The Fantasy Years

MIKE, BRANDON, JENNY AND DENNIS and millions of others believed deeply in freedom. They lived by it. The AM radio hosts extolled freedom. Heck, everyone loved it. Yet no radio hosts, nor the newsmagazines they read, nor right wing think tank’s whose works they cited ever made it clear that the much-discussed, much-vaunted freedom they heard spoken so highly of on the radio was their own version of freedom, a freedom for the benefit of high-net worth investors. It was freedom for the benefit and glory and might of companies. For the powerful. Not for low-net people struggling to pay their bills. Or for people who listened to AM radio while they worked their hourly jobs.

But the AM radio hosts were on to a good thing with this constant talk of freedom being under attack. Besides, this talk of freedom denied gave listeners plenty to be upset about. Upsetting people made for a loyal audience. Good ratings. Good ad rates. So all across America, millions of listeners’ outraged grew. Their voices hiked up into the same urgent, irritated tone.

“Homos in the military?” one voice in South Carolina asked. “Homos in the military?” He asked rhetorically of Clinton’s plans to allow gays in the military. “What next?”
“Socialized medicine,” came the response. “Like what they have in France. That’s what’s next.”
“Oh, how PC! They’ll remake this country into a socialist one if we don’t stop them.”
“Those liberals will do it without even understanding what they’re doing,” said a voice in Indiana.
“Because to them big government is always the answer.”
“Just like in Europe.”
“But government isn’t the answer,” a voice in New Mexico exclaimed.
“It’s the problem.”
“And American people want American healthcare. Not some kind of foreign healthcare.”

Voices of people like Mike who didn’t know Dennis or Dennis who didn’t know Jenny, voices of people who they’d never meet at all echoed a similar rage. All agreed with the tone, if not the particulars of the offense screamed daily through the speakers of their radios.

“So the Feds have innocent people under siege at Waco?” asked a voice in Utah.
“This government is so out of control.”
“The feds have Americans holed up under siege in Waco?” came a voice in Michigan.
“Talk about overreach!”
“This wouldn’t happen if Bush was still president.”
“This can only happen with a liberal in the White House!” said another.
“And a liberal attorney general.”
“Who’s a woman.”
“Who has to prove herself to the country.”
“—by overcompensating.”
“And look who gets hurt?”
“The people of Mt. Carmel.”

Voices of people who had nothing to do personally with Dennis and Jenny and Mike:
“This is a travesty of justice,” cried a voice in Kansas.
“This makes a mockery of common sense,” said another.
“The ATF killing—killing?—American people!”
“Talk about a government out of control,” raged a voice in Tennessee.
“Talk about a people under siege.”
“Today it’s them. Tomorrow it’s us.”
“Today it’s them and today it’s us.”

Brandon wiped down a syrup-dribbled booth at Denny’s when the voice of a customer, a serious-looking man, dressed for an office job, caught his attention. “She’s lying when she says she doesn’t want to create socialized medicine.”

His indignant tone caught Brandon’s ear. Something about his conviction, his righteousness cut through the beer-bolstered volume of the chatter in the smokey, syrup-flavored air of the vinyl-upholstered dining room.

“Socialized medicine? Oh, that’s real PC,” the man’s friend said.
“Hillary wants to give this country a socialist makeover,” said the man.
“But she just won’t call it socialism.”
“She calls it ‘universal’.”
“Which is another word for ‘collective.’”
“And ‘collective’ is another word for ‘socialized.’”
“And ‘socialized’ is another word for ‘communist.’”
“And ‘communist’ is another word for the Soviet Reds we just spent fifty years beating.”
“And the only kind of person dumb enough to fall for that immoral lure would be a kind of starry eyed liberal with a fancy liberal education full of theories and book learning that has nothing to do with the real world.” His voice was so sure, his outrage so focused, Brandon thought, lugging a tray of dirty dishes through the busy dining room.

“A kind of ditzy woman who married into power and now has a pet project she wants us ram down our throats.”
“Just like a woman.” The words were crisp. The tone was bracing. It put snap in a soft world of endless suburbs and endless nights.

