Glibertarians.com 2019 Archive

Category: Satire

  • Injun Zombie Presidential Candidate #4: Out of Breath

    Episode 1

    Episode 2

    Episode 3

    Charlie woke with a start. He fumbled around in the wispy, pale moonlight fluttering through the curtains of the open window. With a crash, he found his cup of water, spilling it on the floor of the Airstream trailer.

    The dreams were getting worse now that Lizzie had run away. Thoughts began to peek through his rational facade that scared him. He didn’t even have a frame of reference to process his fear that she was somehow telepathically connected with him. He thought of the way that she absorbed the personality traits of those she ate. Maybe it worked both ways. Maybe the Demon was in him, too. He rubbed an old scar from a particularly nasty session with Lizzie. He flashed back to the struggle, wincing while he remembered how she bit straight through his skin when he tried to restrain her.

    He knew that the undead had traits that seemed fantastic to the uninitiated, but he and the Scientist could always find a biological reason for those traits. Telepathy? That seemed more Star Trek than Frankenstein.

    A clink of glass carried across the trailer from the Scientist’s quarters. Charlie didn’t know what time it was, but he knew he could really use a stiff drink and somebody to talk to. He grabbed a pair of tumblers and a bottle of scotch as he shimmied his way through the public space to the obviously aftermarket door and wall that denoted the start of the Scientist’s lab and personal quarters.

    The murmur of a pair of low voices piqued Charie’s curiosity. It wasn’t uncommon to have unannounced visitors come in the night, but usually he knew about it. Following a terse knock, Charlie let himself in. He found himself standing in front of a familiar face that he hadn’t seen for a long time. Abner had to be over 100 years old, but he hardly looked a day over 65. The cause of his youthful look was dribbling down his chin. He finished the iridescent yellow elixir with a swig. The Scientist’s anti-aging serum wasn’t the best tasting drink Charlie had ever quaffed, but one couldn’t argue with the results.

    “Abner! What are you doing so far from home?” Charlie’s tone betrayed that he was more surprised at the identity of the messenger than the fact that a messenger was in his trailer in Nowhere, Oklahoma at God-knows-what-hour of night.

    “Well,” Abner’s voice cracked as he cringed at the aftertaste of the serum, “I have some good news, some useful information, and an earnest plea.”

    Charlie set down the tumblers and opened the scotch bottle. He poured enough in each glass to require care as he handed the Scientist one.

    “I take it you don’t want your drink in that,” Charlie nodded at the test tube still clutched in Abner’s fist. Abner looked down at his hand and set the test tube into the laboratory sink alongside a small pile of dirty glassware. Charlie ducked his head out into the kitchen and retrieved a third tumbler.

    “I was just telling the Scientist that they sent me here to release you from this dusty perdition. Out of an abundance of caution we wanted to let things cool off after the Clark Panel report, but you can return to Massachusetts,” Abner probed for a reaction from Charlie, knowing full well that the Scientist was too stoic to provide satisfaction. Charlie obliged, sighing relief. The Oklahoma exile was hard for all of them, but Charlie felt like he was starting to go a little bit mad.

    “So that’s the good news, what is the useful information?” the Scientist showed uncharacteristically earnest curiosity. Charlie noticed that the Scientist’s scotch glass was already nearly empty.

    “Well, you need to return to Massachusetts this week because we have solid information leading us to the conclusion that Elizabeth is on her way to visit Edward.” Abner downed his scotch in a gulp, bracing himself for an onslaught. Charlie flinched at the mention of Lizzie’s name, and again at the mention of Teddy’s. To say that this business of the undead had gotten out of control was an understatement.

    “I just want to finish by asking you to think carefully about what you’re about to do. You know as well as I do that Lizzie is a confused girl dealing with more than any,” Abner paused with  a look of unease as he searched for the correct word, “person should have to. Don’t write her off like you did Jack. She can still be saved!”

    Without waiting for a response, Abner dropped his gaze away from his compatriots and grabbed a duffel bag resting on a lab stool. He retrieved a lined sheet of paper previously torn from a spiral bound notebook and folded in half. He placed it on the middle of the table with a tangible resignation in his demeanor.

    “Martha’s Vineyard by the 19th. You’ll need to hurry, but we don’t foresee Lizzie getting there any sooner. Even if she does, Teddy’s gonna be busy screwing all of Bobby’s fangirls the night before, so he won’t have time for his sister. However, a two day regatta is one day too long for a Kennedy.” With a curt nod, Abner let himself out.

    Charlie picked up the note, an address in Massachusetts, and stuck it into his front pocket with an absent minded gaze at nothing in particular. After nearly a year of confusion, concern, and anger it was time to go get Lizzie back.

