Dancing in the Streets Part IV
November 2014
Shrewsbury College
"So when my Mom lost her job," William Vincent said, "that's when I started thinking about things. I decided I'd look at that flyer you put under my door, and a lot of that stuff started to make sense."
"Vincent, we're glad you're here," Madeline said. Madeline was the chairman of the NPAPP Shrewsbury organization. (Quinn had moved up to vice-chairman.) All together, their little group now had ten people in it. "The news hasn't been good recently. Quinn, I'd like you to give the report on the issues that we're facing."
Quinn stood up and the little group clapped. She was now wearing a long-sleeved green shirt (her old pink shirt, dyed green) and a pair of white pants. She had worked on her speech for at least a couple of hours, but reading it simply made her aware of how short it was.
"Don't think that what's going on in this country doesn't affect you as students of Shrewsbury," Quinn said. "The spike in gasoline prices should worry every commuter student. I grew up in Maryland and came to California because I heard that Shrewsbury provided a quality education. Now, I'm at risk of not being able to go home this semester."
Everyone nodded gravely. The current price at the gas pump was $5.69 a gallon, an unexpected spike in gas that hit the pumps shortly after the 2014 Congressional Elections and the alarming hike was considered a national crisis, leading the news every night. The Republicans were screaming that there was some sort of conspiracy to hold gas prices to artificially low levels until the end of the election cycle - if so, it didn't work because Democrats lost more seats in the House and the Senate was now tied 50-50 with Joe Biden holding the deciding vote. No one expected Obama's coattails to be long in 2016. With a Democratic president, a Republican house and a tied Senate, no one expected Congress to make headway on any major issue, not even the gas issue.
The gas issue affected everything. Despite the fact of the alarming climb of gas prices (which had only lasted for ten days) belts were already tightening. The price of airplane travel took a major bump, particularly with the coming of the holidays, and consumers screamed about the practically usurious airline rates. Small businesses that depended on the price of gas being in the $3 range were being squeezed at the margins, with the first wave of layoffs just before the Thanksgiving holidays.
There was one good thing about the gas bump, Quinn told herself. It gave the NPAPP some talking points when they went door to door. NPAPP members generally went door to door as a large group, had hit every dorm on campus and prepared to hit every dorm again.
"President Obama says that we're already in a recovery, but the recovery hasn't taken place yet. He's opening up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try to bring the price of gasoline back down. I want to remind you of a saying from another previous president - 'Prosperity is just around the corner'! That was President Hoover, before the Great Depression."
"But if you listen to the Republicans," Quinn said, "you'll get the same story. Their idea of a solution is to trash the Arctic Refuge. Trash out the enviroment to fill up the tanks. Pipelines and fracking and devastation. The other story is that there isn't a recovery because President Obama has created a 'toxic environment' for 'job creators'. If you listen to Republican talk radio - and, like, I suggest you don't, because I listened to it for four hours yesterday - I guess their plan is that if we stop taxing rich people, everything will get better. Seriously, I'm not kidding, that's their plan."
"Now you might ask, 'what does that have to do with me at Shrewsbury?'. It has everything to do with you. It has to do with whether you're going to walk or drive to school. It has to do with how much it costs to buy food - the food drives too - and how much you're going to pay for that food at the Student Union. It makes you have to think about how far from Shrewsbury you can go to look for part time work. It means that more students will stay at home and take on-line courses - it breaks up our community. It affects where your money is going to go if gas prices don't go down."
"The economy is trashed. Global warming is real. The current government isn't doing anything about it. The guys who want to be the next government aren't doing anything about it either, except proposing to make it worse or let it be somebody else's problem. So you need to about this. You should ask yourself, who put these morons here, and how do we get them out? The answer to both of those questions are the same. Think about it."
The students politely applauded as Quinn sat down. "We have to keep working on getting word out about NPAPP," Madeline said. "There's nothing that we say that distinguishes us from any other political group out there. Even though we've hit every dorm, I don't think there's much awareness of who we are as a group."
"Kids are apathetic," Jeremiah Rosslo, another NPAPP member said.
"Then we have to break up their apathy," Madeline said. "People either need to fall in love with us, or hate us, but apathy is just going to kill us."
"There is something," Quinn said, "that everyone can do. To the people who come to this meeting - if you've got a talent, we can use it. I don't care what your talent is, we can use that talent and we want to use it. If there's anything we're talking about that interests you, use it. What kind of talent do you have, William?"
"Me?" he said. "Hell, I play basketball."
"Fine. You can leave fliers in the visiting team's room. We're glad to have you here, William, because...." Quinn didn't want to say "because being a jock means you're not the typical loser", and thought of something else. "...because you have a high profile on campus. If you show up in green and white, people are going to ask questions. 'What's he doing with the NPAPP?' Tell your story about what brought you here."
"Richard?"
"I'm a philosophy major," he said, a bit sheepishly.
"Good. You know what motivates people," Quinn said. "We want to hear from you. William, we're going to leave you with some material. Richard, we need a report from you, a critical assessment from a philosopher's viewpoint about our group."
"I think," Jeremiah said, "that people at Shrewsbury want to know what we're going to do for them. Specifically."
Madeline frowned. "What, like some sort of student government thing?"
"Yeah."
"Student government is the toybox of a university," Richard said. "No one takes student government seriously. If you're thinking about getting involved in campus politics, you're going to doom us to irrelevance."
There was some argument among the attendees regarding whether or not NPAPP should get involved through the official university channels. Madeline broke up the argument. "Enough. I don't know how the NPAPP HQ feels about us getting involved in campus politics."
Groaning ensued. "What?" Jeremiah said, "you have to ask for permission?"
"Guys, wait!" Quinn said. "Give us some time. We are going to make a political impact! We are going to positively affect the lives of every student on campus!"
"So we are running for office?" Jeremiah asked.
Quinn looked at Madeline. "I didn't say that."
"So we're not?"
"I didn't say that either."
"Then what are you saying?" Quinn only had the kernel of an idea, but it wasn't enough to verbalize it. "Richard?" Quinn said with a smile. "I need to form a NPAPP Campus Politics Committee. That committee will consist of you, me...and Jeremiah." She turned to Madeline. "With your permission."
"It's a great idea," Madeline said. "But frankly, I don't want us dicking around with a bunch of committees. That's party politics of the worst kind. I expect this committee to have its work done by *yesterday*. I expect you to come to some conclusions by *tonight*. I feel like we're just treading water here."
Madeline made a few concluding remarks and then broke up the meeting. As everyone walked out, she managed to get Quinn's attention. "Quinn, I want to talk to you."
Quinn expected the worst as she walked back over. "What's up?"
Madeline sighed again. "I don't know what Party HQ is going to think of this. I really don't want us to get involved in the Student Government. That's a quagmire. That system is engineered not to do anything."
"Yeah, Madeline, but we have to do something. Like a service organization."
"There are enough of those on campus. I really liked the idea of using other people's talents, it gives them the idea that they are actively building the party, even though they can't build much. Ten people is a pretty big chapter when it comes to NPAPP. But I don't know. I feel that our momentum is slipping."
"I'll come up with something tonight," Quinn said, not knowing how she was going to do it.
"I hope so," Madeline said. "It might be a long meeting. I think Richard likes you. It might be the only reason he's in NPAPP at all."
