State of the Union

Don’t ask where Wayne is… Okay, ask.

Wayne’s in the county jail. Yep. Wayne watched the State of the Union. He saw Obama up there, a tan Frank Sinatra, weaving his skinny frame down the aisle, winsome, buoyant, lithe as a little lad.

And then, when he began to speak, when all the women in the western world were no doubt swooning, Wayne lost all heart. The little lad did not go away. He only grew into a visionary adolescent – a smart adolescent, an energetic, enthusiastic, sexy, class-president adolescent putting on a show for you. Because he wants to bring you along on his happy tour of your country. He wants you to see what he sees, and you want to see it too, because then you can smile like him, and relax, because everything is okay. Better than okay.

Jobs are going up (in smoke), everybody’s going to be going to college (so they won’t be counted as unemployed, and the teachers’ union gets more dues), people are getting health insurance (but not as many as are losing theirs), and the stock market’s on a roll (the “Occupy” president loves Wall Street.)

One lie after another. All styles of lying. Half-truths, exaggerations, faulty reasoning, misleading statements, disguising of evil intents, prejudiced information, compliant statistics, winks, nods, tones of voice, false data, elbows in the rib… all just so you’ll understand what he wants you to understand. And no more.

He tosses a bone to Boner, poor guy, sitting there in back of him, with his green tie. Not red, oh no. Red’s for Republicans. Not even purple. That’s for bi-partisanship. No. Green. Green for co-operation with the environment, green for embracing new technology, green for just plain nice. You want to know what it really stands for, what Boner is really saying? He’s green with envy. Biden and Barack… they’re both wearing bright blue ties. Uplifting blue. No-two-ways-about-it blue. Boner’s is sickroom green.

Barack tells us that women are only getting 77 cents to the men’s dollar for the same job. Wayne is explaining loudly to the TV that it’s old data they’re using. And even back then it wasn’t true; it’s not the same job if you take time off to have a baby, take time off when a kid is sick.

But Wayne, wait! Obama’s going to take care of that. He’s going to give not only women time off, but men time off to take care of their kids. That way nobody loses. “Except you,” Wayne yells to the walls, “you in the audience out there, because you are the ones who pay for the maternity leave. You’re the ones who are going to pay for everything!”

He has to talk to somebody, and there’s only one person. He calls and gets a message. “Brit Brown is not here.” Simple and to the point. Like her. He hasn’t tried to even talk to her since Steve materialized next to her on that disastrous day. How can he get involved with his son’s girlfriend? But is she his girlfriend? He’s never seen him with his arm around her; they sure as hell don’t act like love birds, but he always seems to be with her.

Really? How does Wayne know? Well, he’s taken to frequenting the student lounge with Melissa – before her class, or when he’s waiting to pick her up. By the way, he’s back in the house now, but with his own bedroom – Steve’s. Steve has moved down to the basement to get away from the action upstairs. And Caesar is living at the winery, where he is wined and dined by Ann of the Caftan.

The phone has been no help to Wayne. The television is still on. He goes back to it. Obama suddenly turns dark and furious. No more Mr. Nice Guy… more like the devil, and you’d better watch out. He’s talking about opposition in the House. The people who won’t let anything good happen in America. Republicans – the Enemy!

When the big O gets on to all the things he’s going to do even if Congress doesn’t want it, Wayne stands up and yells, “What happened to the voice of the people? They’re called our representatives because they’re elected to represent our views.” But, he thinks, they don’t anymore; the Democrats might, but the Republicans are in bed with them. They’re planning to build a new house together – a big mansion that will hold all of them. And they won’t argue about money; they can plunder enough for all.

I notice you’re looking around. Melissa is not here. She’s watching with the women. Our three wanted to see their prince on the big screen. Word got around, and a coven has convened at the winery. Forty ladies are at the Obama orgy, sitting on bar stools, at little tables, at the big board, sipping Winter White, enjoying a night out with the girls, and their guy. Except… who’s that bending over one of the little tables? It looks like a waiter. Yes, that’s what it is. They hired a waiter for the State of the Union? Not exactly. He’s a volunteer. It’s Caesar. Quite a coup. Their own handsome Obamakin.

