Most Revolutionary - Chapter Thirteen
A Crooked Road
Previously: During an intimate moment in the greenhouse, Sabia and Avery try to avoid Billy the Moto Kid’s spying camera drone. In the Oval Office, Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez and her staff confront the scope of the coup attempt against President Silver. Near the end of a secret meeting in a secluded bar, fired FBI Director Maximilian Castelan levels his gun at Suspended Secret Service Director William Kingsley and vows to clear his name. In the great room underground, Sabia learns that her abuelo Roca suffered a heart attack during Alecta’s visit to the farmhouse. Roca requires immediate hospitalization, forcing Sabia to choose: Roca or Revolution?
MOST REVOLUTIONARY — A SERIALIZED NOVEL
During a killer Iowa blizzard, fearless DAPL militant and radical plant nursery grower Sabia Perez first saves then kidnaps the stranded President of the USA to ransom a better world.
Sabia Perez opens the door to the coal mine bunker. President Kristen Silver holds an iron frying pan like a club in her left hand and with her right hand points a big kitchen knife at Sabia. “What's it gonna be, Sabia?” Silver is certain that she and Ellen Lin will need to fight their way out of the bunker to freedom.
Campaign Manager Ellen Lin steps between Silver and Sabia searching for any sign of rationality in Sabia. Roca leans forward on the cot.
“Everyone, stop!” says Lin. “No street fights! President Silver will not be injured in hand-to-hand combat in a coal mine! Not on my watch!”
“You mean, Silver stop,” says Sabia. “She's the one with the weapons. As usual. Tell her to put that shit down.”
President Silver raises the knife higher. She waggles it at Sabia. “Try me,” she says.
“You've been tried,” says Sabia. “And found guilty every day of the week by the Court of Sabia Perez.”
President Silver cocks the heavy frying pan, then jabs with the knife. “Come at me now.”
Director William Kingsley steps into the Oval Office with hope of being restored into the good graces of Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez.
Standing behind the Resolute Desk with a notepad, a pen, and a few lost thoughts, the Acting President indicates a seat to the suspended Director, a decorous chair.
Kingsley take the seat. The President keeps her distance. She does not seem thrilled by his being.
Alecta moves out from behind the Desk. She paces the length and width of the office. Then she faces Kingsley from a far point by the door. Kingsley feels trapped.
“So I suspend you, Director, and the first thing you do is travel to Iowa with your Deputy Director Grace Lamont to meet Sabia Perez and interview her again. Or, should I say, interrogate.” Alecta paces. “Then you get together with fired coup-plotter FBI Director Maximilian Castelan. Secretly. In a bar. Outside DC.” Alects steps close to Kingsley. “What the fuck are you doing, Bill?”
“It's not-”
“Another coup?”
“No. Wait. Listen-”
“I don't know, Kingsley.” Alecta walks off. She pretends to examine a few papers on the Resolute Desk. Then she comes back to the suspended Director. “Are you trying to give new meaning to the name, ‘Secret Service’? Plainly. You are.”
Kingsley attempts to salvage something. “I was hoping Sabia might tell both me and the Deputy Director-”
“Tell you what, Bill? That she’s holding the President of the United States of America captive in her greenhouse? Really? Because that’s what Sabia said you-”
“That was Lamont. It was a joke. Maybe not a great one.”
“Never mind.” Alecta could not feel more dismissive toward the failed and suspended Secret Service Director. She is not afraid of him. Her staff vetted and re-vetted William Kingsley in recent days. Nothing alarming. Nor does he seem personally vindictive or malicious. The problem remains that Kingsley is a failed cop in a fundamentally right-wing agency.
The other problem is that Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez can use all the help she can get in this ongoing national crisis, including from any unlikely place and person she might find it.
“Does the entire government need to be fired, Bill?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
Kingsley is no fan of this rhetorical line of thought.
Alecta loops again around the Oval Office.
“I never wore a fitness tracker, Bill.”
Surprised, Kingsley glances at Alecta’s slender wrists. He marvels at how great the power someone so diminutive can wield over him. And the country. The world.
“Can't say I ever did either. I always wanted one, for the information. You can never have too much.”
“A smartwatch is surely not too expensive for someone of your position, Bill. Maybe each and every officer in the Secret Service could use one. A really smart watch.”
This particular jibe, at this point in time, Kingsley has to admit, it burns. “Worried me too much. Just one more thing, a computerized watch, might be used to track me. Some enemy could-”
“Hunt the hunter.”
“I’ve been on those lists, yes.”
“Tell me about it.”
Right. Kingsley is not doing himself any favors. POTUS is always at the top of the kind of list that no one ever wants to be anywhere near.
“Forget the watch, Bill. We need to hunt the hunters ourselves. I’d like a tracker on Castelan.”
“An arrest warrant — that would be a fairly close substitute.”
Alecta chooses to overlook Kingsley’s own jibe, if that's what it is. “So you told investigators about your meeting with Castelan at the bar. After the fact. Good thing you did that at least.”
“Ma’am, I appreciate that you did not fire me, on multiple occasions, in this terrible time. I’m not relieved of duty, I know, but without a warrant for Castelan’s arrest, there was nothing I could do in that bar. Even if-”
“Is that a fact. Given the new information Castelan claimed to know?”
“He was heavily armed.”
“Of course, Director. And you were not? Bad guys are heavily armed, correct? You willingly met him. I’m glad you’re alive — when so many others are not.”
Unlike Castelan, Kingsley realizes, Alecta does not always first show the knife that she uses to stab him.
Kingsley looks involuntarily for the exit. “Look, Madame President, Director Castelan seems to know he has no time left. When will you arrest him?”
“Hopefully long before I need to arrest you, Director.”
Alecta had considered letting the thought go unspoken. She wants to be the one doing the interrogating today. She also wants to project all strength possible.
“Director Kingsley, let’s assume you’re actually innocent and not double-crossing everyone, including me. And let’s consider that Castelan might know where Silver and Lin are to be found, in Iowa, or anywhere, or where they could likely be. What does a complicit and fired FBI Director do next? What does Maximilian do? Bargain for a pardon? Is that what this is?”
“Madame President — I’m not with Castelan. I have no part with him. I don’t know what he’s doing. He must be — he's desperate. He could do anything. I told you, he made a show of being ready to shoot me in the bar. I think the next time he might.”
“Shoot you? Why?”
“Shoot someone.”
“Not me. I’m protected. Right?”
“Anyone. Not you. Easy game. And he will feel justified in doing so.”
“It’s madness. All of it.”
“May I suggest one thing?” says Kingsley. “Put security back on the Perez farmhouse. Double the security from what it was before. 24/7.”
“You urged Castelan to pull those FBI guards. Originally.”
Kingsley nods. “Yes, I did. I was protecting Sabia from Castelan then. And I would protect her from Castelan now. He may think she knows something. He may believe it. He may even know that she knows something.”
“What are you saying about Sabia?”
“In any investigation, Ma’am, we can never be sure when anyone is fully forthcoming. There’s no way.”
“Or in any conversation,” says Alecta.
Kingsley shifts in his chair. “Castelan knows what he doesn't know, Ma’am. He may think Sabia is his best potential lead, his one hope. He may have evidence that we do not. He probably does. So he know what he knows. And we don’t.”
“Is Sabia in danger, Director Kingsley?”
“I mean – Castelan is danger.”
