West Wing Tribute

Washington D.C. 5:30 AM

Josh Lyman awoke slowly, but steadily, rolling out of bed and beginning a groggy walk to the bathroom. He started the water running on the shower and was about to step inside as his cell phone began to ring from the desk beside the bed. He sighed and stepped into the shower anyway.

“Josh!” Donna called from the other room as she took the unilateral action of opening the phone to discover the identity of the caller.

“I’m in the shower!” Josh yelled.

“It’s POTUS!” Donna yelled back.

Josh sighed and climbed back out of the shower. Donna tossed him the cell phone as he returned to the bedroom.

The White House, West Wing Lobby 6AM

Josh quickly swiped his card through the keyreader and stepped across the seal of the President, walking quickly across the white and black checkered floor and past another Secret Service officer at a desk.

“Good morning Mister Lyman,” the Secret Service said.

“You know every time you say that we’re fighting like three wars before noon right?” Lyman muttered.

“Sorry,” the Secret Service agent replied.

Josh sighed and pushed himself into his old bullpen.

“Is the President all right?” an assistant said emerging from a cubicle.

“Yep, it only took eight hours for the food to work it’s way out of his system,” Josh said.

“Isn’t that fast for food poisoning to clear up?”

“Sure, but it’s still 7 hours and 60 seconds longer than we get away with the President having it for. Especially when the meal is home cooked by the mother of our biggest supporter in Texas,” Josh replied and walked over to his old office.

“SAM!” he yelled receiving no reply.

“Before you ask,” his assistant Cathy, began hopping up from her desk. “He’s in, he’s just on the phone.”

“Could you get him?” Josh asked.

“When he’s off the phone yeah.”

“I can be over to his office door by the time he’s off the phone.”
”Then logic would suggest…” Cathy began.

“Yeah yeah…” Josh muttered and walked over to find Sam hanging up the phone.

“Ok here’s a thing…” Sam began.

“Yeah?” Josh asked.

“A group of Cochise County Arizona deputy sheriffs fired on a detachment of the Mexican army,” Sam said.

“You’re kidding…”

“No no, there are so many things I could kid about, things that I could really wrap my muse around. In this case however, the Mexican soldiers apparently were escorting some drug smugglers across the border and they fired first, but the group ran off when the sheriff’s fired back at them.”

“Wait…you’re saying the Mexican Army invaded the U.S. to get some drugs into Arizona, and that invasion was repelled by some cops?” Josh asked.

“The whole scenario is a bit more complex than that, but yes you might put it that way…I don’t think we’re at war if that’s what you’re asking…” Sam said.

“Just let me know if Cochise County decides to invade Mexico back will you?” Josh asked and headed out of the office. Lou Thornton slid in alongside him quickly.

“Josh, putting aside how stupid that Texas dinner is going to make us look and how badly Roger handled it…” she began.

“At least the President didn’t throw up on the Prime Minister of Japan…” Josh said.

“The Prime Minister of Japan doesn’t vote, or give several hundred thousand dollars to Texas congressional candidates," Lou snapped.

“Well the President didn’t throw up on anyone actually…”

“Josh…you’ll have plenty of time to sort through the long twisted logic trails of your uniquely designed head later…I’m trying to bring up the Houston speech…”

They turned down the hall into the communications bullpen.

“They’re called prepared remarks for a reason…there’s plenty of time for adlibbing and that speech was not one of those times and if the President goes off script for a line or two…that bugs me…but when he tosses a page aside and makes up the middle of the speech after my office spent two weeks trying to thread the delicate needle between the two radically diverse immigration positions that most of the people in this country hold…that suggests to me that my staff and I would be using our time better finishing up our incomplete novels!”

The two stopped in front of Lou’s office and looked at each other.

“You all have incomplete novels?” Josh asked.

“I finished mine already, but Bram and the rest aren't as good at editing as I am,” she muttered and went into her office.

“Interesting…ok we’ll talk more about that other thing,” Josh said and made his way towards the oval office.

“Joshhhh…is this one of those times when you’re overwhelmed…or really overwhelmed?” Ainsley Hayes said quickly popping out of a Roosevelt Room meeting.

“Does it ever matter?” Josh asked.

“Just trying to be polite…what would you say if I told you that Roberto Mendoza has said he’s planning to retire at the end of this session of the court?”
”I’d say…get me a Louisville slugger and cab fare to the Supreme Court building,” Josh said.

“You’re going to go attack a Supreme Court Justice with a baseball bat?”

“I was going to suggest he try out for the Washington Nationals after he retired, but your idea is good too,” Josh said.

“Josh…what is with liberals and carrying wooden weapons around, first Lionel Tribbey now…”

“Who’d Mendoza say this to?” Josh asked quickly.

