“How long have you known Martin?” Kevin asked.
“Don’t. Not really. Ben’s my guy. I heard him speak in some dive in Toledo. His voice stripped the paint off the walls. I was in.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard Ben Mittag speak.”
“Not anymore, he doesn’t. His kind of speech? Gets too much attention from the Feds. That’s what happens when you talk about shooting cops and blowing up post offices. So he stepped back so the government would stay off our backs.” A grin. “Not that that helped much. But we’re still here.”
“So who’s running things—Mittag or Bishop?”
“You want hierarchy? Join the Democratic Party.” He looked into the rearview a moment, as if watching for shadows, then said, “What about you? You must’ve seen through the bullshit early.”
“Why?”
George opened a hand, bobbed his head. “I mean, you’re black. I don’t have to tell you about injustice.”
“No, man. You don’t.” He looked out his window to see a station wagon loaded down with possessions, a young woman at the wheel. Returning home from school, or escaping her life. Almost by rote, he said, “It was the realization—maybe I was thirteen—that my life was a cliché. Dad spending his life in Haynesville Correctional. Drugs, of course. Mom trying to get off welfare and onto her feet.” He hesitated, then went off script a moment. “Funny thing is, these days people are crying about laid-off coal miners hooked on opioids. Everyone wants to get them to doctors. Back then it was the same—laid-off workers hooked on crack. But those poor bastards—in the eighties, everyone wanted to lock them up.” He cleared his throat. “There’s only one difference between then and now.”
“Color of their skin,” George said so melodically that Kevin nearly gave him an Amen. Instead, he remained quiet until George said, “So that’s what brought you in.”
“First I went to my recruiter.”
“I thought maybe you were military.”
Kevin said nothing.
“See action?”
Kevin stared across an ugly expanse of industrial sprawl along the outskirts of Sacramento. “A little.”
“Afghanistan?”
He didn’t bother answering that.
George said, “You’ve seen the world. That’s good. And you got your foot in early through the black struggle.”
Kevin stared at him a long moment. “It’s not a black struggle. It’s a human struggle.”
“Sure it is,” George said, frowning. “But what are humans but a bunch of special interests? That, my friend, is why we’re going to win. We’re an army of special interests. I’m in the antigreed struggle; you can fight for your race if you want. Someone else can fight for the whales. But in the end we all work for the same thing.”
“The end of all this,” said Kevin.
“’Zactly,” George said as he slowed the car and pulled to the right. The exit was for Greenback Lane, a main thoroughfare lined with low houses and trees that eventually gave way to strip malls and stores: CVS, Dairy Queen, home fitness, Mexican restaurants, and a Red Robin burger joint, where George parked in the lot and killed the engine.
Kevin saw nothing but families, stuffed to the gills, limping to their cars. “I already ate,” he said. “I’ll wait in the car.”
“We’ll both wait in the car.”
“For what?”
George pulled a slip of paper from his shirt pocket; it was covered in cramped numbers written in pencil. Then he took out a cell phone, the sight of which surprised Kevin. George typed out a number and put the phone to his ear.
“I love this part,” he whispered, then changed his tone and said, “Mary, this is George. It’s time.”
4
David Parker had been through a few beers by the time he discovered Ingrid in the living room, sharing the sofa with a man somewhere in his thirties. A small crowd of Brooklyn hipsters had gathered around them.
“Where to start?” the man said in answer to someone. “Corruption, maybe. I don’t care what party they’re with. Wall Street buys the candidates, and when they leave office they become lobbyists so they can buy their successors. Let’s stop pretending it’s democracy.”
A few of the hipsters nodded, as if this were fresh news. Gina Ferris, with her unruly white hair and a martini glass in her bejeweled hand, stood nearby, but all David noticed was Ingrid. His wife seemed enraptured by this pretty-boy pundit who occasionally turned to Ingrid with his angelic smile, as if all this were just for her.
The man went on. “Paul Hanes—House majority whip from the great state of Virginia. He just pushed through a bill clearing the way for Blackstar to absorb its primary arms-manufacturing competition. Guess who Hanes’s second-largest campaign contributor is? They’re not politicians anymore; they’re corporate spokespeople. Eisenhower was right on when he warned of the military-industrial complex. But no one listened.”
Gina spoke up. “You’re only telling part of the story, Martin. Paul Hanes is heading the Plains Bank and IfW inquiry.”
Ingrid’s suitor—Martin, apparently—shrugged. “Hanes says all the right words, but that’s exactly how a smart guy talks just before burying an investigation.” He cocked his head, reading the irritation in her face. “But, okay. Even politicians have a moral center, whether or not they ever use it. Diane Trumble, also on the committee, is doing all right. If they get their way—and that’s still a big if—then for a few weeks people are going to wake up. A couple of bankers will go to jail, we’ll all pat ourselves on the back, and then go back to sleep.”
Martin smiled and shrugged, and that was when David realized who this guy was. Martin Fucking Bishop, “the Revolution’s New Face.”
