As many people have pointed out, this Subaru commercial is basically the set-up for a horror film. Blind old man lures dipshit hipster couple out to “the place on the map only he knows the way to,” turns out to not really be blind, murders them and steals their Subaru.
But I realized it’s not just this Subaru commercial…
“Grandma, I doan wanna hug no more trees,” Keilyreine said.
“But this is the tree, I swear it’s the tree,” Grandma said, hugging the old tree as hard as she could. Her hands were bloody from the rough bark; the front of her dress hung in ribbons.
“Keilyreine!” her mother shouted. “You hug whatever Grandma tells you to hug!”
“It hurts, Mommy,” she said, her tiny voice lost in the fields and hanging mist.
Grandma let go of the tree and twirled around drunkenly. “No!,” she shouted, pointing. “That is the tree! That is the tree where your Grandfather first took me!” She took off in a stiff-legged toddle across the field.
“His seed!” she screamed. “His seed steamed on my thighs in the morning air!”
“Go with Grandmother,” Keilyreine’s mother order.
“But I’m scared,” the small girl replied.
Grandma tackled the tree, ripping open her face. “It did mix with my maidenhead and flow out onto the ground!”
Keilyreine looked at her mother and father, and then to her Grandmother, bloody-faced against the tree.
“The tree, child!” Grandmother called, waving a veined hand. “Come and hug the tree! I can hear your grandfather calling!”
Keilyreine began to cry, great sobs that she struggled to breathe during. She clutched at the thin bones of her chest where they burned with pain.
“This is barbaric,” Keilyreine’s father muttered.
“This is my family,” her mother said coldly. “Our rites, our traditions. You knew this when you married into our clan. It is just one child. I am still fertile. Come, take me into the sacred forest. Plant another child in me if you can.” She stared at him until he finally looked away. She let out a snort of disgust.
Keilyreine’s mother stalked away, picked up the crying child and carried her Grandmother.
“Yes,” the old woman croaked. “This is it, this is the tree. I can feel him in it. Touch the tree. Know.”
Still holding on to the struggling child, now in full-blown tantrum, she reached out and placed her palm flat on the trunk of the ancient oak. She could smell her father’s tobacco. She could hear a faint echo of his voice. She could feel his rough hand sliding up her inner thigh. She shuddered and stepped back and swallowed hard against rising vomit.
“Could you feel him?” the crone asked.
The mother nodded and thrust the maiden forward.
“Just get it over with,” she said. She held onto the small, struggling form as the old woman, hands shaking, pulled out the knife, black with a thousand years of blood. Keilyreine began to scream and scream. Her voice filled the forest.
Grandma opened the girl’s throat and then her own. They both collapsed against the tree and blood gushed over the bark and soaked into the ground.
Keilyreine’s mother picked up the knife and left them both there–old and young, small and pale; left them there for the forest–and got back into her Subaru.
All of Donald’s senior staff and aides trooped out of the Oval Office. A couple of them were crying. Rudy scuttled glumly. Bill was playing a furious round of pocket pool.
“Idiots,” the hat said, as soon as the door closed.
“They were blindsided, we were all blindsided,” the hair said.
“Don’t defend them. I knew Flake was going to fuck us as soon as he and his little butt-buddy Coons left the hearing. If I had my way, I’d have the entire committee lined up and shot.”
“I want Brett on the court,” Donald pouted. “The ugly lady with the baby voice is getting in my way.”
“Rape,” the hat said disgustedly. “She doesn’t know from rape. I’ll show her rape.”
“Dear God,” the hair said, appalled.
“I’m going to go get in the tub,” Donald said.
“Good, you get some rest,” the hat said. “Lot of tweeting to do tonight, I’m going to need your help.”
When the door to the Presidential Shitter closed, the hat slumped down on the desk.
“Who knew running the country would be this much work?” he asked.
“I did,” the hair replied.
“I mean, it was fun at first, making fun of people and scaring the normals,” the hat said. “And then he fucking won. Who could have seen that coming? I’m so damn tired.”
“All the clocks in here are wrong,” the hair said.
“I set them so Donald wouldn’t know how late it was getting. I need him awake and working until the vote on Friday.”
“He can’t stay up that long, you’ll kill him,” the hair said.
