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I hope some of you enjoyed my bizarre and quirky compilation, Chinese Box: to appear on Amazon some time in 2020! For the next three days, we’re going to have a loooooong read: Volumes 1 to 3 of Honest Adolph, a gripping spec-fic novel of the near-future USA! More news soon on the Amazon book of this as well! The original release was delayed on account of ill health, but feel free to keep up with updates by favoriting the Glossy News site on your web browser, liking us on social media and following my personal Patreon! Become a Patron!
Now, prepare to dive in… This is a WACKY ride!!!!!!!
(P.S. Don’t forget there are some free Amazon Kindle book deals of mine, running from 7-11 December!) đ
Chapter 1: The Dreamer of the Dreamer
America was founded upon a dream.
Oh my God, Senator Bubble!
But not all dreams reflect reality alike.
So as you can see, the emergency vehiclesâŠ
The dream of individualism
Of self-reliance
And of a free-ranging liberty
A liberty that laughs in the face of king and cleric
All this is a dream that still persists today, of all days.
Dear God! Heâs alive⊠oh God, oh God, oh my GodâŠ.
There are many in this world who say this dream is a delusion.
Itâs a miracle. America, hope from amid the ruinsâŠ
There are others of whom it can be said, the spirit of liberty beats within their heart
And the swinish iron gates of The Greater Good
And the Evil Spirit of Kollektivismus shall not prevail in their grunting
Against the only name given under heavenâŠ
Dear God, itâs a gift from HeavenâŠ
Senator Bubble, oh wait, or is heâŠ
The only name by which any person may be savedâŠ
And where is Adolph Adams?
Adams! Adams! Adams!
He isnât hereâŠ.
THE INDIVIDUAL.
âHow is my hair?â muttered Senator Marcus Charleston Bubble, as Marta patiently dusted his bruised cheeks.
âIt is better,â murmured Marta in a voice that only the meager and petty idealists of fortune and opportunity could have dismissed as mundane. But Senator Bubble was no such cringing shopkeeping fanatic. He was a man of destiny. And like all true great all-American patriots, he didnât care who knew it!
Senator Bubble also didnât care whether Marta knew that his interest in her was not purely professional.
âOh for Godâs sake, you frickinâ stupid Mexican!â he snorted. âI told you to be careful with that cheek. Oh for cryinâ out loud! Are you trying to kill me as well? I coulda decided to die there and go out in a blaze of glory, that wouldâve really sent a message out to the terrorists that we have our martyrs, and no stupid Arab fanatic or Manchurian fig-peddler with a suicide belt can ever match us for glory signalling! But I decided to live, because I wanted to love and serve my country: America, the shining city upon a hill, and Godâs anointed blessing for all the ages! And here you are, trying to succeed where those dirty little oasis rats have failed! What kind of a cackhanded, shiftless, time-wasting, money-grubbing Mexican Jewess beanerita have they given me this time?!â
Marta withdrew her brush, glaring indignantly at Senator Bubbleâs cold, fishy eyes.
âWell? You got something to say, sweetheart? Whew! You know, you Mexican girls look really hot when youâre angry! Just seeinâ you standinâ there with your arms akimbo, that nice way youâve got that curly hot-ass Latina hair pulled back like that; I can think of quite a number of other jobs I would hire you for if it were up to me!
âWhoooaaa! Sweet Jesus K. Vivashwana, but arenât you ladies hot when youâre angry! Well hey, thank God they arenât giving me any more of those prissy bitches from that England country, and Norway, and Italy, and other shitty North Europe nations like that.
âAh now come on, Marta, donât be like that. Do you sulk like that in front of your husband when he gives you a compliment? I bet he doesnât offer you the golden opportunities I offer you; make of that what you will, Marta baby! Waheyyy! Stick that in your pipe ânâ smoke it, Marty girl!â
âOf course not!â Marta spat. âI do not have no husband! But when I will have a husband who shall be treating me the way you do, I just shove this broom handle there up his fucking ass! He will not, no, you can be sure Senator Bubble, he wonât never speak to me like that the second time!â
Bubble grunted. âThatâs a clean floor!â
That didnât work. Bubble attempted a more conciliatory tone.
âCâmon now, girl, donât be spoiling your niiice, sooolid, Meeexican wooork ethic with this unclean behaviour. Yâknow, believe it or not, I actually kinda like you! But donât be spitting on this niiice cleeean flooor youâve made for me?
âHm! I mean, God knows what you people could have; I mean, you ever watch the news? I mean the real shit, Fox News or CNN or shit like that, hell even NBC, at a push! Anything but not that boring global shit and the absolute downright treacherous crap they are coming out with about our party.
âYeah, I mean, they say you Mexican people have got a bit of an Ebola thing coming on, or is it Zeta? Hey, alpha, beta, gammon, alphabetti-sphaghetti-la-la-la, I mean God knows what you crazy-ass Latin folks will be thinkinâ of next! But you know what, Martha darlin;â please, please, please, just donât you be messinâ up my shit, alright?â
Marta flicked her fringe in frustration.
âI donât never do it for you nor for no other person else! You see this what I do, it is what is in my contract!â
Bubble roared with laughter. âHa! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Gotta love a bit of free contract and economic liberty, huh? Thatâs what weâre all about here!â
Marta, at the point of tears, waved the make-up brush.
We do not have the time, Senator Bubble. We shall begin it all again? OrâŠâ
Bubbleâs face lit up with the greedy light of the middle-aged establishment lecher he was: young enough to not need Viagra, but old enough to wish he had a use for it!
âMmm. More spicy Mexican ah-ah-ah, Senorita! Whew! Saaayyy-na-torrrr Bahhh-bayl! Letâs all hop on board the Marcus Fuckinâ Express-arama-fications, baby! You just have literally no fuckinâ idea how you make me feel when youâŠâ
Overcome with frustration and anxiety, Marta swung her hand, although fortunately for the future of His Glorious Nation, her hand collided aimlessly with a week-old whiskey bottle on Senator Bubbleâs âDream-Desk.â
(Senator Bubble never explained why it was his Dream-Desk, or why, if what Marta had heard was correct, he only called it his âDream-Deskâ to people of certain narrowly-circumscribed demographics. She thought it was better not to ask).
âFaaaaaack you!â sobbed Marta, in utter desperation. âFaaaaaack you! I am not a Mexican, no, why, I have been telling you a thousand times I am from the Nicaragua!â
Senator Bubbleâs face flushed like a raw ham, and he started panting heavily, as though he were in the middle of some arduous athletic task, like going to the second Dominos away because those bastard Jew folks from over there in Creeptown were having some sort of stupid kvetch-party while stupidly pretending the pepperoni was kosher. Who were they trying to fool? Not one thing âkosherâ about these guys, thatâs for sure! I trust these guys about as much as I trust dim sum and fuckinâ chicken balls for Christmas dinner!
Or how about because that creepy black guy from the office across the street was dining there again, and Senator Bubble wanted to save himself the bother of âaccidentallyâ knocking over his drink again and ruining his pretentious suit, which some low-level token office guy like him shouldnât even be allowed to wear anyway. Urggghhh! What an arrogant, entitlement-ridden, social-climbing bastard!
âItâs not your look,â Bubble hoarsely murmured to himself.
Marta stamped her feet in fury. âWhy you always do not treat me with the respect? I work sooo hard for you, I am working sooo hard every day, I am always on time, I always leave late, my child, she is worried, and the nurses, I have to pay her more and I cannot, no listen to me Senator Bubble, I am angry now, now please listen to me, Senator Bubble, I cannotâŠâ
Bubble finally lost his temper and started banging his chunky New England fists on the solid oak that some stupid Polack loser or whoever the hell that guy was from that more or less Ukrainey-crazy kinda country had gifted him as a token of⊠âappreciation.â (Appreciation? Whatever the hell that pretentious claptrap is supposed to mean in purely value-free and neutral strategic geopolitical diplomacy terms!)
Now of course, everybody knew that as soon as Bubble became aware of any intolerable and downright unbearable slight, be it imaginary or otherwise, the only thing he could do was to discipline the despicable traitor against the Great Georgian Interest of Our Common GOP-Manity by whatever means necessary.
âShut the fuck up, you greasy spic!â He roared. âNever, ever talk to me in that demeaning, degrading, and insulting way, alright? Do you realize, not even the Chinese or the Ayyyrahbs talk to me the way you do? So what does that say about you?
âOh, and hey, by the way! Check this shit out, young lady! All this crap about Niagara or Ni-caaaaar-a-goooooo-wahhhhhhh, or whatever the hell the greasy Zio-liberal media are calling it in those slick, metropolitan tones of theirs…
âWell, letâs just say it isnât precisely⊠âplumb center on the factsâŠâ as we like to say in politics.
âHuh? You got anything to hide? Huh-huh-huh? You got anything to hide, Marta chicken?!â
Martaâs face turned pale. âSe⊠Senator BubbleâŠâ she wept, tears streaming down her face in terror.
âYup! You got it, girl! I know absolutely everything about you, you stupid, stupid, illegal sack of crap! Donât you ever dare think Iâm as stupid as I look, Marta baby! I know all about you! And believe you me, young lady, I can have you slung out of my glorious nation with nothing in the world to your name but half a shitty Colombian cloth-shoe and that couple of cheap-ass shit-rubbers that Shilton NixonâŠâ
âDonât mention this manâs name, for Godâs sake!â Marta wailed.
Bubbleâs face shifted slightly in the direction of a malevolent grin. He was a fairly dynamic character; albeit, and in accordance with a certain pet phrase of his: âwithin reason.â
âOh. Ohhh! Well! Bit oâ guilty conscience huh? Well let me tell you something that might be of interest to you before you go a looong way away to some shitty Third World hellhole across the border. Now let me tell you something young lady, you were supposed to be here to work hard, not âplay hardâ with the creepy bankers. Hell, even my colleagues here donât trust that guy, and theyâre pretty good judges of character, believe you me, sweetheart!â
Martha had no choice but to tell the ugly truth.
âThe man, the man⊠the man, yet this bastard, he forces me, he tricks me, and can you just understandâŠ?â
Bubble laughed so hard and long at this, he thought his rib cage would finally cave in. Fortunately, the bruising around his ribs was sufficiently recovered to prevent him from doubling over in agony.
âHa! Ha! Ha! Ha!â
Martha grasped Bubbleâs sleeve. âSenator Bubble, it is not a joke! And it is not a lie! Never! Never, I swear to you, Senator Bubble, yes, I am swearing to you now, no, I did not have a choice⊠the man, this man, you see, he blackmails meâŠâ
Bubble finally made a perfunctory effort to stop laughing.
âBuyerâs regrets, huh?â
Bubble spat out a rather repugnant-looking gob of spittle, narrowly missing Martaâs left ear.
âOr should that be⊠liarâs regrets?â
Bubble laughed even longer and harder at his oh-so-witty jest.
âHa! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Oh wow, oh my gosh, let me tell you something, this girl has some chutzpah!
âBut hey, you know what, baby? That shit was three whole months ago. This is Georgia, and we do things a little differently than California. You see what Iâm getting at?â
Martaâs mouth gaped in horror.
âNo⊠no⊠noâŠâ Marta murmured, her lip quivering in dismay. âBut it is a mistake⊠no, you see, it is surely a mistake⊠you know this bastard, you know, this Nixon, he has the impotenceâŠâ
Bubble roared in triumph, and pointed to a newspaper he had just unrolled.
