Chapter Text
Marco got the call on March 16.
Well, one of his assistants got the call. He had stopped answering his own phone two weeks ago, after receiving the hundred and seventh photo of Donald Trump's hands. They all came from different phone numbers, so they were impossible to block -- Becky said something about a randomly cycling computer program. Marco didn’t give a fuck about that sciencey gobbledegook. All he cared about was whether anybody could stop the photos.
They couldn’t, Becky said. Not without getting outside tech support. And Marco refused. He was too ashamed to let anyone know he was suffering.
Sometimes they were just screenshots of news photos with the pumpkin-hued paws circled. Sometimes they were photos taken of the morning's newspaper or a campaign poster. Sometimes they were low-resolution photos of the carrot-like claws posing on a table or bedspread.
Those last were the most disturbing, because Marco knew Donald was manually modeling just for him . There was a repulsive yet inescapable intimacy to it.
Marco had gotten a new phone with a new number three weeks ago, but the photos hadn't stopped. After his third nervous breakdown in as many hours, Becky had just confiscated the phone and said she would handle it. "You have enough to worry about," she had said, with pity welling up in her big blue eyes.
She'd been right. He had so, so much to worry about. He tossed and turned every night -- he'd been having migraines since August, but the nightmares hadn't started until December. But he couldn't let his agony show in public. Even if he spent his nights crying raggedly into his hypoallergenic pillows, he had to smile and be strong for the cameras. For his family. For the millions of Americans out there depending on him -- even if only a few hundred of them cared enough to actually cast a ballot for him.
Fucking Christie might call him a robot, but it was better that than letting a crack in his chassis reveal the torment within.
Becky brandished the phone. “It’s safe, hon.”
“And it’s not Mom again, right?” Marco asked bravely. She had called last night, after he suspended his campaign, to assure him that it was alright, and she was still so proud of him despite all of his failures. The conversation was brief and perfunctory; as soon as it ended, Marco went to the hotel bathroom to vomit. He slept in the bathtub that night. He wasn’t sure why. It didn’t stop the nightmares.
Becky set the phone on the table. She knew better than to hand it directly to him. His aversion to the sight of human hands was growing worse and worse. “It’s not your mom,” Becky said. “It’s Jeb Bush.”
Jeb. I used to think you cared. Marco sighed and glanced out the window at the bright Florida sunshine. He took a bracing chug of his pulp-free, calcium-fortified orange juice. The sunshine seared like a million cameras flashing to document his shame. The orange juice tasted like the ashes of crumbling dreams.
He picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Howdy, Marco.” His former mentor’s voice flowed like cream of wheat into Marco’s ear. Bland and comforting.
“ Now you call.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice. It was more than justified, considering the humiliatingly obvious lack of endorsement in the preceding months. And Jeb had stayed so long in the race, when he could have helped Marco earlier. Pointless. The Bush dynasty had waned, and this was supposed to be Marco’s year to shine. “What the fuck do you want?”
“Easy, kiddo,” came the milquetoast modulations. “I don’t want anything. I’m calling about what you want.”
Marco slammed his fist on the table. It made a faint thud, and the glass of orange barely shifted. “What I want?” Marco hissed. “I wanted to win Florida. I wanted the nomination. I wanted--” and here his voice broke, and Becky discreetly sidled from the room, “--I wanted the fucking White House.”
There was a long, patronizing silence. “I know,” Jeb said. His voice quavered too. “Trust me, kiddo, I know how you feel. And I can’t get you any of that. But I’ve got you something else.”
There was something new in his voice. An edge Marco remembered from his early days in Floridian politics, sipping mimosas on Jeb’s private yacht. He used to lay out on the deck, clad only in his speedo and his hair gel and his arm floaties -- in case he fell overboard -- just listening while the governor worked his conservative magic.
Young, impressionable Marco had thought it was incredible how adroitly the graying nepot could rebalance the entire state’s economy to benefit him and his cronies, all with a few phone calls from his yacht, in between berating the underpaid cabin boy and offering to rub tanning oil on Marco’s back for the third time that afternoon.
With a man like that behind him, he could do anything, Marco had thought at the time.
He knew better now. He stayed silent, aching inside for what once was. What might have been.
Jeb sighed. “Yeah, I know that I let you down,” he said. “Is it too late to say sorry now?”
“I’ve heard it all before, at least a million times,” Marco said softly. “I’m not one to forget, you know.” How could he forget the millions of dollars Jeb’s Super PAC had poured into smear ads in Florida? He’d heard some of Jeb’s staffers were calling him “Judas,” just because he’d had the nerve to reach for what should be his. And all for nothing. All for Donald Fucking Trump to snatch away Florida’s 99 delegates.
Marco couldn’t forget, but he was too exhausted to hold his ground. After only five minutes of paternal cajoling, he agreed to accept Jeb’s surprise gift.
“Neat-o!” Jeb exclaimed. “I promise, this is worth it. Now, the gift is in a… building, in Tampa. You’ll need to get here without anyone seeing where you’re going.”
Marco groaned. Tampa was a sweat-swamped shithole. “Fine, fine. I’ll make Becky stay behind, and I’ll shake the press.” He couldn’t admit that there would be no press; he was nothing now.
Jeb allowed him that little fiction. “Super-duper,” he said. “Alright, I’ll send you the address. Well, I’ll ask Marco to send you the address.”
“Marco?” asked Marco.
“Yeah, I named my assistant Marco. Anyway, he’ll send the address. I still don’t understand this whole Twitter thing.”
Marco closed his eyes. He wanted to die. “It’s called texting, Jeb.”
After the call ended, the phone buzzed. Curious as to the location of the mysterious warehouse, Marco opened the message.
It wasn’t the address.
He shuddered at the photo of the mango-esque monstrosity: bulbous knuckles and glossy, manicured fingernails held together in a bag of flaking skin. The hand was splayed against a suit-clad chest, and the thumb brushed threateningly against the flag pin on the lapel.
Eyes wide and unseeing, Marco was still trembling when Becky found him and gently plucked the phone from his grasp.
He had a press conference twenty minutes later, but it didn’t matter that his eyes were red and his voice wavered: nobody came. The room was as empty as Marco’s heart.