Chet Free designs a new Oval Office, one sporting vivid greens, purples, black accents, and cream contours. For the sake of a televised and hyped "Big Reveal," President Parris works from hers and Doug's bedroom. At times wearing her robe and drinking coffee from a lipstick-marked porcelain cup, President Parris looks like shit during her morning video conferences with dignitaries who look as if they started their days earlier than did President Parris.
Another drawback: Doug Gard, First Gentleman, wandering about in pajamas, or naked, or standing with a cup of coffee and wearing just one sock while his wife talked with the President of Pakistan.
Doug tried to sneak peeks into the work being done in the Oval Office. He tried to pull rank. Chet Free was having none of it.
Chet: Your authority, Doug, does not outweigh President Parris's authority. I work for her, not you.
Doug: I could offer you a job.
Chet: Doing what?
Doug: Put a camera in my wife's office. I've got it right here. Small, huh? Like something a raccoon would operate, a trained one, of course.
Chet: Why do you want to spy on your wife?
Doug: It's for her own good. I'm protecting her from scandal. Scandal can bring down a government. Have you ever caught the whiff of scandal? It's got a particular whiff.
Chet: I didn't know.
Doug: I think you're not going to plant this camera in Dinah's office, so I'll be moseying along, playing my banjo if I had a banjo. Dinah won't let me play musical instruments.
Chet: You sound as if you've been deprived of life's fun.
Doug: You know it, Chet. I hope you give my loving bride a fantastic office.
Chet: She'll love it.
The "Big Reveal" is shown on News About Famous People. Hostess Morgan Tuck, present at the Reveal, asks President Parris before the reveal happens:
Morgan Tuck: Madame President. Morgan Tuck, NAFP--
Parris: Oh baby, I watch you all the time! I love the shorter hair--how's little Ronald?
Morgan Tuck: Ronald is fine, thank you.
Parris (looks at the camera, laughs) That's her son! Little Ronny Tuck!
Morgan Tuck: Are you expecting to be surprised by Chet Free's design?
Parris: I expect professional quality. I expect professional quality I expect the dignity of the office to be preserved but blended with some kind of...quality Chet Free expression. He's very expensive. High quality.
Chet and an assistant open the door, in walks President Parris. The walls have been painted in a dense tropical jungle motif. Drum music of Africa plays on hidden stereo. The TankDesk is gone, replaced by a bamboo desk. Straw mats on the floor where the carpeting has been ripped out to be replaced with concrete with a layer of sand and dirt over it. An iguana named Frank rests on a stick by an aquarium; a pith helmet and several 1930s hats and a closet filled with 1930s clothes. Chet believes the thirties is her decade, fashion-wise. Doug enters the room.
Doug: Surely, Chet, you could've included a coffee pot.
Chet: But I did. Behind the chunk of decorative raw cobalt.
Doug: I stand corrected. I almost expect to meet Tarzan in this room. Is Tarzan part of this design?
Chet: Yes.
Doug: He's probably watching us.
Chet: Madame President! What do you think of my creation?
Parris: It grows on me, Chet.
Later, a newly discovered Paul Newman film from 1964, The Goldfarb/Newman Contract, is shown in the White House movie theater six levels below the surface. A movie palace with gilded fixtures, also a mental readjustment auditorium for White House employees doubting the Cause. A half-dozen of these malcontents, all of them sarcastic, watch the film with the dignitaries, the louts sitting in back, yelling at the screen at times, but then, dignitaries too offer snide comments about what they see as the film's poor quality and uneven pacing.
Paul Newman plays Ira Goldfarb. Zero Mostel plays Ashkelon Newman. They run a private detective agency in Lower Manhattan. A missing persons case comes to their door, occupying the film, as they become targets of The Boss (Robert Ryan) and an unlucky assassin who fails to kill Goldfarb and Newman fifteen times. This Clouseau of hit men, played by Bobby Darin at night and Fabian in the day scenes, represents a daring experiment confusing to audiences in 1964.
Almost completely forgotten, even Paul Newman said he had no memory of the film. Zero Mostel, however, admitted his involvement.
"We thought we were doing good work, with a good script, the director had two hits in a row, Newman! Mostel! Pairing of the century! First of a series, oh, thank the almighty that didn't happen!"
Doug Gard sits next to his wife, President Dinah Parris. She enjoys looking at Paul Newman, can't concentrate on the film's plot.
Doug: (whispers) Dinah dear.
President Parris: Yes, Doug?
Doug: I'm bored.
Parris: Just another hour. We're halfway through the movie.
Doug: It's no good.
' Parris: It's interesting.
Doug: You just say that to be diplomatic. You end up sounding nice, not like a leader, an iron queen of destruction. Let's get out of here and fuck in the deep-most chamber of this crust-penetrating unseen White House!
Parris: Everybody heard what you just said. Get out of here, wait for me in our upstairs regular bedroom. Read a book.
Doug: The Sirens of Titan. I don't understand it.
Parris: Try The Martian Chronicles. It's on my bed stand.
Doug: I shall! (Kisses her cheek, turns to the screen) Oh film! End soon!
Parris (stands and addresses her fellow audience members): My husband, the First Gentleman and I are practicing for a little one act play we intend to perform at the next party.
Arthur Sneffen, Secretary of State, sidles into the seat next to the President's.
