Very little survived the last great age of men.
Of what did, Benjamin most loved the song You Can’t Hurry Love by Diana Ross on dusted beloved vinyl. When she sang, his writing sang, and all felt right in a torn misbegotten world.
Through long nights of summer, Benjamin would listen to her in awe, fearful of waking the others, off alone in the loft of the barn. Safety in isolation, a lesson he’d learned at a much younger age, and people in moderation, the best thesis of another. After all, in his world a minority of men led lives of quiet desperation. Most just wanted a plow and a silent woman.
The cruel people of the township poked fun at him for his collections, but understanding culture made Benjamin proud, it gave him a reason to live in an age of increasing mediocrity.
He didn’t have much. A medium-sized stack of scratched records, two or three compact discs, some DVDs, and a pile of degraded cassette tapes that garbled rather than produce sound. Little treasures. But most precious of all, next to his homemade whiskey in the box hidden under the floorboards so that mother would not find them and take them to sell, a cache of semi-used batteries. Forbidden and almost currency, if anyone learned that they drained away for music, William might very well kill him.
Benjamin would picture Diana’s soft young skin in a dark blue dress singing heartfelt soul music to a silenced theater of fans struck dumb by her glorious, sexual presence, the creation of music so sacred an act that no one dared speak when anyone of worth performed. Now and again Benjamin came across albums where people would cheer and clap before and after the musician performed, and he could understand that visceral attitude, but he believed in his heart of hearts they cheered because of the commonality of the music, often leading him to trade these albums for other artists when the rare random junk merchant rolled through town or a raiding party stopped to barter.
And though it killed him to do so, he sometimes used the sacred moments of time offered by each dying battery to write, because what came out when he did always looked a bit more elegant on the page, more refined, and a true man of words values this above all else. Benjamin would scribble in furious fervor, passages to the moon, the world, the intolerable, infertile dust below him, spread out like such a brand of madness. Poems to plows, plowshares, nights and word structures, people and cruelty. Stories of loss, of grief, of station. He’d ode, and the odes would ring through the days in his ears like music for the few moments of his life when he participated in that greater art, art beyond work, the nobler passions of poetry.
In mornings he rose to do his duties, all must, but in these small flights of fancy lie his living, in this heart remained the last hopes of a once-great nation, and in these awakenings he dreamed the lost dreams of a civilization gone. He dreamed of love. He dreamed of acceptance.
Up in rafters, a camera focused in.
This is the story of Benjamin’s dreams.
AMENDMENT ONE:
THE SENATOR FROM VERMONT
Once, long ago, freeways stretched for impossible miles across desolate wastelands and covered the world in asphalt, or so Benjamin heard. He had seen cars, of course, but never one not drawn by horses or immobile, and never one you could bear to sit in. Springs and horrible dust and smells made them intolerable. Darer Devils used them sometimes on Saturdays to impress the lazier masses not working the weekend, but often their tricks would go awry, resulting in death and destruction, maybe a memory.
Today Benjamin pondered this while chewing a piece of grass, running the plow. His brother William, a born natural farmer, rode several fields down at a much greater pace. In the entire township, Benjamin knew no better man behind the plow. He admired his brother for this alone, though he couldn’t understand why William did what he did any more than he understood why his family seemed to find a quaint enjoyment in doing day-to-day chores over the pursuit of knowledge or something epic. Waking early, sleeping early, preparing the meals, reveling in the year’s harvest, to what end? He chewed, thoughtful, and looked across the dirt of their beautiful fields.
Benjamin at 23 stood shorter than his younger brother William at 17. William could and did lick him often and well, for slights real or perceived. Often perceived. Father no longer worked due to arthritis.
Benjamin could not keep his eyes on his oxen, much less run a farm, so now, like often, William approached him before the rise of noon to do his daily complaining. Benjamin nudged the oxen a slight faster for show.
“Halt.” William held up a tired hand.
The oxen obeyed. Benjamin plucked the grass from his mouth with a hand and tipped back his sun hat. “A problem?” Benjamin folded the old rein over his arm.
“I’ve half again on you. That’s your ever lovin’ problem, man.”
“Just daydreaming, I guess.”
“Dreaming. That’s all you ever do.”
“I’m no farmer, Will.”
“Aye, and that’s true. But there’s one thing I do know.”
“And that one thing is?”
“You look out for yourself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means if you don’t get on your stick, I’m going to hand you out your ass later. And that’s a promise from God.”
Benjamin looked his brother in the feet, knowing he meant it, and sighed. “Look, pushing me around must get old, every now and again at least?”
“About as old as putting up with your lazy crap, boyo.”
“I told you I’m no farmer, Will.”
“Have it your way. I’ll be here when the day is done. I always am. I always will be.”
Benjamin looped the rein back over his forearms and stomped his platform.
“Ha!”
The oxen trudged.
That evening, William watched Benjamin in malice while his brother put oxen into the barn. He watched Benjamin rub water on the build-ups caking sore palms, four for each of the fingers on each hand, and one large on the inside of the pointer.
“Go on, then.” William pointed for the house. Benjamin left the barn, shoulders slumped, too tired to backtalk a boy six years his junior.
William watched him walk, seething, putting the barn to bed and locking the gates. He stood at the gate after Benjamin entered the house, smoking a long cigarillo and contemplating.
The light of the candle upstairs allowed him his brother’s silhouette, changing for dinner, parceling time.
William would allow him one more season of life to become useful, and if the man still lay about, doing less than his share of work...
William crushed the cigarillo beneath his old boot, expelling smoke in the direction of the house.
Burial in the back 20, simple, like the ending of a year. He would have his way with Amanda soon, and when she knew enough of sums for him to be done with Benjamin’s madness the way the Lord willed it, by God, he would solve the man permanent.
They ate in silence, Mother, Father, and Benjamin.
William stormed in, took his place at the table, and began eating.
Father reached down, lifting the knife with effort. The arthritis pained him to the point of uselessness. Nevertheless, he pointed his knife at the youngest boy. “Your problem today?”
William stared straight across the table to Benjamin. “An acre. That’s my problem.”
“Speak straight, son.”
Benjamin wiped his mouth after sipping a drink. “He’s upset because he did an acre more than I did today on the plow.”
“An acre?” His father raised his hunch-shouldered head and looked into Benjamin. “An entire acre?”
“Aye. And then some.” William chewed his way through the sentence.
“By God, I am cursed.”
Benjamin lowered his eyes. “My heart’s not in it, Pops. It never was.”
Father lifted a tired hand, uncoiling his clenched fist. The knife fell. “Worthless little shit! I’ve a mind to-”
“Father, language!” Mother hissed at him.
“Woman, you’re in a house with two men of age. You’re gonna hear some shits.”
Mother continued eating.
“Two men, father?” Benjamin stood. “Two men?”
“Yar. And don’t forget it, you waste.”
“I’ve given you ten plus years of work in the field, and you won’t even call me a man, Father?”
“Ten that equal five, by me.” Father folded his arms, challenging.
Benjamin walked for the door. William charged across the room and blindsided Benjamin into the south wall, rattling the doorframe. The pane of glass came loose and shattered outside. Glass, precious glass.
“BOYS!” Mother screamed.
Father put his weary hand to her shoulder. “Hush, woman. Let the wiser of the two beat it out of him.”
William hauled the door open and threw Benjamin onto the worn dirt, just missing the pile of glass. Benjamin whirled onto his back, raising a leg to defend himself and scooting backward. William swatted the leg aside like nothing and grabbed Benjamin by his torn flannel shirt.
William pulled his brother to the water trough across the way, at the barn. He shoved Benjamin face first into the warm water, warm from the day’s sun, and started to drown him, slow. William pulled his brother from the liquid and threw him onto his back after thirty long seconds.
