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BLACK
HELICOPTERS EPISODE 33 SATURDAY the EIGHTH - 11:29 AM After scraping the dogdoo
from his new shoe, Glenn marched past Masty Hall,
three blocks due east to Graceland Lounge where Pat O'Neraghty
waited with an offering of a frosty bottle of ABM-Lite
and a churchkey. Glenn uncapped it, eyes canvassing
the joint, sighed: "I don't know, I mean this, this was
the place people came to party in, back in the Reagan years when all kinds of
people knew how to party; I just assumed, you know, it would never
change." |
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"Well,
apparently you were mistaken," Pat replied sourly, gesturing weakly round
to acknowledge the young male cliques and couples cuddled in booths, swaying to
the techno-lite from an unseen jukebox while other young locals chatted up
older delegates... most of whom had removed their wedding rings and nametags...
at the bar.
"Anyway,
we all make mistakes. Shit happens... life goes on. By comparison, it's
actually still a smidgen of local color in this desert of drab," Pat
observed, “if you wanted to look up to date or trendy before the plague…” and
took another swallow from the bottle.
"The Catfish did, after all, made a novel but palatable case for
defending gay marriage long before the Clintons, let alone the Supremes. And he was also out ahead of the pack on the
transgender bathrooms except, of course, if somebody’s going to extremes…"
"Anyway
we're here and, after all of this gets said and done, have to work together.
Right?" Glenn queried; O'Neraghty put the Lite
Missile down and stared back with a puzzled, suspicious expression. "I
mean, well I think we both realize what, uh, might be termed the art of what is
possible. Most of the Coalition platform is going to be taken for granted as an
extension of 'Entropy and Renaissance'... rejection of Austin's more fascistic
proposals like that argument for nuclear war, for mining the border assumed
and...” he made a snipping motion down below… “with,
like, the convicts out on parole – and I really don't think, at this late date,
that a few loose ends should stand in the way of a strong, united
movement..."
"Get
to the point!" Pat snapped.
Glenn
fumbled some more with his hands and tongue. "Pat, I..."
"There
are places I really would rather be than
a fag joint, in the middle of the morning, pardon the political incorrectness."
"OK...
OK I understand. Hey, sorry! Just that this used to be one of our hangouts
where we went to back when we were at the U. Me, myself, Anne and Andy... just
a mistake coming here, that's all. How often do I have to apologize?... you're making a liberal out of me, another fuckin' self-hating, cringing, apology-craving
Democrat! One of those
parallel strategists flooding onto the convention floor like sewage from a
busted pipe, now that America’s not feeling the Bern anymore. At any rate, this platform on the
programs... you're not going to win, and might undercut it..."
"Undercut
what?" Pat sniffed contemptuously. "I recollect the Catfish saying
more or less the same thing in New York last January. Commitments to the poor
during the holidays that shouldn't just melt away with spring's thaw..."
"We
are committed to the poor," Glenn emphasized. "My
God... if you look at the dollar value of Jack's draft budget, it's far in
excess of anything that any credible Democrat would propose, let alone the
Republicans’ nine-nine-nine or flat-tax foolishness that took that colored guy
out of the running for the Fed, and if you take out the military and tax cuts
for the rich, it holds up against the Administration’s failed Infrastructure
bills. Transferring the high income and capital gains tax cuts to employee and
employer payroll taxes, not to mention the healthcare issue that had Robomoney tap-dancing like Bojangles
with bees up his butt in oh-twelve! And... even granting
problems with the draft and the National ID card... well the latter is every
bit as good as what the Rainbow used to push," he added, "it’s
protection against a wraparound of Coronavirus Psi
Variant, and poor people can still go to Canada or Mexico for free! And vote.
For us! He doesn't even play down
the income, death, robocall and gasoline tax
increases that'll be needed to pay down the deficit and finance the bill on the
plague and the war, plus the last five administrations’ adventures in the
Mideast and Latin America, and I think people are ready for honesty on that
sector, too, so long as he doesn’t get too
honest and call himself a Socialist or something..."
