by Conti, Gene;
The two Blueshirts reversed the flags, placing the Stars and Stripes beneath the World Ecology Flag, carelessly permitting our nation’s symbol to drag along the ground. They proceeded to hoist them back up to the top of the pole.
“I want to vomit,” I admitted to Fred. “Now those two blockheads of Erik’s are saluting the accursed thing.”
I glanced over toward Father. He had his stone face on, and one hand was gripping the base of the statue of Mary so hard I thought he would crush the marble.
“Classic socialist approach. Soften up the masses by getting them used to something first; then the hammer comes down, but in such a way they don’t even realize they’ve been clobbered.”
Fred nodded his head with pursed lips. “How many months did they have that damn thing up there to begin with?”
“I got a good close look at that Ecology Flag while they had it lowered. Did you see what I saw Fred?”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
A NEW RELIGION
“Yeah, I believe I picked up on most of it.” Fred responded. I commented, “The flag itself is white, and it has that huge circle divided into three sections, each separated with a semicircle.”
Fred followed through. “Blue for sky, green for sea, and brown for land. With white birds in the blue sky portion, white fish in the green sea section, and then white trees and grass in the brown area.”
“Yeah, I saw that Fred, but did you see what was ringing that tripartite circle?”
“That I couldn’t clearly make out. I just saw some very small black markings encompassing the circle spaced away from the outer edge of it. What were those symbols?”
“Fred, those tiny black characters were the symbols for each of the major world religions. You’ve seen them on bumper stickers.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Well, the powers that be, want us all to get along or coexist or tolerate one another, but with one big caveat.”
“What’s that?” Fred asked inquisitively.
“We are to do so under the overarching umbrella of Mother Earth. It’s as if the religions were all bowing and subservient to her authority—and rule. That’s why they were presented as so small and insignificant around Mother Gaia.”
“Got it. Yeah, the Illuminati look at all religions as equal— equally useless in the scheme of things, or detrimental and intrusive at worst. These cognoscenti are the high priests of this new religion. They alone possess the proficiency and competence to interpret and dispense the laws of this new religion. The temples where this crap is taught are the schools and universities. Mother Earth first and foremost, and man the parasite, last.”
“Fred, you nailed it man.”
“And Doc, what a slick con game to tax the people more. Hey, it’s to protect and promote our Mother who gave us life.” Fred snidely remarked.
“Fred, you could have written my course curriculum. I’ve already started to cover some of this confidence racquet indirectly with my students.”
With my last comment to Fred, Dietrich’s voice became shrill and crackling over the loudspeakers. “Under our new banner which now flies above us all, we will truly have freedom, equality, and fellowship among men, women or whichever chosen gender orientation. Freedom of sexual partners, freedom of recreational pharmaceuticals. Everyone will be equal in all financial matters and all endeavors. No favoritisms. Tolerance and equality are to be our watchwords. And unity with Mother Gaia, our touchstone.”
The crowd went wild, cheering, clapping, and hollering with fist pumps in the air all around. There were also some signs and placards waving.
I observed that all the various signboards were made of the same thick white poster material, and the wooden stakes they were attached to were exactly the same. The writing on the signs was different, but their inscriptions were all made with the same black and red markers. All the printing or cursive was done using the same wide chisel tip pens.
“Hey, Fred, what do you make of the signs?” I asked, wanting to see if he picked up on the same clues I had.
“That bunch of clowns came off the buses with those posters. They even handed some to our own students to hold. Look at all the misspelling on some of the signs. College students, my ass!”
Dietrich continued with his sermonizing and grandstanding. “This is to be a worldwide revival of the Age of Enlightenment, a new French Revolution for the world. No longer a globe of petty bickering and rivalry among religions. We will all work together for the common good with Mother Earth, our beacon and North star.”
Another round of howling and clamoring ensued. Kathy Owens’ bubble-headed assistant was jumping up and down with her applause sign. She looked like a sixties Berkeley reject, wearing the huge round black coke bottle eyeglasses.
