Nothing About Us Without Us

Don't talk about them when they're not there.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: In “honor” of what is now considered to be a very dark day in the history of American history, I’m republishing this story of mine that seems to anticipate the events, although it was actually written and originally published several years earlier…

I.

Contrary to popular belief, the word “alien” does not apply exclusively to beings from outer space. The truth is, it originally applied to anyone who was somewhat “foreign” to the normative standards of a nation, be it in dress, speech, language, social customs, behavior, or any of a million other biased and narrowly structured devices designed to separate the people who “mattered” from those who supposedly did “not” matter. And that doesn’t mean just those who assume human form. There’s a whole race of beings, who you know rather pedantically as “cartoon characters”, who have been “entertaining” you for over a century, and they’ve been treated like crap and manipulated by people to make money and careers of their own for nearly that long. That especially applies to the uniquely gifted and talented beings of television animation, the exclusive population and racist target of that rotten Orthicon enterprise. Well, not anymore, pal! After we got back from Orthicon, that interplanetary hellhole we got exiled to by a totally and completely unsympathetic U.S. government, we formed the Cartoon Republican Army to get control of their own rights and affairs. Hey, it worked for the Irish, didn’t it?

Now, you must be wondering how I, a seemingly innocent, twelve-year old looking girl, know about all of this. First of all, I am a voracious reader and possess a photographic memory, which is both a blessing and a curse for me in different ways. And second, and most importantly, I’m one of ‘em! But you probably figured that out already when you dragged me out of the Capitol building after what happened today. And now you want to know the truth, huh? All right- I’ll tell you….

*

After we got back from Orthicon and the CRA got started up, I organized a battalion of the girls in my neighborhood and got commissioned as a Lieutenant, which is my current rank. (No guys, you say? Well, honestly, most of ‘em aren’t nearly as smart as I am. Besides, the one boy bosom buddy I had, the one who came closest to being a real “partner” for me, as it were, had gotten himself killed in a race riot just after we got back, and I have difficulties being around them ever since, including the ones I command, but that’s another story.) You might think that most of the ‘toons are out west, in Hollywood, but that’s not entirely the truth. A lot of ‘em are there ‘cause that’s where the films are at, but there’s just as much action for us out in the East and North, where I’m from, as there are in the South and West like you’d expect. So many out East, in fact, that we were able to form two nearly equal units from the two geographic units, united under the common banner of the Cartoon Republican Army. What we want is simple: control over our social, economic and political destinies, without any further input from the “artists” who supposedly brought us to “life” or the business interests that keep us hamstrung and unable to control our destinies. We want a role and voice in how we do things, the fact that we are merely “fictional” characters BE DAMNED! Hence our slogan and watchword: “Nothing about us without us.”

But you want me to be more specific about what happened today, don’t you? Okay, I can do that. The truth really starts a few hours ago, before all the chaos got started….

II.

I got word through the Internet that the GOP, our chief enemies, were planning to ram a cartoon regulation bill through both houses of Congress, in which, as you know, they now possess a stone-cold majority (of course, if we ‘toons could vote…). Immediately, I helped to spread the word through the electronic grapevine about this, and, in return, promptly got a host of curse-filled, indignant responses and forwarded messages. The gist of it was that the CRA was going to march to Washington from our various geographic centers of origination and surround the Capitol on all sides, in case they decided to make a break for it before or after the vote took place. After we plotted a strategy, I rallied my troops and we were off on the march. War is so much easier to do now with the Internet, Google and MapQuest, don’t you think?

Anyway, my regiment and I were encamped in Chevy Chase, Maryland, just north of here, when I got the message on my video communicator, this thing here on my wrist. It’s kind of like the two-way radios that Dick Tracy used to use to communicate with his colleagues, except that it’s used to transmit picture images rather than sounds, using the same data inscription process that they use for digital television. It’s a device developed in our ‘toon lab (Patent Pending!) that we’re all equipped with in the CRA to ease the communication barriers when we can’t get to a computer console. Since most of us are too young and/or poor to afford more sophisticated electronic gadgetry, it has to do.

We had just made camp on a reasonably sized traffic island in the road when I heard a crackling sound emanate from the communicator. There are two buttons on the side, one to bring up images from outside, the other to transmit images to other receivers. I pressed the reception button, and the screen on my communicator was immediately filled with the image of Colonel Foster, my commander, in all of her red-haired, black-eyed, lantern-jawed glory.

