“Somebody let us out of here!” I screamed.
Then I saw a bright, yellow flash through the back window of the jailhouse. Our big, ugly, yellow bus, had pulled up behind the building, its rocket engine blasting away!
The back door swung open, and as the dust settled, a man stood on the other side of our jail cell bars . . . Luis!
“One good deed deserves another,” he said.
Alan was baffled. “But how did you . . . I mean, I thought you needed rocket fuel to get that thing fired up.”
“I found something better,” said Luis. “Whiskey! No shortage of that in this town.” He grabbed the jail cell keys off of the deputy’s desk and released us.
Alan and I bolted outside and ran into the idling bus. Luis came out, too, but did not climb aboard.
“C’mon, man!” I told him.
Luis’s wife and child joined him. “We’re staying,” he said. “Those idiotic border walls have all come down in the future. They were getting in the way of international commerce. Who would’ve thought that corporate greed would solve the immigration problem?”
“What about your career?” said Alan. “I don’t think there’s a Space Program here.”
“Oh, but there is! They’re about to open a Walmart on Mars!”
Morena waved Olivia’s little hand at me. “Good luck, Amy,” she said. “I’ll never forget you.”
“Nor I, you,” I said. “So long!”
And so long, Greed Gulch.
Chapter 8
Croutons
And now . . . Attack Radio, with Crass Jimbob.
“You saw it! Candidate Freeberg breaks the law, gets arrested for tax evasion, then escapes from jail. What’s next, stealing welfare checks from old ladies?”
News reporters jammed the crowded Press room. The flash of still cameras nearly blinded me. It was the first promotional appearance I was permitted to take part in, and I was already starting to regret it.
In the back of the room, screaming fans pushed and shoved to get a glimpse of their hero: Brian Breadcrust. Alan and I stood patiently on one side of the small stage. Chester and Peter did the same on the opposite side. Center stage belonged to our host: the governor of the state of Where-The-Hell-Are-We, who had invited us to lunch with him at his mansion.
Running for reelection—and losing in the poles —the governor needed all the publicity he could get. Winning the election would make him a six-term governor. He was what is known as a Career Politician—basically, a power monger who can’t cut it in any other line of work.
After the room quieted down, Breadcrust stepped up to the podium. “Thank you, Governor, for having us as your guests today,” he said. “This is not just a nice break from the race, but also a rare opportunity for the candidates to discuss important issues with a respected leader.”
Breadcrust then handed the mic over to our host. “I am honored to welcome to our great state,” said the governor, “the Awesome party’s nominees for president, and the stars of The Race For The White House, USA!”
The governor smiled for the photographers, as he put his arms around both Alan and Chester. The crowd whooped and cheered their approval, as TV cameras swung around to capture their reaction. It’s amazing to see how little it takes to whip people into a frenzy, when they’re on TV.
One of the reporters belted out a question: “Mr. Freeberg, your opponents have accused you of criminal misconduct. How do you respond to these allegations?”
Alan began to step up to the podium, but was cut off by the governor. “Alan Freeberg is an honorable, law-abiding citizen,” said the governor, “and I wouldn’t be standing here with him if I didn’t believed he had anything but the people’s best interest at heart.”
“Mr. Fields!” shouted another journalist. “What do you say to claims that you’ve been accepting illegal campaign contributions?”
The governor interrupted Chester, too. “Chester T. Fields is an old friend of mine, and today he will only be accepting my contribution of a tasty lunch. That would be a crime if he didn’t.”
Then a newswoman stood up. “Governor, which of these two candidates do you plan to endorse in the election?”
“Let me just say what an honor it is to share the stage with both of these fine, patriotic Americans.” The governor had ducked the question by giving a totally irrelevant answer—the signature of a true politician.
“Now, if you’ll excuse us,” said the governor, “lunch is getting cold.”
