In a crowd, heavily sedated, rocking like a willow in the wind
I am in a sea of white people, angry white people who scream and cheer and wave their miniature American flags with epileptic fervor. A giant redheaded man places his hand on my shoulder and leers down at me like a cyclopean horror, his two eyes merging into one. "Look," he whispers, pointing a sausage-sized finger. My gaze turns toward the stage. "I don't see anything," I say. At hearing this, he throws back his head and laughs, revealing square teeth. "That's the point," he says, his freckles looking cancerous in the harsh summer light. Suddenly his free hand comes down, smashing my face. With each blow he pulls me back up again, though my legs waver. The sun looks wonderful with blood streaming down my eyes. Finally he lets me fall into the mud, where I lie, the crowd stepping around me, my wheezing breaths just another noise amongst their footfalls and their cheers.
He speaks
Someone pulls me up. My focus wavers yet I manage to fixate my eyes on the man standing behind the podium. "It's him!" screams a little girl sitting on the shoulders of a brute. He's wearing a suit, the man they came to see, and he has an animal-like toupee resting on top of his skull like a festering pelt thrown out of a taxidermist's shop. "Let's make America great again!" he screams, shaking his fist at the crowd, his eyes venomous, his hands disturbingly small, like those of a dwarf. I shrug my shoulders and cheer with them. I don't know what he means, but it sounds good, I guess, especially after a hard beating.
The post-party
I lean against the podium where he spoke. Before me, where the crowd once stood, is nothing but a ruined field covered in refuse. I bend down and pick up a bottle. It says Pepsi on it. It is half-empty with brown colored liquid in it. I shake it up, open it, and dump the cola on the stage. "What's so great about garbage?" I ask. Nothing answers me.
In a cab, riding home to who knows where
The cab driver has a voice like Tom Waits. It's as though he's gargled with razor blades for ten years and followed that routine with a shot of gutter-whiskey. "Trash," he says, looking out the window. I don't see anything but people on the sidewalk. "You know what would make this country great again?" he asks. "A nationwide recycling program?" I respond. The look he gives me says everything. Its amazing the amount of expression one can pack into a snarl. He pulls the cab over and tells me to get the hell out. It's raining outside, big, fat, heavy drops. Smoke pours out of sewer vents. I lean against a brick building and watch the steady flow of traffic. "Rats," I say suddenly as a giant rodent flees from a garbage bin with a diaper clutched in its jaws. "There's a hell of a lot of them."
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