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BLACK
HELICOPTERS EPISODE 20 FRIDAY the SEVENTH – 10:21 AM The
good elves had swarmed all over Masty Hall twixt
and tween midnight and sunrise; working overtime nailing
red, white and blue bunting, warming up and oiling down speakers and video
cables, sweeping the aisles but... for all their labors… the hall was less
than a quarter full when Henri Ratzelkreuz mounted
the podium. |
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Writing the sporadic heckling off as
consequential to the previous evening's merrymaking... keeping things positive,
as always... Ratso straightened the cream-coloured handkerchief in his breast pocket, tapped the
microphone (working... fine!) and clapped his hands for attention. At the
instant that he did, the canned Dixieland music shut off, leaving him alone,
celebrity of his moment – stranded, like a folksinger in a bar full of
pre-pandemic drunks.
"Isn't this great?" he
exclaimed. "Aren't we
all great! Isn't this just what we've been waiting for?"
He stepped back, throwing up his hands
as if he'd just given away the fifty thousand dollar check on "You Bet
Your Car", never breaking his smile (though the applause was dim,
scattered... barely audible, in fact, over the humming or, more accurately,
buzzing of several hundred groggy politicians, groggily politicking).
"How
pathetic!" Anne Kazelka determined,
chewing on a jam and cinnamon bun that she held between folds of a paper napkin
in one fist, a cup of cooling, generic coffee in the other.
Glenn had tested the strength of the
reviewing stand... plywood, but thick enough to lean against comfortably, with
little risk of having the whole thing come down. Of course it was empty, save
an ancient, six-figure contributor to the cause and her service human. Later...
when the Convention got down to the ceremony of ratification of the decisions
made in the previous evening's caucuses... the stand, having been erected to
hold forty dignitaries, would reasonably be expected to support sixty.
"Ratso,"
Glenn admitted, "he does his job. He's an organization man, works behind
the scenes; nobody's going to mistake him for a public speaker. So they throw
him a bone, maybe his picture gets in the Urinal - Metro section. Somebody
local had to be rounded up to introduce the Congressman after his office
tweeted that scheduling change, and you know Potter's holding out for Sunday night."
Henri was trying to tell a joke but it
turned out that the sound system hadn't been perfected yet, it would skip
out... miss and falter, words and phrases booming forth, then disappearing only
to explode, again, like ninja assassins in balaclavas streaking invisibly
through time and space, manifesting suddenly behind the superhero's back.
"... here, not
only in number but legitimacy. A year ago we... um pmphh...
psss... hssss... grist for Doonesbury! Look at us
now! Does anyone see Boopsie? Hello... anybody see Boopsie? Where! Nowhere! Eat our dust Just, er...Gary Tru... hss, mphh, pfss..."
And because they were in a good mood,
if a little hung over, the seated and incoming delegates finally rewarded Ratso with laughter and a little applause, and a tiny man
in coveralls in what served as the orchestra pit when the Symphony came down
from the capital three times a year, released five trial balloons... two red,
one white, two blue.
"What's really puzzling is why Morty would keynote so early when... look at this
place," Anne frowned. "Most of our people haven't even fallen out of
bed yet!"
"Had to," Glenn replied,
flashing an insider's smirk. "The Black Sea blockade bill's for Navalny’s so-called “suicide” in jail is coming up in
committee this afternoon and, if he's not there, they might lose, or at least deadlock, and he'd be toast with the party. I mean... even more toasted than he is. Soon as
he's done, as I've hear from Gruber, Minkovich has a
private jet waiting for him at the airport and he’ll scoot down to Washington
for the vote. He'll be back tonight or, at the latest, tomorrow
morning..."
"Which brings
us to our keynote speaker!" The sound fizzled slightly, then shot into clarity with a pop! - Ratso
backed off, took the nod from the tech booth as an omen, cranked up his smile
another few lumens, then stepped forward again.
"Three years ago, in Colorado... in the midst of deadly plague and the
worst undeclared recession in more than a decade, a small band of far-sighted
men..."
"And women!" answered a
piercing shriek from the thin but gradually fleshing-out gallery.
"Exactly!"
Ratso recovered with a grin and wave. "They saw
the need for an Americanism not of the right, nor left, but forward... for
forward policies and... American values! And when perfidious terrorism showed
us the time had come to introduce fair immigration reform in Congress, one
man... spurning the counsel of those in his own party… one man who advised
breaking with the tried and true old paths of compromise, mediocrity and
political correctness... carried the day and made possible historic legislation
to begin the task of setting these United States, once again, down the straight
and narrow path to greatness. Then, despite the prophecies of doomsayers and a
caviling plot hatched against him by the extreme Socialist left within his own
party primary, he was re-elected last November with... not a plurality... but a
full fifty three percent majority
over two well-financed and ruthless opponents, Democratic and
Republican! Delegates, I give you our keynote speaker, and author of the bill
that made sale and possession of those aerosol spray paint cans that deface our
citiscapes and destroy the ozone layer by persons
under twenty-five a prosecutable offense under Federal RICO statutes, CONGRESSMAN MORTON SCOW, INDEPENDENT, from
the great Stat of CALIFORNIA!"
