Up whole night searching for First Rodent, then nearly electrocuted this a.m. Exhausted.
—JOURNAL, JAN. 5, 1992
“I have a terrible feeling about this,” I said. Feeley and I were riding up the elevator—the one built for FDR—to the residence.
“Will you relax!” he hissed. The door opened. Firecracker, already in his pajamas, took a running leap and hurtled into us. He caught me by surprise. His knee took me in the groin and my glasses were knocked off.
The First Lady appeared in her evening gown, putting on her second earring. “Mike!” she said. “What are you doing here?”
Feeley grinned and said that he and I had some work to do, so he’d come along. We’d do it after Firecracker was in bed.
The President appeared. He was in black tie.
“What, two sitters?” He said to Mrs. Tucker: “I hope you don’t have to pay them double.”
There were warm family smiles all round that made me hate myself even more.
We bantered for a few moments, then Firecracker blindfolded his father with his cummerbund and made him walk an imaginary plank—a little ritual they had. Rod Holloway appeared and said, “We’re ready, sir.” The First Lady told me to make sure Firecracker was in bed by eight.
As soon as they had left, Feeley went to work.
“Let’s play a game,” he said. “Treasure Hunt!”
Firecracker wanted to play soldiers instead. He supplied us each with a rubber pistol and shot at us for the next half-hour. We had to make repeated assaults on his bunker beneath the Lincoln Bed.
“That was great!” said Feeley, wheezing. “Now I want to play Treasure Hunt.”
But Firecracker didn’t want to yet. For the next fifteen minutes we played hide-and-seek, during which I was shoved behind the firescreen in the Queen’s bedroom.
“Boy,” said Feeley, “that was fun. Now listen, Firecracker, I really want to play Treasure Hunt.”
“That’s a dumb game,” he said.
Feeley said: “Don’t you want to win a TV?”
That got his attention. “What kind of TV?”
“A small color TV that runs on batteries. The kind you can put under the covers of your bed and watch all those great shows that come on after your bedtime.”
“Is it a Sony?”
“Gimme a break,” said Feeley. “You know how much those cost?”
“Two hundred sixty-five dollars,” said Firecracker, “for the Trinitron XM.”
Feeley lit a cigarette.
“You shouldn’t smoke,” said Firecracker. “Major Arnold says it’s not good for your health.”
“Yeah, he’s a smart guy, the Major. You want the TV?”
“What do I have to do for it?” He was a canny seven-year-old, and rightly suspicious of Feeley.
“Find the treasure, that’s all.” Feeley’s tone of voice had suddenly grown very businesslike. “You bring it to us, and then you put it back.”
Firecracker thought about this a moment. “If it’s a treasure, why do you want to put it back?”
“That’s just the way you play. But you get to keep the TV.”
“I want to see the TV first.”
“No, you’ve got to win the TV, see?”
“Um-um.” He shook his head. “Dad says you can’t trust anyone around here.”
Feeley laughed at this disturbing remark. We looked at each other. Feeley said to Firecracker, “He doesn’t mean us. He means those turkeys he works with, like Mr. Lleland.”
But Firecracker stood his ground.
“Okay,” Feeley relented. “You get to see the prize first, but you don’t get to keep it until you find the treasure.”
Firecracker agreed. Feeley reached into his briefcase, ostensibly stuffed with the work he had to go over with me, and produced the miniature TV set. If it seems like an expensive bribe for a seven-year-old, bear in mind that this seven-year-old lived in the White House and went on helicopter rides every weekend.
His eyes widened. He flicked it on. Nothing happened. He frowned.
“No batteries,” he said.
“Shit,” said Feeley. “They swore it had batteries.”
“Let’s have some milk amd cookies,” I interjected. I dragged Feeley aside while Firecracker probed the TV. “Will you watch your language,” I said. “It’s bad enough what we’re doing. You don’t have to give him lessons in obscenity.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Those assholes said it had batteries. Goddammit.…”
We walked back into the Yellow Oval Room. Firecracker had plugged in the cord and was watching. He was mesmerized.
