Dawn of the Unthinkable (6 page)

“Yo, man, what’s up?” Douglass said.

“Nothing, Slick. What are you up to?” Ryan
asked.

“Well, I was thinking that maybe I’d slide
out and try to scorch some golf balls down at the range. You
interested?”

“Hmm, sounds good, but I am kind of working
on something,” Ryan said as he glanced down at his writing.

“What?” Douglass asked with interest in his
voice. If it was a household project, he was concerned. He enjoyed
working with his hands and liked to help Ryan, who had little
ability but much enthusiasm. This often led to a half-assed
finished project that Ryan knew annoyed Douglass to no end when he
came to visit.

“No, don’t worry. I won’t pick up a hammer
and saw without your supervision,” Ryan said, laughing.

Douglass laughed in return. “I’m just trying
to keep your house from looking like something from
Green
Acres,
” he said, recalling the popular 60’s sitcom.

“Thanks, Haney. I’ll keep that in mind,”
Ryan answered, referring to the huckstering salesman on the
show.

“No, seriously, what are you working on?”
Douglass asked.

Ryan had a decision to make. Should he tell
anyone about this? He had just started working on it, and there was
not much to talk about at this point. Probably better to wait and
see how it turned out before he started soliciting public opinion
on it. Also, better to get a little more written before he rewarded
himself with a bucket of balls.

He said, “Nothing, just messing around, how
about if I meet you at the range in an hour?”

“Sounds good. See you there,” Douglass
replied, and hung up.

Ryan hung up the phone and looked back at
his paper. Damn, this writing was harder than he thought. He knew
what he wanted to say, but to state it in a manner that was not
laughable, that was a different story. He stopped to look at what
he had so far:

A Proposal to Reorder
Society

Society should provide
food, clothing, and shelter to all its people for free, without
cash, credit or debt. The Declaration of Independence states that
all men were created equal; therefore, all men should have an equal
opportunity to thrive. Under the current capitalistic democracy,
this is not possible. Therefore, this proposal lays out the
framework of a new type of democracy, one that would allow all men,
women, and children be provided their needs in exchange for their
contributions to society. Opportunities to work would increase
dramatically, and all members of society could find a way to make a
unique contribution to the greater good.

To accomplish this, the United States
should:

1. Eliminate money in All
Forms


ALL members of society
can obtain free food, products, health care, education,
transportation, and housing. There will no longer be any need for
money, of either the paper or electronic variety. This will
eliminate most forms of crime, which usually have money as their
root cause. All goods will be distributed in accordance with the
“Theory of One” which states:


Only one item for one
person unless he can prove the need for more than one. After
all
of the needs of
society have been satisfied, the excess that remains will be used
for
wants.


Obtaining more of an
item, or an item of better quality, relates to a person’s Lifestyle
Level, will be determined by the votes of society through a
nationwide computerized inventory system. The level of lifestyle
for everyone will have an acceptable amount of housing, food,
medical care, and other items required for survival that will never
fall below a given level, no matter what the person does or does
not contribute to society. Once all homelessness and poverty has
been eliminated, increases to one of the other five levels of
lifestyles can be made with the goal of having the uppermost
lifestyle levels being not much more comfortable than the lowest
level.


All members of society
will become “evaluators” that will electronically “vote” on an
individual’s contributions to society, so that accomplishments and
achievements are rewarded by societal consensus, not by the
vagaries of money. No names or descriptions of the person evaluated
are part of the profile, so that a person’s age, race, or sex does
not weigh against them. A person will stay at the same lifestyle
level for a year and be evaluated at the end of the year to
determine whether his or her achievements for that year warrant an
upgrade. Special achievements during the course of a year may be
evaluated occasionally, so that a person may be rewarded
expeditiously.


A person’s evaluated
status will also determine where he will live. A person’s level
will determine where he lives, with as much flexibility to
accommodate desires as possible granted. This will end ghettos and
obsolete housing stock. It will provide jobs in the form of a
national rework of dilapidated properties. This should help
alleviate problems of overcrowding, which include crime, pollution,
poverty, and despair.

Not a bad start
, he thought. Now that
he had accomplished something for the day, he thought he would
reward himself with a bucket of balls. Better to go now before his
wife had a chance to debate whether he had really done anything
useful.

Senator Marvin Kincaid was doing his best to
stay awake but was the losing battle. The earnest young lawyer from
Spokane, Washington was droning on about how increased logging
would “destroy the very fabric of our nation’s soul, by rendering
it unable to provide a habitat for many endangered species…” blah,
blah, blah. Kincaid had seen these young fools come and go, they
were always for the touchy-feely side of an issue without looking
at the practical implications. The fact was, in today’s day and
age, people who ran big companies could steamroll any opposition,
not only with superior legal talent but with deep-pocketed
contributions to men like himself who cast critical votes on
pork-barrel projects. The concerns of a few tree-huggers became
largely irrelevant in the face of hundred-thousand-dollar
contributions, and as long as you supported one or two “soft”
issues a year, preferably those that did not piss off some large
corporation, you could portray yourself as on the side of the
little guy. Kincaid had learned these lessons well in his three
Senate terms, and he was looking to the logging industry to help
him secure his coming-soon fourth.

Time to shut this down
, he thought,
as he had an afternoon appointment with a lady that did not like to
be kept waiting. He waited for the young lawyer to take a breath
(
How did they manage to talk so long? Did they really believe
this crap?
) and interjected himself.

“Counselor, your points are well taken and
will be given a full review at the next subcommittee meeting. But
I’m afraid I must bring the hearing to close at this point, as I
have some other rather pressing matters to attend to, as I am sure
is the same with my colleagues?”

