What fits the Bill

“All of them?” he laughed. “All of them are posing, waiting for Clinton. They want to be on the news.”

“Hillary is coming here today?”

“Not Hillary,” he clarified. “Bill.”

Steups. That was me, not him.

“All this for Bill?” I queried. “What? They think this is ‘Kill Bill, 3’? The only person who wants to kill Bill is Hillary. He’s in more peril at home than abroad.”

He chuckled and said he was going inside.

“Look at him right there, “ he pointed. “Not me. Hasta luego.”

And he added with a twinkle, “Lucky you don?t have on a blue dress.”

I LOLed. (laughed out loud)

There he was indeed, the great Bill, surrounded by a massive security detail walking up my street to have lunch at one of Madrid’s most famous restaurants.

“But why is Bill on foot?” I wondered. Most officials, including the King, drive up to the entrance of the restaurant.

And if you see Bill. He wasn’t strolling, he was strutting, silver coated head held high, waving to no one, walking like his name was not Bill, but Barack.

I could understand why Hillary lost the primary, why they did not want her in the White House. Bill would have tried to play president and this time his White House games might have ended in a domestic violence incident. This time he would not have got away.

Steups again. And I turned to hurry to get to my flat before Bill and his brigada reached me. Not so lucky. Next thing I knew a security man —Spanish — was telling me I had to wait on the sidewalk with all my groceries for philandering Bill to pass. I could only conclude that Bill had told him to single me out. I wasn’t wearing a blue dress, but I was clad in my green Party Hearty T shirt and the writing on the back could not have been clearer than the political writing on the electoral wall had been for the Clintons.

“Who vex, lorse” it said.

Bill wasn’t George W He could read English. Damn.

Bill must have said to his people, “Hey guys, do you see that lady in green? Do you see what her t-shirt says, man? No way man. Another woman leader? Just no way. Bill is boss. Move her to the sidewalk. And she’s trying to tell me that I am annoyed because Barack won? I’m Bill, not Hillary.”

Now I knew how Hillary felt. My neighbourhood, I was hungry, but Bill was first as usual? And what if there was a sniper somewhere. I didn’t want to be in the street when the gunfire started. Bill was just the sort of man to hide behind a woman’s skirts.

I showed my annoyance, but said nothing to Bill as he walked by me and my parcels into the wide outstretched arms of the manager of the restaurant. Bill was obviously a regular. Or he tipped well. Who knew?

Me, I went upstairs, tossed together a salad, put the fish in the oven and went to my third floor balcony to stand next to my TT flag, and watch the spectacle below. The police glared up at me, then decided I was harmless. How many terrorists chew on lettuce while holding an Uzi? The men — no women on Bill’s guard — then turned their attention to another window. While Bill ate his Spanish roast, his men spent the hour rotating their heads at odd angles as they searched for sniper vantage points. They looked like roosters. Roosters in really hip sunglasses.

I wondered where the photographers were when Bill had been on foot, actually walking in the street, but as usual they appeared all at once after the excitement, when he was exiting the restaurant.

A photo op, not a news photo, I thought. News reporting was becoming the same everywhere. The press were probably short of photographers too (crisis cutbacks) and who wanted to follow Bill around all day? Only a trainee in a blue dress.

But believe me, when the cameras arrived, that is when Bill posed and smiled. If you see my boy Bill waving to the ordinary folk who all had their mobiles out snapping away. I thought he was about to whip out a pen and start signing autographs. So, what you didn’t acknowledge us before because you were hungry? Nah, Bill. You think your name is Barack?

I had to admit though, he wasn’t looking bad, not bad at all, but then power always gives a sleek veneer to any man.

There goes our boy Bill I thought when he jumped into an unmarked, bullet proof vehicle in an entourage of blinking police lights, with a great deal of grace, but then Bill has had plenty practice jumping in and out. Of cars, helicopters, jets.

Then I had a delicious thought. I wondered if Barack liked Spanish roast.