by Tuttle, Dan;
quick look toward Joe, “are dedicated to
the same shit we were chanting. Boy King’s trashed
our rights? We’ll fight! Self-medicate one, two?”
she motioned at the empty mugs, said, “Drake’s,”
to show beer round as convo’s ante stake.
79.
Though Stella’d few years back been forced to shoot
a dram of báijiǔ, she’d barely drank.
That first experience had made her boot
it right back up. She offered a, “No, thank—”
but Cade stopped her with hand on shoulder, stood,
produced a bill, and looked her square. She knew
the silently advised buy-round path could
ingratiate with Mo. And so ensued
her virgin night of drinking. Talk got big.
The booze smoothed Stella’s nervousness to ask
the questions feared naïve: “But what’s a Whig?”
“This rich teal guy’s anarchic?” “Who are ‘Basque’?”
She learned that he was white, and history
was truth mixed with tendentious sophistry.
80.
“The making of a revolution’s…” Mo
slurred toward an answer many minutes hence,
“consolidizzing power in hands of—” Joe
jumped in midsentence, adding own two cents:
“Consolidating power now couldn’t be
more clearly socially-acceptable
than in the form of money! Cash ain’t free.
You get it when you’ve done perceptible
and paid-for service to society.
You’ve build a thing that people pay for, you’ve
improved—” Then Benny: “Insobriety
affects our guest, who’s trying hard to prove
his matchstick tech empire can justify
his past work’s soullessness as the bad guy.”
81.
Again, Tee acted as the squadron lead
and cut retorting upstart off before
he launched on monologue about how greed
was optimal condition to explore.
What seemed quite clear was that objection’s voice
would need its recognition from the chair,
with those attending making conscious choice
to echo and expand what had been aired.
It’s not that there was no debate allowed,
but rather that the boundaries were set
so that opinions of the wider crowd
could not unwanted heresy beget.
Stel’s night of tracing conversation’s wend
told what she’d need to call each one a friend.
82.
Two rounds (or so) in, recollections blurred.
Benita glossed on technicalities
on who in DOJ risked job transfer
for surfacing some criminalities
the public waited eagerly to know
about the poopy-pants divisive Boy.
Cade paused his flirting with bench neighbor Mo
at Benny’s scatalogicals: “Destroy
the name a homeboy holds, you’ve wrecked his life,
and every time joes think of him they’ll hear
that echoed mocking word. You need your knife
of words, diminutives. Slice his veneer
so people see what’s actually inside.
That’s right about when they go run and hide.”
83.
Mo thought that Cade’s idea wasn’t bad:
“I’ve pondered how, like, best to use the tools
that Boy used in his rise to power. Aired ads
had hardly swayed a person.” “’Cause the rules
were changed from talking facts, reality
into attacks ad hominem,” he said.
“And only Boy crossed lines. She fallibly
chose not to take that path to where it led,”
said Tee, to enter with a point on force.
Cade laughed, “The Coup (pronounced like ‘coupe’) once sang
somebody hits you, hit ’em back, of course,
pre-peace contract negotiation thang.”
Though square at edges, knowledge of the street
made Tee like Cade enough to say, “Let’s meet
84.
again next week, like, more than on the fifth.”
“Fo’ sho’,” came quick reply, since he knew who’d
be coming back again, who to mack with.
The Momi Toby’s Café crew’d include
all in attendance, ’cept that man-bun Joe.
Stel knows in retrospect she made it home,
expected Cade had kept her close in tow
preventing accidental Bacchic roam
through neighborhoods that had two lives:
in sun—boutiques and puppies, Ray Bans, teas.
In moon—an enterprise of who survives
the popo: tweaker, dealer weigh banned keys.
It’s generally, among those who’re concerned,
not quite the place one ought to traipse unlearned.
85.
Now, anyone begun teetotaling
who interrupted streak to great event
acknowledges the head’s sheer total sting
that comes upon the morrow, skull’s lament.
As powerful as Stella was in youth,
she wasn’t one to buck that human trend,
and so by morning lingering vermouth
attempted four, five times to throat ascend.
Eleven in the morning brought the pound,
its strength convinced its source was cranial
but Stella knew Cade also lurked around
with cannon turret speakers. “Jay-Z’ll
get you right back to good, Stel, don’t you sweat,”
he cried, as she heard reference to the Nets.
86.
Cade asked, “You know of Jackie Robinson?”
I father, Brooklyn Dodger them, Jay rapped
the soundtrack, then, I jack, I rob, I sin.
Cade kept on, “He was first black to enrapt
white’s baseball-watching nation, played in New
York City, Brooklyn borough, well, back then.
