Epilogue
I was never to see either Mitty or Fluky again.
Fluky was lost to his Japanese American revolution, draped in the mysticism of his inexplicable religion. Many years later, I would receive word that he died of non-combat related injuries during the Okinawa Insurrection. The exact details of his death remain murky, as most everything about the military's crackdown on the island remains to this day, but it seems that Fluky had taken to heart the words Majorette had spoken that night up in the pass – her call to revolution. How much the funds raised by the adventures of The Cordwainer went to fund this revolution, I cannot say. $200,000 may seem like a handsome sum, but I doubt it goes very far towards overthrowing a government.
I could do nothing but mourn his passing when word of his death reached me. I knew he'd died in a cause he believed in. That the Okinawa Insurrection would pull hard on the loose threads that held the patchwork of allegiances together that made up the American Government, Fluky would not live to see.
By then, I had been elected to a seat in the Senate, running on the popularity that the affair of The Cordwainer had earned me. I ran for office without help of either of the dominant political parties. I was a sitting Senator when the unthinkable finally happened. That I'd worked so diligently to undermine the very institution of which I was a member, gave me no comfort.
When the polite tolerance maintained between the various political factions that made up the Kennedy government finally broke down, and the militias and the gangs took to the streets of the Capitol, jostling for power, I could take little pleasure in the havoc. By then, of course, the shortages and the Concession's inability to address them had resulted in widespread famine and suffering. There was very little of the nation left that wasn't directly under military control. The implementation of martial law on the capital hardly shocked anyone. But the army had little better luck addressing the needs of a hungry population than the civilian administrations that had come before it. It was not long before the people's wrath turned on the military junta that had stepped into the power vacuum.
When the army began to fight amongst itself for food and fuel, the end was almost finally upon us.
As for Mitty, I had no word for many, many years; and then, in the end, only the slightest hint to his eventual fate. Perhaps fifteen years after the journey of The Cordwainer, I was serving on a transition committee within the Provisional Government, attempting to ascertain exactly how much, and to whom, America was in debt. It was a maddening affair, attempting to untangle the accounting shenanigans of a hundred years of blissfully ignorant administrations. In an attempt to get a hand on the ocean of figures, we reached out to some of the newly burgeoning private industries for technical assistance.
In the Big City, at the terminus of The Cordwainer's adventure, a new high technology sector had begun to grow. They were building new, revolutionary “counting machines”, and many in the Provisional Government saw these machines as the panacea to all our ills. We put out a request for bids, and one such company that submitted paperwork listed amongst its principle investors someone named John Mitty.
I contacted that company, attempting to track down this John Mitty, but was quickly frustrated in my search. The computer company could only tell me their John Mitty was a silent partner, of reclusive tendencies, who had nothing to do with the day-to-day operation of the firm. I made repeated calls, even making the trip out west to visit their offices, but with little success.
The company would eventually win the contract to supply the Provisional Government with counting machines. But apart from that single line on that single disclosure form, there was never again any mention of anyone by the name of John Mitty. Perhaps it was all a coincidence, but the thought that The Cordwainer profits had been used in such a way captivated me.
Mitty a reclusive millionaire?
Perhaps one day I will see him again – get to shake his hand, and talk over old times – but until that day, the image of Mitty locked away in some palatial mansion somewhere, meticulously overseeing his investments; taking time, now and again, to look over a map or two of the European Theater; to trace out the path of Patton's Army, from Izpegi Pass to Paris. That thought makes me smile.
Or perhaps, back in Hooverville, Mitty has remained to this day. Sleeping in the shanties, with the other hard-luck candidates, eating beans from a can, warmed against the encroaching cold of the night by a half million dollars lining the inside of his clothes.
That thought makes me smile, too.
The Cordwainer Page 34
