Time: 2021

Place: A veranda with an ocean view at the back of Trump’s estate on Mar-a-Lago. There are two exit doors, one to the anteroom, the other to the rest of the house with its kitchen and library.

Characters: Donald Trump

                      Melania Trump

            A veranda in Mar-a-Lago, Florida where Trump has his home. It has a view of the sea. It contains an empty steel table, two chairs, and two lounge chairs to bask in the sun. Enter Donald and Melania Trump carrying two trays of food. Both have cheeseburgers and large iced drinks. Melania’s glass is filled with a strong rum and coconut concoction. She seems to be tipsily drunk as she sits down with Donald.  

Melania- Maybe I’m stupid, Donald, but what is so attractive about Florida that we live here? As far as I can tell it’s good for crocodiles but too damned hot for me.

Donald- These crocodiles keep the Liberals from killing us, Melania. Don’t knock a hardworking smiling reptile.

Melania- What if one of them turns out to be a democratic socialist?

Donald- We don’t have lizards who are even faintly Left Wing in Mar-a-Lago, don’t worry. Maybe a few of them are Evangelicals; how the hell should I know? I don’t know how to talk to a miniature dinosaur.

Donald- You’re a long way from Slovakia, baby.

Melania- I’m from Slovenia.

Donald- Slovenia. Yeah. that’s a long way from Tipperary. 

Melania- It’s too damned hot in Florida for me. I’ll bet you Hell is air conditioned. Satan may be evil but he isn’t crazy. We stay indoors too much to escape the heat, Donald. We’re practically under house arrest.

Donald- A lot of people are these days though they haven’t committed any crime. It’s almost a fashion nowadays among Americans to be locked up. It all started from Black folk doing a little time in stir for smoking a reefer. After a bit people thought it was interesting to be in jail for doing nothing at all.

Melania- It might be interesting to drop dead. I don’t want to do it.

Donald- That’s what this pandemic is about, Melania. People who’ve tried everything are discovering the virtues of being chained to the walls in a dungeon.

Melania- You still don’t believe the plague is real?

Donald- I never wonder what might be real, honey. Life isn’t about reality; it’s about who your friends are, who wants to knock you off or put you in the hoosegow. When you’ve got the right allies you can do what you want; when you have no connections you might have to wrestle with Nature but I don’t anticipate that ever happening to me. 

Melania- Well, I’m real, Donald. You’re real too.

 Donald- We might be the only real people out there, honey. You know, I talk to Hitler, Mussolini and Jack the Ripper sometimes on the phone, they’re all still alive and they like to hang out with Rasputin.

Melania- Really.

Donald- Yeah, Hitler is a dentist. He was always a guy who liked to hand out pain but never figured out how to do it legally until he showed up in Argentina. Mussolini is working in a meat packing business in Topeka, Kansas. He speaks fluent English, always did. Nobody notices him. He’s just one more guy slaughtering cattle in Kansas. Jack the Ripper is doing advanced intestinal surgery at a posh California clinic. He figured out how to be legit too.

Melania- I love it when you talk that way, Donald. Maybe you’ll tell me Jesus is alive and well in Oregon.

Trump- Not Oregon. What the hell is happening in Oregon. Rain? You know what people do for fun there? Play Bridge.  Tijuana. He was a guy big into forgiveness. There’s a lot of things from the donkey acts to forgive in Tijuana.

Melania- You make up reality better than God. You should have been a fiction writer. Maybe it’s slightly tinted cheeseburgers. You’ve sure got a hellova imagination and flair.

Donald- I don’t think so. If I did I’d be broke. Most famous writers are broke. They have to take second jobs. I guess they like sleeping with young college girls; I don’t blame them. It’s a perk. I like my own teenage lovers gutter-ripe and blue collar myself. They’re never distracted by an education.

Melania- I might be your kind of lover myself. I hope so; I’m married to you. Where the hell did you get your line of hooey, Donald?

Donald- I was born with it. A lot of rich people don’t act like me. I take the clout of having big bucks to the max, always have. They’re afraid to get really crazy, that’s all. I’m comfortable with it all. So are the seventy-three million people who voted for me. They need somebody to create their reality besides Nature or God. The world as it is doesn’t satisfy them either. That’s the contract I have with them. That’s why they voted for me.

Melania- There’s not enough of them out there. Donald. A lot of people thought you were nuts. They elected Biden. 

Donald- You’ve been drinking those rum coconut concoctions too much, Melania. You could lose your sanity with too much of that sugared booze. Would you put up with me if I didn’t have money? Would Ivanka? Would Putin? I can buy beauty the way I spring for a deluxe cheeseburger, Melania. I can buy loyalty too. I might even get you to say we’re not eating cheeseburgers. If I gave you enough cash wouldn’t you tell me we’re eating caviar?

Melania- No. I may be an off the shelf item on the cosmic meat rack but to me a cheeseburger is a cheeseburger. I’m eating them to please you. If I wash them down with a little honeyed liquor it might be because I don’t like cheeseburgers, at least not as much as you do. I like a more varied diet.

Donald- You don’t have any fear of dying from a venomed bit of Cheddar. Nobody in history ever got knocked off by a poisoned cheeseburger.

Melania- Maybe they have, Donald. Maybe the really lethal stuff is in the relish.

Donald- You’re drinking too much rum. That’ll ll kill you quicker than a cheeseburger.

Melania- Donald, I’m not going to be drowning in booze like your brother Fred. I like being high and listening to you talk a lot of hooey.

Donald- I guess I’m entertaining. I’m glad I amuse you.

Melania- I loved it when you claimed election was a massive fraud and wouldn’t leave the White House. I thought it was wonderful when you said the plague was a fraud. I got a kick out of hearing you say Mexicans are criminals and Vladimir Putin is a declawed pussycat. That’s all marvelous stuff.

Donald- Melania, people misunderstand me when I run all these fantasies. I’m not really lying. I’m trying to get something that I can make happen by telling a few fibs. I didn’t want to leave the White House. I liked the accommodations. That’s simple and shallow enough, isn’t it? I wanted the plague to go away, be honey, Vladimir of robbery in life, a hunt in the jungle or an alley, or a bit of harmless mendacity. Lying is what creates civilization.

Melania- Talk on, Donald. I will take another sip of this delicious sweet rum drink. I like you when I like you at all when you’re bogus and bizarre. I’d way you out to be an actor on a reality show on television but you already did that, didn’t you? That was all improvised fluff and phony feuds, wasn’t it?

Donald- eah. The producers liked me as a bad guy who liked to tell people they’re fired. I did that better than anybody. It’s not much different being President. You huff and puff and create today’s news. I made more jobs for the media than any massacre, flood or rape. It’s all a game, honey. They knocked me and took the money.

Melania- Nobody could follow you. You generated trouble and misery. You insulted people who wanted to to accommodate you. You almost sent a lot of your friends to jail and then pardoned them; that was all a bit of malarkey, wasn’t it? You’re a magician.

Donald- Ever see me do card tricks, honey?

Melania- No.

Donald- I don’t do them. People think I did them. I tell them I did them yesterday or last week. I tell them I will do them. That’s enough for them.

Melania- If I get high enough today, it might be enough for me.

Donald- Maybe. I learnt a lot of my stuff in Atlantic City. I hired some croupiers who never touched a card. I had whores working for me who never slept with anyone, not even themselves.

Melania- You also went bankrupt seven times in that town. Maybe your damned tarts should have gone to bed with somebody.

Donald- Honey, bankruptcy is my door to another world. There are always more innocents out there to con, believe me.

Melania- How’s your cheeseburger?

Donald- It’s like every other cheeseburger I’ve had since I was a kid. You know what’s great about them? Not the relish, not the mustard. You outlast them; they don’t outlast you. That’s a kind of magic , isn’t it? One moment you’ve get me chomping on a cheeseburger, another you’ve only get me.

Melania- This is a good cheeseburger. Still I get tired of a severe cheeseburger diet. You never do. Maybe I ought to learn from you how to be detached from any hope a cheeseburger might be a plate of oily Beluga caviar. 

Donald- You like that stuff? I thought people eat it because it’s expensive. It’s like gobbling down money.

Melania- Well, if they do, it’s genuine happiness. Why do you play golf?

Donald- I don’t really play very well,honey; it’s just a excuse for me to go out on a lawn and think things over. You know what I thought the last time I was out on the links? I played with the idea that I might take up something else besides endless fantasy.

Melania- What do you mean?

Donald- Well, you know I’ve lived my whole life as a rich kid , then a rich man. It’s not like your bringing up, Melania. I never knew whether anybody liked me. Maybe I didn’t want to know either. I could always buy some of them if not all of them. I didn’t need more than a few punks even when I was a teenager. Some of them of course went to jail. I seem to push some corrupt people that way. I know all about your background in Slovenia. It was pretty tough.

Melania- It keeps you alert. It’s only been a country several years. We used to be Austrian. I never learnt the national anthem. We didn’t have any money but I was good looking and did a lot of light hustles in the local hotels. They said I was a model in your media releases; I must have been working doing ads for mattresses.

Donald- I know all about your youth, Melania. I hope you gave a lot of men a good time.

Melania- I must have. I had a steady clientele though none of them were from Slovenia. They were mostly Germans, out of town salesmen. They never complained. Germans never whine all that much unless they lose a war.  I think they liked tall women with slim ups and an evil look like a witch. It’s a taste. I filled a niche, like organic flavored tacos in America.

Donald- What did you like?

 Melania- I don’t know. That’s why what was so wonderful about those heavy sessions in the hotels. Not only did nobody ask me what I liked but I never wonder what I liked myself.. There are things you don’t think about when you’re poor and maybe a little desperate, Donald. You do what you you have to and hope you wake up afterwards to do the same thing next week. You don’t know about that,Donald, It’s not worth knowing but it isn’t the worst of what can happen to you in life either. It’s a relief to have other people in the vicinity tell you who you are, what to think, what to do, in and out of the sack. It becomes their choice, not yours. You are always elsewhere.

Donald- You make a great case for slavery. I’ve had other problems. They say everything is better with money, even slow torture, cancer and a painful death. Maybe it’s all true. Maybe you don’t know whether you like me either, Melania. You take the money and we’re both happy there’s a lot of it. Maybe you don’t worry even now about whether or not you want be here. Maybe I don’t care what you think. What’s the difference in the end between somebody who does something they want to do and somebody who does it for a few bucks for me? At most it’s an inner detail that if one has any sense or doesn’t have leisure to think too much one doesn’t even notice.

Melania- If I told you I want to be here, you wouldn’t believe me, Donald. You could pay me to say that too.

Donald- I’ve been lied to plenty…sometimes I believe what other people tell me.

Melania- You might be a very wary and solitary man inside, Donald. If I were rich I would be.

Donald- It’s worse than that, honey. I might have some deep doubts whether anything at all is real. That’s what I was thinking on the golf course.

Melania- You’re thinking of going on a quest for truth? That’s funny.

Donald- You don’t think I’m capable of it? I might astonish you, Melania.

Melania- What kind of truth are you looking for? Do you think the poor and a few saints know more about truth than the rich? Believe me, they are as stuck in a private jail as you are.

Donald- Some of us are tourists, honey. We like Norwegian pleasure boats. We like different dungeons on different days. You hang out in the same lockup forever, you tend to get a little stale.

Melania- I used to hear that from my married customers when I was hustling in Slovenia. Well, how are you going to do it, Donald. Would you like to sneak into the word beyond this estate in a disguise to look for wise men?

Donald- they might not let me back into this place if I didn’t look like myself. Maybe that’s not so bad.

Melania- I might be able to leave here either for the same reason. I can’t even go shopping in this damned place. I might be recognized here by your punks or some of my old Slovenian customers.

Donald- Maybe we could learn how to be invisible. I should have studied with a few more magicians.

Melania- Yes, some magicians are honest wizards.

Donald- People have said that about me. They can’t understand how I could spin put such malarkey and be voted for by seventy-three million people who wanted more of the same bilge. American is a hard drinking country. Maybe they’re all a little lushed up like you.

Melania- It’s not such a bad way to get through your life, Donald. I was drunk most of the time I worked those hotels back in Slovenia. So were my customers. It helped me get through the tougher nights. 

Donald- I thought you said you didn’t have any qualms about how you lived in those days, Melania.

Melania- I had them, even God has them. We all have them. Even you had them on that golf course. We all wonder whether anything we say or do represents us. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe nothing does.

Donald- Well, you can always sit in a comfortable chair and watch television. I like to do that sometimes. I like the news especially. I know it’s all made up. I don’t mean that they fake all the people dying. The death is all too real. The reasons for dying are what’s phony.

Melania- All those mirages got us what we have, Donald. Don’t knock any of it.

Donald- I am happy I did all that fibbing. I don’t regret any of it. I just want to go on from it. I’m glad Biden is sitting in the damned White House , not me. I hope he gets Covid. He’s crazier than I am to want to be there when he could be here, Melania. He’s living in a snug bubble.

            I don’t know why I ever wanted to go into politics, get married or have kids, frankly. Politicians have detectives looking to find dirt about them; there always is a lot to find in any of us, believe me.

Melania- Not like you. You hunted down evil like nobody else.

Donald- Maybe I did. Don’t you think most people are like me? They want to be as wicked as I’ve been but they can’t afford it. I can. Have I ever done any time in stir. As long as I have my constituency and can get a jury trial no one will convict me.

Melania- I hope they won’t convict me either. I’ve been a little on the shady side no and then.

Donald- I got married because it’s nice to have a whore at home. Am I the only one? At least I’m willing to say it. Marriage can be more expensive than a luxury suite at one of my hotels. when you have a few bucks you don’t care. if ll they want is money, give it to them. they’re tarts and think like street chippies.

            Let them do it. It’s respectable. Luckily none of my kids have told me to drop dead but maybe they will next week. Maybe I should ask Hitler or Mussolini or Jesus how to make another life when your last one went south. They’re hard to talk to. They’re all very busy.

Melania- I guess I should learn a thing or two from you about life after life, Donald. I could really be anything, couldn’t I? I don’t have to be your public whore. Not that I ever was exactly. I leave that to Stormy Daniels or those Playboy Bunnies you ran around with once.

Donald- You still don’t understand those affairs, Melania. There is a freedom you have when there is no affection or interest whatsoever between two people in a private bedroom. I think Stormy and Karen were happy to get me into the sack with them. It didn’t mean anything and it passed the time for them better than watching an action movie.

Melania- I understand that. I felt the same way when I made the hotel scene in Slovenia. It’s a relief when nothing matters, nothing at all.

 Donald- Maybe it’s reality too, honey.

 Melania- I do orbit around you, Donald more than you ever do me.

Donald- Well, I’ve got the money.

Melania- Maybe that’s it. I’m not made of steel but I ve always found a bit of cash to be magnetic.

Donald- That might be reality too. Sometimes paper pulls us one way or another with an uncanny power. Most of the people I know who have money want more money. It must be addictive as heroin as well as magnetic. 

Melania- I miss you when you’re off with those Playboy bunnies or having a quick one with Stormy. Of course I always have your lookalikes the Secret Service dredged up from somewhere to console me. Still they aren’t you.

Donald- You sleep with my lookalikes? That’s good. If you can’t get me into the sack because im out of town or in a bedroom with a tart I’m glad you’re getting the next best thing; somebody who’s pretending to be me.

Melania- They aren’t so good at imitating you, Donald. Half of them are Liberals. They whisper strange things to me in the sack. The other half at least know what to say politically but they don’t say it like you.

Donald- Nobody talks like me. Nobody in fact is me but myself. You’re lucky you get the real things from me, Melania. When I die you’re gong to turn to those lookalikes for some way to getting through the night but it will never, never be me. I Seuss that’s a kind of chamber tragedy.

Melania- I might learn to like something else besides you. We aren’t living on an asteroid. .  .

Donald- I hope you do. I never look for you in other women. Hey, when I want you I’ve got you. You’re my wife. Still we’re a restless bunch, Melania. It’s no surprise when we’re ready to move on.

Melania- Move on to what?

Donald- Well, I don’t know. I tried some of those Melania lookalikes the Secret Service came up with. They were almost like you. Some where a little taller. Some had a very fake Slovenian accent. You know all sort of tricks from the Slovenian hotel days they couldn’t even imagine, Melania. Of course they had other moves I guess you never heard of in Slovenia.

Melina- Slovenia is civilized. Maybe we tried them for a while but we don’t like them.

Donald- Maybe. Otherwise I thought of being a golf instructor to the newly famous. I played with building a luxury orphanage for all those Guatemalan kids I took from their families. What is it I know and what is real in the world?

            I haven got the heart to kill people; I’m not really a leader. Otherwise I could run hiking trips in the Colorado mountains near the maximum security prisons. I’m not really a great talent as a lover; the good ones don’t pay their bedtimes a penny. I guess I could go on television as an evangelist but I haven’t got their restroom morals. Their love life disgusts me. . 

            The important thing is to be invisible, do something unobtrusive and unnoticed. I’ve had fame; what was it? It’s not much of a kick to have a bunch of empty people show an interest in you. I could have that showing up naked on a monetary. I’ve had money; it just works to enslave some slobs who hate you for meeting their price for living somebody else’s idea of who they are or whom they might be.

            I guess I could be a postman. I don’t know whether I’d qualify as a mailman. I don’t want to go out in the rain and snow to deliver some run of bills and dunning four color advertisements.

            Maybe I might be a garbage collector. There sure I enough trash in this world to throw into landfill somewhere. There might be a future for me in landscaping. I’ve got a a feel for lawns and trees. I’ve been looking into working as a guy with a few earth moving machines on my own golf course. I like what I’ve done there too.

            You know, we’ve got all kinds of wild animals on the fairways that only come out at night. There’s moles, warthogs, skunks, hares and even a bunch of harmless snakes.

Melania- You might be a lot less interesting to me as a gardener. I don’t know whether our marriage could take it.

Donald- Creation is full of changes, honey. When you buy into a husband you’re making a contra with somebody who’s been somebody else and is turning into somebody you may not immediately recognize. It’s true about me too. You are changing as much as I am. Maybe you’ll become a nurse. How are you with emptying bedpans?

            The cellphone rings, Donald pulls it out of his pocket.)

            Excuse me  it’s Paul Manafort. (He talks into the phone.) How you doing. Paul? It feels good to be out of jail, doesn’t it? Nobody likes it that much in the slammer. ..I know your penitentiary had a golf course and tarts and a big lounge with an open bar. Sometimes you might have felt you weren’t in stir….Yeah, we’re doing fine here at Mar-a-Lago. I don’t mss being President. It got too many fancy people interested in me.

            I was better off as a restless or a villain on a reality show. Politics is different than both of them. You might have real enemies…I’m keeping busy, don’t worry. I ‘m thinking of being a gardener. I don’t need to make any money; I have enough money. I like to smell the cut grass and look at the trees taking in the sun. maybe plants know something I don’t know.

            Of course plants can’t talk; maybe they suffer and are filled with fear but at least they’re silent about it. Still I feel an affinity for them. They never complain. They don’t seem to want anything. They are never miserable about nothing or if they are they are very discreet about it. I don’t like anybody who’s a whiner…You want me to set you up as an emissary to Putin? You have an idea for selling out America one more time and making a hotel deal to set up some luxury joint near the Mammoth fossils in Siberia?. ..

            Look, I’m out of that part of my life, Paul. I might have been Putin’s mole for a long while but like everything else that has come and gone…

            I think Putin may be a little crazy…He’s always trying to make trouble…I’m grandiose but I never trad to pretend I was able to terrify lions… If I won’t go back to working for him you’re going to have to go on public relief? I don’t believe it. You’re a con man in a world of innocents; you can’t ever go broke…What do you mean, I’ve got to do it? You’re got a lot of dirt on me; so has Mike Flynn and the rest of my crew but so what? I never pretended I was a nice guy. People like me because I’m a scowling son of a bitch.

