Scenes from a Preternatural Presidency -- 1. I Do Not Need Enemies to Know Who I Am ... Much (C)
“Honoured guests, my fellow Americans, and all who hear me, those of you who have been watching on TV have just seen the Exhibition of Presidential Portraits with Contemporaneous Artefacts that opens to all tomorrow, and those of you unfortunate enough to have missed it can catch a complete repeat on any number of stations, or YouTube.” There was scattered laughter. “There are some truly amazing things to see and think about, and I am very glad that all the living artists represented, human and preternatural, and so many museums and collectors have been so generous in providing them. But you know, even with their bounty there are a couple of very traditional First-Person things we need to round it out that are just too big to fit into the White House, grand as it is, and we’re going to take care of those now. First up, by righteous demand of Co-President Skuffles and others, is a proper totem pole for the spirits who now like hanging out hereabouts.”
With ap Lugh, Edythe, and Nemane among the guests I didn’t need to give any signals, and an archway promptly opened, through which Irpa, Þorgerðr, Vanna, and Vorðr carried the totem pole - a hundred-and-some feet turning out to be way closer to two hundred than one. Zee was there, carrying coils of ridiculously slim C-60 wire that would have a breaking-strain in the megaton range, and so more surprisingly was The Dagda with bulging muscles, carrying what might be anything up to tons of lead, but I’d learned from Irpa that he liked things for which his stature was a genuine advantage. Traditional totem-pole raising ceremonies involve a lot of time, pretty deep trenches, much sweat, and a mess of rock infill, but magic makes some things simpler, as does fae and wolf strength. Like ap Lugh, The Dagda could make earth hop aside at will, and with four trolls and half the Columbia Basin Pack on C-60 cables Zee ran through eyebolts near the top the whole marvellous absurdity rose smartly to the vertical, thunked down, and had weights added to stabilising ribs that flared just above the base, while cables were carefully pulled taut and anchored by massive decorated wooden pegs that troll clubs drove home. Floodlights had been re-angled so the whole was well-lit, and though I had occasionally had less than charitable thoughts about Charles’s, Jill’s, and Jim’s design when combined with Skuffles’s fae initiative, I have to admit that like Amerman’s portrait it was gorgeous.
Totem poles do many things, and this one mostly told my story, but as whacking everything from the River Devil and Guayota to Cantrip, vamps, Manannán, and both main parties was in there, with many recognisable wolves, humans, fae, and Elder Spirits, it was also greeting, warning, shaming (where Heuter and Bonarata were concerned), coup-counting, thanking, celebrating, and generally a riot. Underhill seeing no reason anything should face only one way, and having persuaded the designers by how much more detail they could then get in, faces peered out from all four sides, human, wolf, vamp, fae, and animal, interspersed with tribal motifs in which Blackfeet ones were prominent despite their disinclination to totem poles, and at the top a broadening no red cedar had ever managed accommodated Adam, Jesse, Skuffles, and a cloaked, warbonneted, Excalibured, Carnwennaned, and Manannán’s-Baned me, looking so cheerful I’d forgiven Underhill for sculpting me yet again. So had Amerman, who had laughed himself silly when I told him about it, and Leslie had amused me as well as Jude and Jenna by finding it deeply satisfying that one at least of Underhill’s statues of me would be public domain, even if too high to see clearly without a lens. Most of my guests and, I’d bet, the global TV audience were still craning necks and croggling when I started speaking again and heads swivelled.
“You’ll recall that at my inauguration Thunderbird said everyone knows paramount chiefs have paramount warbonnets, and he was right. They also have paramount totem poles, and while my successors get to decide what they want, that one will be here while I am. I’ll leave you the fun of working out whatall it shows, but I will say three things - first, to Underhill, how glad I am she grew it for us, and yes you heard right ; and second, assortedly, to Skuffles, for commissioning it, to my brother Charles, Jill Widepaw, and Jim Alvin, for designing it, to the Dark Smith, for engineering safety and C-60 cables, and to Irpa and the troll and wolf crews, for raising it, I offer without incurring obligation simple but heartfelt thanks.”
