The People's Republic of Everything

by Nick Mamatas

  Somehow my father decided that he was entirely responsible for all of this. Kelly didn’t help when she walked up to King Daniel, spread her arms, and said, “I get it now. I really, really do. We can do anything we want, anything we need to. That’s real freedom.”

  Kelly stopped thinking to me. She stopped thinking of me. And so did my dad.

  My mother didn’t know what to say, or even what to think. The last dregs of her religious experience melted away, leaving her at a total loss. The whole thing hit her at once: no fame, no God, no marriage, no child, a public spectacle and possibly even exposed to harmful amounts of radiation. That’s her life. Geri’s life, the girl with the big blonde wings in her high school yearbook, the former Realtor, the woman who likes to dip Double Stuf Oreos into her tea because it makes her feel like a kid and an adult at the same time.

  Is Daniel having an affair? was the first coherent thought to emerge from the fog, even as Hickey was desperately asking follow-up after follow-up now, just to avoid doing something other than staring silently off into the distance. “Do you hate the people of Weinbergia? Have you found another man, like the tabloids say? What about Muslims, are they behind all of this, you think? Are you a Christian? What’s the last thing you said to your son? What were you doing at a Qool Mart one hundred and ten miles away from your home tonight? Do you think your son is dead? What will you do if Herbert is dead?!”

  My mother pictured me dead, face white, eyes wide and still like they were painted plastic, a bit of blood on the lip. Leaves and kicked up dirt everywhere around me, limbs bent exactly the wrong way at elbows and knees. Like the men named Mohammed in the parking lot, but without groaning, no movement, no dizzying replays of the world slipping out from under their feet and bonking them on the head. Like looking at a photo of myself, or a videotape, more than half blind because not only can I read any thoughts of myself, but there’s nothing there at all, not a twitch or a spark of anything, just me, but no!

  “NO!”

  Except without even that no.

  But that no is what you heard from me, the first time I shouted rather than listened, three days ago. I didn’t know that I was able to transmit thoughts, to do anything other than eavesdrop on the world all at once.

  As it turns out, I can. My nose starts bleeding, my head feels like two Mack trucks smacked into either side of it, I fall down, and I wake up starved and cold a day later when it rains on me. It took a couple of days to get the new ability under control; it was like bicycling with the training wheels off. I didn’t want to clue my parents in to where I was, and I think I might have caused a couple of traffic accidents over on the highway just from thinking, “Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!” but now I can do it. Telepathy is much easier now.

  So.

  So, here we all are then.

  10

  There are one or two things I know. Reading minds isn’t the same as knowing everything, even though I can pick up a lot. Language isn’t an obstacle, words are just wrapping paper—you know whether you get a hockey stick or a pair of socks for your birthday based on the shape of the toy or the box; it doesn’t matter what design the paper is. But still, some things are unrecognizable. I don’t know what the big sigma on some math equations is good for, or what epistemology is or how ambergris was turned into perfume or why Amish people stay Amish or anything like that.

  I mean I know what people think about those things, when they think it, but that’s all. Seeing the hockey stick and playing hockey are two different things.

  But, like I said—like I’ve been saying, I know a few things. I said my Dad wasn’t crazy when he founded Weinbergia, and it’s true, he wasn’t. He is now, but that’s just another thing I know. I know that I need to grow up. It happens to almost everyone eventually; you look at your parents and you see their mistakes, or you bury them and go through their stuff afterwards and you see the gaps: the passport with no stamps on it, because they never made it overseas thanks to all the terror alerts and wars—or just because they liked dreaming on their couch with a coffee table full of pamphlets better.

  Or other things. All over the world. The first time your goatherd father fell down while you watched and hurt himself and cried. When your mother cursed in front of you, and then slapped you across the face for being shocked that she’d said a bad word. The first time you go over to your piggy bank or little stash of money and find that there’s less change there than there should be, then you smell the tobacco drifting through the screen windows facing the backyard. And you see this, and you grow up.

