But that evening, after midnight actually, I had two visitors to my cell. One was Agent Johnson and the other a man who Johnson said was his boss, a guy named Rabb, who was a short spark plug sort of guy who looked like he thought he’d never made a mistake in his life. The door clanged behind them and the guard, not bothering to lock the door, walked noisily away. My cell seemed to be isolated from all the others.
“As I guess you now know, Billy,” Johnson says, “we’ve accumulated a lot of evidence that you’ve been helping your Protean friends in illegal activities. We are certain that we can easily convict you of aiding and abetting terrorists.”
“Don’t doubt it,” I says.
“Unless you can get your friend Louie to surrender to us,” says the fireplug, “you’ll be spending the rest of your life in prison.”
“And your wife too, Billy,” says Johnson. “We now have evidence that she imitated a Jewish widow and was deeply involved in money laundering in both the Caymans and New York.”
“Been busy, have you?” says I.
“This is not fun and games, Billy,” says Johnson. “Unless Louie gives himself up, you and Carlita will never see your children again, except from inside a prison.”
“That’s it, is it?” says I.
“That’s it. We won’t be going to court for another four days. We won’t let anyone know the charges we’re holding you on until then. If Louie surrenders before that, then we’ll only charge you with hiring an illegal immigrant as your driver and specifically clear you on all other counts. If Louie isn’t in our custody by Monday morning we’ll throw the book at you.”
As I sat on my cot in that cell and listened to what Agent Johnson was saying I felt more and more depressed. If it were only me they had in their clutches I’d tell Louie to stay free, although I doubt he’d listen. But if they were going to jail Lita too…
“Well,” I finally says. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”
“Yes, we will,” says Agent Johnson.
Rabb sniffed and sneered and then marched to the door, swung it open and marched noisily down the hall.
Agent Johnson and I looked at each other. Then he reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a silver flask.
“Want to share a drink, Billy?” he says quietly.
* * *
Jail’s not all it’s cracked up to be. My description of my arrest and getting locked up with huge bail may make it seem as though I wasn’t bothered in the least, but that’s just me trying to be cool. The fact is I was scared. I was scared when that trooper pointed his gun at me, scared when the Incredible Hulk banged on the car window, and scared when I was alone in jail.
I’m too old for this shit. Too stuck in my ways. When I was in jail almost fifty years earlier it was actually interesting. I was young and confident and rebellious and stupid and didn’t know what I was doing. Now I was old and uncertain and, though still rebellious in theory, in practice I was a sitter. In my rocking chair I have all sorts of rebellious thoughts. And they stay thoughts.
When I got a visit from Lita I could see she was worried too. Worried mostly about me, but also about Jimmy and Lucas. What would happen to them if both their parents ended up in jail? Not too good. She had relatives who could look after them, but that was just saying horrible would only be semi-horrible. After talking it over, she told me she thought we ought to bring the boys to Manhattan, where we were now stuck, so the family could be closer. I pointed out that Louie might turn himself in, but she shook her head.
“We aren’t that important to the FFs.”
FORTY-THREE
(From LUKE’S TRUE UNBELIEVABLE REPORT OF THE INVASION OF THE FFS, pp. 203–208)
As far as we can reconstruct it, Louie called the number that the NSA had posted for Proteans to dial in case they wanted to turn themselves in and be locked up for life. He announced to the NSA that he would surrender the next day, Saturday, at about noon, in Central Park. Where in Central Park he neglected to say.
However, the next day a small crowd began to gather in the park around the statue of Alice in Wonderland, a triptych in bronze of Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the March Hare. The NSA managed to determine that the people, including a few reporters, were being invited there via social media, which said that the famous FF Louie was going to appear and make a speech. By eleven o’clock a hundred people had gathered, and by noon almost five hundred. There were also two dozen NYPD officers, and six neatly dressed men who might be insurance salesmen. One of the men was very very very big.
As the minutes passed a few people in the crowd began a low chant of “Louie! Louie! Louie!” and after a while the whole crowd, with a few exceptions, joined in.
And lo and behold, a Protean finally made an appearance, bouncing down a pathway and then from head to head across the top of the crowd to the statue itself, where he settled on Alice’s bronze head. Most of the crowd applauded enthusiastically, although those in uniform and the six suits could only manage frowns. The six insurance salesmen went into a huddle, presumably to plan what sort of exceptionally high insurance premium they would recommend.
Louie, for it was indeed he, arrived as his usual sphere, but soon turned into a large human head supported by four six-inch “legs.” He’d stuffed into his face two lemons as eyes with a small black circle painted on each. Out of nowhere he plopped on his head a stovepipe top hat out of the nineteenth century: Abe Lincoln from outer space.
“Friends, Romans, countrymen,” Louie proclaimed in a booming voice that reached easily across the crowd. “Lend me your ears.”
This was clearly plagiarism, and even worse was to come.
