The fluorescent lights in the press briefing room are knives in my skull. My stomach is a rotting fruit pit, twisted and acidic, trying to claw its way out through my throat. I grip the edge of my seat and force my focus forward.
Caroline is up there, gliding through the chaos, batting away the media’s poisoned darts with the cold efficiency of a hitman. She’s electric, brutal—Trump’s personal executioner. I should be reveling in this. I should be drinking in the carnage like an expensive whiskey. But my mind keeps skipping, skidding sideways, tripping over last night.
The streetlights melting across my windshield. The heat. The smell of burnt rubber and sweat.
And her.
That platinum-wigged lunatic with the leopard-print miniskirt and switchblade lipstick.
The cops. The cackling. The fucking humiliation.
I close my eyes, try to ground myself in the present, in the righteous war playing out in front of me, but the THC still hums in my bloodstream, and my nerves are scraped raw. My skin feels too tight. My shirt collar is suffocating me. My mouth tastes like regret and convenience store coffee.
I shouldn’t be here. I should be curled up somewhere dark and forgiving, sweating out the toxins. But I had to come. Had to see the aftermath of last night’s speech—the speech that rattled the country, set the media class howling. Had to watch the jackals spin their pathetic narratives.
Trump was perfect. Towering. He laid it all out, cut through the lies like a bandsaw. Seventy-six percent approval. That’s not a speech, that’s a seismic event. The kind of moment historians will look back on when they chart the return of the American dream.
Caroline flashes a sheet of paper at the press corps, her manicured nails tapping the CBS poll numbers like the barrel of a loaded gun. The journalists shift in their seats, lips curling, eyes darting. They know. They all know.
But they still ask their petty questions, still poke and prod, trying to chip away at the inevitable.
Tariffs. Inflation. Canada.
Governor Trudeau. Jesus, that was good.
Caroline doesn’t flinch. “The President believes in tariffs because they’ll make America rich again.”
Damn right.
Another question. The Democrats’ grotesque refusal to stand for the grieving mothers, the survivors, the children.
I grip my pen, tapping it against my knee. My hands are still unsteady. The echoes of last night crawl up my spine.
The cop’s voice, heavy with irritation—Get back in your car and leave before I change my mind.
The hollow clunk of the gearshift.
The hooker’s laughter, still ringing in my ears.
“YOU DUMBASS!”
God, I need a cigarette.
Caroline barrels through another question, this time about Ukraine. The reporters are gnashing their teeth, desperate to frame Trump as the warmonger, the tyrant. But the truth is right there, hanging in the air like the stench of their hypocrisy.
Last night was clarifying. Trump spoke, and the parasites shrieked. The people listened, and they knew. The old order is cracking, splintering under the weight of its own rot.
The unnamed man—that’s me, I guess—leans back in his seat, presses a thumb into his temple. The pain is a dull, throbbing drumbeat. I need water. I need sleep. I need to wash last night off me.
But I won’t.
Because this is the fight.
And I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
Hangover in the Briefing Room
