Linda Rabben

We're excited to have a special donation to the AGG Auction from Linda Rabben. Her new book,

Through a Glass Darkly: The Social History of Stained Glass in Baltimore, will be up for bid

during the silent auction [in July], signed by the author and in virtually new condition (despite having

been read by me, gently).

From the back of the book, I've copied Ms. Rabben's bio: "An associate research professor of anthropology at the University of Maryland, Linda Rabben is the author of Sanctuary and Asylum: A Social and Political History, My Brazil: Reports from The Interior, Journeywoman: A Writer's Story, and other books and articles on human rights and related subjects."

Ms. Rabben describes her 2020 first encounter with Baltimore's stained glass, which led her on a path of discovery and a pandemic project of substantial scale. Her unexpected emotional reaction and newfound obsession with stained glass wouldn't surprise most AGG members. I expected to look at the pictures and enjoy reading the captions. But this turns out to be more than a picture book.

There are quite a few useful black-and-white photos to which the text refers, and 16 pages of quite nice color photos of stained glass and architecture. Based on Ms. Rabben's

discovery that this is the first book on the subject, it should be well received simply as a catalog of some of the interesting glass and makers in Baltimore.

This book, however, is a historical view of Baltimore's architecture (and stained glass) and how it was driven by the city's economic development. I'm not a historian or even particularly well read on architectural history. But Ms. Rabben approaches the problem head-on. She puts her examples in the context of art movements that we often hear about: Aesthetic Movement, Art Nouveau, Beaux Arts, Craftsman, Eclectic Style, House Beautiful, City Beautiful (I'd never heard of those two), Art Deco, Arts and Crafts. The text includes endnotes, and the bibliography is substantial. I expect that her work meets the academic standards of rigor for that sort of thing.

Baltimore's economic history isn't always cheerful or wholesome. Ms. Rabben weaves the story of Baltimore's Jim Crow discrimination, restrictive covenants, unrestrained suburban sprawl, white flight, Great Depression, labor struggles, and overdevelopment with her observations about the architectural results and implications for the future. It's impressive. She did original research of builders' records, Baltimore Sun newspaper files, church archives, many interviews—and I suspect a career's worth of reading in decorative art history during two years of pandemic—to produce this work. There are some strong opinions stated. I wouldn't be surprised if the book stirred up some dust and provoked some conversation.

When you see Through a Glass Darkly on the auction table during the conference, please handle it gently. If this book doesn't become mine in the auction, somebody else will have paid quite a bit for it.

  

*     *     *     *

 

 

Worst Case Scenarios

By Linda Rabben © 2020

 

1. Trompe's Secret

 

Nobody knew; he was sure of that. And she was the last person who'd tell. So where had the piece of paper with cut-out letters come from? It said, "You had her."

He would have thrown the paper into the fire, but it was only a video of flames, projected into the fireplace.

Nobody but the two of them could know. She wouldn't have sent it, would she? He gave her everything she could possibly want, including the rights to that $20,000 bracelet. She had as much to lose as he did. No, she wouldn't have sent it, not in a million years. And how did it get to the bedside table? Who put it there? Why?

His attention shifted, as always, to the laptop screen, then to the Iphone. It was 3:27 AM, prime tweeting time. "George Julius is a big, fat, dumb LIAR! He must have Alzheimer's. Sad," he typed. That would show that n------r, he thought. Maybe Julius had told the NAACP to send that f-----g piece of paper. Maybe the black chambermaid brought it in. He'd have to remember to fire her. But first he'd make her get on her knees. . . . He smiled at the thought.

Wait a minute—where had he put it? Anxiety made his gorge rise. He popped a few Tums. Then he turned and saw it, lying right in the middle of the floor, fluorescent white on the dark-brown rug, made from a grizzly one of his sons had shot. Endangered species, my ass, he muttered. He grabbed the paper and headed for the shredder. A deep, aching pain coursed through his chest.

He had to stop eating so many of those $36 hamburgers. They were killing him.

 

2. Coup d'Etat, Anyone?

 

"Read it again, slowly this time, so I can understand it," the Defense Secretary said.

"Amendment XXV. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President."

The Defense Secretary looked out the window at the smoking ruins of the Capitol. It seemed like only yesterday that Trompe had taken the oath of office. What was it, five months ago? Six? He'd lost track of time lately.

The Vice President glanced at him and murmured, "You're not listening."

"No, I am listening, but how is anybody going to get him to write a declaration that he can't discharge his duties? He's hiding somewhere in the White House, and it's for sure he won't go quietly. He's got his private security guards with him. Is that all it says?"

"There's more. It goes on and on."

"Just give me the main points," the Defense Secretary grumbled. The Vice President noticed that he kept fingering the brass buttons on his uniform.

"What it seems to be saying is that if the Cabinet members issue a written statement that he can't discharge his duties, then I'll become the Acting President until he declares that he's able to serve—God, this is wordy!—unless we all issue another statement within four days that he can't serve. Then the Congress has to assemble and determine by a two-thirds vote of both Houses that he can't serve."

"Well, that won't be easy. A lot of them were killed in the bombing. And where would we assemble them? In the DAR auditorium?"

The Vice President shook his head dolefully. "I know, I know. But it is do-able; it must be do-able. We can't go on like this. He's still tweeting like there's no tomorrow. He never talks to me. I can't take any more."

The Attorney General, a small wizened man who looked almost like an elf, piped up, "If something happens to him, then what? He can't issue any statements then."

The Secretary of State snapped to attention. "We make something happen to him. Call Vlad. He'll know what to do."

 

3. Pussy Riot

 

"You what?"

"I wanna go to the Woman March. I bet Vanna wanna go, too."

"No. Absolutely not. Are you crazy?"

"You never let me go anywhere! You make me stay home all the time. I hate it here. Gold toilet seat is cold for my ass."

"It's for your own good. They'd kill you out there. They'd tear your dress off and rape you."

"Why you make that face? What you want from me?"

"You know."

"Not again. I don't do that. It makes mess on bed." 

"OK, go to the damn march. But don't let anyone see you there. And be back before dark, or I won't let you in. I'll tell the guards to turn you away."

"So I go home, to Tower. I have key. You don't need me here. You got those Russian whores. Vlad says best in world."

"They can't be First Lady. I need you to be First Lady."

"You got Vanna for that. You just need me to wear clothes, smile, walk like model. That's why you bought me, isn't it?"

"Here, here's 10,000 bucks. Don't spend it all in one place." He walks away.

She puts the money in her purse and goes into the dressing room. She puts on a plain gray sweatshirt, sweat pants and running shoes. He has no idea that she shops at Salvation Army. She's saving up to run away, someday.

 

4. It's Not March, It's January

 

At the Trump Hotel, 1/21/17:

 

"Why are you looking out the window? There's nothing to see out there."

"But there are thousands of people marching by. Some of them are wearing bright pink caps with ears on them."

"What are your talking about? I don't see anybody out there."

"Oh, come on, look—you can see them if you look."

"Oh, them. It's just the same 50 people going by again and again. They're doing that so fake news can take fake pictures."

"No, really, they're different, they're not the same people. They're carrying different signs. Look at that one: 'Keep your tiny hands off my body.'"

"That's not what it says at all. It says, "In God We Trust." These are our people. They were at the inauguration yesterday."

"It doesn't say that. It says, 'Keep your tiny hands off my body.'"

"Are you crazy? You need to get your eyes examined."

"I see what I see."

"Who you gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes?"

 

5. Incognita

 

The crowd on Pennsylvania Avenue was so tightly packed that people could hardly turn their heads.

"You look familiar," a tall, gaunt woman in a tuxedo said to the woman next to her, who was wearing a plain gray sweat suit. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she wore no makeup. "Have I met you before? Are you from New York?"

The woman in the sweat suit nodded yes and no. "I live in New York, but I'm not from there."

"Has anybody ever told you that you look like Mrs. Trompe?" Tuxedo asked.

Sweat Suit smiled slightly. "Oh, she's much more glamorous than me. I'm just a housewife."

Tuxedo expelled a contemptuous puff of air from her lips. "You couldn't be her. She's not even a housewife, she's a trophy wife. He bought and paid for her. I wonder when he'll trade her in for a new model?"

Sweat Suit winced. She didn't know how to defend herself, so she said nothing.

Tuxedo turned her head and looked at Sweat Suit's profile for a long time. "Oh shit," she blurted. "I have to pee. Will you hold this sign for me?"

Sweat Suit didn't have a chance to answer. Tuxedo thrust the sign into her hands and plowed her way through the crowd toward the curb.

The sign said, "Keep your tiny hands off my body." Sweat Suit blushed.

 

6. Stevie B

 

Steve Baneful, known as Darth Vader to older White House staffers and Lord Voldemort to younger ones, had his feet on his desk and was cutting his toenails when his nubile young assistant entered the office. He put his bare feet on the floor and beckoned her to sit in the chair next to the desk.

"Hi, honey," he smirked. "Do you know why I hired you?"

She blushed and looked down. "Is it because I'm efficient and a fast typist?"

He shook his head no.

"Is it because I'm blond, 23, and wear tight skirts?"

He nodded yes.

She noticed that he was rhythmically rubbing his nether parts, blushed again, and looked away. A rank odor wafted off his trousers. She involuntarily shuddered, remembering the rumor that he rarely bathed.

The smirk vanished. "What do you want?" he snarled.

"You told me to let you know when His name wasn't on the front page of the Washington Post."

"How dare that bastard, Beezlebub, double-cross me?" he roared. "We had a deal!"

He put his feet back on the desk. In a low but menacing tone he said, "Now cut my toenails."

 

 

 

7. The Beginning of the End, or the End of the Beginning?

 

Freezing rain is falling on Washington on January 20, 2018, the first anniversary of the National Day of Patriotic Devotion. All the flags are flying at half-mast, at the direction of Acting President Pinch. Nobody is sure why; is he mourning the death of the Republic?

President Trompe has fled, and nobody knows where he is. Rumors are flying wildly in all directions: His security guards have taken him away in a Stealth bomber; he's at the same undisclosed location that Dick Cheney used after 9/11; he's hijacked a briefcase-sized nuclear weapon; he's seeking asylum in the Kremlin.

His family has disappeared, too. It's said they're in Switzerland, staying in a luxurious bunker underneath the Zurich office of Deutsche Bank, their most faithful creditor. The bank still hopes to recover its investment in the family brand.

The Secretary of Defense, who led the coup d'etat, is now chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a five-star general. The Secretary of State is on extended leave, taking care of business in Alberta, Canada, somewhere near the Keystone Pipeline. Congress was decimated by the bombing six months ago and has never reconvened.

Killer-Ann Conman, the president's counselor, is believed to be recovering from a sex-change operation in Tangiers or a face and buttock lift in Rio. Rinse Prepuce, the president's chief of staff, has crawled back to the Republican National Committee, whose office has relocated to Philadelphia, Mississippi. And Stevie B is thought to be holed up in a cheap motel outside Cheyenne, Wyoming, waiting for the right moment to return to power.

 

8. Stiff Upper Lip

 

In the British Embassy loo, after the meeting:

 

"I say, Prime Minister, that must have been a rather thrilling meeting for you! We noticed that the president was holding your hand as you left the White House."

Theresa May shivers almost imperceptibly. "Quite," she mutters through clenched teeth.