“I come here today not to praise the great non-warrior Louie, but to bury him. For I have come to surrender to the all-powerful authorities who rule you humans and your lives. You see them now around you ready to take me into custody.”
Some in the crowd booed.
“However, they have granted me permission before my incarceration to make a few remarks.
“First of all, we should never forget that ‘Tweedledum and Tweedledee agreed to have a battle, For Tweedledum said Tweedledee had spoiled his nice new rattle.’ That pretty much sums up the Protean position on war.
“Secondly, I must remind you that ‘T’was brillig, and the slithy toves, Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.’ I know all of you have given this famous quotation much thought over the years, but an FF named Gibberish has said that it is too profound for humans to understand. He tried to simplify its wisdom for his human friends by saying ‘T’wasn’t brillig but dumdum that the stilthy rovens did gore and bimble in the coatree: All mumsy were the boringtoves, And the momme ratsies grayedout.’
“Unfortunately, neither his human friends nor we FFs could make any more sense of Gibberish’s profundity than we could of the original, so I will get to my concluding remarks, which are much more in tune with a traditional oration.
“It is a far far better thing that I do today than I have ever done before. Give me liberty or give me death. I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country. That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. And we must fight the malefactors of great wealth. We have nothing to fear but fear itself. We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. I have a dream… Tear down that wall!
“And let me conclude with this: I am not a crook. We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. I was against the war before I was for it. I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
Louie paused, swung his two lemon eyes in an arc over the crowd.
“And finally,” he says, “let me say, ‘so long.’”
He then bounced down off Alice’s head, rolled and bounced across the top of the crowd?
??s heads and outstretched arms and finally into the unsuspecting arms of the Incredible Hulk. Louie placed his stovepipe hat on the agent’s head.
“I surrender,” he says.
ITEM IN THE NEWS
LEADING REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE ENDORSES MONEY
Riyad, Saudi Arabia. July 28th
In Saudi Arabia today, the leading Republican candidate for president of the United States reiterated strongly his belief in money.
“Our great nation is in trouble today,” he stated in a speech before the Saudi Conference for Petroleum and Profits, “because our president has failed to understand and believe in that which has made America great: money.”
The charismatic Republican went on to explain that unless people were motivated solely by money, modern American capitalism would not work.
“From Adam Smith to Ronald Reagan to Rush Limbaugh, great thinkers have known that everyone following his own economic self-interest—money—is what makes capitalism work. If before following their own economic self-interest our citizens and corporations begin doing what some radical Democrats are advocating, like worrying about workers, communities, the environment, or inequalities of wealth, the system would break down and our nation become second rate.”
When challenged during the Q&A period about whether it was fair to lower taxes for the rich while cutting programs to alleviate the suffering of the poor, the wealthy candidate spoke eloquently of how it was the wealth of the successful that would ultimately relieve suffering.
“It is only because of the high taxes and other restraints on the hard-working rich that we have poverty in our nation,” he said. “My heart goes out to the suffering of the poor. That is why I have spent my entire life trying to earn as much money as I can—which, I should remind you, is the duty of every American—so that others will benefit indirectly and in the long run from my efforts to become rich.”
“It’s all right,” he went on, “for social workers or charities and other well-meaning entities to do things that help the poor, but only as long they are getting well paid for doing so. Anyone helping another human being without being economically rewarded is undermining our free enterprise way of life. They will destroy our nation.”
FORTY-FOUR
(From Billy Morton’s MY FRIEND LOUIE, pp. 331–337)
Louie had given himself up so I could go free.
I felt terrible.
The Feds kept their promise. I pleaded guilty to employing an undocumented worker and paid a stiff fine. All the other charges were swept under the table. ’Course, at any time they wanted, the authorities could bend over, reach under the table, pick up all the charges, and bring them with a big grin to a judge. I was about as secure as a turtle on the point of a needle.
And over the next week we learned that the FFs were sitting on the same needle. Since we knew that conversations in jail were bugged, Louie wasn’t able to tell Lita anything when she went to visit him, but he could communicate with Molière sitting in the jail waiting room.
Molière reported that the FFs were beginning to lose the game, or as the humans saw it, the war. The NSA had suddenly gotten smart: they seemed to have developed a series of defensive measures that had cut into the FF’s ability to hack into whatever they wanted. The first setback came when all the pages containing data that incriminated various establishment big shots suddenly disappeared from the NSA systems. All the potential blackmail material was no longer available.
In addition, the FBI, the CIA, and the SEC were on to most of the bank and stock-trading accounts that the FFs had set up with money stolen from banks and corporations. Including all of mine.
“How come the NSA’s suddenly gotten so smart?” I ask Molière.
“It’s not the NSA,” says Molière.
“Then who is it?”
“Machiavelli and Gibberish,” he says.
“Gibberish! He’s on our side!”
“He was. Now he’s on their side.”
