The Inauguration

It was a dark time to be alive. There were political zealots everywhere.

After the inauguration, I’d taken refuge in a doughnut shop with broken windows to watch the crowds go by. There was a brick on the floor, looking kind of lonely. On the walls were cheerful pictures of milkshakes, cadillacs and All-American bombshells. I was sitting smoking, hunched in the corner of a low-hanging pink table, my collar turned up. My hair was dyed orange as was the fashion for anyone who knew what was best for them.

The president had been spitting about American carnage in the inner cities, and he’d been right. Dogs were barking, journalists running, kids chanting, eyes watering with the prospect of tear gas and something worth dying for. The youth had swarmed into the demilitarized zones around D.C. looking to fuel their alienation. Iconic images that would do the rounds on social media, that would do the lick for the selfie revolution.

They said it was a revolt against a revolt, a humanitarian crisis combating fascism cloaked as antiestablishmentarianism, what ever the fuck that meant? Big fine words from elite mouths, entwining circles winding ever tighter around the neck of capitalism? Also fine with me. Whatever bullshit you wanted to tell yourself there was some lobster with a loudspeaker and a Twitter following ‘inspired’ to serve it to you.

Well, all this brainwashing was just dandy. I was part of the machine after all. An ad man, digital by trade, targeter, guru, gunslinger, political assassin, fake news founder and master of backstabbing in this fuck-face fuck-suckle world we were living in, it was all on my card. People knew where to find me. I hadn’t shaved in 2 days and my coat was shitty like a detective in an old movie but that was fine, fashion was for pricks and tolerant liberals.

All this political hysteria didn’t have long, cars were already driving themselves, deciding whether to hit pedestrians or save their drivers. Computers could do better math than people for decades now, it was only a matter of time before they could build themselves better than we could AND make life or death decisions. You never knew when the singularity could happen. A presidential motorcade could become self-aware at any minute for God’s sakes.

That’s why I was here, in the doughnut shop to meet Harry Last Name Unknown. Harry was overweight, jittery, with scars on his hands – a junkie former chef turned hacker turned cyber security employee for the administration. If a car had internet, and the presidents did, it could be hacked. And if a car drove itself, which the presidents didn’t but was capable of doing, then Harry here was a tool. He was also (possibly) a communist.

His hand had the old scar tissue I remember – the classic lump of hard callus running up his palm towards his thumb where he’d held a knife for 20 years. The nicks forming mounds on his knuckles from opening oysters in the White House kitchen, the burst bubbles where pork fat had splattered, serrated white rivers of pulled veins where the edges of tins or pots has sliced open, his hands were ghastly, like little WW3s.

Harry the slob himself was looking grim and fatter than usual, his ponytail greasy, his little pig eyes small and black and belligerent, his beard unwashed, a rank desperation clinging to him. He had a hoodie with a yellow minion on it on and ill-fitting jeans, holding a pack of Doritos and munching manically, trying to look non-threatening.

“Jesus Harry, you stink.” I said as I got up to shake those ghastly paws of his. He sat down at the pink table. The doughnut shop had been wrecked by some LGBT teen protesters who’d been freaked out by the president’s new bathroom policies. The social justice warriors hadn’t stolen the doughnuts through, so the delicious smell of chocolate and grease was still here, and a pink neon sign saying ‘Dunk’ above us was humming. Harry’s handshake, as usual, was surprisingly strong. I hadn’t been doing much exercise lately.

“We’ve got the blueprint.” Harry sat down heavily. His eyes were shifty, bouncing off broken pictures of pretty girls with milkshakes and ping ponging between the deserted counter and my face. He was snooping, but unfortunately the American country singers on the jukebox had nothing to give him. He kept stuffing Doritos into his face. Johnny Cash would HATE this place.

“What do you want?” I asked carefully, leaning backwards and inclining my head so my hat fell over my eyes. My voice came out croaky. I hadn’t talked in a long time either. I’d been smoking too much, and been using a robot voice like Stephen Hawking to cover my inflections. It had a dramatic effect on people, in the right setting.

“To change the world.” He reached under his hoodie, the minion crinkling up, and slid an envelope towards me. I didn’t take it, not wanting to be made a fool of. You couldn’t never tell with Harry. I tapped my cigarette right onto the table.

A Doberman ran past the window, its leash trailing after it, its claws skittering on the concrete. But otherwise it was pretty quiet on this street. Distantly came a sound that could have been an explosion. Neither of us made a comment. He hadn’t taken those scarred fingers of his off the envelope. F-15s were flying over the city, casting long tails of blue red and white.

“The world’s going to the dogs.” I said, finally getting him to meet my eye. He looked away in pain. My smirk does that to people. But also he seemed to regret coming here. Now I’ve got you. I smiled my biggest shaggiest smile, a big hairy fuck you. You could hear trumpets now and boots marching in unison.

He didn’t reply, just stared morosely out the window as down the street came the marching band, with the presidential armored limousine tucked in the centre, like a big black torpedo waiting to fuck us. Trombones boomed. On the other side of the street, the crowds were gathering, boiling, pulling handkerchiefs over their faces and lighting up the bottles.

“Hail to the chief,” I suggested again.

Harry left his knife where it was, and the blueprint on the table. With hair like that, he wouldn’t make it very far.