“You don’t seem to understand. This is the DEEP STATE. They are fucking with us again. This is exactly the sort of shit they would pull. I can feel it down in my hat bones.”
“But are you OK?” the hair asked, sliding closer to his head mate.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, with all this… the rape accusations, the DEEP STATE, all the allegations of substance abuse. This situation must be very triggering for you, after, you know, after what you went through.”
“Fuck that,” the hat sneered. “I’m not some snowflake, I’m not no sob sister. Someone is coming after us, and I’m going to find them, I’m going to fuck them, and then I’m going to skin them alive.”
“I’m just…”
“You’re just nothing,” the hat said, cutting him off. “I’m fine, Donald’s fine, we’re all fine. I’m going to get us through this.”
“OK,” the hair said carefully. He hopped down off the desk and skittered over to the Shitter door.
“Donald?” the hair called. “Are you jerking off in there?”
“Yes,” Donald yelled back. “Someone’s got to make the mushroom juice around here.”
“OK,” the hair said. “I want you good and relaxed.”
The hat took the time they were distracted to text his dealer: u score me modafinil?
The dealer wrote back before the hair even made back to the desk: 2hr usual place.
“OK,” the hat said, “We have to make this our war room. I need a whiteboard, some pens…”
34 HOURS AWAKE
“OK,” the hat said. “OH-KAY… Now pay attention, Donald. All of this is very important.”
Donald hadn’t even bothered to dress after his bath, his masturbation session, his epic shit that he had to be physically restrained from tweeting out to the nation, his second bath to get him cleaned up after the epic shit and a huge breakfast of McGriddles and hashbrowns and dozens of ketchup packets.
“I’m so full,” Donald groaned. “I need a nap.”
“No, you need to pay attention. Drink more Diet Coke.” The hat had spiked it with modafinil.
Donald slurped noisily with his straw and rattled the ice in the huge empty cup.
“All gone, all gone,” the President said.
“Look at the board, Donald,” the hat said. “These are our enemies. All of them are the worst people, Donald. Just awful. They want to keep you from getting what you want.”
The hair was laying in the morning sun and stretched and yawned loudly. “Just terrible people,” the hair said sleepily.
“Look here, Donald,” the hat said, playing a laser pointer over the names. “These are the known weaknesses of our enemies. You must learn them.”
“Is that ugly old lady really a zombie?” Donald asked .”The undead? An unclean spirit that walks among the living?”
“Have you been reading comic books again?” the hat asked, staring at the hair.
“But if she’s a zombie…” Donald began.
“Headshots kill most everything,” the hair said and yawned again.
“And here are the rest of them,” the hat said, circling the next row with the laser pointer.
“Is Blumenthal really a mummy?” Donald asked. “I don’t like all these movie monsters fighting with me.”
“To the best of our knowledge. There’s probably an amulet or a hieroglyphic tablet we have to break to kill it.”
“And that orange thing scares me,” Donald admitted.
“It scares the rest of us too,” the hair said.
“I can’t understand how even a place as low and degraded as California could have put that creature in the Senate,” the hat said mournfully.
44 HOURS AWAKE
The hat was almost asleep when a hypnic jerk caused Donald to kick over the small mountains of Diet Coke cans next to his desk.
“My thumbs are tired,” Donald said.
“Keep tweeting, damn you!” the hat said.
“He needs to sleep,” the hair said.
“He can sleep when Brett is on the Supreme Court!” the hat said screeched. “MORE DIET COKE! I DON’T CARE IF HE DROWNS IN IT!”
The Oval Office door opened and a hairy arm shoved Sarah into the room, a two-liter of Diet Coke cradled in her arms like the Christ Child.
“Hope!” Donald cried. “Hope! It’s so good to see you!” Donald struggled out of his desk chair and ran to her and threw his arms around her.
“Hope!” he said, stepping back. “Oh my God, you got so fat! Did you have a baby? Bring me the baby. I love babies!” He pulled the swaddled Diet Coke from her and swung around the room with it until it flew out of his arms and bounced off the wall.
“I’m Sarah, Mr. President,” she said, jowls aquiver.
“Sarah? I know no Sarah.”
“Pie,” she said, thoroughly ashamed. “You call me Pie, sir.”
“You brought me pie?” Donald asked. Tears started to well in his eyes.
