A Christmas Carol (2018)
By: Greg Gnall
Tags: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Charles Dickens, Donald Trump, Fiction

Sessions was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Trump signed it. And Trump’s name was good upon ‘Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Sessions was as dead as a doornail. But Cohen knew that Flynn was also dead, and Tillerson and Priebus and McMaster and the Mooch and Pruitt and Price and Gary Cohn and even Bannon, although he may be among the undead. Manafort, too. So many, so dead.

But Stormy was alive, and Karen McDougal. Cohen shuddered when he thought of them. He thought he had bought them off, as he had bought off so many others from the boss’ past. And when David Pecker used his National Enquirer empire to bury the stories, Cohen thought that Trump was home free. He was now President of the United States, and Cohen pictured himself in a big office in the West Wing. “No more taxi cabs for me,” Cohen gloated.

Cohen left for home after a long day of lying to Congress, forming shell companies to launder the hush money and setting up visits with some Putin pals to discuss a Moscow Trump Tower. He rubbed his eyes twice when the door knocker on his old townhouse in Queens seemed to morph into the face of Avenatti. When the specter moaned his name, “Miiiiiiichael,” Cohen rushed in the door and cowered in front of the fireplace. But the sound of dangling handcuffs startled Cohen as the figure of a tanned L.A. hustler, fresh out on bail from a charge of domestic abuse, burst through the locked door.

“You will be visited by three spirits tonight, Michael,” the bald-headed barrister bellowed. “You will soon see the error of your ways.” He rattled his handcuffs as he slithered into his Porsche and sped off.

Cohen tried to sleep, but at the hour of one, he was awakened by the rush of the wind through an open window and faced a frightening figure that bore a striking resemblance to Bernie Sanders. “I am the ghost of Christmas Present,” the Spirit said in a hoarse mumble. “You do know I’m Jewish, right?” Cohen managed to stammer. “Nobody’s poifect, boychick,” the Spirit replied.

Soon they were zooming on the F train, racing past those displaced from their rent-controlled apartments to make way for new Trump condos. “How does anyone live like this?” Cohen pondered, as he watched them devour holiday meals of Spam and candied yams. Cohen fell back into his bed, exhausted. “Man, I haven’t ridden the subways for years,” he muttered.

But, at the stroke of two, Cohen was startled by a blinding light and a vaguely familiar figure appeared in a white pants suit. “Is that you, Hillary?” Cohen inquired. “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past,” the woman proclaimed. “Whose past?” Cohen queried. “Your past,” she stated with the smug look of the school marm she was frequently mistaken for.

They roared on an uptown bus through a New York of the not too distant vintage, with the Spirit pointing out sites of Cohen’s inglorious deeds. A tear came to Cohen’s eye as he recalled the days when he threatened those who dared question His Greatness or suggested that the boss raped his lawfully wedded wife, Ivana, or when he ousted members of condo boards who proposed removing the Trump name from their buildings. “Maybe I wasn’t such a good guy after all,” Cohen lamented. “No shit,” taunted the Spirit as she shoved him into an Uber, a cruel reminder that his taxi medallions really were now worthless.

Cohen fell back into his bed, but, as the clock struck three, he was jolted awake by a very tall man in a very grey pinstriped suit. “Comey?” Cohen exclaimed. “For the record, the Ghost of Christmas Future,” the man with the Robert Stack smile retorted. The Spirit whisked Cohen away in a black Plymouth and they were soon on a whirlwind tour of upstate penitentiaries populated by large black men and not a hint of gourmet food. Cohen shivered at the sight and wished he had taken up trusts and estates. As tears ran down his cheeks, he thought of his family and country, or maybe the sound of a cell door slamming, and he fell asleep to the sound of the Spirit repeating “15 years to life” over and over.

When Cohen awoke to the first light of dawn, he thrust open the window and cried out to the first person he saw, a kid of about 16 who was smoking weed on the corner: “what day is it, lad?” Cohen hopefully cried. “Is it Christmas?” “No, you dumb ass,” the kid replied, “but for twenty bucks I will tell you that it is.”

Cohen wasted no time and picked up his cell. “U.S. Attorney’s office” said the voice on the phone. “I want to come clean,” Cohen blurted. “No more darkness for me.” “Can you hold for a minute?” the voice replied.

Well, you all know the rest. He copped his plea, and His Trumpness scorned his weakness and lies. A pardon’s unlikely, the judge said “three years,” but Cohen fell back on his new found redemption. But the nightmares continued and as the New Year approached, he dreamed of a cellmate with an orange-hued complexion and the strangest of hair. Cohen was pretty sure he wasn’t Father Christmas.

Happy Holidays to All!