William leaned in, ferocious. “Be glad today is Wednesday. Seeing as you have to make up for lost time tomorrow, I’m only going to drown you a little bit.” He grabbed Benjamin, threw him harder into the water, and held him even longer this time.
Benjamin spurted when he came out, coughing, but said nothing.
“Always the quiet one. Always inside yourself, even when you’re getting the crap kicked out of you. Do you have no sense?” William, tired of yelling and beatings, breathed the words at his soaked sibling.
Benjamin sat down, looking up. “What do you want from me, brother?”
“I want you to leave.”
“Till the fields alone, would you?”
“Aye. And then some. You’re no brother of mine, and you never were.”
Contrary to logical thought, the beatings no longer bothered Benjamin, even taking into regard their frequency and typical greater severity. He limp-walked and climbed up to the loft of the barn and lit a candle to assure his mother of his health, or at least that he still lived.
Toweling his face with a blanket from winter, he pulled a box out from the corner and opened it. Inside, in plastic covers, he guarded a prized collection of about thirty comic books he’d found on one of the best foraging runs to the old city of New York. A box full of wonder and madness. Men who flew, strong men. Men of honor, men of imagination. He figured that from 1950 to about 1970, the Marvel men and the DC men (Benjamin figured it meant District of Columbia, because such art could only have come from the center of government itself...where else?) created a series of comic book heroes to emulate the fantastic technology all around them. For truly, what could be better than planes, phones, computers, and automobiles? What could capture the mind in such a filled world other than flights of hideous decay, nobility, and deformity?
He read them over and again, favoring a national icon dedicated to abstract concepts of Truth, Justice, and the American Way: Superman.
Reading with one arm behind his head and one on the comic at hand, he lamented his own laziness, but even more than his own laziness, he lamented his station. Year after year of farming with care packages coming from the government. New and amazing things every time, granted, but nothing original. Nothing like nights alone with music and the pen.
He longed to be a government worker, longed for it with all of his heart. But he’d failed out of the requisite middle schooling to go to the center of government for higher school, over matters he questioned that he shouldn’t have. Matters of the Tithe Men.
He read. Oh yes. He had to, because someone in the family needed to read. And he did sums and mathematics quite well, giving his relations this odd sort of need for him. Father did well with light sums, but could no more do division that Benjamin could drive a plow, and if you put words before his father, he could no more conjugate a verb than clench his fist.
He knew that William would beat him and beat him until father died, and then beat him to death some time after William found a wife who could add, sooner rather than later. Any fool could see that much. Maybe even that Amanda woman he courted when not taking part in his favorite pastime, beating Benjamin.
There was the writing. But salvation through words?
Words are meaningless and forgettable. Who sang that? It came from a song, he knew, heard somewhere from a minstrel passing through. A simplistic idea, but it had stuck with him.
Benjamin’s horrible singing precluded his chances of minstrel life. Surrounded by women and always traveling from one brothel to the next, minstrels lacked in status and cash, but lived the artist’s life.
Benjamin could write verses fit to make a grown man weep, but the important thing, the thing that crippled him? He couldn’t sing them. His verse didn’t conform to the usual formats. He held in contempt the iamb, the trochee, the spondee, all of the terms he’d taught himself to remember, forgetting their uselessness.
Haiku impressed him. Broken minimalist verse he found, in scant reference, impressed him. The malformed inelegance of rebellious prose impressed him, in what few books he came across. The new world they’d lost impressed him the most, but writing about it lacked any interest to peoples of beer and the plow.
He loved reading with irony books that warned man of his inevitable doom. Early on in life, Mother gave him a copy of The Lorax in dismal condition.
That ironic Onceler, with his progress and vision! Benjamin liked the Lorax, of course, but he could not forgive the beast his trusting jester nature in the face of demons of industry. Give the Lorax some weaponry and he might find a way to victory, but one so wise and homeless would know the worth of words in the face of men like William, or the Onceler, for that matter.
A disappointment.
Benjamin closed the issue of Superman, thinking instead of reading. He’d gone three pages without realizing anything on them.
Too old for a wife now. Too old for land, now that his father promised the farm to William. Just poetry, his records, his loft, and his comic books that William would soon destroy, having threatened to do so often enough.
Benjamin reached below the floorboards, pulled out a simple bottle, and set about getting semi-drunk with his inadequate alcohol. He wrote a good bit and stared at one of his DVDs. They never played in his CD player, but the pictures on them suggested fantastic things. He’d fallen in love with one of the girls on the back of one of them, the Moulin Rouge disc. Nicole Kidman. He’d never in all his life seen such beauty anywhere, and he never expected to.
The next day he didn’t come out for work, despite calls from William and his father. Repeated calls. He put his arms behind his head and imagined himself the man Ewan McGregor. He basked in the warm loft shade and relaxed.
William rattled the ladder.
“By God and son Jesus, if you do not come down this ladder right now, I will climb up there and throw you down, arms and legs be damned!”
Benjamin opened his eyes, sat up, and descended. At the bottom, William clouted him across the back of the head hard enough to see stars.
“Sonofabitch.” William slammed out of the door. When his vision cleared, Benjamin reached for his gloves.
In town that Saturday, he went to the library room to return books.
Benjamin had asked for the librarian apprentice position, but Mr. Connor, the librarian, declined, at first polite, and then rude. For Benjamin’s continued begging, Connors now hesitated to lend him more than a book at a time.
Regardless, Benjamin looked through the cycle books, the three boxes the government ensured went from township to township, providing the populace with fluctuating book supplies. To steal one of these book meant being taken away, so Benjamin never even flirted with the idea.
Until today.
Standing over the books, he pulled one from the box with fascination.
“American History? How did this get in here?” He held the book out to Mr. Connor.
Mr. Connor scowled at him. “Not my concern. I just fill out the slips.” He held it back out to Benjamin.
Benjamin looked at the cover, puzzling at the graffiti etched into the front in a dark marker:
(Graphic says: Pandora’s Box: Fair Warning)
Benjamin opened the text. Many passages bore black markings, removed by the normal censor’s pen and bearing the stamp of approval.
“You ever wonder what’s under all that, Mr. Connor?”
“I’ll not be having such talk around here. This is a sacred place.”
Benjamin knew to break the censor of the State meant death at worst, being taken away at best. Still, he often wondered at the horror of certain information that it warranted destruction. Not enough, however, to wonder beyond the fear of the men behind the censor.
And Benjamin had seen such men before. Mr. Connor’s predecessor, Emily Lange, led away in shackles and carted off in a buggy southwest. She screamed, townsfolk said, screamed something awful, until one of the men in the black suits smashed her in the head. Then she stopped saying anything else of note, collapsing in a heap.
Benjamin shuddered at the thought. Regardless, he took the book and checked it out in the usual fashion, taking it back home on the horse and bringing it to the loft with an excitement bordering fervor.
Benjamin had seen books on American History before, but not outside of a classroom. The teachers held the book in great reverence, allowing no one to see them. He’d snuck into the school once and looked, something that might have gotten him taken away or whipped in the square, but the allure proved too great for his then younger eyes. In it he found nothing of particular note save what the teacher taught. That and the black marks on the copy he held now. But he only had minutes to look then. Now Benjamin could look for an entire week.
In the loft, Benjamin pulled each page apart with care, making sure no page escaped scrutiny, reading each leaf with reverence. Indians, the colonies, conquistadors. Such things fascinated him. The War of Independence. Paul Revere. Franklin. Adams. Washington. The founding fathers of his country, exacting their revenge on tyrannical regimes.
And then the sections discussing the creation and operation of the government blacked out. But then...
Benjamin turned the page from seventy-seven to eighty.
Strange.