The applause erupting this time was
genuine, the cavernous convention center almost appearing to shrink as seats
were filled by the late-arriving, puffy-eyed delegates. Cupping her mouth, Anne
bent over to shout into Glenn's ear...
"What's his district,
again?"
Glenn, also cupping, shouted back
"Morty's up in the Silicon Sierras north and
east of Sacramento to the state line and Reno; used to be nothing but loggers
and ski bums, big Republican majorities and that bankrupt billionaires’
Utopia. Then, after the whole San
Jose/San Francisco Bay went nuts on real estate and companies began moving out
their cheaper nerds, the ones who actually did the wiring and soldering, if you
catch my gist. Oodles of defense contracting going on up
there. Fires everywhere and all the toxics you can handle... lots of
minimum wage assembly – Chinese, Salvadorans and Vietnamese imports, twenty to
a trailer. Freezing their asses off while Trump looked the other way until the
anti-Pentagon lefties flooded the hills with their own oodles of Alinsky-type organizers, then Morty
stuck it to the party after they kicked him out for not wagging his tail so
that he escaped clean once the Hunter-y indictments BillBarr
the Barbarian started in order to keep his job sent most of the Democratic
establishment out there to the pokey while Team Biden sat on their hands...
with the new round of fires, of course, after three straight winters of
blizzards, he’s had to play ball with Joe to keep the FEMAdollars
flowing. But he’s OK... a sort of Joe Manchin, but green enough for Austin to play ball with,
too..."
Scow's hooded eyes drank in the
crowd's adulation as though it was a five-dollar bottle of fortified artisanal
tea.
"Thank you!" he waved.
"Thank you! God bless us, one and all!"
"Pip pip,"
Glenn retorted. "S'cuse me," he said to
Anne, "we're supposed to be working,
remember, riding herd? I spy one of my
would-be escaping doggies..."
He blew her a kiss and squirmed off
into the swelling crowd, wielding a notebook open to a page with names of the “I”
states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, his index finger
massaging the print. Words boomed from the speakers mounted at all corners of
the arena... wise words, tough words, temperate words. Political
words. A vendor passed hawking red, white and blue popsicles, another
selling campaign buttons: Tillerman or Parnell.
Glenn's quarry was a bespectacled young man with the build of a former
defensive lineman beneath a black and white checked jacket, also being carried
away with the rapidly-swelling human undertow, and he stepped up his pursuit,
dancing through bodies and under waves of words...
"Hey, you!
You!" he called.
Morton Scow asked the crowd to honor
the memories of the nine-eleven victims and those shot down in Vegas, Parkland,
Kyev, Texas and Newtown (but not Orlando), the dead
astronauts and policemen… and then, in deference to African-Americans, a boy
shot by the cops in Tulsa for stealing candy… also certain earthquake victims
in Bulgaria, survivors of the typhoons and wildfires, then the two Supreme Court
judges murdered by anti-abortion extremists (whose replacements were still
being held up by the Republican Senatorial minority on procedural
filibusterers); finally slipping seamlessly into a folksy anecdote:
"...which was when I told the Secretary, 'arbitrate, don't
annihilate...'"
"You!" Glenn repeated.
The young man paused, drawing his
thumb up towards his chest... Glenn nodded and caught up with him, glancing at
the nametag over his breast pocket, because the Convention credentials slung
round his neck like dogtags, shimmered with holograms
that obscured their content. Hello - Charles Punick,
Leavenworth, Kansas.
"Charley!
Glenn Savitt. From the National?
Remember... the reception for the Operations Caucus? You were a delegate
there..."
"Me?" Punick
tried to recall. "Well, sort of, sure..."
"Fine. Fine. Just wanted to be sure how you stand on... you know, this third party thing? Just checking..."
"Well, yes I,
uh... Mr. Savitt... I..."
"Call me Glenn."
"OK, Glenn, I really don't know.
Every time, it seems, the Democrats lose and complain, and even when they win,
something goes wrong. Some scandal! If the Catfish said one or the other...
fine, but we seem to have this sort of a dilemma; people are looking to him for a direction, and him still saying he'll do what the
Convention wants – I mean, if America wanted more indecision, they’d find another Joe Biden..."
Glenn placed a benevolent hand on the
Kansan's shoulder... Charley had to be... twenty-four, twenty-five? Well, you
took Conks where you find them, in the heartland, especially... Glenn
admitted... especially in communities where half the jobs depended on jails,
public or private.
