299 Days: The Community (33 page)

One of the biggest items gangs sold was guns. Every imaginable kind of gun was for sale. Some were law enforcement and military weapons sold by corrupt cops or soldiers. Guns were illegal, of course, but that law was rarely enforced. When a gun law was enforced, it was a tool to get rid of a government opponent or rival gang member.

Something interesting about guns happened during the Collapse. Guns, which were totally illegal, became a status symbol. People with political power or gangs who were above the law would openly display them. Displaying a gun meant, “I don’t have to follow the law. You need to fear me. I can ruin you.” The liberals in West Seattle, who hated guns, seemed to love it when powerful people displayed them. It was like the liberals loved the fact that people—
their
people—had power. It was reassuring to the liberals that their kind had so much power. It was hypocrisy, of course: no one can have guns except us, the powerful.

It reminded Ed of the liberals before the Collapse and how they revered rich liberals, like Michael Moore, who were multimillionaires but wanted to take away all the money from the “rich.” Hypocrisy was power and the liberals loved the power.

In addition to the traditional criminal gangs, there were also white-collar gangs. They became known as the “Rotary Club gangs.” These were the people who, for example, ran health care and sold black market medical services. If someone needed to see a dentist and have some anesthesia for a root canal, they paid the gang that was protecting the dentist’s business. They paid the gang in whatever they had, like FCards, and they got dental work. Of course, with all the regulations, a law-abiding dentist must take their insurance and process that, which was impossible given the Collapse. So, when the legal way to operate became impossible, illegal ways sprang up. People needed dental work, after all.

White-collar gangs were interesting because of the people who were in them. Most were government bureaucrats like, in the example of a a “gang dentist” the health care regulators who looked the other way when the dentist was accepting FCards. They no longer had government jobs, but they had connections that were extremely valuable. While they wore white collars, everyone knew that they could rent some muscle and hurt people. It was the natural progression of government power. At first, they were regulators using soft governmental force like regulations to get what they wanted. Now they weren’t even trying to hide the fact that they were using very direct and brutal force to get what they wanted.

There was another category of gang that was neither a traditional ethnic gang nor a white-collar gang: cops. Some police, most of the ones still left in larger cities, were corrupt. They were either in a gang themselves or were paid by gangs to look the other way, arrest competitors, or use police force on whomever the paying gang wanted. Almost all of the good cops, which had been the majority, left the force during the budget cuts or because they couldn’t stand the pre-Collapse corruption. The bad ones—the really bad ones—were what was left. And they were having a field day.

Ed heard rumors about another group to beware of: paras. They were non-government paramilitary groups. Vigilantes, essentially. Since the police were either incapable or bought off, paras would go out and fight crime and corruption. All Ed knew was that once in a while a white-collar or criminal gang member would wind up dead and the cops would just smile.

All of this—the criminal gangs, white-collar gangs, corrupt cops, paras, women selling themselves, everyone breaking the law and living in black or grey market, barter instead of cash, small businesses springing up, the economy totally halting—reminded Ed’s neighbor, Dmitri, of life during the Russian collapse of the 1990s.

Dmitri was so calm about what was happening. He’d seen it before. Ed asked him what the main difference was between the Russian and American collapses.

“Guns,” Dmitri said. “You Americans have so many guns in private hands. In Russia, only the government had guns. There was no way to stop them. But Americans have guns. This is how you will stop this. If you are not too fat and lazy, as I think you might be. Pardon me. I mean no offense. But this is what I see. Good news is your guns, bad news is you have become fat and lazy. We will see which part of America wins.”

“How did you make it through the Russian collapse?” Ed asked Dmitri.

“I was the gray man,” Dmitri said.

“The what?”

“A gray man,” Dmitri said, “is one who lives in a dictatorship or corrupt society without being noticed. Instead of being a freedom fighter, the gray man just blends in, like he is gray; not black or white. He goes along with the authorities when he has to. But when the authorities are not looking, the gray man does all he can to bring them down. He cheats on his taxes, he might sabotage something small, he might even go out at night and hunt down government agents. He is an informant for the resistance, but he does it quietly, without advertising that he is a freedom fighter.”

“In the former Soviet Union,” Dmitri said, “most people were gray men and women. That is why the regime fell so quickly. Years of weakening the regime from within by the small bits of resistance from the gray men led to the fall of the authorities. And once it was clear that the authorities were losing power, millions of gray men and women sprang into action. This is why the Soviet Union fell apart so quickly. Most people were gray to some degree, and they were ready to make life as miserable as possible for the government once they had a chance.”

Dmitri thought for a moment. He was struggling with what he was about to say. “I would not have lived if I had been an open freedom fighter. I could only survive by being a gray man.” He paused again. “It is not cowardice that leads a gray man to quietly resist instead of openly fighting. It is survival. I did all I could.” He looked at Ed and said, “I did all I could.” Dmitri obviously felt guilty that he hadn’t done more.

“I’m sure you did plenty, Dmitri,” Ed said. He thought about what Dmitri said about being a gray man. It made sense. It solved the problem Ed had been struggling with, which was how to resist, but not get killed in the process. Dying didn’t accomplish much. Dying was a pretty bad survival plan.

Ed decided that he would be a gray man. But, could he pull it off? Or did the government already know about him? Before the Collapse, he had sued the corrupt state board of realtors and won. He had exposed them. Except no one had cared. With all the government had on its plate now, would they really be keeping track of people who had sued them a few years before? They were struggling to keep people fed. Ed hadn’t talked too much about his case at the time because, as glad as he was to expose them, he was still scared of them, so he kept his tussle with the government relatively quiet.

