Darlings
An October tale for the terminally online. Any similarity to people living or dead is a scary coincidence.
“Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour”
- 1 John 2:18
10/1
October surprise today. I’m writing this freehand to understand it. The president was talking to someone who wasn’t there. Concerning.
I serve by his appointment and at his pleasure, no confirmation necessary. He crashed the noon press conference, came from behind and whispered in my ear, “Look at her, back there ... She’s hot,” then muscled up to the podium. “Well, hello there.” He recognized someone in the press pool. “Hello, hello,” he said, cocking his head to silence. Nobody knew who he was addressing. The lights dimmed and the briefing room shrank until there were only the three of us present— me, him, and the tentacled thing crushing me inside my jacket.
He snapped out of it when a BBC reporter finally jumped in with an attempted gotcha question about the Democrat hoax that never ends.
“No more of that, honey. Go to bed, sweetheart.” A gentleman in all respects. Reporters laughed, he laughed, I laughed. Let laughter ring. Access is everything, so I barred the BBC reporter from further key pressers for being creepy.
Oh, and if you’re somehow reading this online, it’s A1. It’s autopen slop. If you’re reading this, you’re gay. Thank you. For your inattention. To this matter.
10/2
Sundown, shutdown, but the show must go on. This is an unprecedented opportunity to purge administrative demons. Patriotism and intelligence rally on the one side while superstition, ambition and ignorance throw shit across the aisle. Our side is winning.
This morning I was having an Irish coffee with War Secretary Payton, watching a South Carolina judge’s house burn on TV, when a sweaty aide burst in.
“Someone did something sacrilegious.”
During his last reign, I interned at the Office of Presidential Correspondence, stuffing envelopes and responding to letters. Defaced Bibles never simply slip into the Oval like returned library books. This was an inside job. A signed edition of the Bible sat on the Resolute Desk, opened to a page bookmarked with a ribbon. There was a big, beautiful red circle around 1 John 2:18.
Meanwhile, he glowered behind his desk. “It’s very simple,” he said, looking bored and pissed. “The dead bedroom of American politics is an orgy now. Fuck with me or leave the party. Otherwise, you’re going to jail, or perhaps under the jail, if you know what that means.”
The war within rages on. I was the only one with the class to chuck the Bible in the trash like a late-late term abortion.
10/3
Special agent Orso was hunched on a bench seat, pointing finger guns at people outside the tinted windows of the armored Cadillac limo, The Beast. We arrived at the Reagan Presidential Library and Dr. Bath, who used to treat the dogs who played Air Bud, gave him a yellow-tinctured shot of vitamins, Valium, and chloroquine. His face reanimated with a serene smile.
At the unveiling of his portrait, the cloth was lifted to gasps. It was a painting I’d seen before in history books; it looked like an old political cartoon dabbed in oils. William McKinley glad-handing in a music temple at the moment of his assassination. But in this rendering McKinley had a blonde meringue of hair, and he looked 80’s-ified in a baggy suit with square shoulders. The smoky flash of his assassin’s gun was frozen in time, as was the cannily familiar doofus-shock on McKinley’s face. The star of the painting was the girl perched on the assassin’s shoulders, her hands spread mid-clap. I stood there, my brain cold-plunged, thinking, Antifa! Anarchists! Soros!
Orso tackled the painting.
10/4
Theodore Roosevelt changed the name of The Executive Mansion to The White House in 1901. We changed it back to the original name: The Presidential Palace. The Palace is a six-level, 55,000 square foot neoclassical mansion with 132 rooms and 35 bathrooms. If you find yourself lost, you don’t belong here.
The house where I was raised in northern Maine needed me. Daddy didn’t have a temper, he had tantrums where he would throw furniture to keep himself from raising his hand to us. I’d straighten up with a broom and a show tune. At first, I didn’t understand Daddy’s screaming, and it was frightening. Once I understood how he treated people, it was sort of silly.
Now I’m the youngest person to ever hold this position. Mouthpiece. Attack dog. Hatstand. Partner.
He had a terrible staff his first term. I remember the disgraced AG had gone on TV to dispel notions of election fraud, and if I was ten seconds earlier walking into the Oval for the first time, I would have been hit with a plate of spaghetti. As noodles sloughed off a portrait of Andrew Jackson, I started picking up shards of china, reciting O Captain! My Captain!
