King of the Californias Pt. XII

by Monk Eastman, NYC, NY, USA

I've drank everything from Gayo Sumatra to Ethiopian Horse Harar, and the black pudding swirling at the bottom of this tin cup is as likely coffee as it is drain cleaner or shaving cream. Nonetheless, at Cecilio Goncz's urging, I drink. One doesn't wisely turn down the man who bit the Vice-President of the United State's nose off and politely mailed it back to him.

The stuff tastes like someone boiled hot dogs in it, mixed with rancid anise and cardamom. My tongue tries to escape down the back of my throat. I immediately know what I'm drinking. From that time in Postville, following a White Supremist insurgency, and again in Jamaica when I covered the Maypen riots. This is not coffee. This is technology I'm drinking. Soluble communication safeguard, some call it. A friend at Interpol used to call the stuff 'baffle-aid'. It's basically a counter-jamming agent. With so many ways to record and transmit a conversation in the modern age, people have come up with jamming techniques that range from light-bending umbrellas that block satellite imaging, to personal radiation generators that create a EMP field, crashing most sophisticated technology (while incidentally giving cancer, as I understand it). What I just drank reinforces any kind of personal transmissions from the human body. In my case, that qualifies as the tracking culture I took before I left Chicago. That tells me we may be leaving this Oakland market soon. And that Cecilio Goncz wants people to know where we are.

"It's good, yeah?" Goncz says. "Best coffee in Northern California."

I choke out something like an affirmative. My gag reflex is dancing.

Montoya Dred gnaws his ragged, bleeding pinky nail. "Stuff tastes like something you'd season a rotting whale with."

"Subtle as a machete, Monty."

"Told you not be fucking calling me Monty," Dred says, spitting out a shred of fingernail. "I don't be calling you 'CeCe', do I? And shit, you know I could. Me and Kelz called you that all the time, back in the day. Cute little thing like you, back then. Shit, 'CeCe' was the least we called you, remember?"

"Ha," Goncz says, showing off his sharpened teeth. "Monty, my man, let's you and me be straight with each other for once, yeah? Because that mouth of yours is testing new fuckin' waters, homes, and that ain't exactly someplace you wanna swim. We ain't in L.A. and you ain't got the chops here that you had there. And even when you had 'em, you ain't had the chops to do much by me. Not once I was grown. And that's a long time, Monty. Long time. Maybe ten years back, you coulda got away with that mouth. Now? Shit, homes. You can't go ten minutes without throwing a fit. Man like you can't even shave without it turning into a suicide attempt. So keep that wiggly little prick of yours in your pants, yeah? You don't want a pissing match with me in front of the kid."

Dred barks something in Los Angeles pidgin. Goncz tenses, says something back. What I can pick out of the exchange amounts to mutual threats and something involving Mr Goncz's mother. And a Tijuana mule.

It's the same question I keep coming back to, listening to conversations like these. When The Little Big One hit, Los Angeles became this tiny island, run by over a dozen belligerent, dangerous pricks just like Goncz and Dred. How did anyone survive as long as they did out there? How do you keep any kind of balance of power in that kind of environment? Like a madhouse out there, everyone juggling chainsaws. And here they are in NoCal, the madhouse brought with them.

"Any time you wanna go, fuckface," Dred sneers in English, "I'm right here."

My father just smiles, those expensive shark grafts showing off every edge and barb. He waves at the coffee cart, and the scabrous old Okie limps over to refresh his cup with genuine coffee. Goncz passes it to me, lets me cleanse my palate. Second cup shows up in his hand. Nothing for Montoya Dred née Baruch Melman, who glares at us sidelong. His Pilkner's Condition appears to be flaring, left shoulder ticking as his eyes start blinking asynchronously. Keeps biting his nails.

"Get anything at the market?" Goncz asks me.

I tell him of the army surplus dealer down the way. How his salvage from Sacramento included American materiel.

"That's crazy," Goncz says. "You really think Los Nortes sent soldiers into Sac-town? That's just crazy. That'd be like declaring war or something, yeah? Illegal, if the Montreal Accords are right. And Hell, Los Nortes helped write Montreal, so why would they break it? Nah, that guy must be selling bootlegs. Couldn't be right."

He doesn't exactly sound convincing. I say as much.

Even Montoya Dred chuckles, like I've just said the obvious. Maybe I have. Goncz laughs too.

"Where's your boy?" Dred asks, chuckle dying.

"Why you call him my boy? You made the introduction, esé. I just made the link with Whitehead."

"He's your boy because he's late," Dred says. "And these ain't exactly things we should be talking about around..." He thumbs at me.

"The kid's here to interview me. Same thing he did with you, Monty. He knows what's what." Goncz turns to me. "Some things is News, some things is Shut-The-Fuck-Up. You know the difference, I figure, don't you?"

I nod.

Dred sneers. It is not comforting knowing that a man like this has anything but the best intentions.

"Don't sweat it, Monty."

"I told you not to be fucking calling me 'Monty', mother-raper."

"I'll stop calling you 'Monty' when you stop calling him my boy."

"Does that mean I'm not?" a new voice asks.

I turn to face a squat, tanned man in a single-piece suit, swirling blue and green pattern gliding across its surface. I know the face from my mobile journalists' collective. A few months back, I edited a retrospective one of our members did on the Alaskan Secession. Videos of this exact man pepper the story. Seven years ago, this was the premier arms dealer in North America, the man who put guns in the hands of the Great Kodiak Party.

Yonge Street Ali.

The Turk.

And me. Sitting between him and two of the western hemisphere's biggest celebrity war criminals. All the while, decompiler bombs drop in East Oakland. Sacramento takes on the wartime characteristics of 20th Century Mogadishu. Northern California's Prime Minister holds his country together with string and resin. And this.

I can actually feel history about to take a terrible left turn.

With me in the passenger seat.

Meditations of Jimmy Chu Part III

by Rabbi Ben Newman, the Bronx, NY, USA

Manendra Applebaum glanced around the tight space into which the slightly unhinged Mayor of NYC had led him. The room was a world of dust and artifacts of a lost age. An Obama-Biden '08 pin was displayed in a mahogany japanese china cabinet next to a bottle of '08 Macon Villages Chardonnay. Next to the chardonnay laid an unboxed ipod holo, and several other rarities. All of the furniture followed this pattern. Japanese tansu chests filled with treasures from decades past aligned the walls. The floor was covered with tatami mats. 4 zaisu chairs surrounded a small japanese chest which served as a table on which sat a bottle of '09 Aberlour scotch.

The Mayor gestured to one of the zaisu and Manendra sat down uncomfortably and cleared his throat. Mayor Chu bent down over the chest and picked up the bottle of scotch, pulling two glasses out of the china cabinet. He poured one for Manendra and one for himself.

"Here." he said, handing the glass to the awkward looking man, "it looks and sounds like you really need this."

Manendra accepted the glass.

"Nice chest." commented the young technician from IHS, gesturing toward the piece of furniture in between the 4 zaisu chairs.

"You have nice taste, kid." the Mayor remarked, "you wouldn't know it, but its Karakuri tansu, traditional Japanese shit. The Mayor pulled open a drawer in the chest and took out a box of cigars. He took one out, lit it, and took a drag. "Such a chest of drawers, of tansu, in Japanese might look like ordinary Japanese furniture," he blew smoke in the IHS tech's face, "but, it has a trick drawer which can hide what the user puts inside as if by magic. The trick is for security, to keep valuables safe." he tapped on each of the sides of the chest, and a secret drawer popped up. "It took enormous amounts of time and effort to develop and manufacture these chests," he said, "and I keep only my most valuable secrets here. My inner sanctum, or something." he smiled at Manendra, who took his first swig of 49 year old scotch.

"Better than Lansky's '50 Talisker, that's for sure." he said, "Now Mr. Mayor, I'm sure you didn't bring me here to your inner sanctum to share 49 year old scotch.

"They got some smart ones at IHS," the Mayor spat out in a plume of smoke.

"You're having problems with SOPHI?" he asked.

"Does the Buddha shit in the woods?" the Mayor farted and took another drag, followed by a sip from his glass.

"Like I said over the phone, I only talked briefly with SOPHI, but she seems fine to me. I mean, what do you expect from a simulated intelligence?" the orange hued skin on his face seemed to sparkle with an enigmatic smile.

"Well she's not! She's been spouting Buddhist proverbs at me indiscriminantly, and..." the Mayor of NY blew up like a puffer fish.

Manendra raised his glass to his mouth, "Well that can't be all bad,"

"You have no idea. I just want you to program her, it, with a different philosophy" replied the Mayor.

"Oh, you mean to reprogram the Beliefs Subroutine..."

"Yeah. Whatever. Just do it."

"Well, it might be a bit complicated. I mean all of her systems are connected. It'll be like untangling a big ball of string..."

"Can you do it?

"I guess so, sure..."

"You assholes at IHS have been dicking me around for years. If its not SOPHI, its glitches in the security system. All I can say is, if you don't do this, the city's going to just have to find another contractor, and you, Mr. Applebaum, are going to have to find a new job."

"Do you enjoy intimidating people, Mr. Mayor? Because its totally counter-productive to actually motivating your people to get the job done. I developed the greater portion of the programming for every piece of technology you use." Manendra reached for the box which held the luxury cigars.

“Then why are you doing high-end plumbing?” the mayor opened the box and gave Manendra a stogie.

“Touché, Mr. Mayor.” Manendra lit the cigar as the Mayor held out an ancient Zippo flame.

"So you can do it?" the Mayor held up his glass as if to toast the new endeavor.

"Of course." Manendra said, raising his glass to meet that of Jimmy Chu. "So what do you want her new belief subroutine to be, once I untangle it?" He began to suck on his stogie.

"I don't fucking care," the Mayor was slurring his words through scotch scented lips, "just make it something that works."

"What do you mean 'something tht works'?" the technician asked, enjoying the unique situation that he had found himself in. "Mr. Mayor, you need to be specific, so that I get it right next time and you don't end up calling me in again." He took another drink of his ’09 whisky.

"Something that's practical, that gets the job done." The Mayor gestured inquisitively with the burning tip of his cigar.

"So... you want that I should program it to be a Pragmatist?" Manendra drawled.

