JANUARY: SET UP STRATEGY
The next several days showcased me at my best: locking myself in my room and working. I ran Internet searches and pored through data, made calculations, and created action plans. I was thankful Peter honored my request for privacy.
Beth came by several times, but I ignored her.
“You're being immature!” she said through my barricade. “Let's talk about what happened.”
“I've got more important things on my mind,” I answered.
She would storm off and return several hours later.
I continued to dissect our political system for the next five days. When Beth came by on Sunday, I unlocked the door when she knocked.
“Well, it's about time.” She entered my room and plopped on the bed. “Are you trying to invent sticky-note wallpaper? You can't even find the windows in here.”
“It's all categorizedâdon't touch anything.”
“About the other day,” she began. “I used bad judgment. It was a mistake.”
“Was it?” I wasn't going to budge on this one.
“Do you think it was?” she asked.
“Do you?”
“I didn't until you locked yourself in your room for a week.”
“You think I've been in here obsessing about
you
?” I loved having the upper hand with herâfor a change. “I've been setting up the groundwork for my next project.”
She bounced on the bed with enthusiasm. “Are you going to make a comeback? Run for the state rep seat?”
“I've decided to push the envelope a little farther this time.”
“Josh, this is great. Wait till I tellâ”
“Duckie?”
She swatted me in the arm. “I knew he bothered you. I knew it!”
I inched closer to her on the bed. “I've been doing a lot of thinking these past few days, and I want to ask you something.”
She didn't back away from me. “Sure.”
I leaned in toward her, close to her ear. “Will you be my running mate?”
Her puzzled expression was priceless.
I described my plan in detail, answering her questions with plausible explanations. “Come on, it'll be fun.”
“When we talked about resurrecting Larry, we were thinking more in terms of the publicity and media attention,” she said. “We never thought of taking it so wideâ”
“Yeah, well, maybe Simon just doesn't have enough vision.”
She got up from the bed and headed toward the door. “That's what this is all about, isn't it? Pissing off Simon?”
I pointed to the hundreds of sticky notes plastered around my room. “Yeah, this is all about Simon. Give me a break.”
She didn't say goodbye, just bolted from the room. But from my vantage point,
39
I watched her pace through my yard for twenty minutes. I dashed back to my room as she reentered the house.
“Okay,” she said. “But we're partners. We make every decision equally, no lying like last time.”
“Deal.”
“One more thing.” She pulled herself up to her full height, just a few inches shorter than my own. “I'm with Simon. This is not up for negotiation. Whatever happened, happened.”
“Or whatever happens, happens.”
She looked at me in anger, then smiled when she saw I was laughing. “We're going to do this,” she said. “Really blow this old, rich white man thing apart.”
When I kissed her, she didn't stop me.
“I've got to admit,” she said when we came up for air, “you do have the best ideas.”
“The Wizard, at your service.”
“Oh my God, I have to call my adviser and arrange to take more time off. And Simon! He'll have a million suggestions.” She gave me a squeeze and left.
As much as I tried not to wonder what Simon would think of my plan, his opinion did matter. I opened the kitchen window to hear something, anything, but nothing came.
I drove to the old Victorian downtown that Peter was helping to renovate and told him the news.
“President of what?” he asked.
“Uhm, the United States?”
“Butâ”
“I know I can't
really
run, but there are so many issues I want to call attention to.”
He started laughing. “I didn't know you were interested in a political career.”
“I'm not really, just interested in change.”
He nodded without speaking.
“This isn't one of my phases,” I said. “Not like when I was obsessed with being the next Mel Blanc. I'm going to follow through on this one.”
“Till the Board of Elections puts the kibosh on the whole thing.”
“I've got some ideas on that. But firstâwill you be my campaign manager?”
He almost dropped his can of semi-gloss. “Josh, I don't know what to say. All those years weâ”
“Hated each other?” I suddenly flipped back into the interrupting, argumentative kid I'd always been with him.
“We did hate each other, didn't we? Such a waste of time.” He told me to count him in, but we'd have to talk later because he had only a few hours of daylight left to finish up the trim. My new campaign manager then wiped his brow and headed back to his ladder.
Â
Â
Beth, Simon, and I worked through the afternoon and evening. Besides the snow angel episode, I hadn't seen Simon since Beth had visited me on my vision quest. When she left to get the adaptor for her laptop, he walked over to the window.
“You can stop smirking,” Simon said. “I know all about you and Beth.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“She told me everything.”
“She told you about us?”
“Down to the last muddy details. It's fine. Don't worry about it.”
“She
told
you?”
Simon shrugged. “On to more important matters, yes?”
MORE IMPORTANT MATTERS? While Simon outlined his campaign ideas, I thought about his casual attitude toward Beth and his no-need-to-worry attitude about me. Even with that amazing afternoon with his girlfriend, I was obviously not considered much of a threat.
