President Chimp

By Jeremy Schanche

How did a large ape take over the world’s most powerful nation? How did international power-politics get reduced to an absurdist melodrama? Why did the people of the USA accept the Presidency of a bad-tempered chimpanzee? The answer to these riddles will be found in the brand-new ebook by Jeremy Schanche - President Chimp. The author’s second book, this new collection of surrealism, satire and the spirit goes out of its way to ‘drain the swamp’ of Washington politics and reveal the uncensored reality of today’s White House under President Donald Chimp.
In today’s political world, fact and fiction are hard to distinguish and the events in this story are only subtly different from those accepted as historically true. Join Donald Chimp and his crazy cast of co-stars in this hilarious, razor-sharp portrait of the 45th President of the USA.
Meet Jefferson Cess, the possum-like Attorney General who hails from Alabamy. Meet Mike Pynchpenny, the glacial Vice President whose wife makes the tastiest little old cookies this side of Pittsburgh. And don’t forget to say hi to Beth DeVo, the simpering Detroit Poodle whose enjoys sinking her claws into public education. But you’d better watch out for CIA-boss Mikey Pompey - he’ll have his stiletto in your back before you know what’s happening.
The book contains two other stories:
More of Everything is the tale of someone whose attempt to enrich his life goes horribly wrong. Someone who is forced to ask himself ‘at what point does enough become too much? Perhaps you’ve been there yourself? If not, now’s your chance. Let me take you by the hands and lead you through the streets of Lonton...
Into The Thunderbolt Land follows the journey of an English soldier during the 1904 British Invasion of Tibet. Under official instructions to gather information on Tibetan culture, the Somerset Vicar’s son enters a world of meditation, yoga and a profound philosophy that seems to go to the very heart of the riddle that is life.

Jeremy Schanche is also the author of The Horned Whale or An Morvil Kornek. Published in 2016, it includes the Gothic novel The Kramvil, plus the short stories The Janetta Stone and Ghost-Hulk Of A Phantom; a collection of poetry and two glossaries – one for Cornish words and one for foreign and archaic words.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeremy Schanche
• Release date: Jun 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9780993490927

Jeremy Schanche

(Note: PRESIDENT CHIMP is available from numerous outlets for simple purchase without registering.)Fiction can be a pleasurable dream to weave, a further thread in the great collective dreamings of the world. Some may ask or wonder why go on producing fiction in a world awash in it already? Well, to take a lobsterish tilt at the question I’d have to say that surely the ordinary, real and factual actual life that we all live is also a fiction. So publishing a book is merely letting a little fiction loose within a bigger one. Did I hear somebody ask why I would say that the ordinary collective life we live is really a fiction? Well first, fiction, I s’pose we would all mostly agree can be a good thing. We love stories because they are little toy lives, toy universes to dally with – toys for the mind.Saying life is fictitious is to say that our personal perceptions are a little skewed at times, like a compass that’s just a little off-centre, off true north. Our senses pick up a smidgeon of available-reality and we take that little bit and warp it with our prideful and uninformed, self-centred and confused take on things – in short – our ‘ego’.Anyway, let’s not be too hard on ourselves, shall we? Poor little humans that we are, just overgrown monkeys really, coat-wearing monkeys going about this ol’ planet, too busy hustlin’, tryna survive and seeking fun to actually ever get down to a serious investigation into the ultimate nature of mind, reality, existence and such and so forth trivia and jibber-jabber Etc. Etc. &c.I mean don’t get me wrong – I’m just as guilty as the rest of you, in fact worse than most. I haven’t solved, or even got anywhere near any of these real questions myself so I can’t really point the finger if you know what I mean. I’m just a superficial slob just like the rest a ya. (jest). Well, that’s covered that little subject and now we can move on!Dreams are important and so is acting out our own ideas and visions in the world. Spread Surrealism, Anarchy, Freedom, Universal Loving Kindness – that kind of thing.The world’s an illusion because its’ atoms ain’t solid – well, not solid enough! Half the time they’re waving at their neighbours. Also because of the slow-fast pyroclastic flow and flux of phenomenal mutation nothing stays the same for very long, so for example you can’t just say ‘water’s water’ because half the time it’s ice or steam - same for everything.I think the best writers are often, though not always, those who deeply shake up the previous conventions of writer’s formality and habitual style. Out of a constellation of brilliant authors there’s eight who cast their influence over my first book, The Horned Whale. Two of these writers didn’t even write books, but instead were singers, minstrels and lyricists.Nikola Gogol, Herman Melville, James Joyce, H.P. Lovecraft, Dylan Thomas, Jack Kerouac, Captain Beefheart, Syd Barrett. Each of these writers broke through into fresh and undreampt realms of poetic and visionary expression. Each of them was like a sign, pointing to new possibilities.My second book, President Chimp, is a little drier. Less clouds, more tarmac. Less waffle, but possibly just a tad more hogwash – I’ll let you make up your own mind on that one. Any road up, the main story, PRESIDENT CHIMP itself, started life as a deeply-needed expression of my reaction to certain little goings on on the world political stage – namely the arrival of USA’s new guy with the bad hair... It came from deep within me and I felt it strongly. I had to expunge the shadow of those jokers from my life and this was my idiosyncratic – and yes, idiotic I hear some of you say – way of doing it. My personal revenge and exorcism of the tyrants and fools who piss all over our ever so ‘umble little lives on a daily basis – just sayin’. So basically the story was ‘influenced’ by anger and I had a lot of fun turning that anger into laughter. I sure hope some of you folks out there in Ebook Land will read it and laugh right along with me.I s’pose the second story in this collection, MORE OF EVERYTHING, is a bit of a nod towards a certain notorious central European writer but I’ll say no more on that and you can form your own opinion.Human culture is an echo-chamber with graffiti-covered walls – we share a set of words and ideas and keep re-arranging them like The Glass Bead Game. Well, that’s my excuse anyway.The scene that takes place in Pawkley Park was dreampt-up in ’92 or ’93 and told to a friend in London at the time but not written down for decades.Well I’ve probably wasted enough of your time and you’ll likely have had more than a belly-full of my old hogwash by now so I’ll be on me merry way. But being a fiction-writer, it’s probably hard to tell if I’m telling the truth or not – and that’s a fict.Thanks for reading and have a soulful one.

