Both the Church of the Moral Elixir and Mothers for Mercy were meeting that first Saturday in March 2039.
That morning, I called my parents and asked if I could drop the kids off for the day.
Mom said she’d love to have them, and she was also happy that I was going to church again. Dad said that he hoped that I found the support I needed because he was worried that I was a little lonely.
“Lonely?” Mom retorted. “How can she be lonely when she has four kids and a husband?”
Mauru was thinking of visiting a commune in San Diego called “Gatherers & Hunters” with some of his buddies. They’d driven by a few times in the past, and Mauru’d always wanted to know what life was like on a commune in 2039.
I dropped the kids off, and, on the way to the Mothers for Mercy meeting, I turned the radio on, and I heard my favorite song, Almond Leather’s “I’ll Meet You There.”
The lyrics made my chest tighten, and my heartbeat so fast that I had to tell myself to take deep breaths, or I would pass out.
“I’ll Meet You There” is about a woman who sees her husband leave with their children, and she doesn’t know if he’ll ever come back. (For those who haven’t heard the song, I have reproduced it here. Linda Maywrot assures me that she will get the necessary permissions to reproduce it in full so that I’m not violating anyone’s legal rights to the music.)
When the fires came in, you prayed
When the sands swelled, you stayed
Then I saw your back in the sunset one evening
A silhouette on some canvas as you were leaving
A suitcase by your side, our children in their stride
Something had summoned you, and it wasn’t me
You all had to leave me to be free
But I’ve heard of a place
Out beyond right and wrong
There thrives a world. I’ll meet you there.
They don’t care about sin
They don’t ask about kin
They don’t call you weak or strong
Out beyond right and wrong.
I’ll meet you there.
Can you tell me why you left?
Is this a sign that all is lost?
In the end, we must all pay the cost
In a landscape clearly bereft
Where I’ll never see my kids again
But I’ve heard of a place
Out beyond right and wrong
There thrives a world. I’ll meet you there.
They don’t care about sin
They don’t ask about kin
They don’t call you weak or strong
Out beyond right and wrong.
I’ll meet you there.
I found myself singing along and sniffling, reaching for some tissue as I drove, and I noticed a dust storm in the distance.
We’d had a big one a few weeks before, and as I saw the approaching dust storm on my way to the Mothers for Mercy meeting, I marveled at how dust storms no longer scared me as much.
I remembered how the land around me once was green. Bunnies once bounced about joyfully in some places.
I recalled once driving through Serra Mesa, in San Diego. I saw two bunnies run across the street, one after the other, and I had to slow down, as if for pedestrians. The rabbits disappeared into a large bush on the other side of the street, and I smiled.
That was a while ago.
I reached Memorial University in La Jolla, where the Mothers for Mercy meeting was going to be held.
At first, I was uncomfortable, and I kept wondering how my kids were doing.
They couldn’t stop talking about the trip we’d planned, to Alaska, and I wondered if the trip would bring us all together and allow me to forget my sins.
Maybe my kids would one day remember the trip, and they’d tell their spouses and children (if they chose that route or if it chose them) that they’d been to Alaska with their parents when they were kids, and all they could remember was how happy we all were for a few weeks.
In attendance at the Mothers for Mercy meeting was a group of triplets, whom I will forever call “the Zanzivahl triplets.” The nicknames I have chosen for them suit them well, too: “Zee One,” “Zee Two,” and “Zee Three.”
I know that it’s never good to sound vexed or irritated, especially in one’s memoir, but I can’t help it.
All three sisters, actual triplets, wore precisely the same stuff, and they showed it all off like people who were only interested in you as long as you admired them and their achievements. There’s nothing worse than a show-off you can’t compete with, and I knew that I’d never be able to compete with the likes of them.
Imagine three cut from the same cloth!
Hair care, skin care, fragrances, and lipstick by Zanzivahl Organics.
Tahitian pearl earrings, necklaces, and eight-carat round-cut diamond rings by Zanzivahl Forever.
