Altered America (18 page)

             
She is poised to tell me, to enlighten me, when a streak of light hurtles out from the bush beyond the house and into the jeep.  An explosion demolishes the vehicle, smashes it to broken shards, converts PFC Watts from a living, breathing human being to a splatter of scorched flesh and fluids.

             
Corporal Hidalgo lifts his rifle to his shoulder and shoots at this woman who is virtually touching me.  I’m sure I hear the bullets zipping by.  How he misses at this range I can’t imagine.  Perhaps the marijuana has affected his accuracy, but I will not be able to ask him about it, because a dark red splotch punctuates the front of his jacket.  He sags to the ground and is shot again as white and black-clothed figures emerge from the trees and run briskly towards me.

             
The woman is already running to her screaming children. She scoops the girl up under one arm and drags the boy back toward the house as fast as they can move.

             
I decide to raise my hands. 

             
The men surround me, levelling their Kalashnikovs at me, their short, ragged breaths visible in the low afternoon sun.  So much for
that
myth.  One barks, “Stupid American—what are you doing?”

             
“I’m a journalist, working on a story,” I say.

             
“Here?  Now?”

             
“This is where the story’s at, man.  Have you got time for a few questions?”

             
The three of them in line of sight trade funny looks.  “A couple of minutes—then we need to go,” one replies.  “Helicopters, you know.”  They lower their weapons; one starts to search Corporal Hidalgo’s body, taking his rifle as a first step.

             
“Yeah, cool.  First question:  What does P.I.E.R.R.E stand for?”

             
The man frowns.  “He stands for freedom and peace!  Isn’t that right, Pierre?”

             
“Oui!” says the guerrilla on his left.

             
“Is it true that you guys don’t leave tracks in the snow?”

             
“...What?” one asks.

             
“Yes,” the guerrilla on the right interjects.  He doesn’t actually sound French.  “But only when we don’t want to.”

             
“Clever,” I note.  “Do you have a message for America?”

             
“Oui,” the apparent leader says.  “Eh... go back to your homeland, for... we will fight to the last man. We will slip across the border and blend in with you. We will kill you in your homes and shopping malls and restaurants. We will bring the war to you. The Arctic Front is coming, and we will bury you."

             
“Oooh, trés bien,” the guerrilla on the left remarks.

             
“Merci.”

             
“Okay,” I say, “And any thoughts on what just happened here?”

             
“When armed men stop to harass children, we act.”

             
“Now Hidalgo and Watts are dead,” I note.

             
“They should not have stopped.”

             
“They stopped because I asked them to stop,” I say.

             
He shrugs.  “Then you should not have asked them to stop.  This may only be a story to you, but it is our existence.”

             
One of the men behind me mutters something.

             
The leader nods.  “We need to go.  When your countrymen come, remember that the woman and the children had nothing to do with this.”  

             
“Okay,” I say.

             
They turn and jog back into the forest, where I quickly lose sight of them.  I turn slowly, surveying my surroundings; the woman is peering at me from the window of her house, the destroyed jeep is burning, Corporal Hidalgo is cooling, and there’s still a lot of trees. 

             
I wait for something to happen.

             
Something does happen—I come down from the high. 

             
This different perspective gnaws at me.  I’ve just watched two men die violent, horrific deaths, and the guerrilla’s not wrong—I carry some responsibility for it.  What am I really doing here?  Why have I been wasting this opportunity for real reporting with a half-assed imitation of somebody else’s half-assed style?

             
How do I climb back onto that shining path?

             
I have a vague sense of that first step when four helicopters arrive ten minutes later.  They circle around a few times and I raise my hands again.  Two of the birds bank steeply and land carefully on the road, the downwash of their rotors hammering at me and whipping away the smoke from the jeep.  They disgorge a dozen or so of my heavily armed countrymen while the other helicopters fly around, probably looking for the guerrillas.

             
“Who’re you?” one of the soldiers asks.  His nose wrinkles and he looks disgusted with me.

             
I tell him. 

             
“Bullshit.”

             
“No, seriously,” I say.  “Lemme show you my ID.”  He nods and I fish out my wallet.

             
“I’ll be damned,” he mutters after a look at my driver’s licence.

             
A teenaged soldier runs up to him at that point.  “Sir, they’re both dead.  Sarge wants to know if you want the place burned.”

