16 (AUG. 6, WED.)
How many scruples in ten drams?
—The Complete Arithmetic, 1874
Mae didn't want to fly, so we left early and drove down to Washington. This made it possible to avoid whatever kind of official airport reception might have been arranged for me. We went right to our new house in Bethesda.
It was a beautiful little house, in a wooded section, and air-conditioned, as Gov had promised. The phone was in and Mae called Ann McEachern, Ian's wife, who had said she'd come over from Silver Spring as soon as we got in. Ann was there in half an hour and I left for the National Press Building. I wanted to see Ian and read the news before I checked in at the White House.
Reb Sylvester was on the desk and Ian had just got back from lunch. "Well, well," Ian said, "if it isn't Mr. Kent, back to see his old cronies. Congratulations, Sam."
"Thanks. But what's going on here?" The office was a mess. There was paper all over the floor and tags on the filing cabinets.
"We're moving—haven't you heard?They'removing, that is. I quit this morning."
"What do you mean quit? Did you get drafted, too?"
"No such luck, if luck is the word I want. I just resigned. Tomorrow I start making the rounds to see if they need anybody at the AP or Reuters or theTimes."
"Look, Ian," I said. "This is all too fast for me. How about going up to the Press Club and telling me about it over a drink?"
"Okay," he said, after the slightest of hesitations. "For old times' sake, okay."
Reb said as we went out, "Have one for me. I need it."
We ordered rum-and-cokes at the bar and I asked Ian, "Is Reb leaving, too?"
"He doesn't know what he's going to do yet. It's all happened pretty fast. One minute we're up there with the world's top news services and the next minute we're a government mouthpiece."
"You mean World Wide sold out?"
"Lock, stock and teletypes. It was one of those top-level decisions. Nobody knew about it till it was all over."
"But why?" I asked him. "They've got the Voice of America. What do they want with another propaganda outfit?"
"The way I see it, they want to propagandize the Americans. The Voice only goes overseas. Besides, it always takes a while for the facts to get around. In the meantime they'll have got their message across. By God, Sam, if I'd wanted to be a flack for somebody I'd have gone into P.R., and that nice money, a long time ago."
I took a slug of my rum coke and asked, "Where are they moving to? I don't see why they have to move at all."
Ian swallowed the rest of his drink and ordered two more. "I'm surprised you hadn't heard. Since you don't know, this will give you a laugh. World Wide is moving into the White House."
"The White House?"
"That's what I said. You'll be right at home. Door A, Executive Mansion, the President. Door B, his press agent, Sam Kent. Door C, World Wide. Nice, huh? Bye-bye free press." He took his new drink. "Bye-bye Constitution. I give you a toast, friend: Here's mud in the eye of the Bill of Rights."
I didn't drink. Neither did Ian.
"Well," I said.
"And well may you say 'Well,'" said Ian. "A pretty stinking kettle of fish, you might say."
I tried to look at it another way. "Maybe it's not so bad. Look at France Presse. That's government-subsidized."
"This isn't France," Ian said. "We happen to do things differently here."
"Vive l'Amérique," I said. "Once upon a time, eh?"
I toyed with a pretzel from a bowl on the bar. Ian watched me and said, "That pretzel is as straight as a string compared with what's been going on in the last couple of weeks." He picked up a pretzel of his own and bit it in two. "That is, if you want my opinion, Mr. Press Secretary."
I had always valued the opinion of Ian McEachern and I told him so. "I don't like it," I said. "I don't like it at all. But what can we do? I mean what can I do? You've already done it—you've quit, honest journeyman journalist that you are. But what can I do?"
"Don't laugh at my principles," Ian said. "They happen to be sincere."
"I wasn't laughing, Ian." I felt like patting him on the shoulder, but thought better of it. I swallowed half my drink instead. "I admire your integrity," I said, then took the sincerity out of it by adding, "if I can make such a statement in the bar of the National Press Club."
"Are you laughing at me again?" Ian looked hurt and I became absolutely sober.
"Ian," I said, "whatever happens, believe this: you're one of my favorite people. I'm just not in a position now to be as straightforward as you are. I just can't explain, but I want you to know that I haven't sold out to the aliens, and...."
Ian looked surprised. "I never thought you had. For heaven's sake, man, I haven't questioned your patriotism!"
He hadn't, of course. He didn't know all that I knew about the invisible links between the Monolithians and the President.
Suddenly I felt like getting very drunk. "Two more," I said to the bartender. To Ian I said, "You certainly don't owe anything to World Wide. You don't have to go back, do you? Let's get loaded, then get a bottle and go home to Mae and Ann and start all over again."
Ian solemnly finished his old drink. "Sam," he said, "you've had some great ideas in the past, but I am prepared to say that this is the greatest. Bartender, two more."
"I've already ordered two."
"Yes," Ian said. "But two and two make four. I still know that much. Drink up."
"When they don't make five," I said. "I already did. Finish yours and have a pretzel."
He picked up one of the twisted, baked, salted pieces of dough and looked at it critically. "It's an honest piece of work," Ian said. "I now perceive its simple integrity. I shall eat a bowlful while I get drunk with you. Forgive me, pretzel, while I consume you."
Inwardly pretzel-like, I forgave him and proceeded to drink a large number of rum cokes.