2030_ The Real Story of What Happens to America - Albert Brooks [73]
“We have to hope she dies out.”
June laughed. “Seriously, this could really be a problem, with the bombing and all. We sure don’t need such a highly visible person sucking money out of the system.”
“I know. I don’t see a way out right now. Maybe something will develop.”
“Maybe. I thought Los Angeles would take people’s minds off the seniors for a while, but it seems to have gotten worse. The less money there is out there, the more they look at us.”
“I’m so glad I’m not your age,” Paul joked. “Keep an eye out, honey, see if this story goes anywhere. Even small-time stuff, let me know.”
“I will, Paul. I’m worried, too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Matthew Bernstein was a presidential historian, as most presidents were. When you belonged to such an exclusive club, you tended to know minute details about all the members. The most interesting of them all to Bernstein was Richard Nixon. Not because he thought he was the best president—far from it—but because there existed years of taped records of the man sitting in the Oval Office. Not before or since could someone just listen to the inner thoughts of the most powerful person in the world. Over the last ten years the remaining tapes had finally been released, and they were doozies.
Bernstein, being a Jew, wondered how Henry Kissinger could have ever worked for Nixon, as Nixon seemed to hate Jews as much as the Arabs did. Maybe Kissinger thought it was love-hate. But in thousands of hours of tapes there was no love. Just “Jew” this and “Jew” that and “gay” this and “gay” that. My God, Bernstein thought, had Nixon never seen a Broadway show?
And Nixon knew he was being taped. That was the amazing thing. To be so confident in his position of power that he believed the record of all he said would always be under his control, which it was, until Watergate.
And that’s what Bernstein couldn’t get out of his mind. Watergate. He would lie in bed at night and think about it, not in the context of stealing secrets from the other party, but in the context of someone successfully breaking in, accomplishing a task, and no one ever knowing. The idea of Watergate was a heady one. Maybe a similar tactic would be the easiest way to end his mother’s suffering and thereby his own. Someone could break in and pull the plugs. Then he laughed. Right, and look what happened to Nixon. I’ll be known as the president who killed his mother. Great. Next idea.
But Bernstein knew very well what was happening with the bus incidents and the AARP bombing. And he knew it would get worse. If my mother is still being kept alive two years from now, could I even be reelected? He hated those thoughts, but as president he had to think of everything, gruesome or not.
And then finally, before he fell asleep, the thoughts, as they always did, turned to California. This was the most pressing problem. This had no solution; no one’s death would solve this. Tomorrow was the first full cabinet meeting with Susanna Colbert in place as secretary of the Treasury. She was going to formally present her ideas on Los Angeles. Maybe, just maybe, she had a way out.
The President’s entire cabinet was immediately taken with Colbert. It was the deceiving nature of her being. She looked and sounded like a good-looking, churchgoing mother, someone Norman Rockwell might have painted. But when she got hot and heavy into the conversation, no matter what it was, she was the smartest person in the room. Not flauntingly so. She just was. Prepared, full of facts and ideas, a world-class listener, and a problem solver like a computer. Fifteen minutes into the full cabinet meeting, no one even thought of Morton Spiller.
The ideas were sparse. How do you rebuild? Do you just print more money? It was now common to live with a moderated form of hyperinflation, but if it got out of hand—more so than it already was—the United States would spin down the black hole of worthless currency.
It always came back to the same thing. Borrow. And the only country that really had the