P.S. I sent Ed to Alaska...

After his wife died of ovarian cancer Michael Rapport sold the large two-story they had shared, and moved to a smaller two bedroom in the suburbs.  He found the city reminded him in small ways of her.  He would pass by a place they had dinner, or one of the stores she loved to shop, and the sudden memory would make her absence so total, that he would feel swallowed by it.

The suburbs were better somehow.  They were bland things, filled with strip malls and custom homes that were anything but.  They had agreed when they had first married that they would never move to the suburbs, both found them lacking authenticity, and it was true, they were, and that was the point.

He had spent several months eating alone in the small place he now called home before the idea came to him that his hanging around the house was absurd.  He started to frequent the local places, but eventually settled into eating two or three times a week at a local Tex-Mex place.  The food was good, and the price was decent, but most of all it was quiet in the right kind of way.  They didn’t play music, the soundtrack was the people, half a dining room full of people music.  Families, couples, kids all adding their piece to the accompaniment.  It was nice.

Michael had started his habit of reading at the far end of the bar in the La Hacienda not to long after he began frequenting the spot.  It wasn’t something he did every night, but like all habits it had gained in regularity and frequency.  He wasn’t picky with the food, or the books, he ate the special, and he read whatever book he could find in a thirty minute scan of the local Half-Priced store.  

He sometimes sipped at a beer or two, mostly he drank the iced tea or sprite.  Sitting, immersed in a Larry McMurtry western on a Wednesday night Michael met the President of the United States.

“Is it any good?”

The voice had startled him a little.  He usually had the bar completely to himself, and he had never struck up a conversation with anyone, not even the bartender.  Michael looked up, but didn’t really see the man who was sitting there, not really, he more glanced, then looked back to his spot before he dog eared the page and set the book down.  The man was dressed in a suit, and had his tie flung over his shoulder, to keep from dropping salsa on it Michael supposed.

“Yeah, it’s really good.  I usually go for some kind of Louis L'amour stories, this looked kind of similar, but it’s richer or something.  It’s more unexpected that’s for sure.”

“What’s the name?” The man asked.  Michael looked down himself as he turned the cover towards the man, he didn’t really know.  The cover had a picture Michael would swear was a Remington, and the title Streets of Laredo.

“Oh yeah?  Streets of Laredo.  Yeah I read that one, that’s the one after Lonesome Dove.” the man said while eating another chip.

“Yeah… man I tell you it has some really funny passages in it, I suppose it’s supposed to be farce, but it works.  I’m gonna have to read more.  This is the second one you said?  Lonesome Dove, yeah I watched that a long time ago with Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones.  Maybe I should read that one too.”  

The man looked over at Michael.  “Oh yeah you gotta read that book, really something else, I enjoyed it very much.”  For a minute the world seemed to hum in his ear, the man sitting there looked just like the President, just like him, but it was odd, Michael had a hard time really placing him.  It took a full minute before he could complete the simple thought “the President?”

“I’m sorry, but man you look like…” and then he trailed off, and looked around.  A couple of beefy looking guys were standing on either side at the end of the bar, another was standing near the swinging doors at the back end of the bar.

The President smiled a little and ate another chip, then sipped at the bottle of Dr. Pepper sitting in front of him.

“Yeah, a President has to eat too.  They had something on the plane but I didn’t want it.”  There was space for a breath, “didn’t want to eat on the plane.  Drives these guys crazy when I make them stop in at places like this, doesn’t it Ed?”

“Yessir.” The serious looking guy near the bar doors said back without actually looking over.

“Wow, I’ve never met anyone more famous than a baseball player before.”

“Which baseball player did you meet?”

“Billy Wagner, I mean I’ve met a few others, but I mean somehow unexpectedly, out and about.  I met him while shopping with my wife at Bed Bath and Beyond one day.  We were both there, she had wandered off, and there he was with his kid.”

“Takes you aback doesn’t it?  I met just about every ball player when I was workin with the Rangers, was always something.  Was Wagner a nice guy?  I didn’t meet him I don’t think.”

“Yeah, yeah he was a nice guy.”  This was the most surreal experience in his life, Michael felt he needed something to center him, to give him some sense of reality.  “What are you in town for, usually it pops up on the news, maybe it did, I don’t pay to close attention now days.”

“Ehh, just a quick stop off, not really doing the whole big thing, just a meeting with money people.  You would think you get to stop when you become president, but you don’t, I’m always asking someone for money, that’s the way this job works.  Trading time for money..”  He looked down at his chips as he said this.  

“Don’t we all?  Trade time for money?”

The President stopped and smiled, “yeah I guess we do.”

“Tell me… I’m sorry I haven’t gotten your name.” and he paused then looking at Michael expectantly.

“Oh, Michael, my names Michael..”

“So tell me Michael, what do you do other than enjoy books at bars on Wednesday nights?”

“I’m an oil field manager.”

“Really?  An oil man.  Guess it’s no secret I like oil people, in a few years it won’t be politic, yeah, no more elections where guys can be friendly with big ole oil.”

“Yeah I got a friend from college always gives me grief about working for oil companies.  He works for a bank and he gives me grief.” Michael said.

“I loved workin in oil.  Gettin out on a ranch somewhere.  Nothin around for miles, there’s a place out west that I bought rights to, big ranch.  Didn’t have cell phones in those days.  I got out there about fifteen miles from the nearest road, and broke down, belt snapped.  Took me half a day to walk out to the main road and catch a ride into town.  Caught a ride with a trucker, he had Parkinson's, old fella, still drove, hands shaking, scared the hell outta me.  Said he only drove the back roads cause he may cause a wreck on the interstate.”

“Bet he tells everyone he meets about the time he picked up the President hitch-hiking.” Michael said.

