Scenes from a Preternatural Presidency -- 1. I Do Not Need Enemies to Know Who I Am ... Much (B)
And that should have been mostly that, save my sudden need for a new Director of the NPS, though the deputy chair showed some spine by asking me about those plans for the façade, and was only half-reassured by my promise not to demolish or paint anything. But the ex-Director wasn’t going quietly, issuing a resignation statement condemning what he called a wilful desecration of the White House that Fox gleefully harped on, and others soon picked up. This time my response wasn’t toned down, flatly saying that while the façade was safe I was not going to be told by any federal employee that anything Amerindian was inappropriate in the White House, and as I had already been finding this particular one less than satisfactory because unacceptably prone to delays and inaction about implementing campaign promises, wasn’t repining. My Press Secretary didn’t mind that, but on her strong advice Skuffles and I put in a surprise appearance on Jesse’s next intranet - her last-but-one from Kennewick - to talk about the White House not being an Anglo house, nor in Europe, and tell the tale of how the portrait had happened and why the exhibition was a good idea (with fine jokes from Jesse about men in black, and some priceless snark from Skuffles), before presenting the school with a full-size framed photo of Amerman’s wonder as the HD digital version was released to the media.
The kids loved it, agreeing with Jesse entirely about colour points, and as the national reaction was far more like Irpa’s than the ex-Director’s, Fox losing a huge chunk of their viewers during the evening broadcast of the intranet, they toned down their complaints quite smartly. And though finding a new Director who fit my bill took some doing it was worth it - a Shoshone woman who was career NPS, already a Senior Ranger with decent administrative experience, and agreed for the sake of the bison, becoming much more enthusiastic when I agreed to a separate CFO to keep track of all the expanding finances. She reassured me that no-one missed the ex-director, conceding he’d done a necessary rescue job when first appointed, and adding that any eye-rolling over my choosing a female First Person was (a) limited, acknowledged imbalances being up for redress, and (b) strongly countered by having one of their own in charge, the habit of imposing outsiders not having been so popular. I was almost sorry to return the favour by introducing her to my ever-so-ecological and bison-minded father, direct liaison with Elder Spirits being sensible and for me a handy time-saver, and left them sizing one another up.
A hostage crisis involving some US missionaries who’d evangelised to the wrong people distracted me for most of a week, and by the time it was sorted and the backlog of more routine stuff cleared public access had been suspended, men in black had been rehung, and more colourful artefacts were beginning to arrive. Amerman’s wonder had been provided by the proud Choctaw Nation with a hand-carved hickory platform on which to rest, and resident Rose Garden brownies and pixies had no problem with glamoured artefacts, including an exquisitely small Untenanted Duckpond whose golden-eyed, oddly-plumaged fighting eider gave me the same feeling of not being wholly unaware as the original. A supervising Irpa nodded, telling me Underhill had made this copy herself, which made me wonder how many there were, then worried me considerably by telling Skuffles the other commission was also done and could be installed whenever.
“And what commission might that be, Skuffles ?”
“Oops.” Irpa gave one of her troll grins. “Have I blown the gaff ? It’s a bit big to be kept secret, you realise ?”
“What is ?” I tapped a foot. “Spill.”
Skuffles managed to look very presidential and dignified. The totem pole, Mercy. Charles, Jill, and Jim finished a design but it would take about a decade to carve, so as you’d already suggested she grow statues I asked Underhill if she’d mind growing it for us. She was amused, and there is no obligation.
Irpa grinned some more. “Don’t fret, Mercy. It’s only a hundred-and-some feet, and I checked wind resistance and plats for the lawn. The base will be well-weighted with lead, so a couple of paired C-60 stays will do it, the Dark Smith has that in hand, and Underhill grew eyebolts where they’re needed. Colour’s really good too - she’s getting into her eco-statuary.”
Despite all the do-not-touch signs I sat down on the could-be-Ashanti stool, which was handy, and contemplated Irpa.
“Zee can make bucky-cables ?”
“When he wants.”
“Huh. Did he know about C-60 magically, or work it out after science did its bit ?”
“Pass. I just know he said they’d be best and he’d look after it. Is it a problem ?”
“No.” I sighed. “Or not an engineering one, with you and Zee all over it. And I don’t suppose First People will object. But others will do any amount of squawking.”
Let them.