"Glenn,
I'm impressed with the magnitude of Jack's promises. Truly, I am!" O'Neraghty took another sip and frowned. "Nothing has
galvanized the middle and upper middle classes against President Joe than those
savings taxes on 401-K’s. But, you can't
just keep throwing money at the situation. I mean... that hideous Reverend..."
"I
don't see what's so hideous about a union of the poor..."
"Run
by evangelical Jimmy Hoffas? Glenn, these poverty
pimps go along with unionizing the poor into Jack’s work camps for the sole
reason that they can then chomp off their relief checks the way that the
mosquitoes descended on Trump’s stimulus checks... and instead of extortion,
the mordidas get written off under the lefties’
still-sacrosanct name of union dues! Faith-based union dues!" Pat threw his hands back.
"For Chrissakes... what do the poor have to
bargain with in the first place? That they'll go on strike, stop asking people
for quarters? Burn their welfare checks? If they had something to offer the
rest of us, they wouldn't be poor! Take those bankrupt farmers... the Willie
Nelson goofs from Iowa or wheresoever... those ones
handing out bandaids yesterday? They want to meet with Jack so he can get
their list of so-called Middle American Demands... their MADs!...
but in a folksy manner, of course, as they sell it. Except for the anti-tariff
militia sorts in Hawaiian shirts wielding their copies of “Behold a Pale
Horse”. Most probably have secret
accounts in the Caymans or Ireland off all those medical pot, snake oil online cancer
medicines and biofuel revenues they’ve been
heisting."
"Fuck
no, they all carry AK-47s and the wives all subscribe to Gardens and Guns, at
least the ones in red states since Justice started busting the statewide legal
weed vendors on Federal charges! We
tried to tell Congress to impeach Bill Barr and the Munchkin first, but did
they listen? No! And now Aygee
Garland’s taking his revenge on the states, seeking to wet his beak in the
blood money sin engenders. Besides, I
don't think that's an accurate assessment of the situation," Glenn replied
coldly, "and, furthermore, the Reverend and people like him control an
awful lot of votes."
"Which
wouldn't be ours in the primary no matter what we promised. I
mean the Democratic primary, of course, and then they would be ours in the general election as long as Jack keeps Tillerman at a safe distance. And what if your third-party
side doesn't prevail? Haven't given a thought to that,
have you? The future of the county's still in the suburbs...
the white middle and wannabe-middle class, young or not-so-young. Women afraid some MAGAdoctor
will turn her in for taking a morning after pill. SineManchin Democrats and Colin Powell Republicans? They don't have the
money dot-commies or biotech Frankensteiners do so,
no matter what Jack says, they won't like to see their money wasted. That's
what we learned in Richmond with those idiot war-toy protesters after Uncle
Joe’s debacle. Now, we're offering structure. Structure, baby! I'm sorry if it
isn't what you fought for in Doubleyou’s years...
even going back to Reagan… but it is a start..."
"Ah...
those rotten 80's… and 70's and 60’s! So many people hate them, like Jack says,
mostly the same people who wrung every drop of deviance out of 'em, then found
God and Mammon, both, after going into a quote unquote Recovery for the past
twenty years! D-twenties and M-thirteeners! Every
man a king... not a statesman to be found, not even Donald Trump... a Congress
of One and it's impossible, now, to find co-operation anywhere. Damn
independence! But what can you do about it anyway?" he added as a thin
patron slid into their booth, next to Pat, “the United Kingdom is more
disunited and dis-Kingful than we are...
"Excuse
me, I hope I'm not interrupting but... I couldn't help but notice your badges
from the convention. I know Mayor Potter's a CNC supporter, but he's cut off
funding for the AIDS center here... says it's the State's responsibility now.
Or maybe the Feds… and you know how they’re
all CV and Zika this and Mongoose Flu that. His War
on Measles – yet another plague brought to us by the Chinese germ warfare
labs! Evolution he calls it... which is
only just devolution upwards. Evasion! Anyway, several of us here
have gone on a hunger strike and we have this petition..."
Glenn's
face hardened. "I'm sorry, it wouldn't be proper to take unauthorized
positions outside of what the convention decides."
"You
were interrupting," O'Neraghty began, taking another swallow of his ABM,
"but it's still before noon and I am feeling charitable. If
you are a member of the Coalition..."