Alecta gazes past Kingsley in an attempt to look across the country to the Perez farmhouse. Sabia does not want guards, Alecta knows. No guns, no guards.
Alecta feels the danger though. To herself.
Alecta looks up at the Great Seal of the United States on the ceiling. A fierce eagle, talons, arrows. Scant weeks have gone by since she was little more than a guest in the Oval Office. Now she is the host. Her duties are far greater.
Greater even than the serious threats to life and limb. Not only her own.
In the entrance to the bunker, Sabia scowls at President Silver who threatens with the knife and iron pan. “You don’t need the knife, Silver. Not today. It’s over. Get out of my home.”
Silver and Lin look like they cannot believe what they hear.
Sabia goes to Roca, kneels before him. “I'm so sorry,” she says. She takes his face in her hands. She feels his forehead, warm thankfully.
Lin appears to deflate, she is so relieved. She seems suddenly endlessly sad, and weary. She looks to President Silver. “It's over,” she says. “Kristen, it's over.”
President Silver is suspicious. She keeps tight grip on both weapons, even as she lowers them to her sides.
“Abuelo.” Sabia holds Roca's hands, ignoring Silver and Lin. Unlike his forehead, Roca’s hands are cold. “Hell, Hell, Hell on me.”
Sabia looks back at Lin and Silver.
“What are you two still doing here? Get the fuck out!”
Acting President Alecta O'Roura-Chavez stands behind the Resolute Desk, leaning forward, the fingers of both hands tipied on top of it.
“A little surprise for you, Director Kingsley. An arrest warrant for Director Castelan is being made public as we speak. I ordered his full surveillance immediately after you contacted me about your meeting him in the bar. So, tell me, Bill, how can Castelan move around the country undetected? He can't get on a plane. Or train. His house and cars are watched.”
“That’s good,” says Kingsley. “It's fifty-fifty he was bullshitting me to throw everyone off. Of course fifty-fifty cuts the other way too.”
“It's so much like a movie, I can't — who can process the reality? There's no way Castelan is doing anything right now other than going deep underground in hopes he never gets caught.”
“Then again — we don't know that,” says Director Kingsley. “One thing I’ve learned through the years, you never know when life becomes fiction. Stranger than.”
“It’s fiction that becomes life,” says Alecta. “To hear my opponents talk about politics and society, life is entirely fiction. A bad one. Of their own creation.”
“We may be living in a movie, but which one?”
“Who is the star, do you think — Kristen Silver?”
“Not me, I know that. I have a role. It’s not hero.” Fall guy, probably. Almost certainly. Maybe deservedly. “Could be you're the star, Ma'am. I think you are. You must be. Even if you were not my boss, we need to think that, don’t we? Does it matter —I think it does. You should be the hero here. You, hero. Silver, victim. Castelan, villain. Simple — Occam’s Razor.”
“What if you’re wrong? Silver as victim — yuck. And I don’t feel like a hero. More like — fire fighter. In a world where every house is on fire. Including my own.”
“That would qualify you as a hero, Ma’am, in my book. And I think you need to be that hero. At least for the time being. To get everything back to normal.”
Alecta locks eyes with Kingsley. “Normal doesn’t exist. Not in a good way. And go tell the media who’s the hero. They decide, they try to pick heroes and villains, victims and rulers. The news, you know, is a weapon — weaponized one way or another. News demonizes and news glorifies. To it’s highest profit. Truth be damned.”
Kingsley’s lips press and contract. He thinks to tell Alecta that maybe she could do a little more to get the media to glorify her. But he is trying to learn not to be too disagreeable, too much, too often around Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez.
In the coal mine bunker, Ellen Lin nods to President Silver. “You go, Kristen. Get upstairs. Find the phone. Call the White House. Tell them we’re found and we’re safe. I’ll help bring up Roca.”
“Ellen, you should come with me.”
“I’ll catch up.”
President Silver sets the frying pan on the table. She keeps the knife, forgets her coat. She wants nothing more to do with this dreadful hole in the ground. She takes a last look at Sabia to make sure she will not get jumped from behind and choked out.
Lin gathers Roca's shoes and helps secure them to his feet. Then Lin and Sabia help Roca stand. They shoulder him out of the bunker, through the hall, and up the stairs to the great room.
There they find President Silver standing by the landline phone still gripping the knife. Sabia and Lin help Roca to a seat.
“The phone’s dead,” says Silver.
“Why are your bothering me?” says Sabia. “The day of the bombing I killed the phone to disconnect the one in the bunker. The one in the farmhouse works. And unless they’re out eating donuts, the FBI is across the road.” She turns to Roca. “Abuelo, are you ready to move?”
“Let’s try.”
President Silver attempts to open the door to the outside that she and Lin entered the night of the bombing.
“It's fucking stuck,” she says.
With patience, Roca explains: “I sealed this part of the house against any threat, whatever threat there might be when those bombs hit. We didn’t know who might be coming after you. Remember?”
President Silver points the knife at Sabia. “You were coming after me!” She tugs again at the sealed door.
“It’s nailed shut,” says Roca.
“Fuck!”
Sabia and Lin help Roca to the mud room where Sabia opens the hidden door leading to steps that climb toward the farmhouse basement. Silver pushes past Sabia and gets to the steps first.
Sabia and Lin help Roca go slowly up into the basement of farmhouse, then further up to the couch in the living room to wait for the ambulance. “We made it, Abuelo.”
President Silver looks out through white lace curtains at snowy Iowa. Lin moves to Silver’s side. “We made it, Kristen.”
“It’s so bright,” say Silver.
“It’s blinding,” says Lin. She squints. Not far down the road she sees the cordoned off blast area. “Over there is where everyone died.”
“Lunatics and their missiles,” says Silver.
“Our very own missiles,” says Lin. “Good thing we love the country we work for. Would be too scary not to. I'd be on a beach somewhere sipping drinks, numbing my mind, if I didn’t think we could make a difference.”
“Please, go to the beach,” says Sabia. “And take your braindead voters with you. Their killing us all. They're even killing their own kind.”
“Give it a rest, Sabia,” says President Silver. “You lost here today. I'm free at last.”
“Truth hurts, I know, Silver.”
Sabia tries to make Roca comfortable. She fills a glass of water for him in the kitchen. Walking back she pretends to throw the water at Silver but then hands it to Roca.
“Those missiles were pure Evil,” says Silver. “Evil aimed directly at me.”
“Total devastation. And not even nuclear,” says Lin. “Lucky for us.”
Silver angles the knife at Sabia.
“Sabia, you have an attitude problem,” says Silver. “And a terrible temper. What you did to me and Ellen was beyond horrible and cannot be redeemed. But I won’t put you away forever for it. And I hope Roca recovers soon.”
“Sabia saved your life!” says Roca.
“Spare me your fucking promises, Silver-Tongue,” says Sabia. “I count the days till you’re out of office and Alecta is back in power. She’ll pardon me completely. I know it. I don’t want your promise or your pardon.”
“Then maybe you won’t get it,” says Silver.
“Taking it back already. That’s a record even for you.”
A vehicle slows on the road, then ice and gravel crunch in the drive.
Sabia looks outside. “Ambulance.”
“Let’s go upstairs before we freak out the EMTs,” says Silver to Lin. “They’ll have enough to focus on with Roca. And I don't want to deal with them at all.”
“You ought to be strapped to a gurney and sent to a psyche world, Silver.”
