\n<\/p>\n
I was taking soup to the orphans, as usual, when a young man I\u2019d never before met seized me by the arm. \u201cDonald,\u201d he said. \u201cMy name is Barack Obama, although that\u2019s not important right now. In fact, you\u2019ve already forgotten it. Before I matriculate at Harvard Law School, I must introduce you to someone who\u2019s going to change your life.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at my watch. It was 1987.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cA man with whom you have nothing in common,\u201d the mysterious figure went on. \u201cNot one single thing. Not even enigmas. His name is Jeffrey.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat!\u201d I said. I loved to be introduced to people, in case they could help me with the orphans or connect me to a good sackcloth dealer. I was wearing a lot of sackcloth at that time, out of humility. I put down the biography of William McKinley that I had been reading in order to learn whether tariffs were good or bad. I had hoped that I could read it to the orphans, after we finished with the soup. But that could wait. \u201cPlease, introduce me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thus began almost two decades of association that were nothing but miserable for me. I don\u2019t know if you have any friends with whom you have nothing in common, but that was how it was with me and this guy. I assume! I never found out what he did, or how exactly he made his money, or even what his interests were. I would look at him and think, What a head of hair! \u201cEven better than William McKinley\u2019s!\u201d I would mouth silently to myself. Then I would notice that, below the hair, his mouth was moving, and I\u2019d try to guess what he had been saying, so that I could answer appropriately. Usually, I would just laugh and say, \u201cYou know that\u2019s right!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re a pal,\u201d Jeffrey would tell me. I wondered if I really was a pal. I spent so little time understanding what he had to say, and so much time lost in my own world, thinking about William McKinley and wondering what tariffs were. Tariffs\u2014what a beautiful sound that word has. Tariff: the tip of the tongue taking a trip from the glorious Ta to the explosion of riff!<\/p>\n
Again and again, my new friend would drag me to parties that I had no interest in attending. I was miserable. I sat in the front row at the Victoria\u2019s Secret fashion show with my biography of William McKinley open on my lap. But it was hard to read in the dark room, and I was not getting to the part that explained what tariffs were as fast as I would have liked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to go to another of Jeffrey\u2019s island soirees,\u201d I complained at one point. \u201cI just want to stay in and read up about tariffs. I don\u2019t feel that I understand them yet.\u201d Everybody knows how much I love reading and how zealously I guard my reading time.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d the mysterious man said. \u201cIt\u2019s very important that you attend these parties. We need you in pictures. It\u2019s for the conspiracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
I could tell the conspiracy was very important to him, so I always wound up going.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome on the plane,\u201d Jeffrey said once. \u201cIt\u2019s called the Lolita Express.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSure,\u201d I said. This was the most excited I had been in some time. I had no idea that Jeffrey also loved Nabokov. \u201cI love a literary classic with an unreliable narrator.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the plane, I was disappointed. I searched it up and down for books to read but did not find any. Not even The Art of Translation! <\/p>\n
\u201cYou should call your next plane the Ada, or Ardor: A Family-Chronicle Express,\u201d I suggested. Jeffrey didn\u2019t laugh. Now that I think back, I am beginning to doubt that Jeffrey had even read Lolita!<\/p>\n
Jeffrey claims I met Melania on his plane, but I am certain I was with the orphans that week. Once I asked Melania about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you ever been on that plane?\u201d I asked. \u201cIs that where we met? I don\u2019t think that would have been how.\u201d<\/p>\n
She shrugged. \u201cCould be. I do a lot of conspiracy things, what with all the body doubles. What do you remember?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember approaching you. I said, \u2018I respect women too much to have any sense of what you look like physically, but there is something about your soul that makes me think of tariffs.\u2019 And then you said, \u2018Oh, no.\u2019 And I said, \u2018No, it\u2019s good. Tariff is the most beautiful word in the English language.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat does sound more like you,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Jeffrey kept inviting me to parties or, worse, urging me to throw parties of my own with themes that he suggested. I didn\u2019t want to, but never told him so. That would have been impolite.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m having a party,\u201d I told Jeffrey once. \u201cThe theme is respect for women. I respect women so much that I feel bad even singling them out to say that I respect them, because really they\u2019re just people. It\u2019s a party about that, and I\u2019d like you to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not a good theme,\u201d he said. \u201cDo a different theme instead.\u201d So we did Jeffrey\u2019s theme. I was very unhappy about it. We were the only two people there. I spent the whole party in the corner with my book about William McKinley, trying to get to the tariff part. I didn\u2019t, though. It was too loud.<\/p>\n
