by Malcom James
Eli closed his news app, and as the rain came down harder, he dialed his father’s cell phone. It rang and rang, and then he got his voicemail. He left a short message, saying he was okay, and would try calling the house.
He dialed the house, and his stepmother Nancy answered. When she heard it was Eli, she started crying.
“I’ve been trying to reach you, Eli, where have you been?”
“Sorry, I had to get rid of my phone, I don’t want to get into it. Where’s Dad?”
She could barely get the words out. “I’ve been trying to find you… he had a heart attack three days ago. Middle of the night, I did CPR, they came and took him, they tried again in the ambulance, but he didn’t make Eli, he didn’t make it. I’m so sorry…” and then she was saying something about cremation, and maybe a ceremony in a few weeks, the words becoming garbled and his throat tightening, her voice fading away. He just stared at the rain forming puddles on the pavement under his feet.
***
It was a working man’s watering hole on the edges of the Navy Yard that he stumbled into to get out of the rain. An Irish place called Finnegan’s. A place carpenters and steelworkers went after the whistle blew. Behind the long bar, three hundred pounds of tough female love named Sammy was working the late afternoon shift. A CD jukebox played Johnny Cash near an unoccupied pool table in the back.
Eli, soaked, pulled up a stool, removed his hat and glasses, and ordered an Irish whiskey. Sammy surveyed his shaved bleached head, then poured generously, and he put it to his lips. This one’s for you, Dad. He wasn’t a fan of Irish whiskey, but Ben was. It burned all the way down, his eyes watering slightly.
He put some cash on the bar, nodded almost imperceptibly to the slow-moving old man in the Navy hat a few stools down, the one Sammy kept calling ‘Captain,’ and proceeded to spend the next two hours drinking, slowly, and thinking of his father.
Childhood memories, summers traveling the country in Ben’s old VW bus. The years apart during the divorce. His father’s insatiable curiosity and unmatched knowledge on nearly any random subject — not a man to challenge in Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit. The time they hitchhiked to Montreal, just the two of them. His mom didn’t want him to go, didn’t think it was safe, but Ben convinced her that with an eight-year-old boy with him and a cardboard sign, they would get picked up every time. A different era. 1976?
Ben always there, with the simple, moral clarity. No material frills. Quick to frustrate at the injustices of the world, or even worse, the lack of effort by those who couldn’t understand how easy they had it.
Eli tried to remember when they last spoke, the last thing said. “Do something.”
He couldn’t recall if he said he loved him before they hung up. He wanted to call and tell him, and then the most basic of realizations hit — something new, but which any person who ever lost anyone immediately feels — the simple, inescapable fact that he could never speak to him again. He was beyond reach, at least in this world.
As he drank, he remembered a day when he was a boy, maybe six or seven. A Gulf Coast beach somewhere in Florida. Ben lifting him up, over and over above the rolling waves. Later, they sat on a blanket on the sand, watching the sunset. A ball of undulating orange-red flame, low enough to look into without blinking.
It seemed to sit forever, as he tried to catch it moving, slowly sinking, ever downward, until nothing more than a burning sliver. He turned away for one moment, and when he turned back, it was gone.
***
It was three hours later when he noticed how crowded Finnegan’s had become. He was on the same stool, now quite drunk. Fortunately, Sammy explained, they had a two-for-one hotdog bar in the back, and he should eat if he was going to keep tipping her so generously. He took her up on that.
With hotdogs soaking up the liquor and a new spot at the end of the bar near the overhead TV, he watched CNN with the mostly blue-collar crowd, as the wall-to-wall coverage of “The Impeachment of Harold P. Franks” played out in the U.S. House of Representatives, complete with dramatic new theme music.
The voting had already begun. Drinks were flowing, and it was a celebratory atmosphere. Eli was too drunk to figure out why. Was it because they were happy Franks was being impeached? That didn’t make sense; most of them looked like classic Franks voters.
Maybe they were happy because the investigation was over, and they felt like he was about to win the championship prize on “American President.” Or maybe it was just a bar, and they were happy to be drinking, away from their troubles, and the reality of what was happening was unable to penetrate its walls. He wasn’t sure what the reason was, but the juxtaposition of the mood against what was unfolding on TV was surreal.
Sammy demanded “no fucking politics!” and shut off the volume, then turned up the jukebox, cranking “Welcome To The Jungle,” but left the TV on mute so everyone could watch the vote going down.
When she served him again, he asked what she thought of Franks. She leaned forward, her massive chest pressed on the bar, and whispered so her best customers wouldn’t hear her say “He’s a grade-A asshole, if you ask me.” She winked, and went to the next pour.
The shouting and music and drinks went on, and less than an hour later, it was all over. The Articles of Impeachment had been voted down, 232 to 199. In the end, only the four moderate Republicans plus two others had joined the Democrats in voting to impeach the president. Franks had won.
The bar broke out in a near riot, while the continuing coverage showed the protests around the country becoming increasingly violent.
