Smoke & Mirrored Screens

February 12, 2024

Las Vegas, Nevada

Something in my look triggered Hank to preempt. “That’s need-to-know,” he said.

I said, “Maybe we have a problem then. I need to know, at a minimum, that the ultimate beneficiary is domestic and not foreign-controlled. Also, of course, that the op is not part of a plot to overthrow our government.”

Hank’s gimlet eye held a glimmer of amusement. “The funds are one-hundred percent from a bonafide legal U.S. entity. Its overarching goal is to protect the U.S. government from all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

“To our Constitution, then” I said, raising my beer and tilting it toward him in salute, “and the oath we swore to uphold it.”

Hank nodded and lifted his flavored mineral water before throwing back a final quaff. With some effort, owing to his girth and the overly deep chair he had sunk into, he staggered to his feet. “One more?” he asked.

“No thanks. I have another question.”

He remained standing two feet in front of me, shifting his weight to steady himself, staring down over his wide nose and several chins. I flashed again on how much he’d grown to resemble Krock's attorney general, Will Weinstube, that rotund human hedgehog. Maybe it was the roundish spectacles. I flashed on the horrible thought that Hank, as a boy, may have resembled Harry Potter.

“I’m wondering who else you considered for this, and what I don’t know about the risks.”

Hank’s mouth winced ever so slightly into that self-pleasuring wisp of a smile. He nodded as his eyebrows shot up for a second. “I had a list, but it was short,” he said. “Your name was at the top. Relish that thought, or ponder whether it’s really true, while I take a break.”

He turned and waddled across the expansive suite, headed for the bathroom. I finished my beer with a long chug and put the empty on the low coffee table. I stood up and arched my back carefully, fearing my posture in that overly soft chair might have set me up for a lower back attack. I moved clumsily around the table over to the wall-to-wall window. I stared glumly out the sliding glass door, past the transparently illuminated reflection of the luxurious room. I couldn’t imagine paying what somebody was paying for this. All I ever needed was a warm bed, a bathroom with an unclogged toilet, and a roof that didn’t leak. When I’d told Hank where I was staying at breakfast this morning, he nearly sprayed his gulp of weak coffee.

He’d said, “There’s no per diem, Owen. I didn’t put a limit on the ‘all expenses paid’ for good reason. I know what a cheapskate you are.”

Frugal, I thought to myself, and prudent. The Vegas strip glittered below me. Traffic crept along, the dark shapes of cars and buses nudging through the dimly lit tunnel created by street lights. Even at this hour, the city thrummed. The post-Super Bowl celebrations would go on till dawn. Down there, under mingling pools of neon light, clusters of people moved urgently to the next party. What a game. What a wild climax, and now the winding down: Drinking, gambling, laughing, weeping at slot machines. Fucking too of course. Plenty of that. Lots of guys trying to climax before passing out while their partners wondered which was going to happen first.

“A gold chip for your thoughts,” Hank said, sidling next to me. He gazed out. “She’s gorgeous at night,” he said. “But when you step outside tomorrow, the decrepit old crone will be back.”

“Hoping you’ll put a green chip in her palm,” I said.

“True that,” he muttered. He turned away and lumbered back to the chair.

I rolled the office chair from the little desk in the corner over and sat down on it, facing him. “Trying to ward off a back attack,” I said. I pressed my lower back against the lumbar support and felt the tense muscles relax a bit.

“The risks?” I said.

He shrugged. “We’ll be operating well within federal, state, and local laws. Wisconsin is one-party consent. And you’ll be deep cover. The least likely to be suspected of anything.”

“No dirty tricks?”

“Absolutely not. Our recruits will be doing what they’d be doing anyway as delegates and volunteers. Schmooze, gossip, eavesdrop, taking selfies, loads of selfies! Also recording convos that seem like they might be worth sending to you. Or just bullet points. Your job to work out the technical details. Intel hunter-gatherers.”

I stared back at him, letting the skeptical cast of my face soften a little. “Who’s letting them know where to direct their attention?”

“I will. We will. I’ll tell you about my co-director in a bit. The recruits won’t know who you are. You won’t know who they are either, ideally. We’ll know who they are. But once you set up the system, we’ll only communicate about the op through you.”

System? I flashed on a system some tech firm had developed. I’d signed up to be a beta tester. It collected tweets in real time with geolocation markers. You could create a filter and see the text bubbles pop up all over a defined area of a map on your screen. But it quickly became a chaotic jumble. I must have looked skeptical again.

