by Monk, New York City, NY, USA
Danny Felder hears his dad's girlfriend slam the front door, screaming Estonian in a pitch that scrapes the spectrum heard only by dogs and orbital surveillance equipment. His father meets her in the living room, where the battle unfolds something like this:
Her: "Little Indian bitch stole my phone!"
Him: "The one I got you last week?"
Her: "With a gun, she stole it! What kind of country is this where old ladies rob their social workers at gunpoint?"
Danny shakes his head. He helped his father pick that phone specifically because it was one of the few models with local memory. She insisted, 'In Estonia, all systems hacked. I want phone holds my information in hand. No netmemory. I want the real thing.' His father, technological prowess of a mildly intoxicated sea-otter, relegated research to his smarty-pants son. Who doesn't hate his prospective stepmother so much as reserve her to a pantheon of Demon Bitch-Goddesses, drawn from his father's generous lineage of mistresses and candy wives. Now Svetlana has lost all her contacts, afloat with some well-armed dowager in the Bronx wastelands who has either sold it for diabetes medication, or is making calls to the Pacific Rim. 'Which is what you get, buying high-priced toys for low-class hookers,' Danny thinks. 'Hey, dad, why not get her a new, more expensive phone to make it up to her? And maybe some jewelry, so she knows how petite you think her ass is.' He sighs, scratches his chin, comes away with a handful of mottled white skin, and smiles.
The treatment is working.
Brushing a curtain of skin flakes from his shirt, he disrobes, heads to the shower. The Felder penthouse is equipped with real water showers, a rarity even here, on the Upper East Side. Danny's private shower qualifies as a minor World Wonder, ranked just after World's Fastest Orbital Transport. Twenty-six individual jets of chemically purified water from delicate rotating pipestems blossom from the smooth ceramic walls. The twenty-seventh pours water from the ceiling with the tenderness of the Virgin Mary or the fury of Poseidon, depending on Danny's mood. Today he goes for gusto, those twenty-six jets working his body like a shiatsu, shower floor soon carpeted with great irregular sheets of dead white skin. Danny lets the shower work him while he motions at the wall for communication options. He goes for 'nonverbal', and is greeted by projected avatars that slide across the shower curtain like an oil spill. He spots a well-armed Orc, yellow canines dripping blood (Marty); a pulsing red sphere (Zhang); an ultra-retro Bugs Bunny (Amit) and finally; a balled up kitten (Diana!!!). He waves his fingers and the shower lights with a glyph for 'good morning! how r u?' The kitten uncurls, and Diana responds with a blueish, sort of unenthusiastic glyph indicating that she got his message, acknowledges Danny is indeed alive and marginally sapient, but doesn't really want to pursue a conversation. Satisfied he got that far, Danny signs off, enthusiastically scrubbing excess skin from his arms and thighs.
Diana is the living embodiment of all that is good and pure in Danny's universe. It took half of forever to get her chat ID, tortuous nights of playful coaxing before she added him to her buddylist, and he's not about to make the same mistake every other adolescent male has made by getting pushy. No, the goal is to get her to want him. He's gone weeks trying everything—anything!—to rubix cube his way into her life: livetattoos squirming all over his body, metal fins in place of hair, not bathing, webbed ear like batwings, flashy media embedded all over his face, organic grafted fangs, nylon muscle implants, androgynous traits, bullying other kids, sports, a replacement eye with built-in movie projection, and an on and on in almost infinite combinations. Combing her preferences had been damn-near impossible until she added him to her buddylist, gateway to her personal mediavault, which included all sorts of stuff on past lovers. She had a thing for desis—South Asians—in all shapes, sizes, and genders.
Danny is not South Asian by even the broadest definition.
