Robincloud

The President is always the last to enter. The rest of the Council of Economic Advisers wait for him in mesh office chairs inherited from the Clinton era. Jeremy Evans can’t help but swivel back and forth- he is the only one not in a suit, and his chambray shirt has a ketchup stain near the front right pocket. He hopes nobody notices.

“Who’s the guy with the ketchup stain?” a man across the round table asks. He’s wearing tortoise horned glasses and a small white hanky in his blazer.

The accountant neighboring Jeremy speaks up. “Mr. Frasier, that is Jeremy Evans, sir. Beat reporter out of Mississippi.” The man gestures as if inviting a handshake between the two of them. “He’s the one who kickstarted the investigation.”

Frasier nods and leans closer to the table. “What’s your daily called?”

“The Bolivar Bullet.” Jeremy drapes an arm over his neck, covering the stain. “It’s only a few counties wide. Most nobody reads it- the homeless tend to use it as oil drum tinder.”

Frasier runs a hand through his white hair. It’s both light and thick, as if the lack of color has made the fibers bone-heavy. Then he speaks.

“I used to write for the Financial Times. Short stint, back in the 90’s. It’s a dead medium, but it’s a good one.”

“Yes, sir.” Jeremy says.

“Still has some power, though. I mean, surely you know, if one story got you wrapped up in all of this.” Frasier gestures to the beige war room, where three senators clamor about the debt ceiling, and four Secret Service members pack an assault weapon in every corner.

“Yes, sir.” Jeremy gulps, a bit excited by the topic. “What happened was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. When that first storm-”

“Hey,” Frasier says, putting a hand up. “Save it for the big man.”

Jeremy nods and begins to squirm again. He forgot who he was waiting on. He wishes he ate his burger more cautiously.

Seven minutes later, the door opens, and a stampede works themselves into the door. There are more Secret Service men, with long droopy earpieces and heavy padded armor that must make them sweat in the small office space. Some interns and secretaries fill in the standing room, arming clipboards just as aggressively as the soldiers. Finally, the Chief of Staff leads the President to the open chair eight seats from Jeremy. He is sturdy until he slips in his seat, which seems closer to a collapse. His brown hair has faded gray near the ears, and his red tie fails at providing authority. He never looks this exhausted on television.

“Let’s hear it, men. I’ve got ten minutes before I board a flight to Morocco.”

The Chief of Staff clears her voice and sets the agenda. “The Council of Economic Advisers meets today to discuss a potential minting issue coming out of a southern community in Mississippi.” She squints her eyes as she gets to the note. “Jeremy Evans, a reporter and witness of the event, is here to speak.”

Jeremy hears every head in the room turn, the way that satin swishes against the wind. Their eyes are more uncomfortable than the fluorescents, and with all this focus, Jeremy knows his ketchup stain must be glowing by now. He drapes his arm over his shoulder again and looks over at the President, who is the only one not looking. His head is hanging back, and he may have fallen asleep. Jeremy turns his gaze and, two seats away, catches Frasier. The man has tilted his glasses and gives Jeremy a thumbs up.

Jeremy nods and pulls some papers to his chest. “Ok,” he murmurs, “here we go.”

“My name is Jeremy Evans. I cover the financial beat for the Bolivar Bullet, across the counties of Bolivar, Coahoma, Sunflower and Washington. My job…” Jeremy pauses, “is very dull. These are the poorest counties of the poorest state in America. So, suffice to say, it is rare that there is any good news to be written about.”

“Things changed two days ago.” Jeremy feels a little surge in his voice. “Our in house meteorologist, Dan Quail, forecasted a summer storm to occur across the four counties we cover. Nothing crazy, he mentioned- some showers and maybe a little heat lightning was all that was planned for. So we wrote it up and sent it out to the commons.”

“On the night of the forecast, the sky looked bullheaded. Thick, ugly storm clouds boiled over the river. They looked very heavy, as if weighed down by ice. They were so low to the ground, I remember noticing, that they were tinted green, as if reflecting off the farmland. That’s what I thought at the time, at least.”

