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By Root 1187 0

legislation to give the NRA nightmares. It became clear that his team had taken over the tactic called, ironically enough, flooding, which had been used to such effect by the criminals who had hijacked the presidency at the start of the century. It was like a flurry in boxing, the hits just kept on coming, at a pace of three or four a week, so that in the scramble the opposition could not react adequately, not to any individual slaps nor to the general deluge. Right-wing pundits were wondering if Chase had arranged to get shot to gain this advantage, why had the gunman used a twenty-two, where was the evidence he had actually been shot anyway, could they stick a minicam down the hole? No? Wasn’t that suspicious?

But in the committees and on the floor of Congress the hammering went on. Roy said to Charlie, “The media is to legislation as professional wrestling is to Olympic wrestling. The real moves are hard to see. We’ve got them on the run, so come on what’s your latest?” The need for a constant stream of good initiatives was getting such that Roy was now hectoring the brain trust to think faster.

“This is just a start,” Phil would say at the end of his press conferences, waving away any questions that implied he had suddenly become more radical. “All this had to be done. No one denies that, except for special interests with some kind of horrid financial stake in things staying the same. We the people intend to overturn those destructive tendencies, so grab this tiger by the tail and hold on tight!”

A FEW SATURDAYS LATER, the three kayakers went out on the Potomac again, putting in just downstream from Great Falls.

The overflow channels on the Maryland side had been so torn by cavitation in the great flood that things had been forever changed there, and one new channel of the falls dropped down stepped layers in the gneiss in a very regular way. This channel had been diverted and a few adjustments made with concrete and dynamite to make it even more regular, leaving it stepped so that kayakers could with a hard push paddle up it, one level at a time, catching a rest on the flats before ascending the drops. “Some people make it all the way up to above the falls, and then ride the big drops back down again.”

“Some people,” Charlie said, looking over at Drepung and rolling his eyes. “Don’t you do that, Frank?”

“I don’t,” Frank said. “I can’t get to the top of the Fish Ladder. It’s hard. I’ve gotten around two-thirds of the way up it, so far.”

They rounded the bend leading into Mather Gorge, and the falls came in sight. The air was filled with an immediate low roar, and with clouds of mist. The surface of the river hissed with breaking bubbles.

The lowest rung of the Fish Ladder by itself turned out to be more than Charlie and Drepung wanted to attempt, but Frank shot at the bottom drop at full speed, hit the white flow and fought up to the first flat, then waved at them to give it a try. They did, but found themselves stalling and then sliding backwards down the white-water rapids, plunging in and struggling to stay upright.

Frank shot down the first drop and paddled over to them.

“You have to accelerate up the drop,” he explained.

“By just paddling faster?” asked Drepung.

“Yes, very fast and sharp. You have to dig hard.”

“Okay. And if it catches you and throws you back anyway, do you try to go backwards, or turn sideways on the way down?”

“I turn sideways, for sure.”

“Okay.”

Drepung and Charlie gave the lowest flume a few more tries, learning to turn as they stalled, which was in itself quite a trick; and near the end of an hour they both made it up to the first level patch of water, there to hoot loudly against the roar, turn, gulp, and take the fast slide back down to the foamy sheet of fizzing brown water. Yow! While they were doing this, Frank ascended six of the ten rungs of the chute, then turned and bounced down drop by drop, rejoining them red-faced and sweating.

After that they floated back downstream toward their put-in, looking over at the Virginia side to spot climbers on the dark walls of