Double Tears
Chapter 134
“A metric fuckton of dumb so epically mind-destroyingly beyond a bad idea that there’s not a chance they would go there.”
—Andrea K. Höst, Lab Rat One
2 JANUARY 2021
I remember the beginning of wars. Not Vietnam so much. That war was never declared and just slipped up on us a little at a time. We’ve got some advisors there. We’re sending in troops to protect American interests. We’re propping up the regime of an American ally. Before we knew it, we had soldiers serving and dying in a foreign land most of us knew nothing about.
Then, January 17, 1991 we not only had an announcement that Operation Desert Storm was commencing, we had a live news broadcast as Peter Arnett gave a bomb by bomb report on the attack on Baghdad. October 7, 2001, President Bush announced that bombing and invasion of Afghanistan had begun. On March 19, 2003, he announced that we were invading Iraq on the grounds of finding their weapons of mass destruction. No one knows if or when those conflicts ended. But we knew when they began.
We aren’t sure about Mexico.
We don’t know if a war just started or if a stupid kid just blew himself up. We don’t know if we should go to school Monday or to Canada. Only from what I hear, Americans aren’t all that welcome in Canada either. There’s been no news conference with the president saying what’s going on. Like usual, he tweets, making sure the country is on his side before he does anything. Nearly every tweet, whether it’s about the border crisis, the condition of the kid, the international scene, or the upcoming inauguration includes the words ‘very bad.’
US News agencies who finally got the facts instead of the press release started broadcasting a report similar to what we heard on Global yesterday. Mexico was not at fault and the kid should not have been where he was. Another news station continued to decry the malicious attack on an innocent American and claimed it was being covered up with fake news.
And here we are—just people—caught up in the same shit as always. Only this time there are close to eight million non-combatant teens in National Service who are still under the same regulations as our million-and-a-half military personnel. And young or old, none of us wants to go to war.
Life goes on. I promised Desi and her parents that I’d work PopCon Saturday and Sunday. The Whitcombs were about as antiwar as you could get. They were the GenX of the hippie culture. They made quick adjustments to our costumes that were pretty cool. My Black Butler costume was now all black, including shirt and gloves. Desi’s Madam Red was replaced by an all-black version that she unsurprisingly had hanging in her closet. Costumes didn’t have to be literal characters. Just having a costume was adequate enough. We drew crowds of picture takers and sent tons of people to the booth to buy ‘black resistance’ costumes.
I stayed with Desi in the hotel downtown Saturday night. Desi is not the kind of person I’d characterize as needy so it was a surprise how clingy and dependent she was Saturday. I didn’t really blame her. We were born in 2004. First and second Gulf Wars were before we were born. We’d never seen the Twin Towers in New York and the devastation of 9/11. The wars we heard about were on the other side of the world. But this was fucking Mexico. It was right there on our border. No one knew how to handle the threat or the hype.
We made love and I held her. I answered her repeated question, ‘Do you love me?’ with assurances that I did. I cradled her in my arms as she shook through her orgasm and into tears.
And Sunday, we put on our costumes and our masks and paraded around the convention center as our own version of Black Butler and Madam Black.
We had the first major snow of the season Sunday night, so, of course, my plan to go out and run Monday morning was ruined. It was cold and icy and I didn’t feel like slipping and injuring myself. Livy and Nanette agreed. We ended up at Nan’s house, not even making love but just sitting with coffee and the news as we cuddled.
I talked to Emily and she said she was driving a livestock truck and hated it. Her job this week was picking up cattle in Kansas and delivering them to the Rio Grande Valley. We tried to figure out why they suddenly needed so many cattle in West Texas and speculated that someone came up with the idea of driving them through the Mexican minefield. Then we sat looking at each other on Skype, shaking our heads and saying, ‘No. They wouldn’t.’ Neither of us have faith that they wouldn’t, though.
I tried to settle myself down by playing the guitar for a while, but I just couldn’t focus on it. Instead, I went outside and flew my quadcopter around the neighborhood, snapping photos of anything that crossed the camera’s view. A car skidding sideways as it accelerated from the stop sign. A squirrel on a snowy branch scolding the drone. Two little kids throwing snowballs at each other. Things that made the world look normal.
