Inside a black 1994 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham with burgundy interior, parked in the Pentagon lot, two miles from the building. General Beak, Space Force, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Charlton Hestonesque jaw working through a talk with black-haired, gnomish Hector Farrbarrhuber (picture the actor Oliver Platt), former President Moe Lieden's fix-it man. Beak bought the car new. After twenty-eight years, only 95,000 miles show on the odometer.
Farrbarrhuber: For a Space Force man you sure drive a square car.
Beak: Rectangular when seen from above. My Brougham combines the elegance of old world simplicity with the steel integrity of a tank.
Farrbarrhuber: My thoughts exactly.
Beak: What have you found out about this man claiming to be Sam Spade?
Farrbarrhuber: If he's Sam Spade the world isn't what we thought it is. I found he arrived in Washington not by jetliner.
Beak: How did he get there?
Farrbarrhuber: Stepped off the pages of a book, maybe? I'm sure there are copies of The Maltese Falcon in Washington, D.C.
Beak: Are you mad? A fictional character walked out of a novel from 1930? How? Summoned somehow by President Lieden?
Farrbarrhuber: I doubt Lieden's a magic user. Somebody may have done it for him. I'm looking into that.
Beak: You seriously think it's possible a fictional character can emerge into our reality from a book?
Farrbarrhuber: Some say that about Jesus.
Beak: I've read The Maltese Falcon. Spade is no Jesus. He's described as having a Satanic look.
Farrbarrhuber: Appearances are deceiving, General. Before you invade the Universe you should learn that.
Beak: Have you fondled the implications of this in your mind?
Farrbarrhuber: Fondled?
Beak: If Spade can emerge, perhaps Nick and Nora Charles can come into our world.
Farrbarrhuber: Who are they?
Beak: Not a reader, eh? Nick is the detective protagonist in The Thin Man, another novel by Dashiell Hammett.
Farrbarrhuber: Maybe this Hammett's characters are the first to break through?
Beak: I need to call a meeting of the Joint Chiefs.
Farrbarrhuber: I'll keep investigating but I need more money if I'm going to try and find Nick and Nora Charles.
Beak: Table them for now. Focus on Spade, but keep an eye peeled for more fictional characters in our world.
Farrbarrhuber: Are you a fictional character?
Beak: To Spade, maybe our reality is fictional?
Farrbarrhuber: Fiction is based on reality, right?
Beak: Based on lived experience, and also the expressive abilities of each individual author.
Farrbarrhuber: Maybe reality is based on fiction?
Beak: I choose to end this discussion. We're touching on a subject that may become a serious challenge for our country. Will a child, Huckleberry Finn, be allowed to raft downriver on the Mississippi without the supervision of a parent, or legal guardian? Jim, for all his good qualities, is not Huck's legal guardian or parent. It'll be tough for Huck. He'll probably become a criminal in our world.
Farrbarrhuber: You must be talking about a book.
Beak: Report back in a week, literary ignoramus. And, please, don't slam my Brougham's door as you did when you got in.
Farrbarrhuber: If we live in a world that's fictional from fictional characters' standpoints, doesn't that mean I can do anything I want to do?
Beak: An irresponsible philosophical argument. Antinomian.
Farrbarrhuber: It's been interesting, General. I want more money to do this job, regardless of Nick and Nora Charles.
Beak: I agree, you'll need it. That building yonder--should be the Hexagon, to represent the six branches--is a no-consequences-ever-considered-cash-machine.
Farrbarrhuber: (laughing) You people are the worst fucks on the planet.
Beak: Get out of my Brougham.
White House East Wing, Doug Gard's office, ten a.m. Sam Spade, comfortable in a black leather armchair opposite the First Gentleman, seated on a bar stool by his desk, looking down at the detective, arms crossed. Spade pictures a dunce cap between the cuckold's antlers. Gard, having exercised at nine, still wears black sweatpants, white-edged red letters, CSUN, vertically on the left leg. His black tee shirt reads CSUN Matadors. Above the letters, a red, black, and white matador executing a rebolera.
Gard: The President, my wife, suggested I meet with you. I follow her suggestions, except when she tells me to move back to my side of the bed and masturbate so she can get some rest. Being the first African American woman President is very taxing.
Spade: I don't know what her skin tone has to do with that, but--
Gard: The first to break a glass ceiling stands out, prominently, to be criticized by those who have all their lives served and led sexist institutions.
Spade: That term sounds nonsensical.
Gard: Which term?
Spade: Glass ceiling. Who has a glass ceiling? And why would anyone want to break through one? Injuries--
Gard: A metaphor, Mr. Spade. Surely you know what those are?
Spade: Sure. I just never heard that one before.
Gard: Odd. What can I do for you? Take you to lunch? Recommend a tailor to fit you for a more up to date suit? Show you my Rock and Roll vintage LP collection? I have a signed Buddy Holly.