"Me,
a Conk?" the man tittered. "Austin Tillerman’s
worse than Putin... almost as bad as Dutarte or the
Sultan of Brunei or that guy with the red beard in Chechnya; wants to put us in
camps. His lawyer’s best bro to all of
those African dictators who want to behead us… not even allow us the Scriptural
drama of having a Mexican wall fall on us… and all the Catfish does is tell
folksy stories about his dogs and beat up on the Chinese too, except out on the
Left Coast. Now that the National
Democrats are trying to rein in the people by telling them Biden swung too far left... well, maybe if Mayor
former Secretary Pete fails to get the Democratic nomination,,,"
"Jack
respects the Butt… Beauty… that campaign,
and he also respects Asians and their leaders for looking after their own - it's Washington that he finds lacking. And," Pat
drew back, "you can hardly expect the convention to take positions on
local issues except through the auspices of the local delegation."
"Oh,
give me a break! Don't you know that Henri Ransomhoff,
or however you pronounce… he's the shot caller here... we call
him Ratso; he's an out and out homophobe, worse than
Mike Pence, Huckabee, worse than Justice Barrett, Patriarch Kirill
over in Russia, Ann Coulter, even. He's
the one who pulls Pinhead's strings, like Cheney did for Bush Two..."
"Well
that surprises me," Glenn replied, "but at least some of that
responsibility rubbed off on his daughter, on whom... mind you... we’re working. As you see... or would if you were part of
the Coalition... our hands are too tied to manipulate puppets." Then, just to show that he wasn't really a
bad guy, he handed the fellow a ten dollar bill.
"Sorry
to have disturbed your little bondage session," said the man, looking down
at his charity with a foul expression before pocketing the Hamilton. He
retreated, leaving each with a flyer bearing the particulars... Glenn stuffed
his absently into his jacket pocket.
"Do
you realize what we're missing, right now? Between speeches?" added Pat.
"The Happy Together fuckin' Experience! One of those singers supposed to
have been in the original Turtles. Or was it the Association? Both?... I'm not
sure which, but they’re on that Jew-Watch list that Tillerman’s
right-hand people circulate. Right below
Barbara Streisand! This place must
have been different in the 70's..."
"Oh,
it was! Anne and I, and some friends of ours... well, many nights passed here,
too many, maybe..."
"Sure.
Sure. And where are they now? Not only
are Elvis and Jerry Garcia dead," O’Neraghty
smirked, “Prince is, too. And,” he
tapped the bar, “Chuck Berry.”
"Huh?"
Glenn's eyes had misted, had drifted towards the front window and street
beyond. They were only a couple of blocks from the U. "Oh... most of them
grew up, a few didn't. They work in banks or sell insurance… then you've got
some of the fifty and sixty-somethings with
Renaissance lit degrees driving for Uber and pouring coffee and being quote in
recovery unquote. Maybe stuck as
Associate Professors, paid less than cabbies and public school teachers -
denied tenure by former Weather Undergroundlings as
got right with what Barack was cookin’ and became
department chairmen and charwomen at the U. The sort who go around blaming
their divorces or layoffs on Reagan, Trump and the Bushes, or on the
Clintons... some of them... the way Republicans blame theirs on Harvey
Weinstein, Lady Gaga, the Devil and the greeny New
Deal nuts. And then... well, we all went to our different schools together as
the pariah used to say..."
"It's
always useful to keep tabs on old acquaintances. For example, your poor,
laughable Mr. Morrison outside... he's not that far off the mark in suggesting
that non-mainstream shelter providers at least be consulted in the decision
making process. Hey… they come
cheap!"
Glenn
smiled, softly. "Andy's crazy. He couldn't even hold a job driving for Lyft... he really thinks Jack's work camps
would be concentration camps. The last time Anne and I came here, years ago, he
dragged us to this insane left wing meeting that was supposed to be about the
war...not Costa Rica but whatever the war was then, Iraq maybe, or somewhere in
Yugoslavia. No, too old…Africa? Instead, it ended up in this screaming match
over whether trees have souls... so it might
have been Bosnia or Kosovo, one of those, they don't have trees in Darfur or
Iraq between the global warming and Iranian drones. Poor idiot... never got the
Mark Cobb virus out of his system..."
