WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 4:30 A.M.: WASHINGTON, D.C. In the summer, even before dawn, everywhere in the nation’s capital feels like a steam bath. There is no refreshing, evening cool—ever. The heat of the previous day never evaporates entirely. After the sun goes down, it morphs into an invisible, cloying, omnipresent, wet, gray sultriness that enshrouds people, places, and things. Nothing escapes. Memorials and buildings weather the discomfort in their stride. Lincoln, Jefferson, and the White House are indifferent. But living, breathing people fare badly. A languor overtakes everything they do, even how they move their eyes. Rain, fierce or gentle, makes matters worse. After it, the air feels heavier and stickier than before. Breezes intensify the heat. You can take temporary refuge in air conditioning. But you know you’re only fooling yourself. The heat always gets you when you go from place to place. It is relentless and unbeatable.
Today, as every day shortly before dawn, the daytime heat is waiting to ambush Cooperville and its residents on the National Mall. Rows of stately elms provide some relief to those lucky enough to camp under them, but they pay the price of waking to gobs of early morning dampness. Commonly referred to as “the capital of destitute America” and a black eye for Free-for-All economics, the Washington Cooperville is now a fortified city-within-a-city. Tourists don’t come here anymore to luxuriate in history and genuflect before marble monuments. From a healthy distance, they gawk and squawk. More than one can be heard wondering what diseases the population carries. At row after row of makeshift housing, they shake their heads, disapprovingly from side to side, in disbelief that anyone—let alone families with children—can be living so tentatively, in such squalor, in spitting distance of the president and Congress. And they are personally affronted that such sights—especially crowds bathing in the reflecting pool—have ruined their trips to the capital. “Why doesn’t somebody do something about getting rid of such an eyesore?” most can be heard asking. “Why don’t they get off their lazy asses and find jobs?” From time to time, trucks with sound systems drive around the Mall harassing them with messages like “Get to work, you bums” or “You’re pieces of shit.”
Inside Cooperville, people are used to it. They develop hard skin. They have to. It’s the only way they can survive. The camp’s official greeter, Malcolm—residents go only by their first name—tells every new arrival, “Don’t get plugged in by the catcalls. Focus on surviving and doing whatever it takes to move on. And don’t talk about the past. We’ve all got one. Don’t pile your tale of woe on top of other people’s. You can tell your story outside to anyone who will listen, for whatever it’s worth. Inside, talk about the present. Talk about the future.”
For their protection from assailants and vandals, over the years, residents have sealed off the perimeter of the Mall with a series of six-foot high, makeshift barricades made out of railroad ties, garbage cans, fencing, barbed wire, almost anything to thwart an intruder. Two unarmed guards trained in the martial arts are stationed on the north at pedestrian entrances from Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues and on the south at Independence and Maryland Avenues. There is no access from the east and west. No vehicles are allowed in Cooperville.
Today, except for a few early risers, the only people moving about before sunrise are members of the volunteer force who guard and patrol the encampment day and night. Like doting parents looking in on their sleeping children, they move up and down rows of tents, cardboard boxes, sleeping bags, and lean-tos people call home. Occasionally they straighten the flap at the entrance of a tent to restore privacy to those inside or cover a sleeper who may have rolled beyond his lean-to or her sleeping bag. But they also watch and listen for anything out-of-the-ordinary that might spell trouble—a deranged or suicidal resident or an attacker from the outside.
“How’s it going?” asks George, who’s a half-hour away from the end of his eight-hour shift, when he sees Roger pacing back and forth in front of his tent.
“Things just don’t feel right, George,” the young man in his early thirties replies.
“Have you been eating?” George says. “It looks like you’re losing weight. Do you feel ok?”
“I’m restless, haven’t been able to sleep in the heat, can’t find a comfortable spot,” Roger replies, rubbing his bloodshot eyes and combing his disheveled hair with his right hand. “Plus, Adam, my eight-year-old has been sick. We don’t know what’s wrong with him. But he’s got a bad cough.”
He’s got the yearning look, George thinks to himself. I’ve seen it over and over, just before people crack. “Take it easy, man. Just take it easy for as long as you can. Things have got to get better. They’ve got to.”