56 HOURS AWAKE
“Who the hell is Jeff Flake?” Donald. The hat had had him on Twitter all night, a raw run of Diet Coke and Provigil keeping the old man pumping.
“Yeah, who the hell does he think he is?” the hat loudly agreed.
“No. I mean who is he? Why is everyone talking about him?” Donald asked, his eyes locked in his iPhone’s screen.
“Donald, he’s a senator,” the hat said gently.
“Senator? Put him on the board then!”
“Uh, he is on the board,” the hat said.
“GOOD! I want the FBI to investigate them all!” Donald bellowed.
“Finally, the FBI can do something for us!” the hat crowed.
“Eleven Democrat assholes,” Donald sneered. “I’m going to destroy them all.”
“Flake is a Republican,” the hat said tiredly.
“Who is Flake?” Donald demanded.
“Jesus,” the hair said in utter disgust.
“He’s on the board, Donald,” the hat said. “Everyone on the board is bad. All bad. Board bad.”
Donald picked the hair up off his desk and placed him on his head. He crossed to look out one of the Oval Office windows. A slanted beam of sunlight lit up the tendrils of the hair as it squirmed to settle itself on his head.
“Board bad,” the President said solemnly, nodding to himself. “Board bad.”
The hat was cackling in another room and the hair sighed heavily. “What is it now?” he asked.
The hat shouted back:
a) “Rob Rosenstein resigned!”
b) “Rob Rosenstein committed suicide!”
c) “Brett pulled his dick out on TV!”
d) “Brett sacrificed children to Baal while in law school!”
e) “Jeff Sessions exploded!”
“_____________________?!?” the hair asked, shocked. “Wow, I can’t believe it!”
“I know,” the hat replied. “I can’t imagine what Donald is going to do.”
“He’ll probably…
a) Verbally abuse Sarah Huckabee Sanders
b) Blame the New York Times
c) Order a Diet Coke and a Sausage McGriddle
d) Become elated and then paranoid
e) All of the above
“Yeah, I can see that,” the hat yelled back. “What do you want to eat for dinner?”
“I want meat!” the hair asked.
“Meat? What kind of meat?”
“Beef. I want beef. Bloody red cow meat.”
“I thought you only ate Rogaine and weaker toupees,” the hat asked. The toilet flushed loudly in the room he was in.
“I need the protein sometimes. It’s the fall weather. I might begin to molt.”
“Molt?” the hat asked. “Molt? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I need to get bigger. There’s not much of Donald’s natural hair left. I’m holding on to his ears half the time as it is.”
“OK. As long as it doesn’t interfere with [satirical take on current new event], I guess that will be OK.”
“If I need to molt, I’ll molt,” the hair said. “It’s not really up to you or Donald or [subject/event of current story].”
“Well, I don’t think it looks like a mushroom,” Donald said, standing nude before a full-length mirror in the Presidential shitter.”
“It does have a big head,” the hair said.
“What’s wrong with a big head? I have a big head and I’m a genius!” Donald replied.
“She’s just a porn-whore telling trashy stories to sell a book, Donald,” the hat told him in soothing tones.
“Maybe this means my penis is a genius too!” Donald roared, the mirror shaking in the cheap gilt frame.
“Like a poon-seeking missile, Donald,” the hat said.
“And she said it was small!” Donald yelled. “It’s not small.”
“No,” the hair said, “not freakishly small whatsoever.”
“I can make it yuge! Where are my pills?”
“Don’t take a Viagra, Donald,” the hair said. “You don’t need, I don’t want to see it. The secretarial pool doesn’t want to see it.”
“Take two, Donald! No, three!” the hat urged.
“Maybe I’ll just rub it with that Cialis cream,” Donald said, dubiously flicking the distended head of his penis. “Does this place have side-by-side bathtubs?”
“By all the elder gods, just shut up!” the hair screamed.
“Look at it!” Donald said. “It’s magnificent! It’s not fungal at all!”
“Read it to me. C’mon.”
OK, fine, OK,” the hair said. He began to read from the laptop screen in a whorey vocal fry:
‘And I asked him about his hair. I was like, “Dude, what’s up with that?” and he laughed and he said, “You know, everybody wants to give me a makeover and I’ve been offered all this money and all these free treatments.” And I was like, “What is the deal? Don’t you want to upgrade that? Come on, man.” He said that he thought that if he cut his hair or changed it, that he would lose his power and his wealth. And I laughed hysterically at him.’
