General Fiction posted March 5, 2025 Chapters:  ...11 12 -13- 14... 


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I woke up this mornin' feelin' fine...
A chapter in the book No - Say It Ain't So!

NO! Say It Ain't So! Ch. 17-18

by Wayne Fowler


In the last chapters Trump and Phil switched back. The real Trump was back in the White House. In an extremely agitated state, he called for the doctor but then refused a blood draw. His vitals were elevated but within a tolerable range. Trump spoke to Paté and arranged to meet her at Mar-a-Lago for the weekend. Trump also met with Robert Schlape who investigated Philip, learning that he’d been fired from his job and was missing.
Phil, as Trump, woke up in Mar-a-Lago. He canceled golf and took an impromptu yacht cruise where he ingested salt and threw up, affording him justification for seclusion and quick return to the White House. He then imposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico just so he could pause them, hamstringing the real Trump.

This post is longer than I’m happy with. Sorry.
 
Chapter Seventeen
Tom
 
    I got to the White House as soon as I could after Phil’s call from Mar-a-Lago. I dared bring only one phone with me, the one I would give him. The risk was too great to carry two and have questions I did not want to answer. I could fabricate a story, but none that would hold to Secret Service scrutiny.

    I knocked and entered the President’s suite without waiting for admission. I was sure he was Phil, and I didn’t want to be seen lingering outside his door.

    “Mr. President, forgive me for barging in." I then explained as I gave him his new burner, taking his old one to dispose of.

    “You’re being investigated, Mr. President, your… self.”

    Phil grimaced, nodding.

    I continued. “I got a call from Hakeem. The DNC has contacts in the DC police, as well as all the letter agencies. The first switch, Trump made a scene at a McDonald’s.”

    “Probably the one on Lawrence Street… walking distance.”

    “Of course, he had your I.D. and the police returned him to your home.”

    Phil nodded. “And that was where he was picked up by Hakeem’s people. We should assume the GOP has people in the DC police and the lettered agencies as well.”

“I think it’s safe to say they’ve learned that you were fired and that a neighbor might have seen you hauled off, maybe carried off. Would expect them to be showing your photo around to locate the safe house since you obviously are not in any public lockup.”

    “Matter of time,” Phil said. “Any ideas?”

    “Yeah, I’ve been thinking. If they discover the location, and that might be a big if. They’ve stayed secret for a reason – not many people know about them, but enough do: guards, delivering employees, and probably too many bosses. Even a loyal patriot could slip up at the rightly phrased question.

    “Suppose they discover Phil, you are being held and where. What do they do? What can they do?”

    “You mean besides overpower the guard and rescue me, force me to tell them what’s going on? Or if it’s Trump time, get enough convincing facts from him to bring him here to the White House and force some sort of face-off between us? I don’t think I would like that.”

    “No,” I agreed. “And even if you were in your own body, they might keep you, and eventually you would be Trump again. Or they do a 25th Amendment and swear in the V.P.”

    “So, I can’t be taken,” Phil said.  After a moment he broke the silence with a question. “Did you get the box of books delivered and hidden? And the lock pick?”

    “Books yes, Pick no. But I will. I’ll take him another Big Mac and some oranges. He likes oranges.”

    “Go figure,” Phil said. “Guess I should pay more attention and eat some here.”

    I agreed. “Might be another day, or so. I had to order the kit online. Lockpicks are fairly well controlled. And being D.C., I wouldn’t want a video to show up with me buying one.

    “But the cameras…?” I asked.

    “I think I have that covered. The only thing I haven’t worked out is how to scale the ten-foot block wall and two feet of razor wire. But if I had a hundred feet of rope and a pair of good gloves... With good gloves, the rope could be as small as, oh, 3/8ths.”

    “It’ll be in the garage tomorrow evening,” I promised. “That is… if the pick comes in. But are you sure you can pick the lock? Have you ever done that?”

    “Tell you what. Pick up a Schlage deadbolt lock and I’ll practice. You need more money?” Phil reached for his non-existent hip wallet.

    “Maybe someday. But I’m good for now.”

    “Okay, here’s a project. Get Hakeem to have Schumer prepare a list of centrist judges who have a chance of Senate confirmation. They lean a little left because he can let some Democratic Senators vote for them. But they have to be people who Trump might conceivably nominate.”

    I nodded.