Benjamin turned back. Two stuck together pages, seventy-eight and seventy-nine. He pulled the pages, and found them better than stuck, but rather glued together. He considered pulling them apart, but to destroy or damage a cycling book meant jail time, if not being taken away or worse.
He sighed with frustration, putting the book down.
Then again, he could always cut the ruined pages off, if only...and then he had it. Page seventy-five to seventy-six, torn out, bore a censor’s REMOVED stamp. No one would know which particular torn pages that entailed, only that they followed the mark. An exploitable flaw.
He pulled, cringing at the waste of proper, printed paper, but he wanted to know. He needed to know. The pages pulled apart, ruining the paper where the glue stuck, but the rest of the page, the printed part, remained undamaged. Someone had planned this. Someone had glued it like this for someone to find it.
It read, starting with ending text from the page previous:
-having finished their
declaration, they fashioned an amalgamated government of the best aspects of
what they considered the greatest civilizations, the provisos of which they
drafted into the Constitution.
The founding fathers, with their remarkable ingenuity, created the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government to combat what they saw as the inherent flaws within the British system. Designed to foil the previous royal abuses of power, they created each branch with a check and balance for the systems around it, a system that supported representative democracy.
The
Executive branch, that of the president, would create a figurehead not unlike
the King of England, but without complete arbitrary war control over the armed
forces or the ability to rule however he wished. The Legislature, for instance,
could create acts of the collected Congress to stop any action of the president
that went against the will of the people, and the Judicial could rule against
the president if he jeopardized the Union. In addition, in the event of
corruption, the president could be impeached by a majority of Congress.
The
Legislative Branch would enact the larger spirit of the representative
democracy. Senators and representatives from all states would be elected to
serve in Congress in two branches of legislature, the House of Representatives
and the Senate. There would be a number of representative delegates for the
House based in the number of people in each constituency, and there would be
two senators for each state. The president could check the Legislative Branch
by vetoing any law the Legislative Branch passed (with certain exceptions we
shall explore later), and the Judicial could further deem any law passed by
Congress unconstitutional, modifying based upon cases of the docket.
Originally, the senators were elected by representatives. Thanks to the 17th
Amendment, however, we now elect our own senators.
The
Judicial, the high courts of the land, would hear cases deemed worthy of
revision or examination and decide problems with a law, its clarity, or
confliction with the Constitution. The Executive would nominate this branch,
but Congress would ratify the Executive’s choices. Congress could check a
corrupt Judicial by re-presenting laws with different wording, or more
creatively by only ratifying judges in the future that met the highest
standards of the land as demanded by the promise of the Constitution.
Additionally, a corrupt Judge could be impeached like the president by a
majority of Congress.
Over
time, as civilization changed and new social ideals led to a re-evaluation of
certain long-held inalienable truths, amendments maintained the Constitution’s
integrity to the people. A malleable document, the Constitution was written to
be changed with time, in the hopes of not becoming obsolete.
For instance, soon after the founding of the Union, the Bill of Rights, a set of ten
And then, page eighty.
Benjamin looked down in wonder. A Constitution? Legislative, Judicial, Executive? He knew government Tithe Men came to take people away who violated known laws and collect taxes, but law creation came down from the Tithe Men and their will, not representatives, for time out of mind. They made the laws, and in return, they bore the responsibility of taking care of the people when they went astray.
Benjamin imagined a society before The Fall, a society of balanced government by the people. He imagined elections and bills and impartial judgments.
And then Benjamin heard William cursing his way back home.
They knew little of the final war.
They knew that the ensuing chaos somehow destroyed every society on Earth except America’s. Most called this Manifest Destiny, a concept teachers taught Benjamin to mean that God wanted America to survive, like He spared Noah in the Bible.
Ruined, uninhabitable cities pocked the land. Chaos had ruled for decades until the terror died down and people found ways to live life again. A fair time later, Tithe Men started appearing to take volunteers for the local Civil Police and the most intelligent children for higher school. Monthly care packages of food and trinkets began arriving. Then the Tithe Men came to receive tithe payment for the care packages. The cycle began, and continued back beyond every generation in the Hamilton family, perhaps even before the line. Family trees stretched back only as far as memory, and hard work made even that short.
Perhaps a hundred and fifty years ago, so legend told, an entire city, Seattle, rebelled against the Manifest, and God exploded the city in a cloud of fire that killed everyone for miles around. Some began moving East in the hopes of new territory, others chose to stick to the ruins of cities with the constant bounty of rubble. Most stayed in the country, where land could be taken and crops somewhat raised, if the Tithe provided enough seed and credit.
But like everyone else, Benjamin knew one thing, and he knew it well: When the Tithe wanted something to happen, it happened, and no one had any say in the matter. Look at Seattle.
No one wanted to be the next Seattle.
Benjamin pulled his pocketknife out and cut the pages free, an action that could get him killed, if caught; knowing what he knew now, knowing further the hopes squandered, beyond the absent records, beyond the still automobiles and cellular phones and airplanes, he felt a kind of sickened, compulsory need, a need of conscience.
The next day two Tithe Men came, dressed in what they called suits, outlandish get-ups that sharpened their features and made them more severe while still maintaining upper class sensibilities. They wore sunshades, a type of glasses that hid the eyes. With scissors so scarce, their odd, short hair frightened, like some foreign offense.
“Tithing, Mr. Hamilton.” They announced themselves at the door without knocking, because if Tithe Men needed to knock, they knocked with a foot or a ram, and your troubles outmatched the social custom. Read: death awaited.
Father crept out in a pair of his best overalls, handing the men their sizeable sum, enough to keep the farm impoverished, but not enough to take it under. With banks outlawed, only the Tithe decided who stayed and who went in townships. In most cases the Tithe allowed one to live and work and take on reasonable debt, provided you didn’t stir up too much trouble in a given community.
They took his father’s money, these two men. The one with the gun walked to his horse. The one with the gun always did the deciding.
The gunman took a box from his gunnysack and handed it to Benjamin’s father, who took it and shut the door.
Benjamin watched it all from the corner table, hating the whole thing. Why did they come and take and leave everyone poor for token trinkets and perhaps protection? Thinking like that could get him killed, he knew.
Regardless.
Father hobbled over and put the package on the table. All work stopped on Tithe day, with good reason. In each package came something exquisite, some technology in good shape. Once a cart with metal wheels (some assembly required), another time, a box of real, honest-to-god screws, another time, a pad of paper. They used it for important records, but Benjamin made off with a good portion for artistry, on the false assumption of practicing for higher school.
Father undid the tie, and the package opened. Benjamin shrunk back, cowed, from the table. A book. The book. American History.
Benjamin seized it, finding all of the pages blacked out. Every word, every sentence, every line. And on the cover, etched like in the other book, only bearing different words:
(Graphic says: It is Open)
A voice came from the door.
“Mr. Hamilton!”
The Tithe Men hadn’t left, after all. Benjamin’s eyes grew wide.
Father walked to the door, opening it. The Tithe Man, behind his glasses, raised a finger. “The other Mr. Hamilton. Your eldest.”
Father backed away, horror in his face.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO US, BOY?” Father stepped for Benjamin with groping, dead hands.
Someone taken away in a family brought ruination, at best.
The shot rang out, deafening everyone in the room. A shot, a real gunshot, unheard in their township for the better part of ten years, and it deafened them into animal fear.
Father’s shoulder bled. A grazed wound, an intentional miss. Father shrieked. The Tithe Man spoke:
“You’ll do well not to make any sudden moves, Father Hamilton. This matter does not concern you any more.”
The gunman pointed to Benjamin. “Mr. Hamilton, you will now come with me.” Almost polite.
“Must I?”
The Tithe Man raised his gun toward Benjamin and pulled the hammer back. “Unless you would like the last thing you hear to be the falling of this hammer for the second time in as many years.”
