I waved and Chris returned Cassandra’s smile. “Hello, Haskins Family,” he rumbled. Several people on the patio picked up cell phones and snapped pictures. Chris Plummer, AKA Every American, was as famous as George Washington must have been in the Colonial times. My name was still used as a rallying cry for patriots in Austin, even if they really didn’t know who I was, so getting a picture of the two of us together was simply too good to pass up.
The Plummers sat down at the next table beside ours and we made small talk while they waited for the server. Chris leaned over and said, “If I show you something cool, can you keep your mouth shut?”
“Huh? Chris, you know I—”
He cuffed me softly on the arm and then dropped his hand onto my shoulder. “Just messing with you, brother. The days of the Revolution are over. Officially this time. We just had a videoconference signing the cessation of hostilities about an hour ago.”
I glanced at my watch. “What? I didn’t know. I would have been there.”
Chris shook my shoulder. “Nah. It was very, very private, if you get my drift.”
I glanced pointedly at the people taking photographs. “Yeah. I get it.”
He pulled a piece of paper from a folder and placed it on the table in front of me. It was a print out of a map of the United States with several lines drawn on it in red. It looked like somebody had just drawn over a PowerPoint and called it a day. “Is this what I think it is?” I asked.
He nodded. “This is what the NAR and the guys on the West Coast agreed-upon. It’s not a hundred percent yet, but this is the ninety-five percent solution. We’ll have to have real cartographers come in and put the boundaries in and then everything will have to be surveyed and marked off in the real world, but yeah. This is how we’re going to divide the Continental United States.”
I stared at the map for a while, making sense of what I was looking at. The NAR had agreed to cede most of their territory back to the people, but the result divided the continental United States into three separate nations. The vast majority of the land returned to being the United States of America, while southern and coastal California, almost all of Oregon, and the western part of Washington State became their own nation. Negotiations had been going on for weeks and they still hadn’t decided what to call themselves. Maybe now that they had some firm boundaries, that would help them out with names.
New England became the new seat of NAR power. On the map, the New American Republic encompassed all of what we traditionally referred to as New England, plus New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and northern Virginia, then there was a long, thin stretch of territory along the Great Lakes to include northern Ohio, southern Michigan—specifically Detroit, Flint, and Ann Arbor—the extreme southern tip of Wisconsin for continuity’s sake, northern Illinois, and the southern half of Minnesota. The major cities in those areas had been the bulwark of the NAR’s population and their citizens seemed to enjoy the security and socialism that the NAR offered.
I pointed at a few places on the map as Chris looked at me. “What about St. Louis, Houston, Atlanta…um…”
“New Orleans and Memphis?” he offered quietly.
“Yeah. What about them?” Those five cities had been sticking points for a lot of the negotiations, especially Atlanta and Houston as those major metropolitan areas were home to a lot of revenue—and a lot of debt.
“The NAR wanted them and we were ready to give them up just to put all of this behind us, but in the end they decided that having little pockets of their nation not connected by land to the rest of the population would be too difficult to maintain. That’s why there’s that long stretch along the Great Lakes to connect Chicago to the rest of the NAR.”
“But what about most of Michigan and Wisconsin?” I asked, pointing to the map once again.
He chuckled. “Could you imagine most Michiganders under the NAR? Outside of Detroit, they’re a bunch of gun-loving, flag waving—”
“People from Detroit love their guns,” I pointed out. I passed Cassandra the map so she could get a look at what we were talking about.
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right about that. But in a different way. The northern part of the state is as bumfuck country as you are, Bodhi. Farmers up there probably have a sheep or a cow as their side chick.”
I puffed out my chest and put my hands on my hips. “I’m from Alabama, Chris, where the men are men, the sheep are scared, and the boys are issued Velcro gloves when they turn thirteen.”
“Ha! That’s a good one. I’ll have to remember that.” Chris had been born and raised right here in Austin, so he’d been exposed to the farmland around the city, but had never worked it or hauled hay as a kid. “There’s gonna be a period of open borders where each nation allows their citizens to move freely from one to the other and we may even pay resettlement costs, but that’s not worked out yet.”
