Michael Bunker - WICK

Clive put his hand out, as if to stop him. “But did the tax man get his share? That’s all I care to know.” Clive flashed his best Sam Elliot smile. Red Beard spread his hands out before him.

“Of course. Indeed.”

Red Beard continued. “So, his business was coming down to a crisis. It was one of those situations where sometimes you get the bear,” he paused, “and sometimes the bear gets you… but, in this case, the bear was just about to have the final say.”

Clive put his hand out to stop him again. “You know if you change bear to beer in that story, it still reads the same…?” He chuckled to himself and Red Beard paused.

Again, he smiled. “Indeed, it does.”

“So, the man finally begins to make it,” Red Beard said, “you know? And he hires a sales force. And his tippy-top sales guy — his very, very best — turns out to be a loafer.”

Red Beard leaned over to whisper to Clive, as if conspiratorially, “I lean and loaf, at my ease…” He indicated with his hand across the ground… “observing a spear of summer grass…” He acted out the drama, and looked at Clive as if the words spoke for themselves. He wanted Clive to know that he had an eye for such things. He was a loafer, he seemed to say, but practiced and studious about it.

Clive also looked down at his feet, at their feet. He too imagined how lush and green this farmland was, the imaginary farmland under their feet, how valuable it could be.

“So what happened to yer feller? The loafer?” Clive watched as Red Beard came back into his thoughts. Clive had never left his.

“So, this guy’s sales force was incensed. Right? The whole lot of them. As a group. Pissed off. They couldn’t put up with such debasement. Naturally, it did not matter to them that the loafer had the best numbers in the office. How did he get them?! That was the question. And the loafer didn’t help his cause any. He’d spend a couple of hours a day doing his sales calls, and then he’d go across the street to the Y and play cards. He’d gamble all day with his feet on the table. On the table! Can you imagine it?”

“I can!” Clive said.

“So, you can imagine the consternation of the crowd. The business owner hired a consultant. He asked him to solve the problem. The consultant did a month long study of the problem, looking at the business, its productivity, its camaraderie, the social cohesion, morale, and the experience of the layout of the hermeneutical biodegradable whatever, whatever, the whatever… The consultant went through whole shebang, got it?’

“I do have it, sir!” Clive nodded.

“And the consultant came to a final conclusion and put his answer in a one sentence report. Get rid of the whole office and hire ten more like the loafer.”

Red Beard indicated with his hand the lush bounty at their feet. He held up his ragged boots, as if he were looking past them into springtime, as if he and Clive were, at that moment, in a green field with cold beers in their hands, steaks on the grill, kids running through the sprinklers on the lawn. He looked down at his feet and saw them as if lightly resting on the long wispy strands of grass on the lawn of a warm spring afternoon in the ancient green of Pennsylvania.

Clive indicated with his hand to the ground. “May I?” he said, with a low sweep of his arm.

“By all means,” Red Beard answered, and settled back in his chair for the ride.

“That’s what we’re doing here,” Clive indicated with his thumb and forefinger to both the time and the place. “We’re firing the lot of ’em. Both the criminals who corrupted capitalism and turned it into a private candy store for cronies, and the democratic socialists who want to steal everything and then run the world their own way. Believe it or not, the fascists are working with the communists. But we’re clearing the decks of the lot of ’em — or at least we’re taking away their power . We didn’t start this war, but we saw it comin’. People won’t get it because they can’t see the whole thing yet. Someday they will, if they live long enough. Maybe they think we’re terrorists or something. They’ll never understand the Luddites until a new world gets built on the old one. They still think the Russians and Americans are goin’ at it, when in reality the powers that be… the industrialists, the banksters, the globalists, and the international socialists are the ones having a go at the people. They didn’t expect us to muddle with their business, but we’re doin’ it anyway.

“We didn’t set off the EMP. The commies did, and they did it with the help and aid of the corporatists and the globalists, on the left and on the right. The old-guard Soviets built the micro-nuke in North Korea while our folks twiddled their thumbs and guaranteed the people there wasn’t a threat. Nope. We didn’t start the fire, but we knew it was coming, and we let it happen because the world needed a re-start.”

Clive rubbed his hands together and pointed at the imaginary field of green under their feet. He nodded his head at Red Beard before he continued.

“But we’re not gonna let ’em do what they have planned. The invasions will never happen. Their forces aren’t going to re-group, because we’ll hit them every time they get started. They can’t see us, and we’re everywhere. We’re a Luddite army, worldwide and not on the clock, and this time we’ve got the best toys. Just the irony alone is worth the expense.”

Clive concluded his story, and, when he did, he looked over at Red Beard, and he saw that the man was riveted.

“You can’t talk to ‘em now, Pat! They all want it back. — the 1% and the 99%. Mind slaves! They want the comforts, and the velvet handcuffs. They want the empire and the tyranny, too! They want the degradation and the mindless and soulless jobs and the promise of a vacation in a tiny camping spot by a poisoned lake, and food genetically modified to last forever and never spoil. They want it all back, Pat, so you can’t talk to them now. In ten years… twenty years… maybe then you can explain what has happened to them. Now? They’re digging roots for calories and figuring out how to drink their pee. You can’t talk to them until the dust settles.”

Red Beard smiled. “Do you think that maybe your plan is a bit hypocritical and… just a tad morally ambiguous?”

“Of course.”

“Okay then.”

“Twain said that history doesn’t repeat itself, my friend,” Clive began. Red Beard held up his hand as if to let Clive know that he would finish the sentence, this time, for him.

“But it rhymes.”

Red Beard listened to Clive go on for a while longer. The glow from the kerosene heater in the corner of the room made his beard glow along with it. Its orange hue was set off by the umbered darkening air of the evening. The light began to fade. They both glowed as they sat in the chairs, waiting there in the drawing room. They shared more conversation and were electric with ideas. And ideals. They glowed in their seats.

They felt like… equals.

Neither of them cast a shadow.

Veronica and the boys had pushed and pulled for a half hour, but to no avail. This light was beginning to fade, and she knew they could not be out here another night. “We can do this,” Veronica encouraged them. “We just have to find the Archimedean point!” She gave a grunt as she said the last word, lifting up on a branch she had wedged under the bumper, trying to find a solid place in the sludge under the truck from which to gain leverage. The truck bumped a little. Calvin and Stephen heaved just as she did the lift again, and the truck bumped once more. “Okay, boys. I might have found the sweet spot. We just need to put more rocks under the wheel over there,” she indicated with her hand toward the rear tire, “so we can get more traction…” Stephen placed some small rocks under the tire as she lifted on the branch. “And Calvin keep it in low, and give it a little gas …” Veronica paused to make sure both boys were ready. She took a breath.