             
“Is that a standard military tactic?” I interject.

             
The officer stares at me in a most unsettling way.  It answers my question, and raises an entirely new one about what happens to pesky journalists asking awkward questions.

             
“Because I wouldn’t mind warming up,” I add.  “It’s freakin’ cold out here, man.”

             
The officer seems to relax just a shade.  “No,” he says with a tight-lipped smile.  “No, we certainly do not burn down civilian homes.  That’d be a war crime, wouldn’t it?  Private, kindly tell the sergeant that his joke is ill-timed given that we have a
reporter
in our midst.”

             
The teen eyeballs me.  I introduce myself yet again.  “Holy,” he says.

             
“Private, go,” the officer growls.  The teen turns and runs to catch up with a trio of soldiers approaching the house.  “What happened?” he inquires of me.

             
“Pierre, man,” I reply.  “We stopped to talk with the kids here and
bang
.  It’s a wonder they didn’t kill all of us.”

             
“What were you doing with them?  And why are you here?”

             
“Seein’ the scene, man.  Telling the people what they need to know.”

             
“I see...” he says thoughtfully.  “And what’ve you got to tell them?”

             
It seems imprudent to answer that our troops can be bribed with drugs, that Pierre is for real, and that the locals hate us.  It’s an honest answer, but for now, not the correct answer.  I answer, “These Canadians are weird, man.  All their curses are based on religious stuff and I’ve got the most amazing story about a drunken priest, a moose, and a snowmobile.”

             
“Uh huh,” he murmurs.  “Well, if you’ll just stay out of the way, Sir, we’ll be collecting our fallen comrades and departing.”

             
“Yeah, sure thing.  Any chance I could hitch a ride back to the base, talk to the guys?”

             
He seems a bit bewildered by the request.  I’m assuming he doesn’t want to show up at his base with an unexpected journalist in tow, even if I sound harmlessly stoned.  I just want to make it easier for him to reach that conclusion.  “No, sir, I don’t have authorization to allow civilians on my machines.  You’ll have to walk.”  He points off to the left.  “The nearest town is six or seven miles that way.”

             
“Bummer,” I say.  “But thanks for the directions, man.  They’re really helpful.”

             
He nods and heads back to his ride.  I light a cigarette and watch his men load a black body bag onto each of the helicopters.  I wave as they lift off into the crisp air and head west toward Ottawa.

             
The woman’s house still stands; she is once again peeking at me from behind the curtains of her front window.  There’s nothing more to gain from hanging around here. I’ve gotten that first step out of the way and need to continue along the shining path.

             
I toss my smoke into a snow bank and start walking.

The Union Forever

by Sean Menken

              There are times when a man deserves a drink, and there are times when a man
needs
a drink. Joseph Dalton thought he belonged in the first category, but as the night went on and more reports came in it was clear that he was in the second category. Everyone knew going into Election Day that it was going to be a close one, but it had seemed that he had managed to eke out a win for the National Party. Instead, the seats that were supposed to be safe had been closer to the margin, which didn’t bode well for the races that were supposed to be close.

             
His poor mood was compounded by the poor mood of everyone else at the party headquarters. The festivity had died down and now everyone was huddled around the wave receivers or phones waiting to hear the next result. The far end of the wall had a giant chalkboard that was keeping tally of the new government. There were still eight races that had yet to be called, and those eight races would determine the fate of the state. While the National Party and its coalition partners had managed to keep control of at least one branch of the government. The first disappointment of the night had been an early result in the governor’s race for the Liberty Party.

             
Another race was called, this one in Baltimore County for the Liberty Party. At this point Joseph stopped drinking—the way things were going he needed a clear head more than he needed something to comfort him. The Liberty Party only needed three more seats to take the legislature with a supermajority. He wasn’t the only one who needed to have a clear head and walked around the hotel ballroom to make sure that some others had stopped drinking as well.

             
Jimmy and Danny Bach were watching the vote board, no doubt trying to figure out if they could trade anything to keep the legislature. The two weren’t known for drinking prematurely—or drinking at all, for that matter—but Joseph still wanted to check on them to see if the results had pushed. “You two come up with anything?” he leaned in close to ask them, so as to not draw any unwanted attention.

             
“Not yet” Danny replied.

