Byrd Man

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

Seasons greetings from 'Murica:

Fallout Factions: A NRP

Single Character Application

Name: James Wallace

Physical Description: Wallace is a fifty year old white man with gray hair, blue eyes, and a strong jawline. He is the old movies' version of what a US President looks like, standing at just over six feet tall with a trim build. He often wears blue and black suits with matching ties and pins on his lapel, the two headed bear as a symbol of the NCR and a trident, the personal banner of Wallace Caravan Company

Bio:

James Wallace is the owner of Wallace Caravan Company, one of the founding corporations of the Hub. His ancestor, Elbert W. Wallace, had a successful overland caravan but he truly made his fortune by setting up lucrative trading routes up and down the Pacific coast, providing the NCR coastal cities with the goods and services they needed. At the time of James' inheritance of the company from his father, WCC had lost some of its luster due to the success of larger companies like Crimson Caravan. Through James' hard work he brought WCC back through striking out with further extension of its land and sea routes.

Sixteen years ago James gave up controlling stake in the WCC to run for a seat in the NCR House of Representatives. He was easily elected thanks to his business and political connections within the Hub. For the past sixteen years he has served in the House as the Chief Whip to Speaker Clayburn and sits on several important House committees, even chairing the Armed Service Committee. As the Hub's pointman, James is one of the most powerful men in the government. He has his own faction inside the House that he can call on to pass legislation, and his connections to the Hub's businessmen mean that any representative or senator in need of financial support for campaigns come to him when they want to get on the good side of the Caravans. Almost every congressman or politician in Shady Sands owes James Wallace a favor, and he has no qualms about cashing in on those favors when he needs them.

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

I'll volunteer to ship with you, Pep.

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

US Capitol Building
Washington, DC

Russell slowly walked down the aisles of the Senate chamber. He placed his hand on the polished wooden surface of a senator's desk, these desks from whihc statesmen and scallywags alike sat behind. The dim lighting cast shadows across the empty room. Nigh on six in the morning and Russell was one of only a handful of people in the Capitol at this hour. Early mornings were a matter of routine for Russell when he was Majority Leader. He arrived at six on the dot and worked twelve and fourteen hour days.

This chamber was intimate; its little desks stretched in a semi-circle around the dais were a far cry from the huddled masses that packed the House on benches. His tenure as Speaker of the House was a success, but managing that body was akin to having a tiger by the tail. There was constant division between the parties and the various factions within those parties on nearly every single issue. On top of that, members came and went every two years at such a steady pace it became hard to keep track of who was who and where they stood on issues. That wasn’t the case in the Senate. Here ninety-six men were elected and stayed here for at least six years. A senator could be elected at the tail end of one presidency, serve through a full four year term of another presidency, and then a potential third president's first two years. Presidents came and went, but senators stayed. For Russell, those six years were plenty of time. He could get to know a man, learn his heart's desires, and learn to read him like a book.

For ten years Russell had dominated this chamber and bent the will of the ninety-five other men he had served with. He knew all the carrots and sticks to use to get the legislation he wanted passed. For a decade he had done legislative battle in this chamber and won far more often than he had lost. At one time he had been the most powerful Democrat in the country. And now? Now…

“Missing it already,” the voice from behind asked.

Senator Dixon walked into the chamber with his hands in his pockets. The Secret Service agent shadowing Russell looked towards him before he was waved off. Russell and Dixon shook hands before the senator walked towards his desk on the right side of the aisle. Russell followed and leaned against the desk next to Dixon’s while they spoke.

“I know Kelly is an early-riser," said Russell."I wanted to scare him by being in his office when he gets here. I got distracted and ended up going down memory lane.”

“Sentimentality is unlike you, Russ. Pining for your old job?”

“Missing it,” Russell said softly. “I got promoted off the battlefield. I miss negotiating in the cloakroom, getting down to the nut-cutting with the opposition, counting votes in that last flurry before we know for certain how the vote’s gonna go. Most of all I miss the winning.”

“Well you and your boy in the White House are gonna have a win soon,” said Dixon. “I assume you’re here to harangue our fearless Leader about putting the NEWI bill on the legislative calendar.”

