FLECKS OF TOURMALINE

            I spent almost forty minutes circling the aviary. Forty minutes it took to descend to nesting level. What’s the longest you’ve ever spent around a griffon? Ten, fifteen minutes? And I’ll bet you all the gold in the Augur’s Sanctum you were praying for a head cold by that point just so the stench would go away. Try forty minutes in a ten-tiered carousel of molt stink. You’ve got griffons calling to one another, trying to mate with one another, riders who think they don’t have to wait their turn. It’s pandemonium. They used to have all the nesting mouths open all the time. You never had to wait. But since the guilds took over inter-provincial travel, they’ll only pay to keep a handful of mouths open at a time. The guilds cut down on their overhead and we keep flying no matter how intolerable it gets.

            Remember when you were a kid, the first time your dad took you for a ride on a griffon? Remember when you first got to the aviary? You’d never seen a building that disappeared into the clouds before. It was like you were being shown proof that there’s something bigger than you out there. You walked into the office and the building could be hundreds of years old – it could’ve been built before the Chyrodian Purge – it still had that smell of freshly cut ipe and teak. All those bas reliefs blanketing the walls sprung to life in the torchlight, like you were watching a myth play out in front of you. And that lift ride up to the nests, the ropes crackling and the winch creaking, made you tremble like you were running to the hearth on High Winter’s morning. Then that giant cavernous room opened up and you couldn’t even understand the awe that overtook you in at that moment. You looked up and you thought the building rose and rose into the sky forever. I swear, to this day I remember not being able to see the ceiling even though it’s clear as day when I go in there now. Do you remember the odor? I don’t. It had to have been there, but I honestly don’t remember it from back then. And I don’t remember Dad acting like there was an odor either. He took me around, showed me all the griffons so I could pick which one we would ride, but he never wrinkled up his nose or complained about any kind of smell. That first time we rode this beautiful gray bronze-beak, my dad picked me up and put me in the booster saddle. I’ll tell you, the only other time I’ve ever felt that weird mix of excitement and terror was when I lost my virginity. Even with the saddle between me and the griffon I could feel its every muscle twitch, every feather ruffle. Dad never told me how strong those things are. I thought I was going to get thrown before we took off. But when we did, that palpable rush of freedom and power as you sail through the troposphere, doing something the gods didn’t give us the ability to do, looking at the mite-sized realm below. That was one of those moments, I think, that makes childhood sacred.

You never get that feeling again as an adult.

            Today I was going to take a carriage from the aviary to the Market but they had raised the fares again. So I walked. The streets right now are like the world’s most nauseating obstacle course. There are piles of garbage tall as the Spires of Dronumede in front of every house. The smell’s worse than in the queue to get into the aviary. The air in the city’s this gauze of flies and you’ve got rotworms sprouting out of the trash heaps. As you walk your steps make a crunching sound because you’re walking on the pulverized remains of their egg sacs. I asked a constable what was going on and he said the wastemen are striking again and the Congress of Barons won’t negotiate. Never mind the fact that all the garbage and effluent is a total health hazard, which is obvious to everyone with eyes to see the lines around the block for the hospital and the throngs in front of the Temple of Veydu. The Congress doesn’t care. They know nobody’s going to leave the city with Lord Garun’s ShadowCorps still on the loose. You could feel this pall over the city. There’s this tension that you can’t put your finger on, like you’re feeling your way through a dense fog and any second you expect to come face to face with something out of the Catacombs. And there I am, going to the Market.

            Actually it made me remember the first time I went there. It was right after Amarost’s coronation and the city was practically vibrating. Everyone still thought that he was going to be the Deathless Star and you couldn’t help getting sucked into the enthusiasm. Granddad took me. He had arthritis by this point, so we went by cart. He was old-world, a man of few words, there’s a way to do things. You know what I mean. Great guy though. Always smiling, praised you when you did well. And I didn’t realize this until I got older: he had a straight-up scatological sense of humor. The forgebeast that pulled the cart he had named Swinefelch. I didn’t know what that meant back then, so I’d ask him, “Granddad, why’d you name him Swinefelch?” He never told me. Every time I’d ask him, he’d say, “If I tell you, your mother will never let me take you anywhere again,” and he was right. She wouldn’t have.

So we’re walking through the Market, Granddad’s telling me how to tell a chiseler from a legitimate merchant. All of the sudden we hear two loud voices barking in the crowd up ahead of us. Granddad grabs my hand – because, you know, it’s the Market and I’m a kid. We get a little closer and it’s these two vendors. One’s dealing in scientists, the other’s in sorcerers, and they are screaming at each other. I can’t tell what they’re screaming about because it’s all in Old Tongue, but it had to have been entertaining, because in the crowd that’s watching all this all the old people who understand O.T. are chuckling. Then the Science Vendor spits right in the Sorcerer Vendor’s face. Now the crowd braces itself for a duel, spreading out so the blades that come out don’t cut them. Sorcerer Vendor spits back. Hits the dude right in the eye. Science Vendor reaches under his table, pulls out a spittoon, puts his hand in, pulls out a handful of offal and flings it right at Sorcerer Vendor’s head. Sorcerer Vendor retaliates in kind and now you’ve got two guys hurling gobs of purple glowing ectoplasmic feces at each other. People are doubled over and turning blue as they’re watching this scene. Everyone’s laughing – even the vendors’ merchandise! This one archmage is floating shoulder to shoulder with Nicopontys the Younger and they’re exchanging these knowing looks with each other, both trying not to laugh. How’s that for irony? The fellow merchants are ready to kill each other while the bitter ontological rivals are sharing a laugh. Granddad wouldn’t tell me what the beef was, but I’m glad he didn’t. It’s a better story without a context.

            You know, historians would say that incident took place during the same age we’re in now. But the thing is that would never happen at the Market today. The thing about the Modern Age is that everything is so antiseptic and impersonal. There’s no character to anything. It’s like when you go to the Amphitheatre now: they want everything to appeal to everybody so they dilute it and de-saturate it until it appeals to nobody. When’s the last time you actively wanted to see a show? Nobody does. We just go because that’s what you’re supposed to do when the rites come to town. You ask someone why it matters, and they’ll tell you that it’s tradition. And if that doesn’t work, then it’s for the sake of public morale. But it’s just an empty ritual at this point. We don’t have any emotional investment in it. They put on the same shows they’ve been doing for the last fifty years or so but with more sex and blood. Granddad used to tell me how when he was a kid everybody waited on pins and needles for the next production to roll around. People cared about it back then. Adults, kids, nobility, laborers, men, women, even inhumans. And if you missed it you had to endure everybody else rhapsodizing for the next month about what a kick it all was. Granddad said that you felt like you had done something wrong if you hadn’t made it, like you’d neglected a sacrament and you were poorer for it.

            That’s the thing I loved about the Market when I was growing up. I would cross the threshold and feel like I was being ferried into the Hills of Mists and I would float out the other side and be five hundred years in the past. The world still looked like the world but it was unsullied and uncorrupted. It was like the world had just been born and nothing calamitous had happened yet. There were these tents everywhere I looked, all of them different colors and designs, emblazoned with these wild-looking sigils that swept me off to worlds I’d only known from schoolbooks. And they all looked strong and durable. You could’ve told me they’d been standing there for epochs, completely impervious to erosion, and I would’ve believed it. The vendors all spoke the Old Tongue and if I did hear one speak the Common it was in this lilting sing-songy accent. Even the horses clomping over the cobblestones – the ones with the flecks of tourmaline that are only in the streets of the Soul Herder’s Market – there was a melody to it. Vendors calling out to shoppers, coins clinking together as they changed hands. It sounds like it would be a cacophony. But walking through it and hearing it with my own ears, it was all in perfect harmony.

            And you got to go home with someone’s soul.

            I always liked to see what generals and high commanders were for sale. You’d walk up to this or that tent and see these men and women who’d made and saved the realm and there they were. Strong, stoic, proud, they actually looked more like all their monuments than they did actual people. Translucent statues floating over the ground. One day this bent-over tumor-faced crag of a vendor was selling General Magyus. THE Magyus. Right in front of me, the dude who held the Fractal Gates with half a battalion and drove off the Azeraax Horde! Every time a customer came up to inspect him he snapped to attention like he was addressing Ucheros II. He’d say, “How can I be of assistance, my liege?” To the customer. He even acknowledged me. I mean, he didn’t address me. The soul of General Magyus isn’t going to risk exorcism speaking to a child. But he looked at me and bowed his head and gave this warm smile. The vendor wasn’t making him do that. That was just him. When’s the last time you encountered a public servant who was that honorable?

            Now…

Want to know what today’s trip to the Market was like? First my mother starts barking that I have to go get an artisan for the Day of Bladesmen. I’m like, “What kind of artisan?”