Sneffen: Douglas is horny again, what a surprise.
Dinah: Shut up! What do you want?
Sneffen: No one is concerned about Douglas, so he can behave any way he wishes. I don't believe he knows he's a jackass who lives within a cloud of embarrassing statements.
Dinah: I'm trying to watch the movie.
Sneffen: This shit? The entire thing is CGI.
Dinah: That's not Paul Newman?
Sneffen: A mere image.
Dinah: Huh!
Sneffen: The Executive Branch's Entertainment Division is making CGI movies, bringing back old stars. Want to see Lassie with young Harrison Ford? How about Paul Newman in Deliverance instead of Jon Voight?
Dinah: Why is my branch doing this?
Sneffen: They're making piles of entertainment to enjoy and pass the time with in the bunkers.
Dinah: I want to see Vivien Leigh in The Wizard of Oz.
Sneffen: That can be made.
Dinah: This film is terrible. The dialogue. My computer Paul Newman said "Well shucks, I guess that about does it, you ornery cuss."
Sneffen: The CIA's AI Roberto Cylindrico wrote the script.
Dinah: You don't say? Give me the scriptwriting prowess of I.A.L. Diamond and Billy Wilder in an AI and I'll watch that movie!
Sneffen: I'll see what I can do.
Dinah: You have a hand in this?
Sneffen: In everything, Madame President.
Dinah: Paul Newman, you still look good as a digital construct.
Now a scene with Zero Mostel in a bathroom stall, overhearing Bruce Dern and Robert Forster discussing which one of them is going to kill Goldfarb. Mostel's funniest physical feature, as a form of emotional expression, his eyes, undergo deep strains of concern listening to Bruce Dern drone on about how he killed the last two, it's "your turn." "I went to high school with Goldfarb. I can't kill a classmate, class of forty-four, the best of all classes! I caught Goldfarb's touchdown pass in the winning Champion game of December forty-three. He was my best man at my second wedding." "Okay," Dern says, "I'll kill him." They leave, Mostel pulls up his pants, flushes, washes his hands, looks in the mirror, agonized, must find Goldfarb, who mysteriously vanishes from the film, appearing in a small capacity in one scene, seated on a floor at a party, playing an acoustic guitar. Someone asks for him, he puts down the guitar and goes to the door. Robert Forster, Goldfarb's friend, lays flowers on his grave, helicopter shot, theme music, something from 1970, full orchestra, steady beat.
Dinah: (addressing the audience) Splendid. Now I want to thank all of you for attending this screening of a lost Paul Newman film.
One of the louts in back: It's a CGI, Madame President! It was made last month by Herbie Munton, who's sitting next to me.
Dinah: You did a fine job, Herbie! I have a commission for you. I want a Wizard of Oz but with Vivien Leigh playing Dorothy instead of Judy Garland.
Herbie Munton: Who are these names?
Dinah: Oooh, generation gap! I'll fill you in, baby. Give you a screening of The Wizard of Oz.
General Bomb: I thought this film rather loosely hung together, a wisp of gossamer, something fragile like a cobweb, and just as unappealing when hitting one's face. Bad film, bad script, bad acting by the computer programs, what's the world coming to, can't see a film without wondering if it's a computer program, computer animation, computer this, computer that? I want good old TNT! I want gunpowder. I want steel hulls, aerodynamic airframes, spaceships that go seventy percent the speed of light--we have them now, why don't we use them?
Dinah: General, you need to take a chill pill. I have my own pill to attend to.
She finds Doug naked, sipping a martini on their bed, The Martian Chronicles spread open pages down on the bed cover.
Doug: Just taking a break from Mars, dear.
Dinah: Good, Doug.
Doug: I'm ready for sex.
Dinah: Doug, I'm not, and you know, I'm not really into doing that tonight.
Doug: Oh, why not, sugar bowl? Doug can make you feel good, you know that, why not capitalize on it? Use me.
Dinah: Not tonight.
Doug: It's frustrating to be rejected. I'll have to find some porn to watch, or perhaps I'll use my imagination.
Dinah: Suit yourself. I'll make it up to you. You'll see.
Doug: You're the best.
Lieden Campaign Headquarters, Busy Office in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Moe Lieden, seated behind his scuffed wooden desk, faces his surviving son, Happy, Biff having died of cancer some eight or so years before, leaving behind the son of lesser character, the dumb son, the fiercely loyal son, the fuck-up son, the crack cocaine-loving son, the thoughtless exhibitionist son, the closet gun enthusiast son, the son collecting paychecks for sitting on boards whether present at the meetings or not. In any case, Happy's expertise lay in his genetic profile. His father had been a powerful Senator, then the Vice President of the United States, then President until illegally overthrown by General Bomb and Vice President Parris. Businessmen in a slew of countries wanted to know Happy Lieden. Get to know Happy became a whispered comment among numerous covens of businessmen and -women. Happy lived an extravagant lifestyle. In the shadow of his brother, Biff, whose only flaw was having stolen a pen, Happy Lieden acted out, as any son of a rich prick would do. He had crack, he had meth, he had pot, he had heroin, mescaline, LSD, DMT, Oxycontin, whatever he wanted, including girlfriends to get high with. Son of a great politician, the Senate's Friend of Amtrak.
