CELL PHONE NOISE
“Figured this one was coming. Hello?”
“Ma’am, this is General James Mattis. I apologize for calling at this hour, but I’ve been fielding job offers.”
“From?”
“All the richest bastards on the planet. Literally all of them. There’s 35 countries I could be Minister of Security for. Chinese arm dealer offered me $20 million just to stand behind him at his next meeting. I’m the prettiest girl at the dance right now.”
“Sounds like it. So you finally snapped, huh?”
“I’m a Marine, ma’am. If I had snapped, the sanitation crew’d be sponging blood and KFC gravy off the walls. I resigned my position via correspondence.”
“Hell of a letter.”
“Not the first draft. Went through multiple iterations. There was an evolutionary process to the missive, is what I’m getting at.”
“When did you start writing it?”
“At around 0800.”
“The morning that you quit?”
“The morning I started work. A good Marine always has an exit strategy, ma’am. I assumed my role as Secretary of Defense with my eyes open. I even sleep with my eyes open.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
“And sneeze. Both eyes wide open.”
“That’s physically impossible.”
“Willpower, ma’am.”
“Gotcha.”
“As I stated, I knew from the outset that my job was twofold: keep President Trump from setting the world on fire, and keep President Trump from knowing just how fucking dumb I thought he was. Pardon my language, ma’am.”
“I’m a grown-up who works in a newsroom, General.”
“Man’s thicker than elephant shit on a cold day. I believe that if you set President Trump on a beach and told him to find the ocean, he’d fail. I truly believe that, and he also wouldn’t be able to find sand, and then he’d bankrupt the snack bar. To be seasonal about it: the man is the Ghost of Christmas Retarded.”
“I can’t pardon that language, General.”
“Right, I’m in the private sector now. Need to clean up the barracks talk.”
“It’ll make things smoother for you.”
“Sure. And besides: calling him that is an insult to retards. Most of those kids are sweet-natured.”
“Um, sure?”
“Past two years, here’s my day: I get up at 0400, run two miles, eat six ounces of steel-cut oatmeal garnished with ten blueberries, read Thucydides, then punch myself in the face ten or twelve times.”
“Why the punching?”
“I’m a warrior, ma’am.”
“Okay.”
“From 0530 to 1300, I lead the Department of Defense. This involves phone calls, meetings, the ingestion and recitation of various memoranda, briefings, and dealing with Congress. Are you familiar with the United States Congress, ma’am?”
“I am.”
“Biggest collection of slack-jaws, goobers, and schmuckatellis you’ve ever met. I wouldn’t trust most of them to umpire a Little League game. Kids would all end up dead, and both dugouts on fire. The results of democracy are the greatest argument against the practice.”
“Not arguing with you.”
“What happens at 1300?”
“Lunch.”
“Right.”
“Generally a pasta salad of some sort, or maybe a piece of fish. When lunch concludes, I have a firm and unforced bowel movement, roughly a foot long and coiled. Good color. At 1330, I return to my office and repeat the tasks of the morning until 2200, when I return to my home and prepare for a new day fulfilling America’s promises and terrifying her enemies.”
“That’s a long day, General.”
“Yes, ma’am. But I believed that it was what the job required. Would you like to hear my commanding officer’s schedule?”
“I have a feeling I could sketch it out.”
“Wake up with fast food wrappers sticking to my flabby, weird-shaped body at around dawn, or maybe I never even slept because I’ve been popping those pills I don’t think anyone knows about again, and I start slapping at random buttons on my nightstand until I find the one that makes the guy bring me a Diet Coke and a selection of Pop Tarts. Sometimes I hit the wrong button and the building goes on lockdown, but I won’t let them change it because no one can tell me anything because I’m the stupidest fucknut in the whole fuckforest full of fucktrees. You following me here, ma’am?”
“I am.”
“And then it’s Teevee Time. That man loves teevee like Liberace loved balls. Remember the Rain Man? Well, that’s who’s got the nuclear codes. Three of four hours of teevee. Then he ambles down to the Oval Office and watches the set. At least an hour before lunch is spent deciding what to have for lunch. It’s like watching a roomful of armless men have a circle jerk.”
“He’s not the most efficient executive we’ve ever had.”
“And then it’s just more chicken-choking until bedtime, which generally occurs before the sun is down. The President enjoys being in bed. He is a comfy boy.”
“I see.”
“There was a difference in leadership styles from the jump. The Syrian business was just the final straw. I believe Putin came when he saw that tweet, I sincerely believe that. Arcing ropes of borschty spooge.”
“Maybe we should go back to the thing where you called me ‘ma’am’ and didn’t curse.”
“You got four parties that think an immediate, complete American withdrawal is a good idea: Russia, Turkey, ISIS, and Noam Chomsky. And the Everlasting Shithopper. Of course, he doesn’t know what he thinks, just ‘I end war, yay, shitheads love me, yay.’ He’s got no clue what’s happening beyond his teevee friends tell him. He thought the Kurds were from Star Trek until quite recently.”
“Jesus.”
“Yes, ma’am. This is not an ordinary shitshow. This is the Saturday night shitshow, the one everyone dresses up for. We could be in a land war in Iran within months.”
“You gonna lead a coup?”
“In almost any other nation, yes.”
“God bless America?”
“And Merry Christmas, ma’am.”
Recent Comments