“Later. It’s not an emergency.”
Nobody commented about it that day, maybe because it was a Saturday. Marilyn and I weren’t going anywhere, and I had delayed my usual visit with the Prime Minister until Monday. We just lay around the garden and the beach all day, sucking down the occasional Corona and tossing a piece of driftwood for Stormy to chase. Frank and his fiancée, Jenny, joined us for a nice dinner of grilled shrimp skewers.
Sunday morning was pretty much a repeat of Saturday morning. This time, when I got out of the shower, Marilyn said, “There’s some new razor blades in the medicine cabinet.”
“Thanks.” I opened the cabinet door and pulled out the packet, and opened it. A five-pack plastic cassette came out with its load of blades and I grabbed my empty razor to load it.
And then I stopped.
I looked up at my reflection in the mirror. After two days I had a definite stubble, though it was a mix of my normal gingery dirty blonde and a disturbing amount of whitish-gray. I stared at my face for a few seconds. The last time I could remember not shaving was probably back in 1990, or maybe at the end of 1989, before I officially entered the 199 °Congressional race. It felt strange — and strangely liberating. I slid my razor back into the slot in the holder and put the blades back in the medicine cabinet.
“Wrong blades?” asked Marilyn.
I turned to her and smiled. “No, they’re the right ones.”
“So?”
“So, I don’t want to shave this morning,” I told her.
She gave me an odd look and put her hand on my forehead. “Are you feeling all right? You don’t seem feverish.”
“Why?” I laughed.
“You always shave! I’d send you to the hospital, but the last time that happened, you had to be shaved there, too!”
I stepped back from the sink and went to the closet, grabbing a pink Hawaiian shirt with bright green parrots on it, and slipped into it, along with a pair of bright blue swim trunks. Color coordination, that’s the Buckman way! I turned back to my wife, rubbed my face, and asked, “How’s this for a look? Which of your brothers do I look like now?”
“Ooooh! That’s mean! I am going to tell them you said that!” She pulled a beach cover-up out of a drawer and pulled it on. “Gabriel, maybe.” I snorted out a laugh at that. Gabriel’s beard was so heavy that his five o’clock shadow showed up at four, and his salt-and-pepper hair was more salt than pepper.
“Really? I’d have thought maybe your sister Pearl.”
Marilyn started coughing. “You behave!” Then she giggled. “Besides, you asked which brother you looked like.”
“True, so true.”
“What’s with the beard? You always complain about having to look good for the cameras.”
“What’s the worst that could happen? I lose the next election?”
Marilyn looked stumped at that. “Seriously?!”
I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll let my hair grow out, grow a pony tail, start smoking those funny cigarettes…”
“I can’t wait for you to tell Frank and Will that one!” We went out to the kitchen. “A pony tail and baldness? That ought to look good. Maybe you can have the official portrait redone.”
I had to blink at that one. “Let me think about that one first.”
“Good idea.”
Nobody said anything to me again on Sunday, though Frank gave me a very strange look. He did say something to me on Monday, after lunch, because I was going to meet with the Prime Minister for a brief photo op and then a dinner at Government House. “You planning on shaving, boss?”
“Frank, I’m on vacation.”
“Mister President, you’re the President even on vacation”
“I’m only the President for another eight weeks, Frank. Maybe I’m getting a start on my retirement.”
Marilyn and I were sitting on the rear veranda. Frank looked shocked, and sat down across from us. “Sir?”
“Frank, if I stop shaving and grow a beard, it won’t be the end of the republic. It won’t even be the pause of the republic. What’s the worst that could happen, Frank? A usurper will rise up to throw down the king? Guess what? It’s already happened. I’ll be nothing but a footnote in eleventh grade history in a few weeks. Who cares?”
“We haven’t had a President with facial hair this century.”
“Frank, this is the 21st Century. The only Presidents we’ve had are George Bush and me.”
“No, I mean, yes, you know what I mean!”
“Frank, Teddy Roosevelt had a mustache, and that was in the 20th Century,” I told him.
“Really? We’re going back to Teddy Roosevelt?” he exclaimed.
“Nice mustache, Frank, big and bushy.”
“You’re not helping me here, Mister President!” He looked over at Marilyn. “Did you know about this plan?”
Marilyn laughed. “Frank, I’ve seen him with a beard and mustache. He had one through most of the Eighties, before he got into politics.”
I nodded. “It wasn’t as white. That’s a bit disappointing,” I commented wryly.
“When was the last time we had a President with a beard? Lincoln?” asked my Chief of Staff.
I gave him a disapproving look. “Frank, really, Grant was after Lincoln. And he had a full beard and mustache. Lincoln didn’t have the mustache. There were a few others, too.”
Frank threw his hands up in the air. “I can’t wait to see the press release Will writes about this one!”
“Don’t worry. He can include it in his book, ‘I Survived Carl Buckman.’ He’s writing it with Ari Fleischer.”
Frank gave a manic laugh at that, and sighed.
Nobody really said anything at the dinner that evening. I said various statesmanlike things, such as that even though I was no longer the President, the Bahamas had no better friend, and I would be happy to act as an Ambassador of Friendship for President McCain. Our regular Ambassador, Ned Siegel, simply smiled and nodded. He wasn’t going to complain about my facial hair, since he also had a beard and mustache. He simply said, “I like the look, Mister President.”
“My Chief of Staff thinks it’s the end of American democracy.”
“Just tell him the truth. Only real men grow beards and mustaches!”
I laughed and added, “And God only made a few perfect heads. The rest he covered with hair.”
Ned had a head full of hair, but he laughed anyway. “I’d ask if you’ve mentioned that to your replacement, but I want to keep my job a little longer.”
“He’s got one hell of a comb-over, doesn’t he?” Ned laughed at that one, too. “Sucker must be glued down!”
We didn’t hear anything out of the press over the next few days, so nobody back home must have been following the vacation trip. I was old news by now, almost forgotten. Everything was now McCain, McCain, McCain, and the changes he planned and what he wanted to keep. The only way I was going to make it into the news was if Air Force One or Marine One crashed in the near future with me on board.
We flew home on Monday, November 17th, after eight very pleasant days of doing nothing, without the world collapsing around us. None of the Air Force or Marine staff mentioned my beard, which I had trimmed into a goatee. They did stare, but they didn’t say anything to their Commander in Chief. That lasted about as long as it took for me to walk into the West Wing and say hello. Will Brucis said, “Welcome back, Mister President. Have a good vacation?”