Supers Box Set

by Kristofer Bartol

  “These ‘implied powers’ Hamilton argued were set in stone—one of the Federalists first and only victories—and thus the Bank of North America was succeeded by the First Bank of the United States, seventeen-ninety-one, to do three things: absorb the debts the states accumulated during the fight for independence; establish a series of tariffs on the public to help pay-off those debts; and create a common currency to streamline their payback. The following year, Congress passed the Coinage Act, forming the US Mint and granting it the sole power to print legal tender. The director of the Mint—clockmaker David Rittenhouse—was given the sole authority to purchase copper, silver, and gold, convert them into coins, and then sell the coins to the government.”

  “Sell the coins? And get paid in what?”

  “Great question. I don’t know. Seigniorage? Coins used to cost less to make than they were worth.”

  “Wait—coins cost more than they’re worth?”

  “I told you already: money has no value.”

  “D.P., that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “When two people exchange goods and services, in the natural sense, they determine the value between themselves—whatever something is worth, in their eyes, at that moment—i.e. trading Manhattan for axe heads and wampum shells. However, bartering is a tiring process, and not a uniform one, so we invented a middleman whose worth we could assign to everything: coins. And with coins, you could have purchases and sales without equivalent value—but how could you guarantee that the residual of the transaction maintained its value?”

  “Hm,” Ajax snorts. “Bullion.”

  “Right—attributing to the coin a certain amount of precious metal, generally in the form of the coin itself. But that amount could be fudged. Consider old cartoons and television serials, where the saloonkeeper bites the coin to see if it’s pure gold. You can’t have people running around biting coins or manufacturing their own money out of lesser metals; you had to mark the value with a denomination. Therein came the greenbacks—a promise of value. ‘Will pay to the bearer on demand;’ ‘this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private;’ a certificate stating that an individual owns a certain amount of precious metals but doesn’t carry it around with them, entitling them to the metals—or an equivalent value in legal tender—upon presentation.”

  “Why do you know all this?”

  “In nineteen-thirty-three, after the stock market proved itself to be a house of a cards and covenants, the second President Roosevelt—America’s first dictator—outlawed the private ownership of gold and gold certificates. All bullion was moved into a big house in a field in Kentucky called Fort Knox—”

  “You’re just gonna gloss over the dictator thing?”

  “—and two percent of the world’s gold remains there, asserting a certain value; and the economy was fixed forever, right?”

  “I’m guessing-”

  “No, because money has no value, and the economy is a wicker basket: full-figured on the outside, and hollow on the inside.”

  “Because wicker, naturally-”

  “Metaphor. Also, I read.”

  “What?”

  “How I know all this: I read,” he grumbles; his voice like tires over gravel. “Public libraries are free to the public, and so are their bathrooms. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.”

  “You must be a real hit among the old ladies.”

  Dark Patriot grunts. “Consider: It’s nineteen-twenty-five; your grandfather puts a dollar in his pocket; forgets about it; his pants go in storage. You find his pants tomorrow—how much is the dollar worth?”

  “I can already tell I won’t guess the right answer.”

  “Guess anyway.”

  Ajax sighs. “Two dollars.”

  “Uneducated guess,” he grumbles. “Patronizing.”

  “I don’t know, man. I don’t know inflation rates.”

  “Oh,” Dark Patriot smiles.

  “Was that… the right answer?”

  The nightprowler holds his grin. “Why does a dozen eggs cost forty-nine cents in nineteen-fifty and then cost fifty-nine cents today?”

  “Inflation.”

  “Why.”

  “I… man, I just said I don’t understand inflation.”

  “People like you are how the grand machine exploits the masses-”

  “People like me? Fuck you, man.”

  “I meant all people-”

  “I called you for help, not to talk economics and Alexander—”

  “I am sorry-”

  “—fucking Hamilton.”

  Dark Patriot looks away. “I meant all people.”

  “Well, that’s not what you said.”

  “Slip of tongue; foot in mouth.”

  “Foot in your ass, more like.”

  The Dark Patriot pauses, and he bares his teeth; his pinkies pulling apart his cheeks.

  Ajax furrows his brow. “What are you doing?”

  Unlatching his cheeks, “Humor alleviating tense situation. Funny face.” He pulls down his eyelids and sticks his tongue out.

  Ajax stares, disconcerted. “We- you gotta-” he hesitates, “we gotta get you some friends, man.”

  Dark Patriot relaxes. “People and I don’t get along. We disappoint one another.”

  “All people?”

  “Most people.”

  “Well,” Ajax mews, kicking the dirt, “I’m here if you ever want to… you know.”

  “I talk too much.”

  “Hey, no,” Ajax interjects, then lingers, “well—yeah, but… I get it.”

  “Six years; long time preserving thoughts on shelves. Conversations only in my head.”

  “Yeah, you gotta stop doing that. You’re gonna drive yourself crazy.”

  “Hm,” he squints. “So I am not already crazy.”

  Ajax opens his mouth but no words come out. He inhales. “Well, I definitely think you should talk to someone.”

  “We are talking now.”

  “Yeah, well,” Ajax deflects, “okay, but maybe other people, too; qualified people.”