I spread my arms a little and let power deepen my voice.
“The third thing is more complicated, people. Jim made a joke about needing to retcon myself not doing attack ads, but though it’s true the totem pole is in part intimidation, so was Coyote’s poster - that was the campaign version, so you could say the pole is the incumbent upgrade. I still do not need enemies to know who I am, but my problem with the gentleman I recently dismissed as ex-officio Chairman of the Committee for the Preservation of the White House was that he apparently did need an enemy to know who he was, and decided I was it. Marcus Amerman’s amazing beadwork portrait was unacceptable to him, supposedly because of its weight, colour, and size, but for my money in truth simply because it wasn’t superficially European, or more bluntly, Anglo, not to say white.”
My smile had lots of edge, but wearing the warbonnet will do that.
“As I said on Jesse’s intranet, the White House remains the White House, but that shouldn’t mean an Anglo house, and won’t. You all know one thing we’re about is reminding everyone that this great nation has First People as well as Second People of many colours, and as neither has a monopoly on décor the Executive Residence should reflect our diversity, as our rich patchwork of place-names does. So beyond the exhibition and totem pole I’m taking two further steps tonight. One is an Executive Order changing the name and remit of President Kennedy’s creation to the Committee for the Preservation and Inclusivity of the White House, with a rider requiring ethnic diversity of membership and sustained attention to representing all citizens. It’s that E-Pluribus-Unum thing again, people - out of many, one. One. Not one-and-three-fifths, not Cowboys and Indians for ever at odds, just one. Us, the US of A, and whatever we may be or become, we’re more than ex-European.”
Besides being unarguable that set off some cheering, non-ex-Europeans being well represented in the enormous crowd on Pennsylvania Avenue, but a raised hand and smile quieted them again soon enough. My volume slider was improving.
“Thank you all. And the last thing is for those who think paramount totem poles properly belong outside paramount tipis. Of course they do, and by the grace of Prince Gwyn ap Lugh, and glamour given without obligation, which makes me very glad, this one will. Those outside and watching on TV will see it at once, and for those inside, a screen in the North Portico is showing the new view which is also for the duration. Think about it long and hard, my fellow Americans, and remember I am a coyote girl. I did warn you. Enjoy, and be safe and well, everyone.”
We were keen to see it ourselves, a monitor was waiting in the Yellow Oval Room, and ap Lugh had done us proud. The paramount tipi matched the height of the totem pole, patchwork skins a luminous marsh-sedge green across which Elder Spirits in animal form trotted, loped, slithered, or flew, and from the open smoke-flaps puffs coiled into the shape of one or another state before fading. And the entranceway was open, rising maybe half the height and angled widely so the whole of the North Façade could be seen around the vertical riot of the totem pole. I sighed pleasure, Adam squeezed my hand, and Jesse had the widest grin.
“More big colour points, Mom. You should trademark ‘Paramount Tipi, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue’ stationery, and give the renamed Committee a better budget.”
I blinked, and so did Adam, but Skuffles laughed.
Deal. That’s smart thinking, Jesse.
I didn’t disagree, and let Skuffles get on with alerting legal night staff - and yes, the President has those : go figure - while Adam and I headed back down to deal with excited, dazed, and often very thoughtful guests. Ap Lugh was pleased I was pleased, if curious about Underhill’s continuing interest in statuary, Irpa and other trolls, like Zee, had switched glamour to evening wear and were all deeply amused by the general crogglement as well as fending off enquiries from some chiefs about their availability for other swift totem-pole-raising, while Elder Spirits were as pleased with the reality, or glamourity, as they had been with the idea. My dancing da did give me one heart-squeezing moment, though, when he managed to stop snorfling for long enough to give me a triple bow of awesomeness.
“Enjoy the moment, totemic daughter. I doubt I’ll be repeating it, but truly, have a large heap of Coyote points. Paramount tipis, yet.”
