Exclusive Interview with Dick

The Engineer's jaw dropped as he farted in high C.  I spewed piping hot coffee across the conference table.  Our editors had just announced that there was a cadre of men in dark suits wearing sun glasses waiting outside our offices for the purpose of escorting us to an undisclosed location to meet with a "person of interest."

We were secreted away to a private airport where we were loaded into the windowless and empty hull of a C-130 air transport.  When the blind folds were removed from our eyes we found our selves sitting in what appeared to be the Office of the Vice President in the White House.  The Engineer and I had the glowing feeling that we had hit the big time, and gave each other a high five, all smiles.  The thrill was completely reversed and replaced by loathing and confusion by what happened next.

Dick Cheney came into the office from a side door wearing a black unitard mopping sweat from his face with a towel.  He sat down behind the desk and snarled at us in complete silence for what seemed a long awkward while.  I broke the ice.

"A black unitard?  No, you're an interpretive dance enthusiast?" I asked.

"Uh-hum," Dick coughed and said in his low, raspy and breathless way, "shut up."  We abided. Another long, awkward moment passed, The Engineer and I squirming in our seats while Dick sat motionless, snarling at us.

"Uh, sir, are we in The White House?" asked The Engineer.

"No you douchebag," said Dick.  "I had this replica of my old office made in this here undisclosed location.  I got kind of used to it.  The reason I brought you fucking idiots here is to get something off my chest," Dick said in unnerving monotone.

"Great," said The Engineer, "we'd love to hear it--"

"Shut the fuck up," demanded Dick, "and listen."  He leaned back in his executive chair and put his hands together, each finger tip touching its counterpart on the other.  "You guys have said some very disparaging things about me.  You don't like it that I am out on Fox News every other day with my daughter tag-teaming the Obama Administration's handling of the war on terror."

"Actually," I said, "they've quit using that term, 'war on terror'--"

"What is it that you don't understand about 'shut the fuck up?'" Dick asked.  "You're a lawyer, right?"  I nodded in the affirmative.  "See that rifle at the top there?" he asked pointing to a gun rack hanging on the wall.  I nodded.  "I call her Lady Justice.  The Lady is the one that was involved in that unfortunate hunting accident that filled that lawyer's face full of buck shot--you might have heard about that.  He-he," he chuckled. 

Dick leaned forward toward us, his elbows on his desk.  "The reason I brought you shit-for-brains here is to explain to you what it is that I am doing now that I am no longer in The White House.  How should I put this?"  He snarled for a moment, thinking out his words carefully.

"There are two types of people in this world," Dick continued.  "Real men and pussies.  Pussies aren't going to keep this country safe.  That's a job for a real man."

"Like your daughter?" I asked.

"He-he, you think you're pretty funny, don't you?"  Dick slammed his fist on his desk causing The Engineer and me to jump in our chairs.  "My daughter is more of a real man than the two of you pussies put together," he said pointing at us.

"We have a mission to complete," said Dick.  "That mission is to keep America safe from those that would harm us, and from pussies.  The way you do that is with a mercenary army of real men who enjoy torturing people for the fun of it.  If you get actionable results, that's just icing on the cake.  In Afghanistan, if you are a pussy, you talk a lot of nuanced buffalo shit about troop draw-downs, precision attacks with drone aircraft, and negotiating with the Taliban.  In Iraq, the pussies want to pull all of our troops out while Al Quaeda over takes the country side.

"A real man's policy is to keep those two countries under a dust cloud from all the American boots and vehicles crisscrossing them.  If someone sort of looks like a terrorist, you shoot them in the face."

"Yeah, but what about thousands of civilian casualties; not to mention the trillions of dollars a multi-decade occupation would cost?" asked The Engineer.

Dick answered, "That is just the sort of thing a grovelling pussy would ask.  You go about this like a real man, or America will be nothing but a bunch of pussies surrendering in the streets to the terrorist."

"Oh come on!" I said.  "You're fucking nuts.  A bunch of peanut-brained, medieval-thinking terrorists cannot conquer the United States of America."

Dick stood and grabbed Lady Justice from the gun rack, and pulled back the hammer that made a click noise.  The Engineer and I were standing at attention, ready to bolt.  Dick pointed the barrel of the rifle at The Engineer, and then me, and back at The Engineer.  "This is a hard choice," he said.  "I've never shot an engineer.  Or, I could have two lawyers to my resume," he said pointing the gun right at the tip of my nose.

In a flash of brilliance, The Engineer pointed behind Dick and screamed, "WHAT IS THAT?"  Dick took the bait, lowered his rifle and looked behind him.  The Engineer and I sprang for the door like a couple of scalded dogs.  I slammed the door hard behind us.  Four long strides later a gun blast demolished the door into splinters.  Dick stood in the wreckage breathing hard, leaning against the door jam and snarling at us as we dashed out of sight down the long dark hallway.

I remember panting up a flight of stairs, flying down one hallway, then making a sharp right, running for our lives down another, until suddenly we emerged into a large auditorium where we were met by the same men in black suits and sunglasses that had brought us there.  They were armed with tazers.

The Engineer and I instantly recognized where we were.  It was the same auditorium where we had interviewed The Prince of Darkness.

From where we came, Dick appeared in his balck unitard, rifle in hand.  Everyone stood staring at each other in a stand off.  "Get the pussies," Dick said to his henchmen.

That was it, as far as I was concerned.  I had had enough abuse for one day, and was seething ferocity.  "I AM NOT A PUSSY!" I yelled and charged the men in suits.  The Engineer and I were tazered from all angles.  We dropped to the floor, flopping about and convulsing.  We were bound and gagged with duck tape, and blindfolded.

I thought to myself, what irony.  Not long ago I had written a fantasy scene on The Lawyer and The Engineer, in our entry on torture, where Dick, wearing not much more than a studded dog collar, walks into a dungeon room where I am bound to a table, and I get tortured by the bastard.  It looked like the nightmare was going to become real.

We could hear the men and Dick discussing our fate.  Dick wanted to torture, and then kill us.  Then he settled on torturing us, and letting us go.  In hushed tones the other men suggested that The Lawyer and The Engineer were too popular, and that it would bring a firestorm of bad publicity if we were visibly harmed.  Though I couldn't see his face, I could feel Dick snarling as he thought out his options.

"Fine, Goddamnit," said Dick.

We were picked up off the floor.  They drove us for what seemed a few miles.  We were thrown back into the C-130.  Eventually, The Engineer and I were unceremoniously dropped on the sidewalk outside our offices, as the car that brought us squealed its tires and disappeared around the corner.