He felt himself lose it. He even pictured an ocean wave, tall and roaring, sweeping him away, his arms and legs flailing helplessly in the bubbling froth.
“I have to get out of here!”
Was that him shouting at the poor woman?
“My BlackBerry will work outside. I’ll call Joanna. I’ll call the office. I’ll get in touch. I have to get in touch.”
He let the brochures fall to the floor. Spun away—and ran. Grabbed the handle of the glass door. Pushed hard. And bumped the glass with a jarring thud.
Startled, he spread his palms against the glass and pushed again, leaning a shoulder into it.
“The door is locked, sir.” Angel, the carrot-topped valet, stepped up silently behind him.
Mechling stumbled back. “Locked? It can’t be.”
The young man stared straight ahead. “It’s always locked, see.”
Mechling’s chest heaved up and down. A bleating sound escaped his throat. A trickle of hot sweat ran down one temple.
Angel took his arm gently and led him away from the door. “It’s not a problem, sir. We’re going to change the view in about an hour.”
Back in the room, Mechling understood it all.
He was a smart man, and well read. As a boy, he’d devoured science-fiction and fantasy books. He’d had a huge comic book collection. He and his brother had gone to every horror movie they could find.
And now, he knew what had happened to him. Yes, he was shocked and dismayed—no, make that terrified. But he understood it clearly.
“I died—and this is Hell.”
He had never taken the cholesterol thing seriously, even though Joanna had tried to change his diet. And he’d ignored all the blood pressure warnings.
It must have been a heart attack. He’d died in his sleep.
And here he was in Hell. It was so obvious. Hell was being in the wrong room.
It was all so perfect. The details added up so clearly. He had to smile. He thought of the hotel greeters who had welcomed him on his arrival. The woman behind the desk—her name was Mia. Missing in Action? And the valet was Angel. Of course he was.
Missing in Action? Angel?
Could it be any more obvious?
The names came at him in a flurry. The hotel operator—his name was Barry. Bury? And the escort woman . . . What was the name of the guy she was supposed to see? Romero. Mechling knew that name, the name of the horror director who’d done Night of the Living Dead. Perfect.
And the obnoxious guy in the convention booth? Yes. His name was Mort. Mort Boyer. Mort. Mort. Mort.
Is that enough clues for you, Mechling?
The convention floor. All the wrong people . . . all the wrong products . . . No phone connection. No text messaging. No Internet.
The salesman’s worst nightmare. The salesman’s Hell!
Why hadn’t he figured it out even sooner?
Mechling wiped sweat off his face with his hand. He needed fresh air. He walked to the window and pushed it open. A gentle burst of cool air greeted him.
He stared down at the roofs of the apartment and office buildings below. He leaned out, taking breath after breath. The air had no fragrance at all.
Suddenly shivering, his teeth chattering, he turned back into the room and dropped onto the couch. He hugged himself, trying to stop the shakes.
I can jump out the window, he thought, and it wouldn’t matter. I’ll end up right back here in the wrong room. I can take a knife and plunge it into my heart. I can drown myself in the bathtub. It wouldn’t matter.
I’m dead. I’m in Hell. Salesman’s Hell. No matter what I do, I’ll be back in this room . . . indefinitely.
Indefinitely, that’s what Mia had said. Indefinitely. Right, Mia, Mia, Mia. I’m Missing in Action. Indefinitely.
Beller, the tall one, and Leeman (nicknamed The Leprechaun for obvious reasons) stopped outside the room door. Beller sniffed. He had a cold. “You want to be the one to tell him?”
Leeman snickered. “Tell him it was all a joke? We’d better make sure he isn’t near a weapon. He’ll kill us both.”
Beller laughed till he coughed. “It’s not a joke. It’s a test, remember?”
“Sorenson is a sadist.” Leeman frowned and tugged at his jacket sleeves. “Only a sadist would come up with this kind of test. So elaborate and expensive. Why not just give the guy his promotion and see what he can do? Why put him through all that crap?”
