Happy Utopia Day, Joe McCarthy

Chapter 20

The President. He is their captive. The President is not master in his own house.

-Senator Joseph McCarthy

"You called my wife?"

"She called me."

"My wife called you?"

Hubert looks irritated. "Are you married to Karen Thompson from Wolf Trap, Virginia?"

"Uh, yeah."

Hubert hands me a cordless phone through the jail bars.

"Hello?"

I can hear crying.

"Hello?"

"Chris?"

"Karen?"

"Are you really in jail?"

This place doesn't look like a jail, and I hate to admit that I'm in one, but I still can't lie to Karen. "Well, technically. But it's more of a campus holding pen."

There is silence.

"Hello, Karen, are you there?"

Karen speaks softly. "This is the last straw, Chris."

Last straw? Last straw for what? "Come on, Karen. I told you I'm working. This arrest is all a big misunderstanding."

"It's not that, it's the strip clubs, the casinos, the drinking, and the carousing. Officer Salsbury explained the charges to me. They don't sound good."

Hubert smiles a Texas-size grin at me from his desk and nods his head slowly up and down.

I laugh. "Officer Salsbury. That's a good one." I smile at Hubert maliciously. "Officer Salsbury doesn't know what he's talking about. Officer Salsbury is an oversize juvenile delinquent that someone is letting play cop."

"He sounds very pleasant," Karen says. "In fact, he seems mature and quite articulate to me."

I give up. I sigh. "Can you help me get out of here?"

Karen talks distractedly in a singsong voice. "My days of helping are over, I'm afraid."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I saw the evidence, Chris."

"What evidence? There's no evidence. It's a bunch of trumped-up charges if anything."

"I don't care what you've been arrested for. That's icing on the cake for me. I'm talking about your little dance party and girlfriend."

"Girlfriend?"

"Don't play dumb. I saw the video."

"Video?"

"Yes, video! Scotty constantly searches for you on the Internet. He found your dance party and arrest on YouTube."

Oh, shit. "I, I-"

"You looked crazed-fighting police officers! And all those obscene gestures."

"I was trying to activate the PRAD." I say this like it should explain everything.

"And I saw that girl hanging on you and kissing you. I'm not a fool."

"That was only Rachel, she's just a-"

"Is she the Tri-Delt?"

"Um, she is a Tri-Delt. But-"

"I knew it. How could I be so stupid to trust you?"