Stankonia

The year was 1969. I was wearing my pale yellow bell-bottoms and my psychedelic-print button-down with the huge collar; the hems of my pantslegs swayed happily as I walked towards a protest rally. When I got to the rally, the scene was what I had come to expect from these rallies: dozens of young people, male and female, bearded and unbearded (mostly bearded), White and Asian.

We were protesting the unlawful invasion of a lipstick company that did testing on animals that had sexist hiring practices, or so I understood. That's when I saw her: blonde hair flowed down past her waist, rose-colored spectacles covered about two-thirds of her face, and a vibe of peaceful energy emanated from her being as she skipped around the parking lot, playing her acoustic guitar and singing.

"Hey soul-sister," I greeted her, my hands raised in two "peace" signs.

"Hello brother, are you here to do your part to increase the peace?"

"That and pick up hot activist chicks," I thought to myself. It was then that I realized that I hadn't just thought the phrase; I had used double-quote marks instead of single, which traditionally indicates a spoken phrase rather than a thought.

'Crud,' I thought.

She gave me a strange smile, and asked me if I liked Jefferson Airplane.

'Do I ever!' I exclaimed in my mind. She stood there waiting for my response.

"Do I ever!" I said.

"Want to go hang in my van for awhile?" she asked me with a sultry smile. "I've got a four-foot bong in the back. You put the grass in a receptor that doubles as Jerry Garcia's nose. We could listen to the new 'Plane album."

"Groovy," I said.

When we got back to the van, I found that the bong was everything she said it was. In the next twenty minutes, we smoked some of the finest reefer I'd ever inhaled, and soon I knew that it would be appropriate to put up the "If This Van's A-Rockin', Don't Come A-Knockin'" sign that I saw in the front seat. She peeled off her hip-huggers and asked me to go downtown, as a sign that I approved of women's rights.

"Right on, baby," I said.

I crouched down near the back of the van and positioned my face in front of her pelvis. Inhaling, I caught a whiff of one of the most fowl, powerful smells I've ever encountered in my life. I wondered briefly if she was aging meat up there, and had forgotten about it.

"Damn baby, are you aging some meat up there or what?"

"I'm a vegetarian!" she said, offended.

I felt bad, so I decided to give it another try. I held my nose and went for it. She moaned and bucked her hips gently. I threw up in her vaginal cavity and promptly passed out.

When I woke up, I found that I had been bound and gagged, and I was in the center of what appeared to be an old-fashioned hippie-gang beating, and I was the subject of their aggression. I heard them grumbling something about not honoring a woman's precious flower. Just as the beating was about to start, I heard a stern voice call out.

"Stop right there, you damned hippies."

It was Secretary of State Henry Kissinger! He made short work of the hippies, beating each of them within an inch of his or her life. After they were carted away in an unmarked truck, he made me a deal.

"Listen, I know those hippies can be a handful, and that's why I helped you out."

"What can I do to repay you?" I asked him.

"Let's just say you'll owe the president a favor, OK?"

I said OK, and thanked him. I repaid my debt a few years later, and got into some trouble as a result, but it was all worth it. I'm convinced that facing the destiny that awaited me in that van would have been even worse.

- G. Gordon Liddy