Hystopia by David Means

Author:David Means
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780374714871
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

THE BLUE PILL KICKS

It was gonna happen, man. It was gonna happen because he was out there, testing the odds, making public appearances, driving around in an open limo, with Jackie at his side, doing the hand-wave, the little movement, halfhearted, just a flick of the wrist, all slo-mo, the way the motorcade moved—with the cops on choppers out front, clearing the way, checking the crowd for a sign of disgruntled vets, or Black Flag members in their jackets and colors; the president with his bright white smile, his shoulder sagging on the side where he had been hit the first time, a hunk missing, the bone gone. In retrospect, looking back—if they ever had time—they’d remember the tension in the air that day, the sky over Flint blazing with heat. When he got to her apartment, after hearing the news from someone in the Corps headquarters lobby, she was in the doorway waiting.

“I got the news and left right away. You must’ve been stuck in a meeting. They’re saying the shot might’ve killed him this time,” she said, pulling him into the living room. Her face was flushed from crying, but her eyes were angry, not sad, and as they held each other she kept saying, “Men kill fucking men.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Yeah, it’s that simple now. Without something to enfold there’s no enfolding. Men go out and make sure they have something to treat.”

Outside, in the streets, there were shouts. The sound of breaking glass, far off. The phrase “national mourning” on the television, something about a dark day in a tone that seemed unbecoming in relation to the figure on the screen, the great Walter Cronkite, father of all authority, the most trusted man in America, as he took off his glasses, held them to the side, stared watery-eyed into the camera and, with his voice cracking, made the announcement that Kennedy had been shot again not far from Springfield, Lincoln’s birthplace.

“We can’t say we didn’t see it coming,” Singleton said. He went to the window and looked out. Below, a few people milled. Someone carried a bouquet of flowers, bright white, and someone else was placing another bouquet onto the edge of the ash heap. “We can’t say we’re horrifically sad.”

“Well, I’m horrifically sad. And I want to do something about it,” she said.

“He threw men into the fire and then felt guilty and had to face fear himself,” Singleton said. He went into the kitchen, got a beer, checked the freezer for the pills and decided not to take them out—not yet, not until they’d been through some kind of tense deliberation, because the pills, whatever they were, seemed destined to be a point of contention. Back in the living room, she was in front of the television set, listening attentively.

“OK, I am sad,” he said. It seemed like the right thing to say. If he didn’t say it, he was one more soul dead to history. The buzz in his ears sang from one side of his head to the other.

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