Washington DC - the Oval Office 2043
"I never thought- that in my lifetime-"
"Dad, don't you dare, or I will make you go outside turn around, spit, curse, and whatever else you're supposed to do, I don't care how old you are. We're not done yet, and you're already trying to jinx it!"
"To have even gotten this far, Jake!" Josh insisted proudly.
"Well, leave it to the Jewish President to shake things up in Israel," Jacob said, after flashing his father a shy grin and throwing in a shrug that made him look like a teenager instead of a middle-aged man.
If anything being Jewish had made things enormously difficult for Jake. Many had accused him of being duplicitous, and not just Palestinian factions; criticism for his possible motives in helping Palestine and Israel come to a more permanent solution for their troubles had come from groups much closer to home from both the Right and the Left.
Josh cleared his throat.
"I'm- uh- I'm really proud of you, Jacob," Josh smiled.
His father's continued praise made Jake look away.
"Your mother, she chose the right name for you," he continued.
Jake turned to look at his father, cocked his head to the side, and raised an eyebrow.
"'Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed'," Josh quoted.
Jacob smiled softly at his father.
"Come on Dad, I know for a fact she wasn't thinking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when she named me," he replied, embarrassed by the comparison, who wouldn't after being compared to a Jewish Patriarch.
"No, you're right, she was thinking about my grandfather," Jake cleared his throat again after mentioning his grandfather.
"Still, it does work nicely doesn't it?" Jake asked, throwing his father a bone since he couldn't possibly be making the comparison lightly, not with the emotion in his voice and seriousness of his tone, which Jake knew wasn't just there because Josh was also thinking of his grandfather Jakob.
"Sure as hell does," Josh replied.
"Beings divine?" Jake asked as he pulled apart the passage his father had quoted. Josh gave his son a confident nod. The confidence in his father's nod rattled Jake a little, what exactly did his father consider "beings divine" that he might have struggled with in his life? There was something a little overwhelming about picturing the obstacles he had faced in his life as something otherwordly. Not prepared to process these thoughts, Jake decided to lighten the mood a little.
"I have to admit, I'm surprised you were able to rattle that off like that, and that is not a dig on your age," Jake said, a smirk spreading slowly across his face.
"Hey, I went to Hebrew school!"
"I have it on very good authority that you used to skip Hebrew school to read comics with Mike Casper and Matt Skinner in the Temple basement, which the two of them would enter through the window. I can see now how Mike ended up at the FBI and you and Matt went into politics, you were a sneaky little trio, weren't you?"
"And which of those two traitors blabbed?"
"One or more of them may have blabbed but I will be holding my tongue."
"Oh, come on, Jake!"
"That is 'Mr. President' to you."
"I'm your father!" Jake laughed at his father's feigned annoyance which resulted in a bright smile from his father.
"Well, I think I should leave you to saving the world now, tikkun olam and all that, Superman."
"Dad, I swear I'm going to make you go through the whole ritual of spinning and spitting. We aren't even sure if this is going to work out," Jake replied, still feeling superstitious and terrified that the plan that had been hammered out with the Israelis and Palestinians would fall apart even if there weren't any signs that would be the case.
The tone of their conversation became serious again.
"Whether it works out or not you've still made a great deal of progress in a part of the world we assumed was going to be a giant mess for time and all eternity. You could resign right now, right this minute, and you'd be leaving behind a great legacy. But you aren't going to resign, you're going to stick around in this office and you're going to continue to fix things left and right, because that's what you do. You got that from me, kid. We're compulsive fixers; we each have our own reasons for doing it but either way it's what we do. I've been doing it for years and I am gonna keep doing it 'til I kick the bucket and you'll be doing the same exact thing. You, me, your brother, and sister, we're going to put this world to rights because we're nuts and it's what we do."
"It's in our genes?"
"You bet your ass it's in our genes. And this is some place to be when you've got that in your genes, this is THE place to be; you really get to change things if you're the person unlucky enough to work behind that desk. Sure you've got pesky things like the Legislative Branch and the Judicial Branch to deal with but you still get to do some good work here, son, and I know you're going to keep taking full advantage of the power this office gives you- the podium it gives you to speak from."
"I thought you said you were leaving," Jacob teased even though his eyes were stinging from the emotions his father's words were stirring up.
"Yeah, well, I've got a lot to say before I leave," Josh replied, a beatific smile appearing on his face as he took in the sight of his eldest son sitting behind the Resolute desk.