Let Them Eat Tea, Page 2

  Chapter 2 -- Nick and Marie

  They look like a couple, sitting on a garden bench on the little hill that forms the front lawn of the big hotel. Inside, the convention is just getting underway. Nick is due onstage to speak soon. For the moment the two sit together on the sculptured bench on the manicured lawn, she on his right, angled towards him, neck arched to look up toward the sky, as if suspended in a frozen excerpt from a Norman Rockwell painting. They look like models posing for a glossy magazine advertisement for the good life.

  Feeling tense with the usual mild stage fright, the two try to relax by breathing deeply in the autumn air, immersing themselves in the ambience of the location, listening to the small birds chirping in the well-kept trees. Like children they look for patterns in the clouds.

  "Those puffy little clouds coming up there," Marie starts a sentence, and trails off. She points up at the smoke rising into the sky from a house fire down the block, almost behind her on their right, invisible to her. "Those are people's heads in the crowd -- the audience walking in. Supporters coming to cheer you on," she finishes with a little laugh. She has never been compassionate, and she isn't clever; but she looks good and she has a quick smile. Those are factors that served her well a dozen years ago as a high school cheerleader, and they continue to serve her well now in politics.

  Nick looks past Marie, down the block outside her field of vision, where a tall pale willowy woman stands in front of a three-story brick apartment building adjacent to the burning house. She holds a baby balanced on one thrust out hip, bouncing it gently. Near the attractive woman stands a pretty little girl Nick estimates to be about six or seven years old. The little girl is holding a cat, trying to calm it. The cat is pale, fluffy, pretty and soft like its owners. So the woman must be younger than thirty, he reasons, and then briefly turns his attention again to the clouds and the fact that Marie has spoken and is probably waiting for a response.

  "There's the podium," he says, pointing with artificial exuberance at a boxy dark cloud slightly to their left. The rounded puffs of smoke from the fire look more like women's boobs to him, but he doesn't say so. "And look, there's a big silver limo," he adds, drawing Marie's attention to an elongated cloud still further off to their left, away from the direction of the fire.

  Marie focuses her glazed blue eyes intently up at the clouds while Nick turns his attention back to the events around the fire. In front of the burning house, the homeowner is arguing with a big football fullback of a man in a red and yellow private fireman suit, with a big red hat. A matching red and yellow private fire truck sits parked across the street.

  "Listen," Nick imagines the big fireman saying, gesturing at a nearby fire hydrant. "If my guys put out this fire, I have to pay the city for the water we use. I have a government issued card I'm required to put into the meter on that hydrant there. Otherwise the water doesn't come out. The city sends me a bill for the water the next day. If you don't pay me now, I can't pay the city tomorrow. The day after that, the city cuts off my water supply to put out other fires. Fires happening to people who can pay. It's as simple as that."

  "But five thousand dollars!" the homeowner must be exclaiming next, looking up and flinging both arms towards the heavens, spinning on his feet to turn half away and then immediately turning back again. He lets his arms drop to his sides and shrugs in a gesture of helplessness, asking where he can get five thousand dollars on such short notice. "Surely the city doesn't charge you $5,000 for the water," he ends on a hopeless note, and looks down at the sidewalk before looking back up into the private fireman's eyes. Unrelenting eyes.

  Well, if he can't afford to pay the firemen, Nick reflects coldly, let his house burn. He should have had better fire insurance. Or he shouldn't own a house. We don't need freeloaders and parasites that don't pay their own way. They're a danger to the community and a drag on society. They cost us all money.

  As the two men argue energetically on the front lawn of the burning house, a man in a business suit appears on the roof of the adjacent apartment building. Maybe he’s the owner of the building, or maybe a manager. He douses the roof of the apartment building with a garden hose. Next to him on the roof another man, dressed in dirty work clothes, is already dousing the exterior wall of the building on the side facing the fire.

  "My guys have to get paid," the big fireman back on the ground is saying quietly but firmly. "They have families to feed. Mortgages to pay. Water bills."

  As the men argue, occasional flaming pieces of tinder burst from the house onto the surroundings. One lands near the little girl and frightens the cat. Suddenly and quickly, forcefully, the cat struggles and squirms, bursting from her arms in a leap. It races full speed away from the fire, towards the hotel lawn where Nick and Marie sit on the picturesque bench. The little girl runs after the cat. The woman comes chasing after the little girl, baby transferred instantaneously to her shoulder, where she clutches it tightly as she runs.

  The girl catches up with the cat next to a medium size oak tree not far from the bench where the two politicians sit. The cat stops and rubs itself against the rough bark of the tree, turning back to look at the girl, purring. The girl stoops to pick it up. She holds it close in her arms. Soothing the cat with long strokes, she comes over and installs herself on the bench, next to Marie. Marie moves away reflexively, closer to Nick. About that time the mother arrives, and Nick rises to greet her.

