Have I mentioned that? I am decided. Women are just too hot. Even in chadors, they are too damn hot. Try it, say it, really slowly, kind of prolonging the “ch” sound: chador. Right? See what I mean? So the chadors are off (stop it!) and the “comfort tents” are on. Here is one now. See how weighty, totally opaque (and therefore form-concealing) it is? This way, “those who are dangerous to see, due to they are, etc. etc.,” will no longer be able to make any sudden sexy moves, or be seen at all, even with a bright light shining right on them (during, say, an interrogation), or ever have a free thought, since they are essentially being perpetually crushed by about a quarter ton of steel, like wearing around a damn VW Bug.
Oops. Sorry. Slipped up there. My bad. Did not mean to say “VW.” Meant to say “Volkswagen.” And did not mean to say “damn.” Meant to say “frigging.” Ha ha! Joking.
Let no one say our revolution is without humor. Anyone says that, I will put my foot in his old rumpamundo in a way he will not soon forget. Trust me on this. I will “install, via rippage, an entirely new down-low-nasty-nasty orifice-stinky,” brother, and pronto, please believe me.
Because guess what? I have nukes coming. “Slender death-containing tubes by which righteousness shall be enforced, as per me.”
I shit you not.
WOOF: A PLEA OF SORTS
Dear Master,
I suspect you may be surprised upon surmising this missive. Perhaps you do not expect I can even understand the English language, much less express myself in said language, via the written format. You have perchance never heretofore imagined me, in the dark of night, pen clasped between “toes,” standing upon hind legs with all the earnest desperation of the bestial attempting to become lucid, practicing my “letters.” That floor is damned slippery! I believe it is the cheap tiles you and the Mistress hath procured! I’ll be working on, por ejemplo, the letter “S” (particularly problematic for me: so curvy!) and suddenly: WHAMMO, as you people might vocally emit, I am all asses-and-elbows, i.e., have punctured the silence of night with the sound of my furred eager body impacting the floor, due to my back “paws” have slipped out from under me!
And then must hurry and hide the pen, in case you come down investigatorily!
But yes, ’tis so: I think, I feeclass="underline" I write.
And have a request:
There are times, deep in the night, when you have been “tippling” and/or “imbibing” and/or “getting per-shnockered,” when, perchance overwhelmed by joy (I hope it is joy, and not something darker), you shed your puzzling overskin and stand in the kitchen, moving hips and all, to that mélange of painful-high-pitch and human squawling you call “Purple Rain.”
Master, this display sets off in me unpleasantness of the first rank! Your various hangie-down things, the strange hairless hairiness of you (neither here nor there) — makes me want to bite you.
There. I’ve said it.
Did you know, though normally “so, so sweet,” I can bite hard as hell? I can, sir. I practice on the back leg of the “sofa.” Go take a look. Go now. You will see.
Imagine that back leg is your central and (methinks) much-prized hanger-downer.
Keep up with the midnight kitchen gyration sans clothing, and you will get it, right on that unit, no lie, Master.
Otherwise all is well. The behind-the-ears scratching: well. The running-to-get-tennis-balclass="underline" well. The perking-up-of-ears when you speak lilting baby-talk: I understand that as the cost of doing business.
You filleth my bowl well, I do admit, and on an admirable schedule.
But the dancing: I will bite your member, I swear to God.
It doth ignite a dark dread in me, of times ancient, when, perhaps, we were not allies, but enemies?
Anyway, what the heck. Very happy. No complaints. Imagine me doing that “grin.” Love you, man.
Although one thing more:
Do not call me “Scout.” Not ever. My name is “Biscuit.” You gave me that name. “Scout” debases me. “Scout” is for babies. Also: do not — do not EVER — take me by the front paws and pretend to waltz me. I am of an ancient race. We hunt, we run, we protect: we do not waltz. When you waltz me? — think about it — I am right at member-height.
And now: a walk? A walk?
A walk.
Love,
“Biscuit”
THE GREAT DIVIDER
STAND BACK, MR. DOBBS, LET ME HANDLE THIS
Once upon a time, there was a wealthy country. Just to the south was a poor country. Between them ran a border. People from the poor country were always sneaking over, trying to partake of the wealth of the wealthy country. The people in the wealthy country resented this. Or some did. Some seemed fine with it, and even helped them once they got here. Some said it was a crisis and a big wall was needed. Others said: What crisis? It’s been going on for years, plus they work so cheap, you want to pay nine bucks for a freaking quart of strawberries? The national media seized on the story and, as always, screwed it up: reduced it to pithy sound bites, politicized it, and injected it with faux urgency, until, lo, the nation was confused.
Then, a man, a Writer — me, actually — decided to venture forth, to find some answers. Was it a crisis? Was all this excitement justified? Might terrorists someday come in across the border? Was the border really rife with drug-related crime? I went boldly, driving from Brownsville, Texas, to San Diego, California, armed with the ancient tools: objectivity, open-mindedness, a laptop, a rented minivan — a Chrysler Town and Country, to be exact, with electronic everything, including rear and sliding side doors. So as our story unfolds, please imagine these doors periodically sliding/flying open, in the middle of epic Southwestern landscapes, for no reason at all, or simply because I’ve tried to change the radio station.
GO TO JAIL, AFTER EIGHT TIMES, GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL
In the temporary detention center at the Laredo North Border Patrol Station, a Mexican kid slumps in a chair at a processing desk. He’s going to jail for at least three months, because this is the eighth time he’s been caught illegally entering the United States, and the system’s patience has finally been exhausted.
Border Patrol Agent One runs a hand shyly over his new haircut, which is nearly a buzz.
“That, see, I don’t understand that haircut,” says Agent Two, wearing a huge cowboy hat.
“At least he’s got hair,” says Agent Three, and Agent Two blushes, acknowledging it: Yes, yes, it’s true. Under this hat, I’m bald.
I point to my own head.
We all laugh at my hairline.
Then I look over at the kid. He’s sitting there expressionless, a small cat among large dogs. And now he’s got to endure this balding talk, this nervous braying laughter, before he can get to the next enjoyable step (being processed), and on to the part where he gets sent off to a foreign jail.
My heart goes out to him.
Sort of.
Because empathy depends on how you’ve spent your day. I’ve just spent mine driving around in a “marked caged unit” with Agent Three, aka Dan Garibay: visiting the muddy clearings where illegal aliens change into dry clothes after they cross, inspecting fence-cuts, driving past safe houses, hearing agents talk about tracking groups of illegals for eleven straight hours. I’ve learned that it’s now more profitable to traffic in humans than in drugs; that MS-13, a Salvadoran gang, is in a death struggle with the more traditional Mexican Mafia; that Border Patrol agents in Laredo are routinely shadowed by spies from the smuggling cartels who, in turn, are shadowed by a newly formed countersurveillance unit.