"I need something with a little more umph. You know, SOPHI does give me advice on a day to basis on matters ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. I thought Buddhism was the thing when you guys first installed her, but now I'm thinkin' Buddhism's too tame, too dove-ish. A castrated tiger...I don't wanna machine that's gonna make me feel uncomfortable about my choices, my lifestyle, if you know what I mean." he took another deep swig from his glass, and then a long drag from his cigar, inhaling the smoke slowly. "I don't need a conscience or a fucking mother or a fucking wife, I need a trusted adviser. An Intelligence that will give me solid, practical advice that I can act on...." he paused for a moment, reflecting... "How about Sun Tsu?"

"Who?" Manendra asked.

"You know, the Art of War guy. Could you program her using that book?"

"I mean sure, in theory. But why bring me all the way in here to ask me? Why all the secrecy? I mean, I appreciate the scotch and the cigar..." a puzzled look scrunched Manendra's face.

"Fuck, you really are fucking dumb for an engineer. If 'she' knew what you were going to do, she'd try to defend herself."

"With all due respect, Mayor, I do know my business. She's not programmed to defend her ego. I should know," he said, "I'm the one who programmed her."

"Yeah, but I live with her." the Mayor remarked, finally relaxing down onto his zaisu.

"You're the one whose in charge, Mayor." Manendra said.

Caja Caliente

by Castro Oakland

Baltimore, MD

April 14th, 2052, 11:22am

The man bellowed while wobbling on the edge of the curb at Broadway and Orleans. ““Big shiny ass buildings. I can’t see shit, I ‘ont even know where the damn liquor store at…they sell Schlitz in there?” he asked, pointing at one of the gleaming facades of the University Eastside Medical Village.

The soaring, demure curvature of girders and glass imparted an air of confidence in the cutting edge healing modalities contained therein, at least to the visionaries responsible for its creation. In reality, it was too big for healing, better imagined for profit, the intended function undermined by the overbearing scale of the campus. In the midst of it all was 1825 E. Monument Street. On the University’s map, the building is identified as Building 77, but in the streets of East Baltimore it’s known simply as Caja Caliente…the Hot Box.

Stella Koffla-Herrera sat in the bowels of the Hot Box in a mild state of panic. Her caseload was light today but Roger’s words from their morning conversation rang in her ears. “Stell, I don’t need you to love them, I need you to fix them, and document it…starting with the Favors file.” She tapped her fingers, waiting for the soothing effect of her Camophedrine™ to kick in. The intersection in her moral map where her disdain for corporate dictates crossed her need to engage in community service was jammed with unresolved decisions. Tameika Favors had become, as Roger so blithely stated, “a wrinkle to be ironed out”. The University’s intention to declare its 25-year Neighborhood Rejuvenation project a success was in its final stages, and cases like Tameika’s could make or break the quantitative value of the reports it planned to release.

“Ronny.” He looked up from his phone and frowned. “You look like you just finished a triathlon, you okay?” Tameika chuckled and thought, hardly. Her contractions were still about 15 minutes apart, but when they arrived, they felt like they were carrying four suitcases. Her Nana had suggested walking to the store to get bread, and even gave her cash, but promptly went mute when Tameika asked her to walk with her. The only thing she wanted to do now was purchase minutes for her phone so she could call Sedrick. “Ronny, I need some minutes and…” she gripped the counter and gasped as a contraction arrived. “And I need to sit down for a bit.” ‘Sit down?” “Yes, dammit, sit down.” “What are you having a baby or something?” Tameika scowled in response. Rujrajnee eyed her pensively as he opened the cashier area and slid a chair out. “How many minutes?” “400” she replied as she managed to slide an ancient bill under the slot. Rujrajnee sighed; this was too much excitement for him- Meeka looked as if she may have the baby right here. “Meeka, do you want me to call somebody for you?” Tameika sat up quickly. “Hell no! That’s why I bought those minutes, I’ve got some folks to call.” Rujrajnee could see the fear through her glare; he had seen his business shrink with his customers being ‘relocated’. The fact she used legacy bills to purchase things indicated to him that if she was pregnant, this baby was a risk.

September 18th, 2051, 9:45am

Stella pulled up to the curb and glanced at the screen on her workbook. The id-bot had scanned and found that Tameika’s id was present at the address, 418 N. Luzerne Avenue. Since the inception of the National ID law over 40 years ago, it has been illegal to be outside your home without your id, thus making the id-bot utility, initially patented as a lost pet finder, as the de facto people locator for government and corporate agencies. Stella rubbed her temple; she had not seen Tameika in two months, and Tameika had not called until yesterday. Tameika left a succinct vmail, “Stella, seriously, fuck you …you know why.” Blip. In the University database, Stella saw that Tameika’s public assistance funds were frozen, and the family file was marked ‘relocation needed’ because two of Tameika’s cousins, Troy and JoMarr, listed 418 Luzerne as their primary residence. Both had returned home from prison and were identified as carriers of Bay Disease. Now she was standing on the stoop of the Favor’s row home, listening as Google, the family’s Rottweiler, barked and pawed the inside of the front door.

LaTreese Favors was incredulous. She looked back at the security channel on her TV and couldn’t believe that the girl had the gall to be standing on her stoop. Her vmail was inundated with messages from the Research Annex’s relocation assistance office. “These motherfuckers think it’s a done deal,” she seethed as she ambled towards the door. LaTreese grabbed Google by the collar and shooed him down the basement stairs. She then called out to Dell, her brother. “Dell, make sure Meek stays upstairs; I gotta deal with the door.” LaTreese Favor’s smile when she opened the door was disarming. “Well, Ms. Stella, the school sent you here to help us poor darkies pack?” The smile turned cold. “Mrs. Favors, I-I-I-uh, know this is awkward, but I’m really here to help.” LaTreese held up her finger, “And how is that? With moving vouchers?” Stella’s mind was blank as the older woman stepped onto the stoop. “Let me tell you something, my family has OWNED this house for 113 years. Since June 5th, 1938, to be exact. Six generations of Favors have lived here, and another six will, whether you, the University, or whoever like it or not.” “I don’t want you to have to leave, Mrs. Favors,” Stella interjected. “You may not but who are you? You are the priest to their slave trader, coming up in here talking about helping, but where were you when the Moody’s were ‘relocated’? The Sanders family? Morelands? LaTreese held her ear in front of Stella’s face for effect. “You talk about working hard to help, but when families needed help, where were you?” She poked Stella, “You people have the nerve to walk around talking about ‘Not in my backyard’, while snatching our homes out from under us. Well guess what bitch, not in my yard, house, wherever. I don’t want to see you around here anymore, because all you’ve done is brought trouble.” The door hadn’t even slammed before Stella’s tears fell. LaTreese reopened the door momentarily to shout, “What kind of people freeze someone’s card when they buying vitamins?”


April 14th, 2052, 12:15pm

Sedrick got off of the bus and was crossing the street to the store when he saw the car. It was familiar, but he couldn’t pull into his mind who it was until he saw the driver. It was that woman from the University that used to always be around Tameika. It couldn’t be a coincidence that she was posted up on the same block. “Ooh, that’s why I can’t stay around here’, these University people are a trip,” he mused. He wanted to get to the store, scoop Meek, and get a hack over to Titi Mirabella’s in Park Heights. Meek could have the baby at Titi’s and then they could figure out how to deal with things from there. Sedrick stopped to call the hack. “Damn,” he said as the vmail came up again. “You are Sedrick, right?” he hadn’t seen her walk up. “Yeah, I know who you are too, and if I were you, I’d get right back in the car.” “I know Tameika and her family are angry, but the only way I can help is if you let me, because there are other people I work with who don’t care about her like I do.” Stella cursed herself on the inside for being so close to tears. Sedrick glared and walked into the store, closing the door behind him.

Tameika was relieved. Sedrick grabbed the mop Tameika was holding and looked at Rujrajnee, “What the hell is this?” “My water broke.” As he wiped the floor, the door opened again. Tameika’s legs went limp. “Sedrick we need to leave now.” Stella steeled herself, “Tameika, I know you don’t want to hurt your family, but you can’t just have this child in the street…” “In the street?” Tameika yelled. “So you want me to go to your hospital, so they can stick me full of drugs, take my baby and send me and my family out to the county? Sedrick…” Sedrick put the mop to the side and called the hack, “Where are you man? Cool, we are at Lakewood and Fayette. Yeah that one.” Sedrick gently took Tameika by the waist with one hand and grabbed her backpack with the other. “You want to help?” he said to Stella, “then get the door.” Stella pushed the door open, her eyes meeting Tameika’s as she walked out. “I wish you would let me help.” Tameika turned to her just before she got into the cab. “You just did.” With that the door shut and the car sped away.

The Working Man's Blue's, Pt III

by R. Soon, Atlanta, GA

I-75 Southbound, between Cincinnati and Lexington

“*wheeze* …where are we?”

“Oh, you’re awake, good…we just crossed into Kentucky. You were asleep for a while.”

“I wasn’t asleep, I was knocked out by your soundbox,” Barry grumbled irritably from his supine position in the back seat. He coughed and wheezed again. “Did you give me bronchitis too?”

Arash chuckled. “No, Grandpa, it’s probably the altitude—“

“And how do I know you’re anyone but some crazy terrorist? The hell kind of kid kidnaps his own grandfather against his will?” Barry’s voice began to rise, accompanied by him sitting up and leaning forward accusatorily. “Not to mention my son didn’t have any children when he died, so as far as I’m concerned, you’re some lowlife who’s ruining my chance at a peaceful retirement—“

“Ssshhh…Saif is asleep,” Arash said quietly, directing a meaningful glance into the rear-view mirror at Barry, who glared back but fell silent, save for a controlled wheeze. Inwardly, Arash was ready to start a shouting match with the almost-toothless, infuriatingly stubborn old man, but he ignored the prickling heat and focused on driving, ignoring his nauseatingly sandpapery-feeling eyes as he strained to see the road with the car’s failing headlights.

