Stars: The Anthology

by Janis Ian

  J. Edgar Hoover goes to the White House again. All of a sudden, it's not the Justice Department Bureau of Investigation. It's the Government Bureau of Investigation. The GBI. J. Edgar's got a face like a bulldog, yeah. He comes out of his talk with Joe Steele, he's wagging his tail like a happy little goddamn bulldog, too.

  They're made for each other, J. Edgar Hoover and Joe Steele. Trotsky's got Beria. Hitler's got Himmler. And Joe Steele? Joe Steele's got J. Edgar.

  ~~~~~

  When 1936 rolls around, folks wonder if the Republicans will run anybody against Joe Steele. They do. Alf Landon. Governor of Kansas. "The Matter with Kansas," some folks call him, but he's got to have balls. More balls than brains, running against Joe Steele.

  Are folks that much better off? Any better off? Who knows for sure? But Joe Steele's doing things. So they're a little hungry on those community farms? So they don't grow a hell of a lot of crops? So what? Somebody cares about 'em, cares enough to try and find something new.

  And after Van Devanter, and McReynolds, and Sutherland, and Butler, if anybody's unhappy, is he gonna say so? Would you?

  Joe Steele says he's got himself a Second Four-Year Plan. Says it'll be even bigger than the first one. Doesn't say better. Says bigger. Is there a difference? Not to Joe Steele, there's not.

  November comes around again. Joe Steele comes around again. Even bigger massacre than against Hoover. (Herbert, not J. Edgar. J. Edgar's massacres are different.) As Maine goes, so goes Vermont.

  The rest? It's Joe Steele. All Joe Steele.

  ~~~~~

  He takes the oath of office again. Chief Justice is real careful around him. Everybody notices. Nobody says boo, though. You want to watch what you say where Joe Steele can hear. Or J. Edgar. Or anybody else. J. Edgar's got snitches like a stray dog's got fleas. Run your mouth and you'll be sorry.

  Somebody takes a shot at Joe Steele a couple months after the second term starts. Misses. GBI shoots him dead. Fills him full of holes like a colander. They say his name is Otto Spitzer. Say he's a German. Say he's got Nazi ties. Joe Steele cusses and fumes and shakes his fist at Hitler. And the Führer cusses and fumes and shakes his fist back. And neither one of 'em can reach the other. Ain't life grand?

  Not much later, GBI raids the War Department. Newsreels full of tough guys in fedoras carrying tommy guns leading generals and colonels out of the building with their hands in the air. Hardly any guards at the War Department. Who'd think you needed 'em?

  Treason trials. Again. General after general, colonel after colonel, in bed with the Germans. Evidence. Letters. Photos. GBI shows 'em off. They must be real. Some confessions. They must be real. Convictions. Sentences. To be shot. Doesn't get any neater than that.

  Congressman Sam Rayburn gets up on his hind legs. Asks where the devil we're going. Asks what the devil Joe Steele thinks he's doing. Looks like we're heading for hell in a goddamn handbasket. Two days later, big old goddamn traffic smashup. Sam Rayburn dies on the way to the hospital.

  "A loss to the whole country," Joe Steele calls it on the radio. The eyelids like shutters go down. They come up. This time, maybe you do know what's back there. We're going wherever Joe Steele damn wells pleases. And Joe Steele thinks he's doing whatever he damn well pleases.

  And you know what else? He's right.

  Treasons trials start for real a few weeks later. Not just Justices. Not just generals. Folks. Doctors. Lawyers. Professors. Mechanics. Bakers. Salesmen. Housewives. Anybody who talks out of turn. Even GBI men. Joe Steele and J. Edgar take no chances. Miss no tricks.

  Conviction after conviction after conviction. Where to put 'em all? What to do with 'em all? You thought a lot of stuff got built the First Four-Year Plan? Take a gander at the second one. Dams again. Highways. Endless miles of highways. Canals—all dug by hand. More town buildings than you can shake a stick at.

  Waste a lot of people that way, you say? So what? Plenty more where they came from. Oh, hell, yes. Plenty more. And when the camp rats who live finish out their terms, what do you do with 'em? Send 'em to Alaska. Send 'em to North Dakota or Wyoming or Montana or some other place that needs people. Tell 'em they're fine, long as they stay where they're sent. They don't stay? Back to the camps. That, or they get it in the neck.

  Most of 'em stay. Most folks know, by then, Joe Steele means business.