Book preview

PRE SIDENT CHIMP

Jeremy Schanche

Published by The Invertebrate Press, 6 TH June, 2020.

Copyright © Jeremy Schanche, 2020.

All rights reserved by the author.

Epub Edition. ISBN: 978-0-9934909-2-7

Distributed by Smashwords.

Illustrated by Flora Schanche. Front cover by the author.

The first edition of INTO THE THUNDERBOLT LAND was published on the author’s website, yecaterpillar.blogspot.com, in December, 2018.

This is the first edition of PRESIDENT CHIMP and also MORE OF EVERYTHING.

All editions mentioned, including those available at the above blog, are covered by this copyright notice and may not be reproduced for financial gain, in any form whatsoever without the permission of the author.

Smashwords License Statement:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please visit smashwords.com or other outlets, to purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

To those free spirits of the earth I give this book, for what it’s worth.

Of human folly do I sing, so let the streets with laughter ring.

Chapter One

And God said let there be Chimp and there was Chimp! Hurray!

Yes, God made Chimp, but he used America to do it. The rise and fall of Donald Chimp was indeed a wild and rocky ride, from riches to ridicule, from excess to ex-prez, via the reduction of a once-great nation into a third-rate banana republic. Where to begin? Well, like a vexed and frustrated monkey, let’s just begin by throwing some shit at the wall and seeing what we got.

Well, the fundamental question is how did a great ape come to take over the world’s richest nation? Well, it’s a long and tangled story, and I can’t say too much, because the agencies involved would just come round and redact me, if ya takes ma meanin’. They have a way of editing people out of the story, if ya knows what I mean. Anyway it all happened when the Republican candidate, Earl Chuck, was visiting the Detroit Zoo, doing one of those ‘friendly family’ type events with his entourage and some press and had wandered over to the ape’s enclosure, out of bored curiosity. He’d gazed in frustration at an apeless little desert of a place, with only some masturbatory grunting coming out of a little hut to indicate the presence of any simians. In disgust he’d flicked his cigarette butt into the enclosure, dreaming idly of his next career-advancing move, like Napoleon planning to crush a continent or two.

As if the cigarette butt landing in the monkey-house had been a pre-arranged signal, an ape came out of nowhere, fast. It leapt up into its stunted little tree and briskly snapped off a long branch which it flung to the ground. Leaping out of the tree, it then picked up the branch and backed up to the far corner of the sand-pit. Then, like an Olympic athlete, it started its run-up, and digging the pole into the sand at the last minute it launched itself into the air, out of the enclosure and on to the fear-paralyzed form of Earl Chuck, Republican candidate and golden-boy.