 

Editor's note: In some circumstances, when British people use the word "quite," they mean, "not really."

 

9. Operation Bandido

 

President Trompe's press secretary announced today that U.S. troops have crossed the Mexican border in pursuit of "murderers, rapists and criminals" in "Operation Bandido." On vacation at an undisclosed location, President Trompe was not available for comment.

The Secretary of Defense announced that a mounted force of Border Patrol "Rough Riders," which the president created two weeks ago, galloped over the El Paso-Juarez bridge at 5 o'clock this morning. They quickly seized the mayor's office and surrounded the main police station, preventing any resistance to U.S. takeover of the city.

Later this morning two US Air Force Stealth aircraft flew 500 feet over Acapulco, while Air Force drones dropped cluster bombs on suspected drug traffickers' hideouts near the resort city. About 25 kidnapped migrants held at the site were reported killed in the assault. "We regret this collateral damage," the operation commander, General Buck Turgidson, announced.

"This was a highly successful surgical strike, perhaps the most successful surgical strike in U.S. history," Killer-Ann Conman, the president's counselor, declared in an exclusive interview with Faux News.

The White House Communications Office is preparing a celebration of the strike, the "Second Colossally Great National Day of Patriotic Devotion." A copy editor in the Communications Office reportedly resigned in protest at the overuse of multiple superlatives in the president's proclamation of the event.

"I just couldn't take it anymore," the editor, Henrietta Stackpole, explained. "I've been a copy editor for 37 years, and I've never before seen so many superlatives strung together in one sentence. They wouldn't let me delete a single one. This kind of hyperbole is an assault on everything I believe in." Ms. Stackpole faces prosecution on federal felony charges of whistleblowing, under a provision of the newly passed Federal Employee Responsibility Act.

Meanwhile, drones continued to drop cluster bombs, disguised as children's toys and chocolate candies, on Cuernavaca, Oaxaca, Cozumel, Puerto Vallarta, Guadalajara and other tourist destinations. Travel agents reported mass cancellations of spring break vacations. There are no Trompe hotels in any of the bombed cities.

"This will do more to cripple the Mexican economy than anything else," said Trompe supporter and chairman of the U.S. Tourist Association Beau Blooper. "Patriotic Americans should support the president by staying in Trompe hotels," he added.

 

10. Commander in Chief

 

Shouts and the sound of furniture flying across the Oval Office echoed down the hall. Trompe was having a temper tantrum. It was 4 AM.

"They can't do that to me, those bitch dyke judges!" he shouted as he paced back and forth, picking up lamps and paperweights and hurling them at the wall.

"I'll send them to Gitmo! I want those ragheads sent to Gitmo!"

He picked up the special phone and called Stevie B. "Get over here NOW! You gotta tell me what to do!"

Baneful dressed very, very slowly. Better give the chief a few minutes to cool down. He strolled down the long hallway leading to the West Wing, scratching the red lesions on his face. "The marks of Cain," his assistant had called them in an unguarded moment. He'd made sure she wouldn't say that again.

The Oval Office looked like a saloon after a shoot-out. "Mr. Pres—," he started to say.

"I told you never to call me that!" Trompe screamed. "I'm the Commander in Chief!"

"Chief, what can I do for you?"

"Tell me what to do! I need to know what to do!" Flecks of foam appeared at the edges of Trompe's mouth.

Baneful went to the side table where the mood stabilizers were kept. "Have a seat, Chief, and I'll give you a hand. Nothing to worry about. I've got everything under control." He injected the syringe in the usual spot and waited. Trompe drummed his fingers on the top of the massive desk.

"Now look, Chief, everything's going to be fine. ICE is going to keep right on enforcing your order. We don't have to pay attention to any penny ante federal judge."

"I want those ragheads to disappear! I want them sent to Gitmo! I want those judges removed from office!"

"All in good time, Chief, all in good time." Baneful switched on the boom box hidden in a corner. The strains of the Rolling Stones filled the room: "You can't always get what you want—but you can get what you need." Trompe sang along. Good, Baneful thought, he was starting to calm down.

"Now here's what we're going to do. . . ."

 

To be continued—how long?

 

11. Meanwhile, Back in New York

 

She was practicing smiling. Every morning, after brushing her teeth, she practiced smiling.

She looked carefully at her face in the bathroom mirror. Did her eyes look right? Or could they tell she'd had work done?

She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them wide. She carefully drew her mouth up. No, that wasn't right. She'd have to show her teeth. She drew her lips back. Should she show only her uppers, or open her mouth so the lower teeth were exposed?

That way, it looked like a grimace—or even worse, a snarl. Like her husband.

She closed her mouth and stopped grinning. "I'm a Slav," she thought sadly. "Everyone knows Slavs don't smile. We're serious people. Why should I smile? Just because he says I have to?"

The boy was on the other side of the locked door. "Mommy," he whined. "Mommy, I need you."

Sometimes it gave her the creeps, how much he looked and acted like his father. Poor little boy.

She sighed. Was this all there was? This vast apartment with gold-plated toilets, the white rugs, the chrome furniture. . . . Empty. It was all so empty.

She opened the door. The boy followed her to the picture window. She looked out, but everything was too far away to see clearly.

"We're going to take a trip," she said suddenly.

"Where, Mommy, where?"

"Home—home to the village." There, no one would tell her to smile.

 

12. Enemies Foreign and Domestic

 

Comic actor Alex Bold has been reported missing, and hundreds of Legal Permanent Residents (green card holders) have been detained by ICE in dawn raids under the Alien Enemies Act, as President Trompe cracks down on dissent.

Bold aroused the president's wrath when he impersonated the Commander in Chief engaging in an indecent act with Vlad Pluto, the Russian Tsar, on a popular late-night TV program. Bert Benny, the actor who played Pluto in the skit, is also reported missing. It is not known if Bold and Benny have been arrested or gone into hiding.

From its International Secretariat in Costa Rica, Amnesty International has declared the two actors prisoners of conscience. The FBI closed the human rights organization's offices in the United States last week, also under the Alien Enemies Act.

According to Wikipedia, the Alien Enemies Act originated in the Alien Friends and Alien Enemies Acts of 1798. Along with the Sedition Act, these laws "made it harder for an immigrant to become a citizen, allowed the president to imprison and deport non-citizens who were deemed dangerous or who were from a hostile nation, and criminalized making false statements that were critical of the federal government." The Sedition Act and the Alien Friends Act expired in 1800 and 1801, but the Alien Enemies Act is still on the books. 

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trompe proposed banning all Muslims from entering the United States as part of the war on terror. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's wartime application of the Alien Enemies Act was cited as a possible justification.

Critics claimed that the proposal violated founding principles and was unconstitutional because it singled out a religion. Defense Department officials argued that the proposal (and its citation of the Alien Enemies proclamations as authority) played into the ISIL narrative that the United States was at war with the entire Muslim religion (not just with ISIL and other terrorist entities).*

 

*Information on the Alien Enemies Act (and a certain presidential candidate's call to ban all Muslims from entering the United States) is quoted or paraphrased from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Alien_and_Sedition_Acts, last modified on January 26, 2017.

 

 

13. Ozymandias

 

"President Baneful—"

"I told you never to call me that. There is no president anymore."

It was a torrid spring day, and the air-conditioning in the White House wasn't working.

The red pustules on Baneful's face made him look like the portrait of Dorian Gray. He'd achieved everything he'd worked for, but he wasn't happy. Strange to say, he missed Trompe.

He thought of his mother; how proud she would be. Her son was the most powerful man in the world. A self-made man, unlike that crazy fool. A single tear dripped down his ravaged cheek.

But he couldn't make the widow love him. The last he'd heard, she was somewhere in Slobovia with the boy. The boy. . . . Something had to be done about the boy.

"Commander in Chief—"

His reverie was shattered. "What do you want?" he barked.

"A message from General Turgidson." The nubile young assistant slid a piece of paper across the desk and backed away.

"Why isn't this on the computer?" he growled.

"The computer isn't working, sir. The power failure—"

Trompe had always said you couldn't trust computers. Everything of importance should be on paper, delivered by a messenger. If only Trompe had followed his own advice, none of this would have happened. It was all Trompe's fault; he shouldn't have listened to Baneful. But it wasn't Baneful's fault, either. Vlad—Vlad was to blame.

Baneful shook his head to clear the brain fog. He hadn't been the same since the attack.

In the ruined garden outside the Oval Office, a single bird started to sing, then broke off in the middle of a phrase.  Baneful muttered something, too low for the assistant to hear. "Did you say something, sir? Is there something I can do for you?"

"'Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair,'" he murmured.

 

14. Let Loose the Dogs

 

Stevie Baneful brought the gavel down so hard it cracked the surface of the long oak table in the Situation Room. "I hereby call the National Security Council to order!" he shouted.

Trompe grunted, then sniffed a couple of times, as if his nose was congested. "Is anybody else coming?" he asked.

"This is it, just the two of us," Baneful replied, scratching the red lesions on his nose. "We don't really need anybody else to run things, do we?"

Trompe looked bewildered. He frequently looked bewildered, since Baneful had started giving him the injections three times a day. "Uh, I guess not. Whatever you say." His words were halting, slurred, and his members trembled. He didn't look at all well.

"I told you to cut out those Half-Pounders," Baneful said sternly. "Can't you control yourself at all?"

Trompe mumbled something.

"What did you say?" Baneful asked threateningly.

"Yes, P-p-pa," Trompe stammered.

"And take your feet off the table!" Baneful roared.

Trompe sat up as straight as he could, which wasn't very straight at all.

"Pull yourself together! You're going to give the speech of your life tonight," Baneful commanded.

Trompe suddenly remembered that he'd heard those words before. Weren't they in that movie—what was it called? "The Mongolian Candidate?"

"Will there be a teleprompter? I can't give a speech without a teleprompter," Trompe whined.

"Of course, you idiot. You don't think I'd expect you to talk without one, do you?" Baneful replied, unable to conceal his contempt.

"Yes, the speech of your life," Baneful repeated. Trompe could smell the rank odor wafting from Baneful's trousers. What was it called? Brimstone?

Baneful smiled. "You're going to declare war tonight—on all fronts. It'll all be over in half an hour. And we're gonna win. We're gonna win so much we'll be sick of winning."

 

 

15. I-Couldn't-Make-This-Up Department

 

"According to White House reporters, the president began Sunday at his golf course in south Florida, far from the courtroom fray or the airports where refugees, visa holders and dual citizens have started to return. He spent the previous evening at a gala at his Mar-a-Lago resort, which was dressed up to themes of 18th-century aristocracy for the occasion."

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/05/trump-travel-ban-suspension-appeal-mike-pence-bernie-sanders

 "The event 'From Vienna to Versailles,' took place Saturday night at the Mar-a-Lago Club, which was done up in Old World 18th-century style, right down to the service staff in powdered wigs and satin knee breeches or Marie Antoinette dresses.

"Yes," said one server, when asked if the wig was hot. "And it weighs four pounds."

"The night began with the diplomatic receiving line and cocktails around the balustraded pool, a fireworks display over the Intracoastal which gave the smattering of protesters the best views, and classical music by Hapzburg [sic]-costumed musicians.

