I was in my van, driving my youngest son and his friend, a neighbor boy, home from school as I so often do. Traffic jammed up and I was sitting there tapping my fingers on the steering wheel to the song on the radio. Then I noticed people in BDU striding down either side of the line of cars.
One on my side with a clipboard tapped on my window. He said, “Leave the keys in the ignition and step out of the vehicle.”
The one on the other side got the kids out.
“Over there.” He pointed to a group of equally puzzled motorists. I walked over and saw that the kids were being kept in a separate group. Soldiers milled around.
One of them got into my van and off it drove, along with the other cars, toward a parking lot where vehicles were being searched so thoroughly that everything in them was being pulled out and examined minutely.
I’m about to get torqued when my group is ushered into a tent. “Line up,” we’re told, and one by one we’re taken behind a screen.
Once there, I’m told to lose my clothes down to my underwear and hop onto an exam table. I’m scared now, wondering if there’s been some biochemical attack. I ask but none of the soldiers respond to any questions. Once on the table a guy with a clipboard and white coat comes over and asks various questions such as my name, address, and phone number.
He then says, “Pull ’em down and lift ’em up.”
He means pull down my underwear and lift up my balls. He has rubber gloves on. “What the hell?” I ask.
A soldier shows himself at the edge of the screen, and he’s holding a gun.
I comply and the rubber gloved fingers probe. He then mutters, “No weapons there.”
Now I’m confused and try to ask what he means and he looks up and smirks. “We know all about you, Mr. Stewart. We’ve seen your writings. You oppose this Administration. That makes you an enemy of the state.”
They kept us all day, no one telling anyone a thing. Toward nightfall I was getting weak and shaky and tried to tell them I am diabetic and a heart patient. All I got in reply was a mean chuckle.
On this I awoke.
Some work chased the remnants of the dream, if not the anxiety.
And then, just before lunch, my doorbell rang. It was a short guy with a buzz cut wearing an odd uniform of some kind. At first glance I took him to be The Orkin Man or something, maybe at the wrong house. I should have known better and, glancing at his truck, a small white pickup, I read on its side BELLEVUE CODE ENFORCEMENT.
Seems our camper, parked in the lower driveway, had expired tags. He “noticed” this and wrote me up, giving me seven days to put it either into compliance with new tags or in a garage or proper storage facility or it was subject to being towed.
This is on my property, not on the street. It is not an abandoned vehicle.
So I asked, “How do I let you know, once we’ve gotten new tags?”
“Oh, I’ll be driving by to check, don’t worry.”
I felt a chill. He just loved saying this, putting me on notice that we’re being watched.
The Nazi spirit is haunting us these days.
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