Double Team
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.
The SSR is getting some well-deserved rest this weekend. The Governor of Washington recognized and thanked them in a ceremony but the State is a long way from recovered. Everything in the path of the lahar was wiped out, including the I-5 overpass at the Nisqually River. Basically, north and south travel is cut off on the west side of the mountains. Loss of life was miraculously low—certainly much less than if the path had gone down the Puyallup River into Tacoma. Everyone is thankful for that. A lot of livestock was lost, though.
I hope the team is getting the right kind of support now. Their timely arrival in Washington indicates their dispatcher/manager is on top of things. I find it strange that even though I was angry all the time I was with them, I have a real fondness, not just for Dana, but for the whole team. I guess surviving together created a bond.
Guess who’s coming down the escalator to baggage claim!
“I’m so happy you came to be with us this weekend. Orchestra Hall is a beautiful venue,” I said as I picked Beca up and swung her around.
“Oh! You’ll make me dizzy!”
“You came alone? No Joan?”
“Is it wrong for me to want a weekend alone with my husband?” Beca said.
“Well, you know there are a few other wives who are also here,” I laughed. She only had a small roll-aboard, so we walked straight out and Lamar pulled up to take us to the venue. We got a brief practice in and marveled at the acoustics and the strange shapes hanging from the ceiling. This was a slightly smaller venue, seating about 2,000, but it was truly designed for our kind of music. Rachel, Donna, Emily, Beca, Lamar, and Leah sat in the back of the house while we rehearsed and were excited by the clarity of the sound.
I’m happy to announce the formation of the Reform Caucus in the House of Representatives. I’m excited about this because the more I’ve studied the service reform bill and the objections to it, the more I’ve realized the National Service isn’t the only thing that needs reforming. Every branch of our government is susceptible to corruption and every power structure in America—corporate, religious, military, and even educational—is all too willing to take advantage of those chinks in our patriotic armor. Did you know that senators and representatives essentially sell time and photo ops? The quickest way to get a meeting with a government official is to offer a sizable campaign contribution. And if you have the ear of your representative, of course you will promote your specific cause. I’m happy to say that as a National Service Deputation team, we have not offered campaign contributions nor sought out special audiences with any officials—though some have come to us.
It isn’t only in national politics that we are faced with the need for reform. That is why we encourage you to vote at every level of government—national, state, county, and local—for candidates who are devoted to reform. And while you are considering the candidates who are running, give consideration to those who have experienced the abuses of our National Service system and encourage service veterans to run for office. Part of the dream was to train capable young Americans for continued service to their country, and we will recover the dream.
“That was one of the most beautiful and meaningful appeals you’ve given in any venue,” Donna said after the performance. We headed to our motorhome parking space. It wasn’t really an RV park. We were parked out near the airport at Historic Fort Snelling. It wasn’t an official campground, but the service negotiated a space for us to spend the night.
“And shortest,” Desi said.
“Well, Minneapolis isn’t really hotly contested,” I said. “I didn’t feel like I had to do a lot of persuading. And we really don’t have enough info on the caucus to promote it any further. Amanda, please keep track of candidates at all levels who claim to be part of the Reform Caucus.”
“Acknowledged, Jacob.”
We were all pretty tired, but it was nice to snuggle into bed between Beca and Rachel. I loved all my wives but no one could doubt there was something special between the three of us.
“We’re what?” We’d just pulled into Des Moines, Iowa and the bus followed signs toward the arena.
“We’re staying at the Staybridge Suites tonight,” Beca said. “We’ll have dinner at the Iowa Taproom so you don’t need anything dressy. We’re just going to have a nice quiet night together.”
“It’s okay,” Rachel said. “We’ve all talked and Beca wanted to have this special night with you. Tomorrow, on your birthday, we’ll all do something special.”
“It’s okay to spend time with me, isn’t it, J?” Beca asked softly.
“You bet it is, sweetheart,” I said, giving her cheek a kiss. She seldom used the family nickname since Pey passed. This was definitely a special time.
“What’s good here?” I asked, as if Beca had traveled to Des Moines before and knew the menu.