“Among other things.”

“Everyone wants to look good when it comes to national defense. President Fernandez’s military improvements were a great success, and Norman was a general. He wants to keep pushing further to get us stronger, as we all do. It’s a win-win for every one of us, no way it’ll fail in the Senate.”

“It’s not partisanship that concerns me. Tell me, Bill, what are the southerners saying about the president?”

Dixon raised an eyebrow at the vice president.

“I thought those bulldogs were firmly in your pocket. Thicker than thieves, y’all were.”

Russell shrugged, “Were. Since I became vice president they act differently. I think part of it is because I’m working with the President and they fiercely guard the Senate’s autonomy from the Executive Branch… but I think they’re also afraid of what I’m going to ask of them.”

“There’s a term that I’ve been hearing through the cloakrooms and offices, really more like mutterings. Civil rights, Russ. Everyone wants to know where President Norman stands on that issue, and you yourself known what lengths the South will go to block civil rights legislation.”

He knew very well the old southern tactic. For the last hundred years the South had dominated the Senate thanks to the seniority system that governed the body’s rules and procedures. Once a southern senator was voted into office, he would be returned back to Washington six year term after six year term. Southerners liked voting the incumbent so much that only death could truly remove a southerner from the Senate. These old bulls accumulated more power with each passing year, every key piece of legislation the Senate voted on passed through southern hands either on the committee level or on the floor during debate.

The legislative Fabian strategy involved using every modicum of that power to kill potential civil rights bills, not by meeting them head on, but by grinding the gears of government to a halt. A president would talk big about civil rights bills and try to introduce legislation; plenty of it would pass the House only to die a slow and ignoble death in the Senate thanks to the southern power inside. They would delay and filibuster and drag their feet on every other important bill that the White House wanted to see passed, they would hold the government hostage until finally the president and his allies had no choice but to rescind any civil rights bill from the floor so things like spending bills and tax reform could get passed. Russell himself had used the tactic twice when he was Leader, at the pressing of the old bulls of course. Despite his own mixed views on segregation, he owed his standing in the Senate to the old bulls. He had to do plenty of things against his nature to keep the old men who loved him happy.

“Where do the Republicans stand on civil rights?” Russell asked.

“Indifferent at best. All the Republicans from the Northeast and the Midwest don’t really have enough Negroes in their state to really matter politically. Oklahoma has segregation, but we got more Indians than we do blacks. I probably couldn’t get away with voting for anything like that, but plenty of them could with the right incentives and promises from Norman.”

Russell’s brain went to work with lightning speed, running down every senator, his political inclinations, and allies he caucused with.

“Plenty of wiggle room,” he said after nearly five seconds of silence. “It could go either way if someone managed to get it out of committee and on the floor. But any talk about that bill is hypothetical at the moment. Right now I’m worried about them hijacking the NEWI bill, extorting the administration for a definite deal on no civil rights bills. I’ve told the president and everyone else at the White House they need to pass everything important to them before they even try to introduce a bill like that.”

“So the president is interested in passing something?”

Russell threw his hands up. “It’s about time, Bill. You’ve seen the news from Mississippi the past few days, Nantchez or Natchez or however the hell you pronounce it. It’s nineteen eighty, nearly a hundred and twenty years since they were freed and we have to give them something.”

“You sound like a damn idealists,” Dixon said with a chuckle. “The Russell Reed I used to know valued pragmatism over everything.”

“Well…," he said with a creeping grin. "A Norman desegregation and voter rights act means a solid Negro vote for him going into ’84… or his successor in ’88.”

“That’s more like it.”

Russell laughed and leaned back on the desk with a smile on his face while he looked around the chamber.
“Before you got here I was thinking... Remember three years ago, when Fernandez had that bill abolishing oil depletion allowance tax.”

A smile broke out on Dixon’s face as he remembered.

“I swear to God I have never seen a man’s face get that red in all my life. It turned the same color as his tie when he found out his bill was going down in flames.”

“Democrats and Republican working together to give the White House the middle finger.”

“When we were kings, Russ.”

