A Simple Rebellion, Page 3

  The medical staff granted them privacy, which they used to stare into each other’s shattered eyes, beyond

  prayer, beyond hope, suspended in the long, slow dusk of their time together.

  He was reciting her favorite Shakespearean sonnet when the end came.

  “… thy eternal summer shall not fade. Nor lose possession of that fair ….”

  Mary Angeline’s frail grip on his gloved hand loosened.

  And she was gone.

  Chapter 9

  THAT MOMENT ECHOED OUT across his suddenly meaningless life.

  The unfairness, the cruelty, the brutal, unrelenting reality darkened every minute of every hour of his now worthless existence.

  And she had left him the mutt, too. That Sasha. Ridiculous little creature. He remembered asking himself, after the funeral, once he returned to his now hollow home, how was he going to take care of a dog when he couldn’t even bring himself to eat?

  He realized he wouldn’t. They could both fade out together. Fine by him. Mary Angeline might be glad to see them again so soon….

  He was resolved to die, haunting the house in an aimless shamble, growing weaker, wandering closer to what he wanted more than anything.

  Days into this slow suicide shuffle, he passed out on the couch and she came to him … brought him to their first picnic….

  He was sure he had died and this was heaven, or, acknowledging his own dodgy past, a fairly enjoyable purgatory.

  Then he awoke just shy of that kiss, and cried for hours.

  Night after night, there she was, his Mary Angeline,

  just for a moment, and each night he moved toward just one … more … delicate … kiss….

  Bob allowed himself a drink of water, and eventually coffee, just to get him through the hours until the next dream. He tossed the mutt a few scraps but still couldn’t force himself to eat.

  He was not sure how many days passed. Then one night he fell off the couch reaching for her. Slammed his chin on the coffee table, saw stars, drew blood, and then just laid there pathetically staining the carpet, crippled by the loss of her again.

  Looking around the room cursing himself for being too weak to end this wretched sham and rejoin her, he saw the mutt, that Sasha.

  The mutt was not looking at Bob.

  Instead he was curled up on the top of the couch, right under that huge portrait.

  More correctly, the dog was directly under the right side of that immense wedding photos, beneath his Mary Angeline in shimmering white, love radiating from the most soulful, beautiful, life-affirming eyes he had ever seen.

  Bob rose and eased closer, taking in the portrait as if for the first time.

  The dog glanced at Bob, and then settled back in as he had on her lap hundreds of times throughout their years together.

  Bob glanced at Sasha (what a horrible name) and then returned his gaze to his wife. He stared at her image for a long while, and, for the first time in what seemed an eternity, he felt a little better.

  Eventually, the dog yawned and turned its surprisingly appealing face to him.

  “Wanna eat?” Bob asked. “Yip,” the dog replied.

  “Gotta eat,” Bob said, taking the cute little creature into his arms. As they approached the kitchen together, Bob gave the dog serious consideration. He was a handsome little dude, but definitely a guy. “We gotta do something about that name, bro,” Bob told him, placing the dog on a chair. “How about Steve?”

  “Yip.” “Steve it is.”

  Theyhadtheirfirstrealmealthenanditbecametheir new nightly ritual: the dream, the pain, the portrait, and then a shared meal. Eventually, Bob moved the portrait into their bedroom and got a doggy bed. He placed it under her side of that beautiful picture.

  And every night at some point the dog would look at him with those soulful brown eyes and he’d know why Mary Angeline had left the Yorkie with him.

  “Yeah, bro,” Bob would say, “I miss her too.”

  Chapter 10

  SOMETIMES AFTER THE DREAM, when neither could get back to sleep, Steve and Bob sat on the couch and watched TV. Tonight was another DVR marathon. Lots of Amy Brooks. In this episode she was in front of a curtain rather than her flimsy studio set. Bob interpreted the changes as times Amy had been forced to relocate quickly, abandoning her desk and backdrop. Eventually another would be slapped together, but soon that would be abandoned too.