Spade: None of those offers fit my plans.
Gard: What then? Do you want a woman?
Spade: Not at the moment.
Gard: Ah, you want a quick handjob from a man, perhaps? Well, I'm not that man, mister. There is, however, someone in my wife's cabinet who fits the bill, but he's married. How do you feel about adultery?
Spade: Some marriages shouldn't be. Adultery's a way of correcting those mistakes.
Gard: Good heavens.
Spade: This man in President Parris's cabinet. He's a queer with a wife to cover his proclivity?
Gard: No! He has a husband.
Spade: Come now (lights a cigarette).
Gard: He does!
Spade: Two men married each other?
Gard: Yes! It's been legal across the country since 2015. Women too.
Spade: You don't say?
Gard: I'm amazed you haven't heard about that.
Spade: We all have ignorant spaces in our personal catalogues of knowledge.
Gard: Hm, I like that, catalogues of knowledge. Are you a poet?
Spade: No. Shamus.
Gard: Huh?
Spade: Private detective.
Gard: Oh my.
Spade: Your missus wants you to tell me about the Horrigan File.
Gard: Oh dear.
Spade: She said you worked on it when you belonged to the law firm, Peplow Woodcock Shamff and Piercefield.
Gard: (grinning) My eager young buck days.
Spade: We all have them, don't we? So, the Horrigan File?
Gard: (notices, finally, cigarette smoke in his office) You can't smoke in here!
Spade: Why not?
Gard: The White House is a no smoking designated area! Put it out, rules-violator!
Spade: (tapping and grinding out his cig's cherry) From what I understand, your wife orders bombing missions against children in the Middle East, yet you object to a little cigarette smoke.
Gard: Non sequitur, Mr. Spade! If decorum dies--
Spade: Decorum? What's decorous about killing? It's bloody awful. Sometimes it needs doing, but it takes a psychopath with contempt for human life to carry on like it's as easy as drinking a glass of water.
Gard: We're talking about different things.
Spade: Well, I am in the White House. Herbert Hoover didn't know what was really going on, either.
Gard: What are you talking about, Man?
Spade: Negligence. Not caring about the country, letting it fall apart to satisfy fat cats and speculators who don't understand the word, enough.
Gard: You're talking to the wrong man. I've served such folks my entire career. I go to their houses for parties. I eat their cake. I welcome them into my home where my wife charms the pants off of them. I gleefully count their donations in my head, knowing that in permanent campaign season mode, I belong to a political party existing for the sole purpose of enriching itself and its donors, spreading misinformation about our true purposes, facilitating the making of war, and pretending to be opposed to Republicans, then campaigning on our deliberate failures, raising millions of dollars in donations from ordinary Americans, some giving significant percentages of their monthly incomes to further the Democrats' cause, an entirely made-up one with no backbone.
Spade: A smokescreen.
Gard: Exactly. Ordinary citizens continue to vote for us and give us money. They're not so much stupid as propagandized. We're already fundraising from Roe v. Wade's overturning. They keep voting for us (laughing) no matter how many times we let them down. It feels great to be trusted! More and more people hate us every day, but it's fun watching YouTube videos of my wife getting eviscerated in news commentary.
Spade lights another cigarette, Doug Gard doesn't notice.
Gard: The video clips make her look stupid.
Spade: I've seen some. She has a forced laugh. When an interviewer asks her a question about an uncomfortable, for her, topic, she guffaws for no reason, even when it's about children locked up in cages at the Mexico border. As to that, why doesn't your wife do something about it? What do you want to do with those kids? Make them into slaves when they grow up, if they grow up? The ones who survive that long will be the toughest bastards you ever met. Put em in the Army. They can kill people in your next war.
Gard: (standing abruptly to his full sixty-nine inches) HOW DID YOU FIND OUT ABOUT OUR PLAN?!?!?
Spade: Lucky guess. (Blows three smoke rings).
Gard: No one has ever done that in my presence before. Remarkable.
Spade: Take up smoking. Blowing rings is easy to learn.
Gard: (gesturing at his exercise togs) My body is my temple.
Spade: Sit down and tell me about the Horrigan File. I'll leave sooner if you do.
Doug sits.
Gard: Horrigan, yes. Reminds me of that terrific song from Yankee Doodle Dandy.
Spade: Do tell.
Gard: (singing) Aitch! Oh! Double R Eye! Gee-Ā-En spells Horrigan! Proud of--
Spade: Tell me about the file.
Gard: Not a James Cagney fan?
Spade: Who is James Cagney?
Gard: (with a smug smile) Another ignorant space in your mind, Mr. Spade?
Spade: Tell me about the Horrigan File.
