President gives her red Flair pen, Klondike, a midnight funeral in the Rose Garden. The implement served her for the entire time she's been President. She lifted off Klondike's smooth shiny red cap the morning she was sworn in as the nation's forty-seventh President; she wrote a short poem with Klondike, she didn't know why, it wasn't like her to be creative. Just an hour before President Moe Lieden's administration was forcibly ended by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General William "Bill" Bomb, Vice President Parris wrote:
Ends come.
Timeless Paradise,
Welcome me but
Only
After I've
Conquered the World.
Now, Klondike, fabricator of the shapes of those words, guided by the hand of the world's most powerful someone, has died, no more red to come from its jittery movements. President Parris, using another pen, a nameless blue Bic Wide Body ballpoint--serviceable but lacking the warm feel of Klondike, this blue Bic, more like handling a robot's cock--composes a eulogy, to be burned, for it is written on a Domino's napkin.
Doug and the President watch On Golden Pond on the White House Master Bedroom Big Screen.
After burying Klondike, President Parris reenters the bedroom to find Doug rewatching a scene in On Golden Pond with Jane Fonda in a bikini.
Doug Gard: This woman grinds my gears. On the one hand, she betrayed her country when she visited Hanoi. On the other hand, she's a gorgeous piece of ass.
Dinah: You prefer her to me? You know she doesn't look that good no more.
Doug: Oh, we all age. A gray hair appeared overnight in my bush.
Dinah: Honey, yank it out and don't tell me about it.
Doug: You find me unattractive, don't you.
Dinah: You're beautiful. Let's go to sleep. I have to do a photo op at eight-thirty with a dictator who executes his opponents with flamethrowers.
Doug: They call him The Crisper. I saw a documentary about him. He personally killed eight nuns. We give him lots of military aid.
Dinah: He's a friend of the United States.
Doug: He's an organ trafficker.
Dinah: He has a variety of ways of making money. He has a large family.
Doug: Twelve kids, two wives. His eldest son killed the Vice President and hasn't done time for it even though everyone knows he did it.
Dinah: Their country is a developing nation.
Doug: They have gold.
Dinah: Lots of undeveloped land.
Doug: They have bauxite.
Dinah: Oh, isn't aluminum made from that? Hmm.
Doug: When you play dumb you excite me, dear heart. Please your Doug and I'll shut up about sex for a week. Nay! Two weeks!
Dinah: One week, you can't do two.
Doug: I can so! I could do four!
Dinah: I suggest just one.
Doug: Your lack of confidence in my ability to squelch my, albeit formidable, desires tells me I must've been very bad at forming good habits in the past. You see a weak man. Strong and manly on the outside-- those workouts pay off, you know! But inside, jelly. I see tits, yours of course, and I faint inside, I want them so much!
Dinah: Well, if you think you can go four whole weeks without sucking on these things you are one deluded fuck.
Doug: Starting now, 11:17 a.m. January 31, 2023, one week shutting up about sex, meaning I don't get to touch you? Or how does this work?
Dinah: Shut up about it, stop pestering me. Let it happen when it happens.
Doug: Which is never.
Dinah: That's what I mean by shut up about sex for one week. February 7 at 11:17 a.m. you may resume talking about sex.
Doug: Will that be the precise minute of a much anticipated fuck?
Dinah: I don't know. Stop talking about sex, Doug.
Doug: You'll be amazed at how I'm able to not talk about sex. The joy of sex, yes, the surprise, the overwhelming flood of emotion, or perhaps no emotion as one pumps away mechanically as I have done many times, even with you, Dinah. Yes, I've had my share of robotic sex experiences. The robot I fucked at MIT--it was an experimental study--
Dinah: You didn't go to MIT.
Doug: Did so go to MIT! I fucked their sex toy robot, Ellen 6. What happened to Ellens 1 through 5 I'd rather not say.
Dinah: Why not?
Doug: They didn't understand what was happening to them when their sensors, over a period of a half hour, went permanently dark. They just kept asking why. It was a kind of existential horror play by Jean-Paul Sartre. He was a French philosopher, novelist, and playwright.
Dinah: I've heard of him, Doug. (Laughing) How long did you attend MIT?
Doug: Long enough to get kicked out, with dishonor.