    “Mmmmmmmm…… aaaaahhhhhhhhh,” the distinctive nasal voice of Teddy Kennedy would’ve been recognizable by Lizzie even if she was blindfolded. Maybe it was the years they spent together in Oklahoma before he was ready to replace the stand-in. Maybe it was the cloying mix of pretentious New England fart huffer with idiot Boston fishmonger. Whatever it was, it seemed to grate on Lizzie more than in the past. As she lay prone on the floorboard of the Oldsmobile 88, she could hear the unmistakable rhythm of skin smacking skin.

    “Ohhhhhhh…. yeaaaaaaahhhhh,” Teddy moaned in pleasure, shaking the car with his awkward thrusts. “mmmmnnmmmm” groaned a feminine voice, resembling more an incoherent gag than a sexual oratory.

    “Where’s Crimmins?” Lizzie matter of factly queried, popping her head up between the seats. Teddy jolted upright, his flinch launching his human codpiece into the dashboard, hard. Teddy’s hands began to shake as he responded.

    “Jjjjj- Joan, it’s not what it looks like.” He stammered, covering his throbbing manhood with his fly. He began to zip his pants up.

    “Oh, that’s not Joan draped over the console?” Lizzie smirked as she leaned her head into a ribbon of light cutting through the cabin. “Tsk, tsk, tsk, what would Joanie think about this? Little brother Teddy’s out here getting his knob polished by some whore and Joanie’s probably back at home getting freight trained by Teddy’s friends.”

    “Shit, Sis! What the hell?!?” Teddy immediately relaxed, turning his head with a faint smile contrasting the beads of sweat forming where his brow previously furrowed. “I don’t even know what you just said, but I’m glad it’s you and not somebody else! Now… get out.” He slammed on the brakes, kicking up a cloud of dust and flinging the unconscious girl in the front seat back into the dashboard.

    “Little brother, I can’t get out. I have nowhere to go. I need your help.” Lizzie transformed her personality into the insecure tormented girl that Teddy remembered. “I…. I” she expertly quivered her lip, feigning fear and insecurity “I ran away. I couldn’t take it any more!”

    “What can I do about it?” Teddy dismissively retorted. “As you can see, I have enough secret squirrel shit going on in my life right now. I don’t need to go flitting off with my fugitive sister.”

    “Teddy, Teddy, Teddy. You always were in need of firm guidance. I’m sorry that Joan can’t keep you better heeled.” Lizzie’s condescension dripped like the blood flecked drool pooling under the passenger girl’s mouth. “You’re never gonna become President if you keep slipping the leash and disappointing all the women in your life.”

    “Fuck you, Lizzie! I’m gonna be President like my brother. Like my other brother should have been. I’m gonna do it, and I’m gonna do it the right way! Charlie and the Scientist are fools, but they can get me where I need to be. They can get me into the Oval Office!” He raged while shaking the steering wheel, white knuckles apparent in the gleam of a far off light. “And one more thing, you stupid, conniving bitch! I don’t need any fucking woman to get into the White House. No woman is gonna get me there and no woman is gonna prevent me from getting there! I don’t need Joan, and I don’t need an older sister who nags me like a disappointed mom! You don’t know better! You don’t know jack shit, and I don’t know where you get off coming all the way up here to try to fuck with my head! It ain’t my fault you bailed out on Charlie and the Scientist!”

    “I DO KNOW BETTER THAN YOU!” Lizzie roared. “AND I AM YOUR MOTHER! HEED ME OR FEEL MY WRATH!”

    As the momentary fear and surprise cleared from Teddy’s face, he began to chuckle. “I guess Lizzie finally found a set of balls. Now, I still don’t know why you’re here and I don’t know why you think I need your advice. I already told you I’m not in a position to help you.”

    Lizzie smirked, holding her dramatic pause for perfect effect. “Well, what about the dead hooker in your passenger seat?”

    Teddy glanced over unconcernedly. ” She’s not dead, and she’s not a hooker. Look, she’s fine. Here, here you go.” He pulled the girl’s head over to inspect her face. Lizzie noticed that her makeup was smeared like a Picasso painting and her eyelids were halfway open. “Maggie, Maggie! No wait, Martha! No, that’s not right… Mary! Mary Jo! Yeah that’s it! Mary Jo! Wake up, it’s time to go!”

    “Unghhhhhhh…. mmmmmmmmmmnnnnmmmmmm” Mary Jo mumbled. Blood seeped from her nose and blended with her hooker red lipstick.

    “This girl is going to ruin you Teddy. She has to go.” Lizzie cajoled. “She can’t be allowed to talk Teddy, she’d destroy you and take my plans down with you. She has to go.”

    “Wwww-what should we do?” Teddy stammered. “Maybe if I take her home she won’t remember anything.”

    “Please, Teddy. She probably has a skull fracture, and your car is covered in her blood.” Lizzie dispassionately explained. “She has to go.”

    “No, I’m not one for dirty work like that. I’m not like you.” His fear cut through any fortitude he tried to muster.

