BLACK PRESIDENT- Chapter 84. PART-6, 2016-2020 ("BLACKMALE" ed.,). President Little dreams of past struggles-he tries to cloak his secret life as pretender/the most powerful person on the planet.

(Now begins the 3rd book of the TRILOGY: <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077MSZ4HS>

PART SIX

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

As John Little lay awake beside his dead brother’s wife, Cissy, a strange memory surfaced. One afternoon, when he was dropping by the house of a woman friend, his knocking on her door aroused a dog somewhere across the street. As he waited to see if she was home the barks continued, coming at a fierce and highly bothered intensity. Just as the thought formed, I’m glad that dog is penned up somewhere, that much clear from its muffled barking, the barks became much louder and frightening. With hardly a glance at the still-empty street, he immediately shed his coat, wrapping it quickly around his right arm, at the same time grabbing hold of an old wooden chair that had been left on the porch. And right after these two actions had been taken, the dog had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, racing up the short porch stairs straight at him. Making jabs with the chair – his arm protected by the coat like he’d seen in movies – he’d kept the dog at bay until his friend cracked open the door and let him in. And even then, the dog hadn’t quit, but leapt repeatedly against the door, its angry snout and canine teeth knocking against the glass of the small inspection window.

Why the memory now? Not very hard to figure that out. All the while that the dog was attacking, John had wondered if the animal could smell the fear on him, like he’d heard about. Had his scent divulged that he was a good target? He certainly had been scared, and certainly had been driven into a sweat over the confrontation. Safely inside his friend’s house they had laughed uneasily over the oddness of it, his response mostly to the relief of having a nice, big, thick door between himself and the crazed canine. His friend inadvertently gave him the instant headline – “Dogged Video Artist Devoured by Dog.” He had laughed again, this time solely at her wit in the face of his certain death.

But back to the present, and the Why of the recollection. The smell of fear. That had been on his mind, pretty much all the days since the switch in identities. His brother, Jackson, had been killed instantly by the Oval Office explosion (so the doctors had said). “Attorney General John Little died instantly” had been another strange assurance he’d heard the emergency doctors say on TV. As if death was painless because it was so quick. John had always wondered if that was true, too. And he, John Little, his brother Jackson’s identical twin, had been mistaken for his Presidential brother. It was an easy mistake, given that both the men looked even more identical when similarly covered in plaster, soot and debris. They had also changed clothes earlier that day – an uncanny coincidence that their twin prank had so strongly figured into the false identification later. That had been almost five months ago.

In a haze of pain and protruding I.V. tubes, he’d learned of his brother’s death. And over the months of hospitalization and slow recovery, he had continued with the charade. For one of the Little brothers not to retain control of the highest office would mean a drift of American values – the rich getting richer, the poor in last place, and new wars funded by an over-taxed middle and lower- class. So that was why the scent of fear had become a major theme in his life. He had to protect himself from becoming discovered and sent to prison for impersonating the President of the United States, while shielding the populace of America from such disruptive policies.

With so much riding on maintaining his mistaken identity, John had begun to exert control over his flight-or-fight tendencies. Surviving his situation meant replacing the ‘fawn’ response with its opposite – parasympathetic – to generate the ability to relax and renew, even while undergoing extreme stress. While Secret Service personnel stood guard outside his door, he had done some online research regarding scent-detection in the animal kingdom (White House staff had brought him his brother’s laptop during “the President’s convalescence”). And some surprising facts had emerged. Polar bears could smell a seal under three feet of solid ice, not to mention detecting a female in heat ninety miles away. Very impressive, thought John, if that was actually true! Of course the article didn’t mention how any scientific research team got within range to measure the polar bear’s level of scent-detection, through ice and over distances. Maybe the bear had just gotten lucky when he caught his prey in an ice floe?

John read more strange data off the screen. He reminded himself to reserve some skepticism about what he saw, online or elsewhere. But clearly, he would need to restrict all further contact with polar bears as he tried to run the government as an imposter. Another surprising fact uncovered that day had been that rhinoceros have a scent gland on the bottom of their feet. That was all well and good, thought John, while the animal was swimming. But on land, ugh! It heavily depended on just what the animal stepped on – or in. But the fact was, if rhinos were short-sighted like the article said, then beyond visual clues it was important that they could read urine scents that marked other animals territories. And what better way? And how blind was the average rhino? The “middens” – dung piles up to five meters high and wide – were pretty hard to miss as territorial markers. So, after the one-horn rhinos stuck their feet in their own dung and walked the scent all around their area, that was a good rhino-day. Not a very pleasing lifestyle, but workable in the animal kingdom. All others knew to steer clear, unless they wanted to be charged by one of the scariest creatures on God’s good Earth.

