Calls Are Coming from Inside The House

By Sue Bergeron

October 15: This is my favorite month, as my birthday is tomorrow and also, Halloween comes on the 31rst. I'll be 65, a milestone that officially makes me a senior citizen who's able to enjoy the full benefits of Medicare and able to pile on extra punishment for those who would commit "crimes against the elderly." Woe be it to the scumbag who now might try to mug this old lady or steal her purse while she's out delivering "Biden For President" lawn signs!

I always decorate my "haunted castle" and give out lots of candy every Halloween. And I usually treat myself to a new Halloween gadget every year for my birthday---something to delight the kids at the door. Last year it was the Haunted Halloween Telephone. Shaped like a skull, when you walk by it the ringer goes off; when you pick up the reciever orange eyeballs twirl and light up. A menacing voice says half a dozen scary things like, I know where you are, Look behind you!! and Come with me...to the graveyard...Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I absolutely love the darn thing and so do the kids. 

This year I wonder what Halloween will be like, taking place just four days before the most consequential election in our nation's history, and in a deadly pandemic that's on the rise again, killing almost 1,000 Americans a day. Will the innocent children of our nation don their Halloween masks and crawl door to door, as they have for generations, "begging for cold pieces" as my old Aunt Martha used to call trick or treating? Many towns and cities have banned the practice this year. My town has banned the opening of the door to trick or treaters. Candy must be set outside. A friend suggested I obtain a giant cardboard tube from a carpet store and sit on the porch in my witch costume sending Hershey bars down the twelve foot chute to the waiting goblins on the lawn. Brilliant!

But back to those calls that are coming from inside my house. This year, every time the haunted phone goes off I'm not as amused as I once was. It reminds me of the scariest monster of all: Trump. Are you driving down the road in your car? Look behind you---in the rearview mirror there's another big-ass deisel truck with its massive Trump flag flapping in the wind. Eek! Are you out there on the streets marching for social justice and racial equality? You'd better run!---or a mysterious white van may wheel up behind you and scary men in black could jump out and grab you. Trump's chief goon, Attorney General "Billie Stick" Barr has declared war on protesters; he claims "I know where you are" and he's coming for you. Tip: Wear a white sheet over your head and he might leave you alone.

Then, of course, Mr. Skullphone chills me to the bones with our president's favorite rally cry: "Come with me...to the graveyard!" Spready Krueger (as Jimmy Kimmel aptly has re-branded the Infector-In-Chief) preens and dances, yes actually fucking dances  before his hypnotized cult members on a night when 1000 more Americans are lying in ICU beds taking their last breath, their family members looking on in tears, via Facetime. None other than the Village People's cheerful tune "YMCA" blasts on the loudspeaker system. (It is the new Trump rally anthem. Did they pick it for Halloween? Do they know it's the unofficial anthem of Gay America?) The crowd bobs and weaves happily dancing along with him, as they breathe in the infected air that is sure to kill many of them. Spready threatens to jump into their mosh-pit of idiocy and kiss them on their mouths, giving them the Kiss of Death! (True story! Check the tape!) He jets about the country using Air Force One as some kind of an evil warlock's version of the witch's broom. His Broom of Death touches down throughout the nation allowing him to keep shedding Covid-19 like an infected Pigpen character from the Charlie Brown cartoon. This, after Dr. Handsome Liar refuses to give concrete proof to the American people that this out of control megalomaniac has been cleared for take-off.

Last week, before Trump was even cleared from quarantine in direct opposition to the CDC guidelines he stood atop the balcony of the Whitehouse like a male version of Eva Peron. There, propped up on steroids and thick funerary make-up, he bloviated to a sea of Blue Smurfs milling about the White House lawn. Listless and bored in their embarrassing "Back the Blue" tee shirts, they were mostly young Blacks, supposedly culled from a Black Sycophants for Trump organization---Blexit---run by Candace Owens, a shameful former Democrat-turned-shill for the Killer-In-Chief. If you were a Black politician who actually cared about Black people would you put them---a group that is statistically 30% more vulnerable to Covid-19 infection than the general population---on a bus and send them to a Superspreader Event?? I call bullshit and I call Black genocide, Candace. I spotted the ruse right away. "Look at that," I commented to Ron. "They're all paid. Hired day players for Trump's latest TV show."

