Laurie Boris's Blog, page 2

Marco

I am a citizen. I was born here. I have a wife. I have a child in school.

The words screamed in Marco’s head, but he could neither speak nor hear, not since the accident so many years ago. He knew something bad was happening when the bay doors swung open and a horde of men in black, faces covered, spilled onto the factory floor. He saw their mouths contorting in anger, eyes flashing like cold flint against rock. His coworkers stood frozen in fear. There was a back exit and Marco thought of that, but the men were standing there, too. Hard like toy soldiers but the guns were real. He knew about real guns. It was why his parents left Colombia. All these men had guns. In the back. In the front. Herding him and his coworkers like cattle. Like cattle that became the cuts of meat they sorted in the factory.

I am a citizen. I was born here. I have a wife. I have a child in school.

A man who looked to be the boss of the other men moved his mouth like he was shouting. He waved a black-clad arm. A knot of men and women, those Marco had worked alongside for twelve-hour shift after twelve-hour shift, aproned and gloved and masked and also with wives and husbands, with children in school, jostled against him. He looked from face to face for someone to tell these men that Marco could not say the words he needed to protect him from what was happening. To protect his friends.

He got pushed and shoved and could only watch while hands were secured behind work-bent backs.

I am a citizen. I was born here. I have a wife. I have a child in school.

Once restrained, the men in black with ICE on their bullet proof vests, as if anyone in here had a gun, aimed them out the door. He saw a slice of the parking lot and the black vans out there, the flashing lights.

He saw Gabriella, a shy pretty girl all of seventeen also born here but grateful to make some money to help support her family, her face wracked with sobs, as they led her away. His chest ached that he couldn’t save her.

He opened his throat, moved his tongue and lips, like if he pushed hard enough, the words would come out, but they didn’t.

A man yanked Marco’s arms behind him, causing pain in his shoulders, and a primal instinct had him attempting to cry out. He turned to look at the man. If he was to go like this, at least he deserved to see who was doing this to him.

The man’s mask had slid down. The man’s skin was the same shade as Marco’s. He would not meet Marco’s eye.

I am a citizen I was born here I have a wife I have a child in school.

The Council: The Devil and Mrs. Clinton Edition

They were still in the dim back room of the restaurant; it was late and the owner hovered from the edges like he wanted to start putting chairs on top of tables. Forty-three and a half turned to Forty-three, the ex-president from Texas, who hadn’t yet recovered from her stated intention to fight the devil. “So where do I find this joker, anyway?”

“Uh. Don’t know,” Forty-three said. “He always sort of…finds me.”

“Do you say his name three times or something?” Forty-two offered.

Forty-four, the ex-president from Chicago, rose from his seat at the table, put down a large tip for the waiter. “You can play all the Yellowstone Beth Dutton foolishness you want to, Madame Secretary, but I am going home. Maybe if I’m lucky my wife will be there at some point in the near future. Try not to get killed. I hope it will be a good long time before I have to attend another state funeral.”

“I’ll go with you,” Forty-six said, seeming to shrink away as the two men left.

“And then there were three,” said Madame Secretary, who had been given the honorary code name Forty-three and a half.

Forty-three appeared deep in thought as uncomfortable silence fogged the room. “He often makes his appearance when I’m alone, and in a moral quandary. As I am often in a moral quandary these days, the odds are better that he’ll pop in. You could be hiding somewhere…”

Forty three-and a half stood taller. “I am not hiding in a closet ready to jump out when the devil pays you a visit.”

“Not since that last time you tried it on me,” her husband said, and she gave him the hairy eyeball.

“I have a plan,” Forty-three and a half said, and the two remaining ex-presidents huddled closer to listen.

—–

He’d had a lousy night, and it was raining, and all Lucifer was looking forward to when his black car pulled up to his mansion was several fingers of scotch in a cut-glass tumbler in front of a roaring fire, but the look on his nephew’s face when he arrived stopped him cold. The boy told him about the text he’d received from a reliable source. “A debate? She wants to debate? Me?”

His nephew nodded. “That’s what he said.”

Lucifer laughed so hard he coughed up sulfuric ash. “I will decimate her. That is, if I choose to be a party to this madness.”

“There was more,” the boy said, passing over his phone.

Lucifer read: “If you don’t meet me, I have some information my friend the Russian president might be interested in knowing.”

The devil cursed under his breath. He never should have been a party to that deal with Putin. It left him in the man’s debt, a situation he always tried to avoid. Plus, with those dead shark eyes and his immense body count and vocabulary of untraceable poisons, the guy was scary as hell. And Lucifer knew a few things about hell. “Fine,” he sighed, waving a hand. “The two of you can iron out the details.”

—-

“Jesus, that was one long Uber ride,” Forty-three and a half said to her husband and the man from Texas, when they’d finally come upon him at the coordinates she’d been given. “Where is this place?”

Lucifer was perched on a rock at the edge of a small meadow surrounded by trees and bordered by two highways. A young man in an ill-fitting black suit stood beside him. “You, Madame Secretary, a student of politics and history, don’t recognize the Weehauken Plain?”

She shrugged. “Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. An obvious choice for a duel, but there’s not much that’s subtle about you.”

“It’s my art,” Lucifer said. “Do we have a moderator, or are we going at this Lincoln versus Douglas style?”

“Moderators are for squids,” she said, glaring at him. “I thought you would have familiarized yourself with the terms of the debate.”

“Yes, yes,” he sighed. “A conversation in questions, our seconds will serve as judges and witnesses, no mention of a certain White House intern, blah blah blah.”

Her glare hardened into ice.

“Then we’ll begin,” he said, sweeping his arm across the open space. “Ladies first.”

And the battle was on. They parried with some basic college debate team exchanges about good versus evil, the definition of suffering, the difference between free will and temptation—testing each other’s strengths, probing for weaknesses.

“Do you like anything about humanity?” Forty-three and a half asked. “Let’s get a basic benchmark on the table.”

“I find humanity amusing. Especially when they get trapped in their own webs of deceit. Which you should know a few things about, Mrs. Clinton.”

“Look at her eyes,” Forty-two said to his successor under his breath. “I know that look. She’s moving in for the kill.”

Then she said, “Do you believe in redemption? If so, what would redemption look like for someone who has already turned away from you? And if not, why do you think redemption is not possible?”