Sam Spade, meanwhile, notices the tail; a greasy-haired kid with black-rimmed spectacles, a beige overcoat, black scuffed boots, trying to look down and out, probably makes at least fifty thousand a year hacking for some corporation.
Spade smiles, puts a cigarette in his mouth. I'll try out my lungs on this novice.
Spade: Greetings, young man, how goes it on the other side of the pond?
Young Man: I'm sorry, what?
Spade: You look like an Irishman, or maybe Manx? You lack the prognathous jaw of the Precambrian Northumbrian, with the spat-upon look of the troglodyte trying to attend a symphony concert. What do you do for fun, besides tail people?
Young Man: I'm not tailing anyone. I'm minding my own business.
Spade: You're interfering in my business, sonny boy, by tailing me. Who are you, young shiny slug trail? For whom do you work?
Young Man: I work for Target. I'm in the electronics department.
Spade: You take tailing jobs for hire, then, as a free lance?
Young Man: Someone is tailing you? Okay, well, that someone isn't me, and that someone is probably looking at you and wondering why you're talking to me, and now that I think of it, I might be in danger talking to you, so goodbye and don't follow me.
Spade: My apologies! (To himself) Could I have been wrong?
Hector Farrbarrhuber lowers his spy glasses, seated in a beat up brown sixty-nine Thunderbird. He doesn't recognize the young man who spoke with Spade. He follows Spade on foot to Miss Octoberfest, a new Washington night spot. The fictional detective drinks a martini sitting at the sparsely populated bar. Hector takes a booth seat along the far wall, orders a Lite Beer from the waitress. A woman in a red dress leans against the bar by Spade. They seem to flirt. He leaves with her. Hector follows them back to Spade's room, stands outside the suite, gun drawn, thinking of blasting Spade right there along with the woman. Sloppy, though. The woman might be the daughter, wife, or mistress of someone important. She might be a cop. Hector relaxes and goes down to the hotel's bar for a coffee. Must think. Must come up with a good plan. Will the bullets pass through his fictional body without drawing blood or damaging flesh? Is he completely there? I'll find out. I'd prefer to have someone else do this job, but I can't trust anybody with such a strange task. Spade punched a hole in reality when he came to this time, this space. Spade may be the key to alternate universes.
Hector goes home late, murder plan eluding him still. At eight in the morning his Burner phone number two goes off. Beak.
General Beak: What is the status of your activity?
Hector: I haven't had a clear opportunity.
General Beak: Carve out the opportunity.
Hector: Easy to command, dear General. I almost had him last night but I would've had to kill somebody else, too.
Beak: So what? Kill as many as you need to.
Hector: I prefer precision.
Beak: Then don't join the military.
Hector: I'll make another stab tonight.
Moe Lieden's Voice: Stab? Don't use a knife. Shotgun'll do it. Blast his face off. His novel won't recognize him.
Hector: The President should not be in on this conversation, General.
Beak: I have difficulty keeping him tame, as you can imagine. He's trying to take the phone.
Moe: Hand over that flip phone, Man of Space! Hello, this is your President, and I'm here to get an update direct from your mouth Hester--
Hector: Hector.
Moe: Hector Prynne. Scarlet letter on your chest, a big red H for homicide. So you couldn't bring yourself to murder Spade, eh?
Hector: The right time hasn't come.
Moe: Are you a coward? Do you need me to kill him for you, you weakling? Do you need to return to Mommy's tit? Real world too difficult for you?
Hector: When Sam Spade's time comes, Mr. President, that will be the time.
Moe: Now you're talking like an enigmatic gunfighter. Beak, what's the name of that actor?
Beak: Which actor?
Moe: The one in that movie.
Beak: Which movie, sir? We've watched several this week.
Moe: The western.
Beak: Clint Eastwood.
Moe: No, that's not it.
Beak: Gian Maria Volonte?
Moe: Sounds completely foreign to me. I'm talking about a gangly fella, raspy voice.
Beak: You've stumped me.
Moe: Yeah, nose stump! That's it! Lee Marvin!
Beak: Cat Ballou.
Moe: Jane Fonda, hubba hubba. On the one hand, she betrayed her country, but on the other hand, she's a gorgeous piece of ass.
