Most Revolutionary - Chapter Twelve
The Highs and the Low
Previously: Under threat of major reform, the Supreme Court declines to challenge the legitimacy of the new popular progressive social programs implemented by Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez, who memorializes the bombing victims near Des Moines, and visits Sabia Perez in her Iowa farmhouse and winter greenhouse. Roca Perez suffers a heart attack in the coal mine bunker. President Silver and Ellen Lin try to save Roca and fear what Sabia will do to them if he dies.
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.
Sealed with sex.
Sabia and Avery are half-clothed, again, after school, the day after the visit to the Perez farmstead by Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez.
On another colorful woven Mexican blanket they sprawl, on the pea gravel greenhouse floor, near the benches and the frog pond and waterfall. Avery is on top of Sabia, facing her, moving rhythmically between her legs. Sabia’s hand on his backside, guiding, holding, directing.
“This is where Alecta and I talked,” Sabia tells Avery.
The bottoms of Sabia’s feet kick to the clear sky above the glass ceiling. Her left foot rhythmically knocks low-hanging oranges.
“Be one with me, Avery, as I am one with you. Love me, even if only in the moment.”
“I do love you.”
“And I you. If only in the moment.”
Avery doesn't know what to say to that. He moves repeatedly against Sabia.
“Now like this.”
Sabia lifts her feet above her head, ankles to ears.
Avery scoops her, wraps her, continues his push. Sabia is his entire world, everything that matters.
Sabia pushes Avery off. She shifts onto her hands and knees. She guides him back upon her. He moves the way he thinks he should, gently. “Like you love me, Avery,” Sabia tells him. She tells him several times in rhythm. “Like you love me. Once you get that can you go at me like I excite you. Then you can surprise me. But for now, love me. Be with me.”
Avery tries. Sabia senses him thinking things through.
“Feel it,” she says. “Open your five senses. Be one with what you are. Love me like I love you.”
“I do love you,” says Avery.
Sabia reaches back and slaps his leg. “It can hurt, a little. Don't injure. It can be a little scary even. But don't injure.”
Avery’s not sure.
Sabia slaps him again. Avery lifts his hand because he thinks she wants him to slap her. Instead he stares at one of the power fists on her glute. He grabs Sabia by her hips and tries to be carefully more forceful.
“Fuck me like you own me, even though you don't, Avery. You won't get it right, but at least you can try. One day you'll feel exactly how to go at it. And you'll want to for real. Go ahead. Fuck me like you own me. I dare you.”
“What if it hurts you?”
“A little pain is okay. I told you. Injury is not.”
Avery tries. Sabia looks around, almost patiently. His strength or will, she thinks, maybe his understanding, something is lacking. And — she knows — everyone is different.
“Alecta loves me,” says Sabia. “She said I was doing great. I told her she was doing the same. She told me on this exact spot.”
Avery stops for a moment, holds Sabia's hips tight. Then he holds her by hip and shoulder.
“Like this?”
“You need to figure out what the woman wants, Avery. The woman you end up with will be different from me. Everyone is different.”
Avery stops. He presses tight against Sabia’s backside.
“I only want to be with you.”
Sabia looks back at him. She shakes her head.
“First of all, your parents would kill me if they knew about this. Second, you need to go out and live, be with different people. You’ll be curious. There’s not just me for you, not just one, not yet, maybe not ever. You need to live, Avery.”
“I don't,” he says. “I only want-”
“Maybe someday you’ll even be with a guy.”
“Sabia, you’re all I think about.”
Avery keeps himself clamped to her backside.
“It won’t last, Avery. It’s sweet but don't count on it. I may never take a partner. You for sure will get married. I know your mom and-”
Sabia hears something.
“Shit!”
Sabia lunges forward to her belly, and Avery, clamped tight, goes with her.
A drone camera flown by Billy the Moto Kid lands on the greenhouse roof not far from them.