“Boy, is he ever full of himself,” Fred commented, shaking his head.
“The bigger they are the harder they fall, as the old adage goes. And Dietrich is pretty big!” I mimed Dietrich’s protuberant potbelly while puffing up my cheeks.
Fred laughed loudly, bending over putting his hands on his knees. There must have been a lull in Dietrich’s speech at that moment and the crowd was relatively silent, making Fred’s laughter stand out. Dietrich turned his head toward Fred and I. His eyes narrowed and squinted a bit, but he applied his broad fabricated smile to his face for the ever-present cameras.
Fred straightened up, realizing something was amiss as Dietrich addressed me in a controlled and deliberate voice. “Well, it seems we have one of our new professors with us this fine day.” His counterfeit smile was still plastered on his face. He probably caught Fred and me in the act.
“Perhaps Dr. Lucci would like to join me on the stage … um … wall here, and add his thoughts to our discussion of liberty, tolerance, and fairness for all, in our new Age of Enlightenment?”
What sounded like a polite request was really a demand.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
RENT-A-MOB
Dietrich took a breath and continued. “I’m sure our esteemed doctor feels as we all do, about equality and fairness for all.” He beckoned the troops with a wave of his hand. Kathy Owens gave her applause sign girl an elbow to wake her up and do her thing.
The throng responded accordingly, clapping to encourage me to join Dietrich on the wall. This was his perfect opportunity to get me to agree with these supposed universal axioms. Who would or could possibly defy them, especially in front of the cameras?
I hopped up on the wall and gave the crowd a cursory wave and polite smile, and then turned to Dietrich. “Professor Dietrich,” I said shaking his hand and looked him square in the eye. I gave a hint of a polite smile before quickly donning a serious expression.
“Well, Dr. Lucci, I’m sure you are in rapport with these time- honored maxims that we should all live by?” Dietrich held the mike so close to his mouth that his words came through somewhat distorted.
I turned my body to face the assemblage. Deliberately speaking in a low, mild voice, I got the response I was looking for. “We can’t hear you,” the mob at the rear shouted.
Giving Dietrich a closed mouth smile, I extended my hand, and he willingly gave me the mic. I gave a slight sideways glance to Kathy who had a cautious questionable look on her face.
“Yes!” I shouted and pumped my fist in the air. “Professor Dietrich is absolutely on target.” I looked over to Kathy’s gnome of an assistant, who got the message and raised the applause sign up to a round of cheers. The cameraman tightened his focus on me. Dietrich was beaming.
“Liberté, égalité, and fraternité,” I used the correct French pronunciation, giving another fist pump, getting the crowd whipped up. Our little troll was dancing, raising the applause sign up and down to the accolades of the troops.
“Now that marijuana has been accepted by almost all the states, we need to move to legalize all drugs!” I gave another big fist pump and screamed, “Yeah!” so loudly the speakers reverberated with distortion. The masses were with me. Virtually
everyone was screaming “yeah” and pumping their fists in the air.
I looked way back behind the crowd and saw my students standing there sort of dumbfounded. They were looking at each other with puzzled expressions. I could almost hear their thoughts: has Lucci gone crazy?
Pete leaned over to his brother, Andy, and whispered something, which Andy passed on down the line. Soon they were all smiling and laughing with one another.
Pete gave me a thumbs-up, which the cameramen and the mob in front of them didn’t notice. I gave a brief fleeting smile and nodded back to him. Pete took heed of it. I looked over to Maria leaning slightly against the statue of Mary and gave her a wink. She couldn’t wink back, as she was covering her mouth, trying to muffle her laughter. I saw her move slightly toward Father Ed to give him the skinny on what was about to occur.
“Crystal Meth—Yeah!” The horde was fist pumping and chanting “yeah” with me.
“Heroin—Yeah! Cocaine—Yeah!” The rent-a-mob was going berserk, all cheering and fist pumping like crazy. Jude was wild eyed and intoxicated with excitement.
