#so it started with two questions. mostly because i live in the ozarks i wanted to know and secondly i like music if you haven't caught on

[kingwaino]

i have done...an absolute deep dive into blues and folk music tonight. it was 100% one of those blink and three hours have passed type of deals. worth it though.

[thefabulousfulcrum]

I Know Why Poor Whites Chant Trump, Trump, Trump

From the era of slavery to the rise of Donald Trump, wealthy elites have relied on the loyalty of poor whites. All Americans deserve better.

via StirJournal

I’m just a poor white trash motherfucker. No one cares about me.  

I met the man who said those words while working as a bartender in the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas. It was a one-street town in Benton County. It had a beauty parlor, a gas station, and a bar where locals came on Friday nights to shoot the shit over cheap drinks and country music. I arrived in Arkansas by way of another little town in Louisiana, where all but a few local businesses had boarded up when Walmart moved in. In Arkansas, I was struggling to survive. I served drinks in the middle of the afternoon to people described as America’s “white underclass” — in other words, people just like me.

Across the highway from the bar was the trailer park where I lived. I bought my trailer for $1000, and it looked just like you would imagine a trailer that cost $1000 would look. There was a big hole in the ceiling, and parts of the floor were starting to crumble under my feet. It leaned to one side, and the faint odor of death hung around the bathroom. No doubt a squirrel or a rat had died in the walls. I told myself that once the flesh was gone, dissolved into the nothingness, the smell would go away, but it never did. Maybe that’s what vermin ghosts smell like.

I loved that trailer. Sitting in a ratty brown La-Z-Boy, I would look around my tin can and imagine all the ways I could paint the walls in shades of possibility. I loved it for the simple reason that it was the first and only home I have ever owned.

My trailer was parked in the middle of Walmart country, which is also home to J.B. Hunt Transportation, Glad Manufacturing, and Tyson Chicken. There is a whole lot of money in that pocket of Arkansas, but the grand wealth casts an oppressive shadow over a region entrenched in poverty. Executive mansions line the lakefronts and golf courses. On the other side of Country Club Road, trailer parks are tucked back in the woods. The haves and have-nots rarely share the same view, with one exception: politics. Benton County has been among the most historically conservative counties in Arkansas. The last Democratic president Benton County voted for was Harry S. Truman, in 1948.

There is an unavoidable question about places like Benton County, a question many liberals have tried to answer for years now: Why do poor whites vote along the same party lines as their wealthy neighbors across the road? Isn’t that against their best interests?

Ask a Republican, and they’ll probably say conservatives are united by shared positions on moral issues: family values, religious freedom, the right to life, the sanctity of marriage, and, of course, guns.

Ask a Democrat the same question, and they might mention white privilege, but they’re more likely to describe conservatives as racist, sexist, homophobic gun nuts who believe Christianity should be the national religion.

But what if those easy answers are two sides of the same political coin, a coin that keeps getting hurled back and forth between the two parties without ever shedding light on the real, more complicated truth?

I’m just a poor white trash motherfucker. No one cares about me.

What if he’s right?

• • •

People want to be heard. They want to believe their voices matter. A January 2016 survey by the Rand Corporation reported that Republican primary voters are 86.5 percent more likely to favor Donald Trump if they “somewhat agree” or “strongly agree” with the statement, “People like me don’t have any say about what the government does.”

What is it about a flamboyant millionaire that appeals to poor white conservatives? Why do they believe a Trump presidency would amplify their voices? The answer may lie in America’s historical relationship between the wealthiest class and the army of poor whites who have loyally supported them.

From the time of slavery (yes, slavery) to the rise of Donald Trump, wealthy elites have relied on the allegiance of the white underclass to retain their affluence and political power. To understand this dynamic, to see through the eyes of poor and working class whites as they chant, “Trump, Trump, Trump,” let’s look back at a few unsavory slices of America’s capitalist pie.  

U

ntil the first African slaves were brought to Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, wealthy plantation owners relied on indentured servants for cheap labor. These white servants were mostly poor Europeans who traded their freedom for passage to the American colonies. They were given room and board, and, after four to seven years of grueling servitude, freedom.

About 40 percent lived long enough to see the end of their contract. Colonial law provided “freedom dues,” which usually included 100 acres of land, a small sum of money, and a new suit of clothes. Yet some freed servants didn’t know what was due them, and they were swindled out of their land grants. With no resources and nowhere to go, many walked to regions where land could still be homesteaded, and settled in remote areas such as the Appalachian Mountains.

As the British labor market improved in the 1680s, the idea of indentured servitude lost its appeal to many would-be immigrants. Increasing demand for indentured servants, many of whom were skilled laborers, soon bumped up against a dwindling supply, and the cost of white indentured servants rose sharply. Plantation owners kept skilled white servants, of course, often making them plantation managers and supervisors of slaves. This introduced the first racial divide between skilled and unskilled workers.

Still, African slaves were cheaper, and the supply was plentiful. Seeing an opportunity to realize a higher return on investment, elite colonial landowners began to favor African slaves over white indentured servants, and shifted their business models accordingly. They trained slaves to take over the skilled jobs of white servants.

An investment in African slaves also ensured a cost-effective, long-term workforce. Female slaves were often raped by their white owners or forced to breed with male slaves, and children born into slavery remained slaves for life. In contrast, white female servants who became pregnant were often punished with extended contracts, because a pregnancy meant months of lost work time. From a business perspective, a white baby was a liability, but African children were permanent assets.