We learned something on Tuesday when we got back to school: Don’t trust someone wearing colorful clothing. Well over half the student body was wearing black, the symbol of resistance we’d adopted before the Winter Dance. There were a lot of hand painted posters, hastily tacked up on walls and lockers with the most popular slogans of ‘Repeal 28’ and ‘End the Emergency.’
But that left nearly half the students not wearing black. It was no big deal to me, or to any of the others I talked to. No one sent out a command saying everyone had to wear black. There were a lot of kids at our school who didn’t have many options as to what they wore. I was lucky I’d chosen black jeans when we went shopping this fall. A lot of kids were in blue.
The semester was starting kind of slow for me. The only change in my schedule was having creative writing instead of expository writing. One of my classmates—I’m happy to say I wasn’t the wiseass—asked if creative writing meant we were going to be writing news stories for the local television station.
Ms. Faber suggested that creative writing and fiction writing were not synonymous and perhaps he should switch to journalism. We all had a good laugh and it looked like she’d be a good teacher. It got us off on a discussion about what kinds of things were included in creative writing. I thought it would be fiction but Ms. Faber explained that creative writing was typically anything that lay outside the realm of professional, academic, technical, and journalistic writing.
“That seems to be the world of fiction,” I speculated. “I can’t think of anything else outside that realm.”
“You’re just not opening yourself to it,” she laughed. “Do you think of poetry as fiction? One might express philosophy, art, observation, all as creative poetry. Do you go to church, Mr. Hopkins?” I admitted I wasn’t a regular attendee but I did go. “And in the minister’s sermon, was he in the realm of professional, academic, technical, or journalistic writing? Or was he creatively shaping words and using rhetoric to get a point across. Theater. Do we call Shakespeare fiction? Yet it is assuredly creative writing. Yes, short stories and novels are fiction and are certainly creative writing. But well-formed essays, opinion, and rhetoric are all creative writing as well. Our emphasis will be on narrative craft, character development, and literary tropes as you both read and write creatively.”
I was thinking about her introduction as I made my way to my last class of the day, chemistry, when I was slammed up against a locker by two guys in Hawaiian shirts.
“You anti-American losers will all hang if we let you live long enough. Support the president! Invade Mexico!” they shouted at me and walked away. Apparently, wearing black had marked me as an un-American rebel. I didn’t like the fact that people were wandering around randomly attacking others because of the color of their clothing.
Through the rest of the week, there were more assaults. Not serious enough to raise the eyes of the administration. Bumps in the hallway and low curses for the anti-Americans. Posters started showing up in the halls that said, ‘Nuke the Spics,’ and ‘No Inauguration.’ On the other side, I saw posters that said, ‘Supporting the Constitution is NOT un-American!’ and ‘We elected a new president.’
I think it would have escalated out of control if it weren’t for what was happening on the international scene. The UN Security Council condemned the United States for aggravating border conflicts and threatening a sovereign nation. The US, of course, couldn’t respond. When the UN had quietly abandoned its New York headquarters two years ago—when I was still confused about the differences between this reality and the one V1 insisted on remembering—and moved to Kenya, the US had withdrawn its ambassador. Reports had come in revealing new trade agreements between the European Union and Mexico and between China and Mexico. Mexico was shipping its winter produce at a rate never seen before but it wasn’t coming to the US.
And there were no migrant workers in the fields of California and Arizona and Texas. In response to the impending food crisis, the National Service Corps was moved in to work in the fields. Beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, celery, grapefruit, kale, lettuce, spinach, and strawberries needed to either be brought in or rot in the fields. And without Mexican produce in the supermarkets, it was more urgent than ever to stock the shelves with food we grew in-country. Nearly two million migrant agricultural workers had left the country in the past six months and no new ones had arrived.
On January 18, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the long-awaited and much dreaded executive order was issued that the inauguration of the new president would be delayed until the national emergency had ended. The opposition was ready and waiting. President Elect Evelyn di Marco filed suit and it flew through the courts. The Supreme Court struck down the executive order as unconstitutional. Both houses of Congress met in emergency session and passed a bill ending the national emergency. It had the two-thirds majority needed to override any veto.