    “You’re right.” Lizzie whispered, simultaneously grasping Mary Jo’s head and twisting until a gruesome crack echoed through the cabin. “I can handle the dirty work.” She dropped the lifeless body of Mary Jo Kopechne back into the passenger seat without a hint of emotion. “Now drive down to the dike. We need to dispose of the trash.”

    After ditching the car in the water, Teddy and Lizzie began the long walk back to civilization, bantering like siblings, reflecting back on their time together 1500 miles away in Oklahoma.

    “You’ve really changed Lizzie. That little girl I knew in Oklahoma doesn’t exist anymore. You’re confident, driven. There’s no conflict anymore.” Teddy observed, breaking the silence that had settled in as they walked around the emptiness of Martha’s Vineyard.

    “I know what needs to happen. I have a plan now. I know best. Not Charlie, not the Scientist. I am right, and all I need is the power to make things right.” Lizzie explained. “You can have your Presidency, but I’ll be the first woman President, I’ll make sure the American people act like they should. No more chaos. No more disorganization. I can harmonize it all. I can control the uncontrollable. I can make America do the right thing in glorious lockstep. It will be…” she paused in what appeared to be genuine emotion “beautiful.”

    “Lizzie, you’ve made strides in adapting to being around them,” Teddy gestured broadly toward the distant lights of the town, “but you’re not ready yet. Charlie and the Scientist are right to take it slowly with you. You’re a bit much to handle in a social setting. Your emotions are all over the place. You make people uncomfortable. And besides, even if you were ready for the rise to power, America isn’t ready for a woman President. You need to bide your time and make yourself boring. Lizzie Warren should remind people of that caring schoolteacher or the gentle motherly neighbor, not of a thunderstorm personified.”

    “You are wise beyond your years, Teddy.” Lizzie patted him on the shoulder. “You’re right. I’ll go reconcile with Charlie and the Scientist. Just like you, I need them for a while longer. Now I’ll go make myself boring. Maybe in a few years I’ll even remind you of that headteacher that I ate.”

    Teddy chuckled as they parted ways.

    Meanwhile, Charlie started awake after yet another nightmare. Pharoah Lizzie spent all night whipping slaves until they were in a perfect geometric procession. Charlie still smarted from the licks of the lash he had earned as he struggled to keep stride.

  • The NSA Reaches Out to Glibertarians

    NSA Headquarters at Fort George Meade, Maryland.

     

    Greetings, Glibertarians!

    I’m Michael T. Hunte, junior investigative agent with the National Security Administration.

    On behalf of the NSA, allow me to address you in the spirit of friendship and cooperation which our republic holds so dear. As your site’s designated Security Representative and Advisor, it is my duty, but also my pleasure, to greet you in the proper manner outlined in our organization’s recent Community Outreach Program, also known internally as Operation Good Neighbor.

    Please don’t let the officious nomenclature fool you! This is simply our way of saying ‘Hello!’ to various chat groups, website memberships, and blog communities that catch our interest over the normal course of fulfilling our duties.
    Now, don’t get yourself all worked up over NSA taking an interest in your charming little website. Why, the past few months I’ve spent reading through many of your daily posts have been quite pleasurable. I’ve learned an awful lot about so many subjects of interest to your regular members, from firearm maintenance to craft beers, Mormonism to spatchcocking. I especially love the humor that your members generally employ – the many Monty Python references, the good-natured ribbing over grammatical errors. And that Steve Smith character – I wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley!

    That’s why I feel privileged to be your website’s personal Representative. I feel like I already know so many of you already, even though you’ve been nothing more than i.p. addresses and blips on a drone pilot’s screen to me previously. Let’s face it, in the course of my duties, I get to see the good and the bad – all of you who pick your noses surreptitiously while watching pornographic videos, for example. Do not like, as the kids say! But, it’s not all bad. Gary M., I’m glad you finally had that wart removed… that sucker was getting huge!

    In that spirit, I want us to have a closer working relationship. The NSA isn’t just a bunch of soulless, faceless badguys listening to you make mousey sounds while you have sexual relations in the ‘privacy’ of your bedroom. It’s that, sure, but so much more also!

    Totes not us, Glibs. These guys are CIA.

    We respect your membership’s adherence to the Constitution, an allegiance that, I promise you, our organization shares. And we work hard to protect our Constitutional Republic against enemies, both foreign and domestic. But, we need your cooperation!

    I want you Glibertarians to feel free to come to me with any concerns you might have concerning our nation’s freedom, and the selfless protecting of same. You’ve heard the phrase, ‘See something, say something’? Well, I want you to know, I’m here to listen to any of your concerns. Any time, day or night, you can come to me with any troublesome information you might have regarding the safety of our beloved Republic.

    You know, some in my organization aren’t quite ‘down’ with Constitutional protections the way you Glibs are. We need to bring those Glibbers to heel, some of them say. Well, I just look them right in the eye and I dare them to lay a finger on this fine website and its membership! As your NSA Representative, I take my role very seriously, and I want you to know that I’m on your side.