Beak: I will not disagree on either point. I found her very distracting in that film. A veritable goddess of a traitor.
Hector: Right, Jane Fonda, especially the young version, was a very hot chick, we all agree.
Beak: Most definitely.
Moe: Absolutely.
Hector: But that has nothing to do with the subject of this call.
Moe: Call girl...Klute, that's a good one.
Beak: Donald Sutherland as the detective.
Moe: You got it, Sugar Smacks. You know who else is in that movie? I watched it last night, it's fresh in my brain.
Beak: Who?
Moe: Jean Stapleton. You know, Mrs. Bunker, the dingbat.
Beak: Right, Archie Bunker's put-upon helpmeet.
Moe: She's stupid, that's why Archie gives her the business.
Beak: I think old Arch is a bit too cruel at times. His ignorance and snap judgments about most everything dear to liberals can seem a bit ridiculous, even to this high-ranking military officer familiar with the practice of suspending disbelief.
Moe: She's a fucking moron! She's lucky Archie never takes it to a dark place.
Beak: The program wouldn't have qualified as a sitcom in that case.
Moe: A dark All in the Family. Picture it! Archie eats with his fingers, burps and farts all the time, scares the neighbor kids, forces himself on Edith in front of Mike and Gloria, punches Mike in the gut after Mike eats a big sandwich, and in the final episode falls into a vat of liquid steel while singing a sentimental World War Two song.
Hector: Like Gollum with the Ring.
Moe: Make Archie look like Gollum. Five strings of hair, pale skin, cold wet fish in one hand.
Beak: You're right, Hector, we're getting off track.
Hector: You called me!
Beak: I'm aware. The upshot of the call is you need to carry out your assignment sooner than later. If President Parris continues to benefit from her employment of Spade we want that to end.
Hector: Have you considered paying him more money than she's paying him?
Moe: I'm not giving him any more of my low value donors' money.
Hector: But you're giving me half a million.
Moe: That comes from a secret fund, hush hush, keep your mouth shut and take the money, right, Beak?
Hector: Something freed up from the Pentagon?
Beak: The Pentagon can always find money among its unaccounted for trillions.
Hector: That must have something to do with low voter turnout. How do the people have any confidence in government institutions?
Moe: The American government hasn't been overthrown, although the JFK thing was a coup, but never mind, you're not supposed to know that. And the Moon landings were real!
Beak: Of course they were!
Hector: No. Stanley Kubrick made those movies.
Beak: While he was in pre-production on A Clockwork Orange? Think, man! Use logic!
Hector: Stanley Kubrick also shot the Berlin Wall movie. That was staged, too. That Wall never came down.
Beak: You believe in phantasms.
Hector: And Jesus is coming out of the clouds to save us.
Beak: God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Space and Time itself are not to be discussed by you in my presence. I call upon divinity to remove the name of God's Son from your deceitful mouth.
Hector: You two need to let me get to work. I mean, to my breakfast and my every other day shower--saving the Earth one wash at a time.
Beak: Spade must die soon.
Hector: You'll have your kill.
Foggy Bottom. The office of Secretary of State Arthur Sneffen, who stands looking through his tall windows at the perpetual fog. His secretary buzzes.
Secretary: Sir, there's a Mr. Samuel Spade here to see you.
Sneffen: Does he have an appointment?
Secretary: No, sir.
Sneffen: Make him one for eleven o'clock, I forgot to tell you. He's eight minutes late. I don't like to be kept waiting by non-entities.
Secretary: Shall I send him in?
Sneffen: In, yes...Mr. Spade, how do you do? Please sit. The second most comfortable chair, the first being mine. Still working for dear Dinah?
Spade: I'll not discuss my clients and what they're up to in regard to my activities.
Sneffen: You could've just said, "No."
Spade: I see no reason to lie to you, yet.
Sneffen: What are you here for? I have no work for you.
Spade: I'm here to inquire about Gabrielle Bongo's intentions of running for President.
Sneffen: She's running for President?
Spade: You know she is. Here's the deal, Sneffen. You and she have been meeting regularly. You're planning on putting your support behind Bongo. Why? Is there a future post in it for you? Vice President, perhaps?
