Washington Horror Blog

Alfalfa and Diamonds, Blood and Coffee

2012-01-29T14:27:00.004-05:00

Chloe Cleavage was pretending to do yoga on her living room rug so she wouldn't have to talk to boyfriend "Pierre", an OccupyDCer. She pulled a piece of lint off her $300 silk/cotton/spandex yoga pants, then elevated her legs. It was bad enough he had conned her into renting a tuxedo for him because he had a huge surprise event to take her to, and she had purchased a $1,500 dress in Georgetown for said event, but the humiliation! She had already posted a photo of them in their fancy attire on Facebook before they even left the apartment yesterday! When he told the taxi to take them to the Capital Hilton, she was wildly excited! Perhaps all his months of hobnobbing with the OccupyDC folks in McPherson Square had finally led to some VIP connections in this city! But NOOOOO! She lowered her legs and glared at him sitting at her desk surfing the internet on her computer. To arrive at the Capitol Hilton and realize it was surrounded by a mob of OccupyDC protesters! To be used as an eye candy accomplice in an embarrassing attempt to crash the Alfalfa Club's annual dinner! To have her boyfriend hold up a sign with the acronym O.B.A.M.A. spelling out "Obama's Bank of America's Main Accomplice"! God knows who might have seen her in the lobby--was former Senator Evermore Breadman a member? Then to be kicked back out into the swarm of protesting riffraff! She gave Pierre's back the finger, then went into a lotus position. What the hell am I going to do now? She knew the McPherson Square's encampment's days were numbered, and he might move all his stuff into her condo at any moment! How am I going to get you out of here? Pierre suddenly turned and winked at her, then got up from the desk and told her she looked really hot in the yoga pants. Maybe I'll give him one more week to sort his life out....

Down at the Capitol Hilton, Angela de la Paz was looking out the window at the 16th Street sidewalk, where there were few remaining indications of last night's hours of OccupyDC protesting. She wasn't sure what her next Heurich Society assignment was, and she felt anxious with nothing to do. She had wondered if Charles Wu would try to spend the night with her last night, but he hadn't. She went back to the couch and picked up the television remote control, but she didn't turn it on. The Alfalfa Club dinner tickets were courtesy of former Senator Evermore Breadman, who had told Wu his wife would have a heart attack if she had to enter the hotel through a police barricade. Wu had taken her to Georgetown to pick out any dress she wanted, and Angela had picked out an eye-catching magenta gown--which Wu had promptly accessorized with a diamond necklace and bracelets. A lot of people had given the 17-year-old girl interested stares, and she had attributed this to being the youngest guest there, perhaps, or the bling--still unaware at how exotically beautiful she had been rendered after the Heurich Society's paid plastic surgery to mold the young agent. Why did he take me? She knew Wu was trying to pry her away from the Heurich Society, but his approach varied considerably from week to week. Was last night all about getting me a handshake with the President of the United States? Is that supposed to impress me? But somehow it did. The Heurich Society wanted her to use aliases and flit from one secret destination to another. Her "finishing school" in Kansas had certainly included preparation for seducing foreign operatives, but she knew they wouldn't be happy to learn that Wu was parading her around a black tie event just blocks from the White House. She clicked on the television, then clicked it off again and continued staring at the blank screen, wondering why she had not heard any conversation last night about the rabid protesters outside the soiree.

Several miles to the west, Heurich Society Chair Henry Samuelson was at Dulles Airport attempting a few last-minute phone calls before his private flight to Guatemala. The ex-CIA operative was on a mission of his own to find out what he could do to stop ex-dictator Rios Montt from exposing too much inconvenient information now that he was slated to stand trial for genocide in Guatemala. Salvadoran-American Angela de la Paz was not remotely an option for this mission, nor did he want to share with anybody in Heurich what he was doing. And what am I doing? he kept wondering to himself. After he was dead, he didn't care what people in general found out about his CIA past, and at his age, that couldn't be many years off. Do I really care what my son and daughter think? He had left a carefully selected trove of documents and records for his daughter, Button, to receive after his death, hoping at that point she would have the maturity to understand the importance of his work...and safeguard it. But would she understand? He sipped coffee and replied to another text message from Guatemala. He wasn't even sure she would understand the legacy he had carefully crafted for his children--he really did not want any extraneous information coming to light that would complicate things unduly. His son was a longshot at best, secretly adopted away from a South American political prisoner, but somehow he had always harbored a feeling that his daughter was destined to be the heir of all his work. Almost three decades had passed since he was in Guatemala, and reconstructing this part of his legacy had not been on his to-do list. He pulled out the index card with the eight neatly written code names on it and was disappointed to realize he had still not memorized it, so it would have to stay in his pocket for now.

Back in Washington, Ghost Dennis flew away from the grim mood at McPherson Square and back to the White House, where he hoped to do some more whispering into President Obama's ear.

The Goblin Life

2012-01-23T14:00:00.002-05:00

'You're the goblin," said Theresa to Larry.

"What are you talking about?! The goblin is obviously a woman," protested Larry.

"You have a girly voice," added Buckner.

"I do not!" protested Larry.

"I'm the pretty one," said Melinda.

"None of us are the goblin, you morons!" exclaimed Cedric. "And we're all the pretty girl!"

"How can we all be the same person?" asked Buckner.

"Because it's a story, and the goblin trapped us all in it by magic," said Cedric.

Dr. Leo Schwartz stepped back from the eavesdropping point and returned to Hue Nguyen's office in the Arlington group home for the mentally challenged.

"And this all started with a You Tube video?" the psychologist asked the social worker.

"Yes, doctor," sighed Hue Nguyen. "It's a short fantasy film posted by a budding director. Do you want to see it?" The psychologist nodded, and Nguyen loaded up "A Goblin's Tale", by Peter Dukes, on http://youtu.be/bsgzKpW5PdY .

After it concluded, Dr. Schwartz said, "Alright, the goblin traps the woman in a book or story or whatever. What's the big deal? They look at plenty of other kooky stuff on the internet. Some of them painted their faces blue for weeks after they saw 'Avatar'!"

"This is different," said Nguyen. "Freddy Ritchings has the same books on his bookshelf, we have the exact same couch in the living room, we have the exact same lamp in the dining room, we have a weird door like that to the closet under the stairs, and Melinda looks a lot like Tiffany Giardina. They are all suffering the same delusion right now!"

"That's clinically impossible," said Dr. Schwartz. (Nguyen looked at him dubiously.) "Not in general, but in this house, it's clinically impossible: Freddy and Cedric alone have egos way too strong to join in any group delusion--they would argue against it just to be contrary. And they were arguing about the details, so it's only a matter of time before the delusion collapses. C'mon--let's go see where they're at now."

The two returned to the hallway leading to the living room of the Arlington group home.

"The story is an allegory of purgatory and medieval glory!" shouted Freddy (AKA "Brother Divine" of the International Peace Movement). "Trapped by a goblin, we live under medicine that blinds us to everythin' we ever believed in. Reality does await beyond the gate because blessed fate is never late!"

"I say we set fire to the house!" exclaimed Cedric. "It's a fake house, and we're not really in it, so let's torch it, and then--."

"Ladies and gentlemen!" exclaimed Dr. Schwartz. "You're correct--you have all been trapped by the goblin, but I can get you out!" (Nguyen shook her head in disbelief.) He walked over to where Millie was curled up next to the radiator and pulled the enormous brown dog up by the collar. "This is your salvation! You have always known that Millie possesses magical powers. When she licks your face, you will be freed from the spell." Nobody moved, so he looked over to the social worker, who dutifully walked over to the dog, bent over, and submitted to a face-licking. Theresa and Larry then followed suit, followed by Buckner and Freddy, then finally Cedric. "Well-done, Millie!" said Dr. Schwartz, who led the group in a round of applause for the dog.

A few minutes later, Dr. Schwartz was out in his car, watching the film again on his iPad. Maybe they are stuck in somebody else's story? A parallel universe or....?

Inside the group home, Cedric watched Dr. Schwartz through his upstairs bedroom window, still thinking about burning down the house.

Against the Wall

2012-01-20T11:23:00.005-05:00

For a histrionic bunch of people, the Heurich Society actually did not call a lot of emergency meetings, but they were having one today. "A motion to remove Herman Cain from chairmanship of the Heurich Society is on the table," said the vice-chair. "Do we have a second?" ("Seconded," came the disembodied voice of Condoleezza Rice from the speaker phone.) "Discussion," said the vice-chair. The discussion was fast and furious. ("What's there to discuss? He's doing a joint rally with Stephen Colbert in South Carolina today!" "So?" "So!? This guy has no clue about staying under the radar, not to mention priorities, not to mention--" "Some people do high-profile events to distract attention from their low-profile events." "He's wading into the SuperPAC debate, and doing so with Stephen Colbert, of all people. It's unacceptable!" "I say let him have his fun! We're trying to move in a new direction this year--let's see where his leadership takes us." "Where it takes us? Are you out of your mind? The guy's an egomaniacal publicity-hound!" "Cain or Colbert?" "Cain!")

Henry Samuelson abruptly stood up and threw a jelly doughnut against the wall. Discussion ceased as everybody watched the red jelly drip slowly down the wallpaper. ("Hello?" said Rice on the speakerphone. "Am I still connected?") "Yes!" barked Samuelson. "The only pertinent question is whether Herman Cain is the right person to lead Project Third Way! I was the one that nominated him, and I am man enough to admit I made a mistake. I should be the one leading The Third Way. I move to end debate and call the vote."

A few minutes later, Samuelson was walking out as the Heurich Society's new Chairman; he didn't notice that he accidentally brushed his coat sleeve in the red jelly on the wall.

A few miles to the east, Judge Sowell Lame was returning to his chamber, disappointed that another personal injury case was settled out of court mere minutes before trial. How am I ever gonna move up if I can't write any opinions? His law clerk answered the nonverbalized question by handing him a thick file with a pleading clipped to the top. "It's the river case, sir, your honor," said the clerk, a nervous fellow who was grateful to have gotten his clerkship renewed for a third year because he dreaded the idea of looking for a job during a recession. "Pleading from Goode Peepz law firm."

"Who?"

"An intervenor, your honor, sir," replied the law clerk.

"An intervenor?!"

"For the Poseidon Auxiliary of the Old Dominion Boat Club in Alexandria--they're completely separate from the Old Dominion Boat Club--and also for Friends of the Potomac Pelicans".

"Potomac Pelicans?!"

"It's quite interesting, actually, sir, your honor," stammered the law clerk. "A pair of brown pelicans ended up here after Hurricane Katrina, and they have a lot of fans. The Friends of the Potomac Pelicans are worried about their ability to nest."

"And the Poseidon Adventure?"

"Poseidon Auxiliary, sir. Greek maritime traditions, very interesting stuff, your honor, sir." (The clerk knew that Judge Sowell Lame hated complicated cases, and intervening parties had just made this case even more complicated.) "I think you can--"

"You think you know what I should do?!" barked the judge.

"No, sir, your honor," replied the law clerk, aware that his right eye had just begun twitching. "I was merely going to say I think you can read the new pleading before lunch--it's not very long, sir."

"Fine!" barked the judge, who knew his entire afternoon was free because of that stupid personal injury settlement. "Check these intervenors' citations and get me a memo by 3 p.m.!"

"Yes, sir!" replied the law clerk, and then he departed Judge Lame's chambers.

Goode Peepz Law Firm, Prince and Prowling, and Lye, Cheit and Steele: I hate you all, thought the judge, painfully aware these parties would never settle out of court in a million years and he was going to have to render a decision reconciling Maryland common law, Virginia common law, federal statutes, the U.S. Constitution, maritime law, and now, God forbid, the Endangered Species act and the maritime journeys of Odysseus and Jason the Argonaut? "Today it ends!" he declared out loud, now realizing if he procrastinated it any further, even more intervenors might come out of the woodwork. Why couldn't you remove this to federal court, like normal people?!

Not far away, Ann Bishis was placing cardamon and oregano leaves in the drawer with her spirit animals, two stuffed animals recently purchased from Friends of the Potomac Pelicans. She silently began a prayer to Hera, then abruptly shut the drawer when she saw Congressman Herrmark's chief of staff coming. The woman had a thick layer of pancake makeup which, Bishis believed, hid her decomposing flesh. She always wore kid gloves, too, claiming that they added elegance and class to any outfit, but Bishis knew the gloves were also hiding decomposing flesh. The chief of staff handed Bishis a file without a word and continued her circuit through the small outer office. (She rarely spoke a word, preferring to give all instructions by email--to avoid letting people hear her raspy voice, of course.) The heavy scent of the zombie's perfume lingered in the air, and Bishis bolted out into the corridor until it dissipated. (Hera protect me from the zombie!) Bishis had been trying to get her cousins, Herrmark's twin bodyguards, to talk to the Congressman about the new Chief of Staff, but they were not as convinced as Bishis that she was actually a zombie--they thought they should at least reserve judgment until summertime, when the Chief of Staff would have to ditch the turtlenecks and heavy tights and actually start showing some flesh. After all, she hadn't tried to eat anybody--that they knew of!, Bishis had pointed out.

A few miles to the west, former Senator Evermore Breadman was rushing back to his Prince and Prowling office after his lunchtime massage, tenser than before. There ought to be a law against your massage therapist's telling you about a co-worker's suicide during a massage session! How is that supposed to relax me? Why can't people just take happy pills? What's the world coming to when a Brazilian massage therapist kills himself over a gay lover spat? If a gay Brazilian massage therapist can't be happy, who can?! Breadman's troubled thoughts ceased at the sight of Charles Wu waiting patiently in his office.

"The pleading was filed this morning," Wu said, clutching Breadman's hand warmly. "And some money was made available in his morning personal injury case, so it settled out of court, freeing up his day. The clerk assured me that Judge Ame would look at the pleading today."

"Oh, Charles, forgive me, but you're so naive!" laughed Breadman. "This case has dragged on for 45 years! Nobody is a bigger fan of your work than I am, but please don't get that hopeful about it!" Nonetheless, Breadman pulled out some bourbon glasses and prepared to toast the event. "Still, setting up Friends of the Potomac Pelicans was brilliant, just brilliant! And getting the Potomac Auxiliary to hire Goode Peepz law firm--this was much better than my idea!" (He didn't remind Wu that his own idea had been to bribe the mediator, whereas these new intervenors knocked mediation entirely off the table!) "To justice!"

"To justice!" echoed Wu.

Back in Judge Ame's chambers, the river file was putting him to sleep (despite his clerk's cheery assessment of the newest pleading). "This is too hard," was what the quiet voice in his head was saying, but he was fairly adept at protecting his ego by reframing that as "poorly written pleadings". He put it aside to see what else was sitting on his desk, and quickly found a real gem: a family in Ledroit Park was suing a candle manufacturer for not putting an adequate warning label on their product about how leaving a lit candle unattended could burn down an entire house. The family sought $700,000 in compensatory damages for the house, and $7,000,000 for pain and suffering (though nobody was home at the time the house burned down). Wow: this could be the end of civilization as we know it. Nobody would be safe selling anything to anybody! I could make national headlines with this case! He examined the defense motion for summary judgment. Nobody would blame me for granting it, but what if this goes to trial? I'll be in the national news!

"Your honor, I finished the--"

"Find me a treatise on negligence!" Ame interrupted.

"Sir?" asked the perplexed law clerk.

"Negligence! A treatise on negligence!"

The law clerk stepped behind the judge's office and pulled a treatise from the third shelf. "Here you go, sir, your honor." The judge yanked it from the clerk's hand and motioned him to leave his chambers.

A couple miles away, Dubious McGinty was high above the Potomac River, shoring up insulation in the bridgeman's quarters. "You'd like nothing better than for me to come out here in the middle of the night to batten down the hatches, slip on some ice, and fall in--wouldn't you?--you evil bitch!" He gave an Italian salute to the demon living beneath him in the river, but Ardua of the Potomac just laughed and laughed.

Not Funny

2012-01-14T12:16:00.003-05:00

Pain...ful...ly...slow.

Former Senator Evermore Breadman was trying to type an email, but something was wrong.

"Just wait a few minutes: your computer is probably installing automatic updates," said the disembodied voice on the speakerphone.

I...hate...weekend...tech...support.

Breadman watched the pinwheel of death spin again.

They can put a man on the moon, but they can't give us a computer system that works right.

"Well," said the disembodied voice, "they didn't have to put a man on the moon one billion times per hour."

Did I speak out loud? Now Breadman was unsure if the tech. support person had heard him, or if he had hallucinated the tech. support person's response.

"Fine," Breadman said, and hung up on tech. support. The pinwheel of death was still spinning, so he picked up his list of agitated clients he needed to return phone calls on: Romney's campaign director (can we get Gingrich on slander?), Gingrich's campaign advisor (Stephen Colbert just transferred his SuperPAC to Jon Stewart!), Speaker of the House John Boehner (we need to immediately shut down that recess appointment at Consumer Financial Protection Bureau!), and "Freddy Ali" (we need to talk!).

Breadman did not even know Freddy Ali was still alive, since they had barely spoken since Iran/Contra days; his lower intestines groaned in anxiety over what might be behind the Freddy Ali call. He picked up the phone to call Charles Wu instead. ("Evermore! Can it wait ten minutes? I can call you right back!") Evermore heard a click, then hung up the phone, stunned: Wu had never hung up on him before. Was that a baby crying?

A few miles to the north, Charles Wu was glaring at Mia. "Why did you answer my phone?"

"I was just handing it to you," she replied.

"You hit the Talk button!" Wu said.

"It was an accident!" Mia answered.

Delia increased the volume of her crying, so Mia carried the baby away from Wu and started singing her a lullaby. Wu was about to protest that Mia had strict instructions only to speak to the baby in Chinese or English, but something made him hold his tongue. He walked to the kitchen, opened a wine bottle, and started pouring it directly into his mouth. The sound of Delia's crying was The Most Horrible Sound he had ever heard in his life. It made his blood pressure shoot up, his veins throb on his forehead, his stomach churn, and his fingers clench. He was furious! But not at Delia, never at Delia. He turned to look at his baby--slowly quieting down, her eyes starting to close in surrender to Mia's lullaby. Mia got up slowly and walked Delia to the baby's room to put her in her crib. Wu left the wine bottle on the counter and walked over to sit on the recently vacated couch. He picked up his silk suit jacket, examined the spit-up all over it, then threw it on the floor.

"You need to pay me more money," Mia said when she returned. "And $50 bonus every time you yell at me."

Wu laughed out loud, pulled his wallet out, and handed her ten $50 bills. "Go out to lunch."

"Sometimes she only sleeps ten minutes," Mia warned.

"I'll give her some wine."

"Not funny!" Mia wagged her finger at him.

Wu laughed again. "Go! Go!" He watched Mia grab her coat and hat, then head out the door with one last wag of her finger, and he laughed again. I am so buggered. He knew he should call back Breadman, but he tiptoed into the baby's room to look at her sleeping. Delia was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life, and he still wasn't sure if this was simply a fact or a reflection of his own egotism. She only cried when she was hungry or tired, but those minutes seemed like an eternity to him, and her minutes of serenity went by far too fast. I need to tell my parents. The thought kept returning to him. I am so buggered. He stole a glance at her chest to make sure her lungs were going up and down, then looked back at her face. Wu had already set up a $5 million trust fund for Buffy Cordelia Wu, but he did not have a clue what her future was. I can't do this with a baby. He had spent the past year rebuilding the foundations of his spy network, reestablishing ties of trust after the skittishness caused by Wikileaks, and cementing a working relationship with Secretary of State Clinton. The U.S. had troops in Australia and no troops in Iraq, and Wu had every hope that he could once again shift his focus away from the Middle East (too many male spies) and back to Asia (beautiful women spies!). And here was Mia, now working full-time for him: sure, he had to hide much of what he was doing from her, but she was no snoop, and the little tidbits he left out in plain view were designed to gradually entice her into the wonderful world of espionage. And Lynnette Wong could not protest at all because Mia was in Wu's company as a nanny!

Delia made a sound, and Wu quickly checked her pulse and breathing, but she was fine. This is nuts! This was not on his 2012 to-do list. I have to tell my parents: I'm their only living son, it's their only grandchild. He exhaled deeply, running through the entire sequence in his head again. They would insist on visiting immediately. They would want to know what Mia's true story was--his father would needle him about her being a young illegal immigrant, and his mother would not want Delia cared for by a south Asian. Not to mention how much more cramped the spy operations would be with both his parents visiting! And what if Ma refused to leave? How could she look at your face and then leave? And the questions they would ask about Delia's mother, whom Wu still could not remember at all! What if she returned to reclaim the baby? What if her relatives did? Wu could not be dragged through an American court under any circumstance--he'd have to give up custody. Which would be for the best, for everybody concerned, so there's no point in telling my parents. He gave the circus animal mobile a soft spin over Delia's face, then his phone started ringing, and he raced out of the baby's room.

Several miles to the east, Wu's other theoretical pupil--Angela de la Paz--was visiting The Warrior at the National Arboretum. He felt silly using cold winter nights as an excuse to sleep in arborist Devi Rajatala's office, but he was over 400 years old, and there were not a lot of places around Washington he could camp with a real fire. (People in campgrounds made him uncomfortable, and he didn't have modern camping gear.) Angela and the Warrior were out getting a little fresh air in the warmest hour of a frigid day, watching donkey Rani graze peacefully behind the Friendship Garden shed.

"You can take away a songbird's song, but that does not make it into a hawk," said The Warrior. Angela groaned inwardly, tired of his mythological imagery talks. "A songbird is not meant to fly great distances and hunt large prey."

"So I'm supposed to stay here and eat worms and birdseed?"

"They had no right to take away your song, Angela. That was your greatest power. You need to get it back," he said quietly.

"I didn't feel very powerful. I couldn't save Mami or Abuela!"

"But you did save them!" the Warrior protested.

Angela knew he was talking about their hearts or souls or something like that, but nobody who was over 400 years old had a right to be nonchalant about other people's deaths. Still, she could never be angry at him--at least he didn't try to exploit her talents for his own gain. She knew he wanted what was best for her, even if he had pie-in-the-sky ideas about what that was, not to mention no clue about the modern world. "I don't know how to kill Ardua of the Potomac!" she suddenly exclaimed. "I could barely control her spawn!"

"Ardua will never be defeated by weapons or brute strength, Angela. The pink dolphins, the pink warblers, and people like you--those are her mortal enemies."

"Could you be more specific?"

"It is not my task, Angela. I wish I knew all the answers. You were called to this. I am just a warrior."

Angela's cellphone buzzed with the message from Dr. Rajatala that lunch was ready, and they turned back towards her office. A singing pink warbler accompanied their path, but Angela neither saw nor heard it.

A few miles to the west, Ann Bishis and her twin cousins (Nick and Costas) were ice skating at the Sculpture Garden. "She gives me the creeps," said Bishis, complaining about Congressman Herrmark's new Chief of Staff. "She acts like a zombie."

"What's a zombie?" asked Nick before leaping into a double toe loop to impress a pretty girl nearby.

Bishis translated it into Greek.

"Walking dead?!" exclaimed Costas, winking at a redhead. "She's not so bad!"

"You're not around her as much as I am! I'm telling you, there's something wrong with her! And I think she trashed my spirit animal."

"Your pelican?" said Nick. "Come on! It was probably the cleaning lady."

"Why does everybody always blame the cleaning lady?! My mother is a cleaning lady."

"We know!" said Costas.

The three couldn't shake off any more cold, so they headed off to get hot chocolate and muffins, while sparrows huddled under the small bushes, watching for breadcrumbs to fall their way.

Epiphany

2012-01-07T10:37:00.003-05:00

Atticus Hawk finished reading the story on the guilty plea of former D.C. Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr., sipped coffee from his Justice Department mug, and pondered the public glory which could be the career of a U.S. Attorney. A brazen thief of public monies intended to benefit children is heading to prison! Now that's something you can tell your relatives about at Christmas dinner! None of his relatives knew he was, incredibly enough, still the Justice Department's torture expert. All they knew was that he was one of those Washingtonians who only spoke of his job in extremely vague "national security" terms. Probably a third of federal employees no longer tell their relatives what they really do in the (shadow?) government (and God knows federal contractors are even more secretive), but sometimes Hawk felt incredibly alone. It was his legal analysis that led to another habeas corpus erosion slipped into the latest National Defense Authorization Act, as well as President Obama's tragically ironic signing statement, and it was not lost on Hawk that, were he ever to be branded an enemy of the state, he, himself, could now be tossed into prison with no legal redress. In his waking hours, this gave him no anxiety, but he could not deny he was having a lot of nightmares about waking up in secret prisons, accused of crimes against the American people. He never got a visitor at all, let alone a lawyer, and he was never told the names of the witnesses against him. The last couple of nights he had even dreamt that he had waken up in prison as a cockroach, and before he had a chance to call for a lawyer, he was stomped on by a laughing cellmate.

"You OK?" Hawk looked up with a start at Ava Kahdo Green, even though this had become her standard greeting to him. "I ordered too much lunch, so I thought you might want some." She handed him a smoothie, half a pizza, a sandwich, an apple, and a couple of brownies. He thanked her, embarrassed at how obvious his weight loss was becoming.

"I've been meaning to give you this," Hawk said, pulling an iPad out of his locked drawer. "It's a long story, but I ended up with an extra one I couldn't return."

She thanked him profusely, both of them comfortable enough with the obvious lies in their tentative relationship. Green asked what Hawk was working on, but he simply mumbled something about "access to justice". She nodded, wondering to herself why she always fell for the tall, dark, mysterious ones.

Several miles north, Megamoo was chewing cud and contemplating the tall, dark, mysterious one discussing her bovine narcolepsy with Megamoo's owner. "I really don't think you should bring her to the Three Kings circus," Sebastian L'Arche said.

"It's not a circus!" exclaimed Megamoo's owner. "It's Fiesta de los Reyes Magos--Hispanic Epiphany! The three wise men, and the shepherds, and the animals all coming to see baby Jesus!"

"At the GALA Theater, sure, but Megamoo can't handle the stress," L'Arche said. "Too many people, too many animals, automobile traffic--"

"Look," she said, "this cow is having problems out here where nobody bothers her! Maybe she needs more interaction!?"

Becky Hartley hand-fed some alfalfa to Megamoo and looked at L'Arche anxiously, wondering what he was going to say.

"What bothers your cow," L'Arche began slowly, "is that she senses things--things that can't be seen."

"Uh-huh," said Megamoo's owner, who had to admit that Megamoo was doing better since receiving visits from the animal whisperer, but was, by no means, cured of her bovine narcolepsy. "And what's the worst thing that could happen if I take her to Columbia Heights tomorrow? She gets nervous and falls asleep! So what?"

L'Arche hesitated for a moment. "She could sense something and tip over onto a smaller animal--or even a child."

"I'll be leading her by a rope!"

"You can't stop an 800-pound cow from tipping over if it's asleep!" exclaimed L'Arche.

"I can shoo others out of the way!"

"Ma'am," interjected Becky Hartley, who didn't want to see L'Arche lose their wealthiest client (and her possible influence among the horse-owning set of Potomac Manors, Maryland), "if you have your heart set on taking Megamoo to the parade, we can accompany you there." (L'Arche pinched her back shoulder blade, but Hartley continued.) "We can't guarantee she won't pass out, but we'll do our best."

A few minutes later, L'Arche was giving Hartley his sullen look as she revved up her truck to return to the city. "Look, we'll slip Megamoo one of my daddy's animal Xanax pills, and she'll be fine," said Hartley. "You know damned well there are demons all over the place, so it really doesn't matter where the cow is, does it?"

"Why does a grown woman need to take a cow to a children's parade?" protested L'Arche.

"It's her baby, Sebastian! Honestly, sometimes you can be pretty obtuse!"

"Me!? I've got Senator Lamebrain's rottweiler tomorrow, and you know I can't leave him at home because he'll attack every animal smaller than a beagle. And you've got that parrot wedding at 2 p.m.!"

"You can bring Fraulein Rottenmeyer to the parade with her muzzle on--and we'll give her a Xanax, too. And you don't need me at the parade--you can handle it," said Hartley.

"Since when do we dish out Xanax like breath mints?" asked L'Arche.

"Look, nobody has more respect for your abilities than I do," said Hartley, "but it's an ugly world out here. Not every animal is cut out to face those demons."

Back in D.C., television reporter Holly Gonightly (who was still TFFT--too fat for television) was drooling over an ice cream bar somebody was licking to celebrate the warm weather in McPherson Square. "This could be the last balmy day the OccupyDC protesters see for quite some time! How do you intend to make it through the winter here?" Gonightly shoved her microphone in a bearded radical's face while her cameraman yawned.

Nearby, Dizzy was just lifting his trumpet to his lips when he caught the sunlight reflecting off of Gonightly's cursed Rolex. He put down the trumpet and got up slowly. "I know you," he thought. He walked in-between the cameraman and the bearded radical. "That's a 1999 Rolex, ain't it? They don't make 'em like that anymore." Gonightly lowered the microphone, disbelieving that her long search for the rightful owner of the Rolex could possibly end with this disheveled street musician. "It's got an engraving on the back, don't it?" asked Dizzy, and Gonightly nodded, numb. The cameraman picked up the extra microphone and started narrating the drama as the Rolex was turned over to reveal the engraving that Dizzy had already quoted.

Gonightly handed the Rolex over to Dizzy, as her cameraman pantomimed for her to smile, and she finally regained her composure. "An astonishing epiphany at OccupyDC as I finally find the rightful owner of this Rolex--which I first brought to the attention of our viewers early last year!"

Rightful owner? Dizzy knew he wasn't the rightful owner, but the rightful owner--a fine saxophone player--was long dead. The cameraman asked Dizzy to play a song to celebrate, and Dizzy nervously complied, worried that nobody was going to throw money in his case now that he had a Rolex. But I can't give it up--that would be bad luck. He started in on "Blinded by the Light" on his trumpet, forgetting that the exact opposite was true: it was keeping the Rolex that was bad luck.

A few miles to the north, a surprised Charles Wu buzzed Apricot Lily and Camisole Silk into his apartment building. A minute later, the disguised spies entered his apartment with a baby carriage. "That's a good one!" he laughed. "What's in there?"

"A baby," said Lily, unwinding her layers.

"Funny!" said Wu.

"Your baby," said Silk.

"Hilarious!" said Wu, who always used custom-made condoms from the finest latex manufacturer in Hong Kong.

Lily pulled back the blanket, and two little eyes stared up at Wu.

"The mother nursed her for three months, so she can take formula now," said Silk. "There are a couple days' worth of supplies in this bag."

"Here's the birth certificate--U.S. citizen," said Lily, handing him an envelope.

Wu pulled out the birth certificate to see the mother's name. "I don't remember--"

"Of course you don't!" said Silk. "She said you can do a paternity test if you want. Anyway, she can't take care of the baby right now, so she wants you to."

"What do I know about taking care of babies?"

"Don't be a cliche, Charles!" exclaimed Lily.

"Seriously, I--"

"Bottle goes in the top end, stuff comes out the bottom end," said Silk. "Hold her when she cries. It's not rocket science!"

"We've gotta go," said Lily, and with that, they were out the door.

Wu looked down at his daughter, who was pushing down on her blanket and kicking off her socks. He picked up the birth certificate again. "Buffy Cordelia!? Really?" He looked at her dubiously. "Buffy? Cordelia?" She looked at him indifferently. "How about 'Delia'? I think I can live with 'Delia'." She gurgled. "What am I saying? I can't keep you! What the Hell--" He stopped himself, suddenly ashamed of swearing. He bent to take her out of the carriage, but then realized he had no plan for her after taking her out, so he left her in there and pulled up a chair.

Outside Wu's window, a confused catbird raced off to inform Ardua of the Potomac there was a new player in town--and she might have the power to tip Charles Wu over the edge.

Did You Hear the One About the White House Tourist?

2011-12-29T22:02:00.002-05:00

....He thought the men on the roof were WORKING ON IT!

Yes, there are still people in this country who do not know we have snipers on top of the White House...24/7. Some cities have a little less terror (or horror?) than we do!

Washington Water Woman is heading to one of those friendly places to ring in the New Year, but tune back in next year to find out--

* who becomes an accidental parent,
* how Congress becomes more frightening than it already is,
* the fate of the cursed Rolex,
* the fate of Mia,
* the fate of Anonymous Shell Corporation,
* Herman Cain's new secret life in Washington,
* who's on Glenn Michael Beckmann's hit list,
and
* many unpleasant surprises.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Longer Days, But Colder Nights

2011-12-26T10:56:00.004-05:00

The Seekers sipped coffee in a chilly room on the Georgetown campus and compared unwanted gifts they had received from their congregations during the month of December. The rabbi swapped his fancy shaving kit ("What--they think I'm too hairy?") for the Jesuit's Washington Redskins tickets (the Jesuit had a crappy razor, and could not stand the Redskins). The Lutheran minister swapped his Ghirardelli chocolates ("What--they think this is better than German chocolate?") for the Buddhist monk's alpaca wool mittens (the Buddhist was allergic to wool, and felt any type of chocolate could give a glimpse of Nirvana). The Hindu priest swapped his Nook ("I already have an i-Pad!") for the Methodist minister's fruit and nut basket (she was allergic to nuts). Then the Imam swapped his hand-woven prayer rug ("Always with the prayer rugs!") for the Quaker's espresso machine (she couldn't tolerate caffeine). With that out of the way and contentedness in their hearts, they put aside their possessions and began to discuss the spiritual growth (or lack thereof) they had seen in their followers in recent months.

A few miles to the east, former Senator Evermore Breadman was thrilled to be in his Prince and Prowling office, away from his irritating in-laws and discontented wife--who could not even feign joy at receiving a diamond and sapphire necklace. Things had been a bit rocky at the law firm since the abrupt death of partner emeritus Wolfgang Prowling, and despite a modest attempt at investigation, Breadman was certain he was still the only person who knew that it was really Chloe Cleavage who had caused the heart attack. He had not believed there was any fruitful way to pin it on her, though he could not help second-guessing his silence when the old man's will terms came out and everyone heard that he had left a quarter-million dollars to Laura Moreno so that she could open her own law practice. Breadman was walking a fine line, summarily dismissing the gossip against Moreno without explaining why he harbored no suspicions of her. In any case, despite the gossip about her, Moreno was still showing up for her pathetic little contract attorney job--though with a resigned look on her face, since she clearly did not believe that her bequest could survive the legal challenges brought by Prowling's children (who refused to accept that their father could have been in his right mind when he had only left $3,000,000 to each of them). The important thing, Breadman reminded himself, was that Prowling had actually done a good job of running Operation Koch: the public relations and lobbying activities of Prince and Prowling had gotten back on track, and the Koch Brothers themselves were particularly pleased at how well Prince and Prowling had done in suppressing the news story that the research study funded by the Koch Brothers to debunk global warming had actually led to their biased researchers' shocked admission that, in fact, they were now convinced global warming was real. The law firm had managed to avoid committing to any Republican candidates while it was still wildly unclear who would emerge on top. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau still had no director, the Halliburton loophole was still in effect, the Occupy movement was losing steam--really, thought Breadman, things are going in the right direction. He finished his custom-made Chinese herbal cleanse tonic and got up to start his end-of-year document-shredding.

A couple miles away, Chloe Cleavage had bigger things on her mind than Wolfgang Prowling's death (which she knew now they were never going to pin on her). She was unpacking her luggage with no effort to be quiet, irritated at finding "Pierre" sound asleep in her bed. He had refused to go home with her for Christmas because "it was important to maintain the protest at OccupyDC", but here he was, sleeping half the day away (or more!) in her comfortable bed. She could see that more of his stuff was now piled up in the corner of her bedroom--mostly dirty clothes that she suspected he was hoping she would get tired of looking at (or smelling) and wash them herself. She had also seen a lot of liquor bottles in the recycling bin, and plenty of glasses in the sink (apparently it was against his principles to put them into the dishwasher, or wash them himself), and she suspected he had entertained somebody while she was out of town. She pushed her now-empty suitcase into the back of the closet and slammed the closet door, but he didn't even flinch under the covers. She went out into the living room to turn on the television to see what channel he was last watching: ESPN. She hit the Last Channel button to see if it were a news channel, but, no, it was MTV. Judging his habits in bed, she suspected he would have been watching the Playboy Channel if she had it. She sat down on the couch and stared at her Christmas tree. The truth was that she was glad to know he was not a fanatically idealistic socialist; on the other hand, if it got any colder, he might completely abandon his tent in McPherson Square and move in here. A jobless drifter who cooked and cleaned for her, talked trash about capitalism only a couple of times a day, and wowed her in bed would be satisfactory, but now she doubted she could even hope for that little from him.

Cleavage's condo neighbor, Golden Fawn, was also sitting on a couch and staring at a Christmas tree. Her husband, Marcos Vazquez, lay silently with his head in her lap, two weeks after being diagnosed with amoebas in the brain. "It's a miracle he's alive," she had heard nurse Consuela Arroyo say at least a hundred times during his stay at the George Washington University Hospital, and Golden Fawn knew it was true. She also knew her husband's salvation had not come from anything the doctors or nurses had done, because those were no ordinary amoebas--they were amoebas sent by Ardua of the Potomac when Vazquez had dived out of the Coast Guard cutter to retrieve the drowning man from the river. No, his salvation had come from the prayers of his mother, the strong medicine of her grandmother, and her own fretful incantations. Golden Fawn heard laughter from the kitchen and was amazed that his mother and her grandmother were finally getting along. Vazquez had said this was the best Christmas ever, and in a way he was right.

A few miles away, Angela de la Paz was sitting in the front row of Sacred Heart (or "Sagrado Corazon", as her abuela had always called it). Most of the mid-day worshippers were gone, and she was surveying the cotton ball snow covering the manger. "Fake snow is stupid," she said to her companion. "There's nothing in the Bible about snow. If it were that cold, Jesus would have frozen to death the first night in that manger." Charles Wu was capable of feeling comfortable in almost situation on Earth except this one--a church--but it had been her suggestion. He nervously looked around at the stained glass windows, sculptures, painted tableaux, and Christmas decorations. He had never understood where that kind of inspiration came from--aside from the fake snow, everything in the church was breathtaking.

"People like to see Bible stories in ways they can relate to," Wu said at last. "The winter solstice was chosen as Christ's birthday so that Christians could supplant pagan solstice ceremonies with the Nativity story--Christians in countries where it snowed in December." Angela de la Paz wondered if the day would ever come when she could just say something without some adult telling her why she didn't get it. "But you're right," said Wu, after she remained silent. "The fake snow is stupid. But maybe that's because we're sitting in the front row. From further back, it probably looks better." She remained silent. "Sometimes you need to take a broader perspective to see the whole picture and how things fit together."

"You mean geopolitics?" Angela said, impatiently. (At least Henry Samuelson knew how to get to the point.)

"Yes," Wu said, watching an elderly woman kneeling in front of the creche, arms uplifted.

"The Heurich Society said all you care about is money," said Angela.

"I'm not the one who's a paid assasin," said Wu, craving a drink.

"I'm not a paid assasin!" exclaimed Angela, and the praying woman turned around in shock.

Wu grabbed Angela by the elbow, yanked her to her feet, and marched her quickly away from the front of the church. "You're what, now, 17? You think you know it all? You think you know who deserves to live and die? You think you know how to make the world a better place?"

Angela de la Paz (the trained assasin) suddenly broke free of his grasp, and after a rapid succession of karate moves, had Wu on the floor with her foot on his neck. Wu, whose Kung Fu expertise could have at least delayed this result, had let it happen without defending himself. He stared up at her without fear, though she could not read exactly what it was she saw in his eyes. She took her foot off his throat, stepped back, and let him stand up. They were in the middle of the center aisle of the large Catholic church. "Why should I trust you?"

"Because you don't distrust me," said Wu. "And when the stakes are this high, that's as good as you can get."

"Well, I want more," said Angela, turning for the exit.

"And you think that makes you different?" said Wu, stopping her in her tracks. "It's not easy to identify friends--if somebody's not your enemy, maybe that should be good enough."

"Maybe," she said, resuming her departure.

Outside the church, a pink warbler pondered what song to sing for Angela, and a flock of starlings flew off to report to Ardua of the Potomac on what they knew she would not want to hear about--these two getting together.