“What do we have here?” he said as I dabbed Jackson’s scowl with a bleach pen from my purse. “That’s what we need, dontcha think? Someone who’s not afraid to get on her knees.”
10/5
I asked Special Agent Orso about the cuts on POTUS’ face. Orso, his personal bodyguard for two decades, rubbed his temples as he stared at the false skylight in the windowless Roosevelt Room.
“If a threat slipped past the exterior, that’s a security failure. I don’t believe in security failures because I personally secure every bathroom before he goes in for a visit. Every single one. It’s just him in there.”
“Have you installed any surveillance?”
“This isn’t a hotel room in Moscow.”
“You should be going in with him to help him get his girdle straight, so to speak.”
“I’m the head of security. Watching him shit won’t keep him any safer!”
“Why are you yelling?”
Orso steadied himself, shrugged. “I carry a styptic pencil now. He keeps cutting himself shaving. That’s all.”
10/6
Last summer, Kentucky Max vacated his body at a presser before an aide led him away. Today was different. Sydney, our Deputy Chief of Staff, went on CNN. He was talking about Oregon, a known incubator for insurrectionists, and why the deployment of the National Guard in Portland was a gift on behalf of the federal government. The interview was going fine until Sydney said, “I” instead of “the president” then froze until his face cracked, revealing someone else’s face. Someone who could weep.
“Sydney? Are you ok?” coaxed the anchor.
And Sydney started screaming, “Jessica! Kristin! Lisa! Cathy! Temple! Amy! Karena! Virginia! Karen! Mindy! Rachel! Natasha! Juliet! Ninni! Cassandra! Bridget! Tasha! Samantha! Beatrice! Stacey! Sarah! Sarahhhhhhh!”
Shoutout to YouTube for editing all that out.
10/7
260 days into his second term, America’s main character has granted 70 exclusive interviews with Bart. Six years ago, Bart was a middle-aged libertarian podcasting from his father’s guesthouse. Now, the media’s hydra heads look and sound exactly like Bart because they want to keep eating.
Red’s Club tonight. They bumped their membership fee up to $50k, so most of the functionally illiterate reporters have been ousted. More white, less noise.
My Yuzu Mule arrived and Bart held up his snifter of amber.
“Another day, another wonderful secret.”
Churlish Bart was alluding to today’s episode of his Hard Cash podcast; his guest, a geezer of financial journalism, kept bringing up a clearly forged birthday card.
I told Bart their conversation distracted from our message: That we’re the hottest country in the world to do business with. I said, “The Wall Street Journal—”
“The market closed at record highs today. The market is the report card. Nobody cares about some chicken scratch birthday card. The Wall Street Journal will pay. We’ll take ‘em for everything they’re worth.” He disappeared a chicken tender down his throat like a sword swallower.
“There must be more to life than having everything.” The mule had loosened my tongue.
“Maurice Sendak wrote that. He was quoting a children’s book.”
“But he didn’t write the card.”
“Correct.”
“So what’s the wonderful secret, Bart?”
His phone chimed. “Billable hours calling. Handle the check. Gotta go.”
I needed someone to talk to. Bart would die if he ever shut up, which is good because he kept me from bringing up what I really wanted to talk about: more chicken scratches. Cuts keep opening on our main character’s hands. Little red slits.
10/8
A statue materialized on the National Mall this weekend, depicting him holding hands with persona non grata. Two bronze-painted men holding hands, smiling, mid-gambol. “BFF’s”, read the plaque. Totally inappropriate; September is friendship month. This is October, the month of Halloween, Columbus Day, and National Dessert Day. We had the monstrosity removed in less than six hours. Now that’s what I call efficiency.
10/9
Why can’t Special Agent Orso keep track of him? He’s a star, not a black hole. Around dusk, Orso found him alone on the Rose Garden Club patio, bent over, hands on his knees. Orso thought he was having a heart attack.
“He was talking to someone who wasn’t there. He asked her if he would get to meet her twin in Heaven.”
Dr. Bath told me that deterioration of the brain is established before signs of the disorder start cropping up.
