BY
Fenno cowered. The Inquisition crowded around him, and he did not want to die.
“Do you think we’re funny? Do we make you laugh?” demanded Kurt Dudas.
“Ummm . . . yes?” Fenno guessed. He hoped he was right.
“Well alright then,” said Maria Meginnes. “You’re free to go.”
“Have a nice day, big man,” said Jonas Blank, clapping Fenno on the shoulder as he walked away.
“Just make sure you give those damn humorless LLMs what they deserve! In my country, we don’t put up with their crap!” Fenno shouted after the Parody crew as they began another sweep across campus. Fenno relaxed in the aftermath of terror. He knew that the scorched bones of the HLS Improv still smoldered on Jarvis Field.
As Fenno walked toward Jarvis Field on his way to the Record office, wind whipped the smoke away from the remains of the Improv. A helicopter jerked through the sky before plummeting thirty feet to shatter the last lonely bones of the Parody’s victims. The door of the helicopter swung open and a cowboy-hat covered head leaned out just in time to vomit.
“Hi Lee!” Fenno grinned. Lee Rudofsky looked up, wiped his face on his sleeve, and smiled.
“Hey Fenno. Nashville kicked ass.” Rudofsky paused to heave some more, then adjusted his hat and dragged himself out of the helicopter.
Fenno reflected on Rudofsky’s arrival and furrowed his brow. “I thought you Federalists had to stay sober while you sacrificed goats and invoked Satan’s aid.”
“Oh hell no, I skipped all those sacrifices, they were kind of dull, and besides, I didn’t was a little nervous around some of those guys with The Passion coming out. I just drank. It was cool. I was going to drive home, but I found this helicopter and it went a lot faster.”
“Oh hell yeah, I drank so much the Constitution came alive!” shouted Kevin Plummer, lurching out of the helicopter and eventually escaping with only minor bruises. “You don’t want to know how many pitchers of margaritas that took.”
“I drank so much I didn’t play Star Wars for three freaking days!” came another voice from inside the helicopter. Fenno recognized the voice; while walking past Hastings he’d heard it utter long strings of expletives. “Now I’m having the freaking DTs! Someone get me a damn computer!
“I was surprised Jon even bothered to show up at the convention after getting his Jedi,” said Jenn Carter, shaking her head.
“I think my liver is still in Nashville,” interjected a pallid but smiling Nels Peterson.
“Fortunately, Federalists, we planned ahead. I have a saline I.V. here for each person who attended the convention. Thanks to Whitey, I also have new SSNs and driver’s licenses for the guys involved in that run-in with the Nashville PD,” said the ever-organized Beth Schonmuller.
Laurence Tribe grabbed Fenno’s shoulder. “Why do you focus on the Federalist Society? The ACS is a very active student group, too. Why just this week I had a great ACS meeting with Heather Gerken, David Barron, and some of my other faculty colleagues. Couldn’t you poke fun at us?”
“I think I just did,” replied Fenno.
Feeling suddenly perplexed, Fenno continued his trek toward the Record office. This week had been very odd. There were high points, like the funniest Fenno-related letter to the Record since the elderly alum wrote praising he-Fenno but suggesting that she-Fenno should stay the hell away from the keyboard.
On the other hand, Delz’s retirement had thrown Fenno’s world into disarray, as had the election of that new teenaged Pope. And he feared that veiled references to obscure subjects might confuse his audience, whom he knew was not the brightest bunch. The smart kids read Fred Pollock’s column and ignored the rest of the paper; those who made it all the way back to Fenno were the slack-jawed buffoons who occasionally raised a malformed arm to volunteer some random bit of idiocy in one of Stuntz’s classes.
Or so Fenno had heard, his attendance in said class being something of a touchy subject.
Passing Bruce Hay, Fenno entered Ames and ran downstairs to the Record office. There was free food to be had, and the office was an inconspicuous place to avoid the education on which Fenno was dropping $50,000 a year.