General Beak, Moe Lieden's campaign manager, sits to the side in shadow.
Happy: I swear, Dad. I forgot about that cocaine. When I lived there with you and Step-mother I had cocaine stashed all over the place.
Moe: Sneaky boy. Why can't you shake your addiction to this stuff?
Happy: Because it's an addiction.
Moe: (leans forward, low voice) I indulge my addictions.
Happy: I'm supposed to not give in to them.
Moe: How are you doin with that, sport?
Happy: I want to steal things. I want to vandalize. I want to eat spicy food, spill it on the camera lens because I'm f-ed up on crack. I want to run for president.
General Beak: You what?!
Happy: I'd have a good chance challenging you, Dad. A real father and son Democratic Primary. It'll make big ratings.
Moe: Go ahead, primary me, sheep turned to wolf. No nation of mine is going to want you as president.
Happy: I straddle the youth and old votes, being in my fifties. I just broke up with a twenty-one year old accountant from Romania.
Moe: Finger on the pulse of youth, huh? Did she have nice hair?
Happy: A deep rich dark brown.
Moe: I envy you.
Happy: Thanks, Dad.
General Beak: The good news is, the cocaine found in the White House Library is a story diminishing in the collective rear view mirror of the news hungry automobile.
Happy: Library? I thought this was about the cocaine I stashed in the Lincoln Bedroom!
General Beak: Which is still there?
Moe: Son, you have a way of disappointing me every time, how do you do it? Well, I love you, and if you want to challenge dear old Dad for the job, go to it. May the best Lieden win. Fist bump me, son.
In a bookstore across the street from the Executive Office Building, two men wearing old-fashioned tweed suits with wide lapels and carnations, one white, the other pink. Both have narrow mustaches just above their lips. The thinner one has been in this world of Washington and the Parris Administration for a while, working currently for the President. The other, debonair, polite, always ready with a light, arrived in recent weeks along with his wife Nora. This couple, Nick and Nora Charles, know they're from a novel taking place around 1933, but they must adjust to this 2023 world.
Sam Spade looks Nick Charles over.
Sam Spade: You have the look of a man out of place.
Nick Charles: I do? Nick Charles, and you are?
Sam Spade: Spade, Sam Spade.
Nick Charles: Ace of Spades, no doubt. Looking for something to read?
Sam Spade: I found it. I'm wondering if I should buy it after having perused its contents.
Nick Charles: Not up to snuff?
Sam Spade: Drivel.
Nick Charles: Hard cheese. Well, there is a wealth of books here. I'm looking for Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn. Do you know it?
Sam Spade: I miss those days of running around barefoot.
Nick Charles: Tell me, dear chap, what's the book you might want to buy?
Sam Spade: Dinah Parris's campaign autobiography, The Task Bestowed.
Nick Charles: Sounds intriguing. I met the lady. A negress.
Sam Spade: A wildcat.
Nick Charles: I beg your pardon?
Sam Spade: Scratch that. Here it is. Nice cover photo. You can't hear her laughing. Good.
Nick Charles: (Reading) "I lowered my arm toward the flame. Mary Joe Rothschild and Vera Kubitz-Blanchard chanted, 'You stink! You stink! You stink!' After five hours of that I believed it. I stunk! Not just a physical rank stink, but as a person, as a college student, a coed, a former cheerleader, a student congress presidential nominee, a pot-smoking rap-lovin' gal with a drive alive, baby!" Her style is hard to describe.
Sam Spade: She has no style of her own. She's a hollow entity. Something God rolled off his arm as an afterthought.
Nick Charles: A vivid description.
Sam Spade: I'll buy the damned book.
Nora Charles meets her husband Nick in their hotel suite overlooking Central Park. The champagne is plentiful, the cigars unlimited, perfect service, much like the Waldorf, Nora muses. She's polishing her nails. Pale creamy pink polish. Nick enters.
Nick: My sweet, my precious, I trust you secured the document?
Nora: I did, ghosted right in there, removed it as a will-o-the-wisp spins, and I wore gloves while I did it, the white leather ones.
Nick: I bought you those.
Nora: No, my sister did. She bought me my first gun, too. Big sister looked out for little sis. She taught me a lot.
Nick: How is poor Sandra?
Nora: She still thinks Napoleon won Waterloo and other loony opinions but she knows me, and she knows Mother.
Nick: Open sesame.
Nora: What's that, Nicky?
Nick: The sound of a popped cork is imminent, my dear.
Nora: I'm not in the mood, if that's what you're talking about.
Nick: Not in the mood for champagne? Leaving the magic brew unwanted? Oh magic brew! You stimulate my senses, you put me in the mood to--
Nora: Nicky! I said I'm not in the mood.
Nick: When we get paid off--
Nora: If.
Nick: If, when, however, I'm trying to make a point! You shatter me with your looks, even as you bewilder me with your feminine stratagems. To cope, I choose to get drunk!
Dissolve to a room covered with overturned ashtrays, bottles strewn about, a man and a woman unconscious on the floor. Nora, wearing a nightgown, enters, shakes her head in dismay, though she was part of the party. They invited over Sam Spade, Moe and Happy Lieden, President Parris (did not attend).
Moe Lieden emerges from behind a couch.
Moe: Where am I?
Nora Charles: You're in my hotel suite. Who are you?
