J. Curtis - Calexit - The Anthology

Lois said, “What the hell are you talking about. I directed you to take me to Palm Springs!”

“Well, Ma’am, I was served notice that I cannot leave Tulare County unless I give The Cali Department of Education two weeks advanced notice of my intention.” Chad said.

“That does not apply any more. Now take me to Palm Springs.” Lois insisted.

“Does that mean you are not voluntarily getting off this bike?” Chad asked.

“Damned straight, that is exactly what it means.” Lois responded hotly. She hated it when ‘little people’ thought they could play games.

“I want to be really sure. Is that your final answer?” Chad queried.

“It is.” Lois replied. “Now step on it!”

Mentally, Chad thought, I kind of thought she would say something like that.

He straightened his arms and locked his elbows. He straightened his back and sat tall in the seat. He nailed the gas and dumped the clutch when the tachometer needle blew by 8500 RPM.

The first time a bike comes over on top of you, your stomach sinks while your testicles rise. If you have not been coached, and many who have, you gasp in surprise. Hitting the ground with your back while inhaling is guaranteed to paralyze your diaphragm and make breathing impossible for three or four minutes.

Chad was exhaling as he kicked the bike away from him. The bike was light and Lois, Chad and the bike were no longer in contact with the ground.

Chad landed on his back. Well, actually, he landed on Lois who was an honest 230 pounds of polyester and body fat.

Lois landed on her back. She whacked the back of her head and simultaneously lost one of her contacts.

Chad rolled off Lois who was completely incapacitated.

“According to the regulations in The Department of Cali Board of Education Handbook, I am duty bound to report mishaps to my local authorities. Since I am on probation, I have no discretion in this matter. You will have to excuse me while I go back to Orosi.” Chad said.

Chad righted his bike, started it, and cautiously motored through the Walkers back the way he had come.

The Walkers saw that the rider of the motorcycle had left luggage beside the road. It gets cold at night in the Central Valley due to the clear skies. It feels even colder when you have no calories to shiver away.

They started ambling toward the large bundle of clothing beside the road.

As they got closer, they saw it was a woman. Blood was spurting from her (impressively) broken nose.

In time, Lois noticed the ring of spectators watching her. “What is the matter with you fucktards? Don’t you see I need a doctor? Call me a cab. What is the matter with you morons, can’t you hear?” Lois was skating the thin ice at the edge of hysteria.

The spectators watched without commenting.

One of the people watching was a young Hispanic woman. Really, little more than a girl. Unfortunately, the girl reminded Lois of her second wife, Mz Diaz.

Given a target for her abuse, Lois doubled down.

“Hey, Consuela, you fucking cunt. Why aren’t you helping me out… after all I have done for you.”

Still no response from the spectators. Starving people don’t process information quickly. They stood there. Silent. Motionless. Standing like sentinels in the lengthening shadows and rising mist of the late evening.

“I hate fucking spics.” Lois spat. “Don’t you know who I am? I am an agent with The. Cali. Department. Of. Education !”

No response, although the number of spectators was increasing.

“I can take your babies away from you.” Lois shrieked.

No response.

“If I want to, I can eat your babies and there is not anything you can do about it because I am fucking untouchable!” Lois screamed.

Some men are sheep. Some men are wolves. Both sheep and wolves are social animals.

When a troublesome ewe endangers the flock, the flock shuns her and forces her to the outside edges where she becomes vulnerable to predation.

Wolves deal with their problem members directly. They tear out the throat of the wolf that endangers the pack.

The spectators around Lois were mostly sheep. But a few were wolves.

Lois had stepped over the line for the last time.

They rolled the body off the road into the channel. One of the more experienced men covered it with rushes to deter the vultures and delay discovery. They did not need to worry about the vultures. They were feasting on the first of the Walkers to die, as they were wont, out in the open.

Eventually, her bones were found but hers were just one skeleton among millions.

The spectators shared the seven thousand Callors and the three hundred gas ration tickets they found in her fanny pack. That boost was enough to allow some of them, a very few of them, to survive the crisis. The skinny, young Hispanic woman took the hounds tooth jacket back home to her mother.

Chad limped back home at 9:00 the next morning. He had slept in Fast Eddie’s barn to provide the others with “plausible deniability”.

Miguel and the crew assumed that Chad was limping because he had just ridden six hundred miles on a dirt bike. They were impressed. He was elevated to El Patrón because very few men could do that in twelve hours and then put in a full day’s work the next day.

Mardi had her doubts. She had seen the bruises on Chad’s backside but she did not ask about them. She figured Chad would tell her what happened when he was ready.

The BOLO on Lois Gale-Lienhart-Diaz was updated to an APB, and updated again to the top ten wanted list, as an enemy of the state, but rumor had it she’d escaped to Mexico, based on a blurry photograph that showed an older woman in a hounds tooth jacket crossing the border a month after the APB had been put out.

The waitress — excuse me, waitperson — winks at me as she catches me admiring the view down her top, then waves a finger in amused admonishment before swaying off through the tables. And the view from behind was every bit as pleasant.

When it comes down to biology versus socialism, never bet against Mother Nature, folks. She cheats. Something that the fundamentalist idiots running the People’s Democratic

Republic of Cali still haven’t quite managed to figure out, bless their little hearts. I take a sip of the allegedly-caffeinated, chicory-flavored dishwater, before turning my gaze to the pasty little guy sitting across from me, who’s currently picking his locally-sourced ciabatta tofurkey roll into a little pile of crumbs next to the papas’ fritas and the tomato-vinegar reduction.

“Relax, Fred,” I say, sipping at the cup of despair and regret I’m probably going to wind up paying way too much for, “The key to conspiring is to not look like you’re conspiring. Relax. Eat a french fry.”

He blanches, “You can’t call them french…” He stops, takes a deep breath, then snatches a no-gluten, no-fat, no-sodium, no-GMO, no-taste, Fair-Trade, Locally-Sourced fry off the plate and bites furiously at it. I wouldn’t have believed you could make fried potatoes disgusting, but when your Food Code occupies six feet of a library shelf, it can be done.

Ten years after California formally left the Union to form their Own Little Country Based On (insert random bits of Leftist propaganda here), and things have gone every bit as well as anyone with a lick of sense — or a degree in history — would have told you. It’s a Third World pest-hole.

Which brings me to why I’m in a no-name hole-in- the-wall cafeteria, sitting at a much repurposed card table across from an arch-typical software engineer, drinking what passes for coffee in Cali these days.