UNITED STATES—It was all possible because the neighborhood had changed. America had gone through a hell of a lot, and it started falling apart and descent into dysfunction and third worldliness. In Seattle, the coffee pot of the world, the institutions crumbled, disrepair was apparent, streets weren’t maintained, weeds grew through the cracks. The sewers were clogged, the sirens sounded joylessly. They were going on a sandwich pickup. The power was there to take, and Concordia was the result. And it had been done for the loftiest of reasons, to save the Republic. But it backfired, terribly; Miller’s chronic niceness made the Miller rule all too palatable.
“I love, er, like America. And we’re going to keep calling it America. We used it first.”
His idealism was waning, people on the borders became jealous of the perks of living in Concordia. They loved the idea of a three-day workweek. On some level, the Cuban venture was pure imperialism. This was a trick played on himself to escape the bondage of power, which he never cared much about anyhow. (It’s how we get the things we don’t want and lack the vision to see they are what we need.) It would be symbolic to restore the sovereignty to Cuba deprived of those 44 square miles. Hoped to G-d they’d sign the papers in Paris. Nice trip there. The Battle of Guantanamo would be an all-out rout for the Americans. It would catapult Miller to the world stage.
Yet. . . yet. . . when he kneeled at night by an empty, unmade bed whose cotton-polyester blend sheets had not been laundered in six months:
“Let my actions serve humankind. Let your force oh L-rd, flow through me.
Miller claimed to have neutron bombs aboard the yacht and that the Americans best ceded control back to the Cubans. The U.S. had only had it since 1898 a speck in the scheme of time. The Americans were not so asleep at the wheel and stormed the yacht. Somebody in the State Department had tipped off the Cuban authorities. They rode in triumph, people waving flags all along the route from Guantanamo as they rode back into Havana to the treaty assembly where the Guantánamo Bay, which had been a playground for fish and agriculture, prior to being a U.S. military base.
Miller did not believe in the adulation of the crowd, but he had to drink it, he had to rejoice and clap himself. L’Chaim. Viva la vida! Viva la Muerte!
At last, they retreated to the marble chambers of the Cuban Legislature in Havana which was an exact duplicate of the Rotunda in Washington D.C. This was being televised live and quite a few people were emboldened to support Miller should he have greater ambitions.
“Hey, honey, this guy has already made it to Washington, D.C.”
“No, they’re in Cuba signing a treaty.”
“No honey. They’re in Cuba.”
The man and wife got in a terrible fight because how could the U.S. Congress be in Cuba?! Voices were raised voiced and gunplay, even wounds, fortunately not fatal, but the poor husband never got to express that he agreed with Miller more than he disagreed.
At that moment, coming down the stairs after this triumph for “sovereignty.” Lots of gladhanding and shaking of hands. It was no picnic, Miller learned to have armor-piercing bullet shred an aortal valve and come out on side of the spine is no picnic. The end had come, it was the end. . .
“The end is not the end” said one of the countless Millerisms that proliferated in the desolate years before his many attempts to be a cultural statesman had failed.
It was a lucky thing, the where and the when of it. His life would be extended by Cuban doctors, some of the best trained and most innovative in the world. And so, he lived on. While he was there, he met an older woman, Assaka Shakur, who turned out to be a Black Panther in exile.
To be continued…
