Ring In The New

It’s New Year’s Eve, folks. The Big Night. The Night that Matters. The night that is symbolic of your whole life. If you don’t have a good time on New Year’s Eve, what can you expect of the ordinary days to follow? Puts a lot of pressure on people.

You’ve heard that song: “What are you doing New Year’s, New Year’s Eve?”

It’s been a week since Wayne’s been home. A week since Caesar King made his appearance, and, you might say, rejuvenated our friends, especially, the ladies. Oh, yes; they’re going wild. They haven’t seen anything like Caesar, except maybe on television, and nobody’s turned them on like he has since they were in college.

The man’s like quicksilver. He slips through their fingers. They invite him to lunch, he comes, he mesmerizes, and he flits off like a butterfly to the next Mam’selle. He’s had ribs with Melissa, chicken with Doreen, and if it were summer, he might have had watermelon with Ann. She came third, and the other two had used up the obvious, so she served him vichyssoise; he looked French to her.

With each of these ladies, he behaved immaculately. He oozed sex appeal all over them, and never touched a hair. He told them stories (never about himself.) He left his seat, he strode around the room, he performed a pleasing political paean, and sat back down to the ribs, to the chicken, to the soup.

He didn’t say anything they didn’t already think, but the way he put it was uplifting. He talked about how important each separate and unique person is, (you, for instance) how people are best qualified to decide for themselves, what’s good for them. That people are basically good; groups of people – not so much. “Grouping removes us from our fellow man, and substitutes for him, a stereotype. Instead of loving a race, a gender, a religion, a political party, a social philosophy, we must love each other, and not just in the holiday season, but the whole year round.”

They couldn’t agree more. It’s Christmas, so he sounds like Jesus. He wants to spread the word, and none of them have any problem with the word he wants to spread. They’re women, after all. Women want to be treated like individuals, and they don’t generally want someone else to tell them what to do. His little speeches empower them.

Caesar thought it best not to mention his affiliation with the Tea Party. No reason for him to, really. It’s all informal. He’s never signed up; he just helps them out. No need to mention it. If he had, they might not have heard a word he said. And he wouldn’t have been there in the first place dining on beef and wings and potato/leek soup. Besides, the Tea Party is just another group. He’s going to go it alone. One individual.

So whose New Year’s Eve date is he going to be? Doreen’s the only single lady. But he’s staying in Melissa’s guest room; Steve invited him. Wayne isn’t staying in the house; Melissa won’t have him. And Dr. Wise told Doreen that it wouldn’t be wise for her to have him, so Wayne is sleeping on a couch in the Winery.

Caesar spends a lot of time there. He and Wayne walk around the grounds together with glasses of sweet new wine to warm them. Caesar is coaching Wayne so Wayne will not be a detriment to his proselytizing.

“You have to come up with rhetoric that embraces change,” says Caesar, opening his arms wide and holding his head up to heaven. “Change from what we’ve got now. There isn’t anybody who doesn’t want that, even though we don’t all agree on what we’ve got, and what of it we want changed.”

And, “You have to coalesce your general sense of outrage into a framework that actually addresses the things you find so outrageous.” In other words, he has to do something to change things.

Wayne’s working on it. Whenever something infuriates him, and that happens any time he happens upon a piece of news, he tones down the mounting fire, and tries to channel it into a constructive thought.

So… what can he do? He can think of how he’d like it to be; no problem there, but how in the world can he get from here to there? The only people with any power are politicians. He’s no politician. No matter how many lessons he gets from Caesar, he can never be Caesar.

But Caesar can be Caesar. Caesar can be his politician. Yes. That’s the ticket…

There’s going to be a small, refined party at the Winery. No children. The children have their own plans, and their rides to those plans, and their parents don’t have a lot to say about it.

Caesar is pleased to discover that he doesn’t have to pick one fair lady over the other. Melissa and Doreen have arranged it all. He and Melissa, who is wearing a gauzy green gown, pick up Doreen in a long, red, strapless. He sits between the two at the big table, and they share him exquisitely. They’ve had a lot of practice.

Dr. Wise is here, but he’s been keeping his distance. It would not be wise for him to appear to be pursuing a patient who was involved with another patient, though she certainly doesn’t look involved tonight. Not with Wayne, anyway.

And Wayne is so quiet. Everyone is seated, Dr. Wise across from the buxom red dress, Wayne across from the green, so they can keep their eyes on their women who are sandwiching Caesar. And between them, across from Caesar, is Brittany Brown, seated between Wayne and Wise.

It’s a lobster dinner. Donny and Ann are at opposite ends of the table, supervising the serving. Ann is in a white caftan, with a red-sequined lobster running diagonally the length of it. She’s been feeling so good, she went to the hairdresser and came back a redhead. Her hair exactly matches the lobster on her dress. She’s taking particular pains to make sure Caesar King has everything he could possibly want (“Don’t be shy; just ask.”)

How come Brittany is here without Steve? Steve’s at another party, that Brittany declined to attend because she wanted to get a good look at the man who walked out on his friends and family because of his beliefs. So she and Steve had a fight, and this is how it turned out.

Steve’s at a party that Natalie invited them to, and that’s where we’re going now. It’s way out in the boonies, up a dirt road, in the basement of the gate-house to an old farm that the lawyer-grandson-heir has not yet sold. He rents it to Rick Zapata, a respectable member of the college community. Who tonight is hosting a party that was arranged Christmas Day at the Winery, when he left the main party and went to get high with Natalie and Billy the Kid.

The Gate House is a fooler. It’s got two stone rooms and a basement the water runs into and out of. However, once you’re in that basement, you step through a door that leads to what Rick has turned into an underground studio. It’s a big room, once a factory for making barrels. It’s been sound-proofed, water-proofed, and intruder-proofed, with a periscope camera that comes up over the roof and surveys the road and the surrounding woods.

There’s a blast of sound as we enter the big room. It’s the Jimi Hendrix solo from “All Along the Watchtower”. As our eyes get accustomed to the dim light, we see a raised platform, and on it, in a black T-shirt, his hair shining silver, and his muscular arms glowing gold, is Rick Zapata, in the back, pounding away on the drums. Off to one side is a very tall, very skinny kid with shoulder-length hair, his long back curved protectively over his guitar, his fingers moving a mile a minute. On the other side is Cousin Stanley from Connecticut playing bass. Cousin Stanley looks like a stock broker, but don’t let him fool you. His only office is the park.

And sitting cross-legged on the floor, in the corner up front, hidden by the door when it opens, is Natalie, in camo pants and jacket, next to a big canister from Connecticut, rolling joints. She’s been at it for a while; tiny sparks of fire dot the sitting, standing, dancing, listening crowd. The music is too loud for talking unless you yell.

There are a whole bunch of people here we don’t know. County musicians, old and young, from then and now, from here and there, in a weird assortment of clothes, from Hippie to Hip-Hop, from Punk to Goth. And among the youngest, a fair amount of body-piercing.

We’re not staying. We wanted to see where Steve was, and there he is. Oh, look. Billy the Kid is with him. Hey, Doreen! Melissa! Do you know where your kids are? Yes, we are definitely getting out of here. For all we know, soundproof and waterproof or not, aromatic smoke and raucous sound are seeping out of all the seams, and that rooftop camera is going to see some action.

