Martha's Vineyard. The Bongo house. Former First Lady Gabrielle Bongo hosts Secretary of State Arthur Sneffen for lunch: crab puffs, foie gras, kale salad with pine nuts, jumbo brownies, and a 900 dollar bottle of Chablis. Lunch and dessert consumed, the two sit back, enjoying the new Autumn sunshine, the breakfast patio swept just that morning for listening devices.
Gabrielle: How goes the war, Artie?
Sneffen: Which one?
Gabrielle: The proxy war against Russia, honey.
Sneffen: A mischaracterization. We are not at war with Russia.
Gabrielle: Weapons keep tumbling out of our spigot, bound for Ukraine, or wherever. I don't just read the Post or the Times.
Sneffen: You should be in the know, I suppose, if you want to be President.
Gabrielle: How in the know is Dinah Parris?
Sneffen: About?
Gabrielle: The proxy war.
Sneffen: I feed her a combination of authentic intelligence and coercive data causing her to favor aggressive actions taken against certain state actors and their sovereign territories.
Gabrielle: If I become President--
Sneffen: (Laughs indulgently) If? When.
Gabrielle: If or when I become President you will inform me of the truth of every situation we're involved in.
Sneffen: Oh! (Laughs) You don't want to know the truth about everything!
Gabrielle: I do. I shall not be accused of not knowing my job, as Don Richman so often was.
Sneffen: If it should so happen that you run against Richman in twenty-four, I strongly recommend not using the Richman-is-an-idiot tactic. For one thing, he isn't. For another, his millions of supporters cannot be swayed by such an insult, and, as Cassandra Hartliss Blade found out, they don't appreciate being called "deplorable," especially by a woman whose husband was friends with Terry Stein--
Gabrielle: As was Richman.
Sneffen: Supporters of politicians overlook obvious objectionable facts. Look at you. Your husband bailed out Wall Street at the expense of millions of ordinary citizens, didn't punish a one. Will that hurt your chance to occupy the Oval Office?
Gabrielle: I didn't do that, Amare did it. I told him at the time, "Lots of people are going to lose their houses. You might not get reelected."
Sneffen: Not as powerful a statement as denying him your body unless he help the little people.
Gabrielle: Dirty mind, yours! Now what about Cassie Blade? She's running in twenty-four, that's a sure thing, right?
Sneffen: Americans are sick of the Blades, yet, they keep popping up. I doubt she could beat Richman, but could she defeat you in the Primary? A seasoned campaigner, a psychopathic ego, name recognition--
Gabrielle: Well I have that too!
Sneffen: Undoubtedly. A triad of females: Blade, Bongo, Parris. Corporate news organizations will eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late night snacks! Yet, I can't predict how it will turn out. Elections can be fixed, and often are. The Democratic nominee will be the one picked by the shadowy background figures, as was the case with your husband, with Jorge Arbusto, with Billy Boy Blade in ninety-two and ninety-six.
Gabrielle: With Richman in sixteen?
Sneffen: Oh yes. America was ready to be entertained! Distracted from its very serious problems. You know, your typical American is better informed about Meghan Markle's problematic relationship with the Royal Family than they are about the money-laundering operation that is the arming of Ukraine. That's as it should be. Makes my job easier.
Gabrielle: I know politics is a dirty business.
Sneffen: You have no idea just yet. Still, you're married to a man who killed tens of thousands of innocent people. That you have no problem with that means you can handle the job, if you're to be chosen for it.
Democrats happy. President Parris makes an evening speech on the White House lawn, lit up, invisible security presence. Doug Gard, First Gentleman, the first to hold that title, stands nearby, hands folded before his erection as he contemplates the bed sports he plans to indulge in after this nonsense is finished. So we won, Doug thinks, trying not to think about the photographers imaging his boner sign.
Think about baseball, dumbass! Isn't that what you're supposed to do in such a situation? This is going on C-Span! I can't show my pants tent on C-Span! It's more fitted for an outrageous comedy where a character has a boner in public, like now, with me.
The boner, pixellated on news programs, will serve as the latest example of public notice of Douglas Gard's tending towards eccentricity.
President Parris: (Behind a podium) It's late, people. We've worked hard to achieve just this. Retaining control, keeping that turd in. The House of Representatives is our turd. We shape that turd, We are that turd, and more. The American people, bless their hearts, go along with our bullshit most of the time, but lately it seems they're not buying what we're selling.
Arthur Sneffen : (Stepping quickly to the microphone) Jobs are good. Military recruitment is steady.
