(This is so funny (and, I’ll bet, true) that I spit a beverage through my nose.  And that was single malt scotch, Sue.  An expensive nose-spit.)

In a smoke-filled room at the Vatican, the College of Cardinals meet to discuss future business after Benedict’s abdication:

Cardinal Barzini:  “All right.  We’re all here, the representatives of the 120 Major Families.  The smaller Families will go along with what we finish settling here today.  Cardinal Sollozzo has asked for a vote on his proposal.  Cardinal Corleone, you have something to say?”

Cardinal Corleone:  “I know all the Families have some fears about where we’re headed now that Benedict has resigned.  We have voted to move in a more liberal direction.  This is good.  It is good for business.  Cardinal Moe has already made contact with this Mr. Trump in New York, and I think this move, if we make Trump an offer he cannot refuse, will mean an end to the closing down of so many of our businesses that we’ve seen in recent years.  When we take over the Trump Organization, I think we will have a way back to good business again, like in the old days.  But this proposal of Cardinal Sollozzo?  With all respects, I cannot support it.  If we get into this drug business, I see trouble for us up ahead.  And using the little Altar Boys as…what was it, Cardinal Sollozzo?”

Cardinal Sollozzo:  “Runners, Cardinal Corleone.”

Cardinal Corleone:  “Yes, runners.  Who help distribute the drugs.  I think that’s bad for business.  The people will turn against us.  As they did about the sex with all the little boys.  This drug thing.  It worries me.  I’m an old man, so I worry.  But I have also seen things in my time like this.  Things like this sometimes are trouble.  So convince me.”

Cardinal Tattaglia:  “But Cardinal Corleone, we used the little boys for sex, but it was not business.  We made no money on them.  But now, with Cardinal Sollozzo’s plan, we have sex and we do business.  You are too old-fashioned, Cardinal Corleone.  The drugs are where the real business, the real money, is.  The people want the drugs?  So we say yes, give the people what they want.  It is the job Our Almighty Godfather has given us to do.  The people need the drugs?  It is also our job to nurture the people.  So they will enter into the Godfather’s Kingdom with us.  The people therefore will come to us for the drugs.  To Mass.  To Confession.  To Bingo.  To our casinos in Las Vegas.  And they will be loyal to us, and those people not in our Families will join them.  We will grow as our business grows.  And no one will talk out of Confession.  No one will dare a sacrilege after what we have planned for Father Brasi in Vermont.  More people will come to us for the drugs, rather than go to the others in the drug business.  They will come to us, not the Russian families.  Because they will know our drugs are blessed.  By the Almighty Godfather.  And the Sweet Virgin Herself.  It is business, Cardinal Corleone.  It is just business.  But it is good business.  

Cardinal Corleone:  “Yes, but this business is a business that could take over all we do and all we are and all we love and worship.  I don’t know.  I still have doubts.  Forgive me, Cardinal Tattaglia, Cardinal Barzini.  And speak to me now, Cardinal Sollozzo.”

Cardinal Sollozzo:  “We already have the Trump Organization, Cardinal Corleone.  Cardinal Moe has informed me that, as of this morning, this man Trump has accepted our offer.  Seems that waking up in bed with a bloody comb-over hairpiece at his feet convinced him of our…how shall I say it?...sincerity.  And with the drugs, we will have the Halliburton and Monsanto Organizations too.  The smaller Families will grow into Major Families.  We’ll be able to have a thousand, maybe two thousand, new Cardinals.  And they will be young ones.  Some of them our past Altar Boys.  And it is the young that make us powerful, Cardinal Corleone.  Are you so old you have forgotten the eagerness of the young?  Of the little Altar Boys?  That is our future.  Cardinal Barzini, I ask for a vote.”

Cardinal Barzini:  “Have you said all you have to say, Cardinal Corleone?”

Cardinal Corleone:  “I will go along then.  But someday, Cardinal Sollozzo, I will ask a favor of you for my blessing here today.  A favor you cannot refuse.”

Cardinal Sollozzo:  “I will be at your disposal, Cardinal Corleone.  You do this for me today and I will be in your debt for eternity.”

Cardinal Corleone:  “Ah, eternity.  May we all live to see it come to pass.  Even with the drugs.”



Cardinal Tattaglia:  “I hear, Cardinal Corleone, that eternity will be better with the drugs.”  (All the Cardinals chuckle)

Cardinal Barzini:  “Then it is settled.  We don’t need a vote then?  Cardinal Sollozzo and Cardinal Tattaglia will proceed with the drug business.  And they will have all of us and all the members of all the Families behind them.  We have pledges of support from our Republican friends in the American Congress.  And we have more sex videos of American Congressmen of both parties with little boys.  And, thanks to Cardinal Ola, we will be back in business in Cuba after that awful man Castro dies.  Now, Cardinal Moe?  On the arrangements for Benedict?”

Cardinal Moe :  “Yes, Cardinal Barzini.  It is all arranged.  Benedict will be taken to a quiet little island in the Aegean.  We will say it is for his health.  Then, in a week, two weeks at the most, he will suffer an unfortunate accident while out on a small boat.  A tragic accident.  He will never have a chance to talk.  It is done.”

Cardinal Corleone:  “So Benedict will sleep with the fishes.  This is good.  This is good for business.”

Cardinal Barzini:  “All right then.  Our business here is completed.  Cardinals, join me now in a prayer to Our Heavenly Godfather.  Let us bow our heads and give thanks to Him.  And ask for His Blessing in all our future deeds here on His earth.  In the name of His Holy Spirit and His Holy Business.”

            THE END

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

(“It’s only business.  Just business.”)