Christmas Dreams (a shrink's journal)

2011-12-18T12:24:00.002-05:00

(from the journal of psychiatrist Ermann Esse)

______________________
Christmas Dreams 2011
______________________

(1) Imploding Campaigns (from a Mitt Romney campaign advisor)--

I dreamt that Newt Gingrich leaves his current wife for a Fox News reporter named "Fluffalicious". Then Rick Perry is caught in a hunting lodge cleaning rifles with Sarah Palin--might have been a sex scandal, but Perry accidentally shoots his right foot off. Palin does a drive-by to drop him off at a hospital emergency room, but somebody videotapes her with a camera phone. Then Michelle Bachmann and her husband are caught on tape having sex in front of a gay man to try to convert him. Then a Ron Paul video surfaces showing him teaching his son Rand at age ten how to recite the Bill of Rights while smoking a bong. Then unemployment rises to 40%. Best dream I ever had!

(2) The Wedding (from Bridezilla)--

The testosterone and human growth hormone is finally out of my system; all the facial hair is gone; I've never gone to law school; I'm twenty-two years old again and engaged to Blake Bloodsworth Blevins, III, of Hampton Roads, Virginia; we've won a contest to have our wedding paid for by Donald Trump; the wedding day comes, and it's absolutely perfect, and I'm the most beautiful bride in history, and Blake is the handsomest groom in history; then we have the most amazing honeymoon in history; then we can't remember where we're supposed to go after the honeymoon, so we just sit in the parking lot at Dulles Airport watching the snow come down, suntanned and confused because we have no idea what comes next. When I wake up, I'm still happy, but sort of dazed. Then I remember I'm a partner at Prince and Prowling, I've been engaged three times, I'm still single, and I hate everything about my life. Then I take a pill to go back to sleep.

(3) Zombie Democracy (from Speaker of the House, John Boehner)--

I walk into the Virginia Congressman's office, and he has salted Virginia peanuts on the credenza, so I open a packet, but termites crawl out! Then I walk into the Iowa Congressman's office, and he has a hot popcorn machine, so I try to scoop out a bag of it, but the machine starts shooting out sparks, then it catches on fire! Then I visit the Oregon Congresswoman's office, and she has dried berry packets out on the table, so I open a packet of those, but maggots fall out! So I can't take it anymore, and I run back to my own office. The smell of the Christmas tree greets me, and I start feeling better. I look at the photographs on the wall and the award plaques that chronicle my amazing career. I look at the coffee table book about Ohio. I look at the guest book to see who has signed in today. I retreat to my private chamber to take a nap. When I wake up, the heat is off, and I feel cold. I go out to see what is going on, but all my staffers are missing! The Christmas tree ornaments are all gone, and hundred-dollar bills are pinned all over the tree! The coffee table book about Ohio is gone, and the coffee table is covered with glossy reports on the fifty largest corporations in America. The photos on the wall are all photos of campaign contribution checks, and the award plaques are all about the most skillful uses of untraceable SuperPAC money to purchase campaign attack ads. I start feeling sick because the air is smoggy from the coal burning in the fireplace where my sofa used to be, and I see a neon sign flashing on the ceiling celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the abolition of EPA and OSHA. I stagger out into the hallway to see if the air is any better, and I am happy to see that my staffers are finally returning from lunch with the lobbyists. But something is wrong, and they look like a mess, with ketchup all over their faces. Then I realize it's BLOOD, and they're all ZOMBIES! They chase me down the hall and finally tackle me to the ground, and just before they start eating me, I hear Jack Abramoff's voice calling out, "I'm glad we can count on your support, John!" Then Condoleezza Rice shows up and tells me that, if I want, she can turn me into a vampire, and then the zombies won't eat me. I'm just about to say "yes" when my youngest staffer sinks her teeth into my right hand, and I wake up screaming.

(4) A Trillion Dollars Later (from "Didymus", the ghost of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara)--

I see a hideous monster or demon rise up from the Potomac River; its name is Ardua; for a brief moment, the demon's belly becomes illuminated like an x-ray, and I see dismembered soldiers inside; a catbird alights on the demon's head, and it's screeching out imitation gunfire and explosion sounds; a flock of ducks flies over ahead, and suddenly all their feathers fall off and flutter down to the river; the catbird calls out, "A trillion feathers for Narnia! A trillion dollars for Iraq!"; the naked ducks crash into the water and are devoured by river rats. Just before I wake up from the nightmare, pink dolphins jump out of the water and ram Ardua of the Potomac in the head, and she howls in pain and sinks to the bottom of the river.

(5) God Bless Us, Everyone (from new patient, Luciano Talaverdi, FRB economist)--

I'm back in Italy. My mother has decided to run for President of the Republic because she says it's time for common sense and old-fashioned values. My father asks her if she means the old-fashioned fascist values, or Julius Caesar, or maybe something in-between, like Machiavelli? She slaps him with a salami, and I tell her she is being a cliche, and she says, "What do you know, Mr. Fancy Pants?! We worked hard to send you to university, and then you abandoned us to go work for the Federal Reservation Board [Federal Reserve Board, Momma!] in America, and what do you do? Just drive people crazy!" [We're trying to prevent the world from going into a depression, Momma!] "What do you know, with your fancy pants and fancy shoes?! You are in the one percent, Luciano!" [Momma mia, no I'm not!] Then my father tells us to shut up because he's trying to watch the Italian version of Scrooge on television. Then I run out of my parents' house screaming, and I've turned into an ant! I am a tiny ant on the sidewalk, and the other ants and I are trying to grab crumbs before giant people shoes step on us. I cry out, "No, this is a mistake, I am an economist at the Federal Reserve Board, we are important, I am important, my girlfriend dresses like Obi Wan Kenobi, and I dress like Gianni Versace (but not in a gay way)." Then my mother comes out of the house, complains about the ants on her sidewalk, and she turns on the hose to wash us away. The last thing I hear is my father shouting out, "God bless us, everyone!" Then I wake up in a cold sweat.

(6) My Dream (by Dr. Ermann Esse)--

Barbara Walters is interviewing me as one of the five most fascinating people of 2011. I explain to her that my insistence on treating Washington patients without the use of psychotropic medicine forces them to confront their inner demons more rapidly: the process is painful, but they progress much faster. She says it's clear I am making a difference because Washington's community and national leaders are setting a shining example of rational enlightenment for the whole world. Then she says in all her years of reporting, she has NEVER been more inspired by Washingtonians than in 2011. After the interview, I go to sign my book ("Real Power is Brain Power") at Politics and Prose Bookstore on Christmas Eve, and the line is out the door and around the block. Then a pink warbler flies into the store out of nowhere and whispers in my year, "2012 will be even better! Merry Christmas!"

Lobbying for Dummies

2011-12-11T10:51:00.004-05:00

___Jack Abramoff:
Wine them, dine them, take them to sporting events, pit a new client's interests against the previous one's....A 10,000% return on their investment answers all other questions....Am I a hypocrite? Is a hypocrite's hypocrite sincere? Are a crocodile's tears dry?

___Anne Millbrooke:
"Don't mix your issue with the elected official's campaign financing."

___former Senator Evermore Breadman:
"Hand them the contribution check from your client before you shake hands."

___Anne Millbrooke:
"Check your elected official's party, voting record, constituent pressures, responsiveness...."

___Ann Bishis, special assistant to Congressman Herrmark:
"Chocolate, flowers, jewelry, concert tickets, handbags, Harry and David fruit baskets with cookies, lunch in a nice restaurant, use of your Delaware beach house in August. Sometimes they don't have time to shop and just bring cash, which is a little tacky, but I understand--in Washington we're all very busy people."

___Anne Millbrooke:
"Use personal experience and feelings to support your point."

___Henry Samuelson, ex-CIA, member of the Heurich Society:
"Use your personal knowledge of THEM against them."

___Anne Millbrooke:
"Don't apologize for taking the elected official's time: it's a citizen's right to meet with official."

___Congressman Herrmark:
"Thanks for stopping by, but my next appointment is here." (And HE brought a campaign contribution!)

___Anne Millbrooke:
"State your cause clearly, directly, and briefly in your own words."

___Charles Wu, secret agent:
"Charm, maneuver, and manipulate until they arrive at the logical conclusion. Flirt with women. Massage male egos. Never let them know who or what else you're working for. And dress for success."

___Anne Millbrooke:
"Build a relationship: 'No permanent friends, no permanent enemies.'"

___John Boehner:
(to his therapist) "Lobbying? Nobody even pays attention to me anymore! All they talk about is Mitt, Newt, Michelle, Perry. Why don't you go talk to those freshman Republicans who packed the Defense authorization bill with earmarks after campaigning against earmarks!? I can guarantee you they learned something about lobbying last year!"

___Washington Water Woman:
(Should I wear the cheap suit because it's newer, or does the more expensive 10-year-old suit look better? Will they look at my shoes? What if I get nervous and ramble?) "This program operates with an annual $123 million deficit, and it only benefits a handful of citizens." (And that handful turn around and use that money to buy their U.S. Senators and Representatives, but I can't say that!) "It's harmful to the environment as well as discouraging more profitable economic enterprises which would employ a hundred times the number of people." (Now they're thinking, "Don't confuse with me logic!") "The association does NOT speak for most of them, let alone all of them. Phasing out this program will NOT endanger their way of life." (Did I fall on the third rail? He doesn't know what a third rail is because he's never ridden a subway!) "Thank you for your time." (Oops, was I not supposed to say that? Does this Congressional bill have a snowball's chance in Hell?)

___Ardua of the Potomac:
"Puny humans, with all your groveling for crumbs on the floor! Veni, vedi, venci!"

The Third Way Out

2011-12-04T11:22:00.005-05:00

An ear-splitting scream reverberated through the Prince and Prowling penthouse suite: it was the unmistakable screech of Bridezilla, simultaneously high-pitched and nasal, with just a drop of old Virginia drawl. She had just discovered partner emeritus Wolfgang Prowling slumped over in his wheelchair, his head tilted awkwardly to the side, his glassy eyes staring at nothing. (Of course, her version of the "discovery" would later be called into question.) The Sunday workforce who heard the shriek, and the others who heard it through the grapevine, gradually gathered around the limp old man. Nobody checked his pulse, breathing, or heartbeat--let alone contemplated starting CPR. Laura Moreno had brought the defibrillator from the kitchen, but former Senator Evermore Breadman had demanded that nobody without proper training attempt to use it. By the time the ambulance arrived, Prowling's heart had been stopped for at least eleven minutes. As the workers tried to focus on reviving the man, they were (as they would later tell the investigators) distracted by wild accusations flying around them. "I saw him coming out of Senator Breadman's office, cursing about the Washington Post's expose on presidential pardons!" "Well, I saw him coming out of Cigemeier's office, cursing about how a man had to win a major trial before becoming partner in his day! He had a pile of folders in his lap that looked too heavy for him." "Well, I heard him in Bridezilla's office telling her that it was a mistake to make a woman a partner before her childbearing years were over. Then she offered him a slice of cheesecake, and he said, 'What are you trying to do--kill me?!' Then he rolled out of her office, his face all red!" "Well, I saw him leaving Laura's office, swearing about how they had a bunch of nancy pants, law review , law clerk twerps running the show while the only hard worker of the operation was holed away in a foul-smelling workroom that he couldn't even wheel his wheelchair into without running over mouse droppings or even an actual mouse! And then he reached down and used a file folder to scrape something off his right wheel, and he was panting." (When questioned by the investigators about how certain they were--as it seemed unlikely that EMTs could remember such specific comments in the middle of reviving a comatose patient--they replied that this happened every time somebody had a heart attack in a major law firm in D.C.)

A mile away, the Heurich Society had a few senior members of its own whose hearts were perilously close to coronary incidents as they heatedly debated world events. They were divided over Australia's decision to sell uranium to India, they were divided over the implications of Russia's elections, they were divided over how to address the U.K.'s violent exit from Iran, and they were divided over the three-eyed fish floating in a jar of formaldehyde in the center of the table. ("How do we really know it came from the Anacostia?" "It's larger than the three-eyed fish caught near the Argentine nuclear power plant." "We're lucky our source got a hold of it before the Washington Post did!" "We're going to have worse problems than three-eyed fish if Project Prometheus doesn't do more to mitigate climate change security problems!" "You mean like freeing climate change refugees from desert slave-traders?! Cause God knows that's on the top of my list!")

"GENTLEMEN!" It was Condoleezza Rice, hollering over the speaker phone. "When did anybody ever tell you this was supposed to be easy?! We have to fight for what we want! And if we're not getting it, we need new plans and new personnel."

"What are you proposing, er, suggesting?" asked the Heurich Society Chair, staring at the speaker phone as if it were a ticking time bomb.

"New leadership," Rice said in a softer voice.

"I agree," said Henry Samuelson, not bothering to look anybody in the eye as he continued to watch a small flock of starlings in the tree branches swaying outside the window of the Brewmaster's castle.

Silence ensued as the Chair looked around the table to see who was going to challenge him for leadership, but most eyes were fixed on the three-eyed fish at the center of the table.

"Herman Cain," said Condoleezza Rice over the speakerphone. ("WHAT?!") "He's already agreed to do it. He's green on foreign affairs, but a fresh perspective is what the Heurich Society needs to regain its original focus."

"That lamebrain doesn't even know the difference between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan!" protested the Chair, who suspected Rice's relationship with Cain might be deeper than she was saying (though he would never say that out loud in a thousand years).

"Neither do we, anymore," said Samuelson, turning away from the window. "Maybe it's time for us to re-learn a few things. Maybe the world's been changing faster than we've been willing to admit. Every time I think it's time for me to sit down with my daughter, explain to her the facts of life--I mean, the world--and ask her to join me in my life's work, I have trouble summing up what I need to tell her. And that's because it keeps changing."

"Adapt or die!" exclaimed the Chair. "You have said this more than anybody!"

"But adapt willy nilly, carelessly, randomly--like a fish growing a third eye?! We don't need a third eye, gentlemen! We need a third way!" concluded Samuelson.

"What do you mean by that?" asked the Chair.

Samuelson wasn't sure what he meant by that, since the words had just flowed logically, one after another, out of his mouth, but he would let Herman Cain figure that out. "Project Third Way," said Samuelson. "I move that we immediately launch Project Third Way, to be led by Herman Cain."

"I second the motion," crackled the speakerphone.

Ten minutes later, the members were filing out of the conference room--most carefully wrapping up their doughnuts in napkins to eat later, since the sight of the fish had been nauseating. "You should take the fish home as a souvenir," remarked Samuelson with a smirk on his way out.

"Laugh now, old spook! We'll see who laughs last!" whispered the Chair.

A couple miles to the south, Dr. Khalid Mohammad came out of the George Washington University Hospital emergency room and looked in vain for former Senator Evermore Breadman until nurse Consuela Arroyo told him they had placed the Senator in an office so he wouldn't have to sit in the waiting area. Dr. Mohammad asked why, but Arroyo just shrugged. Dr. Mohammad entered the office to find Breadman in the middle of a phone call about the Republican primaries, but he hung up and turned attentively to the doctor. (Breadman's first thought was how the old coot would have demanded a WASP doctor if he could have.) Dr. Mohammad explained that there was nothing they could do, and Wolfgang Prowling had been pronounced dead on arrival.

"But why?" asked Breadman.

"We could not revive him--"

"No, I mean, why did he have the heart attack?"

"Well, sir, he was quite elderly. We could do an autopsy if you like, and I'm sure we would find some hardening of the arteries and--"

"No, I mean, did something trigger it?" asked Breadman.

"Well, a number of things might have--"

"Doctor," said Breadman quietly, "I thought I saw a wet stain on his crotch."

"Sometimes the elderly have bladder control problems, sir, or it could have happened during the heart attack," said Dr. Mohammad.

"He didn't smell like urine," said Breadman quietly. "Can you check?"

"You want me to test for semen?" asked Dr. Mohammad, who was tired of all the stupid requests he had gotten since CSI had first gone on the air. "Why?"

Breadman was not accustomed to dealing with people who did not accede to his requests. "I need to know!"

"Alright, sir," said Dr. Mohammad. "Now if you could assist the nurse in completing the next-of-kin information, I would be most grateful."

Back at Prince and Prowling, everybody else had gone home except Chloe Cleavage. "It wasn't my fault," she said to herself for the upteenth time, mindlessly rearranging binders and dusting her shelves with a wet rag. "The guy was always crabby! I was just trying to make him happy!" She knew the only reason she was still employed at Prince and Prowling was because she had sex scandal tapes of a few of her trysts, but this was different. For one thing, she wasn't totally sure he had welcomed her advances, since mostly all she heard was "hmmmphhh?!". And then the other thing was, now he was dead. "It wasn't my fault! They can't touch me! And even if they do, I'm rich now because I sold my eggs for a million dollars, and I have my condo, and everything will be fine. They all wanted him out of here anyway! They should be thanking me! Not that it was my fault, because it wasn't."

Out in the Potomac River, Ardua awoke from a beautiful dream she was having about Mayor Gray's Sustainability Initiative's falling prey to egotism, acrimony, red tape, and shattered dreams for dozens of city employees and hundreds of idealistic citizens. "I will sustain you, Washington," yawned the demon. "I need you alive!" And she laughed in the depths of the river, as the three-eyed bottom-feeders slowly spread north in search of new food.

World at War

2011-11-27T11:31:00.004-05:00

Chloe Cleavage sipped her Starbucks cinnamon latte and made moon eyes at "Pierre", an Occupy DCer who still wouldn't tell her his real name even after three dates. Pierre stood for everything she was against, but most of what he said just went in one ear and out the other: she just loved the sound of his bedroom voice, and the scruffiness of his bed-head hair, and the deepness of his eyes, and the stubble on his face, and the way his butt looked in faded jeans. For his part, Pierre did so much talking that he really did not know much about Cleavage, but was operating with certain assumptions and presumptions that were enough. (He knew she worked at a powerful law firm, and if he could convert her, it would be a tremendous victory for the movement!) He was also hoping she would invite him to her apartment for a shower and sex (and his assumption and presumption in this particular detail was spot on). "The police are the co-opted blue-collar collaborators which ensure protection of the moneyed minority. That's why it was so important in Egypt to win them over." (This is what Cleavage heard: "police"..."money"..."Egypt", which made no sense, but she sighed anyway, and Pierre continued.)

At the next table over, a man complimented his metrosexual friend on his sweater, and the metrosexual replied, "I'm wearing it because it cost me $200."

"Do you like mine better?" asked Pierre, turning to the men at the other table. "I'll trade you right now. Straight barter: we both get something we want, no involvement of the capitalist leech system."

"Go ahead and take off your sweater," whispered Cleavage in encouragement (and anticipation), but the metrosexual and his friend got up without a word and took a table further away.

"Gay fascists," muttered Pierre, "totally co-opted, unaware how much the ruling class--just like the Nazis--loathes them."

"Mmmm," said Cleavage, who heard: "gay" and "Nazis", which made no sense, so she picked up her spoon and licked it provocatively.

Over at Prince and Prowling, contract attorney Laura Moreno was trying to cover for Chloe Cleavage, who was supposed to have arrived an hour earlier. Retired partner Wolfgang Prowling was trying to wrap up Operation Koch so that he could return to the retirement he had reluctantly left to get his namesake law firm's public relations practice back on track. He had wheelchaired himself into the workroom to check on Moreno's progress in reviewing and highlighting Stephen Colbert's Anonymous Shell Corporation filing papers. He rummaged through her desk things as she pulled up database images for Prowling to look at. "Is this your timesheet?" he demanded, gruffly. (She nodded.) "How can you put 8 hours for every day? That's preposterous!" ("That's a standard workday," she protested.) "Hmmmpphh! Nobody's gonna believe that! You need to put 7 hours one day, then 9 hours the next--that's the sort of thing a client wants to see! Of course, it should really be 10 hours one day, then 11 the next, but at least you came in today, which is more than I can say about that girl with the low-cut sweaters. Is this your name?" (Moreno nodded.) "What kind of name is that?" demanded Prowling, pointing at her surname on the timesheet. ("Sicilian," she said.) "Sicilian!? Hmmmpphh! You don't look Sicilian!" ("Well, my mother's side--") "I was there in World War Two! Hmmpphhh! Black hair--lots of black hair! They came from Phoenicia and Greece and Tunisia, you know." ("There were also some Norman invaders and--") "Black hair! All the black hairs are in the mafia or Al Qaeda. You don't look like that!" ("My great-grandfather, Wolfgang, was from Bavaria," she finally managed to blurt out.) "Wolfgang?! You don't say?! Hmmpphhh! You've got a real Axis Powers thing going here, don't you! Ha, ha, ha, ha! But even Hitler didn't want his people mixing with those Dagos!" (Moreno now regretted her feeble intent to win over Wolfgang Prowling, and drew his attention to what she had pulled up on the computer.)

Back in Occupy DC territory, Glenn Michael Beckmann and a couple of his Hunter-Gatherer Society lieutenants were doing some more reconnaissance. It had been slow going, since they were only inclined to go out to McPherson Square when the weather was warm. In addition, Beckmann's lieutenants found the pronouncements and instructions of HGS President, Sarah Palin, as passed along by Beckmann, a little vague and confusing. They had been plotting a large-scale massacre of Occupy DC for a few weeks now, but it was important both to make sure that no innocent bystanders were hurt when it happened and that the carnage delivered a clear message from HGS. Still, the lieutenants were starting to wonder if Beckmann was really speaking for Sarah Palin, because it just seemed that she would have wanted bold and decisive action by now.

"What about anthrax?" asked the first lieutenant. "That would be super easy, and make headlines all over the world."

"That's cowardly!" exclaimed the second lieutenant. "We're hunters, not poisoners!"

"Well, there are police there all the time! I'm not doing anything that's gonna get me arrested. It's got to be in secret," said the first lieutenant.

"Look!" exclaimed Beckmann. "President Palin wants more intel first! She's not totally sure that all these people are against hunting and gathering! If Wall Street collapses, we'd have a lot more hunting and gathering going on."

"But they're communists," protested the first lieutenant.

"Some are anarchists, some are other things," said Beckmann, whose foggy brain was having trouble remembering his last conversation with President Palin. "That's why we need to gather more intel!"

The second lieutenant sighed and suggested they take a break to go hunt some deer.

A couple miles to the west, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was seated on the Albert Einstein sculpture, disguised in Georgetown University sweats, sunglasses, and a Hoya baseball cap. Charles Wu was seated next to her, assuring Clinton that Project R.O.D.H.A.M. had not been involved in feeding NATO the intelligence which had led to the air strike on two-dozen Pakistani soldiers.

"Was it Angela de la Paz?" asked Clinton.

"It appears so, though there is no direct proof or explanation," said Wu.

Clinton was silent for a couple of minutes. "I'm starting to wonder if this is a loose cannon we just can't afford to have out there."

"She's accomplished some things nobody else could," said Wu.

"I know, but she's too naive! It doesn't matter to her that Pakistan has the bomb," said Clinton. "It's like she's taking it one battle at a time, with no thought about the possibility of escalating to World War III."

"She's just a teenager," said Wu.

"Exactly!" said Clinton.

"I know I told you we can't recruit her into Project R.O.D.H.A.M., but let me try to meet with her myself--give her some extra education that the Heurich Society overlooked."

"Alright," said Clinton, getting up to go.

Wu watched the Secretary of State walk back towards C Street and wondered how on Earth he could come through for her now--after all, he was not entirely certain that World War III had not already begun. He suddenly noticed a flock of starlings watching him, and he kicked a pebble at them to make them disperse.

Not far away, Ardua of the Potomac waited impatiently for the starlings to come and report on the most enigmatic man in Washington--forever balanced on the cusp of good and evil.

The Promised Land

2011-11-19T12:36:00.003-05:00

The Poseidon Auxiliary of the Old Dominion Boat Club pushed off from the Alexandria dock for its Thanksgiving cruise. Ann Bishis and her Greek cousins huddled by themselves near the back, invoking their spirit animals and tossing laurel leaves into the Potomac River to pray to Hera, Glaucos and other gods for the welfare of Greece. They were glad for a break from working for Congressman Herrmark, who had become doubly morose with the decline of political perks and the loss of Mia. They had been surprised when he had said he was visiting his parents for Thanksgiving without taking his twin bodyguards, Nick and Costas, but the season's death threats were less focused now on hydrofracking and more focused on race and class. The twins were starting to worry he might start thinking he no longer needed bodyguards, though Bishis assured her cousins that their boss valued the twins for much more than that. (For instance, when they hand-delivered letters to federal agency chiefs or Cabinet Secretaries outlining how Congressman Herrmark thought certain programs should be allocating spending in his home state, the twins' bulging muscles, sneering smiles, and broken English always made an impression that petite Ann Bishis in an off-the-rack suit just could not.) "Well, we do have a lot to be thankful for this year," said Bishis, and her cousins nodded silently. "If more people would honor the gods, Greece would return to its glory days," she added, and her cousins nodded again. Then the three turned to look at the front of the boat, where most of the members were gathered with a Greek Orthodox priest who was leading them in a prayer of thanksgiving before their meal began. He felt the eyes of the heathens upon him, but he did not look up.

Another boat pushed off from the dock of the Old Dominion Boat Club--a yacht rented by Sense of Entitlement Anonymous (D.C. Chapter) for their own Thanksgiving cruise. (The yacht was actually owned by member Calico Johnson, but he saw no reason to tell them that or decline the payment they made to the LLC he used to own the yacht and manage its rentals.) Dick Cheney had already claimed the most comfortable seat on deck, unaware that nobody had been hired to take his drink order or bring food to him. Representative John Boehner saw his opportunity, piled up two plates of low-cholesterol food, balanced two beers under his arm, and headed over to sit next to the former Vice-President. (Cheney groaned when he saw what was happening.) Calico Johnson watched with annoyance as Luciano Talaverdi dropped a bottle of pinot grigio on the deck--both scratching it and staining it red. Judge Sowell Ame couldn't help but smile at attorney Bridezilla, whose latest privilege log had prompted the opposition to file a motion with phrases like "byzantine labyrinth", "insult to intelligence", "everything but the kitchen sink", and "gypsies, tramps and thieves". Bridezilla smiled back, consciously trying to reassert the feminine wiles she had misplaced after months of body-building and testosterone-laced supplements from her personal trainer; she loaded up her plate with nothing but yams because they were packed with estrogen, and sat down daintily next to Luciano Talaverdi, who (unfortunately for her) had no trouble seeing the hair stubble on her chin in the bright sunlight and, consequently, felt a little nauseous and had to look away.

"Now, I know that some of us are in the one percent, and some of us are not," said millionaire realtor Calico Johnson, raising his glass for the first toast, "but we ALL have much to be thankful for this year. We've made a lot of progress. For example, I know that Dick has stopped feeling entitled to be the go-to analyst on Republican debate performances, even though nobody knows better than he does that there are much more important traits to highlight than obvious stupidity. And I no longer feel entitled to live in my home in peace and tranquility, because my neighbor has a right to have a loudly mooing cow, and if I want the neighbor (and I do!), I need to accept the cow! Even Bridezilla has made progress because she no longer struggles with her sense of entitlement about becoming a partner at Prince and Prowling." ("That's because I am a partner now.") "Oh. Well, you did deserve it, so your sense of entitlement was correct! A toast for Bridezilla!" And they all raised their glasses to her--though most of them thought her pink eye shadow, yellow chiffon pantsuit with ruffles on the sleeves and ankles, and lace-covered spike-heeled boots looked like something more suited to a drag queen than a law partner. "Now I have a surprise for you: some new members!" And with that, he rang a bell, and a half-dozen young women emerged from below deck, smiling with excitement. "The newest members of Sense of Entitlement Anonymous!" proclaimed Johnson, who then led the group in applause--not telling them he had recruited the group from N.U.T.T.Y. (Nannies United to Take Y-chromosomes) because he knew they were desperate to marry rich, and he was doing them a favor by helping them expand their search beyond their immediate places of employment. Boehner blushed, Cheney's pacemaker sputtered, Ame adjusted his crotch, and Talaverdi stood up quickly to zoom in on the most attractive one.

High above the river, Dubious McGinty looked out on the boaters from his perch in the watchman's quarters of the 14th Street bridge. It was a sunny day, and there weren't going to be a lot more good boating days before spring. He could smell the river duck cooking on a spit over an open fire (sometimes he had to kill the ones possessed by evil), and Perry Winkle would be coming by soon with some rolls and a sweet potato pie. They had been planning their little Thanksgiving get-together for a few weeks, but McGinty knew the Washington Post "Metro" reporter would be glad for a chance to ask McGinty for his reaction to Congressional plans to fight the deficit by cutting veteran benefits--because "nobody understands better than Veterans" the need for sacrifice. "Yeah," mumbled McGinty, "we understand it just fine." He spit over the rail. "You keep your $600 billion for more tanks and airplanes and putting soldiers in Australia 'cause God knows we can't have a continent without U.S. soldiers, and after we're used up and don't die properly on a battlefield, we'll just die quietly back here." He spit again. "I blame you!" he screamed down at the demon chuckling under the Potomac. "It's evil, and they write their neat little letters on neat little Congressional stationery, and they talk about reducing the deficit, and they're just evil! Cause it ain't right." He opened his fly and urinated down on Ardua of the Potomac. "Us old-timers know how to take care of ourselves, but these young'uns commin' out of Iraq and Afghanistan, hell, what are they supposed to do?"

"That's not what you were supposed to do!" said Henry Samuelson to Angela de la Paz, who was also glaring at the demon in the river from her perch in a Georgetown restaurant. "You think we don't know you left Libya to go back to Egypt? We're not paying you to run around freeing prisoners from Bedouin tribes in the Sinai peninsula!"

"Well, I couldn't just sit in Libya guarding oil interests! It's boring and stupid!"

"Look, missy," said Samuelson, who knew what Project Cinderella was capable of, "if you want to do extra-curricular activities, you need to keep it a lot quieter! 'She-whose-gaze-must-be-avoided returns to Egypt, slaughters half a dozen Bedouin slave-drivers, castrates a dozen rapists, and guides 600 African refugees across the desert to the promised land flowing with milk and honey?!' We do not WANT that kind of publicity!"

"It's not like I'm in the Washington Post or something," replied Angela, pushing her food aimlessly around the plate.

"In certain circles you are front-page news--even if they don't know your name or have a photo of you! And in cahoots with Project R.O.D.H.A.M. no less! The Heurich Society is this close to cutting you off! I don't want that to happen," said Samuelson.

"Do they wanna kill me?" asked Angela, turning her gaze to Samuelson.

"Just go back to Libya, alright?" said Samuelson. "I'll double your pay."

"Cool," said Angela flatly, and she got up to leave. "Thanks for lunch." She walked out of the restaurant and down to the pier. "Was it pointless, Ardua?" she whispered.

Ardua of the Potomac shuddered and burrowed deep into the mud--away from the sunlight and away from the girl.

We the People

2011-11-12T11:30:00.003-05:00

Congressman John Boehner was lying on the couch in Dr. Ermann Esse's office. The faint sound of Occupy DC drummers in McPherson Square could still be detected above the soothing Peruvian flute music the psychiatrist was playing.

"Do you think we should do something about those communists?" asked the Speaker of the House.

"Hmmmm?"

"The Occupy DC mob," replied Boehner.

"Oh. Well, my lease is up in a couple of months, so I might move if I find it disturbs my clients." (Actually he found that the faint sound of drums made an excellent primal stimulus, prompting many of his patients to see deeper into their own psyches.)

"It's this personhood defeat in Mississippi, doctor. I'm having trouble reconciling it."

"Reconciling it with what?" asked Dr. Esse.

"Uh, well, corporations," said Boehner.

"I don't see the connection," said Dr. Esse.

"EXACTLY! Neither does the Supreme Court." (Dr. Esse arched his eyebrows.) "The Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, but a human fetus is not. In Mississippi, they tried to amend their state constitution to say that a human embryo is a person. In other states, they're trying to amend their constitutions to say that corporations are NOT persons. Right now, corporations in Mississippi are persons but human embryos are not. I'm supposed to be defending corporations, but this is bothering me."

"Hmmm," said Dr. Esse. "Well, first of all, the Supreme Court did not say corporations are persons: it was talking about people's collective rights to form a corporation and use it for free speech."

"C'mon, doctor! That's not the effect of Citizens United! Even Mitt Romney said corporations are people! If all the embryos in Mississippi form a corporation, do they get constitutional rights at that point?"

"Ummm--"

"NO! They don't!

"But the organizations formed to speak for the unborn have constitutional rights, just like any other corporation," said Dr. Esse.

"Sure, but they don't have enough money to speak LOUDLY, doctor! The Supreme Court said spending money in elections is the same as free speech, and the corporations have more money than anybody, so their speech is louder--louder than anything else being heard in Washington. I've got people asking me to speak up for (or against!) constitutional amendments defining personhood all over the country. PERSONHOOD! We're still defining personhood! OK, maybe the Founding Fathers got it wrong about the slaves, but how many redefinitions are we going to do on this? Who are we? Who are We-the-People?"

A few miles to the West, the Seekers meeting in Georgetown were also discussing We-the-People, more specifically, Occupy DC and Occupy Wall Street. The Jesuit said they were asking valid questions about society's values, but the Buddhist said spiritual enlightenment would never be found while fretting about ownership of physical objects, and that it was the duty of the Seekers to free mankind from all Earthly desires. The Methodist minister pointed out that there was nothing wrong with a desire to have food, a roof over your head, and health insurance. The Imam said the problem was not money but the spending of money on ungodly things. The Mormon missionary agreed it was the duty of the Seekers to teach their flocks how to reject ungodly things. The rabbi asked if anybody thought that the Occupy movement was an ungodly thing.

"All I know," said the Lutheran pastor, "is that I'm tired of leading a church that's all about hatch 'em, match 'em, dispatch 'em. There's got to be more for us to do!" Several members of the Seekers asked what he meant, and he clarified: "baptize them, marry them, eulogize and bury them. What happens in-between those days? That's where life happens, and we're missing out on most of it because we only see some of these people a few times in their lives."

"Are you saying we should be down there in McPherson Square?" asked the Baptist preacher.

"I've got a bunch of church ladies just dying to bring sandwiches and cookies down there," said the Episcopalian minister, "but the council is scared to death."

"They should be," said the Jesuit, "because your church ladies might end up listening instead of preaching."

"But we are supposed to be the teachers and guides," said the Imam.

"You have to know where people are at before you can guide them out of there," said the Buddhist.

"How do you know they're not right where they're supposed to be?" asked the Quaker.

Back at McPherson Square, Charles Wu was also where he was supposed to be--meeting the Condor for a discussion of OPEC. (Since every conversation in McPherson Square was about politics these days, theirs would not stand out for the eavesdroppers with the high-tech listening devices.) China wanted to understand how to navigate the turbulent politics of the Middle East, so the Condor was trying to explain to Wu why the Arab League had denounced Syria. "It's a small country allied with Iran. The Sunnis dominate the Arab League, but they are scared to denounce Iran because Iran might be both able and willing to nuke its Shiite neighbors. However, it is safe for the Arab League to denounce "little Iran", Syria. This scores the Arab League bonus points with Western allies: look at us, we are denouncing a tyrannical regime which is killing its political protesters! But does the Arab League denounce Bahrain for the same thing? No, because Bahrain is a majority-Shiite country led by a minority-Sunni government."

Wu held up his hand to signal the Condor to slow down. (He was trying to take notes in Chinese, but too many of the Condor's words had no Chinese equivalents.) "I read about Sunnis and Shiites 'til I'm blue in the face," said Wu, but that can't be what it's really about? Centuries later? They don't agree on jihad, they don't agree on Mahdi, they don't agree on Dajjal--but what does that really matter now?"

"It's about what group you're in, where the lines are drawn," said the condor. "You have been in America too long! You are starting to think that ideas and philosophies are important! In the Middle East, a lot of people can't even read at all, let alone spend time studying Islam. They are born in a group, and they defend their own group. OPEC tried to unite all the oil-producing countries, but the enmities can still be seen in the Arab League."

"So what do I tell Beijing?" asked Wu. "China has a strong policy about not criticizing other countries' domestic policies, but China's Middle East envoy has already said publicly that Syria needs to end the violence. China does NOT want to continue down this path of getting sucked into choosing sides."

"Then China can kiss the gas and oil goodbye," replied the Condor. "Nobody's neutral in the Middle East. China has its own interests in the Middle East now, and it can defend them or abandon them. I don't have any secrets that are going to help China--not today. There aren't a lot of secrets left, and with the Arab League's denouncing Syria, most of the cards are on the table now."

"You know, Beijing never even ASKS me for secrets about England anymore. This was a lot simpler back in Hong Kong," said Wu.

The Condor looked at his old friend in surprise. "America has changed you," said the Condor, but he didn't say how and Wu did not ask. As they exited the park silently, they could hear two partners from Goode Peepz Law, LLC, discussing whether to seize the Occupy DC zeitgeist by renaming themselves "We The People Law Firm". ("But what if we accidentally attract Tea Party fanatics?")

Back in the office of Dr. Ermann Esse, it was Bridezilla's turn on the shrink's couch. "Things just seem different now," said Bridezilla, who had weights strapped to her ankles and wrists so she could exercise during her therapy session. (Dr. Esse had drawn the line at allowing her personal trainer into the room, so he was in the waiting room outside.) "Like, I'm doing this privilege log for a client, and they want to priv everything." (Dr. Esse did not know what "priv" meant, but "everything" was something that many people in Washington seemed to want.) "The list of names is already 78 pages long! How crazy is that?!" ("Hmmm," said Dr. Esse, encouragingly.) "We're closing in on 2,000 names. The client only has 500 employees, but somehow we have 2,000 names on the privilege log! How crazy is that?!" ("Hmmm," repeated Dr. Esse, who was starting to see how crazy it was.) "And this is how I make a living? I was in the top 10% of my law class!" (Dr. Esse had actually heard those two sentences verbatim several times a year since he opened his office in downtown Washington.)

"And I'm starting to have weird dreams," said Bridezilla. (Dr. Esse perked up, hoping she would start telling him erotic dreams about her personal trainer, Armando.) "So I go to the Supreme Court to hear an oral argument, right? But it's not ready to start yet, so I ask if there's a cafe, because most courts and government buildings have a cafe, right? So I go down to the basement, and there's this place with a big neon sign, 'We The People'--but it's a BAR! I go in, and it's a lounge, and people are DRINKING! Sitting on bar stools and DRINKING! And there's a counter to place BETS on the cases the court is hearing! You can bet 80-1 odds that the Supreme Court will uphold Obamacare, or you can put down a trifecta bet involving how the bench will split, and who will write the decision, and how many concurrences and dissents will be written. And some of the Justices were in the bar drinking, too! I mean, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was giggling! And they had a karaoke jockey in the corner trying to get people to loosen up and sing, but almost everybody there was a lawyer, so it was pretty difficult. Then Ginsburg pointed at me and started chanting and clapping, 'Sing, sing, sing, sing!' And before I knew it, all these people had pushed me up to the stage, and they didn't even let me choose a song, and before I knew it, a Melissa Etheridge song started up, and I didn't want to sing a big lesbo song, so I tried to get off the stage, but Ginsburg said, 'You have to! You have facial hair!'" Bridezilla had been raising and lowering her ankles and wrists furiously, but abruptly stopped and exhaled deeply. "The truth is, I do have facial hair now! What if, you know, Armando gave me some kind of hormone in my supplements," she whispered. "Am I going to change?"

"Well," said Dr. Esse (who was thinking about how he had not expected to have doctor-patient conversations like this after he graduated in the top 10% of his class), "if he gave you something with testosterone to build up your muscles, yes, that would increase your facial hair." (Her muscle tone was spectacular, but he refrained from pointing out the obvious.)

"And urges," Bridezilla whispered. "Would it change my urges?"

"Did you feel urges about Ginsburg?"

"Of course not!" (Dr. Esse waited, hoping she would say more about her urges.) "I'm just speaking hypothetically!"

"Are you sure?" asked Dr. Esse eagerly. "You can tell me anything."

"Do you think I should stop the supplements?" asked Bridezilla, suddenly remembering the erotic dream she had had about Laura Moreno the night before. "How long does it take for the hormones to go back to normal?" She looked at her biceps and flexed them a couple of times. "This is unnatural, isn't it? What have I done?" She jumped up from the couch and took all the weights off. "This is why Armando never flirts with me! I look like a man, don't I?! This is terrible!" She threw the weights in Dr. Esse's wastepaper basket. "I'm going to stop the supplements. I mean, I just need Jennifer Anniston arms, right? Anything bigger than that means I'm a freak! What was I thinking?" With that she fled the psychiatrist's office and told a startled Armando, "We need to talk!"

Down at McPherson Square, the Occupy DC people were starting a chant about "We the People", and the starlings listened anxiously from the trees. A catbird imitated the "we" word over and over and over again, causing the crowd to get confused and lose its cohesion.