The President sinks deeper in his chair.

“I stayed the night in my apartment- my dog gets thunder shy, so we went to bed early. The wind was stronger than I’d expected, and it beat against my window in loud, open-palmed slaps. But there was no rain, which was strange, because there’s always rain in Mississippi. At around midnight, I decided to check why, so I rolled out of bed and threw open my window curtains.”

Jeremy’s arm drops from his shoulder, his eyes wide and gone from the office space. “It was money. Wet, green wads of money. Hundred dollar bills, I ended up discovering. They were falling like balls of hail, splattering in the dirt and on car hoods and the roofs of abandoned buildings. As I watched, one of them was tossed against my windowpane, and I got a good look at the design. A little torn from the elements, but it was real. Had the serial number and everything.”

Jeremy doesn’t notice, but the President lifts his head from his chair. He is both sleepy and angry.

“The storm was too strong to go collecting in, but once early morning rolled around, most of the residents were out hunting. There were no fistfights, which is what you’d expect from charity of this nature. Instead, it was all excitement, like some cosmic easter egg hunt. We had people searching through the corn rows and under every car. Some of the stronger guys climbed the buildings and sifted the gutters. There was plenty to go around- everyone came out of it with five or ten grand.”

The entire office is leaning towards Jeremy now, and his focus is suddenly broken by the intensity of his listeners. Jeremy coughs, then melts back into his seat.

“And yeah. I wrote an article about it the next day, and that’s what happened.”

The room is quiet. Frasier is wiping his glasses with his hanky, and he smiles, showing no teeth. The President has a quivering vein above his right cheek. He rubs his temples and whispers something to an associate. Then he speaks to the rest of them.

“How confident are we in…” The President searches for a name, then gives up. “… this reporter’s account?”

The accountant next to Jeremy pulls a clear plastic file from under the table. Inside are two dollar bills. His voice is like a mouse stuck in a door jam.

“Jeremy was kind enough to provide a sample for us. One of these is from the storm, and another was printed this morning at our D.C. location. As you can see, one’s more beaten up than the other, but they’d both be accepted at any financial institution across the United States.”

A man with wide spectacles and a curled brown mustache follows the thought. “We’ve also seen an increase in spending across the four counties noted in Jeremy’s anecdote.”

“What are they buying?” the President asks.

The spectacled man flips three pages, then squints. “Nothing extraordinary, sir. Groceries. Gasoline. Some have even applied for low-income housing loans.”

The President slams his fist on the table. “Damn Commie bastards!”

Frasier narrows his eyes, tucking the hanky back in his shirt. “You think this is an external attack, sir?”

An associate comes back with a green bottle and a shot of liquor. She slides it to the President, who slams it, then rubs his eyebrows. “Yes? No? What am I supposed to make of this? You practically told me Robinhood knocked up a low pressure weather system.” He sips the bottle. “We need to get answers. I want intel from all of our embassies- tell them to keep their noses up on any currency talk. If it’s a foreign inflation attempt, I can deal with it.” He chuckles a bit, the buzz warming up his voice. “God damn helicopter money, man.”

The wide spectacled man raises his hand slowly. The President sees it. “This isn’t fucking science class. Just tell me what you know.”

He grunts, then flips to the fifth page. “Our meteorologists suspect another one of these… Robinclouds… is brewing over the Gulf of Mexico as we speak. They expect it to make landfall across Louisiana and Mississippi within the next day or so.” He turns another page and shows it to the table. It’s a hurricane symbol in green ink, showing a path across the bayou and up the Mississippi river. “They predict this storm will be three times as large.”

“Christ,” the President says. “That’s half a year’s paycheck for each civilian. How can we afford this?”