Every day by 6 a.m., Cooperville teems with life. No one knows the exact number of its refugees—people come and go, mostly come and stay in the last five years—but it is probably about three thousand. They are all ages. There have been marriages, deaths, births, and divorces. Some children have known no other home. Daily, billowing smokestacks confirm that breakfast is being served from 6 to 9 a.m. in fifteen different communal food tents arranged like a spine straight down the Mall. Individual grills also sizzle. Everywhere, “unity circles” form spontaneously—the hopeful just hold hands before the start of another day drawing strength from each other that their lives will change for the better; others repeat the Lord’s Prayer or share epigrammatic wisdom from the Buddha, Khalil Gibran, or fortune cookies, anywhere they can get it. People finish their morning ritual quickly. Daily, by 6:45 a.m., trucks and vans line up at entrances to pick up day laborers. A few minutes delay can mean the difference between having enough money to eat meat at dinner—or settling for what they’re serving in the soup line.
At precisely 5:30 a.m., under the cover of darkness, four mounted officers from the District of Columbia police force appear at the south entrance of Cooperville. “I’m Commander Platt. We have a warrant to search this place,” he declares dryly, brandishing a piece of paper he takes from his breast pocket.
“There’s nothing to search for here,” Jason, one of the guards replies. “There’s just a lot of people trying to live as best they can.”
“Fuck you, you piece of shit. We don’t care about what you, or any of your kind, have to say. We’ve got our orders—and they come from the top. We’ll find the drugs and guns if we have to search every miserable shack in this hellhole. This place is gonna be history when we get through. We know who’s here and what’s here, mister, and we’re gonna find it. So, get out of our way.”
Jason immediately sounds a shrill, wailing alarm that sweeps over Cooperville. And word spreads like wildfire that they are under attack.
“You shouldn’t have done that. Now, you’re just gonna make real trouble for everyone. Let’s go in boys,” Platt says, signaling their advance with the forward motion of his right hand and spurring his horse to proceed. Following closely is a battalion of about 300 security forces on foot, who appear as if from out of nowhere from the shadows. Meanwhile, Cooperville volunteers move quickly through the encampment, trying to reassure and calm people, many of whom were asleep and are still groggy.
“The D.C. security forces are coming through. Remember, no matter what they do, do not resist. Do not provoke. Stay calm. Don’t give them any reason to use violence,” the volunteers repeat.
Like an invading army, the capital police split into two single lines moving south, one on the east side of the camp, the other on the west. Residents stand at attention, watching in disbelief as officers kick and poke at whatever is in their way, including anyone who might still be asleep.
“Please, don’t destroy my house,” one frail woman in her sixties pleads. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t have anything to hide.”
“House?” a young officer sneers. “You call this cardboard box a house?”
“But it’s all I’ve got,” she says crying.
“Not anymore,” he says as he bludgeons it to bits. “There now. I guess you’re gonna have to apply for a home improvement loan.”
Slowly, as the force makes its way throughout the camp, they shine blinding flashlights directly into people’s eyes. “What kind of drugs are you hiding?” “Where are your weapons? We know you’ve got ’em. Hand ’em over now and maybe we’ll go easy on you.” But as they speak, they don’t wait for answers but kick and smash everything in their way. They subject people, especially attractive young women, to body searches, making obscene gestures and comments to each other. “Hey, I think you’d like being searched, wouldn’t you?” one young officer says to a teenage blond.
“Touch her and you’re dead,” her father says, emerging from their tent.
As they move, they tell everyone they’ve already accosted to remain standing in line in single file. But no one has to be told not to move. Adult men and women are mute, in a state of shock. Several have collapsed. Whimpering children hug their parents, dolls, and Teddy bears. Infants can be heard crying, instinctively sensing dread. They have been repeatedly warned about the possibility of attacks. But no one was prepared for anything on this scale. Like a tornado wreaking havoc, in one hour, by 6:30 a.m., Cooperville is wasted. Not a shelter left standing. Whatever people called their personal possession smashed and scattered. Food tents leveled. Outhouses toppled. All that remains are two long lines of bewildered men, women, and children, as far as the eye can see—and no sign of drugs or weapons.
“By the authority vested in me by the District of Columbia security force, I now order the complete evacuation of these premises,” Commander Platt shouts, and his words are repeated to his men down the Mall: “Evacuate now. Evacuate now. Move ’em out now.” Like cattle drivers, the guards push and poke people to move north.