“If it he was alone, what do you mean by ‘Her?’”
Orso cracked his neck like a chain of fireworks and we stared at each other until he turned heel and left. Orso is getting older. Madness is never confined to one skull. Mixed Dementia.
10/10
One must travel through a private internal corridor to get The Oval Office Study. We hid a camera inside a tissue box in his private lavatory because we needed raw footage, unfortunately, to get answers. After his visit, he shuffled back into the Oval dazed, a bridal train stuck to the elevated heel of his shoe. His dress shirt was untucked and his hands were shaking. “Wouldn’t go in there.” The smell he carried was immense, sticky. He didn’t notice his fingertips were dripping rubies as he combed bloody highlights through his golden hair.
Later, we reviewed the footage: He walked in, preened in the mirror, dropped trou, slumped onto the throne, then pixels devoured the screen. Three minutes of missing footage.
10/11
Taylor, Deputy AG, hit play on his phone. His recording reeled us back inside the federal prison in Tallahassee where he interviewed Madam Web, serving her 20-year sentence. I slid the volume up, closed my eyes, and pictured Madam Web poised in her scratchy paper clothes.
“I like him. I’ve always liked him, and I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the president. I wish him well.”
Taylor asked about the list.
“Absolutely never—” her cackling scratched the audio— “has there ever been a client list.”
“What’s with the Russian dolls?” asked Taylor.
She stopped cackling. “It’s not voodoo, if that’s what you’re thinking. This is my only vocation now: Hatching dolls. Every night, another doll is set free,” she whispered. “Because there’s another doll sitting unmolested on a high shelf. And that doll looks like me.”
I stopped the audio and slid Taylor’s phone across the table. “I would have ripped that doll right out of her gnarled hands.”
“So what? You want me to have her cell tossed for toys?” Fear whined in his voice.
“No,” I sighed. “That cell is empty now.”
10/12
Every day, I take a smoke break with Casey Eden-Quinn, his spiritual advisor who smells like burnt vanilla offerings, in an undisclosed location. Girl talk.
“I feel sick,” she said today. “I can’t—” she gagged on her vape— “I can’t breathe. It feels like something is lodged in my throat. Maybe strep? Or maybe it’s from watching Kendall get crucified during that hearing.”
Casey Eden-Quinn has been getting biblical with the Health Secretary Kendall.
“Maybe he gave you worms,” I said.
“I really don’t need that. Especially from you.”
“I came to my senses.” I remembered Kendall’s vials of powdered rhino horn. For the virility, he told me.
“Fucking rhino,” I said.
“He’s an independent!”
“He’s not even loyal to his wife.”
“Can you embrace the sisterhood for two seconds, please? I’m in love with him.”
“Really?”
She tossed her vape into a planter. “I don’t know. I feel something.”
Her cross to wear, her jabs to take.
10/13
We landed in Israel, and the executive portable bathroom was unloaded from the support aircraft. The portable’s interior is Egyptian-themed, like an Atlantic City casino. He half-joked about selling “countershits” to spies before going in alone. Outside, the portable was heavily guarded. He came out stark naked, saying, “That was great, just the best,” with blood smeared on his cheek. Orso barreled in with his gun drawn while the Secret Service closed a fist around us. Pressed against his supple body, he said to me, “My shoes fell off.”
Orso came out looking like he wanted to cry because the dark blue Brioni suit was nowhere to be found; not even a sock. Some Antifa gawker managed to get a picture, an unforgivable invasion of privacy, a felony, high treason. Later, at a presser, I explained: “We’re having an Indian summer. The president was hot. Grow up.”
10/14
Back on U.S. soil. Another morning in the golden age of America. Mantras ground me.
There is no such thing as a Democrat.
There is no such thing as a trans person.
There is no such thing as racism.
There is no such thing as inflation.
I feel something too— a cinder being carried up through my body by the Holy Spirit.
Bald-pated Sydney stopped me outside the glare of the Situation Room. He looked up at me with black eyes and said, “There is no such thing as a vengeful entity that latches onto a host until it ultimately destroys it in a gruesome manner that will require biohazard technicians with enzyme cleaners, disinfectants, mops, buckets, and putty knives to unstick pieces of the host from the walls.” His voice sounded like a record being played backwards.