Moe: Moe Lieden, President of the United States.
Nora: Oh! You're important!
Moe: THE MOST IMPORTANT MAN!
Nora: Why are you shouting?
Moe: I'm sorry, darling. Say, you're a fine-looking gal. Have you ever considered older men?
Nora: Considered them in what way?
Moe: As in sex partners. Are you a little slow on the uptake? That's all right. I don't know what I'm doing most of the time. It's like my head is filled with a druggy mush. They gave me drugs made of pulverized alien exoskeletons, kid you not. I'm part Krang now.
Nora: I think you want to talk to my husband. He knows a good alienist.
Moe: So, no chance of doing the nasty with this eighty year old specimen?
Nora: Doing the nasty? I don't know what that means.
Moe: Oh, you're a treasure, an angel of innocence. Bet you're a virgin too, huh?
Nora: I mentioned my husband.
Moe: You consummated the marriage?
Nora: I don't like this line of questioning. Begone, or wait here while I wake up my husband.
She goes for her revolver, a small but handy weapon. Nick greets the former President heartily.
Nick: Mr. President, I see you've taken our request that all our guests feel free to stretch out if they need to pass out. Did you take a couch?
Moe: The floor.
Nick: Now what's this about bothering my wife?
Moe: What are you talking about? I thought we were friends!
Nick: Calm down.
Moe: Friends!
Nick: Right, friends. As a friend, why don't you tell me if you were bothering my wife?
Moe: Listen, she's a tough gal. A smart gal. A pretty gal, if you know what I mean.
Nick: I'm familiar with prettiness. Nora has a bit of an upturned nose, a little imperfection I find enchanting.
Moe: I'm an earlobe man. Give me some good lobes to nibble on and I'm sky high with all around body pleasure. I'm a sensualist, like my son Happy.
Nora (reentering the room): Are you referring to Happy Lieden, attorney, son of a president, board member in more than a few corporations--
Moe: The second best damn son I'll ever have.
Nick: I hadn't heard about another son.
Moe: Biff. He perished of cancer. His dying wish was for me to run for the presidency but I wussed out. You hear me, Biff!? Your old man threw an airball at the crucial moment in the game! The game was America. Well I got mine back. Those gullible fools elected me over Don Richman. Then Bomb, that odious prick of a General, William Bomb, usurped my authority, my seat, my office, the contents of my desk drawer--I didn't get my stuff back, even pens and push pins, until a month later, as if they combed through my stuff, my one and only stuff! You're awfully pretty, Nora. May I call you Nora?
Nora: (resigned. She knows she can show him the gun if he tries anything) It's my name.
Moe: Nick, do you know a man named Sam Spade?
Nick: Interesting you should mention that. I met Mr. Spade in a book shop not twenty minutes ago.
Moe: Am I imagining that Sam Spade was here last night? Is it possible to have a party in one apartment, like this one, say, and meanwhile in a different dimension there's an alternate apartment in the same "space" and an alternate party is going on?
Nick: Sam Spade hasn't been in this suite. Last I saw of him he was buying President Parris's book.
Moe: Oh, that book! Dostoyevsky it's not!
Nick: I agree.
Moe: It's self-indulgent. It's risqué...oh, that college party scene. I wonder if her party took place in the same meta-sphere as another party?
Nick: That's neither here nor there.
Moe: Exactly, neither here nor there. Somewhere in between, like in a movie when it dissolves. And collage is like this. Images glued together not having any relation, but the relation happens when the work is finished. I have work to do. I will finish the work. (Top of his lungs) I WILL FINISH THE WORK!!!
The Oval Office. Drums on the stereophonic hi-fi, the holographic image of Tarzan creeping about the room, sometimes letting loose with a Weissmuller yell. Dinah Parris loves the Tarzan, she loves the room.
She finds the pageantry of Washington D.C. architecture and interior design (all that colonial crap with overtones of Greco-Roman gigantism) boring. She'd move the capital to Taiwan if she could. She knows a chip billionaire who's offered thirty six billion dollars to house the U.S. capital within Taipei.
Arthur Sneffen sits on the edge of the bamboo desk, toying with a letter opener depicting the presidents on Mount Rushmore.
Parris: I'm not going to bother moving the capital. This Taiwanese man, Chu or something, like something you do with your mouth.
Sneffen: Tok Chu, the four time champion surfer?
Parris: No, I mean the billionaire. He took me up in his skyscraper. Eighty-sixth floor master bedroom. A ballroom. Rec room, he has it all. Servants who appear out of nowhere and vanish just the same way. I got too drunk to remember what happened, but I woke up on the couch in front of a huge TV--it was playing Dennis the Menace with Jay North. Boy, that kid gets into things! If he were my child I'd make him the CIA Director.
Sneffen: You need to appoint a new Director.
Parris: I've been getting along fine with Forsyth Tenner, the acting CIA Director until further notice.
Sneffen: Whose further notice?
Parris: Mine, Arthur. You've guessed it. I control Forsyth Tenner, he will do anything for me--
Sneffen: You seduced him.
Parris: It only took ten minutes.
Sneffen: He is a Tenner.
Parris: A very nice, obedient boy. He's coming in here but quick. Get out.
Sneffen: I want to be in on your tete a tete with young Tenner.