As the number of African slaves grew, landowners realized they had a problem on their hands. Slave owners saw white servants living, working, socializing, and even having babies with African slaves. Sometimes they tried to escape together. What’s more, freed white servants who received land as part of their freedom dues had begun to complain about its poor quality. This created a potentially explosive situation for landowners, as oppressed workers quickly outnumbered the upper classes. What was to prevent freed whites, indentured servants, and African slaves from joining forces against the tyranny of their masters?

As Edmund S. Morgan says in his book American Slavery, American Freedom, “The answer to the problem, obvious if unspoken and only gradually recognized, was racism, to separate dangerous free whites from dangerous slave blacks by a screen of racial contempt.”

Many slave owners in both the North and South were also political leaders. Soon, they began to pass laws that stipulated different treatment of white indentured servants, newly freed white men, and African slaves. No white indentured servant could be beaten while naked, but an African slave could. Any free white man could whip a Black slave, and most important, poor whites could “police” Black slaves. These new laws gave poor whites another elevation in status over their Black peers. It was a slow but effective process, and with the passing of a few generations, any bond that indentured servants shared with African slaves was permanently severed.

As slavery expanded in the South and indentured servitude declined, the wealthy elite offered poor whites the earliest version of the American Dream: if they worked hard enough, they could achieve prosperity, success, and upward social mobility — if not for themselves, then perhaps for future generations.

But few realized that dream. In “The Whiting of Euro-Americans: A Divide and Conquer Strategy,” the Rev. Dr. Thandeka notes:

Not surprisingly, however, poor whites never became the economic equals of the elite. Though both groups’ economic status rose, the gap between the wealthy and poor widened as a result of slave productivity. Thus, poor whites’ belief that they now shared status and dignity with their social betters was largely illusory.

With whites and Blacks divided, the wealthy elite prospered enormously for the next two hundred years while poor whites remained locked in poverty. With the potential election of Abraham Lincoln, however, the upper class began to worry they would lose their most valuable commodity: slave labor. The numbers were not on their side — not the financial numbers, but the number of bodies it would take to wage war should Lincoln try to abolish slavery. And it was white male bodies they needed. (Poor women were of little value to the rich, since they couldn’t vote or fight in a war.) So how did wealthy plantation owners convince poor white males to fight for a “peculiar institution” that did not benefit them?

Another warning from Georgia Commissioner Henry Benning to the Virginia legislature predicted,Religious and political leaders began using a combination of fear, sex, and God to paint a chilling picture of freed angry Black men ravaging the South. Rev. Richard Furman stated,

… every Negro in South Carolina and every other Southern state will be his own master; nay, more than that, will be the equal of every one of you. If you are tame enough to submit, abolition preachers will be at hand to consummate the marriage of your daughters to black husbands.

War will break out everywhere like hidden fire from the earth. We will be overpowered and our men will be compelled to wander like vagabonds all over the earth, and as for our women, the horrors of their state we cannot contemplate in imagination. We will be completely exterminated and the land will be left in the possession of the blacks, and then it will go back to a wilderness and become another Africa or Saint Domingo.

Wealthy plantation owners had succeeded in separating the two races, and they now planted a fear of Blacks in the minds of poor and working white men. Enslaved Blacks were an asset to the wealthy, but freed Blacks were portrayed as a danger to all. By creating this common enemy among rich and poor alike, the wealthy elite sent a clear message: fight with us against abolitionists and you will remain safe.

It worked. Poor and working class whites signed up by the hundreds of thousands to fight for what they believed was their way of life. Meanwhile, many of the wealthy planters who benefitted economically from slavery were granted exemptions from military service and avoided the horrors of battle. On both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, wealthy elites were allowed to pay other men to take their place on the bloody battlefields. As the war lingered on, poor whites in the North and South began to realize the rich had waged the war, but it was the poor who were dying in it.

I’m just a poor white trash motherfucker. No one cares about me.

With more than 650,000 deaths, the end of the Civil War eventually brought freedom for African-Americans. But after the war, ex-slaves were left to linger and die in a world created by those in the North who no longer cared and those in the South who now resented their existence. Poor whites didn’t fare much better. Without land, property, or hope for economic gains, many freed Blacks and returning white soldiers turned to sharecropping and found themselves once again working side by side, dependent on wealthy landowners.

• • •

During the Reconstruction Era, the press continued to spread “black men raping white women” propaganda. Again, this was intended to prevent poor whites and poor Blacks from joining forces. As Ida B. Wells wrote in her 1892 pamphlet, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases:

The editorial in question was prompted by the many inhuman and fiendish lynchings of Afro-Americans which have recently taken place and was meant as a warning. Eight lynched in one week and five of them charged with rape! The thinking public will not easily believe freedom and education more brutalizing than slavery, and the world knows that the crime of rape was unknown during four years of civil war when the white women of the South were at the mercy of the race which is all at once charged with being a bestial one.

This fear and mistrust continued for decades, not just in the South, but throughout all of America. From the factories of industrialized cities in the North to rural farmlands in the Midwest, from the Statue of Liberty in the East to the filmmakers in the West, racism had replaced classism as the most blatant form of oppression. But classism lingered, despite what wealthy elites would have Americans believe.

Martin Luther King Jr. saw the enduring oppression of both poor whites and Blacks. In December 1967, King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) began organizing the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968. According to Rev. Dr. Ralph Abernathy, the campaign’s goal was to “dramatize the plight of America’s poor of all races and make very clear that they are sick and tired of waiting for a better life.”

King alluded to that goal when he spoke about wealth inequality in “The Drum Major Instinct” on February 4, 1968. In his sermon, he talked about a conversation with his white jailers, saying:

And then we got down one day to the point — that was the second or third day — to talk about where they lived, and how much they were earning. And when those brothers told me what they were earning, I said, “Now, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. You’re just as poor as Negroes.” And I said, “You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because, through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white. And you’re so poor you can’t send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march.”