Back at the ranch, folks. And look at that, will you? Things have loosened up a bit at the Winery. We must have stayed at the studio longer than we thought, but I’ll damned if these people aren’t dancing, too. Joan Jett’s loving rock-and-roll here, and the ladies are bumping and grinding to her deep, rough voice, while the gentlemen watch. There was an attempt made to get them on the floor, but led by Caesar King’s staunch refusal to show them what real dancing is like, to give them a taste of the boogie-woogie, Wright, Wise and Harris breathe a sigh of relief and watch as caftaned Ann, her red lobster wriggling, lithe Melissa in swirling gusts of green, and full-figured Doreen, in body-hugging red, gyre and gimbol in the wabe.

Caesar, though jumping inside, stays seated. He’s not going to lose the men, to please the women. You won’t be seeing him break-dance, or play basketball. You’ll be seeing him play it cool.

Like right now, five minutes to twelve, as he excuses himself to go the Men’s room. He will not return until the hour has struck, the ball has dropped, and the kissing is over. Smart man.

Where’s Brittany? Oh, Brittany bailed and headed over to Rick’s. That was probably her car we passed on our way down the hill. She was feeling out of place among the opulence, a traitor to her cause. Her jeans and silky shirt will feel better getting down and dirty with the musicians.

Wayne was a disappointment. He refused to talk politics. And she had such a good opener. She’d prepared it just for him. During the salad course, she leaned over and said, “Do you know, that for the trillion dollars that Obamacare is going to cost, you could pay four million doctors the German state salary of $250,000 a year? If those four million doctors saw 15 patients a day, in one week they could see every man, woman and child in the country. One week. Medical care is cheap compared to the scam this government is running.” She sat back, pleased with herself, and waited for his reaction, as he realized how much a trillion dollars is and how much you could do with it.

She saw his eyes light up, the muscles in his hands tense. Then the light died and he relaxed. She was talking to the new Wayne. The quiet Wayne. The non-controversial Wayne. The Wayne who has to find a new voice, and hasn’t yet. “Interesting,” he said. Then he turned back to his salad.

Over lobster she turned to Dr. Wise, who has been annoying her with his fence-sitting, and said, “How are you going to spin this? The Mayo Clinic, the most prestigious, the most helpful, the most advanced, hospital complex in the country is excluded from almost all the health exchange networks; it’s too expensive for them. So now people who didn’t have insurance, but could get charity, AND people who had insurance before, but now have to have Obamacare, are going to be deprived of what’s thought of by many as the top, the ultimate, the if-they-can’t-fix-it-nobody-can.”

Dr. Wise recognizes someone who has recognized his technique, and takes up the challenge. “Easy,” he says. “Charity is dropping off everywhere.” As an aside, so as not to appear partisan (he can’t help this) he says, “Of course, we know why; it’s because the government has taken over charity. But put that aside, you have to be rich just to travel to the Mayo Clinic. You practically have to move in there with your family. Working stiffs can’t afford that. The Mayo Clinic is an option of the rich. They can pay for it out of their own pocket, or they can suffer with the rest of us.”

At least this guy is talking. Brittany says, “A lot of the big advancement in medicine comes from experimenting on rich people who don’t want to die. Where could you get a better lab animal?”

She isn’t waiting for an answer. She pushes back her seat, excuses herself, and on the pretext of using the ladies’ room, picks up her coat which she’s stashed in a convenient place just in case… and goes out the back door, to her car. Adrift between two parties and two years.

But now… the big screen lights up. There’s the ball. And there it goes. 2013 out the door. And we with it, to breathe in the fresh air of the New Year.

Home For The Holidays

What a relief to get out of New York City, and be back with the sane at the winery, for a good old-fashioned Christmas dinner, with plenty of cheer. We’re at the home of cheer, and the cheer is flowing freely. Too bad Wayne’s not with us, but maybe it will be more relaxing, and more of a merry Christmas without his lugubrious pronouncements and without his suddenly catching fire and burning us all with his vitriol. Right? Right.

Let’s see who’s here, sharing the big, bright room. It’s all lit up with different versions of chandeliers hanging from the rafters, some with fake candles – we’re afraid of the real ones – some with colored lights, each a magnificent work of art in its own right. Picture them in your mind’s eye, while we say grace for bringing us back to this happy place.

Several small tables have been set up so people can mix and mingle before sitting down to the big meal at the long banquet board. This is the casual, drinking part of the party –  the part everyone always wishes would last forever. Nobody’s inebriated yet, but everybody’s had their first exhilarating taste of sociability and relaxation. Their clothes are fresh, their hair’s in place, they’re full of the glory of anticipation.

Here’s a little group that looks interesting. It’s the good Dr. Wise, with his arm on and off around his date – quite an armful, the sensuous, sensitive, Doreen. How did that happen. Well, it didn’t. She came to her appointment, told him in his guise of “shrink” that she was dreading going unescorted to the Christmas party where she and her best friend forever, Melissa always shared a date, and I’ll be darned if the good man didn’t volunteer to see her through it.

They are not alone. Making up the foursome are Melissa, and… who’s that? Nobody we know, but someone we’d like to. A lean, muscular guy, of medium height, with grey/white hair that frames his face, curls over his ears and runs down the back of his neck. Of indeterminate age. He’s discussing the psychological effect of music on psychotics, with the good doctor, while the latter, below the table, rubs the small of Doreen’s back, no doubt to lend support in this trying conversation.

What’s this guy doing with Melissa? The last time we saw her, wasn’t she looking up into the eyes of Monroe, and wasn’t he looking back? Yes, but that was at Thanksgiving dinner in the student lounge. Steve is taking a course with him, but she isn’t. She’s taking a music course. And this is her teacher, Rick Zapata. Glossy, Mediterranean, polished by the music industry. It’s rumored that he was in one of the early rock bands, but nobody knows which one it was. Some of his female students pour over album covers on the Internet, trying to find his face, which was chiseled along the lines of a Greek statue, then smoothed out. His great grand-uncle was Emilio Zapata, the Mexican hero.

So what’s he doing with Melissa? He’s attracted to her brain. It helps that she comes in a pretty package, but he’s sick of flirting with newborns, which is what kids these days seem like to him. He came from an era where kids were people – THE people – everybody learned from them: how to march on Washington, how to get along with two pair of jeans and no haircut, how to smoke pot, how to talk back.

He misses that; then along comes this student who’s agile and quick, intelligent and understanding, is not devoid of musical talent… and invites him to a free meal. No, that’s not fair. Rick Zapata’s not for sale, and never has been. He goes where his nose leads him. His politics? They’re all over the place like his musical tastes. He picks the flowers he likes from every bouquet of life, and has ended up with a gorgeous hodge-podge of primo experiences. Melissa invited him because Wayne played two roles, and it takes two people to replace him. Zapata is her contribution to the party.

So let’s listen in as this illicit little foursome find out about each other.

Dr. Wise breaks the ice by establishing common ground. It’s always unifying to bash Bush at these gatherings. He’ll get them started.

