President Parris, dark blue nightie, First Gentleman Doug Gard, pajama top, no bottom. He gets into bed after her and grinds against the silk-covered butt of the President of the United States.
Parris: No Doug, back off! President tired!
Doug: You promised. You shouldn't break your promises.
Parris: Today I spent five hours in Top Secret Zoom with two NATO leaders with thick accents. I'm wiped. Good night.
Doug: Bad night. Uncomfortable night. Desperate night. Oh, why can't a prostitute appear here now?
Parris: You want a whore, huh? Okay, I'll get you a whore. But then you ain't never gettin into my
treasure box again.
Doug: Would this prostitute be an exceptionally skilled woman?
Parris: Doug, I'm not going to "get" you a whore. Get your mind off that topic.
Doug: Yes, Commander-in-Chief. I'll ignore the passion I feel for your ass whenever you're turned away from me. Just let me hump you for one minute, okay?
Parris: No.
Doug: You must think I'm made of iron. I'm not. I'm flesh with a boner. Madame President? Take care of this boner!
Parris: I'm asleep. I can't understand what you're saying.
Doug: You're not asleep.
Parris: I am. (Laughs) That is so true, Roy!
Doug: You're dreaming about Defense Secretary Roy Holroyd?
Parris: Roy, now what about sending the Army through Mongolia?
Doug: Honey, you seem to have veered into politics. I'm bored. I'll take my boner to the nearest computer screen.
Parris: Not tonight, Roy. This gal needs a good rest. Yes, we'll meet again on the Oval Office couch before the fireplace, but now its deep cushions on a bamboo frame, squeaks a bit.
Doug: Honey my love, what are you talking about in your so beautiful to watch sleep?
Parris: I'm talking about a real man, Roy Holroyd.
Doug: Have you been thinking of shagging him?
Parris: Again? It's a possibility, but so is nuclear war. I always have a lot to think about. Go to sleep, Doug.
Doug sleeps, President Parris sleeps, Speaker of the House Angie Crook sleeps on a bed stuffed with cash. Fifteen Van Goghs and two Dürers lean and hang in a closet in Madame Speaker's two million dollar Georgetown condo. It's 8:05 PM, some sixty minutes away from her bedtime. Today, once again, such a tedious way to spend a morning. she shut down talk among the Progressive Caucus about raising the minimum wage, told them she'd withhold their campaign funds unless they shit on raising the minimum wage, casting doubt in news media on the cause's practicability. She gave an interview to Bert on Sesame Street, found herself convinced of Bert's personhood.
Bert: So, Speaker Crook. Are you a crook? I remember a President named Nixon and he claimed he wasn't a crook, but he was a crook. Are you?
Angie: No no. That's not a real question. Ask me something fun!
Bert: You're an insider trader. If Ernie or I did that we'd be put on a shelf indefinitely.
Angie: You're adorable. I love your tuft of hair!
Bert: Don't touch the hair!
Angie: Sorry. Um, do you vote, Bert?
Bert: Not lately. I voted for Jackie Chan in 2008.
Angie: The movie star?
Bert: Yeah yeah. He's an entertainer, he doesn't harm people.
Angie: Had Mr. Chan won the presidency he would've found it difficult not to harm people.
Bert: Right. I never thought he would win. I just didn't like Manny McMaine and Amare Bongo.
Angie: Why ever not? Bert, don't you know that Manny McMaine is a war hero? He braved years of torment at the hands of Communists.
Bert: He didn't learn compassion from that. All he talked about was bombing Iran and he always had time to plug his latest book he didn't write. Pure phony!
Angie: No no no! That's terrible, Bert! You're slandering a great man! And President Bongo was the best African-American president we've had.
Bert: So you don't like President Parris?
Angie: She's only been doing the job for a year.
Bert: She has a twenty-six percent approval rating. You have a four percent approval rating, according to Gallup--I read the news, Madame Speaker.
Angie: Washington is not a popularity contest. It's a jumble of conflicting forces, but one thing we players agree on is that we don't rock the boat. We like it as it is, the money's flowing in the right direction.
Bert: Not down. Look at Oscar's garbage can. The dents, the scuffs, it got hit by a Mercedes a week ago. A well-functioning government would distribute needed funds to those who need to fix up their homes, either from a natural disaster, or from long term neglect. Look at the empty houses in Detroit.
Angie: My, I thought we were going to talk about pleasant things. Like the colors of the rainbow.
Bert: I'm talking about a different spectrum of experience, Madame Crook. You and your kind are criminals. The country won't function properly until you're all removed from office.
Angie: And what then? Replace us with Muppets?
Bert: You're obviously deluded.
Shaking off the irritation still left from that children's program interview, Angie Crook enters her ninety foot long living room, switches on the vast TV, cuddles up with her ice cream and watches a video mashup of reports on her husband's getting hit on the head with a hammer. Could've been me, she thinks. Switching to cable, she watches an interview on CBS with Don Richman.
Interviewer: Good evening, I'm Grace Pittlocker. Tonight's guest is a businessman, an enthusiastic golfer, a two-time presidential candidate, the forty-fifth President, the former host of a long-running game show on another network, Donald Richman. Welcome, Donald, if I may call you that?
Don Richman: Start with Mr. Richman, we'll work up to Donald.
Grace: No one calls you Donald, right?
Don Richman: You just did (smiles, hands clasped before him)
Grace: Mr. Richman--
Richman: Don.
Grace: Don. Do you fancy yourself a mafia don?
Richman: No, but a man can dream. You know, Coppola's The Godfather is the greatest film ever made, except maybe that's not the case, because Gone With the Wind is the greatest, at least until The Godfather came along.
Grace: Why do you want to be president again?
Richman: Power, riches, ask me a difficult question.
Grace: Some, though they don't support you and would never vote for you, nevertheless appreciate your honesty.
