The United States of Air: a Satire that Mocks the War on Terror (2 page)

As soon as he moved into the Thin House, he ordered all supermarkets bulldozed, all restaurants demolished, all farmers forbidden to cultivate under penalty of death. By the time the Amendment passed, the Prophet’s crop-dusting program was well under way. The entire Air Force, stealth bomber and all, was equipped with aerial spraying equipment and billions of tons of the most potent herbicide available. Twelve months ago today he celebrated the sterilization of the last square inch of arable land in the country: a tiny crack in a sidewalk in Baltimore, where grass had sprouted between the concrete slabs. And don’t think he kept anything aside for himself, either. The Prophet has always led by example. He personally put on a space suit and sprayed the Thin House lawn, making sure that every last flower in the Rose Garden was dead.

I told you, I’m not going to take any questions until the—what? Excuse me? People starving in Africa… Why don’t we send our food to Africa? If we don’t want it, they’ll eat it. You know, it’s questions like this that piss me off. I’m sorry to use the p-word like that, but it makes me so mad. What’s happening in Africa is a tragedy, but it’s not our fault. We sent them missionaries. To show them a new way of life. Air-eating is sustainable regardless of drought. It doesn’t matter if it rains or not.

And what did they do? What did those ungrateful Africans do? Strapped down our young men and women and force-fed them cornmeal mixed with soybean oil and sugar. You understand? They tortured our missionaries. So forgive me when I say, if people are starving in Africa, it’s their own goddamn fault. There, I used the g-d-word, see what you made me do.

No, I don’t want any water. I am calm.

Listen, I’ll tell you what is a problem that worries me. Illegal emigration. These people are slowly destroying our country. It’s like they
want
to be slaves to their digestive systems. I feel sorry for them. This is why we’ve sealed our borders. Why sentries patrol the no-man’s-land with Mexico, with orders to shoot to kill anyone trying to escape over that wall or wade the Rio Grande. These people must not be allowed to reach the taco and burrito stands that line the Mexican side of the river.

This may seem extreme to some of you, but I assure you it’s a question of freedom. Every citizen of the US of Air is born with the inalienable right to be free. Free from addiction to food. But some people, hardened food terrists, most of them, reject freedom. They refuse to be free. I tell you now, the Prophet will not rest until everyone is free, no matter what the cost in blood or treasure.

Take our decision to ground all civilian air traffic. The economic impact was huge, but it was necessary to combat food terrism. Shortly after the Prophet took office, food terrists hijacked hundreds of 747s and forced the pilots to fly to Cuba at the business end of a corn dog. Dangerous thing, a corn dog, especially to a pilot suffering food withdrawal.

Of course, we demanded these terrists be extradited, to be tried for their crimes in Food Court. But the freedom-hating regime of that island nation refused.

In fact, not a month went by before Cuba rebranded itself the “Fat Capital of the World.” Trying to lure our tender young minds away from the Path of Righteousness and Air to the soul-destroying corruption of their beachside “restaurants.” Food labs is what they are. And they invite thousands of French chefs to come and practice their disgusting and illegal craft in these food labs. “Cooking,” I believe the dealers call it. You know, when they mix different caloric substances together in precise measurements in a metal container, and then hold the container over a high heat. Kind of like a meth lab, except none of the ingredients are available over the counter.

It gets worse. It’s not enough that Cuba supports these manufacturers of suffering and addiction. Our intelligence sources indicate the presence of joint Cuban-French training camps—don’t bother to deny it, we’ve got satellite photos, we’ve even got the recipes—where Cuban guerrillas train French chefs with at least three Michelin stars to infiltrate our borders, prepare addictive caloric substances to tempt senior government officials, and then blackmail them.

Cuba is, as it has always been, one of our greatest enemies.

And you know, if Cuba wasn’t such a threat to our freedom, the Flotilla would never have happened. That’s what you vultures in the media called it, right? Cuba sets itself up as a beacon of food for the so-called hungry, and soon thousands of our citizens are risking their lives to paddle across the Florida Straits, many on improvised rafts made out of driftwood and lashed together with old shoelaces. The Coast Guard turned back boat after boat, raft after raft, until the yachties organized the Flotilla. Six months ago, it was. You remember. Twenty thousand boats left Miami in one great pack, yachts and sailboats and powerboats, and thousands and thousands of homemade rafts. As per the Prophet’s “wet foot, dead foot” policy, the Coast Guard opened fire as soon as they entered international waters, but ran out of bullets. Luckily there was an aircraft carrier nearby, and the Coast Guard was able to call in air support. Fighters strafed the Flotilla until only debris and dismembered body parts were left.

