Chapter 19: Getting Ready at Home

After dinner, Shithead, Randy, came over to study with my sister. Thankfully, I needed to leave in the next twenty minutes.

Mom and Dad sat at each end of the dinning room table, while Shithead sat across from my sister, in my spot. I stood in the doorway, between the kitchen and the dining room. I didn’t want to listen, but Mom and Dad insisted that I make an effort to greet and act friendly around my sister’s friends, no matter how shitty they act.

“I hear that General Hanlan is your father. He’s a real war hero,” Dad said. His elbows rested on the table, and his head leaned on his hands. Mom sat erect, her chest out, but her gaze rested on the table in front of Randy. My sister stared at Randy with adoration, her grin suppressed but present, with her hands in her lap. I stared at the back of Randy’s head—ugly brown hair with lighter, almost blonde, streaks cut above his ears. Sweat glistened on his neck in red creases and between small white scars.

“Yes, I plan to be a Tactical General one day and win this war once and for all,” Randy said. Mom nodded. She hated war talk because both her parents, and her two brothers, died in the war. Dad’s parents survived, but he lost his youngest sister. Nama and Papa still lived two houses over, where we do family dinners on Fridays, and I often spend the night with them watching old westerns. My sister’s smile showed too many teeth, with a small piece of green stuff stuck between the bottom teeth. Inside, I laughed at her, but mimed the flick to remove something from my teeth. She saw me and frowned.

“If we get the Pacific PAC to move across the mountains and the East Coast Mess to mass on the border with Florida, then Texas will be open for a swift strike by our elite forces,” Randy said. I guess he didn’t expect the ceasefire to last. No one did. However, everyone hoped it would, and to talk about an offensive against a friendly country showed a distinct lack of class and intelligence.

Randy had mentioned this plan before, and I looked up the current treaties in North America. Ontario would side with Texas, due to oil and electricity, Quebec would take advantage and attack the Maritimes, which means that the United European Union would send troops as peacekeepers, and open us up for an invasion from a peacekeeper to attack from the north. Further, no one trusted the West Coast- too techie, too out of touch with emotions. They may do the math and decide that they could easily annex a portion of our country.