The Shelter: WAR

by Ira Tabankin

  “You do know, you’re crazy don’t you?”

  “Yup, which I’m hoping, ensures no one wants me to run for office.”

  “I wish you good luck with that.”

  “Anything else that’s urgent?”

  “General Arthur would like to know, in his words, where the hell is his concrete?”

  “Tell him we lost it.”

  “Jay, he’s getting pissed off and suspicious that we’re building something with the concrete he supplied the raw materials for and the manpower to run the plant.”

  “How long can we stall him?”

  “Not much longer, he’s also asking what happened to the tunneling machine he loaned us.”

  “I’ll talk with Franco this evening; I’ll tell him to free up some supplies for the General. Go set up the call, maybe we can bring some decent jobs to our people.”

  “I’ll call you when they’re ready.”

  “I promise I’ll answer. By the way, the school in Atlanta that wrote set up a personal meeting with the kids.”

  Fred stops mid-word, his face loses all color, “WHAT? You’re planning on visiting Atlanta? The President could attack at any moment and you want to visit Atlanta? You’re crazy!”

  “He’s not going to attack us when he thinks he’s got me by my balls. I’m not going to hide in the castle. It’s time we show the people what we’re doing and how we’re going to improve their lives. They voted to form the Confederacy, they’re entitled to know what my plans for it are.”

  “General Arthur’s going to be pissed.”

  “Tuff shit. I’m the acting President, I’m going, while you’re at it, set up a couple town meetings.”

  “You really don’t care about living do you?”

  “God will call me home when he wants me. I’ve been lucky so far he’s always sent me back, he knows I’ll raise too much hell in heaven so he sends me back.”

  “If anything happens to you, Lacy will skin me alive. Have you discussed this with her?”

  “No, but I will. Plan on her coming too.”

  “Great, I work for an insane man.”

  “You should have known that by now.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll make the arrangements.”

  Twenty minutes later, Jay’s phone rings, “Hello, this is Jay.”

  “You’re crazy! One hundred percent certifiable!”

  “General, thank you for the compliment. Can we discuss my mental state a little later, I’m due to get on a very important conference call?”

  “I’m coming over there!”

  “You’ll find me in the state office.”

  General Arthur slams the phone down yelling, “Colonel, Major, join me, we have to explain reality to our crazy President.”

  Colonel Black smiles, “What has Jay done now?”

  “It’s what he’s planning. Fred told me he’s planning a trip to Atlanta. He’s going to attend a school to answer a letter the kids sent him and hold a few town meetings to press the flesh.”

  Black fails to hold in his belly laugh, he explodes laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “He said he wasn’t a politician and what does he do? As soon as he assumes the office of acting President, he begins acting like the politician he always said he despised. I find it hilarious.”

  “Yeah, it is a little funny.”

  “Got to respect him, many would hide in his shelter versus showing their face in public. I’m proud of him. If he runs, he’s got my vote.”

  “Time for that later, we have to discuss how we’re going to protect him.”

  @@@@@

  “Jay, they’re online one, just touch the enter key to launch the video call.”

  Jay is sitting behind his desk wearing a white shirt and tie, under his desk, he’s wearing an old pair of well-worn jeans and a pair of dirty white sneakers.

  “Good morning, I’m sorry I wasn’t available when you called earlier. I understand you would like to know the Confederacy’s views on business.”

  Their representative, the American President of VW, replies, “Yes, sir. We’re all concerned about what changes you’re planning on making.”

  “Let me summarize my thoughts, these will have to be voted on by the new Congress, I’ll list my major plans;

  Flat corporate tax rate of 5%.

  Tax credits to modernize factories

  The Confederacy is a right-to-work country.

  No import or export taxes.

  Tax credits to train new workers.

  What else would you like to know?”

  “What about the process to expand plants?”

  “If the local community agrees, you’re done.”

  “What about environmental impact statements?’

  “What are those?” Everyone laughs. “My goal is full employment. Full employment with good jobs, the last thing this government wants to do is stand in your way of expanding your facilities in the South. I want our people working. I want you and them to be happy. I intend to ask your help in setting new education standards, what should our children be learning in school?”

  “You mean like math and science and how to write and read English?”

  “Yes, those are good beginnings.”

  “What about existing unions?”

  “That’s going to be up to your workers. If they want them, they’ll stay, if not, they’ll be gone. I don’t plan to have a labor board.”

  Jay’s last comment got many of the corporate leaders smiling and nodding their heads.

