FAUXMONT with Fred BlogZ

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

Reference: Post 195. Interrupting the Show, and 163 METRO

It is a sunny day at the Hadron Shopping Center.  A huge flat white desert of glistening ice covers the curbs and plantings that divide the parking lot. A yellow plow moves back and forth, having cleared only a fraction of the parking spaces.

Lark Bunlush steps carefully out of the doorway at the Patanjali Yoga Meditation Center with her rolled green yoga mat under her right arm.  Followed by Maynard Keyes with his yellow mat under the arm of his massive fur-trimmed orange down jacket, reaching below the knee. Ice chunks are piled up on either side of the narrow path to the parking lot. 

I stop by the entrance to Ab and Cheek Fitness Center, next door, to let them by on the narrow lane cleared of ice on the sidewalk.

“Hi, Fred, are you going to work out?”

“Me, Maynard? That will be the day.”

“It will strengthen your ice-breaking muscles!”

“I would settle for my own personal jackhammer.”

“Yeah, I could use one too, Fred. Look at this ice!  It’s at least eight inches thick.”  Lark points to the digital thermometer outside the bank.  “It is only 16 degrees out here.”

She kicks a chunk of ice out of her way and nearly loses her balance.  Maynard steps forward and grabs her wrist.

“It was like grains of sugar coming down, Fred.”

“I know, Lark, not a flake to be seen.”

Maynard kicks another chunk of ice.

“It fell like rain last night, not floating quietly in the dark.”

Maynard points toward a nearby ice mountain rising at the end of the plow’s run.

“It’s like sedimentary rock.  Look at the stripey sediments over there where the plow cut a lane through.”

A Tesla pickup with blade attached pushes a growing wave of ice and snow past us towards the ice mountain.

“Hey Fred!”

It is Albrecht. He opens the window and raises the blade, reverses the truck, and pulls up by the sidewalk.

“Albrecht, do you know Lark and Maynard?”

“No, sir, how are you doing, there?”

Maynard removes his gold-coated sunglasses.

“Glad to meetcha.”

“Be seeing you.”

Lark waves a mitten at him.  Albrecht lowers the blade and plows on.

“Maynard, I don’t see your car anywhere.”

“No, Fred, it is iced in, over in DC. Lark gave me a lift in her Toyota.”

“Yeah, I picked him up at the Metro.  Boyd and my neighbor cleared the car and driveway.  It took all morning.”

“For which I thank you and Boyd and them, Lark.  I needed an ice ax and mountaineering crampons to get to your car, over the Andes the plow put up against the curb.”
“Have you got time for coffee, Fred?”

“Sure, Lark, Chez Roget looks open.”

We walk over. There are plenty of empty tables. Lark and I sit down at a small table by the front window.  Maynard buys a round of coffees at the counter.

“So, Lark, I am glad to see you up and about!”

“Yeah, Maynard has been so kind.  I call him ‘mother hen’!”

“Yes, he has a mass of feathers on today.”

“Right.”

“How are you doing with your asanas?”

“Oh, okay, I guess. I have started Yoga and meditation again, and joined a Buddhist Zoom group.”

“Are you reading any of the dialogues?”

“We have been into ‘The Milinda Panha’.”

“What is that?”

“The Questions of King Milinda, Fred.”

Maynard puts down three coffees for us and takes off his jacket, which then engulfs his small chair in orange nylon. “That’s it, a Pali text, recounting the questions of the Bactrian Greek King, Milinda or Menander, put to the sage Nagasena.”

“Yes, I think Milinda was a descendant of one of Alexander the Great’s generals.”

“That’s it, Lark.”

“So, you are both in this Zoom group.”

Maynard gathers the nylon around his chair, trying to make way for new customers. “I have been an occasional participant for years. I got back into it when Boyd showed an interest.”

Lark puts her mittens on the table, which barely has room for them. “Fred, the main thing I have learned from Buddhism is to accept whatever comes to mind, know what it is, and let it go.”

“The letting go can be hard, Lark.”

“Yeah, a lot of toxic stuff built up and poisoned my consciousness.”

“Maynard, your jacket is almost the color of a Buddhist Monk’s robes.”

“A little too flashy for a kāṣāya, I think.”

“True, you are not the monkish type.”

“Quite so, Fred, as a matter of fact, I have been attending services at the National Cathedral.  It is not far from the Sorrell sister’s haven.”

“You are full of surprises, Maynard.”

“The cathedral itself, its interior light, sounds, and atmosphere, all work on me.”

“You have said that before. What do you mean, ‘working on me’.”

“I mean, Lark, that it takes me out of myself.  It’s all rather intuitive and hard to explain when I think about it.” 

“Well, that sounds quite mystical to me.”

“So it is, Fred, in fact, it is best not to think about it. By the way, Fred, are you following the eightfold path?”

“Nowhere near, I have a lot of plowing to do, to clear the way!”

“Don’t we all!”

Lark sips her coffee and recites the eightfold path.

“Right View: Notice how all things change.

Right Intention: Choose kindness and compassion.

Right Speech: Speak truthfully.

Right Action: Do what helps, not harms.

Right Livelihood: Earn your living ethically.

Right Effort: Be diligent in your practice.

Right Mindfulness: Pay attention to what’s happening.

Right Concentration: Meditate for clarity and concentration.”

“Well done, Lark!”

“Fred, I can memorize anything; following the path is something else.”
“Yes, we are bombarded with insstent distractions in all the media.”

“I know what you mean, Maynard, You Tube is currently taking up far too much of my time.”

“Oh, I quite understand, Fred.  Think of it. The last four generations have been conditioned by commercial TV.”

“Maynard, my attention is absorbed by it.”

“That’s why politicians have to entertain us to succeed.”

“We, who live in a republic based on noble ideas from classical Greece and Rome!”

“That all came through the Enlightenment, Maynard.”

“Fred, the notion of self-mastery and enlightenment has given way to seduction.”

“It’s all PR now.”

“Our Gesellschaft ist aufgelöst!”

“You mean our system is dissolving?”

“Yes, in an acid swamp called social media!”

“Come on, Maynard, it isn’t all acidic.”

“No, but I think its effect is largely sour and poisonous.”

Lark’s two black leather mittens fall off the crowded table when she picks up her rapidly cooling coffee. “It is a wilderness.”

“Labyrinthine!”

“Yeah, Fred, and I got lost in it and was about ready to die when you guys came over with Boyd.”

“You were in a real swivet, my dear.”

“You and your obscure vocab, Maynard!”

“Call it panic, or aggravated nervousness.”

“I would call it hell!”

“You should know, Lark.”

“Fred, I am an activist.  Always have been and now I have stalled.”

“Cluck! Cluck! Cluck! Lark, you’re revving up now in a good and steady eightfold way.”

“Hear that, Fred?”

“Oh, Mother Hen, you mean?”

“He has been clucking at me for months.”

“She is part of my brood, Fred!”

“How about that, Maynard!  Who else are you raising?”

“Why, the Sorrel girls!

“Seems to me you have a flock of raptors, there.”

“They are lively, all right, and strong. You might say I am fostering their Gemeinschaft.”

“Well, I might if my German were up to it.”

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

Reference 163 METRO

Ossian is sitting in the middle of the intersection of Wicket and Oval Streets. Steve pulls on his retractable leash, but Ossi won’t move. He spreads his forepaws for stability. A cold breeze ruffles the long white fur on his back and around his face, over one eye.  

I am wandering over to the Safeway.

“Lucky there is no traffic!”

“Fred, once he settles like this, I either have to pick him up or haul him like a sled to the side of the road.”

Ossi watches me until I put my hand in my coat pocket to get a glove.  Then he trots over and puts his paws up on my knee.

“He thinks you are bearing snacks!”

I step over to the roadside, by the ditch and Ossi follows as a pickup goes by with a rattling trailer.

Ossie lunges forward and Steve pulls back, locking the leash with a click. Ossi runs in an ark back to me from the truck remembers the promise he saw when my hand pulled the glove from my pocket.  Then he goes into a crouch looking hard up Oval Street hill.

It is Lou coming down with both hands in his coat pockets, against the cold breeze. 

“Lou! Hope you are in better shape than our republic!”

“At least masked gunmen aren’t breaking into my house, Steve.”

“You remember, Lou, when Grant Gazberg came to speak at PU?”

“Yes, years ago, at the Sociology department. There was nearly a riot.”

“It is probably the only progressive department there.”

“That’s right, Lou, they made so much noise you couldn’t hear him speak.”

“You know why?”

“Those people were just the other side of the extremist coin.”

“As I remember, he was spreading some story about immigrants bringing rotten fish on campus.”

“bel Vionnet catches up, having stopped to talk to some kids with a puppy.

“Are you talking about the food poisoning at the PU cafeteria?”

“We are, bel”

“I think there were only three employees from Cameroon, and they became scapegoats.”

“That’s all been discredited now, hasn’t it?”

“Those three lost their jobs though, Fred!”

“That was disgraceful, just so wrong!”

“Yeah, bel, wasn’t it traced to E. coli on the lettuce?”

“I believe so, Fred. The point is, I think Gazburg should have been allowed to speak, even if he was spreading absurd lies.”

“People believe that stuff!”

“I know, Lou.”

“Those lies are dangerous as well as absurd.”

“What do you mean, bel?”

“People are enchanted by their associations.”

“But we are talking about a university!”

“Fred, otherwise intelligent people come to feel their identity depends on the illusion.”
“bel, people go to university to be challenged and think in new ways.”

“Some do, but I am not sure that is generally true.”

“So why do you think they go, bel?”

“To get a qualification.”

“Oh! A cynic might say, they are buying a prestigious ticket with fees.”

bell is grinning at me.

“Fred, cynicism is the wisdom of small minds.”

“You mean my tiny mind has shrunk?”

“I don’t take you for a cynic, Fred.”

“Thank you, bel,”

Steve drops another treat for Ossi who is agitating for a greater length of leash.

“Well, the extremists don’t want you to hear anything but their own message.”

“Right, Steve, at maximum emotional volume.”

“Most people aren’t extremists, but they get an outsize amount of attention.”

“It makes for good television, Fred.”

“Not only tv, but podcasts, and comments on social media.”

bel sweeps her long thick yellow woolen scarf over her left shoulder. “So, they claim their right to freedom of speech to strengthen the illusion.”

“What illusion?”

“The illusion that they have the answer, Fred.

“Something that isn’t true, you mean.”

“Exactly, Fred.”

“Like shouting “Fire” in a crowded room.”

“I think you can be prosecuted for that particular lie.”

“Lou, freedom of speech for a speaker at an event is one thing, but so-called influencers, are often online.”

“Steve, once they reach a sufficient level of notoriety, they start making appearances.”

“And raking in the dough from online advertisers.”

“Well, Lou, only from those who don’t mind an association with that brand.”

“A bodily presence you mean, Steve?”

“Provocatively clothed, of course, Fred.”

“With an emblazoned tea shirt!”

“And baseball cap, don’t forget the baseball caps!”

bel, drops a treat for Ossi who is barking at a passing cyclist.
“When Rusty Steele spoke at the PU Retro Advancement festival, last summer, someone threw a goatmilk strawberry shake at him, staining his ten-thousand-dollar Samurai Jeans and freezing his crotch.”

“That was Gavin Goiter, bel.”

“I remember. It was the same day, Petra Pettykins the Back to Corsets advocate, drew a huge crowd.”

“And, bel, activists from the Healthy Belly movement threw whale bone stays at her and she had to leave in the middle of her presentation with a bleeding cut on her face.”

“Now that is powerful television drama!”

“You might even call it “reality TV”, Lou.”

“You couldn’t get away from that clip for weeks.” Steve looks up after calming Ossi with a vigorous ear-rub.

“Rusty is the one who insists that Hilary Clinton is a cyborg and women who wear jeans are tempting men into sin.”

“Well, the thing was, he claimed that women in jeans deserve rape and abuse.”

“Fred, that is also absurd.”

“It’s got what they call ‘resonance’ in too many minds.”

“That’s what I mean by enchantment!”

“Kind of like a spell cast by PR.”

“Steve, the enchanted can’t see the real world.”

“They dwell in their own happy reality!”

“The cops chased Gavin across the parking lot and tackled him, you know.”

“So they did Lou, and when they pulled Gavin up the cameras caught his bleeding face.”

“Oh, yes, it was right out of a police procedural.”

“There was an online storm as to whether the assault had pushed him onto the asphalt or whether he tripped over a loose shoelace.”

“Or he had his face kicked in.”

“Fred, the vids showed he was wearing loafers.”

“Gavin Goiter’s freedom of speech was abrogated by those cops.”

“Okay but he didn’t say a word, Steve.  He threw a milkshake.”

“Lou, that counts as speech, in the context of that moment.”

“Steve, it’s a demonstration, not a spoken sentence.”

bel is sorting the tangled fringe on the yellow scarf, hanging from her right shoulder. “Either way he was injured by the cop’s action.”

“True, bel, but it was only a milkshake.”

“The cop didn’t know what it was at that moment.”

“Right, Steve, but don’t you think they over-reacted, bel?”

“Given the chaotic circumstances I find it hard to say.”

“Well, they were surrounded by hostile members of the audience who surged forward.”

“Yeah, Fred, I guess we must try to put ourselves in the cop’s shoes.”

“Maybe so Steve, but the police are supposed to be trained to deal with that kind of thing.”

“I think they were rent-a-cops.”

“Lou, they were Urban Safety and Security Solutions.”

“That’s Banninck Cocq’s outfit.”

“They have a number of contracts around here.’

Steve, we all know they have been in Fauxmont for years.”

True enough, Fred. Ever since Jake Trip hired them to secure his huge new house.”.”We haven’t had any TV dramas around here yet.”

“It’s all entertainment now, Steve.”

Bel has dropped her scarf’s fringe, and the scarf slips off her shoulder. She bends down to pick it up. “Well TV turned everything broadcast into sponsored entertainment. Even the news was brought you by some company’s product.”

“There are differences you know, Bel, news, and drama, documentaries and so on.”

“That’s how it is presented, but it’s about getting people’s attention., Lou.”

”The attention economy, bel, Getting the most ‘likes’.”

“Drama is what gets attention, extreme weather, crime, tragedy, even good stuff, sometimes.”

”It is usually cute little blond kids saved from evil.”

”That is always the same because it works.”

Lou, now anyone can be a publisher, writer, video maker. We can all join the media business.”

“Well, Fred, I have resigned from social media. It is too much like a big room full of people shouting abuse at each other.”

Ossi has been sitting quietly with a paw on Steve’s boot, but now starts barking hard at a passing enemy dog.

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

Reference: Loops of String, Post 100 and In The Ivy, Post 116

“Look out! Don’t step on Mrs. Lutwidge.”

“What? where?”

“Right there, see? by the bucket of tools.”

“That’s a skink!”

“Fred, remember what time of year it is.”

“Okay, okay, so what wavelength is she on?’

“Oh, I have no idea.”

“Aha, you have never mentioned her before.”

“No, she moved in over the summer.”

“Is there a Mr. Lutwidge?”

“No one seems to know.”

“Well, anyway, it is far too cold for skinks to be zooming around in the carport.”
“Obviously, Fred!”

“Don’t you find it odd that Mrs. Lutwidge is out and about?”

“No, look! There she goes!”

“Where?”

Diddlie points towards the front yard.

“She rushed out over the snow and into that patch of ivy.”

“But she has turned white! Contrasting with that dried oak leaf resting on top of the ivy next to her.”

“Mrs. Lutwidge is something of a chameleon.”

“Okay.”

Diddlie has now bundled all her goldenrod with hemp string.

“Fred, you want to help me move this stuff downstairs?”

“Sure, I’ll lend a hand.”

She walks over to the old wardrobe against the carport wall, opens the door and then tries to remove a green bucket with the lid fastened and marked ‘Snaz Super Store’, in a white Italic font. 

“This thing is really heavy. Can you lift it out on to the floor?”

I try it with both hands on the handle, and it is a strain to move it.

“What is in here, gold or lead, or what?”

“Lies, there are some really massive lies in there.”

“It seems too small to hold such weight.”

“Yeah, Here take this.”

She steps in and hands me a long and narrow piece of stained plywood, separating at the top edge.

“What’s this?”

“An old shelf I improvised in here.”

“Looks like it is on its last legs.”

 I lean it against the side of the wardrobe.

“Take a look in here.”

I step forward to look past her into the back of the wardrobe, which seems to be a brick wall. 

“Have you cut the back of this thing out?”

“Remember? I put this thing here to hide the entrance.”

“That’s right, your husband’s bomb shelter.”

“Yes, repurposed by me!”

“Okay, so I am looking at the wall of the carport made of bricks, so what?”

She pushes one brick about waist high and another about at her eye level.

“See, I have a new door!”

“Nice bit of tromp-l’oeil there.”

“No, no, come see.”

I step up into wardrobe with her, which is only about eighteen inches deep.

“Mr. Faulks made it for me.”

She puts her hand in mine and squeezes.

“I see, these are thin pieces of real brick stuck onto an old door and grouted.”

“That’s right sweety.”

“It is a remarkably good illusion.”

“Well?”

“Well, what happened to that beautiful six-paneled oak door you used to have?”

“I gave it to Mr. Faulkes for doing this job.”

“Barter, good idea!”

“Fred you are about as romantic as a damp brick!”

She pushes me out of the wardrobe.

“You were supposed to kiss me, dummy!”

“Well, you pushed me out, so how can I?”

“It has to be spontaneous, or it won’t work.”

“Sorry I wasn’t tuned in.”

Mrs. Lutwidge is now looking at me from the separating top edge of the plywood shelf I just leaned against the side of the wardrobe.

“I told her this wouldn’t work.”

“She got back in here incredibly fast.”

“Yeah, that’s how she avoids predators.”

“Was it her idea to get us both in there at the same time?”

“Yeah, she came back when she noticed.”

“Noticed what?”

“That you are about as romantic as damp brick!”

“Well, I am not tuned in to the expectations of lizards or their human allies.”

“Obviously not! and, by the way, she is not a lizard or a skink at the moment.  You are going to hurt her feelings talking like that.”

“Well Mrs. I… she has zoomed off again.”

“Yeah, she understood your intention though.”

“How do you know?”

“The goldenrod helps. Hand me that bundle that’s fallen by bucket, please.”

I hand it to her, and she takes it through the brick door, and down the narrow stairs, brushing against the walls.

“Shall I bring down another bundle?”

Diddlie climbs back up, sneezing.
“What? I can’t hear you from down there.  It’s a bomb shelter you know.”

“I see, it keeps sound and blast out. I just offered to bring down the other bundle.”

“Yeah, sure, hand me another and come on down.”

We both descend, knocking pollen off the blooms as they brush the walls of the staircase.

“Here, put this on.”

She pulls a yellow mask out of a box on top of the bookcase on the right as we enter.

“Thanks, if these masks can protect against droplets in a sneeze, they can keep the pollen out too.”

We gradually stop sneezing.  She goes into the spacious cupboard to the left and closes the door. I walk over to the dusty couch and sit down to look in the big leatherbound book.

“You won’t understand the Aporia book!”

She has come out unexpectedly.

“No, what are Verdictives, Exercitives, and Commissives?”

“That is processing jargon.”

“Okay, so, who is this author, Austin?”

“He is the guy who knows how to do things with words.”

“I see, this is his manual, is it?”

“Yeah, among other things.”

“So, what does he do with them.”

“You mean words?”

“Right, not goldenrod.”

“Well, I can’t explain it. See how thick that book is?”

“Okay, but in general terms, what does he do.”

“He puts the weight into buckets!”

“Yes, okay, I thought you would say something like that.”

“Well, you said in general terms, didn’t you?’

“I did. Look, where did you collect all those lies?”

“They are easy enough to find.  Haven’t you noticed?”