Gabardine trench coat dresses, handmade leather espadrilles, and lambskin bags by Zanzivahl Distinction.
Each one of the triplets also had a designer baby, probably made by Zanzivahl Organics.
And guess what the babies’ names were?
“Zealot”—because there’s nothing better than having your kid sound like a crazy person.
“Zeugma”—because it’s all about having people ask your kid where she’s from and how they should pronounce her name.
“Zambezi”—because there’s nothing better than having your kid believe he’s a mighty river.
(Linda Maywrot says I’m sounding snarky again, so she chopped off two whole pages, decapitated them—can you believe it!—in which I used expletives to describe my first encounter with the Zanzivahl triplets.)
The babies, I might add, were all wearing Zanzivahl Addiction diapers, so that the baby is forever addicted to Zanzivahl from the first diaper.
The diapers were “actually so comfortable you could mistake them for a pillow, Janet,” and “so hip you could mistake them for your favorite radio station, Janet. Don’t you know that these diapers play your favorite song on the electronic device of your choice when your baby does a booboo?”
“And, oh, please don’t call those little chariots over there ‘strollers,’ Janet. Please call them ‘perambulators’ because they are from the Zanzivahl Addiction line. ‘Perambulator’ is more addicting than ‘stroller.’ Don’t you know that each perambulator, Janet, is handmade, with a platinum chassis? Each one is also hand-stitched, and it contains a hypoallergenic handcrafted cotton mattress with silk-covered pillows.”
Well, I couldn’t help but think that the platinum chassis made the “perambulator” look like a hearse for babies. That’s right! My sons, Jon and Nate, had a much less expensive stroller, which was passed down from one child to the other because we weren’t buying mortician’s chariots for our kids. Nathalie and Nathaniel each received a brand new stroller from Mom and Dad, and neither of their strollers looked like hearses for babies.
The most bulbous of the triplets, Zee Two (I should have called her “Bulba”), told me that her “boobies weren’t made by Zanzivahl Organics but by a doctor downtown who does a buy-one-get-one-free special for repeat customers.”
I had a good idea which “booby” was the free one, Bulba.
Zee One looked at my flats, which were not made by Zanzivahl, and she said, “Aren’t those an interesting take on the ones I have in pink, gold, silver, and orange by our Zanzivahl! The one you have on must be a knockoff made by and for the masses!”
She and her sisters covered their mouths and laughed at my flats, my brand-new flats, which I’d bought on sale at the store next door to ConfiPrice in La Jolla.
I faked a smile, stood up, and went to sit at the back of the room, where I sat alone for about ten minutes before a lady, probably in her fifties, sat beside me.
“You made the right choice,” she said. “But where are my manners?” She opened her wallet as if to look for her manners inside. She smiled, offered me her hand, and said, “
I’m Jill.”
“Janet,” I said, offering my hand in greeting.
“Hey, Janet. I saw those three when I walked in, and I said to myself, ‘Not for me.’ There are some people you’ve just got to avoid. Something is annoying about those three; attention-seeking.”
As luck would have it, or absurdity, which is often a synonym for luck, “Momma is King” by Almond Leather, played loud and clear, coming out of one diaper, then another, then the other, as all three babies made synchronized “booboos.”
Oh, Mama
Her Majesty!
Yeah, Mama
His Majesty!
Momma is King
Mama needs bling
Mama gets everything
Mama gets to ride in a carriage
Drawn by a thousand horses!
Jill and a few others were laughing.
“I doubt,” Jill said, “that Almond Leather had this kind of situation in mind when they licensed that song. I would never buy diapers with sensors for my grandkids. What if they short-circuited or something?”
The auditorium quickly filled, and about 150 people, mostly moms, were in the room.
Some struggled to make ends meet, and it showed in the fraying hems on their dresses, the rips in the sneakers, the faded flowers in their sundresses, and the patches on their clothing. One woman clutched her baby in a ripped shawl, and she rocked her baby back and forth as the baby babbled.
She looked in the direction of the Zanzivahl triplets, with downcast eyes.