As Marta stared at the headline, her body was racked with fear and pain and even remorse (although she, quite unlike the vile lothario she had surrendered to, had nothing to be ashamed of). Her heart hammered like a drill, her skin broke out in a terrified sweat, and vicious, brutal waves of nausea punctuated her guts with endless, remorseless billows; this was a fear unlike any she had ever known, except for the day she made that horrendous sacrifice to appease Shilton Nixon, the notorious âWall Street Hornet.â
he headline said:
Shilton and Philomena: âNumber 9? Hell, Weâre Just Getting Started!â
Bubble rubbed his hands in glee. âLooks like itâs not just you! Shilton and his wife have been just little too bit busy for comfort too, huh?! Well, just as well weâve got the rule of law in this country. I know what people like you do when you canât keep your legs together! Well, you know what? This is Georgia baby, the shiniest God-fearing sparkle of all the stars and stripes put together.
âOh, and for what itâs worth, let me tell you something, Marta. I tell you Marta, you know, you arenât the first girl this tricky banker buddy of ours has wangled his way around; and you sure as hell wonât be the last!â
By now, Marta was incapable of saying anything more. She sobbed and sobbed, but she knew, as deeply and as intimately as she had ever known it, that in the presence of Senator Marcus Charleston Bubble, she was not merely dealing with a man with a heart of stone; for there is no heart of stone that cannot, one day, be melted. Otherwise, why should any human being keep on breathing?
But Senator Marcus Charleston Bubble did not have a heart of stone.
Beneath the innumerable folds of toxic, self-consuming fat and sweat, there was only a bottomless chasm from which nothing beautiful, true or good could ever issue, and which nothing beautiful, true or good could ever pass by without being sucked in and annihilated in the cold, frigid, empty void between his ribs.
Marcus Charleston Bubble, as far as this world is concerned, should have been pronounced dead upon arrival.
âŠ
However, Martaâs child was not. Months later, the unlamented and friendless Martha was to finally give birth in the kind of ramshackle hut on fowlâs legs that passes for a hospital in Cuba.
Yes, Martaâs child was alive upon arrival.
But that was but little consolation.
Because two months later, Marta and both her children were dead.
Starved of all hope, starved of all kindness.
And most of all⊠starved of love.
But why should you or I care about this?
After all, it is none of our business.
âŠ
And Senator Marcus Charleston Bubble was always a firm believer in the eternal truth that everyone knows their own business best.
But then, not everyone lives out this proverb in the same way.
The distance between Martaâs self-reliance and the self-reliance of Bubble is not a distance of scale or of magnitude.
It is a gulf truly cosmic in scale, an abyss absolute and beyond all comparison.
The difference between imperfect human frailtyâŠ
And absolute, unqualified depravity.
Chapter 2: Two Spoons Anâ Yer Quarter-Half
âYes, I said Saul Frickety-Frick Friedman,â insisted Marcus Charleston Bubble, slamming down the phone. âKeep an eye on him. You know what he and his tribe are like.â
Saul Friedman paced anxiously around his office. His rather peculiar guest was not exactly renowned for his timeliness. âWell, this old schmuck ainât no Immanuel Kant, put it that way!â he lamented, anxiously stirring his coffee, and trying to remember if he had measured it out right this time. âFrickinâ 2-spoons-and-a-half-quarter, this schmuck calls me,â Saul murmured.
All of a sudden, Saulâs face jerked upwards. âOh wait, was that a redundant one? Schmuck plus schmuck, I mean, reflecting purely in terms of euphony; oh God, God help me, Iâm doing it again. Hm, hm, give meâŠ
âHey Lucy, gimme that frickinâ cloth again, would ya?â
His intern handed Lucy the cloth.
âYeah, yeah, yer welcome⊠I mean, uh⊠thank you⊠thank you Lucy, thatâs a really good thing youâve done⊠heh hehâŠ.â
Lucy threw Saul a typically ironic look. There are some people in this world who can be encountered only with an attitude of wonder: not adoration or hero-worship necessarily, but with a stance midway between ironic eye-rolling and fearful awe. In Lucyâs eyes, the New York Senator Saul Friedman was precisely just such a person.
âItâs my job, Senator,â said Lucy, not knowing whether to laugh, freak out or find something to distract herself from the incessant fussing of the gawkish former professor before here; a humiliated castaway from the academy (of whom it could be said, at least, the campus was not worthy!) but hardly at ease in the world of politics either.
All of a sudden, Saulâs voice broke out in another outburst. His mannerisms had been the butt of merciless satire in the media; and, anxious and jittery as Saul was by nature, what hurt him most was not any personal slight, but the ammunition such cartoons, stories and comedy sketches gave to the increasingly militant âASLâ or âAnti-Semitic Lobby,â as he sarcastically named it.
Sadly, the environment for Jewish people in the USA was indeed very far from comfortable; and the only consolation Saul could find for his anxiety was the fact that at least he wasnât in Europe right now.
Or indeed anywhere else at all, apart from the USA.
All of a sudden, a thought grabbed him by the throat, like a ferocious, half-starved tiger fastening on a helpless half-attached chunk of gazelle meat. Of course, this was a not uncommon occurrence for Saul Terence Magilligan Friedman. âThese bitches!â he almost squeaked. âThese frickinâ bitches!â
Lucy fixed her eyes on Saul in horror.
âCome on Senator, get a grip,â pleaded Lucy. âThereâs an election coming soon, maybe you can convince the next President to pursue a different agendaâŠâ
âAgenda? These bitches!â he roared and spluttered, hacking up every now and again to set the seal upon his passion. âDonât want no fuckinâ agenda, just want these bitches to mind our own goddamn business! Ainât none of our frickinâ concern, Lucy, I swear! These bitchesâŠâ
Lucy started shaking. Saulâs nervous fits always worried her. What would happen if one of his âsessionsâ came upon him in the Senate or in a Press Conference? Lucy spoke with as much calmness and gravitas as ever she could.
âNow, Senator Friedman,â she spoke, gently and tenderly, as though consoling an old flame who had just gone through another needless break-up. But lest there should be any doubt: in this case, this is not fully a merely figurative turn of expression. For, Lucy genuinely loved Senator Friedman, although she knew full well that the clumsy and gawkish Senator would never suspect it in a million years.
âNow, Senator, Friedman,â Lucy said, as though she were a nurse lulling a fearful child to sleep. âThese âbitchesâ wonât be around forever.â
Senator Friedman murmured a soft âMm-hm.â But then he sat bolt upright, quivering in terror. âIs that⊠oh dear God, what the frickinâ hell did I just say? Did I really use that vile word to talk aboutâŠ.â
Lucy waved her hand. âDonât worry, Senator Friedman. As far as Iâm concerned, you can call these bastards whatever the hell you want! Letâs not get hung up on that one!â
âOhhh,â moaned Saul, throwing his head on his hands in despair. âI swear, I frickinâ to swear to ya, Lucy, I didnât mean to say that word. Women ainât bitches Lucy, believe me. I swear, I frickinâ swear I didnât mean toâŠâ
Lucy started trembling. âUm, Senator FriedmanâŠ.â
âSaul!â the Senator appeared to snap. Apparently realizing that he had spoken in a manner that could be easily but inaccurately, mistaken for brusqueness (when in fact Saul was angry with himself, and not at all with Lucy), Saul murmured low:
âSaul, Saul, Saul. Yes, thatâs it. Saul, Lucy, you can call me Saul! Itâs fine, yeah, Lucy, Saul, Saul is my name, Saul. But, Lucy, I mean, these frickinâ bitches, Lucy!â
Lucy was really concerned by now. âUm, Sen⊠um, Saul, Iâm really sorry to say this, but have you had yourâŠâ
Saul grimaced.
âYeah. Yeah. I think so. Think so, yeah. Had âem, yeah. Once today.â
Lucy didnât seem so convinced. âCould you maybe, you know, maybe just⊠like we did yesterdayâŠâ
Saul, relieved at Lucyâs concern for him, rooted around in the top drawer of his desk.
âSecond drawer,â suggested Lucy.
âOh yeah, yeah! Sorry, second drawer, itâs this, uhâŠâ
Things werenât getting any better. âNo, second, SaulâŠâ
Saul finally found the second drawer, âOh, yeah, sorry, I mean I thought you meant the second, uh, theâŠâ
Lucy stepped forward to the desk. âCould IâŠâ
Saul withdrew his hand, more in frustration than in anger. âSuppose. Yeah, yeah, you might as, you might as well, LucyâŠââ
Lucy found the pills.
âDonât worry,â Saul took pains to reassure her. âThereâs ten left.â
Lucy checked inside the box of pills. âThere are indeed.â
âHa! Least Iâm frickinâ good for something, hey?â grimaced Saul, with something finally approaching a smile, at long last.
Lucy almost cried. âSenator! Oh, there should be eight now. Not ten! But what about this morning?â
Saulâs face fell. âMmm. Mmm-hm. Yeah, well yeah. Um. Hm.â
Lucy threw up her hands in despair.
âMm. Left âem at the coffee machine. Coffee machine, yeah!â
Lucy, by now, was genuinely tearful. âThey took it away. It canât be the coffee machine. Donât you remember? The coffee machine, they took it awayâŠâ
Saulâs voice trailed away, almost into nothing. âI⊠I thought⊠but whyâd they take it away? But why? I donât⊠I meanâŠâ
Lucy trembled. âSaul, you said you didnât want it any more. You had no use for it.â
Saul lowered his head in shame. His mind drifted back to the golden days of university which seemed so long ago.
And to one day in particular, although the events on this day had happened long after Saulâs graduation.
Yes, Saul was dreaming of one day in particular.
The day that he grabbed his old classmate Adolph Adams by the neck, shook him to within an inch of his life, and finally persuaded AA to run for office.
Chapter 3: Waiting for the Messiah
The raincoat dripped. His forehead dripped. Every last atom of body and soul; soaked to the marrow.
âHey! Whereâs my fare, you English cheapskaaaaate!â roared a voice in the distance. A car door slammed, and a cascade of horns descended upon the City of Unbearable Frickinâ Insomnia, as Saul Friedman never tired of calling it.
But this man was no Saul Friedman. For, rather than muttering and fidgeting his way through the town, bumping markets stalls, deadening his elbow on irrationally planted lampposts, and coming within an inch of colliding a child or ten into an unanticipated hospital vacation, the man who was coming to visit Saul Friedman inched with cat-like tread throughout the city.
No matter what obstacles present themselves to his cautious eyes, this most feline of urban dwellers evaded them all.
Nothing could thwart him.
From speeding street-cars, to vindictive cops who had nothing better to do than enforce the purely arbitrary and pettifogging âdonât walkâ regulations, there was nothing that would encumber the sumptuous arrow-flight of this gorgeous man.
The office at last.
The gloves slipped off.
Long, slender pianistâs fingers pirouetted towards the sparkling intercom buttons.
The task was done.
A buzz, a click. Into the elevator.
Through the corridor.
To the door.
Knock-knock-knock.
Three taps precisely.
Clean, clinical, cleanly-clink-precise!
âŠ
And a nervous guffaw greets our brave young Darcy.