Parris: And Covid is defeated! Let's hear it for Doctor Grauchi! Here he is, come on up, little man! Say hello to your admirers at home and those present.
Anthony Grauchi: Normally I would decline such an invitation, but I cannot resist the in-person charm of President Dinah Parris. What those who don't know you don't know is that Dinah Parris is a friendly, warm, eager to learn, drop dead gorgeous lady with a sponge-like mind, not as vacuous as some have reported. I find her to be as intelligent as any dumb broad who thinks she's the hot shit.
Parris: (Giggling) Is this a roast?
Grauchi: I no longer work for you motherfuckers, I"m going to speak plainly. Yes, you may hear the word cocksucker come out of my mouth. Now, for all you Covid-19 deniers, you anti-vax propagandists, spreaders of lies and misinformation, very dangerous to do that, all you misinformers, you pests, you gross persons, you Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hydes, you melon farmers, you mask wearers, you vaccine takers without doing research just accepting our word they're safe what's wrong with you? All youse chumps, including me. I believed in the vaccines. I lied, I misinformed, nobody cares, see you all in Hell.
Parris: Well that takes the cake. I'm sure he didn't mean some of that. Let's get on with the subject at hand. Our Democrats won enough races to make us retain the House! Cheer cheer cheer, for it is worthy of cheers. Democracy has been saved! Insider trading by politicians and their spouses has been normalized! I'm on to 2024, babies! I'm heading for victory. Can you feel it!? Can you feel my enthusiasm? Truth to tell, sugar pie honey bear, I've gotten the hang of this presidency thing. I'm handling the job quite well! My approval rating rose to 43.
Reporter: What about the kids in cages at the border?
Parris: We've taken care of the border. I've been to the border. The border is where I've been.
Reporter: More kids in cages than during the Don Richman administration.
Parris: So what? These people need to stop coming here. This ain't their country! I'm a xenophobe, in case you haven't figured that out yet!
Reporter: Then why aren't you an isolationist? You urge strong ties with Israel, Colombia, Australia, Britain, Poland...
Parris: Stop trying to impress us with your knowledge of country's names. I seek an America that never feels the need to apologize for its actions, those good actions and those bad actions. I make no judgment. I neither approve of putting sanctions on Iran nor do I disapprove of it. These things must be done. A teacher shouldn't complain about her work load. A President shouldn't complain about moral difficulties scratching the conscience. The President must unleash holy hell, if necessary, upon enemies foreign and domestic. A timid approach doesn't work, in fact, it makes the situation worse, more prolonged, more possibilities for suffering. I am a pacifist. Sure, I've drone-bombed, I've ordered bombing raids, artillery bombardments, a couple of assassinations, I gave the order to overthrow Charles Weatherup Goodman-Teddy, President For Life of Malabambia. We now have their bauxite mines. Aluminum, of course, is a valuable and much in use commodity. It's hard to be president. It's also a thrill. I look forward to giving my next order to bomb some village I never heard of. Doug, would you like to say a few words?
Doug steps forward, hands covering the boner that's been seen by most of the people in the audience. Rain starts to fall.
Doug: It's quite the honor to be standing on the White House lawn, where JFK stood, and Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan, and Eisenhower, boy...When I was a kid I had a Dennis the Menace comic book, a full story about Dennis's trip with his parents to Washington, D.C. On the back cover, a picture of Dennis with toy models of the Pentagon, White House, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, U.S. Capitol. I stared at that picture, boy did I stare at it. I wanted a set like that. Did Dennis's parents buy him these fascinating learning toys? But he also resembled a giant overgrown boy, as in a 1958 low budget film I recommend, The Overgrown Towhead Who Broke Hoover Dam, with Mari Blanchard and Paul Newman as the state trooper who saves a town from being flooded. Great disaster scene. I want you all to know, before I go...I love my wife! I love this woman so much! I love and cherish every moment we spend together! I love Dinah, oh my Dinah, I love her so! Her skin tone, have you noticed the skin tone? It's heavenly! Earthy and warm, like oatmeal in the morning. She and I eat oatmeal together, and yogurt, and oranges, and other items. Tonight she and I will date. Yes! A date in that sense you're thinking and tittering over. I see some of you tittering! Don't try to hide it! I'm open to your amusement at my expense. It's not easy being First Gentleman. I have responsibilities. I have to not lose my shit in public. Okay, my boner's gone. I'll step away from the podium. Thank you for your attention. My wife wants to say something.
Parris: Thank you, Doug, um, the information you provided to C-Span and these kind folks is part of our private life, you dummy.
Doug: Your scent overpowers me. Are we still on for later?
