I typed it up and sent it forth with blithe abandon, as I had thousands of times before, with the confidence of one certain the recipient would never see it, basking in the false security of obscurity. That is the lure of social media: action safe from reaction. At least direct. On Twitter, with no perceptible ass-biting potential evident, I had sent out many vitriolic missives to all kinds of people across the sociopolitical spectrum, with the severest rebuke being that I was castigated for my impudence and/or blocked. Though to be fair, I had spent no short amount of time caged in Twitmo for my sundry indiscretions and weekday improprieties. So, I was not beyond consequence.
But as fiction would have it, it was read. And not well received. Strangely enough. I had given it no more than the thought of the chuckle it gave me launching it into the electronic ether, and to be honest I had no idea which offensive Tweet to which offended party it was that set this story into motion. Which is of course totally untrue because his name is in the fucking title for Christ sake. But it was too late. I had written it and was amused enough by it to allow it to remain and fuel this pointless tangent. I don’t know who’s writing whom sometimes.
I woke up, tied to a folding chair, naked. As it had eluded me in the real world, in my fiction, I’m in excellent shape. Six-pack abs, really good guns, a solid twenty years younger, all my teeth – and they are almost luminous in their majesty – but the hair. The fucking hair. It’s all back and better than ever, as good as Michael Douglas’s hair on its best day, only longer, a couple of errant strands falling just over my right eye, making me look positively adorable. Not only was I ripped, but my flesh glistened with spritzer water as I flexed against my restraints, my sculpted muscles bulging.
The room around me was dark and my perch sat in the circle of light of a single bulb on an open, dark wooden floor. There was a slight haze of smoke giving the room an almost ethereal appearance, but no one was smoking, so I just included it for effect. Along the peripheries of my ring of light I could make out the forms of men in black suits standing silently, watching me. Though the room outside the light was completely dark, the men all wore dark glasses because it looks so cool, regardless of impracticality.
Whether it is a good story or not, it should look fabulous.
A distant door opened and, in the light of the room beyond, the silhouette of the fat man could be discerned. He strode into the room, like a rooster, his corpulence puffed up as though a thing of pride and not the shameful overindulgence of too many Big Macs and too much K Fried C in a life of empty and pointless excess. As he walked purposefully toward me, the door closed behind him, plunging him into darkness, causing him to stumble, then topple to the floor in a grunting thud and crash. Several of the men in suits turned back, clearly distressed, then charged into the darkness only to slam into each other, themselves, and some random pieces of furniture I left for them, ending up in a humiliating, grunting pile-up on the floor.
Removing their dark glasses, the flustered suits regrouped and escorted His Fatuousness over to me. He loomed above me, his $5000 suit soiled and torn where his girth could not be contained and busted through when he hit the floor. The knees of his slacks were shredded and his meaty knees were bleeding as he skulked around me arrogantly. In the harsh 100-watt incandescent bulb, he looked freakish and orange, his beloved hair thin wisps barely containing his encroaching baldness, no longer content to be thwarted by hair plugs and minoxidil slatherings.
His voice dripped with irony, even though he had no idea what irony meant. “Donald. It is very dangerous to shoot yourself in the foot when it’s in your mouth.” He stood behind me reading off a card, his voice mocking and disrespectful. “Donald Trump: the landlord from lard land.” He hesitated, mouthing it to himself, liking the way it rolled off his tongue. “Surrounded by all your guys and you still let a lady, Nancy Pelosi no less, hand you your ass. Surprising she could even lift it. And then with the hashtag #PresidentLardass.”
By now he had placed himself directly in front of me, acting all tough in his busted-up suit, scuffed elbows and bloody knees. I couldn’t suppress a smirk because I was actually quite comfortable. It was a folding chair with padded seat and back, and my bindings were soft satin rope which felt good against my burnished flesh. I shook my head ever so slightly and my hair wafted around my face, eliciting satisfied moans from some of the assembled security detachment. He turned and scowled at this, then looked back at me, assessing my physique, drooling over my dynamic hairline.
“They told me you were older, a lot older. And bald.”
I laughed. “Yeah, well, in here, I can be whatever I want.”
He looked puzzled. “In here?”
“Fiction, Donny-boy. Fiction.” He still didn’t get it, so I decided to illustrate my point. “In here I am young and handsome, six-foot-two, with a fabulous physique, while yours remains consistently awful.” He thought of several lame rejoinders along his usual I know you are but what am I standard fallback, but I alone held the capacity which so many have wished for before: the ability to shut Donald Trump up. “Five-foot-eight and tipping the scales at 420 pounds.”
