I'm not a Socialist, I'm not a Communist, I'm not a Democrat or a Republican, or a worshipper of Cthulhu. I'm not a Scientologist or a Mormon, nor am I Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, or Jew.
I'm not anything but an independent thinker. Having been lied to by politicians and religious figures all my life I take everything they say as a probable lie that must be proven to be true before I'll believe it. If this practice of mine strikes any of my readers as unfair to politicians and religious figures, that's fine with me, but bear in mind; never learning to recognize lies from chronic liars amounts to a failure of basic observational skills on anyone's part.
In Ratfuck, I'm just trying to make people laugh, for humor is always needed in a world run by iron-willed idiots traveling a path only they can take.
The first unpublished version of The Ratfuck Bastard Conspiracy was written during the George W. Bush administration, consisting solely of dialogue, no commentary between scenes. One character, Vice President Charles "Chick" Raney, survives in this new version but the main point to consider is that fifteen or so years ago I satirized the Republican G.W. Bush administration Ratfuck-style, just as I satirize now the Biden administration. Like George Carlin, I rip on all of them.
Along with their dangerous mentalities, such power brokers also exhibit characteristics of deluded behavior, like when Pelosi, Schumer, and other top Democrats kneeled, wearing African scarves to show their solidarity with police murder victim George Floyd. These powerful politicians seemed unaware that in their tribute to the idea of Black Lives Matter, they knelt in the same position taken by Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis cop who asphyxiated Mr. Floyd.
I don't suggest lightly that some of America's leaders are mental cases with contempt for human life and human dignity. It's simply what I've observed. Pursuit of unlimited power and glory, riches, and control of states, does not aid one in a journey towards mental and emotional wholeness.
Napoleon Bonaparte, case in point. Possibly the most dangerous maniac who ever lived--even Hitler, unlike Bonaparte, did not want to conquer the entire world--the Corsican artillery officer rose in accomplishments and fame as a general, crowned himself Emperor, had his portrait painted of himself wearing ermine robes, sought to conquer Russia, got blasted by that country's winter, laid waste to soldiers--his own included--countries, too, always dreaming of more. His last incarceration on remote St. Helena Island ended with his utter madness, his last string of words a blue streak of bipolar mania, obsessing on, among other things, the price of apples in France compared to the price of apples in England.
Buffoonery, Emperor-style.
I offer my objections to the objectionable power classes of the world entire by laughing at them. I encourage everyone to laugh at them, while learning about and remembering their perfidies and harmfulness. To also honor their victims in their many millions, an unknown number, still growing.
Enough serious shit. Back to the story....
Oval Office, private meeting between General Bomb, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and President Dinah Parris. He sits in the same chair Detective Sam Spade of San Francisco sat in the day he met, and seduced, the President.
General Bomb: Dinah--
Parris: (holds up finger) Ah! Madame President.
Bomb: Yes, of course, but in light of our passionate pas de deux a few weeks back, I thought it would be A-okay for us to maintain the practice of using our Christian names when alone.
Parris: General, don't interpret one little sex romp as the beginning of an intimate relationship.
Bomb: You mean that was it? Why? Were you unimpressed with my performance? Did I not stimulate you properly?
Parris: You did just fine, baby, but I don't have time for an affair. (Spreads her arms, encompassing the world's most famous office, from which comes so much pain and death). I got this job to deal with?
Bomb: You led me on, then. What you said during our love play meant nothing?
Parris: (laughs) Are you ever gullible! I'm not a sincere person, dummy!
Bomb, fuming, grips the chair's arms as if to stand, but stops, looks at the oaken right arm and eases something from underneath it. He points at a square black object on his palm, mouths the word, "Bug."
Parris: You're sure it's not a new flavor of Starburst Fruit Chews? Black licorice, maybe?
Bomb: (finger to mouth, urgent head shake) Madame President, there's something I want to run by your secretary, but I'll need your approval.
Parris: My secretary? Charleen's happily married, honey.
Bomb: That's not what I mean. Please, Madame President.
Parris: All right.
Bomb puts back the bug. They go to the outer office. Charleen, the latest staff member to replace a fed up Dinah Parris hire (most of them now writing, or "writing," tell-all books) stops chewing her sandwich, nervous from getting caught not working, though it's her lunch break.