Intercom sounds. Secretary announces Mr. Tenner is here in the outer office. Entering, Parris sees his daring white socks and polished leather brown wingtips, brown pinstripe suit. He glances about at the Oval Office's jungle motif.
Parris: Mr. Tenner. Mr. Sneffen.
Sneffen: I'm a fan, Mr. Tenner.
Tenner: Please, call me Syth.
Sneffen: I suspect I shan't.
Parris: Please be seated, Syth. By your President, on the couch before the fireplace where Lyndon Johnson burned every document connecting him to the JFK murder. Artie, why don't you skip along. You've got things to do.
Sneffen: I find I can't leave.
Parris: Very well. If I insult you to your face don't be surprised.
Sneffen: I live for such blows.
Geneva Parth's campaign video, edited by her seventeen year old great-nephew, Clu Parth, that much talked about host of Teen Beat, the most popular net channel for high school squares. Good clean fun, the wholesome part of Geneva Parth's entertainment empire, based in Trenton, New Jersey, in a gray office on the thirteenth (called the fourteenth) floor of a bank building, an office with nothing in it.
The video opens with a Ken Burns effect on a laughing photo of Dinah Parris, blue suit jacket, cream blouse, American flag pin in the lapel.
Narrator (actor Lorne Greene, but a computerized version, drawing on many seasons of Bonanza and his time as Adama on Battlestar Galactica, and also the movie Peyton Place--oh yes, and Griff, his short-lived detective show): Even as a little girl, Dinah Lynn Parris opened her heart to "fweedom." Yes, fweedom. A police officer, coming across little Dinah at a freedom rally, separated from her mama, asked her, "What do you want?" and was surprised to hear the little girl proclaim, "Fweedom."
Dinah Parris brings this idea to America, to the world. Dedicating herself to you, and you, and you, and you, she intrepidly battles our opponents on the world stage--those at home, too, the Lieden Recidivists, for example, those who can't accept the former President's mental decline.
Dinah Parris. Married to a stock broker, a businessman, an entrepreneur, First Gentleman Douglas Gard, steadfast husband, cohabitant of Air Force One on long flights dealing diplomacy, President Parris's specialty, inspired by her dedication to fweedom.
FWEEDOM, in red, all caps, dominates the screen, showing Dinah raising her arms, laughing, standing with a crowd of her donors at an Upstate New York weekend camp fundraising event, honoring all of America's sponsored dictators.
Moe Lieden's Wilmington living room, where Happy Biden, General Beak, Hector Farrbarrhuber, and Shirley Pellington, Moe's confidential secretary, a recent hire through Happy--she dated Biff then Happy when she was in her low twenties.
Moe: Turn off the TV.
Hector: Computer.
Moe: Close the lid. You heard me, precious pumpkin, my little Shirley poo? (Laughs).
Shirley: It's off. What did you think of Dinah's ad?
Moe: Piece of my heart, I believe Dinah has an advantage over me. She holds the high ground. Like Ewan what's his name in the Star Wars.
Hector: Episode Three.
Beak: WHO GIVES A FUCK!!!!!!! We can top Geneva Parth's wretched characterization of the criminal president.
Moe: Her name is Dinah Shore.
Beak: We must strategize!
Shirley: General, don't strain while you shit, it's not healthy.
Beak: You are a hindrance on these proceedings.
Shirley: I have to be here to steer Moe's mind in the right direction.
Beak: I hope you know what the right direction is.
Shirley: I do. The right direction is sharpness, clarity, relevance, compassion, recognition of dignity even among those who are poor, but don't help anyone who makes less than a hundred and ten thousand a year.
Beak: Good policies, all of them, and characteristics for this deteriorating man to assume, as a well-fitting glove fits the hand.
Shirley: Exactly. Now General, let's assume Moe loses the race, let's assume he doesn't get the nomination, even. Does he endorse someone? It would earn him punditry practice on the cables.
Beak: We haven't thought that far ahead. To me, that's a situation-at-time-of-occurence decision piece, not a fully formed glob of thought newly arrived in my hands to study and ponder before answering.
Shirley: You want to run space, but you can't talk like a normal person?
Beak: You sour-mouthed woman! Mr. President?
Moe: Who? I was dreaming of Biff. He was walking around for once. He wrecked his Jaguar and borrowed Happy's for a date. Happy got a call from his lady friend a few minutes later wanting a Jaguar sex date but Happy couldn't oblige, so Happy harbored Cain-Abel feelings towards his favorite son brother. Happy burned down Biff's house that night, "accidentally."
Happy: I spilled gasoline on the living room rug. I spilled some on the stove, I spilled some in the garage next to lots of flammable liquids, oily rags, too. I don't know where I got that lighter from, but it was a cool lighter, had a mermaid with big tits on it. I struck it and then it squirted out of my hand and Biff's place and that mermaid went up in flames. Biff claimed I paid the firemen to drive slowly, or not come, but I had no control over that. Did I arson my brother's house with malicious intent? Not sure. All the while I was spilling gasoline, enjoying the smell of the fumes, I never thought of the harm burning my brother's house down would cause. I thought only of the fumes. The amazing fumes. I got high off those fumes. Dad, it was a good high. An honest high. I sought not that high. That high was a gift. What a good high. I was careful not to spill gasoline, the precious octane, on myself. Oh, I was fastidious! A most fastidious arsonist!
