Ring my friend, I said you'd call

Another session with the doctor

© 2020 Gage Skidmore, used under a Creative Commons license

[The candidate’s office at JOE BIDEN’s presidential campaign HQ in Philadelphia. It’s better appointed than the field office seen in our previous episodes. The framed pictures of BIDEN with various celebs are on the walls, but so is a big flat-screen TV tuned soundlessly to CNN, along with several JOE posters. The walls are painted cream yellow with royal blue trim and there’s an impressive desk — with a black, old-fashioned doctor’s bag on it — and a nice leather sofa and chairs and non-industrial carpet; also, a soda vending machine against one wall, a big thick wooden door, and no windows. STEFAN, the Democratic Party factotum we met in “Ol’ Joe Takes a Meeting,” is dressed in business casual and sitting in a chair. DR. HAROLD BORNSTEIN, former Dr. Feelgood to DONALD TRUMP and key figure in our “formula” stories, now the Biden Campaign medical director, is also wearing business casual clothes but with a white lab coat; he sits on the sofa eating an Italian sub from a plastic clamshell container. JOE BIDEN enters. He’s the only one wearing a mask. He is dressed in a slate blue sport jacket, a light blue shirt, charcoal grey slacks, and some garish new athletic shoes. He is alert but a little faint and slow off the mark. BORNSTEIN and STEFAN get up.]

BIDEN: Heya, fellas. Sorry I didn’t knock, but it’s my office, what the hey.

[BIDEN takes his mask off, notices BORNSTEIN fumbling with his clamshell.]

Siddown, doc, you’re gonna lose your sandwich. This guy’s got an appetite, every time I see you you’re eating, but you stay so slim.

BORNSTEIN: [Putting his sandwich down] I was just finishing. Well, Mr. Vice-President, we —

BIDEN: Joe. Call me Joe. You got some mustard on your jacket.

BORNSTEIN: [Grabs a napkin] Damn it. Sorry. Lemme get some club soda —

BIDEN: I got it.

[He goes to the machine, puts in a quarter, hits a button.]

One club soda for the doc, and I guess I’ll need a Coke to wash down this stuff you have for me.

BORNSTEIN: It’s good to have a drink, yeah.

[BIDEN puts in another quarter.]

BIDEN: Stef?

STEFAN: Nothing for me.

BIDEN: OK, one Coca-Cola for me.

[BIDEN takes the cans, puts one on the coffee table near BORNSTEIN.]

There you go, buddy. OK, I’ll just go over to —

BORNSTEIN: The club soda, Joe.

BIDEN: How’s that?

BORNSTEIN: You gave me the Coke, I had the club soda.

[BIDEN looks at the can in his hand, chortles.]

BIDEN: How d’ya like that!

[BIDEN switches the cans.]

Guess maybe I need a little something after all.

[BIDEN goes to his desk, sets down his Coke and stands there. BORNSTEIN opens his club soda can and trails BIDEN, splashing club soda on his lapel and wiping it with the sleeve of his jacket as he goes.]

BORNSTEIN: You’re doing great, Joe. Really. Just great. It’s just for the debates. We just want a little lift, like if you took a cup of coffee, two cups, even. Only it doesn’t make you pee so much, that’s all.

[BORNSTEIN sets his club soda on the desk, opens the black bag and pulls out what look like drug store inhalers with handwritten labels taped to them. He takes the tops off each of them.]

It’s, you know, like in the old days you’d take a diet pill.

BIDEN: Yeah, well, last time that was no diet pill, doc.

BORNSTEIN: I know.

BIDEN: I don’t want to scare the people, you know.

BORNSTEIN: Ah ha ha, I understand.

BIDEN: Make ‘em think I’m a crazy person.

[BIDEN picks up BORNSTEIN’s club soda, drinks from it, puts it down. BORNSTEIN looks at him, seems about to speak; looks at STEFAN; then closes up his bag. There are four or five inhalers on the table now. STEFAN gathers up some papers and walks toward the desk. BORNSTEIN picks up an inhaler.]

BORNSTEIN: Alright, this is a number one. Pretty mild. You won’t feel much.

[BORNSTEIN hands it to BIDEN.]

BIDEN: Number one, eh? Well, alright. What medical school did you say you went to? [Laughs quickly] Just joshing you.

