Drew’s back with a dark revelation — seems his doing double-agent duty for Japan. How does he figure that? You have to read it to believe it.
By Drew Gallagher
HUMORIST
“The House is going to investigate it now — it’s very strange. He got married on the anniversary of Tiananmen Square. He’s gone to China. He’s taught in China. He’s got deep connections to China.”—Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) on Tim Walz.
I am a sleeper agent for Japan.
I did not know this until I recently read about how vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz is a sleeper agent for China based upon the fact that he visited China and that the date of his wedding coincided with an important anniversary in China’s history. Once I read the convincing evidence that Walz was indeed a spy for China, I had to reassess my own history, and it unfortunately revealed that I have been working for the Land of the Rising Sun for nearly 50 years. (This may prove to be a disqualifier in my quest to become Abigail Spanberger’s Secretary of Levity when she becomes Governor of Virginia, dammit.)
My ties to Japan started in 1976 when I was six-years old. Al Stewart released the song “Year of the Cat” in October of that year and ever since that time I’ve had an incredible fondness for that song. (My wife does not share that fondness and will not allow me to play it when she is riding in the car, so I’m pretty sure she is not an agent for Japan.) When I hear the opening piano chords for “Year of the Cat,” I feel transported to the days of AM radio and that time of innocence before childhood’s end. Now I realize what I was actually feeling was a pull across the Pacific and the early budding of a desire to one day serve up my country’s most prized secrets to their emperor on a plate of sushi. (And yes, the cat is not actually part of the Japanese zodiac but me, at age six, was incapable of making this distinction and the Japanese obviously preyed upon this naivete.)
The next chapter in my love affair with Japan and my disillusionment with the United States of America came in the summer of 1981. My mother accepted an invitation to teach English to children in the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific for two months that summer. She dragged me and my brother along which, in hindsight, may have been an attempt at cultural assimilation but what it ultimately led to was my brother and me beating the living hell out of each other all day long while my mother taught English. Afterall, we were stuck in a trailer by ourselves on an island with no television where it was not uncommon for temperatures and humidity to exceed 100 by 10 in the morning. If the Japanese were watching my progression, I think they would have appreciated the utility I showed in beating my brother half to death with a flip-flop.
During that summer in the Marshall Islands, I met three older Japanese ladies (like my mother, they were there to teach for the summer), and one night they invited me to their apartment to play Mahjong which had its origins in 19th Century China but was also quite popular in Japan. (I figure that at this point, the Chinese were pleased with the development of Walz as a spy and had no use for me or Al Stewart.) I played Mahjong late into the night, before my mother finally had to come get me. It was a glorious evening, and if Japan could offer a life of late-night Mahjong then I was intrigued and would willingly change my name to Benedict Andrew. I soon forgot how to play Mahjong, but the seeds of love had been sown.
My interest in Japan lay dormant for many years (other than the occasional game of Risk), but I learned from Republicans that the date of my wedding, just like Walz’, was instrumental in proving that I was indeed a sleeper agent about to awaken. (In truth, I did take a course on Japan in high school and Mr. Shank was his usual riveting self and I still know a thing or two about Shintoism—great creation story by the way—but I’m fast filling up my word count so we have to fast forward to July 21, 2001.)
I don’t remember the exact reason that we (to be read: my wife) chose July 21, 2001, for our nuptials at Spotsylvania Presbyterian Church (which soon after changed its name in an effort to distance itself from my friend Greg giving the pastor the finger before the exchanging of vows on that day of celebration). I once thought that date might have been picked because of things like availability of venue and catering, but now I realize that that date had another sinister tie to Japan.
After 150,000 people celebrated my wedding in the town of Akashi in western Japan on that date, a minor stampede broke out after the end of the fireworks display and 10 people were killed. It was a tragedy. The date, however, was a touchstone in my grooming much as Walz’ wedding day corresponding to the fifth anniversary of the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square was a touchstone in him becoming a Chinese sleeper agent. “History does not choose us, we choose to make history.”
So, before Senator Johnson from the great state of Wisconsin got around to outing me, as he did with Tiananmen Tim, I want to come clean with my ties to Japan and hope that my readers and the world understand and can one day forgive me. As the great poet Styx once said: “Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto”. (Damn, I think buying that cassette may have been part of my indoctrination.)
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