Benjamin rose in a slow fright, legs shaking, head spinning. He proceeded to the door, the gun trained on his head.
“Well, goodbye everyone.” Benjamin sighed, walking out, almost comical, almost to himself, in a tone which suggested, “And why NOT me?”.
William cheered. “Good riddance! Give the little bastard what he deserves for whatever he’s done!”
The Tithe Man paused after Benjamin exited, turned, and grazed a shot across William’s right leg. The other man began to help Benjamin onto a horse.
William struggled not to scream, to show weakness.
Patient, ever so patient, the Tithe Man waited for the blast noise to fade, then spoke. “William, pride is a sin. You’ll do well to remember that, by the time we return.”
William clutched his leg, gritting his teeth. “Yes, sir...of course, sir. My apologies.”
The Tithe Man smiled. “And for the love of God, be a man why don’t you? Stop beating on people. Be part of a family, not a dictatorship.”
The door clicked shut, and Benjamin’s family looked at the door in a misunderstanding horror.
Mother went to get dressings.
The three men rode over to the barn and stopped, the Tithe Men dismounting. Benjamin watched from the horse, expecting them to stand him up against a wall or bind him and drag him away behind their horses.
“Where are you taking me? What did I do?”
“You know what you did.” The Tithe Man with the gun cracked his neck. “Wilkins...”
The other Tithe Man dismounted, went to the loft and climbed. When he returned, he carried the original American History book. He handed it to the Tithe Man with the gun, now holstered.
“Tell me, Benjamin, what do you think about a three branch system of government?”
“A what?”
“Don’t play dumb. We see you at all times, you know.”
“No...I...”
“Of course you don’t. It’s a well-kept secret, much like what you found in this book. But it doesn’t matter. You chose to break the law, now you have to come with us.” The Tithe Man with the gun rode over on his horse and reached into Benjamin’s right front pocket. “See what I mean? We see all.”
The pages unfolded in the man’s hands from Benjamin’s pocket.
“My...my...”
“No, we’re not going to kill your family. Your brother’s a real prick but at least he’s a hard worker.” The Tithe Man with the gun spoke with a strange accent. It sounded cultured.
“You usually take men away in boxes.”
“That we do, Benjamin. That we do. A man’s work, and a hard one at that. You’ll shortly understand. Don’t puzzle. It’s unseemly. Just follow us. We’ll take you where you need to go. HAH!”
The horses all turned at the command. The Tithe Men took Benjamin at a sharp trot to the southwest.
Three hours in, a rumbling began from further southeast. Benjamin heard the thing first. Such noise! And then he saw it:
An automobile. An automobile moving on its own.
“Is that...”
“That’s your box, Mr. Hamilton. But we call it a Hummer. Hybrid model, if you want to get technical, for greater fuel efficiency. Dismount.”
Benjamin did. The Tithe Man with the gun dismounted. He spoke closely with Wilkins. “Take his horse back to his home and secure the rest of his belongings. The comic books, the papers, the batteries, the booze, the music, everything. Anything you miss will be on your head, do you understand me?”
The man nodded.
“And if I so much as hear a thought in your head of escaping, I’ll bring the wrath right down on you, is that understood?”
“Yes, sir. Who would want to escape, sir?”
“Beats me, but better than you have tried. Now go.”
Wilkins hawed the horses and took off northeast.
The Tithe Man smiled at Benjamin’s perplexed look. “Don’t worry. You’ll understand soon. Get in the car.”
Five minutes underway, the Tithe Man reached near his feet to a metal box that read AMMUNITION, pulled off the lid, and produced two bottles. He slammed the caps off the modified metal back of the front seats and handed one to Benjamin, who marveled at their thirty miles per hour.
“Drink slowly, young man. This stuff has quite a kick to it. It’s called Pepsi.”
Benjamin took a slow pull, and then recoiled. The drink burned.
“It’s okay. It’s just carbonation, not poison. See?” The Tithe Man took a long pull from Benjamin’s bottle and turned it back to him. “It’s really a treat.”
Benjamin took another small drink, and found the Tithe Man correct. The sweet aftertaste and the refreshing burning, so odd, but pleasant.
“Why am I being treated so well?” He looked at the odd shaped bottle.
“Because you’re not really in any kind of trouble, Benjamin. Do you mind if I call you Ben?”
“No.”
“Well Ben, you’re just on your way to a different life is all. We had to keep up appearances with your parents, but you’re one of the people who get to see Afterlife.”
“Afterlife? Are you going to kill me?”
“You’ll think you died and went to Heaven, but no. Heaven is another matter entirely, and yet the exact same topic. It’s a bit hard to follow, but it’ll all make sense in a bit. Let me explain. Drink.”
Benjamin took another pull.
“You’re coming with me to the capital. Washington, DC, also known as Heaven, or Afterlife. The center of government alluded to in your book. You learned too much to stay in regular society, so we had to remove you. When someone learns too much, or does too much harm, they’re either removed, or they’re taken with us. No one wants this to be a good thing back at the center of government, so we always make it catastrophic to the family and the person involved, at least until we’re out of range. We decide who stays and who goes based on the potential to add to the real society, to Afterlife. You, my friend, have been designated worthwhile.” The Tithe Man arched his eyebrows several times.
“So you’re not going to kill me?”
“I hadn’t planned on it, unless you try to kill me.”
“Thank you. I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s good.” The Tithe Man held out his hand. Benjamin took it. “That’s my job out here. Confusion and control. But it’s good to meet you, finally. And just to put things straight, I’m not really just a Tithe Man. My name is Wesley Adams, and I’m a senator from Vermont.”
“A senator? You’re telling me the branches survived?”
Adams let out a light chuckle, casting his gaze downward a bit. “Not exactly, son.”
Benjamin surveyed the terrain. He’d never been quite so far from his hometown, at least not to the south, anyway. Often he’d be part of long rides down west or east to loot, but this car, it moved so fast!
Benjamin even felt a little homesick, God only knew why. For what? Beatings, a life of being hated by the only people who’d ever been close to him? But then, no one trusted Tithe Men for a reason. Perhaps fear of another kind...
“What happened to the government, then?”
“It’s still around. It’s just changed a bit.”
“Why don’t we know about it?”
“Because knowledge can be dangerous, depending on who has it, and why.”
“What do you want from me?”
“We want you for a laureate.”
“What’s a laureate?”
“A laureate is a man representative of a government ideal through words. Your poetry, though a bit on the sentimental side, is actually quite well regarded by our analysts. Very structured. Remarkably informed. I expect with a few years of study, you’ll be a prodigy. The idea behind your apprehension is that because you have lived in such deplorable conditions, you will now strive to be the best at what you do, a true crusader to educate yourself, given the sad lack of information in your world at present.”
Benjamin sipped, almost emptying the bottle.
Adams reached into the ammunition box and gave him another.
“You don’t have to save those for a special occasion?”
“Where we’re going, we don’t have to save anything. Where we’re going, people are educated, proper, even civil, my boy. We use technology to provide for those who strive for more than simple farming. We have what you might refer to as an aristocracy. In Heaven, we have technologically profound possessions without the power driven flaws of capitalism holding us back.”
“What flaws?”
“The reason that everything around your township is ruined, lost, or broken is because of the past greed of men who desired money above all things. In the past, that’s just what people did. Today, piety and successful crops largely drive society, at least the society you know. Sustenance is more important than anything, and profit is a foreign concept. We, the Tithe Men, keep things this way purposefully. We watch over everyone to prevent self-destruction through greed.”
“How did we destroy ourselves, if we’re still around?”
Adams took a pull from his own Pepsi and gave a knowing glance at the ceiling. “Once the United States was far more fantastic and populated than the world you know and live in.”