  It happens. It just usually doesn’t involve lots of foreign policy and talk shows and explosions.

  You probably know the story. The Weinbergians raided a gas station for Cuebars—well, Richard had an expense account and just signed for them, but Kelly did wave the grenade launcher around—and pushed their way back home with the help of the RPG (Kelly said “ROTC” as she hefted it, but she was really just on a crazy brain chemistry high and had never been anywhere near a gun or anything like that before. She’d kicked a man in the face, and was now all-powerful.) The Army let them right back in, having already dismantled the gnome bomb, and replacing the statue exactly as it was before.

  Dad guessed this would happen and wanted it to. He was tired of the stresses of living in Weinbergia in the nuclear shadow of his own plans. Commercial endorsements were a much better deal. The next day a squad of elite Special Operators burst into the kitchen, guns high on their shoulders, but Adrienne smiled at them and gestured toward the brand new stainless-steel three-door Kelvin Refrigertainment Center from which she had just retrieved an ice bag for the bump on her head. They lowered their guns and took down their face masks to smile and nod at one another. She opened the center door. The camera inside—it clicked on along with the little light—recorded their happy wonderment at the size of the fridge, the rotating cake tray, and the holographic smiley faces that floated over the plastic containers of veggies, sauces, and various leftovers, signaling freshness. One face had a flat-mouthed look . . . better eat that tortellini soon.

  I’m sure you all saw that on TV. You might remember PFC Norris from that episode of Law & Order where he played that genius crack addict with Tourette’s syndrome. (He got a haircut.) Richard got in good with a few casting directors in the city. Now Weinbergia is all about product placement—and interdictions of suspected Canadians, whom Dad keeps in the basement and pretends to torture. They’re fed well, of course, and have their own TV and free access to the basement’s half-bath, which actually puts them ahead of the Weinbergian citizens on the upper floors. But the poor things do have to put up with all sorts of questions about Canada whenever someone comes downstairs to get some rice or find a wrench. “Wait, what do you call those hats again? Tooks? I know you told me yesterday, but I forgot.” “So, how do doctors make any money?” “Chocolate Twinkies? You’re kidding!” That sort of thing.

  And my mother? Well, today you got the blue ribbon in the mail. Yes, Geri had decided to reclaim the blue ribbon for herself, because hers are light blue, you know, for “boy,” so you’d think of me, and pray for me, and then Geri’s Generic God would be compelled to get off His holy duff and hand me over. Plus, all the companies that got to put their logos and offers for flashlight keychains and figurines—one of them is modeled after me at age five, except with huge ink blot eyes—loved the idea and paid some private eyes to find me, and some publicists to tell the TV that there were private eyes looking for me.

  Even the Islamic Republic of Qool Mart Store No. 351 got into the act—it’s a tax haven and makes meth out of cough syrup, then launders the money through a large commercial bank in the city. You know, for freedom’s sake. And it keeps your mortgage rates low.

  Needless to say, I’m leaving my parents, the Weinbergians, the cops, the army, the PIs, and anyone else who might come after me right now out of this little conversation. And yes, I know what you’re thinking: what if someone else, one of us, tells? Well, go
ahead and tell. Who do you think will be more open to the possibility that you’re receiving a psychic message from me, complaining about my parents: my born-again-twice-a-day mother and her concussion, or the guy who made himself king of his own living room?

  Or you could go to the authorities. You could even prove your claim by telling them that you know that the bomb was removed and replaced with a seemingly identical garden gnome during the Qool Mart Treaty crisis. Enjoy your trip to Cuba afterwards. Or, you could hear me out.

  What I want to do is be home. This is not the same as going home, because you can never go home again. (See, I listen.) That’s what my folks have taught me—Weinbergia is just America Junior now, a TV show with a flag, a tax shelter where at least they speak English and worry about showering often enough, so it’s just like the US. My mother thinks the whole universe is watching out for her. God is the mom and dad who never gets mad, always does the right thing, and who can solve any problem, and make everything feel better.

