Perverse Wailing at the Red Roof Inn

art by Joey Feldman

by Joseph Seiss

It’s only been a month since the election and I’ve already begun the grim slide into a whole new world of psychotic behavior. All of a sudden my worst fears are a sobering reality. No more jokes. Donald Trump has brutally murdered fun with a blunt object in the back of a stolen minivan, and then uploaded the whole gruesome thing to YouTube.

When they shut down the Daily Show and haul John Oliver off to Cuba, I’ll be standing next to the wild-eyed pervert in the crusty army coat by the freeway holding the sign that reads, “repent”. Yes. Sobriety is the new madness in an age where fascists run the show.

As I recall, the darkest moment of this election cycle went down on a blurry night in October at a Red Roof Inn South of the St. Louis International Airport. I had just fled back to my room with a bottle of Bacardi Gold and a bag of limes to decompress after sneaking onto the Washington University campus during the second presidential debate.

Trembling, I cocked my head around the door frame to give the empty parking lot a good scan before I bolted the door to my dimly lit hotel room. Muttering to myself, I yanked the curtains closed and flipped on the TV. I took a violent pull from the Bacardi, cracked a beer and did some breathing exercises as Wolf Blitzer and Kellyanne Conway bickered about the fate of humanity on CNN.

I would have stuck around on campus to get the feel for things, but the experience had given me such a sour jolt that all I could do was flee back to the Red Roof Inn. The mood had turned rotten after Trump’s sniveling vitriol spiraled into a kind of hateful, ritualistic display of brutish physical intimidation.

Watching that ape-lipped reprobate pace around behind Hillary like a prowling jackal was all it took. I was bound to do something rash. Anything, like maybe corner the InfoWars correspondent standing by the coffee booth, and jabber at him about how the Feds hauled my cousin away to the nuthouse after he called to report that his dentist was an extraterrestrial.

I figured this was my grand opportunity to leave my mark. Rattle the fuckers. Yes. Give them a run for their money. Show them there are other powers at play here. Yes. Then hightail it halfway across town to chuckle about it over a box of wine and some crab rangoon. Yes.

At one point, as I stood with a crowd of students straddling the CNN pavilion on the north lawn of Brookings Quadrangle, Cory Lewandowski brushed past me. I briefly succumbed to a fleeting desire to clock that prickly haired little weasel in the nuts. Obviously I resisted my animal desire, but the scenario played out it my mind’s eye.

BREAKING NEWS: Some kind of grinning, disillusioned, publicity seeking degenerate who somehow evaded campus security was apprehended Sunday at the site of the second presidential debate in St. Louis, MO, after allegedly assaulting Cory Lewandowski, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s estranged ex-campaign manager.

The suspect, identified as a Kansas City man with a documented history of mental illness, was arrested by the St. Louis police department after striking Lewandowski in the groin. According to reports, the suspect refused to cooperate with police, and snarled incoherently at news cameras as authorities drug him off the Washington University campus amidst a wide-eyed frenzy of media and onlookers…

But that was then. This is now. Circumstances have changed. Donald Trump has thrust himself upon the helm. I’ve even considered converting to Islam, buying a hot piece and holing up in a motel room somewhere on the outskirts of Denver. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and with each headline the world seems to be crawling closer and closer towards the edge. But alas, only the paranoid will drag themselves from the smoldering heap. Or will they? Survival of the…fittest.

Even Steve Bannon can get behind that right? When the Trump people realize they were played for fools and their man gets caught embezzling public funds to settle his lawsuits, who will they blame then? They certainly won’t blame themselves, and now that Breitbart is technically the de facto state propaganda apparatus, white nationalism is now the hottest ticket in town.

The only silver lining I can grasp at this point is the fact that Trump and his transition team are so risibly inept that soon enough the whole thing will just keel over like a sick addict. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of a swift and brutal impeachment months after the inauguration. Call it wishful thinking, but a man without a bright side in this day and age is a man bound for a depth of depravity that would cause even Charles Bukovski to shake his head in consternation.

We can only hope that in the end these strange days don’t count against us.

Selah

 

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