After the president went to bed quite early, I tweeted for him. “NEVER FELT BETTER MY LIFE!!!!!”
10/15
There are no leaks in the ship of state. We are seamless, like the box from Hellraiser. Some basement-dwelling Marxist hacker is playing a twisted game, posting passenger logs on the President’s Public Schedule. Names and numbers of princes, prime ministers, autocrats, Bills, billionaires, rock stars.
Hours before dawn, chatter crawled out from under the doors of the Lincoln bedroom. We found him tented under the sheets, doing voices.
“I’m protecting this country, darling,” he said. “You don’t have to be scared. They don’t know anything.”
“I’m not scared anymore,” laughed the other voice. “You should be scared.”
10/16
The shield on the Presidential Seal is emblazoned with a bald eagle clutching the olive branch in its right talons and arrows in its left. The eagle’s head is always turned toward the olive branch. I used to hate-watch The West Wing.
He pretended to nod off during a briefing. I stayed behind while the others left. When he hit the call button to summon a beverage, a tall, baby-faced butler staggered in carrying a silver can atop a silver tray. I’d never seen him before. He gave me the creeps. He was wearing a buttoned up overcoat that squirmed from the inside like a sack of kittens.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Legion.”
“Where’s the chilled glass with the straw? Two straws!” he yelled.
With a picket fence smile, the butler popped open the can, giggling.
“You gotta use gloves! Don’t you know who I am!”
The butler poured a brown, foul-smelling liquid onto the presidential seal in the center of the carpet. Then he set the can down, pulled a pickaxe from his coat, lifted it high, and—
I jolted awake, lying next to him on the brocade sofa. There was no crushed can on the carpet, no stain, and the eagle’s head was turned toward the arrows.
10/17
I grabbed a latte, a box of presidential M&Ms, and joined Casey Eden-Quinn in the basement mess hall. Her hair looked slept on, and her face was grey without makeup. She smelled of woodsmoke and insomnia.
“I was accosted at dinner last night by protesters dressed as priests and nuns. They chased me out of dLeña. It was horrible.”
“Have some candy.”
“If I try to eat I’ll vomit.”
“Maybe it’s food poisoning. Maybe the heretics sprinkled some evil pumpkin spice on your food. Eye of newt, toe of frog…”
“You don’t understand how this feels!”
“Inside voice.”
“Something spiritual is happening. A reckoning. I cannot stop it. I’m not even sure I can bear witness to it.” Her neck spasmed and she clamped her hand over her mouth.
“Go to the bathroom, Casey Eden-Quinn!”
She shot up, already puking into her cupped hand. She dropped a wine-dark, muscular thing onto the table. It lay on the pink-spattered cloth, about four inches long, then started crawling wavelike towards the table’s edge. I set a glass over it. As it forked into two, she slid a menu under the glass and carried them out.
10/18
Aides scurried like animals before an earthquake. If a canary was sent into the Lincoln Bedroom this morning it would have died. At dawn, Raymond, the chief usher, found him spread-eagled on the floor in his pajamas, incontinent and unresponsive. I was summoned along with Dr. Bath and Casey Eden-Quinn. There was talk of a hemorrhagic stroke and skyrocketing blood pressure and stigmata. Casey applied leeches until we couldn’t see his face. He spent the weekend bedridden, in a new bed, while bloodthirsty liberals cheered on his death.
Raymond handled the deep-clean. The evidence couldn’t be carried through the hallways of the Executive Residence; too rancid. Out the second floor window plummeted three black trash bags. “Some of the bedsheets were missing,” said Raymond, like I’m heading the Department of Linens. There was a message crayoned in excrement all over the walls and windows, an old Special Forces battalion motto: We do bad things to bad people.
We called the black trash bags A1. Praise A1.
10/19
First Lady Dervla has absconded to the Swiss Alps.
“In marriage, you never know what’s gonna happen. Lots of surprises, both good and bad. Fuck her. You know me better than my wife anyway. We could take a jetliner to Russia. Or the Virgin Islands. Howzat sound?”
“Sounds like you miss wifey.”
