I felt so strongly not only because the president had turned America’s first African-American Nuclear-Powered Hero into a race-baiting campaign dog-whistle back in my reality, but because his entire socially regressive agenda needed to be repudiated once and for all, for the good of the country. I know my Counterpart, Clarissa Too, would have shared the same priority if she and I hadn’t inadvertently switched realities.
I had even left a note on the refrigerator door reminding Avie, who was sleeping in after her previous evening’s labors as Melody Chrysanthemum, to get out and vote as soon as she got up.
The polling place, thankfully, was in the well-lit social hall of St. Oriel’s with lots of bright, happy poll workers who’d been up early with coffee and doughnuts, not the adjacent dark sanctuary, which only had the smell of burnt candle wax and death. After I cast my ballot, I marched off to school and a day of courses and graduate seminars.
I felt obligated to sit in for Clarissa Too, who, as I said, was otherwise indisposed for the time being in my dimension. I didn’t want her grades to suffer until such time as we could switch back to our proper realities. It wasn’t going to be difficult; all I had to do was follow the printed schedule she helpfully left tacked to her bedroom wall, and bring along her book bag crammed with readings and notes.
I found some of the buildings on the Warren Woodward campus, however, differently named in this dimension—what had possessed them to name their language building after cartoonist Robert Osborn? And the classroom numbers deviated in some cases from the schema I was used to in my reality. One class actually had changed classrooms, which Clarissa Too had failed to amend on her printout, but I had no problem locating it since it was right down the hall.
Of course, this late in the semester, Clarissa Too would be on quite familiar terms with all of her professors and fellow grad students, and I would be expected to make small talk. I pretended to have laryngitis, which saved me from having to speak, and whenever someone remarked on my newly-shortened hair, I just smiled and made a few ambiguous shrugs implying it was time for a change.
Throughout the day I took copious notes during the lectures and discussions using the blank book I’d purchased the night before in Ann Arbor. I made a special note of everyone’s name, whenever I could catch it—after all, these were colleagues that Clarissa Too was supposed to already know. At noon I picked up Clarissa Too’s mail in the office of her department; I noted the other boxes and was able to put a few first and last names together that way.
I didn’t recognize any of the people in any of Clarissa Too’s classes or seminars, and noted only a few faces that seemed familiar at all as I crisscrossed the campus during the day. I wondered if my own thesis advisor, Dr. Dolores Bledsoe Finch, even taught at this campus, but I didn’t have time to go anywhere near her office or building where most of those classes were held; I was too engrossed in Clarissa Too’s course of study at the moment, and besides, I’d already been there and done that that semester in my own reality.
For all I knew, most of the student body and faculty in this reality could be completely different; I suppose that only showed how fickle one’s choices in choosing to study or work at a particular college or university can be.
Clarissa Too’s particular field of study, Gnostic Exegesis in Modern Philology, overlapped very little with my own, Urban Policy and Social Planning. However, the two disciplines both fell under the humanities, broadly speaking, and therefore shared a certain lingua franca of jargon-laden Hypothetics, that indecipherable terminology that was so intellectually fashionable at the moment. Also, academics just love to bullshit in general. So, in that sense I felt right at home.
But as far as the actual content under discussion, most of it eluded me. Clarissa Too’s field was much more concerned with abstract linguistics and the history of ideas rather than something ostensibly more practical like mine, which touched on subjects like the history of city planning and organized labor. Nonetheless, I was able to follow along thank when we did close readings of certain passages from the required texts; Clarissa Too left me useful, scribbled marginalia in all of her books and all over the photocopies she’d made of the required readings.
After the last seminar, which let out in the middle of the afternoon, I retreated to the university library for several hours just to consulted a dictionary and some reference books so I could figure some of the main points in the discussions I had sat through all day. I also copied down plenty of big words into my blank book.
It was an exhausting day, but it was engrossing, and I learned a lot—mostly that the grass is always greener in academia, and one girl’s completely and utter vacuous, eggheaded nonsense is another girl’s ticket to a master’s degree, and hopefully, eventually, a PhD.
