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k k k k k k k	BLACK HELICOPTERS EPISODE 33 SATURDAY the EIGHTH - 11:29 AM After scraping 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 Slick Willy years when people knew how to party; I just assumed, you know, it would never change."	k k k k k k k

"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 Trump-stolen proposals like that argument for nuclear war, for mining the border assumed and even more...” 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."

Looking side to side to gauge if anyone had listened in, he put his hands on the table and sighed. "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 woke 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, President Joe is gone and his Veep isn’t plus all those Governors and billionaires shilling for the more progressive Watson Morrows of tomorrow that’ll run on strange men playing women’s field hockey. 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 south of the Bern 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 Biden’s repealed 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 bills on plagues and the wars, 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 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 descend 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 Kash for the bottle taking his revenge on the states for killing his lifetime appointment to the Supremes, seeking to wet his beak in the blood money that 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. Twenty sixteen is not going to happen again... soccer moms afraid some MAGAdoctor will turn her in for taking a morning after pill? Fuckerman 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 under Doubleyou’s regime... even going back to Reagan… but it is a start..."

"Ah... those rotten 80's… and 70's and 60’s, 90’s too! 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! God in His Heaven and every man a king... not a statesman to be found, south of 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 being more disunited and dis-Kingful than we are...”

"Excuse me, I hope I'm not interrupting but...” the intruder interrupted, “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. Kennedy’s 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, the Ugandans 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 and Iranian 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 Beerhead, 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 another 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... I mean Morning Consult? Rasmussen?"

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 American 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… and bring back 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 Trump Court and Kevin MacCongress shut down the pot stores in seven states 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... M-fuckers, pardon the racism... 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 the Disneyzon™ 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 baked 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, Orenthal!" 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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