“Have you heard that Dubya’s becoming popular with the young folks? The Millenials love him. They think he’s cool. He’s becoming a hipster-icon. He wrote a compassionate letter to a kicker who missed a field gold and lost the game… it’s all over Twitter. He paints pictures of cats. He’s a philanthropist. They don’t even remember how dumb he’s supposed to be. He’s a hero to them.”

The lovely lady in his arm picks up the cue. “That fear-monger? We spent a decade in duck-and-cover mode. Dubya and Cheney were pros at getting the American people to be very afraid. But now we’re just not that afraid anymore. We’re not afraid of gays marrying each other, or mooslims.” (Excuse Doreen’s indelicacy; she’s had two glasses of Winter White.) “We’re not even afraid of the evils of government regulation.”

Rick holds up his drummer’s hand. It’s big. He puts it right in the middle of the little table and says, “Whoa! What do you mean by ‘we’? And what about those last two? Maybe you should be afraid of the Muslims… not all of them, only the ones who’ve been telling you for a thousand years they want to kill you, and now are actually doing it, and doing a damn good job of it. And government regulation is making business and progress impossible. You gotta be nuts not to be afraid of it. The country is grinding to a halt because of government regulation. And going broke paying the salaries of a few hundred thousand regulators.”

What’s this? A renegade in our midst, thinks Wise. This is not the comfortable party he thought it would be. But it’s no bother to him. He’ll sit back and enjoy it.

Now Melissa has come alive. This is what she’s been missing. An antagonist. “People want to hear about the future. They don’t want to hear about the past. Republican policies always promise more freedom and more prosperity for everyone. But look around. It’s been over 30 years since St. Ronnie took control and 99% of the people have neither.”

“Ah,” Rick says, “The 99%. That’s just about everybody. That’s you. You don’t look particularly deprived. Nobody here does. We’re all the 99%. That one percent is so small, you can fit it on the head of a pin and blow it away, and it won’t make any difference.”

Yeah, these two are getting each other’s fires going. “Look at the mathematics,” the music teacher says. “Workers who are working twice as hard and making half as much as their parents did, the ones who have to rely on the government to pay their heating bills or give them enough food to eat, would love to see those regulations go away. It would mean jobs for them. They’d love to see the big corporations get tax cuts so they’d come back and start building things again. We’re a rich country, and everybody is afraid to spend their money, because the tax man is coming and they have to have enough cash on hand to pay for the right to live.

“We used to do what we wanted to in this country. Now we have to bow to The Man.” Rick’s got a good sense of timing. He’s a dramatic artist. He picks up his glass, and Melissa’s, and heads for the bar.

Dr. Wise shakes his head “Poor man, he can’t see we’re getting on the highway to universal prosperity, all he sees are the bumps on the on-ramp.” he says. “He just doesn’t understand Keynes.”

Some of you are looking around for the host and hostess. There they are, putting the finishing touches on the long table which is covered tonight, with an immense table-cloth printed with poinsettias, and set with square glass plates to suggest dining in a garden. There’s a fountain of Bubbly Rosé playing nearby, where Natalie and Billy the Kid are hanging out. Billy developed a taste for the bubbles in California. The Buddhists he befriended at the Thanksgiving dinner were lax with their cellar, and seemed always to be turning their backs on him.

The Harris’s Thanksgiving vacation upstate did them worlds of good. Ann is once more happy and at ease, gleaming in a gold lamé caftan. She’s content, and full of what feels like pride. She is one of the handful of people who have managed to sign up for health care. She does not yet know that though her particular form of incipient depression is covered by her new policy, she’s going to have to see a new psychiatrist, which as any of you who’ve been analyzed know, is akin to being suddenly assigned a new spouse, perhaps even one of a different gender.

But that’s in the future. Right now, Ann is one of the winners. She made it through the website. Of course, she’s a little miffed that now that she spent all that time and agony and made herself sick, Obama is saying she doesn’t have to have health insurance after all. And it’s very expensive. More expensive than paying the doctor bills herself, but you never know. Worse things could happen to you than being off your rocker, and it’s smart to acknowledge that possibility, and take care of it in advance. She feels like she won the lottery.

Donny is not so complacent. He sees trouble ahead. He doesn’t understand how Obama can change the rules just like that, any time he wants to. Taking away the mandates, one by one, excusing more and more people, from more and more parts. Maybe it’s a good idea, but is it up to him? Doesn’t Congress make the laws and the President see to it that they’re carried out? Donny’s got a very placid temperament. He’s wary of excessive movement, of extravagant actions. There’s no telling what bizarre change is coming next. It’s tensing him up. But his wife is happy and that’s good.

Behind the big bar, under the darkened big screen, are two people who’ve been seeing a lot of each other: Steve, and his guest, Brittany. Across from them, sitting on a barstool, is their guest, Professor Monroe. They’re all in a Government course together, and politics makes strange bed-fellows. Monroe was threatening to spend Christmas all alone; they took pity on him and invited him to the party. He’s drinking Holiday Wine, a heady blend of sweet berries, while watching Natalie at the fountain, and he’s wondering what on earth Rick Zapata is doing here. He’s heard about him, and considers him a disreputable version of what he himself is… that is, a sexy charmer.

Natalie and Billy the Kid cut out for a little breather. Monroe sees them go, and almost gets up out of his seat to follow, but Billy’s age makes him think better of it. Much to his chagrin, two seconds later, Rick Zapata shows no such restraint and brushes by him, with Melissa in tow. Their eyes meet once again. There’s a definite chemistry there. Feeling the brush-by in retrospect, Rick turns to get a look at the victim, and grins. “Dr. Doctrinaire,” he greets him.

Rick still does what he wants to. Natalie and Rick know each other. He even knows the cousin in Connecticut, who’s a bass player. Natalie knows most of the musicians in the county. And Billy the Kid… he tags along on every ride.

Settle back in your seats, readers, we are not following them. It’s twenty degrees, and the wind is blowing. Three days ago, it was spring. The robins had come back, the snow had all melted, and the thermometer went through the roof. No more jackets, no more hats, summer was right around the corner. Now winter’s back, with no snow cover, which makes it even colder.

Mellow party, huh? Real family job… calm, cool, nobody talking about anything they’re not supposed to talk about… just drinking fine wine, partaking of hors d’oeuvres from five different restaurants: dim sum, wraps, raviolis including mushroom, free-range wings, baked clams, big shrimp. Not much need for talk. Guests are getting a buzz on, feeling compatible with their neighbors, all’s right with the…

A gong rings out. Everybody freezes. It’s the bell for the winery proper. The bell that outsiders ring. Nobody’s expected. Nobody’s wanted. Who can it be?

Okay, readers… I told you not to go out there. Now you’ve come back in and you’re hallucinating from the cold and the too-good pot from Connecticut, and you imagine that the door has opened, and there is…

Yes, Melissa, it’s your husband. Are you in good enough shape to introduce him to your date? How about you, Doreen? Want to saunter up with that wise appendage you’ve got wrapped around you, and give your boyfriend a kiss? How about you, Steve, are you looking forward to your professor meeting your father?

Yes, Wayne, we are all so happy to see you! Shake off the cold, and come all the way in. Oh! You’re not alone. Who’s that with you?

“… my friend, Caesar King.” Caesar King? What the hell kind of a name is that? Well, it’s kind of a pseudonym, the name this guy goes as in his public life, which has eclipsed all of his private life. It’s the Black dude, from the library steps, with the twinkling eyes, and the devilish goatee.