  Europe. War clouds. Hitler. Trotsky. Appeasement—France and England shaking in their boots. Joe Steele? Joe Steele's neutral. Blames half the troubles in the USA on the goddamn Nazis. Blames the other half on the godless Reds. That takes care of all the blame there is. Any left to stick to Joe Steele? No way. Not a chance.

  Bullets start flying over there. Joe Steele goes up in front of Congress. Makes his famous "plague on both your houses" speech. "We have stood apart, studiously neutral," says Joe Steele. "We will go on doing that, because this fight is not worth the red blood of one single American boy. The USA must be neutral in fact as well as name. Neither side over there has a cause worth going to war for. No, sir. The greatest dangers for our country lurk in insidious encroachments for foreign powers by men of zeal. As long as we stamp that out at home, everything will be fine here. And as long as we stay away from Europe's latest foolish war, everything will be fine—for us—there."

  But in the end, Joe Steele can't stay away. When France falls, he sees even the Atlantic may not be wide enough to keep Hitler away from the doorstep. He starts selling England as much as it needs, as much as he can. "If the Devil opposed Adolf Hitler, I should endeavor to give him a good notice in the House of Commons," Churchill says. "Thus I thank Joe Steele."

  And Joe Steele's running for a third term. And Joe Steele wins, too. Wins even bigger than 1936. What's a Wendell Willkie? Not enough, that's for sure. After all the treason trials and such, some folks are surprised. By this time, hardly anybody says so out loud, though. By this time, folks know better.

  Joe Steele and J. Edgar, they kind of laugh about it, them and the Hammer. Somebody says Joe Steele quotes Boss Tweed: "As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it?" Boss Tweed's long dead by then. And if anybody else repeats that, he'll be dead pretty damn quick, too.

  When Hitler jumps Trotsky, Joe Steele needs six weeks before he starts shipping guns and trucks to Russia. He hates Trotsky that much. But if the Nazis run thing from Brest to Vladivostok, that's not so good. So he does.

  Damn near too late. By December, the Nazis are driving on Moscow. Sinking American ships in the Atlantic, too. And we sink a couple of German subs. Doesn't make the papers here or in Europe. If you don't look at it, it's not a war. Right? Joe Steele and Hitler think so.

  And when Joe Steele's bent over squinting towards Europe, the Japs kick him in the ass. Pearl Harbor blows sky high. Philippines bombed. Invaded. Dutch East Indies invaded. Malaya. We don't want a war? We've got one anyway.

  Next morning, Joe Steele comes on the radio. Has to eat his words. Never easy for anybody. Harder if you've set yourself up as always right. Joe Steele does it. Just makes like he never said anything different. Not how you remember it? Too bad for you, if you run your mouth.

  "A grave danger hangs over our country," he says. Everybody with a radio listens. "The perfidious military attack on our beloved United States of America, begun on December 7, 1941, continues. There can be no doubt that this short-lived military gain for the Empire of Japan is only an episode. The war with Japan cannot be considered an ordinary war. It is not only a war between two armies and navies, it is also a great war of the entire American people against the Imperial Japanese forces.

  "In this war for freedom we shall not be alone. Our forces are numberless. The overweening enemy will soon learn this to his cost. Side by side with the U.S. Army and Navy, thousands of workers, community farmers, and scientists are rising to fight the enemy aggressors. The masses of our people will rise up in their millions.

  "To repulse the enemy who treacherously attacked our country, a State Committee for Defense has bee
n formed in whose hands the entire power of the state has been vested. The Committee calls upon all our people to rally around the party of Jefferson and Jackson and Wilson and around the U.S. government so as self-denyingly to support the U.S. Army and Navy, demolish the enemy, and secure victory. Forward!"

  Congress declares war on Japan. Hitler declares war on the USA. Joe Steele orders up two new military tribunals. Admiral Kimmel. General Short. In charge of Hawaii. Screwed the pooch in Hawaii. Guilty. Shot. Pour encourager les autres.

  Philippines fall. MacArthur escapes to Australia. Tribunal. Bombers caught on the ground? Yes. Guilty. Shot. MacArthur likes to see his name in the papers. Can't have that kind of general. Only one man gets his name in the papers.

  Joe Steele.

  Joe Steele and George Marshall, now, they do fine. Marshall wants to win. Wants no fanfares. Joe Steele's kind of man. Same with Nimitz. Same with Eisenhower. Halsey? If Halsey ever loses, he's a dead man. Knows it. Keeps winning.

