Tin Universe Monthly #16

by Brian C. Williams

smart and willing to learn and see who manipulates the buckets of shit we stand in each and every day of our lives.

  And the slime that’s on the rim of the buckets of shit is the media.

  Jean Hatchett is making a name for herself working with a number of networks on a freelance basis. A lot of the news agencies are going the way of hiring on freelance these days. It helps them control the voices and the message that’s being delivered. This is all part of the control of the news that has been making the message the brand instead of any sort of message at all.

  The really good reporters like Jean mainly get a chance from the independents to show what they can do. The independents are willing to take a chance on someone new, with new ways of looking at things, but the big agencies hire good reporters from time to time with the main reasons not being truth but the fact that murmur reporting creates stall skills.

  Jean was in Billings to help with a story on a gang that has been bringing a lot of crime into the city who called themselves The Dahmers. The name is kind of serial killer corny but everything is about branding these days, even crime.

  If I say the word “branding” one more time it might trigger me singing the song from that old western so I’ll try not to do that.

  Jean already had one run in with a small group of The Dahmers in Denver. She was looking into clue she have uncovered on a rise of weird gangs in the city and people thinking The Dahmers are linked to designer drugs. That run in is what got her hired for the Billings assignment.

  But that story she was hired to take on is taking a backseat as she was asked to cover another story that’s come up.

  A story that has fevered all the news feeds.

  She hates being on camera but the extra money is always good.

  Jean gave the verbal cue for the producer to cut to footage.

  “… It’s a cherished spot of clairvoyance when you find yourself standing in a fully lit darkness and you are finally able to see that you have hit rock bottom.

  This opens up your eyes to many things. See I live in a country where they want to take away my ability to scream and the women I loves right of choice. A country controlled by a government that uses fear to build anger to push forward a police state where we find it A OK to see men carrying guns in schools, churches, and bars.

  This government is striking and stripping at hard fought for measures to protect workers, consumers, and the sick. We aren’t moving forward, we are cowardly sprinting back as they create a nation against its people when the people should be burning down those houses of greed for what they’ve come to represent.”

  They cut back to Jean in the studio, ‘Those were the words a young man named Chris Friday said through a microphone standing on top of a limousine belonging to gun manufacturer Alistister Whisp in downtown Billings before police arrested him. The footage of his speech has been blowing up all day across the internet and tonight hitting most mainstream news outlets. At this very moment protestors for his release are near to rioting outside the B.P.D. station holding him as well as outside the gated home of Whisp located on Rimrock Road which is still itself a matter of a great deal of controversy since he bought out the whole neighborhood to build his estate.’

  Movements happen with a rolling of seconds. The seconds become bigger and bigger tumbling, turning, building, growing.

  Chris watched for a month stalking the comings and goings of Whisp and using a barely mobile abandoned car he was able to get running. In it he found a tool to create a traffic jam to put the billionaire’s limo right where he wanted it to be.

  In the beginning he had to talk himself into even thinking about doing this. Had to convince himself he wasn’t crazy and on the road to crazier.

  He wasn’t doing this alone but his other friends only wanted to be part of it in such a way were they could do their thing and then get out of dodge when the crap comes down. Some people step up a few more foot plants than others but even a few steps can be inspiring to others and oneself.

  Chris might be ready to carry his weapon into the storm but others not so much… at least not yet.

  Maybe someday if they see a brighter light they’ll also find some valor.

  It was a good spot where he planned to have the limo stop for several reasons. That street had a fast food restaurant, a recently closed free clinic, a used bookstore, and a coffee shop.

  That’s a painted picture of everyday America and a place that needs a little regeneration.

  It was also the same spot were a Beyond Human was gunned down by a police officer two years ago after discovering he could control fire while eating flambé at a nearby restaurant.

  He was sitting at his table making circles of fire with his finger. The police were called and an officer shot him once in the face and once in the heart.

  Don Herman was a doctorate student on his final months of getting his PhD. He wanted to join Doctor’s Without Lines In The Sand. He was from a poor background. He was gay. He was black. Talk about the wrong person for a cop to gun down in cold blood. There must have been a sign over his head that read- Gun Me Down In Cold Blood And Shit Will Hit The Media Fan.

  There were a small number of protests for about a month and some violence after Don was gunned down. The media fell in love with the story for a few weeks and there were memes on the internet but in time outside Billings the story died down thanks to orders from higher ups in the mainstream media to move on from it.

  All that was good in making the location perfect for this sort of thing and Chris knew that. Later people will ask if he planned all these connections and he did but many won’t believe that he did but some will believe that he did.

  Because he did.

  Chris also knew that having this happen at the right time of day was very important in gaining the most impact. It needed to happen in the early part of the morning so when everything went down plenty of foot traffic and tension filled hearts would be there to hear him.

  Aptitude isn’t the most powerful thing in an uprising but it sure does help.

  His friends ushered people out of the nearby businesses and had them focus their attention on the street by being loud and weird. Something that came naturally to his friends, shockingly he is considered the tame member of his social group.

  The road would be in a traffic jam and so would the sidewalks.

  They were basically penning in an audience.

  That could have turned out really, really bad.

  As soon as the limo came to a full stop Chris signaled his partners in crime. They went into action. He pulled out the megaphone from his mailbag and started walking towards the limo which was now stuck in traffic and couldn’t have moved even if the driver had tried.

  He climbed on top of the limo from the rear. He raised the megaphone in hand to his mouth and got everyone’s attention with a couple quick words before diving into to what he really wanted to say, “Ladies and gentlemen may I have your attention. I stand before you a broken man but in the limo below my feet sits a man bloated by blood, anger, and fear which is his favorite meals to feed you…”

  A sound shouted has to be heard to mean something.

  Ears have this thing about them, they allow us to listen, but it’s up to us whether we want to process the information that crosses our paths and use it to seek out truth.

  But it’s the sounds we refuse to hear that shape the world. It’s when good people do nothing at the shouts of other people’s pain and suffering when the world begins to spin backwards. This is the point when a society is so distracted by trying to be right they forget the noises of tears slicing down the geeks of those in need.

  With that being said about individuals when it’s truly dangerous to the social contract; which sometimes needs to be torn apart, what is truly dangerous is when a government stops listening and fearing the sounds of revolt. The people must take advantage of this time and strike and strike and strike, again and again and again until their words are not only heard but fully understo
od.

  Even if Chris couldn’t hear the protests outside the jail cell he was sitting in he sure could feel the vibe of the people occupying it with him and so could the other prisoners in the other cells.

  Many of the other prisoners were asking to be moved to another cell, someplace else, with the lifetime criminals among them, the ones who have spent a good chunk of their lives in a prison saying this had the smell that’s always in the air before a prison riot you really can’t blame them for having these worries.

  Chris wouldn’t know anything about that with this being his first time spending any amount of time inside a police station.

  Outside of the times he visited his father at work.

  And counter to a number of TV shows a police station isn’t normally the type of place for Bring Your Kid To Work Week.

  When he was arrested Chris kept thinking about a list of things he found online about what not to do when police arrest you at a protest such as not resisting once the police go to arrest you and making sure others know who you are and if you have someone, making sure there are people who know what you are about to do.

  The Billings police aren’t known for anything bad; which is a grace for modern police forces. Well, they aren’t known for bad things any more than is talked about when it comes to any police department. Most people see the B.P.D. as a pretty good lot, that’s one of the reasons the shooting of Don Herman shocked this