            “Just an artisan!” she screams.

            I’m like, “Mom, I know you have some kind of artisan in mind. Tell me what you want, because I don’t want to get back here and have you tell me I got the wrong soul.”

            Now she’s getting impatient so she huffs and starts over-enunciating her words. “Get – me – an – Erullean – sculptor - please.”

            I grab some coins and I leave before I have a meltdown. Has she always been this insufferable, or has she degenerated since Dad died? I don’t know.

I already told you about the flight so I won’t regale you with anymore of that catastrophe. I told you about the filth in the streets. I get to the Market and go up to the first artisan’s tent I see, which mercifully is only a few spots beyond the entrance and that’s the last spot of luck I have for the day. I see the vendor. He’s cursed by Ajda. Awesome. I have to look the guy in his eyes while putrescence is seeping out of them. But I have to honor the social contract so I can’t reel back from the stench of his eye snot and throw the guy a handkerchief or set his face on fire or anything. I go, “Do you have any Erullean sculptors?”

            He puts his finger to his cheek and goes, “Ummmmmmmmmmmm,” for a good thirty seconds. Just a ceaseless drone of, “Um.” That’s it. Finally he goes, “Yes, I do.”

            Then he stands there. Just stands there looking at me with brown-green rivers rushing out of his tear ducts. I’m like, “Well, may I see what you have?”

            More silence while he just stares at me like I’m the one whose eyes are cursed. Then he disappears into the tent without a word. No explanation. Okay, Common’s probably not his first language so there’s a barrier I’m just going to have to deal with. Not the case, which I find out ten minutes later. Why ten minutes later? Because that’s how long I’m standing at his table waiting for him. The tent is fifteen by fifteen at the most. What the hell’s he doing back there? I don’t hear any voices, no noises like he’s rooting through merch, nothing. What’s going on? People are walking by and looking at me like, Who’s this idiot standing at an abandoned tent for no reason.

            Finally, he comes back out, all smiles, and says, “Okay.”

            “ ‘Okay,’ what?”

            He’s goes, “No problem.”

            I go, “You’re sure about that?”

            “Yes. Absolutely.”

            So I say, “Okay. Where is it?”

            “Excuse me?”

            “Where is it?”

            “Where’s what?”

            “The sculptor,” I say.

            “You never asked for a sculptor.”

He said that.

            I’m like, “Uh, I most certainly did. It was the first thing I said to you: ‘Do you have any Erullean sculptors?’ “

            His face straight as a board, he says, “You never said that.”

            Now I’m starting to lose it. I’m like, “Don’t tell me what I did and didn’t say! I left the house and came here this morning with a specific purchase to make. I’m not just browsing willy-nilly. My sole objective in coming to the Soul Herders Market today was to acquire an Erullean sculptor.”

            “You didn’t ask for an Erullean sculptor, sir.”

            Now I’m starting to think, This is what this guy does. This is his sales technique. Fine. I go, “What exactly did I ask for?”

            He says, “Excuse me?”

            I go, “No, no, no. Don’t say, ‘Excuse me,’ like you didn’t hear me. Answer my question.”

            “I’m sorry, sir. I honestly did not hear you.”

            I’m back to screaming: “Yes, you did!”

            “I’m sorry, but I didn’t, sir.”

            I’m ready to slap the snot out of this hayseed’s eyes at this point. “You’re insisting that I did not specifically ask for a sculptor,” I say. “Then what did I ask for?”

            “You didn’t specify.”

            “So you went back into your tent for ten minutes for no reason whatsoever?”

            He goes, “Not at all, sir.”

            “Well then, why’d you go into the tent?”

            He says, “With all due respect, sir, it’s really none of your business.”

            I go, “Yes, it is! I’m a paying customer!”

            “Not yet.”

            I’m like, “Oh! Now you’re going to play hardball with me?”

            “No, sir. But technically you’re not a paying customer until coin has changed hands and it hasn’t yet.”

            “Yeah, because you refuse to bring me an Erullean sculptor!”

            “You never asked me for one, sir.”

            “Fine,” I say. “I didn’t ask for one. I DID, but fine. You win. But you still haven’t told me what I did ask for.”

            Now this whole time, Old Man Rheumatism is completely unperturbed by all my carrying-on. “As I’ve said, sir, you didn’t specify.”

            “What then did I say?”

            “Nothing.”

            I’m stunned. Now it’s my turn to say, “Excuse me?”

            “Nothing, sir.”

            “So I came up here, said absolutely nothing, and we just gazed longingly into each other’s eyes until you went into the tent?”

            He goes, “That depends on how you look at it.”

            “WHAT?”

            I know. Why don’t I walk away at this point? Because I have to know what’s going on with this guy. I know I’m only going to get more and more aggravated the longer this goes on, and I’m probably not going to get an Erullean sculptor out of it, but I don’t care. I don’t care if I have to vault over the table, storm into the tent, and end up getting thrown into the dungeons. I am getting to the bottom of this.

            He goes, “Well it’s all about your point of view. From your point of view it probably looked like I was just staring at you, but what I was really doing was ascertaining what you wanted.”

            I say, “You could’ve asked me what I wanted.”

            “But you see it’s not what you say. It’s what I hear.”

            I go, “Could you try hearing what I say – especially when it pertains to Erullean sculptors?”

            “No, I can’t do that.”

            I’m like, “Why not?”

            “Because it’s not always what you say. Usually it’s what you don’t say.”

            “Okay, I’ll bite. What didn’t I say?”

            “For one thing, you didn’t say you wanted an Erullean sculptor.”

            “Yes, I did!”

            “But that’s not what I heard.”

            Now my hand is inching toward my dagger. I’m on the verge of drawing blood at this point.

            He says, “What I heard was that you didn’t need an artisan. You wanted an artisan but you didn’t need one. What you needed was a reason to celebrate the holiday.”

            “You just said I didn’t say anything.”

            He goes on. “You needed a reason to believe our holiday has any significance in these insignificant times, that the Day of Bladesmen can still bring hope when men with blades spill more and more blood every day.”

             “Total silence and you heard all that?”

            “That’s why the last thing you need is an Erullean sculptor. What you need, sir, is a painter of the Ittalycite school, and I happen to have the finest in the realm right here.”

            Do I even need to finish the story? I think you can see where this is going. Well, needless to say, not only did I get an earful from my mother when I got home, I got an earful from the painter’s soul on the way. The whole ride all he did was accuse me of having no eye for composition and smelling like dwarf dick.

            That’s where my beloved Market is now. That’s what age has done to it. Don’t tell me it’s my fault for falling for his con. “He’s a salesman. That’s what he does.” No! It didn’t used to be like that. You went to the Market, found the soul you were looking for, you haggled over the price, and you either made the deal or you walked away. The incorruptible has been corrupted. Yeah, it still looks the same, but everything wonderful and special about it’s been eroded. Is this what happens? Does everything get eaten away piece by piece every time a grain of sand falls?

            You know, on the way home I kept thinking about this one trip there when I was eleven. Equinox was coming up and my mother, for whatever reason, decided she wanted to do it right that year. So me, Dad, and Granddad get dispatched to the Market to pick up a pontiff. As soon as we’re out the door Dad goes, “Let’s take an arachknight.”

            Granddad starts giggling. I go, “Dad, Mom will kill you if you spend that much.”

            He’s like, “Don’t worry. We’ll make it up at the Market.”

            “What do you mean?”

            He’s like, “You just watch me when we get there.”

            That was the only time, to this day, I’ve ridden an arachknight. The only other time Dad rode one was on his wedding day, and Granddad had never been on one. On the way to the corral he had this expectant smirk on his face like a kid whose parents are taking him to a toy store. Dad would look at him and then smile at me, like he was happy to give his old man an experience he never had before.

We turned a corner and saw it, that ten-story tall spider, and we were just gobsmacked. We got to the corral and Granddad was suddenly possessed by some extremely gregarious poltergeist, asking the keepers how the day was finding them, how they kept the arachknight in place, what it ate, everything. Dad pays for the trip, we go up the ramp and climb into the hollowed-out thorax. There were a couple other laborers there, but for the most part we took our seats among all these hoity-toity merchants and nobles. I know it’s shallow but it was kind of cool, getting to pretend like we weren’t the hoi-poloi for a few minutes. The doors close and – tops – ten seconds later, “We hope you enjoyed the ride.” That thing went over five miles in one leap and I didn’t feel a takeoff or landing. Whoever figured out how to turn an arachknight into mass transit should be Heralded.

The thorax opens up and there we are just outside the city. We cross the Beytheos Bridge, through the gates. I start to go left toward the Market, when Dad grabs my arm and says, “Let’s go get some breakfast first.”