  “Amy is flirting with disaster, Steve,” he said. Steve took the fifth.

  Onscreen, Amy showed a clip from an infomercial Bob had skipped over on many a night. But if Amy wanted to talk about it, that was fine with him and Steve.

  “Medafree liberates you from the constraints people suffered under Medicare and Medicaid!” The unseen commercial narrator seemed thrilled to be sharing this revelation with over Amy’s shoulder. “With Medafree you can be confident that should there be a severe medical problem, all your very expensive medical care will be covered.”

  Cut to Amy with a still from the commercial over her right shoulder. She was as intense as ever, leaning forward, her gleaming black hair interrupted only by

  that shock of white, both enhancing the brilliance of her penetrating blue eyes. “There’s something else to know about this coverage, this promised worry- free coverage, this alleged improvement on Medicaid and Medicare. Evidence coming to light today makes a strong case that Medafree actually liberates many patients from getting any treatment at all. Additionally, it is being reported that any treatment the lucky few do get comes at a higher co-pay than any ever incurred with Medicaid or Medicare.

  “That is correct; little or no actual treatment received after inhumane waits and at higher costs than ever before.

  “Besides all that, the Harvard Medical Center has just released a study suggesting —with a daunting amount of irrefutably well-documented evidence — that there has been a shocking spike in ‘inoperable’ cancer cases and ‘inoperable’ liver problems and ‘inoperable’ heart disease since Medafree was enacted.

  “This spike in ‘inoperable’ diagnoses comes at a time when science has been making incredible breakthroughs in medicine for three decades. And the numbers are staggering. Almost historical. You want to know when, in the entire history of humanity, there have been more inoperable conditions?

  “During the Black Plague.

  “It is almost as if medical professionals are being forced to pump patients full of mass produced pain killers and put them in a very clean, very nice, far more cost-efficient hospice environment where they can die peacefully stoned rather than incur the massive costs of true healthcare.

  “The allegations we’re hearing is that while

  Medafree patients think they’re free from excessive costs, those who know say they also seem to be free of medical help.”

  Amy smirked into the camera. “But, as so many thousands of tweets and Facebook posts allege every day, this is probably all left-leaning, pathetically hysterical socialist fear mongering.

  “You might be right. But just in case….”

  Amy paused, her brilliant blue eyes reaching out to the world with an amazing mixture of intensity and challenge, and then she whispered a bit theatrically, “… don’t get sick.”

  Bob sunk into his couch a little deeper and whispered, “Too late.”

  Chapter 11

  LATER, STEVE AND BOB found themselves watching another episode of Amy, in front of a different makeshift set (the Feds must be in hot pursuit) as she introduced a clip from All Sides Included, the only show with a non- white host on National News. The clip showed a man who at one time would have been described as Arab- American, interviewing a white guy who at one time would have been described as a redneck Aryan racist.

  The white guy was saying, “What my brothers and I are talking about is that we can all live together. There is a place for each and every one of us. But it comes down to blood and soil; the simple truth is that all the top spots are reserved for whites, as it should be. Your hostin
g position here may amuse your betters, but you will not replace us. We are united, one nation, with no use for immigration. This land is our land, and it always has been.”

  Instead of replying, the talk show host looked to his right as a spokesman for the United Native Americans Council (also now housed in Canada) walked onset in full tribal regalia, saying, “I beg to differ.”

  The white guy leapt to his feet. “This interview is over! I’m not going to be assaulted by your underhanded, aggressively racist strategies, nor am I going to entertain the claims from this invader to our

  shores! God Bless America!” He stormed off set.

  The scene cut to Amy in yet another studio. “That was National News’ All Sides Included with host Abdun Ahmed, the only person of color on staff throughout that entire network. That clip was from two days ago. Tonight, Abdun Ahmed was assaulted while on a daily jog through his Upper West Side neighborhood.”