"After cocktails, the crowd moved to the Grand Ballroom — conceived and constructed to look like Versailles' Hall of Mirrors, making it the perfect foil for the gold-rimmed china and snow-white table linens and mounds of all-white flowers — for the presentation of the colors by the Marines from the local ANGLICO unit, and the diplomatic procession which ended with the introduction of the President and First Lady."

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/national/trump-presides-over-red-cross-ball-mar-lago/TLr89bFABlstS4CWCk73zK/

Editor's Note: It was not reported that the First Lady said, "Let them eat cake." She didn't have to. The event spoke for itself.

 

16. Next Year's Super Bowl Halftime Show?

 

Ted Nougat was the headliner at Super Bowl 52's halftime spectacle, singing "Cat-Scratch Fever" as fireworks exploded above the crowd and Muslim refugees were thrown to real lions. President Trompe was in the imperial box, making the thumbs-down gesture again and again as the crowd and the lions roared their approval.

 

(With thanks to my husband, who knows more about these things than I do.)

 

 

17. Underreported Terrorist Attack #79

 

From an article in the Washington Post, 2/5/17, on the 38th Super Bowl (2004):

 

"At the start of the third quarter, the Super Bowl also had its first streaker—a man who managed to get onto the field despite one of the largest security contingents in the game's history. His romp across the field never made the airwaves."

As Trompe would say, I guess the media have their reasons.

 

18. The Girls

 

They were meeting at a grimy coffee shop somewhere in Northern Virginia. The floors looked as if they hadn't been mopped since the Carter administration. The donuts were stale, the coffee unspeakable. But the place suited their purpose. No one would look for them there.

Baneful's nubile young assistant called the meeting to order. "Has everyone done their assignment?" she asked.

Some of the older women smiled as the younger ones shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. One got up to go to the ladies' room, and the vinyl seat squeaked as she peeled her pencil-skirted bottom off it.

"Emily, how about you?" Embarrassed, Emily looked down at the dirty table top.

"It's really hard to do what you asked," she muttered. Some of the others murmured agreement.

"I'm black-and-blue from his pinches," Baneful's assistant, whose name was Zenobia, declared. "But you don't see me complaining, do you?"

A heavy-set older woman named Charlie spoke up. "At least I don't have to worry about that. He's gay as a piñata!"

"How did you find out?" Zenobia asked.

"I followed him. He went straight from the White House to that club in Dupont."

"Did you go in?"

Charlie smiled broadly. "Of course. I'm a dyke as far as he's concerned."

"Did he see you?"

"I don't think so. He was very involved with a hot young guy from the Commerce Department. I slipped downstairs to the Women's Room. What a zoo!"

"Good job, Charlie," Zenobia said. "You're keeping a log of his comings and goings, right?"

And so it went, as every White House secretary, PA, or AA reported what she'd discovered.

"So what's the leak of the day?" Zenobia demanded.

You'll find out soon enough.

 

19. Not a Party Person

 

President Trompe's chief of staff and former chair of the Republican National Committee, Rinse Prepuce, announced today that the Party henceforth will be known as the Trompe Party, in honor of the fabulously successful businessman and Beloved Leader of the Free World.

Former Senator Lizzie Warpath, convicted in absentia of offenses under the New and Improved Sedition Act, condemned the party's name change from exile in northern Norway.

"They told me to shut up, but I wouldn't shut up, so here I am," she told reporters who trudged through three feet of snow to her home in remote Telemark, where she was living with the Sami indigenous people.

Warpath left Washington after Senate Majority Leader Mitch (the Turtle) Bilbo expelled her from office for unladylike behavior. She then had to flee her hideout on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota after the Keystone XL Pipeline burst, contaminating the tribe's water supply and making the entire reservation and much of North Dakota uninhabitable.

Later the Norwegian government offered her asylum, despite Trompe's threats to bomb any country that would accept her "back to the Stone Age."

"I'll be back," she promised as she strapped snowshoes on her feet and a rifle over her shoulder in her far-northern lair. "I have not yet begun to fight."

 

 

20. The Way Home

 

As she stepped off the plane she could smell the familiar odor of kerosene, stale cooking oil, and diesel that she remembered so well from her childhood. She inhaled deeply and coughed. The boy coughed, too. Maybe it had been a mistake to bring him along. But she didn't trust her husband's people to take good care of him.

So they had slipped out of Trompe Tower at nine AM on a Tuesday, when hundreds of office workers and domestics were flowing into the building in a seemingly unending stream. She was dressed in her favorite disguise: a gray sweat suit and gray running shoes. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore no makeup. The boy was in play clothes. She carried a small bag, and he wore a backpack. They both looked—ordinary. Nobody noticed them.

They walked a couple of blocks down the street, dodging the demonstrators, heads down. The boy seemed to understand that he should keep quiet.

"Kennedy," she told the taxi driver, who was humming an Arab song as he thought of his family, trapped in Libya by Trompe's executive order. He looked at her in the rearview mirror. She seemed strangely familiar. He looked again and shook his head slightly in recognition.

"Are you leaving for good?" he asked her.

"I don't know," she said softly, her accent barely perceptible.

"I can understand why you might want to get away. Are you going home?"

"It used to be home. I don't know where home is anymore," she answered sadly.

"And your boy?"

She glanced at the child next to her. He was looking out the window, entranced by the crowds.

"Would you take care of him?" she asked the driver.

"Oh no, madam, I couldn't. You should take him with you, show him your home. He will like that."

"I don't think so, but I can't leave him with them. I don't know what they would do to him. He might turn out like the others." She shuddered.

"Have you had any breakfast? Would you like to stop and eat something? It would be a pleasure to take you to a little café I know in Far Rockaway. It's near the airport."

She thought about his offer. Why not? She nodded yes.

He took her to a place frequented by Arab taxi drivers. They could see the beach and the ocean, just across the street.

"Mommy, mommy!" the boy shouted. "I want to go to the beach!"

"Darling, I'm afraid we won't have time. We have to go to the airport. And besides, it's too cold for the beach."

The boy scowled. She never let him do anything he wanted to do.

The taxi driver, whose name was Abdul, showed them to a booth. The other drivers barely looked up from their coffee. The odd trio ate quickly, and Abdul paid for their meals.

The boy looked longingly at the beach as they got back in the taxi. "Don't worry," she told him. "We have a very nice beach at home. I'll take you every day."

"We have a beach at home, too," Abdul told the boy, but the child didn't seem interested. Abdul turned up the radio. A plaintive old tune sung by Umm Kulthum filled the taxi.

"What is this music?" she asked. "It's very sad. It reminds me of songs my mother used to sing."

Before Abdul could answer, the taxi arrived at International Departures. She thanked him for his kindness and the two walked quickly away. He looked at the crumpled note she had given him and almost fainted. It was a thousand-dollar bill.

"Nobody will believe me," he thought.

 

21. Omens

 

Headlines from the Washington Post, February 13, 2017:

 

Forecast: High wind warning at play into the evening.

As Flynn faces growing pressure over Russia contacts, Trump remains silent.

Tens of thousands evacuated in California after spillway on nation's tallest dam threatens to flood.

Increasing numbers of Muslim migrants trek north to Canada, sometimes through freezing temperatures and snow.

 

22. Rio by the Sea-O

 

On an atrociously hot January day in Rio de Janeiro, Killer-Ann Conman was feeling comfortably cool in an air-conditioned suite across the road from Ipanema beach. The bandages were making her face itch, but they would be removed in a few minutes. The plastic surgeon was one of the best in the world—he'd done wonders with the first lady's eyelids. He'd promised Killer-Ann that he'd take 20 years off her face.

Trompe would be so pleased. After all, he was paying for the surgery. "Consider it a gift," he'd said. It wasn't enough that she'd dyed her hair blond and had it styled to look like his daughter Vanna's. Now she'd look just like Vanna's sister. She shivered in anticipation and looked at her watch for the fifth time in five minutes.

Dr. Filho da Puta entered the room. He'd had his face done by an assistant a few years earlier to resemble John F. Kennedy Jr. It was starting to sag a little, but he was still one of the handsomest men in Rio, a city of exceptionally beautiful people.

"Dr. Puta," she breathed, but only a croak emerged from the bandages.

"Dona Keeler, such a pleasure to see you again. You are going to be so beautiful," he said suavely. She trembled as he took her hand and kissed it as gently as a breeze playing over the ocean.

Outside, the Lagoa's stinking, polluted waters were roiled by thousands of dead fish, turning over and over in the tide. But nobody in the air-conditioned suite could smell them.

The tall, distinguished-looking doctor stood by as an assistant unwrapped the bandages. Killer-Ann couldn't help noticing that the expression on his face was changing from bland satisfaction to something resembling unease. Instead of taking her face tenderly in his hands, as she'd imagined, he remained a few feet away from her padded, reclining chair.

Saying nothing, he turned on his heel and left the room. "Dr. Puta!" she screamed, "What have you done to me?"

The assistant handed her a mirror. She screamed again. She looked exactly as she had before the surgery—maybe a little more haggard.

"How can this be?" she shouted. The assistant shrugged and said, "A senhora me disculpe, por favor," and retreated to the door. "There is only so much we can do with the material we have," he added in heavily accented English, bowed and left.

Sobbing bitterly, she wondered if now, after everything she'd done for him—the justifications, the spin, the free commercials—Trompe would finally fire her. Her face didn't measure up.

 

 

23. "Pleased to meet you/ Hope you guessed my name"

 

"You seem lost," I whispered.

We had run into each other, literally, in the sub-basement of the White House at 3 AM. He was wearing a faded T-shirt, running shorts and high-top sneakers, no socks. His distinguishing features were his prematurely balding pate and a long anonymous face with tiny eyes.

I was hovering, as I often did, a couple of feet above the dirty cement floor. As far as I knew, nobody living had strayed down there for decades.

He looked startled. Of course he couldn't see me. I manifested myself in my 1920s form, wearing the open white shirt, checked plus-fours and golf shoes that the Prince of Wales had made fashionable in the summer of 1922. "I'm a man of wealth and taste," as the old song goes.

"I didn't see you. It's so dark down here," he muttered.

"You seem lost," I said again.

He pulled himself together, as if somebody above him were jerking his strings. "I'm never lost," he proclaimed in a loud, grating voice full of inappropriate certainty, like a 12-year-old boy giving his first speech to his sixth-grade class.

Who did he remind me of? The image of Archibald, my boyhood playmate, flitted in front of me.

"Are you Archibald?" I asked.

"Of course not. You must have heard of me. I'm the Chief's bright young man. He paused for effect. "Steve, Steve Mugwump."

"What an odd name," I replied. "I thought it meant someone who can't make up his mind, someone who's neutral on a controversial issue. Something to do with Grover Cleveland."

"Not me. I'm never neutral, and my mind is always made up," he shouted. "And I'm the one who should be asking the questions. Who are you, and what are you doing down here? Do you have clearance?"

I couldn't help chuckling, and my chuckle is a very ominous sound. Some people find it quite disturbing. "I'm the one who gives the clearances."

"Do you work for the Chief?" he asked, a little hesitantly.

"I am the Chief. Your chief works for me." I smiled, and my head got bigger and bigger, until it took up the entire corridor. He huddled in a corner.

"Does that mean your authority will not be questioned?" he asked, deferentially this time.

"You could say that."