“Maybe, you never know.  I’ve had people not recognize me.  I’ll sit down next to them in a donut shop or something and they won’t even notice.  They only notice Ed, ain’t that right Ed?”

“Yessir.”

The President paused and took another sip of his Dr. Pepper.  

“If an oil man is eating at a Tex-Mex place in Texas I would call that a recommendation, what’s the special here?”

“I don’t know, the enchiladas are good, they have a sauce they put on them that is just phenomenal, mostly I don’t even pay attention.”

“I think I’m gonna have the fajitas, I saw them coming through the kitchen, looked pretty good.”

The President looked around, took a big breath and let out a long sigh.

“I like it in Texas.  You ever had to be somewhere where people hate you?”  The President asked.

“I can’t say that I have.”

“I’m almost done with the job, another five months.  Looking like the Democrats are gonna take the White House.  My party is blaming that on me.  My Dad talked about the hollowness he felt after leavin.  It starts early.  It’s the not mattering anymore.  You go from President to lame duck pretty quick.”

Michael felt he should say something, but what was there to say, what could he say?

“I know it’s rude to ask Michael, it’s putting you on the spot and all, I mean, what do you personally think of my presidency?”

Michael leaned back on the bar stool.  He was not a man who talked politics often, he rarely turned on the news, but his gut reaction thinking about the state of the country was not positive.  The banking crisis, the wars, the cultural divisions that he hoped would not grow to fault lines.  The truth was that like many he wasn’t sure he cared all that much about any of it, not really.  He supposed he cared like he cared about the weather, enough to be annoyed, but resigned to the inevitability.

“I think you have a hard job, I’m not sure anyone can really imagine how hard it is.  I think you did what you thought was right, and that’s all anyone can ask.”

“That bad huh?” the President said eating another chip.

“I wouldn’t say bad, I think you had a hard gig, you didn’t ask for 9/11, or the economic stuff going on.”

“You know the last time I made a real difference in anyone’s life, when I coached a little league team.  I had a blast, those kids loved playing, and I loved watching them play.  The Dad’s would stand around in the parking lot after games drinking Budweiser and talking.  It was nothing serious, mostly sports talk, but there was something there, an honesty.”

The President stopped, lost in the past for a moment, then went on.

“I helped one of those kids, payed for his way, got him into college.  When you’re president you think you can do all these things, you can help this or that, but mostly you just end up as the butt of a joke.  I ran for my first office shortly after helping that kid along.  I think that boy was the last one I really helped.”

The President looked over, aware that he had been hogging the conversation somehow. “Enough about me, Michael, what is a young oil man like yourself doing eating alone, where is your wife?”

Michael paused looking stunned, and maybe angry.  The President saw the look, and something like confusion went across his face.  

“You have a ring, I just wondered where your little lady was.”  

Michael looked down at his left hand, and saw that he had his wedding ring on.  When had he put it on?  The treacherous thing seemed to gawk at him.  Had it been on him when he had gone into work this morning?  It felt very heavy, and he found himself choked up.  The ring summoned the angels and demons of memory.

She is there, hogging the green sauce and chatting about the way she wants to paint the guest bedroom.  She is with him in bed, sleeping in one of his old t-shirts, her snoring has a slight whistling to it.  They are on the couch, she is not weeping, she is wailing, the doctor has told her she is infertile.  The tumor on her ovaries will be their only malignant child.  She is lying on the hospital bed while the beeps and boops of machines irritate the solemnity and silence of her last breathes.

A thought seemed to glow and alight on his sadness, “I will never get to tell Rachel about meeting the president, I will never get to share with her this perfectly surreal moment.”  The thought of her unexpected laugh, the way her eyes would have gone wide, how she would have told the story so much better than himself when they had friends over.  Even in suburbia her ghost could find him.  

“My wife… my wife, died of cancer about six months ago, I didn’t even know I had the ring on, I don’t know when I put it on.”

He wept.

He felt an arm around him, it stayed there while his body heaved with the palpitations of fresh grief.  After he had regained himself, the arm fell away.  

He heard the sizzling of fajitas, and saw a nervous looking waiter putting a plate down before disappearing into the back.  The President seemed at a loss for what to do next, he sat looking at Michael until Ed leaned in over the bar.

“Sir we have to go, a storm is moving in, we need to get out ahead of it otherwise your schedule for tomorrow will be shot.”

“Ed you have horrible timing.”

“Sir, we have a thirty minute window.”

“I just got my food, hang the schedule.”

“Sir, the entire staff will have to stay at rooms on base, you will have to as well.”

He looked down at the pile of fajitas, then stood up, putting on his jacket while he did.

“Michael it was nice meeting you.” he said as he walked towards the kitchen.

Later that month Michael stopped by his short lived suburban home to pick up the mail.  He was getting the house ready for sale, having already moved into an apartment not far from his previous home in the city.

The mountain of mail was a foundation of junk fliers and sales papers, but buried beneath a cable offer and a rent to own catalog was an official looking envelope.  Michael pulled it out and opened it haphazardly, nearly tearing the letter inside.  A book fell out, Poems of Robert Frost along with the letter.  

On the letter was the Presidential seal.

Dear Michael,

Conversation works best when it’s two-ways, thank you for reminding me of that.  Try to do good somewhere.  If I am to go before my wife I hope she finds others to have dinners with, and enjoys the fellowship of belonging, I know your wife would wish the same.

My wife, Laura, sends her best, she enjoyed hearing about our chance encounter and wanted to send you this Robert Frost book, with a marker on the page for the poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay”.  

Sincerely,

President George W. Bush

P.S. - I sent Ed to a post in Alaska for making me leave before I had a chance to eat those fajitas, he refused to go, so I’m stuck with him.