Dawn of the Unthinkable (31 page)

Palma and Ryan were busy trying to make the
connections between the simplified version of their religion and
their own situation. If they could understand what the professor
was saying, their movement should have a crushing defeat at the
outset, and then rise from the dead somehow to bind their followers
more firmly to them. They could see the parallel, but there was one
major problem with the analogy. Not one of them was God.

Cunningham knew what they were thinking.
“Oh, I know none of us has the power to perform miracles, which is
really kind of handy in winning converts. But we have miracles of
technology that let us communicate much more rapidly and spread an
idea at speeds that he didn’t have access to. So we have the
ability to reach more potential converts and a charismatic leader,”
he said, nodding toward Ryan. He continued, “History does tend to
repeat itself, and we could end up with that same Phoenix effect
and rise from the ashes of our first political defeat. I’m kind of
counting on it.” He sat back, satisfied with his analysis.

The other two sat back also, chagrined that
they had once again failed to see the interworking of the
situation. They knew that it would be difficult to get this
discussed at a national level, but they always ended up feeling
somewhat childish at having to be led down the halls of power by
Cunningham and others who understood how this whole thing had to
shake out. It was like a game, but they did not know the rules.
Fortunately, the guy who was with them did seem to know the rules
(or he was making them up as he went along), and so far, they were
still in one piece, making progress. They really hadn’t faced any
tough hurdles yet, and they were not sure how they would react.

Ryan remembered the little speech at the
beginning of movie
Patton
when the general is addressing his
troops. He said something like, “Now some of you might be wondering
what you might do in the heat of battle. Don’t worry about it. When
you put your hand into the goo that the moment before was your best
friend’s face, you’ll know what to do.” Ryan hoped that the same
would apply to them, short of having to deal with the dead friends
part. He figured that they could stick together just by having to
deal with adversity, not by getting killed over it.

The rocking of the train started to lull
them to sleep. Cunningham and Ryan let themselves go and were soon
in that netherworld of train dozing, not quite asleep, but resting
comfortably. Palma fought against it though, as he wanted to
preserve the memories of his day here. He thought of how his father
would have handled this and whether he would have been proud. His
father didn’t trust authorities, and his inability to effect change
drove him to drinking and an early death. Now he was being called
on to be a great leader to organize his people and turn them into a
powerful political force when most of them were either exhausted
from working or disillusioned by the fact that they were never
going to amount to much.

Well, Palma was smarter than his old man, he
realized. In today’s world, you didn’t need to start a fight to
bring about a revolution; you just needed an idea that was better
than what was in place, and the ability to convince people that you
had the moral authority to make the change. He thought about Nelson
Mandela, Lech Walesa, and the folks who brought down the Berlin
Wall. All throughout history, there were those who would not be
stopped, who kept on fighting because they knew,
they
believed
, that their idea was better than what was being done
now. All of their revolutions had occurred within the last few
decades, and all were relatively peaceful. So there was precedent
for previously unthinkable ideas coming to fruition. And these men
that brought them about were not God either, just men like him and
the others who wanted something better for their people. So Palma
would get the Wobblies to act within the current system’s
parameters to bring about change that would benefit everyone. And
maybe his name would go down in history as one the most important
Latino leaders ever. He would make sure that there was Hispanics in
important posts in every branch of this new government, and that
they would finally have the voice that their population demanded.
He smiled at the thought, and let himself be drawn off into a light
slumber.