  You know, I never remember thinking that of my own folks. One of my earliest memories was of a hard fever, so hot it hurt to blink. Geri was hovering over me of course, with damp washcloths and plenty of juice and then ice packs and children’s chewable aspirin that were so gross-tasting to me that I puked them up, so I was put in a cold bath with ice and the next round of tablets were melted into the orange juice and fed to me via tablespoon. She looked at me when I drank the stuff, smiled a thin paper smile, and told me that I was a good boy and that everything would be all right. And just as she said that, she thought—and this was the first thought I had ever heard, other than my own—that she had no idea what she was doing, was a horrible mother, and might end up killing this damn kid. She even entertained, for a second, the idea of just burying me in the group courtyard of the garden apartment complex in which we lived at the time, in case I did die, because she didn’t want her own mother to find out if anything ever happened to me. It was just for a second, but she thought it, and she didn’t utterly expel it from her mind afterwards, but used me in a hole as a way to distract herself from me on the couch. “What would I tell Daniel?” “Good thing Herb isn’t in school yet—only a few people will miss him.” “Does Daniel love me enough to forgive me if something happened—to help dig?”

  So I always knew parents were faking it. Enough of you are anyway to make the whole world a conspiracy against children. You fall right into it after a certain age. One time, in kindergarten, we were on a class trip and my teacher, Mrs. Surgus, had some trouble controlling us. It was sunny, the bus had been full of fumes, and it had been a cold winter with a lot of slush but not too much snow, and this April afternoon felt like the first real day of spring. Nobody wanted to hold hands as we walked in double-file. We were all big, most of us had turned six, and hands were sticky and the breeze was so nice and there were lots of things to point at, even on the block between where the bus had let us out and the Port Jameson Museum, which featured harpoons, nets, and the actual desk where a judge once sat while he tried suspected witches.

  But it was always a cold February day for Mrs. Surgus—yes, I see you out there still, and it’s true, it’s true, and what I’m about to say isn’t the only secret of yours I know, Eleanor—so she decided to put a scare into us. She spotted a man in the window of a creaky old building with one of those haunted-house porches, he was a handyman who was fixing the place up a bit to sell, and pointed to him and said, “Behave, or that man’ll get you!” and obligingly the man raised his arms, a long screwdriver in his right hand, and howled like an animal. They didn’t know each other, it wasn’t a plan. It was just two grown-ups acting in solidarity, because they know how important it is to keep kids terrified and obedient. I knew the truth in a way that the other kids could never imagine, and that made me more scared than any of them. You’re either part of the conspiracy, or against the conspiracy.

  I could tell stories like this all day, but twilight is coming and it’s getting cold again. I just want to tell you something, then ask you a favor.

  What I have to tell you: the world you’re in is not the world you’re from. There are two ways to grow up, and it’s just that so far everyone’s chosen the easy way—just get new parents and do what they tell you. All families are unhappy, but some—Saudi Arabia, Qool Mart, the Mormons, being “in sales”—are more abusive than others. But even unhappy families are made out of happy people. Nearly everyone has some kind of friend, and if you didn’t before, you do now. Me! And if you don’t like me, at least I’m a conversation starter. You have something to talk to your pretty neighbor or the guy who sits next to you on the bus or the woman in the next cell about.

  Hey, are you hearing what I’m hearing?

  Yeah! Freaky, huh?

  God, I hope he’s not messing up some brain surgeon’s concentration right now.

  Don’t worry, I’m not. For some of you, this is just a daydream, or a smell like the doughnuts you ate as a kid, or a paperback novel, or the orange blobs you see when you squeeze your eyes shut, but you’re all in this together. We’re all in this together. Well, you all are. I’m going to grow up the other way. But I need your help.

  Specifically, I need you to forget, just for a few minutes, everything you think you know about kids and travel and the dangers of the shoulder of the highway and the outstretched arm. I need you to anticipate my coming and do something other than shout at me, “Hey kid, get off my lawn!”

  Because I’m going back to Weinbergia.

