The Speechwriter by Barton Swaim

tried to suggest other historical figures who did similar sorts of things—Lech Walesa, Martin Luther—but he didn’t think they had the same appeal for the kind of people he usually addressed, which I’m sure was true.
    The other thing he liked—and this applied to every talk—was to say something interesting and relevant that nobody was expecting. He hated the thought of being the politician who says the same predictable boring things at every event; he wanted to walk into every speaking engagement armed with a story or fact or witty remark that would make him stand out in the minds of those who heard him. But he would not trust me, or anybody, to discern what was an appropriate remark for the occasion. It had to “feel right” to him, which it only rarely did.
    He liked stories, especially stories drawn from history. And only stories involving people whose names everyone had heard of. All foreign names (Lech Walesa) were out. And generally only American stories, unless they were stories about governments bankrupting themselves, of which there were not many. He also liked the story of William Wilberforce, the English reformer and parliamentarian who was largely responsible for Britain abolishing the slave trade.
    For the police academy’s groundbreaking I had prepared five narratives. I walked into his office. I didn’t see him. “Sir?”
    â€œYeah,” I heard him groan.
    On the other side of the room, behind some chairs, he was on his back, resting on a giant yellow ball. I’d heard he had back trouble. He looked at me sideways. “It’s called an exercise ball. My sister gave it to me.”
    â€œRight. Ah, your talk at the police academy.”
    â€œWhat d’you got?” he asked, without getting up, shifting from side to side on the ball. “Let’s hear the talk. Go.”
    By this time I was used to being told to “give the talk” to him, though the horizontal posture made it slightly awkward.
    â€œNot far from here is Maxcy Gregg Park,” I began. “I wonder how many of you know who General Maxcy Gregg was. At Sharpsburg, in September Eighteen-sixty-two, General Gregg’s brigade was confronted by a brigade of untrained Connecticut volunteers who had loaded their rifles for the first time two days before the battle. Gregg’s men had been through several battles already. They’d been together from the beginning of the war. The result—.”
    â€œNext,” he said from the exercise ball.
    I stared at him. “The result—.”
    â€œNext.”
    â€œGeneral Gregg’s—.”
    â€œNext.”
    Then I said as fast as I could, “General-Gregg’s-men-slaughtered-the-Connecticut-men-by-a-ratio-of-nine-to-one.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to prove?”
    â€œThe value of training. The Connecticut men hadn’t trained. Gregg’s men were well-trained. Most of them had been at Shiloh. This is a police academy. Where they train. Train people. To do police stuff. If you don’t train, you won’t do it well. Message: Training is important.”
    â€œNext.”
    I went straight to the next theme without arguing. “Winston Churchill spent the years leading up to the Second World War advocating—.”
    â€œNext.”
    â€œAre you serious? You didn’t—.”
    â€œNext. C’mon, next.”
    â€œThe Olympic downhill skier—.”
    â€œNext,” he said, still lying on the yellow ball. “These people don’t care about downhill skiing.”
    â€œIt’s funny, though. This downhill skier fell at the Olympics like twenty feet out of the box.”
    â€œThat’s not funny. It’s tragic. Next.”
    â€œJames Madison—.”
    â€œNext.”
    â€œI wonder if anyone knows who created the first policeforce?” I waited for the “Next,” but it didn’t come, so I kept going. “It