Parris: Yes.
Cassandra Hartliss Blade looks at her husband of forty-six years as they fly to the Davos Summit. Billy Boy Blade, forty-second President of the United States. He wears a snarling grin, looking out at clouds.
Billy Boy: We took care of the Terry Klein double. Terry himself wants out of the facility he's been consigned to since his reported death, the most unbelievable non-deliberate murder since that of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Cassandra: Are you trying to make me want to have sex with you? Forget it. You're tainted meat, Billy Boy. If I were to indulge in the carnal vice again it wouldn't be with you. You're an overinflated balloon filled with dead air and an endless supply of sperm. You're like something out of a Clark Ashton Smith story. I'd like to see an H.R. Giger portrait of you. I'd buy it.
Billy Boy: Forty-six years of castigating me, yelling at me, judging me, telling me it makes you feel bad when I sleep with others, allegedly...
Cassandra: Your point, dick brain?
Billy Boy: Why don't you lay off? Give me a break from your withering presence for five-ten minutes, then try it for twenty, then leave me alone for a day. Then a year.
Cassandra: A year!?
Billy Boy: A month, how about that? Let me not see you or speak with you for thirty days. It'll do us good.
Cassandra: Don't hump me when we get back together!
Billy Boy: You'll want me biting your lip.
Cassandra: Wolf's head!
Billy Boy: GILF pussy.
Cassandra: You utter pig!
Billy Boy: Sit on my lap.
Cassandra: I'm switching seats.
Billy Boy: You want me.
Cassandra gets away and murmurs to her Secret Service guard...
I'm going to sit back there. If the President bothers me knee him in the nuts.
Guard: Count on it.
Later, in the back of the plane, they sit together again.
Cassandra: These mid-terms victories bode well for us.
Billy Boy: I lost a hundred thousand dollar bet.
Cassandra: On what?
Billy Boy: That the Dems would lose the House. Don Richman won. He contributed to some Democratic races covertly, for the sake of his run in twenty-four.
Cassandra: Did you use Global Initiative money again?
Billy Boy: No, I altered our will, removed a hundred grand from our daughter's inheritance. She won't miss it.
Cassandra: Stealing from your own daughter!
Billy Boy: She runs a news website, has access to anybody in politics, she's doing fine.
Cassandra: Still, how would she like to hear what her Daddy did. Stole from her! Honest to God, your immorality surprises me sometimes.
Billy Boy: One of the guards likes to try to catch glimpses of me having sex.
Cassandra: You don't fire him?
Billy Boy: He's complicit in my adultery.
Cassandra: Don't talk about your adultery with me.
Billy Boy: It's the only part of my life I enjoy.
Cassandra: Talking about it or doing it?
Billy Boy: Hmm, both!
Cassandra: You're vile.
Billy Boy: Your ticket to ride, my dear.
So much to put down. Mid-terms happened, the Democrats retained the House, lost the Senate, Angie Crook, aging with worry for her husband after he was brutally assaulted, will step down as Speaker. An Oregon Moderate Democrat, Joe Mandelayo, half Puerto Rican, half Scotsman, man of the people, family man, kids' soccer coach, two years Army service, most of it on a base in Bavaria. He has competition, though; bass-voiced Illinois Congressman Jarv Middleton-Strong, "an Abraham Lincoln Republican blended with a George McGovern Democrat," though not really. The Mandelayo contingent, including Dean Growth, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, oppose Middleton-Strong's tactics. He'd promise anything to persuade one of his fellows to vote his way, then renege.
A weasel, Jarv Middleton-Strong at age twenty-seven, inherited nine million dollars from his businessman father, Charles "Chic" Middleton, the fog machine tycoon. Jarv used this money to buy a yacht aboard which he entertained rich business and political bigwigs who gladly took off their wigs, meaning clothes, to frolic with girls and women ages nine to ninety. All shenanigans recorded visually and with Dolby sound. Every grunt of the House of Representatives and the Senate is stored in a safe hidden somewhere in Jarv Middleton-Strong's office. We may assume he has backups, and possibly a failsafe deadman's switch with mass release of incriminating material to all news media.
The most feared man in Congress, it seems likely Jarv'll receive the majority of votes to be next Speaker. Why does any of this matter? Rich and powerful lawyers, real estate business people, CIA and military veterans fill Congress and the Senate. This must be the best a great nation can do.
Oval Office. President Dinah Parris has papers spread before her. She takes off her glasses, addresses her Secretary of State, Arthur Sneffen, seated in one of the tall armchairs by the fireplace where a hot blaze crackles occasionally.