    Mike Hunte is here for you. Mike Hunte is open and ready for whatever you’ve got, my friends. Got some pent-up aggression and need a handy but private outlet? Well, you just lay it all on Mike Hunte, Mister! Mike Hunte isn’t afraid to take a pounding, believe you me.

    Mike Hunte is fair and open to all. Why, just the other day, my pet Yorkie, who my family calls York Hunte, got up on the bed (she knows she’s not supposed to!) and, well, left a piddle behind. I looked at my wife and said, “Look what York Hunte did! York Hunte deserves a good beating!” But don’t worry. My wife Madchek Hunte (she’s from a former Soviet country, but don’t worry, she’s been thoroughly vetted!) told me that the little darling was sorry and deserved to be loved on rather than punished. Well, how could I say no to that? I ended up giving the little critter a kiss on the nose.

     

    The other night my daughter Emily, whom we all call Tinkerbelle, or Tink Hunte, came home late after a ball game. She was having a dustup with her beau, and boy, was she sore! She read him the riot act – how can he treat Tink Hunte that way? Doesn’t he know what a precious treasure Tink Hunte is? She really had that boy against the wall until I thought I ought to step in to cool things down a bit. Now, I dearly love Tink Hunte, but she was so hot that I was afraid she was gonna hurt that fella. Well, pretty soon the two youngsters made up, thank goodness, because who can say no to sweet Tink Hunte?

     

    It’s so cute that you people think this will help.

    So you see, Glibs, I’m in your corner. I’m also in your bathroom, your kitchen, your automobile, your electronic devices. Should you feel the need to reach out, just speak your peace: the NSA is always within earshot.

    Take care, fellow citizens, and I shall certainly see you later.

    Excelsior!

    Michael Hunte
    Junior Agent
    National Security Agency

  • The Glibening, Part Eleven: Ramesh Gupta, Reanimator

     

    Previously…

    “As they walked down the corridor the peppy Latin music started up again, and grew louder as they walked. They passed a door labelled “Men” and from around the next corner Ramesh saw a man in a black dress and low-crowned, broad brimmed hat approaching, as he got closer Ramesh saw the simple wooden cross on the twine around his neck, and the notched collar on whatever the dress-type garment was called – some sort of clerical outfit.

    “Hello, Your Holiness,” giggled the Canadian.

    “Hello Rufus, Heathen. I’ll pray for you both. Better get to your boy, he’s crying like the sissy bitch he is.”

    Today’s story…

    (Music)

    “Thank God they’re not getting deployed together. But don’t say anything.”

    “Okay.”

    Ramesh followed Rufus down a series of turns, they passed a few more people.

    “Hey, Yufus.”

    A guy dressed like one of the “soldiers” at Jamestown, complete with helmet, sword and gun sauntered by in the opposite direction.

     

     

    “’Sup, Trey?”

    Finally, they reached the source of the peppy Latin music, a door standing slightly ajar from which the unmistakable aroma of marijuana smoke wafted. Rufus grabbed the edge of the door to steady it while he knocked.

    “Hey, Mario. It’s me and Doc B.” The music stopped.

    “Come in, guys.”

    Mario was completely not what Ramesh expected, a shortish anglo guy dressed like one of the stockroom guys from Mr. Selfridge. There was another guy in the room, too. A tall, thin guy dressed as a medieval european peasant.

     

     

    The room was very sparely furnished, like a dorm room at an agricultural college. There were two twin beds, each on its own side of the room, but deep wear marks in the linoleum told another story, one in which the beds were pushed together regularly. There was also a large wheeled plastic bin full of personal items, thrown in haphazardly; Pope Benedict glared out at Rami from behind the glass of a framed picture at the top of the heap. The only items remaining around the room were the furniture and two suitcases, one on each bed.

    “Scruffy here actually does get to be a herdsman. Somebody has a sense of humor. Look at you, Doc. Nice suit. Is that a badge?”

    “I,” said Rami proudly, “am going to be Preet Bharara’s chief henchman.” He didn’t know why he had used the word “henchman.” United States Attorneys didn’t have henchmen, comic book villains had henchmen. But it seemed to have done the trick.

    “Whoa, hologram theory confirmed,” snickered Mario. “Anyone want to toke up?”

    “No, but I have something for you from Godwin,” said Ramesh extending the bag.

    “Schweet,” said Mario, crossing himself as he took the weed from Ramesh.

    ““Good thing Axl isn’t here,” observed Scruffy, rolling his eyes at the suitcase on the other bed.

    “We ran into him down by the Men’s room, eh.”

    “Miss Thing has been in a mood all morning,” said Mario. “You’d think that she’d be happy getting to dress as a priest and mumble over wafers, but noooo. Socons, there is just no pleasing them.”

     

     

    Mario opened his suitcase and transferred the weed to a Prince Albert tobacco can which he then returned to the suitcase and passed the empty bag to Scruffy who chucked it into the bin.

