Episode #9
Military Maelstrom
The fate of man is quirky. It doesn't take some egghead with a degree to figure that out. We are born into this world without asking our permission and then we stumble around with quirky fates hanging around our necks like albatrosses at somebody's wedding you didn't like, or an old poem you had to read once if you wanted to get a degree, become an egghead in an ivory tower and tell students that life is full of kinky quirks.
But I didn't have it so good. I couldn't get into college. I couldn't even get into the post office. Hell, nobody can get into the post office. Its full of quirky fates and people from other countries with big packages they want to send back there. But I mean I couldn't get hired by the Post Office. That's the kind of let down that is liable to get you wondering where your future is headed, mine was headed back to Cleveland on the next Greyhound. Then my fate got a few quirks happening and I found myself a real live spy for the Central Intelligence Agengcy.
It had never become crystal clear what they wanted me to do, although I had been made righteously aware that Uncle Sam intended to eighty-six any and all forms of welfare and they were more than willing to use dirty tricks to stop the flow of loose bux. I kinda had gotten the idea that I was the dirty trick.
But there was another team in this game. It might be the Evil Empire. It might be a radical pro-homeless fringe. I only knew they were there, and they were deadly. I didn't mind a fate with a few oddball quirks, but I didn't want to sleep with the fishes just because I couldn't make it into the post office.
I'd been jacked around all over America and wound up at my sister's place in Omaha. There I learned my life was in danger again when I got a letter from my boss, Philanthropist
I headed south out of Omaha on an abandoned moped. I wanted to get someplace safe and that's when I thought of Offutt Air Force Base, the Strategic Air Command Headquarters. Every missile in the world was aimed at the place, but it was safe until doomsday.
"Sir, I'll have to ask you to turn your vehicle around and leave the area immediately!" barked a bright kid dressed up like a soldier at the back gate.
"You call this a vehicle?" I joshed about the motorbike shooting for a little camaraderie.
"Step off of your vehicle and lay face down on the pavement please sir!" he said, holding a forty-five with both hands, his arms outstretched in my direction, my life dangling by the quirky proficiency of an air policemen school somewhere in Alabama.
"Look, I just wanted to use the restroom", I tried to smooth things over, "but I can make it a few more miles I guess".
That's when the dogs got me from behind. I guess they get a lot of people trying to sneak into SAC headquarters. I was taken into the center of the base and down an elevator to the paleolithic period. They had a nice coffee shop down there and a laundry room with a sign that said "DO NOT USE THE DRYERS DURING A CODE RED".
I sat there waiting for a long time and wondering why they don't come up with a decent WAF uniform until a big fat general walked in. He had enough costume jewelry on his shoulders to become the big cheese of Tunga Tunga.
"Who are you, boy!" He sounded like a man with whom rectal itch had become an obsession.
"Me? I'm Dolan Smith, sir, I just wanted to be safe for a while. I'm with the government and they're trying to kill me." A couple of goons in air force blue were writing everything down.
"Do you know where you are, peon?" I could tell it was a rhetorical question.
"No sir, but I bet its pretty deep." It was pretty deep alright, the bullshit was getting so thick you couldn't cut it with an analogy to a sharp object.
"This is Level Sixty-Six. Nobody gets in here." Oh yeah, I thought. Then how did a confused schmuck on a broken motorbike get taken directly down here in about two seconds flat?
"Yes sir. I can see that sir."
"Were you sent here under orders to try and infiltrate this level, son? Just to see if it could be done?" His shirt wasn't stuffed. I had my fingers and toes crossed, it really was stuffed.
"No. I'm on a welfare assignment. I just wanted to get a little breathing roo......" I stopped in the middle of the word "room", (well, actually I was three-fourths through it), when I stopped. The General and all his gofers were backing up against the wall.
"Did you say 'welfare'?" The general looked like his heart attack was about to have a coronary.
"Yeah. Little thing called 'Nectar'. I don' t want to get in your way - I'll just be leaving. Does the elevator come very often?" I got up to go.
"Philanthropist sent you?" The old boy's blood pressure had a numerator, a denominator and a penthouse apartment.
"Philanthropist is my boss. I just got a letter from him at my sister's place." The air force chorus had used up all their dramatic reactions, so they took a smoke break .
"Did you say "Sister's Place"?!" Half a dozen lifer's flipped open their codebooks and before you could say Horsefeathers a duck came down with a hundred dollar bill. You could see right away it wasn't an ordinary duck's bill. It was imported.
That's when they took me into a big room with enough TV sets to sway the Nielson ratings. But instead of missiles on launching pads the screens showed bums sleeping in the snow and little kids getting free breakfast.
This is the "Operation Nectar" nerve center. We were just waiting for you to get here so we could go ahead," The general had gone from apoplexy to whoopee in no time .
"Wait a minute. You better double check it. I don't know anything, about this . What are all those winos doing on TV? Is this a PBS special?. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach; like when I grab a quick bite at Taco Bell.
As soon as you give the word, we'll wipe out the primary poverty targets with a pre-emptive air strike. The welfare culture will be reduced to rubble in minutes. His eyes were gleaming like a child molester in Disneyland.
"What do you mean? Bomb our own cities? You must be nuts, Wanko. Welfare might be bad, but don't you think this is a little bit worse than a few guys buying beer with food stamps?"
"It's got to be eradicated from the face of the earth, no matter what it takes. If we wait much longer there won't be enough money left over from meals on wheels and SDI to have neat underground command centers like this." I could see he was really concerned about it.
"We're ready to go code red, General Idear." A bunch of lights started blinking and a klaxon horn went off that made you wish you were listening to a Neil Diamond record.
"Make sure no one is using the dryers!" I had to do something quick before the American military made the biggest mistake since the Army-Navy game at the Rose Bowl.
"Wait! I thought you said you were waiting for me to give the go ahead." I was desperate.
"Yes! Give the codeword you got from Philanthropist and we'll blow these moochers to kingdom come!" General ldear was getting little specks of foam in the corners of his mouth but it might just have been his denture adhesive.
"I'm not giving you any codewords. Forget it. Zip. Nix. Negative. Nil."
"Nil! That's it! That's the codeword! Turn those birds loose!"
A mighty roar built up in the bowels of the earth.
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