(* * *)
Quinn had already asked around about student government before her meeting with Richard and William. (She wondered if they were called Dick or Bill by their friends?) She made sure to talk to someone in Shrewsbury Student Government, as well as one of the quad-occupying student groups that protested against them. Then, she matched their stories.
She quickly learned that most of the multicultural blocks - everyone from the Black Student Union to Hillel to the Muslim Students Association - would always vote for the establishment candidates. The only way to have a shot at winning a campus election is to get the apathetic students to vote, as participation levels were at the low 10 percents. Occasionally there were joke candidacies or stunt candidates, but the Shrewsbury Student Government was well insulated from insurrections. (A rule stating that only *human* students at Shrewsbury could be elected, for example.)
The head of the Students for a Just Shrewsbury told her that one of their candidates two years earlier had been disqualified by a rule that stated that campaigning was limited to just three days before elections. In reality, the SSG types campaigned all the time, but all it took was a magic wand by the SSG to turn an informal meeting into a "campaign event". There were all kinds of potential pitfalls. Mistakes on campus forms had killed outsider candidates. There was an "election manager seminar" that everyone interested in running was required to attend, and the student newspaper never put up any notice of it. Yet magically, every establishment candidate manged to attend it.
The only power the office really offered was the power to meet with the Shrewsbury Board of Trustees. "And sometimes," her insider told her, "our Student Body President doesn't bother to show up at the meetings."
Quinn kept the news to herself. William was asked about his perspective on campus matters as one of the popular crowd. Even the popular crowd had issues. They hated the high cost of text books. They hated the $50 a year they had to pay as a student government fee. On parking, the administration was determined to nickel and dime them to death. Generally, student government members came from the popular kids crowd - and idealistic members had tried to address these issues - only to have them come to naught under the weight of their own student government bureaucracy and the wait-them-out tactics of Shrewsbury administration.
"Nothing good can come from Student Government," Richard said, "because how long is a Student Body President in office? A year? That's not long enough to get anything done. There are no long range agendas by students because they and everyone else knows that they're only going to be here for four years. So nothing important really gets done."
Quinn then hit the philosophy major with why people joined political parties. "Some don't," he said. "Some people will never trust society in general. Others join because they're looking to fill some sort of vacuum in their lives. Other than that, you have to wait for something big to happen."
"Like what?" Quinn asked.
"Well, there was the issue of slavery which both parties weren't equipped to address. The Democrats wanted slavery, which was unacceptable to the North for a variety of reasons. The Northern opposition parties wanted to compromise, or to kick the can down the road for the next guy to deal with. People felt they weren't listened to and the Republican Party was founded, which was an activist movement. The longer neither party dealt with the problem, the stronger the Republicans got. It only took them four years to become a national party. The problem is, Quinn, we don't have a defining problem."
"Capitalism," William said.
"Already been tried," Richard said. "Socialists, Communists, Greens. There have been a lot of anti-capitalist parties in American and none of them have worked. There might be some hope in the future, as the Republicans preach a more and more predatory type of capitalism and the Democrats are more and more corporate. But the bones of anti-capitalist political parties fill America's political graveyard."
"Okay. Then we need to give people another reason to join." Quinn worried, however, about the anti-capitalist planks in the NPAPP. She wasn't against capitalism, per se, but her brief time in NPAPP and talking to other people convinced her that the old "I got mine" capitalism wasn't working. So she looked for some other reason. "What else we got?"
"Well, we have danger."
"Huh?"
"You know. The same reason college kids become hardcore Democrats or Republicans as freshmen. Because they want to stick it to their parents of the opposite persuasion. Make a big show of things. Make a lot of noise."
"That could work!" Quinn said.
"Well, everyone wants to have a good time," William said.
She could feel a hint of disgust in William's statement. "You know, William - do they call you William or Bill?"
"My friends call me Bill."
"Bill - I don't think it has to be 'either-or'. Either you get Student Gov that is all about having a good time but never gets anything done. Or you get those other groups that are all super-serious that bore everyone to death. We need to do both. We need a touch of excitement around there. We're the excitement."
"You could put that on a bumper sticker," Richard chuckled.
"Why not? We ARE the excitement. We're not your Mom and Dad's political party. The Democrats and the Republicans? They're not following the future, they're following the past."
"Yeah, but how do you keep the party together if it can't do anything?" Richard said.
"The same way you keep any group of people together," Quinn said. "Trust me. When I was in high school, I learned all about the popularity ladder. If you offer people a good time, if you're nice to them, if you don't try to stab them in the back and if you talk to them like human beings, you will be popular. Of course, it helps to dress nice and look good, too."
"The kind of people who attend NPAPP meetings look like a bunch of nobodies," William said.
"Then we need to give out good advice. Everyone wants to be special," Quinn said. "And at NPAPP, everyone is special. And when they're not looking, we'll hit them in the head with our party platform."
"But what about Student Government?" Richard said.
"We're not going to reach out to them," Quinn said. "Our goal is to be so big that we don't need to. If we get to a large enough size, it becomes obvious who the student government is going to be. If we're the popular people, then there is no choice."
"We don't have popular people!" William said.
Quinn smiled. "Watch me," she said, "and learn." She had finally put it together - people make political decisions based on little more than popularity. And nothing sweetened an unpalatable position more than a popular person making it.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Dancing in the Streets (Part III)
October 2014
Shrewsbury College
Quinn Morgendorffer wondered if she hadn't made a terrible mistake.
Her parents were proud that she had decided to attend Shrewsbury instead of Pepperhill. She had managed to bring up her grades and her extracurriculars and glowing recommendations - even David Sorenson wrote one - got her by the skin of her teeth into Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury College's reputation was that of an up-and-coming educational institution with potential and a good psychology program. It certainly beat the party school she almost went to, Pepperhill.
However, Quinn found herself struggling almost immediately. The work was harder than that at Lawndale High School. Granted, it wasn't a Leland University or a University of Berkeley level of challenge but it was hard enough. All of Quinn's social connections had to be rebuilt from ground up.
It was here that Quinn learned two major rules about college, and undergraduate education in general.
The first is that the educational rigor of a school is closely correlated with the ability of the student body to get away from idiots. Shrewsbury was an NCAA Division III university. It didn't even have a football team, and no sporting life except for losing basketball teams that were lucky to draw two dozen in attendance. There was no sorority system at Shrewsbury, just dorm life, and unexceptional dorm life. There were no drunken bacchanals or rock concerts on the Quadrangle. It was an atomized life. There were groups, but there wasn't a whole. At Lawndale High School, she knew everyone but at Shrewsbury there were still people she hadn't met. And absolutely, there was no one group of people that held sway over everything cool and popular.
The second is that college is a place to remake yourself. The freshmen were in two groups - those who were trying to make themselves into something else but not having quite decided what. The other group were those who were trying to recreate their high school life at Shrewsbury. The second group was having a lot of problems. The high school queen bees found themselves isolated for their obnoxiousness. The jocks who were the best players on their teams either were riding the bench at Shrewsbury, or in the case of football, didn't even have a sport to fall back on. The only winners were the brains - as long as they had a library and someone to approve of their academic strivings, they were happy.
