299 Days IX: The Restoration (31 page)

Government exists to protect liberty, including everyone’s ability for free exercise of religion. This included non-Christian religions and atheism. Religion must be protected for two reasons, Grant had always thought. First, free exercise of religion is a fundamental liberty and government exists to protect liberty. Second, and a very practical reason, is that a healthy religious life means a healthy society. Charity flourishes and takes care of people the government can’t take care of, and private charity does a much better job. Religion often means people feel accountable to a higher power, not just to bureaucrats. There was no downside to a society when religion was healthy, provided that people could be truly free to worship, or not worship, as they pleased.

In addition to more religion, another social phenomenon after the Collapse was the reversal of the wussification of the American male. (New Washingtonians and others in the FUSA still called themselves “Americans.”) The government couldn’t do much to reverse wussification, except to get out of the way of society. By virtually eliminating taxes, now both parents in a family didn’t have to work. This was huge. Men and women could have their traditional roles without having to worry about a second wage earner to pay the taxes. If men and women didn’t want to have traditional roles, that was fine, too. It was just that the majority of Americans did want the traditional roles. Now, without crushing taxes, they could have them if they wanted them.

Men had been vilified by the old state. Grant thought of all the TV ads and sitcoms in which the man was the stupid idiot and the woman saved the day. Over and over again. All threats to decency were from men. They were all wife beaters and gun-toting nuts. Grant had always thought that the reason for this was that the old government didn’t want strong families to be a check on government power. Government wanted full control over people. And, to do that, government needed to eliminate the family. That was actually in the Communist Manifesto.

Gov. Trenton would use his bully pulpit to remind society that men actually have some worth. They need to be strong and work hard. Men have an obligation to provide for a family. Men cannot be lazy and expect the government to take care of their families. If a man were injured or disabled that was a different situation, of course, and a charity should help. And in some families it made more sense for the woman to work and the man to take care of the kids. That was all fine. It was just that the era of men getting to be overgrown boys, shirk their responsibilities, and have the government take care of their families was over. Over for good.

The war, in which many regular suburban men had picked up a gun for the first time and used it, had also taught both men and women that men have some worth as protectors of their families. There hadn’t been a need to do this for several generations. People were reminded of the unique role men have in a properly functioning society, in a free society.

Stopping the vilification of men didn’t mean that women had to stay at home and cater to men. Not at all. Just as the war meant many suburban men picked up a gun and used it for the first time, many women did the same. People realized just how incredibly important women are to a society and especially to families when times got bad, even more so when many men weren’t around because they were off fighting a war. Many families saw with their own eyes that women canning and growing gardens saved the family. And women are usually better at comforting and nurturing. There was plenty of that which needed to be done. Almost everyone suffered a tragedy of some kind; there was a lot of comforting necessary. Grant kept thinking about Anne Sherryton and how she had read the brewery orphans those stories after doing some very brutal and tough work that few men could. There was no denying how important women were.

Thinking about the vilification of men got Grant thinking about race. Just like the old government had divided up society along gender lines and pitted people against each other, with government riding in to save the day, the old government had done the same with race. It was so apparent, especially after the war. Before the war, the old government tried to scare minorities about all those evil white teabaggers who wanted to kill them and enslave them. Just like they’d told women that men were evil and needed to be controlled by … the government.

The government used race to get support from whites, too. While never saying it, the government was hinting pretty clearly to whites that all these new security measures were necessary to protect people from “crime,” which often meant ethnic gangs. The common denominator in all this was that government was the only fair and powerful thing that could protect one group from the evils of the other group.

It would be impossible to be a racist after going through the Collapse and war. People of every race did bad things and good things. Grant thought about his own experience. There were Mexican gangs in Frederickson. On the other hand, there was Gideon and all the Hispanic soldiers in the 17th. Race didn’t fit into any rigid “good” or “bad” category.

Almost all people in New Washington had similar experiences. They had seen minorities do bad things and good things. Minorities had seen whites do bad things and good things, too. It was not lost on most minorities that the politicians and bureaucrats who had destroyed everything were white. Well educated, upper income whites.

Grant thought about all that the Patriots had done. He was very proud. Not cocky proud, but deep-breath-and-smile proud for a job well done. Grant was just a small piece in this whole thing. He had always thought that the only way things would get fixed was for the old system to collapse. People, who could start over on a clean slate instead of being trapped in the old system, would do what made sense, and that was freedom.

Chapter 334

(February 24, year after Collapse)

His pants were falling down. Damn it. Stay up.

Grant Matson hated wearing a suit, and he hated a tuxedo even more. A tuxedo that was too big was even worse. His pants were several inches too big and his shirt was baggy and had about two inches too much collar. His bow tie looked silly cinched up in an attempt to hide the fact that the collar was too big. Oh well. Almost everyone else was in the same boat.

No one had clothes that fit anymore. It was a mixed blessing. Everyone lost some weight they probably didn’t need. The old way of living, like having plenty of food to make those clothes fit, was a thing of the past. But, things were getting back to a new kind of normal and there was enough to eat now. Things were getting better. Much better than they had been 299 days ago.

Two hundred ninety-nine days. His son, who loved to count days and could tell anyone how many were between any two given dates like he was a computer, told him earlier today that it had been 299 days since May 1. That was the day it all started. And now, just 299 days later, it was wrapping up, as symbolized by the event he was attending tonight. Thank God it hadn’t lasted longer.

There he was in their new house. “New house” used to be a happy term as in “we just bought a new house and it’s great.” It used to mean the fun of moving up and getting something better. That was the old America.