Richman: Well they can go fuck themselves for not voting for me, but I represent all Americans.
Grace: (covering discomfort about his language) It's all right that you cursed.
Richman: People say fuck all the time, Grace. It's as common a word as fucking.
Grace: Have you considered who you want for a running mate? A conservative pick like Tyler Prince, your Vice President--
Richman: Don't remind me. What a drip. A boring man. No one will miss him if he loses the nomination. He will not win the nomination, I will, do not doubt that!
Grace: Are you confident you will be found not guilty in your incomprehensible criminal case?
Richman: You know it, Grace. You know what else? My private jet has a big bed, and I'm very tired, or not tired, if you know what I mean.
Grace: Thank you for the invitation, but I will decline.
Richman: Married?
Grace: Sensible.
9:34 AM, a cafe with windows facing the sidewalk, a row of bench seats and tables visible. Hector Farrbarrhuber, former President Lieden's fix-it man, has tracked his prey for three weeks, finally found him in this cafe, lost him, but he returned the next day, and the next. Hector advances, sits opposite Sam Spade, literary character appearing in this reality.
Spade (puts aside the morning edition of the Washington Post): You are?
Hector: Someone who can help you.
Spade: Help? How?
Hector: By filling you in on what's going on so you don't get killed. I think you're unique. We shouldn't eliminate a literary character. You know you're a literary character, right?
Spade: I feel more attached to this world that made me than I do to that book. I've become my true self.
Hector: Tell me more.
Spade: Who are you?
Hector: Hector Farrbarrhuber. I'm the President's Man.
Spade: So am I.
Hector: Your President is Dinah Parris, mine is Moe Lieden.
Spade: An unusual man. I remember the day he soiled his trousers.
Hector: He's old, like you. You must be what, a hundred and thirty?
Spade: Try just forty.
Hector: I'm forty-one. Tell me. How did you get into this universe?
Spade: I don't know about "universe." I know about Washington. I know about corruption in high places--I remember the Harding Administration. I know about and remember San Francisco. I remember France and the War. But I also remember meeting President Parris for the first time.
Hector: You worked for Lieden then.
Spade: Yes. These clients are less than human. They make decisions that result in the killing of people who don't deserve to be killed. They wield weapons wreaking Ragnarok-like destruction. I work for her because I'm therefore close to her decision-making. Perhaps I can convince her not to bomb some village in Syria.
Hector: (laughs a little) They don't think like that. Anyone who needs to be told not to kill innocent civilians is already far gone, psychologically.
Spade: (lights a cigarette) I may sound like an idealist, and idealists get people killed, I know that, but I'm at the heart of power. I know the Lady herself.
Hector: You've gotten close to her, you've banged her, in fact.
Spade: I understand that means I've had sexual relations with her. Yes, why not admit it? I screwed the President.
Hector: Congratulations. From what I've heard, from what many have heard, she screws easily.
Spade: Keep your jealousy to yourself, Good Man.
Hector: Do you know how to get back into the book?
Spade: I have an instinct related to that, but I can't articulate it.
Hector: Good enough. I suggest you go back.
Spade: To avoid my murderer?
Hector: You're used to danger; no, not that. It's the fact that this shouldn't be. Literary characters shouldn't exist in reality.
Spade: Have you met this short chap, Frodo Baggins?
Hector: I've heard of him.
Spade: Word is, the President had relations with him in a broom closet.
Hector: She'll fuck anything.
Spade: Take that back.
Hector: (laughs) It's true--(reacts to black pistol pointed at his chest)
Spade: Take that back.
Hector: I apologize. I did not mean what I said about the President. My disparaging words about her are not true, at least in an absolute sense--put the gun away, dummy.
Spade: (holsters the gun) You're right. I'm being emotional. Must leave that to the ladies. What say we work together? Ruin a few of these bastards.
Hector: Why not? We work in both campaigns, you have White House access, I have Lieden Campaign access. I also know Arthur Sneffen, Secretary of State.
Spade: A snake of a man.
Hector: An intolerable weather pattern of a man.
Spade: Parris seems devoted to him for some reason.
Hector: She likes tormenting him by having him stick around in her cabinet, always giving him the impression he needs to be close to the seat of power, until he publicly switches loyalties to Gabrielle Bongo. There could be meat to chew in this Bongo-Parris rivalry.
Spade: I've been approaching this business on the Blade side of things. The Horrigan File was seen by Douglas Gard, whom I interviewed.
Hector: That must have been a fun time, interviewing Doug Gard. Is he crazy?
Spade: He seems like a rich man who hasn't faced reality in many decades.
Hector: Good assessment. He's also a loon.
Spade: I don't know if he is, or isn't. He wasn't able to give me much about what he read in The Horrigan File. There seems to be a strong case to be made for William Horrigan being murdered because he knew serious dirt about the Blades. He had just signed up for tennis lessons before his death. He also bought a Jaguar sedan and asked his secretary to marry him--scheduled for a date after his alleged suicide. He'd gone to a poker game and won 85,000 cash money just two nights before his death. He wrote a poem published in The New Yorker posthumously in which he wrote about how much he loves life, how much a summer breeze is the breath of an unknown but loving force, wanting us to make the most of our lives. He mentioned in an interview he was looking forward to hearing the next Nirvana record. I understand that's a musical group.
Hector: Was. The fact remains the man obviously did not kill himself.
Spade: That's evident. The problem with the Blades is that they've committed so many crimes and done so many unethical things that one killing, if that's what it was, makes the Horrigan matter blend in with the other atrocities. Still, with proper coaching, Dinah can sandblast Cassandra Blade with facts about her horrid human rights record.
Hector: Parris also has a wretched human rights record.
Spade: Not as bad as the Blades.
Hector: I don't really care. I know these people are shits. I know you're a shit. I'm a shit, too.
Spade: Don't base what you know about me on that book.