“Interesting.” Lucifer stroked his pointed beard. “The concept of redemption. You might think greed and power are the top reasons a human chooses to join me for a dance, but a shot at redemption is often the greater temptation. They want to be absolved of their failings, like your Forty-third president when he first came to me.”

“Hey,” the man from Texas said. “Just answer the damn question and leave me out of this.”

Lucifer winked at him, then addressed Forty-three and a half. “No, Madame Secretary, I don’t believe what humans think of as redemption is ever truly possible. Nothing that comes so easily doesn’t have a catch, and your kind is enamored of easy answers to difficult questions.”

“That’s often true, I’ll give you that,” she returned. “But I believe there is redemption, for those who authentically want it, anyway. You can’t change the past—woulda, shoulda, coulda, of course—but you can make amends. I’ve made mistakes, who hasn’t, especially a good number of hair styles and that whole basket of deplorables thing, but I strive to learn from them, and come back stronger.” She looked straight at the devil, tapped a finger against her cheek as if thinking. “Haven’t you ever made a mistake? For instance, that fight you picked with God that got you banished you to the underworld. Any regrets there?”

Steam rose from the top of Lucifer’s head. “I regret nothing.”

She smirked. “Interesting. That’s not what I heard from some of your constituents.”

The smell of sulfur and brimstone grew stronger in the small meadow. “My constituents, as you call them, have ironclad NDAs and if they knew what was good for them, they would never reveal—”

“Tell that to my email server,” she said, a twinkle in her eye. “It knows all of your secrets.”

“You—”

“Yes?” she asked, all innocence.

“You can’t—how did you—?”

She shrugged. “It was just me and Mama Google. You made it so easy to find. Next time you load PDFs to your website, check that you exclude them from search.”

“You’re in violation!” he snarled. “Of the rules we agreed to, of your human sense of decency.”

“I guess I lied.” She stood firm, hands on her hips. “What are you gonna do about it?”

“Aw, shit,” Forty-two muttered.

With a roar, Lucifer leapt up from the rock, charging at her, horns first. She dodged. Momentum threw him forward, hooves skidding into the grass. He scrambled around and returned. Laid a glancing blow to the arm she’d thrown up against him, a slash across her cheek. But it didn’t even seem to faze her. “That’s all you got?” she said.

He snorted, and made another charge at her. But this time, she met him with a sweep kick that got him off balance. The second, a hard roundhouse, drove one stiletto heel deep into his hide.

He fell. Twitched a few times. And went still.

“Is… Is he dead?” Forty-three asked.

Forty-two answered. “I’m not sure you can kill the devil, not really.”

“Jesus, look at him!” the man from Texas said. Lucifer was foaming at the mouth. And out of the stillness, his form began to disintegrate, the hair and horns and hooves and tail morphing into something…human.

“Uncle!” The boy ran up, dropped to his knees before the figure. “What did you do to him?”

She sniffed, flicked a bit of dirt from the leg of her pantsuit. “Just delivered a little present from Putin’s chemistry set. Courtesy of my stilettos.”

This human form gasped a couple of times, blinked up into the sunshine. Grimaced. The color in his face was fading, eyes losing light. He turned toward the three members of the Council as if it had taken every last ounce of strength. “I will… I will… grow my powers back… and then… and then…”

And then, he was gone.

——-

“Something’s different about you,” Forty-four said to Forty-three and a half when they met up at the inauguration. “Did you change your hair?”

“Something like that,” she said.

“That’s a hell of a cut on your face.”

“You should see the other guy.”

He glad-handed his way through the ceremony, then made tracks to his security detail and booked a flight to Hawaii.

“I know you didn’t watch it and don’t want to hear about it,” he said, after he’d arrived, after a good long hug from his wife and a fancy cocktail on the beach. “But there was something different about him, up there. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he looked humbled. Like someone took the fight out of him.”

“Interesting,” Michelle said. “Hillary texted me just about the same observation. Did she say how she got that cut on her face?”

“Oh, you know our Hillary. Probably picked a bar fight or something.”

They both laughed, and it had a been a long time since either of them had.

The Council: Reflection Edition

The mood was glum around the table in the back corner of the out-of-the-way restaurant. Beverages of choice were sipped with little conversation; another toast was raised to the memory of the thirty-ninth president. Finally, the meeting was called to order.

“Old business?” Forty-four asked.

“I got some old business right here,” said Forty-six, the newest member of the group.

“Me, too,” said Forty-two with a lift of his eyebrows, which got a sharp-elbowed jab from his wife, honorary member Forty-three and a half.

Forty-four gave them the serious eyes.

“Fine,” said the man from Delaware. “I extended the invitation for honorary membership to her under the moniker Forty-six and a half. She…declined. Respectfully, so let the record report.”

Forty-three and a half looked aghast. “We’re not keeping actual records, are we?”

“It’s an expression.”

“I can’t say that I’m surprised,” Forty-four said. He’d heard a lot lately about women taking a break from politics. Especially the women in his own family. I am so done with this, she’d said to him before leaving for Hawaii. Part of him couldn’t help but wonder if she was ever coming back.

“I did miss Michelle at Jimmy Carter’s funeral,” Forty-three said. “Brought a bunch of extra hard candy just in case.”

“Can we get back to our agenda?” Forty-four said. Sounding more snappish and testy than he liked to.

“Sorry,” the man from Texas said. “Old business. Unfortunately, my time-travel escapade with Dr. Franklin didn’t work out the way I intended. I’d hoped 2021 Mitch McConnell would vote to convict on the second impeachment and keep our orange adversary out of the White House. Seems certain parties didn’t keep their agreements.”

“Bad intelligence?” Forty-two quipped. Silence. “What, too soon?”

“New business,” Forty-three and a half said, cutting off her husband. “Let’s move on, shall we?”

Forty-four leaned back in his chair and scrubbed a hand over his face. Lately he’d been wondering if the Council had outlived its utility. He often felt like Wile E. Coyote failing at his repeated attempts to catch the Road Runner. Just running straight into the side of a rock every time. “Are we all wasting our time here?” he asked the group.

Four pairs of eyes stared blankly back at him. Then the man from Delaware said, “Why, did you accept an invitation to go down to Mar-a-lago?”