“Maybe, maxi-me, but there’s my promise about the façade too. I had just been thinking of lights to turn it into a marsh-sedge-green house for a while” - Irpa snorted a laugh - “but if we’re really having a hundred-plus-foot totem pole on the front lawn I need to upgrade.”
Skuffles and Irpa were all in favour, predictably, and everyone I tried it on wound up laughing, so that evening I sent a very delicately worded invitation to Gwyn ap Lugh, cooked the meal myself, and had Adam, Jesse, and Skuffles greet him with some of the better wine from the seriously good cellar at my disposal. He appreciated the food, too - a superior watercress soup with a very delicate pasta dish involving finely chopped green walnuts, and as the equally refined cheese-board circulated he raised his glass to me.
“Your culinary skills are unabated, Mercedes. How do you hope I might sing for my very fine supper ?”
I gave him a look. “Only by indulging one of your own hobbies, Gwyn ap Lugh. I was recalling a glamoured Executive Mansion at Walla Walla I declined to enter, and the one so happily visible across the river from Pasco. I wondered if you might care to reverse the process.”
“Ah.” He sounded appreciative. “An accompaniment to your most interesting exhibition ?”
“That, certainly, but for the duration might be good too.”
“Indeed ? And what would you like the White House glamoured to resemble ?”
“I’d really like to tell you a sweat lodge, Gwyn ap Lugh, and it’d be true enough” - he smiled as Adam muttered agreement - “but the answer is a tipi - plains-style, with painted skins showing the Elder Spirits in animal form, mobile if possible, and in any case being maximally friendly. But there needs to be an open entranceway humans can see the real building through, and the same only-from-a-distance thing as at our house so that once you’re within the perimeter there’s no interference. Nor any clash with security systems, of course. And no rain shadow, or I’ll have an earth fae rebellion on my hands.”
He looked at me for a while, amusement and what might have been surprise in his gaze, before cocking his head a little.
“That is all perfectly possible, Mercedes Elf-friend, and even moving glamour does not need much magical sustenance, though on the scale you need it is not altogether trivial. Still, while I think I must consult a little, I believe we will be willing to make such a gift, without obligation. Why the open entranceway, though ?”
“Because I’m after a bigger us, Gwyn ap Lugh, not a renewed us and them. And however the artefacts are balanced, I’m also going to have a very large totem pole on the front lawn that takes a distinctly First-Person view of things, and if commemorative and explanatory also serves to intimidate - against which the open entrance says ‘come on in my kitchen, just be respectful while you’re here’.” I shrugged. “I said I do not need enemies to know who I am, and meant it, but the downside of losing my temper with the ex-NPS guy is the neo-savagery in the White House meme he’s kicked off. It is a Path of Assertion move, and needed as well as fun, but I want as much Path of Mercy mixed in as possible. Most humans are willing to do some re-accommodating, not before time, but no-one likes being culturally coerced.”
He nodded, one hand waving elegantly. “Indeed. And your balance in this is skilled. You look to Beltway attitudes also, I imagine.”
“Oh yeah. A not so little skyline reminder. Westfield says it’s more being rusted into immobility than wilful opposition, but agrees mechanics’ fingers are needed as well as whatever WD-40 anyone can manage.”
He shook his head. “She Doesn’t Only Fix Cars, but they inform far too many of her metaphors. No matter - your WD-40 usually works, and replacing the White House with a painted tipi has enough style for anyone. What sort of timing do you envisage, Mercy?”
The diminutive suggested he was pleased by my request, and we adjourned to the conferencing facilities to see who could do what when. I pulled in some executive staff on night-shift to get things rolling and make sure invitations were flagged up in all sorts of morning inboxes, and ten days later, after a surging promotional campaign, I welcomed a heap of people to a special presidential broadcast by PBS and KPER, who did call it Living Free and Housebound. Earlier in the day, with Frank, I’d walked Penny and Caroline, plus crews, through the whole exhibition over 90 minutes, using a lot of the personal material I’d put on my audio commentary - not just what artefacts were or represented, but what they made me think of, often enough historical issues but also songs and poems, aesthetics and philosophy. The nostalgic brownie carvings of Old World animals had sent me to Elvis Costello’s ‘American Without Tears’, a phrase with ambiguities I was happy to riff on as we progressed, and I’d invited an Oxford professor in to boost us historically - Pekka Hämäläinen, who had set other historians and many First People by the ears (Frank and Jim Alvin among them) with two books a decade apart called Comanche Empire and Lakota America. Beyond reconstructing and praising pre-modern empires, or tribal hegemonies, that had beaten the Spanish, French, and First British Empires before succumbing to the advancing technology and sheer numbers of the American one, Hämäläinen hadn’t blinked at or ducked the practices of those empires, including enslavement, so we had a really interesting time. Caroline and Penny were both blown away by what they were seeing and hearing, and the living artists who wished to do so all got a look-in - mostly humans and half-fae, but including the daywalking vamp illustrator, vouched for by Hao, who amused me by saying the feeding was the only good thing in Stoker’s novel and Nosferatu a marked improvement. It all ended with Amerman formally presenting his portrait and receiving my warmest thanks, with Skuffles’s and everyone else’s thrown in. He was rightly pleased, but I did get a fisheye when he heard me tell Penny the Duckpond was there for its beauty and colours, any magical properties the original might have being no variety of human business.