“Like in the comic books?”
“Yes, Benjamin. That exactly. For instance, your small township of Hackensack-”
“Hackeysack,” Benjamin corrected.
“Yes, of course. You call it Hackeysack, but it’s known among those who know better as Hackensack. My apologies. You’ll have to start calling it Hackensack where we’re going if you’re to be understood. Regardless...since you mention it, Hackensack once had a population of fifty thousand people. Fifty thousand people, Benjamin. Now, though you don’t have a count locally, I can tell you with certainty that there are not fifty thousand people in the whole of New York, New Jersey, and Maine combined. And we, the Eastern Seaboard, are the most populous states remaining in the Union.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“Computers. Video cameras. They take moving pictures. Like a photo, only moving. You’ve seen photos?”
“A few.”
“Well, like that. We have devices that can see what someone is doing and convey the image through the air to a remote position in Washington, DC. They have sound, they can be saved, much like pictures, and they can even be manipulated to show things that didn’t happen, but seem to have.”
“Will I see some?”
“You’ll operate some, eventually. Back when the United States was in its prime, organizations of propaganda would use such images to create stories for recreation, stories of manipulated images called movies. Largely they were for entertainment, but often they were used for political purposes.”
“Wow.”
“Wow, indeed. That’s why we’re taking you, to wow you into working for us. You’ll study what brought the United States down, the now forbidden notion of excessive profit. You know that Tithe Men arrive on horses and take their due. There are many poor families, but no one starves. No one has more than they need to survive. This is how we keep greed in check. This is how we keep society humble.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that we stop you from becoming what you could be if we went back to pre-fall capitalism, not the limited capitalism we have now. It used to be that one man could own the fate of hundreds of thousands of other men, and it is this greed, this arrogance that destroyed us all. A failure we seek to stop from ever happening again.”
“How did you do it? How did you trick everyone?”
“After The Fall, when society calmed from its reign of chaos, Tithe Men began riding out from Washington DC, establishing observation stations, censoring through force. Through subtle manipulation over many generations, people forgot about the technologies that motivated their former existence or figured them lost to the wars. Now you plow a field. You’re not motivated by a better car, nicer clothes, a bigger house. All you want it so survive. Your government is a shadow game run by tired men who take their orders from Tithe Men, but you live a life without aspiration. We create perfect citizens through minor ambition. Revolution as an idea has been destroyed. Unlike Rome, the United States will not fall.”
“What is it you do?”
“To put it bluntly, we ride out and take your money to keep the balance of society, then store it in a large building. The soldiers have nicknamed it “Fort Knox”, after a lost encampment of pre-fall wealth. No one much cares about it, save for its chemical properties as a building material. We check and balance the human need for domination, and thus prevent corruption. At least, in your civilization.”
“You’re telling me that all of the hard work we do, all of the money means nothing?”
“What did money ever really mean, anyway? It’s an invention. Money is just a large collection of brass. A pointless exercise, but our frame of reference. But if you take charge of that frame of reference, you can create a better society. We provide disaster relief, food, and land, but we withhold technology and stop the power hungry. It’s maintained order over time, keeping the people ignorant to their own potential for corruption and destruction.”
“If they’re completely controlled, then why do you stop them from saying and doing the things they care to within the limits of the information they have? What does saying, ‘I hate the government!’ mean to a government that can swat them like a gnat? I don’t understand. Tithe Men provide, but they also take people away who don’t agree with them.”
Adams gave a conciliatory smile. “All democracy has always been a trade-off between the freedom of speech and the ability to govern with power without sedition. You’d be surprised how much speech has to be stopped or regulated in order to keep everything going. In the past, someone could organize a rebellion, start an anti-American club, and everyone would just allow it. Nothing was done to stop it.”
“Maybe they shouldn’t have. Does anyone ever consider that?”
“It goes beyond even the expression and the money, Benjamin. It’s the principal of the matter. I’ll paraphrase your namesake. ‘Freedom, or security? Pick one.’ I choose security, and hopefully I can persuade you to agree.”
“Why Heaven?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Because it’s everything that you could ever want, coming from your previous life. Heaven, Afterlife. Two names, one city. Who knows why? That’s just the way it’s always been.”
“It sounds idyllic.”
“It is. It really is. And it’s that way because we make it that way. But you might be surprised to know, the rabbit hole has to go even deeper, necessarily.
“How so?”
“Purgatory. The Tithe ride out from Heaven to stop your people from uprising and to maintain a general status quo, but Heaven, too, has issues of control, issues of freedoms, issues of greed. So we set up a city beneath the city to regulate the regulators, and we call that city Purgatory.”
“That’s confusing.”
“It’s supposed to be. As far as Heaven knows, there are no senators, only the Tithe. There is a president, but no one knows where he lives. In Purgatory sits the real president, the Emperor Potentate, elected for a lifetime by the Senate, making any and all policy decisions to keep our society safe. The Tithe have a veto, or an “I forbid”, which allows us to check and balance the decisions of our benevolent leader, save in emergency security declarations. Tithe soldiers live among the people in Heaven, guarding the secret as both policemen and regulators. Senators, such as myself, travel between the two worlds and convey the will of the people to the potentate.”
“Who chooses the senators?”
“They were selected by elders, long ago, when society began to come back together. Now we nominate from within. The senate includes two lifetime members from each state of the Union, save Washington, which seceded, and Hawaii and Alaska, which dropped out of contact ages ago.”
“But why keep senators a secret?”
“Because they guard the secret of the failures of the past. If we keep the opportunity to create those failures from the people, we believe they will not repeat them. The senators are the best people to do this because their ancestors were once the men of profit from before The Fall, but over time they learned that all the money in the world couldn’t replace a lost people. They now take their rewards in the security of the people. Purgatory is necessary to Heaven in every respect, as Heaven is to your civilization.”
Benjamin looked out the window, considering.
Adams took Benjamin’s shoulder. “We have decided to let you be one of few who know of the dualism because we believe that despite the hard pill of the secrecy, you will see the validity of this system in practicality. We trust you. You seem an excellent candidate for a position in the senate because of your intelligence, with time, and you can provide a great service to the community as a poet and writer.”
“It’s a tempting offer. But I hate lies.”
“It’s all you’ve ever wanted. I can tell from here, without having to review the years of tapes. You’re a born artist.”
“Don’t the people of Heaven want to know who’s in charge?”
“They don’t really care. All they know is that the Tithe are their police force and decide policy. The Tithe have always regulated themselves from within. To maintain the stressors of a society, you don’t need total information proliferation. You simply need an outlet for the overly intelligent and the over-achieving. We created Afterlife as a status quo for your people. If you farm well enough, if you perform well in examinations, you’re rewarded with higher school, an education, and a place in Heaven, perhaps an engineering apprenticeship.”
“And no one questions it? You all think that’s all a society needs?”
“Yes. Because it is. In Heaven, you live in a home built by fellow Engineers, enjoy processed foods, work a government job. Basic amenities are provided, and consequently the propensity for intelligence does not lead you to curiosity or open rebellion. That is a freedom that works. But it’s not perfect. People find out about the system every now and again. It’s inevitable. And this is where the Tithe come in.”
“You kill dissidents?”
“No. We send them away unless we absolutely must kill them to protect the people. The rumors of us killing are only spread to stop us from having to.”
“This is...a lot to take in.”
“It should be. It’s not every day someone tells you there’s a shadow government. And it’s frightening at first. But once you see its staggering efficacy, you won’t have any regrets. Not two hundred years ago men with guns killed each other on streets across the world. Hell, on these very wagon roads we drive over right now. Now we have peace, prosperity, and a republic.”
Benjamin, more than a little struck, put a hand to the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. He remained in this position for a time, then opened his eyes, smiled at Adams, and downed more of his Pepsi.