“You would like that. Not happening, Sabia, sorry. I’m going deliver myself directly to that fucker Kingsley so I can thank him face-to-face for killing my staff and making me hostage for ransom to you — local Iowa lunatic. You’re like the idiot who escaped the village for the countryside, aren’t you? Anyway — then I’ll can Kingsley, on the spot.”
Silver and Lin go upstairs.
Sabia faces the front door. “Fuck,” she says. “I can’t do this.”
“Mija—”
“I can’t surrender, Abuelo. They need to take me by force.”
Lin and Silver hustle upstairs. They go by chance into Sabia's bedroom with its expansive views that overlook the road, the orchards, the frozen countryside. Silver and Lin bathe in the sunlight streaming through old-fashioned lace curtains. They gaze from every window and angle as the ambulance crew enters the house oblivious to their presence.
“Sabia Perez, what do we have here? And who?” says the lead EMT.
A weary working woman of the corn, the EMT — that’s how Sabia thinks of her, as someone she knows in general, not particular, and seems to have met every day of her life in and around the Iowa countryside.
“Javier Perez,” says Sabia. “This is Javier. It’s his heart.”
By now, nearly everyone across the nation, and beyond, especially those most local, know Sabia and the tragic story of the bombing and her loss of Roca.
“Javier is my abuelo Roca's brother from Mexico,” says Sabia. “He travelled all this way when he learned of Roca's death.”
Sabia like Silver neither wants to shock nor alarm the EMTs by the mind-bending reality of the situation. Nor does she care to give herself away too soon, if ever. Maybe she can make a run for the wilderness like Jenna and Jasmine did when the heat first dialed up on them. Maybe she should. Far from afraid, Sabia thinks only of extending the fight, the righteous fight of her life against those who would crush, those who smash so much.
And how in the moment to explain a miraculously alive Roca? She won’t. Not yet. The better to get Roca safe and secure in hospital first.
Fine, then bring on the cuffs, if you can. Catch her, if you might. Play the lawyers, as you like. Sabia knows she can demand huge cash for her story, one way or another, and she will fund the Revolution from behind bars.
“I'm so sorry, Sabia,” says the EMT. “And you too Javier. We'll do our best to take care you.”
“Muy agradecido,” says Roca. “Thank you. Mi corazón.” Roca places both hands on his heart.
“Gracias,” says Sabia. “Javier is tough. He’ll get through this if you’re good with him. Okay? Be good with him.”
The ambulance pulls away from the farmhouse with Roca inside, medicated and bound to a gurney. Sabia follows in her pickup truck. Lin and Silver watch from the upstairs windows.
“Javier!” says Silver. “Can you believe that girl? What a little piece of — she’s a shyster. And far worse.”
“That’s Sabia,” says Lin. “She walks a crooked road.”
“A crooked, crooked road.”
President Silver peers through lace curtains. Somehow with Sabia come and gone, she begins to feel a former vacuum in her mind filling with increasingly pro-active thoughts unusually her own.
Silver begins to think and rethink things through, anew.
She won. She beat Sabia. She survived the coup, the bombing, the Iowa cold.
She outlasted the blizzard, the kidnapping, the bunker and coal mine, and the crash of Ground Force One.
All due to that traffic accident on I-35.
Alecta got food poisoning, Silver got fucked.
But then she won.
She, Kristen Silver, the rightful President of the United States of America, will come storming back into power again.
First to tell the world.
Or — you know — maybe not so fast. Why not enjoy the glorious moment of her release from Hell?
President Silver walks around the bedroom and examines closely the tidy, rustic, dollhouse appearance of the space and the objects within. She pokes through a jumble of bracelets and other jewelry in a ceramic bowl on a dresser.
“Hey,” she says. “This is Sabia's room.”
Lin comes over to look at the jewelry.
Silver sets down the kitchen knife and picks out a silver and turquoise Navajo ring. She attempts to put it on. Sabia’s ring fits only on the smallest, weakest finger of Silver’s left hand. “I'm keeping this,” she says.
“No. You’re not.” Lin pokes Silver’s shoulder. “Do not. Thou shalt not. Are you nuts? Sabia will torch you in the media. She’ll call you a thief, a pillager, America’s Number One Villain. You know how batty she is.”
“From prison maybe. She can say whatever she wants from prison. Or maybe she can’t. Anyway, fuck her. I’m back. I’m in charge in now. I like this ring. I’m taking it.”
“Do not do that.” Lin calculates the degree of difficulty that such a rash act would impose on her job.
“I’ll wear it at my first press conference. I’ll say Sabia gave it to me. She’ll deny it. From prison. I’ll say there was a misunderstanding. I’ll return the ring. I’ll look magnanimous. Does that work for you, Ellen?”
“No.” It’s calculating at least. Back to her old form and self, Lin gets it. “Don’t do it.”
Silver smiles at the ring. “Maybe I’ll say I’m returning it, and then the ring will get misplaced, perhaps by my staff. You know how rushed they are. And so I’ll keep it. There’s always a workaround.”
“For theft?”
“Compensation.” Silver slides the bowl of jewelry toward Lin. “Pick out something you like.”
Lin lifts both hands away from the rings and bracelets.
“Sabia owes us,” says Silver. “It’s the very least she can do.”
“To be robbed?”
“To be giving.”
Silver picks up the knife again and wanders around the room. “People’s lives are so small. But this knife—” She holds out the blade to reflect the sunlight dashing through the windows. “This knife is not small.”
“It would cut a person,” says Lin.
“Look at this place. It’s tiny. This room. This house.” Silver touches the flowery wallpaper covering the old and uneven plaster of the walls. “It’s life in miniature. And we're so big, Ellen. I'm the President. You're my right-hand man. If I stuck this knife in the wall, the knife would be the only thing we would see. That’s what Sabia would see.”
“Well, we're not going to do that.” Lin looks outside. “We need to turn ourselves in. You know what I mean.”
It takes a worried woman, God knows. Ellen has never known a woman not to worry, and worry the more for being a woman, herself included. Maybe that’s not true, though it feels it. Maybe she should laugh it off and tell her boss to stick the fucking knife in the wall. But Lin — whether as woman, human, man, goddess, or whatever in the moment — she begins to worry that President Silver is showing signs of post-traumatic shock. Or some other equally difficult stress disorder. Steal a ring then stick a knife in the wall, like some horror movie. What the Hell.
“It's all so small,” says President Silver.
It’s not really. Lin worries Silver is losing brain cells to a post-bombing, post-apocalyptic daze that would be a trial to dispel.
“Kristen. Look,” says Lin. “See outside. The land is big. There’s plenty of good work to do out in this bright world, but for now we can relax. Rest. We’ll be taken care of. The doctors will provide. Let’s get our feet back on the ground. You’ll feel better.” Lin takes the President by the arm. Silver pulls away.
“Maybe you need a doctor, Ellen. I don’t.”
Silver walks across the room with the knife while admiring the new ring on her finger. She stops and pats the white bedspread where it covers the pillows at the head of Sabia's bed.
“It’s all dirt, Ellen. Dirty. You’re precious ground. This whole land. Pretend otherwise, if you like. Myself, I try to stay as far away as possible from real dirt and the ground.”