Moe: You burned down his house. Well, what's done is done.
Beak: I propose we hire the best filmmaker in the world to make a two minute film, to air on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Butthole, whatever else.
Hector: (Laughing) Butthole!
Beak: It's a dating service.
Moe: I received a one-thousand dollar contribution from them.
Beak: Low donors, but I'll get more from them.
Hector: You'll tickle the butthole.
Happy: General, do you have any cocaine?
Beak: Absolutely not!
Happy: I think I need to leave soon.
Shirley: I have a little, Happy. I keep some around on my person just in case a cokehead gets anxious.
Happy: You are one sexy and helpful broad.
Shirley: Thanks, sugar cookie. Moe, all you have to do, regarding making a campaign ad, is read some shit into a microphone. We'll write the shit, you say the shit, you practice saying the shit, you practice saying the shit, you deliver, you understand? You make it happen, you put it across, you're the old Moe of the Senate floor, condemning millions, for example, of Black men to prison for minor drug offenses.
Moe: I'm tingling down below!
Shirley: Below is where your soul's going, but right now you're on Earth. You will read the shit out of that speech.
Moe: Shitty speech.
Hector: I'll write the speech. My fee is ten thousand dollars, but I'll make it a good one--no words Moe won't be able to pronounce.
Beak: I'll write the speech and receive the satisfaction of convincing millions our real President, Morris Lieden, is with it, on the move, planning a big comeback! We'll put images of America and America's legend upon the screen. Even tiny twitter screens will explode with action. We'll steal footage from the Mel Gibson movie, The Patriot, my wife's favorite. We'll mine 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Hector: I propose a special and visual effects budget of one million. Get an out of work effects veteran, let him do what he wants to do, adding thrilling content to the Lieden campaign video.
Beak: Do you know this man?
Hector: He does jobs for me.
Moe: Will he work for America?
Hector: The degree of his humoring you will be affected by the size of the paycheck.
The $50,000 Lieden campaign video, released on all platforms on Friday, August 4, 2023, four days before the first Democratic presidential debate.
The video opens with a captured screen shot of stars traveling past. A voice, a computer-altered General Beak, higher-pitched than his usual gruff baritone.
Narrator: As we move into space, feeling its vastness, its velvety endlessness, we must not forget there are dangers approaching. A man who understands space must be president if we are to survive the coming assault. Yes, from space.
Now, General Beak in full dress uniform, standing before a map of Venus, speaking in his normal voice.
Greetings, Earthlings. I am General Beak of Space Force. I've known Morris Lieden for thirty-two years. He's the kind of bastard we need to defeat the enemy that's coming. I've seen many a bastard in my time. I'm a bastard. We of Space Force need bastards. And bitches. For Morris Lieden will expand Space Force mightily, making it the Universal Force for Good we need to defeat the evil that cometh. And for you Gorka who may be watching this...Crinj Craange Givmar Hivmar Deloshinett.
Lieden 24. We can't go wrong, or we're dead.
Brief shot of Lieden's face, looking twenty years younger than in 2023. It is, in fact, a shot of then Senator Lieden urging his Democratic colleagues to help President Arbusto and Vice President Raney destroy Iraq.
The forty year-plus Washington political career of Moe Lieden is itself proof of that power center's preference for committing mayhem, helping reap profits and enabling purchases of mansions, yachts, and spaceships.
Lieden campaign headquarters, Scranton, Pennsylvania. Happy Lieden closes his laptop. Hector Farrbarrhuber, General Beak and Shirley Pellington move back to their chairs.
Lieden: Looks like you don't get who the star of the movie is supposed to be, Beak.
Beak: You're the focus. You're offscreen.
Happy: Like Sauron, Dad.
Lieden: I saw a lot of space, heard you talking about space. Listen, if I tune in to a documentary about Marilyn Monroe--hubba hubba--and they don't show photos or film of Marilyn Monroe I feel like I've been cheated. I may as well read a dumb book!
Happy: Hey Dad, I've had this laptop for a whole week! Haven't misplaced it!
Lieden: Like you misplaced your cocaine? I heard those drug-sniffing dogs--I know one of em, Kevin the German Shepard, he's a good boy--got high off of that drug you so irresponsibly left in the library of what should still be my house.
Hector: Are you ready for the debate, Mr. President?
Lieden: I've practiced with Beak.
Hector: Were the practice questions space-related?
Lieden: There were some, yes.
Hector: What were the others?
Lieden: Climate change, war, Israel/Palestine, should we nuke China or just let things be?
Hector: Let things be. It's an easy answer, unless you're nuts.
Lieden: I'm beyond good and evil, pup. Satan's puppy, that's what you look like, and are. An assassin. What a lowlife you are.
Hector: Are you brave with your words, or stupid. You'll find out.
Happy: That sounds like a threat on my Dad!
Beak: Farrbarrhuber, I will not tolerate such traitorous talk about your employer.
Hector: I can quit. In fact--
Beak: Sit down, man! No one one here has a problem that you're a killer. Shirley's even a little attracted to you, aren't you, Shirley?
Shirley: Speak for yourself, General. Hector's forthrightness is attractive, but I'm committed to a single life until I'm working in the White House.
Happy: I guess that means you don't want to bed me?