Gard: Okay. Ted Horrigan. I knew him just barely when he was a lawyer at Peplow Woodcock Shamff and Piercefield, then he was President Blade's first White House Counsel. Good man, Horrigan. Terrible squash player, excellent deep sea fisherman, caught a marlin all by himself. Believe it, I saw the photo in his office.
Spade: (lights another cigarette with the burning one) Continue.
Gard: Theodore Vincent Horrigan, the bright-eyed lawyer who hitched his star to the Blades and, some say, died eventually from that contact, but that's a conspiracy theory.
Spade: He shot himself, is that right?
Gard: Yes, in Peppermint Patty Park. Funny thing. He was left-handed but the suicide gun was in his right hand and there weren't any fingerprints on it.
Spade: He was murdered.
Gard: What are you talking about? That's the stuff of fevered brains.
Spade: It's logic. One does not use one's non-dominant hand to fire a gun.
Gard: Well, all the official reports concluded suicide. The man was depressed, he felt persecuted.
Spade: How was his relationship with President Blade?
Gard: They got along great! They knew each other from way back. You see, when you live in a small Southern state like Arkansas there's nothing to do except make friends, fish, and cheat on your wife.
Spade: Did you see anything in the Horrigan File indicating criminal involvement by President Blade in his death.
Gard: Just speculation. For instance, Ted Horrigan kept a diary but it was removed by President Blade or someone else and no one has seen it since. Also, it took the President nine months to order an FBI investigation.
Spade: Which he had ultimate control over, the Attorney General being his underling.
Gard: President Blade gave the eulogy at Ted's funeral! I was there, a young buck lawyer weeping for my former colleague, for the man's wife, for the Blades! They lost a longtime friend. That hurts.
Spade: I won't argue the last point, but a man pretending to care about someone he had killed is not an uncommon thing.
Gard: When God dealt the cards, Mr. Spade, He gave you the cynicism one.
Spade: I'll take that over the murdering-my-friend card.
Gard: There's nothing to that theory.
Spade: What's your assessment of the Blades? I understand the missus wants to run for President again.
Gard: Oh, they're terrible people. Cassie--that's Mrs. Blade--helped destroy Libya and Syria. Her husband killed half a million children with the nineties sanctions against Iraq. Little sick kids couldn't get medicine because of the embargo.
Spade: Why is it hard to believe that such mass murderers would balk at killing one of their own? Alexander the Great killed Cleitus the Black, his own officer, yet Cleitus had saved his life in battle.
Gard: We all make mistakes. But as to Cassie's presidential ambitions, she's had her eyes on that job since Kindergarten. Hyperbole.
Spade: I understand hyperbole. Would you say there's reliable incriminating information in the File about the Blades' possible involvement in Horrigan's alleged suicide?
Gard: Oh yes, it's jam-packed with that stuff! I read the File a long time ago, though. It was given to me to write a report about it by Mr. Peplow himself, ninety-five at the time and still cracking fire, but slow. I could stroll past him easily, moving at my slowest young man pace.
Spade: A man of my generation, sounds like. Come to think of it, I met a lawyer named Peplow. He represented Louie "The Slip" Crusandranola, gun-runner, bootlegger. What was your Peplow's first name?
Gard: Arthur. He was named after President Chester Arthur. He's still alive at a hundred and twenty-one.
Spade: From these rejuvenation treatments I've read about?
Gard: Yes. He's a prominent member of the....
Spade: Yes?
Gard: Never mind, just forget I said that.
Spade. I won't, I promise. Arthur Peplow, yes, that's him. What's his connection to the Blades?
Gard: Purely adversarial. According to rumor, Billy Boy Blade stiffed Mr. Peplow in a Pinochle game. The prize for winning was a night with an Italian model. I won't say her name, she's kind of famous now.
Spade: Famous because she had sexual relations with the President?
Gard: No, because of her hard runway work and skill at making strange impractical clothes look normal.
Spade: This card game happened when?
Gard: He was Governor Blade then, so about 1990.
Spade: Peplow was a nonagenarian at the time, then Would he have been able to satisfy the lady?
Gard: (proudly) I once saw Arthur Peplow's penis at full stretch in the law firm's sauna on the fifth floor of their headquarters here in Washington. It's a big one, eight inch range, thick as a healthy boy's forearm. Veiny, with a cute flower blossom birthmark on the shaft.
Spade: I hope I never see it.
Gard: It's a marvel.
Spade: Does Blade know Peplow had the Horrigan File put together?
Gard: I'm sure he does. Everybody blabs in Washington.
Spade: That's the most cogent thing you've said to me.
Gard: (smiling) How nice of you to say so!
Spade: I'm helping your wife. You see, she asked me to look into this, do some of what she called opposition research to help her beat Cassandra Blade in the upcoming Democratic Primary.