“Pleased to meet you all,” he booms into the room. His deep voice fills it, and has the effect of bringing everyone closer.

Wayne puts an arm around Caesar’s shoulder. “Caesar, here, is my benefactor. Saved me from a fate worse than… Yessiree. You know what the New York cops did to that beautiful Indian diplomat the federal agents arrested in front of her kid’s school because she didn’t pay her maid minimum wage? Strip searched her, cavity-searched her, and threw her in a cell with a bunch of drug addicts. That’s what they were about to do to me, till my man here stepped in.” He squeezes Caesar’s shoulder.

Wayne’s going to tell the library story from the beginning. We were there and don’t have to listen. Let me tell you how it ended. They were about to cart Wayne away. He’d caused a disturbance, he had nothing ameliorating to say for himself, and he looked half-crazed. Caesar they let go as soon as they realized who he was. He’s been arrested and let go so many times they don’t bother anymore. He’s always in the clear; he’s never really done anything; they know who he is: the Black weirdo who’s a member of the Tea Party and is always where the action is, though they can never pin any of the action directly on him. The cops like him. He’s helped them out with crowd control. He tells them he’ll take Wayne home with him and sober him up; they seem to think he’s drunk – everybody else is.

So Wayne went home to Harlem – 127^th street, to what looked like a brownstone tenement outside, and was a sleek, modern, home-office inside – two bedrooms with bathrooms, each holding a bed, a desk, a TV, a computer, a printer, a coffee machine, a micro-wave, a mini-fridge, and a sink. No stove. The world of take-out is right around the corner.

Wayne’s been living in one of these rooms for almost two weeks. He’s been all over the Internet, checking and verifying everything Caesar has told him about the Tea Party.

Much as Wayne had hated the Republicans for not doing what he thought they should, he hadn’t really hated them until he read about what they were doing to the Tea Party. As he watched it on-line for those two weeks, he saw the Republicans cave on everything they claimed to stand for. There was only one explanation. There are no good guys. He’d been thinking of the Democrats as sharks, and the Republicans as life boats. But they were no such thing. They were just a different species of shark.

And from what Caesar was telling him, most of the Tea Party candidates who got elected couldn’t hold out. A rare exception, here and there, but so fragile an occurrence, it didn’t even pay to speak its name.

One thing Wayne’s learned in these two weeks is that Caesar King would not give in. He’s brought him home to try to turn his people around. He’s going to keep his mouth shut and let his candidate do the talking.

They’re clustered around him now. They’ve heard Wayne’s version of the library steps; Wayne’s forgotten most of what he said there, so didn’t report it. Caesar’s Black-ness makes up for Wayne’s craziness. Wayne has brought them a Christmas present. A genuine member of a genuine minority. They are thrilled to have him.

It’s Christmas. Peace on Earth, good will toward men. As they all take their places along the long table, awaiting the pork loin, the mashed potatoes, the salads, the refilled glasses, there is a silent pact. No more political talk today. Elijah is here. The one they’ve been waiting for. They will try to live up to his expectations.

And that, folks, is what Wayne is counting on.

Christmas in New York

Uh-oh, who’s that standing on the steps of the New York Public Library, equidistant from the two lions, dressed in one of those long black overcoats revolutionaries used to wear? He’s waving papers, and exhorting people as they go by. It isn’t… is it? It’s hard to tell. The weather is a mess; there’s slippin’ and a-slidin’. He’s yelling over the general honk of thick traffic, and nobody’s stopping to listen except a few old ladies who admire the cut of his jib, and a little group of bored adolescents, hoping to see some action.

A lot of people rant and rave in the privacy of their own family, but rarely does anyone take it out on the street.

These streets are packed with tourists taking the excursion down Fifth, from The Tree at Rockefeller Center, to 34^th, then to Macy’s windows at Herald Square. Suddenly, a bunch of them stop – three girls and a guy, in their New York thirties. Free, independent beings.

They march up the steps four abreast, laughing, looking more at each other than at the object of their quest. And they are quite something to look at. One is white, one is black, one is somewhere in between, and the guy is Asian. Hard to tell what denomination: Handsome. Big, and handsome. All dressed, as my mother used to say, “to the nines”. (I never knew why, but now you can look it up.) The girls are be-furred and be-sparkled; the guy’s wearing a top-hat: on him it looks good.

They’re coming from the office Christmas party, which has been getting earlier every year, and they are full of it. Full of Christmas cheer. They’re mounting the stairs to see what the nutcase up above is waving his arms about. As they get close, the shouter spots them, and finally has an audience to focus on.

“How could you not know that the global warming issue is a fraud? Fake data, politicians making billions on it, gearing up to cut you down, to let other nations – not Western nations – ‘catch up’. Pollution is the worst thing in the world, but only if the US does it. These other guys are entitled to ruin the earth. You had your turn. Now it’s theirs.” The three girls titter. That’s what girls do. They titter.

Our man – yes, we’re sure now… it’s our man all right, loose in the city and gone berserk. Our man is glowering down from five or six steps above them, pointing a finger.

“You and the goddamn You-En! They hate you, wherever you are on the poverty scale in America, because they know, even if you don’t, that no matter how low you are on the poverty scale in America, you’re better off than they are. You’re better off than some of their kings.”

“I’ll drink to that!” one of the girls shouts back. He can’t tell which one; they’re in a cluster and they all have their mouths open, laughing.

He comes down a step toward them, an intense expression on his face.

“You girls… and you” – he turns to the top-hatted male, who is clearly enjoying himself – “Have you woken up to the fact that Obamacare is just a swindle, to have the people who work pay for people who don’t? You work, don’t you? You want to pay for all these people? You…” he's still talking to the guy… “You want to pay for maternity insurance, in case you get pregnant? That’s what you’re going to do!”

He grabs the guy’s arm, but the guy is mellow. He sees Wayne swaying, but actually, he’s the one who’s not quite steady on his feet. It was a good party.

“Do you understand that they don’t know what they’re doing, and they don’t care? All they want to do is get you by the balls. And the boobs. Free this; free that. Well, it’s not free for you Buddy; not if you have any income.”

He steps back from his target, and peers closely at him. “Oh… you don’t have an income? You just have a billion dollar trust fund you draw from, and a mansion you live in? Oh. Then I made a mistake. It’s free for you, too, Buddy. And for Congress. And all the rest of Obama’s cronies who’re being excused in one way or another.”

He takes his eyes off the guy, and peers down at the three lovelies, through their feathers and fur, into their smiling faces and gives them the big, broad smile he was famous for in school. They shimmy a little – or are they shivering in their heels despite their furs? Wayne gives them a moment’s silent approval, then pulls himself together and goes on.

“Obamacare is a scheme to rob the not-so-rich to pay the not-so-poor, and gain control over your entire life, because what are you without your health? And that, now, is their business, not yours. You think they care about it as much as you?”

A few more people have stopped. Why not? Take a rest from pushing through the crowds: something’s happening here. Wayne notices the increase, and looks in its direction. “Everyone’s excused but you – you ordinary person, you.” He stares hard at a man with red ears above a green scarf. The man laughs nervously. He doesn’t titter. Men don’t titter. Most men.