“Third,” I said laconically, ID’ing myself.

“Thank God!” the Colonel exclaimed. “The thing actually works! You in position, Third?”

“Just reached Chevy Chase this morning, ma’am,” I said. “Depending on whether I can get the laggards moving again, we should reach the Capitol whenever we’re needed.”

“You better get the “laggards”, whatever that is, into town as soon as you can,” Foster answered. “Tonitini’s already got his California troops encamped around the Washington Monument, and the motor pool and I are due to get there as soon as we can find our way off the Beltway. I had no idea that it was going to be this goddamn long!”

“Well, it does cover the entire D.C. area, plus stretching out into outlying areas of Virginia and Maryland….”

“Thank you, Ms. Encyclopedia!” the Colonel retorted with an irritated edge only she is capable of producing. “You know, just ‘cause you have that f----g photographic memory doesn’t mean you have to show it off all the time, Third! Between you and General Simpson, I feel like I’m stuck at a MENSA meeting half the time! For Cripes’ sake, I wasn’t nearly a quarter as smart as you are when I was your age! So can you lay off showing me up for a while, please?”

“Sorry, ma’am,” I said. “It just comes out of me, and…”

“…and another thing!” she interrupted. “Will you please knock off that military bullshit? Not to mention that “ma’am” nonsense? In the first place, we are an army in name only. We don’t have basic training, maneuvers, or heavily muscled assholes in green uniforms with yellow chevrons on the side shouting “’ten-hut!” loud enough to be heard in Mexico! We are a free-form military and political alliance among beings of all ages and biological originations, magically gifted or not, whose sole and often only joint place of common ground is the fact that we were given birth to on drawing boards, sketchpads, notebook paper or a computer screen instead of by Caesarian section on an operating table in a hospital! There is nothing remotely militaristic about us: we steal no territory from indigenous peoples, we do not help ethnic minorities resolve differences between them only they truly understand, and we will never exist as an economic Rock of Gibraltar between the U.S. Government and the education and well-being of its most needy citizens (including us!). Anyone with delusions of becoming the next MacArthur gets turfed immediately! Can you get to all of that, Third?”

“I can, ma’am,” I answered. “And I agree with all of what you said. I’ve never had any of those sort of urges or desires in my life….”

“There you go again!” She cut me off once again.

“What do you mean, ma’am?”

She made that universal “oooooohhhh” sound that is a universal sound of an upcoming emotional explosion among us ‘toons, along with the accompanying facial and arm movements that solidify this.

“THAT’S JUST WHAT I MEAN!” she exploded. “That “MA’AM” garbage!”

“But,” I said, trying to evade her wrath, “it’s supposed to be a sign of respect!”

“Respect? Yeah- for OLD PEOPLE!” she snapped. “I’m only twenty years old, Third! TWENTY! You think I like being called “ma’am” all the time, you little brat? Half the goddamn grunts in this outfit are younger than me, not to mention the NCOs like you! I don’t need to be called “ma’am” to be reminded about how F-----G OLD I AM, but you just keep RUBBING IT IN with that condescending language of yours!”

“Well, what should I call you then, Colonel?” I responded.

“Colonel’s fine,” she said, seemingly sobering up, but, as it turned out, not entirely. “Or maybe ‘Frankie’. That is my name! Or even ‘Frances’! God, I hate that version of my name, but it sounds a helluva lot better than “ma’am”! Or maybe you could find some way of combining the two….”

The Colonel was on the verge of collapsing into hysterics, so I figured it was best to sign off at that point.

“We’ll be at the Capitol ASAP, Colonel!” I said to sign off. “And don’t worry. You’ll find a way off the Beltway soon.”

“You do that,” she said. “And thanks. Foster out.”

*

Once we signed off, I headed towards the southern tip of the island, where my unit had stashed themselves for the purposes of relaxing while I reported in. Just as I made my way towards the unit, Corporal Daring, my self-appointed adjutant, shook her mane of red hair, not to mention the rest of her, as she began commanding attention by waving her toy bayonet in the air as I made my approach.

“On your feet, you mugs!” Daring snapped as I made myself visible behind her, working herself into a frenzy with delusions of power. “The Lieutenant’s coming back, and she’s not gonna want you standing around here like a bunch of idiots….”