“Yes, but I never thought of collecting them.”

“One thing Queenie does out there, is herd them in this direction.”

“And how did you get them into that bucket?”

“First you have to let them settle out of the verbiage.”

“But the verbal context gives them their punch.”

“That’s in speech or print.”

“Where else do they exist?”

“In my bucket!”

“Well, okay, buckets of abstractions.”

“They may be abstractions, but they carry a lot of weight.”

“I guess so.”

“That small brown metal drum over there is full of influences.”

“Are you going to arrange them in cubbies like your truth collection?”

“It is volatile because influences are a mix of lies and different kinds of truth.”

“This seems to me to be a very big project.”

“Lies and influences and truth need careful handling.”

“Sealed up in buckets you mean?”

“Yup! Until it is processed with this year’s rod.”

*

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

Reference: Post 100, Loops of String

Mr. Liddell is sitting upright in a shallow carton outside Diddlie’s carport. He is wearing a yellow waistcoat with gold pocket watch chain attached to his buttonhole.  His ears are upright and his nose is pulsating. Above him the hickories’ green fades to yellow under fall’s weakening sunshine.

“I have never seen a rabbit wearing a yellow waistcoat before.”

Diddlie is busy with her goldenrod harvest and doesn’t look up.

“Hi Fred.”

“What are you going to do with it all?”

“You mean the rod? Mr. Liddell is going to tell me.”

“I don’t hear anything.” 

“No, you’re not tuned in.”

“I don’t think I have ever found the rabbit wavelength.”

“It is an anomaly in the electromagnetic spectrum.”

“I am sure it must be. What kind of receiver do you use?”

“I don’t know. I guess it came built into my brain.”

“Well the visible part is 380 to 750 nanometers.”

“What is a nanometer?”

“It is one billionth of a meter.”

“Did you hear that Mr. Liddell?”

He shows no sign of hearing the question.

“By the way, why are all your doors and windows open?”

“The Red Queen is out flying.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She has got to get in and out somehow!”

“Doesn’t she have a preferred path?”

“No, it depends on her direction.  First, she grows a single yellow feather in her left wing and, after a few days, she just takes off.”

“Where to?”

“She will be going up to alternative realities.”

“Yes, there is plenty of that around.  She may be gone a long time!”

“She will also explore the toxic AI in corporate clouds and suburbs of independent thought and much more.”

“I thought she stayed in the house.”

“This is harvest time.  Things are different.”

“I feel as if I have stepped into another dimension!”

“Fred, I am afraid you have.  The measure of things at harvest time changes every year.”

“Okay, so this year the goldenrod bloomed in fall, as usual.”

She hands me a bloom head with unusually large petals. 

“This is Solidago and it blooms until the first frost.”

“Is this something to do with Mr. Liddell’s yellow waistcoat?”

“He always wears it at harvest time.”

“That’s why I have never seen it before!”

“Well, he is usually a regular rabbit.”

“You mean now he is something else?”

“Think of a red admiral which eats through the first stage of life as a caterpillar before it becomes a chrysalis then a flying swatch of color.”

“Okay, so Mr. Liddell’s rabbit stage is pre-waistcoat.”

“Kind of, sort of, I mean, not literally.”

“Well, how long will he be in his present stage?”

“As long as it takes.”

“As long as what takes?”

“As long as it takes for him to burrow down into the facts.”

“You mean he is moving into a rabbit hole?”

“You might say that.”

“Well, I did.”

“He moves among various strata of the national unconscious, at this time of year especially the adolescent stage.”

“Why the adolescent stage?”

“It is registering very high among those around the president.”

“So, he is sensitive to emotional development.”

“Yes, it is part of his instinctive gage of our national spiritual maturity.”

“Mr. Liddell does the groundwork and the Red Queen does the atmospherics.”

“Yeah, she’s a regular parrot the rest of the time.”

“What kind of parrot is she?”

“A red one.”

“I mean what breed?”

“An ornithologist would say she is a scarlet macaw.”

“I take it there is more to it than that.”

“Oh! a lot more in mysteries beyond our knowledge.”

“Do you think I can find out more online?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Can you suggest any search terms?”
“Well, I saw Macadamia online last night.”

“You saw a picture.”

“Yes alright, a vid in fact.”

“I don’t mean to split hairs, but the distinction seems more and more important lately.”

“Why Fred? Isn’t it kind of obvious?”

“We are all seeing more pictures of the world and less of the living world.”

“Again, it seems kind of obvious.”

“It is obvious until I think of the differences.”

“Such as?”

“Looking at a picture or a vid is like having a reminder.  Being with someone is a unique moment.”

“Look, Fred, we have known each other for years.  How can you say this is unique?”

“I don’t know what you are going to say next or what will happen.”

“What do you mean, happen?”

“The weather might change, a stray dog might come by, a meteorite might flash across the sky and land in your compost heap.”

“Yes, look at all those crows!”

“They are settling in your hickories, Did.”

She points towards the utility pole on the corner.  

“There’s one on the street light too.”

They caw and flutter and then they all take off.

“There, you see what I mean about stuff happening!”

“Okay, so I saw a vid of yellow haired Macadamia on his gold-plated plane saying we are all stuck in butter.”

“In butter?  What was the context?”

“Tariffs of course!”

“Is he going to put a tariff on butter?”

“Yes, he is going to put a hundred percent tariff on Danish butter until Denmark hands over Greenland.”

“I don’t remember seeing Danish butter in the stores around here.”

“Congress is stuck on the issue.”

“Well, most of our butter comes from California.  I don’t see the problem.”

“Right, and that is a blue state.”

“Yes, when the coastal fog clears.”

“Tariffs might be good for them if Danish butter had a big market share, but it doesn’t.”

“I think the Danes export a lot of butter to the UK, Did.”

“That’s right, my cousin has it in the fridge.”

“Is the president mixed up on this?”

“Mac was saying that we import more than half our butter from Denmark.”

“That’s nonsense, Did.”

“A reporter pointed that out to him while he was standing in the doorway to his jet- stream-office.”

“Yes, he likes to meet reporters in that doorway.”

“Right, keeps him above objective reality.”

“Yeah, in his own algorithm.”

“I suppose it also gives him a way out!”

“Seems to me he pursues his objectives in many realities.”

“The Red Queen likes to track them.”

“So how did he get out of this one?”

“He told the reporter she was wrong and a very nasty woman for saying a thing like that.”

“Well Did, true or untrue it is important because the president said it.”

“And it takes up time.”

“Wastes time, you mean!”

“From his elevated point of view, it prevents some other reality from getting in the way of his own.”

“So, he talks about an unreal butter market.”

”That market is an alternative fact.”

“It isn’t any kind of fact because it is untrue.”

“Fred, all alternative facts are untrue.  That is the alternative.”

“I see, it is part of the alternative reality.”

“It is all about controlling the narrative.”

“Is that what the Red Queen is flying into?”

“Oh yes, for sure, she flies very well into that headwind and resets her bearings.”

“I see, and Mr. Liddell is, ah, doing what?”

“He is grounding.”

“Okay, meaning what?”

“Well, it is a lot of dirt and stuff but there are also gems, minerals, and maybe some oil and gas.”

“You mean dirt on someone’s enemies?”

“Depending on your point of view that stuff is treasure or just dirt.”

“Wait a minute where is Mr. Liddell?”

“He left when the crows came.”

“He did?  I never noticed.”

“No, you were watching the crows.”

“Did they bring him an announcement or something?”

“I don’t know. The crows brought a lot of interference.”

“You mean they have a wavelength too?”

“Yeah, but there’s isn’t enough bandwidth for them and the Red Queen all together.”

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

I find Ottoline jiggling her decolletage, at Boyd.  We are standing 0utside the Ab and Cheek Fitness Center, where Boyd Nightingale and Ottoline Sorrel have been working out.

“Hi Fred, we are going over to Chez Roget for one of those over-stuffed croissants.”

Ottoline relaxes and smiles.

“And some Matcha, Fred, have you tried it?”

“No, what is it?”

“Come on, join us.  You’ll find out how it is on your buds!”

 We walk back towards Chez Roget.

Ottoline gives Boyd a wet kiss, missing his mouth and covering his nose.

They both break into uncontrolled giggles.

“What a happy couple you are!”

“Oh, aren’t we just! I have maturity and experience, and Boyd, my sweet slurpy pie, has youth.”

“I’ll be twenty-nine next month.”

“Well, you lost some years with Albrecht, right?”

She pulls on his long hair letting it run through her fingers.

“You complement each other nicely!”

Boyd pulls back his hair with both hands, and holds it, while Ottoline wipes his face with a small green towel pulled from the open top of her knapsack.

“I fell for him as soon as Maynard brought him over to stay.”

“Yeah, but Lucinda took me to her room.”

“Well, yes, she did but, you bounced around some.  We all knew you were trying to find yourself.”

“Right, Maynard told me to stay only as long as it was fun, and I was kind of finding parts of myself in different rooms.”

We join the line at Chez Roget.

“Did you get a good work-out?”

“We did, Fred.”

Ottoline brushes off his cheek with her finger.

“There cutey, feel better?”

“Never been better, Toe.”

“Oh, no? What about yesterday up on Sky-Line Drive?”

“Well, we sure did rock Vita’s little camper!”

“We were sky-high, that’s for sure. Boyd has been through so much hell. It is about time he had some fun.”

“Thanks Toe!”

We step across the threshold into coffee’s rich aromas. 

“Look at that!”

Ottoline is pointing to a handwritten sign.

“Sorry Folks, Matcha is Sold Out”

“Okay, I’ll have an espresso, you want one Fred?

“Sure”

Boyd raises a hand.

“Ditto, and I’ll have a squid, ink and onion croissant, with tartar sauce and lemon wedges.”

As I reach for my wallet, Ottoline nudges me.

“I got it, Fred.”

The place looks full at first glance but as I turn to go out, with my paper cup of espresso, Boyd pulls me back and leads us down a short hall past the serving bar.

We find a small back room, with a vacant table for three.

“I never knew about this little room.”

“Toe, most people don’t.”

A man with his head shaved and fully tattooed arms sits across from us in front of the sashcord window. The man across the table from him with a long thick graying brown beard and track suit, looks over, pointing at Toe.

“Are you Ottoline Sorrel?”

“Guilty as charged, your honor.”

Yellow teeth betray a smile under his weighted upper lip.

“I remember that red hair in Mr. Spillovenian’s art class.”

“You were in the Spill’s art room?”

“Sure, I helped you with that mural you did, remember?”

“What’s you name?”

“I was Jasper.”

“What are you now?”

“I have been called a lot of different, ah things, names, whatever.”

“Were you the kid in army fatigues and paisley head cloth?”

“Probably.”

“Okay, we worked on that bare wall on the side of the drug store.”

“Yeah, stoned, standing on ladders.”

“Right Jasper, that was called ‘Stoned Parrot Parade’.”

“Then you dropped the bucket of orange paint on some one’s car.”

“I did?”

“Yeah, the thing was full. It fell on the driver’s seat of a convertible parked next to our wall.”

“I remember now.  It was a Mercedes, the owner threatened to knock me off my ladder.”

“Right, Toe, he yelled at us and we yelled back at him until the cops came and arrested us.”

“That cop handcuffed me and tried to feel me up, well he did in fact, the stinking pig!”

Ottoline pauses, looking down at the table.  Boyd puts his arm around her shoulders, and then she looks up.

“And all my supplies were confiscated.”

“And my Dad got us out of jail that night and all hell broke loose at home.”

“Sorry, Jasper.”

“So, what happened to you?”

“Ah, nothing, except the cop, I mean I don’t remember. I think I missed some school.”

“Yeah, Ottoline, I get it.

Jasper’s crushes the paper cup in his left hand and gets up to go with his shaven headed companion, who gives us a nod. Jasper says no more as he walks out.

“In other words, you were suspended!”

“God! Was I, Boyd? How would you know?”

“I am judging from my own difficulties with various schools.”

“I get the idea.”

“They just didn’t appreciate my point of view!”

“Yeah, well I felt bad because I got my supplies from the Spill.”

“With his permission?”

“Well, Fred, I was going to tell him after we made the headlines.”

“That was a bit optimistic!”

“No Fred, I don’t think so.”

“What makes you so confident?”

“Those parrots had the faces of the school principal, the state Governor and Chairman Mao.”

“What an odd trio!”

“They all repeated their dogmas endlessly, which I found offensive.”

“I can’t imagine what your school principal had in common with the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.”

“They were both tyrants, in their different ways.”

“What? I don’t get it.”

“Fred, like my slurpy pie here, I spent a good deal of time in the principal’s office.  Believe me, I know all about that stooge.”

“That must have been a few years ago, Ottoline!”

“Oh! It feels like yesterday, Fred!”

“I would have thought your views might have changed.”

Ottoline points to Boyd’s croissant.

“Are you going to eat that squid thing?  It’s getting kind of inky and squishy.”

“Yes, I am.  I am an inky squishy person!”

He holds up the dripping croissant, sagging as slippery squid bits drop on to his plate and on to the table.

“You want a bite?” They are both laughing loud enough to get stares from a quiet couple sitting by the side wall, under a framed fifties poster advertising the latest model Ford Fairlane.

“Be careful will you!”

“Okay, you sure you don’t want any?”

“No, it is all yours including the drippings.”

 While Boyd bites into his dripping squid croissant, Ottoline grabs a napkin from the recently vacated table. 

“Here cutey, I get you. I grew up early and never recovered.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, Fred, I had two crazy sisters, and two wild parents. We had our own thing going.”

“You said your Dad had retired early with a fortune.”

“He did, and he traveled a lot.  He had two lovers and Mom had one as well, several in fact, but in succession. We never met them.”

“You mean your Dad had two lovers at once?”

“He did.”

“That sounds very complicated!  Did you ever meet them?”

“Oh sure, we all loved KiKi Kasznar.  She came over a lot when Mom was away and  she taught us how to play strip poker.”

The couple under the poster get up and leave.

“You mean you all played together?”

“Of course! How else are you going to learn?  Except Dad wouldn’t take his underwear off.”

“I can hardly blame him.”

“Well, Fred, seeing as how half my DNA came out of his thing, why shouldn’t he let us see the injector?”

“His injector!”

“Sorry about the technical terminology.”
“Descriptive, I must admit.”

“Maybe he thought you were too young?”

“Kiki said he was modest and we mustn’t tease him.”

“You mean Kiki stripped?”

“She did, and she had a lot to show, too.”

“What about your Dad’s other love interest?”

“Well, ah, I forget her name. She was older than Kiki and kind of remote.”

“But you did meet her?”

“Yeah, she was a screamer, too. I heard them one afternoon, locked in the sunroom.”

Boyd finishes his croissant with lemon wedges and tartar sauce, leaving much of it on and around the paper plate.

He holds up his remaining lemon wedge.

“Anyone want a lemon wedge?  How about you Fred?”

“No thanks, too sour by itself.”

Ottoline takes the wedge and looks it over.

“The Spill used to drink his tea with lemon and he always let me have a wedge.”

“You mean he made tea during class, Toe?”

“No, after class. He was my life coach, Boyd.”

Ottoline gives him another wet smooch.

“You taste of squid ink!”

“I told you I am inky!”

“Yes, you did. I told the Spill I was ‘ambisexstrous’.”

Boyd laughs.

“Was that an invitation or what?”

“No, I just said it for a joke.”

“Did he mess you up?”

“No, we never really did anything but talk about stuff that no one else wanted talk to me about.”

Ottoline looks at her phone and taps out a responding text.

“It’s Vita, I still have the keys to her camper.”

“I thought you left them in that flowerpot on your driveway.”

“I know, I meant to, but the mint was wilting.  So I watered it and forgot to plant the keys.”

“She doesn’t need them now, does she?”

“She does, it is for her friend in Jesus.”

“Sorry, Fred, we have to get back to DC.”

“Okay, did you come all the way over here to go to Ab and Cheek?”

“No, we visited his mom.”

Boyd gets up while Ottoline rummages in her knapsack.

“Mom’s okay, but she needs to get ‘Okayer’”.We are standing 0utside the Ab and Cheek Fitness Center, where Boyd Nightingale and Ottoline Sorrel have been working out. Ottoline bulges over her decolletage as she displays to Boyd.  

“Hi Fred, we are going over to Chez Roget for one of those over-stuffed croissants.”

Ottoline relaxes and smiles.

“And some Matcha, Fred, have you tried it?”

“No, what is it?”

“Come on, join us.  You’ll find out how it is on your buds!”

 We walk back towards Chez Roget.

Ottoline gives Boyd a wet kiss, missing his mouth and covering his nose.

They both break into uncontrolled giggles.

“What a happy couple you are!”

“Oh, aren’t we just! I have maturity and experience, and Boyd, my sweet slurpy pie, has youth.”

“I’ll be twenty-nine next month.”

“Well, you lost some years with Albrecht, right?”

She pulls on his hair letting it run through her fingers.

“You complement each other nicely!”

Boyd pulls back his long hair with both hands, and holds it, while Ottoline wipes his face with a small green towel pulled from the open top of her knapsack.

“I fell for him as soon as Maynard brought him over to stay.”

“Yeah, but Lucinda took me to her room.”

“Well, yes, she did but, you bounced around some.  We all knew you were trying to find yourself.”

“Right, Maynard told me to stay only as long as it was fun, and I was kind of finding parts of myself in different rooms.”

We join the line at Chez Roget.

“Did you get a good work-out?”

“We did, Fred.”

Ottoline brushes off his cheek with her finger.

“There cutey, feel better?”

“Never been better, Toe.”

“Oh, no? What about yesterday up on Sky-Line Drive?”

“Well, we sure did rock Vita’s little camper!”

“We were sky-high, that’s for sure. Boyd has been through so much hell. It is about time he had some fun.”

“Thanks Toe!”

We step across the threshold into coffee’s rich aromas. 

“Look at that!”

Ottoline is pointing to a handwritten sign.

“Sorry Folks, Matcha is Sold Out”

“Okay, I’ll have an espresso, you want one Fred?

“Sure”

Boyd raises a hand.

“Ditto, and I’ll have a squid, ink and onion croissant, with tartar sauce and lemon wedges.”

As I reach for my wallet, Ottoline nudges me.

“I got it Fred.”

The place looks full at first glance but as I turn to go out, with my paper cup of espresso, Boyd pulls me back and leads us down a short hall past the serving bar.

We find a small back room, with vacant space for three.

“I never knew about this little room.”

“Toe, most people don’t.”

“A man with his head shaved and fully tattooed arms sits 

across from us in front of the sashcord window. The man across the table from

him with a long thick graying brown beard and track suit, looks over pointing at Toe.

“Are you Ottoline Sorrel?”

“Guilty as charged, your honor.”

Yellow teeth betray a smile under his weighted upper lip.

“I remember that red hair in Mr. Spillovenian’s art class.”

“You were in the Spill’s art room?”

“Sure, I helped you with that mural you did, remember?”

“What’s you name?”

“I was Jasper.”

“What are you now?”

“I have been called a lot of different, ah things, names, whatever.”

“Were you the kid in army fatigues and paisley head cloth?”

“Probably.”

“Okay, we worked on that bare wall on the side of the drug store.”

“Yeah, stoned, standing on ladders.”

“Right Jasper, that was called ‘Stoned Parrot Parade’.”

“Then you dropped the bucket of orange paint on some one’s car.”

“I did?”

“Yeah, the thing was full. It fell on the driver’s seat of a convertible parked next to our wall.”

“I remember now.  It was a Mercedes, the owner threatened to knock me off my ladder.”

“Right Toe, he yelled at us and we yelled back at him until the cops came and arrested us.”

“That cop handcuffed me and tried to feel me up, well he did in fact, the stinking pig!”

Ottoline pauses looking down at the table.  Boyd puts his arm around her shoulders, and then she looks up.