Gard: Cassie's a tough lady. She mentored my wife, took her under the wing, showed her the ropes, gave her pointers on how to navigate the storm winds of electoral politics on the biggest stage of all; determining the identity of the leader of the free world. My wife and Cassie had a falling out, alas. Ugly scene. Dinah didn't take kindly to Cassie's making fun of her for losing so many employees because they say she's impossible to work for.
Spade: What do you mean by "leader of the free world"?
Gard: You haven't heard of that, either? I believe it was Harry Truman who coined the term.
Spade: Who?
Gard: Mr. Spade, I've come to conclude you're quite the joker.
The White House. East Room. While Doug Gard and Sam Spade meet in the First Gentleman's East Wing Office, thirty-five Democratic women donors and their daughters, ranging in age from five to seventeen, stand to welcome the first African-American woman President of the United States.
Parris: (behind a podium) Please be seated...Welcome to the White House, isn't this neat? The first time I ever got a tour of this magnificent building, Ronald Reagan was President. He still had his wits about him, too (laughs, no one joins in). I didn't get to go into the Oval Office that time, but I wondered what it would be like to sit at that big desk, make phone calls to Yuri Andropov and Margaret Thatcher, meet the First Lady--you know, she was an actress! Nancy Davis, that's right. The second Mrs. Reagan. If he'd stayed married to his first wife, Jane Wyman, we'd've had a much better actress for First Lady. (Laughs) She won an Oscar, for Pete's sake! It's good to see all of you in one room, so much wealth represented. And your daughters, oh my. When I see so many fine young ladies I question, momentarily, why I never used my lady equipment to become a mother. Even cockroaches have children, why haven't I spawned my own? Well, girls, it has to do with the C word (long pause). Yes. Career. Word to the wise. If you want to climb the ladder of success and never look back at who you trampled on to get there, you better not be saddled with a brat brood. (Laughs) Look at that little girl in the blue dress standing on her chair. Be seated, little girl! You're in a room with a woman who maintains child prisons in Texas (laughs). This is an occasion to recognize and honor what we're all about as Democrats. Our commitment to liberty, the pursuit of happiness and justice, tranquility, big TVs, sporting events, huge tall cars, and abortion rights, show us to be the sensible party, the indispensable party, the party hardy party (laughs). We need to push, and push, and push against forces holding us down, oppressing we women, we of the sacred ability to grow zygotes into you all. I'm glad my mama didn't abort me but if she'd done so, I would've been fine with it because even as a fertilized egg I was pro-choice. I've had dreams. I know who I was before I was born. An African-American woman who worked in this very room during the Adams administration, the first one, not John Quincy Adams--HEY! LITTLE GIRL! PLEASE SIT DOWN! Is she your child, ma'am? Will you get her to sit still? Doesn't she know where she is? When I was Abigail Adams' free African-American worker I hung laundry in this room! I worked my hands raw doing white folks' laundry! Fortunately, my rebirth restored the natural beauty of my skin, I'm a regular Cleopatra now. Um...dammit, I don't have the last note card. I wrote notes on these cards--LITTLE GIRL! DON'T MAKE FACES AT THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! Ma'am, your daughter is getting on my nerves. Bill, please escort the lady and her daughter to the cotton candy machine in the White House Sweet Shop, and give them a half price coupon.
Standing near the President are Secretary of State Arthur Sneffen, new CIA director Rhonda Kyle (a former Arbusto administration National Security Council Advisor, arms lobbyist, CNN pundit, and athletic footwear corporation board member), Speaker of the House Angie Crook, and Former President Moe Lieden, watching with growing alarm as the little girl gets led away by her mother, accompanied by the Secret Service man.
Lieden: Don't send her away! She's got the best of the lot! Auburn, I think, is that color. Great color. Great hue. Anne Boleyn had auburn hair. Didn't do her much good, though.