He takes us to the Tumuli ShroomaRoom.

Have you ever been to the Tumuli ShroomaRoom? Everything you ever heard about it is true. It’s this giant hollowed-out toadstool and inside they’ve set up tables and chairs. All the chairs are smaller toadstools that mold themselves to fit your body when you sit down, so it’s the most comfortable seat you’ve ever been in. The food is all mushroom-based, and I know it doesn’t sound like it, but it is delicious. The staff is entirely composed of prairie gnomes, so they’re naturally impelled to provide great service. And I’m telling you right now, the rumors about the cuisine have to be true, because two minutes after we started eating, all three of us got swept up in this wave of euphoria. There wasn’t any kind of hallucinations or anything like that, but it was like I could sense this faint little halo around their bodies and I knew they were sensing one around me too. Dad, Granddad, and I would look at each other, the silliest ear-to-ear smiles slapped across our faces, and start conversing without opening our mouths. At one point Dad looked at me and, even though he had a mouthful of food and didn’t actually say anything, he asked me, “Good day, huh?” Dad told me he loved me, Granddad told Dad how happy he was to see how his son turned out, Dad told me of how Granddad once stood up to his crooked commanding officer in the navy and that he was proud to be his father’s son. I don’t know what was with him that day. Maybe it was the holiday mood or that he was there with his old man and his little boy. I don’t know. But he really wanted us to enjoy that day.

We go to the Market and Dad insists on making a circuit of the whole place, checking every pontiff tent before we even talk to a vendor. Granddad’s putting his two cents in at every stop – “You’re looking at Post-Restitution pontiffs? No, you can’t buy from a mountain troll,” – and Dad just smiles.

Then Dad leads us to the third or fourth vendor we passed. He marches up to the vendor, this swarthy Eastlander with a dolly on his left foot, points to the back right corner of the tent and declares, “Him.”

He wants Draendl IV. My father thinks he’s walking away from this tent with Draendl IV – and with enough coin left over to convince my mother we didn’t take an arachknight there or eat at the ShroomaRoom. No way. Not going to happen.

I watched my old man operate, I was proud to call myself his son. He had this vendor convinced he wasn’t going to sell another pontiff all day if he didn’t sell to us. He actually trolled this guy down to twelve and three. I’ve never witnessed haggling like that since. It was insane. Dad turns to me as the vendor’s pulling his pants back up and tells me to take Draendl over to the locksteps and get him ready to go home.

I take him over and as I’m fastening his flagella to the lockstep, Draendl looks down at me. He says, “Are you having a good day?”

I’m speechless. Did Draendl IV just speak to me? A kid? Out in public?

I never understood what was so dangerous about a soul talking to a kid, let alone why it’s illegal. They say it’s a matter of keeping the souls in their place, whatever that means, and that souls can’t be allowed to impart any information to the young and impressionable. But, alive or dead, this is Draendl IV. If the man’s got something to say he should be heard, right? But I’m so stunned I don’t say anything back. So he arches his eyebrows and give me a smile, like he’s saying, It’s okay, go ahead. Finally I’m just like, “Uh-huh.”

He does that kneeling-down motion that souls do so he’s eye level with me. He goes, “Enjoy this time, my son, while this is the only time you know.”

I’m like, “Okay.”

He smiles and straightens up. I didn’t know what he was talking about but who cares. Draendl IV risked exorcism to speak to me.

I don’t think I really got what Draendl was talking about until today. I’m sitting here pining for a world that doesn’t exist anymore, most of which I never got to experience in the first place. I’m lamenting the loss of a culture that was far superior to the one I have to deal with. But I never did that when I was eleven. Remember Nicopontys’s Fourth Stanza: Every being experiences time subjectively? Well when I was eleven I basically didn’t have a past. I was like an animal where the only sense of time I understand is the now, no concept of past or future. Maybe Draendl was telling me it’s better to not have perspective like an ignorance-is-bliss kind of thing. Maybe the older you get – the further away from that past ideal you got – everything just gets exponentially worse.

Kind of bleak, isn’t it? I mean, I still have a lot more years ahead of me than behind. How much worse can it get? Maybe that’s really why they don’t want souls talking to the young and impressionable. It’s the responsibility of the living to keep the kingdom going, keep the fires fueling the economy burning and always entertain the fiction that things just keep improving. Any problems like the wastemen’s strike or the greed of the guilds or Lord Garun’s armies are just hiccups in the natural respiration of the system. They’re just cosmetic blemishes on the ageless visage of a monument to Magyus or the other greats that have defined who we’ve thought we are all these years. But maybe they’re not. Maybe Magyus and Nicopontys and Draendl are the cosmetics hiding the entropy. That it’s the entropy that’s really the natural order. What if the beginning is as good as it gets? 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF HILLFIELD (pt. 6)

6 - Hillfield & the New Constitution

Given the predominance of Quakerism at its inception, New Jersey has enjoyed a particularly ignominious place among the original thirteen states regarding matters of race. New Jersey’s first state constitution, adopted in a desperate effort to protect itself following George Washington’s 1776 defeat in New York, had granted the vote to all free citizens who met the property requirements, including blacks. That codicil, however, would fall by the wayside in 1807 when, for the sake of party politics, the Republican state government passed a bill restricting the vote to free white males. It had passed a law of gradual emancipation as early as 1804, but slaves were kept as late as 1865. New Jersey did not even ratify the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments until the 1870’s. At a time when every northern state was hurling itself toward the end of “the peculiar institution,” New Jersey notoriously dragged its feet. One of its most intolerable episodes occurred with the adoption of New Jersey’s new constitution in 1844.

For years the manufacturers in the north of the state and the farmers in the south had choked within the stranglehold New Jersey’s railroad interests held over the powerful state legislature. At that point the state’s constitution bore little resemblance to its national counterpart. The divisions between branches of government were amorphous if not wholly absent, and it lacked a bill of rights. But what most galled the rich and wannabe-powerful was that New Jersey’s governor, a then practically impotent figure, was elected by the state legislature, not its citizenry. New Jersey’s most wealthy and ambitious had been spoiling for a greater say in how the state was governed, and Hillfield soon found itself a key player in the adoption of a new and controversial state constitution.

Hillfieldian Hugh Giggley was at that time one of the most powerful men in South Jersey. He had built his initial wealth in farming, but soon branched into transportation, owning or at least possessing a controlling interest in many steamboat and ferry operations running between the state interior and Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. Subsequently he was instrumental in greatly expanding New Jersey’s system of canals, which made transporting his own crops even more economical. These investments brought him untold wealth, but they also brought him into direct competition with the railroad interests in North Jersey. Already established as the transportation method of the age, the railroads had coffers deep enough to stymie Giggley’s efforts to create one all-encompassing concern dedicated to off-land travel. Giggley watched as the railroads employed nothing short of sabotage and intimidation to scare off his investors, and with the majority of New Jersey’s Whig legislature stuffed deep in their pockets, they remained immune from prosecution.

Hugh Giggley may not have been able to identify the direction in which the winds of change were blowing, but that did not stop him dreaming on a large scale, and he now dreamed of unseating the railroad interests’ control of the Whig government. Constitution reform had been a topic of debate for several years, but was always neglected in the hands of the Whigs. Giggley knew that reform was necessary to wrest control away from the railroad tycoons, and he enjoined his fellow wealthy farmers to marshal the political forces at their disposal. They shared his sentiments, but they knew any chance of reform would be futile and potentially disastrous without public support. When the Broad Seal War broke in 1838, Giggley recognized it as the opportunity to galvanize public disgust with the Whigs.

The Broad Seal War was the popular term designated to the controversy surrounding the 1838 election to the U.S. Congress. Following the election, both the Whig and Democratic commissions applied for admission to Congress, but then-governor William Pennington – a Whig – determined the Democratic commissions null and void. Everyone knew that the Whigs had rigged the election, but it remained unproven until Giggley sprang into action. In December of 1839 two men employed by the county clerks offices in Middlesex and Cumberland counties presented a number of returns that had been obviously ignored by the county clerks. These returns gave the Democrats a majority in the House of Representatives. The two men were Hugo von Daniken and Cotswallop Strange. Von Daniken had family employed by Abraham Browning on his Cherry Hill Farm, and several members of Strange’s family were employed at the Crippled Bear Farm owned by Linus Braggart. Both Browning and Braggart were well known friends of Hugh Giggley.

The outcry over the fraudulent election was more than Giggley and company could have hoped for. The next state elections saw the Democrats seize control of the state legislature. Giggley was even able to place his own Democratic waterboy, Daniel Haines, in the governor’s office. Drafting a new constitution became the state government’s first order of business. But the people of New Jersey paid a horrific price.