When I was a king, Russell thought to himself. Now he was on the outside looking in and hoping he could keep his promises to the president.

****

Cascadia Territorial Police Force Headquarters
Vancouver

“Sergeant Brian Shea,” Mark Echols said to himself.

He looked at the photo of the US Army soldier and compared it with the morgue photos of his John Doe. The personnel photo was from a few years ago, but it was a solid match to the dead body Echols was responsible for. Brian Shea, according to the thin report Mark had, was a technical sergeant based out of Fort Dixon. Dixon was one of five military bases the US Army installed after the war to house the US’s occupying force.

Fort Dixon put out an AWOL alert on Sergeant Shea a week before his body was found in that field in Surrey and he left his post at the base a week before that. Mark placed the picture down and leaned back in his char to think. Two weeks in the wild for Sergeant Shea that ended up in that field, naked with a bullet in the back of his head.
Echols picked up his files hobbled across his office, leaning on his cane with one hand while the other hand worked on placing files on his corkboard. The corkboard had tacked to it every scrap of information on the murder. Shea’s photo went at the center of the board, wedged between the crime scene and morgue photos. Near the edge of the board were the autopsy and crime scene reports, both he kept coming back to over the past few days.

The only detail worth mentioning in the medical examiner’s report was concerning Shea’s aroused state. Fluid samples indicated that he was in the middle of intercourse when he was killed. Coupled with that nugget was the additional findings from the crime scene techs that indicated Shea was shot elsewhere and dumped in that field. The slug pulled from the back of his head was a .38 round in some kind of weird-ass wide wadcutter variety. The slug would be easy to run evidence against if he could find a murder weapon. At this point, there were a lot of ifs before he could even get to that point.

Mark checked his watch. It was a little after five in the morning. He had called Fort Dixon and left a message with a major on night duty, concerning Shea’s disappearance. The major gave his assurances he would run it up to the colonel when he arrived that morning at six. Fort Dixon was situated outside of town, a good twenty minute drive. Mark hobbled out the office and decided to eat breakfast before calling on the good people at Fort Dixon that morning.

*****

North Vancouver

Arthur looked at the device in his hands before placing it on the workbench beside the plastique. His heart pounded so hard he could hear the pulse in his ears. He spent a week on it, wiring it together and soldering between classes and hanging out with Alex and the rest of the Friends. Chris was gruff, but he was starting to come around to him and he wasn’t sure but he felt like Joanna liked him. What Alex was planning was… stark and Arthur was unsure if he could do it, but it was a necessary task to set up their future. The Friends were just that to Arthur, something he hadn’t had in a long time. Not since before the war.

“Still working?”

Joanna stood at the top of the steps leading down to the basement. The apartment the three, now four, of them lived in was furnished by Alex. He was cool about letting Arthur move his tools and equipment down to the basement and using it as a work room.

“Just doing some last minute soldering before I call it a night. I want to make sure it’s ready to go before tomorrow night.”

She walked down the steps while Arthur wiped his hands off on a rag. He was preparing to stand up when he felt her arms wrap themselves around his neck and her warm breath on his neck.

“Are you ready for tomorrow,” she breathed into his ear, her lips caressing his earlobe. “Are you ready to do what needs to be done for the cause?”

Alex stood and looked down at her. He wasn’t sure if it was genuine love, infatuation, or just plain lust, but he felt his heart, and something else, swell at the sight of Joanna. She leaned in and they shared a brief, passionate kiss.

“I’ll do what I need to do,” Arthur said steadfastly.

“Good. Come on, it’s time for bed.”

Arthur looked back at the mess of wire, electronics, and plastic explosives before turning off the workbench lamp and heading upstairs, hand in hand with Joanna.

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

I have Steam but don't use it much. I saw that there's a PoW Steam group and joined it the other week... only to barely get on Steam since.

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

I'll shoot you a PM.

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

Washington, DC

Secretary of State Lillian Mather read the latest diplomatic dispatches while her limo sped down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the White House. The Asian and Middle Eastern messages were the most important; they encompassed updates on the wars raging in those respective theaters. The US diplomatic and intelligence presence abroad wasn’t much, but her people did their job well and kept her constantly updated on the ever-shifting geopolitical landscape.

