“Damn, all you do is watch the news all day.”
“Maybe there’ll be something about—”
Jesse Hatch was answering questions from reporters.
Q: “Mr. President, are you telling us that Robert Krantz developed this whole scheme, that nobody in the White House knew about it?”
A: “That’s right, he was going to explode neutron bombs on Miami, New York, and other cities with large concentrations of surps, and blame it on our ally, Nigeria, and then destroy some nuclear generators in Nigeria.” Nance looked at Krantz. “It’s not true, he’s lying,” Krantz said. Krantz and Saturday kept their eyes trained on the set.
Q: “Bob Krantz was brought into the White House by Reverend Clement Jones. Has Reverend Jones been informed of this development?”
A: “Reverend Jones is really disturbed about the news, ladies and gentlemen, and he’s shocked that Krantz has usurped the power of the Oval Office.”
“That can’t be so, Jones was in on the plan from the beginning,” Krantz pleaded. The camera switched to Reverend Jones. He seemed to be near tears as he told the reporters how Krantz had been like a son to him, and how he was so disappointed that Krantz had gotten involved in such a nutty scheme. Krantz turned off the television set. He sat in a chair, gazing out the window. Nance went over and placed a hand on his shoulder. There was a knock at the door. Nance answered. It was a man. He and Nance talked for a minute, as Krantz sat in the living room of the two-bedroom apartment. Nance and the man disappeared into a room that Nance referred to as his “office.” There was a procession of people into the apartment all morning. Men and women. Women with children and babies. This went on until about twelve noon, when Nance said he had to start making his runs to La Guardia.
27
Nola Payne, Supreme Court Justice, wasn’t able to finish her address before the National Association for the Advancement of Feminists. She was heckled and treated rudely by those who had fought to make her the second female Justice on the Supreme Court, having become disillusioned with the first one, among whose first decisions was one holding that President Nixon was above the law. Nola was accused, by the feminists, of voting on the side of the patriarchy ninety-nine percent of the time and having abandoned those who had made her.
A questioner had asked Nola about her statement in an op-ed printed in the New York Exegesis that women had been crippled by their former oppression and that now was time for a new feminist responsibility and a mature feminism. That the feminists hadn’t proven that they had gone beyond the phase of rage and storm. That their problems weren’t being imposed from the outside.
She said that they could no longer blame their problems on sexism, but now had to look to themselves, to their own self-destructive behavioral patterns for an explanation for their failure. That the society had become gender blind. She said that they had to change their culture, give up their clinging to men, their Cinderella fixation, their addiction to dependency so that men would accept them. She said that if men discriminated against them — maybe it was their fault.
A woman got up and called her a middle-class bourgeois bitch. When she said something good about her male colleagues on the court they called her a traitor and started to boo her. Somebody asked her about the court’s scheduled review of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Dred Scott Decision. She said that the court just wanted to take another look at them, and when someone quoted Reverend Jones’s speech quoting Genesis:9 that slavery was a good thing, and that it solved the unemployment problem, and that he needed some hands around his house to help his wife with her watercolors, she said that Reverend Jones didn’t have a racist or sexist bone in his body, and that blacks, gays, Asians, and other surps were not carrying their weight, and that this was the reason for the West’s decline. Tumult erupted and Nola Payne had to leave by the back entrance. As her chauffeur drove her home she took more than a few swigs from a flask of bourbon she carried around. By the time she reached home, her blood alcohol content was way above that of the legal limit. He had to help her up the steps of her lavish Georgian home, and her maid had to undress her and help her into her nightgown.
Her face was puffy and red. Her blue-tinted hair was becoming unglued. Her round, soft stomach felt like Beirut, Lebanon. The feminists, her former allies, had especially given her a hard time when she announced her support for the Conversion Bill; she said that those who did not pledge allegiance to Reverend Jones’s brand of Christianity should be deported.
Why did women hate her so? Why couldn’t they understand that the 90s demanded responsible feminism? One that had serious issues to deal with, one that had gone beyond bra burning, sexual preference, and abortion on demand. She had to show that she could take it like a man. Could support tradition and values. That it wasn’t like the old days when they were in the Village. Times were more complicated. And what was wrong with a Christian country? Reverend Jones’s ideas were a little bit bizarre, but somebody had to stand up against the excesses of the last thirty years.
The maid peeked into the bedroom where Nola lay stretched out on her big bed. Sometimes the maid would find fifteen or sixteen whiskey bottles underneath her bed, or in the closet.
“Your Honor,” the maid said.
“Yes, what is it, Maria?”
“Would you like something before I go, Señora?”
“No, Maria, I think that I’ll just get some sleep.”
“Those women treated you awful, Madame. I saw it on television. All of that pushing and shoving. It’s amazing that you were not hurt, Madame.”
“Thanks, Maria.” The woman started out the door. “You have plans for this evening?” Nola asked.
“We’re having a Xmas party, just members of my family.”
“That must be nice.”
“Yes, Señora. I must go now. Merry Xmas, Señora.”
“Merry Xmas, Maria.”
She went to sleep. It began to rain. Shango hammered the sky. She awoke about one a.m. and put her hand on the table. Someone was calling her name. Nooolllaaa. Nooolllaaa. The French doors to the bedroom swung open. She could see the lights of Washington in the distance. She sat up. She went to close the French doors. She hated being all alone in the house. At fifty she was still young, and some men found her attractive when she was sober, but there was no time for dates. She was all work. She drove her law clerks seven days a week, and since she had become Chief Justice, she worked even harder. She was in her bed alright, but it seemed to be suspended. She wasn’t alone in the room. “Who’s there,” she called. She could make out a man in black robes. His back was turned to her. She could make out some of the words he was saying. “Yet fear, still more, the still fearful doom / That takes the richest of heaven’s slighted gifts / And leaves thy body and thy soul in darkness / To roam the earth a senseless corpse, or gives thee / Before thy time, to the tormenting fiends / Such was my crime — with life, health, reason blest / And heart with rapture glowing, I looked round / Such was my punishment; the beam from heaven / That pours its light into the mind of man / Was suddenly extinguished, and a shroud / Darker than that of death, enveloped all / Within me and around me. In this gloom / Peopled with specters, filled with scenes terrific / How long I lived — of the dread agony / Could life be called — I know not. To the dead / and the condemned. Time measures not his steps / And every moment seems eternity.”
The poor man turned to her. She started to scream but the specter seemed harmless. It was shimmering in a pale green light. She could identify his face, wrinkled, gaunt and crawling with maggots. There was a huge hickey located above his eye. He wore a wig which had become the home for many insects. It was Judge Taney, the man who had been a Supreme Court justice when Dred Scott came before the court, in 1857. The case of Sullivan vs. Scott where a slave sued his master for freedom after the master transported him into a free territory.