So while he sleeps, a tiny signal transmitter in Broca's Region of his brain has been receiving modular wave signals from NYU's Eastern Language Department. He awakens each day with a new language mastered: Pashtun, Urdu, Gujarati, Punjabi, Indonesian, and Filipino-Creole, thus far. His dermatologist's gene therapy is clearly taking, and by this time he steps out of the shower and towels off, he will be a smooth brown. It'll take a few days for eye pigmentation to respond to treatment, so until then, his blue eyes will look sort of exotic; and yeah, it might look a bit like he has dandruff throughout the day. But otherwise, when he meets Diana in the cafeteria for lunch, he'll be able to pass as up to five different South Asian nationalities. It cost a lot of his dad's money, but what the Hell else is the old man going to spend it on: his Estonian whore? Danny's needs are greater.
It's not easy being 12 years old.
7.31.2007
7.30.2007
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.
"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.
7.28.2007
The Working Man Blues
by R. Soon, Atlanta, GA, USA
The Cuyahoga River had caught fire when he was a toddler; Barry didn't remember too much from then, but every day when his train crossed the chipped concrete bridge, with its supports mutely bearing their streaked scars, he was taken for a brief but often painfully interminable moment back to the second time it happened. He usually closed his eyes when the train came around that bend nowadays, but he could still feel with three decades twice daily of memory yielded up by his ever-aching body when it crossed over the river, and the fire lit anew in his mind anyway.
Barry had been a proud, dedicated manager of a temp agency at that time, and ironically one of the only people remaining in Cleveland even back then with a benefits package attached to his position; ironic, indeed, given that the only way to get a steady check these days was to sign up for Halliworks, and there wasn't a more permanent job than that, not unless you were able to escape the camps and get far enough away fast enough. Only the lazy bastards doing chemical reclamation at the river and around the Case site tended to run off, though, and neural running speed governor implants prevented repeat attempts. Halliworks was the only thing sustaining the remains of Cleveland's economy, both in providing work and in redeveloping the city's infrastructure from the ground up. Sure it was dangerous work, but it had to be done.
But Barry didn't think about all that. He was too old to escape arthritis and the occasional mini-malaria bout, nevermind the horrifying security patrolmen with metallic tentacle-things for arms, rumored to all come from the same recruitment office/lab in New York. Besides, at 70 years old, with eight teeth, bad knees, and no neural or physical implants whatsoever, he was happy just to have a comfortable bunk and regular meals.
Nah, better to keep his place as Senior Building Inspector with the Halliworks Westlake camp. He was the one who came up with the idea of using amplified soundboxes to pacify guerrilla residents who refused to sell their houses and business properties, and the 60% cut in surface operations casualties along with the huge boost in live-capture recruitments catapulted him out of the Erie Tunnelpass project, whose survival rate was frighteningly low, to a relatively cushy management job. So what if he couldn't leave? He was doing right by Halliworks, and they were doing right by him as far as he was concerned. Five more years and he would even be eligible for retirement if camp recruitment kept pace.
But five years was still five years off. Today, it was cloudy outside, though he knew as well as everyone crowded onto the incongruously sleek and clean passenger train cruising towards the mothballed Old Lakewood/W.117th St. Station that the clouds didn't do a damn thing for your skin. He studied as he did every day, through the Solaplex window, the quiet, dusty streets, where every single mailbox and old newsbox in sight was shorn entirely of its paint by the stealthiest but most dangerous of the sun's rays, further removing them from his more distinct childhood recollections. Things have sure changed, he mused for the thousandth time, and the train rocked back and forth lullingly on the warped track rails, encouraging his mind to wander. He often mulled over his day's work of testing buildings for integrity at this stage of the daily journey, but sometimes less comforting thoughts crept in.
The second time the Cuyahoga erupted in hellish flames was five years to the day after the first day of the weeks-long Case Riots. Barry shuddered, but nobody on the traincar looked at him; life in a camp housing 11,000 people taught everyone to mind their own business. The riots, they were bad. Bu the poor guy the news van caught staggering up Euclid, that monstrous eyeball-looking thing that took up part of his head….
The trees growing back along the tracks fell away, and earth gave way to gravel along the bridge's path. He had been more lost in thought than usual, and having not closed his eyes in time, they were now fixed on the mesmerizing landscape around the twisting, winding Cuyahoga River.
