Trump at the Western Wall: A Fictionalized Account
Donald crossed the Western Wall plaza with long and confident strides, powered by something beyond himself.
He had been to Jerusalem before, of course. He had even been to this plaza before, opposite this historically significant wall. But this time, after the week he’d had, there was something about the wall that called to him: its solid construction, with cracks that beckoned, the small notes extending past the stones, like fingers, hoping for one of his trademark handshakes. He knew the stone would be cool, but somehow he was expecting something more from this wall: something more like a pulse, a heartbeat.
Construction was his lifeblood, and he’d dreamed of meeting a wall whose stony heartbeat matched the dull, barely audible throb of his own. His most recent conversations with his wife at home — whichever home he was at and whenever they were actually in the same place at the same time — had left a lot to be desired. He often found himself looking at her blank stare in framed photos and in real life, thinking that a wall might be a more suitable — if less hot — life partner. He was actually grateful when she wore those big sunglasses to events, shielding her expressions that seemed to range from disdain to indifference. Just today, there was that thing when she rejected his attempt to hold hands. Not like he wanted to hold her hand, anyway, really. I mean, get over yourself, Mellie.
It was time to focus. Best to concentrate on this moment, he thought, drawing a deep breath. Here he was, just a man, standing in front of a wall, asking it to love him. He knew by looking at it, that it would not rebuff his advances.
He’d waited a long time to get back here. The blonde grandma and that black guy with the Muslim middle name had been here many times, which had almost ruined this place for him. But this wall also seemed like something else — while he couldn’t quite name it, he felt instinctively that this was the physical manifestation for all he’d tried to do — from trying to keep people out of his country to trying to keep control of the people inside his various houses. A symbol, that was the word. Perhaps that made this wall his destiny; perhaps he’d finally found his wallmate. It was time to find out.
He reached into his pocket for the Purell he always carried and squeezed out a few drops into his hands — not only would this magic liqui-gel kill bacteria and purify the space after those other two losers had touched it, but — he believed, without any scientific proof — it erased his fingerprints from anything he touched, a quality he’d come to appreciate in a hand sanitizer. He stretched out his hands, enjoying the Jerusalem breeze across his fingers as he let the Purell dry. Tentatively he extended a hand, touching the wall as cautiously as he would a woman if he had been notified that Access Hollywood was recording him. As his palm touched the cool stone, he felt the energy pass through him in a surge. He popped a Tic-Tac out of habit. This was powerful, he thought. I must have one of my own.
While he was making a mental note to talk to Ben about it later (“Give me that wall, Ben,” he’d start), his hand — falling back on old habits — slipped into a crevice, in this case, dislodging a green note from the wall. At first glimpse, he thought it was money, and lunged awkwardly to grab it by the paper. But when he touched it, he realized it wasn’t cash, it was a dream, scripted by a person and folded into the walls’ crevices.
The note was in Hebrew. Looking at the words grouped on the page, he was reminded of something he’d seen before — song lyrics. He didn’t realize how accidentally close he was to understanding something: in Hebrew, the word for poem and the word for song are the same, and this piece of poetry was from a song that had become popular in 1967, after the Six-Day War. Had his daughter been there at that moment, she might have been able to translate for him. His son-in-law might have even known the song, which was about the very wall before which the President now stood. But they weren’t there, so he crumpled the note and let it drop. He looked right and left, and kicked it toward the crease where the wall met the ground.
The note began with a prayer, like many of them do, for peace — but also contained the lines, “There are people who have hearts of stone, and there are stones with human hearts.”
But Donald didn’t know any of that. What he did know was that he needed to leave his mark on this space. He pulled a Trump University-branded notepad out of his inside jacket pocket and from behind his hair, a silver Tiffany pen that he liked so much he had named one of his daughters for it. He chuckled, then stopped mid-grin when he couldn’t remember which daughter. (“Oh, the other one,” he eventually remembered.)
He raised the pen to the corner of his mouth, thinking a moment, then scrawled a bunch of lines on the paper. Folding it up, he shoved it between the cracks of the bigliest stones he could find. He placed his hand on the wall one more time, moved his head slightly closer and whispered, “I will see you soon, trust me, I guarantee it, believe me.”
Then he turned his back and walked away, so he didn’t see his note fall, seemingly ejected by the very stones themselves; the note seemed to jump forward, catching a breeze and coasting before landing a good two feet from the wall.
After the paparazzi and the security departed, a maintenance man appeared with a push broom, sweeping up all the wishes that had been claimed not by God but by gravity, including that of the U.S. President. He never read these prayers — he felt it was an invasion of privacy — but he couldn’t bring himself to toss them in the trash either. Instead, in a tribute to the sacrifices that used to be offered at the Temple whose outer wall the Western Wall is, he burned them until the paper was fully consumed by fire. As the flames licked at the papers, they burned away the Trump University logo and the jaggedly scrawled letters, obliterating the message from the human realm and ensuring that no one — not even the Russian foreign minister that the Trump campaign staff had met with before the election — would read the message:
“Dear God, or Jesus, or whoever gets this letter. You are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately. While I greatly appreciate your informing me that you approve of my Presidency — because I had the most votes and most inauguration guests of any candidate in human history — I believe that you can no longer effectively lead the peace process. It is essential that we find new leadership that restores public trust and confidence…I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors. PS: I said, ‘you’re fired.’ Isn’t that terrific? It’s my slogan, from my show ‘The Apprentice,’ which — by the way — has had horrible ratings, just horrible, since I left. PPS: I like your wall. On a scale of 1 to 10, it’s a solid 8. PPPS: You should really get yourself a Winter Western Wall. I have a Winter White House at Mar-a-Lago, and it’s absolutely sensational.”
The smoke swirled upward into the heavens, reaching the Divine Entity that is all non-binary things to all people, even to atheists, agnostics and politicians who are restricting access to health care for the most vulnerable populations.
As the message was delivered — not to the Entity’s hand for the Entity had no hands, not to the Entity’s ears, for the Entity had no ears, but directly into the Black Hole Sun of the Entity — a grumbling was heard in the distance; it sounded like an irate engine turning over.
And then, a boom that was heard throughout the heavenly heavens:
“I’m fired? Seriously? Well the jerk store called, and they’re out of you.”
The Entity paused. This wasn’t a strong enough kicker.
Then the Angel Sabrina approached with her two friends, Jill and Kelly. “We have an idea,” they said, speaking as one voice, because sometimes Angels did that, especially in the 1970s, when the female characters weren’t always that distinct and were mostly known for how well they wore their snug and/or revealing costumes.
“Remember that Mar-a-Lago place he mentioned?” said Kelly.
“Yes, but what are you getting at, Angels?”
“Well,” Jill said, tilting her head and smiling like she was in a pinup poster, “we do have that extra sinkhole back there…”
“…And we can’t think of a better place for it…” said Sabrina.
“Than Mar-A-Lago!” the three finished in unison.
“Good work, Angels,” said the Entity.
THE END
Sources of inspiration:
“Mending Wall,” by Robert Frost (Poetry Foundation)
Trump’s letter firing FBI Director James Comey (CNN)
“HaKotel” (Hebrew song — see link for Hebrew and English lyrics)
Video clip of the Trumps arriving in Tel Aviv (the Guardian) /Melania’s Hand Swat a Viral Sensation (CNN Politics)
“Notting Hill” (Movieclips.com)
Sinkhole at Mar-A-Lago, May 22 (Washington Post)
A closer look at Trump’s handshakes (Business Insider)
“Charlie’s Angels,” 1976–1981
