Free Taft 2012 by Jason Heller

only to fall apart and lose everything. Through this man, Welles figured he’d be telling the story of America—indeed, of the whole modern human race—in miniature.”
    “And this man … this man was me?”
    Rachel coughed. “Uh, no. It was William Randolph Hearst.”
    “Hearst? That rapscallion? That rogue? That sorry excuse for a journalist? Why, he practically started the Spanish-American War single-handedly! Not that Teddy, in retrospect, ever seemed to mind.”
    “Well, that’s the thing. Despite the fact that Welles’s star was on the rise, no movie studio would touch the project. Nobody was willing to piss off the owner of the world’s biggest news empire. Welles wasn’t going to use Hearst’s name, of course, but it wasn’t going to be a secret that the movie was about him. Finally, though, someone agreed to finance the film—on one condition.”
    Taft sighed. “That Welles base his story on someone even more reviled and ridiculous than Hearst. Namely, me.”
    Rachel took Taft’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
    He paced the carpet, trying to ignore the chatter from the television. “So this is my legacy? A … a freak disappearance and an unflattering movie?”
And the bathtub
, he couldn’t bring himself to say.
We must never forget the bathtub
.
    “It was more than unflattering, Grandpa. To take revenge on the studio that interfered with his vision—at least, that’s how the speculation goes—Welles insisted he star in the movie himself. He gained a hundred pounds in six months, most of it thanks to booze.And when he finally dressed as you and put himself in front of the camera, he was just a wreck. The story is a cartoon of your life, and he played your character as if he hated you personally—or at least hated that you were the unwitting symbol of his loss of artistic integrity. Not only did
President Kane
fail to become the greatest movie ever made, it went down as the worst. Welles never made another film, and he drank himself to death a couple years after its release. And—”
    “And that’s how the world remembers me. As a footnote to a failed filmmaker.” His voice softened. “And even my family has been forced to carry that shame, all these years later.”
    Rachel hung her head. “Grandpa, you have to know this. The Taft family retreated from the public eye, true. We never stood up and defended you the way we should have. Maybe that was understandable, and maybe it wasn’t. But here’s the fact now: you are here, and so am I, and blood is thicker than anything. Whatever you choose to do with the rest of this life you’ve been given back, I’m there for you. We all are.”
    “Whatever I choose to do. That’s the question, isn’t it?” He stopped pacing. “Am I really part of this world? Of this family? Could I ever really be again?” Taft stood and stroked his mustache and patted his gut, full as it was with TurkEase and good old-fashioned Taft fortitude. His voice began to billow and rise like a sail filling with a sudden powerful wind. “Rachel, this long era of our family’s reticence and shame is over. I won’t allow my own mistakes and shortcomings to hamper you or your career any longer. What about the future? You’re already a congresswoman. Who knows what Abby can someday achieve. For your sake, for hers, it’s time the name Taft rang from the rafters once again.”
    AS A WORLD TRAVELER at the advent of the twentieth century, Taft had suffered every imaginable manner of intestinal malady. Such was par for the course: goulash-induced bloating in Budapest, parasitic irregularity in Manila, and fleeting bouts of seasickness at all points in between. Even his own recent virgin voyage on an airplane had been less than idyllic.
    None of these trials, however, had inured his innards to the violent, almost vengeful incontinence brought on by Fulsom TurkEase.
    By the end of the day, everyone in the house—all stricken save for Abby, who was spared from stinking