Taft 2012 - Jason Heller [13]
“Fore,” he whispered. He let fly. The ball arced high into the air, above the trees. He watched it soar, the landscape whizzing by the ball on the screen as if by magic.
Then it landed. It bounced. It rolled.
Right into the cup.
“Bully! Kowalczyk, did you see that?” Taft thrust his half-club into the air. “Incredible. My first drive in a hundred years, and by golly it’s a hole in one.”
“Ready for the next one, Mr. President?”
Taft squared his body and stared into the magical glowing green. There’d be time to go outside after lunch. Or tomorrow.
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FROM THE DESK OF REP. RACHEL TAFT (Ind.–OH)
Notes—Fri. 18th—meeting with Fulsom Foods lobbyist
—International Foods Act to include provisions governing proper handling of overseas livestock involved in producing food item imports. Fulsom lobbyist says impractical, will bankrupt small farmers. I point out Fulsom doesn’t in fact work with small farmers but with poverty-wage laborers in giant agri-factories. Lobbyist suggests revisiting definition of “small farmers.” I suggest Fulsom meditate on well-established definition of “regulation.” Conversation is off to a great start.
—Is he serious? Fulsom wants to debate the definition of “food”? Not “processed food” or “raw food” or “organic food” or “healthy food,” but the whole concept of food??? Is this to do with genetic modification? No—what he calls “more sophisticated” method of chemical synthesis. Will look at their white paper but am highly dubious to say least.
—No, I cannot give out a mailing address at which Wm Howard might receive housewarming gift of a Fulsom Baskotti Bounty. Come on, now.
CLASSIFIED
Secret Service Incidence Report
BBO20111119.005
Agent Ira Kowalczyk
At 0925, guard detail attempted to escort Big Boy to visit Library of Congress on foot, per his insistence. Made it two blocks east before rock-star phenomena kicked in: crowd amassed at a faster rate than the expedition’s walking speed. Big Boy was swarmed by civilians. Guard maintained tight perimeter, but the crowd was too enthusiastic to maintain a respectful distance per my instructions. Mob stopped short of being a riot, with everyone smiling and cheering and waving and snapping cell-phone photos, but the expedition was obviously unsustainable in this fashion so we returned to Big Boy One. Big Boy insists on going out again despite the security risk, so we will try it incognito. He won’t shave off his mustache, so we’ll trim it as small as he’ll let us and put him in a T-shirt and baseball cap.
SEVEN
If it weren’t for the street signs, Taft would have already been lost. Even in his own day, the city had been a labyrinth, at least compared to Cincinnati. Granted, Cincinnati was a far larger city. But Cincinnati had been a home. A genial city, an honest city. Washington, however, was run by a perverse logic as confounding as the city’s layout. Taft’s mind, sharp as it was, had always knotted itself into a pretzel trying to figure it out, just as his calves knotted now as he ambled in the general