As Mindy and Manny walked out, he stopped her. “You sure about these questions?”
Mindy looked Manny in the eye. “Trust me.” Mindy’s stare burned through Manny with a competitiveness he hadn’t seen in her since her second ironman triathlon.
Mindy and Manny were spending a lot of time together since her return to his life, but they decided not to push the romantic component too hard. He continued to sleep at motels while Mindy continued to sleep at her house. Mindy told him that she broke it off with her significant other prior to joining the Mods but she was still hesitant to take Manny back as a romantic partner. Manny, for his part, made it clear that he was going to give her time. But that night, with the debate the next day, Mindy grabbed Manny’s arm as he was getting ready to leave. “Let’s go to your place,” she said.
5.15
The sex was unspectacular. Manny told Mindy he loved her. Mindy started to cry. They both apologized for the way they had acted, Manny for putting his company first for so many years and Mindy for believing all the rumors about him and giving up on their relationship. Eventually they both agreed that they should go to sleep.
When Manny awoke the next morning, Mindy was not in bed. Manny got up and got dressed. As he was leaving, Mindy returned to the room, sweating from her morning jog. She always kept emergency exercise clothes in her bag.
“We should get moving. The debate is in a few hours,” Manny said, giving Mindy a quick peck on her sweaty cheek.
“Go without me. I need to stretch for another thirty minutes. Then I need to go back to my place to shower up and get changed.”
“You sure?”
“I’ll see you there.”
5.16
Backstage at the arena, Fiona fidgeted with her freshly starched white button down shirt and gray blazer. The fEN was on three TVs running behind her. That wasn’t helping matters.
“This is a make-or-break appearance for the Mod candidate,” the fEN announcer said, “who has seen an inexplicable rise in the polls in recent weeks but has yet to be tested on a larger stage.”
Manny and the team reassured Fiona that everything would be okay while reminding her to stick to the answers they had come up with. The moderator’s questions, according to Mindy’s source, were all softballs for the Democratic and Republican candidates. But for Fiona, their questions were of the when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife kind reimagined for a political debate: broad, leading questions designed to back Fiona into a corner and make her appear soft on everything from security to immigration to religious values to economic growth. For example, “Miss Mathis” (hard emphasis on the MISS), “how would you reconcile your so-called ‘reasonable debate’ platform with a Chinese government hell bent on this country’s destruction? Do you really think reasonable debate is the best strategy when faced with an unreasonable foe?”
The team put together answers that were thoughtful but short, intended to illuminate the complexity of the issues without bogging it down in too much wonkery.
The stage manager gave Fiona her cue and she walked out into the abyss of bright lights and cameras — both TV and personal — capturing her every move. She looked shell-shocked.
But if she was nervous going out there, nothing could prepare her for the carnage awaiting her onstage. Over the next 60 minutes, Fiona was attacked from both sides. None of the questions they prepared for were in the debate. In the bright lights Fiona, perspired, stuttered and looked around for help that was nowhere to be found.
As his ace in the hole, Field brought out incriminating evidence against Fiona’s campaign. He stared straight at Fiona. “It doesn’t seem very reasonable to me, Señora Mathis? Sources at furtl inform me that you got your hands on the debate questions before the debate?” Field looked at the arena crowd. “How did Señora Mathis get these questions? I will tell you, America: It was her secret lover, Manny Kahn. He hacked into the furtl cloud and stole them. Is this the kind of deviant Mexican computer hacking menace we want running our great country? I think not, America.” It sounded like a biblical swarm of locusts, but it was really the sound of boos and hisses directed at Fiona from 110,000 people.
Not since Rick Perry’s meltdown in the 2011 Republican primary had a candidate’s fortunes reversed so quickly. After the 60 minute debate was over, Fiona left the stage amidst a flurry of furtl status updates:
“#Mod candgadate ate adickon stage”
“FML fo BELIEVIN IN This WACK @MOD PATRTY@!!!”
“I JUST TOOK A HUGE #DUMP WHILE WATCHING THIS #SHIT DEBATE”
“UGH, MY pretzel STickx are Stale, And so was this debate.”
