“Well, that’s what they do too. I mean, we’d likely end up just like them.”
“For everybody then. Work for everybody.”
Mutt nods, looking pleased. He’s gotten his friend talking again. Possibly the pills have helped. Possibly the tide has turned, and they are past the deep ebb in his health.
“But how?” Mutt asks, nudging the tide.
But you can’t push the river. “How should I know? That’s what I tried, and look where it got us. I tried to just do it direct. But I’m the idea man and you’re the facilitator. Isn’t that how it usually worked with us? I would have a crazy idea and you would figure out how to implement it.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Sure you do. So look, I had some fixes. I tried to tap into the system and make the fixes directly. Maybe it was stupid. Okay, it was stupid. It got us here, I’m guessing, and they could always just change the fixes back again anyway. So it was never going to work. I guess I was a little crazy then.”
Mutt sighs.
“I know!” Jeff says. “But tell me how! Tell me how we could do it! Because we’re not the only ones who need these fixes. Everyone needs them.”
Mutt doesn’t know what to say, but on the other hand he has to say something, to keep Jeff going. So he says, “Jeff, these are laws you’re talking about here. They aren’t just fixes, they’re like new laws. So, laws are made by lawmakers. We elect them. But, you know, companies pay for their campaigns, so they say they’re going to work for us, but once in office they work for the companies. It’s been that way a long time. Of the companies, by tools, for the companies.”
“But what about the people?”
“You can either believe that voting lawmakers into office means they work for you, so you keep voting, or you can admit that doesn’t work, and quit voting. Which doesn’t work either.”
“So okay, that’s why I tried to jam the fixes in there as a hack!”
“I know.”
“Tell me how we can do it better!”
“I’m thinking. I guess I’d say, we have to try a onetime takeover of the existing legislative bodies, and pass a bunch of laws that put people back in charge.”
“Onetime takeover? Isn’t that like, revolution? Are you saying we need a revolution?”
“Well, no.”
“No? It sounds to me like yes.”
“But no. I mean—yes and no.”
“Thank you for that! Such clarity!”
“What I mean is, if you use the currently existing legal system to vote in a group of congresspeople who actually pass laws to put people back in charge of lawmaking, and they do it, and there’s a president who signs those laws, and a Supreme Court that allows they are legal, and an army that enforces them, then—I mean, is that a revolution?”
Jeff is silent for a long time. Finally he says, “Yes. It’s a revolution.”
“But it’s legal!”
“All the better, right?”
“Sure, granted.”
“But so then, how do you get that Congress and president elected?”
“Politics, I guess. You tell the better story, and run candidates who will do what you say.”
“They would have to be Democrats, because third parties always lose. They screw the party closest to them, that’s the American way.”
“Okay, even better. Already existing party. Just win.”
“So it’s just politics, you’re telling me.”
“I guess so.”
“Jeez no wonder I tried to hack the system! Because your solution totally sucks!”
“Well at least it’s legal. If it worked, it would work.”
“Thank you for that wisdom. I am wondering now if all the great wisdom is as tautological as that. I fear maybe so. But no. No, Muttnik. You need to think again. This solution of yours is no solution at all. I mean people have been trying it for three hundred years, whatever, and it has only gotten worse and worse.”
“There have been ups and downs. There has been progress.”
“And here we are.”
“Okay, granted. Here we are.”
“So come up with something new.”
“I’m trying!”
Again Jeff is silent. He’s had to exert himself to talk this much, it’s been more than he has in him to give, and now he’s looking exhausted. Weary to the bone. Sick to death of seeing what he is seeing in his vision of the world.
After a while Mutt says, “Jeff? Are you awake?”
After a while Jeff rouses. “Don’t know. I’m really tired.”
“Hungry?”
“Don’t know.”
“I have some crackers here.”
“No.” Long pause; possibly Jeff is weeping here. Weeping or sleeping, or both. Finally he rouses himself, makes an effort. “Tell me a story. I told you to tell me a story.”
“I thought I was.”
“Tell me a story I can believe.”
“That’s harder. But okay… Well, once upon a time, there was a country across the sea, where everyone tried their best to make a community that worked for everyone.”
“Utopia?”
“New York. Everyone was equal there. Men, women, children, and people you couldn’t say what they were. All the various skin tones, and wherever you came from before, it didn’t matter. In this new place you made it all new, and people were just people, meant to be equal, and to treat each other respectfully at all times. It was a good place. Everyone liked living there. And they saw that it was a beautiful place to begin with, incredible really, the harbor, and from east to west it was just one beautiful place after another, with animals and fish and birds in such profusion that sometimes when flocks of birds flew overhead they darkened the day. You couldn’t see the sun or the sky, it was so full of birds. When the fish came back up the rivers to spawn, you could walk across the streams on their backs. That kind of thing. The animals ran in the millions. There was a forest that covered everything. Lakes and rivers to die for. Mountains you couldn’t believe. It was a gift to have such a land given to you.”
“Why didn’t anyone live there before?” Jeff asks from out of his sleep.
“Well, that’s another story. Actually there were people there already, I have to say, but alas they didn’t have immunity to the diseases that the new people brought with them, so most of them died. But the survivors joined this community and taught the newcomers how to take care of the land so that it would stay healthy forever. That’s the story I’m telling you now. It took knowing every rock and plant and animal and fish and bird, that was the way they did it. You had to love the land the way you loved your mother, or in case you didn’t love your mother, the way you loved your child, or yourself. Because it was you anyway. It took knowing all the other parts of your self so well that nothing was misunderstood or exploited, and everything was treated respectfully. Every single element of this land, right down to the bedrock, was a citizen of the community they all made together, and they all had legal standing, and they all made a good living, and they all had everything it took for total well-being for everything. That’s what it was like. Hey, Jeff? Jeff? Well, the end, I guess.”
Because Jeff is now lying there peacefully snoring. The story has put him to sleep. A kind of lullaby, it has turned out to be. A tale for children.
And then, because Jeff is asleep and cannot see it, Mutt puts his face in his hands and cries.
PART FIVE
ESCALATION OF COMMITMENT
As a free state, New York would probably rise to heights of very genuine greatness.
Bedrock in the area is mostly gneiss and schist. Then a widespread overlay of glacial till. Minerals to be found include garnet, beryl, tourmaline, jasper, muscovite, zircon, chrysoberyl, agate, malachite, opal, quartz; also silver; also gold.