On a subtle level, what could humans read between each other, regarding turf protection and mating signals, John wondered? A common look, or glance from the female, or a puffing up and strong stare from a male protecting his turf didn’t cut it much. Joe DiMaggio’s glaring look that indicated he didn’t want anyone staring at his wife Marilyn Monroe’s bare legs and underwear as the blast of subway air lifted her dress for all the onlookers and publicity cameras to see, seemed pretty effective at the time. Certainly in Washington, D.C., there was plenty of male/female posturing going on, enough to cause some serious butting of horns.

When John had scrolled to another site, it reaffirmed what he already knew – animals’ ability to detect important odors exceeded that of humans to the power of hundreds. Not only could dogs, like the one that attacked him, detect smells fifty to one hundred times better than humans, but the average pig was way off the chart, smell-wise, able to root out truffles from underground caches in Europe and elsewhere, in places where dogs had no clue. A pig, any pig, would have instantly identified his fear level, such as when congressional friends of Jackson, or the V.P. himself, dropped by the hospital for their visits. Or what would the pig have noticed when the wives – his own and his brother’s – dropped in? This guy is scared shitless! The pigs would have immediately known the score.

There is so much room for error, thought John, as his eyes began to tire. But he wasn’t done with the surfing yet, kept pushing on, dialing up new screens of information as the muffled TV switched over to old-west gunfire. For a second he thought he could almost distinguish between Bonanza, Gunsmoke, or The Rifleman-brand sound effects. But no, he couldn’t. It was a Ricky Nelson western.

The internet information he found about macrosmatic – having a good sense of smell – said that as far as anyone knew, animals, other than humans, could only detect fear in their own particular species, not in others. So that old myth that wolves could smell fear in humans was maybe false. But the article went on to say that through smelling pheromones, humans could certainly detect the scent and desire for reproduction in their females. I know that scent, thought John, re-imagining his wife Fran and their crazed sexual interactions. It made him shudder. That memory certainly had its flip-side, since in his new Presidential role it required him being mated to Jackson’s wife Cissy instead!

John let the article scroll out. It explained how the ability to decipher airborne molecules with one’s nose, or even with the vomeronasal organ located above the soft palate of the mouth. Think recently-ground coffee, it said – it connects the smells to the limbic system of the brain, which makes sense of all such information. So that’s what I need to prevent others from doing around me, thought John.

Another online website talked about how people can read another person in just 100th of a second. And it’s during that infinitesimally short, snapshot-fast moment that they make 90% of their judgments regarding the man or woman before them. How then, John wondered, am I getting away with the switch of identity with my dead brother? He had never thought of himself as much of an actor. It must be one of those the emperor has no clothes kind of deals. Sometimes people see what they want to believe, before they actually see. So I need to insure that peoples’ sensory belief that I’m President supersedes what their instincts may tell them. It’s as simple as that!

Suddenly a tired feeling swept over him, and John exited the web, closing all the restricted Presidential windows. He set the computer down on the bedside tray, discovering that even that little bit of twisting from his center of the bed was an effort. “Enough food for thought,” said John quietly to himself At least he had the basic impersonation parameters in hand.

Ironically, Jackson’s contingency plan to switch identities had been well-discussed with the whole family – Cissy, Fran, even his mother and stepfather Rudy, had heard the details that day in the secure White House basement. And still, no one of that family group had seemed to spot the change. People saw what they wanted, believed what they believed. Everyone agreed that he was Jackson, The President, despite what had been amply discussed in the White House bunker just weeks earlier, when his brother had explained his wild scheme in response to assassination attempts. At that time basically everyone – especially wives – had found it totally ridiculous, completely un-doable. No one had accepted the possible twin-switch as anything more than a farfetched remedy – reckless at best – to retain control of the White House should an assassin’s bullet hit its mark.

The day of the explosion, he and Jackson had switched clothing on a lark, just like they’d done as kids. Twins fooling around. It didn’t seem like the plan would ever receive a green light from their loved ones. Then BOOM. Coming out of unconsciousness, John had found himself alone, mangled, bedridden and bandaged head to toe, and being mistaken for his brother.

