Sudetenland Tales by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Sudetenland Tales

Page 607

called out Donald Trump, corporate developers, and backroom deals with the conviction of a man who knew the road and who’d buried too many victims of systemic neglect. Yet he held hope like a torch, illuminating a path of solidarity.

Former House chief, still House resident, “Hammerhead” Nancy Pelosi stepped up in the vacuum with a laptop under one arm and a bourbon sour in the other, her rage and/or inebriation braided into optimism. At just 85, she spoke with fierce clarity about rising tides, heat waves, and the city’s fragile sea wall.

The effects people set off all the fireworks as Hammerhead tried to once again, more or less, explode onto the stage in a blaze of gray glory. She lifted her mic triumphantly, and screamed "Let’s guzzle!" She took two tiny yet ambitious steps forward, then took her cue from an old copyrighted Biden flop, promptly tripped over her pants, and face planted on the wood floor.

Face had met floor with the force of a thousand tiny percussion instruments. The crowd gasped, thinking she had been shot. Nancy groaned from below the podium while the rest of the stage actors riffed into a spontaneous jam called “Help Me Up.”

Paramedics were halfway to the stage before Pelosi popped up like an old, loose, hammer head, and shouted, “I’m fine! No