  “Look, I expect you to be responsible citizens in your communities, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you're not good citizens. I’m only saying what I hope you’ll be. If you care about happy workers and a happy supporting community, you’ll be a good citizen to the community. I think fewer laws and regulations is better for everyone. I think it will lower your cost of business and lower prices to our consumers. Don’t get me wrong, I am concerned about our environment. If we catch you dumping crap in our rivers and lakes, I’ll hang you up by your you know what. My goal is to quickly get to the point where you want to expand your facilities in the South, you’ll be begging people to work for you, you’ll find the people applying well educated and responsible workers. No Dodd-Frank, no rules on minimum wage, I know you’ll end up paying your workers what they’re worth to you. If you screw your workers, I’ll screw you. I won’t have the clock turned back to the 1920s. I won’t allow discrimination in hiring or advancement, you’re pay people regardless of sex the same amount for the same jobs.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “It’s so rare to hear anyone speak so plainly.”

  “One other point that may interest you, we don’t allow any outside money in our elections. The other little point you need to know is, if you become a supplier to the government, you have to agree none of your officers will become a lobbyist. If you sell to us, you can’t lobby us. I’m also going to limit the reasons why contracts can be protested, if you lose a protest, you pay for all of the costs for the protest. All of our contracts will have clauses that reward you for delivering early with good quality, if you’re late, you’ll be fined for every month of delay. All of our contracts will be fixed price contracts, if you low bid and lose money, you’re going to eat it. If you deliver us a product and it fails to meet its quality standards, you’re paying for it. We’re not going to cover your mistakes and bullshit. This isn’t life as normal any longer. We’re also going to streamline the appropriations process. We can’t afford a ten-year cycle to get a product into the field. I want our military to be the best equipped and strongest in the world.”

  “Who owns the IP in your appropriations process?”

  “If we design the whatever, we do. If you develop it and we purchase just the product from you, you own it. If we jointly develop something, we jointly own the IP unless one of us buys out the other. If you own the IP, we expect a discount in the price since you’ll be
able to resell the IP.”

  “Sounds fair.”

  “We plan to have our stock exchange and state funded technology labs where we’ll help fund startups and we’ll take a percentage of the companies.”

  “You could end up in competition to us?”

  “Possible, but I doubt it, our goal is to recoup our investment, so we can lend money to other companies. We don’t want to be one of your competitors. We want to open discussions with you how to move jobs from your offshore factories to here.”

  “One of the major reasons we moved so many jobs offshore is the regulations and other rules and laws the government placed on us.”

  “Make a list of those you see as blocking you from bringing jobs here. I won’t back down on every employee having health care, nor will I allow you to work them to death. If people work overtime, I expect them to be paid for their overtime hours.”

  “What about be able to shift people around in our plants?”

  “That’s up to you, the government shouldn’t be on your factory floor except for setting safety standards.”

  “We like what we’re hearing. We’re going to talk among ourselves. Can we have a follow-up call tomorrow?”

  “Same time?”

  “Yes. We’ll be back with you tomorrow. I think we’d like to send a group to meet with you.”

  “The current government is a little short of office space, I’m working out of my farm. I do plan to visit Atlanta, which survived the riots better than Nashville did. How about we meet there?”

  “That sounds good to us.”

  Hanging up the phone Jay looks at his smiling assistant. “You did a good job. You almost sounded like you knew what you were talking about.”

  “Thanks,”

  “You have three people waiting to see you.”

  “Let me guess, the military is here to yell at me.”

  “Better you than me. I’ll show them in.”

  @@@@@

  The President smiles thinking he’s in control of Jay, he can’t understand why the unions have chosen this point in time to fight him. He calls his CoS in to discuss how to handle the unions.

  “Help me understand why they are striking; we’ve done everything they’ve asked. We’ve increased their membership, we’ve thrown money and contracts at them. What am I missing?”

  “Mr. President, they’re more afraid of the real leaders than they are of you.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m talking to their Presidents.”

  “Sir, the mob has controlled the unions since they were formed. They figure they can sway you with donations, if they cross the mob, their families will be sleeping with the fish.”

  “That all ended years ago. The FBI assured me they cleaned the mob up. They told me all of the mob leaders are either dead or in jail.”

  “Sir, they lied. The mob is alive and well. They may have moved underground, but they’re alive and well. They tell the union Presidents what to do and the union jumps.”

  “What can we do to shut the mob down?”

