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Friday's the name, and I'm a cop. Used to be on the
Virtue Squad, arresting red-meat eaters and passive-smoke
producers. Moved over to the Official English Enforcement
Division. Busted some big-name lame-brain bureaucrat for
saying that something fell between the cracks.
The brass got lots of political heat for that one, so I was kind of encouraged to look for other work. Just my good luck that the feds were looking for people then. I interviewed with J. Danforth Herbert George Walker, the head of the outfit. He liked what he saw. Now I wear a badge for the U.S. Flag Enforcement Administration.
First stop the other day was Honest Dick's Used Car Lot.
I am not a crook,
he told me right away. As his
jowls stiffened, he pointed to the flag pin in the lapel of
his blue suit.
That's not the problem,
I said. That 60-foot
flag you're flying out in front -- are you using it
properly?
What (expletive deleted) said I wasn't?
he asked.
He explained. The city passed a sign code. They wouldn't
let me use pennants and blinking lights to call attention
to my place. So I got this big flag. You can't miss
it.
According to the FEA, that's just fine, just as long
as you light it up at night,
I said. Can't imagine
what kind of subversive scum would complain about you
displaying the flag this way.
I apologized for bothering him and went to check out the next complaint, some folks who wouldn't say the Pledge of Allegiance. In fact, they wouldn't even fly the flag.
We believe in obeying the Bible,
their leader
whined. It says
Thou should not make unto thee any
graven image, or of any likeness of anything that is in
heaven above
-- such as stars -- or that is in the earth
beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou
shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve
them.
Even after I arrested those slime, they complained about religious freedom and how their constitutional rights were being infringed.
That stuff makes me sick, but I felt a lot better when I went by a park where there were about 20,000 flags waving everywhere, out of car windows, on front of fire trucks, I mean everywhere. Even babies had little flags, although they sometimes dropped them and the flags got trampled. Sometimes you've got to temper justice with mercy, so I let that slide.
I really liked it when they said that the newspapers and TV ought to quit giving any coverage to the anti-war crowd. And one of them told some great Arab jokes. Can't repeat 'em here, of course, but I'll tell you, it's good to know our flag stands for something these days.
Down the street, though, there was another group, not nearly as big. They had just one flag, which made me suspicious right away. I stopped and listened.
What garbage. He was complaining about censorship, and how oil wasn't worth American blood, and how some people were trying to politicize the flag, and a bunch of other malarkey, but he still thought America was a great country and he was glad he had the right to talk about these things.
I busted him for first-degree felony flag abuse. Only certain people have to right to wave the flag these days, and that puke sure as hell wasn't one of them.
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