            You’ve got nothing on me. You can’t even threaten me with assassins like Putin, Paul; your private hitman haven’t’ got a long tradition like little Vladimir for treachery.,,I’m not quite invulnerable but as close to it as anyone ever gets with a few punks and money. Maybe you ought to find another guy to front for your adventures among the big bones in Siberia. .Yeah, talk to you. Tell Vladimir to lay off muscling lions. One of them might decide to eat him. Lions love Putin stew. Bye-bye.

            (Donald puts down the phone.)

            That was Paul Manafort. He’s got an idea about how he could make Siberia into Miami.

Melania- You ought to stay out of Paul’s enterprise, Donald. He’s even crookeder than you are. He’s a ruthless chiseler and we have enough money.

Donald- Yeah, Paul is dangerous. He actually was personally offended that I didn’t want to be a high class con man anymore. He threatened me. He might be a bit of a loon; I don’t know.  .

Melania- Well, he needs you to be something else than a landscape gardener.

Donald- Yeah, maybe it wasn’t personal. It’s just character. ( The phone rings again.) Donald puts the cell phone to his ear.)

            Hello, Mike?…Yeah, I’m enjoying my retirement making senile whoopee with my wife. We’re having lunch. Nothing fancy, just cheeseburgers. I’m not kosher but- a cheeseburger isn’t kosher, Mike, but I don’t trust people who like to eat a lot of different things. It sows they’re restless, unhappy. I found something soft and chewy I liked and I’m grateful for it. I like being predictable, even to myself. Maybe it cuts me off from a kind of stupid bit of terror, who knows? What’s with you?,…

            No, I don’t want the army to storm the Capitol and make me President again. Tell the army to storm themselves. They’ve got the weapons to do it. I’ve been President long enough. Maybe the army has been the army long enough, too.

            They never did disband after the Second World War, did they?..You were in Argentina and had some dental work done buy a guy who turned out to be Adolph Hitler? I hope he used enough anesthetic. Did he seem happy? …

            That’s good to hear. It took him a long time to find his legit metier. …Then you went to Kansans for the thick steaks and found Benito Mussolini working in a meatpacking office? I’m glad he found suitable white collar work. How’s Benito?I classy thought he was a hello nice guy in the wrong job….Good to hear he’s all right…You had a stomach ulcer removed by Jack the Ripper? God, he must be a hundred and twenty. I admire a guy who’s stilt working in his old age.

            Then you went to Tijuana and found Jesus​?.Yeah,. He’s busy; of course he’s busy forgiving people there. Anybody would be.

            Sometimes it’ hard to be in the forgiving business in America. Nobody wants to be forgiven. People do all kinds of wickedness but they don’t want to be forgiven for any of it…He’s moving on to Matamoros and Acuna? Those funky border towns could use a guy like him.

            I know you’ve been the ambassador of the Army to Washington for a hellova long time? Is that who you really are, Mike? Maybe you could have been a stellar performer on the cello. Than about it. you don’t have to quit your job; you can run cello concerts at our army bases. ..If the army lets you go I’ll spring for your cello lessons..you don’t want to play the cello? Well, hire somebody who looks like you to play it and say they are you.

            Believe me, generals who are felons like you and play the cello competently are always going to generate an audience somewhere…No, I’m not afraid the army will knock me off if I very decorously drop out of the politician arena. They love retired people. They get those twenty year pensions to retire themselves. ..

            Maybe the world doesn’t need a mediocre landscaper like me but does it matter? The world is an old whore, Mike. It takes on everybody. It just isn’t young and pretty…

                        (Donald puts his cell phone back in his pocket.)

            That was Mike Flynn. He wants to run an insurrection and put me back in the White House. He didn’t like it when he heard we’re happy here as a couple of senile lunatics in Mar-a-Lago.

Melania- Maybe Mike doesn’t value being happy. Some people don’t, honey. .

Donald-  Yeah, they just want to be sated. I have the feeling Mike doesn’t understand me. He loves evil. He’s mad about being corrupt and mean spirited. I’m not like that. I don’t have half the opinions the Liberals think I have. I’m not a White Supremacist. I think people of every color are bums. I’m sure as hell not a racist of any kind. I’d say even simians who aren’t even human aren’t much good compared to dogs and cats.

Melania- You can’t expect everybody out there to make sense of your inner life. Some people haven’t even got the interest to guess who the hell you are.

Donald- You’re right. Mike translates everything I say no matter how crazy into a hunger to do evil. If I tell him I’m beyond thinking the world is as substantial as he does he’ll think I’m a Buddhist. .

Melania- You can live with his mulish stupidity.

Donald- I have. I’ve endured a lot of it.

            (His telephone rings. He puts it to his ear.)

            Stormy? No, honey, no hard feelings. A lot of people sleep with me and then sue me. Maybe I don’t bribe them well enough. You’ve got your right to get me in court to try to beat me out of a bundle. We’ll run this litigation several years, Stormy, and then settle it in five minutes in a latrine, don’t worry…

            Yeah, I’m happy here. I’m having lunch with my wife., Melania is very comfortable with our conversation; she’s right here, She knows I like to play around, believe me. Once I was playing around with her after all. ..You feel bad because I’ve ben out of the news for a week? It’s going to bring down the profits in your business?…You’ll Ike me to say something outrageous and stir up intrigue in our little mini-affair? Well, I guess I could do that. What thehell do you want me to say?

            I don’t think it’s going to help you much though. People get tired of hearing the same old bilge about the same old bums. They are fickle. They want a new bunch to feel superior to and pious about. That’s why you’ve got to make your money quickly in your business or mine. You make your bundle and then you get out.

            Afterwards you can spend your life washing the feet of lepers or watching daytime game shows. ..have you ever thought of sleeping with Joe Biden and Obama? You could be a Presidential Classic. That would keep you iconic. Nobody’s ever been a Presidential default tart before. It’s a wide open area of notoriety you might want to explore. You can push the Afro-American line too . Obama was really born in Taiwan though he thinks Taiwan is Hawaii. I thought for years Hawaii was Hawaii. maybe it is. .

            Yeah, I thought he was from Kenya but I was wrong. He’s some kind of foreigner but not the sort o I thought heh was. You’ll like foreigners like him; to a Slovenian nearly everyone on Earth is a foreigner i guess., even me.

            Joe Biden is a bread and butter guy; you’ve got to give him bread and butter sex. Nothing fancy, keep it simple.

            Yeah, you might you write me some copy and if I have time , maybe I’ll say it… I do like to improvise…talk to you.

                                    (He hangs up the phone)

            Maybe she ought to sleep with some of my friends. Vladimir could use a little more pleasure in his life. He takes his work too seriously. They all do in Russia. Maybe they like desperation.

Melania- It might be a bad habit.

Donald- I wouldn’t know. She might get on with Judas Christ of the Proud Boys too. The Proud boys is too male an organization for her, Melania. These boys or whatever they are need a little feminine balance.

Melania- Judas Christ. That’s hellova name for anybody, even a leader of a private army looking for trouble.

Donald- that’s not his read name. He’s really from Cuba. Or maybe Kenya. He pulls in some good money from the innocents. Maybe I should be from Kenya too. I’ve gone bankrupt seven times.

Melania- You could never be from Kenya. You don’t look like anybody from Kenya.

Donald- You’ve never been to Kenya; how do you know what the hell they look like?They could all look like me for all you and I know. Maybe he’s from Cuba. Who knows?

                                    The phone rings. Donald puts the cell phone to his ear.)

            Hello, Roger? How you doing? ..You’re starting a heavy metal death-grunt rock group? I didn’t know you could sing. You’re a talented guy. What’s it called?…Roger and the Hooded Conspiracy? Yeah, I like that. I might even get you a booking in Atlantic city. I still know a lot of people there. ..No,      I’m thinking of leaving politics altogether myself. Not a rock group though. I can’t sing very well like you. ..You can make a bundle playing las Vegas. They like famous people to entertain them there. ..I have enough money; I’m looking for a sleazy anonymity myself…Don’t worry, I won’t be too invisible. I know it’ll hurt your racket. ..How’s your pet lizard?…Good. Talk to you. (He hangs up.)

Melania- He’s collecting lizards?

Donald- Lately. Roger’s a little cheap when it comes to buying pets. He likes lizards. All they do is creep onto his widow and sit there for hours. He thinks they might be planning something. Maybe they are. What the hell could even any army lf lizards do to threaten America? It beats me. Still it keeps Roger suspicious.

Melania- I think Roger should learn to trust his close pets. He’s got noting to fear from an iguana.

Donald- Maybe he knows something about iguanas we don’t, Melania. I pardoned the guy when he’d pleaded guilty and was going to jail. I can’t do that little favor for him anymore. Now he might worry he can be pt in stir by a lizard.

                        The phone rings. Donald puts it to his ear.)

            Hello, Steve? ..What are you up to? Glad you’re out of the pokey? So are we all, Steve. They might get me on taxes, I don’t pay any. Yeah, I know they did it to Al Capone. I’m a little more connected than big Al was. I might get off. I’m not bothering anybody. I’m thinking of becoming a gardener. I might get a subpoena from an angry  tree or the grass. Usually the whole plant kingdom isn’t into litigation.

            You get some ideas about storming the Lincoln Memorial? Well, pass them on to Biden. Maybe he wants to take the place over for some reason. Maybe sell peanuts in front of it, gourmet peanuts. I can never understand a guy like that. Maybe he’s senile. Maybe we’re both senile. Maybe you’re senile. It’s either our brains disappear or we’re knocked off, right? Ever think of taking up gardening? You don’t have a garden?

            Well, just start digging in from of your house and make one. ..Yeah, that’s my advice. Don’t start a competing rock group; Roger is into that right now. You’ll flood the market…Yeah, rafter politics, there’s always the dregs of the entertainment business. Talk to you soon. Bye. (He hangs up.0

Melania- I never liked Steve . I always thought he was too intellectual.

Donald- You get used to him. Maybe that’s not quite liking him. It’ll hare to do.

                        (The phone rings again.) 

            Sorry honey. If I was some goddamn nobody I wouldn’t be harassed with calls like this. When you’re somebody, and I am, everybody wants a favor form you, even if its free tickets to a baseball game. (He speaks into the phone.) Hello? Rod?..Like being out of jail? Everybody does. No, I don’t want to buy any life insurance from you. (He hangs up.) Rod is always into some racket or other. Boy, has he got a foul mouth. I don’t see him going into politics again; he’s too crooked even for the chumps in Illinois.

Melania- Rod is a guy like no other.

Donald- I’d think with the mouth he has he should go into the army. They like people to talk dirty in the military. They think it’s funny.

Melania- How would you know? You were never in the army, Donald. You told them you had a sore foot or something.

Donald- Did you want me to get killed in Vietnam? I’m dumb as a donkey but not that crazy.

Melania- No, I’m glad you didn’t get drafted.

Donald- Me too. It’s not my destiny. What it might be I don’t know?

Melania- Maybe you’re living it.

Donald- Yeah, you know, we all beat the draft among the Presidents lately. Maybe it’s one of the only credentials to lead this country. (The phone rings. Donald puts it to hi ear.

            Hello. Vladimir?.. I’m comfortable here. It’s nice and warm in Florida. In Russia you sure as hell never need air conditioning. God cools everything off for you. Isn’t that why you took over Crimea? Dint you want a nice place to sit in the sun when you get tired of Russian politics? …

            Yeah, I’ve asked myself what the hell I should be up to down here. Sometimes the best things you can do is nothing… I can’t be your mole in the White House anymore, Vladimir. I need to take up a private life. I’m not sure what….look, I can’t be threatened with nerve poison or dumped into prison by you, Vladimir; I’m not a Russian. I’m protected by the Secret Service. They supply me with lookalikes too when I get tired. You’re likely to kill a lot of people who only look like me. I’m not afraid of death either. I know there’s life after death. It might be in Kenya or Cuba. .

            Yeah, God puts paradises in strange places, doesn’t he?..Would you be interested in a rendezvous with Stormy Daniels? She needs to make news; that’ll do it. Yeah, she’s a porno star I want you to meet.

            You’ll get along with her. Maybe you won’t like her but it doesn’t matter. This is a big world; we don’t have to be enchanted by everybody in it…What’s a porno star?.. You don’t have porno in Russia? ..Well, I’ll send you a truckload of her movies…You’ll know what porno is in about five seconds…by the way, say hello to your pet lions. Talk to you.

                                    (He hangs up.)

            I guess Vladimir feels I’m still working for him. It’s hard to retire from Vladimir’s more pesky operations. He’s a workaholic himself and he doesn’t understand we all might need a little rest.

Melania- We don’t trust him in Slovenia.

Donald- You Slovenians are right about him. He’d just want to enslave all of you. What is there to trust? (the phone rings. He puts it to his ear.)

            Yeah? Bobby Lee Stillwell?…Yeah, I know you from the media; you did Reality shows. You wore cowboy hats. You worked on wrestling too, didn’t you? ..what can do for you, bobby? ..No, I don’t want to hold a posthumous press conference and say outrageous things anymore. Find somebody else to do it. I did it long enough. I’m tried of being visibly, publicly nuts. ..Look, you won’t go out of business.

            Plenty of people can do an impression of me and they don’t have to be good at it, either. They can be competent, reliable, show up.

            That’s enough. The public will take it, believe me. Still they will miss me because I’m a luxury product. Everybody likes a turn at the buffet tale when they’re serving lobster pasta. ..keep in touch, Bobby, we might do a few more wrestling shows together on prime time. …

            No Joe Biden is not a wrestler…I don’t know, maybe he could learn to be one, who knows? His wife could never be one, Bobby. Joe is boring. Talk to you ( He hangs up. The phone rings again. Donald puts it to his ear.)

            Chu-chu? How’s the drug business?…..Yeah, we politicians make them unhappy, you drug bigwigs make them happy. We work together, don’t we, Chu-chu. ?… I’m not making too many people feel lousy these days, Chu-chu- I like a little invisibility like you. ..you won’t go broke; just be ready when your merchandise goes legit…take it from me; it’ll happen.

            Don’t be the front man; sell it by proxy. Get some old decrepit football player to run ads for it. I ran a gambling casino that twenty years before I set up legit in Atlantic City,Ii could have been indited and done time for. I had a line of women too. That’s legit now too, thank God.  People used to go to the hot seat for that. Don’t ever get too legit though; it might make you less intriguing,even to yourself. Talk to you. Bye.

                        (he hangs up. The phone rings again. He puts it to his ear.)

            Michael Cohen?…No need to apologize. I would have done the same thing myself to you if I could. ..You’re out of jail and eating in a French restaurant?..Good. You’ve got a book? I know you didn’t write it; nobody writes confessions anymore when they’ve got ghostwriters who can scribble about themselves do it better than they can…Hey, if I publish my memoirs I might want to use your ghostwriter if he’s any good…No , right now I don’t have anything crazy to say that’ll help your sales. ..

            I know you’ve been disbarred but so what? How are you at wrestling? You don’t have to be all that good, Michael; it’s all fake. You could start a death-grunt rock band. Roger is putting one up in Las Vegas. You play the drums?

            Yeah, Roger can always use a drummer. Give him a call. Talk to you. Bye.

Melania- You know, a lot of people want you to be the old Donald Trump, Why don’t you accommodate them? The Secret Service has those lookalikes hanging out here in case I plotz. Why don’t you get them to play you the way you once played yourself? You’re be doing them a favor and even make Vladimir happy too. You might do best to keep on lying. If you ever told the truth or said nothing you might cause a Depression.

Donald- You’ve got a point. I need a wife around like you not just for sex but for advice. Ivanka, my last wife, always gave me very intelligent counsel. She was the one who put me on to acting bad guys on Reality Shows and get me seriously into wrestling too.

            Maybe Roger ha somebody telling him to get into rock music. We all need a clever wife like you.

Melania- I’m not bad in the sack either, Donald. Otherwise they would have dumped me from the top floor of a fancy hotel.

Donald- Yeah, maybe that’s the genius of Slovenia. I’ll go into the anteroom and ask the Secret Service to come up with a lookalike. You can pretend he’s your husband too; I don’t care. He may not be me but at least he’s paid big bucks to try to seem as if he might be me.

            (Exit Donald. After he leaves, Melania’s cell phone rings. She uts it to her ear.)

Melania- Arpad?.. No, I think think Donald is up to leading your Slovenian friends to run an assault on the Capitol. ..Maybe he is though. It’s crazy enough. .no I don’t want to go back to work for you in those fancy hotels you’re building… my light hustling days are over, Arpad. .. once I used to be poor and good looking; now I’m fifty, rich and gorgeous. I don’t need that kind of session work anymore. I can hire gigolos if I feel blue to work for me.

            Yeah, poverty does that, Arpad. It puts a lot of people to work at things they’re indifferent to or even hate, but I guess it’s the goad that gives them some kind of job. I was lucky I met Donald. Most tarts ever get that kind of break. It’s fortune. I could have been a madam, I guess, if it hadn’t been

Maybe chief madam.

            I’m not sure I like to be rich either. When you’re a bum you know who your friends are. Of course sometimes it’s nobody.

            I don’t think he suspects I’ve guessed he’s not the real Donald Trump. Yeah, the real one was surgically replaced if you know what I mean by people you don’t want to know about after he won the primary. He was too cray. He scared a lot of people he should have kowtowed to. They didn’t want a second Hitler. Maybe they got a third one. They tried out a few Donald Trumps before they got the right one. ..How do I know he’s a phony? He hasn’t guessed that I’m not Melania.

            If he were the real Donald he’d pick up I’m somebody else quickly enough. Of course its’ possible he doesn’t care whether I’m real or not. If he isn’t real himself, why should he worry? 

            You remember, Arpad, they replaced the real Melania when she couldn’t mangle English as well as they needed her to speak it. I was a better First Lady for them. I’ve got a musical ear. Sometimes we have competition for who we are, Arpad. They got rid of her and dumped her somewhere. I think they killed her. Maybe it’s a dump near where they knocked off the real Donald. He’s in a concrete block somewhere.

            Melania didn’t even get that kind of sendoff. She’s at the bottom of a pile of landfill. When you’re at the top. Arpad, you’re dealing with a lot of murderers, believe me.

            They run the world by force that way, after all. They don’t mind knocking off a lot of people at the bottom or top to do it. They’ve got the middle working for them to do both. It’s safer there. You become a soldier for somebody, you get into some kind of uniform, and you might last through the day. Like me. Otherwise, you’re in big trouble. ..

            Got to hang up, Arpad. Here comes some bogus Donald who thinks I think he’s real. I can play along with it too. (she hangs up.)  .

                                                (Enter Donald.)

            You look exactly like the Donald who just walked out of here. It’s amazing what a little makeup can do. You ready to be outrageous and say crazy things?

Donald- I was always happy to get a little nuts when I got the payoffs I did for it, Melania. My lying got us this dump we live in. It’s better than a lot of places. We have each other too. We’re better than a lot people.

Melania- Well, it’s been a long, long way for me from Slovenia. Where’s Donald, in the garden growing tomatoes?

Donald-  It doesn’t matter where he is. I’m Donald now. Maybe he took a long walk.

Melania- You didn’t kill him, did you?

Donald- I swagger a little but I’m not much for violence. Melania. I don’t knock off anybody. I might betray them here and there in small ways; everybody does that.

Melania- I’m going to miss him, maybe. I guess I’ll have to put up with you.

Donald- I’m an unknown but a good mimic. You could do worse, kid.

Melania- I have done worse. I’d rather do better.

Donald- Maybe you’ll have a bit of stray charity for me, Melania. I might make a mistake. I wasn’t born to be anything like your sainted Donald.

Melania- Really. Who or what were you born to be? Some bum from Topeka?

Donald- It doesn’t matter, does it? Whom were you born to be?

Melania- If I told you it might distract you from your life, Donald.

