The Littlest President

At the age of eleven I was elected the 50th president of the United States of America. My analysts put my win down to youth (I was the youngest ever to run) and to the unfortunate late-October acne breakout of my incumbent rival, an eighth grader from Massachusetts.  I have a stronger faith in the New Rules than do my analysts, who are always looking at polls and running them through sacred formula.  I ascribe my presidency to the good sense of America, my hard work at Security School, and the stunning leadership of my handlers.

Once my presidency was officially announced, my face was given another coat of foundation and I was ushered up to a podium in front of a large crowd of my supporters.  There was a crashing sea of applause.  Most of my supporters were dumpy women in their thirties – just barely old enough to remember a time before we had the New Rules – these were my core demographic, although my handlers dutifully included some blacks, men, and hippies into the audience to make my support seem broader.   Everyone waved blue and white placards with my name on it, and my party’s symbol, the Teddy Bear.

I read my acceptance speech in the strong voice (I have an A in authoritative reading).  I said lots of stuff about ‘unity’ and ‘times of conflict’ and ‘courage’, but I didn’t think anyone was really listening.  I was looking forward to the arcade my handlers told me was in the oval office.

I left the podium to another sea of applause and went backstage.  Everyone congratulated me on a stunning speech, but it was obvious I was sleepy (it was way past my bedtime).  My Secret Service guys drove me and my mom home, then took their usual positions about the house.  My mom kissed me on my forehead and sent me to bed with this advice: “Now that you’re president you’re going to have a lot of important decisions to make.”

“No I won’t,” I said.  “All they want me to do is smile and sign stuff.”

My mom suddenly looked very angry.   “Don’t say silly nonsense like that,” she said.  “Me and your father did not send you to Security School to hear you talking about the New Rules like that.  You sound like a Californian.  You’re now president-elect.  You should be ashamed.”   She paused, and softened when she looked at my round, sleepy face.  “I know you’re young, honey…  and you might be a bit scared…” she said.  “But I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”

I didn’t say anything to her then, but it was my handlers who had assured me, quite early on in the race, that all I would have to do if I were elected was smile and sign stuff.  Sometimes I may have to meet with a foreign leader, or else visit the troops in the Middle East – and every year I would have to give a big speech to all of Congress, but besides that all I would have to do was smile and sign stuff.  That’s why signature class was one of the most important in Security School.

I didn’t even have to move into the White House.  Now they just used that for tours and the bureaucratic offices of the New Rules.  I wondered where they would put my arcade, but I knew my handlers would have better things to do amidst the urgency of setting up a new government.  I would no longer have to go to Security School, and at all times I would be accompanied by Secret Service agents, who would protect me from any bad men who wanted to hurt me.  Even in the toilet?  I wondered.  But I would get my own jet too.  Which was cool enough to ease my worries.

Once I was elected, however, I feared that I would be encumbered with a great responsibility, one that I was much too weak to bear.  As it was, my job was just boring.  I did not even have enough time to watch cartoons.  By the third or forth day of my office, I was wondering why any boy with a five dollar allowance would want to be president.


-


The New Rules said that once the president was elected, he would take power the very next week.  It made things more exciting for the viewers, one of my handlers explained.  This gave me just enough time for me to meet all my new friends in the White House, and to move into the house of one of my handlers in Washington.

The most notable change in my life, besides moving and not having to go to school, was that I now always had to wear suits.  “The viewers love you in a suit,” one of my analysts explained.   “You’re just so cute.  Makes a big splash in the middle-aged childless vote, and the mother’s vote….”

I wasn’t listening.  The polls bored me.  I wanted to watch some TV.  Or else go to my arcade – which I hadn’t got a chance to visit yet.

“You know the importance of your key demographic from Security School, don’t you?”  My analyst prodded when he noticed the my vapid face.  “You are the president now and you have the responsibility to listen.”

But I couldn’t care less about the frumpy housewives and the other fat stupid viewers who had voted me into office.  The suits were too tight and hot.   They made me look stupid.

To drum the point home my handlers reminded me that #49 had lost key percentage points in June when he decided that he was too good for suits and went all ‘hip’.

“Plus he went pimply and stopped looking cute,” I added.

“That too,” the handlers agreed solemnly.

The other big thing that happened was that I had to sign these papers all the time.  That was my job, I think.  To sign all those papers.  And smile at cameras.  I wish they just had a stupid stamp and a cardboard cut-out of a smiling face instead of me.  I thought I would get to go in a jet.  I suggested my idea for a rubber stamp and a cardboard cut-out to my handlers one afternoon at the joint chiefs of staff, and everybody laughed.

Another annoying thing was that there were a bunch of hippies who camped out on our front lawn and chanted dirty things about me whenever they weren’t on drugs.  They said I was sham president.   They promised the New Rules would be overthrown and democracy would be brought back to America.   Some even said that there were concentration camps.  I was not meant to smile at them.  When I told them to, my Secret Service guys would beat them up.  My handlers assured me that the concentration camps – or, security enclosures – were only for bad people and Californians.


