Tricky Dick Tutors Trump on Treachery

Here’s to the State of Richard Nixon
For underneath his borders the devil draws the line
If you drag his muddy rivers nameless bodies you will find
And the fat trees of the forest have hid a thousand crimes
And the calendar is lyin’ when it reads the present time
Oh, here’s to the land you’ve torn out the heart of
Richard Nixon, find yourself another country to be part of

~ Phil Ochs, “Here’s To the State of Richard Nixon”

 

“Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?”

~ Hunter S. Thompson

 

 Meanwhile, in Donald Trump’s White House…

 

It was a long, grueling day at the White House. There was two long, really boring meetings and only four hours of “Executive time.” A stressed, taxed, and tired President Donald J. Trump has finally wrapped this marathon day at 4:45 PM and is back in his bedroom in the White House Residence.

President Trump takes off his baggy suit and leaves it on a pile on the floor. He takes off his socks and flings them in random directions. He puts on a pair of sky blue silk pajamas, then cinches his terrycloth bathrobe that he insists he doesn’t own or wear.

Trump picks up the phone next to his bed. “It’s Trump,” he says. The staff knows who it is. Trump is the only one to use this line. “I feel like a need to lose a few pounds, I’m 239 you know, I mean 229, good weight, but not the full order tonight. Make it a number three.”

When all three 60 inch flat screen televisions turn on and illuminate, Trump lets out a deep sigh of relief and satisfaction, like a chain smoker that gets that first drag off a Marlboro red after a ten hour flight.

Added in total, there was almost four hard hours of work today and the President is gassed. And starving.

A knock on the door announced a steward with the President’s dinner. Often this consists of two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, and a chocolate milkshake. Trump is insisting he’s watching his ever-expanding waistline. So, tonight it’s “a number three,” which is only three Filet-O-Fishes.

“Fish is good for you, it’s healthy, I’ve heard that, a lot of people don’t know that. Thank you, Miguel. Frankly, we really need to get some, fuckin, Norwegian stewards, but, you know, thank you.”

As Trump is shoving lovely, tartar sauce-soaked fried fish sandwiches into his sandwich-hole, the President goes over a list of phone calls needs to make this evening. He made the list this afternoon during “Executive time,” scrawling block letters with a Sharpie marker on a yellow legal pad. Then, for some reason, Trump put his enormous, EKG-readout-like signature at the bottom of the paper, and held the page up to show non-existent cameras.

The phone call list reads:

– JACK KINGSTON AND BEN FERGUSON – DOING A GREAT JOB ON FAKE NEWS CNN. LOYAL

– FLOWER TUCCI – TREMENDOUS POONTANG. OWE HER A CALL AND PAYMENT

– MOOCH

– CHACHI – DID HE REALLY BANG NICOLE EGGERT? DOES HE KNOW JOANIE DIED? HEARD THAT TODAY

– BONNIE ROTTEN – THE ONE WITH THE TATTOOED JUGS

– PRANK CALL SPICEY

– HANNITY – JUST TO SAY GOODNIGHT

After finishing a call with Anthony Scaramucci who offered a fawning half hour pep talk, President Trump is back to arguing with the huge television screens. He does this every night for hours. Secret Service agents in the hallway outside have a nightly betting pool for how many “Fuck yous!” and “Fuck offs!” are screamed at the TVs. Twenty bucks a head, closest guess to the actual tally takes the whole pot. The “fuck count” tonight sits at 33. A pretty steady clip, but below the nightly average.

As Trump is screaming at John Dean and Carl Bernstein as they offer insights how the Russia investigation is akin to Watergate’s inquiry on Anderson Cooper 360, he hears a tapping on the window of his bedroom.

Tap-tap-tap

“What the hell?”

Tap-tap-tap

With small but plump fingers, the President raises a window in his bedroom. Perched on the windowsill is a luminescent raven apparition, glowing silver-green, with a folded note in its beak.

The haunted raven flicks the note towards Trump and flies off into the night. The President unfolds note, it reads:

DJT,

Go to the EEOB. Room 180. Come alone.

Dick

Confused but intrigued, Trump decides to investigate. He leaves his pajamas on, but puts on a long red necktie to look more presentable.

In the hallway of the White House Residence, Trumps asks one of Secret Service agents, “What the hell is the EEOB?”

The EEOB is the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, located adjacent to the West Wing where most of the White House staff has offices. The President did not know this. He’s never wondered where the staff goes after meetings praising him.

 

The door to room 180 creaks as it is pushed open. Trump enters and calls out, “Hello?”

“Yes, Mr. President, come in, come in.”

Sitting behind a huge oak desk, pouring over a long list of people he hates, is the ghost of Richard Nixon.

“Who are you?” Trumps asks.

Taken aback, Nixon says “I’m Dick Nixon. I was President of the United States.”

“Dick. That’s funny. Oh, right, yes, I knew that.”

“Donald, we need to talk.”

During his last days in the White House, Nixon largely used the Oval Office for ceremonial purposes. Where he did most of his work was in his “hideaway office,” room 180 in the EEOB. It was in that office that Nixon had a secret recording system installed so he could record conversations with staff and visitors.

