Sixty days and counting - Kim Stanley Robinson [172]
This was not true, and he knew it. On TV it was true; in real life, not. He slung the refrigerator door open and looked in it for a while before realizing there was nothing in there he wanted. He had not eaten dinner but his appetite was gone. “God damn it,” he muttered, shutting the door and going to the window. In the wall of the apartment wrapping the back of their house, almost every window flickered with the blue light of people watching their TVs. Everyone caught in the same drama. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
He went back out and joined the family.
PHIL SURVIVED. It turned out as Charlie had hoped, which was mere luck; but once they got him into intensive care, they gave him transfusions and sewed up the damage, which luckily was not as bad as it could have been—stabilized him, as they said, and got him through the crisis hours, and after that he was “resting comfortably,” although from what Roy told Charlie, in a call at five the next morning, neither of them even thinking yet of sleep, still deep in the horrible hours, it was not comfortable at all. The bullet had ticked the edge of his kevlar vest and then run up through his neck, tearing through flesh but missing the carotid, the jugular, the vocal cords. A lucky shot. But he was in considerable pain, Roy said, despite the sedation. The vice president was nominally in charge, but obviously Roy and Andrea and the rest of the staff were doing a lot of the work.
By the time Charlie got to see Phil, over a week later, they had moved him back to the White House. When Charlie’s time came he was sitting up in a hospital-style bed located in the Oval Office, with a mass of paperwork strewn on his lap and a phone headset on his head. It seemed possible he was trying deliberately to look like FDR, headset mouthpiece resembling in its cocked angle FDR’s cigarette holder, but maybe it was just a coincidence.
“It’s good to see you,” Charlie said, shaking his hand gingerly.
“Good to see you too Charlie. Can you believe this?”
“Not really.”
“It’s been surreal, I’ll tell you.”
“How much of it do you remember?”
“All of it! They had to knock me out to operate on me. I hate being knocked out.”
“Me too.”
Phil regarded him. It seemed to Charlie that for a second Phil was remembering who Charlie was. Well, fair enough; he had gone on a long journey.
Now he said, “It always seems like there’s a chance you won’t wake up.”
“I know,” Charlie said. “Believe me. But you woke up.”
“Yes.”
There was a tightness to Phil’s mouth which looked new to Charlie, and reminded him of Anna. Also his face was pale. His hair was as clean as usual; nurses must be washing it for him.
“But enough of that.” Phil sat up farther. “Have you had any ideas about how we can use this to really take over Congress at the midterm elections?”
Charlie laughed. “Isn’t it a bit early for that?”
“No.”
“I guess. Well, how about handgun regulation? You could call for it with this Congress, then use their lack of response to beat on them during the campaign.”
“We would need poll numbers on that. As I recall it’s not a winning issue.”
Charlie laughed at Phil’s bravura, his everything-is-politics pose. He knew Phil didn’t really believe in that kind of style—but then again, Phil was looking serious. It occurred to Charlie that he was looking at a different person.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Charlie said. “The NRA wants us to think that, but I can’t believe most Americans are in favor of handguns, can you?”
Phil gave him a look. “Actually I can.”
“Point taken,” Charlie conceded, “but still. I wonder about it. I don’t believe it. It doesn’t match with what I see.”
“People want to know they can defend themselves.”
“The defense doesn’t come from guns. It comes from the rule of law. Most people know that.”
Phil gave him the over-the-glasses look. “You have a lot of faith in the American electorate, Charlie.”
“Well, so do you.”
“That’s true.” Phil nodded and then winced. He took off