“No, and never,” he said. “I mean, think of the hubris. That we, forged in our vows to uphold the Constitution, should be going against what the people voted for. If this is what the people want, then maybe…this is what the people want. And the best we can hope for is that those currently in power will be guided by their better angels.”

“Angels, my ass,” the man from Texas said. He let out a long sigh, dropped his gaze to the ice cubes floating in his Diet Coke. “His ‘guiding principle,’ if it can be called that, comes from the opposite direction. And I happen to know that for a fact.”

“Well, yeah,” Forty-four said. “That he’s not a choir boy isn’t exactly breaking news.”

“Wait,” Forty-three and a half said. “What do you mean, ‘know that for a fact’”?

Forty-three’s eyes slid left, then right, then he lowered his voice. “He’s made a…deal.”

“Deal?” Forty-two said, laughing. “Like in ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’? That kind of deal? Man, if that were even possible, I’d give selling my soul a think or two.”

“I only wish I was joking,” Forty-three said. “Reason I know about is that, well, I made a deal too.”

Dead silence fell. Then Forty-three explained. That he wanted redemption for what had happened during his two terms as president. The bad intelligence. The bad decisions. The whole “Mission Accomplished” business. A being calling himself Lucifer had offered him that redemption, while he was having a weak moment, for a price, and he accepted. That same Lucifer told him that the only living ex-president who will never be a member of the Council had made a deal, too.

“I knew it,” Forty-three and a half said, eyes narrowing.

“Come on,” Forty-four said. “You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you? The devil is not real.”

“Sadly, I am not, and he is most assuredly real.” He drew in a breath. “But I don’t believe we are completely out of options, here. See, I bargained my way out of the deal by offering certain…services to humanity. So these deals have the potential to be reversed.”

Forty-four raised his brow. “Wait. If I’m understanding you correctly, the devil is open to negotiation?”

“Basically,” Forty-three said. “Although it will have to be one juicy worm to dangle in front of him, because Donald is, in Lucifer’s own words, his favorite toy.”

“Undoubtedly,” Forty-three and a half said. “But what could we even offer in exchange? How many politicians haven’t already sold their souls?”

Reluctant hands went up around the table. “Hypocrites,” Forty-three and a half said. “Every last one of you. And I should know.”

After a long pause, during which each member of the group eyed the others with trepidation, Forty-four cleared his throat. “Look. Politics is what it is. We play the game. But I do not want to live out the rest of my days worrying about what shenanigans he might pull to bring about the end of democracy as we know it. Especially with this new information that he might have supernatural help. This is serious WTF territory here. And I…well, I am plumb out of ideas.”

“I can take him.”

Forty-two turned to his wife, aghast. “Hill. How?”

“Because he’s a bully, like the Orange Menace. Which means he’s a coward. Which means he’ll fold like a cheap suit if a woman stands up to him. Tell me something, George. You’ve met the guy. Does he have a single woman in his organization?”

“Uh. None that I can think of. Frankly I’d kind of assumed—” He went red in the face from her ice-cold stare.

Forty-three and a half glared at him. “That he already owned me?”

“Um. No, ma’am.”

She stood from the table. Whipped out her phone. Punched in a number then said, “Get me my fighting heels. We ride at dawn.”

Dance with the Devil

When Forty-three found the time-traveling Founding Fathers’ temporary quarters—a modest cabin deep in the Virginia woods—Benjamin Franklin stood outside frowning at an array of tools and machine parts.

“Excuse me? Doctor Franklin, sir?”

The man from Pennsylvania flinched, turned. “Oh. Hello. You’re from the Council, aren’t you?”

“Yessir. Forty-three is what they call me. Nice socket wrench you got there, sir.”

“It’d be even nicer if I could get the hang of using the blasted thing. Is there something I can assist you with that doesn’t involve mechanical aptitude? Because I seem to be failing on that assignment.”

Forty-three blinked at the mess. Was that what remained of the time machine? If so, then his request would be moot. This was already his Plan B. With the death of Thirty-Nine nobody knew if his Operation Inauguration, which had been Plan A, would still be in effect. And he didn’t have a Plan C. “Well, sir, I certainly hope you can assist me.”

“Please,” he sighed, “Ben will be fine. We’re compatriots, after all. Just giving Old Betsy here a tune-up. It’s not going well, as you can see.”

“I hate to brag, but I live on a ranch in Texas and I’ve fixed quite a few things. Never a time machine, though. Don’t even know how those things work.”

“It’s simple, really,” Franklin said, waving a hand. “The proper combination of spectral anomalies, wormholes and gaps in the space time continuum and Bob’s your uncle.”

Forty-three could only gape at him. “Sorry. Bob who?”

Franklin chuckled then turned back to the heap of parts. “Texas undoubtedly is an interesting place. Here, I think I’ve got this figured. If you hold this part just so—”

The former president held. Franklin shifted a cog and the two pieces clicked in as smooth as a Swiss watch.

“Excellent. Thank you, my good man. It shouldn’t take very long now.”

Forty-three watched him in silence but then could no longer contain his excitement. “I want you to take me somewhere. When you get it all fixed. And if it’s okay with you.”

Franklin stood—slowly—and set his hands on his hips. “I could be tempted by an attractive proposal. That strain in my constitution has always been my undoing. Where would you like to go?”

The Texan gave a flat smile. “I have in mind an inflection point in recent American history. If we could nudge it a half bubble off plumb, I believe we could do a lot of good for humanity.” He decided to leave out Jimmy Carter’s Plan A.

Ben looked at him a long time, as if sizing him up for the task. “Tell me more.”

Forty-three glanced around, lowered his voice. “Some four years ago, our previous Senate majority leader chose to hide behind the Constitution rather than vote to essentially allow a corrupt president to run for a second term. Now we’re staring into the teeth of that second term. Republicans will hold majorities in the House and Senate and will enjoy a friendly Supreme Court. You of all people would know that under these conditions, he will no longer be accountable to the voters. Or…anyone, for all practical purposes.”

Ben’s face twitched with wry amusement. “The situation is alarming, yes, but I believe we’ve told you how some of our adventures have had unintended and sometimes deleterious consequences. In one timeline, we became a French colony. Our Mr. Adams pitched a fit. Would you want to risk that again?”

“Becoming French, or Mr. Adams’ anger control management issues?”

Ben clapped Forty-three on the shoulder. “Both, my friend. Both. All right. I’ll do it.”