Dominating the view on the Flats riverbank, a tall, majestic experimental biofuel facility left much of its shell, though one wall had blasted clear across the river, four pieces smashing some cars parked along Canal Rd. and one biting deeply into the eighth floor, the eighth floor of all of them!, of the Federal Corporate Management center, right where his dear, hardworking son had….
Barry shuddered again, harder this time. The fire had spread from the contaminated cooling system, the news said, and the river had plenty of fuel topping it off to blaze on down to the mouth, violently combusting everything too close to the water's edge. A fine blue dust had begun raining on the Flats and along the banks due to some chemical mixture catalyzed by the fire, and it was later decided that this blue dust was why all the plants and trees down there, even those away from the water, had died off with nothing ever growing back. And he vividly recalled the bridges being blocked off by police for a panic-stricken month, and the reports of a renegade driver heading off across the Shoreway only for a 30-foot chunk of concrete causeway to break off and fall, taking him with it down into the deadly water.
Barry hated how clearly all the images glowed in his mind, even has he fought to pull his gaze away from the now-empty site of the FCM building, seeing so sharply the jagged brick disc clutching at the eviscerated tower's tattered, ripped Solaplex windows once again. He hadn't tried to identify his son's remains, on the advice of the rescue squad at the scene, but imagination-driven nightmares had plagued him for a full three years anyway.
His traincar shook over a rail joint, and he squeezed his eyes shut. When he dared to open them again, the river was past and the train was off of the bridge, heading into the final tunnel leading to Halliworks Central Station.
The Cuyahoga River had caught fire when he was a toddler; Barry didn't remember too much from then, but every day when his train crossed the chipped concrete bridge, with its supports mutely bearing their streaked scars, he was taken for a brief but often painfully interminable moment back to the second time it happened. He usually closed his eyes when the train came around that bend nowadays, but he could still feel with three decades twice daily of memory yielded up by his ever-aching body when it crossed over the river, and the fire lit anew in his mind anyway.
Barry had been a proud, dedicated manager of a temp agency at that time, and ironically one of the only people remaining in Cleveland even back then with a benefits package attached to his position; ironic, indeed, given that the only way to get a steady check these days was to sign up for Halliworks, and there wasn't a more permanent job than that, not unless you were able to escape the camps and get far enough away fast enough. Only the lazy bastards doing chemical reclamation at the river and around the Case site tended to run off, though, and neural running speed governor implants prevented repeat attempts. Halliworks was the only thing sustaining the remains of Cleveland's economy, both in providing work and in redeveloping the city's infrastructure from the ground up. Sure it was dangerous work, but it had to be done.
But Barry didn't think about all that. He was too old to escape arthritis and the occasional mini-malaria bout, nevermind the horrifying security patrolmen with metallic tentacle-things for arms, rumored to all come from the same recruitment office/lab in New York. Besides, at 70 years old, with eight teeth, bad knees, and no neural or physical implants whatsoever, he was happy just to have a comfortable bunk and regular meals.
Nah, better to keep his place as Senior Building Inspector with the Halliworks Westlake camp. He was the one who came up with the idea of using amplified soundboxes to pacify guerrilla residents who refused to sell their houses and business properties, and the 60% cut in surface operations casualties along with the huge boost in live-capture recruitments catapulted him out of the Erie Tunnelpass project, whose survival rate was frighteningly low, to a relatively cushy management job. So what if he couldn't leave? He was doing right by Halliworks, and they were doing right by him as far as he was concerned. Five more years and he would even be eligible for retirement if camp recruitment kept pace.
But five years was still five years off. Today, it was cloudy outside, though he knew as well as everyone crowded onto the incongruously sleek and clean passenger train cruising towards the mothballed Old Lakewood/W.117th St. Station that the clouds didn't do a damn thing for your skin. He studied as he did every day, through the Solaplex window, the quiet, dusty streets, where every single mailbox and old newsbox in sight was shorn entirely of its paint by the stealthiest but most dangerous of the sun's rays, further removing them from his more distinct childhood recollections. Things have sure changed, he mused for the thousandth time, and the train rocked back and forth lullingly on the warped track rails, encouraging his mind to wander. He often mulled over his day's work of testing buildings for integrity at this stage of the daily journey, but sometimes less comforting thoughts crept in.