Donald- Well, let’s make love. We might as well break each other into our marital life.

Melania- All right. Would you like a little tumble in the anteroom.

Donald- No. not the anteroom. Maybe the kitchen. Or the library.

Melania- That’s good. They both have an open bar.

Donald- Leave your goddamned cell phone on the table, honey. You aren’t going to need it in the sack. You haven’t got it strapped to your body, do you?

Melania- Not yet. I may be an old  whore but I’m not quite a cyborg, Donald.  Of course sometimes I think I can’t do without it.

Donald- I don’t want to have to rip if off. Honey, we don’t want to be interrupted when we make love, even if it’s Paul or Vladimir.

            (They put their cell phones on the table. Exit Donald and Melania. The cell phone rings for over twenty seconds on an empty stage. (Enter Donald and Melania from the exit to the anteroom. Tey look around. Silently for several seconds.

            Donald turns off the cell phones.  They are similar to but with a slight change of clothes clearly not the Donald and Melania who had left through the other exit. Melania talks without an accent. Donald has a slight different voice, perhaps more hoarse. )

Donald- They’re gone, baby. Looks as if they’ve gone to the library to make love.

Melania- Ever been up there? It’s filled with comic books. It’s got vintage copies of Superman. The classic stuff from the 30s.

Donald- I guess they don’t need us as long as they are whatever is legit and real around here.

Melania- Maybe they will the day after tomorrow.

Donald-  Everybody gets tired. If they don’t they get inept.. one day they won’t satisfy either the people who hired them or the real Donald Trump and Melania if they still exist beyond  bones in a concrete block or if there ever was either of them working their scams.. Then we’ve have our change to show them what Donald Trump and his wife should be like, baby.

Melania- Do you feel up to it? I’ve got the Slovenian accent down pretty well but I’m not sure I can be the Melania they’re looking for. I don’t know anything about Slovenian hotels and the sessions offered by the local tarts. I read about them but I don’t know I have the feel for working within them. I read Stanislavsky. I’m not bad doing low comedy.

Donald- Well, do you think I know what it’s like to be a Reality Show bad guy and a bad wrestler? I’m basically an introvert. The standards of credibility is very low, honey. 

Melania- You’ve got the voice and the orange hair down, Donald. You’re fat enough. You’ll pass. You’ve got the swagger and the talent to say crazy things too. You’ll be okay.

Donald- I better be. They might kill me if I do a bad job. 

Melania- Who’s they?

Donald- People who have strong ideas about who and what is leading this country. That’s all you need to know.

Melania- You know who they are?

Donald- If I knew I wouldn’t tell you.  If they thought you had more information that you needed to work for them competently they might knock you off just to be sensibly cautious. They benefit after all by being invisible.

Melania- You think it’s a conspiracy?

Donald- No, unless you think every group is some covert bunch who have a secret agenda. Maybe it’s true. Maybe the Boy Scouts are up to something we don’t know about or want to know about.   

Melania- Are your parents and  family okay with this job?

Donald- They love it. Why shouldn’t they be for it, honey. It helps support them. Don’t think they don’t get a check every month for their silence. There are a few old lovers on the pad too. They like the money. They don’t mind  being  quiet as the dead. Nobody knows where I’m from, what my past might be,

Melania- Yeah, my  family and pals are on the pad too. It must be great to be able to print money and shut people up.

Donald- We’ll never know. Honey. If we did they’d lock up up, right? When they do it  it’s paying somebody a salary either to do something or to do nothing.

Melania-  I’d rather be bribed to do something than to do nothing. I don’t like having to think things over too much, Donald. It might be a little depressing.

Donald- We’re doing okay, Melania. We aren’t broke. Most of the world is hopelessly poor. Nearly all the governments on Earth are into force, not bribery. We aren’t being thrown into a dungeon or executed.

            We even you might say have an adult competence if it’s an ability to imitate people  who maybe don’t exist in the first place. That’s a talent, Melania, or whatever your name is., assuming if you had a name. Most people are born with one. What the hell was it?

Melania- It doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant. It’s even a burden. If I can get a name I can also drop  it too. Lots of people do it. Hollywood stars always leave their names in the toilet somewhere. Do you think John Wayne was really John Wayne?

Donald- Nobody is really John Wayne. John Wayne was ion Morrison. I could never name my son ion. It’s like that johnny Cash song: A Boy Named Sue. Maybe John Cash wasn’t johnny Cash either.

Melania- Maybe we should quite politics and go into acting in films. Somebody’s going to make a movie about the people we’re supposed to be.

Donald-  I’d rather play Abraham Lincoln.  Want to see my Abe Lincoln imitation?

Melania- I’ve  already taken in your stand up routines enough, thanks.  Some people are so odious I can’t even bear some vaudeville number featuring  them. Besides, you’re too short to be Abe Lincoln.

Donald- They can film me quietly standing on a chair. If there’s ever a  musical about Abe Lincoln I might have a shot at iconic stardom, Melania. I am pretty handy warbling a tune or two.  Of course , if it’s rap, I just need to have rhythm.

Melania- Focus on what or who the hell you are, Donald. You’re  sort of a  phony and shadowy candidate to be Donald Trump.

Donald-  Well, maybe that’s true but it’s better than being nothing at all.  You know, when you’re a kid, Melania, you never know exactly  how you’re going to fit into the adult world, or even whether you might ever have a place in it. 

            Some people have a calling. They know they were born to play the cello or give counsel to people who are insane. They don’t have to wonder why the y were placed on Earth by God or what their ultimate destiny might be.

            I always thought I’d make a good three humped camel herder. I have feeling I might have been

one in my past lives. Ever see any camels running around in America? Even fake camels?

Melania- Not even one.

Donald- I also thought I might be a horse meat butcher. It turned out it’s illegal t sell perfectly edible horse meat in the Untied States.  If I would have followed my starry calling I could have been arrested and thrown into stir forever for selling horse meat steak. I don’t know whether its a misdemeanor or a felony. Maybe I could have gotten on parole.

            Still that was my cursed affinity to work as an adult in life. Once I realized eating horse meat was only going to be legal after they made arson and bestiality legit I went into whatever else I could do but didn’t feel any deep resonance about.

Melania- I understand.

Donald- I took fancy white collar jobs that I didn’t care about. I made oodles of money but if a man doesn’t have work he loves he’s never entirely happy. 

Melania- Of course.

Donald- He starts looking for sanctification in amusements that never promised to make him even mildly amused. He starts buying things he doesn’t need. He changes like the color of octopuses and it’s all for worse.

            He’s happy to have anything in his life that gives him a mild moment of very faint enjoyment or satiety, or at least something that doesn’t give him acute spams of pain.

Melania- I can appreciate that.

Donald- Still there’s  a huge army of folks out there like me. They don’t feel all that much felicity either. They often don’t  like other people because they don’t like themselves. In fact sometimes they despise them because they think they’re in a nightmare carnival looking with horror into a twisted mirror,     

Melania- That is a tough situation.

Donald- Maybe it I would have been a three humped camel herder or a horse butcher and honored my nature it would have been worse. It could be I’ve been lucky not to be who I really am.

Melania- I know all about that. I’ve been wondering what I would have been what I sensed was my primal destiny.

Donald- What was it that you  thought you should have been, Melania?

Melania- You don’t ever want to know. you might run away from+ me in a wild panic.   

Donald- Don’t tell me. I don’t ever want to  feel anything but love for you. I know you’re imperfect. here and there I’m a bit flawed myself. That’s why love is on some level an act of charity.

                                    (The cell phone rings. Donald picks it up and puts it to his ear.)

            Hello?..Kundrashiki of Delhi?…You’d like to produce a line of toilet paper with my face on it? Sure, why not? You have the designs? Am I smiling or do I look sort of glum and ferocious? That’s good. Angry but fatalistic?…I can resonate with that very well, Kundrashiki…send me a complementary carton of the stuff. It’s got to be soft…fluffy…like a  lover’s kiss …talk to you, Kundrashiki, baby.

                                                (Donald hangs up thoughtfully.

            It’s hard to be famous. you make enemies and creates a business for somebody who wants to sell your scowling face on their toilet paper.

Melania-  I wouldn’t like my face on any toilet paper. I think I might be vaguely insulted.

Donald- That’s the difference between you and me, honey. I don’t mind having enemies that can’t get enough of hating my guts. As long as I can make a few bucks being their kind of super-villain  it’s more than okay with me.

Melania- Maybe I’d like to see me on a few fancy napkins.

Donald- You’d look okay on a silken cloth one.  Maybe should get back to Kundrashiki and see whether we can cut some kind of deal.

                        (The cell phone rings. )

Stanislas Krakow?…Glad to talk to you, Stanislas….You’re looking to name a sewer after somebody famous? I’m your man.  Just spell my name right. You’ll get the Trump imprint. Is it a big cloaca?… Yeah, these cisterns are never big enough…talk to you.

                        (The cell phone rings. Donald answers it)

            It’s for you, Melania.  It’s probably those pesky Slovenian hotel people.  Tell thyme you’re retried.

                        (Melania picks up the  cell phone from Donald.)

Melania- hello…You say Slovenia is going bankrupt?…Donald knows all about bankruptcy; I’ll  put him on…you don’t wanted to talk to him,; you’d rather talk to me?,,,,okay…Why don’t how change the laws of Slovenia to make something legal that’s a crime in any other damned place? It worked for us in Atlantic city…Well, you can make cockfighting and arson legal and set fire to hospitals while the chickens try top slash each other to death…

            Murder could be legal too.. .  I don’t mean murder of people; that would be immoral…murder of wild animals…you don’t have any wild animals in Slovenia?…You killed all the wolves and bears?… Just most of them?  Well, could import them….you could pick them up in Africa cheap…talk to you.

            (She hangs up the phone.)

Donald, can you and your friends do anything for Slovenia? I know you’re not President but everybody in my  native country is starving and broke.

Donald- What can I do? I could always build a hotel there and the tourists could burn it down while they’re shooting buzzards and snakes.  No, I don’t think I can  help Slovenia. Nothing can redeem Slovenia from the dregs of Chapter Eleven anymore. They are  finished.

Melania- Well, since I’m really not from Slovenia  I guess  I can accept that. They do make a great pear wine.

Donald- We’ve got some here on ice at the open bar. Honey, let’s make love.  We can accelerate the imminent economic fall of maybe the whole world.

Melania- Really? What do we bring to the sack, Donald” We don’t have our past, our history, out real names, our family and friends,  the town we came from if it was a real town or even a city dump and not a real state development filled with ciphers deep in the sticks. We sure as hell don’t want children .            If we sent them to school they’d learn from professionals how to tell us to drop dead.  All we  have is the ability to give each other pleasure.

Donald-  If we were married, had a community, and could be who we really are, it could be a lot worse honey. Everything out there in the vast electronic world is an invitation to embrace slavery. We’re better off here being in the sack in the shadows.

Melania- Maybe. Where do you want to make love, Donald? In the kitchen?

Donald- No, the anteroom.  They have  a bed there that’s fit for elephants.

Melania- Have they got an open bar?

Donald- Two of them. One for brandy and one for whiskey..

            (Exit Donald and Melania. The telephone rings for about twenty seconds.  Donald and Melania emerge from the other exit.) 

Donald- You sure they’re dead, baby?

Melania- I went overbore to the bed after they were lying there comatose and jobbed them with the that funky Abyssinian poison you got from Paul Manafort. . They’re food for alligators, honey.

Donald- The  Secret Service thinks  we’re  toast. They’re sure we’re in a concrete block or landfill somewhere. We knocked off our supposed killers with a few jobs when they thought we an friendly and easy target for them.  They’re in the  concrete paradise now. that’s where we’re going to put those two fresh corpses of Trump and Melania we left in bed in the library  honey. I got to find the right block of concrete that’s big enough to inter both of them.

Melania- We’ve got plenty of concrete blocks around here. They’re all over the beach front. they use them to keep the sea out at high tide. Don’t worry.

Donald- maybe we’ll have to imitate them. Otherwise the Secret Service will be on to us; they’ll knock us off too.

Melania- I don’t think so. Then they would have anybody to guard and keep safe from assassins, Donald. They’d be out of a job.

Donald- Well, there’s always those two creepy  phonies hanging out in the anteroom.

They could use them if the bitch ever gets a Slovenian accent right.

                                    (The phone rings. Donald picks it up.)

            Hello?…Vladimir?… You want to start a Death Grunt rock band?..I could introduce you to my friend Roger. You won’t have to audition. . .

            I know you sing and play the piano. I thought Fats Domino was better on Blueberry Hill than you, but then, Fats never was much of a politician. You’ve got it all over Fats once you two aren’t singing and  away from the piano….You’re tired of politics? Look,  we all outlive our original choices, Vladimir. Ask anybody in a marriage or in jail.

            We’re  a long lived species like giant turtles. We’re just better looking.  Like everything else, it’s got its shadowy side. You’ve got a nice warm place to eat oily black caviar in Crimea. A lot of people in your country are freezing.  You sit in the sun, drink pineapple flavored vodka and spoon oozy fish eggs into your mouth. They’re eating tepid kasha and huddling around  a fire…Las Vegas is warm. Maybe it’s too damned warm. What the hell else do you know besides Blueberry Hill? ..

            No, Be My Love is io Lanza. Believe me, you are not io Lanza. Vladimir, with your Russian melancholy you might get into Mood Indigo… 

            Yeah, I might play Las Vegas too one day. I’m not much of a singer but maybe I can lip-sync  somebody else. ..I don’t mind retirement , but sometimes I do want to  yodel a little in public..they get tired of you even if you’re fats Domino. You know what sunk me? The damned plague.

            I don’t mean that I’ve got it but that when I told people there was no pandemic  when they saw the coffins they didn’t believe me. I can’t understand that. I told them all sorts of things that were much more pure fantasy and they  accepted it well enough. They eat lies like swine swallow trash.  -I even compared myself to Abraham m Lincoln. Nobody laughed.  They bought that  too. Maybe I should have said George Washington.

            I have a very loyal constituency, believe me. They might be a bit loose in the head but so are all of us, so am I  Half a million people were plotzing  and I told them they were hellcat and ready to run the marathon.  They still voted for me,Vladimir. They wanted four more years of my brand of  pure malarkey…

            You wonder why?….I think they had had enough of sanity, Vladimir. It’s apparently just too difficult to go though life sane and sober. .I can understand that . I’ve hf a lot of major disappointments myself, I can tell you. I never won a professional wrestling championship. Of course it would have been fake but I deserved it. I was the unsung Bruno Sammartino of the sport.  Vince McMahon could have done it for me.

            I could have beaten the Iron Sheik. Instead, I was always viewed as a freak I that world, which I have to tell you is filled with a whole legion of bizarre lunatics…

            Yeah, the damned Covid finished me. It’s  also kept me under fancy house arrest along with everybody else. I  sit in Mar-a-Lago eating cheeseburgers one after another like they’re running out of cattle meat and cheese, I’m comfortable enough but I have no idea what is going on down the street, or a mile away from me.

            Nobody else does either. They’re locked into their  houses and  telling their servants out to bring them crappy killer take out stuff: pizza and curry noodles. ..it’s  all over the world, I guess, but the truth is nobody knows what’s going  on beyond their front door. we could be invaded by Mars or Jesus and nobody would notice.  The streets are empty; the whole world seems to be silent. I don’t see any airplanes in the sky.

            No, not even your airplanes. You could be invading us and we’d never know it. Maybe you are. Maybe you’re sitting n the White House instead of Biden, how would I know?  On the other hand, maybe we invaded you and you don’t know it. Maybe  I’m sitting in the Kremlin eating blintzes and pickled beets.  I’m not even sure we’re not invading each other. .  

            Well, does it matter? I’m here and so is Melania, so we must be somewhere. Wherever that is, somebody is making cheeseburgers for us. We’ve always got a full bar. We’ve got gallons of booze for her  sitting in the cellar. We might run out of toilet paper but there’s always napkins.

            I’ve been running an legit insane asylum for fur years; I’m the patient and I’m also the doctor. Sometimes they’re both nuts. Sometimes the asylum is a piece of fluff or imaginary.  I guess this plague will go away maybe next year or next month but after I told them there was no pandemic they don’t take me seriously anymore…

            Yeah, I did tell them the Insurrection was a lone-in. They didn’t like that much either. Why do people believe a guy for a bit and then think he’s a lying creep? I don’t know. Maybe I should have told them the plague was  a Latino venereal disease.  My constituency doesn’t like Mexicans much. I don’t know why; they make good servants. Frankly I think they might be superior.  Ever see a Mexican miserable about nothing?

            It’s a painful experience to run an insane asylum, isn’t it? How the hell did you keep in power, Vladimir? I always heard about Russians as natural revolutionaries. ..You do it by terrifying people? Well, maybe I was never good at creating communal fear. My specialty  is saying crazy things and making money , not threatening people…

            I know you want to quit and do an act in Las Vegas but .there are probably more Death Grant rock acts there already. You could open for some of them.  You might have to wait a bit for a booking. Right now you’re going to have to be comfortable with singing Blueberry Hell in Siberia. I don’t imagine there are any hills filled with berries  in Siberia. They won’t know what you’re singing about.

            You’ve got the Covid all over Russia too?Well, I guess it’s that kind of democratic plague no? It just  infects everybody. you might hole up somewhere. I heard you’ve got a dacha with a beautiful view of the Black Sea . Looking at the water makes a guy peaceful. Sometimes you see a seal or a dolphin. waving at you…Talk to you soon.

                                    (Donald hangs up the phone.)

            That was Vladimir. He’s  getting restless. Luckily he can sing and play the piano. He can always get work.

Melania- I don’t think Vladimir needs to hold down a job anymore. He’s walked off with billions of rubles. That’s what they told me back in Slovenia.

Donald- That’s good to hear. I guess he’ll veneer try to hit on me for a loan.

                                    (The phone rings. Donald picks it up.)

It’s for you, Melania.

Melania-  Thanks. (she takes the phone and puts it to her ear.) Arpad? …You’d like to put out a line of slinky underwear and put my name on it? Sure. How’s Slovenia these days? Still having an economic crisis …Well, it’s normal; it was that way under the Turks…

            People adapt to everything, Arpad. you’ll just be one more generation of bums who are poor and maybe starving. …

            You  listened to me, mad arson legal and people are burning down  their own houses? Look, I’ve got an idea, Arpad. Why don’t you all come to America? Slovenia is the damned pits; you get here and get some Korean banks to help you open up ethnic restaurants. What are the national delicacies we make in Slovenia, I forget…Gruel and  pickles? ..Well, what about people guzzling our flavored vodka.?…

            Maybe pineapple or mango flavor. You can pretend it’s the national drink; nobody will know the difference here. ..What other flavors? I don’t know. Pickle? . I don’t see a market for pickle vodka…maybe you’re right if you’ve got the right kind of pickles….half sour, maybe….talk to you..

                                                (She clicks the phone shut.)

            That was an old pal of mine from Slovenia. He used to be a pimp. Now he’s a  broker. He’s a force in hedge funds on the Slovenian stock market.  Do we have any way of making pickle or pineapple vodka here?

Donald- How  the hell should I know? I could tell you but I’d be making it up.

Melania- I hear some noises from the anteroom. Do you think it might be more of our phony imitators? The Secret Service hired a truckload of them from Appalachia.

Donald- Could be. We’ll go into the anteroom and check them out. If they’re there we’ll kill them.

Melania- With what? We used the last pint of poison on that damned couple in the library.

Donald- We can strangle them.         

Melania- I’ve never strangled anybody. I might not be good at it.

Donald- I never have either. Maybe we can stab them with knives. 

Melania- you means these little knives we have on the table to cut the cheeseburgers? I don’t think they can hurt anybody..

Donald We’ve have to get close to them to do any damage. We’ll have to think of something else.

Melania- We  could lock them in the anteroom. After while of drinking at the open bar they’d starve to death.