    “But I’m glad you’re all here,” said Mario choking up. “We may never see each other again. You and Chip,” he said looking at Scruffy, “were the best pledges ever. Remember how you hurled when we told you two what your pledge prank was going to be? I knew right then that it was going to be a special, special night.”

    “‘Sneak into the offices of Daily Femsplaining and steal the tampon disposal box from the women’s restroom in your underwear,’” Scruffy recited blankly, then trembled and turned pale.

     

     

    “Nobody believed Rami when he told us what he needed them for, or that it would work, said Mario. “But the prank was epic, regardless. Speaking of the Paw, no hard feelings about the sack tap, yo.”

    The suit coat pocket into which Ramesh had dropped the purse twitched and a small furry hand emerged to flash a peace sign.

    “Christ, was Marcotte was pissed. She couldn’t prove it, but she knew,” said Rufus. “And damn did the Paw stink while you were marinating it.”

    Scruffy hucked and grabbed for the wastebasket.

    Mario took a small photo album from behind the suitcase. “This is the one contraband item I wish I could take with me.” The album flopped open. “Look, there’s the boys with me and Monégasque.”

    Mario showed a picture of Scruffy and a shorter guy kneeling in their underwear holding up a shiny metal box and pinching their noses, with Mario and a tall guy standing behind them grinning drunkenly at the camera and pointing at the box.

     

     

    “May I see it,” asked Ramesh.

    Mario passed over the album which flopped closed in transit. As Ramesh flipped through the album he saw a number of pictures of himself, but in places and with people he didn’t know. On the last page there was a photo from the production number with himelf in the Gujarati shaman’s outfit with all the swastikas; that costume had cheesed off his boss more than the taunting lyrics or the mooning. He examined the picture closely. It did not appear to have been doctored. He wished he could sneak the picture back to the courthouse to have the techs examine it for tells that it had been ‘shopped.

    But the the shaman in the video he saw had been someone else, the same person as the guy in the lobby pushing the cleaning cart, but it was as if that person never existed here. He looked up from the album to see Rufus smirking at him.

    “You’ve always been here, Rami.”

    “Okay, guys. Let’s do this.” Mario took the photo album from Rami and threw it in the bin. He then stood up, grabbed his suitcase and headed for the door.

  • Injun Zombie Presidential Candidate: Devouring Heritage

    Read all the Zombie Presidential Candidate Episodes!

     

    Lizzie was bored. After spending months touring the United States in an Airstream, laying low in Bumfuck Oklahoma was a torment beyond her capacity to bear. The Demon was simmering beneath the surface, breaking through on an increasingly frequent basis. The doublewide that served as housing and a laboratory for the Scientist, Charlie, and Elizabeth Warren was torn up, courtesy of the Demon. Maybe it didn’t look any worse than the neighbors’s trailers, but it was horrific enough for these upper crust New Englanders to constantly be at each other’s throats. A Lizzie drifted off into the nightly ether of terror tshe listened to the Scientist and Charlie bicker about her. The destruction she had wrought, the plan for her future, parenting style. The analytical style of the Scientist clashed against Charlie’s bond with Lizzie, and the results were often explosive. Lizzie, still not entirely understanding the subtleties of human interaction, vaccillated between hating herself, hating the Scientist, and hating the world. She channeled much of that hatred into studying human behavior so that she could create a relatable, even charismatic, public persona. Wearing a mask made unsuspecting people trust more freely.

    As it became painfully apparent that their assassination-related exile was going to last a while, Charlie made a concerted attempt to get Lizzie out into the real world.  Her cloistered upbringing, if you could call it that, led to crippling social anxiety. Lizzie could be out in public if she had a mission, but unscripted social interaction was still hard. Her personality was an undisciplined mix of egotistical leader, lecturing scold, insecure 12 year old, and naive shut-in. Of course, the Demon surfaced from time to time to make its presence felt.

    One particularly warm day, Charlie goaded Lizzie out of the trailer and into the real world. Everybody was outside sitting under the sprawling live oak trees, soaking up the wispy breeze that carried off the stagnant swelter of early summer. Muttering invective under her breath, Lizzie began an unmotivated shuffle that all parents of teenagers would instantly recognize. The “chuff, chuff, chuff” of her Chuck Taylors kicking dust into the air warded off any would be passersby, not that anybody was walking around in the sun that mid-morning.

    Despite her obvious pouting, she didn’t make it far along the road before a calm feminine voice reached her.

    “Little girl! Little girl, come over here for a moment,” the voice cajoled. Lizzie cringed at the diminutive, but felt a small jolt of pride. She had noticed that her appearance was trending younger ever since the Demon began to eat its fill. Charlie and the Scientist didn’t even expect that she was feeding the Demon, as demonstrated by their recent admonitions to stay out of the Scientist’s anti-aging serum.