The second time the Cuyahoga erupted in hellish flames was five years to the day after the first day of the weeks-long Case Riots. Barry shuddered, but nobody on the traincar looked at him; life in a camp housing 11,000 people taught everyone to mind their own business. The riots, they were bad. Bu the poor guy the news van caught staggering up Euclid, that monstrous eyeball-looking thing that took up part of his head….
The trees growing back along the tracks fell away, and earth gave way to gravel along the bridge's path. He had been more lost in thought than usual, and having not closed his eyes in time, they were now fixed on the mesmerizing landscape around the twisting, winding Cuyahoga River.
Dominating the view on the Flats riverbank, a tall, majestic experimental biofuel facility left much of its shell, though one wall had blasted clear across the river, four pieces smashing some cars parked along Canal Rd. and one biting deeply into the eighth floor, the eighth floor of all of them!, of the Federal Corporate Management center, right where his dear, hardworking son had….
Barry shuddered again, harder this time. The fire had spread from the contaminated cooling system, the news said, and the river had plenty of fuel topping it off to blaze on down to the mouth, violently combusting everything too close to the water's edge. A fine blue dust had begun raining on the Flats and along the banks due to some chemical mixture catalyzed by the fire, and it was later decided that this blue dust was why all the plants and trees down there, even those away from the water, had died off with nothing ever growing back. And he vividly recalled the bridges being blocked off by police for a panic-stricken month, and the reports of a renegade driver heading off across the Shoreway only for a 30-foot chunk of concrete causeway to break off and fall, taking him with it down into the deadly water.
Barry hated how clearly all the images glowed in his mind, even has he fought to pull his gaze away from the now-empty site of the FCM building, seeing so sharply the jagged brick disc clutching at the eviscerated tower's tattered, ripped Solaplex windows once again. He hadn't tried to identify his son's remains, on the advice of the rescue squad at the scene, but imagination-driven nightmares had plagued him for a full three years anyway.
His traincar shook over a rail joint, and he squeezed his eyes shut. When he dared to open them again, the river was past and the train was off of the bridge, heading into the final tunnel leading to Halliworks Central Station.
7.26.2007
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.
"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.
7.25.2007
King of the Californias pt II
by Monk, New York City, NY, USA
With the promise of trials at the Hague's High Court of Human Rights, Los Angeles's warlords seem finally to have run aground. Recent captures of narcoterrorist Willis "Grip-Up" Tollridge in his Brentwood fortress, and Ricky "Tweaks" Neuman of the notorious San Bernadino Popular Front have stricken powerful blows to LA's infrastructure of violence. With elections around the corner and international aid pouring into the provisional civilian government, the beleaguered island nation seems finally to have found its footing, after close to thirty years of continual bloodshed. But even with these victories, many claim the war-torn nation of 12 million cannot truly begin its healing, as war criminals such as Kelvin Black, Lucien Cree, Darlanda Stuart, Jesus Cruz, and Rolando Montoya are loose. The infamous 'Inglewood Five' have been sighted as far away as Vanuatu, luxuriating in wealth generated over decades of brutal exploitation and oppression. And while the provisional government works tirelessly to rebuild and reconnect Los Angeles's diverse communities, they do so knowing the funds to effectively perform their job are sitting in banks on the other side of the globe.
Oakland, in particular, seems to have a lot of loose cash these days.