Beller nodded, sniffed again. “Mechling handled himself okay, I think. He didn’t freak until the locked-door thing.”
“Nerves of steel,” Leeman said, only half joking. He sighed. “Let’s get this over and get down to the bar. Drinks on Mechling.”
He didn’t answer their knock. Beller tried the knob, and the door swung open. They stepped into the living room. Briefcase open on the coffee table. A red necktie crumpled on the couch.
“Hey—Sammy? Sammy? It’s us!”
Bathroom door wide open. Into the bedroom. Not there, either.
“Hey—Sammy? Where are you hiding?”
Beller tapped Leeman’s shoulder. “Hey, look. The window’s open.”
Well, sometimes even the best salesmen jump to the wrong conclusion. Mr. Mechling will be getting a promotion—but not the one he expected. He has just been promoted to a top position in. . . the Twilight Zone.
A tired, harassed president. His frustrated, unhappy speechwriter. Not a particularly exciting situation . . . Right? Well, maybe. For both are about to emerge from history’s own Twilight Zone.
T
he minute Victor Deming entered the Oval Office and saw the president’s haggard, tired face, he almost turned around and left.
His second impulse was to hand him the few sheets of paper he was carrying, place them gently and almost reverently on the mahogany desk, and tell him: “Great speech, Mr. President. Exactly what I hoped you’d say, and what needs to be said.”
Which would have been one huge, cowardly lie. What Victor Deming really thought was that the speech had been flat, feeble, totally inappropriate, and dull: a boring collection of punchless banalities and platitudes. He wondered, not for the first time, how this inarticulate simpleton could have won reelection in the middle of a seemingly endless, bloodletting war.
Deming was a short, rather pudgy man with shaggy, unkempt hair framing a sour-featured face that gave him the appearance of a dyspeptic undertaker. Yet, when he smiled, it dissolved what seemed to be a perpetual frown that had been glued onto his mouth. The effect was like seeing glass shatter. Deming was not smiling now, however. He resisted the temptation to toss the suggested remarks—God knows they didn’t deserve to be called a speech—toss them onto the president’s desk with contemptuous force. He compromised by handing him the pages with an expression of regret that barely managed to hide a disapproving frown.
Deming sat down in the stiff-backed chair that faced the chief executive.
“I’m sorry, Mr. President,” he said, “but I think you should use what I wrote for you. Your, uh, effort really doesn’t say anything. Beautiful sentiments, I’ll admit, but that’s not what the country wants or needs to hear right now.”
“And what do you think the country wants or needs to hear, Victor?”
“What I suggested you say. Some assurance—no, some factual evidence that we’re actually going to win, so the slaughter of our brave men will stop, and that the enemy will pay for their heinous crimes against the freedom we cherish.”
He hesitated, cognizant that his next remarks might well be construed as blatant disloyalty. In his job, Victor Deming reported to no one except the president himself. But in this case, his disappointment in what the president had written numbed all feelings of disloyalty.
He cleared his throat, mentally cursing himself for even this tiny sliver of nervousness.
“Mr. President, I took the liberty of showing your . . . your speech to a few cabinet members, four in all. I wanted their reaction to make sure I was not being unfair i
n my negative opinion.”
“A most fair-minded jury,” the president observed with a sardonic little smile. “I take it the verdict was not one of thunderous approval.”
“No, sir. The four members I consulted all felt as I do: much stronger sentiments are needed. I hope you will forgive my frankness, Mr. President, but some of the things you’ve said and done during this conflict have been most controversial, and have even caused outright resentment, let alone understandable concerns.”
He cleared his throat again, only this time it felt as if he were on a ship clearing for action. “I fear I’m being disloyal, but you told me to be honest with you when you hired me as an experienced journalist who could help you with your public addresses and advise you on, well, I suppose you might call it possible public reaction.”