  "Nick B. Wright," he introduces himself with a practiced grin. "Always happy to meet a voter." He stretches out his hand to shake hers, but she only stares at the outstretched hand. "What might your name be?" he asks, unperturbed. He wants to touch her, even if it's only a handshake for now.

  Marie dislikes both children and cats, and she dislikes attractive young women even more. She rises quickly to introduce herself, offering an outstretched hand, hoping to interfere with Nick's maneuvers by distracting the woman. That, she realizes, is something they don't need right now: Nick getting himself into trouble with a woman before the elections next November.

  The cat is perhaps frightened again by the sudden movement, or maybe it simply returns Marie’s animosity. In any case it hisses and darts out its claws in a quick sure motion, scratching Marie’s outstretched hand. Then the cat bolts off again, towards the hotel, with the child on its heels. Marie shrieks in disgust and recoils. The woman looks at them both for only an instant and takes off without ceremony in pursuit of the child and the cat.

  "You okay?" Nick asks.

  Marie makes a guttural disgusted sound and shakes herself like a wet lap dog. "It's time for us to be in the convention," she says. "You're on stage soon." So saying, she walks off regally toward the hotel, expecting Nick to follow her. He watches the swaying motion of her hips for a minute as she walks away, then follows as expected.

  Inside the hotel, Marie retires quickly to a ladies room to tend to the scratch on her hand. She has a small bottle of liquid bandage in her purse, like a small bottle of clear nail varnish. The scratch isn't bleeding, but it’s starting to flush, with a bright red line down its center. She applies the clear liquid over the scratch with the little brush in the bottle cap, and almost immediately it seals the wound. She feels a slight stinging, but the redness soon begins to fade. Wonderful stuff, that liquid bandage, she thinks to herself, calmed by having dealt with the situation, feeling in control again. She watches the wound dry in the air, turning the hand this way and that so the varnished patch catches the light. In a few minutes nobody will even notice the scratch. When it seems dry, she applies a coat of skin tone over it from a lipstick-like beige make-up stick. There, good as new, she congratulates herself again.

  She turns to the mirror and smoothes her hair, then applies an unneeded refresher to her lipstick and makeup. She flashes herself a big smile and looks at the perfect white teeth her parents paid to have straightened, and she now pays to have whitened regularly. They rea
lly do look a lot like pearls, she thinks to herself, glancing back and forth between her pearl necklace and her smile. She smoothes her hair again and turns to go rejoin the convention. Someone has to keep an eye on Nick, she sighs.

  The lobby is a party of red white and blue balloons, bright banners and upbeat music. She quickly catches up with Nick. It's a big crowd, and everyone is well dressed. The hairstyles and makeup look like they've been done for magazine covers. Maybe they have. A lot of these people reasonably expect that their photos might be taken anytime, and the photos might turn up anywhere. The two politicians walk quickly, but not too quickly, through the milling supporters and fellow crusaders. Marie holds back at the end while Nick makes a grand entrance through the massive double doors that stand open.

  Banners proclaim pithy slogans like "Be right with Nick" and "Wright to Work," celebrating the Right to Work cause the pair have attached themselves to.

  By "Right to Work," of course, they mean "break up the labor unions." Big corporations have been pouring big donations not only into the party, but into his personal campaign fund, all in the hope and faith that Nick Wright is the man who can prevent workers from trying to start labor unions where now there are none, and break the power of unions already in existence. Collective bargaining is a nightmare for the oligarchy. They want the freedom to be able to hire and fire workers at will, and not be bothered by the restraints of safety regulations or other nonsense about working conditions. With Nick's charm and rhetoric behind them, it looks more and more like they might soon get their wish on a national level.

  When the band leader catches sight of Nick making his way to the stage, the band strikes up his signature variation on "Johnny Be Good," which has been altered just enough to dodge the copyright. The crowd chants "Nicky Be Right". Confetti is thrown from balconies and cascades down over the crowd like wedding rice. Balloons are released from nets. He ascends the stage amid wild cheering and faces the crowd, both arms raised like a sports star.

  "I come before you today," he begins, adjusting the microphone, holding up his right hand as if to quiet the crowd. In fact he thrives on the admiration and affection, and is in no hurry for it to end. Still, he raises his hand higher, and raises his voice louder, repeating, "I come before you today." The crowd quiets a little, and he continues, "not as a candidate, but as a fellow CRUSADER." His loud emphasis on the word crusader, followed by a pause, signals the supporters to explode again into cheers.

  Marie wanders over to the food tables. It's not time for her appearance onstage yet, and she's seen Nick's act plenty of times. She may as well try the appetizers.