“Where are you taking us?” “Why?” “We haven’t done anything!” “What are you doing to us?”
“Why, didn’t your travel agent tell you?” Commander Platt says to the first group to exit. “All you pieces of trash are goin’ to a new home. Me and the boys made reservations for you in RFK Stadium. You’ll be real happy there. We made it look real nice for ya.”
When they reach the north exit, guards push the two lines of people into a single column eight or ten abreast. Outside, their route is cordoned off and lined with additional security. Slowly, for three miles, they shuffle along Independence, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina Avenues, until they enter East Capitol Street and are within sight of RFK Stadium. Watching from the middle of the street as the crowd approaches, Platt sneers to his assistant, “It’s goin’ without a hitch. These people are just a bunch of fuckin’ sheep. Look at ’em. They haven’t got any fight in ’em.”
But suddenly, as the crowd is directly in front of Platt, from out of nowhere, a bugle blares. Scared, Platt’s horse suddenly rears up on its hind legs. The commander, who has been loosely holding the reins, is almost thrown out of his saddle. When the horse’s front legs come down, his right hoof strikes Adam, Roger’s son, who is at the front of the pack, on his forehead. His skull cracks open like a walnut. His brains ooze out. He is killed instantly. As blood spouts from what is left of his mouth, his legs and upper body twitch for several minutes before falling limp. Cell phone cameras crop up from everywhere taking still and videos of the scene. D.C. security guards cannot confiscate all of them, though they try.
“Adam, Adam,” his mother cries uncontrollably before fainting, while Roger falls to his knees, cradling his son’s broken body in his arms like Mary holding Christ in Michelangelo’s “Pietà.” About twenty people driven from Cooperville surround the grieving parents. Twice as many people, yelling “child killer,” surround Platt’s horse and begin lashing out at the commander with their fists and whatever rocks, glass, and pieces of wood they can grab in the street. As nearby officers attempt to come to Platt’s aid, more and more attackers turn on them. Finally, two men pull Platt from his saddle and drop him on the ground. The crowd begins kicking and stomping on him. He menaces his pistol at them and fires a warning shot in the air. At that, his horse rises up again and almost crushes him. The crowd opens a space, a bystander swats the horse’s rump and it runs off. The assault on Platt continues. A line of D.C. police surrounds his attackers and begins clubbing them. But the crowd moves around them.
“Let them go,” Roger pleads. “Otherwise we’re no better than they are.”
“You’ll pay for this,” Platt shouts, shaking his fist at the crowd as two of his men help him hobble away.
“We already have,” Roger replies.
Posted on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media, the picture of Roger holding Adam goes viral. The headline with it reads “Justice for Adam. Damn Ham.” Angela Bellmonte, the first TV reporter to arrive on the scene, approaches Roger, who continues to cradle the corpse of his son in his arms and refuses to let go as others try to ease it away from him. She says nothing, but quietly motions her cameraman to “roll it.”
“My son, my Adam, is dead,” Roger says, as though in a trance, walking the last few blocks towards the stadium, cradling Adam, his wife at his side. Then, he looks plaintively at Bellmonte and says, “I’m not a father anymore. I don’t have a son. I don’t have a son. I had a son. But just like that, I don’t have a son. He had a cough he couldn’t get rid of. His mother was dead tired from staying up with him. The little guy had open heart surgery when he was born and he had a chronic heart condition. We went bankrupt after our health insurance company dropped us. I just got a job washing dishes. But they came this morning and drove us out of Cooperville like cattle. I was getting ready to go to work. It only pays minimum wage. But at least I could buy enough food to feed the three of us. There’s no telling how long it will last. I worked almost my whole life. My family never asked anyone for anything. When I was nine, I delivered newspapers. We lost our home and business. We were completely wiped out. With the economy the way it is, I haven’t been able to find steady work for three years.”
Then, Roger suddenly collapses. Adam’s lifeless body falls across his chest. His wife screams for help. Four men come running, pick up the corpse, and begin fanning Roger until he comes to. They take their shirts off and square off, two by two, and put the body in their makeshift sling. In the confusion after Adam is killed, about half of the mob from Cooperville breaks through the police line and scatters into side streets. With no place else to go, the remaining crowd heads to RFK, now forming a funeral procession behind Roger and his wife. Stunned police still on duty doff their hats as the body passes. By now, East Capitol Street is swarming with media. Bellmonte, who has moved to the entrance of the stadium, is reporting live outside as the mourners approach.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 1 P.M.: UNDISCLOSED LOCATION. In the control room of the Prometheus Project, Zeus is on the board, watching the TV monitors, one hour after giving the order to begin all phases of “The People’s Strike for Adam.”
