Clothes have gone out of fashion because public life has disappeared. People continue to get out of bed but they don’t waste time getting dressed. People don’t dress for work and they don’t go to church. Men and women no longer wear underwear. That’s modern America. Many people no longer even use the toilet. Late century sidewalks are dirtier today than they were in the Wild West. It was once due to the number of horses.
Tourists have stopped coming. Many cities have gone bankrupt. Most people don’t pay taxes; those without an address sleep in the street. Only property owners can vote and only veterans get benefits. Last year, there were rumors of cannibalism. International airlines have stopped landing in New York.
Rich Arabs fly in for the races or drive down from Toronto. Saratoga is a walled city, as are Santa Anita, Del Mar, and Louisville, Kentucky. Guests eat oysters and guzzle champagne. Prostitutes fill the hotels. Bodyguards guard the gates. It is America. Without horse racing, foreigners would have no reason to visit. The country is compared to places like Uganda in the 1970s. Chicago is more dangerous than Baghdad. LA is ten times bigger than Tokyo and 90% of the people can’t read or write. Obama has been president now for seventeen years, as an image.
The current AI president has adopted O’s face. Nobody knows who governs the country. His party ran on saving democracy. The minute “O” was elected, twenty-three journalists disappeared. The internet has been banned. Over one thousand drones are said to be in the air at any one time. People caught on the road without a license are shot on the spot. O’s daughter is scheduled to take office in six months. She’s been appointed for life. At sixty-nine, she will be the youngest president since her father was first elected back in 2008.
The good citizens of the Only State wake each and every morning to a greeting from the President and then on to reruns of Forrest Gump. They enjoy a four-ounce cup of regulation cocoa and a gummy bear vitamin. Then, to the bath house for a good soak and a State-issued enema. Today is the Day of Unanimity. Universal suffrage and mandatory disclosure. Your vote is tattooed on your forehead. We all must choose the Benefactor in Chief.
“O” is the source of all guaranteed incomes and free tuition. Now, the government selects student majors. We clamored for it and we got it; the end of liberty and the secret ballot.
It was late. Jessie had already bounced.
“See Ya.”
I was ready to split. The host had my keys. He made us drop them in a box at the door so we could play some stupid game. I’d warned him on the phone. I said I had work in the morning. “Me, too. Me, too.” I figured we had an understanding. It took me a while to find him. When I did, I hesitated to wake him. I’d been having a good time. I had been triumphantly unselfconscious. Now, not so much.
I pulled a throw rug around myself. In my excitement over the phone, I had said something about playing by my rules, but he didn’t seem too interested. He just said, “No negotiating, bro. Nah, house rules. You come into my home, you mine. That’s it.” I said okay. Now, I was stuck. It was getting to be midnight. Finally, I threw off the cover. I’d just go for a run.
First, I wandered around, looking for the bathroom. The one off the hall only had a toilet and a sink. Shit. Then I found the guest bath with a shower. I cut on the lights and jumped in. After toweling off, I headed to the back of the house, opened the rear door, and stood for a second on the patio trying to decide which way to go. I didn’t have a thing on. My hair was still wet.
I went to my car, walking along the drive to the front. I looked in and saw that it was after 2:00. My clothes were piled up on the back seat. I laughed. The street lights were bright. The neighbors across the way were still up, or so it seemed. I hurried along, staying under the trees. I was running, bent low. I went for half a block, stopped, and crouched behind some bushes. I caught my breath. My mind was racing. Words followed. What am I doing?
It was very quiet. I was sorry I hadn’t worn my shoes. What kind of person runs outside without shoes? I wanted to sing but kept quiet. I ran across the street and hid behind a parked car, a large Land Rover. As soon as I realized there was lots of space beneath it, I took off. In a pinch, I could crawl beneath and hide. I’d say I was drunk. I’d cry.
There were few streetlamps and they were old. The affluent like to keep it dim. Every streetlamp that I passed was like the rung of a ladder. I was climbing, up, up, up and away, until I saw someone coming. I froze. I listened to myself breathing. As soon as I could, I ran back across the street and up a darkened drive. All of the house lights were off until a motion detector caught me and they switched on. I lost my balance but kept going.
The residents had high hedges of oleanders, so I stayed on the sidewalk. I hadn’t played like this in years. At the end of the block, I turned left. I would go for it. I would run all the way around the block. I turned my head and looked at my ass. It was good. It was fine. I jumped quickly behind a tree, sinking slowly to the ground. A car was coming. It passed and I followed at a distance. I was getting a little light-headed.
