6
Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time
Janice Isley took her pink knit hat off in the sparsely populated, strictly socially-distanced vegetarian restaurant a half mile northeast of the National Mall, and offered a plate of avocado toast to her friend, Professor Vaneida Allen, who sat diagonally across from her in the large booth. Vaneida declined it. Janice then offered it to Jenna Jones, the other woman on her side of the booth.
“Have some avocado toast, Nature Girl,” she said. “You’re wasting away.”
Jenna, who was a former student of Vaneida’s, and now a paralegal at Janice’s law firm, reached over and took a couple of slices. She had long since learned to endure Janice’s good-natured ribbing about her love of camping and the outdoors.
“Thanks, City Girl,” she responded.
The restaurant had a sign out front, which could be seen at a number of the trendier eateries in the District:
No Medallions Required or Wanted Here
Stay Six Feet Apart – Wear Masks to Protect Others
WE ARE ALL EQUAL HERE
If You Have Symptoms, Please Stay Home
None of the customers wore lanyards with the otherwise common “MK” medallions in this restaurant.
“Look at this,” Jenna said, holding out her phone, which displayed a Presidential Toot.
–<() Protesters protesting the Winners are the Anti-Democricy Party! Overturning LEGAL elections! They deserve what they get! Jail for domestic terrorists!
Vaneida looked at her friends, who seemed a bit tense.
“You both ARE symptom-free, right?” Vaneida said.
“Well, symptoms of THAT virus, sure,” said Janice. “I can’t say I’m totally clean otherwise.”
Vaneida laughed.
“Okay. But loosen up, ladies,” she said, grinning.
“I’m loose,” Jenna, a short, petite, but deceptively tough 23 year-old said, a bit defensively.
“Just remember your training,” Vaneida said, more seriously. “It’ll kick in.”
“I’m ready,” Jenna responded.
Janice, a larger woman who some people (too many, in her opinion) thought resembled the mixed martial arts fighter Ronda Rousey, said, disgustedly, “Did we really have to buy those fricking red hats?”
“It’s about time some white people had to pass for something they weren’t,” Vaneida said, grinning.
“It does make my skin crawl just a bit,” Jenna said.
“It’s a time of sacrifice,” Vaneida said.
“What a year. What a… what do you call a four-year period?” Janice asked.
“Olympiad?” Jenna said.
“Wearing red hats is going to be a breeze,” Vaneida said. “The tough thing is going to be getting out of there without getting hurt. And,” she said, pointing at the two, “without hurting others. Dr. King rules, you two. Nonviolence. I know you’ve been doing extra reps at the gym, but that’s to help you escape, not to harm others. If necessary, drop, curl up, and cover your faces.”
The two nodded solemnly.
“Now, Joe is solid,” Vaneida went on. “If anyone can get us out of there in one piece, it’s him. He was Special Forces.”
“Does he know the Dr. King rules?” Jenna asked.
“I told him we couldn’t hurt anyone. He seemed okay with that. I’ll tell him again when we get there.”
“Anyway, look at all these people on the street,” Jenna said, more cheerfully. “I can’t believe it! There must be a million of us, even with the virus. We’ll probably get arrested, right?” she asked in an abrupt change of topic.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Vaneida said. “You can’t tell with the DC cops. Sometimes they’ll take you away and then just let you go. As for the crowds, a million people, two million. It’s too bad they seem not to have showed up to vote two months ago.”
“Well, they suppressed the vote with all the virus alerts and fearmongering, and stopping vote by mail,” Janice replied. “I thought maybe if things got so flipping bad, even the dumbest people in the Midwest and South would see that they are getting screwed, but the virus changed everything.”
“The Lord God sent a plague unto them in the form of a virus,” Vaneida said. “If anything was going to get their attention, that should have. I don’t think anything ever will. I think they suspect that we think they are dumb, and that makes them vote against us forever.”
“You don’t think they are dumb?” Jenna asked.
“I think they are angry. I think this guy is a six-foot-two flabby disease-spreading middle finger they are using to flip us all off. I think the more disgusting he is, the worse things have gotten under him, the more people die from the virus, the better they like it, because it’s their way of saying, ‘THIS is how much we hate you.’”
“But it’s the Republican leaders that give them that power,” Jenna said.
“And those Republicans keep setting up double binds – heads they win, tails we lose. Like the medallions. Now they literally have a way to divide Americans into two groups, and either we go get their authentication and agree to their division of America, or they are able to shut us out of most restaurants and public places. In a way, you’ve got to hand it to them. Every time we think, ‘Oh, THIS time we really have them, THIS time they can’t possibly escape,’ they somehow find a way to turn it back on us and get even more power. We just can’t win. Even against the Plague President.”
