Ellis Weiner - Atlas Slugged AGAIN - The Secret Sequel to the Towering Masterpiece

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry you don’t adequately understand the system we live in. We don’t mean to harm you personally. We’re trying to create a society that affords everyone in it the maximum amount freedom consistent with property rights. But freedom only has meaning depending on its context. To a dog, for example, freedom in the context of a dog park means, ‘the ability to go off the leash and run around.’ In a school, freedom might mean ‘the ability for the senior class to determine where it will hold its Senior Prom.’ In capitalist society, freedom means ‘the unobstructed opportunity to make money.’ That is what John, here, and all of us, are trying to achieve: the creation of a society in which everyone is free to make money, which at the same time allows us to preserve, expand, and consolidate the wealth we already have by preserving and expanding the power that we already have. It’s not that we want you to be poor. We want you to be as rich as you can be, provided that does not conflict with our ability to be as rich as we can be based on remaining as rich as we always have been.”

Butts loosened his grip on Glatt’s neck but kept the gun pointed at his head. “I… I never thought of it that way,” he admitted. “Thus put, it’s a perfectly defensible modus vivendi .”

Dragnie felt a desire to sleep. She ignored it and continued, “That’s why we called this Strike. The rest of the world is hampering our ability to make money—which, because we’re capitalists, is the only freedom we care about. And, because we control your world, it’s the only freedom you care about, too. That’s why you’re here. Because you can’t make any money, without which you and your family will starve and die.”

“That is true,” Butts said.

“But we have done our part. You want to make money. You have the freedom to do so. If you have not done so, it can only be your own fault.”

“Such reasoning is indisputable.”

“Therefore it follows that it is not us that you hate,” Dragnie said, feeling herself reeling in place. “It is yourself.”

“That is indubitably so,” Butts replied. “I’m a weak, second-rate mediocrity who can’t succeed in an economy based on competition and merit, as are my wife and children. I see now that it was wrong of me to blame John Glatt, or indeed anybody, for difficulties of which I am the sole cause. To demand that the wealthy, who have obtained their wealth strictly via their own efforts or the efforts of others, to contribute to a minimally decent standard of living for all members of the society the existence of which has made that wealth possible, is to subvert the very idea of capitalism, which holds that a man has a right to exist only insofar as he can sell something to another man.” He lowered the gun and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Glatt. I’ll go now.” Taking two steps back, he raised the gun again, this time to his own head, and pulled the trigger.

Glatt did not permit himself to flinch in shock, nor did Rawbone, Sanfrancisco, or Regnad Daghammarskjold permit themselves to react. Dragnie, however, witnessed none of these events, for she lost consciousness and collapsed onto the dirt road.

Dragnie awoke in a hospital-type bed in a small room. Before her she beheld an array of faces displaying responses ranging from pitiless unsentimentality to calm dispassion. Glatt, Rawbone, Sanfrancisco De Soto, and Regnad Daghammarskjold ringed her bed, sitting on small folding chairs, while Doc Hastings stood gravely by her side. “How do you feel?” Hastings asked.

She replied with a defiant smile. “All right,” she said, her voice low. “Weak.”

“You should. You lost a lot of blood out there, young lady.”

“What happened?”

“You jumped up from the chair and a piece of equipment nicked an artery. Didn’t you feel yourself bleeding all over your leg?”

“Go easy on her, Doc,” Sanfrancisco said. “She saved John’s life.”

“So I heard. By the way, Dragnie, the procedure was a success.”

“Thanks, Doc,” Dragnie said. She turned to the others. “What happened to Mr. Butts?”

“Nothing,” Regnad said, his stunning Swedish beauty more beautiful and stunningly Swedish than ever before. “Killed himself.”

“Oh,” Dragnie said. “Too bad.”

“Too bad?” Doc Hastings said gruffly. “He got what he deserved. Damn moocher. Meanwhile, I’ll tell you what’s too bad. The fact that you lost about two pints of blood and are in no condition to get up out of that bed, let alone fly back to New York.”

Dragnie was about to protest when a knock was heard at the doorway. Standing there was “Faustus Fasnacht,” holding a sheet of paper. “Excuse me, folks. Sorry to intrude, but Mr. Glatt just received a telex from New York and it’s marked ‘urgent.’” He entered and handed the sheet to Glatt, and only then did his eye fall on Dragnie. “Miss Tagbord! My goodness, you’re white as a sheet! What happened?”

She smiled weakly. “I had an accident and lost some blood.”

“Will you be needing a transfusion? What’s your blood type?”

“O-positive.”

“So is mine!” The young man turned to Doc Hastings. “Doc, I’d like to volunteer to be a donor for your patient here.”

“Not so fast, son,” Doc Hastings said. “I’m O-positive, too.”

“So am I,” Hunk Rawbone said with icy objectivity.

“As am I!” Sanfransico De Soto cried happily.

“I am O-positive, too,” Regnad Daghammarskjold remarked.

“I, too, am O-positive,” John Glatt said, his eyes displaying a glint of mocking contempt.

The young man playing Faustus Fasnacht laughed. “But this is amazing! Miss Tagbord, you have an unlimited supply of donor blood. When shall we do this, Doc?”

To the young man’s surprise, but to the surprise of no one else, Doc Hastings did not answer. Instead, he looked soberly at each individual in the room, ending on Dragnie, whose expression in reply mirrored the gravity of his own. Finally Dragnie said to the young man, “There will be no transfusion.”

“What? Why not? I thought you said you lost a lot of blood.”

“I did.”

“And isn’t the customary practice in such cases to replace the lost blood with donated blood of a compatible type?”

“It is.”

“Then—“

“It is for some . Not for me,” Dragnie said.

“Or me,” Glatt said.

“Or any of us,” Rawbone murmured.

“But… why not?” the young man stammered.

“Because,” Dragnie said, “I would no sooner ask a man to give me his blood than I would ask him to give me his bond portfolio. Because the only thing more parasitic than living off another man’s earnings is living off his body. Because I ask no man to deprive himself of that which guarantees and safeguards his existence, nor would I agree to give that man that which guarantees mine. Because my blood is mine , the product of my body, and therefore no man may have a claim on it, just as I may not assert a claim on his. Because I do not live for anyone but myself, and I ask no man to live for anyone but himself. And because, when my body has replenished its blood supply—as it undoubtedly will—I shall go forth with neither debt nor gratitude, entirely free and self-sufficient, owing nothing, neither moocher nor leech.”

Doc Hastings thumbed toward the door and said to the young man, “Okay, Junior, you got your answer. Now go.” As the young man left, Hastings made a gesture toward the others. “Now suppose we all stop gabbin’ and let Miss Tagbord here get some rest.”

“How long will I need, Doc?” Dragnie asked.

Hastings made a face of estimation. “Four days. Five tops.”