“Everyone thinks somebody else is getting the benefit, but we’re getting collectively screwed.”

He screeches the word “screwed”, and it’s heard over the other noises. His audience gains another ring of watchers. It’s the Christmas spirit to listen to madmen. One of them turned out to be Jesus.

In the Christmas spirit, Wayne exhorts his ever-enlarging crowd. He looks taller. His voice is louder, as he shouts, “We can’t all be treated the same, because we aren’t all the same. Why does everybody have to take their shoes off at the airport? We’re told all the time we aren’t the same – divided up into as many races and genders as they can manage to divide us into in order to conquer us. Only not at the airport. There everyone is exactly the same – the ninety-year-old nun, and the nineteen-year-old terrorist.”

There’s a stir through the crowd for that one. A lot of these people have traveled to get here. To get a taste of Christmas in New York. They’ve forgotten how bad the airport experience was, but now they’re reminded. They’re grumbling – not just to their companions – some of the tourists are talking to locals, a lot of whom have come from Christmas parties and still spirited, are inviting their new-found foreign friends to dinner.

“We’re in for it now, people. Obama has nothing to lose. He’s going to go for broke, get as much changed as he possibly can, then Hillary will run for President with the promise to fix some of his changes, so she will win.”

A heckler yells, “You’ve got it wrong! It’s Michelle! Michelle’s the next president! It’s Michelle who’s going to fix it. Just like she’s going to fix him for kissing that blonde.”

Wayne doesn’t know what’s going on in the Middle East, but he knows all about the selfie of Barack and the babe at Mandela’s funeral.

He’s not going to be distracted. “Nobody’s going to fix it! Here’s what you’re doing. You’re supporting the transformation of a country that used to revere the individual – that’s you, Buddy, whether you’re rich or poor. That means we no longer give a good goddamn what happens to you; we care only about what you can and can’t do for the rulers. You don’t matter anymore. We’re all the same, equal.

Well the only equality is in poverty. The Republicans, who you hate, don’t want to make everybody equally poor. They want to make everybody rich, even if it’s unequally rich. And they understand how to do it. But you hate them and won’t listen to them. It’s no big secret either. Everybody used to know it.”

There are cheers for this. A good many of these people come from the Midwest. They’re people who know what work is. They’re Republicans.

But Wayne isn’t thinking anymore. He rarely meets Republicans. He’s still talking to his enemies. And now he’s going to make some more. He’s heard the magic word, even if he did say it himself, and he’s off on one of his favorite themes.

“The goddam Republicans… morons! Morons! Don’t they know how to talk? They should be out there shouting… look at what they did to all of you in the middle of the night, passing a bill that no one read nor understood. Not one of us voted for it. They should bring out some of the failings and pound them home, like everyone losing their insurance, what the new deductibles are, and which of your doctors aren’t covered anymore. And on the up side, come out with things that will bring down the cost of health care. There’s no need to destroy the whole system. Bill Clinton has come out against Obamacare. He’s setting the stage for Hillary to sweep in and change things in 2016.”

There are shouts of “Hillary for President!” It’s a high-pitched chorus of the faithful, the people whose dream of a woman president, Barack Obama stole. They don’t love the wunderkind half as much as they pretend to.

Wayne gazes out over these ladies, and takes a stand against them. He brings his big black-clothed arms before him and clasps his hands in prayer. “And please, please, Republicans, keep Hillary in the spotlight with Benghazi, and her role in that whole mess.” He now looks out at the people gawking at him, and pronounces, very carefully, “That totally… fake… thing… blaming the video no one had even seen – and the guy’s still in jail. They took him Gestapo style in the middle of the night. You know about that? How can you stand yourself for defending these people? I know, I know… you can’t! That’s why you beat up on Republicans. That’s why bullies pick on people… they can’t stand themselves, so they have to prove they’re bigger and better than everyone else.”

Watch that, Wayne. Bully is a bad word. You can call people a lot of things. But not “racist” and not “bully.” Then they know they’ve been insulted.

But wait. He’s going to clarify and make it worse. “Don’t think I love Republicans. It’s just that these guys running the show are tinhorn tyrants.

“We all know that the IRS stole the election. The Republicans lost, even though it seemed impossible that Obama could win. They couldn’t figure out why. Then it turned out that their base didn’t turn out. Republicans didn’t vote. ‘The base! The base! They lost their base!’ The base they lost was the silenced Tea Party, the people who needed to be told, ‘Vote for Romney even though he isn’t one of us. He isn’t a Commie; he isn’t one of them.’ The disheartened base, who wanted to overthrow the Republican establishment, and so was routed by both sides. Because the establishments of both sides are in it together!”

“Down with them all!” someone yells, and others join in. It’s this, rather than anything Wayne has said, that finally brings the cops. The yeller, now leading the chant… he’s a cool dude. Black, it so happens. (The guy’s a black tea partyer. But only you and I know that.) His eyes are twinkling, his voice big, his goatee devilish. He’s inspiring.

Too inspiring. Remember those bored teenagers lurking below stairs? They’ve got their action, and they’ve started pushing each other around in their excitement. Like puppies. They don’t mean any harm. They’ve oblivious to content. They wanted stimulation, and here it is. But they’re stronger than they know, and they’re bumping into others.

Here come the cops! They see the melee, then they look up and see Wayne presiding over it. They rush the stairs, grab him, and ohmigod, Wayne has been stopped and is being frisked. That’s what you get, Wayne, for going out on Friday the Thirteenth and calling attention to yourself. You and that black cat. They’re frisking him, too. This is way too embarrassing for us. We’re going to leave old Wayne, wish him well, and a Merry Christmas besides, in case we don’t see him before then.

We Gather Together

Happy Thanksgiving, you guys!

And to you Chosen People, a double whammy, Happy Chanukah, you can celebrate both. A rare conjunction.

You don’t know where I am, but I know where you are. You’re sitting around the big table in the winery. Somebody just checked his phone looking for someone else, and found me. Now you’ve all got me up.

Either you guys are predictable, or I’m clairvoyant.

Or you’re a damn fool, Wayne, because you’re totally wrong. Things have changed since you’ve been gone.

Doreen’s not here; Doreen and Billy are on the Left Coast – visiting her sister. What the hell, her man skipped out on her. Why should she hang around mooning over him? She’ll take a trip out to California and let herself be consoled by its beauty. There’s little left here; leaves are brown, there’s a patch of snow on the ground, and the sky is a hazy shade of winter.

The good doctor Wise has been thwarted. His love has gone off to California. It’s that jerk Wayne’s fault. Even when he isn’t here, he’s running interference. No matter what he tells his patients, there are good and bad people, and Wayne is bad. Sets himself up with a pair of unstable relationships, skips out on everyone who depends on him; fortunately they all seem aware that he’s completely undependable. Still, give him credit; he’s smart enough to see his situation is untenable and stubborn enough to decide that the one thing he won’t change is his mind.