The opulent dining room had white marble walls, accented in gold trim. A sparkling, crystal chandelier hung above an elegant, white-linen table, that had been set for us. Alan and I sat across from Chester and Peter, while Brian Breadcrust and the governor headed the long table.
“All TV cameras are off, right?” the governor asked Breadcrust.
“We are in complete privacy, Governor,” he replied.
“No hidden cameras? No microphones concealed in cufflinks?”
“None. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” said the governor. “That’ll be the day. Just remember to keep your lawyers on standby if any of this shows up on one of those viral face tube things.”
“Understood, sir.”
A server in a black tuxedo, wearing white gloves, entered the room with a trayful of soup bowls. The dark-skinned man politely bowed to us as he approached the table.
“It’s vegetable,” said the governor. “Specialty of the house.”
The server then placed a soup bowl, in front of each of us. It looked delicious; a hearty broth, tons of vegetables, topped with crisp croutons. More croutons filled a tray at the center of the table for anyone wishing to pile on more.
While the server lowered Peter’s bowl onto the table, it accidentally slipped off of its saucer, splashing a trace amount of the steaming soup onto the tablecloth. The server promptly dabbed it up with Peter’s napkin, then brushed the crumbs off the table.
“Dammit, man!” shouted the governor to the server. “You clumsy jackass! Why can’t you people learn to be more careful?” The governor then turned to Peter, “I apologize. I’ll have another napkin brought out for you.”
“No harm done,” said Peter. “It’s only a spot.”
“I’ll take care of it immediately, sir,” said the server, as he returned to the kitchen.
Chester pointed to the black man as he left the room, and said to the governor, “I wouldn’t count on getting his vote.”
“Not to worry,” the governor said. “Nobody will be getting their vote.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Alan.
“A new law was just passed in my state making it harder for his kind to vote.”
“Isn’t that unconstitutional?” I said.
“You’re a very astute young lady,” the governor said with a condescending grin. “But no, it’s perfectly legal. Anyone with a questionable past, a suspicious nature, or who is undocumented—which is most of our minority population—will be prohibited from voting.”
“Brilliant!” said Breadcrust.
Alan slammed his soup spoon down on the table and abruptly stood up, his face flushed with anger. “Looks like you prohibited anti-racism while you were at it!”
Breadcrust grabbed Alan’s arm. “Simmer down, my friend. He’s just claiming states’ rights to get what he wants. It’s the latest trend.”
Alan slowly sat down, holding his tongue.
“In a democracy,” explained the governor, smugly, “majority rules. Elected officials are obliged to provide what the majority of his constituency wills. 51% of my state favors this law, and I will conform to their wishes every time.”
“You speak of your state as if it belonged to you,” said Alan.
“Nonsense. I’m merely its steward.”
I wondered how long this cat-and-mouse conversation would continue. At this rate, we’d never make it to dessert.
Then Peter broke the tension, “Well, gentlemen—if I may call you that—all po
litics aside, the soup looks delicious.” And with that, we all started in on the first course.
Peter had made an accurate statement. The soup was scrumptious; so good, in fact, that it completely melted away all the hostility at the table. While the others slurped away, I noticed the governor scraping the croutons off the top of his soup, and onto his bread plate.
He was about to take his first sip, when from out of nowhere, a single crouton plopped into his soup, causing a tiny splash. He looked up at the ceiling, as if it had fallen from there, then looked at his guests. Everyone was busily eating from their own bowls. I quickly looked down at mine to escape his glare.
The governor scooped out the lone crouton. But as he dipped his spoon in for another sip, a second crouton splash into his soup. Again, he scooped it out with his eye on the rest of us. But as he made his next attempt, he looked up suddenly, and caught Peter with a crouton wedged behind his thumb, ready to be launched at him.
“Ah, ha!” spouted the governor. “A terrorist in our midst!”
Our server had just entered the room with a stack of clean napkins. The governor ordered him over to the table. “Remove that young hooligan from the premises!” he said, indicating Peter.
