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: We are sharing approximately every other story from Evening Soup with Basement Joe, and are sampling Volume Three’s ninety chapters. In today’s episode, Joe Buckstop is forced to stumble through a discussion about guns, crime, and bullets with his soup aide, Columbus McFetridge.
Guns, Crime, and Bullet Soup
Dateline: July 22. Begin Transcript:
“Good evening, sir.”
“Oh, hang on… wait a minute… don’t come in yet…”
“Yes sir. Whatever you say, sir.”
“Let’s see… gotta get this boss… YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! … Got’em!… Huh?… Awww… Nope… DAMN! … Oh, Dammit. Died again.”
“Just let me know when you’re ready, sir. Or should I go back to the kitchen and come back later, sir?”
“No, no, come on in. I’m done. Uhhh… finishing up an email exchange with one of the cabinet secretaries.”
“Oh? Which one, sir?”
“Which one? Umm… uhh… Anthony… umm… no, umm… I mean, Janet… umm… Merrick.. yeah… Merrick Garland. We were talking about, uh, um… prosecuting… um… someone.”
“It’s okay, sir. Everybody plays video games nowadays, sir. Even my Dad plays videogames. There’s really nothing to be ashamed of, sir.”
“Huh? I wasn’t playing videogames! I was emailing… uhh… The Attorney General!”
“Yes sir. Whatever you say sir. Though I’ve never seen an email system that made gunfire noises as you typed, and made the sound of an explosion when you hit send, sir.”
“Come on, man!”
“It’s okay, sir, really. Here, sir, have some soup.”
“Oh, is there soup? Goody!”
“This is an interesting one, sir. Your cook made a really neat one today, sir. Good historical soup.”
“I don’t care about history. Does it taste good?”
“Well, sure, sir, but it’s the history that makes it interesting. This is Bullet Soup, sir, from Canada.”
“Bullet Soup?”
“Yes indeed, sir. Here you go: soup, crackers, napkins and spoons, sir.”
“Umm… how do you cook bullets?”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“Well, i mean, no matter how long you cook them, lead doesn’t ever really get soft enough to eat, does it?”
“I have no response to that.”
“Can I trust this? Who are you, anyway?”
“I’m your new temp soup server, sir. Remember? Columbus McFetridge? It’s my, uh, fourth day, sir.”
“Oh, I didn’t recognize you.”
“No problem, sir. I’m sure you meet lots of people every day, sir. Must be impossible to keep them all straight.”
“Oh no. Hardly meet anybody. Sit here in the basement all day and all night, except when they trot me out for a photo op. Had a town hall the other day, that was neat. But then they drove me back here.”
“Uhh… is that so, sir?”
“Yup. You know, you spend a lifetime in politics, always being afraid you’ll go to jail someday, then you reach the top of the game, and it’s not that much different from being in jail anyway.”
“You spent your entire career afraid you’d end up in jail, sir? Why?”
“Huh? Oh… No reason!”
“Really, sir?”
“Yeah, uhh, never mind. So, uhh, tell me about the soup!”
“It’s a French Canadian soup, sir. From Saskatoon. Kind of a wild west thing. I was surprised when your cook served it up, because while I’ve never actually had it before, it came up in my studies when I was in culinary school, sir.”
“You went to culinary school?”
“Well, yes, sir. I’m a chef, sir. That is, I’m an aspiring chef. I’ve worked in several California restaurants as a sous chef, sir.”
“So, where did you go again?”
“You mean my culinary school, sir?”
“What’s a culinary school?”
“Well, it’s, umm, it’s a cooking school, sir. Learning the chemistry and history and nutrition and cultural aspects of cooking, and mastering cooking techniques, and learning how to manage a restaurant or industrial kitchen, or… well, there’s so much to it, sir. It’s a school about the profession of cooking and restaurant management, sir.”
“Huh. They have a lot of those?”
“What, sir?”
“They have a lot of those cooking schools?”
“Well, certainly , sir, there are plenty of them. Umm… some specialize in specific cuisines, some specialize more in the business side, some, well, there’s a broad range of culinary schools… come, on, sir, you’re pulling my leg, aren’t you? You knew there were cooking schools!”
“Huh? Never heard of ’em before. Huh. Interesting.”
“Well, anyway, sir, I happened to run into bullet soup in my studies, when I was doing a report on French Canadian cuisine, sir. It was invented in Saskatoon, by a group of French Canadian pioneers, who had gone west in the mid 1800s, sir.”
“Oh.”
“They made up a new version of a beef vegetable soup, to work with the bison and other animals they caught up around Manitoba and Saskatchewan, sir. Your cook made this modern version with beef and pork, sir.”
“So, what does it have to do with bullets?”
“Bullets, sir? Oh, well, it’s named Bullet Soup after the French word for meatballs, sir. Boullettes, sir.”
“Boulettes?”