Quinn's problem was that she had one feet in both groups. She wanted things to be different, but she wanted to fall back on the comforts of fashion, gossip, and popularity. At times, she chided herself for trying to act like a Fashion Club Vice-President, other times she chided herself for wanting Sandi, Stacy, and Tiffany back. It wouldn't happen. Sandi was at Pepperhill, Stacy was at some East Coast college, and she hadn't heard from Tiffany since graduation.
She had other struggles. In addition to struggling with the load, her metabolism decided to kick into low gear. She was gaining a small amout of weight, even though she hadn't changed her diet. She dreaded having to cut anything out of her diet, which was already pared down to keep her thin and trim figure. Her nightmare was that the Freshman Forty - the forty pounds girls supposedly gained during their first year - was upon her, and she'd do about anything to avoid that.
The fashionable girls were either snobs - rich girls who ended up at Shrewsbury because it was the safety school - or they were bores. What few hierarchies there were were already cast in iron, and Quinn would have to climb up the popularity pole the hard way, and she didn't know if she had the desire, or didn't know if it was the right thing to do, or didn't know any better.
Sometimes, she'd put on a sweat shirt and sweat pants, look out the window, and just think about how alone she was. The only people that really seemed to approve of her being at Shrewsbury were her parents - and Daria. Daria's approval meant more to her than even Helen or Jake's. Daria and Quinn rarely communicated, but after Daria learned of Quinn's acceptance, she sent a rare text message.
"Wow. A school that doesn't have its diplomas perforated at the edges. How did THAT happen?"
Quinn smiled when she read it. Daria seemed happy at Raft. Why couldn't she be happy at Shrewsbury? She just felt like a big fat failure.
(* * *)
It was going to be another lazy Saturday. There was a knock at the door. Quinn answered it.
There was a girl wearing a green T-shirt and white pants. She had a backpack and was carrying some papers. "Hi, my name is Madeline, and I'm a member of the National Progressive American People's Party," she said. "The system in America doesn't work. Are you interested in helping us form a national political organization?"
She handed Quinn the pamphlet. Quinn looked it over. There was a party platform with a set of bullet points. A picture of some young-looking adult with some information about who he was.
"I'm sorry," Quinn said. "I'm not interested in politics."
"If your house was on fire," Madeline said, "you'd be interested in putting it out. America's house is on fire, and we're all going to get burned. Our party platform offers ways to put that fire out."
Quinn gave the pamphlet another cursory glance. She knew she had to get rid of Madeline. "Isn't it a faux pas to wear white after Labor Day?" referring to Madeline's white pants.
"Coco Chanel wore white every day," Madeline said, smiling.
"True," Quinn said, "but that green and white combination has got to go. I hope that's not all you're wearing!"
Quinn chided herself for pulling out her inner Sandi, but she was also impressed that Madeline knew who Coco Chanel was. "I've never heard of you guys."
"There's a website. www.npapp.org. You can find out anything you want to find out."
"Are you having any luck?"
"Doing what?"
"Getting members?
Madeline gave a slight frown. "There are only five of us," she said.
"So...not working, huh?" Quinn said, somewhat dismissively.
"No one is going to come to a meeting unless they know about it," Madeline said. "They might not come to a meeting, but they'll sure as hell know about it by the time I'm done."
"Look. I don't make commitments on the first date - so to speak, Quinn said. "How am I supposed to know that you guys are not a bunch of looney tunes?"
"Read the website. If there's something you don't agree with - tell us. But there are a few things we're not moving on. Global warming is real, and it's going to screw all of us. Our national economy is a joke. Big business don't care. Labor unions don't care. Washington doesn't care. It's just us. If you're not fighting for what you want, then you don't want it bad enough. Can I ask your name?"
Quinn pulled the trigger. "It's Quinn. Quinn Morgendorffer."
"Quinn, I hope you'll come to our meeting next Thursday. Please come."
Sighing, Quinn said, "I need to find out about this...Fred Wolff guy, whoever he is. Good looking."
"See you on campus, Quinn," Madeline said. "I'll be the one wearing green and white. And if you just want to chat - that's okay, too. Take care!"
Quinn closed the door. "Fred Wolff, huh?" she said to herself and then walked to her laptop where she punched up the NPAPP website.
It was a bare-bones website that really didn't offer much more than the platform of NPAPP. Quinn read off a few bullet points of the NPAPP Platform:
* We invest in the people. We invest in peace, we invest in health care, we invest in intrastructure, we invest in community, we invest in education. We do not invest in war and we do not invest in economic speculation.
...
* We believes nature has rights. If a corporation can have rights, then nature certainly has more rights than any corporation.
...
* We believe that all citizens have equal rights and equal obligations. There will be an end to the dual standard of justice.
A lot of it was la-dee dah, but Quinn liked a few things. "Caring for the older generation will always be a top priority of the National Progressive American People's Party." "The days of the "one dollar, one vote" democracy are over." "Racism and misogyny have no place in this party, and they never will."
Quinn wondered how much they meant that last statement, but it was a good start.
She searched the "campus branches" and found they were very few and far between, mostly based in Eastern Schools.
* Boston Academy of Fine Arts
* Boston Institute of Technology
* Crestmore University
* Raft University
* Shrewsbury College
* Vance University
It looked like Madeline's little group was the lone Western outpost of NPAPP. She then looked up Fred Wolff:
Fred Wolff is the National Progressive American People's Party Chairman. A veteran of the Gulf Wars (Iraq, Afghanistan) he served several tours of duty, working his way up from recruit to Sergeant (E-5) in the United States Marines. When his squad leader in Afghanistan was killed by enemy fire, Wolff took charge, killing five members of the Taliban, carrying wounded soldiers off the battlefield despite being exposed to hostile fire, and with his squad managed to hold his position until help could arrive. For bravery in battle, Wolff was awarded the Silver Star.
There were other quotes testifying to Wolff's bravery, with some background information. He grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsyvlania. He attended high school and after 9/11, enlisted in the Marines, volunteered for several tours there. Injuries on duty - he also had Purple Heart - forced him to leave the Marines.
"I learned from watching the movies that even a minority can do great things if they just have courage. I haven't been proven wrong yet." - Fred Wolff
It seemed interesting to Quinn, maybe going to that meeting. But it was just an idea. They didn't really look like much of anything. Five people. She supposed that going door to door was a "great thing" if you were shy, but there was no bolt of lightning that was moving her. Her instinct told her that it would just be a waste of time.
She shoved the pamphlet into her drawer, and moved on to other things.
(* * *)
It was Thursday, and she came back to her dorm completely dejected. She looked at her mid-term grade for Advanced Trigonometry.
67. And that was a grade far better than she deserved. The test was about all sorts of sine and cosine formulas that seemed impervious to memorization. The teacher was no help, and she had been told by several of her classmates that they guy was the worst teacher in the math department. The class started out with 32 people, dropped to 20 people by the beginning of October, and Quinn cursed herself for not dropping the class. She suspected that the class would end with just a handful of people.
She needed a "C" in Calculus I just to be accepted into the psychology program at Shrewsbury. This gave Quinn several unappetizing options. She could sweat out Advanced Trig and pray for a "C" for effort, but she knew she wouldn't be prepared for Calc. She could drop the class and take it again in the Spring. Or she could change majors.
In addition, there was the Blake Prichard. He was one of the sweetest, nicest guys that she had met. She had thrown about a zillion hints at him - to no effect. She had finagled some study time with him. Finally, she decided that drastic measures needed to be taken - she invited him out to lunch.