After a moment, he continued in a low voice, “Grandpa, your son’s name was Thomas, right?” He felt Barry staring at him icily, now, even as he kept his eyes on the road ahead. “My father’s name was Thomas. And his girlfriend, soon to be his wife, her name was—well, is—Rashida. My mom’s name is Rashida…and she was carrying me when Dad died.” The stories she told him were all Arash knew of his father, but as he spoke, he could feel the older man’s emotions spilling into the car, and her words began to churn in his mind with a sense of loss he hadn’t felt before.

“My God…Rashida,” Barry half-whispered throatily, his irritation gone and replaced by the welling of tears in his eyes. Poor guy’s been through so much, Arash thought, even as he felt himself having to choke his own back.

In no time the older man was sobbing. “She was going to make him such a great wife, Rashida was…and they had already started looking at houses in East Cleveland, when that damn factory….” He faded into soft weeping punctuated by hoarse breaths. Arash felt himself regain control, and he stole comforting peeks at his son in the passenger seat, fast asleep.

They had captured one of the metal-tentacled guards a while back, and experiments on it yielded an immobilizing soundbox hack which granted Arash’s team a way thru the patrol line under cover of night, and two fences and four sleeping barracks tents later, they found the man who matched Mom’s painstaking description, albeit disguised by 30 years of time since she had last seen him. He had been taking a piss off of a slope down to a railroad, and nearly fell when he turned around and saw what probably looked like four ninjas creeping up. Arash had tried to calm him down and tell him about the plan to break him out, but the blustery old man was acting like he didn’t want to leave. “I don’t have a grandson!” he had shouted, red-faced, taking off at a fast limp toward the prison camp’s center. “I don’t know who the hell you are, but security won’t care—“ and one of the guerrillas had moved in swiftly and put a peaceful, meditative soundbox up to Barry’s ear. While not being particularly large, he was amazingly heavy; and squeezing him through the fences while keeping nervous eyes out for patrolmen fatigued everyone thoroughly.

Arash had dropped the team back off at the Shaker Square base, picked up Saif and a few supplies, and with hushed farewells to his comrades, set out toward Atlanta in his hideously ancient ’12 Cherokee. Atlanta was where Mom was, and just south of Lexington was a forward base for the Cleveland Reclamation Project, probably the only safe place to get gas for most of the trip down. Halliworks apparently had no idea they existed, and as far as they had spread out, Lexington was as close as the Project could operate on a larger scale while preserving that invisbility. The tiny, camouflaged hideout at Shaker Square was hardly more than a library and temporary supply depot, and the men still there were already packing up to head down a couple of hours behind the Cherokee. On the silent highway, two vehicles together would have been too suspicious, so the timing was good even if coincidental.

Nevertheless, he had worried for a few miles before finally settling into the journey, and of course Barry had come to not long after.

As Arash drove on, he thought back to when he’d first found out that his grandfather, now once more asleep in the back seat judging by the subdued, regular wheezing, had been alive and supposedly a prisoner at the Halliworks camp. That had been what…a year ago? Around that. Naturally he had started drawing up a rescue plan almost immediately, but it had taken forever to get the camouflage generator needed to set up a camp right in Cleveland. More importantly, it had taken some convincing of the Project leaders to let him undertake the operation, even taking badly needed men with him, on the eve of an assault designed to strike a decisive blow against Halliworks’ military assets. In fact, because of the rescue, he would probably still be in Atlanta when the Project moved north into Halliworks territory.

And yet here he was, having had to carry his target, his until-recently-mythical grandfather, out unconscious! He hadn’t wanted to be rescued from that hellpit!

Grandpa would adjust soon enough, Arash decided for the twentieth time. After all, his veritable daughter-in-law was waiting for him, he had a great grandson to spoil, and he wouldn’t have to work anymore. What better retirement was there than that? Arash glanced at his son, smiled inwardly, and returned his attention to the dark highway, entertaining thoughts about how happy his mom would be to see all of them.

King of the Californias, Pt. VIII

by Monk Eastman, New York City, NY, USA

The walls of my room pulse with Turkish ouds, soft bassline from a Tijuana garage, and Gregorian wails. Latest from Ç1Q, my favorite band. Of course my room knows it, and at the Palma de Baís, it even has access to the pirate tracks from the legendary Gastown Sessions. 'Rare' is not the word. 8 Feather and Rafiq Angeles took Ç1Q's first release (arguably the most listened-to album of the past fifteen years) and battled each other with it, remix for remix, in front of a live audience in Gastown, Vancouver. Ç1Q's stuff is normally like scented oil poured over silk. Kind of music that starts baby booms. At Gastown, they inverted it, turned it into godclash: what was in the Lord's ears when He razed Sodom. I thought data sieves at the venue meant no recordings made it out alive. Somehow, though, my room plays it, at a volume that accents my foul mood without exacerbating it. My elevated blood pressure, eye movement, personal kinetics, and listening history give the room just enough information to strike such a vital balance.

I'm reminded, very acutely, how little I like this sort of thing. Being under a microscope. Dissected without a single cut.

And I find myself desperately missing Chicago.

Wandering aimlessly along the green belts of Englewood. The great glass ziggurat of Kennedy King University, where I spent my latter days cultivating this (almost) useless mobile journalism degree. Countless midnights at the Tibetan food kiosks of Archer Avenue, served warm pockets of momo with volcanic, greasy red sauce on my way home from the artists' lounges of Bridgeport. Whisper of the Orange's Line's maglev trains sweeping past, kiss of ghostwind as it twisted into the night, snakelike and graceful.

But mostly, the Appleville Quiet Zone. Lone concrete tower, sanctuary from the continuous avalanche of a world where a song listened to on your way to work is logged in the depths of the nebulous Network, alongside your love of lung-scorching Central Asian cuisine and snarky Lebanese newsfeeds, odd collection of vintage '40s footwear, and baffling predilection for 20th century rap music. All there, always updating. Only private in the sense that you don't know who else is looking at it. Your tiny vein of personal data, mined endlessly by faceless, nameless things, scattered across the globe, feeding on the minutiae of daily life. Masticating the delicate ephemera of your life with great insectoid jaws and expelling it out over vast, intersecting planes of data, picked through by shit-merchants, sold to the highest bidder.

All so the Palma de Baía can play back the music I lost my virginity to, in the witching hours of that sweatless, fog-breathed Gastown night.

Now, as then, Appleville was the only place that felt real. Substantial. Single telephone per floor. Voice-only, hardwired into Chicagoland with copper-and-spit. Newsfeeds replaced with passive content. An actual hard library, where I read Upton Sinclair for the first time in print. Analog music, on antique standalone machines. An oasis of silence in a world of endless, low-intensity chatter. All right there, on W. 24th Place, just under the Dan Ryan. In retrospect, my nineteen months there was a gift. To live in such blessed antiquity...

And all because Chicago is the holy land: unique as a city that cherishes cloistral peace almost as much as the wild howl of its own progress. A place where tranquility is sown with the practiced hand of a Zen gardener, in Quiet Zones just like Appleville. Or Dalton. Markham. Bronzeville. The Low End. Modern day ashrams in the financial capital of North America. Such peace I'd never known...nor have I since.

And I compare it now to Oakland, where the night screams with attack drones, and the hills crash with artillery thunder. From Chicago to Toronto is a two hour trip by SonicRail. Here, it takes just as long to travel from Jack London Square to San Antonio Park, because the old 880 Freeway has been bombed to its component molecules by so many overlapping armies. Federal Unionists. The 321st Nevada Counter-Insurgent Insurgents (U.S. Volunteer Irregulars). The Alameda Independence Army. The Northern Aztlan Front. The New-New Wobblies. White Power Militias (Orthodox and Reform). The Golden Bear Unity Party. The Party For the Dignity of Angeleno Refugees. All of them mixing in the flats of East Oakland, trading shots with Prime Minister Pivens's choice assortment of heartless eye-gougers and ear-pullers. A fellow mobile journalist made note the other day that the Republic of Northern California proudly advertises itself as a nation without POW camps.

That is because the NoCal army is no longer taking prisoners.

In order for Prime Minister Pivens to give Los Angeles' expatriate war criminals respite without embargo or censure, he must provide the Hague at least an illusion of respectability. He is crafting that illusion with ashes of the dead and the blood of dissidents.

And my mind keeps wandering back to Chicago. To Appleville. Where I slept at night wrapped in the sweet impenetrable cold of anonymity. Ignorance. Perfect disconnectedness. Back in it now, tangled at the center of a burning web, (perhaps not surprisingly) threaded of all the weird, bad moments I'd sought to escape in Chicago; tied together to create this poor, weary author, eking out his literary pittance to a mixed soundtrack of Californian massacre and Ç1Q's remixed ouds. And I sadly recall this web has always been, and I always at its center.

And I wonder for the first time if I will ever enjoy the blessed silence of Chicago again.

Or if that silence ends here.

In Oakland.

What Is Lost.

by Dr Reed Levine, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Tuesday. The South Shore of Long Island.

What transpires when an immovable object is confronted with an unstoppable force?

I returned home to find things oddly unchanged from what my memories told me. Even with water everywhere, it more or less looked the same, only greener. Floating above the house, looking down, it looked just like it had on Google Earth when I had last looked about 40 years back. Our house, unlike every other one for miles in any direction, was unique.

Prior to my family taking ownership, it had been the homestead of the man who was responsible for building 90% or so of all the other houses in the neighborhood. Those other houses were all from one of five cookie-cutter models. Over the years, various owners had made renovations and updates but behind the make-up was that same old face. As a child, it was bizarre going to various friends’ homes and discovering they all lived in the same home with different furniture and wallpaper. I could go to anyone’s house and know where the bathroom was or how big the closet in their sister’s bedroom was. How many stairs led to the basement…

My home though was different. It was a brick box, supposedly built for free courtesy of all the people the man who used to live there hired. You want the contract to supply copper wire to four hundred homes? Wire my home for free. Want to sell us the cement for this entire neighborhood? Lay my foundation gratis. And so on.

So it was a flat-roofed brick home I now floated idly above. Living on the shore Long Island, we had periodically heard of the threat of erosion slowly eating away at our property. The true end came much faster.

It had taken roughly eight months for the water to rise from doorstep to rooftop. Now it was deep enough that a motorboat could cruise over the roof without threat of damage to their submerged prop. A horseshoe crab scuttled menacingly through a broken window. Jellyfish in my kitchen, shrimp swarming in my parent’s bedroom.

