by Karl Wenclas

DISCLAIMER: This story is fiction, although inspired by real-world events. The characters are composites and/or works of the imagination. It’s also satire.

PRELUDE: August 2026

Ahmed Al-Babou drove away from the victory party in his vintage blue 1970 Olds 442 automobile, in a happy mood. He never drank alcohol, but carried a peaceful buzz in his head nonetheless, caused by the knowledge he’d run a near-perfect campaign and won a narrow victory even though $70 million in corporate-and-lobby money had been spent against him. 

“Let me drive you home,” Cliff, a top campaign aide, had said. “Leave the Olds here. We’ll retrieve it in the morning.”

The hall they’d booked for the celebration throbbed with shouts and music. Ahmed’s supporters would be partying into the morning hours. Cliff’s expression said, “Now that you’ve won the primary, you have a long campaign ahead.” Three months until the general.

“I’m fine,” Ahmed said. “You think I need a bodyguard or something? I can handle myself. I’ve done so my entire life.”

Cliff closed the car door and the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate moved from the parking lot and was on his way, the powerful 442-inch motor producing confident energy, the proud vehicle leaping onto the avenue. One of the great power cars in automotive history.

The car sped along, avenue lights rushing past, occasional cars at this late hour entering or exiting the historic road, a major thoroughfare memorialized by a Dire Straits song, four lanes of traffic going in either direction punctuated by green island medians. The speedometer showed 55 as he moved into the left lane. Ten miles over the speed limit. Then sixty. Should he pull it back a bit? A cop would love to bust him. He unconsciously flexed his biceps and tilted his head as if to say, “Bring it on.” Or not, now that he was the actual nominee. Police, like all public servants, were attuned to the nuances of power.

Don’t let this victory go to your head, he told himself!

Ahmed thought of his wife, Sharara, who waited at home for him. A severely modest but highly intelligent woman, parties weren’t her thing. In large part due to her culture. Their culture. Something he’d been both proud of and defensive about his entire life. A culture he’d be reminded of again and again over the next three months. He could see the other side’s attack ads. . .

“What the– !” Ahmed exclaimed as a large orange truck moved from the median into his lane, directly in front of him.

For another campaign, vote counts were still coming in. 95% of the vote counted, the race close. 36%, 34%, 30%. Totals shown on a large television screen at the front of the wide, low-ceilinged room filled with campaign staff. A modest-sized staff in a modest-sized restaurant, for what had been a modest campaign.

“It appears we’re going to win,” Zane said to his campaign manager, Trinity Rotissary, as if he didn’t believe it himself.

They’d dressed elegantly, for them, he in an orange tie, silver-blue shirt, blue sportcoat and beige trousers, she in a flower-patterned black-and-red dress and red heels. Scattered shouts came from those with eyes glued to the screen. “YES!!” someone said.

Zane and Trinity stared at each other, realizing it was no longer a game, realizing in that moment other things.

In another congressional district 80 miles away, near the river, at the urban heart of the state’s largest city, another victory celebration took place. A win in the Democratic primary, for a campaign marked by internal hilarity regarding their opponent, referred to by them as “The Mop.” That they’d never used that appellation in an attack ad was, they believed, a tribute to their character and integrity, as well as respect for a fellow Dem. They expressed much hilarity, of course, public and private, toward the other party and its leader.

“We beat all of them!” Dalton Norvell said in a brief speech, his arm around Darla, his wife. “The Big Money Boys in both parties.”

Dalton Norvell was a fortyish black man who dressed well, usually in purple and black, sometimes blue, wore eyeglasses– Buffs of course– and had a friendly face. He liked to appear cool: was known for his laid back personality, which he used to hide his ambition and drive, to throw people off guard. He enjoyed being underestimated.

“My worthy opponent,” he continued to much laughter, “the sitting congressman, generously called me to extend his congratulations– and more importantly pledged his 100% support.”

“The Mop! The Mop!” people in the crowd shouted in a good-natured way.

“Let’s give him respect,” Dalton said, shushing the shouts with both hands. “He did an okay job. A good job, really, considering the strength of the opposition. The pressures and challenges he faced, that we all face, that our party and our people face every day and will continue to face. . .”

Ahmed’s opponent, Hannah Gribbens, a notably forceful forty year-old woman, had rented a ballroom in the swankiest hotel in the wealthiest suburb in the state’s largest metro area for her celebration. “There’s no halfway!” she’d told her worried staff weeks prior. “I don’t care what them polls say. We got the big money behind us and we’re goin’ all the way. We’re winners! Not some poverty Democrats driving around in old cars. Not us!”

As the evening progressed, however, her worried staff became more worried. The margin remained slim, but Ahmed Al-Babou remained ahead. Representatives from Hannah’s biggest Big Money backers began to quietly leave. When the unthinkable occurred, Ahmed Al-Babou designated as the winner according to major networks, Hannah went into a restroom and slammed the door behind her. Followed by garbled angry shouts and what sounded like fists pounding on walls.