He declined. He was going out of town. Quinn didn't know if it was the truth, if it was an excuse, if he was gay. She just didn't care.
She looked at her bare desk. Her roommate - a Chinese girl that she had nothing in common with, a brainiac - was off at the library. It was to be another lone night again to deal with her failure.
Chinese. She wondered if there was a place that delivered Chinese food. She opened her desk drawer, and saw the NPAPP Pamphlet again. It offered an opportunity. She could stay at the dorm and be miserable, or attend the NPAPP meeting and be miserable there. At least she'd have company. It might even be good for a laugh if they were all a bunch of lame-os.
Madeline left her number. She figured she'd give them a call.
Shrewsbury College
Quinn Morgendorffer wondered if she hadn't made a terrible mistake.
Her parents were proud that she had decided to attend Shrewsbury instead of Pepperhill. She had managed to bring up her grades and her extracurriculars and glowing recommendations - even David Sorenson wrote one - got her by the skin of her teeth into Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury College's reputation was that of an up-and-coming educational institution with potential and a good psychology program. It certainly beat the party school she almost went to, Pepperhill.
However, Quinn found herself struggling almost immediately. The work was harder than that at Lawndale High School. Granted, it wasn't a Leland University or a University of Berkeley level of challenge but it was hard enough. All of Quinn's social connections had to be rebuilt from ground up.
It was here that Quinn learned two major rules about college, and undergraduate education in general.
The first is that the educational rigor of a school is closely correlated with the ability of the student body to get away from idiots. Shrewsbury was an NCAA Division III university. It didn't even have a football team, and no sporting life except for losing basketball teams that were lucky to draw two dozen in attendance. There was no sorority system at Shrewsbury, just dorm life, and unexceptional dorm life. There were no drunken bacchanals or rock concerts on the Quadrangle. It was an atomized life. There were groups, but there wasn't a whole. At Lawndale High School, she knew everyone but at Shrewsbury there were still people she hadn't met. And absolutely, there was no one group of people that held sway over everything cool and popular.
The second is that college is a place to remake yourself. The freshmen were in two groups - those who were trying to make themselves into something else but not having quite decided what. The other group were those who were trying to recreate their high school life at Shrewsbury. The second group was having a lot of problems. The high school queen bees found themselves isolated for their obnoxiousness. The jocks who were the best players on their teams either were riding the bench at Shrewsbury, or in the case of football, didn't even have a sport to fall back on. The only winners were the brains - as long as they had a library and someone to approve of their academic strivings, they were happy.
Quinn's problem was that she had one feet in both groups. She wanted things to be different, but she wanted to fall back on the comforts of fashion, gossip, and popularity. At times, she chided herself for trying to act like a Fashion Club Vice-President, other times she chided herself for wanting Sandi, Stacy, and Tiffany back. It wouldn't happen. Sandi was at Pepperhill, Stacy was at some East Coast college, and she hadn't heard from Tiffany since graduation.
She had other struggles. In addition to struggling with the load, her metabolism decided to kick into low gear. She was gaining a small amout of weight, even though she hadn't changed her diet. She dreaded having to cut anything out of her diet, which was already pared down to keep her thin and trim figure. Her nightmare was that the Freshman Forty - the forty pounds girls supposedly gained during their first year - was upon her, and she'd do about anything to avoid that.
The fashionable girls were either snobs - rich girls who ended up at Shrewsbury because it was the safety school - or they were bores. What few hierarchies there were were already cast in iron, and Quinn would have to climb up the popularity pole the hard way, and she didn't know if she had the desire, or didn't know if it was the right thing to do, or didn't know any better.
Sometimes, she'd put on a sweat shirt and sweat pants, look out the window, and just think about how alone she was. The only people that really seemed to approve of her being at Shrewsbury were her parents - and Daria. Daria's approval meant more to her than even Helen or Jake's. Daria and Quinn rarely communicated, but after Daria learned of Quinn's acceptance, she sent a rare text message.
"Wow. A school that doesn't have its diplomas perforated at the edges. How did THAT happen?"
Quinn smiled when she read it. Daria seemed happy at Raft. Why couldn't she be happy at Shrewsbury? She just felt like a big fat failure.
(* * *)
It was going to be another lazy Saturday. There was a knock at the door. Quinn answered it.
There was a girl wearing a green T-shirt and white pants. She had a backpack and was carrying some papers. "Hi, my name is Madeline, and I'm a member of the National Progressive American People's Party," she said. "The system in America doesn't work. Are you interested in helping us form a national political organization?"
She handed Quinn the pamphlet. Quinn looked it over. There was a party platform with a set of bullet points. A picture of some young-looking adult with some information about who he was.
"I'm sorry," Quinn said. "I'm not interested in politics."
"If your house was on fire," Madeline said, "you'd be interested in putting it out. America's house is on fire, and we're all going to get burned. Our party platform offers ways to put that fire out."
Quinn gave the pamphlet another cursory glance. She knew she had to get rid of Madeline. "Isn't it a faux pas to wear white after Labor Day?" referring to Madeline's white pants.
"Coco Chanel wore white every day," Madeline said, smiling.
"True," Quinn said, "but that green and white combination has got to go. I hope that's not all you're wearing!"
Quinn chided herself for pulling out her inner Sandi, but she was also impressed that Madeline knew who Coco Chanel was. "I've never heard of you guys."
"There's a website. www.npapp.org. You can find out anything you want to find out."
"Are you having any luck?"
"Doing what?"
"Getting members?
Madeline gave a slight frown. "There are only five of us," she said.
"So...not working, huh?" Quinn said, somewhat dismissively.
"No one is going to come to a meeting unless they know about it," Madeline said. "They might not come to a meeting, but they'll sure as hell know about it by the time I'm done."
"Look. I don't make commitments on the first date - so to speak, Quinn said. "How am I supposed to know that you guys are not a bunch of looney tunes?"
"Read the website. If there's something you don't agree with - tell us. But there are a few things we're not moving on. Global warming is real, and it's going to screw all of us. Our national economy is a joke. Big business don't care. Labor unions don't care. Washington doesn't care. It's just us. If you're not fighting for what you want, then you don't want it bad enough. Can I ask your name?"
Quinn pulled the trigger. "It's Quinn. Quinn Morgendorffer."
"Quinn, I hope you'll come to our meeting next Thursday. Please come."
Sighing, Quinn said, "I need to find out about this...Fred Wolff guy, whoever he is. Good looking."
"See you on campus, Quinn," Madeline said. "I'll be the one wearing green and white. And if you just want to chat - that's okay, too. Take care!"
Quinn closed the door. "Fred Wolff, huh?" she said to herself and then walked to her laptop where she punched up the NPAPP website.
It was a bare-bones website that really didn't offer much more than the platform of NPAPP. Quinn read off a few bullet points of the NPAPP Platform:
* We invest in the people. We invest in peace, we invest in health care, we invest in intrastructure, we invest in community, we invest in education. We do not invest in war and we do not invest in economic speculation.
...
* We believes nature has rights. If a corporation can have rights, then nature certainly has more rights than any corporation.
...
* We believe that all citizens have equal rights and equal obligations. There will be an end to the dual standard of justice.
