Cassidy, boyo, the drink’s finally gotten yeh.
The Irish doorman of the Grassy Knoll Pub had no other explanation for what had to be the hallucination of four men in Hawaiian shirts colorfully decorated with the heads of Shiba Inu dogs wearing sunglasses. They’d emerged from a very official looking black Suburban which said “Department of Government Efficiency” in gold lettering.
And one of the hallucinations was now talking to Cassidy.
“Do you have a landline phone, sir?” it said.
“Whussat?”
“Do you have a landline phone? One with a base that attaches to a wall by a cord? We can’t get cell phone service at all around here.”
Cassidy blinked. “You’re a real person,” he said.
“Are you for real, man? Look, do you have a landline phone or not? My colleagues and I are all late for our field analysis testing and we need to tell our boss we’re on our way.”
Our very old, perpetually soused Irishman had an evil idea. One truly awful, horrible idea even by his degenerate standards.
“Absolutely I have a landline and I’d be happy to let yeh use it, lad. Come with me over here to my place of business and we’ll get yeh sorted.”
With a magnanimous wave of his had, Cassidy beckoned the four men into the Grassy Knoll Pub.
“Does this place have Wifi?” one agent asked as Cassidy turned on the lights.
“Sure, and good Wifi at that. The boss—I mean I’m generally picky about this stuff when fantasy football season comes ‘round.”
“Cool. Where’s the phone?”
“Do you have public restrooms?” another agent asked. Cassidy pointed to the men’s room.
This left two men at the bar looking nervous. Cassidy decided to try and defuse the tension.
“Drinks, gents?”
“Sure” one said. “I’ll have a kombucha? And my colleague, Agent Bolis, will have a ginger beer?”
“Agent..Bolis? And what’s yer name lad?”
“I’m Agent Svet He. Dennis Svet He, and that’s Agent Jeffrey Bolis.”
“Agents Svet He and Bolis?” Cassidy chuckled. “I suppose yer pals are Agents Ligma and Johnson, eh?”
“You know Bobby and Stan?” Agent Bolis asked. This caused Cassidy to spit amber ale.
“Get the fuck out of here. That’s actually yer names?”
“No,” said the man identified as Jonathan Ligma. “They’re callsigns because our boss has a twelve-year-old’s sense of humor.”
“You mean [REDACTED]?” Cassidy was surprised at the words being forcibly muted from his lips. The DOGE agents smiled.
“Yeah, no one can say his name ever since that stupid Politico article about our agency. Now Bossman’s got a next-gen audio and print censor meme drone on his name. You can only think his name now. Try to say [REDACTED] or print [REDACTED] and you’ll fail. He says he’ll fix the thought issue by Quarter 3 of this year.”
“Well. We have no kombucha gents, and the ginger beer only comes in a proper Moscow Mule, but ol’ Cass has a proper libation for each of yeh.” With a wicked grin the Irishman poured five cocktails the color of Hawaiian Punch. He set one in front of each DOGE agent and invited them to taste his concoction.”
“Our hostess made this. She calls it a “Ruby Slipper” on account of her being a big “Wizard of Oz” fan. Try it!”
“Tastes like Kool aid,” Agent Johnson remarked.
“Is there any alcohol in this?” asked Agent Ligma.
“Not much,” lied Cassidy.
Several hours and several Ruby Slippers per man later, the Grassy Knoll pub’s jukebox blared truly awful punk songs as the men threw darts.
“I can’t believe he put Big Balls in charge of the grant payment systems.”
“Balls is good with money. It’s what the Boss signed him for.”
“Balls is a cunt and so is Big Boss.”
“Gentlemen!” Cassidy proffered a tray of shots to the four DOGE agents. “With compliments of the house, I present to yeh Stan Cocke’s private reserve White Lightning moonshine!”
The men all downed their shots. Gagging and coughing, they to a man proclaimed it tasted like gasoline and battery acid had a baby.
“What we need is some of that stuff the boss smokes when he does podcasts,” slurred Agent Svet He.
“Ye looking for this, gentlemen?” With a wicked grin, Cassidy produced a baggie of the devil’s lettuce and a pack of cheap cigars.
Jesse Custer, the Grassy Knoll Pub’s proprietor, arrived at his establishment to work on quarterly taxes around seven AM the next morning.
He was surprised to find the Knoll’s front door opened with a simple twist of the knob as the Knoll was supposed to have been closed the day before by his drunk Irish doorman, Cassidy.
Jesse’s surprise was compounded when the smell of a Reggae festival wafted through the door and four men who looked like death warmed over spilled out, coughing, hacking and vomiting. He thought to see if the men needed any help, but they practically fell into a black suburban parked in front of his pub before speeding away.
As Jesse Custer peered into the dark interior of the Knoll, he spied Cassidy lounging in a folding lawn chair. The very old, very drunk Irishman stumbled towards his friend and employer as he fished a cigarette from his shirt pocket.
“Cass, what the hell happened here last night?” Custer asked. “What the hell did you do?”
The Irishman took a drag from his cigarette, exhaled then smiled.
“Me fookin’ patriotic duty as an American.”