Now that’s a fact. That the poor white has been put into this position, where through blindness and prejudice, he is forced to support his oppressors. And the only thing he has going for him is the false feeling that he’s superior because his skin is white — and can’t hardly eat and make his ends meet week in and week out.

The first Poor People’s Campaign gathering took place in Atlanta in March 1968, and included more than fifty multiracial organizations committed to the radical redistribution of political and economic power.

When King was assassinated just a month later on April 4, the SCLC and King’s widow, Coretta Scott, decided to go ahead with the campaign. On Mother’s Day, May 12, thousands of women formed the first wave of demonstrators, led by Coretta Scott King and joined by Ethel Kennedy, wife of presidential candidate Sen. Robert Kennedy. Protestors built a temporary encampment on the Mall in Washington, D.C., and 3,000 participants occupied “Resurrection City” for over a month. In June, 50,000 demonstrators joined them for the Solidarity Day Rally for Jobs, Peace, and Freedom. SCLC leaders and the National Welfare Rights Organization lobbied Congress to introduce an “economic bill of rights” for all Americans.  

Robert Kennedy, a key advocate for the campaign, was assassinated on June 6, 1968, a month into the campaign. His funeral procession passed through Resurrection City. Discouraged by the murders of King and Kennedy, scarce media coverage, and horrible living conditions in the camp, demonstrators’ optimism waned. Their land use permit expired on June 24, and Resurrection City closed. When the Poor People’s Campaign ended, so ended King’s vision of turning the nation’s attention to eradicating poverty among all people, and guaranteeing all people the opportunity for meaningful jobs with livable wages.  

 The minimum wage for a tipped position in Arkansas — like the one I held as a bartender — is $2.63 an hour. The assumption is that tipped workers will earn their own minimum wages by making up the difference in tips. When this happens, a “tip credit” is given to employers, and they save money by paying less than the standard minimum wage.

It was the way I spoke that landed me the job. I had no experience, but the owner of the bar told a friend she hired me because, “she speaks well and has all her own teeth.” I guess she assumed I would learn to make drinks. I didn’t. I wasn’t very good at my job, but one thing I was good at was listening. And what I often heard was a growing dissatisfaction among poor whites who were struggling to make ends meet in the failing economy.

I understood their fear and frustration. I’ve spent a great deal of my life living in poverty. It’s scary being poor, worrying that one parking ticket would mean I couldn’t buy groceries, or deciding whether I should see a dentist about a toothache or pay my trailer park fee. It’s humiliating and terrifying, but sitting around and crying about it isn’t an option because we know that the only thing more pathetic than someone living in poverty is someone living in poverty and crying about it. How many times have we been told to get a job, or that if we just worked harder we could improve our situation? Work harder. Work harder. Work harder. American society has made it perfectly clear: if you are poor, it’s your own damn fault.

I understood what it was to go hungry. Many times I didn’t eat on my days off, but waited until I could get back to work and sneak something from the kitchen. Remember that tip credit? I did, too, every time I stole a biscuit with gravy or a basket of tater tots.

I understood their anger. Since crying isn’t an option, we swallow the sadness, and it sits and churns and gets spit back out as anger. I’ve felt this anger more times than I care to remember. I was angry that I couldn’t afford to paint my walls in shades of possibility. I was angry at my life choices that never felt like real choices. I was angry that wealth and prosperity were all around me while my hands remained clenched in empty pockets.

What I couldn’t understand was why my customers directed their anger at other poor people.

“I applied for a job at Tyson Chicken. They only hire Mexicans because they work cheap. We need to get those people out if we want jobs.”

I heard this over and over from unemployed men at the bar. So why weren’t they angry with Tyson Foods, a company that could easily afford to pay higher wages? Why weren’t they angry with CEO-turned Chairman John Tyson, whose personal net worth is over a billion dollars?

The answer I always got was that John’s father, Donald “Don” J. Tyson, the college drop-out who built his own father’s chicken farm into a multi-billion-dollar company, was a good ol’ boy. He wasn’t highfalutin like the city slickers of California and New York. Tyson, they felt, was one of them, a working class man who’d bootstrapped his way into the top one percent. He wore a khaki uniform with his name embroidered over the pocket, spoke with an “aw shucks” southern twang and was often quoted as saying, “I’m just a chicken farmer.”

 Donald J. Tyson

Don Tyson wasn’t just a chicken farmer, much like the plantation owners weren’t just cotton growers. He was a multi-billionaire running a global corporation. Didn’t they know that in 1997, Tyson Foods pled guilty and paid $6 million in fines and costs for making gifts to Mike Espy, then President Bill Clinton’s secretary of agriculture? Didn’t they know that, from 1988 to 1990, Bill Clinton gave Tyson Foods $7.8 million in tax breaks while turning a blind eye to 300 miles of rivers polluted from chicken waste? Maybe they didn’t know those things, but what they did know was that poor Mexicans were taking their jobs.

 Over the years, Tyson Foods has settled numerous lawsuits, paying millions of dollars for infractions ranging from water pollution, race discrimination, and sex discrimination, as well as a $32 million wage settlement case.

“The Mexican guys just hire other Mexicans. You can’t even work there if you don’t speak Spanish.”

Were they right? I would say yes.

In December 2001, a federal grand jury indicted Tyson Foods and six managers on 36 counts related to conspiring to import undocumented workers into the U.S., and employing them at fifteen chicken processing plants throughout the country. One defendant shot himself a few months after the indictment. Two made plea agreements and testified for the government. They said they were doing what the company demanded when they went along with the hiring of illegal workers. The remaining three executives claimed the others were “rogue” employees, and denied any knowledge of wrongdoing; they were acquitted.