Donald- The anteroom hasn’t got any doors. You thought it made it more spacious, remember? 

Melania- I was never good at interior decoration. I’m lousy at murder. I know; I’ve tried. I just wound people.  I had plenty of people I would have liked to have knocked off in Slovenia but I knew I had no damned talent for it.

Donald- Well, we could leave them alone to grow wise and indolent.

Melania-  We can’t do that. They’ll try to replace us one day. Let’s know them off now.

Donald- I have got an automatic machine gun in the kitchen. I bought it to kill anything in the oven that moves. I don’t know whether it works. It might just be ornamental.

Melania- Lela’s go to the library, We’ll shoot off a few rounds to see whether or not it’s  a Commie bummer. Didn’t you get it from Vladimir? .

Donald- I did. I guess it’s some  spy device. Maybe it shoots bullets too. We might knock off a few lousy comic books.

Melania-  I never liked  those vintage copies of Superman.

                        (Exit Donald and Melania to the library. The phone rings  Enter Donald and Celina from anteroom exit.)

Donald- Sorry to interrupt our lovemaking, baby.  I thought I heard some noise there. Maybe not. This place looks empty. Only a few seals and dolphins n the sea.

Melania- It is empty. Maybe some walrus came up from the ocean and wanted a bite of those cold cheeseburgers.

Donald- They look the same.  I guess we could go back to making love.

Melania- We’ve got nothing better to do.

                        (Exit Donald and Melania to the anteroom.  The phone rings for twenty seconds. Enter Donald and Melania  from the exit to the library. )

Donald- The damned gun didn’t work. It’s like Communism.  It was a phony. It wasn’t even a gun. It was a piece of broken plastic .

Melania-  What do you expect from a present from Vladimir? He used to be a Communist.

Donald- Yeah, it was. Guess what; I found a spy device in it Vladimir thought I wouldn’t notice.  It looked like a gun sight.  Those Russians love to run clandestine intelligence operations. even when they’re not Communists or mildly socialistic they can’t help being slippery and devious.  What do you think Vladimir  had hoped to hear with his funky little tricks?

Melania- I don’t know. Maybe he liked hearing you say all sorts of crazy things.

Donald-  He must .Well, I didn’t find the wire right away. I hope I entertained him.  

Melania- We’ll never kill them now.

Donald- Wait a minute, aren’t there knives like Samurai swords in the kitchen?

Melania- I used them to cut day old bread. They’ve gotten pretty dull. Now I don’t think they could cut butter.

Donald- What about the blue dish washing soap? Hasn’t that got lye in it? We could douse some fruit pudding with it and give it to them..

Melania- We don’t have any fruit pudding.

Donald-  I guess you ate the fruit pudding.

Melania- I bathed it in rum. It was delicious. 

Donald- What about my golf clubs?

Melania- At a time like this, you want to play golf?

Donald- No we can take them into the anteroom  and bash their damned heads in with them.

            (The phone rings. Donald picks it up and put it to his ear. )

Donald- Hello?…Who?…Ivanka?…I didn’t recognize your voice  for a moment, honey,.how’s your life?..Yeah, were both better off being friends. It might be a higher ambition than getting married…Not that we wouldn’t mind suing each other. Everybody else sues us.

            No, I don’t miss the White House…Maybe it’s safer than Mar-a-Lago We’ve got alligators and lizards on our lawn half the time here. We feed them coconut shells. They will eat anything.

            Then if there really is global warming as my Chinese and Latin enemies say, one day this oceans is going to flood the area and destroy it altogether….Yeah, Melania and I will have to move to some mountaintop, maybe in downtown Colorado, ..Yeah, I know they have grizzly bears in the mountains… We might move to Las Vegas. That’s a town  I find inspiring. ..I don’t think I ever want to go back to running this country, baby.

            Not that I really ever managed it all that much. I mostly sat back, watched television,  talked about stuff I didn’t know and said crazy things. That doesn’t seem like a hard job, does it?…I could run America these days with what they want from a leader if I were in hell, even if I were dead. I really do represent people: crazy people.

            I’m a sort of living psychosis. If I were resting in landfill I could manage this country  though the visions of oracles and Gypsies. I can eat cheeseburgers and talk nonsense anywhere. I can be me, even at the bottom of a sewer or a cemetery.   As long as America needs me I’m her to do my best for the country, honey. After all, I’m a patriot.

            Talk to you. It was great being married to you for a while, honey. How’s the kids? Making money? That’s what I want hear.

Melania- Get off the phone, Donald, we’ve got some business to take care of in the anteroom, dammit.

Donald- Okay. (He clicks off  the phone. I just always feel a pang when I talk to her. I think maybe she loves me.

Melania- I hope she does. I hope Stormy does too.  Where are your gold clubs?

Donald- In the trunk of my car. I’ll go get them.

Melania- I  need a big swig of my Jamaican rum drink to do this. I may be an old  tart but I’m not a killer.

Donald- Nobody starts out in life killing people, honey. We can’t get out of the crib to do it.

Melania- I never wanted to kill anybody in Slovenia. They pass out and lie in the street at eleven o’clock in the morning. They were too drunk to take seriously.

Donald- Well, you’re a long way from Slovakia, honey.

Melania- Slovenia.

Donald- Slovenia. Slobovia. What’s difference; you’re gone. Hey, I guess I’m far away from a whole lot of places too.

Melania- I need a swig of that drink….Maybe we shouldn’t do this.

Donald-  We don’t have a choice, baby. We left a lot of living corpses lying on the ground behind us when we became real Trumps. Some of them wanted to be us; others  wanted to be other people or even themselves , whatever the hell that might have been. Don’t you think or rivals left their own family and friends  in a quiet landfill somewhere while they had the crazy ambition to be us? You bet they did … 

            You’re real so to speak but look what friends and enemies you dropped off in the sewer on the way to the White House. It’s not just your past, not even the pals you thought you had left in the gutter, but  the present.

            You’re free of them now, which given their flaws I’m sure is a real hellfire, but if they survived you they’re completely free of you too.  There’s a whole lot of people out there who’d like to be us. Not just these punks in the anteroom, but the rest of the bums hired by the Secret Service.

            They pick them up for Appalachia, from Atlantic City, from Kazakhstan, where that collects our kind of fancy trash. Then we wrestle with them and have it out with them with atomic pile drivers in the darkness.

Melania- I could go back to Slovenia and get work I’d enjoy, Donald. I’ve got skills they want there. I don’t need to be Melania Trump even if I am Melania Trump.  I can be Melania Anything if I make the right connection with Arpad in Slovenia.

Donald- You think you can. Believe me, Arpad  noways isn’t Arpad Arpad anymore even to himself; she’s some kind of stranger even when he looks in the mirror.

Melania- I might go back anyway.

Donald- You can’t, baby. Most of the people in  Slovenia are now in Slovakia.

Melania- Well, maybe they’ll go back to Slovenia..

Donald- They’re more likely to  make a  slow pilgrimage to Kazakstan. Maybe we’ll join them. 

Melania- You think we Slovenians are like Americans. We have more inner character to us even at the bottom of Slovenia than you ever will. We just don’t have any money.

Donald- Everything is better with a bit of cash, Melania, even being sick in the head, desperate and empty.

            Let me get to my trunk.

Melania- Yeah, look for something lethal and get back here as soon as you can. Before you go, Donald, let me ask you: why do you think anybody voted for you at all? You’re a liar, a con man, a cheat, a natural criminal, a general  no-goodnik and bum.

Donald- I’ve even worse that than, You don’t know the half of it. I hope nobody ever knows. I am one creepy son of a bitch. I don’t know why. I was born that way. God made me what I am. I’m just playing out the cards in my hand, Melania. Unfortunately they’re mostly  a counterfeit run of the Ace of Spades.

Melania- You don’t hide it, Donald; you flaunt it. Why do millions of people vote for you?

Donald- I must represent them more than a lot of other people do, Melania. They want to be as wicked   as I am.  Why do people root for baseball teams?  They all want to roam in the green grass of  center field and hit 400. I’m doing the evil they’re too puny to do. I might be doing it to you too.

Melania- You can’t con me, Donald. I’m at least as mean as you are.

Donald- You’re all of that, Melania.  Still I did pick up up off the shelf at a Slovakian hotel. You didn’t  buy me in a corral at a State Fair. 

Melania- Well, you have the money.  I don’t.

Donald-  It’s not about money baby. It’s not even about whether you’re for sale and somebody else meets your price. It’s how you spend your time. Maybe you would want to be with me if we were both mumbling in the gutter.

Melania- We are in some place below the gutter, Donald. It just looks fancy and has a thick carpet.  

Donald- I like it here. If it stinks like a latrine,. all the better.

             (Melania stares at him balefully as he leaves, then picks up her glass of a rum drink and downs it, pausing a couple of times to down a few dollops of the concoction. Exit Donald by the door to the kitchen and library. The phone rings. Melania answers it. )  

Melania- Arpad?  I’m comfortable here; don’t worry about me. No pain. I’ve got a soft chair, that’s what they throw you for a bribe  in America to try to keep you out of trouble. …

            Yeah, I’m a little bored. I’m used to a place a lot more interesting than Florida. This country is like a fancy hospice. They give you a few bucks if you outlast your youth and middle age, they shove a stick and at you and tell you to play shuffleboard. It’s no wonder I drink. 

            Yeah, Florida is the pits, Arpad, a sleep like death. You can’t make friends here because everybody is from somewhere else and going south soon into an Egyptian mausoleum. You can’t even make enemies. They don’t have time or even he desire to get to know you much less wonder whether there’s anybody to know much less to like or hate you.

            Yeah, they talk about speculation and money a lot. I don’t know why. Sot of them ahead enough cash to buy all the kiwi fruit in the local mall…people here do a lot of bragging about who they are  or who they once were, probably lies, as if anybody cares who the hell they might have been once. Does it matter?They’re a bunch of rich stupified bums to me.  

            Sure, they respect Donald because he buys people  like cheap suits off the shelf; he doesn’t seem to have itches or passions or any sentimental emotions. Maybe that’s smart but its not very interesting. There isn’t a  lot of heart  in Donald or anybody else here, but to be fair to him and all of them, they never pretend to be otherwise. You take them or leave them. Or they pay you a  bundle and one day they leave you. 

            Donald’s intriguing to the crew in Mar-a-Lago because he loves crime. He likes hanging out with pimps and whores, having steak dinners with old time  gangsters, showing up at a pleasure island or two hosted by some fancy degenerate who has some exotic and erotic kiddy fare hanging around near the pasta. They see him has a  knight, an adventurer on horseback  They admire his risky life,  his taste for peril, the way he stiffs people who might knock him off,  even  all the scuffling Supreme Court litigation. They would like to be quietly shopping for kiwi fruit with impunity.

            You want to know about Donald’s sanity? He seems a little crazy to you? I can understand that. Donald can’t get through a few sentences without lying. Maybe he should have been a fiction writer. Ht tells me he’s going to be re-instated as President or win an election he lost, or if he can’t do it as President as a private citizen he’d like to buy Greenland. 

            He wants to create a Graduate school in Trump University which doesn’t exist anymore and maybe never existed; he wants people to give him money to major in how to beat the tax game and  take a minor in bankruptcy.

            Yeah, he says these things and a lot more lunacy, believe me. He wants to make hotels on the moon; he plans to put a gold course underwater where land is cheap. I take it all in and say nothing. Believe me, some men have many more odious qualities than  this endless bonkers stuff he oozes out  That’s nothing.

            Donald”s most amazing  quality which I haven’t figured out yet and maybe never will is his gift to make people believe him. He has millions of people absolutely convinced he is a billionaire which he isn’t, won an election he lost, could get rich if they went to his University, could live again in the 50s which from what I’ve heard was a dreary hellhole, that they don’t have diseases that are plainly killing them,  that all Mexicans and Eskimos are criminals, Hillary Clinton drinks blood and sleeps with dogs, that Vladimir is a nice guy, and that Donald and I have an intimacy and deep bond that outdoes the love of any couple for each other in extant history

            How can they be as innocent as they are? It’s got to be metaphysical magic, Arpad.. Nobody on earth can be that stupid. I never believed there were such things as witchery and devilish  spells but there’s no other explanation for how Donald cons and bilks everybody. 

            You believe in God too? I’ve come to accept that there must be some very powerful deity who pushes and promotes Donald ‘s scheme to  scam America out of itself, maybe a few deities, who hate each other and would kill each other if gods could die, knows? I would say it takes at least three to five deities to produce anybody like him.   

            I feel safe from him in Mar-a-Lago myself, believe me. He can’t steal from me; I really have nothing. He might walk off with my wardrobes and a little jewelry. He can’t lei to me about his affairs because I’m glad he has them. Maybe at most he’s walking off cheating me of another life I might have lived that would have been more satisfying emotionally or in the sack.

            I wouldn’t put it past him. The truth is that I don’t need passion or even a little sex from Donald. I don’t hunger for it from anybody. Passion gets people in trouble. Indifference is boring as death but it is better than any hunger whatsoever. You think so too? You would, Arpad,you’ve veteran longshoremen and pimp.

             Still as somebody who’s never been fooled or tricked by him, at least not seriously, I can’t  understand why other people fall for his stupid cons. 

            Maybe Donald puts something in the water. Maybe it’s the damned nature of this country, Arpad.  We come from an old  world where we have terrifying  and satanic enemies.  We’re at home with local Slovenian monsters.  America has knocked off all its old horror shows. No, not just wolves and bears; people who intelligently and happily take up evil.

            This country has replaced fathers, mothers, God, Hitler, Stalin  the Joker and  and the Devil with lobotomized midgets. Even the monsters in their movies are stupid. Believe me,  It’s had plenty of wickedness from slavery and racism to Indian extermination. It’s like Donald. It never admits it ever made a mistake. I guess that’s why so many people vote for him. Here even the Evangelists don’t think they’re every going to be judged by anybody.

            Arpad.  I don’t expect anything from Donald other than what he gives me. He’s settles a fat line of cash on me.  I don’t wait for any show of love from him. He lets me know he can replace me. The truth is, given what he wants from me, he’s right. When and if he does he’ll chow up at a Slovakian meat rack instead of a Slovenian one and buy who the hell he wants.

            There’s a lot of poverty everywhere, a lot of sleek young women for sale all over the planet  who have about fifteen years to make their pitch and take their it of swag whether it a little or a big cache of bucks.

            Hey, for what the world offers him, Donald’s perfect for a country like this. The men here  don’t want intimacy. They want a pretty face they’ve never seen before to nibble at their sirloin. They are  hungry for somebody  civil with a great body.   If they have a stash they get it. If they don’t have it they might have to settle for something less. Then they go to watch the strippers once a week.

            Well, it’s better than Slovenia. Everybody where you are is either broke, corrupt, a boozer or  or a cousin of somebody named Hapsburg….You might come here yourself, Arpad. You could use a nice soft chair.   

            (She clicks off the cell phone. It rings again immediately.) 

             Who are you?… Sure, I’d like to be on the cover of your magazine. Not naked though. I don’t do those funky flesh peekaboo sessions anymore.  I might do something in classical lingerie. Nothing too overtly pornographic, of course. I’m better than that now. 

            My broker in Slovenia will give you the number of my Swiss account where you can deposit my fee….Arpad is his name. Arpad Arpad. We often have the same first and last names in Slovenia; it’ more efficient. Who needs two names when one will do?…Maybe no name might be even better…Just a number…A Swiss bank account number…

            Take your time; right now I don’t need any money.

            Thing change. Since he’s left the Presidency don’t like my husband so much anymore. These days he’s just a senile old con man with a crazy hair comb.  Who knows, tomorrow I might make a little journey to Zurich. 

            (She finishes her drink, sighs,and stares at the window. Enter Donald with a gun. )

Donald- I found this pistol in the trunk of the car. We’re in luck, honey. It’s got six bullets  It’s enough to take out three sets of our imitators, baby. I’ve got more bullets in my coat pocket. They were sitting there next to this gun. Ready to go?

Melania- You know, you might kill me with that gun, Donald.        

Donald- I wouldn’t do that, honey. I like having you around, at least for awhile. I could always replace you, of course. There’s a lot of pretty looking women in Slovakia. I might kill them too but I don’t do any of that. I’m satisfied with you. You suit me, Melania.

Melania- Don’t flatter me too much. I know you’re a con man but I can’t be  tricked by you.  You can always get enough of what I offer you as a wife Yerevan in Slovenia, not Slovakia.

Donald-  I could probably find them anywhere, baby, Tobago or Canarsie.   As long as there’s a hotel for the colonels who run the dump, there’s going to be a few women on the prowl  in the  corridors near the elevators or hanging around the store furniture in the lobby.

            Still, they after three weeks wouldn’t be any better or different, would they? Well, maybe they would be, but who cares?  I’m basically a simple man who likes a good hamburger.

Melania- I’m glad you’re not going to knocks me off, Donald. I really do enjoy my life. Being the former First Lady of America is a hellova a lot better than working as a whore or party girl even in a fancy hotel in Slovenia.

Donald- I’ll take your word for it. Nobody knows life in Slovakia better than you, honey.

            Ever think of killing me off? Hey, violence is the great leveler, honey. You could do it if you really get tired of me, baby. It would make an interesting public trial. With the money you’ve got from me to powder your nose you could hire lawyers who’d postpone the proceedings till you and your damned counselors both died.     

Melania- What would I plead? Self defense? Temporary insanity?

Donald- Maybe both. One of them should get you off.

Melania- I think if I killed you I’d make a plea deal. I might have to be under house arrest for a bit in the right house but I don’t want jail time.

Donald-   Well, if you decide to do it, the loss will be a big one for America. This country is run by midgets and inhabited by whores, punks and vegetables. Some of them vote for me. They need somebody worse than they are to lead them into a gaudy cosmic sewer.

            I’ve done it all, Melania. I’ve commuted treason, I’ve been a mole for Putin, who himself is quite a creep, I’ve told people who are dying of a plague to get out of bed and start dancing; Even in the grave I convinced them that nothing bad is  happening to them. I’ve  stole, raped, corrupted and stiffed everybody I can: I’ve even started a college, Trump University, to teach other people how to be as bad as I am, maybe worse.

Melania- Nobody could be worse. They might be as good at crime as you are but they can’t outdo you in felony. I wouldn’t kill you anymore than I’d knock off my beautician or my broker. Honey, you’re the greatest  President since Al Capone.

Donald- Al Capone was never elected President. I’m a lot better than Big Al.  Big Al veneer got seventy million people to say they wanted more of him, Melania. If he had, his enemies veneer would have locked him up.

Melania- You don’t think those people will ever put you in the slammer one day, Donald? I hope you’re right.

Donald-  They got Big Al on taxes. I’m a big time tax crook. Who knows?  I might run America from a cell. Believe me, I’m capable of it.

Melania- How do you know that gun works?

Donald- Who knows? Maybe it does; maybe it doesn’t. I’ll just say it works. These impostors all over this place will believe me. Rhey might even die because I’ve told them I’ve shot them. 

Melania- You’re a magical man, Donald. They believed you about the plague. You told these prime suckers they hadn’t died. Maybe you’re right

Donald- I am sort of a resident Florida wizard, Melania. Yet I do have my moments of doubt. I wonder sometimes whether I  should have been something substantial like a farmer or a dentist. We dilettante politicians have such thoughts.  I could have also played the cello.

            I really don’t like stiffing people. One of them might take revenge. They don’t need weapons; people can strange or poison other people. They can knock you off with a sewing needle or a kitchen knife.  All I need is one clever revenger and Ill be gone.

Melania- Well, we’re partners, Donald. Maybe that’s what marriage is about. Intimacy without murder. You can trust me. You might be killed, betrayed  or even eaten for lunch by other people. It won’t be me.

.

