J. Curtis: Calexit: The Anthology

My Customs buddy turns, “Hey! This is the guy I told you about! The water-seller!”

Unknown guy steps up, regarding me with the sort of expression usually employed by scientists looking a particularly fertile petri dish. Crap. His voice is the dry rasp you would expect, “So. You expect me to believe you smuggle water to the Fascists?”

Behind him, Usual Guy smiles like there’s a good joke in the offing. That creepy feeling is thundering up my spine with all the delicate grace of a rhino in combat boots.

“Yeah! Come on, come on! Let’s see it!”

Moving slowly, I slide out of the driver’s seat, praying that no kids start screaming, and stroll to the back of the van. “So, are you the new Supervisor here?”

He looks at me, but doesn’t say anything.

I open the backdoor, and the regular guy beams like he’s won the Christmas Lottery, “See? Water!”

New guy look at me, “Water?”

I try to look a little abashed, “The Fascists love Cali water. They’ll pay five dollars a bottle for genuine Cali water.”

He raises an eyebrow at me. I wave paperwork at him, “I’ve got manifests, and a contract. I pay half of the profit in tariffs. Right here, actually, I pay the tariffs.” I try to look vaguely honest, with a touch of larceny.

Usual Guy grins, and smacks the spare tire housing on the right side of the inside of the van. A circular panel falls, off, revealing a distinct lack of a spare tire. Probably because of the rather large amount of oregano, stacked in neat bricks inside the compartment. “Ah!” says Usual Customs Guy, in the tone one would use at the height of a magic trick, reaches in, and grabs a roughly-wrapped partial bag.

We do this every time. One of these days, he’s going to grab the wrong bundle, and find out that the partial bundle of dispenseria -supplied mota is the only non-oregano bundle in there, but all Customs people think everyone’s dirty anyway, best to let him find some dope every now and then.

I look mildly offended, “I’ve got a ‘scrip for that…”

New Guy fixes me with a gimlet eye. “Citizen, that’s a bit more than ‘personal use’. A lot more.”

I look a bit discomfited. It’s not hard just right now.

“But I really don’t give a damn about what you sell to the Fascists. What I am concerned about is your obvious felony.”

I blink at him.

He points to a corner of a magazine sticking out from the top of the pile of oregano bundles. “Objectifying women is a penal offense in California.”

I look at the Playboy magazine. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Usual Guard slipping the four ounces of pot into the pocket of his jacket. Out here in the boonies, the closest dispenseria is hours away, and the poor little dears out here are sorrowfully deprived.

Other guy, though…

“So. I’m going to seize this unlawful pornography. Unless you have a problem…?”

“No, sir, I surely don’t.”

“All right, Citizen. On your way. Be sure to check in on your way back. And I expect an honest accounting for the tariff.”

“Yes, sir.”

“On your way, Citizen.”

He hands me the travel documents back, and turns to go back into the Customs shack. I notice that the Playboy has been tucked gently under his arm.

Taking a deep breath, I get back behind the wheel, put it in ‘D’, and wave to the

Cali officials as I ferry Fred and his family into the American city of Topaz Lake.

CALEXIT

D-45

Gary Simpson stood on the cracked concrete curb, behind a wall of blue clad police in riot gear and watched as his brother Tommy’s head was pounded soft by a mob supporting Black Lives Matter placards. They’d been smashing and burning businesses on Ventura Boulevard for no reason beyond the fact that they were African-American. Their march was marked with a line of black smoke that stained the sky, pushed inland by an on-shore breeze.

The fact that Tommy Simpson was also black didn’t enter into the equation because the blood lust was up and he decided to make a stand in front of the greasy spoon restaurant he managed for an owner who had taken out an insurance policy against just such an eventuality.

Tommy tried to stand in their way and speak to them, asking the mob to listen to reason. They didn’t. The mob wanted to burn the whole world down. The police stood by and allowed them to. After Tommy fell and was stomped to death, the mob burned both his body and the diner.

The crush of numbers, the blood lust, the fire, the theft, the hysteria of the mob was lensed by Gary as a surreal act. He’d screamed and screamed, but no voice came out. He tore his hair, he ripped his clothes, and he clawed at the ground until his fingernails came off. It made no difference, but from that gaping wound in his psyche came a resolve as hard and pure as a diamond.

California’s impending secession from the United States of America caused red, white and blue flight with many police officers and firemen taking their families east to Nevada, Arizona, Utah or even further east to Texas. Cities and counties tried to replace them, but it took years to train police officers, firefighters and paramedics. The police at the scene had been undermanned and Gary knew it. He bore the officers no malice. It wasn’t only the cops. Doctors, nurses, and the best healthcare professionals all saw the handwriting on the wall.

CALEXIT

D+20

“I know what you’re thinking so you can wipe that smug look from your face. I’m still here because I’m a drunk. An alcoholic has more dignity than a drunk because he’s taken the time to try and fix the problem.”

“It’s just that you look like a derelict Mike and your breath smells precisely like dog shit pickled in cheap booze. Did you sleep in that uniform?”

Mike looked down at the gray militia uniform. Gone was the Sheriff’s Department khaki shirt and green trousers. Gone was the star on the uniform, replaced by a round disk edged by stick people holding hands with the words, ‘Cali Militia’ in the center. “It’s not much of a uniform is it?”

“You could have it tailored and it wouldn’t sag so much. You’re a major in the Cali People’s Militia now, for heck sakes. You’re a big shot.”

“Yeah, Larry, you, me and thousands of untrained thugs and inner city people are in the militia now. When they opened the prisons and released people they called political prisoners , I knew things would turn out badly. When they replaced the criminals with political opponents, all of the guys with any integrity headed off for the states. Present company excepted.”

“That’s right,” Larry told Mike, “and they walked away from their homes and their pensions. Yours is still intact.”

Mike reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of banknotes with the face of the late Governor Jerry Brown, a.k.a. Moonbeam, hero of CALEXIT, in the center. “We’re being paid in script. The People’s Republic of Cali ,” Mike amplified. “You got this bullshit?” He waved his hand around like a flipper.

Larry soothed him, “The militia conscripts are pretty raw, but they can keep order. At least I think that they can.”

Mike Sanchez turned to go and then looked back at Larry Marcus. “Why’d you stay, Larry? You have a lot going for you. Army special forces with combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, a solid record here at the Sheriff’s Department — okay, now it’s the Militia.”

“I’ve got nowhere else to go. I figured that I’d stay and see how this all works out.”

Mike grunted, and he kept on grunting as he walked. His reflection in the locker room mirror looked like twenty miles of bad road. He stopped at his own gray metal locker. His own image greeted him again as he opened the locker and peered into the mirror. Two days growth of beard, dark bags under his eyes and a swollen nose where Curtis James tagged him made him look more like a derelict than the sheriff’s sergeant he once had been.