Sodden Death
[ This is the last chapter in the Jack Reacher parody Sodden Death. Read the last four chapters in sequence: (1) Roxie Music (2) … in My Ear (3) The Shalom War (4) Sodden Death. Enjoy! – Kevin ]
It’s a dark and stormy afternoon, but the paid assassin is ready, dressed in killer jeans and a drop dead fawn leather jacket that retails at an exclusive $7,000. Members of the ruling caste, Farooq’s clan of Kashmiri Muslims feels that soldiers of Allah have the right to look good. As he hurriedly jogs around a corner, a puddle promptly empties itself into Farooq’s right foot Sperry Top-Sider brown leather casual boat shoe. Available at discerning retailers everywhere. Sighing, extremely irritated, Farooq controls his breathing, reminding himself that the price of fashion is always steep. Checking his gold Rolex, Farooq sees that he has time. His target never spends less than ten minutes sitting on the can.
Such is the life of an assassin: Farooq needs to know things like how long his intended victim takes to defecate.
Hip hop made Farooq Al-Qahar. While he was an exchange student in a suburban high school outside Baltimore, the entire hip hop / house dance fusion “Baltimore club” music scene exploded overnight, taking everyone by surprise. A typical Al-Qahar, always mechanically adept, Farooq quickly established himself as an independent music producer. No one else could mix beats and lyrics like DJ Farooq. So when the phone call came from Kashmir and it was Farooq’s cousin Abdul Raheem, Farooq’s heart sank. “Yes, cousin!” Farooq declared loudly, since Kashmiri phone connections are notoriously bad.
“You will receive shortly in the mail,” Abdul Raheem tells him in the Kashmiri language Koshur, “materials related to a particularly profane infidel who has committed sacrilege and insulted our God. Your job, oh cousin: Find this individual, neutralize him and see that no one ever again mistakes his heinous crimes for stand-up comedy.”
Farooq quails. Having made it big in America, the last thing he wants to do is screw things up by murdering someone.
“What did he want?” asks Farooq’s young wife Kapila, an ethereally beautiful creature whose father owns half the marketplace in Kishtwar. Coming to America was no coincidence: Kapila wanted to escape the India-Pakistani conflict over Kashmir. Farooq’s clan simply wanted him to have the very best.
“They, the family, want me to kill somebody,” Farooq explains. “A heretic heathen enemy of Allah.”
“Ridiculous!” cries Kapila. “After all you have worked and slaved for! To commit a crime and go to jail? Never!”
“Assassination of non-believers is not a crime,” Farooq reminds her, preparing his evening hookah with prime Malawi tobacco which he arranges to have flown in by private jet. Even a paid assassin has a right to live a life of luxury. Although Farooq has to admit that he has gone soft in America. He’s not sure he can still torture Hindu Pandit opponents with a smoldering cigarette or gouge out their eyes and hang them in trees in the name of Allah. Unlike the Jihadis in the training camps in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, Farooq is no longer capable of 20 one-armed pull-ups in a row. Even working out once a week on the Nautilus at Gold’s Gym, those days are clearly behind him. The proud father of two young sons, Farooq leaves the acts of bravado to younger men. Kapila’s incessant need for sex has sapped his strength, replacing it with cocky self-assurance and a can-do attitude that helps Farooq to instantly fit in with his neighbors in the tony environs of Ellicott City outside Baltimore.
“Ah, young Farooq,” comments Dwayne Gibbons, the roly-poly car salesman who has sold Farooq the cherry red Fiat with the six-foot replica of a can of Zowie Energy Drink on the roof. “Another immigrant success story in America!” The car comes with monthly gas money from the advertising department at Zowie Energy Drink.
“Only in America,” comments Kapila.
“Only in America,” swears Farooq, filled with self-loathing over this materialistic sell-out to the almighty dollar. Justifiably, Farooq feels like a whore. Although if anyone offered him a million dollars, he’d be hard-pressed to say “no.” (Hint, hint!) Falling back on the family tradition of assassination gives Farooq an opportunity to redeem himself in both his own eyes and the eyes of his family.
“In America, murder is a crime!” insists Kapila, angrily slapping his face. “You commit the crime, you do the time.”
A Kashmiri, Farooq punches his disrespectful wife full on the jaw. No Kashmiri wife disrespects her man, even if her father does own half the marketplace in Kishtwar. Besides, Farooq is a good provider. Even with Punjabi-class tastes, their home is a shrine to American splendor: Marimekko drapery, Arhaus couches, BoDesign chairs and tables, beds by Swedish Hästens, kitchen appliances from Bray & Scarff, bathroom fixtures by Latrec.
Modern warfare is fought on at least four different levels. No. 1 is the war on the battlefield. No. 2 is command and control, headquarters gaming the war for best results. No. 3 is political warfare, Clausewitz’s “War is politics by other means.” No. 4 is the war of words, the public media debate over who is right and who is the bad guy. In 2014, Israel shows a supreme mastery of this last facet of warfare. When describing their Palestinian enemy, Israel has nothing but praise for their abilities, their sophistication, their armaments. You really have to practice to push your emotions that far down into your boots when evaluating your enemy. The Israelis do it because it avoids the traditional incitement to riot in places like Paris— filled to bursting with North Africans— and Cairo— always ready to explode— as well as Morocco, Yemen, Somalia and the Sudan, all loose cannons hungering for battle, as long as someone else does the actual fighting. “You defeat the Israeli imperialists,” they shout, “and we will support you, oh brothers, from here on the sidelines!”