Okay. Lin does not always know when she will accidentally touch the nerves of her good friend the President. Less and less through the years however has she bothered to be overly concerned about it. Lin carries her own level of clout, even against the President, and she knows it. But she worries something new might be wrong with the President. There’s always something. And a bombing will do that to you. Is that why she and the President are not across the road already with the FBI?
“I mean I like the land, Kristen.” Lin tries to make constructive conversation. “You can fall in love with the land, you know, people do. And the things that are close to the land, chickens and stuff. We do love Iowa, remember. You do. We’re back on the campaign trail.”
“Do you garden or something, Ellen?”
Maybe Lin should give up trying to move things along. Maybe she will need to wait this one out.
“Sure, I grow flowers and things, if and when I can.” Lin tries to rehearse for the President a casual campaign conversation with voters. “I mean I would garden for sure if I lived in Iowa with all the beautiful things that grow here.”
President Silver smooths the bedspread on Sabia's bed in repetitive oddly tender strokes.
“I like the feel of this fabric,” says Silver.
“That right there is Sabia’s bed,” says Lin.
“I know it. I like it despite that.” Silver sits on the side of the bed. She grips the knife and admires Sabia’s ring. “The girl has taste in jewelry.”
“Okay, Kristen, come on,” says Lin. “Time to go. We're so lucky. We’re free now, clear, no worries.” Lin walks over to the President again and tries to move her.
“No, we’re not.” President Silver pulls away. “We're nowhere close to free, Ellen. Or clear. We need to win the election first. That’s real freedom.”
“Your poll numbers are great. Never better.”
“Almost too good for me to show my face.”
“You’re too funny, Kristen Silver.”
“Am I? I was far behind until I was attacked, kidnapped, ransomed, stuck in a hole in the ground. Now I’m far, far ahead. It worked. Going away worked.”
“I was there, I know. And that's what I'm saying. We’re so far ahead we can’t lose. We have everything going for us.”
“Maybe.” President Silver stands and touches the wallpaper again. The homey feel, there’s something she likes about the texture, the printed paper fabric, so smooth yet somehow grainy. “I got get lucky, Ellen.”
“We don't need luck now.”
“I skyrocketed right past Bombarill's buddy, JB Prance — that colossal moron — because I got away from it all. From the donors. I was killed, then kidnapped, then ransomed, and people took pity on me. I took pity on me.”
“It’s the normal way of things, Kristen. We got beat up, we became the underdog. People will root for you.”
“No, no, we did something else. We figured it out. Out of sight, not out of mind.”
“Come on, Kristen, that’s an old strategy. I mean, it’s not deceit or manipulation or anything, it’s clever and counterintuitive. It’s well known by now. We basically fell into it this time. Got bombed into it.”
“Being held hostage is what is going to get me re-elected, Ellen.”
“You can’t possibly mean-”
“Staying hostage will get me re-elected. Easy peasy.”
“Kristen. No.”
“Oh, yes.”
“We’re free. We survived. Think. We can't possibly-”
“Ellen. We’ve been through a lot. Together. You and me.”
“Let's be sane here, Kristen.”
“You and me, Girl.”
“Let's not — you know — be insane.”
“Do you want to win this thing, or not? Do you want to win it for sure? Getting away from everything, staying away, it’s the sure thing.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Kristen!” Lin throws up her hands and walks to the windows. There she turns and faces her boss. “I am not getting back in that fucking bunker ever again!”
“Not even to win four more years? With a fully unified Congress behind us? An overwhelming majority?”
“No.”
“It would be a huge win guaranteed, Ellen. Guaranteed. My God — I’m killing it, and we’re killing in Congress. It’s a blowout. We'll be free of the crazies once and for all. Even the donors will be put back on their heels for a change. I’ll be able to do whatever I want! Almost. It’s true. How can you possibly say no to that, Ellen? How can you say no to me. You want to win. And win big. Real big. I know you do. For once. Just once. Bigger than anyone has ever won before.”
“I mean—” Lin looks sick “—if you forced me to. Maybe.”
“No fucking way, Girl!” President Silver claps her hands, knife and all. “Neither one of us is going anywhere near that hellhole ever again.”
“Oh thank God,” says Lin.
“We don’t need to. Sabia can’t stop us from living in her great room, or even in this old farmhouse. And no one will find us. Who can find us?”
“No way.”
Lin crouches down with one hand on the floor, one hand on her head, hunched, braced, her body small, as if to protect itself.
“You heard Roca,” says Silver. “There's hidden access to the greenhouse. Perfect for you to garden! Which you say you like to do. And Sabia will go along with us. She needs to. Or I fuck her.”
“Jesus Christ.” Lin focuses intently on the floorboards, rough, white painted, as if reading the grain of the wood might reveal the future and her ultimate fate.
“Don’t fuck up this miracle we’ve been gifted, Ellen. Even Christ himself would be impressed by my rise from the dead in life and the polls. You know what Sabia would say. Let’s win one for the people.”
“You mean for Kristen Silver.”
“Her too. I love her. And so do you, Ellen.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Ellen—”
“You would hold yourself hostage, here in Iowa? Kristen. You hate Iowa.”
“Not anymore!” Silver moves toward Lin and the windows. Lin watches. Silver waves the knife in front of her, a bit wildly. Lin leans back. “Land of miracles! To win the Presidency, again, we do what needs to be done. I've done worse, haven’t I. All Presidents have. All candidates for high office. And ones for much lower.”
The headache that Lin feels coming threatens to crack her skull open like two halves of a coconut. Cleanly cleaved.
“Look, Kristen, we could never speak of this to anyone and how could you keep such a thing inside you? You would talk, boast, brag. We would go to prison.”
Lin has a vision of picking up the two halves of her skull from the ground and trying to press them back together again.
“Let them try. No one can touch me. I’m President. I survived a bombing. I escaped a dungeon. I'm politically invincible. I can do exactly as I want.” Silver points the knife at Lin. “Am I right?”
“No,” says Lin.
“I once heard, it always stuck with me: ‘Geometry deceives. A hurricane is accurate.’ Well, I’m the fucking hurricane. Never forget that, Ellen. People hate my guts, my policies, or whatever, and so what? They love a hostage. Hate the President, love the hostage. We can spin it any way we want, draw it up sideways, make two plus two equal five. Fuck the facts. Facts get in the way of a great story. It's the fiction that matters. The only way to win this thing supremely big is to rise as high as possible in the eyes of the voters, to get from the real to the supernatural, no matter how fake and unreal. Look at me. Look at my terrible suffering, look at my heart-rending vulnerability as hostage to a crazy criminal. It’s not totally make-believe. You combine the real with the fiction and wow! Fucking Sabia. Fuck her. I'm as sympathetic as can be. And heroic. You need to act as grand as people wish to act, to win bg. You need to be cinematic. Not to rule, but to win. To rule you need to ignore the whims of the people mainly. The complainers. People who complain. We can ignore them.”
“You're so high right now, Kristen. That’s all this is. Post-trauma speak. You're so glad to be alive, to be free, you’re high as a kite. It won't last.”
“Oh, I’m high alright,” says Silver. “In the fucking polls.”
“There has got to be another way.”
“This is the way.” Silver points the knife at the floor below them, and at the floor below that. “We’ll pretend to be hostage until after the election. Or a little before. A slight detail that you will keep out of your little book.”
“What if we’re found out?”
