Just Deserts

A dessert is sweet food, usually after a large meal. A desert is a stark place with little water or in verb form, to desert is to be abandoned.

“YOU BASTARDS” he screamed as if it wasn’t his own hand that just dealt his fatal strike. As he swallowed, he realized what he had just done. In a fit description of a dysfunctional life, even in this final, self-inflicted, death blow, he couldn’t see his own failure in the matter. Initially, his bellow coursing across the particular night club that he chose to torture that night, hardly raised an eyebrow. He had exactly such a meltdown the last time that he was here just a week ago. Using his tantrum then, he captured the Dock Workers Union vote for the rest of his life. Big Daddy, “B.D.” always did prima-donna melt downs at the most opportune time for effect. Therefore none took the matter seriously tonight, not the Yetis fronting as his body guards, not the bitter barmaids hiding behind lip stick smiles and not the tired performers on the stage. Everything always was centered on B.D. so why would this meltdown be different? The help just collectively rolled their eyes, secretly.

The two, overly pretty, extremely enhanced, beauties that were required to be constant companions to B.D., jumped in instant response like the trained puppies that they had allowed themselves to become. Though their first response was the usual, “oh poo bear, let me love ya,” after a glance they were the first to realize that for the only time in their memory, this prima-donna bellow wasn’t a usual one. B.D. keeled over like an overused container ship run up on shore one last time to be cut up and scrapped.

Then all of the help got worried. They didn’t actually give a damn for Big Daddy. Even though they were his slaves, he had chained them all with golden handcuffs after all. It was B.D’s way of doing business. Their main concern this night was an end of their enhanced incomes. There was nothing that they could do anyway. By the time that the ambulance arrived B.D. was as dead as a beached whale.

When the cops blocked off the night club, the investigating coroner quickly had an answer. It was cyanide. Only a tiny amount of cyanide can be fatal to a human. There are treatments against cyanide but such treatments take ingenuity and quick thinking, correct equipment at hand and at least concern for the person inflicted. It took the cops only minutes to figure out how Big Daddy got the poison.

B.D. got his “L-pill”, (Lethal Pill) during an extreme emotional low initiated by the very public announcement of his being investigated. Even B.D. was seeing that his over use of his “Aldermanic Privilege” rights were leading to no good ends. That morning B.D. had been staring at his L-pill because of oncoming depression and had accidently dropped it in the container with all of his usual heart medication. He thought that he had retrieved the correct one. Even as the cops stood behind the police ribbon near the body, still no one actually gave a damn about him. They were all thinking about the obvious political cat fight that would instantaneously be starting with so lucrative an office now up for grabs.

The first potential to go down was “Little B.D.” The young man was becoming almost an exact copy of his Dad and was clearly being groomed for his replacement. Little B.D. also clearly hadn’t developed the infrastructure for such power yet. He was found dead with a broken neck at the foot of the back stairs to his swanky condo not three hours after his Dad died. The cops almost immediately assigned it as an accident though no one could find any recording from the security camera aimed right at the whole scene. Strangely, the local police captain also claimed that none of Little B.D.’s personal electronics were ever located as well.

After this there was a “Devil’s Harvest” of any possible power brokers for the job. Fatal traffic accidents claimed the most. The only out and out killing was of Duke Johnson, gunned down by a drive by as he left his house one morning, in spite of his cloud of security around him. In the end, two powerful contenders remained. First and most probably the next Alderman, there was Evie Peron. She had the connections, the backing and most importantly the willingness to do anything to get the job. The second contender was Bishop George Carver, who never wanted the public responsibilities but couldn’t stay out of it because of the situation that his churches found themselves in. His congregations ended up organizing essentially a militia and surrounding the Bishop and his family 24/7. The fight was epic.

Evie’s first effort was to offer everything imaginable under the sun. There was free this and free that. After a while Evie didn’t even try to keep tract of her promises. There was more police protection for the Retail Association yet less cops to the Anarchists. Streets would be shut off to all cars for the Greens but more and wider roads for the Construction Union and Car Dealership Association. Once Evie got going there was no stopping her. She was religious to the point of being a celibate focused only on the people as preached dramatically to a gathering of the City Association of Religious Institutions but an anything goes hedonist to the night club crowd. She cried as she shared her passion with the Free the River Association but a picture showed up with her on a paid vacation with the Special Heritage Neighborhoods Cooperative who were allowed to spill raw sewage into the river. Clearly, Evie said what she needed to, to whoever she needed to, to get their votes and that was it. Dictator Wannabes will always offer cheap words and free crap because once they are in power they don’t need to keep their promises.

For Bishop George it all started when a group of his congregants asked if they could use the old St. Martin’s school building after the church bought the dilapidated parish. They just wanted a school where their kids could be safe, let alone learn. One thing led to another and now the Bishop regularly found very powerful people often very unhappy with him. His answer to Evie’s many offers was “how are you going to pay for that?” Astonishingly, her answer back was “what does that have to do with this issue?” That answer didn’t go over very well with the employers, homeowners and rental associations that paid the taxes in the city. Then her many promises started coming out, especially the ones to groups who sought governmental suppression of their competition, whatever that may be, including seeking the incarceration of people simply due to their opinions. The public swayed back and forth. Some focused on the “free” gifts that they would get. Others were concerned about the freedoms they clearly would lose and taxes that they would need to pay.

A second tactic of all dictator Wannabes is fear mongering which Evie did with finesse. Every possible division in the city was explored. Ethnic, racial, religious, economic, lifestyle, in every case it was, “vote for me or they will get you,” whoever “they” were. Bishop George could only shake his head in response to whatever latest class of “they” that he had just been assigned as the chief demon of.

With only a few weeks before the election, Evie clearly was in trouble, even with all of the people that “owed” her. What to do? A mousey intern working day and night for Evie’s campaign finally came up with an answer. “Evie” she shyly insisted in a late night brainstorm session. The intern’s timing wasn’t the best since Evie was in the middle of a full blown tantrum. Evie focused bloodshot eyes at the upstart.

“WHAT!”

“Uh…uh…let’s accuse the Bishop?”

“OH MY GOD, WE WENT OVER THIS, WE GOT NOTHING!”

“But…but…”

“Look…I like you…but….we researched him. There is nothing!”

“But…but…”

“WHAT?”

“Let’s accuse him of something that he can’t disprove.”

“What, hm-m-m?”

“Let’s accuse him of Orcism.”

“What is Orcism?”

“I don’t know. I just made it up but it sounds bad.”

“Hm-m-m, you know, you might have something there.”

Evie Peron’s celebration parties were massive. Forget the fact that Bishop George Carver demanded quarterly financial reports from every city agency and term limits for every elected office including his own, in the end it was the promises of free crap that won the day, and the “fact” that the Bishop was an Orc. Some manipulation of the polls helped Evie as well of course, but that was unprovable even though entire clientele populations of various agencies in charge of vulnerable individuals voted one hundred percent for her.

Most things didn’t change after the election. Companies continued moving out of the city, one by one, leaving empty buildings behind and more unemployment. Bishop George Carver wasn’t giving up either. He had no other choice. These were his congregants. We elect whom we deserve after all.

1 Tim 2:2 Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. New Living Translation