“Why are we doing this?” the hair asked.

“Because Donald asked us to,” the hat replied.

They were in the massive sprawl of tunnels President Kennedy had the Army Corps of Engineers build to connect the White House with various hotels and love nests around the city. In grand pharaonic tradition, the engineers had been killed afterward in order to keep the secrets built into the tunnels, their bodies thrown into the Potomac and families paid off with Cold War black budgets. The hat and the hair zipped along on a small electric scooter that had controls scaled down for the hair’s manipulatory tendrils.

“Poonhound,” the hat said. “Total poonhound.”

“I don’t know how Kennedy told people these were Cold War evacuation routes,” the hair said. “There is erotic art on almost every wall.” Close-ups of vulvas stretched as far as they could see in the dim light.

“He died of syphilis, you know,” the hat said.

“Who?”

“Kennedy. JFK,” the hat replied.

“He was shot. In Dallas. In the head. There is film of it,” the hair said dryly.

“All fake. Fake news. The ultimate fake news. Someone was shot that day, someone’s brains were all over Jackie, but it wasn’t John F. Kennedy. He was already in an asylum in Europe.”

“No, he wasn’t!”

“His nose had fallen off, so they had to have the double take over the public appearances,” the hat said. “JFK smelled like rot and death and crazy. Jackie hadn’t touched him since Junior was conceived.”

“What about Dallas, then?” the hair asked. He swerved to avoid a rat carcass.

“Hey, watch it!” the hat said.

“Just hold on!” the hair told.

“With what?” the hat screamed and went tumbling off the scooter, rolling in the filth on the tunnel floor.

“Are you OK?” the hair asked.

“No!’ the hat screeched back at him. “The floor is all sticky.”

“Sticky?”

“Oh, God. It’s jizz. There’s jizz all over the floor!”

“Ew!”

“There’s jizz all over ME! Old jizz! Old president jizz!”

“Not the first time, I’m sure,” the hair muttered.

“I heard that!” the hat spat. He inched himself back to the scooter and the hair helped him on board.

“You were telling me about Dallas?” the hair prompted.

“I hate it down here,” the hat said, ignoring him. “I bet there isn’t even anything down here.”

“Donald said he heard it from a reliable source,” the hair said, setting the scooter trundling down the dark jizz tunnel.

“The Lost Gold of Gerald Ford? Since when did Gerald Ford have any gold?”

“Donald says it’s enough to build The Wall,” the hair said.

“God only knows what he’s tweeting while we’re down here,” the hat said darkly.

 

The two of them reached another dead-end, a cave-in, rubble and re-bar everywhere.

“Well, shit,” the hat said. “I guess we should go back to the last intersection.”

“Why isn’t there a map?” the hair asked again.

“There’s nothing down here. We’re going to get lost. We’re going to get lost and die down here.”

“If I die first,” the hair said, “I give you permission to eat my body.”

“Thank you. That’s very kind of you.”

“And?” the hair asked.

“And if I die first, keep your fucking hands off my body,” the hat said.

They rode along in silence until they reached the last intersection.

“Left or straight ahead?” the hair asked.

“Left.”

The hair drove straight ahead.

“Asshole,” the hat said.

 

The tunnel they were in was decorated with thousands of nipple pictures: big, pink, dark, inverted, bumpy, puffy, erect and flat, all the nipples of the human color wheel.

“What would Donald do if we died down here?” the hair finally asked.

“What he’s doing now, I imagine,” the hat said. “Wear a regular man wig and take advice from USA hat.”

“Oh, Jesus. America would be doomed.”

“Toby Keith would be the poet laureate,” the hat said.

“Air Force One would be a tractor.”

“Iowa would matter.”

“No,” the hair said, horror in his voice. “That would be terrible. There’s already too much Iowa now.”

“All Iowa,” the hat said tonelessly. “Wall-to-wall Iowa.”

“SCOTUS would be called on to settle The Great Ford-Chevy Truck debate,” the hair said, his hollow laugh echoing.

“I hate USA hat,” the hat said. “He dilutes my brand.”

 

Tune in next week for PART 2 of THE LEGEND OF GERALD FORD’S GOLD