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A
year ago she sat in the chair Ben Affleck now occupies. Katie
Couric was asking Jessica for the truth. Still, Jessica muses,
Katie hasn't lost her deft touch; the way she's coaxing Ben to
reveal his innermost thoughts is amazing. Jessica thought she
knew everything there was to know about Ben — but boy, Katie
sure proved her wrong!
Ben
is close to tears, and Jessica cannot believe Katie has gotten
such explosive material. The real Ben Affleck, finally the world
shall know, cannot wait to be a father! Jessica is nervous —
what revelations will Katie pry out of her?
It's
Jessica's turn now that Katie's gotten the scoop on Ben. Will
baby Kwalay-Chan be okay? Jessica notices the director staring
at Kwalay.
Suddenly the director has uncontrollable body spasms — has
he noticed something about the baby? Is it like that movie, "The
Sixth Sense," Jessica wonders. When there's evil in the room
your breath turns to ice (or was that the Eclipse ice-mints ad?).
Jessica
finds herself slumped in a cozy chair opposite Katie. She cannot
see Katie very well since 12 big lights, the kind they shine at
the Oscars or outside da hip-hop cluuuurb, are pointing directly
at Katie's eyes. Katie's irises are able to dodge the beams that
make her crow's feet vanish, and at once Katie takes on a youthful
Greta Van Susteren appearance.
By
comparison, Jessica looks like a tired single mom, abandoned by
the system. If only Katie can re-ignite the public's interest,
Jessica will be able to play herself in the sequel to "Saving
Jessica Lynch," or even pose tastefully for Hustler (Larry
did her a favor — she feels obliged to pay him back).
"So
Jessica," asks Katie, "have you spoken to Diane?"
Ah!
Katie is a bit touchy that Diane Sawyer got Jessica's story first
last year. Jessica reassures Katie that Diane isn't interested
in a single white mom with a black baby.
And,
for that matter, neither is Fox News (when Jessica didn't materialize
into the hot blonde bigot of their dreams they had to crawl back
to the fleapit casting couch for Ann Coulter).
Katie
wants to start off on Jessica's book — are people still buying
it? Jessica replies that her book can be bought on Amazon.com
for $2.37 — that's a dollar less than her Iraqi rescuer's
book and $5 less than "War" by Dan Rather. Who can resist
a bargain?
Katie
notes that the publisher is doing bumper war packs to commemorate
the greatest war since World War II. For a $1 donation to anyone
of your choice you can get the Perle-Frum Policy Memorial Collection.
Another pack pairs Jessica's book with Howard Dean's.
How does it feel, Katie asks, to be next to Howard Dean rather
than Richard Perle?
This
is a tough question for Jessica but ever since "The Bachelor"
ended she's had time to think.
"So yeah, Howard Dean," she drawls. Jessica feels that
maybe he had a point about Iraq. Maybe it was wrong to die for
a mistake. Katie asks Jessica how they can ask a soldier to be
the last one to die for a mistake.
"Depends who's asking," Jessica answers. "If it's
Senator Kerry asking then yeah, I'll die." "Well,"
Katie points out, "if President Bush hadn't waged a monstrously
illegal stupid war…"
"CUT!"
yells the director. Katie shrugs; she longs to have an opinion,
deep down inside.
Jessica
with Katie Exclusive — Take 2: "Cancer is really bad.
Get tested." Katie recovers. "Besides, without our visionary
president's brave war to give freedom to oppressed "Eye-rackies,"
you may never have had Kwalude-Can."
"Kwalay-Chan"
corrects Jessica. "Whatever." is Katie's down-home response.
"Shall
we let the viewers meet him?" Baby Kwalay-Chan is brought
out. At once Katie begins to shift uncomfortably in her chair.
Why does Kwalay look all waxy, like he was reconstructed from
blown-up body parts? Katie feels she is on to something —
suddenly the air is thick with mystery.
"Why
Kwalit-Chai?" Katie demands, now in "professional sexy
widow and mom" mode.