The grand jury alleged that the conspiracy began in 1994, when Tyson executive Gerald Lankford mentioned production at a Tennessee facility and said, “That plant needs more Mexicans.”

There was no question that Tyson illegally smuggled undocumented workers into the U.S. The trial was about who initiated the operation. Regardless of who knew what, at least three managers at Tyson saw that brown workers were cheaper than white workers, and adjusted their business model accordingly.

• • •

It makes perfect sense that Don Tyson would say, “My theory about politics is that if they will just leave me alone, we’ll do just fine.” What didn’t make sense to me was that poor and working class locals would agree with him.

Don Tyson, having lived his entire life in northwest Arkansas, was one of them. I wasn’t. I was born and raised in California. Sure, my people were blue-collar rednecks and my mother often reminded me that we were one generation removed from poor white trash, but I wasn’t Southern and I didn’t speak their language. My speech pattern wasn’t formed by higher education or a silver spoon in my mouth; it was simply a matter of accent. But it is an accent associated with liberal snobs. I was an outsider.

Don Tyson didn’t make poor people in town feel inferior, but outsiders did. I’m not surprised, considering how socially acceptable it has become to mock poor whites, especially those born and raised in the South. Instead of fighting for better education for the white underclass, we call them ignorant rednecks. Instead of fighting for them to have better health care, we laugh at their missing teeth. Instead of fighting for them to have better housing, we joke about tornados hitting trailer parks.

Luckily, life often has a way of turning stereotypes on their heads, if we pay attention.

I was working my day shift at the bar, the same regulars sitting on the same barstools. Three men I’d never seen came in and sat at a table on the patio. They looked like most everyone else in the area, blue-collar scruffy types. I figured they were on a lunch break or they were in town to fish on the lake. I took their order, brought their food, and when they finished eating, dropped off the check. When they came up to the register to pay, one of the men made a comment about my hat. I didn’t catch what he said but his friends smirked.

I said, “Excuse me?”

My hat was a black and white newsboy cap. It covered my head on days I didn’t feel like doing my hair. But to the man, it meant something else, something I didn’t understand.

He said, “I guess you like ��em black.”

I said, “My hat?”

I was confused and I felt tension in the air. The bar had gone quiet. One of my regulars was sitting near the register, and he asked the man if he was from a particular town, one I hadn’t heard of. When the man nodded, my regular said, “Well, we don’t roll like that around here.”

I handed the man his change. He glanced around at the regulars staring at him. It felt like a stand-off in an old western movie. Was a brawl about to break out over my hat? The man shook his head, looked at me in disgust, and walked out with his friends. The tension left with them.

I asked, “What the hell was that all about?”

“They’re Klan,” my customer said. I must have looked shocked. He said, “Don’t worry. We got your back.”

A few months later, I left Arkansas and moved to Vancouver, Washington. Across the river in Portland, they call it “Vantucky.” I always dreaded driving into Portland with my big F150 truck sporting Arkansas plates. I imagined the liberal urbanites seeing me as one of “those people,” as if they expected me to barrel down the street chucking Walmart bags full of trash out the open window while blasting “Sweet Home Alabama” on my way to shoot up an abortion clinic. This was all in my head, but in a city known for its liberalism, I once again felt I didn’t belong.

I signed up for training to be a court appointed special advocate (CASA) for kids in foster care, and attended a series of classes in Vancouver. One night, the instructors gathered the forty or so trainees for an exercise. We stood in a room and the leader of the group read a list of statements. Without speaking, we were to cross to the other side if the statement applied to us or stay in our place if it didn’t. As the exercise went on, I started to notice a pattern.

“I’ve been affected by a family member’s drug or alcohol problem.” I crossed the room with a third of the volunteers.

“I’ve been affected by poverty.” I crossed the room with a tiny fraction of volunteers.

“I’ve graduated with a degree in higher education.” I stayed in my place as all but one woman crossed to the other side. The woman stood next to me and held my arm, and I immediately sized her up: older, well-dressed, probably married right out of high school. Privileged.

It was an exercise in non-judgment — and it was humiliating. Not a single person looked at us. Their eyes focused on the floor, their hands, or something incredibly interesting on the ceiling. I suppose it was the polite, non-judgmental thing to do. If something or someone makes us uncomfortable, we simply avert our eyes and create an invisible barrier. You stay over there. I’ll stay over here.

Those two experiences helped me see more clearly than ever how fool-headed it is to stereotype people based on how they look and where they live. The “redneck hillbillies” in that Arkansas bar could have laughed with the three Klan members, or said nothing at all. Instead, they stood up for me — an outsider — and made it known that the Klan wasn’t welcome there. On the other hand, I assumed a group of liberal, college-educated volunteers would ooze warmth and solidarity. But in class that night, I didn’t feel especially welcome. And I felt ashamed for judging that woman’s life based entirely on her appearance.

I’m just a poor white trash motherfucker. No one cares about me.

What would America look like today if King had succeeded in uniting poor people of all races? Would my bar customers in Arkansas more easily identify with Blacks, Hispanics, and other people of color than with billionaires like Don Tyson? Would they feel as if their voices mattered, as if they had some say in what their government does?  

Martin Luther King Jr. was concerned about poverty, and he also saw the growing inequality between the richest Americans and the poor and working classes. By the 1960s, this inequality was on the rise, but would soon become much more pronounced.

In 1976 — just eight years after King’s call for unity among all poor people — Ronald Reagan launched his second unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination. In his campaign, he repeatedly trotted out the now infamous “Welfare Queen” story.