"That," he began with a sigh
of profundity, "is what makes democracy great. It means letting us follow
our own consciences towards a coming to of... well... rational conclusions.
Listen to Morty..." he advised, gently turning Punick towards the podium. The figure was tiny, this far
away, but the voice, amplified by the black, omnidirectional speakers overhead,
thundered magnificently:
"...the mighty beaches, port and
defense installations of the Chesapeake," the Congressman declared,
"to the icy shores of Puget Sound came a yearning; a belief, a fundamental
urge for things to be better..."
"Yes, he's a right wonderful
speaker. Popular, too," admitted Charlie Punick.
"And smart," Glenn prompted
him. "A smart man, right?"
"Yes, sir!
Smart."
"Call me Glenn. You see, Charlie,
the Congressman's an idealist, but he's practical. A practical idealist! What
that means... he has objectives, and has a forum through which to pursue them.
The House is a bit like theatre, you do go to the theatre, don't you? Back in Kansas?"
"Well, sir... I suppose, though
only at the school. My boy is only eight years old, but already a regular
Hamlet, sir... Glenn... a regular Vincent Price he is. Was?
Is… would be..."
"Good. Exactly what I mean,"
Glenn said, subtracting eight from twenty-five, tossing the numbers aside, as
they wouldn't fit - not in Kansas. "There are players onstage who say what
the writers tell them to say, and people hear them. Sometimes they try making
up their own lines and that doesn't work so well... like Sean Penn in Baghdad
or Vetti Walker in Caracas, remember? Those whole impeachment
debacles? Then there are the
people backstage, and those moving scenery – good Americans all! – finally, there's the audience. And then, there are people
out in the cold... sure gets cold in a Kansas winter, I'll bet!... people who couldn't get in because they didn't have the
foresight to get a ticket before the play sold out. Ain't
much fun to be standing outside, without a ticket, is it?"
"No, sir.
Glenn..."
"In winter, remember..."
Just then, a florid-faced Jayhawker in
crisply pressed camouflage called out "Charlie! Charlie!" and elbowed
his way through the people, sticking his hand out at Glenn, then withdrawing it
to give the elbow bump… de rigueur
since Coronavirus Stage Five, two variants ago.
"Hank Washburn, Topeka. Say... I
remember you from that reception, you're a Beedley boy, ain't you? Saw him pass over thataway. Been
filling Charlie's ears with that Socialist Catfish crap, haven't you? No
offense, in fact I got to hand it to you city fellas, always thinking ahead.
North Kansas is the white man's territory, son, Tillerman
turf, but you guys keep pokin' away... what they do
Charlie, poke and probe and look for places to slip it into you from behind
like some ol’ slipp’ry fish, these city slickers,
right?” he snickered. “When you get to be a full delegate, next time out, keep
an eye out for this one, Charlie."
Glenn, dropping his glance, took a
longer look at Punick's credentials... they were sort
of yellowy, not the silver green that designated full, voting members. Yellow
was for alternates, they could go almost everywhere the greens went, and even
speak up in the caucuses, but didn't get to vote unless somebody green got
sick.
In other words, a
total waste of time.
"Git
along now, boy," Washburn said, "Rinker and Prohl
are having a sit down with Rayna, they’ll tell me
what to do when they get back, and I’ll tell you. That's some lotta woman, right Glenn?" The Tillerman
delegate's eyebrows bounced up and down frumiously,
reminding him of a portly Colonel in some Groucho Marx militia. Glenn waved a
dispirited farewell and drifted, for the moment, in the push and pull of the
Convention crowd, while the familiar tomes in the sonorous tones of Morton Scow
resounded...
"Our boys contest valiantly for
American principles in Costa Rica, but what are these principles? Small depositors... looking to their
banks and seeing their life's savings taxed away, asking 'why?' Bureaucrats on
the table... our family dinner table!... licking themselves like pussies so fat they'll never
catch one single, miserable rat!
Speaking of which, Zazzbo and Comandante Cuatro, still kicking
back and laughing at us, stupid Americans! And the drugs, and crime and
climate; race riots, moral and environmental degradation and new waves of
Soviet, Chinese and Iranian aggression... crises that must never be forgotten. Monkeypox, pardon my political incorrectness! The ignorant, the opportunists and, as Jack
Parnell calls them, termites... gnawing away at our American values... debt,
unemployment, those Wall Street shenanigans… all of these entropic forces,
grasping the public in their grasp. Who will rise up to break this deathlock?"
The Congressman stepped back, lifting
up his hands in a gesture that a Big Eight referee might make after...what
would it be, a field goal? A shoveling motion, begging
a reply, which thundered forth from the rafters of Masty
Hall, perhaps half-filled, now... Glenn admitted, right on cue, right on time
to the shoveling of the bulldada...
"That's right!" Scow cried
out, stepping forward again to echo the roar. "We will! We will!"
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