“Er, maybe you should go in there and see how she’s doing,” a male staffer suggested to a female colleague.

“I’m not going in there!” the colleague said.

Across town, another losing candidate looked at himself in a brightly lit bathroom mirror, adjusted his garish brown wig and shrugged.

“A loss,” Thorpe Skandahar said. “Oh well. Another chapter ahead.”

August 2025

Last summer Ahmed went to a local “dream cruise” on a major avenue with a car-buff buddy of his. A dream cruise– long a tradition in this car-crazy state– was a parade of classic restored-or-pristine “Big Three” automobiles. A few were ancient Ford Model T’s, but many were power cars from the 1960s and 70s with huge engines making enormous roars of noise. Outsized tires in back, and jacked-up rear ends. The cars were brightly painted, in Technicolor, unlike the monotone beiges and grays of today. People sat in lawn chairs on either side of the wide avenue, for miles, watching the display.

“Wow!” Ahmed said to his friend. “Fascinating.”

He realized this was America in all its power, glory, and hyperbolic craziness. Pure Americana. He wanted to be part of it.

“Most of these guys work on the cars themselves, in their garages,” Ahmed’s friend said. “Fine-tuning them until they purr. Polishing. Improving. I used to own a classic car myself, a 1966 Mustang fastback. One of the best. But I sold it. Cashed in.”

They stood behind a line of people in lawn chairs, sipping from cans of beer. They’d parked five blocks away and walked here, past enterprising hustlers on the streets selling beers from coolers in the trunks of non-classic cars or the back of pickup trucks. The people in the line of chairs in front of Ahmed and his friend had been here since early morning.

“Are you looking to restore another one?” an older man standing next to them in the crowd asked Ahmed’s friend. “If so, I’ve got a good one in my garage, an Olds 442. 1970 vintage. Fastest model of them all, with the possible exception of the 1965 GTO. They did a song about it! At least, Blondie did. ‘Detroit 442’! 

“Urban gray takes breath away

He wants to push his pedal to the ground

In Detroit 442

Maybe baby, I could ride with you”

The man, tottering a bit next to them, looked to be in his 70s. One of those older characters holding wisdom in his eyes, or what he thought was wisdom, or at least experience, as if that was all he had left.

“I just can’t do the work anymore. The bending, squatting, crawling underneath and climbing over and around it. Got arthritis in my hands,” (he showed them his corded, bent-fingered hands) “and shot knees and back. Shot! It’d be a challenge for you, for anybody, but not too much of a challenge.”

Ahmed’s friend had other challenges, began to shake his head no, but Ahmed was intrigued. He turned toward the man himself. “How much are you asking for the vehicle?”

March 2026

“That guy looks like a revolutionary,” Trinity Rotissary remarked to herself about a hyper-focused white man typing furiously on his laptop in a gray-and-black Yemeni cafe which had unbeatable coffee and pastries even though she’d gone there only to support its ethnicity, its diversity. 

Trinity had seen him several times already, riding his bike around town or vaping outside cafes like this one. She tried to guess his age: anywhere from twenty-five to near forty. Lean and angular, with a sharp expression and reddish brown hair. He moved like a young man but had a somewhat weathered face and hard green eyes. Intense eyes. Someone who’d been around. A worn black backpack sat at his feet. Homeless? Many people were homeless in this state. Or close to it. 

The man’s intensity impressed her. Agitated about something. Politics? The President? The current tsunami of societal chaos? One could only hope. She needed somebody. The two announced Democratic candidates in this congressional district were as establishment-centrist as could be.

Trinity Rotissary was an intellectual-looking twenty-six year-old socialist activist sent to this state from New York City– Brooklyn, to be exact– to give aid, comfort, and advice to leftist candidates in Democratic Party primaries. When necessary, to recruit candidates.

Patrons moved in, out, and about around her, so many picking up Door Dash orders she thought it must be the biggest employer in town. Blaring sun shone through shadeless windows, glaring off tables and counters. These effects added to the clean room’s intensity. Two brown-skinned men moved behind the counter, always busy. Making drinks. Serving coffee. The focused man she’d targeted sat diagonally across from Trinity, at a table by himself near a window. Continually typing. Hard on the keys. Manifesto or rant? Pages of: something. Trinity stood up to use the restroom and on her way back paused at his table.

“Hi there!” she said. “What’re you working on?”

No one in the state ran a more efficient campaign than Dalton Norvell. He’d begun it 20 months before the date of the primary election, first lining up backers, putting together a staff, then making an official announcement to snores from some, the outrage of many, and the surprise of the Democratic incumbent.

Dalton ran a focused campaign. He’d learned you get ahead by being focused. A big influence in his life was an early boss, Frank Topp, a dark-skinned ex-Army sergeant. Frank’s catchphrase was “squared away.” As in, “Dalton, you need to get squared away!”

Dalton worked the afternoon shift. “Your shift begins at four o’clock,” Frank Topp barked at him. “Not 4:10. Not 4:05. Not 3:55. FOUR. If you don’t pick things up we’ll have to let you go.”

