by Tuttle, Dan;
A thick cocoon of cash to warm the soul.
The contrast with the places Stella’d been
nigh walloped her: stressed life among the prole
had none of this. When riding to Dar’s port
on dala dala she’d seen from the car
lives hoping for five cents to hunger thwart.
Here, jockeying was spending more like czar?
Injustice angered her, and outfit troll
was made complete as wrath made way to face.
Stel felt herself rejecting Lex’s goal,
this cultish cash pursuit, this Valley’s chase.
Stel’s method-acted ogre right then peaked
and frightened guests with outrage-puffed physique.
103.
A hundred others at this posh soirée
would hopefully be less inclined to schmooze,
so Stella at that point turned, walked away
toward bookshelves in the corner, to peruse.
She’d rinse their smugness off with bookish spell.
Benita sidled up to newly-lone
Stel, giving her a hug. “You did so well!
Joe pawned me off to them. I truly groaned
when they talked how much equity they had.
I watched you ditch them even faster than—”
“You? Yeah, they learned from your snub they should add
their wealth in introductions. We began
with Lex’s insecure self-worth of cash,
attractive as a raging scrotum rash.”
104.
Srong Benny’s blue short sleeves were rolled, her red
with polka dotted white scarf tied in bow
“Now that’s the knot I’d wear atop the head,”
said Stel, derogatorily of Joe.
“Naomi Parker Fraley!” Benny said,
“a woman who became herself belief.
She’s better known as Rosie,” lips tight, red,
“the Riveter, true poster child, motif
that showed unconscious disbelievers chicks
could offer something of a greater worth
to that war crap made up by guys with dicks
deficient in their shape or length or girth
so to obsess them with power-seeking. Rose
helped mobilize support for GI Joes.”
105.
Sure, Stella’d seen the famous posters. “She
was helpful how?” Stel asked. “She made them free.
Well, free to get a job in industry,
convenient, much-believed excuse to be
out working like the men had done before.
It took that change in folks’ philosophy
to let a woman go and join the Corps,
the Waves, they called it, or fill bosses’ plea
for labor, as supply had hit the floor.
That ammunition didn’t make itself,
and millions of young men were off at war.
To normalize—” she trailed off, glared at shelf,
where sat four blue-bound books named Zero To
One, “working women.” “What a hero!” “True.”
106.
With Benny as Stel’s Virgil through this hell
that equally was heaven to those who
had privilege ’nough to know the folks who dwelled
at that address, they searched through mansion, two
quite well-intentioned, social-minded souls
amid a sea of peers myopically
pursuing wealth-accruing techno-goals.
“The worst lack cause to think autoptically,”
said Benny as they searched for friends they knew,
“and plow ahead like AI’s paperclips.
They’ve heedlessness. And consequences grew
augmented by tech’s focus: pay per clicks.
Incentives all align to just do more,
with ignorance if more’s what we abhor.”
107.
“You’re saying,” Stella said, “all power is wrong?”
“Of course not,” friend exasperatedly
replied in haste, “I say it’s worse when prong
of nouveau riche defense is ‘state left free
this market, so I found niche to exploit,
all’s fair and legal’. Billions flow from new
unregulated sectors? ‘Tech’s adroit
at making markets’, they’ll say. ‘Bugaboo
is government: it’s too slow’. Crypto’s fall
will happen, and will hurt the average Joe.”
“But people,” Stella countered, “buy it all.
That’s how the sector generates the dough.”
“You’re furthering their argument, Stel.” “Is
that bad?” Benita suddenly lost fizz.
108.
They wound up cherry staircase, banister
with carvings not unlike what Stella saw
long back in Fan, when stirrings sinister
sensed those corrupt would for themselves redraw
truth’s boundaries to suit their fortunes best.
This made her recall that the reason she
improbably before the teeming rest
gained coveted American entry
was that she knew official couple who
had clout in China, family in the States,
and time enough to do what very few
were able to: take days, months to make mates
with frontline workers at the embassy.
Here, power was quick condemned; to Stel, it freed.
109.
In moody musing and their wand’ring search
they passed some objects making quite a scene:
the Oriental parlor, hushed as church,
held hundred seated devotees who’d been
(according to ad signage) hypnotized.
Stel figured Cadence totally approved
since B.I.G. was primo in his eyes:
and that so-titled single frankly grooved.
They entered sitting room, where pens for prayers
called guests to write on tiniest of sheets
they hung on wireframe tree. Each rocked as airs
were eddied in the wake of fleet elites.
That tree was one that Stella rather liked,
and so she wrote a wish she hung in flight.
