«Who are you and how did you get this number?» yelled the Chief of Staff.
«Easy, Arnold, it’s Reebock, and we’re on the same side on this one.»
«Oh, Mister Chief Justice! Are you about to give me another big problem I don’t need?»
«No, I just solved the biggest one you’ve got.»
«The Wopotamis?»
«They can starve to death on their stupid reservation, who cares? I had a little barbecue at my house last night, the whole Court. Naturally, as my wine cellar is the finest in Washington, everyone got pissed to the antlers except the lady, and now she doesn’t count. We had a very American, intellectual conversation around the pool. Very erudite, very judicial.»
«So?»
«Six to three against the Wopotami savages, guaranteed. Two of our brethren wavered, but they saw the light when our nubile lady caterers took off their clothes and went for a swim. Our two would-be bleeding hearts claimed they were pushed into the pool, but the photographs don’t show that. Such injudicious behavior—the tabloids would go wild, I made that rather clear.»
«Reebock, you’re a genius! Not on my level, of course, but not bad, not bad at all… But let’s keep this between ourselves, all right?»
«We speak the same language, Subagaloo. Our job is to keep the un-American deviates out of the mainstream. They’re dangerous, every one of them. Can you imagine where we’d all be without the income tax and those civil rights laws?»
«In heaven, Reebock, in heaven!… Remember, we never talked.»
«Why do you think I called you on this number?»
«How’d you get it?»
«I’ve got a mole in the White House.»
«Who, for Christ’s sake?»
«Come on, Arnold, that’s not fair.»
«I guess it isn’t, because I’ve got one in the Court.»
«Stare decisis, my friend.»
«What else is new?» said Arnold Subagaloo.
12:37 P.M. The huge Trailblaze bus, leased and paid for by no one the company had ever heard of, stopped in front of the imposing entrance to the Supreme Court. The driver fell over the large circular steering wheel, anguished tears flowing from his eyes, grateful that his full load of passengers was about to depart. Miles back he had yelled, screamed, and finally shrieked in panic that «Fire—cooking—is not permitted inside the bus!»
«We’re not cooking, man,» had said a firm voice behind him. «We’re mixing the colors, which means you’ve got to melt the wax.»
«What?»
«See?» Suddenly a grotesquely painted face had been thrust in front of his eyes, causing the driver to lurch across the Virginia highway, slipping between the onrushing vehicles until he managed to return to his lane.
There followed what could only be described as a series of events that justified the screams of the owner of the Last Ditch Motel outside of Arlington, when he had roared from behind a mountain of duffel bags:
«I’ll blow the fucking place up before I let ’em back in! Holy shit! Fuckin’ war dances around a fuckin’ bonfire in the parking lot! Everybody else in all the other rooms left—running—without a nickel in my till!»
«You got it wrong, man! They were supplication chants. You know, like prayers for rain and deliverance, even sometimes broads.»
«Out, out, out!»
Once the duffel bags had been loaded, by necessity a number strapped on top of the bus, the series of intolerable events continued amid the smoke and the stench of melted-down Crayola crayons. «You see, man, when you mix it with paraffin and press it into your skin, it conforms and slowly drips down your face with the body heat. Scares the hell out of palefaces … see?» The driver saw. Weeping streaks of bright colors slowly crawling down the face of someone named Calfnose. The bus had nearly crashed into the rear of a diplomatic limousine bearing the flags of Tanzania; instead, it merely dented the bumper, then skirted to the left, passing it and removing a side mirror as several wide-eyed black faces stared up at their more colorful counterparts in the windows of the bus.
Then came the audibles, initially the slow, bass-toned boom-booms of at least a dozen drums. Boom-boom, boom-boom, boom-boom—boom-boom, boom-boom! «Hai-ya, hai-ya, hai-ya!» The fanatical chorus built to a hysterical crescendo as the driver’s head shot back and forth over the wheel like a rooster in heat in time with the beat. Relief had suddenly come as the drums and the chanting abruptly stopped, apparently by command.
«I think we got that one wrong, guys and girls!» shouted the terrorist named Calfnose. «Isn’t that the wedding night celebration?»
«Beats the hell out of Ravel’s Bolero!» replied a male voice at the rear of the crowded bus.
«Who’d know the difference?» yelled another, now a woman.
«I don’t know,» answered Calfnose, «but Thunder Head said Indian Affairs might send down a couple of experts ’cause nobody expects us or knows why we’re there.»
«If they’re Mohawks, they’ll crap on us!» shouted yet another, by his voice an elderly member of the tribe. «Legend has it that they threw us out of our wigwams whenever it snowed!»
«Well, just in case, let’s rehearse the one that greets the sunrise; that’d be applicable.»
«Which one is that, Johnny?» Another woman.
«The one that sounds like a tarantella—»
«Only when sung vivace, Calfy,» corrected a painted brave in front. «When it’s adagio, it could be a dirge out of Sibelius.»
«So we go with the balachy bit. All right, girls, into the aisle and rehearse your thing. And remember, Thunder Head wants some legs for the TV cameras but no garter belt stuff. We gotta be squeaky clean.»
«Aw, aw, aw … shit!» came the male voices.
«Here we go—now!»
The drums and the vocal chorus had begun again, compounded by the beating of female feet in the aisle, as the driver tried to concentrate on the growing traffic in the District of Columbia. Unfortunately, a Sterno can under a boiling pot of bright red Crayolas overturned, setting fire to the beaded skirt of a dancer. Several braves were quick to extinguish the flames.
«Get your hands out of there!» screamed the offended Indian lass.
The driver’s head had whipped around as the bus skidded into a fire hydrant, snapping off the top and sending a gusher of water into Independence Avenue, drenching all the cars and pedestrians in the vicinity. Company regulations required that the operator of any vehicle involved in such an incident stop immediately, radio his dispatcher, and await the police. It was a corporate policy that absolutely, positively did not apply to him! concluded the driver of the bus filled with savage terrorists who wore dripping waxed paint on their faces. He was five blocks from his destination, and the moment his load of Sterno-burning, foot-stomping barbarians in their leather and their beads got off his vehicle with their duffel bags and their cardboard signs, he would race back to the depot, hand in a hastily scribbled resignation, drive home, grab his wife, and together they would take the next plane to as far away as possible. Fortunately, their only son was a lawyer; the hotshot lawyer could take care of the aftereffects. What the hell, he had put the snotty little bastard through law school!… Thirty-six years behind a wheel driving the pigs of humanity, a man had to know when the critical sign of acceptance stopped. It was like when he was in France in World War II, and they were taking a pounding from the Krauts, and that great man, General Hawkins, took over the division and shouted the words out: «There comes a time, soldiers, when we either cut bait or go after the big ones! I say we go on! I say we attack!»