Dalton got the message. He learned the time clock– whether an actual clock, or, on other jobs, ADP– was everything.

Now, years later, he ran his campaign like clockwork. He started not a minute early and stayed not a minute late. He and his staff were never late for an appearance, whether interview or event. Telephone calls or emails from media, any kind of media, were returned promptly. No excuses taken. Through this procedure his campaign was guaranteed to provide maximum effort. Nothing wasted. Total efficiency.

BACKSTORY: Ahmed Al-Babou

Like most people, Ahmed Al-Babou was a collection of insecurities.

Back in their homeland, his parents had been among their nation’s elite. In America they’d faced anti-Muslim prejudice which became far more acute after 9-11. Fueled by right-wing cable channels and talk radio, hostility turned into hysteria, fed by a need for perceived enemies to justify war in Iraq and other places. “Terrorists!” became the word of the day, shouted from speakers and screens. The social standing of Ahmed’s parents– obscure professors at an obscure college– dropped sharply, if not their economic situation.

Young Ahmed felt this directly in the affluent suburban schools he attended. Always the outsider. Never fully trusted, by student or teacher alike. As often as not, sneered at when he made a point, or used his inherited and hard-taught smarts to stand out among the complacent gentry.

Usually among the shorter students– but never the shortest! he assured himself; there was always at least one boy as short or shorter than himself– Ahmed adapted by standing straight, eventually adopting a swagger to appear larger than he was.

In high school he began working with weights, and tried out for every sport, making the junior varsity football team. His energy on the playing field was matched by his enthusiasm in the classroom. “Try-Hard Ahmed” became his nickname. Teachers loved him! Always sitting in the front row, raising his hand to every question asked. “All-A’s Ahmed” became another, derogatory-yet-complimentary, nickname.

By senior year he’d made himself formidable-looking enough that few boys slurred or slandered him– he’d become a “jock,” with more-formidable friends. Ahmed’s biceps had been developed into balloons, which looked as if he used an air hose every morning to inflate them. A few girls, invariably quirky, were interested in him– Ahmed could tell by their glances and their questions to him. Jewish girls avoided him. Those from conservative Republican families, many of them tall blondes, were the snootiest, and wanted nothing to do with him. Ahmed fed on their scorn.

He was more interested in the young women who attended the local mosque. He respected their modesty. He knew that one day he’d marry someone like them. Eventually he did.

April 2026

Zane Day was both less and more than Trinity Rotissary guessed when she’d approached him about the idea of running for Congress. More economically challenged than she’d known, or wanted to know. At present he slept on a cot in the back of a pet shop managed by a buddy of his. He crashed there, but spent most of his time elsewhere. Often riding his bike around town and, as he described it, bullshitting with people. His current job was washing dishes part-time at a mid-level chain restaurant, a yellow sign, yellow-walled place which tried to mimic the look of an authentic diner. Other jobs he’d had recently included car wash attendant, teaching English as a second language, and standing in a parking lot wearing a sign during income tax time. He was 32 years-old, six years older than herself, and had an Associate’s degree from a nearby community college. 

Zane told her all this at an official interview in the same coffee shop a week after they’d met, Trinity typing notes on a laptop. She’d send a synopsis later to DSA staff in New York.

“I originally had plans to attend a real, four-year university. I even imagined myself going to law school, then decided, ‘Nah.’ The lawyers I met weren’t very sharp. One-track minds. They know their law books.” He told a lawyer joke about professional courtesy and sharks, then another about a bus full of attorneys driving off a cliff with two empty seats. “Tragedy.” Trinity didn’t record the jokes.

“We’ll have to do a background check on you, you know, to see if you have a criminal record. Do you?”

Zane smirked.

“Nah, I doubt it. I’ve been hassled by police, nothing major. Patted down for drugs and shit. Which I don’t do,” he added. ”Have me drug tested if you want. Can’t afford ‘em! I vape is all. An occasional beer. So go ahead. Check away.”

She typed notes while he spoke.

“I can sense trouble when it’s coming, and avoid it,” he said, looking directly at her with his intense green eyes. “Usually.”

The upside about him was that he was edgier, more verbal and more political than she’d expected. More passionate. Every bit the firebrand she’d hoped for, and more. Once he started talking on a subject, he wouldn’t stop. His ideas were at least as left-leaning as hers. The two of them synched on their concerns and their outrage. About ICE, out-of-control technology, mad billionaires: all of it.

The question was whether Zane could clean up enough to be the face of a campaign, and whether Trinity would be able to sell him to her colleagues in New York.

Ahmed Al-Babou: MORE BACK STORY

After high school, then after college, Ahmed kept over-achieving. He worked in his chosen profession, but wasn’t happy, so he moved sideways, into administration, and sideways again. “Be happy!” a higher-up said to him. “You’re appreciated.”

But he didn’t feel appreciated. He married and had a beautiful son, all was wonderful, he loved both of them, but he wasn’t moving, as he moved into his thirties, then his mid-thirties. Time was moving.