Chester had observed the whole incident. “Peter!” he shouted, hiding a faint smile behind his scowl. “Where’s your manners?”
“I’m sorry, Dad,” said Peter. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Whatever possessed you to do such a thing?”
“Well, I was sitting here, sipping my soup, really enjoying it, when I saw him scraping off his croutons. Then I thought about the variety of ingredients that make this dish so wonderful. It’s got corn, beans, carrots, a whole assortment of different vegetables. Then I thought, that if you eliminate the croutons, you’re ruining the mix. Some chef labored long and hard to create the perfect soup. If you exclude the croutons, you’re not being fair to the creator.”
The governor responded, “But, I hate croutons.”
“My point, exactly,” said Peter.
A smile crossed the server’s lips.
Then we all smiled. Comparing racial inequality to a soup recipe was pure genius. We all picked up on it—everyone except for his governorship.
After realizing he’d been had, the governor looked at the smiling server. “Back to the kitchen, you!” shouted the governor.
Chester stood up, grabbing Peter by the elbow and lifting him to his feet. “Apologize to the governor at once!” he demanded.
“What did I say?” said Peter, innocently.
“I think you should leave the table.”
Peter calmly wiped his mouth on his napkin, and headed toward the kitchen. But as he passed the governor, he picked up the dish of croutons on the table and dumped them all in the governor’s soup.
“You Fascist!” shouted the governor.
What a performance! I wished I had the guts to do something that bold. Peter really showed what he was made of; a real rebel, and more like me than I thought.
I got up and followed Peter out of the room. As we pushed through the kitchen doors, I heard the crash of pots and pans, and saw our server being reprimanded by his superior.
We approached the demoralized servant. “What was all that about?” Peter asked him.
“I’ve been fired,” said the man, hanging up his tuxedo jacket on a coat hanger. Then he angrily grabbed Peter by the collar. “And we don’t need no uppity, white-ass kid to defend our people!” he shouted. “You understand that?” Then he cooled down and smoothed out Peter’s shirt. “But I gotta say, this is one luncheon I ain’t gonna soon forget.”
“But, your job,” I said.
“No biggie. I can get another. Hated workin’ for that son of a bitch, anyway.”
Then the man strolled out the back door, humming “We Shall Overcome.”
Peter turned to me. “Well, that was a splendid lunch, wasn’t it?”
“Not terribly filling, though,” I said. “Why don’t we ask the cook to make us a sandwich or something.”
“We could, except that I don’t think this place will be getting our business from now on.” Then Peter held the back door open and bowed to me like I was a royal princess. “Would milady care to join her loyal subject for tacos?”
Chapter 9
Theme Farm
It looked like an ocean, deep and wide, but it was really the Mississippi River—the Ol’ Miss. We reached the top of the arc of the longest bridge I had ever seen. Below us a riverboat chugged downstream. Having never ridden on a sternwheeler hasn’t lessened my Mark Twain fascination with them. I imagined an old calliope playing, steam spouting skywards out its pipes, playing “Camptown Races.” (”Doo-da, Doo-da.”) I pictured poker-playing gentlemen in fine clothes, paddle-wheeling it downstream to New Orleans. “Is that an ace up your sleeve, sir?” one of them would say, politely. Then the accused would pull a derringer from his vest pocket, and the game would end, without a winner.
We cruised down the backside of the bridge, like riding the backbone of a brontosaurus, where we were gobbled up by the towering structures of a bustling city. Curious stares followed us from the sidewalks. Had the locals recognized us from TV, or were they befuddled at seeing a funky, yellow bus in their modern downtown?
Under an overpass, over an underpass, and before long we were out in the country again. Hundreds of square miles of farmland filled our field of view, flat as the surface of the moon, and just as lifeless. No crops sprouted from the fruitless ground. A brown fog hovered over the horizon from tractors kicking up dust from the dry soil.