5.17
When Mindy failed to show up for the debate, Manny knew something was not right, but the optimist in him refused to believe that she was responsible for the debate carnage. He suspected that she had been targeted by outside political operatives and manipulated to feed the Mods bad information. He went to her house to see if he could figure out what happened.
When he got to the door, she was hysterical. He tried to console her, but she was shaking and crying. They went inside. She scurried upstairs to her 500-square-foot walk-in closet, where she began frantically packing her clothes, throwing everything she could into a single travel suitcase. Manny entered the closet behind her, confused by her hysterics.
“They found out what I did,” she cried, hurling a half dozen bra and underwear sets at her suitcase. They found out about the questions from the debate! They tracked my furtl page! They cancelled all my credit cards! My fEPs account! Agents tracked me down to the motel, but I used what they taught us at the judocize studio and took them down. I took off. I couldn’t reach you. I saw the debate. I can’t believe what they did, what they’re capable of. I’m sorry. I ruined everything.”
Manny walked further into the closet to comfort her. “No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did,” Mindy said.
“You didn’t,” Manny said, this time with more conviction.
Mindy’s eyes were diverted by something behind Manny. “Yes, I did,” she said, now shaking uncontrollably, then looking down to avert her eyes from whatever was behind Manny.
Manny’s optimism from a few moments earlier disappeared with the brutal blow to the back of his head. Knocked down and in searing pain but not unconscious, Manny looked up to see Susie Mays standing over him. A slight smile appeared on her face as she looked at the brick in her hand.
Manny looked at Mindy, then at Susie. Susie looked down at Manny, then at Mindy. Susie then stepped over Manny and planted a soft wet kiss on Mindy.
“Did you have to hit him so hard?” Mindy asked.
“Sorry, honey, but darn that felt gooood. Mmmm hmmm,” Susie said. “Let’s take care of this now. Tie him up outside while I make the arrangements to have him removed with the garbage.”
“You didn’t have to hit him so hard.”
“Enough Mindy. Let’s take care of this.”
Manny passed out.
5.18
Duct-taped and bungee-corded to a trampoline in Mindy’s backyard paean to adventure sports, the pounding in Manny’s head felt familiar to him now, thanks to his violent introduction to the Lefteas a few months prior. He was trying to free himself when Mindy walked out of the house and sat next to him. “How you feeling?” she asked, looking straight at the ground.
“How am I feeling?”
“They told me they would kill you and excommunicate me if I didn’t play ball,” Mindy said.
“Who’s they?”
“You know who they is. Look, a lot has changed since you left.”
“Who’s they?”
“You were causing too many problems.”
“Is Susie they?”
“She’s my partner. Was. Is. I loved her. I love her. Manny, this is all so confusing. I’m sorry.”
Mindy continued speaking with a soft tremble. She explained that she started a relationship with Susie soon after Manny left furtl. But they had been in close contact b
efore Manny’s exit from furtl.
“Susie showed me the video of you in your office. That’s how we first met. She showed it to me because she thought I should know.”
“That was a terrible mistake.”
“I don’t wanna hear it,” Mindy said, regaining confidence.
“She set me up.” Manny said with desperation in his voice.
“She told me you came on to her. And she felt obligated to…you know…have sex with you.”
“Ridiculous.”
“Not ridiculous. That’s why I did it.”
“Did what?”
“Gave her access to our home files.”
“You did what?”
“That night before the whole scandal broke,” Mindy said.
Manny thought back to that night, remembering Mindy on her laptop in bed when he got back from the fundraiser. He jerked with fitful urgency at his makeshift shackles. “This was your doing?”
“You did it. You betrayed me.”
“And then you fell in love with her?” Manny asked.
“It started innocently enough after that,” Mindy said. “We started tai kwan yogaing, and one thing led to another. She showed me things I never even knew existed.”
“Unbelievable,” Manny said.
Mindy then explained how Susie moved into the house next door to maintain her heterosexual image to the outside world and had a tunnel built to access Mindy’s house unnoticed.
