Jennifer Psyop in the Brady Press Room, her last gig there, a news app likely to fail beckons.
Psyop: Meanwhile, President Parris will depart for Belgium to meet with her NATO counterparts, and fly on to Poland, then stop off at Ibiza for a few days. Falk?
Reporter: Is she treating the time in Ibiza as a vacation? Will she meet with Spanish leaders?
Psyop: The purpose of going to Ibiza, Falk, is to relax. It will, however, be a working vacation. The President will receive Daily Briefings and speak by phone to various others, but will also continue reading Infinite Jest. Fangs?
Reporter: Stuey "Fangs" Rollercoast, First Clarinet, Senior Band, Clarksdale High School, AlaBAM-eye-A! What instrument do you play?
Psyop: I don't play one.
Reporter: You do. I saw a newspaper photo of you in a high school band playing a flute. I've researched you.
Psyop: That's flattering, I guess.
Reporter: Here's my real question: What is President Parris's position on LGBTQ+ civil rights?
Psyop: Oh, she's all on board with that stuff! She talks about it all the time. I've never heard her laugh about that.
Reporter: Why would she?
Psyop: She's the first African-American woman to be President, a tremendous accomplishment.
Reporter: She fell backwards into both jobs of Vice President and President.
Psyop: Say, why don't you go practice your clarinet. Fucktard?
Reporter: Fucktard Hayes, direct descendant of President Rutherford B. Hayes, the nineteenth to hold the office. I edit the Rutherford B. Hayes Handbook, a resource guide, updated annually, directing users to Rutherford B. Hayes-related events, publications, and a hoped-for biopic starring John Goodman. Is President Parris aware of the Hayes biopic? Producers wish to utilize the Oval Office for a few days of shooting, campaign contributions bundled into a PAC will of course find their ways into the money stream surrounding the President's twenty-four reelection campaign.
Psyop: I've never heard of this film project or of Rooferd Hayes.
Reporter: Please. Rutherford B. Hayes. You're talking about someone's ancestor.
Psyop: I'll bone up on my American history (coughs theatrically, gets a little laughter from the journalists). Frodo?
Reporter: Frodo Baggins, Hobbiton Tattler. I've never seen a red-headed woman before. Where are you from?
Psyop: I'm from Stamford.
Reporter: Stanford. That's where that Bongo man spoke the other day, encouraged censorship, seems like a silver-tongued deceiver.
Psyop: I said Stamford, Connecticut.
Reporter: That sounds like a lovely little river, Connet-uh-kit, charming. I have nine fingers, you know why?
Psyop: No I don't.
Reporter: Because I put the Ring on instead of destroying it. I could've saved myself a lot of time and strain assuming lordship over the Ring from the beginning. I could've handled it, but my shrink says that's residual Ring-influence talking. That Ring inspired confidence, I can tell you that! I miss that precious Ring of mine.
Psyop: Okay. Food?
Reporter: Food O'Malley, Total Gourmet Magazine. A total disaster was that unexpected shout out President Parris gave to Burger King. Doesn't she realize her job title confers massive influence, that she can't praise Burger King without praising McDonald's, Wendy's, Hardees? She'll snap the links of the Burger Chain, stocks will become nauseated, money-making will die, rich failed men will fake their suicides, bye bye America.
Psyop: I didn't know your publication is so anti-Democratic politicians.
Reporter: Republicans aren't worth eating, either.
Psyop: This is for me a truly memorable farewell to this room and you folks. Fucko?
Reporter: Chuck Fucko, Boston Minuteman. Has the President entered therapy to attempt to silence her laughter?
Psyop: You're referring to her laughter?
Reporter: Yes, when she laughs at things that aren't funny.
Psyop: Who's to say the things she laughs at aren't funny?
Reporter: You're being disingenuous. Come on, Jennifer, tell the truth. You know the President has a weird laugh. It comes out at inappropriate times, and that's being polite about it. Everybody thinks it's peculiar but we pretend like it's a not a thing, like former President Lieden's senility.
Psyop: Not senile, aging, as we all are. Just last night I thought of something to say to my husband and right away it was gone out of my mind. All part of getting older. Fatshaft?
Reporter: Fatshaft Heckler, Times of Brooklyn. Jennifer, after MSNBC Dodo fails, what will you do?
Psyop: Dodo will not fail. It will be written about in history books.
Reporter: Since you have access to President Parris, and former President Lieden for that matter, will you use that access to boost ratings on your upcoming show?
Psyop: Ratings are not my concern. I'm not a numbers girl. I show up, do my job, stay later than I should, I read vicious comments about me in Twitter, I have always had thankless jobs, like having to babysit on prom night when my parents decided to go out on the town and it had to be that night! Me stuck with my six year old sister while my friends danced and one of them became a queen, yes, my friend Becky Brewer, and she rubbed my face in it, made fun of me in school the next Monday for having to look after a brat while magic was happening in the school gym! Do any of you want this job of mine I'm about to be done with? Fatshaft, could you handle standing here, answering dumb fucking questions once a week, coming up with bullshit to say to the fourth estate, talking to descendants of Presidents no one's ever heard of, you think you can do it, Fatshaft?
Fatshaft Heckler: Sure I could. It just takes a gift for saying shit smoothly. I give you my admiration, Jennifer. I wish you nothing but the best in your transition to new work and in the work itself.
Psyop: Thank you. We'll end with that gracious statement. Thank you, all of you.
Aboard Air Force One, the Parris Partridge, so nicknamed by Doug Gard, accompanying his better half on her first presidential trip abroad, to Belgium for NATO meetings, borr-ring! Poland, Ukraine War stuff, more meetings, yikes! two-language press conferences, oh the shifting back and forth on my feet, President Parris thinks, daydreaming out the window of her deluxe massage chair. After Poland, Ibiza, oh I'm gonna take it all off (laughs in her nostrils, no one, for once, is near her). I'll probably be photographed by a telephoto lens man who sells pictures to grocery store checkout lane publications. I've already graced those covers, don't want my birthday suit exposed for all to see.
Artie Sneffen sits beside her.