But I wasn’t sure how long I would be able to endure Clarissa Too’s workload, even without the teaching assistant duties. I knew I had to find a way to switch us back to our proper realities soon.
After that long slog, I retreated to the Union Stripe Tavern, my old haunt further down Woodward Avenue. Most of the décor was identical to that in my own reality, although when I peeked into the adjacent banquet room behind the bar, I noticed several framed Grateful Dead concert posters standing in for the more staid Eero Saarinen exhibition posters in my home reality. But again, I didn’t recognize any of the afternoon wait staff or clientele.
I took a seat at the bar and proceeded to nurse a beer or two during Happy Hour, nibbling away at a bowl full of free pretzels I had all to myself, since things were rather slow on a Tuesday. I still jotted notes and stream-of-conscious thoughts in my blank book, which was now no longer blank, only occasionally looking up at the TV, which broadcast the local news.
At least that day of Clarissa Too’s courses and seminars had taken my mind off my most immediate and urgent problem, which was how in the heck I was going to get back to my reality. But now, as I considered the problem from every angle, I always came to the same dead end.
Maybe if I sat and meditated long enough, I thought, I really could astrally-project myself across the divide, as she had done. Or perhaps I could get so stoned and drunk—assuming that was how the Partyers from Mars did it. Still, the best and maybe only concrete idea I could come up with was to locate Dr. Mercedith Robeson-James—my Grandma Seedy—and see if she could somehow help me.
What would Clarissa Too make of these ramblings? For surely I’d be leaving the book behind for her alone to read. I found myself unconsciously addressing her as my audience. What would she tell me if we could communicate? What was she doing right now, in my life back in my reality?
The restaurant even slower during the dinner hour than it had been during Happy Hour, but things began to pick up again after seven o’clock. The bartender switched the station to KNN for election coverage and was about to insist I buy a third beer when Avie and Mama walked in. Apparently, we had made a date to watch the returns together, although Avie hadn’t mentioned me of it.
I stashed my blank book away, and the three of us took a small table near the bar with a view of the TV. Who should appear in an apron with menus but my old friend and sometime old flame, a certain magenta-haired art student. “Hey, Nancy, how’ve you been?” I said reflexively.
“You usually call people by their last name?” she replied. “I don’t think we’ve met.” When I didn’t reply immediately, she addressed Avie and Mama. “So, what can I start you guys off with to drink?”
As Mama and Avie ordered, I recalled that Nancy’s first name was Agatha; she had adopted Nancy for work to avoid confusion with two other Agathas that used to work there.
“I’ll just have iced tea, Aggie,” I said.
The waitress squinted at me. “Then I guess we do know each other. Sorry I don’t remember you.”
“Oh, we know each other,” I said, “in another reality. This is my mama and my sister Avie.”
“Nice to meet you,” Aggie replied. “I’ll give you a moment to look over the menu, then I’ll be right back.” But before she left, she couldn’t resist brushing her fingers through my short-cropped, kinky buzzcut. “I love your hair, Clarissa,” she said.
“Awfully fresh, if you ask me,” said Mama disdainfully, watching Aggie get lost in the thickening throng growing in front of the bar. “Do you really know that girl, Clarissa?”
“Like I said, in my timeline …”
Avie rolled her eyes at me, a signal that I shouldn’t bother trying to explain my alternate realities situation to my dear, old mama. I took the hint. Besides, how was I going to explain to Avie and Mama that in my timeline I was bisexual, when the Clarissa Too they knew was a repressed straight girl?
“So, who did you vote for?” asked Mama. “As if I had to ask.”
“Well, obviously, there’s only one, clear choice for a right-thinking person in this election,” I replied. “Who do you think I voted for?”
Mama frowned and turned to Avie. “How about you, Avril?”
“When I got to the polling place I couldn’t make up my mind,” confessed Avie. “All politicians seem the same to me. I just wrote in a cartoon character.”
