Modern Damnation
The realization of Mr. Donahue’s impending presidency began to set in personally for Christopher months and months before the election ever occurred. While drinking and discussing the usual sort of politics in the local bar up the street from his house, he was aloof, gulping down the third round of whiskey shots and pale ales of the night. Three of his best chums were seated up at the bar beside and around him roaring all up and down about the current climate of things. Every moment here and there Christopher would wake up from a silent daze of his with an abrupt interjection, reacting to a particular comment, saying something like “It’s a bit more complicated than that you know” or “That’s one way to look at it, but imagine how — ” but, when it was painfully obvious that the three boys wanted to move on to the next tangential discussion, he’d fall back onto his stool and sink into another deep repose.
This was a rather toasty redbelly Georgian night amongst the rest. Not even a night yet! for the sun was taking its sweet time to come on down, scattering a burnt bouquet of auburn, scarlet, pink, and thin streak of blue; a winsome backdrop hung behind the four boys, who were all neatly fixed beside one another in the center of this packed bar, shining golden, like little polemic bodhidarmas underneath the couple bright lights above, strung along the bartop proudly boasting their very own predictions and outcomes of American society, her actions, and of course the immanent presidential election.
“Hillary’s obviously gonna nab this primary, and then the office, boys. With-out-a-doubt. So cheers to that!” cried Matt.
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that so soon, my man. Ole Bernard is definitely the voice of the people. So cheers to that, I hope!” declared Luke.
“Oh, it’s all crap anyways unless we get better recognition of our third party folks. It’s Johnson or bust for me, boys. Johnson, I’m telling ya. So cheers to that,” croaked Johnny, who burrowed his right elbow back onto the bar top and guzzled down the last remaining ounces of his pint.
It was right then that the three friendly chaps saw it fine time to direct all six of their tipsy eyes toward Christopher — in bad faith, really. By then Christopher was shamelessly sinking into a sea of hazy, fragmented thoughts. Cynical thoughts. Shameful thoughts that were bubbling about like foam on a freshly poured pint. How could I begin with this? he racked his brain and thought. “My babbling boys are each right in their own respect, alright. But, unfortunately, they’re all wrong, so terribly, terribly wrong at this point.”
Johnny tapped him on the shoulder and muttered, “What do you have to say, chief?”
Oh-kay, Christopher told himself. Let’s go.
“Donny’s going to win the election!” he cried out.
And as soon as the words left his mouth, Christopher’s body erected up firmly like a tree. He then folded back down, slowly and soberly, after realizing the folly of shit that he had just uttered. Their faces stretching, the dear three chums quaked an awful bit on their stools. The air in the bar, smoky as it was, begun to tighten up so awkwardly that you could’ve choked to death right then and there. Even Miguel, one of the owners of the bar, stopped right in the middle of pouring out a row of shots to shoot a mean mugging glance toward the boys; he took in a big, sour inhale, let it out, then returned back to business.
See, these four boys were all the typical brand: the annoying, collegiate-produced proud-mouths, the kind of Lippmann yups anyone can easily find hanging around the City’s stoops, cafés, and bars, loudly ranting their souls out about self-justified, self-evident, snowflake sort of views on politics, art, and hipster-infested gossip. So even the simple utterance of a Republican party member potentially taking over the White House — the holy helm of their first world reality — was just plain unorthodox stupidity. At that, to proclaim that Mr. Donahue and his puffy tan-sprayed face, with no political worth and no ethical sense of things to moor himself, was going to slither off into the Oval Office right under their very intellectual noses . . . well . . . it was goddamn heresy.
The true argument of the night commenced from there.
“You gotta be kidding me. Hillary is the only one wholly qualified to be our next president. Without a doubt! We should all be agreeing upon this, boys. It’s basic logic!” Matt preached, almost foaming at the mouth by now.
“But Bernard, come on, come on. He’s honestly the only politician who’s actually fought for our rights again and again. Have you boys forgotten the Civil Rights Movement and everything he’s done since then? Jesus. Christopher, his record’s gonna echo no matter what you think. Trust me,” Luke exasperated.