Sneffen: Airsick?
Parris: I've flown before.
Sneffen: Brussels in Spring! I love Brussels in Spring! You?
Parris: I'm not sure I've been there in Spring.
Sneffen: You would remember if you have done. Here we are now, heading straight to Brussels in Spring!
Parris: Did you lose your cherry in Brussels or something?
Sneffen: I'm a virgin, Dinah, get your head out of your pussy.
Parris: How old are you?
Sneffen: I'm seventy-three, but I get treatments. I look forty-five or forty-two, don't I.
Parris: I'd say fifty.
Sneffen: Fifty is twenty-three years less than seventy-three. Yes, I wasn't at Woodstock but I remember reading about it when it happened. I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. I had a crush on Pamela Tiffin, whacked off thinking about her, even. Now, though, I'm far in time from such desires.
Parris: Who's Pamela Tiffin?
Sneffen: An actress with a lovely body, a gorgeous head of brown hair, big eyes, she's retired.
Parris: Before my time, I guess. My favorite actress is Meryl Streep.
Sneffen: Why? And what a boring pick.
Parris: Why boring?
Sneffen: She's so celebrated, she's overexposed. Another actress like Virginia Madsen receives far less attention but is just as capable as an actress. Ah, who cares. Here comes Doug, back from making the bathroom an off limits zone for the next five minutes. Big shit, Doug? Did you stink up the President's ride?
Doug: I hear sarcasm in your voice, pencil-thin man. You should address me properly, using any of the following: Mr. Gard, My Lord, Your eminence, Sir, First and Best, never call me Doug, we're not yet friends, and I'm not sure a friendship will happen. You give off a smell, Sneffen. Not one for the old olfactory nerve, but a kind of poetic smell, like a description of a backed up sink. Mashed up wet food particles clogging a drain, that's you, Mr. Smell, Sneffen the Clog, Sneffen the Stinky.
Sneffen: Anyone for a game of War? The card game with multiple decks. It's a great way to pass time on a trip.
Doug: Go away, Smell. I must confer with my wife. We have a date to plan, right, honey?
Parris: A date?
Doug: A fuck date.
Parris: Artie, please excuse us.
Sneffen: Of course. You're a very busy woman, remember, maybe you don't have time for any extracurricular activities not already on your itinerary.
Doug: Your words are an exhale of cockblocking stink! Do not come between this man and his wife, the first African-American female President!
Sneffen: Madame President, we land in one hour and ten minutes, last I heard and that was a while ago.
Doug: A lingering smell. Oh, for the use of an electric fan right now!
Sneffen: Mr. Gard, don't take your clothes off.
Parris: Dougie, what are you doing?
Doug: MAKING MYSELF COMFORTABLE! I SWEAT WHEN I'M AGITATED! THIS SMELL WON'T GO AWAY! TELL THE SNEFFEN SMELL TO GO AWAY!
Parris: I promise I will if you put your pants and shirt back on. Artie, go away, you're agitating him.
Sneffen withdraws, tittering.
Parris: Tuck in your shirt, dear. Now put your shoes on--I'll tie them for you.
Doug: While you're down there?
Parris: Zip that back up, naughty one!
Doug: How much more thwarting of my will can I stand?
Parris: Our last night in Brussels, how about that for a date? We'll be in the best hotel in the city, in the Presidential Suite, can't complain about that, right?
Doug: I want room service. Crab, lobster, champagne, caviar, the most expensive crackers--no saltines for this First Gentleman!--and expensive Greek yogurt, and pizza, and hamburgers, and scotch. Creams, lubes, toys, also. We'll make a night of it, won't we, Dinah?
Parris: I'll be too tired for the full treatment what with all the meetings and the boring people.
Doug: This thwarting just doesn't stop!
Parris: No, come on, we'll have a nice time, just not an extensive nice time, we'll do the extensive one another time.
Doug: Let's Mile High Club right now! Come on, that forward bathroom, the stink I made is no doubt gone by now! Please, Dinah!
Parris: I don't want to jam my bottom and your bottom into that little room. I like maneuvering room when I engage in coitus.
Doug: Excuses. All I get from people.
Parris: I need to memorize some words I'm giving when we arrive in Belgium. I'm going to try a little French and a little Flemish, too. Wish me luck! (laughs).
Frank Noodles, private investigator, huddles with Hector Farrbarrhuber as they strategize about Hector's best next move. Noodles has determined the former President is thoroughly senile, though still capable of abstract thought and occasional sharp focus, but the focus tends to be on inconsequential things, like the size of Deidre Hall's breasts compared to Jayne Mansfield's breasts, or the destructive yield of an atom bomb like the ones America used on Japan compared to the yield given by the most destructive weapons in the U.S. arsenal now. How Noodles obtained this information isn't clear, but he seems to have informants in the Lieden campaign. Noodles, fifty years old, hair receding, bland face with a slightly pushed in nose, looks like a sadsack Bob Hope. He gets the job done, people on opposite sides of the political spectrum use him. His knowledge of politician's behind the scenes activities is extensive.
Hector: You like the coffee?
Frank: Yeah, it's good.
Hector: Turpentine.
Frank: What?
Hector: I put a little turpentine in the coffee, makes it taste better.
Frank: You gave me turpentine?
Hector: Do you feel sick?
Frank: A little.
Hector: I wonder if it's the turpentine?
Frank: Did you drink turpentine?
Hector: No, that's poison.
Frank: You poisoned me!
Hector: Yeah, you're not supposed to drink turpentine.
Frank: (goes for his gun, Hector springs forward, gets it away from him, pockets it in his jacket)
Hector: Hey, it's not a fatal dose. The three grains of Killfast I put in there, that's gonna kill you dead, Frank, and I'll tell you why you're dying.
Frank: You fucker!
Hector: Your work for me has exposed the likely moles in former President Lieden's campaign apparatus. I now know who they are. Thank you.
Frank spits blood.
Hector: The goal was never to undermine Lieden, but to pull out the weeds around him. You're one of those weeds, Frank Noodles, working against Lieden's interests, spying--
Frank: YOU HIRED ME TO SPY! (coughing blood, spasming, hips bucking, curling up on the motel room's floor).