“By who? And so what? The FBI hasn’t done shit for me. They set up shop across the road which guarantees they'll never find me, not here. Fuck ’em. I can fuck them. Federal Bureau of fucking Ignorance, you know it’s true half the fucking time. Those boys need to bow to me and to people like me. That’s their proper role. It’s true. They're cops. And I’m the all-American hero. I’m the President.”
“Kristen, you can’t say that. People will get mad.”
“People are mad. People are nuts they’re so fucking mad.”
“Some of those cops that you’re talking down about, they will think things through. They could break your story.”
“Fuck the cops, Kristen. You know, Sabia is right about some things. She’s just — focused on the wrong people. Anyway, I so don’t care. We blame Sabia and Roca if need be. I’m the fucking President. What I say goes. Sabia and Roca — two nobody fruit and nut growers, they're not credible witnesses to anything. Sabia took me hostage, there’s no denying that. And we’re both traumatized, you and I. We don’t know what we’re doing here. We’re terribly scared. Our very lives are threatened. We’re in shock.”
Ellen Lin stares point blank at the floor. “I think that’s true.”
“It’s as true as need be,” says President Silver. “True enough.”
“Sane people would proceed with caution in all things,” says Lin. “That’s the best counsel I can give you, Madame President.”
Silver crosses the room to Lin. She is careful not to stab her with the knife. She bends down, wedges her free hand under Lin’s arm, and slowly, firmly, pulls the campaign manager back up to stand beside her.
“We’ve come this far, Ellen. My polls are awesome. Changing course would risk election suicide. I'm not willing to risk it. And neither should you be.”
Knife in hand, President Silver drapes her right arm around Lin’s shoulders and looks out a window overlooking the vast white field across the road. Lin follows her gaze. She is stunned and dazzled by the warm power of the winter sun bounding above ice and snow. So much, so bright, so close.
“Fuck it,” says Silver. “We've got the world at our disposal. We’ll keep it. I’ll win in a tsunami next fall. You watch.”
A tsunami of another kind is what worries Lin. Criminal investigations. Crime and punishment. Sabia Perez.
In Roca’s hospital room, Sabia sits in a chair by his bed. She feels relieved to have her Abuelo formally in medical care, no matter how much she might know about medicine and health herself. Maybe her relief too is in the shift of responsibility for care, off her shoulders for once.
“You okay for now, Abuelo?”
“I'm okay, Sabia. I'm so sorry.”
A nurse's aide comes into the room with an easy smile.
“Everyone is talking about you being here, Sabia. You’ve been so much in the news. You’re lucky you got to hang with Alecta. What’s she like?”
Sabia closes her eyes and dreams her way back to the visit.
“Cooler than cool. She called me a goddess. The Goddess of Fierce.”
“Oh nice!”
“And Alecta is left-handed like my mamá was. I’m going to get her to adopt me.”
“You’re too old for that.”
“I know. I don’t care.”
“Good for you. And Javier, I hear you traveled a long way to be here.”
“You might say that,” says Roca. “El Bajío, Mexico. It's a tiny village, not even on any map.”
“I'm so sorry about Roca.”
“It’s a total mess,” says Sabia.
“How do you like Iowa, Javier?”
Roca smiles. “Feels like home to me. A bit cold.”
“It is that,” says the aide. “Iowa — cold as you’d ever want it to be. At least to me.”
“Especially this winter,” says Sabia.
Sabia walks the hospital hallway after getting water from a snack room. She sees a police officer. She ducks into a random room and waits.
She cannot bring herself to give up, cannot quit. Silver won, but fuck it. Make the cops work. Let them get her when they get her and not before. Sabia will not be the one to turn herself in. Even when all seems lost.
Sabia peeks into the hallway. The officer is nowhere to be seen.
Sabia continues to Roca’s room. Cautiously enters. Roca is alone, sleeping. She sits in the chair beside him.
“They’ll be coming,” she says. “They’re coming.”
Sabia drinks water, takes out her phone, stares at the black screen, unwilling to power it on. She returns it to her pocket.
She sleeps, then wakes to darkness outside. Roca is awake.
“Abuelo. How are you?” Sabia reaches for his hand.
“You seem more tired than me, Mija.”
“Fucking police — where the fuck are they?”
Roca nods. “I’ve been watching.”
“They’re so fucking incompetent. Probably went to the wrong hospital across town.” Sabia glances through the doorway into the hall cluttered with computers, diagnostic machines, gurneys, tables, and chairs. “So wrong,” she says. She pulls the curtain to hide herself from everyone.
Lin adjusts Sabia’s jewelry dish to try to make it look like no one touched anything. It won’t work, she’s sure. None of this will work. What the fuck is she doing? She’s hungry. “Any fresh food in the fridge? There must be.”
“Could be,” says Silver. “You should eat, Ellen.”
“God, I hope so.” Lin imagines every tasty green and fruit she and Silver went without in the coal mine.
“Eat! Let’s go eat, you'll feel better,” says Silver. Ring and knife in hand, Silver takes Lin by the arm and escorts her down.
In the hospital, at night, Sabia and Roca fall asleep side-by-side, bed and chair. When they wake, the new light of day grows through window.
“Abuelo, it’s morning.”
“It’s good to see dawn.”
“It’s good to see you seeing dawn.”
“No cops?”
“I don't even care anymore,” says Sabia. “Silver-Ass is probably putting together the mother of all SWAT teams, just to bust me in style. Probably wants to fire Kingsley first. And Lin scheming right with her. That’s exactly what they’re doing. They’re making it into a fucking photo op. All the future is staged now, Roca. Campaign optics. Tough on crime. Who the fuck knows what they’re doing. Silver will try to humiliate me. That's who she is.”
“I don’t know. Something seems off,” says Roca. “Did a bomb hit DC or what?”
“We would know,” says Sabia. “Relax and recover, Abuelo. Heal your heart. Don't think about anything that bothers you. It's only me Silver wants. She’s going to get more than she knows. I'll use my arrest against her. I'll make her wish she never even thought to put me in prison.”
“Free at last,” says Lin at the bottom of the steps, with no trace of joy or good humor in her words.
President Silver locks the front door of the farmhouse. “You’re back on the clock, Ellen. We both are. The campaign never ends.”
“That was some vacation,” says Lin.
“It can’t always be Camp David, sorry,” says Silver. “Though I would take the Maryland mountains over Iowa cows and corn any season.”
“Not that you would ever say that in public.”
President Silver walks around the first floor of the Perez farmhouse as if she owns the place.
Lin knows what she sees: Silver on a power trip, on parade even, as she holds herself hostage for power. “What are we doing, Kristen?”
“This!” President Silver pulls open the refrigerator door.
Lin fixates on a purple cabbage. She lifts it out like it’s gold. Cold, dense, crisp, it smells heavenly, strangely like cake. She rinses the giant purple jewel in the sink and sets it on the counter. She must be losing the last of her mind. It smells so sweet. Cabbage.
Silver extends her knife to Lin, handle first. “Give me a chunk.”
Lin takes the knife. She lifts a wooden cutting board from its spot, hung on a nail in the wall. She sets the head of cabbage on the board, holds the knife over it.
“Are you sure we need to do this, Kristen?”
“Cut the damn thing.”
President Silver waits to be served. She will make unprecedented history this election cycle — or bust. Ellen Lin will help her. She always has.
And Sabia — fuck Sabia. Sabia will be appalled. Excellent.
And Roca? He's probably dead already.
Not her fault. Roca got himself worked up over nothing.