  She glanced at her notes, continued. “According to many eyewitnesses, a group of white males leapt from a rented van, beat him with crowbars and then jumped back into the van and drove off. Ahmed is in critical condition at Mount Sinai Hospital.”

  Amy did her signature intense look into the camera. “It’s all there in the Bill of Rights. At the number one spot. Freedom of religion, speech, and the press. Right there at number one.”

  Amy Brooks paused, taking in a deep breath, eyes cast down as if in thought, that white streak in her hair gleaming in the studio lights. “God bless America,” she said and then raised her gaze to the camera with all the sympathy she could push out of those electric blue, tear-filled eyes. Something broke in her voice as she murmured, “Please.”

  Chapter 12

  BOB WOKE UP ON the couch, the morning news blaring. The Weather Guy was wrapping up. “That’s our five-day forecast. And remember everyone, it’s National Secretary Day, so be kind to those who service you so well. Here’s to you, Sue.”

  As the screen cut to a startled Sue, Bob gave the screen a double take and then stumbled toward the kitchen. “Steve, did you make coffee? It is your turn, bro.”

  Onscreen, Sue recovered, and with an overcompensating smile launched into the next story. “An as yet unidentified man was being beaten by four other men outside a Muscle Bros Workout Emporium in Brooklyn yesterday, when, to their surprise, two large gym patrons ran out and subdued the attackers, sending all four assailants to the emergency room after they ‘resisted citizen’s arrest’, according to witnesses.” Sue shifted to another camera angle. “Police took statements from over a dozen of those witnesses, and then declined to charge the sweat-suited Samaritans. But only hours later, lawyers posted bail for all four alleged assailants and filed lawsuits against the NYPD, the city, the mayor, the witnesses, the gym guys, Muscle Bros Workout Emporium, and the unidentified man

  who remains in critical condition.”

  In the kitchen, Bob found an empty milk carton in the fridge. “Damn it,” he murmured, and then called out loudly, “Steve, we gotta go to Pop’s. Are you putting the recycling in the baskets or are you gonna stick me with the manual labor again?” After a pause he called out once more, “I figured as much, you prima donna!”

  Chapter 13

  AT POP’S THEY BOUGHT milk, eggs, maple syrup, and that 12-grain bread Mary Angeline had turned him on to years ago.

  Pop rang up the items making small talk, though today his efforts sounded a bit forced. “Making French toast today? Must be Steve’s turn to cook.”

  “That’s what the calendar says, but somebody’s been dodging the issue all morning,” Bob shot a glance at his buddy happily chomping a treat.

  Usually, Pop would “admonish” Steve, joking that the tiny dog needed to pull his weight. But today he just focused on bagging the items.

  Bob glanced at the calendar and suddenly understood. He busied himself checking the contents of one of the bags and whispered, “How long?”

  “Five, today,” Pop whispered back, packing another bag, failing at a smile.

  Five years….

  “True Americanism” grew over the decade, with Congress eventually expanding from the debrowning of America to additionally target certain lifestyles that suddenly posed a threat to the True American Way of Life. Lightning quick changes in law began working to strip away LBGTQIA rights to assemble in public and rent legitimate housing. Eventually, a law was

  enacted to crack down on “public disruptions” (broadly interpreted to include everything from dressing in drag to looking attracted to members of the same sex in public).

  Buried deep in the bill sat a paragraph that outlawed all non-procreational sexual preferences, which, once all the legal babble about keeping America focused on our unified True American goals was peeled away, made the very existence of all LGBTQIA people illegal. The new laws identified as targets, according to Bo, “any undesirables in possession of obviously faked American birth certificates and other false papers because True Americans, by definition, cannot be criminals or rapists or murderers or thieves or socialists or terrorists or gays or trans or queers or unsure about their sexuality. True Americans know who they are and what their God-given destiny is, and, by the love of our all-powerful Father in Heaven, we are going to protect

  True Americans from this filth.”

