Political Satire: Having trouble surviving these times? You’re not alone. Join us in columnist John F. Di Leo’s exploration of an alternate universe, where we imagine the impossible:
Joe Buckstop, an aging, corrupt old fool, somehow becomes president in his basement, and every night, an aide has to bring him his soup and discuss the events of the day as he prepares to receive his nightly meds…
Note: This is the first sample from Volume Two. You may recall that in our last installment, we introduced a new soup aide, young Rhett Snapper. We will continue to share roughly every other chapter from the book for the time being.
Cream of Broccoli Soup
Dateline, April 20. Begin Transcript:
“Hello? Ummm… Hello, down there… Anybody home?”
“Over here, in the office!”
“Oh, good evening, sir; I have your soup, sir.”
“Oh, right, good… good… hmm… Do I know you?”
“We just met yesterday, sir.”
“Oh, yes, right, right. Mr. Ambassador?”
“Uh, no, sir, I’m not an ambassador, sir…”
“Oh, yes, of course, good evening, uh, Congressman?”
“I’m not a Congressman, sir!”
“Oh, sorry, are you, umm, Sorry, I’m just not putting the name to the face, uh, you’re on my cabinet, aren’t you?”
“No, sir, I’m Snap, sir.”
“What?”
“Not what. Who. I’m Snap, sir. Rhett Snapper, sir.”
“Oh.”
“We just met last night, sir.”
“Oh.”
“I took the part time job working for your cook, bringing down your soup, sir?”
“Oh.”
“So here I am with your soup, sir. Cream of Broccoli, sir.”
“Oh… thanks… how is it?”
“Well, sir, this is your soup, sir… I don’t have any, sir.”
“Oh, tell the cook to fix you a bowl. She’ll be glad to. She makes a big vat of it.”
“Thank you, sir, but no thank you, sir. Not tonight, sir, but thank you for the offer, sir.”
“Oh. Well then. Let’s see. Are there crackers?”
“Yes sir. Soup, crackers, spoon, napkins, sir.”
“Oh. Good.”
“So, do you need me to do anything else, sir? While I’m down here, sir?”
“Why?”
“Well, sir, It’s a part time job, and I don’t know what else to do, and being paid for four hours just to bring a bowl of soup downstairs, while a sort of a plum gig, I suppose, seems rather, uh, not entirely fair, you know? Like there must be more for me to do than this, you know, sir?”
“Well, in the government, we don’t worry so much about exact time cards and such. We need a job done, we hire someone to do the job. We don’t worry so much about counting hours, young man.”
“Well, I appreciate that, sir, I really do, but… this particular job seems a bit on the extreme end, sir. It’s not like starting at some regulatory agency at 8:00am, working really hard all day, and leaving 20 minutes early because you’re beat. I mean, I just carried a tray down the stairs, sir.”
“Yeah, but they’re steep stairs.”
“Well, sir, yes, but, umm…”
“And the lighting isn’t all that good.”
“Well, that’s true, sir, but still…”
“Don’t overthink it, son. Just so long as you get me my soup, that’s what I care about.”
“Uhh, thank you, sir, but, well, you know, sir, I’m thinking from the taxpayer’s point of view, sir, you know?”
“No, I don’t.”
“I mean, when you look at it from a taxpayer’s perspective, sir…”
“Come on, man! What on earth would you do that for?”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Don’t look at anything from the taxpayer’s perspective. You’re on the side of government now. Just be glad of it, make the most of it, don’t worry about the rest.”
“Well, but I have to, sir. It’s not like I’ll be working for the government my whole life, sir.”
“Why not? I have.”
“Uh, yes sir, well, I suppose so, sir.”
“It’s worked out all right for me.”
“Well, sir, yes, but, ummm…”
“Free housing, free travel, free meals. Can’t beat it.”
“I understand, sir, but even that is in very few jobs, sir. Even in government, sir.”
“Not if you set up your campaign funds right, kid.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Well, see, there are donations, and then there are donations. ”
“I don’t follow you, sir.”
“Well, you ever watch a James Bond movie?”
“Huh? Sure, sir. But what does that have to do with…”
“Ever wonder where the government gets the money for all that stuff? All the combination wristwatch time bombs and submarine cars and spaceships and stuff?
“Well, it’s fiction, sir… it’s not like it’s real…”
“That’s beside the point. There’s always money, you just need to be on the side controlling the disbursement.”
“But sir, in government, there’s a budget process, right, sir? Like my dad always says, ‘There’s nothing more honest than an adding machine.’ He means, you can’t fake the numbers when they’re published on paper in the light of day. Everything has to be a line in a budget that’s been approved and tracked, sir…”
“Approved? Sure. But tracked? Heh heh…. no.”