“Try politics,” a work colleague jokingly told him one day, and Ahmed thought, “Why not?” He did well at the politics of his job.

His first attempt was against the glamor queen governor who had every endorsement. Ahmed lost big, 70% to 30%. His name had been an obstacle. As well as his lack of a name, so to speak. “Who is this guy?” was standard thinking. The loss only encouraged him. “They’ve now heard of me,” he thought. Obstacles consistently motivated him. He needed obstacles– and a better opportunity.

“Here’s your race, Ahmed,” an advisor told him. “For the U.S. Senate. The party establishment has backed a flawed candidate. An enthusiastic dud. Has the right issues for them, which means no issues. But people out there are pissed. The Republican guy is beatable. It’s winnable. People are dissatisfied. They want change. The time is now.”

Ahmed’s ambitious eyes sparkled at the idea of it; at the slogan.

“Now,” he whispered.

Trinity’s colleagues in New York City were uncertain about her ethnicity– for lefty wokists this remained a preoccupation. They assumed she was a trust fund baby, like themselves. Trinity Rotissary had straight black hair– very straight and very black– huge false eyelashes and deep brown skin, offset by striking blue eyes. No doubt a hybrid of some kind, though some wondered if she spent hours at a tanning salon, or baking in the sun, or dyeing her hair, but also wondered when she’d have the time, as she was the most active, most motivated, hardest working of the lot of them.

One afternoon in the small storefront DSA office in Brooklyn, her mother phoned their landline. “Can I speak to Trina, please? This is her mom.” 

“Oh, you mean Trinity? I’ll get her!”

Back in New York City for a few days, Trinity had to convince her higher-ups to sign onto Zane Day as a DSA candidate. As someone to put part of their limited staff and resources behind, in a Congressional district they’d written off because the race already had two strong Democratic candidates announced for it. Albeit two center-right, don’t-make waves candidates.

“They’ll split the moderate vote,” Trinity said to David Dalliger, who made final decisions as to who they’d support or not support this cycle.

The late-millennial-aged man sat uncertainly in a chair behind a rented desk in the rented office, pondering the matter for five minutes. Bright sunlight flowed in from the east, between skyscrapers towering outside like giant trees. Dalliger was a phlegmatic Harvard grad who’d learned within Ivy-covered walls how to plot every move with careful deliberation in order to ensure he wasn’t breaking one of a myriad of unwritten institutional rules.

David was hesitant. His predecessor in the position, who’d been more relaxed and approved everything, had been busted in a plagiarism controversy and forced to resign.

“Er, um, what about other races in the state? The Senate race in particular is key. Have you focused on that?”

“I’m meeting with Ahmed when I fly there tomorrow. Then with Dalton Norvell. My thinking is our candidates will feed on one another’s momentum. Having Zane in the race will draw lobby money away from their spending against Ahmed.”

David studied his empty desk, the rays of sunlight across it, as if pondering a chess move, even though he was terrible at chess. Trinity looked exasperated.

“If we expect every one of our candidates to be thoroughly screened, safe and pristine, this leaves us no different from centrist Democrats. With no one who can speak truth to power and shake up things.”

Eventually Trinity wore him down and he okayed the Zane Day project. He had no answer against persistent women. Personally or professionally. Bending over backward not to offend them meant he usually ended up flat on his back.

BACKSTORY: Dalton Norvell

Dalton Norvell’s life had been one long series of obstacles and humiliations. As a child, his family’s moves to new residences, different friends, strange neighborhoods as his family faced eviction after eviction. His mother raised five kids and kept things together, sometimes, and sometimes not. They were always moving, Dalton forever the new kid in class. He remembered walking through snowstorms with tattered shoes and gloves. Or in below-zero-degree cold under an ice-blue sky. He would’ve considered it poverty if he’d understood the concept. To him it was city life.

If he came home early from school he’d sometimes find his mom high or drunk. He didn’t judge, knowing she was under stress. She placed much hope in Dalton’s older brother who bailed the first chance he got.

Dalton remembered riding the bus to this high school or that one, sticking up for one sister of his or another being picked on or hit on. Standing up suddenly from his seat– “That’s my sister; back off”– letting the world know he had a steel backing to his nice guy facade. He remembered strange teachers in broken-down schools without heat, or with too much heat, busted lavatories, doubled-up classes, Insider cliques. Always the new kid, the new guy. Make friends then move. Getting good grades anyway, his effort showed, struggling to get ahead, to survive. To arrive.

The story of his life, even after college, for which he’d received Pell Grants and scholarships. Job after job, accumulating insights and experience. Learning the rules but seeing beyond the rules. Realizing half of life was seeing past all the bullshit generated as justification for doing things wrong as often as doing things right.. He understood but played the game, whatever the game, while planning his next move. Always pushing forward.

He was working a low-paying untenable job when he met Darla, but she married him anyway. He appreciated that. She saw his potential. She knew he’d arrive.

When he announced his candidacy, he knew he’d arrived.