He threw himself on the floor in an abject posture. "Then tell me what to do," he pleaded. "I'll do anything you ask. That's the kind of guy I am."

"I'll think about it and get back to you," I replied in my oiliest voice. And then I disappeared. I like to leave them guessing.

 

24. "But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game."

 

Stevie B was snoring, head on desk, whiskey bottle overturned and dripping onto the floor, when I sidled up to him, leaned over his shoulder and whispered, "Hey, buddy, what's up?"

He must have been dreaming, because he waved his hand in my face and mumbled something. So I shoved his face into the desk and roared at him. That woke him up.

He didn't seem to know where he was. He was stinking drunk.

"Do you know who I am?" I purred.

Bewildered, he shook his head and rubbed his eyes as he tried to focus. "I'm your guardian angel, Stevie. I give you all your best ideas. I make you tick." I slapped him upside the head, hard.

"Not the face," he whimpered.

"You've already got my marks all over your ugly mug," I chortled. "Did you even look at your picture on the cover of Time?"

Then he made his first mistake. He said something very insulting about my mother. I took the form of a giant fly and hovered over him, buzzing furiously and spitting black acid on his head. Screaming, he clapped his pudgy hands over his ears.

"Now calm down, Stevie, and do exactly what I tell you." I handed him a black lace handkerchief so he could wipe the spit off his head. He was muttering again.

"What did you say?" I asked menacingly.

"Yes, Master," he mumbled.

"Good, good." I smiled. The black spit dribbled down my mandibles. I do so enjoy being revolting.

"Now I want a complete report on your activities at the National Security Council," I demanded.

"Nothing's happening over there. Didn't you hear that In-like Finn resigned?" He seemed surprised that I'd asked the question.

I smacked him again. "Don't mess with me, Stevie. Of course I know he resigned. Who do you think set the whole thing up?"

"But why? He was doing such a good job, exactly what you told him to do. . . ." He was whimpering again.

"Don't you understand that I embody total disorder and chaos? That's what I do. I screw things up."

"But I thought you promised—you said we'd achieve complete control, total dominance, absolute power, a fine-tuned machine."

"Don't fool yourself, boy. You control nothing. You're my bitch; I'm not yours."

That's when he started to blubber. I almost felt sorry for him. There's nothing more pathetic than a weepy drunk.

"C'mon, snowflake, cheer up. I'm going to take you to the top of the mountain and promise you the world. I'm going to give you everything you ever wanted. You'll get to destroy everything." I laughed my special laugh, which sounds like a baby being tortured. And the poor bastard didn't know whether to laugh along with me or cry or scream.

 

25. Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

 

It's really hard to get into heaven, especially for me. So much paperwork, and the application fees are over the top—not to mention the fact that nothing is computerized up there, so you have to wait ages for authorization. They've got the best bureaucrats in the world—capricious, punctilious, a pain in my sulfurous ass. Unfair! as my favorite guy, Trompe, would say.

Even so, I like to pop up from time to time, to spot talent and see if I can persuade anybody to switch teams. I mean, eternal bliss is so boring, even the most virtuous people have second thoughts from time to time.

Occasionally I can persuade someone to come down for a visit. We even have a time share arrangement. We tell them it's no obligation, completely free and so forth. Of course we don't mean a word of it, but since you don't have to be smart to be saintly, I do manage to lure a few of them down every millennium or so.

Anyway, I got a great idea when I was up there last week. It was such a great idea that I figured God would have to forgive me and take me back. I know it's a sign of weakness, but sometimes I do miss my heavenly Mother and dream of sheltering in her capacious bosom. As Trompe would say, "What a pair of melons! I'd be dating her if she wasn't my mother."

What I did was, I persuaded Abe Lincoln to visit Trompe in the White House. I goaded him into it. He hates to be called Abe, so I needled him—Abe this, Abe that—till he agreed, just to get rid of me. Then I stopped by to see George Washington, but he wouldn't let me in the door. He's never forgiven me for the false teeth I sold him. I'd have offered him a better set if only he'd sold me his soul.

 

26. The Better Angels of Our Nature

 

Trompe woke up with a start. It must have been heartburn. Too many hamburgers again. He reached over to the bedside table to grab a few Tums but couldn't find them. Then he remembered: he'd been moving from bedroom to bedroom, trying to find a mattress that didn't give him a backache. That night he was in the Lincoln bedroom. The mattress felt as if it were made of straw. Terrible. And no Tums anywhere.

A tiny scratching sound made him sit up. "Who's there?" he called. The scratching sound stopped, so he turned over and tried to find a comfortable spot to curl up in. Just as he was settling down the scratching sound started again.

He heard a muffled voice, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. "Who are you? What do you want?" he asked, his voice shaking slightly.

The voice was hollow, a very old man's voice. "With malice . . . let us strive on . . . bind up the nation's . . . cherish a just and lasting . . . all nations. . . ." The words swelled and receded, swelled and receded, like tides in a seaside cave.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Trompe asked again. "Go away, don't bother me. I've got to get up in half an hour to tweet."

Suddenly the voice was right next to him. "Tweet? Like the birds? Do you sing of a morning?"

"Who are you, damn it! Who let you in here?" Trompe was getting annoyed.

"Abraham," the voice boomed. "Father of multitudes."

Trompe's heart skipped a beat, then sped up like an outboard motor. He couldn't catch his breath.

"Lincoln? You're dead! Go away. I don't want to talk to you." Trompe was trying to control his voice, but he couldn't conceal his fear.

"Better . . . angels . .  . of . . . our . . . nature. . . ." The voice was fading. Trompe expelled a noisy breath of relief, but he was trembling all over. Lincoln had nothing to say to him. Nothing at all.

Back in heaven, Lincoln told Washington about his visit. "He wouldn't listen," he said, sounding disappointed. Washington was philosophical. "They rarely do," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "This one, especially, never listens to anyone. He thinks he knows everything. I don't know why you bothered."

Lincoln shrugged his shoulders, too. "A favor to an old friend who always gave me bad advice. But he made me laugh from time to time."

Washington said, "You used to tell funny stories, didn't you? Why don't you tell me one now? I could use a laugh."

"This is one of my favorites, General. I hope you won't find it crude and offensive. You know I'm a rough, backwoods kind of feller."

Washington smiled, showing his beautiful false teeth, a gift from an archangel. "Please go ahead, Abraham."

"Once upon a time a man had great veneration for revolutionary relics. He heard that an old lady had a dress she'd worn during the Revolutionary War. He made a special visit to her and asked if she could show him the dress. She obliged him by opening a drawer and bringing out the article in question. The relic hunter took the old dress and kissed it heartily. Resenting such foolishness over an old piece of apparel, she said: 'Stranger, if you want to kiss something old, you had better kiss my ass. It is 16 years older than that dress.'"*

Washington laughed indulgently. "Too bad you didn't have a chance to tell Mr. Trompe that story!"

 

*http://mentalfloss.com/article/57794/11-abe-lincolns-favorite-stories

 

27. How Do You Spell "Emolument?"

 

Sean Sewer looked even more unhinged than usual as he banged on the podium in the briefing room. "Shut up!" he screeched like an angry bird.

The reporters stopped talking. They were never sure what he'd say next. They flipped open their steno pads expectantly.

"We are proud to announce that this morning the president signed an Executive Order changing the name of this once-again-great country to Trompe America!" he bellowed.

Nobody said anything. Nobody raised a hand.

Finally a little old lady stood up. They were too young to know that she was the ghost of Helen Thomas, nemesis of countless press secretaries.

She cleared her throat. "Mr. Sewer," she squeaked. She could barely make herself heard over the crowd's puzzled murmurs, "Who's she?" "Where'd she come from?" "How'd she get in here?"

"Mr.Sewer," she repeated insistently.

"Whaddya want?" Sewer slurred.

"Under what authority did the president change the name of the country?" she asked slowly.

"Gimme a break, lady," Sewer snarled. "Why should anyone care about that?"

"Under what authority—," she started again.

"His own authority, you dummy," the press secretary replied scornfully. "He's a fabulously successful businessman who makes millions off his name. Everybody knows that."

The ghost of Helen Thomas blinked several times. "Is the government paying the president for the naming rights?" she asked incredulously.

"That's privileged information, top secret," he answered smugly.

"Wouldn't that be a conflict of interest?" she asked sternly.

"Everybody knows the president can't have a conflict of interest. He's above the law. As President Nixon once said, 'If the president does it, it's not a crime.'" He spoke in a sing-song voice, as if he were explaining something perfectly obvious to a child or an idiot.

Sewer looked down at the old lady and announced, "I want this—woman—removed immediately." Two Secret Service agents dragged her away, but she didn't go quietly.

As she kicked and screamed the reporters shifted uncomfortably in their seats, but nobody got up to help her. They'd already been warned: If they wanted to be allowed in the room, they'd have to behave. A few thought of their mothers and felt ashamed of themselves. But they all knew it was a tough job, but somebody had to do it.

Sewer took a deep breath. "Next announcement!" he bawled. The reporters quieted down immediately.

"A Constitutional Convention shall be convened six weeks from today, in accordance with the president's Executive Order on the Perfection of Democracy. The Constitution will be revised to reflect the president's superior understanding of what the nation needs to preserve its security and traditions. All unnecessary amendments will be eliminated. The president has appointed his chief strategist, Steve Baneful, to coordinate the proceedings."

Three reporters jumped out of their seats and waved their hands frantically.

"Not you or you or you," Sewer shouted furiously. "You're part of the dishonest crooked fake-news failing lame-stream media! I'm calling on Bill O'Really, the president's favorite journalist. The rest of you sit down and shut up."

The three reporters sat down and bowed their heads.

The ones sitting nearest the door could hear the ghost of Helen Thomas, still yelling outside. "Emoluments! Conflict of interest! Illegal!" they heard her screech. The old girl just didn't know when to quit.

 

28. The Alpha Males Are Back

 

Samson Gorgon, the self-proclaimed counterterrorism expert, Robin to Baneful's Batman, was flexing his muscles in the White House gym. "The alpha males are back!" he kept shouting, as he worked his way down from his occipital frontalis to his gluteus maximus. He was wearing a voluminous black cape with a red satin lining, no shirt and clinging latex tights that showed off his "junk" to best advantage.

He had just gotten off the phone with some guy who had dared to question his credentials in a few tweets. "Why are you abusing me, why are you threatening me?" he'd yelled. "Before I call the White House counsel to start legal action against you, I want to know why you're doing this. You haven't even met me!"

His mild-mannered antagonist tried and failed to interrupt Gorgon's tirade. "All I'm saying is that you're a charlatan," the guy murmured. Finally Gorgon commanded him to come to the White House for a "chat" and hung up.

Now he was down in the gym, working off his aggression. Nobody back in Transylvania, where he came from, would have dared to challenge him. It was rumored that he'd killed a man in a duel with sabers at the University of Clunc. It wasn't true, but Gorgon did nothing to scotch the stories. He boasted about the scars on his cheeks. He liked people to be afraid of him.

Now, finally, thanks to Stevie Baneful, he was in his rightful place, running the counterterrorism office in the White House. Everybody thought that Stevie was the power behind the throne, but nobody knew that he, Gorgon, was the power behind Stevie. It was only a matter of time before Stevie would need him to do some unthinkable thing, and he wouldn't hesitate, not for a minute.