“What the hell.” Benjamin held out the bottle. He felt more focused. “I’ll take a magic car ride to Heaven. You’ve sold me.”
The senator clinked bottles with Benjamin. “Nah, that’s just the caffeine rush. What’s the toast?”
“To the republic, senator.”
“For which it stands,” Adams returned, swigging.
“Amen.”
“Cue the music, Templeton. And roll down that window.”
“Aye, sir.” A man dressed in green and black swirls pressed some dashboard controls in the front of the vehicle.
Adams noted Benjamin’s confusion. “It’s camouflage. To blend in with trees so that it’s harder to be seen. You ready for a real treat?”
“Hit me with it.”
You Can’t Hurry Love began playing from hidden speakers. Benjamin smiled. His eyes widened.
“There’s something kind of like a CD player in this car. It has every song that we still have on it, compressed down into tiny bits of what are called data. You’ll learn how to use one, soon. Don’t be surprised, the volume’s about to go up.” Adams pointed to the driver. “Do it, my good man.”
Adams cocked a thumb to the driver. “That’s Templeton. He’s one of my aides. A mathematical genius. He helped to resolve some of the lost aspects of string theory, and he’s also exploring historic avenues of space travel. Or at least, that’s what he tells me.”
“It could all be a lie, sir!” Templeton shouted back to them over the music.
“Drive, you comedian! You’ll make the boy paranoid. Anyway, he wants to build something akin to a particle accelerator, but he calls it a matter accelerator. Gobbledygook if you ask me, but it’s all getting us closer to the moon, apparently.”
“The moon? We can go to the moon? I thought that was just comic books!”
“Men colonized the moon, son. That’s the black spot up there. Who knows, some of the poor bastards might still be up there twiddling their galactic thumbs. Now close your eyes and enjoy what’s called ‘surround sound’.”
Adams nodded to Templeton, who hit another button.
Benjamin did. The soft voice of Diana Ross came in on the rear speakers. Thrumming, the song grew louder, louder than he could ever raise the volume in the barn. The clarity, far greater than that of his own recording, brought tears to his eyes that he wept in the open, Adams be damned.
“Satan with Jesus in the desert.” Benjamin opened his eyes and took a last drink of the Pepsi.
Benjamin awakened from a light doze. Information made him tired, at times. The bumps shook him, and he sat up.
Adams laughed.
“What is it, Senator?”
“Nothing, son. You’re just crossing the Delaware. The bridge is a bit old, is all. Washington did it, so can you.”
Benjamin sat up again, listening to the strange music playing on the stereo.
Six hours and several refueling stops later:
Benjamin couldn’t believe the impossible wall when he saw it. Broken glass in the face, sharp looking wire, and a slick surface, coalescing at the station they now approached. Men with dogs and pistols guarded a gate from a booth.
Stepping out with weapons drawn, the men checked identification cards for the driver and the senator before checking numbers on the dashboard and license plates. With a general sweep of the outside and undercarriage of the car completed, the soldiers waved them through.
The dogs barked, scratching at the door. The men pulled them back. It looked difficult.
Just inside the gate Benjamin saw the forest, a thick, man made copse of heavy foliage stretching deep and far, all concealed by the tall rock wall that spread for a great circular direction from the gate they’d just entered.
Adams pointed back to the first rock wall. “The Great Wall surrounds the entire capital. These planted forests discourage people from looking in. That is, if the men and the dogs don’t do the job. Which they do.”
Benjamin looked back. A soldier watched him with intent as the door closed.
Adams arched an eyebrow. “Still, as you’ve probably guessed, to get within a hundred yards of that booth is to court your own end, and provided you incapacitate those men, which is a trial in and of itself, the men you don’t see will swoop in and take care of you. BANG!” The senator emphasized it with a slap on his palm.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Partly to scare you, and partly to help you realize that you’ve really taken a step forward from which you can never go back, son. I do it, like I do all things, for your own protection.”
Benjamin thought he saw something move in the trees.
“See something?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s likely a motion detector. Or one of our men. Patrols guard the forest, and computers detect movement. Mobile sentries and hidden gun emplacements dispatch anyone without the proper electronic signature. Another security measure.”
“All right, all right. You can’t go home. I get it.” Benjamin looked out of sorts.
“Good.” Adams clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll like it here better, anyway. Promise.”
“Why are you trying to tell me why I can’t leave, if you’re so sure I’ll like it better here?”
Adams maintained eye contact with Benjamin until Benjamin looked away. “Because sometimes, and I promise, you’ll find this to be universal, sometimes people don’t want to deal with the things which are better for them, and prefer squalor, hardship, and anger to sensibility. Even the sanest, most intelligent of people. And though I feel I know you from watching you, I don’t know you, Ben. You might just be a crazy person underneath your seeming sensitivity. I want to prepare you for the burdens ahead. That requires fear and Pepsi-Cola.”
He gestured to the box, but Benjamin shook his head.
“Good man. It’ll rot your stomach. But be damned if it isn’t worth it.” Adams smiled a colored smile. Caramel. Benjamin smiled back.
“There. That’s better. No sadness. Just Pepsi-Cola.”
A movement in the bushes caught Benjamin’s eye.
At the inner gate, security came out in force. A full battalion of men with long guns marched at attention to the vehicle. They brought to bear strange machines on both the driver and Senator Adams. It flashed over their eyes, made a light tone, and clicked.
The gates opened, and the vehicle entered. Benjamin marveled at how the forest ended, and the new wall began. At least two men and a half tall, filled like the previous with broken glass and metal wire at the top, the wall must have taken fifty men years, he figured, to say nothing of the graded embankment it sat on, elevating it from the rest of the city below.
Houses, everywhere, and close together. Just looking at them made Benjamin want to push on the sides of the car to spread things out. Spread the length of a man apart, the houses towered, larger than even the barn. And for the love of all things beautiful, some miracle colored them in a shined painted gloss.
Benjamin also saw roads, but flat, and black, and with painted lines down the center. And in front of each house, an automobile, undamaged.
“Do they work?” Benjamin pointed.
“Yes. Quite well, typically, thanks to the machinists. You’ll have one soon. A car, not a machinist. That’s a union joke, son. Pay attention.”
Benjamin’s eyes widened as the car crept up to forty miles per hour.
“You think we’re traveling fast now? Wait until you hit a track. These cars go twice as fast as we went outside the gates. We just don’t want to attract attention, is all, and speed in automobiles is a secret on the outside. Heck, cars are a secret on the outside.”
“You have a lot of secrets.”
Benjamin saw the paneling on the side of the houses, and it intrigued him. They fashioned their roofs from a hard surface, not the customary shake. Benjamin saw a metallic half-spherical ring sitting on most of the lower surfaces of the roofs. He couldn’t take it all in.
Cut grass, larger windows than he’d ever seen, and some colored, at that. Flat concrete surfaces in front of each house to walk on, and the bottom of the houses boasted full concrete foundations underneath them instead of customary blocks or earth.
A man wearing a tie came from one of the houses, garbed in a strange material that clung to his body and made him seem fluid. The man took a shining bag and placed it in a large green plastic tub.
The car stopped, and Benjamin turned to the front. Two roads met. Suspended from large poles, a series of two ovals hung, a lit red light and a green light. Benjamin knew electric light from his radios and rare flashlights, and he’d even seen shows involving battery powered lights, but this, this was insane. Lights for a right of way? Didn’t people have common sense here?
The red light dimmed and the green light lit. The vehicle began moving again.
Adams laughed at the look on Benjamin’s face.
Benjamin craned to look back as they drove on, with intent.
“What are you looking for?” Adams asked.
“I’m trying to figure out where you store the batteries for all of this.”