Sabia and Avery sprawl flat beneath an orange tree. Sabia rolls herself and Avery closer to the tree trunk, beneath a protective shroud of leaves.
“It’s your fucking brother!”
Sabia and Avery are still attached, Avery pinned between Sabia and the tree trunk. Sabia drags the blanket they had been laying on, covers her chest.
“That fucking drone. I need a gun.”
Pressed between Sabia and the trunk of the orange tree, Avery is coming.
“Oh, shit, Avery, I said, I need a gun. I didn’t say, come.”
Sabia helps him through it, still pressed tight. They remain as one, hiding. Sabia takes Avery's hand.
“Okay?” she says.
“My Dad. He gave me a shotgun for Christmas. He won it at church, in a raffle.” Avery breathes deep. “Billy was pissed. It’s brand new. All Dad ever gave him was a beat-up .22 rifle.”
“I mean, are you okay?”
“I'm okay.”
“Good. I need that gun.”
“But you hate guns.”
“Avery, I teach you things. You teach me things. You’re going to teach me to shoot a fucking gun.”
“You won’t shoot Billy, will you?”
“Only if I need to.”
“He can be a real asshole, but he’s my brother.”
Sabia pulls Avery’s face to hers. She squeezes his lips, makes him look like a guppy.
“We’re all brothers, kid.”
Sabia kisses him.
“We’re all mothers. We’re all fathers. We’re all sons and daughters. And we’re all going to die, if we don’t save those frogs.”
Avery looks at the frog tank and waterfall. “What's wrong with the frogs?”
“Climate collapse.”
Avery is confused — though mostly about what Sabia really wants. He attempts to kiss her. She allows it. She kisses him back, and they continue to hide under the oranges.
The drone flies away. Sabia breaks off the kiss. They roll out from the tree.
Avery looks up and around. “It's gone,” he says.
“That pervert thug brother of yours better not have us on video. He would put us all over the internet.” Sabia takes Avery by his shoulders and pushes him onto his back on the blanket. “Lie down now.”
Sabia watches the sky for the return of the drone as she crouches on Avery in reverse cowgirl position. Avery stares at the power fists tattooed on Sabia's glutes, back, shoulders, calves. Each fist moves as Sabia moves.
“I love you,” says Avery.
Sabia crooks her shoulders and neck to look back at him. She keeps moving, slowly, rhythmically, seeing him helpless beneath her.
Then she returns her gaze to the sky.
“You remember that,” Sabia tells Avery. “You remember that you love me. I know you'll remember this.”
Sabia moves rhythmically and watches the sky.
“Whatever I need, whenever I need it, you’ll do it for me. Won’t you.”
“Yes.”
With both hands, Sabia pushes her long black hair up off her neck above her head — making all of her power fist tattoos fully visible. Then Sabia lets her hair drop. It spills across her back.
“Anything I ask. Anything at all.”
“I won't shoot Billy.”
“You leave Billy to me.”
Sabia rhythms slowly upon Avery as she scans the sky.
Chief of Staff Shakeeta Glazier and Press Secretary Tisha Noori face Acting President Alecta O'Roura-Chavez in the Oval Office. Alecta stands behind the Resolute Desk with her left fist on her hip and a National Security Agency report extended in her right hand. “Do you believe this shit,” she says. “I knew the rot was deep, but I never thought it went this deep.”
“Let me get this straight,” says Tisha. “A US Naval officer on a submarine in the Atlantic Ocean uses a satellite phone to contact FBI Director Castelan to ask why the President's bus has stopped in the middle of nowhere Iowa, at night. Castelan seems in no way surprised by the call, though not happy. Evidently he's aware of a GPS tracking device on the bus, and the current weather conditions. Castelan says the blizzard must have something to do with the stopped bus. He hangs up. The sub then destroys the bus, apparently using coordinates obtained before Ground Force One lost satellite contact.”
“That's what happened,” says Shakeeta. “Castelan knows the killers.”
