Now that the pressure to find the missing three presidents was entirely in their grubby mitts, Mitch and Emmit realized they were baffled as to where to search but walked downtown. Blair and Lily would find Seph, Mitch knew. Mitch forced himself to know this. He couldn’t let himself worry.
-Okay, say you have to get mauled by one animal.
-What?
-What animal would you chose?
-Shut the hell up, Mitch. Please.
-Really makes you think, though. Doesn’t it?
-It really doesn’t.
-Getting mauled by an animal…actually now I’m kind of hungry.
Mitch suggested they go to Big Coffee Place, which actually had pretty big sandwiches. The coffee wasn’t so good but it was in the downtown area. Mitch couldn’t remember the name of the street, though.
While Emmit didn’t particularly want to eat with Mitch, he figured finding a reason not to was too much work. This day had been exhausting enough, thought Emmit. And though he’d have a couple of stories to share with his family at the next Thanksgiving Day dinner, the money reward wasn’t nearly enough. Wait. Am I getting paid for this? Emmit couldn’t remember. There’s no way he just volunteered for free. Finding criminals always yields a reward, so finding presidents has got to be worth something.
-Maybe we could hold the last three presidents hostage, said Mitch.
-What?
-The presidents, just as wax statues, cost the museum ten thousand dollars.
-Okay.
-So we should demand like nine thousand dollars for each. Then everybody wins.
Emmit considered this plan as Mitch elaborated. It had its merits. Twenty-seven thousands dollars split in half was quite a bit of money. Even if the guys had to split it with the other friends, that was still a lot of money. Twenty-seven thousand divided by five is…what? Shit. Where’s Seph when you need him.
At this point Emmit realized Mitch was actually convincing him, and that was simply not acceptable. I must be going nuts, thought Emmit. Delusional. Maybe I just need food. Besides, Mitch’s plan could never work. And it probably wasn’t even a plan. It was a joke. Just a dumb joke. Plus we don’t even know where the presidents are or where to start searching.
-If I’m a president, thought Emmit out loud, where do I go? I go to all the places we’ve already been. Library, homeless shelter, train station, police department, the museum. Okay, Mitch, this is what we should do: think like Seph. Think big. Contact everybody we know, everybody, and coordinate a street-by-street sweep of the whole city. Or maybe, no this is better, we find Marley. Her dad has a helicopter. We can fly over the city with a megaphone—
-Is that a president?
-Where?
Mitch pointed up and across the street from the coffee shop. On the roof of a four-story building, a thin man dressed in a dark suit slowly climbed over the railing.
-Oh shit.
Emmit and Mitch ran across the street, barely dodging horn-blaring cars. The building was an apartment complex and the guys raced up the flight of stairs, though Mitch fell a little behind. Emmit got to the top but stopped at a door that said “Authorized Personnel Only.” Emmit looked back at Mitch, now stumbling up the last few stairs. Emmit said they’d have to go back and get the manager’s permission, but Mitch didn’t even hear him and slammed into the door that simply pushed open.
The guys quickly saw the man on the other side of the railing. He held on tight to the railing while facing Emmit and Mitch, with his back to the brightly-lit street four full floors down. He looked almost ten years younger than the previous presidents but had soft gray eyes. His medium-length black hair was mangy and string-like.
-Don’t jump!
-Okay.
-Who are you?
-Franklin Pierce.
-Do you think you’re the president?
-I used to be.
-You can be again, just come with us.
Pierce thought about this and told the guys his story, while not moving from the other side of the railing. Earlier that day he saw a store that sold boxes called teletronvisions or something like that. He quickly understood that many people could see one person’s face for miles around. Positive that his face would be recognized, Pierce asked one of the shop-keeps to put his face in the box. The shopkeep professed he had no such power and suggested Pierce do something crazy to get mentioned in the news. Obviously Pierce knew what a newspaper was and was quite willing to believe the New York Tribune would have such phenomenal technology by this age. Pierce demanded more information but the shop-keep told the president to jump off a bridge.
Pierce couldn’t believe a man’s suicide would be so popular in this strange future society, but he was willing to go along with it. Pierce then went to the top of the tallest building in the area, only to consider people may not be able to see him from so far up. Pierce then came to this building but now found himself considering if the building was too short. During all this technology confusion and fake suicide planning, Pierce thought about really killing himself. The brief thought then became a conviction. God had punished him for becoming president. His wife punished him for staying president. And now some other greater power than himself has punished Pierce once again. He simply couldn’t take it anymore.
-If you die, Mitch pleaded, history will get screwed up. And I’ll get fired!
-History already is wrong, lad. Look at your world. I’m sorry.
-No!
Mitch ran to the railing but Pierce let go. Emmit moved almost simultaneously with Mitch but Mitch got a half-step head start and managed to lunge halfway over the railing after Pierce. Mitch would have gone clear over the railing but Emmit grabbed Mitch’s legs in mid-dive. Mitch’s lower midsection landed on the railing, putting his face not too far from Emmit’s feet. Emmit held on as if his life depended on it, knowing that it probably did, but he found his friend unusually heavy. Mitch had grabbed Pierce’s wrist with both hands in mid-fall. The bewildered Pierce, dangling on the side of the building, looked up at Mitch.
-This hurts a lot! Cried Mitch.
-Mitch! Fucking! Shit! Cried back Emmit.
Emmit tried to pull back Mitch and Pierce, but couldn’t. Both non-presidents groaned in pain. Mitch reinforced his grip on Pierce’s wrist with both hands and tried in vain to pull up. Then Emmit’s cell phone started to ring.
-Don’t answer that! Screamed Mitch.
-I won’t!
Emmit tried again to pull the guys, but his grip slipped just a little. The cheerful cell phone jingle continued to mock them.
-Let go of me, ordered the president.
-No!
-I need to die!
-You can die a hundred years ago, I don’t care! But not now!
-Let go of me!
Emmit’s cell phone stopped ringing. And Mitch’s started.
-Oh shit.
-I want to die! I’m a coward!
-Stop being a coward!
Mitch looked up at his pants and saw his ringing cell phone start to fall out of his pocket. Dammit. The phone fell out of his pocket, hit the building and was caught by Franklin Pierce’s free hand.
-Thank you Mister President!
-Guys! Struggled Emmit. I’m losing you!
-Shit happens, Mister President! But we can change shit!
-Do you really think I can?
-For the love of God, yes!
Franklin Pierce hung there in silence for a moment. Wise words, young man, he finally said and put Mitch’s phone in his own pocket. Pierce then put his free hand on the edge of the building and pulled up, helping Emmit just enough to pull all three of them back onto the roof.
Emmit pulled out his phone and went to his missed phone calls. It was Lily’s number and he called her back. We’ll be at the Big Coffee Place on Fifth Street, see you there. Emmit hung up without needing a response. He was almost too exhausted from saving Mitch and the continuity of world history to be proud. And after a few minutes of catching their breath in silence, the two guys and the 14th President of the United States walked down the staircase, across the street, passed the television store and into the coffee shop across the street.
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