Fire Sweeping: The California Ballot Killings Book II Read online

  “It might have been easier,” I confided in Dad as he sheepishly awaited my response to his question, “for me to have been born in the Federation. You, Mom, aunts Mary and Lucy, and everyone else, you have this sense of who you are because you feel where you’re from; you have an emotional attachment to it. I don’t feel that the Federation is where I’m from; I only know it. I’m always struggling to find something to pass on to my kids, who’re asking questions. Mauru has all this Italian history that he shares with the kids. He feels that Italian history and culture are his. I know that African history is mine, but I don’t feel it. I wish I did.”

  The phone in Dad’s office rang, and he let it go to voicemail. His secretary was out at lunch.

  “I came to the US when I was twelve,” Dad said as he stopped eating. “It was the 1990s, things were bad in the Federation, but it wasn’t called the Federation then. It was a whole bunch of countries in Southern Africa dealing with apartheid, white supremacy, and the legacy of European colonialism. My first three years in the US were my toughest. I spoke the language, but I didn’t understand the culture. I wanted to belong, but I didn’t. There were lots of other people from the Federation, but they were equally homesick. I’d lost my brother to malaria in the Federation, and I wanted to go home and mourn him there. I had an accent when I arrived in the US, and I was always asked where I was from. So, I buried my natural accent so that I’d fit in. I studied US history, watched the movies, learned the Star-Spangled Banner, and the Pledge of Allegiance. I played baseball and football. When I had finally mastered the American accent, I told people who didn’t know me that I was born in Syracuse, New York.”

  It sounded like a confession from a man nearing the end of his journey, an accounting of the places he had visited, the people he’d seen, and the choices he’d made, some of which he regretted.

  But it wasn’t any man’s accounting. It was my father’s. I wanted to comfort him, to tell him not to worry about the clients who’d abandoned him. Surely, there were other clients. It would all be OK.

  I knew that Dad, like Mom, had moved to the US when my grandparents (their parents) had both won permanent residence in the green card lottery. I knew that Mom and Dad had met at college in New York City, and I knew that they had had me when they were nineteen, which had created such a scandal in both families that a wedding was hastily organized, and Mom had to take time off school.

  But things worked out. Mom went on to become an accountant, and Dad became an immigration lawyer.

  “I don’t think you ever belong,” Dad said as he tore some bread and used it to cup some stew. “At least, the first generation, like me, never belongs. I see it in the immigrants I work with. Two things must happen for you to belong. You must feel that the new place is both your country and your home. And the people who are born there must agree on both accounts. For me, the US is my home, but the Federation is still my country. For your mom, it’s the reverse.”

  Dad ate in silence for a while. He finished chewing, swallowed his food, and he looked directly at me.

  “The US,” he said, “is going through one of its perpetual anti-foreigner convulsions. When that happens, people quickly forget they came from immigrants, and they attack the newcomers for reminding them of where they came from. It’s as if the American dream requires the constant churning out of nightmares, with each new generation of immigrants as the cast of characters. And now they’re going after the Raddies, who are natural-born Americans from Colorado. When will this madness end?”

  I wanted to comfort Dad by hugging him, but my hands were full.

  “Dad, I learned something at college. I’m not sure it makes sense to me, maybe because I was born here, and this is my country, and it’s my home. I learned that home is wherever we can safely build a life for ourselves and those we love, and you’ve done that very well here. Watching you and Mom has also made me think that the true citizens of any country are those who choose to be there. They make the journey from lands far off so that they can contribute, heal, and belong. They abandon everything familiar, and they find the life, the liberty, and the happiness they need in their new home and their new country.”

  Dad continued eating for a while.

  “I wish it were so simple, Janet. Immigrants are ‘aliens’ until we are granted citizenship, which can be revoked. Even as an American citizen, a first-generation immigrant can never be president of the United States, and probably not vice president, either. Even if an immigrant came here as a baby, the result would be the same. Why? Because the law assumes that the mere fact of foreign birth makes us potentially hostile outsiders, no matter how damaging our birth countries were to us. My passport says I was born in the Southern African Federation. That’s a fact, but it’s also a legal marker of the extent of my rights here.”