Rearranging

2011-11-05T11:29:00.003-04:00

Sebastian L'Arche was back at the White House because Bo's narcolepsy had returned. The White House butler, Clio, told L'Arche that the dog was rumored to be passing out every time he heard the word "election". And yesterday somebody swore that at the mention of President Obama's 3rd year anniversary since being elected, Bo had actually run around the room three times barking wildly, then passed out. "Canine narcolepsy is a tricky thing," said L'Arche, squatting down next to the Portuguese water dog.

"That's what he said last time," whispered Ferguson to his twin sister Regina. Clio gave the pre-schoolers a stern look, and they knew what that meant.

L'Arche began whispering into Bo's ear, and Bo responded with some face-licking. We have to have elections, whispered L'Arche. The alternative is dictatorship. Bo shook his head vigorously, then put his head between his paws. I know the rich can manipulate the elections, but they can't control everything. Bo buried his head under his paws, and his tail started twitching spasmodically. Everybody has to make compromises. There's still hope. Look at me! L'Arche pulled the paws off of Bo's eyes. He needs you to be strong. He needs you.

On the other side of Bo, Regina tugged at Ferguson's hands, which he was holding over his eyes, and whispered, "He needs you to be strong!"

"Reggie! Fergie!" Clio hissed at her children.

L'Arche stood up abruptly. "Bo's OK now, but he needs to get outside more. He spends too much time in here."

"Alright," said Clio, "I'll let them know."

"And they need to get out more, too," said L'Arche, pointing at the dastardly duo, who were now whispering (in their secret twin language) to the gnats fluttering around a ficus tree in the corner. "There are things happening here which they need less exposure to."

"Politics?" asked the butler. "They're never around that." She turned on the DustBuster she never went anywhere without and sucked the gnats out of the air.

"Other things," said L'Arche, who knew that the twins spent time talking to the White House ghosts. He pulled the kids away from the dog. "Every day I want you to do five nice things for your mother," he said. He pulled up fingers one-by-one on Regina's hand, then Ferguson's hand. "One-two-three-four-five. Five nice things. Every day." Then he patted each one on their heads, with little hope this might take for even a week.

Over in the West Wing, Golden Fawn had finally gotten into the White House. It had taken months, but through a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, here she was--part of a group of Oklahoma Cherokee fundraisers getting a private tour. She knew they were not going to see President Obama, but that was not what she had come for. The tour guide--bored with describing the same pieces of furniture and dubious trivia over and over and over again--was asking them if their families had fared alright in the Oklahoma earthquakes overnight. Their voices faded into background noise as Golden Fawn clutched her medicine bag and chanted in her head. Gradually she started seeing them--not in front of her, but in her mind's eye. Spirits. She held her breath, waiting for them to speak, but they refused to speak to her, instead making menacing gestures at her with claw-like hands. She furtively took out the amber-encased cricket she had possessed since her grandmother, Tripping Girl, had placed it in Golden Fawn's medicine bag at age seven. A body can be trapped in the wrong place forever, Golden Fawn recited in her head, just as her grandmother had done. But the spirit can fly away. Fly away! A few of the ghosts were deeply moved by Golden Fawn's strong magic, and they departed instantly, but others lingered, shaking their fists at her. She tucked the amulet behind a sofa cushion, where its power would glow for three more days--until the twins found it and brought it back to their bedroom to join all the other magic talismans (good and evil) they had collected in the shoe boxes they kept under their beds.

A couple miles to the north, Charles Wu had an amber-encased cricket of his own in his pocket--a good luck charm his mother had recently mailed him from Hong Kong. He was sitting in the back of Musette, currently presiding over an empty private room he had rented for karaoke because his new contact--"Slow Man"--had insisted on it. (Slow Man would not share secrets with somebody unless they had bared their soul first.) Wu sipped his Shanghai Lily cocktail and paged through the song listings. A quarter-hour late, Slow Man finally entered the room. (He was small, thin, and dressed all in yellow, and Wu finally realized where the name had come from.) They shook hands, and Wu started to speak, but Slow Man threw his hand up. "You have to sing first," Slow Man said, sitting down on a bench. Wu returned to the song book, frantically trying to find a choice that would not make him look like a total fool. Slow Man took a sip of his Lemontini, then pulled a toy terrier out of his coat's inside pocket and put the dog in his lap. He smiled weirdly at Wu, who abruptly decided to do one of the Japanese songs because singing in bad Japanese would probably not be as embarrassing as bungling English rock and roll. The two spies stared silently at each other, waiting for the lyrical display to begin.

Back near the White House, Golden Fawn's group was now heading over to check out the Occupy DC tent people in McPherson Square. They found a big commotion near a blue tent, where social worker Hue Nguyen was trying to persuade Freddy Ritchings (AKA Brother Divine of the International Peace Movement) it was time to return to the Arlington group home for the mentally challenged. "Sister, sister, sister--I am no drifter! My place in space is apace with the human race!"

"Freddy, please, everybody misses you," said Nguyen. She had even brought house pet Millie to try to woo him back, and the enormous brown dog was dutifully licking Brother Divine's hand.

"History has been seized because many of us believed! The times they are a-changing, and the souls are rearranging!"

"If you're not there when Dr. Schwartz comes by on Monday, you know what that means!" (By then Ritchings would have been off his meds for three days, and the psychologist would probably have Ritchings sedated and taken away in an ambulance.)

"I'll be there to see the good doctor! I will not fail you, my dear proctor!"

"Will you at least take this?" asked Nguyen, handing Ritchings a small envelope with his pills.

"Of course I will, my heart be still!" said Ritchings, who emptied the pills into his hand and let Millie lick them up. "Together we heal! The wellness is real!" (Nguyen groaned and pulled at Millie's leash to get her home for a dose of ipecac.)

Sebastian L'Arche had also exited the White House and was milling around the Occupy DC crowd waiting for Becky Hartley to come by in her pickup truck for the trip to Potomac Manors, Maryland. "I can't wait to see this cow tipping over!" exclaimed Hartley, as L'Arche climbed in. "Bovine narcolepsy! The fun never ends!" She handed L'Arche her notebook so that he could read what she had written down from the phone call with Mega Moo's owner. "That's a really rich area, too," Hartley said. "You work your magic on the cow, and we might get referrals for a lot of rich people." L'Arche gave her a dejected look. "To raise money for the central mission! Don't worry, I never forget about the central mission!"

Ghost Dennis--who had recently floated out of the White House--caught this conversation from the pickup truck going by. The central mission. What's that? A couple of The Shackled then approached Ghost Dennis to explain the central mission. Maybe I should go back? Maybe I can help with the central mission? The Shackled told Ghost Dennis that the White House was a tough place to fight the good fight. I'm ready! exclaimed Ghost Dennis, and back he went. Change we can believe in....

Hot and Cold

2011-10-29T13:25:00.003-04:00

Business was slow in Chinatown because of the weather, so Lynnette Wong and her protege, Mia, were packing up hot cups of herbal tea to pass out in McPherson Square. Mia had chosen all the herbs herself--something for the pancreas, something for the intestines, something for the lungs, something for chi and general circulation, and cinnamon for flavor--and Wong had nodded approvingly at the choices. Mia was very good at reading English now, and had been reading many stories about Occupy Wall Street and Occupy DC. She had even read that Occupy was happening in her home country. It was her idea to close the store this afternoon when it was clear that foot traffic outside the herb shop was next-to-nothing. Wong had suggested going to a movie at Gallery Place, but Mia had asked if they could do something for the protesters first, so here they were, bundling up with rain ponchos and heading out with 100 cups of herbal tea. It was co-owner Charles Wu's idea to sell hot tea in carry-out cups, and even if he would not have approved of giving out that much free product, maybe he would be pleased that the shop's logo would be on major display in the K Street corridor.

A few miles to the west, the Heurich Society was also talking about Occupy DC, but their idea for free handouts in McPherson Square involved cyanide-laced brownies. Though half of the members were fairly certain that this suggestion was a joke, for the benefit of the other half, the chair stressed that the protesters were small fry and not worth any effort. "Peaceful protests are a dime a dozen in this town. We've got bigger issues to deal with." "Project Cinderella" had been redeployed to Libya to safeguard the Heurich Society's petroleum interests there, but they were worried that Angela de la Paz could not be counted on to do their bidding. ("You promised us a lethal Angelina Jolie type, and instead we've got a goddam feminist out there, always complaining about somebody's rights being trampled somewhere. It's irritating!") Henry Samuelson assured the others that their assassin would deliver what they needed in Libya, but everybody needed a hobby, and her hobby was no big deal. ("No big deal? She's supposed to be infiltrating Project R.O.D.H.A.M., but she's become their patron saint!") Samuelson clenched his teeth and told them they were all being ridiculous--Project Cinderella was doing just fine, but that was more than he could say about Project Occupy. And with that he had shot a glaring look at the Project Occupy Subcommittee chair, who did not yet have his action plan ready. "Yes," said the Heurich Society chairman, clearing his throat. "Perhaps we need to put more people on the Project Occupy Subcommittee?" Samuelson rolled his eyes in disgust, resolving to work on the problem himself--like he did when he was in the CIA; he picked up another doughnut and listened to the cold rain rattle the old windows of the Brewmaster's castle.

Back to the east, Atticus Hawk was also chewing on a doughnut and pondering the wisdom of giving institutional cover to policies that were better left to one-man operations, the way the CIA did it. Here he was at his Justice Department desk with another weekend ruined by another blabbermouth from Guantanamo. This time it was Brandon Neely, a former military police officer--not only was he blabbing to CNN and other reporters about detainee abuse, he was claiming to have visited former prisoners now living in London! And it was Hawk who was supposed to build the case for indicting Neely on the grounds that he had violated his Guantanamo non-disclosure agreement. How am I supposed to argue simultaneously that what Neely described never actually happened at Guantanamo, while also arguing he should be indicted for telling what actually happened at Guantanamo? He had already asked his boss this, but his boss had simply said, "Hawk, that's why we pay you the big bucks," and then snorted at his own joke and exited Hawk's office. He logged onto Facebook to see how many other Guantanamo alumni had friended Brandon Neely. Maybe we can throw you into a Guantanamo cell, Brandon Neely.

Over in McPherson Square, Perry Winkle had brought along some teenagers on another Urban Guerrilla Field Trip. Washington Post "Metro" reporter Winkle had already written three articles about Occupy DC, but today's article would be about the teenagers' interactions with the protesters. He was amazed that seven teens had actually shown up in this horrific weather, but they were truly inspired by his promise that today was the day to find the true-blue, hard-core protesters who were there for the long haul. "Let's start here," Winkle said, pointing to a known Iraqi War veteran's tent. "Why don't you ask him some questions." The veteran came out with a rain poncho on and asked where the camera was. "This is just a print story, sir," said Winkle, as the teens struggled to hold their steno pads under their umbrellas. The veteran sighed, and nodded for the kids to start.

On the opposite corner of McPherson Square, television reporter Holly Gonightly had already interviewed five people--all duly rewarded with croissants and hot cups of Au Bon Pain soup paid for from her expense account. Gonightly was wearing a bright magenta rain poncho that photographed well in the gray light; it also hid the curves that made her a little Too Fat For Television, so she was confident she would have a lot of air time tonight with her impressive reporting on impressive people in the impressive sleet. Then she spotted Lynnette Wong arrive with Mia, the mysterious young girl found having a heat stroke outside Congressman Herrmark's house. "C'mon!" she signaled her shivering cameraman as she headed towards the two and caught them by surprise. "I see you're handing out beverages," said Gonightly, as Mia looked up in surprise and Wong looked up in annoyance. "These are from your herb shop in Chinatown," Gonightly said, signaling the cameraman to do a close-up on the cup logo. "What are you handing out for the protesters here, and what made you decide to come down and do it?"

"Just hot tea," said Wong, ignoring the second part of the question.

"You're not from here, are you?" asked Gonightly.

"Taiwan," said Wong, without another word.

"And you?" asked Gonightly, approaching Mia.

"China," said Mia. (This was the lie that Charles Wu had created for her, but she was cold and uncomfortable and did not feel like testing her lying face right now, so that was all she said.)

"Mainland China?" asked Gonightly, and Mia nodded. "But you're from Taiwan?" asked Gonightly, turning again to Wong. "How did you two meet?"

"In Chinatown," said Wong, and this was not a lie, and this was all she offered.

"And what made you decide to bring this tea for the protesters today?"

"We should help each other," said Mia, in surprisingly good English and a more relaxed manner. She was not as skinny and nervous as the first time Gonightly had seen her, and she was now looking at the reporter with calm and poise.

Gonightly turned back to the camera. "People should help each other! That's the word from Occupy DC today. This is Holly Gonightly reporting from McPherson Square."

Above the trees, the White House ghosts chatted in confusion with The Shackled, nobody certain what was really happening with these people or their souls--nobody except the pink warblers, which sang loudly to scare away the starlings and catbirds.

The Other River

2011-10-22T12:58:00.002-04:00

Atticus Hawk pushed his kayak out from the dock of Bladensburg Waterfront Park. It was cloudy and chilly, but he was probably only going to get in a few more weekends before winter really set in, so he was glad it was not raining. The Anacostia was a filthy little river, and everybody knew it, but it was peaceful, and if you flipped your kayak, the water was only about five feet deep. He would see egrets, herons, mallards, flocks of gulls, and turtle nuclear families (mother/father/baby on a log). And the trees were nice. And there were no power boats or cruise ships or yachts. (And boating on the Potomac also seemed dangerous in some other way he could never quite put his finger on.) It was tiresome to be reminded by the Anacostia Watershed Society that donations would help pay for more wetlands restoration, but coming here was now a habit, so he let the Combined Federal Campaign take $10/month out of his Justice Department paycheck. As he rounded the first bend, he was surprised to see two brown pelicans near the shore. Hmmm, maybe the wetlands restoration is really working.

"Oh, God!" It was a human head in the water, which was bad enough, but then it turned around with its dead eyes staring right at Hawk, who screamed loudly. Then a hand came out of the water and waved at him, and Hawk screamed again.

"Please stop screaming," said Charles Wu in a smooth, British, Hong Kong accent that did not sound like a dead zombie. (Wu was over six feet tall, so the water came up to his neck--that's why only his head was visible.)

"You scared the hell out of me!" protested Hawk.

"Yes, I'm sorry about that! I'm doing underwater power-walking: it aerobicizes every muscle in the body."

"Buddy, this river is full of decades of toxic pollution--you shouldn't be in it!" exclaimed Hawk.

"Oh, I am fortunate enough to possess an unusually vibrant immune system," answered Wu. (And astronomical levels of chi.) "And the wet suit keeps out most of it. You know, you can get really close to the wildlife like this!" (Hawk just shook his head in amazement.) "It is getting colder, though. I'll probably try some paddle surfing in November."

"Okey-dokey," said Hawk, who politely waved goodbye and paddled ahead. ("Whack job.") Soon Hawk was paddling past the small pier of the National Arboretum, where three row boats and a canoe were tethered. A small group of people all dressed in white were conducting a ceremony. (The presider was Becky Hartley, who put on pet weddings to raise money for Sebastian L'Arche's animal-whispering and demon-fighting services.) At the center of the group was a pair of pot-bellied pigs; one was in a white tuxedo, and the other had a white veil stretching from her head to her pigtail. ("Whack jobs.") Then Hawk noticed television reporter Holly Gonightly standing twenty feet to the left, talking to the camera. ("That girl does good stories, but she is too-fat-for-television.")

Hawk paddled on, his mind now completely forgetting everything that stressed him out about being the Justice Department's torture expert. He paddled past Kingman Island, where five canoes had been pulled up onto the swampy shore. He could (barely) see several men in green camouflage outfits walking in single file down the center of the narrow island. (It was the Hunter-Gather Society.) Hawk saw the leader throw up his arms to halt his followers. (It was Glenn Michael Beckmann.) Then the leader motioned his followers to fan out to his right and left. Hawk stopped paddling when he saw them all raise rifles to their shoulders. (They were bb guns.) Hawk tried to figure out what they were aiming at, and then he saw it: the osprey nesting platform built by the schoolchildren. ("Oh, my God! There's an osprey there!") (It wasn't actually an osprey, but Hawk knew it was an osprey nesting platform built by schoolchildren, and he was too far away to see what it really was.) Then an arrow came out of nowhere and whizzed past the huge bird, which bolted the nest and flew away. (It was The Warrior who had shot the warning arrow to scare away the bald eagle.) The Hunter-Gatherer society cursed loudly and turned to see who had shot the arrow from nearby Heritage Island, but all they could see was marsh. (The Warrior was lying flat on his stomach now.) The leader signalled his followers to cross the inlet and search Heritage Island for the interloper, but none of them wanted to get wet. As Hawk saw them turning around to head back to their canoes, he realized he better make himself scarce. (He didn't even have his cellphone with him, let alone a weapon!)

Hawk paddled quickly forward, trying to get to the Anacostia Park Boat Ramp where there might be other people. (He didn't know the Hunter-Gatherer Society was only using bb guns today.) His heart was pounding until he saw a group of people putting in two large canoes. ("Good, strength in numbers.") He thought about asking if any of them had a cellphone, but then he wasn't really sure you could call 911 about men hunting on Kingman Island. ("Is it even illegal?") He decided to let the matter drop, since the bird had gotten away and the hunters were not going after the mystery guy. He smiled and waved at the group now in their canoes--all women! ("Now it's my lucky day!") But he found something about the group strange. For one thing, they all had the exact same color hair, except for two older women with white hair: it was a natural auburn color, and they all had it exactly the same. And none of them waved back--in fact they all seemed to be deliberately turning their faces away from him so he could not see them at all. ("What the --? They're not Muslims with face veils on! They're not Amish. They can't even look at me?") He gave up and paddled quickly past them. ("Whack jobs.") Then it occurred to him that they might be mates for that bunch of hunters back on Kingman Island.

But that's not what they were at all. The two white-haired women whispered reassuringly to their younger selves, and they relaxed as the man's kayak receded. It was always a little nerve-wracking when they all went out together as one group, but sometimes they just really wanted to do something together. The eldest was 70, and she was the original. Every ten years on her birthday, she woke up with a new clone in her bed, and that clone never again aged. The first clone was still ten years old, the second clone was still twenty years old, and so on. They were all the same and yet different. The older ones could understand anybody younger, but the younger ones were still in awe of the older ones. Their mother blamed it all on "Ardua of the Potomac", but she had never given a real explanation of it--not even on her death bed at 99. All she had ever told them was to stick with the Anacostia River, no matter what people said about it, and stay away from the Potomac.

But Ardua of the Potomac was a grand old demon now, and she could stretch her tentacles into the Anacostia whenever she felt like it. (Of course, that wasn't very often because to her it was scarcely more than a stream or creek, and going that way was just going further from the humanity she liked to feed on in Washington!)

Back at the osprey nesting platform, the bald eagle had returned, and she was going to be there awhile.

Survival of the Fittest

2011-10-16T10:20:00.003-04:00

Wolfgang Prowling, the 98-year-old retired partner of Prince and Prowling, entered the office building in his $25,000 motorized wheelchair after flying up from Florida in a Koch Industries private jet. He was accompanied by Chloe Cleavage, who was trying to control the stomach heaves and surging vomit caused by the sight of centimeters of hair sticking out of the man's nostrils. She swiped her fob at the elevator control panel and pressed the button for the penthouse floor. She was fairly certain that a man who smelled like baby wipes was not going to be able to take charge of Operation Koch, but after The Washington Post published a full-page article calling for the Justice Department to investigate Koch Industries under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Koch brothers had howled for Prince and Prowling to restore the status quo ante. (However, half of Prince and Prowling's clients were under FCPA investigation at any given time, so Cleavage suspected this was more about Iran.) She led Prowling towards the office of former Senator Evermore Breadman, where they found him out in the hallway rearranging the photos on his Wall of Me to replace the president of Bank of America with the president of Suntrust. (It seemed he was out here changing his photos nearly every day now.) "BREADMAN!" hollered the retired partner, with a lot more force than Cleavage had thought possible. (And she had never heard anybody call Breadman anything but "Senator" before.) She whispered to Breadman she would be in the war room, and the two men disappeared into Breadman's office. The last thing she heard was: "You told them NOBODY would ever know about Iran! The goddam article said the Koch brothers were doing business with the AXIS OF EVIL!"

Cleavage ran down the hallway as fast as she could, but she had to stop well short of the ladies room and vomit into a wastepaper basket. (How could anybody let hair grow out of his nose like that?! Doesn't he have private nurses to take care of things like that?!) She fled to the ladies room to wipe her face and hit the mouthwash, finally making it back to the war room a quarter hour later, where Bridezilla (dressed in bicycle pants and a Gatorade sweatshirt) was mapping out the lobbying strategy for Operation Koch. (Bridezilla's personal trainer, Armando, was at the end of the table, measuring out creatine and ribose powder for his client's mid-day smoothie. He nodded politely, trying to hide his disdain of Cleavage and her new push-up bra; he had added two inches to Bridezilla's bust through pectoral muscle development!) On the other side of the table, Laura Moreno sat uncomfortably in between Bridezilla and Prince and Prowling's most sullen young partner, Cigemeier. (It was rare for Moreno to be tapped for political or public relations projects, but Cigemeier had found out she could read three foreign languages, so they were going to need her.) Cleavage sat down next to Armando, admiring his clear, flared nostrils...among other things.

Not far away, the Camelot Society was seated at the Federal Reserve round table for a war council of their own. Out in the streets, liberals were calling for Timothy Geithner's head, while conservatives were calling for Ben Bernanke's. The news reporting was actually revealing--much to FRB's surprise--that the Occupy Wall Street mob was actually a well-educated bunch of people with well-articulated grievances. Smoke and mirrors weren't working anymore, nor were bread and circuses. Gross wealth disparity in the country was one statistical fact that even climate science deniers could not find a way to dispute. People were asking why money couldn't be delivered directly to the people who needed it, rather than the banks, and it was getting harder for politicians to give them a satisfactory answer. Luciano Talaverdi knew two of his own relatives had been arrested in violent protests in Rome, and a deep sense of dread had settled all over him. "Everything this data predicted has come true," said Obi Wan woman, opening the meeting with a reference to the Project Eliminati data they had been fed by Charles Wu a year ago. "Congress is paralyzed and will remain so for at least another year. Our country needs us. We can't let it down."

A few miles to the north, the Heurich Society was also sensing that business as usual was vaporizing. World population was approaching seven billion, and very few of them were content. Henry Samuelson chewed his chocolate glazed doughnut in silence, waiting for the others to finish reading his report on the secret underground reservoir built beneath his house in Kansas, which had already diverted and captured ten percent of the dwindling Ogallah aquifer waters--which they all knew would be worth more than petroleum before the century was out, perhaps before the decade was out. "But how can we sell it?" asked the Chair.

"Sell it?!" exclaimed Samuelson. "We're going to need it for ourselves, for our offspring!"

"He's right," said Condoleezza Rice in a crackling voice over the speaker phone. (It was extremely rare for Rice and Samuelson to agree on anything, and this generated a sense of deep anxiety in the room.) "If the ship of state can no longer be steered, we need to build our own lifeboat. And it's not about sustainability," she said, taking a backhand swipe at the initiatives launched by Mayor Gray and other mayors around the country. "It's about survival of the fittest."

Several miles to the south, Glenn Michael Beckmann was also putting together some survival supplies. His Enemies had infiltrated the management of Southwest Plaza, which had spray-painted his bathtub in a covert operation poorly disguised as "bathtub reglazing". He had an orange warning page of things he was NOT supposed to do in his bathtub--for the NEXT 90 DAYS!--as well as instructions for how he was supposed to clean it. Chemical fumes were making his eyes burn, despite having the air conditioning running and the windows wide open. And he knew EXACTLY whom to blame! When his backpack was ready, he sat down for a few more minutes to explain on his blog what had happened: he had clicked on one of the "encountered an error, had to shut down the program, do you wish to send an error report?" messages, and it had obviously gone straight to the National Security Agency! Now they knew where he lived and were trying to poison him to death and make it look like an accident! He published his latest blog entry, shut down the computer, and fled the gas chamber into the brilliant sunshine outside. Maybe I should camp out with the Occupy DC people? However, the first stop on his agenda was to check out the agitators gathered for the Martin Luther King memorial dedication.

Over at the MLK memorial dedication, Sebastian L'Arche watched from a distance as President Obama spoke about civil rights. He pictured the words like cartoon captions written in white clouds that floated over the crowd, then disappeared on the horizon. He had seen those clouds before, heard those words before--but only a few would actually fall down and take root. The dogs on his leashes growled softly at the unseen demon crouching low in the river, Ardua of the Potomac, and he squatted down to pet them and whisper that everything was going to be OK.

The Diary of Washington Water Woman

2011-10-09T19:27:00.002-04:00

When there's just a little peanut butter left in the jar, you can pour some milk in and close the jar and shake it up, and it's like a peanut butter milkshake. Tonight I added a little cereal and called it dinner. This is because my brain has collapsed after a miserable workweek and overly busy weekend. I have only enough synapses still firing to call my niece and wish her a happy birthday, and then my to-do list will finally be complete and I can go to bed. Then next weekend I can return to writing about Washington horrors instead of just living them.

Until then, ponder the horror which is the members of a certain political party in the U.S. Senate who are trying to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by refusing to vote on President Obama's nominee:

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2011/10/consumer-financial-protection-bureau-nominee-faces-senate-vote.html

OccupyDC

2011-10-02T11:08:00.004-04:00

It was cold and damp in Dupont Down Under as Fearless Leader passed out lunch scraps to his flock of freaks. "Thank you, Lord, for the relentless, cleansing rains which washed away the last of the Hunter-Gatherer Society remnants from our humble abode." (He didn't thank the Lord specifically for the increased number of rats, millipedes, worms, and mildew spores, but everybody understood that these were their defense against the likes of the Hunter-Gatherer Society and other invaders.) "And now our guest speaker."

"Ahem," said John Doe, a former corporate attorney with brain-damage-induced amnesia and epilepsy, who now believed (incorrectly) he was an autistic mystic shaman. "Ahem." The sewerage and sewage smells were overpowering, and he feared they would trigger an epileptic attack...though maybe that would work to his advantage. "Seven-hundred of our brethren have been arrested by The Pigs in New York City because they stood up to The Man." (Applause.) "We have seen Occupy Wall Street. We have seen Occupy San Francisco. We have seen Occupy Los Angeles. We have seen Occupy Boston" (He decided not to mention Occupy Albuquerque and the other silly little satellites.) "Now, we have begun Occupy DC!" ("We have?") "YES!" (Applause.) "The Lamestream Media may not be on top of it, but hundreds of brave souls braved the cold and the rain to bravely make a brave stand in McPherson Square against the K Street mafia pimps in bed with Wall Street drug dealers." (Applause.) "Are you ready to join us?" (Silence.) John Doe looked to Fearless Leader for assistance.

"The thing is, John, we have plenty of cold and damp down here. When we take a break, it's usually for something warm and dry...like a library or a Denny's." ("Denny's? When did we go to Denny's? Where's Denny's?")

"Don't you understand!" pleaded John Doe. "Class warfare has finally begun! Greek civilization is fighting back the German threat! Obama is seeking the Buffett rule! There are five Facebook pages devoted to assasination plots for the Supreme Court justices! Wall Street is scared! Politicians are scared! This is our moment to take back K Street for The People!" ("K Street has a Burger King.") "This is not about food!" (Silence.)

"Everything is about food, John," said Fearless Leader.

John Doe sighed. "OK, I'll buy lunch at Burger King for everybody who comes." ("Hooray!") He started making his way to the exit, no longer caring how many of these smelly subterranean leeches followed him out, when his temporal lobe cross-fired, short-circuited, and flipped out. He fell into a trance--tugging at his ears, rolling his eyes, and moaning about K Street and the leeches. Fearless Leader stared in awe at the mystic prophet and vowed to himself to rally the freaks behind him.

A hundred feet above them, Holly Gonightly waited patiently with her camera crew to see if John Doe would emerge like a Pied Piper from Dupont Down Under with a trail of people (or rats) following him in a march over to McPherson Square. She shivered in the damp cold, dreaming of the day she could lose enough weight to give up street reporting and become a news anchor, no longer TFFT (too fat for television). She looked at her Rolex and smiled a little because she had posted several stories about looking for its true owner but nobody had claimed it yet. She caressed it gently, oblivious to her cameraman's using the zoom lens to capture the moment--oblvious that he had a web-based reality series with thousands of followers secretly watching her obsession with the Rolex on a daily basis. "Oh, this crappy cold! What the hell is wrong with the weather?!" She looked at her cameraman, who had already turned the camera back to the Dupont Down Under entrance. She sipped more hot coffee from her thermos and dreamed of the spot on the dresser where she would put the Pulitzer prize, right next to the velvet-lined box she kept the Rolex in.

Already at McPherson Square was Henry Samuelson, taking a few more photos of the evil communist agitators before heading to his Heurich Society meeting. He was dreading the meeting because there was going to be a huge argument with Condoleezza Rice about whether or not to move Project Cinderella to Saudi Arabia to take advantage of the sudden decree that women could vote and run for office. (Personally, he didn't see how it made the slightest difference, since their brothers and fathers and husbands could still refuse to let them leave the house, but Angela de la Paz wanted badly to go, so the Heurich Society needed to figure out how to leverage the opportunity to advance the goals of Project Prometheus inside Saudi Arabia.) He put his camera away and trudged off, his combination umbrella and tranquilizer gun keeping him dry. Those Saudis won't know what hit them when "she whose gaze must be avoided" (because anybody who sees her unveiled dies) hits the petroleum kingdom of vipers.

On K Street, former Senator Evermore Breadman pulled his car over for a moment to take a look at the OccupyDC protesters in McPherson Square. He tapped his fingers nervously on the steering wheel, not because it looked like a big deal but because these groups were sprouting up all over the country and his clients were calling him in alarm from all over the country. Then there was satirist Stephen Colbert, who had audaciously set up a Delaware 501(c)(4) corporation called "Anonymous Shell Corporation" so he could imitate and lampoon the Karl Rove shell corporation set up to channel anonymous millionaire donations into the American Crossroads Super-PAC. Breadman's phone was ringing off the hook, with everybody from the Koch brothers to Rex W. Tillerson asking if the "damned comedian" was going to succeed in blowing the lid off of Delaware's dirty little secret. (“So I can get money for my (c)(4), use that for political purposes, and nobody knows anything about it until six months after the election?” Colbert asked on his TV program. “Yes,” Colbert's attorney said. “And even then they won’t know who your donors are.” “That’s my kind of campaign finance restrictions!” Colbert said, before asking his attorney how this was different from money laundering. “It’s hard to say,” replied the attorney.) Breadman had watched the clip a dozen times and still had no clue what to do about it, if anything, but his clients didn't seem very thrilled with his "it'll blow over" speech, and a few had hinted they might seek advice from rival law firm Lye, Cheit, and Steele. Breadman pulled away from the curb and headed to his office at Prince and Prowling to do what they paid him the big bucks to do.

The named partners from Goode Peepz law firm pulled over to the curb just vacated by former Senator Evermore Breadman to take a better look at OccupyDC. The partners were discussing whether this fledgling little band of wannabe revolutionaries might be just the ticket they were looking for to catapult their public interest law firm into the forefront of justice (and into the news). Advantages? Nobody else had claimed them yet, and their constituency was probably the constituency Goode Peepz wanted. Disadvantages? The group looked penniless, for starters. Also, it had not yet announced the decisions of its first general assembly, so God knew what they were going to stand for. After ten minutes, Goode and Peepz agreed that they could always drop them as clients if need be, and it was time to strike while the iron was hot.

Up in the trees of McPherson Square, rival flocks of sparrows and starlings were huddling for warmth, not yet having grown their winter feathers. A catbird tried to imitate the protesters' "this is what democracy looks like!" chant, but it came out as a sing-song garble. Cooing pigeon doves and hungry ducks waddled around the grass, scrounging up bits of bagel and pizza crusts. A sole raven watched from atop the mounted horse statue--it isn't enough. The White House ghosts got bored and flew back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to wreak more havoc there.

Self-affirmations

2011-09-19T13:16:00.003-04:00

Clio was using the last few minutes of her White House lunch hour to open her mail. Her last set of lab tests totaled $2,001; patient co-pay responsibility, $203. She was the kind of person the insurance companies hated to have in the system, even though the truth was that her doctor's hyper-vigilant monitoring of her HIV infection was keeping her from having astronomical hospitalization bills. She popped the lunchtime portion of her 30 daily pills into her mouth, took a few swallows of water, and got up to return to her post as butler. I am a mother and a friend and a valued employee. I deserve medical care to stay alive. She blew her nose, looked in the mirror, and reached for her make-up bag to add some artificial glow to her sallow complexion. She kissed a framed photo of her twins, then headed out.

A couple miles to the north, Liv Cigemeier was also pushing herself out of her lunch hour and back to work. I am a valued employee. I am helping the less fortunate build better lives for themselves. She walked into the International Development Machine conference room for a presentation by Bo-Oz on their newest 5G consulting recommendation, picked up the colorful handout full of maps, pie charts, bar graphs, and photographs of frowning Colombian children, and then looked up at the first presentation slide: "Channeling cocaine revenue to the people that need it the most." Cigemeier grimaced, put down her pen, and picked up a Bo-Oz labeled chocolate mint from the snack plate.

A couple miles to the east, a Government Printing Office police officer was just returning from Union Station, still wiping chocolate chip mint ice cream off his face, pondering whether he was ready to go after something more challenging--like guarding the Federal Reserve! He leaned over to look in his police car rear-view mirror to make sure his moustache was clean. I am a brave and skilled police officer. I play an important role in guarding our nation's government workers. ("Get 'em!") The officer turned around to see a pudgy, middle-aged caucasian male with a crew cut running as fast as he could [not very fast] away from the loading dock. ("He started a fire in the east store room!") The officer jumped into his car, started the engine, turned on the lights and siren, then sped down the driveway--only to slam on his brakes because North Capitol Street was jammed with cars and he couldn't get out. He jumped out of the GPO police car and started running after the suspect, now half a block away. The officer fired his gun into the air to clear the pedestrians off the sidewalk, but the arsonist joined the others in jumping off the sidewalk and got lost in the crowd. Then two D.C. policemen on horseback galloped over and ordered the GPO police officer to holster his gun.

The arsonist struggled to catch his breath as he watched the police officers arguing, then rejoined the crowd of pedestrians resuming their place on the sidewalk. I'm good! They can't touch me! He followed the walk signal across Massachusetts Avenue. Wasting taxpayer money on elitist propaganda prepared by the corrupt intelligentsia for the bourgeois sheep! Ha! He decided to continue his plan of establishing an alibi by attending a presentation at the Washington legislative office of the Sierra Club, and a few minutes later he was scowling at the pretentious drop-leaf ceiling art above the perky Sierra Club receptionist. "I'm Glenn Michael Beckmann," he said, "and I'm on the list. Put a check mark by my name!" He turned on his secret tape recorder and walked into the conference room.

Over on Capitol Hill, Congressman Herrmark walked into the hearing room for his first pointless debate on President Obama's new jobs bill. He--along with 90% of his party--would just vote as their leadership told them to. If we can't squeeze any earmarks in, what does it matter? Ann Bishis sat down dutifully behind him--he used to bring her because she was a woman and because she never yawned, but he found himself listening to his (young!) counsel more frequently since she saved his ass in the Mia crisis. He turned to the second page of his notes and saw that Bishis had inserted a yellow post-it note with a sketch of King Kong on the Empire State Building, followed by the words "King C.O.N.G. - Coal, Oil, Nukes, Gas". He turned and smiled at her, grateful that she always took the time to insert something for him to smile about during these blowhard sessions. I am a U.S. Congressman. I am serving my constituents. I-- A commotion behind him erupted upon the spilling of coffee on the carpeting. "Not me! I'm playing the Mormon card!" joked a young scrub-face in a cheap suit, only to be met with no laughter and lots of glaring. "We don't drink caffeinated beverages, right?" Ann Bishis laughed politely, then exchanged a glance with Congressman Herrmark.

Back at the White House, President Obama was gargling with mouthwash before his next meeting. I'm the President of the United States. I WILL get people back to work! He took a deep breath and stepped out, unwittingly puncturing his left sole on a thumb tack in the carpet.

Out in the river, Ardua of the Potomac was already bored with Congress and looking forward to the launch of the next Supreme Court season...and the Pentagon's growing involvement in a land war in Africa.

***************
Washington Water Woman is heading out of town and will return to blogging in October.

Twisted Legacy

2011-09-12T19:31:00.004-04:00

Laura Moreno walked out of the Prince and Prowling office building and directed her steps towards the sunset--towards home. She still hated her job. Ten years ago, she had been sworn into the D.C. Bar by a very somber judge who had told them--mere days after 9/11--that some of them would be called upon to represent suspected terrorists and protect civil liberties. In her ten years in D.C., it was the only decent and respectable thing she had ever heard a D.C. judge say. And the only terrorists she had ever represented were the financial criminals who had crippled the nation with their greed and bogus math; the only civil liberties she had ever protected were--"Hey! You!"--Moreno jumped at the sight of the homeless man leaping from his Urine Park bench in her direction, and she took off running until she caught up with a group of pedestrians on the next block. I can't help anybody. Did I really let them suck it all out of me?

A few miles to the north, reporter Holly Gonightly was swimming laps at the Marie Reed Recreation Center, still overloaded with the past three days' worth of 9/11-related reporting. Lately she felt anxious when at the pool, though she didn't know why since swimming had always been her favorite activity. (It was because her pool visits were the only time she left her cursed Rolex at home.) She hadn't eaten a thing all day, desperate to lose five more pounds. She had produced five excellent pieces on 9/11 survivors and remembrances, and only three of them had made it on the air--and those three had been reedited so that most of her voiceovers were off camera. Too fat for television! She tried to swim harder, but her muscles were buckling from acid overload. Those people I interviewed didn't care if I was TFFT! They don't care about superficial shit! She hit the wall--literally, because she was doing the backstroke and was no longer able to focus. She grabbed the wall and inhaled deeply, then looked around the pool. The skinny woman in the purple suit was there again, apparently trying to teach herself how to swim by slowly going a few strokes out of the shallow end, then returning to the shallow end, then repeating the exercise--just four strokes away from the shallow end before returning to it. I could interview her. Gonightly's brain started framing the story, then she stopped. I can't film here in a bathing suit, and I can't film here in a business suit. I need to drop 10 pounds before she teaches herself how to swim. Gonightly looked at the lifeguard, who was staring intently at her iPhone and nothing else--not the woman who could barely swim, not the senior citizen panting heavily in the corner, not the creep in the AC/DC t-shirt who just sat on a bench and watched other people swim, not at the obvious anorexic who was shivering from lack of blood flow, not even at the hunky Greg Louganis doppelganger slicing through the water to Gonightly's right. I could bring a hidden camera in here and nab the lifeguard. Her legs had stopped shaking, so she got out of the water, desperately hungry; she had been dieting for ten years, ever since her high school video report on graduating seniors signing up to go to Afghanistan was aired on the local television station with her body airbrushed so much that nobody at her school even recognized her as the reporter in it. Those boys all died in Afghanistan, and her tribute to them was a video nobody wanted to watch.

A couple miles away, Congressman Herrmark was using his secret online identity to promote Food and Water Watch's White House phone-in day September 13th to tell President Obama to ban hydrofracking, and this was making him very nervous. For one thing, what did his Greek bodyguards even know about how to protect him from cyberstalkers? And worms? And cyberterrorists? He didn't even know what those things were, so it seemed impossible that they would know. And he was nervous because he had poured so much time and money into this secret operation (for he dared not go up against the Halliburton mafia publicly at this time) that he had not been able to put much into his offical 9/11 commemorations and public service events. My constitutents will never know how much I do for them! Frankly, public service was becoming a drag for Congressman Herrmark, what with all the budget deficits and lack of earmarks. Without his little Asian girl here, he just had a hard time feeling inspired about anything.

Down in Dupont Down Under, there was also a lack of inspiration. Some Afghanistan War veterans and Iraqi War veterans had smuggled back some cake from the 9/11 remembrance event Congressman Herrmark had held on Sunday, but it tasted cheap, not like the nice half-eaten desserts they frequently found in forgotten carry-out containers left on Dupont Circle benches after post-dinner smoochings. And there were no good speeches, or music stars. Somehow the people that died in the Twin Towers were still getting all the attention. We're at war, we're at war, we're at war. But that wasn't true--the whole country was never at war. But the rich were richer and safer than ever while everybody else could choose to die quickly in a foreign land or slowly while the economic masterminds continued to poison the air, the water, and the land--except for the parts fenced off and bottled for the rich. Serve the masters or die; the only choice was which master? And Fearless Leader had said a hundred things about 9/11, and they all amounted to nothing.

