When he hung up, he explained to Moses the real reason for her call. “The bigwigs in her party offered her a spot on the new Committee on Anti-American Activities. She’s ambivalent. Her libertarian and ‘security’ instincts clash.”
The repeal of the laws that allowed the CAA to investigate and legally incarcerate American citizens by a star-chamber-like process, along with rewording and perverting the original intention of the Cyber Safety Acts, were central to the Nightingale Party’s mission.
“You kind of like her, don’t you?”
“She’s more thoughtful, and funnier, than those on our side think. Sometimes she panders too much, and I wish she were a little less—”
“Intolerant? Anti-Islamic?”
“Rigid. Mose, she and I could be a formidable team. Don’t go apoplectic. Never going to happen. We’d never agree on who should be on top”—a wisp of a smile crossed his lips—“of the ticket …” Moses laughed. “Mose, I got a more serious question. What do you think of shifting tactics, so I go for California governor next year? I can win. Then we go presidential in ’24.”
“I’m thinking it’s an idea to consider for not very long. Unless it’s a total disaster, the ’20 election sets the stage for ’24. If you run for president and don’t win, that’s expected — we go again in ’24. Run for governor and don’t win — you’re branded a ‘loser.’ If anything, having no record is better than a blemished one. What brought this up?”
“I got a feeler from the Independence for California peeps. They already have a half million signatures for the ballot initiative. They’ll file when they reach a million. They’re in search of a standard-bearer with name recognition and clout.”
“If that’s the case, then this is the worst idea since the initiative to make California six states. IFC wants California, Washington, and Oregon to secede and get Vancouver to join in a union to form a loose association with the U.S. and Canada.”
“I know what they want.”
“Then how can you?… It’s akin to the Articles of Confederation, which failed. It’s nuts. Impossible.”
“Really?!”
Moses always marveled that in Alchemy’s world “impossible” did not exist. He also saw that instead of getting tired, he was getting juiced and ready to riff deep into the night.
“Okay, Mose.” He was standing now and circling around the room. “I’ll talk to Winslow about the tape and IFC when I’m back in L.A. Get me more info on IFC and who’s giving them money.”
“Sure. I’ll do some other research, too.”
“But Mose, follow my reasoning here. You’re the one who told me America is fracturing. That the three West Coast states have more common interests and beliefs than their neighbors in Arizona, Nevada, and Idaho. You’re the one who said the three coastal states are among the best options for ringing up good numbers. That’s fifty, sixty million people, and they have an economy that would rank among the largest in the world. Didn’t you say that somehow these rifts need to be repaired or it could lead to permanent fractures? If I’m gov when it cracks …”
“I said maybe in fifty or a hundred years, because all empires run their courses. Not in five or ten years. I believe you can begin the repair we need now.”
“Revolutionary change starts in the head, but it’s the feet that make it happen. One can look back a thousand years easier than forward fifty. Be futurific and march forward.”
Alchemy closed his eyes and seemed suddenly far away.
“Alchemy, what? Where are you? Say what you’re thinking.”
“That shit with Louise and the Muslims. Makes me crazy, too. But all this religious posturing has made the line separating church and state all but disappear. I’m going to make it reappear. Whether it’s for governor or prez, you know it’s going to come up again and again. I want to get out in front of it. And ‘spiritual but not religious’ is liberal bogusocity.”
Moses was beyond wanting to argue with his brother. He wanted to go to bed, but Alchemy was in the zone.
“Mose, you’re a progressive politically. But a true progressive has to make leaps in every direction. You still can’t extinguish that niggling belief. I said belief, not doubt. Ninety, ninety-five percent of the time you don’t believe in God, but a secret little piece of you still isn’t sure.”
“I doubt, therefore I am.” A slight deprecating smile crossed Moses’s face.
“I doubt, but still act, therefore I am. We’re forty, fifty years into the new world of the digital age, and with the right vision we are on the cusp of a new political and social order. It took Christianity two hundred and fifty, three hundred and fifty years to become the historical force that dominated the last seventeen hundred years. Within seventy-five years of Gutenberg’s invention, Luther and the Protestant Reformation took hold and undid the monolithic power of Catholicism in a timeframe that seemed, to them, unimaginably fast. The quantum revolution is not the future — it’s the present. We’re not in the Industrial Age anymore. It’s the Cyber Age, and ‘cyberplowshares’ can take us to a new era where religion and nationalism are as archaic as idol worship and the steam engine. A man or a woman working with a binary device, not some papyrus or Gutenberg Bible — a believer in humankind’s power and intelligence, will lead us to a Promised Land without God. Or to extinction.”
75 MEMOIRS OF A USELESS GOOD-FOR-NUTHIN’
Ringolevio One Two Three, 2016 — 2017
I send Salome flowers and a note that I am truly sorry about Nathaniel. I also thank her for being Salome, ’cause Carlotta Solano ain’t like most of the women I dated. She likes people and people like her, and she is as sweet as I am not sweet. She’s thirty-one and never been married. Not a rock ’n’ roll chick. Not even a fan of the Insatiables. We click in and out of bed, and she ain’t no honey trap counting my bankrolls.
Her parents are still married and live in the same house in Cucamonga they bought when she was born. Her father works in a local air conditioning/heating repair business and her mom worked part time at the local school so she could be home with the kids. Carlotta moved to Eagle Rock after goin’ to U.C. Riverside. Brother works in the AC business. They don’t treat me either special or like a scumbag who is boffin’ their daughter.
I feel like I swallowed a redbrick sandwich the day I propose. She jumps like ten feet in the air, which is the fucking answer I been waiting for. Carlotta don’t want some Entertainment Weekly—style shindig with a fire-eating mariachi band and parachuting mermaids as bridesmaids. We get hitched over the Memorial Day weekend in her folks’ backyard. Her dad won’t let me pay for zip. I nix a church ceremony but I find a priest who agrees to perform the service for a donation. I invite my sister and my mom. Carlotta talks me into inviting my dad. I do not invite my brother. I warn them all to behave, which is like asking a monkey not to shit in the jungle. Ricky Jr., Lux, and Alchy is my best men and witnesses.
After dinner, Carlotta’s pop makes a real nice toast. He asks if anyone else wants to make one, and Salome stands up. That gets me Nadling at super speed.
“I believe that the institution of marriage should be abolished, yet, as the matchmaker of this union, I accept the blame.”
My mother blurts out, “I’ll remind ya a that when Ricky fucks up.” Carlotta is sitting between me and her mom and I see her squeeze her mom’s hand.
“He won’t, but if he does, they met at my son’s house.”