Chapter 155: Muddling Through

Charlie was supposed to stay with us for about three weeks before he headed back to Camp Lejeune. I looked at him one day when he was swimming in the pool and had on just a pair of swim trunks, and there were a lot of scars and wounds all over. I still didn’t understand how he hadn’t died. He commented that it was the clean living, and I told him that must have been somebody else, since he didn’t know the meaning of the words.

Charlie mostly seemed the same old Charlie I had always known, but Monrovia had left some other scars on him as well. Every few nights he would get moody, and Marilyn commented to me that our son was going through a lot of beer. A couple of weekends after he got to the White House, I was directed to talk to him, and not by my wife, but by the Chief Usher. A few of the staff people were worried about him. I found him just sitting in one of the gardens on a lawn chair, and sipping from a bottle of Jim Beam, and just staring off into nowhere. I grabbed a matching chair and set it down to his left and took the bottle from him. Charlie gave me a dirty look, but I took a sip from it myself, and then capped it and handed it back to him.

“How’s it going, Charlie? Still in any pain?”

He snorted and uncapped the bottle and took a swig. “This helps.”

“No, not really. What’s up, Charlie? I’ve seen you busted up before. You never took too many pills or drank then,” I said.

“I was still living at home. I was a kid then.”

I shrugged. “Maybe so.” I took the bottle back and drank a bit more, but this time kept holding it. It was the same old sour bourbon taste that wasn’t my preference, but I was not about to send for a different bottle. “I worry seeing you like this.”

“Afraid somebody will see me?”

“That’s not fair, Charlie. I might be the President, but I am still your father. Don’t try and tell me that I shouldn’t worry about my children.”

“Yeah.” He looked at the bottle I was holding but didn’t demand it back. “I know.”

“It’s not just the pain, is it? That should be pretty much gone by now. What’s going on?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know what to do anymore. I have to get out in a few months, but I didn’t want to get out, but now I don’t want to stay in, either. I don’t know what I want to do.” Now he reached over and took the bottle back and had another sip. This time he closed the bottle and just stared off into space.

“Why don’t you want to stay in?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I liked it and everything, but when we got ashore...” He sat there for a few minutes, and then quietly, almost whisperingly, said, “I killed people.”

I took the bottle from him and had another drink. “I know, Charlie, I know.” He looked over at me bleakly. “I read some of the reports. I know it probably won’t make it any easier, but you had to do it.”

This time he didn’t grab the bottle back, but just turned and stared into space some more. After another couple of minutes, he said, “We train and we train and we train, but it’s just words. Then I had to service my target, and it was just a kid, and he was shooting at us, and I serviced my target. And then the target next to him, and then another target. And they weren’t targets. They were people, guys my age.”

“I know, Charlie. That’s the way it always is. I never liked it either.”

“I’ve heard some of the guys laughing it off, talking about blowing away guys, and I used to laugh, but they’re not just targets!” He kept staring, and then added, “I don’t want to service the target, and now they are giving me a medal for servicing the target.”

“No, Charlie, they are giving you a medal for saving lives, not taking them. Nobody would care if it was just you killing a bunch of gomers. They care because you brought your team home. That’s what you should always remember. You brought your guys home.”

He looked at me. “That’s what you did, isn’t it? You brought your guys home, from Nicaragua, I mean.” I nodded, and he said, “No, I mean, all of it. You killed those guys, didn’t you?”

It was my turn to crack the bottle and take a hefty swig. The nice thing about drinking booze you don’t particularly like? After you’ve had enough, you don’t care that you don’t like it all that much! It was good that I didn’t have to drive anywhere tonight. Or be very presidential, either, come to think of it. “Yeah, Charlie, all of it.”

“How do you live with it? How do you deal with it?” He wasn’t accusing me but wanted to know.

“Just like I told you. I got my men home. That was my job, my mission. I couldn’t let anybody interfere with that. I still see those men, sometimes when I am alone, but I also see the faces of the other guys, the guys who I got onto the choppers and who flew home.”

“Does Mom know?”

I nodded. “She knows. She doesn’t know all the details, but she knows. She’s known since you were a baby. Your mother is how I survive my own madness, Charlie.”