  “Simple answer is, we can’t.”

  “That’s not an acceptable response.”

  “Mr. President, as long as people want things that are illegal, the mob will exist.”

  “How’s my new best friend in Nashville handling it?”

  “Sir, his best friend is the local mob.”

  “We can use that against him!”

  “Sir, no we can’t, everyone knows about it, he tells everyone who his best friend is. He’s not ashamed of it. He’s also decided to issue rules which have us trying to figure out who he is.”

  “What do you mean? What’s he done now?”

  “Sir, he’s legalized all drugs, he’s going to sell them in drug stores and tax them. He’s also announced he’s removing all sin taxes; he figures people can decide themselves what they want to do. If they smoke, they’ll pay more for insurance if they drink or use drugs and get into an accident they’ll pay for it. He’s making it legal to carry weapons in the entire Confederacy. He said he’s going to treat people as adults.”

  “He’s more of a fool than I thought, he’s setting the foundation for the failure of the Confederacy without us doing anything. I may be able to just wait for it to crash and burn, his people will beg us to allow them to come home. He’s a total fool. I think we should help the people see the error of their ways. I want undercover groups sent into the South to commit acts of terror, let’s make the people force their government to clamp down on their so called freedoms.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chapter 34

  Fred smiles sharing breakfast with Jay, who’s depressed over the fact the Feds are still holding his daughter and granddaughter.

  “Jay, I have some fantastic news this morning.”

  Jay looks up from his untouched pancakes and his second cup of coffee.

  “I’ve been contacted by a couple of other states that would like to discuss joining the Confederacy.”

  The seconds tick by without a sound, Jay’s eyes light up,

  “Would you please repeat that? I thought you said some other states want to discuss joining us.”

  “I did! I want to set up a meeting in a neutral location.”

  “Define neutral? I think there’s only them and us. They stooped to kidnapping my family, I don’t trust them as far as I can throw that skinny assed President. Where would you suggest we meet without the President finding us, how do we know this isn’t a ploy by his Justice Department to arrest me?”

  “Why should he care about arresting you, he’s holding your family hostage which he thinks is all he needs to get you to sing his tune. He doesn’t know you very well.”

  “No, he doesn’t, I can’t wait to have Sammi and Linda home so I can turn my attention to getting even. Now, tell me who wants to join us. You do realize that the more states that join us, the more pressure will mount on the President to use force to stop us. It’s a double-edged sword. We get stronger, but the media will force his hand. We’ll need to be ready for his attack before we meet with the other governors.”

  “The following Governors have reached out through third parties to talk about terms.”

  “Terms? I don’t understand what you mean. We’re not offering any payments or credits for others to join us. We just want to be left alone and live the way our founders planned.”

  Fred laughs so hard; he spits up his coffee.

  “You don’t understand, not terms as what we’re going to pay them, terms pertaining to what we want them to pay us to allow them to join us.”

  Jay’s coffee cup stops in midair while he digests what Fred said, Jay breaks out laughing. He spills his coffee forcing Lacy to frown at him. She looks at Fred,

  “Can’t you wait until after the two of you finish your meals before you give him an update. Every time you tell him something either he laughs and spills his food or he gets angry and spills his food. Maybe you should clean up the kitchen every day.”

  “I’m sorry, I’ll be better with my timing.”

  “They want to pay us?! They want to give us money to join, I can’t believe it. Let’s go to my office so Lacy doesn’t kill us.”

  Getting comfortable in Jay’s personal office, he looks at a map of the country, “Which states have contacted you?”

  “I’ll list them, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Virginia is holding an election next week, it’s going to depend on the turnout in the Northern half of the state. The Southern half is on our side. In fact, the citizens of Richmond have started a petition wanting their city to be our capital again. I forgot one, Alaska also wants to join us, as crazy as it sounds, Alberta has sent a message asking if we’d be interested in them joining us.”

  “My God! We’ll be half of the old USA, in area, we’d be larger and have most of the oil, gas and farmland. We will be the tail that wags the dog. Tell me your plans for a meeting?”

  The
y’re interrupted by Tony sticking his head into Jay’s office. “Got a minute?”

  “Sure, what’s up? Have you heard what Fred just told me?”

  “About the other states wanting to join us? I’m going to be the most important Don in the world.”

  “Didn’t we discuss that before? It’s time you learn a new trade.”

  “I am, I decided to be a community organizer.”

  Jay and Fred laugh so hard they begin coughing.