One thing that never fails to cheer him up is revoking government security clearances.
“Should we pull Dervla’s?” he asked.
I stroked the back of his paw, bruised and gray and cratered from Aspirin and glad-handing. I thought of the sisterhood and sighed, “You don’t need to hurt her to impress me.”
We pondered doing it to his grown sons, who he only sees on TV anymore, and revoked Derek’s because he’s not on TV enough.
10/20
We’re naming the ballroom Maison de L’Amitié, House of Friendship. It’s a prestige project, his legacy. When I look out onto the mist-cloaked East Lawn, his vision overlays mine and I can see it all. Piles of lumber waiting to be nailed. Rows of banquet tables. Massage tables. Lavish pageantry, red masks. Gowns with ruffles. Little feet dancing. Laughter ringing. Donors’ names etched into bricks, into eternity. Ballerinas hanging from chandeliers. Dizziness. Vomitoriums. Rivers of blood racing down ornate columns. Slashed portraits. Stained glass windows depicting small figures in funeral shrouds, their eyes are pale fires. Two lovers, Darkness and Decay, hold dominion over the soirée. Quite the party. Hope I’m on the list.
10/21
He got onto the roof undetected. His missing bedsheets, knotted like intestines leaking shit, were tied to one of the chimneys and noosed around his neck.
“He almost made it to the edge.” Orso’s forehead lines were like ditches and his eyes were wet as he resigned, effective immediately. “I took him into the bathroom, and I saw her,” he scream-whispered. “We have the greatest weapons on earth and we still can’t save him.”
I turned Orso’s badge over in my hands thinking, staying with someone is saving them.
“She’s part of him,” said Orso. “Like an appendage.”
“Who?”
“Her! Them? There’s more than one.”
Jesus, Orso. Really? Pronouns? At a time like this?
10/22
A secret meeting was called to the Cabinet Room after I put him to bed. The attendees made the Tabernacle Choir look like the NWA. POTUS often refers to Vice President B.D. as “Buttery Dildo,” but Section 3 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment is kicking in. The sole item on the agenda: How to dispose of a living corpse?
“We can say we’re moving him to Walter Reed, but I wouldn’t advise actually doing that,” said Health Secretary Kendall. “They can’t treat this. They don’t do God’s work.”
“Agreed. Let us move him underground,” said B.D.
“But he’s not dead yet.”
“The president needs space,” said B.D. “Jaime? What do you think? Where should we put him?”
I had already thought it through. “The former White House swimming pool was dug beneath the current press room. Currently, we’re using it as a computer server room,” I said.
“Interesting,” said Vice B.D., thumbing his phone’s screen.
“Yes,” I said as The Cabinet Room and my chest contracted. They were here. I pretended to drop my pen and looked under the table. I saw little bitches, cheerleaders, Victoria’s Secret Angels, half-naked teenage pageant contestants, spa girls, all huddled together. I stood up too fast and braced myself on the long table. “And miles under the server room is Hell,” I said, “where the communists, fascists, elections cheaters, and the radical left thugs all burn like the flag.”
Someone coughed. The room grew back to normal, but my chest stayed bricked up.
“Alrighty, set him up down there with the servers. Get a TV, magazines, whatever makes sense. Hospice trappings. Meeting adjourned.”
I don’t know who I was saluting as they all filed out, but it felt good to be included. I looked under the table again. Nobody was there. Am I really all alone here, I thought. Am I the only adult?
And someone’s daughter whispered, “Your mom.”
10/23
The bullet from Hinkley’s revolver shattered Reagan’s press secretary’s brain cavity. James Scott Brady lived and kept his job until the end of the administration, even though he often cried uncontrollably and was convinced a marble bust of Benjamin Franklin was singing to him. Reagan kept him on because ride or die goes both ways and personnel is policy. So, yes, I hear laughter behind the walls and skipping through the halls, but I’m not bleeding, so I’m not leaving. Soon there will be a new right hand, and a vacancy. I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.
Dr. Bath pulled me into the Cabinet Room. “B.D. wants us to take him on a little drive. You know, for old time’s sake. Grab a burger, wave to people, one last presidential day.” He tossed me a bottle of hillbilly heroin. “And you can feed him these until he …falls asleep. Good thing he doesn’t have a pet because he’d want to die with it like a Pharaoh mummified with his cat.”