Turns out I was right. ABC News later reported that was exactly the case. The tell was their listless behavior. They didn't exhibit the usual rabid foaming at the mouth enthusism of most Trump cult members. And their masks---they were all wearing masks. Trumpies don't wear masks. But what self-respecting Black youth would want to be seen on TV today wearing a tee shirt that said "Back the Blue?" Don't get me wrong---I grew up with cops in my family and respect the police. But I respect what Camden, NJ has done to reform their police department, also. Black Lives Matter! Black and Brown people have a legitimate bitch with justice reform in this country. The only way a  Washington, D.C. group of Black youth of that size  were going to attend that rally was if they got to hide their faces. There was Trump pandering shamelessly to a group of minorities whose support for him still lags behind in the single digits. It was a frightening sight. 

Our reality TV star president of the United States celebrated busting out of Walter Reed Hospital by impersonating Argentina's most celebrated corpse, Eva Peron---the woman who would not rest in peace for twenty years. Evita lay embalmed on her husband's dining room table for three years and had her dead hair combed by Juan Peron's second wife. Her corpse traveled back and forth across the ocean many times before she was finally buried in her homeland. She now lies under three plates of steel in a graveyard among her political enemies. Like Evita, Trump will not rest with "the shirtless" when The Grim Reaper finally comes for him, either. His family will probably have to hide his remains, too.

Who hasn't read "Mask of the Red Death" by Edgar Allen Poe, an American horror classic? For those who slept through seventh grade, amazingly reminiscent of Trump's lawn parties and White House events, the story involves a Satanic prince who invites weathy guests to attend his masquerade ball. They dance and party while a deadly plaque rages outside the walls of his castle. As they are about to crown the Prince of the Ball, the Red Death slips into the castle and manages to (spoiler alert!) kill them all, one by one. Sound like a familiar tale?

Senators Tom Tillis and Senator Mike Lee had the unmitigated balls to show up in person at the Judiciary hearing for the Supreme Court Confirmation of nominee Amy Coney Barrett this week. Looking ghostly and bleary-eyed from their recent Covid infections, there's little doubt they contracted the highly infectious disease while high-fiving with other infected Trump sycophants. Giddy with excitement at Trump's recent Superspreader Lawn Party, they had all hugged and kissed, glad-handing and celebrating Trump's latest extreme right wing pick for the Supreme Court. They drove most of the Democrats out of the Dirkson Building, where many of the Dems chose to participate via closed circuit TV, for safety's sake. 

GOP members of the Judicial Committee must have been embarassed by RI Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and his awe-inspiring expose of the dark money and forty year plan for takeover of the Supreme Court by extreme right-wing conservative groups. Backed by obscene amounts of big donor money and shadow figures like Leonard Leo and Carrie Severino, Sheldon layed it all out for us, complete with the charts and visuals he's famous for. Did you notice the scary star of this horror show was appropriately named "Carrie?" Then there's the split-screen vision of Moscow Mitch and retired Marine Amy McGrath at their Senate debate in Kentucky last week. As McGrath called out the most evil power-hungry Senator of all time for his callous disregard for the suffering of sick and poor Americans he laughed. He laughed and laughed like a creepy villain from a monster movie! Ew!

If you're not paying attention you could be shell shocked as you find yourself trapped inside another horror story---The Handmaid's Tale. In this dark and cold post apocalyptic world, the separation of church and state is gone. America as we once knew it is gone. Most women have lost their fertility to climate change. Evil right wing conservative fascists harvest fertile women and enslave them as "handmaids" to bear their children. Quite a thriller-chiller. Could it happen? Let's call The Skullphone and ask. Uh-oh! Don't look behind you!