The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (6 page)

“Snowing on my face,” Gertrude mumbled.

Then Freeda went to her desk and wrote a note to the President.

Dear Mr. President,
it read.
Today Phil, whom I previously so much respected, disassembled a fellow, an Inner Horner fellow, who seemed nice enough, and even had a family. Is this what we stand for here in Outer Horner? I hope not. Our country is big, let us be big. Phil is out of control, sir, and must be stopped. Please do something. We’re all counting on you.

Then she put on a cloak with a hood, walked to the

Presidential Palace, and slid her note under the huge jeweled door.

The lowliest butler read the note and passed it to a slightly less lowly butler, who passed it to the mirror-faced Advisor, who read it with grave concern and passed it on to the President.

“This is an outrage!” shouted the President. “Isn’t it? Isn’t it an outrage?”

“That depends, sir,” said the Advisor. “Do you think it is?”

“Well, it seems to me it is,” said the President. “Although I could be wrong. But we’ve never done that before, have we, this disassembling business?”

“Not unless you say we have,” said the Advisor.

“Get me Phil!” thundered the President.

“But sir,” said the Advisor, “I’m not sure, in light of your condition—”

“What condition?” thundered the President. “I don’t have any condition. Are you saying I have a condition? Are you saying I’m somehow getting worse or something? Are you saying I’m so old and fat and nostalgic that I’m becoming increasingly ineffectual and am always repeating myself in a state of perpetual confusion?”

“No sir,” said the mirror-faced Advisor. “I’m not saying that at all. You are no more old or fat or nostalgic or ineffectual than you were yesterday.”

“Really?” said the President. “Do you really think so? Thanks. Thanks for saying that. Look, let’s get this Phil fellow in here and clear this thing up before I forget how I feel about it and/or misplace this note.”

So the mirror-faced Advisor passed a note to the squat greenish skulky guy in charge of delivering messages, who went skittering over to Phil’s crummy apartment and slipped it under Phil’s nicked-up door.

What’s all this about disassembling someone?
the note read.
The President will see you first thing tomorrow morning.

The Presidential Palace was a gleaming gold-domed building with a vast high-ceilinged Entry Hall, decorated with paintings of various types of animals the President liked to eat, served on plates, although in the paintings the animals were still alive and had all their fur on and looked a little panicked.

As Phil entered the Intermediate Hall with the Special Friends, the mirror-faced Advisor pulled him aside.

“First of all, let me say,” whispered the Advisor, “in terms of the President’s condition, that I don’t want to imply that there are problems, with the President, with the President’s health, especially with his mental health, in terms of how nostalgic and ineffectual he’s become.”

“What Al is trying to say?” said a second Advisor, who had three identical smiles, one beneath the other on his perfectly round face. “Is that he is not, by pulling you aside like this and denying that the President is growing ever more batty, implying in any way that the President is in fact growing ever more batty.”

“Absolutely,” said the mirror-faced Advisor. “That is exactly what I am not saying. And furthermore, I am also not saying that we should work together to ensure that the entirely false news of the President’s alleged recent battiness not travel beyond these walls. On the contrary, I encourage you to think and say whatever you like, once you leave here, bearing in mind, please, that a weak, infirm, half-crazed President would not at all be the worst thing that could happen to a country that finds itself threatened by a hostile bordering power.”

“If we had that sort of President,” said the very smiley Advisor.

“Which we don’t,” said the mirror-faced Advisor.

“Unless you notice that we do,” said the very smiley Advisor.

“In which case we might,” said the mirror-faced Advisor.

“We could discuss that,” said the very smiley Advisor.

“The President will see you now!” boomed a third Advisor, basically just a mouth wearing a wig.

Phil entered the Great Hall. The President, surrounded by tables of souvenirs from his illustrious career, looked even fatter than he had looked at the border and seemed to have sprouted several additional mustaches.