A lot of it was la-dee dah, but Quinn liked a few things. "Caring for the older generation will always be a top priority of the National Progressive American People's Party." "The days of the "one dollar, one vote" democracy are over." "Racism and misogyny have no place in this party, and they never will."
Quinn wondered how much they meant that last statement, but it was a good start.
She searched the "campus branches" and found they were very few and far between, mostly based in Eastern Schools.
* Boston Academy of Fine Arts
* Boston Institute of Technology
* Crestmore University
* Raft University
* Shrewsbury College
* Vance University
It looked like Madeline's little group was the lone Western outpost of NPAPP. She then looked up Fred Wolff:
Fred Wolff is the National Progressive American People's Party Chairman. A veteran of the Gulf Wars (Iraq, Afghanistan) he served several tours of duty, working his way up from recruit to Sergeant (E-5) in the United States Marines. When his squad leader in Afghanistan was killed by enemy fire, Wolff took charge, killing five members of the Taliban, carrying wounded soldiers off the battlefield despite being exposed to hostile fire, and with his squad managed to hold his position until help could arrive. For bravery in battle, Wolff was awarded the Silver Star.
There were other quotes testifying to Wolff's bravery, with some background information. He grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsyvlania. He attended high school and after 9/11, enlisted in the Marines, volunteered for several tours there. Injuries on duty - he also had Purple Heart - forced him to leave the Marines.
"I learned from watching the movies that even a minority can do great things if they just have courage. I haven't been proven wrong yet." - Fred Wolff
It seemed interesting to Quinn, maybe going to that meeting. But it was just an idea. They didn't really look like much of anything. Five people. She supposed that going door to door was a "great thing" if you were shy, but there was no bolt of lightning that was moving her. Her instinct told her that it would just be a waste of time.
She shoved the pamphlet into her drawer, and moved on to other things.
(* * *)
It was Thursday, and she came back to her dorm completely dejected. She looked at her mid-term grade for Advanced Trigonometry.
67. And that was a grade far better than she deserved. The test was about all sorts of sine and cosine formulas that seemed impervious to memorization. The teacher was no help, and she had been told by several of her classmates that they guy was the worst teacher in the math department. The class started out with 32 people, dropped to 20 people by the beginning of October, and Quinn cursed herself for not dropping the class. She suspected that the class would end with just a handful of people.
She needed a "C" in Calculus I just to be accepted into the psychology program at Shrewsbury. This gave Quinn several unappetizing options. She could sweat out Advanced Trig and pray for a "C" for effort, but she knew she wouldn't be prepared for Calc. She could drop the class and take it again in the Spring. Or she could change majors.
In addition, there was the Blake Prichard. He was one of the sweetest, nicest guys that she had met. She had thrown about a zillion hints at him - to no effect. She had finagled some study time with him. Finally, she decided that drastic measures needed to be taken - she invited him out to lunch.
He declined. He was going out of town. Quinn didn't know if it was the truth, if it was an excuse, if he was gay. She just didn't care.
She looked at her bare desk. Her roommate - a Chinese girl that she had nothing in common with, a brainiac - was off at the library. It was to be another lone night again to deal with her failure.
Chinese. She wondered if there was a place that delivered Chinese food. She opened her desk drawer, and saw the NPAPP Pamphlet again. It offered an opportunity. She could stay at the dorm and be miserable, or attend the NPAPP meeting and be miserable there. At least she'd have company. It might even be good for a laugh if they were all a bunch of lame-os.
Madeline left her number. She figured she'd give them a call.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Dancing in the Streets (Part II)
Raft University and other places
May 2014
"So, do you know if any of the old gang is going to be there?"
"What 'old gang'?" Daria asked. She was in the apartment she shared with Jane, closing her suitcase, preparing to pack for her first trip back home.
"You know, the usual gang of idiots." Jane paused. "Lawndale."
"Ah. Well, no. Why would any of them come back? We didn't come back."
"True," Jane said. "But for all of those friends that Quinn made over the years that were one grade ahead of her, you think they'd be glad to see her off."
"Those guys have traded up," Quinn said.
"You've talked to Quinn?"
"Yeah. It's been a real pain in the ass for her," Daria said. "My parents have smothered her with 'love' and 'affection' and a lot of words which might have similar meanings in your world to the ways that we use them in my house."
"Got it," Jane said. "They're up in her panties 24-7."
"I think they're trying to get right with Quinn what they didn't get right with me, and they found out that it was a lot of heavy lifting," Daria said. "Well, done."
"I wish you weren't going," Jane said. "I'll miss you."
"You'll miss not having me around to bum money off of."
"That too," Jane said.
"Are you sure you'll not come back to watch Quinn graduate?"
"No way," Jane said. "Don't want to see it. That place gives me the creeps. I want to be as far away from it as possible."
"In that case," Daria said, "let's go get something to eat."
"Ball and Chain!" Jane cried. "Ball and Chain!"
Daria turned up her nose. "Come on, I don't want to eat at a dive bar."
"No, you want to eat at Fuddpuckers or wherever that is."
Daria worked on hiding her sigh. Going to Ball and Chain would mean enduring a couple of guys trying to chat up Jane. It was the place that guys from Bromwell and Holy Father went to practice their moves. Jane liked it because it was "fun" and reminded her of The Zon - which is one of the things that she didn't like about it.
But going to some standard food-and-git place meant that she'd have to hear Jane complain about it for ten minutes. She figured she could put up with it, for the sake of friendship. Daria figured it was karmic payback.
(* * *)
Since neither Daria nor Jane had cars, the best way to get to Ball and Chain was to just cut right through the Raft campus on foot. Daria's classes had ended early, but there was still one more day of testing before the campus emptied for summer break.
"What did you think you're going to get this year?" Jane said.
"All A's. College isn't that much harder than high school, except you actually have homework that means something and that you're expected to know some shit. You?"
"B's," Jane said. "How the hell do I get to an Art School and not make A's? But there are some guys in class that are pretty cool, even though they're making B's and C's, too."
"Three more years and you could be the next Daniel Dotson," Daria said.
"Shut up," Jane said, still smarting.
As they bounded down the hill that would normally lead up from the sidewalk and to the student center, they found their way blocked by some kind of poorly attended booth. Daria recognized the guys as the members of the American People's party, still dressed in green and white but now looking much more comfortable now that the weather matched their clothing.
"I hope this isn't their final exam in political science," Daria said, "'cause they're going to flunk. I've played this game. Walk on by."
As Daria and Jane prepared to hold their heads up high and walk by, Jane said, "Look at the ass on that one!"
Daria squinted. "Boy or girl?"
"I'm heteroflexible," Jane said.
Jane practically danced her way up to the booth. "Hey there!" she said to the guy she had been looking at.
"Hello," he said. "Would you like some literature?"
"I would like for you to fill me up," Jane said, "with your knowledge."
Blushing, the guy handed her a pamphlet. "Is there a way I can put you on our e-mailing list?"
"That depends," Jane said. "Do you text? Hey I just met you...and this is crazy....!"
" - stop it, now, girl," Daria said. She took the pamphlet out of her hands. "The same 25 points as before. You're going to ride that lead balloon out into the sunset."
"This is Daria," Jane said. "She's not as politically conscious as I am. As a matter of fact, we talked to one of your friends over at BFAC. He was...uh...his name was...Daria, don't leave me hanging."
"Robert," Daria said, annoyed.