“Wait a minute, sir… the Constitution says there’s a budget, it says the congress vets and votes on the spending bills and then the president signs them.”
“Nah. Not for about 50 years now, kid.”
“What the Hell? I mean, I’m sorry, I mean, umm… I don’t understand, sir…”
“It all changed just before I got to Washington, kid. We don’t have budgets anymore. We have a Continuing Resolution now.”
“Wow. How long is the Continuing Resolution good for, sir?”
“Oh, around fifty years now.”
“No, sir, I mean, I understand it changed fifty years ago, sir, but I’m wondering, how long is each one good for now, if it’s not an annual thing anymore, sir?”
“Come on, man! I said it’s a Continuing Resolution. I can’t make it any plainer than that. It just continues. Fifty years now.”
“You mean, sir, it’s been fifty years since Washington had a balanced budget, sir?”
“Oh… I don’t know about that. For a balanced one, you’ve got to go back further….”
“How far, sir?”
“Beats me. I wasn’t exactly a history major, sir.”
“Hmm… Like my dad always says, ‘The decisions of the present have their roots in the decisions of the past,’ sir.”
“Is your dad a gardener, son?”
“Huh? Oh, no, sir. He mows our lawn sometimes, but that’s about it.”
“Oh.”
“But I still don’t understand your James Bond reference, sir.”
“What James Bond reference?”
“You asked me if I’d seen any Bond movies.”
“Oh.”
“I said sure.”
“Oh.”
“And then you talked about their expensive gadgets, sir.”
“Oh, yes, right. Well, where do they get the money for that sort of thing?”
“From the production budget, sir? And maybe sometimes, some good product placement, sir?”
“Uh, no…. no, I’m talking about how it’s buried in the, umm, uhh, oh, come on man, you know the thing…. the department allocations, that’s it.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“You put things in the allocations for each department, on paper, one way, then the system approves it, then each department gets their budget and they move everything around.”
“Wait, can they do that, sir?”
“Well, I don’t know if they can, but they damned sure do! Heh heh…”
“Oh wow.”
“So there’s a budget for something, and whoever’s in charge of that line spends it as he sees fit. The best way to run the department. If that means buying a computer, you do it. If that means hiring a secretary, you do that. You’re still spending it on your department, it’s not like you’re cheating.”
“But sir, isn’t there some kind of, uh, oversight committee that checks up on that stuff and makes sure it’s all correct, sir? That it’s all being spent the way it’s supposed to be, sir?”
“Oh, not for a long time now.”
“Good heavens, sir!”
“Not since. Oh, let me see now… My memory isn’t what it once was… and heck, it wasn’t that good even then…”
“If you say so, sir.”
“The Space Commission. That’s it.”
“The Space Commission, sir?”
“Yes, I’m, uh, I’m almost sure that was the name.”
“The Space Commission, sir?”
“No, maybe.. the Race Commission?”
“Uh… I might have read about this in my history class… Are you talking about the Grace Commission, sir?”
‘Yes, yes, that’s it.”
“At the beginning of the Reagan administration, sir?”
“Yes, yes, that’s it.”
“That was in 1981, sir!”
“Yes, yes, that’s it.”
“Are you telling me that nobody’s really done a deep dive in auditing federal spending in 40 years, sir?”
“That bunch sure was a pain. Nothing but trouble.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but, well, I’m just, uh, a bit surprised, I guess, sir…”
“Oh, don’t worry. You’re on our side now. A government employee. You don’t have to worry about that sort of thing. Nobody’s going to be checking your time cards, son. We have bigger things to worry about than that.”
“Bigger, sir?”
“Sure! Things like systemic racism, and the right to free college, and sexual rights, and trans rights, and climate change…”
“I see, sir.”
“There you go. Glad you understand.”
“Interesting.”
“What’s that?”
“Just thinking about something my dad always says, sir. ‘No matter how well-dressed and well-spoken a man seems, if he twists words so they mean what he wants them to mean, rather than what they really do mean, he’s just a Humpty Dumpty,’ sir.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”
“Ever read Alice in Wonderland, sir?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe… oh… probably not.”
“Right. Never mind then, sir.”
“This is good soup, though, I’ll tell you that. It’s green. I like green.”
“I’ll bet you do, sir.”
Copyright 2021-2024 John F Di Leo
Excerpted with permission from Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volume Two, from Free State West Publishing, available in paperback or eBook exclusively on Amazon.
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance professional and consultant. A onetime Milwaukee County Republican Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review since 2009. His book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), are available in either eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.
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