Free and Clear by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Chapter 14

At 2PM my non-paying, co-obligor and wife sits with me on the thinly carpeted floor of our reluctant patron’s abode, waiting for the President’s next speech. Only a week has elapsed since the last one. We have been experiencing disgruntled feelings of again having been cheated. Tupac’s anti-government rhetoric has apparently induced in us the naïve thought that he is sincere about change. In our corrupted carcasses, we doubt.

It is easy to do as the only discernable evidence shows that his only concrete results have been a shift in homelessness, a change of plans and a country-wide debate concerning the legalities, practicalities and the possible effects on the perceived interests of every possible informed and misinformed citizen. The Indiana State Pension System started the ball rolling when they publicly fretted over the precipitous drop in value of the New Jersey State Bridge and highway bonds held in their portfolio; insisting on federal guarantees. Banks complained of their mark-to-market losses and its effect on their already “stretched,” not mentioning “underwater” capital requirements. “Patriots” made issues of the possibility of an unarmed communist takeover, accomplished through a boatload of yen. New Jersey went more rabid than usual at every level and a small contingent of previously ignored white supremacists based

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in rural Warren County vowed armed insurrection and occupation of Montana. Their ranks supposedly grew 600% the first week.

Fortunately for Tupac, none had the bus fare. Homeless hosts were mad as hell and were joined by those who thought they were potential welcomers in holding demonstrations at HUD offices.

The news media were the only ones to seem surreptitiously happy as they were able to fill airtime without having to broadcast stories about what an angry employee wrote on a fast food franchisee’s sign, the franchisor’s responsibility, and the outlook of everyone with no life.

Today, Martha and I fear again having been taken in by the professional political game of getting attention by espousing radical ideas and then making a mad dash to the safe, status-quo center; having the excuse that it was everyone else’s fault. I wonder how long it would take to determine who had shorted Jersey bonds before the original speech and covered after the plummet.

Martha and I sit silently as neither of us felt bright enough to offer any idea. We believed that we had to have been the oldest people in the second grade, singing of the imminent coming of the Easter bunny.

Some strange compulsion coerces us to watch the fiasco; perhaps akin to Sunday morning visits to the big house; perhaps a desire to say sarcastic things to the screen to show that we

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weren’t born yesterday; or perhaps that since we had curtailed the un-American practice of paying our mortgage, neither of us worked long hours. I have found out from Schultzy, that despite our eviction, we could move back into the house we once owned with the permission of David and Reba. However, we really don’t like them in the least and we get loads of privacy here, as Mr.

and Mrs. Colasurdo have similar feelings about us and are rarely home. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The channel 5, pretty boy newscaster stares straight at the camera, smiles and squints slightly as he reads; “We interrupt previous programming to bring you a special press conference called by President Tupac Farnier. Look and sound concerned. The President has been saying unconventional things of late and who knows what he will come up with next?”

I say; “Something else he’ll back off on, no doubt.”

Martha raises her eyebrows and shrugs as if to say; “What else can anyone expect?” We have made our first forays into re-establishing proof of our cool cynicism.

Pretty boy continues to read; “Farnier’s approval rating has significantly jumped since he has taken the tactic of openly scorning other politicians and he has been invited to guest host Saturday Night Live.”

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My co-obligor and I give each other knowing looks, unabashedly laughing, further demonstrating our political acumen. I am enchanted.

PB smirks as he says; “According to a nationwide Gallup poll 23% think Farnier is doing a ‘good’ job, up from 8% a month ago. And here he comes now.”

President Farnier walks slowly toward the podium to a round of limited and perfunctory applause, primarily supplied by the few without gray hair. He eyes the audience with a disdain usually reserved for those caught with their hands stuck in the cookie jar, up to their stinking armpits. A group of portly men in the front row find something humorous and openly bellow, looking customarily phony in the process.

When he reaches the pedestal the applause ends without his request. He opens his mouth to speak and someone in the back of the room had a cacophonous coughing fit. Tupac patiently waited it out, then said; “Sounds serious. Are you all right?” The hacker nodded with his hand over his mouth.

Tupac smiled when he added; “Hope that’s not infectious.

.........Thank you all. Mr. Speaker, Vice President Illinois Wright, members of Congress, members of the Supreme Court and diplomatic corps, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens. My fellow Americans. You will note that I am as capable of handling the traditional as well as the nonconforming.

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I come here to praise America, not to bury it. Our country is the most desirable place to live on this planet. That’s irrefutable. Despite our often stated woes, we have hundreds of thousands waiting for legal entrance and none renounce their citizenship. No other country can make that claim.

Recently, within the perspective of our history, our nation has lost a founding principle, and I’m here to restore it.”

Tupac laughed alone as he added; “It’s absolutely outrageous that a man descended from those brought here on slave ships still bears the burden of building a sound America in which uncaring and often hateful whites will most benefit. .........