Parris: What do you make of the challenge by Jarv?
Sneffen: He'll get his way. Mandelayo knows about the illegal doings on Jarv's yacht, My Annual Bonus, yet he hasn't alerted the authorities.
Parris: Accessory. Maybe five years. Make it ten. I'm glad my Douglas didn't go on that boat.
Sneffen: I saw him there once.
Parris: You were on that boat?
Sneffen: Many times.
Parris: And why?
Sneffen: Where else in the D.C. area can one perform cunnilingus on a forty year old Congresswoman while being fucked with a Fleshlight held by Billy Boy Blade. It's the most wonderful depravity.
Parris: You said my husband was there?
Sneffen: Yes, I talked with him right before he went into the Anything Can Happen In Here Room.
Parris: He seems to have a secret life.
Sneffen: Don't we all?
Parris: So there's no getting around Jarv?
Sneffen: Take him on his bluff and simply rub him out, then deal with the consequences.
Parris: Well, I never went to that yacht. Fuck those perverts.
Sneffen: Your husband is one of those perverts.
Parris: Tell your hit man to study Jarv. I want him out of the way by Saturday.
Sneffen: By the way you suddenly found those papers on your desk so interesting I can see you find giving an order to murder someone makes you feel uncomfortable, or excited perhaps?
Parris: What are you talking about? I'm talking about practical realities. We have a problem in Jarv Middleton-Strong! If you come home and find there's a rat living in your house what do you do? You get rid of it! I will not have my authority questioned!
Sneffen: I'm not questioning it, Madame President, this time. I perceive your pleasure when you give the most serious order.
Parris: If you were Doug, I'd be fucking within this minute. Yes, I am turned on. War and chaos turn me on. Helming this ship of state at this time in our nation's many crises turns me on. Yes, I'm a turned on patriot! (Salutes) Goodbye Jarv, you should've kept your nine million, invested it, and avoided politics, because you're going to your grave because you tussled with America's lawmakers and showed their naked raw disgusting selves and I have to wonder if anyone will care outside of victims, but nobody cares about them. (Laughs)
Doug, the First Gentleman, in his track suit with a towel around his neck, enters.
Doug: Honey, I'm home! I see you have a guest, or is it a turd?
Parris: Darling, how was your run?
Doug: Accompanied by six Secret Service men--well, one is a woman, Frankie she calls herself, though I believe her name is Frances, like the actress, not the talking mule. She has a long face like a mule, fine Nordic stock. What was I going to tell you?
Sneffen: That your brain has become a very dark place?
Doug: I believe all sentient beings will one day achieve enlightenment, but that is, not you, Arthur. You will always dwell in the under shades, trapped deep in some alternate dimension where pain is king, and reaming your asshole every day is that king's hobby.
Sneffen: Your armpits smell not of honest manly sweat, but the effusions of a monkey bred with a hillbilly who happened to win the Lottery.
Doug: Put a bag over your head, vile Captain of State! Your face offends me! Its smug expression coupled with my knowledge of your weird appetites causes upset unto vomiting within this vessel called Doug!
Parris: Doug! Settle down! What did you want to tell me?
Doug: How do I get YouTube on our bedroom TV?
Billy Boy Blade's office in Harlem. Gentrification? What gentrification?
Cassandra Hartliss Blade, seated opposite her husband.
Cassandra: My book tour just ended. Our daughter and I appeared on The View. Did you watch it?
Billy Boy: I can't stand those bitches.
Cassandra: They're very nice, especially Joy.
Billy Boy: She loves you the most. You're not above being influenced by flattery, especially acknowledgement of your power.
Cassandra: When you're dead, I'll make out fine. I'll be President, you'll see, or you won't if you're dead. I don't care if you live or die, fuckface. Marriage of convenience, like Diana for Charles. Now he's the King, Charles Number Three. I got an invite to shoot things in Scotland with William and his dad.
Billy Boy: Accept.
Cassandra: I'm not going, because that's the weekend the Ratfuck Bastards are having their annual retreat in Pulaski, New Hampshire. A skiing theme this year.
Billy Boy: (Laughs) You on skis!
Cassandra: I've skied! The Hindu Kush, Swiss Alps, French Alps, Aspen, Chamonix, Garbage Mountain in Oak Park--
Billy Boy: That garbage mound covered in grass where we fucked the first time?
Cassandra: The very same.
Billy Boy: We bonded over rotting garbage.
Cassandra: We are garbage. (Throws back her head and laughs)
To be continued....
Vic Neptune