Down there I once ate breakfast in an innocent warm summer sun, lost my first tooth, planted peas and smiled when their sweet pods swelled, vanished into comic books, played angsty drums after returning from high school, got splinters in my feet every summer running barefoot on the deck. I don’t have the heart to dive down and swim through my old bedroom. Instead I swim back up and surface. I climb back into the worn boat I chartered a mere 12 minutes after diving off.

“Back so soon”, the pilot asks, looking at his watch, “the boat is still yours for another hour and a half.”

“Take me home,” I exhale, my face dripping with a saline wetness that well conceals my tears.

What I say next is lost under the roar of the outboard’s motor as we turn and begin the long ride back to the mainland.

The Working Man's Blues Pt II | Cleveland, OH

by R. Soon, Cleveland, OH, USA

The little boy kicked a big, dry stick at the menacing green dome, shining with a peculiarly dull gloss and bearing warlike squared patterns. “Come outta there!” he yelled at it, angry that the fearsome beast would appear out of nowhere, then taunt him instead of attacking like a monster is supposed to. Nay, so far from ferocious talons and ghoulishly large and sharp teeth, this despicable offspring of evil wore merely an armored portcullis beneath the roof of its daunting fortress, and remained still, terrifyingly still.

Not that the little boy didn’t know his own name, but he knew that no name given him by mere mortals would suffice. Instead, he realized of himself, while out protecting his glorious homeland from the beasts of the wilderness, that he was the Guardian of the Dawnbreakers’ Legacy, a mighty name for a mighty defender. And thus, he was no little boy at all, but a fearless warrior redoubting his broken band of clansmen.

Yet this immense, unmoving foe unnerved him thoroughly.

Ever since he could remember, he had been doing battle with all manner of uncanny hellspawn. Every new encounter he made, he would fight bravely, and once victorious (for he was always victorious), he would ask his elder tribesman mentor of the type of demon that he had just vanquished: “Dad, what was that??” And the wise elder would consider the description yielded him, and maybe consult one of the precious few books he kept in a storeroom hidden far beneath Shaker Square, and then tell him, “Saif, that was a meerkat.” Or a white lab rat, or a ferret, or a squirrel-dog hybrid, or a skunk (a beast that fed on the souls of the unwary, did ye but know), or a miniature baboon, or a glowing designer cat, or one of so many other wicked opponents.

'Where did they come from, and why did they attack with such fury?' the Guardian asked the man of great knowledge. He had asked many times, soon knowing the gist of the answer by heart, but he loved hearing the story of the Tower of Case Western Reserve, a den of evil and madness that blighted the land. His father began the same way every time, “You see, Saif, years ago there was a great university not far from here, a place people came to from all over the world….” And the Guardian would sit rapt as the tale was told, and one or two enticing new details revealed about the Case Riots, and the discovery of the experiments carried out in Case’s vile dungeons, and how the huge and ghastly creatures that escaped spread out quickly and terrorized the hapless.

Not that there were all that many of the hapless out there for them to terrorize. “Saif, the wildlife aren’t the only things to be careful of out there,” the elder told him once, not long ago--

Had the soulless green thing moved? The Guardian was drawn back to the present; he had been letting his thoughts drift as he kept his eyes intently on the silent hulk. But no, he decided, it was surely still preparing a disastrous attack for him to overcome. He continued to concentrate on the patterned beast.

Just once, and recently, had his father declined to tell of the fall of Case Western Reserve University. The look in the wise man’s eyes had transfixed him, and he remembered his words too clearly…for the story told instead was very different, and his tone of voice very different.

“Son, there are people out there, bad people. They want to take you away, like they took away your cousin Farshad. Do you ever wonder why we only leave the Square when it’s late? Do you remember when we went to Thistledown, and we didn’t meet anyone till we got inside?” The Guardian nodded mutely each time. “There was nobody to meet, Saif. Those bad people took some of them, and the rest ran away so that they wouldn’t be taken, too. Those people are much worse than even the big bad skunk, you see…we’re trying to escape them too. We’re trying not to be caught by those bad men.”

His father’s expression was scarily intent. Saif had managed a voice, albeit a tiny, shaky one. “But Dad, why don’t we get out of here if there’s bad people?” And the elder revealed to him a great revelation, that the bad people had taken away a member of his clan, long ago. The man was the father of the father of the sage one, and ergo an ancestor to the Guardian. “Saif…your great grandfather’s name is Barry. And the name of the bad people who took him like they took Farshad, they’re called Halliworks. We’re still here because we’re going to rescue Barry, and we must show Halliworks that they aren’t welcome on our land and in our city.” And the great man fell quiet, and then just as quietly shooed the Guardian away.

The words shook the little boy, as little of it as he even really understood. For a couple of days afterward, he didn’t leave the bunker at all. But duty called, and he eventually took again to patrolling Shaker Square for freakish assailants to defeat…although he began to keep an eye on the streets out around the square, too, out beyond the camouflage line.

And the latest devil’s seed to appear, clad in a maddeningly textured armor, filled him with loathing in its nonplussing outward slumber.

“Oh!” a voice behind the Guardian exclaimed. It was his father, the wise leader of their small band of remaining family. “Well, Saif, seems like you caught a box tortoise! I haven’t seen one in years…and it’s huge!” He laughed while striding forward, picked up the beast with both hands, and peered at the drawn gate at its fortress-like front.

And the Guardian filed this newest adversary away in his mind.

Melting Pot

by Adam Mayes, Copenhagen, Denmark

"BANGLADESHI?!!?" Rajah screamed.

The other gang-members flinched and edged closer to the fire. They'd not seen him his angry in months.

He stabbed his stubby fingers at the paper. "Do you see what they're writing about us? Do You!? We're not Bangladeshi! We're American! I'm fourth generation!"

"But Raj." A foot soldier who spoke up. Raja thought it was Abdul, but, really it didn’t matter. "We're proud of our heritage. We keep talking about the Motherland and…stuff."

Raja glared at him. "That doesn't matter! It's bad enough that they call us midgets! We're LITTLE PEOPLE! They're profiling us! Trying to set us apart. It's Racist."

Raja stomped across the yard. The paper he was carrying was a broadsheet, and his feet caught the trailing edge. He stumbled, and the paper ripped in his hands. He screamed in frustration, pulled a box over to a set of palettes and scrambled up. "Look at us - we're American's. We're not an invading army. Americans! We're as American as meatballs, as...as Bagels. Hell - we're as American as The Statue of Liberty!" He pointed a small finger at where he assumed it was.

One of the gang looked confused and drew a breath as if to say something, but another nudged him and shook his head.

"That bastard wants it like that, does he? We'll give him profiling."

***

Lacey stood in the old neighbourhood. It was a risk coming back to The Bronx, but she couldn't come without seeing where she escaped from.

She took a deep breath, coughed at the stench until her eyes watered and she thought she was going to be sick, then fitted her nose filters and tried again.

She looked up at the smog cloud - the blackouts had stolen the dull orange glow of her childhood. She looked at the broken rooftops, trying to make out landmarks from her youth but she didn't recognize a thing.

It was a waste of time. The Bronx had been taken from the girl as much as the girl was taken from The Bronx. She turned to go and collided with something. Looking down she saw a midget.

She started to apologize when another barrelled into the from behind, taking her legs out and pitching her backwards. Her head hit the ground with an alarming crack. She kicked out - her heel catching something soft that screamed. She rolled onto her hands and knees, and felt her head spin. She must have landed harder than she thought.

Someone hit her, then another. A third climbed on her back. She felt short, fat fingers press into her ears, another into her nose snapping her filters, which sliced both the invading hand and the lining of her nose. She heard someone cuss; slip the fingers away allowing her to
blow the bloody shards out. Then the hands were on her again.

She gasped for breath; she tried to stand.

But they were on her like rats. The combined weight of the gang forced her down.

There was a crack across the back of her already injured head and everything went black.

When she woke she was tied and gagged. She didn't know what was in her mouth - and she didn't like how it tasted.

She couldn't feel her legs, in fact, nothing below the knee. She tried to turn and see why but her hair was also tied and any movement was agony.

One of the midgets came up to her, grabber her hair and forced her head back. The gag stole her scream, but she coughed and choked.

He looked into her eyes and screamed. "You listen. You listen and remember this. Tell Ranjitsinhji that we're fucking American. Not Bangladeshi - American." He sprayed flecks of spit into her face.

Raja waddled over to a low table and picked up something sharp and metal. In another place she’d have laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation.

But when she saw how the implement was barbed she suddenly couldn't see the humor.

The midget came back. "You're lucky.” He said, scarier now for the calm in his voice. “You get to deliver the message personally."

For the next 3 hours, Lacey couldn't tell why she was lucky at all.

***

Captain Ranjitsinhji stood inside the private ward. He hadn't appreciated this call.

It came as he was about to shoot up and a late night run to the hospital was not on the cards. He didn't care if it was police business. Actually, he cared even less. The bastards had driven him to sticking dirty needles in his veins; let them work out their own shit. His missing wife stared at him from her photo. He put the needle down and grabbed his car keys.

The 50th Precinct had a monopoly on freaks. On his way over, Ranjitsinhji had wagered who was responsible tonight. He hoped it wasn't Cannibals.

***

He stared a mess of a woman.

It wasn't Cannibals.

Her legs were completely hacked up. It was their M.O. But the rest of her…he had to look away. He'd never seen them do anything like this.

She rasped something. He wasn't going to be able to hear from across the room. He was going to have to get up close and personal. He leant in and listened.

"American. He told me...they are American."

Ranjitsinhji stood up. He had no idea what she was talking about. Crazy talk from a Death Midget victim. And they pulled him away from his fix of sprocket for this?

"We'll do all we can, miss," he said, full of mock sympathy and concern. 'Which is absolutely nothing! Damn fool woman walking around The Bronx like a tourist,' he thought, driving home again.

It was about the time the fifth body turned up on White Plains Road - each with the words "We're American" carved on them - that the Captain realized he was in the middle of a public relations war.

And that he was losing.

