, "We'll need your answer by Sunday morning. If this is a go, we start putting you out in public again next Monday, and we announce the run two weeks later. While you're thinking about it, I'll be available to you around the clock. I never turn my phone off. If you need the Senator, call me and I'll hook you up. If you need any research done, same deal. Call me. Whatever you need, I'll make it happen."

"Fine", I said. "The first thing I need is for you to arrange a meeting for me. I want to talk to that protocol guy, Wainright over breakfast tomorrow. My house at 7:30." I knew I needed the advice of someone I could trust who also had knowledge of the world these people wanted me to join...or make that the world they wanted me to go up against. Wainright had the knowledge. I'd come to like him during our brief acquaintance. Trust? Who knew? But the multiple choice list of available options seemed to be A) Wainright, B) Wainright, C) Wainright, or D) All of the Above.

"I'm not sure that's such a good idea", she said, "If you decide to run, he's part of the opposing team. Besides, I have no idea whether or not he'll be available then".

I'm not even a candidate yet and she's managing me. No time like the present to find out who's going to call the shots.

I looked at her and said, "Ms. Rotholz, you just told me that you're the one who 'makes things happen'. The two of you have been stroking my ego since I walked in the door, so I'm going to assume you have at least a little faith in my ability to make a simple decision. I'd like to talk to Wainright. Make it happen. If he's not there tomorrow morning, you won't need to wait 'til Sunday for my answer".

She didn't look thrilled, but said, "I'll arrange it. Hell, I'll bring him there myself".

"I'd rather talk to him alone, if you don't mind." I said.

I got up and left, bidding each of them a quiet "Goodbye". On the drive home, my mind was in an uproar, but I kept coming back to the thought that I had left the meeting as the man with all the marbles. O.K., not all of the marbles...but enough that they couldn't play if I decided to take mine home. Voice #1 was doing the Tango.
Read more!

Chapter Twenty-Two

After Paul left the room, Addie looked Bolling in the eye. "Well, was I right or was I right"?

Bolling poured a fresh cognac for each of them. "Adelaide", he said, " I think he'll do quite nicely. I was dubious when you floated this idea. He's slow out of the gate, but he finishes strong. Yes, we can definitely work with him."

"Did you see the way he almost took my head off over the Wainright thing, which, come to think of it, is probably a great idea. Anyway, if Harkness throws in with us, we'll have two weeks to make sure he really is up to it. I think he is, but if not, we'll just quietly let him fade into oblivion. I'll withhold my 'I told you so' until then".

Bolling lifted his glass. "Addie, When the time comes, you'll be welcome to it".

They both drank.
Read more!

Chapter Twenty-Three

I slept poorly that night. My mind was still reeling. I knew the idea of running me for president was absurd. In addition to all of the reasons I'd brought up in my meeting with Rotholz and Bolling, I could think of a million more. What did I know about politics? I'd be eaten alive. I could spout off with all the other yahoos between innings about why we should or shouldn't be involved in one or another country's affairs. It's easy to spout when no-one has to pay attention to anything you say. I know someone has to make tough decisions about domestic spending, but me? Give me a break.

This was a bad, bad idea.

While my voice of reason soothing sounds, my insane "little voice" also kept yammering at me. They want you to be President, asshole. Go for it! Do you have any idea what a cool job that is? And when you're finished, every company in the freakin' world offers you a job. You get to sit on some board, or be a consultant or something like that. Work two days a month for a gazillion dollars. And you're on the guest list for all the best parties.

I was trying not to listen to my insane voice, but it was enormously seductive and I started convincing myself that the whole thing wasn't that unreasonable. Presidents don't have to know everything. That's what cabinets and advisors are for. There're hundreds of people around to fill you in on stuff you don't know.

And I was starting to buy into my own celebrity. I had done a pretty good job of responding to tough-ish questions. I had been poised, articulate and damned amusing, if I do say so myself.

And I was sincere in the opinions I'd stated. Didn't Jefferson envision a system where ordinary citizens took their turn at governing and then returned to private life?

Maybe I wasn't asking myself the right questions. I was thinking about being President as it was defined in 2004. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing to have a President in the Jeffersonian construct. I finally fell asleep having fooled myself into feeling better. Maybe this wasn't so insane after all.

I awoke up in the morning knowing I'd been wrong. This wasn't an absurd idea. It was the incoherent ravings of a fucking lunatic. Off the charts insanity.

Knowing I was going to turn them down came as a tremendous relief. I'd had a perfectly happy, if ordinary life before all this began and sooner or later, I'd get it back.

There's an old Yiddish story about the Wise Men of Chelm. They're discussing traveling to the sun and all the problems involved in achieving such a feat, (We can't fly; It's too far, etc), when one of them brings up a problem he's sure will put an end to the discussion. "Surely we'll all burn up if we reach the sun! One of the other wise men waves the problem aside like a troublesome gnat. "That's no problem at all", he says, "we'll go at night when its not so hot."

This described my feelings about my current situation. Bolling and Rotholz and their faceless junta were solving ridiculous problems with ridiculous solutions and blindly ignoring the fact that making me President was a very bad idea.

I took a long hot shower and then dressed in my usual work uniform; khakis, Polo shirt and Timberlands. As the coffee was brewing, I heated up some Danish I'd bought the night before. I cut some fruit and was just setting out a pitcher of juice when the doorbell rang.

I opened the door and thanked Wainright for coming. True to her word, Addie had driven him and, once again, offered to stay. I thanked her and watched her walk back to the car. As she was driving away, Rachel pulled into the driveway.

When she got to the door, I introduced her to Wainright. When we were all sitting around the table, I began, "I asked you both to come here to help me work my way through a difficult decision. As it turns out, though, I've realized there is only one possible decision. I'm sorry I wasted your time and I hope breakfast is enough to make up for it".

Wolfing a danish, Rachel said, "So what's the big decision anyway"?

"It sounds silly now that I've come to my senses", I said. "I'm actually embarrassed to tell you." After a moment's hesitation, I continued. "Yesterday, Adelaide Rotholz and Senator Reese Bolling called me in to meet with them. They told me they want to run me for President".

Rachel burst out laughing. Uncontrollable, manic gales of laughter. Almost immediately, I joined her. It was the first time I'd said it out loud aside from the meeting with Rotholz and Bolling and outside of that context, it was the first time I could hear what a laughable idea it was. When our laughing jag finally petered out, I glanced over at Darrell.

He wasn't laughing.

When he saw that I had myself under control, he said, "So what was your decision"?

"What was my decision? I'm going to tell them no, of course".

"Why, 'of course'", he asked.

"Because it's fucking nuts. That's why 'of course'. I mean who in their right mind thinks I'm qualified to be President? Get real, Darrell".

"Apparently Addie Rotholz and Reese Bolling think you're qualified".

I asked him, "Did Addie prep you on the way here"?

"I like you Paul", he answered, "that's the truth. And you should believe me when I tell you the first I heard of it was a minute ago from your lips. I think maybe you ought to rethink this".

"Then you're nuts, too", Rachel contributed. "He's just Paul. He can't be President".

Darrell ignored her. "They gave you reasons why they want to do this, right? And they probably told you why they think it'll work, right"?

I nodded.

"And the things they said; they sounded pretty good to you at the time, right?"

"Yeah", quietly.

He looked at me levelly. "Here's one other thing you should believe. I'll want to hear what they said before I chime in on this decision, but the fact alone that Addie Rotholz and Reese Bolling think it's a good idea is reason enough to consider it seriously. They really are two of the sharpest people in Washington. Addie may be just an unemployed wonkette at the moment, but it'd be a huge mistake to underestimate her".

I just looked at him. Rachel didn't say a word.

"How long do you have before they expect a decision"?

"I've got 'til Sunday", I said.

"Tell you what, Paul", he said, "I'll make you a deal. Don't rush the decision one way or the other. Think about it. I trust Addie and I'll get her to fill me in on her thinking. Then I'll want to sit down with you again and tell you what I think. Does that sound reasonable?"

"Sure", I said.

"One other thing", he continued. "Like I said, I trust Addie. I think the odds are that if she thinks this is a good idea, she'll be able to convince me it's a good idea. So, it's likely I'm going to come back here to try to convince you that it's a good idea. And when we get to that point and you agree to run, I'm going to resign my post at the White House and come to work for your campaign, if you'll have me...'cause I wouldn't miss that show for all the peanuts at the circus!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We talked through another couple of hours after that. Rachel was highly suspicious because the "group of rich folks" was maintaining anonymity. She's kind of a conspiracy theorist, so I try to listen to her, but skeptically.

Darrell went off and had his conversations with Addie and, as predicted, came back to me suggesting I go for it. This only served to augment my delusions of grandeur, so finally, I called Addie and said, "What the Hell, let's give it a shot".

I called Tess and told her I wouldn't be in the office for the next couple of weeks and that she should deal with the daily crap on her own and get in touch with me for only the big stuff. Privately, I told her that she should consider herself the CEO for the next two weeks and pay herself my salary for that period. Who am I kidding? She'd been working for me for six years, and knew practically everything I did about running the business. If she actually made any changes they were sure to be improvements.
Read more!