Hector: I said some words. You accepted them as truthful, your loss. In reality, your connections to anti-Lieden politicians in both parties makes you anti-Lieden. Had you never taken my case, you'd be sitting at home watching tv with your wife Ulrike and your Sheepdog, Randy, both of whom you'll never see again.
Frank: You spied on my family, you son of a bitch?!
Hector: Don't get blood on my shoes! Yes, spied, I cover my bases, just like you didn't this evening and now look at you! Hoodwinked by the Garbage Collector! I used you, motherfucker! You got fucked over by the best! Be happy!
Frank goes into convulsions, throat engaged in the most awful, inhuman sounds ever heard by anyone, Hector being that one. He wondered if he should record it with his iPhone's voice memo app. The garglings, moans, the splashing sounds of blood, were all so uniquely horrible-sounding that Hector thought he should record Frank's agony, use the audio as a persuasion to others, perhaps sell it to a movie studio.
Hector, though, thought maybe it would be a good idea to end Frank's problems. It was getting worse, Frank's insides weren't holding up. He was conscious.
Hector took out Frank's gun, held it near his quivering head. Frank's tight shut eyes didn't register the weapon about to end the worst coffee experience of his life. His gun. His personal white flash.
Lieden in his campaign HQ, Scranton, a smaller office with a main room attached where busy young campaign staff, all female with very nice hair on the longish side, answer phones, solicit donations, stare out the windows. His own office is small, a map of Pennsylvania on the wall with the name L I E D E N drawn with black magic marker, spidery block letters along the length of the state.
Lieden: (Spins in his chair) Ha ha! I'm going to TAKE Pennsylvania! I'll court it, I'll seduce it, I'll ram Delaware up its river rectum. Wilmington at the tip of my Delaware dildo! Ram! Ram! Ram! And you know what the postman says to me? He says, "You should be on a stamp, Moe." A stamp! I never collected stamps. I collected rocks. I threw em at cars, at other boys, at houses in the Black neighborhoods. Ram damuh lam! Break windows, yeah! Steal cars, yeah! Smoke cigarettes, no joke, at fifteen, with my shades, white tee shirt, slicked hair, switchblade--I called it my pig sticker--I had girls coming out of my ass! I was a mean son of a gun, too. No joke. I bought a gun from a fella down in Peasey Park. Fifteen bucks. Piece of junk. When I fired it I missed by an inch or two, sometimes a foot. I hated that little fucking gun, so I used it as a sap. The grip was hard wood pieces attached to a steel piece half an inch thick, boy, that thing hits your scalp you go down, brother! I must've dropped forty or fifty like that. They called me Morris the Club. I randomly brained people on the backs of their heads. I have no idea why. A compulsion. Randomly killing people is what I did in Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, it's so easy, you can eat a bowl of cereal and order a drone strike in between bites. After the strike, civilians dead and all that, look up the baseball scores, how's Philadelphia doing? Oh, those Yankees! How about giving my Phillies a chance? Or my Pirates if I'm campaigning in western Pennsylvania. Where are we?
General Beak: We're in Scranton, sir.
Lieden: I'm a Phillies fan! Hey, I should have a sandbox put in, out by the girls. They could take turns playing with their President in the sandbox, work off some steam. What's wrong with working off a little steam during a work shift!? Look at them, Beak. Do you find any of them to your liking?
General Beak: I only recognize Mrs. Beak as attractive.
Lieden: Oh come on, she's not attractive!
General Beak: I beg to differ, sir!
Lieden: That sallow complexion, the brittle-looking graying hair, the wrinkles, haven't you seen the wrinkles?
General Beak: Beauty is skin deep, Mr. President. Beauty, its true nature, lies within a person. My Betty is beautiful.
Lieden: Here's the problem. (low voice, leans forward) I can't see Mrs.Beak's insides, don't want to, don't like body horror movies, either. Correction. I liked John Carpenter's The Thing.
Beak: Sir, those young ladies are here to work, not to be sexually harassed by you or anyone else. They're dedicated to the cause of getting you back in that big chair--
Lieden: Those Parrisites better not have thrown my orthopedic chair to the curb.
Beak: If they did we'll buy you another one with taxpayer money.
Lieden: I want to go home. I'm tired. Get the limo. Wilmington, to Wilmington I go. Want my bed. I feel old.
Beak: Dr. Grauchi instructed me on how to make a proper glass of Strawberry Quik. Interested?
Lieden: That will give me energy. It's got something in it.
Beak: It has milk, good for an old man's bones.
Lieden: Who's old? (squeezes Beak's chin with thumb and forefinger)
Beak: The mountains, space, Methuselah.
Lieden (releasing the man's chin): Beak, I know you're up to something. I don't know what it is. I may find out, I may not. I may have someone investigating what it might be, yes, investigating you, Beak! Or maybe not. Don't worry, you're safe. The man I hired works practically invisibly. An experienced guy from San Francisco, city of the Golden Gate, name of Sam Spade.
Beak: You can't mean--
Lieden: You've heard of him?
Beak: I've seen The Maltese Falcon.
Lieden: Big poops from that falcon? One time a crow pooped on me. That was quite a lot. Another time a sparrow let it fly, landed on my hair, wasn't much, I stopped cursing after I washed my hair.
Beak: It's a movie. Sam Spade was played by Humphrey Bogart.
Lieden: Yeah, Bogart, I heard he's good.
Beak: Sam Spade isn't real.
Lieden: Isn't real! Listen to the man! The General with all his ribbons, his shiny stars, his scrambled eggs, he thinks he's the arbiter of what's real and what isn't? You're not!
Beak: Nevertheless, Sam Spade is the product of Dashiell Hammett's imagination. He wrote other novels, too. The Thin Man is quite good, but its two main characters, the husband and wife detective couple, are not real, anymore than Sam Spade is real.
Lieden: You read reality differently than I, Beak, it's nothing to fret over. Sit down, eat your Bismarck, I got an extra. Cream filling, reminds me of ejaculating in a woman's vagina. Don't worry, I didn't ejaculate inside your Bismarck, no semen in that Bismarck!