Indigenous Resistance and the Western Socialist Uprising.

by Jeremiah Liebrecht, San Francisco, CA, USA

Little Big One?

Every time I hear what happened referred to as “The Little Big One”, my blood boils. I am a second generation San Franciscan. My grandparents had my mother there in 2007, stuck it out through the War and Second Depression. My parents lived there up until the pretremors, and moved up to the Sacramento Delta to join like minded socialist groups rallying at the Capital. We were always proud of our counter culture roots, when The City all but disappeared, I lost a lot of family and comrades, it was the biggest tragedy to hit the Revolutionary movement experienced since it was founded in 2035. I almost become violent with rage towards my comrades when I hear someone call the Quake that—it sounds like a joke, and it’s not cute.

Shortly after California’s seceded from the Union, my wife, two daughters and I joined my first cousin, Jorge’s family and a group of comrades to head towards Idaho. We were under-armed, and granted passage out of the state under the Objector’s Act. When we got to the Oregon border, we had to surrender all our weapons except a cleaning knife per adult male, and two Benelli R14 hunting rifles, with 12 rounds per gun. If we came across game, we had to be thrifty. We were also ordered to carry a white flag through Medford. We carefully fished along the random lakes and rivers as we headed to the Klamath Falls rendezvous point. Most fresh water fish were contaminated with mercury and had to be tested before consumption. Luckily, Jorge was a naturalist and his knowledge kept our little traveling clan safe. Our organization had made a trade/labor pact with the Indigenous Resistance Movement that had settled the northern Rockies. From, Boise in the west, to Laramie, Wyoming in the east, to Missoula, Montana and, Spokane in the north.

We knew the most fighting was going on along the southwest Colorado border, and Northwest, Spokane area, mostly from White Power groups. The Indigenous Resistance was born of the ancient American Indian Movement. Most of the Western Socialist Uprising, like my family, are mixed Mexican and Gringo, We had a lot of solidarity movements with the I.R.M. throughout the direct actions against the war, and the mass imprisonment of the non conformists.

What happened at the Klamath Falls train station was reminiscent of the European holocaust my Dad would tell me about. A freight train yard crowded with pacifist mixed-race socialists, being herded by U.S. National Guard for the 15 hour train ride to independent Boise. We were nervous boarding the train. I had the girls sit far forward of the freight car, huddled and hidden under a small Kevlar pancho. There had been a shaky cease fire between the U.S. and the I.R.M. for a few years, since the Union had been enveloped with the fighting along California, and Mexico. They had more or less left us to be victimized by the White Power Militias, who attacked the train relentlessly as we crossed state lines.

King of the Californias Pt IV

by Monk, New York City, NY, USA

A softknife isn't much more than a floppy length of plastic, malleable enough to tie in a bow until contact with electricity, when it goes rigid as aircraft-grade aluminum. At ease, the human body generates about 120 watts, and since electro-sensitive plastics aren't detectable by anything short of costly tight-bandwidth spectrometers, the softknife has become modern upgrade to the common prison shank. It’s not actually surprising, then, that Cecilio Goncz sneaked one past the Palma de Baís’s security. What's dazzling is that he got an actual chrome-and-ceramic pistol into his room, and used it expertly on the invaders who crashed midway through our interview.

From the balcony, I have a reasonable view of the suite’s living room, where Goncz confronts his attackers in the brutally forthright manner that death-proofed him against rival Los Angeles warlords. Three black-cloaked forms litter the floor, haloed by evaporating pools of their own vital fluids, decompiled by the expensive self-cleaning rug. Goncz stands over a fourth figure, bowed on its knees, hands pinned to a single thigh by the softknife, pistol to the throat. Goncz leans in, his lips moving. The lightning bolt livetattoos above his eyes flicker red and black, pale nictitating membranes blinking out of sync with his actual eyelids.

Distant bomb blasts over East Oakland remind me I was left outside for reasons apart from safety. Separated by a door of synthetic, grown diamond, I have a moment for contemplation. It is an important moment in my project. I have only gotten this far with Mr Goncz by being passive. History is littered with men like me, who maybe thought too much, pushed too hard at the wrong moment, and abruptly discovered just how disposable they were. Modesty has worked to my advantage thus far. So long as I balance my subject's monstrous past with my own clinical detachment, the project can continue apace. But as much as I want to remain in his good graces, I know this thing will never develop without some initiative. Scripted questions and canned answers won't get me my Pulitzer. Minor risks, I reason, will take me further than the safe route I've taken. I adjust the acoustics on my recorder, set it to use the balcony door as an amplifier, and am soon listening to my subject’s conversation.

“...did you find me?” he asks.

The survivor makes a moaning sound. I realize at that moment those aren’t black cloaks. They’re hijabs. Goncz’s attackers are women. When the survivor doesn’t make any meaningful sound, he twists the softknife. She shrieks.

“I’m asking nicely,” Goncz says evenly. “You can make this last five seconds or five weeks. I have all the time in the world to get an answer out of you.”

She shakes her head violently, mumbling rapidly under her breath. I adjust the volume. She’s praying.

Goncz clicks his tongue and shrugs. “Fine. Okay. I’m just going to leave you here to think it over for a little bit then, okay? Let me know when you want to have a conversation like a grown-up.” He presses the softknife to its hilt, effectively nailing her to the floor through her hands and thigh.

The soundproofing of the room is all that shields the rest of the hotel from the cries: piercing crescendo, tapering to gurgling sobs. Almost blows out my eardrums. I reduce the volume on the recorder. Loud enough still to hear Goncz smack his lips as he leans forward, kisses her lovingly on the veiled forehead. I see him pocket the gun, start sifting through his attackers’ bodies.

Hundreds of miles away, Los Angeles’ provisional government continues trying war criminals as they trickle in from the international manhunt, handing out lifetime sentences as soon as they step into the courtroom. They’ve imported thousands of counselors, therapists, medical groups, and health systems from mainland America to compensate victims of some of the most brutal human rights violations in modern history. Half of Los Angeles’s national budget is set to build a permanent healthcare apparatus to repatriate and normalize freed factory slaves, crippled Hollywood gladiators, and brutalized rape camp survivors. The women inside could have been any of these. Whatever their beef, they came to Goncz for justice, and leave this life disappointed. I watch Cecilio Goncz pick through their remains.

The ghosts of Los Angeles find no peace here in Oakland, a place where exiled kings dance atop crystal castles, and weak men sit at their feet, chronicling safely behind the wall of journalistic neutrality. The recorder's still going, animal grunts from the survivor as she desperately tries to un-skewer herself. Goncz whistles the tune from a children's show that was on in the background of our early interview. I'm sweating. At some point, I've squeezed the recorder tight enough to draw blood. Set it aside.

My project is mutating. I've lost my balance, fallen directly into Goncz's narrative, trapped as witness to another of his horrible secrets. Wondering how much longer I can hold out.

Before he discovers mine.

Best.Funeral.Ever.

by James Peach, Nashville, TN, USA

I'm in the mood to kill everyone in sight. It's too bad that my job requires the exact opposite of me.

I've had a record number of shooting victims on my shift tonight. I had a record number of shooting victims last night. Tomorrow night I might just set another new record by myself. I wonder if they'd count me shooting myself at the end?

If it isn't attempted murders coming through my doors, it's drug addicts. Tonight I had a lady come through that tried self-aborting. She was never pregnant. Our lab can't even figure out what drugs she's on, but that's nothing new. We're usually about a week behind when something new comes out, and something new is ALWAYS coming out. WHERE DOES ALL THIS GARBAGE COME FROM?

I should be working more on my research, but Dr. Edgar has been pissing me off lately, and quite frankly I'm tired of doing anything that benefits him, even if it's benefiting others, also. Every day that I have to be around him I have one of those headaches that you get when the anger in your soul is too much for your brain to process.

Last week a bunch of people came in with symptoms that were kind of flu-like. All of them seemed to know each other on some level, too. After speaking briefly, though, none of them wanted to talk to each other anymore. It was like they remembered that they had a secret and shut up, rather than risk letting on. I couldn't shake the thought that something was wrong with the whole scenario. At first I thought that maybe someone had messed around and put some of the Cumberland's water in their drinks, maybe they were all at the same party or something. Someone's idea of a joke, maybe. I just can't get my brain off of it, though.

It probably doesn't help that I haven't slept properly in so long that…well, in so long that I can't remember. Last night I was too tired to eat before bed, now I'm hungry and there's no time for food. Gotta save lives so people can go back out there and find some new way to almost kill themselves.

I'm tired of doing surgeries that I don't even remember because my mind was elsewhere. 4th of July is coming up. Sure, it'll bring in a crap load more patients from Riverfront, but at least it will be more interesting. It's always funny to see what new ways everyone comes up with each new year to disfigure themselves with explosives. My favorite is still The Man With One Asscheek. He was hilarious. If I were more like him I could be happier. He lost a ridiculous amount of blood that year and has to carry around a phonebook to place under himself so that when he sits down he doesn't lean. The night we fixed him up he went right back out into the streets looking for more fireworks. He loves celebrating. He has no idea what he's celebrating, but he doesn't care. He just like blowing shit up and drinking.

Best damn funeral a country's ever had.

The Last Black Woman In Brooklyn

by Tasha Hanna, Bushwick, Brooklyn, USA

Bed Stuy, NY

Bush died today...

I SAID Bush died today.

Who ma?

...the forty third president. You know when New York lost the first trade center and America went to hell.

Yes mother, we know. When companies ruled the world through the illuminati, when Brooklyn was invaded by white folk and Bush didn't care about black people.<

Don't mock me.

Would I do that?

I gave birth to your ungrateful behind, the least you could do is listen to me before I go senile.

You're already...

What?! I may have given you your trust fund already,but i'm still on the board, I'll have you out on the street so fast with those "closer nature folk"...

Relax mother I'm just tired.

Tired?! You don't KNOW tired. Taking a 45 min train to school, walking home during the black outs, working 8,9,10 hours works days, two, three jobs. Manually turning on the TV, AC, Physically opening doors...doors with KNOBS for that matter, actually talking to people. pssssht you don't KNOW tired.

But things are better now right? Could you turn down the volume on your headset mother? Your shouting at me and I have a headache...

