A state of disobedience

Will overborne, Elpidia entered and gave directions. Following these, the priest drove through narrow back streets and side alleys, past garbage and trash long uncollected. At length the car arrived at the girl's—Shabby? 'Shabby' would have to do, though it was much worse than that—apartment. 

'Padre, what are you doing?' 

'Taking you and your baby to a better life,' he answered, without further elaboration. He exited the car, walked around and opened the door for the girl—no one had ever been so polite to her before—and asked, 'Which one?' At the girl's hesitantly pointed finger, he ordered, 'Lead on. I will follow.' 

The sound of a squalling baby and the smell of soiled diapers hit them even as the girl opened the apartment's cheap door. There was another smell too, one the priest recognized from days long past. 

Sprawled on the couch, a man—Marco—scruffy, unkempt, filthy, slack faced, smoked a pipe. He looked up as the door opened. 'Hope you made some goddamned money tonight, bitch.' The man saw the priest as he stepped around to stand beside the girl. 'Get the fuck out of my house, old man.' 

The father ignored the dope smoker. 'Get the baby, Elpidia. You might want to gather up its things, too. Neither you nor he will be coming back here.' 

Doped Marco certainly was. He was not, however, so drugged that he didn't recognize the imminent threat to his livelihood. 'You ain't goin' nowhere, you little slut.' He stood to bar the way to the baby's unutterably filthy closet. When Elpidia tried to go around him he slapped her to the floor.  

Marco was never quite sure, thereafter, how it was that he found himself suspended above the floor, back to the wall and a grip of iron about his throat. He kicked for a little while, his bare, filthy feet impacting on some stone-seeming wall that he knew had not been in the apartment before. With his vision fading, blood pounding in his ears, he dimly heard the priest repeat, 'Get the baby, girl.'

'Where's Pedro, Elpi?'

'He's sleeping, Miguel.'

'Oh. Too bad. I wanted to play with him. Cute little critter.'

He looked at Elpidia and said, 'You're a good mom.' Then he asked, shyly, 'Do you think I might make a good father someday? Before he was hurt Padre Jorge told me he had been talking to his friend, Jack, about maybe finding me a decent job with the Guard once I turn eighteen.'

'That would be so good for you, Miguel. How is Father?' A tear escaped the girl's eye.

Miguel shook his head angrily. 'The same. He can barely walk. But did you see him fight them? It took fifteen of them to beat him to the ground. Fifteen! What a man!' exclaimed Miguel, who had himself once made the mistake of fighting the father. That was the last mistake he had ever made—or wanted to make—where the priest was concerned.

* * *

Austin, Texas

What kind of man is this? My very first instance of 'hate at first sight,' thought the governor of her state's new 'Federal Commissioner.'

'So you see,' droned that worthy, Harold Forsythe, Yale Law '66 and a long-time crony of both Wilhelmina and her ex-husband, 'you have got to stop seeing yourselves as separate states. We are all one country and we are all in this together. We can't have Texas going its own way anymore. Take abortion. You have placed some restrictions here that are just intolerable. And so, until those are lifted, Texas can forget about seeing one red cent in federal aid for Medicare or Medicaid. Nor will we permit you to stop funding them at your level. Same for your schools. Nearly half of them have failed Federal certification and no more educational aid is going to them until their entire staff has been reviewed and approved for retention or fired.'

'You mean reviewed for political leaning, of course, don't you?' demanded Juanita. 'Your entire test was a thinly disguised check of political correctness.'

'Well, we can't have unenlightened teachers polluting the minds of America's youth now, can we?' Forsythe smiled smugly.

'And you had better do something about getting a handle on the guns in private hands in this state too. And soon. You are not going to be permitted to give people the right to the implements of death or to deny women the right to do what they choose with their own bodies.'

How did we ever let it get this far? wondered Juanita. Then she supplied her own answer. We let it get this far by letting the federal government take the burden of taxing for us. And now they have more—a lot more—power than the states do because they have so much more money than the states do.

* * *

Dallas, Texas

Guns holstered and concealed, the federal agents poured over the smoking ruins of an abortion clinic torched by fanatics in the night. No note or sign claimed credit for the arson. Nor had anyone been hurt in the blaze.

Special Agent Ron Musashi pondered the lack of evidence. To one of his men he said, 'Get me the files on the six leading antiabortion groups in this part of the state.'

'Already did it, Chief.'

'Good,' Musashi complimented. 'Who's the most likely candidate?'

'Catholics for Children,' came the instant reply. 'We suspect them of having torched two other clinics. Never a shred of proof, though. Professional, you know? Their headquarters is over in Fort Worth.'

* * *

Fort Worth, Texas

In another life, Ron Musashi would have been happy enough pouring Zyclon B crystals into gas chambers full of Jews. The Rape of Nanking