14

Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

The door of the police van opened and the District of Columbia Police ushered their captives, now all masked, in. Janice and Jenna climbed up, serious and silent, and sat down along one wall of the van. Jenna was bleeding from the cut above her eye; she held a handkerchief to the wound, which had bled through the bandage. Another woman, a bit older and more substantial, came in and sat between them; this seemed to take the first two women aback. Next, Vaneida entered, unspeaking; she situated herself in the middle of the opposite wall. Finally, Joe climbed in, walked past the others, and sat in a far corner, beyond Vaneida.

A police officer clothed in head-to-toe anti-viral protective gear was half-carrying the last detainee, who appeared wobbly and semi-conscious. After fruitless attempts to load him into the van, he called out to the other officer.

“This one’s going to have to go in front. He’s not right. I think he’s gotta go to St. E.’s.”

“Oh, come on, man, he’s drooling all over,” another voice complained.

“He can’t sit up by himself. Can’t put him in with the others. Come on and help me with him.”

The other officer came around and grabbed the man by his other arm.

“Now drool over toward him,” he said to the man. The man regarded him at an angle through glassy eyes, then suddenly leaned forward and vomited.

“Oh, Jesus,” the second policeman said.

The man seemed to be trying to apologize.

“Well, at least he didn’t hit either of us,” he first cop said. “Nice job, guy.” The man nodded, then tried to regain an upright posture.

“Now are you gonna be all right? You’re done throwin’ up, right?” the second cop said.

The man gave what some might have interpreted as a nod. The cops carried him toward the front of the van. The people inside could hear the wheedling tones of the police trying to coax him into a seat, then buckling noises as he was fastened in.

The first cop came back and got into the van. He shut the back door behind him.

“When do we get released?” Jenna asked the policeman. He did not answer. Instead he began strapping her into her seat.

“What are you doing?” Jenna said, annoyed.

“Department policy,” the policeman answered. “No Freddie Grays in our vans.”

“So, when do we get released?” Jenna asked again.

“We have to get processed first,” the woman next to her, more substantial and confident, responded. “I’ve been arrested before,” she added, almost proudly.

Janice stifled a snort next to her.

“What’s that about?” the new woman asked, in an offended tone.

“Nothing.”

“No,” the new woman persisted. “What’s the problem?”

“Just, I guess it really worked,” Janice replied sarcastically. “Thank god you got arrested so he didn’t get re-elected.”

The unknown woman muttered something under her breath. 

“What did you call me?” Janice said.

“Ladies,” the policeman said, continuing his buckling.

A sullen silence reigned for a minute or so as he finished strapping in the other prisoners. Then he went to the rear door, reopened it, exited, and slammed it shut. In a moment they heard the front passenger door open and shut, and the van began moving.

The new woman said, in a low voice, to no one in particular, “We’re all on the same side, anyway. We shouldn’t be arguing.”

At this Joe turned his head away toward the front of the van and smiled. 

“What’s so funny?” the new woman said.

Joe shook his head.

“We aren’t all on the same side?”

“Sure,” he said, still smiling.

“Maybe you were one of those people looting,” the new woman said.

“He was with us,” Janice said. “Besides, he’s not wearing black.”

“Not anymore, anyway,” the new woman said, staring at Joe. He stared back, still smiling, if a bit more coldly. A moment passed.

“So you don’t think we’re all on the same side?” the new woman asked Joe, finally.

“If we were, would we even have to be here?” he asked.

“Millions of people were denied the right to vote,” the new woman said.

“That’s true,” Joe said. “But how was that even possible? It’s because the other side is completely united and determined to win at any cost. They did all the work to get that power to deny people the vote. Meanwhile, I bet if I asked all of you to write down what issue brought you out here today, you might each write down something different. Abortion rights, voting rights, health care, police shootings of black people, the war, climate change… Women’s March, Black Lives Matter March, Poor People’s March, Resistance March… to win you have to pick a lane. The one that will attract enough voters to win elections.”