“The next morning everyone learns of the bombing,” continues Tisha. “And sees the snowy crater and hopeless rescue and recovery efforts — thank you, Billy the Moto Kid. Castelan calls Navy Chief Bentcan, who then orders the sub sunk. So it is. Next Castelan calls the Director of the NSA, Andy Alspi. And Castelan recounts his brief communication with the sub and tells Alspi to scrub any record of it.”
“Fortunately a rival faction within the NSA has been monitoring Director Alspi,” says Shakeeta. “So a copy of the recording gets to me, anonymously, along with the transcript that you hold in your hand, Madame President.”
“Okay. I fired Castelan and Bentcan and Alspi, who are no friends of mine and no friends of the people,” says Alecta. “Maybe I should have ordered their arrests instead. Immediately.”
“They'll get theirs,” says Tisha. “Three of the most powerful figures in the nation and the world. It won't be easy.”
“They're all under investigation at least. And here we are,” says Shakeeta. “Bentcan and Alspi both claim innocence. They lawyered up and attack you in the media. Meanwhile, Castelan disappeared. Maybe it’s time to go public with all the evidence. And make the arrests.”
“Who the fuck is innocent in this?” says Alecta. “Anyone? Kingsley?”
“I wouldn't trust the Secret Service with my lunch, let alone my life at this point,” says Shakeeta.
“Shit,” says Alecta.
“A right-wing cabal,” says Tisha. “Like the January 6th insurrection but even more deadly.”
“Insurrection, my ass. That was a coup attempt,” says Shakeeta. “Haphazard, deadly, and barely failed for all anyone can know.”
“A coup in guise of an insurrection,” says Alecta.
“A coup in guise of a coup,” says Shakeeta.
Alecta smacks the NSA report of the bombing onto the Resolute Desk.
“There it is,” says Tisha.
Alecta sits at the Resolute Desk. She smooths the NSA report nervously with both hands.
“I say arrest them now,” says Shakeeta. “Bentcan, Alspi, Castelan. Navy, NSA, FBI. Make it plain.”
“I need to get my own Attorney General into the Justice Department first,” says Alecta. “We can’t trust Silver’s guy to bring anyone to justice.”
“You wait, you'll look weak,” says Shakeeta. “You will be weak.”
“I'm declassifying this shit. Let Castelan try to defend himself from obstruction of justice on TV. He’ll have allies in the media, sure, but also enemies.”
Alecta stands up again and leans over the desk.
“Enemies like me.”
Bar and grill at a rural wayside outside Washington DC. The booth is dimly lit. Fired FBI Director Maximilian Castelan sits across from suspended Secret Service Director William Kingsley.
“Certain things may come to your attention soon,” say Castelan to Kingsley. “Connecting me and other officials to those Navy boys who threw missiles at the President. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“Maximilian, the shit you’re part of – it doesn’t surprise me. Tell me this: Why? What is this love-fest with fulfilling the fucking stereotype of white male tyrants? What the fuck are you doing? You won already. You've got money. You had power and a great position in life. What is it? You can’t stand a woman President, a Black President, a Liberal President? What?”
“Oh, for Christ's sake, Kingsley.”
“Tell me. That's it, isn't it? You're a bigot and a sicko. Was it natural-born, or did you work at it your whole life?”
“You asshole. We're all a part of this. It's the fucking culture. Do I need to spell it out. We're here for the power. It's a big money white male supremacist club, you know that. Speaking plain and private. Of course we don't call it that. But you know what it is. You know how this country was founded. You know how wealth was created. You know who retains the vast majority of it. Money talks, I walk. And so do you. Lands, materials, dollars, it was all moved and made from the browns and the blacks at the point of a gun. Moved to the whites. They profiteered from Day One. Call it 'critical race theory' or call it the truth. And that’s the culture still today. Some people remain terrified of the brown continent that their own pale people invaded. I mean that literally. It’s not a metaphor. The fear was passed down through the centuries. I’m a history buff, I admit. I know who I am, and so should you. And the rest of the fellow travelers feel entitled. We're institutionalized, now, Kingsley, you know that. Everyone on all sides of the culture knows this, whether they admit it or not. The United States of America is basically a confederation of endlessly powerful white male clubs. We're like gods. The Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, you name it. And fucking Corporate America. Almost all the Boards of Directors, the CEO's, the Presidents, the Chief Financial Officers. High Finance and their protectors, the cops. Ten gazillion Chiefs of Police and their hundred gazillion gun-first shock troops. Some of these officials and their clubs get a little ambitious from time to time.” Castelan takes a long drink.