Parris: (laughing) Would you like to come to the podium now, Mr. President? I was going to have Speaker Crook speak next, but--
Lieden: (strides to the podium, grinning at the guests, then dropping the smile to glance witheringly at President Parris as she goes to stand by Crook). Thank you, ex-employee of mine. How are you all doing, ladies, girls? I'm fine, thank you. I'm your President, and I'm here to help. No, I'm not Lyndon Johnson. Don't wanna be. The way he became President is kind of an ugly story. At least he escalated Vietnam. Good for him. You don't know how good it feels invading a country until you've done it. President Arbusto ordered the Iraq invasion partly to satisfy his sadism. Total psychopath, but a great guy, too. I own three Jorge Arbusto paintings, one by my son Happy, and one of Adolf Hitler's--that one was almost as pricey as my son's shitty abstract thing...Jarts! Remember the lawn dart game, Jarts? You youngsters don't know what I'm talking about. Jarts. Sounds like a candy. (Turns to Parris) Wouldn't you like to suck on a Jart, Dinah? I see your eyes moving back and forth, looking at everyone, you're like that cat clock, sort of looks like Fritz the Cat. I've seen that movie forty-seven times. Ralph Bakshi. Animation genius. His Coonskin is another great movie. Any of you ladies Barry White fans? He's in it. (Turns to CIA Director Kyle) Do you enjoy the mellow groovy sound of Barry White? If not, you might want to try torturing Guantanamo Bay prisoners with his music at maximum volume. (Turns to the audience) After 9/11 the idea was to play heavy metal at maximum volume--you know, like Metallica, they're already kinda loud. James Hetfield, he's the singer, thought it was funny his band's music was used to torture detainees. Great guy. Talented guy. Can't stand his music. Can't stand the man. Bono, too, total asshole. I like soft piano, maybe a little Jethro Tull now and then. I identify with Aqualung. He's misunderstood. HE CAN'T HELP HIMSELF!!! (Low voice). I wouldn't mind being tortured by "Barbie Girl," you know, the song by Aqua. Aqua, that's water for Latin. My pants fill up sometimes with flavo aqua. Joke, though based on unvarnished truth. That's what I'll bring to this country when I get reelected (President Parris laughs. Lieden turns to her, stares her down until she gets quiet, turns back to the audience, grinning) Who's your President? "I'm the King of the World!" said Leo DiCaprio on that big ship. I'm the Captain of this Titanic! Look at that big picture of George Washington! Gilbert Stuart, great guy, talented guy. Washington got a town named after him, this town! He got a state, too, but he was long dead by then, suffered horribly when he perished, medicine was chancy in those days, still is if you can't afford treatment. I see donors and wives of donors here who've been my supporters for many a year. I know some of you have gone over to supporting my former Vice President. Okay, fine. Your choice. (Low voice) She's inexperienced, she has no talent for negotiating the ins and outs of powerful transactions and interactions in this town designed as if by Freemasons. (Normal voice) Those bastards never wanted me in their club, just like those Ratfuck Bastards--
Parris: (stepping forward, speaking sotto voce) Mr. President. Please watch what you say--
Lieden: (whispers) You're right, my bad, as the youth say. I shouldn't swear here--
Parris: No, I mean, there's a C-Span 2 camera here. Don't mention the (very softly) Ratfuck Bastards.
Lieden: (whispers loudly) The what?
Parris: (A bit louder) The Ratfuck Bastards.
Lieden: (Normal voice) You mean the secret society running the world which thinks I'm too dumb to join them, but they recruited your stupid husband?
President Parris, for the first time since she was Vice President, uses laughter smartly, tactically, nearly doubling over, infecting amusedly the crowd of rich mothers, teenaged girls and younger ones. The Secret Service Man named Bill, last name Steiner, shakes his head, contempt for his boss, President Parris, come to maximum as he watches his former boss, President Lieden, Secret Service Code Name: Tailor, assert his legitimate authority over the odious upstart, Dinah Parris, who, on reliable authority, went along with General William Bomb's coup the day when that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs karate-chopped President Lieden to prevent World War Three. Bill Steiner, loyal always to Lieden and Dr. Amanda Lieden, former First Lady and estranged wife, seeks to restore his literally old boss to power. Having been ordered by President Parris to accompany a little girl and her mother to the Sweet Shop for cotton candy and a York Peppermint Patty for the millionairess, was the point of no return for Agent Steiner, dog-steadfast to the crazy old man looking confusedly at the laughing audience, at forced-laughing President Parris, and then at his untied right shoe. Bending down carefully to fix that problem, he takes a minute to evict the turd-tenant which overstayed its welcome in his guts for the past five days. Luckily, the diaper...
Parris: I guess we're done laughing. Mr. President? Are you all right?
Lieden: (standing at twice the speed of his lowering) Don't worry, it's a dry one. I won't stinkify the furnishings.
Parris: Oh. I see. Okay. Do you have anything further to say, sir?
Lieden: Yes. Get back over there with those. (Grins at Sneffen) Hi Artie. Betray anybody lately? I'm not going to forget. Angie Crook. You went along with my usurpation. Shame on you times two! You're a terrible person! I'd rather this thing in my adult undergarment be Speaker of the House than you. You're a disgrace. You're too old. Get out while you have five brain cells left. You can't even talk without sounding like you're drunk! Do you drink on the job? You're a sot, like Aqualung, except he's poor. You're not. You can afford to hire Jethro Tull (low voice) if they're still together (normal voice) to perform at one of your rich bee-yotch fundraisers where some of these same ladies here fork over craploads of cash to the blue blood Political Party from Hell. Yeah, I heard the collective gasp. Guess what! I'm Moe Lieden, I'm running for President! I will seize my job back! I make it my personal crusade to return to office, a: so that democracy can be reborn! Hey Bill Steiner, I see you back there. Still living alone in an apartment filled with weapons and surveillance equipment? Don't want to say? Okay, chum, it's great to see you again. Where was I? Oh yeah, b: so that I can finish my political career doing what I do best. That's why my campaign slogan will be. FUCK YOU, AMERICA! Sorry, Dinah, but I had to use the Big F to say the slogan, get off my back if you were planning on getting on it. (Low voice) Unless you want this silver bachelor to give you a piggyback ride. (Normal voice) Hey kids! Who wants to go for a piggyback ride on Uncle Moe's back?