Feeley grinned like a pusher and whispered, “He’s hooked.”
That, it turned out, was the problem. Firecracker had flicked on a re-run of a movie called E. T. Comes Home. There was no peeling him away.
“Firecracker,” said Feeley, now down on all fours, “it’s time to play Treasure Hunt.”
“Later,” said Firecracker.
At the first commercial we redoubled our efforts. “How about a really big hot-fudge sundae?” I said.
“Yeah,” said Firecracker. “With Oreo ice cream.”
“Great idea!” said Feeley. “Right after we play Treasure Hunt, we’ll go get the sundae. Hot shit!”
“You go get the sundae first. Uncle Herb and I’ll watch E.T.”
Feeley was not accustomed to the deviousness of children. “Listen,” he said, “I thought we had a deal.”
But the commercial had ended and the trance descended on him. Feeley went rummaging around for the TV Guide. I found him in the next room, saying, “God-dammit.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Movie doesn’t end until ten.”
I called Secret Service, which told me the President was due back from the Kennedy Center at 10:45. That would give us forty-five minutes to get the text. Feeley’s secretary was standing by in his office, ready to type Feeley’s revisions into Teleprompter text.
We spent the next three commercials trying to convince Firecracker to play a quick game of Treasure Hunt now—as opposed to after E.T.
“Look,” said Feeley, who was starting to sound more and more like a United Auto Workers negotiator, “you’re supposed to be in bed by seven thirty, right? It’s eight fifteen. You want to go to bed or play the game?”
“Mom said I can stay up late.”
“She didn’t tell me that,” said Feeley. “Herb, did she tell you that?” It was a good cop/bad cop routine. Before we took office, I had imagined myself in earnest, heated negotiations with Soviets over nuclear weapons. Now I was dickering with a seven-year-old over ice cream. “All right, all right,” Feeley said, “you go to bed and we take back the TV.” He reached over and flicked it off in the middle of E.T. Firecracker did the logical thing: he began to cry.
“Smart move,” I said to Feeley as Firecracker went on bawling. “Why don’t you go out and get us all a nice, big, hot-fudge sundae?”
Feeley shook his head. Firecracker interrupted his crying long enough to say, “Steve’s ice cream, not Swensen’s.”
Steve’s was in Georgetown; Swensen’s was only a few blocks from the White House. Grumbling loudly, Feeley left.
He came back half an hour later, drenched. (It was raining hard that night.) And in a murderous, purposeful frame of mind.
“Here.” He thrust an enormous container of high-density ice cream at Firecracker.
“Did you get marshmallow topping?” Firecracker saw by Feeley’s expression that this was a perilous line of inquiry and plunged into his sundae, which seemed to have everything on it except marshmallow.
We sat there, we two, watching the film. Feeley paced, chainsmoked, made phone calls from the Lincoln sitting room. I frankly became rather absorbed in the film, which I found very touching.
Promptly at ten Feeley came into the Yellow Oval Room, where we were watching. “Jesus,” he said, disgusted. Firecracker and I were in tears.
He started roughhousing with Firecracker, tickling him, and finally Firecracker agreed to play Treasure Hunt. Feeley pulled out a roll of blank Teleprompter paper and told Firecracker that the map to the treasure was written on paper just like it and kept in the top right drawer of his father’s desk in what Firecracker called the Egg Room.
I checked my watch. It was 10:10. The President and First Lady were due back in thirty-five minutes. We would have to work fast.
The switchboard put me in contact with the site advanceman at the Kennedy Center. He informed me Firebird and Fantasy were already at the reception for Kenneth Fuchs, the composer whose symphony had premiered that evening.
When I rejoined them, Feeley and Firecracker were arguing over whether or not Theodore, Firecracker’s hamster, should be included in the hunt. When I reminded Feeley that we had about half an hour, he dropped his objection to Theodore. Crouching next to Firecracker, he told him that the best pirate was a fast pirate, and that if he got back in five minutes he’d get a bonus.
“Money?”