“Now what?” Manny asked.
“Susie says you will be treated humanely.”
“You know that’s not true. What the hell has happened to you?”
“I know you probably don’t believe this, but I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”
“And this is how you repay me?”
“I told you, things are different. There are still too many old people bankrupting this country, and you were undermining Susie’s efforts to fix things. She opened my eyes to this. I was either with them or against them. I made my decision.”
“It takes that little to get into your head?”
“I’m sorry, Manny.”
“Let me go, Mindy. You owe me this much.”
“You’re dangerous to the cause. Susie was concerned about Fiona’s chances.”
“Let me go, Mindy…and I will disappear.”
Mindy looked around, terrified that Susie would see them talking.
“You were my wife for 14 years. I came back to this country for you.” Manny could see that Mindy’s tough demeanor was starting to crumble. “Who bought you your first heptathlon training package?” Manny asked.
“You,” Mindy said, like a child being scolded by a parent, unable to lift her head to look at Manny.
“Who bought you your own helicopter so you could go heligliding whenever you wanted?” Manny said.
“You,” Mindy mumbled. She looked down and then at Manny. She leaned in and gave him a big closed-lipped kiss on the mouth, tears running down her face. “I know that I owe you this. I’m going to let you go. But you need to disappear. They will kill us both if you don’t.” Mindy glanced around. “Don’t come back here. Don’t come looking for me.” Mindy pulled out a syringe and stabbed a squirming Manny in the stomach.
“GPS beacon?” Manny asked, eyes bulging
“If you start to get any ideas about interfering again, I give them your coordinates.” Mindy cut through the duct tape with a pocket-knife she produced from her velour sweatpants. “Now go,” she said, staring at him.
Manny heard sirens as he removed the tape on his wrists. Manny managed to make it to the far edge of the property, and policemen opened up the gate to the backyard just as he jumped the fence.
Mindy looked at the fence and then at the cops. “He chewed his way through the rope. He’s a savage!”
Manny climbed three more fences and ran across three more lawns before making his way out to the street. Then he ran down the street of the gated community he once called home and made his way to an alley. He heard more sirens and jumped into a garbage dumpster, landing on a bed of take-out containers filled with rotting bags of last night’s dinner and beer cans. When the sirens faded into the distance, Manny exited the dumpster.
Covered in last night’s baconizzarito meatsplosion family special, Manny made his way back to the street, this time with a languorous gait and impervious to any risk of capture.
He gave up on understanding, on fighting. He stopped, exhaled, and took in his surroundings. It was a picturesque autumn evening, the leaves were changing, and a slight breeze wafted through his bacon/pizza/burrito encrusted hair. The sun was setting, casting a warm red glow on the horizon. Manny realized he was the only person outside. All the houses he passed were, however, occupied and full of activity behind their barred windows. Families – immune to CRADs due to their DCS affiliations – were watching banned R-rated movies such as Showgirls and Hostel 4 on gigantic screens. A big boned family of six sat around the dinner table, each looking at either their phone or watch in one hand and shoveling food into their mouths with the other, oblivious to the people around the table. Four adolescent girls gyrated their hips in unison. They were the backup dancers in the BoyTraPpP music video that was playing on the flat screen at the end of the dinner table.
Manny walked past the gate undisturbed by Rob the robot guard, who was indifferent to his bedraggled appearance. There was no retinal scan necessary for departure, and the human security guards were too busy playing a heated game of Blunt Head Trauma 6: The Bloodening (Chexican version) on Rob’s video game system to notice Manny.
Manny walked to town and ambled across Main Street. As he passed the ELECTROMART, he noticed a large television in the window and was jarred from his ambivalent stupor by images of Frank, Sorenson, Olaf, Ruthie, Dolores, Ko Bain and Flannlgrrrl93 being hauled off in handcuffs from Mod headquarters. The headline read: MOD PARTY ADVISORS ARRESTED ON CHARGES OF DEBATE FRAUD, SENTENCED TO FULLTIME CULTURAL EDUCATION SUPPORT.