He reached out and took the bottle from me. “I don’t have anybody like that,” he said quietly.

“You have us. You have me and your mother. You have your sisters, though they probably won’t understand. They love you, though.” I thought for a second. “Charlie, tomorrow I want you to come with me and see Doctor Tubb. I know you’ve been seeing him, but you need to talk to him. I don’t know if this is post-traumatic stress or something else, but we can get some help. You are not alone. I have been where you have been. Others, too,” I told him.

“I’m not crazy!”

“I never thought you were. You want crazy, I’ll give you my mother’s address. Take this for what’s it’s worth, but on the scale of crazy, this barely breaks a sweat. I’ve seen crazy and you’re not in the big leagues. In fact, you barely make it into Little League!” He smiled at that; the first time I had seen him smile in weeks.

I talked to Tubb that evening, separately from Charlie, and explained what was going on. He told me the symptoms weren’t really PTSD, but more likely some form of guilt and depression, all mixed up with a realization of what had happened. Since Charlie was getting out of the Marines in a few months anyway, none of us cared if seeking treatment would be reflected in his records. He got Charlie transferred to the Military District of Washington and enrolled him in an outpatient counseling program at Bethesda. That seemed to help, a lot.

At the end of August, we had a very nice ceremony on the South Lawn and decorated the heroes from Green Delta. The Marine Corps Band was present, and we brought in everybody who was to be decorated, along with their families and guests. Charlie was over the worst of his depression by then, and he was the final recipient. The Marines got another ribbon for their battle flag, and the Tarawa group did so, also. There were a number of Purple Hearts, a few Bronze Stars, a couple of Distinguished Flying Crosses, and a single Silver Star. I personally pinned that to his chest, as Marilyn cried and beamed at him. Equally impressive was the French Ambassador, who showed up and pinned the Croix de Guerre on him, including kissing him on both cheeks. Charlie simply had that stoic Marine look plastered on his face, standing there in his Dress Blues through the whole thing.

After the ceremony, I asked him about the rescue incident. “What was that bit about you were the only one who needed to die? Since when did you get so self-sacrificing?”

Charlie looked at me funny. “What are you talking about?”

“When you were in Monrovia, and your buddy got hit, you told people nobody else needed to die but you.”

“Huh?”

It was my turn to look exasperated. “Charlie, I’m not making this up. We saw it on the video. Right after you rescued those two kids and were heading back, that other Marine tried to run back with you and got shot. Then you pulled him back and told the others to stay where they were. You were the only one who needed to die. I heard about that from a bunch of people! It was in the video!”

He stared at me for almost a minute, and then rolled his eyes. “Oh, you have to be kidding me!”

“Huh?”

“I never meant it that way! Sweet Jesus! I’m not that crazy! I was talking about Birdie, Tyrell Bird! I figured he had bought the farm! I didn’t want anybody else dying like him!”

I stared for a second and then began laughing. “Well, I won’t tell if you won’t. I wouldn’t want to ruin your reputation.”

Lance Corporal Buckman flipped President Buckman the bird. That was captured by the White House Photography Office, but was not released to the press, but only to Charlie and me. A month later he was out of the Corps, older and wiser, I guess.

While our son was getting his act back together again, he went home to Hereford with us for a few weekends. That seemed to help, too. He met with some old buddies from Hereford High, along with Bucky Tusk. Bucky was just out of Wharton, and was working for Tusker and Tessa, who were now planning on a third and fourth sales office. Charlie went down to Tusk Cycle and spent some time working on bikes with Bucky, and then rode around for a bit. Bucky came home with him, and we greeted him warmly. It had been several years since we had seen my namesake.

When they roared up the driveway, we came out and greeted them. For the twins, it had probably been several years since they had seen Bucky. “Hey girls, how you two doing?” He revved his engine for a second, and added, “Want to go for a ride?”

Holly laughed, and said, “No! How you doing, Bucky? Long time, no see!”

“Yeah, I know. How about you, Molly?”