My students at the back were really going at it, laughing and cracking up. Pete had obviously coordinated the sham. They were really putting on a show. The cameraman for the crowd had moved closer to my students, being as they were so much more animated than the borrow-a-bum ensemble.
There were two members from the rental crowd standing below me, in a vibrating frenzy. I leaned over with the microphone and asked them their names.
“Vincent, but yuz can call me Vinnie.”
He looked like a squat compressed Arnold Schwarzenegger. “Where are you from Vinnie?” I asked bending over and extending the mic to him.
“Yo, Brucklun,” he said proudly in his Brooklyn accent.
“Oh, New York,” I responded.
He shook his head, as I extend the mic down to him again. “No, Brucklun.” He emphatically replied.
“Isn’t Brooklyn one of the boroughs of New … never mind.” I glanced toward Kathy who wasn’t smiling anymore.
“What are you majoring in here at ICC?”
Vinnie momentarily looked toward Kathy who shot daggers back at him. Vinnie then glanced over in Erik’s direction for guidance. Erik just rolled his eyes. Some union buddy behind him whispered something to Vinnie.
“Yeah,” Vinnie cleared his throat as I extended the mic down again. “I’m majoring in weight lifting.” The speakers crackled and the crowed murmured, “What did he just say?”
“And your minor, Vinnie?” I asked still holding the mic in his face. Vinnie’s gears were turning, and he erupted with “Latin!” A wave of guffaws and chuckling revolved around the group. Kathy’s lips were so tight she could spit nickels.
I then directed my attention to the woman next to Vinnie. “And what is your name and where are you from young lady?”
I leaned over and stretched the mic toward her. “Um, mine is Annee with two Es. But is totally pronounced like the Broadway show Annie; and I’m totally from California, fer sur.”
“San Fernando Valley?” I ask.
“Ehmagawd! Totally! How did you know?” Her thick accent blared over the loud speakers.
“Just a lucky guess, I suppose.” I turned my head slightly to see Dietrich cover his face with his hand.
“And what are you majoring in?”
“Um, ballet, fer sur, and I’m minoring in … in diabetes, totally.” She was gnawing on a large candy bar, which was not helping her Type 2 diabetes.
“Can you do a pirouette or grand jeté?” Observing this eighties style woman who was about five two and weighed in easily at over two hundred pounds.
“Um, fer sur, totally,” she uttered, obviously uncertain as to what she just confessed she could do.
My students, at the back, were in hysterics. The multitude was now laughing with abandon.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
As I straightened up, I held my hand up to quiet the crowd and then proceeded. “Keeping with the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment, I’m sure you wish to live and abide by the three rallying cries of the French Revolution. Are you committed to liberty?” I asked, pointing the mic at the herd.
“Yes!” they replied in unison.
“Are you committed to equality?” Again I pointed the mic at them.
“Yes!” was the response.
“And fraternity, which means brotherhood or union?”
Again, a resounding “Yes!” came from the crowd.
“These three rights are bestowed on you by our benevolent government.”
Once again with the mic pointed in the crowd’s direction, they cried, “Yes!”
“We are to live in harmony with Mother Gaia—all equal, all the same, all together, all in union with one another?”
The mob once again responded, “Yes!”
“Are you absolutely sure?” Raising my voice for a more powerful response.
“Yes,” they screamed back at me.
My guys at the back are making a spectacle, hollering, clamoring, and fist pumping the most. The rear cameraman moved even closer to capture this.
I asked for quiet again, as I leaned over. “So, Vinnie, you’re all for this liberty, equality and fraternity stuff, right?”
“Yo, sure mang.”
“And drug rights for all?” I asked him.
“Absolootly! I’ll drink to dat!” He laughed, as he turned to his buddies who were yucking it up with him. “Yeah mang … sex, drugs, rock ’n’ row … booze, ceegars, bongs, joynts, whaever. We shh av the right to doo it all.” The speakers thundered his message.