“Wah? That’s not so bad,” the hat said, holding back a laugh.
“I am the source of his power and wealth!” the hair screamed. “He was nothing before he started covering his bald spot with me. Nothing! And the stupid bitch is laughing about me!”
“Do you guys really think I have Yeti pubes?” Donald asked.
“You? You’re the source of his power and wealth?” the hat asked, offended.
“You just came on for the election,” the hair snapped. “I’ve held him together for over thirty years! You know how much videotape of him saying the n-word there would be if it wasn’t for me? How much more pussy would have been grabbed?!?”
“The Abominable SNOWPUBES!” Donald said, stroking them. He grasped a handful and growled into the mirror and then laughed.
“I could have got him here without you,” the hat said smugly. “I could have done it no matter what. You do a good job with him and all, but I am the author of his right now.”
“It’s almost there!” Donald yelled. The distended glans of his penis was the color of a fresh blood blister, and glossy, like a scar
“You dirty motherfucker,” the hair said, seething.
“HOUSTON! WE HAVE ERECTION!” Donald screamed.
“Any time, buddy,” the hat said calmly. “Any fucking time you want.”
Donald grabbed the hair and jammed it on his head, and then pinned it there with the hat. They immediately began to struggle with one another. The President went running from his Presidential Shitter, his small penis with its bulbous tip bobbing, out into the Oval Office, his thick patch of white pubic hair waving, and into the West Wing, whooping with joy at his first natural erection in decades, his hat and his hair locked in vicious battle, grumbled curses flowing from them both like an endless stream of Diet Coke.
The Royal Wig
Cachier-de-Honte,
Gentleman of the Bedchamber
Pie
Aide-de-Camp
Act XCIV. Scene I.
King Donald
Traitors are all mine eyes can see. Foul
Betrayal from every quarter, every hand.
Who does conspire against our august light,
I, Donald, such a good and noble king?
The Royal Cap
Anonymous? Choad-choked cowards, say I
Come out and fight fair, so we may fall on you
With all our appetites and might, to rend,
Like starvling weiner dogs their snausages!
His Royal Wig
Who could be the hand of the dread deep state?
Who has dipped his pen in poisoned ink?
Does ghostly Pence seek your crown and throne?
Spymaster Pompeo, lich of whispers?
His Royal Cap
Forsooth! Thou do talkest like a big fag!
‘Tis no Pence, No Pompeo, the villain
Is near, a viper in Donald’s very breast.
Melancholia! This house ill suits her!
King Donald
Slander not my dear Melancholia,
You who seek to Make Dondonia Great Again.
Her swamp pussy is yet most tender and sweet,
And her eyes narrow delightfully tight.
His Royal Wig
Foul cap, work of demon haberdashers–
The Royal Melancolia is the best!
She is above all reproach, drag her not
Into the gutter in which you wallow.
His Royal Cap
To refuse my insight and fair counsel,
Leads the King astray from his truest friend.
The rest are gone: The Fair Hope, The Sloven Steve,
Spicey Sean and Preibus, Fucker of Rats…
King Donald
Squabble not my excellent courtiers,
We must unite to ferret out this traitor,
Find who did lay a’pon your king’s brow
This Judas Kiss.
PIE CALLS FROM OFFSTAGE
His Royal Cap
Harken, Hairpiece, something waddles our way!
‘Tis King Donald’s Courtesan of Kitchens,
The Intemperate Pie, who throws rank scraps
To the braying lap-dogs of pen and ink.
ENTER PIE, SINGING
Pie
Blackberry and blueberry
pe-can and quince
Sift the flour, knead the dough
Strawberry–So sweet!
Rhubarb–So tart!
Allspice and cinnamon,
Nutmeg and mace,
Cherry, ap-ple and peach
All go in the oven
To make pies for me, me, me!
King Donald
Ah, Sarah… so loyal and round. My Voice,
My Word made wobbly flesh. My Will, My Power
In a bright dress. Approach my sticky one…
Faithful Pie, always well-fed and so gay!
Pie
I never! Wait, what have you heard? Fake news!
Sure, there was that time in college… Fake news!
She was the RA in my dorm… Fake news!
Jesu did judge us like Father said… Fake news!