Reagan got the GOP nod in 1980, and during his presidential campaign, he portrayed himself as a grandfatherly, all-American cowboy, a true Washington outsider. He promised to fix the economy with a combination of tax breaks, reduced government regulation, and cuts to federal programs.

Reagan’s economic plan, dubbed “Reaganomics,” provided tax cuts that primarily benefitted the rich. The intent was to encourage the upper classes to spend and invest more, which would boost the economy and create new jobs. His disdain for welfare hadn’t changed. To offset tax cuts and massive increases in military spending, Reagan slashed federal social programs — for low-income Americans.

Neither Reagan nor Congress was willing to touch Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid; they were too popular among the middle class. This left a tiny portion of the federal budget for social programs on the chopping block, including food stamps, vocational education, and subsidized housing, among others. From fiscal year 1980 to fiscal year 1987, federal funding for these programs plummeted by 35.6 percent.

After a two-year recession, the economy rebounded and continued to grow. Yet while the Reagan administration congratulated themselves on the economic expansion, poor people were still struggling. But Reagan had given poor whites someone to blame for their suffering: the Welfare Queen. He never said she was Black. He didn’t have to.

Lee Atwater was an adviser to both Reagan and President George H. W. Bush, and chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1989 until his death two years later. In 1981, while working in Reagan’s White House, Atwater gave an interview to Alexander Lamis, a political scientist at Case Western Reserve University. In an unguarded moment that Atwater believed was off the record, he said:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

In five short sentences, Atwater explained how Republican politicians could appeal to poor whites’ racism (conscious or unconscious) without using blatantly racist language. This shift was important because Reagan had cut social programs that began with the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

In 1987, Reagan quipped, “In the 60s we waged a war on poverty, and poverty won.” That was pretty glib for a President who had just slashed social services by almost 36 percent. What was to keep poor whites from seeing they had lost just as much as poor Blacks?In 1963, President John Kennedy had begun planning a “war on poverty” intended to help poor, southern whites — particularly in Appalachia and the rural South. Kennedy had visited Appalachia during the 1960 presidential campaign, and was shocked by what he saw — ”the hungry children, … the old people who cannot pay their doctors bills, the families forced to give up their farms.” Many of these families were descendants of white indentured servants who had fled to the Appalachian Mountains. The poverty Kennedy saw was, in part, a legacy of the era of slavery.

President Johnson, a greater ally to Black civil rights leaders than Kennedy had been, took over the program after Kennedy’s assassination and expanded its scope. These programs ultimately helped poor Blacks and poor whites, in both urban and rural areas.

The groundwork had already been laid. It wasn’t Reagan’s fault that social programs had to be cut. The “welfare queens” made him do it. Poor whites were still poorer, but at least they weren’t criminals, and that distinction was critical in their minds.

“It’s one of those persistent symbols that come up every election cycle,” says Kaaryn Gustafson, author of Cheating Welfare: Public Assistance and the Criminalization of Poverty. “This image of the lazy African-American woman who refuses to get a job and keeps having kids is pretty enduring. It’s always been a good way to distract the public from any meaningful conversations about poverty and inequality.”

Gustafson’s inclusion of inequality is important, because inequalities in both income and wealth distribution would soon begin a steep climb. The reality of Reaganomics was that Americans who gained the most were the nation’s richest ten percent. During periods of economic expansion, the bottom 90 percent saw a decline in income gains. By 2012, those gains had been replaced by losses.  

In hindsight, it makes perfect sense that President Reagan would share Don Tyson’s desire for smaller government. In 1986, Reagan said, “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” What doesn’t make sense is that America’s white underclass would agree with him.

Public assistance programs are easy targets for politicians, thanks in part to the racial divide introduced by slave owners in colonial America. Politicians, the corporate media, and giant employers (like Tyson) have continued to drive socioeconomic wedges between poor whites and poor minorities. Working class whites may view economic struggles as temporary setbacks, and see their use of social services as a last resort. But politicians keep implying that for minorities, public assistance is a way of life.

Many social programs — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Women, Infants and Children (WIC) — provide benefits that cannot be abused. Yet the message to the white underclass was clear: your tax dollars are being squandered on undeserving people looking for a free ride.   I can’t speak to how much assistance people with children or disabilities receive, but I can tell you what I received as a single, childless adult with no assets and a zero balance in my checking account. I qualified for less than $200 a month through the SNAP food stamp program. That’s it. I wasn’t living large off the man. I wasn’t kicking back playing video games on a big screen TV. I was struggling to survive until I could find work.

I didn’t have the luxury of feeling shame or embarrassment about using food stamps, but I didn’t prance into the grocery store waving my card around, either. At the checkout line, I shielded my card, and myself, from the people around me. I thought, “Fuck you and your judgment.”

When I eventually found a job, I no longer qualified for assistance, and I remained poor. My story is common and unremarkable, unlike the fictional tale of welfare recipients driving luxury cars and eating lobster every night.

• • •

When terrorists attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001, Americans pulled together. They displayed a unity reminiscent of the weeks following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. President George. W. Bush declared, “America is united.”

Ultimately, there would be two versions of unity: one for the rich and one for the poor.

The Carlyle Group was named after the luxury hotel where founding members first met in 1987 to discuss the creation of a multinational private equity corporation. In 2001, employees and advisors of the firm included former U.S. President George H. W. Bush; Bush’s former Secretary of State James Baker; former Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci; and former British Prime Minister John Major.

Under the guidance of this powerful lineup of Washington insiders and international leaders, the Carlyle Group soon became known for buying businesses related to the defense industry — and tripling their value during wartime. In 2002, they received $677 million in government contracts. By 2003, as the war effort shifted focus from Afghanistan to Iraq in search of weapon of mass destruction, the defense contracts leapt to $2.1 billion.