Sneffen: Bongo Sneffen 24, I can see the blue bumper sticker.
Spade: You're cynical. You don't want to be Vice President. How about Parris Stein 24?
Sneffen: I'd support that, of course.
Spade: You want to remain as Secretary of State during another Parris administration, and maybe one following that if she wins in twenty-eight?
Sneffen: (Chuckles) You assume a lot. I was chosen for State by President Lieden. Though I have differences with the gentleman, I prefer him to President Parris.
Spade: Why?
Sneffen: Let's just say Moe Lieden's nuttiness is predictable, whereas President Parris is a loon with a vicious streak. Any given day I have no idea which way the country may be steered by that irrational woman.
Spade: These days they'd say a woman can do any job a man can do.
Sneffen: That explains the thousands of female coal miners.
Spade: I don't agree with the notion, I'm just pointing it out. How far back do you and Gabrielle Bongo go?
Sneffen: I met her twenty years ago when her husband was on the rise, running for U.S. Senate from Illinois. After Amare won in 2006, the Bongos were regulars in Democratic Party circles in Washington. They're very popular still, even though he left the White House five years ago.
Spade: He hasn't been studied much by the people. He bombed a lot of countries.
Sneffen: We have bombs. We need to explode them so we can make more.
Spade: Exploding them on people.
Sneffen: You have a commoner's morals.
Spade: Common, as in most people agree murdering people with bombs is wrong.
Sneffen: How murder them, then? You have experience of war?
Spade: Ambulance driver in France, 1918.
Sneffen: Did you get to carry a gun?
Spade: Yes.
Sneffen: Did you need to use it?
Spade: A few times.
Sneffen: Are you glad you had that gun?
Spade: Defending myself with a Colt .45 in an active war zone so I could get my patients to the care they needed is quite different from dropping bombs on innocent civilians.
Sneffen: (Sneering) Who's innocent in this fallen world?
Spade: Are you pulling a Christian angle?
Sneffen: One cynical man to another. I have a job, Mr. Spade. We specials are educated to make the most difficult decisions--
Spade: Which poor wretches to kill next?
Sneffen: You have such a crude way of putting things, yet you seem to be an educated man, and I suppose you've received an A in street smarts.
Spade: A street is where I'll never see you or any of your kind. You'll never buy doughnuts, you'll never drive, you'll never take a picnic outing with your wife and kids. You're a barren, empty man who fills up his time with cruel fantasies he then inflicts upon the people of other nations. Is that what you mean by "special"?
Sneffen: Gaby Bongo will make a good President, a cut above Dinah, for sure. She'll make the right decisions about the Middle East, about China, about Russia and Ukraine.
Spade: Do you specials ever wonder about the state of your own country?
Sneffen: We're strong. We're number one. We have the high ground.
Spade: No, America is rotten to the core. The leadership is a groaning mass of baboons.
Sneffen: That, if it's true, won't change if President Parris wins next year.
Spade: The whole system is a hopeless, rotten mess. Is it irredeemable?
Sneffen: It works fine.
Spade: But not for the people.
Sneffen: Did it work for the people in 1930? What a great year that was! (Laughs).
Spade: I don't hold a year against a man. So I'm from 1930. Wait until, let's see, 2116 and see what men of that time say about this time.
Sneffen: This will be regarded as a golden age. American prosperity in an American century.
Spade: What about the Chinese? The Russians? From what I've read they seem poised to finally take over the world while the United States falls into a hole dug by people like you.
Sneffen: Such talk is forbidden in Foggy Bottom.
Spade: I'll have my vocal cords removed.
Sneffen: If I could order it, I would.
Spade: Is Gabrielle Bongo all on board with her presidential run, or is this being pushed by her husband?
Sneffen: Because he wishes to exert power from behind the Oval Office chair?
Spade: Or maybe he's a pathological egotist.
Is the Democratic Party at the point now where they should be wearing armbands?