Chapter Twenty-Four

The following Monday morning, at 8:00am, Paul entered a large storefront office on Connecticut Avenue in the Northwest corner of the city. The windows were still soaped over from the previous tenant's departure, and the walls and floors were bare. Other than that, the space was caught up in a frenzy of activity. In one of the private offices along the back of the space, Paul could see two technicians installing what looked like an entire wall of flat-screen video monitors. Paul had no way of knowing it, but this was Addie's 'information center', recently displaced from Tim Pratt's home. The rest of Addie's personal belongings currently took up residence, unpacked, in a bland apartment building, Addie's temporary digs until such date that she had more time and energy to devote to her living situation.

Paul stood rooted in place, unnoticed, watching the activity swirl around him. At the center of the maelstrom was Addie Rotholz. She was a maestro, conducting an orchestra. She was an air traffic controller on a busy day at O'Hare. Paul had never seen a General preparing to defend his position from a much larger force, but he imagined this is what it might look like. If the General knew his business.

Every time he'd encountered her so far, she'd been the picture of professionalism; expensive business suits, makeup just so, not a hair out of place. Today, she wore running shoes, jeans and a T-shirt. She may have had a trace of makeup, but he doubted it. Her hair was a wild mop of curls, held captive under a Washington Senators baseball cap that looked older than she was. He'd liked her looks before, but this too was interesting. He had an admitted weakness for the 'fresh scrubbed' look.

This was also the first time he'd really seen her in action. She was in complete control; no uncertainty in her litany of directives; no hesitation by the staff carrying out her wishes. Impressive as hell, he thought.

Addie finally noticed Paul, or possibly, she'd just arrived at his place on her agenda. Grabbing him by the elbow, she propelled him toward the corner office. The room was already completely furnished and simply, but comfortably decorated. The room had a large desk with leather swivel chair, credenza, file cabinets and a comfortable looking conference area with coffee table, couch and three side chairs. The fluorescent lighting had been turned off in favor of the various floor and desk lamps scattered around the room, and there were three tasteful, if anonymous lithographs on the wall.

Paul hadn't noticed Addie speaking to anyone, but a tall dark-haired woman materialized with cups of coffee for each of them. Addie steered him to the desk.

As he sat, he said, "How did you get this done so quickly?"

She waved the question aside. "This is only temporary. When we announce, we'll need something much bigger and better, but this'll do for the time being. Think of this as our exploratory committee headquarters."

"O.K., where do we start", Paul asked.

Addie sat down and browsed her PDA. Paul had the distinct impression that she had everything committed to memory and was only consulting her notes as a way of carefully reassuring her of that fact.

He had given her his decision the day before at a little before Noon. She'd apparently been working non-stop since then. She set her PDA down and reeled off a list of television and radio appearances she had scheduled. Her intention was to keep him in the public eye and hone his skills without tipping their hand about their ultimate goals. She'd hired a small public relations firm to handle all of his bookings and keep her in the background.

"This office won't be secret for long," she said, "but we're not going to go out of our way to publicize it. For the next two weeks, if anyone asks, this office is connected to Harkness Automotive. I had Tess do all the paperwork and rent the space with your company's funds. The campaign has already reimbursed you, by the way. No-one's going to believe it for a minute, but that's how we play it. Until the campaign is announced, it doesn't exist, got it?"

"Got it, Chief', he said playfully.

She smiled weakly and said, "Paul, you need to understand that this is dead serious now. We're not planning to change who you are; after all, that's the whole reason we're running you. But you've got to trust me and let me teach you certain political realities in a very short time. We need this two weeks to get our act together. Once you go public, Harper and Carlson are going to be all over you. You're not ready for that yet."

"Darrell's taking two weeks of vacation starting tomorrow," she continued, "and he'll be in the office next to yours. If and when we announce, he'll resign his White House job to come onboard full time. In the meantime, he and I will be here in the office to run things behind the scenes and work on prepping you. Just remember, whenever you leave this office you'll be on your own. Any questions so far?"

"Non, Mon General", he said in abysmal French accent.

She gave him a look that promised a mild scolding, but let it go. Picking up where she'd left off, she said, "Tomorrow, you're booked on Fox 5. It'll be a puff piece and you shouldn't get any serious questions. Other than the appearances we're booking, you have two jobs; one is to work with me and a couple of consultants I've hired to map our your policy positions; two is to work with me and a couple of speech writers to prepare your announcement. Two weeks is going to go by real fast, so we need to get to work. Is there anything you think I've left out?"

Gesturing toward himself and his casual dress, he said, "I've got a few suits, but what you're looking at is the biggest part of my wardrobe. If I'm going to look Presidential, don't you think I should do some shopping?"

"Absolutely not," she said. "You will maintain a 'regular guy' look and that'll help you stand out from the others. The last thing we want to do is make you look more like them. You'll wear a tux when it's appropriate and a suit for some events...things like debates and dinners. In other words, you'll dress the way you do now and this is your regular daytime uniform."

She looked at him for a reaction and when there was none, she said, "Then let's get to work".

She swept out of the office and was immediately replaced by his two new policy consultants.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Halfway across town, another meeting was taking place. After the morning security briefing, Tom Douglas had cleared the Oval Office for a private moment with President Harper. In private, Douglas and Harper were completely casual with each other.

Douglas started as soon as the door had closed. "Mac, that photographer I hired to keep an eye on Harkness seems to have earned his fee. Last Thursday morning, Addie Rotholz showed up at his house with Darrell Wainright in tow. He's one of our Protocol Officers here in the White House. Rotholz took off and Harkness' sister showed up a few minutes later. Anyway, the three of them were in the house for a little over three hours before Rachel Harkness drove off with Wainright in the car."

"I added a second person to the detail so that someone could cover Harkness away from his house. Nothing much happened 'til this morning. Harkness went to a storefront on Connecticut. My guy couldn't get a look inside, but he did see moving men bringing in a bunch of office furniture and computers."

"On the face of it, I wouldn't be that concerned, except there are two other things that trouble me."

Harper placed a great deal of value on Douglas's council, but he found his flair for drama tiresome at times. He waved his hand urging Douglas to get on with it.

Picking up the thread of his report, he said, "Wainright put in for two weeks vacation this morning; starting tomorrow. And I got a call as the briefing was just breaking up about a certain person seen leaving Harkness' storefront office just a few minutes ago." He raised his eyebrows conspiratorially.

Harper said, "Tom, I'm supposed to be running a country here. Is Harkness entertaining foreign spies? Otherwise, I'm not all that interested.

"Foreign spies?..No. Domestic? You be the judge. Adelaide Rotholz just left Harkness. The passenger in the car that picked her up was Reese Bolling.", Douglas said. He sat back in his chair, visibly pleased with himself.

"Bolling, Rotholz and Harkness? O.K. you've got my attention. What are they up to?"

"That, I don't know. But I will find out".

"See that you do," said the President. The meeting was over.
Read more!

Chapter Twenty-Five

There's something about the lessons you learn early in life. If you remember them at all, they tend to be somewhere in your subconscious; you're rarely aware of acting on them. So, I was completely taken aback when I realized I was using something I'd learned in first grade.

I can distinctly remember coming home from my first day of elementary school. I'd been though one year of kindergarten, (we didn't have all that pre-K crap when I was young), so I'd already gotten over the trauma of being away from Mommy for an entire six hours every day. And I'd resigned myself to the capricious whims of Miss Sandiford. (When I was that age, women were either Miss or Mrs. even though they both sounded the same coming out of 5-year-old mouths). Miss Sandiford decided when it was time to paste flowers on construction paper. She decided about nap time, recess, and lunch time. If she said it was time to play musical chairs, then, by God, it was time to play musical chairs. The woman was a drill sergeant in a poodle skirt.

My only triumph over Miss Sandiford was over the issue of finger painting. The first time she introduced the subject, I told her I couldn't do it. She, of course, said I was just being silly and sat me down in the painting circle. I persisted in telling her that it felt oogy...and the smell...erp!

Miss Sandiford wasn't about to have her authority usurped by some little kid, so I found myself smearing oily, smelly purple glop on a large piece of paper. I might have lasted ninety seconds before I puked. On Sharon's painting. She was the girl sitting next to me. I'm not sure if it was the fact that I'd puked or the fact that Sharon just kept smearing paint and puke all over her picture, but I was thenceforth excused from finger painting.

So anyway, at the time, I was used to doing what the teacher said to do. But in kindergarten, once you went home, their tyranny was over. And then, my first grade teacher introduced a new wrinkle to this cruel system: Homework. It had never occurred to me that they might insinuate themselves on my home life. And I was stunned that my mother and father were willing to tolerate the intrusion.

My first day of grade school, I was sent home with a single sheet of mimeographed paper. On the left side was a row of letters A through M. On the right side was a row of pictures; an apple, a dog, a flute. The idea was to draw a line from the letter on the left side to the correct item on the right side; A is for Apple, B is for Ball, etc. Now I don't think there was a kid in the class who hadn't already mastered the basics of reading, and I was no exception; I'd been reading for almost a year by then, so it wasn't like I'd have trouble solving this puzzle. It was just the idea that I could be forced to do schoolwork at home. This was my time. There was television to watch. There was baseball, football, hide & seek, and kick the can to play. Some of my friends had recently discovered a creek (o.k. a drainage ditch), a couple of blocks away and they were going to show it to me for the exorbitant fee of a nickel. The point is, I had important stuff to do. I'd done all the things they said to do while I was at school, hadn't I? The whole idea of homework just seemed horribly unfair.