110.
The quest concluded when they found their friends
in heavy conversation, likely buzzed,
out front door on the landing. “All the ends
will justify the means,” Tee said, hand gloved
with opera-length hold for her cigarette,
itself handrolled, but otherwise the twin
of Audrey Hepburn’s Tiffany’s vedette,
while making clear no holds were barred to win.
Expounding ended right as girls came by—
or so Stel guessed, since conversation ceased.
She’d yet to learn to read from that dame’s eye
when friendliness was true and when it fleeced.
They shivered on the porch and sipped from drinks,
mid-evening pause to prime the thinker’s thinks.
111.
A conversation pause invitingly
let Stella pose a tiny question that
had lingered in her brain most bitingly
since understanding well-placed technocrat
was inside leverage that she’d had to use
to spring from China overseas to Bay.
“Is use of one’s power always an abuse,
or is it fine so that you get your way?”
The question garnered looks, all malice-free,
as none expected such a query. Thoughts
exploded from the curiosity
as voices vied to vocalize life’s ’ought’s.
They fluctuated, thinking power was wrong
till challenged that they envied who was strong.<
br />
112.
Debate seemed stuck semantically until
Mo pointed out, “…men cited, looked up to,
all thought of blood: they planned and hoped none spilled.
It’s not that power must equal violence. Glue
for them was reputation, image, brand.
Their oratory, organizing peeps
was power built up from plain old soapbox stand,
they gathered like a shepherd all their sheeps.”
Tee said, “Once built up, it’s how they deployed
that energy they’d activate, what cause.
That end’s the point of judgment.” This annoyed
kind Mona, who had nearly finished clause
toward same point, wrapping with tight logic’s bow
before the interruption broke her flow.
113.
Deterrent interruption gathered steam:
“That’s why I hold belief the Boy’s a fiend,
a demagogue who’s taken to extreme
this groundswell negativity convened.
Ignore a moment all the falsities
deployed to gain momentum in the chase,
forget that. In the present, fault is he’s
continuing to mobilize the base
toward closing, judging, taxing, hating. Move
from faith in fact and science toward belief
and lose your basis to prove or disprove
if any action brings our lives relief.
Of course our gaslit lives feel under siege,
reduced to beg for some noblesse oblige.”
114.
“I get you,” added Cade, “that’s just what Nas
was throwing down in ‘Want To Talk To You’:
addressing politicians as the boss
and asking each to step into his shoes.
Hey Mayor, ’magine this was your backyard.
Hey Governor, no jobs for nephew meant
his choice was selling crack or dying, starved.
And don’t get started on Boy President…
Point is, those cats on top have gotta make
their choices like they lived with folks down low.”
“That’s actually the stance that John Rawls takes,
to maximize the good for worst-off schmo,”
said Benny, showing off her intellect.
“In Opposition, then, let’s Boy reject.”
115.
“An ‘Opposition’, as Tee names it, in
its very definition’s anchored on
the shortfalls boyish Boy and toady kin
will bare to us from gilded pantheon.
You’ve anchored what you think in what you hear,
the same way knees’ reflexes jerk when slight
and painless hammer pressure’s put right here,
bypassing logic, reason, or insight.
The way you act’s habituated, not
nuanced in any way or shape or form
that would discern what merits a boycott
and what is meant to merely misinform.
Of course, if Opposition’s blanket warms,
then snuggle up and good luck through the storms.
116.
I fear your gear, however, cannot last
the lengthy tempest that he’s out to brew.
Your blanket tatters ’fore the gales have passed,
your huddled, hail-hit bodies burned to blue.
An Opposition categorical
in all it says and does will end up spent,
exhausted by each tit tat roar, prick, pull
manipulation Boy that day has sent.
He’s clever, pilfering your boldness by
recasting politics from single bouts
on issues to attrition, nullified
your verve by shelling you day in, day out.
To play his game, you stay in warfare’s trench.
It’s up to you to play, not warm the bench
117.
or even better yet, to change the game.
I can’t become the ‘Opposition’. When
that gets to be the dominating frame
you’ve given too much power up to his pen.
He knows that you’ll say ‘no’ to everything
(an edge were he to have a strategy)
and thus controls your interests like a king.”
Mo breathed. Tee countered: “So lay flat, as he
steamrolls our every interest every day?
That’s hardly a position Che would take.”
“Of course not, that reductio per se
is sloppy thinking. Still, you need to break
your habit of allowing someone to
dictate the things importantest to you.”
118.