“We’ll have a real celebration Saturday at Donna’s,” I whispered in Rebeca’s ear. Tuesday was her seventeenth birthday and I held her cradled in my arms in her bed. I’d never spent the night at Beca’s house. I knew most of the girlfriends had stayed with her at one time or another but that was reasonable, considering she was a lesbian. When I showed up for dinner, I think her mother assumed I’d be going home after. But Beca took me to her room and didn’t let me leave, even when I volunteered.
“I know. Thank you for staying with me tonight. I’m frightened by what’s been happening. I wore a blue blouse to school today so I wouldn’t get shoved against a locker. I felt like such a coward,” she sobbed.
“It was an effective way to defend against bullies. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Beca. You did what you needed to. I wish I could walk beside you to each of your classes,” I said.
“I thought something strange today. I know we’ve escaped the worst of things at Mad Anthony. We’re a suburban school full of privilege. They closed two of the urban schools this week. There was a riot in Chicago and one in Atlanta. A million people have gathered in Washington, camped on the Mall. But it’s all so scary. I thought, ‘If we were in a nuclear holocaust tomorrow, whose arms would I want to die in?’ The answer was clear. ‘And if we all survive and life gets better, whose arms would I want to live in?’ That’s why you’re here in my bed tonight. We don’t get crazy sexually, but you are the man I want to live and die with.”
We just held each other all night. We kissed occasionally. Not passionately but with love so intense it made me weep. I would protect her against all odds.
On Wednesday President di Marco was sworn in as the forty-sixth president of the United States in an admittedly small ceremony in the chambers of the Supreme Court, leaving crowds waiting on the mall for a festival that didn’t occur. When the incumbent refused to leave the oval office, he was cuffed and removed by security to Andrews Air Force Base.
The new president gave her inaugural address from the oval office minutes after the former president had been removed. There was still some scuffling outside as the former president’s staff was escorted out of the building. She immediately affirmed Congress by signing the bill rescinding the national emergency, warning that we would still be watchful and prepared but that our nation was extending an olive branch to the people of Mexico and hoped we would be able to normalize relations in the coming months. She directed the National Service Corps to process out within the next week those members whose term of service had expired during the national emergency and promised recompense for extended service time.
Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do about the lack of farm labor and the corps would continue to fill in so food could be kept on American tables. The corps had quickly discovered that it took twice the number of unwilling teenagers working in a field to do the work previously done by desperate migrants. Short of bringing in foremen with whips to drive the labor, they were doing all they could.
There were still tensions in school but the neo-patriots soon realized their cause had been defeated and new posters started covering their old ones that said ‘Support President di Marco.’
A new realization settled in among the students—especially, those who were eighteen or near to it. In June, they would need to determine when to start their service. And now everyone knew one of the options was they could be sent to the fields to spend the next two years weeding artichoke fields. It was a sobering thought. All that promise of free education and training for a career was a pipe dream.
By Friday, clothing at school had returned to normal. There was neither a stigma nor pride in dressing in black or colors. We’d survived this one and the constitution won. But it had been close.
By Saturday afternoon we were all ready to cut loose and party. Cindy and I practiced for two hours at her house and put our instruments away about noon.
“Mom! We’re going to Donna’s for Beca’s birthday party,” she called out. We heard her mother’s feet rushing from the back of the house. I was sure Betty knew about the party this afternoon. I didn’t think she was going to throw a monkey wrench in the works at this late date.
“Do you have everything you need?” Betty asked breathlessly. “Are you taking your instruments?”
“Yes, Mom. I don’t know that we’ll play anything but we go prepared to perform,” Cindy said, snapping a salute to her mother. Her mother wrapped her in a hug and then held Cindy at arm’s length, just looking her up and down. “What, Mom? Do I have lettuce in my teeth?”
“No, Honey. This week has just been so stressful.” She paused and looked at me as well before returning her attention to Cindy. “You are becoming such a lovely young woman. I just know that one day I’ll hold you like this and kiss you goodbye and it will be the last time I hold my little girl. You’ll suddenly become a woman and I won’t even know when it happened. I just want you safe and sound.” She looked at me again. “And loved.”