—–

The journey proceeded without incident, and they arrived on February 12, 2021, one day before the Senate vote to convict following the second impeachment. As they were heading off to Washington, Forty-three stopped Franklin for a last-minute briefing. “I keep a low profile when I’m in Washington. McConnell and I have history, so it would be logical that I’d want to meet in a secret location.”

It turned out McConnell had a few minutes and agreed to meet Forty-three in a local, low-key watering hole. Ben agreed to find something else to do. The two Republicans chit-chatted for a bit, then McConnell leaned back in his chair. “I can’t imagine that this was a purely social call,” he said. “What’s on your mind, George?”

Forty-three lowered his voice. “It’s gonna be bad, Mitch. If you let him off the hook for what happened at the Capitol.”

Silence fell between them. “Yeah,” McConnell said. “I know.”

“So why not do the right thing here? Take a stand. Speak the truth. What would it cost you?”

“In a word? Everything.”

George filled with despair. He wasn’t making any headway with his best argument. Maybe he should have called Dick Cheney to take Mitch duck hunting. Too late for that. “If he wins 2024, Mitch? You’ll lose it all, regardless. He’ll do everything he can to get you out. Then you won’t be able to do squat. He will own this party.”

This silenced his companion. George then had a kind of jumpy feeling, like he should cut this visit short and go find Dr. Franklin. “Always good to catch up,” Forty-three said, and patted the Minority Leader’s soft, paper-dry hand.

—–

Adams rounded on them when the time machine returned. “What manner of mischief have you two been up to?”

“Why?” Franklin said with a grin. “Are we French again?”

Forty-three blushed. “It’s not his fault, Mr. Adams. I sort of—pushed him to try something.” He looked around. “Did it work?”

“That depends,” Jefferson said, “on what that ‘something’ was. If it was to try to undermine the second term of the orange carnival barker, then no. Ben. Please. We agreed to not to go on any excursions unless they were absolutely necessary.”

“He won anyway?” George pouted with dejection. Then again, had he really expected The Turtle to change his shell?

He left the three men arguing and walked off into the woods be alone with his thoughts. Not long after, the smell of brimstone crept up beside him.

“There’s something you need to know,” Lucifer said. “I will never, ever give up my pet Donald. He’s far too much fun. However, I do enjoy throwing obstacles in his path, so if you want to do a little horse-trading, perhaps there’s something else I can offer you?”

“I already tried what you suggested. McConnell didn’t bite.”

“Didn’t think he would. That man loves his power. Best money I ever spent.”

“So why did you suggest that I—?”

“It amuses me,” Lucifer said.

“I did things for you,” George said. “You owe me!”

The devil waved a hand. “Fine, fine. Tell me what you have in mind. And I’m not changing the results of that election. I barely got away with what I did for you in 2000—”

“You—you did not.”

“Oh, please. “Dangling chads in Florida? The Supreme Court vote? Who do you think was responsible for that?”

George went pale. Then he got angry. “The House and Senate. Put those under Democratic control as a check on that maniac and I never, ever want to see you again.”

“You’re hurting my feelings,” Lucifer said. “Sure you wouldn’t rather have more art lessons?” The former president glared. “All right,” he added. “I’ll make it so.”

Something didn’t sound right. “Wait. That would mean changing the past. You haven’t been—?”

“Ask Dr. Franklin what I’ve been.” Lucifer fizzled out, leaving the smell of sulfur and brimstone in the woods.

Forty-three beat leather back to the camp. “What did you do when we were in Washington?” he asked Franklin.

Benjamin Franklin gave him an impish grin. “A little of this, a little of that. Twisted a few arms, convinced a few folks to change the trajectory of their careers.”

“Did you make a deal with him?”

“Our devilishly handsome friend? We’ve done some business in our time.”

“Not you. Never you.”

“Oh, don’t be so naïve, my friend. You think my colonial charm and a raccoon hat won over half the ladies of France? Or gave me the good sense never to seek the presidency? No offense. All of us need a little help now and again. If you’ve known the acquaintance of Lucifer surely you’d understand.”

“More you’d know,” Forty-three mumbled.

“Then I suggest you sit back and enjoy the spoils of your labor. That’s the trick of it all. If you choose to dance with the devil,” Franklin made a courtly bow, “at least try to pick the tune.”

The Council: The Retribution Edition

Heads nod with great solemnity and handshakes are funereal, hands clasped over hands. Earl’s nephew, who owns the place now, brings out each member’s usual poison but leaves the bottles on the table, sensing it might be a long evening.

Forty-four is ready for that. But first he needs to get something off his chest. “I just wanted to state for the record that as for the results of the election, as with most things in life, it’s all too easy to be a genius in hindsight. I know that each and every one of you did the best you could with the hand we were dealt, and even though we might have some lingering disagreements, to be the most effective shadow tool for the continuation of the American Experiment, we would do well to learn what we can from the loss, then put it in the rear view as we move forward.”

“And if you can’t,” Forty-three-and-a-half says, “I know a place where we can smash stuff. Glass, dishes, pictures of him. Anything you want.”

“Thank you,” Forty-four offers. “I know MVP has been at one of those axe-throwing-therapy things and Doug said she’s doing much better. She can form complete sentences again.”

“Axes,” Forty-three-and-a-half muses. “I gotta check that out.” Forty-two’s face turns somber as he touches the scar on his forehead from one of his wife’s well-aimed high-heeled shoes.

“Who’s going to the inauguration?” Forty-four asks, eager to change the subject.

“I’d rather gouge out my eyeballs with a rusty spoon,” Forty-three-and-a-half says. “But I think it’s important to reinforce the concept of a peaceful transition.” Everyone agrees.

“Jill and I will be there,” says Forty-six somberly, about to become the newest official member of the Council. But then his eyes light with a flash of merriment. “I got a plan, though.”

All eyes go to him. “Listen, folks,” he continued, “I’m still officially the president until noon on January 20, and thanks to the Supremes, I can get away with a lot more shit than I used to. Let’s give that tangerine dumbass an unofficial welcome.”

Forty-four gives his former vice president and soon to be ex-president the side-eye. The man from Delaware and Forty-three-and-a-half engage in a sidebar about the extrajudicially-adjacent and some outright illegal methods they can employ to neutralize the incoming administration, including some untraceable substances claimed to be available from Putin. “If I may I interject,” Forty-four says, “it’s all fun and games until the inauguration, after which who knows what may happen, how long we’ll be tied up in witch hunt after witch hunt.”