Not surprisingly, with the world under economic duress in 2014, with Libya and Syria and Iraq all on the verge of disintegrating as nation states, no saber rattling can be heard from Arabia. Leaving the poor Palestinians furious with their Arab brothers. Bad timing, guys! Maybe next year.
Once the Israeli Air Force’s Operation Protective Edge is replaced by a ground war, Israel plays the game with finesse and a poker face. Ostensibly, the IDF is in Gaza to locate and seal up Hamas’s tunnel network into Israel. Should they happen to stumble upon a cache of rockets, rocket components and assorted hardware, the soldiers will naturally destroy them as well. That seems only natural. But missile eradication is never the purpose of the mission. In the world of ideas, expressed in words, Israel can bluff itself into a straight flush every time.
The Palestinian game plan is to provoke Israeli attacks and then use the civilian population as human punching bags. In the resulting carnage, Palestinian spokesmen cry indignantly for a worldwide condemnation of Israel! Presto! For 60 years, this has been the Palestinian method: When outnumbered and dominated by a more powerful opponent, goad him into attacking. Then lie on the ground and bawl your head off. “Boo hoo hoo! Look at all my dead relatives! The Jews did this!” This perennial lament of the fedayeen works every time!
So the Israeli expressions of regret whenever there are civilian casualties in Gaza, the detached tone of their announcements, and the policy of warning neighborhoods with leaflets, telephone calls and roof knocking bombs (“This is a warning shot, a missile with a payload will be along in five minutes!”) are all carefully calculated to dissuade worldwide condemnation and save as many Israeli lives as possible. When talk is part of the package, the Israeli’s talk the talk and walk the walk.
Palestinian technique, while bombastic, is equally effective: You know the photos of the two young, pretty Palestinian girls crying in anguish at the U.N. safe school that got bombed? When you see the filmed footage, the kids are sitting against a wall looking as passive and unobtrusive as any children anywhere. Then a woman in a black hijab says to them in Arabic, “Cry out against the oppressor! Cry out in fear and anger against the enemy!” That’s when the two little girls begin weeping and wailing. Working themselves into a fine lather, they look about in abject terror. All this is so much propaganda staged for the cameras. The West eats it up!
Unfortunately, America’s dear President and Secretary of State haven’t progressed far enough along the road of life to identify methods that work. No matter how cogent your arguments, Mr. President, people are not going to act against their own best interests. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me! Fool me three times, I’m Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama. Calling for a truce when there’s no reason. Pressuring Israel but not the Palestinians. Holding endless press conferences to pontificate, declaring “Victory! I, John Kerry, will bring peace to the Middle East! I will untie the Gordian knot!” All in advance of actually visiting the war zone. White noise, speechifying helps no one.
If you send a stupid man to an important region in the midst of a major upheaval, the professional politicians on site are going to ask why. When they discover that our man is a ninny, they lose all faith in America, all respect for our government. Hard workers themselves, they know the difference between a gem of a politician and a naive, worthless blowhard.
It’s not only America that is having difficulty navigating the cultures and the personalities. On Meet the Press on July 27, 2014, David Gregory interviews Netanyahu. Expecting the worst, I am deeply impressed by both his rationality and his resolve. I always wondered why he was so popular. Now I know! David Gregory later interviews Christopher Gunness, the spokesman of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, who have been housing Palestinian refugees in safe schools in Gaza. If anyone’s supposed to be impartial, it’s the U.N. I expect one of those lugubrious Scandinavian bureaucrats droning on about the need for more aid. Instead, Gunness is a sunburned ass-hole with a British accent, in a defensive crouch, blathering on about “the most appalling carnage.” Yada, yada, yada. Carnage??? Who knew?! Mr. Gunness starts arguing even before David Gregory has asked him anything controversial. A player with his own agenda, this man is no neutral. And he says things like the U.N. “has been accused of handing over weapons to Hamas.” Look, if you are the leader of UNRWA and you are accused of funneling arms to Hamas, you are obviously in way over your head. You need to be replaced.
Israel will eventually win this war, despite the Prez’s and the Secretary of State’s best efforts to sabotage the war effort. Israel will emerge victorious. Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and the United States will all come out losers.
Some good will come out of it, though: No more mulatto presidents for this republic!
I’m at a cocktail party at Sky House Apartments in southwest DC. I’m happily sounding off about individual freedom. “Intrinsically and culturally, we human beings are all hard-wired to lust after freedom. This makes every ethnic group a liberation movement in being. They may not be in open rebellion yet, but the latent potential is always there! Ethnic groups harbor a proclivity to seek their freedom. All through history, ethnic minorities have struggled against the nation state and mighty empires. Ask the Romans, the British, the Portuguese or the Dutch, every empire struggled with rebellion. It’s in our nature to rebel!”
I love Washington, D.C. There are all these yummy yuppie females, be they Congressional aides, secretaries, lobbyists or interns. All dolled up and looking for a brilliant fuck. Of course I try to accommodate. Who wouldn’t?! It’s my patriotic duty. As I speak, I nail a pretty brunette. She stares back with melting brown eyes. She can hardly contain herself, she’s so steamed. Elaborating, I give examples: “The Palestinians desire statehood. The Scots want their independence from the United Kingdom. The Iraqi Kurds want Kurdistan, a country of their own. Indigenous Indian tribes in the Amazon. The Kashmiris want a nation of Kashmir. What’s next, the Kardashians demanding their own country, ‘The Kingdom of Kardashian’? Wait! I’ll draw you a map…”
The ladies laugh like tinkling bells, the men frown knowingly. As I sidle up to my target female, I feel a tug at my elbow. ¿Qué?
