A Pagan's Nightmare Read Online Free PDF Page A

to stave off her curiosity. “Honey, it has a bit of a comic tone, and I know you prefer heart-tugging
     dramas.”
    It was the way she ran her fingernail across my back that convinced me to let her read. Well, that and the nightgown that
     she usually wore only on Tuesdays.
    So I handed her forty pages and jumped into the shower. I was thinking that—if I may mock the ad world here—Thursday was the
     new Tuesday.
    When I emerged from the steam of the bathroom in my red robe, Angie was slapping pages down on the bed in rapid succession.
     She picked up the title page and, without taking her eyes off the paper, said, “Ned, I’m not sure what Larry means by this
     title… and I’m about to start chapter three and have yet to find one redeeming quality. Not one.”
    “Um, I need to floss my teeth.”
    She was finishing that chapter when I came out of the bathroom with a mouthful of mint-flavored Listerine. I sloshed it for
     five more seconds, went back into the bathroom to spit and rinse, then stood in the doorway in my best are-you-ready-for-me
     pose. I even fluffed my chest hair.
    I had been standing there for nearly a full minute when Angie glanced up from the page. “It’s Thursday, Ned.”
    And she began chapter four.

4
    T HE PLAQUE ON HIS OFFICE DOOR READ : “In appreciation for fifteen years of leading us to the big time. The staff at Fence-Straddler AM Radio thanks DJ Ned Neutral
     for helping to bring America together.”
    Sporting his favorite yellow Hawaiian shirt, Ned sat down in his booth and checked the weather monitor. He saw that Hurricane
     Gretchen continued to track toward Tampa and Orlando, though she was still some three hundred miles out in the Gulf. He wondered
     how he would conduct his show without his producer, who had strangely left in the middle of Monday’s broadcast. So had the
     station’s secretary, a former rock ‘n’ roll groupie who wore lots of black. Ned passed their absences off as a summer virus,
     perhaps food poisoning. He’d tried to call them both but could only get answering machines.
    Ten minutes before his show began, Ned made a pot of coffee—the first time he had made the coffee himself in months. He took
     his mug and two packets of Splenda into his broadcast booth and decided he would do his show without a producer. A veteran
     of the airwaves, he could handle this alone.
    DJ Ned was truly neutral, having voted for Reagan, then Dukakis, then Bush Sr., then Clinton for a second term, then Dubya,
     then Kerry. A caller had suggested that Ned change his handle to DJ Ned Flip-Flop, but he had gotten used to Neutral.
    When the clock struck 11:00 a.m., Ned was aghast to see that all five lights on his phone were dim. He sipped his coffee and
     wondered if he was in for a slow day. Then, just as he was tearing open his second packet of Splenda, three of the five lights
     lit at once.
    Ned set his mug on his desk and pressed line 1. “Morning, caller. Welcome to Fence-Straddler AM.”
    “Ned, Bill.”
    “Bill, Ned.”
    “Hi, Ned.”
    “Hello, Bill.”
    “Ned, I’m a factual, to-the-point, meat ‘n potatoes, formal-on-Sundays kind of guy.”
    “You don’t say…”
    “And I have the hurricane solution…. We nuke ‘em.”
    “Nuke the hurricanes?”
    “That’s right. We all know there are nuclear warheads in underground silos all over the country. Rumors abound that seven
     of them are buried behind condos in Ft. Lauderdale, and we all know that God helps those who help themselves.”
    Ned paused. “Haven’t heard either of those rumors, Bill.”
    “Well, back to my point. We nuke ‘em. It’s the only way.”
    “Just shoot a warhead right into the storm….”
    “That’s right. God wants us to maximize the benefit of our technology.”
    “But what if the hurricane eats the warhead, just sucks it down below the eye-wall, and the missile explodes a mile under
     the sea instead of above the surface?”
    A pause on the line. “Hadn’t thought of