Molly surprised me by saying, “Sure!” Charlie handed her his helmet and our youngest climbed up behind Bucky, and they peeled off down the driveway, with a War Wagon following. We went to the pool, and around ten minutes later, the thunder of a Harley announced their return. “Thanks, Bucky!” I heard, followed by some more thunder, and Bucky was gone.

“Too bad he left. I’m firing up the grill and doing some burgers,” I told Marilyn.

“He might be back. Tusker and Tessa are coming over. I got out enough for all of us,” she replied.

Bucky returned with his parents, and he spent a fair bit of time talking to Charlie. After dinner, they both came up to us and announced that Charlie was going to try racing again, with Bucky handling the details and acting as a crew, sort of. They were going to become an actual racing team, like in the big leagues. Tusker and I looked at each other. “Why does this sound familiar?” he asked me.

“Remember what I always used to tell you?”

“Yeah, and you still do, too.” He looked at the boys and said, “We aren’t saying yes, and we aren’t saying no, but we want to see a business plan. I didn’t pay for you to go to Wharton and not be able to write a business plan. You want our blessing and support? We want to see a business plan!”

They looked over at me, and I just pointed back at Tusker. “What he said.”

Charlie looked at Bucky, who simply said, “Okay.”

“And you keep working while you figure it out!” ordered Tusker. “It does not mean you come out here and hang out at the pool all day!” Tessa and Marilyn giggled at this.

I smiled at my old buddy. “Wow, where have I heard those words before?”

“I would throw a beer bottle at you, but the Secret Service would probably shoot me if I did.”

“An empty bottle, I would hope,” I replied.

“I’m sure not wasting a full one!”

“You’re smarter than you look.”

By the time Charlie was out of the Marines, the two of them had cobbled together a plan that looked like it might succeed. They were giving themselves two years to make it happen. The plan was to get back into racing in smaller regional races and get back into the swing of things, begin winning again, and find a major sponsor. From that point, they could leverage up into the big leagues, so to speak, racing in the AMA Pro Championship series. If Charlie wasn’t in the top tier in two years, he probably wouldn’t ever be. The only way Charlie could make a living at this was to get a top tier sponsor who would pay him, and then land some endorsements. The initial sponsor was going to be Tusk Cycle, like when Charlie was still a teen. Bucky, the Wharton MBA graduate with a lifetime of experience in the motorcycle business, was working even longer hours at Tusk Cycle, as he opened a third sales center in Laurel and ran advertising and marketing for the entire company. What did Tusk Cycle get out of the deal? Lots of cheap ads with local hero Charlie Buckman!

They worked up cost projections for the two years, as well as a budget, and figured out an investment structure. Tusker and I reviewed it, sent it back to the drawing board a couple of times, ran it through our lawyers, and then pulled out our checkbooks. He and I split the investment fifty- fifty. (Technically it was done through my blind trust. I had nothing to say about it. By the way, I have this bridge in Brooklyn, if you’re interested, at a very reasonable price.)

It felt good, just like the old days. Now, all we needed to do was wait and see if we had backed a winning horse, or motorcycle in this case. Charlie just wasn’t a ‘college’ kind of guy. If he wasn’t trying to break his neck in the Marines, he was going to try to break it somewhere else. In the meantime, Charlie would live at the house in Hereford, so he didn’t have to get his own place.

In October I had my first assassination attempt. I suppose that’s a landmark of sorts. Most Presidents get them, and almost every President since Hoover. As far as I had heard, only Eisenhower and Johnson hadn’t been targeted. Most of them are incredibly amateurish and put together by a whack job, but they often get lucky and hit somebody, though maybe not the President. The Secret Service gets paranoid about politicians, and politicians aren’t easy to protect. We can’t be hidden away 24/7, and the basic instinct is to meet and greet and shake hands.

The absolute first attempt on me occurred shortly after I took office, in January of 2002, when some of the hate mail I got was analyzed and a pattern was found. It’s illegal to even make threats against the President. A loony tune in Texas was investigated and taken into custody after a search warrant was obtained and his house was searched. The search found a lot of Semtex plastic explosive, some unregistered machine guns, and a bunch of maps of places in Washington. I guess I wasn’t his only target, but he never actually got to where he could hurt somebody.