But where is he going to go? Where is there more freedom? Maybe that’s the wrong tack. Perhaps a remote tropical island somewhere with a favorable exchange rate and a language he doesn’t understand. It will be more comfortable to fret about the future of his country from outside its borders. But he wouldn’t be happy anywhere else. He wants the tension, thrives on it, lives for it. That’s why he picks fights, makes himself loud, pushes his own buttons, gets carried away. Is it his political ideology that keeps getting him in trouble or is it his propensity for trouble that drives his politics? Maybe he’ll write a paper on Wayne’s case. It would ease the sense of competition he feels. After all, Wayne is his client. Better to be analytical than personal or political.

He’d had other plans for today. Romantic plans. Instead, he’s in his office, catching up on work, when his computer tells him he’s got mail.

Picking up where we left off, he reads:

I have become the low-information voter, and I can tell you, it feels good – damn good. I wake up and think about mundane things like what I’m going to have for breakfast. I don’t wake up and dwell on the news. I don’t know what it is.

For me, this is almost as profound as finding myself in someone else’s body. Before, I knew every little thing they were doing to the country. Now, it’s as if it isn’t happening. I go about my day doing ordinary things – the ordinary things of ordinary people, as our president calls us.

I have all of you to thank for this incredible change. I realized there is nothing I can do. Not even enlighten those nearest and dearest to me about what’s happening to our country. Why should I live in a perpetual state of misery over something I can do nothing about?

Why, indeed, smirks the good Dr. Wise. He’s glad to be rid of the creep. Doreen will come back. Maybe Wayne won’t.

The letter goes on, speaking to an empty room. The winery has seen the sweetest and best grapes in memory but the proprietor is having a tough time. Ann still hasn’t been able to sign up at the insurance exchange. Their old policy has been canceled; it had been paying for her shrink (not the good Dr. Wise – she was wary of sharing him with Doreen). She’s begun to have anxiety attacks every time she turns on the computer to try once more to enroll. Donny has taken her out for their dinner.

They’re eighty miles upstate at an ecological, environmental green restaurant Ann read about, where she can eat to her hearts content knowing that no slaves were involved in producing the chocolate for her torte, and no endangered species were accidentally caught when they snagged her tuna.

But Steve has picked up the letter. Steve hasn’t quit school as his father suggested, but he does have a job at Walmart. His co-workers love him; he’s so smart; he’s doing half their work. And it’s a breeze for him. He likes it. He likes it a lot better than school. It’s straight-forward, and it’s not personal. Not yet.

His mother didn’t take his father’s advice either. She didn’t get a job. She found another way to get money. She got a grant to finish her education degree. Melissa had dropped out of college to get married, just in time to have Steve. All she needs is thirty credits, most of them electives.

She’s taking a course in Audio Production, and this entitles her to be at the Student Thanksgiving Day Party, originally meant for out-of-county kids, but which this year has turned into an extravaganza; so many college age kids don’t want to go to the parental gathering. Some of you may have noticed that when your kid goes to college, he disavows you and everything about you.

Not Steve. Steve misses Wayne. He feels unbalanced. At home, he has to become him, conversationally. If both sides weren’t represented, it wouldn’t feel like family. He was brought up in a house divided. He knows that no matter what their ideas are, his father is still his father and his mother still his mother.

Little tables fill the lounge. Steve is at one of them, with a lady on each side. His mother, and Brittany, who had been thrilled to learn of a man driven from his home by politics, and is curious about his wife.

They’ve had a good laugh over how wrong Wayne is, imagining the crowd at the winery. Steve is reading out loud:

That doesn’t mean I don’t still think I’m right. Common sense and your own eyes will tell you I’m right, but there’s no talking to you people. You want things to be the way they aren’t. Three people, all teachers, have proudly told me that they don’t think anymore; they feel . One lovely young lady said, “Don’t try to convince me. I like myself the way I am. I like that I’m a person who believes what I believe.”

 I eat alone, with plenty of time to eavesdrop, so I hear a lot of conversations. Like the guy in the suit having lunch with his sister, who wasn’t bad, and her new boyfriend, who was a down-and-out, scruffy looking guy with a sour expression on his face, like he was too good for the food he was eating. Obamacare comes up, and the suit says, “Why can’t we go back to how they did things in the old days? You pay the doctor. No middle-man. Why do you want to pay a middle-man? It drives up the costs. It leads to cheating. Pay the doctor direct, and be done with it.”

 I see the sister trying to shush the boyfriend, but he’s off. He’s standing up, yelling at the man who’s buying his meal that since he has no money, and the suit does, the suit damn well ought to pay for his health care. He’s covered with tattoos and looks like he’s got cirrhoses of the liver. You can tell he blew it all on the equivalent of wine, women and song. “Nobody can afford to pay a doctor” he yells. “The fees are too high!”

I don’t rise to the bait anymore but I wanted to jump in with, “The fees wouldn’t be high, if government hadn’t gotten involved.”

“That’s it!” Brittany has spoken so loudly, she’s attracted the attention of her professor, across the room. Monroe, drawn to whatever seems to be where it’s happening, has automatically risen from his seat, and is winding his way through the tables, with his Elmer Gantry smile and his golden Hogwarts hair.

He arrives just as his grader, half-standing, with one knee on her chair, leans past Steve, to Melissa, eagerly saying, “He’s got it. It doesn’t matter what party’s in power. They’re two branches of the same party, the ruling party.” She sits back down in her seat and proclaims, “Wayne is the lone voice of sanity in a world gone mad.”

Melissa answers, “Wayne went crazy. This time he’s broken with reality for good.”

Brittany is about to dispute this, when she notices that Melissa isn’t looking her way; she’s looking into the eyes of Monroe, and Monroe is looking back. Perhaps it’s the pheromones generated by the two youngsters that has caught him, but Melissa is looking good – new hairdo, short and blunt, the latest eye treatment, and she’s lost a few pounds, worrying.

At the upstate restaurant, Donny and Ann are sitting side by side in a big booth waiting for their wild mushroom and mashed sweet potato appetizer. He’s reading:

The more the sister tried to shut her boyfriend up, the louder and nastier he got. Finally, the sister came around to the dead-beat’s side of the argument, turned on the suit, and blubbered, “When those kids start dying because their mothers can’t get them medicine, it will be your fault!”

Donny, you said Medicare’s been good to you. Well, Obamacare destroys Medicare. Medicare was a paid program, not a redistributionist’s dream. Somebody’s always got to pay. It’s just a trick if they tell you otherwise.

What’s more, it’s never a good deal if the government has an interest in your being dead. And that’s exactly how it is. If you’re alive, you’re asking for money to keep you that way. And there’s not going to be any money. We’re doing away with rich people, so who the hell is going to pay the bills?

“Good old Wayne,” says Ann, in a new, blue caftan, happily drinking someone else’s wine. “I wonder where he is.”

The beauty of virtuality. You can be in the next booth, or on the other side of the world.

Wayne is in New York. He figured it was stupid to leave the country, that he could live in a cheap hotel – he found one – keep going to work where they couldn’t care less about where he lived. Child support, alimony? He’s doing his family a favor spending his money on separate quarters.

This is the former land of Stop and Frisk. Not something a Libertarian like Wayne would like. There’s such a thing as rights, you know. But rights only work in a civilized society. Cities are war zones.

But let’s get out of the early-cold Northeast, where it’s been freezing, and snowing, and windy, and drop in on Doreen and Billy, who are enjoying a California Thanksgiving.