I told him what Skuffles was about and he went back to laughing while I pulled myself together and went to find the ex-Man. He’d been very circumspect about returning as a guest, not wrongly despite the help he’d quietly given with a couple of thornier foreign policy problems, but tonight I’d invited all living ex-Men, and had a full house bar one. Hearteningly, all were impressed by what I was trying to do, however radical my tactics, and the eldest, now frail, gave me a genuine smile.
“My congratulations, Ms President, and not only for whacking the Committee for the Preservation. I wanted to, often, but didn’t have the chops. More importantly, that was yet another very good and moral speech. And I do like the exhibition - those Lakota manacles are a real eye-opener. May I ask how you knew about them?”
The others seconded the question, and I sent a minion to collar Frank and Hämäläinen, who knew about trying to wrangle perceptions of history and had some professional praise I appreciated. With regret I left them enjoying a conversation with ex-Men to mingle with assorted members of Congress and frazzled Beltway types. There was some kneejerk conservative affront, which I couldn’t say wasn’t intended, but the scale and quality of art, and the unarguable justice given my ethnic identities, made understanding the whole, rightly, as more of my campaign-promised vergangenheitsbewältigung easier than not, even if most still couldn’t say it correctly. Far more entertaining was a group of avatars, including Jill, who gave me a very bearish look.
“Underhill really grew that amazement ? In colour ?”
“She did, Jill, and bent time so it was ready, I gather. File under Skuffles.”
“Coyotes.”
“Yup. Are you complaining ?”
“Momma’s very happy.” She shrugged, but was smiling. “I expect I will be too, when I can take it all in.”
“It counts as not-boring, I hope ?”
I got another look.
“Just slightly, Mercy. You realise every Coast Salish village is going to want their own ?”
“They can ask Underhill, then. I don’t recommend it.”
“Un huh. And guess who they’ll decide could be an intermediary.”
“Talk to Zee and the trolls - they’re fending off demands to be available as a pole-raising crew.”
Jill laughed, and so did Joey Diamond, one of Snake’s, while raising his glass to me.
“Gotta hand it to you, Ms President - paramount warbonnet, paramount totem pole, paramount tipi, and for my money paramount portrait, by a ways. It’s quite the collection. Got any more paramount gear in mind ?”
“Who knows, Joey ? What else does a First Person need ?”
He grinned. “A paramount horse ?”
“Huh. Tricky, but though Purity didn’t come tonight, there not being any music on offer, she stops by sometimes to see the earth fae tending the Rose Garden, so I could always ask her. Not sure why I’d need to, though, with marsh-sedge green Beasts on tap.”
I left them wondering.
With ap Lugh, Edythe, and Nemane among the guests I didn’t need to give any signals, and an archway promptly opened, through which Irpa, Þorgerðr, Vanna, and Vorðr carried the totem pole - a hundred-and-some feet turning out to be way closer to two hundred than one. Zee was there, carrying coils of ridiculously slim C-60 wire that would have a breaking-strain in the megaton range, and so more surprisingly was The Dagda with bulging muscles, carrying what might be anything up to tons of lead, but I’d learned from Irpa that he liked things for which his stature was a genuine advantage. Traditional totem-pole raising ceremonies involve a lot of time, pretty deep trenches, much sweat, and a mess of rock infill, but magic makes some things simpler, as does fae and wolf strength. Like ap Lugh, The Dagda could make earth hop aside at will, and with four trolls and half the Columbia Basin Pack on C-60 cables Zee ran through eyebolts near the top the whole marvellous absurdity rose smartly to the vertical, thunked down, and had weights added to stabilising ribs that flared just above the base, while cables were carefully pulled taut and anchored by massive decorated wooden pegs that troll clubs drove home. Floodlights had been re-angled so the whole was well-lit, and though I had occasionally had less than charitable thoughts about Charles’s, Jill’s, and Jim’s design when combined with Skuffles’s fae initiative, I have to admit that like Amerman’s portrait it was gorgeous.