They drove for a good half hour down roads, with Benjamin wide-eyed the whole length of the ride. Hammered metal street signs, holes in the ground that Adams explained drained water, and not a horse to be seen, anywhere, nor a farm.
“It’s a city, Benjamin. Enjoy it.”
After a while, they saw fewer and fewer houses, and then, Benjamin saw none. Only a long road leading down a desolate little stretch of highway marked on the left and the right with many fields of obelisks bearing inscription on the ground.
“Graves?”
“Indeed. The honored dead, those who died protecting America. These are very respected men.”
“Where are the crosses?”
“In Afterlife, we don’t need the cross to maintain order, or to honor things. Here it is considered a mark of ignorance to attend church. No one does.”
“So Christianity is what, another lie?”
“Not necessarily. Heck, we don’t know. But it’s hard to prove, and less important to us here. It’s much more peripheral when you don’t have to struggle for existence.”
“I figured it would have been, but still, the graves seem so...so...”
“Desolate? Remote? Sad? Yes. It’s very cold and aesthetic, by nature. New Arlington Boulevard was designed to show the necessity of the many nameless sacrificing for the few. And though they may seem dishonored by their lack of faces, it is their lack of faces that allow us the luxuries we protect today. Do you see?”
Benjamin considered. “Sort of.”
“You will. Don’t worry. You will.”
They approached a large face of concrete with an inscription, and another guard tower similar to the ones before. This time, the guards did not have guns, or dogs, or even helmets. They just waved the Hummer through, pressing a button that opened heavy steel doors.
Above them, when they passed through, Benjamin read:
“What’s this? A jail?”
“This
is the entry to Purgatory. To be taken away by Tithe Men means death or
imprisonment where you’re from, but to be taken away in Heaven means the
Federal Penitentiary. At least, that’s what they believe.”
The headlights illuminated a
large tunnel. They drove in.
Benjamin felt trapped. The tunnel played with his mind. Such confined space. The urge to push on the sides of the car came to him again.
“Why didn’t the men back there have guns? You’d think if this is a place they want to keep people out of, they’d protect it better, wouldn’t they?”
Adams pointed up. “See those?”
In the ceiling, Benjamin observed holes, every five feet, for the length of the tunnel.
“Anyone tries to break into this place, or out, for that matter, the entrance guards see it on a video camera that watches these tunnels, and they simply press a button.”
Adams cupped his hands together. “The doors slam, a hissing begins, and you choke to death on your own bloody vomit.”
Benjamin recoiled.
“Yes. To put it mildly, escape is futile, as is entrance without clearance. This place has been a long time in building, Benjamin, and brutal front aside, it really is the pinnacle of human accomplishment.”
They reached the end of the tunnel. A door began to descend behind the vehicle. Benjamin began to panic, reaching for the door. Adams took his hand and pulled it back.
“Now now, my boy. Don’t worry. That’s not the gas door. That’s the elevator door. Don’t want to try and give the wrong impression to the men watching us. A viewing window will open in a moment. Now hold on to your stomach.”
“Elevator? What’s an-” The floor dropped, cutting Benjamin off mid-sentence.
The viewing window opened on the inner city, but Benjamin ignored it, squinting his eyes closed harder.
“We call this the Tower of Babel.”
“Why?” Benjamin kept his eyes shut.
“Think about it.”
“It’s an elevator to Heaven.”
“Exactly.” Adams clapped Benjamin on the back laughing, and Benjamin, already struggling with his inner balance, nearly lost it all. The senator pushed Benjamin’s head down. “Here, like this.” Between the knees, Benjamin felt descendant to a form of living hell.
“It’s fifteen stories, give or take, and one hell of an engineering marvel. Do you know how hard it is to build a solid and atomic proof bunker in a swamp? But they did it. And they did it a hundred-fifty years ago, without knowing about the future. It hardly needs any maintenance. It is my honor, dear Benjamin, to welcome you to Purgatory. Open your eyes, son. We’re done descending.”
The door in front of the vehicle lifted with Benjamin’s eyes, and before him extended a fifteen story tall expanse, going back the better part of a mile. Box after box structure littered the landscape before him, unlike Afterlife with its colorful and organic feel.
“Most people lose their lunch the first time they drop down the chute. That’s why we offer Pepsi. It’s a diuretic, and it settles the stomach. Congratulations. You’re only the second person I’ve ever introduced to Purgatory from the outside who’s kept their stomach in the first time down.”
Purgatory had no glass windows, doors that had wheels for handles, and from what Benjamin could see down the avenues, looking into the buildings, no ceilings.
“Everything in Purgatory is open to scrutiny, which is why it is very important that you do nothing seditious or ill towards the State while in this compound. There are areas for some degree of privacy, and you will be housed in one for a time, but for the most part, this is a place of openness and observation. The government and the administering to it is a sacred duty, so precious now that if you are not sincere at all times, you are not welcome. In education, we are allowed to question and understand, but once education is complete, every word that we speak must have virtue, for in our administration lies the key to our discipline.”
“Why call it Purgatory?”
“It goes with the theme. It’s a place where if you enter, you can’t go anywhere without the will of the Almighty, the potentate, if you will. Government lingo. More military, actually. They tend to want to make everything more epic or literal than it is. The potentate does not operate with the mandate of Heaven, that’s for sure. But he is our leader, and he does have the obligation to play God. So there’s Heaven (or Afterlife), Hell, Purgatory and Limbo. You know your Bible, right?”
“What about Limbo and Hell?”
“Limbo is the penal colony for able bodied dissidents, and Hell...well...”
Benjamin realized. “Hell is where I just came from.”
“Your intuition serves you well.”
In the center of the complex, a large building rose, intersecting the ceiling upward in a bisected four-sided pyramidal structure.
“That’s the Throne of the Potentate. You won’t be seeing the inside of that building for a long time, if at all. And that’s a big if. It’s the Holy of Holies, son.”
“Does it continue going up beyond the ceiling?”
“It does. In fact, it rises to the surface, where there is an exit to the ruins of what used to be called The White House, back before The Fall, now a guarded facility that serves as an emergency exit in the event of catastrophic failure of the shelter or the life support systems for the potentate.”
“What about the people, if something happens?”
“As I said, there is escape for the potentate. Better not to ask. There is a failsafe for everything, likely more than one.”
The car approached the throne straight on, then continued around the structure, maintaining the original bearing. After a short drive, a final gate opened. This led into the rear wall of the Purgatory complex, where a structure with dull light and no windows revealed a garage full of Hummer vehicles.
“They’re all the same, because we only have one assembly line for each car. All we have to change is the computer, really, and interchangeable parts is a good thing.”
They pulled into a slot, and Templeton shut the vehicle off.
Exiting, their steps echoed.
“Strange.” Benjamin put his foot down hard, and listened to it come back.
Templeton grinned. “People even swear they hear the dead around here. But don’t worry. We’d see them on the cameras.”
Toward the back wall of the garage they reached a place with two metallic doors separated down the middle, with another normal door nearby.
“You pick. Door number one, or door number two?”
Benjamin chose the door with the knob. If you could call it a knob. Metal, unlike the wooden knobs at home, and with a strange cut in it likely for an advanced key of some type, he still trusted it more than the split door.
Adams held a hand to the door, leading the way. “Smart man. He’s had enough of elevators.”
Adams put a small key into the hole, turned it, and opened the door to reveal a concrete staircase. Concrete wasted on stairs?
Adams raised a salute to Templeton, who saluted back and walked away.
“You’ll learn to trust your gut when it comes to technology. Follow me.”
They began to ascend.
Four stories later they came to a door marked DORM 2.
A key panel flashed before them. Adams ran a hand over it, and four distinct clicks marked the unlocking of the door.
“God, it’s gonna be nice to sit back and watch some TV. Collecting Tithe is such a loathsome business, kiddo.”