Jessica defends her choice: "It would've been so easy for
me to call him Condi, Donald, George or even Joe Lieberman, but
my mind was set on Dick because I knew my son was going to prosper
from the bloody mess around him. But then I started getting these
calls, like really threatening, from these secret places like
the CIA and the New York Times, telling me to lay off Dick...or
pay the price. I was, like, so scared, Katie. So I gave my son
the most A-rab name I could think of, since I guess he's half
A-rab. They told me he's a Muslim too. He'll have to teach me
his religion when he's older but I hope he doesn't kill me first."
Katie
seems distracted. "Forgive me, Jessica," she confesses,
"I just can't believe that we finally know who the real Ben
Affleck is. Don't worry, we'll just cut that last part out."
Jessica
scoops Kwalay-Chan in her arms, readying herself for her next
interview.
Across
the lot in Studio B12 the audience is screaming and hollering.
They must realize Jessica is here. Swiftly, baby Kwalay is taken
into the nursery while five gay stereotypes collar Jessica. She
receives some smoky black makeup on one eye, red face gloss to
magnify her zits, and her hair is pulled skull-tight back into
a bun, with pan grease pomade to smooth it.
A
J-Lo tracksuit and hoop earrings complete the look: Jessica as
a single mom/crack addict. The audience whoops as Jessica comes
on and Maury Povich thanks the "Queer Eye" Fab Five
for today's styling.
Maury,
mindful of scooping Katie, yet even more mindful that he's in
a one-income family now, lays it on the line. "Who's the
father, Jessica?"
Jessica shakes her head; she doesn't know. Someone shouts out
"Slut!" and Jessica snaps back that she was unconscious
when it was happening, and by the time she'd been rescued she
was weeks gone. "And when I finally got back to the United
States, the president had banned third-trimester abortions, Maury
— it's like he personally wanted me to have this Iraqi baby."
Maury
calms the audience and shows them a film clip of a friend of Jessica's.
The
man in the film looks a little like a disgraced New York Times
reporter. "Hi Jessica, this is Rick Bragg, remember me? We
made a million dollars out of you!" Someone from the audience
yells, "That's yo pimp, Mama!"
Maury
hushes them and brings out, to Jessica's amazement, her biographer
Rick Bragg. He sits next to Jessica, and holds her hand while
recalling the traumatic times: "It was like the Blair witch
hunt — they made me resign! So I told a lie, Maury. The New
York Times is a part of this government — what else do people
expect?"
Maury
asks Rick how he found out that Jessica had been raped.
"Real
simple: She lost three hours of her life. And you know as well
as I do, Maury, that three hours lost are three hours raped."
The audience gasped, then began to applaud, slowly remembering
how this lesson had been learned in the previous show.
Bragg
continued. "Besides, the hospital could confirm it since
the rapists took Jessica there. If there's one thing our president
did to "Eye-rack," he showed them rapist "Eye-rackies"
that they can't just leave their victims to die. Gotta treat 'em
right afterward. It's the American way."
Tears
stream down Jessica's cheeks as she watches the live-feed of her
beloved Kwalay-Chan up on the studio monitors. Sometimes she wishes
Bragg never had implanted the rape torture memories in her, but
then he warned her that without a rape he'd be the story and she'd
never be a star.
Maury
has the results in a big yellow envelope. The DNA results that
will determine who's the father. Jessica's very nervous now because
she needs the paternity to pay for Kwalay-Chan's Islamic training
camp (although the warlords did offer a 50 percent discount if
evil heritage was proven).
The
audience is silent while a still of Kwalay-Chan's face is placed
next to images of Uday and Qusay lying on mortuary slabs.
"Who's
the father?" Maury asks.
The
stitches on Kwalay's eyebrow — that's so Uday, but that putty
filling the baby's cheeks — bit of Qusay we think, that fake
beard made from ashes — Uday … it's so difficult to
tell, and the audience is stumped.
Still,
Jessica knows that, as the killer of her son's father, President
Bush feels bad for the kid. He knows that, as an A-rab, Kwalay
would be barred from being waitstaff at Republican fund-raisers.
With no employment prospects left, Bush had promised Kwalay-Chan
a princely sum from the Iraq Reconstruction Fund, as Kwalay is
the princely heir to the Baathist throne.
"Maury,"
Jessica announces, "Don't open the envelope! I don't need
to know which one of those fine men raped me! I have an A-rab
baby and Iraq is free. God bless America, and God bless our president,
George W. Bush!"
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