A New Hope (#6 of the Pride Series)

Part Six of Pride, More Pride and Quite a Lot of Extreme Prejudice (see the previous part):

The following day, the three Yeses are distracted, devising a ten-year plan for America’s production of orange juice preserved by the new deep freeze process, also Mid-Western pork bellies and harmful industrial emissions. Their mission is to ensure that, in all cases, America not only exceeds international targets, but exceeds them by more than anyone else.
Meanwhile, Mr Nayshore is sent off to form an opinion on an important Congressional question, which calls for a well-argued but politically-inexact opinion. A wholehearted ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would vex one or other of the campaign-funders, so it is vitally important that the task be handled by someone congenitally unable to escape the grey fug of indecision. Mr Nayshore’s guaranteed uncertainty is perfect.
With his intimate scene set, Frussterer can turn his attention to the main problem…. this lack of oil. There is no answer to this question which is a simple yes or maybe.
Professor Daville must be the man for him, a super-advisor for a super-leader, and although they’ve never met, Daville is from Harvard and Harvard is Frussterer’s alma mater, and a Harvard guy is obviously the person to breathe life into the glorious strategy of hope and renewed wealth, which must, in the next three and a half years, sweep across the nation. Probably, he thinks, sent to help him by God, though this is yet to be proven.
Tiffany has warned him, of course, that Professor Daville is somewhere to the right of Genghis Kahn, but the implied decisiveness is exactly the boost that Frussterer needs. Only a minority of the country voted and only a minority of them voted for him. Nevertheless Frussterer has been democratically elected, whatever that means in a universe under divine control. He has been charged with ‘delivering’, though he’s not quite sure what that means either, especially now when the main danger is ‘not delivering’: not delivering road miles, air miles, sea miles, light, heat, air conditioning, or the plastic for kids’ toys, or bubbles to the Jacuzzi.
On the other hand – he has to keep a balance in such things – he can’t help but wonder if such an advisor would be a threat to his own omniscience? He can’t afford to look intellectually inferior, to stand on a podium next to a professor who’s wearing an ‘I’m with Stupid’ tee shirt. Still brains is not power. Frussterer consoles himself that he is still Commander in Chief. He has an army, as Tiffany the Intern reminds him while massaging his ego and other tender parts of his anatomy. If necessary he is willing to scourge the nation. Herod-like, to kill every first-born professor.
Bring the academic on, he thinks. There is no other way to go. And so Frussterer’s secretary shepherds the eminent guest in…
The fledgling 93-Day President stands and walks towards his visitor ready to proffer a Presidential flesh-press, only to discover that he is wrong about Professor Daville on at least four counts.
Of course, Frussterer has the briefing report – ‘cautions’ advised by all too cautious advisors – but it has remained steadfastly unread on his desktop. He could at least have taken in the executive summary. He’s been in session with the Italian Prime Minster talking about pasta imports and he could have glanced at the title page while waiting for the simultaneous translation on the twenty-three different names for the whirly swirly shapes. He didn’t.
‘To fail to prepare is to prepare to fail,’ one of his dead predecessors once said as he carried the diplomatic box from mistress to mistress. Lack of time and preparation leads to assumption. Assumption leads to a dumbfounded dropping of the jaw.
The professor is:
Female, while Frussterer has made the rookie mistake of assuming that Professors, particularly Ivy League Professors, come in only one sex, and that would be male;
Seated in wheelchair, while Frussterer has stood up to greet the professor, expecting this to put them on some sort of level playing field;
Missing three fingers and a thumb on her right hand, a deformity that makes Frussterer’s hearty handshake a forlorn, finger pulling exercise;
And most shocking of all:
Black.
$   $   $
Later, Frussterer will compliment himself on the quickness of his mind: the way he regrouped and came back strong, his skill and diplomacy. It’s tricky and not all Presidents could have pulled it off, but then, that’s why he’s special.
First, he stops in the middle of the room, considering his misfortune. Covering his fluster, Frussterer says, “My, my, Professor,” and offers her coffee while he tries to think.
He knows, of course, that political correctness has become the touchstone of politics. While the world becomes ever freer, it becomes ever more complex. Even the secularly minded agree that, as democracy rises to the surface, it becomes no more than surface gloss. Lifted from poverty, the masses have no interest in government below the image. The correctness of the outer skin is, therefore, everything. Vanishing Cream and touch-up are everywhere in evidence. Dorian Grey remains the beautiful image, while the reality withers.
What whitewash – or blackout – must Frussterer put on this disaster? Now he’s committed to the meeting, he must at least listen to the woman. He will, of course, feel no obligation to take her seriously, but anything less than ten minutes would seem impolite, might even cause waves within the women’s groups, would cause ructions in the hard line black groups if they thought he’d shunned one of their intellectual elite, and God knows what wrath the various differently-abled groups might produce.
This could explode on him, if he isn’t careful. Basically, Daville could bring on the differently-coloured, the differently-sexed, along with the differently-fingered and the differently-legged. In other words, almost enough minorities to add up to a majority. One more, he thinks, and she’ll certainly have more in common with the average American than he does.
Beverley Daville seems, by contrast, unperturbed by the moment. She does not drink Coffee, she says, but she will have a ‘Coke’, if that isn’t too much ‘product placement’ for the White House.
Beverley Daville smiles with brilliantly pearly teeth and Frussterer fears his innate racism is leeching out as he finds himself inexplicably focused on the beam produced by her mouth. Tearing himself away, he sends his secretary to track down the requested beverage.
He manages to talk about the weather for five whole minutes without hesitation, deviation or repetition.
His mouth is dry when the Coke arrives and he wishes he’d ordered one for himself. Though actually it’s Pepsi, because Pepsi is all they have in the White House (a peccadillo of the previous incumbent) but no one tells either the Professor or the new President, and no one can actually tell the difference in a blind taste test anyway.
Clutching the Pepsi which she thinks is Coca-Cola, Beverley Daville wonders if she should tell the President about her one unseen dysfunction or keep it in the closet until later.
‘Ah, f*ck it,’ she thinks, ‘tell him.’

….. To be continued: on the 26th after a reverent break for Christmas Day.  See you after the turkey.  Meanwhile, here’s a run down of what we’ve had so far:

#1 Pride, More Pride and Quite a Lot of Extreme Prejudice

#2 Lessons in Economics and Theft

#3 A Question of Lost Anatomy

#4 A Dickens of a Problem

#5 The Possibility of a Saviour