  I tried to lighten the mood.

  “Do you want to run for president, Dad? You don’t have a single politician’s bone in your body. You’re too much of an introvert.”

  “Not the point, Janet. Even introverts have dreams of fully belonging.”

  Dad continued eating, and I worried about how something as insignificant as the loss of clients could affect him as an immigrant. After all, he had no proof that the clients had left him because he was an immigrant. They might be going bankrupt or moving abroad.

  Dad was also one of the luckiest men in America. He’d won the lottery twice, had a palatial home in an expensive part of San Diego overlooking the ocean, had his own business, and he could retire whenever he wanted to.

  How many other immigrants could do that?

  He was also living in the greatest country on the planet. What was there to complain about?

  As I thought about Dad’s predicament, I couldn’t help thinking that he was “exaggerating” (as Aunt Lucy would say); storm in the proverbial teacup, but you can’t say that to your parents.

  It seemed, though, that it all ran deep. Dad had experienced the loss of business as a personal rebuke, an evaluation of his status as an immigrant, which, in a California intent on retaliating against “Raddies” and others the CWP disliked, Dad experienced as a reminder that he didn’t truly belong.

  “But I know you came to see me because something’s bothering you,” Dad said as he finished eating. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m OK, Dad. Work’s OK. Everything’s OK. I have a great life.”

  “Out with it, Janet. What’s going on? You didn’t call your mother, which means you don’t want her to know, so it’s something important.”

  “Kind of.”

  I didn’t tell Dad about Mike, but I told him about Hannah and me being removed from the CWP cases, and about the CWP “consultants” who were permanently stationed at WS&X.

  As if Dad hadn’t heard what I’d just said, he looked at me and asked, “Do you think I should let go?”

  “Of what, Dad?”

  “Do you think I’m holding on to the past, to where I was born almost sixty years ago and spent only the first twelve years of my life? What’s there to go back to in the Federation? Should I let it all go?”

  It sounded like a rhetorical question, and I was tempted to treat it as such, but Dad was looking at me, waiting for a response.

  “Dad, are you OK?”

  “Yeah. I’m just asking you. I respect your opinion, Janet. I know we don’t have these kinds of conversations often, but I’ve been thinking, with all these changes everywhere, of what it means to belong. You’re my legacy, my only child, and I love you.”

  My first thought was that Dad should probably see a shrink, but I abandoned the thought.

  “I think you should hold on to whatever keeps you afloat, Dad. Sometimes we need things more than they need us, even things in our past, and—“

  “Sometimes,” Dad interjected, “we drown with the things we’re clinging to.”

  I found myself nodding.

  I wondered if Mike and Dad would like each other. Behind the strong external facade they bo
th projected, there was something irredeemably vulnerable, raw, and unresolved about both of them.

  Dad stood up and went to wash his hands.

  He returned, looked at his watch, and gave me advice about my situation at work.

  “I will do whatever I can to help you, Janet. But it would be best if you talked to an attorney specializing in employment discrimination, about having these people in your office. You might also consider looking for another job. You might consider either coming back to church, so that you have a community behind you, or you might consider getting some other support behind you. These people, the California Water Front, are smooth like butter. They mean business, and they’re not good people. You don’t want to face them on your own. There’s something else you might consider.” Dad reached for a copy of the Golden State Herald, which he handed to me. “There’s this new group called ‘Mothers for Mercy,’ which wants to take down the CWP. They’re in today’s Herald. Their first meeting is coming up soon. They’re all mothers, like you, worried about how the environment affects their families, and they’re taking on Governor Trehoviak and his people. Linda Maywrot says a firebrand called Gregoria Handbloom runs the group. Maywrot loves her.”

  I thanked Dad for lunch, told him that I loved him, and I was grateful for all the sacrifices he and Mom had made for me. I promised him that everything would be OK, told him that I’d see him at my birthday party, and I said that I’d call to check on him later that day.

