Insect Politics

A tall curly black-haired gentleman wearing a two-button Brooks Brothers custom suit crafted in Mongolian cashmere climbed slowly out of a silver stretched limousine parked in front of a historic majestic building in the Beaux-Arts tradition. The eye-catching front carried out in Portland stone, the two upper stories were embraced by an Ionic order of plain-shafted columns raised on unmolded pedestals. He took his two hundred dollar sunglasses off to get a good look at The Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall, London. An aristocratic gentlemen club comprised of the upper class and very affluent with different political views, different interests, and different professions. Senator from Virginia, USA, Charles Mead entered the stately structure teeming with an atmosphere of distinction, poise, and extreme wealth, he seldom felt on Capitol Hill.

He was approached by a short redheaded man wearing a red jacket with a royal insignia sewn onto his left pocket just below the well-tailored lapel. “Can I be of service to you, Sir?” Each word uttered in precise timing with a sing-song Welsh flavored distinction.

“Certainly, I have a meeting with Sir Terence Percy.” The senator said, flashing his engaging smile.

He was led to the east library on the first floor where the impressive rose garden can be viewed from the series of window treatments styled from the Edwardian days. No interior artificial light needed, the sunlight streaming in provided a natural golden sheen to the furnishings surrounding the small intimate library.

“Sir Percy, your guest from Virginia has arrived.” The polite attendant announced, then bowed to take his leave.

The wealthy aristocrat, CEO of The Nero Group stood up confident possessing a look of high breeding, but demonstrated some eccentricities. Revealed immediately, his attire somewhat inconsistent, his suit jacket off, his fire-engine red Baker City waistcoat did not match his more modern cut of pants, pleated with a quarter-inch cuff at the bottom. “My good man, so join us for tea. We can discuss issues at hand over the finest brew and some sweetbreads.”

After ten minutes of small talk, ’How was your flight? Your accommodations are in order not too far from here. These are two regional directors from the states, Bruce Abernathy and Lowell Gibbons.’ A tall slender older man wearing the same red jacket brought in a silver tray containing all they needed for their olfactory needs.

“Senator, are you familiar with The Nero Group?” Sir Percy asked, his short cropped hair white as snow glistened in the golden light. His thin lips opened to show the noticeable gap between his front discolored teeth.

“You started this corporation in 1992, services of catering, environmental cleaning, and laundering that now in 2010, the company possesses the worth value of thirty billion. You turn the public sector institutions into private sectors that employ workers, giving them a flat wage scale, very few benefits, and shun any sign of advancement.” Senator Mead said as he brought Percy’s colleagues to a shocked expression. They thought maybe the senator’s bold candor would offend their leader.

A tension appeared, then lingered for only a brief time as Sir Percy leaned back in his brown leather chair to break forth with a hearty bellowing laugh. “You have a clever sputter of insight, Senator! You have the look and honesty of a pretty black Irish Aine, and carry yourself like a bloody Royal!”

Senator Mead turned to Lowell with a quizzical pout, his eyes squinting, “what’s a Aine?”

“Senator, Sir Percy means a man who radiates, usually that term is reserved for women, but he means your extreme good looks.”

“Sir Percy, as more states passed the ‘Right To Work’ law, your take on big business coincides with a majority of our new policies put into motion since the Economic Crisis in 2008. I have reliable sources saying the Midwestern states are ripe for an Empire such as yours to snatch up service sectors of hospitals, prisons, and schools. A vantage point, a strategic move exists in Central Indiana.” The thirty-nine year old excessively handsome Republican eloquently explained, his sapphire eyes sparkled with enthusiasm.

“Lowell and I have been communicating with a hospital in Central Indiana for a while. They have been consistently dragging their feet. What makes this year so different?” The pale middle-of-the road in the looks department, Bruce Abernathy asked, sitting to the right of Sir Percy.