Dark-haired, heavy-set 40 year-old Hannah Gribbens was the most formidable of the mainstream, save-the-system candidates: formidable in a Trumpian cartoon way. Ahmed’s primary opponent. She didn’t go lowest common denominator. She went below lowest common denominator, based on an instinctive shrewdness. Or maybe it was calculated. She had a Masters degree in Political Science from a prestigious east coast university. 

No matter! She portrayed herself as from the north woods, neighbor to Big Foot, using a broad faux-Midwestern accent unlike any before heard. “I’m tellin’ ya!” she bellowed, flapping her arms around while dressed in a costume of red, white and blue. “It’s us against them! I’m here for ya!”

Broadest message possible. No details of any program, because she had no program, other than getting elected. Also, she believed any agenda whatsoever wouldn’t work.

“We’re going to Washington and we’re going to tell ‘em and we’re gonna sock it to ‘em!” she yelled, face undergoing various contortions to show she meant what she said.

Even her make-up was red, white and blue. Bright blue eye shadow, pale white face and bright red lips. The idea, needless to say, was to draw a contrast to her unorthodox opponent, who when she mentioned him at all mangled his name and made facial grimaces. Frown, furrowed brow, mock fearful eyes. But here she was, Bigfoot’s stepsister, to save them.

“I’m more patriotic than anybody,” she claimed. “No one is gonna out-patriotize me. And they’re not gonna out-patriotize you!”

Ahmed didn’t blame those on the other side of things for their attitudes and perspectives. He knew where they were coming from. They’d worked hard and wondered why others couldn’t also. Many were independent business people. Self-starters. Ahmed had talked to them when canvassing for Democratic politicians, or for himself. Most were white, but by no means all were. Their number included blacks, Latinos, and his own ethnic group. They saw the world as flawed– and it was– and blamed this on the first available targets.

Ahmed referred to them in his mind as the “I’ve got mine” crowd. They parked inside their nice homes as if inside military bunkers. Looking fearfully out at the world through ring cameras, large dogs guarding the door, believing people from “the masses” were going to take away everything they’d earned. “Shit libs!” they’d say. “Liberals. Communists!” Seeing their perceived enemies through stereotypes and horse blinders

Ahmed didn’t want to stereotype them. But he needed to know how to reach them.

Dalton Norvell already represented the poorest district in the state house. This run was for one of the poorest congressional districts in the country. He’d realized to make a real difference, he needed to step up a level.

“I always fight for the underdog, because I am one. I’ve been an underdog my entire life.”

He said this to a video camera for an upcoming ad. The problem wasn’t his arguments or his presentation on camera. It was having the funds necessary for ad buys. Free media could take an upstart candidate only so far, especially when the opponent had available to him huge sums of money.

The current congressman for the district was a fellow Democrat. An eccentric, brown-skinned man named Thorpe Skandahar originally from an obscure East Asian country who’d made a fortune in the tech business then at age 65 decided he wanted to be a politician. Another item checked-off on his lifelong to-do list. Simultaneously he’d gone on a youth kick and began using make-up on his face and wearing a toupee, then a series of wigs which became ever thicker, lighter, and more youthful looking. Which made a bizarre contrast, because he wasn’t.

He bankrolled his own campaign, filled the airwaves with ads and basically bought the election. This time around he was backed also by Chet Evergold, the smugly self-important CEO of Kohldwahr Health, because the new congressman had obtained tax deferments and subsidies for three gigantic dystopian-looking new hospitals, built in the state, if not Skandahar’s actual district.

Thorpe had been an okay representative, all-in-all, actually responding to constituents, unlike many of his colleagues, who the minute they achieved a seat in Congress forgot the people who’d voted for them and concentrated on investments and the accumulation of wealth. Still, Thorpe was a centrist Democrat, which meant corporate, which meant money-oriented and a top-down view of the world. Which meant when it came time to show your cards he’d always backed his own class. Tolerable in good times, maybe. Unfit for times of crisis. Like now.

Dalton Norvell knew he could, and would, do much better.

“Nice agenda,” Zane Day said, tossing the printed pages of campaign suggestions from Trinity Lee and the DSA staff on the coffee shop table between them, several days after Trinity had returned from New York. “Terrific plan. But if you want me as your candidate we’re following my plan. One plan. One issue: data centers. I’ve talked to enough people to know it’s the one issue around here uniting everybody. Frightens them and angers them and unites them. Represents to them a single symbol of corruption, noise, lights, sprawl, high electricity and water bills, sci-fi scariness and rich guy greed. Data centers! Data centers, data centers, data centers. Those two assholes I’ll be running against for the nomination support them; one quietly and one blatantly. Point that out and we’ll get 95% of everybody right or left on our side.”

May 2026

“You use the word underclass a lot,” an antagonistic MAGA podcaster said to Dalton Norvell at a press conference. “What’s the underclass?”

Dalton pondered the intent of the question. Was this a “gotcha”? Why would someone question its existence?

