Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 (17 page)

 
          
 
The President looked directly down into Burnham's
eyes and said, "How you doin', Tim?"

 
          
 
Timothy, Burnham said to himself. Timothy.
"Fine, sir," he said, looking up into the eyes of the biggest person
in the world.

 
          
 
The human being himself was large—three inches
taller than Burnham and forty pounds heavier, with feet so mammoth that (he
liked to joke about himself) his shoes "came from a partnership 'tween a
blacksmith and a saddler" and his hands were used, when he was young,
"one for a maul, t'other for an anvil." He insisted that physically
he was the perfect paradigm of the American farm boy, as imagined on postcards
and recruiting posters; his official biography had him growing up on a small
mom-and-pop dairy farm in central
Ohio
. And he had tricks that made him seem even
bigger He always stood as close as he could, often smotheringly close, to
people shorter than himself, which increased the angle at which they had to
look up at him and emphasized the difference in their stature, and that, in
turn, became a symbolic representation of the difference in their importance
and position and achievement, all of which was supposed to make them understand
that one of nature's immutable laws was that Benjamin T. Winslow was smarter,
wiser, better, than they and that to disagree with him was not only stupid but
absolutely, ineffably wrong. And because only people who are unsure of
themselves, or are lying, or are wrong, look away during a one-on-one palaver,
Benjamin T. Winslow never unlocked his eyes from the eyes of the person he was
challenging or fighting or seducing.

 
          
 
Taller people posed a special problem, and
they were kept at the greatest possible distance from the President. None was
permitted to work near him.

 
          
 
This large human being also knew how to use
the majesty of his office to magnify him into superhumanity. "Jimmy Carter
was quite the genius," Benjamin Winslow would say with a sorry sigh.
"He turned the presidency into a toilet and then dove in and pulled the
chain."

 
          
 
No one ever called this President anything but
"Mr. President." Ever. It was supposed that his wife called him
"Benjamin" or "Ben" or even something private and
endearing, like "Bunny" (the mind reeled), in private, but in public
she never referred to "Benjamin" or "Mr. Winslow" or "my
husband," but always to "the President."

 
          
 
"Hail to the Chief was played at every
opportune occasion. At state dinners, the President danced twice, once with his
wife and once with the wife of the guest of honor. No other beauty—be she Christie
Brinkley or Meryl Streep, was permitted to partake of the imperial two-step. He
never joined a singer on a stage for a chorus of "Blue Skies," never
made light remarks about the
United States
, never made a public slip stronger than
"hell," and never in public called anyone by his or her first name.
No entertainer was Willie or Frank, no politician Tip or Teddy or Bob or Strom.
Everyone was Mr. or Mrs. (That trick he had learned from a man whose verbal
skills he admired, William F. Buckley, Jr. It always made Buckley seem at once
respectful and superior.)

 
          
 
"The American people don't want their
buddy for a President," he explained to a New York Times reporter in a
rare moment of candor. "They can't look up to their buddy. Their buddy
can't give them hope or make them proud. They want a goddamn leader! That
'goddamn' is off the record."

 
          
 
And yet he had to balance distance and majesty
with humanity. He had to be a man if not of the people, then from the people.
Up from the people. Now and then he had to let his roots show through. And
where those roots didn't exactly fit the need of the moment, why, he'd prune
them, cutting this one short and grafting a little color onto that one.

 
          
 
He put his arm around Burnham's shoulder and
led him toward the sofa. "Fine," he said. "That's a good thing
to be. I'd say I'm fine, too."

 
          
 
Where are we going? Burnham wondered. Why are
we going to the couch? There are plenty of perfectly good chairs all over the
place. What does he want to do with me? Make out? Oh shit. Don't laugh. Not
now.

 
          
 
But the image of the President of the United States,
suddenly overwhelmed by a steamy passion, flinging some benighted, unknown
wretch onto the floral-print sofa and pouncing on top of him to smother him
with kisses, started Burnham smiling and then gurgling to suppress a laugh.

 
          
 
"What say, son?"

 
          
 
"Nice, sir. I was saying that it's nice
that you're fine, too."

 
          
 
"Damn right."

 
          
 
Burnham didn't have a chance to sit on the
sofa; the President sat him on it. He guided him by one elbow, like a tugboat
turning a tanker, and smoothly shoved him backward until his legs hit the front
of the sofa and he fell.

 
          
 
The President did not sit. He stood over Burnham
and looked down on him, and Burnham saw so far up the man's immense nostrils
that he felt like a tourist at the base of
Mount Rushmore
.

 
          
 
"Comfortable?"