“Even him getting the virus, they just flipped from saying it was a ‘hoax’ to saying it was the most dangerous thing ever and only a superman like him could survive it,” Jenna mused.
“Then why are we here?” Janice said.
“Because maybe it’s when things are most hopeless that showing up really matters. Pessimism, optimism, they’re two sides of the same emotional coin. If your actions are founded on emotion instead of logic, you’ve already lost. I’m here without hope and without expectation. I suggest you abandon hope too.”
“Isn’t that cynical?” Jenna said.
“I’m not cynical,” Vaneida shot back. “I just think sentimentality kills. If we get too high and lose, we will get really low afterward. I don’t know whether this will work or whether it will fail, whether my being here can help or not. I just know I had to be here, so when I’m old I can say we went into the lion’s den, standing up for what we believe.”
“Well,” Janice replied, in a hopeless tone, “I have to choose to believe that that six-foot-two piece-of-shit middle finger is ultimately going to end up being seen by history as a symbol of a dying age of intolerance, racism, sexism, xenophobia, resistance to science, and ignorance. And disease. So, the worse he is, the better for us, too. I choose to have faith that he will end up being a disgusting filthy lever we can use to bring about a more just future. Like Bull Connor.”
“Isn’t it pretty to think so,” Vaneida said, and took a drink of her icewater. “Okay, let’s get going.” She motioned to the server for the bill, credit card in hand. The server brought it over, then took her card went to process it.
“Okay, let’s get on the same page. From here we go to the car and get ourselves ready,” she said. “I’ve got medallions and the red caps and sweatshirts in the trunk.”
The other women nodded.
The server came back and handed her the bill. She leaned forward, calculated for a moment, signed the bill, closed the folder, and laid it on the table.
“Thanks,” Janice and Jenna said in unison.
“I also have all our tickets to get into the enclosed area,” Vaneida said. “We will meet Joe at the northeast entrance. Are you scared?”
The two women looked at each other quickly and laughed nervously.
“Good. You should be scared. This is a dangerous thing we are doing. Only a nut would not be scared. You think Dr. King wasn’t scared? He was scared every day. Now, we aren’t going to get killed. We might get our hair mussed. But you are ready. And I’m here for you. And this Joe guy is supposed to be good in these situations. Now this is your last chance to bail. I won’t be disappointed in you if you do.”
The other two women looked at each other, then back at Vaneida. Both shook their heads.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
Vaneida waved to the server and the three of them walked out into the gray morning street. They went around the corner to a parking garage and went up the stairs to Vaneida’s car. She opened the trunk and pulled out a large banner that had been rolled up. She took off her sweater and turned to the other two.
“Now roll this thing up around me.”
Janice picked up the banner and placed it over Vaneida’s midriff. Vaneida held it there for the first go-round, and Janice began walking around her, gradually wrapping her in the banner. When she was done, they all laughed.
“You look like the Michelin Man,” Janice said.
“What’s that?” Jenna said.
“Kids these days,” Vaneida said. “An old tire ad. Actually, way before my time too. Okay, tape it on.”
Janice used duct tape to fasten the banner around Vaneida.
“Not too much tape,” Vaneida said. “We want to be able to get it off quickly. Now the back brace.”
“Why do you need that?” Jenna said.
“If and when they do a body check, this banner is not going to feel normal,” Vaneida explained. “It’ll feel too stiff. I need something to explain the thickness and the stiffness.”
“That’s smart,” Jenna said.
“Plus,” she said, “I do have a bad back. Old basketball injury. Good thing it came in useful for once.”
Janice helped Vaneida put the back brace on over the banner.
“Can you give me that big long sweatshirt?” Vaneida said to Jenna. Jenna complied, handing her the red shirt with the slogan supporting the President. Vaneida pulled it on over the entire get-up.
“Well, if nothing else, no one will want to mess with you while you’re wearing that,” Janice said. “You’re a tank.”
Vaneida grinned. “Now once we get in there and past the security, we wait like good supporters of the President, but behind everyone. We have to be in the last row. We’ll wear our hats and cheer for him until he gets past a minute or two into his speech, then I’ll give you the sign. I’ll take off the back brace. You, Janice, will undo the tape, and then we’ll get this dude to unroll it fast with us. I may have to twirl around like a top to let you guys get it off me. Then we’ll hold it up in the air. They won’t stand for that for long, so we need to try to keep it up long enough for the cameras to see it. Maybe 30 seconds. Keep your hats and stuff on to confuse the people near us. Then when I give the sign, drop the banner, find Joe, and run with him for the exit. No need to keep the banner, it will have served its purpose. Got all that?”
The two other women took deep breaths and nodded. “Okay,” Vaneida said. “Let’s walk over there.”
© 2020 Nolan O’Brian