âHa, Adi, fuckinâ Adi, yer grand old foot-dragging bastard, ya! Cominâ right atcha, son!â Saul Friedman threw open the door, threw a fist-bump which was, sad to say (or not?) was very nearly a left hook.
The stranger deftly stepped back.
âWho⊠well, who in the hell even is this guy?â muttered Saul, twitching his eyebrows in disgust at the rather uncongenially clean and slick figure standing before him.
âGood evening, Senator Friedman,â purred the visitor.
âHm. Yeah!… Same.â
Lucy cast Saul a gentle but firm glance of warning, as Saulâs rather peculiar behaviour towards Captain Catty-Glance was hardly without precedent in recent times.
âG’d evenin’ yerself,â muttered Saul.
âIndeed it is, indeed it is,â was the reply.
âMay I ask the reasonâŠâ whispered Lucy, disconcerted at the sleek and glossy appearance of the peculiar clean-shaven, bare-pated, softly spoken Englishman before her.
âOh, now! A gentleman never bestows a reason upon an idle questioner.â The strangerâs beaming voice dripped and treasured with a glossy whiff of exquisite cinnamon and honey, that was really quite overpowering to the average ear.
âYer gonna tell us yer business or what?â murmured Saul. âI got someone else coming in a short while. So this shit oâ yers better be good, alright?â
The curious gentleman beamed with such a gleaming façade of generosity of spirit that one might almost be forgiven for crediting him with the utmost sincerity and gentleness.
Saul frowned. âYer not one of them goddamn media assholes again, are yer?â Saul spat. âJust frickinâ sick oâ this crap. I told yer all, I am not runninâ fer office. There are better people than me fer that one.â
And ohhh, those broad white teeth!
âAh, dear me! Well, wouldnât you care to reconsider? For, as inadequately acquainted as I may justly consider myself thus far to be, considering the current political establishment in our gracious sister nation, I would humbly beg leave to submit that even if (let me concede but this!) if there do indeed be some who are more qualified than you, these âsomeâ may nevertheless at least (if I may dare presume to take this liberty!) be very far from âmany.ââ
âAh, now is that by any chance a hypothesis worth entertaining? Or am I perchance genuinely, genuinely wide of the mark?â
âWell, yer the expert. Seems pretty clear yerâve already made up yer mind,â grunted Saul, slamming the door in disgust. Saul sat down in silence at his desk.
âHe wonât come, yâknow,â he murmured.
Lucy gazed with compassion upon her hero; a compassion not entirely untinged with admiration for the sheer skill and mastery this grumpy, rather Oedipal old fusspot had shown in expelling that poor little Grub boy, the disingenuously sinister shade that just some few minutes before had haunted the already rather desolate office.
âHeâll come, for sure,â in a voice so low and gentle, it was almost a whisper. âHeâll come.â
Saul sighed. âLet me let you in on a little secret, Luce. The wait for the Messiah is the Messiah himself. Heâs always coming, heâs always at the door, but weâre all too frickinâ taken up with our own petty concerns. Yeah, and yâknow, weâll never see him, just never see him for who he truly is.â
Lucy smiled. âWell, sure, but thatâs the burden of being God, right?â
Saul grunted irascibly, but not without a hint of amusement and tender affection for the rather green and sheltered intern who stood before him.
âAh, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Luce, you just got it all hot-damn ass-backwards, aintcha! Ah, dear God, woes-a-me! You out of your freakinâ mind, Luce? The Messiah ainât a God. I mean, letâs be honest. Heâs not even anyone special. Not one bit special, this guy. Not one bit frickinâ special at all, Lucy!â
Lucy frowned, not sure whether to take this as a sign of the apparently serious deterioration in Saulâs mental health; or just as one of his quirks, or as something. But was there a difference, really? How could she be expected to know? The man she loved seemed to be ebbing away, bit by bit, like a strong fortress of sand that was gradually crumbling into a dull, blank, empty space on a deserted shoreline, where the last feeble heartbeat of the human race, one day, would finally cease to halt.
But oh, those quirks. âMy autistic genius,â she used to call him in her dreams.
But Aspergerâs Syndrome was probably a pretty minor concern, in the grand scheme of things. Or was it even a concern at all? Or was it a strength? Or both?
But then, why bother? As a young semi-pious Catholic woman from rural Georgia who had somehow managed to get lucky here with her first âseriousâ job, Lucy often felt awash in the big city. There were so many things she just didnât understand.
But then again, in his own curious way, the same was true of Saul. And if such was true of Saul, how much more so Lucy herself?
All of a sudden a thought struck Lucy with extraordinary vividness. She was so consumed with exciting and trepidation, she almost jumped a foot in the air.
âSo⊠the Messiah isnât God, or a god, or anyone or anything like that. And he isnât even anyone special⊠but who, then? Who is he, really? Or⊠or she?â (Lucyâs Catholic conscience smote her breast with an unbearable fury as soon as she uttered the latter two scandalously daring words of that sentence).
Saul sat up, polished his glasses with his ragged sleeve, and looked Lucy straight in the eye. This was almost unheard of; but when Saul fixed his eyes on you, and wouldnât let go for all the world, you knew he was in deadly earnest.
âThe Messiah, LucyâŠâ he hoarsely whispered.
Lucyâs eyes fell in shame, although deep down, she knew she had nothing to be ashamed about.
Saulâs eyes gleamed with a radiance almost devilishly dizzying in its furious intensity: but Saul himself, it seemed, was a devil of light, and nothing other.
âThe Messiah, Lucy⊠heâs one of us. Heâs not any of those guys⊠them guys, way up there. Nope.
âNo, Lucy, now listen you here, Lucy! The MessiahâŠ
âHeâs in every one of us. Heâs not any one man or woman or person, taken on their own. And moreâŠ
âHe is every one of us.
âYes, Lucy, the Messiah is one of us. Heâs the supreme individual. And he is good to us, and he is generous. He only asks us one thing to us, and he only asks one of us.
âLucy, the MessiahâŠâ
Saulâs voice was tightened and shrunk to an almost unbearable gravity of gruffness.
âThe Messiah has only one message for us. What sayst thou, my dearest friend, my most vicious enemy, my tenderest, well-beloved onesâŠ
âTo the individual?â
Lucy turned away from Saul. She put her hands to her eyes and shivered uncontrollably. She cried, and cried, and cried. The tears did not stop.
The tears did not stop.
How could they?
How could they?
Not now.
Not after all this.
Chapter 4: Sisterhood is Treason
Senator Bubble snorted as he flicked through the news channels. âOh for the love of God, would you quit chewing that gum like a fuckinâ imbecile, Sandy?â he roared. Sandy spat out her gum.
âNot on the⊠hey, well you know what? Whatever! You want to live like a swine, I can treat you like a swine, sis!â
Sandy smirked. âYouâd be nothing without me, Mark.â
Marcusâs piggy little swine-eyes disappeared under a cataclysm of rolling, gleaming bulges of almost suppurating fat.
âYou are a punk rocker, Sandy. You know who I am?â
Sandy rolled her eyes. âAt a wild guess, Iâd say just some big shot establishment politico who sits on his ass in this office all day and tries to think of new ways of throwing the women, gays and minorities in our state under the bus, purely because it suits his pitiful, fragile little straight white guy ego.â
Marcus smirked. âStraight little white guy, huh? You ever heard of any civilization worth the name that wasnât governed by these ohhh-so-awwwful-nasty-littlestraight-ass-white-guys like me?
âCâmon, answer me, sis! Tell you something for nothing, Sandy, if we went away, you people would be the first to scream out at us on bended knee, pleading for mercy. I tell you what, if we ever finally do go Galt and let the blacks, and the abortionists, and the flaming black abortionists, and the Riot Grrrl transgender witchcraft homosupremacist dyking fraternity run the showâŠâ
Sandy strode over to Marcus, grabbed his collar and laughingly put all 200lbs of worthless Beltway-craving pork refuse against the wall.
A genuine spasm of terror flashed over Marcusâ face.
âNever⊠ever⊠ever make any snide comments about Jane again.â
Marcus squinted so hard, it looked like he was trying to pop his eyes, if there was anything substantial enough to be even worth the popping.
âThat is sooo fuckinâ stupid,â Marcus muttered. âHis name is âJake.â Not âJane.â Youâre catering to this guyâs delusions. Heâs not even gone full-blown-castration-ops yet. Or whatever the PC term for that one is by now. I swear to you, Sandy, I mean I canât even keep track of this shit!â
Almost more amused than furious, Sandy towered over Marcus and pinched his cheekâŠ
Hard.
Just like when they were growing up, and Marcus used to mock the girls about their periods.
âOw! Fuck you!â roared Marcus.
âDonât worry, Marcus,â sneered Sandy. âTransgender people in Egypt are going through a hell of a lot worse now, thanks to your partyâs Blitzkrieg against the secularists.â
Marcus quivered with rage. âThey werenât secularists at all, Sandy. They are authoritarian tyrants, who hate our freedom, and want to bring literal socialism to Egypt, just like Stalin!â
Sandy roared with laughter. âYou actually still think âsocialismâ and âStalinismâ are synonymous terms? What, is it like still the 80s or something?â
Marcus wrinkled his bulging brow, with a gaping bewilderment that was not so purely contrived as one might assume, but that was every bit as defiant as one would generally expect from such a ânotable public figureâ as Senator Marcus Charleston Bubble.
âYes. Yes I do. Socialism is tyranny. By definition!
âSocialism is tyranny, progressivism is tyranny, flaming liberal capitulationism is tyranny, fascism is tyranny, the homosexual agenda of a sizable proportion of the evil Nazi brotherhood is tyranny, Islam is tyranny, other terrorist creeds are tyranny, especially the ecovandals, and Episcopalian heathenism is tyranny, and the stupid liberalizing media vermin infesting Jew York Shitty and Jew York State are destroying this country too!
âOh, and by the way, so is that loser fake-ass RINO Saul Friedman. Satisfied?â
Sandy glared at Marcus. She loathed him now as much as ever. âIâve noticed you never say this shit openly on TV, Marcus. Any particular reason?â
Marcus pushed Sandy away and, in the process of doing so, stumbled and fell on his gut.
âYou asshole! You pushed me, Sandy! Iâm the governor of Georgia, the actual Georgia governor, and you pushed me!â
Sandy put her foot on Marcusâ neck. âYou donât have the courage of your convictions. Why donât you go on NBC and tell everyone what you really think about⊠well, about pretty much everyone!â
Marcus rolled onto his back, consumed with fury.
âPretty much everyone? Dear God, sis, what the hell are you even talking about? Anyone who is a patriotic, God-fearing citizen can be a part of this country. Does it seriously say anywhere in our partyâs Constitution that we canât have any fucking queers in it?
âNo, now look, Sandy! I have absolutely nothing whatsoever against people who are fucking insanely deluded enough to… to get their fucking dicks chopped off. You know, just so long as they arenât doing it openly and shamelessly, in the street, in front of our kids!â
Sandy kicked Marcus in the ass, her slender foot almost disappearing forever beneath the suppurating folds of grease and wrinkled pale ânâ pink.
âReally? Really, Marco boy? People castrating themselves in the streets? You know what, I think you actually need to start seeing a therapist, Marcus, because your sexual fantasies are starting to take over your life. Youâre starting to actually believe your own pathetic smears.
