Trump, Obama and St. Augustine Walk into a Bar
On a finger of land on the north coast of Spain stands a lighthouse. In the lighthouse there is an inn, the Inn at the End of the World. The inn is made of stone and old oak timbers. In the inn there is a bar. Sophia tends the bar. She never knows who is going to walk in. But the bar is well-stocked, and she knows her trade.
Her first customer of the evening walks in.
SOPHIA: Welcome to the Inn at the End of the World. What can I get you, Señor?
OBAMA: Young lady, why’d the guy who looks like Muhammad Ali take my cell phone? Do you have honey ale?
SOPHIA: No phones may enter this inn, señor. Honey ale, you said? Sorry, we don’t carry that. Could I interest you in our honey orujo? It’s an after-dinner liqueur that will make you feel like the queen bee just named you her favorite drone.
OBAMA: Well, I already am her favorite drone. How about a vodka martini.
SOPHIA: How do you like it?
OBAMA: On the beach, in Hawaii, in 2017.
SOPHIA: [laughs] You stole that from Jimmy O’Fallon. We’re not on the Gregorian calendar here. But I’ll mix you one that will make you feel even better than that. With gin, not vodka, ok? [She shaves some ice from a giant block, pours gin into her shaker]. What brings you here?
OBAMA: Well, my wife is taking a break from White House business to try a new restaurant in San Sebastián with her friends. I thought I´d wander west.
SOPHIA: You wandered right, Señor.
The door opens. Donald Trump, in a blue suit and red tie, walks in.
SOPHIA: Pardon me… [she turns to Trump]. Buenas tardes. What can I get you, señor?
TRUMP: What’s your name?
SOPHIA: Sophia.
TRUMP: Where you from?
SOPHIA: Madrid.
TRUMP: Great town. I’ll take soda and a lime. I envy people who drink – at least they know what to blame everything on. I LOVE Madrid. The BEST outdoor bars anywhere. You could do better than your current President, though.
SOPHIA: We’d do better with a doorknob as President. Have you heard the one where God comes to Spain in the beginning? No? He says to us Spaniards, I’m going to give you majestic mountains, beautiful beaches, wonderful wine and breathtaking women. But to keep you humble, I’m going to give you really bad government.
OBAMA: Sounds like what happened to us in 2016.
TRUMP: Well, look who it is – Cheatin’ Barry. Ya know, don’t let the Secret Service hear, but I have to say you did one thing better than me.
OBAMA: What’s that, Orange Man?
TRUMP: You were better at staying married than I was.
OBAMA: [smiles] Michelle says all husbands are the same. You may as well stick with the first one.
TRUMP: Here’s to Melania and Michelle. [They lift but do not clink their glasses.]
SOPHIA: Señor Trump, what brings you here?
TRUMP: Melania wanted to shop in Madrid. I thought I’d head north.
SOPHIA: Sounds like you both got a boys’ day off.
TRUMP: Eight years in the White House would make any boy want a day off, huh, Barry?
OBAMA: Sophia, Orange Man here wore himself out trying to drag our country back into the Dark Ages.
SOPHIA: My grandfather used to say politicians were like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason.
TRUMP: [laughs] Speaking of the dark ages, if Cheatin’ Barry’s wife does even four years we’re going to look like Venezuela on steroids.
Obama’s face gets hard. The door opens – light from the setting sun streams in. An old man, balding, gray beard, in a long robe, holding a shepherd’s staff walks slowly in.
SOPHIA: Bienvenido. What can I get you, padre?
AUGUSTINE: Blessings on you, daughter. Have you a cold sidra? I am marvelous parched.
SOPHIA: Asturias’ best coming up. [She pours cider, holding the bottle over her head, down into glass held at her waist, looking at Augustine.] What brings you here, father?
AUGUSTINE: I’m walking the Camino to Santiago with some friends. They are on the beach fishing for merluza.
TRUMP: The Camino? That’s a GREAT walk. The BEST.
AUGUSTINE: Young man, it’s a good walk. It is not the best.
OBAMA: What is the best?
AUGUSTINE: The walk to Jerusalem, of course.
TRUMP: You know I did something no other President could. I brought peace to that town.
[Augustine and Obama smile.]
AUGUSTINE: While the City of Man lasts, there will be no peace in Jerusalem.
TRUMP: What’s your name? Where you from?
AUGUSTINE: Aurelius Augustinus. I hail from Hippo.
OBAMA: You’re from Algeria?
AUGUSTINE: That’s what you call it now. In my day it was called Numidia.
OBAMA: What do you mean, “your day”?
AUGUSTINE: In my day, Rome fell.
OBAMA: Holy sh…inola, Donald, this guy’s a few fries short of a Happy Meal.
TRUMP: OK, Aurelius, what do you mean by City of Man?
AUGUSTINE: You governed the world’s most powerful nation and you’ve not read my work The City of God?