Pre-K for everybody! Hooray! The ladies are all clapping. What they’re thinking is, let’s whip those minorities into shape. Our kids are going to live with them.

One of the women, a teacher, whispers to her neighbor, “You know, they did a study, and it turns out it didn’t make any difference… kids were no better off if they went to Pre-K. It damps out if you don’t keep it up.” She nods vigorously. Her neighbor turns back to the screen, and her momentary frown returns to its beatific smile.

Obama says he wants all kids to have the same chance that he and Michelle had. Caesar is pouring wine for four of his charges, and says, in a low voice, for them, but speaking to Obama, “Yeah, man, how about giving them all the chance that your kids have – how about letting the kids in D.C. have vouchers?” And he’s off to the next table, as though he was just muttering to himself.

Back in his living room, Wayne is yelling, “He doesn’t care about the kids. The money won’t go for them. It’s just a scam to get more union members and more union dues.” And to himself, “to indoctrinate the tykes – less family, more government brainwashing.”

When the president says his two paragraphs on immigration, he never mentions illegals. It sounds like he’s talking about the old-fashioned kind of legal immigrants, not people who broke the law to get here.

He doesn’t say the word “fracking”, either, and this time it’s because he doesn’t want the environmentally religious left to know that when he says we’re switching our cars and trucks over from foreign oil to American natural gas, that means FRACKING.

And global warming? Our scientist-in-chief has declared climate change a fact. Of course – the ice age has been winding down for 10,000 years – but our miniscule tinkerings with CO₂ emissions from power plants is a joke. When are the Liberals, freezing all up and down the east coast, covered with snow in Georgia, where they never saw a snowplow… when are they going to wake up and realize there’s a global warming hoax. He answers himself… “When hell freezes over!” And doubles up laughing. He has now become hysterical. Tears are falling from his eyes.

And he’s out the door. And into his car. He puts on the radio, so Obama can goad him on, lying once again, this time about Iran, who is going to give up the first stages of building a bomb… And why? Because they’re already at the last stage! And he promises to veto any bill that gets in Iran’s way – no more sanctions on his new friends.

He’s driving faster than he should, but he’s racing Obama, who is going to kill him, trying to make himself sound like an American. Like a Republican. Hard work. Opportunity. All the things he’s made disappear.

So folks, here’s what happened. He didn’t have Brittany Brown’s address. He had the address where he’d once dropped Steve off to see her. Brittany lives… well, you’ll find out later. The point is, she doesn’t live in this split-level house in the middle of a development, in front of which Wayne is standing, pressing on the doorbell.

Who does live here? A friend of Brittany’s who is steering clear of an abusive husband. In fact, there’s a court order out on the husband. He is not supposed to go within 100 yards of his wife, who is upstairs now, besotted by Obama, and hears the ringing, which has turned to pounding on the door. She’s used to this. It happens all the time. She calls 911 to come and remove her husband.

They come. And they take away Wayne, who has left his house without his wallet, has no ID, and who, if he doesn’t go quietly is going to be booked for resisting arrest and grand theft auto, as well as defying the court order.

They aren’t listening to Obama in the police car, so he misses the end of the speech where the injured war hero receives the first honest applause of the night.

But we’re not going to stick with Wayne. That’s above and beyond the call.

Not everybody is so excitable. Not everybody feels it necessary to stand up for what he believes in. For some people, it’s enough to analyze. So let’s check in with our analyst, Dr. Wise.

The doctor is TIVOing the speech. He’s not in the mood. He’s depressed. He can’t understand why the women are falling all over Wayne. He’s got no savoir-faire. No polish. Not bad looking, but he’s getting a little worn, hair’s a bit thin on top… still, he’s got two women, and Wise has got none.

Actually, he likes Wayne, just because of his excitability. He thinks it’s sad that he’s so obsessed with how Obama is secretly ruining America, that he’s completely blind to how he alone is the source of all the ruin in his own life.