He was riding the tiger, and he didn't want to get off.

 

"[An] endless series of unobtrusive social maneuvers [leads] up to the dethronement of the leader. The stability of the group is slowly undermined. Each individual has his or her role to play in this web of intrigues. The future new leader shows the way, but he can never act entirely alone; he cannot impose his leadership upon the group single-handed. His position is granted him, in part, by the other chimpanzees. The leader, or alpha male, is just as much ensnared in the web as the rest." --Chimpanzee Politics, by Frans de Waal, 1998

 

29. One Strong Leader to Another

 

Trompe was on the phone with President Durt of the Pinos. Trompe needed pointers on neutralizing opponents, and Durt was the best man to give them.

"First you tell your people to create a criminal case against them. Then you send the secret police to arrest them, preferably in a public place. This man, O'Barry, he's an illegal immigrant, right? You can get him for that, easy.

"Then you arrange an—accident," Durt continued. "You know what I mean. Find some crazy person to step out of the crowd and shoot him, and then another crazy guy to shoot the shooter. Something similar happened in your country before, didn't it?"

Trompe cleared his throat. "You're a strong leader, Durt. I really admire you for that. I'll see what I can do. But it'll have to be our secret, right?"

"Sure, sure, our secret." Durt put his hand over the receiver and turned to his chief of staff.

"Call the Chinese ambassador right away," he ordered. "And give Vlad a ring. Tell him there's something he needs to know."

 

30. His Majesty Tells You All You Need to Know

 

I don't talk to Trompe very often. I don't need to. He doesn't really require my help. He comes up with his shtick all by himself.  Well, not exactly by himself. He consults with my most reliable deputy, Roy Con, who is one bad hombre. When Con was alive he became famous as a result of his talent for whispering in Joe McAnus' ear. Every time he did that McAnus would swell up like an angry toad. Then a stinking black liquid would come spewing out of his mouth and everybody in the vicinity would jump back about five feet.

I love Roy Con. He always finds a way to make other people do his dirty work. He learned that directly from me. These days he whispers in Trompe's ear, and Trompe pays attention to everything he says. But sometimes Con is whispering in one ear while Stevie Baneful is whispering in the other, and Trompe doesn't know who to listen to first.

People think Trompe isn't paying attention, or he's stupid or crazy. But he isn't. The truth is, I own him body and soul—or I would if he had a soul. It shriveled and died sometime ago, after his fifth bankruptcy. He's completely empty inside. That's why he can eat and eat and never get sick. He can eat enough hamburgers and charred steaks and French fries and milkshakes to kill any ordinary man. His doctor wasn't lying when he called Trompe the healthiest president of all time.

Come closer, and I'll tell you a secret I haven't told anybody else, ever. C'mon, come over here. I promise I won't hurt you.

Trompe isn't actually a human being. He's an automaton. I forced Santa Claus to have him manufactured in his workshop. It's a long story. You don't need to know the details. Just print the story exactly as I've told you. It's the absolute truth, believe me.

Now get out of here before I feed you to the giant lizards.

 

31. Flying Down to Rio

 

"Your passport, please," the immigration officer says in strongly accented English. Killer-Ann hands it over, wondering how they always make you feel like a criminal when you go through Immigration, no matter what country you're in.

"I'm sorry, Senhora . . . Conman, but your visa has expired."

"How can that be, sir? I received it from the Embassy last week. It's diplomatic."

The immigration officer clears his throat. "One moment, please," he says politely, then turns away and dials a number on his phone. He speaks rapidly in Portuguese, pauses, then laughs.

"I'm so sorry, Senhora," he says, not looking sorry at all. "Because your government makes it so very difficult for us to travel to the United States, we do the same to you. Your visa has been canceled."

"But I have a medical procedure, an urgent medical procedure, scheduled for tomorrow. My president has paid for it in advance." Killer-Ann starts to cry.

"I'll see what can be done, Senhora. You'll have to wait."

A policewoman suddenly appears, grasps Killer-Ann's elbow, and steers her to a room around the corner. About 25 unhappy people are crammed into a dingy, dimly-lit space that should hold no more than eight. Killer-Ann spots a toilet in the corner, behind a screen. She realizes with horror that someone has recently vomited.

Refusing to cross the threshold, she shouts, "I'm an American citizen, and I have my rights! I want to see the Ambassador right away!" The policewoman, who doesn't understand English, looks bored. She shrugs, pushes Killer-Ann into the room, and slams the door as she leaves.

"How can this be happening to me?" the president's counselor wails. Nobody else in the room seems to speak or understand English. They come from Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iran, and Libya.

Someone is cooking something over an open fire. The smell is overpowering, but she feels drawn inescapably to it. She pushes through the crowd. What kind of meat are they cooking?

At first glance it looks like a small, white baby. Killer-Ann blinks in disbelief. Then she realizes it's an albino Komodo dragon.

"I thought you weren't allowed to eat that," she says to the man who tends the fire. "If we're starving, we're allowed," he answers in Arabic, which she finds to her amazement she can understand.

"I'm hungry. Can I have some?" she asks pitifully.

The man frowns. "Can't you see we're all starving? You have to wait until we finish," he says sternly.

"But I'm more important than you. I'm the counselor to the president. I'm an American citizen, and I have my rights. I want to see the Ambassador." The words come slowly out of her mouth, and she can hardly form the syllables.

"I am the Ambassador," the man replies.

"But why are you here? Why aren't you at the Embassy?"

He smiles sardonically. "This is the Embassy."

Killer-Ann regains consciousness as the surgical nurse slaps her lightly. "Senhora Conman, wake up. The operation is finished. You are beautiful now."

 

32. What Zenobia Saw

 

"Now cut my toenails," Baneful demanded again.

Zenobia, his nubile young assistant, decided she'd had enough. "That's not in my job description," she said firmly.

"Whatever I tell you is what's in your job description," Baneful snarled. Zenobia, known as "Zen" to her friends but not to him, wondered if he ever did anything but snarl.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Baneful, but there are some things I can't and won't do, and cutting your toenails is one of them."

"Then you're fired, bitch. Pack your things and get out of here in 10 minutes, or I'll have you dragged out. And I'll make sure you never work in this town again. Be grateful I don't put out a contract on you."

She said nothing and left his dark, malodorous, dingy office, littered with half-eaten sandwiches, half-empty pizza boxes, and crushed beer cans filled with cigarette butts. What a relief to get out of the White House sub-basement, she thought. But the other women in her underground group would be upset, she knew. They counted on her for up-to-the-minute information on Baneful's doings, which they passed along to the Resistance. If Baneful discovered what she was up to, he would have her killed.

She guessed the safest place to retreat to would be her home state of Iowa. Even though her parents and brothers and sisters were all Trompe followers, they'd probably take her in, no questions asked. They needed help on the farm. She sighed.

A month later she was sitting at a computer terminal at MacroBrain, the giant multinational service provider. She'd managed to get poorly paid, part-time work as a content moderator on the basis of her White House experience.

Zen's job was to inspect Internet content for violations of MacroBrain's advertiser guidelines. It was both numbing and disgusting work, surveying thousands of images for eight hours at a time. Many of the pictures and videos were pornographic; the worst were of children being raped or beaten. The night shift was especially awful; she kept nodding off and having nightmares based on the horrifying images that streamed ceaselessly across the screen. Then she'd go home and milk the cows. Her life seemed jarring and pointless.

One night she was struggling to keep awake at the computer terminal, when a single image jolted her into hyper-awareness. She hit the pause button, leaned over, and tapped her neighbor's shoulder. "Shirley, wake up," she whispered urgently. "I've found something, and I want to make sure I'm not mistaken."

Shirley was another young woman who'd left Iowa to work for the federal government, only to return from Washington, her illusions destroyed. She wouldn't talk about what had happened to her in the Department of Justice, but Zen could imagine. Shirley was black, and her boss, Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Secession, was a notorious racist.

Shirley rubbed her eyes. "What you got, girl?" she asked groggily.

"You have to wake up to see this."

Shirley took a swig from a bottle of mineral water and blinked a few times. "OK; I'm up."

"Look very carefully. The picture is blurred, but I could swear it's Baneful and Mugwump and Trompe and Pluto, and they're—"

"Oh. My. God," Shirley gasped. "It's the mother lode!"

"We could blow the administration wide open with this," Zen breathed.

"Yeah, and we could get ourselves killed," Shirley warned.

The two women looked away from the screen and at each other as the world seemed to stop spinning on its axis. The piped-in, easy-listening station was playing "Bridge over Troubled Water," which didn't seem appropriate at all.

 

For more on content moderators, listen to "The Invisible Humans Who Sanitize the Internet," Science Friday [NPR syndicated program], March 10, 2017.

 

 

 

33. Albertine Disparue*

 

"Whaddya mean, you don't know where she is?!" Trompe shouted. "You're supposed to keep her under surveillance at all times! You incompetent bastards! How could she get away with the boy and you didn't see them?"

The Secret Service agent shuffled uncomfortably but said nothing. He wasn't about to tell the furious chief executive that he'd lost the first lady and her son somewhere in Brooklyn. Or that he'd forgotten to note the taxi's license plate. Had he wanted her to get away? he asked himself. He had to admit he was kind of sorry for her.

Trompe was pacing the length of the Oval Office like a caged animal. "Did somebody take her? She'd never leave me. She doesn't have any money. She doesn't know how to do anything by herself." Then he realized that he could be heard in the outer office and stopped shouting.

He remembered how she'd wanted to go to the Women's March, and he'd dropped a big bill on the floor. Had she actually gone? Was she wearing a disguise? Wouldn't she wait for the lawsuit to be settled? She was sure to make a bundle out of it. She had absolutely no reason to leave. Nobody had ever left him before.

The agent couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw a single tear dribble down Trompe's left cheek. He looked down. He didn't think the guy was capable of shedding tears about anything. He must have been imagining it. But then he recalled Trompe's limitless capacity for self-pity.

"Get outta here and don't come back till you find her," the president snarled.

"We'll do everything we can, sir," the agent mumbled.

Five thousand miles away she was wading in the sea, watching her son as he ran through the surf. He was like a different child, she thought—as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. His father had said he'd be sent to military school in a couple of years, just as Trompe had been. "It'll make a man out of him," he'd said. She shuddered. She didn't want her son to be a man like his father.

But they couldn't stay in Slobovia. Her parents said she had to return to her husband. They couldn't afford to keep her, they said. She was supposed to be taking care of them, they said.

She'd have to move away from the village and find a quiet place in town. Amazingly, nobody had recognized her yet, wearing Salvation Army clothes, running shoes, and no make-up, and tying her hair back in a ponytail. But she recognized that she couldn't make it on her own for very long. Maybe she shouldn't have given the taxi driver such a big tip. It was always a mistake to be too generous.

 

*From Proust, A la recherce du temps perdu [In search of lost time]

 

34. From the Horse's Mouth

 

Rogue Stoned—you remember him, right? He's the one with Adolph Hitler's face tattooed on his thigh, used to be one of Nixon's dirty-tricks guys. Ya gotta love him. Last year he claimed he'd been poisoned by polonium but survived. He's tight with the Russkis, but he says they tried to kill him. Now he's saying he was run over the other day by some woman driver wearing a ski mask near Mar-a-Lago. Old Rogue has a conspiracy theory for every occasion.