TRUMP: I was pretty busy firing spooks and Tweeting.
OBAMA: The Donald is not really a reader, old man. I read the Cliff notes at Columbia, though. You basically said there are two cities – the city of man and the city of God, both co-existing at all times in history. They run on different fuels, have different agendas. The city of man comes and goes, the city of God endures. Is that right?
AUGUSTINE: Young man, it sounds like Cliff may have skimmed it.
OBAMA: [winking at Sophia] But we’ve moved beyond all that, gramps. Your City of God led to the Inquisition, American slavery, pedophile priests. Our only hope is the City of Man, led by good people. We just need to educate kids out of ignorance, tolerate all beliefs and apply technology to human problems like crime and disease. If we get people like Donald out of the way, we can build heaven on earth.
TRUMP: Spoken like the banana republic dictator you aimed to be, Barry! Nope. We gotta help the average guy by keeping manufacturing inside our own borders, keep those borders secure and otherwise get government out of the way. My second term was HUGE. Your guys jailed Bannon, put me under house arrest, tried to kill me and I still kicked sleepy Joe’s ass. I closed down the Department of Education, gutted the EPA and fired every last loser at the CIA and FBI. Americans won’t really have a shot at happiness until the last northern Virginia bureaucrat is strangled in the guts of the last Silicon Valley tech bro.
AUGUSTINE: Happiness, hijo? What do you mean by that?
TRUMP: You know – doing what you damn well please.
OBAMA: The Donald was a little busy chasing skirt in college. I’ll spell it out. Happiness is every American’s right, as Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, to “define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and the mystery of human life.” And to pursue that without judgment or discrimination from others.
AUGUSTINE: And this is now the bedrock belief of the leaders of your country?
TRUMP: Barry is wrong about how to get there but we both agree: what matters is freedom. Unless you’re hurting someone, happiness is freedom to do what you damn well please.
AUGUSTINE: That, my friends, is why your country is tearing itself apart. One of your English poets put it best when he had the Prince of Darkness say: “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.” Freedom to do what “you damn well please” is the first rule of hell.
OBAMA: Look, graybeard, one of the Beatles put it better. “Imagine there’s no heaven / Nothing to kill or die for / I hope one day you’ll join us / And the world will live as one.”
AUGUSTINE: Ah. If a beetle could talk, it would talk that way. So, your world has imagined no heaven. Are they living as one?
SOPHIA: Madre mia – of course not. Look at my country. We are on the edge of another civil war. What do you think is happiness, father?
AUGUSTINE: Well, how to put it over one sidra. Our hearts are restless until they rest in the One who made us. Late, late have I loved Him. True joy lies not in anything that the city of Man offers. It offers good things – and it is good to love them. But “happiness” – better, joy – lies in ordering your loves. First things first, second things second, third things third. Get that right and you have heaven. Get it wrong and you inhabit hell.
TRUMP: I think hell is being trapped at a dinner party with Rachel Maddow, Whoopi Goldberg and Adam Schiff. Could we try some of that ham and blue cheese?
SOPHIA: [Sophia slices deftly onto three plates] Jamón y queso cabrales para los señores.
TRUMP: Sophia, you think civil war is coming? On our side of the pond it’s not much better. We´ve got Barry’s wife Naggin’ Michele and Alex “I’m a man with a beard now” Ocasio-Cortez in the White House. After stealing the election from JD Vance with their AI deepfakes, I’d put money on it: there’ll be blood in the streets.
OBAMA: Those are fighting words, Orange Man.
TRUMP: Want to step outside, Cheatin’ Barry?
AUGUSTINE: [steps in between them] Pax, brothers.
Obama takes a swing. Augustine moves, takes a blow to the face. Sophia calls the bouncer, Muhammad Ali. He grabs Augustine by his hood and tosses him out the door and down the steps.
SOPHIA: Why’d do you do that, cabrón? These two started it. He just stepped in.
ALI: Sorry, Sophia. He looked homeless to me.
OBAMA: Homeless would be a step up. He’s just a hopeless patriarchal throwback who thinks religion brings peace.
TRUMP: C’mon, pencil neck. Take another swing. I’m still bigger than you.
SOPHIA: Gentlemen, it´s closing time.
Trump and Obama walk out, arguing, and step over Augustine. Sophia helps Augustine to his feet.
SOPHIA: ¿Está bien, padre?
AUGUSTINE: Mr. Obama’s bark is worse than his bite. [He stands and feels his nose]. Pain is God’s megaphone. I must listen harder. But I fear for the country they both governed.
SOPHIA: I fear for my rent money. Those cabrones left without paying!
AUGUSTINE: I’ll buy the round. I must see if Aquinas got his merluza. Good day to you, daughter.
Augustine limps off, leaning on his staff. In the last light of the sun setting over the Bay of Biscay toward Finisterre, Sophia looks at the coin in her hand. It is a heavy one of silver, with a lamb on one side and a lion on the other
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