A thin shaft of dust swirled off to our right. Land spouts, we called them back in Shankstonville. It traveled in the same direction we were going, even matching the speed of our bus. Watching it helped to lessen the boredom of mile after mile of nothingness. Soon the dust column grew wider, taller, and darker. It was still a good way off, and didn’t seem to pose a threat, until it suddenly made a hard left and headed straight for us! We were in the path of a charging bull that didn’t like us passing through its neighborhood.
“It’s a twister!” I said.
“Twisters are for the Land of Oz,” said Alan. “That’s a tornado!”
The bus rocked and swerved as the whirlpool of doom got closer to us. Alan was having trouble keeping us moving in a straight line.
“I think maybe you’d better turn around,” said Marge.
“I think maybe you’re right,” said Alan. He made a quick u-turn and headed in the opposite direction, but the storm followed us, anyway.
“Can’t you go any faster?” I said.
“Not without rocket power, I can’t,” said Alan.
The tornado was now as wide as a baseball field. It lifted off the ground, and I thought maybe it was fizzling out, but the dust monster had other plans for us. It crashed down on top of the bus, like a wrestler body-slamming his opponent to the mat.
Alan pulled over and stopped. “Hit the deck!” he shouted.
I crouched down on the floor, covering my head with my arms like we were under a nuclear attack. The old bus swayed from the wild wind. Suddenly, I was overcome with a sense of weightlessness. Standing up, I looked out the window to see a bus-shaped shadow on the road below us.
We were air-borne.
The ground fell away at remarkable speed. Were we witnessing Mother Nature’s fury, or was this an unnatural phenomenon: an incredible special effect manufactured by Brian Breadcrust?
The swirling debris completely enveloped our flying bus, leaving us in total darkness. Now, there was no way to gauge how high up we were or how far we had traveled. Then the tornado opened up underneath us. Amber rays of sunlight streamed in through the windows. The shadow of the bus was once again visible on the ground, a black dot that grew larger as we fell back to Earth.
In the middle of a dirt field was a large patch of green. It was a town—no, a complex of some sort. Roads pointed outward from a central hub, like the spokes of a
giant wagon wheel. I saw the tall, curving peaks of a roller coaster, and the outline of a Ferris wheel. Train tracks encircled the entire area. The words THEME FARM had been cut into a wheatfield, like those mysterious crop circles you hear so much about.
The violent wind that had tossed us around was now little more than a breeze, as we gently touched down.
“Well,” said Alan, “any landing you can walk away from . . .”
“Where do you think we are?” I said.
“I could say we’re not in Kansas anymore, but I don’t think we’re even on Planet Earth.”
“Oh, this is Earth, alright. By the looks of it, this might even be the backyard of Shankstonville.”
We climbed out of the bus and walked up to a large, metal gate. It was the entrance to a theme park, even though it had all the features you would expect to see on a farm. There was a feed mill, a hay barn, and tall grain silos that towered over a yellow farmhouse.
A padlock on a chain prevented our entry, from which hung a large closed sign. The carnival-style rides I saw from the air were in terrible shape. Twisted, metal tracks hung down from decaying wooden beams. Half of the Ferris wheel spokes had rotted away. A once grand railroad station was in desperate need of a paint job.
There was an eerie stillness about the place. Nothing moved, save the swaying of a few leaves clinging to the bare tree branches.
Then I heard the whining of an electric motor. A man in a golf cart pulled up on the other side of the gate and waved to us. He was an elderly gentleman in overalls, wearing an old fedora hat, tilted to one side on his head. A thin mustache grew above his gentle smile. “Hello!” he said, as he walked up to us.
Inserting a key into the padlock, the old man swung open the rusty gate. “Welcome to Theme Farm!” he said.
He was a lively old guy, for his age, as he skipped over to his cart. “Hop in!” he said, offering us the back seat. “Tour begins immediately.”
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