The mysterious man who introduced me to Jeffrey in the first place came back in roughly 2002. He had a book for Jeffrey that he wanted me to sign. \u201cDo a picture,\u201d he suggested.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut,\u201d I said, \u201cI never write a picture.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s okay,\u201d he said. He had an autopen with him. \u201cI always carry this, for conspiracy reasons.\u201d He used the pen to make a very obscene doodle and then pointed for me to sign my name to it. There was text above it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does the text say?\u201d I asked. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t imply I share a creepy secret with this man, does it? I am beginning to think that he is not on the level, and I wouldn\u2019t like to have it in writing that we had shared a creepy secret if, say, he were later revealed to be a terrible pedophile.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt says, \u2018I love tariffs!\u2019\u201d the man said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat,\u201d I said. I signed it enthusiastically.<\/p>\n
Over the years, the man kept coming to me and asking me to pose for pictures or make incriminating videotapes \u201cfor the files.\u201d I should have asked more about the files, now that I think about it. \u201cWhat are the files for?\u201d I should have said. But he was clearly so passionate about them that I did not want to rain on his parade. When pressed, he said, \u201cConspiracies to do with the 2016 election,\u201d or, \u201cConspiracies to do with the 2020 election,\u201d or, \u201cConspiracies generally,\u201d or, \u201cAsk Dan Bongino.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to put all of this into files,\u201d he explained. \u201cReams and reams of really damning stuff. And then we\u2019re going to keep them secret. And you need to keep asking for them. Don\u2019t take no for an answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis conspiracy confuses me,\u201d I said. \u201cYou have spent decades painstakingly assembling this file, but you also will hide it from everyone, and I have to ask for it to be released?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d he said. \u201cBut then you have to stop asking for it to be released. Abruptly, and as suspiciously as you can. Indeed, if Congress shows any interest in having it released, have the speaker of the House shut them down for the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut,\u201d I said, \u201cwhy would Congress listen to me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll listen,\u201d the man said, and winked. \u201cYou\u2019ll be the president, although many of the people who voted for you will be people who have felt for a long time that there is a secret conspiracy of elite pedophiles and that you are the one to help them blow it wide open. So they might not be happy when you start calling the files \u2018boring.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would they care so much?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea that there are secretly elite cabals of pedophiles wherever you look has been the stuff of conspiracy theories for years. Your supporters will be particularly interested in such things.\u201d He paused. \u201cBut this time there\u2019s an actual man preying on actual girls. That\u2019ll be the horrible thing about this: a lurid conspiracy theory wrapped around real horrors that happened to real girls.\u201d He got quiet for a moment.<\/p>\n
I was thinking about something else. \u201cYou said I would be president,\u201d I said, my voice hushed with wonder. \u201cCan I do tariffs, as president? Like William McKinley did?\u201d<\/p>\n
He shrugged. \u201cSure, I guess. Is that really your only question about this?\u201d<\/p>\n
I nodded. \u201cTariffs are all I think about.\u201d I halted for a moment. \u201cAnd they\u2019re\u2014they\u2019re a good idea, right? Tariffs?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre they a good idea? Are they a good idea?\u201d He laughed. \u201cWhy, you might as well ask if there is reason to cast doubt on the legitimacy of my birth certificate!\u201d<\/p>\n
I frowned. \u201cIs there?\u201d He didn\u2019t answer. \u201cIs there?\u201d<\/p>\n
But he had already vanished into the parking lot, clutching his precious files.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was taking soup to the orphans, as usual, when a young man I\u2019d never before met seized me by the arm. \u201cDonald,\u201d he said. \u201cMy name is Barack Obama, although that\u2019s not important right now. In fact, you\u2019ve already forgotten it. Before I matriculate at Harvard Law School, I must introduce you to someone<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[3703,3093],"class_list":{"0":"post-12326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-epstein","9":"tag-files"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}