What's Next?

The following piece will be published in Saturday's Independent

President Bartlett on The West Wing often said this. Usually at the end of an episode when a thing had been solved or resolved or lost or won and it was, whatever the case, time to move on. We sometimes had spiraling crane shots from above pulling up and away as the mere mortals of government left below continued on their silly work.

The night was pretty nice: Election night in New York City. On Eighth Avenue, from a block away, I heard a roar of a crowd the size and depth you hear in stadiums reserved for moments of historic relevance like World Cup overtime goals or World Series winning home runs or the fall of Max Schmelling from Joe Louis' fists. I reached the digital screen in Times Square to see that California had fallen blue and the fat lady was singing. Along with that lady about a million people joined in, it seemed, singing arias of celebration, crying and laughing and shouting and hugging. Victory.

When New York is celebrating, it is the best.

There is nothing like sharing victory with a million other people.

A lot of hours later I was back in front of a TV. I saw the speech again and the hugging and crying at Grant Park, Chicago; I saw dancing in the streets of Kenya; I saw kids in Indonesia; mobs in Japan; all of them joining the song. Maybe a million was a low guess--more like a billion: A billion happy, singing people.

Earlier that night, election night, I had gotten a phone call from home. My wife and son shouting out a recap of an unlikely story: My son, Gus, had been the hero of the school's football game -- he sacked the quarterback four times and was voted the game's most valuable player. My quiet son was a hero. All season long he had become their dominant force -- their secret weapon without whom they would lose. The other kids gave him a name this day: Madman, Insane Gus, because the other team couldn't stop him at all. My son was on that cloud that people talk about when they run smack into euphoria. I yelled back over the phone: THAT'S MY KID! But then quickly coached him to get ready for the next game, the next challenge -- that things change and don't expect it all to fall your way -- you've got to earn it all over again. My son is special. For him to achieve this thing -- it is special. My son has a thing that separates him from the pack; let's just say he's one of those sensitized souls; the normal ups and downs to the rest of us are clouds and canyons to him. A first day of school is a climb up Mount Everest without a tank of oxygen. To say hello to a girl deserves a Nobel Prize for courage. His victories make me weep. His falls are devastating.

Yesterday I got another call. Gus had been taunted by a kid, this happens to him, and had gotten into a fight and had been suspended from the team for the semifinal game. They needed this win to play for the championship. Son and mother watched as the team, no kidding, in the final 20 seconds, lost by one point. My son feels responsible for rain. Imagine his reaction.

"The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat."

Still euphoric from the night before, I opened the newspaper to soak up the world's reaction to America's triumph. I enjoyed that. Buried on a page deep inside and below the fold was a story of sobering force. A girl, Aisha, thirteen years old had been raped by three men in Somalia . Her parents brought the girl to the authorities to report the crime. The Muslim elders ruled that the girl had committed adultery and should be stoned to death. That happened. On the same day Americans elected as their president a man whose sometimes silent middle name is Hussein, that happened. I stayed stuck reading and rereading this story. Aisha feels like that story you hear or read about the soldier who died after the war was over because word had not yet reached that battlefield. Of course the rest of the world is not as dumb as me. Nor am I really that dumb. Of course Aisha won't be the last. Of course.

It' easy to spoil a good mood: Get a cup of coffee and open the newspaper.

I studied the president-elect that election night. The words were wonderful. The emotion, controlled and siphoned, was real and very deep. He moved from phrase to phrase not lingering or settling on the note but staying ahead of the beat looking for the next melodic shift. There was a purpose to this music. Not just another pretty song.

Have you ever studied the great athletes? There is a common denominator. When Larry Bird made an unlikely three point shot or stole a pass and fed a teammate under the hoop for an easy basket, I watched him. He never lingered; never celebrated but almost before immediately he looked to the next thing, finding his man to guard as he shifted focus at the speed of light; his body quickly following. Joe Louis looking for the opening for the body blow already as the overhand right slipped through on the way to contact with the other guy's head.

My son Gus refused to go to school the next day. He was ashamed and embarrassed and responsible for the end of the world. I told him to move forward; to take it on the chin and walk in, apologize to his teammates for letting them down. I told him that sooner or later you have to move forward -- might as well get it out of the way and make it sooner. He said sometimes it's better to go backwards for a while so you can get a running start. I told him he's smarter than me. He gave the phone to his mom and walked into school.

There are new missiles pointing at us from just over the Poland border. The market dropped another batch of hundreds in points. There is a sense that the test, the first test, will come sooner than later.

"Let us not judge a man for the heights that he reaches but from the depths from which he came." I think of that when I think of my son. I now think of that when I think of my country and the world. We have taken so many steps backward in such a short recent past. But as Gus says, sometimes it is better to get a running start. Perhaps those laws of physics come in handy from time to time. What goes up must come down. And what goes so far down has that kinetic possibility to break new boundaries as it bounces back up.

The president-elect: "And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can."

I watched the president-elect like I watch athletes. I rooted for him like I root for my son. I believed him. He didn't stop or pause or reflect. He was a man ready to move to the next thing. Already looking to all the many things that are next.

A "God Bless America," a "thank you" and this first message as president to be was done. Time to move forward. I saw Larry Bird; I saw Joe Louis; and I saw Gus.

The preceding piece will be published in Saturday's Independent

 

Comments

[cjzydeco]

What a wonderful post!

