Chapter 214

“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”
—Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

BY THIS TIME, you probably all know that I usually spend five minutes near the end of the first set talking about how important it is that we elect only pro-reform candidates to congress and the senate this year and vote against any anti-reform candidate. I can’t do that tonight. I’ve met the candidates.

The guy labeling himself as pro-reform has peculiar ideas about what that means. He’s a misogynist who wants to have all girls who enter the service serve at least three months as a prostitute. He believes the women should be trained in service to be good obedient wives and mistresses and kept out of training for any kind of career. As far as I’m concerned, that’s just turning the service into a different kind of slavery and I can’t imagine any decent human being voting for the man.

On the other hand, the anti-reform incumbent wants to keep the status quo so she can negotiate a contract with the auto industry to supply National Service corps members as minimally-paid interns on the assembly lines instead of seeing the industry go with hands out for a bailout to the government. Sounds like a great way to bolster the industry, doesn’t it? Until you realize that would put workers on the assembly line being paid as little as a fifth of what their union counterparts are paid. How long into the first union strike over this do you think it would take for the industry to petition to replace all workers with this low-paid slave labor from the government? This is a blatant union-busting move and if you vote for her, you have to understand you are voting to lose your job.

Detroit, you have to have someone better than this to elect to congress. And that someone is in the audience here tonight. I don’t know who you are, but we don’t have time to go through debates and nominations. We need a candidate right damn now!

“If you are a resident of congressional district thirteen, in other words, living in Wayne County, please stand up.” About three-quarters of the audience stood. “Okay. If you are under the age of twenty-five or have been a citizen of the United States for less than seven years, please sit down.” Suddenly only about a hundred were standing. “If you are anti-reform, please sit down. If you have a criminal record, please sit down. If you don’t want to enter politics under any circumstances, please sit down.” When I’d finished, only three men and one woman were standing. They looked at each other. “Which one of you should be our candidate?” It only took a second before three of them pointed at the fourth and sat down.

“Come up and join me on stage, please.”

He walked up the aisle to the stage and lightly jumped up on it. He was a handsome black guy maybe an inch or so taller than me and looking like he was in excellent physical condition. I held out my hand and he shook it firmly.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Al Johnson.”

“There wasn’t much hesitation among the other potential nominees in pointing you out. Do they all know you?”

“I’ve worked with a lot of the people here as their manager in the service.”

“How long have you been out of service?”

“Just over a month.”

“And you’re twenty-six?”

“I served on the management track for a full eight years and completed college while I was serving. A lot of the folks here worked with me up in Flint cleaning up the water supply. And we’re proud to say the people of Flint have safe drinking water at last,” he said. There was a round of applause and a lot of cheers.

“I have a friend named Rosie who worked on that project. Know her?” Al grinned.

“Everyone knows Rosie.”

“Al, is that your significant other who was standing with you?”

“Yes. My wife Sarah.”

“Sarah, is Al a good man? Respectful of women? The kind of man you’d like to see in congress? And the kind of man you’d trust in a meeting with another woman?” I asked.

“Yes!” she shouted.

“Al, would you run for congress on behalf of the people of Detroit and commit yourself to reform?”

“Absolutely. I was just too late to get on the ballot when my service ended.”

“People of Detroit, this is your pro-reform candidate for the legislature. I know you are thinking ‘How can I be so sure Al is a better candidate than the people who are on the ballot?’ I’ll tell you—and Al, this is no smear against you—There is a sick old yellow cur lying in a back alley of Detroit who would be a better candidate for United States Representative than the people on the ballot.” I was interrupted by cheers and applause.

“After I met with these candidates yesterday, my partners and I went to work doing research and getting things organized. They’re backstage now and are swinging into action. And here’s the action that needs to happen. Step one: Al is going to sign some papers called a declaration of intent to run as a write-in candidate. It’s too late to get his name on the ballot, so we’re going to have to go with a write-in campaign. That declaration needs to be filed with the Wayne County clerk Monday morning.” Beca ran out on stage with a slip of paper for me and then disappeared backstage again. “Step two: My incredible partner Joan is activating a website called AlForCongress.com. It has links to a PayPal account so Al can accept campaign donations. Step three: I want you to all open your cellphones right now—the ones you were asked to turn off during the performance. Turn them on and send a text to everyone you know in this county that says, ‘Vote for Al Johnson. AlForCongress.com.’ Step four: You all got into this concert free. So, I’d like you to reach in your pockets, your wallets, your purses, your bras, or wherever you keep the money you were going to spend on a drink at intermission and get out five dollars. There will be collection boxes at every door at intermission that you can put that money in so Al has the cash in hand to pay the filing fee on Monday. Step five: sit back and enjoy the rest of the concert while you contemplate how you are going to help Al’s campaign in the four weeks between now and election day. If you want a clean government and service reform, vote for Al Johnson.”