"Yeah, Robert," Jane said. "How's old Bob doing?"
"Bob dropped out about a month ago," Daria said.
"Damn, I meant to get back to him!" Jane said.
"So," Daria said, "you're now the National Progressive American People's Party?"
"We wanted to emphasize that we were progressive," Jane's prospective boyfriend said.
"And national," Daria said. "So what are you, the NPAPPers?"
"We just call ourselves NAPP," the guy said.
"Robert's out huh?" Daria said. "Nice guy, though. Sorry to lower your numbers to five."
"Oh, there are more of us than just us."
"Really?" Daria said. "Do tell. What's the current membership of the National Progressive American People's Party?"
"Twelve members."
"Whoa," Daria said. "You doubled your membership in two months. But you still haven't found a graphic designer."
"Yeah. We - !"
"So," Jane said, "you were looking for a graphic designer, n'est-ce-pas?"
"Hey, do you know something about it?"
"That's an interesting story," Daria started, before Jane stared daggers at her. "Why, Jane knows all about the workings of political organizations, coming up with interesting graphic designs, making a political pamphlet all sparkly. She talks about it all the time."
"My name's David," the man said. "David Bechtel."
"I hope you pass the test," Daria said.
David laughed, getting the joke. Then he soured. "So...together you're...?"
"Together," Daria growled. "We are going to Fuddruckers."
"This is news to me," Jane said.
"Let me tell you some more about Jane's strengths - !"
" - Fuddruckers it is!" Jane said. She plucked the political pamphlet out of Daria's hands, wrote her number, and gave it back to David. "Text, call. Whatever. I'm easy."
Daria cleared her throat. "I hope I'm not interrupting something," David said.
"Nah. Daria's going to be out of town for a little while." The way Jane said it, you would have had to be living on the moon not to see her intended meaning.
May 2014
"So, do you know if any of the old gang is going to be there?"
"What 'old gang'?" Daria asked. She was in the apartment she shared with Jane, closing her suitcase, preparing to pack for her first trip back home.
"You know, the usual gang of idiots." Jane paused. "Lawndale."
"Ah. Well, no. Why would any of them come back? We didn't come back."
"True," Jane said. "But for all of those friends that Quinn made over the years that were one grade ahead of her, you think they'd be glad to see her off."
"Those guys have traded up," Quinn said.
"You've talked to Quinn?"
"Yeah. It's been a real pain in the ass for her," Daria said. "My parents have smothered her with 'love' and 'affection' and a lot of words which might have similar meanings in your world to the ways that we use them in my house."
"Got it," Jane said. "They're up in her panties 24-7."
"I think they're trying to get right with Quinn what they didn't get right with me, and they found out that it was a lot of heavy lifting," Daria said. "Well, done."
"I wish you weren't going," Jane said. "I'll miss you."
"You'll miss not having me around to bum money off of."
"That too," Jane said.
"Are you sure you'll not come back to watch Quinn graduate?"
"No way," Jane said. "Don't want to see it. That place gives me the creeps. I want to be as far away from it as possible."
"In that case," Daria said, "let's go get something to eat."
"Ball and Chain!" Jane cried. "Ball and Chain!"
Daria turned up her nose. "Come on, I don't want to eat at a dive bar."
"No, you want to eat at Fuddpuckers or wherever that is."
Daria worked on hiding her sigh. Going to Ball and Chain would mean enduring a couple of guys trying to chat up Jane. It was the place that guys from Bromwell and Holy Father went to practice their moves. Jane liked it because it was "fun" and reminded her of The Zon - which is one of the things that she didn't like about it.
But going to some standard food-and-git place meant that she'd have to hear Jane complain about it for ten minutes. She figured she could put up with it, for the sake of friendship. Daria figured it was karmic payback.
(* * *)
Since neither Daria nor Jane had cars, the best way to get to Ball and Chain was to just cut right through the Raft campus on foot. Daria's classes had ended early, but there was still one more day of testing before the campus emptied for summer break.
"What did you think you're going to get this year?" Jane said.
"All A's. College isn't that much harder than high school, except you actually have homework that means something and that you're expected to know some shit. You?"
"B's," Jane said. "How the hell do I get to an Art School and not make A's? But there are some guys in class that are pretty cool, even though they're making B's and C's, too."
"Three more years and you could be the next Daniel Dotson," Daria said.
"Shut up," Jane said, still smarting.
As they bounded down the hill that would normally lead up from the sidewalk and to the student center, they found their way blocked by some kind of poorly attended booth. Daria recognized the guys as the members of the American People's party, still dressed in green and white but now looking much more comfortable now that the weather matched their clothing.
"I hope this isn't their final exam in political science," Daria said, "'cause they're going to flunk. I've played this game. Walk on by."
As Daria and Jane prepared to hold their heads up high and walk by, Jane said, "Look at the ass on that one!"
Daria squinted. "Boy or girl?"
"I'm heteroflexible," Jane said.
Jane practically danced her way up to the booth. "Hey there!" she said to the guy she had been looking at.
"Hello," he said. "Would you like some literature?"
"I would like for you to fill me up," Jane said, "with your knowledge."
Blushing, the guy handed her a pamphlet. "Is there a way I can put you on our e-mailing list?"
"That depends," Jane said. "Do you text? Hey I just met you...and this is crazy....!"
" - stop it, now, girl," Daria said. She took the pamphlet out of her hands. "The same 25 points as before. You're going to ride that lead balloon out into the sunset."
"This is Daria," Jane said. "She's not as politically conscious as I am. As a matter of fact, we talked to one of your friends over at BFAC. He was...uh...his name was...Daria, don't leave me hanging."
"Robert," Daria said, annoyed.
"Yeah, Robert," Jane said. "How's old Bob doing?"
"Bob dropped out about a month ago," Daria said.
"Damn, I meant to get back to him!" Jane said.
"So," Daria said, "you're now the National Progressive American People's Party?"
"We wanted to emphasize that we were progressive," Jane's prospective boyfriend said.
"And national," Daria said. "So what are you, the NPAPPers?"
"We just call ourselves NAPP," the guy said.
"Robert's out huh?" Daria said. "Nice guy, though. Sorry to lower your numbers to five."
"Oh, there are more of us than just us."
"Really?" Daria said. "Do tell. What's the current membership of the National Progressive American People's Party?"
"Twelve members."
"Whoa," Daria said. "You doubled your membership in two months. But you still haven't found a graphic designer."
"Yeah. We - !"
"So," Jane said, "you were looking for a graphic designer, n'est-ce-pas?"
"Hey, do you know something about it?"
"That's an interesting story," Daria started, before Jane stared daggers at her. "Why, Jane knows all about the workings of political organizations, coming up with interesting graphic designs, making a political pamphlet all sparkly. She talks about it all the time."
"My name's David," the man said. "David Bechtel."
"I hope you pass the test," Daria said.
David laughed, getting the joke. Then he soured. "So...together you're...?"
"Together," Daria growled. "We are going to Fuddruckers."
"This is news to me," Jane said.
"Let me tell you some more about Jane's strengths - !"
" - Fuddruckers it is!" Jane said. She plucked the political pamphlet out of Daria's hands, wrote her number, and gave it back to David. "Text, call. Whatever. I'm easy."
Daria cleared her throat. "I hope I'm not interrupting something," David said.