Parris: Charleen, take your lunch elsewhere, we need the room.
Charleen: (putting her food back into a Rubbermaid container) I swear, Madame President, I've been working the whole time.
Parris: Pack up your things and get out of here.
Charleen: (jaw drops) But I was hungry!
Parris: Eat your lunch elsewhere, Dense Brain, and come back when you're done!
Charleen leaves, Parris laughs. Even General Bomb, who's killed millions, can't understand why the President enjoys practicing such puerile sadism on a subordinate.
Parris: (sitting/leaning against Charleen's desk) So, that little Starburst thing is a bug?
Bomb: Yes. The main questions are, how long has it been in situ, and--
Parris: Insuh-what?
Bomb: In place.
Parris: Honey, don't show off with your knowledge of Greek.
Bomb: Latin. The point is, how long has it been there, and who put it there?
Parris: Darned if I know. Lots of people have warmed that chair's seat, ever since James Sherman bought it when he became Taft's V.P.
Bomb: A very fine chair, indeed, and, as we've seen, a good mount for a bug.
Parris: (Cracking herself up) What's a good mount for a bug? Another bug!
Bomb: You're not taking this seriously. Why? Do you have an idea of who planted it?
Parris: I have two ideas, General. FBI Director Herman Slats, or the detective from San Francisco, Sam Spade.
Bomb: Spade! That makes sense. He sat in the James Sherman?
Parris: Sure did. He is one charming guy! An old-fashioned wolf, takes what he wants.
Bomb: From your smile I'm guessing he took...you?
Parris: General, when I took upon myself the grave responsibility of this most complex of jobs, I knew I couldn't be bound by ordinary restraints.
Bomb: (Tightly) Spade works for Moe Lieden.
Parris: He did work for Moe, now he works for me, digging up dirt on Cassandra Blade.
Bomb: You believe she's your main likely rival for the twenty-four Democratic nomination?
Parris: Yes, and I trust Sam.
Bomb: Even though he probably bugged the Oval Office?
Parris: Did that when he was working for Moe, I suspect. He just forgot to pick it up.
Bomb: I've met Spade. He's crafty. Sinister, even. I advise you to reevaluate your trust in him.
Parris: (Laughing) Okay, Dad!
Bomb: He's a wild card. I'm not entirely convinced he's Sam Spade from the novel.
Parris: Which novel?
Bomb: Surely you've heard of The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett?
Parris: Is that a movie? The man from Casablanca's in it?
Bomb: Bogart, yes.
Parris: (Smugly) You've met Sam Spade. Does he look like Humphrey Bogart?
Bomb: No, but I looked up Hammett's description of his detective character. Our Sam Spade looks exactly like the man in the novel.
Parris: Well, shit. Are you telling me I banged a fictional character?
Bomb, hearing this definitive admission, fumes, his response cut short by Charleen's return, carrying her empty Rubbermaid container and an unopened can of Pepsi.
Parris: That was quick, Charleen. You must've gulped your sandwich down like a pelican eating a fish.
Bomb: (Appalled by Parris's treatment of her secretary, gives the young woman one of his rare warm smiles). Thank you for the use of your office, Charleen. Madame President, I'll remove the...insect... from your office, shall I?
Parris: Go for it.
Bomb: I will also send a man to sweep your office.
Parris: I already have my Cleaning Gentleman, Jorge.
Bomb: My man will not bring a broom to do his work.
Charleen, seated at her desk, looks back and forth at them, wondering what the fuck they're talking about.
Dinah Parris, the day after she was sworn in as President, immediately following General Bomb's assault on President Moe Lieden to prevent him from destroying the world in a nuclear first strike, chose for Vice President, Louisiana Senator Draken Stein (pronounced Drack-uhn, and no relation to pedophile and friend to the powerful, Terry Stein). Thus far attracting little news media attention, Vice President Stein, who grew up in Indianapolis, has no trace of a Southern accent, knows nothing of Cajun cooking, still roots for the Indianapolis Colts rather than the New Orleans Saints, and, in 2005, was the only Democratic politician (he was a State Senator then) who praised President Arbusto for showing "concern" as he looked out of an Air Force One window at the results left by Hurricane Katrina's juggernaut movements.
