Tweaking

A change in the formula

© 2020 Gage Skidmore, used under a Creative Commons license

[A nondescript campaign office: White walls, rented furniture, framed pictures of JOE BIDEN with various celebs on the walls. The scene and dramatis personae are very similar to that of “Call the Doctor”: STEFAN, the youngish centrist Democratic campaign factotum, stands in front of a TV monitor with JOE BIDEN. Sitting on a sofa nearby, eating a plate of chow mein, is DR. HAROLD BORNSTEIN, Dr. Feelgood to DONALD TRUMP and key figure in our “formula” stories. The monitor is playing a BIDEN speech:]

BIDEN ON TV: And that’s what we’re doing, right now, in every home in America, across the oceans and the prairies, the houses, where I grew up, and I still grow up, Joe Biden, you know Joe Biden, they say we, we, we, we, we, we, we ...

[STEFAN stops it with a remote.]

STEFAN: And see, there too. It’s definitely happening more often.

BIDEN: Oh, now listen, Stefan, everyone knows about the stammer, we told them all about it, we even got it in the papers.

STEFAN: Yeah, but it worked too well. Now everyone notices it and you definitely do it more that you used to.

BIDEN: Listen, you don’t know how it is! Now people don’t know this about me but back when I was a younger feller with the hair plugs and the cutting Social Security and Anita Hill, that’s how I got over the stammer — by being a no good son of a bitch! See, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m I’m, I’m really a nice guy, you know I am, but back then I figured it out, see, when I’m being nice I, I, I stammer, sort of like Jimmy Stewart, maybe you’re too young who that is. But! If I decided to be an asshole and just shit on everyone, then dadgummit it, I felt invincible, like I could kill everyone and use their guts for tanning butter, so I did that and boom, no more stammer.

STEFAN: Huh. I thought you acted like a son of a bitch because in the 1980s the Democratic Party became a bunch of neoliberal shills and you wanted to fit in.

BIDEN: Well, now you know the truth. Now it’s 2013 or 15 or whatever it is and people want me to be nice ol’, ol’, ol’, ol’ Uncle Joe, goddamn it. So, you’re an idea man, make with the ideas.

STEFAN: [To BORNSTEIN] Dr. Bornstein?

BORNSTEIN: [His mouth full] Jussa sec. [He puts down his plate, gets up, wipes his mouth, and crosses to STEFAN and BIDEN] Mr. Vice President, I heard everything and I think I can help.

[BORNSTEIN pulls a box out of his jacket pocket.]

BIDEN: Oap, oap, not that stuff again, Doc.

BORNSTEIN: Not to worry, sir, I changed up the formula. You know how some people drink wine and they get all happy, but then you give ‘em a shot of Jack Daniels and they want to fight you in the parking lot? That’s how it is with the formula. Trust me, I tweaked Trump’s formula many times. Last time the stuff we gave you got you all hopped up, but this batch will make you more confident without making you crazy.

[BORNSTEIN opens the box and offers BIDEN the straw.]

BIDEN: Boy, I dunno, [to STEFAN] Stef, how do we know we can trust this guy? Maybe he’s a spy and he wan, wan, wan, wan, goddamnit it —

[BORNSTEIN hands the box and straw to STEFAN.]

BORNSTEIN: Mr. Vice President, Mr. Vice President, I got it, I got it, look, I’ll be Trump, right? Now, without the formula, if I’m Trump and you’re having a debate, what do you say to this:

[BORNSTEIN does an extremely lousy impersonation of TRUMP:]

Hey, Sleepy Joe Biden, I hear you stam, stam, stammer all the time. Even your wife is sick of your stammer and that’s why your kid died, you stupid stammerin’ Joe Biden!

BIDEN: Now you hold on there, Mr. President, what the Amuh, muh, muh, muh, muh, muh, muhm, muh, muh, muh — GODDAMNIT!

[BORNSTEIN points to the box and straw; STEFAN proffers them.]

Oh, what the hell, it’s for my country, gimme that thing.

[BIDEN takes a massive snort, then another in the other nostril. Pause. He briefly seems poleaxed.]

BORNSTEIN: [As TRUMP] So whattaya say huh, stammerin’ Joe?

[BIDEN focuses on BORNSTEIN, and suddenly seems calm but forceful, even galvanic.]

BIDEN: You know some people, if you said to them what you just said to me, they’d get mad, understandably, and maybe they’d even try and fight you. And there's no question in my mind if it did come to a fight, if you decided you wanted to go for it and had the guts to leave your Secret Service people outside, after a couple minutes there wouldn’t be enough left of you to stuff a sausage casing and hang in Katz’s window. But the fact is, Mr. President, I’m not mad. Because to get mad about something or somebody, see, they have to matter to you. And Mr. President, you don’t matter at all, not to me or really to much of anybody else. Oh, there are a few nutty people out there who love it when you say something racist and stupid, but they don’t care about you — hell, they’d have the same reaction if you put Larry the Cable Guy in the Oval Office and piped it in on Cinemax. Everybody knows that when you get mad and yell for people to get killed or to bomb some country, the good folks who are forced to work with you find ways to ignore your orders. That’s the only reason we’re still standing on this earth, because if anyone paid any attention to the nonsense you talk we’d have been blown to smithereens two hours after you took the oath of office. And Mr. President, not only don’t people care what you say, they’re getting sick to death of hearing you say it, and that’s why they’re gonna turn you out of office and send Stammering Joe Biden to the White House.

[Pause. STEFAN and BORNSTEIN applaud. BIDEN smiles.]

Hell, that was pretty good, wasn’t it! Man, I feel — [To BORNSTEIN] So this is what drugs are like? I guess I owe all those black people I put in jail a big apology! Man! You know what, I’m gonna drive over to the hotel and look in on the missus. I’m okay to drive on this, right — oh, hell, of course I am, I feel like I could lick ten tigers! Hasta la vista, fellas!

[BIDEN leaves.]

STEFAN: Holy shit! What’d you do to his formula?

BORNSTEIN: Tell you the truth? Nothing. [Pause.] But I won’t tell him if you won't.

[BLACKOUT.]