Apocryphal Stories of the Presidents
March 16, 2009
An excerpt from the Shouts & Murmurs section of the February 23, 2009 issue of The New Yorker, by Yoni Brenner (who is really awesome).
“Pirates!” the young sailor Andrew Jackson cried. He and MacGraw skittered down the mainmast and in a heartbeat a hundred and twenty men, all sweat and sinew, swarmed the deck, priming the cannons, affixing bayonets to rifles. In two minutes, they were ready.
The captain probed the misty horizon, his lips contracting into a taut frown. “What pirates?” he shouted. “These are otters! Who is responsible?” His fearsome eyes searched the crew and came to rest squarely on Andrew Jackson. But Andrew Jackson did not shrink. No, he boldly returned the captain’s gaze, and with a single bony thumb, he gestured over his right shoulder–in the direction of MacGraw.
