"Yes."
"What kind of a reaction did I get?"
"They appeared to be schoolgirls, Senator, and their expressions were indescribable."
"Great." He caught himself. "I mean, how unfortunate. I would never do anything to harm the young of our great nation. I thought I was mooning a college football team or something."
"You weren't."
"I feel terrible," said Ned Clancy, taking another vodka spritz. His face, like a snarled old pumpkin with a mossy coating of hair on top, dissolved into an inebriated smile. His tiny eyes seemed to shrink into their fatty sockets until they resembled baby eyes mistakenly set in an old man's face.
"Give Mother my apologies," he said, his consonants blurring.
"Of course, Senator. But she appears very angry."
"Remind her that it's the thought that counts."
Clancy hung up. "I knew dragging that old bat along was a mistake," he snarled.
It was not easy being the elder heir to the greatest political dynasty on earth, mused Ned Clancy. If the truth were to be known, he would have retired from the Senate two or three scandals ago. But the Clancy clan had been growing exponentially even after the deaths of Ned's older brothers, Jimbo and Robbo.
They had sired some thirty offspring between them. Neddo, as he was called in his young carefree days, had sired an equal number on his own, despite not having married until late in life.
Between the need to support the orphan Clancys and the illegitimate Clancys, the family fortune-never wisely invested in the first place-was dwindling fast. And since virtually every Clancy seemed to be chronically unemployable outside of public service, the trust funds were not keeping pace with government payroll salaries.
Ned Clancy took solace in the fact that he would not live to see the family fortune completely squandered. He also took solace in hard liquor. As the capillaries burst in his bulbous nose and the facial mottling of the habitual drunk more and more colored his much-photographed face, he had come to be called-always behind his back-Blotto.
Affectionately, of course. Because everyone loved Blotto Clancy. And Blotto loved them back. In any way he could.
He stopped loving a big group of them-specifically Californians-when his limousine caravan rounded a hill and ran smack into the end of a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam.
"What are these people doing here!" he shouted at the passenger-to-driver intercom.
"They're probably going the same place we are, sir," the limo driver patiently explained. "Nirvana West."
"But they're blocking a U.S. senator. They can't do that. Get on the horn to the State Police and have them all towed. That'll teach them."
"But, Senator, we're not in Massachusetts anymore."
Clancy looked confused. "We aren't?"
"No, this is California."
"Is that a state now?"
"It is, Senator."
"Well, who are their senators? I'll call them and pull rank. Use the old boy network for what it was meant."
"The two senators are women, Senator."
"Do they give head?"
"I wouldn't know, Senator."
"Because I think I might let them do me in return for the favor. It'll give them something to impress their girlfriends with. Just don't tell my wife. Or my mother. Especially my mother. She doesn't understand sex. How she managed to have sixteen kids, beats the hell out of me."
The phone buzzed again and Senator Clancy picked it up.
"Yeah?"
"This is Nalini. Your mother is becoming difficult."
Clancy clutched the phone tightly. "Is she saying anything?"
"You know she hasn't been able to speak since her last stroke. But she is jumping up and down in her seat, and that usually means she's growing impatient."
"Well, change her diaper or something. I have to pull a few strings before I can break this logjam up ahead."
"They are probably the media, Senator. If you step out of your car and present yourself, they might clear the way."
Ned Clancy's beet-red face swelled with pleasure. "They'll also want to interview me. That means ink. And face time. The milk and honey of my racket. Listen, Nalini, ever think of becoming a senator's aide?"
"Your mother needs me more, Senator."
"I need you more than more. Know what I mean? Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge."
"It is time for your mother's medication. Excuse me, Senator Clancy." The line went dead.
"Bitch," muttered Clancy, hanging up. "See if I ever let her stroke my love serpent."
He unbuttoned his blue blazer so that when he emerged he could rebutton it. His handlers told him he always looked more senatorial that way. It also distracted people from noticing his weight problem.
Senator Clancy stepped out. Instantly, the third limo in the caravan popped all its doors and his aides leapt out. They came running, forming a circle around him. This helped to hide his weight problem too. They also made perfect bullet catchers in case of assassins.
"Let's see if we can't break this gridlock," he said, grinning. "That would be a switch, wouldn't it?"
Brother Theodore Soars-With-Eagles ran through the old-growth forest fleet as a deer. His heart was racing. This was it. His first test. If he survived the media spotlight without screwing up, he was home free.
Brother Theodore slowed down and recovered his wind. It would not look good for a pure-blooded Chinchilla to burst on the national scene panting like a hound dog.
When he emerged into the press area, he saw that Senator Ned J. Clancy had already found the podium erected for his own press conference.
"Media hound," Brother Theodore muttered under his breath. Then, straightening his warbonnet and wig, he stepped into the ring of press.
"I have come to palaver with my white brother!" he shouted.
No one heard him.
"I said," he yelled through his cupped hands, "that I have come to speak with the honorable senator from Massachusetts!"
That didn't help any either, so Brother Theodore jumped up and down, trusting his feathers to catch people's attention.
The feathers did the trick. Senator Clancy caught sight of him and lifted a hand. He said in a solemn voice, "How!"
"Hail, white brother from the eastern land of enlightenment," Brother Theodore called back. He tried to keep his face straight.
At a gesture from Clancy, the crowd parted. Cameras flashed in his face. Videocams whirred.
When Theodore reached the podium, Senator Clancy grinned broadly and threw one arm around him. He said, "Thank you for inviting me to your toupee, blood brother."
"That's tepee," whispered Brother Theodore. For the press, he said, "It is a sign that the Great White Father in Washington takes the promise of the mighty thunderbug seriously that you have come, my brother."
"We will smoke the peace pipe together," Senator Clancy said boisterously. "As a sign that there will be no scalping. But I'm afraid I'll have to pass up the firewater. I'm on the wagon. Witch doctor's orders."
As Senator Clancy took a hit of his asthma inhaler, Brother Theodore thought, This guy knows less about the Red Man than I do. This is going to be a snap.
The questions started flying.
"Brother Theodore, what do you have to say about HELP?"
"HELP is a disease of modern civilization. Only those who are attuned to nature will survive the cataclysm that is Human Environmental Liability Paradox."
"What do you mean by attuned to nature?"
"Only by eating the environmentally untainted thunderbug can the white man shield his fragile skin from the deadly rays filtering down from the ozone layer he has wantonly destroyed."
"Then how do you explain the fact that your PAPA followers are dying of HELP?" he was asked.
"Only Snappers are dying. My Harvesters, who cook the thunderbug in a politically and environmentally correct way before eating them, are as healthy as Hekawis. This is the lesson of HELP. Those who wish to see the millennium must live as my ancestors-pure in spirit and politics. I have spoken."