It was a dark and Stormy night. Then it was a dark and Stormy dawn, followed by a Stormy day, followed by another Stormy day, then another, one Stormy week upon another, day after day, night after dark and Stormy night. The forecast is merciless and unchanging – Stormy weather in the offing as far as the crow can see. The Czar was so angry he skipped his third helping of chocolate cake.
“She’s everywhere!” he bellowed like an alphorn. “She gets more air time than I do.” The Czar retrieved a Tic-Tac from his coat pocket and skillfully flipped it into his mouth like a self-feeding sea lion. “Except on Fox, of course. They stick with the program. We need to get rid of the others. CNN. MSNBC. Get David D. Smith to buy them.” The Czar sadly looked back at his row of large, flat-screen TVs. “Look at her,” he said, with a sweeping, imperial gesture. “Isn’t she something? Look at that figure. If they hadn’t already invented wide screen TV…” he added, his voice trailing off. The Czar looked up at the ceiling, suddenly lost in whatever his brain uses for thought. He absent-mindedly retrieved another Tic-Tac.
General Kelly slowly realized the Czar had forgotten he was there and began to clear his throat. The Czar didn’t notice him and the General cleared his throat again, louder than the first time. He cleared his throat several more times, louder and louder, like he was auditioning for the Vocal Fry Glee Club. Finally, he spoke up in his booming command voice and asked the Czar, “Do you need anything else, Mr. President?”
The Czar, who was sucking on a Tic-Tac with his eyes closed, stopped mid-suck. “No,” he replied. “That was enough. That was great. Thank you, Stormy.” The Czar blinked, sat up straight and looked at Kelly. “I mean General. Thank you, General.” Kelly, who long ago had accepted the defenestration of his integrity, would have answered to “Stormy” if that’s what it took to get out of there. But the Czar was not done. Gesturing to the TV screens, which showed a photograph of Stormy Daniels taking a polygraph test, the Czar asked Kelly, “What do you think of her?” The General studied the screens. “She looks like she’s making a hostage video with two Koalas stuffed inside her shirt,” he replied. “Well-fed Koalas.” The Czar slumped in his chair and changed the channel to Fox. “You’re excused, General. Good night.” “Good night, Sir,” Kelly replied, executing a crisp pirouette as he left the room.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, thought the Czar. The presidency was supposed to be easy and fun, like “The Apprentice.” He was born to be president, a leader, someone gals lusted for and guys admired. When he dreamt of being immortalized on a rock, he was thinking Rushmore, not Prometheus. The eagles ravaging his liver are named Stormy, Karen, and Summer, vindictive women after a pound of his ample flesh. Does this happen to Putin or Duterte? No way. This is why the country is going to hell. Men can’t be men any more. There’s a war on straight white guys. And Christmas. War on Christmas. Easter is next. Gotta use that at the next rally to fire up the rubes. We need to protect Easter. Save the bunnies. Bunnies. Playboy. Karen. Love the bunnies… As the Czar began to fall asleep while Foxes and Foxettes babbled in the background, the Czarina quietly entered the room. “Donald, do you need anything before I go to bed?” she asked him. “No,” mumbled the sleepy Czar. “Thank you, Stormy.” The Czarina turned and left the room, slamming the door like a thunder-dent.
The Czar fears the vindictive women more than he fears Robert Mueller. The Special Counsel might want to slap cuffs on his wrists, but the women have a different target, the thought of which makes the Czar squirm and ruffle his bloomers. If only he could bring Roy Cohn back from the dead. He’d take care of all those ungrateful bimbos and their greedy shysters. Say what you will about Roy Cohn, he was a man’s man. Besides, the Czar was in his element in court, whether defending himself against contractors he stiffed or filing for bankruptcy to wipe out a ledger of inconvenient financial obligations. The legal system is a playground for the wealthy; lawyers will accept less than they bill and many judges have a surprisingly accommodating price point. Mueller and his crew are lawyers; the Czar fears no lawyer.
But the women – not just Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal, and Summer Zervos, but all the others as well – scare the Czar, because they threaten to unmask him for what he is: a man obsessed by sex above all else. Everything he has become, all he has done was driven by his insatiable libido. Money and power were secondary, mere devices to lure models, Playboy Bunnies and porn stars into a connubial lair. So great was his need for notches on his sex pistol that he took unnecessary chances, barging into a room full of under-age beauty queens in various stages of undress, groping women on planes and elsewhere, enjoying exotic “room service” in a Moscow hotel. He knows, in the dank chamber of his deepest secrets, that he is but a marionette in service of his loins.
Now his curtain is pulling away, exposing his history of debauchery in the worst possible place at the worst possible time – while he is here, in the eye of the storm.
© 2018 by Mike Tully
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