| General Fiction posted March 14, 2025 | Chapters: |
...16 17 -18- 19... 
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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 24
by Wayne Fowler
In the last chapter Phil heard gunshots and saw the muzzle blasts toward the guard shack. He escaped barefoot and shirtless, running through the cold woods, finally picked up by Tom. It was a harrowing experience. Tom called Hakeem. The next morning Tom learned that the shooting was deer hunters.
Chapter Twenty-four
Tom
“That’s right, Phil. Deer hunters.”
“I can’t believe it. Deer hunters!”
Phil was shaking his head. He looked like hell, but who wouldn’t? “How’re your feet?”
“Better. Could use some gauze, or bandaging, though. Maybe some kind of ointment.”
Almost as an afterthought, I pointed at the bags I’d set on the motel table.
Phil glanced that way. “Biggest aggravation is that I might’ve been President right now.”
I nodded. “But then he would be here and I doubt I could get him back into the safe house.”
“I meant the deer hunters…”
I nodded understanding. We agreed that I would be back at suppertime and we would get him back into the safe house, to reverse his trek through the woods. In the meanwhile, he would take a hot shower, treat his feet, and sleep. I had to get to the White House.
+++
“You are lucky, Thomas. I don’t understand what’s going on. Maybe I don’t want to know. But you are on thin ice, Thomas. Thin ice. All I can say is that you had better not lose that man’s favor.”
Benjamin didn’t need to say it again – I was on thin ice.
I’d called him the minute I knew what time I expected to report to work. He told me to proceed directly to the Oval Office, to report to Betty first.
Hell or high water, I had to get to Tom before dark.
+++
“Mr. McQuin,” Betty said, pointing to a chair at the side of her desk. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you do seem to have a calming effect on the President.
“I’m told you are nearly a constant companion, but that the schedule is erratic. I want the story. Have you and the President known one another from the past, New York City, Mar-a-Lago, the film industry?”
Her eyes bore into mine, her BS detector engaged.
“No, Ma’am. Never before here.” So far, so good. Hadn’t had to lie yet. Her slight nod told me she’d accepted my answer as truthful. No doubt she’d had me investigated. I might be the most vetted person in the White House. I wasn’t crazy about being the focus of so much attention.
She asked me to detail my first meeting with the President and then to explain the vagaries of the schedule – sometimes very early coffee, sometimes late evening reading to him. She knew more than I’d given her credit for. Why The Hobbit, she wanted to know. What did we discuss in early mornings? Why didn’t I report that government secrets were topics of discussion? Didn’t I know that I needed a security clearance? “Which I’m not giving you,” she was quick to inject.
“Just being friendly, Ma’am. Trying to accommodate all my bosses.” I threw that out there to include her. I’m sure she caught it. “And try to squeeze my own life in between the cracks.”
“You’re not trying to influence him to any particular philosophy?”
“Ma’am? I haven’t even voted in a while.”
She nodded as if she was aware of that. Her lips moved as if to pursue that line, but she stopped, pinching them.
“The early-rising President is different from the late-rising one. Have you noticed that?”
“How could I not?” I figured any other response would set off her alarms. “Imagine how hard it’s been to anticipate.”
“I do. Trust me on that.”
“Do you have a theory? How to predict. Anticipate?”
“No, Ma’am. This is all flying blind.”
She nodded. “Well, be that as it may.”
I wondered how people who had never been exposed to society’s clichés got by.
“I have some forms for you to sign for your security clearance. And an NDA.” She gave a studied glare as if I might object to a non-disclosure agreement.
I didn’t. Finally, she led me to the President.
“Thomas. You look like hell!”
“Thank you, sir.”
He laughed. “Thank you, Betty, for finding my friend.”
The President sounded like a seven-year-old.
“Would you like a photo of us, Thomas? Everybody likes a photo. Some call them selfies. Do you take selfies? Betty, send the Crane in here. I call our photographer the Crane.”
Betty had been lingering at the door, attempting, no doubt, to analyze our relationship, the President’s and mine. She left to find the Crane.