I, too, found myself watching Obama on election night and was struck by his serious, no-time-to­-celebrate­, time-to-ge­t-to-work, demeanor.

[flanardiente]

Mr Schiff--Toby--you didn't just play a writer on TV , you are one! A wonderful piece of writing. PS, I loved the bouncing ball routine you used on the West Wing. I used to do the exact same thing a long long time ago, and it really does focus the mind.

[provgrays]

Impressive post.

It combined the personal, the national, the international and the transcendant.

I watched the election returns and those stunned people in Grant Park. I was just as stunned watching with my friends on TV and quaffing Presidente Beer. I drove home through the East Side of Providence and the sounds of what seemed to be a football crowd emerged from the darkened streets.

"Obama! Yes we can!!"

For the first time ever, it occurred to me that we are not just a nation of selfish consumers. Obama dragged the best from us and gave us a glimpse of what we had forgotten. We have to do more than watch him now.

We have to help him claim just a slice of our potential before the amnesia sets in again.

[Thucydides Jr.]

Well said sir. Very well said. And Gus will get a chance to make amends to his team, without a doubt.

[DanSullivan]

Mr Schiff, thanks for that - West Wing was very popular in Ireland - and since JFK, since the Great Famine of 1847 indeed, we have seen the US as our cousin across the water. Sometimes it has felt that this election was one that the rest of the world was watching and wishing we only had a vote too. We respect entirely America's right to choose its own President - and would have tried to respect its choice, but thank God you voted the way you did. And it is remarkable how much like West Wing's "What's next?" President Elect's Obama's first news conference was - somehow reassuring that it wasn't all just soaring rhetoric and that we were all right all along.

[elion10]

Over the past 8 years I have sometimes watched West Wing and thought, "why can't our REAL president be that smart".. and at last--- he is.

[wasap1]

I remember being impressed and captured by the first years' episodes of the west wing, and feeling the same when I watched the final year's episodes. You guys (writers, actors, directors, producers, ect) showed Americans that we were really better than the concurrent real political leadership would have suggested.

I am one of those who do think that the ground breaking work on the Westwing provided the fertile soil required for an Obama presidency that the country so desperately needs now.

So thanks guys!

[w459087fdljh]

The following phrase might help your son: "In any argument, if you lose your temper, you lose."

[jrockbg]

Schiff! I am a devout conservative and Republican. Also black. I also think West Wing is one of the greatest shows to ever hit TV. I've been watching the reruns on Bravo these last couple months and...well... I miss you guys. What a great finish to watch you and "CJ" make up, of sorts, at the end. It was a great TV moment.

I do hope that "Obama Can" and also "We Can" meet the challenges this country will face over the next 4 years. Like McCain says, "Country First". As an Iraq war vet I couldn't say it better. So I may remain skeptical from time to time of Obama, but I will root for him. I will hope that he is the effective leader we need. I submit that the biggest problems we face as a nation have little to do with partisanship.

[Olampean]

Wonderful piece of writing.

[ddemos]

I have to say I read this because I love The West Wing, and I always had such a melancholy feeling at the end of each episode. I so wanted Pres. Bartlett as my president, he//, I wanted him as my father. Tuesday night I felt perhaps this is our West Wing. Really, among other feelings of elation and hope, that's exactly what I was thinking... I always thought in your show that the character's would walk through fire to please their president, and I believe that collectively Tues. night, a majority of all Americans were experiencing that feeling of being proud and protective, instead of embarrassed of our leader.

like Gus, I hope they both keep one step ahead, and will not lose direction, even when it feels like no progress is being made. This is my hope.

[Schaz]

Please forgive my quibble: Aisha Duhulow was stoned to death on Oct 27th. (Not "On the same day Americans elected as their president a man whose sometimes silent middle name is Hussein, that happened.")

[julianne]

Thank you Mr. Schiff for your depth, resonance, and coherence. You're an illuminator and a healer. With the now life long knowledge that over a million Iraqis have been killed and millions wounded or dismembered, our soldiers killed or wounded in the tens of thousands and, again, this recent insane funding of the slaughter of Russian and other civilians in the State of Georgia, et al, it's hard to experience the light for fear of being burned. But this article and your last article have been very helpful in lessening my usual soul depleting, internal rant. And I bet that goes for many others. Thank you.

[TRIATHLON]

THE (24) MONTH WINDOW!

The Gay Friendly / Rights Vs Rites President Obama has a (24) twenty-four month Window on the Obama Clinton III Presidency before the window will slam shut. Bill Clinton the First Black President lost Congress (24) twenty-four months into his Presidency never to regain it, and so it will be with the Gay Friendly / Rights Vs Rites Obama Presidency. Obama has given the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" not only the ammunition, but the guns to go along with it on the Same-Sex-Marriage Agenda and the over all Gay Rights Agenda. The Gay Rights Movement will push as hard as it can within the first (24) twenty-four months for (1) The real fear of an Assissination, (2) The knowledge that they only have between now and the next election, when the power of the Roman Catholic Church, Momon Church, Islam, and other Religious Organization will bring Congress to its knees.

All the Huffington.Post show no compromise but go for all that can be gotten in a Gay Friendly Time with a Gay Friendly Obama. It will be (2) two years a loss of Congress and a (1) One Term Presidency at best.

[JRsNana]

Thanks "Toby". I miss you and the show to this day.
Beautiful piece. All good things to Gus. And to our new President.