“The region once a prestigious hub for the Automobile Industry has been gutted when GM and Delco Remy closed a number of assembly plants. The unemployment rate is at an all-time low, property taxes have fallen on the dwindling residents, who desperately need to stay employed.” Mead smiled, delighted in his clever rhetoric. He noticed his audience intrigued, making some visible headway.

“Can you guarantee legislature cooperation to our distinct guidelines?” Sir Percy asked, at the same time glancing down at his silver chained pocket watch attached to adjoining pockets of the waistcoat.

“Sir Percy, I was a college chum of Senator William Morton of Indiana. He is Republican, very pliable to our ways of thinking about big business. The other senator is Democrat Andrew Fischer who can be overruled by the seven district Republican Congressmen and women.” Mead concluded, choosing every word to bring the wealthy gargoyle in for the kill. He rewarded himself by greedily gorging himself on the buttery square cake-like bread.

“Bruce, you can give Senator Mead the check now.” Sir Percy said, finishing up his sweetbread dripping in honey. He smiled noticing the senator’s wild look at the two million dollar figure on the check. “My good man, this is for your upcoming re-election campaign. Ironically, your government is embracing King George III’s past regime after all, a turn around. I should say, what!”

Beautifully timed, the white-haired attendant returned to clear the table with the business matters at a close. “Chester, this is for your trouble.” Sir Percy said, handing Chester a hundred dollar bill.

Taken aback, Mead was shocked and impressed at the excessive gesture. “That is the height of service. The last tip I left was to a waiter in Georgetown, a twenty. My wife and I were dining with a table of eight.”

“Free enterprise is such a gas! When you’ve got it, you can afford to be excessive.” Lowell Gibbons, a blonde youthful executive spoke for the first time. Gibbons wrapped up the essence of the meeting in just two short sentences.

Most men seated around the rich dark brown mahogany Queen Anne table were under the age of forty, except for Sir Percy, celebrated his sixty-fourth birthday in February. Three Americans given over to the concept of extreme greed, thinking their stand was good for the country and the people. Sir Terence Percy, a most historical Englishman was a distant relative of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, Anne Boleyn’s former suitor pre-Henry VIII. It was evident to everyone in the club library, Sir Percy was no stranger to the depraved practices followed down through the British Royal Line of Kings. This aristocrat turned successful businessman possessed immense pride at heading an Empire lording over hard working people who would do anything to keep their jobs.

He firmly believed he was helping his thousands of workers to continue in their chosen livelihoods. In truth, Sir Terence Percy was an egotistical tyrant with no conscience as to how much he economically abused those on the lowest part of the corporate ladder. For the last two decades large overseas European and Asian corporations, huge conglomerates held the everyday worker to a spiral of need that few could get out of its sinister clutches.

Ava Hester struggled to push her cleaning cart down the winding corridors of St. John’s Memorial Hospital’s massive basement. With each ascending step forward maneuvering a heavy loaded metal cart, pain gripped her pelvic area traveled on into her inner thighs. Perpetual agony seized her fifty-nine year old frame, as though she had undergone the gruesome torture device prevalent during England’s reign of the Tudor Dynasty, the Rack.

There was no time to be giving in to her immediate malady, she had her orders from radio message from her supervisor, Mitch Fareway. He wanted her to check the recently cleaned dismissal rooms on 6South to inspect the work. Despite the difficulty her hips letting out a muffled popping sound underneath her navy blue scrubs, she slid into the basement Elevator 11 like a graceful dancer. Taking a deep breath, “Well, it’s gone for now, Thank You, God!” Ava spoke out only herself to hear. The time was seven-fifty p.m.

She parked her cart close to the service elevators nestled in front of the locked janitor closet. Marilyn, a friendly mature large brown-eyed African American floor secretary manned the floor’s front desk. The nurses and nurse attendants behind her were taking a break eating and laughing during their Friday night pitch-in.

“Hey, Marilyn, how’s tricks?” Ava asked as she glanced over the Environmental Tally Book. Marilyn chuckled, then filled her in. “You will see, your gals got to ten dismissals in record time. We seem to be good for now.”