Ryan started to dream. He was in that alley
again as a bird. This time, there was a crowd of people gathered
around the body on the ground. The man had been shot, and there was
a woman holding him. She was crying and screaming hysterically.
Some people were looking up and pointing off to a different
direction than where he lay. He flew off to see what they were
pointing at but started getting colder and colder as he got closer.
It was a type of malevolent chill he was getting, as if there was
an evil presence waiting for him. He decided that he did not want
to see what was at the end of his flight, as he sensed it could
consume him with hatred and evil in a single glance. He flew
instead toward the sun and felt a marvelous warmth envelop him. He
wasn’t sure whether he should keep going towards the light, but
something told him…

“Philadelphia, next stop!” the conductor’s
voice boomed. Ryan awoke with a start. They had slept through a
good portion of the trip, and he was glad to be out of that dream.
Who the hell dreams about being a bird, anyway?
He was
annoyed at himself, and looked at the others to see if they could
notice his consternation. They were busy stretching and yawning,
and did not notice any signs his face might be showing.
Good
, he thought,
I’d hate to have to explain this
one
. They gathered their stuff and got off the train. They said
their good-byes and scheduled their next meeting. Ryan headed off
for SEPTA’s Regional Rail line, Cunningham to the subway, and Palma
to his car.

It was one of the last anonymous days they
would ever spend.

It was nine o’clock in the morning on a
Saturday when Ryan heard a knock on his door. He opened it to a man
in a business suit carrying a briefcase and holding a handheld tape
recorder. Though he was still a little tired from his trip to
Washington the day before, he greeted the man with a firm
handshake.

“Hello, Mr. Ryan. I’m Bob Grayboys with the
Associated Press.”

Ryan raised his eyebrows high and said, “I
wondered when I might hear from one of you guys. You might as well
come in.”

Grayboys followed him in, assessing the
environment with a reporter’s eye. It was a fairly comfortable
middle class house, with two kids watching TV and a pretty wife who
was briefly introduced but was heading out the door to some
appointment with a daughter. Ryan seemed like a nice guy, offered
Grayboys something to drink, and told him to sit down and wait for
him in the living room. Gryaboys played with the friendly little
dog of the house, a small thing that couldn’t have weighed more
than ten pounds. He could hear Ryan making a phone call and he had
no doubt it was about him. He heard Ryan sign off before coming
back into the room.

“Sorry about that,” Ryan said with a smile,
“I just had to check in with my Minister of Propaganda and find out
whether it was okay to talk to you. He gave it his blessing, so you
could be the first to hear of our bizarre little tale.” Ryan
flopped down in his favorite chair and took a swig out of his diet
Dr. Pepper, which was his favorite caffeine drink.

Ryan could tell that Grayboys was anxious to
begin, so he motioned for him to start. “I was on assignment down
in New Mexico chasing down a story on some old coot who said he had
seen a UFO, for crying out loud. A writer of my capabilities, no
less.” He stopped for a moment at Ryan’s amused smile.

“So you were pissed.”

“Damn right I was. It was hot as blazes, and
the locals were a bunch of slack-jawed yokels. I was sitting in
some crummy bar having some beer—at least it was pretty cold—but I
was counting the minutes until my interview when one
Toothless-Wonder down the bar started to crow. ‘Yep, if Mister
Lou-ise gets his way, these here beer would be free.’”

Ryan laughed out loud at the city-slicker’s
hillbilly impression. “You certainly can paint a picture, Mr.
Grayboys.”

“I should. I’m a Pulitzer Prize winner, you
know. Two years ago I had this hot story that won me the prize, but
since then I’ve been chasing the dream.” Grayboys paused for a
moment to rein himself in. He could not tell this nobody that
drinking had caused him to become the office joke and that his
“assignment” in New Mexico was chasing a UFO sighting. He thought
of going freelance to avoid the office politics, but he had an aged
mother to support, and it would be hard to walk away from a steady
pay check. He bided his time doing the crap stories knowing that
his break would come someday.

“Normally, I wouldn’t talk to people who
weren’t involved in the story, but I had nothing else to do, so I
thought I might find out what the old coot was on about. I asked
him if this Mr. Lou-ise would buy me a beer, too, and he started to
slide down toward me. His smell hit me three feet before he
arrived. ‘Ralphie Skinner, here,’ he said through an alcoholic
haze. He didn’t take much encouraging and just started blabbing
about this Mr. Lou-ise.

“‘You got that right. Beer’d be free, the
pretzels and chips, your house, medicine, everything’s be free.
Maybe even yer’ women!’ He let out a cackle and a wink before I
turned away.” He paused.