David had only skimmed the Rolling Stone profile, but he had heard plenty about Bishop from Sam Schumer’s Sunday evening news show, and standing there, seeing his wife gazing doe-eyed at a man much younger than him, a man who was arguably a terrorist—at that moment he was less concerned with the future of America than with the dreary state of his marriage and impending fatherhood.
“Piñata!”
Everyone turned to find Bill moving through the living room, herding spare children toward the backyard, where they would beat an animal until it gave them candy. It was what Bill called life training.
The disruption gave Gina a chance to escape, and as she passed David she rolled her eyes, cheeks flushed from the confrontation. David stepped up into the space she had left. “Martin, is it?”
Martin acknowledged his name with a nod. Beside him, Ingrid eyeballed her husband without expression.
David leaned close and held out a hand. “David, Ingrid’s husband.”
They shook, then fell back, Bishop deeper into the sofa beside Ingrid, David among the crowd. He smiled, trying unsuccessfully to hide his irritation. A few years ago, in Berlin or soon after, he could have managed the trick. But he wasn’t that optimist anymore. Ingrid seemed like someone else, too; in her cheeks, the color rose. David said, “Everyone I know seems to have another egalitarian utopia already packaged and ready to go as soon as the Revolution puts them in power. What’s yours?”
Martin opened his hands. “Unlike all your friends, David, I don’t presume to know. I’m not smart enough. Few people are that smart, least of all—and no insult meant—your smart friends.”
“And what about the guns?”
“What about them?”
“Sam Schumer says your followers are stockpiling guns.”
Martin shook his head, grinning. “Schumer is a gun advocate himself, so I’ve never understood him harping on about that.”
“But you’re not denying it?”
“Why shouldn’t everyone have access to a weapon? Particularly these days. Or should a gun license come with a political test?”
“But you were more specific,” David pushed, more details coming to him. “You called on people to stockpile guns for the coming revolution.”
Martin raised his eyebrows. �
�Where did you hear that?”
“Someplace reputable.”
“Schumer Says?” He seemed amused by the idea, but: “No, David. I’m afraid I never said that.”
David hesitated. He’d heard so much over the past year about this man from so many sources. Now Martin Bishop was here, next to Ingrid, casually batting away his accusations. All the while, Ingrid just watched. David tried not to let his frustration show but knew he was failing. “The system resists change. That’s what you said, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then how are you planning to make change?”
Ingrid tilted her head to look him squarely in the eye, and her voice was laced with undisguised weariness and doubt when she asked, “Are you really interested, David?”
“Of course I am,” he lied.
Martin thought a moment, ignoring—or pretending to ignore—the marital strife his presence was exacerbating, then said, “The left and right give lip service to the dialectic. You talk things out, argue them, and the answers will float to the surface. Look, I’m hip to that, but it only works in a world where everyone’s taking part in the conversation. In this world, in this America, everyone’s closed off in their own ideologies. They’re all talking—everyone’s talking—but no one’s listening. The dialectic has failed. What’s the next step?”
“Revolution?” David suggested. “Make everyone listen to you?”
“Make everyone listen to each other,” he said.
“And how do you do that?”
“You destroy the part of the system that allows them to ignore each other. The part that teaches them that their enemies live in the other political party, or in another demographic, when the truth is that their enemies are the people above them. Rip away the veil.” Bishop scratched his ear. “What would happen if, in some basement dogfight, the pit bulls suddenly saw through it all? Not only realized they were being used, but also that their masters couldn’t control them, not really? That they were free? The dogs would unite and turn on their masters. It would be a bloodbath. You just have to wake them up. Show them that their enemy is the guy holding the leash.”
“You collect guns,” David said. “You talk about bloodbaths.” He looked to Ingrid, to see if she was putting it together.
“I’m talking about uniting right and left,” Bishop said, “because we’ve all got the same enemy.”
To Ingrid, David said, “Are you listening to this?”
She didn’t say a word. Just stared at him blankly.
Bishop said, “Look at what’s going on around you, man. People are suffering. And we know who’s to blame. It’s not a mystery.”
“So you’re going to decide who’s guilty,” David told him. “Martin Bishop—judge, jury, and executioner.”
“Check out The Propaganda Ministry. People are making hit lists so long they’ll make your eyes water.”
“Hit lists. That’s not terrorism?”
“It’s making people accountable. Just like you are. Just like I am.”
“Well,” David said to Bishop, “good luck with all that.” Then, to Ingrid: “You get any food?”
Quietly, she said, “I’m not hungry.”
“Okay, then. Good to meet you, Martin.”
Bishop got up to shake hands, but David was already turning away, heading to the kitchen for a fresh beer. It was a celebratory beer, for in his mind he had just shown Ingrid that the guy she was sitting next to was a dangerous demagogue. Hadn’t he?
No, he hadn’t, but it took a while for him to understand how impotent his argument had been. He and Bill were with Amy and Nasser, painters who made ends meet designing websites, a job they complained was being automated out of existence. The four of them leaned against an artfully installed boulder pocked by cigarette burns, drinking and watching the kids. The grass was littered with hard candies from the gutted piñata, but instead of shoving them into their mouths the kids raced each other, stomping the candies deeper into the professionally fertilized soil, laughing. “Look how easily they get along,” Bill said.