Beak: I don't need more calories today.
Lieden: Pussy! Okay, I'll eat it, get my tongue swirling around in that cream. Or, do same to one of those work chicks.
Beak: Mr. President, please, keep on the straight and narrow. Be a moral example to voters and those we need to win over to secure the nomination.
Lieden: Moral? Didn't you hear what I said about drone-bombing children?
Beak: Weapons must flow, cash must grow, more explosions, more weapons, more ammo fired, more weapons, more money, influence, power.
Lieden: Weapons. I'd like my own tank.
Beak: That would be inappropriate.
Lieden: Why? Why can't the Oval Office be the space inside a tank? We can drive around America, or when we go overseas we can be flown over in a C-5 along with the tanks of the Secret Service, tanks bulling their way through the capitols of Europe, our tanks in Singapore, Botswana, Tahiti.
Beak: It's a mad idea, let's get serious. Your campaign needs cash, yesterday.
Lieden: You mean, "Your campaign needed cash, yesterday."
Beak: That is not what I meant, sir. The campaign has very little money, we need more.
Lieden: I know a guy to call. Let me handle this, Beak, you look strung out, have a cookie, Mr. Spade is coming this afternoon, he seemed like a mighty fine man on the phone.
Beak: Sam Spade is not coming to see you, Mr. President.
Lieden: Did he call you? What happened?
Beak: He's not coming because he isn't real.
Lieden: (laughs) There you go again. What do you want to do until he shows up? Cribbage?
Beak: I'd rather not play a game forever.
Lieden: A man heading up Space Force shouldn't be afraid of forever. Are you, Beak? Does forever scare you? The yawning gulf, the endlessness of time/space, the Monad, the dark matter, the radiant expanding sphere that is the universe, look at the possibilities, and you tell me Sam Spade isn't real.
Beak: Nor is Huckleberry Finn. A great character, but not real.
Lieden: I happen to have met Tom Joad in Modesto, California in 1958. He looked good, didn't look anything like Henry Fonda, less handsome than the movie star, but that's no surprise. If a movie gets made about me I'll be played by a good-looking son of a gun. Clooney, maybe? George, let's meet (laughs), talk it over, do me a solid and make me look good. Then, Tom Hanks might take the role. He supported me in my twenty campaign. He said, "He's the best man for the job." Thank you, Tom, you're a great American. Castaway is my favorite film. To be on an island alone, and then manna from Heaven in a way, but from a shipwreck keeps washing up on the beach.
Beak: You should make that call ASAP.
Lieden: What call?
Beak: The person with the money to help the campaign revitalize.
Lieden: Oh, that asshole.
The Yates-Beasley Weekly Report. Gwen Yates and Tor Beasley, a Saturday morning MSNBC news commentary and interviewing pair, thirty year lovers, never admitting it or talking about it. Tor has a long face and a bass voice, Gwen has an hourglass figure, bottle blonde brown hair, dark eyebrows, a spacey look when she smiles. In 2003, Gwen Yates was arrested for marijuana possession and resisting arrest. Belligerent to the thirteen police officers surrounding her, all fascinated apparently by Gwen fucking Yates is a pothead! Feisty too!
That's long behind her. Ordinary people remember Yates's arrest and foul mouth, that she smoked pot, that a button popped on her blouse when she was manhandled into the back of the police cruiser. Ordinary people just don't talk about it anymore. She's been doing the Report since 2011, her paycheck should be better, a work of persuasion in progress, but life's pretty good, though Tor makes more money, does the exact same job, I should do an editorial on that, she thinks. I fucking will!
Tor, dour Tor, always handles gloomy news bits, his editorials always deeply serious, delivered in a practiced deep tone, nice to listen to. As he speaks of funerals for tornado victims in an obliterated city like Joplin, he sounds lovely, like a wandering medieval minstrel charming a village, deep lulling bass delivering news of the world, MSNBC-style: Never emphasize or illuminate U.S. government perfidy as it pertains to the interests of the national security war state linked with unrestrained capitalism.
Tor: ...the Danish Ambassador to Senegal sat accidentally upon a Great Horned Beetle, a pet belonging to a Senegalese minister's daughter. The beetle, unharmed by the Danish ambassador's narrow, bony posterior, crawled away unscathed, but Ambassador Søren Eriksen received an infection from the insect's exoskeletal horn puncturing the man's Italian trousers, French boxers, and Danish ass-epidermis. Since an attack on one NATO nation--Mr. Eriksen is, after all, an important government official--is considered by that multinational body an attack on all, speculation on the likelihood of NATO engaging in armed conflict with Senegal has increased in volume, with three Democratic congressman calling for invasion, bombardments, drone warfare, infiltration of intelligence agents and assets, saboteurs, we all know the drill by now. Senegal, these Congressmen declared in a joint statement issued Monday, must be made responsible for its assault on a NATO ambassador, a guest, quote, "ass-stabbed by the largest beetle I've ever seen," according to one shocked witness. Gwen?
Gwen: The question is, does NATO have a point? (Her titter beats in making sound his silence) Tallinn, Estonia. Martin Kaasik found a new use for his 1973 Volkswagen Beetle, speaking of beetles, Tor. After buying his new car, a Toyota Corolla, a handsome black one, Martin, father of three, spent a summer working late, northern sky in evening daylight, making a tree clubhouse for his two younger sons, Koit and Kalju. Happy smiles on those two faces the day the treehouse was finally ready. Koit Kaasik on the right, Kalju in the middle, he's younger by a year, with their proud father, Martin, the Baltic Beetle Customizer. Tor?
Tor: Seventy-seven people died and forty-five are injured after a ferry capsized in Nigeria. A boy carrying a hand crank drill and wearing a 76ers t-shirt was seen entering the lower decks some ten minutes before the ferry began to sink. The 1923 ferry's bottom planks could not prevent the holing they got from the suspected Boko Haram terrorist. The culprit has not been found, two others are missing, for a total of 125 casualties. Gwen?