If you actually listened i wouldn't have to 'shout'. Where'd all the black folks go?

Mother i'm right here.

Chile, you ain't black, you kinda look black if i squinted really hard

{Mumbles}... and you are?

I just miss the darker folk, I shoulda left NY when they said 'the people' were leaving. how you gonna have a migration and leave folks behind?! Even the brown latinos left i'm mean damn...

please watch your language...the grandchildren...and you're not the last black person in brooklyn?

well it sure feels that way

I love you too mother.

Bloodlines, Pt I

by Dominick Brady, Atlanta, GA, USA

Statesboro, Georgia

The room was warmer than I thought it would be. Stiff steel chairs made the wait more uncomfortable. The interview table, a makeshift serving table with some grunt's raspberry jelly and cheese-egg stain clinging to the far leg closest to the slate-gray cement wall rattled under Trevor's nervous paradiddles. A column of ants descended the wall, spiraling the near table leg snaking along dutifully, orderly. Glancing at my watch, the irony of their military-like precision drew me deeper into misgivings about his impending interview with Lieutenant Brandt. Decisions were to be made. Today either a scapegoat would be chosen or I would become that scapegoat. As I ran my fingers over my Sergeant’s chevrons I began to wonder if I would be able to keep them. It wasn't fair. But since was life in Uncle Sam's Army fair?

The massacre began early on August 23rd- the day before the start of classes at nearby Georgia Southern University. Chow-hall talk had been consumed with cheeky braggadocio on the prospects of plump young co-eds, which condiments went best with their long, tan legs. Eager company had just come off day shift patrol responsibilities and despite the longer hours, many of the men looked forward to returning the Night Shift. With the night shift came cooler temperatures and extended patrols where a soldier had autonomy away from the ever watchful surveillance of O.C. It also meant that off-duty time back on base could be spent on campus taking in the local talent.

Regulations didn't permit contraband on night patrol, but the lieutenant often looked the other way, as he should. Night patrol is a shit detail and troop morale ain't found in the field manual. Temperatures in Da ‘Boro could reach near 85 degrees Fahrenheit at night. Couple the heat with the nightly stench from nearby Paper mills in Brunswick, Ethanol mills in Metter and Guano processing plants just outside of Hinesville and the orchestra of foul smells playing double time on olfactory senses was hellish. Night runners were aware of this advantage. Temperature regulating exo-suits and embedded personal area networks made the long nights more tolerable as we would often download contraband movies off hacked satellite feeds. The Net is a blister foot’s best friend.

The 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team had been stationed in Statesboro for a little over a year now. Interstate 16, highways 80, 24 and 301 made Statesboro a critical junction the Pentagon did not want over-run with indigents. Cities of import such as Atlanta, Macon, Charleston and Savannah could be accessed by these highways. Fuel resources have brought the Greater Statesboro area a gold rush of sorts.

Universal Build Out laws dropped like flies over the years, and none of us noticed until the Digital Divide widened further into an unbridgeable gulf of desperation. Urban and Rural communities were hit hardest. With UBO standards abandoned, many inner cities and rural tracts quickly became ghetto war zones. What no one expected was for gangs and labor interests to mobilize into a two headed political and paramilitary thorn in the side of the federal government.

On the rural front cotton and corn farms engulfed by Corporate Agri-biz and eminent domain became the front lines of domestic terrorism and illegal migration wars.

Eager company’s order were to hold the line.

“I say fuck ‘em all, man. Geechies runnin, Guerillas runnin’— fuck it. I don’t give a fuck anymore. Tired of the shit, Trevor. View finder on my helmet’s had it. And I don’t see why we gotta lug ‘round these MOLLE’s on patrol, “ Tank griped. “Tank, Gator y’all just make sure y’all keep your eyes on that line. 2nd Squad caught a barker and lost two drivers last week. I don’t need that headache,” I replied. “You right, boss.”

Tank had a point. No one really wanted to be here any more in the South Georgia night engulfed in humidity, mosquitoes and cricket calls. Guerillas routinely mixed in with night runners attempting to flee the low country. It was getting harder and harder to determine enemy combatants from civilian illegals. Unattended ground sensors and satellite feeds warned of any incoming activity, but without knowing whether to go hot with live ammo, or to load rubbers good soldiers have gotten hurt. The men were on edge, the safety buttons were off.

At first the steady beep of the UGS didn’t catch my attention. A herd of deer was known to travel feed at the edge of these cotton fields at night. The beeping persisted. And with it came Brandt’s orders.

I shook my head in disbelief. Squinting down the column of parked Infantry Carrier Vehicles, I observed a chorus of shrugs, scowls and sneers echoing down the line. Was Lieutenant Brandt serious? “Here we are on the brink of civil war, and he wanna go and command some bullshit like this? Fucked up in the game, aint it,” I said, turning to Gator. He shook his head and stared off into the high cotton. Gator didn’t say much these days. It wasn’t in him anymore. Some of these Night Runners were kin to him. I’m surprised his Geechie draftee ass ain’t gone A.W.O.L. already. I suspect he will any day now. That’s why I sleep with my Corner shot at a right angle. Just in case. You can’t trust much of anyone these days outside of the major cities. Everybody’s got an agenda. Labor, Agro-Activists, Radicals the shit is an unending list of the kind of scum you don’t mind cleaning off your boot after you’ve stomped on it a little, make it bleed. We’d been on patrol for just over an hour and Brandt is telling us to dismount already.

I didn’t like it. It didn’t feel right. Ain’t no telling what them Geechies and cousin fuckers had in store for us. We had to hold the line.


…to be continued.

King of the Californias Pt III

by Monk, New York City, NY, USA

Midnight at the Palma de Baía is surreal and alarming. Atop a fifty-story spire shaped a bit like a melted candle, you can still hear the artillery in East Oakland's flatlands as the Northern Republic of California continues its purge of the Deep East Side. Guandong, another breakaway republic across the Pacific, has long subsidized arms sales to NoCal in return for preferential shipping rights, and with all this money floating around, the Pacific Arms race is at full steam. Combat drones made in the factory hives of Guanzhou screech overhead like pterodactyls, dropping decompiler bombs on ghostly suburbia. NoCal's Army uses Guandong-made bioweapons and nerve bombs to 'pacify' great swaths of urban NoCal, against almost every recognized convention of human rights. And while the old men in Beijing stomp their feet in impotent rage, their dreams of Chinese hegemony stalled when the wealthy provinces quit the country. They, like their counterparts in Washington, have learned some hard lessons in modern politics the past few years. None could teach these old dogs new tricks better than Prime Minister Benny Pivens, whose Golden Bear Party made its bones reclaiming vast stretches of the country and putting them back on the grid. Yet as the country's largest city, Oakland has proven particularly difficult to tame, especially given meager police resources. While NoCal's constitution gives Pivens sweeping power to maintain order, using the Army to clear the Deep East Side seems excessive to my tender Yankee sensibilities.

Cecilio Goncz fancies himself a scholar of the human condition, and I haven't the backbone to dispute him. He thinks my outrage is cute. Amusing, even. His own human rights record consists of petabytes of footage that might convince Dante to re-write his portrayal of Hell. Goncz's former territories were among the most savagely oppressed in Los Angeles' history. He justifies this often by remarking on how his was one of the few enclaves on the island with electricity and clean, running water. People ate regularly. There was rudimentary net access. Running local newsfeeds. Hospitals. Relatively low murder rate. Lowest infant mortality rate in Los Angeles. But all that was alongside death camps and narcofactories. A burgeoning slave trade and vigorous gladiator culture, arguably unparalleled since the days of ancient Rome. To this day, the provisional government has found his the least manageable of all its cantonments. Cecilio Goncz's throne was built of human bones. In his mind, Benny Pivens is an amateur. He says so.

"If he was smart," my host says, picking at his sharpened teeth, "he'd arm a counterinsurgency. Get one of the other gangs to do his work, absorb the survivors into the police or army. It's win/win. Blooded vets loyal to the state, and you've cleared the streets of dissent."

I have nothing to say to that. Our silence is interrupted by a distant explosion that rains combat drone over Jack London Square. Rumors place U.S. military advisers in East and West Oakland, arming guerillas. Pivens' public rhetoric has heated up over the past weeks. I quietly wonder if North America can take another war.

He lights a little black cigarette and answers my unspoken question. "People can take anything, kid. Human rights bastards wring their fucking hands all day, but people are resilient. I mean, shit, we didn't always have electricity, the net, cars, mortgages, and a Bill of Rights. We lived a long time before that stuff. Loving, hating, fucking, killing, making babies, losing babies—the whole thing. I mean, shit, homes: you think the first caveman complained about human rights when the next guy tried to step on his neck? Hell, no. He picked up a rock and beat the guy to death, or rolled over and showed his belly. That's what it boils down to when you strip away all the fatty tissue. That's people, homey. Get yours or get got. You'd be surprised how quickly people get used to that, no matter how civilized they been brought up. They adapt to adversity. It's what makes us what we are. Our dreams are only as deep as our nightmares, yeah?"

The livetattoos in place of his eyebrows have translated into animated Japanese, kanji characters tracking across his brow: 'Only God Can Judge Me.' I ask if he's saying humanity is only as good as the evil it does. He smiles.

"Look at us, esé," he motions to the penthouse balcony overlooking the Bay. "We're sitting on top of a building that was grown out of the fucking shattered Earth, yeah? Brasilian engineers come up the coast, seeded the ground with nanocrap, and five weeks later, I have a private suite with spigots that pour any drink I want. Furniture that grows out the damned floor and changes color when I clap. That's pretty amazing, right? But flip it around. That same nanocrap goes into decompiler bombs and man-eater bullets. Side by side, homey. That's the human condition. One foot in the gutter, one on the curb."

My follow-up question is interrupted by a crashing sound from inside the penthouse. Shapes move on the other side of the balcony's crystal doors.

Goncz's alligator smile widens, livetattoos morphing to red lightning bolts above his eyes. He passes me his cigarette. "Hold this, and don't smoke it," he growls. "Pendejos found me. Only a matter of time, I suppose. Stay out here. This shouldn't take too long." He pulls a long narrow strip from his belt buckle, quiet buzz as the softknife goes rigid with electric current. A tiny pistol has materialized in his other hand.