  Pop’s son Terence was gay, and smart enough to see the storm clouds gathering. He took off months before True Americans Day.

  At first, Pop regularly received cards from Terry postmarked Canada or Europe, other times he would get a call, but since True Americans Day, there had only been silence. Terence knew it would put his parents in danger to contact them.

  Bob whispered, “You know that if there is anything I can do—”

  Pop cut him off with a raised eyebrow and a quick glance at the television. “Gonna watch the big game?” The place was bugged, or Pop suspected as much, which amounted to the same thing. These days, no

  one was willing to take a chance.

  Bob nodded.

  The coldest aspect of True Americans Day was the launching of a reality show that premiered that very night on National News. Patriotism Live featured regular, everyday people hunting down “defilers of the American Dream” for bounties.

  Humans hunting humans. For cash prizes. On government-sponsored national television.

  No rules were set for how “prey” were to be hunted or captured, and the show was broadcast later in the evening to accommodate potential (pronounced “guaranteed”) graphic violence.

  Contestants were known to show up at the homes or businesses of the families of their prey. And it was widely suspected that the government supplied these leads, supposedly from tech observation. The widespread belief was that bugs had been installed in all later model technology, appliances, and vehicles. Any snippet of private dialogue could wind up on the show, and the public did not seem to be alarmed. After all, it never happened to True Americans.

  Often violent interrogations would be filmed with the resulting “volunteered information” leading to the prey being “apprehended” live on television.

  Patriotism Live enjoyed even higher ratings than major sports events. If reported ratings were to be believed, most True Americans watched every episode.

  And, much to their shame, so did Pop and Bob.

  Each week, they searched for any sign of Terence just as families across these wrecked states watched for signs of their own fugitive loved ones. Each prayed they would find no trace, but still couldn’t stay away,

  just in case. And they all hated themselves for not being strong enough to turn the channel.

  And now Bob may have given them away.

  “I’m sure he’s … we’re … okay,” Bob whispered. “I’m sure none of us are,” Pop murmured back.

  They stood in awkward silence. There was nothing else to say, and a real danger in saying anything at all. Finally, Bob took his bags, ashamed that his mind screamed at him to get out, get away, get home where he would be safe
. To hide this, he nodded to the storeowner and mouthed, “Stay strong.”

  Pop nodded, and then leaned over the counter to wag a finger at the dog. “It’s your turn to cook, Steve. Pull your weight, boy.”

  Bob held the door open for the little dog, his cheeks burning at his fear, forcing himself to cast one more look at Pop, knowing all his movie star money couldn’t buy back Terrence’s safety; there was not a single thing he could do or say without risking himself.

  Coward.

  Chapter 14

  AS BOB LEFT THE store, his shame shifted to anger. “Not you again.”

  Jeremy stood outside Pop’s bearing gifts.

  Behind him stood a dog groomer, a dog grooming truck, a folding table laden with Monster Cop Blu Rays, and a sign that read, “I know I wasn’t invited to be here but may I PLEASE have a minute?”

  “Jeremy, you have the worst timing in the world,” Bob said through clinched teeth.

  “Please, Mr. Murphy. Please, please, please can I speak to you?” Jeremy even clasped his hands in prayer and held them up to his chest. “Giovanni here can pamper Steve while we talk.”

  Bob forgot how young Jeremy actually was, but he looked about 18 now. Realistically, he had to be in his late twenties, still young for such a savage business. This was probably his first professional job and they took one look at his inability to drink the blood of his competitors and assigned him to the aging recluse.

  Bob remembered how raw he had been at that age, how his career would have ended right on the Second City stage except for the kindness of one audience member. And here was this kid clearly sweating through what might easily be the final moments of his dream career.

  Bob looked down at Steve, “Wanna get a mani- padi?”

  Steve seemed skeptical until Giovanni opened a jar of Milk-Bone Mini Beef, Chicken, and Bacon Flavored Snacks. The jar was bigger than the dog. Steve took one whiff and went right over.