Mom proved not only willing to tolerate this shocking intrusion, she encouraged it. She patiently explained that when you have to do something you'd rather not do, the hardest part is getting started. She told me I'd been whining about the assignment twice as long as it would have taken to just shut up and do it.

As I grew older, she'd adapt the lesson to include algebra and geometry. Don't say you can't do it when you haven't even tried. Just get to work and get it done.

The point is, I found myself sitting in this new office surrounded by people determined to make me the next President of The United States. I was completely paralyzed.

The two policy guys were sitting across from me trying to feel me out on one issue after another. The younger one, Artie, had his laptop with a checklist on it. He'd say, "Abortion...for or against!"; "Atlantic Fisheries Protection Act...for or against!" Then he'd look at me with this pleading expectation in his eyes and wait for Moses to come down from the mountain and deliver the word of God.

The first thing that went through my mind was that it seemed ridiculous to try and define policy with one word answers. I was determined to follow my mother's advice and just get started, but my handlers and I couldn't agree on where to begin. The second and more dominant thought was that this kid had an awful lot of hair growing out of his ears for a guy of such tender years. He was going to be truly frightening at sixty.

The other guy, Warren, was closer to my own age and didn't display any obvious grooming faults. He seemed willing to let Artie persist in his fruitless pursuit of the "Harkness Platform". I behaved like a defendant of limited intelligence who doesn't seem to understand that he can either tell his lawyers what happened, or they're going to have a hell of a time putting up a defense for him.

Eventually, Warren interrupted Artie and said, "Mr. Harkness, this obviously isn't getting us anywhere. Are you having trouble formulating your ideas?"

"The ideas aren't my problem. Ideas, I've got plenty of. It's just that I don't think I can work this way. You're throwing out one issue after another and expecting some black and white response from me. I could give you forty-five minutes on nuclear proliferation right off the top of my head. Give me a day to read up on it and I'll run a seminar for you. Look, you're asking the wrong questions. Of course I don't want North Korea to have WMD's, but the questions should be what would I do about it. These are complex questions, or at least they should be."

Artie didn't know how to react. How was he supposed to check a box, if I was going to speak in full sentences and paragraphs? Warren was more sympathetic, but held his ground. "I understand your frustration, Mr. Harkness, but you can't run for President on a series of seminars. Our job is to distill your positions so they can be presented succinctly. The people you need to reach don't have the time or inclination to digest comprehensive policy statements."

"But that's just the point, isn't it?", I said, "if a policy isn't comprehensive, what the hell good is it?"

"That's not what I said," Warren replied. Artie was looking at me like a biologist observing a mystifying new specimen. "The policy should be comprehensive but you need to refine your explanations. There just isn't time for long-winded lectures".

"Well, I disagree", I said, "maybe I can't keep their attention for as long as I'd like, but I'm not about to go out there and yell 'Abortions for all, Death to murders, Confiscate all handguns and God Bless America! Vote for me!' If I don't run a different kind of campaign, then what's the point?"

"The point is to get elected", Artie said. Artie had the look of someone having desperate second thoughts about his new job.

Warren didn't say anything, but it was obvious he agreed. As far as they were concerned, a clear list of policy positions that could be expressed in seven second sound bites, was imperative; I, however, was replaceable.

"Let's try it this way", I said, "email me your list of issues and I'll write a page or so on each one. Then we can try to whittle them down together."

Nodding in reluctant agreement, they got up and left, probably making a beeline for Adelaide's office where they'd announce that the candidate was recalcitrant saboteur.

After they left, I sat alone for a few minutes rearranging my pens, notepads and blank post-its. I went through the desk; paper clips, staples, binder clips. Anonymous supplies that didn't require my attention. I went to my office door and, once again, I was amazed at the level of activity Addie had set into motion in such a short time. In addition to the moving men and telephone technicians, there were fifteen men and women moving about purposefully; my staff. I hoped I'd meet them some day. Each of them was occupied with one task or another: supervising the placement of furniture, filing paperwork I wasn't aware we'd generated yet, making copies of same...you name it.

I decided to get myself another cup of coffee. The office wasn't large, but I still had a little difficulty finding the kitchenette which turned out to be located in a small nook found by following a short labrynth off the rear corner of the main room. It was hidden behind a stack of boxed office supplies. When I found it, the woman who had brought me coffee earlier was standing there with her back to me.

Sensing my presence, she turned and smiled, "Oh, Mr. Harkness, I was just getting you a refill." She switched the cup to her left hand and held out the right to shake. "I'm Nicki, by the way", she said, "I'll be serving as your personal assistant until you've had a chance to interview other people for the position."

I shook her hand. "Call me Paul, please", I said. "It's nice to meet you. And since you've already got the job, I don't see any reason to look for someone else. Unless you'd rather have some other job."

"Oh, no", she said. "I'd be thrilled to keep the job. I just didn't want it to seem like I was handed to you without any choice."

"Well, we'll just try it out for a while and make sure we fit. I'm sure it'll work out fine. At any rate, I seem to be the only one around here with nothing to do for the moment, so I thought I'd explore a little".

She handed me the coffee and looked at her watch. "Mr...Paul", she said, "you're break is over. You're scheduled to be working with your speech writers right now."

When I'd been herded back to my office, sure enough, there were two new people waiting for me. Nicki introduced Jen Wilson and Bob Hess.

I took a seat and said, "I know you're anxious to get to work, but we have a little problem there. There's going to be a small delay preparing my policy positions."

Jen looked at me brightly and replied, "That's not a problem, sir. The way this is done is that we start by deciding on the tone your announcement will take. We follow that by telling the voters who you are...you know, what makes you tick. We need to make them identify with you right off the bat. Then we start building a framework of message phrases.

"What are message phrases?", I asked.

"The American way is the Path into Prosperity; America holds the Shining Torch of Freedom up for those kept in darkness; We're carrying on the work of Building the 21st Century...stuff like that.

"You've got to be kidding me. None of what you just said means anything".

"They're not meant to be...oh, what's the word...substantive per se," Bob chipped in. "They provoke an imagery to attach to your candidacy. We see which resonates with the voters and then we use it like a hammer. The key elements are to set the tone, expose you to the voters, and to give them a set of evocative images."

"And we don't need to lay out our policies?" I asked incredulously.

"Of course we do", Jen took the ball. "But that doesn't have to hold up the process. As we decide which policies are likely to register positively, we plug them in. Then we'll tweak the imagery and tone to support those policies. We'll be adjusting constantly, but the framework we start with holds up." She looked like she'd just stuck the landing on a perfect Olympic performance.

I didn't have the heart to burst her bubble. "I need to put some thought into this," I said. "No need for me to delay your work, though. Why don't you two get started without me and we'll meet again tomorrow to see what you've come up with."

Jen was positively electrified at the opportunity to create tone and imagery without any unnecessary interference from me. She said, "I think you'll like what we come up with".

She and Bob left, eager to begin working their magic.

I walked out my door and found Nicki banging away at about 200 words per minute on her workstation. What are all these people all working on, I thought. "Nicki, is Ms. Rotholz back yet?"

"Yes, she got back just a few minutes ago. I'll ask her to come by right away."

I held up my hand. "That's O.K., Nicki. I can walk thirty feet."

I poked my head into Addie's office and knocked on the doorframe. As she looked up from her laptop, I said, "Got a minute for me?"

She smiled and waved me in. "Of Course, how's it going so far?"

I closed the door and slumped into a chair. "That's what I want to talk to you about. I think we've got a big problem".

She looked at me but didn't say anything, waiting for me to explain.

"You've given me policy advisors who seem to think "More" or "Less" is an adequate policy position on Military Spending. I happen to think complex questions sometimes require complex solutions. I've told them they can try to make my positions more succinct after I've worked them out, but I'm not comfortable spouting a bunch of half-cocked statements and non-responses.

"O.K., so we'll see how that works out. Anything else?" she said.

"Yes, Addie. Get rid of the speechwriters."

"Excuse me", she said.

"I don't mean permanently, just for the moment," I said. "I know I'll be too busy to write my own speeches later, but for now, I've got nothing but time. If I'm working out the policy positions, my speeches will just flow naturally from there."

She appeared to be counting to ten silently. "Paul, you really need to trust me and rely on my political knowledge. You have to maintain the big picture. You can't afford to get bogged down in the details. That's just not the way things are done."

"Well, it's the way we're going to do things. At least through the announcement. I'm not going to let some writers package me and try to sell me to America. I've told you I'm in, so if you want me you're stuck with me.

"Of course we want you, Paul. But there are established ways of running a political campaign. You've got access to real pros. You need to use them."

"Addie, You convinced me I could do this. Well guess what? I'm mostly convinced. But I intend to pay very close attention to the established way of campaigning and make sure we're different...every step of the way. If you want all the ideas put across with slogans and imagery, then, by all means get a can of soup and hire an Ad Agency; if you want me, I get a say."



Read more!

Chapter Twenty-Six

The two-week exploratory period went by in fits and starts for Paul. Darrell reported in on the second morning. Addie immediately tried to get him to ally with her and get Paul to see reason on how the campaign should be run. She agreed that they should make an effort to be different, but not that different. Darrell surprised everyone by siding with Paul.

"Him being him is what got all of us here in the first place. I just don't see any advantage to messing with that."