This time, there was some actual violence. Martin L. Smusky, of Elmira, New York, decided to stop taking his meds, and then bought a gun and took the bus down to Washington. From the bus station he got a cab and took that over to the White House. He had on a baseball cap that was lined with aluminum foil. Rather than wait in line for the regular tour, he decided that the voices in his head wanted me to die right away so he simply walked up to the wrought iron fence around the White House, pushed a .38 snub nose Smith and Wesson through, and fired all five shots at the White House. This was totally nuts, since I wasn’t sure that a .38 snub nose could even hit the building at the distance he was firing from!

This all happened in the middle of the morning. He pulled the gun back and began fumbling out the empties, to begin reloading from a pocket full of loose ammunition, when he was captured by the Durands, a family of tourists from Bangor, Maine. Dad made a flying tackle on the guy, and then he and Mom sat on him until the cops and the Secret Service showed up a few seconds later. Meanwhile, their kids, three teenage boys who were completely bored with Washington, were taking photos and movies of everything. Washington suddenly was exciting!

It was over almost as soon as it happened. The Secret Service rushed into my morning meeting in readiness for the hordes breaking down the gates, but it never got quite that far. That’s not to make light of them, because all they knew was that somebody was firing on the place. After a few minutes they realized the fun was over and went back to their regular routine. Both Mr. Smusky and the Durand family were brought inside the gates for questioning, but the Durands were quickly released. The Secret Service told me about them and I had them brought up to the Oval Office, where I thanked them and took some photos with them. They were pleasantly awestruck.

Mr. Smusky was not so quickly released. He was bundled off to St. Elizabeth’s, the Washington psycho hospital, pending whatever legal action was going to be taken. I was forecasting a lengthy stay, and not one of his own choosing. The whole thing was on the nightly news that evening, but then died out. The Durands were minor celebrities for a few days, especially after a German tourist was discovered to have made a video of the whole thing and then sold it to a German network. The Durands even made it onto the Today Show!

As we went through the fall and into the winter, Congress moved along at its usual glacial pace. Various legislation crossed my desk, generally of a conservative nature in its fiscal and military implications. I was avoiding the hot button Democratic social issues. I didn’t ban stem cell research or screw with abortion, for instance, and I stayed away from ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’ I thought it was wrong, but I could count noses, and it would be years before Congress would go for me screwing with the policy. I also pushed for Justice and DEA to stop pushing on marijuana. We had better ways to fight this losing war than by chasing pot smokers. That did not earn me any favors from Ashcroft, who pretty much ignored me and didn’t change their policy. I didn’t feel strong enough to challenge him. Maybe when I replaced him, eventually.

I didn’t get exactly what I wanted, since Congress has to fuck with everything. As the saying goes, it’s not soup until the cook has a chance to pee in it. With Congress, you have 535 cooks, so there is an awful lot of pee in the soup.

I also got the budget passed, this one the first that could be labeled as a Buckman budget; again, I got mostly what I wanted. I had to throw a screaming tantrum once or twice, but it got through the system and passed in both houses. It was pretty much a standard Buckman budget. Don’t screw with tax levels, no new programs, fund the programs we did have. One of the areas I made sure was funded was SEC and Justice Department prosecution of financial crooks. Congress might have been bought off by the securities and finance industries, but I hadn’t been. I let it be known, loudly and publicly, that financial crooks would be prosecuted by the Buckman Administration.

Holly and Molly found that fame was not all that wonderful at times. Playboy had a picture of them walking across campus in their ‘Girls of the ACC’ article. Thankfully, they were fully clothed, and they told Marilyn they hadn’t even known they were photographed, or been asked to do anything, not that they would have. Marilyn would have killed them! Meanwhile, Penthouse had a standing offer of $500,000 to each of them if they did a centerfold. The twins asked if I would match the offer not to do it; their mother moved to smack them both, but the girls laughed and scampered away.

That fall Ari Fleischer brought me a new crisis to deal with. Saturday Night Live had invited the twins to guest host in November! Worst of all, the girls knew about the invitation, so we couldn’t just sweep it under the rug and conveniently forget to tell them. “I don’t suppose that they are going to make our lives easier, and decide they don’t want to do it?” I asked him.