“Let him try,” Forty-three-and-a-half says. “I could do another Benghazi standing on my head.”

A wispy voice in a Southern accent comes from Forty-four’s phone, where Thirty-nine is participating via secure video chat from his hospice room in Georgia.

“Yes, sir. Go ahead.”

“Can y’all hear me?”

Forty-four moved the phone to the middle of the table. “Loud and clear, sir.”

“Aside from serving as president and Rosalyn’s husband, being in your company has been one of the greatest honors of my life. Given that, I’d hate to see any of you get called to account for an act of political passion.”

Silence falls around the assembly.

“So,” he continues, “I’ve already set a plan in motion.”

Even more silence. Looks shoot from one to the other.

“Thirty-nine. Jimmy, you don’t have to—I mean, think of your legacy.”

A smile creases his already well-creased face. “I am thinking of it,” he says. “I’ve had a lot of time on my hands lately to think about it. Call it the last wish of a dying man. After the life I’ve led, I think my savior would do me a solid, as the kids say.”

“What are you—”

“The less said, the better. Carry on, and have a blessed day.”

And he’s gone. Again, the looks.

“He can’t be serious,” Forty-three-and-a-half says. “It’s gotta be the morphine talking.”

“No,” Forty-two says. “I have known that man for a lot of years. He means every word of it.”

Forty-four frowns. “We have to stop him.”

“I don’t even know what there is to stop,” Forty-six says.

“The bigger question,” says Forty-three, who until now had been very quiet, “is should we stop him?” All eyes land on the man from Texas, who continues. “There’s gonna be some weird shit going down. If we’re about to be silenced, we might as well make some noise first.”

Again, a hush falls over the table.

“I don’t know that I’m altogether good with this,” Forty-four says.

“I’m good,” Forty-two says. “Frankly I don’t think I’ve ever been more good. I move for adjournment.”

Water drips in a back room. The heater kicks on. Nobody else objects. The meeting is adjourned.

“I’m gonna go break some stuff,” Forty-three-and-a-half says, rising from the table, “then get royally drunk. Who’s with me?”

“Give Doug and Kamala a call,” Forty-six says. “I think they’d be up for that.”

The Council: Recrimination Edition

The Council: The Recriminations Edition

The longer the meeting had gone on, the more he wanted off the phone, the more he shook his head and groaned and wished he’d never made the call; now fingers had been pointed, new candidates appointed, recriminations were incriminated without discrimination or examination…

“Barry!”

His eyes snapped open. “Wha…”

“You were sleep-rapping again.”

“Damn. Really?” He had to stop listening to Kendrick Lamar before bed. He grinned at the cute irritation on her face. “Was I any good?”

“Actually, yes. Which is even more annoying. Will you call the damn meeting already so I can get some sleep?”

He agreed, but the idea of getting into it with everyone scared the pants off him. He’d had his separate calls. With MVP of course. Some of the others. But official business had to happen. It would be ugly, but hard decisions had to be made with all members in attendance. So he lay there for a while, postponing the inevitable, and when he heard his lovely wife’s breathing settle into sleep, he got up and made the arrangements.

Only moments after that, his private line rang. It was Dubya. The forty-third president rarely initiated calls with him, so he pressed accept.

“George. What are you doing up?”

There was a long pause, during which Forty-four swore he could hear the breeze across the Texas plain. And then a soft snuffling. “Are you crying? Do you need a minute?”

“No. I’m fine. I just. Well, I’m not so fine. I feel like I let you all down.”

“You vowed to stay out of the endorsing business, that was okay. You do you. But calling to congratulate him was a little over the line.”

“Yeah. I know. But, see…” He let out a deep sigh. “There’s a reason for that. I made a bargain with…my higher power…to do penance to relieve me of the burden of my sins.”

Forty-four scratched the back of his neck. “And congratulating him was part of it?”

“Among…other things. I’m not supposed to be talking about it, but—see, there’s a project I’ll be working on, and I might need some help.” Forty-four was about to ask if he wanted it to be an agenda item for the meeting when Forty-three said, “I’m probably gonna need a good lawyer.”

“Of course. Happy to help.” The snuffling started again. “Maybe make a nice cup of tea and try to get some rest, okay?”

The call ended. Forty-three smelled the brimstone, creeping in with the night breeze on the patio. “Oh, don’t even with me,” he told Lucifer. “Like I’m not doing enough for you already.”

“That’s fine.” Lucifer perched on an empty chair. “Talk to whomever you wish. As long as you keep your part of the bargain.”

“I’m doing it, all right? I already got plans for my little sanctuary city on the back forty, but this new assignment isn’t sitting well with me.”

“Do you want your beloved state of Texas to become Ground Zero for mass deportations?”

“Of course not. I just don’t think your plan for me to burn down the camp he wants ICE to build is the way to do it. It’s too obvious. Could you maybe send down a convenient bolt of lightning?”

“I’m the devil, not a meteorologist. What else would you suggest?”

“Well, that was kind of my backup plan. The make-it-look-like-an-act-of-nature sort of thing.”

Lucifer stroked his beard. “I hear tell you have friends with a time machine.”

Forty-three’s jaw dropped. Nobody was supposed to know about Dr. Franklin’s visit to Washington. “Did Bill Clinton tell you that? He is such a blabbermouth.”

“But so entertaining. He’s one of my favorites. So here’s what you do. Have them take you back to a certain inflection point and convince certain people to make a different choice that results in a different outcome.”

“That’s not awfully specific.”

“Also not my job. But I see you’re foundering so I’ll throw you a bone. There was one man in your Senate who could have insured that a certain party would never be allowed to run for a second term.”

“McConnell. The second impeachment,” Forty-three said. “I just gotta convince him and few of his friends to change their vote.”

Lucifer smirked. “So it is true that you’re smarter than you look.”

Before Forty-three could respond, the cloven-hoofed little man was gone, leaving that godawful stench in his wake. He sat for a while, ruminating. Acting on this idea would mean going against his vow not to get involved in the affairs of other presidents. But it could prevent a lot of dark things from happening. He could be a hero. People would stop calling him a war criminal. Maybe they’d even buy more of his paintings.