“Yes sir. French for meatballs. So it’s a meatball and vegetable soup, sir. French flavors. It’s a healthy soup from the Canadian west, sir.”
“Oh. Nothing about guns then?”
“No, sir. It’s food. It’s not like guns could have anything to do with it. Just a meatball soup, sir.”
“Oh. Well, that’s a relief. Wouldn’t want to get in trouble, pushing bullets after my town hall the other day.”
“Your town hall, sir?”
‘Yeah, I talked about the need to get rid of guns. Don’t want to look like a hypocrite.”
“Too late for that, sir.”
“Huh?”
“I said, try a boullette, sir. The meatballs in the soup, sir. See how it is.”
“Oh. Yeah. Mmmm. These ARE good! You’re right!”
“Glad to hear it, sir. I’ll tell the cook, sir.”
“Can’t have anything to do with bullets. Gotta get rid of them.”
“Umm… sir, forgive me for asking, sir, but… what do you mean, get rid of bullets, sir?”
“Exactly that! Gotta get rid of ’em!”
“Well, sir, umm… you know that’s not legal, possible, or even desirable, sir…”
“You lying dog-faced pony soldier!”
“Umm, sir, I don’t mean to upset you, but what sense does that make? You know police need bullets, sir.”
“Well, sure.”
“And soldiers need bullets.”
“Well, sure.”
“And hunters need bullets.”
“Well, sure.”
“And besides, again, it’s illegal anyway.”
“No, I can write an EO…”
“Well, sir, not for something blatantly unconstitutional, sir.”
“I’ve done it before.”
“Well, I know, sir, but… you’re talking about the Second Amendment here, sir. It’s protected, sir.”
“No it’s not.”
“Umm… i beg your pardon, sir, but the Second clearly protects the right to bear firearms, sir.”
“Doesn’t mention bullets.”
“Excuse me???”
“Nope. I’ve read it and read it. It protects guns. Not bullets.”
“Sir, there isn’t a philosopher or constitutional lawyer on earth who’d make that case, sir.”
“Oh, I’ll find one. Besides, I only proposed getting rid of 9mm bullets. No others. For now.”
“What difference does that make, sir?”
“Well, 9mm is metric.”
“So what, sir?”
“Americans think of metric measurements as foreign. They’ll never think the Second Amendment protects 9mm anything.”
“Who thought up this crazy idea, sir?”
“Huh? I did! Or maybe… hmm… come to think of it… maybe it was Hunter.”
“Sir, the 9mm has been one of the most popular rounds for a generation or more, sir. Practically all gun owners have at least one 9mm in their collections, sir. You can’t just target the 9mm on a whim, sir. You must know that. Your team must know that, sir.”
“Well we’ve gotta start somewhere. You have any idea how many shootings there are in this country?”
“Sure, sir. Lots of them.”
“So we’ve got to do something about it!”
“And the country agrees, sir. We’ve got to stop the causes of shootings.”
“Exactly!”
“We’ve got to stop importing murderers through open borders, we’ve got to throw out the corrupt states attorneys that refuse to prosecute criminals, we’ve got to throw out the judges who let convicted criminals go free instead of locking them, and we’ve got to get rid of the governors who keep making up every excuse they can think of to throw open the prison doors and let criminals go free, sir.”
“Huh? Wait a minute… no… that’s not it at all…”
“Sir, you’re isolated down here. You live in a basement with 24/7 protection all around the building, sir. You don’t have to worry about crime, sir.”
“So?”
“Well, I do, sir. Try working in a restaurant sometime. You work in an open business that’s often empty during non-rush times, sir, with open doors and a risk that criminals will assume there’s cash in the till, sir.”
“The what?”
“The till. Umm…. the cash register, sir.”
“Oh.”
“And then, you leave work at 1 or 2 in the morning, heading for your car or a bus stop, when the streets are deserted, and only the criminals and other late night people are out… huge risk of trouble at that hour, sir, from store robbers to muggers, sir.”
“See! So we need to get rid of guns!”
“Sir, with all due respect, sir, there isn’t a law you could dream up, legal or otherwise, that would take the guns out of the hands of criminals who are walking around free. The solution is to lock up the criminals, sir.”
“But we can’t do that!”
“Why not, sir?”
“Uh… we just can’t!”
“Why, sir? Why can’t you lock up the criminals?”
“Umm… i don’t remember. There was a reason… I know there was… I remember… think … think, think…”
“Sure, sir. You keep on trying to think, sir. I’ll be back tomorrow; if you’ve thought of anything by then, let me know, would you, sir?”
Copyright 2021-2024 John F Di Leo
Excerpted with permission from “Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volume Three: How Is This Not Over Yet?”, 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.
His newest nonfiction book, “Current Events and the Issues of Our Age,” was just released on July 1, and is also available, in both paperback and Kindle eBook, exclusively on Amazon.
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