“And all my supplies were confiscated.”

“And my Dad got us out of jail that night and all hell broke loose at home.”

“Sorry Jasper.”

“So, what happened to you?”

“Ah, nothing, except the cop, I mean I don’t remember. I think I missed some school.”

“Yeah, Ottoline, I get it.

Jasper’s crushes the paper cup in his left hand and gets up to go with his shaven headed companion, who gives us a nod. Jasper says no more as he walks out.

“In other words, you were suspended!”

“God! Was I, Boyd? How would you know?”

“I am judging from my own difficulties with various schools.”

“I get the idea.”

“They just didn’t appreciate my point of view!”

“Yeah, well I felt bad because I got my supplies from the Spill.”

“With his permission?”

“Well, Fred, I was going to tell him after we made the headlines.”

“That was a bit optimistic!”

“No Fred, I don’t think so.”

“What makes you so confident?”

“Those parrots had the faces of the school principal, the state Governor and

Chairman Mao.”

“What an odd trio!”

“They all repeated their dogmas endlessly, which I found offensive.”

“I can’t imagine what your school principal had in common with the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.”

“They were both tyrants, in their different ways.”

“What? I don’t get it.”

“Fred, like my slurpy pie here, I spent a good deal of time in the principal’s office.  Believe me I know all about that stooge.”

“That must have been a few years ago, Ottoline!”

“Oh! It feels like yesterday, Fred!”

“I would have thought your views might have changed.”

Ottoline points to Boyd’s croissant.

“Are you going to eat that squid thing?  It’s getting kind of inky and squishy.”

“Yes, I am.  I am an inky squishy person!”

He holds up the dripping croissant, sagging as slippery squid bits drop on to his plate and on to the table.

“You want a bite?” They are both laughing loud enough to get stares from a quiet couple sitting by the side wall, under a framed fifties poster advertising the latest model Ford Fairlane.

“Be careful will you!”

“Okay, you sure you don’t want any?”

“No, it is all yours including the drippings.”

 While Boyd bites into his dripping squid croissant, Ottoline grabs a napkin from recently vacated table. 

“Here cutey, I get you. I grew up early and never recovered.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, Fred, I had two crazy sisters, and two wild parents. We had our own thing going.”

“You said your Dad had retired early with a fortune.”

“He did, and he traveled a lot.  He had two lovers and Mom had one as well.  Several in fact, but in succession. We never met them.”

“You mean your Dad had two lovers at once?”

“He did.”

“That sounds very complicated!  Did you ever meet them?”

“Oh sure, we all loved KiKi Kasznar.  She came over a lot when Mom was away and  she taught us how to play strip poker.”

The couple under the poster get up and leave.

“You mean you all played together?”

“Of course! How else are you going to learn?  Except Dad wouldn’t take his underwear off.”

“I can hardly blame him.”

“Well Fred, seeing as how half my DNA came out of his thing, why shouldn’t he let us see the injector?”

“His injector?”

“Sorry about the technical terminology.”
“Descriptive, I must admit.”

“Maybe he thought you were too young?”

“Kiki said he was modest and we mustn’t tease him.”

“You mean Kiki stripped.”

“She did, and she had a lot to show too.”

“What about your Dad’s other love interest?”

“Well, ah, I forget her name. She was older than Kiki and kind of remote.”

“But you did meet her?”

“Yeah, she was a screamer too. I heard them one afternoon, locked in the sunroom.”

Boyd finishes his croissant with lemon wedges and tartar sauce, leaving much of it on and around the paper plate.

He holds up his remaining lemon wedge.

“Anyone want a lemon wedge?  How about you Fred?”

“No thanks, too sour by itself.”

Ottoline takes the wedge and looks it over.

“The Spill, used to drink his tea with lemon and he always let me have a wedge.”

“You mean he made tea during class, Toe?”

“No, after class. He was my life coach, Boyd.”

Ottoline gives him another wet smooch.

“You taste of squid ink!”

“I told you I am inky!”

“Yes, you did. I told the spill I was ‘ambisexstrous’.”

Boyd laughs.

“Was that an invitation or what?”

“Oh, I just said it for a joke.”

“Did he mess you up?”

“No, we never really did anything but talk about stuff that no one else wanted talk to me about.”

Ottoline looks at her phone and taps out a responding text.

“It’s Vita, I still have the keys to her camper.”

“I thought you left them in that flowerpot on your driveway.”

“I know, I meant to, but the mint was wilting.  So I watered it and forgot to plant the keys.”

“She doesn’t need them now, does she?”

“She does, it is for her friend in Jesus.”

“Sorry Fred, we have to get back to DC.”

“Okay, did you come all the way over here to go to Ab and Cheek?”

“No, we visited his mom.”

Boyd gets up while Ottoline rummages in her knapsack.

“Mon’s okay, but she needs to get ‘Okayer’”.

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

The Cavendish Pie Shop is named in memory of Henry Cavendish, who, among other things, is credited with discovering hydrogen in 1766. Now known as The Pie Shop, after joining the gas station as part of Jake Trip’s growing local business group.  

Franz opens the door for me without difficulty. Franz and I arrive at the same time and just before Albrecht.

“Hi Fred, I am Franz Banninck Cocq, commander of the Fauxmont Militia.”

“I recognized you but don’t believe we have met.”

“Yeah, I have seen you around too and heard about you from Albrecht.”

“Well, that may or may not be to the good.”

“He wants us to get together.”

“Well, here we are!”

Albrecht Intaglio opens the door with a forceful pull and the door closer grinds.

He turns and looks up at it.

“Somebody better lubricate that thing!”

He waves us toward a table. 

“Fred! Glad you could make it on such short notice. Let’s sit here. I realize my text was kind of last minute.”

“It was not too late, Albrecht, what is this all about?”

“I want to introduce Franz, for a start.”

“We have just introduced ourselves.”

“Thanks Franz, I knew you guys would get along.”

Albrecht insists on picking up the tab for Franz and me.

“What are you having Fred?”

“Darjeeling tea please.”

Franz and I sit down in the empty café while Albrecht fetches from the barista.

“So, Fred, are you helping Albrecht around Fauxmont?”

“Probably not.  We do chat once-in-a-while and often disagree.”

“Well, I don’t agree with him on everything either.”

Franz pulls out a chair for Albrecht who has his hands full. Franz’s thin straw-color hair flies out from the sides of his bald head, as if he were spinning.

“As I was saying to Fred the other day, Franz, TV is what it’s all about.”

“And social media, Albrecht.  Don’t forget social media. You can mainline a political message past the brain direct to the gut.” 

“What do you mean Franz?”

“Fred, I mean social media is reality.”

“But it isn’t. It is just flickering images on a phone.”

“Don’t you believe it! It feels real to the target audience. As real as you and me sitting here.”

“It does?”

Albrecht makes the time out sign with his hands.

“Sure, think of a commercial, Fred.”

“Okay, I am thinking of one and I can’t wait for it to be over.”

“You remember all the enthusiasm, the upbeat music, and happy smiling faces? They are designed to make you associate your good feelings with the product!”

“That makes sense.”

“When Americans feel good, America is Great Again!”

“Just a minute! If I feel good, it means no more than that, I feel good.”

“In your case, maybe so.”

“Why should people watch tv to feel good, anyway?”

“Fred, you know! Life is tough, jobs are hard, you know that!”

“Well Mac has a Christian following, they have a bigger answer, don’t they?”

“Sure, prayer and church and all that, but it doesn’t get people worked up and into the voting booths, and stores, pumping up our prosperity.”

“No, for believers, faith is the issue.”

“That’s for saints, we are about voters.”

“Can’t people be both?”

“I don’t know any voting saints, Fred.”

“People who think and reflect aren’t saints, they are just people.”

Franz tries to smooth his hair back, but it bounces out again.

“Fred, my aunt used to pray all the time.  She was broke. Her husband was killed in an accident back in Holland. It wasn’t until Dad brought her over here that she could eat regularly.”

“Nothing wrong with that, Franz.”

“See, you think too much, Fred, you have got to get tuned in to the associations.”

“Too much of this political stuff is made to scare me.”

Albrecht brandishes his Macadamia hat in his left hand and swigs his coffee with his right.

“Fear brings in the votes, Fred.”

“Fear is mindless!”

“That’s the point.  We don’t want people scratching their heads.  Got to keep them scared and angry, and impulsive.”

“Well, that formula has been used for a long time.”

“We are heading for a permanent majority!”

“Albrecht, that is just the sort of thing which our system of checks and balances is designed to counter.”

“Guys, that gridlock has held us back ever since Roosevelt and the Depression.”

“Those tensions have held us together, Albrecht.”

“Macadamia is a strong leader, and he takes strong measures.  There are no checks on him. He is upsetting the balance!”

Albrecht throws his right fist in the air.

“The courts tell us much of it is illegal.” 

“The courts don’t matter, that’s just legal opinion.”

“Legally binding, though.”

“The Supreme court will take care of that, Franz.”

Franz looks into his coffee in its plastic cup. “Possibly, but I think they will rubber stamp it.”

“You bet, Mac had the lucky opportunity to appoint loyal judges.”

“Mac is losing some of his luster, you know.”

“Fred, once we flood these Democrat cities with troops and get it all on tv, and get these invaders off the streets, Mac will gain huge support.”

“What invaders?”

Albrecht waves to Rank Majors in the parking lot, headed for the Safeway.

“The rapists and dope addicts that have been flooding in during the last administration.”

“Albrecht, have you noticed the H Bar has lost a lot of staff?”

“That’s right, Fred!  They can hire Americans now.”

“Albrecht, have you noticed Mr. Hoffmann had to hire a relative? There were no other applicants.”

“Good, that’s one more American who has a job!”

“Those employees weren’t criminals!”

“They were here unlawfully!”

Franz now does the time-out sign with his hands. “It is just a misdemeanor the first time you come across.”

“It is a problem whenever they come, Franz.”

“Mr. Hoffmann makes sure his employees’ status is okay. He can prove it. He sponsored them. You are talking about rapists and so on.”

“Fred, how do you know those people weren’t dealing on the side?”

“Well, Albrecht, how do you know they were?”

“I don’t know for sure, but those people are all in it, one way or another.”

“Those people?”

Franz shakes his head and takes a sip of coffee.

“Due process, Albrecht, due process.”

“We don’t have time for that, Franz.”

“Too many undocumented people are getting rounded up without it.”

“They are all here illegally, Fred, and we enforce the law.”

“Look I am a law-and-order guy, okay?  They are all suspects until due process is done.”

“Franz, like I said, that will take forever!”

“What’s the hurry, Albrecht?”

“We need urgency to keep the voters focused.”

“You mean distracted, Albrecht!”

“Fred, it’s part of our Militia’s program to pick up any of them around here.”

“I see, and then what?”

Franz rolls his eyes. “That’s the question, Fred, and I don’t like it.”

“Franz, let me tell Fred something: the biggest distraction of all, is the Liberal idea that the government is the answer.”

“The answer to what, Albrecht?”

“To their endless empathy.”

“Macadamia is preaching hatred, which seems like a poor alternative to me.”

“We all need someone to hate, Fred.”

‘We do?”

“Well, maybe you don’t but hatred is out there, and we have it.”

“Why?

“Because it works!”

“A good deal of history bears that out alright.”

“Okay, so you get it, Fred. President Macadamia keeps up the daily pace as the only answer to all our nation’s problems!”

“For one thing, he hasn’t got the answer to our deficit problem.  The cost of that debt is now greater than the defense budget. Mac is just adding to it.”

“Nobody knows that!  It is irrelevant.”

Two women in sports gear come in and distract us. I break into our brief silence. 

“Economically, it is both relevant and dangerous.”

“That’s just the short term. In a few years we will all be rich!”

“Yeah, voters in those blue states will be clamoring for thier share!”

“You know, Albrecht, there are cities in blue states with serious crime problems?”

“Sure, but they will soon get the message.”

“I am opposed to using troops anywhere.”

“No need, Franz, see, we have support of the voters there.” 

“What difference does that make, Abrecht?”

“It means they will take care of the situation themselves.  They support Macadamia’s program.”

“What do you think his program is?”

“Fred, we are going to bring back white American culture, patriotism, Christianity, family and community, you know!”

“That’s not just white America.”

“We created it, right here.  It didn’t happen anywhere else.”

“No Albrecht, Christianity aside, culture, patriotism, family and community are universal values.”

“Not among American liberals!”

“Look, Fred, my grandparents came over from Holland in 1914, to escape the war.  They didn’t work their butts off so their adopted country could be taken over by folks from South of the Border and Africa and God knows where.”

“They aren’t taking over, Franz!”

“Have you checked the demographics lately? We white people will be a minority in our own country by about 2044!”

“So, what’s the problem?”

Albrecht knocks on the table as if he were at a door.

“The problem is we are losing ground to inferior races.” 

“No, no, Albrecht, cultural diversity is a strength, not a problem.”

Albrecht swigs the last of his cold coffee.

“We need voters to associate those people with trouble. To keep them pumped up at the polls.”

“That is both dangerous and immoral!”

“Fred, there you go with your empathy again!”

“I believe in the melting pot!”

“Well, Fred, things are heating up alright.”

“Damn right Franz, see where all this empathy has got us? We must take our country back!”

“Okay Albrecht, but it must be done within the law!”

“Franz, Macadamia and our Congress can always change the laws!”

Franz and Albrecht are laughing and do a high five.

The door swings shut after a family come in with children.

The door closer fails and instead of closing, it thumps against a vacant chair too close to the entrance, leaving the store wide open.

A sudden influx of customers form a line out the doorway.

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

I am walking along upper Bails Lane with Lou Waymarsh taking a long route down to lunch at the H Bar. The heatwave of July is over, and moderate weather prevails for now.

“Have you seen they are cutting down trees on the old Wittgenstein property?”

“No, Fred, I have been out of town.”

“I thought that place was tied up in litigation.”

“Yeah, as far as I know it still is.”

“You’ll see, it is all happening next door to Rank’s place.”

“I can hear someone working up here.”

A lone crow flies over us cawing repeatedly and lands in a Bartlet pear tree ahead, where it goes on calling. We pass under the tree as it stops.

Rank is raking leaves, twigs and sawdust off to the side of his driveway, into the ivy and under a tangle of Japanese honeysuckle and wisteria.

“Hi, Rank looks like you got some fallout from the tree cutters next door.”

Rank looks up from his rake.

“Yeah, they’re called arborists!”

“The arborist doesn’t cut, just advises.”

“Take a look at their truck when you get up there.  It says Dordrecht Arborists.”

“They all work for the same company.”

“What you might call a conflict of interest.”

Rank points to the thicket.

“Diddlie tells me all that stuff is invasive. Maybe I’ll ask them to come over and clear it.”

Lou gestures towards an orange backhoe parked next door.

“That thing could do it a few minutes!”

“Right, and get Diddlie off my back too.  She won’t shut up about it.”

“When did they start work?” 

“A couple of days ago.  The orange trucks and backhoe were pulling in when I went out to get the mail.”

“That’s Dordrechts Group, right?”

“Yes it is.”

“Do you know who bought the place?”

“Sure, De Geer Properties bought it.”

“I thought Tract and Arts Company owned it, didn’t they?”

“Yeah, but they were bought out by International Business Interests, you know IBI.”

“They are the ones who were coming after Max Plank.”

“Maybe, Lou, they are pretty aggressive.”

“What was the outcome, Lou?”

“Fred, the last I heard, Sherman Shroud was negotiating with them, and that was a while back.”

“That’s what Sherman does. He seldom goes to court.”

“This is only the tip of the financial iceberg.”

“What do you mean, Rank?”

“I have said too much already, Lou.”

Rank bends down to pick up a long a thin branch loaded with wilted leaves.

“So long, Rank.”

Rank does not respond. We walk on around The Ashes on the right.

“There’s the remains of that huge tulip poplar in the front yard.”

“That thing must have been two hundred years old, Lou!”

“Diddlie told me they can live over three hundred years.”

 We pass Hank dumpty’s old place which was redeveloped and then recently burned down.  

“Looks like they have cleaned up at last!”

“Look at all that goldenrod! Diddlie will be harvesting that soon.”

“I am surprised the lot has not been rebuilt yet.”

“Do you see any more of those fake plants, Fred?”

“No, the azaleas and rhododendrons look real, see the dead leaves?”

“Yeah, that rhody stem has snapped off.”

“They must have been the only real shrubs on the place.”

“Notice they are on the edge of the property.”

We turn the corner.  The river comes into sight on the left. 

On the right we pass a community well site with the pump house roped off.  A mud-stained green Ford F150 pulls up and turns on to the property.  Lou waves.

A woman gets out.  The engine is running, and she leaves the door open, then lets down the tailgate with a loud metallic crash.

“Hi there Lou.  You seen Westard?”

“No, I haven’t seen him this year.”

“Isn’t he, Westard North, chair of your water committee?”

“I thought it was Dick East.”

“No, Dan West told me it was Westard.  You’ve got nearly all the points of the compass in that group!”

“Edy, do you know Fred?”

Edy walks over.  Her overalls are caked with dried clay.

“I think we met back when we drilled this thing.”

Lou is looking at the well site.

“That was back in 2013, wasn’t it?”

“Right, my lucky thirteen. I got two flats doing that job.”

 “Did you have any enemies around here, then?”

“Not that I know of.  We broke a couple of drill bits too, getting down through rock to the water.”

“How deep is this one?”

“Fred, this one is three hundred forty feet.”

“As deep as that?”

“Take a look over there.”

Edy points to the river.

“We are at least a hundred fifty above the river, maybe two hundred.”

Edy gets a text. 

“Edy, are you going to cap this well off?”

She is tapping her phone.  The lone crow has found a flock and they fly over cawing to each other.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

“Are you going to cap this well off?”

“No, you have an electrical problem.  I think it is the control box.”

“What’s that?”

“It responds to changes in air pressure and switches on the air pump to keep the water pressure in the mains at forty-seven PSI.”

“That is pounds per square inch, Fred.”

“I get it, Lou. Air is used to pressurize the storage tank.”

Rank has walked across the lot from his driveway and talks to Eddie.

“Hi there, saw you go by.  Are you going to get someone to fix this thing?”

“That’s me, Edy Carnap, Women’s Wells Cooperative.”

“Women’s Wells Cooperative, this is a multigender community.”

“I know, we drilled this thing.”

“You did?”

“That’s right.  Talk to Westard North, he knows the whole story.”

“I would rather not.”

“Up to you, of course.”

“So, where’s your electrician?”

“You are looking at her.”

“For heaven’s sake!”

“I am waiting for Westard, or somebody to open the pump house.  Can you do it?”

“No, I don’t have any keys.  I thought you were from Dordrechts.”

“I have worked with them a few times.”

“Yeah, well Edy, I want the backhoe operator to drive over and rip out a few weeds.  I’ll make it worth his while and it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

“They are probably stuck on 95.  It is backed up, as usual.”

Edy leans into her truck and turns the engine off and Rank turns back toward his place.

Lou looks at me.

“How about lunch?”

“Has the H bar reopened?”

“It will be open to us, like last time.”

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

An outside temperature in the low seventies would be comfortable but for the humidity. It is well before seven AM and the sun will soon be up over the tree line, bringing the summer heat with it. Ossian, a Westie, is wandering around the neighborhood with bel Vionnet. The high humidity is enough to keep most people indoors. I watch bel pull back on Ossie’s leash as he strains against his harness to follow the scent of fox. He noses carefully among the tangle of stalks and vines off Oval Street hill.

“He tries to get in there every time.”

“That lot has been overgrown for years, bel.”

“It is another absentee landlord.”

“Do you know who lives there?”

“There has been a succession of tenants, but I have never met any of them.”

“No, I wonder about that car under a tarp in the driveway.”