  “Nobody in the system. I am apart from the system.”

  “Sure… right. I forgot about that.”

  “Can I say one more thing.”

  “Yeah,” he blenches, “go right ahead.”

  “It is about inflation.”

  Ajax stares, and sighs. “Sure, go ahead.”

  “Last thing. I promise.”

  “The floor’s yours.”

  He clears his throat. “Business exists to earn money, clout, or both. They pay lowest wage they can, manufacture at cheapest cost, and sell at highest price—to make more money; to have strength for market share; to get bigger; to be valued bigger. Eventually, stock market exaggerates value, and bubble pops—and business saves money by selling assets, and firing workforce—making poor people, and sad people.

  "Government saves business it deems integral to economy; buys things it can’t afford; spends more money than it has; builds debt, and money enough to pay-off debt doesn’t exist. Government doesn’t raise taxes cos the businessmen don’t want to pay, and the businessmen fund the politicians to keep it that way. And the demands of the nation grow, and some people struggle to survive, so the government donates welfare to keep them alive—if not for altruism then for need of workers, consumers—”

  “D.P., you said ‘one last thing.’”

  “This is last thing, I promise: Consumption of product increases money in circulation; money funnels back into business to facilitate growth; competition brings wages up, so prices everywhere go up; cost of living go up; debt go up; and money spent outpaces money held; value of dollar raised inexplicably to give illusion of stability; actual value of dollar shrinks; value of gold remains the same. So what is money."

  "Sounds like it's whatever they say it is."

  "Paper promises. Cui bono—who benefits?"

  “The banks.”

  Dark Patriot nods. “First, the national bank—the federal reserv
e—creates money; then it doles it to the corporate banks, and the government borrows the money back in the form of loans, to pay for bridges, schools, roads—etcetera—that it can’t afford to build otherwise. Government debt goes up as they pay-off the interest of the loans to the corporate banks—those who make the profit; those who benefit.”

  “If our economy is so rigged—that the government is always broke, and the banks get rich off it—why don’t we fix the system?”

  “Short answer: the banks don’t keep the money, they use it to give loans to small businesses and families.”

  “Which they profit off of anyway.”

  “Long answer: corporations control the grand machine, and the grand machine controls the economy.”

  Ajax pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m afraid to ask… but curiosity has the better of me.”

  The nightprowler smiles. “That’s the itch that comes with being awake—the sleuth gene that manifests inside egghead scientists, needle-nosed reporters, and voyeuristic perverts. You want to know more, and yet you want to convince yourself otherwise, knowing it’ll be a long and painful journey towards the truth.”

  “I feel like I’m staring my future in the face.”

  Dark Patriot puts his fingertips to his chest. “Flattered.”

  “I feel a morbid fascination, like a train derailing and causing a scene.”

  “Run to the scene. Run towards the light.”

  Ajax bats the nightprowler’s cap down over his eyes. “So the corporations control the economy…”

  Dark Patriot readjusts his cap with a flat hand. “There have always been altruists—those with power, wealth, and privilege who sees their advantage as an obligation to help others—but, as the web of industry has grown, and the international markets merged, and there was more money to be made, those altruists became few and far between. Today you’ve got people of wealth who use it to gain power; who fund political campaigns, for themselves and others, despite having no interest in helping the public—only interest in controlling the public; in rewiring the system to reward them a little more than it rewards their competition.

  “A man could be considered presidential simply because he has the money enough for a presidential campaign. He cares not for the people, though he will convince them otherwise. Then, upon taking office, his agenda will benefit only those who arranged for his ascent—those who paid to put him in the throne. Yet we the people cannot fathom an elected official—one who swayed our hearts and minds, and won a ‘fair and noble’ contest for representation—is someone who cares not for us, so we ignore it; we ignore that which confounds and disturbs us, because we have no control over it, and worrying about it would drive us mad.” He points to himself with a flat hand, “Exhibit A.”

  “Gross.”

  “When reality exceeds normalcy, into some unbelievable, unthinkable, unfathomable circus politik—and we see no end in sight; and we cannot conceive an alternative—then we convince ourselves that this is normal; that the narrative is truth; that this is okay, even if it’s cause for alarm. In a less complicated era, such conditions would call for a revolt, but now we have paychecks, and police, and social perception—Oh, I can’t risk Beverly seeing me get all in an uproar, or she’ll tell the girls at the PTA I’m unstable—and we need gas for our cars, and electricity for our homes, and food for our families—where else would you get food if you toppled the government? A riot in the streets would surely shut-down the local Kroger.

  “Did you know New York City is nearly ten-billion dollars in debt? The costs of operating such an organism. Of course, they’ll never have you know they’re in debt; a city—let alone a megapolis—can’t possibly be in debt, they say. It would be maddening for the Empire City to be a giant money pit. It’s like finding out the Eiffel Tower was built atop a stump dump: How could such magnificence exist on such brittle bones?” He scoffs, “Well, if I know one thing, some multinational bank will swoop in—silent like an owl in the night—and purchase their debt in exchange for the keys to the kingdom.”

  “The grand machine.”

