Unfortunately, he had been blessed, if that’s what you want to call it, with a long life. Looking back with the benefits of age, hindsight was a cruel mistress. The sun was warm on his face and it soothed his aching bones. It wasn’t often that he got company these days, his kids were busy with lives of their own and his wife had long since passed away. At his age you took what pleasures you could, when you could get them. He closed his eyes and remembered, god he only wished he could forget. If only he had been blessed that way.
In truth, he’d never really been ready for responsibility. As with many children from wealthy and powerful families, he’d been groomed for greatness, but got the short end of the stick when it came to true passion. His father was a great man, widely respected, with a long and illustrious career. No one should have to grow up like he did, a son who always knew he’d never fill his father’s shoes, and yet it was preordained that he would spend his entire life trying. Inadequacy, even the perception of oneself as inadequate, is a sharp and bitter pill.
As a young man it was easier to put on a good face, to shake hands and smile. Just smile, say the right things, it was easier that way. Smile, get by on good looks and charm, do what’s expected. Get a degree, get a job, get a life, of sorts. He never really excelled in school or business, didn’t have much of a record of achievement to speak of for the first half of his life, but man did he love to run. He’d run like the wind any time he could get away from the office. It was the only time he felt free, felt like himself. No one, nothing else mattered except the road under his running shoes, the miles melting away, there and back again.
For a brief time he’d rebelled. He drank too much, used a little, and even he himself didn’t really know why. Perhaps it was freedom again, freedom. It didn’t take long for the pressure of his life to form him back into the shape he was meant to have. To mold him back into an upstanding man, the pressure inexorable and unrelenting. He did everything that was expected of him. He got married to a girl from a good family, a girl he’d hardly met but three months before. He barely knew her, but she fit just right. God, she was so pretty, and so were their daughters. Fatherhood was a blessing, but ultimately terrifying. Work kept him away from home for long hours and maybe it was better that way. His wife too knew what was expected of her and she fit in just right.
For a while it had seemed like it was all falling into place. He was carving out his own place in the world, even if it was stomping around in daddy’s backyard. Eventually he was the big man in town, and he’d shown them all. He’d found god, given up vice, and he was being rewarded for his sacrifices with all the prestige and respect that anyone could wish for. But damn it all if it didn’t seem that everyone was out to get him. Disaster after disaster landed at his doorstep and everyone looking to him to do something. It seemed that the best thing to do was to be bold, and bold he was. God had blessed him with dogged perseverance and he was going to be damned before he’d let the family business fail on his watch. Though he’d been offered the opportunity to move on, step down, he kept at it, blindly sure that he was the man to solve everything, sure that he could recoup his losses and turn a sows ear into a silk purse.
Maybe god was testing him. Maybe that was it. Maybe it was a test to see if he and his friends were worthy of the mantle placed on them. They’d been at this business longer than he, and he’d relied heavily on their expertise. He knew that some of the deals they pulled were shady, and maybe even ill advised, but when you’re a little fish in a big pond you look to the sharks to keep you safe. Except it wasn’t working. His advisors and confidants were increasingly the focus of scrutiny, none more so than himself and the flames had gotten hot. Every time he thought he had a plan, a sure fire way to turn things around, things just kept getting worse. He hadn’t slept well for years and it seemed his prayers were going unanswered. He’d been publicly vilified, burned in effigy, and barely escaped prosecution for his part in the many crimes committed by him and his cronies.
Eventually his tenure was up and he was able to finally step down, still protesting his innocence and purity of purpose, but desperately glad to have handed the reigns over to the next generation. Oh, how the experience had changed him. His legacy was one of missed opportunities and freezing in the face of a challenge. His legacy was one of hatred and fear, for he had almost single handedly set relations with both friends and foes back decades. Remembered as a blowhard, a bully, an obstinate, unyielding and foolish man, this wasn’t how he wanted it to end. Why couldn’t they see that God had a plan for him, that his vision for the future was divine in inspiration? His shoulders slumped as he was washed with waves of bitterness and maybe even a little bit of guilt. The faces of those he’d wronged, those who’d suffered as a result of his vision haunted him from time to time.
The interviewer’s seat creaked as she leaned in, bringing him back to the present. His eyes fluttered open as the woman spoke.
“My readers very much want to know, why did you go to war, Mr. President?”