“The underclass? The underclass is the guy I see at the storage center washing himself at the sinks, changing his clothes at his storage unit because he can’t afford rent. God knows where he sleeps. It’s two young co-workers of mine at a job a few years ago– both white, by the way– who were heroin addicts. One went into 90-day lockdown at a detox center downtown. I hope he’s okay. The other would check into the hospital every so often for dehydration. Later I discovered she came from a good family. She wore long-sleeve sweaters in summer because she had bruises from needles up and down her arms. She OD’d a year later. 

“The underclass are the druggie prostitutes who live in a small tent in large bushes at an intersection on Outer Drive, flagging down truckers then jumping into the cab with them. It’s the older woman I see at coffee shops working jigsaw puzzles until they close, who sleeps in her car. It’s hundreds of folks I met when I did the Census gig six years ago, many living in tiny rooms in large apartment complexes hidden from view, near railroad tracks or behind big box stores or supermarkets. Whole families camping out in 300-square foot studios. Or those living in garages, or in rooms above or behind businesses, or attics. Or in trailers. Or transients staying in roach motels. Or homeless living in shelters or under freeway overpasses.

“It’s those working two or three minimum wage jobs to survive, at McDonald’s or Wendy’s or Kroger’s or Target or Wal-Mart, doing Door Dash on the side in beat-up cars, with gas prices soaring. Or driving for Amazon, with urine bottles in the trucks because they’re on too-tight schedules to stop.

“The underclass are everywhere around us. You’ve been trained not to see them.”

Ironically enough, Kohldwahr CEO Chet Evergold had never been sick a day in his life. Son of an investment banker, grandson on both sides of two of the wealthiest Old Money families in Connecticut, he’d led a catered, sheltered life of nurses, nannies, and ponies. Tutors and prep school; references and recommendations. Personal doctors and fitness instructors. Had he ever had a tough day in his life? That time mother frowned at him for the “B” grade on his report card, perhaps? That’d stayed with him, anyway. For him there were two classes of people. Those in his gated social world, and everyone else.

“Why are all these people sick?” he’d sincerely asked his staff one day. “Are they faking it?”

A news program on a middle-of-the-state television station gave an overview of the election primaries, including an analysis of the local congressional race. First discussed was the Republican incumbent, running unopposed on his side of the ballot. A 100% loyalist to the president. The man looked, spoke, and thought like an automaton. His buttons waiting to be pushed.

More time was spent on the Democratic primary, with two highly touted candidates. One, an ultra-serious-and-wonky woman who never smiled, former CIA agent, was polling at 38%. The other, a rugged ex-military guy with a close-shaven head and steel-gray eyes, spoke with slow deliberation. A former paratrooper and Iraq War veteran, liberal critics speculated he’d landed too many times on his head. He was polling at 31%.

“There’s as well a new entrant in the primary race,” the newsman intoned with a dismissive expression on his face. “A certain Zane Day, said to be backed by the party’s left-leaning Democratic Socialist wing. Currently polling at a mere 4%.”

“Good photo of me anyway,” Zane said as he sat with Trinity in a restaurant-bar near the hotel where she was staying, watching one of the room’s many televisions. “Who took it?”

“I did,” Trinity said. “Two days ago when we shot video for an ad.”

She was drinking a mimosa, Zane iced tea. The room was long, low-ceilinged and sleek, like an airport runway, with motifs of red and white. Trinity, in a summery dress, looked as sleek. For his part, Zane was slowly getting himself cleaned-up. Though he was as independent a person as ever existed, the fact of his new role, the seriousness of it, was gradually pressing itself into him.

“That leaves 27% undecided,” Trinity said as she continued to stare at the screen. “We’ll target them to begin with. I’d bet that, among those leaning toward your two opponents, there’s a lack of enthusiasm for them.”

“I can see why!” Zane replied with a built-in expression of wry cynicism. “They’re stiffs. Establishment mannequins. Follow-the-rules, everything by the book. Both of them look like they were bought on sale at Macy’s and just unpacked from the box.”

While in the state, Trinity sat in on an Ahmed Al-Babou campaign staff meeting. The meeting took place in a chrome steel office with silver carpeting and a black-colored coffee maker in an upper level floor of a downtown office building. The wide glass window gave them a view of the sapphire-blue river. On the other side, Canada.

Someone in the business world must’ve loaned them the use of this office. Quietly, no doubt. Ahmed was a pariah, but not a 100% one. Someone– a someone– viewed his message as important.

As Trinity looked around the room, she recognized two of the faces as local Democratic Party operatives, not DSA aligned. They must’ve remembered Ahmed’s run for governor six years ago. Or he remembered them. Hannah Gribbens had most of the party establishment behind her. But not all of it.

Trinity had worked in the New York City mayor’s campaign. Ahmed Al-Babou impressed her even more.

“The opposition has two avenues of attack against me,” Ahmed said as he paced back and forth at the head of the room, occasionally flexing his neck. “The claim I’m a radical leftist, and the contradictory attack on my faith. The attacks are coming, large sums of money being spent. I say: good! They’re raising my profile dramatically. Getting my name out there. ‘Who is this guy?’ people are asking. It’s an unfamiliar kind of name for many, but our opponents are writing it, spelling it, pronouncing it. Promotional work we’d otherwise have to do ourselves. Like the old marketing mantra: ‘I don’t care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right.’