Just the tone of speech, the slightly raised voice, the irritability, pointed to something real. Something at stake.
Brandon could tell by how it was delivered, it was something real and powerful. Like the feeling a freshly printed $100 bill in hand. Like that.

Mike sneezed. “Your problem is that you’re too much of a dreamer,” Kath, his wife, said. They had been talking about Mike’s idea – his latest idea – to open a catfish restaurant on a highway heading up 540, toward Fayetteville. Up toward the Ozarks.

“They say I’m a dreamer,” Mike said, lilting his voice, getting Kath to crack a smile. “I’m not the only one.” She acted like she disapproved, but he knew she loved his plans. However unrealistic. That was part of what attracted her to him. She wanted something else in life too.

“All you Hurtfields are dreamers.”
The couple was driving home from church. Their infant son Rex was strapped into his car seat in the back. Babbling and talking to himself.

“Why do you say that? Just because my dad until his dying day believed he was going to strike it rich on the property of his house?” Mike asked.

“I was thinking about your brother’s plan to become a chief buffalo meat distributor for Little Rock.”
“Buffalo meat is naturally lean.”
“But no one eats it.”
“But if they did.”
“If they did…”
“If they did my brother would be rich now.”
“Even you, Mike. What were you doing last week?”
“What?”
“What were you talking about?”
“I dunno.”
Kath said, “You were seriously talking about getting your private pilot’s license.”
“It’s the next logical step from trucks!”
“But Mike, driving a truck is one thing; flying a private jet is another.”

Mike let her speak. This was Sunday afternoon. There was a Sunday afternoon peace. This wouldn’t be a real fight, he knew, only a play fight. So he let her talk.
“They say I’m a dreamer…I know I’m not the only one.”
“That should be the Hurtfield family motto,” Kath said.
“Inscribed in our family crest. With a Lear jet in one corner.”
“And a pile of money in the other and…
“…and a sizzling hunk of buffalo in the other.” Mike laughed. “Now you’re on to something. Now you are. I can see my pot of gold now,” he said breaking into a laugh.
Kath’s smile reached up to her eyes. There would be no fight today. The moment was warm. Funny. Close.

“I don’t trust white people in any of their natural social groupings,” Don said. “I don’t trust the drunk white customers at Denny’s. I don’t trust the racist country music fans.”

“Umm-hmmm,” his friend Anthony nodded, much more absorbed in the Nintendo game of golf they played than Don’s latest ranting on the Great White Conspiracy.

“Just run your mouth, Don. I’ll beat you here on this shot.”
“Running my mouth? Shit. I don’t trust NASCAR fans. Or FFA members. Or NRA members. Or white graduates of white business schools. Or white bankers. Or white presidents of the United States.”

“All the presidents are white, Don,” Anthony said, staring at the game. The two friends sat in Don’s mom’s garage, which had been converted into a play room before it was reclaimed as a garage and now had his mothers Cadillac parked on the rust-colored linoleum, next to the couch where they sat, before the crate on which sat the TV. The Nintendo console sat on the floor below them.

“I don’t trust white Ivy League schools or Mormons or dog clubs or the cast of Friends. No sir. I don’t trust large concentrations of white people wherever I find them.”

Anthony was almost tied with Don. Just two strokes under par.
“I don’t trust Hollywood and all its stereotypes of black men. And I certainly don’t trust Rush Limbaugh and the people who listen to his show.” This tirade had begun when Don told Anthony about another racist at work.

“Umm—hmmm,” Anthony said, making a chip shot. The audience’s electronic applause roar rose and peaked quickly, as the bar landed wide of the hole.
“And as much as America is mostly run by white people, I don’t trust America.”
“But you are American,” Anthony said.
“I’m not saying I’m not. But I just don’t trust anything about the country.”
“Fair enough,” Anthony said, making a three foot put, to muted electronic applause.
The game tied.
“That’s what you get for running your mouth too much,” Anthony said.
“Oh yeah?” Don said, holding the button down, not releasing until enough swing had gathered to send the little square white speck of a golf ball soaring far, far across the green.