“Mom, I don’t know what you think will happen to me in the pod but whatever it is, it won’t be today. We’re just going to celebrate Beca’s birthday.”
“Are you spending the night?” That was new. It had always been Cindy asking permission for things. Now Betty was asking her plans? Wow!
“I don’t know. I’ll call and tell you.”
“Don’t you need to take a bag or something?”
“If I spend the night, I have things at Donna’s. We all keep at least one change of clothes there.”
“Have a good time then. Drive carefully,” she said to me.
We were still talking about her mother’s strange behavior when we walked through Donna’s back door and stopped short. Donna, Rachel, and Livy were in the kitchen preparing the food for our celebration. Wearing nothing but aprons. They were doing some kind of line dance at the kitchen counter with their luscious butts wiggling in the open air. Then they turned around with a clap and saw us. It was like the music stopped and they froze. One of Donna’s breasts had slipped from behind the bib of her apron and Livy’s apron only covered from the waist down.
Breaking the tableau, Rachel pulled the neck strap of her apron over her head and let it drop so she was bare-breasted and ran to hug me. Cindy was cracking up laughing as she walked around the counter to hug Donna and Livy.
“Whatever the music was, you guys were sure in sync!” she said.
“We were just counting out the beats,” Donna said.
“Jacob, can we use that for our next video? We just have these three in their little aprons dancing and no one will care what we play,” Cindy said. She was laughing so hard she could hardly get the words out. I thought it was a great idea. I’d love to have a video of what I just saw.
“Might be too much for our subscribers,” I said. “Too many are over fifty and susceptible to a heart attack.”
“Look what I have!” Beca squealed at the kitchen door. I still had Rachel in my arms and one hand on her butt. The other was fully occupied with her breast. Beca was being carried into the kitchen by Joan. Both were fully naked.
“It looks like the beautiful creature has you,” I said, giving Rachel one more squeeze. “Joan, honey, when did you get in?”
“After the election, my boss gave us all the weekend off. Three days to make up for overtime. I was waiting for my sweetie after school yesterday.”
“We spent the night out here so we wouldn’t have to get out of bed until people arrived for the party,” Beca said. “Isn’t she a great birthday present?” I relinquished Rachel and put my arms around the girls, giving both of them a kiss.
I worked my way around the counter and caught Donna in a hug. Remembering my instructions from a few weeks ago, I slipped my arms under the bib of her apron and wrapped my hands around her breasts. She leaned back against me and offered her neck for me to kiss.
“Catch me again after I get the cake in the oven, okay?” she whispered. I gave each beautiful boob a squeeze and promised I would. Livy had stayed facing the counter practicing her dance step as I approached so I hugged her from behind. She pushed back into me and wiggled her ass against my cock as I caressed her long lean torso.
“I had a game last night,” she said.
“We were there. You did great,” I said.
“I don’t have another game until next Friday.”
“Mmmhmm.”
“I’d have plenty of time to… um… get back in shape… you know… if you took me there.” I got the message regarding where there was as she kept pushing her butt into my cock as if she’d take me in her ass right there in the kitchen.
“What about practice Monday?” I asked.
“I’ll run with my legs crossed.”
“You, Miss!” Nanette’s voice rang out as she, Desi, Brittany, and Sophie came in. She crossed straight to Beca and Joan and smacked Beca’s little round butt.
“Ow!”
“I love you!” Nan said as she deeply kissed Beca. “Your butt was just hanging out there and available, you know?”
“Go take your clothes off and sit on the sofa so I can put it in your lap,” Beca giggled.
“Unfasten me, please, Jacob,” Cindy said beside me. I turned from Livy to find my partner standing in her bra and panties. She was pointing at the back of her bra.
“Cindy? You don’t…”
“I want.”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Showing off my little tiddies. Neat, huh?” I popped the catch on her bra and she turned to face me. Oh, fuck! Yeah, they were really neat. Perfect. Little soft mounds with suckable dark points…
“Thanks.” She pulled a T-shirt on. I blinked my eyes at her. “What? I’m not running around naked like everybody else. I’m hardly ready for that!”
What the…? I went back to hugging Livy and humping her butt.
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