If you’ve not had a large monkey launched into your face I can tell you from experience it’s not very nice. Poor Earl, I could almost feel sorry for him, grappling with a hairy ape like there was, or might be, no tomorrow. Whatever that 3 per cent DNA that Earl didn’t share with his attacker might have contained, whatever it was that made Earl human, and makes us all human, it didn’t stop the monkey from kicking his ass. That’s the thing about brute violence, it has this nasty little way of getting results. It could almost be the basis for a whole culture. Anyway, Earl Chuck’s thoughts certainly weren’t revolving around culture just then, but rather survival. Senator Chuck couldn’t have reasonably been expected to take much interest in the taxonomic classification of his assailant - in fact, he couldn’t have given a monkey’s. The term Pan troglodytes would have meant nothing to his over-stuffed brain anyway, it being too full of important facts and dubious arguments.

Well, to cut a short story somewhat shorter, the chimp got the better of the man, and for that the man will pay.

The chimp – for such it was – got our man on the ground and worked him over good and proper. He’d spent enough time in America to get wised up on how to stage a rumble. As Earl Chuck whimpered for mercy at his prehensile feet, Chimp, (I think he deserves capitalisation, after all, he’s winning the fight) Chimp, I say, coolly went through the Republican front-runner’s pockets.

Interesting what these Homo sapiens carry around in their pockets… little bunches of keys, little wallets full of dollars, a photo of the wife and kids, a driving license, a piece of paper covered in strange codes and symbols and a pistol. Being an urban type of fellow, Chimp instantly took command of the gun and, well, the rest, as they say, is history.

It truly was a historic moment, not just for the USA, but for the world in general, for the planet Earth. Indeed, never in the field of inter-primate warfare has so much been seized from so many by such a bloody great ape.

Having disarmed and robbed his man, the final indignity was yet to come. The ape started tugging at Earl Chuck’s suit and cowering in abject submission, the homo sap handed his well-tailored garments to the Chimp, who, with a malevolent and malicious blaze in his eye, soon ripped away the ankles and cuffs and rapidly, amazingly, tailored the suit to his own requirements.

Giving the right-winger a final kick in the ribs, the great ape bounded away and blended in with humanity, soon learning to pass for a hom sap.

*

Having spent a few of the senators misappropriated dollars on a Chinese meal and half a bottle of house white, Chimp felt nerved for his mission. He knew what he had to do and didn’t have to worry about any of that human ‘holding back from doing evil’ nonsense, did he? He settled the bill, left a generous tip and breasted his way forth into the street, where he tried to hail a cab. A spot of rain landed on his well-cut suit and he repressed a snarl of annoyance. A cab was pulling up. The old lady who had hailed it stepped happily towards its reassuring yellow form, only to be pushed out of the way by an extremely rude and aggressive-looking fellow in a business-suit who jumped in and before the cabby could say where to buddy? he barked his orders: Republican Party Headquarters and step on it pal!

At first the doorman had trouble understanding the strange guttural accent of the rather short guy who stood in front of him. After a slight hesitation, Chimp pulled out the wallet, his wallet as it now was, and showed a couple of the cards in it to the doorman. He soon found himself being ushered upstairs with great deference.

The meeting had been in session for some time and the senator’s presence had been eagerly anticipated by the time the door swung open. Grabbing the nearest hom sap by the lapels, Chimp soon had the gun up to his head and showed him the piece of paper with the symbols on it. He then produced from his pocket a document and indicated that it needed signing, now, by everyone in the room.

And here, if you don’t mind growled Chimp, as a chubby finger pointed to a dotted line at the bottom of a legal document. "That’s it. Now get this, and get it good, humans, I’m the Presidential Nominee now and it’s all proper and legal, y’all signed the paper committing yourselves to support me unconditionally in my campaign to make myself, I mean, to make America great! And I’m only going to say this once he said, cocking the pistol menacingly, anybody makes any jokes about my appearance and it’s the East River! Got me? Yes sir!" barked the subdued and subjugated gathering with one voice.

Truth is, some of them were already coming to like the new nominee and had an instinctive hunch that his style of politics, if a tad vulgar, might just have something in it.

*

Well, we don’t need to dwell on his meteoric rise to power, his series of highly offensive public pronouncements, the well-publicised photos of him doing bad things with the prostitute, his delight – and success – at insulting vast swathes of the nation and the world in general. These scars will heal in time, so let us move on, unpalatable though it be.

You’re probably wondering by now what happened to Earl Chuck. Strangely, he found himself confined in a secure hospital. First it was the tufts of dark hair that sprouted all over his body, then the alarming shortening of his limbs. One of Chimp’s bites must have infected him and kicked off a genetic mutation. The more he grunted about being a highly respected senator and front-runner for the nation’s top job, the more the orderlies pumped him full of strange drugs and resorted to physical restraint when he got ugly about it. How the mighty are fallen.