Yet, State Senator Stein also praised President Amare Bongo's handling of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. "Too big to fail" Stein declared, "means the more important few trump the mass of lesser importance. We cannot let these financial institutions down. President Bongo deserves kudos from every man, woman, and child in these United States. Ill effects in the long term from bailing out these--I guess they're a little irresponsible, granted--entities, are of no consequence in our present time period. Why be concerned about disasters that haven't even happened yet? Look forward, move ahead, it's not too late to whip it, and whip it good!"
On war, State Senator, and, later, Louisiana Senator Stein, praised and praises the military at every opportunity, supporting as well the construction of a Hexagon to cover all branches of Defense, including Space Force. Forty-three years old at the time of his surprise elevation to the Vice Presidency, Draken Stein's appeal for Dinah Parris lies in his enthusiastic nature when it comes to going along with Democratic donor gratification, his support for arms deals no matter who the recipient, his birthday cards to Bibi Netanyahu, and his Senate Floor speech supporting Team Parris.
President Parris greatly appreciated Senator Stein's derision for the "preposterous" (but, in fact, true) Republican accusation that then Vice President Parris and Joint Chiefs Chairman, General William Bomb, violated Section 4 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when they did not secure a majority of "Ayes" from top administration folks in the matter of removing former President Moe Lieden from the highest office. Instead, Team Parris lawyers sent to Speaker of the House Angie Crook and President pro tempore, Senator Michael "Mike" Waffle, an ex post facto document giving virgin birth to Section 5 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. As made up out of a self-serving nothing as the term, "enhanced interrogation techniques," Section 5 negates the requirement that a majority of administration executives must agree to a removal of a President if unfit for duty. Section 5 allows the Vice President, if backed by military support (General Bomb in this case), to assume the Presidency without even having to present evidence of a predecessor's inadequacy for his or her job.
Section 5: a diktat legalizing usurpation.
Draken Stein's wife, thirty-nine year old Thrash Metal guitarist Rachel Vanidestine, now lives with her husband of four years at Number One Observatory Circle. First, she ordered that the Vice President's Limo, nicknamed "The Fiend," be parked somewhere other than the garage. She rehearses there for her upcoming European tour with her all woman band, The Harpies.
At a press conference organized by her label, Second Lady Vanidestine declares, "I will shred the shit out of Ukrainians' memories of half of U2 in the Kyiv Metro warbling their tired songs, with David Evans--that's The Edge's real name, pretty boring, huh?--playing acoustic guitar, what the fuck? That space's resonant sonic possibilities scream for Metal, 'louder than bombs,' to quote Melissa Auf der Maur--what do you mean Melissa who? Great bass player. She was in Hole and Smashing Pumpkins, and she's a solo artist. Learn something about music, Tipper Gore! What's that? Yes, I know that Tipper Gore lived in my current house. She left behind her Perry Como records....What? That was a joke, dummy!"
The press have a new continuing story for distracting news consumers:
"She's beautiful, she's blunt, she shreds--is she the most flamboyant and edgy Second Lady in American history? The antipode of Pat Nixon?"
CNN, Fox, The Washington Post, MSNBC, MSNBC Dodo, Politico, Altercon, Second Ladies Biweekly News Report, Time, Spread, Causes of the Rich, Newsweek, journals and websites well-known and barely known at all, can't get enough of Rachel Vanidestine. Journalists and news show hosts begin to enjoy being insulted by the Thrash guitarist from Toledo, Ohio.
MSNBC Dodo Anchor and former Lieden administration Press Secretary, Jennifer Psyop, is among the first to score an interview with the new Vice President and his hard-edged musician wife.
MSNBC Dodo Studios, Washington Branch.
Psyop: Welcome, Mr. Vice President, Ms. Vanidestine--
Vanidestine: Cut the "Ms." shit--just call me Rachel.
Psyop: Oh, well, okay. How are the two of you doing, settling into your new home?
Vanidestine: It's like the fanciest apartment I've ever lived in. At most, we've got two and a half years there.
Psyop: Oh?
Vanidestine: Parris won't be reelected, that's obvious.
Vice President Stein: (grinning, shaking his bust-like head) Raitch, what did I tell you about doubting our Party's chances in twenty-four?