  We push back the Japs. Afrika Korps runs out of steam in the desert. Germans and Russians fight the biggest goddamn battle in the world at Trotskygrad. Both sides throw men into the meat grinder like it's going out of style. Turns out the Reds have more men to grind up. Nazis lose a whole army. Russians storm west. For a little while, looks like the whole Eastern Front's coming unglued. Doesn't happen. Stinking Nazis are bastards, but they're pros, if Hitler lets 'em be. Still, you can see they're on the ropes. It'll take a while, but it's when, not if.

  Joe Steele and Churchill and Trotsky meet. Start planning what happens next. Trotsky keeps screaming for a real second front. Italy? Screw Italy! Joe Steele ... smiles. Heaven is every Nazi killing two Reds before he goes down. No more Germans left? No more Russians? Oh, toooo bad.

  But it starts looking like there aren't enough krauts to do the trick. Nobody wants Russia running things from Vladivostok to Brest, either. Second front happens. Eisenhower commands. Eisenhower doesn't hog glory that belongs to Joe Steele. Smart fellow, Eisenhower. Joe Steele wins fourth term. Republicans don't nominate anybody this time.

  Philippines fall. Iwo Jima. Okinawa. Bomb the shit out of the Japs. Get ready to invade.

  Germany? American and British hammer. Russian anvil. Smashed between 'em. Smashed flat between 'em. Hitler blows out his brains. 'Bye, Adolf. Should have done it sooner.

  Start shifting men to the Pacific. Operation Downfall. Makes Normandy look like a kiddie game. Japs fight at beaches, everywhere else. Maniacs. Kamikazes. Everything they've got. Not enough. We push 'em back. Hell of a price to pay, but we pay it. Trotsky sees we're winning. Jumps in himself. Takes Hokkaido, north part of Honshu. Rest is ours. Incendiaries roast Hirohito on a train between Tokyo and Kyoto. Sayonara, buddy.

  Japan never does surrender. Nobody in charge left to do it. But the Japs finally stop fighting. Nobody left to do that any more, either, not hardly. End of summer, '46.