“She wants to be involved in everything,” Trump said after she’d gone. “I’m wondering how I can cut the Congressional staff of the blue members but leave the red members alone. Do you know they have two dozen staffers… each? What if I eliminated all the blue ones? Executive Orders. I love those things. Works of art. Collector’s items with my signature. I could get you one. You could, you know, frame it. Be worth a lot of money someday. I’ll ask Elon. Thomas, how can I get Elon back here? He has some great ideas.”
“Mr. President, you have the great ideas. Elon is just repeating them back to you.”
“He is, isn’t he. I like that. I like you. I’m going to call you McGyver. You know? The movie star?”
“Yes, sir. That would be fine. But you might get my attention better with Thomas.”
“I like you, Thomas. What are we having for lunch? Do you think you could get me a Big Mac? The chef, he tries to make them but he can’t get it right. I think it’s the patent McDonalds had.”
“Yes, sir. I can do that.”
“Have my drivers take you. It would be fun. They can block off the whole road, you know. All the way there and back.”
“Yes, sir. When would you be ready for it?”
“Noon. Lunch is supposed to be eaten at noon. Don’t you think so, Thomas?”
“Yes, sir. I think that’s why they call it noon because that’s lunchtime.”
He had called someone, but I insisted that the motorcade remain at the White House, allowing only a single driver to transport me. I was a bit amazed at the power I suddenly wielded. After returning with the Big Mac meal, I briefly thought of what might be the response if I substituted the chef’s version for the restaurant’s but served it in the paper box?
“Sir?” I dared. “Might it be all right if I took care of some personal affairs this afternoon?”
He gave me a sad-eyed puppy-dog look. “You’ll be back, though, right?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Good. I want to know how Bilbo gets back with his dwarf friends.”
At that moment, a female aide walked into the West Wing lunch room, her hands and mouth moving as if to speak.
“Melissa,” Trump said, stopping her short. “Did you know that people who sing all have elf DNA? That’s where singing comes from. I might have some elf DNA. And there are some very fine people with dwarf DNA. Some very fine people. Loyal.”
Melissa looked at me with questioning eyes.
I shrugged, leaving them to figure out who had elf or dwarf DNA.
+++
After a stop at a Walmart, I had what I hoped I needed to get Phil back to the safe house, including two pairs of cheap tennis shoes, a size ten and an eleven. I didn’t know how gauzed up his feet would be.
“Hey, Tom,” he said, nearly as glad to see me as the President had been. I wondered what I would do if he fawned the way Trump had.
“Get any sleep?” I asked.
“Not as much as I expected to, but yeah. I’m fine. What’s our plan? Hear from Hakeem?”
“Nothing from Hakeem yet, or a man going by Dundee, I’m sure not his real name. We need to get you back to the safe house, though. And it wouldn’t do to let Allied security know you’ve been out strolling through the woods.”
Phil smiled. “So, we go back in from the dirt road.”
“You up for it?” I asked.
“As long as one of those pairs of shoes fit.”
I smiled. “Let’s get you a hamburger and get it done.”
“Fish sandwich would be better.”
“Fish, it is.”
Our hike led us to the safe house road, not to the back of the safe house. I let Phil rest while I hiked the edge of the forest for a way to where I thought the safe house should be. Nope, it was the other direction. Phil and I returned to the woods, hiking the other way as quietly as we could. It was dusk before we saw the solid outline of the cinder block wall. I helped him up the knotted rope to the rooftop. After that, he was on his own.
I had to hike back to my car without a flashlight. At least I had shoes, unlike Tom on his escape from the deer hunters. Man, what a twenty-four hours! I went home, showered, had a bite to eat, and returned to the White House, allowing Trump to learn of Goblins, Gandalf’s powers, and the fighting abilities of his dwarves. Trump considered the dwarves his own, not Bilbo’s.
An early night was not to be with Trump interested in the wargs, monster-size eagles, more goblins, and especially the magical ring that Bilbo was mastering.
Trump had a hundred questions of who Gollum might be and what if he, himself, had such a ring.
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
Pate': 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
NDA: Non-Disclosure Agreement
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. 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
Pate': 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
NDA: Non-Disclosure Agreement
Artwork by nikman at FanArtReview.com
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