Taft 2012

by Jason Heller

  Strangely, though, as Taft’s thoughts wandered through a foggy, disconnected fugue of feelings and memories, one thing kept recurring: Susan. He’d spent two months in the near-daily company of a learned, compassionate, scholarly woman whose primary interest in life was, well, him. She was, frankly, the kind of woman to whom he’d always been drawn, but he could not have been less interested. And yet now he’d jumped in bed with the first floozy who’d gotten him drunk. His queasiness returned with a vengeance.

  “Kowalczyk. Pull over. Now.”

  Kowalczyk flashed him a livid scowl for breaking their silence, but his look softened as soon as he saw Taft’s face. A moment later, Taft let loose a geyser of vomit across the dashboard. Keeping cool, Kowalczyk edged the car to the side of the highway. As soon as the tires noisily hit the coarse asphalt of the shoulder, Taft had already flung open his door; by the time Kowalczyk pulled to a full stop, Taft had emptied the steaming contents of his stomach into the cold air.

  “What,” gasped Taft, “did I eat last night?”

  “Do you really want me to answer that question?” said Kowalczyk, wrinkling his nose.

  Taft shot him the most offended look he could muster. “I’m serious. I don’t remember anything past the popcorn.”

  “Bill, that Rob kid ran next door to Herbert’s and brought back a friggin’ wheelbarrow full of that shitty food. Hot dogs, nacho fries, Bombers. You must have sucked down your own weight in that sludge, and then some.”

  Taft gaped at him and then hung his head out the open door and vomited some more. As his insides knotted up and his eyes filled with tears, he could think of only one thing: to thank all that was holy that Susan couldn’t see him right now. Or Irene, or Rachel, or Trevor. But especially Abby. Dear, sweet, angelic little Abby.

  Wiping his mouth, he reached around to the back seat and into his open suitcase. He rummaged around for a moment and pulled out the good-luck charm Abby had smuggled into it. The Taft action figure. It was already grossly inaccurate; if the toy were large as life and made of flesh, it would weigh a good 75 pounds less than he did at the moment. But it was unrecognizable in another way. The look on its little face was friendly, crinkly-eyed, happy.

  The little fellow also had a mustache. A grand, manly, granite-colored mustache.

  A presidential-looking mustache.

  Taft pulled out his phone. He was about to call Rachel, but he realized there were five more messages from Susan since he’d checked his phone at the bar the day before. He got out of the car, walked a few yards into the brown grass along the highway, and hit the key that dialed Susan’s number. She answered almost before the first ring sounded.

  “Bill? Oh, God, Bill. Look, I’m sorry I’ve been calling so much. This is big, though. Really big.”

  “Susan. Slow down, if you please. What’s going on?”

  He heard her take a deep breath. “Bill, they’re trying to get you on the ballot.”

  “Who?”

  “Who do you think? The Tafties. God, I hate that word. I mean, the Taft Party. Them and that kook Allen the Electrician. Not to mention our pal Pauline Craig. They’ve mobilized. They’re pushing to get you put on the ballot in all fifty states. As a third-party candidate. As the head of the Taft Party. Or, failing that, they say they’ll settle for telling the whole nation to vote for you as a write-in candidate.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “They announced it yesterday. Press conference, media blitz, the works—my God, you really haven’t been watching the news, have you?”

  Taft made a small, noncommittal noise.

  “But, Bill, there’s something else. Something even scarier.”

  He was almost afraid to ask. “Yes? Out with it.”

  “The polls. They’re going crazy. I know this is the most horrifying thing you could possibly imagine right now, but the polls are overwhelmingly in your favor. Not just to get on the ballot—to be a competitive candidate. Of course, the Republicans are still all shaking themselves out, but no matter which of those jokers they match you against—you know, Governor Rockstar, Governor Frownyface, Senator Wackadoodle—you’re still holding your own against them, and you’re not all that far behind the president. Bill, somehow you’ve connected. America wants you to run. And if these numbers are to be believed, they want you back. In the White House.”