“But we did win the election,” Janice said. “We got millions more votes than him. Even with his fake virus thing.”

“But still you lost, because there was no commitment to win, only to pursue a whole bunch of different causes, none of which could inspire a mass movement. A fractious coalition will never defeat a unified tribe, not without some compromises between its elements. None of you will compromise.”

“But we didn’t lose! Even in the Electoral College it was a tie!” Jenna replied heatedly, still holding the handkerchief to her face. “Until the courts figure out who won that district in Nebraska, we haven’t lost.”

Joe was grinning broadly now. “You really think they are going to put on a show like this, at the Capitol, all the pomp and circumstance, all the military, with the Supreme Court all there, having allowed this to go forward, and then let it all get reversed and just go home? I don’t think so. Too many of you guys keep thinking you haven’t already lost.”

“‘You.’ I suddenly notice you keep saying ‘you,’” Vaneida suddenly said, sharply. “‘You’ guys keep thinking, ‘you’ aren’t united, ‘you’ all stand for something different. I’m beginning to wonder whether you really are on our side.”

Joe finally lost his smile. He turned to Vaneida and said, “Listen, you are the leader here, you’re the professor. But to me, someone new to this cause, this is the whole problem right here. How long have we been in this van? Four minutes? Five? And we’re already seeing enemies everywhere. It’s so easy for the other side. We’re always so ready to jump on each other. We say they are stupid. Maybe they are. But they keep winning. If we’re so smart, what are we doing here under arrest? Why are they running the government? Why do they win even when they lose, even when it’s a tie?”

“Okay, why? You tell us.”

“Okay. Here’s my opinion, for whatever it’s worth. You’re a black woman.”

Vaneida’s eyes widened. Where is this coming from? she thought to herself.

“Obviously a large part of what brought you into the movement was racism, which has come back in a big way since the departure of the first black president, and with the police killings of African-Americans.”

“Actually, it came back as soon as the first black president got elected. And police killings of black folk have been going on for the last century-plus.”

Joe seemed momentarily thrown off by this.

“Of course, you’re right. Racism has always been there. But it has gotten worse. The KKK is growing by leaps and bounds. Cell phone cameras and body cams are showing us black people being mistreated by white cops where they would have gone undetected in the past.”

“Now you sound positively woke,” Vaneida said.

“So how did you feel when all the black candidates fell by the wayside in the last Democratic primary? Didn’t you feel at least a little betrayed by your fellow Democrats?”

“I felt more betrayed by the incompetence of the black candidates.”

“How about the Hispanic candidates? You,” he said, pointing to the new woman across the van. “You’re Hispanic, right?”

The woman shrugged in a way that could be perceived as an assent.

“How about the total lack of support shown for Hispanic candidates? Didn’t that get under your skin?”

“I’m kind of with her,” the new woman said. “I wish the Hispanic candidates had been better at winning votes.”

“Okay,” Joe said. “But here you are, the biggest Democratic voting bloc, now, and you’re more or less ignored. You never have had a candidate that looks like you, not even in the worst time for Hispanics maybe ever. Forget children separated from parents – they’re shooting people at the border now, with total impunity. …Then there are women.”

“Careful, Joe, you’re outnumbered,” Vaneida said, smiling sardonically.

“You had one female candidate in the entire history of the country, and she won the popular vote by 3 million votes, yet she’s seen as nothing but a cautionary tale. There were plenty of women candidates this time around, but the big question was, ‘How can we run another woman when we know what happened last time?’”

Silence from the others.

“Then there are the gays. You had a gay guy running, for the first time. But he didn’t win either.”

“Are we approaching a point somewhere here?” asked Vaneida, turning back toward him with a flat expression.

“My point is this. The Democrats are divided into subgroups. Each of them is aggrieved – rightly so. Women got one shot at the presidency, and that’s that. Hispanics have never even had a shot at all. Black people got eight years in the White House; now, four years later, it’s like after Reconstruction – they’re worse off in many ways than they were before they got one of their own elected. Gays finally had their first serious candidate this time, but they still have not been rewarded with real power in proportion to their numbers and contributions.”