“The trick,” he continued, “is once they check out our campaign and look at our message, they be impressed with it.”

“How do we do that?” a voice called out.

“Bread and butter. Cost of living. Focusing on that. Rising prices wherever they turn. Most of all, health care. The demographic most likely to vote against us are the most vulnerable. Seniors. We can turn them. America’s health care system is a scandal. A rip-off and a scandal. We’ll have the youth vote. I want to convert seniors. Medicare-for-all is a winning message. We’ll use it.”

June 2026

The likely Senate nominee on the Republican side was Roger Roxby. Early 50s, swaggering, happy-go-lucky. Always practicing his golf swing. Square-jawed, silver-gray hair, he would’ve been impressive if he wasn’t smiling all the time.

Roger was running unopposed in his side of the primary, wasn’t one for campaigning anyway. He enjoyed driving around town in his red two-seat Mercedes convertible with the top down, wearing sunglasses. That was his idea of campaigning.

“See and be seen!” he told his staff, who were buttoned-down preppies who didn’t care if their guy won or lost; they took the job to add to their resumes.

Roger Roxby enjoyed the seeing part of it anyway. Ogling young women who happened to stop their cars next to his at a red light. If they were attractive, he’d motion for them to roll down their window.

“Hi!” he’d yell their way. “I’m Roger Roxby. You must’ve heard of me. I’m running for Senate. Be sure to vote for me!”

He was also a diner freak. He loved eating in diners and flirting with waitresses. “What’s your schedule?” he’d ask.

Roger Roxby was married. His stony-faced wife appeared with him in campaign videos, but otherwise stayed out of sight, spending most of her time at their estate, er, resort home, in Florida. In truth Roger couldn’t stand the weather in the state he was running in. (He owned a small condo in a prosperous suburb, and crashed there, when not sleeping at the homes of backers and friends. Or waitresses.)

“The winters here are ghastly,” he’d say privately. “Can’t take ‘em!” He couldn’t drive his red convertible around with the top down, for one thing.

But for him the weather in spring and summer, like now, was fine. As long as he could drive around in his red Mercedes. His car was the true love of his life. In that respect he exactly matched many of the men in this state.

“Hey, whaddya say?” he asked his campaign manager, Brent, an attorney friend who was mostly, or completely, a campaign figurehead as they drove around in the two-seater. “Should we drive to the beach? Lot of babes, I mean, voters, there this time of day!”

OVERVIEW

The state where these political activities took place had been designated by media experts, and in both parties by data freaks, as “purple.” Meaning, in a nationwide election the state could swing either way. Which way would determine the course of Congress, and by extension, the fate of the nation.

A northern state surrounded by freshwater lakes, its largest city was a border town serving as an international crossroads for trucks, trains, and ships. During the 1920s, fueled by industrial growth, the city boomed, momentarily the richest city on the planet, its downtown dotted with sudden art deco landmarks. During the 1940s, to feed the factories of war– the “arsenal of democracy”– hungry workers flooded into town, joining a previous influx from Europe of Greeks, Italians, and Slavs. New residents included impoverished blacks from Alabama and impoverished whites from Appalachia; a volatile mix which led to a race riot in 1943 and urban insurrection in 1967. Then came the inevitable downturn. Jobs lost from foreign competition and technological innovation, combined with soaring gas prices. In the 1990s, “globalism”: NAFTA and GATT. Plutocrats prospering; masses suffering. The city losing half its population, turned into a wasteland. Eventually: bankruptcy.

Throughout: hope; comeback; a promised renaissance which never happened.

The past: economic storms. Coming: economic tornadoes.

Ahmed had a dream about cars, of every color– red, blue, yellow, green– as if he were back at the Dream Cruise, but it was 100 times as big, with 100 times the number of cars. Like the ultimate Dream Cruise. Every glorious classic car that had ever been produced, and Ahmed was in the middle of it.

When he awoke he realized he still had more work to do on the Oldsmobile, which sat in his garage. His young son liked to watch him work on it. Ahmed had learned much from auto repair books, including an old owner’s manual, but he had more to learn. He realized an automobile was an analogy to this mechanistic society. An operating system with moving parts. The job of a politician in society was to keep the machine operating. 

He decided to take a break from campaigning for a day, readjust his schedule and call his friend Stan, a mechanic, and get the car running.

It’d be glorious.

Ahmed’s wife Sharara had her own dream the same night. Hers was more frightening, filled with storms and tornados, reflections of the hate they’d been bombarded with. Purple black clouds moved through the city, sweeping everything before them, including their house. Sharara, Ahmed, and their son huddled in a corner as wind and rain swept through open windows, all power out, gray darkness everywhere, wind shaking the walls themselves.

“Stop!” Sharara cried out as she awoke. 

She wanted to tell Ahmed to stop. To quit his campaign. 

“Honey, what is it?” Ahmed next to her asked in a sleepy voice.

