The Good Son

A (Vice) Presidential Welcome

"I've made my decision, Father. I am leaving Margovia, and there is nothing that you can do to stop me."

"You cannot do this to me, Maximilian, you cannot!" my father, Jose Panaquer, the Supreme Revolutionary and President of the Republic of Margovia, shouted back at me. His thick white hair and prominent chin shook with anger. "I will not let you do this to me, Max!" he continued. I will not! I won't allow it!"

"But how? How are you going to stop me, Father? Are you going to send the BIS after me, have them arrest me for 'unpatriotic behavior'? Are you going to make me disappear and then have Tio Miguel cut me open with a knife and then drop me from a helicopter into the Amazon for the piranhas to eat? You cannot kill me, Father. Not when Mother has already lost Alejandro. Can you really afford to let her lose another son?"

"Isn't that what you are going to do anyway by running away, Maximilian?" Father retorted. "Isn't your mother going to lose another son because you have decided that you would rather run away than face your destiny as the next ruler of this country?"

"That's not my point, Father!" I said back. "Alejandro died, he was killed because of you! And if you make me do what you want me to do, if you force me to become your new vice president, the people who killed Alejandro are going to begin targeting me as well! I don't want to die, Father, but more than that, I don't want you or Mother to go through the pain of losing yet another son. We were all devastated by Alejandro's death. I cannot, I will not have you go through that yet again for me. Because you know as well as I do that once I become your vice president, I will have a target on my back, a target that will never be removed until either you step down or I am dead too."

"You... you little... you ungrateful bastard! You want me, you expect me to step down from being president of Margovia just so you can live a quiet life with your riverside bitch?" Father asked me in a pained voice. "Do you have any idea of what I had to go through and the things I've done just so I could get to where I am right now? I've had to destroy my friendships, remove obstacles to my power, silence the critics and those who dared to doubt me! I made a deal with the devil, the bloody CIA, just so I can get my ass onto the presidency of Margovia! And I did all of that so that when the time comes that I have to meet my Maker, my children, my son, can keep that power within the family. Is that too much for one man to ask of his child?"

"I'm sorry, Father, but yes, this is indeed too much for you to ask of me," I replied somberly. "The last I looked, Margovia was still a republic, not a kingdom. And if you indeed want to keep the power in the family, why make me your successor? Why not make Cristina or Tadeo or even Tio Miguel your new vice president?"

"You know damned well why I cannot name any one of those three as my next vice president," Father replied. "Miguel is a general in the army; the constitution of 1947 expressly forbids a military officer from taking any sort of political position, no matter how minor, as long as he is still commissioned in the military. And your Tio Miguel loves serving the Army too much to even think about resigning his commission just so he can be my vice president. Cristina cannot be my vice president as well because she has both American and Margovian citizenship, and our constitution expressly forbids a person with dual citizenship for running for president because of the potential for a conflict of interest. As for Tadeo, he's like... he's like some politicians I know both here and abroad. He thinks with his balls instead of his head. He chases skirts. He won't last long before scandals will make his name mud and the Senate will be forced to step in and impeach him. That is why you are the best person for this job, Maximilian, because you are clean as a whistle. You are the model Margovian citizen. Everyone from the young to the old looks up to you as their ideal Margovian. You are their role model; they all aspire to be like you!"