The People's Republic of Everything

by Nick Mamatas

  The old people, friendly and cheerful and thankful for their grandchildren, have been waiting for a moment for a long time, nearly a generation. When the founding of Weinbergia hit the news, they went out under cover of night to find their elected officials. It’s a small country, only 20,000 people or so; the whole government has fewer than 40 people, and they live pretty much like anyone else, except they wear Italian suits with American labels. The old people came to them with gifts of fruit and finely-weaved baskets. Then after a nice meal and sweet dessert, out came the machetes. For the first time ever, Palau’s government did something the United States didn’t like. Behind the worried debate that morning, even the members of the Olbiil Era Kelulau were secretly friendly and cheerful as they voted to save us. People are cheerful and friendly everywhere. Even here in fabled Weinbergia, where Rich really got into the swing of things with Dad.

  The power was back on. Not because of Palau, but because the news media was out in force. Their power generators were too noisy for local ordinance (Tommy Case complained), so the feds turned our juice back on and let the TV cameras tie into our power. The meter was spinning like crazy. Just one more form of brutal American oppression, thought Dad, but he was happy and cheerful. We had water too, and they didn’t cut our cable either, so we could watch our own house. Rich hogged the webcam all morning and happily detailed the moment-by-moment “hostage drama” that was taking place. He covered the camera lens with the fat palm of his hand when I walked in with some toaster waffles—they were the kind he especially liked, blueberry and bacon bits—but then dug into breakfast with his fists wrapped around the fork and butter knife. It was gripping Web-television, for sure, and after that the major news networks stopped calling Rich a hostage and suggested that he had been won over by our relentless propaganda, or maybe drugs in the waffles.

  Rich did come around pretty quickly. By noon he was spread all over the couch and taking calls from around the world from the cell phone one of the Army guys had slipped in through the mail slot.

  “Your Highness!” he called out.

  “Yeah . . .” I said. He had been asking me stupid questions all morning.

  “I meant your Dad, Sport!”

  I hate being called Sport or Kiddo or any of those stupid names. Ace. Ace would have been cool. But you have to shoot down a plane or something to be called Ace. I resolved at that moment to start working on it.

  From the basement, my father’s hollow voice asked what was up.

  “It’s Hollywood, baby! Want to sell the rights to this?”

  “It’ll have to be a US/Weinbergian co-production,” Daniel shouted.

  “I’ll see!” Rich shouted back, then more quietly into the phone he explained our demands. He paused, smiling like he was still on TV. Then, “Hello? Hello? How-deee?” He frowned. “Damn. Hey Ace . . .”

  Much better. “Yeah?”

  “Care for an interview?”

  “Sure.” I walked over to the couch while Rich picked himself up and diddled with the laptop’s webcam in an attempt to get a shot that didn’t make him look like a lazy slug. I stood by, wearing a TV commercial kid smile until my cheeks started hurting. Finally, after licking his fingers and running them through his hair (yes, gross), Rich was ready for his remote.

  “Rich Pazzaro, embedded in what a small, dangerous family has decided to call Weinbergia,” he said in a serious whisper to the world on the other side of the lens. “Day three of America’s nuclear crisis. I’m here with young Herbert. His father calls him ‘prince’ but to his mother, and America, he is a hostage. A human shield.” I rolled my eyes.

  He leaned back, wrapped an arm around me, and brought me closer to the camera for an intimate shot, then asked, “Do you feel that you’re in danger here?”

  “Duh!” I said. Then I grabbed the little webcam and twisted it so it pointed out the window. On the laptop screen, I could see a huddle of American soldiers gathered around a TV monitor. They looked up toward the camera when they saw themselves on TV and waved to me and the world.

  Rich took the cam back and turned it around for a close-up of himself. “He’s a boy who loves his father. That family tie, exploited in a game of nuclear brinksmanship.” He turned to me again. “What are your days like here, under siege? Do you miss your school friends?”