Hector: You're a loner, self-contained at the end of the book.
Spade: A future I don't know.
Oval Office, West African drums and singing on the room's soundtrack, President Parris behind her bamboo desk. Secretary of State Arthur Sneffen seated on a cane chair before the big desk. The holographic Tarzan on occasion appears in the 3d paint job on the walls and ceiling, lets out a Weissmuller Tarzan call.
Parris: I like living in a jungle. I'd like to move to Gabon, or maybe Borneo.
Sneffen: After you've done your duty here?
Parris: No, tomorrow. Buy a house in Gabon, two or three servants, a bodyguard, a driver, a helicopter pilot, a jet pilot and crew, a yacht on the coast, a crew for that big old thing, a spaceport near my house in Gabon, a space elevator, a space station, two space stations, three or four bases on the Moon, and I want to meet Barbra Streisand! I'm the President! I need to get on that! She'll come here to see me! Barbra Streisand's gonna sit right where you're sitting, Artie, what do you think of that?
Sneffen: I prefer Yvonne Elliman.
Parris: She's not bad, but she's no Barbra Streisand!
Sneffen: Barbra's the triple threat: singer, actress, and director. Yvonne Elliman, a singer and an actress, yes, who can forget her performance in Jesus Christ Superstar as Mary Magdalen?
Parris: I forgot she was in that.
Sneffen: But Yvonne is not a director.
Parris: How did I do last night, in your opinion?
Sneffen: The debate was typically awful, those things are never good, but you held your ground, you looked good in your power suit, dark blue suits you as Vogue likes to remind us.
Parris: I got photographed again at the beach in Santa Cruz wearing my dark orange bikini.
Sneffen: I saw something about it on my phone.
Parris: I look pretty good, but one of the shots has me twisted around with a sour expression.
Sneffen: And the caption is rich! "THIS IS YOUR PRESIDENT"
Parris: They're lucky to have me.
Sneffen: My candidate, yes, I'll admit it, my candidate, Gabrielle Bongo, held her own.
Parris: That lightweight? She's completely unqualified to sit at this bamboo desk. To drink out of that coconut cup!
Sneffen: She will rule this island of Columbia like the Queen she is, friends with Beyonce, free broadcasted concerts and other cultural events, figure drawing classes for refugee children--
Parris: What? That sounds perfectly dreadful, and maybe illegal.
Sneffen: Everything will be legal in the new Bongo era.
Parris: Everything?
Sneffen: Everything.
Parris: "Nothing is true, everything is permitted," last words of Hassan I Sabbah. Is that what you and Gaby are getting at, because if that's your game, deal me out. That philosophy ain't gonna work with this gal!
Sneffen: You soak up absurdities and believe them to be true, so readily, Dinah.
Parris: You made that up, then?
Sneffen: I know that Mrs. Bongo has an interest in the Old Man on the Mountain, and in the Crusader period, and the Shroud of Turin as it relates to the Knights Templar, and as they relate to Freemasonry, which relates to the Ratfuck Bastards, of course.
Parris: My husband Doug got accepted into the Ratfucks. They must have low standards.
Sneffen: My first thoughts exactly, but later I found out they want him in there simply because they believe, understandably, that they can influence the President of the United States--
Parris: That's me.
Sneffen: Indeed. Influence her--
Parris: Me.
Sneffen: In many ways favorable to the Ratfuck Bastards. So far, it's been reported to me by an anonymous Bastard, your husband has proven to be a dud, intelligence-wise.
Parris: Don't I know it. What do you get out of supporting Gaby Bongo?
Sneffen: Prestige. The Bongos remain a much loved couple in American life. Mr. Bongo goes on The View, even the Republican bimbo on the panel is impressed. Mrs. Bongo expresses her concern on CNN about fat kids and what to do about it. Her new book, Drop What You're Doin' and Lose the Fat!, is a number one bestseller.
Parris: Did she write it?
Sneffen: Every word. I proofread her book and could find hardly anything wrong with the grammar, spelling, syntax, all that stuff we learn in English 101. A perfectly written book, as if Kazuo Ishiguro and Samuel Johnson merged minds and produced a masterpiece.
Parris: Oh shut up, your sarcasm tells me it's a shitty book, not worth the paper it's printed on.
Sneffen: Once again, I yield to your insight, as you do have penetrating ones sometimes.
Parris: Flattering little bitch.
District News, a YouTube channel dealing with the doings in the District of Columbia, funded by a Lichtensteinian billionaire. Professional-looking set, lucite kidney-shaped desk can seat six in a pinch for in depth discussions involving too many participants. For its Ten O'Clock Weeknight Update just two anchors sit behind the desk, a woman with big flouncy light brown hair and shiny makeup, and a retired cage fighter with a lumpy face and four fingers on his right hand. He speaks with an aggressive Dorchester-Boston accent.
Margaret Burns: Good evening, I'm Margaret Burns.
Man: And I'm Tyler Fuckmachine. This is the Ten O'Clock Weeknight Update, brought to you by Cadillac and Apple.
Margaret Burns: Senate Minority Leader Crutch McVinyl slipped out of reality during a press conference today. Led back to his office, he returned and acted as if nothing had happened. "I feel fine," he said. Is he fine?
Tyler Fuckmachine: Is he Larry Fine?
Burns: Why must you mention the Stooges again?
Tyler: I made a bet that I could make a Stooge reference in every broadcast for a week. The week is up. I won my bet!
Burns: How much?
Tyler: Thirty bucks.
Burns: Only that?
Tyler: It's about the burn he feels when he loses a bet. My little brother. He's poor. By the way, upper management if you're listening...Margaret and I could use a raise, that last one was a pipsqueak.
Burns: Let's not antagonize our employers, Tyler. In other news. Scientists have proven that people who feel a need to be seen near flags are actually psychos.
Tyler: Birds, studies have found, did not come from dinosaurs but from the air itself.