In some ways, they accomplished very little that day. In other ways, that second day defined the entire campaign. Addie pushed her view throughout the morning and the discussion got tense at times. Nicki walked in after one particularly lively exchange to let them know they were starting to make the staff edgy.

They took a break and adjourned to the kitchenette, where they picked up on the argument again almost immediately. With witnesses in tow, they were returning to Paul's office when a small skinny kid in the bullpen stopped them. "Excuse me", he said, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I couldn't help overhearing you guys. You're obviously talking about one of you running for something, right?"

"Yes", Paul said, "me".

He gestured toward Addie and said, "Well, not that anybody asked me, but you're absolutely 100% wrong. If you run your campaign the way these guys are talking about, people will pay attention. If you're doing something really different, no-one's going to want to miss anything. They'll turn on the news every night just to find out what that guy did today."

Addie looked at him. "Who are you?" she asked.

"Oh, sorry", he said, "Jesse Stewart. I'm just getting your wireless system installed. You guys have been a little loud, ya know? Sorry to have stuck my nose in."

Paul stuck his hand out and said, "I'm Paul Harkness. I'm running for President. How'd you like to work here?"

"Doing what", he asked.

"Personal assistant to Addie Rotholz", Paul replied, pointing at her. "Item #1 on your job description will be to never let her browbeat you."

Addie looked shocked, but quickly turned it into a grin. Turning to Paul, she said, "O.K., you win. I know I'm going to regret it, but we'll try it your way. Hell, I was unemployed last week, I can survive it again." Then she turned to Jesse and reached out to shake his hand. "I'm Addie Rotholz, do you want the job?"

"Sure, sounds cool."

The conversation picked up again, but remained in the bullpen with everyone participating. With everyone more or less on the same page, it turned into a rollicking, freewheeling session. No idea on how to create the "anti-campaign" was rejected out of hand. Nicki took notes, with the idea that they'd go through the list later and develop their plans from that.

Now that Addie was fully onboard, she produced some of the most outrageous suggestions. Paul making his entrance to an event via parachute with the Flying Elvi. (Paul said That wasn't going to happen but Nicki put it on the list anyway.) How about a new reality show; "Meet the Next President?" with cameras following Paul 24/7 and then we buy an hour each week in prime time to run it?

Most of the ideas they came up with wouldn't survive the first culling, but the fact that they'd started actively designing an "anti-campaign", and that they'd actively involved everyone on the staff, would become a hallmark of the campaign.

Nothing specific was decided that day, but the attitude of the campaign was firmly established in everyone's mind. The one concrete achievement of the day was that they chose a campaign slogan: You want different?, Try Harkness!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

On Thursday afternoon of the same week, Tom Douglas walked into the Oval Office. "You wanted to see me Mac?"

The President said, "I found myself with a free moment. Bring me up to date on Harkness."

"Oh, sorry," Douglas replied, "I've dropped that. He's obviously testing the waters for a political run. It can't be local, or state office, otherwise he'd be set up in Falls Church. That leaves the House Seat for the Virginia 8th congressional district. Frankly, I don't think there's a man or woman alive who could unseat the incumbent, so there's nothing to concern ourselves about. I did send a kid in looking for a job, but they said they were fully staffed and maybe he could try back in a couple of weeks. Otherwise, he wasn't able to find out anything."

The President said, "How sure of this are you".

"Not very, but I'm not worried. It's the only thing that even comes close to making sense, though. Whatever it is, I'm sure we'll find out soon enough. Then, if it needs to be dealt with, I'll deal with it. Don't I always?"

"O.K., we'll leave it at that", the President said, "but let me know if anything changes."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


On the evening before Paul's announcement, He had Addie, Darrell, Rachel and Senator Bolling over for dinner. They were having a last informal strategy session before bringing the world in on their plans. They were all pleased with the way the exploratory period had gone.

They were all happy with the campaign strategy they'd come up with. The professionals still had some heebie-jeebies, but they were committed. Paul had worked through his policy issues and produced a 200-page "platform". Working with Artie and Warren, he'd also produced a 15 page alternate version.

Paul and Senator Bolling were in disagreement over some of the issues, but Bolling was willing to live with that. The platform, when distributed, was going to piss off as many Democrats as Republicans. If they were out to flaunt their independence, this would be a fine start.

The one thing Bolling took serious issue with was Paul's refusal to show anyone the speech he planned to make the following morning. He'd spent long hours with his office door closed, working on it. The only copy was on his laptop and he'd guarded that carefully the entire time, never leaving it behind when he went home, always locking it in a drawer when he left the room.

Addie and Darrell, having worked more closely with him, were getting a much better idea of which arguments were worth having with Paul. There were some things you could change his mind about, some things where compromise was possible, and some things where you might as well bang your head bloody, for all the good it was going to do. That didn't mean Addie hadn't tried. She had. But she'd given up quickly when she'd seen that this was something Paul wasn't going to bend on.

Bolling hadn't gotten to know Paul that well yet. "Paul", he said, "Be reasonable. Your backers have a right to know how you plan to make this announcement."

Paul took a sip of his beer and said, "No disrespect, Reese, but its not going to happen. If you read it, you're going to want to change it...and I'm not changing a word."

Bolling tried another tack. "They've spent a lot of money on this campaign so far. You've got to let them in."

Paul made an impatient gesture, "Maybe when you get around to telling me who they are. And don't whine to me about how much they've spent. There was never any guarantee we'd go forward with this. That money was a write-off the minute they ponied up and they knew it."

Addie tried, once more, to find a middle ground, "Will you at least give us an idea of what you're going to say?"

Paul said, "Listen guys, I know you think this is important, and I completely agree. That's why I'm not going to let anyone see it in advance. This speech is the last chance I get to tell the country who I am without having to compete with what everyone else says about me. I get to say it my way and I get to set a tone that every speechwriter you hire is going to have to duplicate. I'm going to speak my own words in my own voice and they'll just have to imitate that with everything they write from here on out. There're two other things this speech is going to do. First, It's going to force us to run the type of campaign we've been designing these last two weeks. There won't be any turning back. Second, the reaction this speech gets is going to immediately tell us whether or not I've got any chance of being elected. I can guarantee you that."

Bolling responded sarcastically, "Well, that certainly puts my mind at ease."

Paul said, "C'mon guys. If you're trying to get the country to trust me with the keys to the White House, you should at least pretend you trust me to make the announcement that I'm running."

Everyone at the table made a show of looking at each other to see if anyone else would take a stab at making Paul see reason. Rachel shrugged and said, "Don't look at me. None of this was my idea".


Read more!

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The following morning, I was out of the shower, shaved and dressed by 5:30. Per our last strategy session, I was wearing my usual casual outfit, the only concession to fashion being that I had added a sport coat, no tie.

Addie and Darrell had looked into a variety of options for a venue for my announcement. After rejecting any number of these, (a Daughters of the American Revolution tea gathering and a meeting of Hispanics in Law Enforcement among them), we'd agreed on a breakfast meeting of the Eastern Virginia Small Businessman's Association. Addie had "arranged" for the scheduled speaker to call in his regrets, and then made sure their events committee knew I was available. They'd jumped at the idea and invited me to take his place.

All of this worked to our advantage, as there was nothing about me speaking to a group of business owners that would tip our hat about the content of my speech.

Addie had then gone on to invite some local television and radio affiliates to cover the event. Only one station planned to send a camera, but that was fine with us. The object was to get the speech covered at all. Once the announcement was made, every news outlet known to mankind was going to be beating down that affiliate's door for copies of the tape. At least that's how we planned it.

The breakfast was scheduled to begin at 7:30 and I was to speak at 8:00 a.m. As with most breakfasts like this, eating wasn't the real point. From the moment I arrived at 7:00, most of the people were moving from one table to another networking. Although a few people had parked themselves with heaping plates from the buffet, most were in constant motion, sniffing out deals. I was seated on the dais and I made polite conversation with the Association's President, a youngish man who I could imagine ringing doorbells, tossing a cup of dirt on the entry carpet, and then demonstrating the wonderful vacuum cleaner he just happened to have with him. He was actually the owner of some wildly successful electronics retail outlets, but that didn't change what he seemed like.

As 8:00 rolled around, he rose and moved to the lectern. After getting their attention, he asked everyone to take their seats. A minute or so later, he spoke into the microphone. "Thank you all for being here this morning. Before we get to our featured speaker, I'd like to thank the events committee for arranging this fine breakfast we're enjoying. I'd also like to remind you all that two weeks from tomorrow, we'll be staging a seminar on Marketing in the Internet Age. There's still space available, and you can sign up in the lobby on your way out. Also, you should be aware even though our website was linking to some questionable content, we've deleted those links and our webmaster assures me he's locked out the hackers who were playing games there."

"Now as you know, our scheduled speaker was unable to attend this morning and we have the great good fortune that Mr. Paul Harkness was available to fill in at the last minute. In addition to being the third generation at the helm of Harkness Automotive, a stalwart of our local business community, he also rose to national prominence recently and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It's my honor and very great pleasure to introduce, Mr. Paul Harkness."

I rose as he gestured to me, approached the lectern and shook his hand. The applause was no more than polite but it was sincere. The attendees, having glad-handed each other for the previous half-hour or so, had achieved their purpose in being here. My speech was a formality, and if anyone had any hopes or expectations, it was that I'd keep it brief so they could all get to their respective offices.

