D.C. Neurotica



Chapter One


"Mr. Savant, The President would like to see you."

Although my back was turned and I heard nothing before the words were spoken, it was no surprise to me that someone was there. I had first sensed violation of my "personal space" several minutes ago, and I had grown more and more uncomfortable as the distance between myself and someone not me decreased from hundreds of feet down to only a few.

"I'm Agent MacNeeley of a special organization that protects the President. I am not at liberty to divulge the name of this organization."

"The Secret Service?" I asked.

"You know about the Secret Service?" Agent MacNeeley asked, seeming quite shocked.

I nodded. After watching the agent's perplexed expression take root, bloom, wither away from detection, and rot into compost rich enough to guarantee that the next few expressions on that face would be quite healthy and well-nourished, I asked how they had found me. I also noted that Agent MacNeeley was beautiful. Beautiful, even. A face like that could make a man repeat himself.

"We knew you would come here," she replied, matter-of-factly.

I exploded with the force of the collective Keg-O'Pabst-punished-innards of a thousand retching frat boys on any given Thursday night during early football season when everyone is happy because nobody is yet aware that their team really sucks. If I had been a smidgen more angry, it might have been a Friday night. A special Friday night, even, like one where the cover band plays alot of cool Bon Jovi songs, and several high school girls show up with oh-so-wonderful liver-inexperience and ill-conceived notions of the allure of soon-to-be-retching frat boys.

"So those pinhead CIA weenie shrinks are still Ouija-Boarding up a crock of Tarot and Tea Leave psychological profiles to use for political leverage against upstanding private citizens, eh? Did they examine my writings and analyze my blood donations and sample my semen and see my samplemen and collect my excretions and sift through my garbage in a craftily engineered and carefully executed ploy to forecast that I would come to the Edward Kennedy Clandestine National Monument as soon as I set foot in D.C.?," I tersely spit out.

"Yes. Or we listened in on your call to the National Park Service when you asked if the mandatory alcohol possession requirement was still in force here."

"Bastards!" I hissed.





Chapter 2