FSF, December 2008 Read online

  There, he drew the largest crowd we'd seen in weeks—thirty-five tourists, some wearing inflatable flying saucer hats and others wearing bug-eyed alien masks and a few wearing both. Even though I'd never been there, it seemed familiar to me, probably from television.

  As I watched, I felt my great depression come back and hover over me. This was not the way I wanted to spend my life, listening to a politician say nothing, with people who wore goofy hats, and a lot of dust on my shoes. For the first time on this assignment I got into my mental health emergency kit. Then, happily dazed, I strolled through the crowd to pick up any interesting comments I could put in my next newsless piece.

  "Mr. Faber?” asked a fourteen-year-old kid in an alien T-shirt. “Mr. Faber, are you from space?"

  "Well, son, as I hear it, matter is mostly space, yet here we all are. I've got more space in me than I've got me in here. So do you. I guess you could say we're all made out of space. All of us.” Grin, wink, heh-heh. Making his eyes big and his voice “scary,” he said, “I wonder what lurks inside all those empty places?” Minor chuckles from the audience.

  I'd never heard that answer before, so I checked it out, and he was right. An atom is like an egg in the center of a racetrack, the nucleus and the nearest electrons. We are almost not here at all. It is an interesting subject on which I should spend more time. Ha ha.

  Well, the next day was election day, so I asked Faber if he wanted to drive over to Albuquerque and stay in a good motel—with a swimming pool, I was hoping.

  "No,” Faber said. “We'll stay here for a few days."

  * * * *

  The last words I remember hearing before the doo began to dribble into the fan were Faber pleasantly telling me, “We'll stay here a few days.” Little did I know, but we were all headed south, and it was only hours till the wheels came off.

  The next morning, the first thing was that the networks were going crazy—so crazy that it took me a while to figure out what they considered so dreadful. It was kind of charming, really, from the point of view of one away from it all in Roswell.

  Faber was winning by anywhere from 49 to 64 percent, despite exit polls that split out 36 percent, 47 percent, with Faber pulling the usual 12 percent or so.

  The voting machines were blamed, but they checked out perfectly. In state after state, irregardless of the maker of the voting machine or the type of ballot, Faber rolled up percents in the high fifties. Police were called out in numerous places to restore order, Weddell and Lawrence issued statements condemning everything, uncountable fights broke out between voters and poll workers and anybody else nearby. By the end of the day, on the West Coast, people mobbed in the streets and proclaimed Faber to be their president. They liked the idea. Probably even AnnaJanina liked the idea. At least in the West, the exit polls matched the actual vote.

  The President himself called for national calm and asked for Roger Allen Faber to drop by the White House at his earliest convenience and have a chat.

  In the motel, I said to him, “Roger, how did you do that? How did you win?"

  "I just appealed to their desires for better times."

  The pizza delivery person arrived at that point. With food in the room, I knew I wasn't going to get anything substantial out of him.

  "So what are you going to do now?” I asked.

  "Monday,” he said, “we'll drive over to Albuquerque and we'll catch a plane for Washington."

  "'We'?” I said.

  He gave me the grin, a little nod, and the wink.

  "You're my Number One, Quentin.” Another wink. “It'll be exciting.” I remember his saying that. I was highly complimented, considering it came from the President Elect, Roger Allen Faber. Except it wasn't real to me, at all, in the slightest. It was just a lot of sitting around in desolate motel rooms with Mr. Doodah. He ate the entire pizza, a large with everything.

  Over the weekend, the people in Roswell addressed Faber as “Mr. President,” and it was all very amusing for a while until I began to think maybe he really did win the election and maybe he was going to take me with him. Then I began to have the fear. On TV and in the papers, Faber was the only news there was. Was he really the president-elect? Did he win by some kind of fraud? Would we be arrested? Would I be indicted?

