The Revivalists
Cedric hugged his teddy bear closer, as his fellow residents of the Arlington group home for the mentally challenged continued peppering him with questions about his spy days. "I always thought they didn't even believe me," the former dark ops man whispered to Aloysius (the bear).
"Are you a Bond villain?" asked Buckner. "I didn't see you at the Spy Museum. Is Edward Snowden a Bond villain? I didn't see him at the Spy Museum."
"Did you invent Wikileaks, and who's Wiki?" asked Melinda.
"Are you really British, or American, or from outer space?" asked Larry.
"Did you work for the CIA or the NSA?" asked Theresa.
Millie, the big brown dog, sensed the others were ganging up on Cedric, so she wrapped herself around his legs to protect him.
"I worked for KLM!" wailed Cedric.
"That's an airline," said Buckner.
"I mean MLK," said Cedric.
"That's a library," said Larry. "I used to live there."
"I mean LMK," said Cedric. (Silent, puzzled looks.) "We were the good guys," he added.
"Ah, yes!" said Brother Divine of the International Peace Movement (AKA Freddy Ritchings). "Love Means Knowledge! LMK! I remember them well! Tell me your name, and it's never the same! Show me your heart when we're miles apart! Give me your love, and it's what I'll dream of!"
(LMK was really the Lean Mean Killing-machine of the CIA, but Cedric had blocked that out of his mind since Henry Samuelson came back from the dead and haunted him.)
Several miles to the east, a rejuvenated and relaxed Charles Wu strode confidently into the law offices of Prince and Prowling. The spy had gotten Edward Snowden safely out of Hong Kong and managed to increase the riff between Russia and the United States in the process! His Hong Kong connections had made a lot of money, and Beijing was very happy with him. And he was in England visiting his father with little Delia the whole time, dishing Chinese secrets to the grateful British! True, the State Department was disappointed in him, but this was one scenario where he simply couldn't please everybody. "Good day to you, sir!" he said, entering the private office of former Senator Evermore Breadman with a bottle of Scotch in his hand and the perfect words to get back into Breadman's graces: "I have a business client in China prepared to walk into the Beijing offices of Prince and Prowling on Monday morning with a $30 million deal in the making--he just needs a little help from you on Capitol Hill!"
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, Congressman Herrmark was having lunch with other members of the newly formed Holier Than Thou Caucus. Now Herrmark's constituents were generally years behind on current events, so it didn't really matter one way or another how he reacted to the Supreme Court's ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act, but he was desperate to find new allies on the Hill, and his Chief of Staff recommended this. Getting photographed with these fellows at a preachy news conference was a small price to pay if it would win him support for a hydrofracking cleanup earmark. He did not find the salmon mousse shaped into the sign of a cross on his plate particularly appetizing, but he was afraid to look away from it because Michelle Bachmann had those googly eyes that always seem to be looking at you. "How come I've never met your wife?" asked Bachmann, and after an awkward silence, he feared perhaps she really was looking at him, and he lifted his gaze timidly, and now everybody was looking at him!
"She prefers to stay at home in the heartland," said Herrmark (who had the finest Congressional man cave in Washington). "It's a sacrifice," he said, reciting the speech he knew from heart, "but we are both fighting to uphold the values we cherish, even if temporarily in separate arenas." The man next to Herrmark patted him on the shoulder, leaving a greasy stain of bread crumbs and fish behind. "Values like clean water," added Herrmark, going out on a limb. "The hydrofracking has left our state too polluted to do river baptisms anymore, and the tent revivalists aren't even coming back this summer!" Several members nodded in confused sympathy, having been previously under the impression that Herrmark's pet project had something to do with an incendiary gutting of his parents' vacation home, but then they went back to their jiggling sea jello and waited for some more preaching about the gays.
A mile away, Sebastian L'Arche was enduring some more preaching about gays in order to watch an animal acupuncture demonstration at a Capitol Hill dog park. (Pro-DOMA protesters believed that dog parks were a hotbed of gay rights activism, and so they were waving banners and chanting off to the side; however, their fear of puggles--unnatural mockeries of God's Creation--kept them at an annoying, but not overbearing, distance.) "Isn't this cool?" asked L'Arche's occasional business partner, Becky Hartley. "Maybe I could learn this? Give up my pharmaceutical sales!" The Dog Whisperer looked at her dubiously. "Well, not every pet problem requires a trained exorcist!" she whispered. "Sometimes they just have constipation or arthritis. I knew this morning's half-moon was a good omen! Didn't I tell you?!"
Several miles to the west, the State Department's Assistant Deputy Administrator for Hope was experiencing pains unrelated to constipation or arthritis: he was being sabotaged by "C. Coe Phant", who had fed him phony intelligence claiming that a new, international Marxist movement was behind the street protests multiplying around the globe. "The Neo-Marxians," wrote one fictitious CIA agent, "want to capitalize on (no pun intended) the growing unrest of the bourgeoisie and educate them that their future lies arm-in-arm with the proletariat. The ruling capitalists are too shortsighted and greedy to appease the middle class with enough simple daily freedoms to make their lives worth living. The downwardly mobile are therefore recruited by the Neo-Marxians, and it's class warfare without end--in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America." The A.D.A.f.H. wiped the sweat from his brow, and read three more (fake) intelligence briefs, all similar to the first. As the unofficial Point Person for Blunt Pragmatism, he felt compelled to alert Secretary Kerry to the gravity of this intelligence; on the other hand, his job duties required an administration of hope. Therefore, it behooved him to find a silver lining in this cloud before causing another earthquake in American foreign policy. I wonder if Eva Brown knows anything about these Neo-Marxists?
Back on Capitol Hill, a smiling young hacker slid a manila envelope under the locked office door of the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, then walked nonchalantly away. The message (written in child's script with a red crayon) on the envelope read: "Nobody's phone records are private in this country--not even YOURS".
