Howell stopped the car short, opened the door, and got out. Disregarding
the traffic, he walked to the middle of the highway,
and picked up a tiny dull disk. Dropping it in his
pocket, he returned to the car and resumed driving.
Fifteen cars behind him honked hysterically and obscenely,
but Howell ignored them.
“Are you tripping?” Addison inquired.
“What do they all think, it’s just a meaningless
bumper sticker, just ’cause I’m trying
to be funny or something? It’s a warning, man.
I mean it. I do brake for lucky pennies. It’s
bad luck not to pick one up.”
“I don’t think it’s bad luck if
you’re driving at the time.”
“I can’t take chances. I’ve already
gotten too careless, and look what happened. Three
months of hard work down the toilet. Fucking bastards.
If I catch the motherfucker who did it, I’m
gonna kick the living shit outta him. Fucking vandals.”
“Did you call that phone number they left you?”
Howell did. He heard a prerecorded message. “If
you have a complaint about PeopleCare’s actions,
press 1. — If your place of business
was rendered unusable by our activists, press 2.
— If you plan to file charges, we’d
like to inform you that your place of business had
been found in violation of a number of the New York
City office regulations and/or zoning laws. You are
free to file charges, but we’ll be forced to
file countercharges. We have a full list of your violations
on file. If you want to know what violations, press
3. — If you have any other questions,
please stay on the line.”
Howell stayed on the line. A polite young lady looked
up the name of his business and the date it was trashed
and confirmed that it had indeed been found in violation
of several regulations, among them lack of shutters
to block out sunlight to accommodate UV-sensitive
customers. She also advised Howell that penalties
for vandalism were much lighter than for violation
of the New York City office regulations and/or zoning
laws. Somehow, Howell believed her.
From the parking lot, he followed Addison through
the woods up a narrow path to a cement cube of a six-story
building. Dozens of fire extinguishers hung on trees
around the building. The sign at the tobacco kiosk
by the entrance announced:
TOBACCO
ROAD
SMOKING AREA PROUDLY
SERVING
NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY SMOKERS
SINCE 2014
BROUGHT TO YOU BY
THE AMERICAN SPIRIT CIGARETTES
Despite Monday afternoon, the square room with concrete
tables and benches on the first floor was crowded.
Coming out here on a weekend would be suicide.
“I still can’t figure out who benefited
from those stupid antismoking laws,” Howell
shouted over the noise of powerful air cleaners, picking
a cigarette out of a fifty-dollar pack, forty of which
was federal tax.
“People who didn’t want to breathe second-hand
smoke?” Addison suggested. A blissful smile
spread over his face as his lungs filled with smoke.
“Hardly. When millions quit smoking, everybody’s
taxes went up to fill the gap in the economy, and
they still breathe car fumes. Where’s the gain?”
“Are you about to commit sociology again?”
“God forbid. Speaking of God.”
“Who’s speaking of God?”
“I am. I think I have an idea. When you were
a kid, did you ever hear a saying that to get rich
quick all you had to do was start a new religion?”
“Yeah?”
“Why do you think that is?”
“People seem to like new religions.”
“Americans like new religions. The rest of the
world is reasonably content with religions they’ve
had for centuries.”
“And your point is . . .?”
“Americans like new religions. That’s
my point.”
“You’re going to start a new religion.”
“No. I’m going to analyze why Americans
like new religions.”
Addison took a deep drag on his cigarette and sat
back. “Do tell.”
“I will. Americans are used to variety of choices
like no other people. If you want a toothpaste that
fights cavities, there’s one. If you’re
more concerned about whiteness, there’s another.
There’s a third, if you like yours sugarless,
and a fourth, if you want all of the above. It’s
just toothpaste, for fuck’s sake, but there’s
one for every taste and folly. And it’s like
that with everything. Religion is just a product.
You want a really strict one that forbids you to have
any fun at all — you have a few choices there.
You want a more lenient one — take your pick.
One that allows you to do anything you fucking want
to, ’cause you’re already forgiven wholesale
— it’s available. You want uncluttered
simplicity — you have your Zen Buddhism. You
want clutter — you’ve got your Yuppie
Buddhism.”
“Yuppie Buddhism?”
“The one where you chant for material possessions.”
“And it works?”
“Yes, but it’s not the point. The point
is, you can browse and sample until you find a religion
that suits your personal priorities. And if you can’t
find one, you can start your own. And that’s
how you get rich quick, because with a good sales
pitch you can attract enough suckers who’ll
pay to belong to your little club.”
“But you don’t want to start a new religion.”
“No. I want to take it one step further. Any
religion requires a degree of responsibility. You
have to give something to get something in return.