Vanidestine: Not my party. I'm voting for Don Richman, if he runs.
Psyop: Really?
Stein: Rachel--
Vanidestine: I'm a Republican, Ms. Psyop.
Stein: You are not!
Vanidestine: Drak baby, I joined on the day Parris begged you to be her V.P.
Stein: I'm finding this out now?
Psyop: (to Stein) Sir, President Parris begged you?
Stein: I wouldn't characterize it that way.
Vanidestine: (to Psyop) It was on speaker. Drak wanted me to absorb the historical moment (laughs). He imagines himself as a Harry S. Truman. Some obscure politician getting chosen as V.P., then rising to the Presidency and becoming one of the greatest to hold the office. Well, if it comes to that, I'll divorce him--
Stein: What?!
Vanidestine: --because being SLOTUS is okay, but FLOTUS? Can you see me hosting the Easter Egg Roll? Is that consistent with a Metal lifestyle?
Psyop: Um--
Vanidestine: Oh, relax, Drak, you're never gonna be President anyway.
Stein: I'm quite content with filling the role of Vice President and tackling the many challenging issues this nation faces.
Vanidestine: See? That's why you won't succeed. Americans are tired of hearing bromides from their elected representatives' mouths.
Psyop: (sensitive to the Vice President's slow boil) Mr. Vice President, tell us about your pet dog, Charly.
Stein: (softening) He's a good boy, a Norwegian Elkhound, our little black friend. (Glancing meanly at his wife) He's loyal, true-hearted, he's never let me down.
Psyop: Rachel? Your thoughts on the Second Pet?
Vanidestine: The SPOTUS? Well, I prefer cats, but since I married this drip, having an adorable little puss in boots living with us is out of the question.
Stein: (tightly) Allergy.
Vanidestine: Charly's okay. He's cute. Doesn't like my band's rehearsals, though.
Stein: Hurts his ears.
Psyop: About your band, Rachel--your group is heading to Europe soon.
Vanidestine: Yeah, sixteen dates, starting in Lisbon, ending in Kyiv, if it's still there.
Psyop: You called out U2--
Vanidestine: Bono and The Edge, to be precise. Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen are okay. I like Adam's bass playing. The other two are insufferable, and Bono is just the most pretentious piece of shit.
Stein: I like War.
The Oval Office. President Parris on the phone with former President Moe Lieden, calling from his 2024 campaign headquarters in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Parris: Okay, Mr. President, what can I do for you?
Lieden: Mrs. President, I want you to give me a full account of what you were doing on the day of General Bomb's assault on my person, which led you to sitting in my chair.
Parris: Testy much? (Laughs). Really, it was all very innocent on my part.
Lieden: It never occurred to you there were forces at work seeking to usurp my authority?
Parris: Absolutely not! It never once occurred to me that your brain is too feeble for this job.
Lieden: Well that's good to hear--eh? Oh, General Beak wants me to remind you of your popularity rating according to the new Bumpus-McRumpus Poll. Thirty-nine percent! What's that, Beak? Oh, I misspoke. Twenty-nine percent. Three out of ten Americans think you're splendid.
Parris: (Chuckles) Better three than none! I'm looking at the poll right now. Your rating is thirty-one percent.
Lieden: When you add the two of us together that's fifty. What's that, Beak? Oh, sixty. Six out of ten Americans think we'd make a great team.
Parris: I don't think it works like that.
Lieden: Sure it does! Look. Former Secretary of State Cassandra Hartliss Blade...five percent in this poll. Speaker of the House Angie Crook, two percent. Former President Billy Boy Blade, three percent. Herpes, thirty percent. See? It all adds up to a solid hundred. The people love us! And herpes!
Parris: I don't accept the findings of polls, Mr. President.
Lieden: You do when they favor you, right? It's like when you get a good grade on your math test. You go home and tell your Mom and Dad about it. Mom! Dad! Look! I'm not stupid with numbers, get off my case why don't you! By the way, I met your Dad last night. Oh yeah, don't act surprised, I have a social life. It was at a fundraiser in Philadelphia. Great young African-American man, Stephen Walters, nice normal name--he's running for the Senate.
Parris: I know Stephen.