Stan Lobo, cable news anchor, Thursday, February 9, 2023, halfway through his five days a week broadcast, fired a few hours later, escorted from the building by armed security men. The news division of that network is run by Millicent Harper, seventy year old widow of Wes Harper, beloved white-haired smiling man, once presidential candidate (in 1940), international jewel thief in his young, dashing days, a gambler, cattle king, electric toothbrush salesman, father of nine bastard children, brewery owner, Mussolini-admirer, reader of Aristotle, investor in a television manufacturer, owner of nine race horses, owner of a thirteenth century castle in Wales, a fly fisherman and Anti-Semite. In college (Yale, Class of 1920), he read Xenophon, Plato, Heraclitus, and each Tarzan novel when published, with those beautiful full color dust jackets.
Millicent Harper, neé Gogola, is an iron-fisted woman, the steel brace on her right forearm extending to a metal-tipped finger. Her right foremost incisor is gold. She smokes Lucky Strike Lights from a black lacquer cigarette holder.
Millicent donates thousands and thousands of dollars every year to the DCCC, the DSCC, to her Congressman, Senate Minority Leader Schmuck Tumor, to Democrats in close races. Millicent does not like anyone to criticize Democrats, especially one of her newsmen. She's had her eye on Stan Lobo ever since he gave a three minute commentary--she cleared it but when he did it on the show the images accompanying the words (dead Yemeni children, blown up structures in Syria, Israeli snipers killing and maiming Palestinian protestors, all of these things supported, Lobo pointed out, by Democrats) made the script a poison to her belief system.
Stan Lobo gets a job within a week at an independent news outlet, given free rein to practice investigative journalism. Millicent Harper begins the hunt for Lobo's successor.
A few days before Lobo's dismissal, Doug Gard completes his week of not pestering his wife with sex talk. He feels proud of his self-discipline. During this period his brain seethed with sex thoughts. Penises, butts, vaginas, his wife perched naked on top of a Washington Monument carved at the top to a smoother phallic form for greater comfort enjoyed by the First Couple. As each of the seven days passed, Doug thought more and more about how mighty he had become by denying himself, how he'd explode when Dinah consented again to First Couple Date Night: an as yet unreleased Hollywood film shown just for the two of them in the White House theater, with popcorn, alcoholic fruit punch, and Junior Mints.
First, though, the 2023 State of the Union Address, the first ever delivered by an African-American woman. The first State of the Union ever delivered by a brown-eyed, 130 pound five foot two human being of either sex for that matter.
The House Chamber, 535 Senators and Congressmen and -women present, along with nine Supreme Court Justices wearing their black robes for some reason even though they're off duty. Six Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Military Domination Rape Cock. The galleries hold numerous guests: First Gentleman Doug Gard seated next to Second Lady Rachel Vanadestine, the metal guitarist married to Vice President Draken Stein, the latter seated to the right behind President Parris. Speaker of the House Angie Crook sits next to the Vice President.
Parris: How's it goin?! (Laughs). It's a great honor to stand here, this spot where Presidents have stood. Now I stand here, because I'm the President. Thank you, thank you. I see we have Bono in the House! Hey Bono, I still haven't found what I'm looking for! (Laughs by herself).
Seated one row below Doug, Bono, the most pretentious motherfucker in popular music, smiles tightly, while a scowling Rachel Vanadestine, whose contempt for Bono and the Edge was expressed in a previous part of this story, shakes her head. Rachel, "to honor Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus,"--but really it's because she's a kook--wears a black tuxedo, her top hat in her lap after the woman behind her asked if "Madame Second Lady wouldn't mind taking off her hat? It's such a lovely hat."
President Parris: My fellow Americans outside and inside this chamber, this sacred chamber of freedom and democracy, this hallowed ground of principle combined with the height of ethical behavior and the deep sense of responsibility that comes with serving the interests of our--let's face it--bosses, the American people...oh shoot, where am I? Could you back that up, please? I've never done a State of the Union before (laughs) so just bear with me. Okay. Is that what my speechwriter wrote? I'm not gonna say that! Deborah, what the heck! We'll have a talk about this later! I'll just wing it.
My fellow Americans (laughs). Okay, Dinah, get a hold of yourself. (Takes a deep breath). Anybody from Kansas City? How about those Chiefs! I don't really care about football but my dear husband Doug bet fifty-thousand dollars on their winning the Super Bowl by three points--lucky guess if you ask me, but with some of that money we're installing a hot tub in the Lincoln Bedroom. We'll be taking out some of the furniture and selling it on eBay, so keep an eye out for that if you want to own a piece of White House history.