“You’re not serious about what you just said?” demands Tom Bartelli of the CIA. Man, is he angry!
“Just making polite conversation.”
“Come outside!” he growls furiously in my ear. We go out on the patio, nursing our drinks. We look down at the traffic on the Whitehurst Freeway. In the distance, night kayakers ply the Potomac. “If you believe that crap you were spouting,” exclaims Bartelli, “you’re an idiot!”
“I was just trying to impress the ladies,” I bleat. Nobody wants trouble with the CIA.
“Listen, Bozo, didn’t you see Senator Cavanaugh and those Congressional assistants eating up your every syllable? Do you have any idea how much damage you’ve done?”
“I — ”
“Those people are paranoid enough to begin with, you klutz! Now you’re saying exactly what they need to hear in order to cut off foreign aid to half the globe! How the fuck can you have done that???”
“I — ”
“Liberation movements don’t magically pop up when public resentment reaches a critical mass, you know. Individuals create movements, not the other way around. You sound like a goddam Marxist, imagining ‘engines of history’ driving social change. Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, Lech Walesa, Alexei Navalny… HUMAN BEINGS lead revolutions, ass-hole! The Kashmiri conflict never ends because the Al-Qahar clan won’t let it. Every time there’s the semblance of a peace accord, they perpetrate some new act of terrorism against the Pandits or the Indians. Or both. Shoot-outs at the border. Bombings. Kidnappings. PEOPLE conduct freedom movements! Get that through your thick skull.”
“What can I say?”
“Do us all a favor!” suggests Bartelli. “DON’T SAY ANYTHING!” Still cooking mad, he marches back into the party.
Shaken but not stirred, I too return inside.
“So I told my boss, ‘Let me go to the West Coast and interview Ron Bushy. He was the drummer in Iron Butterfly and I’ve always wanted to meet him.’ And my boss asks where Mr. Bushy lives and I say L.A. And my boss says, ‘Hell, I have two stringers in L.A. who I pay to sit on their duffs all day. One of them can go interview this drummer!’ I’m tellin’ ya, he broke my heart!”
I introduce myself.
“Yeah. Jerry Reese, XM Satellite Radio,” he replies, firmly shaking my hand and looking me up and down like I might be trying to sell him a fish. “What can I do for you?”
“Me? Nothing. I did just figure out what’s up with Katy Perry.”
“Oh?” he asks, interested. “Let’s hear!”
“She’s the new Madonna. The lady wants to be a singer. First she sang gospel rock as Katy Hudson and now she’s gone mainstream as Katy Perry. She’ll do whatever it takes to get to sing,” I explain proudly. This time I’ve got it nailed.
“That’s what you think is behind Katy Perry?” Jerry Reese scoffs. Shaking his head, he pours salt in my wounds: “You have no idea what motivates Katy Perry,” he declares. Before I can even come up with a rejoinder, he drifts markedly away from me. Anybody watching— and this is Washington, D.C., there are always people watching— would think I’d just let fly with an immense fart.
I assure you this was not the case! When I go looking for my brown-eyed girl, there, too, I get shot down.
I think it was critic Irving Howe who said, “Laughter and trembling are so curiously intermingled that it is not easy to determine the relationship between the two.”
Tell me about it!
Twitter has issues with me and not the other way around. Seeking the widest possible audience, I go for what’s trending. I tweet things like
#CanadaDay Oh stalwart friend & neighbor, pls accept delivery parcel post of one Justin Blieber (Blieber with an L). More @ rehcaerpsecurity.com
Not meant to be an advertising medium, the algorithms at Twitter take exception to me referring readers to my commercial website. For a couple of weeks, whenever I try to log on, Twitter stops responding. I know, you’re saying “Open a new account under another name! Everyone else does.” Anyway, once I update my profile, Twitter eventually allows me back on. I tweet:
#ArmedForcesDay would be a lot smoother if we stopped the Al-Qahar clan from dropping the dime on Kashmir.
#LadyGaga supports efforts to suppress the wanton terrorist assassins of the Al-Qahar clan in Kashmir, right?
#SixMoreWeeksofSummer give the Obama admin time to do something about the murderous Kashmiri Al-Qahar terrorist clan!
Listen, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this sorry life, it’s this: If you’re not on TV, radio or in the movies, you might as well not exist. No newspaper will write about you. No TV coverage for you, babe. No one will follow you on Twitter. You’re invisible, lost in the multitudinous crowd. That’s my super power: I’m invisible! Miraculously, one of my innumerable anti Al-Qahar tweets gets retweeted. Twitter sends me an email telling me so. Next time I try to log on, however, Twitter stops responding! Like, totally.
I broke the rules! I made a personal attack on a family. Banished by Twitter! Now that’s something to brag about.
