Obama Care

by Jason Scimitar

24

  Robert Adam’s apartment was depressing. His father’s death was depressing. The United States was depressing. In fact, Robert could see nothing that was even worth living for anymore. Not only was his mother dead from not being treated by Obama Care, but so were more than a hundred innocent victims shot by his father.

  “They weren’t exactly innocent,” Robert told his girl friend. “All of us are guilty in one way or the other. We should never have allowed our government officials to play hopscotch with the devil like they have. They murdered my mom, you know.”

  “Yes, I know, Robert. You’ve told me a thousand times.”

  His girl’s name was Cindy Travis. She had brown hair, green eyes, and a body revealing how she had become a dedicated gym rat in her spare time. In fact, the gym was where she had met Robert Adams. They had been in the weight room curling iron to achieve greater muscle mass in their biceps. Cindy was a Microsoft Administrator and earned fairly big bucks.

  “I’m not sure who the devil is, Robert. I think you are being a big cryptic,” Cindy said. “Got a clue on that question for me?”

  “The devil is in the details, Cindy. He is what Occupy New York used to call the one percent greed. You know, the usual political whores. The right wingers. Mutual health insurance companies and all the others who dabbled in creating wealth by selling health care plans then refusing to dole out the required payoffs when their clients became seriously ill. Like happened to my mom. Its all bundled into the omnibus affordable health care act. Obama Care.”

  “I know you have been upset.”

  “Upset? No. I’m far more than upset, Cindy. My mom was refused the proper treatment.”

  “You can’t fight government.”

  “Sure you can.”

  “I don’t see how you can say that, Robert. You know the congress has been paid off by the rich. It’s always been that way, and it always will be.”

  “Yes, it has. But now it’s become very personal.”

  “It’s the old Nazi story,” Cindy Travis said.

  “The Nazi story?” Robert asked.

  “Yes. There’s is the story of a person who says, ‘First they came for my friend, and I did nothing. I did nothing when they took my other friends, also. So, when they came for me, there was no one left for me to turn to.’ That’s the Nazi thing.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that one. It’s quite pertinent to my mom’s death, but in the final analysis no one really cares, and there’s nothing I can do to exact revenge. However, my dad certainly made them kiss ass.”

  They cuddled on the couch and fell asleep moaning about the way things were. Next day, they got up early and went to work in separate buildings, but not so far away that they couldn’t meet for an extended lunch. After a quick sandwich, they drove into a large hospital garage where hundreds of doctors worked.

  “Ready?” Robert asked.

  “Absolutely,” Cindy said.

  They were holding their keys in their hands. Separating, they walked past the cars until they found those that had M.D. license plates, then walked in slow motion past them on all sides scratching deeply into their paint jobs with their keys. Robert loved the sound of his keys against the filthy rich automobiles these specialists and surgeons drove. These were high end Cadillacs, Lexis, Mercedes, and other big brand name manufacturers of fetish cars who pandered to the rich, as Robert usually ranted, and who made their money playing the system and screwing all the little guys in the ass. Now, Robert realized, its was his turn, with a mere slice of his keys, as a little guy, to exact at least a modicum of revenge. There you go, medical fuckers, Robert thought. He felt his keys gouging into their paint jobs from Lexis to Cadillac and tried to theorize the depth of their total disgust at someone like himself who dared to fuck with their car. It was so sweet that he was almost drooling. In fact, Robert surmised that there were thousands of ways that paybacks could be exacted without killing someone.

  On the way back to work, Cindy squeezed his hand. “Feeling better now?” she asked.

  “A bit better. It still doesn’t balance the scales, though,” Robert Adams told Cindy Travis. “I’ve got a lot more hating to do before I even begin to feel healed.”

  “We’ll do it again tomorrow then.”

  “It’s a date.”

  So, they did. The paint came off in the second hospital garage even better than at the first. There was something good about screwing with the cars of rich people. Robert had never done this before in his life, but now he was convinced that this was the sort of thing that all three hundred and twenty million people in America should be doing on a daily basis to screw over those who had been oppressing them all of these years.

  On one of Robert’s blogs, written under a ghost name, he wrote how he had keyed thousands of cars since his mother died, “and I never tired of giving those fuckers the shitty feeling of how violated I felt when they murdered my own sweet little mother with their Obama Care boondoggle.” On a friend’s blog, he wrote a snippet saying, “my tears turned to laughter deep in the night as I awoke in my bed giggling over my dirty work. Hundreds of physician automobiles had been fucked by me, and I suddenly felt that some sort of revenge was in my sights.” Of course, this was not enough to make up for a dead mother and the tears her beloved son had shed over what they had done to kill her.

  “Cindy, the healing effect of meaningless vandalism is overwhelming at times.”

  “I know. It’s habit forming. I find myself giggling at work. Keying is my new happy dance,” she said. “I have a lot more rage inside me than I ever knew, and it wasn’t even my own mother. It was yours.”

  They kissed into the depths of the night, professing their love for each other in various ways. Their closeness had been enervated by his mother’s death, and, later, by his father’s murders.

  “I love you,” he told her.

  “I love you, too.”

  The next day, Robert published his first poem ever on the Internet.

  CAR KEYS

  The way I feel enraged

  Encases itself inside my handy keys

  As I destroy hundreds of paint jobs

  On the cars driven by the rich.

  Each curling piece of paint

  Unscrews itself about my keys

  One-by-One as they gouge out

  The paint from Lexis bodies.

  So, now I see in my mind

  The endless horror in the faces

  Of my greedy victims as they

  Reach their cars and know

  The depths of my vile embrace

  Of their seedy and implacable lives.

  Key-by-Key I fuck them over

  Feeling their horror at my disgust.

  For them, it is the isolated incident.

  Whereas, for me, it is the endless

  Repetition of ritual madness.

  I feel my power in their hatred of me.

  As I key their cars over and over

  Chipping away their resolve to enjoy

  Endless riches beyond measure.

  Some nights I lie in bed awake.

  I dream of them crashing head-on

  Into endless trucks which kill them

  And their families, just the way Obama Care

  Killed my mom and dad. Their lack

  Of concern for others smashes into

  My lack of concern for them.

  This endless enjoyment of destroying

  Their cars with the keys of my discontent

  Cause me to awaken deep in the night

  In fantastic laughter when I feel their pain

  With tremendous enjoyment

  and plan to do more to destroy any happiness

  They might have. Obama Care,

  My revenge is sweetly endless.

  Now I dream of spilling pig blood

  On the Capitol stairs in Washington

  Dreaming that it will never wash away.

  I see how the senators’ hands drip

  With the blood o
f our parents

  Who died from legal phrases and how

  I hate them now with all of my might.

  I long to key their faces as I spread

  Pig blood on their lousy capitol stairs.

  — One of Many Anonymous Victims…

  His poem was an endless sensation going viral upon the web. It surpassed three million hits in the first month. By year’s end it had bloomed into forty-three million and was quoted on talk radio in a thousand cars.

  “You are a star, Robert,” Cindy said.

  “I know. It feels good to have been heard.”

  “Physicians will be known forever as those millionaires who drove scratched cars and killed someone else’s mothers through their indifference.”

  “We are nuts,” Robert said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I know,” Cindy said.

  They embraced and fell asleep.

  Life with a purpose would always be good.