Billy and Doreen haven’t read Wayne’s message. They’re in a retreat, with a band of Tibetan Buddhists who believe in discipline, but also in pleasure. They used to live in New York, where they drank alcohol and coffee, but shunned marijuana because it wasn’t legal. Since they do most of their business on line, they moved to California, and like everybody else who wants to, have prescriptions for marijuana for various illnesses, real and imagined; it’s all the same to the doctor, and all the same to the drug.

Doreen’s sister is their guest. And Doreen and Billy are her guests.

“It will ruin your appetite” does not apply to little chocolate tarts laced with oil of marijuana that the acolytes have purchased and are sharing at the party. And nobody’s looking at the kids. They’ve been told what it is, and of course they wouldn’t touch it.

The rules are strict. No cell phones at meals. And this meal is going to last all day and far into the night. Let’s get out while we can.

Finally, someone at the winery gets the message. Natalie is picking up her parents’ mail. She’s all alone in the closed shop, watching the story of Thanksgiving on television. The Indians, the Pilgrims, the sharing, the tolerance… all that jazz. And she reads:

So Happy Thanksgiving, my friends. And don’t forget the lesson of the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims tried Socialism – the fruits of their labor belonged to the community at large. Nobody did a lick of work and they almost starved to death. If they hadn’t come to their senses, seen what was happening, and restored private property, you wouldn’t be chowing down together now.

“Hmmm”, Natalie says to herself, “I never heard that.” She takes a nice long toke from the bong she’s brought into the big room, and wonders what else she doesn’t know.

Ringing of the Division Bell

Hi Guys,

I left this morning. After the returns came in. Doreen thought I was watching with Melissa, and Melissa thought I was watching with Doreen. I already had my bags packed and was watching the sport in a bar.

Bill De Blasio’s going to be mayor of New York, so New York is going back to the hell it came from under Dinkens. No more walking in the park. You’re gonna get mugged. Always have a twenty in your pocket if you’re coming home at night. You’re gonna get mugged. It’s a cheap price to pay.

The criminals are laughing their heads off. They’ve already got their guns out of storage – the cops can’t hound them anymore. They were picking on minorities to stop and frisk, and that was deemed unfair, even though those are the people with the guns. It may be our fault for not recognizing their worth, but they’re still the ones with the illegal guns.

This is an open letter; I hope I don’t embarrass anyone. I want it to seem as if we are at a party, only I’m doing all the talking.

Let me give you an example of the kind of crap that finally made me quit. I’m sitting on the subway, listening to fragments of a conversation in the seat in front of me.

            “The Tea Party’s not about winning; they’re about venting. And grand-standing…”

            “It’s unforgivable that the government was shut down. Ted Cruz shut down the government for three weeks…”

            “They have deeply unpopular ideas. They’re going to the mattress to defend tax cuts for the wealthy, or to cut food stamps for the poor.”

            “They want to cut popular programs in ways that inflict lots of pain and don’t actually save money.”

            “They’re not offering smaller government they’re offering worse government. They’re unpopular populists. It’s bizarre.”

So naturally, I leaned over to enlighten these two ladies. The train was making a lot of noise, and I had to turn in my seat, but I did not loom over her, as she told the cop – not a real cop – some transit dude they called when the train stopped, who was standing out there on the platform.

Anyway, all I said was, “It would be bizarre if it were true, but that’s just propaganda you’ve been fed. I’ll bet you listen to NPR, and it’s a sure thing you read the Tiimes. The Republicans may be dumb, but they’re warm-blooded human beings, just like you, with a different slant on life.” I was nice as could be. “The government isn’t shut down. It’s unfunded. We are paying our obligations. We have plenty of money to do that. It was never in question.”

They didn’t say anything, but they were staring at me, so I took advantage of having their attention, to explain that the government shut down didn’t cost money, it saved money, that it was Obama who wanted it to be as painful as it could be so the Republicans would look bad, that the Tea Party is very popular with real Americans who want everybody to have the freedom to become rich, rather than to be kept like barnyard animals, and that it was the Democrats who shut down the government because they wouldn’t pass a bill that funded everything in the government but Obamacare, and that was because most Americans don’t want Obamacare, and the government forcing it down their throats is ignoring the will of the people, which this country is all about.”

After I got done repeating it for the so-called cop, out on the platform, you know what one of those women said to him? She said, with a hand on my arm, no less, “The next few years are likely to be hard for people like him,” like I was a mental case or something, and couldn’t understand what she was saying. “They’re going to lose all the time now. They’re going to lose legislatively. They’re going to lose electorally. They’ve already lost culturally.”

And there, my loved ones, she is absolutely correct. We’ve lost. They’ve won. At least they think they have. But they’ve lost the best country ever devised by mankind. A country devoted to man, rather than to man’s master. Man has always been ruled by masters. Except here. Now we have masters, too. And for some reason, they’re happy about it. They welcome their chains. They think their chains are golden. They think they can slip in and out of them. They’re going to be surprised.

I told the three of them, right there on the platform, that I was leaving the country. They wished me luck, and we all parted friends.

Not so with the guy on the stool next to me. We were drinking beer, and, I thought, having a good discussion, when suddenly, he turns on me and says, “You arrogant, know-it-all! And so self-righteous! The Tea Party, Hitler, and the Unibomber all in one!” I think it was my reply to the info-babe (who was talking about Ted Cruz) that set him off.

Let’s leave Wayne and take a look at his handiwork. He sent a long message, by old-fashioned e-mail. We’ll snoop around the neighborhood and look over the recipients’ shoulders as they encounter it.

Doreen had an appointment with Dr. Wise, and didn’t check her e-mail this morning, but the good doctor did. He has to. Suicidal patients could be trying to reach him. He’s reading to Doreen from his desk-top computer – a message from another client. Unheard of, and often done.

“I can’t sleep with someone who won’t think. It’s no better than masturbating.” At this, there’s a sharp intake of breath on Doreen’s part. Masturbating! With the likes of her next to him? And he puts it in a letter he sends to everyone she knows? The pig!

The good doctor is watching her face, and is quite satisfied with his decision to read it out loud to her. She’s the one patient he wishes would have “transfer” issues. He’d take her up on it. Plenty of psychiatrists believe it’s the best way for patients to work through the problem. Give them what they want. They’ll soon tire of it. Shrinks are only human, and that’s what they find out. With nowhere else to go, they begin to trust themselves.

The doctor has work to do, bringing out Doreen’s latent hatred of everything Wayne, and establishing himself as the bringer of peace via revenge. We move on.

Melissa has just opened her laptop at the kitchen table where her hands start to shake, and she spills her coffee as she reads, “My wife and family will be better off without my income. You know what to do, Melissa. Go right on down to Government Central, register your newly single state, and start letting good old Uncle Sam support you and your big baby.”

Steve picks it up on his phone, over his first coffee of the day in the student lounge, and gags over that “big baby.” But it’s going to get worse. “Yes, Stevie, my boy, yes, you’re still Stevie, still a little boy. You’ve got no mind of your own! Spouting your mother at me all the time. (Wayne doesn’t know that to his mother, he spouts his father; it’s worse than he thinks.)