Ava made her way to Room 631, the first of the rooms to inspect for the nightly quota. Passing Room 601, a lingering foul odor hit her in the face. She heard a squeaky wilting voice, ’nurse, help me! I had an accident, nurse!”

What the Environmental Senior Housekeeper discovered in 601 caused all her senses to react in a silent revulsion. There laid an elderly woman appeared so frail, as a victim of the German concentration camps during the Holocaust in World War II. The sight on the sheets and the odor explained shockingly why the poor woman was in such distress. The sheet underneath her ruffled soiled gown was soaked in watery feces, and making its descent to the floor under her bed. Ava, despite the ever-increasing mess moved closer to the woman’s face to hear her better. “My bag burst. I’ve been laying here for what seems like hours.”

The patient’s eyes were sunken in. Ava could make out a faint filmy color of hazel. Suddenly, looking deeper at this woman, she knew who she was. Beatrice Tibbitts, the author of mysteries that had received widespread notoriety for the last three decades. Her connection to this woman brought her back to when her children were in high school. She took a creative writing course from Mrs. Tibbitts.

“Mrs. Tibbitts, I will get you help. Just hang on, one moment.” Ava pleaded, then raced to the Nurses’ Station. Typical everyone on staff still gorging themselves on Buffalo wings, loaded baked potato skins, and carrot cake.

“Look, Beatrice Tibbitts in Room 601 needs help, Stat! She’s been lying in her excrement for hours!” Ava shouted above the endless chatter and annoying female cackles of laughter. Marilyn was the only person to reassure Ava was well among her rights to shout at them. “Is there anything I can do?”

After two corpulent nurse attendants in red violet skin-tight scrubs moved toward Room 601, Ava grabbed her cart. Beatrice, weak as she proved to be, with assistance was able to make it to the shower for a ‘sits bath.’ Ava cleaned every crevice and surface in the small patient room that was affected by the fecal material. Beatrice was put back in her cleaned bed, freshened by Marilyn putting on white laundered sheets and a clean lightweight comforter. The foul air in the room much vacated, Beatrice’s tubing changed and secured. She began to recognize her savior. “Ava Hester, are you still writing?” She asked as she enjoyed a glass of cold water.

“Yes, I am. Not getting published, my daughter Betsy is an executive for LittleJohn, a high-end publishing house in San Francisco. I’ve sent her finished manuscripts for three years now, no favorable response.” Ava said as she pulled one of the room chairs closer to Beatrice’s bed.

Beatrice laid there, her eyes stared hard at Ava. “My dear, have you ever heard of ‘Insect Politics’? Survival of the Fittest, the infirmed and the elderly are to be systematically wiped out, much like the brutal insect species in nature.” Ava sat there taken quite aback with the strange term. Beatrice continued, slightly changing the subject. “Keep writing, you are strong enough to tell the story. I remember, you had promise.” She said then lowered her head and closed her eyes into an exhausted repose.

Evening shift over, the shock of seeing her former writing teacher in such a state deeply disturbed Ava. A puzzlement developed on the ride home, Beatrice probably in the last stages of bowel cancer plagued by confusion from all the medicine she was under. Her body totally taken over by the disease emaciated beyond reason but her mind seemed intact, her words rang with the intelligence that made her a well-known and accomplished writer.

Reaching her small house, Ava was in no mood for late night talk shows and cable movies. She climbed into her warm soft bed shifting her morbid thoughts to remembering a better time when she worked at Foster High School. The atmosphere there was extremely uplifting; teachers, other fellow custodians, and office personnel collectively possessed goals to make the learning environment for the students the best it could be. There was Dalton Lazenby.