A coyote howled in the distance. It sounded crazy. Find Ben Franklin to take him back in time so he could change the course of history. But it was worth a shot.

The Council: Consolation Edition

Everyone grieves in their own ways. Mine often comes with snark and political satire. Namaste, and love to you all.

Location: A Secure Underground Bunker in Delaware

She was, finally, alone. She didn’t remember a single time in the past hundred days when she’d been alone for more than it took to use the toilet. She’d been running faster than her doubts, fighting harder than her fears and now…they were threatening to catch up to her.

But she wasn’t ready to be caught. She thought about the gummy that, as a joke, Doug had pressed into her palm earlier that evening. What the hell, she said to the dimmed lights of the empty room, the institutional furniture, the unknown of her future, and downed it.

Then she kicked her Louboutins across the room, went flat out on the couch, closed her eyes and let Beyonce flow in through her air pods. When the first feathers of calm began stroking the edges of her frayed nerve endings, a click-clacking of sensible heels on the stairs made her wince. The voice of Hillary Rodham Clinton didn’t help: “Hey. You okay down here?”

She made to sit up. Her body wasn’t having it, at first, but she pushed herself. There was no way another human being would catch her out like this except her husband. Then she remembered she could drop the campaign mask. It wasn’t easy to unstick. She heaved a huge sigh, took out her buds. “You of all people should know I am definitely not okay.” She forced a smile. “But if you tell anyone that, I will cut you. Believe me, I know how.”

Hillary gave a crooked grin. “Prosecutor, are you…high?”

“Not so much. Maybe a little.” She pinched her thumb and forefinger. “Maybe a teensy bit. A teensy. Joyful. Bit.”

“Got any left?”

“Nope.”

“Too bad. I’ll just have to settle for this.” She went to a cabinet across the room and extracted a bottle of expensive-looking scotch and two glasses.

“Well, damn,” Madame Vice President said. “Joe’s been holding out on me.”

“Don’t take it personally. He probably just forgot it was here.”

She watched the older woman pour. Noting the steadiness of her hands. Thinking about the hell Secretary Clinton had been through, how she’d gone to hell and back, multiple times, and was still standing on her own two feet.

“So we got something else in common now,” she said to Hillary.

“Yep. That fucking orange clown show.”

With a thank-you smile, Madame Vice President took the glass offered to her. “Supreme Court extended all kinds of immunity to sitting presidents,” she said. “I can talk Joe into pretty much anything these days. Can we have him killed?”

Hillary cackled. “Just tell Seal Team Six to make it look like an accident.”

A shared smile then silence fell between them. Idly she wondered about the wisdom of mixing pot with alcohol, then decided that was tomorrow’s problem. “Seriously. How did you get through it?” she asked, staring into the depths of the amber liquid.

“Hmm. Let’s see. A lot of long walks, some screaming into the void, and making a mint off book and podcast deals didn’t hurt either. You see yourself going that route?”

“Feels like that would be giving up. No offense. I just gotta sit with this a while, and I definitely need the rest, but I still want to be in the fight.”

Hillary pressed a hand to her forearm. “Come fight on our team then. When you’re ready.” She looked at her watch. “I gotta go rescue Bill, God knows what he’s telling reporters.” She put down her glass, took a business card from her blazer pocket, and snapped it onto the table. “That number’s secure. We’ll set you up. You already know the crew. We’ll make you an honorable member of The Council.”

“Forty-six-and-a-half?”

“Actually, the half-numbering thing? I’m starting to feel like that’s a diminution. And a consolation prize. I haven’t written up my thoughts about that for the official record, or proposed an amendment to the by-laws, but with you, we’d be starting fresh. How does MVP work for you?”

“It’s not bad.” A gentle, pleasant fuzz began growing over her thoughts. “But I think I’m just gonna close my eyes for a bit.”

“Good idea,” Hillary said, and stood. “Anything you want to tell Joe? I imagine I’ll be seeing him on the way out.”

“Tell him”—she yawned—“we gotta talk about plausible deniability.”

“With pleasure,” she said. “I have a lot of ideas on the subject. Many of them untraceable.” And the sensible heels clicked back up the stairs.

The Council: The Beyoncé Edition

Just a little political satire series I write to keep me sane in these completely insane times.

The Council: Beyoncé Edition

Forty-four collapsed into the back seat of the black SUV, bound for yet another airport, and soon they were underway. He set up his phone for the prearranged call, raked a hand over his buzzcut. He didn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, or a time when he wasn’t talking, or rapping Eminem, God help him, but too many opportunities for secure channels were closing and he had to make contact before he got on the plane for the next rally. He felt a little better when her window came up on his screen.

“Hey, Madame Vice President. How’s it going out there?”

She laughed that wonderful laugh. “Oh, you know. Fifteen interviews before lunch, rallies with Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, and Willie Nelson, just like any old ordinary weekend. How’s it by you? Where are you, anyway?”

“Just leaving Atlanta. That arena was loud. I mean loud. You’d think Oprah was there.”

“Wait. Was she there? Are you bogarting Oprah, my friend?”

“Now, I would never do that to you. Magic Johnson, you can count on it. But Oprah, not if I value my life or my marriage.”

A new window opened and Forty-four flinched. All he could see was a nose and a mouth. These were features he knew well. The mouth was moving.

“Joe,” he said. “Joe, hit the unmute. And back up, wouldja? With all due respect, Forty-six, I can count your nose hairs.”

The current president came into frame, then into sound. “We doing this thing or not?” he asked. “It’s almost ice cream o’clock and I got a shit ton of stuff to get done first and Netanyahu’s a pain in my behind. Someone’s got to do this presidenting thing and my VP has her hands full.” He winked.

“Just getting everyone in the room. Hold on.” He did what he had to do and all available members were on the call.

Greetings went around. “There’s no official business on the agenda,” Forty-four said. “Basically this is just a vibe check.”

Forty-three-and-a-half cackled. “Did you actually just say vibe check?”

“I got Millennial kids, what can I say? At least I keep up. Aunt Hillary.”

She laughed louder. Then was all business. “Okay. I got dish. Seems a certain recalcitrant former president was spotted at a certain rally in Houston last night.”

All were silent. Then Forty-four said, “Where’d you hear that from?”