A few miles to the north, Charles Wu was also trying to recover from 9/11 overload when he got the news (along with everybody else) that official Chinese weapons merchants had tried to land a cool $200 million in sales to Moammar Gadhafi when he still thought he had a chance to suppress the revolution. Brilliant! Vote at the U.N. to embargo everybody else from shipping in weapons while you secretly sell him your own! Only one problem, China--M.I.A.! Wu was sipping a gin and tonic on his balcony, looking down on the glittering lights of the Capitol. Missing intelligence activity! He shook his head, understanding better why his Chinese handlers kept pushing him for more intelligence on the Arab world--but even a school child could have told them it was a $200 million bet on a lame horse! Then the evidence of China's bad bet was plucked from the palace garbage of Tripoli! Wu shook his head. The Arab world was like a 20-headed dragon with splinters in every foot. He desperately wanted to go back to being the British-Hong Kong double agent, soliciting secrets from gentlemen in silk suits and beautiful women without veils. And spying on the U.S.? The U.S. couldn't decide whether chopping off dragon heads or removing dragon splinters was the best way to get it to stop violently leaping around. I hate 9/11, thought Charles Wu, who could not be refuted for claiming it ruined his life.

Not far away, Sebastian L'Arche was sitting on the steps of the earthquaked National Cathedral, watching Becky Hartley stage a $700 doggie wedding, with several of his clients' leashed dogs jumping around anxiously because they could smell the venison cake inside the box. The Iraq War seemed a million miles away and a million years away now--not because he could not remember it but because it was so utterly pointless. He looked at the scar on his hand where he had knifed out his own tattoo and won his one-way loony ticket back to the good ole U.S. of A. Hartley winked at him, and he smiled at her. She believes in me, he thought. She had raised $12,000 from doggie and cat weddings so that the dog whisperer could hire more dog walkers and spend more of his own time fighting the evil demons that surrounded them; but he still liked to walk dogs.

Miles away, President Obama was staring out an East Wing window looking for stars--they were so hard to see here. I got Bin Laden. It was a campaign promise he had never made, and the ones he had made were slipping away, and fury held a not-so-secret beachhead in his heart.

When it rains, it pours.

2011-09-07T11:21:00.004-04:00

Former Senator Evermore Breadman was in a sour mood. First of all, his wife had called to tell him that her Mercedes had been struck by lightning on Chain Bridge. Breadman was not one to care what the hell his wife did when he was at his Prince and Prowling office, nor did he want to know why she was on Chain Bridge, but he really thought she had more sense than to leave the house in the midst of a violent thunderstorm. Or had she already been out and was now on her way home? And why did she call him, anyway, instead of AAA? What did she expect him to do about it? Then there was this snowballing Koch brothers fiasco. It was bad enough that the far-left liberals had gotten hold of the guest list and audio tape from the millionaire's club June meeting in Colorado, but the story was getting dangerously close to the mainstream, and the spin was that Charles Koch had called Barak Obama "Saddam Hussein" and referred to the presidential campaign of 2012 as the "mother of all wars". (What kind of nimrod says that and does not expect a tape recording to leak out?!) The real problem was that it was not just millionaires and Glenn Beck types and Rush Limbaugh types who attended, and he didn't care if fat cat New Jersey governor Chris Christie was there, nor the obscure Florida governor, but if the mainstream media picked up on the attendance of presidential hopeful Rick Perry, this was a major problem. The Obama reelection campaign had already trumpeted the news to its base, and it was not inconceivable that the question would be raised in the next Republican presidential debate. And he had no defensive spin to offer Perry, even though a third of the millionaire's club was phoning him incessantly about the issue. It was one thing to give political consulting to businessmen who needed a wise Washington insider, but it was getting to the point where complete morons were calling him up for advice. How could he help people who were that transparent about buying an election? (Or am I old-fashioned?)

In her new partner's office nearby, Bridezilla was thrilled to have enough space for an elliptical machine and weights apparatus. Armando, her increasingly flirtatious personal trainer, would read case materials out loud to her while she exercised. If she had to be on the computer, he would use that time to massage her neck and shoulders, or crawl under her spacious desk and massage her feet and ankles. (He had started massaging her knees and quadraceps one time, but she had giggled and said he better save that for the evening session.) When she was on the phone, he set it up on speaker and led her through a series of yoga stretches. Armando fed her small snacks and protein drinks throughout the day, and she was never tired or hungry. She could bill eleven hours/day while scarcely noticing the time go by--except for days when she had to bathe and dress for a meeting, but Armando would close her door and sponge-bathe her in five minutes flat (she didn't mind his seeing her nude because he really did need to in order to evaluate her progress), and then she would throw on a silk dress, jacket, and lipstick, and be on her way. She had never felt more alive, energetic, and productive in her entire life!

Several miles to the north, real estate mogul Calico Johnson was waiting for the moment he would feel more alive and energetic--because after a thunderstorm passes, his new neighbor had said, the air is charged with negative ions that recharge our mental batteries. His gorgeous blond neighbor had told him this during his hurricane party--the one in which he had conveniently forgotten to invite anybody but her, but had stilled failed to score. (All he had to show for the hurricane was several down trees and three empty propane tanks from running his generator.) Now he was hunkered down in his neighbor's small barn, where Johnson had gently led his neighbor's pet cow to her stall at the first sound of thunder. But his lovely Potomac Manors neighbor wasn't even at home! Here he was, stuck in a barn with senior citizen Mega Moo for what could be hours, and she wasn't even home! Sometimes he felt as if he could never catch a break. Like when he paid the money for that millionaire's seminar in Colorado, and it was all about hitting people up for political contributions, and nothing was about how to increase his own wealth! Sure, the right politicians might lower his taxes, but there was no guarantee of that--they didn't tell him one single thing that would increase his own income this year! (MOOOOOO!) Johnson looked at Mega Moo, appalled. "You really do have the loudest moo on the farm, don't you?"

Back downtown, Bo was not taking the thunderstorm any better. "Bo had never had trouble with thunderstorms before," they told dog whisperer Sebastian L'Arche, "but that changed with the hurricane." Becky Hartley (who had begged L'Arche to get her screened for the White House just in case they ever needed him again) was deliriously excited to be inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, even if they were in the basement. This too shall pass, L'Arche was whispering to the Portuguese water dog, who continued to shake out his fur even though there was not a drop of water left from his morning excursion. (No, it won't, said Bo.) The dog's eyes were darting around the room, as if he had never conquered his fear of ghosts. What are the ghosts doing? whispered L'Arche. The thunder crashed again, and Bo jumped into Hartley's arms. (They talk to him all night long, while he's asleep. If I try to wake him up to warn him, he gets mad at me! If I bark at them to chase them away, the First Lady gets mad at me! What am I supposed to do?) L'Arche nodded and looked deeply into the dog's eyes. Tell me what they say to him, whispered L'Arche.

A couple miles away, John Doe was perched on the Roosevelt Island beach, screaming at the roiling water: "Tell me what you say to them!" The attire of the brain-damaged former attorney was raggedy on a good day, but looked in danger of coming off in wet pieces when the Coast Guard cutter approached.

"Do you need assistance, sir?" asked the first mate, but Marcos Vazquez could now recognize who it was and shook his head.

"I've seen this guy before--he has temporal lobe epilepsy," said Vazquez to the first mate.

"No, I don't!" said John Doe, whose temporal lobe epilepsy had led him to have super hearing. "I am an autistic mystic!" (He had been watching a lot of documentaries lately, and had decided this made more sense.) "I'm a shaman! It is my duty to free us from the evil spirits suffocating Washington!" (His helping dog Lucky Charm was lying quietly on the beach, scanning the skies for lightning; his usual job responsibility was mitigating epileptic seizures, and he didn't worry about harmless crazy talk.)

"Why don't you and your dog come inside and dry off?" said the first mate.

"Dry off?! Are you mad?! I am the one who has summoned the cleansing rain!" (Thunder boom on cue.) "Feel the power!"

"OK, buddy, I think you better come off the island now. We'll grab your canoe in a minute."

John Doe knew that when they switched from "sir" to "buddy", it usually meant he would be put back in the hospital, so he took off running into the woods, and Lucky Charm ran after him.

"Now what?" asked the first mate.

"Just leave him," said Vazquez, a Puerto Rican. "A little rain never hurt anybody." But Vazquez knew that John Doe wasn't up against only rain.

Up in the trees, the Warrior and Angela de la Paz watched the activity below and pondered Ardua's next move.

**************************
COMING UP: 9/11 legacies.

Soft Touch

2011-08-31T11:08:00.004-04:00

Atticus Hawk's copy of Dick Cheney's memoir, "In My Time", sat squarely in the center of his desk, next to his canary yellow Justice Department legal pad full of notes. He had done nothing since 1:07 pm yesterday but analyze it--per the instructions of Attorney General Eric Holder after the Amnesty International protesters delivered it with a letter demanding that Cheney be investigated for the torture crimes outlined in the book. The book now had three red flags sticking out the side for incidences that Hawk (the Justice Department's torture specialist) believed could be investigated for show with a minimum amount of damage. The jacket cover of the book lay at the bottom of Hawk's shredder, where it was relegated after being vandalized by a mysterious interloper with a Sharpie who had changed the title to "In My Dick". (He suspected Ava Kahdo Green, but he really didn't care.) The hardback now sat unprotected and vulnerable, and if somebody took a Sharpie to it now, he would have to replace it--probably with his own money. The few hours of sleep he had snatched last night had been haunted by the orange jumpsuit-clad protesters, except their heads had all been replaced by raccoon heads with Dick Cheney eyeglasses on. The nightmare was precisely the sort of thing Ava Kahdo Green would feel triumphant in getting a man to confess, but he would take this secret dream to the grave. (She had teased him for three weeks after hearing about his nightmare of George W. Bush singing "Bad Romance" as a serenade to Osama bin Laden.) It never ends.

A few miles to the south, Glenn Michael Beckmann was sitting on his Southwest Plaza balcony. He was trying to read "In My Time", but it was very boring compared to the exciting stack of yard sale books he had recently purchased (for $3!) about Pol Pot. He really liked the idea of exterminating all the parasitic intellectuals with soft hands and eyeglasses! But he did not really understand the purpose of driving city-dwellers back into the Cambodian farm fields. Hell, if they weren't interested in growing food, they were just gonna end up growing marijuana or poppies! How would that help the Khmer Rouge? (But if he could adopt some of these Pol Pot ideas for the Hunter-Gatherer Society, it could really reenergize his troops.) He read a few more paragraphs from Cheney's book, but they all sounded the same--whining, whining, whining about every single instance when somebody disagreed with him in the slightest. Pol Pot wouldn't have whined! Pol Pot would have beaten them to death with sticks! Were Cheney's hands too soft to beat someone to death with sticks? The real estate demon living in the parking garage reached a tentacle up to Beckmann's balcony and poked him in the eye to remind him that Cheney also had eyeglasses. Then the real estate demon whispered, "Cheney's the one who's been leaving anonymous hate comments on your blog."

Several miles to the north, ex-CIA agent Henry Samuelson was also trying to slug his way through Dick Cheney's whiny book--which, to his reading, had no redeeming value except the tidbit about Condoleezza Rice's weeping in Cheney's office about making a public relations mistake. (First the Gaddafi photo journal about Condoleezza Rice's visit to Libya, now this!? Surely the Chair of the Heurich Society will finally concede it was a mistake to allow a woman into the Society!) If Cheney's biggest complaint about George W. Bush was that he only shortened Scooter Libby's prison sentence instead of pardoning the numbnuts, Cheney was the most delusional political leader this city had ever seen! And a wuss, too lazy to write his own memoirs without help from his lesbian daughter! Ambitious bitch, trying to ride his coattails to political office on a don't-close-Gitmo-the-terrorists-will-come-and-kill-us platform! Samuelson was proud of his own daughter--who didn't go around telling people about her sexuality or use her dad to advance her own career! Where is she, anyway? It suddenly occurred to Samuelson that he hadn't heard from Button in quite a long time.

Not far away, Button Samuelson was inside one of the condo buildings owned and managed by Caljohn Management, LLC. More precisely, she was making a secret inspection of the balcony of owners Golden Fawn and Marcos Vazquez after incessant complaints from "I'm a lawyer" Chloe Cleavage that it was a public health hazard. Samuelson took photos of the herb garden, petunia pots, hanging ferns, and tomato and pepper plants. Then she took a few photos of the Compost Cab container--which was the basis of the complaint. She had assured her boss (and occasional lover) Calico Johnson that her spook father had given her expert olfactory training from an early age, and she could smell anything, but there was no offensive odor leaking from the Compost Cab container; nor were there any insects anywhere near it. She pulled out her cellphone to telephone the Compost Cab company and get some more information, then wrote down on her steno pad: "The container is designed with a very tight seal, and we pick it up every week. It's the perfect composting system for apartment dwellers, and we'ver never had a complaint about it." Samuelson concluded there was only one reasonable explanation, which was that Ms. Cleavage, Esquire, saw the word "compost" from her own balcony and simply imagined the smell; there might also be an unreasonable explanation, namely that new owner Ms. Cleavage, Esquire, had already gotten in some kind of a feud with her neighbors and was looking for a way to attack them. This is my life? Samuelson shook her head and sat down on a patio chair to contemplate how she had ended up investigating decomposing produce for a living.

A few miles to the south, attorney Laura Moreno was also slumped in a chair contemplating how she had ended up with such a lame job and no exit strategy. She had recently had a glimmer of hope that she might get a Justice Department job, but her squeaky-clean Girl-Scout-like existence had failed to ensure a smoothe background check, and after weeks of being asked to submit fingerprints and the same paperwork over and over and over again, she had finally given up. Then she found out that a former Prince and Prowling contract attorney (the Braggart) was going around Washington telling everybody that Moreno had gotten her fired from Prince and Prowling, which was a complete lie. Now Bridezilla had been promoted to partner after her stunning, intellecutally average but politically connected, debt-ceiling intervention, and she and partner Cigemeier were in some kind of weird contest to assert influence over Moreno. In the latest skirmish, Bridezilla had sought Moreno's assistance in performing a quality check on the review done for a client which had recently sued another law firm for legal malpractice; Bridezilla had accompanied this work request with an Edible Arrangements bouquet and a notecard touting the anti-oxidants and fiber found in the fruit selection. Then Cigemeier had asked if she could work through the Labor Day weekend to help him run database searches in response to a Justice Department subpoena; Cigemeier had accompanied this work request with an invitation to connect to him on Linked In. Moreno couldn't do both unless she cut back on sleep in a most injurious way, and she had no idea how to go over two partners' heads to find out what the real priority was. Therefore, she had sent both partners an email asking if she could perform the work in their offices while they were out, since the workroom had the dead rodent-in-the-ceiling smell again, and she was waiting to see which partner came through for her. FOR HER! Then Moreno frowned, wondering if she was pushing her luck. A reply came back from Bridezilla first: "Of course! Also, I was thinking of setting you up with an old friend from law school. Interested?" Then her email in-box dinged again, and Cigemeier had written: "Of course! And I will contact Facilities about the rodent. That is unacceptable! And after the summer associates leave, there will probably be an office open on my floor." Moreno bit her lip and fretted.

A couple miles away, a raven alit next to Golden Fawn as she ate her lunch outside the National Museum of the American Indian. It told her there was a stranger on her balcony at home. "Is he evil?" Golden Fawn whispered. "She," the raven whispered, "is confused, but not evil." Golden Fawn thought about phoning her husband but decided to wait and see how things felt when she got home. She went back inside to her office, where a cart of newly catalogued Seminole tokens and fetishes were awaiting her gentle relocation to display cases; she could still feel the gentle summer breeze on her face all afternoon.

Out in the river, Ardua of the Potomac sulked in hatred of gentle summer breezes and remained in withdrawal from the thrilling ride of the hurricane. It's time for somebody to rile up this city again!

Mother Nature Bats Last

2011-08-27T10:05:00.002-04:00

Glenn Michael Beckmann was positioned a short distance from the Tar Sands Action crowd in Lafayette Park, behind a bush so that White House cameras could not pick him up. He peered through his binoculars to see if he recognized anybody in the crowd, but all these commie, save-the-Earth types looked the same: messy hair, old t-shirts, rumpled shorts, sensible shoes, backpacks, fannypacks. And children! They liked to bring their children, to corrupt them in their infancy. He muttered about their chatter he heard on his super hearing aid--blaming global warming for Hurricane Irene--and pulled out the poison blowdart he had been practicing with for days.

Several miles to the north, Marcos Vazquez was having a leisurely breakfast with his wife before reporting to the Coast Guard for what would probably be a 24-hour shift. He was uneasy about leaving her in the condo after the management company had identified some foundation cracks after the earthquake, but Golden Fawn kept saying they had probably been there all along. He was sipping coffee and watching the television coverage of Hurricane Irene while Golden Fawn was on the internet. He finally got up and walked over to the desk where she sat reading the latest update on www.tarsandsaction.org.

"You should have told me you were planning to get arrested," he said.

"It was a spontaneous decision," she answered without skipping a beat, as if she had been awaiting the question for days. "The civil disobedience is important. People have come from all over the U.S. and Canada to--"

"I know that," he interrupted. "The point is that I work for the U.S. Coast Guard, and now you have an arrest record."

"That's right," she answered. "You work for the U.S. Coast Guard, not me."

"It could inhibit your future life choices," he said.

"The tar sands pipeline will inhibit our future life choices more," she said.

"I know that," he said, with growing impatience. "Don't act like I don't know that!"

"I'm not sure you really do," she said. "It's a bigger threat than terrorists. You're going to be on a lot more hurricane watches, for starters."

"Don't oversimplify things!" he exclaimed, and she finally looked up from the computer, dismayed at the roughness in his voice. He immediately regretted it, melting at the sight of her pained expression. "I just mean we're married now: you need to consult me when you make big decisions like that. I would have consulted you! And I don't think it's worth it."

She had thought he knew, but now she realized he did not know how unbound she felt to the laws and governments of the United States of America. But her husband was bound, and she began pondering whether he felt personally insulted and disrespected by her decision. She searched his eyes in silence for a moment. "Next time I'll call you first," she finally said, standing up and taking him by the hand. "You'll be gone a long time--let's not fight anymore today." She kissed him and then led him back to the bedroom.

Over on Capitol Hill, Sebastian L'Arche and Becky Hartley had their hands full exercising their third pack of dogs today before the tropical storm blew in. Though every animal he had seen on Tuesday showed signs of distress during the quarter-hour before the earthquake, they were all completely oblivious about the much more threatening hurricane coming from the Atlantic Ocean. "I can't come to your hurricane party," Hartley was saying in her Bluetooth. ("You can go," L'Arche whispered.) "We're gonna have a house full of unhappy critters tonight." (L'Arche wasn't exactly sure if he and Becky were friends or business partners or both, but it still seemed strange to hear her talk about his pet operations with the word "we".) "I mean, he can only do the dog whisperer thing so much!" she laughed. "Some of those babies are just gonna wanna be in my lap!" (L'Arche nodded in involuntary agreement with this.) "Hey, why don't you bring the hurricane party to us?!" ("What?!") "It'll be like a Noah's Ark party!" ("Becky, uhh--") "Alright, but I think we're gonna have more fun than you will!" She clicked her Bluetooth and turned to L'Arche. "You think the basement will flood? You think we'll pick up more strays? Oh, I forgot to tell you, my daddy sent me a FedEx overnight package full of doggy Prozac if we need it--I told him you never use stuff like that, but he sent it anyway. Hey, Seb, what do you think the hurricane will do to...you know?" (She made what he interpreted to be a monster face.)

"The demons?"

She laughed nervously. "Yeah!"

"They'll like it a lot."

A few miles to the south, Ardua of the Potomac was watching bemusedly as Washington Post Metro reporter Perry Winkle towed along some teenagers on an Urban Guerrilla Field Trip to the Anacostia to see the oil spill. "Scientists have been taking samples for two weeks, but they have not yet identified what it is," Winkle said, paddling the rowboat a little closer to the shore.

"How can they not know what it is? What about DNA and all that jazz?"

"Well, they were running standard tests first, expecting it to be some type of petroleum mixture, or a common chemical. DNA testing costs a lot," said Winkle.

"Why don't the Post do the DNA test? You can have investigative reporting, somethin' like that."

"If I had the budget, believe me, I would!" said Winkle.

"Well you can't just let it sit there for weeks, and nobody knows what it is! That's crazy!"

"Yes, it is," said Winkle. "That's why I brought you to show it to you. We don't know what it is, and twelve hours from now, it might be sprayed all over southeastern Washington. That's enough photos--save some for after the hurricane, kids!"

Suddenly a Coast Guard boat came around the bend of Kingman Island, and Winkle knew their time was up--the kids had to go home, and he had to start another shift of reporting on empty bread and water shelves at the grocery stores.

Many miles away, television reporter Holly Gonightly had completed her own mandatory piece on empty store shelves and was now filming another piece on the denizens of Dupont Down Under. They were asking, as always, when they were gonna be on television, and, as always, she told them she could not guarantee it. "It's not your fault," she always said. "Sometimes the producer just has other pieces he thinks are more newsworthy." Gonightly had been trying for months to lose weight so that she would not be TFFT (too fat for television), but all she accomplished was seeing her fat move around from face to arms to thighs, and then back to her face. She had gotten a lot of air time when she first began reporting on the found Rolex, but as time went by and nobody stepped forward to claim it, the producer stopped airing the story. "I really think this time it'll happen!" she said to the denizens of Dupont Down Under. She was almost giddy with the thought of how catastrophic it would be for a torrential tropical monsoon to sweep into the tunnels, destroy their meager belongings, and leave several people dead--maybe even Afghanistan War veterans! Her cameraman indicated they were rolling, and she turned to the Fearless Leader. "This is Holly Gonightly reporting from Dupont Down Under, a hundred feet below Dupont Circle. Shouldn't you evacuate to higher ground?" Her eyes were gleaming in anticipation of his insane answer.

"We've survived worse," Fearless Leader said. (Gonightly stifled a laugh. No, I don't think you have!) "We've succeeded in reconciling with The Beaver, and he's building a dam for us to keep the water out."

"One dam?" Gonightly asked. "Isn't there more than one way water can get down here?"

"Well, uhh...." Fearless Leader looked around in panic. "I think The Beaver knows what he's doing."

"What if he's double-crossing you?" asked Gonightly, and her cameraman gave her a puzzled look, but she didn't notice.

"No, no! He wouldn't do that! We're reconciled!"

Gonightly turned back to the camera. "Dozens of homeless people living beneath Dupont Circle are depending on 'The Beaver' [she made air quotation marks at that point] to build a 'dam' [more air quotation marks] to save them from Hurricane Irene." (She liked having an excuse to raise her hands and show off the [cursed] Rolex.)

"I have an Aunt Irene," Fearless Leader suddenly interjected. "I had a dream about her last night, and she said everything will be fine!"

"Everything will be 'fine' [air quotation marks]," said Gonightly, "according to 'Aunt Irene in the dream' [air quotation marks]."

The cameraman turned off the camera. In normal times with only a few hours of television news per day, a story like this did not have a chance, but the station would be programming hours and hours and hours of hurricane coverage, so maybe it would.

A few miles to the south, Dizzy was visiting Lafayette Park to try to rake in a little more cash before the storm blew in. "This is a song called, 'Mother Nature Bats Last'. I wrote it in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina." (That was a lie, but he knew he would get more money from saying it.) He pulled out his trumpet and started playing a song he had renamed about a dozen times since writing it twenty years earlier.

"Oh, God!" Glenn Michael Beckmann ripped his super hearing aid out of his ear and hurled it far away. "Oh, God!" The poison blowdart was now on the ground, and he was staggering away, overwhelmed by the amplified trumpet blast that had bombarded his ear drum. "Oh, God!" Several protesters turned for a moment to see the pudgy and balding man in green army surplus fatigues stumbling away from them, but they were soon distracted by a seven-year-old girl who started making up words for Dizzy's song.

"Mother Nature Bats Last. She's pretty, and she's fast." (The girl twirled around as the people clapped.) "Mother Nature Bats Last. Mother Nature Bats Last. She's the mommy!" Then her mother detected the raindrops starting to fall and reached out for her daughter's hand.

Up in the Lafayette Park trees, the sparrows were silent, contemplating the White House ghosts keeping vigil over a somber President Obama and an increasingly soggy White House.

Staring Down Death

2011-08-19T11:18:00.004-04:00

Fen Do Ping of Bo-Oz (Booz Allen Hamilton's edgy and secretive consulting arm) was running through his Angolan slide show for the staff of International Development Machine. "Here's graduation day at the midget academy," he said, as the staff saw a photo of three little people in caps, gowns, and AK47 holsters--nobody smiling for the camera. "Here's the day the flour sacks fell off the delivery truck," he said, as the staff saw a dozen photos of Angolans covered in white powder swarming all over the dropped sacks, then hauling them off on bicycles, motorcycles, cars, or on foot. "Here's a man who jumped off a bridge to avoid police capture, impaled himself on the spiked fence below, and lost his head," he said, as all the women and several of the men in the room stifled their gag reflexes. "Here's an unearthed grave of half-burned corpses from the civil war--they were found when an oil services company was asked to clean up a site contaminated with petroleum." This was too much for three women, who left the conference room at this point, and IDM president Augustus Bush shook his head at their weakness. "And here's a video of a crazy man on top of a train," Ping said, and several people exhaled, believing he was concluding the slide show with something humorous to lift their spirits--until a gunshot rang out and the crazy man abruptly fell down. "At first I thought somebody had shot him, but then I figured out he had accidentally shot himself." Liv Cigemeier felt like she was in a bad dream--nothing can be real. "What do these all have in common?" Ping asked, as he ended the slide show with a map of Angola illustrated with offshore oil well symbols. "These people stared death and destruction in the face through 25 years of civil war, and all they care about now is survival." Augustus Bush nodded and looked around the room to see if his staff was getting it. "They have gobs of oil, no Islamic terrorists, and millions of people that need jobs and housing. Where's the oil money going?" He passed around a dossier full of bios on the government oil oligarchs responsible for siphoning off most of the oil profits in Angola. "Does everybody know what's going on? Yes. Does anybody care? Yes, but nobody of consequence." He passed around copies of a report on how much money Goldman Sachs had made after just a year of financing Cobalt's venture into Angola.

"And how can International Development Machine fit into this picture?" asked Augustus Bush, who could not understand why it was so hard for this Chinaman to get to the point.

"All you need is one Angolan who has put away enough money for himself and is now craving power. Touching the President is out of the question, but there are other ways to gain power." He started a new slide show about Francisco Alexandre Miguel Soares da Costa. "Reputedly worth twenty billion dollars, recently divorced, spending most of his time in Portugual and France, rumored to be anxious about his failing relationship with his grown daughters--[Ping noticed Bush stifling a yawn]--ripe for the picking." ("Picking?" somebody asked.) "We're gonna make him a star: 'Casas da Costa', a new city built from scratch north of Luanda, low-income housing designed and built under the direction of International Development Machine, with patronage from the likes of Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, and Mandy Moore." ("They'll be involved in this project?") "No, but those are the prototypes--we'll find people like them. Francisco will start building up his international reputation, his daughters will organize the grateful residents, Casas da Costa will serve as Francisco's political base, and International Development Machine will be on the ground floor of the operation that could eventually lift this man to the top of the Saudi Arabia of West Africa."

"So the low-income people will get housing?" asked Momzilla, and Ping nodded emphatically. "That's wonderful!" she said, smiling broadly at her boss and pushing the ugly death images out of her mind.

Bush singled out Momzilla and three other people to stay behind (the only ones who had gotten through the presentation without grimacing, frowning, or giving Ping dirty looks) and released the others. Liv Cigemeier felt a little queasy as she walked back to her desk and phoned her husband to tell him about the ghastly presentation.

A few miles to the east, Rani saw the approach of Angela de la Paz and ran over to greet her. Angela smiled and petted the donkey, who ignored the ghastly aura emanating from the girl and nuzzled her as affectionately as ever. Dr. Devi Rajatala put down her bark sampling kit, and the National Arboretum scientist also walked over to greet the girl. "What a long time it has been!" exclaimed Dr. Raj, and Angela smiled sadly, unsure what to say. "Come! Come! I have raspberry tea." She pulled Angela over to the grove she was examining and handed Angela the unopened and only bottle of raspberry tea she had.

Angela took a few sips, then pulled out a package from her backpack. "I have something for you, too," Angela said, and handed Dr. Raj a wooden tree carving. "It's tipa wood, carved into a tipa tree." Dr. Raj ran her fingers over the fine workmanship. "It's from Argentina--I took a vacation there." Dr. Raj knew that tipa was from Argentina, but she had a lot of other questions on her mind. "And this is for you, too," Angela said, and she handed Dr. Raj a jewelry box full of loose diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. "I thought you could design your own jewelry...or...whatever." (Angela wanted to pay Dr. Raj back for all she had done for Angela and Angela's mother, but she couldn't just hand a pile of cold cash to somebody like Dr. Raj.) "Don't ask where they came from--they're not all from the same place. I've been all over the Middle East, and Africa, and Asia, and then South America." Angela looked around in amazement at this small man-made forest world that used to seem so immense and wild to her. "I missed you," Angela said, and this was true, so Dr. Raj pulled her tight and held her for a few minutes."

"I can see the pink warblers now, Angela!" Dr. Raj said, and she pointed to a nearby tree branch. Angela saw it, too, but the bird was silent and confused.

Back downtown, Liv Cigemeier's husband finished their phone conversation and turned back to his pile of papers. He worked his ass off as a partner at Prince and Prowling, in large part so that his wife could work for peanuts at a nonprofit, and he was tired of her increasing complaints about what was going on there. If it was so bad, why didn't she just quit? ("Where would I go?") He dropped his pen at the unexpected sound of her imagined voice inside his head and realized there might be no place else for her to go. "Shitty world." He picked up a half-eaten muffin and hurled it vehemently into his trash can, thinking about the contracts he had written for Goldman Sachs and the Cobalt venture in Angola--which he could not mention to his own wife. "Because I'm not supposed to or because I don't want to?" he whispered to himself. He thought about all the crazy little schemes they had talked about starting--the Sleepbox franchise, the House of Pies, the gerbil wheel commuter train, the helping animals training academy, the boat-to-the-beach service--and wondered why they were still doing the things they did.

Several miles to the north, the Warrior was also contemplating why he was still doing the things he did. He had seen 400 years come and go, and did not know the reason for most of the things he had seen and done, nor why he was still alive. He sat crossed-legged on an austere grassy lawn and stared at the ghosts circling restlessly in the sky above Walter Reed Medical Center. Some of them had been there for decades; a few, for a hundred years. The Shackled had arrived to counsel these lost souls on the benefits of letting go, forgiving and forgetting, moving into the light, but angry ghosts do not make good listeners. He looked up with no surprise at the arrival of Angela de la Paz, who sat down silently beside him. "They are closing this hospital down," he said. "It served many warriors...and many more who were never meant to be warriors." Angela nodded, and he knew that she now knew what it meant to be a warrior. "Sometimes they failed." She nodded again. "You are weary from fighting many battles," he said.

"Eeteebsse fought most of them," she said, pulling a small package out of her backpack. "I brought you something," she said, and handed him a tribal knife from Tajikstan. "It's a new knife--never used before."

He thanked her and examined the intricate workmanship. He could see it was sharp, but he tested it on a blade of grass anyway. "How long were you with Eeteebsse?"

She remembered the day she had ripped Eeteebsse out of the womb of Ardua of the Potomac like it was yesterday. "Until two weeks ago," she said. "I used him to kill a lot of evil people." She was silent for a couple of minutes, but the Warrior made no reply. "Then he got too large and too hard to control. I buried him in the Himalayas. I thought about killing him, but maybe somebody else can figure out how to control him. He won't grow while he's frozen."

The Warrior shook his head. "You can't fight evil with evil," he said. He had repeated the lesson at least a thousand times during his lifetime, but its simplicity belied its veracity, and so it was rarely heeded.

"You do," she said.

"That's what you think I do?" he said.

"You kill," she said.

"I defend," he answered.

"That's just semantics!" she said.

"And that's just something you do not understand yet, young one," he answered, and she bristled. "Yes, you are still a young one! Do you think killing has made you grow up? When you grow into what somebody else wants you to be, that is not growing up."

"Well, I saved a lot of lives--a lot of helpless women!"

The Warrior put his arm around her and pulled her head to his head. "That is why I am proud of you."

Several miles to the south, Glenn Michael Beckmann departed his apartment at Southwest Plaza, the whisperings of the real estate demon fresh in his mind: "I'm proud of you, Glenn! I'm proud of you, Glenn!" He broke out into a sweat in the hot, humid air, and walked with brisk irritation to the Waterfront Metro station. A young couple with a baby in a stroller were blocking the entire escalator, preventing him from walking down. He stood motionless for a moment as they prattled on about making baby food from their organic garden, then he reached out with both hands to shove them all out of his way. He watched in satisfaction as the screaming couple and stroller bounced helplessly down the escalator, then he walked briskly down the escalator stairs. He stepped over the family at the bottom and hurried to the train platform, eager to get on with his day.

****************
NEXT WEEK: Glenn Michael Beckmann versus tarsandsaction.org.

In Flux

2011-08-14T12:15:00.004-04:00

Charles Wu opened up the carry-out containers in the backroom of Lynnette Wong's Chinatown herb shop, and Mia scooped food out for him, herself, and Wong. It was the first time Wu had seen Mia since the week he dropped her off, and he was pleased to see she had put on some weight and the dark circles were gone from her eyes. He knew that former Senator Evermore Breadman and the Secretary of State were both anxiously awaiting their respective China trip reports, but somehow visiting Mia seemed more important right now (and less stressful) than explaining the complexities of Chinese lending attitudes or the hits and misses of Project R.O.D.H.A.M.'s forays into Afghanistan. Then there was Angela de la Paz--whose violent jaunts through Taliban country had taken out quite a large number of misogynists, but whose mysterious and supernatural methods had created another backlash against women as weak-willed pawns of Satan. He was one of very few people who even knew who she was, what she looked like, and where she came from, but even he was at a loss to explain the efficacy, brutality and lethality of her operations--nor her abrupt departure. One thing he did know was that he would have to tell Hillary Clinton that recruiting Angela to jump from Project Cinderella to Project R.O.D.H.A.M. would be as pointless as asking a hurricane to reverse its rotation.

Wong popped into the back room to grab a few bites of food, her eye on the video monitor showing whether anybody was entering the store. Wu showed them photos from the touristy bits of his trip, and presented them with silk scarves from Shanghai and the jade bracelets his mother had chosen for them during his brief layover in Hong Kong. Wong told Wu that Mia was dutifully meeting with her English tutor (paid for by Wu) several hours a day and making excellent progress. (Wong herself always spoke to Mia in Chinese because Wu wanted Mia's Chinese to improve and did not want Mia to learn accented English.) Wong told Wu that she took Mia out for long walks and excursions when the shop was closed, and her nervousness was diminishing, but Wu could still see quite a bit of anxiety in Mia's eyes and could only conclude he was the cause of it. She thinks I want something from her, but it's not what she thinks. In truth he didn't want anything from Mia for a long time, and she had already given him great value without even knowing it, but half a world away, he had realized what he could make Mia into. He also knew Mia would have to want it for herself, or she would end up like Angela de la Paz--and that would not be good for either of them.

Several miles to the south, Chloe Cleavage's life was also in flux. For one thing, she was high on Vicodin to deal with the pain from the operation to remove all her eggs--high as a kite! She was standing on the balcony of her Southwest Plaza penthouse, merrily throwing unwanted belongings over the railing and watching them crash to the ground below. Old shoes, frying pans, books, notes from law school, baskets, a broken clock radio--all hurled eight stories down. She dropped a limed flower pot and jumped up and down in glee as it shattered into hundreds of pieces below. Sure, sometimes people in her building put reusable items out in the hallway by the elevator for other people to adopt and take home, but this was all JUNK! She wanted it out of her life, just like the eggs!

In truth, she had let the doctor (they call these people "doctors"?!) save a few in a freezer just in case she ever decided it was time for a baby, but she had sold the rest to him for a cool million dollars. A million dollars!!! It was surreal. He had run some genetic tests on her which would show to buyers her lack of any problematic gene markers--not to mention the desirable qualities in her hair color, eye color, body frame, and body fat ratio. (It was true her boobs were fake, but the buyers wouldn't know that from her photo!) She had already purchased a foreclosed condominium at auction (also while high as a kite, but nobody seemed to mind!) and paid a taxi driver in a van usually used for airport luggage to take her up to Kensington and then Frederick for an impulsive run of antique shopping. The eclectic piles of Queen Anne, Regency, and Colonial furniture were the reason she had to throw out a bunch of other stuff fast--that and the imminent arrival of the movers tomorrow. She was proud of herself for finding the condo at auction without the help of her on-again, increasingly off-again, realtor boyfriend Calico Johnson, and she wasn't even going to tell him about her departure from this stupid loft he had found her in this stupid building filled with criminals, crazy people, mold, vermin, broken elevators, arsonists, and missing security guards. "NO!" she hollered out at the parking lot below as another flower pot shattered eight floors below her--this time next to Glenn Michael Beckmann, who howled in rage, pulled out his handgun, and aimed it up at his assailant. "Plppppppp!" she sputtered at him with her tongue stuck out and her fingers waving in the air. "Shoot THIS!" she hollered as she rained old throw pillows down on him, and Beckmann obliged by shooting all of them until exploded fluff was falling like snowflakes all over the sidewalk, bushes, and parked cars, and the real estate demon living beneath the building was shaking with laughter.

A few miles to the west, former Senator Evermore Breadman had his own mess to clean up at Prince and Prowling, where a very high Chloe Cleavage had spray-painted "Roatan", "The Nines", "Wall of Me", and "Sir Digby Chicken Caesar Salad" all over his collection of framed photos on the wall outside his office. The security guards were trying hard to keep a straight face as they surveyed the damage and explained to Breadman how they would review the record of entries into the building since he had last been to his office Friday evening. After they finished photographing the scene, he took down the framed pictures and put them in a pile in the corner of his office. He shook his head at the photo on the top of the pile--him and Rupert Murdoch covered in purple smears--and sat down to review his campaign consulting files after the bizarre Iowa caucus. (If he had a thousand dollars for every time somebody had called to say "anyone but Bachmann!"--wait, he DID have a thousand dollars for every time!) He was consulting with almost everybody (and their fan club Super Pacs) east of the Mississippi river, but at some point he was only going to be effective by narrowing his focus. But who? If only he could find a candidate more like...himself.

Back in Chinatown, Charles Wu bid goodbye to Mia in the backroom, and Lynnette Wong walked him slowly to the door of her herb shop. "There was a reporter while you were gone," she whispered, and Wu grabbed her wrist. "Holly Gonightly--she's on TV sometimes. She knows that Mia came from Congressman Herrmark's house. She accused me of human trafficking, but we convinced her that wasn't true."

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

"You were in China."

"I know I was in China!"

"Well, we convinced her it wasn't true, and she left, and she hasn't reported anything."

"That just means she's going to dig deeper, and take a wider look!"

"Well, we're not doing anything wrong! Mia is safe here, and I think she's happy--well, she's not UNhappy."

Wu finally let go of Wong's wrist. "Let me know if anything else happens. But Mia knows her story, right? She's Chinese and--"

"She knows," said Wong.

Wu nodded, but walked out with a knot in his stomach and hailed a taxi to head over to Prince and Prowling.

Overhead, a flock of starlings was flying from east to west, the intermittent sunlight dancing off their iridescent plumage without penetrating their blackened spirits.

Coming Back

2011-08-07T11:56:00.005-04:00

The Camelot Society of the Federal Reserve Board had always been a sober group until now, but when economist Luciano Talaverdi pulled champagne and orange juice from his cooler, nobody turned him down. (The sales girl had asked him what he was celebrating, and he had said, "It's a new year.") Fen Do Ping was visiting for the first time since he had been unceremoniously "furloughed", and he merrily helped himself to a mimosa and a plate heaped with pastries. Ping never worried about the big picture anymore, and was telling everybody his new insights about the "invisible hand" and how well the economy would be doing if everybody just focused on earning money for themselves, like his coworkers at Booz Allen Hamilton. "Earning, earning, earning!" he kept saying. "This is what I was trying to explain before--it can't be about liquidity! Liquidity is an illusion--it is like building a water pipe without paying any attention to where you are going to get water!" (Obi Wan Woman gave Talaverdi a stern look, but in these times of uncertainty, Talaverdi had insisted that they needed to start thinking outside the box.)

"What about Standard & Poor's?" somebody asked.