Chimp’s star was rising and rising big. Having mastered the rudiments of human speech, his oratory came on by leaps and bounds and the public almost seemed to like his rudeness, maybe because they could feel that he meant it. In a climate of falsehood, hatred can start to look a bit like sincerity. Truth was, he hated all humans equally, whatever colour or type they were. They all came and gawped at him in the old days, came and made patronising remarks and flipped him peanuts – he wouldn’t forget those indignities for a lifetime. He had noticed however, that the paler varieties of hom sap seemed to hold a lot of the wealth and power, so he decided to throw his lot in with them. He learned from his Party-colleagues that this would have to involve a little bit of ‘supremacist-struggle’ against those darker folks, but hey, what is it those humans say? You can’t make an omelette – what was it again?

And so it was that before you could say Pan troglodytes americanus , the great ape seized power unto himself and soon found himself to be the 45th president of these here United States of America .

*

God! These humans are suckers, thought President Chimp to himself as he groomed in front of his full-length mirror, enthusiastically stuffing the odd parasite into his mouth. They barely noticed when he announced the name-change from Chuck to Chimp – and, rather than mocking him for its simian associations, the punters seemed to find it endearing, like a fond nick-name. Everything seemed to be going his way and as far as he was concerned, his way was going to be America’s way now, so they’d better start getting used to it.

Chimp coughed loudly and gobbed on the floor. The smell of burning police-car wafted gently in through the open window of his new bedroom in the White House – the smell of inauguration day lingering in the air, thought Chimp smugly to himself as he fastened his tie around his hirsute neck. It took him a few goes to get it right.

When he finally triumphed over the neck-tie he couldn’t help a good old ape-like cackle of delight – Hoo hoo hoo HA ha HA ha HA ha he chanted over and over, kicking off his shoes and gyrating around the floor, rubbing his hind-parts on the carpet. There was a knock on the door, followed by a respectful but urgent whisper – Mr President, oh Mr President Sir, are you nearly ready sir? asked the timid human.

Chimp was oblivious. He bared his teeth and flared his lips. He jumped up and down and pounded his knotted fists on the carpet. He spun round and round, trashing the room and scattering important documents all over the floor. He grabbed a bunch of bananas from out of the bedside fruit-basket and hurled it violently at the mirror, before proceeding to rub the pulped fruit into the glass in a frenzy of abandon. Finally he seemed to lose it altogether and started running up and down the length of the room, hurling himself forward with all his might and head-butting the mirror.

The flunky knocked again. This time the door swung open to reveal a dapper and spruce looking statesman, well, stateschimp, smiling wisely and enigmatically. Well, Mr Vice-President oozed the simpering Chimp shall we get down to business? A nasty little gleam came into Vice-President Pynchpenny’s eye – "Yes Sir , Mr President Sir!" he responded slavishly and they walked together down the sweeping staircase and into the Oval Office.

*

A hairy hand grabbed a red phone. Gimme Big-Fellas Pizza and get me Putbutin on line two barked the leader as a beam of sunshine lit his marmosetish mane with the golden blaze of a bad hair dye. Vlad! How are ya, baby? What, oh yeah thanks. Hey hold the line a minute will ya Vlad? The leader slouched back in his chair, his throne. He kicked off his right shoe and casually pushed a button on the front of the red phone with the surprisingly dextrous toe of a squat and shaggy foot. Yeah, that’s right – I want the He-Man Lunch Special with extra cheese and all the trimmings, yeah, deep dish, that’s it. No olives, got it? Ok. Yeah, the address, you say? A dark leer passed across the presidential jowls. "The White House, fool , now get it over here quick!"

His eyes misted over as he thought of the tasty food that would soon arrive and a string of drool protruded and drooped from his fishy, yet apeish lips. He had dignity if nothing else.

Maybe I should have ordered a sundae too he mused aloud. What about line two, sir? hinted the Vice-President, after all sir, Mr Putbutin has been very good to you sir! Oh yeah? growled the ascending ape darkly, well I can never understand his goddam vampire accent anyway! and he slammed the phone down on the Great Bear. Hunger was making him grumpy. His stomach hadn’t yet fully adjusted to the human diet and his tastes swung wildly between the feeding habits of various branches of the primate family tree. Pizza was always a good compromise.

OK Mike, what’s next on the agenda? grunted the beast. Well Donald smarmed Pynchpenny, as Chimp had adopted the name in preference to Earl, the core of your new cabinet awaits you in the conference room. Huh? for a