So funny that he shut up, gathered his self-control, and his life immediately got objectively better in every conceivable way. For one thing, the women came crawling. For another, he could stop straining his brain and his vocal cords.

So now, he’s jumped ship, run away from bliss in order to wreak havoc on more lives. (And the good doctor doesn’t even know that at this moment Wayne is in custody.)

Dr. Wise goes on, to his imaginary patient: “Wayne your problem is not with your stars, or the current occupant of the White House, it is with you.”

Meanwhile, he thinks, am I going to get any? Wayne is catnip to these foxy cats or catty foxes (Wise’s brain is always burning) and they’re just bored with an analytical, wise, doctor.

He starts to get down on himself, and he wonders if maybe, now that Wayne has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, he, the good doctor, can swoop in for a pity fuck. Swallow your pride, and act fast, he says to himself. Maybe once they let him into their beds, one of these women will figure out that he’s really not so different from Wayne. Not crazy, obviously. And not political. He’s got a real job. He’s definitely going to be more appreciative than Wayne has been lately.

Let’s take up Dr. Wise’s cause and consider Caftan Ann. Nobody notices Ann because she’s married to a faithful man, she’s always working, she’s nice to everybody… in other words, she’s boring. And she knows it, and is beginning to not like it. As we saw New Year’s Eve, when she appeared in lobster red, with hair to match.

Ann is a worrier. Her most recent worry had been health care, but she worked diligently, and has come up with a policy, way more expensive than the one she had before, but a bit different. Her shrink is not on the plan – he told her she could continue for cash – but Dr. Wise is. She can, if she chooses and he accepts her, become his patient. Dr. Wise does not yet know it, but she so chooses.

Let’s see who’s not watching, or listening, or caring about Obama and what he claims to be the state of the Union.

Billy the Kid came to the winery with Doreen, but only to get a ride to see Natalie. The two of them are getting cozy over a bong. Big difference in their ages, five years, but what the hell, she’s going to do it. He’s cute; he can hold his smoke; they see eye to eye about the important things in life. And he? What the hell… you think he’s nuts? He’ll take it, and be damn glad of it, and give thanks to Obama who has brought them both to this place. It’s an ill wind indeed that blows nobody any good.

Rick Zappata’s listening in headphones and playing drums to Obama’s rhythms. There are some things he likes, like the ten-ten minimum wage. And that My-R-A retirement savings plan might be a good thing.

But he doesn’t like throwing blame around when you’re the guy in charge. The rosy representation is not the way Rick sees the state of the union. Isn’t there a famous Marx brothers line: “Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?”

Professor Monroe is following the speech at home, alone, with a glass of wine, and he is angry as hell. What’s this talk about? Obama sounds like a goddam Republican. Jobs, jobs, jobs… Trying to squeeze them out of the private sector. To hell with the private sector. Let the government give out the jobs. It worked with Roosevelt; it would work now.

Put the illegals to work on roads. They use them, they got here on them, let them build them. Pay them a decent wage and keep them out of the hands of rich Republicans, who want to treat them like slaves on their plantations.

And all this talk about equal opportunity. Everybody knows you won’t have equal opportunity until the government makes it so. The government could run the whole show more fairly than these greedy wealthy corporate bigwigs. Obama is nothing but Bush Lite. If only we had a real progressive who delivered on his promises.

Steve and Brittany – the only ones unaccounted for tonight. There they are, watching in the student lounge, drinking coffee, and playing with their phones. Brittany picks up her message from Wayne. She calls him back. Too late, Brit, they’ve taken his phone. And his belt, and his shoes. He’s in a holding cell. But don’t worry; he’s got company. An illegal who was on his way home from hard work that Americans won’t do. He’s been building a stone wall for some rich guy and was picked up for hitch-hiking. He, too, has no ID.

And with that, we will turn off the lights, and let everybody go to their sweet dreams or nightmares.

MLK and Cookies

Wayne is a wounded warrior. His closest ally, Caesar, thinks no more of his political prowess than do his closest enemies – wife, mistress, shrink… everybody would like him, please, to shut up. So he has. And he’s miserable. Everybody can see it, and according to their nature, have taken an attitude toward him.