Stel listened to Tee’s, Mona’s back-and-forth,
surprised to hear Mo taking such a stand,
and finding in her words a truer north
than those of Tee to reject out of hand.
It wasn’t wholly clear if others felt
the same in their unease for branding as
an entity whose primal purpose dealt
with saying ‘no’ to what another has
said publicly he’ll do. Tee pressed, “Hashtag
big-O in Opposition’s better brand
for social media.” “Likes don’t trash flags,
Confederate or otherwise. Grandstand-
ing is name’s sole reward.” On vote they’d be
‘The Opposition’ till none obeyed Tee.
119.
From cigarettes and hunger, booze and cold
came motivation soon to relocate
the conversation from porch tech bankrolled
to corner store to snack and eat. “Stoked, Cade,”
asked Mo, “they took the name? In that debate
they didn’t hear my point; they’re getting duped.”
“I’m mixed,” he said, “to stand against stuff’s great,
like ‘Ways to Kill a CEO’ by Coup,
but that don’t say a thing ’bout what to build
when revolution puts you up on top.”
“Exactly it. We’re not compelling; billed
as platform with no platform.” Stel’s eavesdrop
dropped as they paired off. Signs of Central Haight
bodega neared each step. Lit, open late,
120.
it greeted passers-by with mural of
Bob Marley backed by Rasta washes, quote
beside his head and Stel’s, sat just above
eye height. White lettered, chosen anecdote
was: Do not gain the world and lose your soul,
which Stella felt germane to man-bun Joe,
wisdom is better than silver and gold.
Cade saw it, knew it: “Zion Train”. He glowed
when music’s lyrics intersected chat
and wove in similarities from past
to problems in the present. “Song’s format,”
continued Cade, “makes painless the broadcast
of values held, folks listen and don’t judge.
Our poppy narratives fix flaws begrudged.”
121.
They entered as a pack: Cade, Mona, Tee,
and Stella, spirit of Abu beside,
with other randoms Opposition’s creed
threw in their rabble, reasons each red-eyed.
Stel’d been to supermarkets, petrol stops,
convenience stores, and all the like before.
She’d never, though, been to them drunk. Hand propped
against the automatic sliding door,
she timidly extended heel inside,
eyes flitting for which safety handhold next
would brace her lest her wobbly knees both slide
directions that would leave her joints perplexed.
She found a faceless arm to brace her, stave
off spill, then saw the
rainbow tidal wave.
122.
Beginning were the Gatorades, their hues
fluorescent and transparent, then came juice
cold-pressed and pulped, caloric greens’ chartreuse
with wheatgrass, antioxidants infused.
They bordered bubbly bottles, fizzy brews
with saccharides of artificial make
once natural, like sarsaparilla, whose
plant tastes were copped from now-unknown namesakes.
Her fleeting count of flitting flavors slipped
into another thought once thirty notched.
Each product on its own was nondescript,
together they made Pantone color swatch.
“Too many,” Stella drawled in escort’s ear,
his mind by spectacle not commandeered.
123.
“These chips,” her hand on dijon, barbecue,
then salt and pepper, vinegar, and shrimp,
“…but where potatoes sprout’s so far… We grew
those back at home. What you have here’s been pimped,
been whored to feel like something else. They’ve used
what’s earthy, natural here to lure you. Can’t
you see that they’ve bamboozled you? Peruse…
and find one thing your greatest – grandmum, aunt –
whoever’s ghost ate when she was a kid!”
Her body slackened on the outstretched arm,
her roughshod speech forced Cade finally forbid
her from another sentence of alarm.
Her last resentful words: “You all are kings
with endless feasting, yet complain of things…”
124.
With world now spinning out, she tried the trick
perfected in her youth: deep breaths to cool
reactions. Liquor balked. She still felt sick.
This Bay, she seethed, keeps breaking all the rules!
Its homeowners abhor their lovely trees;
its workers now reside in coffee shops;
its wealthy want from feds tax liberties;
its youth protest the government and cops.
The Boy’s distracting everyone, sucked air
from lungs that otherwise might get things done.
The ‘Opposition’ was their construct where-
by they’d solve any of this? Head still spun,
in own insolvency at unresolved
big questions, and as liquor guts dissolved.
125.
But Stella held on. Mentally, at least.
She needed time to process. Structure. Think…
She ought to talk to Cade… Yes? No! He ceased
to listen sometimes, readied lyrics’ link
before time taken so to understand
the speaker’s real position. He’d not do.
She needed medium, not guiding hand.
Who listened for Stel’s story? Ink blots knew
what childhood put in Annals ’fore she stopped.