| General Fiction posted March 20, 2025 | Chapters: |
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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 29-30
by Wayne Fowler
In the last chapter, Tom was admitted to Trump’s new safe house. He attempted to keep Trump awake by reading The Hobbit. Just after midnight intruders broke a board off the back fence in their effort to gain entry. Tom managed to get a guard’s attention and then to break out of the house with Trump (Phil). They got into the guard’s car, but he had the FOB in his pocket.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Tom
“GET DOWN!” I shouted. “PUT ON THE RING!” That did the trick. Trump scrunched down. We avoided being seen by the occupants of the sudden oncoming car. I chastised myself for not calling 911 earlier.
“What’s your emergency?”
“Intruders!” I shouted. “Then I racked my brain trying to remember the address “Cypress Court! Uh… Willard Chapel… I mean Walker Chapel. Hurry! The Pre…” I don’t know what possessed me to nearly blurt out that the President needed immediate rescue. Stupid. I resolved not to tell anyone, not even Phil… the real Phil.
Finally, the other guard got out of his car, drawing his weapon. He was fully out just in time to get blasted. The way he was slammed into his car door, it looked like a hit to his chest.
The shot had come from the on-coming car which whizzed on past. Not very smart. It was a cul-de-sac, after all. No doubt afraid of fire from the car we were in. Maybe he just overshot his goal. He was then deep into the bubble, too late to simply turn around. With other cars parked in the street, he had to make a seven or eight-point turn.
“GET TO THE OTHER CAR! HURRY!”
Suddenly Trump had command of Phil’s more lithe and limber body. He was in the back seat of the injured guard’s car before I rounded ours. The guard, I could tell, was wearing a bullet-proof vest. Good for him. I helped him get into the backseat with the President as I heard shots from the shooter’s car window – the car had almost fully turned around by then – I had our car started and in gear. I didn’t peel rubber, but not from the lack of trying. The back glass shattered from a gunshot. My own car was one of the ones the other guy was squirreling around.
The chase was on. I was driving like a man on fire would run. My phone wouldn’t work.
“How is he?” I asked Trump. There was no response. I briefly wondered if he’d been shot. “Are you hit?” I yelled, sliding around a bend in the road. The car behind was not gaining, but I wasn’t losing him either. I was one sloppy curve away from getting T-boned and then shot to pieces.
“Are you hit?” I repeated.
“Uh, yeah. Uh, no.”
Preferring the second answer, I took it. “How’s the guard?”
I heard a deep, sucking sound… the guard sucking the wind that had been knocked out of him.
“Can you call for help?” I asked. “We’re on 120 north of Walker Chapel.”
I heard the guard’s call.
“Can you shoot at them?” I asked. “Get them to back off some before I get us killed?”
At least this was keeping Trump from falling asleep, I thought, nearly buying a steel guardrail. The guard had a window down as far as it would go, which wasn’t low enough for him to properly aim. After he fired off a couple of rounds, I started to ask his name, but feared that the natural follow-on would be to identify ourselves – Tom and my friend, Donald Trump.
“Any ideas?” I asked.
“Turn right on something big…Military Road or George Washington. Turn in when you see a sign for Arlington Cemetery or the Pentagon.”
Neither sounded good to me. The U.S. military and me with a man who, given the right ears, could convince someone he either was the President or enough inside information to be held by the authorities. Either way, he’d be sleeping soundly tonight and most likely switching, ending every effort Phil and I had worked for.
I felt, more than heard, the next set of shots. The car had been hit. I had no idea how badly. What I didn’t want was a tire blown out. Then it happened. A tire was blown out. “Both of you slide to the high side,” I shouted. They did, but not without a wrestling match as the guard climbed over Phil to shoot out the window.
I saw a sign that said Zachary Taylor Park. We weren’t far from my own house!
I knew of a weird residential street named North Stafford that resembled a lollipop, a stick with a loop something like an oval race track. I was going into it to try to lose our pursuer. The guard was reloading.
The smart move would be for me to let the other two roll out of the car, hidden by cars parked on the street. But then I would lose control of my charge. So I did the dumb thing – I told our guard to get ready to scramble out the door and up to the driver’s seat, that I was going to take our guest to freedom. Trump liked that. I could hear him smile.