Paying Chinese hackers in bitcoins, Farooq’s cousins get the alleged address of one Josh Preacher. It’s in southern Arlington, Virginia. Off Columbia Pike. Taking I-95 south to the Beltway, Farooq veers off at Exit 46B onto the spur to I-66, getting to the address in the late afternoon. He stakes the place out, discreetly placing battery-powered webcams at each corner of the property. Dozing in his car, he surreptitiously watches as a family of husband, wife, two kids and a Rottweiler wash their car, eat dinner, play stickball in the gloom, catch fireflies and finally retire to bed. Checking the address again, Farooq realizes he is on the wrong block.
Driving a preposterous vehicle, Farooq has found no one takes him seriously. The next morning, he tails his quarry across the Potomac River into Prince Georges County, Maryland to a huge military installation. Andrews Air Force Base it says on the sign out front. Farooq drives past, parks across the street at a donut shop, hunches down behind the wheel with an iPod and binoculars and proceeds to wait.
Four hours later, he can’t believe it. The dude went in and still hasn’t come back out! Anxious— sure he’s screwed up— Farooq drives the entire circumference of the base, all the way around, looking for other exits. Finding two, he assumes his target snuck out the back way a long time ago. Returning to the donut shop, Farooq goes in and has a lunch of two donuts, an egg sandwich and a cup of coffee. On his way out, he’s flabbergasted to see his target driving into the donut shop parking lot!!! It’s gotta be him, no one else would drive such a shitty car. Forcing himself to breathe slowly through his nose, Farooq gets in his cherry red Fiat with its ridiculous roof ornament and slowly inches his way out onto the main highway. He feels bad for muffing the opportunity of eliminating the infidel right then and there, but with so many people in uniform around, Farooq is just glad to make a clean getaway.
The National Herald should rechristen itself The Daily Hamas, so jaundiced and one-sided is their coverage. I don’t mind the endless photographs of Palestinian civilians screaming in anguish as much as the absolute glee the reporters take in reporting Israeli deaths. In great detail.
Meanwhile, the Israelis are blowing up houses in the Shijaiyah neighborhood of Gaza City. “Boo hoo hoo, our homes are destroyed,” cry the Palestinians, but everyone in Shijaiyah knew about the enormous number of tunnels crisscrossing the entire area and the tons of armaments stored therein. Hamas has tunneled their way into our consciousness! There’s a reason the Palestinians fought so ferociously for Shijaiyah, the place is a weapons depot. I shed crocodile tears for the Gazans. Who dug the tunnels, anyway? Voles?
Self-righteous calls by Obama and the U.N. Security Council for a long-term humanitarian ceasefire don’t impress anybody. Hamas is so busy shelling Israel, they’re dropping short rounds that blow up and kill Gaza civilians. Whose relatives are shouting for Allah to take revenge on the Israelis. The Israelis??? What’s wrong with this picture?
As the baby-faced Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri announced regarding the bombed school, “Israel is the accused party, and they don’t have the right to investigate and to press charges.”
Says you, Sami Abu! Reality trumps fiction. You can’t make this stuff up. Television spelled backwards is noisivelet.
Sitting at my desk massaging myself into an erection, I am just nearing that ecstatic moment of ejaculation when BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Rapid-fire projectiles from a Dragunov 7.62 mm sniper rifle perforate the wall facing the street. I can’t fuckin’ believe this! I know it’s a Dragunov, the racket they make is unmistakable. But this ain’t Chechnya, folks, this is Arlington, Virginia! Still, anything’s possible in South Arlington. When I telephone the police, I get a woman dispatcher who says, “You’re reporting gunfire?”
“Yes, ma’am. Three shots went through both walls, front and back.”
“Three shots were fired, perforating walls in both the front and back?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you live in a shotgun house?”
The two bozo Arlington cops who come to investigate ask me, “Who did this?”
“You’re asking me?” I ask in turn.
“Don’t answer a question with a question. That seems evasive,” the younger of the two lectures me.
“Well, ex-cuse me! ”
“See! Now you’re being sarcastic. That doesn’t help at all! Let’s be civilized, shall we?” he asks, pulling out a pair of handcuffs.
“Now you’re gonna cuff me, for God’s sake?!”
“We need answers, not chickenshit,” he explains sonorously. Waiting.
So I tell them everything I know, which is basically nil. I am hated by people in far off places, but I don’t tell them that. I mean, Mike and I paid the Russian mafia in Tel Aviv, so I know it isn’t them. Chechens? That crazy sea captain? If it was a blast from a handgun, I’d write it off as neighborhood gangs. It’s summer. Am I witnessing a rerun of Roxie and her Wild One Harley MC gangster boyfriend Jimmy? Firstly, I didn’t hear a motorcycle and secondly, knowing them, they’d want a High Noon-style dramatic confrontation, not displaced masonry.
No, I don’t know who this is.
I know that if I can just find the right lady, the rest of my life will fall into place and I can complete this endless quest. A woman whose manual dexterity matches her room temperature IQ. But cute!
I can’t vouch for the first two points, but on the Metro, I definitely zoom in on the duchess sitting in the corner by the connecting door. With a matching boyfriend, she is blond and has a Dutch Amish rosiness to her cheeks, pale white skin, enormous blue eyes, cherry red lips and a perfect little button nose. Me like! At the very next stop, I throw her boyfriend off the train.
“Hey! Whoa! Wait! ” he howls, as I hold him stiff-armed from re-entering the car. “Are you insane, fellah?!”
“Stand clear of the doors,” chirps the recorded announcement. “Doors closing! ”
I give him a final, mighty shove that sends him sprawling. Once underway, I turn back to milady. “What is this?” she asks. “Is this a hostage situation?” She looks really worried.