  “The world’s a stage, and we’re all in a performance of poise; maintaining the facade of a functioning society; unable to change the system so we focus on ourselves—on that which we have agency. And this charade becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, detaching us ever further from the natural world; and the system plays into the charade, distracting us from complex issues and complicated questions. They plaster every flat surface with advertisements for the next must-have, and they pump us full of schlock—designed to make us sit down and shut-down—from the likes of Fred MacMurray and Marlo Thomas; Samantha Stephens and Marshal Matt Dillon; Carol Burnett and Dean Martin; Ed Sullivan and Johnny Carson; The Brady Bunch, The Beverly Hillbillies, and the Laugh-In players; Jeopardy, Days of Our Lives, and Candid Camera. Objects of occupation that steal our hours and attention, away from improvement acts, like reading or gardening. Lethargy—television, fads, snacks, celebrities… anything to keep you from engaging with reality." He sniffles. “You recall the USS Maine?”

  “The Spanish blew it up in Havana Harbor.”

  “What reason did the Spanish have to destroy a docked American Navy ship? Their empire was on the decline, and ours was on the rise; that would be like an eighty-year-old man challenging a twenty-year-old to a boxing match. Could the old man win? Maybe, but probably not. The USS Maine was an accident: hot coals sparked in their ammunition hold, and it turned the ship into Krakatoa. An imperialist senator, the assistant secretary of the navy, and a sociopathic newspaper magnate wanted to take Cuba from Spain, so they convinced their countrymen that the explosion was an attack, and soon enough we were at war." He inhales. “You recall the USS Maddox?”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “You went to war for it.”

  “Fuckin’ Nam?”

  “Three NVA patrol boats stand between an idle US destroyer and Hanoi, nineteen-sixty-four. Someone on deck snaps a photo of the patrol and reports upline that the boats tried to engage in combat. Two days later they report that it happened again—but neither were true; the second was a pure invention, like that of a bored high school girl looking for attention. Nevertheless the ‘cause for alarm’ spurs Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving LBJ the authority to fight ‘communist aggression’ with open warfare in Southeast Asia.”

  “This whole damn war is built on a lie…”

  “I know you’re broken-hearted,” Dark Patriot spits, deadpan. “That’s called perception management—spinning the truth; rewriting, inspiring, and publicizing events to trigger public emotions, both unifying and dividing; playing selective with ambiguity and certainty, or outright creating the facts; controlling the narrative—public deception by way of information warfare. The main weapon of the grand machine, for distracting, sedating, or enraging the public at whim, in order to conceal or further their agenda.”

  “How do we know what’s real?”

  “Reality is whatever the grand machine tells us it is. Everything else is untrue: The water is clean; the water is unclean. The medicine cures cancer; the medicine causes cancer. This politician is good; this celebrity is bad; this gadget is in; this fashion is out. The sky is green; the grass is blue; blue is red; two plus two is five—all because they say so.”

  “Isn’t that from Nineteen-Eighty-Four?”

  “That book found mass-appeal for a reason—it’s just a shame most people read it and thought ‘Let’s never get to that point’ without first checking to see if they already were.”

  “How deep are we into this grand machine?”

  “Irreversibly.”

  “Nothing’s irreversible, man—I know you don’t even believe that yourself, otherwise you wouldn’t be fighting it.”

  The nightprowler mulls on the word, shifting his weight. “I suppose there’s always a chance to unbury common sense. But we’re up against the world now.”

  “Some global conspiracy?”


  “No—no conspiracy. Conspiracies are what crazy people conjure-up to fill in the gaps between their facts. This is no conspiracy—this is a complex.”

  “How complex?”

  “No—it is a complex; a grand mach-”

  “Okay, okay—grand machine, I got it.”

  “A global complex; an industry combine—maybe not even purposefully united, but united nonetheless. Countries open their borders, allowing greater trade and collaboration. Cui bono—who benefits? The corporate giants, granted new resources to plunder for cheaper, and new markets to sell their gizmos, brands, and lifestyles. Slowly, all the world’s governments are coming to rely on one another; to have all these relationships with one another, and to balance each relationship accordingly, so that no benefit is lost but no toes are stepped upon. And all the economies depend on one another; lean on one another, until you have this unspoken alliance of certain countries commanding the world’s decisions—a de facto global government, ruled not by men elected to thrones but by the chairmen of the board of the industries that this tightly-woven, basket-bodied economy depends on—the oil giants, the telecom colossi, the shipping kings, the aeronautic empire, the military industrial complex, and the international moneylenders.

  “You could call it a corporate oligarchy, or ‘corporatocracy’—apolitical cooperation across a faceless elite of transnational actors, determining future policies on a global scale, based around the acquisition of money and the retention of power; steering democratic regimes, manipulating multinational markets, and hiding behind the regulations that limit their less-resourceful competition. Were our markets largely national, as they were a hundred years ago, we workers would have more power; were our war department not cavorting with the weapon-makers, as it was a hundred years ago, we civilians would have more power; were our candidates not employed and funded by corporate giants, as they were a hundred years ago, we countrymen would have more power; and were our body politik not stratified across two polar parties, as it was a hundred years ago, we voters would have more power—but, that’s not the case.