-


A couple of weeks had passed and I was getting quite grumpy with all the silly attention and paper signing.  My smile was looking tired and fake, which scared me, because even I knew that the most important thing about a president was his smile.  Everyone around me could tell I wasn’t living up to the pressure.   I had even fallen asleep during an audience with some king or prime minister, but I don’t think anyone there really cared because afterwards no one yelled at me.
I was thrilled when my handlers told me we were going on a trip.

“Where!”  I asked.

“To the Middle East.”

I wanted to go to Antarctica to see the penguins.

“Maybe on the way back.”

Everything was as boring and dull as usual.  There were lots of men walking around in suits and talking in a big hurry about troops and casualties and other boring stuff.  I wanted to see the jets and artillery.  Lots of people wanted to shake hands and I had to or else I wouldn’t get any desert.   At least I got to go on my jet.  It had a television!  I read the soldiers and dirty Arabs speeches so that they would cheer up, using words like sacrifice and freedom.  But no one cheered up.  I even tossed a few Teddy Bears into the crowd, which usually made everyone laugh and applaud.  But all there was were these lost, blank faces staring up at me.  I was crushed.  I thought I had lost my touch.

When we were driving in between bases something horrible happened.  In the cramped side-lanes of a dusty town our convoy was assaulted by a big group of dirty Arabs who reminded me of hippies because of their tattered clothes and dirty faces.  They blocked our way and yelled nasty stuff at us and waved placards.   Everyone in my car was pretty scared.   But I wasn’t.  The protesters couldn’t do anything to us, they were dummies – lots of their placards were written by people who didn’t even know their letters right.  The ones I could read said mean stuff about America.  Which everyone knows is just stupid.  Some people up ahead lit a doll that looked like me on fire and that made me feel bad.  They made my smile take up half my face.  I mean, it isn’t that big, is it?

“Can we shoot them?”  I asked.

My handlers tried to comfort me and said that the protestors were escapees from a local mental hospital, but I didn’t believe them.

I would have got bored but then I noticed the most beautiful girl in the world.

She was my age, and one of the protestors, but instead of jumping around screaming she just stood by the car staring into our tinted windows.  At me?  For a moment I couldn’t breathe.  No, she couldn’t see me through the glass, I reminded myself.  She was terribly beautiful, and yet thin, with hawk-like features.  She reminded me of some dim figure I would see in dreams or at movies.  I felt guilty because I got to wear all of these nice suits and eat ice cream all the time while all of her clothes were messed and tattered and I bet she never got to eat ice cream ever.  Islam didn’t allow it.  That made me feel worse than the Arab hippies burning that doll of me did.

For the rest of the trip I was haunted by that image of the girl, and when I was finally back in the White House I decided to do something about it.


-


When it was time to sign my papers, I asked my handlers: “Could we write a paper that means that those people we saw get clothes and food?”

And iciness ran through the room.  My handlers shook their heads slowly.

“Why?”  I asked.

They paused.  “Because you’re meant to do what’s right for America.  And they’re not Americans.  That’s what the New Rules were about.  That’s why we have the new Rules instead of the old.  With the old rules, America was weak.  You don’t want America to be weak, right?”

I thought about this for a moment.  You see, since I was president, I could think about things really hard, and come up with good ideas to solve them.   That’s what they taught us in Security School.  Besides, signing all those papers was getting really boring, I wanted to do something more.

“Can I sign a piece of paper that makes a new New Rule that says that we can help those hippies from the mental hospital?”

The other handler stepped up.  “If we help one group of hippies, then another group of hippies will just start bothering us again.  And if we help every beggar who comes to us looking for a hand-out, then what’s left for America?  It’s a vicious cycle.  Best leave the people in the middle-east alone with their own problems.”

“But if we want to leave them alone, then why do we have troops there?” I protested.

“You’ll understand when you’re older,” the other handler said, and ruffled up my hair.

He placed a paper in front of me and paused, waiting for my magic signature.   I picked the paper up and pretended to read it (which I had never done before.)  It had a bunch of big words.  Something about ‘Extraordinary Rendition.”  My handlers looked sweaty.

“Sir,” one said, “you don’t have time to read that.”  I let him pluck it out of my hand.
I turned on my swivel chair and started out the window into the night.  I was tired, and missing the Simpsons.  “We never got to go to Antarctica,” I said.

“Next time.”

I was silent.

“Sir, will you sign your papers now?”

I stood up and stretched.  “Tomorrow,” I said.  “I’m sleepy.”

My handlers looked horrified.


-


The next day I refused to sign any more papers until I could sign a paper that said that the dirty hippies in the Middle East could get some new clothes and some food and that I could go to Antarctica and see the penguins.