Like a wet noodle, they pick him up and drop him where he falls. He bends, he flops, he goes through motions; the shapes he takes are graceful, because they’re random and have no mind behind them.

His mind has fled. It’s sick in bed somewhere deep inside his skull, hoping some good medicine will come and take away his malady. He’s in mourning. His country is being given over to its enemies. The Iranian big-wig has announced to his people that the world powers have surrendered to Iranian will. They are now free to build their nuclear bombs, as they have been doing all along, and with them they will do whatever they damn please. Obama has made a deal, spitting in the face of Congress who did not want this and, in fact, wanted further sanctions. Here, even some of the Democrats opposed him. They are after all, still Americans.

Obama… never was, and never will be. Brought up in Muslim schools, tutored from an early age by Communists. Taught that what’s good for the world is the downfall of America. That’s what he’s here for, and that’s what he’s bringing about.

He says he has a pen and he has a phone, and we are not going to wait around for legislation. This is what we in America used to call “dictatorship”. He’s ended representative democracy. The “house of the people” no longer has a voice. We are now governed, not by laws, but by innumerable executive edicts and unfathomable executive agency regulations.

Yes, well, let’s get out of Wayne’s head, and into his body, which is stretched out naked on a bed, being oiled by a statuesque beauty, also naked… (Aren’t you glad you didn’t stop reading?) who, straddling his back, is sweeping her long, dark hair, out of its bun and down, rhythmically across his neck, as she kneads his shoulders. He groans, and she puts pressure on the front of his right shoulder, to turn him over. He complies, weightless and amenable, flexible and without will. He finds himself looking into her fine brown eyes, seeing colors he never before noticed. And seeing nothing else.

“Wayne,” she says, wiggling a little, in case there’s someone inside him who can take a hint. The patient lifts his hand and gently runs his fingers down her cheek. He looks lovingly into her eyes, and thinks, “Liberals are sweet, but they don’t understand money. The country’s in big economic trouble. It needs money. Why won’t they go to the dread Republicans, whose crime is making money, and ask them how to do it, instead of going to the people who are always complaining that they can’t make money, and asking them to please try again, and again, and again?”

Right here in his lover’s bed, with her long, strong legs squeezing him, and her more than amazing breasts jutting their perky nipples right in his face, Wayne is beginning to foresee that to talk the talk would mean to walk the walk. If he adopts their rhetoric, if he accepts that it’s about what they think it’s about, he has to give up his principles. He has to concede. And he can’t. Because the country is going to hell, and they’re taking it there.

He raises both hands and a breast moves into each one. Big, more than he can handle. He spreads his fingers, to receive the bounty, but it’s automatic, like catching a ball. What he’s thinking is, “People like being part of the crowd. If you’re with a bunch of people all saying something, you say it too. And if you say it, you’ve got to believe it, or it won’t be any use. That’s what herds are about.”

And it’s not what he’s about. He’ll render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and go back to being who he is. Ever since New Year’s Eve, when he made that resolution to shut his mouth, both his women have been trying to stick their tongues in it. There’s either a competition, or a co-operative movement.

He’s sick of them both. They’ve been fawning over him, making him feel like an invalid. He has nowhere to go for respite. He vaguely remembers that girl (What was her name?), the grader, Steve’s friend, talking to him over lobster, or was it salad, at the long table that night. He can’t remember what she said. He knows it fired him up for a minute, and that’s when he made the resolution, and turned away from her. How rude is that?

Suddenly, he’s impatient to get out from under this Amazon, and seek the skinny, stringy blonde, the thought of whom now springs up under and then into Doreen, whose face brightens as – he doesn’t know which – she’s won the competition, or done her sister a service.

She finishes him off, and like a good nurse, covers him with a blanket, and happily leaves him to his contented sleep. But Wayne is neither contented nor sleepy and when the bedroom door closes behind her, he dresses, as quietly as he can and slips out.

He’s in his car, driving to the college, where his search will start. The weather has been crazy, alternating winter and spring. One day it’s green, and the next day it’s white. Today it’s white lined with green.