Even First Lady Cissy hadn’t caught on. Neither had his own mother, nor his wife, Fran. Certainly none of the Congressmen, Senators, or Little Cabinet members who had dutifully dropped by at Washington Memorial Hospital were any the wiser. And Vice President Holstead could barely contain his delight because, temporarily, he was in charge of the country. Only Rudy, his step- dad and a Vietnam vet, had been told the truth. I’m not Jackson, I’m John, he had whispered from the hospital bed, We were just fooling around with a switch of clothes when the bomb hit, he’d been told in a discrete whisper. Rudy had taken it well, immediately camouflaging his new knowledge with a straight face after receiving the earthshaking news. At least John could count on one ally in the midst of all his challenges.

The greatest danger to the charade had been his most intimate contact – lovemaking with Cissy. How could she not smell the fear? How could she not know? Once she’d had him back in the private second floor White House living quarters, she had overwhelmed him with desire, seducing him tenderly with apologies. And somehow he had passed her scrutiny. They had made love, showered, and slept, then had intercourse again, without her detection of the biggest crime of the new century. The President of the U.S. was an imposter, but she didn’t know (or probably even care). She was sex-starved and happy to have a husband again.

Cissy hadn’t smelled his fear, but when did she have time for that odd examination? And neither, it seemed, had his real wife, Fran. In fact, Fran had so cemented him in her mind as his brother, that she had discussed openly with him – after sex – how relieved she felt, that John had never discovered their affair. It had been a horrible moment when John had learned that his brother and wife had been secretly screwing – his biggest test so far. But allowing her sexual appetite to flow over him-as-Jackson had helped. She hadn’t suspected anything and fortunately, he had not lost his cool under the shock of her inadvertent confession, somehow getting out of her house in one piece, driving away in the Presidential limousine.

Since the world believed Jackson had survived the blast, knew that The President had emerged unscathed, why would Fran think any different, sitting there with him on the edge of her bed. Had she smelled his fear or detected anything then? Obviously not. Hearing her allude to her affair with his brother had been the greatest test almost of his entire life. I must be made of stone, he thought, because inside I’m weeping.

Maybe a bit of him was dead inside, as he continued with the deception. Maybe he had trained himself to feel less deeply about things, to protect the overall mission he and his brother had initiated. How else could he have handled it so well?

His own brother and his own dear wife, Fran, had had a secret affair, right under his and Cissy’s noses. And he was now privy to the intensity (and delight) Fran felt in their lovemaking. Because she believed he was Jackson, she had whole heartedly revealed her physical desire toward his dead brother when they had had intercourse, incorporating sexual moves and positions beyond anything he had experienced himself with her in their previous life together. How sick and disturbing was that? He had been shown first-hand the full depth of her and his brother’s sexual attraction. And, strangely enough, he had suddenly become the beneficiary of her sexual proclivity. Once again, someone had believed what they wanted to believe. He was Jackson, her great lover, and she had loved him as Jackson, with all her might. So his job, if he could call it that, had been to be Jackson, enjoy himself as Jackson, and not be revealed as himself, whom she believed with all her heart and soul was dead and gone.

In the hospital, he had witnessed Fran’s behavior as his own bereaved wife, and it was kind of spooky how well she had performed the task. Of course, she had loved him, just not as sexually as his brother. She had given off no sign that she and his brother were lovers. Even when she and he were alone, between interruptions from the Secret Service guards and nurses, she had performed her role perfectly, not dipping into anything personal for even for a second. Wow, thought John in remembrance of his hospital stay, Fran was amazingly controlled and discreet – an Academy Award-level actress!

Maybe the ease of the deception – John Little as President Jackson Little – had been partly due to the earlier shockwave of the twins connection to JFK. People were probably still too busy trying to compare the JFK visage with their profiles. After all, both he and his brother were just about spitting, dark-skinned images of their famous father around the time of his death. Kennedy had been assassinated at age 46, Jackson at age 54. Fortunately, the Presidential election of 2016 had been nothing like the head- butting banter of debates that had won the first four-year term for his brother in 2012. Still shaky from months of hospitalization, John-as-Jackson had been spared the normal primary procedures – no speeches or personal appearances had been required for the man who had emerged alive from White House debris and had, additionally, suffered the painful death of his own dear brother John, while both were in service to their country. The nation’s major newspapers and online chains had supported Little’s post- trauma re-election, reiterating his American-hero-status in numerous articles and headlines, and it had been a cake-walk to reelection.

What John hadn’t realized was that his dead brother had long since caved to the demands of the Military Industrial Complex. Unbeknownst to John, the men behind the curtain - owners of major print media and military corporations, the Captains of Industry – had pulled the strings to keep their boy in power through 2020 and beyond

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