She wanted the State Department running at its best because she wanted to prove her detractors wrong. Lillian was the first female cabinet secretary and that drew a lot of ire from the beltway insiders. People were all for a woman running the Department of the Interior or Education, low-level posts that didn’t require much responsibility, but to have a woman as Secretary of State, the nation’s chief diplomat? That was unthinkable. What if some fit of womanly emotion overcame her during an important summit meeting? She could make the country look weak or worse start a war because she didn’t have the intelligence of composure of a man. In her best diplomatic language, Lillian thought those people could go fuck themselves.

This year marked her twentieth year in the diplomatic field. From political science professor, to State Department policy wonk, to diplomat, she had done just about every type of job State had to offer. Before getting tabbed to be Secretary of State her crowning moment had been the negotiations of the peace treaty with Canada that ended the second North American War. If anybody looked at their record and still had reservations about a woman running State then they were a misogynist of the highest order.
Lillian tucked the documents under her arm and exited the limo once it came to a stop. She followed behind a White House staffer and a Secret Service agent, her own bodyguard matching her gait stride for stride.

“Madam Secretary,” Vice President Russell Reed said as soon as Lillian entered the Oval Office. “Have a seat; he’ll be here in just a minute.”
Reed smiled as he stood from the couch facing the president’s desk. They shook hands quickly before sitting back down. Lillian took a seat beside him. The vice president stretched out and smiled at her.

“We haven’t spoken since your confirmation hearing, so I owe you belated congratulations.”

“I’m just glad you weren’t chairing the committee still. I have no doubt you would have put me through the paces.”

They shared a polite laugh. The two Washington insiders knew each other very well in a professional sense. In all Lillian’s years working in foreign relations Reed had been there right alongside her, first in the House and then in the Senate. He was perhaps the only person in the administration who knew as much about foreign affairs as she did. Both long-time serving Washingtonians joining the neophyte President Norman’s cabinet was seen as a boon for the general. The thing Lillian still couldn’t wrap her head around was the vice president’s decision to leave the Senate to be Norman’s running mate. The tongue wagging inside the Beltway was furious. The obvious answer was that the vice presidency was to be a launching pad for a White House run in eighty-eight. But could Reed afford four years in the president’s shadow, eight if Norman was reelected. He had a stellar record as Senate Majority Leader… but by the time he ran that would be old news. The only way he could avoid fading into obscurity was doing what he appeared to be doing now and act as a close and prominent adviser to the president, but that lasted as long as Norman allowed it. One slip and he could be forced into the cold. Whatever game Reed was playing, Lillian was certain it was a risky one with a razor-thin margin of error.

“Congratulations to you as well, Mr. Vice President. I saw where the bill to nationalize NEWI went through the House without a hitch. Your protégée seems to be picking up where you left off when it comes to running the House.”

“Clay doesn’t mess around when it comes to legislation, especially White House backed legislation. The House was the easy part, now comes the Senate. Getting those mules to pass anything is a tall order.”

“But I know who can get it done,” a voice said from the doorway. President Norman entered with a smirk on his face. “If there’s anyone who knows all the senator’s dirty little secrets, it’s the vice president.”

“I only know where some of the bodies are buried, Mr. President,” Reed said as he and Lillian stood.

“Just the ones you buried yourself, right?” Norman asked with a chuckle.

“I’ll never tell, sir.”

The President shook Lillian’s hand and urged both her and Reed to take a seat while he read the diplomatic dispatches she had couriered over. They remained silent while Norman read the papers with a pair of reading glasses on his face.

“The fighting in the Suez is worse than I imagined,” he finally said, putting the papers down and removing his reading glasses. “CIA is reporting the same things all across Africa. It brings up a reason why I wanted this meeting. You speak French don’t you, Madam Secretary?”

“Oui.”

“Détente,” said Reed. “What’s that French for?”

“Relaxation. What does it mean besides that?”

“I want détente to be this administration’s foreign affairs policy,” said the President. “The world is still not happy about the annexation of the NWC. We need to move past that and get back on good terms with the powers. Where would you start, Madam Secretary?”

