Faster on My Own: Chapter 25
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Armstrong’s delegates were as difficult as anticipated. It seemed like every one of them had heard of General Tellman and, after months of Armstrong dredging up every vile attack he could find against Steven, weren’t inclined to switch their vote. Steven approached Armstrong, who was appealing to a crowd of Steven’s delegates and getting stonewalled.
With a smile and a hand shake, they greeted each other. Various delegates stared at them, surprised to see such bitter enemies in conversation. A misunderstanding borne of political passion to be sure. Steven didn’t hate Armstrong, and didn’t care what Armstrong thought of him. You had to fight people to gain power. It was ugly and unavoidable. Steven said, “Trying your luck, huh?”
“Seems like they’re going to stick with you until there’s no hope, then flip to Tellman. If you hadn’t gone on about how I was going to let the government keep eating children, I might have had a shot with them.”
“Half of your voters think I look so young because I inject stem cells from aborted fetuses. That’s a tough one to get around.”
Armstrong laughed. “The trick to those is to never say them. You push it out through a friend of a surrogate and never acknowledge it. If it’s scary enough, boom, it’s everywhere.”
“I’ll have to remember that trick. If I ever get to run again.” Steven looked at the other end of the room, where Stannic sat expressionless in the middle of three laughing men.
“He’ll bury both of us. This was going to be my last shot anyway.” Armstrong cast a wistful gaze around the room, taking it all in.
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true.” Armstrong leaned in and whispered. His breath smelled like cream cheese and scotch. “They’re going to connect me to the bribery scandal eventually. I did it. I did the hell out of it.” He retreated and smiled like he just told a joke. “If I’m president, it’s too late to take me down, but it’s not going to take them four years to pin me to the wall.”
“Why are you telling me this?” It was strange, that a building with thousands of other people in it, designed to let natural light illuminate every corner of the main rooms, could feel like a coffin.
“Because the only way either of us gets out of here with the nomination is by combining our delegates. That’s a majority and there’s nothing Stannic can do about it.”
“Great, send them my way.” Steven said, knowing that it was futile.
“No. That’s my point. If I’m vice-president, I’m still going down. No one gives a shit about a vice-president.” Armstrong’s eyes widened and he smiled, as if he had been shocked by some pleasurable electricity. “I mean, it’s a prestigious position. Don’t get me wrong. But it doesn’t do me any good.”
“I see.”
“So that’s how I’m thinking about it. You need something to keep your career alive. Vice-president does that. But it doesn’t do anything for me. The only way we’re going to be able to do this is with a deal that benefits both of us.”
“And makes you president.”
“Yes. That’s how it’s going to have to work. Why would I make you president, if you doom me to investigation and probably jail?” The two men stood silently as people bustled around them. Imprudent as it had been to have their conversation in the middle of a crowd, they had caught no one’s attention. More to the point, no Republican delegate had the kind of credibility to report their conversation and be believed. They were a collection of every candidate’s most dedicated and detached-from-reality supporters, chosen to prevent any chance of defection. A hurricane raged in Steven’s mind. He’d been out-flanked, out-strategized. There was no time to work a new angle or change the situation. Unless he wanted a brutal fight with Stannic over the next four years, he had to take the deal.
Steven shook Armstrong’s hand, and felt the rough callouses brush against his own soft fingers. Pulling him in, Steven said, “If we win, and you fuck up even a little bit, I will primary you in four years. And I will win.”
“No chance. Be good and you’ll get it in eight.” Each retreated to his delegates to deliver the news. While Armstrong’s delegates cheered, Steven delivered the somber news. Some cried, some wailed, others received it with unexpected dignity. A few shouted that they would never support Armstrong, but most assented to the directive. After telling them what they had to do, Steven said, “I want you to know that this isn’t the end. It’s only a delay. Our dream is still within our grasp. But we must leave the cleared path and enter the jungle. It will be a longer and more difficult journey than any of us expected, but we will triumph.”
And like that, it was over. With their delegates combined, no scheme of Stannic’s could achieve anything. The announcement went out that Steven would be the vice-presidential candidate, and Keith Armstrong, the Republican nominee for president. When the time came for Steven to speak, shunted off to Wednesday night instead of the good timeslots on Thursday night, he wanted to go out on stage and pledge to fight to the bitter end. Indeed, fighting a losing battle against Stannic for the rest of his life would have been more satisfying than helping a conventional Republican become the president. But he had to serve The Plan. It didn’t matter if Steven’s hands were directly on the controls. As long as the government helped the rich strip mine society, revolution would come. Still, even as he extolled Armstrong’s virtues, Steven felt uneasy that he would not be the one to do it.
#
The campaign trail, which previously hid a thousand split-second decisions that could all doom his run for president, now bored Steven. As the vice-presidential nominee, all Armstrong expected of Steven was to not do anything scandalous and smile on camera. He had one speaking engagement a week and wasn’t even charged with the duty of campaigning to win his home state, as New York was unattainable. The only time he got to do anything was when Armstrong needed someone to go on television and deliver the platform positions no matter what the questions were. Steven could do that. But he missed the chase for power, the feeling of grabbing the reins as it tried to shake him and twenty other aspirants off.
Perhaps it would have been different if he had a role in securing victory. But other than the vice-presidential debate, where Steven won a decisive victory over a man with only one facial expression and no ideas, Armstrong kept him on the shelf. After getting Steven’s delegates, it appeared Armstrong had no use for him, which didn’t surprise Steven much. They had taken very different paths during the primary, and Armstrong didn’t want to upset a warming Republican establishment by legitimizing Steven, who spent his campaign trying to turn the base against them.
