An offer he can’t refuse

by David Benjamin

“Scenes We’d Like to See” — MAD magazine

[Lights. Camera, Action]

A gloomy brain trust is gathered in the Oval Office. Steve and Natalie hover near the Resolute desk, where the president is slumped in his easy chair, taking a power nap.

“The Democrats are due any minute. We need a plan, fast!”

Marco, seated on the couch, says, “Christ, JD, we’ve needed a plan for the last two years. What the hell were you doing?”
The president stirs. Alert to his every need, Natalie bends over him, offering a glimpse inside her designer blouse. “Your Highness. How do you feel?”

“Feel? How should I feel? I’m bored shitless. What the hell am I gonna do for the next two years?”

“Well, sir,” offers Todd, “we’re going to be right with you, pandering, lying and sucking up while you block every evil marxist fascist rastafarian plot to destroy America that the pet-eating pedophile Dumbocrats cook up!”

“Oh God,” says the president, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and smearing his tan, “talk about boring!”

“They’re here!” cries Pete. “Daddy, I’m scared.”

Into the Oval stride the newly anointed kingpins of Congress, Speaker Hakeem and majority leader Chuck.

The president farts.

His team stands silent and despondent in the presence of the Apocalypse.

“You don’t have to talk, guys and dolls,” says the Speaker, “Hell, you don’t even have to say, ‘Hi, how are ya?’”

Natalie bursts into tears. Suzie enfolds her in a motherly hug.

“We’re here with an offer,” says Hakeem, smirking, “that you can’t refuse.”

“I doubt that,” snaps JD, in a weak effort at bravado.

“Pay attention, hillbilly,” says the Speaker. “This might be your ticket.”

“Mr. President,” says Chuck, “how ya feelin’?”

“He’s bored,” Natalie blurts.

Hakeem grins. “That’s the problem we’re here to solve,” he says.

“That’s right,” says Chuck. “Lately, Mr. President, we notice you’ve been losing interest in politics. You were a happier guy when you were a slumlord renting only to white folks, and when you were a casino impresario rolling the house’s dice and going snake-eyes. And then, of course, your salad days, running a fake business on TV and firing celebrities. You miss that, don’t ya?”

“Jeez, yeah,” says the president, misting over nostalgically. “Wouldn’t you?”

“It’s clear, Mr. President, that for you, calling yourself president is more fun than being president. The actual job just doesn’t fire your loins or cool your urges.”

“What’re ya getting at?” asks the president, suspiciously.

“We’re getting at your urges,” says Hakeem. “Your id. What you wanted but couldn’t get even when you controlled of all three branches of government.”

Marco breaks in. “This deal you’re talkin’—what’s in it for His Majesty?”

“Fortune and glory!” says Chuck. “The only things in earth that mean anything to him.”

“But he’s got money,” says Natalie naively. “Just oodles of it.”

“Not enough,” mutters the president.

“Even worse,” says Hakeem, “money can’t buy a nation’s endless love.”

“So, first we’re ready, right now, with the money,” says Chuck. “Oodles of it.”

“C’mon,” scoffs Pete. “He’s already a billionaire.”

“That’s peanuts, isn’t it, Mr. President?” says Chuck.

“Goddamn right! There’s A-rabs and Chinamen with more than I got.”

“That’s why we’re going to make the president a trillionaire,” boasts Hakeem. “Say the word and there’ll be a cover story in Forbes next month—The Richest Man in the World! The Richest in History! Elon, Eat Your Heart Out!”

The president is visibly salivating. Natalie hastens to wipe his chin.

“But where,” asks the previously silent Treasury Secretary, “are we gonna get a trillion dollars to piss away on His Eminence’s ego?”

“We’re not, Scott,” says Chuck. “We’re just going to announce it, spread it all over social media. We’ll flood the zone, overwhelm the skeptics, swamp the fact-checkers. By the time Rachel Maddow reveals the scam in her podcast, three years down the road, His Excellency’ll be infarcting in a hot tub at Mar-a-Lago.”

“So,”says JD. “You’re not going to give him any actual money?”

“Hey, we’re not pikers,” says Hakeem. “We can slip him a couple billion out of petty cash. But the point, remember, ain’t the gelt. It’s the glory.”

“All right, what about the glory? asks Todd. “Where’s the endless love?”

“Don’t worry. We’re going to heap so much razzle-dazzle onto this shmuck that every Great Man who follows in his wake will be a munchkin by comparison.”

“For instance, by order of Congress, he’s gonna be the first president in the Baseball Hall of Fame,” says Chuck, “purely for his undiscovered talent.”

“Not to mention his Nobel Prize in Economics for exposing Jerome Powell as a useless stooge who can’t add two plus two?” says Hakeem.

With a flourish, he unscrolls a list of honors, awards, medals and titles that Congress will bestow. Harvard will become Trump University. His childhood home in Queens will be fronted with a 500-foot triumphal arch topped by a golden statue of the president surrounded by Playmates of the Year. A high school in every state will be rechristened for him. The National Football League will become the TFL. Fifty tortuous highways, including the New Jersey Turnpike, will bear his name. Work will commence on the re-sculpting of Teddy Roosevelt’s face on Mount Rushmore. The Smithsonian will be the Trumpian. He will be commissioned as a five-star general in every military branch, with a Congressional Medal of Honor for valor above and beyond the call of duty—and despite the excruciating agony of bone spurs—in the victorious campaign to rescue Exxon’s God-given oil from the clutches of Nicolas Maduro.

“Am I reading this right?” says Marco. “He’s gonna win the U.S. Open?”

“Both—golf and tennis. But he won’t actually have to compete. Other players will simply surrender to his steely gaze and indomitable talent.”

“And of course,” says Hakeem, “he’ll be pardoned.”

“For what?” asks Suzie.

“For everything, for anything,” says Chuck. “For existing.”

“Okay, sounds like a pretty good offer,” says Steve, “but what does the president have to do in return?”

“Simple,” replies Hakeem. “Leave. Take a walk. Get the hell out of our lives.”

There’s a moment of tense silence before the president speaks.

“There’s one thing missing here.”

“He wants more,” says Hakeem. “Why am I not surprised?”

“This so-called Arts Center. I want my name back—above Kennedy’s. And bigger. Gimme that or I sit here bored, stroking my Sharpie, for two more years.”

Chuck says, “Sorry. We have to draw the line somewhere. Congress dedicated that cultural center to memorialize a leader who served his nation, in war and peace, heroically, before being assassinated. He died for America.”

“Nah, that’s bullshit. Kennedy was the president once. I’m the president twice! Why shouldn’t I get what he got? Twice!”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” said Chuck. He loaded two rounds into a revolver and aimed at a spot below the real estate developer’s golden combover.

“Go ahead,” he says. “Make my day.”