  Saturday, several vans of reporters and two helicopters showed up, but Roger Allen Faber was not to be found. He left a message on his bed that read, “Gone for a walk. Be back late.” People I saw on TV every day asked me every question they could think of, but after a couple of hours, they knew everything I knew about Faber, which wasn't much. They had lunch. They had dinner, and then they left, just as Faber strolled in from wherever.

  "Let's have some blueberry waffles,” he said. I remember that. He hid out all day in the desert to avoid reporters, and came back and wanted waffles. As usual, he ate them as though they were the best thing in the world. He enjoyed them so much, I wondered if I was missing something. Ha ha.

  By now, the caca was starting to hit the fan at a pretty good rate.

  * * * *

  Washington was a madhouse. From the time we got off the airplane till we got inside the White House, all we saw were people looking at us. Rows and rows of people lined the streets going crazy to see Faber. It was frightening to me.

  At last, in the silence of the White House, with only a few people looking at us, we were led into a smallish room with puffy, rolled-arm furniture like my grandmother used to have. It was not my favorite kind of furnishing, but then it wasn't my house.

  President Watson came in after a few minutes, everyone shook hands, and the President spent a lot of pointless time asking about motels we stayed in, what we ate on the road, etc., etc., and then like he was trying to catch Faber off-guard, out of nowhere he asked, “Just how did you do it, Mr. Faber?” He smiled and nodded when he said this. “It was brilliant, whatever it was."

  Faber did his grin and his heh-heh routine and said, “Well, sir, I had special help."

  Watson nodded knowingly. “Ah,” he said, “Jesus."

  "No,” Faber said, “not Jesus."

  Watson nodded knowingly again. “I know what you mean,” he said.

  What a load. I'd been around Faber for a couple of months, and I knew that no one knew what he meant. Unless Watson had Extra Sensory Powers, which is doubtful, considering his legal problems, he was crapping all of us, and all of us knew it. But I digress.

  We got a tour through a few rooms and made to feel like we should be kissing somebody's ring, saw this, saw that, not much of it memorable except it was like a rat's nest of people hurrying in all directions under bad lighting. The only memorable exchange I remember was this, in the Oval Office:

  President: “It's a complicated job. Come in anytime and we'll go over a few things."

  Faber (major grin): “I don't think we'll need to do that."

  This could have been a.) arrogance, b.) the comment of a very smart person, or c.) a clue.

  * * * *

  Now we fast forward, through all the ceremonial folderol, the oath, to the Inauguration Speech which was after the swearing in. Faber was the most talkative I'd ever seen—he took at least four minutes. Crucial parts, repeated over and over on TV, were these:

  "Well.... I want to make this easy on all of us.” Wink, grin, applause. “In traveling around America, I've discerned what Americans want.” Discerned even. Maybe he even saw a harbinger or two.

  Maybe he did discern two or three things, but I never heard him ask anybody anything, except where he could find a good restaurant.

  "Americans want what everybody else around the world wants. They want peace and quiet and protection against disaster, whether personal or national. Well, okay.” Big, big grin. “I'll do that.” Wild mad applause. “Now, you all of you have a good day.” National approval rating: 78 percent.

  Faber had a blank check, but as far as I knew, he had no plans to spend it. I'd never heard one major or even one trivial idea. Even though I had spent
hours with him every day, I thought I might be missing something. Everybody else seemed to think everything was going along fine, so I just watched and tried to see what they saw. Faber was as friendly as a warm brassiere so everyone figured he could run the country. Morons with less charm had done it before him.

  Whatever. I must say, that, by this time, my “This Is Weird” nerves had been totally fried. Flying saucers could have landed on the White House lawn and I'd think, “So? Is there an issue here? Are they littering?” I mean, six months ago I was two moves away from the farm section in the Bakersfield HomeTown News, and here I was, access to the President, living in the White House. I didn't feel lucky. I felt troubled.