“Give them a few years,” said Amy. “Soon enough, they’ll be fighting over a slice of Soylent Green.”
David’s mind was elsewhere. It had taken another beer, maybe three, for him to revisit his exchange with Martin Bishop and realize that he’d misunderstood the situation. No one had been interested in what he had to say. Those bearded automatons shipped in from Williamsburg hadn’t listened; he was nothing to them. He remembered Ingrid’s face when she’d said, coldly, I’m not hungry. Then the truth registered: All he’d done was humiliate himself.
“That dick in there,” he said abruptly. “Martin. What a joke, thinking debate skills are a substitute for actual thought.”
“You read the Rolling Stone piece?” Nasser asked.
“Not closely.”
“You should.”
“I should, should I?”
“He was in Berlin for a while.”
“Same time you were,” Bill said, nodding.
“You were there?” Nasser asked. “Then you really should read it. Martin Bishop fell in with some left-wing radicals.”
“Which left-wing radicals?”
“Named after…” He started snapping his fingers.
Amy tried to help out. “You know. That old German Communist lady.”
David turned sharply to eyeball them. “The Kommando Rosa Luxemburg?”
“That’s the one.”
“Jesus,” said David. “Those are the idiots who blew themselves up. Took out the entire group. Nearly killed me.”
“Really?” asked Amy, suddenly interested.
David felt ill, remembering. “They were planning to blow up the Hauptbahnhof—the main train station.” He took a swig of beer; his expression darkened. “He’s here to proselytize.”
“You think Bishop’s recruiting?” asked Amy.
“A guy like him is always recruiting,” Nasser said.
“Recruiting Ingrid,” David muttered, his voice harder now.
“Fact is,” Bill said, wanting to calm his friend, “Martin Bishop is a talker. You think he’s ever going to pick up a gun? He’s in it for the easy access to coed sex. He’s in it for the attention. He’s just—”
“Look,” David cut in, and all three followed his hard stare across the lawn to where Martin Bishop had paused at the top of the porch steps. He was smiling, gazing at the kids, a beer in his hand. He looked, to Bill and Amy and Nasser, at peace. David saw something else entirely. He set his beer down in the grass, straightened, and walked toward the porch.
Bill said, “Hey. Really. Don’t bother.”
But David wasn’t listening to anyone anymore.
5
Kevin and George watched families, the wired and tired citizens of suburban California, arriving at and leaving Red Robin. Kevin was thinking how their lives were so completely different than his. George, he suspected, was thinking of how their cushy lives would end, and soon.
“How many have you picked up?” Kevin asked.
“Eh?”
“People like me. Deserters.”
George grinned. “Deserters. I like that.”
“So?”
“So I took three deserters somewhere this morning, crack of dawn. When I called you I’d just gotten back.”
“We’re going to the same place?”
“Nope.”
“Where?”
George’s smile slipped away, and for the first time Kevin felt a twinge of worry. “You’ll find out. All right?”
“A man just likes to know.”
In answer, George turned on the radio, releasing a blast of fuzzy speed metal, then scanned until he reached 90.9, the local NPR station. Florida representative Diane Trumble had announced five subpoenas in the Plains Capital–IfW investigation, dragnetting two CEOs, a chief operating officer, and two general managers. “Hearings are being set up for after the August recess, and Representative Hanes and I look forward to having our questi
ons answered fully and honestly.”
“Preach it, sister,” George said; then both men listened as a newscaster told them of an unverified report from Nigeria, that a girls’ school had been attacked by Boko Haram, the Islamic extremist group that had, only three years ago, kidnapped nearly three hundred girls from Chibok.
“There she is,” George said, switching off the radio and nodding at a blond woman—twenty-five, maybe, with a fat purse on her shoulder—leaving the restaurant. Jeans, a black polo, and a short black waitress’s apron. A Red Robin name tag identified her in big letters as Tracey. George got out to meet her, and Kevin watched through the windshield. She was distraught, her hands fluttering. George whispered to her; she nodded, then shook her head vigorously and raised her voice. “I’m not going back in there!”
George put a hand on her shoulder; she flinched, so he removed it. After he’d said a few more words, she nodded again and opened her bag. From it she removed her phone and wallet and held them out to him. But he shook his head—he didn’t want to touch them. Instead, he pointed. She was going to have to do this herself. Dejected, she crossed the parking lot, back toward Red Robin, and dumped them in an outside trashcan as a sated trucker left the restaurant, picking at his mouth with a toothpick and staring at her.
George looked back through the windshield at Kevin and winked.
Tracey turned to leave, then hesitated and took off her name tag and apron and threw them away as well. George folded his seat forward so she could get in the back. She tossed her heavy purse in before her, then as she climbed in glanced at Kevin and said, “Hey.”
“Hey,” he answered. When she settled back into her seat, he read the words on the shoulder of her black shirt:
Honor
Integrity
Continually Seeking Knowledge
Having Fun
As George got in behind the wheel, she said, “Give a lady some warning next time, okay?”
“Gotta be this way,” he answered as he started the car. “Them’s the rules.”
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