“Steve checked it out one morning.  He said it is an old Citroen DS model.”

“I don’t know French cars.”

“Steve thinks it might be worth some money if it doesn’t rust away, sitting there.”

“I never see Citroens around here.”

“They aren’t sold here. You would have to go up to Canada fix it.”

“Well, how did it get here?”

“Our Fauxmont Board is in dispute with the owners about that car and their lot.”

“What can the board do?”

“Not much, it is too expensive to take them to court.”

“I guess they are banking on that.”

“Look at the bamboo! It is taking over.”

“You can get sued for that now.”

“Well now it is fox real estate.”

“They say possession is nine tenths of the law.”

“The fractions work in foxes’ favor!”

A young squirrel rushes across the road a few yards downhill and starts up the other side of a dying hickory trunk.

“These red foxes have plenty of prey!”

Ossi misses the squirrel and backs out of the vines. We move on.

“Are you traveling this summer, bel?”

“We never go anywhere anymore, Fred.”

bel wipes her face with her green and orange scarf.

“This silk keeps the bugs off my neck.”

“Yes, this is ‘skeeter’ season.”

“That’s why I wear long sleeves and jeans.”

Ossi has stopped to sit in the middle of the road and watch a couple of golden retrievers walk past at the bottom of the hill.

“What about vacations?”

“Since we retired, every day is vacation.”

“So, you don’t feel the need to get away.”

“No, Fred, our life is here.”

A young fox walks into the street ahead of us and sits down.

“Oh boy!  Don’t look, Ossi!”

He has moved into the ditch to inspect the culvert under Diddlie’s driveway.

“Yes, of course, but there are many interesting places you might visit.”

“Well, that is what too many people are doing!”

“What do you mean, too many?”

“Look what happened in Barcelona.”

“I didn’t see, bel.”

“No, I wasn’t there either, but the news showed residents squirting water on tourists. People living in the city felt crowded out.”

Ossi turns and jumps out of the ditch.  Seeing the fox, he starts barking hysterically at a piercing high pitch and heaving on his harness, standing on his hind legs, trying to get at the fox.

“That fox is not in any hurry!”

“Look at that! It’s not moving!”

The fox watches us for a moment and gets up slowly, disappearing into the shade of some meadowsweets.

“They are habituated to us now, Fred.”

“Does Steve feel the same way about travel?”

“He does, though he keeps suggesting we go and look in European art galleries.”

“There is a lot to be said for seeing original paintings rather than reproductions.”

“There is also a lot to be said for staying here!”

“Not for the humidity, though!”

“Oh, I know!’ 

“Ossi seems immune to it.”

“I think his thick white fur insulates him from the heat up to a point.”

Ossi has stopped barking and settled on the shady grass verge of Diddlie’s front yard,  the grass thickened by all the recent rains.

“You know he is uncomfortable when he stretches out like that.”

Ossi is panting, lying on the grass with his back and forepaws extended and pressing his belly against the cool grass.

Diddlie strolls out under a huge umbrella in a floral dress and baseball cap. “What is the matter with Ossi?”

“He has seen a fox. Well, he scented it first, I think.”

“So, what, bel? They are all over the neighborhood.”

“That’s what makes Westie-life so exciting around here, Diddlie.”

Diddlie twirls the umbrella shaft, resting on her shoulder, and moves closer to pet Ossi.

The contrasting blue and white panels of the umbrella seem to flicker.

“How do you like my new British dress?”

‘She holds up the hem to display the fabric.

“What are those flowers all over it?”

“Hibiscus, I think. I still have jet lag, got back from England yesterday afternoon.”

“How was your flight?”

“Delayed, crowded, and horrible.”

“That’s why we have given up travel.”

“bel, that was my last trip.  If they want to come over here, that’s fine.”

Diddlie yawns and drops her huge umbrella.

“You should be sleeping off the lag.”

She grabs it back.

“No, Fred, I have been wide awake since around four.”

“That’s strange.  I usually crash.”

“Not me, my whole sleep cycle is messed up.”

Bel swats another mosquito on the back of her hand.

“Where were you staying?”

Ossi gets up silently, putting his forepaws on Diddlie’s knee.

“Hi there, cutey, so quiet all of a sudden. I was in Chester, bel, with my first cousin, Radley.”

“I didn’t know you had relatives over there.”

“There’s a bunch of them.”

“Did you have a family party?”

“No, Radley keeps to herself.  She inherited her mother’s house, inside the famous city wall.”

Ossi backs up under an azalea and makes a drop.

bel stoops to pick up with a plastic Washington Post bag but can’t reach.

“Leave it bel.”

“Are you sure?  It will attract flies.”

‘We are getting more rain soon.  That will wash it into the ivy.”

Bel puts her bag away and Ossi goes back to his cool grass spot.

“Is your cousin still working?”

“No, she was made redundant, as the Brits say.”

“That sounds bad for her income.”

“Yeah, I don’t know where her money comes from, but there isn’t a whole lot.”

“Well, it was good of her to put you up.”

“Hah! I had to pay for all the meals.”

“I get it.”

“Radley is kind of a tightwad, and I told her so, too.”

“Oh, well, I hope it didn’t spoil your visit.”

“Not at all, bel, we didn’t speak again after that.  I went and stayed with a certain person.”

“Another relative, you mean?”

“Oh no, unrelated, well, we might have gotten related.”

“Well, are you going to go ahead?”

“No, bel, we just did what we could.”

“Sounds like a practical approach!”

“Yeah, Fred, we smoked enough of his home-grown pot to move out of the age cage.”

“What is the age cage?”

“It is a self-limiting attitude that comes with feeling old.”

“Yes, I know more than one person like that.”

“We got to laughing about our aging bodies, among other things.”

Ossi is snoozing with his nose on his front paws.

“Look at that cloud, bel!”

“Yeah, Did, I think it’s going to rain.”

“It’s a lot cooler all of a sudden.”

“So, wait a minute. You mean you left your cousin without saying goodbye or anything.”

“Yeah, Fred, my friend picked me up about five thirty in the morning.”

“Who did?”

“I am not telling you his name. We got together back in May of 2018 at a gathering.”

“A gathering?”

“Right, do I have to explain everything?”

“No, but you are being rather mysterious.”

“Well, okay, it was after my cousin Ian died.”

“Seems like a pretty sad visit.”

A thunderclap interrupts us, and Ossi stands up to bark.

“No, I texted Radley later, from the train down to London.”

“Good grief! Diddlie.”

“She doesn’t care. I think Radley is on the spectrum.”

Ossi is barking and pulling hard to get going.

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

We stand in front of a painting of six identical crouching rabbits outlined in a mid-cadmium red, painted on top of a thin wash of vermillion. Two rows of three, all face the same way.  They fill the whole space.

“Okay, do you get it, Daisy?”

“Could they be Mr. Liddell?”

“You mean with five of his friends and relations?”

“That’s right, obviously copied from a snapshot by Christopher Robbin.”

“Yeah, waiting to get into the party.” 

”I doubt if the artist knows Mr. Liddell.”

“So, likeness isn’t an issue.”

”These are probably generic rabbits.”

“Are they six different rabbits or six pictures of the same critter?”

“They look identical to me, and they are competent line drawings too.”

“Yes, why use red paint, not crayon or something?”

Mr. Bose walks over.

“How do you like the rabbits, Ms. Briscoe?”

“Hi Mr. Bose, they raise a lot of questions.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Not in this case.”

“Keep looking.”

“I think they are like the start of something, that has barely begun.”

“In that case, it seems you have seen enough!”

“I am not buying today but I would like to bring you some work next month.”

“I look forward to seeing your latest, Ms. Briscoe.  Your last one sold within a week.”

“How about you sir?  Can you see those rabbits on your wall?”

“No thank you, I am just browsing.”

Mr. Bose looks across the gallery to some small-framed items.

“How about some small drawings, by a promising young local artist?”

“Not today thanks. By the way, do you know if the restaurant is going to reopen?”

“They will open in a few minutes, at noon.”

“Mr. Bose goes over to greet a new customer.”

“Hello! What attracts your eye?”

“Oh hi, ah, I came in to meet my friends, over there.”

Diddlie walks over to us, leaving Mr. Bose to answer his phone.

“Hi, Fred looks like we won’t eat at the emperor’s.”

“Mr. Bose says they are open.”

“Well, the door is locked, so who are they open to, lock-picking thieves?”

“I guess no one bothered to check online.”

“What’s with these red rabbit drawings, Daisy?”

“We were just discussing that with Mr. Bose, Diddlie.”

“I guess the artist traced one six times.”

“How can you tell they are tracings?”

“Because they are all the same, same, same.”

“Are you going to buy them?  Only $999.99”

“Are you kidding?”

“Well, that is under a thousand.”

“Yes, a one-cent saving is more than nothing.”

I don’t know that much about art.”

“You know more than you think, Diddlie.”

“Would you buy them, Fred?”

“No, they don’t interest me much.”

“Well, Daisy said you guys have been discussing them.”

“True, but the underlying question was, why is this picture hanging here at all?”

“Kind of obvious, Fred, it might sell.”

“The question is, why would anyone buy it?”

“Well, if somebody thinks it’s art, then they might want to show it off.”

“Yes but look at it, Diddlie!”

“I am looking at it.  I even have a sick pet rabbit at home.”

“Well, would you buy it?”

“No way!”

Daisy is tapping her phone and then looks up.

“Wait a minute, look!”

She points through the glass door of the gallery at the open restaurant door opposite.

We all walk over.

“Hello, sir, mam, will it be three for lunch?”

It is Indranil the manager.  He shows us to a table in his empty restaurant and soon returns with a faded brown baseball cap. 

“Here you are, sir.”

“Thank you Indranil, I had no idea where my Westie cap was!”

“Yes sir, it fell on the floor on your last visit, and you left without it.”

“That must have been a year ago, how kind of you!”

“It was last year, sir.”

Indranil hands us menus.

“When did you reopen?”

“Last April but only for limited hours.”

Indranel walks back behind the bar by the entrance.

Daisy ignores her menu.

“We didn’t see you at the Pigsbreth thing at the auditorium, Fred?”

“What thing, Daisy?”

“It’s a big deal, Fred, Fauxmont was chosen.”

“I didn’t know about it.”

“He is, National Director of Local Coordination or NDLC.”

“Coordination of what?”

“The new administration’s program.”

“Okay, I remember now.”

“Diddlie, was there.”

“That’s right Daisy, I had to check that guy out.  I mean, maybe he is another algorithm, like Macadamia.”

“Do you think he is?”

“I don’t think so, Fred, but you can’t be sure.”

Daisy puts down her menu.

“I am having a chicken biryani.”

Diddlie is squinting at her menu.

“I don’t have my reading glasses.”

“You always have butter chicken, Did.”

“Okay, Daisy, that’s it, and, yeah, Albrecht got Pigsbreth for us.  It was a gesture of thanks for all his support of the Macadamia campaign. He introduced Pete to the crowd.”

“Why did you go, Daisy?”

“Diddlie invited me, Fred.  She wanted some company.”

“It is hard to imagine the two of you at that thing.”

“Oh, it was curiosity, that’s all.”

“If you say so.”

“Besides you can’t trust the news media anymore.”

“I get that! Could we ever?”

“Well, that’s a good question.  Was I more gullible, years ago?”

Daisy’s ringtones sound with the call of a Carolina wren.  She taps the phone.

“Another junk call!”

Daisy picks up her menu but isn’t looking at it. 

“Anyway, Pigsbreth sounded just like his leader.”

“Mac has mastered the media.”

Daisy gestures with her palm up flat.

“Yup, something for every news cycle.”

“Conjuring with images.”

“He perpetuates the irresistible illusion that he knows.”

“Irresistible? To whom?”

“Fred, the faithful follow their prophet. He is socking it to the liberals, bullying the undocumented workers, and that makes those voters feel good.”

“Makes me feel sick!”

“Unfortunately, Did. When the prophet’s people feel good, America is great again!”

“Let’s change the subject, people.”

A waiter comes over with the manager, who stands back.

“Are you ready to order?  Something to drink?”

Diddlie speaks up.

“I’ll have the butter chicken with samosa appetizers and iced tea, no sugar.”

Indranel has come forward and taps my shoulder.

“Rosie Pelican larger, for you sir?”

“You remembered! That’s the one, thank you!”

He and the waiter move on.

“By the way, Diddlie, how is Mr. Liddell?”

“He is doing better. I have him in the living room.  It is way too hot and humid out in the carport.”

“It is good to know he is back roaming the living room carpet.”

“Yeah, the Red Queen has a lot to say about it.”

Daisy has been tapping her phone. She puts it away, staring at the wall behind Diddlie.

“That parrot has probably been lonesome, Did.”

“No, she has herself for company.”

“What?”

“She talks to herself.”

“Turn around Diddlie.”

She turns around facing the wall behind her.

“Okay, so what?”

“Take a look at the pictures on either side of the alcove.”

“Oh wow, there’s one of those red rabbits in here.”

Indranel is back with iced tea for Daisy and Diddlie.”

“How do you like the new art?” 

“It looks familiar.”

“Yes, Mr. Bose gave us both of them for a reopening present.”

after covid.”  He goes back through the swing doors to the kitchen.

“Both?”

“Look on the other side, Diddlie.”

“Is that a parrot, Daisy?”

“Yes, a rendering in blue.”

“Yeah, a tracing by the same artist who traced the rabbits, but it is kind of drippy.”

“That’s the medium asserting itself on the picture plane.”

“Daisy, in plain language it is a careless mess!”

“Diddlie, just think about what you are looking at for a moment.”

“I don’t have to think.  It’s a drawing of a parrot in blue drippy paint.”

“Right, so all you are seeing is paint-drip or parrot.  It’s all just paint.”

“Yeah, but some of the paint says parrot, and some of it says nothing but drip”

“What the paint says is the illusion.”

“So what? That’s what art is all about.”

“That is what rendering is all about.  Basically, it is all just paint.’

“Basically, it is paint that says something and dumb paint that drips.”

“You just have to get hip art jargon.”

“Isn’t it obvious?  Bose gave those two pictures away because they were too messy to sell.”

Diddlie, I am saying, look at the paint, that makes the illusion.

Daisy sips her tea.

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

Readers interested in some background to events in this post will find it in, Post 10. Tinderbrush and Leticia Lantern, Posted Jan 16, 2011. and Post 92. Goofology Posted by admin 30 Sep 2016

The H bar is quiet.  Two other guests sit at a table near the booth I share with Lou. He is staring at the menu.  He takes his glasses off and looks again.

“Have you checked this menu?”

“No need, you set up a standing order by text, for us on Wednesdays.”

“Right, but take a look, will you?”

“Sure, what are you looking at?”

“Look under Burger and Fries Specials.”

“Okay, that’s sixteen ninety-five.”

“Can that be right?  They were only nine bucks before.”

“How long ago was before?”

“Well, a few years, I guess.”

“There’s a beef shortage, due to droughts out west.”

“You sure it isn’t a tariff?”

“This is homegrown.  Genuine feedlot product, corn, hay, and antibiotics, you know.”

“Where does it say that, Lou?”

“Well, it used to.  I mean they used to brag about American beef, and all that.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Come to think of it, that was before Brazil started clearing the rainforest for cattle production.”

“Chilling thought, Lou, living beings sold as products!”

“That’s right Fred, it’s kind of an assembly line.”

“Once you call it beef, is it still an animal?”

“It’s a meal.”

“It is certainly biological not silicon simulation!”

“Yes, we seem to have that issue in the White House.”

“Hi, my name is Vince.  I’ll be your server today.”

Lou looks up.

“Hi buddy, haven’t seen you before.”

“Yeah, I started Saturday.”

Where is everybody?”

“Most of our staff are gone.  Still have a couple for evenings.”

“Where to?”

“The Authority for Ethnic Harmony came here last week and took them out the back door.”

“The AEH, huh? You mean they had no papers?”

“I don’t know.  I was away that day, helping Mr. Hoffmann.”

“So, he wasn’t here either.”

“No, he got a phone call from his accountant, and we came back quick.  Once he looked in his personnel files, he got on the phone and was so mad you could hear him out here in the dining room.”

Lou scratches his ear.

“What’s the story?”

“They won’t tell him anything.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“That’s when he called Congressman Bean’s office.”

“Haven’t I seen him in here?”

“Sure, he and Mr. Hoffmann go way back, he and Ms. Flack.” 

“You seem to know a lot for a guy so new around here!”

“Sure, I have known Mr. Hoffmann all my life.  That’s how I got this job.”

“No kidding, what’s the connection?”

“Family, he and my mother are cousins.”

“Okay I get it, but where are all the customers?”

“We can’t serve. We are basically closed except for people with standing lunch orders. What can I prepare for you today?”

“The standing order will be fine.”

“You can have anything so long as it is a ham and cheese sandwich on sourdough, mayo, and a salad with vinaigrette dressing.”

“No burgers?”

“No, I am it, chef, waiter, cashier, and busboy. Oh, and you can have mayo on the salad if you want.”

“That’s good to know.  I’ll stick with vinaigrette.”

“Where did Mr. Hoffmann find you?”

“I was studying biology at PU.”

“You mean you are not now?”

“Right, our project funding was redirected to PU’s AI research.”

“Oh boy!  I have heard a lot about that.”

Vince backs up.

“Say no more.”

“What do you mean, Vince?”

“Like I said, say no more.”

“Well, I heard they made a huge breakthrough year before last.”

“How about beers, gentlemen?”

“Ah, Lou, say no more, means change the subject!”

“Okay, Fred, sorry Vince, I’ll have a Stella Artois.”

“You can have anything so long as it is a can of Bud or Heineken.”

“Vince, seems kind of limited. I’ll have a Budweiser.”

“Limitation is the name of my game.”  Vince turns to me.

“I’ll have a Heineken and your main entre.”

“You got it, gentlemen!”

Vince walks over to the table nearby and hands them the check.

“Lou, I don’t see why the law doesn’t go after the employers of undocumented workers, instead of the undocumented applicants.”

“That would put Mr. Hoffmann on the spot!”

“Well, I would regret that, but people would be less likely to come North if there were no jobs.”

“Business has resources to influence Congress, and the undocumented don’t.”

“Yes, representation is one thing and influence is another!”

Lou seems to be staring into space.

“I am increasingly disoriented by events, lately.”

“Think of this. Mr. Hoffmann is pretty well connected.  I imagine he will get his people back.”

“Not with the Prophet Macadamia and his mafia.”

“The prophet?”

“Yes, the prophet of alternative facts and big solutions.”

“He does have a devoted following.”

“Yes, it’s a clever ploy turning reporters into stenographers.”

“Right, whatever the algorithm called Mac says, is news.”

“It gives me a pain in the truth!”

“You’re not alone there.”

“I just wish we had more company in here. The place doesn’t feel right.”

“Lou, I thought Mr. Hoffmann served everyone.”

“He does, everyone who comes in, but the prophets’ people never do.”

“Except to detain undocumented kitchen staff.”

“I am sure all those people were documented.  He has files!”

“I guess they didn’t have anything on them.”

Lou takes off his glasses and rubs his face.  His prominent black curly eyebrows have been trimmed.

“There’s too much bad news, Fred.”

“Yup, the Prophet is on TV right now entertaining us in his nice simple vocabulary.”

“Not just us, Fred, he has the world watching themselves in his reality TV show.”

“Hi there, fellows, may I join you?”

“Sure, Sofie.”

“You look surprised, Lou, didn’t Diddlie tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“That we are joining you for lunch, except Mr. Liddell is sick so she is waiting for a ride to the vet.”

Lou gets up to let her sit on the inside.  Sofie gathers her blue, pink and yellow translucent shawls, hanging off her shoulders and a green scarf over her head.

“That’s alright Lou.  I would prefer to sit on the end.”

