The Gods of Color

by Gunnar Sinclaire

  THE GODS OF COLOR

  By Gunnar Sinclaire

  Copyright © 2010 by Gunnar Sinclaire

  The Gods of Color is a work of fiction. All characters and events depicted are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead or situations past or present is purely coincidental.

  “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

  —George Santayana

  But will those who remember the past recognize it in the present—honeyed, mutable, smiling?

  —Author

  Chapter 1

  “Mr. Hommler, may I offer you something to drink? Perhaps something to eat while you await the president?” The slender Hispanic girl attempted to smile at the visitor. She had grown accustomed to extraordinary dignitaries from all over the world, yet this man’s presence unnerved her.

  “That’s quite all right, miss. I’m fine. But please remember that there is only one president of California, and he rules in Washington.”

  The girl smiled politely, or mockingly, then returned to her desk.

  Hommler ran a hand through his silver curls, and surveyed the room. It was the paradise of a Mesoamerican archaeologist. Aztec war masks sprouted riots of colored feathers. Indigenous swords—wooden clubs studded with glistening obsidian shards—were everywhere at hand. And jade carvings of serpents, demons, and gods caused the secretary of state to wonder whether he sat amid a heavenly pantheon or amid the guardians of a forgotten hell.

  “President Guerrero will see you now.” The girl led him through corridors dazzling with Aztec and Toltec curios, and gently opened a large double doors.

  Within, flanked by two bodyguards, sat a middle-aged Hispanic man. His hair was thick, and a jet mustache unwound beneath his nose. He had broad shoulders and a firm, strong jaw.

  “Mr. Guerrero, it’s a pleasure to see you again.” Hommler stepped into the office, hand outstretched.

  The president slowly planted his right elbow on the desk in front of him. A clenched fist buttressed his chin—there would be no handshake.

  “You mean President Guerrero, lord of Aztlan,” a bodyguard said.

  “I mean Mr. Guerrero, California secessionist.” The silver-haired man riposted with an abrupt, piercing gaze.

  “If you find the title of president unfitting, Mr. Hommler, you may call me Guerrero, Emperor of Aztlan, successor to the throne of Guatemoc, which until my advent was vacant for six-hundred years.” The president tilted his head and raised his eyebrows.

  “Mr. Guerrero, you are . . . delusional.” Hommler laughed.

  The nearest bodyguard stepped forward, glowering, moving his daunting musculature into proximity with the tall but slight frame of the secretary of state. Hommler curled back his lips, revealing trenchant canines.

  “At ease, Pablo. Let this cabrón speak with us quickly so he may run back to report to his master,” coaxed the president.

  “I don’t need to return to Washington all that quickly, Mr. Guerrero. I rather like your capital city; Los Angeles is beautiful in late summer.”

  “What do you want, Mr. Hommler?” asked Guerrero.

  “I want to know when you will have a portrait of President Swan behind your desk rather than that moldering scrap of Hispanic nationalist tripe.” Hommler eyed a framed rectangle of parchment rising behind Guerrero.

  “I will never have a picture of that mockery of a man behind my desk. Nor will this ‘tripe’ ever leave my possession. I’ll have you know it’s the original El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan, written in Colorado in 1969 at the First Chicano National Conference. It is as precious to us as your Constitution once was to Americans.”

  “I know all about El Plan,” mused Hommler, “someday I’ll explain to you why it’s infantile and impractical. But enough of that, I come bearing an admonition from President Swan.”

  “And what is the warning?” Guerrero laughed.

  “If you do not stop your incursions, your proclaimed reconquista, we will bomb Los Angeles until it is more ruinous than Tenochtitlan after the Spanish conquest. And we will bomb your other cities as well. We will bomb you into submission. Perhaps we will even dust off a twentieth-century nuclear warhead and streak it your way.”

  Guerrero blinked, and his eyes were searching, then serious. “The reconquista will not cease until all the lands arrogated under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo are returned to Aztlan—California, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Nevada. Then, and only then, will our struggle of liberation end.”