Worst of all, Armstrong spent the general election diving toward the center. Gone were his earlier promises to privatize social security, to eliminate food stamps. At one point in the primary, Armstrong had said, unprompted, that if unemployment carried a risk of death, everyone would have jobs. That president would have been good enough to keep The Plan moving. Lower taxes for the rich, another war in the middle east and coded language toward racism wasn’t going to move the boulder of American revolution at all. It would stay perched at the summit of the mountain when it needed to be rolling down faster and faster.
But Steven didn’t have any power to adjust that. He wasn’t invited to campaign strategy meetings, and now that the convention was over, he had to worry about Armstrong replacing him on the ticket if he acted out of line. Vice-president was still better than nothing, even if he would certainly be invested with less power than any vice president in recent history.When election day came, Armstrong gave Steven two tasks: get photographed while voting, and hang out in the convention center. There, he wandered through a crowd of people, all ogling the wandering child of the Republican party, a shell of the dynamo that nearly upended the whole thing. His role was to meet with the big donors, assure them of victory, and walk away before they could discern the simmering anger that grew more intense with every rich hand he had to shake. After listening to a good ten minutes of complaints about the estate tax, Steven snuck away from a conversation and ran headlong into Robert Stannic.
“Hello.”
Stannic’s version of a smile— a light head tilt and narrowed eyes— greeted him. “Mr. Williams.”
“Please, Mr. Williams is my father.”
“I know, we’ve met. I want to congratulate you on your campaign with Mr. Armstrong. You’ve reached the precipice of victory. I was wrong to treat you as political poison. That may have been foolish of me. Though we only know how you performed as a vice-presidential candidate.”
“I mean, you thought Armstrong was a doomed candidate too. If he could do it, I certainly could have.”
“What do you mean?” Stannic’s version of confusion— a tilt in another direction, a slight frown.
“You propped up Tellman to try and shove both of us out of the race. You told him you were opposing him.” Steven didn’t know what game Stannic was playing. It was long past over. The votes were in and Armstrong either was going to be president or not.
“No. I quite liked Armstrong’s chances. He grades out, by our system, as a conservative analogue to Jimmy Carter. Not ideal, but adequate.”
Steven glared at Stannic. Something was wrong, someone had lied. Everybody always lied, but this time Steven was tricked, either by Stannic or Armstrong. He couldn’t tell which. But there was one piece of evidence: there was never any reason why the party would have hated Armstrong as much as Steven.
Too aggravated to plaster on a fake smile or wave, he walked away from Stannic. He ducked backstage and called Armstrong over and over again. No response, of course. Tonight was far too important for the potential future president to endure a call from the anchor he’d been forced to carry around for so many months. After the fourth cycle of voicemail, beep and hangup, Steven threw his phone against the wall. He didn’t care much that Armstrong had used him like that. If Steven had managed to get any sort of leverage during the convention, he would’ve done the same. Still, he wanted to see Armstrong at that exact moment. At the very least, it would offer him clarity, and he needed a lighthouse through the fog of anger.
So he put on his least genuine smile and endured the night. Even as the votes came in, states were won and lost and it became more and more clear that Steven would be the vice president, he did not lapse into joy. Certainly, that night was the beginning of four to eight years of marginalization. All Steven could look forward to was a half-written Wikipedia article and being buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Politician. No one was putting flowers on that. After the news networks declared victory for Armstrong, Steven saw his opportunity. He lurked backstage, pretending to observe the preparations for Armstrong’s victory speech. But when the president-elect walked by, he gave Steven a half-hearted wave from the middle of a crowd of staffers and Secret Service. His irrelevance was already starting. As Armstrong delivered a speech about restoring the country to American values, but “updated for our modern age,” a tired rhetorical point that Steven had fought against to no avail, Steven imagined what he would say to the new president once he managed to corner him. An angry tirade? Expressions of disbelief? Confidence that Armstrong will fail anyway? Nothing felt right because Steven knew that none of them would affect Armstrong in the slightest.
By the time Armstrong closed with “God Bless America,” Steven had given up on the idea of planning what he was going to say. Instead, he shoved his way into the entourage when it passed by him again. The Secret Service agents looked unsure of whether or not they should stop him, and Armstrong seemed equally confused. Sticking a finger in his face, Steven told Armstrong, “We need to talk. Privately.”
“Certainly. We have an administration to plan, don’t we? Of course you understand I’m very busy, but there should be time next week for us to go over it.”
“Not planning, and now.”
Armstrong rolled his eyes and assured his staff that he’d be with them in just a few minutes, then followed Steven around the corner. “What is it, you little shit? This is my victory night. I won. I don’t need you wasting my time right now.”
“I know you lied.”
“You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“Stannic didn’t try to force you out. You were his man from the beginning. I can’t believe I fell for that. Is that what I can expect? Four years of being duped by obvious fucking tricks?”
“Well if they’re obvious tricks, it falls on you to see through them. Doesn’t it?” Armstrong grabbed Steven’s shoulder, holding him in place with nothing but certitude. “And I don’t know what Stannic told you, but why would he introduce the general in the convention if not to try to screw both of us?”
“I’m not sure.” Steven tore away from Armstrong. “But I don’t believe you.”
“Okay. I don’t care. Are we done?”
Steven wanted to say more. His mistrust and anger and wounded pride whirled around him, but for all its bluster it amounted to nothing. Whether or not Armstrong had fooled him, he was in the same position. Soothing his ego would accomplish nothing, but Steven still craved it. Yet he couldn’t find a single thread to pull himself back into the conversation, so he said, “I guess.”
With that, Armstrong returned to the warmth of his entourage and left Steven in a dark corner, the newly elected Vice President with no power, no hope, and only the anger which bound his body like a wire and pried his eyes open and promised with the certainty of death: not for long. At any cost.