Walter Mosley - Futureland - Nine Stories of an Imminent World

“I always knew you had it, baby,” he told his daughter.

“It was Pell, Daddy. He brings out something in me, something more than boxing.”

“What do you mean, Fifi?”

“I don’t know, Daddy. I don’t even know that it’s something I can know.”

The celebrations that followed the Konkon fight were spontaneous. It wasn’t a championship fight. The Fijian was only ranked eighth in the world. But there was something about Fera’s heart and about her man, Pell. Everyone watching the fight knew how much he loved her. They saw how deeply his passions went.

THE MAN BEHIND THE WOMAN, the cover of Sports Illustrated announced, displaying the photograph of Pell’s contorted face between rounds at the Konkon fight. Sixty Minutes did a fifteen-minute piece on the vulnerability and valor of her drug addict father and Backgrounder friend, Pell. Fera was being asked to speak at political fund-raisers and feminist luncheons around the world.

“But what do I have to say to these women?” Fera asked Selma Ho, publicist for the Green Party and SepFem sympathizer.

“You don’t have to say anything, dear.”

“Why invite me if they don’t want me to say anything?”

“People talk to explain things, to prove a point. You are the proof, M Jones.”

Lana Lordess, governor of Massachusetts, head of the vote-strong FemLeague, came to visit Fera at the Fifth Business three days before the Zeletski fight.

“It would be better if we talked alone,” Governor Lordess said as she sat on the overstuffed couch. Pell sat on the edge of the stone fireplace. Leon reclined in his portable electric chair, shocks jolting his thin frame every forty-three seconds. It was one of many therapies he was to try in order to stave off the collapse of his brain.

“This is my family,” Fera said.

Lana Lordess was only five foot four, but her presence was large. Even if Fera had not seen pictures of Lordess on the news every night, even if the FemLeague wasn’t the third largest party in the Congress, even if Lana had not personally led a march of ten million women in Washington, D.C., even if Fera had never heard of this small, overall-wearing woman, she would have still felt the power of those eyes.

Leon’s shoulders jerked.

Pell stared at the floor.

“I don’t discuss woman-business in the presence of men without having my lawyers present,” Lana said.

“Then get the fuck out,” Fera replied.

Lordess’s security guards both stiffened. They were big women with chemically enhanced muscles. Fera knew the black one from the ring.

“Watch yourself,” the black guard said.

“While I do I suggest that you count your teeth.”

Pell snorted out a laugh.

A shock went through Leon. His head twisted and shook.

“I don’t want to fight,” Lordess said, reaching out with both hands.

“No, you don’t,” Fera assured her.

“Can we have a word?” Lana asked.

“My father always taught me to make my presence known from the first second I’m in the ring,” Fera Jones said. “If you lose the first few seconds, he always says, then the fight is lost until you make up ground.”

“I come here as a friend.”

“You came here ’cause I won fights against men.”

“That makes us allies.”

“I never saw you out there with me. I never saw you when me an’ Daddy were poor and down.”

“But I’m here now.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Fera offered. “You send the girl guards out in the hall, and I’ll ask Daddy and Pell if they’ll wait in the kitchen.”

“As leader of the FemLeague I am bound to defend myself from harm. I cannot be left unprotected.”

“Then there’s no more to say,” Fera said firmly.

Lana Lordess rapped her knuckles upon a denim knee, her dark eyes staring straight into those of the boxer. But Fera Jones was not worried. She’d stared down men who had threatened to beat her to death in the ring. They had tried and failed.

“The FemLeague wants you for our pinup girl.” Lordess fell right into the discussion when she realized that she could not expel the men. “Women all over the world adore you. Your heart and spirit and strength are examples for all of us. Millions of women on the line between their false male consciousness and their true self-interests will flock to you. Join our party and you join a real fight, the fight for true equality and for sanity. We will stem the corporations, we will end the senseless starvation, we will stop the insane militias. Your help, just yours, Fera, will make the difference for the future of womanhood.”

Fera had heard the same words, except for her name, on the vid three weeks before. They were even more moving in person. She believed in woman power. She wanted the world to be different.

“Will men have a political voice in your new world?” Fera asked.

“All qualified citizens will have their say over the condition of the nation,” Lordess answered. “Honest, hardworking citizens will be our guiding members.”

“I’ll think about it,” Fera said.

“We must strike now, sister. Now, just before your greatest trial. Join us and then defeat Zeletski, your words will be diamond.”

“I said I’ll think about it.”

“Can I call on you tomorrow, then?”

“I’m in training, M Lordess. Talking distracts me. I need to concentrate on the fight.”

“But we need an answer. Is there nothing I can say?”

“No.” Fera had a dim notion of what she should do. But the idea was still totally submerged, rising only slowly, like a slumbering whale from the darkness of the deep.

“What if I could tell you the truth about your mother?”

“Ungh!” Leon Jones grunted. His head flailed back and a foot lashed out.

Fera and Pell ran to his side.

“We’ll have to talk later,” she said to the governor. “My father is going through deep neuronal therapy.”

“Hear me out,” Lana said.

“Leave,” said Fera, a threat and a command.

“... I never told you about her because it hurt me too much,” Leon was saying. “She was just about seventeen when she came into my adult school intro to history class. She looked all crazy. Eyes different-color browns, skin just a touch’a green under eggshell tan. Little and weakly, sharp as a pin. She came to every class like she was burnin’ to know something, who knew what?” A shock went through Leon, and he bit his lip. “Whenever I tried to talk to her, to get to know what she was about, she’d shy away. If she hadn’t had to sign up I wouldn’t have known that her name was Nosa an Letona.”

“Nosa an Letona,” Fera mouthed.

“I told the class on the first day that each and every one had to come to my office to defend their final paper. I told them that without that they couldn’t get credit.” Fera dabbed her father’s bloody lip with a fiber napkin. The next shock made his hands jump. “I didn’t think I’d see her even for a passing grade, but she showed up. Her paper was full’a Fem-Lib stuff. How women were the first citizens and how men tricked them over and over again. She talked about genetic plots and the purpose of gender. When I asked her how old she was she said she didn’t know.”

“She must’a known near about,” Pell said. “Even White Noise kids know near about.” White Noise kids, the children of unemployable Backgrounders, lived under the city, in Common Ground. Without taxpaying parents they could get no education and lived by their wits.

“She said that she didn’t remember being a child. All she knew was an all-girl orphanage. When I asked her did she run away she said that she was there to talk about the paper. I told her that it was very well written and that I liked how clear her ideas were and how strong the language was. She asked did I agree with her ideas and I told her that nobody knows history—”