Before the guard could object, I was in the oval on the side of the road. Our pursuit shot past us. “NOW!”
It was as if it were choreographed. Driving on three wheels, the front wheel car perfectly balanced, the guard pulled a Dale Earnhart move, kissing the formerly pursuing car’s bumper and speeding by. Trump and I were legging it through unfenced backyards toward my place. I was hanging on to one of his arms and fishing my truck key out of my pocket with the other.
Suddenly, Trump was done. “Where are we going? This isn’t right. We should go to the Pentagon.”
“Bilbo! The Goblins are between us and the Pentagon. Hurry! Put on your ring!”
He did, once again loping beside me. Once in my truck, we were on our way. Good luck to the guard. I wished him the best.
“Are we going to the Pentagon?” Trump asked.
My response was non-committal. “Watch for the Goblins,” I ordered. “Do you have Sting?” Sting was the name of Bilbo’s sword, of course. That diverted Trump’s consciousness for a few minutes. It was after one in the morning. I didn’t know how many more tricks I had.
“It must be in the other car!” Trump sounded frantic. “I don’t have it!”
I’d almost forgotten that I told him to look for his sword, Bilbo’s sword. I had to pay attention. I didn’t want to go slow enough that Trump decided he could jump out, and not so fast that we got pulled over. I nearly had a stroke when I glanced over and Trump was falling asleep.
“HEY! Bilbo!”
“Who?” he asked.
“President Trump.”
“Yes? Where are we? I’m tired. I’d like to go to sleep now.”
“How about a Big Mac?” I asked, knowing we couldn’t get one, that I wouldn’t dare stop. By then I made a left and Trump recognized that I was crossing the Potomac.
“Oh, good. Does Paté know that we’re coming in late?”
“I think so,” I said. But I was not going to the White House. And Paté was nowhere near, states away. We were going to the safe house. Where, no doubt, Allied Security was done, nobody to guard. Schlape would certainly go to Phil’s house. And possibly to mine, as well, since his people might have seen me. And by now might have run the cars parked on the cul-de-sac.
Motels were risky. A twenty-dollar bill would make most people a snitch. And I had no doubt that Schlape’s people passed out Benjamin Franklins. Besides, I seriously doubted my ability to constrain Trump at this point.
When I turned away from the government building section of DC, Trump began to get agitated. “Where are we going?”
“Didn’t you see them?” I asked. “The five armies. They’re here.”
“Here?”
“Yes. We have to flank them.”
Trump nodded furiously. Then he looked at me intently. “Bilbo was injured.”
“But not seriously. He was a hero!”
Trump nodded.
Chapter Thirty
Tom
“Watch for the five armies,” I said. We were leaving DC and headed for the forest preserve safe house. The picture window had at least a shotgun blast hole in it. I hoped it wasn’t completely shattered like the one we’d just escaped from. I was rough on picture windows.
“I don’t like this place,” Trump said as I pulled to the house, past the vacant guard shack.
“This is the Keep,” I declared, almost losing my temper for no good reason. Call it tired. Call it tired of babysitting Trump. All I knew was that I had another hour, at least, to be safe. “How about a Diet Coke?” I prayed that there was at least one in the fridge.
“Why are we going around here?” Trump asked as I led him toward my rope at the side of the house.
“The Taliban might be inside. I have to sneak in to destroy them.” I had no idea why I switched from Goblins and five armies to the Taliban, no idea whatsoever. It’s just what came to me. We went around to the rope because my lock-pick kit was in my car back in Walker Chapel.
With all my might, I tried to climb the knotted rope. I just didn’t have it. I could get to the roof to touch it, but not far enough to hoist my body over the edge. Finally, I came back down, my hands killing me.
“Mr. President, I need you. You know that you are in another body, right?”
He looked at himself up and down. “It confuses me,” he replied.
“I know, sir. It’s very confusing. But I need you to use that other man’s body. It’s his body and we need to use it, okay?
See this block wall?”
He said that he did.
“I need you to lean against it and stand very strong. The body you are in is a good, strong one. It’s not as tall as yours, but it is strong. I’m going to climb up your back and get the Gob… the Taliban.”
“You can do that?”
“Yes sir. I’m trained to do this.”