***
Later still, Sammy was replaced by Al, tall and acne-scarred and diligent. Eli stayed at the end of the bar, out of the way, having switched to beer to extend his endurance. No one cared whether he was drunk, or who he was, or that he was even there. It was the perfect place to disappear.
On TV, Franks showed up at a midnight rally somewhere in Ohio. He scheduled the rally for the night of the impeachment vote knowing it would be killer ratings, regardless of the outcome. Or maybe he had known the outcome. Regardless, he had that preternatural sense for what made good television, and that was his highest concern. He had Air Force One, and could go where he pleased, when he pleased, knowing the cameras had to follow.
The crowd was fired up, a sea of red hats on a Saturday night, pumped on beer and adrenaline, packed into a county convention hall, and Franks was there — in the flesh — under the spotlights — the ubiquitous row of flags behind him, his face orange-red with intensity and defiance, clapping continuously for himself with the crowd, stalking the stage as they chanted “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” and he pumped his fists in the air.
He told them the forces of the “Deep State” had attempted to overthrow the will of the people, but they had been vanquished, and a new day was dawning for America. They cheered.
He told them the “horrible, horrible Fake News Media” would no longer be lying about Russia, and if they did, he would shut them down or sue them into oblivion. They cheered louder.
He was nearly yelling, he was so amped, and the crowd was egging him on. He told them the “poor protestors” in the streets were “sad losers” and “wannabe terrorists” and he would call in the Army to stop them from damaging the businesses and property of law-abiding Americans.
“Next I think we take on term limits, what do you think? If China can do it, we can too!” he bellowed, and the crowd roared with approval.
The coverage intercut with a building protest outside the county hall, as anti-fascist agitators mixed in with regular demonstrators and started hurling rocks and bottles at cops. The cops responded with disproportionate force, which was exactly what was required, according to the anchor team.
Back inside the hall, Franks went on a rant about stopping all the illegal immigrants coming into the country who were murdering Americans. He described in grotesque detail how Latin American gang members had used knives to slowly torture thi
s “beautiful, beautiful young blond girl from Kansas, Katy, beautiful Katy, you remember her,” he said, detailing how they raped her and then skinned her alive, and how they loved listening to her screams, and even filmed it on their phones, and posted it on the internet and laughed about how weak America was.
But their time was coming, all of them! And maybe in addition to the wall, it was time to round them all up into camps and send them packing. And the crowd chanted “Build the wall! Build the Wall!”
He went on another tangent about stopping terrorists by bringing back waterboarding and “much, much worse,” and said the real key was killing their families.
“And while we are at it, we need to kill all the drug dealers, am I right?” he yelled, and they laughed and cheered harder, as the violence built outside the hall.
And then it was Eleanor Wilson, and how corrupt she was, and they chanted “Lock her up! Lock her up!” just like he trained them to do.
It was a replay of all his greatest hits; a grotesque carnival act. A few minutes later, Eli blacked out.
22
Truth
His head throbbed as his eyes fluttered awake. He found himself in the tunnel, in a ball on the ground. He sat up and shook himself off. He didn’t recall leaving the bar, but somehow had made it back.
Not far away, Eli saw Lonnie, leaning against the wall in his same spot, surrounded by his meager belongings, reading a newspaper. Eli stood and brushed himself off.
“Well, it’s finally done for,” Lonnie said, without looking up.
“What’s that?” Eli asked.
“Our great experiment. We had a good run, almost two hundred and fifty years.” Lonnie folded up his paper and set it on the ground.
“You follow politics?” Eli said, surprised.
“You gots to stay informed, Mr. Sawyer,” he replied.
Eli thought about that, instinctively pulled out his phone, and checked his news app. The two key headlines were “Franks Impeachment Fails” and “Franks Declares Martial Law to Quell Growing Riots.”
Eli read that Under Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution, President Franks had “temporarily” instituted martial law in D.C., New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Denver, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, due to the growing riots.
The National Guard from the relevant states was called up, and Franks issued an Executive Order that required the National Guard to be “nationalized” — which sounded redundant, but actually meant they would follow the direct orders from the Army general who oversaw the D.C. National Guard, and reported to the president, overriding the states’ individual governors who would normally be in command.
The directives included restricting pedestrian and vehicle access, and a curfew from sunset to sunrise in the riot-prone downtown areas of the affected cities, until further notice. Violators were subject to arrest and could potentially be shot on sight.
In addition, the FCC suspended the broadcast licenses of two major TV networks, CNN and ABC, for showing footage of the riots and “inciting terrorism against the American people and the U.S. Government.”
Their broadcast and cable channels had literally gone dark. While it didn’t seem sustainable, and information still flowed on so many platforms, it did have an intimidation factor infecting other networks. The lost ad revenue from mere days of being off air could quickly alter their agendas.
Major internet service providers had been directed to block access to the same two news channels’ websites and dedicated apps. Given that the “net neutrality” rules established by the prior Administration had been eliminated by the Franks Administration, the internet providers had no legal obligation to provide open access to any specific sites to the American public, and quickly complied with the Pentagon’s request in a “time of national emergency.”