“Excuse me,” he began, his voice dripping with Diet Coke, then realized it was just as I had written about what I had said – he was even huger and more grotesque than he was in non-fiction. Just to be a prick, I left his suit the same size so when he expanded, it shredded entirely, one of the buttons flying off and hitting one of the guys on the peripheries in the eye. Bet he wished he’d kept his dark glasses on now, huh Jimmy?
“I’m six-foot-three, 220 pounds! I’m in great shape, the best shape.”
I sneered at him. “You can’t even see your own feet.”
He glowered at me, some of his rapidly thinning hair falling out before his eyes. “I haven’t been able to see my own feet for years. Proves nothing.”
He was furious, the men curious, would Sir Spurious become injurious? I wasn’t going to let that happen. “In the face of all the other stuff, I know I can trust you.” He puffed up and glanced at one of the men near him, nodding toward me as if to say, You could learn something here. He didn’t know what to make of my admission. He thought we were at odds and then I hit him with something like that. He wondered if I could loan him some money thanks to our newfound trust. I continued before he could ask. “I trust you implicitly to lie, to cheat, to swindle, to ruin people’s lives for your own advantage with nary a shred of human decency to stay your depredations.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Best economy. Strongest, strongest military, giving the boys everything they need to kick ass. Best border, border security, best jobs. Maybe if you had one you wouldn’t have the time to write those stupid Tweets and this stupid story.”
“You’re the one bragging about jobs. You want less criticism, put more people to work. You know what they say about idle hands.”
He clearly didn’t, but he could never admit defeat, a shame really because with so much of it, you’d think he’d be really good at it. “Of course. Idle hands can grab the best pussy.” I shook my head; did I just write that he said that? What the hell’s the matter with me? I mean, really.
“That’s not what they say.”
He tried to puff up, but those extra pounds weighed heavy on him and he looked pathetic and tired. “What do you know? Look where you are and look where I am.”
I snapped back, “Yeah, we’re both in this story. And don’t forget who’s writing it.” He looked ridiculous in his overwrought tutu, his little cheap plastic tiara holding the last vestiges of his hair to his head. Everybody scowled at me and I returned him to his normal six-foot, 280-pound oneness, even I too disgusted to look at that. Can’t believe I write this crap.
And this started out to be such a good-looking story.
“I understand you were raised to believe that this is a game that you’d win and when you win you get stuff. I get that. You have a deep-seated mental condition that affects lots of people born into fortune, the idea that your life is worth more than anybody else’s. But the reality is that it isn’t a game, and real people are really suffering so that men like you can play with their lives as moveable pieces, disposable when no longer viable. Or profitable. You have always had your needs provided for, you probably don’t even know how to drive a car, you’ve ridden in so many limos. Your whole life. You have no context for what the unwashed masses endure just to make it through the day. You have no clue.”
Thankful for my need to breathe, he jumped in. “You can’t blame me for wanting to live well.” I inhaled fast and cut him off.
“I don’t blame anybody for wanting to live well. The problem is you blame the poor for wanting to live well and punish them for seeking better lives. That is undoubtedly your most hated collective, poor people. They can’t loan you any money, huh?” I watched him as he looked around annoyed. He’s standing there talking to me, his prisoner, and I’m the one seated. Just to make it more uncomfortable, I took him back up to 350 pounds, shredding his suit again.
He looked at the men in suits surrounding me. “Can somebody get me a fucking chair?” He was distressed to realize that they were all cardboard cut-outs of the well-suited men and that nobody was going to give him a chair. So, I mercifully accommodated him.
I was striking in my $5000 black Armani, standing above him, as he sat tied (not naked, not naked) to the chair, lashed with rusty barbed wire from whence his wall would never be built. He glowered at me in his orange jumpsuit, which so matched his complexion that it became difficult to know where it stopped and he started. It suited him.
Ivanka strode in and stood beside me wearing some very revealing bondage gear, sliding her arm around my waist. “Oh Daddy, I’m tired of business. I’m giving it all up for Art. I rolled over on you, for all those times you rolled over on me. I’m the whistleblower.” I smacked her on her nicely exposed ass, a good firm whack! Fixing him with an ironic grin I noted, “When you write fiction, they just let you do that to them.”
© 2019 ArtAHammer