My Night with the President: Based on Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew"

By Elliott Middleton

Larry Quigley tells the story of his own marriage, and that of a woman-taming Aussie, to the President and first lady in this comic novel based on Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew." This adaptation is true to the spirit of Shakespeare's work, bringing Shakespeare's characters into the modern world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elliott Middleton
• Release date: Aug 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301576968

Elliott Middleton

Elliott Middleton studied English literature as an undergraduate at Yale University, before pursuing a doctorate in the dominant mythology of our age, Economics, at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is married and lives in Tennessee.

Book preview

MY NIGHT WITH

THE PRESIDENT

Based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew

By

ELLIOTT MIDDLETON

*** SMASHWORDS EDITION ***

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Elliott Middleton on Smashwords

My Night with the President

Copyright © 2013 by Elliott Middleton

Thank you for downloading this eBook. This book is copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed for any commercial or non-commercial use without permission from the author. Quotes used in reviews are the exception. No alteration of content is allowed. If you enjoyed this book, then encourage your friends to download their own copy.

Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Cover credits: design by visualarts at fiverr.com; stock photos from 123rf.com

PROLOGUE

The West faded like a golden dream.

Like that night thirty years ago, in LA, wow. I was out on the worst binge since getting married, found myself in my lawyer’s pinstripes drooling all over a waitress named Priscilla in some dive in one of the lost sections of Los Angeles. It would seem that too many tequilas induce loss of directional sense, as well as other kinds. I was a real sitting duck in the underclass eyes around me.

Fallen Angelinos.

Hey, you gonna pay for your drinks, rich boy? Priscilla yelled. She slapped my face, pushing it off her chest.

Sure, let me just grab my checkbook….

In cash, rich boy.

Cash?

A big black guy ambled over. I winked at him. He lifted me by the lapels, slammed me against the wall, removed all the cash from my billfold, and propelled me out the door. It more than covered my drinks, I must say.

Expelled! I, who had been Head Boy in prep school (despite some misbehavior)–I was being thrown out of a seedy dive? My dear mother’s voice came to me: Just go with the flow, Larry, do what you have to do. Mom is one of those blue stocking ladies who like to talk hip.

I kissed the dirty pavement. I was not far from Hollywood. After the smoky bar, the smog tasted sweet in my mouth. Those flavor additives they’d been putting in it recently worked great. As I drifted off to sleep, I saw two guys in the doorway of the bar pointing at me and at each other, trying to decide who was going to get to roll me. I succumbed to a delightful dream of being in my backyard and discovering a Japanese microcomputer company….

A klaxon horn blasted me awake. I opened my eyes enough to discover that I was now lying in a gutter, and that directly over my head was the shiny silver grille of a Rolls Silver Cloud.

It seems that the gutter had been more comfortable than the sidewalk, and that my person and was now in the way of some turkey and his egotistical automobile.

I muttered an obscenity and snuggled up against some of Goodyear’s finest. Where the rubber met my face, so to speak. Actually, I was paralyzed with fear. I pretended to go to sleep again, listening to expensive car doors opening and shutting. Playing possum.

Let me explain, please. I come from a good family. Back East, Mummy and Dad are leaders of the Establishment, intimates of presidents and bisexual intellectuals, on the boards of lots of important corporations and foundations. They would be mortified if word of my present debacle were to become public. They’d been mortified by my behavior before, of course. But since getting married seven years ago, I had turned over a new leaf.

Of, sweet Bianca, why did you ever leave me? Don’t you know I can’t exist without you?

A tall, older man in a dark blue suit came around the Rolls Royce from the rear compartment. With a kindly, somewhat quizzical smile he looked down at me lying in the gutter. I shut my eyes. The man in the blue suit laughed warmly. The other people around him—and there were plenty, as the Rolls appeared to be only the first car of a caravan—laughed warmly too, so warmly and sympathetically that I began to chuckle too, with my eyes closed, and flashbulbs popped as the photographers made sure to record it all for posterity (snickering, naturally), and the ladies in furs tittered, huddling against the cool dingy smog swirling in the Southern California night, sharing their mirth mostly with the lead man in the blue suit, who aped drinking from a jug and falling down to join me in the gutter, as I was wheezing with laughter and watching through tear-filled eye slits, and the Secret Service men laughed holding their armpits to be quick on the draw in case anyone was planning to take advantage of the situation. People were watching from the door and windows of the bar.

The tall man leaned down and tapped me on the shoulder. I opened my eyes wide. It was the President of United States. Later he would die but none of us were thinking about that now.

I closed my eyes and snored loudly. The crowd loved it. I wished the car would just run me over, because I was as good as dead. I ought to explain that the United States of America had recently undergone yet another conservative back swing with the result that my father, the distinguished, famous, and ultra-conservative columnist Gilliam Q. Quigley, Jr., was enjoying a virtual second coming. Dad was ecstatic. His product was in demand. Dad was not going to be mortified when he found out about this. He was going to kill me.

There was no way I was going to wake up and have to identify myself. I kept my eyes closed.

What is this thing? the President asked, setting the ladies to tittering again. In an instant a Secret Service man frisked me. He pulled my billfold out of my breast pocket, tickling me. First the bouncer in the bar, now this. I giggled, for Christ’s sake. Mentally, I’d gone off the deep end. The President listened as the Secret Service man read my name.

Well, I’ll be damned, it’s Bill Quigley’s boy. What the hell are you doing down there, Larry?

The President and my father were old friends. I should explain that with a name like Gilliam, my father had settled long ago for being called Bill.

Research, sir, I said, peeping my eyes open

I understand. We just finished shooting a night walk through the barrio, the President said. Can we give you a lift?

He was a true gentleman. I said sure and let myself be escorted to the last car in the motorcade, a van filled with paparazzi and general flunkies, who gave me disgusted looks. But hell, I wasn’t in that bad a shape. With dignity, I wiped my face with my monogrammed hanky and brushed dirt off my eight thousand dollar suit. Inflation had been bad recently…. With a foot upon the door jamb, I grabbed hold of either side of the van’s side door to steady myself for the plunge inside amongst the rabble.

The First Lady spoke behind me. I whirled about, a tad clumsily, but with fervor.

The President would like to chat with you, Larry, if you don’t mind. He’s invited you to ride with us, and to stay for midnight supper and a nightcap.

The President wants to chat? I said stupidly. The First Lady—my godmother Sheila—gave me one of her famous sly smiles and turned away. The bodyguards on either side of her turned away, but one kept an eye on me over