_So Goes the Nation
from chapter 7
It still felt otherworldly to him to be gliding down the same wide streets he used to ride his bike along as a kid four decades earlier. Somehow, in spite of all that had transpired in the world, those streets remained; the houses, less so; and himself, but a wisp of memory, a living phantom moving among them once again. Before the corner, three dark limos sat parked in a row, their lookalike drivers catching a morning snooze.
The street seemed stubbornly quiet. He parked his own beat-up car across from the limos, and in confident strides walked past them onto Ocean Avenue. By the front steps of the house, a beefy fellow in a suit who spent too much time in the sun was talking with Myra. Underdressed for the season, she kept glancing inside through the door, and then across to the other side of the street.
Recognizing Nicky as he approached, she called out, “I can’t speak to you now. It’s a little crazy at the moment.”
“That’s all right. I was hoping, actually, to catch a word with your husband. Looks like he’s home?”
The agent or guard was ready to swat the intruder away until Myra said something quietly to him. Nicky hardly looked like a threat to the state.
“And this would be in reference to what?” she dissembled.
“Oh, come on, remember? I’m a journalist.” He still could not get used to saying that, let alone thinking it. Weren’t journalists an endangered species?
“I thought all the journalists were in Trenton. Isn’t that where they’re supposed to be? Although, there was one young woman from Japan, I don’t know how she found him here.”
“She got lucky,” he said. “Like me.”
He detected the slightest smile of embarrassment from her while overhead a distant chopping sound as of a scythe tore rapidly through the ocean air. It kept growing louder until the helicopter loomed into view and settled like a giant insect over by the Deal Casino.
The pilot cut the engine. Soon, Leonard J. Sharpe, acting governor of the unruly state of New Jersey, emerged from his house flanked by two aides and four advisors. The landing by the door was crowded now as they gazed in the direction of the sea, or rather across the street where the coach awaited in the empty parking lot to carry him to his destiny. His arm across his chest to catch his unbuttoned overcoat, he held a pose reminiscent of a certain founding father astride his crowded dinghy crossing an icy river.
Nicky, from his perch on a lower step, did not wait to be pushed aside: with one foot pivoting onto the grass, the other raised up onto the edge of the landing, he reached his arm beyond his full height, digital recorder in hand, and asked, “Excuse me, Lieutenant Governor, your call for secession yesterday, do you intend to follow through with that? And what sort of response do you expect from the rest of the country?”
The man of the hour, looking askance at this individual who had gone unnoticed below him in their midst, did not hesitate. “I expect resistance, naturally. I expect outrage, and insults, and cries of treason—from Washington, and New York, and Pennsylvania. But we are the realists now; the Union is no longer sustainable. It is weak, and scattered, and overextended. It’s too big to survive. Like the wooly mammoth, its time has passed. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is. And where did you come from, young man?”
Suddenly, the entourage was on the move, descending en masse down the front steps to the sidewalk and across the swath of lawn to the curb. Nicky, keeping pace beside them, explained. “The short answer, I’m afraid, is right here. I grew up in this house.”
The lieutenant governor stared in disbelief.
“Okay, well, not exactly. The house that was here before your house, that was my house. But never mind. I’m covering events for Rolling Stone.”
“I’m going to be in Rolling Stone? Do you need photos?” An aide was instructed to take care of the matter.
“And where to now, if I may ask?”
“We’re needed in Trenton. We have a lot of work to do.”
At a signal from the other aide, youngest of all, who stood in the middle of Ocean Avenue to stop traffic as though leading a class of schoolchildren across, the full group followed to the other side of the wide boulevard and on toward the driveway of the beach club.
“So you’re serious about this secession business,” Nicky continued while he still had the chance. “What’s to be gained from declaring independence?”
Momentarily distracted by the logistics of their departure, the lieutenant governor was eager to resume the debate. “You realize, we are in a superior position. We have immense intellectual resources, in technology and business, top-notch research institutions. Our banking sector is robust. Even old technology, we have abundant capacity in our refineries, and infrastructure second to none. Contrary to what the rest of the country may think, New Jersey is no joke. Our time has come.”
They had reached the helicopter. The pilot readied for flight as the lieutenant governor’s aides climbed aboard. Myra embraced her husband, speaking her farewell in tones too private to overhear. Before gaining his seat, Sharpe turned to Nicky: “And one more thing. The people of the Garden State are with me on this. That’s plain to see. Or I’m with them.”
The earthbound among them backed away to a safe distance and watched the helicopter take off.