  “Mr. Guerrero, President Swan is a generous man who offers guarantees. Silence this insurrection, stifle your primitive nationalism, and become Americans. Let us avoid a civil war. President Swan tries his utmost to avoid military conflict. That is why your recalcitrance has so far gone unpunished.”

  Guerrero succumbed to rich laughter.

  “You and your president haven’t attacked us yet because you are awaiting a civil war of your own—the backlash from your science fiction experiment. The whites may have forgotten how to have children, and may have willingly ceded power to a group of psychopaths, but something tells me even they, guilt-ridden and effete as they are, won’t take your ‘Americanization’ bull shit lying down. I know the Hispanics living in your territories won’t. I’m sure the blacks and Asians won’t, either.” The president fanned his mustache.

  “Perhaps you are unaware of our rapid proliferation, Mr. Guerrero. As of yesterday, Congress registered seventy-three percent American. Soon it will be all American. Our state legislatures register, on average, sixty-seven percent American. And in merely six months since its inception, eleven percent of our net population has elected to Americanize. The Federal Government is offering incentives that simply cannot be overlooked, and the media is steadily bombarding the population with both explicit and subliminal coaxing. Join us, Mr. Guerrero; assimilate.”

  “Me? No,” the president laughed, “I’m proud of my bronze skin tone. And more than that I enjoy being a strong, straight, masculine male. I mean, if a person is born gay, I don’t believe they should be persecuted. But why should straight people be forced to become homosexual?”

  “President Swan and Vice President Smith chose this component of Americanization to help reduce discrimination against all peoples. And, may I correct you, Americans are bisexual, not homosexual.”

  “Mere semantics, Mr. Hommler. Besides, from what I hear those that have been treated have a predilection for homosexuality rather than heterosexuality. And apparently the urge is very powerful. So I really don’t know how bisexual you Americans can claim to be. I have also heard rumors that heterosexuals are persecuted in your land of equality and opportunity—that you categorize heterosexuality as a form of insanity.” Guerrero frowned. “But perhaps you can satisfy my curiosity of a subject I’ve been puzzled by for a while now. Swan and Smith were treated long before the process was available to the public. Yet you . . . look at you. Your eyes are blue, your skin is pale . . . maybe the palest I’ve ever seen. You’re still just a regular white man, Mr. Hommler—you’ve never been treated. Don’t you practice what you preach—don’t you want to become an American?”

  Hommler’s eyes narrowed, and he straightened his crimson tie.

  “First of all, let me assure you I am by no means just a regular white man. A moment ago you referred to the current U.S. administration as a group of psychopaths, didn’t you?”

  “I believe I did.”

  “Well, as you can imagine, when an eccentric, peculiar, brilliant individual comes to power, like President Swan, he frequently brings with him other eccentric, peculiar, brilliant individuals with sympathetic ideologies. They may not share identical ideologies, merely parallel, and, hopefully, symbiotic ones
. Call, if you will, the leitmotif of our administration the end to all persecution. We prioritize this goal because every member of the cabinet has had excessive doses of persecution growing up, and I am no exception.”

  “Understood. But how can you be an ambassador for America when you are not, by Swan’s definition, American?”

  “Because honestly, Mr. Guerrero, I am the chief engineer of the Americanization hardware and I can do whatever the hell I want. And, if you must know, I, too, am not without modification.”

  Guerrero flashed a grin and nudged one of his guards.

  “El se cambio el sexo.”

  “No, Mr. Guerrero,” said the emissary, stewing, “my manhood is intact.”

  “Pardon my humor, Hommler, I was unaware of your knowledge of Spanish.”

  “On the contrary, you are quite aware of my knowledge of Spanish; you know I’m a linguist. But shall we turn to matters more pressing than my anatomy? I want to congratulate you on Aztlan’s rejection of monotheism. As you are aware, President Swan and I find single-God religious systems thoroughly intolerable. They are by nature exclusionary, and breed hatred, racism, and discrimination. We are intrigued that you, our adversary of sorts, has concluded likewise.”