The Carlyle Group wasn’t the only corporation that would profit from the wars. From 2003 to 2013, KBR — a subsidiary of Halliburton, once run by Dick Cheney — was awarded $39.5 billion in government contracts. Other war profiteers include Agility ($7.4 billion), DynCorp ($4.1 billion), and Blackwater ($1.3 billion). By early 2013, private defense contractors had collectively earned more than $138 billion.

A 2006 report by the Institute for Policy Studies found that, in 2005, CEOs of the largest U.S. private defense contractors continued to profit from the ongoing wars.

Defense CEO pay was 44 times that of a military general with 20 years of experience and 308 times that of an Army private in 2005. Generals made $174,452 and Army privates made $25,085, while average defense CEO pay was $7.7 million.

In contrast to wealthy individuals who became even wealthier, those who were sent to do the actual fighting comprised disproportionately high numbers of working class Americans. In the combined efforts of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom, almost 7,000 U.S. soldiers have died. More than 970,000 veteran disability claims have been registered with the Veterans Administration.

Returning soldiers face higher unemployment rates than their civilian counterparts, particularly among male veterans age 21 to 24. Between 2009 and 2012, the youngest veterans had an unemployment rate of 21.6 percent, compared to 13.5 percent for civilians.

Veterans struggle to find proper healthcare in a system ill-prepared for the number of wounded, particularly those with catastrophic injuries and mental health issues that require long-term care. Private nonprofit organizations have been picking up the slack left by inadequate funding in the federal budget.

— Donald Trump, New York Times, 1999, “Liberties; Trump Shrugged”“My entire life, I’ve watched politicians bragging about how poor they are, how they came from nothing, how poor their parents and grandparents were. And I said to myself, if they can stay so poor for so many generations, maybe this isn’t the kind of person we want to be electing to higher office. How smart can they be? They’re morons.”

Donald Trump sells himself as a scrappy, self-made man whose vision, tenacity, and business savvy alone have made him one of the world’s most famous billionaires, but Trump is not self-made by any measure. A poster boy for generations of socioeconomic privilege, Trump joined the New York Military Academy at age thirteen, then studied at Fordham University before transferring to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. During the Vietnam War, Trump was granted five draft deferments — the first four for education, and the last for medical reasons.

In 1968, he joined his father’s real estate business, then conservatively valued at $40 million. Donald took over The Trump Organization in 1974 and restyled the company in his image — a special blend of ego, flamboyance, and rabid ambition. He steered clear of the steerage class and catered exclusively to the rich by buying or building luxury residential properties, office buildings, hotels, casinos, golf courses, and resorts.

Capital from his father’s company wasn’t Trump’s only empire-building head start. He depended on both government and private assistance, too, including tax abatements, financial support from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), investors, and, during the company’s 1990 massive financial troubles, a bailout pact involving seventy banks.

In his 2000 book, The America We Deserve, Trump criticized governmental interference in American business. He wrote, “The greatest threat to the American Dream is the idea that dreamers need close government scrutiny and control. Job one for us is to make sure the public sector does a limited job, and no more.”

Trump didn’t seem threatened by the public sector’s involvement in his four corporate bankruptcies. Trump told Forbes in April 2011, “Basically I’ve used the laws of the country to my advantage and to other people’s advantage … just as many, many others on top of the business world have.”

In his eyes, Trump is a self-made entrepreneur who refuses to acknowledge the millions of dollars of family, public, and private assistance that helped him realize his gilt, mirrored glass, and pink marble American dream. Government regulations that stifle ambition are a threat to American dreamers everywhere, but laws that can be used to the advantage of top-of-the-business-world warriors are just fine.

It makes perfect sense that Trump would share Ronald Reagan’s and Don Tyson’s desire for smaller government. What doesn’t make sense is that America’s white underclass would agree with him.

Big or small, our government has failed everyone but the wealthiest class. Most politicians barely maintain a pretense of representing the people — except during election years when they talk about “issues” and make promises they have no intention of keeping. Once in office, they become puppets of the richest ten percent of Americans. If you think I’m exaggerating, watch this video.

Like their ancestors who fought in and survived the Civil War, today’s soldiers return to find their situations either the same, or much worse, than when they left. Who would blame them for being angry? As soldiers go off to war we say, “God bless our troops.” Maybe we should add, “God help them when they come home.”  

Donald Trump is a business man. Until recently, money and fame were everything to him. He measured his success by his ranking in the Forbes 400 list of billionaires. Now, Trump wants power and control, too. Like wealthy plantation owners who just happened to be politicians, Trump does not need to be bought; he is already rich enough. From a business perspective, he’s trying to cut out the middle man — the politicians who have become puppets of the wealthy elite.

I’m just a poor white trash motherfucker. No one cares about me.

What if some people did care, but the wealthy pushed them away?

• • •

Marginalized people have been fighting for equality for decades. Admittedly, in the quest to fight for the oppressed — people of color, women, religious minorities, the LGBTQ community — we often overlook the fact that classism never completely disappeared. For the white underclass, it’s tempting to feel left out of this fight. But how can people fighting for social equality include poor whites who see them as the enemy?

If poor and working class whites who chant, “Trump, Trump, Trump,” believe they have little in common with these “enemies,” they are mistaken. We are all sides of the same coin, a coin that has been held in the pocket of the elite class since the first settlers arrived in the American colonies.