My handlers took me to the zoo.  I had to smile and wave to everyone and shake lots of people’s hands.  All those people chanting my name and taking photos made me feel alright again.  I was still cute.  Still had my winning smile.  And I got to see penguins.  It was then that I realized the soldiers didn’t clap for me because they were so stunned to see me.

But that realization wasn’t enough.

That night my handlers begged me to sign the papers.  There was a large pile accumulating on my desk.  My handlers said that without my signature the New Rules wouldn’t work.  And that if I didn’t sign the papers then bad people could hurt America.  I sat and thought about this.  They even bought me a new computer.  And offered to take me out for pizza.

“Let me see the girl,” I said, finally.

“What girl?”  The handlers asked, excited that there could be something to placate me.

“The hippy girl from the protest,” I said.  Their faces sank.


-


The next day they brought in an Arab girl who kinda looked like the girl from the protest.  She rushed up to me and kissed my hands and thanked me for all the great works me and my country had done.  And she was so happy now that she and her family were Americans.   She kissed my hands again and looked deep into my eyes.  My handlers joked they should leave us alone and left, taking my Secret Service guys with them, which was strange because my Secret Service guys were with me even in the toilet.  Once they were gone the girl tried to kiss me, then when I wouldn’t kiss back she looked confused, then started to take off her clothes.   And when she was standing in front of me, trembling, naked, her face looked desperate and she whispered: “If you do not love me, they will kill me,” and started to sob.

But she wasn’t my girl.  So I wouldn’t sign any papers.


-


The next day when I still would not sign the papers a fat man I had never met came to see me, and again, everyone else left the room.  He waddled up to my desk and sat down, dabbing his sweaty brow with a handkerchief.  He looked terribly old, and I could hear the raspy sound of his breathing.  We stared at one another.

“Who are you?”  I asked.

“I’m one of the people who writes the papers you have to sign.”

I wasn’t impressed.  “A congressman?”

“No.  One of the people who wrote the New Rules.”  He added.

I did not allow myself a gasp.  I kept my cute face focused on him like a laser sight.

“Do you understand the situation you’re putting our country into?”  He asked, very solemnly.

I shook my head.

“California has seceded,” he said.  “The rest of the Western seaboard is threatening to join them. China is harassing our interests in Pakistan,” he wiped his brow again.  “Canada is stepping up their contraband literature raids.  And at home because of your refusal to sign there are many threatening civil war.”

I was still not impressed.

The fat man’s voice darkened.  “They want to use the Old Rules again.”

When I still did not respond, he stood and paced.

“We need you to sign a paper that says that we can up the conscription rate by twenty percent, so that we can bolster our insurgency on the Western seaboard, and increase our Pakistani defenses.  We need you to authorize the use of extreme tactics against the Canadian trouble makers as well.  Will you do this for us?  Just this one thing?”

I remained silent.

“If not for us, then for America?”

Nothing.

“For the New Rules?”

I shook my head.

“We needed the New Rules so we could act quickly, decisively against people who wanted to hurt America.”  He slammed his fist on the desk.  “The Old Rules were too slow.  Everything had to be debated, even though everyone knew that our ideas were the best.  There were even some people who disagreed with our ideas.  Who thought that we were wrong.  Imagine that half the nation were like those bastard Californians.  We needed New Rules to protect America.  And you little man are the New Rules embodied.”  He poked me in the chest, trying to act charming, but ended up looking like a struggling first-grader at security school.

“I’m not signing any more papers,” I said.  “Not even for the New Rules.”

“You risk making yourself redundant,” he said, and left.


-


Me and my favorite secret service guy went off to get some ice cream.  He looked really sad and I asked him why.

“Because if you don’t sign those papers, they’re going to do something bad to you.”

I paused.  When we went to get ice cream I barely touched my sundae but still had to smile and wave to all the viewers in the store and shake hands and answer questions.  At the end of it all I was much sleepier than I should have been, and wanted to go to bed.

As we were driving the secret service guy told me about how much better everything was after the New Rules.  With the Old Rules there were lots of people telling America what it could and couldn’t do, and because of that Americans were poor, and didn’t have jobs.  Now with the New Rules everybody in the world loved America, and everyone in America was happy.  He motioned to the road we were on, fat with fast-food joints and Sports Utility Vehicles.  Miles of strip malls, of gas stations.  Hanging cat’s-cradles of power lines.

“It’s beautiful,” He said to no one in particular.

Instead I thought of all the viewers who had voted for me.  Fat, hopeless, watching TV all day.  Eating.  
In the Middle East they didn’t even have any cars.  And they didn’t have McDonald’s or ice cream, either.

“I’m the president,” I said to my Secret Service guy.  “Is there anything I can do to help?  To help everyone.  Not just America.”

He looked at me like I had said magic words.  “You could sign those papers.”

“I mean, besides signing the papers.”

“Who needs help?”  The Secret Service guy asked.  “Do you see anyone who needs help around here?”

As we drove I smiled to myself in the vanity mirror, flashed my sovereign teeth.  I wondered if my smile could deflect bullets.