c. 2024 Rod Ice
All rights reserved
(6-24)
Afternoon in Geauga County, Tuesday style.
I had been at the home office desk since finishing my morning ration of coffee, lingering with hope to discover some sense of purpose while at the keyboard. We had just survived an uncommonly cool overnight for the month of June. So, I was in a funk while scrolling through search results on the internet. I looked at old beer cans on eBay, and reissued guitars being offered by Eastwood of Canada, on their official website. Nothing seemed to garner my interest. I was slightly groggy after a two-day binge drinking Yuengling lager, and undeniably bored. All of my household chores had been accomplished. My cupboards were full. I had no appointments on the calendar until Friday, when an annual visit with my cardiologist was scheduled. I could hear trash being picked up outside, and the sound of a riding mower cutting grass. A feral cat yowled from the yard. Nothing was interesting or out of the ordinary.
Then, an insistent knock sounded at my front entrance.
I reacted with a sigh, and put both hands on the arms of my roller chair. Getting vertical from a seated position was something I could accomplish only by leveraging my body mass upward, with a forceful thrust. Falling forward, I leaned on the desktop and huffed for my breath. The noise from outside grew louder and more demanding as I tried to find a stable footing. This crescendo in volume did nothing to aid my struggle for stability. Yet it caused the thin walls of my mobile home to shake. A window in the kitchen rattled. Dishes and silverware in the sink clattered and fell, in my dishpan.
Finally, there was a kick at the lower panel of my door.
“FBI AGENTS HERE! FBI! OPEN UP, SIR! WE HAVE A WARRANT TO SEARCH THE PREMISES! OPEN UP OR WE WILL ENTER FORCIBLY!”
I had managed to grab both mismatched canes for the short trek through my trailer, but still hadn’t gotten balanced. I stomped and stammered like a drunk careening down the sidewalk.
“Just a minute, I’m a slow mover! Give me a chance to get situated!”
One of the G-Men must have realized that my door was already unlocked. I heard the knob twist violently, and pieces of its mechanism fall to the floor. A rush of bodies filled the narrow space that formed an architectural angle to the access ramp by my porch. The team of men who were willfully intruding wore various forms of government identification. Each of them had a sidearm, and a radio for communication. They wore the garb of a SWAT team, but with logos of the bureau crest prominently displayed.
“Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.”
Darren Strock, from the Cleveland Field Office, was the first to greet me officially. He motioned toward my recliner, at the end of a vintage chest of drawers. A furnishing which served as a stand for my flat-screen TV.
“IN THE CHAIR, MR. ICE! SIT DOWN AND LISTEN! THIS WILL BE A ONE-WAY CONVERSATION, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”
The federal operative had a crew cut that gave him a look of military discipline. I could see him scanning the room for clues, while barking his order. But my weary bones did not cooperate.
“The easy chair is for guests. I can’t get up out of that thing! My usual seat is on the other side of this room, by the sofa. It’s a thrift-store relic, probably from a waiting room somewhere. Maybe a doctor or a lawyer...”
The aggressive young enforcer put his hand to my chest. The shove caused me to topple in that direction. Fortunately, I landed on the square, leather pad as intended, in between wooden braces that were worn smooth from so many years of use. The impact made me wheeze like a flattened tire. I sat still and bowed my head, as he circled the space, pausing to peer at framed photographs on my entertainment center.
“THESE ARE PICTURES OF FAMILY MEMBERS? AND YOUR DOGS?”
I was slightly embarrassed. The arrangement of mementos made me appear to be sloppily sentimental.
“Yeah, everyone is gone now. Both pets died, and my parents as well. Both wives ditched our marriages, about a dozen years apart. I don’t get visits from the kids...”
Agent Strock shook his head and snorted.
“NEVER MIND ALL THAT, I’M NOT HERE TO PLAY DR. PHIL! WE HAVE AN ORDER TO CONFISCATE YOUR COMPUTERS AND ANY RELEVANT FILES FOR AN ONGOING INVESTIGATION! I HAVE THE PAPERWORK HERE IF YOU RESIST. IT WON’T MATTER THOUGH, I CAN SEE YOU’RE IN NO CONDITION TO PUT UP A FIGHT!”
I gritted my teeth and cursed. But knew that his rude assessment was completely correct.
“Yeah, my days of being a combatant on the front lines of journalism have passed. I might swing one of these canes if you try to abscond with my work materials, though. I’m a professional writer, get it? Those are my tools of the trade. In Soviet Russia, you could just walk in here and start grabbing things. But I have rights, according to the Constitution...”
The well-trained investigator laughed out loud at my mention of personal liberties.