"Are you a Bond villain?" asked Buckner. "I didn't see you at the Spy Museum. Is Edward Snowden a Bond villain? I didn't see him at the Spy Museum."
"Did you invent Wikileaks, and who's Wiki?" asked Melinda.
"Are you really British, or American, or from outer space?" asked Larry.
"Did you work for the CIA or the NSA?" asked Theresa.
Millie, the big brown dog, sensed the others were ganging up on Cedric, so she wrapped herself around his legs to protect him.
"I worked for KLM!" wailed Cedric.
"That's an airline," said Buckner.
"I mean MLK," said Cedric.
"That's a library," said Larry. "I used to live there."
"I mean LMK," said Cedric. (Silent, puzzled looks.) "We were the good guys," he added.
"Ah, yes!" said Brother Divine of the International Peace Movement (AKA Freddy Ritchings). "Love Means Knowledge! LMK! I remember them well! Tell me your name, and it's never the same! Show me your heart when we're miles apart! Give me your love, and it's what I'll dream of!"
(LMK was really the Lean Mean Killing-machine of the CIA, but Cedric had blocked that out of his mind since Henry Samuelson came back from the dead and haunted him.)
Several miles to the east, a rejuvenated and relaxed Charles Wu strode confidently into the law offices of Prince and Prowling. The spy had gotten Edward Snowden safely out of Hong Kong and managed to increase the riff between Russia and the United States in the process! His Hong Kong connections had made a lot of money, and Beijing was very happy with him. And he was in England visiting his father with little Delia the whole time, dishing Chinese secrets to the grateful British! True, the State Department was disappointed in him, but this was one scenario where he simply couldn't please everybody. "Good day to you, sir!" he said, entering the private office of former Senator Evermore Breadman with a bottle of Scotch in his hand and the perfect words to get back into Breadman's graces: "I have a business client in China prepared to walk into the Beijing offices of Prince and Prowling on Monday morning with a $30 million deal in the making--he just needs a little help from you on Capitol Hill!"
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, Congressman Herrmark was having lunch with other members of the newly formed Holier Than Thou Caucus. Now Herrmark's constituents were generally years behind on current events, so it didn't really matter one way or another how he reacted to the Supreme Court's ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act, but he was desperate to find new allies on the Hill, and his Chief of Staff recommended this. Getting photographed with these fellows at a preachy news conference was a small price to pay if it would win him support for a hydrofracking cleanup earmark. He did not find the salmon mousse shaped into the sign of a cross on his plate particularly appetizing, but he was afraid to look away from it because Michelle Bachmann had those googly eyes that always seem to be looking at you. "How come I've never met your wife?" asked Bachmann, and after an awkward silence, he feared perhaps she really was looking at him, and he lifted his gaze timidly, and now everybody was looking at him!
"She prefers to stay at home in the heartland," said Herrmark (who had the finest Congressional man cave in Washington). "It's a sacrifice," he said, reciting the speech he knew from heart, "but we are both fighting to uphold the values we cherish, even if temporarily in separate arenas." The man next to Herrmark patted him on the shoulder, leaving a greasy stain of bread crumbs and fish behind. "Values like clean water," added Herrmark, going out on a limb. "The hydrofracking has left our state too polluted to do river baptisms anymore, and the tent revivalists aren't even coming back this summer!" Several members nodded in confused sympathy, having been previously under the impression that Herrmark's pet project had something to do with an incendiary gutting of his parents' vacation home, but then they went back to their jiggling sea jello and waited for some more preaching about the gays.
A mile away, Sebastian L'Arche was enduring some more preaching about gays in order to watch an animal acupuncture demonstration at a Capitol Hill dog park. (Pro-DOMA protesters believed that dog parks were a hotbed of gay rights activism, and so they were waving banners and chanting off to the side; however, their fear of puggles--unnatural mockeries of God's Creation--kept them at an annoying, but not overbearing, distance.) "Isn't this cool?" asked L'Arche's occasional business partner, Becky Hartley. "Maybe I could learn this? Give up my pharmaceutical sales!" The Dog Whisperer looked at her dubiously. "Well, not every pet problem requires a trained exorcist!" she whispered. "Sometimes they just have constipation or arthritis. I knew this morning's half-moon was a good omen! Didn't I tell you?!"
Several miles to the west, the State Department's Assistant Deputy Administrator for Hope was experiencing pains unrelated to constipation or arthritis: he was being sabotaged by "C. Coe Phant", who had fed him phony intelligence claiming that a new, international Marxist movement was behind the street protests multiplying around the globe. "The Neo-Marxians," wrote one fictitious CIA agent, "want to capitalize on (no pun intended) the growing unrest of the bourgeoisie and educate them that their future lies arm-in-arm with the proletariat. The ruling capitalists are too shortsighted and greedy to appease the middle class with enough simple daily freedoms to make their lives worth living. The downwardly mobile are therefore recruited by the Neo-Marxians, and it's class warfare without end--in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America." The A.D.A.f.H. wiped the sweat from his brow, and read three more (fake) intelligence briefs, all similar to the first. As the unofficial Point Person for Blunt Pragmatism, he felt compelled to alert Secretary Kerry to the gravity of this intelligence; on the other hand, his job duties required an administration of hope. Therefore, it behooved him to find a silver lining in this cloud before causing another earthquake in American foreign policy. I wonder if Eva Brown knows anything about these Neo-Marxists?
Back on Capitol Hill, a smiling young hacker slid a manila envelope under the locked office door of the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, then walked nonchalantly away. The message (written in child's script with a red crayon) on the envelope read: "Nobody's phone records are private in this country--not even YOURS".
posted by washingtonwaterwoman | 1:40 PM
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