“China. They’re the largest superpower right now, and with Spain and Ethiopia at each other’s throats they’re the only ones we can strengthen ties with and not get dragged into a war.”

“They’re at war, too,” Reed said in a lazy tone. “Let’s not forget that.”

“It’s not a war that we need to concern ourselves with,” Lillian said matter-of-factly. “They don’t need our help.”

President Norman stood from his chair and walked to the front of his desk, leaning against it to talk to his two advisers. “Lillian, what I want to do is reach out to China and appeal to their pragmatism.”

Reed ticked points off with his fingers. “We’re two of the largest land powers in the world; they’re the biggest economical power in Asia while our annexations of the NWC and the NER have turned us into the top economic power in the hemisphere. True, we have distanced ourselves from socialism, but we need to move past ideologies and look at the fact that a US-China partnership benefits both sides immensely.”

“I think it’s easier for us to call for pragmatic thinking when we’re the weaker party. China can afford to stay on the ideological high ground because we need their support if we want to step up on the world stage. But I think those ideas are at least good enough to get some kind of dialogue going with them. How do you want to handle this, Mr. President?”

“Strictly backchannel for the moment,” Norman said. “Quietly get in touch with Ambassador Dorn in Beijing, see if he can get the Chinese to at least agree to a meeting with an envoy from the administration.”

Lillian slowly nodded before she finally spoke.

“Okay. It’s a start. I’ll see what I can do.”

Jackson, Mississippi

The First AME Church of Jackson had standing room only that night. James Calhoun stood near the back of the church with his daughter Sarah and a group of her friends. They made the drive up from Natchez in James’ truck, four people wedged into the cab while three others rode on the back. He was twenty years older than everyone on the trip, and as such felt like the group’s designated grownup. Even now in the church, he was one of the older people here. Many of them were kids not much older than Sarah and his sons, but there were a few who appeared to be in high school.

A still overcame the crowd and James could see movement down the center aisle. He stood on his tiptoes and saw a lone figure moving among the people heading towards the pulpit. A young black man who appeared to be in his mid-twenties stood behind the podium and gazed out at the crowd with a calm demeanor on his face. He wore an immaculate black suit, a crisp white shirt, and a black tie. He was what people around here would call light-skinned with a dotting of freckles around his eyes.

“My name is Isaiah Wolde,” he spoke in a rich baritone voice that carried through the church. “I am an Ethiopian. I was an American, born in South Carolina with the name Jason McCray. I left this country as part of the Ethiopian Airlift. I have spent almost ten years in Africa, I changed my name and I converted to Islam.”

A bristle went up in the crowd at the mention of Islam. Wolde let it pass before continuing.

“I rejected this country and its way of life because I saw the truth overseas. I lived in an Empire, not a nation or a country, but an Empire created by Africans for Africans. I was no second-class citizen there, there were no ‘whites only’ or ‘colored only’ signs in the city I called home, there was no one to call Negroes ‘uppity’ for wishing to better themselves. Ethiopia frightens the people of the South, they see an empire ran by non-whites and they run for cover. I have received Allah’s blessing, and He has called me back home, to this country of my birth with a specific mission. It has been almost one hundred and forty years since the slave was freed here in the United States, but still the Negro struggles for freedom, struggles for basic things that should have been given to him years ago. I am here to tell you that the time for asking is over, it is now the time for demanding. The time for politeness is over. They keep us down because they are afraid of us… well, perhaps we should give them something to really be afraid of.”
Wolde took a moment to take a sip from the glass of water on the podium while the crowd applauded.

“I am told we have a James Calhoun in the crowd who had a recent problem. Mister Calhoun, could you please come forward.”
James looked at Sarah with wide eyes while she beamed. With the help of her friends, she pushed James forward into the crowd and got him walking towards the pulpit. His feet felt like lead as he climbed up beside Wolde, his hand was limp as they shook hands.

“Please, Mister Calhoun, share your story to the people here.”

“My…, my name is James—“

“Louder!” someone shouted. “Can’t hear you in the back!”