  “Well, most of them are upstate at computer camp anyway. I think I’m learning more here. I’m also in charge of a lot of stuff. Did you know that the national bird of Weinbergia is the bluebird? I declared it so this morning,” I said. Nobody is going to shoot a kid who says he likes bluebirds. It’s true. I double-checked the brains of everyone outside on the front lines before picking the bird.

  “Aaaand,” I said, nudging Rich out of the way and sticking my head right up to the camera so I’d look all cute and distorted—you know, the way you look reflected in a doorknob or something, “I’m working on our official language, Weinbergian. For example, if I wanted to say, ‘Hi, my name is Prince Herbert The First,’ I’d say, ‘Lo, yo soy nameo izzo Fresh Herbie Primo.’ Pretty cool, huh?” I smiled wide for the camera. I’m not a hunk or anything, but I could feel, all over your country, little girls deciding to start fansites about me. A million LiveJournal entries were born.

  Fun Facts About Weinbergia

  Name: Weinbergia

  Telephone area code: 631 Area: 2000 sq. ft. 2 1/2 baths

  Land boundaries: United States of America, specifically the Pasalaqua and Case residences

  Terrain: Parquet floors

  Highest mountain: The tip of Rich Pazzaro’s ego

  Natural resources: Uranium. Fear. Hope.

  Population: 3ish

  Population density: 1/666 sq. ft.

  Distribution: 100% suburban

  Life expectancy: We’re trying not to think about that

  Capital: King Daniel’s not above calling the master bath “the throne room,” unfortunately

  Flag: Take the McDonald’s golden arches on a red background, and turn it upside down so it looks like a W

  Government: “As long as you’re under my roof, you’ll do what I say!”—King Daniel I.

  National anthem: “In The Garden of Freedom” (sung to the tune of “In A Gadda-Da-Vida”)

  Languages: English

  Currency: Dollar

  Climate: Central air

  Religion: Vague liberal agnosticism. Judaism. Known to say “Jesus Christ!” at stupid stuff on TV

  Exports: Punditry, fodder

  That afternoon, I was nearly lulled to sleep by the clockwork thinking of the first line of soldiers as they turned first to the right, then to the left, rifles high and Dad in their sights as he mowed the lawn on the northern frontier of Weinbergia. The landscapers Mom had hired decided not to come in today and given the politico-legal difficulties we found ourselves in, Dad didn’t want to give the US any more ammunition by getting the Terrytown Fire District all mad, too. That’s what he said anyway, but deep down he just wanted to test American mettle, and get a little time off from Rich.

  So he mowed the lawn, slowly and carefully, back and forth, while forty-five GIs trained their guns on him. At the end of the block, Operations buzzed with contingencies and possibilities. Should we shoot Dan Weinberg and rush the place? Does he have some sort of spoilsport option in place that would set off the bomb if his heart stopped? Is it biometrical? How could it be; the guy’s out there in a tank top, white shorts, and sandals with socks? Maybe the kid? What about the kid, what about the children?

  What about me? I was scraping the black stuff off of a grilled cheese Rich had tried to make for himself. “Here ya go, Herb,” he had said as he knocked on my already-open door and offered me the sandwich, “you’re probably hungry, so I thought I’d fix you something.”

  I hate it when people “fix” food, don’t you? Especially when it was as broken as this second-hand sandwich. But I was hungry and it gave me something to do other than fall asleep listening to the droning thoughts of the soldie
rs outside. That’s when the shooting happened. It went like this, in the head of PFC Frank Torres, who’s from Brentacre, just a few miles from Port Jameson:

  Left Left Left Left

  Right Right Right Right

  Left Left Left Left

  Right Right Right Turn onto 347

  Left Left Left at the mall

  Right Home Where I Started From

  Left Left Home At Eighteen

  Right Right Back Here

  So Close Target Is So Close

  Miss Miss Mami Mami

  Miss Miss Don’t Miss Target

  Then he fired by mistake—a psychic twitch of homesickness and boredom—but missed. My father dropped to the ground, leaving the lawn mower to lurch forward and roll a bit. A couple of slugs tore through it too before a squad leader bellowed, “Hold Your Fire!” The guns stopped, so did the fiery anxiety and whooping joy of the line. Everyone lowered their rifles, vainly hoping that the captain would blame the other guy.