If some impartial objective observer — or even a partisan campaign consultant — were to overview the current state of all these crimes and calamities in and around the Perez farmhouse in remote Iowa, that observer might accurately note that President Silver and her campaign manager Ellen Lin can hardly be said to be thinking clearly.
Silver should be able to see at least a few looming gaps in her audacious scheme.
She doesn’t care.
And Lin — Lin tells herself she is no leader like President Silver and cannot be held accountable.
Besides, she's hungry. Right now. For fucking cabbage. The future will wait for cabbage. Lin puts the knife to the center of the head and chops it in half.
A new nurse enters the hospital room where Roca and Sabia hold hands and watch the new light of day illuminate the window. The nurse gathers used cups, adjusts equipment, and stops by the bedside.
“Looking good, Mr. Perez. Breakfast on its way. Sabia made your order last night. The doctor’s coming too and may beat the food. All good?”
“Bueno. Thanks.”
“How are you, Sabia?”
“Has anyone been looking for me?”
The nurse points over her shoulder. “Now that you mention it. Billy the Moto Kid with his camera. We sent him packing. Someone he knows works on the floor here, told him you were around. He doesn’t get close unless you want him to. Do you?”
“No way. Gracias.”
The nurse pats Sabia on the shoulder. “No worry. It’s going to be a good day.”
At the kitchen counter in the Perez farmhouse, Ellen Lin takes a big bite of the fresh purple cabbage, a crackling cool crunch. It's very good. Raw and ripe — worth working the teeth for. She chews thoroughly. She takes a second big bite. Then she remembers. She will be serving President Silver after herself for once. Lin finds colorful stacks of Fiestaware in the cabinets. She hands Silver a wedge of purple cabbage on a bright yellow plate.
Lin’s stomach celebrates, feels good and warm as the cabbage feeds her guts badly needed microbiota and draws an active pool of blood directly to it. Her body, her literal blood, seems to relax and her mind with it. She looks around the farmhouse kitchen, and at the entrance to the house, and into the adjacent living room. Is this the first farmhouse she has set foot in? Maybe in their prior campaigns, maybe they missed something worthwhile. Something humble, something enduring.
President Silver stands by the kitchen table, her plate of cabbage on the counter. She also surveys the farmhouse. She thinks of redecorating. She could live here, like this, if she had to, for awhile, if the price remained right.
Then Silvers stares at the cabbage on her plate. How does one eat raw cabbage? “I need a fork, Ellen.”
Lin locates the silverware drawer, hands over a fork.
Silver pokes at the cabbage with the fork. “What I wouldn't give right now for a big piece of steak. If poor Marie Antoinette had only said 'Let them eat steak' — she might have lived, head intact. Instead she become famous in word and decapitation.”
“Infamous,” says Lin. “I’m sure Royalist France was as low on steak as on affordable, available bread and cake.”
“Hard to imagine that ever happening here.”
“Marie Antoinette is not a great model for us, Kristen.”
“I know, right? Let me eat cake.” Silver pokes the cabbage. “And if there’s no cake or steak in this entire fucking house — goddamn it. We can’t order in without giving ourselves away. Just our luck to be kidnapped by plant-eaters. In Iowa.”
“Vegetarians vote too,” says Lin. “It’s nothing you can joke about.”
“Oh, fuck ‘em. You know what the Veggies say? In the future everyone will be vegetarian, that it’s the only moral thing. Not to mention environmentally responsible. Flesh-eaters, they call us. As if we were cannibals.”
“We’re not that, I hope. More and more people are becoming vegetarian though. Who knows, maybe someday—”
“A thousand years from now. If any of this still exists. And not in Iowa. These country folk do love their hogs. But whatever.”
“You eat bacon, Kristen.”
“I don’t kill it. Not personally. I could never do that.” Silver pokes again at the cabbage. “I guess we hostages can't be picky? Or are hostage jokes off limits too?”
“If Sabia is in the hospital right now confessing everything for a million bucks on TV — what then?”
“She’s not. Our favorite donut boys would be here already, guns blazing. Who the fuck knows what she’s doing. She’s crazy. She probably went on the run. She’ll come back once she figures things out.” Silver shrugs. “And so what if she’s telling all. You know, we're shell-shocked. Starved for fresh food. Out of our minds with relief. We can’t be held accountable, especially me — I'm the President. I can get away with saying whatever I like, whenever I like, however I like-”
“You know that's not entirely true.”
“True enough. The world I make is my own reality, Ellen, not theirs. Mine. Besides, do you think I came all this way through Iowa in a fucking snowplow after a bus crash in a blizzard and a bombing just to sample the corn on the goddamn Iowan cob? I want a landslide win this time, and I'm going to get one.”
Lin enjoys the cabbage. It’s so fresh. The amount of juice surprises her. She concentrates on eating the cabbage while she can.
Sabia powers on her phone, goes to several news sites. She finds nothing about President Silver being released or escaped.
“What the fuck?” She begins to feel she is living in an alternate world.
A tanned doctor probably three times Sabia’s age comes into the room with his electronic notebook and seemingly not a care in the world.
“Javier Perez, how are you feeling?”
“I'm ready for spring planting, Doctor.”
“Very good! Fortunately, there’s too much snow right now for you to hop a tractor, Javier. I don't know about in Mexico.”
“Soon, though,” says Roca, with a smile. “Both here and there. And I don’t plow. I merely plant. Under organic materials mainly.”
“Oh. Well, we can’t let you do too much too soon. That said, your cardiac MRI shows no serious damage. We can control this with medication and diet. Sound okay to you?”
“Gracias, wonderful. I can go home?”
“You have no travel plans soon, I hope.”
“No, he does not,” says Sabia.
“Excellent. As things look now, you’ll be released tomorrow.”
“Why not today?” says Sabia.
“One more day. Then he’ll have you to take good care of him, will he not?”
“Sure, but let’s do it today. This morning. I mean if there’s no need to operate-”
“No surgery at this point. You did good with that aspirin, Javier. And we made adjustments to your new medication already. Anyway, I strongly advise against surgery. Rest though.”
“I'm against surgery too,” says Roca.
“Good. Medication and diet should be enough. Easy exercise. Plenty of rest. It was probably the stress of your trip from Mexico.”
“Something like that,” says Roca thinking of President Silver barking at him in the coal mine. “You know, I was hoping to arrive in time to meet President Alecta when she visited Sabia. Then I got delayed.”
“Ah. Too bad. We’ll talk meds before you leave, Javier.” The doctor studies Sabia. “You, ma'am, you look like you should go home and get some rest yourself. Javier is in good hands here.”
After the doctor leaves, Sabia and Roca consider the situation in silence.
“Here’s what’s going to happen, Abuelo. I should have arranged this already. You need to move entirely upstairs to the farmhouse. I’m going to get seven of my friends, a different one each day, to look in on you and get you whatever you need. If I can get online before I’m jailed, I’ll be able to ask for money to hire the lawyers that represented Jenna and Jasmine.”
Roca looks miserable. “Mija, the handcuffs are coming for us both, I'm afraid.”
“You did nothing wrong, Abuelo.”
“It was worth it. You were right. You did so good. Alecta might take care of you now. Maybe she already is. She must be.”
“There's no one looking out for us, Abuelo. There never was. If you can walk out of here right now — we could make a break for it.”
