The Lieutenant Part 2

When I was a kid, I actually wanted to be on television.

“And here, we have with us today a representative from the newly-created Pocket Division of the Homeland Security Department…”

I dreamed about sitting in a green room waiting for my cue to go on air, and I was addicted to really really old TV talk shows like Johnny Carson when the dialogue wasn’t scripted, when the stars really shared themselves.

“Mr. Jerry Walsh.”

Today, I sat in the green room for an hour while they slathered my face in makeup and practiced the lines that I’m supposed to say.

“Thank you. Thank you for having me, Dave. Monica too. It’s great to be here.”

I didn’t want this opportunity and yet that kid in me screamed for it. The chance to be under the bright lights, to talk with the stars, to be somebody that someone wanted to see.

“So…tell us about the new department.”

I’m a researcher, not a public speaker, but that skill must have just come to me.

“Well…we’re a task force really and our job is…as I like to put it…is to tell a story.”

I’ve come to think that to love something you have to also love to hate it at the same time.

“A story? Haha!”

“I won’t be telling this story to my daughter. That’s for sure.”

“My kids are having nightmares about this thing. Brother against brother. No street is safe anymore. I tell you.”

“That’s actually what I’m supposed to prevent…”

“Great! I’d love to see it. More police in the streets! More-“

“I mean…my task force is designed to clear up the panic and the misinformation. There have been no reports of people in pockets attacking, planning to attack, or attempting to attack those still outside the pocket. This isn’t a civil war.”

This man’s teeth are entirely too straight and for a moment they go rigid which seems to suggest he’s thinking of how to get me back. They’ve been filed down so that each tooth is the exact same length as the other, like a pair of dentures, like that prank toy that hops around laughing. His face is caked in powder that looks amazing on XHD televisions, but awkward and alien-like in person. The woman is as caked as the man, but her eyes are different. It looks like she’s actually watching me, but even that might be a trick that a Mass Communication degree can teach you. She has locked eyes with me since I interrupted her male counterpart. If it isn’t clear, I should outright tell you, I despise journalists, especially talking heads.

“Uh…”

“Tell us more about the story you’re writing.”

So now my job seems childish and cute to your sneering audience, but said audience isn’t the one who would get my message anyway.

“Well…when we talk about social sciences like mine, like public policy, we don’t have the same luxury of precision that the physical sciences do.”

The little kid in me imagined telling Johnny Carson about my next feature film, and I guess in a way I’m still trying to live out the fantasy.

“We in the social sciences tell stories. We have heroes that face problems and we have to find what might be the causes…”

“Yes, yes. I see.”

In the scans of the old black-and-white televisions shows I never saw Carson’s eyes as vacant as this. I wonder how I look, reciting a speech I’ve told in front of the mirror a hundred times.

“So…you’re saying you make it all up?”

 “No, we tell stories. We…uh…we collect evidence to tell a good story of The Pockets and how they came to be. The same way you in the news media have news stories. Our task force is trying to make the story less fictional.”

Which produces mirth in the woman’s eyes, but a stern expression in the man’s which tells me that if I were still a bachelor I might have a chance with this one.

 “So, what’s the story looking like so far?”

Like the ones who are profiting the most from the government’s powerlessness are the ones who’ve bought and controlled it the past fifty years and that same group is the main source of information for the population. Like the pockets actually have it better than we do. Like everyone needs to sit down and rethink the words “state,” “citizen,” and “nationality.”

“Well, it’s complicated and it’s not a short story, Dave. The more we study, the more we can see that Pockets like this in the United States are not a new phenomenon, but what’s changed is these pockets are not threatening to the government.”

“You’re referring to Waco, Texas. Militants hoarding themselves up.”

“Crazies”

If I were still a bachelor and did not have a child watching, I might forcibly shove this man’s necktie down his throat.

“Right…this is what we normally think of when we think of pockets…rebellion. Lawlessness. Anarchy.”

“And that’s what this is, right?”

“Well…yes and no.”

“It can’t really be both, can it?”

“Well, yes it can. Our sources say that rather than anarchy, some pockets have a local government with town hall styles of democracy or a king in a few cases.”

“A king on American soil…if the forefathers could only be here now.”

“Mostly older pockets have this government. Other “younger” pockets can still be rioting and setting fire to things, but once the police have declared the area a No-Go zone, once the non-compliance  of the people in said area reaches a certain arbitrary number, once the police declare the zone a pocket, then people start changing.”

“Did you say arbitrary number?”

My son is seven. I want to tell him things. I want to warn him. I want him to know things in advance and he likes trucks.

“Did I say that? I did, huh? Well, I mean what makes a zone non-compliant? Or what classifies as a non-compliant person? A policeman tells me to stop. I stop, but I ask him what right he has to make me stop. Is that non-compliant? Or is it more non-compliant to not stop in the first place? This was the Pocket Fever of a few months ago. The paranoia that hit Middleton when what turned out to be a group of high school students overloaded the circuit breakers for the traffic lights. The local government declared its citizens non-compliant and there was a mass exodus with only the local police to direct traffic which by the end of the exodus, Middleton did become a pocket ‘cause the local police were too busy getting people out. Mass looting and rioting.”

“I don’t think our viewers can follow you there.”

“Once again, you’re watching our live 24 hour coverage, ‘The Eye on the Pocket,’ and our featured guest is head of a new federal department to analyze data on the pockets.”

“So…what you’re saying is the government caused the Middleton pocket?”

“…”

“Mr. Walsh?”
My son is so bright. He is so wide-eyed and he is obsessed as much as I am with what’s happened. He’s learning American history in school, but he keeps asking me, “But what is America now?”People have started throwing around the term, “The DSA – Divided States of America.” 60% of Americans are related to or have a friend in a pocket. The president has vehemently declined multiple times to declare martial law. My job is to tell the government what it seems to know already. Last night, I got drunk and played chess with my son, and I still can’t figure it all out.

“Yes?”

“You were saying?”

I was saying I’ve yet to meet a group of teenagers who has the skills, creativity, or gumption to crash the circuit breakers of an entire city. I was saying it’s suspiciously convenient that the regional government’s office was one of the first offices to call 9-11 when the rioting began, but your average Joe Shmoe rational actor would be interested in a million other places and a million other things.

“My job is to tell a story, a likely story. A way that the events are likely to have happened. Through telling that story, our task force hopes to start finding the causes, and this will help in our government’s negotiations with the pockets. So we can get Americans back home.”

“The head of the new Pocket Division-”

“Task force.”

“The new Pocket task force, bringing Americans back home.”

“Thank you, Dave and Monica.”

“Thank you, Jerry. We hope to see you back again.”

Now we’ll see if I can keep my job, my cushy suburban home, my lovely wife, my stupidly-expensive car.