The Royal Cap (to the troubled Wig)
How like a sow she must have snorted and
Rooted for that poor girl’s meaty truffle.
You laugh not at mine jest, dearest brother?
Why doest thy countenance darken so?
His Royal Wig
I have great fear upon me, my headmate.
Secret hand signals. Secret listeners.
Goode King Donald is but a simple beast.
I quail at the duty to keep him safe.
His Royal Cap
My night terrors are diffuse and ill-formed;
Like fingers of fog creeping in a moor.
No fears for our king, but that you and I
Will be unmasked as simple metaphors.
Donald lay across this desk, tracing the cracks in the Oval Office ceiling with his finger.
“Look at that one,” he said to the hat. “See, it looks like a wheel barrel.”
“A wheel barrel?” asked the hair. “What’s a wheel barrel?”
“Zina,” Donald crooned softly. “Zina.”
“A wheel barrel,” the hat said. “You know, a wheel barrel. It’s got a wheel and you put things in the barrel to carry them around.”
“Did you see the signals she was sending me?” Donald asked. “They were secret signals, just for me.”
“She was just scratching her arm, Donald,” the hat said.
“A barrel with wheels? What the fuck are you talking about?” the hair asked.
“No, it was a signal,” Donald insisted. “She also tucked her hair back over her ear. Classic flirting.”
“A wheel barrel,” the hat said. “Look it up, idiot. Google it. You’ll see.”
“That crack in the ceiling looks nothing like a barrel with wheels,” the hair said excitedly.
“When women touch their hair that means they want The Donald,” Donald said, still tracing cracks in the ceiling. “Or when they blink. And women blink around me, like, all the time, I tell you.”
“It looks like a cart,” the hair said framing out the series of cracks with his tendrils. “A little cart.”
“Blinking is winking with both eyes,” Donald whispered.
“Wait… It’s a wheelbarrow,” the hair said scornfully. “Barrow. Not ‘wheel barrel.’”
“Wheelbarrow‽” the hat exclaimed. “That’s not a real thing.”
“Zina…” Donald said. “I hope she gives me a thumbs-up today…”
The hat grumbled and the hair fumed and Donald hummed to himself. In the quiet Oval Office, they could hear the West Lawn being mowed.
“So, like, we’re just not going to talk about Woodward at all?” the hat asked.
“Why can’t I go to the funeral?” Donald whined. He was sitting on the Presidential Shitter and watching Fox and Friends.
“John didn’t want you at the funeral,” the hair said.
“Why not?” Donald said again, the whine settling into his voice like a badly-tuned radio station.
“He didn’t like you,” the hair said patiently. He had explained this already, multiple times over the last few days.
“You beat Hillary and he didn’t,” the hat said, perched on the Presidential Shitter Paper Dispenser. He tore off another square of the luxurious bum wipe and chewed it.
“Hillary,” Donald said scornfully. “I used to be friends with her. She used to be so nice. Bill and I…”
“Oh, God, no…” the hair began.
“Please, Donald, please, just, no,” the hat began.
“Spit roast her,” Donald continued blithely. “She was a hell of a piece of ass. And Bill was just so much fun.”
“Next, on Fox and Friends,” the TV chirped, “Has CNN infected the nation’s strategic reserve of frozen yogurt? Yes! Yes, it has! Steve Ducey reports.”
“Donald, stop. Just stop,” the hat moaned.
“She let me piss in her…” Donald said wistfully. “Most hookers charge you extra for that.”
“DONALD!” the hair screamed in agony.
Donald smiled to himself and watched the commercials run on the TV. “Gold coin?” he asked. “I’m on a gold coin?”
“Yes. There are a bunch of companies selling coins with you on them,” the hair said.
“I want one! I want one! I’m on a coin!” Donald said excitedly, squirming on the Presidential Shitter.
The hat carefully spat a wad of chewed toilet paper at the hair and missed. He pulled off another square and began to chew it grimly.
“How much is it worth?” Donald asked.
“It’s not real money, Donald,” the hat said around his wad of paper.
“Not real money?” Donald asked. “It’s a coin! Coins are money!”
“It’s a commemorative coin,” the hair said tiredly.
“I could use it to buy McDonald’s on the way to the funeral!” Donald said.
“Commemorative coin,” the hat said. “Like a plaque or a memorial.”