This new house, a “guesthouse”, wasn’t like that. It was a fine house; in fact, it was a little nicer than his old one. But it wasn’t his. It wasn’t the house his kids spent most of their childhood in. His wife didn’t like it. She missed the old house, but understood why they had the new one. Tonight, she was dropping the kids off at her parents’ who would be babysitting while they were out. He was all alone. He chuckled at how lucky he had been throughout this whole thing. He had almost been alone forever. In fact, twice he had almost been alone forever.

Tonight, Grant wasn’t alone. There were some plainclothes soldiers outside the guesthouse in inconspicuous places, guarding him. But no one was inside the house. Just him. It was so quiet. He felt alone.

In the downstairs bathroom of the guesthouse, Grant looked in the mirror to adjust his bow tie. He was the same guy in his mid-forties with brown hair. But wow. Look at that. His face looked so much thinner than just a few months ago. Grant barely recognized himself because he had finally shaved. He hardly recognized himself without that military “contractor” beard.

Grant had aged quite a bit in the past 299 days. His face was toughened, and he looked confident. Deadly confident; the kind of confidence that it takes to stand up to bullies and help people. His eyes were different than before the Collapse. There was a hint of loss in them. Not a cry-at-the-drop-of-a-hat kind of loss. His eyes showed that there was less of him now, that something had been lost. Taken from him.

Staring at the new him in the mirror, Grant got lost in memories. That was happening a lot lately. He would just lose his train of thought and drift into heavy thoughts, usually triggered by remembering someone or some event. Extremely vivid memories like waking from a realistic dream, in that first moment when the dream is so vivid it feels real, despite it being a crazy and unrealistic dream. The memories he was having were real, however. That’s why they were so vivid. And, in this case, reality had been crazy and unrealistic.

Grant looked again in the mirror and examined his tuxedo. It was symbolic of so much going on that night. He bought it about five years ago when he was climbing the ladder of law and politics in Olympia, the capitol of Washington State, and occasionally had to attend formal events. He would have fit in it just fine 299 days ago.

On this night, Grant was wearing a tuxedo to an event that warranted a tuxedo. It was the kind of night that only happens once in a lifetime, and never happens at all in the lifetimes of most people. Dinner tonight was a victory celebration. It was a victory in the biggest thing in his life or the lives of almost any American. He would be remembered throughout state history, at least as a small figure. He would have a school or something named after him. He should be happy, shouldn’t he?

This victory came at an enormous price. “Bittersweet” is a cliché, but it was true in this instance. Bitter because a lot of people died and suffered. Not billions of people like in some over-the-top apocalypse movie, but plenty of people. People Grant knew, some of them very well. Everyone knew many people who were killed, widowed, maimed, went crazy, were ruined, or had their families broken up. Grant thought about sweet Kellie. All she had ever wanted was a good man. He died in the war.

Almost everyone had been hungry and afraid. Grant didn’t lose his wife, but they weren’t nearly as close as before the Collapse and it would probably stay that way for the rest of their lives. His daughter was no longer the bubbly outgoing teenage girl she had been; now she was quiet and deadly serious most of the time. She had seen and done things that no teenage girl, or anyone for that matter, should have to experience. His son had fared okay as far as Grant knew.

His old home was trashed so he was borrowing this new one, the “guesthouse,” from someone who was now in jail. Grant would rebuild his real home but it would take a while. Things like police protection, farming, and rebuilding roads were a higher priority than remodeling. His old home was a symbol of what everyone was going through. It would take years of hard work to rebuild his town, state, and his country. Actually, the countries.

The “sweet” part of bittersweet was that some very bad things ended. Some wrongs were made right, and some guilty people paid for what they did. They couldn’t hurt people anymore. Some people who thought they were losers found out they were heroes. People came together and really lived for the first time in their lives. Lifelong friendships were formed between people who just 299 days ago wouldn’t have talked to each other. And, Grant felt guilty for thinking about himself, he was absolutely certain that he’d made the most out of his life. He saw dozens of “coincidences” in his life that were planted years ago and then sprang up at just the right time so some absolutely amazing things could be accomplished. He was being used to do great things. Grant was just a guy with no particular skills who didn’t exactly lead the perfect life.

All Grant did right was have a little faith and listen to the outside thoughts, even when they said things that seemed crazy at the time. There was no denying that, for nearly forty years, the “coincidences” had been pointing him in the direction of helping people and fixing a bunch of really terrible things that needed to be fixed. He was here for a reason.

Snapping out of the vivid memories and back into getting dressed for the big event, Grant realized that all the bad things that had been fixed were what he needed to focus on tonight. Measures would be put in place to prevent the bad things from happening again, he hoped. That was his new job and the reason for the dinner tonight. I have to get this right, Grant thought. I can’t screw this up. Please help me, he thought. Actually, he prayed that.

Grant looked at the invitation on the sink in the bathroom of the guesthouse. The invitation was beautiful, made of parchment paper and written in calligraphy. That was a rare sight nowadays, something ornate like that. He picked it up and soaked it all in. He was holding an invitation to dinner with the Interim Governor before the Inaugural Ball. It was a very select group; just a handful of the Governor’s oldest friends and closest advisers. It was a dinner to chart out the future of New Washington State. The inauguration was for “Governor Benjamin Trenton.” Ben’s name looked so funny like that. More of those vivid memories were coming back.

Like when, years ago, Grant and Ben got drunk at a Super Bowl party and had the half serious, half joking talk about Ben being the Governor someday, and then laughed because that could never happen. But it had actually happened. What a crazy world.