“Oliver Babish after the two both gave guest lectures at Georgetown last night,” Ainsley said.

“And you’re telling me this now?”

“Oliver only called to tell me five minutes ago,” Ainsley said.

“Why’d he wait so long?” Josh asked.

“I’m not sure, he’s not exactly the most talkative of individuals. I figured he had a good reason,” Ainsley said.

“All right…well try to find out more about this, but be prepared to have to start looking for new nominees ASAP,” Josh said.

“Already on it,” Ainsley said.

“Oh and Ainsley...” Josh said. “Sam is going to want to talk to you about whether we can sue Mexico or something for invading Arizona.”
”I can’t wait for that conversation,” Ainsley replied and returned to the Roosevelt room. Josh wandered back through the communications area and stepped into the outer Presidential office. Ronna emerged from her desk.

“He says he’s all right, but didn’t anyone think to make sure he wasn’t allergic to the food?” Ronna asked.

“He wasn’t allergic to the food, it wasn’t cooked right,” Josh said.

“The First Lady didn’t get sick, she thinks he was allergic to something in it,” Ronna replied.

Josh moved into the oval office, and Ronna followed. Josh tossed a memo onto the desk and kept going.

“He said it was undercooked…” Josh said. “Great…so we don’t actually have our facts straight on just what caused the President to launch into convulsions for several hours…”

“If there was carrots in there I could have warned you that he’s never been able to eat carrots,” Ronna said.

“I don’t think there were carrots in there,” Josh said.

“I’m just saying…” Ronna said and headed back towards her desk as Josh headed back out of the oval office.

“You ok?” Donna said sliding in next to him.

“How long have you been here?” Josh muttered

“I left your apartment before you did remember?” Donna asked.

“Oh yeah…”
”The First Lady told me what happened, no one thought to check the ingredients?” Donna asked.

“It was undercooked…”
”It must have had carrots in it.”

“I don’t think it had carrots in it.”
”You know people are going to find out he doesn’t like carrots, then we’re right back to green beans in Oregon and stamps…and…” Donna trailed off.

“You’re not having some sort of weird flashback are you?” Josh asked.

“No…I..I should probably get that checked out,” Donna said and headed away.

Josh shook his head and headed back into his own office.

“Carol…could you please call up someone on Air Force One and find out if there were carrots in the President’s meal last night…I mean really…I thought he was having spaghetti or something…”

“Sure Josh,” C.J.'s former assistant said and started dialing.

Josh headed into Leo and C.J.’s old office chamber and sat down in his seat. He took a few seconds to breathe, grabbed a briefing memo and started reading it over. Annabeth walked in through his main office door soon afterward.

“I hear you wanted to see me?” she asked.

“Yeah, ok we thought Roger was going to do a good job but the Press Secretary’s toast as soon as he gets off the plane. He screwed up Campaign Finance reform, in ways that Sam and I couldn’t even imagine…and if you screw up in a way new to us, you’ve set a new standard,” Josh said. “He managed to get Sweden mad at us… SWEDEN! And now...he completely screwed up the food poisoning story…the press has been misreporting it for hours and we look like screwballs. He’s done.”

“And this involves me how?” Annabeth asked.

“We need you to get up in front of that podium and get this back on track.”

“Roger has deputies," Annabeth said.

“Roger has bad deputies. I want you, and the President wants you.”
Annabeth sighed.

“What? Is it you really don’t want to brief from up there?” Josh asked. “You’ve been running from this job for over three years.”

She sighed again.

“What do you want me to say?”
”I’ll let you know when we find out about the carrots.”
”What carrots?”
”There might be carrots involved.”
”Oh...ok,” Annabeth replied and headed back out the way she came.

Sam wandered in.

“So the Mexican government is protesting that we fired on their soldiers,” Sam said.

“Can we protest that they were on the wrong side of the border escorting a bunch of drug dealers?” Josh replied.
”Logically yes, but I always worried we signed some treaty that says otherwise.”
”Could you guys have possibly picked a bigger PR disaster of a justice than Mendoza?” Lou muttered walking into the office.

“We were going for the whole, wise jurist thing,” Josh said.

“And for the record we only had to break him out of jail once,” Sam said.

“He must have been joking around or something, he can’t retire this early,” Josh said.

“Has he ever joked?” Sam asked.

“I gotta call Otto and Bram on Air Force One, make sure they and Roger don’t get ambushed by the press when they land,” Lou said and walked back out.

“We’re firing Roger right?” Sam asked.

“Oh yes,” Josh said.

Carol walked in.

“It wasn’t carrots,” she said.

“Thank god,” Josh said. “What was it?”
”They still don’t know, but it wasn’t carrots,” Carol replied and headed back to her desk.

“Someone call the CIA,” Josh muttered and put his head down on the desk in frustration.

The End.