“POINT,” Vaneida said.

“The point,” Joe said, “is that each of these groups has a completely legitimate argument that they and they alone should be at the top of the ticket. Hell, you each almost have a moral obligation to tell all the other groups, ‘Hey, we’ve been there for you, now you had better be there for us, or we are not coming out to vote.’ Every one of you is completely justified in being intransigent and maximalist in your demands.”

“‘You’ again,” Vaneida said. “You’ve got all of us pegged. Well, what are you doing in this van? What pigeonhole do you fit? You ain’t Hispanic, you ain’t black, you ain’t a woman. And I don’t think you’re gay or trans.”

“Nope,” he replied. “Straight white male. I just remember where my people came from.”

“Down south?”

“Nope,” he said. “They came from the original shithole country – Europe.”

“Europe’s not a country,” Jenna said.

“Well, the European-Americans wouldn’t have come here if all of their countries weren’t shitholes. They went straight to New York and Boston and Chicago with their diseases and poverty and illiteracy and violence and drunkenness, and they were refused work and lodging and had their religious buildings burned until the Democratic Party found a use for us. It took us a while to be accepted as white. Now most of my people, from the earlier waves of Northern European immigration, have forgotten that history, and consider themselves the whitest, most American people out there.”

“So why have you come to all those meetings?”

“Because I am a patriotic American who sees what this administration is doing to our nation. It is allowing the government to fall apart and misusing the military to satisfy the whims of one ignorant self-absorbed man. Most of all, they have gotten rid of the rule of law. It’s sending unmarked secret police to scoop citizens off the streets without warrants. And look at that election. Total chaos, totally premeditated. Look at those pardons last month. Everyone who kept his or her mouth shut got pardoned, and so did his whole family. This is so much more basic than any of the factional grievances any of you” – he stopped to correct himself – “any of us – have. Forget democracy. Accountability for criminal action and abuse of office is way more fundamental than even the Constitution. Any republic, democratic or not, has to have rules. When they apply only to the opposition, and never apply to the party in power, then you no longer have a republic. It’s a one-party state, like the USSR.”

“So, are you even a Democrat?”

“What does that even mean anymore? Do I have to check every box? Pro-abortion, but pro-child, pro-trans, but pro-non-trans-women, pro-black but also pro-Hispanic, pro-labor but anti-white-working-class? It starts to be impossible. Is the Democratic Party even going to exist in five years? Does it even exist now? If your party can’t beat the worst president ever, the Plague President, is that really a party anymore? They couldn’t even get their members to vote for impeachment until the guy almost dared them to do it. I’m pro-competence, anti-stupid, pro-common sense, pro-the greatest good for the greatest number, anti-tyranny, anti-corruption, pro-democracy as the worst possible system with the exception of every one that’s ever been tried.”

“Churchill,” said Vaneida.

“Right.”

“A real racist.”

“As were most in his day. But he came around, on the Irish, on India, on most things. He kept evolving. As I am trying to.”

“You were in the Middle East.”

Joe paused. “You know I was,” he said, after a long pause. After another pause, just as Vaneida seemed about to speak, he said quickly, “And you know I don’t like to talk about that.”

“But it’s part of the reason you are here?”

Joe reflected. “Of course,” he said, finally.

“Thanks for your service,” the new woman said from across the van.

“You’re welcome,” Joe said. “But I hope you’ll excuse me if I say I hate that phrase.”

The new woman seemed taken aback again. Vaneida and the other two women were staring at Joe, as if they did not know him. Joe felt their eyes could see through him. He felt a need to explain everything to Vaneida. But first he would have to explain everything to himself.

The van turned suddenly and came to a halt. The back door opened.

“Okay, we’re here,” the police officer announced. “D.C. Lockup.” He climbed in and quickly undid the prisoners’ seatbelts. “Everybody off.”

The prisoners arose, some looking anxious, some alert, some bored, in preparation for whatever was to come next.

 

© 2020 Nolan O’Brian