Down
Down
Down the CorpInc stairwell Marshall spiraled.
He could have taken the elevator but that would have meant being observed and probably accosted as he waited for it. And he couldn't abide that.
He had to keep moving.
Away from them.
Away from her.
But no matter how quickly he descended, she stayed where she was: front and center in his mind.
No wonder she had expressed such interest in him. And no wonder she had wanted him to make more videos. If you were after the applause of those yelling, mocking people, how better to get it than by giving them new things to yell about and mock?
And, above all, no wonder she’d agreed to join him in being taken, since to her anything that someone like him said or dreamed or planned was a joke, right? A giant joke that would lead to nothing. So what did it matter if she played along?
The thought of which made him miss a step, and had he not grabbed the railing he would have fallen an entire flight. As it was, he wrenched his shoulder, which hurt all the way out of the building, and back, block after block, towards the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
Though it did not hurt nearly as much as the truth that had fallen open before him.
He realized the function of the prescreening office now, and the reception his most heartfelt yearnings must have received there, and how much fun it must have been for them to cook up all sorts of lies and lures, before sending her off to—
“Give 'em a faceful, that’s what I say. A faceful of reality.”
Jolted from his inner turmoil, he found a dinged-up yellow taxi crawling beside him, its front passenger window cracked open and a radio personality barking out.
“Don't know what I’m referring to?” said the personality. “Never heard of rolling coal? Then stay tuned, because what we have here is the perfect greeting for the next freedom-hating, socialism-loving, Prius-driving libtard you see.
Grimacing, Marshall tried to wave off the bellicose vehicle. But it stayed with him, hemmed in by surrounding traffic. While the personality snarled on.
“All you need is a Dodge Ram, F-150 or other fine, diesel-drinking pickup. Plus the willingness not to be so darn polite anymore. I’m sick of polite. The time is over for polite. It is time for us, as proud Americans, to own up to who we are and what we believe.”
He walked faster. No luck. A light turned green, and the window rejoined him. He tried coming to a full stop but succeeded only in getting rear-ended by another pedestrian, hoisted by his backpack and bounced off the creeping cab.
“Yeah, sure, it’ll cost something. A few dollars for tubing and injectors—details on the internet. But tell me it isn’t worth it the next time you come across one of those foreign-made virtue-mobiles with its detestable America-hater at the wheel.”
He was running now, desperate to dodge yet another blast of awfulness. Wondering what would happen if he couldn’t dodge it, if it piled on top of the others.
It piled on top of the others.
“OK, here’s what you do. First, get in front of the thing. Then slow way down. Fire off your rear-facing double stacks, and guess what. You won’t even see that Prius anymore, or the libtard going cuckoo inside of it. All you will see behind you is a thick black cloud of unburned fossil fuel. And what’s the libtard gonna do? Call the cops? Because someone had a little trouble with his engine? Chase you? OK, fine. Let him catch you. Then, while he’s admiring your Glock or Colt or whatever else you carry, let him know just what you think of his phony-baloney climate change pseudoscience whose only real purpose is to put millions of us regular people out of work and ruin our economy.”
There were no proposals to mull over now, no two-line emails to anticipate. There was just this spewing yellow heap that somehow clung to him no matter what. Until, abruptly, it didn't. Until, as he was about to step off a curb, it veered suddenly, homicidally, in front of him. So he had to jump away—so the heel of his sandal caught in a grating, and he ended up splayed on the backpack, staring from the sidewalk at the mammoth signage of Times Square.
Urgent red words rushed along the side of a building, announcing that a teenager in Florida had just gunned down a record number of high school students; while above that, a digital billboard showed spectators thrilling to the sight of a man beating another man unconscious in a cage; while across from that, sun-bronzed beachgoers were being made deliriously happy by sugary drinks; while at the center of everything . . . on the largest billboard of all . . .
. . . an ad was winking out . . . a new one taking form. He saw two little upright lines. Ones? I’s? No, the top of a U. Then a p, an r, another u, an s, an h. Then the scowling model. Then . . .
Dominating Times Square as nothing he had written or cared about ever would, the cover of what had once been his magazine blazed forth its prophetic headline.
THE FUTURE . . . IS CUFFS!