The president nodded. “And you have performed well in that task, Victor. I appreciate honesty and frankness—there’s too damned little of it in this political cesspool we call the nation’s capital. So tell me, which words or actions of mine do you think have created the most resentment?”
Deming didn’t bother to clear his throat this time; he was back in the mode of a journalist.
“Using the war as an excuse to tamper with civil rights, for one thing. I believe many Americans, and certainly not a few members of Congress, felt such drastic measures were unnecessary and in violation of the Constitution itself.”
“There are very few sentences in the Constitution that are permanently engraved in stone, Victor. We have been facing a determined and formidable foe, and sometimes strong measures had to be taken regardless of their unpopularity. But please go on. I have a very thick skin, as you undoubtedly know. You need one in this damned job.”
“I understand, sir. However, I must point out that the remarks you’ve prepared for next week’s appearance seem to contradict the strong measures you’ve espoused previously. And that is why I also took the liberty of showing those four cabinet members what I had prepared for the forthcoming occasion. Frankly, sir, they expressed their strong approval.”
The president smiled wryly again “Victor, you do not have to answer this question if you prefer not to, but I’ll ask it anyway. Would you care to identify the four cabinet officers who are in agreement with your views on what I should or should not say next week?”
Deming was sorely tempted to refuse and take everyone including himself off the hook, but there was something about this particular practitioner of executive power and political maneuvering that invited at least admiration, if not agreement. If there was one unpleasant quality the man lacked, it was vindictiveness. He decided to answer the question honestly.
“The secretaries of treasury and interior, the postmaster general, and the attorney general. They were the cabinet members willing to talk to me. I should add, however, that they praised your intent. They merely urged a less conciliatory approach. Stronger measures of retribution toward an enemy responsible for starting the war in the first place. We had to attack them, sir. We had no other choice. You’ve said that yourself many times.”
The president nodded sadly. “Yes; although I do regret the price we’ve paid, not just in lives, but in this case national unity also was a casualty. We’ve become a nation of polarized beliefs and prejudices. Of hate for anyone holding different opinions and beliefs.”
He rubbed his eyes wearily. “Victor, I am so damned tired. I realize only too well the wisdom of one of my most illustrious predecessors. How Thomas Jefferson once described this job I now have the dubious honor of holding. He called it ‘a life of splendid misery.’ And by heaven, Jefferson was quite right. God, how I hate this damned old house!”
Guilt mixed with pity invaded Deming’s mind. He wished now he had not raised the whole issue. The occasion for a presidential appearance had seemed appropriate and timely, but it certainly couldn’t be called mandatory, not with this war against oppression far from won.
The military leaders who were fighting the war had been warning that it might take another two years to achieve a decisive triumph, with a crushed, completely vanquished foe prostrate in defeat. Yet here was the president waving premature olive branches and implied forgiveness.
Is the president so naïve as to expect forgiveness toward an enemy whose very way of life we’ve abhorred and sworn to destroy? Whose beliefs and practices we’ve denounced as blatantly cruel and even barbaric? The very thought renewed his conviction that what the president intended to say was inappropriate and almost defeatist.
“Sir, once more I implore you to use my much stronger language. You hired me as a confidential adviser on precisely such matters as public appearances, occasions requiring you to make utterances of future policy and intentions. To defend the past while enunciating how you envision the future. I mean no disrespect, but the future as you see it is not one in which I take much comfort. Nor will anyone else.”
Deming pointed to the pages of oratory that the president had composed. They lay on his desk like fallen leaves from a dying tree. “What is the point of paying me good money if you are bent on ignoring my advice and suggestions?”
“I pay you to advise and suggest, Victor. That does not mean I have to follow all your advice and accept all your suggestions.”
Deming expelled a sigh of surrender. When this man made up his mind, he was harder to budge than a five-ton boulder.
“I take it then that you are definitely going to use your words instead of mine,” he said in a tone of petulance.
The president chuckled. “Take that frown off your face, Victor. You look like a child who’s had a toy taken away from him.”