Time to turn. I was walking now. It was dark. My pee-pee had shriveled to nothing. There was grass on my ass. My tits were still small although I’d been receiving treatments. They were sore. I gave my right nipple a twist and imagined how fun it would be to have three. I could wear blinking pasties over them. There was not a single hair on my body. I’d spent a fortune on laser blasting. My nails looked gorgeous. I’d had my hair bleached, twice. A week earlier, I’d had my lips enlarged. My hair was now down to my shoulders. My forehead looked more feminine after my expensive facial at the Ritz Carlton.
I was a sight: I was not a bit tamed. Just another woman out at night. I strode past two houses and then picked up speed, all the while running and waving my arms above my head, doing a William Carlos Williams’ sprint, all alone. I wished I had been wearing my dildo with a 18” rainbow ponytail. I wished I was a poet, or at least a song writer.
At the end of the block, I turned once more and realized the street was all lit up. I was on the main drag. When a car drove by, I started going faster. I guessed they saw me. If they had, they must have figured I was reenacting a scene from that film The Swimmer with Burt Lancaster. Just thinking about it made me thirsty. Feeling scared was part of the thrill. The whole thing was quite exhilarating. I felt like a martini.
They must think I am just crazy.
I ran up the block, took a turn, and knew I was getting closer to Scott’s. I darted out from behind some parked cars and ran in the middle of the street for fifty yards. Finally, I turned into his drive. I tried to make it look like I was getting something out of my car. Not a care in the world. I walked up the drive and slipped back in through the door at the rear, the one I’d left open. I was out of breath and proud of myself.
In the morning I found out the police took my friend Jessie away for kissing a member of the opposite sex in a sting operation in Malady Park, a well-known wooded area where nymphomaniacs search for heterosexual perverts. My neighbor Nathan got picked up for drinking out of a large Styrofoam cup. He dumped his state-dispensed 4 oz. Jolly cup designed for kale and fish egg smoothies, and guzzled home brew instead.
I live with my state-authorized male partner, Freddy. Our incomes will double if we marry. We are expected to adopt and raise three children, two from the Ivory Coast and one from Nepal. We have six months to accept. If not, we will be castrated and turned into worker Drones, our right to live together rescinded and our workload doubled.
We will be marked for early death: 45 for men, women at 50. We’ve both been
targeted because we are old enough to remember living in a state of liberty, back when people were permitted to go outside to eat, defecate, and fornicate at will. During the Confiscation Wars, we lost our freedom. Permanent curfews are now imposed along with strict Contentment Schedules. Millions have been gassed. All guns belong to the State. Armed KKK occupy parts of Colorado.
Freddy and I are allowed to meet once a day: 8:45 pm to 9:15 pm. Water is allotted from 9:16 pm to 10:00 pm for showers and toilet. As we have no kitchen, no eating is permitted within our dwelling, until we adopt. We eat at work. My school serves three a day, 750 calories each. I must watch my diet. Obesity has been outlawed; one maintains a BMI below 30 or gets recycled. Gratitude Sessions are held nightly. I missed mine last night and was fined.
Freddy attended so his salary will not be cut. If this continues, he’ll be assigned a new partner. I will be sent to live in a prison complex for the Ungrateful. No one has ever graduated from Gratitude School; it is a life sentence. The Benefactress herself, the President’s wife, is known to loath the Ungrateful and personally supervises the punishment blocks. They say sweeping is the best way to show gratitude. Many go out to sweep the streets until morning. They sweep until their hands bleed.
Women have taken over, but men are still blamed. Oprah, Ellen, and Whoopi made their millions asking other women about their sex lives. Male guests stripped off their clothes, as the girls howled. This was America’s university, but that was years ago. We all learned about what’s important from billionaires with product lines.
And we continue to decline without Walter Cronkite, whoever he was. What happened to Eric Sevareid and Harry Reasoner? All men are sickened by the collapse. All women are afraid we’re going down the drain. Together next year we’ll watch a screening of the First Family on the toilet. The first time the President, his wife, and their child were elected.
Is there hope? President “O” assures us that there’s some in the new ketchup bottle designed by Heinz. There’s consolation in the maple syrup-flavored coffee introduced by Starbuck’s. It adds confidence to the American people to know one can fly direct from Kennedy to New Delhi. Americans are always being told to be optimistic. Even in Bessemer, Alabama, there’s a place one can buy a one-hundred and fifty-dollar steak. Don’t give up. If you can’t afford the steak, you can get yourself some coke. You can strip down and hang your ass off the side of the bed. You can whistle dixie and do phone sex. You can write your own will.
