Epilogue
Marilyn and I hung around the White House for another few days, as I made phone calls to everybody and their brother and congratulated everybody. John McCain made a comment that he was going crazy as he began to get ready to take my job in a few months. I simply gave him an evil laugh and told him it would only get worse from here! Mitt Romney was going to lead his transition team. That usually meant that whoever was running the team was going to play a significant role in the future, usually in the Cabinet. That wouldn't surprise me.
Me? I was tired! In seven years I think I aged twenty. I needed a serious vacation, and Marilyn agreed with me. By the end of the week, I told everybody they could do without me, and we headed down to Hougomont. As long as the world didn't blow up before January 20, I didn't care. John was welcome to the mess. I wondered if I had done a single damn thing to make the world a better place. I really couldn't tell anymore.
I knew that John had four years to try to make an impact. By the time the 2012 elections rolled around, we would have had three straight Republican administrations, twelve years, an above average record. The big winners had been FDR and Truman, who had racked up twenty years, but that would never be seen again. Reagan and Bush 41 had done twelve years, and Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover had also done twelve years. To go to more than three terms in a row, you had to go back to McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft (four terms), and before that to Reconstruction, when the Democrats couldn't even run!
No, John would need to be a miracle worker to get a second term. The odds were that by the time of the next election, the economy would be in trouble, either because a bubble burst and we had a catastrophe, or he avoided bubbles but simply had a routine but ill-timed recession. In 2012 I expected a repeat of the fight between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, only Hillary would probably get the nod. The argument would be that Obama blew it against McCain, so let's give the other team a chance.
Then again, maybe he could pull it off. I truly believed that Hillary wouldn't be any better a President than Obama would be, or had been on my first go. It would be out of my hands in any case. From here on out, I wasn't just a lame duck, I was a dead duck! There wasn't much I could accomplish in the next couple of months, and after that, I could only offer assistance. If I volunteered without being asked, the term that would be used was 'meddlesome old fart.'
The three of us (Marilyn, me, and Stormy) landed in Nassau, and immediately jumped into a car to head to Hougomont. Frank and his fiancé were with us also, taking a vacation as well. As far as I was concerned, vacations are for lazing around. I expected a short briefing in the morning, and everybody could wear shorts and t-shirts for that. The same went for the National Intelligence Officer who gave me the PDB every morning. Otherwise, go make yourself a rum punch and take a load off. Dinner is on the grill at 7:00. Be there or be square!
The next morning, Saturday, I slept late and woke up when Marilyn crawled out of bed to let Stormy out. After the mutt came back inside, she jumped back into bed with me while Marilyn went to take a shower. There was no going back to sleep, because Stormy decided to crawl on top of my chest and lick my face. That's very cute when you are dealing with a puppy. When it's a 140 pound monstrosity, it can cause pulmonary collapse! I pushed her off and restarted my breathing, and then got out of bed myself. I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth and took my Lipitor while Marilyn showered.
When she got out of the shower, I jumped in and cleaned up. After that, I was about to shave when I noticed it was time to swap out my razor blade, so I hit the 'Eject' button and popped off the triple-track head, and chucked it in the garbage. I opened the medicine cabinet and rooted around for a new one. "Marilyn, do I have any razor blades?"
"I don't know? Did you tell me you were running out?"
"I didn't know I was running out."
"And that's my fault because?"
I rolled my eyes at that. Whether you are the President or a ditch digger, as far as your wife is concerned, it's always your fault. I rubbed my stubble. "I suppose I can go a day without a shave."
"Do you want the Secret Service to go out and buy some blades?", she asked. As silly as that sounded, they would much rather do that then send the motorcade out with me so that I could go to the drug store and buy razor blades. There was actually an elaborate procedure for that sort of thing, so that nobody would be able to predict where I bought things and then be able to sabotage them. Randomly selected stores would be used, with the purchases made under phony names and payments made out of anonymous accounts. Similar things occurred with food for the White House
"Later. It's not an emergency."
Nobody commented about it that day, maybe because it was a Saturday. Marilyn and I weren't going anywhere, and I had delayed my usual visit with the Prime Minister until Monday. We just lay around the garden and the beach all day, sucking down the occasional Corona and tossing a piece of driftwood for Stormy to chase. Frank and his fiancée, Jenny, joined us for a nice dinner of grilled shrimp skewers.
Sunday morning was pretty much a repeat of Saturday morning. This time, when I got out of the shower, Marilyn said, "There's some new razor blades in the medicine cabinet."
"Thanks." I opened the cabinet door and pulled out the packet, and opened it. A five-pack plastic cassette came out with its load of blades and I grabbed my empty razor to load it.
And then I stopped.
I looked up at my reflection in the mirror. After two days I had a definite stubble, though it was a mix of my normal gingery dirty blonde and a disturbing amount of whitish-gray. I stared at my face for a few seconds. The last time I could remember not shaving was probably back in 1990, or maybe at the end of 1989, before I officially entered the 1990 Congressional race. It felt strange – and strangely liberating. I slid my razor back into the slot in the holder and put the blades back in the medicine cabinet.
"Wrong blades?", asked Marilyn.
I turned to her and smiled. "No, they're the right ones."
"So?"
"So, I don't want to shave this morning.", I told her.
She gave me an odd look and put her hand on my forehead. "Are you feeling all right? You don't seem feverish."
"Why?", I laughed.
"You always shave! I'd send you to the hospital, but the last time that happened, you had to be shaved there, too!"
I stepped back from the sink and went to the closet, grabbing a pink Hawaiian shirt with bright green parrots on it, and slipped into it, along with a pair of bright blue swim trunks. Color coordination, that's the Buckman way! I turned back to my wife, rubbed my face, and asked, "How's this for a look? Which of your brothers do I look like now?"
"Ooooh! That's mean! I am going to tell them you said that!" She pulled a beach cover-up out of a drawer and pulled it on. "Gabriel, maybe." I snorted out a laugh at that. Gabriel's beard was so heavy that his five o'clock shadow showed up at four, and his salt-and-pepper hair was more salt than pepper.
"Really? I'd have thought maybe your sister Pearl."
Marilyn started coughing. "You behave!" Then she giggled. "Besides, you asked which brother you looked like."