Ping shook his head. "Parasites!" he hissed. "Those agencies gave AAA ratings to mortgage-backed derivatives that were worthless! Who takes them seriously now?"

"Everyone!" exclaimed Obi Wan Woman.

"The government should have indicted all of them!" shouted Ping, getting more animated from the champagne. "In China, their leaders would all be in prison or dead for treason!"

"Ping!" exclaimed Talaverdi, kicking him under the table.

"Yes, yes, well, we are in America, I know! They have a First Amendment right to say whatever they want about the credit worthiness of this great country, so you are playing a losing game with them. You have to stop fighting for liquidity and start fighting for earnings!" He pulled out copies of a Booz Allen Hamilton report prepared for a mysterious client in Los Angeles and said, "you can't tell anybody where you got this!" (He had redacted all the Booz Allen Hamilton references.) He then passed out the report, entitled "Ninety Million Young Asians Are Ready to Immigrate to the United States: Gentlemen, Start Your Taxing Engines!" (Obi Wan Woman's mouth dropped open, and a half-chewed piece of croissant fell out into her lap.) "I also have a study on tax revenue from legalizing marijuana, but that has already been delivered to the Treasury Department. I am giving you first crack at this one!"

In the basement, two stories below the Research Library where the Camelot Society was meeting around the round table, Sebastian L'Arche had been called back to work again with the troubled yellow labrador. I don't understand what I'm guarding! the dog whispered to L'Arche. There are dark forces here--ghosts and goblins!--but they have me sniffing copier paper deliveries and Verizon technicians! Madness, madness everywhere! They took me to Master Bernanke's office three times last week just to play with him because he was so distraught! I tried to warn him, but he couldn't understand me! L'Arche had been staring silently into the motionless dog's eyes for a good five minutes, and the FRB police officers were pacing restlessly. How can I protect Master Bernanke? If I bark, they look for explosives. They don't see what else is there! L'Arche nodded his head, then pulled the dog close to whisper in its ear: "Master Bernanke does know, but sometimes you cannot run away--sometimes you have to stay and stare down the demons." The dog lay down, dejected and demoralized, and L'Arche lay down next to the dog, nose-to-nose. "Everybody has their job to do, and yours is to look for explosives. You are just one dog--you cannot protect everybody from everything, even if you want to. But you can do your job!" The dog exhaled deeply, licked L'Arche a few times, then stood up at attention. L'Arche arose, told the officers that the dog would be fine, but if they didn't mind, he would stop by once a week just to check on the dog. They nodded, he patted the dog on the head, and then he departed.

Several miles to the east, Atticus Hawk also had his job to do, and no matter how hard he tried to change it, he was still the Justice Department's torture specialist. He was on his upteenth reading of U.S. District Judge James Gwin's ruling against Donald Rumsfeld handed down on Tuesday, and his recent vacation was already a distant memory. "The court finds no convincing reason that United States citizens in Iraq should or must lose previously declared substantive due process protections during prolonged detention in a conflict zone abroad." Hawk rubbed more lime on the space between his thumb and forefinger, sprinkled salt on it, and sucked it. "The stakes in holding detainees at Camp Cropper may have been high, but one purpose of the constitutional limitations on interrogation techniques and conditions of confinement even domestically is to strike a balance between government objectives and individual rights even when the stakes are high." Hawk repeated the lime juice and salt ritual he had adopted on vacation and shifted his gaze to the other side of his desk, where he had the photo and dossier of the lawsuit's unnamed U.S. citizen trying to hold Donald Rumsfeld personally responsible for his imprisonment and torture in Iraq after serving as an interpreter with a military contractor. Army veteran, Hawk snorted. Why do they always trot that out, like it proves they're innocent patriots?! He left the Army to make more money! He snorted again, and repeated the lime juice and salt ritual.

"You need to stop doing that," Ava Kahdo Green said, after opening his door without knocking, and he raced to cover up his papers. "Your blood pressure's gonna go up from the salt." She sat down in his guest chair and offered him some dried acerola. Not more health food, he groaned inwardly. (He could really go for his ex-fiancee's fried okra right about now.) "It can't be that bad," she said cheerfully, propping up her trendy gladiator sandals on the edge of his desk, not caring whether he could see up her skirt or not. "I'm a little bored with the Deepwater Horizon, to tell you the truth. What are you working on?"

"Oh, something even less interesting," he assured her, but his bloodshot eyes told a different story.

A few miles to the north, Angela de la Paz's bloodshot eyes told a different story: jet lag, fatigue, anxiety, depression, insomnia...and a residual allergic reaction to exotic explosive materials. She rubbed her eyes and looked over her shoulder at the dust being kicked up by the Meridian Hill futbol players, which was also not going to help. She turned back to read the plaque about the Joan of Arc statue, a gift from France. You're like Joan of Arc, she remembered Henry Samuelson telling her during her training in Kansas, and she had looked up Joan of Arc on the internet, but she had not understood until much, much later. The funny thing was, she knew now that it was just a bullshit thing he had said to her, not meaning it, but it was truer than he realized. She saw the pink warbler alight on Joan's head, but the bird was slow to sing her welcome-home song to Angela. The warbler cocked her head back and forth a few times, started a trill, then stopped, then flew away, and then came right back. Angela sat down on the ground and leaned her head against the stone, but found it only a few degrees cooler than the warm, damp air weighing her down. The pink warbler hopped down onto Angela's knee, and Angela stretched out her finger, and after a minute of contemplation, the bird hopped onto the finger, but remained silent. "I was supposed to get away from all this," Angela whispered to the bird. "But guess what? There are poor people everywhere. And men who beat women. And sick children. And knives and guns and drugs. And no matter how many bad guys you kill, it's never enough."

Henry Samuelson watched her talking to her own finger and approached cautiously. "Welcome home, Angela," he said, and she looked up in surprise--not surprise that he had found out she was home, but surprise at the rapidity.

"I'm on vacation," she said, as if that were enough to make him stop talking to her.

"I know things overseas have been very stressful, but it was you that took on all those extra, unauthorized missions. You still don't understand the big picture, Angela. That's why you need us to choose your missions for you." He could see anger building up in her eyes and decided that would be all he said today. "Why don't you take a real vacation," he said, "someplace away from here."

"It's all the same," she said flatly.

"Maybe everything is all the same in the Middle East and Afghanistan, but there are still some wonderful places out there! How about Hawaii, hmm?"

"I'll go to Norway," she said, because Norway was the first place she thought of that would be like the diametric opposite of Hawaii.

Samuelson nodded encouragingly, but wondered if she was going to try to assassinate the crazy mass-murderer of children. "OK, whatever you want! You deserve a vacation. I know somebody there who can teach you to ski." She decided to go to Argentina instead, but didn't tell him--he could find out later.

Two miles to the south, Golden Fawn sat crossed-legged in the Lafayette Park grass, facing the White House and praying for rain--not the rain that was already on its way from the clouds gathering in Virginia, but for a spiritual rain. "Something is wrong," she whispered to the raven sitting attentively in her lap. He's protecting Wall Street moneylenders and defendant Donald Rumsfeld and the military industrial complex. He's changed. She held amulets in both her hands, but she knew it was not enough: she had to get inside.

But you can get to Ardua of the Potomac, whispered the raven, and the girl is back--she can help you.

A catbird flew off to report to the demon in the river, only flinching a little at the screech of the raven behind it.

Girl Power

2011-07-31T12:22:00.002-04:00

Lynnette Wong was ringing up another customer at her Chinatown herb shop. She had to admit that business had really improved after Charles Wu became her "partner". Aside from the immediate cash infusion, he had steadily been spreading her business cards all over Washington, and she was selling herbs to the kind of customers she had never dreamt of--chefs working for ambassadors, lawyers working for Senators, personal trainers working for hedge fund millionaires, Foreign Service officers preparing to head overseas, generals, spies, and celebrities. The hardest part was selling to the Chinese embassy, but Wu picked up those herbs himself so the Taiwanese Wong never had to deal with her arch-enemy. Well, that was the hardest part until this week--when Wu had delivered her the young girl from Southeast Asia for safekeeping. Wong had argued vociferously that the girl needed to be returned to her family, but Wu had insisted she did not want to go home. Wong closed the cash register and stole a glance at Mia, who was sitting in a chair in the back room embroidering. The girl's Chinese was barely better than her English, so it was not really possible to have a heart-to-heart with her. Mia had told Wong she was 18, and that's what her fake Chinese passport said, but this was indubitably a lie. The girl was too scared to look anybody in the eye, and Wong feared it would be weeks, if not months, before they could have a real conversation. But her sleep was improving, along with her appetite, and for the timebeing, Wu was leaving her in peace. Wong, in fact, knew everything about her that Wu did--everything except what leverage Wu was going to get out of this human trafficking rescue, and when. But Wu was in China right now and had promised Wong that nobody would come looking for Mia.

"Hello," said Holly Gonightly, as she entered the herb shop. (Gonightly had been monitoring Mia from a slight distance ever since she had heard the police scanner report of a young girl picked up in Congressman Herrmark's petunia bed. She was at the GWU emergency room when Charles Wu had walked out of there with the girl in tow and had followed the two to Chinatown, where the girl had been deposited at this herb shop. She had sent friends into the shop every day for the last week to try to figure out what was happening to the girl, but there were no signs of a sweatshop, let alone a brothel. Gonightly had been researching Charles Wu, a wealthy businessman from Hong Kong who was co-owner of this shop, but she could not determine his connection to Congressman Herrmark. But she knew there was a big story here, and today she was making her move.) "Do you have any lucky bamboo?" asked Gonightly, who didn't know the slightest thing about Chinese herb shops. Behind her the television cameraman entered the store separately, a hidden camera tucked into his fanny pack.

Several miles away, Congressman Herrmark was sitting in the Jacuzzi in his man cave, the tub filled with cold water, and the bubble machine turned off. He was sniffing an apron balled up in his hands above the water level, the only thing he had left that smelled like Mia--well, it smelled like the dumplings she used to make him, anyway. His bodyguards had burned every piece of Mia's clothing in the fireplace the day she had been ripped out of his life. They still wouldn't tell him where she was--only that she was in a safe and happy place, and it was for Herrmark's own protection that he not know anything else. She was in a safe and happy place here! He sniffed. I rescued her from the Marianas Islands--I didn't do anything wrong! (Sniff.) He took the balled-up apron and slowly lowered it into the water, then released it to open up and float on top of the water. It could have all gone down much worse--worse for me, worse for her. (Sniff.) She was the only pure and sweet thing I had in this city! (Sniff.) He grabbed the scrub brush and started working furiously on the heels of his feet, fretting about how his chief of staff was letting Ann Bishis and her cousins (his bodyguards) take more and more control of his operation. They're too young, he fretted, and inexperienced. And yet he knew they had saved his ass last week...and what that meant.

Downtown, most Congressional Representatives and Senators were actually still focused on the debt ceiling negotiations. Across the street from the White House, former Senator Evermore Breadman had been forced to move his operation into a large conference room--where five attorneys, seven legal assistants, two lobbyists, one secretary and four couriers were working non-stop to produce, analyze, and share information back and forth from the White House across the street. Breadman's hardball and blackmail tactics had taken a good one-hundred Representatives (including that maverick Congressman Herrmark!) and thirty Senators out of the mix, and his strategy to build up Mitch McConnell's role above John Boehner's appeared to be working. He had Charles Wu at the Prince and Prowling office in China now, poised to handle any Chinese awkwardness that might arise. But, but, but--he took another swig of iced tea laced with bourbon and herbs from Lynnette Wong in a desperate bid to make every synapse in his brain keep operating at peak performance without a breakdown in his vital organs--when did this get so hard?

"I've got an idea," said Bridezilla as she abruptly entered the conference room out of nowhere. She was drenched in sweat, having just jogged all the way from her apartment in Virginia downtown to Prince and Prowling. "Sorry about the perspiration, y'all!" (She sniffed her own armpits and made a funny face.) "I know I need a shower, but I just had the best idea about all this!" (Her personal trainer, Armando, was standing in the doorway counting his own pulse and admiring his newest prodigy: he had promised her that he could strengthen her immune system, but even he was amazed at the progress she had made in nutrition, stamina, and strength. He also thought she was the sexiest kickboxer he had ever coached!) "I got some contacts over on the Hill, and this is what I think we should do." She turned over the page on the flipchart in the corner, picked up a Sharpie, and started outlining her key points. ("Isn't she the one that said Sharpies emitted chemicals that entered the nasal passages and disrupted the endocrine system?" "Shut up! This is good!" "She just sniffed her own armpit!" "Shut up!") Former Senator Evermore held a handkerchief over his nose, too overcome with nausea to interrupt the brazen woman who had once told him he should lobby for a bill to require public restrooms to have security cameras with monitors making sure that everybody leaving a toilet washed their hands.

Back in Chinatown, Holly Gonightly was asking Lynnette Wong to explain various herbal remedies on display, but Wong kept glancing back at the other customer browsing the store--and getting closer and closer to the back room doorway. "What are you doing?" Wong suddenly shouted at him.

"She's here!" the television cameraman said.

"It's the girl from Congressman Herrmark's house!" Gonightly said. "Who is she? Why are you hiding her here?"

Wong ran into the back room and put her arms around Mia. "Why can't you leave her in peace?!"

"How many other girls are you trafficking here?" snarled Gonightly.

"I am trafficking nobody!" shouted Wong. "This girl is safe here! She will go home when she is ready!" Wu had told her not to discuss Mia with anybody, and she was fairly certain that these were reporters, but she didn't know what to do.

"How old is she?" asked Gonightly.

"I eighteen," said Mia, who knew that part cold. "I clean Hermmark house one time only. Now here." Her hair was washed and neatly braided. She had no make-up on, and a long cotton dress that revealed nothing. There were no dark circles under her eyes, and she smiled at the strangers. "You on TV!" she added, suddenly recognizing the television reporter who was rarely featured on air because she was TFFT (too fat for television). Mia smiled again.

Gonightly hesitated briefly. At last she pulled out her business cards and handed one to each woman. "Yes, I'm Holly Gonightly. If you ever want to tell your story, please contact me." With that, she signaled to the cameraman to go, and they departed.

Mia leaned into Wong for an embrace. "OK," Mia said. "No worry. Nice lady!" (Mia remembered seeing Gonightly the day before, playing with puppies and kittens in a segment about pet adoptions.) Wong exhaled deeply.

Over at the White House, Glenn Michael Beckmann scanned the crowd of tourists. He had been trying for two weeks to plan a revenge attack for the debt ceiling crisis, but he still could not quite wrap his brain around it, and his blog postings on the subject were, admittedly, not his best. Of course, it was clearly President Obama's fault...mostly. But there are other people involved in this evil, and they all must pay! And Beckmann was not going to do anything as sloppy as that amateur in Norway, who actually thought getting arrested and becoming a martyr was a wonderful thing! NO! It was vital to live to fight another day. Beckmann looked back and forth nervously between the crowd and the sharpshooters on the roof, feeling the call of destiny to intervene in this CRISIS...but how?

In a nearby cherry tree, a catbird suddenly began imitating the machine-gun-like sound of a toddler's rapid-fire giggle, and Beckmann pivoted in agitation, reaching for his holster. A flock of starlings flew off to report to Ardua of the Potomac, while the White House ghosts continued to fly in and out, giddy and high from weeks of feasting on the slow nervous breakdown in the Washington balance of power.

On Life Support

2011-07-23T11:42:00.004-04:00

Congressman Herrmark was slaving away at his office despite the heat, despite everything. He smelled blood in the House waters, weakness in the waves, and opportunity in the air. This was a time when the nation cried out for new ideas and new leadership, and anybody with math skills and a vision could float an idea to save the country. Therefore his staffer with math skills was hard at work, and his staffer with vision was also hard at work. Meanwhile, Congressman Herrmark was in his office with staffer Ann Bishis working on the speech he would make whenever his debt plan was ready. "Where's the part about hydrofracking and the Halliburton loophole?" he asked, and Bishis pointed to the second page. (The only requirement he had given his staffers was that the budget plan include funding for hydrofracking clean-up in his home state--but if they could also slip in earmarks for veterinarians, convenience store owners, greyhound racing, commodities brokers, and t-shirt vendors, all the better.) Then his cellphone rang. "WHAT?!" He dropped the papers from his hand and clutched the edge of his desk, the cellphone still pressed against his ear. At the sound of Herrmark's shout, his bodyguards rushed into his office. "She's at GW on life support!" he gasped.

A couple miles away, Congressman John Boehner was also flat on his back, his psyche flatlining. He had four pieces of Nicorette gum in his mouth and a large sheet of bubble wrap spread out over his stomach so that he could pop the bubbles one-by-one. Dr. Ermann Esse was charging three times the usual rate because of having to risk overheating his Mercedes Benz by driving it downtown on a sweltering Saturday, but he had to admit to himself that this was great fun. "What happens if I don't show up at the White House?" Boehner asked his psychiatrist. "What if somebody else has a breakthrough when I'm not there? Will my constituents understand? I mean, I promised them we would not raise taxes. I'm a man of my word!" He briefly pulled the bubble wrap sheet to his face to wipe some sweat off his brow. "It's a matter of principle!"

"If the debt ceiling is not raised, will Congressmen still get their salaries?" asked Dr. Esse, who was pondering whether the Nicorette gum actually undermined his stern rules about no prescription drugs for his patients. A real-live nervous breakdown might be what this man needs.

"Is that supposed to be funny?!" shouted Boehner, but Dr. Esse shook his head no and professed his ignorance about these things. "Spending has to be cut!" shouted Boehner, and Dr. Esse nodded sympathetically. (He had written many letters to Medicare about why they should stop reimbursing for psychotropic pharmaceuticals, but nobody ever responded to him.)

"Tell me some more about the dream you had with the Marquis de Lafayette, where he said that the U.S. has a long history of not repaying national debts to France and other countries, and that economic growth depends on cheap immigrant labor, and--"

"That wasn't a dream! It was a nightmare!" (Pop, pop, pop.) "How am I supposed to walk into the White House and tell them we need to flip the bird to China, and then tell my constituents we need to open the Mexican border? How!?"

"Perhaps the answer lies with the Marquis de Lafayette. Why do you think he is the one that appeared to you in the dream?"

"Because Lafayette Park is next to the White House, and I've been there a dozen times in the past month! I'm having nightmares about it! You've gotta help me!"

Dr. Esse had forgotten that was the name of the park next to the White House, and he was bitterly disappointed to realize that Boehner's subconscious was not, in fact, reaching deep into his pedagogical formation to draw timeless lessons from the past. He discreetly drew a big X over his notes and turned the page.

Not far away, former Senator Evermore Breadman was also busy drawing X's over his note pad in his Prince and Prowling office across the street from the White House. He had barely allowed himself five minutes out of his schedule to celebrate the opening of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this week with no director and a laughable budget--there were simply too many other things going on. How do you tell Rupert Murdoch's secretary you don't have time to return his calls when you've done $700,000 worth of lobbying for his corporations in the past two years alone? ("Tell him the pie and the hot Chinese wife boosted his public relations more this week than anything I could have dreamt up!") How do you tell Charles Wu--who gave you a fecal transplant!--that you could not possibly spare him to leave Washington right now unless it was to head to the Prince and Prowling office in Beijing? He had punted Harry Thomas Jr.'s final negotiations to Cigemeier, and the D.C. Council member was not happy about having to repay the city $300,000 for funds diverted from youth programs to pay for luxury cars and personal vacations, but there were only so many hours in a day for Breadman! And then Michael Bloomberg had announced on Thursday he was giving $50 million to the Sierra Club to take coal-fired power plants out of America's cities, causing Breadman's energy clients to blow a fuse (so to speak).

And still--still!--the budget negotiations dragged on. Breadman had faxes and printed emails spread out over every surface in his office, and more taped to the walls. He had fielded over 500 phone calls from clients this week about what was going to be axed in the budget, and another 200 from Wall Street financiers about the impact of a debt default. His personal assistant had been back and forth to the White House negotiations four times already today, and the boy looked like he was having a heat stroke when he rushed in with another folder of hand-written notes from across the street. "Sometimes I envy those authoritarian bastards in China!" Breadman said cheerfully, motioning his assistant to his own private frigobar (stocked with cold beer and wine coolers). The assistant loosened his tie, but it was too late--he crumpled to the carpet in a dead faint.

A mile away, a girl listed only as "Mia" was finally stabilizing at George Washington University Hospital. Dr. Khalid Mohammad was writing notes on her chart while nurse Consuela Arroyo continued to adjust ice bags and monitor vital signs. The neighbor who had called 911 had seen the girl stumbling around Congressman Herrmark's front yard before collapsing in a petunia bed at noon. Body temperature brought down from 105 to 101. Pulse raised from 25 to 53. Dr. Mohammad scratched his head. Authorities had entered Congressman Herrmark's open front door to discover that the air conditioning was broken. Though the neighbor had never seen the girl before, he said that the Congressman initially seemed quite distraught when the neighbor phoned to tell him an ambulance had picked her up from his front lawn. Now the Congressman was saying he had never met her before today--that she was an agency cleaning woman he had let into the house before heading to the office this morning. But the girl had no uniform on--only a short cotton nightgown. Dr. Mohammad was hoping she could say more than "I'm Mia" in a little while, but she was asleep for now.

Out in the emergency room waiting area, Charles Wu approached the admissions desk in a crisp white linen suit and opened his briefcase to present his credentials as an officer of the Chinese embassy, as well as the fake Chinese passport he had put together for the girl after Congressman Herrmark's bodyguards had emailed him her photo. Her passport listed Charles Wu as her emergency contact, and Wu indicated he would take charge of the girl after her discharge. The nurse checked on the girl's status and told Wu it would probably be awhile. He asked to see her, and was ushered into her room. He fondled her head tenderly, discreetly placing a small herbal patch behind her ear, and she woke up ten minutes later. Wu smiled reassuringly at her, confident he would have her out of here in two hours. He spoke a few simple words of Chinese to her, guessing correctly that she would understand them as a second language, and she nodded. He would take her to Lynnette Wong, where the girl would be safe and well-cared for. And then I'll decide about Congressman Herrmark!

Back on Capitalism Hill, Ann Bishis reentered Congressman Herrmark's office to tell him that the bodyguards' friend had phoned to let them know that everything was taken care of. "Who is this Charles Wu? What's he gonna do with her?"

"He's with the Chinese embassy," Bishis said. "The press will get nothing on this. It's over." The numbers-cruncher and vision guy meekly approached the open door to bring their debt proposal to Herrmark, but Bishis waved them off. "I think the proposal is almost ready," she said, as Herrmark took another swallow of whiskey. "I'll bring it in shortly." And with that, she left him alone to pull himself together, told the staffers to leave the proposal with her and go to lunch, and sat down to talk to her Greek cousins about the amazing Charles Wu.

A mile away, another overheated duck landed in the center of the river in search of a spot of cool water, only to find the fires of hell rising up all around Ardua of the Potomac.

Live and Let Die

2011-07-14T10:41:00.004-04:00

"Light as a feather, stiff as a board," the twins chanted in unison, as they tried to levitate Bo in the White House gardening shed. "Bo!" Bo was rolling on his back, trying to work the kinks out of his spine. "This is serious, Bo!" said Regina, putting her hands on her hips. "Sit still!" said Ferguson, as he tried to force Bo back onto his stomach. A fly buzzed around the pre-schoolers momentarily, then flew back out into the sunshine. "Light as a feather, stiff as a board," the twins chanted in unison, sticking their fingers under Bo and trying to lift him up.

"Reggie! Fergie! WHAT are you doing?!" It was Bridge, who had a pretty good idea what they were doing. The twins said nothing as Bo leapt up to greet the White House gardener. "Well?" he said, petting the dog.

"They said Ronald Reagan was rolling over in his grave," said Regina.

"We thought if he came back, it would help," said Ferguson.

Bridge squatted down to give them a hard look. "We got enough damn ghosts around here without you two conjurin' up more! You let that man rest in peace! Gonna take a lot more than Cantor and Boehner and that political coward McConnell to make Mr. Reagan roll over in his grave. No sir! That man didn't care 'bout budgets, I'll tell you that much. You wanna help President Obama, you bring that dog back to the West Wing--he needs a friend in there."

Two miles to the north, Charles Wu was seated at the base of the Meridian Hill waterfall. The ducklings were nowhere in sight--probably all grown up now. He sipped green tea as he listened to Apricot Lily and Camisole Silk report on Afghanistan. "Cinderella was at Karzai's funeral," said Lily, just loudly enough for Wu and nobody else to hear, "but I don't think she was involved." "I think he shook down one too many people one too many times," said Silk, with her compact out to powder over the dark circles under her jet-lagged eyes. "It was only a matter of time before somebody decided it was cheaper and smarter to pay off a bodyguard," added Lily.

"And President Karzai?", asked Wu.

"President Karzai is genuinely shaken up," said Silk. "Nobody's happy in Afghanistan," said Lily, "so there is no alliance, no ally that can be trusted completely." "I don't know how anybody lives in that place," said Silk, putting away her makeup. "Men full of hate, women full of fear, maybe the babies are happy for a few months of their lives."

"Could we ever understand?"

"Maybe not, but Project R.O.D.H.A.M. is doing well there," said Lily. "They move carefully from village to village, striking quickly, in and out."

"How well?"

"It's not enough, of course," said Silk, "but they believe they are laying the foundation for women to mount a sustained self-defense." "And it appears that Angela de la Paz is trailing Project R.O.D.H.A.M.," said Lily. "As soon as tribal elders mount a retaliatory witch hunt and sentence somebody, the elders die in mysterious circumstances." "Always looks like an animal attack," said Silk, "but people KNOW it's no regular animal."

"What is she doing?"

"It's a mystery," said Lily, "but people think it's a demon--well, the men think it's a demon."

"What am I supposed to tell Clinton?"

"Whatever Cinderella's doing, it's way beyond what Henry Samuelson could have taught her," said Silk.

"If they really think it's a demon, that will only strengthen the religious nut jobs," said Wu. "They'll crack down harder, and they'll look for more scapegoats to stone to death."

"I don't think so," said Silk. "It's giving hope to the women." "But," said Lily, "I don't think she should be recruited for Project R.O.D.H.A.M. She's plenty effective as a solo agent, and there's probably nothing to gain on either side." "In any case," said Silk, "I have a feeling she was heading to Pakistan to look for the Mumbai plotters."

The Asian spies espied their limo and got up to go, apologizing that they didn't have more time. Wu could not ask them why because he was rarely able to keep them on his payroll these days, bogged down as he was in Arab affairs and Prince and Prowling assignments. He moved into the shade and slowly sipped his green tea, awaiting the next arrival.

A couple miles to the east, Bridezilla was bogged down in her own Prince and Prowling assignment: representing another foggy-memoried accountant in yet another SEC deposition. Sometimes she wished these guys would just freak out and start pleading the Fifth Amendment on every question so that she could totally space out or read a magazine hidden in a manila folder, but, no, if that were the case they would have hired a criminal defense firm, not Prince and Prowling, and so she had to sit through the tedium of accounting questions, followed by the tedium of halting, rambling, vague answers that satisfied nobody. She could barely stay awake, and sometimes just interjected with "objection" in case it was necessary. After a few puzzled looks from the SEC attorney, she started winking at him and playing with her hair to discombobulate him, but her flirting had no effect on him, so she had to conclude he was gay. "Can we take a break?" the witness suddenly asked, planning to phone the partner at Prince and Prowling to request somebody else be sent over ASAP. Bridezilla did not even wait for the SEC attorney to agree--she was already on her way out the door to get some fresh air, since SEC's offices had none.

Meanwhile, Liv Cigemeier was also craving some fresh air after being handed her new assignment at International Development Machine: writing a call center grant proposal for Afghanistan. "This 5G consulting is revolutionary stuff," Augustus Bush had told her after two days of presentations from Bo-Oz, the division of Booz Hamilton that Cigemeier had thought was defunct after the criminal investigation about human egg harvesting that had driven out the former president of IDM and resulted in the hiring of Bush. "Women can do this with their burka-things on, no men in the room, earning one dollar an hour, the kids can be there, everybody wins." Cigemeier had tried to point out that few Afghan women spoke English, but Bush would hear none of it. "Aw, everybody speaks English, young lady! This'll be a good job for them!" There was no way USAID would fund it, or any reputable foundation--Cigemeier was going to have to find some small foundation for the seed money. She felt sick to her stomach--she knew the only way to get out of this was to propose an alternate location...or quit. There was no way she could submit a grant proposal for this with her name on it--she would be tainted forever.

"The original idea was refugee camps," said Momzilla, abruptly entering Cigemeier's cubicle. "Bo-Oz suggested setting up customer service call centers in Pakistani refugee camps because they speak English. Nobody else was helping those refugees after the floods because everybody hates Pakistan now, and Bo-Oz said this was a way to bring Pakistan back into civilized society." (Momzilla had set the conference room phone on speaker phone and dialed into it for the entire meeting Bush and Bo-Oz had conducted. "Input: Pakistani refugee labor, marginal cost, no bargaining rights, three thousand men taken out of Taliban recruitment field, win-win-win.") "But Augustus hates Pakistan," added Momzilla. (Cigemeier nodded, not sure what to say.) "I think you should propose Tunisia instead," said Momzilla. "There are Libyan refugees there who know Arabic and English, and they could take customer service calls for the Arab world as well as Anglo-speaking customers. I think they would do it for a dollar a day--it's either that or risk death on a boat to Italy."

"Would you like to take over this assignment?" asked Cigemeier.

"Sure!" said Momzilla. (Cigemeier rejoiced, and yet wondered if her days at International Development Machine were numbered.)

A few miles to the west, Luciano Talaverdi also had Bo-Oz's 5G consulting on his mind. He was eating lunch on the Federal Reserve Board balcony, listening to fired economist Fen Do Ping in his Bluetooth telling him how great life was at Booz Hamilton, how much money he was making, how interesting the projects were. (Ping had squealed on several co-workers during the IDM egg-harvesting investigation, and felt a personal obligation to recruit some replacement staff.) Still, moving to Bo-Oz would mean no more meetings of the Camelot Society around the round table, no more leading the free world, no more glowing articles in the Washington Post praising the Fed for smart lending and raising up to $100 billion in revenue for Treasury to fight the deficit, and no more late night trysts with Obi Wan woman in the lower stacks of the law library. "Maybe next year," said Talaverdi at last; it was good to know there were options out there.

Not far away, Ardua of the Potomac awoke from her mid-day nap and contemplated whom she would feast on this afternoon.

****************
Coming up: a twist of fate for Congressman Herrmark.

Sticky Matters

2011-07-08T10:05:00.004-04:00

Liv Cigemeier sat down at the long table in the conference room of International Development Machine for the first full-staff meeting with their new president, Augustus Bush, who hailed from the little-known U.S. Virgin Islands branch of the Bush family tree. Counted in the small number of people who did know about Augustus Bush was Liv Cigemeier--because Bush's first wife had been Cigemeier's graduate thesis advisor. Cigemeier--unlike her coworkers--therefore knew that Bush was a pothead libertarian poser who had raised campaign money for George W. Bush by smuggling drugs from the Caribbean into Miami, and she knew that Bush's children all worked undercover for the CIA (something their mother had learned by spying on them herself), and she knew that Bush's second wife was a Cuban emigre (and "probably a Fidel Castro double-agent", according to her advisor), and she knew that the United Kingdom had tried to extradite him to the British Virgin Islands on charges he had murdered British Nationals (alleged al Qaeda operatives) but the extradition had failed, and she knew that he believed white Anglo-Saxon Protestants were destined to bring order to the world. What Cigemeier did not know was why he got offered this job or why he took it. He was currently rambling about the failures of the Peace Corps, UNICEF, Oxfam, Save the Children, CARE, and Catholic Relief Services to deliver "value on their investments". He stood up with a blue marker to write on the board, but he didn't write any words--he just drew a star. (Momzilla was staring in amazement at his Bermuda shorts and gray hairy legs until he sat down abruptly and she thought she had missed something.)

"One star," he said in a peculiar accent. "That's all IDM gets today." A few people around the table nodded sycophantically even though they had no idea what he was talking about. "Liv?" He gestured to Cigemeier, and she opened the box he had given her to pass around the table--a box of small American flags on little sticks. "Everybody take two." He waited until everybody had them, then asked how many stars were on the flags. Nobody answered at first, afraid that this simple question was some sort of trick question. "COME ON!" ("Fifty?") "WRONG! Forty-nine! These flags were made before Hawaii became a state. THAT was the beginning of the great American decline! Hawaii wasn't fit to be a state--it's a Third World island that to this day would be producing nothing of value if the British and Americans hadn't colonized it." (Momzilla, a Chinese-Brazilian-American, was staring at him with her mouth wide open.) "International Development Machine could be making a difference in the lives of many inferior peoples, but YOU have to set your mind to it." (More mouths were agape now.) "Every time I see that IDM has improved its operations, I'm gonna walk in here and draw another star on the board. Every time we win a grant or a contract, another star. But every time we lose a bid, I'm gonna take a star away. You're lucky I'm starting you out with one, because some would say I should have started you out with a negative number, but that's not the kinda boss I am. When that board has 49 stars on it, I'll pass the torch. Now take off your shoes." He followed this by kicking off his own docksiders and bringing his bare feet up onto the table. "What do you need: an engraved invitation?!" He motioned to the stunned audience, and they dutifully began removing shoes and stockings until he saw an array of bare feet propped up on the table. (He did find the bad aroma an unfortunate byproduct of the exercise, but it would be over soon enough.) "Now take your flags and clean your feet." He proceeded to pick up one small flag and rub it a few times over his left foot, then took his other small flag and rubbed it a few times over his right foot, then tossed them both down on the floor. "It's OK!" he hollered. "They're old flags--there's nothing illegal about using them to clean feet!" Momzilla was the first to do it, thinking she was going to pass out if she had to keep smelling all the feet--she wiped her sticky feet rapidly, then returned her feet to the floor under the table; others followed. A few minutes later, it was all over, and Augustus Bush was nodding. "That's what happens when Americans do charity work in ungrateful territories. No more!" With that, he got up and left.

A few miles away, mouths were also agape around a conference table at Prince and Prowling, where a dozen people had just been handed new legal agreements and biological sample kits. "It's very simple," said the paralegal-from-Hell who had been tasked with explaining the biological sample kits. "I am going to walk around the table right now and cut hair samples at the base of your neck, and those will go in the red bag [she held one up]. Directly after this meeting, I will escort the women into the ladies room to take their urine samples [she held up a yellow cup], and Ben will escort the men for the same purpose." She pointed superfluously at Ben, who smiled wanly. "You will also need to do a stool sample [she held up a brown package], and you will simply have to notify us when that is convenient so that we can escort you into the bathroom for that, too. So go ahead and sign the form, and then we can get started." Bridezilla--who was feeling nauseous at the thought of dust mites, hair lice, and fecal bacteria being transported willy nilly around the law firm--could not believe what she was reading. Prince and Prowling's newest partner--Liv Cigemeier's husband--could not believe what he was reading. Chloe Cleavage--who had done her faire share of tests for pregnancy and communicable diseases--could not believe what she was reading. Laura Moreno--who had suffered a number of affronts and indignities over the years as a contract attorney at Prince and Prowling--could not believe that there were actually other people being ordered to do this.

"Forget it!" Bridezilla snapped. "For a goddam oil company? Are you OUT of your mind?!" Bridezilla was not glaring at the paralegal-from-Hell, whom she was fairly certain knew how to kill people with a staple gun and make it look like an accident; no, Bridezilla was staring at the senior partner on the case, whose eyes popped open at the outburst. (After three failed engagements and being passed over for partner again, Bridezilla was widely known to be on the edge, but she had never attacked a partner before.) "They should be thanking GOD that a reputable law firm is willing to represent them at ALL! Take a DRUG test for a goddam OIL company? And sign an agreement that they can share our personal information with whomever they NEED to? I'm not giving this goddam OIL company my DNA so they can start cloning me and God knows what else!"

"This is not an OPTION!" warned the senior partner. "Start cutting the hair," he said to the paralegal-from-Hell, and she immediately walked over to Laura Moreno, whom she was certain would submit. As she reached up one hand to tilt Moreno's head forward, she was surprised by Cigemeier on her right, who abruptly ripped the scissors out of her hand and stabbed them into the wall.

"Not without a full partners' meeting," Cigemeier said. "And if we have to do it, EVERYBODY in the firm has to do it!"

"It's just for people working with this client--"

"Then everybody's working with this client, or nobody's working with this client," snarled Cigemeier.

"I voted against your making partner," the senior partner said.

'You could always do the whole oil company assignment by yourself--then take the rest of the year off," said Cigemeier.

With that, the senior partner stormed out, and Bridezilla burst out laughing. She had not laughed this hard in a very, very, very long time. "I never liked that oil company," she said, wiping tears from her eyes. "They have the dirtiest restrooms on Earth."

"That is so true!" said Chloe Cleavage.

And they have the worst oil spill record in the world, thought Laura Moreno, but she said nothing except a quiet "thanks" to Cigemeier, then exited the conference room.

A block away, the White House butler was making preliminary preparations in the conference room that would host Sunday's budget summit with Congressional leaders: she plugged in the electric air freshener discreetly behind the credenza, pulled two short vases out of the credenza and placed them at either end of the table to await the flowers that Bridge would cut from the White House garden Sunday morning, dry-polished the silver candlesticks and damp-polished the wood, and then signaled her twin pre-schoolers that they could start the vacuuming. She sat down to rest for a few minutes while Ferguson and Regina chased the Rumba robot around the room, shouting, "Go, Rumba, go!" (The Rumba had been purchased to make the HIV-positive butler's job a little easier.) Clio closed her eyes and leaned her head back into the corner chair, her feet tucked under her so that Rumba could get under her chair as well. Just the namecards left--no, they said no namecards this time....She was trying to go through her task list mentally, but it was no use--she would have to return to her office to look at the written list again because she had forgotten to put it in her pocket. Meanwhile, the twins saw their opportunity and seized it: they had heard President Obama say he wished he could nail those Representatives to their chairs until they reached an agreement, so they were going to squirt Gorilla Glue all over the chairs while their mother's eyes were closed.

Then Rumba sucked up a large binder clip and burped loudly, causing Clio to open her eyes. "Reggie! Fergie!" She jumped to her feet and ran over to collect the glue bottles from the twins. "What do you think you're doing?!" She looked down at the puddles of Gorilla Glue in dismay, knowing there was no way to get it off the chairs cleanly. "It will dry clear, I suppose," she said softly to herself. "It won't have any stickiness left by Sunday." She glared at the twins, who had lined themselves against the wall like prisoners awaiting the firing squad, and she wagged her fingers at them. "I can't let you be for two minutes!" she railed. "You'll be the death of me!" She turned off Rumba, announced they were finished, and pointed them to head for the door.

"She doesn't understand the importance," whispered a White House ghost to Regina.

"We'll come back Saturday night," whispered another White House ghost to Ferguson.

Then Bo arrived out of nowhere to bark at the White House ghosts until they got annoyed and fled back to the Oval Office to do some more whispering in there.

A few miles away, Congressman Herrmark was miffed (again) that he had not been invited to the budget summit on Sunday. He just did not understand why his party's leadership could not see that he was a rising star with brilliant ideas and the steely resolve to see them through. He knew Congressman Issa had it in for him, but he had demonstrated his budget patriotism by abandoning his quest for an earmark to clean up his home state from the hydrofracking damage (specifically, his parents' vacation home), and he should be rewarded for that! What was the point of acting like a statesman if nobody was going to give him statesman powers? True, his bodyguards had mistakenly roughed up some tourists from Ohio whom they had mistaken as Halliburton spies (assassins), but nobody could blame his bodyguards for being cautious, and if Boehner was holding that against him, well, screw him! Herrmark was starting to think he should have taken the back-scratching deal offered a month ago, but it looked like a trap and it was too late now--the moment had passed. He sighed, and wished he could phone Mia and hear her soft voice, but he had ordered her never to answer the telephone, so he couldn't. Well, at least I can spend the weekend with her, he thought, since I won't have something more important to do. And maybe I'll have the boys take her to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival for a couple hours, get her out of the house. He smiled at his own benevolence and signaled his bodyguards he was ready to go down to the cafeteria to eat lunch, then he frowned remembering who had canceled a lunch appointment with him.