âAnd by the way, why donât you actually speak with Jane? Or is it beneath you? She can tell you there is a hell of a lot more to being transgender than getting your sack cut. I mean, I should know. Jane is the woman I am spending the rest of my life with!â
Marcus struggled to his feet. âLook, you donât even understand whatâs going on here. You arenât even a proper lesbian!â
Sandy roared with laughter. âA âproperâ lesbian? Like what, you mean, the âgirlsâ on your laptop?â
Marcus bellowed at the topic of his voice: âAre you insinuating that Senator Marcus Charleston Bubble watches immoral and ungodly videos?â
Sandy condescendingly patted Marcus on the head. âNo, Marcus. Iâm stating a cast-iron fact. I donât even need any evidence for it. Weâve all got the measure of you, brother dearest!â
Marcus gestured to the door. âListen, you need to go now. I have some video research to do. Oh, here we go! No, just shut the hell up and listen, Sandy! I am looking at the videos of when I got pulled out of the wreckage. There are all these weird, self-indulgent narcissists who have absolutely nothing better to do with their time than go over these videos for hours on end, trying to claim it was all staged, and the building didnât actually fall on me when those filthy Sahara maggots from the United Iranian Embassy, or Emirates, or, or whatever, blew up that building. These guys must be pretty sick, twisted, anally paranoid narcissists to just sit flicking through these videos hour after hour. Iâm going to have a look at these videos, gather several files of evidence, and see if there is some way we can evade the SLAPP laws on some technicality, so that we have have these idiotic Jew comedians in Friedmansville bleeding shitty beat-up shekels out of their asses for a thousand years!â
Sandy swaggered over to the door. âRemember Jane and I are singing at Pigpunk Scandal the night after tomorrow in Tucson. The offerâs there! The first Bubba Sands tour is the biggest event in decades! And you donât want to fall any further behind the curve, Marcus!â
Marcus threw an empty cup, which Sandly deftly ducked. âFor the last fricking time, no!â he roared. âLook, Iâve nothing against the transgenders, I mean, these transgender community folks, you know, like this, this husband or however you call this guy of yours, OK fine, girlfriend, whatever! But no way, Sandy, I tell you this: I am not having my own sister promoting this immoral transgender lifestyle, this transgender supremacist Kool-Aid cult of yours, or encouraging the Jewish school boards to indoctrinate our kids in this worthless, suicidal depravity.
âI mean, donât you realize that itâs this hippy liberal free love bullshit thatâs causing these filthy Arabs to come to our country to try and kill us, and destroy our way of life?
âIf it wasnât for all you queers and trannies with your alternative lifestyle nonsense, there would be no such thing as this dirty Arab terrorism.â
âYou people are the only thing standing in the way of peace!
âSo think on, sis! Behind closed doors, for sure, you can be my sister! But in public, you can forget it! As soon as we step outside these doors, our family ties no longer exist. If you want to bring shame on your family with this crazy lesbo punk music bullshit of yours, well, thatâs your funeral. But I ainât havinâ none of it! Just donât you dare ever forget my first priority is to my country, and not to your infantile delusions of a counterfeit liberty and freedom that is 100% unrecognizable to me, and letâs be honest, to pretty much anyone else in this world with a shred of conscience!
âYup! The moment you walk out that door, you are not my sister any longer. If I saw you lying dying in the street from a sudden AIDS attack or something foolish like that, there are plenty of other folks out there to dial 911.
âBut Iâve had enough, Sandy. America First, America Last, and American Everything In Between. And if you freedom-hating sexual decadents donât get with the program, well you can go and live in some other shitty country that suits your idiotically highminded artistic-nihilist standards!â
This last barrage of cuts was the most cruel of all. Sandy kept her composure, and left the door. She reached the elevator, and all of a sudden burst into floods of tears.
If it wasnât for all you fuckin’ queers and trannies with your alternative lifestyle nonsense, there wouldnât be no such damn thing as this here dirty Arab terrorismâŠ
âThatâs exactly what our father said before he burst that blood vessel. And Marcus said it on purpose. My own flesh and blood; the only one left. I lost the love and the affection of my father because I couldnât live this way; not like that. I tried, I really tried so, so hard. And now we are the only two left. And my brother is getting his revenge.
âAnd the pills just arenât working any more. Jane⊠Iâm sorry. Iâm so, so, sorry. I just canât do this any more.â Sandyâs quivering hands reached inside her handbag, one last time.
âIâm doing this for us; if only you could understand, Jane. If only you could understandâŠâ
Sandyâs screams echoed terrifying across the lift shaft, as the elevator gushed with blood.
The bill for elevator repairs and cleaning-up Marcus was to send to Jane the following week was the least of her concerns.
But Marcus made sure to add as a parting shot:
So make no mistake, Jake, or Jane, or whatever the hell you want to call yourself. This bill is not an olive branch. This is all strictly business. I havenât forgiven you and your stupid brofags for killing my sister. I just wish that it was you who had killed yourself instead. At least Iâd still have had someone left. Just go ahead and fucking do the decent thing, would you?
Well, preferably after youâve coughed up, huh? Guess thereâs at least one good thing left in this world you can do, huh?
Oh, and by the way⊠before you go crying to those liberal shills of yours about this letter; I know all about this health insurance crap of yours. Non-disclosure of HIV positive status, AIDS, whatever, is an offense under federal law. So, I would seriously advise you to watch your step if youâre inclined to try anything funny! Make of that what you willâŠ.
Still, if nothing else, Iâm glad the suicide got to Sandy before that filthy gay plague of yours did. Ha! Thank Heavens for small mercies, hey?
So Iâm gonna make you a deal, Jakie boy. Just you cough up the cash, give me my money (cos I sure as hell always gonna know whatâs mine! WOOP WOOP!) Aaand, seeecooondly (red line for emphasis, son!) just you shut the fuck up, and then as far as Iâm concerned, you and your shitty insurance fraud âoversightâ never even existed! Deal?
I mean, Iâm not gonna lie to you. I could go come down very, VERY hard on you, so fucking hard you have LITERALLY NO FUCKING IDEA!
But actually, for what itâs worth: Iâm just that little bit too distraught about what youâve done to Sandy to be genuinely angry. So I guess Iâm not bitter, Jake; Iâm giving you a really good opportunity to give some money back to this state and undo some small part of the damage youâve done. Take it or leave it!
Chapter 5: Dirty Videos
This is the transcript Senator Bubble took of the first video he watched after Sandy spoke with him for the very last time in her life.
Otis Spengler (pedantic jerk!): An incredible update on the explosion in Georgia earlier today. The emergency services are even now pulling out more survivors from the wreckage of The Amber Hornet Discotheque. Investigations into the cause of the explosion are ongoing, but Daesh have explicitly claimed responsibility for the attack. Rumors that the elite college fraternity âParthenon of Iowaâ were meeting in the basement remain to be confirmed. I guess I wonât say any more about that for now, but it seems something very dangerous and sinister is afoot. Have a look at this footage. Seems that there are some people, whoever they are, who genuinely hate us, and who hate the best of what we stand for. (Donât make it sound so frickinâ creepy, you liberal asshole! Itâs just a few friends meeting up to have a few beers and check out the wildlife!) But just look at this incredible footage!
[Senator Marcus Bubble gloriously emerges from the wreckage. Only needs two medical girls to help him to his feet].
Otis Spengler: Wow. Just⊠wow. Iâm just in awe. I mean, isnât it just an incredible sight, Cassy? A guy like Senator Marcus Bubble emerging from the wreckage like that. Somebody up there, or somewhere or other, I guess, must really love this country. Itâs a miracle! Itâs just not of this world, thatâs what I think. Pretty out of the ordinary. Whether it came from up there, down there, wherever, itâs not just the kind of mundane, mediocre happenstance that seems to be a staple of our political environment right now. (Well, no frickinâ shit, Otis! Why do they pay you to come out with this inane claptrap? Sounds like some stupid five-year-old kid whoâs just discovered who Santa Claus is!)
Cassie-Jane Helman: Oh, wow! Itâs Senator Marcus Bubble. (Well, who else was it gonna be? I was there, you werenât! Just deal with it, you prissy liberal hack!) Oh, gosh, this is just so⊠incredible! (Would you just quit gushing? Iâm sick of this slick, metropolitan coastal sensationalism. Why donât you tell them about the time I saved the buffalos from⊠Oh and the liberal Georgia media didnât even thank me! They came out with all this pedanticâ conflict of interestâ claptrap⊠Oh well, you know what? Iâm frickinâ done with this shit already. Fuck you, Otis and Cassie! You didnât succeed in spoiling my moment. But Iâve got even bigger plans come atcha in the near future⊠plans that are soooooooo frickinâ big, you canât even imagine. So suck on that one, you pretentious prog-hole asshats!)
Chapter 6: Waiting for Adolph
âYes, I said Saul Frickety-Frick Friedman,â insisted Marcus Charleston Bubble, slamming down the phone. âKeep an eye on him. You know what he and his tribe are like.â
Lucy tried one more time to persuade Saul to go home. âAinât got a home. Just a nice apartment, a nice this and that, but there ainât frickinâ nothing like home there. Just sick oâ this shit!â
Lucy gazed with her customary refined gaze of compassion mingled with anxiety. âWhat shit do you mean, Saul?â
Saul bowed his head. âFrickinâ shit, Lucy. Frickinâ shit.â
Lucy cautiously took a step closer to Saul. âYou havenât done any shit,â she pleaded.
Saul laughed grimly. âFuck no! Yer right, Lucy. I havenât done shit! All my life, I ainât done shit. Got it in one, genius!â
Lucy tutted. âYouâve done a lot of great things. Iâd like to do just a half, even a quarter of the great things youâve done, Saul.â
Saul wrinkled up his face in horror. âLike what? I ainât done shit. Iâm not like Adolph, yâknow. I want this poor little schmuck boy running for president, like he promised me all these years ago. And I ainât takinâ no for an answer! Little weasel ainât gonna wriggle outa this one, I can tell yer! We need a solid pro-speech, pro-privacy and pro-peace candidate. Thereâs only one person who can do that: Adolph Lyndon Adams. None of the rest of âem measure up.
âFrickinâ neocons! Frickin neocon bitches, liberal interventionists, Ima gonna make sure these bastards donât get away with it! If thereâs anyone who can preserve our constitution and make our shit right again, itâs this guy. Otherwise weâre all frickinâ fucked!â
Lucy drew up a chair. She could listen to Saul kvetch for hours. Except right now, it wasnât really âkvetchingâ at all. She knew that Saul was a very ethically serious person, and that behind the irritable, fussy persona, Saul was a person of good heart and character who was genuinely bewildered and terrified by the tidal wave of surveillance apologism, warmongering militarism and generally self-seeking depravity engulfing Washington. Oh, if only Saul were a good Catholic! She would nurse him in his old age, and take care of him forever.
âHell no,â she thought to herself. âFather Jacobs isnât here now. If only I had the chance, I would marry him, and I would brave all the legions of hell to be the Orpheus to my Euridice; blessed Saul, O my blessed, fallen Saul.â
Saul was convulsed in a fit of sneezing. âRomantics⊠romantics! Frickinâ⊠frickinâ fool romantics!â he managed to groan at last.
âWho?â whispered Lucy, her sky-blue eyes sparkling with wonder and delight.