“My name is James Calhoun,” he said again. “I… I am a farmer from Natchez. For… for the past three months, me and two of my neighbors have been trying to register to vote…”

He relayed his stories to the group, from being denied pencils to fill out their forms, to the complicated and confusing questions on the literacy test, to the day before when James had passed the test but was still denied his right by a white man who couldn’t even pass the test. The more he spoke, the more comfortable he felt. The crowd helped to egg him on by reacting to his story with indignation towards the white people of Adams County and sympathy towards James and his friends. When he finished, he looked towards Wolde who smiled and nodded before stepping back up to take James’ place at the podium.

“Thank you for sharing your story. Mister Calhoun’s story is one of many Negroes across the country. Here in the South it is the worst, but every day the Negro faces an uphill battle. The President talks big about an American Dream and an American Century, but whose dream and century is he talking about? Not our dream, not our century. The Negro American Dream is apparently to sit down, shut up, and know your place; The Negro American Century will be us quietly standing to the side and smiling while the white folks make the decisions. We must show them that we have been pushed to our breaking point. This is why I am calling for a general boycott and protests in Adams County, Mississippi. The place that has seen fit to rob our Negro brothers of their dignity and right to vote will be the first battle in the war of civil rights, the final emancipation of the slave.”

The crowd broke out into a fit of cheers, applause, and wolf whistles while Wolde calmly nodded. Off to his side, James watched the crowd uneasily. These people could talk about coming to Natchez and starting protests and boycotts and a war… but none of them lived there. A sense of dread settled into his stomach as he watched Wolde fire the crowd up even further.

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

Natchez, Mississippi

James Calhoun stood in front of the full-length mirror in his bedroom. He wore one of his best suits without a single hair or thread out of place. The suit was a muted brown and had a matching bowtie that complimented his dark brown skin. He had better suits he wore to church, but those were more colorful. Those suits could be seen as gaudy, to the people he would speak to they would see it as proof that he was “uppity.”For today’s task James needed to appear humble to the point of subservient. He was forty-two, born and raised in Mississippi. He knew how to act in front of white people.

“You’re a glutton for punishment, aren’t you?”

James turned from the mirror to look at Whitney. His wife of twenty years stared at him with a look that most people would mistake as impassivity. He could read the sadness and disappointment behind her aloof front.

“Baby, I gotta do it. I don’t care how many times they turn me away; they have to see that it won’t be enough.”

Whitney stepped forward and placed her hands on his chest. They were rough hands, hands that had scrubbed other people’s floors for over twenty years, hands that had changed the diapers of dozens of little white children over the years while her own three children were at home missing her. James placed his own callused hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. She was still that beautiful woman he had married after college just with a little more lines in her face. For his part, he was tubbier and much grayer than he had been back then.

She kissed him and wished him luck before he left the house and walked across the yard to his pickup truck. James looked out across the field to where his two sons were busy with their afternoon chores amidst the cotton plants that were slowly beginning to flower. Just a few more weeks before the snowy white cotton would break free of the buds. David, his youngest son, waved when he saw his father staring.

“Good luck!” he yelled across the field. “They say the sixth time’s the charm!”

James laughed before getting into his truck and leaving. A few miles down the road he pulled over and picked up a waiting hitchhiker. Will Johnson climbed into the truck dressed in an equally respectable suit. The two men exchanged pleasantries while James drove a few more miles and picked up a middle-aged black woman in a plumb dress.

“Mrs. Tillman,” James said with a nod as Will scooted over to let the old lady into the cab. “How are you this afternoon?”

“I’m very good, I prayed beforehand that we would be successful today. I believe He has heard me and will grant us victory today. God is good all the time.”

James and Will shared knowing looks. The two men were weekly church-goers at the local AME church, but nobody else they attended with was quite like Mrs. Tillman. The old widow would occasionally speak in tongues, something that had scared James’ children when they were little. They drove from the country into Natchez proper, a drive that took less than ten minutes. There was barely any traffic in the sleepy little town that afternoon. There was few and far between that worked in town, most of the jobs in the factories were outside of town or across the river in Louisiana. The parking lot beside the Adams County Courthouse was half full, but nearly all the Colored Only marked lots were full. James managed to pull his truck into one of the last free ones for them. From there they went up the backed entrance to the courthouse, up rickety steps that had to be climbed slowly due to Mrs. Tillman’s bad back. Finally they made their way to the registrar’s office.