Swiftly, with no one even noticing, Bill Steiner makes it to the podium. Grasping Moe Lieden's arms, he steers the old fart war criminal to the nearest door and out of the East Room, movements resembling exactly those tense times when a President is perceived by the Secret Service as threatened, except, for some reason, on November 22nd, 1963. Why did the JFK limousine's driver, Agent William Greer, slow down to an average of eleven miles per hour for 186 feet, long enough for the head shot to change America and ruin Jackie Kennedy's cute pink outfit?
A narrative convention in 19th century literature had the author sometimes intruding him- or herself into the story. Ivan Turgenev (the great Russian novelist, banned currently in Ukraine because that country's leader is committed to furthering democracy) wrote in his novel, Smoke, for example, "Move on, reader, move on," after a sad passage. This author, Vic Neptune, like Turgenev, George Eliot, and others, reserves for himself the right to use this old-fashioned convention as he sees fit.
Outside the East Room, Steiner sits a grunting Lieden down on a 240 year old Philadelphia Chippendale chair. The hard turd he carries close to his skin feels like a flint chip.
Lieden: Amanda was right. I need to eat Grape Nuts, or Raisin Bran.
Steiner: Listen to me, Mr. President. You cannot say such things as you just said in public, on television for God's sake. End your thing about underage girls now, or forget about ever being President again.
Lieden: I don't have a thing about them! I can take em or leave em. If you can't beat em, join em!
Steiner: Your...preference...may kill your chances at reelection, delaying further my ambition to head my own Stasi-like government department. You promised me that, and then General Bomb and...that woman...took over. Do you think I like working for President Parris? She's the most horrible human being I've ever known. I wouldn't be surprised if she's a robot.
Lieden: Damn good-looking one.
Steiner: Whatever. You follow my guidance, I'll get you back into the Oval Office.
Lieden: Honest Injun?
Steiner: Bank on it, sir.
Lieden: Okay, from now on, I'm strictly eighteen and above, chick-wise.
Steiner: Bad optics. Look at President Blade.
Lieden: (closes his eyes) Yes, I see him. Puffy face, nose like an old alky. My uncle's deer hunting friend Tom--
Steiner: I don't mean, try to visualize him in your mind's eye. Remember his affair, the one that got him impeached.
Lieden: Oh yeah. I woulda banged her. Wouldn't you? Are you gay, Steiner? It's okay if you are. I just wouldn't peg you for it.
Steiner: My sexual preferences have nothing to do with this.
Lieden: If you say so.
Steiner: I am your man, Mr. President, don't ever forget it.
Lieden: Bill. I've been fighting for your team ever since Father O'Onionbreath touched my penis and told me God really didn't want to make Eve.
Steiner: Okay. I'm going to call for a ride for you. I'll be in touch soon. I know your private number.
Lieden: How did you get that?
Steiner: I'm good at my job.
Lieden: (looks down-corridor, smiles) Hey! Here comes my ride! You have a rented car, don't you, Mr. Spade?
Spade: (approaching with Doug Gard, still in sweats) Yes, some kind of fast Korean iron.
Steiner: You are?
Spade: Spade, Sam Spade.
Steiner: No really, who are you?
Lieden: He's Spade, Sam Spade. Got wax in your ears, Bill?
Steiner: Let me see your identification.
Spade: No. (To Lieden) Who is this man?
Lieden: Bill Steiner, he's with Parris's security detail.
Spade: (to Steiner) Then why are you not guarding her?
Doug Gard: Yeah! What gives, Agent Steiner?
Steiner: (to Spade) I don't have to explain anything to you.
Lieden: (standing, with Steiner's help) I need a nap. Listen up, boyos. Let's not do the cock-measuring thing now. (Low voice to Spade and Gard) Watch out, (thumb-points at Steiner) this one's gay.
Steiner: (tightly) I am not gay, Mr. President.
Spade: I agree. Grim, yes. In point of fact, your presence lowers my spirits. Mr. President, shall we go? Your chariot awaits.
Steiner: Remember what I said, Mr. President.
Lieden: Yeah, but I still want to know how you got my private number.
Steiner: Trade secrets, Mr. President.
Lieden: Okay. Goodbye, Doug, you crazy son of a bitch. Sniff your wife's hair for me.
Spade and Lieden take a corridor leading out of the building.