“Nothing,” she said.

July 2026

In July the state was filled with bad air quality days– media warnings said to stay inside– caused by wildfires to the north. Ahmed stood outside on his back porch with his son taking it in. A no-visibility day. The smoke entered his nostrils and permeated his clothes and skin. He visualized the deep primeval forests now on fire, felt a connection with the land, nature, history.

“Let’s go inside,” he said.

A gigantic new AI data center was quietly approved to be built in a small community bordering the congressional district for which Zane Day was vying. The current sitting congressman, a Republican, was officially silent on the project while privately encouraging it. Zane’s two primary opponents were also quiet. Money had been lavishly spread around beforehand.

Residents of the community, on the other hand, were outraged. They packed a city council at which council members sought to avoid the topic, seeking to rush through their agenda. Constituents wouldn’t let them.

“You betrayed us!” a fiery young woman resembling depictions of Joan of Arc yelled before being escorted out of the room by sheriff’s deputies.

This led to an uproar. Shouts of outrage. Wrestling bouts with uniformed law enforcement. More citizens removed.

“This will not stand!” an older gentleman said as they pushed him out of the room.

It was an issue which united all ethnicities, all generations. The outrage had several causes. One, that democratic process had been violated. Instead, government by backroom deal. Second, that bulldozers had already begun work, their actions revealing the enormous scope of the project. Third, a whistle blower had disclosed that data center developers, arm of one of the richest money grab venture capital-financed Silicon Valley enterprises going, led by a trio of technology obsessed sociopaths, were to be given twenty-year tax breaks.

What was not to hate?

A gavel banged at the front of the room. “This meeting is over!” Council members fled out a side door.

A group of citizens at the meeting– those who’d been tossed out– organized an ad hoc protest committee on the spot. They contacted Zane Day’s campaign committee through its new website. Zane responded personally. 

“Let’s do it!” he emailed back.

An outdoor protest took place three weeks later. Local TV stations sent reporters and cameras. The Committee, as they called themselves, brought an array of colorful signs, along with assorted costumes and props. People who’d heard about the issue drove from all parts of the state to participate. A few score DSA activists came from out of state. 

In the three week interim, data center engineers and construction crews rushed to complete the project, to make it an accomplished fact which could not be overturned. They accomplished instead just enough to show its full outline. Its frightening dimensions and dystopian aspects.

This was the backdrop against which Zane Day stood at a makeshift podium– Trinity Rotissary standing behind him nearby– and pointed at the monstrous truncated structure and said, quoting the line circulated on social media far and wide, “This will not stand!”

Ahmed Al-Babou and Dalton Norvell joined him at the front of the gathering, signs bobbing up and down as the crowd shouted, “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! STOP IT!”

“Glad to meet ya!” Zane said to his fellow upstart candidates beneath the noise as they shook hands.

Then the crowd of several thousand silenced on the flat ground in open air on a warm summer’s day, a half-finished grotesque monument to uncontrolled ambition overlooking them. Zane Day adjusted the microphone and cleared his throat. Was he nervous? No, he wasn’t nervous. He’d been waiting for this opportunity all his life.

“Instead of making a speech,” he said, “I’d instead like to read a poem I’ve written. It’s called ‘No More.’”

“No more greed.

“No more pharmaceutical companies jacking up prices on patented drugs, or hospitals charging three-thousand dollars per pill.

“No more 500 million dollar 500-foot long yachts, twenty mansions spread across the Western world, plus one in China, each with steel-reinforced escape bunkers in the backyard.

“No more tax shelter tax credit tax exempt tax breaks for the obscenely wealthy while poor and disabled are kicked off Medicaid, food stamps cancelled, work requirements imposed on those who can’t walk because of money for weapons systems, even if there aren’t any jobs.

“No more homeless shelters closed or filled to overflow, thousands tossed on the streets because rents have doubled thanks to private equity money men invested in stock markets, pumping up the bubble buying up everything, spaceships scheduled to Mars because they’ve wrecked this planet.

“No more data centers built over national parks and natural monuments, bulldozed to feed plutocratic frenzy to possess everything. Roads through protected wilderness, mountains flattened, forests cut down. Progress they call it, as scrapyards and toxic waste dumps of discarded computers and smartphones multiply. Trash mountains instead of real ones.

“Abundance for themselves! While we’re left with nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Debts and bills. Not even crumbs of self-respect, but they’ll circulate varieties of drugs to help us forget our misery. They’ll erect gold-plated statues of our orange-painted leader, they’ll present MMA wrestling shows and Super Bowls to distract us. Meanwhile, twenty dollars for a Happy Meal.

“We say, No More! No more Mideast wars, bombings of civilians or destruction of nations, tariffs on everything to ensure prices are higher while the rest of the world hates us, though billionaires are joyous.

“No more infected lettuce, slaughtered horses or killer robots, flock cameras and electric shock gloves, the mad technological totalitarian state imposed on our minds, our bodies and souls.

“We’ve had enough.”

END OF PART ONE