CHAPTER THIRTEEN: OPERATION MOVED
Noon was check-out
time at the Edmunds Hotel. Volunteers proceeded to the State Capitol
grounds and roamed around
in front of the Governor Louis Church Legislative Office Building,
diagonally across from the Capital City Hotel.
A pedestrian was
walking by. “I read about you people in the Capital Daily Star, but I
thought you were working up in the adult entertainment district.” he
said.
Cindy explained,
“That’s where the operation started, last night.
“You’re still here
since last night?” he wondered.
“No, not me. I
just started. We’ll be working in shifts around the clock.” Cindy said.
The man pointed to
the top of the tower of the building. “Well, there’s the clock. If you
want to work around the clock, this is the place to be.” he quipped.
“That must be why
they have security around the clock.” Cindy replied. “They don’t want
anybody to steal that clock.”
The clock showed
12:07. Three men were walking by, dressed in business suits and ties,
going to lunch. Two were state assemblymen, the third a state senator.
One assemblyman joked, pointing to Cindy, saying, “Hey, Senator, have I
got a girl for you!”
When the senator
failed to laugh, the other assemblyman admonished the first, saying,
“She’s young enough to be his daughter.”
The senator looked
at Cindy, and stopped. His eyes popped open wide. Cindy’s face turned
bright red. “What’s the matter, Senator?” one assemblyman asked.
“This is my
daughter!” the senator declared. “Cindy! What on Earth ever possessed
you to do this?” he demanded.
“We’re doing a
better job of putting the pimps out of business than your government
ever will.” Cindy declared.
“Cindy!” the
senator scolded. “How can you have so little self-respect that you’d
give it to…”
“They are all
God’s precious children, and God does not want them to suffer. You just
want to feel superior because you are more successful with women. To
feel superior, you have to treat less successful guys as inferior. Ever
since Mom died, you’ve been going out on dates, taking the woman to
dinner, buying her drinks, taking her to the movies, and then seeing
whether she’ll give it to you or not. Then you vote for tougher laws
against gambling and buying sex, you hypocrite.” Cindy scolded.
The senator shook
his head and walked away. At 12:17 a man walked around the corner and
began talking to Cindy. “I’m free this afternoon.” she told him.
The man looked
around, and muttered, “Let’s do it. Maybe something will go right
today.”
Cindy introduced
herself, “I’m Cindy.”
The man did not
take her outstretched hand, but simply said, “I’m George.”
Cindy walked
George to the Capital City Hotel. “Maybe this will put you in a better
mood.” she suggested.
George answered,
“I don’t think anything will put me in a good mood at this point. I’m
fucking furious. I’ve been trying to find a fucking job for weeks. I
waited all morning again at Labor Ready, but nothing. I’m about to get
evicted and thrown out onto the street.”
Cindy agreed,
“These are tough times for finding a job.”
George explained,
“I had a perfectly good job driving taxi, but they took away my drivers
license. They had this underage decoy outside the liquor store, asking
me to run in and buy for her, so I did, and I got arrested, and they
fined me and took my license away for that, those assholes.”
Cindy said, “You
have every right to be furious, but please try not to take it out on
me, okay? We Libertarians don’t support that unjust law anyway.”
“So now I can’t
drive, so how the fuck am I supposed to get a job?” George griped. “I
check the want ads, and everything is out in the suburbs, where there’s
no fucking bus service. They’re hiring at Wal-Mart at the Talleyville
Mall, but there’s no fucking bus there! I mean, what the fuck was the
matter with those assholes? Why the fuck did they build the biggest
shopping mall in the State of West Dakota in a spot nowhere near a bus
line? I went to the state employment office but they don’t have shit
there. And everyplace I go to ask for a job, they want to know what
kind of job. I feel like screaming at the pricks, ‘a fucking job,
asshole.’ Like, why can’t they just give me a job. Why do I have to
guess whether they’re hiring stockers or baggers? Just give me a
fucking job! When my family moved here, my father brought me to
Talleyville High School, he filled out the papers, and I was in. Why
don’t they just give me a job the same way they gave me a high school
education?”