“Phil!” said the President. “So nice to see you! Isn’t that your name? Oh, I remember that time at the border. What a sweet time that was! We won’t see the likes of those days again, will we? Sit down, dear boy. How do I look? I bet I look fatter than ever. Plus sadder. Lately I’m so sad. Do you know what I was thinking about? Just now? I was just now thinking about that wonderful time when you walked in just now! Remember that? I was so happy to see you! I remember that time so well! We won’t see the likes of those days again, will we? And you know what else I remember fondly? The time, just now, after you walked in, when I asked you to sit down, dear boy. Do you remember that? How I sort of patted the seat, the seat you are now sitting on? Oh, sweet memories! Wasn’t that a time! We won’t see the likes of those days again, will we? Everything passes so quickly in this life! It seems like just yesterday I was young and powerful, and now look at me, I can’t even get up. Too fat, I guess. Whereas even this morning, I could get up. Remember that, Al, remember this morning when I stood right up? We won’t see the likes of those days again, will we? I hopped right up, didn’t I?”

“Yes you did,” said the mirror-faced Advisor, giving Phil a look.

“I’ve been working very hard today, Phil,” the President said. “What I’ve mainly been working on is, first, trying to remember why I called you here, and second, deciding what to feel weepy about. Because lately my weeping has become a little unfocused. In the middle of weeping about my weight, I find myself suddenly weeping about my legacy. In the middle of weeping about something I should’ve said fifty years ago, I suddenly find myself weeping about the rate at which my pants seem to be getting tighter. And then suddenly I pause in my weeping to sit for hours at a time, recreating my childhood home in my mind. Nothing gets done! It’s become clear that I need a weeping schedule. That way, you know, you look at your watch, you look at your schedule, you know what you’re weeping about. Phil, do you remember why I called you here?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” said Phil. “You called me here for a report on the situation at the border. And I’m happy to report that I was recently able to gracefully quell a disturbing outbreak of violence at the border by enacting certain physical rearrangements designed to prevent further outbreaks of violence, thus rendering the instigator of the violence incapable of instigating further violence, via separating the instigator’s component parts and relocating them in discrete physical locations.”

“Curt,” said the President, to the Advisor who was a mouth wearing a wig. “Do you remember that time, I don’t know when it was, when you came in here and said I had a visitor? And I said, Curt, show him in? Oh, those were the days. When was that? Who was that?”

“That was just now, sir,” said Curt. “I said that when Phil here arrived.”

“We won’t see the likes of those days again, will we?” said the President. “Al, would you mind weighing me again? I’m curious. Also, let’s count these mustaches again. I feel like I’ve sprouted a few, even since those halcyon days way back when, this morning, when I hopped right up.”

So the mirror-faced Advisor lifted the President onto a scale while the smiley Advisor counted the President’s mustaches and confirmed that the President now had eighteen mustaches, whereas this morning he’d only had sixteen.

“Oh, this morning,” said the President. “Blessed time of sixteen mustaches and hopping right up. What did you want to see me about, Phil? Or did I want to see you? Did I summon you?”

Phil had a sick feeling but also an excited feeling. This was his President? This man was running his beloved Outer Horner? If Inner Horner mounted a full-scale invasion, this was the man who’d be leading the fight? He’d had the vague sense, out at the Border, that the President was not quite as sharp, perhaps, as himself, Phil, but now it was suddenly obvious that he, Phil, was his floundering nation’s only hope.

“Phil,” said the President, looking up at the Special Friends. ” Who are these lads? Makes me remember my youth, when I was big and muscular. Are they strong? They certainly are big enough.”

“They are very strong,” said Phil. “May I demonstrate?”

“Please,” said the President.

“Jimmy,” said Phil. ” Lift off the dome.”

And Jimmy stood up straight and lifted the Palace dome over his head with one hand.

“Ha ha!” said the President. “Bravo! Look at those birds flying in! That’s really something.”

“Now, Jimmy,” said Phil. “Step over that wall, while still holding the dome, and take the dome over to my apartment. Then come right back.”

“This I’ve got to see!” said the President, clapping his hands with delight.

And Jimmy stepped over the wall of the Palace, still holding the dome, and disappeared in the direction of Phil’s apartment.

“Well, we certainly get a lot more sun this way, don’t we?” said the President. “How about that other one? Is he strong too?”