Gard: Mr. Steiner, please make sure they exit the building and grounds straightaway. On his way out, Mr. Lieden is not welcome to bowl, shoot baskets, or sample our sweets.
Steiner: My apologies. I must attend to your spouse. The event should be wrapping now.
Gard: Disobey the First Gentleman's orders, will you?
Steiner looks at the First Gentleman's exercise suit, the matador and his swirling cape, laughs in his nose and returns to duty in the East Room.
Moe Lieden's campaign headquarters, Scranton, Pennsylvania. Space Force's General Beak (Lieden's only Joint Chiefs ally) in full uniform, scrambled eggs-brimmed hat on his lap. Lieden sits behind his desk, examining a small gray and white metamorphic rock he found the last time his former administration handlers, Bill Steiner included, let him go to a beach.
Lieden: Beak. Have you ever wondered why a stone looks pretty when wet, but drab when dry?
Beak: The wetness gives the stone a glisten, a gleam, it brings out the colors more vividly.
Lieden: You got a point. When I found Rocky here--
Beak: You named that pebble?
Lieden: (chuckles) You'll be in charge of the most powerful space fleet ever created by Man and you never heard of pet rocks?
Beak: Non sequitur.
Lieden: When I'm confused about what to do, I ask Rocky. He's my wishing stone. I rub him, I put the Lieden sweat on his skin. I--look (dribbles saliva on the little rock), you see? He likes it!
Beak: It's a rock, Mr. President.
Lieden: I know.
Beak: You can't make a wish on a stone.
Lieden: Who says not?
Beak: By Space, I say it! Mr. President, put Rocky down and listen to me!
Lieden: Whenever a larger man than myself yells at me, I pay attention, but I'm holding Rocky and nothing you can say will convince me to not rub him with my spittle while you tell me what you want to tell me, so spit it out.
Beak: Forgive my outburst. I wish to--
Lieden: (holds up an index finger) Ahh!
Beak: I would like to make a few remarks about your performance in the East Room yesterday.
Lieden: Great time. Good to be back in the White House.
Beak: I watched on C-Span 2 from my office in the Pentagon--
Lieden: Will there be television in space?
Beak: Not as such. Entertainment media, yes, I suppose. I focus on exploration, and conquering whichever civilizations will give us trouble out there.
Lieden: Like the Romulans.
Beak: That's a made-up race of aliens on Star Trek.
Lieden: Great show. I watched it in syndication when my sons Biff and Happy were youngsters. Happy had a thing for Yeoman Rand. Liked Uhura, too, can't blame him. Beautiful lady, great body. Biff and I were Spock lovers, though. Which one did you like best?
Beak: Captain Kirk, of course.
Lieden: Right, you like the Big Chair. Well, you can't have mine, the Oval Office one I mean. I'm getting a chair specially designed to fit my hindquarters like a toilet seat. (Loudly) The first Presidential porta-potty! There'll be a waste chamber lined with stink-proof building materials designed by NASA engineers. Walls will project upward from the chair arms and unfold into a ceiling. Soothing frequencies inside, with a gentle light show and the mellowest Pink Floyd songs playing on a loop. I love "Comfortably Numb." The phrase describes what we've been doing to American citizens, making them complacent so we can carry on with our plan to let the world die. The future's out there, man!
Beak: Amen. Space is the final frontier.
Lieden: You really do like Kirk. Concerning Shatner, I'm a T.J. Hooker fan, liked him in Big Bad Mama, too. (Low voice, drooling on his wishing stone, rubbing it) Angie Dickinson, hubba hubba.
Beak: As I said, I saw your performance in the East Room. Mr. President, I'm proud of you for not sniffing any hair--
Lieden: Not true, my man. I caught a few whiffs of Dinah Parris. Wasn't even trying.
Beak: Nevertheless, you followed my advice. You stayed away from the girls, you didn't intrude into others' personal spaces.
Lieden: No one has the right to have personal space.
Beak: Whether that's true or not, I don't know. The point is, you didn't bite on their hook--
Lieden: What are you talking about? You're confusing Rocky, too!
Beak: You're the fish, Mr. President--
Lieden: What kind of fish?
Beak: It doesn't matter--
Lieden: Don't call me a flounder, chum!
Beak: It's a metaphor!
Lieden: (turns his head twice to show both sides of his face) Do you see two eyes on one side of my head?
Beak: Mr. President, my metaphorical comparison to your situation yesterday is apt. Parris and her minions sought to, so to speak, hook you, as one would a fish, using as bait your...interest...in female hair.
Lieden: (reasonable light tone) I get it now. I thwarted their plan by not taking a stage dive, Eddie Vedder-wise, into all that hair.
Beak: Right. I don't know who Eddie Vedder is, but you get the idea.
Lieden: The Pearl Jam front man. They're famous, Ignoramus.
Beak: I don't like contemporary music.
Lieden: Not a surprise, Tipper Gore.