  Joe Steele. On top of the world.

  ~~~~~

  Turns out the Nazis were working on an atomic bomb. Not too hard. Didn't really believe in it. Never got it. But working. Joe Steele hits the ceiling in sixteen different places. Maybe eighteen. Calls in Einstein. "Why didn't you know about this?" he yells.

  "We did," Albert says. "I almost wrote you a letter at the start of the war."

  Joe Steele's eyelids go down. They come up. Yeah, you can see what's back there this time. Rage. Raw, red rage. "Why didn't you?" he asks, all quiet and scary.

  "I feared you would use it," Einstein answers. Half a dozen words. One death warrant.

  Einstein? Shot. A Jew.

  Szilard? Shot. A Jew.

  Fermi? Shot. A dago with a Jew wife.

  Von Neumann? Shot. A Jew.

  Oppenheimer? Shot. A Jew.

  There are more. Lots more. Shot, most of 'em, Jews or not. The rest? To the camps.

  "The Professors' Plot," the papers call it. All these goddamn eggheads, working to keep the US of A weak. All these goddamn kikes, working to keep the US of A weak. Joe Steele starts muttering maybe Hitler knew what he was doing. Talks to the Hammer. Talks to J. Edgar. The wheels begin to turn.

  Then he finds Teller. Teller says, "Turn me loose. I'll build the son of a bitch in three years, or you can have my head." Another goddamn Jew. But one who knows which side his bread's buttered on. Some of the people Teller needs—Feynman, Frisch, Kistiakowsky—he pulls out of camps. There, but not shot yet. Maybe not shot at all, if they come through. First circle of hell, close enough.

  Joe Steele tells J. Edgar and the Hammer, "Go slow." If Teller and the boys come through, maybe some kikes are worth keeping. If not ... We know who they are. We know where they live. We can always start up again. Oh, hell, yes.

  And Trotsky, that stinking Red bastard, he's working on this shit, too. You bet he is. We caught Nazi high foreheads. And they caught Nazi high foreheads. You think the boys from the master race won't sing for their supper? Sing for their necks? Ha! Wernher von Braun'd learn Chinese if Chiang caught him. Or Mao.

  And Trotsky's a pain in the ass other ways. World revolution everywhere, he says. 1948. His North Japan invades our South Japan. War of liberation, he says. Red Japs sweeping down toward Tokyo. Screaming "Banzai!" for Trotsky. (Trotsky's a Jew, too. Makes Joe Steele like 'em even better.)

  Hell of a thing—a brand new war, and the old one's hardly done. Trotsky's Japs fight like they're nuts. Our Japs run like they're nuts. It's a walkover—till the North Japanese bump up against the U.S. Marines in front of Utsanomiya. If they break through, Tokyo falls. Probably all Honshu with it. But they don't. Marines hold. Give the Red Japs a bloody nose.

  Everybody knows Russians fly the Gurevich-9 jet fighters with the yellow star inside the Rising Sun. Not as good as our F-80s—Me-262s with those starred meatballs, near enough—but fancier than what we thought those SOBs had. Fighting kind of settles down in the mountains. Now they go forward. Now we do. Places like Sukiyaki Valley and Mamasan Ridge? Folks back home don't know just where they're at, but a lot of kids get buried there.

  Joe Steele wins term number five as easy as number four. Nobody runs against him. There's a war on.

  August 6, 1949. Sapporo. Capital of North Japan. One bomb. No city. Teller lives. Joe Steele tells Trotsky, "Enough is enough."

  August 9, 1949. Nagano. Not the capital of South Japan. Maybe the AA around Tokyo's too heavy to risk losing the plane. But a hell of a big place. One bomb. No city. Maybe some German egghead lives, too. Trotsky tells Joe Steele, "Yeah, enough is enough."

  Japanese War ends. Status quo ante bellum. Mao runs Chiang off the mainland. More treason trials. Something to keep Joe Steele amused. Getting old. Wins a sixth term almost in his sleep. Dies six weeks after they swear him in again. Natural causes. Who'd dare mess with him?

  John Nance Garner, Vice President since 1933. Never says boo all that time. That's why he's VP so long. Finally takes over. First thing he does is is order J. Edgar Hoover and the Hammer shot. The Hammer orders him and J. Edgar Hoover shot. J. Edgar orders both the others shot.

  J. Edgar lives. J. Edgar takes over. And you thought Joe Steele was trouble.

  (Back to TOC)

  Inventing Lovers on the Phone

  Orson Scott Card

  Inventing lovers on the phone ...

  Who call and say, "Come dance with me,"

  and murmur vague obscenities ...

  ~ from At Seventeen by Janis Ian

  You want to know what Deeny’s life was like? It can be summed up in the sentence her father said when she got a cellphone.

  "Who the hell’s gonna call you?"

  Deeny said what she always said when her father, otherwise known as "Treadmarks," put her down. She said nothing at all. Just left the room. Which was what ol’ Treadmarks wanted. But it was what Deeny also wanted. In fact, on that one point they agreed with each other completely, and since their relationship consisted almost entirely of Deeny getting out of whatever room her father was in, one could almost say that th
ey lived in perfect harmony.

  In the kitchen, her mother was thawing fish sticks and slicing cucumbers. Deeny stood there for a moment, trying to figure out what possible dinner would need those two ingredients, and no others.

  "You’ve got a zit, dear," said her mother helpfully.

  "I always have a zit, Mother," said Deeny. "I’m seventeen and I have the complexion of dog doo."

  "If you washed ..."

  "If I didn’t eat chocolate, if I didn’t eat fatty foods, if I used Oxy-500, if I didn’t have the heredity you and Treadmarks gave me ..."

  "I wish you wouldn’t call your father that. It doesn’t even make sense."

  Come on, Mom, you wash his underwear. "It’s because everyone rolls right over him at work. I feel kind of sorry for the old guy."

  Mother made a show of speaking silently, mouthing the words, "He can hear you."

  "Come on, Mom, you know what a nothing he is on the job. He’s nearly forty and so far the only thing he ever accomplished was getting you pregnant. And he only did that the one time."

  As usual, Deeny had gone too far. Mother turned, her face reddening. "You get out of this kitchen, young lady. Not that you deserve to be called a lady of any kind. The mouth you have!"

  Deeny’s hand was already in her pocket. She pressed the button on her phone. It immediately rang.

  "Excuse me, Mother," she said. "Somebody actually wants to talk to me."

  Her mother just stood there looking at her, a fish stick in her hand.

  Deeny made a show of looking at the phone. "Oh, not Bill again." She pressed the END button.

  "Who’s Bill?"

  "A guy who calls sometimes," said Deeny.

  "You’ve only had that cellphone for a couple of hours," said Mother. "How would he get your number if you don’t want him to call?"

  "He probably bribed somebody. He’s such an asshole."

  "Deeny, that language just makes you sound cheap."