But the only “idiot” around there in the bunch was her. Evidently, Colonel Foster’s reprimand to me had never been filtered down to the “grunts”, many of which still act as if this is a real “army” and not simply the para-military organization which me and most of the higher-ups want it to be. For that reason, I harrumphed violently at Daring as soon as I got into position behind her. That cut her off in time to halt her delusions as well as making her shut up, which was my intention.

“Daring!” I snapped at her. “What did I tell you about being militant? You want the forces to rebel against us?”

“Come on, Lieutenant!” she pleaded. “How can I instill respect in the troops if you keep undercutting me like this….”

“Respect?” I shot back. “For what? The fact that you constantly make mountains out of molehills? It’s exactly those kinds of blind dictator tactics that got America into so much trouble in the first place, and I won’t have it here!”

“I hate to disagree with you, Lieutenant,” she growled disrespectfully at me, “but wars are not parlor games fought to please some sort of primal urges you might have! I don’t suppose you’re familiar with “The Art Of War”, or you’d understand why we need discipline….”

I grabbed both of her wrists with my hands and squeezed them tightly as I prepared to give her what I hoped would be a firm talking-to. It was exactly that, and more.

“Let’s get one thing perfectly clear, sister!” I snapped. “This is not a military organization and it never will be! Everyone here is here for their own reasons and under their own individual jurisdiction! The fact that we happen to have common goals today does not mean that you have the right to consider yourself better than anyone else here! The whole reason the CRA got started is so that the general public will have a better sense of who we are as individuals, not as a collective bunch of trigger-happy lunatics like you! So if I ever catch you throwing your weight around with anybody ever again, I will take that bayonet of yours and stick it up your….”

“Fine!” Daring snapped. “Your point has been made, Lieutenant! Now, can we get on with doing this so I don’t have to look at your ugly, chalky white face ever again?”

I slapped her hard across the face for that one.

“One more crack like that, Daring,“ I said, barely keeping myself under control, “and you’ll be the first member of the CRA to be dishonorably discharged. That’ll look good on your college application record, won’t it? Now, get your skinny ass to the back of the line and don’t let me hear anything else out of you for the rest of the march!”

“You can’t stop me from talking,” she protested. “I…”

“BACK OF THE LINE!” I ordered, pointing severely. She got the message and skulked off.

“If there are no more complaints,” I said to the rest of the gang, “I’ll review our plan of operations for the day, for the benefit of those who seemed to have forgotten it!”

So I reminded them that we were to march south from our current position until we reached Constitution Avenue, on the north side of the Capitol complex. At that point, we would rendezvous with our colleagues from the south in the motor pool, headed by Colonel Foster, who would be massing around the south side of the complex from Independence Avenue. We would then be joined by our colleagues from the western division, already encamped within the grounds of the Washington Monument, as I said before. Then the Black-And-Whiters, a theatrical ‘toon fighting force from the 1930s, would advance in their novelty talking cars up East Capitol Avenue towards the complex. Having finished my review, I formally ended our rest period, and our march resumed further south into the D.C. area.

As I marched at the front of the group, I was joined by my actual adjutants, Master Sergeant Manson and Technical Sergeant Fenton, who have been my chief confidants ever since I joined the CRA.

“Good grief, Third!” said Manson. “You really blasted Daring there!”

“Somebody’s got to remind them who’s in charge,” I answered. “We’re all so independent minded here that we need to remember we’re parts of a chain of command. Colonel Foster just did that with me, and so I just had to do that with Daring.”

“Hard to believe the two of you are the same age,” said Fenton. “There’s potential for a thesis topic in there…”

“Don’t remind me!” I said. “And stay focused, Fenton! The thesis comes after this- if we get out of it alive!”

She stared ruefully at me, but kept silent.

III.

After we got out of the Chase and into Washington, things got a little bit smoother, and it wasn’t long before we had reached Constitution and were within spitting distance of the Capitol. But we still had to wait. Colonel Foster and the motor pool had not yet arrived, as I could hear no activity occurring on the Independence side of the complex. It was at this point that I took leave of my troops and went down there to await the eventual arrival of my commander.