Johnny, who sat rigidly on the far right edge of the group, looking half-amused by all the banter, turned from his glass and bellowed, “If I could, I wouldn’t even waste my time with this silly bipartisan game. And normally I wouldn’t. It’s all rigged anyways, but I say it’s about time to do what needs to be done for this country and vote Green! It’s the right choice. Hell, it’s the only intelligent choice.” The three humble friends then turned their shoulders inward and hurled their attention firmly back on Christopher again. The bubbles in his pint glass were still foaming and bubbling.
By now he had dug himself completely into it. Into his point, that is, his filthy, little, rotgut point, which at first was a very cynical point, but now, now it had opened up into this frightful saison of a point which was too sweet and lavish to taste — for better or worse. And inside of this annoying point was a colder, darker, and danker wort now fermenting.
“I’ll start my dialogue with you gentleman,” Christopher began, “by declaring that what I am gonna say is right, or moreso that it’s the rightest thing that will have been said by any of us tonight. And, before each of you devoted disciples get all up in arms demanding that you do believe that I’m in fact wrong, I kindly warn you prematurely to shut the hell up until I AM DONE. Now, to kick this thing off, I will also tell you that you are all in fact right too — but unfortunately, you are all wrong together; and that I truly find no happiness in my telling of it.
“So let us begin with Johnny. It is correct that this election is nothing but a silly bipartisan game, and I completely agree that our third party sisters and brothers would do a fine job — a great job! — running this country. Men like Johnson have a resilient backbone. A little off, he is, but I’ve watched him talk with such gusto about an honest vision for America. We could all agree that he’d strive to do fine things as our President, and that he could end up as an absolutely intelligent choice for the ballot. But, we would also have to agree, simultaneously, that he, the Green party, and the whole third party lot has no redeemable chance of winning this election. So it would be logically sound to infer that what seemed like an intelligent choice at first would only digress into an unintelligent one the more we speak of it. Even worse, the thought mires your already reluctant opportunity to do something grand for your country: to fend off the incorrigible prospect of a political fiend succeeding, our collective enemy. Wasting the civic opportunity with a selfish stroke of personal satisfaction.
‘’Now, let’s go on to Luke. Your notion of placing ole Bernard into the Oval Office is nothing short of admirable. The fuzzy-haired old man speaks only of progress for America and her diverse peoples. Indeed, he has acted time and time again with sheer integrity. And his past, if one were to carefully look, shows the historical receipts. History — our fair butler of truth — has proven him to be an excellent choice for presidency. Excellent with a capital E. But sadly, history always forgets itself. The unsung heroes of yesterday are no more than the supporting white spaces between words in today’s textbooks. And our proud national Democratic party knows this all too well, which is surely why more and more of those political savages are putting their faith elsewhere. So it would be safe to say that voting for him would be a fool’s errand unless things were to miraculously change.
‘’Now Matt, my boy, out of all the conjectures shouted out tonight, yours is honestly the most rational. Not simply because I too am cut from the same biased cloth, but because it has some verifiable clout behind it. Without a doubt we should all purely agree that Hillary is the most experienced out of the bunch. She not only steps over our third party folks, easily, with her résumé, but she defeats the whole Republican GOP (and its laughable antics) by leaps and bounds, in her stern attitude to lead this country, and subsequently even our faithful cohorts like Mr. Bernard gets blown away by even a whisper of the policies she has prepared — most likely for decades now — to discuss. It almost becomes a sort of mechanical idea to vote Hillary into office. But, for better or for worse, man is not a mechanical being. On the contrary. Especially not us American breed, no. Though, like us, even for you Johnny, the atmosphere of the country overall has been developing into one of a more and more progressive affection. So it would be completely valid to predict that someone who preaches such attitudes would nab up the presidency without breaking a sweat. And by its most qualified person at that! But one important point that joes like us have failed to realize, more importantly, is simply this: that our country behaves, like the non-mechanical essence of man, illogically. As a whole body, it tends to forget its history. It tends to distrust earnest (third party) outsiders. It tends to disavow logical competency and qualifications for something else, for something more unpredictable, more tantalizing. But enough, enough of this! I will conclude this moment by declaring that it’s an awful shame, my boys. All of this. Just an awful shame.”