"Has
anybody in this backwater?" Pat
smirked, gulped a mouthful of beer and slammed the bottle down on the table
hard enough to draw glances from the bar.
"This sad little town's claim to fame... like
Manson in LA or O.J., that kid in Connecticut and those others from Texas and Colorado,
even the Sandusky Strangler. It's a damn shame when people like Cobb go ballistic
the way he did... discredits progressive politics, like Huey and H. Rap making
the blacks look bad. Like Jim
Jones. Or that baseball diamond Sam Scalise shooter or Allard Lowenstein... you're not
following, well, forget it! A killer for
business, but that’s not my problem.
Most of us move along with the times. Even the Catfish, taking
polls..."
"Polls?"
Glenn sat up. This was new information.
"You
didn't know?" O'Neraghty declared,
relishing the brief rush of inside information leaked. "Now that's
interesting! Rayna, Scow and Paul Rinker agreed on the questions... usual
stuff, heavy push but the tactical sections are, at least, objective. They
should have results, oh, tonight some time?"
"I
don't believe it," Glenn scoffed. "Polls are the devil's
handiwork."
"Did
you ever hear the Catfish say that?"
"Not
in those exact words, but..."
O'Neraghty settled back, crossing his arms. "These
entitlements, the labor issue... all of that comes out in the polls. Wake up –
get ready to smell these twenties, Glenn. Our decade of just-the-facts, ma'am.
No more stuck-up clean Genes or burned-out Berns, no
Walter Mondales… may he rest
in peace… no Howard Deans. No George McGoverns. No Pocahontas, no Bob Barr, even if he was King
of the Elephants, and no Ron Paul nor Rand Paul either - all those prissy
Libertarians with their cocaine and their Austrian economists and their gold standards
and alt-right crime control for, you know, those other people? Vermin Supreme and McAfree
excepted, before he died, at least – America could use
a President who kills people, not deer.
No Ralph Naders, no greeny
moral imperialists colluding with the Russians and denying that Nader threw the
election to Dubya and Jill Stein to Trump. Finally, Glenn, the sane guys are picking up
the shovels we need to compete in the political arena and beginning to dig a
foundation. And women,
to be PC. If only Dr. Fauci wasn’t so old…"
"You’re
sounding like Q-Anon, or some progressive mutation of
it… X-Anon?
That..." Glenn said warily, "...sounds like what all those
neo-liberals, the Clinton and Gore people, used to say. Fleetwood Mac…"
"And
they won," Pat reminded him, "well, Slick Willie did, and so set
everybody back, losing us a whole decade and provoking reaction so fierce that
we've had a father-son team out of the Simpsons, a Labrador retriever and his
Russian bitch and an urban spaceman in the White House for more than a
generation and, if we keep fucking up… pardon my Turkish… four more years of
Joe-ish ennui.
Trump, at least, had Jesus, Kid Rock, Doctor
Phil or was it Celine fuckin’ Dion. I mean Kid Rock lite
and…” (he knocked on the bar) “… the Village People
but, you know… finally, though, we're turning a corner, you know? According to
the A.M.A.! Yes... I admit... another
poll... twenty percent of people over seventy are clinically depressed. That
goes up to thirty percent for people in their sixties, half in their fifties,
and peaks at sixty percent for white men in their forties... the prime of
life! Of course it then starts going
down after Generations X and Y... the younger that you get, the happier you
are… but that’s because of that MDMA derivative goin’
round after the Feds shut down the pot stores and because they’ve gone back to
not voting or caring again."
"Why
not?" Glenn answered. "What does that have to do with this
convention? Kids might not enjoy sex or drugs or rock and roll like we did, but
they have their health back... except for a few hundred stupid
monkey-fuckers... they have their social media and cable television… screaming
Internet, even… prescription drugs and FPS games, and most are too stupid to
have any idea about what's toodling down the road
towards 'em. No need, yet, for Viagra or Rogaine and if the government's going
to prosecute those who can't afford happy pills from American pharmacies, well,
it's their funeral! And, by the
way, Celine Dion’s Canadian, like Elon Musk, and they
haven’t repealed their Fifth Amendment yet, or whatever that is, if it is. Just remember... George Washington didn't win
many battles either, but he won the war, unlike Napoleon – who won most of his
battles but lost out to Russian climate change and wound up on an island."