These are difficult and challenging times. Yes they are. We're faced with a war in Europe, opponents on the world stage like Russia and China. Now why don't they just cooperate with us? How come they can't handle our military posturing and threatening behaviors? Come on, China and Russia, grow a pair! You're in the big boys and girls club! Besides, Russia, it's not our fault you couldn't leave Ukraine alone! And Ukraine, I want to assure you that we, the United States and its bitch NATO, will continue to supply weapons to your fight until the world ends if need be. Who wants to live forever, anyway? Well, if it came to a real choice, I'd live forever. I'd like to explore other worlds, zoom in a starship Enterprise-like vessel to other star systems, see a black hole up close--but not too close! Black holes don't care if you're a Republican or a Democrat, they'll rip you apart--they're like Grizzly bears, apolitical. All you members of Congress, don't expect a bear to vote for you. Don't send your campaign workers into the woods trying to get bear, deer, bobcats, squirrels, eagles, ants, trees, rocks, lichen, to vote for you. That's a metaphor, people. I'm referring to those Americans who have checked out of the voting process because they're disgusted with the likes of us. Instead, keep smearing your opponents. Average Americans love that. They'd rather have a big show to watch--in other words, political primaries and debates and such, than real change, because if real change happens that would mean we're doing our jobs properly--representing our constituents instead of our donors.
(Cheers, a standing ovation. After a minute, President Parris waves her hands).
Parris: Down! Down! You're cutting into my time! I have a movie date with my husband after this--
Doug Gard (yelling from his seat): Do as my wife says, you cock blockers!
Parris (laughing): Don't be offended, people, he's just having a little fun. Doug, relax! Okay, what was I about to say...Damn, I can't remember. Must be all that marijuana I smoked in college (laughs). I believe in America. I believe we will prevail. Our Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, Air and Space Forces are ever ready to do their duty to sustain our nation's greatness and security. We've got a tough road ahead, I have no illusions about that. But we're stronger than ever. Our annual military budget continues to have its testosterone intake increased year by year. You lawmakers can always be counted on to bulk up the defense budget billions of dollars beyond what I and past presidents request. It's like extra gifts from Santa Claus in our stockings. It's a beautiful thing. Money from death. Profiting off of making war. If the people we bomb could do it they'd do it, too. People aren't good. Everyone is corruptible. Give a poor man half a billion dollars and I guarantee he'll turn his back on the ethical teachings of Jesus. Really, does anyone here actually want to be accepted into Heaven? Bono? How about you? Your net worth is 800 million dollars, last time I checked. It's amazing you can write songs given you don't have to struggle anymore. Sorry, I shouldn't single you out. I did like U2's War album. I listened to it a lot in college when I was stoned.
I can see that Doug is getting restless, so I'll wrap this up and let you all go home early. Now, I want you to never forget 9/11. Get your Covid booster shots. Don't believe the bad things you've heard about corn syrup. Alien spaceships visiting our planet are real, maybe. Former President Lieden was losing his marbles even before he resigned--he's not going to be a mental giant when he tries for my job in 2024. Former First Lady Gabrielle Bongo is better suited to co-host The View rather than handle a job as complicated as the presidency. You'd have to be a dumb Hollywood liberal to believe she'd make a good president. You'd have to be a certain cabinet member of mine to believe it. No, I'm not going to name him. And Cassandra Hartliss Blade? Does anybody in their right minds want that hag in the Oval Office where her husband got head from an intern? Oh come on, relax, people! You all know it happened! Sex acts in that same space where FDR decided to hang Admiral Husband Kimmel out to dry for the Pearl Harbor attack. Oh well, FDR was just covering his crippled ass, I guess. When you commit a crime it's a good idea to deflect blame for it, but you all know that.
Anyhoo, that's all I have to say for now. Go home, hug your children if you have any. In the event of a nuclear exchange with Russia and/or China you'll all be protected inside the comfiest bunkers ever contracted to be made. You'll have plenty of slaves in there to do the work, too. Don't worry, Bono! We'll need entertainers, just like medieval courts had musicians, jesters, and acrobats.
All right, folks, that's it.
Doug (yelling): Finally!
To be continued...
Vic Neptune
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