Roger paused in the corridor, taking in the bustle of the West Wing. It was smaller than he had imagined, and more crowded. His grandmother led him into the room where he would be assigned his first responsibilities.
“Grandma, I’m not sure this is right for me. I know you spent like a million Trump Loyalty Points to get me this internship-”
“It was five million,” she replied.
“But do I really need to do that midnight initiation thing tonight? With the chicken and everything?”
Roger’s grandmother drew him close. “We all had to do it when we committed ourselves to the Branch Donaldian,” she told him. “And now it’s your turn. We have an old family saying, and I think this is the right moment to pass it on to you.”
“How does the saying go?”
“Spread your legs and think of marginal tax rates.”
Roger considered for a moment. “That’s — that’s a metaphor, right? Tell me it’s a metaphor!”
“No promises,” she replied. “But when those values voters come around, make yourself scarce. Now make me proud.” And his grandmother headed out, leaving Roger to his new job.
At that moment a woman with long dark hair burst into the room, looking even more indignant than she did on TV. “Listen up, there’s a situation! We need another Melania right now! The one out on the south lawn just swatted the President’s hand away!”
“Again?” a man groaned. “For crying out loud, Sara, I thought that was fixed in the last firmware update.”
“It was, but somehow that wasn’t applied to this particular Melania. Where’s the nearest spare? And make sure she has all the updates.”
“Did you take care of the smile decay?” Roger asked, trying to be helpful. “She glitched pretty badly during the inauguration.”
“Kid, that was four updates ago. Now she maintains the rictus at all times, even when she’s inactive. It’s kind of spooky when you go into the stockroom.” The man turned away together with Sara to locate a replacement Melania, leaving Roger unattended.
Roger approached the desk nearest to the door. “Um, I’m here for the internship?” he quavered.
“Glad you’ made it,” the woman behind the desk replied. She had sunken eyes and looked faintly indistinct around the edges. “I’m KelleyAnne. Grab a seat and start writing the President’s address tonight to the joint session of Congress about honoring our veterans. Ok?”
“Is that a little bit on the ambitious side?” Roger asked. “First day and all?”
“We don’t exactly have a deep bench these days. Just use the TP app. String together the Trump Phrases you get from it. Throw in few patriotic-sounding words and you’re there. Not that he’ll read the damn thing, anyway.”
Roger took a seat and opened the word processor, which was already set up with the familiar TrumpPhrase add-on. “I can do this,” he told himself.
Let’s see, veterans. Military service. Roger knew he had to make the speech sound authentic, as if it was coming from the great man himself. He pondered what the President would talk about.
And then it struck him like a thunderbolt. Himself! The President would talk about himself! Nothing could be more true to his character.
“I remember when I had the opportunity to serve our country in Vietnam,” Roger started the text of the speech. “And I was determined to go. But then everyone at Wharton got wind of it. ‘Donald,’ they said, ‘you can’t leave us! You’re our class leader. We’d be lost without you!’ One of my professors, William Kelley, pulled me aside and implored me to stay at Wharton. He said my graduating class would likely disintegrate if I left. So I had to make a tough choice. I chose fellowship — the needs of my classmates — instead of my own desires. And I know there are many Wharton graduates who are still grateful that I stayed with them. Believe me!”
The TrumpPhrase App pinged him on a word choice. “Disintegrate” was three reading levels above the President’s vocabulary. The app suggested “fall apart”, which Roger went with.
He felt a thrill — this was going great!
Roger worked away on the text of the speech as the afternoon wore on and turned into early evening. He tried to concentrate, but couldn’t always shut out the hubbub around him. “Who’s in the can?” someone called out. “I’m hearing all this yelling, like ‘our authority will not be questioned!’ Is someone having an argument in there?”
“Oh, that’s Stephen,” Sara said. “He’s practicing in front of the mirror. Just knock and he’ll come out.”
Roger edited and polished the speech, but still nobody came for it.
Suddenly the large TVs in the room (tuned to Fox as always), switched to a view of the President walking into the House of Representatives, surrounded by military pageantry and saluting soldiers. The audio was turned up, and activity in the room ceased.
KellyAnne appeared out of nowhere in front of Roger’s desk. “The speech! Send it!”