I didn't have to wait long for the applause to die down.

"Good morning", I said, "thank you for inviting me. I know you're all expecting me to speak about my company, or possibly about being awarded the Medal of Freedom. I won't be speaking on either of those subjects today. I hope you won't find my chosen topic too dull."

I looked to the back of the room where some waiters were standing quietly against the back wall. Set up on a small riser in the back was the lone camera that had been sent. But numbers didn't matter at this point. As long as there was one tape, it'd get seen. That one affiliate was going to be awfully popular awfully soon. The audience was paying attention, not exactly disinterested, but by no means engaged. That would change pretty quickly.

I took a deep breath and then stepped off the cliff. "I'm here, this morning to announce my candidacy for the office of President of the United States of America."

The room erupted in surprised gasps. "I figured that'd wake 'em up", I thought.
Read more!

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Morty Hanson was not a happy camper. He was supposed to have had the day off. He'd planned to sleep in and then finish building the deck in the back yard. His wife was already shopping for patio furniture and planning to have friends over as soon as it was done. They both loved the idea of relaxing summer afternoons on the deck, with visions of blender drinks, barbecues and all the gathered rugrats careening around the back yard.

His plans had gone into the dumper when his phone rang at 4:45 that morning. It was the news manager at WHSE-TV calling to inform him that Harley had called in sick, and Morty was needed to cover for him.

So, now, instead of still being in bed, or maybe having his first cup of coffee at his own kitchen table, he found himself sitting in the back of one of the station's news vans, preparing to tape a speech to a bunch of nobody businessmen by Paul Harknesss. "I mean, shit! If I've got to work on my day off, at least they could send me to cover a fire or a crash or something exciting. I mean, Paul Harkness? He's so over!", Morty thought.

"Give me a white balance", he called to the cameraman over his wireless headset. "O.K., got it." The two of them bitched to each other for a few more minutes, until Morty saw someone getting the crowd organized and quiet. "Rolling tape now", he announced to the cameraman.

The first guy said a few boring things and introduced Harkness. Morty forced himself to focus on what Harkness was saying. In addition to running the equipment, it was his job to note the time-code if Harkness said anything the news director might want to air. "Fat chance of that", he thought.

"Good morning", Harkness was saying, "thank you for inviting me. I know you're all expecting me to speak about my company, or possibly about being awarded the Medal of Freedom. I will not be speaking on either of those subjects today. I hope you won't find my chosen topic too dull."

Harkness took a fairly long pause, then continued, "I'm here, this morning to announce my candidacy for the office of President of the United States of America."

Morty would have fallen off of his chair if it wasn't for the fact that he had a size 60 ass jammed into a size 50 captains chair. He immediately speed-dialed the station while starting to run up the antenna and power up his uplink. "Dan, you're going to want to break in live with what I've got. Harkness is announcing for President" he said as soon as the news director came on the line. "No, not of the fucking Eastern Virginia Businessman's Association, of the United fucking States." He shouted. After a moment of listening, he said, "How should I know if he's out of his mind, but you are if you don't get this on the air. We're the only ones here, so it's exclusive. You'll have the signal in another 20 seconds or so." He hung up and adjusted the mast until he got a signal from the satellite then turned back to listen to the speech.
Read more!

Chapter Twenty-Nine

As soon as the crowd calmed down, I continued speaking. "First I want to tell you that running for president was not my idea. The idea was first proposed to me a few weeks ago. It would be an understatement to say that I was resistant to the idea. Since then, I have become completely convinced that it's an excellent idea".

"So, here I am to announce that I want to be your next President. I'd like to take you through some of the reasoning that brings me to this moment and this announcement. A few weeks ago, I made an appearance on Jackson Duffield's Sunday morning show. I said on that show, that if I ever decided to run for office I'd out myself about everything I've ever done that might be considered embarrassing to a public official. I probably wouldn't have said it if I'd known I would be standing here talking to you this morning, but here goes".

That got a polite laugh, which gave me the pause I needed for a sip of water. I continued, "Here are some reasons you might not want to elect me President. I have never served a day in public office and I haven't got a clue how politics work. Don't get me wrong, I understand politics as well as any other American who's not directly involved in it, but I'm smart enough to realize that it's a whole different game on the inside."

"I'm not sure it's a great idea to elect a President who will probably have difficulty qualifying for a security clearance." Another laugh

"More to the point, I've got a number of skeletons in my closet. As I said before, in my role as an auto-parts retailer, I don't believe they were any of your business, but as a candidate, I guess you should know everything there is to know about me."

"O.K., so here we go. I smoked pot in college, and yes I inhaled. I didn't really like pot all that much, but it took the edge off my buzz whenever we could afford some coke. It also gave a really good kick whenever we dropped acid. I haven't done any drugs since I was 23 years old, but hey, I did pretty much everything offered to me before that.

"I went seven years without filing an income tax return. I did settle it, including fines, so I'm good with Uncle Sam now".

"I stole a car with some friends when I was fourteen...while blind drunk on Ripple. We didn't hit anyone and we left it at a mall about 3 miles from where we took it. I'm not proud of that one, but I promised to tell all. I'm assuming the statute of limitations has run out on this, otherwise, this may be a very short campaign".

"I slept with a couple of hookers when I was younger, with four women who were married when we met, and with one man. I won't even try to figure out how many single women I've been with. I was faithful to my wife during the years we were married. I enjoyed every partner I've had immensely."

"Now you and I know that any single one of the things I've just told you should be enough to eliminate me from consideration for your vote. Personally, I think most people have a history that includes some things they're not proud of or things they've grown out of, but I won't make excuses. You'll just have to judge for yourself."

"But before you judge me, I'd like to tell why you should think seriously about voting for me. In a few months, someone is going to stand up in front of the nation and affirm an oath 'to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, both foreign and domestic'."

"I'd like to talk about the significance of that promise, because the Constitution is the only thing that makes us all Americans. It's the only thing that makes us one people. We don't share any common ethnicity or religion. Our ancestry encircles the globe. Some of our families pre-date the revolution and some of our citizens are being newly minted right now while I'm talking to you. The one thing we hold in common, all of us, is the dedication to continue the experiment begun by our founding fathers more than 200 years ago."

"Our founding fathers were not perfect. There are contradictions in their public and private lives that I have difficulty fathoming today. How, for example, could they found a nation based on inalienable rights, yet at the same time maintain the institution of slavery and withhold those rights from women."

"I don't understand those contradictions. I only know that the documents they penned, and the ideas they espoused forced their descendents to realize the contradiction...and to repair some of the problems that had been overlooked or ignored. Our founding fathers created a system which invites us to look at ourselves and say, 'we can do better, we can be better'. A system that is flexible enough to allow us to act on those thoughts."

"The first sentence of the Constitution uses the phrase, 'in order to create a more perfect Union'. At the time, the reference was to the idea of making thirteen loosely confederated states into a single nation. However, the phrase has reverberated throughout our nation's history...'a more perfect Union'. I submit to you today, that the history of the United States is the continuing process of the effort to "create a more perfect Union."

"That work is not complete. It will never be complete. We, as mere human beings are incapable of perfection. We are, however capable of the struggle. In a nation founded on the principals of basic human rights, rights that some of our citizens are still fighting for today, the effort is our greatest duty as a nation."

"During the campaign, I'm going to try to avoid making many promises. Things happen that need to be reacted to, and when they do, promises get pushed aside. When I finish this speech, my staff is going to pass out two versions or my "platform". I hope you'll read the longer version. It'll give you a good view into what my beliefs are. The short version works too, but hey, we're talking about the next leader of your country. Invest an hour or two into researching your vote."

"During the course of this campaign, I will take every opportunity to tell you my ideas for governing the nation. I'll tell you what I believe makes this nation great. I'll tell you what I believe our problems are. When I think I've got solutions to those problems, I'll tell you that. I'm sure I'll spout off about a lot of things, that's the nature of the game. But remember, I'm one of you. If, I'm wrong, convince me.

But now I'm going to make the only ironclad promise you'll hear from me during this campaign. If you choose to invest your confidence in me and elect me as your next President, I promise that when I leave office, regardless of my success or failure, every American will be able to truthfully say that my term of office was a sincere and vigorous effort to create a more perfect union."

"Thank you"

I suffered through a moment of silence followed by thunderous applause.
Read more!

Chapter Thirty

The announcement got all the attention they could have wished for; just not quite how they'd planned. WHSE had broken in and covered the speech live. The network had picked up the feed within minutes. Other networks quickly arranged to share the feed for a price.

So, the first people to see the speech on T.V., were introduced to the notion of a Harkness campaign, thusly. WHSE interrupted the network morning show shortly after 8:00 a.m. An announcer popped up on Washington D.C. screens and said, "We're breaking into our normal network programming to bring you a breaking story. Paul Harkness, in a speech to the Eastern Virginia Businessman's Association, has just announced that he's a candidate for President of the United States. We take you now, to the speech, in progress".

They picture cut to a head and shoulders shot of Paul. The first thing the D.C. audience heard from him was, "...didn't really like pot all that much, but it took the edge off my buzz whenever we could afford some coke."

The audience who were present where Paul was speaking, at least had some context for this bon mot. The home viewers were almost unanimously struck with variations on the thought, "What the fuck?" By the time Paul finished speaking, he was being carried live on most every broadcast station in America. Further, every cable station not dedicated to cartoons or home makeovers had picked up the feed. Having missed the beginning of Paul's speech by varying degrees, most of America had no idea what to make of his announcement.