Burns: Like sylphs, air spirits. We have here as a guest tonight a warm and generous spirit, and Democratic presidential candidate, Mrs. Amare Bongo, former First Lady of these United States.
Tyler: Not those United States.
Burns: Mrs. Bongo.
Gabrielle: Please, call me Gabrielle.
Burns: You may call me Margaret.
Tyler: You may call me Mr. Fuckmachine.
Gabrielle: Thank you for this opportunity to talk about my campaign, and my latest book, Drop What You're Doin' and Lose the Fat.
Tyler: The title confuses me.
Gabrielle: How so, Mr. Fuckmachine?
Tyler: It says Drop What You're Doin,' well the doin' part of it means you're doing something, moving about, getting exercise maybe. Didn't you think of that when you were attempting to come up with a title?
Gabrielle: That was my agent's title. She gave me five to choose from and that one seemed the best. Maybe it wasn't.
Burns: Oh come on, let's not get all gloomy! Tyler, you're bringing us down, let's brighten our evening, shall we, and change the subject!
Tyler: You should have called the book, Exercise and Eat Sensibly. I'd read that book!
Burns: Mrs. Bongo. Your debate performance seemed constrained by time, but also by the force of personalities on that stage. I mean, Mrs. Blade and Mrs. Parris, whatever one thinks of them, are two explosive dames.
Tyler: They get their pants suits from the same place.
Burns: Mrs. Bongo, tell us about why you want to be President?
Bongo: When I was a little girl, my professor daddy drove me to school in his Lincoln Continental--bought a new one each year. On those car rides he'd say, "Daughter. Someday you're going to be married to a famous man. You're going to meet Queen Elizabeth, you're going to meet a Beatle. You're going to become consumed with a cause, maybe something to do with better health in our nation's children. You will go further, becoming the first Black woman to be President." I was ready from the age of five to be President. Liberty is in my blood. I'm a lawyer, I know the law. I'm perfectly fine with the NSA spying on all Americans. Drone Strikes Schmoan Strikes. We are not responsible for the violence we do in the name of accomplishing our objectives, some of which are completely hidden from the people, I learned that from my husband, the forty-fourth president of the United States, Amare Bongo.
Tyler: Sounds like you're wanting the power for all the right reasons.
Bongo: I will wield power responsibly. I will hold accountable those who break the law. No one is above the law.
Burns: That's not true.
Tyler: Prominent figures lie to Congress all the time and nothing happens to them.
Bongo: We are all created equal. As we rise so shall we fall, and as President I will live in the most luxurious bunker.
Tyler: When the time comes? Planning on nuclear war, Madame President-to-be?
Bongo: As a last option, but you know, killing billions is easier than killing one.
Tyler: You won't win. My money's on Parris. All thirty bucks of it.
Bongo: In my book the afterword has a little essay I penciled when I was twelve. It predicts many things in my life accurately. Clairvoyance has always been a trait in my family, especially among the women.
Tyler: Any madness in your family?
Bongo: A prying question, Mr. Fuckmachine, but I'll answer it. Yes, there was a crazy uncle, my Great-Uncle Favors.
Tyler: Favors?
Bongo: Favors Parrhoe.
Tyler: What was crazy about him?
Bongo: He worked on a whaler in his youth, came home with some cash, bought a small spread in Wyoming, got terrorized and injured by some neighbors who wanted his land. He sold the land and moved south, the area around Corpus Christi.
Burns: That's in Texas.
Bongo: Right! In Corpus Christi he got weird, walking into cafes and stores bare above the belt, belligerent with cashiers, cops, and finally they did Favors a favor.
Tyler: The cops killed him?
Bongo: No, they put him to work making toys for poor children. He died in 1951.
Tyler: Too bad he can't be president.
Lieden Campaign Headquarters, downtown Scranton, Pennsylvania. Happy Lieden, son of former President Moe Lieden, sits at the edge of his chair before his father's desk. He wears sunglasses with black lenses. Five o'clock shadow, fingernail marks welting his neck and upper chest.
General Beak sits near the President, wearing a sports shirt, sensible brown slacks, and loafers. "I'm meeting Mrs. Beak for lunch at two."
Moe Lieden: You look ready for a golf game, Beak. You like golf?
Beak: I haven't played in years. The career took over, I suppose.
Happy Lieden: Yeah, that happened to me, too!
Moe: What happened to you, son?
Happy: Golf. I sacrificed it for crack.
Moe: Crack ain't a career.
Beak: It's an addictive substance.
Moe: No shit, Sherlock. Boy, did I ever have to hold back a shit during that debate. And not for the first time. In 2008 I spent an entire debate with an eager turd cresting past my anus.
Beak: No more, please, Mr. President. We need to figure out how to handle the number one threat.
Moe: Gaby Bongo.
Happy: Mrs. Blade.
Beak: Both wrong. President Parris is your greatest threat. Oh, I know she's a madwoman, a woman led by General Bomb to her position of glory and nation-leading. She stands the best chance of taking the nomination. She's the reassuring incumbent. I prefer to bet on incumbents in my fantasies of being an international gambler, an old daydream of mine.
Happy: But Mrs. Blade is the smell that won't go away. Such a strong smell must prevail in the end.
Moe: You know, son, I think you just provided me with a line to use against Cassie Blade.
Beak: It's not bad.
Moe: I'll make sure I shit before the next debate so I'm not a worse smell than Cassie.
Happy: Dad, I'm not talking about a literal smell.
Moe: Cassie's hair smells good, actually, but the rest of her is some kind of tangy perfume and scented skin cream.
Beak: President Parris, Mr. President! Focus on her!
Moe: Dinah's got great hair.
Happy: Smells real good.
Moe: Hair. Hair.
