After ten minutes of making sure the presidents were indeed missing from their displays, Mitch started to tell Snow the news. While Mitch tried explaining the situation in his usual convoluted way, Blair told Seph, Seph checked the displays himself and, reaching the same conclusion, told Snow before Mitch had finished his version of what happened. Not that she didn’t believe Seph and Mitch, Snow nevertheless left her office and went over to the displays herself and saw what everybody else had. All 12 presidents were missing.
Snow had noticed the doors were unlocked when she opened the museum earlier that day but had chalked it up to her own indifference from the night before. Nothing else was missing from the museum. Nothing was even damaged. No signs of forced entry. Why would somebody steal the presidents? They were worthless to anybody but the museum. Ransom? There was no ransom note. Inside job? No. Impossible. No. Wait. No. No, no, no, no.
Snow approached the group of friends standing around in the lobby. Mitch, Seph: You’re fired.
-What?
-I don’t care that you guys don’t care about history. I don’t care if you’re high, jerks or lazy. I don’t care if you’re five minutes late to work, leave five minutes early or fight each other with broomsticks in the break room. And I don’t care if you drive away every museum patron; perhaps knowing that we can just stay afloat thanks to state funding or perhaps in some inane attempt to stave off boredom for yet another wasteful ten years of life. But I do care, I care very much, that I can’t trust you. And since you two are the only guys who could have stolen in the presidents, baffling the mind that you’re even that competent, you are both out of here right after you tell me where they are.
Stunned. Afraid. Disappointed. Embarrassed.
-What?
-Tell me where the presidents are.
-We don’t know.
-You’re fired.
-What about me?
-Yes Mitch, you too. You’re both fired.
Seph stormed out of the museum and Blair went after him. The perfect weather outside insulted Seph even more as he walked down the sidewalk to no place in particular. Blair struggled to keep up, but managed it. Seph didn’t do anything with the damn presidents. He knew that. Blair knew that.
-I knew this would happen, vented Seph.
-Knew what would happen?
-Something bad. Something stupid.
-Something good could still happen.
-No. That chapter of my life is done.
-Come on. Let’s go somewhere.
Blair looked around for a suitable “somewhere” within walking distance. There were two sandwich places back by the museum. But down the road further there was a Big Burger Place. Yeah, fine. Whatever. Big Burger Place. Seph didn’t care, or at least didn’t say anything when they were sitting in the fast food diner just drinking and splitting an order of fries. The place smelled like ambivalent grease. It was just after the lunch rush and, aside from Seph and Blair, only two families with obnoxious kids remained. Or perhaps the families didn’t have obnoxious kids but rather just had kids. Seph and Blair couldn’t agree.
They didn’t talk about the friends left behind at the museum. They didn’t talk about the museum at all. YouTube is the fast food of entertainment, noted Blair. It’s cheap, popular, large amounts aren’t good for you and it’s rarely filling. Blair was glad she made the associations before Seph. Had Seph said the same thing, Blair might have been insulted--but now she had taken the air out of the fame balloon herself.
Seph looked over Blair’s shoulder and saw a thin man walk into the restaurant wearing a suit perhaps more fitting for an old time-y preacher at a funeral. Wearing an odd black three-piece, the man was haggard and clearly on drugs or clearly drunk. He was clearly something. Seph considered he was a rich man in his normal clothes after some crazy, life affirming, adventure. The man went to the counter and asked for some water.
-Do you think we lost out on an opportunity, asked Seph.
An opportunity? Could have Blair and Seph made more of their former fame than they did? Here they were, in a regular restaurant and not one person recognized them. Days ago they might have been greeted like rock stars or the pope. They could have made spin-offs. Talk show appearances. Their own talk shows. T-shirts. They would have been experts. Could have given high-priced lectures on the viability of viral entertainment. Now at least two of the five friends couldn’t hold down regular day jobs and Lily didn’t need a job so long as she lived with her parents.
Seph, while talking with Blair, noticed the man in black sat in a far corner behind Blair. Old Black Suit never looked at anybody. The man put his head between his hands and starred at his plastic cup of water. Seph normally wouldn’t notice strange people, but this thin, old man kind of looked like Grand Moff Tarkin from Star Wars: Episode IV. Since Blair had clarified before that she, unconscionably, didn’t like Star Wars, Seph didn’t say anything about the man.
What is the legacy of a sensation forgotten? There were thousands of bloggers who supported and criticized the famed video. The news covered it. Radio DJs and one senator talked about it. It was impossible to measure the popularity against the criticism. If the group had not made the short video, what would have the world been talking about? When college students learn about the history of the Internet in fifty years, will they talk about “Fire, Shasta and a Dog Sneeze”? Will they talk about how it changed the world? What it said about the world? Maybe it’ll only serve as a marker of cultural irrelevance.
Seph’s cell phone started ringing. It was Mitch. Much later than Seph expected to be called. Hey Mitch, Seph greeted, so that Blair wouldn’t have to wonder.
-Seph, I didn’t study that president book thing Snow gave us.
-So? It doesn’t matter any more.
-Well, actually, it might.
-What are you talking about?
-Was there a President Chester A. Arthur?
-Yeah.
-He said ‘yeah.’
-Mitch, what’s up?
-Seph. I think we found him.
-You found Chester Arthur?
-Yeah, here he is.
-Where is here?
The phone then took a confusing turn as someone on Mitch’s ending started talking into the phone. It sounded like an older guy but Seph had never heard the voice before. Another homeless man? Or adventurous, smelly rich man? Seph’s confusion drove Blair to move from across the table to next to him. They both listened in the phone. Hello? Mitch? Mitch?
-What is going on, said a voice on the other end.
-I don’t know, responded Seph.
-I heard a voice!
-Yeah, that’s my voice.
-This is impossible.
-Hello? Where is Mitch?
-Who is Mitch?
-Put Mitch on the phone!
-The phone?
-Give the phone back!
-Seph?
-Mitch?
-Yeah.
-What’s going on?
-Did that sound like him?
-Sound like who?
-Chester A. Arthur!
Seph’s eyes became unfocused as his mind sank deep into his head. Impossible.
-Mitch, I’m going to have to call you back.
-Wait!
Seph hung up his cell phone. Blair asked Seph what the hell was going on but Seph didn’t answer. Instead he got out of his seat and slowly walked to the odd, thin man in black who had just a water cup in the corner. Seph stayed standing in front of the man’s table. Blair stood behind Seph, watching. Seph suspected that the man was not in fact a homeless man, so much as he was an accidental refugee.
-Excuse me, started Seph softly. Do you have any idea where you are?
The man looked up at Seph, on the verge of crying. No.
-What’s your name, asked Seph.
-John.
-John, are you the President of the United States of America?
-Yes.
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