Two Peasants and a President (40 page)

Suddenly some of the most naïve and gullible people on the planet found themselves engaged in a most unusual pursuit
–
thinking.  Granted, more than a few of these new brain waves were so unaccustomed to logical processes that they quickly burn
t out like sparklers in the sand
, but as their owners stumbled through unfamiliar territory, some actually had ideas.  Whether they sprung from video game strategies or were newly minted, they were nonetheless the rudiments of logical thought.  What was more impo
r
tant was that these thoughts were nudging their owners in the right direction,
toward the realization that world events could actually impact them.  Even more strikingly, it dawned on a few that it might be wise to take action before they were flattened by the onrushing tsunami. 

Now electrons that had formerly focused on a make-believe Italian plumber and his assistant were free to be put to use defending their owner and not a whoopee-yelling avatar.  Rather than blindly assuming that an accident of birth had endowed them with extra lives or an always charged up health meter, it began to occur to them that they were far more vulnerable than their game characters.  Their lifestyles and the freedoms they had long taken for granted were endangered.  They had become the hunted and Bowser was China.   

As a wasteland of unoccupied brain matter was slowly settled by the electron pioneers of logical thought, astonishing events were seen across the country.  Those who formerly occupied Wall Street with smart phones in hand now began to converge on the Chinese embassy, demanding fair trade, not just free trade.  Young people who had been pooping on police cars one day were the next proclaiming rights of free speech
–
for Chinese dissidents.  Pale skinned denizens of their p
arents’ basements clad in pizza
stained T-shirts began to emerge from their computer caves into the light.

Ping had become a national hero.  On cotton-covered chests across America, despicable false heroes and mass murderers like
Che
Guevara and Mao
Tse
Tung
were replaced by the peaceful image of a diminutive yet marvelously dignified Chinese woman. 

The bureaucrats of Beijing were beside themselves, as was the
American
president.  His dream of a vast government that knows what is best for everyone was crumbling at his feet.  Presidential decrees, recess a
p
pointments and end runs around the Constitution now began to falter and grind as the green oil that greased their gears ran dry.  Like the last emperor, the president had become little more than a Communist puppet, willing to trade away anything to preserve his ideology.  But the trust of the people who elected him had been squandered.

Talk show hosts who failed to see what was happening and persisted in biting at the heels of those who dared to disagree with administration-speak now found their ratings sinking below sea level.  Pundits who would have openly rejoiced in the death of Socrates, had he been around to vilify, were beginning to feel like Robespierre, the 18
th
century French politician
who placed so many necks in
the guillotine but never dreamed he would one day find his own there. 

Congress, ever mindful of the next election, checked the windsocks outside their windows and discovered there had indeed been a transformation. 
Constituents who’d listened silently as their president apologized for Ame
r
ica’s sins, now demanded the respect America deserved.  Taxpayers who sat still while their State Department passed money out to their worst enemies made it clear that to write a check to Pakistan or Egypt was to write your own arrest warrant.  ‘Of the People, By the People and For the People’ became the mantra for the awakening.  There had been a sea change, and it wasn’t global warming.   

59

It promised to be a special dinner.  Ping had mentioned that she would like to cook them a meal, so Virgil and Molly took her to a Oriental grocery where she scooped up more than a hundred dollars of ingredients.  Back at Virgil’s house, she was happily humming to herself in what must have seemed like the kitchen of a hotel.  Though they could not have known it, Ping had not felt such delight since she had cooked for her husband and son.

Earlier, Molly had picked up a program that could purportedly teach Chinese to a dummy.  It was their plan to sit together each evening for awhile and learn a new language.  When he’d first brought Ping home to meet Molly, Virgil didn’t have the slightest thought of asking her to stay, but he and Molly had quickly fallen in love with that special dignity that was Ping.  And there were three bedrooms in the house . . . only one of which was currently occupied.  

Actually, Ping already had a smattering of English from the days when she helped her son with his homework.  It wasn’t much but it would grow, as would their Chinese.  As she attempted to express thoughts with such limited means, Ping sometimes inadvertently said things that threw Virgil and Molly into paroxysms of laughter.  An impish grin would unfurl across her face along with a trace of worry that she might have uttered something untoward.

The aromas that wafted through the kitchen were only exceeded by the exquisite bouquet of flavors that greeted their tongues as Ping looked on a
p
prehensively.  She refused to take a bite of her own food until Virgil and Molly’s expressions told her what she needed to know . . . that the people who were treating her
so kindly were enjoying her cooking
. 
“
Mmmm
,”
was the most frequently used word, if one could call it that, throughout the meal.

Afterward, Ping
had
beg
u
n to wash the dishes by hand when Molly gently took a plate from her grasp and opened a door beneath the counter top.  Another marvel from a land she had never dreamed of reaching was revealed to her.  With the dishes safely in the machine, Ping looked a bit lost.  Surely there must be more to it than that! 

Molly took her by the hand into the living room where Virgil was
preparing to record a program from
which he suspected Ping would find both happiness and melancholy.  A network not much watched by those who d
e
spise the senator had assembled a montage from the series of interviews with
Min, Ping and the other refugees, all of whom were being settled into homes in the Washington area.  Ping had yet to watch her own interview, much less the others and she was both fascinated and horrified to see herself on TV.   When she noticed that Virgil and Molly were giggling, she feigned outrage and said something in Chinese they couldn’t understand. 