“You’ll have to take my word for it,” Hank said. “This op is the political equivalent of HUMINT. It’s definitely not opposition research. Opposition is futile at this point. It’s opportunity research. We’ll recruit eyes and ears among delegates, volunteers, maybe some host committee staff. You’ll be collecting and curating data, taking a first cut at making sense of it. Possible trends, early warnings.”

“What kinds of opportunity do you have in mind?”

“Who we can work with. Who do we need to fear. What factions are competing in his inner circle. Who has the most time whispering in Caca Grande’s ear. Who should we get behind for VP? I’m convinced Anika will drop out no later than March 6, guaranteed. Right now we expect she’ll be at the convention, fighting the good fight, or kissing his hairy ass with sufficient fervor to be a possible VP pick. Then there’s the platform. The 2016 document has to change, but they’ll want to avoid any possibility of a floor fight. It’s not clear they can pull that off if they plagiarize from the Pilgrim Foundation’s EOP 2025. That will be my focus on the platform committee: keeping that manual for how to impose a dictatorship out of the platform, or with only a few draconian commitments so ambiguously worded the media will ignore them.”

He stopped and seemed to withdraw his gaze inward. “Some have argued we should let the libertarians and theocrats fight it out in the platform committee. You know, if the theocrats win that fight it might just lose Krock the election. Their thinking is that we don’t want him to win. We just want to be ready to salvage and rebuild the party after he loses.”

“I get it,” I said. “I would pray we don’t win. If I still believed in a Supreme Being who cares more about the human race than the planet we’re intent on destroying.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, brother Owen. I think there’s a better than even chance Krock will pull off another squeaker in a handful of states. So we’re looking for ways to burrow deep and bide our time. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to help save our constitutional democratic republic from the Christian nationalists.”

“I can’t see him picking another Sunday School teacher VP. He couldn’t lose those voters unless they’re all raptured before the election. He needs the do-re-mi. I think he’ll give it to the highest bidder.”

Hank said, “He might. I’m sure Ramesh has discussed a ballpark figure, and Krock has encouraged higher bids from Dewar and other billionaires backing someone on the short list.”

I said, “One billion, going once. Do I hear two billion? He could get away with it. His acolytes would cheer him on and jeer at the liberals’ outrage. The media would act aghast for one round of Sunday talk shows, and then normalize it like they've done with all his other bullshit.”

Hank chuffed disgustedly. “I expect he’ll keep teasing the media with VP possibles. He loves to lord it over his chosen ones at rallies. Put them through their paces. See how the fans react.”

Hank patiently waited for my response. I had none. “So,” he said, “enough of that. If you’re on board, you can start right away. Money is no obstacle, but time is of the essence.”

We both knew I was going to agree.

Honestly, I didn’t do it just for the bitcoin windfall. I had a muddled cocktail of reasons. Three years into retirement from a second career and two years after my wife of forty years lost her battle with breast cancer, I had begun to feel moribund as a daily norm. My plan had been to live near the links in San Diego and fill my days with a blend of golfing, sailing, wining and dining at the country club. Oh, and trying out this or that volunteering gig, because Stacy would sign me up. The retirement fantasy vanished when Stacy got her diagnosis. I accelerated my departure from the Fortune 100 firm I was working for in Los Angeles and moved us to Utah to be near Stacy’s sisters and cousins.

For most of my adult life, I identified as a “traditional conservative,” but more the small government, balanced budget type than moral majority, law and order obsessed. For about twenty years, I voted almost exclusively for the Constitutional Order Patriots candidates but sometimes voted for a candidate from the the Libertarian Party and very rarely for someone put up by the United Diversity Party. As I got older, my split-ticket votes happened more and more often. They became frequent when the COP Party decided to obstruct and undermine instead of reaching compromises with the other team to solve problems.

After the election of America’s first Black president, it seemed to me the COPP decided it couldn’t win on ideas anymore. It gave up on fair and square and compromise. It focused on leveraging its advantage in the Senate and the Electoral College to seek permanent dominance while fearing it was doomed to become a permanent minority of the population. In the fall of 2015, I watched with dismay and incredulity as the buffoonish orange-faced ringmaster completely dommed the bullshit circus on that ridiculously crowded stage. I ended up voting for Basich in the primary, but I lied about it on the links. Told my buddies I didn’t vote. Acted as though I’d washed my hands of politics.