Lieden: Of course you do! He told me I'm the 17,110th person he's shaken hands with since starting his campaign. He counts the handshakes. Everyone knows Stephen! Big supporter of mine, by the way, thinks I was shafted by you and your military dickwad ally, General Bomb.
Parris: We did not--
Lieden: Stephen's plan is to get elected by any means possible, including voting machine tampering. His principles, though noble, do not include getting elected in a fair and small D democratic way. I admire the man's drive. His character. His use of the word freedom in his speeches. Great smile. Best cologne I ever smelled on a politician, and I smelled Hubert Humphrey's. He was Vice President like you, but he didn't take over the presidency in a coup--
Parris: We did not coup you!
Lieden: Coup who?
Parris: You, Mr. President.
Lieden: What are we talking about?
Parris: You're under the mistaken impression that General Bomb and I led a coup against you.
Lieden: What's that, Beak? General Beak says you're mistaken...well, he said you're lying, but I don't want you to get mad at Beak.
Parris: Let me speak with General Beak.
Lieden: Here, the pretend President wants to speak with you.
Beak: General Beak here, Madame President.
Parris: Why are you in Scranton advising my adversary's presidential campaign?
Beak: I believe in his cause. I believe he was robbed of his position. Protocol was not followed per Section 4 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, thus, General Bomb, Secretary of State Arthur Sneffen--who went along with it--and you, Madame President, violated the Constitution you all swore to protect.
Parris: Big deal! Do you think the 4th Amendment hasn't been raped beyond all recognition? Your President Lieden, like every Commander-in-Chief going back to Billy Boy Blade, has led a government that employs mass surveillance of every American's communications. The 4th Amendment got shit-canned in the nineties when President Blade got us involved in Echelon, so don't get high and mighty about Constitutional violations committed by the high and mighty.
Beak: You have a point, but so does President Lieden. Protocol was not followed in his dismissal.
Parris: Fuck protocol! Rules change, bitch! Circumstances flow into strange channels that must be followed wherever they may lead. The new Section 5 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment is what we follow now, and anyway, Moe Lieden was losing his shit right before our eyes. It was time for him to go! Bomb just clobbered him, one quick hit, he didn't harm him any further.
Lieden: (Faintly) Give me back the phone! Dinah, I had a headache for two days! Longest one since my sons Happy and Biff did the old bucket of water on top of a door trick. That was a great summer, except for that headache. I punished them by making them wash and wax their new Jaguars I bought them for keeping quiet about all those claw hammer murders I committed when I was a restless teen.
Parris: You've told me about those murders, but frankly I don't believe you committed them.
Lieden: Okay, Mrs. Doubtfire, be skeptical about what I'm capable of at your own peril. What's that, Beak? Okay. General Beak wants me to assure you I didn't mean what I just said about my trusty claw hammer.
Parris: (Coldly) Never forget who's in charge now, Mr. President.
Lieden: Come January 2025 we'll see how small of a footnote in history's beautiful pageant you really are, President Twenty-Nine Percent (hangs up).
Parris: (To her dead phone) Go fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck yourself!!!
Joint Chiefs Chairman General William Bomb's Pentagon office. General Beak, Space Force, sits on a metal chair before the Air Force's top man. The antagonism they feel for each other isn't disguised, but an important matter must be discussed.
Bomb: Sam Spade, yes. I've spoken with him.
Beak: Do you believe he's the one from the novel?
Bomb: He's flesh and blood. He planted a bug in the President's office.
Beak: I wonder who he works for?
Bomb: Don't be ignorant on purpose. You know he's a Lieden hire.
Beak: Was. He hasn't reported back to us for a while. We suspect he may have slipped back into wherever he came from.
Bomb: This raises questions.
Beak: Fiction breaking into reality? I should say so. However, there have been other incidents. A short person with hairy feet calling himself Frodo Baggins somehow got into the James Brady Press room.
Bomb: A Hobbit? I wasn't informed of this.
Beak: Your mind has been elsewhere, perhaps? On someone, let's say an African-American woman in her fifties, rather attractive--
Bomb: You've heard something through Spade's bug!?
Beak: (Smiles) I was being arch just now. Heard something, yes, and I helped President Lieden figure out how to record it onto a CD-R!
