Here in My Office
Sidney
* * *
A journey of 1,000 miles occasionally begins with the realization
that 1,000 miles is a hell of a long journey.
- Mort Salt -
___________________
I am the last to know.
Well, okay, that's a bit extreme. Donna doesn't know yet, and neither
do Carol or Margaret or Cathy or Danny Concannon. I don't think Manny
the security guard knows yet, and I'm pretty sure Mrs Fitts, my next-
door neighbor, has no clue.
But other than that, I'm the last to know that the President of the
United States has Multiple Sclerosis.
This explains why Josh has been going around with this look in his
eyes, like he's not all there, and why he's been giving that spooky,
fake smile when you try to get his attention. It explains why I
haven't heard Toby's pink rubber ball bouncing against the window in
days, and why CJ disappeared mysteriously this morning and was gone
for hours.
It also explains why Toby told me he'd be in his office when I got
out. I didn't think much of it at the time. We had just been
discussing how I'd offended the tax committee by cutting out the
thing about faster jets and swimming pools, so I thought, `Okay, he
wants to discuss this when I'm done with Leo and the President'. If I
thought anything. Actually, I didn't really think anything of it, to
tell you the truth.
But now his words have taken on historical significance. Years from
now, when my grandchildren ask me how I learned about the
catastrophic cover-up of President Josiah Bartlet's debilitating
disease, I will tell them that my first clue should have been when
Toby Ziegler told me he would be in his office if I needed him.
I'm standing outside Leo's office now, in the middle of the hallway,
my hands at my sides. I'm sure it looks as if I'm frozen right here,
rooted to the spot. I think I'm supposed to be moving, but that's too
much information for my brain to process right now. The only thought
I have room for is this: What happens next?
Not `Is the President going to be okay?'. Not `How long has he
known?'. Not `Who else knows about this?'. Those are all questions
I've already asked the President and Leo. They were the first to pop
into my head and I said them all in a rush.
Now I'm just wondering what's going to happen next.
"Sam?" Donna's walking toward me, a puzzled expression on her face.
I snap back to reality. "Oh…Hey, there."
She lifts an eyebrow. "You okay?"
Not really. Our lives are about to take a most dramatic turn, Donna.
"Um, yeah."
She draws closer. "You're sure?" she asks skeptically.
"Yeah."
"Because you were just kind of standing in the middle of the hallway,
and you had absolutely no color in your face."
"I'm fine."
"If you say so."
"It's not me you should be worried about," I say. Then I mentally
kick myself.
"And that means what?" asks Donna, rifling through the papers in her
hands.
Nice move, Seaborn.
"Nothing."
She looks up again. "Sam, you're acting very strangely."
"I agree."
Donna tilts her head to one side and studies me for a moment. "Sam,
what are you not telling me?"
Damn this choirboy face.
There are many ways to answer this question. I could go all Humphrey
Bogart and say, `You'll find out soon enough, kid'. I could take the
little-girl-on-the-playground route and tell her it's for me to know
and her to find out. And then there's the ever-popular "I could tell
you, but then I'd have to kill you". But I don't feel like being
flippant just now.
I shrug in response. "Nothing. Ignore me. I'm tired."
"You look it," she agrees. "Why don't you go home? Get some sleep."
I laugh a little. I doubt I'll be getting to sleep tonight. Hell, if
I leave the office before eleven it'll be a miracle.
"All right, then. See ya." Donna strides past me, giving me a little
nudge in the shoulder blade to get me going. "Get a move on, boy."
And finally I do. As I walk, my brain does that weird thing where it
matches the rhythm of my thoughts with the rhythm of my movements;
this time it's the repetitious `What next…What next…What next'
coinciding with my footfalls. It's driving me a little crazy.
But this…all this…What am I supposed to do with this information?
The President has a disease, and he's known about it for years now. I
didn't ask exactly how long, but it's pretty obvious this is not
information they've discovered recently.
I think back to little episodes where the President would be walking
steadily along and then suddenly veer slightly off to one side or
another, his hands flying out to balance himself and remain upright.
He would blame it on walking too much and not eating enough, or turn
it into a joke about getting old and needing a walker soon. But now I
know it was ataxia, a spell of unsteadiness that hits MS sufferers
sometimes.
Other times he would stare very hard into the distance, then break
off to rub his eyes roughly with his fingers. He blamed it on staying
up too late reading or his poor eyesight, but it was really his
vision blurring, or maybe he was even seeing double.
Or maybe his eyes really were just tired.
See, that's the thing. How do we know? We have heard so many excuses
over the past few years, we have told so many lies. CJ, for example,
has given so many reports saying –
Oh, God. CJ.
I stop again in the hall and slump up against the nearest wall. I
think of CJ giving her briefings after the President's yearly
physical, making blithe comments on Bartlet's fondness for steak and
potatoes; I think of her report after the shooting at Rosslyn, her
firm assurances to the press that the President would make a full
recovery, that he was an otherwise perfectly healthy man. Oh, God. CJ.
