Submitted to NYC Midnight Short Story Contest
The Golden Coup D’état
Well, well, well, things are going just as I planned; of course it is, because I’m the best scout for this type of talent. The type of talent that you love to hate, but you love their ability to inspire the darkest aspects of one’s fears and the innate ability to inspire stupid courage. In short, angry, crazy political rams. My name is Dew Lee and I make people believe in alternative facts and today I’m seeking justice, and freedom to enjoy my golden parachute!
The crowds are larger than I had expected; they’re riled up and mad! I arrived just ahead of the crowd heading towards the Capital, and I raise a fist in solidarity with them. I climb up the steps of the Capital and as a former Senator I will be in the chamber as they certify the election or try to anyway. As I situate myself in the House Chamber gallery directly in line with the Speaker’s chair, I can’t help but take notice of the inscription, ‘In God We Trust,’ ha, it should read ‘We are Gods.’
I turned on my phone to check on my masterpiece.
“It’s a party! Woo hoo, y’all need to get the hell out of our house. We paid the taxes now we want us some representation, and we representing today! Momma told me, never mess around so that’s why I’m here. I’m done taking shit, and I don’t want my President to go anywhere. We are here to make sure that happens, and I don’t care what the T.V. said, our guy won. He won because we say he won.”
There was glass breaking, and you could hear the mob slamming a battering ram against the doors. People were coming through the windows, while others were in direct hand to hand combat with security forces.
“There are too many of them,” yelled one of the Capital security guards.
“I got stabbed with a flag . . .,” yelled another, “…a freaking U.S. flag! What the hell!”
“Get out of there before they kill you.”
“Wait, wait I think they’re corralling themselves, it’s the red velvet stanchions! Hurry, every officer that is available, gather as many of those red velvet stanchions you can and start setting them up at each of the exists in statuary hall. Let’s see if we can’t corral them out the other side of the Capital.”
“Oh, yea I see it. They are like deer in headlights and staring around enthralled with the art. I think they’re mesmerized. Quick, get the paintings of good ole Abe and George Washington and any other people they might know. Don’t grab any of the President’s nobody knows about, think elementary like fifth grade stuff.”
“Oh shit, that didn’t work. Some guy shitting on the floor got them all wound up, and others are joining him. They’re taking pictures and selfies with the shitters; I’m starting to get worried! They look like normal people though, what the hell is going on?!”
“Damn! I hope they don’t start slinging that shit around like monkeys.”
“Lance is being carried away by the mob! I saw them beating the shit out of him with a fire hydrant they ripped from the wall!”
“Try yelling fire and see if give back the fire extinguisher. They might fall for that.”
The police radio was chaotic with pleas and commands. The police knew they were losing the Capital, and there were no reinforcements on the way, they were on their own. It seems like a different country than just yesterday before the rally this morning. The President and the other speakers really got them fired up, and they are thirsty for blood. It was complete pandemonium, and the mob was winning. Others stayed outside building gallows. It was evident that those gallows were for members of Congress, the Vice President, and the Speaker of the House because they were screaming that at the top of their lungs. “Get Mike, he needs to hang as a traitor” screamed a group roaming and lost. Thank God they didn’t seem to have any knowledge of how to get around the Capital. Libraries at their fingertips but rage dumbs you down.
“You would think they would use their smart phones and get a map, but don’t encourage them. Try leading them away from where the Congresspeople are meeting, like your trying to stop them from going that way. Maybe they will fall for it, and follow you!”
“Ok”
“HEY! Don’t come this way, you’ll be in a world of hurt. You don’t want to do anything to Nancy’s office. Just stay away, don’t follow me!”
“Hey guys over here! I found Nancy’s office! This cop is stupid enough to tell us where everything is. Let’s get Nancy!”
Meanwhile back in the House chamber, the Senators and Representatives were all business certifying the election. They were giving their speeches and carrying on like nothing was happening even though you could hear the shouts and screams of the mob and the crashes of the glass, and the loud thud of the red velvet stanchions being used as battering rams.
It’s very unusual that this body is so oblivious to what is going on around them.
“The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas.”
“Madam Speaker, there is a great concern that the legitimacy of this election is in question. We have no evidence or proof but that’s because no one wants to investigate it. Madam Speaker if someone would just investigate what happened on November 4, we would have the evidence everyone is asking for. I mean, come on, you must investigate to find the evidence. This is how you do it in this country, you can’t just shoot off at the mouth. If you really feel there is something wrong, this should be enough in this country to warrant an investigation. Why Madam Speaker it would just be downright hogwash to dismiss the feelings of so many Americans who think there’s some shenanigans being conducted by our friends on the other side. Why, the esteemed gentleman from South Carolina says that he feels that the President won the election because he saw on the news that at 9:00 PM on November 4th, the President was winning! By golly if our friends on the other side didn’t find enough votes for the other guy in the wee hours of the morning, while everyone was asleep! I say this is a sham! We can’t certify these electoral college votes . . . it’s just not fair, and I’m not playing anymore. I want to go home and be with my family because they’re scared of what’s going on in this country. I urge my friends to stand with me in opposition to what is being carried out today in this sacred chamber of democracy. I yield back my time Madam Speaker.”
“The gentleman yields. The Chair recognizes the gentle Lady from New York.”