            (Exit Donald and Melania. The phone rings. Nobody answers it. ) 

                                    The End

Time: 2021

Place: A veranda with an ocean view at the back of Trump’s estate on Mar-a-Lago, There are two exit doors, one to the ante room, the other to the rest of the house with its kitchen and library.

Characters: Donald Trump

                 Melania Trump

            A veranda in Mar-a- Lago, Florida where Trump has his home. It has a view of the sea. It contains an empty steel table, two chairs, and two lounge chair to bask in the sun. Enter Donald and Melania Trump carrying two trays of food. Both have cheeseburgers and a large iced drinks. Melania’s glass is filled with a strong rum and coconut concoction. She seems to be tipsily drunk as she sits down with Donald.  

Melania- Maybe I’m stupid, Donald, but what is so attractive about Florida that we live here? As far as I can tell it’s good for crocodiles but too damned hot for me.

Donald- These crocodiles keep the Liberals from killing us, Melania. Don’t knock a hardworking smiling reptile.

Melania- What if one of them turns out to be a democratic socialist?

Donald- We don’t have lizards who are even faintly Left Wing in Mar-a-Lago, don’t worry. Maybe a few of them are Evangelicals; how the hell should I know? I don’t know how to talk to a miniature dinosaur.

Donald- You’re a long way from Slovakia. baby.

Melania- I’m from Slovenia.

Donald- Slovenia. Yeah. that’s a longer way from Tipperary. 

Melania- It’s too damned hot in Florida for me. I’ll bet you Hell is air conditioned. Satan may be evil but he isn’t crazy. We stay indoors too much to escape the heat, Donald. We’re practically under house arrest.

Donald- A lot of people are these days though they haven’t committed any crime. It’s almost a fashion nowadays among Americans to be locked up. It all started from Black folk doing a little time in stir for smoking a reefer. After a bit people thought it was interesting to be in jail for doing nothing at all.

Melania- It might be interesting to drop dead. I don’t want to do it.

Donald- That’s why this pandemic is about, Melania. People who’ve tried everything are discovering the virtues of being chained in to the walls in a dungeon.

Melania- You still don’t believe the plague is real?

Donald- I never wonder what might be real, honey. Life isn’t about reality; it’s about who your friends are, who wants to knock you off or put you in the hoosegow. When you’re got the right allies you can do what you want; when you have no connections you might have to wrestle with Nature but I don’t anticipate that ever happening to me. 

Melania- Well, I’m real, Donald. You’re real too.

 Donald- We might be the only real people out there, honey. You know, I talk to Hitler, Mussolini and Jack the Ripper sometimes on the phone, they’re all still alive and they like to hang out with Rasputin.

Melania- Really.

Donald- Yeah, Hitler is a dentist. He was always a guy who liked to had out pain but never figured out how to do it legally until he showed up in Argentina. Mussolini is working in a meat packing business in Topeka, Kansas. He speaks fluent English, always did. Nobody notices him. he’s just one more guy slaughtering cattle in Kansas. Jack the Ripper is doing advanced intestinal surgery at a posh California clinic. He figured out how to be legit too.

Melania- I love it when you talk that way, Donald. Maybe you’ll tell me Jesus is alive and well in Oregon.

Trump- Not Oregon. what the hell is happening in Oregon. Rain? You know what people do for fun there? Play Bridge.  Tijuana. He was a guy big into forgiveness. There’s a lot of things from the donkey acts on to forgive in Tijuana.

Melania- You make up reality better than God. You should have been a fiction writer. Maybe it’s slightly tinted cheeseburgers. You’ve sure got a hellova imagination and flair.

Donald- I don’t think so. If I did I’d be broke. Most famous writers are broke. They have to take second jobs. I guess they like sleeping with young college girls; I don’t blame them. It’s a perk. I like my own teenage lovers gutter-ripe and blue collar myself. They’re never distracted by an education.

Melania- I might be your kind of lover myself. I hope so; I’m married to you. Where the hell did you get your line of hooey, Donald?

Donald- I was born with it. A lot of rich people don’t act like me. I take the clout of having big bucks to the max, always have. They’re afraid to get really crazy, that’s all. I’m comfortable with it all. So are the seventy three million people who voted for me. They need somebody to create their reality besides Nature or God. The world as it is doesn’t satisfy them either. That’s the contract I have with them. That’s why they voted for me.

Melania- There’s not enough of them out there. Donald. A lot of people thought you were nuts. They elected Biden. 

Donald- You’ve been drinking those rum coconuts concoctions too much, Melania. you could lose your sanity with too much of that sugared booze. Would you put up with me if I didn’t have money? Would Ivanka? Would Putin? I can buy beauty the way I spring for a deluxe cheeseburger, Melania. I can buy loyalty too. I might even get you to say we’re not eating cheeseburgers. If I gave you enough cash wouldn’t you tell me we’re eating caviar?

Melania- No. I may be an off the shelf item on the cosmic meat rack but to me a cheeseburger is a cheeseburger. I’m eating them to please you. If I wash them down with a little honeyed liquor it might be because I don’t like cheeseburgers, at least not as much as you do. I like a more varied diet.

Donald- You don’t have any fear of dying from a venomed bit of Cheddar. Nobody in history ever got knocked off by a poisoned cheeseburger.

Melania- Maybe they have, Donald. Maybe the really lethal stuff is in the relish.

Donald- You’re drinking too much rum. That’s ll kill you quicker than a cheeseburger.

Melania- Donald, I’m not going to be drowning in booze like your brother Fred. I like being high and listening to you talk a lot of hooey.

Donald- I guess I’m entertaining. I’m glad I amuse you.

Melania- I loved it when you claimed election was a massive fraud and wouldn’t leave the White House. I though t it was wonderful when you said the plague was a fraud. I got a kick out of hearing you say Mexicans are criminals and Vladimir Putin is a declawed pussycat. That’s all marvelous stuff.

Donald- Melania, people misunderstand me when I run all these fantasies. I’m not really lying. I’m trying to get something de that I can make happen by telling a few fibs. I didn’t want to leave the White House. I liked the accommodations. That’s simple and shallow enough, isn’t it? I wanted the plague to go away, be honey, Vladimir of robbery in life, a hunt in the jungle or an alley, or a bit of harmless mendacity. Lying is what creates civilization.

Melania- Talk on, Donald. I will take another sip of this delicious sweet rum drink. I like you when I like you at all when you’re bogus and bizarre. I’d way you out to be an actor on a reality show on television but you already did that, didn’t you? That was all improvised fluff and phony feuds, wasn’t it?

Donald-Yeah. The producers liked me as a bad guy who liked to tell people they’re fired. I did that better than anybody. It’s not much different being President. You huff and puff and create today’s news. I made more jobs for the media than any massacre, flood or rape. It’s all a game, honey. They knocked me and took the money.

Melania- Nobody could follow you. You generated trouble and misery. You insulted people who wanted to to accommodate you. you almost sent a lot of your friends to jail and then pardoned them; that was all a bit of malarkey, wasn’t it? You’re a magician.

Donald- Ever see me do card tricks, honey?

Melania- No.

Donald- I don’t do them. People think I did them. I tell them I did them yesterday or last week. .I tell them I will l do them. That’s enough for them.

Melania- If I get high enough today, it might be enough for me.

Donald- Maybe. I learnt a lot of my stuff in Atlantic City. I hired some croupiers who never touched a card. I had whores working for me who never slept with anyone, not even themselves.

Melania- Y+ou also went bankrupt seven times in that town. Maybe your damned tarts should have gone to bed with somebody.

Donald- Honey, bankruptcy is my door to another world. There are always more innocents out there to con, believe me.

Melania- How’s your cheeseburger?

Donald- It’s like every other cheeseburger I’ve had since I was a kid. You know what’s great about them? Not the relish, not the mustard. You outlast them; they don’t outlast you. That’s a kind of magic , isn’t it? One moment you’ve get me chomping on a cheeseburger, another you’ve only get me.

Melania- This is a good cheeseburger. Still I get tired of a severe cheeseburger diet. You never do. Maybe I ought to learn from you how to be detached from any hope a cheeseburger might be a plate of oily Beluga caviar. 

Donald- You like that stuff? I thought people eat it because it’s expensive. It’s like gobbling down money.

Melania- Well, if they do, it’s genuine happiness. Why do you play golf?

Donald- I don’t really play very well,honey; it’s just a excuse for me to go out on a lawn and think things over. You know what I thought the last time I was out on the links? I played with the idea that I might take up something else besides endless fantasy.

Melania- What do you mean?

Donald- Well, you know I’ve lived my whole life as a rich kid , then a rich man. It’s not like your bringing up, Melania. I never knew whether anybody liked me. Maybe I didn’t want to know either. I could always buy some of them if not all of them. I didn’t need more than a few punks even when I was a teenager. Some of them of course went to jail. I seem to push some corrupt people that way. I know all about your background in Slovenia. It was pretty tough.

Melania- It keeps you alert. It’s only been a country several years. We used to be Austrian. I never learnt the national anthem. We didn’t have nay money but I was good looking and did a lot of light hustles in the local hotels. They said I was a model in your media releases; I must have been working doing ads for mattresses.

Donald- I know all about your youth, Melania. I hope you gave a lot of men a good time.

Melania- I must have. I had a steady clientele though none of them were from Slovenia. They wee mostly Germans, out of town salesmen. They never complained. Germans never whine all that much unless they lose a war.  I think they liked tall women with slim ups and an evil look like a witch. It’s a taste. I filled a niche, like organic flavored tacos. in America

Donald- What did you like?

 Melania- I don’t know. That’s why what was so wonderful about those heavy sessions in the hotels. Not only did nobody ask me what I liked but I never wonder what I liked myself.. There are things you don’t think about when you’re poor and maybe a little desperate., Donald. You do what you you have to and hope you wake up afterwards to do the same thing next week.

            You don’t know about that,Donald, It’s not worth knowing but it isn’t the worst of what can happen to you in life either. It’s a relief to have other people in the vicinity tell you who you are, what to think, what to do, in and out of the sack. It becomes their choice, not yours. You are always elsewhere.

Donald- You make a great case for slavery. I’ve had other problems. They say everything is better with money, even slow torture, cancer and a painful death. Maybe it’s all true. Maybe you don’t know whether you like me either, Melania. you take the money and we’re both happy there’s a lot of it. Maybe you don’t worry even now about whether or not you want be here. Maybe I don’t care what you think.

            What’s the difference in the end between somebody who does something they want to do and somebody who does it for a few bucks for me? At most it’s an inner detail that if one has any sense or doesn’t have leisure to think too much one doesn’t even notice.

Melania- If I told you I want to be here, you wouldn’t believe me, Donald. You could pay me to say that too.

Donald- I’ve been lied to plenty.. sometimes I believe what other people tell me.

Melania- You might be a very wary and solitary man inside, Donald. If I were rich I would be.

Donald- It’s worse than that, honey. I might have some deep doubts whether anything at all is real. That’s what I was thinking on the golf course.

Melania- You’re think of going on a quest for truth? That’s funny.

Donald- You don’t think I’m capable of it? I might astonish you, Melania.

Melania- What kind of truth are you looking for? Do you think the poor and a few saints know more about truth than the rich? Believe me, they are as stuck in a private jail as you are.

Donald- Some of us are tourists, honey. We like Norwegian pleasure boats. We like different dungeons on different days. You hang out in the same lockup forever, you tend to get a little stale.

Melania- I used to hear that from my married customers when I was hustling in Slovenia. Well, how are you going to do it, Donald. Would you like to sneak into the word beyond this estate in a disguise to look for wise men?

Donald- they might not let me back into this place if I didn’t look like myself. Maybe that’s not so bad.

Melania- I might be able to leave here either for the same reason. I can’t even go shopping in this damned place. I might be recognized here by your punks or some of my old Slovenian customers.

Donald- Maybe we could learn how to be invisible. I should have studied with a few more magicians.

Melania- Yes, some magicians are honest wizards.

Donald- People have said that about me. They can’t understand how I could spin put such malarkey and be voted for by seventy three million people who wanted more of the same bilge. American is a hard drinking country. Maybe there all a little lushed up like you.

Melania- It’s not such a bad way to get through your life, Donald. I was drunk most of the time I worked those hotels back in Slovenia. So were my customers. It helped me get through the tougher nights. 

Donald- I thought you said you didn’t have any qualms about how you lived in those days, Melania.

Melania- I had them, even God has them. We all have them. Even you had them on that golf course. We all wonder whether anything we say or do represents us. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe nothing does.

Donald- Well, you can always sit in a comfortable chair and watch television. I like to do that sometimes. I like the news especially. I know it’s all made up. I don’t mean that they fake all the people dying. The death is all too real. The reasons for dying are what’s phony.

Melania- All those mirages got us what we have, Donald. Don’t knock any of it.

Donald- I am happy I did all that fibbing. I don’t regret any of it. I just want to go on from it. I’m glad Biden is sitting in the damned White House , not me. I hope he gets Covid. He’s crazier than I am to want to be there when he could be here, Melania. He’s living in a snug bubble.

            I don’t know why I ever wanted to go into politics, get married or have kids, frankly. Politicians have detectives looking to find dirt about them; there always is a lot to find in any of us, believe me.

Melania- Not like you. You hunted down evil like nobody else.

Donald- Maybe I did. Don’t you think most people are like me? They want to be as wicked as I’ve been but they can’t afford it. I can. Have I ever done any time in stir. As long as I have my constituency and can get a jury trial no one will convict me.

Melania- I hope they won’t convict me either. I’ve been a little on the shady side no and then.

Donald- I got married because it’s nice to have a whore at home. Am I the only one? At least I’m willing to say it. Marriage can be more expensive than a luxury suite at one of my hotels. when you have a few bucks you don’t care. if ll they want is money, give it to them. they’re tarts and think like street chippies.

            Let them do it. It’s respectable. Luckily none of my kids have told me to drop dead but maybe they will next week. Maybe I should ask Hitler or Mussolini or Jesus how to make another life when your last one went south. They’re hard to talk to. They’re all very busy.

Melania- I guess I should learn a thing or two from you about life after life, Donald. I could really be anything, couldn’t I? I don’t have to be your public whore. Not that I ever was exactly. I leave that to Stormy Daniels or those Playboy Bunnies you ran around with once.

Donald- You still don’t understand those affairs, Melania. There is a freedom you have when there is no affection or interest whatsoever between two people in a private bedroom. I think Stormy and Karen were happy to get me into the sack with them. It didn’t mean anything and it passed the time for them better than watching an action movie.

Melania- I understand that. I felt the same way when I made the hotel scene in Slovenia. It’s a relief when nothing matters, nothing at all.

 Donald- Maybe it’s reality too, honey.

 Melania- I do orbit around you, Donald more than you ever do me.

Donald- Well, I’ve got the money.

Melania- Maybe that’s it. I’m not made of steel but I ve always found a bit of cash to be magnetic.

Donald- That might be reality too. Sometimes paper pulls us one way or another with an uncanny power. Most of the people I know who have money want more money. It must be addictive as heroin as well as magnetic. 

Melania- I miss you when you’re off with those Playboy bunnies or having a quick one with Stormy. Of course I always have your lookalikes the Secret Service dredged up from somewhere to console me. Still they aren’t you.

Donald- You sleep with my lookalikes? That’s good. If you can’t get me into the sack because im out of town or in a bedroom with a tart I’m glad you’re getting the next best thing; somebody who’s pretending to be me.

Melania- They aren’t so good at imitating you, Donald. Half of them are Liberals. They whisper strange things to me in the sack. The other half at least know what to say politically but they don’t say it like you.

Donald- Nobody talks like me. Nobody in fact is me but myself. You’re lucky you get the real things from me, Melania. When I die you’re gong to turn to those lookalikes for some way to getting through the night but it will never, never be me. I Seuss that’s a kind of chamber tragedy.

Melania- I might learn to like something else besides you. We aren’t living on an asteroid. .  .

Donald- I hope you do. I never look for you in other women. Hey, when I want you I’ve got you. You’re my wife. Still we’re a restless bunch, Melania. It’s no surprise when we’re ready to move on.

Melania- Move on to what?

Donald- Well, I don’t know. I tried some of those Melania lookalikes the Secret Service came up with. They were almost like you. Some where a little taller. Some had a very fake Slovenian accent. You know all sort of tricks from the Slovenian hotel days they couldn’t even imagine, Melania. Of course they had other moves I guess you never heard of in Slovenia.

Melina- Slovenia is civilized. Maybe we tried them for a while but we don’t like them.

Donald- Maybe. Otherwise I thought of being a golf instructor to the newly famous. I played with building a luxury orphanage for all those Guatemalan kids I took from their families. What is it I know and what is real in the world?

            I haven got the heart to kill people; I’m not really a leader. Otherwise I could run hiking trips in the Colorado mountains near the maximum security prisons. I’m not really a great talent as a lover; the good ones don’t pay their bedtimes a penny. I guess I could go on television as an evangelist but I haven’t got their restroom morals. Their love life disgusts me. . 

            The important thing is to be invisible, do something unobtrusive and unnoticed. I’ve had fame; what was it? It’s not much of a kick to have a bunch of empty people show an interest in you. I could have that showing up naked on a monetary. I’ve had money; it just works to enslave some slobs who hate you for meeting their price for living somebody else’s idea of who they are or whom they might be.

            I guess I could be a postman. I don’t know whether I’d qualify as a mailman. I don’t want to go out in the rain and snow to deliver some run of bills and dunning four color advertisements.

            Maybe I might be a garbage collector. There sure I enough trash in this world to throw into landfill somewhere. There might be a future for me in landscaping. I’ve got a a feel for lawns and trees. I’ve been looking into working as a guy with a few earth moving machines on my own golf course. I like what I’ve done there too.

            You know, we’ve got all kinds of wild animals on the fairways that only come out at night. There’s moles, warthogs, skunks, hares and even a bunch of harmless snakes.

Melania- You might be a lot less interesting to me as a gardener. I don’t know whether our marriage could take it.

Donald- Creation is full of changes, honey. When you buy into a husband you’re making a contra with somebody who’s been somebody else and is turning into somebody you may not immediately recognize. It’s true about me too. You are changing as much as I am. Maybe you’ll become a nurse. How are you with emptying bedpans?

            The cellphone rings, Donald pulls it out of his pocket.)

            Excuse me  it’s Paul Manafort. (He talks into the phone.) How you doing. Paul? It feels good to be out of jail, doesn’t it? Nobody likes it that much in the slammer. ..I know your penitentiary had a golf course and tarts and a big lounge with an open bar. Sometimes you might have felt you weren’t in stir….Yeah, we’re doing fine here at Mar-a-Lago. I don’t mss being President. It got too many fancy people interested in me.

            I was better off as a restless or a villain on a reality show. Politics is different than both of them. You might have real enemies…I’m keeping busy, don’t worry. I ‘m thinking of being a gardener. I don’t need to make any money; I have enough money. I like to smell the cut grass and look at the trees taking in the sun. maybe plants know something I don’t know.

            Of course plants can’t talk; maybe they suffer and are filled with fear but at least they’re silent about it. Still I feel an affinity for them. They never complain. They don’t seem to want anything. They are never miserable about nothing or if they are they are very discreet about it. I don’t like anybody who’s a whiner…You want me to set you up as an emissary to Putin? You have an idea for selling out America one more time and making a hotel deal to set up some luxury joint near the Mammoth fossils in Siberia?. ..

            Look, I’m out of that part of my life, Paul. I might have been Putin’s mole for a long while but like everything else that has come and gone…

            I think Putin may be a little crazy…He’s always trying to make trouble…I’m grandiose but I never trad to pretend I was able to terrify lions… If I won’t go back to working for him you’re going to have to go on public relief? I don’t believe it. You’re a con man in a world of innocents; you can’t ever go broke…What do you mean, I’ve got to do it? You’re got a lot of dirt on me; so has Mike Flynn and the rest of my crew but so what? I never pretended I was a nice guy. People like me because I’m a scowling son of a bitch.