Over the years, the Whigs had managed to control the state through more than just the war chests of the railroad interests. They had appealed directly to the hearts and minds of New Jersey’s underprivileged inhabitants: women, blacks, and immigrants. As previously stated, the Republicans of the first decade of the nineteenth century had managed to rob these people of the few rights allowed them by the standing constitution. The Democrats of the 1840’s found themselves in opposition to those same beleaguered people and made it clear to Giggley and his cohorts that there would be no quid pro quo in Trenton unless the women, blacks, and immigrants were allowed to be constitutionally disenfranchised. And so, when the state constitution of 1844 was adopted, those people were rendered as powerless as ever.

The irony, of course, is that Hugh Giggley and his compatriots were impelled by their disgust with corruption, and subsequently bequeathed to New Jersey a state so corrupt it long enjoyed the dubious distinction of being, “the Georgia of the North.” It was a distinction it would have to endure until long after the Civil War.

Next:

Vote for Goat

COMPLETELY CONFIDENT

            Coquette was curled up on the couch in clothes with no seductive ambition. The tea at her side was still piping, and she was just getting to the next spicy portion of her very sensitive pornography. Then the phone rang.

            “Hello?”

            A sheepish voice of underwhelming masculinity said, “Hello, miss. I’m calling from the electric company. You’ll be happy to know you’ve qualified for a twenty-five percent discount on your monthly electric bill for all your years of faithful patronage. I just need some information off the receipt from your most recent electric bill.”

            “Why am I getting the rebate again?”

            “Uh, for all your years of, as a-a faithful patronage.”

            “I’ve only lived here for four months.”

            …

            “Well, we’ve taken all the bills from your last house into—”

            “I lived with my boyfriend before moving here four months ago. And with my parents before that. And the electric bills were in their names.”

            …

            “Your twenty-five percent off can begin as, as soon as you—”

            “What’s the name of the company?”

            “What?”

            “The electric company. What’s its name?”

            …

            “The Electric Company…?”

            Coquette was now sitting up in her seat. “Really? Well, I’d like to lodge a complaint with Morgan Freeman. Can you put him on the phone?”

            “Uh… he can’t come to the phone right now.”

            “I’m hanging up.”

            But she didn’t take the phone from her ear. She listened as the voice plowed forward with ignorant courage. “All we need, miss, a little information off your most recent bill’s receipt.”

            “Why?”

            “Huh?”

            “You’re the Electric Company. Why do you need me to read you information off my bill? Don’t you have it right there in front of you?”

            “Well, no.”

            “No? You’re not sitting in front of a computer?”

            “Uh, well, er, yes.”

            “So why do you need me to give you information you already have?”

            …

            “Redundancy?”

            “Excuse me?”

            “Redundancy, miss.” He was very proud of his ingenuity.

            “Define ‘redundancy’ as you’re using it.”

            …

            “To… do… again?”

            “Wow.”
            “We can wrap this up in sixty seconds, miss, if—”

            “Just stop. I’m not giving you my information.”

            “But… I won’t be able to process your twenty-five percent—”

            “Enough!” Coquette was now on her feet. “I want you to give up.”

            “Miss, I—”

            “I want you to concede this is a scam and hang up the phone.”

            Initially the phone ringing had aggravated Coquette, and the immediate realization that the call was nothing more than a con had rankled her further. Now she was enjoying it. It thrilled her to no end having this worm dangle from her hook.

            “A twenty-five percent discount can—”

            “There is no discount.”

            This spineless homunculus had turned out to be a godsend. He had been exactly what Coquette needed: a mosquito blithely buzzing around her head and begging to be swatted. She clutched the phone, delighting in the anticipation of bringing down her heel.

            “The electric company—”

            “—was a dumb show.”

            What did he look like? she thought. What face and spindly imitation of a frame produced that stuck pig’s squeal? Coquette was grinning and nearly licked her chops with carnivorous excitement. She was practically trembling.

            “Miss—”

            “Just admit it!”

            “Look, what do you want from me? I got over a hundred calls to get through a day. I got a quota I got only two weeks left to meet. I’m way behind, and I got ten million other things I gotta do. I gotta sign five people a day up for an internet sales scheme, I gotta get the three-card monte in, I still gotta prep for a badger game tomorrow. I got four different bosses, they never talk to each other, and they’re all over my ass all the time. Now I can’t sleep because the regional manager’s coming in next week to oversee a pigeon drop I’m shilling for. I’m overworked, I’m underpaid, upper management doesn’t care, and middle management just throws it all back at us here in the stores. I get no health coverage, no 401(k), I think I’m developing an Adderall addiction! I’m doing the best I can!”

            …

            “What are you doing tomorrow night?” Coquette asked.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF HILLFIELD (pt. 5)

5 - Red, White, and Black & Blue

            When the sun broke over Hillfield on the morning of September 1, 1779, the town was prepared to greet Colonel Tye and the Black Brigade. Joshua Murray, fermenting in Old Testament zealotry, had press-ganged Hillfield's younger, sprier boys into serving as lookouts, shaming them for their masturbatory decadences. He proceeded to plant various weapons on the premises and outfit the town with all manner of makeshift booby traps. Murray spoke little, contenting himself to quietly singing Irish folk songs with hostile lyrics lifted from the Bible. Allegedly he slept with his eyes open.

            At 8:47 AM on September 5, the thirteen-year old son of a weaver ran into town, crying that the Black Brigade was less than a mile away. Murray ordered the townsfolk to go about their normal activities until Tye arrived, but according to Filman Hazelworth's diary, Murray's shrill barking emphasized his brogue, and someone had to ask him to repeat himself. He did and promptly disappeared into the nearby Meeker's Inn.

            Tye and the Black Brigade rode into town just after 9:00 AM, and the entirety of Hillfield's citizen body gathered in the town square to present themselves to Tye. Included in the assembly were Hillfield's slaves. Tye took one look and started shaking his head with insincere disappointment. He ordered a gallows constructed and a man identified as Amos Longtickle strung up. As his men made quick time of the gallows' construction, the Hillfieldians looked on, unsure of how to proceed without Murray's instruction.

            With the gallows erected and the noose around Amos Longtickle's neck, Tye addressed the petrified townsfolk. "This is why your nation will prove stillborn," he proclaimed. "A whipped animal will work for so long before baring its teeth." Tye raised his hand, ready to order Longtickle's hanging, when a dagger whistled through the rope. It landed in the mud as Longtickle dropped to the ground. The Black Brigade immediately drew their muskets, their heads turning every which way, their horses excited and ready to take off. Only Colonel Tye maintained his poise.

            Joshua Murray's voice rang from the second-story balcony of Meeker's Inn. "Colonel Tye! I defy you, you traitorous namesake of a pagan despot!"

            Tye remained still and unimpressed. "Does the innocent betray the penitentiary when he escapes, Mr. Murray?"

            " 'The wise store up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool invites ruin.' Proverbs 10:14."

            "Please interpret, pastor."

            "It means, 'Fuck your twisted darkie logic.' "

            Murray drew two muskets, fired, and threw himself backwards through the balcony's glass doors.

            Hazelworth described what followed in his diary:

We ran for sanctuary as the negro brigade reared their horses and gave chase. Tye directed two of his mercenaries to dismount and pursue Murray into the inn while another guarded the exit to the back. Shots rang from inside the inn, followed by another and the neighing of a horse from behind the inn. A moment later the Irishman sprinted from behind the inn, whooping like an Indian and confusing both us and the negros. Murray proceeded to lead Tye and his barbarians throughout the town, killing them one at a time with musket, saber, pitchfork, or improvised cudgel. When trapped Murray displayed no fear at diving through glass, wood, or thicket in escape. Even when a black succeeded in wounding the Irishman with a musket shot or saber slash, Murray exacted judgment on the animal and continued to his next target. He succeeded in scalding one of the Brigade with hot stew and bludgeoned another with a slaughtered pig.

            Eventually only Colonel Tye remained alive, but when Murray dropped from a tree, Tye crippled him with a well-placed shot to the right leg. He netted Murray from atop his horse, but as he rode toward his hobbled quarry, Murray produced another musket and fired into the knee of Tye's horse. Tye fell and Murray, drawing a dagger, rushed to cut the Colonel's throat. Tye was quick to draw his own musket and pressed it to Murray's head just as the Irishman's blade met the black commander's Adam's Apple.

              What followed can only be surmised through speculation. Tye and Murray spoke to one another, but their words have not been recorded. The witnesses were likely too far away to hear, but we know that they did watch several minutes of conversation followed by a period that saw Tye and Murray each mutilate himself in turn. It is believed that, however the issue was arrived at, each man sought to prove to the other that he was more willing to endure pain and eventual death for his respective cause, for the stand-off climaxed with Murray holding Tye's musket to his own head and Tye holding Murray's dagger to his own throat.