He looked around the table, and there were
nods of assent and mumbles of gratitude from the rest of the herd
who were assigned to the conservation committee under his watchful
eye for real or perceived wrongdoing. The lawyer tried to object,
knowing that his chance to nail down his arguments was escaping,
but it was too late. Half the members were already out the door,
trailed by aides who would steer them to their next obligation.

Kincaid gathered his papers and prepared to
take his leave. He stood up and stretched his six foot three inch
frame, which despite being in his early sixties, was still in good
condition. He saw a small, elfin-looking woman approaching him and
cursed himself for not getting out the door sooner. Now he would
have to play the benevolent senator routine, maybe voice some
concern for her cause, sign an autograph, whatever. He had loved
this attention early in his legislative career, but now, when he
could size up the potential donation from a glance at a person, he
knew there would be few drachmas to be had from this waif. Still,
he was supposed to be a servant of the people, and it would be rude
to not give her a few moments.

He smiled genially at her, and said, “How do
you do, Ms…?”

“Sullivan, sir, Annie Sullivan. Pleased to
meet you, sir,” she said, her eyes cast down. Her apparent shyness
put him at ease and reminded him of his own estranged daughter who
had come to hate him for his positions that always seemed to favor
large corporations. She had been shy at one time, too, before she
learned to use her tongue like a stiletto to wound him. He
refocused his attention on the woman who he realized had been
speaking to him.

“…Your support of these firms allows them to
denude and strip our forests of trees that have been standing for
years, and that is a tragedy that must stop,” she said in a firm,
insistent voice he would have hardly given her credit for. He
started looking for Rudi, his aide, to take this crackpot way from
him while mouthing some comforting (to him, anyway) words about
seedling and reclamation programs. Because he was not looking
directly at her, he saw too late what she was pulling from her
pocketbook.

He had always had a morbid fear of being
assassinated and thought that someone out there might want to do
him in. Now, as the lady started to chant some other worldly
phrases in a loud sing-song voice (It turned out to be a Druid
prayer.), he could see she had something in her hand that she was
bringing up toward his head. He cried out, and grabbed a young
female page to put between himself and his assailant. His reflexes
were not as good as they had been, however, and he could only see
the woman’s sinewy forearm as it contracted to squeeze, what…?

He felt warm ooze spread across his
carefully coifed hair, and felt it drip down his cheek. He was
confused; he thought that he had been shot, but had heard no sound
and felt no impact. He knew that even a silenced gun makes some
noises. Why hadn’t he heard anything? He slid to the ground in
shock, half pulling the page’s skirt off as he went down. He heard
her scream as she tried to pull out of his grip, and pull her
clothing back up at the same time. Was this what dying was
like?

There was much shouting and confusion, and
he heard Rudi speaking to him in a soothing tone as the strong
ex-football player helped him to his feet. “You’re okay, Senator.
It wasn’t a gun. You’re fine.”. Rudi Jordan was also a former
Marine lieutenant and he stayed as calm in chaotic situations as
anyone the senator knew. Much calmer than himself, he knew. Rudi
wedged his body between the woman and the senator, and he could see
that the Senate Security officers had already overpowered her. They
were holding the “weapon” now; it looked like a yellow mustard
squeeze bottle. Kincaid reached up to touch the ooze; it had a
tarry smell and was quite sticky. He was just beginning to get a
bad feeling of humiliation when he heard the women ranting,
something about blood.

“…and you have the blood of a thousand trees
on your hands. That sap came from a tree that had been standing for
a hundred years, you’re a murderer the same as any in prison,
you….” The rest was cut off as she was dragged away.

“Looks like you got sapped, Senator,” one of
the security cops said, trying to keep the laughter out of his
voice. Kincaid was not one of the better-liked senators on the
floor, and now that the cops could see that he was not hurt, they
were a bit amused at his predicament. Of course, their supervisor
would be up their ass to find out how this twit was able to get
close enough to do this, but hey, if the senators wanted to press
the flesh with their constituents, they had to take some risks.
They all remembered when that nut came up and punched Senator John
Glenn on the jaw right while he has talking on TV!

Kincaid now was wiping at the mess with his
hanky. It had mostly landed in his hair, which instead of its usual
towering height, was matted down on one side. It was also running
down his cheek, and was sticky as hell. The hanky was not doing a
good job of getting it off, and he realized he must look terrible.
He got to his feet and tried to stammer an apology to the page, who
was readjusting her clothes surrounded by sympathetic females. They
were eyeing him in judgemental shock. Not only had he put the young
page at risk; he seemed to have been grabbing a cheap feel in the
process.
This definitely will not help the female vote
, he
thought. However, he did not have much time to think about it
because Rudi had grabbed his arm and moved him swiftly toward the
secure corridor the Senator used to travel the building.

Rudi realized that so far no one had taken
pictures of this event, which was not unusual. If the proceedings
were determined to be of a non-newsworthy nature or something more
interesting was going on, the photographers would skip certain
events. News of this incident would travel fast, however, and the
photographer’s paparazzi instinct would kick in; there would be a
swarm of them soon. If they could get there on time, they might get
a candid shot of the august senator who was rarely photographed in
any type of non-scripted moment. One photographer did make it to
the room, and grinned as he took in the shocked, dishevelled
legislator. He went into his instinctive human tripod pose to
steady his camera.
This one should be good for a bonus
, he
thought, as his finger descended on the button.

Rudi reached forward and put two fingers
underneath the man’s elbow. He exerted a little pressure from his
rock solid arm, and the result was the man’s camera moved up around
two inches, and to the wrong side of the senator’s problem. The
resulting photo would be a partial picture of any senior’s hair.
The photographer swore as Rudi smiled sweetly and said, “Excuse me,
senator coming through, pardon us…!” in his most official sounding
voice. They managed to clear the door, which snapped shut behind
them. The photographer was not able to get another try and grumped
off mumbling to himself.