  My father hopped back to his feet and, fists curled, marched to the border, nearly smacking into the equally red-faced captain who was up from his lawn chair and ready to scream till his men crapped themselves. They met at right angles and stared, both wide-eyed and huffing like bulls.

  My father spoke first. “Can’t a man cut the grass in peace?” he demanded, and really, that’s all he was thinking. The captain was nonplussed, so Dad turned to the line of troops. “Who shot at me? Which one of you Yankee imperialists shot at me?” He pointed randomly at a guilty-looking soldier. “Was it you?”

  “Hey, man, I just shot your mower,” he said, defeated. A few heads down, Torres mentally snickered. The captain, Whiting, felt his control of the situation, illusory as it was, slipping away from him, and stepped in the path of my father’s pointed finger.

  “Mister Weinberg,” he started.

  “King Daniel.”

  “Mister Weinberg, please. This could spiral into an . . . incident.”

  “An international incident! Perhaps even an occurrence. Where’s the media now, when you need them? You’re all blocking the curb, how am I supposed to use my trimmer later?” my father demanded of nobody in particular.

  The squad captain put a hand on Dad’s shoulder and said. “I understand. I have a lawn too. Back home.” Then he nodded in that way men nod when they want other men to nod back at them. And Dad did. Then both of them looked toward the lawn mower, which just sat there and smoked through its new bullet holes, uselessly.

  Dad was back inside for the afternoon, giving his side of the story to Rich and the webcam, while outside, a couple of grunts finished the job with a John Deere helicoptered in from the nearest Home Depot and a pair of hand-clippers. They did it checkerboard-style, going over the lawn twice, except for a couple of feet around the garden gnome.

  Overnight, Dad became the hero to billions—he’d stared down the American war machine, brought them to heel, and made them do chores. Captain Whiting was relieved of command overnight and is currently in the brig somewhere, staring in front of a mirror, trying to pee. Almost exactly like me.

  3

  You think you know what happened. It was all over the news. My mother Geri, sobbing into the cameras, the cult, the fist-fights in the United Nations, the daring raid, Rich’s bravery . . . or was it treachery, blah blah blah. But you don’t know what happened. What happened is that seven men and four women were at our door the next afternoon, all with pizzas. Rich and Daniel peered at the bunch nervously, with Rich trying to pull off the impossible trick of looking concerned enough to impress Dad and eager enough to impress the federal agents and Army guys he was sure were behind the pizza deliveries.

  Actually, all but two of the pizzas were sent by well-wishers who’d seen me chewing on an awful sandwich all night on the cam; the last two were fake deliveries by Adrienne and Kelly, two Port Jamesonites who wanted to come in from the cold. I helped them out by pointing at them through the screen door. “You and you can come in with the pizza, the rest of you . . . thanks but no thanks.”

  Nobody moved from the positions they had staked out, except for some pimple-faced kid who wobbled a bit, unsure of himself. Nobody listens to kids, you know. “Daaaad,” I said.

  “What, Herb? Why?”

  I didn’t need to think of anything clever as Adrienne just smiled widely and pushed the screen door open with her elbow. “How do you do?” she said, “How do you do?” She was older, like my mother, with a big Long Island mop of dyed black curls and bangs. Kelly slipped in right behind her and said “How are ya?” like a normal person. She was pretty normal, twenty-five, high hair, jingly earrings, that sort of thing. Dad closed both the screen and the main door, leaving the rest of the pizza delivery people with nothing else to do except make their way back to America with their pies and take their body-cavity searches like good citizens.

  “There’s no pizza in either of these,” Rich said, annoyed. “Just . . . money.”

  “American?” Dad asked. Then he turned to the ladies. “That money’s no good here.”

  Adrienne just smiled. “Every country has a store of American dollars. It’s the least we could do. We’re asylum seekers.”