Manny watched as the TV screen cut to a gigantic image of his face. On the bottom of the screen were these words: IF YOU HAVE SEEN THIS MAN, CALL TEXT VIDEOCHAT OR POST ON THE FURTL CRIME FORCE’S FURTL PAGE.
From across the street, Manny saw a chinstrapper look at him, crane his neck in a perplexed sideways fashion, and point his phone’s camera right at him. The chinstrapper, wearing a black Nickelback jean jacket made for a person 50 pounds lighter than he was, looked eerily similar to the chinstrapper Manny encountered when he first returned to the United States. Awakened from his demoralized funk, Manny broke into a sprint, the sounds of sirens rising in the background.
chapter 6
The fire warmed Manny’s hands and sent a stinging sensation up his arms as he regained feeling and movement in his fingers. He had walked for four hours through the night in the near freezing weather. He was an odd sight for many who passed him on the highway, but he was relatively certain that no one recognized his hooded figure. And with the public highways in such poor shape, the drivers weren’t likely to divert their attention from the road, he reasoned, lest their vehicle descend into one of the open ravines of busted concrete or asphalt overgrown with weeds.
The events of that day exhausted Manny, and he continuously had to catch himself from falling into the fire. Another force keeping him awake was the unconventional version of “Guantanamera,” as sung by Muffin Top, accompanied by the Leftea ensemble, featuring a didgeridoo, harmonica, djembe, and three acoustic guitars.
Francesca handed Manny a plate of beans and rice. “Welcome back comrade, we’re happy to see you here. In the words of Sri Chin Vanderweiss, ‘throughout one’s travels, if the soul is compromised, poopie will always smell like shit.’ Let your soul no longer be compromised. Eat up. Tomorrow’s agenda is an ambitious one. Three church bombings before noon!”
Manny was going to need all the warmth from the fire he could get. He would not be sleeping indoors that night or, presumably, for quite some time. His tent was still in the same con
dition, with the hacky sack induced tear in the upper right hand corner that flapped in the wind and let all the heat escape.
Manny didn’t sleep much that evening, trying to make sense of things, shivering in the cold, and because of the “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” jam session outside his tent.
When some of the members pressed on his tent the next day, he pretended to be asleep, telling them he would help out with the church bombings the following day. That gave him some quiet time, but he still couldn’t sleep. He ultimately made his way into the house, looking for some coffee.
As Manny sat down at the busy, cluttered kitchen table and sipped his coffee, Muffin Top came over and offered him some RAWDICAL milk for his coffee. Manny declined.
“So what’d I miss?” he asked Muffin Top.
“Well, we hit a few Corcoran campaign events,” Muffin Top said nonchalantly.
“I heard about that,” Manny said.
“No casualties, for them at least.”
“Didn’t one of the bombs go off four days after the rally ended?”
“Damn military clocks,” Muffin Top said ruefully. “Oh yeah, and Paul died.”
“Paul is dead?”
Muffin Top nodded his head affirmative. “Yeah, and Sabrina and Osgood are paralyzed from the waist down.”
“From the explosions?”
“No. Polio. Swept through here a few weeks ago. They’re good sports about it, though. Tell me, Manny. What was it like out there?”
Manny took a slow sip of his fair-trade coffee and collected his thoughts. “Well, for a brief moment I thought that we were making progress, that democracy had a chance in this country.”
“And now?”
“They have the technology. They control all the levers. They have convinced the American people that the world is a divisive place where everything is black or white. If it’s not in line with your interests, it’s pure evil. They won.”
“We accept you, Manny.”
“Even if I don’t agree with your agenda?”
“You agree that the system be broken, man. You will come around to Sri Chin Vandy one of these days,” Muffin Top said, closing his eyes and putting his hand on Manny’s shoulder. “All Sri Chin needs is an open mind, and I am paraphrasing here: ‘Soul crevices are meant to be pried open like stubborn pistachio nuts, with teeth if necessary.’” Then Muffin Top licked the ketamine chocolate mixture off of a spatula he had been using to whip up his brownies and stared off into the distance.
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