  The otherwise air-conditioned room is adrift in smells of little cakes and fancy confections, backed by an undertone of solidly American food like hot dogs, fried chicken, and popcorn, overlaid on the lighter scents of expensive perfume and after-shave. Marie doesn't like hot dogs or popcorn, but they look great in photos that might appear in magazines to be seen by the base. The fried chicken she doesn't mind eating, but it isn't immediately recognizable in photos, and it's a little messy to eat. What she wants is a slice of chocolate mousse cake, but she settles on a small piece of Godiva chocolate.

  "Every American," Nick is thundering from the podium. "EVERY American CITIZEN," he shouts, enunciating clearly and punctuating every pause by thumping his fist, "has an absolute, inalienable, self-evident, Natural right to work. WITHOUT red tape. WITHOUT government interference." Cheers come from the crowd again. "Without regulation. Without joining some UNION, and WITHOUT TAXES!"

  At that big cheers arise, mixed with cowboy-like whooping and hollering.

  Marie glances towards the stage as she takes a popsicle-shaped chocolate ice cream on a stick. A flashbulb lights up her face as she brings it to her lipsticked lips. Not sure what message that sends, she thinks. Since it's pure American ice cream from a Midwestern dairy state, it will probably net out okay on the spin. It helps that the wrapper was still partly in place: a red, white and blue wrapper.

  Soon enough, amid another giddy tide of cheering, the time comes for Marie Mallon to ascend the stage.

  "And now I give you," Nick announces, "our grand lady, Marie Mallon!" He reaches out and grasps her outstretched hand as she takes the last few steps up. She accepts the proffered microphone and waits for the cheers to die down. Like Nick, she is in no hurry for the cheering to end.

  "I thought I was still a little too young to be a grand lady," Marie opens, to scattered laughter. "But I'm delighted to see you all here," She adds, to scattered clapping. "We've come a long way," she continues, sounding more serious.

  She pauses about seven seconds to let them contemplate how far they've come. Then she adds, "but we have a long way still to go!" This is met with applause, but the clapping is not as energetic as she'd like.

  "What we have done," she backs up to more generally appreciated ground, "is nothing short of miraculous." Bigger applause to that. After about three seconds she adds, "With the help of the Lord," and that gets even bigger applause.

  "We have put an almost complete halt to government attempts to control our bodies through mandatory vaccinations, public health 'Services', and birth control -- which should really be called death control." Laughter and applause fill the room before she continues, "And we have finally put an end to the wanton desecration of human embryos – embryos made in our Lord’s image! The desecration that our opponents liked to call 'research' -- stem cell 'research' -- stem cells from unborn human babies!"

  The applause grows steadily louder, mixed with enthusiastic hollering. She continues, "The NIH is gone. The CDC is gone," then switches track a little to add, more enthusiastically, "and the EPA is gone." That brings more robust cheers and whoops. "We have almost abolished public programs like Medicaid that encouraged weakness and dependency and were a magnet for illegal immigrants. Programs that taxed your paychecks and sapped our resources. We are FREE of that now. Because of YOUR efforts. YOUR hard work. How about a big cheer for our supporters, our fellow crusaders?" The crowd breaks into excited applause and hurrahs. That should get them into the mood to cheer for the next suggestion.

  "It is time," she continues after the crowd settles a bit, but not too much. "The time is now. Time to unshackle employers and workers alike from union-mandated health insurance!" More giddy cheering from the audience. "Are you with me?" she asks, and repeats it twice, cheerleader style, to ever louder shouts of affirmation. "There is another constitutional amendment coming up on the ballot next November," she loudly announces what they already know. She almost shouts the final sentence: "It is our job to pass that amendment!"

  Nick joins her at the podium, and they raise clasped hands in a victory gesture. Both smile the stilted practiced smiles that sell their act so well. More confetti appears from the rafters, catching the spotlights like glitter as it falls. "Pass the 37th Amendment!" Nick shouts, and Marie echoes the words. The crowd whoops and hollers ecstatically. More balloons are released.

  She would like to repeal Medicare too, but that can wait. It is still the most difficult bastion to assail, and she knows that she needs much more support before she can attack it. Repealing the bans on child labor will be even harder. Surely children have as much right to work as anyone else, she thinks to herself, but the people aren't ready to hear it yet. She can bide her time. Her support is growing every day.

  "Get out the vote!" Nick shouts to the crowd.

  Marie grins a big smile and waves to the crowd with both hands. "Yes on 37," She screams at the top of her voice, followed by an expansive come-on-everybody gesture with both arms. She repeats both the gesture and the words with contagious and convincing enthusiasm.

  "Yes on 37!" they shout back, and "Wright to Work!"

  The band strikes up Nick's signature tune again. Anyone in the crowd who still has confetti launches it into the air as the pair march triumphantly back down from the dais into the e
xcited crowd, shaking hands all around as they progress. Another successful appearance.