“I got the overall impression that they wanted to know how soon they could go,” he replied.

“Great! By the time those two are through with New York, we’ll end up with another Civil War!”

“Don’t be so negative, Mister President. I’m sure we’ll be able to limit the damage to your resignation or impeachment.”

“You are not making any Brownie points with me, Ari!”

I tried a number of things when we called the girls that night at college. First, I suggested that Marilyn travel with them, but that went over like a lead balloon. They were nineteen years old and didn’t need their mother to hold their hands everywhere! I played the ‘you’ve got classes’ card, but they trumped that by replying they would do it when school was out for Thanksgiving. Then we tried to guilt them into not going ( Thanksgiving!), but they weren’t buying that one, either. We hung up in defeat.

Marilyn looked at me and I just threw my hands up in surrender. “What’s the worst that could happen?” she asked.

“I don’t know. They could be arrested? I could lose the election? New York could secede from the Union? Either one of them is bad enough, but together they are dangerous!”

Marilyn laughed at me. “Just tell them their Secret Service detail has been authorized to shoot to kill, and that you’ve promised them all executive pardons. Face it, Carl, your little girls are grown up.”

“Bah humbug! If they are grown up, what does that make us?” That would make us old, was the answer.

“Wait until the press finds out they registered as Democrats, just like their mother,” she teased.

My eyes popped open at that! “No! They didn’t! Traitors!” Marilyn laughed even harder. I wasn’t sure if this was true; it would be just like her to lie about this to tease me. It would end up a running family joke!

Saturday, November 29, Marilyn and I watched Saturday Night Live to see what our daughters would get into. I should have gone to bed. Ari Fleischer was going to kill all of us on Monday morning, if he didn’t die of laughter before then. The opening sketch involved a variant of the ‘bring your dog to work day’ they had pulled on me, only ‘Stormy’ got loose, rampaged through the Oval Office, peed on the Chinese ambassador, and pushed the big red button on my desk, launching the nuclear missiles - “LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT’S SATURDAY NIGHT!” The twins did an opening monologue about living in the White House, and then later were in a sketch where they were going out on a double date, and were being shadowed by their Secret Service details, only their bodyguards were so close they were rubbing shoulders and stayed between the girls and their dates the entire time, even when dancing.

We called them after the show and spoke to them briefly. They were very excited and heading out to a party with some of the cast members. Their mother and I just rolled our eyes and prayed they didn’t end up on the front page of the New York Post. It’s not like I was going to win New York in any case, but I didn’t need the grief.

A week after the girls went on SNL, I was back in the news. Saturday, December 6, was the Army Navy Game. Marilyn begged off, but Charlie and I took Marine One up to Philly for the game. I had a standing invite to the game and had attended in 2002. This year it wasn’t an option; I had named the bet and I had to go! Charlie and I were escorted to the center of the field and flipped the coin at the start of the game. To reflect my ‘non-partisan’ position as Commander in Chief, I spent the first half on the Navy side, and then moved to the Army side at halftime. Charlie stayed on the Navy side the entire time, the rat! Worst of all, Navy handed Army their ass, winning 34-6! Oh, the shame of it!

Two weeks later I made good on the bet. Friday night, the Buckman family hosted the Navy team, players, coaches, and all, at the White House. We served coq au vin, which had been added to the White House repertoire of official recipes. I had Charlie wear his miniature Silver Star ribbon on his suit coat. He no longer looked like a hard-core Marine since he had grown a Fu Manchu mustache and his hair was now long and curly. Those boys were Charlie’s age, but they saw that Silver Star, and tended to stand a little straighter around him. The girls liked it too, since pretty girls liked being around a bunch of big hunky guys in uniforms.