“No!”
“He’s thinking of running for president in the Republican primaries and he decided that if he wanted any voter support it might be a good move to work with the government instead of against it.”
“That’s horrible! He’s a traitor!”
“Oh, no,” Molière says. “FFs often end up on opposite sides in games we’re playing. Just as Louie and I enjoy playing games against the dominant people of a planet, Machiavelli likes to take the opposite side in a game against FFs he thinks are very strong—which in this case is Louie and me. So Gibberish changing sides is no surprise. Besides, both running for president and changing sides were probably random decisions on his part.”
“What do you mean?”
“Gibberish thinks FFs should always be wary of unthinkingly slipping into having a purpose rather than playing, so he sometimes starts making decisions randomly.”
“But all this means that all over the world, you FFs are playing not only with each other but against each other!?”
“Of course,” says Molière. “Back home in Ickie most all our games are against each other. One reason FFs like to travel is they get a bit bored playing the same opponents over and over.”
I was silent. It was a bit of a blow to realize that all FFs weren’t on my side. Made me feel a bit smaller than I usually feel. The FFs were playing with us: to them we were no more than pawns in their supersized chess game.
But I was still worried about Louie. He was still in prison, a place where FFs sometimes die of suicide. And Machiavelli and Gibberish were making it more difficult for his side to win the game they were playing. FFs were all about fun, but I was beginning to wonder where in all this anyone was supposed to find fun.
FORTY-FIVE
(From LUKE’S TRUE UNBELIEVABLE REPORT OF THE INVASION OF THE FFS, pp. 222–228)
The effort by Gibberish to become president of the United States might have seemed like a long shot. For one thing it was late in the primary season to announce a candidacy, and he hadn’t done the paperwork to enter most of the remaining primaries. However, as soon as he announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination in March, polls showed that thirty-five percent of the American people favored him over the human candidates, and twenty-five percent of Republicans favored him.
At first his candidacy went well. His rallies consisted not of a long speech but of people playing games, or having a dance-in, hug-in, or kiss-in. Sometimes the whole gathering would leave the hall or stadium they were in and march through the streets trying playfully to get bystanders to join the march and support Gibberish for President.
The Gibb’s supporters loved it. So did the media. A Gibb rally was much more fun than those of the other candidates. His favorability rating in the polls began to go up.
Then Gibberish and his team made a catastrophic mistake: he began making long speeches and releasing position papers. Experienced politicians had long ago learned that position papers were a waste of time—no one looked at them—and sometimes dangerous—when people read them and realized the candidate had ideas that they disagreed with. Gibberish’s ideas were, unfortunately, not ideas that many Americans agreed with.
First of all, he wanted to bring all American troops back from foreign countries and put them to work building bridges, schools, highways, and hospitals. Instead of bombing bridges, schools, highways, and hospitals in foreign countries.
Most Americans were appalled. They thought that building a thousand bases in foreign lands and sending tens of thousands of soldiers to operate out of them must be required by the Constitution, so natural did it seem and so long had it gone on.
And Gibberish announced that he would propose an inheritance tax of ninety-five percent on all accumulated wealth of over one million dollars. He claimed it would let the children and grandchildren of the very rich begin at the same level as that of the poor and middle class.
The rich did not want their children and grandchildren to begin at the same level as that of the poor and
middle class. They wanted their heirs to begin at the top and never have a chance to plunge to the depths of the bottom ninety percent. The newspapers, TV stations, and sponsored think tanks (all owned by the rich) began yelling at the top of their voices that this was cruel and unfair to the rich who through pluck and luck and having inherited millions from their own dads, had accumulated wealth.
And Gibberish advocated turning all hospitals, clinics, pharmaceutical companies, and health insurance companies into non-profit entities, and to provide free health care for the entire American population, the government paying for everything. This was clearly socialism if not communism. And it was part of the American catechism that socialism and communism were evil.
So these ideas were outrageous. It clearly infringed on a rich American’s right to take his loot to the grave, or at least give every cent of it to his kids or girlfriend. The ideas infringed on an American’s right choose his own health care. It infringed on the rich person’s right to have much better health care than the non-rich. It infringed on an American’s God-given right to die because of a lack of health care.
Within three weeks of his outlining a clear, specific program, Gibberish’s campaign for the presidency was in deep trouble. The Republican state party apparatus in every state in which Gibberish was trying to get on the ballot put so many legal blocks in his way that he was soon spending two-thirds of his campaign money on hiring lawyers.
His poll numbers began to collapse. In three weeks the thirty-five percent who had favored him among the general population had dropped to twenty percent. The percentage of Republicans who supported him had dropped to ten percent, and it was widely suspected that they were all Democrats in disguise.
Because his polling had gotten so low, the Republicans changed their debate format so that no candidate could be in a debate unless he was averaging at least eleven percent support in the Republican primary polls.