Ten Minutes Fast, Chapter 3, "It's No Joke" (Part ll)
... It's still not funny.
"Funny" is a matter of perspective. Gallows humor, for example. Some people find it funny, some don't. "Baby seal walks into a club ..." or the old joke about the two cannibals eating a clown. One turns to the other and says, "Does this taste funny to you?"
"Take my wife, please."
I'll be here all week ...
(Author's Note:?This Thomas Baker novel is largely based on true events. Some chapters are preordained with creative license in order to move the story along. This follows Baker's 'Sunset Playland', 'Sweet Land of Liberty', 'Something for Nothing', 'Exodus Afghanistan: A Personal Story', and 'Burnt Bridges and Loose Ends'. All of these can be seen, posted chapter by chapter in their unedited manuscript form in search of a formal publisher, on this LinkedIn web page in the "Featured" and "Activity" sections. Some names, places, and dates have been changed for privacy, personal protection, and national security)
Baker was on an assignment in Shanghai, China (see 'Sweet Land of Liberty'). He heard through his family network about what Jerome Little Wolf had done ... or almost done. He put the word out to have Jerome call him.
Two days later, Jerome Little Wolf called his Uncle Tommy ...
(Excerpt from 'Sweet Land of Liberty', Chapter 1, "Carved in Stone", published on LinkedIn July 2020) ...
“Are you out of your fucking mind, Jerome?!”?
Little Wolf, expecting this reprimand, said,? “No, sir ... yes, sir ... I don’t know, sir, maybe ... I ...”?
Baker interrupted, “Jerome, listen to me.? You did the right thing.? On both counts.? I’d like to shoot him myself, but that wouldn’t end well for anyone.? Besides, a bullet wouldn’t work, you’d need to drive a wooden stake through his vampire heart!? Where did Little Bighorn get Custer or the Lakota and the other Plains Indians?? Nowhere.? Dead.? All gone.? They are all dead and gone and here we are today with the same problems and worse.? Their actions, on both sides, were rewarded with... nothing.? You have to beat them at their own game, Jerome... WE have to beat them at their own game.”
Jerome said, “Yes, sir, but how do we do that?? The deck is stacked against us, and besides, they’re cheating.”?
Baker replied, “Right, but this isn’t the wild west where you shoot the card cheat under the table with your six-gun... or your sniper rifle.? The card cheat will be dead, another one will come along, and you’ll be swinging from the gallows in the morning.? You call that a win-win?”?
Jerome answered, “No, sir.”?
Baker continued, “Jerome, you are smart, and articulate... you have guts, and a faultless moral code.? You proved that to me every day since I’ve known you, and you proved it on July 4th at Mount Rushmore.? You always make the right choice. You are what an American president should be.? A real honest-to-God American president ...?
... How about that?... America's first real native American president. Now, you have a calling.”
Jerome: “A calling?? What’s that uncle Tommy? Are you talking about the dreams, visions, and the prophecies of my ancestors?”?
Baker: “Jerome, yes... I’ve thought about this and I’m not kidding ... I’m dead serious ... you could be the next President of the United States.? If not in 2024 then in 2028.? It’s within your grasp.? Grasp the nettle, Jerome.? Do it ... for your people, do it for America ... do it for me.? I don’t want America to die, I want to live to see America come full circle.? A better America.”
Baker wasn’t kidding.? He had identified Jerome Little Wolf as the perfect 'new generation' presidential candidate since his honorable conduct in Afghanistan, and especially in the way he conducted himself afterwards at peace rallies and as a community organizer.? And now, with his new staff advisor job in the governor's office (that Baker helped him acquire) he was well placed to move forward. He looked the part, he was a well-spoken gentleman, he had what it takes ... he was JFK and Barack Obama rolled into one.? He could do it.? It would be seamless.? He’d be the first true Native, Indigenous, American president.? It’d be so correct.?
A week later, Baker's assignment in Shanghai turned ugly with complications ... (see 'Sweet Land of Liberty').
(Excerpt from 'Sweet Land of Liberty', Chapter 1, "Carved in Stone", published on LinkedIn July 2020) ...
... Sitting in that dim basement in Shanghai, all this was on Baker’s mind.? The helicopter crash upped the ante on the whole situation.? “Who were those guys?”? He felt that his immediate problem at hand somehow fit into the bigger picture scenario.? Just then, Johnny, the cab driver, came rumbling down the rickety wooden steps in an excited frenzy.? He shouted to Baker and Huang Lo, “Guys!!! ... I just heard it, it’s all over the news!!! ... unbelievable!!! ... the American president has just been shot!!!.”? Baker and Huang Lo were stunned and just looked at one another.? Then Johnny added, “He may not be dead, they’re not sure of his condition, the details are just coming in ... but his wife, Victoria, the First Lady, was killed!”
领英推荐
(Excerpt from 'Sweet Land of Liberty', Chapter 19, "Stand and Deliver", published on LinkedIn, July 2020) ...
... Baker had to get out of that basement and out onto the street to get some bars on his phone.? His first call was to Jerome Little Wolf.?
Jerome answered on the first ring and immediately said, “It wasn’t me boss!”?
Baker said, “Really, Jerome, really? ... because I swear to God, Jerome, if that was you ...”?
Jerome cut in, “No, uncle Tommy, no ... really, it wasn’t me ... I swear!? It was some wacko.? The president was holding a rally in Utah after the debate and some guy jumped up on the stage and started shooting, with a short gun, a hand gun ..."
Baker immediately believed Jerome.? He knew him well.? Little Wolf was a Cheyenne Indian from South Dakota, and Indians never lie.? Baker loved that ...
"... and get this, uncle Tommy ... the president’s wife, Victoria, was with him, the First Lady ... he pushed her in front of him putting her between him and the shooter like a shield.? She was killed instantly.? The bullet passed through her, deflected, and it hit Goldfinger in the side of his face, his jaw.? I’m not sure of his condition but it doesn’t look bad.”?
Baker couldn’t believe what he was hearing.? Jerome Little Wolf continued ...
"... the shooter was killed instantly, shot by the secret service.”?
Baker asked, “Who was it?”?
Jerome said, “Don’t know yet, no ID on the guy.? The whole thing is kind of sketchy.? It’s like the JFK assassination.? The news I’m seeing has few details but it smacks of a planned multiple-hit conspiracy ... more like Lincoln.”?
Baker exclaimed, “Jesus!”??
Little Wolf pushed on ...
“... several republican senators were also targeted.? Mitch McConkle and Lindsay Ham were attacked, wounded but not killed ... and Paul Rand is missing.? The whole country is in shock and on alert.? It’s crazy here, even more than before!”?
Little Wolf was calling from his office phone in the South Dakota State House where he was an aide to the governor. Baker’s head was spinning.? Between the assassination attempt, the First Lady’s death, the pandemic which was still raging out of control, the presidential election coming up, and the newly revealed white supremacist horror of President Goldfinger after the first presidential debate ... and now his own personal crisis situation in Shanghai, Baker needed some answers, quick.? Hopefully, Dr. Fong and Val Grantham were close to the mask-applied vaccine they envisioned ...
It was terrible about the First Lady. Her fate was undeserved. But her husband, "Goldfinger", Baker's pet name for the president (he had a history with him) due to the strikingly obvious both physical and cultural similarities, was president no more. He lost the 2020 election. However, for a year after that, Goldfinger's wound to his jaw developed complications, "temporary", said the doctors, but he developed a slur in his speech which made him sound like Daffy Duck. The media loved it ...
It was funny.
John Kushma is a communication consultant and lives in Logan, Utah