Feeley stared at him. “Yeah.”
“How much?”
“Go! Five minutes.” Firecracker shot off down the red-carpeted grand staircase.
“Drink,” said Feeley. He went to the bar and poured a large Scotch.
Two minutes later the phone rang. It was the Secret Service.
“We have movement on Firecracker. He’s heading into the Rose Garden.”
“Not to worry,” I said, trying to sound avuncular.
“It’s forty degrees outside, Mr. Wadlough. Shouldn’t he be wearing a coat?”
I felt terrible. I was telling the agent to send Firecracker back when Feeley wrested the phone out of my hand and told him it would be all right. “Kids,” he said to the agent. “They’re indestructible.”
I felt like a negligent mother.
A minute later the phone rang again. It was the uniformed Secret Service post outside the Oval Office.
“We have the President’s son, sir.”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “Don’t worry about a thing.”
“Very fine, sir. One of the female agents has him. We’re taking him back up right now.”
“No!” I yelled. “Let him go.”
The agent was surprised. “We assumed—”
“We’re playing a game,” I snapped. “It’s the only way to get him to bed. Put him on.”
A minute later I was speaking to Firecracker.
“This is great, Uncle Herb!” he squealed.
“Yes,” I said, Feeley making frantic hand signals at his watch. “Okay, now, you know what to do.”
“Wait a minute,” he said, “Theodore wants to talk to you.”
I listened a moment or two to the sound of hamster breath. Feeley, listening in on another phone, was shaking his head.
“Goodbye, Theodore,” I said gloomily, for by now I had a bad feeling about all this.
Firecracker got back on. “Does Uncle Mike want to talk to Theodore?”
Feeley shook his head vigorously.
“He can’t come to the phone, Firecracker. Firecracker, if your mom and dad get home before you’re back, we’re all going to be in a lot of trouble.”
“Okay!”
“There’s a good fellow,” I said. Feeley, elbows on knees, face in hands, was rocking back and forth.
The phone. “Thompson again, sir.”
“Yes?” I said. “What is it?”
“He’s going through the President’s desk, sir.”
I affected a laugh. “Just like his old man, eh, Thompson?”
“Well, sir, strictly speaking—”
“Chip off the old block, eh, Thompson?”
“Isn’t the President going to be upset?”
“I’ll handle it, Thompson.”
“If you say so, sir.”
I was leaving a wake of If you say so’s. I told Thompson to keep the line open—I wanted to know the instant Firecracker was on his way back. Feeley was on the other line to the Kennedy Center, monitoring the President’s movements. “Fuck,” he said with more than usual emphasis. “They’re pulling out.”
That gave us maybe seven minutes.
“Thompson,” I said, “tell Firecracker his parents are on their way home.”
He came back on. “He’s on his way. At about sixty miles an hour, I’d say.”
We waited at the top of the staircase, checking our watches every thirty seconds.
“Where is he?” said Feeley. “He should be here by now.”
I called, asking for the guard by the door to the Rose Garden. He reported Firecracker had gone by two minutes ago. I calculated—in meters per second—that he ought to be coming up the stairs any moment.
But he didn’t. And Feeley was frantic.
“Maybe we should go look for him,” he said.
At that moment Rod Holloway and another agent appeared at the head of the stairway. Feeley and I had just time to exchange fraternal expressions of horror when I heard the President’s voice.
“What’s the matter with you guys?”
We just stood there. The First Lady took stock and said in that tone of voice unique to mothers, “What’s wrong?”
Our expressions must not have been reassuring. “Is it Tommy?” she said.
She rushed off in the direction of Firecracker’s bedroom. I saw my life, political and otherwise, pass before my eyes.
The President, Feeley, and I stared at each other.
“Do I need to be filled in on something?” the President asked.
The First Lady reappeared. She looked very serious, something like the way she did just before the episode of the Japanese screen. I closed my eyes, a voluntary reflex left over from elementary school when the other children used to beat me up because I had glasses and was overweight.
“We seem to have a problem,” she said very calmly.