Shirley: Exactly correct, young Mr. Lieden.
Happy: I'm fifty-three, but I don't have erectile dysfunction.
Shirley: Oh well, okay.
Happy: Yes, it's an eager one.
Shirley: I'm going over there.
The Big Debate, '23 for deciding '24, starring Democrats! Location: Beverly Hills, debate moderator, Jennifer Psyop. Four podiums. Enter the candidates: Cassandra Hartliss Blade, former First Lady of Arkansas and the United States, former Senator, former Secretary of State. Gabrielle Bongo, former First Lady of the United States. Morris "Moe" Lieden, former Congressman, former Senator, former Vice President, former President of the United States. President Dinah Parris, former D.A., former Attorney General of California, former Senator, former Vice President, current Commander-in-Chief. They enter in alphabetical order, Blade at stage left, President Parris at stage right, Mrs. Bongo doing a little dance with Moe Lieden who appears to believe her podium is his. President Parris and Gabrielle Bongo guide Moe Lieden to his podium next to Mrs. Blade's.
Jennifer Psyop: Good to be here moderating this debate. Let's get started.
Moe Lieden: I like your new haircut.
Psyop: I--thank you, Mr. President.
Moe Lieden: If it smells like it looks, you can be assured I will talk with you after the debate.
Psyop: All right, let's get started. President Parris, the country's on an economic downturn--
Parris: So what?
Psyop: This is important, you should care about it.
Parris: I don't. Fortunes of a nation rise and fall. I got mine, sister. My Doug, that's my husband, bought a cobalt mine in the DRC back in oh-one. Cheap, wasn't producing hardly anything. Doug hired a South African mercenary named Mr. Jenkins to oversee the mine, bring in new labor. Some journalist accused Mr. Jenkins of kidnapping local boys and young men to dig up the cobalt ore with their bare hands, which maybe isn't true, but Mr. Jenkins got the job done and I'm a rich girl, yes sir! People wonder why I stay with Doug? It's because of the cobalt investment. His best financial play. I'll be forever grateful to him for that.
Psyop: President Lieden, would you like to comment on that?
Lieden: Fir-fir-first of all, I don't have any money on me. Lint, that's all I have in my pockets. I don't know anything about cobalt. Gold, silver, the traditional metals. I'm fond of titanium. Have I told you how pleased I am with my campaign video?
Cassandra Blade: The one with General Beak? And General Beak? And General Beak? (some laughter in the audience) I saw that campaign spot. Reminded me of Triumph of the Will in space. Having a man like General Beak as your campaign manager shows how you're capable of being manipulated by a man only interested in expanding America's space program. He's spoken of colonizing the moons of Jupiter. Jupiter!
Gabrielle Bongo: Jumping Jupiter! (Laughter)
Lieden: Jupiter's moons will be inhabited by we humans by 2030. Beak is adamant on that point. I follow Beak's campaign advice because he usually gets results. Like his hiring of a hit man to take care of the campaign's (leans forward and speaks low and quiet into the mike) special problems. (Low talk) The ones requiring drastic solutions. (Regular voice) I'm the only one on this stage with presidential decision-making experience.
Parris: Hello?! (Laughs) I'm not some gas pump standing here. I'm worried about America. Its morals, its values, its children, I care about them so. I have none of my own. I'm barren, I accept that. I think if I had a child I'd treat it badly, I mean I'd ignore it. Career or family? Career, of course.
Bongo: Doug is your family.
Parris: Doug is Mr. Cobalt.
Bongo: Doug is your boo.
Parris: He's watching, don't teach him cute words. He'll repeat them endlessly.
Cassandra Blade: Doug is a national treasure! He's so dumb he walked into an antique store and said, "What's new?"
Parris: Maybe he made a friendly greeting, he is a nice man.
Blade: You don't mean that. And it was a joke, Dinah, Jesus Christ! And I've heard you call him a moron so many times, Dinah! He is a moron, and a fool, and a human disaster area. If I never see him again I'll be happy.
Bongo: Cassandra, you shouldn't attack a family member of a politician.
Blade: Fuck off, Karen! Your husband's a snake.
Bongo: Gabrielle, and your husband's an adulterer.
Blade: Ooooh, I never heard that before! My husband likes women. A lot. Women are drawn to his aura. Oh, I've felt that aura, but it's been about twenty years since loving attentions were exchanged between us. Billy Boy Blade enjoys a free sex life. Everyone should.
Psyop: Okay, so I'll ask the same question of each of you, just go down the line, starting with President Parris.
Parris: Yes, Jennifer.
Psyop: Do you believe, or know, that aliens are visiting Earth?
Parris: I would know, right? (Laughs) Leader of the free world? Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you X-Files buffs, but no, there are no aliens visiting Earth. There are top secret flight programs going on. We have some craft that will blow your minds once they join the Space Fleet we're building near Jupiter.
Psyop: All right. Mrs. Bongo? Same question.
Bongo: I don't believe it. I'm a flat earther.
Psyop: All right. President Lieden? Same question.
Lieden: What question?
Psyop: Are aliens visiting Earth?
Lieden: Of course they are. Advance scouts. Gorka. No joke, that's what they're called. (Low voice into mike) Shapeshifters. They can appear as anyone. You might be a Gorka, Jennifer. I need to smell your hair to make sure.