Now listen to this: He told the Warshington Poop that the hit-and-run occurred the same day the ranking Democrat of the House Intelligence Committee called for him to testify before an inquiry into Russian collusion with the Trompe campaign. Allegedly Stoned was tweeting with the hacker who posted emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee. U.S. intelligence officials said they were confident the hacker was a Russian military agent. Of course old Rogue denied knowing anything about it. He called the reports "fake news."

The failing New York Tomes said a counterintelligence investigation probed his links to the Russkis. But Stoned told the Poop, "There remains no proof of anyone involved in the Trump campaign having colluded with any Russians."

You tell 'em, Stoned! Why should anybody believe the dishonest media when they can believe you? I wish you'd stop wearing those 1930s double-breasted, wide-lapel, pinstriped gangster suits, though. The optics are bad.

 

35. Best Government Ever

 

In his executive order issued yesterday, President Trompe announced the indefinite shutdown of most of the federal government, effective in six months. All federal agencies and departments except Defense and Justice will close. The president explained that those two departments would remain in existence to carry on the Eternal War on Terror and to prosecute anyone who opposes his rule. The Supreme Court will be reduced to five members, all Trompe appointees, and placed under the control of the Justice Department.

The president also announced a deal with the world's leading banks to renegotiate the national debt. All functions of the U.S. government not under control of the Defense and Justice Departments will be privatized and administered by the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies.

In accordance with the vote of the Constitutional Convention of 2019, most of the articles and amendments of the 1789 Constitution have been abolished. The New and Improved Trompe Constitution® eliminates political parties and separation of powers, which the president said hindered effective government. It authorizes the president to rule by decree under emergency powers passed by Congress before it dissolved in January 2019.

"I told you when I ran for my second term that I would take back this country from the dishonest media and the crooked liberal losers, and that's what I'm going to do now. This is going to be the best government ever! Hail me!" he declared from the throne room of the White House, to thunderous applause. "I don't need no stinkin' Congress," he joked. The room erupted in laughter.

The president introduced the members of his National Security Council: Stevie Baneful, Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Secession, Steve Mugwump, Killer-Ann Conman, first daughter Vanna Trompe, first son-in-law Jaded Crusher, and Vice-President Merk Pinch, who raised their right arms in the loyalty salute and shouted "Hail You!" in unison. The first lady did not attend the ceremony; her whereabouts are still unknown.

The president stumbled slightly as Crusher helped him descend from the dais—the only sign of an unspecified indisposition he suffered six weeks ago, playing golf at Mar-a-Lago. He spent most of the past winter in Florida, while a massive wall and giant, bomb-proof bubble were installed to protect the White House. The Capitol remains in ruins.

 

36. Special Service

 

Budget director Mick Malarkey heaved a sigh of relief. With luck nobody would ask him any more questions about the president's budget for another year. Fortunately Stevie B had passed along his hip flask before the press conference; otherwise Mick didn't think he could have gotten through it. He wasn't expecting that stupid question about Meals on Wheels; he didn't even know what Meals on Wheels was.

And then his mom had gotten on his case, calling him from Indianola, yelling something about Granny depending on Meals on Wheels, and how on earth could he cut its budget? Then she'd have to make Granny's lunch, she hollered. And what about "Sesame Street," she chided him. The only way she'd been able to get him off her back when he was a kid was to park him in front of the TV to watch that program. Then she insisted that he sing the theme song, and he couldn't remember it.

"And what about my Medicare?" she demanded. "You better not cut that, or the Indianola Ladies Garden Club will sit in at your office."

He tried to reassure her. Nothing in the budget would have any effect on her or her friends, he told her. It took 15 minutes to get her off the phone. His hands were shaking by the end of the conversation. It was worse than getting caught not paying the babysitter's payroll taxes.

There was only one thing to do: call Ms. Lola, the White House dominatrix. She was even more effective than the hair shirt he occasionally wore. Seeing her always made him feel better, once the smarting stopped.

 

37. Ms. Lola Speaks

 

"Of course I'm a feminist. I couldn't do this kind of work if I weren't. My clients need a dose of reality after spending all day and all night in the White House bubble, where everybody kowtows to them and strokes their overblown egos.

"They wouldn't be where they are without strong women behind them. It's my job to remind them of that.

 "I hold them accountable in a way nobody else dares to. Take Stevie B. [She rolls her eyes.] I just do to him what he does to others. And he loves it.

"And that Gorgon guy? What a creep. He's got this thing about military uniforms. I have to use a swagger stick on him.

"Mugwump, he's another one who needs a firm hand. And Jefferson Beauregard Secession—all I do is wave a Confederate flag at him, and he's off like a shot. Malarkey's got a thing about nuns. [She giggles.] Killer-Ann who? I don't kiss and tell.

"Trompe? I'm afraid I signed a nondisclosure agreement when we terminated our arrangement, and that was many years ago. So there isn't much I can tell you about the man today. I can say that his mother was a very powerful influence.

"Why do you think he uses the words 'disgusting' and 'disgraceful' so much? Did his mother use those words on him? Why did they send him away to military school? Why does he marry submissive little chippies and divorce them when they talk back? Why did his current missus run away? So many questions, but I'm not going to answer any of them. . . . 

"Look, I provide a vital service. I restore a sense of proportion to the powerful. I teach them humility. If I don't, who will? As the saying goes, it's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it."

 

38. Apocalypsis, Part 1

 

It was a dark and stormy night. Lightning flashed behind the ruins of the Capitol. Phantoms flitted like bats through broken windows. A mile away, in a bunker under the White House, the devil had called a meeting—for "strategic planning," he said.

Stevie B was there, impatiently twiddling his thumbs. Mugwump, Secession, Gorgon, Conman, and their minions were shackled to the floor. The Master didn't want them to be too comfortable. He kept changing shape, from mosquito to hyena to rattlesnake. As he intended, the ones on the floor were terrified. He surveyed them and chuckled. But Baneful seemed unintimidated. The Master realized he'd have to take a different approach with this one.

And where was Trompe? "Where, where, where, where?" The words swirled around them, echoing throughout the dark, dank space.

Baneful spoke up. "He's gone to an undisclosed location."

The Master laughed. "A better place?" he asked, as if he knew the answer. "Well, we don't really need him here. He's served his purpose. You always said he was a blunt instrument for you, didn't you, Stevie?"

Baneful smiled crookedly. It was vital not to look fearful, not to cower. If he was going to be the devil's disciple, he had to play his part to the hilt. But he figured he could outsmart even the devil when the time came. The administrative state he'd vowed to deconstruct included Hell. As far as he was concerned, the devil had no job security. He, Stevie Baneful, might turn out to be the better man for the job.

 

39. First Daughter Meets Daddy's Boss

 

Vanna Trompe was looking, as she so often did, in the mirror. She was practicing her trademark pout and knowing glance, which her stepmother had taught her years before. If she was going to be a White House employee with security clearance, she couldn't afford to be caught smiling. She had to be serious, and pouting was as close to "serious" as she could get. She had to look as if she was listening to everything Daddy said. She had to tell her husband, Jaded Crusher, to do the same. So much to do, so little time.

As she searched her face for lines or blemishes, she became aware of a dark presence behind her; but when she turned around, nobody was there. She heard a tiny rustling sound that seemed to be coming from a corner of the room. "C'mon," somebody or something was saying. "C'mon."

A small, dark blur attracted her attention. It smelled funny, like a rotten egg. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. The blur got bigger as she approached it, unable to stop herself.

There, in the corner, a tarantula the size of a dinner plate was waving its legs, beckoning to her. It was multicolored, sparkling, vibrating. A luminous nimbus surrounded its head. Horrified, she realized that the giant spider had Stevie Baneful's face. It was the most repulsive thing she'd ever seen. She opened her mouth to scream, but she couldn't make a sound.

In an instant she was sitting on the floor next to the thing. It sang in a tinkling voice:

"Little Miss Muffet/Sat on a tuffet/Eating her curds and whey/Along came a spider/Who sat down beside her/And frightened Miss Muffet away." It laughed, a charming, bell-like sound.

Vanna thought she might faint or throw up, but she couldn't move. She realized that she was smiling. "Pout!" she told herself. "You've got to pout, or he won't believe you're serious."

"I can't get no—satisfaction—can't get no—no, no no," the spider sang as it moved closer.

"Stay away!" she shouted.

"I will be with you always," the spider murmured. "Always. You know why."

"I don't remember," she whimpered.

Then she was back in front of the mirror, looking hard at her face. Could people tell? Was it really that obvious? Daddy had ordered her to forget all about it, and she'd tried as hard as she could. But it was like an indelible stain. It would be with her always. Always.

40. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? . . . ab illis incipit uxor.*

 

Mrs. Pinch was feeling a bit dizzy. She couldn't understand how she'd landed up under the Whitehurst Expressway in Georgetown, where the homeless people camped out. The last thing she could remember was sitting next to her husband, Vice-President Pinch, at a White House banquet where alcohol was being served.

She hadn't been feeling right all day and wanted to stay at home, but the couple had an ironclad rule: Whenever alcohol was served, she had to be there, right next to him, to monitor his intake. So she was in her customary place, watching him like a hawk. But then, all of a sudden, she was under the Expressway. Her husband was nowhere to be seen.

The strangest thing was that although she was wearing a ball gown that had once belonged to Mamie Eisenhower and a mink stole she'd inherited from her grandmother, nobody was paying   attention to her. Scores of dark-skinned men were huddling around oil drums, warming their hands on the orange flames that leapt into the darkness. It was cold, cold as a witch's tit, she found herself thinking. She clapped her hand over her mouth, shocked at her bad language. What on earth was happening to her? Where was Merk?

Suddenly he was beside her. But when she turned her head to look at him, she couldn't make out his face. She glanced down and noticed two cloven hooves below his trouser cuffs. Was this—creature—really her husband? Or was it Him?

"May I?" he asked, touching her hand with his paw. She trembled all over. Her pastor had warned her this moment might come, when she had to confront the Forces of Darkness. But she was ready. Her strength was as the strength of ten, because her heart was pure. She reared back and punched him in the nose.

His voice was silky. "That's the spirit," he chuckled. "I like a woman with spirit. Now you'll be mine forever. You'll rule beside me in the Underworld. We might even go to dinner in Heaven. I do get invitations from time to time."

"But no alcohol," she insisted. "And no lunch or dinner with any lone woman. I wear the trousers."

He laughed appreciatively as he tore Mamie Eisenhower's gown off Mrs. Pinch's body. "Oh no, you don't," he murmured.

 

* "Who will guard the guardsmen? . . . The wife begins with them." – Juvenal, Satires. "The original context deals with the problem of ensuring marital fidelity, though it is now commonly used more generally to refer to the problem of controlling the actions of persons in positions of power. . . ." – Wikipedia. I knew four years of Latin would eventually come in handy!

 

41. Apotheosis

 

Ms. Lola, the White House dominatrix, was glowing luminously, like a star or an angel. She was the apotheosis of virtuous power, blinding, dazzling. Nobody dared to approach her as she spun like a catherine wheel, spitting white fire. Baneful, Mugwump, Sewer, and Secession huddled, eclipsed, in a corner. The Secretary of Defense and the other military men snapped to attention, saluting her.