I’d completely forgotten our concert was being broadcast on the National Service Cable Network. We did our last number before break and I went backstage to find Joan sitting at a table next to Amanda, typing away on her laptop. All my wives who were not on stage with me were at the doors of the auditorium collecting funds. Joan looked up.

“Al went with Sophie to the lobby to meet people. He’s signed all the papers. The website went live while you were talking, thanks to Daddy’s little helper here. We had all the information we needed to set up his accounts and the site has already had nearly ten thousand hits. Donations are pouring in to the PayPal account. Al might be the best funded candidate in this race right now,” she said. I leaned over the table and kissed her.

“You are a genius!” I said. Then I patted the little pile of shit. “Thank you for getting all that information together for Joan and helping us get this started, Amanda.”

“Amanda is a computer, Jacob,” the little device said. “No thanks are necessary. But appreciated.”

“You’re not going to get your tongue in my mouth if you kiss that pile of shit,” Cindy giggled. “And I’m getting really horny.”

“Hey. Don’t be mean,” Remas said. “She might look like a pile of shit, but she’s part of the family.”

We drank our water and got ready to go back on stage to tango.

We got no feedback from Jo, Simon, or Will as we headed for Chicago after taking Livy, Sophie, Brittany, Nanette, Joan, and Beca to the airport so they could go back to DC. Nor did we see any sign of Abigail. We’d really stepped way out on a limb and I wasn’t sure how it was going to play out. Joan promised she’d monitor the situation with Al and Amanda gave me an update every morning.

Our Monday performance in Chicago was a large and friendly crowd back at the venue we’d played in June. The Harris seats 1,500, but demand for tickets had been so high that they moved us to the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, out of doors. It was risky at this time in October to play outside, but Monday turned out to be a real Indian Summer day with temps in the seventies. Rachel estimated the crowd at 7,000.

Monday night or early Tuesday morning, disaster struck near Olympia, the capital of Washington State. Amanda had a report for us in the motorhome just before we left for Madison, Wisconsin. A 7.5 earthquake with the epicenter near Mount Rainier at a place called Alder, had cut loose a mudslide that flooded the Nisqually River valley all the way from Rainier to Puget Sound. The entire valley was covered in the fast-moving lahar. Reports indicated it was as much as twenty feet deep and, in some places, a mile wide. Evacuations were underway all the way from Olympia to Tacoma.

We got to our parking area in Madison and were glued to the television. As we expected—and I guess we hoped—the SSR arrived at SeaTac about five in the morning and was in a Blackhawk helicopter at dawn. After a quick survey of the affected area, and distress calls, they began pulling stranded and injured people out of the area, moving horses and livestock to higher ground, and crawling through buildings pushed aside by the mudflow to rescue stranded survivors.

I couldn’t help but feel pride in the team and a little regret that I wasn’t out there with them.

15 October, 2022

Saturday. Minneapolis. I’m at the airport, waiting. My best friend is flying in to help me celebrate my nineteenth birthday. Wow! What a crazy four years it’s been since I hobbled into the school cafeteria on crutches and a cute little girl sat at the table with me. She informed me—didn’t ask—that I had six weeks to get off the crutches so I could take her to the winter dance. I just love Beca.

We’ll be in a slightly smaller venue tonight, but this is a generally friendly city and the incumbent senator and the district rep are very much pro-reform. We met with them yesterday and they outlined a broad plan they had of organizing the Reform Caucus in both the House and Senate. They’re actively reaching out to reform candidates across the country and inviting them to use the name ‘Reform Caucus’ in their campaigns along with a six-point platform they’ve developed. I pretty much agree with everything they have on it. I’m going to use it for my talking points in the concert tonight.