Gwen: Sounds like rotten wood might've contributed to the problem, Tor. Remind me never to go on a ferry in Africa.
Tor (nods): Public transportation safety isn't as important in some countries as it is in others.
Gwen: You said it. Cassandra Blade appeared on the Peter Ninny Show, acted coy when asked if she's running for President in 2024. Watch:
Cassandra Blade in a yellow pants suit and white blouse, gold brooch of the goddess Diana, a gift from a Greek general in 2011 when she was Secretary of State. She sits with Peter Ninny, a ninety-five year old interviewer, in television from 1957, with his own PBS show once a month since 1977. He takes his meds during his interviews. He falls asleep. He lets out long hissy farts. He talks too much about Korea, where he spent three months in 1953 doing reporting for the New York Times. Author of nineteen books, a play, Three More Walls To Break, about Bertolt Brecht, a biography of Schubert, and a book of anecdotes from interviews stretching back to the 1950s. Ninny's nurse, a buxom woman in her thirties named Brenda, wears light blue scrubs, a hair net, and an N95 mask. She occasionally steps up to her patient, checks his blood pressure, pulse, and temperature. In one infamous episode aired in 2004, during an interview with William Hurt, promoting his latest movie, The Village, another what-the-fuck-is-going-on M. Night Shyamalan film, Nurse Brenda snapped on gloves and gave the seventy-seven year old a prostate exam. William Hurt remarked, drolly, "I feel as if I'm getting one, too." As did every man watching the program.
Cassandra: I admire your tenacity, Peter. You love working, so you work, to Hell with what others say. Retire, schmetire. Look at Dianne Feinstein. She's younger than you and she doesn't even know where she is, but she's keeping that job! The rich of her district need her, by gum!
Peter: Secretary Blade. Are you or are you not running for President in a year I probably won't live to see?
Cassandra: Aren't you taking the treatments, Pete? They have stuff that'll shave twenty years off of your life, in a good way. What, you're ninety-nine? How does seventy-nine sound? Say, that's Moe Lieden's age! He's in good shape!
Peter: You must be laughing inside. Moe Lieden is a vegetable case. The man's brain is a kumquat.
Cassandra: Kumquats are fruits, not vegetables, Peter.
Peter: Answer the question, Madame Secretary.
Cassandra: I'm considering options as always.
Gwen: Isn't it fascinating, Tor, when politicians dodge questions about running for office?
Tor: What's fascinating is the downward trend in viewership of MSNBC. Why aren't we liked? What are we doing wrong? Tell us, viewers, we'll read your emails, your advice will be shared in board meetings and planning rooms. We've been doing the same thing for decades, well, two anyway. Gwen, maybe you're tired of this like I am? Who cares if Cassandra Blade is going to run? I wish she'd run off a cliff! Oops, can't say that? Well if it's possible to wish someone to run off a cliff then maybe I'd be guilty if Mrs. Blade did such an insane thing.
Gwen: Tor, lower your voice.
Tor: I don't wish anybody harm, for the record, all right? I'm a peaceful man, I don't drink anymore, I don't even watch television. I'm on television, why should I watch it? Haven't seen a movie since Revenge of the Sith, could've done without the Darth Vader behaving like Frankenstein's monster scene.
Gwen: I liked that film! It's a good film.
Tor: What did you like about it?
Gwen: The characters, the setting, the lava planet, what else? Oh, the spaceships! I like Jimmy Smits too, he's in it. West Wing is the greatest show of all time!
Tor: By the end, Sith was hardly worth the price of the ticket I purchased with my hard-earned cash. Ten-fifty, gone forever, memories of a crappy film in its place.
Gwen: You make five point nine million a year. You do the same work I do, I get paid less, what gives? (looks at the camera) What gives with that, people who decide on my salary? Hey, I'm talking to all of youse! Give it up, the truth! I'm a woman, that's why you won't give me as much money as Tor makes! I need more money! There's a house in this gal's future, two car garage, big yard, a dog, a cat, a gerbil, a couple of kids, dinner parties, charades, news no more doing this news talk for a living.
Tor: Make a wish, Gwen. Back to news. Davos. One of the participants at the conference, no one knows who, no one will admit to it, passed a fart so dense it had the appearance of pumice. It left dust on the floor while Bono was speaking about feeding Africans and giving them Spotify. That embodied fart, so rare, I've only heard of one other case, lingered as a pumicey fart before disintegrating into powdered fart form, lacking smell. Gwen?
Gwen: Tokyo, Japan. Hey! you fans of Lost in Translation. Are you ready for a special tour visiting all the locations in Sofia Coppola's philosophical puzzler? I know I am. I'm planning on taking the next tour in May. Move over, Bill Murray. Gwen Yates has gotta yen for travel. Mongolia, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Costa Rica, Afghanistan (once it calms down, I like mountains), Mexico, Antarctica. Ironic, though, that this reporter has never been across the street from Rockefeller Center. (chuckles)
Tor: I've been all over the globe, but I shall retire to a small house in a small community in a small state. I'll change my name to Small. Dick Small. Like that joke, Gwen, and can you smile like a normal person?
Gwen: Let's not have tantrums before the cameras.
Tor: Let's walk away from this job, now.
Gwen: That's insane.
Tor: Doable, worth doing. It'll kick us in the slats money-wise, but who cares when you're happy--
Gwen: And poor.
Tor: Not poor, I'm loaded.
Gwen: I'm not as loaded.
Tor: But you're doing okay with what you have. That's the lesson of life my dear, my tomato from upstairs* [Reference to a line uttered by Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch.]
Gwen: We're going to get another talking to by the boss.
Tor: I'll challenge him to an arm wrestling contest.
Gwen: Settle down.
Tor: At the White House, President Parris signed into law the Arm Ukraine Times Infinity Bill. It passed in the Senate 98-0.
Gwen: Go Ukraine! Yellow and blue, yellow and blue yoo hoo!
Tor: Stifle yourself.*********
Oval Office. Doug Gard and the President meet with Denmark's Prime Minister Karina Larsen, an attractive, reserved forty-five year old who looks thirty. Good Scandinavian bone structure.
