Chapter Fifty-Five

The Dream of the Nineties Is Alive

Jimmie couldn’t believe it. He stood up on the toilet, nearly dunking his foot in the process. He poked his head over the stall divider. Hillary Clinton waved at him. She was wearing a pink sweat suit, a fanny pack, and dark sunglasses, but it was her all right. A diamond-encrusted Bernie bird brooch was pinned to her top.

Jimmie then peered into the first stall. A man who looked like a bad Xerox of George W. Bush smiled from underneath a blue cap that read MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN (AGAIN). Neither of them was exactly being subtle.

Jimmie carefully stepped off the toilet seat. What were the Clintons and the Bushes doing working together? The Clintons and the Bushes were the Capulets and the Montagues of modern politics. Unless the Bush daughters and Chelsea pulled a three-way Romeo and Juliet, there was no way the two families were ever going to stand united. Trump had done the impossible.

“You’re Socialist Justice Warriors,” Jimmie said. He was stating the obvious, but he needed time to process this turn of events. The stall was spinning around him; he needed to catch his breath and think.

“Check out the big brain on Brad,” Hillary said. Jimmie recognized it as a quote from Pulp Fiction. Unsurprisingly, Hillary was still living in the nineties.

“You’re working with Bernie now?” Jimmie said.

“No one’s seen Bernie Sanders in years,” Hillary said. “We’re the ones who have been funding the Socialist Justice Warriors.”

“The Bernie bros said they’d never support you.”

“They have no idea who’s pulling their strings,” Hillary said. “But don’t feel bad for them: They’re a bunch of idealists. Even if they got the ‘change’ they wanted, they’d still find something to whine about. Ah, to be young.”

“We represent the true change America needs,” Jeb! said. “It’s time for the lifelong politicians to take our country back. We’re tired of getting bossed around by these Washington outsiders and their small-government underreaches. Our country should be governed the way the founders intended—by a small handful of political dynasties.”

“The Clintons and the Bushes,” Jimmie said.

“This is bigger than our families,” Hillary said. “We’re talking about the Democrats and Republicans.”

“So wait another two years for the next presidential election,” Jimmie said.

“The United States may not be around in two years if we get drawn into this conflict with Great Britain. They fight dirty,” Jeb! said.

Jimmie folded the brochure. “Your brother got us into that mess in Iraq, and we’re still here. Deeper in debt and less respected around the world, but what else is new?”

“If you’re expecting me to defend my brother, you don’t know Jeb!”

Not many people do know Jeb!, Jimmie thought.

“What’s done is done,” Hillary said. “The conflict in the Middle East was a limited skirmish. Yes, it destabilized the region . . . but it didn’t destabilize the world. Al Qaeda is wiped out, and ISIS has been contained. But war with the UK is another beast entirely.”

“Two beasts. A lion and a unicorn,” interjected Jeb! “Because they’re on the coat of arms over there.”

“Shut up, Jeb!”

“Sorry.”

Hillary continued, “My point is, France took our side in the Revolutionary War. Whose side will they take this time, especially after Trump’s call to resculpt the Statue of Liberty so she shows more leg? Russia, on the other hand, will have Trump’s back. Especially after he let Putin fight to a hero’s death against that panda. That will put America at odds with almost every country we currently call allies. The entire geopolitical map is about to be redrawn, Mr. Bernwood.”

“Unless you take Trump down,” Jimmie said.

“Unless we take his entire administration down,” Jeb! said. “They’re corrupt from top to bottom. We’ll need to clean house—starting with the man in charge.”

“Tom Brady is next in line,” Jimmie said.

“The vice president is in outer space,” Hillary said. “You can’t govern from outer space. It’s in the Constitution.”

“The speaker of the house will be sworn in,” Jeb! said. “Ryan is a party guy.”

“He likes to party, does he?” Jimmie asked.

“He’s a card-carrying Republican,” Hillary said.

“I was making a joke,” Jimmie said.

“I don’t know what those are,” Hillary said.

So the Socialist Justice Warriors wanted what was best for America? Jimmie wasn’t buying it. Hillary and Jeb!’s pitch to him to “save the country” came off as sour grapes. They’d both had their chance against Trump. The American people had spoken—loud and clear. In record numbers. The people trusted Trump to make the right decisions for their country. If you listened to polls, most of them were happy with their choice. Who was Jimmie to argue with them? While the Socialist Justice Warriors spoke about Trump as if he were a dictator, they were the ones trying to force themselves down America’s throat. They were the ones attempting to dismantle the democracy.

No wonder Jimmie fucking hated politics.

“You don’t have a mole in the White House, then?” Jimmie asked, fishing around to see if Christie was part of their organization.

“If we did, we wouldn’t have had to kidnap your girlfriend,” Hillary said. “Since you refused to assist the Socialist Justice Warriors, we’ve had to resort to . . . unsavory tactics. You left us no choice.”

Hillary had known what she was doing when she called Cat his “girlfriend.” He thought about disputing the taunt, but keeping his emotions in check was something he’d just picked up from Trump’s book.

“Set the tapes on the ground and scoot them over,” Hillary demanded.

Jimmie felt the recorder in his jacket pocket but didn’t remove it. “Where’s Cat?”

“She’s safe,” Jeb! said. “Just give us the damn tapes. Time is running out.”

“Tell me where she is, or I drop the tapes into the toilet.”

“You wouldn’t,” Jeb! said. “You wouldn’t dare. You know how valuable—”

“He’s bluffing,” Hillary said. “He probably doesn’t even have them on him.”

Jimmie pressed PLAY on the recorder. Trump’s voice echoed in the stall: Here’s what you do. You finance a boat, then you buy the boat company and run it into the ground. They close up shop, boom—free boat.

He paused it.

“God dammit,” Jeb! cried, pounding weakly on the divider. “Don’t do it.”

“He has duplicates somewhere,” Hillary said, unfazed.

“I couldn’t risk making a copy,” Jimmie said. “The interview sessions are on a hard drive inside this recorder. No tapes. No copies. This is it.”

According to Trump: The Art of the Deal, “the worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead.” Right now, Jeb! Bush was sweating desperation. Hillary was playing it cool. Jimmie wondered if she’d colored Trump’s book.

“Your girlfriend is tied up in the Taken exhibit,” Hillary said.

That was all Jimmie wanted to know. That was all he needed to know.

He unlocked the door.

“You think you’re just going to walk out of here without handing over the device?” Hillary said. “Even if you get past both of our men at the restroom door, you’ll never make it out of the museum alive. And neither will your girlfriend.”

“You’ll get the recorder as soon as I make sure she’s safe,” Jimmie said. “I’m in charge now. I’m the goddamn man. I’m—”

The overhead lights went out. This wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in Trump’s United States. You just sort of had to expect the rolling brownouts, as all caps on energy consumption had been lifted. Usually, the backup generators in most buildings kicked in after ten or fifteen seconds. Life would return to normal.

But this time, the darkness did not abate. Really? Did this have to happen right in the middle of his big speech where he turned the tables on the kidnappers?

A loud bang outside of the restroom startled Jimmie. It was quickly followed by another, and another. Gunshots.