It's Just Nazi Same Place

(Eric Shansby)

"In the first few years after we opened, there were eerie sounds. Things were spontaneously falling off the shelves. I hung a pink neon triangle in the back of the shop, and one day it fell off the wall for no reason and shattered into 40 pieces. So this reiki master came in, and she purified the place using burning sage. Then all the stuff stopped."

This isn't helping my cause. "Echoes of the past" can't be so weak a cliche that it can be negated by some mystic lady with a burning herb. Newspapers don't even recognize the supernatural. It's not part of our Mission.

I am about to give up hope when I decide to visit the Java Shack again. Bingo! In the corner sits a bearded man in a long coat, muttering to himself, hunched over a laptop that the store makes available for its clientele at a buck an hour. He is literally pounding the keys, stopping every once in a while to glance furtively around. He looks like a 1920s anarchist. The guy comes in from time to time, Dale says, and types so intensely that he once actually broke the keyboard. No one knows what kind of stuff he is sending out onto the Internet.

I tap him on the shoulder, and he whips around like he's been assaulted.

Can we talk a sec?

"No!" he snarls. "I'm busy, doing important work."

What I do next is not taught in J-school. It is rude and sneaky. But I have to know what demonic plans he is hatching, helpless in the thrall of whatever foul auras linger. I stealthily creep up behind him and peep over his shoulder. This is what he is typing into an Internet discussion group:

"In my opinion, Edwards, Paul, Obama, Huckabee and Kucinich are the best choices for real change."

Sigh.

Gene Weingarten can be reached at weingarten@washpost.com.

Chat with him online Tuesdays at noon.