“Avie!” said Mama, astonished. “How can you be apolitical in times like these? I wish you’d take their civic duty more seriously.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Avie, you have a strong opinion about everything.”
“Not in this case,” said Avie. “If it were between Ornette Coleman or Wayne Shorter, I’d have a strong opinion.”
Since I wasn’t sure who they were—I think saxophonists—I did not pursue the subject.
But like Mama, I was aghast that Avie would throw away her vote so capriciously, and was about to say something when Nancy—I mean, Aggie—came back to take our order. I suppose there was nothing to be done at this point anyway but sit back and watch the returns.
After we ordered, Mama changed the subject to what was going on in our old neighborhood with the Boswick-Addison Community Association and with her work at the Civix Savings and Loan. Of course she scolded us for becoming worldly at college and forgetting our roots at our old Mt. Calvary African Protestant Congregational church.
When our food came, Avia and I wolfed down our pounder burgers and cottage fries like ravenous wolves that hadn’t eaten for a week, the default mode of college students, while Mama demurely grazed on a Cobb salad. Mama and Avie had ordered a pitcher of beer, and after my iced tea was gone, I switched to beer myself. After the busboy cleared away our plates, we looked up at the TV screen above the bar.
“Look, girls,” said Mama. It was the challenger of Harry Foster Lime, in a sound-bite from his stump speech from the night before. “This is the fellow who might be our next president.”
“Who cares?” said Avie. “Another white guy, same as the last white guy. Big deal.”
I was actually interested to hear what the candidate had to say, since I had made it such a point to vote for him. The clip showed him standing on the tarmac behind a podium festooned with microphones in front of a sleek, private jet. The crowd consisted of enthusiastic supporters who had gathered to greet him as he made a few last-minute stops across the country in the wee hours of the morning. He was a broad-shouldered, beefy gentleman, in a very expensive-looking, double-breasted suit. His tie was crisp and his handkerchief next to his lapel was folded perfectly. His longish hair was greased back, revealing a low brow and the face of a pugilist.
Next to him, apparently only as arm candy, stood a towering, statuesque sexpot bunny in a slinky dress with diamonds and furs.
“How tacky,” said Mama.
“And I want to make a promise to the people of Minnesota and to the people of this country,” he said, a rakish sneer curling his lips. “We will never bow to those who are better than us—better, stronger, more courageous. We will never accept virtue dictated to us by do-gooders. We will not allow our liberty to be usurped by so-called ‘Megaheroes.’”
The audience, of course, cheered wildly, but I was mystified by what I was hearing.
“This isn’t making any sense,” I said. “I thought President Harry Foster Lime was the guy who had a problem with America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero being black.”
“Where’ve you been, Honey?” said Mama. “This fella here is Ms. Megaton’s worst enemy, not the President.”
“The Gamble administration will put a stop to these so-called ‘Atomic Soldiers’ on day one,” the candidate continued. “The minute after I’m sworn in, I will personally sign an administrative order outlawing Megapowered beings of every race, creed, or color—now and in the future. And if any of these self-styled vigilantes haven’t gotten the message by then, I will hunt them down and destroy them, if necessary.”
“Who’s he talking about?” I said. “Not me!”
“You’re the only self-styled vigilante in America we know of, Sissy,” said Avie. “Certainly with Megapowers.”
“That’s why you should have voted for President Harry Foster Lime, Avie,” said Mama. “Like me and Clarissa did.”
“But I didn’t vote to re-elect the president,” I said, my stomach sinking. “I voted for the challenger, the other guy—this guy!” I squinted to read the name at the bottom of the TV screen. “Bartholomew Gamble! Why is that name so familiar?”
