Our beloved congressman, Chico "El Flamante" Riley, is in process of designing his resignation. Being a man of hopeless optimism, he feels he has to justify the incident that brought about his fall from public grace. It must be worded in such a way that he just might find forgiveness in the heart of the American people and be able to come in out of the cold some day. Chico has forgotten a most important dictum of politics. That is, the public sees politics as show business and the operative phrase there is 'what have you done for me lately?'. The crime is not what he did to the girls at the University, not is it his reputation. It is his flaunting the secret of the country that it is full of puritanical, seven sided, cynical, hypocritical voters who simply and frankly do not want to know things. But, he says, you never know. The American people have a memory about as long as a pissant. Witness the second time they put Reagan in office, or Nixon. Hell, there was World War II!

         The whole affair started not with the Congressman, but with Antonia "La Hormiga" Abeja. She is a nice lady, at least when in ordinary conversation. A bit frenetic perhaps, but outwardly civilized and socially acceptable. The little lady is always doing something, scrambling and unscrambling things, cleaning a conscience, adjusting the outside world to her view of what is orderly and right. One cannot attend to much outside the home without seeing her scurrying about on some self-appointed errand. When the talk takes any different tack one can get a better view of how bent is 'La Hormiga'.
         Antonia is not terribly smart. Bright, yes. Nothing much gets past her. Her eye sees all. But what to do with it or what it might mean is another tale. The poor lady has been wearing an antique six-gun in the waistband of her apron for the past twenty three years. She had heard that the touch of cold iron was death to elves and she believed she hated the little people. We have yet to convince her that, number one, there are no elves. She responds, "See? It works!". Number two, the book where she read this is a JRR Tolken tale, pure fiction, nothing more.
        "That's ok," she says, " lots of folks are pretty fictitious around here. You take the Arnolds, that family that moved into the Armijo place? Now there's a fictitious family if I ever saw one!"
         It is no use trying to teach her the difference between suspicious and fictitious. Would not work. Besides, who knows if she is right? I have never met or seen the Arnolds and that could be taken as a sign of non-existence and therefore fiction. But that is nothing but an attempt to make sense of the senseless. How could the non-existence give a sign of itself if it is not existent? Twisting in the wind!
         Her weapon has been a problem for a lot of years. Let something happen that confuses her or that goes against one or more of her peculiar beliefs and she will whip out the hogleg and empty it into a wall, tree, or, most often, simply into the air. The neighbors have become accustomed to the display and when they hear the first shot they all go inside their homes and count the explosions. At six they resume whatever they were doing. Sheriff John has spoken to her numerous times about trajectory and caliber power, and that what goes up must come down, but to no effect. Antonia and all her cronies are patients of Dr. Menachem Menschbender, town psychiatrist. Dr. Menschbender holds group sessions with these women where he warns them, as he does anyone connected by the U.S. mail, of the immediate danger just being within the confines of the same state as 'that maniacal sub-nazi Smiley Jack 'Manson'! He has become obsessed with the lawman from whom he detects the odor of a full-blown, scientifically certifiable, heavily armed paranoic psychopath. The ladies, led ably by La Hormiga, have Sheriff John in their sights. He tops their enemies list and they pay no attention when he speaks.
         Antonia has taken to reading The Science News. She says she has to keep up with 'the superstitious scientific community. What exactly she means by that is not fully known. When asked she puts her finger by her nose and, looking at you sideways, says, "ahhh, well---" She read in that prestigious rag about a breed of Japanese honeybees that are hunted by a specie of giant hornet. The big buggers swoop into a hive and take up to twenty bees to be paralyzed hosts to their young. The hornets get away with this a few times and then they make a fatal mistake. One of them will smear a pheromone on the outside of the entrance to the hive as a marker for others of its kind. EAT AT JOES, you know. The Japanese bee are able to sense this as the European bee cannot. Rather like our ancestors. The warriors among the bees will gather in a small group by the entrance and sucker another hornet into the hive. As the giant squeezes inside a much larger group of bees will suddenly appear and cover the hornet with their bodies. Bees can take a much higher temperature than their adversaries and the hornet literally dies of heat prostration.