I’m no one special. I am a poor, uneducated, white woman. I am the white underclass, and I am no one’s enemy. I fight for racial equality because people of color are not my enemy. Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people are not my enemy. Immigrants and refugees are not my enemy. Muslims are not my enemy. Native Americans are not my enemy. Single mothers and fathers are not my enemy. People on Medicare, disability, food stamps, and unemployment are not my enemy. The homeless are not my enemy. And it turns out that the people of a small Arkansas town in the middle of the Ozarks are not my enemy.

Other poor people are not the enemy, no matter how they look, how they pray, or who they love. They are fighting to be heard. They are people who, like Trump supporters, agree with the statement, “People like me don’t have any say about what the government does.”

Did slave owners care about white indentured servants when they pitted them against African slaves, or did they want to ensure a steady supply of cheap labor? Did Ronald Reagan care about poor white people when he trotted out the fictional welfare queen, or did he need a budget item to cut? Do wealthy elites and politicians care about poor and middle class people when they send them off to war, or are they anticipating massive profits?Trump supporters believe he’s different. They believe that he cares about us, that he tells it like it is, that he gives us a voice, that he can’t be bought because he’s already rich, that he’s railing against politics as usual.

But does Trump care about the white underclass, or does he still think poor people are “morons���?

Trump is railing against establishment politics not because he cares about the white underclass, but because he needs us — for now. He isn’t reaching out a hand to lift us up. He wants to stand on our shoulders so we can lift him up.     For more than four hundred years, wealthy elites have depended on the white underclass to “help keep America great.” But who are we keeping it great for? When will we realize we have more in common with all poor people than with rich capitalists and corrupt politicians who manipulate the system to increase their own wealth, power, and control? Instead of wondering which billionaire will finally reach out a hand to raise us up, we should stop waiting and start acting.

• • •

“The Revolution is coming and it is a very beautiful revolution.”

“There must be better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.”

One of these quotes is from Martin Luther King Jr. in 1966; the other is from Bernie Sanders in 1969.

Bernie Sanders was born into a working-class home. His father dropped out of high school and supported the family as a paint salesman after coming to the U.S. from Poland and struggling through the Great Depression. Later, after the war, they would find out most of his family died in the Holocaust. From this, Bernie Sanders learned a life lesson, “An election in 1932 ended up killing 50 million people around the world.”

By the time Bernie graduated from college, he was alone. His brother had moved to England for work, and both of his parents had died. He moved to Vermont and held a variety of low-wage jobs, spending many of the following years broke. He is quoted in a New Yorker article as saying, “I do know what it’s like when the electric company shuts off the electricity and the phone company shuts off the phone — all that stuff. So, for me, to talk to working-class people is not very hard.”

He bootstrapped his way into politics and has remained loyal to the poor and working class for more than thirty years. He is not a millionaire. He has not built a fortune from his position holding office. He doesn’t make money by keeping others poor or sending them to war. He doesn’t gain power by keeping people silent. Donald Trump would have you believe Sanders is a “loser” for not taking financial advantage of his position. I prefer to call him one of our own.

Bernie Sanders doesn’t say that if you are poor, it’s your own damn fault. He says if you are poor, take my hand. Together we can lift you up. His campaign isn’t about freebies or handouts. It’s about opportunity. It’s about believing that, given a chance and an even playing field, the poor and working class can achieve their dreams. He knows this because he has lived it.

Sanders’ revolution is about lifting the hand of oppression so we can all move forward in equality. It is about everyone having the same opportunity to paint their walls in shades of possibility.

When we have been pushed down for so long, it can become impossible to see whose hands are keeping us there. Is it really welfare queens or immigrant laborers or Muslims, as Trump claims? I say no, because those people have so little power. Maybe the answer lies not in looking up, but in looking sideways and recognizing that our poor neighbors, who may be different than us, are struggling too. Maybe if we all look up together, we can see more clearly that the hand of oppression belongs only to those who have always had money, power, and control. Those are the real enemies.

The real enemies fear us. They know that if we come together, we will have the numbers on our side. They’ve always known this and it terrifies them. We must stop doing what they want: fighting among ourselves and allowing ourselves to be held down by their fear. We must direct a truly united voice against those who, four hundred years ago, created the American Dream and then held it out of reach. We must join together and fight back against the wealthy elite and corporate politicians. We must build a new country that belongs to all of us, a country where no one ever has to feel like just a poor motherfucker no one cares about.

[ghost-chance]

ANLoL Sidestory: Blocked “Chapter 1: The Repercussions of Writers’ Block”

Previously published on AO3 and FFnet. This ongoing story is a complete farce and meant mostly for a laugh at the writer’s expense.

Ghost has writer's block, and when she has writer's block, bad things happen. Now, Donatello is trapped in her world with no way home. One thing's for certain: she needs to get him home before he figures out she's responsible for all the drama his family has dealt with. NOT a serious story - this self-insert parody is meant to break through writer's block without a sledge-hammer.

Dedicated to the fuzzbutts: Heiferlump Chance and Woozle Thomas.

  Warnings for language, honest and 'non-badassed' self-insert, suggestiveness, and some drama-slash-angsty-moments.

           1: The Repercussions of Writers' Block 

What started out like any other day would soon become like no other day; of course, by the time Ghost Chance realized this, she would be too busy questioning her sanity to remark on how bizarre that day turned out.

"Dammit, Heifer!" the overweight brunette hollered. An equally overweight blonde tabby bolted across the overgrown yard with all the grace of a pregnant buffalo. Deep green eyes scowled behind wire framed glasses, and she blew a loose wisp of mid-brown hair out of her face. "Heiferlump, ya bloody jail-breakin' moose, git back here!" Of course, hollering at a cat yearning for freedom never results in said cat actually obeying. This one fact has never changed, especially for Heiferlump, the feline known affectionately as Heifer. Resigned to chasing down the stubborn animal, Ghost let the door slam and took off after the errant feline.