  Taft stood there, blinking. The wind—blowing up from the prairie, perhaps across half the continent or more—poured over him. Above him, the vast American sky stretched like a vaulted ceiling from horizon to horizon. He thought of all the great and bizarre and horrifying things he’d seen and learned about this new United States, but also about how, underneath it all, it was still the country he knew and loved. He felt a sudden chill right down to his bones.

  “Bill? Are you there? Bill?” Susan’s voice squawked from the phone.

  “Susan. I’m here. I mean to say, I’m really here. I’m coming.”

  “What? Bill, what do you mean?”

  “I’m coming back, Susan. Hold tight, will you? And get ready. I’m coming back.”

  “Don’t sit up nights thinking about making me president, for that will never come, and I have no ambition in that direction. Any party which would nominate me would make a great mistake.”

  —William Howard Taft, while serving as governor of the Philippines under President Theodore Roosevelt, 1903

  washington, DC craigslist > district of Columbia > personals > rants & raves

  I SAW TAFT! (Penn Quarter)

  Date: 2012-01-03 4:25PM EST

  William Howard Taft was walking around the District today! I almost didn’t recognize him; he’s taken a razor to his ’stache, so now he looks less like Santa Claus and more like John Goodman.

  I was thinking about it. You know how the world seems to have gone utterly batshit crazy in the past ten years? We’ve had terrorists smashing planes into our cities, we’ve had the U.S. armed forces in Iraq forever now, we’ve had all these tsunamis and hurricanes and crackdowns in the Middle East and all this horrible, horrible shit. But then now—now there’s this guy, back to life, out of nowhere, and he’s a good guy. You can just tell. Maybe … I dunno, maybe it’s finally a bit of good crazy, to kind of start offsetting the bad crazy. Just a little. Just enough to let us know that it’s not all for shit.

  Or maybe I’m drunk. Before 5 p.m., even.

  • Location: Penn Quarter

  FROM THE DESK OF REP. RACHEL TAFT (Ind.–OH)

  Notes—Tues. 3rd—Do I really want to run for vice president?

  Cons:

  —We won’t win. Third parties don’t. Lot of time and ulcers to put into losing.

  —Distraction from legislation, just when it’s time to introduce the International Foods Act.

  —Crass exploitation of family name instead of personal achievements.

  —Putting Abby and Trevor through the ringer.

  —Putting stress on relationship with Grandpa.

  —Putting stress on Grandpa, period. How can this be a good idea for him?

  Pros:

  —We won’t win. Ought to make it easy to stay honest.

  —None of the other challengers are much to write home about anyway.

  —Populist celebrity means influence means my legislation gets more support. Sometimes. Maybe.

  —Crass exploitation of family name has worked very well for Kennedys, Bushes, etc.

  —Trevor and Abby think we should do it.

  —Well, why DID Wm Howard get zapped into the future, if not for this?

  From Taft: A Tremendous Man, by Susan Weschler:

  When I went to work for President Taft as his liaison to the twenty-first century, the first order of business was to start him off with a basic primer on the most important events that had happened in America and the world since he’d vanished. He dove right into the big-scale history and ate it right up. But when it came to the personal history, to the question of how his own disappearance had directly affe
cted his own familiar world, it was a different story. He didn’t want to hear about it. He wasn’t ready to process it.

  When he returned to Washington, D.C., after his New Year’s road trip, there was a new resolve in his eyes. He asked me if he could look at that folder, the one he’d shied away from two months earlier. I gave it to him, and I will never forget the look in his eyes as he opened it to find, sitting on top, a black and white photograph. I knew what he was seeing: his wife. His beloved Nellie and all his children, along with the rest of his family, his friends, his colleagues. They stood outdoors, in a familiar place: Arlington National Cemetery.

  “That’s … that’s my grave, isn’t it? That’s a photograph of my funeral.” It wasn’t a question. It was obvious.