"Nah. Daria's going to be out of town for a little while." The way Jane said it, you would have had to be living on the moon not to see her intended meaning.
Dancing in the Streets (Part I)
March 2014
Raft University
It was the end of February, and the one thing Daria had never prepared for was the bite of the cold winter weather in Boston. She had always prided herself on being what her grandmother called "cold natured", wearing a skirt and exposing her bare calves even to the coldest weather. Yet stepping out into New England winter felt like being hit in the face with a frying pan, and Daria was well-bundled even though the temperature was in the 1940s.
She had to wait until Jane got out of class at 2:30 pm at BFAC, so she found herself walking about the BFAC campus. There were all sorts of groups one could encounter in public. A street preacher was near the library, preaching to the assembled about the perils of sin, abortion and hellfire - and the BFAC students gave back as good as they got. There were the usual little tables and booths occupied by the earnesty art student types.
And of course, there were the politial groups. Various permutations of Occupy. The Greens. The Pro-Palestinian contingent. A lot of these groups were single-cause groups, others were here today, gone tomorrow.
Daria liked picking up campaign literature. She was taking a class at Raft called "Writing for Advertising" that her advisor recommended. "Until you read a direct mailer, you'll never know how to write an effective opening sentence," was his spiel. Daria enjoyed giving the various fliers and handouts grades in her mind - nothing she had read had been written by professionals, and nothing got a grade better than a "C". The groups were as amateurish as their campaign literature.
The political campaigners were running a bit thin today. It took cojones to canvas out here in the freezing chill.
She noticed what appeared to be a new group. This one was called the "People's Party" and Daria tried to suss out the political orientation before she even picked up a flier. There were six of them, all dressed in green long sleeve shirts and white pants. They were trying to get the disinterested students at BFAC to take their fliers, and there were a few fliers scattered a few yards away that had missed the trash can.
They looked pretty motley. Daria suspected that they were some sort of modern Maoists. The story was already written in her head. They'd probably make it to the end of the semester when the final three members would break up the organization or lose interest in it. Chuckling, she decided to walk forward and see what they were about.
The banner at the bottom read:
"NO MORE BUSINESS AS USUAL!
JOIN THE AMERICAN PEOPLE'S PARTY!"
As she walked forward to grab a flier, the man sitting at the table - the only one sitting - said, "No more business as usual! Would you like to join the American People's Party?"
Daria gave a bare smile. "Sorry, I gave at the office."
"Would you sign up for our e-mail newsletter?"
Daria signed with her special address she reserved for junk e-mail. She picked up the flier. "The Platform of the American People's Party," she said, reading the first sentences. "Okay. You have a platform. Where's the party?"
The guy smiled. "You're looking at it."
"One, two, three...six people. I don't know," Daria said. "I don't think Hilary Clinton is shaking in her boots just yet."
"Well, we are small, but we're hoping to grow."
"Are you sure this is the place to grow? I don't know, BFAC students tend to be a bit flaky. No offense."
"None taken." The young man had black hair, glasses, and a trimmed beard. "Robert Morgan," he said, extending his hand. "BFAC, class of 2016."
"I guess you're not in the graphic arts," Daria said. "This handout looks a little unimpressive."
Robert looked to see that the other APP members were still canvassing. "Yeah, we could use some help with that. You wouldn't happen to be a graphic arts major, would you?"
Daria decided NOT to mention Jane's name. "Sorry," Daria said. "I'm from Raft."
"No problem. We go everywhere. Raft, BFAC, BIT, Bromwell, Holy Father."
"You'd think you'd have bumped into a graphic designer by then." Daria looked at the platform. "You guys are all over the place, too, politically. I thought you were a bunch of Greens. And what's with the green and white thing? My sister would have a fit."
"We needed to look a lot smarter than the Greens do," Robert said. "They look like - !"
" - like [i]Greens[/i]," Daria said, and they both laughed. "Okay. I can go with the green and white. But looking at this thing," she said, indicating the party platform, "this is all over the place. Something to piss off everybody. You guys don't know much about building a consensus."
Robert pointed to the sign at the front of this table. "No more business as usual."
"Yeah," Daria said, "and [i]no business[/i]. Look, a lot of this stuff would be right at home at an Occupy meeting. But this stuff about restricting citizen to [i]jus soli[/i]? No one's going to even know what that means. And you manage to not just piss off big labor, but you advocate for national control of education, which will piss off every homeschooler in the country."
"I look at it this way," Robert said. "We piss off everybody. Say, do you care to talk about this over at Subway? I've got a lunch break coming up."
"Damn," Daria said, "I feel bad. I think I just distracted 16 percent of the American People's Party."
(* * *)
Daria and Robert shared some sandwiches, while Daria found out more about him. He was born in Boston. His dad was a carpenter, and his mother had one of those jobs that involved shuffling paper at a small business. Robert's main interest in life was sculpting, first with modeling clay and then branching out into wood and into small marble figurines. Daria nodded, but even though Robert was talented at art, she suspected his true passion was politics.
"Well, I'm not a Democrat or a Republican," Daria said. "What do they say? 'I refuse to belong to any party that would have me as a member.' That includes your party, too."
"Well, in that case, why not join? We need someone who can write. You know artists. Artists can't write."
"So how did you end up with that hodgepodge of a party platform?"
"It's just stuff that's always interested me. I didn't write it with a goal of it being 'left wing' or 'right wing'. Those are false divisions, anyway. People see politics as being a continuum, with a line of chalk that separates 'left' from 'right'. I don't like imaginary lines; I keep jumping over them."
"There's a lot of stuff you're going to be asked about. Gun ownership. Prayer in schools."
"As far as I'm concerned," Robert said, "it's just a circus to keep people distracted from our serious economic and environmental isses. Take the Democrats. Imagine them trying to run on their economic program, not the one they like to talk about, their [i]real one[/i]. No one would vote for them. But get people fired against the Christians encroaching their personal space? Man, they're all for that. Likewise, the Republicans. No one sane would vote for that economic program, but the God-botherers get all hot and happy about obligatory school prayer. What the Democrat and Republican voters don't know is that for the most part, the two parties are on the same side when it comes to economics or the enviroment. Red states vs blue states? That's just colored paint to cover up all the holes in our economy."
"I think you're oversimplifying things," Daria said. "Take for instance - !"
" - oh, HI!" It was Jane Lane. "Well, well, Daria Morgendorffer, fancy meeting you here."
"Oops," Daria said, pulling out her phone to look at the time. "Look who is actually on time for once. Sorry. Jane Lane, Robert Morgan, Robert Morgan, Jane Lane."
"How-dee doo," Jane said. "C'mon Daria, let's have a kiki."
"See you," Daria said, standing up. "Good luck leading the wave of the future."
Daria and Jane departed Subway. "So how did you get roped into [i]that[/i]?" Jane said.
"Research?" Daria said. "And you know those guys?"
"Not really, but I never imagined you being into politics."
"Well, he wasn't an asshole about it. He admitted he didn't have all the answers. He seemed to put a lot of thought into his complex positions."
"Meaning?"
"He's [i]fucked[/i]. He just doesn't know it yet."
"Succinct as always," Jane said. "Which is why I went to art school and stayed away from politics."
"You don't have a political bend?" Daria said.