“Haven’t heard from Diddlie.  Have you, Fred?”

“Nothing about lunch today. Glad you could make it, Sofie.”

Lou sits down and moves over.

“How did you get in, Sofie?  This place is closed.”

“I just mentioned your names to Vince.”

“Do you know him?”

“I do now, Fred.”

“Okay, wait a minute.  Vince doesn’t know us.”

“Oh! But he does!”

“Must be from our Wednesday standing order, Lou.”

“That’s right, Fred. I even gave him my card and offered a free reading.”

Lou scratches the back of his head.

“That guy is a scientist, Sofie. Why would he want a psychic reading?”

“I saw his aphasic aura and tuned in.”

“Really!  I mean how?”

“That is my gift.  I told him a reading could help with his migraines.”

“What did he say?”

“He is going to try it.”

“I have to have a talk with that young man!”

“No, Lou, it’s not about magical thinking.”

“What is it then?”

“That is the question! Intuition perhaps. Vince was studying mammalian communication you know.”

“Okay.”

“And being a mammal, I am interested in his findings.”

“So you are into science, Sofie.”

“Oh! for sure! Isn’t it sad? The dark forces have de-funded his work.”

“It’s not all dark, Sofie.”

“Mac appointed Leticia Lantern to direct the Voice of America.”

“Fred, I must tell you that Laticia’s lantern shines a dark light, don’t you agree, Fred?”

“She has fired a bunch of people there.”

Vince comes by with three ham and cheese sandwiches, three salads, two beers, and a can of 7UP, with a glass, for Sophie.

Sophie pulls her green scarf back from her forehead.

“Thank you, Vince!”

“You are welcome.”

Lou’s glasses slip down his nose.”

“I haven’t seen a can of 7UP for years!”

“Fred, it isn’t easy to find but Vince had it in the fridge back there.”

“Yeah, Sophie, you ‘said check the fridge’ and there it was.”

“Vince, you mean Sofie was in your kitchen?”

“The place is closed. It was the only way I could get in.”

“Anything else for you folks?”

Lou’s pushes his glasses back.

“We are good, buddy.”

Vince moves on.

“So, Sofie, you came in through the back just like we did, and then instead of telling you the place is closed, Vince let you place an order?”

“He is a polite and generous young man, Lou!”

“Okay, but how you got in here, and knew we would be here, just beats the hell out of me.”

“Lou, don’t be surprised.  Remember? Diddlie told me a while back you guys have a regular lunch date here on Wednesdays.”

“Diddlie would know.”

 “You see, Lou, sometimes people do the right thing.”

“I guess I have been hearing too much bad news.”

“Well, maybe you have.  And, by the way, lunch is on me, Lou. Thanks  for your help with the roof on Saturday day!”

“You’re welcome!”

“What about you, Fred?”

“Well, you got past all the barriers somehow.”

“Life is full of mysteries, Fred.”

“Yes, it is. Like how did you know there was 7UP in that fridge?”

“Fred, it is my gift.  I didn’t exactly know, I just had a feeling.”

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

Diddly, Boyd and I are waiting for Lark Bunlush to answer the doorbell.  Her red Fiat 500 is covered in yellow oak pollen giving it an orange tinge. The sour smell of mulch rises from a newly delivered pile, blocking the car in.

“I haven’t seen your mom, and she isn’t answering the phone.  What is going on, Boyd?”

“She has been acting weird lately, Diddly.”

“Like what?”

“Like locking all the doors.”

“You mean she doesn’t normally do that?”

“Mom? Normal? What are you talking about?”

“Well, I get that. Fred drove us over to check on Lark. We are both concerned.”

“Mom is depressed, Diddlie.”

Diddlie puts her palms up to her cheeks.“Oh, not again!”

“You mean she was depressed before?”

“Yes Boyd, she went into crisis back at college, then she became an activist.”

“Maybe that was her response to it!”

“Maybe, I think it gave her a sense of purpose.”

“I see she got her spring mulch delivered.”

“That’s on automatic, Did.  The yard guys will be here in a while.”

“How was the California trip, Boyd?”

“Oh! I wasn’t on it, but the last thing Mom said to me was that they didn’t work anything out and then ended the call.”

“Who do you mean?”

“Do you remember Augie Carmichael, Fred?”

“Yes, very well.”

“Lark flew out to see him.”

“Sounds a bit desperate, Boyd.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Aren’t you living here?”

“I was, but I am locked out and hanging with Maynard in DC with the Sorrell sisters.”

“Didn’t she give you a key?”

“Yeah, the wrong one!”

“Do you think Maynard can help?”

“Sure, he should be here pretty soon.”

“Where is he?”

“He dropped me off and went to the store, Fred.”

“Are they on good terms?”

“Oh, definitely, Fred.  Mom knows what a great guy he is and how much he helped me.”

Diddlie taps her phone and tries the front door.

“She is still not responding.”

Diddly and I stand around by the door as she repeatedly calls, rings the bell, and bangs on the door.

Boyd returns from walking around the back.

“Mom is in the living room watching TV.”

“Can you get in?”

“No, the sliding doors are locked.”

“Did you knock?”

“Yeah, I knocked and waved and shouted, but she didn’t look up.”

“Don’t you have a key?”

“No, she gave me the wrong one, remember?”

“Oh, that!”

Diddly opens her red polka-dot purse.

“Shall we go in?”  She is holding up some keys.

“Why didn’t you use your key before? Yeah! Open up, Diddlie!”

“Are you okay with this Fred?”

“I guess so, but I am going to hang back.  You and Boyd go in. Lead the way.”

I follow them in. Lark is sitting on a brown overstuffed leather love seat wrapped in a Pendleton blanket with a Southwestern motif.

She doesn’t look up from CNN flashing messages across the room, some commercial, some commentary, and some sound bites at high volume. 

Lark doesn’t look up from the TV.

“Welcome to the latest reality TV show, our chief executive.” Macadamia is on screen boasting about millions of deportations.

Diddly walks over, past a stack of carry-out bags stuffed with litter. She sits down next to Lark and embraces her.

“Sweety, will you please turn that thing off.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No, Lark.”

“This is it. A Hollywood production, a ‘fait accompli’, a cyber coup d’État.”

Diddly reaches for the remote on the arm of the loveseat and turns off the TV.

Lark starts sobbing in Diddly’s arms.

The doorbell rings and Boyd goes back to answer it.

“That must be Maynard!”

Maynard comes in with Boyd, carrying a tote.

“Lark, what is it?”

She stares out the window, past Diddly’s cheek, at the colorful haze of redbuds and dogwoods swaying in front of each other in the breeze.

“That Feather Jackdaw has issued about 125 wacky Executive Orders already and we aren’t even a hundred days in!”

“Lark, they can only be issued by the president.”

“Right, and Feather is programming The Presidential bot getting vengeance against law firms and indiscriminately firing new government employees!”

“Yeah, okay Lark, Okay!”

“There’s a huge humanitarian crisis in Sudan, our bombs destroying Gazza and its people, there’s bombing and war in Ukraine. There are estimated to be about forty million enslaved people in the world today and the planet is heating up. Shall I go on?”

“Why don’t you answer our calls?”

“Their calls are louder than yours!”

“Remember your friends, Lark.”

“What’s the point, Maynard? We have been captured by entertainment and there is no way out of the show!”

“You are looking at the way out.  It’s springtime.”

“That computer program in the White House is opening concentration camps in Salvador for Spanish speakers from South of here.”

“I don’t think we have reached that point yet.”

“Listen this thing is scripted by those crazies at PU and Dreamscape Media.”

Lark is in tears and her blanket falls from her shoulders as she breaks free of Diddie’s embrace to stand up.

“Cover up Mom!”

Maynard steps away.

Boyd strides over, picks up the blanket which has fallen on the floor. Lark is naked.

“What do I need clothes for? It’s hot and I am not going anywhere.”

“You need clothes, Mom!”

She stands still and lets Boyd wrap her in the blanket and Diddlie puts her arm around her shoulders, keeping the blanket in place.

“Come on, sweety, we are going to get you some clothes.”

“Did. I haven’t got anything.  I don’t do laundry.”

“Yeah, I guess you don’t shower either!”

They help Lark out of the room.

I find Maynard in the kitchen.

“Fred, where’s the kettle?”

“I don’t know.  I have never been in here before.”

He holds up a plug-in kettle.

“I am reluctant to use this plastic thing.”

“I get it, nano plastics!”

“Exactly, Fred, heat releases them in molecular hoards.”

We can see a chaotic column of tiny ants moving where the backsplash joins the countertop.

“Fred, looks like we have formic company.”

Maynard stoops down to look under the sink and finds a bottle of Windex.

“Move that packet of chips, would you, Fred?”

I move the opened packet out of the way, spilling some fried potato crumbs and salt. Maynard sprays the invaders.

“That should stem the tide!”

He wipes up the casualties with paper towel and presses some soap into the crack

they emerged from.“Do ants eat soap?”

“Maybe, it is fat.”

“Well, this stuff should keep them at bay long enough for us to get the job done.”

Maynard puts the Windex back under the sink and opens a corner cupboard below the counter.

“Voila!”

He holds up a Revere ware saucepan with a blackened copper bottom.

“This veteran will serve us well!”

He puts water on the stove to boil. Pulls a can of Simpson and Vale’s Earl Grey tea out of a canvas tote.

“Here’s a fine pound cake I picked up at Curd and Grape along with this.” He flourishes a round of camembert and then a packet of pumpernickel.

“See if you can find a plate and knife to slice up the cake.”

Maynard gets some apples and bananas out of his tote and looks around for somewhere to put them.

“I guess this will do.”

He places them carefully on a cutting board from the dish drainer using the curving bananas to corral the apples.

Finally, he pulls out a bottle of Prosecco.

“Maynard, I am concerned about the Augie factor.”

“Yes, I believe he was a factor years ago.”

“It is really too bad those two can’t find a way to be together.”

I have sliced the loaf of pound cake into about a dozen portions and placed them on a blue willow pattern plate from the dish drainer.

“Well done, Fred!”

He breaks off half a slice from the plate I had found. “Let’s try this stuff.

We can celebrate Lark’s recovery with this!”

“Today, you mean?”

“Certainly, today, Fred.  That woman is watching too much TV.”

“True enough. Good thing Diddlie turned off that infernal stream.”

“She has enormous resources.  I am quite certain of it.”

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

Dimbleby Moraboutcha sits on the same bench overlooking the river, off Wicket Street, where I had found him last May.

“Good morning, Dimble.”

He looks up at me, standing next to the bench, and offers me a swig from his large silver flask.

“No thanks, Dimble, I don’t drink until after dark.”

“Why not, are you afraid of something?”

“I need to keep consumption down.”

“Haven’t seen you for months.”

“I’ve been here in Fauxmont. What about you?  What are you up to these days?”

“I have been all over my life, over and over.”

“Dwelling in the past, huh?”

“Dawdling, I would say.  Dawdling with intent!”

“Not a crime.”

“No, my intention is to write.  Right out of memory and on to my keyboard.”

He offers his flask again. “Have a swig, Fred.”

“No thanks, Dimble.”

“I’ll have to go home for a refill before dark, you know.”

“That’s okay.  I can hold out.”

Rank Majors appears from behind the thicket to our right.

“You can take a leak down there, Dimble, plenty of cover.”

“Yeah, okay, my plumbing is fine.”

“Fred, how are you?”

“Not in need of the thicket, Rank, but more than a little worried.”

“You’re retired, aren’t you?”

“Thankfully, yes.”

“Well, the Jackdaws aren’t coming after you.”

“Not yet, at least.”

“Aren’t you concerned, Rank?”

“No! We can shed two-thirds of the government and only be better off.”

Dimble takes another swig from his flask and looks through the humid afternoon air to the opposite bank of the river.

“I think I would rather be over there, so speak, than where I am now.”

Rank steps toward the opposite end of the bench from Dimble and sits down.

“Dimble, you’re a lush!”

“Writers often are!”

“If you say so.”

“Churchill, that old imperialist, said that he got more out of alcohol than alcohol got out of him.”

“What do you see over there, Dimble?”

“Yeah, what indeed, Fred!  Hermione’s return perhaps?  There’s a lot of crows flying over there.”

He points to a flock of crows flying over the water.

“Here, Fred, try this.  It’s good rum.”

“No thanks.  Those crows are circling back!”

“I’ll take a swig.”

“Okay Rank, but make it short.  I need that to last until dinner time.”

He hands Rank the flask who pauses before putting it to his mouth.

“What time do you eat dinner?”

“Whenever I feel like it.”

“So, it is no fixed time.”

“It’s fixed by my appetite.”

“Okay, your biological clock, huh?”

“You might say that.  I would say eat when you feel like it.”

“What are you cooking tonight?”

“I don’t cook.  I use the phone.  It keeps the gas bill down and the risk of fire is reduced.”

“Carryout, you mean.”

“Well, I don’t carry much, though I do carry on in my own way.”

“Yeah, Dimble, that’s a fact.”

Dimble continues to stare across the river and starts mumbling to himself.

A helicopter flies over, drowning out all other sounds.

“What’s that, Dimble?”

“Fred, I was just thinking crows and jackdaws are both members of the Corvid family.”

“You think those crows are telling us something?”

“At first I thought they preferred the other side!”

“Yeah, I was expecting the mist to burn off by now.” Dimble mumbles again refreshing himself from his flask.

Rank is scratching his head.

“Dimble, you are not making sense!”

“Yeah, I am talking through the mist, to myself.”

“Are you in agreement with yourself?”

“That seldom occurs.”

“Do you use social media?”

“Fred, you might as well whisper to a thunderstorm.”

Rank adjusts his red “Macadamia 25” baseball cap, with white letters and a blue peak.

“You should take notice, that’s people’s power!”

“Relatively few people make most of the noise!”

“I guess you don’t go there?”

“No!”

“Do you, Fred?”

“I look at ‘Back Stairs’ for local stuff.”

Dimble belches. “Macadamia blames the other side for doing what he is already doing.”

“Such as?”

“Weaponization, Rank!”

“Meaning what?”

“I mean using lawsuits to extort money.”

“What is Mac to do, after having an election stolen from him?”

“One thing he could do is, shut up!” Dimble raises his flask to his lips again.

Rank stands up and takes a few slow steps looking at the ground and then looks up at Dimble. “Dimble, Mac’s job is to keep that story alive.”

“Why?”

“It keeps his supporters energized to fight socialism.”

“By socialism, you mean the government, by government you mean the executive bureaucracy.”

“By government, I mean a monster that gives away the taxpayer’s money!” 

“The president is part of the government too!”

“Right, too many of them have been going along, and now look at the cost of the deficit.”

“The deficit is a problem alright.”

“Dimble, I am glad to hear you say that.”

“But I must add, ah, ah.”

“Yes, go on.”

“Lost my train of thought.”

Dimble resorts to a restorative swig.

“Ah, yes, I must add that Mac’s smokescreen isn’t going to fix it.”

“Sometimes it takes a war to wake the country up.”

“Now we have Mac, who’s programmed to attack our nation’s government.”

“Listen, Dimble, a lot of creative patriots are at work.”

“Rank, it is nothing but a clutch of traitorous code, what do they call it? Ah, Ah, algorithms.”

“Don’t you believe it!”

“I do. Feather Jackdaw is writing his code too, and she is getting help from PU’s computer science department.”

“I’ve heard people say that before.”

“It is a well-known fact.”

“Where did you hear that, Dimble?”

“I am a reporter, remember!”

“Yeah, I am asking about your source.”

“Rank, my sources are confidential.”

“Your sources are wrong!”

Dimble tries to stand but sits down again, mumbling to himself.

“What’s that, Dimble?”

“It’s all part of the thunderstorm, Rank.”

“There is no storm in the forecasts I have seen.”

“No, Rank, it’s a hail of lies and a downpour of deceptions.”

“Dimble, you need to get with the program.”

“Thankfully no one is coding my utterances.”

“That is not what I meant!”

“Rank, you are drowning.”

“No, I am not. I am standing on dry land, like Fred.”

Dimble gestures with his flask in hand. The top falls off, rolling into the weeds.

“That damn thing!  Rank, you’re lost in the stream of falsehoods flooding into the vox populi.”

Rank steps over and picks up the top of Dimble’s flask from a patch of chickweed and dead oak leaves.

“Here, Dimble, keep this screwed on tight, okay?”

“Thank you, Rank. We are all getting screwed at the moment you know.”

Dimble gets up, walks around, and leans on the back of the bench facing Rank.

“Think, ‘Contracts’!”

“Okay, contracts, what about them, Dimble?”

“Feather Jackdaw has huge contracts with Defense and Intelligence.”

“Right, all those satellite launches, for example.”

“Rank, that’s the tip of the ‘dollar-berg’.”

“What do you mean ‘dollar-berg’?”

“I mean a lot of money we, the public, don’t see.”

“Yeah, that whole mess needs a big shake-up!”

“I couldn’t agree more Rank.  Here, have another dose of my sanity juice.”

Dimble leans over the bench to hand Rank the flask.

“Thanks, buddy.”

Rank takes a swig and hands it back.

“Fred, here, there’s some left.”

“No, Dimble, thanks all the same.”

“Well, your sanity quotient is pretty respectable according to my SQ test.”

“When did you administer that?”

Dimble belches and steadies himself on the back of the bench.

“Fred, it is one of the more profound benefits of alcoholic consumption.”

“Dimble, I haven’t had a drink yet, today.”

“No, more’s the pity, but I have and enjoy some insulation from my biases on this important matter.”

Rank walks around to help Dimble keep his balance.

“What’s your IQ, Dimble.”

“So low they wouldn’t tell me the number.”

“Okay, so bear in mind, Feather Jackdaw and her team have very high scores, off the charts.”

“Oh, I know, they are good at those tests, yes.”

“So, you might want to consider their superior intelligence.  Our country is in good hands!”

“There are many kinds of intelligence that test fails to detect.”

“Well, that is just speculation.”

“That test also fails to detect, arrogance, insensitivity, and hatred, stupidity and meanness.  I could go on.”

“Yeah okay, Dimble.”

“Look here, I am running out of juice.”

Dimble shuffles away from the bench toward the road.

“Wait up, Dimble!”

“What’s that, Rank?”

“People have good reason for their anger.”

Dimble mumbles something drowned out by another passing helicopter.

Rank takes his arm and steadies him.

“I’ll walk you home, buddy.”

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

Maynard Keyes and Daisy Brisco, wrapped in her Ukrainian flag scarf, join me at the shopping center. We shelter under the overhang, outside the new store, Legal Drugs.

Rain follows last week’s blizzard in a drenching beat on one side of Maynard’s large umbrella that reaches beyond our shelter. 

“My contract with PU art department may not be renewed for the spring semester.”

“Why, Daisy?”

“It is funded by a grant from the NEA!”

“Yes, a threatening part of the deep state, of course!”

“MAYNARD!”

“Sorry, what other opportunities do you see?”

“Not much. I guess I might be able to work at Tenniel’s Art Shop again.”

“Have you got an agent?”

“No, no representation at all.”

“Might help you sell some art.”

“That is the way to do it, of course, but I never have. I never really wanted a job.”

“Why not?  Seeking opportunities and making money can be great fun!”

“I am looking for different kinds of opportunities.”

“What kinds?”

“In my artwork, for example, Maynard.”

“Oh, personal growth, you might say.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“One of those ancient Greeks had an idea about chariots.”

“Oh! a strategist, was he?”

“He was using an analogy, Fred.”

“For what, Maynard?”

“It is all about virtue.”

“Could that be the pursuit of happiness?”

“Precisely, Fred, but not the modern meaning of happiness.”

“What is the modern meaning, Maynard?  You mean it has changed?”

“It has, Daisy.  Happiness might mean going to a ballgame or dinner with your lover.”

