The Government Loses Again

     Sometimes my dogs start barking outside and I wake up at 4 am.
     "Yikes," I think, my heart racing.  "The FBI is probably here to indict me."
     "It could happen at any moment," my lawyer says.  He's been saying this for two years.
     "They like the element of surprise," he adds, raising his eyebrows.
     Another lawyer chimes in:  "I've even seen them come on Christmas Day."
     "I'd better get my bathrobe on," I mutter in the dark.  "I don't want to be on the news in my pajamas."
     I open the front door, where the dogs are now lying on the mat.  There are no FBI agents, no strobe lights, no cameras, no handcuffs.  At least, not yet.
     I shuffle to the kitchen, and put the kettle on for tea.
     After that, I start another Scrabble game.
     I turn all the letters over, mix them up, and choose tiles.
     Seven for the government, seven for me.
     I make a line down the center of a legal pad, and write "G" for Government on the left, and "O" for Ona on the right.
     I always let the Government go first.  I don't want an unfair advantage.
     I pour tea, warming my nose in the steam.
     "I wonder who's going to win," I say out loud.
     We're honorable in this game, the Government and I.  We make the best words we can, utilizing as many triple-letter squares possible.  There are no giveaway marks on the tiles.  No one cheats.  I play for the two of us, and when I'm concentrating hard on the letters I forget who's who.
     Words trickle onto the board.  Wily, crime, paean.  Agent, freedom, ire.  
     I get all my letters out with stoppage.  Fifty bonus points.
     The government has lots of vowels:  too bad.  Vowels are weak, with the lowest value, one.  Eerie, it constructs, for ten little points. Sorry.
     I get all my letters out again, with quagmire.
     Coup, pretend, piggy.  Zoo, beast, brandish.
     Wow, the Government plays artifice, garnering 50 bonus points.  But it had to resort to blanks for the "C and "F."
     ("Just like getting a blank check," I think.  "The Government  can do whatever it wants.")
     "Come on, be a sport," the Government says.  It can read my mind.
     "I am a sport," I retort.  "And I'm in the lead, you see that?"
     The Government's next rack is feeble:  three I's.  Alibi, an excuse.  I counter with quinte, a position in fencing.  The Government makes charge, and I follow with safe.
     Duel, chi, xi, task, best, jibe, fog.
     Aa, rough cindery lava.  Ai, a three-toed sloth.
     The game ends.  The score is 371 to 325.
     I won again.  
     It's the Government's fourth loss.
     I shake its hand.
     Good try, I say.  Now, go to bed.
     Dawn is here, and I step outside in bare feet.  The sky is white.  A pair of doves is snapping up sunflower seeds that fell from the feeder.  My fifty-nine tomato plants are emerald green and stippled with dew.  I water them with big buckets and check for tomatoes.
     Picking three red ones I go back inside and set them on the sink.  Later, I'll fry them for breakfast.