+++
 
    I tried to work it out menatlly - Agencies were getting hammered. Civil Servants were being slain metaphorically. Nothing to be done for it. Trump couldn’t be totally anti-Trump. And the public had to be fired up enough to change both houses of Congress decisively. At least there were lawsuits abounding. Maybe people could get some respite and relief. Phil accomplished a major goal by turning the House. The Senate, there was no way. And he’s working on the Supreme Court and the Vice President. He had to allow pain.

    I left the White House early that afternoon to take care of business. And my call to Hakeem had to be away from the White House. He had to get me back to the safe house, and he had to have Phil’s new phone number. Also, he had to get with Schumer for a list of judges. That would take Schumer some time since any list he might have would be for a Democratic President to offer a Democratic Senate.

    I wondered what Phil wanted with a hundred feet of rope. I should have asked him. I also should have suggested the next day for the materials so that he could practice with the lock pick before I delivered it and the lock to the safe house.
 
+++
 
    “Hello, Pal. It’s me again. Somebody likes that guy in there. Sent me out with another Big Mac.”

    “Yeah, I got a call. But I gotta take it in. You can leave it here.”

    “Can’t do it. I was told to get it there hotter this time.” I patted an insulated zipper bag, the kind that’s designed for a six-pack of beer, or soda if one insisted, but worked for hot things, as well. “Also supposed to get a feel for how he’s doing by speaking for a minute through the wall.”

    It took the man only a second to process it. “Well, let’s satisfy them both. We’ll both go down. You can drive on in. I’ll walk and meet you at the side garage door.”

    “What’s in the box?” the guard asked after unlocking the deadbolt. I was standing behind him with the McDonalds back on top of a medium-size cardboard box. “I’ll have to check it.”

    “Sure, no problem.”

    Inside the garage, I set the box on the small workbench.

    “Oranges and books. Hmmm. Haven’t seen him do any reading.”

    “Probably because there’s nothing in there that suits him.”

    “Hmm. A dictionary?”

    The guard started to pick up the extra-large dictionary, but it was wedged under the net bag of oranges.

    “He reads, but, doesn’t have that great a vocabulary. He likes to look up the hard words.”

    “Big dictionary. Couldn’t get a pocket-size?”

    “You ever look in one of those? You gotta have a microscope.”

    He quit struggling and left it. I wasn’t going to be able to hide it so I went to the door and called for Phil. But I called him Mike. The guard should not have been told his name. “Mike? Mike, you okay?”

    There was no response. I knocked on the door. “Mike!” I yelled a little louder. “You okay in there. Brought you a Big Mac.”

    Nothing.

    “He’s all right. I saw him moving around on the monitor when you drove up. Go on. We’ll leave so’s he can get his burger hot.”

    I nodded. “Leaving now Mike. See ya soon.”

    I left and waited long enough to make sure the guard followed me out instead of going back to dig into the box. I was eternally grateful I’d taken the time to hollow out the dictionary and then glue it shut. I was 99% sure Trump wouldn’t mess with a dictionary.

    When I got home, I viewed a YouTube video lock picking a Schlage lock. It wasn’t a deadbolt, but it should help. I called Phil’s number but only let it ring once. He knew to check it and call me back when he could. We would have to talk about that because I went on to bed without hearing from him.

Chapter Eighteen
Phil
 
    I woke in the safe house. I would have to wait for the delivery to get to the box that had the books and phone. There should be another box with the lock pick kit, rope, and gloves.

    Before making it to the kitchen I saw a box on the floor beside the dining table. It was bigger than I expected. On the table was an opened bag of oranges and a few books, three paperbacks, and a large print dictionary. There could only be one reason Tom would send me a large dictionary. I got the coffee started, for the sake of the cameras, and then took the books to the bedroom. I took the dictionary to the bathroom. Hah! Tom had glued it shut. I carefully pried it open for the rope, which I stowed in the shower for now. The lockpick kit fit nicely in a pocket. There were no gloves.
Now for some coffee and some thinking.

    After reading through The President Is Missing, again. It would soon be news time so I fixed my evening meal and wished I had practiced picking locks while waiting.

    After supper and the news, it was sufficiently dark to implement my plan.

    I turned off all the lights except what was absolutely necessary to get around. Then I put on an R-rated movie that promised nudity with the volume high. When the raunchy part began, I got off the sofa sans clothing, fondling myself. When I got to the dining area I turned on the light and immediately looked up at the camera. I dashed to the bathroom, a look of shock on my face. I came out with a roll of toilet paper. After positioning a chair, I wrapped the camera with paper and turned the light back off. That should give the guard plenty of reason to be unconcerned about the camera.

    I then donned my britches and began working the lock.