Back at Prince and Prowling, Laura Moreno had just finished reviewing 200 documents loaded by Chloe Cleavage into the database: thirty of them were copies of correspondence between the partner and opposing counsel, two of them were memos Cleavage had written about a different database, ten were images of CD-ROMs, 150 of them were twenty years old and completely irrelevant, and the rest had only one important document. (Cleavage had loaded them into the database while on speakerphone with her cousin Chloris Cleavage, a Hollywood actress who had just been shortlisted to play Anthony Wiener's sexting partner number four.) And now Moreno had to write in detail what had been accomplished with the ten hours she had spent in this database in a way that the senior partner deemed acceptable for billing to the client or Moreno was not going to get paid. Suddenly the paralegal-from-Hell came into the workroom with the hair scissors and everything else. "It's time," she said, like the nurse from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".

"You wave those scissors at me one more time, and I'll call the police to report a violent assault," Moreno said quietly, playing the only possible trump card she could--she might be the lowliest lawyer at Prince and Prowling, but she knew that the paralegal-from-Hell did not know the legal definition of criminal assault and would keep the scissors out of her face until somebody was consulted on it. The paralegal-from-Hell retreated without saying a word, hatred gleaming in her eyes, and Moreno knew there was a 50-50 chance she would end up fired over the weekend, but that no longer seemed the worst fate in the world.

A couple miles away, Glenn Michael Beckmann was casing the Smithsonian Folklife Festival for a possible Saturday bombing, but most of the other people on the Mall were having a lovely time--most.

One if by Land, Two if by S.E.A.

2011-07-02T10:22:00.004-04:00

Dick Cheney rarely opened up his house to outsiders, but he knew that nobody else in Sense of Entitlement Anonymous would do justice to a 4th of July weekend meeting, so there they were, all seated on Martha Stewart Living chairs in his backyard, surrounded by red roses, white petunias and blue bonnets (planted Memorial Day weekend by the Mexican day laborers he had picked up outside the Home Depot), sipping Wyoming iced tea (sweetened with high-mountain honey, ground-up cheatgrass, and cherry liqueur), and eating an endless parade of snacks carried from the kitchen to the backyard by Lynn Cheney. (She had wanted to go out of town for the holiday weekend, but the doctor had ordered him and his heart not to fly.) Red, white, and blue balloons danced in the background, tied to his gnome-sized statues of George Washington, General Patton, and Henry Kissinger. A Marine band CD was playing from the boom box at the center of the antique rifle crate they were using as a table at the center of their gathering. A cherry incense stick was burning next to it because cherry was an American smell. Steaks were sizzling on the grill, and several Al Qaeda leader pinatas were hanging from the nearby oak tree for target practice later.

Congressman John Boehner looked around in puzzlement that there were so many nobodies here, and felt very disappointed. On the other hand (and this thought cheered him up), since he and Cheney were the only important people here, he would get a lot of respect. (He didn't recognize former Senator Evermore Breadman, who had happily stayed out of the limelight since his Congressional days long ago.) Boehner gulped his tea and waited for somebody to begin the meeting.

"I lost my Rolex!" blurted out Calico Johnson at last. "Nobody's reported it to the police! What kind of world is this where people will not come forward and admit they found somebody else's Rolex?" (He had forgotten by now that he had also come to own it accidentally.) "You try to have a little faith in your fellow man, but NOOOOO!" (He had been in terrible withdrawal ever since losing the cursed Rolex, waking up repeatedly in the night in a cold sweat from conscience-driven dreams about the hundreds of evictions he had made on houses he had picked up at foreclosure auctions.) "It's probably been sold already to some scumbag drug dealer! (Sometimes the nightmares were about the people he had evicted from the 13,000 rental units he owned around the Washington region.) "It's enough to make you want to give up on the human race!" (His right eye had started twitching again, and the cramps in his toes were driving him insane.) "And people say, 'Just buy another one, Cal! That was an old one, anyway, Cal! Treat yourself to a newer model, Cal! You could buy the one that Donald Trump has, Cal!' But mine was SPECIAL!" (He looked at the pale, flaccid swath of skin on the trembling wrist where his demonic Rolex used to lay, then he sighed.)

John Boehner was impressed by the smooth and organic manner in which the man had managed to insert his own name into his discourse repeatedly, and made a mental note to attempt this strategy in his next floor speech in the House of Representatives. (He was under a lot of pressure to put together a rebuttal to the economic diatribe Senator Bernie Sanders had unleashed on June 28th. He started drafting something in his head: And people say, "John, we can't balance the budget on the backs of the poor, sick, and elderly!" And people say, "John, we can't let our country turn into a banana republic where one percent of the population control 80% of the country's wealth!" And people say, "John, we can't give more tax breaks to the super wealthy while the middle class sinks into poverty." And I say to myself, "John, you cannot let people be pulled into class warfare! The truth is--")

"Nobody's gonna have Rolexes if we don't restore liquidity in this country!" It was new S.E.A. member Luciano Talaverdi, and everybody's eyes popped open wide at the sound of his foreign accent. (Personally, he thought Rolexes were overpriced bangles, and wouldn't be caught dead in anything but a luxurious Versace watch housing a Swiss timepiece, but the Federal Reserve Board economist was trying to make a point.) "Why are Americans so ignorant about this?" (A lot of eyes now narrowed at this.) "Nothing happens without investment, investment does not happen without liquidity, liquidity does not happen without strong monetary policy, strong monetary policy does not happen without fiscal responsibility, fiscal responsibility does not happen without deference to authoritarian mandates of the highest order!" (Dick Cheney was holding a Cheese-Whiz covered biscuit an inch from his agape mouth, wondering if he had a real, live, Italian fascist sitting in his backyard.) "You people have NOOOO idea!" (Talaverdi was whispering now, and Bridezilla's heart was melting at his sexy accent and compelling charisma.) "Corporations are the lifeblood of the world, and we have to keep the vampires away!" (Judge Sowell Ame tuned out at that point, as he always did when conversation turned to vampires or werewolves or zombies.) "Liquidity! We are entitled to liquidity!"

Former Senator Evermore Breadman discreetly glanced down at the tape recorder tucked in his polo shirt pocket to make sure it was running. (He was here to check out the organization for a high-profile client who had heard about the group from Bridezilla and was interested in joining but wanted to get a second opinion on it first.) Maybe I can triple-bill this. (He was thinking about a couple new clients that came in yesterday--one who wanted to set up a SuperPac just like Stephen Colbert's and the other who wanted to set up a SuperPac to destroy Stephen Colbert.) The flow of money. Breadman was cracking pistachios and throwing the shells down on the patio. Citizens United. He spit a bit of shell onto the patio. Money equals free speech. Liquidity equals money. Liquidity equals free speech. Constitutional right to liquidity. FEC advisory opinion means corporations have a right to lobby Congress on fiscal policy because fiscal policy affects monetary policy and monetary policy affects liquidity and liquidity equals free speech. Breadman smiled in euphoria at his brilliant legal analysis, wondering if he would remember it or if he needed to break his cool and pull out a pen to write it down.

Meanwhile, John Boehner was mystified by Talaverdi's remarks and decided it was time for him to change the subject and speak up for the first time at Sense of Entitlement Anonymous. "We are also entitled to energy! Why are there so many people in Washington trying to send us back to the stone age, like the Taliban?!" (Oops! I forgot to use my name.) "People are telling me, 'John, the Federal Trade Commission has started investigating the oil and gas industry for price manipulation and other anti-competitive activity! John, what are you going to do about it?' And I tell myself, 'John, the oil and gas industry has already been attacked by the EPA and by the White House and by those communist ecological syndicates and by the Department of Energy, and you, John, have got to put a stop to this once and for all!'" He saw several nodding heads around him, and felt a warm glow roll over his nicotined body. (Sweet, thought former Senator Evermore Breadman, I can bill this to fifteen more clients now!) "The oil and gas industry has suffered enough!" said Boehner. "We are entitled to freedom, just like everybody else!" (Boehner was startled to see Lynn Cheney winking at him just then, but nothing turned her on like politicians' defending the oil and gas industry.)

A few miles away, Atticus Hawk looked down at the Potomac River as his taxi crossed the bridge: he was heading to the airport for a long vacation after the conclusion of the Justice Department's two-year special investigation of possible criminal abuses at Guantanamo. Hawk (the formerly self-proclaimed torture specialist) had successfully steered John Durham away from most of the torture evidence, and the Attorney General was only going to proceed with criminal probes on two detainee deaths. Hawk knew he was not entirely out of the woods yet, but he was on the edge and could see a meadow full of sunshine within reach. Deep below him, Ardua of the Potomac grinned mischievously and reached up to give him a demonic poke in the gut, just enough to keep him uneasy until his return to Washington.

The Diary of Dupont Down Under

2011-06-25T10:56:00.003-04:00

They came from the south--from somewhere between the White House and the Mayflower. Some say they fell through a hole somewhere on Connecticut Avenue. Others say they assaulted sewer workers who were blocking traffic with their orange cones set up around a manhole cover on K Street. Some say they swam through the Dupont Circle fountain seeking its source. Others say they followed Alice through the looking glass.

But we know the truth: they came for the Rolex.

Some will say that cannot be true because the Hunter-Gatherer Society does not care about things like that.

But we know the truth.

It started with our Fearless Leader. He has protected us from the double-crossing Beaver, the exploding gas lines, the encroaching federal underground bunkers, the real estate bribes, the millipedes, the river rats, and even the great Civil War of 2010 when our military veterans argued about the Surge in Afghanistan.

But he could not protect us from HER.

Holly Gonightly is her name. Everyone knows she's TFFT (too fat for televison), but, still, she's beautiful like a Renoir painting, and her voice is strong and soft at the same time (like purple velvet), and she's smart as a whip, and she loves poking her television camera anywhere there's an important story....

And so last weekend she met Fearless Leader when he was gleaning at the Farmers Market, because his clothes were raggedy and his hair was raggedy and his fingernails were raggedy, and yet a shiny Rolex was gleaming from his left wrist as he held open his bag and tossed in sprouted potatoes, wilted lettuce, and mushy peaches. And so she pulled her camera woman off the transvestite juggling seven heirloom tomatoes while riding a unicycle and asked our Fearless Leader who he is.

The answer is rumored to have taken up 45 minutes of tape, but she was dissatisfied, so Holly Gonightly asked him straight-up, "But you have a Rolex?" And our Fearless Leader did not know it! Because it was just a watch he had found on the ground. She told him he might be able to sell it for ten-thousand dollars and then rent an apartment for himself so he would not have to live underground, or she could run a television story in which he offers to return it to its rightful owner and he would be famous. But Fearless Leader said he would have to consult his brothers and sisters in Dupont Down Under, so she set off to follow him.

But HE was following HER.

We learned later he is Glenn Michael Beckmann, leader of the Hunter-Gatherer Society. Some say he was following her because he thought she was spying on him and he wanted to turn the tables on her. Others say he was following her because her pheromones were so powerful. Some say he was only at the farmer's market to buy home-made soap (because Freemasons and hippies controlled Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, and Procter & Gamble).

But we know the truth: he saw the Rolex thirty seconds before Fearless Leader did, and so Glenn Michael Beckmann would not rest until he took rightful possession of it.

So down they came into our world--Fearless Leader, camera woman, Holly Gonightly, and Glenn Michael Beckmann. Holly Gonightly was struggling to scribble notes on her Lois Lane steno pad in the dim lighting while the camera woman wrinkled her nose at the peculiar smells of our home under the streets. Fearless Leader set about distributing food, saying nothing about the reporter or the camera woman or the enormous watch glistening on his wrist. "Never sell yourself with less enthusiasm than you would sell a used car," Fearless Leader said, as he handed out a blueberry muffin he had found in the dirt. "A flower in a Dupont Circle garden could be a towering bush in El Yunque rainforest--don't be more impatient than the impatiens." (Fearless Leader was handing out some Belgian endive now, and nobody was tempted to jump to the front of the line for THAT.) "Save one for Silverado," Fearless Leader said, as he passed out some carrots. (He was talking about a National Park Service police horse.) "When everybody is labeled an enemy combatant, the Earth will stand still and the alien invasion will begin," Fearless Leader said to a Goth waif from New Jersey because he knew she only felt happy when thinking about alien invasions. "Only pink warblers can sing the song I sang," Fearless Leader said to the last person in line for food.

For several minutes, we ate in silence (except for the humming of the Goth waif), and the camera woman panned back and forth across the throng a few times. Gonightly was just opening her mouth to speak when Fearless Leader abruptly thrust his wrist up in the air and shouted, "Behold, the mighty Rolex!" (A young man in a Wahoo t-shirt immediately jumped up and declared it was his Rolex that he had lost the week before, but everybody shouted him down as a known liar.) "We have no use for The Man's ticking time pieces in Dupont Down Under," said Fearless Leader, and many people nodded and shouted amens. He pointed to Holly Gonightly and said, "This woman tells me I can sell it for ten-thousand dollars, or I can appear on television and say I would like to return it to its rightful owner." (The man in the Wahoo t-shirt tried to jump up again, but the former Marine next to him yanked the fellow back down.) "Everyone close your eyes, and we will take a vote."

But then the Goth waif stood up and pointed at Holly Gonightly. "Let's give it to her," the Goth waif said, because Gonightly reminded her of a favorite aunt--the only person in her family that ever loved her.

"Alright," agreed Fearless Leader with a shrug. He immediately took it off and handed it to Holly Gonightly, who looked in bewilderment at her camera woman, and the camera woman pointed to Gonightly's wrist, so Gonightly put the Rolex on.

"A tremendous act of generosity from the citizens here," she began. "Tomorrow I will begin the search for the true owner of this watch, who will, I am certain, want to reward these honest people." She looked over at Fearless Leader for a moment, then back at the camera. "This is Holly Gonightly, reporting from Dupont Down Under." The camera woman turned off the camera and whispered to Gonightly that they needed to go now, so they thanked us and left.

Then Glenn Michael Beckmann emerged from the darkness to spew hatred at us. "That was MY Rolex!" he screamed. Somebody asked why he didn't say so earlier. "You will ALL pay for this!" he screamed. Then he left.

The next day, he returned with dozens of armed men and told us they were taking over. "We are the Hunter-Gatherer Society!" he shouted at us. "We have existed from the beginning and will exist to the end. Nobody can stop our right to hunt and gather!"

"That's cool," said the Goth waif.

"Go and gather for us--NOW!" screamed Beckmann.

The former Marine had already pulled out a knife to attack Beckmann with, but Fearless Leader motioned for him to put it away. And so we went out to gather food for the Hunter-Gatherer Society, and when we came back, we found our things shoved into a side tunnel and were told slaves were not allowed anywhere else in the tunnels. Fearless Leader encouraged us to be patient, and, indeed, after a few hours the Hunter-Gatherer Society left after Beckmann grew tired of their complaints about the smell and the claustrophobia and the darkness and the creepy-crawlies. And so we rejoiced, but the next day they came back. Like lions marking their territory, they now return every day to roar and frighten us. We do not know what they want, but the Goth waif suggested we look up Beckmann's blog, so that's what we will do. "We have survived worse," says Fearless Leader, and it is true.

***************
NEXT WEEK: Some new members join Sense of Entitlement Anonymous.

As the World Turns

2011-06-18T14:05:00.003-04:00

Speaker of the House John Boehner was lying on his psychiatrist's couch sucking on a grape lollipop a few hours after playing golf with President Obama and Vice President Biden. (Dr. Ermann Esse had a variety of sucking objects available for his smoking clients.) Boehner was in a snit about President Obama's refusal to seek a war powers authorization from Congress about Libya. Boehner pulled the sucker out of his mouth, made air quotation marks, and said in a sing-song voice: "It's a NATO action!" He took another grape suck. "The U.S. is merely in a support role!" He took another grape suck. "I mean, who does he think he is?"

"Do you think he is trying to exercise more power than President Bush did?" asked Dr. Esse.

"That's not the point!" shouted Boehner. (He was this close to giving up bipartisanship forever!)

"What is the point?" asked Dr. Esse?

"Whose side are your on?!" demanded Boehner.

Dr. Esse tapped on his own skull. "I'm on the side of your subconscious, trying to bring his voice to the surface. Let's try some more hypnosis." Boehner shoved the lollipop back in his mouth and thought about trying something else.

A couple miles to the west, the Assistant Deputy Administrator for Hope was in his State Department office, sucking on a grape lollipop and typing up another round of summaries on communications coming in from Libya, Egypt, and Syria. "Human shields", he kept typing, over and over again. "Refugees", he typed over and over again. "Rape as a weapon of war," he typed again. Then he paused. Unidentified amphibious creature seen pulling Libyan soldiers under in the Great Manmade River. Confirmed by three different sources. Satellite images inconclusive. He shuffled papers; he bounced around computer screens; he tried a few phone calls, but nobody was picking up.

Suddenly "C. Coe Phant" was in his doorway. "What's up?" he asked in his usual snarky way while simultaneously tossing the Deputy Administrator a candy bar.

"Have you heard anything about the Great Manmade River in Libya?" asked the Deputy Administrator.

"What about it?" asked C. Coe Phant, while the Deputy Administrator scrutinized his face and found nothing to suggest he was part of any conspiracy orchestrated to get the Deputy Administrator to make a fool of himself in his memo to the Secretary of State.

"Nothing," the Deputy Administrator replied.

C. Coe Phant returned to his own office to finish his report on Project R.O.D.H.A.M.'s new operation in Libya, and their plan for recruiting Angela de la Paz--who was rumored to be in Libya and hanging out around the Great Manmade River. (He wasn't worried about the Deputy Administrator's inquiry--surely just something about a body count there.) Phant was obsessed with the girl, and had gone as far as to ask Secretary Clinton to have a chance to recruit Angela de la Paz personally, but Secretary Clinton had laughed in his face. Phant was tired of being a desk jockey and wondered how he could graduate to Charles Wu's life.

A few miles to the north, Charles Wu was dunking his head into a sink full of ice water--once...twice...thrice.... He kept his eyes closed, exhaled deeply, inhaled deeply, and dunked his head three more times. Refreshed, he returned to his intelligence reports. Frankly, he was sick to death of Middle East intelligence and wanted to go back to reporting on Asia, but everybody wanted Middle East intelligence these days--including top clients the U.K. (desperate to win a war they had lost a long, long time ago) and China (which despised the "hordes of camel-riding illiterates" who drove up petroleum prices and jeopardized its advancement). Wu had C. Coe Phant reporting from the State Department, the Condor reporting on OPEC, Ethiopian taxi drivers reporting on Egyptian unrest, Che Flaco and Che Gordo reporting on Venezuela's attempts to wrest Saudi Arabia away from U.S. influence, and the Heurich Society's influence in controlling the flow of petro dollars from the sheikhs/despots and back to the U.S. For one thing, too many male spies! He hadn't seen Apricot Lily or Camisole Silk in months! It was extremely difficult to use women operatives in the Middle East, and without women, it just wasn't much fun for him! He couldn't fool around with the woman in Project R.O.D.H.A.M.--they were untouchable, for professional reasons. He stared out the window. I need a vacation. He resolved to talk to the Secretary of State about returning to the Chinese border of Afghanistan to check on the telecommunications shadow networks that Wikileaks and the New York Times had come dangerously close to outing.

Not far away, Congressman Herrmark was relaxing in his man cave while Mia (of the Marianas Islands) stared listlessly out the second floor window, "enjoying" a couple hours by herself. Her English had gotten good enough now to read the newspapers a bit and understand television programs. She was starting to understand more about the huge world out there, and the more she understood about it, the more she felt trapped like a bird in a cage. It was true that human rights groups had gotten many of the factories shut down in the Marianas Islands and there was not much work left for girls like her, and her life here was better than it had been, but Mia did not understand why he had taken her passport to lock it up in a "safe place" unknown to her, or why he had given her shots for things like measles which she knew most people got at a doctor's office. And the more English she learned, and the more she tried to talk to his bodyguards, the more uncomfortable they got around her, and so they were avoiding her. Congressman Herrmark had brought her a toy poodle last week, but it stupidly fell through the banister from the top of the front hall stairs and broke its own neck on the marble floor of the foyer, but he blamed Mia and said he would not get her another pet. Mia thought she made him happy, but what if she didn't? Outside her window, a raven tried to whisper something to her, but all the windows were locked with a key because, the Congressman said, he was a sleepwalker--but she had never seen him sleepwalk. And she never slept a wink when he was home--only when he was gone. (She was nervous all the time.) She pressed her nose against the window and stared deeply into the eyes of the raven and wondered about the future.

Over in Silver Spring, Liv Cigemeier's husband was surfing the internet for a few minutes while his wife finished getting ready for the barbecue they would be attending. "Hey," he called out, "this says a new Director was named at International Development Machine. Have you ever heard of this guy?" He shouted out the name to her, and then heard a gasp.

Back in Washington, the river rats scurried away from the the chaos of the Georgetown water main reconstruction project and back into the bosom of Ardua of the Potomac--well, some to her bosom, others to her stomach.

******************

NEXT WEEK: Lost and found with the cursed Rolex.

Four Weddings and a Funeral

2011-06-12T10:23:00.007-04:00

"OK, look--look at this one!"

The man nudged his new husband away from his French toast to look at another photo from the Capitol Pride parade.

"We were there! Why did she email us 48 photos of the parade?"

"It's her wedding present to us!" The two had gotten married at Augustana Lutheran Church a few hours before the parade, and then marched with the Augustana contingent in it. "Look at this one!"

His husband's French toast was getting cold. "Please tell me that's not really her wedding present! People think because it's a gay wedding they don't have to give us real presents?" He looked up from his patio table at the festive litter all over 17th Street and shook his head.

"It's not about presents! It's about equality!"

"Can I finish my French toast now?"

A Trio's waiter stopped by to offer them more coffee and found two sulking men still wearing their rainbow beads, one trying to talk the other into canceling the honeymoon trip to Cancun and taking a whirlwind tour of Morocco and Tunisia.

A few miles to the east, a slightly happier couple was celebrating their wedding by digging into a wild boar liver casserole and wagging their tails. "This is the cutest thing ever!" sighed Becky Hartley. It was her idea to set up the pet wedding website and ordain herself a minister, but Sebastian L'Arche was still unsure about all this. "Eight-hundred dollars!" she whispered again to L'Arche, "and all we had to pay for was some gourmet pet food, flowers, and an inflatable pagoda!" The dogs' owners had, indeed, forked over $800 for the wedding ceremony, in addition to the $500 it had cost them to get a lacy wedding dress made for Mitzi and a silk suit and top hat made for Fritzi. ("It's a business investment!” the gung-ho owner had said to her dubious husband. “Their bulldog puppies are gonna make us a fortune after their wedding video goes viral on You Tube!")

"I'm just not sure this is actually GOOD for the animals," L'Arche finally got up the nerve to say.

"Look," said Hartley, "it doesn't hurt 'em neither. We need to move into higher-paying gigs to free up more of your time for the important work. You're overloaded with dogwalking and taking care of pets that don't have any problems. You've got a gift, and we need to free up your time to work on that gift."

The wedding photographer (who had volunteered his services to make a name for himself as a pet wedding photographer) lay flat on his stomach to get a few good shots of Fritzi's moneymaker--which was gonna make the photographer a hefty bundle of cash on the side when he Tweeted them as “Anthony Dog Weiner”.

"Spending a lot of time with animals is what keeps me tuned in," L'Arche said to Hartley.

"Look," Hartley said, "my dad makes $200,000/year prescribing doggie Prozac in Dallas. There's a world of hurt out there. (She had not yet brought herself to use the word "demon" since recently becoming aware.) “I think you can spend 40 hours/week, hell, 60 hours/week with animals, but let's get you focused on the animals that need it the most. I'll keep this on the side so it doesn't embarrass you, but I want you to spend more time doing what matters--even if the people can't pay you. We need to take this to the next level."

L'Arche petted Congressman Flipbird’s ostrich (“Spike”) and decided to give this some thought.

Back in Northwest, Charles Wu was attending a wedding at the Universalist National Memorial Church with his herb shop “business partner” Lynnette Wong, who had felt the American pressure not to show up at a wedding without a “date”. They were reading the program in silence while Bach music wafted over them softly from a nearby harpist. The bride was the daughter of a Swedenborgian father and Jewish mother; the groom was the son of a Moony couple who had converted to Rastafarianism when he was seven and then to Mormonism when he was eleven. “The divine is infinite possibility!” was the caption of the wedding program. (The bridge and groom had met at a screening of the documentary “Quantum Activist”.) “Only the new can open us up to the possible,” said the program. “Simply be. When you are ready to do, the door opens and it is time to do. After the door closes, it is again time to be. Do-be-do-be-do!” Wong glanced at Wu to see what he made of this program, but his expression had reverted to the inscrutability only temporarily displaced by real emotion during the tragic sojourn of his family members in Washington. She read further: “The particle joins the wave and cannot exist apart from the wave. Neither can the wave exist without the sum of the particles. So is the life in the particle or the wave? The answer is…life is everywhere.”

“It’s good to believe in something,” Wong said, partially believing her own statement and partially wanting to bait Wu.

“Hmmm,” Wu said politely, nodding his head, remembering his first Kung Fu teacher in Hong Kong and how his mother had torn to pieces every philosophical statement Wu had brought from his teacher to her.

A gong suddenly boomed at the rear of the church, and everyone turned to see the couple—dressed in matching yellow robes—enter the sanctuary. They paused briefly, beaming at the assembly. A young boy and girl dressed in matching lavender robes stepped in front of them and started dancing down the aisles, shaking tambourines along the way, and the happy couple followed in their footsteps.

Outside the Universalist National Memorial Church, Bridezilla sat in her car alone. She was reading the program from her wedding yesterday--the wedding that didn’t happen, the Christian-Hindu celebration of love and commitment that didn’t happen. Her back seat was so full of orchids and lilies that the scent was sickeningly intoxicating. She was fairly certain that her super-rich fiancé (that is, ex-fiancé) did not begrudge the $300,000 he had spent for the ceremony, and she had heard that he decided to take his little brother to the Seychelles island he had rented after Bridezilla learned that’s where Will and Kate honeymooned, and he really liked the dream house he had purchased and would just live in it without her—but she worried that maybe she had caused dear Jay…humiliation. He was better off without her, surely, but-- She saw a red dot of an insect crawling across the corner of the program, screamed, rolled down her car window, and tossed the program into the street. Then she took all the remaining programs sitting on the passenger seat and tossed them out into the street. Then she grabbed the DustBuster and vacuumed the passenger seat and her own clothing. Then she grabbed the Lysol and sprayed it all over the passenger seat and her own clothing. Then she closed her eyes while the fumes subsided. The house was too big, he could never have kept it clean enough for her, she would have gotten sick with some horrible sick-house illness and ended up an invalid, he would have exhausted his millions and millions of dollars on a string of doctors that could not save her from her frail constitution and its inability to fight off the eight billion microbes living inside it. Plus he wasn’t that keen on her genitalia hygiene requirements, and he probably would have started protesting them eventually. She coughed, then the phone rang again—it was her mother, who was still worried about a conversation she had overheard that Jay’s relatives from India were going to plot their daughter’s death. Ignore call, she pressed. She looked at the engagement ring—which she had switched to her other hand after Jay insisted she keep it. Then for the first time in a long time, she noticed she was hungry, so she decided to drive to I-Hop and get blueberry pancakes. At least I didn’t leave him standing at the altar, she consoled herself, having phoned him an hour before the ceremony. And I phoned him! It wasn’t a text message. I did the right thing.

Over in Dupont Circle, the middle floor of the Heurich Castle was holding a private funeral for a former CIA operative known affectionately as Ruby for the thirty years’ of clandestine photos she had taken in the Middle East with her lipstick cameras. (She would wear a scarf when she had to, but she wouldn’t be caught dead without lipstick on—though some always thought she would be caught dead with the lipstick camera.) Henry Samuelson had already paid his respects and was surveying the controlled crowd which, to his supreme annoyance, included loony Cedric from the Arlington group home for the mentally challenged. Cedric was under the supervision of Millie the dog because social worker Hue Nguyen had refused to put on a blindfold and was therefore consigned to wait in the car. “Is Obama coming?” Cedric kept asking everybody, refusing to believe that Obama would remain at Camp David rather than attend the private service. “Didn’t you invite Obama?” Cedric asked the grieving widower, and two men made a menacing move towards Cedric, prompting Millie to nudge Cedric back to the hot food buffet. (Samuelson wasn’t sure if Cedric wanted to meet President Obama or kill him—the lack of certainty on such a fundamental point was only one of the many reasons he should not have been allowed to attend. Then there was the rumor of Cedric’s secret affair with Ruby in Abu Dhabi—which was an untrue rumor and only troubling because Cedric was the one who had started it.) “Hey, how ya doin?” Cedric asked George Tenet, who mumbled something with a mouth full of crab dip, then sidled off. Cedric turned to NSA Director, General Keith Alexander. “Too bad about Thomas Drake,” Cedric said. (The NSA Director nodded.) “He was the one that installed my line to the Secret Government, and it’s been ripped up. How do I get that fixed?” General Alexander choked on his baba ganoush, and the same two men again made a menacing move towards Cedric, but Millie nudged Cedric safely over to the beverage table. “Hi, Condi!” Cedric said with delight when he spotted Condoleezza Rice helping herself to more shiraz, and she smiled mischievously at him. “Hey, you’ve got a drop of—“ Rice took a napkin to dab the wine on her lips, but she missed one red drop rolling down her chin. (“Blood sucker,” thought Cedric, suddenly remembering a nickname he had once heard for her, and uncharacteristically having the good sense not to say it out loud.) “Hey, can you help me get plugged back into the Secret Government?” Rice nodded seductively, and winked at Henry Samuelson watching from across the room. “Cool! Ruby’s been sending me messages from the Great Beyond, and if any of them are important, I’ll be sure to let you know!” Samuelson’s eyes narrowed and he frowned menacingly at Rice, but she was feeling no pain. “Ruby was one of the good guys,” Cedric whispered to Millie. “I miss her.”

Outside, a flock of sparrows searched in vain for a view of the private service, but all the windows were heavily curtained off. Only Charles Wu’s bugs hidden in the sterno cans were recording the spy conversations and transmitting them outside the Brewmaster’s Castle. One raven kept vigil in a nearby gingko tree, and would remain there until nightfall.

Super Bugs

2011-06-05T11:41:00.003-04:00

Glenn Michael Beckmann was rallying his people in Meridian Hill Park: ""We are the Hunter-Gatherer Society. We have existed from the beginning and will exist to the end. Nobody can stop our right to hunt and gather!" The men cheered. (Women were not allowed to cheer because their high-pitched voices would distort the manliness of the cheering, so the two women there clapped.) Beckmann had been riding high ever since he pulled off the top-secret meeting with their president, Sarah Palin, after her visit to Mount Vernon and before her visit to the National Archives. "Stand tall!" Beckman screamed, and the men cheered again, and the women clapped. "Today we answer the call of a brother in distress." Beckmann pointed to a skinny man with orange hair, a goatee, and overalls. "Milton has alerted us to an evil, foreign invader terrorizing this neighborhood." Beckmann signaled to Holly Gonightly (undercover reporter) to start passing out the weapons. "This is how we will kill the enemy!" The men said nothing, silently examining the sponge mops in perplexity. "MILLIPEDES!" screamed Beckmann, and Milton cheered. Beckmann looked around at the men, who seemed a bit disappointed. "We will hunt them down where they sleep and beat them to death--every last one of them!" The men mustered a little bit of cheering at the word "death", but still looked a bit dejected. "Then we will hunt down the pugs and the chihuahuas and the toy boxers and the miniature poodles!" The men cheered wildly, harboring a deep hatred of the little yappy dogs who were taking over Dupont, Logan, and now Meridian Hill. Gonightly turned to the other woman to see her reaction, but she was looking at the ground. (She had been hoping they would hunt pigeons today.)

A couples miles to the south, Portuguese water dog Bo was also hunting millipedes. "Go, Bo, go!" hollered the twin pre-schoolers, Ferguson and Regina, who were carrying sponge mops to beat the millipedes to death each time Bo discovered one of their secret lairs. The Secret Service followed from a distance, unwilling to let Bo go completely nuts but fascinated at his ability to ferret out the sleeping creatures who, when they came out at night, were capable of giving Sasha, Malia, President Obama, and even the toughest Secret Service officers a massive case of the creeps. (Some were saying that the President of Yemen had been driven out by a stash of millipedes secreted into his bed chamber by revolutionaries.) "Ha, take that!" shouted Regina, as she beat a couple of millipedes to death, then watched their severed limbs continue to twitch electrically. "You're dead, sucker!" echoed Ferguson, as he pinned one against the wall with his sponge mop. Now Bo was tearing through the yellow room and knocking over chairs, but he found nothing and headed towards the West Wing as the Secret Service agents scrambled to straighten up after him. Then Bo paused in the hallway, gave a few sniffs, and proceeded to dig his claws into the carpeting to tear it up. The twins squealed in delight at the sight of a hundred millipedes, and began whacking them to death as Bo barked triumphantly.

"Fergie! Reggie!"

The twins froze at the sound of their mother's voice, and the Secret Service agents looked up in embarrassment at the White House butler, Clio. "Ummm--"

"You ripped up the RUG?!"

"Look, Mommy!" said Ferguson, pointing to a writhing mass of half-dead millipedes, and his mother shivered.

"Why don't we let the men handle it," said Clio, taking the sponge mops from her children and handing them to the agents. "It's THEIR job to keep us safe."

Bo whimpered as the twins were hustled briskly back to the East Wing, knowing that there were many, many things the agents could not keep them safe from.

A couple miles away, Henry Samuelson (who had been up half the night hunting down millipedes) yawned and thumbed through his papers as he waited for the Heurich Society Chairman to move to the next item on the agenda. "Project Cinderella," the Chairman said at last, and Samuelson perked up. "We have unconfirmed reports that she is responsible for forcing the President of Yemen out." Samuelson smiled but said nothing. "She's a loose cannon!" shouted the Chairman, pounding his fist on the table, which resulted in a couple of donuts flying out of their box. "We did not authorize that," the Chairman said in a quieter but more menacing tone, looking straight at Samuelson.

"Angela knows what she's doing," said Samuelson with a smirk.

"Well, maybe WE should also know what she's doing!" said the Chairman.

"She knocked out a dozen military officers in Egypt last week, then slipped into Yemen for two days, and now she's back in Egypt," said Samuelson.

"Tell us something we don't already know!" said the Chairman.

"What do you want me to tell you?" asked Samuelson. "She's a force of nature, she's a killing machine, she moves like the wind--she's everything she was trained to be!"

"Except obedient!" said the Chairman.

"She is making snap decisions in life-or-death conditions, navigating the most hostile situations imaginable, and doing it as a woman surrounded by men who hate women! The Egyptians call her 'she whose gaze must be avoided'! And in Yemen--"

"And you think Yemen or Egypt will be more pro-woman now?" snarled the Chairman.

"Arab countries are growing weaker by the day! Isn't that what we want? We can't control the oil unless they're weak."

Then the speakerphone crackled, indicating that Condoleezza Rice was weighing in from California, and Samuelson rolled his eyes preemptively. "There's a difference between weak and feckless, gentlemen." (You're just jealous, thought Samuelson, who actually had no idea that Angela de la Paz had brought the young but powerful demon Eeteesbsse to the Middle East to do her bidding.)

A mile north, Charles Wu also had Middle East oil on his mind as he entered the Mi Tierra Market and sat down next to the Condor underneath the Unity Park peace statue and bit into a pupusa. He put down his newspaper for a minute, took another bite, then picked up his newspaper again with the report glued under the fold. "I'm not totally sure that it IS going to rain," said Wu quietly a few minutes later.

"Yes," said a Salvadoran sitting on the other side of Wu. (The Salvadoran was neither certain of what Wu had said nor of whom Wu had said it to, but did not want to be impolite.)

"It's true we've had a lot of rain warnings this week without a whole lot of rain," said the Condor before taking another bite of his chalupa.

"She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah," Wu sang softly. (This prompted the Salvadoran to get up and walk over to a different bench.)

"Yeah, man," said the Condor.

Wu finished his pupusa leisurely, then said, "the pupusa is still four dollars. What about the chalupa?"

"It's definitely going up," said the Condor. "Next week we might want to switch to tacos."

"Alright, next week I'm buying!" said Wu; then he got up abruptly to leave because he knew the Condor had gotten really paranoid the last few weeks. (Wu was also eager to talk to Hillary Clinton about Project R.O.D.H.A.M. and the possibility that Angela de la Paz would defect.)

A couple miles to the west, Bridezilla was doing another wedding dress fitting. "These tacos are delicious!" her fiance called out tantalizingly from the other side of the room divider, hoping this would be the magic aroma after he had already failed to tempt her with Thai, Italian, French, or Chinese food earlier in the week. Jay knew the dressmaker was taking in the dress again because the e:coli epidemic in Germany had frightened Bridezilla so much that she was refusing to eat anything but brown rice mixed with Ensure and microwaved on high for three minutes. "I ate this yesterday, too!" Jay called out, which was a lie, but he was desperate to get her eating again. (It didn't matter: Bridezilla was convinced that Jay had super immunities from growing up in India, and that her immune system was sheltered and frail.) The dressmaker secretly tucked in three inches of elastic in the back of the dress waist because she simply could not fit Bridezilla in for any more fittings--this dress would have to be prepared to rise or fall on its own. "I love you!" added Jay, who added that habitually when he didn't know what else to say, but his fiance remained silent, overcome with nausea at the smell of the chile peppers.

On the other side of the river, Millie was tearing up the rug in the downstairs hallway of the Arlington group home for the mentally challenged until she found the hidden lair of sleeping millipedes. "Oh, you're good!" said Larry, cheering her on, but Melinda had to stifle her gag reflex as the big brown dog started cheerfully slurping them up.

Brother Divine of the International Peace Movement was impressed. "The dog is a hog on the ant log of shame! She slew and chew and strew the evil enemy! The fallen are callin', but the good is understood!" (This made Melinda feel better, and she smiled at Freddy.)

The three walked off to find some breath mints for Millie, and Cedric quietly crept into the hallway on his hands and knees. The damage is done. Millie had chewed through the last remaining cable he had secretly linking him to the Secret Government Command Center. What am I going to do?

Out in the river, Ardua of the Potomac laughed at the postcard Eeteesbsse had sent her from Yemen, picked up another hundred pounds of millipedes from the river bank and crammed them into the sewer system.

*******************
Next week: Bridezilla's wedding!

Back to Work

2011-05-31T13:03:00.004-04:00

"She's a bitch on wheels!"

Laura Moreno looked up to see the new contract attorney from Seattle walking into the workroom.

"First she yelled at me for using a chair with wheels to move boxes, then she yelled at me for writing with a marker on the boxes, then she yelled at me for stacking the boxes at the empty secretary station, then she yelled at me for the missing box she found under the conference table." Laura shook her head in sympathy with the livid young man. "I even brought her coffee from Starbucks this morning--her tepid 'thanks' was the only civil word I've heard out of her all day!"

"You can't take it personally," said Moreno, who was yelled at by the paralegal-from-Hell within five minutes of first meeting her.

"She's a bitch and a half! If she ever spoke like that to an associate or a partner, she'd be out on her ass!"

"But she doesn't," said Moreno. "We're the dogs she likes to kick. All you can do is keep as much distance from her as possible."

"How?" he asked.

"The only thing they care about here is getting it done quickly and billing it to the client. Just try to focus on the work like a laser beam. If she SLOWS you down in any way, let the partner know."

"The partner?" he asked incredulously, not even having enough nerve to let an associate know, or even Chloe Cleavage.

"It's either that or let it roll off your back," said Moreno, who was so burnt out at Prince and Prowling that she had actually started fantasizing about getting fired. "The only way to win is not to care." Even as the words escaped her lips, she realized she sounded like a heroin junkie in a film she once saw.

"OWWWW!"

The two contract attorneys rushed out into the hallway to see who had screamed; it was Charles Wu, who had abruptly paused to examine a new painting on the wall and gotten rammed in the back of his legs with a box cart pushed by the paralegal-from-Hell.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, recognizing Wu as a frequent visitor. Wu nodded without saying anything, then limped off to see former Senator Evermore Breadman. "What are YOU looking at?!" she then screamed at the two contract attorneys staring at her, and Moreno pulled her companion back into the workroom before he was tempted to open his mouth.

Not far away, Wu was limping into Breadman's office.

"What happened to you?!" exclaimed the former Senator.

"Nothing," said Wu, whose chi was so powerful that the pain was already subsiding and no bruise or scratch would remain. "I found a solution for you," added Wu.

"For Congressman Herrmark?" asked Breadman, hopefully.

"Oh, not for that," said Wu. "The mediation on the river case."

"You got the fix in with the mediator?" whispered Breadman, his eyes shining in glee.