An elderly lady dressed in a bloomer dress, which had been out-of-fashion for over a century at least (but “reimagined for the twenty-first century” by, drum roll, Zanzivahl) walked up to the podium at the front of the auditorium and bowed as she received a standing ovation.
The bloomer dress she wore looked like six parachutes had been sewn together. A parachute covered each of her limbs, another covered her bust and abdomen, and another the area from her groin to her knees.
What made the bloomer dress elegant (and wearable) was the number of pleats, which fell like gentle dominoes across the body, caressing it, when encouraged by the slightest draft of air. The lighter the fabric, the more the bloomer dress appeared to breathe. Heavier fabrics, however, could make the woman wearing a bloomer dress look like a paratrooper.
The woman wearing the bloomer dress was going for the militant vibe as well.
“Welcome to Mothers for Mercy, Chapter 820, here in San Diego!” she said as she applauded herself, and the room applauded her in return.
“My name is Gregoria A. Handbloom, and I’m the founder of Mothers for Mercy. [Applause.] “Thank you! Thank you so much! A little about me. I was born in—thank you, thank you for that applause—Abilene, Texas, quite a distance from here,” [smiles in the audience] “and I have dedicated my whole life to social justice issues.” [Applause.] “I’m not a mother myself, but I am the mother of this movement and so many others. I got your former governor, Governor Barrow, to abolish the death penalty in the State of California.” [Applause.] “I got my home state, Texas, to provide free universal healthcare for all pre-kindergarten kids, and I got the state in which I now live, Maine, to adopt robust anti-discrimination laws protecting all migrants moving to Maine.” [Applause.] “My greatest achievement was getting the federal government to establish a climate change fund for states like yours in times like this, even before your drought came along, and the fund has been great boon to your state and so many others.” [Applause and whistling.] “As you’ve no doubt guessed, I didn’t do any of it on my own. I’ve had lots and lots and lots of help—”
“From Zanzivahl!” a man yelled from the audience to laughter.
“How much were them parachuting bloomers, Gregoria?” another man asked. “Can I put my John Hancock on them bloomers?”
“Join us in the twenty-first century, Gregoria!” another man yelled. “No one wears them bloomers anymore!”
“How can you afford them bloomers in these times?” A woman asked. “We are starving, and you are wearing Zanzivahl this and Zanzivahl that. Shame on you, Gregoria! I just came to tell you that you are a fraud, and my son and I are going home right now!” The woman stood up, pulled her toddler by the arm, and left the room.
“Look at this,” the woman with the ripped shawl and the baby said. “It’s the only thing I have to wrap my baby with. I don’t even know where my next meal will come from, Gregoria. I moved here from Colorado because they said that there were going to be jobs out here in oil. I go to the fields every day, to the site office, to ask if they have a job for me, and they tell me there’s nothing for people from Colorado.”
“They don’t like Raddies in the oil business,” one of the men said. “Trehoviak has his people everywhere now, and it’s only getting worse.”
“Don’t you call me by that name!” The woman exclaimed. “I’m a red-blooded American, just like you, sir! Don’t insult my baby and me! I’m human, too!”
“Friends,” Gregoria said, trying to smile, “let’s remember who our real enemy is. We are all friends here. Our friends at Zanzivahl, at grassroots organizations across our country, and grassroots organizations across our planet have made all my achievements possible, and I owe them a profound, profound debt of thanks. There is indeed widespread suffering. There is indeed increasing discrimination here in the state of California. Your governor is indeed the cause of much suffering. And, indeed, I’m here to fight him!”
Gregoria then paused, which she knew would draw applause. Once the applause died down, she continued talking.
“Thank you. Now, I hear you when you say that you’ve come from the great state of Colorado. I hear you when you say that you’re struggling to feed your families. And I hear you when you say that you want change. The state of water affairs across California and the West is a downright crying shame of the highest moral order! We have dangerous opportunists in power here, in Colorado, and Nevada, and we see the rise of these dark, nefarious entities across the globe!”