  I told him: After he’d gone missing from Wilson’s inauguration, there’d been a citywide search. Then nationwide. Then worldwide. After months, it was clear he wasn’t to be found. Theories abounded. Had he been kidnapped by a foreign power? Did he run away from the pressures of politics to live a quiet life incognito? Was it suicide? But eventually it was clear that the nation needed a funeral. So an empty casket was buried at Arlington. He was the first president to be buried in the national military cemetery, though of course no part of his body actually lay there.

  Tears were rolling down President Taft’s cheeks as he saw this picture of his own memorial, this tableau that no man ever sees. Then I saw his face harden as his eyes flickered from the image of his wife and children to the man standing next to them. Teddy Roosevelt. The man who’d been his friend. The man who’d then spent Taft’s last two years relentlessly tearing him down in public, trying to reclaim the office he’d previously seemed glad to hand off to his friend. There stood Roosevelt at Taft’s funeral, a hand of comfort on Nellie’s shoulder. I could only imagine what was going through his mind.

  “President Taft,” I said, “Roosevelt delivered a eulogy for you. I think you might be interested to read it.”

  “No,” he said. “No, Miss Weschler, I would not be so interested.” He closed the folder and shook his head. “It’s done. It’s the past. It’s gone. Let us look to the future.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  The Frayed Denim and faded flannel of Allen “the Electrician” Holtz’s clothes—the same ones he always seemed to wear—carried a calming, workaday aura. Taft found himself staring down at the man’s attire, avoiding his eyes, as Allen escorted him, with Susan at his side, into the living room of the modest suburban D.C. home that had been chosen for their meeting. “A little summit or something,” a laughing Allen had assured Taft over the phone. “But, seriously, nothing fancy.”

  Taft apparently had a different idea of fanciness, or the lack thereof, than Allen did. The large living room was packed from wall to wall with people. They sat and stood and even crouched in silence, each of them staring at Taft with a frozen expression of slack-jawed awe.

  Then the room erupted.

  “Taft!”

  “Mr. President!”

  “Oh my God, I can’t believe it’s him! I can’t believe it’s you!”

  The miniature mob moved in, babbling with excitement. His shoulders were patted. A comely middle-aged woman in a “Draft Taft!” T-shirt stole a kiss from his cheek. Clammy palms were pressed into his own limp hand, which was too shocked to shake back.

  Within seconds Taft’s muscle memory took over. He smiled that empty yet enthusiastic campaign-trail smile perfected in railcar restrooms and hotel mirrors across the continent a hundred years ago. He returned greetings and humbly parried compliments with the ease of an automaton. Several times, his eyes flicked over to the chair where Allen sat; the man’s face hovered halfway between smirking mischief and beaming pride.

  “Okay, everyone, let’s give Mr. Taft some room to breathe here!” Allen got to his feet, raised his voice and hands, and quieted the crowd. “Maybe some kind soul would like to offer the man a seat?”

  A loveseat immediately presented itself. Taft offered Susan a cushion, then sank down beside her. Before he’d even settled, a tray of Fulsom PizzaBombs—still in the soggy cardboard box, presumably straight out of the microwave—was shoved under his nose.

  “Uh, no, thank you,” he said, waving away the tray and accepting instead a bottle of water. Already sweating due to the surprise as well as the press of bodies in the room, he took a swig—and almost spit the liquid right back out as his tongue registered a strange flavor that had no business being present. He looked at the label on the bottle: Maple Water. Truly, he thought, did the people of this age really feel it necessary to try to improve upon water?

  “Everybody refreshed, then?” Allen strode to the center of the room. “Let’s talk Taft.”

  “So, Mr. Holtz,” Taft said. “You and your associates in this Taft Party would have me run for president once again. What do you envision?”

  “Mr. Taft,” said Allen, “we want to give the American people a voice to say their piece. Because God knows they don’t get to have a say with the Ds and the Rs, the way things are now.”

  Taft nodded warily. “I follow you, sir.”

  “The Taft Party: now there’s something the players will have to listen to, right? You’re a big man. I mean, not that you’re a big man, but, you know what I mean.”

  “Indeed.”