“To go where? Silver and Lin know everything. It’s time to stop, Mija. Listen to the doctor. Go home while you still can. Get some rest. Go home.”
Sabia kisses Roca's forehead.
“I’ll come back later today unless they hunt me down first. I’ll reach out to Jasmine. She’ll get you where you need to be if I can’t.”
“Don’t run, don’t fight, Mija.”
Sabia squeezes Roca’s hands. “I love you, Abuelo.”
Sabia makes her way nervously to her truck in the parking lot. She looks in the bed of the truck. She looks in the cab. She kneels and looks under the frame. “Fucking paranoid,” she says to herself. “Shit's crazy.”
Sabia drives to the farm and sees no unusual vehicles or activity at the FBI center across the road. What is wrong with people, she thinks. What do they have planned for me?
She parks her truck in the drive. She looks around the outside the farmhouse. She studies the barn, its sun-blackened boards almost two centuries aged, standing strong and stark against snow. “No cops.” Where are the cops? “I kidnapped the fucking President. Did I not?”
Fucking weird.
Sabia walks into the farmhouse. She looks around the kitchen and living room. She smells something. Cabbage? She knows there's one in the refrigerator, where she and Roca are always careful to make a pretense of a lived-in farmhouse though they are often merely fronting. “Where’s the Police State?” Sabia walks to the stairs and looks up toward her bedroom. “Did all the cops die?”
Sabia opens the door to the cellar and looks down. She turns on the light. Nothing.
“Ambush in the great room? What the Hell is going on? That old Silver-Prick really wants to fuck me hard. I can feel it.”
Sabia goes into the basement and makes her way to the mud room in the underground home, and then to the great room.
And there in her kitchen are President Silver and Ellen Lin — frying peppers, onions, tomatoes, and eggs in a ceramic pan — making omelets and otherwise preparing brunch.
Silver and Lin scarcely look up when Sabia walks in, so deeply absorbed do they pretend to be in their cooking.
“What the fuck is going on?” says Sabia.
“You’re in time for brunch,” says President Silver. She sprinkles bits of black walnut onto the omelet in the pan. “Sit down.”
“What the fuck is happening?” Sabia says, as if President Silver and Ellen Lin had not heard her at all.
Lin holds a spatula over the hot pan. “Just relax and enjoy this delicious food with us, Sabia. As far as anyone knows — we’re still hostage.”
“We won’t tell, if you won’t,” says Silver. “Sit down, Sabia.”
Sabia does not move a muscle.
“You are fucking out of your minds.”
“Oh, we are,” says President Silver. “And you?”
“This is a trap. What kind of perverse deal is this, Silver? I did not invite you into my home. Not for brunch or for anything. That was Roca.”
“And how is Roca?” says Lin.
“He wouldn’t want to see you two here.”
“How is he?”
“Tomorrow. His release is tomorrow. He’s on medication. No surgery.”
“I’m glad,” says Lin.
“Sabia, you’re lucky it wasn’t worse.” President Silver wipes her fingers with a towel. “Far worse. Ellen and I saved Roca’s life. We forced that aspirin and water down his throat. And you never thanked me.”
“No, she did,” says Lin.
“She didn’t mean it.”
“Where are the cops hiding, Silver? When are they coming? I know you love to put on a big fucking show.”
Silver shakes her head, looks at Sabia, as if at a stubborn, disobedient, and incomprehensibly willful child. One with massive brain damage. “Sabia. Listen. The plan is changed. Everything is changed now.”
“There is no plan,” says Sabia. “Not like this.”
“We’re not going back into the bunker,” says Silver. “You may be a decent person, Sabia. Entirely misguided but there’s no accounting for hippie-dippie shit. When the time comes, you will need to be known as a kidnapper. But I’ll pardon you. That’s not a promise. That’s a fact. I'll need to. Otherwise, you’ll rat on me for this.”
“For making brunch.”
“For faking captivity. Which Ellen and I would never admit to. And will never need to.”
“You're creeping me out worse than ever, Silver-Clown. What are you really doing here in my kitchen?”
Silver smiles. She peels off the dry outer skin of an onion.
“I thought you knew everything, Sabia. Guess not. Maybe you got one thing right. There’s no way as a restored President that I would not need to repeal health care and everything else Alecta meddled with. My donors, the media, everyone would force me to ax it all. Can you imagine the pressure: the corporate lobbies, the press, the voters themselves. Alecta could get away with this sort of treason for awhile. Not for long. I can’t get away with this shit.”
“See the polls, Silver. It’s not most voters who are against good things. It’s you. And your donors.”
“Believe what you will, Sabia. Do I care? Sure money buys media, it buys politicians, and it changes polls. But do you know what polls mainly poll? People? Sadly, no. The effects of media coverage. What works, what doesn’t, what needs to be reported next time. So let's keep it real world, Sabia. Money talks loudest. Propaganda works. Advertising appeals and congeals into power. Why do you think there's so much wealth behind it? It’s the motor of the economy. It’s the steering wheel too. And I’m the Captain.”
“Do you fucking think you can teach me a goddamn thing, Silver,” says Sabia. “You deliver your donors to their happy fates and run over the rest of us.”
“Ads are not brainwashing, exactly,” says Lin. “It's necessary persuasion.”
“Oh for Christ's sake, you sell poisoned illusions. Malignant desires.” Sabia makes a power fist. “And it is brainwashing. Professional lying. That’s exactly what it is. Mental cleansing. Toxic telling. War mongering. The richest candidates win the vast majority of elections. That's the culture, the society, that's the sickness.”
“Good lecture. You think we don't know this shit ourselves?” says Silver.
“I think you don't care. Let the dominant media pound people’s brains for a few weeks or months like they do in any buildup to war — most people come around to what they are led to come around to. If only for a while. And that's all the time and excuse the blood-lusters need. Not even that much, but it’s worth trillions to the high-flyers. The war profiteers. The war on people. The real class war. That’s how elections are won, bought and sold, that’s how lives and wealth are stolen, people are killed and their brains and hearts mangled. Entire planets destroyed. This is a heavily polled society. Why? To control it. And you don’t care.”
“Nature has its laws,” says Silver. “We merely play by them.”
“We don't make the original rules,” says Lin. “We try to adjust them. For the better or the worse, whatever we can do.”
“'Can’t fight City Hall' really means 'Can’t fight Big Money',” says Sabia. “You’re sell-outs, both of you. Pious sell-outs.”
“I’m in good hands with Ms. Lin,” says Silver. “That's all I need to know. Ellen's a good person. And so am I.”
“Funny how Alecta doesn't need to sell her soul. The People put her in charge, not the Pillagers.”
“You see,” says President Silver to Ellen Lin. “There she goes again. Always the old story. We’re all pillagers to her! No nuance, no subtlety, no sense of proportion, no generosity.”
“No lies,” says Sabia. “Alecta doesn’t lie.”
“Forget that squeaky little Vice President of mine for a sweet minute, Sabia. Her days are numbered. I’m numbering them. But for now, I’m giving you the power to keep me from breaking my word. If you don't make trouble for me, I'll help you out with what you want. Real world.”
Silver lifts the peeled onion, inspects it, then dices it on a wooden board.
“But you lie, Silver. Everything's a deal with you, for you. You don’t care about meeting the demands.”
“I care more than you realize. More than I can say.”
“About yourself.”
“Tell her the other thing,” says Lin.
“That too.”