He was doing his part to undermine the government’s economy. He wasn’t paying his taxes. He laughed at himself: He considered not paying his taxes as his patriotic duty to the cause of liberty. He didn’t mind keeping the extra money, either. He was running a small illegal business and helping people fix their homes. That was something small to undermine the government. He owned a shotgun illegally. That was something. He would do more once he got the chance.

But, now the time wasn’t right for bold actions...like the shotgun. Ed knew he would end up doing more than his current tax cheating and small business. He didn’t want a lifetime of regret for not doing enough like Dmitri. Besides, he had seen these government bastards up close. They had tried to ruin him. It was payback time. Just not right that second. When the time was right.

To be the most effective gray man possible, Ed decided to fool the government into thinking he was a loyal subject. He would quit talking about how he hated them. He would even put up one of those Freedom Corps signs in his yard. All the government suck-ups had them. They were like the “National Recovery Act” signs people had in their homes and businesses during the 1930s telling everyone that they were supporting the government’s various economic controls. Yes, Ed would laugh every time he pretended to support the government while he was using that supposed support to blind them to what he was really doing.

He sat back and looked at Dmitri. Gray men like him had done a lot. Ed could do the same. There in West Seattle he couldn’t exactly hoist a Don’t Tread on Me flag. His FCard would be taken away and he’d get arrested for something, probably for having that shotgun. What would that accomplish? Dying was a pretty bad survival plan.

Instead, Ed would choose to survive. He would hollow out the government economy a tiny little bit by having a side business. He would slowly and quietly build up a network of fellow sympathizers. He wouldn’t directly ask them if they opposed the government; he’d get to know them and decide whom he could trust when the time was right. Then they would do what Dmitri did.

Ed looked at Dmitri, who was still deep in thought about what more he could have done back in the Soviet Union. Ed smiled and said, “Dmitri, I have some vodka. It’s Stolichnaya. Imported from Russia. Would you care to make a toast to the United States government and all they are doing to help us in this unfortunate time of need, and how they can count on us to make whatever sacrifice is necessary to see them succeed?”

Dmitri smiled. Ed was talking like a gray man now.

Chapter 107

Professor Matson

(May 10)

Professor Carol Matson sat in her little house near the University of Washington in Seattle and stared at the clock. It was moving so slowly. She realized she was procrastinating. She had to force herself back to finishing the work she had in front of her.

Grading student papers. Yuck. She’d been grading them all day and now it was late. That was the part of teaching she hated. She loved the students, but hated grading papers. She also hated the petty backstabbing of faculty politics.

Oh well. It’s what she needed to do to have the job she loved: teaching Latin literature influenced by Simon Bolivar. He was a Latin American revolutionary in the early 1800s. Carol was in a very specialized field of study. In fact, she was one of seven scholars in the world who studied this subject fulltime. She was kind of a bid deal in the world of Bolivarian literature.

How had she gone from tiny little Forks, Washington to being a Bolivarian literature professor at the University of Washington? Like her brother Grant, she had gotten the hell out of Forks. She was brilliant, so she got a full scholarship to Columbia University. She took the opportunity in a heartbeat to get away from the poverty and abuse there in Hickville. She gravitated toward Latin studies because, although she was white, she felt the plight of the Latino. She understood being poor and trapped in a socioeconomic class where people were oppressed. Her dad was a total dick, but he was right about politics. She was a socialist like her dad. A stopped clock is right twice a day.

She got her master’s degree in Latin Literature at Stanford and got her PhD in the same from Harvard. She loved the recognition she got in school. She was always at the top of her class and every paper she wrote was published in a scholarly journal. She was addicted to academic success. She did everything she could to keep achieving.

It took a toll on her personal life. Actually, what personal life? She moved around a lot going from Columbia to Stanford to Harvard. She had no time whatsoever for dating. Men were mostly evil, anyway. The oppressors. Most of the guys she met in her academic world were either gay or total wimps. In fact, looking back at it, she had never really met a normal guy. Most of her female friends and professors were lesbians and constantly told her how bad men were. She wasn’t into the lesbian thing—not that she was judging.

After a series of short teaching jobs at various little colleges throughout the country, she finally landed back in Seattle at the University of Washington. She liked it there, and she was on the tenure track. She loved living in Seattle. People there were…well, progressive like her. No rednecks around. She loved walking her dog in the amazing parks in Seattle. She loved the food at the organic grocery store. She loved the lattes. She loved the whole Seattle experience. It was the exact opposite of Middle America in Forks. That’s where everyone was stupid and bigoted. She looked back at her life. She had accomplished everything she set out to. Life was good.

Then the Crisis started. All the conservative politicians, the rednecks who ran the country, even when Democrats were in charge, decided to get some votes by punishing public employees. That’s how the Crisis started. The conservatives decided to slash the budgets and lay off public employees like…university professors. The voters were so greedy. They wanted more money for their pork rinds and NASCAR. Idiots. They wouldn’t pay their fair share of taxes so people could be educated. So shortsighted. If there aren’t any Bolivarian literature professors, how can a society be truly educated?

It was no surprise that the people rose up during the Crisis. By the “people,” she meant the public employees being unfairly targeted for the draconian cuts. She joined the unions in their protests, but she never got violent like some of them did.

Carol, as a proud socialist progressive, had never liked the government. It was so corporate and reactionary. But, she had to admit, during the Crisis, the government was doing the best it could. There were shortages at the stores, but that was to be expected. Fat greedy Americans shouldn’t expect to get everything they wanted on demand, so shortages would actually teach them a lesson. She had been hungry for a while several days go, but it wasn’t the government’s fault. It was using its emergency powers to go get these teabagger “Patriot” militia whackos.

Then the government finally did what it should have done years ago: nationalized most of the economy. What took so long? Carol was especially happy about the FCards. What a brilliant solution, converting bloated retirement accounts of the rich into food for the masses. Simon Bolivar would be proud.