Conflicted

Brenda has no time at all to think. Certainly not about her personal life. Nat has been getting on Brenda’s case. It’s as if he has nothing to do, there in his one-room shrine to masculinity, than to phone a woman and harangue her about international affairs.

“We’re going to war again,” he screams at her. “Now it’s Afghanistan! This bastard’s no better than Bush. He’s a war-monger. They’re all war-mongers!” Nat was a Kucinich man.

She tries to calm him with information she got from his very own lips. “Last week you told me he was bringing peace to the world by not building Bush’s missile shield. He’s so pro-peace, the Republicans are calling him an appeaser. They say this is surrender; that he’s endangering the world by believing in diplomacy. What more could you want?”

“To stop fighting. Especially wars we can’t win. We can’t win a war in Afghanistan. Nobody can. Doesn’t anybody read history? It’s impossible. Thousands of lives will be lost. For nothing. The enemy is a ghost. We can’t touch it. Why try? It just makes everyone angry.”

He wants her to use her candidacy to send the message to Washington that Afghanistan is no more responsible for blowing up the twin towers than Iraq is. We should pull out of both places, come home, and take care of the mess we’ve got here.

Wagman tells her not to listen to him. Wagman has her topics all mapped out. She’s to stick to education and health. Actually, two of the messes.

“Woman’s business,” she interpreted for him.

“And what’s wrong with that? You’re a woman.” He leered at her just for practice; he’s given up trying to be friendly. She’s lost her appeal for him. Always trying to express herself at the expense of winning. She had a chance for only one reason, and that reason was Obama. The safe thing was for her to stand in his shadow and follow wherever he went.

On Sunday, Obama was hammered by George Stephanopoulos who insisted, to the point of rudeness, that fining people for not having health insurance is a tax.

Wagman watched the President do a rather disgusting dance around the words, but he smarted when Stephanopoulos kept knocking him down. Let the man say what he has to, to get this thing passed. The party needs it. Obama is the face of the party, and if he goes down, Mitchell is going down with him, and he knows it. He wants Brenda to come to his aid. But Brenda is a still, in her heart, devoted to Hillary. She remembers the days when the young, black upstart, Barack, sucked away all Hillary’s glory. It’s easy for her to identify with his critics. She once was one, and a vociferous one, indeed. “We need an experienced woman in the white house, not a punk kid from Chicago with fancy duds and a good voice.” Yes, that was our Brenda speaking.

Everyone knows what she should do. Adele wants her to tackle Mercy head on, and accuse of her hard-heartedness. Adele is having her own problems. There’s all this racism crap surfacing, and she hates it. Adele, who doesn’t see her color as any more than a popular, cosmetic twist, feels incriminated in something she has nothing to do with. She knows a lot of damn fools of all colors. Stupidity, if nothing else, seems to be color-blind, and evenly distributed.

But when Adele puts on her Party hat, she knows perfectly well that the first thing people notice about her is her race. Even though, in point of fact, she is many more parts Caucasian than she is – dare we say the word – Negro. Only Obama is pure half and half, and that she admires – it’s so – fair. Perhaps that is a poor choice of word, but it is, also, fair.

Adele does not like Kwanza. She does not like having to choose between being a plain old American and an African-American.

Mercy is playing the race card all over the place. Using it in the most unpredictable ways. “Let my people go.” Really. Though it was hard to justify keeping kids in bad schools.

Adele is feeling restless tonight. She feels she should do something for the cause, but damned if she knows what. She keeps track of the opposition’s movements, and tonight Mercy is having one of her little racist gatherings. It’s with a group calling themselves “Young Afmerican Mamas” and though Adele is neither a Mama nor, to tell the truth, which she doesn’t, not all that young anymore, she feels included by virtue of – yes, folks – her color. Adele feels entitled to attend. If we can play it both ways, most of us will.

She perceives Brenda’s territory is being encroached upon. These mamas are going to talk about children, and children are the Democratic candidate’s profession. Adele decides to go to the meeting to sense the mood of the people and to discover a place where Brenda can stick in a shiv.

There’s a large turn-out. Not for the topic, but for the speaker. Not for education, but for entertainment. It’s in a big, hired hall. The Afmerican Mamas are a group of savvy, black, businesswomen, but they’ve drawn out their lower-class sisters, simply by showing them Mercy, an important cult figure with an amorphous, nameless fan club.

Not enough chairs have been set up, and the only men in the room, representatives of the building, scurry to bring more, as the ladies, dressed up to show off their new fall wardrobes, arrive. The economically challenged are wearing the same styles as the well-to-do, thanks to Wal-mart.

Most of the audience has come in little groups, and are babbling to each other. Then there is a stirring near the front of the stage, and the news is passed back that Mercy has arrived and will be out momentarily.

The place is electrified, as if everyone’s had four cups of coffee. These women are excited, and they’ve been talking their excitement up for fifteen minutes, as the hall has filled with more and more of them. This is big. They’re surprised. They feel powerful.

Mercy glides out onto the raised platform that usually serves as a stage for wedding bands. She’s wrapped in a metallic gold sheath, over which falls a veil of orange. The cone has been replaced by a many-times-coiled golden snake. Her hair goes in at the bottom and comes out the top, spraying from the snake’s mouth.