“Love at first sight,” I shrug apologetically. “That’s just the effect you have on people!” I grin, holding aloft both hands helplessly. I’m already going nuts over her Pennsylvania Dutch accent. I have the distinct feeling that this girl has great potential. That’s the only reason for the “snatch & grab” protocol. I mean, she didn’t scream when I attacked her man. She didn’t even try to exit the train. And the look in her eyes now— a combo of fear and excitement— functions like an aphrodisiac. She also demonstrates some weird facial tics, like twitching her nose and grimacing with her mouth. “A woman like you,” I point out, “a man would do anything for.”
“Yes,” she confirms coldly, “that’s what Carl, my fiancé, says.”
“Well, Carl has exquisite taste,” I smile, laying it on thick. “I hope my uncouth display didn’t forever turn you against me.”
“I don’t even know you! ” the lady blurts, irritated and fidgeting.
“I’m a knight errant. Your knight in shining armor. Very rarely prone to violence,” I tell her in a hopelessly forlorn, little boy tone of voice.
In the summer of 1967, the Beatles held a worldwide TV broadcast, playing and singing live the song All You Need Is Love. I wasn’t even born then, but I’ve seen the kinescope.
Looking me over, this damsel says, “My daddy is a violent man.”
Bingo!
Her name is Jennifer and I take her in my Citroën jalopy to get ice cream cones at Westover Shopping Center. By now she’s living with me— she couldn’t very well go back to Carl— but so far, we’re nothing more than room-mates. So this is officially a “date.” We haven’t even gotten off Wakefield turning right on 6th Street, heading for George Mason Drive, when I look up and see a squat, swarthy dude in shorts and a hoodie aiming an RPG at us. He’s pretty built and has some facial hair going on. I mean, the local elementary school is right there, this is beyond bizarre. “Where are we, Beirut? ” I am thinking.
Foosh!
Shit, shit, shit, he’s fired at us! I’m swerving the car, a Citroën piece of French junk to begin with, but hip. It jumps the curb and wheeeee! We’re roaring up some family’s suburban lawn. I swerve again to avoid the gray longhaired dog chained to a spike on the front grass. Bonk! I plow the nose of my car into the hedge surrounding the house. As we jolt to a stop, poor Jennifer is wailing to beat the band. There’s a terrific explosion. As I pop the door and stumble to the ground, scuffing my shoes and getting grass stains on my kneecaps, I look to the corner. Having missed us by a hairbreadth, the rocket propelled grenade has taken out… the entire fire hydrant! Literally cut to pieces, there’s nothing left but a chewed metal stump. Crystal clear water fountains skyward like a geyser.
“What the fook are you doin’?” swears an angry black woman, materializing on the front stoop.
“Oh, hello!” I answer dumbly. “You must be an ABW.” = Angry Black Woman.
“I’ll give you ABW!” she swears, coming at me with a broom, swinging for my head. As I duck, she looks toward the corner and exclaims, “Lawd in Heaven have mercy on our souls!” Turning to me, she demands, “Did you do that?”
“GOD HELP ME,” I plead, “I haven’t DONE anything!” I collapse on the lawn, where her dog bites me on the arm.
“Well, I’m certainly callin’ the police!” she swears adamantly, trooping back into the house.
Jennifer, who is in much better shape than I am, helps me to my feet and seats me in the open doorway of my car. She looks totally freaked. Sitting on the grass, she fondles the dog.
The Arlington County Police arrive. Two white policemen. “Boy,” they marvel, “you’re a really lousy driver! You hit the fire hydrant and the house?”
Finding myself in shock and tongue-tied, I let Jennifer and the homeowner hash it out with the cops, thank you very much. At least now I know somebody’s out to get me, bigtime.
Keeping my eyes open, it doesn’t take me two days to realize that a stupid little red Fiat with a model drink can on the roof keeps turning up wherever I go. I never see a driver, just the car. I write down the license plate number. I try hanging around to confront whoever it is, but no one ever shows up.
Being in security, I know something regarding the law. Murder, for example, is a federal offense. I ring the FBI and, after awhile, I get to discuss my predicament with Payton Whitehead. “This guy is trying to kill me!” I complain.
“Yes?” responds Whitehead. “What’s your point?”
“What d’ya mean, what’s my point? He’s already made two attempts on my life.” Exasperated, I hastily review for Whitehead what has happened.
“Oh!” he exclaims. “I think your assailant suffers from sleep apnea.”
Huh? “Come again, my friend,” I beg.
“Our natural sleep cycle— our chronotype— seems to be programmed into our genes. Experiments have shown that your daily sleep pattern has a direct bearing on your ability to behave morally. Your attacker sounds like a morning person. As the day wears on, early birds get tired. Their ability to maintain a high moral standard degrades.
“We night people have a similar problem maintaining moral rectitude when we first arise and begin our working day.”
“Thank you for that info,” I grouse. “Any suggestion how I apply it to my current situation?”
‘Watch out what happens in the afternoon,” suggests Payton.
“What are you going to do to help me?” I demand.
“Me?” he replies, aghast. “The switchboard must have directed you to the wrong department. I’m in CSI. I only provide criminal analysis. What you want is ‘Operations.’ I’ll connect you.”