The good-natured jab forced Deming to smile slightly, but he could not resist firing a last salvo.
“Then may I venture to make one final suggestion, Mr. President?”
“Of course.”
“Your speech is rather brief. Too brief, if you will permit that observation, which I assure you is well intentioned. There will be other speakers there, of course, but what the President of the United States has to say will draw the most attention.”
The president nodded. “I agree with you on its brevity, but I believe I told you once that I always thought a speech should be like a woman’s skirt: long enough to cover the subject but short enough to be interesting.”
This time Deming permitted himself an audible chuckle. He had heard the president use that metaphor before and had borrowed it himself on more than one occasion. He rose and bowed.
“Then, with your permission, I shall take your leave and return to my own desk.”
“No hard feelings, I hope.”
“None, sir, I assure you.”
The president shook his head, a gesture Deming sensed was one of sympathy, and his instincts were right.
“Tell you what, Victor. As you already know, we’ll be taking a special train to the speech site. I’ll bring your proposed speech with me, which I’ll study again thoroughly and objectively. And while I’m not promising you anything, I might incorporate some of your suggestions into my own remarks.”
“That would be very acceptable, Mr. President, and I’m grateful.”
Outside the Oval Office, from which he emerged with his head down, he almost bumped into the attorney general, who was on time for a scheduled meeting with the president.
The cabinet officer studied Deming’s expression, one of obvious frustration and disappointment, and shook his head understandingly.
“I gather you got nowhere with him, Mr. Deming. Otherwise you’d be grinning from ear to ear.”
Deming nodded. “He did promise to review my contributions during the train trip, and make any changes he agrees are necessary. Personally, I’ll wager a month’s salary his own revisions will be in punctuation.”
“I’m not surprised. At any rate, I suggest that you dress warmly for next week’s solemn occasion. We shall be into the month of November, and Pennsylvania can be quite chilly at this time of year. Personally, I’m not looking forwa
rd to it one bit. Gettysburg itself is a cold, rather dreary little village.”
You’ve undoubtedly heard the adage, “History has a habit of repeating itself.” Adages usually are one-line sermons, brief words of advice often written by unknown, even nameless philosophers. Never mind the author of the homily you’ve just read, whether famous or anonymous. We suspect that its real source was one of those students of ironic coincidences who inhabit the capital of ironic coincidences, more commonly known as . . . the Twilight Zone.
Courage under fire. A seemingly simple concept, defined more by action than by thought. It is a product of some internal impulse, an emotion beyond our ken. But there are places where those definitions do not hold—where courage may not be simple, where the boundaries between internal and external constantly shift, and where the delicate balance of impulse and action are forever changing. Places where good intent may mix with coincidence and chance to produce results not quite expected . . .
T
wo hajji on the trail! Brownie!” hissed Gimme over the team radio. “What the fuck?”
Private Michael C. Brown jerked up from his spot in the rocks to get a better view of the trail snaking out of the tan hills below. Two men were walking along it, homemade packs on their backs and AK-47s slung on their shoulders. They were coming from the direction of Pakistan and were almost certainly Taliban infiltrators.
Brown froze for a second, unsure whether to answer or to shoot. By the time he decided he should do both, one of the men saw him and began shouting. Before Brown could raise his M4 to fire, the guerrillas began peppering the rocks around him with bullets.
The rest of the fire team began shooting back. Gimme ran down the slope, firing his M249 SAW. The bullets from the light machine gun blew the guerrilla’s skull apart as if it were a pumpkin. The second man got away, running quickly back up the path and climbing across a small saddleback hill to escape. Jobbers, north of Brown and on the same side of the hill, began circling around to try to follow. But Corporal Gutierrez, the team leader, called him back. The Taliban knew the mountains much better than the Americans did, and it was too easy to be ambushed here. With their position exposed, he pulled them all back to a small plateau about a half mile away, where he could regroup and call in the exchange to the company commander.
Twilight Zone Anthology Page 24