    I figured that the guard would afford me all the privacy I desired, at least while the movie ran. The lock took far longer than any I’d seen in movies, But I got it in about ten or twelve minutes. With the rope cut in three lengths, I knotted the two longer pieces every couple of feet. I took the two longer ones outdoors, looking carefully for outside cameras. They were on the corners up on the soffit. Good. It took many tries, but I managed to lasso a looped end of both of them over the PVC vent pipe that extruded from the roof over the bathroom. One length I let hang toward the back, the other, I wadded and pitched over the side of the house, as if I’d scaled the wall and went down the side of the house outside the block fence.

    Then I returned to the house, glad that there was no burglar alarm on the door.

    Next, I tied the remaining shorter piece of rope to the kitchen step stool, the kind that folds and is stashed beside the fridge. With that, I accessed the crawl space to the attic where I stashed water bottles, oranges, a box of crackers, and a blanket. I made sure I could pull the stool up behind me. I could be up there in seconds, quietly hiding for hours or days, if necessary, while I was searched for in the forest. And I could come down whenever it was safe. All I needed was the phone that was in the garage and a chance to recharge the battery.

    I turned off the movie and sat where I could see should lights appear from the drive. I held a book, but had yet to turn on a lamp that would inevitably disrupt my vision through the window. I knew though, not to expect any visitors, if there to be any, before midnight. I knew, too, that since the bedroom door had the same sort of locking mechanism as the door to the garage, it was remotely lockable. Since that discovery, I left it blocked open. I resolved to close it before ever taking to the attic. The door’s unlocking should be enough to wake me. One favorable factor was that if I got no sleep in the attic, I could get as long a nap as needed during the daytime.

    I spent a while thinking, trying to anyway. The first switch lasted eleven days. The next only four. Then six, followed by… I could do it without a calendar, and there wasn’t one in the house. I looked. But what did my trip to Hawaii and Alaska do? Anything? I saw no pattern. And I couldn’t think of any reason at all for any of the switching, let alone switching with me. Of course, I had no way of knowing what was in Trump’s mind, what his concentration had been. Surely, if he’d had a file on me that he was focusing on, I would have seen it.

    Trying to get comfortable, I held my breath and looked around. Several feet away, a tiny green glow filtered through insulation – the modem for the cameras, sending a signal to the guard. I thought of disconnecting it, or at least the camera that exposed my trips to the kitchen. But wouldn’t that necessitate them coming in to fix it? Maybe. Not worth the risk. Blindly, hoping I did not crash through the ceiling sheetrock, I inched my way to the modem, hoping to move it closer to my spot should I decide to unplug it. No such luck. The coaxial cables wouldn’t reach, the reason, no doubt, for its location.

    The next morning, the toilet paper was still on the camera, but it had been disturbed No way it had rewrapped itself. It took hard looking, especially since I was only looking with peripheral vision, but I found a smaller camera near the drapery rod. These guys were good to be so silent. But then, I was in the attic. I don’t think they’d locked and then unlocked the bedroom door, but they might have.

    I was about beside myself wanting to talk to Tom, to tell him my escape plan, to fine-tune it with him. I spent the next while thinking how lucky I was to have him on my side.

    Trust no one.

    Surely that does not apply to Tom. But he was Johnny on the spot, perfectly positioned to leap to my aid. How convenient.

    But he has been such a help. And loyal. And faithful.

    But maybe he has his own agenda? Or working for someone else? Someone foreign, maybe who doesn’t care about our internal machinations.

    Who could it be? What would they want of me? Expect of me? Start World War Three? Prevent World War Three?

    Or something as simple as Net Neutrality that would make somebody millions or billions?

How could I answer these questions? How open could I be with Tom, my new best friend in the world?
 

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photo from FanArtReview: FamousHouse!20 by nikman

Phil Jansen: woke up one day as Donald Trump
Donald Trump: woke up one day as Phil
Tom McQuin: White House butler
Betty Goodman: White House Chief of Staff
Dr. Schweitz: White House doctor
Hakeem Jeffries: as himself, House minority leader
Kirsten: Trump press secretary
Paté: 3rd daughter of the President
Robert Schlape: fixit man for Trump (using his real name, even here in FanStory, could be fatal)
Jeffrey McKnight: Mar-a-Lago member who owns a yacht
Sarah Huckabee Sanders: Governor of Arkansas
Tom Cotton: Senator from Arkansas
Pays one point and 2 member cents.

Artwork by nikman at FanArtReview.com

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