Listen, I don’t want to end up like Johnny Spann. A member of the CIA’s crack Special Activities Division, in November 2001 he became the first American killed in Afghanistan. Somebody has to be the first to cross the river Styx, I just don’t want it to be me!
I talk with Tug Ramsey in ‘Operations.’ He’s all business. Once he’s got my Social Security number, he declares his intention to pursue my case. “You’re a taxpayer, that means I’m authorized to help you. Gimme your address!” Forty minutes later, he shows up carrying two fancy aluminum attaché cases. He’s dressed in a $150 suit. I think he got that tie at Walgreens. “Let’s call this guy up and light a fire under his ass,” Tug suggests, putting a tap on my phone.
“Clever,” I agree, “but I don’t have his number.”
“Of course you do!” Tug tells me, feeding the license plate digits into his computer. It spits out a name, an address, home and cell phone numbers. “You know this guy Al-Qahar?” he asks. “Three out of four times, we find a personal feud lies behind threats of physical violence.” Chomping on a cigar, wearing a fedora, a throwback to the 1940’s, Tug makes me wonder what year I am living in.
“I never heard of him! He’s not threatening violence, he’s trying to snuff me!” I complain.
“Too bad it’s not Hamas or Hezbollah,” Tug commiserates. “Them we know how to deal with. We do a Salman Rushdie: We get an Iranian cleric to declare a fatwa on your sweet fanny and then we spirit you away to live in seclusion on the Isle of Man.”
“Sounds expensive.”
“Nah, we’re budgeted for these things.”
“Whatever,” I sigh.
Busy flicking a switchblade knife, Tug uses my landline to phone Al-Qahar. “Hello, Farooq?” he snarls. “Yeah. This is a friend of Josh Preacher. You know who I mean, the guy you’re trying to snuff. Whack. Liquidate. Put a hurt on. Waste. The dude whose candle you wish to extinguish. Know what I mean? Yeah! Well, if you don’t want trouble with me, see, you better just fuggin’ back off, see?! Fuhgeddaboudit! I represent the better angels of our nature and I want youse t’cease and desist. No more murderous assaults, which can only land your sorry ass in the hoosegow !” Leering at me meaningfully, Tug winks. “Yeah, well, the same to you, A-hab!” Hanging up the phone, he announces, “Mission accomplished! That bad hombre is scared to death of us now. You can rest easy. He won’t try nothin’.”
Let’s all give a big shout out for the FBI !
I have seen a painting at the National Portrait Gallery which experts say is either Swedish botanist Carl von Linné or a younger, crabbier self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh. People ask me why I write when I truly excel in so many other fields: archery, penmanship, hotdog eating, stamp collecting, karate, crime-fighting and warmongering in all its various incarnations. Since God [ Publisher’s Note: author Glee Child aka Kevin Feingold aka Sultan Abu Hashish ] created me this way, years of experience have taught me to EMBRACE THE CARNAGE. I think it was President Obama who said, “Words matter.” Once I read that, man oh man, no way was I NOT going to write! President Kennedy called us to arms. President Obama called us to our laptops. So, dear hearts, I cruise this inhospitable planet— given the opportunity, tigers, alligators and mosquitos will eat you— in search of truth, justice and low-cost housing. I understand that there might be a place that’s renting cheap over on Melkin Street. Wish me luck!
What then is the meaning of my compelling, book length personal narrative? What hard choices have given me hope? Like the Palestinians, I too know demonic, blood-curdling levels of frustration, whether opening a pickle jar, awaiting customer service over the phone or standing on line at the post office. Like Oprah, I too am a victim of sexual abuse, my stalk as sore and battle-scarred as a sow’s behind. I have struggled, oh how I have struggled, to champion peace, goodwill, brotherhood and economic equality in this great country of ours and throughout the world. No man is an island in the stream of consciousness, my only consolation being to don Muslim garb, take myself to the local mosque, shed my smelly footwear and prostrate myself before Allah the All-Merciful.
The answer is: YOU! Yes, you, my reader. The one source of hope, support and understanding in a bleak, cruel and unforgiving world. We are soul mates, you and I — and I am a better man for it! Bless you and the $29.95 you have paid over the counter for this product in hard cover at a leading retailer or $10.95 in trade paperback. To my Swedish readers, I can only say: Om Ni har köpt den inbunden i Sverige, blev det nog 195:- SEK. Frenchies: Si tu as acheté ce roman en France, tu as payé presque 29.95 euros. You get the point. Pesetas come, pesetas go. More solid than brass, only the written word remains.
If you’re not reading me, I miss the squee outta ya!
Awake and aware, I admit my passion for women hasn’t always paid off. Marginalized by Margie, I went looking for greener pastures. My homeboy Barry Tina told me not to date his younger sister Palace, but who can resist a good Catholic girl named Palace Tina? Eighty-two million Germans and I have to get the one fraulein who doesn’t have a cell phone charger! [ Publisher’s Note: Dark Chocolate, 2009 ]
At the PETA demonstration downtown, there’s a stunningly luscious young lady serving tofu burgers who is dressed in— get ready for it! — a lettuce bikini. ROWR! I want her. She’s blond and buxom and pretty and a TV personality and ONLY 19!!! Oh, yes, yes, God, yes! “Have you tried bok choy skin rub treatment?” she asks me, her enormous blue eyes staring innocently into mine. “We need to be kinder to animals. If you find, like, a wounded animal in the wild, you should contact the nearest animal shelter… I think asparagus is secretly a sex drug. I know I feel all tingly whenever I eat some.”
