Those Were The Days
It came to pass after a number of years that the candidates for the American presidency were so similar in their ability to create divisiveness, not just among voters of the opposite party but also among their own constituents, that voter turnout diminished to a point where the presidency was being decided by a handful of die-hard sentimentalists. The conventions had become irrelevant, for as often as not they were made up of homeless people hired by the candidates in exchange for a one night stay at the Holiday Inn and the included continental breakfast. Script malfunctions were frequent and it was not uncommon to hear a mother of four from Jersey, who lived in a rusty Ford Pinto under the 1-9, blurt out something like--Madame Speaker, the great state of Nebraska wishes to cast all the ballots that may exist in this wonderful place of much corn, to my sister Irene, who was a supposed to be here and would be here if she hadn't got herself thrown out of the Holiday Inn for her mischievous behavior, which includes but is not limited to acts of indecency in the freight elevator. Instead of great cheering there would be booing and instead of falling balloons there would spit-balls flying from one delegate's camp to the other.
As the contagion of violent crime had never been effectively curtailed in America, it became accepted as the common cold of the times, and whereas in the past every home was certain to have all manner of cold and flu remedies, it became increasingly common that every home had a bullet proof vest for each member of the family. Baby vests were traded from family to family and friend to friend as the children who survived grew into larger sizes. A weariness not completely devoid of happiness prevailed.
Presidential assassinations began happening so frequently that it was taken off the list of things that proud parents boasted their children could become, and only the most convincing suicidal fatalists were running and being elected.
In the latter years of the 21st century the last sentimentalist, a man named Hector Bilby, died in his sleep at the age of 135, and while mourned in ceremonial fashion as an icon of an age that had once seemed so full of hope, it was also seen as the official burying of that hope. Avenues across America named in his honor soon became, instead of remindful beacons lighting the way for that return of his positive vision, sad reflections of anything even remotely optimistic, the central arteries of supply for the behind the scenes war that had long existed in the cities.
It was then that American presidents began to be elected almost exclusively as write-in candidates. Only the brightest student could explain how the earlier system worked or what an electoral college had been, which in truth was not that different from when there was such a thing as an electoral college.
Over the years there evolved a system which seemed as good as any of the preceding ones, for considering who would be your write in choice for president. In the cities and towns and backwater boroughs of America, parties were held and though there were a great variety of themes and backdrops to these parties, there was one thing which seemed to unify them and that was the liberal pouring of libation throughout. Only the certifiably drunk had a chance to be heard in this new America. And the loudest, most convincing drunk had the best chance at winning the dubious prize of candidate for leader of the free world. The parties could be dangerous events and there was a mortality rate associated with them that was considerably higher than the norm, as might be represented for example by a family Christmas party.
For the artistically minded these were great times and a notable band of this era was a group called the Wannabe Presidents, who performed on stages with sets meant to resemble an average American living room. Many of their songs were obviously political in nature and so to tie their thematic vision together they would have one of the band members theatrically assassinate another one, after the singing of a song such as--Fuck Your Ideas, or after just about anything from the Blow Me album.
Strangely, the world got along pretty much as it always had. If you wanted to perform a good deed you certainly could and if you wanted to be a hedonist that was ok and if you wanted to combine the two that was also just fine. There was horror in the world and there were flowers in window boxes. People still went to church and sang hymns and prominent men still got out-ed for wearing women's clothing. One man however, a presidential candidate who went to church and sang hymns and wore women's clothing, a drunkard and leader of a new order of the Christian Coalition who ran under the banner of Onward Christian Soldiers and won the office for president convincingly, only lasted six months before he was assassinated by a black-Chinese Muslim bullet-proof vest manufacturer, who just happened to be his vice-president.
Things went on like this for a number of years until four score into the 22nd century there emerged on the scene a man named Bill Macy. Macy was over 300 years old. He lived on the Lower East Side of New York for most of those years and for the last 200 or so had not left his apartment. He had all his food delivered and with the advent of the Holographic Internet and all that it offered, had even stopped entertaining his few so called friends, most of whom were dead anyway. Sometime during his 100th year Macy discovered that his microwave oven wasn't plugged in and yet worked just the same. He was an experimenter, Macy was, so he tried operating it with the door open and when it worked like that as well he tried operating it with the door open and his head inside.
He stopped aging after that and in fact seemed cured of every ailment that had ever bothered him, both physical and emotional. Which is to say he wasn't bothered, by anything, anymore. For the next hundred years he wasn't even bothered by himself so he stopped going out and instead enjoyed only his own company and began the reading of every book ever printed, which were by then available electronically. When his eyes got tired he had one of his holographic associates read to him. Maria was his favorite.
During the next hundred years he mostly sat very still and considered all that he had learned, until one day, inexplicably, he stood up and walked down the three flights of stairs and out the door onto the street.
How in short time he became a national hero is unclear, but stories abounded. Some say he caught with one outstretched hand a baby who had crawled onto a window ledge before dropping 140 feet just at the moment Macy first entered the street, after 200 years of seclusion. Others would just admit that they had no idea how he became a national hero and that it made little sense to them.
He was elected president that first year and despite his denial of the office he was by all considered the best president to come along in many decades, and was the first in over a hundred years to live out his first term. He was candid about his disdain for the office and the accolades heaped upon him and after each election that he won, would answer the pundits questions about his intentions the same way--I will do nothing, I will just let things be. He became known then as Bill let it be Macy and for all the years of his soft rule (he was elected to six terms) the country prospered.
But Bill Macy died one day, mysteriously (his body was never found), in a hang gliding accident in Kansas, and soon thereafter the country fell back into its old ways. Derivative folk songs were written about him and hardly a day went by when somewhere in America you couldn't hear the mournful yet jaunty lyrics of Oh Bill Macy Won't You Please Come Home.
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