  6

  Hoviaks Are A-Comin’

  As you entered my parents’ home in La Jolla, you walked into a spacious atrium with large overhead glass panels that streamed light into a room filled with vivacious plants.

  “Come, darlings,” Mom said to my kids. “This is Grandma’s strelitzia, also known as the bird of paradise flower, which comes from the Federation.”

  “Grandma G.,” Nate asked. “I’ve meant to ask you: did you break the law to bring that flower over here?”

  Mauru and I laughed. Dad shook his head and sipped his Chartreuse.

  “Grandma didn’t break the law,” Jon said. “She had the flower shipped. Didn’t you, Grandma?”

  “What if it has the hatred?” Nate asked. “I saw on TV that you can get that sickness over there.”

  “Don’t be dumb, Nate,” Jon said. “Just because you see things on TV doesn’t mean that Grandma’s breaking the law.”

  “Well,” Mom said as she shook her head. “No laws, human or divine, were broken in the making of this atrium.”

  Mom pointed at her snapdragons. In the corners, where the light wasn’t as intense, Mom grew orchids.

  Compared to our condo in Rancho San Antonio, my parents’ home was palatial, and the home’s beauty emboldened Mom in her assessments of people, almost as if she were looking down on them. It allowed her, for example, to call people “glib” and not care what they thought of her.

  I requested that everyone attend my birthday party dressed as their favorite Ambrosia Skiffles character. Ambrosia Skiffles, you’ll recall, wrote my favorite romance novels, including Go From Me, Barrett, and Sonnets from Appalachia.

  Oh, the groans!

  Result? No one came dressed as an Ambrosia character.

  Three hours before the party began, two large catering trucks arrived from ConfiPrice.

  They set up the chairs, tables, tablecloths, the silverware, and everything else. They put up a giant pyramid of fresh buttermilk biscuits near the center of the atrium. The pyramid looked like a croquembouche tower, only so much more delicious, more satisfying, and more attractive.

  My kids brought me their gifts.

  There were drawings of all of us (by Jon and Nate), handprints and footprints (by Nathalie and Nathaniel), an upgrade on our summer suite in Anchorage, Alaska (paid for by Anna and Giulio, Mauru’s parents), roses and pecan pie (from Mauru), and a spa treatment at Almondawn (from my parents).

  I thanked and hugged them all, told them I loved them, and I said, too, that they were the most important people to me.

  Nathaniel was reaching for a buttermilk biscuit, so I got one for him, broke it in four, and gave each of the kids some. We were, honestly, a family that loved baked goods, especially buttermilk biscuits.

  Miguel and Dolores were the first of the guests to arrive.

  Miguel wore black Oxfords, black socks, black slacks, a white shirt, and a black jacket; a bit funereal.

  Dolores wore a floral print dress with a collar. On her collar was a pin bearing the words, “Proud Raddie. Proud American.” I loved the rebelliousness.

  It was great to see them again, and it was beautiful to see one cake enter the atrium, followed by another, and yet another.

  I haven’t talked much about my life in jail, in this book. Some things are best forgotten, especially in print. Why focus on the present when the past is more enchanting?

  I’m not saying anything incredible when I reveal that county jails in California, like economy class on many US airlines, serve the worst food on the planet, which has all the visual appeal of cooked oats and the consistency of boiled okra.

  Under the CWP, the food in all state prisons has gotten much worse.

  The other day, I learned from a lifer that before the CWP came to power, for dinner, you got a side of overcooked pinto beans, a hot dog bun with two dry wieners on the side (atop some over-boiled broccoli). With that, you got some runny coleslaw and a cup of orange juice made from concentrate.

  Governor Trehoviak changed that because, he concluded, “the idea is not to reward the morally deficient but to punish them. It’s the Right Path.”

  By the time I was imprisoned on March 15, 2050, meals had long been determined by one’s ideal body mass index (BMI).