In the meantime, Morty Hanson had transmitted the entire tape back to WHSE and the news director was now going through an entirely new set of negotiations to provide coverage of the complete speech to the nation's broadcasters. Actually, negotiation wasn't a strictly accurate description. He'd name a price and anyone who wanted to haggle quickly found themselves talking to a dial tone.

So, shortly after the end of the live coverage, practically every television in America and Canada that was turned on was playing a repeat of the speech from the beginning. Reaction to the complete speech, in its proper context was considerably more positive than it had been to the live feed.

Gallup, Harris and Quinnipiac immediately began calling households, polling for reactions.

Back at the breakfast meeting, Paul was shaking hands and speaking to all comers. Judging by the reaction in the room, Paul was off to a strong start. A very few people had left the breakfast immediately, apparently grossly offended by Paul's announcement. The majority remained, milling about and speaking to each other, mostly unsure what to make of the whole thing; and a respectable minority were visibly enthusiastic about what they'd just heard and vied for Paul's attention.

After ten or fifteen minutes of greeting his new supporters, Darrell and Addie guided him out of the room. Other reporters and cameras had arrived by now and were jostling for position. Paul waved to them while interns from the campaign handed out copies of his policy statements.

To universal disappointment, Addie announced to the press that there would be no further statements today. They quickly got into the car and sped off to campaign headquarters.

Addie and Darrell were laughing as soon as they had turned the first corner. Darrell said, "Wow! You weren't kidding when you said you were going to set a tone for the campaign. I'm just not sure admitting felonies is the best way to announce a candidacy. Don't get me wrong, Paul; that's a speech people will be talking about for decades. You've just permanently changed the playing field. I'm just not sure we're going to like the reaction"

Addie said, "Well, you were certainly right about us knowing right away whether or not this campaign has wings. Our pollster should have some detailed results by shortly after noon." Paul exploded.

"Addie, we've just spent two weeks inventing a new kind of campaign. Hiring pollsters is not the way we want to operate".

"Get real Paul, don't be ridiculous," she said. "I don't care how different you want to be, you still need to see how the public is reacting."

Paul said, "Give me your blackberry."

She handed it over and Paul fiddled with it for a minute or so. He looked up and smiled. "CNN.com shows 6% highly favorable to the announcement, 8% mildly favorable, 62% neutral/undecided, 21% highly unfavorable and 3% with no opinion. That's how the public is reacting. Do you need more than that?"

"Yes, of course we do," she said. "We need reaction to each individual part of the speech. Our pollsters were in contact with 1000 people while they were watching the speech. They'll let us know exactly which sentences struck a chord, which sentences pissed people off, and finally reaction to the speech as a whole."

Paul was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Pay them for the poll, but no-one, and that includes you and me, is to see the results. Have them destroy it. Then, thank them for their work and let them know we won't have any further need for their services."

Darrell said, "Paul, I'm with Addie on this one. You just can't run a campaign without knowing how your message is being received."

Paul replied, "Enough polls will be taken without us having to run them. They're more than enough. What do you intend to do with the poll you commissioned? If we find out that 80% of likely voters don't like the fact that I smoked pot, should I issue a statement saying I was only kidding? "

"It's more complicated than that", Addie replied. "I know there'll be a mostly negative reaction to the first half of your speech. It's a question of how negative the reaction is. And whether or not the second half was positive enough to counterbalance it."

Paul was quiet for a moment. Looking from Darrell to Addie and back again, he said, "Listen to me carefully. The only use of a poll like the one you're talking about would be for me to adjust what I'm saying or how I'm saying it. I'm not going to do that. I know that this campaign was your idea and I'm thankful to you for that. But you need to know that, as of now, the object of this campaign is not to get me elected no matter what. The object is to get me elected because what I say makes sense to people. If I get elected, I'm not going to set policy to get better poll numbers, so I'm not going to try to get elected by playing to polls."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Mackinzie Harper hit the mute button on the T.V. remote and turned to Tom Douglas. "You sure called that one right," he said.

Douglas said, "You're not honestly worried about this guy, are you?"

"I wouldn't say exactly worried, but the son-of-a-bitch sure as hell surprises me every time he pops up. Schedule a sit-down with Elgin this afternoon. Have him work up an assessment by then."

"I'll set it up, Mac," said Douglas, "but don't let this get you worked up. He's a gnat on an elephant's ass. He can bite all he wants and we'll never feel a thing."
Read more!

A Note to my readers

To this point, you've read a little over 40,000 words. That makes this about 40% of the average novel. Since there's no hard and fast rule on that, I may write more than average, I may write less. Whatever the case, from here on in, you'll be reading brand new chapters. Yes, I'm done rewriting and editing what I've written along the way, and now I've got to start creating the rest of the book.

I'd appreciate it if you let me know if you start seeing a difference (good or bad) between what starts showing up now and what was posted before. And in case you're not a Polybloggimous reader, you should know that I intend to take a scalpel to Chapter One. Read the link for my reasoning/surrender.

So, anyway, I doubt I'll be getting chapters posted as quickly from here on in, but I hope to be steady.

Once again, your observations will be most welcome. Read more!

Chapter Thirty-One

When we got to the office, the entire staff stood and cheered our entrance. I knew I was in for a bumpy ride, but I’ll admit it; this felt great. Nothing had leaked and we’d taken the entire world by surprise. As many of us who could fit, jammed ourselves into Addie’s office and spent most of the day watching the reaction on Addie’s Wall-o-Vision. We had a blast.

Every talking head had an opinion. At one end of the spectrum, the prevailing thought was that I was completely deluded. Clearly I was a dangerous man with no qualifications for office. My history was emphasized and the world was told that even if I shut up and just went back to selling auto parts, I wasn’t “fit for proper society”.

The majority opinion was “Wait and see”. They tried to be even-handed about everything without taking sides. All very honorable and very professional. And very boring.

At the far end of the spectrum was a tiny minority who thought my campaign was going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. They hadn’t read my position papers, so they weren’t basing any of this on what I wanted to achieve, but only on the fact that having me in the race would make things interesting.

We had the most fun watching the first group.

The phone, of course, didn’t stop ringing once all day. Addie’s standing instruction was that everyone who called should be told, “We’re not entertaining any interview requests today. Please leave your number and we’ll get back to you in a few days.”

At about One in the afternoon, Addie turned the sound down, hushed us all and picked up her phone. She dialed and we all waited for whoever it was to answer. We only heard Addie’s side of the conversation. “Hi Jon, this is Addie Rotholz.” A pause, a smile, “Yes, that Addie Rotholz. So listen, let me get right to the point. I’m not taking anyone’s calls today and I’m offering you Paul, but only if you put him on tomorrow.” Pause. “Yeah, I thought you’d be okay with that. Well see you tomorrow.”

All of us just looked at her as she hung up the phone. She smiled.
Read more!

Chapter Thirty-Two

The next day, Paul flew up to New York City. Addie, Nicki, Darrell and Jesse were along for the ride. Paul would be appearing on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Addie thought Paul would do better with a younger audience until the campaign had built some traction. She also privately didn’t want to place him in any hostile situations this early in the game.

The one thing none of them were completely comfortable with was the fact that The Daily Show would purposely be looking for the comedy in the situation. While that could work to their benefit, it also introduced just enough of an element of unpredictability to make them all just a little nervous.

On the whole, Paul was feeling pretty good. When he’d checked his email just before leaving he’d found a note from Tom Selleck. It was just a short note saying he’d thought the announcement was terrific. No promises of support, but an assurance that he’d be watching with interest. Just like a regular guy.

From the moment they’d left his house, things had been different. The State Troopers who had never completely abandoned their overwatch on his house were formally back. Without anyone’s prompting, they offered an escort to the airport and then led his two car motorcade with lights and sirens the whole way. When they checked in at the airport, they were shown to a private room to await boarding and then ushered onto the plane moments before closing the door and leaving the gate.

Paul hadn’t had any complaints about how he was treated at Letterman but his arrival the Stewart’s studio was treated entirely differently. Jon Stewart and his senior producer met Paul at his car and then escorted him to a private dressing room. There was a separate room supplied for the rest of his party. Jon thanked him for picking The Daily Show first and assured him that they were expecting a great show. While the two of them were schmoozing, a make-up artist and a hair stylist made quick work of him. There was a constant stream of Production Assistants offering coffee, soda, whatever Paul might want. When the fourth one showed up, Paul started to say he was fine and then said, “Do you think you could find me some wristbands?” The P.A. said he was sure he could and he’d get them right away.

Paul was scheduled to be on after the second commercial break, so he watched the opening segments from the dressing room. Shortly before they ended, a P.A. came to fetch him. A few minutes later, he found himself standing in the wings waiting to be announced. While he was waiting the P.A. from earlier came running up, out of breath and handed him a brown paper bag. Paul looked inside to find it was full of fluorescent yellow wristbands. He thanked the P.A. who smiled and said, “I had to go ten blocks to find them and I didn’t think I’d get back in time.”

