"The Boy Who Impeached The President"

THE BOY WHO IMPEACHED THE PRESIDENT

by Carl L. Biemiller,
edited by C. J. Carnahan and Eric Biemiller

The chapter links are located at the end of each chapter.

Chapter 30

“Look in the clock,” said Congressman Otten. “What clock? And where?”

“Not as difficult as it seems,” said Dr. Bailiff. “A childhood home in a childhood town. There can’t be many that have the sloping hill and the church that looks like that church or the house that looks like that specific house. But the procedures are yours, Congressman Otten.”

“They are indeed,” said he.

They found the house. It was still in the President’s family. It was rented to the sexton of the little nearby church. The grass on the sloping hill was winter brown but in the spring the hill would be a glory of blue lupines, and the live oaks would cast shade, and the bees would hum there.

The clock was polished to a soft waxy sheen and it kept very good time. And the sexton’s plump wife said yes the Landlord himself stopped by occasionally just to see that everything, including the clock, was just fine. You might call him a frequent visitor when he was in that part of the country.

Congressman Otten had lost no moments for the whispers of a deed often outpace the deed itself in Washington. The proper papers were obtained from the proper sources including all the necessary courts and the Special Prosecutor’s office, and from the House Judiciary Committee as well. And the men who served the papers were accompanied by the most trusted political witnesses from both parties.

And, when the search experts removed the panel inset of the pedestal, there was a whirring noise and the clock bonged out twelve strokes to cry high noon with a most impressive clangor.

There were papers in the secret place, and tapes and other articles from the White House. There was cash money too, and personal things, some the possessions of a child, a boy, as well as a man’s. Some of them were a trifle odd like a costume from a fourth grade play given in a country school house.

The costume was mostly a faded red velour robe, but there was a gold painted crown made of wood and a scepter.

The costume made some of the investigators very sad.

Others wondered why a lot of the stuff in the secret place had not been destroyed. Still others said that maybe a lot of it would be returned to the White House to be found when it was too late to damage the President.

But the findings made the jigsaw puzzle of Watergate a whole picture. And in due time even the most reaching members of the House of Representatives voted impeachment for the President. They had to. The President would not resign. He was a man obsessed with his own rightness.

Impeachment is only an accusation of wrong-doing. And accused people in this country are held to be absolutely innocent of wrong-doing until they are tried and found guilty. Impeached presidents must stand trial before the Senate of the United States. If they are proved innocent, they keep right on being president. If they are proved guilty, they are removed from office.

The President was impeached. And the Senate found him guilty. But it never had a chance to deliver its verdict, although there was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court borrowed by Congress to read the words and all ready to say them.

In fact, the President was never officially removed from his high office. At least, not by the Congress of the United States. But leave it he did.

Just who or what removed him may be discussed as long as there is a history of the United States.

But a lot of people saw it happen although maybe not as they now say they saw it happen. Woodie, his mother and father, Dr. Bailiff and Emily were there as special guests of very high government officials.

The great room where Joint Sessions of Congress are held was hushed. The people within it were overcome by respect of the act of which they were a part. For this was the government of a free people correcting its own flaws for the right to endure respected and trusted by the people it governed.

The President had been tried according to the Constitution of the United States whose creators had made possible such corrections. He stood to hear his verdict. He was calm, unafraid and admirable. He stood like a man aware of his office and its greatness and his share of it, and his utter right to use that office as he deemed best. Every eye in the massive room was upon him, and eighty million Americans watched him by television, and millions of foreigners in countries over seas snooping in on private American business.

The first words of the verdict about to be uttered by the Chief Justice stuck his throat.

The President vanished.

He was there, and then he was not.

For a split second there was a wash of heat that surged over the astounded faces of those in the great room as though a monstrous oven door had opened and closed.

The President of the United States was gone.

He was never seen again although he was reported to be in Pagonia several hours later.

“He’ll be back,” said Dr. Bailiff. “Or one like him.”

The entire world was stunned for days. The international crime rate dropped to zero for weeks. Church attendance soared. There were big runs in holy medals, rabbit’s feet and scarab amulets.

But nothing really changed although many lives were altered, mostly for the better. Marterville went right on being Marterville.

Advised of the President’s disappearance some weeks after the fact, Rumelstiltzkin Gomez said, “eef he wan’t to take off, ees hees business no? Maybe he do wan more treeck, si?”

They had a town dinner for the Marterville High School football team and gave out miniature gold footballs to all the squad members for winning the League Championship.

Woodie gave his to Emily. He kissed her for the second time.

“Once more is three,” said Emily. “That’s a magic number. Don’t say you weren’t warned, Woodie.”

Emily gave her hockey stick to Rumpel’s little brother Hernando to bash off the big kids who teased him about his size.

Tinker gave his goal football to his mother and told his father he’d get him another one next season. Tinker who had also been awarded the game ball for outstanding play in the last game of the year asked his father if it would be all right if he gave that to Mr. and Mrs. Kynwood.

“I can’t give Woodie nuthin’,” he explained.

“Tinker, you may turn out to be all right,” said his father.

Woodie knew why Tinker had done what he did. He broke the big rule and read Tinker’s mind.

The Watchers saw it anyhow.

That’s something to keep in the back of your mind.

Chapter One	Chapter Two	Chapter Three	Chapter Four	Chapter Five
Chapter Six	Chapter Seven	Chapter Eight	Chapter Nine	Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven	Chapter Twelve	Chapter Thirteen	Chapter Fourteen	Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen	Chapter Seventeen	Chapter Eighteen	Chapter Nineteen	Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One	Chapter Twenty Two	Chapter Twenty Three	Chapter Twenty Four	Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six	Chapter Twenty Seven	Chapter Twenty Eight	Chapter Twenty Nine

If you have any comments about this manuscript, please contact me at: eric@biemiller.com

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