    Lizzie, originally looking a haggard, scarred 40 when incarnated, now looked a homely, if cute, 14 or 15. Many women of the Tulsa underworld sacrificed for the greater good of making Lizzie look like one of those pretty girls in Cosmopolitan. She licked her lips as she thought about trying to sneak out to eat another one. In the back of her mind, a disembodied memory plainly explained “they must be alive, or there are unforeseen complications like in the Kennedy creature.” Every time that memory surfaced, she wracked her brain for the context. It sounded like the Scientist, but she couldn’t figure out when or why he would say such a thing.

    Lizzie, after a perceptible delay, turned to face the speaker. It was an old indian woman, dressed in a linen shirt and trousers tattered into short shorts. The wrinkles hadn’t yet consumed her face, but one could see her hard life imprinted in her facial features.

    “Young lady, come over here and help an old woman out.” She melodiously beckoned, the mischievous undertones eluding Lizzie’s underdeveloped social senses. Lizzie, her sense of curiosity overwhelming her teenage angst, cautiously approached the old indian, ducking under a low hanging branch and narrowly missing a talisman hanging from a branch. The entire underside of the tree fluttered with movement, a whole host of talismans and dreamcatchers and other paraphenalia gently drifting in the wind.

    “Young woman, go inside my home and grab a glass from the kitchen counter. Bring the green bottle as well.” The old indian coaxed Lizzie into compliance. Lizzie, not used to doing anything but the bidding of others, complied, despite noticing that a glass already sat mere inches from the indian’s hand. She pushed the bead curtain aside and her senses were simultaneously assaulted and deprived. The trailer was dark enough that her eyes had trouble adjusting enough to avoid tripping over the shadowy furniture between the entry and the kitchen. Her nostrils filled with the discordant note of multiple incense sticks broadcasting their scents throughout the trailer.

    Lizzie found a stack of glasses, and pulled the top one off the stack. They were probably “clean”, but living with a meticulous scientist and his assistant had developed a standard in Lizzie where oily fingerprints and specks of detritus were not acceptable. She wiped the glass clean on her shirt, simultaneously finding the green bottle. It was not hard to find the bottle, a translucent glass apothecary implement, ringed by crudely painted native designs, and corked shut. Like everything else in the trailer, it was covered in a layer of smudges and dust. Lizzie grabbed the bottle and walked back out of the trailer.

    With a clink, the indian woman put out two settings and began to wrestle the cork out of the bottle. She motioned Lizzie to the other chair, but Lizzie missed the subtle indication.

    “Here you are, ma’am. Is that all?” Lizzie’s tone betrayed her desire to leave. She began to turn away when the indian woman’s voice cut through silence.

    “Come join me young girl, there are many things we should discuss.” She finally dislodged the cork from the bottle and dosed out a generous portion of elixir in each glass. “Your spirit is fractured and I see a great darkness in you. You must be quite tormented.”

    The trap being set, the indian woman sat silently as Lizzie processed her statements. Lizzie was conflicted. Her cloistered upbringing and general disdain for people told her to walk away. Her insecurity, curiosity, and boredom told her to join the woman. She sank into the chair, eyes darting from side to side like a raccoon getting into the bird seed container.

    “Take. Drink. We shall confront your demons together.”  The indian woman opened a wooden box, smoke billowing from an impossible fire, embers moving as if attracted to Lizzie.

    This one tries to separate us. Destroy her. Absorb her essence.

    Lizzie twitched as she tried to ignore the inner voice of the Demon. She calmed her mind and employed the tricks that Charlie taught her to retain control over her actions. With a sip from the red solo cup, her self-control slipped.

    The indian woman had closed her eyes, swaying and chanting nearly inaudibly. Lizzie was transported from the plains of Oklahoma to a desert cliff dotted with adobe huts. The swirling incense from the wooden box transformed into a campfire flickering its last life away. The Oklahoma swelter was replaced by a dry Sonoran chill. The ambiance reminded Lizzie of some of her nightmares, but she was fully lucid.

    Across from Lizzie, the old woman looked older and more decrepit, a faded aura surrounding her. A spotlight glow caught Lizzie’s peripheral vision, another person standing behind her casting deep shadows across the indian woman’s face. She turned to see a striking man that reminded her of a certain Twilight Zone episode. The Demon was a handsome man, much different from the caricature she had conjured up in her mind.

    This feeble wretch dares challenge us.

    Despite the incarnate form of the Demon standing behind her, the voice echoed in Lizzie’s mind as if it originated in her hippocampus.

    “Be gone foul thing! Your presence is not wanted!” The indian woman screeched, a wave of psychic energy hitting Lizzie like a breaker in a gale. The Demon absorbed the energy without the slightest flinch. The next few moments passed in anticipatory silence, the tension building as the indian woman’s impotence sank in. Lizzie, despite her inner conflict, just wanted to be a normal girl, sans demon. Her face sank as she saw the last chance to be rid of the spectre slip away.