We got a lot of bad press about this, at least in your international papers. But you’ve got to remember something. These people were dangerous food terrists who would do anything for their next hit. Like the Johnson brothers. Exactly. Sure, I know what happened to them. The only two survivors of the Flotilla, and what do they do? Go on Cuban television and tell everyone how happy they are to have a full stomach for a change. The world watching, and they stick out their tongues at us. Couple of thumb-sucking six-year-old brats. The CIA took them out. Boom-boom. Double tap. One in the chest, one in the head. Food terrists like that are a threat to every freedom-loving nation in the world.

Even tough love has its limits, you know? We tried to help them. We wanted them to be free. But they refused our help. It was out of compassion that we put them down. Put them out of their misery. It is better to be dead than a slave.

Live Free or Die. That’s the US of A’s motto. The Prophet’s mantra, too. When he meditates, he takes a deep breath, exhales slowly and chants,
Livefreeordiiiieeee. Livefreeordiiiieeee. Livefreeordiiiieeee.
So relaxing. You should try it sometime.

That’s a stupid question. How do I sleep at night? Same as you do. I turn off the lights, get into bed and dream about George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. What would the Founding Fathers say to see us now, how much progress we’ve made since their day, taking not just our country but the entire human race to a new, higher plane of existence?

And it’s sad, really. What happened to the Johnson brothers, and to others like them. Because it could all have been avoided, if they had been willing to give Fat Camp a chance. I remember when I went to Fat Camp. It was a wonderful experience.

The Prophet declared a special amnesty for law enforcement officials. Volunteer and you got to keep your job. It’s true some officers decided to stockpile weapons and cases of their favorite drug, and head for the hills. The Air Force has since bombed those mountain hideouts back into the Stone Age.

Fat Camp changed my life, as it changed the lives of so many of my fellow Airitarians. The military trainers marched us through the fields on long excursions, our mouths wide open, sucking down God’s great air. If you were unlucky you might swallow a fly or a mosquito. That puts your progress back for weeks, let me tell you. Addiction means addiction. A heroin addict can’t shoot up every now and again. It’s all or nothing. You can’t perfect your air-eating technique until you’ve been food-free for at least a month, and sometimes not even then.

Did you know that air comes in thirty-one flavors? You can have a different one every night of the week—for four weeks! Like vanilla, cilantro and asparagus. My favorite was always Mexican night. They’d let off a blast of pepper spray over the camp, and we’d run around with our eyes closed, taking great gulps of that wonderful taco taste. Which just goes to prove to you critics out there that we’re not Puritans. We aren’t anti-pleasure. Only anti-food.

A demonstration? Sure. Of course. You won’t get any results the first time just by copying what I do. But I’ll humor you. I can see the studio audience is curious, as no doubt are your viewers. It’s only fair for them to see what they are missing out on, don’t you think?

Here. Let me stand. You know, I’ve never eaten air in front of such a large audience before. Oops. The mike. Sure. Got it. Now, stand up. All of you. Stand up with me. That’s it. Now move around a little. Loosen up. Shake those hands. Good. Nice and loose. Now make sure there’s plenty of fresh air circulating near your head. Near your mouth. For instance, you should avoid eating air in basements, and in other poorly ventilated spaces. When you’re ready, open your mouth. Wide, wide, wide, as far as it goes—yes, that’s it—now lunge forward and chomp. Good. This is key. Lunge and chomp. No, no, no! You forgot to seal your lips. Tell him. Translate this. Classic beginner’s mistake. The air leaks out through your lips or your nose before you can swallow it, digest it. You’ve got to pinch your nose shut, keep your lips tightly sealed while you munch on your very first atmospheric snack. Good one!

Above and beyond technique, there is one final ingredient crucial to eating air. I’ve mentioned it already. That is faith. You must believe. Anyone can master the technique, given time. But without faith, your body cannot digest air. You have to have faith in yourself. Doubt of any kind, even the tiniest niggle in the back of your mind, destroys all your hard work and puts you back to square one.

