A Place of Their Own

The Southwest Plaza real estate demon was welcoming other real estate demons into the parking garage for a convention (party!) to discuss the high cost of real estate in Washington.

"Double the minimum wage!  Triple it!  It doesn't matter--rents will keep killing the people!"

"Only the little people!"

"Aren't they all little?"

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

"Have you seen all the for sale signs out in McLean?  Who's gonna buy all those mansions?"

"Only one-percenters who like being haunted by the Ghost CIA!"

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

But it was not all fun and games at the real estate demon convention.  Several of the younger real estate demons were listening in awe to the Southwest Plaza real estate demon explain how he had poisoned so many minds over the years.

"They're so vulnerable already:  drug trafficking in the neighborhood, rents going up, security going down, ugly utilitarian architecture, dirty swimming pool, assaults in the laundry room, prostitution in the stairwells.  The main thing is to prey on everybody's sense that there is no community here--just everybody on their own in the jungle.  And when there's no financial hope of buying real estate, renters are living in hell."

"So how many people are now under your influence?"

"Oh, dozens strongly; maybe another hundred marginally."

"But Glenn Michael Beckmann is your crowning achievement, right?"

"Oh, no question!  The guy is a certifiable lunatic and a murderer, but nobody's locked him up!"

"That's because he doesn't look like a terrorist, right?"

"Yes, that's part of it, but you also have to whisper the right things into their ears--ideas that will sow evil without courting too much attention."

"What about the houseboats?  I hear some people are escaping the astronomical cost of DC living by buying houseboats.  There's no demon in the Potomac right now!"

"Yeah, that's a problem, but there's a limited number of pier spots.  To really get away from the astronomical cost of living here, you pretty much need to move to Alabama."

"But what else can we do besides prey on the financial stress?"

"Oh, the sky's the limit in a town like this!  Racism, sexism, partisan fury, random violence, substance addiction in the professional class, substance addiction in the working class, substance addiction in  the unemployed, inability of security-clearance-dependent workers to seek mental health assistance, crumbling of transit infrastructure, and interns."

"Interns?  What does a real estate demon do with interns?"

"Anything you want!"

"Ha, ha, ha, ha!" 

Out past McLean, not far from the mansions for sale, Kevin "Monkey" Mundy was panning for gold and diamonds in the muddy shoreline at Riverbend Park.  He had sneaked in by motorcycle after the park closed, screamed at the geese parents to take their goslings further downstream, dropped some mercury at the shore, then furiously began scooping up mud by the light of a camping lantern.  He usually just spent the weekends visiting the neo-Nazis at Trump National Golf Club, but he was taking advantage of the three-day holiday weekend to try his luck at other places--like Hain's Point and Lake Barcroft.  There was a time the DC Water employee would have spent a weekend like this fishing at Great Falls or sailing down the Chesapeake, but those pursuits seemed like childish nonsense to him now.  He saw a water snake float to the surface, picked it up in disgust, and flung it downstream for river rats to eat.  "Someday I'm gonna buy my own pink mansion on Saigon Road!" he declared to anybody listening.  "And I'm renaming that road 'Mundy Street!'"

Back in Washington, Congressman Herrmark was hosting a party to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the founding of the Anti-Zombie Caucus.

"We've killed a lot of zombies, and have much to be proud of this year!"

A dozen people raised their champagne glasses, but the mood was somber given that one of their own had been bitten by a zombie just last week and had to be put down.  Talk turned to politics.

"Obama is back from Asia."

"Are we sure they don't have a zombie problem at the White House?"

"We've seen no indication."

"What have we determined about the Donald Trump team?"

"Please!  Turning into zombies could only be an improvement for those people!"

"Don't even joke about that!  Nothing is worse than a zombie!"

"I'm not sure about that anymore."

"Zombies have maggots for brains.  Trump's people have shit for brains."

"They're not killers."

"Has anybody stopped to think that maybe Donald Trump did a deal with the devil?"

Everybody turned to look at the member from the Holier Than Thou Caucus, but nobody could actually think of an argument against this theory.

Back in Southwest, Dulles Samuelson took one more walk around the "Singapore Surprise" and said, "I'll take it."  Real estate never did my sister any good, he was thinking.  I'll live my life out on the water.  (He did not know the previous owner, a Navy Admiral, had lived his life out on the water--until going to prison for accepting bribes from Fat Leonard.)

A few blocks away, the real estate demon convention was winding down.

"What about the new Trump Hotel?" asked a young demon currently sharpening his claws on a modest bungalow in Brightwood.  "Who's haunting it?"

A hush fell over the demons, and finally an old real estate demon from the Willard spoke:  "We have been told that Trump always brings in his own."


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COMING UP:  Dick Cheney's secret addiction!