Teachers describe me as looking well-fed. They say I have the look of a land-owner’s son, a padrone. One says I smell like a prince. When I say I am just the son of a brick-layer, they laugh. They haven’t made bricks in years. One raised his boot and kicked me off the balcony. I was shocked, but I wanted to escape the harsh winter’s long nights. They all knew I couldn’t sit up without excruciating pain. They had seen me beaten in the square, stripped, whipped, and sprayed with hot oils. I was mocked for trying to cover my eyes.
They called me filth outside my dorm. I was the only white they had ever seen. The girls laughed when they realized I had no balls. They asked if I wanted to wear their panties. Someone screamed that I didn’t deserve to live. I was said to eat better than their dogs, but I didn’t do anything as valuable as guarding their rooms. A couple of guys asked how I could piss with such a small dick. They kicked me in the ass and made me crawl to their feet and lick their boots.
I hesitate to complain. I know thousands have been killed. Many driven from their homes and more than a few burned alive. I watch television. All whites have been assigned the names of former slave owners. I was named after McFadden, the notorious slave holder of Washington County, Mississippi, where my parents once ran a gas station. I didn’t know my real name; we were trash from the boondocks. We were white and branded at the time of the great upheaval – “no exceptions” was the rallying cry of the Great Liberators.
Testicles removed in Castration Clinics from males who refuse adoption are fed to the Benefactor’s private herd of Shropshire rare breed hogs, bred for her and other “royals” exclusively. Senator Menendez is very fond of gourmet meats. Severed organs are scattered on pasture lands stretching as far as the eye can see. It is rumored that the pork is sold at $1000 per kilo to private armies throughout the world. All other meats are banned, except rat and dog. I knew a guy who called “O” the Top Rat and got picked up.
Lemon tree, lemon tree, oh, so pretty. Oh, so sweet. Someone had better call Social Services. That woman has let her daughter wander off. The State will know what to do. The government cares so much for the little ones. That fat man from behind his desk is a caregiver, a gentle soul. He’s the man who sings those songs. Clouds of ammonia fill the skies. Cries of despair can be heard. The women stop to eat their hair. They scratch their nails against the wall; they agonize for all the children lost in war. They sing songs, they sell their souls, they beat the shit out of their sons and daughters.
I finally decided to file charges. I filled out a report and was given an appointment. The officer said they would follow up. Witnesses would be sought.
God bless the men for bringing up the artillery. Bombardier to captain. “This is the captain speaking.” Doom replies, as the bombs fall. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? Starring world peace, the sequel, as they say in the trades, “War and Peace, Part II.” Ask his Latvian secretary for an appointment. Spielberg is waiting. Jaws VII: it’s a five-act screenplay. You’ll play the fisherman eaten by the shark. Let’s hope you can use a gun.
Send your dick pic in to the producers. Use VIP parking. The gents’ room is on the second floor. The commissary is where Rock Hudson used to flaunt his biceps. It’s where Doris Day lost her virginity. Avert your eyes; look at the floor. Back into the room and sit down. Don’t look up. Tell them how concerned you are about the treatment of the great white shark and how careful you will be not to scratch his throat as you are eaten.
I was sent a reminder to show up at Police headquarters, Central Division, off Divisadero. I would be fined for not showing up.
I’ve always wanted to speak about my time in Khartoum, but I’ve never been. I have been to New Delhi, but can’t remember a thing. It was elsewhere that I found the meaning of life, but I was no more than nine miles from my home on a hitchhiking journey. I came back for dinner. My mother succeeded in roping me into her plans to create a heritage garden. She was especially interested in ancient horticulture. She planted three varieties of heirloom corn in our back yard with at least the same number of prize-winning tomatoes: reds, purples, and yellows. Double that for peppers, both dwarf and giant, some sweet as an apple and others hotter than firecrackers, not to mention the rows of okra, melon, and squash.
Mother was wild about gourds. She had become more aware than her friends ever cared to acknowledge that we could be living on sacred soils. Ancestral burial sights: she told Father she no longer cared to maintain a lawn, and had chicken-wire tee-pees and raised beds erected from discarded railroad ties.
I said, “Let’s do a bump off that bird’s chest.” That’s right, I said that. One of the witnesses filed charges against me. The one with the pert tits, yes. Am I free to go? I was being interrogated. She said I had been harassed but it was my own damn fault.
“And if she insists on having a toot, she can take hers straight from my cock.”
Did I say that?
“I don’t remember, officer.”
“Chicks can snort from down there, as far as I’m concerned. She can go down on one knee for the rest of her life. I’ll buy her a pillow.”
I might have said that. I was drunk. I don’t know how she got that bruise. I swear to God. Yes, I will sign my statement. Yes, officer. You know where to find me.