Grayboys had sparked Ryan’s interest, and he
knew it. He was playing cat and mouse and waiting to see if Ryan
would take the bait. He did. “What else did this hillbilly tell
you?”

“The bartender barked at Ralphie to stop
talking, and he did. I met with my contact and was about to head
home when I saw Skinner with a battered old Schwinn waiting for me.
‘I came to tell you the plan, and what it might mean. Do you have
time to come on yonder to my house?’ I really wanted to leave town
and get away from these rustic inhabitants, but I was getting some
kind of vibe off of this guy that said he actually had something to
tell me. He told me he joined some group of heretics a while back
called the Weebles, or Wobbles.” He paused for a moment to gauge
Ryan’s reaction.

“The Wobblies?” Ryan asked calmly, but
Grayboys could see his fist clench.

“Yeah, that sounds right. Anyway, his place
was a one-story shack, but it was comfortable enough inside. ‘The
reason I have to tell you this story is that it’s going to turn the
world on its ear, and I don’t know how much longer I have, so I
want to see it start, at least. I useta live in towns built near
railroad junctions and rode around on boxcars, barely staying fed
at times. The Wobblies showed me how people cooperating could make
things betta for everyone, even someone like me. I was thinkin’ I
was gonna go to my grave not ever seeing any major change, when all
of a sudden my union leader shows up a couple of months ago with a
plan that knocked my socks off. He said some fella up north, some
Nick Ryan from Philly, had figgered out how to do it all without
money. Just have everything be free and everyone would get what
they needed. He said it would be a hard road, but we had numbers on
our side—there are a helluva lot more poor folks than rich ones—and
that if we all band together we can vote to get this into office.
Well, I’m tired of waiting, I want to see some action. That’s why I
thought you might be the one to help get this thing moving.’

“At first I thought this was just a bunch of
baloney, but then he said, ‘It’s true, I’m not lyin’. They are
serious at tryin’ to get this thing pushed through, something about
an Amendment or somethin.’ I asked him how many Wobblies there were
and he stated with pride, ‘Two million and growing across the good
old US of A.’

“So, I hopped on a train and came to see
you. So, that’s the story, but now I want to hear it from you. How
much of what that old coot said was true?”

Ryan settled in. “Well, as sparse as what he
told you goes, he pretty much has it right. The system I wrote
about would have every consumer good, product, and service be free
to all United States residents, regardless of whether they could
hold a job or not. The government would be the conduit through
which people would receive these services, and they would be
responsible for equitable distribution. Minimal standards for
housing, nutrition, and education would be established, and the
goal of society would be to make sure everyone received at least
that minimum. People who made a greater contribution would receive
a greater share of the assets but not to the same extent as now
where the upper crust of society gets a disproportionate share of
everything. The original goal would be to bring everyone up to the
minimum, then increase the level of the minimum so that it offered
more than just standard goods and services. In this way, society
would be totally focused on the welfare of all its citizens, not
just having everyone trying to maximize his or her share. That’s
the plan in a nutshell, of course. There’s a lot more details than
this.”

Gryaboys sat nonplussed. As a newsman, he
was used to hearing outlandish ideas and schemes, but this was
coming from a relatively stable-looking middle class guy, a federal
bureaucrat, no less. They were as a group not known for their
innovative thinking. Gryaboys just needed to confirm that there
were a couple of million Wobblies ready to get behind this, and he
knew he would have a story, even if this plan went nowhere. The
fact that a group of people other than the professional thinkers in
Washington had come up with a plan that, on the face of it, was
somewhat viable was fairly astounding. Coupled with the fact that
they had already convinced a traditionally anti-government group to
go along was exciting, as his story would have a built-in
readership interest of at least two million, many more if you
counted family. He could use it to negotiate better wages and
conditions for himself, and maybe, the coveted Pulitzer. He wanted
to try to get exclusivity, and figured that Ryan, being a novice at
the media game, might be willing to lock in a reporter. He put on a
bland attitude, and flipped his notebook shut.