“Chelsea was at the rally trying to get interviews for her podcast. She said when she spotted him, he turned tail and disappeared into the crowd.”

“Okay. This can’t go unremarked-upon.” He punched up Dubya’s number.

The face of the forty-third president appeared. “I’m sorry. We had guests. I couldn’t get on the call right then—”

“It’s okay, George,” Forty-four said. Waited a beat. Then added, “How was Houston last night?”

The eyes widened. The mouth dropped. “Shoot. You all know? Okay. I love me some Queen Bee. There. I said it.”

“Is that it?” Forty-three-and-a-half said. “I would think that a man of your means, you could go to a concert any time you wanted.”

Time stretched. Even on the tiny screen, Forty-four could see the beads of sweat form on the forty-third president’s forehead. “All right. I am, my grandkids say, Kamala curious. I just… I just wanted to feel the energy, you know?”

Forty-four gave up a sly smile. “And how was the…energy?”

“Promise you’ll keep this between us.”

“It is the nature of this body, Forty-three, that what happens within the Council stays within the Council. Now spill the tea.”

“I’ve started White Texan Ex-presidents for Kamala. We had a great meeting last night.”

Forty-three-and-a-half sputtered. “Who, you and the ghost of LBJ?”

“Don’t make fun, Hill,” Forty-two said. “The man’s making an effort.”

“Sorry, Forty-three. Does this mean you’ll be joining us?”

“Well, um. Not officially. But I’ll be doing some behind the scenes work. And this entire wing of the, um, Forty-three family will be voting for her.”

“Good for you, man,” Forty-two said.

“Proud you’re stepping up,” Forty-four said. “And that last painting? You are improving by leaps and bounds, my friend. Okay, we’re at the airport, so I gotta bounce. Good luck, everyone, and go get ’em.”

———

“Very nice,” Lucifer said, perched atop Forty-three’s painting stool, stroking his pointed beard. “Very smooth.”

Forty-three sighed. “Glad I could meet with your approval. Say, I been thinking.”

The devil rolled his eyes, puffed out a sulfuric cloud. “Not that again.”

He stood up straighter. “I been thinking to ask if there’s any kind a loophole out of this deal we made.”

“You want to make a deal with the deal you already made with the devil? Interesting. Unprecedented, Mr. President. But I’m all ears.” He leaned forward. “Go on.”

“I been having some serious talks with my lord and savior.”

“Ugh. Him.” He waved a hand. “Lies. Nothing but lies.”

“I happen to think otherwise, but we can agree to disagree. No. I weighed all the pros and cons, and I… Well, when I heard that angel Beyoncé sing and Madame Vice President speaking, it all made sense in my head. I gotta take my lumps for this. For all I did. With no spiritual intervention.”

“So essentially you want out.”

“Essentially, yes.”

“Of course you know I will need something of equal value in exchange.”

“I’ve heard tell that Ted Cruz would barbecue his own grandmother for more power.”

“Feh. Ted Cruz. Nobody wants Ted Cruz. Tell you what. Let’s call it a temporary reprieve. I’ll give you three months. Do what you must and we’ll meet again.”

Forty-three smiled. But before he could thank Lucifer, he’d already disappeared, leaving behind a cloud of sulfur and brimstone.

“You all right, hon?” Laura said, coming around the corner toward his studio. “Good golly, it’s…rather stale in here.”

He opened the doors out to the patio, and she stepped out next to him. Together they surveyed the landscape.

“So I been thinking, Laura. About what you keep telling me. We got an awful lot of land, and so many of those poor migrants…well, they just want a place to wait out their asylum claims and do an honest day’s work. And I think we should do it.”

She slipped an arm around his waist and smiled.

Flash Fiction: The Pride of Home Ownership

You hear the rumors. The stories the neighbor folks tell, trying to freak out new owners who’d never lived outside the city. But you don’t believe them. Native American burial grounds. Ghost farms. Haunted orchards. The whole of America is somebody’s burial ground; we’re all built too confidently atop a previous generation’s lives. You worry more about what’s in the aquifer from those haunted orchards and farms. Pesticides. Forever chemicals. The inspector’s test passes, but you never quite buy it. For a while you use one of those filter pitchers until it becomes a pain in the ass, all that cleaning and replacing. Somewhere between the first major repair and getting on with your lives, you stop thinking about it. There are other things to obsess over. The day-to-day of home ownership, tricking yourself into believing that the money and labor is worth the security, the independence. A little game you play. You’re good at it. Until you’re not. You bleed for this parcel of earth. Literally. Accidents with gardening implements, too many falls to count. You’re what the commercials call invested. A cozy picture of hearth and home, your giant boulder in a rocky world. With a kind of smug pride, you congratulate yourself on a sturdy roof and foundation that won’t end up on news clips after a natural disaster.

You try not to think how in the face of stronger storms you’ll be just as vulnerable as the rest of them. You try not to think that every time you hear the firehouse siren, it means someone else’s giant rock of security could be reduced to rubble. Or yours.

Then one day things that were easy are not. You take the stairs slower; you no longer chase each other, giggling, around the open-plan first floor, heady with the knowledge that there are no neighbors to disturb. And the stories you were warned you about – maybe they contain a kernel of truth. You see and hear things that might be the effects of gravity and elements over time – screen doors that whip closed by an unseen hand. A cabinet you swore you closed when you left the kitchen. But it’s kind of scary-fun to believe you have a ghost. You remember the people who’ve come to visit and died since; it’s Xavier who keeps closing the screen door, Grandma who pokes into the cabinets; the hand of your grandfather stroking your hair as you fall asleep.

A day comes when you again think about the aquifer. The ghost chemicals. The new ones. Six more houses have been built since you moved in—two are farms, one keeps horses, all drilling into the same pocket of water in the earth. That can’t be good. But there are bills to pay, and hours to work, and groceries to buy, and clothes to launder, and you wash and dry and put away the same bowls and plates and spoons and forks you’ve been using for the past thirty years and you’re seized with an urge to take them outside and smash them.

Then one day you do. One last stick lands on your camel’s back, the keystone from your carefully constructed dam breaks free. It could have been nothing; it could have been everything. Anger wells up in your chest as you wash that same glass bowl, the same forks and spoons and knives and bowls and dishes you were given as wedding presents. With a howl you raise a plate above your head and dash it against the stainless steel double sink. The crash you thought would be so satisfying is not. It’s like the tiny “thunk” when the coyote finally lands on the canyon floor. But you’ve cut your thumb and blood feathers across the broken pieces.