Mack Taylor scowled when he saw the three black people enter his office. He sighed and rolled his eyes as James and the others approached the counter.

“Back again?” he asked harshly.

“Yes, sir,” James replied with a polite nod.

“Y’all may not have much brains, but you make up for it with stubbornness.”

James felt Will tighten up beside him. James just smiled and nodded again.

“Yes, sir, we figured wouldn’t hurt to try to get registered to vote just one more time.”

Taylor wordlessly took three large stacks of forms from behind the counter and laid them on the surface. There was one stack for James, one for Will, and one for Mrs. Tillman.

“Fill these out. In triplicate, that means three times.”

Mrs. Tillman snapped open her large, plumb colored handbag, and passed the two men pencils. They knew from past experience that Taylor wouldn’t provide them with pencils and neither would any of the county employees at the courthouse. They spent nearly a half-hour filling out all their personal information, despite the fact they had filled the same forms out every time they went to register.

“Now time for the literacy test,” Taylor said, laying three tests on the counter. He looked at the clock on the wall to his right, waiting until the little hand passed the twelve. “You have ten minutes to complete the sixteen question test. Failure to complete it in that time will result in failure. One wrong answer will constitute failure. Begin… now.”
James looked down at the test in front of him. It was different than the last test he’d taken, they were scared of them remembering the questions between tests, but he knew the general nature of most of the questions:

1. Draw a circle around the first first letter of the alphabet that appears in this line.
2. Draw a line around the last word in this line.
3. Spell backwards, forwards
….
10. Write right from the left to the right as you see it spelled here.
…
15. Multiply: 2x(2x-12)
16. Multiply: (7x+3)(2x+6)

James finished the test and looked up at the clock. He had just a minute to spare. Will and Mrs. Tillman still had a few more questions to go. It was easier for James than the other two since he had managed to get a fair education at Alcorn State. Will had never finished school, and he wasn’t sure if Mrs. Tillman had even gone to school. He’d been tutoring them for the weeks leading up to the test, but James was seeing that it hadn’t been enough.

“Time,” Taylor announced the moment the little hand finished its tenth lap. Will blew and shook his head at James. His test was two answers shy of being complete. Mrs. Tillman had finished, but James could see at least two wrong answers on her sheet.

“Fail,” Taylor said when he saw Will’s incomplete test.

“Fail,” he said after scanning Mrs. Tillman’s test.

He picked up James’ test and started to look over it. James saw Taylor’s eyes darting down to something behind the desk every so often before looking back up at the test. From the way Taylor’s eyes moved, James figured he went through it two or three times before looking at him.

“Fail. Y’all come back again.”

“Wait, how’d I fail?”

“You just did. Y’all come back in a month or two to take it again.”

“Tell me which one I failed,” James said. He could feel his agitation starting to bubble up. “I mean, specifically.”

“Alright…. Number… 16. The last one here, see?”

“Yes,” James said polite enough. “My answer is right, or at least I think it is. I used the FOIL method, Mr. Taylor. That’s what I’m supposed to do there, right? What’s the answer?”

Taylor looked at James like he had just insulted his mother.

“Your answer is wrong. End of story. Now, y’all need to leave right now.”

“Can you tell me the answer, Mr. Taylor?” James asked, again not raising his voice. “Or is that answer key you got behind that desk saying that my answer is right?”

“Can you do the FOIL method, Mr. Taylor?” Will asked this time, keeping his anger in check. “Do you know what algebra even is, sir?”

“Leave,” Taylor said softly. “Leave right now, boy, or I will call the sheriff’s office and we’ll see how much of a smart-ass you are when you’re spitting out teeth.”

*****

“Bullshit,” Will roared once they were back in the pick-up truck.

“Language,” James said, looking at Mrs. Tillman.