            You’ve got nothing on me. You can’t even threaten me with assassins like Putin, Paul; your private hitman haven’t’ got a long tradition like little Vladimir for treachery.,,I’m not quite invulnerable but as close to it as anyone ever gets with a few punks and money. Maybe you ought to find another guy to front for your adventures among the big bones in Siberia. .Yeah, talk to you. Tell Vladimir to lay off muscling lions. One of them might decide to eat him. Lions love Putin stew. Bye-bye.

            (Donald puts down the phone.)

            That was Paul Manafort. He’s got an idea about how he could make Siberia into Miami.

Melania- You ought to stay out of Paul’s enterprise, Donald. He’s even crookeder than you are. He’s a ruthless chiseler and we have enough money.

Donald- Yeah, Paul is dangerous. He actually was personally offended that I didn’t want to be a high class con man anymore. He threatened me. He might be a bit of a loon; I don’t know.  .

Melania- Well, he needs you to be something else than a landscape gardener.

Donald- Yeah, maybe it wasn’t personal. It’s just character. ( The phone rings again.) Donald puts the cell phone to his ear.)

            Hello, Mike?…Yeah, I’m enjoying my retirement making senile whoopee with my wife. We’re having lunch. Nothing fancy, just cheeseburgers. I’m not kosher but- a cheeseburger isn’t kosher, Mike, but I don’t trust people who like to eat a lot of different things. It sows they’re restless, unhappy. I found something soft and chewy I liked and I’m grateful for it. I like being predictable, even to myself. Maybe it cuts me off from a kind of stupid bit of terror, who knows? What’s with you?,…

            No, I don’t want the army to storm the Capitol and make me President again. Tell the army to storm themselves. They’ve got the weapons to do it. I’ve been President long enough. Maybe the army has been the army long enough, too.

            They never did disband after the Second World War, did they?..You were in Argentina and had some dental work done buy a guy who turned out to be Adolph Hitler? I hope he used enough anesthetic. Did he seem happy? …

            That’s good to hear. It took him a long time to find his legit metier. …Then you went to Kansans for the thick steaks and found Benito Mussolini working in a meatpacking office? I’m glad he found suitable white collar work. How’s Benito?I classy thought he was a hello nice guy in the wrong job….Good to hear he’s all right…You had a stomach ulcer removed by Jack the Ripper? God, he must be a hundred and twenty. I admire a guy who’s stilt working in his old age.

            Then you went to Tijuana and found Jesus​?.Yeah,. He’s busy; of course he’s busy forgiving people there. Anybody would be.

            Sometimes it’ hard to be in the forgiving business in America. Nobody wants to be forgiven. People do all kinds of wickedness but they don’t want to be forgiven for any of it…He’s moving on to Matamoros and Acuna? Those funky border towns could use a guy like him.

            I know you’ve been the ambassador of the Army to Washington for a hellova long time? Is that who you really are, Mike? Maybe you could have been a stellar performer on the cello. Than about it. you don’t have to quit your job; you can run cello concerts at our army bases. ..If the army lets you go I’ll spring for your cello lessons..you don’t want to play the cello? Well, hire somebody who looks like you to play it and say they are you.

            Believe me, generals who are felons like you and play the cello competently are always going to generate an audience somewhere…No, I’m not afraid the army will knock me off if I very decorously drop out of the politician arena. They love retired people. They get those twenty year pensions to retire themselves. ..

            Maybe the world doesn’t need a mediocre landscaper like me but does it matter? The world is an old whore, Mike. It takes on everybody. It just isn’t young and pretty…

                        (Donald puts his cell phone back in his pocket.)

            That was Mike Flynn. He wants to run an insurrection and put me back in the White House. He didn’t like it when he heard we’re happy here as a couple of senile lunatics in Mar-a-Lago.

Melania- Maybe Mike doesn’t value being happy. Some people don’t, honey. .

Donald-  Yeah, they just want to be sated. I have the feeling Mike doesn’t understand me. He loves evil. He’s mad about being corrupt and mean spirited. I’m not like that. I don’t have half the opinions the Liberals think I have. I’m not a White Supremacist. I think people of every color are bums. I’m sure as hell not a racist of any kind. I’d say even simians who aren’t even human aren’t much good compared to dogs and cats.

Melania- You can’t expect everybody out there to make sense of your inner life. Some people haven’t even got the interest to guess who the hell you are.

Donald- You’re right. Mike translates everything I say no matter how crazy into a hunger to do evil. If I tell him I’m beyond thinking the world is as substantial as he does he’ll think I’m a Buddhist. .

Melania- You can live with his mulish stupidity.

Donald- I have. I’ve endured a lot of it.

            (His telephone rings. He puts it to his ear.)

            Stormy? No, honey, no hard feelings. A lot of people sleep with me and then sue me. Maybe I don’t bribe them well enough. You’ve got your right to get me in court to try to beat me out of a bundle. We’ll run this litigation several years, Stormy, and then settle it in five minutes in a latrine, don’t worry…

            Yeah, I’m happy here. I’m having lunch with my wife., Melania is very comfortable with our conversation; she’s right here, She knows I like to play around, believe me. Once I was playing around with her after all. ..You feel bad because I’ve ben out of the news for a week? It’s going to bring down the profits in your business?…You’ll Ike me to say something outrageous and stir up intrigue in our little mini-affair? Well, I guess I could do that. What thehell do you want me to say?

            I don’t think it’s going to help you much though. People get tired of hearing the same old bilge about the same old bums. They are fickle. They want a new bunch to feel superior to and pious about. That’s why you’ve got to make your money quickly in your business or mine. You make your bundle and then you get out.

            Afterwards you can spend your life washing the feet of lepers or watching daytime game shows. ..have you ever thought of sleeping with Joe Biden and Obama? You could be a Presidential Classic. That would keep you iconic. Nobody’s ever been a Presidential default tart before. It’s a wide open area of notoriety you might want to explore. You can push the Afro-American line too . Obama was really born in Taiwan though he thinks Taiwan is Hawaii. I thought for years Hawaii was Hawaii. maybe it is. .

            Yeah, I thought he was from Kenya but I was wrong. He’s some kind of foreigner but not the sort o I thought heh was. You’ll like foreigners like him; to a Slovenian nearly everyone on Earth is a foreigner i guess., even me.

            Joe Biden is a bread and butter guy; you’ve got to give him bread and butter sex. Nothing fancy, keep it simple.

            Yeah, you might you write me some copy and if I have time , maybe I’ll say it… I do like to improvise…talk to you.

                                    (He hangs up the phone)

            Maybe she ought to sleep with some of my friends. Vladimir could use a little more pleasure in his life. He takes his work too seriously. They all do in Russia. Maybe they like desperation.

Melania- It might be a bad habit.

Donald- I wouldn’t know. She might get on with Judas Christ of the Proud Boys too. The Proud boys is too male an organization for her, Melania. These boys or whatever they are need a little feminine balance.

Melania- Judas Christ. That’s hellova name for anybody, even a leader of a private army looking for trouble.

Donald- that’s not his read name. He’s really from Cuba. Or maybe Kenya. He pulls in some good money from the innocents. Maybe I should be from Kenya too. I’ve gone bankrupt seven times.

Melania- You could never be from Kenya. You don’t look like anybody from Kenya.

Donald- You’ve never been to Kenya; how do you know what the hell they look like?They could all look like me for all you and I know. Maybe he’s from Cuba. Who knows?

                                    The phone rings. Donald puts the cell phone to his ear.)

            Hello, Roger? How you doing? ..You’re starting a heavy metal death-grunt rock group? I didn’t know you could sing. You’re a talented guy. What’s it called?…Roger and the Hooded Conspiracy? Yeah, I like that. I might even get you a booking in Atlantic city. I still know a lot of people there. ..No,      I’m thinking of leaving politics altogether myself. Not a rock group though. I can’t sing very well like you. ..You can make a bundle playing las Vegas. They like famous people to entertain them there. ..I have enough money; I’m looking for a sleazy anonymity myself…Don’t worry, I won’t be too invisible. I know it’ll hurt your racket. ..How’s your pet lizard?…Good. Talk to you. (He hangs up.)

Melania- He’s collecting lizards?

Donald- Lately. Roger’s a little cheap when it comes to buying pets. He likes lizards. All they do is creep onto his widow and sit there for hours. He thinks they might be planning something. Maybe they are. What the hell could even any army lf lizards do to threaten America? It beats me. Still it keeps Roger suspicious.

Melania- I think Roger should learn to trust his close pets. He’s got noting to fear from an iguana.

Donald- Maybe he knows something about iguanas we don’t, Melania. I pardoned the guy when he’d pleaded guilty and was going to jail. I can’t do that little favor for him anymore. Now he might worry he can be pt in stir by a lizard.

                        The phone rings. Donald puts it to his ear.)

            Hello, Steve? ..What are you up to? Glad you’re out of the pokey? So are we all, Steve. They might get me on taxes, I don’t pay any. Yeah, I know they did it to Al Capone. I’m a little more connected than big Al was. I might get off. I’m not bothering anybody. I’m thinking of becoming a gardener. I might get a subpoena from an angry  tree or the grass. Usually the whole plant kingdom isn’t into litigation.

            You get some ideas about storming the Lincoln Memorial? Well, pass them on to Biden. Maybe he wants to take the place over for some reason. Maybe sell peanuts in front of it, gourmet peanuts. I can never understand a guy like that. Maybe he’s senile. Maybe we’re both senile. Maybe you’re senile. It’s either our brains disappear or we’re knocked off, right? Ever think of taking up gardening? You don’t have a garden?

            Well, just start digging in from of your house and make one. ..Yeah, that’s my advice. Don’t start a competing rock group; Roger is into that right now. You’ll flood the market…Yeah, rafter politics, there’s always the dregs of the entertainment business. Talk to you soon. Bye. (He hangs up.0

Melania- I never liked Steve . I always thought he was too intellectual.

Donald- You get used to him. Maybe that’s not quite liking him. It’ll hare to do.

                        (The phone rings again.) 

            Sorry honey. If I was some goddamn nobody I wouldn’t be harassed with calls like this. When you’re somebody, and I am, everybody wants a favor form you, even if its free tickets to a baseball game. (He speaks into the phone.) Hello? Rod?..Like being out of jail? Everybody does. No, I don’t want to buy any life insurance from you. (He hangs up.) Rod is always into some racket or other. Boy, has he got a foul mouth. I don’t see him going into politics again; he’s too crooked even for the chumps in Illinois.

Melania- Rod is a guy like no other.

Donald- I’d think with the mouth he has he should go into the army. They like people to talk dirty in the military. They think it’s funny.

Melania- How would you know? You were never in the army, Donald. You told them you had a sore foot or something.

Donald- Did you want me to get killed in Vietnam? I’m dumb as a donkey but not that crazy.

Melania- No, I’m glad you didn’t get drafted.

Donald- Me too. It’s not my destiny. What it might be I don’t know?

Melania- Maybe you’re living it.

Donald- Yeah, you know, we all beat the draft among the Presidents lately. Maybe it’s one of the only credentials to lead this country. (The phone rings. Donald puts it to hi ear.

            Hello. Vladimir?.. I’m comfortable here. It’s nice and warm in Florida. In Russia you sure as hell never need air conditioning. God cools everything off for you. Isn’t that why you took over Crimea? Dint you want a nice place to sit in the sun when you get tired of Russian politics? …

            Yeah, I’ve asked myself what the hell I should be up to down here. Sometimes the best things you can do is nothing… I can’t be your mole in the White House anymore, Vladimir. I need to take up a private life. I’m not sure what….look, I can’t be threatened with nerve poison or dumped into prison by you, Vladimir; I’m not a Russian. I’m protected by the Secret Service. They supply me with lookalikes too when I get tired. You’re likely to kill a lot of people who only look like me. I’m not afraid of death either. I know there’s life after death. It might be in Kenya or Cuba. .

            Yeah, God puts paradises in strange places, doesn’t he?..Would you be interested in a rendezvous with Stormy Daniels? She needs to make news; that’ll do it. Yeah, she’s a porno star I want you to meet.

            You’ll get along with her. Maybe you won’t like her but it doesn’t matter. This is a big world; we don’t have to be enchanted by everybody in it…What’s a porno star?.. You don’t have porno in Russia? ..Well, I’ll send you a truckload of her movies…You’ll know what porno is in about five seconds…by the way, say hello to your pet lions. Talk to you.

                                    (He hangs up.)

            I guess Vladimir feels I’m still working for him. It’s hard to retire from Vladimir’s more pesky operations. He’s a workaholic himself and he doesn’t understand we all might need a little rest.

Melania- We don’t trust him in Slovenia.

Donald- You Slovenians are right about him. He’d just want to enslave all of you. What is there to trust? (the phone rings. He puts it to his ear.)

            Yeah? Bobby Lee Stillwell?…Yeah, I know you from the media; you did Reality shows. You wore cowboy hats. You worked on wrestling too, didn’t you? ..what can do for you, bobby? ..No, I don’t want to hold a posthumous press conference and say outrageous things anymore. Find somebody else to do it. I did it long enough. I’m tried of being visibly, publicly nuts. ..Look, you won’t go out of business.

            Plenty of people can do an impression of me and they don’t have to be good at it, either. They can be competent, reliable, show up.

            That’s enough. The public will take it, believe me. Still they will miss me because I’m a luxury product. Everybody likes a turn at the buffet tale when they’re serving lobster pasta. ..keep in touch, Bobby, we might do a few more wrestling shows together on prime time. …

            No Joe Biden is not a wrestler…I don’t know, maybe he could learn to be one, who knows? His wife could never be one, Bobby. Joe is boring. Talk to you ( He hangs up. The phone rings again. Donald puts it to his ear.)

            Chu-chu? How’s the drug business?…..Yeah, we politicians make them unhappy, you drug bigwigs make them happy. We work together, don’t we, Chu-chu. ?… I’m not making too many people feel lousy these days, Chu-chu- I like a little invisibility like you. ..you won’t go broke; just be ready when your merchandise goes legit…take it from me; it’ll happen.

            Don’t be the front man; sell it by proxy. Get some old decrepit football player to run ads for it. I ran a gambling casino that twenty years before I set up legit in Atlantic City,Ii could have been indited and done time for. I had a line of women too. That’s legit now too, thank God.  People used to go to the hot seat for that. Don’t ever get too legit though; it might make you less intriguing,even to yourself. Talk to you. Bye.

                        (he hangs up. The phone rings again. He puts it to his ear.)

            Michael Cohen?…No need to apologize. I would have done the same thing myself to you if I could. ..You’re out of jail and eating in a French restaurant?..Good. You’ve got a book? I know you didn’t write it; nobody writes confessions anymore when they’ve got ghostwriters who can scribble about themselves do it better than they can…Hey, if I publish my memoirs I might want to use your ghostwriter if he’s any good…No , right now I don’t have anything crazy to say that’ll help your sales. ..

            I know you’ve been disbarred but so what? How are you at wrestling? You don’t have to be all that good, Michael; it’s all fake. You could start a death-grunt rock band. Roger is putting one up in Las Vegas. You play the drums?

            Yeah, Roger can always use a drummer. Give him a call. Talk to you. Bye.

Melania- You know, a lot of people want you to be the old Donald Trump, Why don’t you accommodate them? The Secret Service has those lookalikes hanging out here in case I plotz. Why don’t you get them to play you the way you once played yourself? You’re be doing them a favor and even make Vladimir happy too. You might do best to keep on lying. If you ever told the truth or said nothing you might cause a Depression.

Donald- You’ve got a point. I need a wife around like you not just for sex but for advice. Ivanka, my last wife, always gave me very intelligent counsel. She was the one who put me on to acting bad guys on Reality Shows and get me seriously into wrestling too.

            Maybe Roger ha somebody telling him to get into rock music. We all need a clever wife like you.

Melania- I’m not bad in the sack either, Donald. Otherwise they would have dumped me from the top floor of a fancy hotel.

Donald- Yeah, maybe that’s the genius of Slovenia. I’ll go into the anteroom and ask the Secret Service to come up with a lookalike. You can pretend he’s your husband too; I don’t care. He may not be me but at least he’s paid big bucks to try to seem as if he might be me.

            (Exit Donald. After he leaves, Melania’s cell phone rings. She uts it to her ear.)

Melania- Arpad?.. No, I think think Donald is up to leading your Slovenian friends to run an assault on the Capitol. ..Maybe he is though. It’s crazy enough. .no I don’t want to go back to work for you in those fancy hotels you’re building… my light hustling days are over, Arpad. .. once I used to be poor and good looking; now I’m fifty, rich and gorgeous. I don’t need that kind of session work anymore. I can hire gigolos if I feel blue to work for me.

            Yeah, poverty does that, Arpad. It puts a lot of people to work at things they’re indifferent to or even hate, but I guess it’s the goad that gives them some kind of job. I was lucky I met Donald. Most tarts ever get that kind of break. It’s fortune. I could have been a madam, I guess, if it hadn’t been

Maybe chief madam.

            I’m not sure I like to be rich either. When you’re a bum you know who your friends are. Of course sometimes it’s nobody.

            I don’t think he suspects I’ve guessed he’s not the real Donald Trump. Yeah, the real one was surgically replaced if you know what I mean by people you don’t want to know about after he won the primary. He was too cray. He scared a lot of people he should have kowtowed to. They didn’t want a second Hitler. Maybe they got a third one. They tried out a few Donald Trumps before they got the right one. ..How do I know he’s a phony? He hasn’t guessed that I’m not Melania.

            If he were the real Donald he’d pick up I’m somebody else quickly enough. Of course its’ possible he doesn’t care whether I’m real or not. If he isn’t real himself, why should he worry? 

            You remember, Arpad, they replaced the real Melania when she couldn’t mangle English as well as they needed her to speak it. I was a better First Lady for them. I’ve got a musical ear. Sometimes we have competition for who we are, Arpad. They got rid of her and dumped her somewhere. I think they killed her. Maybe it’s a dump near where they knocked off the real Donald. He’s in a concrete block somewhere.

            Melania didn’t even get that kind of sendoff. She’s at the bottom of a pile of landfill. When you’re at the top. Arpad, you’re dealing with a lot of murderers, believe me.

            They run the world by force that way, after all. They don’t mind knocking off a lot of people at the bottom or top to do it. They’ve got the middle working for them to do both. It’s safer there. You become a soldier for somebody, you get into some kind of uniform, and you might last through the day. Like me. Otherwise, you’re in big trouble. ..

            Got to hang up, Arpad. Here comes some bogus Donald who thinks I think he’s real. I can play along with it too. (she hangs up.)  .

                                                (Enter Donald.)

            You look exactly like the Donald who just walked out of here. It’s amazing what a little makeup can do. You ready to be outrageous and say crazy things?

Donald- I was always happy to get a little nuts when I got the payoffs I did for it, Melania. My lying got us this dump we live in. It’s better than a lot of places. We have each other too. We’re better than a lot people.

Melania- Well, it’s been a long, long way for me from Slovenia. Where’s Donald, in the garden growing tomatoes?

Donald-  It doesn’t matter where he is. I’m Donald now. Maybe he took a long walk.

Melania- You didn’t kill him, did you?

Donald- I swagger a little but I’m not much for violence. Melania. I don’t knock off anybody. I might betray them here and there in small ways; everybody does that.

Melania- I’m going to miss him, maybe. I guess I’ll have to put up with you.

Donald- I’m an unknown but a good mimic. You could do worse, kid.

Melania- I have done worse. I’d rather do better.

Donald- Maybe you’ll have a bit of stray charity for me, Melania. I might make a mistake. I wasn’t born to be anything like your sainted Donald.

Melania- Really. Who or what were you born to be? Some bum from Topeka?

Donald- It doesn’t matter, does it? Whom were you born to be?

Melania- If I told you it might distract you from your life, Donald.

