The French Revolution (32 page)

District 4 was a conservative district in the San Francisco political landscape, a fog-packed residential area with ample parking and quiet avenues, clean children, clean schools, clean parks. Violet Chin was the incumbent supervisor, a centrist, fond of power pantsuits and dangly earrings and a rapid arm-swinging walking pace, a mother and pet owner, formerly a competitive skier. She was a UC Berkeley graduate, a bit of a hippie philosophically, having gone to her share of Grateful Dead concerts back in the day, but above all a realist, a take-charge woman who appreciated that there were individuals in the world who would not snap to it and accede when a neutral third party politely requested they give up the nukes; who understood that some people were bad and needed to be spanked or at least scared to shape up; and in any event there was no reason to discuss national issues like military policy on the local level, because what the hell were they going to do about it, pass a meaningless resolution? She’d won the election four years ago on pledges to repave the potholes, improve bus service, and renovate the schools, and she’d delivered on most of her promises. Violet drove a purple Corvette, held a master’s in botany, and owned a popular flower shop on the corner of 21st and Irving. A few years back friends had tried to pin her with the nickname “Chinese Lily,” but it hadn’t stuck.

“She’s lame,” Robespierre whined to her executive committee, this time gathering at one of the nicer downtown restaurants, both to be seen and because their recent fundraising spike permitted it.

“She’s absolutely safe,” declared the professor emeritus. “She’s the establishment candidate. Which means you have to stand for change.”

“She’s kinda cool,” remarked Kelly, a new intern who spent rush hours twirling a STOP THE WAR! sign along Lincoln Way. “I mean, she’s amazing in a half-pipe.”

“We have to do something,” Robespierre said. All the options in the world in front of her, and the money made it real.

“It really depends what kind of leader you want to be,” observed the emeritus professor, who was feeling at home between the fine wine and upscale environment, nearly as comfortable as the faculty club. “The conventional route is to come up through committees, earning your way to prized positions through seniority.”

“I want to be the leader who stops the war,” she said, watching the committee warm to this, their bodies shifting in her direction, somewhat incredulous but in love with the idea, the balls.

“Typically you’d start with a personal introduction,” the younger professor said, “because people want to know who they’re voting for. But you’re weak there. So I think you dive right into the issue and overwhelm them with emotion.”

“You have to provide the spiritual genesis for your journey,” David continued, and she had it, the flash point, thousands of withered souls and a lifetime’s supply of air strikes compressed into a dot on her forehead.

Their first mailers were composed of photos of dead and dying soldiers, charred corpses, leaking body bags. Pictures of funerals and memorial services, framed grade school portraits of the deceased, wives and children clutching hands, paltry floral arrangements. Blood figured everywhere, matted dirty burgundy blood, bloody clotted bandages, blood tarring hands and faces, blood seeping through uniforms, dripping from eyeballs, blood washing cavities where limbs should be. Body parts scattered across sand, wedding rings on severed fingers. Beaten helmets balanced on rifle tops. Flattened Iranian houses flying fresh American flags. Blood trickling from rippled, screaming mouths, missing teeth, missing flesh, high-resolution shots printed on glossy cardstock slipped into the daily mail haul.

And what happened when children came home from school and saw this carnage on the kitchen counter, when they asked their parents what was wrong with those men, why were they
bleeding, were they sad, did it hurt? Did parents shred the mailers and flush the scraps down the toilet where that crap belonged, being totally inappropriate for kids and adults too, worse than an R-rated movie, they didn’t ask for this garbage, all they’d ever done was pay their taxes and work hard and keep their nose clean so why this in their mailbox? Did they place searing telephone calls and send vitriolic emails to Robespierre Van Twinkle’s campaign headquarters and ask what kind of made-up name was that anyway, was this a joke? Did they rant online and demand apologies, inundating Violet Chin with cash? Or did they dig deeper when their shock simmered down; did they reflect and metabolize and explain to their kids that there was a war going on in the Middle East, the United States had attacked a fundamentalist regime that had fired missiles at Israel, denied the Holocaust, threatened to turn North America into a quenchless fireball, and gotten started by setting the podium at the United Nations ablaze? That the Iranian people had revolted and hanged President Ghodrat Mohtashemi from the Azadi Tower, deposed the rest of his regime, and apologized at length, but the boots were already on the ground, the tank brigades rolling toward Tehran, the emergency budget authorized, the oil fields within range? How seven hundred thousand American soldiers were fighting a war already won, and losing it, and dying?

Frozen over the kitchen table with a curious child nibbling graham crackers beside them, these passions swirled raw.