Monitor 1 shows mobs surrounding the White House, chanting, “John Galt killed Adam!” and “Down with Cooper!” No fewer than fifty different videos of a grief-stricken Roger holding the lifeless Adam have been posted on YouTube. Viewers are warned that the content is bloody and graphic. But already, ten of them have each had more than one million hits. Every TV station in the country has interrupted programming to broadcast live coverage from RFK Stadium. The afternoon editions of domestic newspapers carry the headline “Kid Killed at Cooperville.” Media around the world have picked up the story.
On Monitor 2, Mercury provides changing images of crowds of “shoppers” gradually and casually strolling into malls in Phoenix, Seattle, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Boston, Charleston, and Indianapolis. Eventually, they add up to a crowd of at least 5,000 in each location, all of them heading for Gayle’s Department Stores. The owners of the upscale national chain are known to be major supporters of President Cooper and the agenda of Free-for-All economics. As head of the National Association of FreeMarket Retailers, Mortimer Gayle, grandson of the department store’s founder, worked with Hilton Manfreed to eliminate minimum wage and worker’s compensation laws, as well as unemployment compensation.
By 1:15 p.m., there is no room for any more customers to enter the ten Gayle’s on the Prometheus Project hit list. Shoppers overwhelm salespeople with a battery of questions. They insist upon trying on blouse after blouse, pants after pants, barely able to get to fitting rooms because of the crowds. They ask advice about dry cleaning versus hand-washing of delicate fabrics, want clarification of exchange policies, and ask for discounts. Ultimately, they buy nothing. Legitimate shoppers who can’t get waited on begin loudly complaining. By 2:30 p.m., it is clear that Gayle’s is not going to transact any business anytime soon.
An agitated Mortimer Gayle is interviewed by Channel 10 News from the chain’s Atlanta headquarters. “I want all of our loyal customers to know that Gayle’s is open for business, will always be open for business, and will not be shut down by gangs who believe in mob rule,” he says emphatically. “These are the Corporate States of America, not some half-baked developing country at the mercy of terrorists. We know how to deal with guerrillas who want to bring down our way of life—and we will do so. In the interest of national security and public safety, we are closing the ten stores that have been targeted for attack. But we will reopen soon. You can count on that.”
On Monitor 3, Adonis shows a tall young blond woman entering the Manhattan headquarters of Atlas Fitness Centers, guiding two Saint Bernards yoked on a common leash. Slim, she is dressed in a black leotard and announces she wants to buy a twelve-pack of Atlas Energy Drink. As she waits for the salesperson to fill her order, the dogs start to squirm and tug on their leashes. “What’s the matter?” she asks, trying to calm them. “You want to explore a little bit, I know,” she says, freeing them. As they run through the facility, it becomes clear that they have massive, uncontrollable cases of diarrhea. Before long, they have christened the better part of the center with their explosions and have released an overpowering smell. Grousing clients pack up and flee the premises en masse. “Bad dogs, bad dogs,” the woman says, as she apologizes to the disgruntled staff. The center closes for business until further notice.
Meanwhile, the center’s phones ring off-the-hook, reporting similar attacks of dog shitting at Atlas Centers—fifteen and climbing—to those who have to begin to clean up. Zeus chuckles as he watches. “There’s nothing like a good sirloin steak with ExLax sauce to do the trick.”
On Monitor 4, Pandora coordinates the updates from across the country, documenting “people’s brigades” that have closed down forty-five branches of the Bank of the Corporate States. Starting at 1:30 p.m. on the East Coast, unusually large numbers of potential depositors have been swarming facilities,saying they want to open accounts. At the same time, online withdrawals of funds, estimated to have been $40 million in just five minutes, caused the bank’s website to crash, freezing all transactions nationwide.
On Monitor 5, at 3 p.m., Zeus watches as pandemonium breaks out on the floor of the National Stock Exchange and all trading is halted after 475 million shares are sold off in ten minutes and shares of targeted companies drop by seventy percent.