  “So we’ve been talking about a hard-hitting campaign. We’d call it the Blunt Truth campaign; we’ll be all about telling it like it is. We’ll start right off, hitting the president where he’s weakest—”

  “No.”

  Allen blinked. “Uh, sorry?”

  “Mr. Holtz, everyone, I must make this perfectly clear. Rachel and I will run under the Taft Party banner; it seems we would be foolish to let our name march on without us, just as it would be foolish for you to try! But I have been through this wringer twice before, and we shall do it my way. And that means, first and foremost, we are not running to bring down the politicians. They can do that perfectly well themselves. No. We are running to lift up the people. We’re here to establish the Taft Party as a veritable bastion of reason and fairness in political life, because Lord knows such a bastion is needed. We’re here, as you say, to provide a voice for the good women and men of America who can’t be heard over the din of all this twenty-first-century madness. And we are here to run the sort of campaign I have always believed in: an honest test of thoughtful discourse.”

  “Uh,” said Allen. “Mr. Taft, I’m probably not the person to be telling you this.” His gaze slid to Susan and back again. “But things aren’t as cut and dried as they were back in your day. The world’s a complicated place. It ain’t as black and white as all that.”

  Taft wished his mustache were there to hide his sudden snarl. “You think, sir, that things were black and white in my day?” Allen looked startled. “I assure you, that was just the photography. My presidency had every motive and opportunity to overstep its political and moral bounds, both here and abroad. I made some decisions that I know were wrong. I made far more that may have made my job harder, and may have asked for more of a sacrifice from the country, but they were simply the right and decent things to do. Don’t patronize or preach to me. I don’t care if you’re from the year 20,000. I’ve still seen more of the grays of this world than you ever will. The only difference is, I don’t cloak myself in them. No, sir. If you want me as your candidate, Mr. Holtz, you shall have to allow me to run my own campaign.”

  The man stuck out his hand. “Sounds like a deal.” They shook on it, and although Allen’s wiry hand was engulfed in Taft’s thick one, the man cocked an eyebrow. “But … you’ll let us suggest practical details, right?”

  “Certainly, certainly,” Taft said. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Well, Mr. Taft, see, I was thinking about your announcement …”

  TWITTER—Jan. 17, 2012

  taft2012

  No sooner have I grown accustomed to the wonders of Google, I am introduced to the wizardry of Twitter! So, this
is the new town square. Gree

  taft2012

  Well do I recall the wave of excitement that flooded the world upon the introduction of the telephone. So it surprises me not a bit that Twi

  taft2012

  It appears I have misunderstood the functioning of this 140-letter transmission. My apologies, readers, for the confusion! I have the hang o

  taft2012

  Aha. The blank spaces are to be counted as well.

  taft2012

  How remarkable. It is true what they say: It is harder to speak in few words than in many.

  taft2012

  Well, of one thing you may be assured from these awkward rhetorical fumblings: It is I, William Howard Taft, behind this faceless broadcast.

  jamesjamesjames

  Wait, hang on, @taft2012 is really Taft? #Taft

  Robbrenner

  @jamesjamesjames I think @taft2012 is just that same roleplayer who’s been doing shtick since the President Kane Blu-Ray came out. #Taft

  njerica

  @Robbrenner Hang on, @taft2012 keeps getting retweeted by @TaftPartyUSA—that might really be him! #Taft

  TaftPartyUSA

  To answer all the questions, yes, @taft2012 is the big man himself! Everyone follow him—there’s an announcement coming! #Taft

  tunabubbles

  @TaftPartyUSA Hope he’s going to announce that he finally knows how to count to 140. #Taft #Fail #TaftFail

  njerica

  An announcement coming from @taft2012 via @TaftPartyUSA? OMG, I don’t believe it … #Taft

  Robbrenner

  LOL @tunabubbles, he’s going to announce that he’s all washed up now, but he could really use a hand getting dry. #TaftFail

  taft2012

  I, William Howard Taft, am honored and humbled to answer the Taft Party’s call to stand in the 2012 presidential election.