Donald- Well, let’s make love. We might as well break each other into our marital life.

Melania- All right. Would you like a little tumble in the anteroom.

Donald- No. not the anteroom. Maybe the kitchen. Or the library.

Melania- That’s good. They both have an open bar.

Donald- Leave your goddamned cell phone on the table, honey. You aren’t going to need it in the sack. You haven’t got it strapped to your body, do you?

Melania- Not yet. I may be an old  whore but I’m not quite a cyborg, Donald.  Of course sometimes I think I can’t do without it.

Donald- I don’t want to have to rip if off. Honey, we don’t want to be interrupted when we make love, even if it’s Paul or Vladimir.

            (They put their cell phones on the table. Exit Donald and Melania. The cell phone rings for over twenty seconds on an empty stage. (Enter Donald and Melania from the exit to the anteroom. Tey look around. Silently for several seconds.

            Donald turns off the cell phones.  They are similar to but with a slight change of clothes clearly not the Donald and Melania who had left through the other exit. Melania talks without an accent. Donald has a slight different voice, perhaps more hoarse. )

Donald- They’re gone, baby. Looks as if they’ve gone to the library to make love.

Melania- Ever been up there? It’s filled with comic books. It’s got vintage copies of Superman. The classic stuff from the 30s.

Donald- I guess they don’t need us as long as they are whatever is legit and real around here.

Melania- Maybe they will the day after tomorrow.

Donald-  Everybody gets tired. If they don’t they get inept.. one day they won’t satisfy either the people who hired them or the real Donald Trump and Melania if they still exist beyond  bones in a concrete block or if there ever was either of them working their scams.. Then we’ve have our change to show them what Donald Trump and his wife should be like, baby.

Melania- Do you feel up to it? I’ve got the Slovenian accent down pretty well but I’m not sure I can be the Melania they’re looking for. I don’t know anything about Slovenian hotels and the sessions offered by the local tarts. I read about them but I don’t know I have the feel for working within them. I read Stanislavsky. I’m not bad doing low comedy.

Donald- Well, do you think I know what it’s like to be a Reality Show bad guy and a bad wrestler? I’m basically an introvert. The standards of credibility is very low, honey. 

Melania- You’ve got the voice and the orange hair down, Donald. You’re fat enough. You’ll pass. You’ve got the swagger and the talent to say crazy things too. You’ll be okay.

Donald- I better be. They might kill me if I do a bad job. 

Melania- Who’s they?

Donald- People who have strong ideas about who and what is leading this country. That’s all you need to know.

Melania- You know who they are?

Donald- If I knew I wouldn’t tell you.  If they thought you had more information that you needed to work for them competently they might knock you off just to be sensibly cautious. They benefit after all by being invisible.

Melania- You think it’s a conspiracy?

Donald- No, unless you think every group is some covert bunch who have a secret agenda. Maybe it’s true. Maybe the Boy Scouts are up to something we don’t know about or want to know about.   

Melania- Are your parents and  family okay with this job?

Donald- They love it. Why shouldn’t they be for it, honey. It helps support them. Don’t think they don’t get a check every month for their silence. There are a few old lovers on the pad too. They like the money. They don’t mind  being  quiet as the dead. Nobody knows where I’m from, what my past might be,

Melania- Yeah, my  family and pals are on the pad too. It must be great to be able to print money and shut people up.

Donald- We’ll never know. Honey. If we did they’d lock up up, right? When they do it  it’s paying somebody a salary either to do something or to do nothing.

Melania-  I’d rather be bribed to do something than to do nothing. I don’t like having to think things over too much, Donald. It might be a little depressing.

Donald- We’re doing okay, Melania. We aren’t broke. Most of the world is hopelessly poor. Nearly all the governments on Earth are into force, not bribery. We aren’t being thrown into a dungeon or executed.

            We even you might say have an adult competence if it’s an ability to imitate people  who maybe don’t exist in the first place. That’s a talent, Melania, or whatever your name is., assuming if you had a name. Most people are born with one. What the hell was it?

Melania- It doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant. It’s even a burden. If I can get a name I can also drop  it too. Lots of people do it. Hollywood stars always leave their names in the toilet somewhere. Do you think John Wayne was really John Wayne?

Donald- Nobody is really John Wayne. John Wayne was ion Morrison. I could never name my son ion. It’s like that johnny Cash song: A Boy Named Sue. Maybe John Cash wasn’t johnny Cash either.

Melania- Maybe we should quite politics and go into acting in films. Somebody’s going to make a movie about the people we’re supposed to be.

Donald-  I’d rather play Abraham Lincoln.  Want to see my Abe Lincoln imitation?

Melania- I’ve  already taken in your stand up routines enough, thanks.  Some people are so odious I can’t even bear some vaudeville number featuring  them. Besides, you’re too short to be Abe Lincoln.

Donald- They can film me quietly standing on a chair. If there’s ever a  musical about Abe Lincoln I might have a shot at iconic stardom, Melania. I am pretty handy warbling a tune or two.  Of course , if it’s rap, I just need to have rhythm.

Melania- Focus on what or who the hell you are, Donald. You’re  sort of a  phony and shadowy candidate to be Donald Trump.

Donald-  Well, maybe that’s true but it’s better than being nothing at all.  You know, when you’re a kid, Melania, you never know exactly  how you’re going to fit into the adult world, or even whether you might ever have a place in it. 

            Some people have a calling. They know they were born to play the cello or give counsel to people who are insane. They don’t have to wonder why the y were placed on Earth by God or what their ultimate destiny might be.

            I always thought I’d make a good three humped camel herder. I have feeling I might have been

one in my past lives. Ever see any camels running around in America? Even fake camels?

Melania- Not even one.

Donald- I also thought I might be a horse meat butcher. It turned out it’s illegal t sell perfectly edible horse meat in the Untied States.  If I would have followed my starry calling I could have been arrested and thrown into stir forever for selling horse meat steak. I don’t know whether its a misdemeanor or a felony. Maybe I could have gotten on parole.

            Still that was my cursed affinity to work as an adult in life. Once I realized eating horse meat was only going to be legal after they made arson and bestiality legit I went into whatever else I could do but didn’t feel any deep resonance about.

Melania- I understand.

Donald- I took fancy white collar jobs that I didn’t care about. I made oodles of money but if a man doesn’t have work he loves he’s never entirely happy. 

Melania- Of course.

Donald- He starts looking for sanctification in amusements that never promised to make him even mildly amused. He starts buying things he doesn’t need. He changes like the color of octopuses and it’s all for worse.

            He’s happy to have anything in his life that gives him a mild moment of very faint enjoyment or satiety, or at least something that doesn’t give him acute spams of pain.

Melania- I can appreciate that.

Donald- Still there’s  a huge army of folks out there like me. They don’t feel all that much felicity either. They often don’t  like other people because they don’t like themselves. In fact sometimes they despise them because they think they’re in a nightmare carnival looking with horror into a twisted mirror,     

Melania- That is a tough situation.

Donald- Maybe it I would have been a three humped camel herder or a horse butcher and honored my nature it would have been worse. It could be I’ve been lucky not to be who I really am.

Melania- I know all about that. I’ve been wondering what I would have been what I sensed was my primal destiny.

Donald- What was it that you  thought you should have been, Melania?

Melania- You don’t ever want to know. you might run away from+ me in a wild panic.   

Donald- Don’t tell me. I don’t ever want to  feel anything but love for you. I know you’re imperfect. here and there I’m a bit flawed myself. That’s why love is on some level an act of charity.

                                    (The cell phone rings. Donald picks it up and puts it to his ear.)

            Hello?..Kundrashiki of Delhi?…You’d like to produce a line of toilet paper with my face on it? Sure, why not? You have the designs? Am I smiling or do I look sort of glum and ferocious? That’s good. Angry but fatalistic?…I can resonate with that very well, Kundrashiki…send me a complementary carton of the stuff. It’s got to be soft…fluffy…like a  lover’s kiss …talk to you, Kundrashiki, baby.

                                                (Donald hangs up thoughtfully.

            It’s hard to be famous. you make enemies and creates a business for somebody who wants to sell your scowling face on their toilet paper.

Melania-  I wouldn’t like my face on any toilet paper. I think I might be vaguely insulted.

Donald- That’s the difference between you and me, honey. I don’t mind having enemies that can’t get enough of hating my guts. As long as I can make a few bucks being their kind of super-villain  it’s more than okay with me.

Melania- Maybe I’d like to see me on a few fancy napkins.

Donald- You’d look okay on a silken cloth one.  Maybe should get back to Kundrashiki and see whether we can cut some kind of deal.

                        (The cell phone rings. )

Stanislas Krakow?…Glad to talk to you, Stanislas….You’re looking to name a sewer after somebody famous? I’m your man.  Just spell my name right. You’ll get the Trump imprint. Is it a big cloaca?… Yeah, these cisterns are never big enough…talk to you.

                        (The cell phone rings. Donald answers it)

            It’s for you, Melania.  It’s probably those pesky Slovenian hotel people.  Tell thyme you’re retried.

                        (Melania picks up the  cell phone from Donald.)

Melania- hello…You say Slovenia is going bankrupt?…Donald knows all about bankruptcy; I’ll  put him on…you don’t wanted to talk to him,; you’d rather talk to me?,,,,okay…Why don’t how change the laws of Slovenia to make something legal that’s a crime in any other damned place? It worked for us in Atlantic city…Well, you can make cockfighting and arson legal and set fire to hospitals while the chickens try top slash each other to death…

            Murder could be legal too.. .  I don’t mean murder of people; that would be immoral…murder of wild animals…you don’t have any wild animals in Slovenia?…You killed all the wolves and bears?… Just most of them?  Well, could import them….you could pick them up in Africa cheap…talk to you.

            (She hangs up the phone.)

Donald, can you and your friends do anything for Slovenia? I know you’re not President but everybody in my  native country is starving and broke.

Donald- What can I do? I could always build a hotel there and the tourists could burn it down while they’re shooting buzzards and snakes.  No, I don’t think I can  help Slovenia. Nothing can redeem Slovenia from the dregs of Chapter Eleven anymore. They are  finished.

Melania- Well, since I’m really not from Slovenia  I guess  I can accept that. They do make a great pear wine.

Donald- We’ve got some here on ice at the open bar. Honey, let’s make love.  We can accelerate the imminent economic fall of maybe the whole world.

Melania- Really? What do we bring to the sack, Donald” We don’t have our past, our history, out real names, our family and friends,  the town we came from if it was a real town or even a city dump and not a real state development filled with ciphers deep in the sticks. We sure as hell don’t want children .            If we sent them to school they’d learn from professionals how to tell us to drop dead.  All we  have is the ability to give each other pleasure.

Donald-  If we were married, had a community, and could be who we really are, it could be a lot worse honey. Everything out there in the vast electronic world is an invitation to embrace slavery. We’re better off here being in the sack in the shadows.

Melania- Maybe. Where do you want to make love, Donald? In the kitchen?

Donald- No, the anteroom.  They have  a bed there that’s fit for elephants.

Melania- Have they got an open bar?

Donald- Two of them. One for brandy and one for whiskey..

            (Exit Donald and Melania. The telephone rings for about twenty seconds.  Donald and Melania emerge from the other exit.) 

Donald- You sure they’re dead, baby?

Melania- I went overbore to the bed after they were lying there comatose and jobbed them with the that funky Abyssinian poison you got from Paul Manafort. . They’re food for alligators, honey.

Donald- The  Secret Service thinks  we’re  toast. They’re sure we’re in a concrete block or landfill somewhere. We knocked off our supposed killers with a few jobs when they thought we an friendly and easy target for them.  They’re in the  concrete paradise now. that’s where we’re going to put those two fresh corpses of Trump and Melania we left in bed in the library  honey. I got to find the right block of concrete that’s big enough to inter both of them.

Melania- We’ve got plenty of concrete blocks around here. They’re all over the beach front. they use them to keep the sea out at high tide. Don’t worry.

Donald- maybe we’ll have to imitate them. Otherwise the Secret Service will be on to us; they’ll knock us off too.

Melania- I don’t think so. Then they would have anybody to guard and keep safe from assassins, Donald. They’d be out of a job.

Donald- Well, there’s always those two creepy  phonies hanging out in the anteroom.

They could use them if the bitch ever gets a Slovenian accent right.

                                    (The phone rings. Donald picks it up.)

            Hello?…Vladimir?… You want to start a Death Grunt rock band?..I could introduce you to my friend Roger. You won’t have to audition. . .

            I know you sing and play the piano. I thought Fats Domino was better on Blueberry Hill than you, but then, Fats never was much of a politician. You’ve got it all over Fats once you two aren’t singing and  away from the piano….You’re tired of politics? Look,  we all outlive our original choices, Vladimir. Ask anybody in a marriage or in jail.

            We’re  a long lived species like giant turtles. We’re just better looking.  Like everything else, it’s got its shadowy side. You’ve got a nice warm place to eat oily black caviar in Crimea. A lot of people in your country are freezing.  You sit in the sun, drink pineapple flavored vodka and spoon oozy fish eggs into your mouth. They’re eating tepid kasha and huddling around  a fire…Las Vegas is warm. Maybe it’s too damned warm. What the hell else do you know besides Blueberry Hill? ..

            No, Be My Love is io Lanza. Believe me, you are not io Lanza. Vladimir, with your Russian melancholy you might get into Mood Indigo… 

            Yeah, I might play Las Vegas too one day. I’m not much of a singer but maybe I can lip-sync  somebody else. ..I don’t mind retirement , but sometimes I do want to  yodel a little in public..they get tired of you even if you’re fats Domino. You know what sunk me? The damned plague.

            I don’t mean that I’ve got it but that when I told people there was no pandemic  when they saw the coffins they didn’t believe me. I can’t understand that. I told them all sorts of things that were much more pure fantasy and they  accepted it well enough. They eat lies like swine swallow trash.  -I even compared myself to Abraham m Lincoln. Nobody laughed.  They bought that  too. Maybe I should have said George Washington.

            I have a very loyal constituency, believe me. They might be a bit loose in the head but so are all of us, so am I  Half a million people were plotzing  and I told them they were hellcat and ready to run the marathon.  They still voted for me,Vladimir. They wanted four more years of my brand of  pure malarkey…

            You wonder why?….I think they had had enough of sanity, Vladimir. It’s apparently just too difficult to go though life sane and sober. .I can understand that . I’ve hf a lot of major disappointments myself, I can tell you. I never won a professional wrestling championship. Of course it would have been fake but I deserved it. I was the unsung Bruno Sammartino of the sport.  Vince McMahon could have done it for me.

            I could have beaten the Iron Sheik. Instead, I was always viewed as a freak I that world, which I have to tell you is filled with a whole legion of bizarre lunatics…

            Yeah, the damned Covid finished me. It’s  also kept me under fancy house arrest along with everybody else. I  sit in Mar-a-Lago eating cheeseburgers one after another like they’re running out of cattle meat and cheese, I’m comfortable enough but I have no idea what is going on down the street, or a mile away from me.

            Nobody else does either. They’re locked into their  houses and  telling their servants out to bring them crappy killer take out stuff: pizza and curry noodles. ..it’s  all over the world, I guess, but the truth is nobody knows what’s going  on beyond their front door. we could be invaded by Mars or Jesus and nobody would notice.  The streets are empty; the whole world seems to be silent. I don’t see any airplanes in the sky.

            No, not even your airplanes. You could be invading us and we’d never know it. Maybe you are. Maybe you’re sitting n the White House instead of Biden, how would I know?  On the other hand, maybe we invaded you and you don’t know it. Maybe  I’m sitting in the Kremlin eating blintzes and pickled beets.  I’m not even sure we’re not invading each other. .  

            Well, does it matter? I’m here and so is Melania, so we must be somewhere. Wherever that is, somebody is making cheeseburgers for us. We’ve always got a full bar. We’ve got gallons of booze for her  sitting in the cellar. We might run out of toilet paper but there’s always napkins.

            I’ve been running an legit insane asylum for fur years; I’m the patient and I’m also the doctor. Sometimes they’re both nuts. Sometimes the asylum is a piece of fluff or imaginary.  I guess this plague will go away maybe next year or next month but after I told them there was no pandemic they don’t take me seriously anymore…

            Yeah, I did tell them the Insurrection was a lone-in. They didn’t like that much either. Why do people believe a guy for a bit and then think he’s a lying creep? I don’t know. Maybe I should have told them the plague was  a Latino venereal disease.  My constituency doesn’t like Mexicans much. I don’t know why; they make good servants. Frankly I think they might be superior.  Ever see a Mexican miserable about nothing?

            It’s a painful experience to run an insane asylum, isn’t it? How the hell did you keep in power, Vladimir? I always heard about Russians as natural revolutionaries. ..You do it by terrifying people? Well, maybe I was never good at creating communal fear. My specialty  is saying crazy things and making money , not threatening people…

            I know you want to quit and do an act in Las Vegas but .there are probably more Death Grant rock acts there already. You could open for some of them.  You might have to wait a bit for a booking. Right now you’re going to have to be comfortable with singing Blueberry Hell in Siberia. I don’t imagine there are any hills filled with berries  in Siberia. They won’t know what you’re singing about.

            You’ve got the Covid all over Russia too?Well, I guess it’s that kind of democratic plague no? It just  infects everybody. you might hole up somewhere. I heard you’ve got a dacha with a beautiful view of the Black Sea . Looking at the water makes a guy peaceful. Sometimes you see a seal or a dolphin. waving at you…Talk to you soon.

                                    (Donald hangs up the phone.)

            That was Vladimir. He’s  getting restless. Luckily he can sing and play the piano. He can always get work.

Melania- I don’t think Vladimir needs to hold down a job anymore. He’s walked off with billions of rubles. That’s what they told me back in Slovenia.

Donald- That’s good to hear. I guess he’ll veneer try to hit on me for a loan.

                                    (The phone rings. Donald picks it up.)

It’s for you, Melania.

Melania-  Thanks. (she takes the phone and puts it to her ear.) Arpad? …You’d like to put out a line of slinky underwear and put my name on it? Sure. How’s Slovenia these days? Still having an economic crisis …Well, it’s normal; it was that way under the Turks…

            People adapt to everything, Arpad. you’ll just be one more generation of bums who are poor and maybe starving. …

            You  listened to me, mad arson legal and people are burning down  their own houses? Look, I’ve got an idea, Arpad. Why don’t you all come to America? Slovenia is the damned pits; you get here and get some Korean banks to help you open up ethnic restaurants. What are the national delicacies we make in Slovenia, I forget…Gruel and  pickles? ..Well, what about people guzzling our flavored vodka.?…

            Maybe pineapple or mango flavor. You can pretend it’s the national drink; nobody will know the difference here. ..What other flavors? I don’t know. Pickle? . I don’t see a market for pickle vodka…maybe you’re right if you’ve got the right kind of pickles….half sour, maybe….talk to you..

                                                (She clicks the phone shut.)

            That was an old pal of mine from Slovenia. He used to be a pimp. Now he’s a  broker. He’s a force in hedge funds on the Slovenian stock market.  Do we have any way of making pickle or pineapple vodka here?

Donald- How  the hell should I know? I could tell you but I’d be making it up.

Melania- I hear some noises from the anteroom. Do you think it might be more of our phony imitators? The Secret Service hired a truckload of them from Appalachia.

Donald- Could be. We’ll go into the anteroom and check them out. If they’re there we’ll kill them.

Melania- With what? We used the last pint of poison on that damned couple in the library.

Donald- We can strangle them.         

Melania- I’ve never strangled anybody. I might not be good at it.

Donald- I never have either. Maybe we can stab them with knives. 

Melania- you means these little knives we have on the table to cut the cheeseburgers? I don’t think they can hurt anybody..

Donald We’ve have to get close to them to do any damage. We’ll have to think of something else.

Melania- We  could lock them in the anteroom. After while of drinking at the open bar they’d starve to death.