Totem poles do many things, and this one mostly told my story, but as whacking everything from the River Devil and Guayota to Cantrip, vamps, Manannán, and both main parties was in there, with many recognisable wolves, humans, fae, and Elder Spirits, it was also greeting, warning, shaming (where Heuter and Bonarata were concerned), coup-counting, thanking, celebrating, and generally a riot. Underhill seeing no reason anything should face only one way, and having persuaded the designers by how much more detail they could then get in, faces peered out from all four sides, human, wolf, vamp, fae, and animal, interspersed with tribal motifs in which Blackfeet ones were prominent despite their disinclination to totem poles, and at the top a broadening no red cedar had ever managed accommodated Adam, Jesse, Skuffles, and a cloaked, warbonneted, Excalibured, Carnwennaned, and Manannán’s-Baned me, looking so cheerful I’d forgiven Underhill for sculpting me yet again. So had Amerman, who had laughed himself silly when I told him about it, and Leslie had amused me as well as Jude and Jenna by finding it deeply satisfying that one at least of Underhill’s statues of me would be public domain, even if too high to see clearly without a lens. Most of my guests and, I’d bet, the global TV audience were still craning necks and croggling when I started speaking again and heads swivelled.
“You’ll recall that at my inauguration Thunderbird said everyone knows paramount chiefs have paramount warbonnets, and he was right. They also have paramount totem poles, and while my successors get to decide what they want, that one will be here while I am. I’ll leave you the fun of working out whatall it shows, but I will say three things - first, to Underhill, how glad I am she grew it for us, and yes you heard right ; and second, assortedly, to Skuffles, for commissioning it, to my brother Charles, Jill Widepaw, and Jim Alvin, for designing it, to the Dark Smith, for engineering safety and C-60 cables, and to Irpa and the troll and wolf crews, for raising it, I offer without incurring obligation simple but heartfelt thanks.”
I spread my arms a little and let power deepen my voice.
“The third thing is more complicated, people. Jim made a joke about needing to retcon myself not doing attack ads, but though it’s true the totem pole is in part intimidation, so was Coyote’s poster - that was the campaign version, so you could say the pole is the incumbent upgrade. I still do not need enemies to know who I am, but my problem with the gentleman I recently dismissed as ex-officio Chairman of the Committee for the Preservation of the White House was that he apparently did need an enemy to know who he was, and decided I was it. Marcus Amerman’s amazing beadwork portrait was unacceptable to him, supposedly because of its weight, colour, and size, but for my money in truth simply because it wasn’t superficially European, or more bluntly, Anglo, not to say white.”
My smile had lots of edge, but wearing the warbonnet will do that.
“As I said on Jesse’s intranet, the White House remains the White House, but that shouldn’t mean an Anglo house, and won’t. You all know one thing we’re about is reminding everyone that this great nation has First People as well as Second People of many colours, and as neither has a monopoly on décor the Executive Residence should reflect our diversity, as our rich patchwork of place-names does. So beyond the exhibition and totem pole I’m taking two further steps tonight. One is an Executive Order changing the name and remit of President Kennedy’s creation to the Committee for the Preservation and Inclusivity of the White House, with a rider requiring ethnic diversity of membership and sustained attention to representing all citizens. It’s that E-Pluribus-Unum thing again, people - out of many, one. One. Not one-and-three-fifths, not Cowboys and Indians for ever at odds, just one. Us, the US of A, and whatever we may be or become, we’re more than ex-European.”
Besides being unarguable that set off some cheering, non-ex-Europeans being well represented in the enormous crowd on Pennsylvania Avenue, but a raised hand and smile quieted them again soon enough. My volume slider was improving.
“Thank you all. And the last thing is for those who think paramount totem poles properly belong outside paramount tipis. Of course they do, and by the grace of Prince Gwyn ap Lugh, and glamour given without obligation, which makes me very glad, this one will. Those outside and watching on TV will see it at once, and for those inside, a screen in the North Portico is showing the new view which is also for the duration. Think about it long and hard, my fellow Americans, and remember I am a coyote girl. I did warn you. Enjoy, and be safe and well, everyone.”