“I think it’s a burgers and beer kind of place,” she answered. “I wasn’t looking for gourmet food, just good food.”
“Well, burgers and Coke will do just fine,” I laughed. We ordered and, in fact, The Maytag—no idea how it got that name—was a great blue cheese and bacon burger. We laughed and talked and I asked her about what her service work was like since she’d pretty much seen mine but all I ever saw of hers was updates to our website.
“It’s different than I expected it to be but I like it. The parts that I expected were selecting and/or writing stuff for the websites, but I also have to manage where the content is stored and how it is accessed. Joan does the technical side, coding when necessary and making sure everything looks good,” she said.
“Why is the service letting you and Joan just work on our website? It seems like a conflict of interest,” I said.
“Oh, we don’t work on our website… at work. We are managing a dozen National Service websites and when the General Director was arrested, we inherited eight sites that were poorly maintained because they never hired someone to take care of them. So, we did an inventory of content first. What a rat’s nest. We tried searching for information and a simple search like ‘agriculture service’ would bring up hits on six different sites. If we enhanced the search to something like ‘service corps members in agriculture’ we not only got hits on all twenty managed sites, but 100,000,000 hits on non-managed sites, including a description of the Star Wars Agriculture Corps which was where failed Jedis could be assigned,” she laughed.
“How can you manage something like that?” I asked.
“Well, we can’t do anything about what’s floating around on the internet, but we’re consolidating our content onto a single server. We compare articles, combine them where necessary, and serve out a single version instead of having twenty versions on twenty websites. Our target is to eliminate one website a month until we are down to a dozen.”
“And all that is for websites other than ours? You are working miracles!”
“Our website we manage at night. Just like Joan did when she was in Chicago. No proprietary information from Marvel and Hopkins shows up on our work computers. We don’t duplicate information from work on the Marvel and Hopkins website. But we use similar systems and I also send weekly email to your patrons and update the Patreon site. Joan and I take care of streaming your concerts to patrons on a completely separate feed from the National Service feed. And to be honest, ours is better and faster.”
It was so good to just be with Beca and talk and brainstorm like we had in high school without any of our other wives distracting us. We paid the tab and walked the two blocks to our hotel on a crisp October evening.
“Jacob?” Beca asked as I was brushing my teeth. I turned to look at her and she was naked, standing in the bathroom doorway. I spit out the toothpaste and gave her my full attention. In every way. She was so beautiful! A pixie. Cute and sexy and heart-stoppingly beautiful. “I know we don’t get together often… like hardly ever without concentrating on one of our wives… but… would you make love to me tonight? Please?”
“Oh, God, Beca! You know I love you and I desire you like crazy. The only thing that ever stops me from ravishing you is the knowledge that you prefer girls.”
“Prefer, yes. If it weren’t for you, I’d never let a man touch me. But you, Jacob. I love you so much I can’t help wanting to feel us connected, making love.”
I rinsed my mouth and caught my smallest wife in a hug, pressing our naked bodies together. I found her mouth and we kissed—kissed hard and soft and light and deep. I swept her up in my arms and carried her to bed. To think that picking her up was a dream when we met and my arms were just out of casts—puny and weak. I wanted to carry her around everywhere and never let her feet touch the ground.
“Remember, no matter how turned on I am, we still need to use a little lube. But Jacob, I want to feel you in me, making love to me, coming in me.”
It was no problem to spend a long time on foreplay. Beca’s nipples, while perhaps not as sensitive as Joan’s, still seemed to be connected directly to her pussy and I loved touching and sucking them. I kept the bottle of lube nearby and touched up the moisture she generated repeatedly until she pulled at me and begged me to enter her. Beca, my love. My beautiful sweet lover.
I knew I couldn’t just thrust in to the hilt. Beca simply wasn’t that long. But I could tell how deep I was and avoided the danger zone as I slipped back and forth in her vagina, all the while kissing her and tenderly caressing her breasts. She slipped a delicate hand between us and I could feel her rubbing her clit as we rose closer and closer to a peak we shared as I pumped my seed into her vagina and she shuddered in release.
“Happy birthday, Jacob. I will love you forever.”
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