Cassandra passed the map back over to me with a frown. “What is it?” I asked.
“What about the NAR food supply?” she said. “Surely they can see that they’re going to have issues. As far as I know, there aren’t too many crops up that way.”
“There’s a little, plus livestock,” Chris responded with a nod of his chin. “They have a lot of manufacturing and intellectual capital that they’ll be able to sell or trade, but you’re right. They’ll have to get creative to feed their population, especially all those folks in the cities. Time will tell with the border situation, but personally, I think we’re going to have issues with them over usable farm land.”
“That sounds like trouble,” she continued.
He shrugged. “It is what it is. The NAR isn’t going away—or at least we’re not going to make them go away,” he clarified, waving his hand in a circle to indicate the five of us at the two tables. “This is what they wanted and we’re sick of people dying in this war. Maybe their population will eventually overthrow them up there too. For now, it seems like the people are fine with it.”
It was crazy to me. I’d grown up loving America and the opportunities and freedoms that being an American offered. We had a family move into town from New Jersey when I was a kid and the boy always talked shit about how broken the country was and how it was built on slavery and bigotry. I think that family hated America and taught their kid to hate it as well. Those were the types of people who were content to live under the oppressive NAR rule. They deserved each other.
Ellery started fussing and Cassandra adjusted her. “I think it’s time to go, Bodhi. She’ll fall asleep in the car.”
I nodded and handed Chris the map. “Thank you for showing me that. I wish I could have been there.”
He shook his head. “No, you don’t. It was two hours of squabbling over how far north a line should be and stuff like that.” He pointed at Cassandra and Ellery. “Believe me, you had much better company and a much more pleasant time than dealing with those NAR snakes.”
I stood, using the forearm crutch that had become my new normal after doctors were unable to fully repair my ankle for support. Chris stood with me. “Hey, Bodhi, I’ve got a favor to ask of you.”
“Sure thing, buddy. What is it?”
He glanced at his wife and smiled. “Now that we’ve got the border situation pretty much in hand, we need to get started on reestablishing a legitimate US Government.”
“Agreed.”
He leaned in close and whispered, “I’ve decided to run for president and I want you on my team.” My mouth dropped open. I hadn’t even considered how the leadership of our rebirthed nation would be chosen. Of course, it would be through a democratic election, but that was months, maybe even years down the road.
“If you’re ass wasn’t so young, I’d consider you as a VP pick,” he continued as I closed my mouth. “But the real US Constitution says that you have to be thirty-five to hold the office of President of the United States, so the same restrictions apply to the vice president.” He glanced at his wife and winked. “So, what do you say, Bodhi? Do you want to j
oin another winning team?”
I didn’t even have to think about it or consider what my role in his campaign would even be. I stuck out my hand to the big man. “Absolutely! What time do you need me in tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? We ain’t got time to wait that long, son. Meet me at my office at three. I’ve got a press conference at four to discuss the border resolution. This nation needs our help and we need to establish our team to make America great again.”
I smiled at his use of the old political slogan that had caused such a stir in my youth. “Alright. See you then, brother. Let’s get to work.”
THE END
Don’t forget to check out Jason Rogan’s mission to the East Coast in the upcoming End Game, an American Dreams Short Story
Five Roads to Texas: a Phalanx Press Collaboration
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More from Brian Parker
When a string of grisly murders rocks Easytown's sex clubs, Detective Forrest must stop the killer before he strikes again. The Easytown Novels, written by Brian Parker, are a sci-fi noir detective series.
Available in ebook, print, and audio.
The Immorality Clause, book 1: www.hyperurl.co/j3345s
Tears of a Clone, book 2: www.hyperurl.co/uiov23
West End Droids & East End Dames, book 3: www.hyperurl.co/ci4e9j
American Dreams | Book 2 | The Ascent Page 19