Bomb: You knave!
Beak: (Chuckles, enjoying his bluff, for he knows Sam Spade didn't have his bug planted before Parris's dalliance with Bomb) Space exploration and conquest is my line of business, not blackmail, but I'm adaptable.
Bomb: (Opens a desk drawer, takes out a SIG Sauer M-18, waves it around, caresses it with his other hand as he speaks) We need to locate Spade, and this midget calling himself Baggins.
Beak: New gun?
Bomb: Yes. Hard to miss at short range. Marksmanship has never been my strength.
Beak: You know, of course, you shouldn't point it at people unless you intend to--
Bomb: I know. (Puts it away) Not today, Beak! Still, although you may have dirt on your Joint Chiefs Chairman and on President Parris, bullets may also fly from the barrel of my gun, killing you where you sit. I would have problems to deal with, naturally, but you would never do anything ever again, except rot.
Beak: Conversely, I could pay a hit man I know to end your life and career.
Bomb: Oh, you know a hit man? How like a gangster.
Beak: You wiped out half of Iraq and Afghanistan, a feat beyond the capabilities of a typical gangster.
Bomb: Terrorists. WMD. Surely you're not disputing the necessity--
Beak: Of course not. I merely point out your ruthlessness. (Touches his ribbons) You even threaten the life of a high-ranking military man awarded the Silver Star.
Bomb: (Points at one of his twenty-three ribbons) I have one, too.
Beak: I have a man looking for Spade. I'll see if I can get him looking for this alleged Hobbit.
Bomb: Tell your Moe Lieden he's playing with fire. The country cannot tolerate his doddering rule again. He won't win in twenty-four, even if he's the only choice on the ballot.
Beak: If that should be the case, who then?
Bomb: (Expanding his chest, nostrils flared) Our first President was a General.
White House, evening, the State Floor. Guests invited to celebrate President Parris's and First Gentleman Doug Gard's wedding anniversary. Dr. Anthony Grauchi, due to retire soon, in attendance, along with Secretary of State Arthur Sneffen, former President Amare Bongo and his wife, Gabrielle. Speaker of the House Angie Crook is already drunk, as is her husband, Dexter "Dex" Crook, currently on probation for a DUI. Vice President Draken Stein and his tattooed Thrash guitarist wife, Rachel Vanidestine, also present. She got stoned before coming to the shindig while her husband is sober, and miserable because everyone ignores him. A few dozen other guests in government and also working for the pharmaceutical lobby and military industrial complex add their voices to the hubbub, punctuated frequently by President Parris's raucous laugh.
First Gentleman Doug Gard wears his best suit with American flag pin in the lapel. He speaks with Dr. Grauchi, a smug gnome surrounded by taller men and women.
Doug Gard: Now that you've conquered Covid-19, Doctor, what's next on your agenda?
Grauchi: One does not conquer a virus, Mr. Gard, especially a manufactured one. We learn to live with it, just as a city's inhabitants can learn to live with tainted water. Who can prevent such catastrophes? Infrastructure costs money, as do safe vaccines. We didn't even test the latest booster on humans. There's money to be made sooner than later. I'm entering private industry, disappearing into its protective folds, a kind of Dark Lord Sauron wrapping himself in his black cloak, if you will, executing agendas from the shadows. Once this gig of yours peters out, you might want to join me but think again. You're an unstable man. You have mental problems. You're married to a shrew. No one likes her. When she speaks I can barely hold in my laughter.
Doug Gard: She's a jolly good sport when the cameras aren't fixed upon her.
Grauchi: I beg to differ. Look at her now. Her laughter has no relation to her eyes. She's a soulless automaton.
Doug Gard: You don't know her as I do.
Grauchi: Correct. I'll soon be free of her, and everyone else in this toilet you call the White House.
They're joined by Dex and Angie Crook, both of them holding drinks.
Grauchi: Madame Speaker, I'm disappointed on your behalf that the President didn't think to serve chocolate ice cream.
Angie Crook: Ohhh, I haaad mine earrrlier. Dark shockolutt ice cream in-in-in--
Dex Crook: Infused.
Angie: Infused with grain alkahl.
Dex Crook: It's only three hundred and fifty dollars a pint.