Pat
smiled sadly. "You're not George Washington, not close, and his dollar ain’t worth a dime, either! Ask Anne! You have my number,
beep me when the results come out, we can talk again."
He
tipped the bottle to finish off the last of the ABM, nodded and rose.
"Don't go putting money down that doctors won't be handing out
pharmaceutical samples of Xanax, Prozac, even Beta-Contin
a week before the election. Maybe even Daraprim – they say it’s supposed to cure zombies, and
there’s a lot of them around this place.
Be seeing you!" he smirked, departing with devastating suddenness.
Glenn
took a swallow himself, closed his eyes and massaged his temples. When he
looked up, a youngman in a bright purple silk shirt
with an “Impeach the President” button on its collar had oozed into Pat's
vacated half of the booth.
"So-ooo..." he pointed at Glenn's shimmering dogtags, "you're with the convention?"
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SATURDAY the EIGHTH - 6:48 PM
"When
do you know you're getting middle-aged?" Anne asked Glenn in their suite
at the Ivona, half an hour after a ninety-nine year
old veteran of the Omaha Beach landing had gaveled down the penultimate day of
the Conks' convention, carried live on the city’s public access station as well
as an obscure cable channel – a distant outpost of the MicroTime™
octopus… or was it Disneyzon’s™ Sub-Prime for the po’ folks?... usually noted for infomercials and reruns of
forty year old cartoons and sitcoms.
"Can
it!" he retorted impatiently. The real business of the convention had been
transpiring in hotels and in the meeting rooms under Masty
Hall... caucuses whose results had been mixed but, taken in balance, had
started tilting alarmingly towards Tillerman's
militia followers, promising to deliver on the good jobs and better ass-kickings which Donald Trump had also dangled before Mister
and Missus America, but had failed to deliver..
"Glenn!
When you look forward to testimonial dinners for the food!"
she laughed. Her attitude grated... he wondered how many of the issues they'd
fought for, which had gone down in flames, had been predestined to do so.
Pawns, sacrificed like testimonial banquet prawns in the greater game...
campaign finance, overtures to dead causes, to Nader and the Reform Party, to
shards of Ukrainian Resistance in Poland, or the pre-Cruziero
Tea Party as hadn’t moved on with the Freedom Caucus and Occupy Wall Street,
all made with the intent of picking their bones...
"You
wanna skip... go somewhere on your own, I won't
complain!" he snapped.
"Of
course not! I was just making an observation."
"We
were supposed to be making connections. Remember? I ought to be babysitting the Massachusetts
delegation... they might have lobster..." he added, wistfully.
"It
can wait. If it's one of those theme parties they'll have nothing but men in
white wigs and funny hats and their ugly wives in Birkenstocks eating beans and
dry, brown bread. Lobsters come from Maine.
Like Susan Collins. Lighten up,
won't you... Andy's part of this too, however pathetic. He's part of our
history..."
"So
was Mark Cobb." Glenn rose from the sofa where he'd flopped down in the
futile hope that the headache too many defeats had birthed would chill out.
"Why not invite him? Better yet... let's grab a bag of
burgers, drive up to the State Pen and have a jolly little reunion with the Cobbster!"
"Get
real, Glenn. Please?"
"Doesn't
get realer than the ol' Graybar Hotel. I mean it." He pulled
on one of the shoes he'd kicked off, feeling the pressure on a foot which felt
like it had swelled two sizes through the day's hurrying between little
concrete cells under Masty Hall where the caucuses
were caucusing.
"I
know the way things work, I do! And I love you! Understand... I
think I'd kill you if I
thought you didn't love me..."
"Get
dressed, Herschel!" said Anne, throwing Glenn's expensive suit jacket into
his face... and, in doing so, failing to see that there was no humor, not even
a single shaving of irony, in his expression.
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