We were keen to see it ourselves, a monitor was waiting in the Yellow Oval Room, and ap Lugh had done us proud. The paramount tipi matched the height of the totem pole, patchwork skins a luminous marsh-sedge green across which Elder Spirits in animal form trotted, loped, slithered, or flew, and from the open smoke-flaps puffs coiled into the shape of one or another state before fading. And the entranceway was open, rising maybe half the height and angled widely so the whole of the North Façade could be seen around the vertical riot of the totem pole. I sighed pleasure, Adam squeezed my hand, and Jesse had the widest grin.
“More big colour points, Mom. You should trademark ‘Paramount Tipi, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue’ stationery, and give the renamed Committee a better budget.”
I blinked, and so did Adam, but Skuffles laughed.
Deal. That’s smart thinking, Jesse.
I didn’t disagree, and let Skuffles get on with alerting legal night staff - and yes, the President has those : go figure - while Adam and I headed back down to deal with excited, dazed, and often very thoughtful guests. Ap Lugh was pleased I was pleased, if curious about Underhill’s continuing interest in statuary, Irpa and other trolls, like Zee, had switched glamour to evening wear and were all deeply amused by the general crogglement as well as fending off enquiries from some chiefs about their availability for other swift totem-pole-raising, while Elder Spirits were as pleased with the reality, or glamourity, as they had been with the idea. My dancing da did give me one heart-squeezing moment, though, when he managed to stop snorfling for long enough to give me a triple bow of awesomeness.
“Enjoy the moment, totemic daughter. I doubt I’ll be repeating it, but truly, have a large heap of Coyote points. Paramount tipis, yet.”
I told him what Skuffles was about and he went back to laughing while I pulled myself together and went to find the ex-Man. He’d been very circumspect about returning as a guest, not wrongly despite the help he’d quietly given with a couple of thornier foreign policy problems, but tonight I’d invited all living ex-Men, and had a full house bar one. Hearteningly, all were impressed by what I was trying to do, however radical my tactics, and the eldest, now frail, gave me a genuine smile.
“My congratulations, Ms President, and not only for whacking the Committee for the Preservation. I wanted to, often, but didn’t have the chops. More importantly, that was yet another very good and moral speech. And I do like the exhibition - those Lakota manacles are a real eye-opener. May I ask how you knew about them?”
The others seconded the question, and I sent a minion to collar Frank and Hämäläinen, who knew about trying to wrangle perceptions of history and had some professional praise I appreciated. With regret I left them enjoying a conversation with ex-Men to mingle with assorted members of Congress and frazzled Beltway types. There was some kneejerk conservative affront, which I couldn’t say wasn’t intended, but the scale and quality of art, and the unarguable justice given my ethnic identities, made understanding the whole, rightly, as more of my campaign-promised vergangenheitsbewältigung easier than not, even if most still couldn’t say it correctly. Far more entertaining was a group of avatars, including Jill, who gave me a very bearish look.
“Underhill really grew that amazement ? In colour ?”
“She did, Jill, and bent time so it was ready, I gather. File under Skuffles.”
“Coyotes.”
“Yup. Are you complaining ?”
“Momma’s very happy.” She shrugged, but was smiling. “I expect I will be too, when I can take it all in.”
“It counts as not-boring, I hope ?”
I got another look.
“Just slightly, Mercy. You realise every Coast Salish village is going to want their own ?”
“They can ask Underhill, then. I don’t recommend it.”
“Un huh. And guess who they’ll decide could be an intermediary.”
“Talk to Zee and the trolls - they’re fending off demands to be available as a pole-raising crew.”
Jill laughed, and so did Joey Diamond, one of Snake’s, while raising his glass to me.
“Gotta hand it to you, Ms President - paramount warbonnet, paramount totem pole, paramount tipi, and for my money paramount portrait, by a ways. It’s quite the collection. Got any more paramount gear in mind ?”
“Who knows, Joey ? What else does a First Person need ?”
He grinned. “A paramount horse ?”
“Huh. Tricky, but though Purity didn’t come tonight, there not being any music on offer, she stops by sometimes to see the earth fae tending the Rose Garden, so I could always ask her. Not sure why I’d need to, though, with marsh-sedge green Beasts on tap.”
I left them wondering.