I struggled to think where I’d seen the name Gamble before. The only thing I could think of were those old Gamble Comics Group comic books Avie and I had read as kids back in the sixties, among a slew of other coverless comics I had acquired in my own personal eruditions since then. Some of the titles presented funhouse-mirror versions of the Megaheroes who actually existed in reality, including my own relatives and friends; a few seemed almost verbatim transcriptions of actual events. But that couldn’t be the association …
The KNN anchorman returned to the screen, recounting the unlikely rise in political fortunes that swept Bartholomew Gamble—a New York real estate developer, arms merchant, and all-around ruthless figure with alleged obscure ties to organized crime—on a populist wave to win his floundering party’s nomination. “Bartholomew Gamble,” intoned the announcer, “whom his detractors denounce as a ‘Megavillain,’ prefers to go by the simple and unassuming moniker ‘Bart.’ His campaign slogan, ‘I ain’t such a Bad Guy’ …”
“That’s it!” I cried. “That’s where I’ve heard that name before!”
Mama and Avie looked at me like I had lost my mind.
“It is now eight P.M. in the eastern time zone, and polls are closing in that part of the country,” said the anchorman. Someone off-camera handed him a sheet of paper. “And the Kolordot Networld News is prepared to make its first call of the night.” A graphic flashed across the screen. “Alabama, with three electoral votes, has gone to Bart Gamble.”
“Bart Gamble is Bad Guy!” I said in horror. “I cast my vote for Bad Guy!”
Mama was appalled that I could cast my vote for anyone but President Harry Foster Lime. I couldn’t begin to explain to her that in my timeline, Lime was to the right of Attila the Hun, whereas in this reality, he counted as a liberal next to Bart Gamble, avowed Megahero hater.
I sat speechless we watched more and more states fall to the Bad Guy political machine. The urbane patrons of the Union Stripe Tavern restaurant bar, increasingly apprehensive concerning the outcome of the election, either continued to get sloshed or left early, dejected.
“This is bad,” said Avie. “Bad for Ms. Megaton. I wish I hadn’t thrown away my vote for Mookie the Worm after all.”
“I don’t think this election’s going to be decided by two votes, Avie,” I said. “Pennsylvania and Ohio have both gone for Bad Guy—and Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are still within the margin of error. If he sweeps the Midwest, we’d all better head for Canada.”
“Now, don’t overreact,” counseled Mama. “Aside from the fact that he wants my first-born daughter dead, and he has terrible taste in women, and some of his other reprehensible policies, Bart Gamble doesn’t seem like such a Bad Guy.”
Avie, finding her political backbone, pointed out that Mama was just parroting his campaign slogan.
“Anyway,” said Mama, “how much damage can one President do to America in one four-year term?”
“A lot,” I replied. “Say, Mama, do you have Grandma Seedy’s phone number?”
“What do you need to call her for?” Mama replied. “I’m sure she already voted this morning up in Pontiac. Besides, the polls in Michigan closed over an hour ago.” She began searching through her purse for something to write on while a panel of pundits on KNN discussed a major electoral upset in the making. “Now, don’t lose this.”
But before she could hand me the number, Grandma Seedy interrupted her. “No need, Alice,” she said. “I’m right here.”
We were all astonished to see Dr. Mercedith Robeson-James so unexpectedly, in the flesh. She was strangely less grandma-like than any time I’d ever seen her, including when I visited her in her monumental administrative building on the Potomac. She wore a black leather jacket and a scarf, and had just come from the cold, frigid night outside. Mama and Avie were used to the soft-spoken, retiring public school teacher, whereas this Grandma Seedy seemed much more like the hard-headed, all-business leader of a quasi-governmental agency I knew in my reality.
Seedy wasted no time getting right to the point.
“This election’s lost,” she said coldly, glancing at the television. “It’s only a matter of time before the Affiliated Press and all the major broadcast and cable networks formally call it for Gamble.” She spoke with such authority that we all assumed she knew what she was talking about.
She turned and looked directly at me.
“Clarissa, you must come with me at once,” she ordered. “You’re in grave danger, Ms. Megaton.”
Next: Docs and Cats
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| Bart Gamble from Megaton Man #6 (Kitchen Sink Press, October 1985). |
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