“BRAVO! LOOK AT THOSE BIRDS FLYING IN!”

“Vance,” said Phil. “Take a wall under each arm. And carry them to my apartment.”

“Ha!” said the President. “That will be hard. A wall under each arm. Ha! Did you hear that, Ed?”

“Yes sir, I did,” said the smiley Advisor, looking at Phil with new respect.

Vance placed the north wall of the Palace under one arm and the south wall under the other, stepped over the east wall, and disappeared in the direction of Phil’s apartment.

“Oh boy!” said the President. “All we’ve got left is two walls! I have to admit, I’m feeling sort of nostalgic for the time when I had not only four walls, but a roof. I could just weep! Remember that, Al, when we had all our walls? However, I’m also looking forward to the time when my ceiling and walls are brought back, which I’m sure will be soon. Won’t it? Won’t it be soon?”

Jimmy returned, domeless, and stepped over the east wall.

“Now watch this, Mr. President,” said Phil. “You might think Jimmy here would be a little tired, but no.

Watch this. Jimmy, take the other two walls, one under each arm, and sprint to my apartment.”

“Sprint?” said the President. “Are you sure he’s not overdoing it? We wouldn’t want him to strain himself.”

Jimmy tucked the east wall under one arm and the west wall under the other, and took off at a sprint in the direction of Phil’s apartment.

“Well, well,” said the President. “I congratulate you! Those are two very strong boys. And they work for you? My Advisors, I like them well enough, but I don’t think they could do that. Do you boys think you could do that?”

The Advisors mumbled that, no, they probably couldn’t exactly do that.

“Well, Mr. President,” said Phil. ” I’d best be going. I have to get back to the border and collect my taxes.”

“Ha ha!” said the President. ” You, Phil, are a real go-getter. I admire that. Just, you know, have those large boys return my Palace whenever it’s convenient. When do you think it will be? In an hour or so? Sometime later today?”

“I’m pretty busy today,” said Phil. “I have problems at the border, as I’ve said.”

“Tomorrow then?” said the President.

“Tomorrow’s also not good,” said Phil.

“Well, Phil,” said the President. “As President I, you know, sort of need my Palace, otherwise …”

“Actually I think I’m going to keep the Palace awhile,” said Phil.

“Well, Phil,” said the President. “I don’t know how I feel about that. You’re not the President, I’m the President, I’m the one wearing the Presidential Cravat, and so, it would seem to me that I would be the one to decide when you should bring my Palace back. Right? Am I right in that, Al?”

The mirror-faced Advisor said nothing.

“That’s a nice cravat,” said Phil.

“Yes, yes it is,” said the President. ” Would you like to see it? If I let you see it, will you think about returning my Palace?”

“I’d love to see it,” said Phil, and took the Presidential Cravat off the President and put it on himself.

“Well, it looks nice on you,” said the President.

“Looks very nice on him,” said the mirror-faced Advisor.

“Super on him,” said the very smiley Advisor.

“Oh, I remember the time when I used to wear that Presidential Cravat,” mumbled the President. “It seems like ages ago. But it was just minutes ago, wasn’t it?”

” Yes it was,” said Phil.

There among the President’s many mustaches bloomed a slow look of understanding.

“We won’t see the likes of those days again, will we?” said the President.

“No we won’t,” said Phil.

“Mr. President?” said the mirror-faced Advisor. “Mr. Former President? May I just say what a pleasure it’s been serving you, even in this time of twilight and diminishing strength. Although I would be remiss, sir, if I didn’t add that I feel it was somewhat injurious for me, in the prime of my career, to have been serving you, someone growing increasingly weak, when I could’ve been serving someone strong and getting stronger. Strength is, sir, and I expect always will be, a lure for the ambitious and clever. Phil here has, sir, I think you must admit, a great deal of strength. He is not only strong, but getting stronger, I think you must agree, and—” “Are you leaving me, Al?” said the President. “I’m afraid so,” said the mirror-faced Advisor. “And are you leaving me, Ed?” said the President to the smiley Advisor. “Leaving me for Phil? Are you all leaving me? Is Phil now the President? Is that what you boys are saying?”