While that was being broadcast nationwide and globally in the early evening Adam, Jesse, Skuffles, and I welcomed guests to a full-blown reception in which they could walk through the three rooms as they wished, were presented with seriously spiffy catalogues, and got to scoff wine and excellent finger-food - I’d had some conversations with the several cooks on my payroll - in the Diplomatic Reception Room and Center Hall. I’d changed into my inaugural Blackfeet dress, which was far too pretty not to wear whenever I got the chance, Adam had without too much grumbling climbed into the very elegant tux I’d given him with an MC-style FIRST GENTLEMAN embroidered on the back, above the head of his wolf, and Amerman (who knew about it) had customised his own tux with a beadwork back showing Buffalo Calf Road Woman that must have weighed a good few pounds, and was well worth it. Jesse was actually enjoying having a professional wardrobe budget, and with her own beadwork dress in the show was looking good in dark green silk, full-skirted but armless to show off her glamour tattoo, now echoed by hair that was - officially, the manufacturers having asked permission, and offered tithing - Skuffles Red. I’d also forced some upmarket tailoring on my mom and sisters as well as Curt and Todd, and despite nerves they were all ridiculously proud of me and letting it show a little, which was nice.
So were the many tribal chiefs I’d invited, most half-goofy with the pure thrill of it all, and Elder Spirits who’d come were very happy. Wolf in particular spent time going round the show, commending my commentaries on weapons ; he really didn’t like DC, but was in a tux so high-end it was drawing looks even here, and the others were in show-off buckskins and feathers. African Americans and Latinx were also happily impressed, purely appreciative of a non-Anglo stress, and if other Second People, especially those of a Beltway WASP persuasion, were more dubious, and some genuinely puzzled by it all, even they were enjoying the buzz. As the broadcast was drawing to a close Skuffles and I climbed to the Truman Balcony with Adam and Jesse, collecting my cloak and warbonnet, while a bunch of Secret Service agents herded everyone else outside, and when it ended we went live.
The kids loved it, agreeing with Jesse entirely about colour points, and as the national reaction was far more like Irpa’s than the ex-Director’s, Fox losing a huge chunk of their viewers during the evening broadcast of the intranet, they toned down their complaints quite smartly. And though finding a new Director who fit my bill took some doing it was worth it - a Shoshone woman who was career NPS, already a Senior Ranger with decent administrative experience, and agreed for the sake of the bison, becoming much more enthusiastic when I agreed to a separate CFO to keep track of all the expanding finances. She reassured me that no-one missed the ex-director, conceding he’d done a necessary rescue job when first appointed, and adding that any eye-rolling over my choosing a female First Person was (a) limited, acknowledged imbalances being up for redress, and (b) strongly countered by having one of their own in charge, the habit of imposing outsiders not having been so popular. I was almost sorry to return the favour by introducing her to my ever-so-ecological and bison-minded father, direct liaison with Elder Spirits being sensible and for me a handy time-saver, and left them sizing one another up.
A hostage crisis involving some US missionaries who’d evangelised to the wrong people distracted me for most of a week, and by the time it was sorted and the backlog of more routine stuff cleared public access had been suspended, men in black had been rehung, and more colourful artefacts were beginning to arrive. Amerman’s wonder had been provided by the proud Choctaw Nation with a hand-carved hickory platform on which to rest, and resident Rose Garden brownies and pixies had no problem with glamoured artefacts, including an exquisitely small Untenanted Duckpond whose golden-eyed, oddly-plumaged fighting eider gave me the same feeling of not being wholly unaware as the original. A supervising Irpa nodded, telling me Underhill had made this copy herself, which made me wonder how many there were, then worried me considerably by telling Skuffles the other commission was also done and could be installed whenever.