  The staff kind of loitered around and drank a lot of coffee and asked me questions I couldn't answer. On day two, Faber called in the Secret Service people and told them to keep absolutely everyone but me and the chef away from him. A lot of eyebrows went up at that one. Then he told them to let the switchboard know that he'd take only two calls a day—the first two that came in after 11 a.m. I suspect a lot of alarm bells were going off inside those clean-cut heads. Me, I was used to it.

  I saw Faber several times a day, and once in a while had lunch with him. His desk was stacked with folders—several piles a foot or more high, but since I was there several times a day, as I said, I noticed that the files were never moved.

  Faber was very charming through our lunches, and any political conversations went something like this:

  Me: “I've been reading in the paper that things are getting tense between Belarus and the Ukraine. A lot of people think the U.S. should maybe do something."

  Faber (as though waving away a fly): “Oh pish. It'll come to nothing."

  And then he told me how much he liked the crab dishes.

  I became stressed. Every time any of the press or staffers saw me, they were on me like zits. But what did I know? Zip, zero, and nothing. Until that time I had never experienced anxiety like I read about in Psych 101. But I recognized the markers, and I had a lot of it.

  After a couple of weeks I got extremely jumpy because I knew things were getting serious with the Belarus thing (not to mention the angry Chinese wanting to extend some agreement or other) and people always asked me a lot of intense questions I didn't know the slightest thing about, which they blamed me for.

  "Mr. President,” I said, “things are going to fly apart and a lot of people will get hurt or die if you don't do some of the things you're supposed to do to keep everybody safe, like you said. Mr. Faber?"

  He reached over and put his hand over mine. “Quentin, son,” he said, “you don't have to worry about a thing. You watch. No one's going to die.” I remember I just stared at him. I was really afraid I was looking at a deeply mental case. “Here,” he said. “Try this sauce. Butter-lemon with a touch of hoisin.” And he shoved a plate of salad across at me. I could have strangled him. Not really, but stuttering Jesus, as they say. Those Belorussians had their guns out. People were lining up to die, and, of course, they had a million cheerleaders.

  "Sir?” It was my final plea. “Please?"

  He leaned toward me. I have to say, it was a bit creepy because Faber doesn't have the most assuring face when seen close up, being as prematurely old-looking as he is. But he leaned toward me and said, “Quentin, you should be happy. You're safe, it's very quiet here, there's food, warmth, and yet I sense you are anxious. Breathe deeply."

  Now I actually did want to strangle him, but I breathed deeply and thought blood would run out of my ears, I was so infuriated, but it didn't.

  And what do you know? The Ukrainians and the Belorussians apparently decided to do something else besides slaughter each other's civilians. Nothing happened. Faber continued to sit at his desk behind those untouched files and ate tremendous quantities of food. Actually I could see he was filling out a little and looking a bit healthier.

  A necessary but boring side note should be added here to the effect that during the first two months of his term, the clamorous and vociferous demand grew daily for him to begin filling appointed offices. When the leaders of Congress waltzed in one day and told me they demanded he appoint a cabinet and a Vice President, I took the word to him and Faber did the grin and said, “I'll get right on it,” and winked. When I told him the Senate at least wanted a Vice President, he said, “Well, okay, you're the Vice President.” I went out and told everyone who wanted to know that Faber would soon appoint a cabinet but that he had no comment on the VP issue.

  Within a few days, Faber called a Rose Garden press conference. Everybody but God showed up in person. At last Faber would speak! He might say something meaningful! He might explain what he had been doing all this time!

  He walked briskly out, grinned at everyone, winked, and said, “Tomorrow, things are going to be just a little bit better."

  That was it, the total show in a nutshell. We didn't know it at the time, but the fecus into the fan was now at full squirt.

  Sure enough, the next day, stunned to the bone, in prisons across the country, wardens discovered that every prisoner who had been convicted of murder wasn't there anymore. Most of them disappeared during the night, depending in part on the particular time zone. And noteworthy is that they vanished completely, meaning totally, even with their DNA traces on their bedding, in the toilets, etc. There were unconfirmed reports that their names vanished off all prison records and none of their paperwork could be located. The country now had prison vacancies.