Gregoria paused for more applause.
“Thank you. From Sacramento to San Antonio, you have people in blue and green uniforms, militaries unto themselves and weaponized, marching to the sound of a billionaire’s drum, chanting prayers called ‘Scrimmage,’ which not even our most elaborate nightmares could cobble together, and they impose their prayers on our public discourse and our legal system. Resist! Resist! Resist!” [Applause and whistles.] “Thank you! Thank you! These nefarious entities are even in workplaces throughout this great state, imposing their will on you and your families, and they’re ensuring that you never have a free thought they haven’t approved in advance!”
That last sentence hit me in the gut.
I found myself applauding Gregoria.
“You might be asking,” Gregoria continued, “where ‘mercy’ comes in. Why are we called Mothers for Mercy? Well, we are Mothers for Mercy because you can only be a CWP member if you lack mercy! You can only be a CWP member if you believe that worshipping wealth is the right path! You can only be a CWP member if you believe that an expensive water court in a period of starvation and illness is the right path! You can only be a CWP member if you believe that executing innocent people is the right path! You can only be a CWP member if you believe that exploiting migrants is the right path!” [Applause.] “Are we saying that all wealthy people are evil? Of course, not. We have our allies in all social classes across this state and our great nation. And they all agree that you can only be a CWP member if you believe that banning vanilla and almonds and chocolate is the right path when people can’t find jobs, and they don’t have access to the water they need!” [Applause]. “Let me tell you what ‘CWP’ stands for: Cruel! Wackadoo! Poisonous!” [Laughter and applause.]
Gregoria smiled before continuing.
“Friends,” she said, “let me tell you what Gregoria A. Handbloom has in store for these wackadoos!” [Laughter and applause.] “Gregoria A. Handbloom has some demonstrations in the pipeline
! Gregoria A. Handbloom has some lawsuits in the pipeline! Gregoria A. Handbloom has so much energy in her Zanzivahl bloomers” [the Zanzivahl triplets stood up with Zealot, Zeugma, and Zambezi, and they applauded] “that she’s going to help defeat, once and for all, the cruel, wackadoo, poisonous CWP in the next election!” [Laughter and applause.] “My California friends, resist! Resist! Resist! My name is Gregoria A. Handbloom, and I approve of this message!”
“Can I put my John Hancock on them parachuting bloomers, Gregoria?” The man asked again.
“Leave Gregoria and her parachuting bloomers alone!” a woman nearby yelled at him.
Gregoria raised both hands like she was about to give us all her papal blessing as the second female pope in the history of her own church.
People were on their feet, applauding and whistling.
I have never been political, so consistent with my beliefs, I sat in my seat gently applauding as people yelled Gregoria’s name all around me.
“Gregoria! Gregoria! Gregoria! Gregoria! Gregoria! Gregoria! Gregoria!”
I was thrilled, however. Just thrilled. I felt so much less lonely, but a little afraid, too.
“And,” Gregoria said, “our friends at Zanzivahl have generously provided us with food and drinks for those of you who are in need. We also have bags of canned goods for you to take home. Thank you to our friends at Zanzivahl!” [Applause and whistling.]
“Do you think you’ll come back?” Jill asked me as I stood up to leave.
“No,” I said initially. Then, “Maybe.”
“We’ll be meeting every two weeks,” Jill said. “We need your advice and help.” Jill smiled. “Please join us.”
I felt hopeful, and I was so excited and invigorated that I stood up and told myself that I was equally enthusiastic about my visit to the Church of the New Moral, whose service was going to begin in an hour. After all, I’d heard that they, too, were opposed to the Hoviaks.
If Gregoria could fight the Hoviaks, then I could, too. Maybe I’d also consider applying for a new job (as difficult as it would be to leave WS&X after twelve years of service), but first I’d need to talk with Mauru, and maybe I’d need to speak with a lawyer, as Dad had suggested, about my experience with the Hoviaks at WS&X.
Fire Sweeping: The California Ballot Killings Book II Page 10