Tell me that that’s a lie. Tell me. I’d really like to be corrected. I wish to God that I am wrong, but suspect that I am not. Help me out.” He holds out his hands, not in a “Hand over the money” fashion, but in a conciliatory one. He slowly moves his eyes over the entirety of the silent room. He sees those who turn from his gaze and fewer others who appear attentive, but feel justified in their eyebrow-raised doubt. He sees no offers of help. “Our coffers no longer swell with the abundance of gold accumulated by or forefathers. They have been replaced by record keeping bastions which are capable of detailing what we owe; dare I say what the powerful have stolen. Who will risk arguing that controversial statement?” He pauses and seems to grin at the tongue-tied room as he drinks from a glass on the podium. He

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continues, still facially evidencing good humor; “For those of you ignorant of history, I am here to enlighten you about something curiously missing from all curriculum. Believe it or not there was a time when the average working man could attain the American dream of their own home on only their own salary.

......... I know that the privileged in this room take little from that. To you I say; ‘Ask the people you never speak to.’ I say; ‘Try dealing with reality. It’s a trip.’ Today, two income families can no longer make ends meet. Their children are, of necessity, left unattended to find their own ways in an environment which in economic practice makes it okay to purchase anything. Anything.”

He grimaced in apparent disgust. “Our well-coiffed seekers of office have the nerve to speak of ideals and the pursuit of a noble dream, while at the forefront of their minds is the manner in which they will repay the international business institutions, whose money allowed their smiling charade to be seen and heard.

Every time I come to this rostrum, I'm painfully aware of the history we’re seeing and simultaneously denying together. We have gathered here in moments of national tragedy and in moments of national comedy; the latter too often a jaded reaction to that which has become the theorized and inescapable logic of those distanced from the travails of the bulk of humanity.” He

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paused, wrinkled his brows and looked to his left. He got mistaken obligatory applause from a few embarrassed and up-for-grabs supporters who weren’t paying the least bit of attention.

“Though I say that we are serving this great country in one of the most important periods in its history, I also realize that this banal phrase has been said time and again. However, this time, I believe that posterity will agree. To confront the great issues before us, we must act in a spirit of goodwill and boldness.” He paused and one inebriated congressman, momentarily in confusion, did not yet hear his course of self-interest attacked and clapped, though correctly thinking the banal mentioned applied to him, thinking it laudatory and very electable. He quickly stifled his outburst. Through a bedroom eyed expression he soon tried to “correctively” convey his

“mock” enthusiasm. This confusing posture was kindergarten to a corporate placed gofer when, with alarm, he saw that the rest of the room appeared puzzled, remained silent and stared at him, as if he were something more perplexing than the low-income-project-Bobby-Brown-from-Brooklyn who once vowed to get out of the place.

“So, did I call you here to suffer this quixotically inspired 1930’s diatribe? Who among you can step outside themselves to make such judgments? .......... I can honestly say that I have an irresistible desire to tell you exactly what I

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see and revel in the anticipated disparagement of those playing the game by its antiquated iron rule. We all well know that our children and our grand-children are the only ones with the perspective required to accurately evaluate today’s foray into the unfamiliar, from a superior future vantage point.

While I have needed the withheld cooperation of congress to make any incursion into health care or asset sales, I am advised by counsel that I can unilaterally do some things of significance. While it has become the norm for a President to pardon those found guilty of political crimes when he leaves office, I am going to get ahead of myself. The per capita US

debt now equates to $488,721 and shows no sign of abatement.

Imagine! You’re a baby born today and before you are slapped on the ass as a welcome, you are presented with a half million dollar tab, while you have no assets and no discernable source of income. If something is not changed you never will.

This twenty-first century form of enslavement is over. By the powers vested in me, I hereby repudiate all federal debt, guaranties and contingencies. Nothing else has restored the economy during the last 50 years and I figured what the hell; this can’t make things any shoddier or time consuming.”

Audience laughter broke out, of particular vehemence among the press corps, as they recalled the last bogus such announcement by a persuasive hologram. Despite the President’s

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recently demonstrated penchant for the offbeat, to them the joke was now an old one. It was a good one, but, all in all, merely another jest, nonetheless. One thick, lard-butted representative of the Washington Post threw his crumpled up notes at the presidential hologram. All mirth ceased when it bounced off flesh. Eyes widened and mouths became receptacles for manure seeking flies.

The president laughed as he shrugged and threw his arms out to the sides, and said; “This time it’s no joke.”

Above the droning hum a shot rang out and the President disappeared behind the fragile appearing podium. At the rear, security guards wrestled someone to the floor.

Tupac stood and unbuttoned his shirt, revealing his fortified “underwear.” He said; “Bullet-proof, mutha fuckas.”

My eyes still fixed on the prize, I whisper; “Radical.”

Martha smiles at me warmly and purrs; “Free and clear, mutha fucka.”

The End

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