âThe war pigs. Frickinâ war pigs, donât tell people I said that, donât tell âem nothing, Luce, or weâre all frickinâ fucked! But the frickinâ war swiners, theyâre killinâ everyone. Soon theyâre be no-one left to kill. Only us. Just us. Weâll have to face the world alone, or die alone. Just us, nobody else in this whole goddamn world, Lucy!â
Lucyâs heart leapt with a holy terror. She dared to hope against hope. What on earth was this strange, irascible man driving at? Could it possibly be? Had he been hugging close this great secret all along?
âAmerica!â he almost screamed. âAmerica, Lucy. If everyone else is gone, we might still make it. But Iâm not sure I want to live in that kind of world, where so much truth and beauty and joy gonna be lost.â
Lucyâs hopes were cruelly dashed. She wept and wept and wept. âOf course,â she told herself; over and over and over and over again. âOf course, heâs an older man, heâs an older man, of course, Iâm his intern, and heâs an older man, and what on earth was I thinking, dear God, blessed Maria, be with me in my time of trial, hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee…â
Saul sat bolt upright in horror. âOh, oh, ohhhhhh, for Chrissakes, Lucy, Iâm sorry. Been fuckinâ kvetchinâ on and on like this, youâre so frickinâ tired, Lucy. Get your rest.â
Lucy shook her head. âI donât want any rest. I just want to be here and listen to you talking.â
All of a sudden, Lucy froze in horror. What the hell did she just say?
If Saul understood what Lucy really felt, he didnât show it.
âI ainât got nothing interesting to say, Lucy. Go and buy a frickinâ cat and it can at least meow for you. I donât know whatâs wrong with me. I sit here and whinge and moan about what people in my party (and the other one) are doing, but I canât seem to do shit!â
Lucy bowed her head, tears still streaming down her cheeks.
âIâm goinâ home,â muttered Saul. âBut Adolph will come. Heâll come, Lucy. Remember what I saidâŠ
âCheck that email.â
Lucyâs pained eyes followed Saul for every last moment, until he finally shuffled out of the room. âIâll check the email as Saul says; and then Iâll go,â she whispered to herself.
Lucy opened the last email of the day. It came from high up. Higher than most.
All of a sudden, Lucy screamed in fear, and ran out of the room, not even so much as stopping to collect her coat.
Chapter 7: The Great RINO Hunt
Saul Friedman stood proud, if not so tall, before the cameras. It was here, in front of an audience, that he was in his element. No matter how bowed and broken he was before any small circle of friends, family or intimate colleagues, his stance and demeanor before the cameras exuded an immense gravity, warmth, and the kind of solemnity that has nothing whatsoever to do with the âsick soulâ of his fellow American William James, and everything to do with the âhealthy soulâ that stares evil in the eye, and does not once ever dare to flinch.
Saul Friedman fixed his piercing grey eyes upon the camera, as though there were some vision mortal enemy on the other side of the screen that he was determined to âpin.â
The haunting melody of âSisters of Mercyâ rang in the ears of his soul, even threatening, with merciless humility, threatened to drown out the Rush overture a well-meaning but somewhat gauche supporter (make of that what you will!) was blasting out from a neighboring office block.
Saul Friedman cleared his throat, and wiped his brow. No Presidential tears for him! After all, today was not primarily about Saul Friedman, as he saw it; so what place was there for grand gestures. âHeâs come to serve, and not to be served,â whispered a well-meaning aide.
This particular aide, quite unlike Saul himself, was actually guilty of some fairly pronounced neocon sympathies; but Saul really had not the least appetite to repudiate the hypocritical comment, nor to feel rancor at the patronizing allusions to the man that, as Saul himself knew well, was not âThe Messiah.â
Now that is being interpreted: not the only one.
Saul glanced round at Lucy. Wide-eyed, she trembled in awe. âFor America,â was the message on her lips; but no words came out. Saul knew what she was saying; the fastest route for any message of love is heart to heart. Saul faced the cameras.
âAmerica!â he growled, with a lionâs roar to strike fear into the heart of any mediocre opportunist and âcareer dynamic.â
âAmerica!â was the response of a few stragglers who had managed to evade the security personnel.
âAnd what is America?â Saul roared.
âFreedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!â
Immediately, the security forces began bundling out these wicked right-opportunist (some would say left-infantilist!) Neo-Yippie hooligans who had dared to turn up to support just such an evil enemy of the nation as Saul Friedman.
âAlright punk, put your ass in the air! This is journalists only!â
One wicked, unprincipled interloper roared: âConstitutiooon! Justice shall not be bought or sold! Whoâs payinâ the cops around here?â
That didnât go down well. Another cop, more well-meaning, said: âListen son, just doinâ my job, aâright? I donât make the rules, my job is to make sure the rules are followed.â
âNow you take care of these young people!â warned Saul, wagging his finger. âNow, donât you ever harm a single hair on their heads. Because even if the law doesnât hold you accountable, there is another law above you: the Constitution! So do you all have a care to remember the ancient verity: âAs above, so below!â
All across America, in every city, town or village, and in many an isolated ranch or homestead, there was at least one person who remembered Magna Carta, and the ideals for which Friedman stood. These ideals were high; but not at all high minded. They were noble; but not at all self-exalting. And, of course, were the laughing stock of The Great and The Good; but they were never once forgotten by the true inheritors of the Founding Fathers, of Frederick Douglass, of Harriet Beecher Stowe, of Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau, Dubois; and of a thousand silent martyrs who had left this life dreaming that one day, the dream of liberty would come home to just such a hearth as theirs, and abide with them, and nevermore leave their side.
âI am an American,â proclaimed Saul Friedman, his voice gracefully descending to a low murmur. âAnd every American is an American. But not all the Americans among us in the corridors of power know what this truly means.â
Far, far away, Senator Marcus Charleston bubble spat in inarticulate outrage.
And in Tucson, Arizona, Jane Chauvert of Bubba Sands felt the first glimmer of hope she had felt for a long time.
In Washington, office after office exploded into peals of scorn and derision.
But why worry? If Friedman had heard the warmongering Stormtroopers of Goodness mock him so, it would have encouraged him further, if anything!
âAmerica is about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and an infinity of virtues. But most of our leaders have but three ideals: support death, servitude and the pursuit of profit! And believe me, my friends and my fellow Americans, these are not the âredeeming vicesâ which even the mediocre âcareer opportunistâ and white-bread cynic have by the bucket load! No, my dearest yokefellows on a common venture: today, our Establishment political class are devoted to mass-murder, oppression and abject barbarism.â
The top Republicans, huddled round a vast screen in what Friedman would no doubt sneeringly have named the âCentral Command,â gaped in horror. Friedman was supposed to be giving a resignation speech! A resignation speech, for God’s sake! But he was, you know, like this talking like some kind of treacherous flaming Cold War Marxist, in bed with all them despicable Russkie Soviets!
This discredited, unpatriotic Senator was supposed to be meeting the media in order to acknowledge his errors, or at the very least, to give a brief acknowledgment of how he could no longer count on party support, and would not be running in future. But this despicable, cynical, pacifist charlatan was now standing up before the eyes of the whole world, and denouncing one true patriotic party of the greatest nation on earth!
Is it possible to think of anything more ungrateful than this? Or indeed, anything more viciously, hideously opportunistic? The Republican Party had given Saul Pinko Flaming Friedman all he ever had; and out of sheer bitterness and resentment, this filthy, entitlement-ridden isolationist traitor was now throwing it back in their faces!
The filthy Arab terrorists who bombed the Amber Hornet would never have done it, if it werenât for the pitiful pinko pacifism of spineless, reptilian vermin like Friedman. Thatâs why he had to resign. Right? RIGHT?
Well? You tell me! You just flaming well tell me, if you dare. How many, I demand of you, HOW MANY INNOCENT AMERICANS must be sacrificed on the merciless altar of politically correct, Arabophiliac sentimentality? This unpatriotic bastard wasnât prepared to either love or to leave the Sweet Land of Liberty; only to munch and burrow away at the founding pillars of The Great Exception. He should count himself lucky he was getting away with this. How great a nation must the United States of America be, when the First Amendment applied even to treacherous, evil Jew parasites like Saul Terence Magilligan Friedman!
But the stark, staring horror of it all did not last for long. After a short while, people started getting up, pacing around the room, groaning, moaning, arguing, making enraged phone calls to whoever they thought could be bothered to listen.
The speech continued.
âI have tried my best, as other have tried, to turn our party onto the right path. America was meant to be a City upon a Hill, not the abomination of desolation upon 7 funeral mounds!â
Even the most jaded hacks and âcareer dynamicsâ gasped at these words.
âI am no man of God,â groaned Saul Friedman, raising his fist in prophetic denunciation, and glancing fearfully heavenward, like the rugged and ragged St John of the Apocalypse, fearfully awaiting the windows of heaven to open in wrathful indignation, and perhaps for this dread one last time, and for that alone.
âNo, I am no Man of God!â Saul roared. âBut I am a man of America: and I will tell you this. There can be no extremism in opposing militarism; and moderation in the pursuit of peace is the most unforgivable of vices!â
The suppuratingly pudgy Republican top brass howled like wounded hyenas. What on earth would the enemies of America, at home and abroad, think when they heard these evil, self-serving and opportunistic words? Dear God! This vile person had done more than Osama Bin Laden, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi or 60s hippie crack peddlers to destroy America and give succor to the evildoers who were besieging us.
Had this despicable hooligan not the slightest shred of conscience?
With every ringing phrase, with every insulting word and still-more-insulting breath, he was throwing open the doors of the citadel, so that all manner of jihadists, Communists, Mexicans, homotards and Arab infiltrators could take courage at his words and finally bring about the final destruction of America.
It was as though this evil traitor, in a gross parody of the noble words on the Statue of Liberty, was saying: âGive me your liberals, your socialists, your Muslims and your queers.â Was there nothing that could be done to stop this vile, rabble-rousing demagogue? Couldnât we just⊠âdo something?â But weâre going to have to be smart about this. Evil America-hating zealots like this guy are never short of allies. For every true patriotic American, there are a hundred traitors, and ten thousand indifferent, imbecilic sluggards among the masses. America is not a democracy, and we never said it was. Itâs a Constitutional Republic. And we are damned if weâre letting this self-styled ânon-interventionistâ bring about the total destruction of our country with his arbitrary attempts to redefine right and wrong!
âI shall never hold my peace concerning what our leaders are perpetrating upon us! And not only upon us Americans. If you are an Arab, you are just as much a human being as I am. If you are a Copt, you are just as much a person, every much a human individual, as I am. If you live in Syria, or Iraq, or Egypt, you have exactly the same inalienable right to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as I! If not more; for you have been deprived of your rights by the evil ones; and some of those evil ones are among us today, in our nation! And I speak not solely of the jihadists; but also of those who make common cause with jihadists, with their unprincipled and diabolical schemes to destabilize the Middle East and North Africa; because these insidious serpents, these vile and vicious Stormtroopers of the Greater Good hiss and whisper in their hearts:
Any new power bloc, by definition, can only be a hostile rival civilization, with whom we are foreordained by blood, foresworn to clash forever!