Larsen: Madame President. I'm concerned we've received only two F-35s. We have twenty-three on order. When will they arrive?
Parris: I'm not a slavedriver, (laughs) I can't pressure Lockheed Martin, that's like spitting on the cross.
Doug: Are you worried World War Three will start before you have the planes?
Larsen: That hasn't entered my mind.
Doug: It's in there now.
Parris: Are you worried about World War Three, Prime Minister Larsen?"
Larsen: It's a possibility, but so is peace.
Parris: (laughs) You need those twenty-three warplanes to make some peace (cackles).
Doug: Your eyes, Prime Minister Larsen, or may I call you Karina?
Larsen: What about my eyes, First Gentleman Gard?
Doug: May I call you Karina?
Larsen: You may.
Doug: Your voice is so deep. Were you a man?
Parris: Doug!
Doug: A shemale, perhaps? I've seen them on my phone.
Larsen: We were discussing the F-35s. My country needs them for self-defense, primarily.
Parris: Self-defense, pshaw! You want them because you're afraid to participate in the greatest warping of traditions to accommodate new ways of being on many planets and many star systems, becoming galactic citizens, perhaps merging with the Overmind. I heard Childhood's End while doing my daily treadmill, walked five miles yesterday, pretty good for an old lady (laughs for ten seconds, the Prime Minister's face, blank, resembles Marlene Dietrich's stoic visage in Shanghai Express).
Doug: My wife's a reader.
Parris: And a listener. What do you want from the United States?
Larsen: Delivery of twenty-three F-35s and all the extras agreed upon in a contract signed by representatives of my country and Lockheed Martin officials, along with U.S.A. government politicians and Pentagon officials. Honor the contract, which states you have until December 31st this year to deliver the twenty-three fighters. Otherwise, we bail out of the deal. (she smiles, the only one during the meeting) In my guest suite at the embassy last night I heard that phrase in a TV comedy.
Doug: WKRP in Cincinnati!
Larsen: Is that what it was?
Doug: You can bank on it. Trust me, I know television shows. Ask me anything about a TV show. Any show.
Parris: Doug.
Larsen: Hill Street Blues. What was the name of that show's musical, how you say? ah, spinoff!
Doug: Cop Rock. Greatest musical TV show about cops ever! You know Cop Rock! You might be knowledgable about this engaging subject.
Larsen: I once sat next to Charles Haid on a plane.
Doug: That explains it. Ask me another. Do!
Larsen: Why was Shannon's Deal cancelled? I liked that show. It delved into forbidden topics. I answered my question.
Doug: Did I perceive a husky amused grunt, Prime Minister Larsen? May I call you Karina?
Larsen: Sure, why not?
Doug: Are you a shemale? Because I'd be into that.
Larsen: Into what?
Doug: Threesome with the President and myself. I'm quite good at cunnilingus, but if you have a penis, I'm sure President Parris would be delighted to take up the challenge.
Parris: I am absolutely not going to suck your penis, Prime Minister Larsen! No goin down on anybody, including you, Doug, forget about tonight's date!
Doug: Sweetheart, I'd rather you would punish me by performing an achingly slow striptease.
Larsen: I have nothing more to say, I shall contact my government. We'll be in touch.
Doug: Touch?
Larsen: No thank you. Madame President. First Gentleman.
Parris: (laughs) Hardly a gentleman! (door closes, the ambassador's limousine awaits). Doug, are you insane?
Doug: I crap on your question!
Parris: Doug. Are you taking your Gextromunidociluminarbron--44-G, Batch 13 pills?
Doug: The ones shaped like ottomans?
Parris: Those.
Doug: I stopped. I nearly choked on one. I was scared, boy was I scared. I lay on our bed in the Executive Mansion for two hours, trying to work that thing down. I had a piece of tiny furniture stuck in my esophagus. But it went down! My will demanded it! Never again, though. Those pills, too big.
Parris: An alternative can be found, I'm sure, the pills can be made at smaller doses so you take two instead of one.
Doug: I want them crushed into a fine powder, like Strawberry Quik in its raw pre-drink form.
Parris: I'll ask Tony the Grauch about it. You need to take that drug, honey. Otherwise you get like...how you are.
Doug: I am perfectly fine.
Parris: You asked the Prime Minister of Denmark, obviously a woman, if she were a man.
Doug: I'll research the subject on my internet tonight. I'll have time, since you've denied me your mouth, vagina, and ass by cancelling our date. I remind you, Madame President, tonight was to be our annual gentle anal sex experience. When can I expect this? Commit to a date! I yearn to be in there again! Who besides me can boast of having pushed my wang in to the very hilt, united as one being with the President of the United States? Could it be me? Yes!
Parris: I've heard things about Buchanan.
Doug: Pat Buchanan sodomized my wife!?
Parris: (hisses) Lower your voice! Not Pat Buchanan--who's Pat Buchanan? Anyway, James Buchanan. He was the President before Lincoln.
Doug: Who was the First Gentleman?
Parris: (laughs): There weren't none. That was the only time the White House was a bachelor pad.
Doug: I beg to differ, Wife. The place was a bachelor pad when Billy Boy Blade got his blowjobs in this office. I read that the first thing Arbusto and his wife did when they started living here was change the Oval Office carpet. I wonder what happened to the Blade administration carpet fragments? How much crusted Billy Boy seed soaked and dried on those pieces back in the nineties? The nineties. I miss the nineties. Nirvana, the Beastie Boys, heck, Sheryl Crow was enjoyable, pretty damn good-looking if you ask me, definitely a woman.
Parris: My favorite music is prog rock. Yes, Uriah Heep, Hawkwind.
Doug: Hawkwind? Really. Come on, Dinah. Maybe you are insane, as my fellow Ratfuck Bastards believe.
Parris: You don't like Hawkwind?
Doug: I have no opinion, they're okay, I guess, but I hate it when you lie about music and movies. You don't listen to Hawkwind, admit it.