         Being of literal mind when the occasional calls for it, Antonia brooded over this method of handling ones enemies. She had for some months been engaged in a running battle with congressman Riley about a Bill before the House of Representatives pronouncing the sixth day of December 'The Day Of The Fetus'. His aids had repeatedly assured her that no such Bill existed, but she had heard it via Mr. Limbaugh and that was forever that. The talk show commentator himself has written to her saying he did not remember ever saying such a thing but that if he had, it was surely a joke. Poor Antonia believed the letter was a fake and had elevated her fight with Chico to new levels. Her attitude was quite murderous.
         She contacted the other fifteen members of the SPFMOPAECRTPAFI: Society for the Prevention of Folks Meddling in Others Prenatal Affairs Except in the Case of Rape and They Probably Asked For It. As strange a bunch of activists as ever graced a downtown mall, these ladies all had some very peculiar relationships and were thought to have had secret congress with goats. The women gathered on several afternoons for wine and cakes. Though the cakes quickly disappeared, the wine flowed unimpeded. The talk was all of how they were going to 'get' Congressman Riley. He was expected to be at his regional office in Punta de Lanza the following week. Plans were laid to accost him on the street one day and do to him what the bees do to hornets.
         The deed was done late one afternoon when Chico exited his office. As the aid locked up behind them Chico stood looking at the sunset and rush hour traffic. He puffed on a five dollar cigar and viewed with benign interest all the passing voters on their way home to cast off the pressures of the day, shuck the shoes and pop a tallboy in front of the TV. He was thinking how wonderful it was to be the top of the political food chain in this lovely State. He blew a great cloud of odiferous smoke---and the ladies struck.
         There were witnesses who describe the scene as like a children's dog-pile. All fluff and petticoats, hair streaming down maddened female faces like the dregs of Dionysian society, screaming and cursing, sixteen smothering mothers tried to raise the heat of our Congressman to lethal levels. It is too bad they knew so little about Chico and just why he was nick-named 'El Flamante'. All Washington knew of his propensity to grope. Some said he groped in his sleep. Like a twisting genetic ladder with fingers he just had to handle females. The humor circulating the halls of power said that he could make dents in a bronze statue if there were breasts on it. This pulsating pile of femininity acted as catalyst to his hidden needs. By the time his aides managed to extricate him from that tangled estrogen nightmare Chico was drooling, eyes rolling about loose in their sockets, and his pants were all wet down the left leg. When they carried him back into the office his head was bobbing from side to side like an infant trying strike milk.
         The ladies stayed outside the office for a time, screaming invectives that prisoners might blush to utter and milling about creating the illusion of a much larger crowd. The congressman was given a sedative and tied with a sheet to the cot in the back room. Later, when they thought they had him calmed and sleeping, the aids relaxed with a beer. They laughed among them selves and planned a press release about the incident. Their chief was momentarily forgotten. Big mistake! Poor Chico had felt enough of Antonia's underside, and those of several others, to make his brain catch fire. He ripped his restraints with his teeth and slipped out of the backdoor. He aimed for the Computer college where he was sure he could find someone to love.
         There was a concert that night featuring two unsavory, unwholesome, totally filthy and therefore quite popular groups--Cadaver and Pungent stench. In between their big hits, Poop Salad Sandwich and Tom's Cornhole, Congressman Riley, El Flamante Particular, one of the most powerful members of the United States House of Representatives, jumped into the mosh pit and proceeded to break the noses of three freshman girls whose fathers were heavy contributors to his Party and his campaigns. Blood was everywhere on everyone but that was not unusual. Injuries were part of the fun for those crazed youth. It was not until the security for the bands noticed the girls beating Chico with a piece of wooden railing that they waded in to the rescue.
         Chico was carried off, this time to an exclusive and very private hospital outside Missoula, Montana. He is still there sculpting his retirement speech. Antonia is quieter, more courteous, even a bit kind. Folks say they have heard her moan and mumble things like, "So hot! He was like fire!" and "Those fingers! My God! What fingers!" The SPFMOPAECRTPAFI has been disbanded and reborn as a video club. What films are watched is not known but La Hormiga has been seen scurrying from the local adult toy and video shop, Pudknockers, with furtive eyes and a wet smile.