Ask anyone out West, and they'll tell you the monsters of Los Angeles made off with billions, leaving their countrymen in squalid, sometimes medieval conditions. Where have they gone? The nations of CariCom want nothing to do with them. The United States, Alaska, Canada, Brasil, and Quebec have all issued warrants to seize on sight anyone from the High Court of Human Rights' wanted roster. Hugo Ranieri's capture in Buenos Aires last month effectively flushed out the war criminal populace of Argentina. For the discriminating fugitive, the Western hemisphere has all but shut its doors. Yet nestled between Canada and Federal Mexico, the Northern Republic of California has taken a stance that has made it enormously attractive to Los Angeles's oligarchy-in-exile. With no official stance regarding the upcoming international tribunals, nor any existing extradition treaties with their neighbors, Prime Minister Benny Pivens has eliminated even the possibility of extraditing admitted war criminal against their will. And so Oakland, NoCal's largest functioning metropolis, has become haven to some of LA's wealthiest absconders. Paramilitaries, gangsters, murderers, narcotics cartels, and slavers have found new homes in any of the twenty luxury hotels to spring up in downtown Oakland these past three years. With all this new money pouring in, new banks pop up almost daily to accommodate new offshore accounts, and the Californian peseta is currently one of the most traded currencies on the international market.
Money, they say, makes the world go 'round. And that is the topic du jour as evening falls on Oakland's Palma de Baía hotel, where we watch the sun set from Cecilio Goncz's private rooftop suite. Overlooking the gutted shell of Goldengate Bridge Memorial, Goncz has set aside his trademark sunglasses, revealing milky white eyes behind nictitating membranesm installed for protection against pepperspray (and worse).
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages," he says, inhuman eyes set on the Bay. By the time it dawns on me that he's quoting Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, he's facing me, looking for some kind of response.
The worse part about his eyes is you can never tell exactly where he's looking. When the silence becomes awkward, he chuckles, grafted alligator teeth adding signature menace to his smile. Goncz's mythology swirls with tales of missing journalists. I sip my mochatini and smile back, trying to look impartial, unshaken, never happier in my life than for the tracking culture injected before I left Chicago. I ask about his money.
"Money?" he smirks. "Homey, I don't have two centavos to rub together. Money implies income, and baby, I have none. I spread it around. Charitable causes. Rebuilding efforts here in Cali. LA didn't want me anymore, hey, peace. Move on. That's life. But this?" He motions to the Bay. "This is California. Home."
I remind Mr Goncz politely that by his own admission he technically only lived in California for a few years before the Little Big One separated Greater Los Angeles from the continent, and devastated the rest of the West Coast. And that one night at the Palma de Baía costs two weeks my salary.
"You don't get it, do you?" he asks sadly. "California, that was the American Dream. 'Go West, young man.' Cowboys. Indians. The Gold Rush. Hollywood. Blondes. Money. Fame. Live fast, die young. All that shit. When you reached the Pacific, you knew you'd achieved something, you'd made it. The earthquake broke something fundamental, you know? In people's hearts. We felt that shit in LA, homey. Believe that. When the Little Big One hit Cali, that was the American Dream got strangled right there. Now, I can't fix things in LA like I want to, so I brought my money here. And yeah, I got a nice pad, but like I said, I'm paying to fix a lot of broken things."
I mumble something about nobility, which I hope isn't taken too snidely as I want to live to finish my drink. Then I ask how that relates to his quoting Smith.
His trademark smile resurfaces, tone reminiscent of the journalism professor at Northwestern who flunked me. Twice. "No one cares how the job gets done, homey, or where the money comes from. Just so long as it gets done, and the money's there."
With the promise of trials at the Hague's High Court of Human Rights, Los Angeles's warlords seem finally to have run aground. Recent captures of narcoterrorist Willis "Grip-Up" Tollridge in his Brentwood fortress, and Ricky "Tweaks" Neuman of the notorious San Bernadino Popular Front have stricken powerful blows to LA's infrastructure of violence. With elections around the corner and international aid pouring into the provisional civilian government, the beleaguered island nation seems finally to have found its footing, after close to thirty years of continual bloodshed. But even with these victories, many claim the war-torn nation of 12 million cannot truly begin its healing, as war criminals such as Kelvin Black, Lucien Cree, Darlanda Stuart, Jesus Cruz, and Rolando Montoya are loose. The infamous 'Inglewood Five' have been sighted as far away as Vanuatu, luxuriating in wealth generated over decades of brutal exploitation and oppression. And while the provisional government works tirelessly to rebuild and reconnect Los Angeles's diverse communities, they do so knowing the funds to effectively perform their job are sitting in banks on the other side of the globe.