âPeace, liberty, secularism and democracy cannot be permitted to be sustained and perpetuated; for if such were the case, so these embittered pedants reason in the darkness of their hearts, then America would no longer be The Grand Exception! On the contrary, other nations would have proven that they can make their own way without our tutelage! This is what is most unbearable to them; and this is why they are deliberately destabilizing vast swathes of the globe, leaving a monstrous and barbaric trail of destruction and devastation in their wake! The loathsome, white supremacist neoconservative and liberal interventionist mafia have unleashed oceans of blood and mourning, and clashing steel⊠And why? âBecause they are truly the evil ones!
âIf you are a conservative, a true authentic conservative must never support the âBig Government,â indeed the monstrously âColossal Government,â of primitive, Neanderthal warmongering. Likewise, if you are a true, a genuine liberal, you must never support the illiberal, indeed the downright savage brutality of âliberal interventionism.â But why be divisive? Let me say just this one thing more: if you are an American, you⊠you⊠y⊠yâ mu⊠yâmâŠ
Lucy screamed in horror as Saul Friedman clutched his chest and stumbled to the ground, his spectacles falling in disarray in the mud. âSenator!â she wailed, cradling her belovedâs white-whiskered skull in her gentle arms. âGet back!â roared a cop, gesturing her to leave.
She would not.
âCâmon, girl, there ainât nothing you can do. This poor schmuck needs an ambulance, aâright?â Lucy struggled to her feet, tears streaming down her face. All of a sudden, she bowed her head and took off like lightning; no-one knew where! A sheet of pills fell out of her pocket, and lay unremarked by all. But that didnât matter.
These pills had nothing to do with anxiety.
They were the other pills.
The pills for his heart.
And this very day, Saul Friedman had forgotten his first three pills.
Lucy had tried her best, but she had not found an opportunity to remind him.
The opportunity was lost.
Or lost forever?
Try as she might, Lucy could get no peace of mind on this point.
She had killed him.
By her carelessness and neglect, she had murdered the man she loved.
Saul needed that reminder.
And she wasnât there for him when she needed him most.
Why should she even go on living?
âŠ
Thereâs a special place in hell for all âem lousy bastards who ainât tryinâ all they can to prevent the needless suffering of the innocents.
That was always what Saul Friedman said.
And that why his party hated him beyond measureâŠ
With a perfect hatred that would pursue the wounded, haunted soul of Saul Friedman beyond the grave, unto the uttermost reaches of a bowed and broken Kosmos.
Chapter 8: âIf That is Your Humanity, I want no Part in Humanity.â
Marcus Bubble finally had his opportunity to publicly denounce Friedman. And by hellfire, would he make the most of it!
Affecting a professorial dignity and gravitas, Bubble stood one-legged, shifting from side to side and fiddling with his bulging pockets. Even good old fronty-pouchy LBJ himself, (this most sacred of peaces to his most luscious of bones!) had never had the chance to avail of such tailors as those great American patriots whom the rapacious âsuper-jackal of Georgiaâ could command. (We leave to the esteemed discretion of the enlightened reader, this same great be-vexed question of whether this most highly esteemed ultrapredator could command similar sums of booty).
Otis Spengler squirmed in agony. With a hangover like this, interviewing this loathsome glob of rancid neoconservative bile and bitterness was the last thing in hell he wanted to do. Was the current performance not proof positive that Bubble was incapable even of assuming the faux sophistication (not to say elegance!) of just such velvet-liveried knuckledraggers as Irving Kristol, Leopold II, and the immaculately swishy-cloaked Ayatollah Khomeini (or Captain Chickenbone, as Saul Friedman and a few not-so-peaceable dissidents among his opposite numbers were wont to call him⊠though not all these, by any means!)
No use. He just had to try. Spengler had been shilling for a good ten years by now, and he was always searching for a little moment of opportunity, the merest crack in the imposing edifice of establishment media complicity with the carnivorous mass murderers infesting the hallowed heights above the low Potomac sewer of his perennial fear and loathing.
âPresident⊠BubbleâŠâ groaned Spengler. (Was it a groan?)
The audience erupted into laughter. Even Bubble, curiously enough, was amused by this bizarre gaffe from a journalist normally renowned for his steadiness, solemnity and (ever now and then) a shadow of verbal cunning and trickery that could so often wrong-foot even the most fleet-of-foot career politico and Beltway supremacist.
After permitting himself a modest guffaw (albeit perhaps not fully so modest as Bubble himself judged it), Bubble sneered: âWell hey! Many a truer word was spoken in jest, hey?â
At these flippant words, the elderly grandmother of a waitress killed in the Amber Hornet atrocity burst into tears.
But who cares about her anyway?
Fuck her!
âHey! Would you quieten down there already?â shushed a notable foreign policy think tank intellectual. Petty Marshall was never in the mood for sentimentality, particularly when there were greater things at stake than the mere subjective sentiments and emotions of the benighted, patriotism-skeptical masses who swarmed before the enlightened eyes of this gracious God-among-maggots.
âLook, everyone. People are talking about Presidents. What kind of a President does America need? Well, as I see it, and Iâm sure not a few of you are going to agree with me, the best way to answer a positive, constructive question, is always to answer it via its opposite.
âOr at least, thatâs a pretty good point of departure, as Iâm pretty sure can all see. Sooo⊠what kind of President does America not need? Any ideas?â
âFuckinâ anti-white Zionists!â roared a voice from the audience.
A rather green little aide stared in horror. So far, he was every bit as unschooled in how Bubble managed his crowds as he was unfamiliar in how Bubble managed his other property and assets.
âHeh heh,â sniggered Bubble. âI donât think we can say that now, can we? Uh-uh! Try again, buddy!â
âThe fuckinâ Jews are destroying my country!â roared the heckler.
âRight! You know what?â said Bubble, perceptibly affecting a certain sternness and solemnity of tone. âOur country is in danger, we are in big trouble right now, people are angry. I got it! But letâs make sure we are blaming the very best people we can possibly blame. So, let me ask each one of you in your hearts, and you can all use your God-given consciences to answer in your hearts; and better still, out loud. Roar it, shout it, let 10 000 American freedom-loving patriots, and 10 000 times 10 000 more, make our day of rage and glory against the enemies of our country, of your country and mine: America, the greatest goddamn nation on earth!â
The mob immediately began roaring incoherently.
âAmerica!â roared Senator Bubble, pounding the prissy Florida podium so hard the wood started coming off in splinters.
âAmerica!â roared the assorted horde of respectable bigots and hooligans from the dregs of society: the ungovernable mob of subterranean, resentment-mongering anarchy howled in joyous fury like seventh devils in heat.
Bubble stopped pounding. He smirked. His piggy eyes scanned the bodies, if not the very hearts and souls of his gaudy carnival of flimsy, soulless marionnettes.
âHave any one of you ever heard of this guy Saul Terence Magilligan Friedman?â
Immediately the whole valley of torments blazed into light, with a glory not of this world, and far less of any blessed sphere above it.
âHang the bastard!â Was the chant.
Bubble waved his hand in mock disappointment.
Pausing for the right moment to intervene with the highly conspicuous âgood formâ which was something of a good trademark of his (and a pirateâs merchandise he guarded as jealously today as he had attempted to guard Sandyâs âdignityâ and âhonor,â) Bubble raised the hand of glory and smirked:
âThere will be no hangings in America today! We donât kill unpatriotic traitors who disagree with us⊠but boy oh boy, do we make it hot for âem!â
Curiously enough, this did not appease the crowd, but only appeared to rile them further. Oh, what an utterly curious and inexplicable unintended consequence! Could it really be, then, that like so many other neocons and liberal interventionists, Senator Bubble had just made yet another âhonest mistakeâ in long, long line of âhonest mistakes?â
The blessed ingenu segued his dainty palms like an Alexandrian altar-boy on Ezekielâs ice.
âBut let me tell you something, my fellow Americans: there can be no place for treason, pacifism and any disproportionate and unreasonable criticism of our people!â
The hooligans roared with carnivorous delight, white and yellow teeth alike gleaming with anticipation as they licked their chops in excitement.
âThe future must not belong to those who love not the beauty of our glorious nation!â
Hellfire and howling.
âIf you believe isolationists have a part to play in our America, shout it out!â came the roar.
Silence.
A ripple of amusement.
And little by little, a swelling tide of hilarity that, if anything, threatened to surpass and even swamp beyond measure the violent tsunami of bitterness and loathing Bubbles had earlier summoned.
âOK! If you believe America should play our God-anointed role in this world, standing up for the beleaguered and oppressed, and letting not one tyrant on this earth ever have a decent nightâs peaceful sleep in his bed, shout out our FUCK YEAHHHHHHHH!â
By now, the hyena’s den was an utterly deafening place for those with the unhappy fate to be caught in the jaws of Hell.
Otis gaped in horror. By now, he had completely forgotten about the barracking he would get from his bosses about losing any remotely serious opportunity to engage with Bubble; he was now so horrified by the barbaric army of saber-wielding skeletons before his eyes, he dared not even breathe.
He sensed the the vast, vast troops of sober, sneering, jackbooted Teutons; marching lockstep to a music he could not once discern, nor venture to imagine.
He saw an eagle tearing shreds out of the faces of Jewish children too terrified to so much as shed a tear.
He heard the terrified screams of weeping Iraqi children who had been desolately clutched and carried away in the swooping talons of the callous, stony-hearted bird of prey.
He saw the half-corpse, half-infant-devil Khmer Rouge barbarians sullenly dragging the kidneys and livers of their own infants to Tricky Dickie to carve up and munch; as this ruthless humanitarian carnivore smacked his lips at the raw, organic vitality that, one day, would pass down his august bloodline to even more shameless and depraved inheritors of his cannibalistic death cult of child-sacrificing lunacy.
A tattered scroll descended from the sky; God knows what it said, but it had something of the savor of:
FROM YOUR CHILDRENâS ASHES, A TRUE HUMANITY NOW EVER FORTH SHALL SPRING
He perceived the weeping parents offering all they had, as little as it was, they carried it all in their trembling hands. begging, pleading, imploring the eagle to have mercy upon their one lost sheep… their one innocent, lamb, their child, their child, their own child, the only child they had left.
The eagle, motionless, shrewdly surveyed the trembling, bleeding, creatures of tender flesh and blood before them. One naĂŻve child walked over to pat the eagle, not realizing with what kind of wild beast they were dealing.
The child loving caressed the feathers to the eagle. The innocent child pointed to the funny cat and gentle hound who were now affectionately sidling up to the eagle. The cat purred with heartfelt love towards her new friend, and rubbed herself affectionately against the husky legs of her new friend. The gentle puppy barked with innocent delight, and joyfully wagged his tail, tenderly licking the feathers of his newfound chum.
And just at the very moment the child leaned to kiss the eagle, just as he would kiss his two funny friends, the eagle let out a blood-curdling scream.
Deafened, horrified, the child released his grasp and feel backward in dismay. The eagle picked up the kitten and puppy and immediately swooped into the air with its newfound prey. The child somehow found the strength to stagger to the ground.
âTheyâre⊠my friendsâŠ?!â stuttered the child, his staring in the wide-eyed incomprehension of a thwarted innocence already ruined, laid to waste; this hour and forevermore.
The eagle jerked to a dizzying halt, shaking the trembling puppy and kitten, who were so terrified, they could only gaze down despairingly upon the tearful eyes of their friend. They had thought gentle Moe would take care of them forever! All their lives, they had known only love and affection. Every time the bad and rude and nasty cats had scratched her, she had always been able to come home and be loved. And to fall asleep in the loving arms of the one who loved her beyond measure.