            We don't know how the two settled the conflict, but both exchanged their weapons and walked away from one another, leaving the town in peace but perplexed. Admittedly this makes for an enigmatic and unsatisfying end to the episode, at least as it pertains to Hillfieldology. Tye would eventually prove the victor, killing Murray the following year in Monmouth County. But the two combatants engendered a distrust of both blacks and Irish that resulted in the immediate abolition of slavery in Hillfield and a great deal of strife-ridden absurdity in the years to come.

Next:

Hillfield & the New Constitution

A BRIEF HISTORY OF HILLFIELD (Pt. 4)

4 - Let the Red Flow Freely

            The problem Hillfieldologists face when studying the chapter of the town's history involving the Loyalist-killer Joshua Murray is a paucity of primary sources. Very little exists pertaining to Murray's life whatsoever. He was born in Derry, Ireland in the mid-eighteenth century and immigrated to the American colonies with his mother when he was still a young boy. They settled in Monmouth County, New Jersey where Murray grew to become a stonemason, married, and had four children. Murray was a staunch Patriot and when the Revolution erupted, he immediately enrolled in the First Regiment Monmouth Militia. There is no evidence that Joshua Murray ever rose to a rank higher than Private, but by 1778 he had earned himself an indelible reputation that persists to the present day.

As a member of the Militia, his official enemy was the Royal Army and its allies. But Murray made a name for himself by killing Americans still loyal to the English crown, and he did so with an idiosyncratic savagery that quickly made him a hero among Patriots and a virtual bogeyman to Loyalists. Allegedly the Monmouth Militia, recognizing the psychological value of Murray's wave of terror, encouraged and even covertly funded his bloodletting activities. We have no idea when he started targeting Loyalists or what the ultimate motive behind his violent distaste for them was. For many years the popular theory was that Murray, being a native Irishman, had been brought up with a particularly venomous loathing for all things British. In recent years however, this theory, being based solely on an ethnic stereotype, has lost traction. It also fails to explain Murray's single-minded hatred for Loyalists. There is no record of him attacking the Royal Army with any more vigor than every other man in his outfit. To date, however, no historian or Hillfieldologist has posited a viable alternative (Mark Krasker's "Defense-in-Girth" theory is not viable).

Complicating matters further is the lack of consensus amongst historians as to how much of Murray's terror is apocryphal and how much is to be believed. Hillfieldologists are lucky that the only surviving primary source attesting to his butchery is Filman Hazelworth's diary. It gives a detailed account of Joshua Murray's brief stay in Hillfield and the horror he brought with him. Hazelworth writes, "Less than one hour passed between Murray's ingress into the environs of the town and the occasion on which he claimed his first victim… He was retribution made manifest, invoked from Providence by Edwards himself." Debate still rages amongst Hillfieldologists as whether or not Hazelworth's word should be accepted at face value -- a debate that has triggered mutual recriminations across the internet and at least one visit to their clubhouse from Hillfield's finest.

Joshua Murray entered Hillfield on August 28, 1779, riding a massive ink-black donkey. His head was entirely hairless save for the wide bushy mustache that hung down past his mouth. Every stitch of clothing he wore was a deep burgundy, and the cross that hung from his neck was carved, likely by his own hand, from stark black-and-white stone. The Town Fathers immediately ran out to greet him with the rest of the populace looking on. The town's leaders invited him to speak with them regarding Colonel Tye in private, and Murray silently followed them into the meetinghouse. Approximately forty minutes passed before the pillars of the community emerged into the street. There is no record of what transpired or what words were exchanged in the meetinghouse, but we are able to make reasonably educated guesses in the hindsight of the following events.

Emerging from their parley with Murray the Town Fathers assembled the entirety of Hillfield's citizenry along Main Street. A few minutes later the Loyalist-killer emerged from the meetinghouse. Standing in the center of Main Street he announced in a guttural brogue that he was willing to protect the town from, as Hazelworth reports, "the darkies swinging from King George's teat." Before he would assent to do so, however, he insisted that Hillfield had to be cleansed of its Loyalist taint. He wheeled around and pointed to a one Mr. Lemuel Truburgh, owner of Hillfield's first bank (and ancestor to Elihu Truburgh, who would transform Madsen, New Jersey from a redheaded stepchild of a city in Philadelphia's shadow to one of the major metropolitan centers of the Twentieth Century). Murray had Truburgh brought forth and accused him of not only harboring Loyalist sympathies but of directly colluding with the British. Shocked by the accusation, the people looked to their civic leaders for their opinion. The leaders watched silently, so the people followed their lead and bore witness to the bloody spectacle that unfolded.

Filman Hazelworth writes,

The dreaded archangel tied M. Truburgh's hands to a nearby hitching post. He drew from inside his great coat a nightmarish blade the full length of a man's forearm. He quoted from Scripture -- Exodus I believe, "If they cry out to me, I will hear their cry. My anger will be aroused and I will kill you with the sword." I'm sickened to even commit what followed to paper. M. Murray cut into M. Truburgh's leg and the poor banker screamed like a dying pig. M. Murray cleaved away the meat from his bone, which he finally tore out with his bare hands. He held aloft the bone from M. Truburgh's body and again quoted from The Book, "The cook took up the leg with what was on it and set it before Saul. Samuel said, 'Here is what has been kept for you. Eat.' " Poor M. Truburgh was killed with his own bone through his mouth and the back of his skull.

            Whether this horrific scene happened precisely as described by Hazelworth, if at all, Joshua Murray managed to convince Hillfield that he was the man to protect them from the wrath of Colonel Tye.

Next:

Red, White, and Black & Blue

DINNER ON OLYMPUS

           The Great Hall was built from marble quarried by the first men. It stood un-ravaged by time and the elements, perched atop a rocky outcropping, nestled within the brilliant azure of the unsullied sky. Thick as an ocean of sackcloth the sea of clouds gently rolled past, insulating Olympus from the ignorant mortals below spoiling for divine retribution.

            Inside the Hall torches hung from columns and shone like shrunken suns. The gilt in the floor caught the torchlight and ran through the stone like veins of molten fire. The dining table straddled the length of the Hall like the Colossus of Rhodes. Carved from a grove of fir long since destroyed by Man, it stood draped in a cloth of purple. The table hosted bowls of grapes, pomegranates, figs, plums, dates, and olives; cisterns of soups and stews; loaves of bread; plates of beef and bird with greens and several bottles of wine.

            Around the table were six chairs. One sat vacant. The others held five immortal beings, older than recorded time, without a smile on a single face.

“Dad, what are we doing here?” Hebe asked.

            Zeus was seated at the head of the table. “Ask your mother,” he answered, wiping the corner of his eye with a finger.

            Hera, seated at the foot of the table, didn’t wait for her daughter to address her. “We’re here, child, because it’s been ages since we’ve supped together as a family,” she said. “So, tonight, we’re going to have a pleasant dinner together.”

            Hebe weighed her mother’s words between narrowed eyes. “So where is everyone?” she asked.

            “Who’s everyone?”

            “Poseidon, Demeter, Hades…”

            “No, no,” Hera said, waving her finger dismissively. “Just us. No aunts and uncles. Just your father and I and our children.”

            Vulcan mumbled from behind his sooty un-kept beard, “Not all the children.”

            “Yeah. Where’s Ares?” Aphrodite chimed.

            Zeus head popped upright. “Oh, he’ll explain that if he bothers to show up.”

            Hebe looked back to Hera. “What’s going on, Mom?”

            “What do you mean?”

            “All of the sudden you’ve got the urge to bring the family together? Where’s this coming from?”

Hera blanched. “I have always cared about maintaining a tightly knit family. I spent all day preparing this meal and I intend for us to enjoy it.”

            “Really?” Hebe replied dubiously.

            “Yes, really. Now go get the lamb. It should be done by now.”

            “Why me?”

            Zeus rolled his eyes about. Vulcan bowed his head, casting his eyes away from his sister’s ill-advised defiance. Aphrodite looked on, her eyebrows arched in delight. “Because,” Hera answered, “you are goddess of servitude and you’re going to fulfill your familial obligations tonight. Go.”

            “What about the nymphs or priestesses or…”

            Hera hardened. “I’ve sent them away for the evening. Now fetch.”

            Hebe rose and skulked toward the kitchens. Vulcan watched his sister leave, then turned to his mother. “Who cooked?” he asked.

            Hera turned impatiently toward her son. “I just told you. I did.”

            “Well, what was Hestia doing here earlier?”

            “Hestia was kind enough to lend me a hand in the beginning.”

