Ten Minutes Fast, Chapter 46, "America's Nightmare President"
It's Tuesday, November 5th, 2024. Election Day. The polls will be closing at various times this evening according to each state's election laws and protocol. But the results will be coming in all night along. And unless the vote is overwhelming in one direction or the other, it's going to be a long night. It may be a long next four years.
Most of America has already voted. The Country this evening will be laser-focused on all the cable news networks with their star anchors and political analysts at "the big board" counting each vote from every state, county, and district. It will be the greatest show on earth with a cast of millions.
(Author's Note:?This Thomas Baker novel is largely based on true events. Political overtones included. Some chapters are preordained with creative license in order to move the story along. This story follows Baker's 'Sunset Playland', 'Sweet Land of Liberty', 'Something for Nothing', 'Exodus Afghanistan: A Personal Story', and 'Burnt Bridges and Loose Ends'. All of these works can be seen, posted chapter by chapter, episode by episode, and in their original and unedited manuscript form, in search of a formal publisher-producer, on this LinkedIn web page in the "Featured" and "Activity" sections. Some names and places, and dates, have been changed for privacy, personal protection, and national security)
Thomas Baker is home in Logan. He's writing this as you are reading it. Ray Hennessy is home in Denver recuperating from his recent "journey" still wondering if it was all real. George Phillips is at his apartment in Georgetown doing whatever it is he does and waiting for election results like everyone else.
Jerome Little Wolf and Mary Trevers and her family are at the White House with the President and his family, all getting ready for the big show tonight. They have fought a good campaign, but are still in a dead heat with Goldfinger Trump and JD Vance, who are no doubt holed up in Mar-a-Lago somewhere with their families to watch the big show as well.
Thomas Baker has become philosophical about the race. But still, he is holding his breath, well aware of what a Trump presidency would mean, and what it would look like. Ray Hennessy has become spiritual about the whole thing. He's putting his money on Jesus to intervene and save the day. And George Phillips will be "working the phones" and his "contacts" until the bitter end, doing everything he can within his power, which is considerable, to swing the vote away from a disastrous Goldfinger Trump victory.
Baker is spent. He's tired. Mentally exhausted from thinking and worrying about all this election business with Trump Goldfinger. Physically tired from his time travel journeys with George and Hennessy. He's not a young man anymore. He's had an interesting life, a full life with his family and friends. And an even more interesting covert life working with friends and associates as an American patriot ... with Hennessy, Dr. Val Grantham, Abbas Sayed ... Jimmy Ayvaliotis and so may others ... the President ... and, George Phillips, perhaps the most intriguing covert mystery in this whole story.
It's Fall in Logan. There's already been a first frost. Time for the annual wardrobe changeover from Summer. T-shirts to sweatshirts. Baker is known for wearing his army cargo shorts all year long. The Halloween festival on Logan's Center Street has past which always features the annual, and now famous, 'Witches Dance' (and you can see it at the end of this chapter!) ...
... the weather has been classic Fall-beautiful. The leaves are turning and falling. Baker already started the raking ritual. The snow shoveling ritual soon to follow.
Life is good. Kind of ...
Baker is watching the election returns at home with Ilene. Val Grantham and his wife Sue are there with them, and so is Abbas and his brother Farid and their families ... along with a few neighbors.
As the election results begin to come in throughout the evening and into the night, the race is still neck and neck with almost no margin of error.
Hennessy calls Baker ... "Are you watching this?"
Baker: "Yes, and I still can't believe half of the voting Americans still, and probably always will, have their heads up their ass. I mean, c'mon man! What are you thinking?"
Hennessy: "I wonder if George is watching this? ... or if he's still out somewhere, like really out somewhere, you know what I mean? ... trying to affect the vote?"
Baker: "Can't never tell about that guy. He's full of surprises. But, yeah, my bet George is still out there somewhere fighting ... for what's right. You gotta love the guy."
Hennessy: "Let's call him."
Baker: "No. Leave him alone. You know how he is. He'll call us if he has something ..."
Hennessy: "You know, Tom, I think I have it figured out ... what we've been trying to understand all along ... why so many people go for Goldfinger Trump."
Baker: "Do tell. Go on ..."