  “Well, we persecute no one based on their faith, and we will never attempt to coerce our citizens into abandoning Catholicism,” the Hispanic leader prefaced. “But, long before the Europeans arrived and oppressed us with alien ways and an alien faith, we had our own culture and our own religion—the religion of our bronze ancestors, the religion of our blood.”

  “Fascinating,” breathed Hommler, fingers twitching perceptibly, “it always comes back to the blood, doesn’t it, Mr. Guerrero?”

  “I suppose it does. Isn’t that the obsession of us all, these days?” asked the president.

  “These days?” The secretary of state chuckled. “Blood has been the soul’s principal nutrient for millennia. It both defines and sustains us . . . it is divine.”

  “Perhaps. We of Aztlan bear no hostility toward the various strains of monotheism, but feel our people are best served by a religion of their own creation. Not a Semitic religion, not a European religion, but an indigenous Aztec religion. To quote El Plan, ‘We are a bronze people with a bronze culture.’ Accordingly, we will implement a bronze religion.”

  “Will you resurrect the old gods of your people, will you build altars to Huitzilopochtli?” Hommler’s eyes widened, and a grin began to animate his milky face.

  “Construction of the Templo Mayor in downtown has already begun, and a cadre of high priests is being consecrated. Yes, Mr. Hommler, once again our priests will pray to Tezcatlipoca, creator of heaven and earth, Tlaloc, god of rain, Xipe Totec, god of fertility, et cetera.”

  “Er . . . how precisely do you intend to adhere to the religion of your ancestors?” The emissary had half risen from his chair, and was breathing heavily.

  “Regrettably, the Spaniards destroyed much of our religion’s formal protocol in the sixteenth century, but we will attempt to piece together what we can. We will emulate the old faith as closely as possible, with some notable redactions.”

  “But what of Huitzilopochtli? Will you resurrect him, too? And how will you honor him? Will you honor him in the old way? Will altars spill over with blood? Will red rivulets trickle down stone? Will hearts be torn out and lifted to the sun? You must tell me!” Hommler stood, hunched over, hands clasped together.

  “Absolutely not,” exclaimed Guerrero, puzzled, “we will pray to Huitzilopochtli for luck in battle, but the old war god will have to content himself with sacrifices as benign as food offerings and prayer. What is wrong with you?” Guerrero recoiled slightly at the secretary of state’s excitement.

  “Then you risk his wrath,” whispered Hommler, slowly lowering himself back into his chair.

  “And what do you know of an Aztec god’s wrath? Pablo, Ricardo,” Guerrero looked to his bodyguards, “does this man look Aztec to you? What is your religion, by the way, Hommler? You are so driven by ideology; surely you and your Swan subscribe to some faith.”

  “My religion and President Swan’s religion are similar in some respects but divergent in others.”

  “Please enlighten me.” Guerrero smiled.

  “As you wish. The litany of Aztec gods you just mentioned is familiar to me because I am a polytheist versed in all the great pantheons of the world. But of them all, the religion of Sumeria registers most deeply in my soul. So far as President Swan is concerned, race is his religion. He esteems all the non-Caucasian races to be divine, and locked in dualistic conflict with the evil white tyrant peoples of Europe and their descendants in America and elsewhere. And with the availability of Americanization, which essentially destroys the indicia of race all together, President Swan has taken a fancy to the idea of racelessness.”

  “Bizarre,” uttered Guerrero.

  “Touche, but everything is relative, and all religions are bizarre to some measure.”

  “Agreed. So you . . . maybe . . . who do you pray to . . . Gilgamesh?” Mentally, the president searched unfamiliar ground.

  “Hardly,” the emissary said. “But speaking of the King of Ur, I have a parable to tell you.”

  “And what am I to extract from this parable?”