He’s on the prowl, but only for one particular prey, that rare commodity, a female who understands his viewpoint, who shares his beliefs. It’s his brain that needs release, not his body, though the release of his body seems to have triggered his flight. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

As he drives up into the hills, past the striped green and white fields, he’s thinking about his loving Liberals, and how they’re ready to risk American civilization, and maybe that of the world, because “there must be a better way,” when ours is the best way yet found. They don’t realize that when the dam is breached the results are not slow and calm – there is a crashing flood. Downfall and overthrow are not pretty processes. Revolutions are never glorious. They’re bloody and awful. The hate engendered doesn’t dissipate for centuries. If ever. It’s hard for Wayne to believe that it’s happening here, in his lifetime.

Well, our boy is getting morose again, and we’re going to let him continue without us, while we look in on Dr. Wise, who has just received a phone call from a patient who was crying and needed to unburden herself to a professional. A man he had told her not to take home with her, disappeared from her house minutes after they did the dirty deed.

One thing he both hates and appreciates about his profession is the necessity to rise above it all, and speak as if he had no feelings, no predilections, no desires of his own. He hasn’t seen Doreen since the New Year’s Eve party which he attended only to protect and comfort her.

He didn’t understand why people got excited about the New Year. That particular night wasn’t any more or less significant to him, but he knew, from years of practice, that it was very important to most everyone else. He would have preferred to celebrate the New Year by treating it the same as every other night. And he should have, for all the good it did him. He felt like an unnecessary appendage whose bandage Doreen had to change every half hour, while she lavished her attention on the man on her other side.

He was more than a little miffed at his patient, and remembers that girl, Brittany, trying to make conversation with him. What had she said? She’d been talking to Wayne about German doctors, and it had sent his fancy to the state of medicine in Germany, to their hospitals, which he’d seen, that were like hotels with parks, and the operations they performed that were so far in advance of everything here – science fiction. He didn’t manage to hear what her point was.

But then, that academic, she’d turned to him, and tried to make him defend Obamacare, which wasn’t fair. As anyone can see it’s taking away options and diminishing what people can get, all in the name of equality. The point is, after the suffering, will things get better? The suffering is already here.

He knows, because his patients are calling him up in hysterics when they find out the policy they bought is one that does not include him. They don’t want a different doctor. But they can no longer afford him. It’s beginning to look like the search for equality is a downward journey, and we only reach our goal when we’ve all hit bottom.

This is actually making the good doctor angry, and he’s wondering in whose name and by what authority can anyone come along and demonize inequality. Inequality is the engine that creates wealth. It is the ambitious, perhaps greedy, people getting ahead and dragging the rest of society up with them, people with energy to burn, and imagination to create, who are responsible for our heightened quality of life.

And the poor? Jesus said the poor will always be with us. Well, he can not help but see that the Obama administration has assured this. They have defined poverty to be the bottom 20 percent of American households. Even if, miraculously, everyone were able to live in luxury, there would still be a bottom twenty percent.

Dr. Wise can not stand nonsense, and this fooling with the language is beginning to make him sick. Inequality is the way of nature. You would think that nature-loving Liberals could see that, and they would be able to if they weren’t taken in by words. It can’t be helped. If you grow thousands of tomatoes, some will be better and some will be worse. It’s the same with people, as he well knows, because he knows people.

Half his practice is freeing his patients from words, from ideas. Mao, Fidel, Hitler, Stalin, brought real unhappiness and destroyed a huge percentage of the population in the name of an idea. Get rid of the rich. The rich Jews, the rich Bourgeoisie, the rich Americans. Take what they’ve got; give it to the poor. Only the poor never get it. The buck stops here, with the government. Nobody but the rulers can get ahead, and that they do, truly, on the backs of the people.

A semanticist will tell you these socialist ideas are null because they embed contradictions. But you don’t need a semanticist to see that “from each according to his ability” leads to the slave mines where you work till you drop. How else to determine “ability”? “To each according to his need”? Who determines what need is? The government? You’d find yourself with very few needs. The individual? Practically the definition of “conflict of interest”.