As expected, the montage held both happy moments and sad for the new resident in their home.  But when the tears flowed, they were mostly tears of joy for the fact that all were now safe and there would be no more Chinese warships to pursue them.  There were, however, unspoken thoughts that passed between them that evening.  Powerful enemies had been made on the journey out of hell, deeds done that would not soon be forgotten. 

******

The release of Brett from jail in Hong Kong was proving more tro
u
blesome than had been expected.  China’s official position was that he had committed an assault which had severely injured a citizen.  That the citizen had been involved in a horrific crime against Brett’s son and his bride seemed not to matter in the least.  It was vintage China. 

In a further insult, the White House had insisted that Commander Moore be removed from his post at the Hong Kong Consulate.  It seems that when the president demanded to know how the USS Hawaii had become involved, the secretary of defense admitted that Moore had notified a CIA agent in Tianjin who was
also
a Tianjin Harbor Patrol police officer as well as a member of the dissident community.  The tiny transmitter that he attached to the
Dawn Flower
had been picked up by the submarine, as had the sound of the approaching frigate. 

The president became absolutely apoplectic when he learned that his own military as well as the CIA had intervened without his knowledge.  What he failed to realize was that Captain Davis was a hero to many in the United States Navy and not everyone in government was willing to allow themselves to be used by China, especially when it involved so despicable a crime.  Furthermore, all the apologies and bowing to countries that detested the United States had angered many Americans.  It was felt in many quarters that this president did not really love his country and was determined to turn it into some sort of Marxist-Socialist state.  Those who labeled any form of disagreement with the president as racism failed to realize how deeply this hurt Americans who were patriots with legitimate concerns, not racists.

To the president, it was an act of treason.  To his chief backers in the
Boston
political machine, it was an act of war.  But their blind assumption
that they could wield politics like a
billy
club, as they had done for decades in
Boston
, ignored a basic truth: most Americans are at heart fair-minded ind
i
viduals.  They have long resented the kind of voter intimidation, fraud and the rigged elections that in their minds characterize
Boston
politics, and they were finally ready to get up off their couches and fight to keep it from spreading to the rest of the country.

A coup would probably be too strong a word for it.  No one was about to be assassinated; no violence whatsoever was planned.  Only a few liquor glasses and mugs of stale coffee would not live to see the dawn.  Knives had been sharpened and targets painted on backs, to be sure, but real blood would not be shed.  But by the time this chapter in American history was closed, a bright light would render some heretofore dark corners considerably less habitable for the corrupt politicians who dwell
ed
there. 

That the CIA and the military had been instrumental in saving Amer
i
can citizens from a ghoulish fate in China was, like so many other so called secrets, soon leaked to the press.  In a taste of what was to come, some of the president’s allies in the media no longer felt it was in their best interests to cover for an administration that had angered so many.  They not only broadcast the story but also the growing allegations that the president had attempted to thwart the rescue of his own people in return for promises of continued investment from China. 

Furthermore, a vocal group of veterans began demonstrating against the detention of a former Navy Seal and American hero in Hong Kong.  Soon not only the smart phone generation carried signs outside the Chinese e
m
bassy; they had been joined by the veterans in what became an almost comical mix of attire from medals pinned on chests to ornaments pinned on noses and lips.

A
president less blinded by ambition, seeing the forces arrayed against him, might have decided to change tack, but this president had never held the truth in high esteem and continue
d to do what he did most often
–
lie.  That their president would so boldly misrepresent events in China that now a
p
peared to most Americans to be incontrovertible fact angered them, and they became even more convinced that this man was so married to his ideology that he would sacrifice anything to attain it. 

China, in its boundless capacity for arrogance, seemed not yet to have grasped what was going on in the United States and decided to double down.  They proceeded to convict Brett and sentence him to 15 years at hard labor.   It was the straw that broke the panda’s back.  Citizens on both sides of the aisle, as well as independents and those who usually didn’t give a damn found themselves not only cheering for but participating in the largest boycott in
history.  China promptly retaliated against the many American companies with branches or factories there, slowing deliveries of materials, ‘discovering errors’ in paperwork and licenses and hindering their businesses in every way possible.  The trade war that no one wanted had erupted and no one knew where it would end. 

Business types everywhere have always wisely warned that trade wars harm everyone.  So it was no surprise when jobs connected to the import and sale of Chinese goods began to be affected.  But rather than simply adjourn to their couches and televisions and collect unemployment, many displaced workers began to band together to help each other and to find strategies to hold out against China. 

Food sitting idly in warehouses for future shipment by the UN to who knows where was distributed to food banks nationwide, thanks to quick action in Congress led by Senator Baines.  Neighborhoods were pressured into i
g
noring covenants that prohibited the planting of gardens.  Companies that during the downturn had hoarded vast amounts of cash now joined in the e
f
fort by employing some of that cash to hire people to help provide basic se
r
vices that depleted city coffers could not.  In return, they were promised f
u
ture tax credits.  Philanthropists and venture capitalists stepped in with str
a
tegic infusions of cash to keep the economy from
cratering
.  Donations to charities that help those in need mushroomed.  The rich, so reviled by the administration, now showed their patriotism by employing people in their areas to help maintain and repair infrastructure.  Not since World War II had America pulled together with such unanimity.