  11

  Lenora Cline-McGrath: “Life is a strange and wonderful place, full of the bittersweet and just plain bitter,” my grandma always used to say. “But it’s the second that makes the first taste better,” and indeed, she was one hundred percent right. I like having my own country with Gary. We signed a separate peace treaty too, with about three hundred different countries. Have you seen treatyonline.org yet? It’s very handy.

  Politically, we argue all the time, but he’s pretty open to being educated. He’s a passionate man. Ever since the bomb, he’s just gotten more passionate. We all have to help each other now, I guess. Of course, it was horrible, a tragedy, nothing will ever be the same, but you just have to keep on living. We’re living just fine out here. We’re very open now, even single-race couples can emigrate if they wish to, as long as they can pass our citizenship tests. We interview them and if they can get through it without saying “Some of my best friends are . . .” or “I grew up around . . .” then they’re good.

  We do get a fair amount of hate mail, it’s true. But that’s fine, live and let live. Have your opinion; have your ugly-ass stamps with your cracker grandfather on it, that’s fine. We don’t care. We’re happy now. How many people can truly say that they’re happy?

  [laughs] Yeah, I know. Everyone is supposed to say that they’re secretly happy now, right?

  Roger Whiting: I was being debriefed, so that’s why I’m alive today. We’re lucky—damn sure that I’m lucky at least—that there was some concern that I’d turned, so I wasn’t present in DC that day. Yeah, by debriefed I mean interrogated, but by interrogated I don’t mean tortured or anything. They let me have a coffee, tissues, anything I wanted. About seventeen hours, all told, including the polygraph. It was fine. I’m just glad to be home. I’m still an American. Arizona is full of normal people, thank the Lord.

  Richard Pazzaro: We were watching TV in the living room when it happened. First the gnome started falling over, then it fell over. Then came the light. That was pretty much it. I know we’re not supposed to use the word ironic anymore, but it just seemed, you know, ironic to me that the bomb was being paraded around as some sort of trophy. It was like the Soviet Union or something, wasn’t it? Well, they marched their own weapons through Red Square, not captured ones, but if they had captured an American nuke or something, I’m sure they would have shown it off.

  Jesus Porter (former Secretary of Veteran Affairs): Yeah, we joked about it, my undersecretaries and I. Everyone after th
e Attorney General in the line of succession does. Even after 9/11, or so I was told. I was still in the private sector then. VA was never a “lesser” department, succession is based on the founding of the particular Cabinet departments.

  I didn’t return to Washington, but not because I was afraid. Never let it be said that I was afraid. Really, what was there to be afraid of? I was in Burlington, visiting my mother. The city had already “gone indie,” as the kids say, but there was an open border and we weren’t recognizing any microstates at the time, and really nobody was, not even their own so-called citizens. All the stores on Church Street still took American scrip, and that’s really the decisive element of the existence of a state as far as I’m concerned. So I was there and I was fine with it, and security was fine with it, and the FBI was entirely fine with it.

  I just didn’t want to go back. I never wanted to be president. It struck me, walking through the streets after I’d heard, with people gathering around their car radios, others opening up their windows and bringing their TVs to the windowsills, just to let the people hear what was going on . . . there wasn’t panic. There wasn’t even much sadness, not once the estimated death counts were dialed down from forty-five thousand to six hundred. And the wind didn’t blow the radiation into Virginia or the suburbs. Most of the people I met just seemed relieved, as if an obnoxious uncle had left and the unpleasant Christmas dinner was finally over. So I decided to stay here. I run a little juice stand three days a week. It’s nice. I like working with people.

  Mirella “Madusa” McAlister: I picked the kid up on the Kansas-Missouri border. He looked fine. Clean, well fed. I’d heard him. I didn’t want to get into trouble, but I didn’t want to get him into trouble either. Herb was a polite little man. No, I never wanted children; I barely had a mother of my own, so it wasn’t my ovaries talking. We stopped outside Jefferson City for a potty break and next thing I know, I’m in Little Rock, and only then did I remember that he wasn’t with me anymore.