"Please, girl," Jane said. "If you wanted me to paint what I felt about politics and politicians, it would be picketed twenty-four-seven."
"That's my girl."
Raft University
It was the end of February, and the one thing Daria had never prepared for was the bite of the cold winter weather in Boston. She had always prided herself on being what her grandmother called "cold natured", wearing a skirt and exposing her bare calves even to the coldest weather. Yet stepping out into New England winter felt like being hit in the face with a frying pan, and Daria was well-bundled even though the temperature was in the 1940s.
She had to wait until Jane got out of class at 2:30 pm at BFAC, so she found herself walking about the BFAC campus. There were all sorts of groups one could encounter in public. A street preacher was near the library, preaching to the assembled about the perils of sin, abortion and hellfire - and the BFAC students gave back as good as they got. There were the usual little tables and booths occupied by the earnesty art student types.
And of course, there were the politial groups. Various permutations of Occupy. The Greens. The Pro-Palestinian contingent. A lot of these groups were single-cause groups, others were here today, gone tomorrow.
Daria liked picking up campaign literature. She was taking a class at Raft called "Writing for Advertising" that her advisor recommended. "Until you read a direct mailer, you'll never know how to write an effective opening sentence," was his spiel. Daria enjoyed giving the various fliers and handouts grades in her mind - nothing she had read had been written by professionals, and nothing got a grade better than a "C". The groups were as amateurish as their campaign literature.
The political campaigners were running a bit thin today. It took cojones to canvas out here in the freezing chill.
She noticed what appeared to be a new group. This one was called the "People's Party" and Daria tried to suss out the political orientation before she even picked up a flier. There were six of them, all dressed in green long sleeve shirts and white pants. They were trying to get the disinterested students at BFAC to take their fliers, and there were a few fliers scattered a few yards away that had missed the trash can.
They looked pretty motley. Daria suspected that they were some sort of modern Maoists. The story was already written in her head. They'd probably make it to the end of the semester when the final three members would break up the organization or lose interest in it. Chuckling, she decided to walk forward and see what they were about.
The banner at the bottom read:
"NO MORE BUSINESS AS USUAL!
JOIN THE AMERICAN PEOPLE'S PARTY!"
As she walked forward to grab a flier, the man sitting at the table - the only one sitting - said, "No more business as usual! Would you like to join the American People's Party?"
Daria gave a bare smile. "Sorry, I gave at the office."
"Would you sign up for our e-mail newsletter?"
Daria signed with her special address she reserved for junk e-mail. She picked up the flier. "The Platform of the American People's Party," she said, reading the first sentences. "Okay. You have a platform. Where's the party?"
The guy smiled. "You're looking at it."
"One, two, three...six people. I don't know," Daria said. "I don't think Hilary Clinton is shaking in her boots just yet."
"Well, we are small, but we're hoping to grow."
"Are you sure this is the place to grow? I don't know, BFAC students tend to be a bit flaky. No offense."
"None taken." The young man had black hair, glasses, and a trimmed beard. "Robert Morgan," he said, extending his hand. "BFAC, class of 2016."
"I guess you're not in the graphic arts," Daria said. "This handout looks a little unimpressive."
Robert looked to see that the other APP members were still canvassing. "Yeah, we could use some help with that. You wouldn't happen to be a graphic arts major, would you?"
Daria decided NOT to mention Jane's name. "Sorry," Daria said. "I'm from Raft."
"No problem. We go everywhere. Raft, BFAC, BIT, Bromwell, Holy Father."
"You'd think you'd have bumped into a graphic designer by then." Daria looked at the platform. "You guys are all over the place, too, politically. I thought you were a bunch of Greens. And what's with the green and white thing? My sister would have a fit."
"We needed to look a lot smarter than the Greens do," Robert said. "They look like - !"
" - like [i]Greens[/i]," Daria said, and they both laughed. "Okay. I can go with the green and white. But looking at this thing," she said, indicating the party platform, "this is all over the place. Something to piss off everybody. You guys don't know much about building a consensus."
Robert pointed to the sign at the front of this table. "No more business as usual."
"Yeah," Daria said, "and [i]no business[/i]. Look, a lot of this stuff would be right at home at an Occupy meeting. But this stuff about restricting citizen to [i]jus soli[/i]? No one's going to even know what that means. And you manage to not just piss off big labor, but you advocate for national control of education, which will piss off every homeschooler in the country."
"I look at it this way," Robert said. "We piss off everybody. Say, do you care to talk about this over at Subway? I've got a lunch break coming up."
"Damn," Daria said, "I feel bad. I think I just distracted 16 percent of the American People's Party."
(* * *)
Daria and Robert shared some sandwiches, while Daria found out more about him. He was born in Boston. His dad was a carpenter, and his mother had one of those jobs that involved shuffling paper at a small business. Robert's main interest in life was sculpting, first with modeling clay and then branching out into wood and into small marble figurines. Daria nodded, but even though Robert was talented at art, she suspected his true passion was politics.
"Well, I'm not a Democrat or a Republican," Daria said. "What do they say? 'I refuse to belong to any party that would have me as a member.' That includes your party, too."
"Well, in that case, why not join? We need someone who can write. You know artists. Artists can't write."
"So how did you end up with that hodgepodge of a party platform?"
"It's just stuff that's always interested me. I didn't write it with a goal of it being 'left wing' or 'right wing'. Those are false divisions, anyway. People see politics as being a continuum, with a line of chalk that separates 'left' from 'right'. I don't like imaginary lines; I keep jumping over them."
"There's a lot of stuff you're going to be asked about. Gun ownership. Prayer in schools."
"As far as I'm concerned," Robert said, "it's just a circus to keep people distracted from our serious economic and environmental isses. Take the Democrats. Imagine them trying to run on their economic program, not the one they like to talk about, their [i]real one[/i]. No one would vote for them. But get people fired against the Christians encroaching their personal space? Man, they're all for that. Likewise, the Republicans. No one sane would vote for that economic program, but the God-botherers get all hot and happy about obligatory school prayer. What the Democrat and Republican voters don't know is that for the most part, the two parties are on the same side when it comes to economics or the enviroment. Red states vs blue states? That's just colored paint to cover up all the holes in our economy."
"I think you're oversimplifying things," Daria said. "Take for instance - !"
" - oh, HI!" It was Jane Lane. "Well, well, Daria Morgendorffer, fancy meeting you here."
"Oops," Daria said, pulling out her phone to look at the time. "Look who is actually on time for once. Sorry. Jane Lane, Robert Morgan, Robert Morgan, Jane Lane."
"How-dee doo," Jane said. "C'mon Daria, let's have a kiki."
"See you," Daria said, standing up. "Good luck leading the wave of the future."
Daria and Jane departed Subway. "So how did you get roped into [i]that[/i]?" Jane said.
"Research?" Daria said. "And you know those guys?"
"Not really, but I never imagined you being into politics."
"Well, he wasn't an asshole about it. He admitted he didn't have all the answers. He seemed to put a lot of thought into his complex positions."
"Meaning?"
"He's [i]fucked[/i]. He just doesn't know it yet."
"Succinct as always," Jane said. "Which is why I went to art school and stayed away from politics."
"You don't have a political bend?" Daria said.
"Please, girl," Jane said. "If you wanted me to paint what I felt about politics and politicians, it would be picketed twenty-four-seven."
"That's my girl."
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