The puppy, his lip quivering in tears that (as we shall see presently) would never have a chance to stream out from his gentle, trusting eyes, remembered the day he had first been taken to a house of love. He was loved, he knew love, but that was soon to be over forever. And ever. And everâŠ
And ever.
The boy lamented.
The little girl cried.
The eagle eyed the child with a shrewdness and coldness devastating to the soul. By now, the child was screaming at the top of his voice, âThey are my friends! I love them! Theyâre my friends! Please donât hurt my friends! âPlease, oh please, please, please, mister eagle, please donât hurt my friends! I love them! They are my friiieeennndddsss!â
With an utterly barbaric squawk of triumph, the eagle opened wide the bottomless cavern behind its beak, and with a callous flick of its head, it dashed the childâs two playmates and beloved ones upon the ground.
A long distance to fall.
The child stood, frozen stiff in horror.
A chill, sousing breeze filled the air, fit to prick and tremble the very marrow of the sternest of souls.
Presently, he stumbled towards his two friends, to try as he might to give them what little, meager, comfort that within him was.
Crawling over in desperation, innocent as any infant, he started to caress their gentle heads. But all of a sudden, he screamed in horror.
This tender child, young and free as the spring air, had never ever known, never so much as even suspected what a broken neck was supposed to be.
âŠ
He knew now.
Chapter 9: Occidentâs Downfall, Spenglerâs Uprising
âNo, no, Iâm not having it!â spat Truman. âYou are absolutely cuckoo-fuck now, you understand? You get this head of yours sorted out, or you are not going to be working for my news channel! What the hell possessed you? All of a sudden, you start writhing and squirming, like some freakinâ Pentecostal-Smokinâ Jehovahâs nutballs! Youâre damn lucky none of the other news networks turned their cameras on you at that moment. I almost wish they had done, because then I coulda slung your ass so far out that door your balls wouldnât ah touched the sides!â
âI told you, something weird came over me. Itâs out of character.â
Truman paused. He took a long drag of his Havana. He took on a more meditative tone.
âLook, son,â he murmured. âYou know the definition of âout of characterâ in our business?â
âNo, sir, muttered Otis, who had very little tolerance for the weird, whimsical faux-philosophicalities of his boss.
âSuicide. Suicide. Career flaminâ suicide, thatâs what we call it. You wanna read Henry Ford, read Ronald Trump, read Ludwig von Hayek, Miltie Smith, itâs all in there!â
Otis groaned. What kind of an ignorant asshole gets to the top of a prominent media company and thinks âLudwig von Hayekâ and âMiltie Smithâ have anything useful to say about anything?!
Or maybe Gideon Truman was just playing with his head again. Heâs a pretty shrewd guy, right?…
Or not!
âWell, you know what?â said Otis. âMaybe suicide is under-rated.â
âOh-ho, how many times have I heard that one. âIâm sick oâ this crap, I donât like it here, donât like the boss, donât like the pay, the hours, so Iâm gonna just throw in the towel and hope good old Giddy Truman here is gonna be ape-caddy enough to fall for it. You out of your freakinâ mind, son? This kinda junk charade might just play out there in the sticks, say Kansas or Mississippi or Euroweenieland or someplace else like that. But ya know what, son? Iâm too damn too smart for you. Iâve seen it all before. Youâd better believe it, bitches!â
This is it. Oh, God. This is it, Otis, and donât you ever be such a goddamn fool as to let these stupid scruples of yours…â
âMr Truman,â breathed Otis, quivering internally, but maintaining his customary composure.
Truman frowned. This sturdy, unflappable giant of Big Journalism was now genuinely bewildered.
âMr Truman,â said Otis, with a careful deliberation and seriousness that made Truman sit bolt upright in his chair.
âMr Truman,â repeated Otis one last time. Threeâs a charm! â⊠I canât, in all conscience, permit myself to do this job any longer.â
Truman stared, open-mouthed, in horror and in absolute amazement. You could have heard a pin drop.
Or, at least, a pennyâŠ
All of a sudden, Truman started foaming at the mouth.
He jabbed his finger in inarticulate fury, bobbing his head and rocking in his chair, utterly consumed with rage. If you were the kind of person who confuses cynical opportunists with the safe and toothlessly mediocre practical man, you might have ventured walking into that office unarmed. But then, Truman was not at all the spiritual brother of the practically-minded career politician who demonizes gay marriage advocates on Monday, snarks a little on Tuesday, murmurs âMehhhâ on Wednesday, says âwell, what the hey, guess weâre gonna have to put up with it!â on Thursday, and by the weekend is already asking with bewilderment how any one of those âbraaahhhn fawwwksâ could ever oppose the common sense progress of the greatest goddamn nation on earth.
Nor, of course, was he the confrere and compatriot of the mundane, talentless and relative impotent shill who tries to strike a highminded (but far from idealistic!) balance between not killing a few more innocent people than is necessary (such as on the basis of a maliciously concocted dossier of lies and palapable fabrications), and not killing innocent people at all. For the latter perspective, as we all know and agree, is just as extreme and partisan and one-sided as the former!
No. This guy was the kind of boss who wouldnât let his media company be the first one to die for the sake of a mistake; damned if people started saying Otis Spengler had been workinâ for us, before he worked against us!
(Lest there should be any doubt at all on this subtle point, âworking against usâ really meant doing pretty much anything at all, other than what he was currently doing. Even flipping burgers with Elvis Costaggio, and the Panzer Lama, and Elrond Hubbard in some dead-end shanty grill place in Wyoming nobody had ever heard of, would be rank treason! Truman would rather drop a thousand ton bomb on his own family fuckinâ home and city before he would let that happen!)
âListen here, son!â he spat. âYouâre my best boy! Youâve been like a son to me!â
Otis stood firm. âIâm very proud for the opportunities youâve given me.â
Not grateful, but proud. Otis was trying to avoid a cloying sentimentality that would risk derailing this rare moment where he could see a chink of light poking between the rigid, callous blocks of his gilded prison cell.
âAhhh, Otis, Otis, Otis, for Chrissakes!â wailed Truman. âYouâre worth more to me than the other guys put together. These lazy, worthless assholes! Donât you realize what youâre doing? Grateful? Grateful people donât run away. Youâre black and youâre proud, Otis.
‘Well good on ya for it! Canât blame ya for that one! Huh? Well hey, Ima tellinâ you son, if thereâs anything in this world I admire in a worker, itâs a guy, black, white, or any color of the goddamn L-G-Q-T-L-M-N-O-P rainbow who knows who he is, and who, yâknow, he knows where he came from!
âOh for Godâs saaake!â whined Truman. âL Ron flaminâ Hubbard on a cosmic pork truncheon! I mean, didnât you see that stupid poll about our journalists? If you leave, how the hell are we gonna manage without you? I picked you out, I raised you from the flaminâ gutter, cos I knew you were someone special, kid! None of the other boys can probe these bastards like you can! Let me tell you somethinâ Otis, Iâm in this business for hell knows how long, but I tell you what; thereâs no-one, thereâs just no-one who makes these bastards quiver in their sanctified Beltway ballet-shoes like you do! Whoâs gonna hold âem to account?!
âLookie here, chicken, you are one flaming smart African American, boy! Donât ever think Iâve ever seen you through any other lens. See these lenses, boy? See what Iâm seeinâ here?
‘I see a poor little black boy called Otis Spengler, sprung fresh from the ghetto like some kinda Venus Aphrodiddly from the head of Hephaestus, or yâknow, whatever the male version is of that one, I mean whatever, (who frickinâ cares!) and yeah, itâs like I see, I see this bright guy and heâs already head ânâ shoulders above all the dumbass kids in that dead-end college oâ his, and Iâm gonna raise you up, and Iâm gonna make journalism real again, and Iâm gonna make sure you are a model citizen and one damn fine African-American fellow citizen, boy⊠yes sir!
‘You can sit at my table,you can puff on this old cigar once in a while, and youâll be like the son I never had, because, yâknow, because of that slutty New England bitch who went off with that greasy Jew comedian, yâknow, the squeaky little Saul flaminâ Friedman soundalikeâŠ
‘Look, itâs not every poor little black kid coulda done what youâve done? Right? You coulda been sitting there injectinâ heroin or, or I dunno, playinâ Grand Theft Auto, or even tryinâ it out for real, I mean fuck knows boy, like ya see these goddamn inner cities and all these here superpredator anarchistic hoodlums, oh well thank God you were spared that fate, Ida cried to see you miss your chance to be just like the other kids here, I mean olâ Giddy Truman woulda broke his crazy old heart here, Otis boy, he really woulda, Ida had nothing left, flaming zilch, Otis, I wouldaâŠâ
Otisâ mind was recently drawn to recent allegations of pork-barreling involving a certain prominent propaganda outlet, but he dismissed the thought. Consistency is not necessarily the hobgoblin of small minds; but perhaps insisting upon it, on this occasion, would be unnecessarily derailing, and throw up some unnecessary obstacles in his path to freedom.
‘He ainât got no shame to be one damn smart cookie oâ a poor little black boy who been makinâ good as fuckinâ noontide babycakes⊠and how!
âWell, where does all this pride come from? Huh? Donât you ever think youâre gonna run away from me, Otis! Donât leave us. Youâre like flaminâ family to us! Closest we ever had huh? Câmon bad rude boy? What man him be doinâ? Heh-heh! Damn, but do you boys love that song! Yogurt fuckinâ Baba, huh? Heâs as much one of you guys as you are one of us! Câmon homie, letâs chant up this funky shit together!
Câmon mon bad guys!
Whitey down me hood!
Chillinâ wit ma niggazâ
Cos ma shit smoke good!
Câmon bad guys!
Me skin it whitey lika sugar!
Hater Zio-bitches flip a disk
Yogurt Baba him me boogie!â
âThere are plenty of talented journalists. HereâŠâ Otis permitted himself this one extravagant liberty: â⊠and elsewhere, perhaps, as well.â
Truman dashed his âSpirit of Kosovoâ mug upon the ground. A single lone green tea âContras para Marcosâ leaf slopped down moistly upon a glob of Colombian chocolate, which Truman had spat out not long ago on Veterans Day, when he had heard how that fucking whingeing Jew comedian Saul Friedman had shat all over my troops by leaving that stupid RINO button undone on that pretentiously checkered, cheap-ass-New-York-dime-store-values shirt of his.
Dirty Commies, grub-bearing spics, and ohhh⊠those filthy, flea-ridden Mexicans (or near enough, I suppose!), treacherous pinko pacifists: les extrĂȘmes se touchent!
âYou⊠you⊠damned traitor!â he spat, so much taken up in fury that he could no think of anything less hackneyed and cliched; at least for now. Later on, it would be another matter, no doubt!
âIâve made up my mind.â
One last try. One last throw of the dice, except that Truman never gambled. He was no doubt of that special breed who is by their very own inherent nature a winner. Of course, we are speaking here of mere gambling, which latter is (when all is said and done⊠and how!) a suckerâs game for the mediocre âwin here, lose thereâ kinda folksies olâ Giddy T had always viewed with such understandable (if deplorable) contempt.
âI know what this is about,â he whispered.