This was around the time that the Senators and Representatives began arriving for the vote, and they were all gradually filing in as I and the others began assuming our positions around the Capitol. Fortunately, they took no notice of us. Most of the ‘toons who had chosen to participate in this action were the ones who take human form entirely or exclusively for the duration of their existence, only choosing to reveal our true identity in private exchanges with other ‘toons or as an effective way of threatening our enemies if this is required. There are, however, others, like the Black and Whiters, who are more open in their display of their pride at being ‘toons, but thankfully they had not yet arrived, either. Consequently, the elected officials, as they walked inside with their overcoats, hats, briefcases etc. took very little notice of us, if they saw us at all. We are an army with no uniforms, in keeping with our protocol; consequently, we all dress in normal civilian attire when we’re out and about, like the black dress I’m wearing right now, with our “ranks” only being addressed in a perfunctory, mental sense. And we’re perfectly able of establishing a system of development like that on a purely mental level. They might just have seen us as a bunch of kids playing hooky, and that was fine with us. But just ‘cause we look like kids doesn’t mean we are kids; remember that!

As I arrived at Independence, my opposite number from California, Lieutenant Tonitini, was already there. We nodded acknowledgement and stood opposite each other at the bus stop on that corner.

“So,” he said by way of conversation as he scratched his blond hair, “you been in long?”

“No,” I said. “Just got here. Had some trouble with one of my more eager beavers. That held us up a little bit.”

“You know her?”

“Not too well. But then, all the girls on Orthicon wanted to be Queen Bee. That isn’t a conductive environment for building strong friendships. Anyway, she still bugs me even after that. Anyone in your group give you trouble?”

“Hardly. My trouble is that I know everybody too well in that bunch. Most of them are my buddies from way back.”

“But surely there’d be some strange birds in there,” I said. “You’re from California, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” he answered, “but we’re from the North. The weirdos and freaks are all in the L.A. area- South- and they got their own divisions and whatnot, like the Black and Whites- who have also not honored us with their presence yet. I just hope nothing’s happened to them, ‘cause we can’t possibly do this without them. They’ve got the sheet music for us, and…”

“Hang on!” I cut in. “We’re singing? Nobody told me….”

“Foster didn’t tell you?”

“She probably would now- if she were here!”

“Well, all the ones of us who apparently have decent singing voices are going to making the big disruption in the visitors gallery like we all agreed to beforehand. The ones who are shy or tone deaf are the ones by default who’ll hide behind the curtains and the empty desks and stuff. But I know what you mean. I can’t sing worth a note, so I’ll probably just be on the floor along with my pals.”

“Me, too,” I said. “Not one of my strong suits.”

“I never would have guessed that,” he said, smiling flirtatiously at me. I gave him a coquettish grin back in return.

We would likely have continued in this line of inquiry were it not for the abrupt, loud and belated arrival of the motor pool exactly in front of us. Just as abruptly, Colonel Foster got out of the lead car and clicked her heels at us for our attention (not literally, but you get the idea.)

“Everyone here yet?” she growled.

“Not yet,” I said. Tonitini nodded in agreement with me.

“DAMN IT!” Foster swore. “That’s what I hate about being a ‘toon. Most of us can’t stay on a damn schedule long enough to get something done PROPERLY!”

“Speaking of which,” I interjected, “what happened to you?”

“All you need to know about that,” she said sharply, “is that we were stopped and forcibly detained for a couple of hours while we were still on the Beltway! In a perfect world, they wouldn’t hire bigoted ASSHOLES like that as cops!”

“They give you a strip search?” Tonitini cracked.

“THAT’S NOT FUNNY!” snapped the Colonel.

Before she could reach over and slug him, I put myself between them to create a semblance of peace.

“Both of our commands are here,” I informed her. “It’s just the Black and Whites who are late.”

“They would be late,” said the Colonel. “Well, no use just standing around here. You guys just go back to your units and let ‘em know that it’s time to start getting ready.” She then went back to the forces contained in the cars in which she travelled and which accompanied it. “Come on, you bums! Get out of there and start getting the lead out!” The car doors opened and a variety of young human and animal creatures spewed out of them, removing in a frightened whirligig everything out of the trunks and boots of the cars as they did.

We were soon joined, as we had hoped, by the Black and Whites, who crashed all of their talking automobiles together in a pile as soon as East Capitol Avenue came to an abrupt end at the Capitol’s east side. There was a lot of smoke and a lot of cursing (don’t worry; I can handle that stuff!) as Foster, Tonitini and I made our way to see if anything had gone wrong. Fortunately, it had not- everyone had straightened things out miraculously well by the time we arrived from the southern end. We ‘toons do have some pretty miraculous powers of recovery, after all!