Kingsley stares in exasperation. “My God, you act big even for your own gigantic britches, Castelan. You really are an empire-all-in kind of guy, aren't you. You love this shit. You live and breathe it.”
“Do I really need to put the cards on the table for you, Bill? We created a police state. We live in a police state. And we expect to police. Who doesn't know this? The big-money owners want it. They built it. They ordered it. That's what the guns are for. That's why they get people to wildly misinterpret the gun and state militia amendment in the Constitution. It's their greatest accomplishment, their biggest investment – the police state. It's their club, their country – their country club! They expect a return on their investment – the evergrowing investment in dollars and bullets.”
“Are you really that bad, Max? Why don’t you want to retire and just play golf?”
Castelan drinks a draft beer. “I may be a special case.”
“No shit.” Kingsley drinks his own draft. He looks around the nearly empty bar.
“Do you think I wanted to be part of any of this madness, Bill? Do you think I chose this?”
“Yes.”
“Well, fuck you then. Look – they're fish food – our most recent blood-thirsty morons in that killer sub, they're fish food now.”
“Only a few of them.”
“Yeah, okay. The clubs survive, and the culture with it. They’re barely challenged. But I got caught up in this thing, this time, in a bad way. Nothing I could do. The next time that you hear from me – let me put it like this – don’t take your eyes off Iowa.”
“What’s in Iowa, Max? Silver? Do you know that for real? She’s still in Iowa? How? We turned that state upside down.”
“I know something you don’t, Bill. I do now.”
“Who has her, Max?”
“Iowa is so white that its gleaming skull is fucking collapsing in on itself.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“You won’t find me, Bill. I'm white as Hell myself. I'll blend in. Tell me, whatever happened to the Natives in Iowa? Everyone but the name is gone – or so you might think. Well, maybe that helps me out. Capiche?”
“Okay, sure. You don’t know anything, Max. Do you. You’re guessing.” Kingsley begins to think that Castelan was drunk before he arrived at the bar.
“I'll give you a hint, Bill. It's the fucking Water Defenders.”
“The Tribes?”
“Either them or their allies. Has to be. It's a fucking Native uprising in fucking Iowa. Where's General George Custer when you fucking need him.”
“Actually, aren't we supposed to be Custer?” says Kingsley, before thinking better of it. “Never mind. The Tribe is holding the President? You’re not serious. They rescued the President? Now they're holding her?”
“Somebody is.”
“Oh, for fucks sake, Castelan. What are the odds?”
“Better than you might think. You think the Wild West died decades ago? Think again.”
“Jesus Christ, Max, you're not living in a fucking Western. No one is going out in this horrible story guns blazing in Iowa.”
“You think you know that.”
Kingsley is beginning to wish he were drunk himself. He drinks more. He thinks about ordering another glass. “Look, Max, I have my own access to the investigations, including the ones looking at you. I should arrest you right now. You’re lucky the President hasn’t done it already.”
“Go ahead, try.” Castelan reaches for his gun. “I'm telling you it's the Wild West out there. Right here. It never died. And you’re in this thing too.”
Kingsley places his glass between himself and Castelan. “No way. Maybe I'm as white and as entitled as you would have me be – but I’m not part of any crazy conspiracy.”
“So you think.”
“What did you do, Max? Why did you really do it? For sicko kicks?”