No one's going to care that she didn't know. No one's going to
say, "Oh, that's okay, CJ. You were in the dark. We don't blame you."
They're going to attack. She's the face of this administration, she's
the frontline for the outside world, and she stood behind her podium
and lied for the President of the United States.
You see, that's the really terrible thing about politics. We can't
just say, `Oh, my god. Our friend, this man we look up to and admire,
is sick. He has a terrible illness that has no cure'. We have to
say, `There were lies, there was cover-up, the American people were
deceived. What happens next?' We have to think about lies we've told –
lies that were not our fault, and were not intended to be lies by
any of the involved parties – but which were deceptions all the same.
We have to think about careers that can be destroyed and damage that
was done to a nation of voters who may or may not have been duped
into voting for Josiah Bartlet.
I glance through the windows at the communications bullpen. It's
empty now. It seems desolate, but maybe that's just my mood. It's all
about the imagery.
Leo told me that Toby was the first staffer to find out. Toby, with
his cold calculation, with that amazing capacity for deduction that
can be so ruthless sometimes. He knew first, and he went to Leo and
the President. He demanded to be told, and they told him. Toby
accused Leo of a coup d'état, and the President accused Toby of being
pissed because he wasn't told sooner.
Leo says that Toby yelled some, and the President yelled some, and
that he himself just tried to keep his sanity intact through all of
it. And after the accusing was done and the yelling was done, the
President and Leo knew it was time to make a move. It was time to
face the moment they'd been dreading for years.
All this was going on while I was stuck arguing about the ERA with
Ainsley Hayes and bringing the funny with Josh and Donna and Ed and
Larry. Donna was mocking my relationship with Laurie while Toby was
bellowing at the President and Leo about Leo's illegal seizure of
power when the President was under anesthetic at GW. I mocked Donna
back about Josh sending her flowers, and perhaps at that very moment
the President was yielding under Toby's unrelenting tirade.
Those moments had no real weight to them as they were occurring, but
they seem to resonate in my head now. It's like a film when the
motion slows down and cuts between one room and another, the music
ominous in the background. I'm seeing everything, and I want to hit
my head against the wall for being so damn clueless. I know it's not
my fault – There's no way I could have known. But I feel so stupid.
Maybe that's why I was the last to know.
It's all too much. I can't process it. What's going to happen to us
tomorrow? And the next day? And the week after that? And the year
after that? Is Josiah Bartlet going to go down in history for being a
just leader who made positive changes, or are they going to set him
aside as a man who conspired to deceive the American people? And not
just the standard political deceptions either; this deception could
have cost him the White House in the first place. At least in theory.
Oh, Jesus. We're going to have rabid Republicans crawling out of the
woodwork. We're going to be scrutinized more sharply than ever,
questioned more intrusively than ever, doubted more intensely than
ever. There will be depositions and hearings and interviews and
reporters. They're going to dredge up every available moment of
television footage showing us talking with the President, and
laughing with him, walking by his side to state events. They'll show
footage of Rosslyn after the shooting, and photos of CJ and me
holding each other upright as we walk into the pressroom. They'll re-
run CJ's press briefings on the President's health; they'll find
documents that were signed, they'll drag up witnesses who saw Bartlet
in a moment of weakness that they then ignored, but which now takes
on such dramatic significance.
It's just too much to process. And beneath this hard politician's
surface, inside I'm crying for the man with the illness. Oh, I know
he's leading an impressive life – that's an understatement. I know
it's not my place to pity him, and that he would give me a serious
ass-kicking if he knew I was even contemplating feeling sorry for
him, but I can't help mourning inside. This disease will rob him of
so much, even as he fights it.
And his family. Abbey and Lizzie and Ellie and Zoey – what must they
feel? What must they think? They can separate themselves even less
than I can. This is their husband, their father, the center of their
world. They've had years to adjust to it, but now it's going to be
blown wide open. It's going to put a whole new perspective on things.
I can't handle this right now. God, no wonder they waited to tell me.
I can't deal with this. When I look past the shock and the pity, I
find anger. It's buried deep down, but it's there. Anger at Leo,
anger at the President. They kept this from us, they lied – don't
tell me they didn't – and now we're all going to suffer.
I can't think these thoughts. It's late, I'm tired; I've argued and
offended and accused and relented, and done my best to serve the
American public. I have nothing left in me.
One foot in front of the other, Sam.
I walk into my office. Toby is seated behind my desk, squeezing the
pink rubber ball in his hand, staring out the window, where it is
dark outside. He turns to look at me.
"Hey."
"I thought you were going to wait for me in your office."
He shrugs. "I didn't think you'd come."
"So you're here."
"Yes."
"In my office."
"Yes."
"You knew," I say.
"Yes," he says. "And now you do, too."
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