            Vulcan furrowed his brow. “Wait,” he said. “I saw her spooning the fasoladainto the cistern.” Aphrodite shook her head as she twirled a knife between her fingers.

            “She helped and, regardless, I’m the one responsible for the crops that went into the meal,” Hera snapped back.

            “But Persephone handles the harvest.”

            Hera slapped Vulcan across the face. “Fucking toad!” she spit. The sound of the impact reverberated through the hall and down out of Olympus. The one side of Vulcan’s beard held the shape of his mother’s open palm.

            Aphrodite leaned over to her husband and quietly said, “You really shouldn’t speak anymore.”

            “Listen to your wife, beast,” Zeus added.

            Hebe entered the Hall carrying a roasted lamb on a platter of silver. The air grew succulent as Hebe approached the table and the platter gleamed bright enough to be seen by the Three Sisters. Hebe hoisted the platter over the table and let it drop with a metallic thud. She took her seat and said to Hera, “Don’t punish Vulcan because you can’t cook.”

            “I don’t care who cooked,” Zeus moaned. “Can we eat?”

            “When Ares arrives,” Hera answered.

            “Should I go find him?” Aphrodite offered.

            Hera cast a frigid gaze at Aphrodite. “Better you not. I’d hate for you get lost and delay the meal longer.”

            “I would never be so disrespectful.”

            “Not to you at any rate, Mom,” Hebe added.

            Zeus soothed Aphrodite, “You stay here, dear. Ares will be along.” Zeus looked back at Hera. “It’s just a question of before or after the meal goes cold.”

            “We are eating as a full family,” Hera reiterated.

            “I’m eating,” Zeus announced and reached for a slice of pita.

            “Don’t touch that food,” Hera commanded.

            Zeus froze and slowly looked up at Hera. Every fiber of Olympian authority radiated from his cold steel eyes. “What?” he snarled through clenched jaws.

            Hera raised her open hands in supplication. “I apologize. My tone was out of line. But I would humbly implore you to abstain temporarily. Not for your son’s sake, but for your wife’s.”

            Zeus and Hera eyed one another from across the table.

            “I intend on drinking,” the king of the gods said.

            Hera nodded compliantly.

            Zeus grabbed on olive and popped it into his mouth.

            Hera bowed her head with the slightest twinge at the corner of her mouth.

            Her husband grabbed the bottle of wine before him and leaned back in his seat as he filled his goblet. He returned the bottle to its place with one hand and drank deeply with the other.

            “Dad,” Hebe started, “you’re not planning on getting drunk before Ares gets here, are you?”

            Zeus refilled his goblet as he addressed his daughter. “My libations are none of your business, my little old maid. That’s first. Second: for Ares’s sake, I hope not.”

            “Please don’t be too hard on him,” Aphrodite hummed with the scent of mandrake on her words. “Yes, he can be a little wayward, but he means well enough.”

            “He’s the god of war!” ejaculated Vulcan spitefully.

            “So?”

            “So how does the personification of destruction mean well enough?”

            Aphrodite grinned at Vulcan like a master smiling at his dog. “Simple husband,” she started slowly, “war stems from Man’s passions, which, I think you have to admit, I am the authority on.”

            “War is a consequence of hate,” Hebe said. “Not love.”

            “What’s hate but the mirrored reflection of love, dutiful sister?”

            “Don’t call me, ‘sister.’ ”

            “I’m sorry. Are we not both the daughters of Zeus Almighty?”

            Hera scoffed with a nasally chortle. Zeus turned to the goddess of love, his beard dripping with vino, and said, “Ignore the two and their scornful mother, pet. Whatever punishment’s coming Ares way, he’ll walk away from it.”

            Vulcan offered, “With or without a limp?”

            The king of the gods turned his head to his aesthetically displeasing son. He smelled the sulphur and smelt ore waft off the hirsute god’s person. He saw the flakes of iron fall from Vulcan’s beard and land like snowflakes on the table. Zeus’s lips curled and he grabbed Vulcan by the ear, yanking it to within an inch of his mouth. “Do you want me to break your other leg? You insolent sub-being?”

            Hebe jumped in, “Dad…”

            “SHUT UP!” bellowed Zeus. He turned back to the silent cringing Vulcan, still an inch from his face. “Do you want to sit in your caves with the Cyclops forever? Never again look across the earth from the peak of Olympus?” Zeus raised his hand, opened to a claw. The hand flickered like Greek fire for the briefest moment, and stood raised to Zeus’s own sky clutching a lightning bolt. Zeus brought the lightening, crackling and writhing with the anger of a viper, toward Vulcan’s face. “You think you’re grotesque now? What do you think you’ll look like after I thrust this into your face? The gorgons will fear your gaze!”

            “Smite him! Smite him!” cried out a voice. Everyone turned toward the entrance of the dining hall to see Ares standing there; robes disheveled, fists clenched and eyes saucered in excitement. “Do it, Dad!” he cried.

            Hera bounded out of her seat. “Where the hell have you been?” she screamed. “I’ve been slaving all day over this feast!”

            Ares looked at his mother with an expression blank enough to render him faceless. “What do you mean?” he asked innocently.

            Hera’s widened eyes flashed red. “What do I mean? You have the temerity to keep us waiting for approaching an hour – after the time and sweat I’ve poured into this meal today – and you…”

            Ares, his face as still as the Lethe, interjected, “That’s what I’m talking about. You cooked?”

            Zeus closed his eyes and shook his head with an inconspicuous grin. Aphrodite covered her mouth with a closed fist as her abdomen throbbed with chuckles. Hebe rolled her eyes with a slackened jaw and Vulcan, massaging his manhandled ear, frowned.

            Hera stared at her eldest son with an ashen face that have scattered Furies. “ZEUS!!!” she roared.

            “Where were you?” Zeus asked rising from his chair. “Do you know what I’ve had to endure thanks to you? Your mother’s been carrying on about her gruel without pause. I’ve had to listen to your sister’s incessant egalitarian prattle.”

            Hebe leaned over to a Vulcan. “This is my life,” she said under her breath.

            “And the only thing smart about your brother,” continued Zeus, “is his misshapen mouth!”

            Ares started to the table and said, “Yeah, but his mouth’s not the only thing on him misshapen. Right, Aph?” he asked with a wink to Aphrodite. Aphrodite smiled back as Vulcan glowered and took a sip from his goblet of wine.

            “Ignore your brother until I’m finished with you.” Zeus told Ares.

            “Yeah, but that was good, Pop. Admit it.”

            “He will not until you account for where you’ve been!” Hera barked.

            Zeus turned to Hera and proclaimed, “Don’t tell me to ignore a swipe at Vulcan. I’ll enjoy Ares’s mockery all I want. In fact, I think I’ll join in: the next time Athens angers me, I’ll order Poseidon to release Vulcan.”

            Ares laughed and added, “Hey! Why does Cerberus have three heads? So Vulcan’ll lose count!”

            Zeus chuckled and said, “Good one, son. Sit down.”

            Vulcan leaned over to Hebe and whispered, “You want to trade?”

            Hera burst out of her seat. “That’s it?” she exploded. “A few jibes at Vulcan’s expense and he’s off the hook?”

            Zeus said, “Can we eat now?”

            “Not if that’s all you’re going to…”

            “If you sit down and let us eat, Ares will explain himself.” Zeus turned to his martial son. “Right?” he asked.

            “Whatever you say, Pop.”

            Hera regarded her ne’er-do-well-except-on-the-battlefield son for a second of silence, and slowly sunk back into her seat. “Fine. Eat,” she said.

            Zeus tore into a leg of lamb and said to Ares, through a mouthful of meat, “Placate your mother.”

            Ares turned to face Hera. “So what’d you want know, Ma?” he asked.

            Hera leaned forward in her seat, “Where – were – you?”

            “Ma,” he started, “I’m sorry I’m late. But you have to believe it wasn’t my fault.”

            “Whose fault was it?”

            “Thor’s,” Ares said.

            Vulcan and Hebe exclaimed in unison, “Thor!?!”

            Hera pointed a stern finger at Ares and said, “How many times have I told you not to associate with the Aesir?”

            “It didn’t start out like that,” assured Ares. “We were both working. I was stirring up shit with the Persians and…”

            “They’re not the Persians anymore,” interrupted Hebe.

            “The Seleucids, the Parthians, the Sassanids! The point is…”

            “ ‘The Sassanids?’ Do you have any idea what millennium it is?”

            “Hebe,” Aphrodite editorialized, “nobody cares how smart you are.”

            “She’s right, Hebe,” Zeus added through a mouthful of stew.

            “Yeah, now go get your fucking shine-box, Heeb!” Ares chided.