Fuck that. I’ve got a better idea. It’s
a gold mine. Collect enough money and skip town.”
“Where’re you gonna go?”
“Australia. You’re coming with me. We’ll
have mangoes falling out of trees right on our breakfast
table. We’ll start an exporting firm or something.
You can do the books.”
Howell took the last puff of his cigarette and expertly
flicked it into a small funnel-shaped hole in the
middle of the table. The smoldering butt was noisily
sucked into the furnace below.
. . .
“What
the fuck was that?” Mac whispered hoarsely.
Matha Batha’s comeback would have never
attracted the attention of PeopleCare if it weren’t
for a low-level Sibling who wanted very much to
move up the totem pole. The zealous Sibling, a
production manager of a TV-program magazine, saw
an announcement of the interview with Howell Langston
Toland on Channel 5238 and faxed it to Frankie
Rosebrook who brought it to Mac’s attention,
forgetting in his excitement to mention the helpful
Sibling.
Frankie jumped up. “I’ll contact the
Dwarf Society right away,” he offered eagerly.
“I’ll see if they’re offended
or what . . . Oh . . . They wouldn’t be
calling themselves the Dwarf Society, would they?”
“Try the Little Folk Organization or something,”
Sibling Linda Flores advised. “Kissass,”
she added under her breath.
Mac reached for the remote control and turned
the TV off. The PeopleCare conference room grew
quiet. Mac focused a pale stare on Frankie.
“Siddown.”
Frankie sat down.
“Has anybody ever seen that man?”
Mac demanded.
Mac’s three most trusted Caring Siblings
looked at each other and shrugged. Derrick had
a feeling that there was something familiar about
the sandy-haired man they just saw on TV. He liked
the man. He tried to remember why. He liked the
man because the man had invited him to play basketball
. . . Oh.
“I met him once,” Derrick remembered.
“I don’t know his name, though.”
Mac turned the cobra stare at him. “His
name is Howell Langston Toland. We just heard
his name on that senile hag’s show.”
“Oh.” Derrick retreated. “Right.”
“Under what circumstances did you meet?”
Mac demanded.
“I got his car towed,” Derrick reported
brightly, “because he wouldn’t give
up his parking spot for the differently abled
equality.”
“Good,” Mac said. “Did he mention
his stupid fucking cause?”
“You mean the Alphabet Challenge?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“No. It was just an argument about parking.”
“And you got him towed away.”
“Yes.”
“Well, now we’ve got to get his people
unionized.”
“Uni . . . what?”
“Unionized! Unionized! Like the workers
a hundred years ago!” Mac got up from behind
the long conference table and stood by the window
looking at the river. “This bastard is violating
the American way. We’ve got a huge organization
running here. We’ve got all the survivor
groups accounted for and coordinated. I can’t
have some upstart suddenly show up on national
TV with some new cause I never heard of, and start
running his own show any old way.”
Siblings exchanged glances. Any cause meant to
rectify discrimination against any group of survivors
of the said discrimination had to come in under
the PeopleCare’s supervision. It wasn’t
the law (yet), but everybody knew that. Otherwise,
too many groups would be running amok with their
own agendas, working at cross-purposes. Mac was
the only person holding fort between the well-coordinated
order of PeopleCare and complete chaos and anarchy.
Every Sibling knew that.
“So,” Mac continued without looking
at the Siblings. “This Howell Langston Toland
will have to cooperate with us. We’ll launch
a program to absorb his group. What will we need
to do?” Mac whirled back into the room.
The last question was a form of a spontaneous
quiz Mac liked to give the Caring Siblings to
test their alertness and make sure their thoughts
flowed in the correct direction.
“Subdivide his group members by their other
disadvantages,” Frankie suggested. “So
we can cross — you know, pollinate them
with our other groups.”
“Offer them first picks of some privileges,”
Linda said firmly. “So they can see we’re
sensitive to their handicap.”
“No,” Mac said, exasperated. “No!
When are you Siblings going to start thinking
bigger? Why do you all have such limited fucking
vision? We won’t cross-pollinate them with
other groups! We’ll scatter them among our
other groups, absorb them, and remind them that
there are plenty of other causes, much more important!
And why will we do that? Derrick!”
“To protect them,” Derrick replied
mechanically, engrossed in his own thoughts. “So
that they’re dispersed so far apart and
kept so busy with their other handicaps, they’ll
have no incentive and no way to get back together
with that Toland guy who is only distracting them
from true issues.”
“Very good,” Mac said. “Very
good. But why aren’t you participating in
the discussion? We’re having a discussion
here, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Derrick looked up. “I’m sorry,”
he said. “But there’s something I’m
not clear about.”