He’s even taken a new dislike to Lennon. Not Lenin, but Lennon. “Imagine no possessions.” Yes, John, you imagine it. Eating on the sidewalk, shitting in the gutter. Like animals without the brains they were born with. No, he can’t buy it.

The good doctor is none too happy with the turn of things, and he’s not a man to let himself be tricked. Envy and jealousy are being rewarded in order to tear down what we’ve got, to “build anew.” Political pathologies are all based on envy. We’re already addressing it in our schools. You can’t have scores in games, everybody gets trophies, nobody is allowed to be better than anybody else.

We now have 3 unhappy people. Isn’t anybody feeling good?

Let’s skip on over to Caesar King, who’s preparing for Martin Luther King Day. We can find him at the college, in the student lounge, where we have had so many good times. Everything is in chaos here for the big whoop-de-do tomorrow. There isn’t anybody who goes up against King – Martin Luther, that is – and Caesar is going to take full advantage of that.

The NFL playoff game is going on high on a wall at one end of the room. Big audience, mostly male, drinking Coke and eating bagged snacks, getting excited, raising up in shouts or groans… and at the other end of the room, the band is setting up for tomorrow when there is going to be a celebration… of guess what… the racial unity that Martin King dreamed of. Racial unity. Not what we’ve got now, but what we were on the way to when the Dems decided it wasn’t happening fast enough, and they’d give it a great, big shove in the wrong direction, just to get people thinking about it again.

The show will be a Bob Marley tribute. Not rap, but Reggae will represent the brothers and sisters, because Rick Zapata is in charge here, and he’s a friend of the family from a long time ago when he lived in Florida and shared Bob’s sensibilities, and a lot of his ritual herb.

Caesar has been quietly assembling the pieces of his project. It’s Rick who applied for use of the room and volunteered the services of Caesar, who stood by, hat in hand, patiently awaiting the thanks of the bureaucrat in charge who asked nothing about his politics, but assumed, from his color, that he knew them.

Brittany and Steve are watching the game. They’ve made up, since she refused to go to Zapata’s with him New Year’s Eve. She came eventually, and it was flattering that she’d had to struggle to get there. Even if the struggle was with herself.

Not far from the screen, Professor Monroe is sweetening up a sweetie with talk about his lack of interest in violent sports, and the threat they pose to innocent people who don’t know how dangerous they are. He’s full of statistics about concussions and suicides, and also full of himself, which the sweetie can detect. Poor Monroe. So good-looking, and so not-looking-good. The sweetie tells him that this is a duel between two gods, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, and that these are two of the most desirable men on Earth. So much for the egghead.

Speaking of looking good, here comes Wayne, invigorated from the cold, filled with speeches, stomping the snow off his feet like a good boy, no matter how much of a hurry he’s in, looking around to see if she’s here, because if she isn’t, he doesn’t know where to look, and THERE SHE IS! Under the big screen, looking up at the game.

He makes right for her. He’s got a million things to say. He’s been preparing all the way over in the car. He wants to fill her in on everything he’s got in his head right this minute. Let’s look into his grey matter, and see what it is.

Obama and the Democrats are thwarting our rules. We’re losing America. The Republicans don’t represent the people who elected them. For all of them, their livelihood, their power, depends on how much they get to spend.

If their business is addressing problems, it is not in their interest that there be no problems. Some 90% of Americans have expressed no confidence in Congress. Our “representatives” feel the need for black boxes for cars, so they’ll know where we are every second, for smart meters so they know and ultimately control when we’re cooking or drying laundry. Terrorists aside, they’re happy that NSA is checking calls, e-mails, and texts. In the information age, it is even more true that knowledge is power.

Through it all, while the state’s tentacles reach out, we’re losing jobs, homes, health care, and worse, the concept of personal preference.

Okay! He’s reached her, the ideas in his head throbbing to get out. He puts a hand on her shoulder. She turns. She sees who it is. She smiles. They’re beaming at each other, when a voice at her side says, “Hi, Dad.”