Psyop: You know this for sure?
Lieden: In General Beak I have access to one of the most brilliant space minds in history. Next to Isaac Newton, Beak is fifty times smarter, well, maybe half as smart.
Psyop: And Mrs. Blade. Same question.
Blade: Billy Boy told me in 1994, "Honey, there are space aliens visiting our world, what do you think of that?" I said, "Great, we can talk about them instead of the Hutus and the Tutsis." But he never proved it to me that space aliens visit Earth. I'll believe it when I see the evidence, presented to me when I'm your forty-eighth president.
Lieden: I was forty-eight once. I browbeat Anita Hill when I was forty-eight. Boy, that well-deserved reputation as a misogynist and a racist sure came in handy when I've wanted people to blindly and ignorantly vote for me, and you can too, America! A vote for Lieden is a vote for experience, because you see, I did her job, yeah, her, Parris, the person not the city! NOT THE CITY!
Bongo: A vote for Bongo is a vote for normalcy!
Parris: You're fourth in the polls, baby, don't get ahead of yourself. Even Moe's outpacing you.
Lieden: COCAINE? NOT MY COCAINE! I NEED MY SHOT! SHIRLEY, BRING THE SYRINGE!
Psyop: We'll take a break with a message from Welch's Grape Juice and Chanel Number Five.
Returning to the debate, Moe Lieden is offstage getting his shot. His bewilderment has led Beak to withdraw him from the debate.
Blade: I feel alone over here, not comforted by the presence of the hair-sniffer.
Bongo: He sniffs my hair, too.
Parris: The man's a pervert. (Laughs)
Psyop: As one who worked as his press secretary I must refrain from comment and request that the three of you drop the subject of President Lieden's whatever you want to call it and focus on the debate.
Blade: You're perfectly right.
Psyop: Mrs. Bongo. You have no political experience.
Bongo: Neither did Don Richman, or Ronald Reagan when he became Governor of California. See? I've read some history.
Psyop: What makes you think you can lead America's armed forces?
Bongo: I'm ruthless when I play Risk. I'm very good with the dice rolls. I also play chess, and I once lost at Go. My abilities in poker and blackjack are shaky, but I can predict the scores of basketball games better than anyone I know. My brain operates at all times. I'm a computing machine. Ask me the sum of two four-digit numbers and I'll tell you the answer in under five seconds.
Blade: 1,000 times 1,000.
Bongo: Give me a difficult one. Difficult for an ordinary person.
Parris: 9,320 times 9,419.
Bongo: (Seven seconds pass) The pressure. It's easier to do when I'm by myself.
Parris: How impressive. No wonder Arther Sneffen banks on you winning the nomination, and then what? Are you going to let your husband run the show from behind the throne?
Bongo: I'll be in charge. The first Black woman President. I'll be on coins.
Parris: The second Black woman President you'd be, what are you talking about?
Bongo: The first to be elected. Moe claims you usurped his authority, that General Bomb karate-chopped him in the Oval Office.
Parris: A story that can't be proven.
Bongo: Maybe not, but if it drops you from the race I'm all for emphasizing it in my next campaign video. You all saw my first? It dropped last night. Watch it, be inspired. Gabrielle's America is Everyone's America. Helicopter-shot images of farmlands, the St. Louis arch, still photos of plantation slaves, my high school yearbook photo, the U.S. capitol building, the Oval Office at the time of FDR, there's a magazine image of Hitler on fire, the atomic bomb, some Billy Joel, and finally a wasp landing on my face and a caption: I'm Gabrielle Bongo, I have been stung into service unto my nation, I approve this message, God Bless America and the U.S. Armed Services, and all Police, and everything you wouldn't expect a Black woman to like, about America.
Parris: Now I don't have to watch it.
Blade: My campaign video drops tomorrow! It starts with a star background and my head dissolving in. I say, "I'm Cassandra Hartliss Blade. You know me as Madame Secretary or perhaps as Senator Blade of New York. I was born in Illinois, outside of Chicago proper. My maiden name is Hartliss. For those of you who are wondering, I'm a direct descendant of Obadiah "Crazy Man" Hartliss of Ferny Deep, Virginia, the first Confederate officer to ever see a UFO. Now, Crazy Man Hartliss had a lot of tall tales to impart to his nine children, the stories coming to his 370 living descendants. He built a round house on top of what he claimed was a crashed circular ship from another planet, "maybe Jupiter!" He didn't know Jupiter's a gas giant. He was ignorant about a lot of things. He never heard of the electoral college, or college for that matter. He knew how to sharpen his cavalry saber, he knew cows and horses, sheep and chickens. He had no idea his great-great-great-great granddaughter would become President of the United States. As I speak to you from the year 2025, I can assure you, if not reassure you, that the world is still a complicated but exciting place. I'm Cassandra Hartliss Blade and I approve this message, and don't believe anything wild you hear about Jupiter."
Psyop: Did you just recite the script of the video?
Blade: I did. I memorized the heck out of that thing and I'm proud of it.
Parris: I'm working on the best campaign video of all. Just wait. It'll be out in a few weeks. No one will want to vote for you, Gabrielle, or you, Cassandra.
Blade: Someone's full of herself! (cackles)
To be continued...
Vic Neptune
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