“You think anyone patriotic is.”
“There’s a difference between loving your country, and loving to declare it’s better than anything else.”
“And what’s wrong if our country is better?”
“It just makes you an asshole going around and stuffing it down people’s throats.”
“What would you rather have? Us apologizing for everything like we did back then? That’s what was wrong with the Traditionalists, they were leading the strongest country then, us, but were apologizing to everyone as they handed out their gifts. Who says sorry when they’re giving something away for free? That mentality caused the war. The gift barer shouldn’t be forced to place the receipt inside the bag.”
“Just because it’s a gift doesn’t mean it’s wanted.”
“A white elephant gift is still better than nothing.”
“Alright, alright, Commissar.”
I shake my head, “What did you hear about tonight?”
“Third Street is having a band,” says Isaac, “But let’s do the whole route like normal to check it all out ourselves.”
I pull over by a convenience store, parking under the shade of a solar panel placed on top of an old gasoline service island. “Oh yeah,” says Isaac, “I forgot this thing burns dinosaurs still. When are you going to get a normal car?”
“Not for a while. Being the last hybrid model is something to be proud of owning, it adds an extra zero to the price tag if I were to sell it.”
As I go in to buy a gas canister I notice a homeless man by the door. I come out with the canister and a deli sandwich. “Here, sir.” I offer him the sandwich.
“Thanks kid.” He grabs the sandwich and places it into his stuffed backpack, “Got any money though? Trying to get to the town over.”
“Sorry I don’t sir.”
“You just came out of the store, I know you have change.”
“I can buy you the ticket if you want.”
“Please, just some money.”
I leave back to the car. Isaac sits on the hood, pulling out a tin box of pre-rolled white papers labeled Ancient on the side. “What was that about?”
“Gave him some food.”
“Yeah but he kept pestering you.”
“Wanted money.”
“Don’t we all?”
“He was trying to get drugs.”
“How do you know?”
I twist open the gas cap and bring the nozzle to the port to fill the tank. “When I did AmeriCore during our civic year before college, I helped do homeless aid and prevention in Chicago. With all the Party centers and free necessities wage you can get for food and rent, the only reason you’d be on the street is if you were discontinued from it, which was almost always by drugs.”
“How do you reckon he was part of the norm?”
“Wanted money for this or that, I offered to get him the real thing, wouldn’t accept it.”
Isaac examines one of his ancients, licking the side where the paper folds over itself to secure the seam from letting any tobacco fall out. “How come I’ve never seen you do this before?”
“I don’t go looking for them; only get them food if they happen to be where I’m at.”
I finish filling up the tank. Isaac holds the ancient in his mouth and grabs his lighter out of his pocket. He pauses to stare at the lighter while flicking the cap open. He loves that thing. Beyond the fact he is one of few people that still smoked rolled tobacco and cannabis, he also had a unique lighter. A square metal lighter painted over with the first US flag and its thirteen original colonies. From afar, it looks patriotically complicit. But under closer inspection, one could see that the red and white stripes carry a quote, something a Party Rep would apprehend immediately if they ever read it: We are orphans of the American Dream. And where the stanza ends is where the lighter top starts. The Dream bursting up in flames every time he flicks the cap open. He calls it Poetic Justice. I call it trying too hard to be hipster.
“Admiring it again?” he says.
“What? Oh, yeah. It’s alright.”
“Bullshit. You know it’s sick.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. But I’d be okay with owning it.”
“Over my dead body, bud.”
We get back into the car and on our way.
“How old is this relic? I don’t think I’ve ever asked,” says Isaac.
“Two thousand sixty-six.”
Isaac takes a drag of his ancient. “Jesus that’s old,” and another, “must have cost you a fortune.”
“It’s still younger than your smoking style,” I say. He blows a puff into my face. I flip him off as I wave it away. “And not too bad. I got a good deal from my uncle, just all of my high school savings.”
We exit the lot and are back onto the route. “Want a hit?” Isaac offers, holding his ancient out, “I laced it with weed, or are you still missy good shoes?”
“No, you’re not going to convince me. You know it’s bad.”
“Nag, nag, nag. Oh look,” Isaac points his ancient at the first bar we pass, Stout Brothers, “they look pretty packed already.”
“We could maybe start there.” We keep driving down the route. Other classic cars, some older than mine, pass us by. “I was thinking of entering the Wang-Stang into the car show some time, you know, the one where all the hotrods drive slowly down this route for fun.”
“What’s first place?”
“Twenty grand.”
Isaac whistles. “Damn.”
We pass a few more bars, and then the route takes us out towards a local state park. As we enter the park border and the buildings turn into trees, a newly placed sign stands on the left in a clearing. On the board is the flag of the Party flapping behind construction workers in yellow helmets. In big black letters above the flag it says: YOUR PARTY AT WORK: FURTURE DEVELOPMENT SITE.
“Is your presentation done?” I say, already knowing the answer.
“Kinda, gonna BS it like usual, and I know you’ve been done for years, kiss ass.”
“Just because I am into politics and global issues, doesn’t mean you have to feel inferior or jealous.”
“Were you just practicing your pick up line on me for tonight? Because I am soaking in between the thighs right now.”
“What’s your topic about? Citizens who don’t know anything? Because you aced that one.”
“Actually fucker, I changed it.”
Interesting, considering his previous assignment was his most thought out one this semester, which was him pausing at the door to a library to begin preliminary research, before deciding he would just bullshit the whole thing—and he always liked to remind me being high out of his mind had nothing to do with it. “Do tell.”
“It’s how the banished states are actually more free, better off than us.”
What a ludicrous idea. “You can’t be serious?”
“What’s wrong, Party Boy? Are you upset that there may be differing views of success and happiness than what we are spoon fed?”
“Let’s just try to entertain your stance then. First of all, they are the last third world countries in the world. That’s because they are barred from the United Nations for what they did during the Terrible War. So even if they liked being separate from the rest of us, they are still woefully behind.”
“True, but here’s the difference. The thing people don’t look at, that the UN doesn’t want people to see. They are beginning to redevelop. Improve themselves, without any international help. And they are all democratic! Do you even remember when our country used to be that?”
“We still are—”
“Oh my fucking god Peter, don’t call me crazy if you’re going to be dense yourself. You know very well we are not. The occasional opinion pulls we have, are just that, us telling our Parents what our opinion is. It may give them a better outlook, but it doesn’t change their decisions. The Party got rid of the last of it when they took over.” He begins talking like a robot reading a textbook, “Because democracy causes us to be too divided, a non-unified people that did not act correctly or logically, starting wars.”