In 2004 when Ava could get away with looking younger than her years, ‘a hot n’ tasty cougar’, forty-nine year old strawberry blonde with sexy green eyes and sex appeal, even in worn-out jeans. Dalton put it once, ‘could make a preacher throw away his principles.’ The high school groundskeeper possessed the occupational hazard of being perpetually dirty and disheveled most of the time. When he cleaned up, his ruddiness gave him a very appealing quality. His face looked leathery from the consistent exposure to the outside elements. When he would lean in close to kiss Ava, she enjoyed looking into his sensual green eyes.

Their intimate moments were dominated by his tender touch around her breasts, abdomen, and inner thighs. The touching and kissing went on for hours, surprisingly, he didn’t have to enter her for Ava to reach a full orgasm or two. As in every ill-fated risky love affair there were two factors that tore them apart. One was his wife of twenty-eight years, and two, Ava’s love of independence, which kept her from promising Dalton a firm commitment.

As she drifted from her memories of supreme passion, the term ‘Insect Politics’ invaded her bedtime fantasy. It was two a.m., sleep came upon her as a heavy drug paralyzing every appendage. She would search for the disturbing set of words Beatrice uttered tomorrow. Saturday was allocated to spend the afternoon at the Foster Public Library. In spite of the insipid chatter from children roaming around with no supervision, Ava had mastered the art of complete concentration.

Home for Ava was a two-bedroom rental built back in the last century during the Great Depression in the 1930s. The white painted wood-framed exterior showed cracking mostly towards the back of the house. The advantages to this small dwelling were two-fold; the rent was very reasonable and the serenity of the quiet tree-lined neighborhood on the dead-end street of East Oak. Her two children, Betsy and Ryan, two years apart were in their twenties, very well established in their careers of choice. Ryan due to call this weekend was a zoologist taking up temporary residence in West Palm Beach, Florida, close to his father, Jack Hester. Betsy, junior executive in publishing adored the fascinating allure of San Francisco working at the prestigious LittleJohn.

Ava’s mothering skills were much more in tune with meeting the specific needs of her children. Her wifely role was another matter entirely. She froze out a perfectly loving husband. For the only explanation that made sense only to her, a constant nagging of being smothered. She woke to making sure the coffee was on, filing away in her mind the projects of the weekend. This practice kept her mind from dwelling on the loneliness as a solitary woman of her own making.

The phone rang. To her delight, it was Ryan. “Hey, there, how’s it going?” He asked, his deep voice acting as an emotional balm she needed every now and then.

“You know me, sweetie. I’m not happy unless I work my body to the point of decrepitude. Hey, by the way, I heard the term ‘Insect Politics’ last night. I cannot get it out of my head.”

“The film, The Fly, Jeff Goldblum’s character mentioned it as he was turning into the insect. Insects with no basis for ethics exist in their brutal community of ‘Survival of the Fittest’. Large groups of workers eat, breed, and survive for the stronger few. The weak or sick are quickly eliminated.” He spoke as though he was giving a lecture for college students.

“Why bring it up?”

“Beatrice Tibbitts, the mystery writer that influenced me to take up writing is dying of cancer. I helped her get cleaned up last night. The nursing staff was feeding their faces while she sat in her own mess for hours. Ryan, her appearance was ghastly. She had been such a hearty handsome woman. Before I left her room, she mentioned exactly what you just said.” Ava said, holding back falling tears for her mentor.

“You know, Mom, why don’t you look into that. You could possibly write about it.” Saying that, he faded some, talking to a female voice in the background.

“Mom, sorry to cut this short. Da’nai has been after me to take her to Sebastian. Love you, and really, look into it.” His parting words convinced her last night’s disturbing encounter could have some future purpose.

In rapid succession, she received another call while her coffee mug became empty. “Hey, best friend, I’ve got my social security check. I feel like hitting the slot machines. Are you in?” Kate Moody cajoled, Ava’s longtime friend. She persuaded the writer to beg off the library for a guilty pleasure.

Overtime pay made it possible for her to withdraw some funds without disturbing her monthly expenses. “I’ll be at your place about two.”