Stand down, and stand by

Stand down, and stand by

Riley’s cell phone rings the next morning. He doesn’t recognize the incoming number, 202- 647-8357, but he knows 202 is Washington D.C.’s area code. He answers. 

A pleasant female voice says, “Is this Riley Strange?”

“Depends on who’s calling.”

“This is Joline Wells, President Bush’s Assistant Chief-of-Staff.”

“For real?”

“For real. Is this Mr. Riley Strange?”

“Guilty.”

“Ha, you have an interesting sense of humor, Mr. Strange.”

“Please call me Riley, Joline. You any kin to the famous outlaw Josie Wales?”

“I wish, but no.”

“Well, that’s too bad.”

“Don’t you know it!”

“Okay, why the call, Joline?”

“Can you come to Washington D.C. next week? President Bush wants to meet you.”

“For real?”

“For real.”

“Can I bring my wife?”

“Yes, but I don’t know if she will get to meet President Bush.”

“Oh, Willa Sue might have other ideas, so why don’t you ask the President and get back to me.”

“Okay, I’ll be back in touch.”

“Okay.”

Thirty minutes later, Joline calls back, says, “President Bush wants to meet Willa Sue, too, but then he wants to speak with you privately.”

“Meaning, you don’t know what he wants to talk with me about?”

“Correct.”

“Let me ask, Willa Sue,” who is sitting beside him. 

Willa Sue mouths, “Duh?”

“Riley tells Joline, “It will be both of us. What day and time do you want us there?’

“Unless President Bush says that's not okay, how about next Tuesday. Say 10 a.m.?

“Okay. See you then, God willing and the Creek don’t rise.”

“The creek?”

“In olden times, that meant, if the Creek Indians don’t rise up on the warpath.”

“You’re too funny, Riley”

“Been called other things, Joline. See you next Tuesday.’

“Am looking forward to it.”

Jolie called back to say President Bush is okay with it. Willa Sue being there the whole time. Sue books airline tickets, while Riley makes a hotel reservation.

Next Tuesday at 10 a.m. Riley and Willa Sue are examined by two male Secret Service agents with short hair cuts and wearing back suits and ties and white shirts. 

Joline is waiting behind the Secret Service agents. A trophy red-headed, green-eyed Assistant Press Secretary. 

After introductions, she leads them to the Oval Office, which inmates in the penitentiary had called the “Offal Orifice.”

President Bush gets up from his desk and walks around it to Riley and Willa Sue and takes her hand, as he was raised to do in the southern gentleman way, and says, “I’m glad to meet you, after hearing so much about you, I wish we had started out differently. I really do wish that.”

“So do I,” Willa Sue says, not smiling.

President Bush says, “Same to you, Riley. Thanks for coming.” He and Riley politely shake hands.

“Can Joline get you something to drink or eat?”

“Water with fresh lemon?” Willa Sue says.

“I’m on it,” Joline says.

President Bush says, “I asked you to meet with me, Riley, because I want your advice on something.”

“Not sure I can advise a president, but I’ll try, and Willa Sue wants to be in on it, because I will tell her about it anyway, and she might have thoughts that I might not have.”

Wondering whatever happened to the attorney-client privilege, President Bush says, “Okay.”

Maybe reading President Bush’s mind, “Riley says, Mary Lou and I have no secrets, she’s tight-lipped, and besides, in God’s courtroom, there is no attorney-client privilege.”

President Bush stares at Riley, nods yes.

Joline comes back with two glasses, a glass decanter of water, and a sliced lemon. President Bush thanks her and nods for her to leave. Joline looks at Willa Sue, smiles, and leaves, as Willa Sue smiles back.

President Bush says, "I hope what I am about to tell you doesn’t end up on your blog or Oprah, or anywhere else.”

“That sort of depends on what it is, President Bush,” Riley demurs.

“I think you will understand after I tell you, that it is not for the public to know.”

“Mr. President, I hope after you tell me, that I will agree with you, but I don’t know yet what it is, and I really take the 'under God' part of the Pledge of Allegiance seriously. My allegiance is first to God, then to flag and country. So, I hope they will all agree.”

“Okay, I guess I’ll have to live with that and trust you, Riley.”

Riley nods, yes.

President Bush seems to be gathering his thoughts.

President Bush seems to be gathering more thoughts.

He looks skyward.

He looks at Riley.

He looks skyward again.

He looks at Willa Sue, and then at Riley.

He says, “Vice-President Cheny threatened to have me killed like President Kennedy, his brother Bobby, Dr. King and Malcom X, if I did not give him full control of the U.S. Military, and I agreed to it, because I knew he meant it. Something then squeezed my balls like what happened when you were in prison. Then, the squeezing stopped."

Silence.

More silence.

President Bush’s hands are trembling.

Riley looks at Willa Sue, mouths, “Fuck me.”

Riley looks at President Busy, says, “What do you suppose Jesus would tell you to do?"

President Bushs says, “I don’t know.”

Riley says, “Then I think you need to have a prayer meeting with Jesus and find out what he wants you to do, because I think this is between you and God, under which America claims in it’s Pledge of Allegiance to be.”

President Bush looks like a deer caught in the headlights at night.

Riley says, “I don’t envy you, Sir.”

President Bush says, “Will you tell me what you would do if you were president, instead of me, and had received that threat?”

“I would wish like hell that I had a tape recorder running.”

“And if you didn’t?”

President Eisenhower, who had been the Allied Command’s Commander-in-Chief during the war started by Nazi Germany, was leaving his second term in the White House, when he warned Americans to beware of the military-industrial complex.

Riley says, “I would kill Vice President Cheney with my bare hands, and when asked why I did it, I would tell exactly what happened, and that I figured if I left him alive, he would have me killed, and he would get a lot of. American soldiers killed, because it would make him and Haliburton and other rich white members of the American military-industrial complex a whole lot of money. Yet, you and I both know your father and his ambassador sowed the seeds for 9/11, and Ross Perot tried to persuade your father to leave Saddam Hussein and Kuwait alone, and your father didn't listen to Perot, and now the sins of your father are on you.”

President Bush looks like he is in HELL.

He is.

The question in Riley and Willa Sue’s minds is, will President Bush grow a pair and blow the whistle on Vice President Cheney? And if he blows the whistle, will President Bush still invade Afghanistan and kill a lot of young American soldiers and a lot of Afghans, or will he try to find another way to deal with Osama bin Laden? 

The question in Archangel Michael’s mind is, should he take care of  Cheney and Bush, or should he leave it alone? Americans put Bush and Cheney in the White House, and why should Americans be saved from what they did? And why should Bush be spared decisions on which his soul’s fate hinges?

In their dreams that night, Archangel Michael tells Riley and Willa Sue to stand down, and stand by.