They finished prepping for Paul’s segment and Jon was cued that tape was rolling. He began, “Before we bring out tonight’s guest, I’d like you to take a look at these clips.” He turned to the monitor behind the news desk where a clip from the announcement speech ran. It was purposely cut so that the audience would know it was a hatchet job. The only portions of the speech that played were the ones in which Paul had enumerated his many vices and transgressions. When the clip was over, Jon turned as if speaking to someone off-screen and said, “Wasn’t chopping that up a little redundant?”

He turned back to the camera and said, “Yesterday, Paul Harkness stunned the nation once again by announcing that he’s running for President. Tonight, he’s here to explain himself. C’mon out here, Paul.”

Paul made his entrance to enthusiastic applause, took a seat at the news desk and shook Jon’s hand. Addie, it seemed, had chosen a receptive audience for his first post-announcement appearance. Jon stepped right in with, “Is it ok for me to call you Paul? I mean you only just started to be big deal, right?”

Paul smiled and said that would be fine.

Jon continued, “So are you, like a really real candidate or just a kinda sorta candidate? I mean you chose a fake news show to go on first, after all.”

“I’m really a real candidate Jon. And don’t sell yourself short. You’re more real than a lot of shows that claim to be real.”

Jon had noticed the paper bag when Paul made his interest and asked about it. Paul said, “Oh, just some props. Do you mind if I talk to the audience a little?”

Jon took this in stride and said, “Well we did have a script, but by all means, go ahead. I’ve always thought restraint was overrated anyway.”

The audience laughed and Paul turned to face them directly.

When they quieted, he said, “O.K., if you were old enough to vote in the 2002 mid-term elections, I want you to stand up.” All but 7 people stood. Paul gestured to a P.A. in the wings and tossed her the bag of wristbands. “Could you please give one of these to each of the folks still sitting? They get a pass” He turned back to the audience “If you’re not a U.S. citizen, you get a pass, too. Go ahead and take your seat.” Two people sat down and the P.A. quickly moved to give them wristbands. “O.K., now, for those of you standing, if you have a problem with anything our government’s done since that election, keep standing.” No-one sat.

“Now, everyone who actually voted in that election, go ahead and take your seat.” About a third of the audience sat down. “Great! Those of you who are sitting are all invited to come out for a drink or a cup of coffee, whatever you want when the show is over. Grab a wristband when the bag comes by. I’d like to discuss with you what I’ve got in mind if I win this election. I’d also be interested in hearing any opinions you might want to share.”

“And I’d like to say something to those of you who are still standing. Every one of you could have voted in the last election and you didn’t. The next time anyone is talking politics or finance or anything else related to how your city or state or federal government runs, you should just keep your mouth shut. If you don’t vote, nobody gives a rat’s ass what you think. I’m not telling you this because I want you to vote for me; I’m telling you because you need to vote for somebody. Voting doesn’t hurt and it doesn’t take long. In November, you’ll get your next chance to do the right thing, but until you participate, just shut the hell up.”

The standees were shocked into silence. The ones who were seated made enough noise to make up for them.
Read more!

Chapter Thirty-Three

I knew I was in trouble as soon as we got into the car. Nicki was busy on her phone dealing with some scheduling conflict in tomorrow's schedule. Jesse and Darrell had discovered their shared membership in Star Wars Geekdom and were arguing some arcane points to bolster their personal opinions about which were the most annoying characters in the series. Addie's arms were folded over her chest and she was staring silently out the window. She didn't say a word all the way back to LaGuardia.

When we got on the plane, Addie claimed the seat next to mine and asked Darrell to make sure that no-one sat in any of the seats immediately around us. The flight attendant tried to enforce the assigned seating rules but thought better of it after the withering look she got from Addie. As soon as we were in the air, Addie turned to me.

"You've gotta stop doing that," she said. I was about to respond, but she just continued. "I don't expect you to necessarily change what you're going to say, but I really need to be warned up front. Where the hell do you get off telling half the people in the country you don't give a shit what they think?"

"Well, I don't give a shit if they're not voters. Why should I?"

"Just because they don't vote doesn't mean they don't talk. Loudly. And people listen to them. You don't get elected by announcing that you only care about half of the country." With that, she seemed to have expended most of her actual frustration.

"I didn't say I only care about half the country. I said I didn't care what they had to say about how things run if they don't do anything besides yammer all the time. There's a difference."

Addie responded, "O.K., there's a difference, but what you say and what people choose to hear won't always be the same thing. You just gave our opponents a perfect set of sound bites. Those words are going to come back and bite us in the ass big time. I need to know, in advance, when you're gonna pull this shit."

I gave her the closest thing she was going to get to an apology. "I'll try to behave better, but believe me, I didn't know what I was going to say until about ten minutes before I went on. I'm sure if this is as big a deal as you think, I'll get asked about it and have a chance to clarify what I said. I was really just trying to change the subject and get people talking about something other than my arrest record."

"Well, that's a fine goal, Paul," she said. "Maybe next time we change the subject, we could try to get them talking about something that actually does you some good."

I've always been a blurter. Things come into my head and the next thing you know, they're tumbling out of my mouth. As much as I intended to try controlling this part of my personality, I predicted an uphill battle for Addie.
Read more!

Chapter Thirty-Four

As the remainder of the week spun out, they soon discovered that Paul's instincts had struck a nerve again and Addie's dire predictions were proved baseless. The mainstream media refused to be distracted. They hadn't finished debating Paul's past indiscretions and continued harping on that one subject whether anyone was paying attention or not. The far right screamed that Paul was too tarnished to be taken seriously. The far left claimed his past was nothing, but have you looked at some of the crap in his platform? Since nobody was ready to talk substance yet, his platform was brushed off as soon as it was mentioned.

What the media soon discovered was that they were the only ones discussing it. The public, at large, was mostly just ignoring the subject; not condemning or excusing, just mostly ignoring.

The campaign's website had posted the complete party platform, and while they had no way of knowing how many people were reading the complete document, they had registered a little over 60,000 hits on the page in the first week.

Another development was that people were making donations to the campaign through the website; not large donations, but an awful lot of small ones. At the rate things were going, the campaign would qualify for federal matching funds within 6 weeks. Not that money was a problem at the moment. Paul's silent backers had reaffirmed their support following his announcement and release of the party platform. They were limited by campaign finance laws to donating $20,000 to the campaign directly and another $50,000 each to the newly established party. Since Paul was the only candidate, this amounted to a distinction without a difference. His backers were out of the closet now, since donations this size were a matter of public record. Now, they openly solicited donations from other people in their social spheres. No, the campaign was not hurting for money.

By the end of the week, Paul discovered that if he wasn't a rock star himself, the music world had noticed him. The Dixie Chicks had appeared before a sold-out crowd at the Shrine Auditorium in L.A. wearing T-shirts emblazoned "Vote or Shut the Fuck Up". His original wording would be completely forgotten and this would be the quote attributed to him. He wasn't unhappy with the prospect.

The T-shirt quickly became 2004's pet rock. Schools all over the country tried, unsuccessfully to ban them, but soon bowed to the underlying sentiment and contented themselves with making kids put two-inch masking tape over the offensive part. And then variations on the theme appeared. The League of Women Voters made a fortune selling a shirt reading, "If you haven't voted, kindly hold your peace". Baby Gap had a tiny little shirt that said, "Vote or my mommy will say a bad word".

And people weren't just talking about it. They were acting on it. In at least five documented cases, bar fights had broken out when one yahoo yelled at the TV and then was shouted down by his bar mates who knew he hadn't voted since 1988.

Even though Paul wasn't watching the polls, other people were, and Paul was showing a respectable 6% support only a week after announcing. Considering Ross Perot had one of the most successful third party runs in history and hadn't cracked 20% of the popular vote, Paul's campaign felt they were off to a good start. The trick would be to build on it.

The campaign reached another milestone in its first week. On Friday, a columnist for the Washington Post forwarded a death threat for Paul he'd received that morning. It read, in part, "YOU WILL NOT ROOIN (sic) THIS COUNTRIE (sic) BY INFECTING (sic?) YOUR FOWL (sic) LIFESTILE (sic) ON THE BLEEDING MASSES!!! YOU WILL DIE IN A BLAZE OF GORY (sic) THAT WILL WARN OFF OTHERS OF YOUR ICK (sic?)" Nobody got overly worked up over the threat since, a.) the guy apparently couldn't find either Paul's or the campaign's address to mail the letter to and b.) he'd signed his name and address in Duluth, GA. They forwarded the letter to the FBI and asked Senator Bolling to look into Secret Service protection. In the meantime, they'd hire a private security firm and Darrell was put in charge of finding a firm.

On the Monday following Paul's announcement, they held their first press conference. Addie purposely set it up to be highly informal. Instead of standing at a podium, Paul was seated at a table with a microphone, much like an NFL coach might field questions from the press. She also, purposely rented a banquet room that was too small to accommodate all of the reporters who said they'd be coming. Better to feel too crowded than sparsely attended. The press was told that no subject would be off limits as long as every question related only to the policy statements they had released. They were not required to submit questions in advance.

Addie gleefully told twelve latecomers that they should have come earlier, there was no more room for them. When they threatened to retaliate by not covering Paul's campaign, she just smiled and said that would be a neat trick. When Paul entered the room at Ten a.m., the room was filled to bursting. He took his seat and said, "Good morning. Thank you all for coming. I'm sorry, except for the TV types, I don't know any of your names yet. We'll rectify that in the weeks to come. Please forgive me for just pointing today. Just so you know, we've scheduled this thing for an hour, but I'm prepared to stay and answer your questions as long as it takes. In the interest of full disclosure, I just want to let you know that this camera behind me is recording the questions and that one at the back of the room is on me and my answers. If I say anything stupid, it'll be fair game, but if I'm misquoted or quoted out of context, I intend to be able to shoot back. So, who wants to be first?"