For those of you interested in attending Fat Camp yourself, and I’m sure many of you are, the embassy here in Paris has constructed a series of demonstration Fat Camps throughout the French countryside. We’ve already begun to enroll a small number of volunteers. Naturally we’d like to see France build more Fat Camps, enough for the entire population, to help bring freedom to the enslaved French people. And I have to say, between you and me? French air is the most flavorsome I have ever tasted.

To go back a bit. When I graduated from Fat Camp, top of my class, a federal recruiter was waiting for me. Lieutenant Brownnose Lickit—I remember the chocolate-colored stain on his chin no amount of rubbing could ever seem to remove. He wore a trench coat with a tape measure wrapped tight around his narrow waist—the uniform of the newly reorganized ATFF that was to strike fear into the hearts of food terrists everywhere. He looked me up and down, not without a little disgust. I had lost two hundred pounds in thirty days, but I still had at least three hundred more to go. Finally he asked me if I was serious in my desire to enlist in the War on Fat.

Absolutely, I told him. There was nothing I wanted more. Nothing I wouldn’t do to achieve victory in that fight.

It was then he invited me to join the Food Enforcement Division’s training program. He slid a tape measure across the table with a smile.

“Welcome to the front lines of the defining conflict of our age.”

The tape measure didn’t fit, of course. It was another four months before I got my waistline down to twenty-five inches, the maximum allowed by the Bureau.

Our training was rigorous. They taught us a smorgasbord of techniques to subdue the rampaging food terrist. We learned Kung Yum Chop, an Eastern martial art that favored chopsticks as the weapon of choice. Stunt drivers demonstrated cornering at low speeds in our government-issued Smart Cars. (As part of his campaign promise to slim down government, the Prophet had sold the administration’s fleet of black SUVs and replaced them with Smart Cars.)

But most of our training was dedicated to the Laxafier, the Bureau’s standard-issue sidearm. The Prophet had replaced all service weapons with these six-round laxative revolvers. Each dart contained enough tranquilizer to drop a fattie charging an all-you-can-eat buffet, and enough laxative to empty his bowels immediately.

The day I became an ATFF agent and put on that tape measure for the first time was the proudest day of my life. The anthem playing, the flag fluttering and snapping in the breeze, the pepper spray canister the organizers let off over our heads—I was so happy I couldn’t stop crying. We swore the oath of office together, vowing solemnly to protect and defend the Amendment against all enemies, both ferrn and domestic. Together we lunged and chomped for the camera, snacking on that exotic Mexican air, and finally tied our tape measures around our waists, from which dangled our bright new badges of office.

“What’s our motto?” our captain shouted.

“Liberty or Death!” we roared back.

A tingle went up my spine as I shouted with the rest of them. We were on the cutting edge of human evolution. And I was part of that. Part of something greater than myself. Helping to make the world a better place.

No, I’m fine. Really. Just something in my eyes, is all.

It would have been a perfect day, except for my wife, Chantal. She showed up with Nathan, our ten-year-old son, in tow, a gallon of fudge ripple ice cream under her arm. To this day I don’t know where she got it. I couldn’t believe what she did next. She opened the carton in front of everyone—and put a spoonful in her mouth!

Here we were, a couple hundred freshly minted ATFF agents, recruited to stamp out precisely this kind of food abuse, and here she was, my wife, chowing down in front of my new colleagues. I just stood there, frozen, I was so embarrassed. But when she went to give a spoonful to our child, I started to run. It took me five minutes to cover the fifty feet to where she sat, the withered muscles in my arms and legs straining to get me there in time. I took a diving leap and knocked the spoon from her hand just as it touched my son’s lips.

After that incident, I put my foot down. No food means no food. Naturally, I arrested her too. Not out of public shame, either. It was the right thing to do, and I’d do it again, even if my entire graduating class wasn’t there watching me. My wife was a food addict, and she needed treatment. The Food Court judge was lenient and gave her thirty days in Fat Camp, even though I begged him to give her more. And I put junior through a kiddie Fat Camp at my own expense. I wanted to make sure his mother’s influence hadn’t corrupted his soul.