The leader of the unit, Lieutenant Foxy, was there to greet us when he arrived, in the company of his adjutant, Sailor Man. Foxy was, naturally, a fox, though with his pointed ears, gloves and short pants, he bore more than a passing resemblance to Mickey Mouse. And I’d get in big trouble if you knew who Sailor Man actually was. Anyway, the two of them strode up casually to Colonel Foster, in the process of grinding down her teeth, as if nothing at all was at stake by their being late. Which, of course, there was.

“Where the heck have you been?” Colonel Foster snapped at Foxy once they arrived. “We’ve been waiting for you!”

“We were previously engaged!” said Foxy, whose vintage 1930s style speaking voice crackled with equally vintage audio fidelity via Western Electric and RCA. “It was trad, dad!”

Sailor Man concurred with this, or at least he seemed to from what I caught of his mumbled words, which included some choice comments about the Republican Party, money lost in business deals, and television, accompanied by a guttural “ugg ugg ugg ugg ugg!” laugh.

“Don’t knock television around here, man!” Foster snapped at Sailor Man. “It’s been good to all of us- including you! It was the human beings that ran the business end that screwed us- and that’s why we’re doing this, remember?”

Sailor Man nodded, mumbled something about how he really hated that they wouldn’t let him smoke in public anymore, and then promptly tooted on his pipe with foghorn like clarity to get the remainder of the Black and Whites into their positions. The two leaders then joined us as we walked in to the Capitol building, where Tonitini and I would signal to our troops to join us inside of the building. The entrance was somewhat marred by Foxy, seemingly attracted by the fact that I displayed a slightly more vivid shade of the colors he was, made a pass at me.

“Smile, darn ya,” he said as he placed his paw lasciviously around my waist. “Smile!”

I did no such thing. Instead, I told him point blank what he could do with his smile, and threw him violently on the ground with a well-timed and bluntly forceful judo throw.

IV.

Most of the rest of the story you’re probably aware of because of the way the papers and the media (over)exposed it in the brief period that occurred between the stand-off and the time most of us were arrested, so I’ll just concentrate on giving you a more personalized bird’s eye view of what happened after that.

Once the majority of us had been stationed in the visitor’s gallery above the chamber, and the less musically inclined took up our more clandestined positions on the floor, we signaled thumbs up to each other that we were prepared to proceed. Consequently, we waited in the shadows until it was time to go into our thing, as the Senators and Representatives took their seats in the chamber. Finally, when the Speaker and Vice President sat down at the marble dais and the latter called the session to order, all of us prepared to begin our vigil as well.

After some preliminary materials not related to us, the Speaker announced the true reason why this emergency session had been called in: the anti-cartoon bill. In her typical semi-articulate fashion, she intoned that it was agreed among most of them that the cartoon characters were a “menace” who needed to be disposed of as quickly as possible, which pleased the Republican members to no end. Fortunately, there were some Democrats there who still believed in us, and that party’s house leader was quick to object to the biased and obliquely racist nature and content of the bill. Everyone listened to him politely while he spoke quite eloquently for a couple of minutes about the value of animated characters and the unique position America was in to have so many of these gifted people living among their borders, before the Speaker rudely cut him off before he could finish. She was a Republican, after all.

This was the cue for our disruption to begin. As soon as a Republican took the floor to comment on the bill, they were roundly jeered from the visitors’ gallery in what can frankly be described as a rabble rousing approach. There were hoots, shouts, cries of “Whoopee!”, cannons and other weapons going off, and the persistent thump thump thump thump thump of stamping feet, in the old style of an impatient audience demanding that the show begin immediately. There were also pitched insults hurled at the VP, Speaker and individual Republican members to make sure they would notice, plus oddly arranged choruses of everything from “We Shall Overcome” to “Have You Got Any Castles, Baby?”

Needless to say, this did not escape the ears of the supposed “leaders” there- I know because I had stationed myself near the dais, a privilege of my rank. So I could hear everything they said in response to it. Just as the visitors’ gallery fired off a cannon of confetti and began singing a lusty chorus of “Swing For Sale”, the Speaker called a temporarily halt to the proceedings and conferred privately with the VP.

“What the f---k is going on?” he whispered to him. “When the hell did they start letting lunatics attend the session? And where the hell is that drunkard sergeant-at-arms when we need him?”

“I’m not sure,” the VP said as he looked across the hall at the visitors’ gallery, “but I think they’re all ‘toons up there!”

“What?” exclaimed the Speaker. “That’s all we need! Well, I’m making sure that they get lost quick!”