He did. And I did, grabbing one of the vertical pipes that supported the two feet of razor wire. There’s a reason that it’s called razor wire. Most of my shirt and some of my skin stayed on the top strand. If I’d gone to the ER, they would have sewn stitches, or at least Superglue or butterfly bandages. Some of the cuts bled for a while, streaming down my stomach.
Seeing my knotted rope hanging from the roof once I got to my feet, I tossed it up onto the roof. A portion hung over, but that was of no consequence.
Trump was still where I’d left him when I opened the front door and came around for him. Thirty more minutes, at least.
“I have to pee. Real bad,” he said.
“Go ahead. I won’t look.”
“Outside? I’ve never done it outside.”
I believed him. “Then come on. Follow me. I got us in.”
“I don’t think I can walk. I’ll pee my pants.”
“Then pull it out and pee! The person whose body you’re in does it all the time.”
Finally, he did. But he didn’t sound happy about it.
Diet Cokes. Two left. Yay!
“I’m going to sleep now.”
“Mr. President!” He turned to me straightening his back and shoulders. “We have to finish The Hobbit. We have to get Bilbo home. Did you finish that Coke? There’s another.”
“This one’s enough.”
“Here. Have a seat and it won’t be long. We’ll get Bilbo home together.” I looked around only to discover that I didn’t have a copy of it. I snatched another book from a shelf and pretended to read. “Bilbo gained consciousness and was carried to the dying Thorin by Bard. Up the winding stairs, a hundred and seventy-seven of them, Bard carried Bilbo without a flinch. One excruciating step after another, ever onward. They were in Elrond, the elven city of fame. The city of refuge and song.” I thought about making up a diddy but quickly nixed the notion.
“Destroyed were the five armies amassed against civilization. But alas…”
I was faking it the best I could.
“Mr. President? Your soda. You’re about to spill it.” He wasn’t but it stirred him.
“Side by side, Bilbo and Gandalf trekked the road to the Shire.”
“Bilbo’s home,” Trump said.
I nodded and continued. “Gandalf allowed Bilbo’s entry into the Shire alone, the triumphant return. Oh, my! What is happening? The dastardly Underhills, who had always wanted his beautiful house had managed to declare Bilbo deceased and were at that very moment auctioning off his home. ‘Hold on, now’ Bilbo commanded. ‘I’ve been There and Back Again.’ Bilbo that very moment decided to write his memoirs and call it just that: There and Back Again.
“And order was once again restored to the Shire.”
I looked at my watch – 3:17. Good enough. Mr. President, if you wish, you can get ready for bed. It’s in there.” I pointed to his previous room. It was well past 3:30 before I heard the sound of his sleeping.
+++
I called Phil, figuring that with Trump asleep, he may as well be awake, just to be safe. He picked up right away.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“Where do I start? As far as I know, no one was killed, but only thanks to a bullet-proof vest.” I told him all the details. We had one more night. I waited until after six to call Hakeem.
“Tom,” Hakeem said, “my brother Hasan’s son is staying with me to go to the university. He will bring you what you need, and stay there as long as you need him to. I’ll give him the address and the coordinates. And on my word, we will tell no one where you are.”
“Thank you, sir. If you would, sir, have your nephew call me, and I’ll give him a list of a few items the… Phil will need, mainly Diet Coke. Then I’ll go home, shower and eat and sleep a few hours. Your nephew can stay in the guard shack and our friend will never see him.”
I could tell that hadn’t been a concern, but I provided relief, in any case.
“And sir… it would be better for your nephew if he didn’t know who he was guarding. Even fifty years from now it might damage your legacy… history.”
I could hear the wheels turning.
“You’re right. If he happened to see the man by accident, all he would ever be able to know would be Phil. Thank you for what you’re doing, Tom. The nation thanks you.”
“At least those who work for a living.” I hoped I didn’t insult him, make him think I’d placed him in the trough with those who did not work for a living. “Sir, if we don’t speak again, thank you for who you are and all you’ve done.”
“Oh, we’ll speak again. Rest assured. You and Phil.”
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)
Benjamin Franklins: hundred-dollar bills
cul-de-sac: dead-end road with a widened end for u-turning
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)
Benjamin Franklins: hundred-dollar bills
cul-de-sac: dead-end road with a widened end for u-turning
Artwork by nikman at FanArtReview.com
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