On second thought, only 19… No, maybe I was wrong. Forget it.
“We got him.” Tug shows up at my place and as if he’s dealing cards, he hands me one photograph after another, a whole series, obviously taken from a stationary vehicle with a 35mm SLR camera and a 400mm telephoto lens, using available light and 800 ASA film pushed two stops. Shutter speed 1/30th of a second, aperture f/2.8.
“Why are the photos in black and white?” I demand.
“What?”
“Black and white costs extra. You go to the drugstore, they charge more for downgrading to black and white.”
“Look at the photographs! Is that your assailant with the RPG or isn’t it?” asks Tug.
“Black and white photos make the deal look fishy.”
“IS IT HIM?” Tug blurts impatiently.
“It’s him! It’s him! Jeez! You don’t need to go all cray-cray.”
“Because you’re not the only target,” Tug explains, which gives me a rabid case of goosebumps. Not for me, mind you, but for Jennifer. I mean, I finally have somebody worthwhile in my life— chaste, supportive, kind, helpful— and I find I am putting her life in danger. Definitely not a good feeling. “Most of the time, this dude misses. We’ll let you know if anything comes up.”
“Can’t you just arrest him?”
“Most of the time, this guy misses. In civvie life, he’s a music producer. No law against that. His wife says he’s gone back to Pakistan. His homeboys tell us nobody knows where he is. We need more intel. I’ll keep you informed.”
“If I help you crack this case,” I propose, “will I be eligible for Obamacare? I hate to pay a fine just to remain uninsured.”
“Would you please focus?!” growls Tug. “Our mistake was failing to throw all the Muslims in America into internment camps right after 9/11. Talk about ‘the road less traveled.’ Talk about missed opportunities! We could have re-opened the camps we used in World War Two to incarcerate the Japs. Oh, no! Liberal, foolish America, we tricked ourselves into believing that bad things never happen to good people. Tell that to the victims maimed and killed by the Boston Marathon bombing.”
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! What’s happening?” I ask.
“There’s a reason why they call it marshal law,” Tug broods ominously.
“This case sounds more complex than I originally construed,” I admit.
“Forget the 11 million illegals,” he declares. “Not wanting to be deported, they’re the most law-abiding folks around. Concentrate due diligence on the Muslims, the Hindus and the Sikhs.”
“Bitter, bitter,” I mutter consolingly.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
Until one day, my would-be killer doesn’t miss. Dressed in a shabby raincoat and a crushed hat like a modern-day Columbo, Tug takes me to I.D. a body in a dog park. A handsome young man with his head blown half away. Tug tells me he was a data programmer.
“Nobody I knew,” I say, feeling bad when I see how disappointed this makes Tug. Canvassing the dog owners, we draw a blank.
“No witnesses,” he comments dejectedly. “Somebody saw his stupid car, but nobody saw him. A Merlin, appearing and disappearing at will.”
“Of course there are witnesses,” I protest. “Just ask them!”
“Who?”
“The dogs! Look, there’s a German shepherd. Sprechen Sie Deutsch? I’d ask the Irish bulldog, but I don’t speak Gaelic.”
“Go away!” warns Tug threateningly. “I’m not talking to dogs!”
“You don’t talk, you whisper. Also sprach Zarathustra.”
Glaring, turning his back on me, he looks about ready to throw a punch. What a grump!
While seemingly a million tourists flood the streets of the nation’s capital, big money deal, I make my living taking depositions for the law firm of Kirby, Keller, Bostrom and Bosch. Regarding the unethical shenanigans of a certain governor and his wife. “This is very boring,” I bitch, but even I cannot deny that it pays well. Boredom abates the Wednesday morning when I get to depose a Venezuelan super model named Isabella. Extremely tall, a Shakira look-alike, she claims she can’t sing a nota.
The conference room is clad in sumptuous leather, dyed gray, and watching Isabella arch her legs and bounce her tender feet bound in stiletto heels, I feel compelled to turn off the recording equipment and ask, “Can I get you anything?”
“I flew up on a killer red-eye,” she yawns. “You got any lemon daiquiri?”
“I don’t think they allow alcohol in the office, ” I point out apologetically.
“Who say we gotta stay in the office?” she asks throatily, rising like a giraffe and grabbing her purse.
K Street isn’t great for bars, so I hail a cab to Georgetown and park us at an outdoor table where we can get some sun. By her second drink, Isabella has a definite glow about her. “I don’ wan’ no trouble,” she murmurs humorously, arching her eyebrows. “I only meet him the governor ’cause his daughter need a wedding planner and my mama in that business.”
“I was worried you met him on the Appalachian Trail,” I tease.
“¿Qué? ”
“No, forget I said that. Bad joke.”
“I mean I no go to hotel with you,” she growls. “I don’ wan’ my picture took on no security camera!”
“You got that right,” I sigh. “In politics, electronics are not your friend.”
Washington, D.C. is subtle. The city is actually built on two levels. You find this out in surprising places. Water Street and the C & O canal in Georgetown. Rock Creek Park wending its way below street level for miles. Or 16th Street which has both an overpass and an underpass. It is here that trouble catches up with me. I think the driver of the funny little red car with the ridiculous soda can on top must have lost control, because he rams head on into your de rigeur big yellow school bus full of young children. Causing the bus to jump the median strip, slam into the guardrail and end up seesawing precariously over the expressway. Just like in that movie!