Since his death in 1994, Nixon has haunted room 180. He spends his days yelling spooky noises into the heating ducts, obsessing over his enemies list and trying to drink a bottle of Seagram’s Seven Crown. Even though the whiskey tumbles right through his specter body, splashing onto the always-soaked carpet with every sip attempted, Nixon still tries to drink a full bottle every day.

In the corner of the room the ghost raven is sitting on top of a flagpole that displays the Stars and Stripes.

“What the hell is that thing?” Trump asks.

“My pet raven, Grip,” Nixon says. “I stole him from Charles Dickens.”

“Was he another president?”

Nixon pauses. He sighs. “Dickens was a British author. Probably the greatest writer that ever li- you really don’t know who Charles Dickens is?”

“Of course I do. I’ve read all that stuff. I’m very, very, uh, good, reader, at reading. Bigly. You just stole the bird?”

Trump is impressed. That’s a power move.

“Wasn’t that hard, I just took him, Dickens is a pussy.”

Trump likes that as well. A little locker room talk. He smiles.

Nixon pours himself three fingers of Seagram’s Seven, dumps it into his mouth, and the booze falls right through his ghost body and splashes onto the carpet. He says, “How many Jews do you have in your administration, Donald?”

“Not that many, Steve Bannon capped it.”

“That’s good. Hard to trust the Jews. Jews are born spies. Like that son-in-law of yours, very slippery, he’s a problem.”

“There was no collusion, Dick, no collusion, nothing has been found-“

Nixon interrupts Trump, “There’s no cameras in here, Donald. There is a recording system, however. Have you installed one of those?”

“I’ve said I have. It was a bluff.”

“A lie.”

“A bluff.”

“Well,” Nixon says, “You should look into recording systems in the West Wing offices. Keep track of the loyalty. Control the leaks.”

“What about one in the Oval? For me?” Trump asks.

“You’re already going to be impeached. Don’t make it easier for them.”

Not being able to help himself, it’s been a couple hours and he needs a hit, President Trump takes his smartphone out of the breast pocket of his pajamas and fires off a haphazard Tweet where he oddly capitalizes “People,” “Smart,” and “Ratings.” “Safety and security” is put in quotation marks for no discernible reason.

Nixon says, “Let me ask you a question; Are you having a hard time not getting caught saying nig- uh, the n-word? There’s microphones and cameras everywhere.”

“It’s been close, I have to tell you, frankly, it’s been close. So far, so good.”

“I had a hard time as well. Well, let’s get down to business. Mr. President, you need to get some Plumbers, help you fix some of these messes.”

Trump is confused. “Well, I do block the shitter up three or four times a week, but it’s taken care of by janitors or something, some Latinos I believe. I have a gold toilet, you know, real gold.”

“No, no. ‘The Plumbers’ was a nickname for my fixit men. That’s what you need. Tough sons a bitches who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty, perform the wetwork. Dirty tricks. Roger Stone could help you recruit some men.”

“I have Don Jr. and Eric. They can do that. They’ll do anything to try and impress me. I never act impressed, never give them any credit, so they always try very, very hard.”

“You have many cancers on your presidency, Donald, and your sons are two of the largest tumors. Don Jr. is a foolish man.”

“Don’s a good boy.”

“Don Jr. is a petulant, entitled moron who was born on third and thinks he got a triple. He’s going to prison, Donald.”

Grip the ghost raven lets out a caw, almost seeming to laugh.

President Trump is angered by that crack.

“Why am I here, Dick?”

“I want to help you. You need to fight dirtier. Fire Mueller. Fire that Jew Rosenstein. Blackmail the FBI agents. Entrap them with hookers, and take photos with hidden cameras, that is quite effective, one of my favorites. Use investigators’ families, wives and children are the greatest pressure points. Whose wife is a drug addict? Whose kid is in therapy? You need to throw as many punches as you can. Attack the media. Gather whatever dirt you can and use it. That punk Jim Acosta has it coming. Plant some child pornography on his computer. You’re never going to be liked by the American people, so go down swinging. Use your pardon powers until you can’t anymore. Pardon everybody. This is war, goddammit!”

Nixon’s ghost was impassioned. Wildly gesticulating and throwing air punches. It was like he was delivering a campaign rally speech. For crying out loud, why can’t the raven caw “Hail to the Chief?”

President Trump scrunches his face and nods his head. “Feels right. I tell you who I’d like to take out. This asshole Johnny Wright has been writing stories for some rinky-dink magazine about me. I don’t know how he has known all this shit, because he’s been right on the money. He has to have spies in the White House.”

“I have a good torch man that’s still around,” Nixon says. “A real pyro. It’ll look like an accident.”

“Send me his contact info.”

The sun is starting to rise. President Trump needs to get back to the Residence for his beloved “Executive time.” He’ll cram in as much of it as he can before rolling into the Oval Office at the crack of 11:00 AM.

“I like you, Dick. You’re my kind of tough guy. Thanks for the advice.”

Nixon’s ghost floats over to the President and mimics shaking his hand. “One more thing,” he says. “Could you do something about the diet? It’s really embarrassing. The White House chefs are world class, why eat McDonald’s all the time?”

“I know McDonald’s can’t poison me. They don’t know I’m coming, so they can’t get any poison ready. The chefs at the White House could poison me. I think some might be Mexican, they looked brown. I’m building a wall.”

“And I’m remembered for being paranoid.”

 

Illustration by Mikey B. Martinez III