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BLACK HELICOPTERS EPISODE 20 FRIDAY the SEVENTH - 8:51 AM The good elves had swarmed all over Masty Hall between midnight and dawn, nailing up red, white and blue bunting, warming up and oiling down the speakers and video-projectors, 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 of the previous evening's merrymaking...
keeping things positive... Ratso straightened the white handkerchief in his
breast pocket, tapped the microphone (working... fine!) and clapped his hands
for attention. At the instant that he did, the canned music shut off, leaving
him alone, celebrity of the moment.
"Isn't
this great?" he exclaimed. "Aren't we 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 she
held between the folds of a paper napkin.
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 for an ancient, six-figure contributor to the
cause and her attendant. 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 has to introduce the Congressman, and you know Potter's
holding out for Sunday night."
Henri
was trying to tell a joke but the sound system hadn't been perfected yet, it
would skip out... miss and falter, words and phrases booming out, then
disappearing only to explode, again, like assassins streaking invisibly through
time and space, manifesting suddenly behind the hero'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, 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 man in coveralls in what served as the orchestra pit when the Symphony
came down from the capital, three times a year, released six balloons... two
red, two white, two blue.
"What's
really puzzling is why Morty would agree to 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 Russian
Olympiad bill's 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, I've
hear from Gruber, Minkovich’s got a private jet waiting for him at the airport
and he has to shoot 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. "Two years ago, in Colorado... in the midst of the worst undeclared
recession in half a century, a small band of far-sighted men..."
"And
women!" answered a piercing shriek from the 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, who advised sticking to the tried and true
old path 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 left within his own party, 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 aerosol spray paint cans that deface our
cities and destroy the ozone layer prosecutable under Federal RICO statutes, CONGRESSMAN
MORTON SCOW, INDEPENDENT, 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 Reno; used to be nothing but loggers and ski bums, big
Republican majorities. Then the whole San Francisco Bay went nuts on real
estate and companies began moving out their cheaper nerds. Oodles of defense
contracting going on up there. All the toxics you can handle... lots of minimum
wage assembly, Chinese, Salvadorans and Vietnamese, twenty to a trailer.
Freezing their asses off..."
Scow's
hooded eyes drank in the crowd's adulation as though it was a bottle of fortified
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 see 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 states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, his index finger
massaged 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 with red, white and blue popsicles for sale, another with
campaign buttons: Tillerman or Parnell. Glenn's quarry was a bespectacled young
man with the build of a former defensive lineman in a black and white checked
jacket, also being carried away with the human undertow, and he stepped up his
pursuit, dancing through bodies under waves of words...
"Hey,
you! You!" he called.
Morton
Scow asked the crowd to honor the memories of the nine-eleven victims, then the
two Supreme Court judges murdered by anti-abortion extremists, 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 around his neck like dogtags, shimmering with
holograms that obscured their content. Hello - Charles Punick of 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 he's
still saying he'll do what the Convention wants..."
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 places 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…"
"Good.
Exactly what I mean," Glenn said, subtracting eight from twenty-five,
tossing the numbers aside, as they wouldn't fit - not in the Midwest.
"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?
Then there are the people backstage, and those moving scenery - 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.
"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
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, these city slickers,
right? 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 someone 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. 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 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, Osama and Comandante
Cuatro, kicking back and laughing at us, stupid Americans! And the drugs, and
crime, environmental degradation... crises that must never be forgotten. The
ignorant, the opportunists and, as Jack Parnell calls them, termites... gnawing
away at our American values... all of these entropic forces, holding 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 was it, 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. "We will! We will!"
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