“Yeah?” Mac sighed.
“What if this Toland guy’s people
don’t want to get unionized? What if they
like him? What if they don’t want to come
to us?”
Mac’s usually colorless face turned white.
The Caring Siblings cringed and wished they were
dead. It was routine with them.
“If they don’t want to come to us?”
Mac repeated in a horrible whisper. “If
they don’t want to come to us?! If they
like him? Well, they’re just going to have
to like me instead! This Toland guy only cares
about his own little cause! About his own pathetic
little alphabet cripples! Me, I care about everybody!
“I wake up at three in the morning and just
lie there thinking about how to make the world
a truly fair and compassionate place for everybody.
Sometimes I care so much, I can’t eat! I
cared so deeply, it ruined all three of my marriages!
“My pale skin repels me! My American passport
revolts me! They’re marks of an intolerable
privilege bought at the price of others’
agony! I just can’t see how his crowd wouldn’t
want to come to me! My life is only worth living
because I live it for the others!
“It is my duty to bring the alphabetically
challenged into the fold! And I won’t rest
until they come to me!” Mac’s fingers
cramped into claws, and droplets of spit flew
all over the room from the thin-lipped mouth.
“‘What if they like him,’ indeed!
Derrick!”
Derrick forced himself to stop cringing and look
up at Mac’s face twisted with fury.
“You go and find out everything about this
Toland guy,” Mac ordered. “Not his
official bio. Not what’s already known about
him. Everything there is, ever was, or ever will
be to know about him. Linda! You take Derrick’s
groups. Frankie! You go on supervising daily activities.”
Linda and Frankie nodded. For Linda it was a promotion.
Frankie belonged to the no-news-is-good-news school
of thought. Then Linda remembered something. She
took a deep breath.
“Mac,” she said cautiously. “We
might have a problem here.”
Mac stared at her heavily and silently. Mac didn’t
care for problems.
“Mac,” Linda continued bravely. “Derrick
runs a whole division of People for Preservation
of Their Cultural Traditions. I already have groups
of People against Child Abuse and People against
Female Circumcision. There may be a conflict.”
“Where do you see a conflict?”
“Some of his subgroups’ cultural traditions
involve marrying their twelve-year-old daughters
off to the highest bidder and some want their
right to practice female circumcision.”
“What’s your point?”
“How can I lead groups with mutually exclusive
goals?”
“Why not?”
“Because . . . it’s like playing chess
against yourself.”
Shit, Frankie thought. I’m gonna get saddled
with those savages.
Mac’s jaw tensed. Linda bit her lip and
prepared to be flayed.
“Well, you’re not playing with yourself
here, young lady,” Mac hissed, “you’re
playing with a lot of people’s lives. If
you save a female from circumcision, you’ve
done your job. If you save a person from being
arrested and thrown in jail for practicing the
customs of her or his ancestors, you’ve
also done your job. It’s not your place
to take sides! It’s not your place to judge
victims of discrimination lest you stoop to the
level of their discriminators! Mutually exclusive
as they may seem, all these goals are equally
valid and deserving of respect! Diverse they may
be, but diversity is what makes America great!”
Mac’s voice rose. Mac’s nostrils flared.
“And it is our duty to preserve all its
multicultural wealth for the children! We cannot
and will not allow our children to grow up narrow-minded
and culturally shortchanged! That’s what
we’re working for! So that the next generation
of American children can come a little closer
to becoming a race of compassionate, sensitive,
understanding human beings! Got it?”
Linda nodded. Frankie sighed with relief.
“Mac!” Derrick pleaded. “Can
I keep my Just Plain Stoopid group? Please! They’re
. . . they’re like children to me! I really
care about them!”
Mac looked at him dubiously. “I’m
warning you, you’ll be busy. But since you
care so much . . . OK, whatever, keep them. Next
issue,” Mac announced. “We need to
start thinking about what we can do to get Congress
to curtail the use of electricity in this country.”
Linda figured she was already in the dog house
for the day. “Why?” she asked bravely.
“Because electricity is what fuels globalization,”
Mac explained with an eye roll. “I’ve
been to villages in Africa that had a vibrant
culture and great communities, and they were disrupted
and destroyed by electricity. People who used
to spend their days and evenings in the streets
playing music on their own instruments and sewing
clothing for their neighbors with their own hands,
now sit in their huts watching TV. Americans need
to ask themselves what personal conveniences and
self-indulgences they are willing to give up in
order to stop destroying other people’s
indigenous cultures. Frankie. Get on it.”
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