“Do you want to read it first?” Roger asked.
“No time! Send it to the teleprompter!”
Roger knew how to do that, having re-enacted so many of the great speeches of his hero. He pressed the big button on his word processor.
After receiving the tumultuous applause that was his due, the President began his speech. Roger’s speech, Roger noted proudly to himself. The President must have liked what he saw, because he was reading the prepared text, word for word. Score!
The president read the speech Roger had written, covering the President’s heroic service in defying Fake News, Libtards, and other forces of evil to restore great times for America, at great personal inconvenience and a notable impingement on his golfing time.
As the speech went on, the tone in the room began to shift. Roger started hearing grumbles.
“What the eff?”
“Not a single mention of an actual veteran.”
“Oh, barf. Could he be more of a dick?”
The President concluded his speech to a measure of applause from fifty-two percent of those in attendance, and he hustled out of the chamber, not even staying to shake hands with the attendees. What was going on? Was the President angry?
Then came the moment Roger dreaded. “The President wasn’t ad-libbing,” Sara pointed out. “He was reading from the teleprompter. Who wrote that?”
Roger tried to make himself as small as possible. If he was fired on his first day, how was he going to explain to his grandmother that she had wasted 5 million Trump Loyalty Points?
KellyAnne had faded away somewhere, as if she had suddenly turned to mist.
Perhaps nobody would turn him in.
Sara was muttering to herself. “Jesus Christ, tomorrow’s press briefing. The President’s words speak for themselves. He was expressing his reverence for the service of our veterans. The press is once again taking everything out of context. Questioning the President of our great country is highly inappropriate.” She paused, then said, “I am so screwed.“
A large man with red hair in a ducktail bounded into the room. “I want to know who wrote that speech!” the all-too familiar voice boomed out.
It was the moment of truth. Roger had been brought up the right way, and he was going to take responsibility. He slowly stood and walked around his desk to face the President. “I did, sir,” he said, simply.
The President turned to Roger. ‘I’ve got two words for you, buddy.”
Five million Trump Loyalty Points, down the drain. Roger steeled himself for the two famous words.
He saw the President summon the words, and then they came. “Pure. Genius.”
The room breathed an audible sigh of relief.
“You were wonderful, Mr. President,” KellyAnne cooed, having reappeared as quickly as she had previously vanished. “Now the world knows how you have sacrificed for everyone!”
The President beamed. “Melania smiled the whole time and then she held my hand. That’s how I knew it was gold.”
Roger couldn’t help himself. “Hang on, he doesn’t know about-”
“Shhhhhh!!!!” KellyAnne stopped him.
Unaware, the President was going on. “I give myself a ten out of ten,” the big man declared.
“Eleven!” Sara called out.
“Come on, let’s celebrate — Where’s Reince?” asked the President. “It’s time for swirlies! Oh — fired? How about Spicey? Fired? Too bad. We’ll just have to find someone new. Any volunteers? Come on, it’s a great honor. Stephen, you’re up! You’re the swirly poodle now.”
The President turned to Roger. “New guy, eh? Great job on the speech. We need more people like you. Hey, we’ve got some cabinet vacancies, and a few more coming up, if you know what I mean. Do you want to be Secretary of Health and Human Services? How about Defense?”
The midnight ritual with the chicken wasn’t going to be so bad, Roger thought to himself. He was in!
— — — —
For background on the midnight ritual with the chicken, all you need to know is right here: www.dailykos.com/…
“Branch Donaldian” expression: Thanks to Daily Kos User OrigamiOracle www.dailykos.com/...
You can read about Professor William Kelley’s admiration for Trump at Wharton here: www.dailykos.com/…
For more about the multiple Melanias (no, I did not make that up), here’s one of several sources: theslot.jezebel.com/…
If you Google “Reince Priebus swirly” you’ll find nothing solid (so to speak) but we all know it happened. We’ll just have to wait for his memoir.
Here’s a link to Wonkette just because: wonkette.com/...
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James R. Wells is the author of The Great Symmetry, a science fiction adventure celebrating the freedom of ideas. The story is set 300 years in the future, but that future world appears to be arriving about 299 years sooner than expected.