Killer-Ann wandered about distractedly, her eyes averted. Vanna, the first daughter, and Crusher, the first son-in-law, heirs-presumptive to the throne, sat silently, abashed, in purple velvet and gold chairs at the other end of the White House ballroom. Even the Prince of Darkness kept his distance. He had shrunk to the size of a baby squirrel, and no one noticed he was there. Trompe was at an undisclosed location, probably one of his golf courses.

"I am here to teach you humility," Lola said softly. An invisible orchestra tuned up. Mozart was conducting, but they couldn't see him. Only Lola knew he was there. She began to sing in an enchanting voice:

Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets
And little man, little Lola wants you
Make up your mind to have
No regrets
Recline yourself
Resign yourself, you're through

I always get what I aim for
And your heart and soul
Is what I came for

Whatever Lola wants
Lola gets
Take off your coat
Don't you know you can't win
You're no exception to the rule
I'm irresistible, you fool: give in.

Drawn inexorably to her blazing light, everyone except the baby squirrel crawled toward her. They lay prostrate, eyes closed in obeisance. The squirrel stayed silently in his corner. He was trying to figure out who she was and what she would do next.

Hovering a few inches above the floor, Ms. Lola surveyed them. "I said humility, not humiliation," she trilled. "Don't you idiots know the difference? Why do I bother?" And then she was gone.

The Prince of Darkness chuckled. It would take more than a stunt like that to get rid of him.

 

42. The Reckoning

 

"What did I do wrong? I did exactly what you said. I don't deserve this. How could you set that bunch of Jews on me? You know I can't stand anybody smarter than me," Baneful whined.

"Smarter than you? That doesn't mean very much. Besides, I told you before: I embody total disorder and chaos. I screw things up. That includes you," the devil snapped.

"Loyalty means nothing to you! I've worked for you since 1986! I SOLD MY SOUL TO YOU!" Baneful was becoming hoarse from shouting.

"So what?" the Evil One retorted. "Do you have any idea how many souls I've bought in my time? You're nothing special, a dime a dozen. Now shut up, or I'll turn you into slimy green pond scum."

Baneful slithered away. Was he never to be appreciated? He'd get even somehow.

 

43. Not Resting in Peace

Ms. Lola, the White House dominatrix, might have failed in her attempt to teach her clients humility, but I bet my Aunt Marjorie could have done it.

Aunt Marjorie had such a commanding presence that people at the assisted living facility used to ask if she was a lawyer. She could argue them into a corner if necessary.

If our faces showed doubt when she described her hallucinations as real events, she would reply, "I know you don't believe me, but I'm basing what I say on the evidence I have."

When she became too demented to make coherent conversation, she and a neighbor would have amicable chats, smiling and nodding and talking nonsense to each other. Otherwise her neighbor huddled, immobile, focusing on nothing, in a chair in front of the television. But Aunt Marjorie never huddled. Eventually she couldn't move, but she didn't huddle.

A few weeks before she died at age 92, Marjorie could hardly speak. Nevertheless she managed to proclaim in a loud, stentorian voice: "Don't let me die without a fight! Don't let me die without a fight! F-I-G-H-T!"

I like to imagine Aunt Marjorie lecturing the president in no uncertain terms. "Don't act that way! Be kind to others! Don't bomb innocent civilians! Don't touch women who don't want to be touched! Don't persecute immigrants! Respect separation of powers!" And so on and so forth. She would have given him what for.

Wherever she is now, she's probably making her opinion of bad behavior perfectly clear. And nobody, not even the devil, has the nerve to contradict her.

 

44. For the Time Being

 

And so I come to the end of the story, at least for now. I can go only this far with such repellent, irredeemable, and fundamentally unbelievable characters (except for my heroines: the ghost of Helen Thomas, Ms. Lola, and Aunt Marjorie). Though not a heroine, the sad, lost, ambiguous, almost poignant first lady is one of my favorite characters.

I have to admit that it's been great fun to channel the Evil One, aka the Prince of Darkness and the Master. He says what I'd like to say to Stevie Baneful, Jefferson Beauregard Secession, Steve Mugwump, Sean Sewer, Merk Pinch, and, of course, President Trompe, if I could ever get them bound and gagged in a dark room. But that scene, as appealing as it is, will have to remain behind closed doors, at least for now.

I will continue to post "I-Couldn't-Make-This-Up" items on this page. I'm sure there will be plenty to post in the days, weeks, and months to come.

I conclude with thanks to my readers for following this page, as well as my strong hope that we all manage to emerge alive and well from this grotesque period. Meanwhile, don't dare sit at home and moan. Organize, mobilize, protest, march, lobby your elected representatives, run for office, and vote the rascals out in 2018! Aunt Marjorie is counting on you to do the Right Thing.

 

45. Tweet, tweet

 

The State of California announced today that it will secede from the United States, effective immediately. Governor Jerry Moonbeam told reporters that Trompe's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords was the reason for the state's move. "Who would have thought that he, of all people, would pull out?" the governor deadpanned.

The president responded with a short, bitter tweet: "Who cares? They don't have oil or coal. All they have is sunshine. Good riddance!"

Fact checkers at the Washington Post gave Trompe four "Pinocchios" for the tweet. Since his inauguration they have reported 1,368 presidential falsehoods, including 78 in his speech announcing the Paris pullout.*

 

*The last sentence is an exaggeration, but it might as well be true; it will be true soon enough. To paraphrase Mary McCarthy, everything he says is a lie, including "a," "an" and "the."

 

46. Believe Me!

 

"Welcome, Mr. President, please sit down," the special counsel coos.

"That chair doesn't look comfortable. I can't sit in that chair. I want your chair," Trompe snaps.

"I'll have them bring in a chair just like my chair. While we're waiting, would you please take the oath?" The SC replies gently, as if he's talking to a naughty child.

"I already took the oath—the oath of office. I don't have to take any other oaths just to talk to you. Don't forget, I could terminate you any time. I'm your boss, you're not mine." Trompe shouts, his face turning from its customary orange to bright red.

"Now, now, Mr. President, you did say you were 100 percent ready to testify to me. And to testify to me you have to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

Trompe is turning purple. "The truth is whatever I say it is. I don't need to take no stinking oath!"

"But Mr. President," the SC raises his voice just a little.

Trompe whips out his phone and begins to tap. "Special counsel is big pussy, doesn't have balls to shpfg gshhkfsgdnkl," he taps. He bellows: "I don't have to tell you anything! Everybody's out to get me because they lost the election!" Then he turns on his heel and marches out of the room. Smiling in embarrassment, the military man who carries the nuclear "football" follows him.

The SC shrugs and sits down at his desk. He turns to his aide. "Do you have those indictment papers ready? I think I'm going to need them sooner than I expected."

Carrying a chair, another aide enters the room. "We're not going to need that," the SC sighs.

 

47. I Promise

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MR. PRESIDENT: IF CONGRESS PASSES THE AHCA,

VETO IT!

 

VANQUISH YOUR ENEMIES, SILENCE ALL DOUBTERS, DELIGHT YOUR FRIENDS, AND KEEP YOUR PROMISES.

 

VETO THE ROTTEN BILL, SEND IT BACK TO CONGRESS.

TELL THEM TO GIVE IT

HEART:

MEDICARE FOR ALL!

 

LET THIS BE YOUR LEGACY.

THEN RESIGN, RETURN TO MAR-A-LAGO, AND

PLAY GOLF!

 

NOBODY WILL MIND

IF YOU DRIVE YOUR GOLF CART

ON THE GREEN.

 

EVERYONE WILL LOVE AND ADORE YOU,

EVEN ME.

 

I promise: If you do this, I'll never call you a buffoon again. Believe me.

 

48. "Their Names Are Prick'd"

 

It's 3 a.m., and her phone is vibrating. Princess Vanna picks it up. "Yes? What? Yes, we'll be there right away. . . . What do you mean, we can't? I don't care what the doctors say. We'll be right down."

She turns to her snoring husband and shakes him roughly. "Jagged, wake up!"

He sits up so abruptly he almost flies out of bed. "What an awful dream," he murmurs, his eyes round with horror. "I dreamed my father was in jail again, and I couldn't do anything."

"You've got to get up right away. General Killer called. Daddy's very sick. We have to go to him."

"Sick? With what? Has he gone off his meds again?" Jagged asks impatiently.

"They wouldn't tell me, and when I said we'd be right down, Killer said we couldn't, doctors' orders." Vanna scrambles out of bed and throws on her designer bathrobe.

Jagged lies back on the pillows. "If they say we can't go—and besides, where is he? Which golf club? What could we do, anyway?"

"I don't care what you do," Vanna shouts. "I've got to go to Daddy!" She rushes out of the room.

Jagged turns over and goes back into the dream. His father's still in jail, and there's nothing he can do. He forces himself to wake up. Slowly he gets out of bed and puts on his matching designer bathrobe. He opens the bedroom door and peeks out.

In the corridor Vanna is arguing with a Secret Service agent. "You can't keep me from going to him!" she shouts.

Jagged grabs her. "At least tell us what's going on," he barks at the agent.

"Sorry sir, it's classified, top secret. You don't have clearance. All I can tell you is that the president is very sick, and he's been taken to an undisclosed location for emergency treatment."

Meanwhile, in a darkened broom closet in the White House, half-a-dozen generals are standing in a tight circle, keeping their voices down. "Why do we have to stay in here? It's hot, I can't breathe," one whines.

Killer takes charge. "OK, this is the drill. Synchronize your watches. It's now [he looks down at a luminescent dial] . . . 0122. At 0200 the VP and most of the cabinet will meet in the Situation Room. They're going to try to figure out how to invoke the 25th Amendment. We have to make sure they do it.  Madman, where's the football?"

"I've got it right here, between my legs." Madman points down, and the other generals snicker. "My football's bigger than your football," one smirks.

"No time for joking," Killer snaps. "You all have your assignments. Masterful, have you got the arrest warrants ready?" Masterful nods.

"'These many then shall die; their names are prick'd,'" he murmurs.

"What's that?" Killer asks impatiently.

"Just an appropriate quotation for the occasion," Masterful answers. "It's from Julius Caesar."

"You always were a pompous ass," another general snorts.

"Dumbo, have you got the services all lined up and ready to go?" The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff nods but looks uncertain. "I'm not sure about the Air Force. The evangelicals seem to have it sewn up. But I think the rest will do what they're told."

They all salute, step out of the closet, and stride purposefully to their posts.

Killer goes down to the basement, where Stevie Mugwump is working late. The general draws his service revolver and opens the door to Mugwump's office.

 

To be continued. . . .

 

49. The Ancient Mariner

 

The very, very elderly man was wheeled into the Oval Office. He was startled to see General Killer sitting at the president's desk.

The old war criminal smirked nervously. "I haven't been here in ages," he rumbled, his German accent still strong. "Was machst du da? Why have you invited me?"

"Dr. Strangelove," the general said tonelessly. "You may be surprised to find me sitting here. In the absence of the president, I'm in charge. I—wanted to ask for your suggestions, in light of your—experience. You've been in a situation similar to mine, have you not?"

"Yes, but I didn't try to remove the president," Strangelove said, offended.

"You didn't? I heard otherwise," Killer replied.