Parris: Along with Genesis and Yes, Hawkwind are my three favorite prog bands. Wait a minute. I forgot about Emerson, Lake, and Palmer! How could I forget ELP!? (sings the title phrase of ELP's "Still, you turn me on...", then laughs).
Doug: I await your announcement of our rain checked anal sex date.
Parris: (sighs) I'll look at my calendar. I'm too nice to you.
Doug: (whispers) It will be gentle.
Parris: How does tomorrow at 3:40 sound? At 4:40 I'm meeting the President of Gogberkosh. Just a dot on the map but it seems to be made of uranium (laughs), and gold (laughs harder, leaning sideways) and diamonds! (walking on her knees, she screams with laughter). And Doug, they got oil in the north province and a buncha other valuable shit. (Palm on desk, she stands, smiling, eyes lit up). Guess what we're gonna do about Gogberkosh, Doug.
Doug: Open trade relations?
Parris: (claps her hands, laughs, then gets quietly intense) I'm setting this President chump up to believe we're going to end all sanctions and what's more, invest in his country's infrastructure, and send Jennifer Lopez or Beyoncé to perform for free. When he feels comfortable again, we strike! (fist strikes palm, she doesn't laugh). Already we have infiltrators, saboteurs, spies, opposition creeps in security police uniforms beating up leftists and college professors. We're going to overthrow that shitty little government in five to fifteen weeks, spirit of Allen Dulles willing.
Doug: You're turning me on. You're so forceful.
Parris: Keep it zipped. I'm getting the hang of my job, the ruthless part. I really like it now.
Doug: Say threatening things about this puny country Gobbergosh sitting on a gold mine, too stupid to do anything with it.
Parris: I don't think it's stupidity. Different values, I guess. Our values matter the most, that's obvious.
Doug: Hard work. Decency. Respect for others, and grandmas. Know your place. Respect elders. Don't torture dogs. Don't shoot BBs at slugs. Don't bomb civilians.
Parris: (laughs) Where did you hear that one?
Doug: A test administered by a Ratfuck Bastard to see if you could spot what doesn't belong in that sequence.
Parris: Have you risen so far in the ranks of the Ratfuck Bastards? So soon?
Doug: I have Henry Kissinger's phone number.
Parris: So do I.
Doug: The power vibrating from that man, it's enervating.
Parris: Did it cause that boner? (laughs)
Doug: Laughing at the penises of Ratfuck Bastards is not permitted!
Parris: But video recording them is fine as long as it was done by Terry Stein?
Doug: Stein is no longer recognized as a Ratfuck Bastard by Ratfuck Bastards. Stein was excommunicated in absentia a week after his last arrest. I attended the ceremony. It was like a celebration. Another Ratfuck Bastard told me that 95 percent of the membership can now only get it up if teenaged or younger children are part of the experience.
Parris: You better not participate in anything so sordid, so cavalier in attitude toward young lives.
Doug: How many children did you kill in that airstrike in Somalia that ended twenty-five civilians?
Parris: Only two. The villagers there say it was nine, but who are you gonna believe? People who harbor terrorists, or live near them? Or the Pentagon?
Doug: When are we building the Hexagon?
Parris: That's not happening anytime soon. I have to send a hundred billion in weapons to Ukraine, send more Marsgeld to Elon Musk so he doesn't invade us, yeah, that's a thing! I got briefed on it the day after my official for-the-people-and-cameras Inauguration ceremony. The dinner, the balls, the Margaritas, oh my God! I was hungover when I found out Elon Musk has the military capacity to capture Earth using advanced weaponry developed on Mars by a robotic underground machine civilization he secretly sent there around the same time he launched that ridiculous car into Earth orbit.
Doug: Have you consulted with General Beak?
Parris: I'm giving you a task.
Doug: What if I'm insane?
Parris: Forget I said that. Find General Beak. Bring him to this office ASAP. He's been reported seen with Moe Lieden in Scranton.
Doug: Knowing Moe Lieden, I'll find him in a strip club. I'll look in the strip joints first. Talk to the ladies, see if any of them have seen the former President of the United States, the senile one. I'll bring a stack of ones, twos, and fives.
Parris: You can't go to strip clubs, Doug. You have a reputation to uphold. You have a title, you have an office in the East Wing of the White House for Christ's sake! Be respectable inside and out! Don't you think I'd like to go to a strip club? With male dancers? I saw Magic Mike! You bet I did! Twice!
Doug: Suggestions on coaxing Beak to Washington?
Parris: Tell him if he doesn't get into my office by the end of next week, Saturday, I'll fold the entirety of Space Force personnel into the Air Force and cancel the sixth branch, which really means no Hexagon ever.
Doug: Can you do that?
Parris: Are you suggesting the first woman of color to be President of the United States is not capable of figuring out how to break up and eliminate a branch of the U.S. military? I'll get my advisors working on it, keep it as wild card in my bra.
Doug: Bra, cupping broobs!
Parris: I told you, don't unzip! Broobs?
Headline in The Washington Post:
Ukraine is rebuilding cities as fast as Russia destroyed them
White House Press Room, a new face introduced by President Parris, smiling and laughing even more than usual.
Parris: Transitions occur in life, yes they do. We miss our Jennifer, well, I'm having an interview with her later this morning, I don't really miss her, but her first assignment on MSNBC Dodo be sure to watch, people (laughs, salutes the journalists for no apparent reason). But we have a replacement. Come forward, Joanne. Allow me to introduce Joanne Sturgeon-Poff (applause, and then Dinah lifts her arms, urging into being a standing O. The old or chubby reporters put down their coffees and briefcases. They stand, sighing as they clap for five seconds before the President flutters her fingers) Sit, sit, sit-sit-sit! I don't have all day (laughs). You got me here so why not ask a few?
Reporter: President Parris, when will the next shipment of weapons and building materials, as well as money to provide health care to Ukrainians get sent? And a follow-up: Why does our government provide health care free of charge to Ukrainians but not to its own citizens?
Parris: Liedencare is health care, right? We're gonna be changing that name soon (laughs). We'll tweak something minor in the language of the Act and rename it Parriscare! (laughs). Sounds good! How bout some applause from you gloomy faces! Come on! (laughs, they applaud). Standing O!!!! (the journalists stand, the old and out of shape want to kill her). As to your questions...I didn't get your name?