I had no idea my host was armed with blade and gun.

Or that I would witness him use them.

Running From Daylight Pt II

by Dominick Brady, Atlanta, GA, USA

Greasy with blood, my fingers fumble clumsily with the buttons on my cargo slacks, grasping for my mobile. I hand the phone to my wife. “Baby, I need you to call Doc. Tell him not to bother leaving. We’ll meet him at his place.” Glancing in my rear view-finder, my mother’s eyes meet mine.

“How’s he doing back there, Mama, ” I ask her. Before she can respond; I don’t have to zoom in to see Pops is fading, or to feel the panic in Mama’s grimace of a gaze.

“He’s getting pale,” she manages to utter.

Priority number 1 is for us to make it to Doc’s place, undetected. Priority 1.A is to keep Gideon calm. “Mama, you’re doing fine. Everything is going to be fine,” I reply to her, attempting to reassure us all.

The tunnel’s cement gray roofing gives way to transparent recycled solar cells as M.A.S.H’s eastbound connector approaches the Downtown Arts District. Off to the left Grady Hospital’s helo-port quickly rises and falls along the horizon line as we approach the assent onto the Edgewood Avenue exit. Doc’s place wasn’t far now.

Dr. Jean “Doc” Chera runs a tight ship. He has to. As a moonlighting Grady Hospital Cardiothoracic surgeon, Chera operates the most respectable 'chop shop' in the metro area. It’s a dangerous business, but if anyone uninsured, undocumented or unemployed needs to get cut cheap, quick and clean Doc is the man to see. City-wide Universal healthcare isn’t nearly as ubiquitous as many hoped it could be. Even with the overwhelming budget surpluses Atlanta has been spoiled with, the unemployed and illegal traffickers such as myself are not eligible for care. Chop shops may be illegal, but they remain as vital to the Atlanta economy and its untold thousands of ATLiens as the tunnels we traverse each day. Doc's celebrity as a childhood phenom secures him a provisional pass with the Juras. Everybody is a soccer fan, even crooked cops.

Doc, like many of my clients, enjoys not having to worry about annoying regulations and data licensing associated with registering for commercial internet service. US.net’s free bandwidth is fine for non-commercial use, but Google-Diebold’s cube mesh network is one of the few real bandwidth solutions for profit-seeking endeavors. I supply my clients with low-cost, high speed bandwidth by bypassing commercial data security systems. It‘s what pays the bills.

Doc and I have a special arrangement. As long as I keep Doc wired, my family receives free service.

We speed up the parking ramp of Doc’s chop shop at the corner of Auburn Avenue and Jesse Hill Jr. near the old Royal Peacock. For some reason, the Juras are not hanging outside the precinct across the street flirting with the Meth-head-crisps near the underpass. Vatos from the fighting Zone Five have a sweet tooth for Anglo putas. After making a quick dua for our stroke of luck I begin to ease Pops out of the backseat. What should take two minutes of quick work is taking the better part of ten minutes, getting pops secured into a wheelchair left next to the stairwell for handicapped patients. I never could get used to manual labor in the morning heat.

“You’re getting soft, playboi”, I laugh to myself.

Leaving Gideon in the truck with Mama, my wife and I struggle to pull Pops up the narrow stairwell into the chop shop foyer. The steady hum of generators and antiquated wall-unit air conditioners is almost soothing. We made it. Doc enters the room in a rush, and squats down in front of the wheelchair. Holding Pop’s left wrist he listens intently to Pop‘s respiration, before ordering the attendant to change the blood soaked dressing wrapped about Pop’s face. Mumbling something unintelligible into his voice pad, Doc scratches his head while walking away to his office.
I can’t read him.

“Well how’s he look,” I ask, growing impatient.

Doc pauses to give me a stern look, “There isn’t much time. Did you bring the boy?”

“Yeah. He’s in the car with his Grandmother keeping cool. When did you get these air cond-”

“We don’t have much time,” he barks, cutting me off.

Reaching into my pocket, I mobile Mama. There is no answer. With no time to waste, I touch my wife gently on the arm letting her know I’ll be right back. The stairwell’s sweltering heat is nearly unbearable as it harmonizes with the steaming stench of vagrant’s piss. At this point I just want the day to be over. With my sweat glistening forehead throbbing I enter the tiny parking garage wiping my brow. The car is gone. In it’s place is a sealed envelope. Quickly snatching up the envelope I sprint down the parking ramp to the street. “What if they were kidnapped,” I wonder aloud. I stumble down the steep descent, nearly falling into the street. Bracing myself against an old deserted Hyundai Genesis, my eyes search left along Jesse Hill Jr. before turning right to peer down Auburn Avenue. The streets are barren. No one but criminals, cops and fiends are on the streets at this hour anyway. What the fuck is going on here?

I open the letter. Marked with an official City of Atlanta police seal, it reads:

'Jeff,
We need to talk.
Sincerely,
Major Carlos Vasquez,
Zone 5 Commander.'

Last Stand in Red Hook

by iago, somewhere in New York

"Ain't gonna hurt nobody…we're just dancing, baby…"

That's uh, that's some group, turn of the century, pre-turn of the century. Happy times. Happier times? Not for me, they weren't. Of course, my ass wasn't living yet, so ain't no happier times before I'm living, right? But ain't no happier times during I'm living than now I'm living, know it?

They forgot about us, know it? Wrote us off. Wrote us off early--Second Depression early. Worried about The Littler Bigger One coming down over here, worried about tsunami whipping us down, called us The First Line of Defense and pushed back inland. And oh, the folks living there thrashed their teeth and begged and cried about the need to stay protected, the need to come up, and the liberals, the liberals were just as bad, hollering and crying about abandonment, about New Orleans before Katrina, then before Alina, then before Gertude, and before Claxton did that last lick of what they'd call damage. We can't just abandon Red Hook. We can't just call it The First Line Of Defense and forget the people who live there.

But they did call it that. And they did forget us. And they saved us, saved our lives.

You're too young to know about any of those names. Hurricanes, they were. And earthquakes. Lots of storms, lots of earth, lots of shifting and shaking, just like Second Stand's hips. You saw Second Stand shaking when you came this way, didn't you? Fine woman. My woman. We got saved by being The First Line of Defense. Only we didn't look at the geography quite that way, know it? We inverted it.

We're making stands out here, not against nature, but against those folks back on the inside. And you know what? We live longer. And you know what? We live better. Know it. We live better. You know why? Because they wrote us off.

In the old days, the real olds, this country, this land is your land, this place was obsessed with frontiers. New places to discover. I think that's what killed the heart of it off, a lack of new frontiers. Sad the rest of the world got dragged along with it. But The Hook, that's our frontier. Once they left us out here, but they decided to still "protect" us--the way they say it, protection is what we need--once they left us but decided to keep us safe--haha--once they did that, we frontiered ourselves.

So me and Second Stand, we could do what we wanted, stand in the rain, sleep in the rain, make love in the sun. We walk at our own pace, hands in hers when we want them there, off to find others when we need, you know, others. We stumbled into utopia out of their disaster of having too much.

And kid, this is what I'm trying to tell you--there are pockets. You'll find pockets. I don't know what brought you here to the Hook, but you found the Last Stand. You found the Second Stand. You found The First Line of Defense, and for you, kid, I think it really is your First Line. You've got pockets to find.

I bet you're looking for a woman. Am I right?

Last Stand is right. Last Stand knows it.

She's out in the world, kid, know it. She's somewhere in the pockets.

Vermont Avenue + Adams Boulevard

by Ike Moses, Los Angeles, CA, USA

"El Poco Grande," she began, carefully, with one hand commanding motorized blades and the other directing a laser. Concentration sweat laminated the faded serial number on her forehead, "It wasn't no earthquake."

"Oh yeah?" Jawan raised an interested eyebrow and urged the punchline, "What was it then?"

"Terrorismo."

Southern California remains a popular tourist destination, even after its incidental secession from the Union. Granted, most who come here really want to be in the States, but for some the Southland is as close and as far as they want to be from Sam. There are less Germans, with fanny packs full of euros, visiting the Walk of Fame; but there are more Sudanese Jihadis, full of American resentment, trying to win back the confidence of other Arabs. They were the CIA's dry-snitches for most of the Arab-American Wars, but Southern Sudan's liberation broke the alliance.

Jawan had to resist shaking his head. He didn't want that nonsense landing anywhere near his shoulders. The slightest neck swivel would fuck up his hairline, though. He ain't disagree that much. Holding very, very still, he screwed disapproval into his lips and said, "You on one, 'Maine."

"Think about it, Juan," Tremaine precisely traced the beginnings of an acute crescent above Jawan's left temple, "An earthquake is caused by friction. The friction is caused by placas going head up. They run into each other, not away from each other, 'stand me? They make mountains, not islands."

"They made this mountain fall into the pienche Pacific," Jawan didn't understand why he was getting so frustrated, "If Poco Grande wasn't an act of Allah; who did it, how, and why?"

"I don't know how, and I don't know why, but I know who," Tremaine paused, not for dramatic effect, but to review her head work, "Same fools who blew up them levies way back when."

Ready for a subject change, Jawan called out to the shop, "Who winning?"

A group of men shielded the wall-screen, only allowing Jawan to see the ball occasionally fly over their unshaped-up heads from his chair. The game was broadcast live from the Coliseum, about a mile south, so Jawan was unsure if the audience roars he heard came from the speakers or the stadium itself. Somebody shouted back, "It's tied. One up."

When Tremaine finished, Jawan surveyed his dome in the mirror, stretched, and brushed phantom hairs from his clothes. He tipped the barber in won and pesetas, grasped her hand, leaned an elbow into her chest, and said, "A'right 'Maine. See you next viernes."

Once outside, he heard the parlor explode with disappointment and celebration. Some asshole held a "Gol!" shout for like 45 seconds. Jawan didn't turn around to see the replay. He hopped on his bike, checked there were no trucks or tanks approaching, and swerved across all four lanes of Vermont Avenue, dodging opposing cyclists as he headed southbound. He didn't mind coming out this way for a cut, no matter how many foreign 'hoods he had to pass through to get here. He needed a Friday ritual: the weekly round-trip to Tremaine's shop and back gave the day some meaning. Besides, it was difficult finding a barber he could trust. Tilt your head back into the wrong sink and you'll sit up without it.