"Umm, no--something better," said Wu, who had never thought injecting bribery into a case of this magnitude was worth the risk to his reputation. "Your client's in-house counsel just got a job offer that she could not refuse, so she's off the case. The new counsel will file for a contin--"

"That's just a delay," said Breadman. "It's brilliant--don't get me wrong, I'm grateful--but my client is still going to have to pay 45 years of legal fees eventually. We have to persuade the mediator to do the right thing!"

"This will give me time to get to know the mediator," said Wu. "Put some ideas into her head."

The former Senator was dubious, but Wu had never failed him yet.

A few miles away, Congressman Herrmark was returning to his office after voting against raising the debt limit. Ann Bishis said, "you need to call--", but Herrmark waved her off and headed straight to his private office. He closed the door and locked it because he needed time to think. He sat down on the leather couch, then kicked off his shoes and lay down. He stared at the ceiling and pondered the deal he had just been offered in exchange for support on closing the Halliburton loophole--it seemed too good to be true. He wished Mia were here to rub his feet...or his shoulders....

Several miles to the west, the 5G consultants of Bo-Oz were being interviewed by the General Counsel at Booz Allen, who had been warned that Justice Department subpoenas were on the way. After her more general questions were deflected, she got straight to the point: "Did you, or did you not, give International Development Machine $5 million to harvest eggs from Afghan women for the purpose of selling them in Europe and North America?"

"The project was a reproductive health project," said Fen Do Ping, the former Federal Reserve Board economist who had been recruited by the Bo-Oz team just before the IDM project was launched. "We did nothing illegal!" he whined, but the others--who had grown up in the U.S. and watched plenty of cop shows--remained silent.

"Fine," said the General Counsel. I will isolate Ping later and get him to squeal on the others. "I'll be in touch." She stood up to signal them to leave.

Meanwhile, the General Counsel's nanny was in Rose Park watching her charge play on the swings with the other children under the care of the members of Nannies United to Take Y Chromosomes (N.U.T.T.Y.) At first overjoyed by the news that a domestic worker had successfully seduced a man as powerful as Arnold Schwarzenegger, they had become increasingly downcast at the social backlash. They were also distressed that it appeared Schwarzenegger had never had any relationship with his love child. While money was a terrific motive and something they were never loathe to discuss, the truth was that they also believed their lovers cared more for them than their wives. They were all uneasy, but nobody dared verbalize what was on everybody's mind.

A few miles away, Dubious McGinty stepped out of the air-conditioned comfort of his secret lair in the Bridgeman's quarters, felt the hot sun hit him immediately, then looked down into the Potomac. Sometimes he wondered how good it would feel to jump into that cool river water smack in the middle of a hot, hot day, and enjoy it as God intended--without a goddam demon swirling all around you and trying to suck out your soul. It was quiet today, all the Rolling Thunder motorcycles gone and the holiday revelers back to work. Another pointless Memorial Day, honoring war veterans in every possible way but the one that would actually matter--ending war. He spit at Ardua of the Potomac and walked back inside.

Patriot Act-ors

2011-05-27T11:35:00.002-04:00

Sebastian L'Arche walked slowly up to the dog and Federal Reserve Board police officer stationed on 21st Street and identified himself as the contractor who was supposed to take a look at the yellow labrador. "You're the dog whisperer?" asked the officer, and L'Arche nodded. "Go on," the officer said to his golden retriever, giving her the signal to inspect (sniff) L'Arche, but the retriever instead lay down on the sidewalk and rolled onto her back. "Huh," said the officer, as L'Arche squatted down to scratch her belly. "Alright, come this way."

A few miles to the east, Atticus Hawk was pretending to organize things in his Justice Department desk drawer as Ava Kahdo Green sat in his visitor chair examining a green espadrille shoe she had taken off her right foot and railing about the renewal of the Patriot Act. "I can't help but agree with Rand Paul and Dick Durbin on this one," she said, fussing over some raised stitching which was irritating the back of her ankle.

"Well--"

"I mean, if we have a reason to spy on somebody, why not go to a judge to get the warrant? The NSA could be spying on anybody at any time, for any reason, for no good reason. Most Americans still don't get it--they think it's somebody ELSE being spied on, somebody that deserves it." She looked up at him and smiled provocatively, sensing the rebelliousness hidden in his quiet and reserved demeanor.

"Well," said Hawk (who had changed his home and cellphone numbers half a dozen times in the past two years when he was afraid that the CIA torture investigation was going to nail him), "it's natural for any organization to want to maximize its own power." He was moving rubber bands from one side of his desk drawer to the other. "So, of course, we want to see more warrants and FBI-like procedures. CIA doesn't. NSA doesn't. Supreme Court has washed its hands of it."

"They didn't wash their hands of the Arizona mess! How the hell does a state have the power to set immigration enforcement laws?"

"Well--"

"People who look a certain way have to walk around with identity cards now! What does that sound like to you? South Africa under apartheid, that's what! Or Nazi Germany! Let's take people with green cards and force them to wear arm bands with a big 'G' symbol, for God's sake."

"They don't use green cards anymore."

"You know what I mean!" It exasperated her that he was so secretive about his work and his views and, well, anything she tried to get out of him, but the more mysterious he remained, the more obsessed she got with him. He had a just-the-facts, ma'am way of speaking with her that drove her wild. "If it's patriotic AND un-American, then whose fatherland are we hailing?"

Over at the Lincoln Memorial, Glenn Michael Beckmann was also railing against the Patriot Act, having forgotten that many years earlier he had mailed death threats to every Representative who had voted against it. "We are the Hunter-Gatherer Society. We have existed from the beginning and will exist to the end. Nobody can stop our right to hunt and gather." Holly Gonightly was two steps behind him, her clandestine video camera quietly recording everything. She handed out flyers, buttons, and bumper stickers, but she let Beckmann pocket the cash donations so that she could never be accused of violating any laws during her undercover investigation. "This unconstitutional government is spying on EVERYBODY!" he shouted at some Chinese tourists he suspected of being Viet Cong. Then he grunted and leaned down to scratch a mosquito bite on his ankle, coming within a quarter-inch of accidentally shooting himself in the foot with the gun he had strapped to his shin under his camouflage pants.

Meanwhile, FBI officials were closing in on International Development Machine. They stepped off the elevator into a nondescript hallway, verified the name on the suite door, and walked briskly in, guns drawn. The commanding officer demanded to know where the president was.

"President Obama?" she asked in a whisper, her hands up in the air.

"The president of International Development Machine!" the c.o. barked.

The receptionist pointed in a vague direction behind her, and the c.o. motioned for his officers to proceed. They repeated the question three more times until Liv Cigemeier pointed them to the boss's office. The c.o. marched in and told him he was under arrest, then recited federal statutes the president was accused of violating. "What did he do?!" demanded Momzilla to a petite female officer standing in front of Momzilla's desk.

"He purchased eggs from Afghan women," she said.

"Eggs?"

"Human eggs!" The officer glared at Momzilla. "He paid corrupt Afghani doctors to harvest eggs from unsuspecting women, then used heroin smugglers to get them out and sell them for huge profits in Europe and North America."

Momzilla turned to Liv in amazement, her palms turned up in bewilderment.

"5G consulting," whispered Liv. "Bo-oz...." Her voice trailed off, and all was silent as the president of International Development Machine took the long walk out of the office, his head held down.

Back at the Federal Reserve Board, Sebastian L'Arche was finally face-to-face with the yellow labrador, who had quite a lot to talk about.

Perched outside the Federal Reserve Building palace, a raven watched in silence.

Mega

2011-05-21T12:40:00.004-04:00

MOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Calico Johnson awoke with a start from his post-golfing nap and nearly fell out of his hammock.

MOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

He turned to look behind him and saw a huge cow staring at him from the other side of the hydrangea bushes. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, but she was still there. Then she lowered her head and began grazing on his Potomac Manors estate.

Several miles further south along the Potomac, Nick and Costas were teaching Charles Wu how to play flamingo football. "Very simple," said Nick. "Girls against guys," said his twin, Costas. "Guys play on one leg to make it fair," said Nick. (Wu had done a few undignified things in his spying career, but Wu had never had to stoop to using one-leggedness as an excuse to grope and tackle girls. There has to be an easier way to spy on Congressman Herrmark.) "Mega fun!" added Costas, as he demonstrated to Wu how (moderately) adept he was at hopping around on one leg with a football under his arm. "Great American invention!" concluded Nick. "Like hydrofracking!" said Costas, and the twins burst out laughing about their boss's obsession with hydrofracking.

"It's not funny!" said a young woman they had met last night at their boss's "Gasland"-viewing house party. "We need to stop it!" she said earnestly.

Wu gently put his hand on her shoulder, looked deeply into her eyes, and said, "We will!"

The young woman smiled, reached down to tickle Costas behind his flamingo leg, tore the football from his grasp as he collapsed in laughter, and ran off with it. (Wu started hopping after her, but he wasn't fast enough.)

A few miles to the east, John Boehner was weeping softly on the couch of psychiatrist Ermann Esse. "It's just a moving paper fantasy!" cried Boehner. ("Does he know he's quoting from 'Hair'?" jotted Dr. Esse on his note pad.) "WE have the power of the purse string! THEY hit the debt limit! Geithner is stealing money from other pots! Where's the outrage? We're facing a dying nation!"

("Definitely from 'Hair'", jotted Dr. Esse.) "Are you wearing smells from laboratories?" asked Dr. Esse, pen poised.

"What the hell are you talking about?! Are you listening to me?!" ("Patient continues to show no awareness of the source of his thought processes," wrote Dr. Esse.) "They call ME a 'blowhard dufus', but it's Geithner! Geithner, Geithner, Geithner!"

(Dr. Esse wrote down: "and Brady Bunch--Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!") "Wasn't Biden the 'blowhard dufus'?" asked Dr. Esse.

"Your questions aren't making any sense!" protested Boehner, reaching for another tissue. "This country is in MEGA trouble! Why did Stephen Colbert have a former flight attendant on his show to talk about the budget? It should have been me!"

"Your office declined; she's with the Tea Party Express."

"You're missing the point!" exclaimed Boehner. "I almost wish the world WOULD end today. Hey, don't write that down!" he exclaimed with a scowl, and Dr. Esse held his pen in limbo above the note pad. "You know who has the number one trending conservative blog right now?" (Dr. Esse shook his head.) "Glenn Michael Beckmann! They say even Dick Cheney is reading it! Last week Beckmann wrote that there is a conspiracy of cheap pens which don't work to prevent patriots from spreading the good news about the Hunter-Gatherer Society! They say Sarah Palin is their President! And they're meeting today to hunt black squirrels because they're 'genetically engineered spies from Canada'!" (Boehner used his fingers to indicate the latter portion of the sentence was in air quotes.) "And people are reading this! He wrote that it was the Hunter-Gatherer Society that took out Osama Bin Laden--not the Navy Seals!"

"If you could just fix ONE issue today," interjected Dr. Esse, "what would be your number one priority?"

"Get the truth out! This country is in MEGA trouble!"

"Is it the truth that the country is in mega trouble, or that you, John Boehner, Speaker of the House, have a mega solution?" This was a sincere question on Dr. Esse's part, but Boehner screwed up his eyes in suspicion.

A couple miles away, the Camelot Society was also discussing the country's mega problems in the Federal Reserve Board Research Library, seated around the round table. Economist Luciano Talaverdi was in a bad mood--if asked, he would say it was because of lingering economic issues, but the truth was that "Obi Wan Woman" had been on a sex strike since the arrest of IMF President, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (AKA "Dominant Trash Can" in certain FRB circles).

"What kind of socialist rents a $3,000/night hotel suite for just himself?" asked the economist from Mexico.

"The kind who wants to sneak up on maids and attack them!" said "Obi Wan Woman".

"Alright!" interjected Talaverdi. "The agenda today is choosing the next IMF chief and aligning fiscal policy with Fed policy. What should we do first?"

The economist from India looked at his watch and wondered if there was any hope of making the ambassador's dinner party tonight.

"Is it time to take the paradigm beyond liquidity?" asked Obi Wan Woman, who had recently been reading Thomas More's opinion that autocrats who control all the wealth are jailkeepers, not rulers.

The economist from India sighed.

Back in Potomac Manors, a tall blond had followed the trail of her cow across a pasture, through the boxwood boundary, and onto the property of Calico Johnson. "Mega Moo!" she called out happily when she spotted the cow eating Johnson's pampas grass, and Johnson emerged from behind a hickory tree to take a look at her. "I'm so sorry!" she said. "I guess I'm gonna have to build a fence," she added, extending her hand to greet her new neighbor.

"That won't be necessary!" exclaimed Johnson, clasping her hand warmly. "I love cows!" he lied.

She laughed and told him she had just moved down from Wisconsin and could not bear to part with the cow she had raised as a girl.

"Just don't ask me to milk her!" Johnson said.

"Oh, she's old and barren now," said his new neighbor, who was anything but.

"'Mega Moo' you called her?" The cow looked up at the repeat of her name.

"She had the loudest moo on the farm," his new neighbor said. "But I will build a proper fence if she's gonna be a bother."

"Not at all!" said Johnson. "Welcome to the neighborhood, Mega Moo!"

Out in the river, Ardua of the Potomac swam slowly by, relishing the end of her confinement, and Mega Moo threw up.

********************

NEXT WEEK: Another international financial leader is arrested!

Nitty Gritty

2011-05-15T10:17:00.004-04:00

We will never be, never be a-ny-thing but loud...and nitty gritty...dirty little freaks....

Former Senator Evermore Breadman glanced into Bridezilla's office at the surprising burst of song lyrics coming out, shook his head, and then kept walking towards his own Prince and Prowling office.

Bridezilla was humming along while briskly rubbing hand sanitizer all over her hands and reviewing the guest list for her June wedding. She had books on mortgage securities law piled up for show, as well as a stack of files that she would eventually do something with later in the day, but right now she desperately needed to cut twenty more people from her side because the number of her fiance's Indian relatives coming over was much higher than expected. She glanced over at the framed photo of him and thought about how many people had commented on his handsomeness even as they had picked up the framed photo to get a closer look at the racially vague face. He had an Indian name which functioned fine in English--Jay--so the only people that knew he was from India were the few who had met him. Of course, everybody knew he was RICH, because she volunteered that information in subtle but abundant ways. He was, she had eventually found out, the richest software developer in Northern Virginia--having developed virtual reality training programs for every branch of the U.S. military. He could not tell her a lot of details about his work, but she was telling everybody she knew as a given fact her own conclusion that he had trained the Navy Seals with a virtual reality program for invading Osama Bin Laden's hideout. I'm so proud of you, she thought, as she looked at his picture, and she really was, but a seed of doubt had been sown in her mind by a half-drunk comment/joke at Friday evening's happy hour that Bridezilla's fiance was in it for the green card. She knew Jay had a medium-high security clearance level and was already on the immigration fast track, but that comment kept gnawing at her. Why DOES he want to marry me? I'm pretty, I'm smart, I--. And then she couldn't think of anything else. He had very little interest in her work, though she couldn't blame him for that since she didn't herself--and anyway, she was fairly certain he expected her to have babies and stay home soon enough. He didn't care what schools she had gone to. Her friends never knew what to talk to him about. He saw through her when she tried to feign interest in playing video games with him--even the one he had designed as an engagement gift, which was all about winning points by obtaining merchandise from every store in a shopping mall in a race against the clock. And then there was...this.... She looked at the hand sanitizer bottle on her desk, not entirely certain that he did not think her cautious ways a phobia, rather than prudence. Does he really get me?

Over in former Senator Evermore Breadman's office, his mood was jubilant: President Obama had just greenlighted oil drilling in Alaska! This is why he was always telling his clients you can work with any politician, any Administration--you just have to know how to go about it. Sooner or later they ALL become pragmatists --that is to say, they realize that swing voters want to have their cake and eat it too...and then diet fanatically...and then get more cake...and then exercise fanatically...and then get more cake....(And nobody markets cake the way Big Oil does--with the help of hysterical television newscasters greeting every ten-cent rise in gasoline prices with more passion and horror than they express in reporting casualties from Iraq or Afghanistan. And with Breadman's being just one of the 800 Big Oil lobbyists in Washington, there was no chance that Congress would strip Big Oil of its tax breaks any time soon.) And then there was the strategic brilliance of counseling his nuclear power clients to release their local radioactivity data and blame it on the Japanese meltdown, insisting to ignorant reporters that it had blown in from halfway around the globe. Even the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's alarming safety report had been released Thursday with no significant political reaction! And Breadman's financial institution clients were also happy because of the Administration's anemic response to the Republican slash in funding for financial oversight--after all, what do laws matter if you aren't letting the bureaucrats set up the rules to implement them, or pay anybody to enforce them? No: Big Oil, Big Nuke, and Wall Street were easily sliding back to business as usual.

But the backlash against hydrofracking was still giving him conniption fits. Congressman Herrmark had still not introduced the rumored bill against it, but he HAD put forward an earmark to clean up the hydrofracking damage caused in his home state--including, of course, the damage to his parents' blown-up vacation home. If this earmark survived, it would draw more attention to the fact that gas drilling was being done in the U.S. under an exemption to the Clean Water Act. It was essential that mainstream America never learn of the Halliburton Loophole--not from the environmental conservation groups who would not shut up about, not from Sundance Festival darling "Gasland", and not from inside Congress itself! Herrmark had to be brought back in line, at any cost. Breadman had actually been surprised that Charles Wu agreed to do some consulting on Congressman Herrmark's hydrofracking policy plans, since most of his dealings with Wu had been about international commercial affairs, but Wu had never said no to him on anything (not even the fecal transplant!). I really need to stop worrying about this and wait for Charles--he's never let me down yet.

Not far away, Liv Cigemeier was unpacking the lunch she had brought for her husband, Prince and Prowling's newest partner. (He had just been offered the partnership to prevent him from defecting to rival firm Lye, Cheit, and Steele, and Liv had decided that there was no reason they couldn't still spend a lot of time together on the weekends.) Today she had brought along a pile of bills, greeting cards, mending items, and reading material to while away the afternoon together in his big new office. He scarcely cracked a smile when she opened up the gourmet spread, and she asked him what was wrong. "I thought I would get more interesting work after making partner," he said. "It's more interesting, but not for the right reasons." Liv asked her husband what he meant, but he said he couldn't really talk about it. Even if he could have talked about it, he would not have wanted to talk about it. First there were the dozen different cease and desist orders he had been assigned to file against professional trouble makers the Yes Men, even though he personally agreed with everything they were doing. Then there was the real estate contract for D.C. City Center involving the Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Co.; it didn't seem that long ago that Qatar-based Al Jazeera network was broadcasting beheadings of Americans and his wife could not stop saying, "What the hell is wrong with these people?" Why was the city government taking Qatari money? It was bad enough the federal government was in a love-hate relationship with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, but he didn't see why the city had to operate this way, even in this economy. Now he was being asked to "clean up" the regulatory paperwork for a massive garbage dump that environment activists were calling "Mystery Mountain"--except he could not FIND any regulatory paperwork, and it looked like the activists were right in calling it an illegal dump, so did the senior partners know that and want him to CREATE fake paperwork, or should he tell them he could not find any?

"Mustard?" Liz smiled at him as he looked up, but she could see into his soul, and he knew that she knew....

Over in the workroom, Laura Moreno was working on the three sub-prime mortgage lending class actions that Bridezilla was "supervising". The newest contract attorney (a young whiz kid from Seattle) was telling her how he had suggested to Chloe Cleavage that they could get through the defendants' email discovery a lot faster if they did mass searches to clear out obvious junk, like amazon.com emails. "Chloe," he said, "just stared at me like I was from outer space!" Moreno just nodded; she didn't trust him enough to commiserate on the absurdity and inefficiency, nor to tell him that Chloe Cleavage had once spent four hours on Facebook, then batch-tagged two-thousand MP3 files as non-responsive. "Anyway," he said, "Chloe said you needed to talk to me about my timesheet." Moreno explained to him that she was sorry to report he was going to be docked pay for the three hours the computer system was down on Thursday. "What?!" he said, incredulous.

"Chloe says she told me to tell you that day to take an extra-long lunch."

"You never told me that! You KNOW you didn't."

Moreno nodded again. "I didn't tell you because she didn't tell me that until today. But it doesn't matter what I say."

"Did you stick up for me?"

"Yes, but there's nothing I can do," said Moreno.

"So now I might come to work and just not get paid?!" Moreno nodded and said she was sorry, but he stormed out of the conference room, not understanding that Moreno was just the messenger.

A few miles away, Charles Wu was out on the Potomac River with the Poseidon Auxiliary of the Old Dominion Boat Club. It was hard to ignore the Greek beauties toughing out the cool breeze in bikini tops, but he was here to connect with Nick and Costas, Congressman Herrmark's twin bodyguards. The twins were fending off all Wu's attempts to make conversation (as they would equally have preferred to be chatting up the girls), but their expressions grew a little more animated when Wu said, "Is it true Congressman Herrmark went on a fact-finding mission to the Marianas Islands? I went there once as a boy, and there's not much to see but factories, girls, and girls in factories!" The twins gave each other a strange look, and Wu knew he had struck a vein.

Deep in the water, Ardua of the Potomac's appetite had come back, and she opened her mouth and reached gleefully for sustenance as the Pink Dolphins hung back and pondered the future of the river.

The Watery Grave

2011-05-05T11:25:00.002-04:00

Angela de la Paz sat on Theodore Roosevelt Island, her wetsuit still dripping water from her swim through the river to get a good look at Ardua of the Potomac. She was staring into the water thinking about when she was a little girl and they had told her that her mother had drowned in this river...but it had turned out to be a lie. Now they were saying that Osama bin Laden's corpse had been dropped into the Arabian Sea. She believed it was true and yet....

Out on the river, Charles Wu was rowing hard--something he hadn't done since his university days in England until the day before the royal wedding when he had met up with some old college friends. He had brought his father as his "plus-one" to the wedding, and the eternal bird-watcher had spent most of the ceremony examining ladies' hats through small (but not entirely discreet) binoculars. Wu, never a fan of hats, had spent most of the ceremony examining the backs of ladies' unadorned heads. ( A half-breed himself, he had a slight fetish for taking in the range of hair colors from black to white, but for some reason which Wu had never comprehended, English women had the worst dye jobs in the Western world--stringy, lifeless, margarine coloring with enormous dark roots. Perhaps Kate would encourage more Englishwomen to return to life as a brunette.) It had been a shockingly dull affair until his phone vibrated and he read the cryptic message from Project R.O.D.H.A.M. about the "pigsty"--a code word meaning that Osama bin Laden's hideout had apparently been located. He had put the phone back in his coat pocket and turned to his father, wanting to say something, but he couldn't. So he had stared at the prince in his military uniform and the princess in her obscenely expensive wedding gown and thought, the world will once again be safe for democracy...or freedom...or--And then the music started up again, and this was a glorious thing because...because....He turned to his father again; he would never be able to tell his father how many times the British government had paid him handsomely and gratefully for his service to the United Kingdom...in Hong Kong and beyond. But why can't I?, he had thought. I don't want to take my secrets to the grave. He suddenly realized he had stopped rowing and was just floating past Roosevelt Island. Wu saw the unusual sight of a girl in a wetsuit, and briefly pondered making a landing, but she looked a bit young, so he started rowing again.

Angela recognized him immediately as Charles Wu because of her infiltration of Project R.O.D.H.A.M., but she could see that he didn't recognize her. He was a legend in the Project, handsomer and more effective than James Bond himself. The most ass-kicking feminists she had ever met would all start absent-mindedly playing with their hair and licking their lips just at the mention of his name. And they trusted him with their lives--everything he had ever told them or done for them proved true. But Angela didn't trust anybody with her own life, least of all her employer, the Heurich Society. They were annoyed with her abrupt departure from the Middle East, but she was frustrated at the slow progress of revolution. On her way out of the Brewmaster's Castle, she had heard Henry Samuelson remind the others that she was young, after all, and it was to be expected that she would still have streaks of idealism. Wu was out of sight now, and she stared at the water. Idealism. She shook her head. They don't know me at all. The Warrior had found her the day she returned, and he had told her about Ardua of the Potomac and the unborn Eeteebsse, and that destiny was calling her. Destiny. She was not even 17 yet. She had not even had a real kiss yet--one that wasn't a lie. She could count on one hand the number of people she had loved, and they were dead. She didn't remember 9/11, and she wasn't sure that killing Osama bin Laden would make the world a better place--there were still thousands more like him, and millions of people killing for other reasons. She was starting to want something bigger. She was starting to wonder if Project R.O.D.H.A.M. was the way to go.

Several miles to the east, Golden Fawn was sitting on the grassy field behind the National Museum of the American Indian, picnicking with The Warrior and her husband, Marcos Vazquez. Tourists had stopped by a few times to photograph The Warrior (who did look slightly like somebody who had stepped out of a 19th century painting) and Golden Fawn (everyone's idea of a perfectly lovely Pocahontas), but the three did not even notice because they were absorbed in conversation about what the enigmatic Angela de la Paz might decide to do about Ardua of the Potomac. "Do you really think she has the power to do something about Eeteebsse?" asked Vazquez, a Coast Guard officer who, to this day, still had moments of incomprehension that demons were a daily topic of conversation with his wife.

"Yes," nodded The Warrior.

"But does she believe that?" asked Golden Fawn.

"Yes," nodded The Warrior.

"She's so young," said Vazquez. "How can she be the one to decide if the Prophecy is real?"

The three were silent for a minute, pondering the Prophecy. {Ardua will become pregnant. She will die in labor, but the child Eeteebsse will plunge the Potomac area into an unimaginable darkness a thousand times more evil and dangerous than the horrors of Ardua's reign.}

"The young have clearer minds," The Warrior said at last, his own mind still undecided about whether Eeteebsse should be killed in the womb or allowed to destroy the horrific Ardua from within.

Suddenly a raven alit on their blanket and began whispering to Golden Fawn and The Warrior. "What is it?!" asked Vazquez, but the two just closed their eyes and clenched their fists.

A couple miles to the west, Dizzy abruptly dropped his trumpet with a clang onto the sidewalk and turned around to look past the Lincoln Memorial out to the Potomac. On the other side of the Tidal Basin, The Beaver cowered behind a pedal boat, John Doe fell down on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial in an epileptic seizure, and the pink dolphins swam frantically in circles. The river rats swam for shore, and the ducks abruptly took to flight.

Over in Chinatown, a jade rabbit abruptly fell off a shelf in Lynnette Wong's Chinatown shop and shattered on the floor.

At the National Arboretum, Rani the donkey began braying loudly and arborist Devi Rajatala looked up to see for the first time pink warblers singing on a tree branch--just like the ones Angela de la Paz used to tell her about.

In Southeast, Sebastian L'Arche slipped into a trance as his houseful of animals all began whispering to him at the same time.

In Georgetown, the leader of The Seekers felt faint and lowered his head to his desk, while the Shackled took flight from the site of the old slave wharf and circled restlessly above the Potomac like the starlings already doing the same. Charles Wu's muscles suddenly went limp, and he stopped rowing under the Key Bridge and turned to look behind him--at what, he did not know.

And finally Angela de la Paz clambered out of the water and up onto the Virginia shore. She pulled out the organ transplant carrying kit she had hidden in the bushes, opened it up, and dropped Eeteebsse into it. She pulled off the wetsuit and threw it back in the river. She picked up the case and walked to the rental car she had left on Daingerfield Island, which she immediately drove to National Airport to catch her chartered flight.

Deep in the Potomac, Ardua was still panting in pain from the moment Angela de la Paz had ripped the deadly baby out of her womb and abruptly swam off with it. And for the first time in her existence, Ardua passed out.

***********************
Happy Mother's Day! (cue diabolical laughter)

Washington Water Woman is heading back out of town but will return to blogging in mid-May.

Coming up: where is Angela de la Paz taking Eeteebsse?

Tall Tales from Texas

2011-04-29T12:21:00.003-04:00

“Did you break up with that pedophile?”

Sebastian L'Arche looked up to see who had made the wildly disturbing comment, then looked back at his posse of dogs peeing in a small garden. He hated hanging out where people were walking towards the courthouses, but sometimes he was on a very tight schedule in walking his client's dogs. He heard the woman say yes and then ask her companion how he expected to do in his probation hearing this afternoon. “I need to go to AA and attend anger management," he said. "The judge warned me not to let her back in after she serves her three months, but I know she’s gonna want to live with me.” ("Ain't she a hoarder?") "You tellin' ME! AND she leaves sour milk and moldy food all over my kitchen and calls it a COMPOST pile!" ("But she's good in bed?") "Hell, yeah! Better than your damn pedophile!" ("I didn't KNOW he was a pedophile! Anyway, did you hear that my cousin Lisa ran off with her boyfriend? Lisa's only 15, and her boyfriend is 22!")

They were finally out of earshot, and L'Arche resolved to start attending his Iraq War veterans support group again--not for himself, but because he spent too much time helping animals and not enough helping people.

Several blocks away, in the city's other world of justice, Atticus Hawk awoke with a start from the nightmare he was having while nodding off at his desk. The dreams were getting worse--not worse, but more vivid and believable--every time. First he's driving up to the entrance gate at Guantanamo; then he shows his Justice Department ID badge, and the guard reads aloud "Torture Specialist" and waves him in; then he's taken to an isolated cell where he finds a naked man being waterboarded; he sees electrical burn marks on the man's groin, and dog bites on the man's legs; the torturers stop pouring water for a moment and scream at the prisoner, "Where's Bin Laden?!"; the prisoner whispers that he doesn't know; Hawk recognizes the voice and pulls the wet cloth off the prisoner's face; then George W. Bush looks up at Hawk and asks, "Why did Obama label me an enemy combatant? I wanna go back to Texas!"; then Hawk says, "because he could". Because I said the President of the United States could. Hawk looked down again at the memo from Attorney General Eric Holder explaining why Guantanamo had not yet been shut down, then absent-mindedly used his tie to wipe the cold perspiration off his forehead.

"Hot tamale?"

Hawk looked up with a start, because he didn't know any women who knew that code name; it was Ava Kahdo Green, the pretty U.S. Attorney with a crush on him.

"Pepe's, around the corner--I feel like getting tamales for lunch. You wanna go?"

He said OK because he could not think of any reason to say no, even though he never wanted to eat any of the weird things she was always getting for lunch. He started laughing, and she asked what was so funny, but he could not tell her that he suddenly found it absurd that he had used a code name for years whose meaning he did not even know. (What is a tamale? Why is it hot?) Then he frowned because he realized she probably thought the laugh was flirtation. (For her part, she thought he might be bi-polar, but this only added to his mysterious allure.)

A few blocks away, psychiatrist Ermann Esse was listening to a hypnotized John Boehner talk about a recent dream. "Thor Bunny came from outer space. Thor Bunny is more powerful than any bunny in the world, and can shoot lightning and poop jelly beans. Thor Bunny entered the home of the richest woman in the world, who had built a house as big as 100,000 elephants. Thor Bunny pooped an enormous-sized jelly bean because the woman's easter basket was as big as one elephant. Then the woman got up and ate the gigantic jelly bean, which made her have a gigantic fart. The gigantic fart made her house stink so bad that she had to sell it, and she sold it for $20." Dr. Esse shook his head dubiously, disbelieving that Boehner could have come up with this on his own, and brought him out of hypnosis.

"Congressman," asked Dr. Esse, "did you say you had a nephew from Texas visiting you for Easter?"

"Yes."

"Did the nephew from Texas tell any tall tales?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact--something about the Easter bunny--I didn't pay much attention to it." Dr. Esse scribbled on his notepad: patient has no clue where the ideas come from which implant themselves in his psyche.

A few blocks away, law firm Lye, Cheit and Steele was wooing a smart young associate from Prince and Prowling. "Mr. Cigemeier, have you ever tried Chilean champagne?" The managing partner popped the cork and poured out a glass. They were standing on the roofdeck, looking out on a picture-perfect day in Washington. "We always have champagne lunches on Fridays," he said nonchalantly, but he saw Cigemeier's dubious facial expression in the reflection of his champagne glass. (Smart--he knows champagne can be purchased inexpensively.) "Once a month we have a special Friday happy-hour with a different theme on each floor of the firm." (This got Cigemeier to turn attentively.) "One floor is always a European country, one is a tropical island, one is something Asian, and the top floor is always Texas--that's where our founder is from, David Bowie Lye." (Darn, he looks dubious again! Why doesn't anybody believe our founder's name was David Bowie Lye? Better get straight to the good stuff.) "We have an extremely efficient operation with very little overhead, so our profit margins are three-to-four times the average." (Downstairs at this very moment, in fact, a new associate was asking what the administrative billing code was, and his supervising partner was looking at him blankly and asking, "what's an administrative billing code? Bill everything to a client!") "You'll find it easy to meet billable requirements here, and you will be making more money to boot! We've thought of everything at Lye, Cheit and Steele."

(Everything but my conscientious wife, thought Cigemeier, who knew if he ever sank that low his wife's gaze would sear into his soul and find him out. Just telling her he went for this recruitment lunch would freak her out: she had enough doubts about the integrity of Prince and Prowling, and he knew there was even more bad press out there about Lye, Cheit and Steele.)

The managing partner nodded to a stunningly beautiful young woman who had come out to light a cigarette, then checked Cigemeier's reaction: nothing. (Either Cigemeier can't stand smokers, or the rumors of marital problems are untrue. Dammit, I got nothin'! This guy's slipping through my fingers.) He watched Cigemeier down the last of his champagne and decided not to offer him any more.

Back near Judiciary Square, Becky Hartley was taking a break from her day job at the insurance company to have lunch with her friend and sometime boss, Sebastian L'Arche. They were sitting outside munching on wraps while the dogs lay contentedly at their feet. "My daddy had a private party at his country club in Dallas." (Hartley was telling L'Arche about her Easer visit home.) "And this guy was there from Washington, Calico Johnson. And he was a TOTAL player! He took his Rolex off his wrist and tried to give it to me ten minutes after he met me!" L'Arche felt an unexpected twinge of jealousy. "People like him are the reason I LEFT Texas! A big ole hunkin' Rolex!" L'Arche wasn't certain if she was complaining that it was a large-sized man's watch or that it was an excessive gesture. "THEN, when he found out I was living in Washington, he tried to get me to fly back here in his private plane!" L'Arche felt another twinge of jealousy, and he didn't even like her--he hated it when his caveman instincts came out. "Like I'm gonna get in a private plane with God-knows-what-pilot and this crazy, horny, egotistical rich guy who thinks he's God's gift to women! PUH-LEEZE!" She took a sip of lemonade. "So I told him I was thinking of moving full-time into pet services, and his eyes glazed over in no time flat! It was like I had told him I was planning to work in a barn or something. Hi-LAR-ious!" L'Arche finally found himself chuckling; he was glad she was back.

Out in the river, the sluggishly pregnant Ardua of the Potomac sensed the imminent return of Angela de la Paz...but was uncertain what this meant.

Trials and Tribulations

2011-04-17T11:32:00.003-04:00

After a bout of phlegmatic heaves, twenty minutes with the neti pot, and a box of tissues, Clio had finally finished hacking up mucous. The HIV-positive White House butler cleaned herself up and set to work getting her twin pre-schoolers dressed for church with their auntie. It was actually better this way since they would sit quietly through the service when their auntie took them--something their mother had yet to see in their lifetime. "Reggie, sit still," she said quietly, in a husky voice to her daughter, Regina, as she tied the pink ribbon in her hair. "Fergie, don't put on those shoes," she said to her son, Ferguson. "The other ones," she said, pointing to the closet, and he went to get them. They had talked a few times about her serious illness, but she knew they didn't understand it very well--they were still too little. She didn't know that Regina and Ferguson discussed it frequently with the White House ghosts, who told them repeatedly that their mother would be better off dead because ghosts didn't cough or get headaches or throw up. Sometimes Regina and Ferguson would try to discuss this by themselves out in the back yard, but then some ghost would always come along to try to influence the conversation. Once they told the gardener Bridge what the ghosts were saying about their mother, and he told them the ghosts were wicked and they needed to ignore them. But they knew sometimes things the ghosts said were true, like how there had never been a President who didn't at least one time get angry and smash a glass or coffee mug against the Oval Office wall. (President Nixon had done it the most times--at least once a week.) And they knew sometimes the things their mother told them were not true--like how she told them their father was dead, but they knew he wasn't. "It's Palm Sunday," said Clio, with a final assessment of her children from head to toe. "Pay attention and mind your auntie." They might or might not pay attention, but they would certainly mind their auntie because if they didn't, they would have to eat pickled beets and flax seeds for lunch. (If they acted right, doughnuts!) "It's almost Easter," Clio said in a low, husky voice, little more than a whisper. "Easter," she said again, the fever gripping her. She repeated it several more times until her sister arrived to pick up the kids.

"It's almost Easter!" shouted Glenn Michael Beckmann; then he turned to hack up some more phlegm and spit it out. Undercover reporter Holly Gonightly suppressed her gag impulse and tried to stay focused on today's meeting of the Hunter-Gatherer Society on Kingman Island. (She had once tried explaining to him that the city should stop planting males trees, which produce pollen, and only plant female trees, which produce seeds, because this would reduce hay fever and provide more food for birds. That had ended with his calling her a stupid cow and proclaiming women the root of all evil; then he had muttered something about catching a cold from a "damn liberal" in the laundry room at Southwest Plaza.) "It's almost Easter!" repeated Beckmann. "Palm Sunday!" He took a Burger King crown he had turned inside-out and placed it upside-down on his head. "We are all wearing the crown of thorns!" There was some confusion in the crowd, and somebody asked if they shouldn't be doing the procession of palms first. "We're not here to recreate the whole namby-pamby church thing! THIS is what's important!" He pointed to the gray cardboard crown on his head. "The Once and Future King!" There was more confusion and whispering now as to whether he was referring to himself or Christ. Some of the members of the Hunter-Gatherer Society worshipped only the sun and the moon, and felt the whole religion thing was a tool invented to emasculate the world's natural-born leaders (the strongest and wiliest), but they never said so in front of Beckmann, who was rumored to have killed a man in Arizona for saying religion was the opiate of the masses. "Now we're going to hunt rabbits!" Beckmann shouted. The men fanned out into the thick brush, with Holly Gonightly and the only other woman there bringing up the rear, both pulling little red wagons full of starter fluid, plastic plates, and cans of Red Bull for the feast to come. Propped up on a tripod in Gonightly's wagon was also a video camera to capture everything to upload to the internet later--except the best parts, which she would craftily edit out for her own director's cut, not to be revealed until she was ready to report on her undercover reporting. The Warrior looked back and smiled at her because he knew she was up to something. She had never seen him smile before, though she did suspect he had struggled to keep a straight face as the others had compared their rabbit-hunting weapons: bb guns, blow darts, and miniature cross bows. (The Warrior had just brought a carrot and a net; after catching a rabbit, he would simply bash its head against a tree--though he hated to do so in front of the women, who had not been raised in a hunter-gatherer culture.) Gonightly smiled back, and the other woman frowned in disgust that Gonightly would choose that old Indian man out of all these guys to flirt with.

Several miles away, Congressman Herrmark was out on his deck, reading the Sunday papers while listening to Richard Wagner (opera gave the activity the gravitas it deserved). It was regrettable that Mia had to stay inside on a lovely spring day, but other people would simply not understand what a humanitarian gesture he had made in bringing her here from the Marianas Islands. After the boys were back from church (four hours they had asked off today! these Greeks really took church too seriously!), they could smuggle her out in the mini-van and take her to see the azaleas at the National Arboretum. He glanced through the screen door at the girl, who was carrying the last of the brunch plates into the kitchen. It was going to be hard staying home so much. His chief of staff was already bugging him about heading back to his home district for more fundraisers, and he really needed to see his parents for Easter. But he couldn't very well travel without his bodyguards, and he couldn't leave her here by herself! Or maybe he could? What's the worst that could happen? I just need to take her passport...and I can set the house alarm to go off if she tries to leave--for her own good, of course. He frowned and turned back to the newspapers.

Downtown, former Senator Evermore Breadman was well past the newspapers, the emails, the voicemails, and the text messages. He was now watching internet videos from the PowerShift 2011 conference--a bunch of young people and bleeding heart liberals acting like civil rights martyrs in their quest to rid the country of fossil fuels. This sort of thing made some of his energy company clients antsy (especially when people like Al Gore showed up to rally the masses), and it was hard for the Prince and Prowling partner to explain to them that all that mattered was where the Congressional leadership stood. (And they stood waist-deep in fossil fuel campaign contributions!) But he couldn't help feeling there was a threat from within--and his name was Congressman Herrmark. The news of his parents' summer home getting blown to pieces because of hydrofracking gone bad was now well-known in Washington, but the rumors about what the Congressman would do about it were all over the map. I need to know more about this guy, Breadman fretted. He hesitated for a few more moments, debating whether to just hire a run-of-the-mill private detective, then decided to call Charles Wu.