âDo you?â Otis almost whispered.
âAll a ruse. A ruse. Goddamn crazy old fool Giddy Truman, itâs all been a goddamn ruse, and I never even thought about it. Hey? OK, you wily old bastard you, I get it know. You got me, and like the old fool I am, I took you at your word. I know what this is all about.â
Otis sighed with resignation. He was well enough acquainted with how Truman had a particular âlensâ through which he inspected, calculated and balanced up the world around him. Even now, he felt a twinge of regret and pain that Truman assumed everybody else has precisely the same philosophy of life (if I may beg the liberty to call it that!) as did Truman himself.
Truman affected a grim smile. âHow much, Otis?â he hoarsely whispered. âHow much? Name your price.â
Otis shifted imperceptibly on his feet. Oh, God. Iâm falling. Save me, someone. Save me.
âYou are our best asset, there is no-one out there like you. No, no, let me tell ya somethinâ son, when it comes to human capital and to media resources, you are justâŠâ
At these magic words, the spell was finally broken. Otis awoke, and realized, dizzy with joy and a holy terror impossible to imagine to those who have not described, that he was seeing for the first time with the eyes of his soul. He was hearing with his true ears, the ones within.
One heart beat, a moment.
One heart beat, and beat forever.
Chords of tremor.
Trembling seagulls.
âMr Truman, I will be handing in my notice tomorrow. Thanks. Itâs been a beautiful time. But I am not your human capital any longer. If your desire right now is for some resources to manage, I am afraid I cannot oblige. There are some things in this world I care even more about than money.â
He reached out to shake Trumanâs hand, in a gesture far more sincere and well-intended than it would ever be possible for Truman to realize.
Truman glared at him. All of a sudden, Truman petulantly swung his chair to face Petty Marshall Award for Services to Patriotic Journalism poster behind his desk. (Now that is an achievement!)
Otis also shifted himself, and faced the other way. Behind him was a door. It had always been there, and heâd never even realized it.
Otis paused one last time, as myriad complex memories flooded his soul; so rich and concentrated and dazzling were they, each one was almost indistinguishable, even imperceptible. Every crumb of truth, ever mongrelâs scrap of integrity he had managed to snatch from the rich manâs table glared with a provocative, icy flame. These burgeoning pinpoints of light were burning so fiercely, joyously and intoxicatingly, that he could not tell if they were hymning him glory, or condemning him to the little inferno of the party of ranting Dante and trembling Eichmann.
He closed his eyes, and opened them.
He was still here.
Otis Spengler walked out of the offices of Steel Diamond Media.
Bloodstone Boulevard and the Iron Pulse Bistro would never hear the steady footfalls of her most famous son again.
What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his own soul?
Otis Spengler could not succeed in reassuring himself that he properly understood the question, let alone understood the answer.
But at least he knew the question existed.
And that was more than could be said for some.
Chapter 10: Bleeding for Freedom
The bedside lamp flicked on once more.
It had been on and off more in these past ten hours than in the previous month.
Or year?
Who cares?
I cannot count.
These pitiful flesh-scrapings from a felled tree of these thousands; soggy-rank with tears, sodden with such wrong-ridden kind of ink, still doggedly stood and saluted, giving forth words both good and evil, no matter what the cost.
Hot tears blazed. Lucyâs eyes swam with fury.
She had almost lost her Saul Friedman forever. How dare they? These evil people. How dare they!
And they printed the speech in full.
They never do that.
So why this?
Why now?
Why him?
Senator Marcus Charleston Bubble, instead?
But what about Saul? What about Adolf Adams? Or Patti Stone? Or Wallace Quincey? Or the Miller brothers? Or Harriet Fox? Mary Avivah Russell? Stanford Cohen? Ubuntu Grace?
No-one who stood up for what is right ever got more than a few lines.
How could they?
How could they?
How dare they?
What gave them the right?
Thatâs right, everybody. I have seen at first hand the atrocious dangers terrorism poses to our country. I almost perished when I was consulting with my fellow Georgians. If a Georgia Senator can be almost killed when he is going to meet his fellow citizens, the people of his own state, well⊠God alone knows what our enemies are prepared to do to anyone else!
But letâs not beat about the bush. Terrorism cannot exist without support and help. One terrorist on his own canât do much. Even a bunch of terrorists, say ten, twelve, twenty, twenty hundred, twenty hundred hundred terrorists, canât do anything unless there are some people out there who want to help them out.
People who hate this country.
They hate our destiny!
Look, let me be clear. Iâm just like all of you. I am not made of stone. Iâm not callously indifferent to the welfare of our nation and of our leaders and of our people, our citizens, our own fellow Americans who are in danger every day because of people who envy everything we stand for!
But this is not true. Youâre sick and tired of traitors and cowards, Iâm sick and tired of âem too! Youâre disgusted and fed up with lousy, overpaid freeloaders who are getting paid to spew hate on our airwaves, I feel angry about that crap too, believe me! And you know what? Iâm angry, Iâve had enough, Iâm disgusted by these treacherous, unpatriotic pacifist rabble-rousers, I’m gutsy as fuck, and for what it’s worth: I swear, we just aren’t gonna take it any more!
This is America! The land of the brave and the free! Itâs not a land for the spineless, the weak, the craven, and the cowardly.
You know, the Indians, those guys who were here doing whatever they do, you know, on this hallowed soil even before our forefathers reached this land, well these curious friends and intriguing little fellow patriots of ours; you know, they have a custom. When they travel, and there is anyone too weak and cowardly to carry on, they just drop them on the side and carry on walking on home to the holy city. For these people knew well, as also did our Founding Fathers, that the foundation of a sound and true republic is courage, and strength, and that there is nothing that will corrode the character and spirit of nation, and bring it to its knees, as the kind of weak-kneed highmindedness and parasitical, do-gooding, dewy-eyed misery-mongering as we can see all around us here today.
No! No! No! We must not ever let this be! Donât you ever let them get away with sapping our strength, our vitality, and donât ever think about selling the soul of our nation for foolâs gold! Donât ever settle for peace at any price, because no matter they tell you, thatâs what these guys stand for. And guess what? They know it!
And they are afraid⊠afraid of us!
Thatâs right. They fear us even more than they fear the jihadists! Because the jihadists will never win; but we have God on our side, and the Constitution, and the Founding Fathers, and you know what? For what itâs worth, well let me tell you: the International Community know we mean business, and they will support us to the hilt, on our pilgrimage towards the greater good, one nation and planet under a righteous and rightly-judging God, and mutual advancement of our common wellbeing and the universal freedom and prosperity of all!
Yes, we are a nation of pilgrims, we carry very little with us, but we carry one thing, and one thing alone: the dream and the hope of eternal liberty, the greater good and the eternal progress of man and of all his great creations and accomplishments!
There are people in this land, who hate your nation!
Oh! Well hey! What are you chanting? Whatâs this I hear?
Ha! You got it! Smart people? You all know exactly who I am talking about.
Thatâs right! Who is responsible for placing us in danger, with their vicious, brutal, unbridled rage against our well-regulated, transparent and accountable systems of surveillance?
Yeah! Who wants us to be overrun with vicious, violent, Arab jihadists from the desert who hate our freedom, and who not only hate the entire International Community, yeah even the Chinese and the Norwegians, but who bear a special motherloding hatred and extra-special-uber-duper loathing for the leaders of the world?
Alright! Who is talking about freedom of speech at the expense of keeping us safe, and is always making lame appeals to Benjamin Franklin, instead of thinking about the present, and the actual real and pressing dangers with which the American people are confronted?
Who is an unprincipled and demagogic (ha!) rabble-rouser and revisionist who hates our Constitution, who tramples the insight and vision of the Founding Fathers underfoot in the name of the expediency of the moment?
And who is it who is plotting to replace our true and authentic and ever-God-given liberties with vicious license, unbridled anarchy, and crypto-socialist authoritarian madness?
Well, I told myself this morning I wasnât going to name any names. But while I hate the thought of criticizing someone from my own party, yeah, even someone who has behaved reprehensibly and persisted in placing us in danger, and even in mortal peril, every day of our entire lives: there are some things I hate even more than this!
I hate disloyalty.
I hate treachery.
I hate pacifism.
I hate apologists for murder.
I hate every single terrorist sympathizer, without exception!
I hate true-believers and rampant ideologues and fanatics.
I hate cynical opportunists and schemers, above all things in this world.
All these can be summed up in two short words.
Anyone care to give me an answer?
Give me an answer, American people! YEEEAAAHHH! WOOOOOOOOOO!
Give me an answer in Michigan! Give me an answer in Kansas! Give me an answer in Arkansas! Give me an answer in North Dakota! And Utah! And Mississippi! And bring it on home to GEEEOOORGIA!
YEEEAAAHHH, AAAMEEERIIICAAA!
OWWWWWWWWWWWWWW-HHH!
âŠ
Whew! Let me tell you something! That felt good. Did it feel good, people? Let me hear you scream. Let me hear you roar. America! America! Or better still:
USA! USA!
Yes, Saul Friedman has departed us in body. But many of us fear this guy is still with us in spirit. So donât you ever dare be afraid, people! Cos you know what? Right is on our side. And sooner or later, right will prevail. Curve of justice and all that, y’know, whatever. One day, our long walk to freedom will come, cry the beloved people, Nelson Mugabe and all his brave-ass black folks, these guys are all my brothers, peace be a yada yada, peace be among us all, whatever!
Well. I am going to run for President. Are you with me?
Ha! Yes, I know. And guess what? For what itâs worth, Iâm with you too!
And we are going to do some great things that not one of you have ever dreamed of.
But I need you on side.
So, listen to me, my friends: donât you ever, EVER give in to fearmongering, and donât you ever, EVER give in to intimidation, or emotional blackmail, or wild rhetoric, or propaganda, or pitiful ideological nonsense, or artful manipulation, or any of the hateful crap the regulated media are spewing out about us.
Donât cede an inch to the quivering cowards among us.
THIS IS AMERICA!
WE ARE AT WAR!
AND ANYONE WHO STANDS IN OUR WAY WILL BE ANNIIIHILAAATEEEEEEEEED!
Almost asleep at last, Lucy jerked up in horror.
Her bedsheets were awash with blood.
It wasnât supposed to be her period.
She threw her head upon her arms, and sobbed, and sobbed.
Even her own body was against her.
Her own evil body was her enemy.
It wanted to kill her, just as Senator Marcus Charleston Bubble, and Dickie Klindel, and Lynton Goering, and Eva Vernon Letterman, and Benito Scarlett Muskogee, and the entire intellectual top brass of the Ruby & Sinclair Nixon Foreign Advisory Theoretical Institute, all wanted to kill her… âhusband.â
âMy husband,â she murmured to herself, over and over again, as though it were as clear and unquestionable as high truth itself.
But it was a lie.
Saul Friedman had not died after his heart attack.
But he would never know how much she loved him.
He had gone on artistic retreat to Boston, to get a bit of perspective.
âTwo months, Lucy girl⊠two frickinâ little old months, is all,â he murmured, with that same old, sane old, gravely furrowed half-rabbinic brow which made her heart leap with a passion that always appeared a thousand times fresher and newer and more vital than the last exhilarating somersault of thwarted tenderness.
âNo,â she whispered. âNo, it will never be. I know he wonât come back.â
Would she ever see his face again?