Martha's Vineyard, the Bongo Estate. Servants aflutter about today's lunch guest: Heartland Rockstar Goose Blankenstein. The half-acre patio has several trees growing through it. Under a spreading oak and a table umbrella sit Gabrielle Bongo, Amare Bongo, and Goose. White wine, some kind of chicken parts dish, a white sauce over the meat, asparagus tips, bread kneaded and baked that morning in the Bongos' 9,000 square foot kitchen, their chef, Bubbles "Jawbreaker" Moonie, having prepared Goose Blankenstein's favorite chicken recipe, Jersey White Chicken.
Goose: My mom used to make this before she died. It was not as good as this.
Gabrielle: That's a compliment I will pass on to our chef, Bubbles.
Amare: So! Goose, my co-author! Do you realize how excited news media types will be when we go on our book tour?
Gabrielle: I'll watch every interview.
Goose: Maybe I should play my guitar at some of them, huh?
Gabrielle: Do!
Amare: Nope. That would distract attention away from the--the, chief subject of the tour, i.e. the book. Bring your guitar, Goose, but uh--leave it in the penthouse suites.
Goose: The folk disagree with that idea, I'll bet. But let me sing, a cappella mind you, "Born For Fun."
Gabrielle: Let him, Amare.
Amare: I'll think about it. I'm sometimes flexible. It was a true joy writing a book with the Supervisor. How did you get that nickname, Goose?
Goose: (talking around a piece of chicken) When I was nineteen, a bit of twenty years old, I worked at a head shop in Newark. After one of the guys stopped showing up for work I got promoted to supervisor. They gave me keys to the store and everything.
Gabrielle: Such a mundane origin for such a legendary name!
Amare: He's married, Gaby.
Gabrielle: I'm too smart to provoke scandal.
Goose: I would think no one is.
Gabrielle: You haven't told me if you support my presidential run, Mr. Supervisor.
Goose: Oh, don't try to trick an old player while he's eating this lovely lunch. I did, you know, support Cassandra Blade in 2016.
Gabrielle: That's fine.
Goose: And your husband here in 2008 and 2012.
Gabrielle: Of course you did, you're one of us.
Goose: Blade or Bongo? I'm having lunch with Cassie Blade tomorrow. I'll know more at that time about where my contributions will drop into the political campaigning toilet. Let's enjoy this beautiful day. I brought my guitar.
Gabrielle: Please excuse me. Amare. Help me with something, please.
The couple enter Gabrielle's first floor office.
Gabrielle: You said he was on board with my campaign! Big contributions for my PACs from the Supervisor himself! You promised he'd write a campaign theme song for me! What happened to that?! And why is he acting so coy?
Amare: Now calm down. Goose, I guess, is playing the field. We're still uhhh..year out from the Convention. Lots to do, lots of cash to collect. You need to keep your cool. Goose probably knows we're talking about him. He's a sensitive guy. He's got a lot to do, so your campaign song might take a while, but I'll uh...nudge him a bit on the subject.
Gabrielle: He could have worn more than a tee shirt.
Amare: A natural. He's not impressed with power. Neither am I. I play with power like it's a handball.
Gabrielle: You can tell Goose I don't feel well. Something in the sauce on the chicken, perhaps.
Amare: You want me to play the food poisoning card?
Gabrielle: I have calls to make.
Amare: Sorry you feel this way, honey.
President Parris, Arthur Sneffen, Douglas Gard, Roy Holroyd (who looks like Gig Young), and Frodo Baggins (who doesn't look like Elijah Wood). Frodo reports on what he's observed brewing in the Lieden camp. His small size, along with that of his companion, Samwise "Sam" Gamgee, enables the pair to hide easily under desks or listen with their keen Hobbit ears even through brick walls, like the campaign headquarters building in Scranton housing also a beauty parlor, dermatology office, school supplies annex, New Age sundries shop, and pawn shop where one of Happy Lieden's handguns is on display.
Baggins and Gamgee frequent the neighborhood and visit nearby stores and eateries, overhearing conversations between Happy Lieden and General Beak, or between Moe Lieden and his attractive young campaign workers. They overhear Shirley Pellington, Moe Lieden's confidential secretary and advisor, speaking to her mother in Sharpnose, New Jersey. The mother has an abundance of advice to share. Shirley listens patiently...
Parris: (bending over three foot one Frodo Baggins, interrupting his report) Hey Frodo! Cut the details that don't matter! I don't care about Moe's secretary unless she's banging him. Is she?
Frodo: Do you mean--
Roy Holroyd: (a little slurry, having shown early, shot the shit with Parris, and helped himself to five glasses of straight bourbon after she declined his oft-repeated offer to have sex with him) She means fucking him, you little troll. Are you a troll?
Frodo: No, I'm what you Big People call a Halfling. We prefer to call ourselves Hobbits.
Holroyd: Hobbits. Rabbits. Babbitt. Have you read Sinclair Lewis?
Frodo: No, is he a chronicler?
Holroyd: Where are you from?
Frodo: Originally, from Buckland, but I moved to Hobbiton to live with my cousin Bilbo.
Holroyd: An inshesh--inshesh--an incestuous relationship?
Frodo: I don't understand.
Parris: He means did your cousin do sex things to you?
Frodo: (repelled) No!
Parris: Frodo, are Moe Lieden and this Shirley dame doing it?
Frodo: They enjoy each other's company, especially when Mr. Lieden capitulates to her requests or demands. She's a forceful woman. Sam finds her attractive.
Sneffen: Interspecies sex. Fascinating.
Roy Holroyd: (Pouring number six) What would come of a Hobbit-Human hybrid? A super-soldier candidate? Their sneakiness combined with a man's strength and cunning could produce an effective bipedal weapon. What degree of destruction could a Hu-bit bring about that an ordinary man, or woman, couldn't wreak? Did I use wreak correctly?
Sneffen: It doesn't matter.