Doug Gard: Alcohol is not for me. I prefer good health to bad health. I grew up believing in God. Minister Mitch said alcohol and drugs are the Devil's instruments through which he distracts God's children--that's us--and makes them err, fall down in their vomit, o.d., die young, or at the very least, become obnoxious when intoxicated--
Grauchi: Is he right, Madame Speaker?
Angie: (Peering at Doug) Who'r you?
Dex: This is the First Gentleman, Angie.
Angie: Gennelman Angie, okay.
President Parris strides to the group with former President Bongo.
Parris: Are we having fun?
Grauchi: My long-haul Covid wearies me. I must depart. Happy anniversary, First Couple. (Walks off, letting out a laugh).
Gard: Love of my life. (He kisses her cheek, she giggles). You look so fresh and beautiful, my darling. (To the others) Just this morning she bombed Somalia...again! No one cares! The rush my sexy curvaceous sleeping mate gets from ordering airstrikes puts a bloom in her cheeks! I'm a lucky man to so benefit from her casual killings!
Former President Bongo: I know exactly what you mean, Doug. My Gabrielle could always tell when I drone-bombed Yemeni villagers. She called me her stallion, and sometimes, her champion forward, as in basketball.
Dex Crook: (Holding up his glass) To those activities that aren't illegal when the great do them.
Bongo: Hear hear.
Angie Crook: Splat! (She brings her drink to her mouth, misses, spills on her dress).
Gard: I'll wet a napkin for you, Madame Speaker. (Rushes off).
President Parris: Doug, such a dear. So considerate. His situational awareness in this situation impresses the heck out of this gal! (Laughs).
Bongo: Well, he's over there talking with Artie Sneffen now. Seems to have gotten distracted.
President Parris: (Looking to the other side of the room, where Doug and Secretary of State Sneffen appear to be arguing). Oh fiddlesticks! I told Doug to avoid Artie.
Dex Crook: The two don't get along?
President: No they don't. Please excuse me.
Doug Gard and Arthur "Artie" Sneffen face off, not for the first time. The other guests pay no attention; no one sees a bartender nearby, placing his iPhone against an ice bucket, recording the exchange as the President joins them, looking back and forth at them, eyes bulging, her smile so forced as to appear like a caricature.
Doug: Sneffen, you're a garbage dump of discarded ideas.
Sneffen: You lack courtesy. You're setting a putrid example as the nation's first First Gentleman.
Parris: Artie, come on! Surely you don't mean that! (Laughs).
Sneffen: I do, Madame President. Your worst mistake thus far in this administration was to not dismiss this boiled crab of a man as your adviser. You should've not alienated Cassandra Blade. Though odious as a human being, she knows foreign policy. This primitive beast you call your husband has no useful knowledge of anything, except when it comes to making suspicious stock trades.
Doug: Not so fast, Arthur! I'll have you know I took three credits of political science at Cal State Northridge! I filled a quarter of a notebook full of notes. College ruled paper, mind you! Narrow gauge, compressed learning! I can name the Presidents backwards through time. Lieden! Richman! Bongo! Arbusto! Blade! Arbusto--the first one--
Sneffen: You forgot your own wife, moron!
Parris: (Laughs) He's got a point, Doug baby.
Doug: (Smugly) I'm naming only those who have thus far completed their times in office.
Amare Bongo and his wife, former First Lady Gabrielle Bongo, approach.
Amare Bongo: (Smiling) Did I hear my name?
Doug: You certainly did, Mister Forty-Four. (To Sneffen) See? I even know he was the forty-fourth President. (Looks around, points at a portrait of Abraham Lincoln) Number sixteen. How do you like that, Sneffen? There's only one moron here, and he is you.
Sneffen: (Smiles close-mouthed at Doug, doesn't reply, turns to Gabrielle Bongo, ravishing in a 6,000 dollar dark green Marchesa dress) So good to see you here again, Mrs. Bongo! Your first time back since passing the White House to the Richmans, I believe.
Gabrielle Bongo: Don't remind me of that day! (Group laughter) We'll be back again soon for Amare's overdue presidential portrait reveal. Entertainment Weekly is planning a cover story. Don Richman didn't want that ceremony while he was President, he's so petty.