Hennessy: "It's complicated ... but at the same time, it's really simple. It's demographics, geo-demographics, pop culture, it's IQ and general awareness, environment, heredity ... it's DNA for Christ's sake ... oops, sorry Jesus. My man. It's all combined. And you've said this many times before yourself, Tom, it's nothing more than a media-driven personality contest playing to all these emotions. It's "Mr. America" ... "American Idol" ... "Dancing with the Stars" ... "America has Talent" ... the stand-up comic that everyone loves ...
... show business ...
... I saw an interview the other day where a reporter asked this eighteen years old kid, a white kid, why he's voting for Goldfinger Trump, and he said it's because "he talks like I talk with my friends. He jokes around." It's a bro brother, bro hug thing ...
... this kid could care less about the economy, education, health care, and women's reproductive rights, or about world affairs. He just likes Trump because he's entertaining. Like being with his friends joking around. There's no depth there, no introspective thinking. Just a facile awareness of one moment to the next."
Baker: "You're right, Ray. We are an entertainment-based society. And entertainment has gotten away from us. Movies, television, video games, all the shooting and killing, all the gratuitous violence-generated bro hugs ... advertising. It'd brainwash and affect anyone, especially young white males. It'd make anyone crazy."
Hennessy: "And it has. Apparently, half of America as far as I can tell."
Baker: "And only about half of America votes, anyway."
Hennessy: " ... there's that."
Baker: "Diminishing returns. Bad math. Our mayor here in Logan got elected, winning by the votes of the fifteen people who were his neighbors. Most of the rest of the town didn't care. Didn't vote at all ...
...maybe it's the combination of apathy, unawareness, and the underlying meanspiriedness in people. Either way, I'm sick and tired of trying to figure it all out. Just accept it for what it is ... FUBAR."
Hennessy: "FUBAR."
Baker: "Then there's the alien DNA thing ..."
Hennessy: "And there's that."
Baker: "Well, I must be crazy, but the way I see it Americans have two choices. Choose Trump or choose America. It's just that simple. And they're two completely different things. The one has nothing to do with the other. And why would anyone vote for a candidate who brings out the absolute worst qualities that any human being can possibly have? ...
I tell ya, Ray, I'll be real disappointed, shocked, if Jerome and Mary don't win by a landslide. Who in their right mind would vote to put this desperate jackass in our White House? I mean, this is our America, right?"
Hennessy: "A desperate despot, trying to avoid jail ...
... you're right, Tommy, it's like choosing between good and evil. But half of America thinks it's like choosing between Green Bay and Dallas ... or between smooth and chunky ... like this is a game to them ...
... FUBAR.
Baker: "FUBAR ...
... well, great, Ray. We've solved the problem. About a hundred years too late."
Hennessy: "Maybe more. And we didn't solve anything."
Baker: "Well, it's too late now anyway, that's for sure. Just hang on to your seat there, buddy. And hope for the best but expect the worst."
Hennessy: "Pessimist."
Baker: "Realist."
Hennessy: "I'm holding my breath."
Baker: "Me too. Give Pat our love."
Hennessy: "Same to Ilene."
They hang up.
As the night rolls on into the wee hours of the next morning, Wednesday now, November 6th, Kornacki and all the other media analysts are by this time slobbering all over their "big boards." Drunk on indecision and an inability to pick a clear winner. Tired to the point of not even caring anymore. They are counting every vote now, not by state, county, and district, but by each and every individual vote. So don't ever think that your vote doesn't count.
The race couldn't be any closer. Even the traditional swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, are all evenly tied. Same with North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada. It's an unprecedented dead heat.
Maybe someone should toss a coin, or Goldfinger Trump and Jerome Little Wolf should arm wrestle for the presidency. Indian style rules. Where the two opponents lay down next to one another facing opposite directions, and raising their respective right legs, try to hook them and flip each other into the campfire. Baker saw it in a cowboy movie. Could work.
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These thoughts are going through Baker's head as he starts screaming, "He's on fire! Hey! Look! He's burning up!" Someone pull him out of there!" ...
Then, he hears Ilene's voice in the distance ... it's getting closer, louder ... "Tom! Tom! Wake up! You're having a bad dream ...
She is shaking him in his chair in front of his computer.
... wake up, Tom! I can't believe you fell asleep at your desk in front of the computer. You've never done that before. Are you all right? ...
... Tom, the final results are in. It's close, a tie, but they're giving it to Goldfinger Trump!"