  I was asked five hundred times if that “miracle” was what Faber had meant about things getting better. Faber's comment: “That isn't an edifying question.” (Maybe it was a harbinger, though.) “Either answer I give will cause a hundred more questions.” Grin, end of conversation. So that's what I told everyone, quote, “Either answer I give...” etc. I dropped the edifying part.

  Everyone went completely guano. There were big headlines like,

  Republicans Enraged: Did Faber Rescue Murderers?

  Insanity An Impeachable Offense, Says Jurist

  Military Denies Invasion Plans for White House

  The next notable event was a guy named Jay J. Bookmander wrote a little column which observed that convicted murderers might not be the only ones disappearing. He had been reading the news and he connected the dots like smart people can sometimes do. To wit:

  * The recent failure of many muggings due to the mugger suddenly “vanishing."

  * The recent alleged death of candidate Evan Lawrence in a white water “accident,” just as he prepared to shoot off a hundred subpoenas to Faber and me, me of all people. Lawrence's body, to no one's surprise, was never found.

  * The curious ability of many groups, from labor unions to nations, to be able to successfully negotiate their disagreements away, although they often had to go through several teams of negotiators due to “drop outs."

  * Nothing of note happened in the Middle East.

  * The recent absence from work of many heavily tattooed persons.

  * The recent unaccountable absence of people in many walks of life, nearly all of whom were connected in some way to the “intentional or semi-intentional application of violence,” according to Bookmander, including, for instance, known criminals, incarceration officers, soldiers, slaughterhouse workers, three members of the Senate, and twelve from the House.

  * The realization that events similar to all these were occurring around the world.

  * * * *

  I brought this to Faber's attention. He glanced at it and said, “I'll bet people are a little happier about these things."

  I asked him if he had anything to do with these things and he said it was too soon to say.

  "Too soon to say?!"

  "Quentin, could you ask Ms. Kan to come in? Her paella is just marvelous. I'll have her make you some."

  That's me, quizzing the Prez on the biggest story in the world, getting all the news.

  * * * *

  Now I am going to account for the occurrence
of the important part.

  It took a while for the Bookmander article to get traction, about three weeks, give or take, but when it did, people in the media became inflamed, resulting in a substantial portion of the public becoming inflamed, to which inflammation their public servants in Congress wrote up what they called “unflinching demands on the chief executive.” I just said “Ho ho,” when I heard about that. It didn't seem like a smart thing to me.

  They unmothballed Joseph J. Weddell to stand in front of a joint session to read the “unflinching demands.” On every channel, the country saw Weddell start coolly, grow warm, become outraged, warn everyone to arm themselves, then he went totally “mandrill,” red in the face, waving his arms around, saying Faber was a national threat—and then—

  Blip.

  That was exactly the noise on the microphones: Blip. And Joseph J. Weddell just blipped right out of existence, right in front of the world, as his clothes fell into a wadded pile. There was silence in the house that day.

  I went to Faber. “What—What is going on here, sir!"

  "Too soon to say,” he said.

  I cleverly asked him, “When will it be time?"

  And get this: His answer: “When nobody cares anymore."

  Like I said, was this man cryptical and enigmatic or not? Sometimes I had the creepy feeling that if I was a B+ instead of a C+, I might have got it a little sooner.

  * * * *

  Weddell's disappearance certainly quieted the critics. For a day. Then they were back, vicious and even more outraged, on TV, radio, and Internet. That lasted about two days.

  It went like this: On the TV, the radio, and the Internet, with some word halfway through their outraged lips or through their outraged typing fingers, they blipped out of existence, just like Weddell. You could hear it: Blip ... blip ... blip.... Then a few people recognized the obvious and spread the word that it was maybe time to shut up.