    After a pause that probably had more to do with gloating than preparation, the Demon set off a nuke. A literal flesh-vaporizing nuke. Lizzie simultaneously was and wasn’t. She watched the indian woman dissolve into nothing, rearticulate, and dissolve once again in a blinding flash of fire and heat. Lizzie wanted to scream out in pain, and she wanted to laugh at the silliness of it all. As fast as her world had exploded, it sucked back in, collapsing within her, balling up tighter and tighter. With a nearly audible pop, all of the tension was gone. An uncomfortable warmth spread across her exposed neck.

    She opened her eyes and looked up. She was slumped across the table. The mottled shade of the live oak had moved off of her, and she was quickly overheating. She looked across to the indian woman, only to find a chair knocked carelessly to the ground. A streak of red ran across the table, intersecting with Lizzie’s arms. She picked up her hands and ran her thumbs through the thick viscous blood. She looked on the ground and saw a finger, the last vestiges of the indian woman.

    In the past, Lizzie would be beset with a combination of anxiety and terror when the Demon satisfied its hunger. This time was different. There was no fear, only resolve. She finally had focus. She finally was whole.

    It is time. The paleface must pay for his transgressions. I am Cherokee. I am vengeance.

    The Demon, the indian woman, Elizabeth Warren; once three in conflict, now one in harmony. With a determined swipe of her fingers, Lizzie put on her warpaint.

  • THE CONTINUING AWESOME ADVENTURES OF SECRET NAZI PRESIDENT!!11!1! – Vol 39: Joey B; Sexy Syria; Lizzie Dub

     

  • The Glibening, Part Ten: The Triumph of Preet Bharara

    This type of portrait is known as a head shot. The flag is obligatory for federal officials, but the pattern is a visual distraction and it divides the picture into two fields.

     

    Previously…

    Preet Bharara inserted the business end of the nose hair trimmer into his left nostril, held his breath and pressed the power button. The unit whirred and he worked it around then pulled it out and blew out that nostril onto the small towel hung round his neck by the chain and clamps rig a former lawclerk had left behind in her desk.

    He was still stinging from the Woodchipper Incident. He could have gotten away with that, too, for at least for long enough to have gotten their addresses, if it hadn’t been for the pesky internet. He had been publicly humiliated, even called a “muttonhead,” by a prominent First Amendment attorney. His attempt to use a court order to prevent them from even talking about it had backfired spectacularly. But he had taken the heat and managed to keep Judge Forrest’s profile as low as possible; something the bench was sure to notice.

    He trimmed inside his right nasal passage and blew out his right nostril productively. He removed the thin towel with the words “US GOVERNMENT” woven into one end and shook it out over the trashcan before dropping it in the official government hamper. He washed his face and took a fresh towel from the stack. He inspected himself again in the mirror.

    Fortune had smiled upon him unexpectedly. At that very moment his top man was strolling through the offices of Thought! magazine tagging along with NYPD on a crazy girl call that had come in that morning during the taskforce meeting. No warrant needed. Even if they were squeaky clean, and he knew they weren’t, NYPD would manage to find something.

    Having found no flaw, he opened the dry cleaning bag hanging from the back of the door and removed a black robe which he slipped over his head. Next, the wig, from its wooden stand next to the mirror. Once properly enrobed and bewigged he examined himself one final time. Perfect.

    Preet exited the bathroom into the robing room. He pressed the button that caused a light on the court clerk’s bench to flash, then slowly walked to the door to the courtoom. Sarah was right on time with the gavel; three perfectly timed raps. He was foregoing the “oyez” and formal opening of court for the occasion. Richard and Corey, the courthouse technicians, were crouched behind their video cameras, grinning. Court staff loved to torture interns and lawclerks whenever possible, and this was a welcome break from taping oral arguments and portrait ceremonies.

    Interns Dorian, Raymond and Ming stood awkwardly behind the lawclerk bench wearing robes and wigs shorter and less ornate than his own, making their tights and silver-buckled shoes more prominent. Mediocre legal scholars, but gifted singers, all. Last June he had had Ramesh assemble all of the serious resumes into a single pdf document so he could search that for “choir,” “chorus,” and so on. Once he had his backup singers chosen he read their resumes and created notes justifying his hiring decisions based on their legal merits – just like creating a parallel construction for a prosecution.

    Ramesh. His favorite. His protege. A brilliant legal mind, but the boy couldn’t carry a tune in a sack. He so wanted to text Rami to ask for a progress report, but he had resolved to let Rami conduct this all by himself. He trusted Rami, despite the boy’s penchant for independent, sometimes unorthodox, thought. He was glad Ramesh was soon to be married, a good, practical Indian wife would whip him into shape.

    The robing room door opened behind the judge’s bench, the judge’s chair had been removed for the taping. He strode measuredly towards the bench to give the door a chance to close; Richard flashed him the thumbs up to cue him that the door had shut. The guys were really good at what they did; he’d have never thought about the open door and robing room lights being a distracting background.