The next day I took Marine One up to West Point, where the staff had set up a mess tent in Michie Stadium. It wasn’t ‘Fort Frostbite’, but it was cold enough. I ordered that all honors be dispensed with, so the football team had no idea I was coming. The boys took it with a lot of humor when I showed up in a BDU and jump boots, complete to the black-on-camo rank badge of a captain, an 82^nd Airborne patch, and the appropriate qualification and award patches. They might have been dining on MREs, but the Commander in Chief was dining with them, and we had secretly set up a very nice dessert (cherries jubilee, complete with flaming Kirschwasser over ice cream) in Washington Hall. I sat with the cadets, and they showed me how to eat an MRE. I told them, truthfully, that no matter how bad they were, they were still a whole lot better than the Lurps I had dined on in my time in the Army.

I had one interesting conversation with a few of the cadets over dessert. Cadet Lieutenant Miller asked me, “What is the insignia for a Commander in Chief, sir?” after looking at my captain’s railroad tracks.

I smiled. “No idea, Mister Miller. Five stars makes you a General of the Army, but I think Bradley was the last one of those. I don’t think we ever had more than that.”

Another cadet piped up and said, “Technically there is a higher rank, a General of the Armies, which has been granted to Pershing, Washington, and MacArthur, which is theoretically six stars, though nobody ever issued the rank badges.”

“Huh! Well, I suppose the Commander in Chief outranks them, so what does that make me? Seven stars? Eight? Sounds silly to me.”

Miller asked me, “You were a captain, right?”

I nodded. “Yep. Let me tell you fellows something. I’ve had people tell me that my money has bought me a lot of things. I bought my seat in Congress, the VP slot, the presidency,” I grinned and added, “ ... a good-looking wife ... you name it.” I reached up and tapped the rank badge. “Say what you want. I earned this. One of the proudest days of my life was when I pinned on these bars. My money had nothing to do with them.” I then tapped my qualification badges. “Same with these. Bullets can’t tell how much money you have. No matter how much money I will ever have, or how much crap I take from people, I can stand in front of a mirror and honestly say, ‘I earned this.’ That’s something I will always be able to say.” Then I grinned and added, “The good-looking wife I also earned, but that’s a whole different story!” That got a lot of laughs, but I could tell the boys were thinking about what I said. Then I told them about the time a New York financier tried to take over the Buckman Group back in the early days, and when we politely rebuffed him, he made a threat to bankrupt us. I had dryly told him that I used to jump out of airplanes in the middle of the night and kill people, so it was going to take a whole lot more than a jackass in wingtips to make me nervous.

Over the winter school break, we made the official announcement I was running for reelection. We all flew out together, Marilyn and me, the twins, Charlie, and even Stormy, and flew into Oklahoma City. Frank Keating was out of office now, and I met with the Democratic Governor, Brad Henry. After that, however, he was sent packing, since there was no way he was going to want to travel with me to Springboro. I was doing my official announcement at the place that had put me on the national political map, so we took the motorcade to Springboro, and did the announcement in the school gym, which is where I was speaking when the tornado alarm went off that day.

That had been three years ago, and Springboro took me to their heart. It didn’t hurt that Marilyn and the girls were looking pretty, or that Charlie was a certified hero, or that Stormy was the big idiotic mutt from Springboro. I gave a nicely rousing speech about the can-do spirit of ‘ Oklahoma Strong!’ and how I was going to take that spirit with me as I toured the country and spoke to great Americans just like them. Big on emotion, soft on details. Politics 101. The Torquist family was there, front row center, and we greeted them, and I introduced them to Charlie. Tom Torquist had been a Marine, too, so he pretty much got the local American Legion to swear out oaths of loyalty to me. Afterwards we drove over to their new house and looked around. Maggie the dog had another litter of puppies; this time I refused!

Afterwards I went to Shawnee and did another campaign stop at the hospital and spoke about the wonderful things they were doing, and then we went to Oklahoma City, did a fundraiser and speech, and stayed the night. Once we were back on the plane flying home to Washington, Charlie immediately begged off the campaign trail. “How do you put up with it?” he asked.

“It helps if you drink a lot,” I told him, at which point Marilyn punched my arm. Then I added some fuel to the fire, by saying, “It helps even more if you can fly around with a cute White House intern.” My daughters started to squawk at that, and Charlie just laughed.

“Your father thinks he’s funny,” said my wife.