“You know, there
would be plenty of jobs if not for the government’s wrongdoing.” Cindy
said. “Last year, the plastic bottle factory wanted to build an
addition and add more assembly lines, which would have put a hundred
more jobs in Sacraleena, but the Zoning Board wouldn’t let them. The
reason there’s no housing near the Talleyville Mall is also because of
zoning restrictions. That drives up the cost of housing, and makes
public transit less feasible.”
“Yeah,” George
said, “Well, I feel like going down to the Talleyville Mall and buying
a baseball bat at the sporting goods store, and going into the food
court and just start smashing heads. If they don’t want me to do that,
they should have made sure I got a job.”
Cindy asked, “What
if I’m in the food court? Do you want to smash my head, too?”
George answered,
“No way! You’re nice.”
Cindy asked,
“There were other women out there on tour. Did you pick me because I’m
the nicest?”
George answered,
“No, all you volunteers are nice.”
“But if we happen
to be in the food court, we’re in danger of that random violence, just
as much danger as the assholes who caused your situation.” Cindy
observed.
George asked, “You
think I should go into the State Capitol and teach those assholes a
lesson?”
Cindy replied,
“Some of them deserve it, some don’t. But when you get right down to
it, all they’re doing is manufacturing documents, autographing them and
embellishing them with a fancy seal. Cops are the enemy. They’re the
ones that are on a mission to enforce the words written on those
documents. The reason you can’t drive taxi is because the cops would
arrest you. The reason the businesses can’t build additions is because
the cops would arrest them. The reason people have to pay outrageous
taxes is because the cops will arrest them if they don’t. If I attack
you with a baseball bat, George, you have the right to take my weapon
away from me. The government uses a police force to attack your rights,
and you have every bit as much right to take that weapon away from
them.”
George muttered,
“Some cops are just doing their jobs.”
Cindy observed,
“Their job is to commit unprovoked violence against innocent people
like you. Voluntarily being drunk is no excuse for vehicular homicide,
and voluntarily being a cop is no excuse to commit unprovoked violence.
Innocent people aren’t the enemy, cops are. If the fat, stupid, ugly
old ladies that watch soap operas, play bingo, read tabloids and don’t
know the metric system don’t want the victims of unjust laws to go out
there and kill cops, they shouldn’t have elected candidates who support
unjust laws.”
George replied,
“Well, I don’t have a gun.”
Cindy asked, “Do
you still have your car?”
George said, “I
don’t have a car, I have a pickup truck.”
Cindy observed,
“That’s even better. A car would run under a cop, but a pickup truck is
higher and would run over a cop. Then you can collect a free gun as a
prize of war.”
George said, “If I
run over a cop directing traffic outside the Talleyville Mall and drive
away, then crash into an oncoming police motorcycle, decapitating the
cop, would that be a head-on collision?”
Cindy said, “Well,
yeah.”
George quipped,
“No! It would be a head-off collision! Gotcha!”
Cindy groaned,
“Oh, your sense of humor!” She paused and said, “What you should do is
write to the news media to explain why you are furious, but don’t
mention any plans.” She began undressing for him.
George said,
“Thanks for the clarification. I think my last day on this Earth will
feel a lot better if I kill cops than if I kill people who don’t
deserve it. If the West Dakota Legislature didn’t want me to waste
their cops, they shouldn’t have set the unemployment rate so high.”
Cindy mentioned,
“They have as much control over the unemployment rate as they have over
the tax rate. They just don’t give a damn. Neither do most voters, but
they will start to care if they must pay the price with cops’ blood.
They don’t want to wake up one morning and have no police department.”
HOME PAGE
CHAPTER ONE:
THE PARKING LOT
CHAPTER TWO:
THE COMPUTER
CHAPTER THREE:
THE LOUNGE
CHAPTER FOUR:
THE CAFETERIA
CHAPTER FIVE:
THE PARTY
CHAPTER SIX:
LUNCH
CHAPTER SEVEN:
MELISSA
WORRIES
CHAPTER EIGHT:
MELISSA’S PROJECT
CHAPTER NINE:
THE TEMPLE
CHAPTER TEN:
RECRUITMENT
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
THE PLANNING
CHAPTER TWELVE:
OPERATION UNDERWAY
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN: GLORIA
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN: THE DISCUSSION
GLOSSARY
Copyright
2007 Tom Alciere
