Fiction: Stitched Up

Thanks for the cover
of the April 13, 2023
New Yorker magazine

By Claude May

As far as we have been able to ascertain, the members of the committee known as The Protectors gathered sometime very early in 2019 near Richmond, Virginia, at the home of their Chairman. Most of those present were of the committee’s third generation.
    We have established that the committee considered it their obligation to serve the Union, to keep its flag stitched together. They rarely gathered, but when they did, it was on a matter of the direst importance.
    Several Presidents had occasioned The Protectors’ intervention. John F. Kennedy was one of the first they all remembered. Kennedy had seemed like a sure thing, but he soon found pursuing the East Asian war too high a price for him to pay politically. The committee met and debated the problem posed by the potential loss of profits from the war. Everything had a price.
    After Kennedy’s consequent death, the intensified war produced millions upon millions of dollars for the corporate state. The committee’s decision to back Johnson had proven to be the right one.
    Nixon they also liked and tried to walk him back from the cliff’s edge, but he was doomed from the beginning, so, after that, they learned not to set their goals too high.
    They were neither Republicans nor Democrats. Everyday matters had no bearing on their decisions. If everybody had healthcare, and corporations made money, then that was good. If everybody had food and a roof over their head, and corporations made money, then that was good. The welfare of the people was not their concern. But if corporations suffered because of their misjudgment, that was a serious problem.
    Trump had seemed like a sure thing, so they backed him even in ways that left them exposed, because they expected an exceptionally big payday in the end. Trump came from money, and unlike the Kennedy’s, he was not embarrassed about it but made it the armor that carried him to the White House. Unfortunately, everything he had done in the two years since becoming President cost corporations money, and now, with the Democrats in charge of the House, investigations were being opened that could expose some of the Committee’s members. Something had to be done soon.
    From what we have been able to piece together from sources unwilling to be identified, the members sat at the round oak table in the Chairman’s house and drank the same brandy as their forefathers. They were not friends. Most of them had met only once or twice. But they all spoke English and came from stock dating back to before the formation of the United States. Their ages ranged from the early thirties to the late sixties. Their common background bound them as brothers. They had been raised for such moments as this, when they were called on to make fateful decisions. No one knew better than they the weight of such responsibility.
    We have heard on credible authority that an assessment report had been distributed for the members to read, debate, and vote on. Apparently, on this particular question, there was little need for debate, and literally every voting member agreed with the recommendation: Trump had to go.
    After the vote was taken, the meeting quickly disbanded, and everyone went their separate ways. The recommendation was handed over to Operations to work out the how and when of their action.
    We do know for a fact that thirty days later, Trump lay dead in the Rose Garden, and Pence died a few minutes later on his way to the Capitol to be sworn in as President.

Copyright © 2023 by Moristotle & Co. No official records exist for Claude May.