 
          
 
"Fine, sir. Thanks." Burnham leaned
forward and placed his Important Papers on the coffee table in front of the
sofa—just in case the President should want to know what he was working on
these days.

 
          
 
"How's Sarah?"

 
          
 
Sarah! Jesus! Burnham thought. This man
doesn't miss a trick.

 
          
 
"Oh, fine. Fine."

 
          
 
"Still working for Te . . . Senator
Kennedy?"

 
          
 
Oh-oh. So that's it.

 
          
 
"Ah . . . now and then ..."

 
          
 
"Fine with me," the President said
quickly. "Don't misunderstand. It's every American's birthright. If she
can make the voters forget there was a time when he didn't know right from
wrong, or right from left"—he chuckled maliciously— "why then, more
power to her. Of course, if I was running again," the President grinned at
Burnham, "you and I might have a word or two about it."

 
          
 
"Of course, sir. But ..."

 
          
 
"But I'm not. So it's no problem. No
problem!"

 
          
 
He's trying to make me feel at ease, Burnham
decided. Why? What's coming next? The sweat that had dried coolly on his hands
began to run warm again.

 
          
 
The President turned away and took a few
casual steps across the office. "Tim," he said, "I am the
President."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir," Burnham said to his
back.

 
          
 
The President stopped, spun, glared and said,
"Is that funny?"

 
          
 
"Sir?" Burnham's heart whacked
against his rib cage.

 
          
 
"I said, is that funny? Is the Presidency
funny?"

 
          
 
"N-n-n-n ..." Burnham clamped his
lips closed.

 
          
 
"Is it funny to be President?"

 
          
 
Burnham wanted to say something like "I
wouldn't know, I've never tried it," but he couldn't. He couldn't say
anything. A jerky sequence of "S" sounds bubbled from his mouth.

 
          
 
"Is it funny to be responsible for the
lives of two hundred and forty million Americans?"

 
          
 
What is going on? Burnham howled to himself.
"No-no, no sir."

 
          
 
"Is it funny to be custodian of the
untold millions of the unborn?"

 
          
 
Burnham didn't bother to attempt a reply.

 
          
 
"Is it funny to bear the burden of
knowing that if you make one mistake, one wrong decision, those unborn and
their offspring and their offspring—maybe they'll all be mutants— will look
back and say, 'It's your fault, Mr. President'?"

 
          
 
This time the President waited, and Burnham
forced his mouth to fashion the two simple words. "No . . . sir."

 
          
 
"Then why the jokes?"

 
          
 
"Wha . . . ?"

 
          
 
"I am not a funny President."

 
          
 
"I . . "

 
          
 
"A President who wants to look funny is
an asshole. To coin a phrase."

 
          
 
Burnham's brain clawed through the drawers of
memory, searching for any candidates, any jokes he had written that could have
gone wrong.

 
          
 
"The press is drooling for a chance to
make the President look like an asshole. You know that, don't you?"

 
          
 
"I . . . I . . ."

 
          
 
“You mean you want to make your President look
like an asshole?"

 
          
 
"N-n-n-n-n-n . . . NO!"

 
          
 
"Well, then . . ."By now the
President was towering over Burnham, his arms outstretched in a gesture of
majestic outrage, the American eagle betrayed by one of its own chicks. He
dropped his arms and, his head hung with the expression of a wounded parent
stung by the serpent's tooth of a thankless child, retreated to a chair
opposite Burnham and put his feet on top of Burnham's Important Papers on the
coffee table. "It seems you've got some hard explaining to do, Tom."

 
          
 
Tom? Now what? First it was "Tim."
He got Sarah's name down cold. Now "Tom."

 
          
 
Then Burnham knew: He was about to be fired.
For, there was, in the Winslow White House, a mle: He Whom the President Wishes
to Dismiss He First Makes Lowly. And what better way to abase a staff member,
to make him seem a bagatelle and his dismissal a trifle, than not even to know
his name?

 
          
 
Still, Burnham didn't know what his offense
had been, and he was damned if he would go ignorant into ignominy. Curiously,
he felt relieved, as if the certainty of his doom freed him from the
conventions of cowering before the throne, and he was able to say, without once
stammering, "I'd be happy to explain, Mr. President, if you'd tell me what
the hell you're upset about."

 
          
 
The President's eyes narrowed, and his ears
flattened noticeably against the side of his head. Like a pit bull. "I'm
sick and tired of writers going around with their thumb up their ass and their
mind in neutral."

 
          
 
"What?" Burnham knew now that he was
as good as gone; he had nothing more to lose. "What in the name of Jesus
does that mean?"