_
from chapter 7
It still felt otherworldly to him to be gliding down the same wide streets he used to ride his bike along as a kid four decades earlier. Somehow, in spite of all that had transpired in the world, those streets remained; the houses, less so; and himself, but a wisp of memory, a living phantom moving among them once again. Before the corner, three dark limos sat parked in a row, their lookalike drivers catching a morning snooze.
The street seemed stubbornly quiet. He parked his own beat-up car across from the limos, and in confident strides walked past them onto Ocean Avenue. By the front steps of the house, a beefy fellow in a suit who spent too much time in the sun was talking with Myra. Underdressed for the season, she kept glancing inside through the door, and then across to the other side of the street.
Recognizing Nicky as he approached, she called out, “I can’t speak to you now. It’s a little crazy at the moment.”
“That’s all right. I was hoping, actually, to catch a word with your husband. Looks like he’s home?”
The agent or guard was ready to swat the intruder away until Myra said something quietly to him. Nicky hardly looked like a threat to the state.
“And this would be in reference to what?” she dissembled.
“Oh, come on, remember? I’m a journalist.” He still could not get used to saying that, let alone thinking it. Weren’t journalists an endangered species?
“I thought all the journalists were in Trenton. Isn’t that where they’re supposed to be? Although, there was one young woman from Japan, I don’t know how she found him here.”
“She got lucky,” he said. “Like me.”
He detected the slightest smile of embarrassment from her while overhead a distant chopping sound as of a scythe tore rapidly through the ocean air. It kept growing louder until the helicopter loomed into view and settled like a giant insect over by the Deal Casino.
The pilot cut the engine. Soon, Leonard J. Sharpe, acting governor of the unruly state of New Jersey, emerged from his house flanked by two aides and four advisors. The landing by the door was crowded now as they gazed in the direction of the sea, or rather across the street where the coach awaited in the empty parking lot to carry him to his destiny. His arm across his chest to catch his unbuttoned overcoat, he held a pose reminiscent of a certain founding father astride his crowded dinghy crossing an icy river.
Nicky, from his perch on a lower step, did not wait to be pushed aside: with one foot pivoting onto the grass, the other raised up onto the edge of the landing, he reached his arm beyond his full height, digital recorder in hand, and asked, “Excuse me, Lieutenant Governor, your call for secession yesterday, do you intend to follow through with that? And what sort of response do you expect from the rest of the country?”
The man of the hour, looking askance at this individual who had gone unnoticed below him in their midst, did not hesitate. “I expect resistance, naturally. I expect outrage, and insults, and cries of treason—from Washington, and New York, and Pennsylvania. But we are the realists now; the Union is no longer sustainable. It is weak, and scattered, and overextended. It’s too big to survive. Like the wooly mammoth, its time has passed. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is. And where did you come from, young man?”
Suddenly, the entourage was on the move, descending en masse down the front steps to the sidewalk and across the swath of lawn to the curb. Nicky, keeping pace beside them, explained. “The short answer, I’m afraid, is right here. I grew up in this house.”
The lieutenant governor stared in disbelief.
“Okay, well, not exactly. The house that was here before your house, that was my house. But never mind. I’m covering events for Rolling Stone.”
“I’m going to be in Rolling Stone? Do you need photos?” An aide was instructed to take care of the matter.
“And where to now, if I may ask?”
“We’re needed in Trenton. We have a lot of work to do.”
At a signal from the other aide, youngest of all, who stood in the middle of Ocean Avenue to stop traffic as though leading a class of schoolchildren across, the full group followed to the other side of the wide boulevard and on toward the driveway of the beach club.
“So you’re serious about this secession business,” Nicky continued while he still had the chance. “What’s to be gained from declaring independence?”
Momentarily distracted by the logistics of their departure, the lieutenant governor was eager to resume the debate. “You realize, we are in a superior position. We have immense intellectual resources, in technology and business, top-notch research institutions. Our banking sector is robust. Even old technology, we have abundant capacity in our refineries, and infrastructure second to none. Contrary to what the rest of the country may think, New Jersey is no joke. Our time has come.”
They had reached the helicopter. The pilot readied for flight as the lieutenant governor’s aides climbed aboard. Myra embraced her husband, speaking her farewell in tones too private to overhear. Before gaining his seat, Sharpe turned to Nicky: “And one more thing. The people of the Garden State are with me on this. That’s plain to see. Or I’m with them.”
The earthbound among them backed away to a safe distance and watched the helicopter take off.
_