BLOODY MARY AT MEACHAM'S
This story can be read as a stand-alone piece, but it's also a sequel to Bloody Mary and Scarface Al. Please comment nicely!
"Two losers for the price of one!" With hands on hips, Bloody Mary glared at the two drunken, unshaven louts sprawled in the back seat of her coffee-colored Cadillac. "Can't I leave you alone for five minutes? Where did you find the whiskey, anyway? We're going after a top journalist with a reputation for high-minded eloquence, and Satan hands me a pair of dirty no-good drunks!"
"Jon Meacham is a journalist?" Andrew Johnson asked, in a slurred and dopey southern accent. "I thought he ran a saloon."
"No, no, it's an Irish bar," insisted boozy blowhard Senator Joe McCarthy. "Meacham's Place. I been there plenty of times. I had a drink there with Cardinal Spellman just the other night. Or was it Bobby Kennedy?"
"You two boozers are thinking of someone else," The Tudor queen said stiffly. "This man is not a lowlife. He's a regular on MSNBC. He won the Pulitzer Prize, and he's very respectable."
"Too damned respectable," Joe McCarthy belched. "Those are the guys you got to watch."
"Like that damned Lincoln," Andrew Johnson agreed. "Why'd he make me vice president if he didn't want me to speak my mind?"
"Well, I guess I'm driving," Mary huffed. "Personally, I wish I could take back some of my evil deeds. What was the point of punishing great scholars and saints like Latimer and Ridley? I should have been burning shiftless drunkards!"
It was the worst assignment ever for veteran soul-snatcher Bloody Mary. She had nothing against elegant historian Jon Meacham. He was a very respectable liberal thinker who always portrayed America in a very flattering light. He saw goodness everywhere, which was probably why his best-selling books on American history got such great reviews and won so many awards.
"He's a booze peddler," Andy Johnson hiccupped. "The minute you see him up close you'll start playing with matches again."
"Yeah, let's burn the whole saloon," snarled Joe McCarthy. "I know his type. Burn, baby burn! Come on baby, light my fire!"
"He doesn't own a saloon!" cried the exasperated queen. "And I'm not going to light your fire." Where did Satan find losers like these? How could a drunk hillbilly like Andrew Johnson have ever been President of the United States? And how could a Red-baiting crook like Joe McCarthy have ever been a Senator? They didn't know anything about Jon Meacham's compassionate vision of America. They didn't know anything about anything!
"Look, there it is!" Andy Johnson shouted.
"See, what did I tell you? The dirty little choir boy has a nice little setup selling rotgut hooch." Tail-gunner Joe made rat-a-tat sounds, aiming an imaginary machine gun. "Meacham's Place."
"I can't believe it." Queen Mary Tudor was in a state of shock. Meacham's Place really was a saloon, though it was nearly deserted at this late hour. Mary and her friends glided inside, protected by their Satanic cloaks of total invisibility. Jon Meacham was working the bar, serving cheap booze to decrepit old drunk.
"Come on, Joe, have another one. Have all you want! But first, let's hear that great new campaign slogan one more time. Come on, just like we practiced it!"
"Let's finish the bottle." The old man drooled into his shot glass.
"The job, Joe. 'Let's finish the job!' Remember, the future of democracy is at stake here. This is about the soul of America!"
"Hey, is that President Joe Biden?" Joe McCarthy asked. "Do we get to bag a real live President of the United States?"
"You wish," Mary hissed. "Just keep quiet and wait for my signal."
"That ole boy sure can't handle his liquor," Andy Johnson chuckled. "I reckon the old fellow doesn't even know what year it is, let alone who he's running against!"
"Kennedy for President!" Joe Biden's feeble cry seemed to confirm the crafty hillbilly's cynical surmise. The old man banged a withered claw on the bar. "Let the word go forth from this time and place, that the torch has been passed to a new generation!"
"Newer than what?" Joe McCarthy demanded. "That dried-up old Mick looks like he could drop dead any second."
"Shut up!" the queen snapped. She wanted to hear what young Jon Meacham was saying to weak, befuddled Joe Biden. The old man did seem pretty much out of it, whether because of the booze or just from being so incredibly old. Yet surely the handsome young scholar would offer him spiritual counsel, just as Sir Thomas More had tried to counsel her father so long ago.
"Now remember, Joe, to get a second term you've got to demonize Donald Trump. Demonize him! Remember, Trump and his followers aren't really Americans. They aren't even human beings! Those MAGA people are just a bunch of dirty white trash."
"White trash?" Andrew Johnson put down his empty shot glass. He was suddenly very interested in the conversation.
"They don't want to make America great again!" Jon Meacham was saying. "They just want revenge on America for taking their jobs and sending their sons to die in Afghanistan and Iraq."
"I got us out of Afghanistan!" Joe Biden sat up straight on his bar stool, momentarily back among the living. "All those funny-looking people running alongside the planes . . . all those clean-cut young Marines . . . I saved them!"
"Right, you saved them all," Jon Meacham said quickly. "But let's not dwell on Afghanistan, Joe. Let's focus on Trump. The key thing is to connect him to the ugliest villains in American history. Just keep reminding everyone he's a liar like Senator Joe McCarthy, and a traitor like President Andrew Johnson!"
"Now wait just a God-damned minute!" Before Bloody Mary could stop him, Andrew Johnson lunged for the prize-winning historian. With a single leap he cleared the bar and grabbed Jon Meacham by the throat!
"Looks like Andy's got his Irish up," Joe McCarthy chuckled. "Get ready for the big payback!"