“Tell her.”
Silver sets down knife. “Sabia, my popularity has gone through the roof, ever since the bombing. By getting kidnapped, I’ve never been more popular you know. I never will be again. There’s an election coming up. I’m sure you’re thrilled.”
“You’re doing this to get re-elected, Silver-Bullet. To ensure your return to office.”
“The polls are what they are.”
“But wait, there’s more,” says Lin. “Tell her the truth, Kristen. The full truth.”
“Alecta is too popular right now,” says Silver.
Lin flips the omelet in the pan. “We need to allow time for Alecta’s new programs to crash and burn. Which they will. Nothing can be done about it.”
“Sabia,” says Silver. “You and I both know that my donors and my opponent's donors, my party and theirs, will try to sabotage the roll-out of every new public service that Alecta tries to offer.”
“And they will succeed,” says Lin. “They will sue, and they will demonize. They will throw money around. Giveth and taketh away.”
“So, you see, Sabia,” says Silver. “If I came on scene right now, everything bad that happens to these new programs would be my fault, not Alecta's. With time, Alecta will be brought down to Earth, I’ll win re-election this fall, and emerge full-power. I’ll even grant you and Roca the full pardons that you don’t deserve. And if you peep about me making brunch here today, I’ll crush every program you ever cared for. Or simply crush you and your abuelo. Or both.”
Sabia goes hands to hips. “There you are. All your power is blackmail, isn’t it, Silver-Town. Brute force. Not a goddamn thing that inspires and uplifts and brings people together.” She points at President Silver. “Okay, then. You come after me, if you want, but not Roca. He didn’t do anything to you.”
Silver points the chopping knife at Sabia. “Says his kidnapper granddaughter. What do you think, Ellen. Were they in on it together?”
“Like peas of a pod,” says Lin.
Silver sweeps the knife back to the onion. “I know that you two planned it all along. Anyway, your word against ours. And our word counts for everything.”
“You two are fucking shameless.”
“I’m the President of the United States of America. I must be doing something right.”
Lin nods in matter-of-fact agreement. She flips the omelet a final time.
“Oh, fuck you,” says Sabia. “If only the both of you had stuck to the kitchen. Can you even cook?”
“Sabia.” President Silver points the knife. “I can throw you to the wolves, right now. Is that what you want?”
Sabia takes a breath.
What does she want?
To be in control of her own kitchen again.
That needs to happen.
Roca healthy and happy and home.
That will happen.
And one other thing.
To be able to face herself in the goddamn mirror, given a once in a lifetime chance to save the world and jumpstart a revolution.
Hasn’t she done enough already?
Ask people who suffer.
It’s not for Sabia to answer.
Fuck.
“You are the wolf, Silver. It's like you have no idea how bad you are. How could you? You've been conditioned, everything conditions you to make you think you're the shit. You're obsessed with money. Big money. The biggest possible. Why? I'll tell you. Because you're a money-fucker. Silver. That’s all you are. When are you going to realize — you’re the Bad Guy. The big bad bully on the block. Or do you know and don’t care? You care in the wrong way.”
“Cool it both of you,” says Lin. “You’re like my two obstinate daughters. Always forcing me to play Mom. Do I want to be your Mom? No. Yet here I am. I think the two of you would be lost without having each other to hate.”
“Well she fucking kidnapped me, so there's that,” says Silver.
Lin slides the pan from the hot burner and turns off the stove. “Go ahead, fight it out. Kill each other here in the kitchen. Classic.” Lin picks up a knit pot-holder and throws it back down onto the counter. “What do I care? Fuck. I’ll write my book and come out smelling like roses. I’ll be well compensated. So go ahead. Give me a juicy chapter right now. Tear each other apart in front of me. Do it. Get it over with. Looks like we’re gonna be here awhile. Might as well make it fun!” Lin turns away from both. Then she faces them and jabs a finger at each. “And what are we all doing here for real? Committing treason.” Lin walks away. She disappears into a bedroom.
“Now that was a good speech,” says Sabia.
“You ruined her brunch,” says Silver. “Why do you need to be so impossible every second of every day, Sabia? It's brunch!”
“George Washington committed treason. Things turned out okay for him,” says Sabia.
“Oh, fuck you,” says Silver. “There’s no British involved this time.”
“She got one thing wrong though,” says Sabia. “I’m the mother around here, not her. And I'm the father. And the daughter. And the son. I'm the whole family. I live here. You don’t. And neither does she.”
“When Roca passes on from this world, Sabia, you'll have no family at all. You might want to try harder to make some other kind of family with the people around you. And not just be mad all the time. In the time you have left. Which, piss me off again today—”
President Silver picks up the knife and stabs it into the cutting board.
“Fuck you.” She goes to find Lin.
Sabia pulls the knife out of the board and examines the damage. She sets the knife on the counter.
She stands over the omelet. It doesn't look terrible. Smells good. Sabia is ravenous.
Has it been a week or a day since she took Roca to the hospital? She stands at the stove and eats the entire omelet straight from the pan — quickly at first, then she begins to savor each bite.
She feels good. Real good. She’s amazed she’s not arrested, locked up, abused, behind killer bars.
She’s home. Roca soon will be too. Life is good, amazingly so.
Sabia finishes the omelet, sets the pan aside.
Silver and Lin think they're free here in her home, but Sabia knows better.
She still has her hostages.
She gave them the opportunity to run. They stayed.
Sabia still has the state by the balls. In a vice. And she intends to tighten that vice with the biggest wrench she can find.
Silver. What horseshit.
Silver won a little bit of freedom. But she, Sabia, keeps winning the war.
She won. Again. Still winning.
Sabia licks her lips.
She will need back-up, though, going forward. Roca is weak. And not necessarily reliable.
Who can she count on the most?
Not Avery, her tough and tender, slender, little man.
He is fun though.
Her school friends? Not for this. Not yet.
Jasmine. She’s got Jasmine if she needs her.
Sabia leans on the kitchen counter.
She tries to remember if Jenna knows how to use a gun.
Note: The liberal Presidential candidate Kamala Harris has gone weeks without interacting with the media, over the entire course of her campaign thus far, acting much like President Joe Biden. Coincidentally, this new chapter “A Crooked Road” featuring the equally dodgy liberal candidate Kristen Silver shows a parallel duck and cover. Smart move by Harris; the more she disappears the better her prospects. Meanwhile, Vice Presidential implications loom large this election cycle, which is even more the case in “Most Revolutionary.” Between the two Presidential elections, one fictive and dramatized, the other real(?) and dramatic, it might be worth considering which one — the story or the reporting — seems more real and relevant, and to greater point, partisan or otherwise? Which more instructive? Which more coherent — the sweeping hurricane of a novel or the blizzard of reports? Which speaks more to cultural and social and political reform, let alone, dare it be said, to revolution? Which more clear? More compelling? More challenging? More fully human? And which of these two types of stories is pervasive in culture, which not? (Late in the novel, as events push toward climax, Sabia demands that she be novelized not categorized — and she demands that the revolution by novelized, too, not categorized so that it might come ever more alive in culture, not be reduced to sociology, not be circumscribed. Might “Most Revolutionary” be seen as left Twitter as novel, left social media as epic? Sequenced as never-ending events around elections, power, and conditions on the ground — in the unending battle for human flourishing and human rights? It’s not for the establishment to judge, fictive or real. They’re too busy going underground.)