He crushed the competition, slew and slew.
If ’47’d had ESPN
he’d have been highlight reel’s clear MVP.
The airwaves and the TV did okay
at showin’ he was ballin’. Them creepy
poor racist viewers may’ve tried to downplay
it for a while. But then they changed belief
when black man bested whites as baseball’s chief.”
87.
Less interested in lessons on stickball
than in anatomy’s full-on revolt,
Stel sprinted to the bathroom, got sick all
contained in toilet where none could behold.
Some dignity recovered, face recleaned
she re-emerged, though woozily, and dressed
to act like she need not be quarantined
with weaker constitution than the rest.
Emboldened by her company, Cade said,
“They’re great, aren’t they? Last night was such a blast.
Well, ’cept that libertarian.” “Oh, Ted?”
“No, Joe. There was no Ted. You really passed
out after that martini, no? Well, you’re
up now. Let’s take a walk. Sunshine’s the cure.”
88.
From up some thirty-six degrees off plane,
the yellow heat projected down on skin,
uninterrupted by the cellophane
of fog that strains its thicknesses to thin.
Responding to the manna fallen thus,
Stel’s legs were still as redwood trunk at root,
concrete as dirt and body as the truss,
limbs fanning out so to reconstitute
with light, a human photosynthesis.
Once opened from their minutes of repose,
her eyes saw cardboard capsized, brim amiss
and contents strewn about—books, discs, free clothes.
“The Concrete Book Club,” Cade behind her said,
“it keeps the homeless cognitively fed.”
89.
The books were clearly used, and could have gone
to Goodwill down the block for tax write-offs.
“They’ll leave this stuff outside from dusk to dawn
in hopes that someone picks it up.” Rich toffs
were most of whom lived on the block by then,
with purchase prices topping million bucks.
That meant the watch-, repair-, and middlemen
were gone. In place were Teslas, tummy-tucks
and sidewalk book donations. “When I was
a child we’d celebrate new books at school
regardless of their subjects. Reading does
fill holes that some kids have, gives them the fuel
to carry on until their dreams mature,”
said Stel, recalling books as Abu’s cure.
90.
Her face contorted minorly as she
said this and worked through memories that it stirred.
“It still makes little sense to little me
how something simple as the written word
that’s trash inside a fat home’s walls becomes
a treasure right beyond its well-locked door.
Near where I grew up is what you’d call slums,
where every object’s cherished. Wallets poor
can’t stretch to things of temporary use.”
Uncurtained window cross the street showed space
that hoarding disposition had produced:
there, labyrinthine junky piles staircased
from floor to ceiling, each flight testament
to cheap stuff bought with incomes blessed, misspent.
91.
“You’re upset seeing waste,” Cade said, “and don’t
look that much better with abundance.” She
choked down the bile before it rose full-blown,
her body’s reflex of acidity
agreeing with his piercing point. Sun’s fire
occluded while they spoke, fog tempered heat.
Her skin again hoped pleasures minutes prior
would under clear-cast sun return, repeat:
somatically at equilibrium
when simply soaking in the good rays, till
her ego staged acts sequel, id succumbed.
Her classifying mind thieved body’s will
to hedonistically with blinders tight
enjoy simplicity of warm sunlight.
92.
From bed’s recover bay Stel’s mind took leave,
so bored of its fixation on her pains.
No matter rehydration she achieved,
vasoconstriction’s boa left migraines.
It rode that magic carpet freedom through
kelp forest thoughts whose fronds gripped at its pass.
None reached her with the traction to subdue
that flitting consciousness to own morass.
Enrapt in filmlike fever montage filled
with thousand unimportant points ago,
disoriented Stel lacked conscious will
and reeled through images of inner foes.
Pace slowed, and focused on the largest pox:
the inner critic voices she kept boxed.
93.
Some critic goblins lived in dark recess
of psyche somewhere too deep for smoke bombs
or gopher traps or any GPS.
They crept up periodically, spoke psalms
authoritatively to edge her toward
one action or another, often stuff
she didn’t want to do herself. Their chords’
sharp melodies convincingly rebuffed.
She knew they lived for her, by her alone.
She thought their kind did haunt, taunt, tut and bilk
the minds of others too, cracked mental bones.
Hers wielded ‘should’s as smooth as buttermilk,
to point she almost sometimes thought them friends.
Nice means, however, need not make nice ends.
94.
As body’s heartbeats bruised hungover world,
the mental space of faked escape was prized.
She figured in imagination’s hurled
oasis, goblins would have been excised.