Donald- The anteroom hasn’t got any doors. You thought it made it more spacious, remember? 

Melania- I was never good at interior decoration. I’m lousy at murder. I know; I’ve tried. I just wound people.  I had plenty of people I would have liked to have knocked off in Slovenia but I knew I had no damned talent for it.

Donald- Well, we could leave them alone to grow wise and indolent.

Melania-  We can’t do that. They’ll try to replace us one day. Let’s know them off now.

Donald- I have got an automatic machine gun in the kitchen. I bought it to kill anything in the oven that moves. I don’t know whether it works. It might just be ornamental.

Melania- Lela’s go to the library, We’ll shoot off a few rounds to see whether or not it’s  a Commie bummer. Didn’t you get it from Vladimir? .

Donald- I did. I guess it’s some  spy device. Maybe it shoots bullets too. We might knock off a few lousy comic books.

Melania-  I never liked  those vintage copies of Superman.

                        (Exit Donald and Melania to the library. The phone rings  Enter Donald and Celina from anteroom exit.)

Donald- Sorry to interrupt our lovemaking, baby.  I thought I heard some noise there. Maybe not. This place looks empty. Only a few seals and dolphins n the sea.

Melania- It is empty. Maybe some walrus came up from the ocean and wanted a bite of those cold cheeseburgers.

Donald- They look the same.  I guess we could go back to making love.

Melania- We’ve got nothing better to do.

                        (Exit Donald and Melania to the anteroom.  The phone rings for twenty seconds. Enter Donald and Melania  from the exit to the library. )

Donald- The damned gun didn’t work. It’s like Communism.  It was a phony. It wasn’t even a gun. It was a piece of broken plastic .

Melania-  What do you expect from a present from Vladimir? He used to be a Communist.

Donald- Yeah, it was. Guess what; I found a spy device in it Vladimir thought I wouldn’t notice.  It looked like a gun sight.  Those Russians love to run clandestine intelligence operations. even when they’re not Communists or mildly socialistic they can’t help being slippery and devious.  What do you think Vladimir  had hoped to hear with his funky little tricks?

Melania- I don’t know. Maybe he liked hearing you say all sorts of crazy things.

Donald-  He must .Well, I didn’t find the wire right away. I hope I entertained him.  

Melania- We’ll never kill them now.

Donald- Wait a minute, aren’t there knives like Samurai swords in the kitchen?

Melania- I used them to cut day old bread. They’ve gotten pretty dull. Now I don’t think they could cut butter.

Donald- What about the blue dish washing soap? Hasn’t that got lye in it? We could douse some fruit pudding with it and give it to them..

Melania- We don’t have any fruit pudding.

Donald-  I guess you ate the fruit pudding.

Melania- I bathed it in rum. It was delicious. 

Donald- What about my golf clubs?

Melania- At a time like this, you want to play golf?

Donald- No we can take them into the anteroom  and bash their damned heads in with them.

            (The phone rings. Donald picks it up and put it to his ear. )

Donald- Hello?…Who?…Ivanka?…I didn’t recognize your voice  for a moment, honey,.how’s your life?..Yeah, were both better off being friends. It might be a higher ambition than getting married…Not that we wouldn’t mind suing each other. Everybody else sues us.

            No, I don’t miss the White House…Maybe it’s safer than Mar-a-Lago We’ve got alligators and lizards on our lawn half the time here. We feed them coconut shells. They will eat anything.

            Then if there really is global warming as my Chinese and Latin enemies say, one day this oceans is going to flood the area and destroy it altogether….Yeah, Melania and I will have to move to some mountaintop, maybe in downtown Colorado, ..Yeah, I know they have grizzly bears in the mountains… We might move to Las Vegas. That’s a town  I find inspiring. ..I don’t think I ever want to go back to running this country, baby.

            Not that I really ever managed it all that much. I mostly sat back, watched television,  talked about stuff I didn’t know and said crazy things. That doesn’t seem like a hard job, does it?…I could run America these days with what they want from a leader if I were in hell, even if I were dead. I really do represent people: crazy people.

            I’m a sort of living psychosis. If I were resting in landfill I could manage this country  though the visions of oracles and Gypsies. I can eat cheeseburgers and talk nonsense anywhere. I can be me, even at the bottom of a sewer or a cemetery.   As long as America needs me I’m her to do my best for the country, honey. After all, I’m a patriot.

            Talk to you. It was great being married to you for a while, honey. How’s the kids? Making money? That’s what I want hear.

Melania- Get off the phone, Donald, we’ve got some business to take care of in the anteroom, dammit.

Donald- Okay. (He clicks off  the phone. I just always feel a pang when I talk to her. I think maybe she loves me.

Melania- I hope she does. I hope Stormy does too.  Where are your gold clubs?

Donald- In the trunk of my car. I’ll go get them.

Melania- I  need a big swig of my Jamaican rum drink to do this. I may be an old  tart but I’m not a killer.

Donald- Nobody starts out in life killing people, honey. We can’t get out of the crib to do it.

Melania- I never wanted to kill anybody in Slovenia. They pass out and lie in the street at eleven o’clock in the morning. They were too drunk to take seriously.

Donald- Well, you’re a long way from Slovakia, honey.

Melania- Slovenia.

Donald- Slovenia. Slobovia. What’s difference; you’re gone. Hey, I guess I’m far away from a whole lot of places too.

Melania- I need a swig of that drink….Maybe we shouldn’t do this.

Donald-  We don’t have a choice, baby. We left a lot of living corpses lying on the ground behind us when we became real Trumps. Some of them wanted to be us; others  wanted to be other people or even themselves , whatever the hell that might have been. Don’t you think or rivals left their own family and friends  in a quiet landfill somewhere while they had the crazy ambition to be us? You bet they did … 

            You’re real so to speak but look what friends and enemies you dropped off in the sewer on the way to the White House. It’s not just your past, not even the pals you thought you had left in the gutter, but  the present.

            You’re free of them now, which given their flaws I’m sure is a real hellfire, but if they survived you they’re completely free of you too.  There’s a whole lot of people out there who’d like to be us. Not just these punks in the anteroom, but the rest of the bums hired by the Secret Service.

            They pick them up for Appalachia, from Atlantic City, from Kazakhstan, where that collects our kind of fancy trash. Then we wrestle with them and have it out with them with atomic pile drivers in the darkness.

Melania- I could go back to Slovenia and get work I’d enjoy, Donald. I’ve got skills they want there. I don’t need to be Melania Trump even if I am Melania Trump.  I can be Melania Anything if I make the right connection with Arpad in Slovenia.

Donald- You think you can. Believe me, Arpad  noways isn’t Arpad Arpad anymore even to himself; she’s some kind of stranger even when he looks in the mirror.

Melania- I might go back anyway.

Donald- You can’t, baby. Most of the people in  Slovenia are now in Slovakia.

Melania- Well, maybe they’ll go back to Slovenia..

Donald- They’re more likely to  make a  slow pilgrimage to Kazakstan. Maybe we’ll join them. 

Melania- You think we Slovenians are like Americans. We have more inner character to us even at the bottom of Slovenia than you ever will. We just don’t have any money.

Donald- Everything is better with a bit of cash, Melania, even being sick in the head, desperate and empty.

            Let me get to my trunk.

Melania- Yeah, look for something lethal and get back here as soon as you can. Before you go, Donald, let me ask you: why do you think anybody voted for you at all? You’re a liar, a con man, a cheat, a natural criminal, a general  no-goodnik and bum.

Donald- I’ve even worse that than, You don’t know the half of it. I hope nobody ever knows. I am one creepy son of a bitch. I don’t know why. I was born that way. God made me what I am. I’m just playing out the cards in my hand, Melania. Unfortunately they’re mostly  a counterfeit run of the Ace of Spades.

Melania- You don’t hide it, Donald; you flaunt it. Why do millions of people vote for you?

Donald- I must represent them more than a lot of other people do, Melania. They want to be as wicked   as I am.  Why do people root for baseball teams?  They all want to roam in the green grass of  center field and hit 400. I’m doing the evil they’re too puny to do. I might be doing it to you too.

Melania- You can’t con me, Donald. I’m at least as mean as you are.

Donald- You’re all of that, Melania.  Still I did pick up up off the shelf at a Slovakian hotel. You didn’t  buy me in a corral at a State Fair. 

Melania- Well, you have the money.  I don’t.

Donald-  It’s not about money baby. It’s not even about whether you’re for sale and somebody else meets your price. It’s how you spend your time. Maybe you would want to be with me if we were both mumbling in the gutter.

Melania- We are in some place below the gutter, Donald. It just looks fancy and has a thick carpet.  

Donald- I like it here. If it stinks like a latrine,. all the better.

             (Melania stares at him balefully as he leaves, then picks up her glass of a rum drink and downs it, pausing a couple of times to down a few dollops of the concoction. Exit Donald by the door to the kitchen and library. The phone rings. Melania answers it. )  

Melania- Arpad?  I’m comfortable here; don’t worry about me. No pain. I’ve got a soft chair, that’s what they throw you for a bribe  in America to try to keep you out of trouble. …

            Yeah, I’m a little bored. I’m used to a place a lot more interesting than Florida. This country is like a fancy hospice. They give you a few bucks if you outlast your youth and middle age, they shove a stick and at you and tell you to play shuffleboard. It’s no wonder I drink. 

            Yeah, Florida is the pits, Arpad, a sleep like death. You can’t make friends here because everybody is from somewhere else and going south soon into an Egyptian mausoleum. You can’t even make enemies. They don’t have time or even he desire to get to know you much less wonder whether there’s anybody to know much less to like or hate you.

            Yeah, they talk about speculation and money a lot. I don’t know why. Sot of them ahead enough cash to buy all the kiwi fruit in the local mall…people here do a lot of bragging about who they are  or who they once were, probably lies, as if anybody cares who the hell they might have been once. Does it matter?They’re a bunch of rich stupified bums to me.  

            Sure, they respect Donald because he buys people  like cheap suits off the shelf; he doesn’t seem to have itches or passions or any sentimental emotions. Maybe that’s smart but its not very interesting. There isn’t a  lot of heart  in Donald or anybody else here, but to be fair to him and all of them, they never pretend to be otherwise. You take them or leave them. Or they pay you a  bundle and one day they leave you. 

            Donald’s intriguing to the crew in Mar-a-Lago because he loves crime. He likes hanging out with pimps and whores, having steak dinners with old time  gangsters, showing up at a pleasure island or two hosted by some fancy degenerate who has some exotic and erotic kiddy fare hanging around near the pasta. They see him has a  knight, an adventurer on horseback  They admire his risky life,  his taste for peril, the way he stiffs people who might knock him off,  even  all the scuffling Supreme Court litigation. They would like to be quietly shopping for kiwi fruit with impunity.

            You want to know about Donald’s sanity? He seems a little crazy to you? I can understand that. Donald can’t get through a few sentences without lying. Maybe he should have been a fiction writer. Ht tells me he’s going to be re-instated as President or win an election he lost, or if he can’t do it as President as a private citizen he’d like to buy Greenland. 

            He wants to create a Graduate school in Trump University which doesn’t exist anymore and maybe never existed; he wants people to give him money to major in how to beat the tax game and  take a minor in bankruptcy.

            Yeah, he says these things and a lot more lunacy, believe me. He wants to make hotels on the moon; he plans to put a gold course underwater where land is cheap. I take it all in and say nothing. Believe me, some men have many more odious qualities than  this endless bonkers stuff he oozes out  That’s nothing.

            Donald”s most amazing  quality which I haven’t figured out yet and maybe never will is his gift to make people believe him. He has millions of people absolutely convinced he is a billionaire which he isn’t, won an election he lost, could get rich if they went to his University, could live again in the 50s which from what I’ve heard was a dreary hellhole, that they don’t have diseases that are plainly killing them,  that all Mexicans and Eskimos are criminals, Hillary Clinton drinks blood and sleeps with dogs, that Vladimir is a nice guy, and that Donald and I have an intimacy and deep bond that outdoes the love of any couple for each other in extant history

            How can they be as innocent as they are? It’s got to be metaphysical magic, Arpad.. Nobody on earth can be that stupid. I never believed there were such things as witchery and devilish  spells but there’s no other explanation for how Donald cons and bilks everybody. 

            You believe in God too? I’ve come to accept that there must be some very powerful deity who pushes and promotes Donald ‘s scheme to  scam America out of itself, maybe a few deities, who hate each other and would kill each other if gods could die, knows? I would say it takes at least three to five deities to produce anybody like him.   

            I feel safe from him in Mar-a-Lago myself, believe me. He can’t steal from me; I really have nothing. He might walk off with my wardrobes and a little jewelry. He can’t lei to me about his affairs because I’m glad he has them. Maybe at most he’s walking off cheating me of another life I might have lived that would have been more satisfying emotionally or in the sack.

            I wouldn’t put it past him. The truth is that I don’t need passion or even a little sex from Donald. I don’t hunger for it from anybody. Passion gets people in trouble. Indifference is boring as death but it is better than any hunger whatsoever. You think so too? You would, Arpad,you’ve veteran longshoremen and pimp.

             Still as somebody who’s never been fooled or tricked by him, at least not seriously, I can’t  understand why other people fall for his stupid cons. 

            Maybe Donald puts something in the water. Maybe it’s the damned nature of this country, Arpad.  We come from an old  world where we have terrifying  and satanic enemies.  We’re at home with local Slovenian monsters.  America has knocked off all its old horror shows. No, not just wolves and bears; people who intelligently and happily take up evil.

            This country has replaced fathers, mothers, God, Hitler, Stalin  the Joker and  and the Devil with lobotomized midgets. Even the monsters in their movies are stupid. Believe me,  It’s had plenty of wickedness from slavery and racism to Indian extermination. It’s like Donald. It never admits it ever made a mistake. I guess that’s why so many people vote for him. Here even the Evangelists don’t think they’re every going to be judged by anybody.

            Arpad.  I don’t expect anything from Donald other than what he gives me. He’s settles a fat line of cash on me.  I don’t wait for any show of love from him. He lets me know he can replace me. The truth is, given what he wants from me, he’s right. When and if he does he’ll chow up at a Slovakian meat rack instead of a Slovenian one and buy who the hell he wants.

            There’s a lot of poverty everywhere, a lot of sleek young women for sale all over the planet  who have about fifteen years to make their pitch and take their it of swag whether it a little or a big cache of bucks.

            Hey, for what the world offers him, Donald’s perfect for a country like this. The men here  don’t want intimacy. They want a pretty face they’ve never seen before to nibble at their sirloin. They are  hungry for somebody  civil with a great body.   If they have a stash they get it. If they don’t have it they might have to settle for something less. Then they go to watch the strippers once a week.

            Well, it’s better than Slovenia. Everybody where you are is either broke, corrupt, a boozer or  or a cousin of somebody named Hapsburg….You might come here yourself, Arpad. You could use a nice soft chair.   

            (She clicks off the cell phone. It rings again immediately.) 

             Who are you?… Sure, I’d like to be on the cover of your magazine. Not naked though. I don’t do those funky flesh peekaboo sessions anymore.  I might do something in classical lingerie. Nothing too overtly pornographic, of course. I’m better than that now. 

            My broker in Slovenia will give you the number of my Swiss account where you can deposit my fee….Arpad is his name. Arpad Arpad. We often have the same first and last names in Slovenia; it’ more efficient. Who needs two names when one will do?…Maybe no name might be even better…Just a number…A Swiss bank account number…

            Take your time; right now I don’t need any money.

            Thing change. Since he’s left the Presidency don’t like my husband so much anymore. These days he’s just a senile old con man with a crazy hair comb.  Who knows, tomorrow I might make a little journey to Zurich. 

            (She finishes her drink, sighs,and stares at the window. Enter Donald with a gun. )

Donald- I found this pistol in the trunk of the car. We’re in luck, honey. It’s got six bullets  It’s enough to take out three sets of our imitators, baby. I’ve got more bullets in my coat pocket. They were sitting there next to this gun. Ready to go?

Melania- You know, you might kill me with that gun, Donald.        

Donald- I wouldn’t do that, honey. I like having you around, at least for awhile. I could always replace you, of course. There’s a lot of pretty looking women in Slovakia. I might kill them too but I don’t do any of that. I’m satisfied with you. You suit me, Melania.

Melania- Don’t flatter me too much. I know you’re a con man but I can’t be  tricked by you.  You can always get enough of what I offer you as a wife Yerevan in Slovenia, not Slovakia.

Donald-  I could probably find them anywhere, baby, Tobago or Canarsie.   As long as there’s a hotel for the colonels who run the dump, there’s going to be a few women on the prowl  in the  corridors near the elevators or hanging around the store furniture in the lobby.

            Still, they after three weeks wouldn’t be any better or different, would they? Well, maybe they would be, but who cares?  I’m basically a simple man who likes a good hamburger.

Melania- I’m glad you’re not going to knocks me off, Donald. I really do enjoy my life. Being the former First Lady of America is a hellova a lot better than working as a whore or party girl even in a fancy hotel in Slovenia.

Donald- I’ll take your word for it. Nobody knows life in Slovakia better than you, honey.

            Ever think of killing me off? Hey, violence is the great leveler, honey. You could do it if you really get tired of me, baby. It would make an interesting public trial. With the money you’ve got from me to powder your nose you could hire lawyers who’d postpone the proceedings till you and your damned counselors both died.     

Melania- What would I plead? Self defense? Temporary insanity?

Donald- Maybe both. One of them should get you off.

Melania- I think if I killed you I’d make a plea deal. I might have to be under house arrest for a bit in the right house but I don’t want jail time.

Donald-   Well, if you decide to do it, the loss will be a big one for America. This country is run by midgets and inhabited by whores, punks and vegetables. Some of them vote for me. They need somebody worse than they are to lead them into a gaudy cosmic sewer.

            I’ve done it all, Melania. I’ve commuted treason, I’ve been a mole for Putin, who himself is quite a creep, I’ve told people who are dying of a plague to get out of bed and start dancing; Even in the grave I convinced them that nothing bad is  happening to them. I’ve  stole, raped, corrupted and stiffed everybody I can: I’ve even started a college, Trump University, to teach other people how to be as bad as I am, maybe worse.

Melania- Nobody could be worse. They might be as good at crime as you are but they can’t outdo you in felony. I wouldn’t kill you anymore than I’d knock off my beautician or my broker. Honey, you’re the greatest  President since Al Capone.

Donald- Al Capone was never elected President. I’m a lot better than Big Al.  Big Al veneer got seventy million people to say they wanted more of him, Melania. If he had, his enemies veneer would have locked him up.

Melania- You don’t think those people will ever put you in the slammer one day, Donald? I hope you’re right.

Donald-  They got Big Al on taxes. I’m a big time tax crook. Who knows?  I might run America from a cell. Believe me, I’m capable of it.

Melania- How do you know that gun works?

Donald- Who knows? Maybe it does; maybe it doesn’t. I’ll just say it works. These impostors all over this place will believe me. Rhey might even die because I’ve told them I’ve shot them. 

Melania- You’re a magical man, Donald. They believed you about the plague. You told these prime suckers they hadn’t died. Maybe you’re right

Donald- I am sort of a resident Florida wizard, Melania. Yet I do have my moments of doubt. I wonder sometimes whether I  should have been something substantial like a farmer or a dentist. We dilettante politicians have such thoughts.  I could have also played the cello.

            I really don’t like stiffing people. One of them might take revenge. They don’t need weapons; people can strange or poison other people. They can knock you off with a sewing needle or a kitchen knife.  All I need is one clever revenger and Ill be gone.

Melania- Well, we’re partners, Donald. Maybe that’s what marriage is about. Intimacy without murder. You can trust me. You might be killed, betrayed  or even eaten for lunch by other people. It won’t be me.

.

            (Exit Donald and Melania. The phone rings. Nobody answers it. ) 

                                    The End