Adele experiences a momentary pang for persuading Brenda to stick to black and white. Then she realizes it will be a great contrast. Everyone will be in fall colors. Brenda will stand out. She relaxes.

Mercy croons in her lowest voice, “Good evening, Mamas.” It’s sexy. The women cheer. For themselves.

“Mamas.” This one’s even sexier, with a big, toothy smile.

The women are laughing now. They’ve already got what they came for, and they’re happy. Happy to be here. Happy to be included. Happy to be with Mercy.

“We’re a sexy bunch, aren’t we?” They all look around. Adele looks around too. With very few exceptions, the women are done up like killer courtesans. All kinds of hair, all of it “done.” All kinds of make-up, all of it done well. Everybody in tight-fitting duds, even the heavies. Bosoms all over the place. Adele didn’t think to dress. She thought it was going to be quiet gathering of sad, oppressed women, and she didn’t want to look conspicuous. She’s wearing a grey sweat suit. She looks conspicuous. She’s received a few chastising stares.

“But we’re not here to talk about sex, ladies. We’re here to talk about a side-effect of sex. Children.” It takes a while to sink in, then a giggle goes around the room.

“Your children.” She gives them time to recall their kids.

“Some of your children are in good schools. They can read. They have nice buildings and good teachers. School makes them feel good.” A smattering of applause as some women, some of them teachers themselves, acknowledge their good fortune.

“But others of you,” she says, “have children who can’t read, who go to school in falling-down buildings that don’t make anyone feel good, and can’t attract good teachers. The good principals don’t choose these schools. These schools don’t have Parent Associations with a lot of money to spend. Maybe you don’t have a lot of money to spend. But America does.

“America has trillions and trillions to spend. Ask Barack Obama. But it doesn’t have anything to spend on your children if you’re poor, and you live in a poor neighborhood with problems.

“Maybe you can’t get out. But your child can. Your child can get out tomorrow, simply by getting on a school bus and going to a different school. It might be a public school, it might be a private school, but it will be a good school, because you, Mama, will pick it. You will choose your child’s teachers, and your child’s friends. In doing so, you will help choose your child’s occupation, spouse, future social and economic status – the whole schmear.

Tremendous applause. The women are standing! Adele remains seated. She can’t stand this. It’s so Un-American. So Self-ish. My child. What about the ones who are left behind? The ones who nobody cares about, including their parents. Are we going to abandon them? The ones nobody speaks for. The ones even Mercy shows no mercy for.

No. She’s not going to take it. She feels herself getting hot. Ready to fight, and raring to go. If she doesn’t say something, she’s going to burst. She stands.

“For how many kids would vouchers be good?” she yells, above the congratulatory applause. Though she had sat down in the last row, many more chairs have been added, and now she’s right in the middle of the crowd. The applause stops almost abruptly. A few dazed stragglers not following the action, clap on.

Adele comes to her senses, and realizes she has their complete attention. Now is her chance.

Standing there in the center, in her sweat suit, she borrows lines from a speech she had written for Brenda, who hasn’t used it yet.

“If people start slipping away, the public school system that our great country was founded upon, will disappear. The very system that made Americans the smartest people in the world, the system that taught generations what it is to be an American, that instilled our pride and gave us our common outlook, even though we came from so many different places.

“Do we want to go back to the days of Babel, where everybody spoke a different language, or do we want to know each other, to have the same background? Do we want our children to be divided up into cults and belief systems antagonistic to each other? No. We want America the way it’s always been. One nation, indivisible.

“Go back to your schools and tell them you want service. Sit in the principal’s office until you get it. Make a scene. Come on, people. You know how to demonstrate. If you’ve never done it, you’ve seen it on TV. Don’t let them throw you out of public school because they’re too lazy to do it right!”

Them’s fightin’ words, and the women stand for Adele and give her as big a round of applause as they had Mercy. They couldn’t even tell she was from the opposition. Hell, most of them are registered Democrats, they voted for Obama, and are going to vote Democrat this year too. Brenda’s will get their votes. They’re here because Mercy is the local Oprah.

Adele stays for the rest of the presentation. She would appear arrogant if she left. Mercy answers people’s personal questions, as is her style.

Adele had been keeping a sharp eye out for a chink in the gold armor, but Mercy has left politics and is talking girl-talk. Adele doesn’t do girl-talk, and she’s exhausted from her exhibition. She keeps fading in and out.

At last it’s over. She’s too tired to stand, so she lets the lines of ladies snail out the door. There are only a few people left when she gets up and starts to push her way though the grid of chairs, some of which have been jostled around. It’s slow going.

“Wait!” someone calls. It’s a big voice. Commanding.

She turns around. Mercy Alexander is coming toward her from the stage. She calls over the chairs, “I know you. You’re from the Democratic campaign.”

Is she going to call the cops? It’s perfectly legal for her to be here.

“That’s right,” Adele says.

“Well! You did a fine job here tonight. I want to thank you. That’s exactly what they should do. Make a stink they can smell in Washington.”

“I – I didn’t say that,” Adele corrected.

“Yes, you did, Honey, I heard it. Now how about coming up to my place for a cup of coffee? You look all tuckered out, Girl.”