Men I know have given up. We don’t know how to talk to women. We are all told it is biological. Our bodies know the difference. Titty-bars attract the most patrons. My best friend went into The Windy City, a topless joint off Martin Luther King Blvd. She squeezed a lime over her left breast and asked invitingly, “Take suck?” People say things. I said I was sorry. I dropped the charge against my tormentors, but they didn’t drop their charges against me. I would be made to pay.
They dress in black. They’re out clubbing old people and throwing acid. Keep your doors locked. Once they get in, all bets are off. They are out to improve the world and you are standing in their way. Their first wish is to see you dead. Dreams of integration and harmony are finished. They might be goats. They insist they are not sheep. There are kids running around. Whatever they are called, they weep black gunk. Pellets cling to their back sides. The does’ tits are pink, same as humans. The bullies await their fate. It’s late in the summer. Soon it will be cooler.
Juicy parts for the likes of Glen Close and Sharon Stone: remember them? My parents do. Poisoned baths and whipped backsides. Demosthenes doesn’t hold a candle. The end of the American experiment, and all Hollywood asks is, “Where are the good parts for us?” One thing clear is the importance of dangerous women. This was what made Rome so scary. The new American President is solid. You know her. Her father is president. She’ll be great. She’s the one who wants to be famous for drinking her own urine. She thinks her menstrual blood tastes like champagne. She told reporters she likes men who are tough, but once in bed she prefers the kind she can slap around. She was elected the day she was born.
If you will allow me to speak undiplomatically. On the military side, we are not yet on the offensive, but we will be soon. Writers terrorize readers with fat, boring books. It is not always the fair-minded who are in possession of the truth. So much has happened, vile things, and glories beyond measure. Timidity will get us nowhere.
He feels left out of the commotion. We celebrate the Hullaballoo. Turn the volume down as you leave. Silence, he says, is the answer. The children should be in bed. Instead, it is the adults who refuse to get up. They are hiding under the covers acting like alcoholics and invalids. Wrong thoughts that darken fill their minds.
What is needed is constancy, morning Mass, chickens to feed; what used to be called routine. Most are too busy now with nothing to do. Just remember, the status quo is what you know. Don’t ask for hope and change if you can’t deliver. I’ve heard that, yes. Grasp what is coming. I couldn’t agree more. Try the escargot in Cincinnati. I’ve heard that, too. The man to lead us knows what we have can be lost. In no time, there was this sickeningly sour odor of vinegar rice and cabbage. Sushi is no longer served with fish. I expect to see a rickshaw come careening down the aisle.
The combination of 21st century technology and sour peasant odors diverts attention from the great existential questions of our time. One yearns for the démodé to become fashionable, or at least I used to. It often even becomes trendy, like digging up old cars in the back of weathered barns: Citroën DS21s and Mustangs hidden in the forest. We found a Maserati wrapped around a tree. I’m all for that. It’s a matter of rediscovery, like the BBC production of Brideshead Revisited by Justin Bieber I remember from school. She says she is up for anything but she prefers not to be asked for her approval or for her permission. She doesn’t want to be given choices or to be forced to make decisions. She wants him to do all the deciding, to lead as in a dance.
She is not a virgin. She remembers once shouting, “Just do it!” to a young man who felt obliged to speak as politely as his mother did when serving afternoon tea. I shudder at the terrible game my imagination is playing.
Can you believe this shit?
Today, I learned Freddy was assigned to a Reproduction Unit. If he sires a child, he will be released from adoption duties. I must report to Gratitude Learning Center #267, just outside Maya Angelou City. They will send me by military transport. My life is over. They revoked my teaching license. Now, I’ll track sexual perversions and proof of “adverse proclivities” among men who surf porn sites. They don’t ban porno but they’ll be targeted for “imminent” elimination.
I found out I will be punished for harassing women. I failed to fulfill my social contract. The things I said while drunk constitute assault. If I can’t pay restitution, I am fucked. I have no money. Abuse is a serious crime.
I am to be renamed and given diversity training. Despite my preference for male companionship, I will bunk with three lesbians. They, too, have been identified as “unproductive” and marked for early termination. They can earn life extension credits by working in brothels and sex clubs for refugee laborers. They’ve offered to teach me erotic techniques essential for earning life credits.
Some trace the end to the Confiscation Wars which, admittedly, were brutal. It is said, fifty-million were killed. Others point to the Supreme Court’s decision allowing the Benefactress to disguise herself as a perpetual Person of Distinction, in a digital mask of Marie Antoinette, Queen Elizabeth and, recently, Neal Armstrong in drag. She is a well-known transsexual. The new Constitution forbids a man with a penis from serving as Our Most Honorable Mistress. As they say in the evening news, “O” is on the go.