Roy Holroyd: I have vision. My senses, though dulled, take me away to a time and place of my choosing, call it the future and its advanced weaponry. Frodo Baggins, I salute you, may you eavesdrop to your heart's content. Are you being paid?
Frodo Baggins: Payment has been promised.
Roy Holroyd: Where have you been staying?
Frodo: Sam and I share a large closet. It's the one where President Parris and I--
Parris: It's not a closet anymore, but a lovely bedroom with adorable short bunk beds. There's even a toilet and a tiny writing desk.
Holroyd: Are you describing a prison cell or a proper guest room? Put this Hobbit and his friend in a good hotel!
Parris: Don't yell at me Roy, and stop drinking my liquor without asking my permission!
Holroyd: May I have another drink?
Parris: Yes. Now Frodo, what can you tell us about Lieden's operation?
Frodo: May I have a drink? Wine, perhaps?
Parris: Roy? Open the Beaujolais, pour the man a drink.
Roy: Hobbit, some day a Hu-bit.
Sneffen: Tell us how Moe is doing, Mr. Baggins, start with that.
Frodo: Though he seems as old as Gandalf, his wits lack sharpness, but dullness aplenty, combined with sudden bursts of speech, much of it crazed.
Parris: Sounds like the Moe we know. How's his relationship with his son, Happy?
Frodo: Happy Lieden is a simple-minded Big Person. And pathetic. On June the third he mentioned to his father how he, Happy, was well-liked by their crooked business partners in Ukraine, China, and Romania, because of his father, who was Vice President at the time. I understand you, Madame President, were Vice President.
Parris: (hand on her bosom) I was.
Frodo: You didn't do anything like what Vice President Lieden did, did you?
Parris: What--
Frodo: I ask because if you have, you will appear to be a hypocrite to the voters.
Parris: (laughing) Listen to the political analyst. I know a few people at MSNBC. Would you like to be a pundit?
Roy: They can build a special chair for him.
Frodo: I know you Big People look down on us--
Roy and Sneffen both laugh.
Frodo: --but as Gandalf said, we Hobbits are full of surprises. Did you know we have post offices?
Parris: Well so do we, Mr. Boaster! We have nuclear weapons, does the Shire have nuclear weapons?
Frodo: No, and I'm glad for that.
Roy: The Shire needs nukes to protect it from countries like the U.S. Is there any country in Middle-earth like the U.S.?
Frodo: Hmm. Mordor, I guess, comes the closest.
Sneffen: We'll take that as a compliment.
Frodo: It wasn't meant as one.
Parris: I tried to read the book you come from, Frodo, but it's too big. Not that it's beyond my intelligence--I was the Attorney General of California--it's just that I don't have time for epic fantasy.
Sneffen: You're too busy contributing to the epic failure of this great country.
Parris: Artie, you little rat anus, don't criticize me in front of the shrimp.
Frodo: What does shrimp mean?
Sneffen: No seafood restaurants in the Shire, I suppose. You Hobbits, according to your creator, are ignorant about the sea, which isn't very far away. You're an incurious lot.
Frodo: We know it's there, we just don't go there. I mean, why go there?
Sneffen: In the book you go there at the end; you sail away into the sunset. You must've left Middle-earth to come here before you went to the Grey Havens.
Frodo: Grey Havens!? Where the Elves go to the Undying Lands in beautifully crafted ships?
Sneffen: Yes, or maybe you're in the Undying Lands?
Parris: We die here, Artie.
Sneffen: Imagine this: a fictional character, voila Frodo Baggins, and Sam Spade, and the three others we know of, enter our reality, a reality where the character's creator existed or exists. The mind that gave a fictional reality to Baggins here, a world for him to play in--
Frodo: (holds up his four-fingered hand) And lose my finger in!
Sneffen: --has done the impossible; that is, manifested a series of thoughts that somehow entered our reality. Tolkien could meet you, Mr. Baggins, if he were alive.
Frodo: I've heard the name before. Who is this Tolkien?
Sneffen: It would be fascinating to observe Baggins as he reads The Lord of the Rings. Dinah, why don't you gift him with a copy?
Parris: I'll loan him the White House Library British first editions. Otherwise I'd have to buy it. Can you read English, Frodo?
Frodo: I can read Sindarin, Quenya, Hobbitish, and, of course, Westron, which is just like English.
Parris: That's a heckuva coincidence. Now Frodo, is your friend Sam Gamgee good at spying?
Frodo: Nobody sticks his fat nose in other people's business like good old Sam. Smeagol was like that. When Smeagol took the One Ring from his friend and killed him he became the sneak he always wanted to be, though with a guilty conscience. After talking about it with Gandalf, I believed there might be a seed of goodness in Smeagol.
Parris: I guess I could listen to the book so I know what you're talking about.
Frodo: The book speaks?
Roy bursts out laughing, ice cubes tinkling in his eighth drink. Artie titters.
Parris: (to Frodo, smiling) Honey, you remind me of a tribe in Borneo or some place hot and jungle-like, like you've never seen a radio, or heard a victrola.
Frodo: A victrola, what's--
Parris, Roy, and Sneffen, laugh hard.
Lieden Campaign Headquarters, Scranton, Pennsylvania. Moe, Happy, Moe's confidential secretary Shirley Pellington, General Beak. The window behind Moe's head, open wide, gives on to a rubbly and weedy vacant lot, once home to a Gulf gas station where teenaged Moe earned his green as a gas jockey.
Lieden: In those days we had big cars. Lots of gas went in those cars. Gas was cheap, too, and plentiful. My old man drove a yellow fifty-three Packard Clipper. I balled Betty Jean Mallory in that Packard. Packed it in good (chuckles, joined by Happy) Or was it Felicia Munster? No, it was Betty Jean. Good hips, ass that didn't want to quit, thick and luxurious hair, Morris Lieden was a man that night. She could've been your mother, Happy.