On Monitor 6, starting at 4:30 p.m., “passengers” fill subway stations throughout the five boroughs of New York City but don’t board trains. Crowds of irate and anxious commuters spill into the surrounding streets, bringing traffic to a standstill.
On Monitor 7, Olympus reports that crowds have packed the terminals of CSA, World, and National airlines in Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Chicago, Atlanta, Charlotte, and New York. No one can check in for flights. Planes have been delayed indefinitely. Flocks of pigeons that have been fed castor oil are let loose and are shitting everywhere, so people are fleeing the terminals.
On Monitor 8, Zeus is watching domestic and international TV feeds, reporting that the viral message on social media is that “The People’s Strike for Adam” has brought commerce in the country to a virtual standstill. Unconfirmed reports are also circulating that President Cooper is about to address the nation to declare a national emergency.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 9 P.M.: THE WHITE HOUSE. The Cooper Administration has issued a written statement condemning “The People’s Strike for Adam” as an act of treason. “Anything that strikes at the economic lifeblood of the Corporate States of America amounts to an act of war, whether it originates on our soil or from foreign sources,” President Cooper says. “I have instructed the FBI, the CIA, and the National Capital Security Force to launch a consolidated investigation into the acts that paralyzed the nation today. My fellow Investors, let me assure you that I will not rest until we have brought all of the perpetrators of these unAmerican attacks to justice. They will pay— and pay dearly!”
WASHINGTON, D.C.: THE NATIONAL MALL. Throughout the night and into the next morning, bulldozers can be heard smashing and clearing debris from the Mall Cooperville. An eerie, orange light from there can be seen throughout the capital. Anything that can be burned is thrown onto scores of bonfires. An army of dump trucks hauls off anything that can’t be incinerated. Scavengers among the crews salvage a girl’s doll, a baseball glove, clothing, even pots and pans. Before deciding to keep something, they ask among themselves about how much they think it might sell for. The next day, by 6 a.m., ashes are all that is left of Cooperville.
As the nation recovers from “The People’s Strike,” the media question the ability of the Ham Cooper Administration to continue to lead the Corporate States. Some pundits, even those who have typically towed the party line, suggest that the nation may be poised to move in a different direction. “Is John Galt, in fact, really dead? Are we on the verge of a revolution?” John Trigmore, op-ed columnist for The National News, asked in a Thursday, June 23 column. “Has Cooper lost his grip?” more than one commentator wonders.
In the meantime, the Prometheus Project has declared Friday, June 24 a national day of mourning for Adam. In the name of “The People’s Strike,” it has asked all working people to stay home and all businesses to close. A memorial has been scheduled at RFK Stadium for 1 p.m. Pandora has coordinated arrangements through her network of local supporters in Washington, D.C. and surrounding areas. The National Television Service has agreed to provide live coverage of the event and a feed to all domestic and international media. Reports of the killing, which is being called an assassination, and of the details of the Friday memorial have gone viral on social media. Comments and visuals are in the tens of millions. Some sites have crashed for hours. Internet platforms are also reporting that the White House has declared the day of mourning a treasonous, rogue action punishable by law, and has advised the public not to attend.
FRIDAY, JUNE 24: WASHINGTON, D.C., RFK STADIUM. Beginning at 9 a.m. on Friday, crowds flock to the stadium. About 1,500 former Cooperville residents have been living there since their camp was destroyed two days before. On the floor level, a miniCooperville has already appeared. There are about 100 makeshift shelters improvised from sheets and cardboard boxes. A large white sheet with the words “Cooperville 2” flies from the stadium’s flagpole.
By 1 p.m. the 46,000 seats of the stadium are filled and the overflow crowd has spilled into the streets outside, where they watch the service on three billboard-size screens. Busses have brought attendees from across the country. Most, if not all, are wearing black armbands. Many are carrying signs that read “Justice for Adam,” “Down with Cooper,” and “John Galt Killed Adam.” It is a typical hot, sticky Washington, D.C. afternoon, but no one seems to care.
As four men slowly carry Adam’s closed coffin into the stadium, the audience stands. They are followed by fifty or so children singing the chorus of Michael Jackson’s “We Are the World”:
We are the world/We are the children/We are the ones who make a brighter day/So let’s start giving/There’s a choice we’re making/We’re saving our own lives/It’s true we’ll make a better day/Just you and me.