Baker, in a daze. Is he still dreaming? ... answers, "Huh? What?! Trump won! Oh, no! Say it ain't so ...
.... he's a monster .... a monster! .... no, really, a real monster! Don't let him take the oath. Look, can't you all see it. He's a monster! Look at him! ..."
Baker had awoken, but into another nightmare ... a doubled-header nightmare. He must have been dreaming that Ilene was waking him up.
Ilene's voice again, "Tom, honey ... wake up. Tom! Are you okay? You were saying something about a monster. Sounds like you had a terrible nightmare, probably about the election and Goldfinger Trump."
Baker (now fully awake): "What? Oh, yeah. Whew! Really. What a nightmare. Wow. I dreamed that Trump won the election, and that at the inauguration in January, on the Capitol steps, after he took the oath of office with his hand on the Bible, it caught fire ... then he transformed into a hideous, grotesque monster, slimy, with horns, and dead eyes ... and those teeth! ...
... his orange skin peeled off and melted away, his silly hair just popped off, went straight up in the air. It actually made a 'pop' sound like a cork out of a champagne bottle! Someone in the crowd caught it like a bride's wedding bouquet. Then immediately dropped it ...
... people were running and screaming, scrambling and fighting each other to get away ... frightened as the monster jumped into the crowd, snarling and spitting slime all over everyone. It was mass chaos ... everybody was 'Kung Fu Fighting' ... oh, the humanity! ... it was terrible!"...
Ilene: "Well, that could happen, I suppose. But you were just dreaming, dear. Let's hope that it doesn't turn out that way ...
... I want you to calm down and pull yourself together and come downstairs now and watch the election returns. Everyone is here."
Baker: "Yeah, okay. I'll be right down."
Baker's phone rings. It's George Phillips ... "Tom, did you have the dream?"
Baker: "What?"
George: "I just got off the phone with Hennessy. He said he had a dream that Trump won ... and that at the inauguration he went berserk ... transformed into the monster I've been warning you all about ... killed a bunch of people ...
... Hennessy said something about 'Kung Fu Fighting', but I didn't know what he meant."
Baker: "It was a popular 70s R&B song by Carl Douglas. It lasted at #37 for seventeen weeks on Billboard's top 100 list. A Jackie Chan movie kind of chaotic fight scene theme ..."
George: "TMI, Tom ..."
Baker: "Oh, sorry."
George: "Anyway, I had the same dream, and I suspect you did too."
Baker: "Dream! ... it was a damn nightmare. A real bad one."
George: "It wasn't a dream, Tom, or a nightmare. It really happened ...
... I just hope we can reverse it."
Baker: "What? What do you mean it really happened? ...
... reverse, how?"
George: "You tell me, Tom, you're writing this story."
Baker: "C'mon, George ... you're losing me here. This is serious. What do you mean it already happened? And how do we reverse it?"
George: "Tom, your whole story, 'Ten Minutes Fast', is about what could be. The possibilities. Thinking outside the box. Invaders from outer space living among us trying to overthrow the government, alien DNA. Good aliens and bad aliens, time travel ... divine intervention. But you have combined all this fiction, and maybe it's not fiction, who knows?, with the circumstances surrounding the real and current 2024 U.S. presidential election and starring your old nemesis, Donald "Goldfinger" Trump ...
... you have your readers on the fence between what's real and what's not, or what might be not. And you've worked in your own personal political views, which are shared by half of America ...
... so stick with your storyline. You're the writer in control of this story, the fiction part. And just maybe you can have some influence on the real part. The real election ...
... you can end the story right here and now, and let the chips fall where they may regarding the election, and all the alien stuff. Or, you can push it a little further and speculate on the future of America, and maybe even affect it. Your choice."
Baker: "Jeez, George. Maybe you're thinking too hard. We're way outside the box here. Broken the fourth wall. Shattered it."
George: "Maybe. But you think about it too ...
... I like this divine intervention thing. I suggest you go back and read your last chapter again, where our pal Ray Hennessy meets up with Jesus in the park ... and go from there ...
... but like I say, you're the writer. So write. There's not much time left."
George continues: "Oh, and Tom?"
Baker: "What now?"
George: "Don't let me down."
John Kushma is a communication consultant and lives in Logan, Utah
Annual Logan, Utah Halloween 'Witches Dance' on Center Street
Kung Fu Fighting