  “Whatever you wish.” Hommler smirked, then folded his slender arms. “Approximately midway through his epic, Gilgamesh is fancied by the lovely goddess Ishtar. Despite her beauty, and doubtless the allure of coupling with a goddess, Gilgamesh rejects her advances. He rejects her because Gilgamesh knows that Ishtar has quickly wearied of her lovers in the past. And those lovers tended to physically wither and die at the onset of her disinterest.” Hommler chuckled, flashed a toothy grin, then continued. “Deeply insulted, Ishtar petitions Anu, the sky god, to punish Gilgamesh and the rest of humanity for her unrequited love. Specifically, Ishtar threatens that she will dash open the gates of the underworld and lead a million ravenous ghouls to devour humanity. In the epic, Anu assures that this catastrophe does not transpire. But in reality, Mr. Guerrero, decisions such as these are weighed in Washington.” Hommler smiled and watched as his story was processed.

  “So you intend to send zombies to eat us?” Guerrero’s laughter was loud, perhaps too loud, to be carefree.

  “Don’t be so literal,” chided the emissary, “consumption is often a metaphor for destruction.”

  “You know something, Mr. Hommler, I’m growing tired of your threats. How would you respond if I told you that I don’t intend to halt our armies on the borders of territory stolen from us under Guadalupe Hidalgo? How would you respond if I told you that states like Nebraska and Texas would only appease me temporarily? How would you feel if I told you that I plan to march all the way to Washington? Perhaps we will exact a reparations charge on your citizens for the two centuries of occupation Latinos in the western U.S. had to endure. And maybe we will take a page out of the white man’s book, and request tribute from your deviant, broken people once we leave.”

  “The gods are returning, Mr. Guerrero.” Heedless of the president’s counter-threat, Hommler rose and craned himself over Guerrero’s desk, head bobbing in subtle spasms. “Too long they have been disgraced and ostracized by a jealous Levantine God. Can’t you feel it? The air is electric with their advent! All of them! Pulling themselves up from the swirling vortices of oblivion . . . climbing out . . . clamoring for vengeance! Thirsting for . . .”

  Hommler had half crawled onto Guerrero’s desk when a bodyguard awoke as if from mesmerism and threw the emissary to the floor. The guard then applied a boot to his frail chest, pinning him.

  President Guerrero stood up, and peered down at the wan, writhing man.

  “You are very sick, Mr. Hommler. Swan made a poor choice when he appointed you secretary of state.”

  Twisting vigorously to acquire room to incline his head, the emissary spat, “I appointed myself secretary of state, idiot!” And completing his statement, he yanked up his captor
’s pant leg. Briefly studying the exposed calf, Hommler plunged his teeth into the flesh, and his eyes shot wide as if channeled with electricity.

  The guard bellowed, and stomped downward on the emissary. The second guard rushed forward and began kicking Hommler’s lanky body. Amid the beating Hommler released his mouthful and attempted to protect himself. The blows rained down unabated for several moments before the president reigned in his guards. Welts were already manifesting on Hommler’s face, and he wore the guard’s blood like a hellish lipstick. With a slow revolution of his tongue, he cleaned the blood and swallowed vigorously.

  “You’re going to pay for that . . . all of you . . . and your people too.” The emissary growled, clutching his battered ribs. “The president will hear of this, and he will not be pleased.”

  “Leave my sight, then. Run back to Washington, and tell Swan we want no rapprochement, no reunification, and certainly no Americanization. We Chicanos are proud of who we are. We are strong! Our men act like men. Our women act like women. We marry, have children, and perpetuate our race, our strength. We have our own books, our own art, our own culture. We will never assimilate! Never!”

  Chapter 2

  Her face was the hue of volcano ash, and each eye was a quarry of obsidian. In one iris, a tiny wedge of emerald slivered the darkness.

  Blake would stare at this tiny green rebellion when Ms. Duncan lectured. It was shrinking daily, and soon, he predicted, would be gone.

  Ms. Duncan rose from her chair, and briefly scanned her desk. Her gaze skirted a picture wherein a green-eyed woman, now unknown to her, was embracing a man and two children. More prominently positioned, and gold framed, was a photo of a lone woman, Principal Kelly Sullivan. Principal and teacher shared the same gray flesh tone, black eyes, and absence of a smile. Ms. Duncan’s fingers lingered on the frame briefly before she shambled to the front of the room.