“A single piece of what?” asked Melania as she carefully peeled a grape. “A single piece of cheese cake,” replied the Czar, spitting as he spoke. “Everybody knows I always have two pieces. And, look at this! Blueberries! I asked for strawberries. What the hell is going on around here?” The Czar hated the White House. Moldy old dump. But here, at Mar-A-Lago, everything is supposed to go exactly the way he wants. He sank his jowls into his palms. “This pisses me off,” he muttered.
“This is unacceptable, Donald,” purred Melania. “You know what you need to do?” The Czar looked up from his tiny hands. “You need to declare a national emergency.”
The Czar glared at her like a python considering a rodent. “You’re a riot, Melania. A riot.” He signaled an aide to come over. “Tell Eduardo to straighten things out and tell the kitchen guys how I want my dessert. Where the hell is Eduardo anyway?”
“We had to let him go,” said Melania. “His papers weren’t in order.”
“What do you mean?” asked the Czar. “He didn’t have his shots? I thought we made sure everyone got their shots.” “It wasn’t his shots,” said Melania. “He was not in the country legally. He is going to be deported.” The Czar was so disturbed he sank his fork into the paltry single cheese cake slice, blueberries and all. “That’s not right,” he said. “Eduardo has been around forever. He knew me as well as anybody.” “As well as me?” asked Melania. The Czar dipped his napkin into his water glass and wiped his jowls. “In some ways,” he replied. “In some ways.”
“He knows you in the ‘the cheesecake sense?’” she asked. “I thought that was my role.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a disturbing noise that sounded like an oscillating fan sucking a milkshake through a colander. “What the hell was that?” asked the Czar. “It was Kellyanne,” replied Melania. “She was recording us on her iPhone and spit champagne out her nose.”
“Not again.”
“Yes,” said Melania. “I should go check on her.” FLOTUS fled the premises. Shortly after she left, Jerry Falwell, Jr. walked into the dining room. The Czar beamed when he saw a fellow “Chip off the Old Buffalo”. “If It isn’t God’s favorite flak,” he exclaimed. “How the hell — uh — how the heck are you?”
“What’s up with Kellyanne?” asked the Junior Falwell. “I just saw her in the hall spitting urine out her nose.” “Champagne,” said the Czar. “It was champagne, not urine.”
“Okay,” said the scion of somebody far more important than he was. “But I need to talk to you about national emergency declarations.” The Czar let out a long, sad sigh, like air escaping from an inflatable clown. “You, too?” A nervous waiter set a slice of strawberry cheesecake in front of him, then slipped away like a cat. “I know what I’m doing. I know what my powers are. Don’t you think I can declare a national emergency to build a wall on the border? I can.”
“I know,” said Falwell, Jr. “I also know that the other side is raising heck and even some of your supporters have doubts about whether you exceeded your authority. But I can tell you how to martial your supporters and drown out those dems and commies like Pelosi and Alexandria what’s-her-name. You picked the wrong issue.”
“I’m listening,” said the Czar.
“The problem is not that your people want the border wall, it’s that they don’t want it enough. They know it’s a symbol — a trophy— but they don’t think their afterlife depends on it.” The Czar finished his cheesecake, wiped his jowls and leaned forward. “What’s your point?” he asked, pointedly.
“There is another crisis, much more critical and immediate, that would galvanize your base and line up the Supreme Court behind you.” The Czar sat up straight and looked closely at Junior F. “Get to the point.”
“Abortion,” he replied. “Every year hundreds of thousands of unborn children — innocent babies, Mr. President — are killed when pregnancies are terminated. That’s a more serious and more immediate national emergency than illegal immigration.”
“Assuming you’re right,” said the Czar. “How can I be sure the courts will go along?”
“Are you kidding?” said Falwell, Jr. “You stacked the Supreme Court with pro-life justices! They might not be sure if the border wall justifies a national emergency but how can they second-guess this? It’s a core belief. If you want to make sure the Supreme Court endorses your national emergency declaration and confirms your view of unlimited Presidential power, while locking in your political base for all time, this is the formula. You have the right idea — you just picked the wrong issue. If you want unlimited power, declare abortion a national emergency and let a pro-life Court endorse it. You could be President for Life — so to speak.”
The Czar gazed at the vast Atlantic beyond the confines of Mar-A-Lago. “Go find Kellyanne,” he bellowed. “I need to dictate this new national emergency order as soon as possible. It’s what God wants me to do.” He reached for a cigar and rocked back in his leather lounger. “I was born to be a Dictator.”
© 2019 by Mike Tully
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