             
Without missing a beat Jimmy chimed in, “Everyone we could talk to lost, slim chance that we might be able to work something out, but it’s far more likely that we’ll have to rely upon your plan.”

             
The other person he needed to talk to was hoarding one of the phones near the wall and tapping his fingers on the table rhythmically. “How you holding up, Mario?”

             
He hadn’t even noticed Joseph approaching him and was broken out of his trance when he heard the question. “Oh you know... it’s the waiting I hate. Makes me think back to Havana and the Spanish. I’m guessing you came around to make sure I was still on board with that plan of yours? Don’t worry about me, you just give the word.”

             
“Glad to hear it. Don’t let the nerves get to you before you get to the carpetbaggers.” He patted Mario on the shoulder and left him. There was nothing to do now but wait. His own coping mechanism was pacing the empty dance floor. If anything changed he would know about it regardless of whether he was near a wave receiver.

             
Five minutes later another race was called, this time for the National Party. It didn’t do anything to lighten the mood. By that point it had been explained to everyone in the room several times what needed to happen. The most celebration that they permitted themselves was a sigh of relief; this was one of the races that they had expected to lose—if this turned out to be the trend for these last few races then they might just pull out a win.

             
A half hour later, the rest of the races were called.  They had fallen one seat short of a safe minority who could stop the Liberty Party from carrying out the central plank of their platform—secession from the Union and joining the CSA. There was only so much that the Nationals could do to stop them and sooner or later it would happen. While most of the crowd either left the ballroom or went to the bar, Joseph walked coldly around the room and gathered his coconspirators.

             
Ever since the founding of the First Republic, it was not an uncommon line of thinking to believe that no matter how well intentioned the opposition was, their policies would be harmful. However, at the end of the day, both sides could agree that there were some fundamental things that both sides held sacred. It was something that had continued to be true in the Second Republic, until the secession of the CSA.  The decision to allow them to leave the Union peacefully had emboldened factions within the remaining United States to seek closer ties with the Confederacy.  The formation of the so-called Liberty Party in Union was merely a front to coax more states into joining the CSA.

             
That was anathema to everything that Joseph Dalton believed in, everything that the USA stood for, and he was determined to stop them from succeeding in their plan by any means necessary. The others felt the same way; they had all shed blood for the Republic. The bitter taste of defeat had never left their mouths from the Great War. They all had a predilection for violence but knew enough that violence had to be applied with precision to do anything helpful. 

             
The only consolation Joseph and the others had was that since it was 1937, Maryland was the only state to have elections this year, so the rot was contained—for now. He and the others walked out of the hotel and went to Joseph’s car. He was unsurprised to find Cassius, his driver and bodyguard, leaning against it.

             
“You haven’t moved this whole time, have you?” Joseph remarked.  “You know you could’ve gone inside at any time.”

             
“Haven’t seen a need to. View is fine from here and it’s an awfully warm night for November. Since you’re all sober, I take it that tonight isn’t a night to celebrate?”

             
Joseph didn’t say anything in response but just walked to the front passenger side door as Cassius got behind the wheel.  Jimmy, Danny, and Mario squeezed in to the back and the rolled down the road. They needed a place that was a bit more secure to discuss what they were doing next. Mario owned a cabin along the Severn River that was secluded, so that was best. They drove in silence and without incident; everyone was absorbed in their own thoughts.  It was the middle of the night when they finally reached the cabin.

             
Everyone in the car was on edge from the uncomfortable, long drive. Their mood wasn’t helped by the unexpected sight of another car already there; its driver was pacing around. Joseph grabbed the gun he kept taped under the front seat before he got out of the car and the others followed him.

             
“Evening,” Joseph called out, taking care to hide the gun from sight as he moved. “Anything we can do to help you?”

             
The pacing stranger stepped towards Joseph and the others and extended his hands in a friendly manner as he began to talk. “Yes, are you Mario Abramo? I have a package for him from a friend in Philly.”

             
“I’m Mario, who’d you say the package was from?” He responded with suspicion in his voice.

             
“It’s from an old childhood friend in Philly. He asked me to drop off the package on my way down south,” the man calmly replied.

             
A smile broke across Mario’s face at the response. “Sorry for making you wait, it’s a long drive. You must be tired, why don’t you come in and relax?” Mario said as he walked towards the front of the cabin.  Everyone eased up upon hearing this and accompanied Mario to his door.