Jawan sprint-cycled until his bike was charged, then sat back to cruise, going easy on the twist grip. He tried, unsuccessfully, to find a pattern in the neglected asphalt's alligator cracks and potholes. At the corner of Exposición Bulevar and Vermont he was forced to yield to the drunken mob of 'stizos and negros that trampled Expo Park, the streets, and the reappropriated Universidad del Sur de California campus. He hated having to stop there, with the emerald dome of la Mezquita de Omar Iban Al-Jattab noticeably absent over his right shoulder.

He remembered the night it happened. Not just him, everyone who wasn't in the masjid that night remembers, because everyone was looking. Angelenos used to give stars jaded regard, but now stars made them anxious. The lights and the smog keep the heavens far away from the City of Angels, so if you see the sky, the sky is falling. That night the star came from the east, just above the palm tree horizon, and grew in intensity for a couple minutes. The star didn't come from heaven, of course, but from a coastal town that used to be Bagdad, California. It was the first American ballistic missile in a brief campaign that caught sleeper cells while they slept.

According to Sura 2:160, Allah is the relenting, the merciful. But Jawan needed a relentless, vengeful god. His faith had collapsed with the dome to his right, and this intersection was where the failed structures of his life stood, or laid, or whatever that mostly demolished building was doing. Instead of sitting there thinking about another missed Jumu'ah, he decided to slice through the crowd of cerveza-fueled football fans. Agitated by Jawan's intrusion, some spectators threw food and drinks at him. He caught a little with his shirt and khakis, but they missed his head, so he didn't really trip.

They still sing The Yellow Rose of Texas

by Zesi, Atlanta, GA, USA

Mexico/Texas border, the Rio Grande

La Frontera still sings her promises to sus amigos al sur, she, seductive, beautiful, dangerous.

The cruelest part is looking across the river, grand, the landscape no different than the one your feet are planted in, the promises loom larger than the life you had at home. A house of your own, big and clean, your kids, a dog even. A new car that purrs like a kitten as you drive it. Your career back, the schooling flooding back after years of disuse. Water in pipes, and streets that smell like air instead of the shit at home.

You look over, and you don’t imagine what’s coming to you. You creep as you’ve been warned, you steel yourself as you’ve been warned, you hear the sweet sucking of the mud and you are so close, and your foot is poised to go onto the other side, and you would take a breath and savor this moment if it weren’t dangerous and illegal, so you put your foot down al otro lado, and then you swear La Llorona has come to take you away, because there’s no other explanation, your brain beats like your wild heart in your skull, but you keep going, you made it this far and others haven’t, and you take another step and she cries some more, and your ears hurt from her singing, and your ears ring with her song but you try to keep going, slower now, and too late. The border patrol comes from out of nowhere, you think, but they’ve known you were coming for 10 miles now, were hoping that your burst eardrum would be enough. They pile you into their van and drug you, they tell you in español that they’re going to make you talk, these men who mostly look like you and your brothers, and you think “If only!” but before you could think “I could stay awake!” your brain slurs like the mud you were in before you took that step. They ask you about your name and where you are from, and you tell them more than they want, but they get what they need. You talk as if they were friends or cousins calling from far away, you tell them the good home things in your haze of euphoria. You talk about how you love to comb your lover’s black hair in that far town, you tell them that it is harvest time and they should come to visit you, because they make the best tortillas where you live, it’s the love they put in it you say. You tell them that they should look up Antonio, remember Antonio?, he’d be sure to show them a good time; he can drink, sing, and dance with the best of them, and he never ever gets tired, never. One says, “Shit! We got a talker,” and bemoans that the drugs they g ive aren’t strong enough to shut you up. They tap tap in their computer and out comes what looks like plastic toothpick. They slice your arm and put it in deep as they can in your flesh banks and blood rivers. It is sewn again with care, and they clean it, they are Americans after all, now, and your death on their watch could mean another job if the right person catches them. You cross the border back when you are not awake, you change hands into those of your own gobierno, who read the plastic chip and tie a yellow hospital band around your arm with your hometown and state typed in impartial Times New Roman. You wake, and hope that the Spanish you hear is that of the border, but the pain in your arm, the pus stained cotton ball you pull out your ear, and the hospital band let you know that you won’t be joining those who sing The Yellow Rose of Texas.

If you had been better off, you would have taken the Zen meditation class offered by the coyotes. If you had been smart, you would have pressed the ones with the scars on their arms and the double crossersm who gouge their chips out for a new chance at the dream. If you had been lucky, that might have helped. But they are shipping you home in the special Mexican postal service van for human freight returned to sender. And you will have to pay them back for your return trip. This has been arranged by the governments of your and the otro lado.

They know you’ll try again.

“When the Rio Grande is flowin’, the starry skies are bright,
She walks along the river in the quiet summer night:
I know that she remembers, when we parted long ago,
I promise to return again, and not to leave her so.

She's the sweetest little rosebud that Texas ever knew,
Her eyes are bright as diamonds, they sparkle like the dew;
You may talk about your Clementine, and sing of Rosalee,
But the yellow rose of Texas is the only girl for me.

Oh now I'm going to find her, for my heart is full of woe,
And we'll sing the songs together, that we sung so long ago
We'll play the banjo gaily, and we'll sing the songs of yore,
And the yellow rose of Texas shall be mine forevermore.”

The Man who woke the Panther—Mason Dickson

by David W Parrish, Jr., Ft. Worth, TX, USA

The organ rose and signaled for everyone to get quiet. David Parrish, III, his son David Parrish, IV and his grandson, David Parrish, V rose for the tribute to Senator Mason Dickson, the first African-American to serve as Mayor of Fort Worth, TX and the former junior Senator from Texas, again the first African-American to hold the position. It was at that moment the cybercast emanated from the big screen in the sky.

"Senator Dickson was arguably the most important Politcal Figure in the State of Texas in the 21st Century. Dickson was a former church pastor who took the Texas political scene by storm by coming from out of nowhere to win the Mayor's race in 2015. A task he accomplished by harnessing the power of the Web…which had been freed from the grip of Big Cable and The former Bells by Former President Obama.

Mason Dickson won his first election by knocking on the door of each and every resident of Fort Worth and explaining to them what his goals were. He talked about the years of Fort Worth and Tarrant County sleeping in the shadow of Big D, Dallas. He talked about how the Cowboys and the Rangers were already in Tarrant County. He talked about how most of Tarrant County's newest residents were former Dallas County residents. He reminded them how much positive press had come from a wildly successful hosting of Super Bowl XLV. His daily podcasts were entertaining, his position papers on how to move Fort Worth into the forefront of not just the Metroplex but the entire Southwest.

Once in office, Mason realized how powerless the people really were. He took the oath of office on a Monday and by Thursday he was awash in proposals from the big money establishment interests trying to build on the success of Tarrant County's tourism and natural gas proceeds to elevate the national profile of Fort Worth. While in the past, such objectives would result in ruthless gentrification, Mayor Dickson utilized the vocal nature of his constituency to hedge his bets. While detractors would say that he was in the pocket of big business, the reality is that after an entire history of neglect, never had a Fort Worth mayor even attempted to cash in the favors he garnered from even the side deals he brokered with developers and use that money to elevate things like mass transit. Fort Worth went from having one of the worst mass transit systems in the country to one of the best, despite having insufficient topography for underground transit. It was the risky move of utilizing the Solar Hybrid Bus, a technology that leaked out of a newly opened Cuba that Mayor Dickson embraced fully and without compromise. He arranged for a spinoff of Bell Helicopter to build the buses in the city of Fort Worth by exchanging tax breaks for a high school program that trained workers in high school and transitioned them right into college in exchange for a 4 year commitment from the company to work the assembly line. From there the development flowed fast and furious all over the county.

From there, the legend of Mayor Dickson lingered under the radar. In a national media still transfixed by scandal and celebrity, Mason Dickson stayed about the business of wielding the Sword of capitalism for as much good as possible. Aside from the Obama administration, the federal government had been on a non-stop descent into oligarchy, where the Dow stayed on the incline at all costs and no job was safe from outsourcing. The earnings divide between the rich and the poor went from a gulf to a canyon. Those in the underclass who could get their Evel Knevel on and jump the canyon did so by any means necessary. The middle class existed by sheer force of will. You had those in the middle class who scraped by just well enough to be included in the American dream, and you had those who were treading water, but had no hope of retirement.

Mayor Mason Dickson transferred his popularity with the big money interests and the people to a romp in the US Senate Race of 2028. Even on the National Stage, Senator Dickson kept Fort Worth Close to his heart, orchestrating similar exchanges to benefit both ends of the economic spectrum. Senator Dickson took the opportunity of the national stage to voice the importance of bringing Southern California back from the brink of complete anarchy. Mason Dickson was never an ideologue, which drove members of both parties crazy. He was a darling of the Independents, who never did get organized enough to start a third party, choosing instead to straddle the fence in either party as it suited them. While over the course of the 21st Century, politics grew to be more and more like bloodsport for public consumption, in reality, certain figures navigated the vast territory between the two extremes to provide enough leadership to accomplish enough basic reform to stave off the long rumored decline and fall of the United States empire. Very little was made of his race, despite the fact that race relations remain a flashpoint for much of society. Fort Worth and then Texas came to view Mason Dickson as a GOOD Black man, to be trusted, as long as nothing bad happened. That left Mason Dickson the unenviable task of navigating THAT divide as well, the divide between Blacks and Whites and others and the internal Divide between Blacks who had achieved and Blacks who hadn't.

While it should be noted that the United States on many levels has devolved into a hodgepodge of Hyper-materialism and strife between neighbors, The nation still stands tall as an ideal of democracy even as we approach our nation's tricentennial.

It is therefore on this the 22nd day of July, 2057 that we honor The Honorable Mason Dickson, Mayor of Fort Worth, and United States Senator from the State of Texas for his contributions over the past 50 years."

At that precise moment, a laser billboard lit up the sky in his memory….scrolling his accomplishments across the Fort Worth skyline.