Anna Nicole Smith: A Most Unwholesome Verdict (a short story)

"Sic semper tyrannis!"
--John Wilkes Booth, after shooting President Lincoln, catching his spurs in a flag draping the presidential box, crashing to the stage, and then breaking his leg (pun-intended).

It was terrible, disgusting, and the judge hadn't even gone into the details of the decease's sex-life. Who was the father, and could someone please get her child away from all of them? Soon, they were all swapping semen and other sundry DNA-samples, but the worst was yet-to-come (pun-intended). The ultimate-objectification of her body had arrived: in-order to secure the child, they all had to eat her corpse, and by court-order. The judge didn't take-kindly to any hemming-and-hawing, cannibalism was decisive and at least the appearance of certainty was in-place. This was all-important to Americans.

I know, strange doesn't even come close. Meanwhile, back at the ranch (Crawford), the President's advisers were keeping the Anna Nicole story alive. It would take more than 30,0000-volts to get this corpse twitching, and there were real stories that needed a white-out. It was time for the "dead-frog" routine. The British Prime Minister was announcing the pullout of his troops in the forgotten "coalition of the willing", dozens were dying everyday in Baghdad alone, Afghanistan was disintegrating too, the trial of President Cheney's chief of staff was winding-down, and the storm clouds were looming.

"It sure was a good thing she had enormous-breasts," chuckled President Cheney, "Or we might actually have to show everyone all the wounded and dead in Iraq and Afghanistan-stan!" He walked over to the Lincoln bedroom, banging-against the walls in his gin-stupor, reached the room, and sat-down on the bed. The ghost of Abraham Lincoln materialized in a way that would make Hollywood execs envious--CGI never looked this good, and never would.

"Creepin' Christ, you stink of spirits," said the dead president, looking similar to his $5-bill portrait, only not with his chin tucked-in so goddamned close. OK, he looked more lifelike than the Disney animatronic, satisfied?

"I rescinded Habeus Corpus too, and look what they did to me," said Lincoln, motioning to the hole in his head. President Cheney just gave him that shit-eating grin he had at January's State of the Union address. He snickered, not unlike the Burgess Meredith version of the Penguin, only less-convincing.

"Yeah? Well, go fuck yourself, I got a few cards up-my-sleef, bud," he vomited. No, I mean he vomited. He was drunk, remember? Jesus. Yeah, and his speech was slurred. Fuck it.

"I gotch the presssshh in my pock-et thisssh-timmmmmme, didj youse?" said President Cheney. He crawled over to the TV set and turned-on Fox News--the only news he watches--and began touching himself violently, it was a pathetic sight. Not Cheney, I meant Fox News--man are you people slow. Stories of Anna Nicole Smith were on, because that was all that was on.

Lincoln croaked, "Where are all your wounded, Mr. President? Why is there nothing but this used-up tramp in your press? Maybe I should have allowed the South to peter-out? Hmm. Was the Union worth saving for this? I'm glad that actor shot me, it spared me the aftermath of the war. Perhaps the Union was a phantasm of my own making." Indeed, it was, and they both watched the child's suitors eating the corpse (garnished with money) until the early-morning. It was good to be so free, and President Cheney bit-into a corn syrup enriched zagnut. He could never understand why he had such a horrible-case of irritable bowel syndrome. But Lincoln was wrong, another bad-actor named Ronald Reagan had assassinated the Union long-ago. Send the troops to Harper's Ferry, boys, John Brown's body won't rest in its grave...wait, there's no troops.