“And what the hell are you doing in that half-assed college of yours, taking a course in Communism. OK, it’s cheap. But now you’ve got a chance to make it even cheaper. Get out. Go support your mother and save her from having to get on line to steal from the genuinely poor who need those food stamps. Even with the big screens and cell phones, there still are some people with no food. Get off your ass, my boy, and try being a man instead of a bigger baby.”

Woo! That’s a father talking?

Steve spots Brittany, looking a little haggard as she drinks her own first cup of the day. She’s fiddling with her phone, but he knows there’s nothing on hers that’s as interesting as what’s on his.

“Hey,” he says, “listen to this,” and continues reading. “When you go to college you get stupid. They take away your common sense.”

Brittany puts down her phone. “That’s good! That’s good!” she says. “Keep going.” Steve reads on. “They become drunks. Not you, of course. You had a proper upbringing at the winery. They become drunks because they don’t learn how to drink socially. They just learn how to drink. It used to be by the time freshman year was over, almost everyone was of drinking age. Now, it’s not until you’re ready for graduation, or after. Kids get out of school without having learned to hold their liquor in civilized company. That is a severe handicap.”

“Who is this guy?” Brittany asks.

“My father,” Steve says.

“Your father! Read me more.”

He sits down next to her, stretches out his legs, and lets his father woo her. “People are not participating in making the country better, and our rulers are not allowing the will of the people, which is the House of Representatives, to be heard. We have taxation without representation, because a lot of our representatives don’t listen to us, and the ones that do aren’t listened to by the big boys.

The people who have taken over won’t allow checks and balances to work. The House is supposed to stand in the president’s way when he becomes dictatorial. The whole entire idea of the goddamn Constitution was for the independent states to get together and form a government to build minimal protection against foreign foes, but never get the upper-hand with its own people. Obama is exactly what the Constitution was meant to guard against.”

“Oh, wait a minute! Wait a minute!” Brittany is standing. “You’ve got to read this to Monroe. I insist.” She takes his cup and they go up to his office. She’s the boss. She’s four years older, and an official part of the faculty. Plus, he’s kissed her. He follows like a puppy. Monroe is behind his big, ornate desk that has as many curlicues as his hair. He, too, is sipping America’s drug of choice.

Monroe and his grader have become quite chummy. They had to. She’s got a little nest in a corner of his office, and they’ve had a few “governmental” discussions, kept civil because of the man-and-a-maid situation.

“Professor,” she says, “you’ve got to hear this.” Steve picks up where he left off. “The strange thing is that even when we see how bad it is, when it’s there in pubic view how bad it is, if the press doesn’t report it, people don’t believe what they see around them with their own eyes.”

“That’s what I was telling you,” Brittany pleads with Monroe. “People don’t know what’s going on. We have no more free press. Just the big lie.”

She gives him an exasperated look, and he gives her a blank one. He’s not going to argue with her in front of a student.

“Oh, go on,” Brittany prods Steve, who doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore. His gonads have taken over, and led him to this place where he’s giving his father a go at his professor.

He reads, “You don’t start to build a supermarket by upsetting every apple cart on the block. None of this is supposed to be about winning elections. It’s supposed to be about making the country work. The Republicans are sick that they didn’t win the presidential election. And even though they have the House, they’ve decided they’re going to abandon the very things that gave them control of the House, because they think if they do, they’ll win an election three years from now. Ted Cruz, who did what his voters wanted him to do, who expressed his real, avowed opinion, shared by half the country, is vilified.”

Brittany starts applauding. She nods in encouragement to Steve, who keeps reading.
 

“And Obama is happy to be a destroyer. His view of the future is very similar to thinking that virgins await you in the next life. This life doesn’t matter… it’s the next life. Ditto America. We’ll kill it off to make a new one. It doesn’t matter how bad we make things now. Heaven awaits.

“Nobody is concerned about the intrusion on privacy, that the government will have all this data. They know more about your life than you do. They know things you don’t even realize. That you favor vanilla and have a predilection for artificial sweeteners. They know everything you eat, everything you put on or in your body. What the doctor didn’t tell you, what your boss wrote up on you, what your wife wrote to her lover about you, every bit of gossip that ever passed through cyber-space with your name on it, they’ve got access to, and now they know how to use it.”

Monroe is aroused. “Who wrote this garbage?” he asks.

“His father,” Brittany says proudly. “Isn’t he wonderful?”

What a sour smile that is on the professor’s face.

Wayne didn’t send the letter to any kid but his own. However, he sent it to his good friends, Donny and Ann Harris. Their computers sit side by side at the big table when there isn’t company, and they often read their e-mail to each other.

“Listen too this!” Ann commanded, and her tone was so imperative that Natalie, sitting on the floor behind the big bar, looking for boots on the Internet, tips down her phone to listen:

“What happened to you guys?” her mother reads. “Don’t you remember being out at the log when we were kids, smoking homey (remember how good we thought it was? Now you couldn’t even get a buzz from it) talking down the government? You were so smart then. What happened to you? Before, you knew government was the enemy. Now you’re making excuses for it. You’re still going to the barricades, but you’re on the wrong side. How the hell did you get there?”

Smoking buddies, was the most interesting aspect to Natalie. She thought her parents never touched wine’s rival… and anti-government? That she could not imagine. They worshipped Obama – at least her mother did. Her father was beginning to have doubts.

“What do you think of that!” her mother asked her father, who was slow to answer, then said, “Maybe he‘s got a point. I thought it was the Republicans who were bad, but maybe it doesn’t matter which party it is. Look what’s happening with Obamacare.”

“That’ll work itself out,” his mother said. “I’m sure even Medicare had problems when it first started up.”

“Not like this, it didn’t!” Her father was warming up. “This is never going to get fixed. It’s not just a technical glitch. They can’t get people to behave and do what they want them to do. People are too smart to co-operate, when their instincts tell them it’s not in their own best interest. Young people don’t want to buy insurance they don’t need so they can pay for some old codger hooked up to machines for his last stay at the hospital. And surprise, surprise, they aren’t!” Here he cackles. “It isn’t going to work!”

Now don’t get hysterical, Donny. Your daughter is crawling away, so you won’t know she was eavesdropping. Eavesdropping isn’t nice, Natalie.

Later in the day, when school is over, she’s going to repeat it all to Billy the Kid, who has become very interested in state’s rights since he met a girl from California who told him her parents buy marijuana bars to eat before they go to concerts. He has been mulling the inconsistencies, and feeling short-changed. He doesn’t like being governed, and he pretty much isn’t. Still, he knows it’s dangerous to do anything illegal, and he’s plotting to get his mother to move to California. He’s a sharp kid, but he doesn’t know that he’s already attracted official attention. Let’s hope his mother gets him out of there before the government takes it into their own hands.

But back to Wayne. Yes, he is coming to the end of his rant. “I go to a psychiatrist, and I find out that there’s no sense in my talking to anybody who disagrees with me. So there’s no sense hanging around, since there’s no one I can talk to.

“I love all you people, but what does it mean to love people who have no use for what you think? I have come to the conclusion that to be decent, life for me here has to be a matter of hiding my real feelings and thoughts. That, Dr. Wise, seems unhealthy. I have to go where there are people who have common sense. Common sense isn’t a plant that grows here anymore.”

Don’t call us; we’ll call you.

Later,

Wayne Wright (not Wayne Wrong).