But it was hard to hate the guy; he worked hours as long as I did, was passionate and committed to change. He had been home-schooled, tutored by Oxford graduate students, and already held three patents.
40
I had no choice but to bond with him; we needed his input.
Besides, he loved Monty Python. And when Beth walked in on Simon and me doing the cheese shop routine, she looked at us both with such equal affection, it almost didn't matter that she went home with him.
41
Â
Â
The first thing I had to do was rise from the dead. My mind raced through several scenarios from staging a revisionist reenactment of the Resurrection to taking out a full-page ad in the Globe. In the end, I went with the mundane choice of holding a press conference.
I tried to call Janine to tell her before I went public, but she must've still been in Seattle visiting her parents for the holidays.
42
My e-mails to her went unanswered.
Peter called the various local and national media, stating he had news about his stepson who had been presumed dead. It didn't take long for the newspapers to comb their archives for news first on my “capture” by betagold, then on my “death.” Once they realized the potential story, they raced to the house for the 4 PM. conference.
From the safety of my room, I watched the all-too-familiar phalanx of television equipment fill the street and came down with a serious case of flop sweat.
“This was a giant mistake,” I told Beth.
“It stinks, but after this we can concentrate on the campaign.”
I pointed to the reporters descending on the front lawn. “They don't want to hear me talk about issues. They just want the dirt on my âdeath.'”
“They don't want to hear
anyone
talk about issues. They'd rather write about you dashing across the country like that guy in The
Fugitive
.”
Peter entered the room, a ringmaster about to take the stage. He wore a hand-scrawled LARRY FOR PRESIDENT T-shirt he'd painted that morning. “How're you holding up, Josh?”
“Not well.”
“You want to change your mind, you can.”
He and Beth looked at me expectantly. “Let's get this over with,” I said.
When I walked out the front door, the whir of the shutters and videocameras sounded like the clicking lock on a door being closed. I suppose there are many kids who dream about this kind of fame, but it's a whole lot different from the inside, believe me.
I read from my prepared statementâthat the media glare had driven me to extreme measures, that I regretted the pain I'd caused my friends and family, etc., etc., etc. It began to dawn on me why I had hidden behind a screen name in the first place. I'm not someone who normally spends a lot of time worrying about getting rejectedâbecause I've had so much practiceâbut ! I could actually feel the crowd scrutinize every word from my mouth. I was forced to muster all the persistence I had to finish my statement without heading for my hole in the woods mid-sentence. I was bombarded with questions: Was
my pseudocide pre-meditated? Had I committed fraud?
43
Was I starting up the Web site again? I finally got around to why we were all there.
Politicians assume young men and women of my generation are too apathetic to actually stop them from looting the world's cookie jars, but they are wrong. There are millions of young people in this country who are sick to death of suits running the show with a blatant disregard for the price future generations will have to pay for their greediness and arrogance. You may not realize this, but we are part of the backbone of this country. We're the ones who make your coffees, serve your food, clean your houses, watch your kids. And what do we get in return? Wages so low we have to work two jobs, with no health care, no benefits. In what kind of universe does that make sense? We're only important to you as consumers, when we're spending our hard-earned money on your STUFF. This is OUR country tooâwe deserve a say in things.
The late Senator Paul Wellstone once said, “Let there be no distance between the words you say and the life you live.” I, for one, am ready to put my time and effort where my mouth is.
I know at my age it's impossible for me to serve as president of the United States,
44
but I'm tossing my hat into the ring to raise the many issues young people have with the way this country's goodwill and natural resources are being exploited into extinction. Our leaders are supposed to work for US; they should be doing what WE want them to do, not the other way around.
As much as I hate the thought of being back in the public eye, I can't sit in the comfort of my privacy and hope that other people will address these issues. That is why I am declaring my candidacy for president of the United States of America. I will run as the candidate from the PEACE PARTY, an independent third party we announce today.
I introduced Beth as my running mate and told the reporters we'd be announcing our campaign schedule within the week.
I asked if there were any questions. Big mistake.
A man in a dark blue suit smiled politely. “You disappeared for two years, right? Pretended you were dead? How can you possibly think that's the kind of person this country wants in the White House? How can you be trusted?”
Before I could answer, someone else chimed in. “Don't you think we need someone who takes his responsibilities seriously?”
“Someone who has responsibilities,” a woman added. “Do you even have a job?”
I told her that, believe it or not, running for president would be a full-time commitment.
“But before that, did you work?”
“I've worked lots of jobs all across the country. My last positions were assistant baker and videostore clerk.”
Outright laughter.
“You probably live at home,” the woman continued. “With your stepfather paying the expenses.”
“Yes, butâ”