In the event

Keep this under your hat

[The bedroom of the presidential residence at the White House. Lights are dim, shades are drawn. TRUMP, wearing golf clothes, sits heavily on a couch playing with his phone. Entering and approaching him warily are White House Senior Policy Advisor/Nazi STEPHEN MILLER, Presidential Advisor KELLYANNE CONWAY, and longtime Republican ratfucker ROGER STONE.]

TRUMP: Sit.

[All three sit on various couches and chairs. TRUMP throws the phone aside.]

Okay, listen. We don’t do a lot of planning around here because I don’t like paper pushers and folders and things you gotta read. I like to go with my gut. Like fire drills. Remember when I got rid of those?

CONWAY: Brilliant, sir. Saved so much time.

TRUMP: The fire alarms, too, because who needs them going off when you’re just burning some papers?

MILLER: Brilliant.

TRUMP: Yeah, but now we need to make a plan for if things get bad.

CONWAY: Bad, sir?

MILLER: You mean a fire?

TRUMP: No, worse than a fire.

MILLER: [Gasps; then, with dread] Götterdämmerung!

CONWAY: [Smiling at TRUMP] Sir, everything’s going great. The country loves you. The fake news and the Communist left are going crazy because you’ve blocked them at every turn. I think you can win all fifty states.

STONE: [Grinning, shaking his fists triumphantly] That’s the old pepper! Ya gotta believe!

TRUMP: Oh, I know people love me. Why shouldn’t they? I fixed the economy, the coronavirus, health care, the wall. Country’s in great shape.

STONE: [Laughs] Atta boy! Never say die.

[MILLER suddenly stands.]

MILLER: Whoever wishes to attack you must go through me first, my leader! And I will not fail you!

[MILLER reaches into his inside jacket pocket.]

CONWAY: Sit down, Steve.

TRUMP: Nice gesture, but sit.

[MILLER sits, quite emotional.]

STONE: [To MILLER] Don’t be a sissy, ya goddamn meshuggah! The boss has got the right idea — never let ‘em see ya sweat! [To TRUMP] Mr. President, I got it all figured out. We’re gonna trap Biden in a room full of little girls with Herbal Essence Shampoo in their hair, and then we’re gonna spray his crotch with Herbal Essence...

TRUMP: Hey, my plan, Roger. Okay? Now, you guys are right, everything’s great and I’m gonna win, but you know that speech Reagan wrote in case the, the Showtime astronauts, they didn’t come back from Mars?

CONWAY: Nixon, Apollo, the Moon, sir, and yes we do.

TRUMP: And this is something you see a lot because it looks smart of Nixon, looks like, like he thought of things maybe nobody else thought of. No matter what else they thought about him.

[Small pause.]

So we know everything is terrific and great but we need a plan to show people later that we planned for when, for if it didn't go the way, you know, the way we know it will go.

MILLER: Exactly the plan I showed you in December, sir. Seize control of the statehouses, seize the armories...

TRUMP: No, no, no, listen, Steve, I like your moxie, but the election is in the bag. No, this plan, which like I said we’re never gonna use, the plan is not about elections or government or any of that. This plan is just about me, and if, in case of like I say an emergency, and we have to get people to think I’m dead.

[Pause.]

CONWAY: Dead, sir?

TRUMP: Yeah. Because there may be — [shrugs] I dunno, a Martian invasion or mole people, or maybe Communists, and we have to throw them off the scent. And we might do this you know when everything seems hunky dory — like some day in, say, late October, I call you up and say, okay guys, it’s go time, and we make it look like I died.

CONWAY: Have, have you discussed this with Vice President Pence, sir —

TRUMP: No I haven’t and that’s another thing, you all have to keep this under your hat. Just us four. Well, Ivanka too. If she calls you about this, don’t be shocked. She may be, you know, be in charge here while I’m supposed to be dead.

CONWAY: How long would you be dead, sir?

TRUMP: Dunno. Could be a while.

[STONE jumps up.]

STONE: You wanna really look dead, Mr. President? Because I got something from the DR that’s like zombie juice. You take it and no one can tell you’re breathing. It’s like what Dahmer was trying to do, but he was an idiot, this stuff —

TRUMP: Roger, Roger, again, thank you but no stunts. You’ll probably just put out a statement and they'll say oh how horrible, where’s the body and Conley will say, it was too badly damaged in the accident —

MILLER: Accident?

CONWAY: Conley? Your doctor?

TRUMP: He doesn’t know about it and we can’t tip him off till go time, but when we do this I got an envelope and you show him the envelope and say, play ball or this goes to the papers. He won’t be any trouble.

CONWAY: You said something about an accident.

TRUMP: I haven’t worked that part out yet, but it has to be that I disappear and they have a closed casket. You got any ideas?

STONE: Leprosy!

TRUMP: Oooh, that’s a beaut.

MILLER: [Solemnly] We can say that you and your wife took the way of honor and that we burned your bodies before the swine could profane them.

TRUMP: Melania’s not in on this. Boy, I bet she’ll be doing handsprings.

CONWAY: Sir, you don’t think people will ask questions?

TRUMP: Not really. I mean, when have they asked questions about anything?

CONWAY: Mr. President — [Stops short] Wait. [Sniffs] Do you guys smell smoke?

STONE: Yeah.

MILLER: Definitely.

TRUMP: Well, one of you must have farted because if there was a fire the alarms would go off.

[Pause. Suddenly the sprinklers drench everybody. CONWAY, STONE, and MILLER are trying to pick TRUMP off the couch as the CURTAIN falls.]