            “It’s ‘Hebe!’ ” she insisted.

“Whatever, Jew. Anyway, I’m stirring up the brown people, getting them to start in on the Hebes again, when Thor shows up and says he’s already got something in the works and he doesn’t want me queering up his game. I tell him it’s my turf by virtue of geography, to go prod a metal band into burning a church. He goes, ‘Don’t you have a diner to run?’ ”

            “Son of a bitch,” snarled Zeus.

            “I’m sure he didn’t say that,” offered Vulcan.

            Zeus and Ares spun their head around. Zeus glared thunder at Vulcan and spit, “What makes you so sure?”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Oh, did we lose you?” Ares asked his brother.

            “Well…” Vulcan inched gingerly, “I just mean… how would Thor know Greeks own diners?”

            Aphrodite turned to her husband with an opprobrious flip of her tresses and said, “The same way you would know that Hindis run convenience stores and whatever the brown people are run gas stations.”

            “If you had an intellect to speak of,” added Zeus.

            “Yeah,” chimed Ares. “Anway, we’re about…”

            “Well, doesn’t…” Vulcan re-started.

            “WHAT!?!” spat Ares with a murderous sparkle in his eyes. Vulcan bowed his head toward his plate and kept silence. Ares continued, “So we’re about to throw down, when it occurs to me: we’re both gods of war. Let’s work together and finagle one ginormous dust-up.”

            Hebe mouthed noiselessly to Vulcan, “ ‘Ginormous?’ ”

            Ares kept going. “So I send Thor over to the Jews. I get the Persians, or whatever they are, to cross into Jew land and kill some of them, and Thor gets the Jews to go batshit and bomb half of their capital.”

            “Fine,” Hera said. “But why are you late?”

            “Well, Mom, you have to understand. When it comes to warfare nowadays, you have to get a little creative sometimes. With all these bombs and germs and things that can kill thousands in the blink of an eye, it takes a little time getting people to confuse unchecked aggression with self-preservation. You have to make them ignore all these international treaties and human rights bullshit…”

            Hebe crossed her arms over her chest. “You went drinking afterwards, didn’t you?” she asked.

            “We had one drink.”

            “It’s never just one drink with the Aesir.”

            “How do you know? Were you there?”

            “Well, they do live in a beer hall,” Vulcan offered.

            Aphrodite leaned into the table across from Vulcan. “At least your brother was doing his job. What have you done recently? Digital downloads? CGI?”

            “I’m only responsible for the Hadron Collider and gene splicing…”

            “Terrific! You gave Man the tools to do our jobs. That’s tantamount to treason.”

            “Man likes what I do.”

            “Not as much as he likes your wife and me,” hissed Ares.

            Vulcan glowered as his brother and wife smiled knowingly and too-affectionately at one another. “Fighting and fucking like animals,” he stated. “You’re what prevents Man from realizing his potential. I’m how he’s going to evolve.”

            “Stop talking over your head, Vulcan,” said Hera.

            “No. He’s right,” said Hebe.

            “No,” Zeus started. “He’s not.”

            “Think about it, Dad. Technology allows Man to understand the nature of the world without blindly prostrating himself to us.”

            “Man can see the bones beneath the world’s skin with greater clarity. But he will never see the full form at once as we do.”

            “Why not? He gets closer every day.”

            “Because we allow it.”

            “Man paves his own roads.”

            “Man has the capacity for what he does because we exist.”

            Hebe and Vulcan shared a complicit look of judgment.

            Zeus saw the look and bellowed, “What does that look mean?”

            Hera sat up in her seat and told her husband, “Forget them, Dear Heart. Vulcan, pass your father another cup of wine.”

            “I’ll pour my own wine,” Zeus said and did so. He quaffed the wine in one gulp and poured another, emptying the bottle.

            Ares turned to his mother, “So, Mom, why are we here?”

            Hera blanched. “Why does the idea that I want all of us to sit down as a family require such a stretch of your imaginations?”

            “Because,” Hebe said, “you hate the lot of us.”

            “That is a wicked lie!”

            “Oh c’mon, Mom. You think Vulcan’s a monster, Ares’s a brat, and I’m an ingrate as far as you’re concerned.”

            “Vulcan has his problems, as we are all aware, but I think I deserve a little more credit than counting him a monster.”

            Vulcan jumped in, “Then why won’t you call me, ‘Hephaestus?’ ”

            Zeus answered, “Because I forbid it.”

            “Why?”

            “Your mother has the floor. Zip it, creature.”

            Hera continued, “And Ares, despite fulfilling his obligations, would benefit from a little maturity.”

            “What do you think of that, Hebe?” Aphrodite asked.

            “I think I don’t remember anyone addressing you, harlot.”

            “Pardon me, Mom, but the discussion is open to everyone, correct?”

            Hera bristled at Aphrodite’s use of her maternal title. She answered, “Quite,” then turned back to Hebe. “And as far as you’re concerned, I do not think you an ingrate.”

            “Oh really?”

            “Truly and honestly, my thorny rose. I only wish you would take pride in your duty as an Olympian.”

            “Am I not allowed the same freedom as Man?”

            “She thinks she’s better than her duty, Mom,” Aphrodite opined.

            “I do not think I’m better,” asserted Hebe. “But some of us are not as naturally inclined to our duties as others.”           

            “And what do you suppose that signifies?” asked Hera with her chin accusatorily toward Hebe.

            “It signifies that we should hold dominion over our strengths.”

            “And what are your strengths, Hebe?” asked Aphrodite with a silken hiss.

            “Change.”

            Aphrodite and Ares burst into laughter. Zeus grimaced and shoveled lamb into his mouth. Vulcan looked at his sister, a proud little smile peaking through his tangle of beard, his eyes yearning to reach out and hug the goddess of servitude. Hera stared at her.

            “Don’t laugh,” said Hebe. “Change is what life is all about.”

            Zeus wiped bits of meat from his face with his forearm. “That,” he said, “is the flaw in your argument, little girl. We are the Olympians. We are beyond life. We do not change.”

            “Everything changes, Dad.”

            Ares chimed in, “You’re just jealous no one has a hard-on for you.”

            Aphrodite said, “I don’t know, Ares. I think Vulcan may.”

            Vulcan looked across the table at his wife. The skin beneath his beard went red and his pupils to near pinpricks. “What did you say, whore?”

            “Hey, hey! Easy!” Ares ordered.

            “I sit here, absorb every insult thrown my way, and now I’m expected to endure accusations of infidelity?”

            Hebe laid a gentle hand on Vulcan’s shoulder. “Don’t, Vulcan.”

            “Yes, I will!” he screamed as he bound to his feet, sending his chair crashing upside-down and prompting Hebe to snatch away her hand in fear. Vulcan turned to Aphrodite. “You dare accuse me, all the while making me a cuckold?”

            “I said easy!” snapped Ares.

            “Seeing as you’re one of the many my wife spreads her legs for, my brother, you have no room to speak!”

            Zeus stood up. “That’s enough.”

            “No, it’s not!”

            “I am telling you it is. Now take your seat and calm yourself.”

            “Tell me, Dad, if I fucked you, would you defend me?”

            Zeus’s face turned to rage-blasted iron. He growled under his breath, “Do you lack the wits to know who you are speaking to?”

            Vulcan walked directly toward his father. “I don’t give a good gorgon’s fart who I’m speaking to! It’s bad enough you fuck your son’s wife, but to fuck your own daughter?”

            Zeus drew back his hand. He summoned a bolt of lightning just as Vulcan withdrew his hammer. He had it raised above his head, ready to devastate his father’s skull. Zeus had his bolt aimed at his son’s heart.

            “STOP IT, NOW!!!” Hera screamed with bloodcurdling ferocity. All eyes at the table turned to look at her. They saw the queen of the gods on her feet, holding herself up with the dining table. She was trembling. Her eyes summoned storms from the depths of Tartarus and rained down fire from the peak of Olympus. She turned her head toward Vulcan. “You shame yourself, Vulcan.”

            The forge of Olympus spun around to face his mother, aghast.

            “Your foolishness doesn’t surprise me,” Hera continued. “But this blatant disrespect…”

            “Gaea’s cunt!” spit Hebe. “You of all people!”

            “Quiet.”

            “Is that why it’s just us here? Why no Athena or the twins? So you won’t be reminded that you, Queen of Olympus, are married to a cad and too spineless to even acknowledge it?”

            Hera backhanded Hebe across her face. The slap rang throughout the Great Hall like a gong. Her fingernails had drawn blood, a pencil-thin slice across Hebe’s cheek. Hebe held the side of her petrified face as Hera spoke, “You will not forget your place again. You are to serve and begin doing so without complaint or comment immediately.”

