Black Books-Chapter Eight

A fictional account of life in MAGAritaville.

The newly minted Speaker of the House sat smugly on a shiny private jet that touched down at Palm Beach International Airport with the grace and ease of a flamingo.

Florida was now much like the rest of America, or at least ‘Merica.

A big, loud place teeming with ignorant people making too much noise.

Subtlety and nuance had been chased away like women’s healthcare and equal opportunity.

Disappearing into the night like a panther.

They wanted progress itself rescinded so they could own it all - and this chipper toadstool in the Brooks Brothers boys’ department suit was all too happy to oblige.

MAGA needed a hero as perverse and backwards as it had itself become.

Something made from the same noxious material, a man with the same appetite for salt and fat and transactional sex.

A man for whom intimacy and education were the domain of a social stratum he never really understood.

The kind of folks who kept books in their homes and read them.

That cared for their children instead of exploiting them as trophies and possessions.

Unlike the cowards and crooks that Johnson served with a smile who used ignorance as a spark plug to ignite a virulent mix of combustible fumes.

That fire once lit would prove hard to put out in the minds of far too many.

So engorged on the lies they were fed by slick lawyers and hucksters in shiny suits designed for dollar store doyennes buying that week’s load of processed people feed in the forgotten ‘burbs the boss himself would never visit.

Lies blaring at them from checkout counters on the covers of soon-to-be kitty litter box liners.

Coaxing mediocrity away from truth in service of one man only.

They still bought it too, along with the Spam and Crystal Light and much like they had in 2016, they prepared to turn away from smart accomplished women that in a sane world they would view as their sisters.

Instead they spoke of ‘her’ with contempt across dining room tables covered in plastic cloths with fuzzy bottoms, the kind that squish and leave little ketchup islands and spilled sugar stranded amongst faded graphics of pinecones and birds.

In that November that felt like a lifetime ago they chose the predator when November came - not the smart one from Smith who had done more for them than they would ever be allowed to know.

Sometimes your eyes adjust to the darkness and more of it feels better than the shock of sunlight.

Mike Johnson understood this as he climbed down the stairs from the jet. 

He had the jaunty swagger and slight build of a jockey and his eyes squinted at the bright South Florida sun through the tortoise shell Oliver Peoples that he had hoped to make his trademark ‘look’.

He was like an evil Alex P. Keaton as he skipped towards the waiting black SUV that the boss had sent over.

He loved these trips to Mar-a-Lago and eagerly came down whenever Donald called him.

He had assumed this trip was to thank him for setting up the visit to Arlington Cemetery when Team Trump had originally been rebuffed.

He had pulled rank and got ‘em in, sure it turned into a bit of an imbroglio but as Trump told him early on ‘even bad press is good press’.

He checked his look in the darkened video screen on the passenger side seat back.

He had the air of refinement he had so craved, the bits of gray were coming in nicely as an accent, but he still looked a bit like the guy who carried the equipment bag for Evangelical league softball games.

He knew Trump prized looking the part and wanted to remake the visuals on the cast of characters for his potential second term.

No more Sarah Huckabee Sanders-types who looked like they would eat fish right out of an aquarium.

With Sarah, it was as if you could just walk into a room and catch her eating your fish, as she looked at you and deadpanned ‘USA’ while little fish tails squirm from her the corners of her greasy mouth.

Johnson fell more into the Josh Hawley mode when it came to looks, both men were like walking bags of Wonder Bread who held and hid all sorts of toxicity underneath the plastic guise of being good ‘Christians’.

Any actual nutrition took a backseat to branding.

More preservative than product.

Mike was a long way from church now, where he liked to counsel young men on the evils of sin and the salvation of bigotry.

He was stepping into high cotton in his size 7 penny loafers.

A fresh coat of polish applied by a cherub-faced intern in D.C. the night before.

‘Mar-a-fucking-Lago’ he said to himself on the ride from the airport.

Giddy underneath the pounding rhythm of the sweaty 'Jesus rock’ he had asked the driver to play.

‘Stryper’ was on, his favorite.

He had started to type ‘BBC’ into Google on his phone but decided to wait - there would be plenty of time for ‘news’ later, he chuckled to himself.

Now he was being summoned by his corpulent king.

He assumed there would be a request to stall more aid to Ukraine as he had so dutifully done in the spring.

He was more than happy to do to it again if that’s what Trump wanted.

Hell, the fine young Christian wasn’t losing any sleep over the fact that Kharkiv was reduced to rubble over his obsequiousness.

So what if Putin was now setting his sights as well as his missiles on Kiev, those weren’t MAGA voters anyway and there was no way they were gonna win this thing without Russia’s help.

Jared had taken him aside and made that perfectly clear in no uncertain terms on his first visit to Mar-a-Lago, where the slender scion made a rare appearance.

His demeanor was unsettling and his assuredness that he better not ‘fuck with the plan’ was far from subtle.

There were no pleasantries with that little prick; a trait that ran against the grain of the far more delicate and decorous young Republican who now found himself second in line for the presidency but still taking orders from much more powerful men.

He was in essence a perpetual lapdog but he didn’t really mind as long as they kept the bows on his ears pretty and kept him well-groomed.

Truth was he savored the pomp and circumstance and most especially the power, even if that too was merely an illusion.

The GOP knew damn well where their allegiances lie and he cheerfully related this to Kushner and a bit later to his father-in-law in their face-to-face.

“Sir, I have your back on abortion, I was an unplanned pregnancy myself, born to teenage parents, and I want to make sure we protect the right to life…”.

Trump winced as the little freak spoke, cutting him off mid-sentence with a wave of his tiny hands.

‘How is this even happening,’ the old man thought to himself.

His mind drifted back to ‘Scores’ when he used to joke about guys like this with ‘Fat Tony’ and the boys - and now they were his fucking capos.

Mike smelled like Chapstick and Chick-fil-A, Trump thought he could detect a hint of rouge on the younger man’s cheeks.

No shame in that he thought, himself a friend of the concealer, just a couple of decent Republican men talking about letting Ukraine’s children die after nearly three years of fighting back against unbelievable savagery because it would help Trump’s campaign and the oligarchs who owned him.

If this was ‘Christianity’ Trump thought to himself, maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

Hell, his followers even thought him a messiah after that stunt Flynn pulled off in Pennsylvania.

He was already raking it in after that one - and the coffee table book hadn’t even come out yet.

And these GOP freaks were weird but they sure were loyal - he even got lil’ Mikey here to come up to NYC for his porn star trial.

Was there anything they wouldn’t do for him?

He guessed he would see come January.

Speaker Johnson surveyed Mar-a-Lago’s gauche and gold-flaked dining room as a waiter leaned down to take his order, “Shirley Temple and meatloaf please…”.

After which he let out a little giggle, drunk on his power.

As he left the luncheon and stepped out into the Palm Beach sunshine he winced again at the splendor of it all and raised his own palms to the heavens to give thanks to his savior.

Just then a club member dropped his keys into his hand, mistaking him for the valet.