They entered the hallway and stepped to a nearby door. Adams ran a hand again.
The door opened, and they stepped inside.
Inside, Benjamin found even more unimaginable things. A toaster, a refrigerator, a machine-made bed, battery-run tools, an oven that operated on electricity, central heating and air conditioning.
“You mean I can make the temperature what I want it to be?”
“Indeed.” Adams opened the panel to the thermostat.
Benjamin turned it up to 80. No more chilly nights.
“What’s that?” Benjamin pointed to the box with the window. “Is that a television?”
The senator smiled. “Follow me.” He led Benjamin by the shoulder to the couch, sat him down, and joined him.
Adams reached over, grabbed the remote control, and handed it to Benjamin.
“Ever read a book with this in it?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t really believe it existed. I mean, I’ve read some science fiction, and I figured the television was a part of that. It’s real?”
“Try it!”
Benjamin held the remote for a moment. “You know, I thought I’d seen Paris.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I used to get in fights with my teacher, Emily. We were pretty close, because, well, like you probably know, a lot of people don’t really go to school. I even hear some cities don’t have school. But she’d always give me hell for being in another place, you know? Daydreaming?”
Adams nodded. He’d watched it.
“And I kept insisting that I’d seen a television. That I’d been to Paris. That as long as literature still exists, we’d have a way to have the things we never did in life.”
“Wise boy.”
“But the larger argument was not whether I’d ever see a television, but why there were other things kept from me. Why the books were blacked out. And wherever I read a book, it would typically indicate that this box, the television, was a part of what made books less popular, at least, in books from the twenty-first century.”
“True.”
“So I guess what I’m asking myself is whether or not if I turn on this screen, will I still want to read books? What will I black out of myself?”
The senator grinned. A long, grinchy grin. He pointed to the remote. “I can still read, and I watch television.”
Benjamin arched one of his eyebrows and picked up the remote. “Now you’re starting to sound like a politician.”
“And you sound like a philosopher! Everything in its right place!”
Benjamin regarded the remote’s many buttons. Power at the top, the largest button. He noted this with significant irony, then pressed it.
His eyes crossed at first, and the motions of the actors made him dizzy. The people seemed real in miniature, about to walk into the room with him. He couldn’t fathom it. And the women! “Where were these women when I was growing up? They have to be machines. They just have to.”
Adams winked.
The senator left an hour in, telling Benjamin to enjoy the food in the refrigerator.
Benjamin, used to fasts, didn’t leave the couch for anything. He liked the commercials best, with all of the insane items to purchase. The opulence! His eyes adjusted, but the images kept moving. Too much.
The
broadcasts displayed copyrights from across time. The 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s,
even some from the 90s, mostly shows about a group of people in a house who got
into all kinds of small trouble that seemed rather important to them, but in
large part proved a direct result of the people just not being direct with one
another. Benjamin waited for commercials, frustrated.
About three hours after he
left, the senator returned, finding Benjamin in the same position, remote in
hand. “Any favorite channels?”
“Channels?”
“Good God, you’ve been watching the NBC classics all this time? Here...”
He took the remote and pointed to the buttons. “There are a thousand channels on this monster, all showing the best of our history. Channel 2 is the government channel. When you get a moment, check it out. Otherwise, there’s stuff from all over the past on every channel, grouped by the Dewey Decimal System, save the major network reruns, which are interspersed on the letter channels. For instance, you want C-Span Poetry readings, go to channel 814. You want CBS reruns, type C-B-S.”
“That’s...that’s brilliant! This is not a diabolical tool! This is a work of genius! The things we could learn, the art we could create!”
The senator moved to the door. “Kid, you’ll get used to it. Watch out for the crappy shows. They’re the most addicting.”
Benjamin sat transfixed, not noticing that upon the senator’s leaving, the door locked in four places.
AMENDMENT THREE:
THE LIBRARY OF SEXUAL CONGRESS
The door to the main chamber opened, and the senator entered, on his hands and knees, head lowered.
“Proceed.”
Adams crawled forward to the potentate with caution, making sure he didn’t look up or give any indication he intended to.
On the other side of the room, the magnates closed the thick door with their cybernetic arms, sealing the Throne of the Mighty Potentate.
Adams pondered the nature of the being before him. Man or machine, ever-living of the most recent in a line of continued blood sons? No one ever questioned, so no one ever knew. The potentate made the decisions, and the senators obeyed. Adams kept his face to the floor, for none saw the face of the Almighty. He considered the lie of the veto told to Benjamin, assuming that the reason for his summoning.
“Lordship, I am honored to be granted audience.”
The Throne remained silent.
“The boy seems enamored. He enjoys the technology, and though he appears dubious, I do believe that he will be more interested in the comforts than the politics of the situation.”
A sigh issued from above.
“I see all, Senator. You know this. Why do you bore me? You know that this is not why you are here.”
“Was it the veto comment, Lordship? Because I have a reasoning behind my-”
“SILENCE!”
Audio channeled in from an unseen speaker: “The potentate does not operate with the mandate of Heaven, that’s for sure. But he is our leader, and he does have the obligation to play God. So there’s Heaven (or Afterlife), Hell, Purgatory and Limbo.”
“Very well put, Senator. And not without a touch of poetry. But you are not the poet. You are my servant. Do well to remember that.”
“Yes, Potentate.”
“You have been called here because I have revised my position.”
“Revised, my Potentate?” Adams never heard the potentate revise. The Mighty did not like admitting err. Well, did not like might seem understatement, when a revision often entailed revising a head from a body.
“I want to observe the boy for a time, but I believe that he would make a superb tool of placation. Meaning, though it might do benefit to my court to have his simple compositions read aloud, why not use his developing skills in Afterlife, to bring the somewhat disorganized into line?”
“The disorganized, Your Mighty?”
“Do not feign naivety with me, Adams. I see your excreta, your tears, your habits. I know of the conversations you’ve had, and the knowledge you have earned, duly, of the quiet whisperings of Purgatory in the Afterlife.”
“Apologies.”
“None necessary. I am beyond deviousness. It does no harm to my ego. The question is not whether or not to kill another crop in Afterlife over whispers of Purgatory. Rather, I believe we are ready to begin re-inserting the democratic process in minor steps. The Afterlife needs to be brought into the government. People are beginning to question again, particularly this generation’s crop of engineer apprentices. It is not the will of the potentate to concede, but these long years have made me bored. Experimental.”
“As the Potentate wishes.”
Benjamin struggled to stay awake. The time on the digital wall clock read 3:00 in the morning.
“I’m so tired, I’m talking to myself,” he said. “I wake up at about this time on a given day. But hey, when you’re taken a few hundred miles from home in a magical mechanical chariot and deposited somewhere in the middle of earth with technology beyond your wildest dreams, well, you’re not too worried about waking up early.”
The television spoke back to him, but the sound did nothing for him. A fog clouded his brain.
“Okay. I give up.”
Benjamin stood, lethargic. He went down the hallway from the living area and found his bed, waiting. The bed...moved. Water filled the bed’s rubbery madness. He stretched out. The pillows, soft and yielding, bore his head into relaxation. He examined the windowless wall.
Benjamin looked across the room and saw a desk. A desk of his own. Maybe they’d left him a piece of paper.
Working his way off of the waterbed (a difficult task), Benjamin went over to the desk. Nothing on top, save a pack of what appeared to be plastic pencils with caps on them, and a plastic sheet covering the wood.
Benjamin pulled open a drawer.
His heart fell out of his chest.
Five plastic bound packs of paper, marked bundles of 200 sheets. Pulling one out, he looked at it wide-eyed, putting it on the desk. He pulled out the pencils and pulled off a cap, finding some strange variety of pen.