Oakland, in particular, seems to have a lot of loose cash these days.
Ask anyone out West, and they'll tell you the monsters of Los Angeles made off with billions, leaving their countrymen in squalid, sometimes medieval conditions. Where have they gone? The nations of CariCom want nothing to do with them. The United States, Alaska, Canada, Brasil, and Quebec have all issued warrants to seize on sight anyone from the High Court of Human Rights' wanted roster. Hugo Ranieri's capture in Buenos Aires last month effectively flushed out the war criminal populace of Argentina. For the discriminating fugitive, the Western hemisphere has all but shut its doors. Yet nestled between Canada and Federal Mexico, the Northern Republic of California has taken a stance that has made it enormously attractive to Los Angeles's oligarchy-in-exile. With no official stance regarding the upcoming international tribunals, nor any existing extradition treaties with their neighbors, Prime Minister Benny Pivens has eliminated even the possibility of extraditing admitted war criminal against their will. And so Oakland, NoCal's largest functioning metropolis, has become haven to some of LA's wealthiest absconders. Paramilitaries, gangsters, murderers, narcotics cartels, and slavers have found new homes in any of the twenty luxury hotels to spring up in downtown Oakland these past three years. With all this new money pouring in, new banks pop up almost daily to accommodate new offshore accounts, and the Californian peseta is currently one of the most traded currencies on the international market.
Money, they say, makes the world go 'round. And that is the topic du jour as evening falls on Oakland's Palma de Baía hotel, where we watch the sun set from Cecilio Goncz's private rooftop suite. Overlooking the gutted shell of Goldengate Bridge Memorial, Goncz has set aside his trademark sunglasses, revealing milky white eyes behind nictitating membranesm installed for protection against pepperspray (and worse).
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages," he says, inhuman eyes set on the Bay. By the time it dawns on me that he's quoting Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, he's facing me, looking for some kind of response.
The worse part about his eyes is you can never tell exactly where he's looking. When the silence becomes awkward, he chuckles, grafted alligator teeth adding signature menace to his smile. Goncz's mythology swirls with tales of missing journalists. I sip my mochatini and smile back, trying to look impartial, unshaken, never happier in my life than for the tracking culture injected before I left Chicago. I ask about his money.
"Money?" he smirks. "Homey, I don't have two centavos to rub together. Money implies income, and baby, I have none. I spread it around. Charitable causes. Rebuilding efforts here in Cali. LA didn't want me anymore, hey, peace. Move on. That's life. But this?" He motions to the Bay. "This is California. Home."
I remind Mr Goncz politely that by his own admission he technically only lived in California for a few years before the Little Big One separated Greater Los Angeles from the continent, and devastated the rest of the West Coast. And that one night at the Palma de Baía costs two weeks my salary.
"You don't get it, do you?" he asks sadly. "California, that was the American Dream. 'Go West, young man.' Cowboys. Indians. The Gold Rush. Hollywood. Blondes. Money. Fame. Live fast, die young. All that shit. When you reached the Pacific, you knew you'd achieved something, you'd made it. The earthquake broke something fundamental, you know? In people's hearts. We felt that shit in LA, homey. Believe that. When the Little Big One hit Cali, that was the American Dream got strangled right there. Now, I can't fix things in LA like I want to, so I brought my money here. And yeah, I got a nice pad, but like I said, I'm paying to fix a lot of broken things."
I mumble something about nobility, which I hope isn't taken too snidely as I want to live to finish my drink. Then I ask how that relates to his quoting Smith.
His trademark smile resurfaces, tone reminiscent of the journalism professor at Northwestern who flunked me. Twice. "No one cares how the job gets done, homey, or where the money comes from. Just so long as it gets done, and the money's there."
7.22.2007
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.”
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.
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.
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