Christopher turned back over towards his tawny pint of beer and waved Miguel down for a glass of water. The boys said nothing at first. The tension in the air had tightened up so much that words or gasps or the obligatory rolling of the eyes was beyond much. But upon seeing Miguel place the water down on the bar, and Christopher actually pick it up and sip up some gulps, Matt slowly fizzled into a pool of snickering.
“Oh Mr. Know-it-all, the smarty pants rears his ugly mug yet again!” he erupted. “And the asshole gets a water to end his high note, all high and noble. Though we know all too well, ALL — TOO — WELL, that it’ll somehow turn to wine and he’ll end the night way drunker than any of us!” He then waved Miguel down for two beer and shot rounds, one for him and one for the smarty pants.
“What makes you so sure of all this cynical talk of yours, Chris?” asked Luke. “I mean . . . how do you figure exactly that Donny will actually win? You never explained that, ya know.”
“Yeah, that’s right!” shouted Johnny. They both grabbed onto each other and waved at the bartender for another round of their own.
“Gladly, gladly,” said Christopher. “I will do us all the service of telling more on that part. But boys, first — since Matty here is forcing me to drink again — let’s take ’em down!”
All four of them grabbed up their newly arrived shots of whiskey. Johnny jumped up from his stool immediately on cue, as was his primary role for these get-togethers, and led on with one of his toasts:
“This one’s for the pretty gal in France, and her man who couldn’t dance. Bashful little thing, I gave a ring, now here I am with half a pair of pants!”
Johnny’s toasts never made any sense, but down-down-down the shots bloody well went.
“All-right boys! Now that we’re back on equal — drunken — footing, I shall further explicate the inevitability of Mr. Donahue becoming our next President. Where were we . . . ahh, yes! So if you will, we have established that our country behaves illogically, and, one could reach none too far and agree, therefore votes illogically. But if at this very moment this is still not established in each of your minds, then I will continue to persuade you by examining this specimen Donny, or should I say, Ronald Nixon — ha-ha-ha — ooff. Step by step, we’ve all seen how this funny orange man has successfully maneuvered himself not only past the legitimacy of his traditional GOP peers, but he has taken the old, broken-down rhetoric of populism, neutralism, and vinyl records of toxic McCarthyism, remixed ’em, and served them right back on a golden nonrefundable plate to the American people. History forgets itself, brothers. History, evidently, forgets the elements of old problems and the principles of its true solutions. It’s a crisis that seems to occur cyclically. And because of this historic amnesia, Mr. Donahue has prevailed in keeping his nonsensical banter constantly in the limelight. No matter the lack of veracity his political commentary conveys, his voice is always being consumed. His words need no qualitative experience or verifiable ethics holding them together, not in our digital day and age. And we have all seen it! His words need only to be easily accessible: on replay, in every article, constantly uploaded, downloaded, streamed, read, watched, et cetera. He is unpredictable, and even to his political enemies, he is tantalizing. Donny boy has already established himself as a brand amongst brands, and it’s common knowledge that in the global market brands do not behave whatsoever based solely on pure logic. They’re designed to function and profit highly off the irrational consumption made by us: the people, the voters, the insatiable consumers. And he has already gained a big base of dedicated consumers, whether you believe it or not. His demagoguery has excited our nation and many of her despicable vices we thought had long been relinquished. So we, in turn, should be buying up stocks of Hillary by the bulk, in unrelenting solidarity! This should be true, shouldn’t it? There would remain, still, the burning chance to keep the hard gained profits we progressives have fought for these past centuries. Undoubtedly, with her in the White House, there would still be much more to say, much more to do, but the opportunity would still verifiably be there within our grasps. Despite what any of us personally think of her, she, that hard hitting robot of a woman, without a doubt, is the lesser of two evils: she’s the logical standpoint, the market that will not bubble and burst. But to conclude this terribly sour and cynical point, my dear chums, if we don’t buy Hillary, then we are selling our shares of sensibility off and buying into an empire borne through modern damnation. And I fear that is what our country is doing, right now as we speak, spit, and drink. I’m absolutely sure of it. So, cheers to that.”
From “Bent Over Stupid Till We All Die Anyways”
Available in paperback and Kindle ebook
Copyright © 2020 by H. Jean-Baptiste