Happy: Well, maybe in a parallel universe she is. I miss my real Mom.
Lieden: Yeah, good woman. Knew how to make my eggs just right. Scrambled. I heard someone on Fox say my brains are scrambled. Well, if they are, serve em up, I love scrambled eggs! And hair.
General Beak, in full uniform, stands and walks near the window.
Beak: Let's focus on the reason we're here today.
Shirley: That's a good idea, General.
Beak: I know, Shirley. I don't require reinforcement from you. Our strategy moving forward must focus on striking at, debate-wise, Cassandra Blade, exposing her weaknesses, stating the atrocious facts of her long career of destruction and self-gain.
Shirley: Mrs. Blade? What are you talking about? I thought we're going after--
Beak holds a finger suddenly to his lips, silencing her and everyone else.
Beak: Yes, Mrs. Blade, the Demon Queen.
Beak stabs his left arm downward through the open window, turns his body to pull up a struggling and sputtering shape in a brown waistcoat, green patched trousers and no shoes. Bushes of brown curly hair top his large feet. A thoroughly unattractive biped, thinks Shirley. The little person gets placed gently on the floor before Moe's desk. He gives Shirley a shy smile before looking at Moe.
Lieden: (leans forward, grinning) Hello little fella, would you like some candy? This is America, we give candy. What are you, a dwarf?
Sam Gamgee: Absolutely not, sir. I'm a Hobbit, by the name of Gamgee, Sam Gamgee, at your service (bows).
Lieden: You're a polite little fucker, considering you're spying on my campaign.
Sam: No sir!
Lieden: Okay okay, I'll assume for the moment you're sincere. My name is Morris Lieden, I'm the President of the United States, or I was. I'm gonna get my job back, you'll see.
Beak: What were you doing by that window?
Sam Gamgee: Just resting.
Beak: Where are you on your way to?
Sam Gamgee: I'm looking for an inn. Can you recommend one?
Happy: I can hook you up. Do you like cocaine?
Sam Gamgee: I've never had it.
Happy: I envy you. To snort for the first time again! Boy, what I'd give to relive my life, not make the mistakes I made, find a better and more loving father, no offense, Dad--
Lieden: None taken.
Happy: And learn to stop leaving my guns in weird places, and that laptop, boy, what a kerfuffle!
Beak: (to Sam) You were eavesdropping.
Sam Gamgee: I weren't droppin no eaves, sir, no sir!
Beak: You're like this in the book. We have to accept you as you are, I guess.
Sam Gamgee: Hm, well, I swear, I needed rest so I sat against the wall under the window. That there's a window there didn't poke my thoughts at all.
Lieden: Who do you work for, Tiny?
Sam Gamgee: No one. I'm unemployed.
Lieden: What do you do for a living?
Sam Gamgee: I'm a gardener for a Hobbit of leisure, but I'm not doing that now.
Beak: Spying on this campaign, perhaps?
Sam Gamgee: Campaign? Are you planning to go a-conquerin?
Shirley: He seems real. He acts like this isn't his world.
Sam Gamgee: Feel my arm. I am real.
Shirley: Back off, short round!
Sam Gamgee: (tight-lipped)Well, I must be going.
Lieden: You're not going anywhere just yet, little man.
Sam Gamgee: I'm not a Man.
Lieden: Look Fat, here's the score, the big Watusi. Did you know Valkyries would carry the slain into the sky to the realm of Valhalla to eat at Odin's table. Sound familiar?
Sam Gamgee: I haven't heard that tale. It sounds fascinating. I love hearing tales, sir.
Lieden: (to the others, sitting back) He's not of Germanic origin, doesn't know the myths. Does the name Woden mean anything to you?
Sam Gamgee: No.
Lieden: Woden, another name for Odin, the eyepatch god, like in the Thor movies. Tony Hopkins played Odin, should've gotten a Best Supporter Actor Academy Award statuette. Why don't the most deserving performers receive the Academy Award statuettes? Tony Hopkins in The Bounty as Captain Bligh should've been awarded the Best Actor Academy Award statuette!
Shirley: I think it's nap time, Moe.
Lieden: I WILL NOT SLEEP UNTIL THE ACADEMY GETS ITS SHIT TOGETHER!!!
Beak: Mr. President, please. Now Mr. Gamgee, my name is General Beak--
Sam Gamgee: You're in some army, then?
Beak: (slow burn about being called an Army man) Those grunting nothings do their business on the ground while I lead the instrumentality that will voyage into and explore and conquer and exploit worlds galore. I am Supreme Commanding Officer of Space Force!
Sam Gamgee: Me, I'm a fellow who likes getting his hands dirty, with real dirt.
Beak: You will recede in the collective rear view mirror of our Death Fleet.
Sam Gamgee: I'm not sure what you and your colleagues here are talking about half the time, but it feels funny inside to me, like you're hiding something dark, and maybe evil. You're like poor Boromir. He gave in to temptation. The Ring snared him. He paid the price. Lots of arrows stuck in him.
Lieden: I want to smell some hair. Shirley, come here, sit on your president's lap.
Shirley: I'll make coffee, instead.
Sam Gamgee: I'll stand for a cup of tea.
Lieden: How can we turn you to our side? Beak, maybe send him back as a double agent? What kind of leverage might we have on this tree stump-sized miracle?
Happy: The word is he came to this world with Frodo Baggins. You're really close to him, right?
Sam: Yes, he's a fine Hobbit, and generous. I never want for free beer.
Happy: Does he have cocaine?
Sam: No, I don't think so.
Lieden: What's your point, son?
Happy: Well, the key to controlling Sam is to make Frodo's life subject to a possible termination if Sam doesn't cooperate. I mean, I could try to go back to Dinah and give her my loving again but she gave me the impression she's not interested in my attentions.
Lieden: She thought better of it after she saw your prick.
Happy: THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH MY PRICK!!!