“Good luck with that!” said the VP, without confidence.

The Speaker got up from his chair, walked across the hall to the visitors gallery, and, with a mean but diplomatic expression on her face, addressed my colleagues assembled there.

“I am sorry, ladies and gentlemen,” he said with only thinly veiled contempt, “but you will have to leave the room immediately. You are clearly in contempt of Congress and will be arrested forthwith if you persist in your asinine disruptions of our activities!”

“Oh, WILL WE?” Colonel Foster snarled as she leapt out from behind a marble pillar holding the biggest machine gun I had ever seen in her hands. She whistled loudly, and all of us CRA members who had been hiding in the shadows emerged with our own weapons cocked. To say that the assembled members of the legislative branch of the U.S. government were shocked to see that a ‘toon para-military group had bearded them in their own den was putting it mildly, especially since many of the CRA members were personally putting beads on them with their guns, bayonets, knives, bombs etc.

“What the f----k is the meaning of this?” demanded the Speaker. “I….”

“SHUT UP!!!!” Colonel Foster snapped at the Speaker as she aimed her gun right at his heart. “You and your buddies have been talking about us without inviting us to the party for too damn long! Now you and your windbag friends are going to SHUT THE HELL UP long enough for us to tell you all about the ways and means of how you suck!

“I don’t suspect any of you in this room who isn’t a ‘toon would know about being truly neglected. And I don’t mean your wife or husband leaving you or your kids disowning you or anything like that. I’m talking about how we ‘toons, all of us, were created by people like you for the sole purpose of entertaining your kind, without as much as a single thought towards how we felt about it! NOT ONE! You just let us loose every once in a while to satisfy your goddamn whims, and then left our movies and TV shows ROT AWAY in dank, dark film archives and let us decompose and DIE! And never ONCE did you consider that the creatures on those films had REAL LIVES, lives that were indeterminately and cruelly put on hold whenever you felt the damn programs had run their course and you thought you could make some new MONEY on some new concepts. That’s all the f----k you human ASSHOLES think about, isn’t it, your f-----g money piles and how to increase the size of them! ISN’T THAT RIGHT?

“Well, get this straight, and get it RIGHT NOW! This is THE BREAKING POINT for us! Sure, you thought you got rid of all of us when you sent the TV ‘toons off to that crazy paradise called Orthicon, didn’t you? Well, no sir and ma’am, you did not! I’m a TV ‘toon myself, but when the roll call came up yonder for Orthicon, I managed to stave you and those greedy bloodsucking parasites in the U.S. military, FBI and CIA off by barricading myself inside my house with my real friends! Sure, we got arrested and detained eventually, but we stayed on Earth! We saw how you had rammed your pork barrel legislation through this farce of a legislature to satisfy your slatternly hick constituents, who wouldn’t know any more of us than about the inside of their own asses! We saw you not only allowing but supporting the enforced torturing, raping and burning of any ‘toon brave enough to show his face in a human neighborhood! And, worse of all, we saw our noble TV ‘toons brutally turned against each other in that interplanetary concentration camp called Orthicon!

“Not only that, you won’t even begin to acknowledge the fact that our civil rights are just as good as any of yours. You won’t let us vote, you barely let us hold property, and you drive us away from our homes at the best convenience for you alone! And this is supposed to be America! Why the hell does it take you idiots so long to recognize that there are people as good and as noble and as intelligent as you are living under your very noses?

“We’ve gotten your points plenty well, and now it’s time you get ours! From now on, you’re going to have to learn a new way of thinking about doing business with our kind! And that is: NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US!”

I and the other ‘toons repeated this motto loudly with a thump on our chests with our weaponless hands (or whatevers).

I don’t mind telling you that I have never been prouder to be a ‘toon, closeted or otherwise, than at that moment. They were going to have to deal with us. Accept us. Treat us the way we wanted to be treated, not the way they preferred to see us and create us. It looked good for us from now on. Or so I thought.

Unfortunately, we were never able to complete our final phase of the operation, which was to escort the Republican members of the chamber out at the point of our weapons while the Democrats defeated the bill and forever ended any dispute regarding our status as citizens of the land.

That was because he showed up.

