What a joke on Luke, he thought, he’ll piss in his pants! “Social Justice”—hope I do win just so that dumb fucker Morris can clock what Jack Barron’s brand of Social Justice is. Nitty-gritty Social Justice, is all, once we get a Negro in the White House, even by the back door, nothing’ll ever be the same.
Politics! Politicians! Such schmucks, they got no sense of humor at all. Think they got themselves an image that can win, and a puppet they think they can screw around behind the scenes with after the election.
Boy, if I do win, is everyone gonna shit bricks after the Inauguration! When good old Jack Barron resigns the Presidency in favor of Vice-President Lukas Greene. Black Vice-President Lukas Greene!
That’d teach the pricks to play the image game with the world’s champ. A nice juicy custard pie in the face of the whole country, just what it needs, four years of a black President, and who knows, they might end up liking it enough to make it eight the hard way.
In the meantime…
He opened the door, stepped into the outer office, and stood by Carrie Donaldson’s desk. Carrie looked up at him with guarded eyes. “Mr Barron?” she said.
Well, why not? thought Jack Barron. You got wounds, but they’ll heal, and anyway, you owe this chick something. And she’s a mighty fine lay, remember?
“Let’s go have some lunch, Carrie,” he said. “I’m gonna take the afternoon off, so you’re off duty too. Want to take it off with me?”
“Does that sound the way I think it sounds… Jack?”
Barron laughed. It felt good. “It does, so long as you keep calling me Jack,” he said.
“Jack…” she said, taking his hand. And they left the office together.
Just another chick? Barron wondered. Or something more? Well, who cares how it’ll turn out, a one-night stand or a week or a year or a hundred years, wliat’s it matter how long?
Suddenly it didn’t seem very important to know just how anything would turn out, or what would happen in the next minute, or the next year, or the next century. It wasn’t even such a hang-up anymore that he hadn’t learned how to remember Sara without hurting. It had finally gotten through to him that he had plenty of time to heal even the deepest of his wounds, play any game he wanted to any number of times, become anything he wanted to be and then change his mind. Time enough for anything…
Like all the time in the world.