The simple pine box is placed in the middle of the stadium, on a raised catafalque made of orange crates. A single piece of black cloth is draped lengthwise across it. Behind it are four chairs. Two are occupied by Adam’s parents, Roger and Anne. An unidentified man and woman sit beside them.
“Please be seated,” Adam’s father says, coming to the microphone facing the coffin. “Good afternoon everyone here in or outside the stadium, as well as the millions of you who are watching around the country and the world. My name is Roger. I am Adam’s father. Anne is Adam’s mother,” he says pointing to his wife. “Does anything look lonelier than the coffin of a young boy, forever lost to us? Can you imagine any loneliness greater than what Anne and I feel? She brought him into this world on the happiest day of our lives. And now, on the loneliest day we will ever know, his cold body lies in a pine box. He belongs to the world now, but he is lost to us forever—alone, a little boy lost, alone without his parents, to wander through eternity.
“Parents are not supposed to bury their children. It is against the law of nature for a father to see his son’s frail body crushed in front of him under the massive weight of a horse. I was supposed to protect him, but I couldn’t. I wonder if he knows that I would have, but couldn’t. It all happened so fast. If I had known, I would have thrown myself before the horse. But it all happened so fast. It is against the law of nature for a mother whose warm body gave her son life to know that life has been drained from him for the cold of death and to know that he will be lowered into a cold grave.
“Today, the whole world knows Adam’s name and how he was brutally killed. But let me tell you about who Adam was when he was alive. Oh, how we celebrated when Anne and I learned she was pregnant. She had an easy pregnancy and birth. But shortly after Adam was born, the doctor discovered that he had a congenital defect that affected his heart rhythm. He never needed surgery or medication. But we had to watch him carefully. He couldn’t play sports or get overexcited without possibly endangering his life. Longterm, we didn’t know what his prospects were. Otherwise, Adam was an average kid, though he was much smarter than average. He was gifted. He was always the smartest in his class and he couldn’t wait to get to school. He said he wanted to be a doctor, because he wanted to make sick kids better. He said he really thought he knew how to do that. He even told his doctors that.
“Adam was killed on Wednesday. But we died as a family two years ago. For ten years, I had been a software developer for an international technology company. But on a Friday at 5 p.m., I received an email informing me that my services were no longer needed, because it had decided to outsource all of its technical operations overseas. Since, thanks to Cooper and his corporate cronies, there is no unemployment insurance, within six months we had used up our cash and available savings. I couldn’t pay our rent or health insurance. We could barely afford to eat. We had no one to turn to or any place to go.
“I did the only thing I knew. Adam, Anne, and I packed up everything that would fit in our van—Thank God it was paid for—and we headed north from Tennessee. I found odd jobs along the way, so we were able to eat. But we slept in the van. We started out in the middle of summer. I had hoped that we’d get settled somewhere in time for Adam to start school. But we couldn’t stay anywhere long enough. Anne did the best she could to teach him. I told you he was gifted, and something inside him started to die when he couldn’t go to school.
“Finally, we wound up in Washington, D.C. and Cooperville. For the first time, we were with thousands of people who understood what we were going through, because they were going through it, too. I’ve been able to work at day jobs, washing dishes or doing light construction. You can forget software development. No one’s hiring. We signed Adam up for school in the fall. Though we had a long way to go, we were starting to pick ourselves up. At least we weren’t moving from place to place and living in our van. Oh, by the way, I sold the van shortly after we went to Cooperville, and that gave us some breathing room for a few months.
“Then, Wednesday happened. I still can’t believe it. From out of nowhere, men with flashlights and sticks attacked helpless men, women, and children, most of whom were sleeping. They gave us no time to collect our things and made us march into the street. By now, the whole world has seen what happened, not just to Adam, but to thousands of human beings. In Adam’s name, I beg you to never let this happen again.”
As Roger returns to his seat, people in the audience jump to their seats and shout, “Adam, Adam, Adam. Never again. Adam, Adam, Adam. Never again!”
“My name is Frank,” the next speaker says. “Ever since John Galt returned and the Corporate States of America was established, it has been illegal to pledge allegiance aloud to the United States of America. So, I ask you to observe a moment’s silence and to repeat it to yourselves.