I don’t need to tell you about him; you all know about him and what he looks like. But suffice it to say, he entered the room unannounced just after Colonel Foster finished her monologue, and only us on the floor noticed him at first. His bald head shone under the lights, and that ever prominent layer of fat jiggled around his middle. It was noticeable, as was common with him, that he was extremely drunk, and also noticeable that he was carrying an industrial sized red can of TNT with a big white fuse under his arm. Where he had gotten it was irrelevant; the truth of the matter was that he was going to light it immediately, even though he was in absolutely no condition to use it.

“Al’ right!” he slurred. “I don’ care which of you is Dem’crat or Rep’blican. I’m gonna kill ALL OF YOU!”

“You IDIOT!” Colonel Foster shouted down from the visitors’ gallery. “Cut that out! You’re gonna destroy the ‘toons along with the humans! Didn’t you get the memo we sent you? We don’t NEED you here!”

“SHU’ UP, BITCH!” he shouted back. “You don’ OWN me!”

And, after fumbling for a moment, he lit the fuse on the TNT can and threw it in the air!

Now, I’m a fairly accurate observer of things, and it was quite clear to me that that thing he had under his arm not only had the ability to kill all the humans in the room but also burn all the ‘toons to death! That’s how we die- fire! Some of you humans know that, but thank God a lot of you still don’t. Otherwise we’d all be burned at the stake. But, in any event, I knew we were all in big trouble once that can exploded. So I called out at the top of my voice:

“RUN!”

Everyone took my advice. Including me.

Because I’m somewhat fleet of foot and agile enough to dodge obstacles, talents I developed back in my school days, I was able to be out of the building in just a couple of minutes. I had just managed to make it to the first available green space on East Capitol Avenue when the explosion occurred. And what an explosion! I don’t think I’d ever seen the Capitol dome lit up like that since the last Fourth of July!

At first, I wanted to run away before you guys got here and arrested us. But I then I gave myself a mental slap in the face. I had to go back and see what had become of my friends- I couldn’t just abandon them! We have a strong sense of loyalty to each other, in case you hadn’t noticed by now. So I went back.

I was too late to do anything constructive. The paddy wagons had been alerted to the scene and were already there, escorting the ‘toons who had survived the explosion out. Most of ‘em were okay, including all my human friends. I hid in the bushes and watched them being led away, not wanting to get busted myself. Eventually, Colonel Foster and my fellow officers were led away as well, with the Colonel’s face displaying a mixture of fury and anguish.

“INK!” she was bellowing at the arresting officers. “You BASTARDS! There’s INK on the stairwell!”

I gasped. Ink is the ‘toon equivalent of blood, so I imagined something nasty must happened between the cops and our forces. Hopefully not too much ink had been spilled.

Then I heard the voice.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

It sounded questioning- and young- but I knew immediately it was the big boss herself, General Simpson. Having been unable to connect with anyone else during the chaos, she’d somehow gotten on the frequency of my watch. So I signed on.

“Lieutenant Third here,” I said as her pointed yellow head came into view via the Skype function on her computer.

“Third?” she said.

“Uh-huh,” I answered.

“What the hell’s going on out there?” she exclaimed. “It was going swell until a couple of minutes ago, then everybody’s line started flaming out. Did you get things done, or not?”

“Yes….and no,” I said evasively.

“Stop being evasive, Third!” she ordered me severely, as if that’s the term for when an eight year old girl calls a twelve year old one’s bluff. “Tell me what happened!” It was not a polite request, it was a demand, so I complied.

“We got set up all right,” I told her. “Everything was in position and we were all able to do as Colonel Foster instructed. We even got to the point where we were able to hold the members of Congress at gunpoint. And then….”

“What?” she asked as I hesitated. “Tell me! Trust me, we’ve both heard and seen worse, haven’t we?” She was sure right on that one.

“Well,” I said, “your father showed up and he….blew up the chamber with a charge of TNT. In the confusion, a lot of us got arrested and some of us got hurt pretty bad, it looks like.”

“Was he drunk?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

She swore violently up and down in a way eight year old girls are not supposed to, but she’s about normal for an eight year old the way I am for a twelve year old. “That stupid IDIOT! He can be so insensitive at moments like this! Well, hopefully this will advance us more than it sets us back. We can only hope, can’t we? Anyway, don’t worry about my Dad. I’ll deal with him personally when he gets back. Simpson out.”

I signed off also. And it was at that point that I noticed the police officers came out and arrested me along with the others.

*

Well, I’ve told you all I know. Am I allowed to make my one phone call now?

For non-fiction about animated cartoon characters, see my companion newsletter FOCUS!: