Washington, D.C. (UPI) – Hero Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Sam Merrill and his wife, Amy, spent almost two hours at lunch in the third-floor private quarters of the White House today after a brief, deadline-timed photo op in the Rose Garden. The Merrills fly out of the nation’s capital tomorrow for, in the President’s words, “a much-deserved” vacation in the Bahamas…

In the mirror on the half-open bathroom door Amy Merrill could see over Sam’s bare feet to CNN’s Headline News on the television screen, the image mirror-reversed so the graphics looked as if they were printed on the Cyrillic alphabet. Sam had turned on the Headline News because he was still tracking the bullshit, as he called it. The phrase as good as any for the helplessness he felt in the face of the lies being told about him. You’re a hero, Sam. America needs a hero now. It had been a very long thirty days. The Merrills had found themselves propelled into the presence of people who not only believed the bullshit but worshipped it. For Sam, hours of briefings on exactly what to say to the media. For Amy, being guided by him to an understanding of how the government “wanted to play this deal”. For them both, through Senator Ward telling Sam how proud the American people were of him while he checked out Amy’s bod – not slyly, either – calling her “The Little Lady.” Was that the male euphemism for Tight Pussy? With “spunky” added later to mean Good Fuck? What was with that guy? He had clung to them like wallpaper. Given the focus of his gaze, she was surprised she had not heard him use the word Perky, that wonderful male word for girlish breasts – – or, for that matter, felt the Senator’s hand gliding down the curve of her ass.

It might have been hilarious if it had not been such madness. On the third floor of the White House even the President of the United States had sat in orphanage Sunday silence, his hand in his lap, while waiters in white jackets carefully served artfully decorated plates of cold poached salmon with dill sauce. The image of an intimidated – or bored – Chief Executive had left Amy thinking, This is the crap Sam risked our future for? Sam had told her that as the frail inflatable boat had come under the shadow of the abandoned big ticket sailing yacht, his stomach had almost failed him. What hadn’t failed him? His laughter had stopped. This was the man who had always been able to cheer her up, in his phrase. The headlines had overwhelmed the truth of the experience and even the truth of their lives, politicians chasing after him in search of photo ops all the way to the elevator to the third floor of Pennsylvania Avenue.