"Have you prayed with him? I prayed with him," Strangelove murmured nostalgically.

Killer laughed. "Are you kidding?" Then he got out of the president's chair and paced back and forth.

"So vhat do you vant to know?" Strangelove smiled crookedly, as if he were parodying himself.

Killer hesitated. "I—frankly, I'm not sure." He wiped his face once with his hand.

"Shpit it out, schweinhund." It was Strangelove's turn to laugh. "You know, you and I are very much alike."

Killer looked down; he didn't want to meet the other man's eyes. "I need to know how you—persuaded him to quit." 

"I? I had nothing to do with it."

"You didn't? I heard otherwise," Killer repeated.

"Look, I drank with him, I prayed with him, and then I left. I only followed orders. The others persuaded him. I had nothing to do with it."

Killer sighed. "We've taken—certain measures. We've told everybody he's very sick. In fact he's in a coma, an induced coma, for his own protection. We don't want to hurt him. We just need him to stop tweeting."

"And the football? Wo ist der fuβball?" Strangelove suddenly looked 20 years younger, as if he were about to leap out of the wheelchair.

"It's—in a safe place. Far from his hands. That's all I can say."

"I see," Strangelove said, stroking his chin. "If he's in a coma, then you don't need to persuade him to quit. The 25th Amendment—"

"Yes, we've thought of that. But it'd be better if he would leave of his own volition. For his base, you see."

Strangelove raised his head. He was beginning to enjoy the conversation. "Nein, nein, it's far better for everyone if he's too incapacitated to say or do anything. And besides, he'd never leave voluntarily."

"We've thought of that, too. That's why I asked you here. You're such a master of strategy. We thought you might tell us something we hadn't thought of already."

"I'm afraid I was much overrated, except by my enemies," Strangelove said drily. "I'm sorry to say I can't help you. I'd like to go home now. My wife has prepared something special for me." Suddenly he leered. It was a hideous sight. He looked like the picture of Dorian Gray.

Killer was shaken. He bowed at the very old man and pushed the buzzer for the Secret Service agent to come and wheel him out.

The door closed; Killer was alone again. He sat back down in the president's chair, swiveled it around and gazed for a long time out the picture window at the darkening sky.

 

50. Highlights of the Revised Program,

"Salute to America," July 4, 2019

 

The opening procession will be led by Stephen "Incel" Miller, wearing a full SS uniform, including swagger stick, jackboots, Luger, and whip.

Miller will energetically whip coffles of "illegal aliens," wearing orange jumpsuits, shackles, and iron collars, as they stagger down the Mall. Their separated children will follow in circus cages. ICE agents will encourage members of the crowd to toss food and rolls of toilet paper at them. The agents will also hurl migrant children into circus cages containing starving polar bears.

A legion of Trump supporters, wearing MAGA hats, vintage tee-shirts that expose their pot bellies, and stained cargo pants, will chant "Lock Her Up," "I Like Beer," "Jews Will Not Replace Us," and "Merry Christmas," as they march raggedly down the Mall.

Monster trucks, giant tractors, and harvesters will introduce the star of the evening, Your Favorite President, who will be at the wheel of a monster truck, howling "vroom, vroom!" to the delight of the cheering crowd, the biggest ever in the history of the universe.

Ecstatic cheerleaders will twirl gold batons, turn cartwheels, and hurl themselves in the path of the truck. Casualties numbering fewer than 150 will be considered acceptable. Deceased cheerleaders will receive posthumous medals of honor.

A special "Fred Trump Memorial Float" will feature "very fine people" from the Ku Klux Klan, who will burn a cross to commemorate Fred's arrest at a KKK rally in New York in 1927. Your Favorite President will be shown on TV, wiping away sentimental tears while embracing a flag.

On arrival at the Lincoln Memorial, Your Favorite President will descend from the monster truck on a gold escalator. He will proceed to a wrestling ring, where he will strip off his royal purple robe, revealing a gold jumpsuit, especially tailored by the Queen of England's bespoke tailor. Your Favorite President will enter the ring and wrestle the Welfare Queen, whom he will beat soundly, to the cheers of his frenzied followers.

Your Favorite President will be lifted onto a gold-plated float by his Cabinet members and seated on a golden throne. He will be attended by husky Abyssinian eunuchs, who will fan him with ostrich feathers. On arrival at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Your Favorite President will be hydraulically transported to a podium, where he will deliver a two-hour harangue to his adoring followers. By that time it is expected that everybody else will have left the area. But for Your Favorite President it will be the biggest, most successful event in the history of the republic.

The climax of Your Favorite President's oration will be his proclamation of the change of the name of our nation to "The Trump States of America," in an executive order that the ACLU will immediately be challenge in federal court. Eventually the Supreme Court will rule that the name change is legal, guaranteed by the First Amendment. By that time Your Favorite President will be 95-years-old, contemplating transfer of his absolute power to his daughter and son-in-law, Princess Ivanka and Duke Jared. He will elevate himself to the status of a god.

The memory of the glorious "Salute to America" of July 4, 2019, will endure forever and ever, world without end, amen.

 

51. Rewrite of the Second Amendment to reflect the current reality: "A profitable Weapons Industry, being necessary to the security of the Manufacturers, their right to make and sell unlimited Arms, shall not be infringed. This right is absolute and supersedes all other rights, including the right to life." (After El Paso and Dayton, August 2019)

 

52.

November 7, 2020: Joe Biden  declared winner of the presidential election.

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Q&A with Linda Rabben, November 2023

 

* What initially inspired you to write a book about stained glass in Baltimore?

After moving to Baltimore in 2021 I walked around my NE neighborhood and noticed numerous vintage stained-glass windows in homes. Curious to know more, I started asking my neighbors about them and taking pictures of them.

 

* How did you first get interested in the medium of stained glass?

I got interested after seeing a striking stained-glass window in an Overlea bathroom while house hunting in late 2020. I hadn't been particularly interested in it before, although I'd admired beautiful stained-glass windows in European churches.

 

* How did the writing of "Through a Glass Darkly" come about?

At first I tried to find out who'd designed and made the windows, when and where. This turned out to be a wild goose chase, so I consulted books by local historians such as Antero Pietila and Eric Holcomb about the social context of their creation. That was how I learned about Baltimore's long history of racial, religious and ethnic segregation. About a year ago, realizing that I could connect stained glass to that history, I decided to write a book that would address those connections.

 

* When was the golden age of stained glass art?

Stained glass decoration came to Baltimore in the mid-nineteenth century with the arrival of European immigrants who brought their craft with them. Stained-glass decoration in churches, homes and public buildings became omnipresent in the early twentieth century, first among the wealthy, later among the burgeoning middle-class, as taste became democratized. Many of the stained-glass windows I saw were installed between 1900 and 1940.

 

* Why are so many of us drawn to stained glass art?

I believe we have a basic emotional and physiological response—delight—to the play of color and light through glass as the day advances and the weather changes. It goes beyond a cognitive or intellectual appreciation. Somebody should do neurological research on brain activity related to the aesthetic experience—or maybe somebody already has.

 

* Who were the early stained-glass artisans of Baltimore?

The first stained-glass maker I could find in Baltimore was H.T. Gernhardt, a family business that started in the late 1840s and lasted until 1942. Other local glass makers included Foertsch and Lettau, Henry Seim, the Maryland Glass Company and G. Wilmer Gettier in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I found about a half-dozen art-glass studios listed in city directories of that period. Most of the artisans who fabricated stained-glass windows remain unknown—most vintage windows are unsigned and undated.

 

* Do Baltimore's stained-glass windows really differ from those in other cities, such as Philadelphia, Chicago or New York?

I don't know; I haven't studied stained glass in other cities. I do know that art-glass studios existed in many cities around the United States, artisans moved from city to city, and many artisans fabricated windows with designs from widely distributed pattern books.

 

* Is there a "Charm City style"? What differentiates it?

Style variation emerged from choices builders and religious congregations made in adopting designs that were disseminated across neighborhoods. For example, transom patterns in houses built by Frank Novak, "the two-story king of East Baltimore," are very similar to one another in the neighborhoods where he built row, semi-detached and detached houses. On the other hand, wealthy church congregations could afford to buy elaborate custom-made windows made in New York by Tiffany, in Boston by McPherson, and by well-known makers in other cities and countries. Abstract patterns became more common, perhaps because they were cheaper, quicker and easier to make than elaborate figurative designs.

 

* What do different stained-glass art elements say about Baltimore's racial, religious, class, sex and ethnic divisions throughout its history?

Stained-glass windows were luxury items that tended to appear in middle- and upper-class neighborhoods where white Christians of Northern-European descent lived and worshipped. Homeowners there signed restrictive covenants that prevented them from selling property to "undesirables," including Blacks and Jews. Meanwhile, Black congregations and residents inherited the windows when the original white residents decamped to the suburbs. In elite neighborhoods such as Guilford, Homewood and Roland Park, where wealthy white Christians built mansions with restrictive covenants in the early twentieth century, stained-glass windows are hard to find in houses but common in churches. As taste became democratized, stained-glass windows fell out of fashion as domestic decorations in upper-class white neighborhoods.

This is only a summary of two chapters I spent answering that question. For the whole story, readers should buy the book or ask their local library to order it.

 

* How does stained glass tell the social history of Baltimore?

I think it's the other way round. The social history of Baltimore tells the story of stained glass as a decorative architectural element among certain classes, religious communities and ethnic groups in certain neighborhoods. It's no coincidence that stained glass moved along with white middle-class Christians and Jews to separate suburbs, especially after the annexations of 1888 and 1918.

 

* What are some of your favorite stained-glass pieces around the area?

I especially like the five-feet-square panel next to the front door of 104 East Biddle Street, built in 1883 in Mount Vernon. I was thrilled by a Tiffany window in the New Hope Community Church in Catonsville, but the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland removed it and other windows in 2021, and their whereabouts are unknown. Windows in two corner houses and several rowhouses on Eutaw Place are spectacular. The unusually abstract Tiffany side windows in the First Unitarian Church downtown are impressive. Windows in the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen are beautiful. You can see color and black-and-white pictures of some of these in my book.

 

* Why do you think stained glass in Baltimore has not received as much recognition as it should?

Stained-glass decoration is often inconspicuous. Seen from outside the colors may look dull or dingy. Passersby cannot see some panels from outside. They're expensive to buy, install and maintain. Some designs are aesthetically uninteresting. Many have been lost or have deteriorated so much that they've been removed. Homeowners removed them when they installed vinyl siding or storm windows. Between the early 1970s and the early 2000s stained-glass windows were stolen from churches, public buildings and houses and not replaced. And because they've been around for more than 100 years, residents tend to take them for granted.

 

 * How would you characterize the state of stained glass in Baltimore today? Who are today's artisans of this medium?

Prominent stained-glass makers and mosaicists include Dan Herman; Len and Sherry Fackler-Berkowitz, owners of Great Panes; Reva Lewie; and Loring Cornish, who works in mixed media. I interviewed several makers who, in their seventies, are approaching retirement. They don't know who will take up the craft, and its future is cloudy. Artists Corner, the principal studio training aspiring practitioners, is about to close. MICA hasn't had a stained-glass program in decades. The next phase of my project in 2024 will be promotion of a professional training and apprenticeship program for stained-glass makers at a local educational institution.