“Yes, Madam Speaker, I stand today in stark contrast to what the esteemed gentleman and my friend on the other side has proposed in this chamber. To call for an investigation before any evidence is presented, or produced to prove a crime has been committed is not the way things are done in this country. We do not go fishing for stuff just in hopes that something will appear to justify the investigation. I mean, come on, have you no shame! And moreover, since when does a feeling of impropriety justify a lynch mob? This country does not do this, we are above the law because we write the laws, we make the laws! Please, you tell me, my honorable friend, name one time in our history where we make shit up . . .”
The Speaker gavels. “Order, there will be order in this chamber.”
“My bad, Madam Speaker, but come now. When has that happened in our country?!”
“Will the gently Lady from New York yield so that I can answer?”
“Sure, I yield, tell ME something,” she says with that New York attitude.
“The gentlelady from New York yields, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas.”
“Lynching, was sometimes done by having no evidence . . . I think. Can’t be too sure . . . I yield back.”
“Naw, baby! You’re not going there! That was a different day. We talking ‘bout t’day!”
As several other members of Congress spoke, I was reflecting on how Senator Toby passed me a note under the bathroom stall asking me to meet him out by the MLK statue. He had exciting news to share with me, but they needed the right person to carry it out and I was the best.
I heard as he exited the stall next to me, and I’ll be damned if he left without flushing or washing his hands! What kind of man does that?
I was intrigued so I hurried to meet Toby by the MLK statue. Toby and his friends wanted to hire me for my keen ability to spot and recruit the right talent. I was their premier talent scout, and everyone I recruited I handpicked with diligence. Just like a talent scout for the NBA or the NFL, I was the best in politics. I worked for the highest bidder and right now it was Toby and friends.
It was going to be my last hoorah, and they offered me a severance on which I could retire and live large. This was particularly important to them, but for some reason they wanted me to disappear before I received my payout. Oh, and this severance is a beauty! I was already filthy rich from my days as Senator. I ran for office so I wouldn’t have to do any manual labor, or any reading or writing, but I could still get rich quick. I made the right friends. Friends who wanted to buy my votes. Yea, I ran on cleaning up the swamp, but it’s a swamp! You can’t clean swamps, h-e-l-l-o!
I found Toby sitting on a bench, and he stood, offering his hand to shake. I freaked out inside; what to do, since he didn’t wash his hands in the bathroom? I gave him a fist bump . . . thank God for Covid-19!
“Ok so have you considered what we want you to do?”
“Yea, but come on now Toby, this is going a little too far for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you guys are talking about a coup.”
“Shhhh, not so loud!”
“No one is around.”
“You don’t know for sure . . .”
“I can’t do it. It would be the end of me.”
“I know, that’s why we’ve offered you such a great severance.”
“It’s impressive, my own castle in Europe, and with a Knighthood.”
“Yea, I thought you would like that one.”
“I still, I still don’t know. It’s one thing to start a Tea Party, it’s quite another to throw out a Presidential election.”
“But you’re the man! Who else runs a presidential candidate on a platform of overt racism, change the I grabbed her you know what to locker room talk, and actually say he could shoot somebody and get away with it?!”
As I stared hard at Toby, I thought to myself, yea I know I’m good, and sometimes I think I’m too good for my own good. I’m great.
“Come on now, we are talking minority rule. In this country the minority has the power because you know how mobs are, it only takes one cooky overconfident guy and then all hell breaks loose and then we have ourselves a dictator. Our founding fathers thought about all this and gave the minority unprecedented powers. Let’s use them!”
“Well, I really never looked at it that way. You have a point, but why invalidate a presidential election is what I don’t get. Just run another guy next time around, just worse with better hair?”
“Because, we have the country where we want it, and people will show up! They are mad as hell and crazy. They just need that spark, that flash bang and it’s all over. When will we get another chance like this? Think of that ‘Golden Parachute”! Hell, it isn’t’ even golden. It’s PLATINUM!”
“Yea, I know. That black diamond mine. It’s hard to say no and who can say no to marrying Taylor Swift! Aw hell, let’s do this damn thing! I’m in.”
Now I sit here in the gallery, witnessing my dandy fine work.
Hey! Wait, what the hell is going on?! Those are Congressmen and Senators pulling guns and taking their colleagues hostage. They have guns to their heads, what the hell is going on?!
“Now this is what I call a debate!” said the honorable Senator from Kentucky as he held a gun to the head of his friend on the other side, his esteemed colleague the Congressman from California.
“Make sure you hog tie the ones that give us trouble.”
I frantically called Toby, but he didn’t answer.
Which way do I go , which way do I go? Shit, I can’t leave, there is no way out of here; many of the security guards had turned coat and joined the gun toting lawmakers. They were guarding all the entryways.
Everything got quiet, all you could hear was faint sobbing and someone who appeared to be the leader wearing some type of hood. No, not white! Those days are over. I think it’s shell pink. Oh, I know who that is! I can tell by her red heels and all those guns wrapped around her like Rambo. I recruited her as a candidate to run for Congress in the great state of Georgia!
“Hey, up here, up here! It’s me, Dew Lee . . . Dew Lee Alektd, remember we met at the Calhoun Starbucks?”
Even before I heard the gunshot, I fell back, and I felt a hot painful stinging and piercing pain in the center of my chest. I think I passed out because everything went black. Oh, no, that was them turning the lights off and on to get everyone’s attention. All the while thinking ‘That bitch shot me!’
As I lay there bleeding out, I was staring at the marble relief above me, it was of Moses. I thought to myself, just like Moses didn’t enter the land of milk and honey, so I wouldn’t be enjoying my golden parachute.
Before I passed out, I heard the hard banging of the gavel, and the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme court’s voice . . .
“Court is now in session.”