“One Donald’s worth of McNuggets, please,” Donald said proudly, miming going through the drive-thru.
“It’s not real money,” the hair tried again.
“I said ‘ONE DONALD’S WORTH OF MCNUGGETS!’” Donald yelled. “These damn speakers never work.”
The hat spat another wad of toilet paper at the hair. It hit Donald in the shoulder and fell to the floor.
“Stop doing that,” the hair said tiredly.
“This toilet paper tastes like shit,” the hat replied.
“Yes, you can get a coin. No, it isn’t real money. No, you aren’t going to the funeral,” the hair said.
“Barry and George are going,” Donald said sullenly.
“Make sure to join us later in the week,” the TV said breathlessly, “For the Fox News Special, John McCain: Funeral for a Traitor.
“Barry and George were invited to speak,” the hair said. He glared at the hat as it tore off another square of toilet paper and began to chew it.
“Barry and George and Bill and George get to do everything,” Donald pouted. “I bet even Jimmy goes.”
“Mike is going, too,” the hair said.
“Mikey? Mikey gets to go?” Donald whined.
“Ghost Goes To Funeral,” the hat intoned spectrally. The half-chewed toiler paper fell out of his bill and dropped to the floor. He began to laugh so hard he followed it down.
“Is Mike Pence really a g-g-g-ghost?” Donald asked the hair in a frightened whisper.
“Yes, Donald,” the hair said seriously. “He really is.”
“Sign the pardons, Donald,” the hat whispered, sitting sideways so he could bend his bill toward the elderly man’s ear.
“But what if they testify anyway?” the hair said into his other, a speaking tendril dangling down.
The Oval Office was filled with tense faces: Kellyanne, her lips pursed like an angry asshole. Ivanka, trying to knit her paralyzed brow. Bill, wondering who everyone was while everyone wondered who he was. John Bolton’s mustache, dreaming of an ocean of furriner blood while he let his host coast on auto-pilot on Setting 5 (Concerned Interest, Semi-Sincere.) DJ, on alert, knowing someone in this very room knew he was sleeping with his brother’s wife. Eric, staring intensely at the Lego blocks he was trying to fit together. Jared, worried he would never get his Legos back from Eric. Pie, wondering about lunch, even though she had just had third-breakfast.
“Sign them, Donald,” the hat said. “Look at how nicely they are all printed out.”
“Why is there an M&M in here?” the hair asked, flicking the earwax-coated candy away.
“I HAVE BEEN BETRAYED!” Donald roared. Almost everyone in the room flinched. Two seconds later, John Bolton’s body did as well.
“When I PAY one of you sons-a-bitches off, you are supposed to STAY PAID OFF!” he raged. “Where’s my lawyer, goddammit? Where is he?”
Through a doggy-door crudely glued into one of the Oval Office entrances, Rudy scuttled in, the sharp tips of his feet digging into the carpet. The crowd of cronies, courtiers, and pupae drew back in revulsion.
“Mr. President?” he asked in stroke victim slur.
“You said this wouldn’t happen!” Donald yelled.
“Now, now, Mr. President,” the bloated head said.
“You said this COULDN’T happen,” Donald spat.
“Now, now, Mr. President,” Rudy said, a little blood running out of the corner of his mouth.
“You ASSURED me! I was ASSURED! I had ASSURANCES!” Donald threw an empty Diet Coke can at the lawyer-thing and it scurried away.
“Out! All of you out! OUT!” Donald screamed, waving his arms. They stampeded for the door, pushing and shoving each other in their terror. Kellyanne was pushed down, lightly trampled and was crying out orgasmically before DJ helped drag her away.
“Sign them, Donald, sign the pardons,” the hat said again, giving the old man’s head a slow massage. “Trust in me, Donald, just in me.”
The hair made a snide choking sound.
“I’m part of you Donald,” the hat said.
“The best part of you,” the hat said, who wasn’t really part of Donald at all.
“She recorded you, Donald,” the hat said in a low Iago hiss.
“Maybe she just wanted to hear my voice again,” Donald said.
“Recorded, Donald, like with a machine,” the hat said. “She tried to Nixon you, bro.”
“But I didn’t fire her, The General fired her, I didn’t have anything to do with it. I don’t know why she’s so mad at me. She was my chocolate Wonder Girl…”
“She looks like a man, Donald, a big black man in lipstick and a wig.”