“I did nothing I wasn't blackmailed into. Not a goddamn thing.”
“On what grounds were you blackmailed?”
“None of your business, Bill. How could I know they were going to launch missiles at the fucking President.”
“Okay, that sounds like the beginning of a defense. Tell me what you did. Maybe I can help you out. You need to get out in front of this, right?”
“And make you a hero? Mistakes were made, Bill. There's nothing more I can say.”
“Do you want a deal or not?”
“I won't be given one. So, no. I'll need to make my own deal in my own way.”
Kingsley lifts his glass and drinks again. Maybe the guy’s not drunk, he thinks. Castelan is starting to seem savvy in a way that makes Kingsley nervous. “So that's why you're going to Iowa. You'll be followed and found out, Max.”
Castelan smirks. “No way. I'll be followed. Not found.”
“Good luck with that.”
Castelan pulls out his Glock 19 and lays it on the table, finger on the trigger, end of the barrel pointing at Kingsley.
“Tell Alecta I said, 'Hello'. Honest to God, I didn't now they were going to launch those missiles, Bill.”
Kingsley sets his drink down slowly. “Don’t point that thing at me.”
“Fuck you.”
“You knew too much, Max. You were part of it. You knew something about the assassination. You can’t blame me for that. That’s all on you.”
“I know something about Iowa, that’s what I know.”
“Fine. Move your gun, Max.”
Castelan removes his gun from the table. He lays it unholstered on the booth beside him. Then he holds his nearly empty glass on the tabletop and turns it, stares into it.
“I need to go directly to the Acting President with these details, Max. You know that,” says Kingsley. “She needs to be told. You think Iowa is the place where President Silver is somehow hidden and held. Or so you hope. I need to report that. I need to tell her all about you, Max.”
Kingsley is soft, Castelan thinks. Scared. Like most people. Castelan wonders for a moment what it might be like to live that way.
“You’re a lonely fuck, aren’t you,” says Castelan.
“No. You’re not?”
Castelan scoffs. He drinks the last of his beer.
“So do it. Tell Alecta the fucking O’Roura-Chavez that I’m off to Iowa. Everyone's going to Iowa. Why not me? If Iowa won't come to us, we must go to Iowa. And you will go to your Dear President with whatever news you wish to tell. Go ahead, sell yourself. I'm counting on it. Tell her. Tell Ms. Alecta O'Roura-Chavez that I intend to clear my name. In my own way. The only way left to me.”
“With a gun? In the Wild West? That's not the way, Max.”
“Don't be a goddamn fool, Bill. You're packing right now – locked and loaded, armed to the teeth. I'm packing. The bartender is packing. Know the world you're living in, Son. And don't doubt it – at least half your agency is like me and mine. More than half. Almost everyone. Gun strong. I’m your friend, William. If things go well in Iowa, you might want to be my friend too. Don’t write me off too soon, my man.”
Castelan holsters his gun. He stands, throws money on the table.
“If I’m in a position to negotiate with the White House,” says Castelan, “I’ll be in touch. With you.”
Castelan walks away.
Kingsley stares straight ahead. And wonders. What does the FBI know that he does not?
He begins to drink again.
Everything. At least, Castelan acts like he knows everything.
“Shit.”
Maybe he does.
Kingsley ends his beer. He watched one too many cop shows as a kid or he himself never would have become a cop. True or False?
True, he thinks. Probably true.
Doesn't matter now.
Kingsley stands. He drops his own money on the table beside Castelan’s.
He can feel something breaking inside him. Something due not entirely to his suspension and to the loss of the President. And nothing caused by his post-divorce lack of a domestic life, nor by his hit-and-miss social life, nor by his erratic dating life.
Or maybe he’s not thinking clearly.
More than a break, though, there's a slow burn in his gut that he worries might consume him if he lets it go and grow.
Kingsley thinks of Sabia. He would rather not. He marvels and thinks of her as someone who has grown far out of control herself.