“And what commission might that be, Skuffles ?”
“Oops.” Irpa gave one of her troll grins. “Have I blown the gaff ? It’s a bit big to be kept secret, you realise ?”
“What is ?” I tapped a foot. “Spill.”
Skuffles managed to look very presidential and dignified. The totem pole, Mercy. Charles, Jill, and Jim finished a design but it would take about a decade to carve, so as you’d already suggested she grow statues I asked Underhill if she’d mind growing it for us. She was amused, and there is no obligation.
Irpa grinned some more. “Don’t fret, Mercy. It’s only a hundred-and-some feet, and I checked wind resistance and plats for the lawn. The base will be well-weighted with lead, so a couple of paired C-60 stays will do it, the Dark Smith has that in hand, and Underhill grew eyebolts where they’re needed. Colour’s really good too - she’s getting into her eco-statuary.”
Despite all the do-not-touch signs I sat down on the could-be-Ashanti stool, which was handy, and contemplated Irpa.
“Zee can make bucky-cables ?”
“When he wants.”
“Huh. Did he know about C-60 magically, or work it out after science did its bit ?”
“Pass. I just know he said they’d be best and he’d look after it. Is it a problem ?”
“No.” I sighed. “Or not an engineering one, with you and Zee all over it. And I don’t suppose First People will object. But others will do any amount of squawking.”
Let them.
“Maybe, maxi-me, but there’s my promise about the façade too. I had just been thinking of lights to turn it into a marsh-sedge-green house for a while” - Irpa snorted a laugh - “but if we’re really having a hundred-plus-foot totem pole on the front lawn I need to upgrade.”
Skuffles and Irpa were all in favour, predictably, and everyone I tried it on wound up laughing, so that evening I sent a very delicately worded invitation to Gwyn ap Lugh, cooked the meal myself, and had Adam, Jesse, and Skuffles greet him with some of the better wine from the seriously good cellar at my disposal. He appreciated the food, too - a superior watercress soup with a very delicate pasta dish involving finely chopped green walnuts, and as the equally refined cheese-board circulated he raised his glass to me.
“Your culinary skills are unabated, Mercedes. How do you hope I might sing for my very fine supper ?”
I gave him a look. “Only by indulging one of your own hobbies, Gwyn ap Lugh. I was recalling a glamoured Executive Mansion at Walla Walla I declined to enter, and the one so happily visible across the river from Pasco. I wondered if you might care to reverse the process.”
“Ah.” He sounded appreciative. “An accompaniment to your most interesting exhibition ?”
“That, certainly, but for the duration might be good too.”
“Indeed ? And what would you like the White House glamoured to resemble ?”
“I’d really like to tell you a sweat lodge, Gwyn ap Lugh, and it’d be true enough” - he smiled as Adam muttered agreement - “but the answer is a tipi - plains-style, with painted skins showing the Elder Spirits in animal form, mobile if possible, and in any case being maximally friendly. But there needs to be an open entranceway humans can see the real building through, and the same only-from-a-distance thing as at our house so that once you’re within the perimeter there’s no interference. Nor any clash with security systems, of course. And no rain shadow, or I’ll have an earth fae rebellion on my hands.”
He looked at me for a while, amusement and what might have been surprise in his gaze, before cocking his head a little.
“That is all perfectly possible, Mercedes Elf-friend, and even moving glamour does not need much magical sustenance, though on the scale you need it is not altogether trivial. Still, while I think I must consult a little, I believe we will be willing to make such a gift, without obligation. Why the open entranceway, though ?”
“Because I’m after a bigger us, Gwyn ap Lugh, not a renewed us and them. And however the artefacts are balanced, I’m also going to have a very large totem pole on the front lawn that takes a distinctly First-Person view of things, and if commemorative and explanatory also serves to intimidate - against which the open entrance says ‘come on in my kitchen, just be respectful while you’re here’.” I shrugged. “I said I do not need enemies to know who I am, and meant it, but the downside of losing my temper with the ex-NPS guy is the neo-savagery in the White House meme he’s kicked off. It is a Path of Assertion move, and needed as well as fun, but I want as much Path of Mercy mixed in as possible. Most humans are willing to do some re-accommodating, not before time, but no-one likes being culturally coerced.”
