FZ2878

“Damn it was hot in there.” George slumped in the leather seats of the diplomatic Mercedes Benz limo he had gotten on loan from the Chinese Government. He looked at the floor suspiciously, tensed, and then relaxed as he remembered the Secret Service had had the car for twenty-four hours. They had checked it out with a flea comb. He adjusted his air vent so it blew right on his face. “It was goddamned hot in there.”

“Oh it wasn’t that bad, George, stop complaining, it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Christ Laura, it was hotter than a Texas taco.”

Follow up:

Trying to ignore him and his stale colloquialisms, Laura sat back in the seat, let out a sigh, and gazed out the car window. It was past midnight, but the streets of Beijing were still crowded as they crawled to their hotel. The flashing blue lights of their motorcade, played with a strobe effect off the hundreds of quizzical faces Laura Bush saw as they passed by at the bottleneck speed of fifteen miles per hour. The military lined the motorcade route almost shoulder to shoulder. She had been uncomfortably hot too, but she wasn’t about to admit it to the Chief Executive, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of agreeing with him. Not tonight. George had acted like he always did at these kinds of things. It had gone on too long for his short attention span, and whenever that happened, and his ADD kicked in, he acted like a chimpanzee on speed. She wouldn’t be putting on his favorite red, white, and blue sheer negligee tonight, that’s for sure, even if it is their first night back in China.

The Next Morning

George was in a fowl mood because Laura had given him the cold shoulder all night. And to piss him off even more, the hotel living room never seemed to get cool enough for him, and he was going to be late for his meeting with President Hu Jintao. He was sure the little bastard would hold it against him even though it was his freakin’ traffic that was tying him up. In frustration George pounded on the leather armrest with the palm of his hand.

He slid open the Plexiglas divider between he and his driver and asked “Hey Tank, how much further to this fiasco?”

“Another ten minutes at least sir. Are you okay back there?” After almost six years as the Presidential chauffeur, Tank knew the Commander in Chief was just in one of his antsy moods.

“Make it five and I’ll get you a promotion to Colonel, Major.” George smiled, he liked to pull rank.

Tank smiled too, but when he looked at the slow procession of vehicles before him, he turned back to his passenger and said in an apologetic tone. “Sorry Mr. President, sir, you want me to run a couple of them over and take the sidewalk?”

George nodded and chuckled. “Yeah, yeah Tank go ahead, they can sure spare a few.” He chuckled again, and could still see a smile reflected in the dark-tinted windows as they finally maneuvered into the heavy security of the government compound. Chinese soldiers were everywhere, and it took three check-points to finally get to the back where President Hu would be waiting for him.

Even though he was ten minutes late for the scheduled meeting, Hu made him wait another five minutes in an ornate office that was set for small meetings. Sitting in front of two enormous floor-to-ceiling paned windows were four hand-carved wooden armchairs, with red brocade cushions on the seat and back. Red was everywhere in this country, and without white and blue to go with it, red always made George nervous. Plus, like everywhere else in China, it was warm in the little room, and George was sweating again. He paced in tight circles and saw what looked like an air conditioning vent, he put his hand up to it but nothing was coming out of it. Damn barbarians, he thought.

The man was preceded by his footsteps echoing in the marble hallway, but when the cigarette smoking President Hu and his translator walked into the conference room, George remained seated. The young translator he had borrowed from the U.S. Embassy hopped out of his seat and looked back at the President trying to figure out why he was standing alone?

“Sit down Daniel, the bastard did it on purpose, didn’t you Hu?” Daniel Thomas Chang, second generation Chinese-American translator in the U.S. State Department, looked horrified.

Hu fought it, but then he couldn’t hold it back any longer, and cracked up spewing a huge cloud of cigarette smoke. “I got you George.” Still coughing, he choked out. “Payback’s a bitch, huh Mistah Plesident.?”

Shaking his head, George got up and gave Hu a big friendly bear hug. They were slapping each other on the back, and laughing like old college buddies, when Hu noticed the clock and saw the time, he remembered that his duties as the President and Paramount Leader of the Peoples Republic of China were many, and it was time to get down to some serious business. Besides, he was meeting the French President and his hot wife for lunch at noon, and he didn’t want to be late for that. “Prease sit.”

In the presence of their interpreters the two leaders discussed in predictably general terms, the “nucular” crisis in North Korea, global warming, human rights, and Tibetan autonomy. The translators heard the words they expected to hear from both leaders, with each holding his country’s stance to the letter. After twenty-four minutes of talking, they both got up without any words or signal indicating to do so, and the host invited the guest for a brief walk in the garden behind the building.

Translators traditionally do not come along on personal moments such as this unless invited by their charge. On this hot August day, it would just be two of the most powerful men in the world taking a friendly stroll in the ornate garden by the fish-stocked pond. Songbirds hopped around the branches of the Chinese Maple trees that lined the path around the pond, their song filled the stifling air with hope of world harmony.

“Hey Hu, I’m sorry about those cracks to the press on my way here. But you know if I hadn’t the press would be eating me alive.”

“I don’t care about that, I no give visa to trouber-makeh athrete. Anyhow I no see how it could get much worse for you in pubric opinion, I cannot imagine how you put up with that fleedom of the pless. I don’t have that plobrem here.”

“I know what you mean, but I’ve got that damn constitution hangin’ over my head, it’s got me by the short hairs Hu.”

“Neveh mind yaw plobrems what about mine? What about your successor, how you doing with that? It’s vely impoltant you know, and the best he can do is come out with this clap making Blitney Speahs and Palis Hirton rook bad? I rike Blitney Speahs. We not pay good money foh clap rike dis.”

“Don’t worry about a thing Hu, we can’t lose we’ve got the fix on it. Besides the American people just aren’t ready for that much change.” And George started fake-laughing at his own joke, and then stopped when he saw he was fake-laughing alone. He tried to sound serious “Look Hu, the trade agreements are safe, we’re locked in for the next hundred years.”

Just hearing the word “hundred years” and Hu lost patience “And that’s anotheh thing, what’s with McCain saying you stay in Ilaq for hunded yeahs. He stupid aw what?”

“Yeah I know Hu, he missed his medication that morning. Since then, we’ve briefed his wife, and made it very clear we don’t want anymore screw-ups like that.” George shook his head. “Anyhow the deal is the same, when he gets in, nothing changes.”

“It better not, it better not indeed.”

The historic talks took a total of thirty-one minutes, and during the drive on the way back to the “hotel” that was more like a fancy military fort, the President of the United States, the most powerful man in the Free World, had a lot on his mind.

“Thirty minutes, and all he offers me is glass of water? And what’s wrong with the air conditioning in this country? If they can’t afford a Trane, they could have at least had a couple hundred people fanning us. Chuckle, chuckle. Maybe I should see how much it costs to ship air conditioners over here. Hell it’d probably cheaper just to fax’em the plans so they could make their own. Probably cost about twenty bucks in parts and labor and we could by em back for a couple hundred, and then everyone would be happy. It was hotter’n a Mexican’s armpit in that hole of room he had us in today. Man I could go for some Tex Mex for lunch. Fat chance, I’ll have to eat some kind of squid or something gross with baby corn fetuses. Hey what’s Laura’s problem? She was colder’n a frozen Margherita. Chuckle, chuckle. Hey I got yer hot tamale right here."

Reality Fiction by William S. James, really.