Reporter: Phil.
Parris: Do you work for a news-gathering organization, Phil?
Reporter: Phil News.
Parris: Okay, I'm going to have that Secret Service man look at your press pass while I answer your questions.
Reporter: I understand how such consternation and paranoid caution could come from a person like you, Madame President. Go ahead, Agent, take a good look.
Parris: We export health care to Ukrainians because they're at the center of a growing world conflict, a very irritated country at the moment. Smoke rising from explosions, children crying, schools hit by soulless Russian bombs and missiles. The horror, the badness of those who kill children! What is the world coming to that people are killing children? Mothers over there need health care, is anyone here disputing that? Do you think your President is losing her marbles, getting concerned about Ukrainian babies, toddlers, four to tens, pre-teens, teens, the twenty-somethings who still lived with their parents until the day a Russian bomb landed on their apartment building? (Wipes away a practiced tear). What about that press pass, David?
Secret Service Man: It's legit.
Parris: Thank you, David. You're doing a great job. Okay Phil News, your first question about those beautiful weapons. You know, you can think of Congress, the White House, and the Pentagon as the conveyor belt delivering lethality to a noble cause for ultimate peace. I'll remember you, Phil, thank you. Now, I'm turning things over to your new Press Secretary. I've known Joanne since our sorority days. No! I know what you're thinking! Our tight friendship going back thirty-seven years through thin and thick--we've tried a few diets in our time! (laughs). But seriously, our friendship had nothing to do with why I chose her to talk to you all in this room. She'll only be making 180,000 dollars a year. I could've given her a better-paying position, like Secretary of State.
Reporter: Art Biele, New York Spaces. Arthur Sneffen is Secretary of State, are you intending to fire him?
Parris: Are you on LSD? (laughs). Did I say that?
Reporter: I'm not on LSD. I asked the question, Madame President, because you said you could have given Ms. Sturgeon-Poff Foggy Bottom.
Parris: Sounds like an embarrassing condition! (Laughs, twists her body around as she makes eye contact with everyone she can, looking for those who don't laugh, gripping the podium, creating a meme of herself). No really--I am in fine comedic shape of late, I think a stand-up tour might be in my future (laughs). Well, I could've given it to her if I wanted to dismiss Mr. Sneffen--he's doing a fine job, he's a great patriot and a brilliant strategist--but Arthur is stuck to my administration like a magnet on a Maytag. Now, I give you my sister, Joanne Sturgeon-Poff (applause, with Parris again making fat and old journalists put down their shit so they can stand and clap, only to have to sit down right away).
President Parris waves, smiles, exits stage right. Sturgeon-Poff assumes command of the podium, opening her binder. She goes right into it.
Scranton, Pennsylvania. Doug Gard figures the best way to go incognito is to wear his clown makeup from when he worked his way through college, entertaining children on their birthdays, throwing candy in parades, and posing for "sad clown" paintings. Doug's red frown outlined with a thick black line all around and inverted pale green triangle, around his eyes, the downward point at the tip of his nose. Ears and neck painted black, he looks great, not at all frightening. His Secret Service team--their code name for him is WHY--are dismissed while Doug goes to retrieve General Beak. Doug wears a business suit and a fedora. He visits just one strip club. The man at the door won't let him in "with that face, you'll scare the girls." Right as the door closes in his face, Doug glimpses General Beak and Moe Lieden sitting by the stage, enjoying a lithe young woman working a pole. Doug waits outside in his rented Volkswagen Atlas. A look at his makeup in the rearview mirror shows him nothing concerning. Part of him wants to say to the doorman, "I'm First Gentleman Douglas Gard, I outrank you in society. Let this clown inside your establishment or the President of the United States will shutter all strip clubs in America. How would you like that? How would you--" Moe Lieden, sunlight reflecting off his capped teeth, exits along with the General. They don't get into a car. They walk next door to the Lieden campaign's rented office.
Doug: A campaign office, that's it, why didn't I think of that? Did Dinah tell me to look for a Lieden campaign office? (gets out of the car, doesn't lock it, draws a stare from a woman walking by) Ah! You recognize the husband of the most powerful woman in the world! Why are you running away?
Inside the Lieden Campaign office, Scranton branch.
Lieden: Boy, she was something, huh? Caress, what a great name!
Beak: A pseudonym.
Lieden: Not so! It's a beautiful name! It reminds me of soap.
Beak: Caress is a soap. Mrs. Beak uses it.
Lieden: You know what you can do with soap, in a pinch?
Beak: What? Sir.
Lieden: Wash your hair with it. I'm talking bar soap my friend. When I was a freshman Congressman from the great state of Delaware I washed my hair with Irish Spring. You remember that commercial? The cute Irish chick, or I guess they call em a lass, and the fellow who sliced out a piece of Irish Spring with his jackknife. I don't know what that was supposed to prove but oh well. My hair always had a sharp clean smell, like all the scent had been removed from my body and hair and I guess my anus too, and replaced with that Irish Spring smell. Now though I just ooze Pantene on myself. What soap and shampoo do you use?
Beak: Military grade pumice-infused soap cakes derived from pangolin keratin.
Lieden: And for shampoo?
Beak: Head and Shoulders.
Lieden: (smiles) Dandruff problem, huh?
Beak: No dandruff problem since I started using Head and Shoulders.
Lieden: (looking past Beak's shoulder). Who the fuck is this weirdo?
Doug Gard passes through the outer office, the women workers don't like what they see but don't do anything about it. He stops at the open doorway to Lieden's office. Beak and Lieden stare at him.
Doug: General Beak, I'm here to escort you to a meeting with my not-to-be-disobeyed wife. I have a Volkswagen waiting. Don't fear, it's not a Beetle. Plenty of room for those long shanks of yours! I've got The Invisible Man in the CD player. I'd be glad to re-listen to the first three chapters so you can catch up.
Beak: What in the name of fuck is on your face?
To be continued...
Vic Neptune
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