Beak: Sit down, Happy. Now, I think you've offered us our best shot. We either kill Sam Gamgee right here--the trigger-person will be selected with toothpicks--or we suborn him into spying for us, a White House contact, more reliable than the other Sam, Mr. Spade, proved to be. Well Sam, would you like to be shot to death? Or would you like to work for the Lieden Campaign secretly, while overtly working for the Parris Campaign?
Sam: What does "overtly" mean?
Lieden: What's done on the surface, Mr. College.
Sam: I choose survival. I only got into this business because Mr. Frodo became involved with President Parris. I must say, she's quite a lady, but I think her power-seeking makes her a little scary.
Lieden: She's swamp gas! She'll lead you astray. After I defeat her next year for the nomination I will put her number one on my shit list, bump Bill Bomb from the number one spot, put him at two. (Looks at the ceiling) Dinah Parris! I will take you down, I will pin you to the mat for the count of three! The ref will slap the mat, the bell will sound, I'll be declared the winner, the ref will hold aloft my arm, one of the arms I used to hug you when we met that night in 2020 and I asked you to be my Veep. No masks,
champagne, staff members getting wasted, Tom Hanks and Spielberg shedding money with their donations. Dinah and I got along at first. She gave me a quizzical look when I asked the name of her shampoo. I told her I wanted my wife, Dr. Amanda Lieden, to switch shampoos to hers. Poo (laughs).
Sam: I understand your words mostly, sir, but I fail to get your point. I meant what I said about looking for an inn. Also a tankard of the local ale.
Beak: Shirley, how about you order our spy some food and drink from Johnson's.
Shirley: Sure thing. Mr. Gamgee, are you a dark beer drinker, or do you like lagers or what?
Sam: Sounds good!
General Beak meets Hector Farrbarrhuber in his Cadillac Brougham at a random Washington, D.C. location. Beak, paranoid, turns on the radio, a Monkees song comes on.
Hector: You like the golden oldies.
Beak: I like music of the 1960s, yes. I was growing up then, I heard it often, I liked it. It's not an incongruous characteristic.
Hector: Some of that music was about protesting the Vietnam War, about peace, you know, like Crosby, Stills and Nash and the Mamas and Papas were on the peace side of things.
Beak: I don't pay attention to lyrics or words in songs. It's the melody, it's the rhythm. This song now, "Hush" by Deep Purple. I remember hearing it for the first time, who I was with, the kind of beer we were drinking, Ballantine. This song is fresh to me, even after fifty-five years.
Hector: How old are you?
Beak: Seventy-seven.
Hector: No.
Beak: How old do I look?
Hector: Seventy-three.
Beak: You're a kook, Farrbarrhuber. Listen up. We need you to be on hand to possibly kill Frodo Baggins.
Hector: Okay. Why?
Beak: Never mind why...where are you going?
Hector: You want me to kill someone, you share details when I ask questions, otherwise...
Beak: Very well, and do not slam my Brougham's passenger door! If it becomes necessary to carry through with a certain threat, we will ask you to terminate Baggins.
Hector: What about his partner?
Beak: His partner?
Hector: Yeah, Sam Gamgee, son of Hamfast. I read the book. Have you located Gamgee?
Beak: Yes. He came to the Campaign office.
Hector: How did he get there?
Beak: Walked on his furry feet, I guess.
Hector: No, he got a ride, or took the Amtrak, or bussed from Washington to Scranton. He was sighted in Washington two days ago. Who's he working for?
Beak: You can guess.
Hector: The Blades?
Beak: President Parris.
Hector: Interesting. Why do you want me to maybe kill Frodo Baggins?
Beak: (proudly, arms folded) Leverage.
Hector: Pressuring Sam to fold to you.
Beak: Exactly.
Hector: I wouldn't underestimate these Hobbits. They made it to Mount Doom after all.
Beak: But Baggins failed to carry out the purpose of his quest's design.
Hector: No, the thing unfolded the way it was supposed to. No one could get rid of that Ring. It's possessed of an evil and ensnaring intelligence that is the intelligence and cunning and guile and craftiness of Sauron himself.
Beak: You've clearly gained more from the book than I did. Setting that aside, you will be on hand to strike against Baggins if necessary.
Hector: I haven't accepted the assignment yet.
Beak: You said "Okay."
Hector: "Okay" as in "Yes, tell me more"?
Beak: Hector the Quibbler!
Hector: Beak the Blowhard. Okay, I'll take the assignment, fifty-thousand in advance, cash, out of sequence bills, put them in a manila envelope, seal the envelope, place it in a cheap briefcase you'll pay for or maybe you have one laying around your office. Deliver the case with envelope with cash inside to this address.
Gives him an address, Beak notes it down in a little moleskin notebook.
Hector: After I've eliminated Baggins, I want a million dollars, cash. Like with the fifty-thousand, but put that in a suitcase.
Beak: A fantastic sum!
Hector: If I don't kill him you give me another two-hundred and fifty-thousand, for all the risks I've taken as your employee. I seek to be done with you people, with this evil town.
Beak: You kill people!
Hector: So do you. I want to be free to start over. I want to start my world tour in Cyprus. I don't know why. It looks like a place to relax until I figure out what to do.
Beak: I will bomb Cyprus from space if you quit before President Lieden gets elected again! Come on, Hector, stay with the team!
Hector: I still want the million, Cyprus or no, or the three-hundred thousand if it comes to that. Accept my offer or not, it's the only one I'm making Whatever you decide, I'll still have a nice lunch after this dignified car meeting.
Beak: I'll get Shirley to relocate money from a bloated PAC.
Hector: Good. See? There's always a way to compromise.
Beak: A win for you is not a compromise I prefer. I should've offered the job to another.
Hector: Do you know other hit men?
Beak: Not at this time.
Hector: Bump my fist, it's lunch time.
To be continued
Vic Neptune