Frasier chimes in. “Well, sir, for one, we’re not actually minting anything, which means there’s no effect on our debt ceiling. So if you’re talking strictly budgeted change, we could take one-tenth of a percent out of the defensive spend and put it towards covering the impact of these Robinclouds.” He pauses, biting his lip, then speaks again. “Or we do nothing. It’s not enough money to cause any lasting damage, and quite frankly, their economies could use a cash injection.”  His hair seems to have gained some color.

The President scowls at Frasier. “Do nothing? What kind of President would I be if I did nothing?”

Frasier looks towards Jeremy.

The President continues. “We won’t cut defense. In fact, we’ll up it- Marjorie, I want fifty troops of National Guardsmen relocated to the storm’s impact zone. We’ll also need assistance from local police, and a lot of help from the labor union.”

The buzz becomes stronger in the room and on the President’s face as every assistant marks up their clipboard. The senators have begun chatting again, and it’s only then that Jeremy realizes the impact of the President’s words. Jeremy stares back at Frazier, who shrugs and begins wiping his glasses again.

“Sorry, I’m new,” Jeremy mumbles. “So what does this mean for Bolivar?”

The President pulls himself out of the chair. He does a little stretch with his toes, as if he’s finishing off a catnap. “They’ll brief you on the ride home, Ketchup Boy. But listen-”

Jeremy notices the President’s face harden. It is dry and hollow, like a skull in a catacomb. The posse of soldiers and assistants have already begun to leave, and yet the President keeps that look focused on Jeremy for just a second longer.

Then, with a white, Andy Griffith smile, the President says, “Write me something nice, won’t ya?”

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DISASTER AVERTED AS MILLIONS EVACUATE HURRICANE RICHARD

By Jeremy Evans

A rapidly intensifying Category Five storm scared Mississippi natives this past Saturday. The National Hurricane Center in Miami forecasted Friday that the damage “could outshine Katrina in wind speeds,” and to “search for an evacuation zone immediately.” The President sprung into action, sending resources and removal plans to every county from Louisiana’s coastal Lafourche to upper Mississippi’s Tuneca.

Many were aggrieved to be forced out of their homes. However, servicemen helped ease minds by conducting property searches and judging shelter strength based off of the National Hurricane Center’s recommendations. Bolivar County unsurprisingly failed most of these tests, and over 98% of civilians were shuttled to accommodations twenty five miles east.   

Hurricane Richard made landfall on July 25^th across the stretched-out islands of Plaquemines. Over the course of two days, Hurricane Richard marched up the Mississippi river, tearing down domiciles with an average wind speed of 85mph. Minimum flooding occurred, which bodes well for future infrastructure anxiety in the city hall of both states [SEE PAGE 7].

Evacuation resisters paid dearly for their decision. Current reports suggest over three thousand fatalities have occurred since Hurricane Richard touched down two days ago. Seventeen of these victims were residents of Bolivar County, including local legend and restaurant owner Bob Huckabee. The infamous penny-pincher was felled under the collapsed roof of the Red Star Diner. Strangely, relief workers found twenty thousand dollars cupped in his hands upon rescue. He was 57. [SEE OBITUARIES, PAGE 15].

The President has received praise for his emergency response. After returning from a diplomatic arrangement in Morocco, the President stated his appreciation for the swift rollout of aid to “our two most vulnerable Southern communities.” He congratulated his servicemen in keeping “both expenses and casualties to a minimum.” Pundits on both sides are confident that the President will point to this moment as a defining success during his term, and his administration will surely leverage the event during his reelection campaign next year. [SEE PAGE 5]

Hurricane Richard will leave a stain on the already stressed economies of Mississippi and Louisiana. However, Bolivar County isn’t the type to take it lying down. For a town that’s always hanging against the ropes, it’s clear the residents here carry an iron chin. This mentality inspires me to comment on my perspective of last week’s weather event. In my past article, I discussed [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED]

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Editor’s Note: Jeremy Evans is no longer a reporter for the Bolivar Bullet. Although we are surprised to see him go, we celebrate his hunger for the truth, his knack for power-filled wordplay, and of course, his obsession with the McDonald’s dollar menu.