“It might not if the lovers are fighting.”

“For the sake of argument let’s assume they are not.”

“Okay, Maynard, so what did this Greek think about happiness?”

“Daisy, think of June 1776, Jefferson’s famous opening to the Declaration of Independence.”

“Daisy, you might say we have the consumer’s idea of happiness.”

“Sure, Fred that’s my feeling about it!”

“That’s it.  Jefferson wrote before our consumer society evolved.”

A deep green Ford Transit van from Phaedrus Conceptual Solutions Inc. pulls up to the dry cleaners next door. Their rearing palomino horse leaps forth from a circular yellow background of the logo on each door.

“Excuse me! Look at that van!”

Daisy reads the slogan printed under the logo.

“’Kick back! Let us do the thinking for you with Phaedrus AI’”

Maynard is laughing.

“Speaking of our consumer society!”

“Yes, Kick back and be relieved of your responsibility!”

“Can you imagine that, Fred?”

“Daisy, they are giving America another convenience.”

“Oh! That is a nice rendering of the horse even if it is a logo.”

“There you are Daisy, you could go into commercial art!”

“No thanks Fred, I am not into evoking mindless slogans.”

“Certainly not, that would be no help in understanding virtue.”

“Interesting; from a chariot, an engine of war, we get virtue.”

A woman in a deep green uniform step out of the van with her phone to her ear.

“Here’s the thing, Fred, he uses the charioteer and two horses to picture your soul.”

“Like a snapshot from two thousand years before the camera!”

“It is a mental picture, Fred.”

“Okay, an image, you might say!”

“The charioteer is reason, which directs the horses. One has a good equine nature and the other a bad nature.”

“I get it, our good and bad impulses!”

“Right, Daisy, so the idea is that reason should guide people towards wisdom and virtue.”

“Okay, what about intuition, you know, the heart?”

“He didn’t use that metaphor.”

“It all sounds kind of abstract, I mean in reality we all have emotional reactions.”

“We do, Daisy, those might be of the good horse or the bad.”

The woman from Phaedrus Conceptual Solutions comes out of the cleaners with a bundle of uniforms, draped in plastic, over her arm.

“So, it’s horses all the way along!”

“Galloping through life, Fred.”

“Not really, in some respects life is more like a rat race!”

We are interrupted by a thunderclap. A man in shirtsleeves is running to his car from the hardware store, further down.

“That guy is getting drenched!”

“You want to run for it, Daisy?”

“No thanks, Fred. Look, there’s clear sky coming. Mind your umbrella, Maynard. Don’t get struck by lightning.”

Maynard moves back against the window at Legal Drugs and folds his umbrella.

“I feel like we are getting off the point.”

“Which one, there are so many, Maynard?”

“The whole work leisure-thing, Fred.”

“What do you mean by ‘thing’?”

“Alienation! Fred.”

“Maynard, let’s start over. There is work people like or even love doing and there’s work people do because they need money and may hate the job.”

“They just need to find a better job.”

“True enough, Maynard, but easier said than done.”

“I didn’t mean it was easy!”

“Okay, okay, look, what I am trying to say is that most people need a break from their work.”

“Yeah, like time off. Free time to cultivate your garden or get a haircut or take care of a sick child.”

“That isn’t exactly free time, Daisy. The thing is what do you want that time for?”

“You mean free of obligations? Lots of us don’t know what to do with it.”

“So true, Fred and some of us can’t get enough of that kind of time.”

Maynard leans on his umbrella.

“I think this is a Marxian insight.  Alienated labor divides you from yourself.”

“Yes, Maynard, you really don’t want to be working but you do anyway so that part of you that ‘wants’ is denied.”

Daisy’s scarf has tumbled from her shoulders. She wraps it around her neck. “When we are divided, we can’t get it together.”

The Phaedrus van starts its intrusive beeping, backing out into the parking lot. 

“So it is, Daisy, and has been, since the industrial revolution.”

“Let that thing get going.”

The van is stuck behind an F-150 and a Tesla, both heading for the newly vacated space.

“As machines did more work, many of us had to work more like them, in tedious repetitive tasks.”

The Tesla moves on, opening the way for the van to leave and the truck to park.

Maynard’s ring tones sound into the silence of the departed engines.

“Well, now we have to keep up with instant digital communications!”

Maynard taps out a quick text and pockets his phone.

“I wish they would just shut that noise down for a while.”

“You mean all of it, the whole internet?”

“No, Fred, just social media.”

“Not a bad idea.”

“Do you ever read the comments on websites?”

“Yup, it is often a lot of Noise, I mean just obnoxious and of no value.”

“But Daisy, people are busy reacting and venting their compressed frustrations, etc.”

“That is what I call noise, Fred.  It doesn’t tell me anything.”

“It tells you how they feel.”

“Yeah, like a swishing cat’s tail tells me it is feeling defensive.”

“It is not virtuous, that much is clear.”

Maynard looks up from tapping out another message. “When virtue guides the horses, we have self-mastery.”

“That is something artists need, to some extent at least.”

“Really Daisy? So many artists seem to have been a bit deranged.”

“Yeah, I know, Van Gogh, for instance, but when he was painting, he had his chariot on track and his horses balanced virtuously.”

Maynard points to the sky with his big, folded umbrella.

“Look! The sky is clearing.”

The rain slacks off and sunlight brightens puddles among cracks in the asphalt.

“I need to make a move.  See you soon!”

Maynard walks over to his huge pink Buick and Daisy and I cross Maxwell Avenue to Fauxmont and our homes.

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

“bel clears snow off their new car while Steve shovels it off the driveway, making room to put their trashcans out beyond the driveway’s gate. 

“Fred, how is the footing out on the road?”

“You have to watch it, slippery here and there.”

“Albrecht’s plow raised that frozen range of the ‘Andes’ between the gate and the street!”

“Yes, he cleared one lane of the street but blocked the driveway and filled in the ditch too.”

Steve has shoveled a path to the “Andes” and the gate swings on its hinges again. They set aside their tools.

“I doubt there will be any trash collection tomorrow.”

“Where is Ossian?”

“He is inside. I’ll let him out, now there is a path for him.”

Steve walks back to their front door and opens it.

Ossian bursts out barking and rushes down the cleared driveway towards bel.

“Hi there! “

Ossian quiets and puts his forepaws up on bel’s knees.

“I think this is too deep for you!”

A golden retriever comes up from Maxwell Avenue, ahead of Lark Bunlush. Ossian ploughs through the snow on his side of the fence, barking.

“What was that about too deep, bel?”

“Yeah! He has got a thing for goldens.”

The two dogs sniff through the fence.

“Lark, where did you get that beautiful dog?”

“He’s a guest dog, supposed to go back to DC today.”

“Looks like he’s snowed in, at your place.”

“He’s snowed in, bel, and can’t wait to get out!”

Steve comes out of the gate, and starts trying to clear the Andes and access to the road, but they are solid ice. 

The Golden is pulling hard on his leash towards us with Ossian keeping up on his side of the fence.

Lark stumbles, dropping the leash and the dog bounds over to Steve, paws slipping several times where the sun melt refroze on the road last night. 

“Lark, are you alright?”

She gets up and brushes the dry snow off her black wind pants.

“I’m fine.  Can you catch that dog?”

The golden has stopped by the gate to sample the shovelings. Ossian zips through the gate.  Steve drops his shovel and grabs the trailing leash pulling back inside the gate against the Golden’s sudden momentum.

“bel scales the Andes following Ossian onto the cleared road.  

“OSSI! Come back here!”

Ossian has run out the gate but follows the golden back in again.

Bel holds Ossi’s red leash as it gets wound around the goldens longer black one.

Lark reaches Steve by the partially open gate in front of the car. 

“What’s the dog’s name?”

“Sherlock, Steve”

“In the spirit of Conan Doyle!”

“He is a detector alright. Yesterday, Sherlock found my lost glove under the snow about a block from here.”

“Looks like a female, Lark.”

“Yeah, should be, Shirley, I guess.”

“Are you ready for this?” Steve hands her the leash.

“Thanks, Steve.  Are you ready for the new dictator?”

“Do you mean Feather Jackdaw or Macadamia?”

“It was a dual inauguration. They are digitally codependent.”

Bel has picked up Ossian to prevent further entanglement.

“Steve, close the gate!”

He pulls the gate closed, leaving his shovel stuck into the Andes.

Ossian is struggling again to get free of bel’s arms and get over to Sherlock.

“I am taking him in to get his jacket.”

“bel starts toward the house, but Ossi breaks free, landing in the snow piled up from the driveway.”

“The United States of American Money, that’s where we live now.”

“I get it, Lark. Macadamia is installing a cabinet of billionaires.”

“Yeah, Fred, that is a basic part of the operating system.”

Steve takes off his gloves, holds them under his arm, and blows into his cupped hands. Then looks up. “One of his algorithms!”

“Remember, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was also a for-profit company.”

“How could I forget those Pilgrims, Lark?”

“Yeah, but the myth leaves out that part.  It’s all freedom, Indians, corn, and fish.”

“That’s what myths are for! Feel good!”

“Okay, Steve, let’s get real and recall our revolution was about wealthy white landowners keeping more of their money.”

“Well, sure, our founding documents are aspirational.”

“They didn’t think the rest of the population worthy of their attention!” 

“That was customary, back then.”

“That doesn’t make it right!”

“No, it’s just a historical fact.”

We can hear the blade of Albrecht’s plow scraping then bouncing over a speed bump and landing with a metallic clang. 

His Hummer, with the blade still attached, pulls up. He rolls down his window.

“Hi, there party goers!”

Steve waves, “Thanks for the plowing job!”

“Sure, Steve, all for our beautiful new America!”

“What’s new about your plowing?  Haven’t you been doing that for us for the last four years or more?”

“Sure have Lark. Nice looking dog you got there.”

“This is Sherlock.”

“Wow! Is he yours?”

The Hummer stalls.

“This thing needs a tune-up.  I am going to trade it in on one of those Tesla trucks as soon as the weather clears.” 

Albrecht restarts the Hummer, which misfires and belches a cloud of exhaust.

“You know, Lark, our country has always been about work, money, and prosperity.”

“Right, for some.  Others can work hard all their lives and barely make a living.”

“Of course!  This world has always been full of losers.”

“Not losers, not in that sense, most people were kept down by class and race-based slavery.”

“That’s over now.  The race now will be a competition to get rich in our newly liberated economy.”

Steve looks over at bel. “Maybe”. 

Albrecht revs his engine.

“I’ve got to get this thing moving!”

Two SUVs are waiting to get past the plow on the narrow strip of road he has cleared.

Bel has caught up with Ossi and given up on getting his coat.

Lark gives Sherlock and Ossie treats. 

“Have you heard of Pete Pigsbreth, bel?”

“No, Lark, who?”

“Pigsbreth, he is National Director of Local Coordination or NDLC.”

“What does NDLC do?”

“bel, it spies on every community to make sure we fall for Macadamia’s nonsense.”

“Well, that’s getting done online!”

“No, this is personal.  They want to make it personal.”

“I don’t get it.”

“It’s PR, every community has its Albrecht Intaglio, who works for NDLC.”

“Well, Lark, as far as I can see, politics is mainly online now.”

“Sure, bel, there is no substance, just slogans and distractions.”

“I think Macadamia’s algorithms are plugged into every hate group in the country.”

“Right again bel, the program feeds them what they want to hear.”

Steve is still trying to warm his hands but lowers them from his mouth to speak.

“The education system let us down there.”

“How?”

“Lark, we aren’t teaching the whole person.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just mean students should learn to think for themselves.”

“Are you kidding?  When do you think that’s going to happen?”

“No, well, I know I am being unrealistic.”

bel drops another treat for Ossi. 

“Remember we have grown up watching TV commercials.”

“The persuasion industry does not provoke reflection, bel.”

“Yes, it is going for reaction.”

“Right, TikTok vids are short and punchy like ads.” 

“Yup, a small transition from selling the latest new soap.”

Sherlock pulls hard and Lark steadies herself on a fence post. “Yeah, the only new thing was the label!”

“Now we all get political labels.”

Steve rubs his hands together.

“Right, distractions, political treats, you might say!”

“When Boyd was a high school junior, I had to explain to him how the House and Senate differ.”

Steve puts his gloves back on.

“Yeah, civics seems to have dropped out.”

“Well, Boyd was always kind of preoccupied in his teens.”

bel distracts Ossi with another treat.

“I can tell you schools differ enormously” 

Steve is edging toward his shovel.

“A good school district is nearly always high income.”

“Doesn’t that tell you something!”

bel keeps Ossi close despite his protests.

Lark can’t hold Sherlock back any longer.

“Looks like we’re moving on!”

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

Fred meets Diddlie on her driveway. She wears an unusual pale gray pinafore, gray cap, and white sleeves and tights. 

“What is that outfit you are wearing?”

“It’s my admission uniform to that new Gallery.”

“A uniform?”

“Yes, you have to wear light gray, warm or cool tone, to get in.”

“Makes you look like a schoolgirl.”

“You like that, Fred?”

“Well, sure, I mean I don’t get it.”

“Don’t be shy, Fred. I didn’t pick a warm tone for nothing.”

“What’s it for?”

Diddlie presses against me.

“It is just part of the experience.”

“Where did you get the outfit?”

She moves a few inches away, rubbing herself against me.

“Off the website, fifty bucks.  It’s cheap stuff, see?”

She holds out her sleeve for me to touch the fabric.

“I see, feels like paper.”

“Yeah, hope it doesn’t rip and expose my sagging wrinkled bod.”

“You won’t be alone in that!”

“Fred, that doesn’t help.”

“I don’t have a gray outfit, besides some sweatpants and a shirt.”

“That’s okay, you can buy when we get there.”

“Okay, what kind of exhibition are we going to?  I thought it was going to be art.”

“Oh, I can’t remember the guy’s name, but he does do art.”

“Steve told me yesterday that it’s called, ‘Art You’re In’.”

“He and bel should be here pretty soon.”

“Good grief, is that them?”

“Yeah, that’s their new Toyota Hybrid.”

The white Camry rolls silently onto Diddlie’s driveway until the front radials snap a twig. Bel opens her window.

“Hi there, art lovers!”

I can see Steve in a gray tunic and pale gray cap, while bel’s outfit is much like Diddlie’s but she has light yellow sleeves.

“Bel, what is this thing we are going to?”

“Fred, it is Boris Tarantula’s latest extravaganza.”

Bel winds up her window as Diddlie and I get in the back.

“It’s an installation at that estate owned by Axel Ensor, outside Gaithersburg.”

Steve backs the car out of the driveway.

“All five thousand acres of it.”

“Did he sponsor the thing?”

“Sure did, Fred.”

“I’ll bet Boris got a nice rake-off!”

“He is getting a hundred thousand a month, plus expenses!”

“Not bad.”

“That’s what Frank Vasari said when he told me about it.”

“Oh really, what else did you learn?”

“Frank is going to make a few bucks exhibiting the outfits and stuff at PU Art Space, when this thing is over.”

Diddlie nudges me. “Who is Frank Vasari?”

“He is chairman of PU Art Department.”

“Is he that guy Daisy hangs out with?”

We pull up at a red light and Steve turns around to Diddlie.

“He hired her to teach undergraduate drawing classes at PU.  I don’t think they are dating.”

“Well, I hope she finds a guy soon.”

“She is isn’t looking, Did. I can assure you.”

After nearly an hour, Steve turns into the parking lot from which we can see a massive white curvy structure built into a hillside. 

Bel turns to us before we get out of the car.

“They sell tickets at the entrance, and you can get the uniform in a packet marked ‘Liquid Light’.”

The line moves fast as a voice keeps repeating:

“Changing rooms are on the right, folks.”

The others are waiting when I come out in my gray paper outfit carrying my clothes in the plastic bag provided for the paper clothing.

“Fred, you could have left your cloths in the lockers, you know.”

“What lockers, bel?”

“Over in the changing rooms.”

“Oh, I am not going back now.”

We enter the building through a turnstile, which flashes lots of tiny lights at us. Then in the lobby of the exhibition, we see replicas of ourselves waving from a balcony above. A wall of screens explains different parts of the show.  

Boris Tarantula fills the whole wall of screens with a giant presence, before we can watch the videos,  

“As you proceed, microphones throughout the exhibition space will pick up voices from passersby and whatever you are talking about will materialize before your eyes.  If you say, lion, a lion will appear before you.  If you say, Grandma’s place, her room will surround you. Welcome to the miracles of our time, making you the art in this show.”

Boris fades away, and the screens divide into rectangles, each explaining various features of the exhibition.

We move on, into an old-fashioned parlor with an upright piano and two warn armchairs with antimacassars in front of a small fireplace. There are plenty of others in the space with us. It’s hard to tell if they are tangible or just light. We can barely hear their voices.

“So, who said anything about grandma?”

“I didn’t, Diddlie.”

“The mics must have picked up someone else.”

“Well, I guess so, Steve.”

Okay, so what’s with those screeching monkeys?”

“You hear those birds sounding off?”

“They sound like parrots, bel.”

“My God, something is coming up from somewhere!”

The rhymical repetitions of an animal trotting through dry leaves, sound alarmingly close as they grow louder.  Many other sounds of the jungle come through as we listen.

“What is going on here?”

“I was going to ask you that, Diddlie.”

Viscus green liquid light drips down our paper clothes from low-hanging branches, and from shrubs as we brush by them.

“I can’t get this magenta snakeskin off me!” 

“It isn’t really a snake, Did!”

She shakes some of it off and it falls to the floor spreading like a rug.

“Will you look at that!”

A lion sits only yards away.

“Are we in the same room with that thing?”

“See, it is looking across a field.”

“I can’t tell what space anything is in!”

Steve walks over, sloshing some yellow and green light across the floor as if it were slush after a thaw, giving off a little magenta vapor.

“Are you enjoying the party?”

“What party?  We have been in a jungle room.”

“How about you, Did?”

“Nothing makes sense around here!”

We hear multiple conversations as if we were in a crowded room.

“Wait a minute, where is all that coming from?  Where’s the lion? Where is the little room?”

“Follow me.”

Steve leads the way into a purple snowstorm.

Diddlie tries to gather some up.

It turns yellow when it gets on her paper uniform.

“You can’t even make a snowball with this stuff!”

“That’s because there is nothing there but light.”

“There is something more than that, Fred.”

Nude dancers surround us moving to Tchaikovsky’s dance of Sugar Plumb Fairy, from the Nutcracker Suite.

“Those figures are right out of Rubens’ Three Graces!” 

“Who are they, Steve?”

“The Graces were the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, the Ocean nymph.”

“Steve, you mean they are paintings from Greek mythology?”

“I mean they are animations of Rubens’ work.”

“What? like Micky Mouse, or something?”

“Right, Diddlie, only it’s not hand-painted cels, it’s digital stuff.”

“Well, that one has a mighty big ass!”

“Oh! Look! There’s Micky riding a sled downhill over there.”

bel taps my shoulder.

“This is cyber, ‘Son et Lumiere’!”

“Sound and light and then some!”

“Did you see the screen explaining that everything we see is a digital simulation?”

“No, I didn’t have time to read much.”

“Does this experience remind you of something, Fred?”

“Yes, come to think of it, the president-elect!”

“Creepy, isn’t it?”

“This must be the same technology that keeps people believing Macadamia is a real person.”

“Sure is, Fred.  Boris gave his campaign twenty million, you know.”

“I had no idea Boris had that kind of money, Steve.”

He takes Diddlie’s arm and leads her into another exhibition space.

On following them, the first thing bel and I see is the Milky Way brighter and bigger than most people have ever seen it.  

“We seem to be walking among the stars.”

“I know bel, where is the floor?”

“I don’t see it.”

“We are definitely treading on something, though.”