Robespierre’s campaign email blasted a video the following week: desert footage with no music, no voiceover, no intro slate, tricking many viewers into thinking the wrong version was up, they’d served up the nightly news by accident, the omnipresent Iranian massacre splattering onscreen from different angles until they realized it was a war footage compilation and that was the point. The narration was edited out so the battlefield filled their speakers and headphones, tracer fire zipping across living rooms, detonations behind desks, distant screams in the center
of their brains. A bazooka connected with a helicopter, the rotor stripping off and shearing a platoon of infantrymen, clouds of sand scratching the screen. Bearded men dropped flaming soda bottles into tank hatches. The sky dark with metal. Panning through a hospital tent, armless Americans on thin mats on the ground, desiccated Americans twisted into mannequin poses, seemingly unhurt Americans drawing pained, broken breaths. Some ranting and muttering from the wounded came through, but most of the agony was muffled and internal, sundered American lives reaching for dignity in their most terrified moments.

Then Robespierre appeared in a somber charcoal suit, devoid of jewelry, minimal makeup, her widely spaced eyes imposing calm through the lens, shiny lips hanging a notch open, hair drawn back in a high ponytail. Lines etched into her forehead strained red.

“I’m Robespierre Van Twinkle, candidate for supervisor in District 4,” she said flatly. “Join me to stop the war. Thank you.” The slogan filled the screen and disappeared.

Halloween morning was warm and breezy, the sky clear as a raindrop. At 10 AM a small fleet of motorboats bounced through the Ocean Beach surf. The transports rode over sliding waves and puttered into the shallows, then swung parallel to shore and held steady as best they could while ninety ragtag men splashed overboard. Holding toy guns over their heads, the men looked generally military but less professional, with most out of shape and wearing mismatched fatigues and certainly not charging ahead for a power landing in the proud tradition of the United States Armed Forces. Instead they trudged and twirled through
hammering breakers, shrieking and coughing up seawater and mouthing off about how fucking cold it was. Several men launched into incoherent ranting accompanied by spitting; two emitted long brain-busting high-pitched whines. They were older than most active soldiers, but similarly unshaven and nervous, chemically dependent, battle-realistic tremors in their muscles. Eventually they made it to the beach, where several kissed the ground and a few began crying and one took a leak in the direction of a frolicking schnauzer. A bullhorn announcement interrupted, and the men assembled in three loose formations, shaking out their ill-fitting surplus-store boots and the plastic helmets bought in bulk from the costume shop on Haight Street, every one of them uncomfortable in wet underwear. They waited for a few minutes while a video team tested the live feed, trying to remember what came next.

“Move out!” the bullhorn crackled. Unsavory language ripped through the assembled forces and, after a few minutes of complaining, they began walking east. It was a grim start, their heavy heels dragging over seaside dunes, their pants accruing a dark mud liner, sand sneaking into their mouths and socks, the cold progressing from shock to body shivers, the total effect being to devastate élan and stoke hearty agreement that this was a ding-dong clusterfuck of epic proportions. Eventually they piddled over the Great Highway to Santiago Street, which was cordoned off with police barricades and made for an unimpeded if slightly uphill stroll. They stamped their boots and shook the grit off their clothes, rolling along in a disinterested mosey until another bullhorn transmission reminded them of their orders and they grudgingly peeled open their backpacks and lobbed flowers onto the sidewalks, planted flags on lawns and parked cars, pulled on bottles of whiskey hidden beneath their flak jackets. Passersby gathered and cheered sedately, assuming a costume parade, a war memorial, a movie filming, some weird combination. The troops perked up with the attention, picking up the pace and
waving, tipping their helmets to ladies, whistling and passing out cigars. For a few blocks they marched with honor, long purposeful strides taking them in the direction of downtown.

Mothers pushing strollers, dog walkers, cyclists, repairmen, letter carriers, café dwellers, telecommuters—when they saw the street shut off, the rows of damp ragtag soldiers cracking jokes and carrying toy rifles, they came and watched and called their friends. Television crews jostled for position at intersections; Mexicans pushing ice cream trucks materialized and did some business. Police officers observed from the sidelines, reviewing the soldiers for familiar criminal faces.

The troops pushed past the swelling crowd, their shot of morale started to falter. They’d been drafted from a long-term hotel in the Tenderloin, enticed with cash money and new clothes, and most hadn’t hiked this far in years without a break. They were not reinvigorated by the young women picking up the soldiers’ flowers and tucking them behind their ears, and were flat-out annoyed by the kids from Lincoln High jumping the crowd-control gates and walking alongside them in mock military stride. The formations loosened as they lumbered into the sun, stragglers from the first group dropping into the second, some breaking ranks to find a liquor store, some stopping to sit on the curb and rest a while. Three caught a bus and went home. They’d already been paid half up front anyway, a solid day at the office.