He nodded, one hand waving elegantly. “Indeed. And your balance in this is skilled. You look to Beltway attitudes also, I imagine.”
“Oh yeah. A not so little skyline reminder. Westfield says it’s more being rusted into immobility than wilful opposition, but agrees mechanics’ fingers are needed as well as whatever WD-40 anyone can manage.”
He shook his head. “She Doesn’t Only Fix Cars, but they inform far too many of her metaphors. No matter - your WD-40 usually works, and replacing the White House with a painted tipi has enough style for anyone. What sort of timing do you envisage, Mercy?”
The diminutive suggested he was pleased by my request, and we adjourned to the conferencing facilities to see who could do what when. I pulled in some executive staff on night-shift to get things rolling and make sure invitations were flagged up in all sorts of morning inboxes, and ten days later, after a surging promotional campaign, I welcomed a heap of people to a special presidential broadcast by PBS and KPER, who did call it Living Free and Housebound. Earlier in the day, with Frank, I’d walked Penny and Caroline, plus crews, through the whole exhibition over 90 minutes, using a lot of the personal material I’d put on my audio commentary - not just what artefacts were or represented, but what they made me think of, often enough historical issues but also songs and poems, aesthetics and philosophy. The nostalgic brownie carvings of Old World animals had sent me to Elvis Costello’s ‘American Without Tears’, a phrase with ambiguities I was happy to riff on as we progressed, and I’d invited an Oxford professor in to boost us historically - Pekka Hämäläinen, who had set other historians and many First People by the ears (Frank and Jim Alvin among them) with two books a decade apart called Comanche Empire and Lakota America. Beyond reconstructing and praising pre-modern empires, or tribal hegemonies, that had beaten the Spanish, French, and First British Empires before succumbing to the advancing technology and sheer numbers of the American one, Hämäläinen hadn’t blinked at or ducked the practices of those empires, including enslavement, so we had a really interesting time. Caroline and Penny were both blown away by what they were seeing and hearing, and the living artists who wished to do so all got a look-in - mostly humans and half-fae, but including the daywalking vamp illustrator, vouched for by Hao, who amused me by saying the feeding was the only good thing in Stoker’s novel and Nosferatu a marked improvement. It all ended with Amerman formally presenting his portrait and receiving my warmest thanks, with Skuffles’s and everyone else’s thrown in. He was rightly pleased, but I did get a fisheye when he heard me tell Penny the Duckpond was there for its beauty and colours, any magical properties the original might have being no variety of human business.
While that was being broadcast nationwide and globally in the early evening Adam, Jesse, Skuffles, and I welcomed guests to a full-blown reception in which they could walk through the three rooms as they wished, were presented with seriously spiffy catalogues, and got to scoff wine and excellent finger-food - I’d had some conversations with the several cooks on my payroll - in the Diplomatic Reception Room and Center Hall. I’d changed into my inaugural Blackfeet dress, which was far too pretty not to wear whenever I got the chance, Adam had without too much grumbling climbed into the very elegant tux I’d given him with an MC-style FIRST GENTLEMAN embroidered on the back, above the head of his wolf, and Amerman (who knew about it) had customised his own tux with a beadwork back showing Buffalo Calf Road Woman that must have weighed a good few pounds, and was well worth it. Jesse was actually enjoying having a professional wardrobe budget, and with her own beadwork dress in the show was looking good in dark green silk, full-skirted but armless to show off her glamour tattoo, now echoed by hair that was - officially, the manufacturers having asked permission, and offered tithing - Skuffles Red. I’d also forced some upmarket tailoring on my mom and sisters as well as Curt and Todd, and despite nerves they were all ridiculously proud of me and letting it show a little, which was nice.
So were the many tribal chiefs I’d invited, most half-goofy with the pure thrill of it all, and Elder Spirits who’d come were very happy. Wolf in particular spent time going round the show, commending my commentaries on weapons ; he really didn’t like DC, but was in a tux so high-end it was drawing looks even here, and the others were in show-off buckskins and feathers. African Americans and Latinx were also happily impressed, purely appreciative of a non-Anglo stress, and if other Second People, especially those of a Beltway WASP persuasion, were more dubious, and some genuinely puzzled by it all, even they were enjoying the buzz. As the broadcast was drawing to a close Skuffles and I climbed to the Truman Balcony with Adam and Jesse, collecting my cloak and warbonnet, while a bunch of Secret Service agents herded everyone else outside, and when it ended we went live.