  Kelly nodded. “You have to let us stay. It’s crazy out there!” And they told their stories, mostly going on about how hard it was to make ends meet. They’d both been unemployed and met in the waiting room of a temp agency, then realized they were only ten miles from the border. Neither of them could find jeans in their size because the manufacturers found it cheaper to make clothing cut for people who didn’t actually exist. American men were mean, and lazy in the bedroom. Kelly blushed and shot me an apologetic look as Adrienne explained that, but she was thinking about herself and Rich doing it in front of a weather map! And besides, they thought, they really wanted to be on TV. Ten minutes later I was in the basement, trying to figure out whether the old quilts Mom stored down there were machine washable, while Kelly raided the liquor cabinet and made cocktails for the adults.

  Richard—he was calling himself Richard now, because he thought it sounded more presidential, or at least less friendly—interviewed a slightly tipsy Kelly later that night. She’s one of those people who just gets very sad when they drink, like there’s a dark spring in her heart that just bubbles up to the surface whenever she forgets to pay attention.

  “Sometimes,” she said, looking down even though Rich reminded her three times to look at him (and four times to “try to look sexy”) “—it’s just, you know, hard. You go to work, stop to get some take-out on the way home, and watch other people live lives you can’t, on television. I don’t even have anyone to shout at me in my living room, or to say funny things. You know?”

  “Uhm. Sure.” Rich ad-libbed. “Do you have a political agenda that you’re hoping to carry out?”

  “Well, I’m definitely against violence and nuclear proliferation. I guess I wanted to find some like-minded people.”

  “You came to the wrong place!” Dad shouted from the kitchen.

  “He’s right. Weinbergia is a nuclear power,” Rich said.

  “Yeah, but you guys aren’t going to use it. I mean, it would be suicide.”

  “How’s that any different,” Dad shouted again, “from America?”

  Kelly looked at Rich, confused. Rich just nodded, a content-free nod. Yes, I acknowledge your existence. That kind of thing. Kelly finally shrugged and said, “I guess I just trust King Daniel more than the president. He seems kinder, more honest. Like a normal person. He doesn’t wear a tie just because he knows he’s going to be on television. I like that.”

  “So is that why you came here, to Weinbergia?”

  “Well, I always wanted to go abroad.”

  Kelly, with her cow eyes and hollow voice, wasn’t what you’d call telegenic. She came off as brainwashed, but really, she was simply emerging from years of American brainwashing. Kelly was confused and anxious—she may not have to go to work every day anymore, just to have enough money to
buy cute shoes and Healthy Choice entrées, just so that she could find some guy who would smile and lift things for her between football games, just so she could have a kid who’d grow up proud to be an American just because that’s where he plopped out of her. A kid who’d in turn do the same thing. This wasn’t the tickertape-parade-and-celebrity-hugs freedom she was expecting. It was a dull, throbbing freedom; more like a headache.

  “How do you feel about being this close to what some call a terrorist nuclear device?” Richard asked. “Are you afraid?”

  “Not any more than I was this morning. Forty wars on forty countries, that’s us. That was me. Not now though. Terrorists are supposed to be everywhere. That’s why they search your car on the Long Island Expressway, right?” She shrugged. “I mean, with everybody watching now, what are they gonna do, storm in and kill us? For what?”

  “For having a nuclear device out on the lawn,” Richard said. “Don’t you think? Do you think that anyone should have the right to just threaten us with nukes?”

  “No, I don’t. I guess I really don’t,” Kelly said. “That’s why I’m here.” She and Richard stared at each other. He really wasn’t a very good reporter, and Kelly mentally scratched him off her sex list. The interview was over and an awkward silence descended over all Weinbergia, except for the kitchen where Dad was trying to impress Adrienne by making an omelet. He was banging pots around like some ugly American.

  All you probably saw of this on the news—unless you subscribed to the website anyway—was Kelly’s dead eyes and her murmuring, “Well, I always wanted to go abroad.” It’s one of those dumb tricks the media use to make people they don’t like look like morons, but they forgot that lots of people felt just like Kelly. With all the wars, and all the ruined diplomatic relationships, and with the five-hour-long check-in lines at the airports, millions of people wanted to go abroad and couldn’t. For a few of them, for almost of enough of you out there, you got the idea. Go abroad where it counts. Right up here.