He turned away from me and the mic, and toward the frenzied crowd, who were all shouting and yelling with Vinnie. He was doing double fist pumps by then and in sync with the swarm. Kathy’s front cameraman zoomed in on Vinnie.
I waited for them to calm down a bit from their fevered pitch before using my hand to silence them. I then leaned over to Annee. “From all your gyrating around Annee, I surmise that you agree with all of this?”
She craned her neck up to speak into the microphone. “Oh, gnarly … like totally tubular.” Her roly-poly stature was a big detriment.
Addressing her directly, I said, “Share and share alike … everyone equal. Union in brotherhood—and sisterhood too, of course.”
Then I rotated the microphone back for her response. “It’s like totally bitchin’,” she said, giggling and cackling at the same time.
All of this was fed to the upfront camera and piped full pitch over the twin tripod loudspeakers for all to hear.
“So you’re cool with equality and fraternity with Vinnie.” I pointed my finger at Vinnie standing next to her.
“Vinnie, the bod, like totally.” She batted her fake eyelashes at Vinnie who turned to the crowd and body posed, flexing his muscles to their cheers.
“That’s really good to hear, Annee. So when Vinnie gets a myocardial infarction—a heart attack—from doing cocaine or liver failure from boozing too much or from doing steroids, you’ll pay for his health care and disability, right?”
“Huh, gag me with a spoon. No way! He screwed hisself; let him pay for hisself.” She turned toward Vinnie with bitterness, as if he had really put himself in that medical state.
Meanwhile, Kathy Owens, whose face was getting purple with rage, was attempting to attract Professor Dietrich’s attention. She was mouthing at him to “get the mic.”
“What happened to all the liberty, equality, and brotherhood, Annee?” I questioned in a sarcastic, teasing way.
Dietrich was unsuccessful at bending over trying to relieve me of the mic, as his expansive gut caused him to become unsteady on the wall.
“Like barf me out. Screw all that. He can spend his own bread.” The loudspeakers trumpeted her words to everyone.
“Get the mic! Get the mic!” Kathy was screaming, forgetting she was still holding her own active microphone, being carried on real-time satellite
transmission!
My students were falling over each other laughing, as their cameraman was also transmitting their antics as well.
Vinnie turned to Annee and got in her face. I managed to get the mic right between them to capture him saying, “Isen dork, I don wan yur stinkin doh anyway, you lil’ toad.”
Dietrich made one last heroic attempt to grab the mic and almost fell into the mob. Some of the union boys, who were right up against the wall, supported him back into position.
I heard one of them say, “Dey ain’t payin me enuf for dis s**t!”
Annee screeched back into the mic at Vinnie, “Bag your face and eat my shorts, muscle head.” The front cameraman caught it all, up close and personal.
Still bent over, I maneuvered the mic to myself, while looking at both Vinnie and Annee. “Being as Professor Dietrich is more equal financially than you both, and has that brotherhood of fraternité and fairness in his heart, I’m sure he’d sell his estate and Mercedes to pay the health-care costs and disability assistance for you both – due to your abuse and trashing of your own bodies.” The loudspeakers projected my message clearly. “Because, I’m not paying one more dime for deadbeats!”
The mob was flustered now and becoming unruly, arguing one with another, and among groups, as to who should pay: Vinnie, Annee, Dietrich, both, all, or whoever.
I stood up pulling the mike away from Vinnie and Annee. I turned to Professor Dietrich who had just regained his balance. “Well, Professor Dietrich, I’m sure the troops are now ready to hear you articulate words of eloquence and elocution on the benefits and rewards of the French Revolution. Bon chance!”
I flipped the cordless microphone to him, which he almost dropped. He catches like a girl, I thought.
I hopped off the wall, leaving Dietrich with the surly mob. Kathy Owens was running to where her second cameraman was still actively recording my students who were having convulsions of hysteria.