Free The Life of the World to Come by Dan Cluchey

artificially altering yourself to please … I don’t know, the industry, or something.”
    She tugged me back in, and lifted her eyes to mine.
    â€œLook, I get your opposition here. I get it, Leo. But now that the doctor show is wrapping up and people are becoming available for other projects, things could happen quickly. My name will be out there—”
    â€œWell, a name will be out there—”
    â€œAnd I need to be thinking about making sure I’ve got my best foot forward, and all that. At least, that’s what Linda says.”
    â€œI understand.”
    â€œDo you?”
    â€œI do. And I recognize that your agent probably knows best in this area.”
    â€œLook at that: contrition. Contrition from Mr. Leo Brice!” she squealed, and kissed me, twice, then spun out of my arms.
    â€œDon’t get used to it, sugar.”
    â€œSo you’re going to help out for real now?”
    â€œI will do my best. What are you working with so far?”
    â€œA bunch of stuff. Everybody’s throwing out ideas. Mark thinks it should be alliterative.”
    â€œDoes he now?”
    â€œIndeed he does.”
    â€œI highly doubt Mark used ‘alliterative’ in the adjective form like that.”
    â€œThat’s true! Nice work, Detective Brice,” she said, returning for one more kiss.
    â€œYou really want your new name to be alliterative?”
    â€œIt’s just a stage name. And—I don’t know, maybe. Why not?”
    â€œOnly lowbrow losers like alliteration. You see what I did there?”
    â€œPretty deft, man.”
    â€œI do try.”
    â€œHm … what’s a good name for a star? Fiona Foster? Fee-ohhh-naaa … Fisher? No! Fiona Ford? No … Fiona … Flynn. Fiona Flynn?”
    â€œWhat about Haeberle?” I said. “I like Fiona Haeberle a lot.”
    She stuck her tongue out at me, and began to twirl about the room.
    â€œFinnegan? Fff … reeman? Fisk? Ooh, what about Fox? Honey, what do you think about Fox?”
    *   *   *
    James Buchanan could not have been better prepared for glory. History has reduced him to an impotent, milquetoast, sexually confused footnote, too tragically useless to even find work as a punch line. Being reduced by history is itself an accomplishment, though—you must be gifted enough to stand in the batter’s box of greatness, but not so adept as to make any sort of meaningful contact. Historical mediocrity demands both the exceptional rise and the exceptional thud, and James Buchanan was one of the most mediocre public figures ever to have grounded weakly back to the mound.
    He was born in an actual log cabin in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, and became a state legislator, congressman, senator, U.S. minister to Russia, U.S. minister to the United Kingdom, secretary of state, and president of the United States before dying hated. He was dour, and he looked like an old maestro. He was twice offered a seat on the Supreme Court. He failed so miserably, and the whole thing fell apart around his failure. He must have been so desperate for a second chance.
    This wasn’t very long ago at all. Here’s how short American history is: John Tyler, who used to be the president, was born less than a year into George Washington’s first term in office; today, which is to say nearly two decades into the twenty-first century, two of Tyler’s grandchildren are still alive. That’s the whole of the republic—grandfather to father to sons.
    You probably remember Buchanan only vaguely from the slowest day in history class. Maybe you know that he was our fifteenth president; certainly you’re aware that he was and is unpopular—no, not even unpopular: just forgettable. But did you know that he also had dreams? That he had pain, rich like yours? Did you know how fully he suffered, right here on the same ground we suffer on, under the