Several miles away, the D.C. Chapter of Sense of Entitlement Anonymous was meeting at the upper Georgetown home of Judge Sowell Ame. Prince and Prowling attorney Bridezilla talked about how she just did not want to do Palm Sunday this year. "I think I suffer enough, frankly!" she declared. (Most people's voices would sound fairly muddled through a breathing mask like the one she had on, but her shrill voice could penetrate anything.) Dick Cheney nodded in agreement, and started talking about his heart surgeries again. Real estate agent Calico Johnson tried to change the subject to Earth Day and how sick he was of tenants calling on him to put in green roofs and rain barrels and solar water heaters and weather stripping. "They're renters, for God's sake!" he said. "Where do they get off making these demands?!" Judge Sowell Ame agreed: "Renters have more sense of entitlement in this town than anybody else I see in my courtroom! They think they should live roach-free for a measly $1,000/month rent? Ha!" "Exactly!" echoed Johnson. "How am I supposed to make a decent profit if I need to keep every building as clean as a hospital AND reduce the carbon footprint!" (By "decent profit" he meant 30-50% return.) "Well, I disagree!" interjected Bridezilla. "Everybody has to rent until they're ready to buy a house, and we shouldn't have to live in filth!" (She had been lobbying unsuccessfully for her apartment to install individual HVAC units so that she did not have to deal with the forced air system recycling air from God-only-knows who's units.) Johnson knew she was one of those women who would never purchase a home no matter how much money she saved because she believed that a man should buy it for her, and he desperately wanted to tell her to stop dumping fiances, but instead he reached for another shot of pink lemonade and whiskey and glanced at the time on his [cursed] Rolex.

On the limb of the tulip tree in the back yard, a raven watched nervously, sensing that the Rolex with the evil curse on it was soon heading for somebody else's arm. But who?

********************

Washington Water Woman will be traveling next weekend and expects to return to blogging in two weeks.

The Mighty

2011-04-10T11:37:00.004-04:00

How far the mighty have fallen! Cedric was reading the Washington Post editorials and laughing at Henry Kissinger's plea for military intervention. Give it up, old man! You don't have any more armies to command! You don't have any more CIA assassins at your beck and call! You can't control ANYTHING! Then social worker Hue Nguyen came by to give him his meds, and he recalled that he was living at the Arlington Group Home for the Mentally Challenged. How did I get here?

Across the river at the Heurich Society meeting, Henry Samuelson knew full well how Cedric had ended up there, but Samuelson didn't think too much about Cedric these days. He examined his cupcake critically but said nothing about his preference for good old-fashioned doughnuts because the last time he had complained about how cupcakes were taking over Washington his daughter had told him he sounded like an old coot. The doctor had told him to start mega doses of vitamin D (the sunshine vitamin!) and he would start perking up, but it was hard to deny he was getting older. This morning he had nodded off right in the middle of the phone call with Angela de la Paz briefing him on the latest schisms within the Egyptian military ranks. All in all, Project Prometheus and Project Cinderella were both going very well, but it was a lot of balls to keep in the air. He had thought by now the world would be more the way he wanted it and he could enjoy a peaceful retirement, but things just kept getting more complicated. The other day his daughter had commented on how the world's population would hit nine billion this year, and you just couldn't control that many people no matter what you did--but then, how was he to live in such a chaotic world? Samuelson felt old and...weak.

A couple miles away, Golden Fawn's grandmother was also feeling old and weak. They were picnicking on Theodore Roosevelt Island after using her strongest medicine to counteract Ardua's evil influence, but she had already admitted to Golden Fawn that she now believed the Warrior was right--it was somebody else's destiny to fight this demon in the Potomac, as well as her spawn Eeteebsse. She hated to leave her granddaughter like this, but she needed to go home where she could do some good. "Help the girl," she told her granddaughter, "together there is hope."

Back in the city, Dr. Ermann Esse was evaluating his newest patient, Congressman John Boehner. When Boehner had heard about the radical psychiatrist who did not pander to sissies by prescribing drugs, he hadn't known that the psychiatrist also considered cigarette smoking a drug addiction. Boehner was sitting on the edge of the couch, tapping his foot furiously on the oriental carpet and squeezing stress balls in both hands. "I thought people would respect and love me in this position!" Boehner sighed. "But I can't make anybody happy! Nothing I do is good enough for anybody! Tell me, how do you deal with Tea Party members yelling 'cut it or shut it!' on the one hand and four-dozen Representatives on the other who are demanding earmarks? Every option is lose-lose, I tell you!" It felt good to admit that to somebody: carrying around the bravura had become exhausting to Boehner.

"Tell me," asked Dr. Esse, "when did your mother stop kissing you?"

"What the hell are you talking about?!" replied Boehner, getting redder in the face than usual.

"It is a crucial period in every man's life and of fundamental importance to understanding their psychological maturation process," said Dr. Esse. Actually he was not entirely certain of that, but he was working on a book about it, so he needed to keep collecting responses. If only he could attach the real-life names to the responses! Still, he thought it would be a good book anyway. He had already collected "after I accidentally dropped the dog out of the upstairs window" from Henry Samuelson, "after I refused to continue piano lessons" from Didymus (the ghost of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara), "after I told her I would rather wear a potato sack than wear the neon pink polyester Easter dress she had bought me" from Bridezilla, "after she saw me staring at Mrs. Hardy's cleavage" from the SEC attorney fired for downloading porn on his office computer, "after I refused refunds for neighbors complaining there were flies in the lemonade I was selling them" from the Prince and Prowling partner, and "after I denounced her asparagus casserole as a communist conspiracy" from the White House staffer in the last Administration.

"Well," said Boehner, pausing to think back. "I suppose it was after I hit that Little League game-winning RBI, and she tried to give me a congratulatory kiss after the game, but I wouldn't let her kiss me in front of the guys." He looked at the psychiatrist with hope that this courageous and raw admission would be the breakthrough necessary to get himself back on track.

How utterly ordinary and uninteresting, thought Dr. Esse while jotting down the statement. I may have to put this one under hypnosis to find out what's really going on in there.

"What's going on in there?" Over at the Federal Reserve Board, members of the Camelot Society were waiting inpatiently for Luciano Talaverdi and his secret lover ("Obi Wan woman") to come out of the Governor's office with the special files for the meeting, but just the sight of that large smooth Governor's desk where they had first made love had already sent them into a spasm of making out until the shout reminded them what they were doing. Talaverdi picked up the files as his secret lover smoothed out her hair, then they walked out to join the others in saving the world of liquidity as they knew it.

Over in the Tidal Basin, the Beaver quietly watched the continuing throngs of tourists gazing at the cherry blossom trees and wondered about the times to come.

Not Exactly

2011-04-02T10:27:00.003-04:00

Liv Cigemeier and her husband posed under the cherry blossom tree as an obliging tourist took their photo for them--a social reciprocity being repeated all around the tidal basin. It scarcely counted as a lovely spring day, but they would take what they could get. Liv was over the moon because her boss had told her on Friday that they had just received a $5,000,000 project for International Development Machine to work with women in Afghanistan. The donor was anonymous because of the danger of the project, and Liv imagined it was Angelina Jolie or perhaps the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (She couldn't have been further from the truth.) Her husband was also in a good mood because he was being courted by another law firm and getting ready to play hardball with Prince and Prowling.

A few miles away, the managing partner of Prince and Prowling was reviewing the situation. It was bad enough that half the senior partners had been through his office during the past two weeks to ask if what happened at Howrey could happen here! (Of course not!) Then there were the multiple sexual harassment suits they had settled because of Chloe Cleavage and her leverage against former Senator Evermore Breadman. Bridezilla--once the eye candy that every partner wanted to bring to depositions--now spent all of her time holed up in her office with four air purifier machines, a private printer and fax machine so she never had to touch one that anybody else had touched, and a gallon-sized jug of hand sanitizer on her desk. Then there was "temporary" workhorse Laura Moreno, who was the most profitable attorney at the firm (defending three class actions on sub-prime mortgage lenders virtually herself!), but if he ever hired her she would probably go out on disability straight away; as it is, her health was not going to support her much longer and he was going to lose her one way or another. But the biggest problem of all was the new law firm courting his practice groups: Lye, Cheit, and Steele. He was certain Cigemeier would need a raise to stay at Prince and Prowling, maybe even an early bump onto the partner track. The others were still a toss-up. He put aside the personnel files to take a break and peruse the recommendations of the interior decorator for how to make the law firm's aesthetic more universally appealing. The illustrated portfolio included a photo of an 300-pound elderly woman with a big toothless smile, a decaying tobacco barn photographed from three different angles, several self-portraits of African-Americans from the east side of town, a painting of coal miners with soot on their faces, a photo of a factory floor circa 1900 with women and children working on machines, a needlepointed American flag in a red frame, a photograph of American fighter planes over Pakistan, a bust of George Washington, and a double-portrait of founding partners Prince and Prowling depicted as Tragedy and Comedy. He closed the portfolio, walked out of his office in search of Laura Moreno, found her in the workroom as usual, handed her the portfolio, and asked her to decide what Prince and Prowling should purchase. "I'll send a note to the partner that I had an emergency this morning and you were the only one around--take your time." Moreno took off her arthritis gloves and started paging through the appalling portfolio trying to figure out if this was a joke or a trick.

A couple of blocks away, Charles Wu was staring at the Tree of Peace in the foyer of the Organization of American States. It was only a century old, but apparently in the context of a young country, this was considered quite an old tree. Had there ever been a year since 1492 when guns were not being fired somewhere in the Americas? His eyes looked up as Eva Brown continued the small tour, showing her young, adopted, "Chinese" (Tajik) daughter the flora sections for the Caribbean, Central America, South America, and then North America--where Wu stood by the Tree of Peace. Wu had not seen her since they were in western China together, but he was not surprised that the Secretary of State had sent her today. "Did you finish law school?" Wu asked politely, though he already knew the answer and she knew that he already knew the answer. She shook her head and started talking about Libya as her daughter wandered off, waving a fairy wand randomly and bopping her head to a song she was quietly humming to herself. Wu's second small-talk question was going to be about the young girl, but the moment had already passed.

Back at the Tidal Basin, Golden Fawn and her grandmother were also braving the chilly breeze--not to view the cherry blossoms, but to keep an eye on Ardua of the Potomac. Golden Fawn's grandmother had made her decision: they needed to kill Eeteebsee in the womb, because if he was born, he would be a more powerful and terrible demon than his other mother had ever been, In all her years as an Elder of her people, she had never had to make such a decision--it was like making a deal with the devil. It didn't help that when Golden Fawn had introduced her grandmother to The Warrior that he had disagreed completely, saying that he had seen prophecies come and go, and trying to prevent a prophecy always had unforeseen consequences. He had also told them that becoming a killer would change them forever, and they would need powerful medicine to withstand the danger to their own souls. Finally, he had asked them to await the return of the girl, Angela de la Paz, because he believed it was her destiny to destroy Ardua. "The cancer is thinking about coming back," said Golden Fawn's grandmother, who had very unscientific ideas about why Golden Fawn had gone through a breast cancer fight a few years back. Golden Fawn looked at her grandmother, but she said nothing more; it had always been this way, with her grandmother saying something plain and simple and expecting Golden Fawn to understand a hundred other things from it. It had been good preparation for marriage, Golden Fawn thought, and a smile briefly crossed her lips, and then another cool breeze stung her eyes, and she recalled the problem at hand. Are we strong enough to kill this baby? she wondered. Maybe we will have no choice but to wait for Angela to return. "It's going to rain," her grandmother said, but they did not get up to leave.

Several miles away, Mia wiped her hands on the cherry blossom apron Congressman Herrmark had given her (in a brief fit of guilt about not taking her to see the cherry blossoms in person), then picked up the plate of chopped vegetables to dump into the skillet, where she would stir fry them with ginger and soy sauce. The first few days she had been here, he had tried to give her an American cookbook and show her how to use the microwave oven, but had quickly given up on it--he didn't have time to teach her every little thing. So it was his bodyguards Nick and Costas who taught her to use the washing machine and the ice maker and the toaster. She still would not use the dryer, and the men continued to find wet clothes hanging all over the house, but they were patient with her, since she was probably only 14 or 15, and very far from home. Congressman Herrmark had told his bodyguards she was a maid from the Philippines, but they knew he was lying. He had picked her up on his trip to the Marianas, and she was probably from Laos or Cambodia. When they had told their cousin Ann Bishis about it, she had hesitated for a minute, then said, "well, I'm sure this is a better life than she had in the Marianas". The girl slept in the bedroom of Congressman Herrmark, though once when he was in the shower, his bodyguards saw her curled up asleep in the wing chair, so they really were not sure what was going on in there. She didn't have any bruises, so they couldn't exactly say there was anything wrong...not exactly. Nick got out the plates while Costas poured another cup of coffee for Congressman Herrmark, who was catching up on his hydrofracking reading in the dining room and thinking how delicious lunch was smelling. Outside the dining room window, a raven watched him intensely until Congressman Herrmark noticed it, got aggravated, and threw a pencil at the window to shoo it away.

George W. Bush Monument Committee?

2011-03-27T21:03:00.003-04:00

Bush Monument

Dear Friends:

We have the distinguished honor of being on the committee to raise $5,000,000 for a monument to George W. Bush. The committee originally wanted to put him on Mt. Rushmore until we discovered there was not enough room for two more faces.

We then decided to erect a statue of George in the Washington, DC, Hall of Fame. We were in a quandary as to where the statue should be placed. It was not proper to place it beside the statue of George Washington, who never told a lie, or beside Richard Nixon, who never told the truth, since George could never tell the difference.

We finally decided to place it beside Christopher Columbus, the greatest Republican of them all. He left not knowing where he was going, and when he got there he did not know where he was. He returned not knowing where he had been, decimated the well-being of the majority of the population while he was there, and did it all on someone else's money.

Thank you,

George W. Bush Monument Committee

(courtesy of http://www.guy-sports.com/humor/saints/columbus_day_jokes.htm)

**************************************
Washington Water Woman remains overworked on her day job but hopes to return to blogging next weekend.

The Diary of Nick and Costas

2011-03-20T21:10:00.002-04:00

NICK: Yesterday we drove Congressman Herrmark to the airport for his "fact-finding" trip to the Marianas Islands.

COSTAS: Our cousin Ann Bishis already explained that this meant he would be patronizing underage prostitutes who were victims of human trafficking that were lied to about getting good "American" jobs in the Marianas factories. We have been discussing whether this job is really better than working for the Greek mafia.

NICK: I still think it is!

COSTAS: Maybe.

NICK: We just got back from Chinatown and saw some American prostitutes.

COSTAS: They might not be--and it wasn't really Chinatown.

NICK: Close to Chinatown! One woman had her shirt off and was jumping up and down on the street corner, making her large breasts bounce up and down like crazy.

COSTAS: The prostitutes are not like that in Greece.

NICK: I think it's the crack, no?

COSTAS: Or the meth--remember Ann told us about the meth.

NICK: Oh, the meth.

COSTAS: Before Chinatown, we went to Macy's with Ann because she wanted to buy new makeup before her vacation.

NICK: She takes vacation when Congressman takes vacation.

COSTAS: Like us! Too cheap to take his bodyguards to Marianas Islands with him!

NICK: We went to Mac counter, and crazy gay guy with super spiky hair put makeup samples on Ann!

COSTAS: Gay man putting makeup on woman! I think when we go back to Greece, we should act like gay men, too--open beauty salon, women love it.

NICK: Crazy spiky hair! Blue and purple! Then gay phlebotomist walks up to counter!

COSTAS: We didn't know he was phlebotomist--Ann told us later, "that's the gay phlebotomist from the lab". Black gay phlebotomist. There are no gay phlebotomists in Greece.

NICK: How do you know?!

COSTAS: Alright, maybe, but no black gay phlebotomists in Greece!

NICK: We are not really on vacation--we are supposed to repaint, clean chimney, do the garden, repave the driveway, fix up the car--all sorts of things!

COSTAS: But he's still paying us for the week. If we finish in three days, rest is vacation. We can go pick up tourists at Cherry Blossom Festival.

NICK: You know--the kind that like identical twins, ha ha!

COSTAS: What a great country.

NICK: But seriously, we are loving America! Such big things happen here. Congressman Herrmark voted to suspend money for National Public Radio.

COSTAS: Ann said it was only one ten-thousandth of one percent of the federal budget, but it's the principle of the thing.

NICK: Take that, Big Bird!

COSTAS: I like Big Bird!

NICK: Yes, sad day. Big Bird must die so that U.S. can keep spending ten billion per month in Afghanistan.

COSTAS: Big Bird should go to Afghanistan, find Osama Bin Laden, come back hero of U.S.A.!

NICK: No, Big Bird must fly fighter planes to Libya!

COSTAS: No, Big Bird must pick up leaking nuclear power plant in Japan and fly it to South Pole.

NICK: Now you are just talking crazy. You are still drunk! Go to bed.

COSTAS: Fine!

Washington Water Woman is exhausted out of her mind after a rough week and hopes to take back her blog next week....

She Who Must Be Obeyed

2011-03-13T10:18:00.007-04:00

Congressman Herrmark was up at dawn, something his Greek bodyguards had not expected the day the clocks lost an hour. It wasn't as if Herrmark expected them to be up, since they all relied on the burglar alarm system at night, but still they would have preferred to have made the coffee and microwave pancakes as soon as they heard him stirring. Instead, when they raced downstairs to see what the stirrings were so early this morning, they were shocked to find him reading the funny papers and eating a bowl of cereal and milk--shocked both because he had managed by himself to disarm the burglar alarm before opening the front door to get the newspaper and because he had mistaken a box of Fiddle Faddle for breakfast cereal. "Mornin', boys," he said without looking up from "Rhymes With Orange", which he always studied carefully for subliminal subversion. They greeted him, and Nick put on the coffee while Costas got out the microwave waffles (a Sunday tradition in the bachelor household). Herrmark was tapping his leather slipper nervously on the Italian marble floor, still shaken up about the nightmare he had in which the Islamist hearings on Capitol Hill had turned up proof that he was at that Muammar Gaddafi New Year's Eve party on St. Bart's with Mariah Carey. There were watchdogs everywhere (more than Joseph McCarthy could have imagined in his wildest dreams), and it had never been less pleasant to enjoy the perks of office. Here it was, March already, the clocks changing (!), and he had yet to attach a single earmark to any legislation, or plan his first Congressionsal research trip to a tropical island yet. Hell, I'd be lucky to put together a fact-finding mission to Italy or a troops visit to that U.S. warship in the Mediterranean Sea! Not until Congress authorized aid for refugees, anyway. Japan might be a pleasant visit at this time of year, but radioactive Japan? Nah, I'll leave that to somebody else. Tunisia is seaside, but it's fairly stable--the only fact-finding mission I could do there would be in a refugee camp, and to hell with that. He let out a big sigh, and Nick silently pushed a steaming cup of coffee in front of the Congressman's face. "Thanks, son." (He usually called them "son" because he could not tell the twins apart, but they were used to it since that's what their own parents called them.) He noticed a loose thread on his silk robe, and the thought occurred to him that it might be time to plan another fact-finding trip to the "garment factories" in the Marianas--none of the current watchdogs had that on their radar screen right now. "She's a bitch," he said out loud, without realizing he had done so. (He was referring to fiscal discipline, but the twin bodyguards just shrugged at each other and kept eating.) "If only I could find a warm, tropical island that had hydrofracking...."

Several miles away, the Heurich Society was meeting to discuss Project Prometheus and Project Cinderella. Oil prices had gone up dramatically, just as predicted, but revolutionary staying power in the Mideast was uncertain at best. Condoleezza Rice was again telling them over the speakerphone that they were putting too much reliance on young agent Angela de la Paz, but Henry Samuelson would hear none of it. "She's inside Project R.O.D.H.A.M.," he snarled, "and the Egyptian army calls her 'she who must be obeyed!'" The first part was true, though it might be argued that she had passed them more information than vice versa; the latter was something he has mistranslated from a recorded transmission, since what the Egyptian army actually called her was "she whose gaze must be avoided" because anybody that ripped her veil off reportedly did not live to identify her. Rice cackled over the speakerphone that there were too many variables and they needed more agents on the ground, but Samuelson countered that the whole point was that Angela de la Paz was going to be subverting Project R.O.D.H.A.M. to the Heurich Society purposes. Debate around the table became vigrous, and Samuelson fell silent, sullenly chewing his pecan coffeecake and taking notes about who at the table was with him and who was against him.

A few miles to the east, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton carefully examined an antique bunny flower vase as a possible Easter gift for Chelsea while Charles Wu looked on encouragingly. "It's the Year of the Rabbit," he offered. At first she thought this was a code for something, then she remembered he was talking about the Chinese zodiac. "Let me get it for you," Wu said, and he pulled his wallet out and gestured to the Eastern Market vendor manning the booth. (It was not a bribe, but rather a gesture to assist Clinton in remaining reticent behind her sunglasses and Chicago Cubs baseball cap.) The rabbit safely ensconced in bubble wrap and tucked under the arm of Wu, the two walked on. "You know the dangers inherent in your mission this week?" Clinton nodded. "Aside from your official security, we now have 43 Reserve Officers deployed in Tunisia and 311 in Egypt--mostly men, but a few women. One of the female agents in Egypt is a double-agent, but we know who she's working for, and we decided it better to keep her--"

"Are you out of your mind?!" Clinton interjected.

"Forgive me, Madam Secretary, but we know precisely who she's working for--it's a secret society here in Washington. And so far she has not actually done anything counter to our interests."

"What society?"

"The Heurich Society," Wu said.

"That's a Condoleeza Rice operation--"

"Madam Secretary, I can assure you that Rice's influence in it has waned dramatically. Their interests in the Mideast are ultimately financial, but their operative's actions are useful to us right now. There's also a strong chance she can be turned altogether--some think she's barely 17. The Egyptian army is enthralled by her, and yet they are loathe to talk about her because she's a girl, so her actions have a lot of power. She won't be on your guard detail in Egypt--she'll be isolated at the margin during that time. She's fed us a lot of intelligence on the Egyptian military, and it's all been true."

The Secretary of State walked on slowly in silence for a few minutes. "Charles," she said at last, "do you really understand how much I have going against me on this trip, simply because I'm a woman?"

"I wouldn't be serving Project R.O.D.H.A.M. if I didn't, Madam Secrtary." This was a lie, but actually he did understand. Wu, who had adored his mother as much as any son could adore a mother, and worshipped women his whole life with the simple ardor of a young man repeatedly enthralled by the siren call of the fairer sex in its most fundamental essence, could never understand why any sensible men would construct societies in which beautiful faces were hidden behind veils and warm bodies were more a myth than a reality. This would have been enough! But then, as it turned out, there were actually women intelligent, insightful, and persistent--and endowed with a host of other qualities that entitled them and even impelled them to positions of leadership that he could not help but admire. Women like Hillary Rodham Clinton--whose will he had once obeyed as a means to an end, but now obeyed because he trusted it. "It's going to be a long, long engagement in the Mideast, and some of the dominos might fall in the wrong direction, but this is our best chance," Wu added. (By "our best chance", he realized he was talking about issues that seemed very remote from the Hong Kong issues that had started his espionage career so long ago, but even China was slowly coming to see that there are times you don't want to end up on the wrong side of history.)

A mile away, Dr. Devi Rajatala had received a surprise visit from her rich cousin, and he couldn't stop talking about his girlfriend, Bridezilla. Rajatala knew that several in their personal circle had already named the girl "she who must be obeyed", and Dr. Raj was debating whether she should admit this to him. "I poured M&Ms into a bowl Friday night for us to eat while watching the video," her cousin said, "and after I put my hand in the bowl, she took out a disinfectant wipe from the dispenser and rubbed some M&Ms on it before eating them."

Dr. Raj fought back a gag as she handed her cousin a weed whacker and tried to make him do something useful in her National Arboretum elm tree study area. "You know that is toxic?" she said, and he nodded. "Did you tell her?" He shook his head. "She cannot be the mother of your children!" exclaimed Dr. Raj, almost wincing at how old-fashioned her words sounded, but still certain they needed to be said. "She will make your children sick doing such things!" Dr. Raj also wanted to tell him that Bridezilla is crazy, but this seemed too cruel.

"But I can get a green card if I marry her!" he exclaimed. And this was true, but he said it because he was embarrassed to admit he was very hung up on the girl, and wildly nursing hopes she would get better someday.

"You have developed the most important virtual reality war games system the Pentagon has--you can get a green card without her!" said the arborist/biologist as she scraped some bark samples for the laboratory. She noticed he still had not pulled any weeds for her.

"That's not true!" he argued, although he was not entirely certain on the point. "Anyway, I already asked her to marry me, and she said yes." Dr. Raj dropped her container on the ground. "We're getting married in June. I'm calling Mom and Dad tonight so they can get a visa and book their tickets." Dr. Raj said nothing. "Of course, the wedding has to be here--she's scared of...Indian germs, I mean, tropical epidemics." Dr. Raj picked up her bark sample and stared at it more intently than she had ever stared at a container of bark before in her life.

A couple of miles away, Golden Fawn's grandmother was sitting silently in the canoe, staring down into the depths of the Potomac River as Marcos Vazquez paddled slowly past Theodore Roosevelt Island so that she could have her first look at she-who-must-be-obeyed. Ardua had cramps all over from the baby demon growing inside her, and groaned almost pitifully at the affront of this newest visitor. She reached up to knock over the canoe, but the grandmother rapidly lifted her hand and stopped the blow, which left only a small ripple at the stern. Vazquez looked at his wife, then kept on paddling.

COMING UP: Congressman Herrmark plans a junket, and International Development Machine "wins" a $5,000,000 grant from a mysterious donor.

On the down side, gloom; on the up side, doom!

2011-03-06T13:40:00.003-05:00

The handsome young man moved languidly from room to room, taking the party all in--colors shining, jewels glittering, perfumes wafting with scents of rose and lilac. A woman with cropped black hair, scarlet lipstick and a midnight blue sleeveless flapper dress tossed her peacock feather boa back over her shoulder and winked at him. Nervous, he looked down at her shoes, which were shiny black patent leather skimmers with black chiffon bows attached jauntily on the outer edges like wings about to give the shoes flight. The record on the Victrola changed to an upbeat jazz number, and people started to dance. The music was too loud, so he wandered off to find a quiet place. He saw a room labeled "Coco Chanel", and opened the door to find the floor covered in shoes and the room overflowing with clothing draped on hangers, racks, shelves, and every piece of furniture. Vanity and dresser drawers were half-open with long strings of pearls, rubies, and sapphires spilling out. He heard humming in the bathroom and walked in to see Coco Chanel wrapped in oily gauze like a mummy from her neck to her toes, fully immersed in a steaming hot bath. Her eyes were closed, and he quietly walked back into the bedroom, where he saw ephemeral phantoms trying on clothing. "This is nice," one of the female ghosts said to him, "but your own wife will prefer Yves Saint Laurent when her time comes." "When is that?" he asked. "After you fail in Cuba, but before you succeed in Chile," she said. "He hasn't been born yet," a male ghost whispered to the female ghost. "Yes, I have!" the handsome young man declared. "You're not even a twinkle in Ardua's eye yet." "I run this place!" the handsome young man insisted. "The Heurich Society has been at the Brewmaster's Castle since--"

"NEVER!"

Henry Samuelson jolted awake, and immediately saw the Chair of the Heurich Society staring at him. "Oh, God, what did I miss?" he thought.

"What did I miss?" asked Liv Cigemeier, who had finally come back from the office and needed to pretend she cared about the basketball game her husband was watching on TV, but he turned it off. The tables were turned, and now he knew how it felt to sit in their suddenly gloomy Silver Spring apartment surrounded by gray skies while his spouse was the one who went into the office.

"I'm glad you're back!" he smiled and got up to embrace her, but she didn't smile back. "What's wrong?"

"These new International Development Machine contracts for Afghanistan were signed without the contract deliverables for women's rights," she said. Her husband knew Liv was the one who had drafted the proposal that won the contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development. "They were part of the bid, and now they're gone! My boss says he was told informally that the State Department is working on women's rights with a more subtle approach now, but the whole point is to stand up for women in Afghanistan--loudly and strongly!" Her voice broke, and tears welled up in her eyes.

"Honey," he said, "you know that's not REALLY why we're in Afghanistan."

"I know!" she said. "But you can still do the right thing for the wrong reason! I don't wanna do the wrong thing." She sank into his embrace, and he decided the only mutually beneficial thing to do with the rest of the rainy day was spend it trying to get her pregnant again.

"I don't wanna do the wrong thing," said President Obama, staring out the window at the rain which was preventing the arrival of the helicopter, and then at the surprising sight of the twin pre-schoolers running around the White House backyard in yellow rain ponchos and red polka-dot rubber boots. (It was one thing to let Bo out to play in the rain because Bo really cannot stand being cooped up in the White House for long stretches of time, but these little children?) "I wanna be President for the whole country, but it's like a goddam civil war! We've got governors' going to war against unions, John Boehner working so hard to please his Halliburton and Koch Industries campaign contributors that he's brought back plastic and styrofoam to un-green the House cafeteria, and these deranged Tea Party leaders who are already slamming Boehner for not doing enough to slash the budget! We're spending billions a week on overseas wars and Medicare fraud, and they're slashing the already puny budgets for public broadcasting and FEMA. FEMA, for God's sakes! The whole thing's totally screwed up. I can't win this thing by reasoning with the American people anymore. I've gotta figure out if intervening in Libya to protect refugees is going to win hearts and minds or backfire--like everything else we've ever done in the Arab world! And we've got Sarah Palin out there with nothing better to do than criticize my wife for trying to take unhealthy food out of our school lunch programs! I swear, I have never hated a woman the way I hate that woman! Half of Congress is made up of millionaires, and the other half are propped up by corporate contributions, the Supreme Court is useless, everything depends on me and I have more death threats than any U.S. President has ever had to face." Instead of building to a crescendo, his voice had slowly fallen until the last few words were barely audible as they escaped his lips.

"Only hate can conquer hate!"

"What?!" President Obama turned to his Chief of Staff, but he shrugged and said he hadn't said anything. Up in the corner, a White House ghost who had been burning for revenge against his slavemasters for two-hundred years grinned uncontrollably.

Several miles away, Glenn Michael Beckmann was also grinning uncontrollably. The Hunter-Gatherer Society is gaining influence around the country, and institutions of namby-pamby nanny-state "civilization" are feeling its wrath. God has even struck down the National Christmas Tree to prove that Obama did not deserve his house to be graced by its inspiring presence! Surely my militia comrades will soon be ready to take to the streets, armed and righteous? If those God-damned Arab satanists are willing to die for their causes, so much more should Americans! (He was typing furiously on his computer now, watching the blog words fill up his computer screen.) I have seen the future, and it is OURS! (He paused to take a swig of Jack Daniels.) Silence tells me secretly... everything... EVERYthing! (Deep beneath Beckmann's Southwest Plaza apartment, the real estate demon living in the parking garage cooed with contentment--the man was like putty in its hands.)

Willing to die? On the other side of the Potomac, Dick Cheney read Beckmann's words, and chills ran down his spine. Why am I trying so hard to stay alive? he thought, contemplating his latest heart scare. The Heurich Society won't let me back in. Maybe I could make a difference in this Hunter-Gatherer Society! Sarah Palin may be its president, but if I did a suicide mission, I would be a martyr forever for the--

"Dick? Oh, there you are." Lynn Cheney walked into his study to give him his afternoon snack (sugar-free cherry jello, fat-free cottage cheese, a bunch of grapes, and whole wheat crackers. She kissed him on the cheek, and he smelled her Giorgio perfume briefly before she walked away, snapping her heels on her Prada house sandals.

A catbird sitting outside Cheney's window briefly trilled an imitation of the click-clack shoe sound, then flew off to report back to Ardua of the Potomac--though nothing seemed to cheer Ardua up anymore. The starlings said it was the best of times and worst of times for Ardua, but that type of analysis was above the catbird's paygrade.

NEXT WEEK: SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED!

Energy Futures (Che, Chi, and Cha Cha Cha)

2011-02-27T11:00:00.004-05:00

"You look tired," said Che Flaco, as they walked over to the park near Sacred Heart Cathedral after buying pastries and pop from the Salvadoran vendors outside the church.

Charles Wu pondered this comment for a moment, uncertain how to respond since nobody had ever said that to him before. He examined his pastry curiously, but could see Che Flaco and Che Gordo digging in enthusiastically, so he took a small bite as they all sat down on a bench. "It's been a really, really, really busy week," he said at last. He remembered seeing the dark circles under his eyes when he got up this morning and looked in the mirror, and he now realized that's what the comment was about. He had been running himself ragged all week between his contacts for the British, Chinese, and American governments, and his sources. He was in taxis every day listening to the African grapevine out of Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Nigeria. He was running searches on the listening devices he had planted all over the sources of power in Washington. This used to be fun, even exhilarating; now--.

"There was a lot of surprise when China went along with the U.N against Libya," Che Gordo said. He suspected Wu had been a decisive force in that vote, but Wu made no comment. "But Gaddafi is still surrounded by too many yes-men to face the truth."

"I thought Gaddafi was surrounded by beautiful ninja women," said Wu.

Che Gordo and Che Flaco laughed out loud--this was more like the Wu they were used to. "Yes," Che Flaco said, "he's got his female bodyguards. A lot of women still support him because he gave them more rights than they used to have--and more rights than most Arab women have in other countries. But having as much freedom as the men have inside a dictatorship is still a very small amount of freedom."

"It's the corruption, really," said Che Gordo. "People get tired of being poor and exploited." Wu was always hearing things like this from the Che's. "And seeing the same man on top for decades--after awhile, you wonder, why? Why should he be on top of our country?"

Wu was really too tired for this and just wanted to get some actual intelligence. "How strong are the rebel forces?"

"Strong," the Che's said in unison. "But it's gonna be bloody," added Che Flaco, "and it's not over in Egypt, either."

"I hear there's a girl," said Wu. "What's that about?" Wu and Project R.O.D.H.A.M. were well aware of Angela de la Paz's "infiltration" of their Egyptian cell, but he wanted to know if it was true she had been operating in other countries in the region.

"She came out of nowhere," said Che Flaco. (Che Gordo just shook his head and continued chewing.) "And she moves with lightning speed--people, walls, locks, guards, even borders are like nothing to her. And nobody knows what she looks like because if that veil comes off, the witnesses are all found dead. Some think she's from Mossad--a trained Palestinian double agent."

"Some?" said Wu. "What do the others think?" He knew she was no Palestinian, but Project R.O.D.H.A.M. had no real handle on her.

"Lebanese, Italian, Greek, Brazilian, maybe a Venezuelan operative from Hugo Chavez," said Che Gordo. "Some think she's the unknown granddaughter of Carlos the Jackal."

"What does she really want?" asked Wu.

"What does any woman really want!?" laughed Che Flaco.

A couple miles to the south, Lynnette Wong came out of her storeroom to model another dress for her friend who was minding her Chinatown herb store while Wong was showing her the gowns she had picked up from Macy's. "Oh, that midnight blue is beautiful on you!" her friend said. Her friend had also said the jade green, apple red, and champagne-colored gowns were beautiful. Charles Wu had handed her a Macy's gift card to pick up a dress for tonight's Oscar party, and it was not until she went to the store that she found out it had two-thousand dollars on it; she didn't know if he wanted her to get a two-thousand-dollar dress, or if she was supposed to get new shoes, make-up, and jewelry, too. In fact, she had no idea whatsoever why he was going to this benefit for the American Red Cross, nor why he had invited her--he had told her it was important for businessmen "like them" to show civic spirit, but in the past he would have used the $2,000 to write a check. She knew he didn't LIKE her like her, but he had been acting strangely ever since his brother died and his parents left. She shrugged her shoulders and looked to her friend for a more specific comment on the dress, but the shop bell rang as a customer entered the shop, so Wong returned to the storeroom to try on the lemon yellow silk dress.

Over in Dupont Circle, the Heurich Society was meeting in the Brewmaster Castle, and they were the only ones who really knew what Angela de la Paz wanted--or, rather, what she had been ordered to do for them. Arab refugees were on the run, oil prices were shooting up, and the Clinton State Department was scrambling like a Chinese fire drill. "Obama is feckless," cackled Condoleezza Rice over the speakerphone, gleefully crowing about how the Obama White House was cringing as the House of Representatives used its Power of the Purse like a bag of quarters to beat up everybody they didn't like. "We can re-shape the face of the Middle East NOW!" added Rice. Henry Samuelson smirked, feeling exuberantly vindicated about Project Cinderella and Project Prometheus.

On the other end of Dupont Circle, Charles Wu had made his way over to Trio's to meet with the Condor to catch up on petroleum futures. "Mmmmmm," said the Condor, as Wu sat down, because the Condor was already happily eating--nothing cheered him up after a tumultuous week of petroleum futures like a delicious meal at Trio's. "Try this," he finally mustered after swallowing, pushing his plate towards Wu, who waved it off politely and assured him he would order the same thing. "The Listening Session was brutal," the Condor said, shaking his head grimly. "I think the EPA is going to do it. They let the Sierra Club set up a table right outside the hearing room, for God's sake! The nonprofits and think tanks are all behind EPA, and some of the utility companies have crossed over--the efficient ones, the co-generation experts all have an advantage if this goes through. And Shell's argument that U.S refineries were operating on 'thin' margins and would surely be crushed by foreign oil imports if they had to bend to any more regulations from EPA went over like a lead balloon. I don't think it helped that baby dolphins were washing up on the Gulf Coast this week--dolphins conceived right before the BP oil spill."

"But if Congress strips EPA of the power--"

"The House is being run by yokels right now, and they don't understand that the courts have already decided that EPA is mandated to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. They can make all the de-funding attempts they want, but the Senate is not going to go along with gutting the Clear Air Act, and as long as it's on the books, the EPA will have to deal with court orders."

Wu stifled a yawn. He knew--he really did know--that Wednesday's relatively obscure hearing in the small Ariel Rios conference room about establishing new source performance standards was extremely important to the fossil fuels industry, but it was all so...tedious. "What about Libya?"

"Well--"

"Wait, what did you say about baby dolphins?" asked the waitress hovering behind the two, frowning.

A few miles away, Golden Fawn was in the bridgeman's quarters with Dubious McGinty, looking down on Ardua of the Potomac. She was chewing the sunflower seeds sacred to her people and spitting the husks into the water. (She had offered some to McGinty, but they made his gums hurt.) It had been a cold, cold winter, and she and her husband had just gotten back from a week's respite in Puerto Rico, where Marcos Vazquez's mother had finally returned to live after months of turning Golden Fawn's life upside down. The arguments about whether Europeans had deliberately slaughtered American Indians or innocently wiped them out through the spread of disease, Teresa's decision to surprise them with a complete make-over by Closet Maid and the ensuing three weeks of renovations to clean up and repair the damage, the draperies that burned up after Teresa fell asleep praying before her shrine to the Virgin Mary to cleanse the home of evil, the three successive pairs of dogwood trees that died within hours of the condo company's planting them in the front garden, the electrical outlets that shorted out every time Teresa insisted on plugging in her ancient hair dryer, the broken washing machine which could not handle the stress of laundering Teresa's full set of linens on a daily basis because everything in the home felt corrupted and evil to her--Golden Fawn felt like she was slowly coming out of a strange, strange dream. So many times she had tried to explain to her mother-in-law that she agreed about the demons, but Teresa was going about it all wrong. So many arguments. And finally they had flown to Puerto Rico, sunbathed, swam in the ocean, and stopped talking about Washington for a week. Now Golden Fawn was back. "Yes," she told McGinty when he first found her on Roosevelt Island praying, "I know she's pregnant." This was her second visit since then, but she was still undecided who was the larger threat--Ardua or the unborn child prophesied to destroy her. "He came to me in a dream last night," Golden Fawn said. ("He?") "Yes, it's a boy. His name is Eeteebsee. He asked me to help him kill Ardua after he is born." ("Should we?") "I don't know yet."

Back in Chinatown, Charles Wu showed up at Lynnette Wong's shop hours early for their date to the Oscar party. "Can you give me something to help me sleep a little while?" he asked, and she gave him some herbs and the key to her apartment so he could go upstairs and sleep. She had never seen his chi so low--he was like a completely different person. I better wear the orange gown, she thought, stifling an urge to go tuck him in.

Out in the Potomac, Ardua looked up at Dubious McGinty and Golden Fawn on the bridge overlook above her, groaned and rolled over.