Beak: The vulgar themes, the foul language. Artie Shaw didn't curse like a longshoreman--
Lieden: When he was on camera, you mean. Didn't know the man, but anyone who's been married eight times probably swears a lot.
Beak: God spoke through his clarinet.
Lieden: If you say so. I wonder if Spade knew Shaw?
Beak: You're suggesting Sam Spade has broken through into our reality before?
Lieden: Our reality? There's only one reality, Monad-Denier.
Beak: Mr. President, I'm concerned about this man, Spade. Have there been other fictional characters breaking through, that you've heard about?
Lieden: There was a story in People online about a stout dwarf, Gimli, son of Glóin. Lumberjack in British Columbia.
Beak: The belching dwarf with the ax in The Lord of the Rings?
Lieden: In the movies, yeah. In the books he's not a comic relief character. This lumberjack in B.C. is a serious dwarf. A muscular dwarf, crammed full of dwarf lore, a singer of dwarf songs as he swings his sturdy chopper.
Beak: Bearded?
Lieden: Long, brown, and bushy. Hasn't seen his own face for a hundred years. Now here's the thing. If Gimli's here, his best friend, Legolas Greenleaf, must be around somewhere.
Beak: The lithe, pointy-eared man with the bow?
Lieden: Elf.
Beak: A non-human species?
Lieden: I guess so. They're immortal. Maybe they take rejuvenation treatments?
Beak: This is getting strange.
Lieden: Yeah. I'm thinking Gollum will show up at some point.
Beak: The pale little man who eats raw fish?
Lieden: A hobbit of the Stoor strain, not a man.
Beak: From what I recall, the villain is named Sauron?
Lieden: Yeah, bad guy, terrible guy.
Beak: What if he breaks through? We may have a new war on our hands.
Lieden: Orc armies. Trolls. Nazgûl.
Beak: The black-clad men.
Lieden: Not men. They were men. It's not just The Lord of the Rings characters, Beak. What about other books?
Beak: I've pondered the problem. The Joint Chiefs have agreed to have a meeting on the subject tomorrow morning. When you're President again, we can hope the crisis hasn't become so overwhelming there's nothing to be done about it except interact with non-reality and blend with it.
Lieden: Hasn't that been the case since Vice President Carnage invented the Internet?
Beak: He said he created it. He assisted at its birth to help give it a push from a legislative angle.
Lieden: He shouldn't have said he invented it.
Beak: He didn't say "invented," he said, "created."
Lieden: Like I said. You know, maybe this incursion of fictional characters into our reality--your Gimlis, your Sam Spades and Gamgees--is a long-term result of the massive accumulation of bullshit on the Internet as it becomes an AI, compressing all information generated by human beings into a structure containing all of our data, with us trapped inside, not knowing the full truth.
Beak: The Matrix.
Lieden: (lit up face) What happens when Neo and Morpheus and Trinity enter our reality? Can we enter theirs? Do we want to live in Zion? Looks like a great time, what with the loose sexual code. Would you like to live there?
Beak: I only saw the first film.
Lieden: Lucky you. Don't bother with the others. They should've stopped it after the first one, it's a self-contained story that ends well. Some people don't know when to quit.
The Waldorf Astoria, Washington, D.C., check-in desk. An elegantly dressed man, three piece suit, trim mustache and oiled graying hair parted in the middle, waits at the check-in desk for his suite key. Looking around the lobby, he smiles as a pretty red-haired woman carrying a 1930s handbag and a hatbox enters the busy lobby. The desk clerk gives him a key and points where to sign the register.
Hotel Guest: Keep the booze flowing to the suite, my good man. Regular-sized bottles, not the tiny kind. (Palms him two twenties).
Clerk: You got it, Mr. Charles.
Mr. Charles: (to the redheaded woman) Nora! Over here! Where's Asta?
Nora Charles (approaching the desk) That little stinker broke away from me while I was paying for my hat. She's out on the street somewhere. I'm worried, Nick.
Charles: (blithely) She'll turn up.
Nora: With a brood of puppies, perhaps. Remember what happened in Portland?
Charles: Forget about it for now. Let's go to our suite. I ordered one with a piano.
Nora: I can't wait to show you my new hat.
Charles: I can't wait to tickle the ivories while drunk. Ah! The bellman! Lead on, Macduff.
Nora: Misquoting Shakespeare again. It's "Lay on, Macduff."
Charles: You're a little prickly, my dear. By my count this is the fourth time in a month Asta has bolted away from you. She likes to run free.
Nora: She could get run over out there!
Charles: Think of how much space there is in Doggy Heaven for her to run in.
Nora: (Sticks out her tongue, they're in their floor's corridor following the Bellman) Glib!
Charles: (smiles warmly at her) Gorgeous.
To be continued...
Vic Neptune
No comments:
Post a Comment