And then the tears come. They burn your eyes. They taste like chemicals.

The Council: The Insurrection Edition

After January 6, 2021, I lost the heart and will to continue writing my Council series. Now that I’ve picked it up again, I wanted to go back and fill in the missing gaps. This one was hard to write, but I think I needed to. With that accomplished…we’re not going back. We’re not going back. We’re not…

Forty-four came in sweaty from shooting hoops and spied Michelle in profile in the living room. She was watching a TV screen, the content of which he could not see at that angle. But her face was somewhere between shock and outrage, with one hand pressed to her cheek.

For a split second he wondered who had died.

He opened his mouth to ask and his phone rang. It was a number he knew well. He had a feeling it was not a social call.

Michelle turned to him, eyes on fire. “Barry. This is—I knew it. I knew that man would—”

He let the call go to voice mail. He saw the TV screen. The Confederate flags hanging from the Capitol Building. The members of Congress being ushered to safety. “Dear God in heaven.”

The phone was still in his hand. She gestured to it. “You should probably check that.”

Forty-four nodded. All Forty-three-and-a-half said on the voice mail was “Are you seeing this?” Something would have to be done but in that moment he knew his first priority.

He sat next to his wife. Put his arm around her. They sat together a moment, watching something he never thought could happen in the country he loved so dearly but feared that it could. Had feared this for a long time.

“I should call a meeting,” he said. She nodded.

He fired up a secure channel in his office and got everyone patched in on video. In each expression he saw a version of Michelle’s. They all knew why they’d been assembled.

Forty-two was even redder in the face than usual. Forty-three-and-a-half looked ready to spit. The others just looked sad.

All eyes were on the square containing the aviator-shaded avatar of the president-elect. Behind that, Forty-four imagined the chaos swirling. The briefings. The decisions. He knew the tumult of those inflection points better than he wanted to.

“Forty-six-elect, is there anything we can do to help?” he asked.

His voice was all Scranton Joe. “You got any contacts left inside, give ’em a try. I’ve been on the horn ever since I got wind of this. Nobody’ll talk to me. Some pipsqueak in the DoD told me to go to hell and enjoy the view.”

“I got a text from Pelosi’s team,” Forty-three-and-a-half said. “They’re okay. With gas masks. Jesus Christ. And what’s he doing? Watching TV and tweeting bullshit. Throwing more gasoline on the fire and toasting marshmallows. We gotta stop this orange ass clown.”

“I got a bad feeling he’s the only one can call them off,” Bush said. “That he’s trained these dogs to a whistle only they can hear.”

“I’m still gonna try,” Forty-six-elect said. “I’m making a statement. Godspeed, everyone.”

“Godspeed,” they all muttered in reply, and his window disappeared.

They agreed to talk again in a few hours.

Forty-four got on the phone, hunting down intel. There were similar protests in Sacramento, Austin, Denver, and Minneapolis, but those so far had not turned violent. Tight-chested and fists-clenched and every cell of him aching for a smoke, he watched the crisis at the Capitol unfolding on the small flat-screen in his office. A gang of overgrown boys playing militia man stomped a police officer. The news network kept playing the same violent clips over and over. And the same refrain kept going through Forty-four’s mind: “Where the hell is the National Guard?”

Oh, right, he told himself. That’s the president’s job.

The cavalry wasn’t coming.

Michelle walked in and set two steaming mugs of coffee on his desk with a clunk and a slosh. You could break walnuts on her jaw. “He wanted this,” she muttered, shaking her head. “He asked for this. Where the hell is the National Guard?”

He met her eye. Yeah. They both knew the answer to that question.

A voice from the TV said, “We’re breaking away for a statement from the president-elect…”

They turned as one.

The words were plain and angry and appealed to patriotism and the Constitution. Frankly labeling the riot an insurrection, demanding the orange man get on TV and call off his dogs.

They stood together, silent before the screen, waiting.

It took seventeen minutes. One thousand twenty-four seconds after the president-elect’s appeal, a video appeared. Not on television but on Twitter. The soon-to-be-former president gave a half-assed request for his people to leave in peace. Oozing on about how special they all were.

But then…things started happening. Slowly, but it happened. Maryland and Virginia sent in National Guard and state troopers. In the next hour, police moved into the Capitol and began to clear and secure the building.

An hour later, the forty-fifth president was banned from social media. “About time,” Michelle said. “You’re making a statement, of course?”

He nodded. It was already cued up to go. Even as a former two-term president and a member of the Council, he was now a citizen, which meant that politically he had to let certain parties go first. When he got the call that the Republican National Committee had condemned the violence of the day, he hit send.

—

In the wee small hours of the morning, after the House and Senate had reconvened their respective, then joint sessions, Mike Pence did his Constitutional duty.

Forty-four stayed awake to watch it all.

Apparently so did his compatriots, judging from the texts he was receiving. Since they were all awake anyway, he called an ad hoc meeting.

Forty-six-elect was full of fire, talking about the horrors of the day, amazed that so quickly after his statement, the rioters had been called off. That led to a discussion about the Inauguration, that maybe the living ex-presidents could make some kind of statement together. When fatigue had them lapsing into silences, though, Forty-four called it a night.

He was dying for a cigarette. If there was a moment he could forgive himself one, it was this. And while he was sitting out on the patio, smoking and watching the absurdly early still-dark morning sky, he remembered something.

He texted Forty-three-and-a-half: “I’m all for gallows humor at certain times. But you had some funny kind of smirk on while Forty-six was talking about his statement. I’d love to know the joke.”

A moment later she rang his phone and said, “Nothing against Joe, but do you actually think His Orangeship gives a flying goddamn about statements?”

“Then how? It couldn’t have been out of the generosity of his soul because he doesn’t appear to have one.”

“I called a mutual friend.”

“Putin? You called Putin. After what he did to your campaign?”

“Water under the bridge. I just…suggested what might happen to a lot of his business and personal interests if he didn’t pull his little orange Pinocchio’s strings.”

He shook his head, smiling into the dark. “Madame Secretary. I don’t even want to know what you suggested, but I am so glad you’re on our side.”