             
The cabin was nicely furnished and spacious enough that everyone was able to sit with comfort. Cassius was the last one to sit as he walked around to make sure there were no unexpected surprises to ruin their little getaway. It was all clean.

             
Mario brewed some coffee and Cassius helped himself to a cup as he sat down in the living room with the others.

             
Joseph took a sip of his drink as everyone made themselves comfortable.  His mind was switching gears, shifting from casual friend to ruthless, methodical leader. “I’ll just skip the pleasantries and get down to the fundamental issue at hand. We’ve all fought for this country and its ideals. We’ve fought for those ideas before and we’re all willing to do so again. Now, the copperheads have won the governor’s race, have a supermajority in the statehouse, and are going to sell out the people of this state to an abomination. The result is that it is now inevitable that the great state of Maryland shall be forcefully torn from the Union sooner or later. This leaves us the question of what do we do now?”

             
The stranger decided to speak up. “I represent certain interests from the capitol who share your sentiments.  Despite their shared sense of patriotism, they wanted me to be absolutely clear; they will not help you commit any acts of violence so long as Maryland remains a part of the Union. It would create... situations we don’t want to deal with.”

             
“Well that’s just fine by us,” Jimmy replied for the group.  “We have no inclination to create those situations.”

             
Joseph nodded agreement. “Yes, we’re here to plan out what happens
after
Maryland leaves the Union, and to get ready for it.  Now, there are three main issues at hand. First, is the political dimension—that’s where Jimmy and Danny come in. We need you to buy us time, any way you can. Sell everything in the house, and then the senate. Our remaining allies will either honor their word and buy us time or they’ll stab us in the back and take what they were going to take anyway. One of the reasons we’re the only ones here is because not everyone is willing to accept the fact these copperheads are really going to do what they campaigned on. There’ll be opposition from Nats—I’ll do what I can to smooth things over—but you’re gonna have to push, hard.”

             
“Shouldn’t be a problem, looks like the new minority leader will be Callahan, he’s a fighter, through and through.” Jimmy replied

             
“And I got plenty of favors I can call into push people.” Danny followed.

             
“All right, good to hear. That brings us to the second issue; there are plenty of people who aren’t going to be treated like people by the CSA. By and large, they’re gonna need help to get out. Where are we on that?”

             
Cassius spoke up. “The problem is that while plenty of people know they should leave, they need something to go to.”

             
The man from Philadelphia interjected. “Some of my syndic associates are looking to expand their operations but need more members. If you can line up people, they can line up a new life for them.”

             
“Great, you two should talk later between yourselves; I want to get to the next item of business so we can wrap this up and get some sleep. The last issue that we have to deal with is the military. It is the sovereign duty of the oppressed to fight against their oppressors. We must arm the people so that they can fight against these oppressors. This is where I’ll be taking point, talking to friends and the like. Now then, before we go to sleep, any questions?”

             
They all shook their heads sleepily. Mario took this as a sign of everyone wanting sleep and pushed himself up out of his chair. He showed them to the cots he had already set up. Despite the coffee, they were all eager to sleep, needing to recuperate from the emotionally and physically draining day. They slept through the day and woke as the moon began to rise.  Newly refreshed, they hammered out the fine details of their plan, again working through the night, coordinating things in finer detail between themselves. As the sun rose, they were all confident in their plans and instead of sleeping they left in order to avoid too much suspicion.

             
It was time to get back to their lives, and prepare.

* * *

              The next year was a flurry of motion, as what history would remember as the
Brutish Dalton Conspiracy
set itself into motion. With the exception of Jimmy and Danny, the men rarely saw one another after that day at the cabin, and they were never
all
together. It only took a year from the election for secession to clear the legislature and be signed into law by the governor. It took only another six months for all the legal issues to be cleared with Philadelphia as well as Charleston. The negotiations were remarkably painless.

             
At the official secession ceremony, the first phase of the plan was executed. A bomb went off that was meant to kill the governor and the Confederate military brass, though it was only a partial success—the lieutenant governor and a few of the guards were the only ones killed. It wasn’t the first sign of resistance that day, as new Confederate authorities were met with hostility around the state. The governor’s first act as leader of the new Confederate state was to declare a state of emergency in the face of this subversive insurgency.