“We are here because President Cooper and the Corporate States of America assassinated Adam, an innocent child, in the name of greed, profit, and personal ambition. They have drugged the country on Atlas until they’ve gone mad with power. We are here because we want the world to know that if you kill one of us, you kill all of us. We are here because President Cooper and the Corporate States of America have failed us. They destroyed Cooperville and have sent us here because they don’t want the world to see how we suffer from the disaster they created.
“Just two days ago, none of us dreamed we’d be here. But look around, this is now what some of us must call home, thanks to President Ham Cooper and his thugs. That’s right, let the whole world see this open-air jail, where we have been forced to move. I was living in Cooperville in Washington, D.C., as I had been for the past four years. I was trying to survive. I knew Adam and his parents from the first day they arrived on the Mall. I watched how they cared for each other as a family—and especially how George and Anne doted on their son. I saw how determined George was to find work and how he went without eating more than once so Anne and Adam could eat—especially Adam. Yes, that’s how bad things get for some of us in the Corporate States of America. We actually can’t afford food or a decent place to live or clothes or medicine or all the things that many of you watching take for wanted.
“Everything changed for all of us in Cooperville during the predawn raid Wednesday. Based upon lies, trumped-up charges, that we now know came directly from Ham Cooper, District security forces attacked and began destroying our shelters, scattering our belongings, and rounding us up like common criminals. They treat their dogs better than they treated us. They claimed that we were a national security risk because we were hiding drugs and weapons. But they knew those were lies. They put us on a forced march to this stadium, through the streets of the capital, to get us out of the way. That’s because we are living proof of the brutality and failure of policies of the Corporate States of America. But the world is now seeing the truth.
“Adam, well, innocent Adam wasn’t even lucky enough to get to this hellhole. He was trampled to death. It is fitting and proper that we should be here, in RFK Stadium, to remember the short life of Adam, who was killed before he had a chance to grow up and make something of himself. In 1969, this stadium was renamed for U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated the year before as he campaigned for the presidency of the United States of America. To those of you who are too young to remember, the U.S.A. was totally different from the Corporate States of America. Its policies and government were ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people’— not, as they are today, for the benefit of corporations and the rich, to hell with everyone else. RFK would be ashamed of what we are today—and he would have fought against it if he had lived until today. And so, as a fitting tribute to Adam’s life and memory, I ask you to commit yourself to challenge the warped values of the Corporate States and to return to those that made this nation great.” As he takes his seat, the audience stands and applauds and shouts, “John Galt Killed Adam. John Galt Killed Adam. John Galt Killed Adam.”
“Thank you, everyone,” the woman says, as she replaces Frank at the microphone. “My name is Irene. I too lived in Cooperville on the Mall before I was forced out two days ago and made to walk through the streets barefoot to get here. That’s right! The Cooper thug who pulled the stakes of my tent out of the ground so it collapsed on me wouldn’t even let me put my shoes on when he told me to march. ‘But I’m barefoot,’ I told him. ‘Too fuckin’ bad, bitch,’ he answered.
“Today is an unofficial national day of mourning for Adam. And the White House has declared it an act of terrorism. But I’m thrilled to report that, at this hour, there is a nationwide work stoppage. Nothing is happening anywhere. The Corporate States of America is completely shut down. Maybe now, Cooper and his thugs will understand who really makes this country possible.
“I want to ask five of the children who used to live in Cooperville and who are now are pretty much in jail here to come forward.” They line up in front of the coffin and each one holds a single white rose. Irene takes the microphone out of the stand and places it in front of the children as they speak together, then one at a time.
“We speak for all the children of Cooperville, who only want a chance to live, and play, and grow up to be good people.”
“I speak for the children from the North.”
“I speak for the children from the South.”
“I speak for the children from the East.”
“I speak for the children from the West.”
Then, together, all five say, “We speak for the children from everywhere. We speak for Adam. All of us are Adam.” One by one, they put their roses on the coffin and walk away.
Over the loudspeaker, a voice announces that this concludes today’s ceremony. The pall bearers begin moving Adam’s coffin out of the stadium, followed by Roger, Anne, Frank, Irene, and a line of fifty children. In the sky, out of nowhere, the following words appear: “Adam lives. John Galt Is Dead.” The audience breaks out in deafening applause and chants the message until the procession is out of sight.