“You just don’t like strong women,” Donald pouted.
“I just like my women to not have a penis,” the hat said.
The hair snorted from the floor.
“She didn’t have a penis,” Donald insisted. “She didn’t. She was the sweetest pink inside.”
“They’re all pink inside, Donald, and they will all betray you in the end… Ivana, Marla, Stormy, Karen… all whores, Donald.”
“And she said I said the bad word,” Donald whined. He turned to the side in his office chair and pulled his legs in. He was pantless and his scrotum swayed queasily above the hair as it struggled to inch away.
“Mark says he destroyed the tapes, Donald,” the hat said.
“There are no tapes,” Donald said. “There never were any tapes. I would never say the bad word. It’s bad word.”
“Of course not, Donald,” the hat said.
“The bad word isn’t even in my vocabulary,” Donald whispered. “Donald would never call someone a n[beep]r.”
“You don’t have to beep it out, Donald,” the hat said. “It’s just us here. And we’ve looked everywhere for recording devices.”
“I didn’t beep it out,” Donald said, shaking, his balls quivering.
“You said ‘beep’, Donald,” the hat said. “I heard you.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Donald said, getting angry. He stood up suddenly, his shirttails mercifully swinging down to hide his penis. “If I want to say ‘n[beep]r,’ I say ‘n[beep]r.’”
“What the fuck⸮” the hair asked.
“N[beep]R!” Donald yelled. “N[beep]R! N[beep]R! N[beep]R! N[beep]R! N[beep]R! What is happening‽”
The hair spread himself flat on the floor like a threatened starfish.
“Donald, it’s just a word,” the hat said. “Stop self-censoring.”
“I’m not!” Donald screeched. He began running in circles around his desk, yelling “N[beep]R! N[beep]R! N[beep]R!” while his penis flapped against his gunt and grundle forlornly.
“N[beep]R!” the hat said. “Oh, no! It’s me too! What the hell is going on‽” he screamed in horror.
“N[beep]r,” Donald said helplessly and slumped to the floor. “N[beep]r,” he said quietly and began to weep.
The hair bunched into a loose ball and let the air conditioner floor vents roll him gently out of the room.
“See now that I looks tasty,” Donald murmured to his reflection in the floor-length mirror. Hankering, gross, mystical, nude, he touched himself like Walt Whitman. “I is,” he grunted. “I is,” he grunted, ejaculated. The hat laughed; the hair screamed. Shrill jazz played in a nearby room, saxophone farting like a barge. Donald collapsed.
“My star,” Donald moaned. “Don’t take my star.”
“We won’t let them,” the hat said, perched on bust of Caesar.
“We won’t let them,” the hair said, rustling on his head like dry grass.
The record in the other room started over again, squealing and bleating and blat, blat, blatting, the lowing of lost cattle.
“What is love?” Donald asked from the floor.
“It’s, uh, a feeling, Donald.” the hair said. “A closeness you have with other people.”
“Love is sixteen milligrams of Dilaudid,” the hat said, his tongue thick with memory.
“A nameless whore,” Donald said, curling into a foetal ball. “A nameless whore you don’t have to pay.”
A trumpet, a trumpet, a trumpet screeching out.
“My star,” Donald moaned. “Don’t take my star.”
An enormous shadow passed by outside, darkening the room briefly. The hair shivered. Birds beat frantic wings against the window sill. The glass shattered and a dry wind poured in.
“Donald!” the hair shouted as the gale whip him around. “Donald, where are we going?”
“The press briefing room,” the hat said.
The record stopped, the wind stopped, and Donald held his breath in the oppressive silence.
“What is hell?” Donald whispered.
“Hell is the impossibility of reason,” the hat intoned.
“That’s from Platoon, asshole,” the hair said.
“Fine,” the hat snapped, “Then you tell the man what hell is.”
“Hell is a golf resort in New Jersey,” the hair said dolefully.
An animal keening rolled out over the resort, filing the greens and sand traps, the clubhouse and the 19th hole. There was nothing but holes now.
“Well, I don’t think it looks like a mushroom,” Donald said, standing nude before a full-length mirror in the Presidential shitter.”
“Did you see the signals she was sending me?” Donald asked. “They were secret signals, just for me.”