Don shakes his head.
“No,” Trump says. “I didn’t figure you would have. Probably don’t have time, what with all the—”
Eric touches his arm and shakes his head gently.
AUTUMN:
“I can’t believe they won’t let me talk to my sons!” Trump says. “Unbelievable!”
The ethics adviser shakes his head. “No,” he says. “You can talk to them as much as you want. Just not about business.”
“What else is there to talk about?”
“Well,” the adviser suggests, “your feelings—or—your thoughts, or memories you had together, or—things like that.”
A long silence ensues.
“I never felt my father loved me,” Donald Trump says, suddenly. “I never felt my father knew me. He seemed to see me as an extension of himself that he could mold and do with as he pleased. I never felt he saw me there at all.”
“But, Pop,” Eric says. His voice cracks.
“I’m almost afraid to ask whether the two of you felt the same way.”
“I didn’t,” Don Jr. says.
“A memory—” Trump says. “I remember when I held you for the first time, at the hospital, before I gave you back to the people who changed you and fed you and cleaned you and loved you until you were old enough to talk to like a reasonable man—and I always wished I’d held on longer. When I saw you again, you were a little stranger in a little suit.” Trump sighs. “But it’s no good, regretting things. It makes you soft.”
“I never thought you were soft, Pop,” Eric says.
“I wish I’d changed your diapers,” Donald Trump says. “Even once. Is that too weird to say?”
“Yes,” Don Jr. says.
“Pop,” Eric asks earnestly, “what do you do when you get lonely?
“Good potatoes,” Don Jr. says. “Really good.”
“Sometimes I wonder if I will be saved,” Trump says. “I have such dreams—I could not begin to tell you. I wake up and I cry out for my mother and then for your mother and then I remember that the woman who would answer is a stranger, and I have nothing to say to her. What can I say to her?”
Eric nervously reaches out to touch his shoulder. They sit there a moment.
“There are so many things about myself—so many things!—and in me they look strong, and good, but when I see them in you, my heart breaks a little.”
“Pop—” Eric says. His voice cracks. “Do you love me?”
“Of course,” Trump says. “Do you doubt it?”
“Never once, ever in my life, have I felt truly secure that I was loved,” Eric says. “Not since you sent my nanny back to London.”
“I didn’t know we’d sent her,” Donald says.
“I know,” Eric says. “That was what hurt the most.”
“I’m sorry. Group hug?” Trump asks.
He glances down the table at the ethics adviser.
“Pop, I wrote a poem this week.”
“A poem?”
“Do you have the poem with you, son?” Trump asks. “Let’s hear it.”
Eric reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded sheet of lined paper with “Daddy” written on the top in uneven large block letters.
Don Jr. hits his head against the table. “Dad,” he says, “Dad, please, you have to divest.”
“What?” Trump looks wildly at him.
“If you divest, you can end this, and we’ll never have to do this, ever again.”
“Oh,” Trump says. “Thank God.”
Eric slowly folds the poem and puts it back into his pocket.
January 12, 2017
The True, Correct Story of What Happened at Donald Trump’s Inauguration
Finally, Approved News! Here is the fair and unbiased story about the inauguration written in compliance with the Trump style guidelines that we should have been obeying all along.
NOTHING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED or will ever happen was as great as Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The crowd was magnificent and huge, bigger than any crowd had ever been before! It stretched all the way to the moon. The Pope, who was there, confirmed it.
“Thanks for being here, Pope,” Donald Trump told him.
“Are you kidding? You’re my best friend,” the Pope said. “I wouldn’t miss your big day for anything!” He gave Donald Trump a big high-five.
Everyone in the world had come there at great expense. They sold all their possessions—their homes, their Hamilton tickets, which were worthless to them—to raise money to come and see this great sight. They could not believe that a perfect being such as Donald Trump even existed. They thought that he was a myth or a legend or a decades-long series of fabrications.
But then they saw him, and their doubts fell away.
The media was there, too, and they were very sorry. “Donald,” the newscasters said, “we were mean to you. We used to laugh and call you names. We were no better than all of the other reindeer. How can you ever forgive us?”
“Forgive you?” Donald Trump asked. “I’ve already forgotten.” He smiled a big, beautiful smile. That was just who Donald Trump was: forgiving, like Jesus, but blond.
It was a wonderful start to the day.
Everyone liked Donald Trump’s speech and the words that he used. They liked even more the part where he rolled up his sleeve and showed off his bicep. It was a great bicep. It made the Rock so upset to see it that he threw something down on the ground and said “darn.”
Donald Trump pulled out a violin and played a solo, and then he pulled out a guitar and played an even sicker solo. The whole ground was soon covered with women’s undergarments. (Millions of women were there to support Donald Trump, and they were all AT LEAST sevens.) Also, every woman that Donald Trump had ever dated was there, and they were not upset with him, just ashamed that they had not lived up to his required standard.
“Trump! Trump! Trump!” the crowd cheered.
Donald Trump touched many people in the crowd in a way that they all thought was welcome and appropriate, and he cured their ailments, from cancer to autism.
“If only we could bottle your touch,” someone said, “children could stop getting vaccinated altogether.”
Donald Trump winked. “Don’t worry!” he said.