How long the reporters who wrote the story Eli was reading would even be publishing updates was the question the article ended with.
“You hungry?” Lonnie asked.
That snapped Eli back to reality. He looked up from his phone.
“I could use some coffee, and aspirin,” he mumbled.
Lonnie stood and put on his jacket.
“Come on then, I’m goin’ that way anyway.”
Outside the tunnel it was still raining, a thick cloud layer hovering over the city, obscuring the distant Washington Monument, which should have been visible from the open construction site they were standing next to.
Eli bundled up and walked with Lonnie in search of coffee, and any pain killers he could find. A few blocks later, they entered a gas station convenience mart, and Eli bought aspirin, a large coffee, and a microwave breakfast sandwich. He offered to buy Lonnie’s breakfast, and Lonnie was “much obliged.”
Back outside under the cover of the carport, they surveyed the wet streets as they ate.
A loud convoy of three massive black armored personnel carriers roared by, splashing the curb as they raced passed.
“This ‘aint the shit that Terry Washington gave his life for, I can tell you that,” Lonnie declared.
“Terry Washington?”
“My friend. My brother. Come on, let’s go see him.” Lonnie headed out in the rain. Eli just stood there, watching the military vehicles as they disappeared down the street.
“Unless you got someplace else to be?” Lonnie added. Eli had no place else to be.
***
They worked their way up 7th St. until they reached the National Mall. The rain had subsided, the sky a mix of fast-moving thunderheads and small blue patches around the top of the Washington Monument.
Along the way, multiple convoys of armored police and National Guard vehicles raced to destinations unknown. It wasn’t a surprise there were very few people on the streets. They nearly had the Mall to themselves.
They moved west, along the Reflecting Pool and toward the Lincoln Memorial. Eli never asked where they were going. As they reached the Lincoln Memorial and turned north, Eli saw the somber stone face of America’s 16th President, seated in his massive stone chair, staring back out toward him. It made him feel sad, and yet oddly strengthened, though he couldn’t say why.
A few hundred yards later, they reached a gentle embankment that slowly sloped downward, where the edge of a green hill cut away, its side contained by a long, curving wall of polished black granite.
As they got closer, Eli realized the wall was carved with thousands of names. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. In all his time in D.C. and all his runs through the city, he had never come exactly this way. The sight of the thousands upon thousands of names of the dead and missing was a sobering reminder of the cost of war.
Lonnie silently guided them along the wall, until he came to the spot. “TERRENCE G. WASHINGTON.” Lonnie ran his fingers along the etched name, closed his eyes, and prayed.
“I love you, brother. Shoulda’ been me that day,” he said quietly.
Eli had no words. Lonnie turned to Eli, his eyes open again and burning with intensity and anger.
“You know what? That man, sittin’ over there…” and he pointed back down the Mall toward the White House. “Sittin’ right there in the people’s house? He doesn’t give one shit about what it took to make this country great.”
“I know,” Eli said.
“All he cares about is power, nothin’ else. Look at where we at. Army in the streets. Rule of law means nothin? You know where we at? One step away from Hitler. You watch. Step by step, he’s makin’ it happen. White Supremacist. Authoritarian. Anti-freedom of the press. Anti-immigrant. Glorifying violence. Takin’ from the poor to give more and more to the corporate criminals, while the people suffer? I don’t get why America doesn’t see it. Have we lost our minds or somethin’? You got a man born with a silver spoon, a liar, a racist, never had to fight for anything, bankrupted his own businesses, selling out our country to the Russians, all for power and money. Just so he co
uld win. Fuck the rules. Fuck democracy. He doesn’t give a damn about history. They usin’ him like a tool, and he says ‘have at it.’ He wants to be a dictator anyway. That’s the only people he respects. Everything we fought for is a joke to him. It’s all comin’ apart, can’t they see it?”
Eli stood there, just taking it in.
“And you know what’s so damn pathetic? In the end, it ain’t even really ‘bout the money or the power. You know what it’s all about?”
“Tell me,” Eli asked, truly hoping he could.
“It’s all about the pussy. That’s all it ever comes down to, man. Mommy and Daddy didn’t love him, and he was never good enough, so he can’t have a normal relationship with a woman, so he fucks them to conquer them, to feel better about himself, you know? Fucks anything he can, ‘cause he hates himself inside. That’s why he craves attention. He wants the whole world’s attention, but even then it won’t ever be enough to fill the hole in his soul. So he fucks the women, out of anger and hate. To show everyone he’s the big dog. To dominate them. All the money and power in the world is only so he can get all the pussy. He’d destroy the whole world just for a piece of ass.”
Something began racing through Eli’s head.
“You agree with that, Mr. Tom Sawyer?”
“Totally.”
“Thank you — that’s what I been sayin’ this whole time, but nobody listens to ol’ Lonnie.”
“I hear you loud and clear, Lonnie. Thank you man, but now I gotta go,” Eli said.
“Okay Tom, you be careful out there.”