Year of the Monkey

"He's the equivalent of a monkey throwing feces around, and people are voting for him!"

"I don't know what to tell you," said Bridezilla to Charles Wu, over mimosas at Circa.  She was debriefing Wu about her unsuccessful political campaign swing through the South on behalf of Wu's SuperPAC.  "Trump's voters are not Christian conservatives, they're not fiscal conservatives, they're not social conservatives, they're not guardians of the free market."

"They're angry white people," said Wu.  "They think somebody's getting a better deal than they are, but they're too stupid to realize that it's people like Donald Trump!"

"Now, now, Charles, that is what got the GOP into trouble in the first place!  You can't just label your voters "stupid", even if they are slower than molasses on a biscuit."

"So what do we do now?"

Bridezilla sighed, anxious to get back to her mysterious husband, "Marco Pel" (AKA, the Condor) after a month on the road.  "I wish I knew what to tell you, Charles.  We seem to be in uncharted territory now."

"Uncharted?  The territory looks exactly like Adolf Hitler's campaign rallies in 1930s Germany!"

"Then we wait for Trump to invade Poland, and then finally people will unite against him," concluded Bridezilla, unconvincingly.

Charles Wu was a product of Hong Kong, British, and Beijing educations.  He thought power and wealth should be controlled by the most intelligent people, and if money had to exchange hands for that to happen, so be it.  The world had always been that way, and always would.  It was up to brilliant, charming, and charismatic men like Wu to tip the balances here and there, sell secrets when necessary, and be the invisible hand of the global market.  Though not a fan of the more authoritarian aspects of Beijing rule, he saw serious complications arising from too much democracy--namely, what to do with large masses of angry people who won't listen to reason?

"Hillary Clinton has become the candidate that conservatives will vote for in November," said Wu.  "My clients [he did not explain to Bridezilla that his clients included the likes of British and Chinese intelligence officials] will absolutely not stomach a President Trump.  I need to focus on influencing the Clinton campaign."

"I understand," said Bridezilla, secretly relieved that she could walk away from her fruitless gig as a SuperPAC operative in the Republican Party.  "You know, my husband actually likes Hillary a lot!"

"I'm sure he does!" smiled Wu, who knew a lot more about the Condor than the Condor's wife did.  "And with Paul Ryan admonishing the Republican Party to be more 'inspirational and inclusive', maybe--"  Wu stopped, arrested by the pained look in Bridezilla's eyes.  "Anyway, welcome back to Washington!"  He held up his glass to clink hers.  Paying for her campaigning jaunt was the worst investment decision of his life, but it would roll of his back like rain on a duck.

"Thank you!" said Bridezilla, who was getting tired of disappointing people and eager to change the subject.  "Now, please show me some photos of Delia!"

So Wu obliged with some recent pictures of his daughter, Buffy Cordelia, playing with the stuffed monkey that her grandmother had left her for the Chinese New Year before returning to Hong Kong.  "The Year of the Monkey is all about liveliness, playfulness, and cleverness," he said.  "And she has it all!"

"Without the feces-throwing?" laughed Bridezilla.

A couple miles away, psychiatrist Ermann Esse was examining his bowel movement carefully for any signs of biological disease, then, satisfied, he flushed it away.  He washed his hands, combed his hair, smoothed down his beard, and returned to the waiting area of the secret CIA facility located deep underground, beneath the headquarters of the "Washington Times".

"They'll see you now," said the receptionist.  "Don't sit down."

Dr. Esse raised his eyebrows in surprise, since he was a half-hour early, but he dutifully followed her into a nondescript conference room where a glass of water and steno pad had been left for him to sit beside.  He sipped the water and wrote down the date and time on the pad, supposing this was all a thinly disguised design to get his DNA, fingerprints, and a handwriting sample--which he would have happily given up since, after all, they already knew about the biggest skeleton in his closet.

Two women and three men entered the room, introduced themselves, and began the interview.  Psychiatrist Dr. Ramona Schapiro took the lead.  "We invited you here today because, frankly, we lost one of our best interrogators last year, and we need some help with detainee testimony."

"Enhanced interrogation?" asked Dr. Esse, not entirely surprised.

"Certainly not!" lied Dr. Schapiro.  "Traditional interrogation!  We understand that you have had great success with hypnosis in your non-pharmaceutical clinical practice."

Dr. Esse had, in truth, had a small amount of success with hypnosis in the not-too-distant past, but his practice had become what some might consider abusive under the influence of the cursed Rolex he had been wearing until recently flushing it down the toilet.  His more recent methods had included berating patients, secretly drugging them, videotaping them and playing the tapes for other patients, seducing the good-looking patients, and encouraging some to engage in highly reckless behavior.

"Some believe," continued Dr. Schapiro, "that you actually hypnotized one patient into killing another!" 

"As I told the police--"

"Yes, of course, we know what you told the police," said Dr. Schapiro, smiling like a Cheshire cat.  "We also know that one of your patients quit his job at the Treasury Department to travel to Syria and fight ISIS.  Another patient quit her job at the USDA to sell Avon in Afghanistan.  Another patient quit his job in the White House, divorced his wife, kidnapped his children, and moved to Nigeria to hunt down financial scammers and kill them.  Would it surprise you to learn that these people are all working as CIA operatives now?"

"Yes!" said Dr. Esse, who had vague memories (which he tried to doubt) of wishing all those insipid people to do the proverbial jumping-off-of-a-cliff.  "Um, are they doing well?"

"Quite well!  The recent publicity related to the arrest of one of your patients for Tasering another patient to death in your office has resulted in a lot of cancelled appointments, Doctor?"

"Well, naturally, but these types of scandals--"

"These types?" laughed Dr. Schapiro.  She took hold of his hand, seductively, as if nobody else were in the room--and indeed, the others were still completely silent.  "Your private practice is over, Doctor, but we can make excellent use of your skill set here.  There are no offices with windows, but you only need to work 100 hours/month, with a generous salary and plenty of vacation time."

When will this nightmare end? thought Dr. Esse, still desperately hoping the last few months had been a dream.

Several miles away, at the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant in Southwest, DC Water employee Kevin "Monkey" Mundy noticed a shiny metallic object while inspecting a stage-two mass of partially treated sewage sludge.  He carefully inserted a net to scoop it out and, much to his surprise, became the proud owner of a gold Rolex.

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COMING UP:  
Conspiracy blogger Glenn Michael Beckmann figures out who killed Antonin Scalia!