Imagine, if you will, a room at an undisclosed location, dominated by a large, rectangular, wooden table. Seated around the table are English puppets that look vaguely familiar, engaged in excited conversation.
A large puppet with glasses and a bald head stands in the center of the table, and speaks by opening half his head: "Boys, call me Big Dick, and I'm all ears." He pulls on his ears, and the room explodes with laughter. "The only rule here, is that you're not here, get it?" With that Big Dick looked at each of the men in the room, surrounding the table. Each nodded in turn.
"Ok Kenny, you go first."
A puppet with his sweatshirt hood drawn closed mumbles: "You know, we got into a bit of trouble out on the coast, with the 'kilowatt shell game' we were running..."
"Yeah, I hoid of that", Big Dick comes back, with a mocking grin, looks around the table and laughter erupts.
"Well, uh," Kenny continues, "there's this guy, the Gray Man, out in California? Well, he was running quite a few games hisself, and we kinda stepped in on his territory, so the short story is that the Gray Man want's to come down on us, hard. He says he'll wring a hundred billion out of us - (whining now) and that's almost halfa what we scammed on the deal!"
The room lets out a collective "Awww" of pity, but Big Dick is smiling, and presses a secret button. "STEP AWAY FROM THE TABLE ... STEP AWAY FROM THE TABLE" a very loud, electronic, disembodied voice shouts from under the table.
"Heh, heh heh" patting the table, Big Dick says "I know just the guy to help you with that little problem. Who's your favorite actor?"
"Uh," Kenny mumbled, "Chuck Norris - the talent never ends with that guy! Or maybe Sylvester Stalone."
"Ok" Big Dick replies, "I'll see what I can do. Next!"
...
It goes like that around the room, Big Dick hearing greivances and granting favors. Alaskan drilling, relaxed mileage and emissions standards, increased logging and scratching hundreds of animals off the endangered lists, "Hell, we got 'em in zoos!"
A thin puppet, resembling Col. Klink says, "Ve vould like to see a smaller HumVee."
"Smaller Schrimpp? Heh heh heh, I don't get it. Why smaller?"
"Because", Schrimpp cackles like Dr. Strangelove, "Ve haff zomezing zat iss even bigger! Ant, it get's vun fifth ze gas mileage!"
"Yee haw Hair Schrimpp, you got it!"
"Ok then," Big Dick continues, "Professor, your the last one I think."
"Yes, my collegues and I have developed a way to produce hydrogen, and it can be adapted to consume oil, but basically we have come up with easy storage and new engines that will run on hydrogen, at a fraction of the cost of oil!" The little puppet beams proudly, but nobody in the room's smiling. "We've, uh, solved the hydrogen problems and now this cheap and abundant fuel can be had by all..."
"You know, Prof, I can see where this is going... " Big Dick smiles, "We'll make it a National Priority, I'll even get," he pauses, "The Boss to give a speech and he'll talk about hydrogen with that old time religion he does so well." Then he says, under his breath, but loudly enough for all to hear, "That and we'll land a man on Mars." What began as stiffled chuckles, broke into loud, uncontrolled guffaws. Puppets were clutching their sides and leaning on the table, doubled over in laughter. Big Dick hits the car alarm once again, and the pandemonium regenerates, continuing for many minutes.
Finally as it begins to subside, Big Dick announces, "Ok, ok, let's settle down boys. There'll be Cubans all around, and for those of you who would prefer cigars, ..." He pauses for effect, as quite a few of the group look around embarrasedly, while others nod and chuckle. "Heh heh heh, now, if that is all we can get ..."
"If I may make a statement."
A foreign gentleman nobody had previously noticed stands at the now darkly lit end of the table. The room goes silent, and for once Big Dick says nothing. The puppet steps forward into the illumination. He is tall, with a high bejeweled turban, has half his face covered with a long beard. His eyes look very knowing and deep.
"Oh, Shafig, it's you! You really had us going for a minute. How's it hanging?" Big Dick chuckled to himself, anticipating the response.
"In my culture, it doesn't 'hang' until one has reached the next world. But I have a greivance." and he looked down at his robes.
"That sounds like a poisonal problem! (nervous laughter around the table). But what can I do for you?
"Certain of my countrymen, (ahem) associates in the foreign oil business, especially those from the Kingdom, would like to help to perpetuate America's demand for more of our oil. But we are having, shall we say, difficulties moving around the country. There are far too many precautions and investigations left over from the Clinton years. I say let us move forward into a new era of shared profit. You wish to use more oil, we wish to pump more oil. But we must be allowed to, as you say, keep the government off our backs." The turbaned puppet lifted his face and stared directly into Big Dick's eyes.
"Well Shafig, old buddy, old pal, I'm certain this could be done. Maybe lose some FBI stuff, or mis-file some papers, yeah, it can be done, but what do we get out of it, besides the chance to raise oil prices, heh heh heh..." He just couldn't help to laugh at the prospect. "What can you do for me?"
Shafig kept his stare firm, "You know of a certain man, a man in the Middle East who believes himself to be very powerful. He has tried to hit 'the Old Man' and even now, he sells his oil behind our backs and wallows in the money, while he tortures his own people in his prison? You know of a man your Boss hates more than any other?"
"Yeah, I know who you're talkin' 'bout, but what can we do?"
"I will see that which I can do." And with that the strange foreign puppet moved backward into the darkness of the corner and seemed to vanish in a haze, but it was probably just some trick of the lighting.
A slow murmer came over the room as the energy mogals began to comment amongst themselves. "Now yous guys remember." Big Dick bellowed. "Dis meetin' never happened, IT DIDN'T TOOK PLACE! Capiche?" And once again, he visually surveys the men in the room. One of the petitioners lowers his eyes as Big Dick came to him. "Remember fellas," Big Dick announces in a far softer voice, to nobody in particular, "it's your necks that are on the line here."
"But," Kenny whines, "what if They do find out?"
"Oh, don't you worry about that.", Big Dick says, as his eyes glaze over and he imagines himself standing in tall reeds in the early morning fog. The sunrise yet to happen, but the eastern sky has taken a most beautiful orange hue. A formation of migrating ducks breaks the sky into halves, the blue of the night, and the color of the day. It gives one pause, just to behold such perfect natural symmetry. That and the ducks fall straight down when you get a good clean kill.
"No, don't you worry about that."
This week, in addition to giving the vice president the right to keep his secret deals secret, the new conservative majority of the Supreme Court took away your "right" to remain silent. Yep - the police now have ways to make you talk.