“It is bullshit,” said the elderly lady. “Fucking bullshit is what it was. You’re the smartest man I know, James, and you’re sure as hell smarter than any of those white men that run the county, and they still won’t let you vote. Lord forgive me, but it is a damn tragedy is what it is.”

James stayed silent while Will and Mrs. Tillman complained about their treatment at the registrar’s office. He focused on the road and thought about what he would say to Whitney and the boys, let alone look his youngest daughter Sarah in the eye. Sarah was taking classes at Alcorn State like he had, she spent many nights at his dinner table talking about social justice for negroes in the South. The boys and Whitney had let her be, but the way she spoke had motivated James into finally trying to register. To keep trying and keep failing… it just… there were no words.

He headed home after dropping Will and Mrs. Tillman off. His pickup was loud enough going down the driveway that the whole family was there to meet him. He got out of the truck and shook his head as he walked up on the porch.

“Daddy,” Sarah said softly. “I’m so sorry.”

She hugged him and he felt like he was going to cry.

“Don’t be sorry. Be mad, baby. I got everything right and they still wouldn’t register me.”

“Really?”

“Yes. They threw every trick they had at me and I beat them fair and square and they still told me to go home.”

Sarah bit her bottom lip and stared at her feet. James knew that look well because both his daughter and wife made the same look when they thought of something and was unsure to say it.

“What?”

“A couple of my friends from school… we’re going to Jackson tomorrow night to see this man speak. He’s been traveling around the South, they call him the Ethiopian. He’s been talking about Negro rights. I want you to come and tell all the people there what’s happening here.”

James found himself at a loss for words. He didn’t want to get up and speak in front of a bunch of folks. That wasn’t him, he wasn’t an agitator. He’d been keeping to himself for years, this foray into voting was not him… but he looked down at his daughter and he realized why he was doing it. He was doing it for her, for Matt, for David.

“Sure. I’ll go with you and I’ll speak.”

Vancouver

“Welcome to the Friends of Northwest Sovereignty.”

Arthur looked around the small room. The dimly lit basement had a half dozen folding chairs in it, only half of those had people in it. There was Alex, a large man with a scraggly beard, and a petite redhead who kept a permanent playful smirk on her face. From upstairs, the distant thump of music reminded Arthur of the party going on upstairs. He had been there just a few minutes earlier, standing awkwardly in a corner until Alex found him.

“What’s…”

“We’re a political action group,” Alex said with a wink. “Joanna, Chris, and I were all in the same political science class and we just sort of came together, had the same views on a lot of things.”

“And the name of the group? What’s that mean?”

“What do you think it means?” grumbled Chris. “We want to see the NWC back as its own country.”

“A few bad apples spoiled the bunch,” said Joanna. “Seattle was a tragedy, but it was also an excuse to further American imperialism. Our politicians and military erred by getting into the war but that does not mean we deserve to be forced into the United States.”

Alex stood up and walked around the basement while he spoke. Arthur found he could not keep his eyes off him as he spoke.

“We’ve tried to hold protest and boycotts on campus and around Vancouver, but nobody shows up and nobody cares. All they remember is the war and the collapse after the war. They don’t remember the good times, the strong times. They all prostrate themselves before the US in the name of getting government food and used television sets. ”

Arthur felt his excitement growing as Alex spoke. For years now, he had felt the same way about the whole mess with the war and annexation, but he was too afraid to even breathe a word to anyone he knew. Now here he was, with people who felt the same way he did. They were young and passionate and sympathetic.

“The time for us trying to do this our old way has passed,” Alex continued. “We need to get more dramatic.”

“How?” Arthur asked. “In what way?”

“Alex told us you’re an engineering student,” Joanna said. She leaned forward in her seat and brushed her long, red hair from her face. Arthur looked into her green eyes and felt a twinge somewhere. “We like you, Arthur… I like you. We want you to be part of our group… but we need help with something. We need you to build something.”

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

Dinh AaronMk said
Your crime arch looks like it'll be interesting. Like a better version of what I once tried to do something about a year or more ago. This involving someone clubbing people to death with large vacuum tubes.

Vacuum tubes? My god, the perfect crime.

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

Duly noted and duly edited.