Letter to the President
Dear Mr. Trump,
How’s the weather in your neck of the woods? Good day for a golf game, wouldn’t you say? See, as I don’t know you at all, I thought we might establish a kind of rapport by talking golf, and I need a backdrop of sorts for this letter. I had a bad accident damaging my head, which tends to make me a bit shaky in the brain. Has an errant golf ball ever whacked you a good one? Kind of levels the playing field, don’t it? Oooh, darn them pesky amateurs! Fuckin’ nuisance, ain’t they?
Let us proceed, shall we? My morning with your morning. We’ll kinda compare, OK? I imagine first you teed off, right? Well, let me tell you just how I tee off.
I wait. Every single morning. Bet you don’t have that difficulty, do you? I tell you, it’s a bitch. You know, once in a while one of my T.P.’s (transportation providers) actually has the nerve to call in sick or some-such other nonsense. Inexcusable, I do say! Bet that don’t happen with your staff, does it? Boy, oh boy, you got it lucky. And even worse, they have confusion with our language! No excuse at all, I say, old chap! You’d think them S.O.B.’s could find a lot better way to put food on the table than driving hack in Portland, Maine. Christ knows what they’ll want next. They could start demanding certain things, like equal rights. Who knows where it’ll end? Gee, they might even start to want to be treated like us whites! Horrors!
The things we must put up with. I guess you can compare it to, say, your golf cart won’t start. Now you’ve got it.
Oh well. Like Shama, my T.P. from Iraq, says: patience, patience. My ride is finally here, I guess like the Secret Service is there for you. Today’s ride out was a pretty routine drive. Always gives me much time to think. As so often happens on the old golf course, you have to kind of lag a bit. I got to thinking more about LogistiCare. We always drive down the route I’d take, had I been forced to walk, before my accident. Jesus, I don’t even know how I done it. Me and my friend Diane clambering over snow banks, braving speeding vehicles in all sorts of weather. Once we even almost got clipped by an oncoming snowplow. Well, thanks again, LogistiCare — couldn’t have made it without you.
Oh, and let me tell you: LogistiCare ain’t just some sort of joy ride hauling folks to the methadone clinic. I’ve had many occasion through different situations to accompany my T.P.’s to pick up other people needing transport to M.D.’s, handicapped outfits — you know, anything necessary for folks to get by in life. And though I’ve never done it, I heard that procuring food and religious services are also on the menu. I guess you’d refer to that as “luxury spending.”
Now we arrive at my clinic, which I truly must attend — kinda like you having to attend one of your policy meetings. From what I’ve heard, more policy is discussed by the third hole on the course than in any Congressional staff room. A few days ago I asked for an increase in my dosage amount. Oh boy, I’ll bet you’re cringing at them words — like somebody asking for a raise.
More waiting. I know the experience of waiting for your medicine to work. Unless you inject an amount of liquid, nothing is instant. They call it booting in the junkie world. I guess in some parts of Africa they can equate it with a medicine man cooking up the cure.
Sorry, folks. That’s antiquated. Nowadays it’s probably more like they wait for some sort of care package, which I guess is the least we can do after pushing those people into untold years of antiquated colonialism, which surely has altered their native ways into a state of no coming back. Oh well. Just another continent we’ve decimated with years of slavery, charity and outright bigotry. And, oh yes, let’s not forget poverty. We could do that one with the best of ’em, couldn’t we? Force them into a place of starvation and then throw out the old life preserver. Worked well, didn’t it? Maybe too well, some folks might say.
I know the big trouble we got on our doorstep is water. And I know you don’t want to hear it, but a large part of the problem is global warming. The need for water in Africa is worse than ours, and our selfish capitalistic policies have magnified the dilemma. It’s come time to fix things, ain’t it?
I do have one idea, and it’s radical and maybe too extreme for you to even contemplate: take all the money you guys confiscate and spend on drug enforcement and put it to saving water instead. Think about the savings in the budget by completely eliminating the DEA. That should take care of a lot of budget right there. And if you need some more cash, well, you can always get credit at your casino, right?
At my clinic we can always ask for an increase in our medication. And of course we go through some formalities, but just as the legislature works, they’ll do an increase. They’re not totally hard-hearted bastards, you know. If they see a need, they do help folks out.
Water is a most serious subject, maybe the most potentially catastrophic one there is. I can’t seem to say enough about it. You think you could really care as much as I do? I hope so. You know, it’d be like a personal dream of mine: all the world be fed, all the world have enough water. Maybe I’m reaching for the stars. Maybe you’re just trying to break par. I wonder, Mr. Trump, did you ever think about the whole wide world?
It was just a normal, regular ride this morning, ’cept for I got to see my pal Rene again, as I usually do on most weekends. She’s a real sweetheart, I must say. Something about those French ladies. Today’s T.P. happens to speak French, like I guess folks in many former African colonies do, though that’s not his only tongue. Victor tells us he also speaks Spanish, and he’s vastly improving on his English.
Between the three of us, we had a real enjoyable trip. We rolled right through my clinic delay, no problem. Do you roll right through your delays, Mr. Trump? You just seem to steamroll over everything, don’t you? Where I, being a plebe, have to kinda struggle through these minor glitches which snag up all our lives.
I wish you might delight in my new friends from Africa as much as I do. My pal from Angola is so happy and simple (simple being a compliment), as I wish we might be. It’s like he’s not so burdened as us, with our hurry-up lifestyle and complicated ways. He’s from a simpler time, it seems, where folks aren’t quite so ape-shit over their next paycheck, or not being the first one in line at the mall on Black Tuesday.
People are always trying to skip in line at our respective clinics — mine and Rene’s, that is. It annoys us, of course, but we’ve kinda learned to live with it. Like we say, What are you gonna do? Nothing. You probably got the same problem with some young whippersnapper Democrat trying to get in his two cents before it’s his turn. Fuckin’ Democrats.
I hope your health is fine. Can’t have someone in your position not feeling well, can we? And I sincerely hope you’re not finding this job a bit tedious. Boy, I know it can be tedious in D.C. I viewed those Congressional hearings. Oh my gosh, do they put you to sleep, Don? At your age, it’s more than likely, ain’t it?
Another reason I gotta return home quickly is my medicine, diagnosed by my doctor for blood pressure and a bronchial. Their side effects sometimes get the best of me. You most likely don’t have these troubles, do you, Don? I must keep a jug of water beside me at all times. You probably got your own dosing nurse. Lucky you. No tiring trips up to Rite Aid for the President.
I used to have what they call “bring-homes” from my clinic, but since my accident, no more. Maybe someday, I hope. It’s not easy getting up at 5 a.m. every day, going out in the cold, waiting in line. And winter in Maine sucks, don’t it?
Well, finally I’m at the 9th hole, the one where you congratulate your partner for playing such a swell front nine. If you had any friends, you could slap them on the back and say, “Hey, nice round.” Got any pals, Prez? Well, I sure do. I don’t believe he voted for you (sorry).
Must be bad, I guess, hanging out in the White House with nothing but a pack of vultures pecking at you night and day. Well, coming from the casino world, you gotta be used to that sort of conduct. I know they’re used to it in Africa. They’re used to needing protection from predators, and I think they must rely on others to look out for each other. We could learn something here, couldn’t we?
I always rely on my pal Cliff, currently penning another article in this rag. Cliff has been my mentor, advisor and provider — even giving me the paper this letter is being written on. Boy, if you don’t know this Golden Rule, you never will. If you can’t rely on your friends, who can you rely on? This is probably the biggest lesson I’ll ever learn from my new friends from the Third World.
I hope you got friends along the way also. From what I seen lately, you need them.