Diddlie is gesticulating and liquid light flies off her arms in yellows and oranges.

“Let’s get out of here!”

Steve grabs her left hand.

“Diddlie, just let it all go by.”

Bel grabs Steve’s arm.

“Do you realize they now have replicas of us all?”

“Are we going to be replaced?”

“No Diddlie, they aren’t true replicas, they are just light.”

“Well, Steve, who needs a simulated mushroom experience? I can have real the thing at home.”

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

It is a warm sunny morning. Rank Majors is busy on two phones at once.  He and Albrecht are sitting outside the Pie Shop with their laptops open on the table. They wave to Macadamia supporters, parking opposite, and sounding their horns in the Safeway lot.  

“Yo! Fred, it’s a beautiful day in November!”

“Tea-shirt weather!”

Albrecht gets up, and shows off his red Macadamia tea shirt, with “Mac is Back” in white across his shoulder blades.

“What do you want Fred? I am buying.”

“Thanks, Albrecht, I’ll have Earl Grey tea and a blueberry muffin.”

He walks in to pick up my order.

Rank puts down his phones.

“Pull up a seat, Fred, how are you doing?”

He glances at his computer screen and taps the trackpad.

“To tell you the truth Rank, I was disappointed in the election results last night.”

“President Armond Macadamia and his VP, Feather Jackdaw, will give us American style Putinist government, and we will be the greatest, wealthiest power in history.”

“Really? Feather is a tech billionaire, what is she doing in the picture?

“She is the richest woman in the world and prosperity is what we are all about.”

“There is a serious conflict of interest there.”

“No way, her job is to bring efficiency to the government, and she has the experience to do it.”

“No government experience, though.”

“All the better!”

“Haven’t we already been there?”

“We have never had the tech resources we have now.”

“After World War II we had it over the rest of the world.”

“Right, because war devastated Europe and Japan.  Now we will be on top of a much bigger global pile!”

“That kind of domination is just what I am afraid of!”

“Listen, Putin is the most astute political genius of our time!”

“You mean there are others?”

“Remember Lenin’s commanding heights?”

“Unfortunately, I do.”

“Macadamia, Lenin, Putin, Orban, for example, all understood where the power lay and grabbed it.”

“Yeah, where do you think these heights are now?”

“Media!”

“You mean the internet?”

“That, and TV”

“Makes sense to me.”

Albrecht comes over with my tea and muffin and sits down next to me. 

“Albrecht, explain this media thing.”

“You see, the media allowed Macadamia to talk to real Americans.  The guys put out of work by the radical left and the deep state.”

“Talk to them?”

“Right, in their vocabulary. The over-educated Liberals, find it soooo offensive.  They don’t know anything.  Mac’s campaign was sheer genius!”

“What about the tax cuts?”

“Yes, that’s what American business needs to bring back prosperity.”

“You know, Calvin Coolidge once broke his silence, to say, ‘The business of America is business’.”

“That’s why we have an airport named after him.”

“How is all this prosperity going to get down to ‘real’ Americans”?

“More money means more well-paid jobs!”

“Albrecht, I’ll believe that when it happens.”

“Coming soon, my friend!”

“What good do you see coming up?”

“Think of all the data the credit card companies, and others, have!”

“Not a happy thought, Albrecht, I believe they have digital profiles on all users.”

“Right! Once we have reorganized the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau it can use all that to control threats to our program.”

“What do you mean, threats?”

“Okay, say there is some radical leftist Congressman who gets a little too noisy?”

“Yes, criticizing the administration.”

“Yeah, we can go in and disrupt her credit and if she doesn’t come around, we can tie her up in court until she is bankrupt.”

“You think that’s good?”

“Sure, keep the radical left out of the game!”

“I see, control of money is power!”

“The senior commanding height under capitalism!”

“It sure is, but this would be against countless laws!”

“No problem, Fred.  Mac has over a hundred executive orders ready

to go on his first day.”

“You mean taking illegal actions?”

“He is immune from prosecution, don’t you remember?”

“Well, yes but this is going too far.”

“There is no such thing as too far when it comes to breaking up the deep state.”

“That sounds like dangerous talk to me, Albrecht.”

“Fred, don’t you worry.  Sure, we are going to fire about a million government bureaucrats, but the best of them will get new higher-paying jobs in the new companies we will create.”

“What companies?”

“Companies running the Executive branch.”

“You can’t contract out a government agency!”

“Why not?”

“Agencies hire contractors, they don’t serve them.”

“Our companies will serve the President.”

“What about the Constitution?”

“That too, once it has been updated to the twenty-first century!”

“Albrecht, it takes a constitutional convention to do that.”

“Okay Fred, we shall have one and we shall have a majority.”

“I think you are getting carried away, Albrecht.”

“Probably! This is the most exciting day of my life and the greatest day in American history!”

Rank and Albrecht do a high five and one of Rank’s phones falls on the ground.

“What about all those government workers you are going to fire?”

“Same as coal miners or auto workers when their business shuts down.”

“Yes, the ‘real Americans’”?

“Right, those who go along with the program, will be fine.”

“What about the others?”

“Who cares?  They are what we call an ‘externality’.”

“Oh! A kind of pollution?”

“You got it, Fred.  Just part of the cost of doing business.”

Rank is back on a phone with cracked glass. Lark Bunlush pulls up in a red Fiat 500. She parks facing us, in the Safeway lot, under a nearby streetlight.  

“Fred, what are you doing out here with those two?”

“Hi, Lark.”

Albrecht gets up as she walks over to our table.

“Cute little car, Lark.”

“Yeah, used, but it runs well, so far.”

“Great, and it’s red!”

“Yes, it is red, so what?”

“So, red won the election!”

“Oh! Albrecht, you misunderstand.  Red is the color of revolution!”

“We are the revolutionaries now!”

Rank has put his phone down again, and waves to Lark.

“Come join the party!”

“You know what, Rank?”

“What, Lark?”

“Herbert Marcuse predicted that the revolution wouldn’t come until the system failed to deliver the goods, and it would come from the right!”

Albrecht high fives Rank, again.

“Yeah! And we are right, right now!”

“You want a coffee, Lark, I am buying?”

Lark looks up at a passing crow, which lands on top of the streetlight.

“Thanks, Albrecht, but I have shopping to do.”

“Looks like Herbie, whoever he was, he gets it!”

The crow lets out a series of coos, caws, and rattles.

Albrecht looks up at the crow who seems to be looking back down at us.

“Stick with us, up there, buddy!”

Lark pulls up a seat.

“Marcuse was a part of the Frankfurt School of Sociology, who developed a school of sociology called, Critical Theory. He was also a refugee from Hitler.”

Albrecht gets up.

“He is news to me!  You sure you don’t want anything?”

Lark shakes her head.

“What are you doing out here, anyway?  Why aren’t you down the block at the Macadamia Campaign’s local headquarters?”

“Lark, they are partying, and we have work to do!”

“Haven’t you done enough already?”

“Not even close, Lark, we are coordinating the Macadamia organization’s local activities.”

“Macadamia isn’t even a real person!”

Rank looks up from his laptop.

“He sure is, Lark, I have shaken his hand.”

“So say a lot of people, but I am telling you there was a tech breakthrough at PU a while ago and that guy is a digital replica.”

“What do you know about breakthroughs at PU?”

“Only that they have happened.”

“Be careful who you talk to about that, Lark.”

“What are you saying, Rank? Is that a threat?”

“Far from it. I have heard the same story, and I have been given that same advice.”

“Seems to me we all need to talk a whole lot more about it.”

“You liberals are just determined to cause a ruckus!”

“No, not a ruckus, just some truth.”

Albrecht comes back with coffee.  He takes a sip from one and puts the other in front of Lark.“Truth?  Lark, we make our own truth.”

“I know, Albrecht, but those are not facts they are fibs and lies.”

“Hey, they bring in the votes.  How’s that for truth?”

“Okay, okay, Albrecht, we have been down this road too many times already.  Aren’t you just a little bit worried about who controls our new digital president-elect?”

“No, I am looking forward to a new celebrity cabinet.”

“No kidding, like Hollywood types?”

“Maybe, and our supporters from all over our TV news business.”

“What do they know about running the government?”

“All they need to know is what the big guy tells them.”

More crows arrive, circling noisily.

We all look up at them and Lark points out our crow has taken off.

“That is what’s called a ‘murder’ of crows.”

“Do you think those birds are bent on mayhem?”

“No Fred, Maynard told me that is their collective name.”

“A murder?” 

“That’s what he said.” 

The crows settle across the street in the brilliant yellow of a hickory in Fall, leaving a couple of white droppings on the hood of Lark’s red car.

“Stay tuned Lark, you are watching history in the making.”

Lark shakes her head and gets up.

“Albrecht, I think history is repeating itself, if anything.”

Leaving the coffee Albrecht put in front of her, Lark walks over to the Safeway.

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

We are in Steve’s car driving along Maxwell Ave, to visit his friend, Beatle. Traffic is slow.

“Time passes much quicker in the morning than any other.”

“That’s probably because you take Ossi out first thing.”

“I put out the breakfast dishes first then take him out between seven and eight.”

“It’s barely light at that time.”

“Yes, terriers are crepuscular, you know.”

“That’s a good hour’s runaround!”

“It is. While we are out, bel prepares our fruit and oatmeal, tea for me, and coffee for her. I put down Ossi’s chow when I get back.”

“Doesn’t bel feed him at all?”

“She doesn’t do that much in the mornings since we lost Josephine.”

“bel was deeply attached to that cat.”

“So true, Fred.  She feeds Ossi in the evenings, with a little pumpkin for dessert.”

“Enjoys his veg does he?”

“It keeps him regular, and he never leaves an atom in the dish.”

“Dogs have highly efficient tongues.”

“I am more active in the mornings. Emptying the dehumidifiers, taking trash out, and so on, and that is where some of the time goes.  But time races by while we read the papers.”

“I imagine you read the New York Times, which is way too long for me.”

“Yup, and the Washington Post and Financial Times.”

“That lot could take all day and all night!”

“bel reads the FT, and I like the Times and we both read different parts of the Post.”

We stop beside a white Tesla in the left turn lane. A golden retriever looks back at us from the open passenger’s side window.

“That dog looks like it wants to chat.”

Steve opens his window, and the dog pulls back and looks away.

“Only with other dogs!”

We move forward a few car lengths.

“It is nothing but red lights along here!”

“They are always red if you are in a hurry!”

“Yes, are we running late?”

“Beatle doesn’t take much notice of the time.”

“You can’t be too careful.  People are running lights more and more often.”

“I had someone go around me to run this light up here.”

Traffic is backing up in the oncoming lane behind a bus letting off passengers.

“That guy looks like he is going to make a run for it!”

“Stay there, buddy!”

We move a few more car lengths and stop at the next red light.

“It would be fun to hear some of the Beatle’s old hits.”

“No, it is not the band, he was always tinkering with his VW.”

“You don’t see many of those old Bugs now.”

“He has a really old one with the split rear window.”

“From the fifties?”

“He would know.”

“You’ve made no mention of a wife or partner. Is he married?”

“Yes, three times and none of them could stand him for long.”

“So, he is by himself now.”

“Yeah, pretty much.  His second wife, Natalya comes by, once in a while.”

“What about number three?”

“No way, that third marriage ended in violence after less than a year!”

“How ghastly, did he hurt her badly?”

“No, she gave him a concussion and cracked a couple of ribs with a sock full of ball bearings.”

“Interesting weapon!”

“Beatle keeps it under his pillow in case of an intruder.”

The white VW Atlas ahead turns right through a yellow light.

“An turn signal would have been nice!”

“Probably on the phone.”

“Okay, we take the next one.”

The light has turned red at the intersection of Maxwell Ave. and a broken street sign indicating an important part of Beatle’s address unreadable.

“So, what is your history with this ‘Beatle’?”

“We are in a Listening Group.”

“What is that?”

“Comparing and contrasting different recordings.”

“Oh, are you all musicians?”

“There are only three of us, now.  The other two are musicians, I am not, as you know.”

Steve parks in front of a small square bungalow with white shutters at the windows.  Next door are to two long narrow townhouses in the last stages of construction.  

“Look at those two identical twins, Steve!”

“They call it, ‘infill’. It provides more housing.”

“Yes, and each house will add at least two more vehicles to the streets.”

“Not just vehicles, huge late-model SUVs.”

We get out of the car and look around.

“There are always a few midsized electric cars like that Prius over there.”

“Steve, this area is nearly gridlocked already!”

“That’s growth for you!”

“Look at those new places down there. The neighborhood is getting horribly gentrified.”

“That’s prosperity for you!”

“Why do they have to ruin our nice old community with all this?”

“Don’t be a NIMBY, Fred.”

We can see a red, white, and blue Macadamia sign on the grass behind the rail fence across Beatle’s front yard.”

“Look at that, Fred!”

“It is one of those LED signs.”

“I didn’t know they made garden variety electronic signs.”

“Isn’t that a small version of that program of images at the Hadron Shopping Center?”

“Sure, looks like it.”

“There’s Macadamia dancing to The Village People’s YMCA!”

“I wonder if he knows that was a gay group?”

Several broken rails have fallen at odd angles to their posts. One end is attached crudely to a gate post with baling wire.  A large white oak branch has fallen near Beatle’s black VW, parked in the driveway.  Twigs full of dead leaves are scattered over the car. We walk up the short leaf-strewn front path to the portico.

“He has been in this house more than thirty years.”

“It looks like he needs to get a paint job.”

White paint peels off the door frame.

Steve turns the doorknob, and we go into the small living room filled with a baby grand piano. An easy chair in the corner is piled with sheet music.

“Beatle!”

Steve looks around.  There is no sign of him.

“This room feels kind of bare.  No carpet, nothing on the walls, no curtains.”

“I know, Fred.  He is all ears in here.”

“Beatle, it’s Steve. I have brought my neighbor, Fred.”

“Down here. Come on down here!”

It is a faint sound.

“Oh, he is in the listening room.”

Steve leads the way through the kitchen with one old percolator coffee pot on each side of the sink, which is full of unwashed mugs.

“Help yourself to coffee from the pot on the right.”

“Thanks, Beatle, we are all coffeed out.”

“The milk in the fridge is sour.”

We go down to the basement by steep stairs made narrow by the stair lift.  The path to Beatle’s chair is warn deep into the light brown shag carpet. 

“Beatle! How are you?”

He is a short barrel-shaped man with a graying ginger beard and thin hair. He doesn’t look up, adjusting the controls on his stereo preamp.  He waves his headphones held in his right hand.

“Hi Steve, Hi Steve’s friend.’

“This is Fred.”

“Fred, pull up a seat anywhere you can find one.”

The far wall supports shelves loaded with LPs from floor to ceiling.  There’s a row of old steel ammunition boxes on the floor in front. The wall behind him holds books, with more piled up on the floor in front of it.  Looks like a small window has been blocked with a warped unpainted plywood rectangle, fastened with peeling gray duct tape. 

Beatle backs up and sits slowly in his corduroy recliner. His headphones now hang off one wrist stretched out over the arm of his chair.

We step carefully around Beatle’s feet on the extended recliner to take identical brown leather barrel chairs, facing him. They are badly torn along the sides.  The cushions are timeworn with faded hollows in the seat.

He notices me looking at the ragged chairs.

“My first wife’s cat tore that up. I told her the cat’s got to go.  So, the bitch left with her cat the next day!”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t waste your sorrow on me, Fred!”

“Fine, I am abstemious by nature!”

Beatle puts his headphones around his neck and picks up an iPad from a small round table beside him, knocking his coffee mug on the floor.

“Has that damn thing spilled?”

“No, Beatle, it is empty.”

“Alright, Steve, I’ll get another mug when Boyd gets here.”

“Would that be Boyd Nightingale?”

“Yeah, you know him, Fred?”

“Not well, but yes.”

“He’s a sweet kid. I am educating him in classical music and the dangers of female entanglements.”

Beatle taps his iPad.

“Did you load all your recorded music on that iPad?”

“No, Fred, this is the controller.  The music is on a separate hard drive downloaded from my CDs in those ammo boxes and online.”

I get up to get his coffee mug.

“Leave it. Get it later.”

“What were we listening to, Steve?”

“Oh! Is this going to be a listening session?”

“What else is there to do, Fred? Argue about politics?”

“Anything but that!”

“Let’s do the Brahms string sextet that was interrupted last time?”

“Okay Steve, that’s number two in G, opus 36. Played by Harriet Krijgh & Friends.”

Beatle taps his iPad and the opening floats out of his old Klipsch horn speakers standing to the left of his stereo.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVKwCjZ_zUQ)

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

Four new brown Adirondack chairs are arranged on a bed of mulch in the shade of the crabapple tree behind Diddlie’s carport. A laurel bush, two hydrangeas and a serviceberry, will partly screen them from the street, until fall. 

Diddlie comes out of her kitchen door walking towards me.

“Hi Fred, have you come over to try out my new chairs?”

“Ah, I didn’t know you had them.”

“So, what did you come over for?”

“I saw Lou working back here as I walked by the carport and thought I would check on our lunch date, Wednesday.”

“You mean you didn’t come on my property to see me at all?”

“Diddlie, I am always glad to see you.”

“Well, that’s more like it!”

We walk over to the new chairs.

“See, no paving, just mulch.”

“Well done, let the rain soak in.”

Lou looks up as he takes off his gloves and throws them into the empty wheelbarrow, recently full of mulch. “She has an ‘all-natural’ patio’!

Diddlie is holding the chair info sheet she pulled from the pile of cardboard flatpack the chairs came in.

“Fred, these chairs are made of high-density polyethylene.”

“All natural, Lou?”

“No Fred, the mulch and shade are.”

“True enough, no umbrellas no awning.” 

Lou brushes some mulch off his jeans. “Natural shade for this famous fake wood!”

Two crows fly over us spreading their caws to anyone with ears.  They settle in a willow oak next door, in Jake Trips’ yard, keeping up a low-pitched commentary among themselves.

Diddlie gathers some mulch from the lawn with the side of her pink and yellow SnazE ‘SuperFlex’ slip-on walking shoe. “It hasn’t rained for over a month.”

Lou pushes the wheelbarrow out of the way of the chairs. “We got a few drops last week”

“Right, enough to wet dry leaves and soak my jeans when I brushed past the hydrangea on the way to my compost heap.”

Lou is still trying to get the last of the mulch off his jeans.”

“It often rains all around us, but not here.”

“I know, it is the ‘DC Distortion Zone’.”

“What is that, Fred?”

“Political pressure.” 

“Is that barometric?”

“Only if you have a political barometer.”

Diddlie folds up her info sheet.

“I saw one for sale online!”

“How much Did.?”

“I think the subscription was thirty bucks a month with exclusives!”

“Did you buy it?”

“No, I don’t have time to read that stuff.”

“Look, even the violet’s leaves are drying out and floppy and folded over.”  

Diddlie contemplates her new chairs.

A jet passes over. Its roar changes pitch to a whistle as it descends toward Calvin Coolidge National Airport.  The crows fly off and the disturbance subsides.

Lou’s yellow DeWalt drill with Phillips head screwdriver lies on the wide arm of a chair.

“You up for lunch, Fred?”

“I thought it was tomorrow.”

“It was. You got time today?”

Diddlie pulls on Lou’s sleeve but looks at me.

“Why don’t you guys try out my new chairs?”

Lou picks up his drill and shows me the magnetized Philips head as he wipes off some metal particles. “I don’t know what those screws were made of, but they must have a little ferric materiel in them.”

“It might be zinc.  That’s what my patio screen is fastened with.”

Lou puts it in the wheelbarrow on top of his gloves. 

“The last part of that chair job required three hands.”

“Lou, I told you I could help.”

“Diddlie, you were making bird bread for the parrot, remember?”

“Well, the Red Queen’s food was running low.”