  Thus, when I arrived at the San Diego County Jail, the guards weighed me, took my blood pressure, heartbeat, they checked my cholesterol, a nurse did full blood work, and he determined that I was “overweight.”

  “Well,” the guards said as they sneered at me, “five foot two. One hundred and fifty-five pounds. Your BMI is 28.4, Prisoner CWP820. You’re a fatty. Just nine more pounds, and you’ll be obese. The normal weight for someone like you,” they consulted a chart, “is between 101 pounds and 136 pounds. It says here you like buttermilk biscuits.” They laughed. “Well, you’re in for a rude awakening, fatty.”

  They put me on the “Right Path Diet, for my own safety—1,500 calories a day.”

  The diet Right Path Diet includes boiled eggs, high-protein slop, and something that can only be described as gruel.

  And so, I make the most of my memories, and my memories of that birthday party at my parents’ place are sublime.

  Oh, the Black Forest cake was a delight! The chocolate glaze ran down the cake’s whipped-cream-covered sides, which resembled colonnades made of sugar tears, and on top of the cake were little nests of cherries (whole and halved), chocolate shavings (curled and uncurled), and a dusting of confectioner’s sugar (like fairy sprinkles).

  Although neither Dolores nor Miguel came dressed as an Ambrosia character, the red velvet cake paid homage to Ambrosia’s marvelous Sonnets from Appalachia.

  In Sonnets, Heather Anthrum is the protagonist from abroad who, when she first meets Sweet Woodruff, the hunky Appalachian coal miner, imperiously declares, “I’ve never been in thrall to any man, Woodruff. Not in this lifetime, not in the previous, and certainly not in the next.”

  When she says this, Heather is wearing “a red silk shantung dress with a halter neckline and an extravagant white lace ruff.” Sweet Woodruff is holding a “bouquet of red anemones and red dahlias for her,” which Heather Anthrum “haughtily rejects.”

  The four-layer red velvet cake captured the deep red color of the dress and the flowers, and the white lace frosting recalled Heather’s white ruff.

  Then came the fruit cake, which made Mom and Dad smile.

  “Wedding cake!” Mom exclaimed. “And look at the gold-dusted figs, pears, grapes, and apples, Dad. Thank you so much
for bringing this beauty into our home, Miguel, and Dolores.”

  “Just like our wedding day, Mom,” Dad smiled. “The same tall cylindrical layers. Thank you so much for this, Janet.”

  I told Dad I had little to do with it; Miguel and Dolores had made all three cakes.

  The kids told us that they wanted a slice of each cake, and they wanted them now.

  We told the kids to wait, introduced them again to Miguel and Dolores, and we all thanked Miguel and Dolores for baking the cakes for us.

  Mauru said he was taking the kids to Mom and Dad’s indoor swimming pool, where Samuel and Eileen, the helpers Mom paid to come over three times a week, would watch over them.

  Mom took an immediate liking to Miguel and Dolores, which means that Dad did, too.

  Mom told Miguel and Dolores that she disliked the CWP, “who are about to establish that Water Court of theirs. And they want to ban all the fun stuff. Who on earth voted for those people?”

  “Let’s not scare our guests by talking about politics,” Dad said to Mom.

  “Oh, we agree,” Dolores said to Mom. “We are from Colorado, and they call us ‘Raddies.’ Who does that?”

  “Right?” Mom said in response. “And they use migrants and immigrants to whitewash their message. They’re awful, and I am thrilled that Janet’s only the secretary at the firm that represents them. Can you imagine the lawyers who work for them! Their souls must be dead!”

  “Well, no, Mom,” I said as I tried to defuse the situation. “They’re all good people. Even the CWP has some wonderful people.”

  “You’re just like your dad,” Mom told me. “You think the best of people. It will be your downfall.” Mom turned to Dolores and Miguel. “And how are you both doing in these times? Do you feel safe when people call you that awful word just because you’re from Colorado?”

  “We feel safe enough,” Miguel responded. “It’s just incomprehensible to me that the governor would pick on all Coloradans because the governor of Colorado made a silly decision to dam up the River.”