THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL

They say that a book writes itself. I don't disagree with this statement. The four novels, the dozens of short stories and the scores of poems that I have written for the most part wrote themselves. After the first draft, I turned to my skills and talents to refine the final products. For all intents and purposes, this commentary is writing itself on a sunny Friday morning in the month of November as I listen to the best of Tom Jobim and his bossa nova classics while a nervous anticipation builds in my stomach. Michael plays tonight. We went for a full-body massage last night after his practice. Over dinner, he talked about the long pass and the double-reverse the coaches had designed for him. His dream world is my reality.

As I have mentioned many times over the past several months, I have been compiling material for my memoir, The Coronavirus Chronicles, destined to become an American classic according to Jack O'Connell, the great unpublished novelist. Who am I to argue with such an insightful literary critic! But with this endeavor, I'm learning an important lesson. Books don't simply write themselves and end when the author has placed his final period.

Originally, I was going to end the memoir at The Palm Lounge with City Commissioner Ben Neece and me discussing the national and local results. Biden was ahead, 253 to 232 (I had already called North Caroline for Trump). Leaving the readers in suspense (There, of course, will be no suspense about the outcome if this work is ever published.), I was going to finish with an epilogue which would feature the inauguration and a recap of all the events that had transpired in the almost three months since the election.

The book that is writing itself has nixed that idea. Too much is happening presently to permit a prolonged interregnum. Trump has not conceded the election. Presently, Biden leads Trump, 290 to 217, in the electoral college according to the media. The winner needs 270 to win the presidency and Biden has obviously passed that goal. Those who reside in the real world are calling him President-elect and Trump a lame duck. 

Trump is enraged that he has been reduced to a lame duck. He is firing former underlings right and left and is filing suits throughout the country right and left in order to overturn the result. There has never been such an assault on our institutions as Trump is launching one false fraudulent claim after another hoping the courts will eliminate chunks of Biden's votes that will lift him to victory in several states and provide him with the needed electoral votes. It is called the "Hail Mary Pass" by his critics, but in a desperate last move nobody doubts he is capable on enacting, he will pressure state houses to nullified the results in their states and select electors to the college who will vote for him.

(This isn't the article, but I will write a story in the next few weeks about this facade of a democracy that we have when electing a president. It is a jigsaw puzzle with pieces that are round and square that reveal our democracy as little more than a joke. Just like we have at the state, county and city levels, we need to streamline the process based on our one-man, one-vote "democracy" and the victor who prevails owns the highest popular vote total. The red-herring arguments that the poor people of Maine or Montana will be disenfranchised as California and New York will receive more attention from the candidates since they have significant higher populations is balderdash. Every vote counts and aspirants who ignore segments of the population, as Hillary Clinton learned to her chagrin 2016 against Trump, will more often than not lose.)

What does the chess board look like at this moment? The press has put Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona in Biden's column, which has increased his total to 290. The press has awarded Alaska to Trump which puts him at 217. Only two more states remain, North Carolina with 15 electoral votes and Georgia with 16 electoral votes. The pundits are prognosticating that Trump will win the former and Biden the latter, thus giving the former vice-president a 306 to 232 electoral college triumph. But Trump has unleashed an army of lawyers to assail the courts with a variety of charges that allege fraud in most cases. He is gambling that his legal shenanigans will turn the tables in his favor.

His supporters are grudgingly admitting that they are dealing with a petulant child having a temper tantrum. The Republican leadership is stating off-the-record that Trump's uncontrolled behavior will run its course and he will go quietly into the sunset which Democrats pray is the entrance to hell. As usual, the Republicans are retreating into their self-delusional state when it comes to this evil man, which is the reason he can comport himself outrageously at this immediate moment because these cowards have tolerated his outlandish antics throughout his term.

Instead of dedicating his last months to being commander-in-chief and leading the nation against our number one enemy COVID-19 that has claimed more than 240,000 Americans lives and infected more than 10 million others, Trump isn't preoccupied with the pandemic eliminating his fellow countrymen. He is solely preoccupied in eliminating the votes that will keep him in the White House and Biden in his basement in Delaware. There are a myriad of wild scenarios broached these days about the possible consequences of Trump's outrageous excesses. He fired the Department of Defense Secretary and anointed a toady to replace him. Rumors abound that he plans to do the same at the FBI and CIA. Would Trump in his madness attempt a coup d'etat?

Not since the Civil War has the country been in a more volatile condition. The remaining 70 days may be significantly worse than the last four years have been. Therefore, the book that is writing itself has commanded me to keep writing. With both Trump and Coronavirus worsening by the day, the book is demanding that I continue with my play-by-play. I was banking on a short break, but I recognize that the book that is writing itself is correct in its mandate and I must continue writing. It is the price an artist has to pay if he is truly committed to his art. And as crazy as Trump is, god knows the crazy poetry and prose that will emerge from my iconoclastic, nihilistic and existentialistic brain that will earn The Coronavirus Chronicles the much deserved title of The Great American Novel.