"No man calls me a traitor!" Andrew Johnson roared. "I was a Union man all my life! I grew up dirt poor in the hills of East Tennessee. I taught myself to read and write! I worked all my life for the poor farmers and tradespeople in my community. I was the only southern senator who refused to fight a war for slavery!"
"You're trash," Jon Meacham sneered. He didn't back down, even when Johnson had him by the throat. Evidently he was as drunk on privilege as Joe Biden was on booze. "Real Tennessee trash. I'm from Chattanooga. I went to the McCallie School!"
"Oooh, the McCallie School!" Joe McCarthy cracked up laughing. "Our father was a gentleman – owned slaves – and we've been to school!"
"I get it," Mary said. "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."
"Hey, what's going on?" Joe Biden made a feeble effort to rise from his bar stool. "Hunter, why are the other kids beating you up? Did you sneak into the girls' bathroom again?"
"Take it easy, pop," Joe McCarthy said gently. "We're not after you or your family. We just want the skunk with the fancy degree."
"But we weren't supposed to kill him!" Bloody Mary cried. "Andrew Johnson, stop it. Stop it this instant, do you hear? Let him go!"
"Yes, ma'am." Andrew Johnson shoved Meacham backwards, sending him reeling into a huge liquor cabinet full of booze. A very heavy bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln just happened to be on the top shelf. It toppled over and fatally cracked Jon Meacham's skull.
"Now you've done it!" The furious Tudor queen grabbed Andrew Johnson by the elbow. "He was supposed to die in a car accident, like David Halberstam. Come on, let's get out of here. Satan is going to fry you in oil!"
"But it was Lincoln!" President Johnson looked shocked. "I swear I wasn't trying to kill him. That big old bust just fell over on its own!"
"That's how it goes," Joe McCarthy shrugged. "Judgment of God. Look what happened to Abimelech!"
"But the old man saw everything!" Mary pointed to Joe Biden. "Can't you do a Vulcan mind-meld or something?"
"I'll see what I can do." Joe McCarthy picked up a bottle of booze. "Come on, old-timer. Let's have a shot in the back room!"
While the two Joes were having their mind-meld, Mary knelt over the dying historian. "I'm sorry we took you before your time, young man. Maybe Satan will go easy on you in Hell!"
"Too late," Meacham moaned, already feeling the flames of hell as his soul slipped away. "Too late for America . . . too late! Black lives matter. Black lives matter!"
"Well, are you happy now?" Bloody Mary glared at President Andrew Johnson. "Jon Meacham may have been a smirking middlebrow who pandered to the elite and upheld the status quo. But at least he wasn't a racist pig! When you were president, you never said black lives matter. You hindered Reconstruction and betrayed the black freedmen. You let the Ku Klux Klan run wild!"
"Reckon I did," Andrew Johnson said quietly. "But I never thought it would come to burning folks alive. That stays with a man, no matter how many centuries go by. Knowing I could have stopped it, and didn't. Watching them burn. You know what that's like?"
"I do know, Andrew." Mary looked away for a moment. "I do."
"Well, the old man got his load on and passed out," Joe McCarthy said cheerfully, coming back into the bar. "Using my Vulcan mind-meld skills, I got him to believe this was all a dream. Of course, I also got him to believe he's a great president and deserves a second term. Joe Biden's like me, really. He's a natural-born politician, and he's got lots of Irish . . . credulity!"
"I'm glad it went well." Mary was in no mood for jokes. She got her team to straighten up Meacham's Bar, erasing all trace of their presence and that of President Biden. In the morning, the mainstream media would report the death as an accident as usual.
"What's with you two?" Joe McCarthy asked, when the three of them were driving back to hell in Mary's coffee-colored Cadillac. "Our little angel of mercy looks downright gloomy!"
"Lay off her, Joe." From the back seat, Andrew Johnson recounted what had happened in the barroom, and how Meacham's poignant last words had moved the Tudor queen.
"Oh, so that's what's eating you!" Joe McCarthy laughed. "Your Majesty, you're a skilled soul snatcher, and a classy young lady. But you don't know much about American politics. When Meacham made that crack about Black Lives Matter, he wasn't saying he wanted justice for all Americans. What he meant was that Joe Biden was his only hope!"
"I know that," Mary said. "Only Joe Biden can fight the evil of people like Donald Trump . . . and I guess us." She sighed, looking out the window of her Cadillac at the endless darkness.
"No, no, doll. You've got it backwards. Trump was never the real enemy from Meacham's point of view. Backing Biden is not about keeping Trump out of power. It's about keeping Trump's enemies out of power. The kids, the gays, the black social justice warriors. The forces of real change are very dangerous to the liberal elite. Those are the people Jon Meacham secretly hated. And feared!"
"Wow," Mary said. "So if that's true . . ."
"It means we did good. And it explains why they keep that boob Biden in power," Andrew Johnson said. "He's really blameless. He's only a pawn in their game."
Mary chuckled. "Biden reminded me of Professor John Gill, you know, in that Star Trek episode where they fight the Nazis. And Jon Meacham was just like Melikon. What a great episode that was! I think they called it 'The Savage Curtain.'"
"No, no, that's the one where they get to meet Abraham Lincoln." Joe McCarthy winked at Mary. "Lincoln was our greatest president!"
"The hell you say! Why is it wherever I go, all people want to talk about is that damned Lincoln?" Andrew Johnson was indignant. "I was as good a president as Lincoln. And I was born just as poor! But I never get the credit. It's just like that episode where they steal Spock's brain, and McCoy has to put it back again. Now what was that episode called again? 'The Vulcan Brain Factor?'"
The three of them were damned, and they knew it. But they were friends. And together they kept laughing all the way back to hell.