I took one, then shoved the bottle back in his hands. “He’s not a cat person and I’m not euthanizing him.”
Dr. Bath’s eyes twinkled as he palmed an Oxy into his mouth. “I think we’re beyond natural causes, don’t you?”
“God will provide a window. I’ll lock it behind us.”
“You’re going to push him out a window?”
“Heaven is calling him home. My own toes are barely touching the ground these days.”
“Hm. Must be why he likes you.”
10/24
The BFFs statue has returned. We tried to have it removed again but were told it has roots now. Deep, thick roots that tractors and stump grinders can’t excavate from the soil. We were also told the statues were weeping black liquid, and not just from their eyes.
On top of everything else, his hair has flown the crown. Nobody can find one fucking follicle of it. All that remain are the Frankenstein scars from his scalp reduction surgery. Scarlet, purple, blue, green boughs pulsing like branches full of blood, memories, ancient history. Old friends.
10/25
High octane golf this morning as I ferried him over the greens, balls stuffed in my pockets, while he called out, “Your taxes are going down,” to those we passed. Ebullient clouds of flies hovered over us, cheering. A black storm materialized, and we almost got struck by lightning. He survived two attempts on his life with ease; a little light show wasn’t going to take him out.
After golf, I slid into The Beast with a box of District Donuts and snuggled next to him. He likes being flanked by his girls, so on his right sat Casey Eden-Quinn. Across from us sat Dr. Bath.
Our man sprayed pieces of bear claw as he talked. “400,000 children. Half a million children, et cetera. Unbelievable. And I’m not getting credit for giving the police back their guns.”
He dozed off at a red light and the bear claw tumbled onto his lap. Casey Eden-Quinn started trembling with the church chuckles. I raised my hand to slap her but she took it and held it against her cold cheek. “He carries his deathbed on his back,” she said. “The same way Jesus carried his cross to the Place of the Skull. It’s been a pleasure working with you.” Then she got out. Framed through the open door, I watched her walk across Pennsylvania Avenue, almost getting hit by several cars.
I looked at Dr. Bath and said, “These doors aren’t locked on the inside?”
“You’d have to be crazy to leave.”
“I think she went into that Chick-fil-A.”
“Maybe she’ll be fine.”
We returned to the palace. A corner of the vault-like server room was redecorated to be his new bedroom. I fluffed his pillows, assured him, yes, this is a medbed, everything is computer. I kissed his scars, went back up, and held the most important press conference in history.
“The greatest man in the world, our titan, our protector, our president, my captain, has died.”
Then I ran back down to him.
10/26
Staycation in the basement. We’ve been watching a lot of F Newz since he “died.” Today, B.D. held a press conference for the world’s hungriest audience. Words on the teleprompter can sound doom-scrollian if the one reading them can’t couch the mandate in the proper assurances.
I should have been there. Everyone else was. B.D. was flanked by the nerd and the Nazi, both dressed in black like a folk duo from The Matrix. I rushed to the elevator, but the doors wouldn’t open. Shut out.
“Listen to me now,” began B.D. “Your new stepdad is home. Break for applause. Thank you. Or should you say, thank you. The second American Revolution starts now. It will be bloodless as long as the left isn’t on the rag. Wink. We will restore the family, dismantle bureaucracy; defend our supremacy; save God. Because we’re Americans, damn it. It’s our job to destroy fascism. And tomorrow’s a work day.” His eyeliner ran like black tears.
He pissed the bed laughing. “That was fuckin’ weird.”
He’s right about everything.
10/27
Civil war. I can taste the teargas down here. Explosions rocked the foundations of the palace all day. Dust in the air, in my chest. People used to have picnics overlooking the battles of the first Civil War. This time, I expected everyone to be watching the drones, pipe bombs, and kamikaze Teslas blaze across their screens. But they’re not just watching; engagement is at an all time high.
I don’t think they forgot about us, but I also don’t think I’m going to be the next vice. It made me sad, then it gave me hope. Wasted potential can fuel a revival.
