you seem too happy to be devastated—that was my assessment of how AOC was handling the likelihood that she would be the next president. that was all well and good, and it was great to see her feeling good. Of course i still suspected that things could get a little better for her—she could stand to fair a little better in the polls, and, according to my conversations with myself (i’m only half-joking) she was getting bored with her boyfriend, as if they were comfortable with each other, but not, as i would have it, both infatuated and in love.
So, i’d just keep talking to her as if my conversations with me didn’t mean anything, as if “me” wasn’t the address of my orphan, and, of course, we weren’t doing anything wrong. I think, in part, she was happy about that. The more I thought about it, i was too—i believed in her, regardless of my feelings, and that made me feel great.
now let’s get down to business like, as not, if the democrats controlled the house, and Chuck Schumer wouldn’t reveal himself to be the elitist racist that i suspected he was. ok but we don’t have a lot of time. it would be a mistake to think that whatever Jack Daniels was doing to the country and or his body, he didn’t care: his only objective was to secure the supremacy of the white race, and the money that, thanks to slavery (what else, with the minimum wage being less than thirty bucks an hour?), the blacks and browns made and or should be making for them.
“what business?” did she mean, for example, the business (not of living) but of what was happening between us? Yet, of course, none of this was exactly conscious, so what, then, was happening between us but this? it’s important to get a reality check every now and then, but i really believed, no matter how much i made fun of myself, that my thoughts were a function, to some degree, of AOC’s. there’s no way to handle this you just have to rip this out like a tumor that was the opinion, friend, of the vice president, who was expected, if all else fails (and the republicans maintain control of congress) to get elected and cede his position to Jack Daniels. these people wanted a dictator to punish the blacks and browns with immunity—to elevate the white race by putting everybody else down.
these idiots, i think, were calling for a civil war—then they could get away with anything! who might’ve thought that we could wind up nuking each other? a girl from the Bronx? She was going to be my savior and redeemer, using her influence to put the white race back in their proper place—as equals alongside blacks and browns, not as their superiors and or owners.
you know i can’t—we can’t, be this. but who was saying that? and be what? this has already happened: we not only can be this, we are this. i can hang around in the background, using you as my substitute for the one that, given your feelings, or the lack thereof, will replace you. that’s what i will do. i’ll protect that—you can’t stop me. that was me, doing my best to lay down an ultimatum.
don’t worry, i said, i know that i belong in the background, at least for now, and i won’t do anything to hurt you—and by you i mean both you and the people you represent. ok, she said, make the most of this. i want you to improve yourself but don’t do it on my account. That was an interesting way to put it, as if I were only trying to prove myself because i was looking forward to getting a reward from her for doing it. But no, i was bent on improving myself because i wanted to get everything, the pith, out of this life, and use it, in the next life, to be even happier and more talented than i otherwise might’ve been. i don’t expect you to love me, i said, but i will be disappointed. But what, after all this, i had to imagine, did any of this mean if should find that, in the end, i had no longstanding determination to make love?