Kingsley leaves quickly. He needs to walk it off. He needs to call Acting President Alecta O'Roura-Chavez and tell her again that he’s not guilty and that Castelan surely is.
Kingsley nods to the barkeep like a cop on his way out.
Panicked.
Sabia connects her computer screen to the TV screens in the bunker and stares from the great room into the bunker at her unconventional guests.
President Silver on the couch. Ellen Lin at the kitchen table. Roca on a nearby cot. Sabia sees Roca lying flat. He struggles to sit up when he sees Sabia’s image. He grasps weakly at the broom handle. It slips from his fingers. He knocks over a bottle of aspirin.
“Abuelo! What’s wrong!”
“Sabia.” Roca props himself up on his elbows. “Thank the heavens for these cameras and the TVs. Your abuela and I watched you for hours with these cameras when you insisted on playing here, when we were busy in the kitchen and around the farm. And now I've seen you on TV with Alecta.”
“What happened, Abuelo? Did they hurt you? Did Silver-”
“You did it, Sabia,” says Roca. “You got health care. I’m so proud. You were all over the news. I saw every minute.”
“Abuelo, what happened?”
“He had a heart attack,” says Lin. “Tell her, Roca.”
“Where were you, Sabia!” says President Silver. She gets up from the couch and points at Sabia’s image onscreen. “Playing with the Vice President. Well, look at your precious Abuelo now.” Silver gestures to Roca who manages to sit fully upright finally. “How could you abandon him, your own blood? How could you let him suffer? How could you leave him here alone in this dirty hole in the ground to die?”
“Fuck you, Silver,” says Sabia. “That’s your whole career.” Sabia flashes Silver the finger. “Abuelo, are you in pain?”
“I’m good, Sabia. I take aspirin. I’m fasting. I’m getting better.”
“He needs to go to the hospital,” says Silver. “What are you going to do about it, Sabia?”
“Abuelo-”
“If you come in here to care for him, Ellen and I will get out,” says Silver.
“Don’t do it, Sabia,” says Roca. “Keep the pressure on. As soon as you let up, they’ll take everything away. It’s not set yet, health care. There’s so much more you can get.”
“I can’t leave you like this, Abuelo.”
“Everyone thinks I’m dead. I might as well be. That would fool ‘em!”
“That’s not how this ends.”
“I’ve done my good work on this Earth, Sabia. I can pull through, but if I don’t, it’s okay.”
“No, Abuelo. It's not.” Sabia understands what must happen. She sees it in an instant. Her revolution is over. At least this form of it. She'll need to find another way. Impossible, she thinks. But the choice is the revolution or Roca. And she chooses Roca. To her credit or not, she does not know. She's afraid to think it through.
“I’m fasting to heal, Mija. Like you taught me,” says Roca. “I can feel the warm burn in my belly and in my heart. It's warm, Mija. It’s like you said. I'm healing. I take aspirin. I can pull through.”
“You may need more than aspirin, Abuelo. This is how Mamá died.”
“No. It’s totally different. She was so young. No.”
“It’s exactly the same. Exact!”
“I lived my life, Sabia. I’ve never been better. You can’t trust Silver. She will take everything away. Everything! No matter what she says. You can’t believe her. You know that.”
“Sabia,” says Silver, “I promise-”
“Shut up! He’s right, goddamn it. And you would promise. Then you would fucking break that promise! You might even believe your promise as you make it. Then you would believe it's right to break the promise. Silver-Fucker.”
“That’s it, Sabia. That’s real world, Mija. That’s who Silver is.”
“It doesn’t matter. Abuelo, I’m coming to get you.”
“No-”
Sabia shuts off the audio and video to the bunker.
She faces the blank screen, defeated. She puts her hands on top of her head, drops her forehead to the table, face down in front of the screen.
Fuck.
She will go to prison.
Maybe she can spark the revolution, again, from prison. She grabs on to this bit of hope like the tiniest of life rafts.
She looks up. She grabs her phone and taps 911.