    He daintily grasped the slender shaft of the judge’s gavel, raising it theatrically and miming a rap in the air. Sarah hit the play button on the Karaoke machine and everyone started to sway to the doo-wop beat. The interns had been rehearsing for months. This was their big moment, the culmination of their internships. The next few minutes would determine their careers, if not the future course of American jurisprudence.

    Lyrics appeared on the screen in the back of the courtoom behind the cameras. He waited for the ball to touch the first letter, and began singing.

     

     

    Oh, yes, I’m the Great Preetinder,

    He remembered hearing the song on the radio as a young boy in Eatontown, New Jersey. He had always thought the song was about someone named Preetinder, someone like him. Until the day in sixth grade when Angus Cohen had slammed him up against a locker. “That song isn’t about you, fag, it’s about pretending to be something you’re not.”

    He had abandoned the song until one day it occurred to him that it didn’t matter what the actual lyrics said; what mattered was the interpretation which sounded right to a contemporary audience. The song should be interpreted in manner that made the most sense the context of today, author’s original intentions be damned. By the time he was in high school it had become his personal fight song which he hummed to psych up for tests and debate matches.

    Do, Re, and Mi, as they were known throughout the courthouse, harmonized “woo, woo,” sweat running down their faces under the hot television lighting.

    Preetinding that I’m doing well,

    Doing very well indeed, thank you. And not pretending, in either sense of the word, but Preetinding. A special sort of thing that only someone named Preetinder could do. Preetidude. The Preetness.

    He was getting interviewed on Thursday by Judy Woodruff about his take-down of Silk Road. Normally he wouldn’t grant an interview, but PBS was respectable television. And it didn’t hurt that Ms. Woodruff was still quite attractive. Washington had not only approved of the Woodruff interview, but had broadly hinted that it would be a very good thing for him. That could only mean he was being groomed for something higher.

    He’d instantiate the humble civil servant saving the internet from organized crime. Unfortunately, a website which just moved money around didn’t sound very sinister. But DOJ had prepared a slideshow explaining why untraceable financial transactions were a Very Bad Thing. And illegal. And drugs.

    Woodruff’s people had asked if they could redo the slideshow with “higher production values,” to which DOJ headquarters had also, surprisingly, agreed provided that DOJ got to review the final for accuracy. Media people were notorious for wanting to “simplify” things which meant sexing them up at the expense of accuracy.

    My need is such I Preetind to much,

    It had been a long, hard climb to get to where he was today. Chess club. Forensic speaking. Debate club. Law review. Internships.

    He had worked not only for himself, but for all Indians. The Indian-American community was strongly self-policing. They were determined to prove themselves as a hard-working, modern people. Doctors, lawyers, small merchants. Indians left all that village shaman bullshit back in India. And the swastikas. The woodchipper people had trolled him hard on that. They had no sense of restraint; there was nothing funny about Nazism or even the snarky implication thereof, and there was particularly nothing funny about debating which way to feed a federal judge into a woodchipper.

     

    A headshot with a uniform background. This is a female US Supreme Court justice from the early Twenty-First century wearing much simpler court dress.

     

    I’m lonely but no one can tell,

    Someone who was lonely because he spent too much time on work to have real friends. But loneliness and hard work were the price for becoming the man of the hour. He’d show Jindal and Haley who was the chief Indian; national office beckoned him like a Seventh Avenue whore.

    Laughing and gay like the clown.

    He’d have the last laugh over the Woodchipper people, and clowns were sinister after all. They’d never see this, but in his heart he’d know that he could put on a better production number than them. Rip off Bollywood, would they? He’d reach deep into American culture and show them he could best them at their own game. Bum-flashing antics, bad lyrics and muddy single-camera recording were no match for what the mighty powers of the federal government could bring to bear.

     

    Another dreadful example of official portraiture. Bookshelves of law books are an almost obligatory background for judicial portraits. The shelves create lines going through the subject’s body, making the whole thing look choppy.

     

    Word of it would eventually get back to them, though. He was planning to show the finished product at Bar Talent Night at the Second Circuit Judicial Conference this Summer. The Woodchipper people had friends in surprising places; he could think of at least two law professors who would be there who he knew participated anonymously in Thought! Magazine’s online fora.

    The interns harmonized the final line perfectly.

    All the performers froze.

    “Cut,” yelled Corey.

    It’s just like a real one, only smaller.

     

  • The Awesome Adventures of Secret Nazi President!!!11!!1!!! Vol 34: Climate strange; Civil War

  • THE CONTINUING AWESOME ADVENTURES OF SECRET NAZI PRESIDENT!!11!1! – Vol 38: ….And the walrus you swam in on.

  • The Awesome Adventures of Secret Nazi President!!!11!!1!!! Vol 37:

     

  • The Awesome Adventures of Secret Nazi President!!!11!!1!!! Vol 35: Muh Russia; Keep Warm