“RIGHTS? SIR, GET YOUR HEAD TOGETHER! YOU HAVE WHATEVER PRIVILEGES THAT THE DIRECTOR OF MY BUREAU RECOGNIZES! WHATEVER PRIVILEGES THAT THE ADMINISTRATION IN WASHINGTON RECOGNIZES! AND RIGHT NOW, THOSE RIGHTS ARE SLIM AND NONE! WE HAVE A WARRANT TO TEAR THIS BOXCAR APART!”
The air felt strangely humid and hot. I scratched my graying beard and coughed lightly.
“Tell me what you want. Let me save you the trouble of trashing this mess, it’s bad enough in here already. I’ve been disabled for about eight years, so things aren’t very tidy...”
Strock stroked his angular chin, which had started to show a shadow of beard stubble. He reduced his bombastic tone, upon sensing that I wanted to cooperate.
“You had a prediction about political assassinations on your newspaper blog. What is it called, the Geauga Independent? Some kind of fodder for extremists or idiots, we suspect. But that sort of talk is quite dangerous. Did you fabricate the report from whole cloth, or have contact with some group that has nefarious plans?”
I sagged in the vintage chair. My shoulders were sore.
“Assassinations? What the hell? You guys need to do more than just scan paragraphs with an AI tool. Damn, use a magnifying glass at least, like Velma Dinkley from the Scooby Doo cartoons! I copied a quote from Tucker Carlson for one of my weekly columns. That guy is known for being unhinged, one of his recent videos talked about Nixon’s Watergate scandal as being a CIA hit job. He also ruminated that since investigations by Congress, impeachments, and indictments haven’t slowed the resurgence of our MAGA King, the only option left would be... a bullet in the skull. I referenced that in a satirical story, it was one of my ‘Trailer Park Vignettes.’ The series runs regularly on that particular site...”
The G-Man stared straight ahead, and went stiff. I feared that he might vomit on my carpet.
“SATIRE? YOUR CONFIDENTIAL REPORT WAS SATIRE?”
I found a moment of relief at last. My face had begun to turn cool, once again.
“Look, if you’re going to read my pages, then go all the way to the end. Just lifting sentences here and there is the kind of thing I’d expect from provocateurs like the National Enquirer or TMZ. I’ll bring up a clip of the interview I cited, with Adam Carolla. Okay? Let me find it on my cell phone...”
Darren Strock leaned against the framing of my entertainment center, with an expression of puzzlement taking hold. His team stopped ransacking the contents of my humble abode, and stood at attention, waiting for further orders. Their mood of authoritative urgency had gone stale.
“Mr. Ice, you’ve got balls! I’ll say that in plain language! You actually have the video saved on your phone?”
I punched up my YouTube app, and the segment began to play on demand. The deposed Fox News host looked sweaty and agitated, while speaking about Donald Trump’s perilous future.
“I mean, look, you know, they protested him, they called him names. He won anyway. They impeached him twice, on ridiculous pretenses. They fabricated a lot about what happened on January 6th, in order to impeach him again. It didn’t work! He came back, then they indicted him. It didn’t work, he became more popular. Then they indicted him three more times. And every single time, his popularity rose. So if you begin with criticism, then you go to protests, then you go to impeachments, now you go to indictments, and none of them work, what’s next? I mean, you know, graph it out, man! We’re speeding toward assassination, obviously!”
The FBI agent covered his eyes. He groaned and then clutched at his belly.
“THAT’S IT? A YOUTUBE CLIP? YOU GOT OUR DIRECTOR STIRRED UP OVER A LOW-FIDELITY YOUTUBE CLIP BY A GUY WHO SHOT OFF HIS MOUTH UNTIL RUPERT MURDOCH FINALLY CANNED HIS SKINNY, SOPHOMORIC ASS? AN OLD CRUM WHO WILL BROADCAST ANYTHING FOR RATINGS?”
My scalp had started to itch. I scratched my head and sighed again.
“Yes...”
Strock brought his fist down on top of an Iron City souvenir that I had saved from my last trip to the Sparkle Market in Andover, by the state line.
“DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! HOW THE HELL WILL I EXPLAIN THIS TO THE SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, WHEN WE GET BACK TO CLEVELAND? THIS IS AN EFF-UP THAT’LL PUT A BLACK MARK ON MY RECORD! A TOTAL SHAM! ANY HOPE I HAD OF A PROMOTION JUST WENT UP IN FLAMES! COME ON MEN, LET’S GET OUT OF THIS DUMP! OUT, OUT, OUT!”
I had managed to talk him into calling off the raid. A feat that made me feel quietly satisfied. Yet it was a tale not suitable for use in a future installment of my series about living in a mobile home park. So instead of returning to my desk, I opened the refrigerator instead.
It was time to have a drink.
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