A world of woes writhed across the weary countenance of the Great Trumpkin. The leeches on his stomach — they itched like a thousand flea bites. What torments he endured in his quest for a miracle cure for the coronavirus! Why, this was even worse than sitting through an intelligence briefing.
Yet he had to persist in his search, particularly now that a new study had found that hydroxychloroquine, which he had assured the nation “doesn’t hurt people,” actually led to an increased risk of death and heart disease among COVID-19 patients.
With that news, the Great Trumpkin, who proclaimed he had been taking the drug himself, had suffered a royal recontextualization in the streets of his kingdom. He now looked less like England’s Henry V rallying his forces to victory at Agincourt and more like Bohemia’s blind King John, consigning his vanguard to disaster at the Battle of Crecy. Why, word was that street vendors were printing T-shirts adorned with Melania’s face and the caption “I’m with stupid” to sell in capitals around the globe.
Fortunately, serendipity had led him to leeches. Trumprincess Ivanka had given her brother Clown Prince Eric “U.S. Presidents for Dummies” for Christmas, and, avid student that he was, Eric could now list the heads of state all the way through Jefferson, before tripping up on those two whose first names were both James and whose last names each began with M.
Browsing its pages, the Great Trumpkin had read that, in George Washington’s day, physicians had regularly bled patients with leeches, a treatment thought to help with a variety of maladies. Bloodsuckers might not ward off or cure COVID-19, but unlike hydroxychloroquine, at least they wouldn’t hasten your end.
It was so unfair. Just a few months ago, he had been presiding over an economy everyone said was the best in history. Well, everyone except churlish economists and historians and others of their ilk. Better yet, perhaps because they were regular Fox News watchers, the Little Trumpkins labored under the fortuitous (if erroneous) impression it was really his doing.
And now it was all gone, gone due to “the invisible enemy.” Who knew something invisible could be real? Certainly not the Great Trumpkin, which was why he had dithered, despite a dozen or so warnings about the virus in the daily intelligence reports prepared for him. And two attempts by Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar to sound the alarm. And two memos from trade adviser Peter Navarro.
And so, the contagion he hadn’t really believed in had tanked the economy he hadn’t really created.
Eric looked up from his historical studies.
“Father sir, it says here that Franklin Roosevelt had big-league unemployment, and he got reelected three times!”
Ivanka rolled her eyes.
“Yes, but he brought unemployment down, not up.” The Great Trumpkin could see she was aware of the tragedy that loomed: If he couldn’t defeat the coronavirus, Joe Biden would defeat him.
He needed to send a reassuring message to the nation. Dr. Anthony Fauci had suggested wearing a mask during his official appearances. Doing so, Fauci said, would showcase a smart, cautious, socially conscious approach to reopening.
Pfft. As if that were what the Great Trumpkin desired! He wanted something that signaled: It’s time to get back to work — and golf — right now!
The leeches alone wouldn’t do it. Besides, Sean and Laura said the itching was just too much — and would drive his base nuts.
“We already own that demographic,” someone else on the morning strategy call had quipped.
The Great Trumpkin scowled. There had to be something else.
Then, like divine intervention, the butler announced Stephen Miller. Miller had spent his COVID-19 quarantine finishing a book and was hoping for a blurb. His boss took the advance copy of “Foreign Lands and Peoples I Despise” and thumbed through it. Surprise came to his face.
“Only 300 pages?”
“It’s the first of a 10-volume set.”
When Miller left, the Great Trumpkin opened it at random, to a passage about witch doctors using headless chickens to ward off evil spirits.
Eureka! It was a sign.
“Ivanka,” he asked, “that book you got your brother — do they have one on voodoo?”
Scot Lehigh is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at scot.lehigh@globe.com. Follow him @GlobeScotLehigh.