“Oh my God!” screams Jennifer, wearing a groovy white swimsuit by Karla Colletto which I have bought her. Enthusiastically, she completes a handjob that has me spurting hot lava all up the front of my khaki shirt.
“Jen-Jen! Christ!” I sigh. “What a sticky, smelly mess!” As I race to rescue the screaming, hysterical children, I peel off my shirt and throw it over the guardrail. Waves of regret sweep over me. “Life is so unfair!” I surmise. Why don’t I ever get to wear Hugo Boss? Reaching the bus, I wipe the rain from my face and inch my way hand over hand to the front door. This is the new paradigm: Drought in the west, rain here, rain there, rain effing everywhere! I wonder what Flash Gordon would have done?
The black driver pops open the door to the bus. Rushing up the three steps, I announce, “Stay in your seats, children! Help will be here shortly.”
Their screams reach a fever pitch, mixed with gasps and laughter.
“Uh, pardner!” suggests the bus driver over my shoulder, sotto voce. “Ya might consider tucking your junk back inside your trousers.”
Shirtless, bereft of a ready answer, I turn toward the front and do as he suggested. Through the windshield, I can see my resolute pursuer, his Glock pistol a black extension of his right hand. Weaving between stalled cars, he is quickly closing in on our location.
“You, little girl,” I call to a cutie pie redhead in a tartan blouse sitting in the seat nearest the driver. “Come let daddy take you for a walk!”
When she balks, looking to the driver, he asks “What ya got in mind, cap’n?”
“Is there a problem?”
“No shirt, your privates hangin’ out all over tarnation, I don’ rightly see how any young’un gonna wanna go anywhere wid you!”
“Point well taken!” I reply, manhandling him from his seat and marching him before me as a human shield. Clomping down the stairs, we edge our way between cars standing bumper to bumper in rush hour traffic.
BANG! A single shot rings out. My companion hops once like a marionette before sprawling lifelessly onto the pavement. A neat, bloody red wound has opened up dead center in the middle of his forehead. Poor fellow.
Crouching even lower, I peer over the hoods of autos, desperately seeking my adversary. Only to watch in astonishment as he shoulders an anti-tank missile which delivers more bang for the buck and fires it in my direction. Apparently even a paid assassin has the right to technically advanced weaponry. “Ha! Not even close! Say it with flowers! ” I am exulting, watching the live round sail past and explode in the side of the school bus. Which goes up in a classic fireball. I hightail it out of there, eventually sprinting into the underbrush down by the water’s edge. My pursuer hot on my heels. Crispy critters, the keening of the young children is but a distant memory. Rain washes in sheets across the highway, the trees, the river. Frantically, I search for a weapon or, failing that, something to cover my exposed upper torso. T-shirts have become so ubiquitous, you find lost and abandoned ones dotting the landscape. Although size XXL remains less common than most others, I grant you.
Considering his unstoppable progress, I am sure that my attacker is juiced to the gills on Zowie Energy Drink.
Looking death in the face, I can only hope that— if I buy the farm— they will dedicate a helo landing zone to me at Camp Victory, Baghdad International Airport. Others before me have received that honor.
In situations like this, I always ask myself, “What would Franklin Delano Roosevelt have done?”
My hands are deadly weapons. As my opponent thrashes at the honeysuckle in frustration, I creep forward and get the drop on him. Brushing aside his weapon, I get both hands securely around his throat. And squeeze. “You are a blasphemer and deserve to die,” he squeaks.
“Speak only well of people and you need never whisper,” I tell him, a clever saying taken verbatim from a Chinese fortune cookie. Pretty smart, the Chinese. “What’s your beef with me anyway?”
“Al-Qahar,” he sputters, his eyes fluttering up into their sockets.
Jaså?! Swedish for “Oh yeah?!” Then I remember my tweets about his family. I put two and two and 34 together and get 38. The caliber of his Glock. “Don’t you think I know what’s going on in that so-called head of yours?!” I admonish him. “Let me just say that I have never had anything but the utmost respect for Indira Gandhi.”
Rain or no, a tiny, washed-out blond female kayaker comes paddling over in her bright green kayak. Wearing an orange life vest and a white plastic helmet, she asks “Are you guys kayaking?”
“No, we’re not kayaking!”
“Well, gosh. Then you oughta, like, leave, man. ‘Cause this part of the river is, like, reserved for kayakers,” she explains, clearly annoyed. “If you aren’t kayakers— ”
“Yeah, I know, we oughta leave!” I shout.
“Don’t get snotty, mister!” she bellows menacingly, back-paddling. To head upriver? To muster reinforcements?
“Okay, you’re right!” I sigh. “This dude is hurt. Do you know any CPR?”
Paddling to shore, she climbs out of her kayak, approaches my victim and asks, “Hey, man! How ya doin’?”
Reaching into the toolbox in her kayak, I bash her one on the head with the peen end of a ballpeen hammer. Good old Bethlehem Steel! Shards of white plastic fill the air. Somewhere sirens are wailing. Police? Ambulance? Somewhere the sun is shining, birds are singing, crowds are cheering. Young girls are complaining bitterly about their allowance. Here, the rain pours down in buckets. If I kill them, theirs will be a sodden death.
‘Nuff said.
yustyoking 
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