Perhaps they strengthened from fresh fuel around:
an unfamiliarity with how
to fit into Bay newness that surrounds
cued contradicting ‘should’s ’bout here and now.
School had been clearer. From what stemmed control
in dis-United States? Should aim be please
this crew, kowtow to Tee in title role,
or aim to such position slyly seize?
Should she involve herself as this crew vents
in public its dissent? Should dissidence
95.
move her here, now, today in different form
but like it had when she made worlds when young?
Should she accept this crew’s thoughts of reform?
Should she make others up to still their tongues?
Should hanging out wreck body, as the gin
so clearly had to hers? Should she agree?
The goblins let her go from ‘should’ tailspin
and incoherence reigned again, carefree.
It surfaced bits of episode she thought
just must have happened on behalf of her,
though she lacked full-on proof of privilege bought
she doubted otherwise boon could occur.
As beneficiary in this next
stop’s situation, Stella’d long felt hexed.
96.
Stage: Chengdu, China. Characters: Aunt Tao,
and uniformed official at a desk.
Props: one girl’s passport photo, one highbrow
endorsing medal. Twist: Tao’s strong request.
Backstory: two years networking through Jiang’s
provincial seat of power up to the feds
in charge of choosing who among the throngs
of applicants will get a visa. Threads:
unspoken fear officialdom finds out,
and flawless terror middle manager
holds, headlit-caught and told to doc sign, flout
the rules. Result: surprise advantaged her,
so Tao left premises with hollowed threat
and Stella’d soon into the States be let.
CHAPTER 20
97.
Instead of Momi Toby’s rendezvous
an even better plan sprung up to meet.
The nearly-exiled rich bunned you-know-who
was having a house party for the street.
He’d written something something in some ‘code’
that made about one person every mil
click banner ads, and cleared a motherlode
when Facebook bought it. Overnight, a ‘bill’
became a concept obsolete for him.
For life. For ever. Ever ever. So
he quickly bought a mansion on a whim
to copy Valley ‘exit’ path for bros.
Its bedrooms ten, Victorian in gild,
and bowling alley made for party thrilled.
98.
The theme was Halloween, and not a soul
was there in anything but full costume.
Stel’d styled herself an under-bridge type troll,
a Grendel clone like renter of the room
below the house where she, Cade, Yeye slept.
The laws preventing most evictions, good
for many for stability, here kept
psychotic hoarder living in the �
��hood.
The nearest thing to specter that she’d known,
that renter made frock emulation cake.
Worn outstretched plaid, face made like bourguignon,
and arched walk stooped in Igor’s hunch (with breaks):
voilà! The reference form humanity
dropped for the masquerade’s urbanity.
99.
Not on such salty terms as Tee with Joe,
Stel sought him out at first when she arrived.
Soon Cade peeled off in lovelorn search for Mo,
and two rooms later she found him. “—survived!
Oh, dude, I can’t tell you the stress that night,
just waiting for that VC cash to come.
Had it not cleared and payroll shorted, fights
for sure’d have broken out. We kept it mum—
morale, you know? You can’t show armor’s chinks.
Oh, Stella! Hi! Allow me introduce
you to my good friends, Jai and Lex. Need drinks?”
“Hi Stel. I’m serial.” She’d been bro-duced
to folks who tally exits and retain
‘entrepreneur’ as title with their name.
100.
“Like Weetabix?” Stel asked. Jai looked confused,
“I haven’t heard of them. Ex-Googler first,
then started cloud-based MongoDB fused
with better GUI for a—” such rehearsed
self-presentation with tech tidbits let
Stel tune him out. Did he seek to impress
with details of the fundraises that bet
piled fortunes of the rich on his success?
That was the only explanation. “Jai
is selling himself short, Stel,” Lex burst in,
“we both bought oceanfront homes on Kauai.”
It seemed to Stel both gentlemen nursed thin,
frail self-worth sense they hoped she’d validate.
She trolled with silence, left them pallid. Fête
101.
this size must have some normal people too,
she thought, and planned out how to extricate
herself from instant-rich who sought to woo
newcomers with these stories they’d gold-plate.
“Is that right? You must both be proud indeed,”
she baited, “I’m surprised, then, your costumes
right now are understated—is that… tweed?”
“We’re both professors, see?” “Look ’round the room,
Lex. Dozens are outdoing you,” she teased.
A fleeting panic flashed on faces. “No,”
said Jai, “ours will show better on IG.”
He pulled his phone out, mansplained filters, showed
her how their thought-through getup was the best,
life optimized at smartphone screen’s behest.
102.
A beachfront home. A virtual self on screen.