Doug: The Richmans must really hate your husband, Mrs. Bongo. I can't see why. He blazed the African-American trail for my wife. Broke the chains, so to speak, for rich Blacks, like my wife, who may have never gotten far in politics had it not been for their usefulness as tokens to virtue-signaling institutional racists, like President Lieden, who, let's face it, only selected her as his running mate in 2020 because of the color of her skin.
Parris: Let's not forget my gender (laughs).
Doug: How could I, you voluptuous curved princess of pulchritude? We're all very shallow, we who work in this building.
Gabrielle Bongo: Shallow? I think not, First Gentleman Gard. Speaking for myself, as a strong, intelligent Black woman, I assure you I read over ninety books in this White House while serving our great country as our forty-fourth First Lady.
Doug: Ninety? (Takes out his encrypted iPhone, taps on it) That comes out to about thirty-two books over an eight year span! I'm well on my way to listening to fifteen books total since Dinah seized the Oval Office, including the first two volumes of The Chronicles of Narnia.
Parris: (Laughs) Honey Bunch, I did not seize the presidency!
Sneffen: (To Gabrielle) Mrs. Bongo. I believe we can count on you to offer an alternative to certain intolerable possibilities, such as the continuation of First Gentleman Douglas Gard's tenure. Wouldn't it be interesting if you, Mr. Bongo, were to become the first First Gentleman to have also served as President?
Amare Bongo: Don't get ahead of yourself, Artie! I like my life. Golf. Lobster. Netflix. Scrabble. Windsurfing. Spider-Man. Demolishing neighborhoods to establish my Presidential Library. Nope. I have too many pursuits to enjoy. Being bedmate to the President of the United States--no offense, Doug--well, that's a role that looks like day old bread to me. Fresh oats for this stallion. Gotta keep in shape. The Martha's Vineyard two k run is coming up and I intend to win it.
Gabrielle: He wants the trophy.
Amare: Not just the trophy, Gaby. I want to outpace, outperform, outmaneuver the other foot racers. I want the news media coverage that will spend hours, or days, causing me to trend in Google searches, like when I caught Covid at my birthday party.
Vice President Draken Stein and Second Lady Rachel Vanidestine join the group.
Doug: Mr. Vice President, you're looking especially dour this evening. Finding the new job unrewarding?
Vice President Stein: On the contrary, sir. My tie-breaker vote in the Senate is anything but unrewarding.
Rachel Vanidestine: It's hilarious that you gave in to the Senate Parliamentarian on raising the federal minimum wage. What a show of power.
Stein: She didn't care for how the language was worded!
Vanidestine: Fuck the poor!
Bongo: Now now, there's no cause for such language here, under the august portrait of the man who, you know, set free the slaves.
Gard: You mean the sixteenth President.
Bongo: That one. Yup. Things really started to turn around for Black folks in 1863. Look at me, look at Gaby's dress. We got no complaints.
Vanidestine: Mr. Bongo, you seem to be unaware of how many Black people get shot by cops each year.
Bongo: What of it? Black folks need to learn to not have any non-firearm-type objects in their hands and to realize they have just a fraction of a second before some officer of the law empties his, or her, gun into them.
Draken Stein: I agree, sir. Defund the police? No. Overfund them. Give them bazookas, hand grenades, artillery, Massive Ordinance Air Blast bombs, a Death Star orbiting Earth filled with police, interrogation rooms, droid guards, prison cells, a spa where the President of Ukraine can unwind from the stress of having to battle the Soviet Union--
Vanidestine: Russia you mean, sweetie.
Draken: That! But isn't this Cold War Two? I ask you, President Parris, since you're in charge, is this not the sequel to the Cold War?
Parris: (Laughs) Is what the sequel?
Draken: NATO! Russia! Ukraine! The Chinese!
Vanidestine: My hubby gets worked up when he talks about how much he wants the world to end.
Draken: Not at all, Rachel. Is there any doubt we and our allies will win?
Angie Crook and her husband Dex join the group. Eyes half-closed, swaying, Speaker Crook looks around as if not recognizing anyone.
Angie: Wisshh wunnayou watered down my drink?
To be continued...
Vic Neptune
No comments:
Post a Comment