Every hand in the room went up.

Paul pointed to a woman in the front row. She stood and said, "I'm Roxie Schaeffer, Associated Press. I'd like to hear more about your plan for Universal Military Service. Do you really think people are going to stand for that?"

Paul said, "Actually, you can't take that issue by itself. Its related to and intertwined with some other parts of my policy. Lets start with the 2nd Amendment. It says, and I quote, 'A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.' So, what I'd like to see is every U.S. Citizen to serve a period of time in uniform, say three years, and then periodically return for a couple of weeks of training, say until they're 35. They'd be available for recall until then in the event of National Emergency. So, I want everybody in the country in the militia and I want to regulate the hell out of it."

Another reporter raised his hand. After being recognized, he stood and said, "Malcom Risso, Telemundo. Surely you meant to say, 'able-bodied".

Paul, replied, "No, I mean every U.S. Citizen. Certainly there will be deferments, but they're going to be the exception. First of all, understand that the core of the military will be the voluntary forces we have now. But the militias will have the same table of organization, meaning that in addition to combat arms, there are a whole lot of jobs that need to be filled in a functioning military. If there is a job that a person is capable of performing, that's where they'll be slotted. So, yes, a paraplegic who can type with voice commands will get a clerical job. A nineteen year old with Downs Syndrome will work in supply helping load trucks. And before anyone asks, 'Yes, that means gays, too'. I don't care who asks and I don't care who tells, military service in the U.S. will be as universal as humanly possible."

Roxie Schaeffer was signaling for attention, crying, "Follow up, follow up". When recognized, she said, "This goes back to my original question. Do you really think people are going to stand for that?"

Paul said, "Ultimately, yes, I think they will when taken together with the other related policies. First of all, you may not have connected these things, but if you read all of my policy statements, you'd know that I want to completely eliminate Federal Income Tax. In its place we'd have a consumer tax, based strictly on purchases with a sliding scale for luxury goods. Any active duty military would be exempt from paying Federal sales tax, just by showing current I.D. I think that's going to make sense to a lot of people and appeal to just as many."

Another reporter vied for attention. "Pete Ainsley, ABC News. You prefaced this by connecting it to the 2nd Amendment. Is there some gun connection I missed?"

Paul said, "Its right there in the handouts. As members of the military, active or reservists, there will also be universal mandatory gun ownership."

The room erupted into a chaos of shouted questions.
Read more!

Chapter Thirty-Five

The rest of the press conference was…noisy. I explained that, of course there would be exceptions to the gun ownership law, but that most people would have had basic weapons training as part of their service. After they finished their active duty service, they’d be expected to have their weapon in serviceable order and available on short notice as members of the inactive reserve. Furthermore, I’d told them, I was looking into whether or not I could enact a law requiring all inactive reservist to carry their sidearm at all times. Openly.

I think too few people get irony. In the next two days, I received 172 more death threats. Almost 70% said something along the lines of ‘I’ll kill you before I let you force me to carry a weapon.’ Needless to say, our search for a security firm went into high gear. There were, after all, throngs of unarmed assassins lurking.

On Thursday I came into the office early. I like getting in when things are quiet and there aren’t any distractions. Even if I just use the time to organize what I’ll be doing that day, it feels like time well spent. Unfortunately, Darrell does the same thing. We’d given up trying to beat each other in, and usually just ignored each other until the rest of the staff started showing up. On this particular morning, there were gales of childish laughter coming from Darrell’s office when I got there. I looked in to find two small, very sticky children looking up at me from the floor. They were surrounded by what had been a box of assorted doughnuts.

Darrell rounded the corner with a roll of paper towels and a damp sponge. “Yours, I take it?” I said.

“Yeah,” Darrell replied, “This morning, I’m thinking of trading them in for a dog, though.” He went on to introduce me to his daughter Glennis, 3, and Darrell, Jr., 5, while starting to clean up the kids and his office.

I said that I didn’t even know he was married. He told me about how his wife had been killed in a car accident 2 years earlier. His mother and mother-in-law usually took turns caring for the kids during the day, but something had come up and he’d decided to just bring the kids to work with him that day. I made a mental note to have Nicki find out how many of the staff had kids in day care and to look into setting up one nearby if it seemed like there was a need. I’ve found that parents who get to see their kids every now and then, tend to be happier employees.

Darrell reminded me I was supposed to meet with a possible security firm later that morning. While looking at various companies, he’d discovered that someone he’d known in the Marines had retired a year earlier and was now heading up a company called HSLD Security Associates that had an excellent reputation in personal security. I told him it was on my agenda and made my way to the break room for a cup of coffee.

I settled into my office and did busywork for about 45 minutes and then started marking up a speech I was scheduled to give the following night. This one was going to be at a Jewish Community Center in Chicago and Adelaide, of course, wanted me to work Israel into the speech. I’m a big supporter of Israel, but I think they’ve missed a few opportunities in the past. I was trying to figure out how to not completely piss off every fellow Jew in the country while saying that Israel, too, might need to make some sacrifices if the violence there was ever going to come to an end. Adelaide wasn’t going to be happy if the first Jewish candidate for President came out and lost the Jewish vote this early in the campaign.

At 9:30, with the office in full swing, Darrell knocked on my door. He came in and was followed by a fairly small wiry man he introduced as Chief Warrant Officer Gil Shefflin, (ret.). Shefflin looked like he’d just forgotten to put his uniform on that morning as opposed to really being retired. He still had the regular Marine issue buzz cut and piercing brown eyes. He wore a crisp suit that was not off-the-rack. We shook hands and took seats around the coffee table.

I hadn’t been putting much thought into the whole idea of requiring protection. I guess I’d avoided thinking about it. Guess I couldn’t do that any more. Hey, we all live with the possibility of random violence happening anywhere or anytime. But that’s random. You can’t do anything about it. You can’t predict it. All you can do is try to pay attention to your surroundings more often than walking around with your head in the clouds. But, now, there were people out there who had a personal beef with me. This was not a happy thought.

At first, Shefflin tried to hand me a brochure and his resume, but I asked him to just tell me about himself for a start. He related his military history. 28 years in the Marine Corps, 15 as a Chief Warrant. He’d been spotted for a number of specialties, but had spent his last few years as an expert in Embassy Security. He was tapped 5 times to go in and deal with Embassies that for one reason or another, were suddenly high profile and high risk. He spent his last year on active duty as an instructor at the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group.

He went on to tell me, “We’ve assembled a fine team of operatives and we can tailor your teams to your needs once they’ve been determined. Most of our operatives are ex-military with some out of other government agencies. There’s not a man or woman at HSLD who hasn’t had extensive weapons training and frontline experience. Most have counterterrorism training and experience. In some job slots, we’ve got Intel specialists. Every person working for me has had, at one time or another a ‘Secret’ clearance and most had higher levels of clearance. And I’d be personally heading up your teams.”

I tried to digest this for a moment and I noticed that although Shefflin kept eye contact, there was something that he wasn’t saying.

I said, “You don’t like me very much, do you Mr. Shefflin?”

Darrell winced. Shefflin smiled for the first time since walking in the door. “No sir, I don’t. Frankly, I think you might be the most dangerous man in the country at the moment.”

I laughed and said, “Well, at least you don’t mince words.”

Shefflin’s expression grew serious again. “Warrants aren’t paid to talk nice. They’re paid to get things done. Do you have much first hand familiarity with the military?”

“Practically none,” I said.

“Well, let me tell you a little about what a Warrant is. When you’re on a ship, everyone on the ship will go through the chain of command to the XO before they ever disturb the Captain. And even then, that person had better get to the point and have a good reason. When a Warrant has reason to talk to the Captain at 4:00 a.m. he knocks on the Captain’s door and the Captain says, ‘what can I do for you, Warrant?’ They’re not outside of the chain of command, but operate kind off to the side of it most of the time.”

He continued, “When you see a regular Officer leading an outfit, its because that outfit will be facing a normal situation, the type they all train for. When you see a unit being led by a Warrant, I can garuan-damn-tee you that you’re looking at a unit heading into shit. That’s what Warrants are trained for. They’re paid to solve problems. If they can do that by the book, fine. If not, the result is what matters. So when the Marine Corps looks for people to groom for Warrants, they look for people who thrive on the sharp end of the stick. They’re not looking for go-along-to-get-along-types.”

“So, why do you want to put all that experience to work for my benefit if you think I’m so dangerous?” I asked.

“First, its what I do. Nobody ever asked me whether or not I liked any of my superiors; they just told me to follow orders. I don’t have to like you to keep you alive and take lots of your money for doing it. Second, I don’t think you’ve got a chance in hell of getting elected, so there’s really no downside to keeping you alive.”

I laughed so hard I thought I’d choke. “Darrell, hire Warrant Shefflin and I’ll expect both of you to brief me on the arrangements once their made.” I figured Shefflin was going to do as well, if not better than anyone else could. He’d sure as hell keep me from getting too full of myself.
Read more!