Golden State by Michelle Richmond

Author:Michelle Richmond [Richmond, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-345-53240-4
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-04-01T16:00:00+00:00

28

“Did I ever tell you what my parents said when I joined the National Guard?” Dennis asks.

His voice sounds tired.

“They said the military wasn’t right for you.”

“Their exact words were ‘The military isn’t for people like us.’ Meaning, it’s the poor people’s job to go fight the wars. That’s part of why I joined; I knew that wasn’t fair. I’d gotten everything I wanted all my life, but my friend Jeremy, this kid who worked at the stables where my mom kept her horses, joined the National Guard to pay for school. He does great, top of his class, but he gets pulled out of college senior year and sent to Dhahran. He’s a week from coming home when he gets killed by fucking friendly fire. Friendly fire! What asshole came up with that term?”

“I’m really sorry,” I say.

“They had it right in Vietnam. Not the war itself, but the draft. A draft makes everybody equal. You had guys like Elvis going to war. That would never happen now. Can you imagine Justin Timberlake stuck in a bunker in Afghanistan? Every time I see one of those fucking CALIFORNIA IS MY COUNTRY bumper stickers, I think of Jeremy. And all these guys who came back from Iraq and Afghanistan missing legs and arms, or worse. All that sacrifice amounts to shit if any state can just say, Guess what, we don’t want to be Americans anymore.”

I can hear him breathing heavily on the other end of the line. “Hell, I don’t have to tell you any of this. I’m sure you’ve already heard it from your sister.”

“Yes,” I say. I understand why he’s so angry. Most of my patients feel the same way. Not Heather. She’s always been starry-eyed about California.

I don’t tell him about the sweatpants she gave me a few weeks ago, bearing the slogan REPUBLIC OF CALIFORNIA right across the derriere. I’ve yet to wear them, but I’ve been tempted. It’s startling, really, how enamored the good citizens of California have suddenly become with the symbolism of our tottering statehood.

Children in schools across the state, from Eureka to Riverside, have begun saluting the California state flag. I’d be willing to bet that, until recently, most Californians didn’t know what has, in recent weeks, become common knowledge: the flag was first raised in Sonoma in 1846, by a group of thirty-three American settlers revolting against Mexican rule. In coming years, the handmade burlap flag would be the subject of much derision, on account of the fact that the beast in the center of it looked more like a hog than a bear. The commander of the short-lived California Republic was William B. Ide, a farmer and sometime teacher from Massachusetts who had arrived on the scene less than a year before. When U.S. Army captain John C. Frémont showed up and claimed the area for the United States just twenty-five days after the revolt began, Ide enlisted in the U.S. Army. A historic state park in Red Bluff still bears his name.

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