“Anyway, I don’t know anyone with more than two hands.”

“Okay Lou, I am sorry, okay?”

“No problem Diddlie.”

“I am trying to balance Queenie’s diet with more legumes.” 

“This sun still has plenty of heat in it.”

We sit down in the mottled shade.  A leaf shadow plays on Diddlie’s face opposite me and her eyes appear to flash.

“So, am I invited to this lunch of yours?”

Lou looks at me and I at him.

“Oh, my! Gentlemen, is this decision so hard?”

“We are still discussing which day, Did.”

“Well, okay Fred, I am buying for the guy who assembled my chairs.”

“So, have you got time today, like about now?”

“Sure, Lou.”

“Diddlie, how about you?”

“Oh, I have plenty of time, today or tomorrow.”

Lou gets up and grabs the wheelbarrow handles but turns back to us. “I need to shower first.”

“Okay, Fred and I will meet you down at the H bar in a while.”

“Give me half an hour.”

He takes the barrow back to the carport.

“Fred, you are sitting on old milk jugs, laundry detergent bottles and other trash.”

“What a nightmare!”

“What do you mean it isn’t in a landfill, at least!”

“We need to stop making that stuff.”

Diddlie, looks up into the trees, saying nothing.  High clouds obscure the sun and the radiant heat ceases as if it had been switched off.

“Fred.”

“Yes.”

“Do you like my new chairs?”

“Yes, very comfortable.”

“Don’t you like the backs high enough to rest your head against?”

I lean back to enjoy the benefit and close my eyes hearing the faint sound of a distant gas-powered lawnmower.

“Ah, Fred, have I put you to sleep?”

“No, your new chair might, if it quiets down around here.”

“Okay, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Diddlie watches a crow on the power lines as it makes three calls.  

There’s a passing buzz in my ear and open my eyes to see a visiting yellow jacket on my knee.  Then I brush something off my head.  Diddlie yells and gets up slapping her neck.

“I am getting stung!”

She runs toward the house, and I follow, getting stung on my wrist by the one I tried to brush off.

We stand in the kitchen looking through the protective screen door.

“Vote candy, eat dates”

The Red Queen calls from the living room.

“Is she doing political commentary, now?”

“I don’t know where she got that from.”

“Polly ticks Polly Tocks”

“She is into timing, that’s my guess.”

“Relate, debate, candy vote dates.”

A yellow jacket crawls up the screen with its striped pointed back dragging in the gaps.

“There must be a nest by the chairs somewhere.”

“They probably enjoy the fallen apples, Fred.”

“What took them so long to come after us?”

“Maybe they were buried in mulch.”

Diddlie turns away and soon returns with a spray bottle of Windex and sprays the insect which falls away in the ammonia fumes.

“That takes care of one of those little stingers!”

She stands pressing against me with her finger on the bottle trigger.”

“Look at those things, Fred!”

Large black-backed bees are climbing in and out of the roses of Sharon’s violet bells over by the compost heap.

“Those are carpenter bees.”

“Well, I don’t want to get stung by one of those monsters!”

“They didn’t sting us. I think they are on a mission.”

“I know Fred, it was wasps but look at the size of those things!”

“Did, your HDPE chairs are safe!”

“I know, they only drill into wood.”

“Let’s get going Did.”

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

I find Daisy sitting in the Pie Shop with her old friend Val Eliot. Val’s black-framed glasses have rounded rectangles like old TV screens.  Wavey black hair hangs down the side of her face. Val holds a piece of plastic-coated card.  Her laptop is on the table in front of her—Daisy waves to me and gestures towards a vacant seat at their table.

“What is that thing?”

“Val, do you remember Fred?”

“Hi Fred, this is a wrapper that cannot be opened.”

“Yes, it’s a big trend in retail.”

Val turns it over in her hands.

“A small thing imprisoned in a transparent plastic blister on this big piece of thin cardboard stock.”

“A Universal Serial Bus, or USB.”

“You are quite the techy, Daisy.”

“I read that on the package, Fred, while we were browsing in SnazE. It’s the interface,  basically a flash drive.”

“Is that printed there too?”

Val shows me the back of the rectangle where the information is printed.

“I am going to put my stock list and passwords, and stuff on it.”

Val is scrutinizing the card, still searching for a way to open it.

“Aren’t they already protected on your computer?”

“This is backup, Fred, and there are some I just keep in my head, which also needs backup.”

“I get that. You will probably need a pair of scissors to free your drive.”

“Do you have a pair, Fred?”

“No, not on me.”

“I’ll go ask at the counter.” Daisy gets up and walks over to the barista, who is waiting for customers.

Val hands me the imprisoned object of her attention.

“Do you see any secret access point?”

I look at the back for a dotted line indicated by an ‘open here’ instruction.

“No, I don’t. This thing is serving a life sentence.”

“Right, and how many thousand years does plastic last?”

“Who knows?”

“Obviously, I can’t wait it out!”

“No, it devolves into nano and microplastics which are now everywhere.”

“Devo!”

“I saw a bumper sticker the other day saying, ‘Devo was right’.”

Daisy returns without scissors.

“They don’t serve customers with scissors.”

“We don’t have any scissors!”

“I know Val, I mean they do not have any for loan.”

“Not even something with a little flavoring? Vanilla or spearmint, say?”

“Val, who ever heard of flavored scissors?  Besides, no flavor will free that thing!”

“Think of scented handles, Daisy. Surely, they have loose catnip!”

“Why should they?”

“Because they have a cat.  I saw a tabby in the back when the cashier went through the swing door.”

“Wow! That might have been ‘Sfumato’.  She used to hang out in Arty Bliemischt’s studio, right above here.”

I shake my head, “Sfumato was a tortoiseshell, not a tabby.”

“Oh! right Fred, Didn’t Arty take her when she moved out?”

“I don’t know.” 

“Anyway, if they have catnip, I am sure it is only for cats.”

“Val, you mean if a cat came in here, they would serve the feline with a nip?”

“Mrs. Rutherford would, Val.  The barista referred me to their website.”

“Oh! Right, some corporate concoction, thousands of words of legalese covering every possible sort of liability in relation to Felis catus.”

“Cactus, what that got to do with it?”

“No, ‘Catus’, not cactus, it’s a legal document, and therefore larded with Latin!”

Val sips her mint tea. “I remember Mrs. Rutherford from my last visit. Where is she when we need her?”

Daisy drains her coffee and the bracelets on her right arm cascade from her wrist to her elbow. “She left after the place was bought out by Jake Trip.”

“She would have provided scissors!”

“No doubt, Val.”

“Now this is corporate-owned.”

“And ruled, Val. They knocked the word ‘Cavendish’ off the name.  Now it is just, ‘The Pie Shop’.”

Daisy folds her arms on the table. The bracelets rattle on the top catching a sunbeam coming in under the awning, which is only halfway down. “They might at least have called it the ‘Fauxmont Pie Shop’!”

“Well, nobody used the full name of the place.  When did you last hear anyone refer to the ‘Cavendish Pie Shop’?”

“Can’t remember, Fred, but the name over the door was unique.”

“True, how many coffee shops are named after a Lab?”

“There might be one in Cambridge, Fred.”

“Yes, that’s where Henry Cavendish discovered hydrogen back in the eighteenth century.  He called it inflammable air.”

“Well, they might have changed the name to, “Henry’s Place” with an explanatory plaque!”

“Fred, why don’t you suggest that to the management?”

“Ha, ha, ha, as if they would listen to me!”

Val has used a thin flat key from her crowded ring to force a small separation between the plastic and the card.  She holds up the key.

“The key to this prison. Here we go!”

She is pressing the key further in between the two layers.

“At this rate, you won’t get the thing out until after Christmas!”

“Okay, Daisy, have you got a pocketknife?”

“Here, try one of these plastic knives.

I hand her my plastic knife, unneeded, for my Blueberry Extravaganzo, advertised as ‘The best muffin experience on the Eastern Seaboard’.”

Val tries to press the blade into the gap she has made, and it snaps.

“Okay! Look at that.”

“Good one Val, the sharp end ought to finish the job.”

“It is probably going to break off!”

It does.

“Alright, now there is enough of a flap to pull apart.”

She grasps the small newly separated pieces and starts pulling them apart. The cardboard tears off just short of her objective in the plastic blister.

“Here, try this.”

The barista puts a paring knife on the table.

“Well, thanks!”

Val eases the blade towards her imprisoned thumb drive and twists it gently, making a gap wide enough for it to drop onto the table.

“Good tool!”

She hands him the knife.  He walks back to his counter.

“Now I need to load all my customers on here.” 

She starts up the computer and plugs the drive into the side.

“This thing needs more juice!”

Val pulls a small battery with a solar panel, from her bag.

“Here’s a recharge!”  She plugs the cable from the battery into the second port on the side of her MacBook Air.

“What kind of service do you provide?”

“Fred, it is a store in Western Massachusetts, called “Factotum Books”, and we have a sideline in self-publishing.”

“That sounds like a tough business!”

“It is. We have not made a profit since we opened in 2013.”

“How do you stay afloat in the internet age?”

“My partner was a wealthy doctor at Mass General, and she left us an endowment when she died in 2019.”

“That qualifies as a minor miracle!”

“Indeed, doc assured that we will always have the best of literature in English and selected translations on the shelf.”

“The best in who’s judgement?”

“Hers!”

“Do you agree with it?”

“Mainly, but I have my doubts about the list being relevant to the next generation.”

“Well, as long as literature is taught in colleges and schools, there should be a demand.”

“That changes over time, though.”

“So, what does Factotum publish?”

“We specialize in local writers, a couple of poets, a romance novelist, and our best seller is a guide to native herbs and mushrooms in the locality.”

“Yeah, I would buy that!”

“Doc was shocked when she found her nephew had graduated in English from Prestige University, right here, without ever reading a book.”

“That is absurd!”

“Fred, he just read study guides online to write his papers, and memorized for tests, and that was it.”

“With ChatGPT he wouldn’t even have to write!”

Daisy puts a hand on Val’s arm.

“Did he learn anything?”

“Yeah, he is a competent techy and an expert at online searches.  He can also manage the store when I am away.” Val sips some more mint tea. “He is also the store’s only other employee.”

Daisy takes her hand off Val’s arm and her bracelets rattle on the table.

“Val, what about the human part of the so-called humanities?”

“Taylor Swift seems to be a good source.”

“Okay, I mean the pleasure of reading.  I have always been a painter, but reading has kept me sane at times.”

“Like what?”

“Like, Mark Twain, you know, ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.’”

“Well, there isn’t anyone like Mark Twain.”

“Ain’t that the truth!”

“My nephew listens to podcasts and reads a lot online.”

“No, I mean imaginative reading.  Like reading Jane Austin or Herman Melville.”

“Daisy, dear Daisy!  Those dusty old tomes are not part of his world.”

“He had to study them I hope.”

“Sure, as I just explained, that was just a necessary hassle.”

“You mean the novels didn’t tell him anything?”

“Right, it is all in an eightienth or nineteenth-century context.”

I scrunch up the paper my muffin came in.  “Well, PU didn’t do its job!”

“Look, Fred, the so-called humanities have been screwed up!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it is all about getting the degree, and the social status it confers.  I doubt if anyone is ever going to care what he knows about Mr. Darcy or events on the Pequod, for that matter.”

“How sad.”

“The sad part is that he doesn’t care either.” 

“Fred, I think you are right, but historically, how many people have ever read literature with a capital, L?”

“Okay, Val there is a certain amount of class and snobbery in all this, but there is more.”

“What? For instance.”

“Continuity, Val.”

“You mean tradition?”

“Yeah, it has been called the ‘main current.’”

“Right Fred, flowing from batteries through circuit boards and amplifiers!”

Val leans back and takes off her glasses holding them in the air,“You might say literary books are cultural batteries.”

“Music, too, I mean recordings.”

“Right Daisy, you need the right connector to get plugged in, though.”

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right. 

Even the cicadas are silent. There aren’t many in this year’s summer heat, which is more like a flood that a wave. A few of their finger-sized holes can be seen in the dry clay path we follow, passing by the remains of that old mansion, The Ashes.”

“It’s amazing to think that ruin includes the whole hilltop in its estate.”

“Fred, it is amazing to think this lot has not been subdivided.”

“Where are all the ash trees?” 

“The emerald ash borer wiped them out around here.

“There is something else very strange going on, though!”

“Like insects?”

“Ah, no, I was up here, back in 2016, with Diddlie. We were looking for Mr. Liddell.”

“Who brought him up here?”

“She said he had escaped up here before, so this is where we looked.”

“That’s right, she said something about it to me.”

“Anyway, we got separated, because she started gathering flowers especially goldenrod.”

“Yeah, she’s been doing that ever since I’ve known her.”

“I looked into that old garage.”

”I know, it seems to be in good condition.”

“Found Rank Majors in there, working on a vehicle.”

“Rank! what he was doing there?”

“Lou, I have never mentioned this to anyone.”

“That was probably wise, where Rank is concerned.”

“Let me tell you. It is fitted out as a shop. He was working from the old grease pit.”

“Do you remember what make was the vehicle?”

“I don’t remember because he dropped a bolt or a wrench or something.”

“What has that got to do with it?

“The thing fell into the pit and then went down further! A big distraction.”

“What do you mean further?”

“Lou, I tell you, there is a big installation under here.”

“You mean, under our feet?”

“Possibly, I got disoriented down there.”

“So, you followed Rank down there?”

“No, I saw Mr. Liddell going down into the pit and went after him. I found a big server farm, isles and aisles of IT equipment on racks.”

“In the pit?”

“No, through a narrow metal door off the far end of the pit and down a lot more steps.”

“I have been in that garage, but this is news to me.”

“Yeah, a guy called Stan, stopped me.  At least his voice did. Didn’t see him at first, and when I did, I recognized him from when they dug the deep foundation for that place on the old Sloot lot.”

“Stan, huh?  Are you sure he was using ‘Stan’?”

“Certain, as I said, I had seen him before.”

“Fred, don’t talk about it to anyone else.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I have heard rumors and whispers about a subterranean installation here but never got confirmation like this.”

“Stan had not seen Mr. Liddell and didn’t know who Diddlie was.”

We have stopped in the shade of some juniper trees covered with wild grape vine.

“Someone screwed up, big time, if you got in there. I am sure of that.”

”So, what are you thinking, super-secret government stuff?”

“Could be organized crime.”

“Do you think I would have got out alive if that was it?”

“Who knows?”

“Diddlie told me it was dead people’s data.”

“How does she know?”

“She said she just figured it out herself.”

”So, she is aware of this too!”

“I don’t know. She didn’t seem surprised, though.”

“Buried corpses and buried data.  I guess it makes some kind of sense.”

“Come on Lou, spit it out! What is down there?”

“I honestly don’t know and don’t want to know.  Even criminals make mistakes.”

“Stan led me to a pull-down ladder, like you have for an attic.  I climbed up and through a hatch into a hallway with a small bedroom off it. It was over the mansion’s garage, I think, near the kitchen which is still intact.”

“Fred, this isn’t adding up!”

“No, it didn’t at the time.”

“Did you find the white rabbit?”

“Mr. Liddell was in the bedroom and ran off from under an eiderdown.”

“And Diddlie, where did she get to?”

“I found her in the kitchen arranging flowers.”

“That at least, does make sense because we use that kitchen for community parties on the lawn.”

“So, is it dead people’s data collected down there?”

“I doubt it.”

“What do you think it is?”

“Something the secret owner of this vacant lot wants to keep secret.”

“Well, the lot must be worth several million.”

High-pitched mosquitos make the only movement in the humid air, winging out of sight.

Lou smacks his ear and looks at his hand.

“Missed!”

“Those things feel your hand coming through the air.”

“Right, that’s why fly swatters are made of wire net.”

“So, what kind of net have we under here?”

“You know, I suspect the Leiden Organization may be mixed up in this.”

“Why Leiden Organization?”

“The Leiden Organization is now a loose cooperative of many different groups.”

“Yes, I read that they are involved with drug money.”

“They have huge government and corporate contracts, too.”

“Okay, so they can do all kinds of things!”

“Right Fred, but it is also very profitable.”

“Sure, think how the value of the Sloot house has gone up.”

“And that is just a minute part of the enterprise.”

“Who lives there now?”

“Westard North, I think, but he is not the owner.”

“Do you know who is?”

“The county record just shows, ‘de Geer Properties’.”

“That sounds familiar for some reason.”

“The same name is listed for the Trip house after he went bankrupt back in 2014.”

“That’s it.  I am told, Jake’s first wife was Margret Geer!”

“The marriage didn’t last long.’

“Was she an heiress or something?”

“I don’t know but the story is that he was very young and fell in love with an ‘older woman’.”

“The woman or her fortune?”

“No, I understand it was true love.”

“Like Emmanuel Macron!”

“There you are stranger things have happened!”

“So, if de Geer is a shell, it owns three properties, in Fauxmont, on whose behalf?”

“Well, let’s see, The Ashes estate, the old Sloot house, and Jake Trip’s house.”

“All those properties have exceptionally deep basements.” 

“I have found some other of mysterious connections.”

“Yes, this has the odor of The Leiden Organization, alright.”

“Ever heard of Van Rijn Estates?”

“Well of course, Paula Pocock used to live there with her mother.”

“They are part of the mix.”

“What do you mean, ‘the mix’?”

“When I was searching the county tax records and found de Geer Properties, I also found the Van Rijn Estate was sold to the developer by de Geer.”

“Who was the realtor?”

“Ahh, now I can’t think of it.  The name didn’t ring any bells.”

I walk on behind Lou through tall Japanese honeysuckle wound with a tangle of porcelain berry, green brier and wisteria reaching out at us with curling summer whips.  Lou is still fighting the mosquitos.

“We need some bug spray, Fred.”

“I’ll settle for a frost.”

“A frost in July? Not in this hemisphere.”

“We will be lucky to get any frost this Winter.”

“Don’t forget, global warming can bring big local variations in weather.”

“Yes, as circulation patterns vary with the heat.”

We have nearly cut through the vacant property, from Wickett Street down to Bails Lane.  Past a big patch of Joe Pye weed with bumblebees crowding on the chalky pink composite flowers.

“It was 96 Fahrenheit when I left the house.”

“It will be over a hundred today.”

“Mind that poison ivy!”

” Looks like blackberry.”

Lou tries to kick the stem out of the way, but it bounces back in front of us.

“I think they have cross pollinated.”

“Those thorns are persuasive!”

We plod on, out of the intermittent shade of the path, across the old lawn, where Fauxmont celebrates the Fourth of July with food and fireworks. The expanse of brown grass and green weeds with bald patches is diminishing under flourishing ivy, which spreads out from the far side.

“This heat is ridiculous. We should be wearing pith helmets and bush jackets.”

“Will I have to call you “Bwana”, Fred?”

“Only if we go back about a century.”

“Who’s idea was this safari?”

“Your’s, Lou, don’t you remember?”

“No, the heat has wiped my wet drive.”

“Racoons?”

“Oh right!  Diddlie is convinced that invading racoons are coming from up here somewhere.”
“You fixed her attic and eaves years ago!”

“She thinks they are frightening Mr. Liddell in the night.”

“Is he screaming or something?”

“I don’t know.”

“So, what is her story.”

“Fred, she is kind of incoherent on the subject.”

“We haven’t seen any spoor.”

“Not even a footprint in that soft ground by the dry pond.”

“I saw water in it a few years ago.”

“Yes, it was fed by a spring which stopped in the drought.”

“Like so many others around here.”

“The regional water table is dropping.”

We break through to Bails Lane, past a tall mature holly crowned with Virginia creeper.

“Fred, let’s go and cool off at the H bar.”

“Well, she said she would meet us at one o’clock.”

“Let’s be early, it is only twelve twenty-six.”