            Hebe looked up at her mother. Her face remained unchanged, uncowed.

            “Go get the Corinth 484. Now!”

            Ares and Aphrodite watched with sadistic smiles as Hebe slowly rose from her chair. Vulcan, his broken will as plain as the broken nose on his face, watched as Hebe bowed to her mother and left the Hall.

            “And fetch my purple shawl!” Hera cried out as Hebe exited.

            “Let me make this perfectly clear to every one of you,” said Zeus as he took to his feet. “Things are as they are because that is how they should be. That is how they should be because I will it. Your dissatisfactions are utterly immaterial. Vulcan will endure my scorn. Hebe will do as she is told. And Hera will remain a loyal honorable wife regardless of how I comport myself with mortals.” Hera smiled at her husband. “You will,” Zeus continued, “fulfill every duty, obey every command, and endure every indignity I choose to bestow. That is how it should and will be.”

            Zeus took his seat.

            “Does everyone understand?” asked Hera. Her children replied with silent nods as Hebe entered with a bottle of wine and her mother’s shawl. “Did you hear that?” Hera asked her.

            “I did, Mother.”

            “Pour the wine.”

            Hebe touched the lip of the bottle to a jewel-encrusted goblet and poured the Corinth 484.

            Hera turned to Vulcan. “You will offer your father wine and supplicate yourself.”

            Vulcan promptly rose from his seat with a grunt. He gingerly took the goblet in both hands, turned, and hobbled over to Zeus. The king of the gods turned in his seat to face Vulcan as he fell to his knees with a moan. He offered the goblet to his father. Zeus swiped the goblet with one hand and drained it in one gulp. He haphazardly tossed it onto the table.

            Hera smiled. “Good,” she said. “Everything is as it should be.” She turned to her husband. “Isn’t that right, Dear Heart?”

            Zeus’s eyes were narrowed. His brow was glistening with sweat. He tried to swallow.

            “What’s wrong, husband / brother?” Hera asked. “Is everything not as it should be?”

            Zeus, his groans buried alive, clutched his throat.

            The others, mouths agape, turned to face their mother. Hera’s eyes were solely on the agonized writhing Zeus. Hera calmly walked over to her dying husband. “Do you remember the prophecy from all those years ago? That you would be killed by your own son, just as you killed old Chronos?”

            Zeus looked at Vulcan with through welling tears.

            “No,” his son whispered.

            “Oh, the toad would never attempt such treachery intentionally,” Hera clarified, picking up the goblet and swirling around the remaining drops of the murderous libation. “But I knew an invisible hand could nudge poor pathetic Vulcan into coincidentally committing patricide. As long as the poison comes from his hand, everything is as it should be. Don’t you agree?”

            Zeus, rocking violently in his seat, fell backward to the floor. He breathing quickly shallowed.

            Hera loomed over Zeus and said, “Dear deluded Hebe is correct on one account: everything changes. The mortals have no desire to cower before a cavorting reprobate of a patriarch. And neither do I."

            Zeus squeezed one last terrified tear from his eye. His tortured breathing ceased and the shell that was the God of the Sky and ruler of Olympus stared unblinking at the marble ceiling of the Great Hall.

            Hera turned and returned to her seat. “My shawl,” she said and Hebe promptly handed it to the new lord of the Olympians. “A goddess will now sit atop Olympus,” she said as she wrapped her purple shawl around her shoulders.

            “Yes, she will,” echoed Hebe.

            Without warning the shawl sparked to life with furious illumination. It burst into a tall whipping flame. Hera screamed as the fire immediately consumed her. She shrieked and the fire died as quickly as it was born.

            Everyone leapt to their feet as what was once Hera collapsed into no more than a small hillock of ashes on the marble floor. Everyone but Hebe.

            She and Vulcan met one another’s eyes. Vulcan smiled, fear curling the corners of his mouth more than glee.

            “Don’t worry,” Hebe told her brother with an embracing smile and a tone forged in Vulcan’s own fires.

            They looked at Aphrodite and Ares.

            Ares said, “I’m sorry.”

A BRIEF HISTORY OF HILLFIELD (Pt. 3)

3 - The Redcoats Are Coming!

            When open warfare finally erupted in April, 1775 between the nascent United States and the still-waxing British Empire, Hillfield came to a standstill as it debated whether to declare themselves Loyalists or take up the Patriot cause. The town's population was still predominantly Quaker and generally considered the violent revolution advocated by the Patriots anathema. On the other hand, the town's citizens found the British to be insufferably snotty and exceptionally annoying. Perhaps predictably the town fathers ultimately settled on a policy of unofficial neutrality. Hillfield would not openly declare for either their fellow Americans nor for their English overlords. It was also decided that in the event a contingent from either army was to enter the town or otherwise make demands of the citizenry, each situation would be dealt with on an individual basis.

            Isolated deep in the wooded tangle of the Pine Barrens, Hillfield remained untouched by the fires of the Revolution for the first four years of the war's hostilities. During that time life in the small town continued uninterrupted, the town's residents only peripherally aware of the conflict over their future. But on August 4, 1779, Colonel Tye brought the war to Hillfield's doorstep.

            The escaped slave had been born (or branded, rather) Titus Cornelius by his former owner, a Quaker from Monmouth County, northwest of Hillfield. Prone to drink and eschewing the Quaker practice of educating their slaves and freeing them upon their twenty-first birthdays, Tye's owner had been known as an especially unforgiving slaveholder. Shortly after Lexington and Concord Virginia's last royal governor offered freedom to all slaves who escaped and took up arms under the Loyalist banner. Tye wasted no time. He quickly escaped to Virginia and was soon back in New Jersey, armed and uniformed with the intent of crushing the colonists' rebellion. While Tye's exact date of birth is unknown, it is believed that he was still in his mid-twenties by 1778. By that point he been granted the honorific of "Colonel" for his tactical ingenuity and charismatic leadership, despite the prohibition of blacks as commissioned officers in the British Army, and been given the command of one of the most dreaded Loyalist units in the country. The Black Brigade was an elite guerilla unit of two dozen former slaves committed to supply seizures, hit-and-run attacks on Patriot outposts and detachments, and assassinations of important American leaders.

            However, when his British commanders had not given him specific missions, Tye regarded the Black Brigade's standing orders to be the liberation of slaves, particularly if those slaves belonged to Quakers, and to do so with extreme prejudice.

            On August 6, 1779, two days after Tye arrived at the secluded hamlet of Hillfield, Filman Hazelworth, a tanner, recorded the eventy of the 4th in his diary:

The Black Brigade - twenty-three ink-black negroes on twenty-three ink-black horses - rode slowly, almost sleepily, down the thoroughfare. At the head of this obsidiun (sic) mass rode a single bright eye. It was he - the Colonel Tye - astride a steed white as milk. Of a paler complection (sic) than his fellows, the Colonel was the embodiment of patrician class and command. His carriage was that of Cornwallis himself. His likeness would not be misplaced were it displayed in Charring Cross, such was his austere comportment and stentorian resolve. His compatriots, meanwhile, seemed freshly plucked from the deepest jungles of the Dark Continent, for if they be any indication, Africa is as dark of soul as it is of skin.

The Colonel, the picture of gentlemanly eloquence informed us, the townsfolk, of his identity and that of his brigands. He requested, with utmost politeness and as a fully-authorized representative of the English Crown, a litany of provisions that, were we to acquiese (sic) to their requisition, would leave our settlement on a rather frightening brink. We relented, of course, with little argument for fear of raising the ire of the Colonel's savages.

Once the provisions were delivered in full, the Colonel demanded the town's entirety of slaves and indentured servants be brought forthwith. This we did with far greater consternation. The Colonel addressed our negroes sweetly as a governess, inviting them to cast off their shackles - they were not shackled at all - and join his Brigade. Our blacks, having grown accustomed to our munificence and having been well trained, did not move or make an utterance. It was then the Colonel, betraying the primitivity of his race, ordered his men to go forth and assault our women, which they proceeded to do with ferine abandon. With the rapine concluded, the Slave Colonel demanded we free our slaves before his return in September. If we had not done so upon his arrival, he swore to raze Hillfield to the ground.

            Tye and the Black Brigade wheeled around and rode out of town, carrying their requisitions back to the Loyalist keep in Monmouth County.

            The people of Hillfield trembled at Colonel Tye's promised wrath. But they were a proud and stubborn and not altogether intelligent people and were loath to bend to a man they considered to be little more than a dark-skinned terrorist. Their deeply-prized neutrality had been violated alongside their women. They determined to violate with equal violence the vengeance of Tye and his savages.

            It was then that Hillfield turned to the only man they believed could exact that violation.

Next:

Let the Red Flow Freely