In 2016, Stacy declared herself ex-COPP and voted for the UDiv's nasty woman. Stacy got pissed at me for not voting that fall, nagging me about Kingsley Ernest Krock’s most talked-about “he’s really crossed the line this time” statements. So many of his provocative statements were seriously revolting—worse to my thinking than the zillion little lies that anybody with any brains could see were lies. The sprinkled-in eye-popping opinions revealed what he genuinely believed, showed how deep his hatred and ignorance truly were. But the most reprehensible opinions were eventually shrugged off, put in in the same bucket with all his silly daily lies by the righteously establishment COPP leaders and pundits. Meanwhile, Faux News dropped its lover’s spat with him and became the 24/7 echo chamber of incessant falsehoods and hate mongering.

I’m ashamed to say I joined the millions of disgusted addicts, doom scrolling every spare minute of my day during his first year in office, and then gradually, with Stacy’s help, learning to tune out the daily dread and fascination generated by the media. Emotionally, I felt like a border-line alcoholic cutting back to a couple drinks a day.

My family roots are in the Deseret Church of Jesus Christ of End Times Believers. I’ve met our once heroic presidential candidate at several social functions over multiple decades. Big whoop. I’m sure he has no reason to remember me. I was so glad he won that Senate seat in 2018, though I couldn’t vote for him. I skipped that election too but got some satisfaction from seeing Orange County, where I then lived, turn blue. I began to hope the UDivs would get their act together, finally, and create a succession plan to replace their geriatric leadership.

Anybody could see that Krock was going to be hard to beat if the UDivs could not discover another candidate with Berryman’s charisma. I thought our governor might have been Berryman’s heir, but his timeline wasn’t in sync with my fantasies. He stepped up from sub gov to governor in January 2019, so getting into the race for prez would have been premature. And by the end of that year, the COPP had started a recall petition. It would have fallen way short of the signatures required had not the pandemic intervened, giving some judge an excuse to extend the petition’s filing deadline, and giving voters plenty to get pissed off about, what with lockdowns and mask mandates.

Stacy and I were dealing with a boatload of hard luck about that time. Going to chemo infusions in a homemade mask and counting all the noses sticking over the blue medical masks. Anyway. Easy to get sidetracked remembering our daily stress through 2020, our private mundane struggle overwhelmed at times by the nation’s drawn-out trauma. When I watched the videotape of that hatless uniformed cop with the bootcamp haircut, his knee firmly planted on that Black man’s neck, that fiercely calm murderer’s face staring defiantly right at the citizen-with-a-smartphone, I thought: He fucking knows he’s killing the guy. And he’s daring anyone to do anything about it. Who’s gonna stop me? was the question I saw in his eyes. I swear, at that moment I was sure he was also saying, I’m with Krock. Who’s gonna stop me?

I about converted to libtard wokeism right then and there. What saved me was what some poet called “Love’s austere and lonely offices.” I had to turn off the TV and drive Stacy to her next infusion.

I stood before the window in my somewhat less expensive Vegas hotel room, my gaze drawn downward to the mesmerizing light-show of the huge dome-shaped high-definition screen dubbed Sphere. It was the latest eye candy on the strip. I couldn’t stop watching its prest-o change-o visual shenanigans, colored lights programmed to shape-shift in nonstop display of hyperactive animation, a mix of visual artistry and marketing kitsch.

My mood shifted as suddenly as the images formed by a million LED lights. I imagined Stacy looking over my shoulder. She would have said it was silly, and the perfect landmark for Vegas. It had cost over two billion dollars. An easy number to remember: two billion. A million two thousand times. The most expensive construction project in the city’s history. I had also read somewhere that the Statue of Liberty could fit inside it.

I felt the heavy pull of nostalgia and grief and wallowed in it awhile. But tired as I was I didn’t feel the gloom had a tight grip. I had committed to a gig that was a good fit for my skillset and experience. I was the right guy in the right place at the right time, with the right friend. And as I stood there, gazing at Sphere, that gigantic half-buried golfball flashing goofy visuals across its million or so lights, ideas for new tech and nifty gadgets I could now purchase and play around with dispelled the familiar fog of depression.

The urge to dive headfirst into a welter of planning Q&A tempted me to open my laptop. But dawn was two hours away, and I knew I needed a few hours of shuteye. I hadn’t drunk much at the game or after with Hank at a bar and then his suite. But I was exhausted. Attending the game was the first time I’d been part of a crowd since March 2020.

I closed the blackout curtains and made my way to the bed. I lay down, willing my mind to stay blank after closing my eyes. But I could still see the ghostly image of Sphere’s shape-shifting light show. It froze into the bright yellow smiley face emoticon. That made me smile, and for the first time in a long while, I felt it might be possible for me to be happy again.