The butler in the overcoat stalks the rows of servers, dragging his pickaxe over the floor. He’ll bust us out when things die down.
10/28
Nobody bothers us down here other than the little cunts, the flies that kiss us in our sleep, leaving volcanic welts. I was scratching his back with one hand, shooing the flies with the other, when he said, “Jaime, let’s make an AI. Let’s make Heaven on the computer. It’s the closest I’ll ever get, probably.”
I laid next to him in the sour air of the cot so he could guide my iPad sorcery. I pulled up Synthesia and said, “Ok, Mr. President. Describe your vision.”
He spoke of breaking ground in Gaza. Beautiful hotels. Carrara marble floors. Views of the Mediterranean Sea. Big beach. Skimpy bikinis. Shrimp cocktail. Escalators to the sky that never break down. A nice buffet with no garbage, steak, maybe a little vanilla ice cream, cake and cookies. Golden statues. Bigger. Golder. Now do me at bombing Chicago. Superman cape. Big pope hat.
We posted it at 3 a.m. The internet went out within the hour. The last hour.
10/29
Alone together. Children laugh inside the servers. The butler grinds his pickaxe.
“Let’s slow dance a little,” he said. “When all this blows over, we’ll go dancing for real in the ballroom.”
He’s lost so much weight that his neck can barely support his head. He was light in my arms, my little doll. His knees buckled and I caught him. It sent a chill through both of us.
“Mr. President, are you trying a new seduction technique on me?”
He laughed and patted my bottom. We laid back down and he draped his leg over my middle.
“I used to fuck all my best friends’ wives. You’re like my wife and my best friend.”
His high-pitched New York accent was slow and slurry. He was so weak he could barely stand to lose the drool that pooled under my clavicle as I pretended to fall asleep.
10/30
The TV wouldn’t turn on, so we listened to bombs thunder into the night. The day? It’s all the same down here.
“Am I really dead?”
“You’re the late, great Tom Sawyer. And I’m your Huckleberry.”
The TV flicked on, playing a static blizzard. The roar made him sit up.
“Hear ‘em?”
“Who?”
“Everyone cheering for me. It’s a rally. I’ll do a speech now. In bed. You sit on the floor.”
I sat on the floor.
“Good girl. Fireside chat time. I’ve seen Hell and it’s America. Such old history, not good. I alone beat back the flames. And sometimes I fanned them because a little fire can be nice, especially during the holidays if you get the day off. And you know what? In the end, I did whatever the hell I wanted and never lost anything. Never worked, never took a day off. Life of a boss for ya. It’s been an honor…” He stopped, like someone was telling him to wrap it up. “Ok, darling. I’ve seen Hell and I’m excited to break ground. Thank you very much. Bye.”
He couldn’t make a meal out of his last speech.
“Do I really sound like that?”
“It was perfect.”
The TV flicked off. The dark smothered us. I adjusted his pillow, just so, and let him rest. There’s no such thing as death.
10/31
I wake up on the floor, my ears ringing with the absence of laughter.
He’s gone. So is the butler. In the now open elevator shaft, there’s just enough rope for me to climb out.
Above ground, I leave through the jagged maw of the East Wing, and venture into the smoking crater of the night. Raptors scream overhead. Distant gunfire pops. Barefoot, I goose step over little fires on the East Lawn, and waltz into the fully completed ballroom. He’s weeping on the floor with his back to me. I wait. He gets up, wearing only a towel, and takes my hand.
We dance until my stomach drops out of my ass. Something brushes my shoulder. He dips me and, as my hair mops the floor, I look up to see a pair of dangling feet, their soles a moldy gray. Two pairs of feet. A ballerino floats beside her.
We pull each other closer, and the wind howls through us.
“I’m freezing,” he says.
“Me too.”
He squeezes me tighter, but I don’t feel it.
“Is that all there is?” he asks. “There must be more.”
Debt.
Our bodies sway, our souls sink. The floor descends, the ceiling rises, hoisting the dancers by their necks. I close my eyes and shiver as the first lick of orange slips under my toenails, up my legs, past my pelvis, through my stomach, penetrates my breast, and sets my clean coal heart ablaze.
“You first, darling.” He pushes me beneath him.