[BIDEN snorts, puts down the inhaler. Takes a deep breath.]

Hey, I feel pretty good. Yeah. [Nods] Yeah, I think I can go for this one.

STEFAN: Joe, I’m going to give you some Trump lines to react to, okay.

BIDEN: Lay ‘em on me.

STEFAN: [In an booming, blowhard Trump voice] “They gave millions of dollars to your kid, that crook Hunter Biden, and he ripped off the people of this great country —"

BIDEN: [Forcefully but calmly] Not true.

STEFAN: "— he took a $6 billion cash bribe from Ukrainian gangsters --”

BIDEN: Six billion? Listen to this guy!

STEFAN: " — Oh, you know it’s true, Lyin’ Joe Biden! You and your creepy kid creepy Hunter Biden are both crooks cut from the same cloth, just like the kid of yours that died from drugs, and I’m gonna put you all in jail along with your — "

[STEFAN stops; BIDEN is just laughing.]

Joe, you have to get in there! You have to stay on him!

BIDEN: But it’s all so ridiculous! I mean what a bunch of malarkey —

STEFAN: No, no Joe, that’s not how it works with him, people see it as weakness if you don’t —

BORNSTEIN: Excuse me, Joe?

[He presents BIDEN with another inhaler.]

Number two, here, give it a spin.

BIDEN: Okay, you’re the doctor. [Takes a snort.] We better put your license up on the wall, people will think there’s something shady going on here. [Clears his throat] Okay, Stef, hit me.

STEFAN: “While the corrupt Bidens were stealing anything that wasn't nailed —”

BIDEN: STEALING!

[The word, sharp and loud, cuts through the air and silences STEFAN. BIDEN becomes galvanic.]

What business does a two-bit con artist like you have have accusing anyone of stealing! You stole from kids with cancer! You stole from the people who build your hotels! You tell people you’ll give ‘em an education and the state of New York has to sue you to get their money back! If anyone’s a crook —

[STEFAN, raising his voice, tries to get a word in, but BIDEN smacks him down.]

A CROOK, I said! It’s you. You’re the biggest crook that ever soiled the office of the presidency. You make Richard Nixon look like Pope John the Twenty-Third. You name’s on hundreds of indictments already [Points at STEFAN] and let me tell you something, Mister, the second we take office we’re sending in a SWAT team to haul you and Bill Barr and your whole rotten mob out of the White House to the hoosegow in cuffs and you better believe I’m the man to do it!

[Pause. BORNSTEIN and STEFAN are wide-eyed. Biden sniffs, cracks his Coke can, takes a swig.]

STEFAN: OK, good adjustment. I think we’re on the right track now. Now I wanna —

BIDEN: You bet we are. I feel like I could lick ten tigers.

[BIDEN grabs another inhaler and takes a snort.]

BORNSTEIN: [Panicked] What? No! Not that one! Not that one!

BIDEN: Whattaya mean, not that one.

[BORNSTEIN opens his black bag and starts madly digging through it. BIDEN points at STEFAN again, and comes around the desk.]

I’m gonna tell you something else, Mister. I try to see the good in everybody, Democrat, Republican, doesn’t matter, all children of God. But a low-down snake like you who cages little children, loots the treasury for his corrupt buddies, lets loose a plague kill a hundred thousand Americans just to win a few votes? There’s only one thing you can do with a snake like that and that’s beat its damn head in so it can never kill again!

[BIDEN seizes STEFAN by the throat and starts to strangle him. BORNSTEIN charges and jams a comically large hypodermic into his arm. BIDEN screams like Dracula hit by daylight, totters around wide-eyed and falls back; BORNSTEIN breaks his fall, collapsing as well. STEFAN grabs BIDEN, now unconscious, and hauls him with BORNSTEIN’s help to the couch, where they lay him down.]

STEFAN: Dammit! Is he alive?

BORNSTEIN: Oh sure. He’s just gonna sleep a while. He’ll be a little sore but otherwise alright.

STEFAN: What the hell was in that last inhaler?

BORNSTEIN: It’s what we used to give Trump to get him up in the morning. [Shakes his head] You people have no idea.

[BIDEN starts to snore. CURTAIN.]