Summer was almost over in her little corner of the Missouri Ozarks, but the humid heat was nowhere near through…and heat was never kind to those with extra insulation. By the time she made it down the steps of the porch and halfway to her crazed cat, Ghost was already dripping with sweat and struggling to breathe the heavy, humid air. Bloody asthma. Just on the other side of the fence and right at the property line, Heifer paused, staring out into the wooded area beyond with one paw poised for bolting. "Whoa-no," Ghost warned her quickening her steps to a clumsy half-sprint. "Don't you dare, Lil'—" Despite the warning, Heifer bolted out into the woods, her striped tail and dirty backside vanishing in the bracken. "Guch. Figures."

Grumbling under her breath—mostly oaths, expletives, and unflattering remarks about the cat's genetic origins and hygienic behaviors—the irate woman trudged out the gate and into the overgrown scrub brush. Every few yards, she hollered out the Heifer's name or one of her many frequently used 'pet names,' then listened for a telltale jingle from the cat's collar. Finally, success. "Gotcha!" Ghost's hands latched onto the fat cat panting for breath barely twenty yards from the house. "Nice try, Scatface—no one escapes Hellcatraz." Already, Heifer began her usual habit of regaling 'Mommy' with all the amazing things she saw in her short escape, all in a surprising range of vocalizations and intonations. Noisy moose.

At that moment, she realized something worrisome…the forest, normally full of racket, was quiet…too quiet. She wasn't alone. Green eyes darted back and forth among the trees for a sign of the intruder. She shifted Heiferlump to one wide hip, cradling the obliviously purring cat around the middle like a fuzzy handbag while still supporting the feline's flabby rib cage. She backed toward the property line again, carefully watching for any sign of company.

She knew moving out to that area was a risk—knew it was dangerous to live so close to the train tracks cutting through the river bottoms hidden in the secluded tree stand. If she screamed for help, it wasn't likely that anyone would hear her. Despite that risk, though, she and her husband Cold couldn't turn the house down. It had everything they wanted and needed, and because of a single albeit bloody day in its past, the price couldn't be beaten. She'd lived in a haunted house before, after all; if the double homicide left behind any unsavory paranormal residue, it would still be a cakewalk compared to her childhood home. Any other day, Ghost wouldn't have batted an eye about living in such a secluded area; now, she found herself terrified that decision was about to bite her in the ass.

"Excuse me." An entirely unflattering shriek ripped from her lungs and she whirled about, Heifer launching from her arms as one shot up to sock her would-be attacker in the groin. Instead, Ghost felt like she'd punched a wall and fell backward onto her over-plump behind with an incoherent cry of pain. The strange man simply stared at her.

Wait. Still cradling her throbbing hand, she blinked in disbelief up at the being standing above her. The stranger held Heiferlump to one bulky shoulder, the little green-eyed monster already purring up a storm. Hold. The. Phone. Hazel eyes, tortoise shell rimmed glasses, totally sexy coveralls and suspenders, violet bandana mask… Ghost blinked again, struggling to process the sight before her…a very familiar mutant turtle, clearly questioning her sanity, and holding Heiferlump like the cat's bewildered mama didn't just try to nut-shot him.

"The fuck?"

One bare eyebrow arching under his mask and his nose wrinkling slightly, Donatello scrutinized her silently. Ghost cringed. Why was it so much easier to write a good first impression than to make one? "Uh…hi?"

"Hi." It wasn't much consolation, but he seemed just as confused by her presence as she was by his. Of course, in his world, this sort of thing wasn't exactly uncommon; her world was an entirely different story. Growing up in an actual haunted house taught Ghost that no one believed in mysteries anymore, even the ones that weren't quite so far-fetched. "I take it this is yours?" As though knowing she was being talked about, Heifer gave him a loud half-purr-half-meow, then turned to shoot her owner a smug grin.

"Yeah." Ghost fought the urge to return Heifer's 'smirk' with some immature expression and instead focused on the three fingered hand scratching the cat's white cheeks. "Just took the trash out…she's a runner." Another 'wuuuROWurrr' from Heifer made Donnie smirk. Smacking the cat hair off his unoccupied hand, he offered it to the woman still flat on her ass in the leaf litter. It took a moment—and another arched eyebrow—but finally she managed to goose her mental hamster into doing its job. He hauled her upright like she weighed nothing, but clearly didn't expect her to nearly topple over front-first once she was on her feet.

"Are you alright?" Ghost leaned against the nearest tree with a hiss and grimace; spasms shot through her right leg from the knee outward, reminding her she'd overdone it that day. If only it didn't take a mere few hours of basic housework to constitute 'overdoing it…'

"Yeah, just gimme a sec." Fingertips digging into her knee, she easily located the familiar dent in her tibia; the landmark found, she traced straight upward then followed the line of her kneecap around to the spasming nerve cluster there and began gently rubbing. "Anyone ever offers to park a car on your ass, decline."

"I take it you didn't?" A telltale smirk tilted his lips upward at one side, and hers soon echoed the expression.

"You're only young an' dumb once, right?" she teased. The pain passed, she reached out for the cat still telling Donatello all about herself in a multitude of purrs and meows. "I'll take that lump from ya. C'mon in out'a the heat—we ain't had neighbors in a bit, but this weather'll kill ya."

Almost as soon as the two were inside—with Heiferlump crated for a time-out—Ghost led him to a cramped and shabby, if clean, kitchen, directing him to the half-full coffee pot and the microwave. "It's a day old," she admitted digging a coffee mug out for him, "but it's still good—had some 'is'mornin'." While she was pointing out the locations of the coffee fixings, a low, sad yowl rang through the air. "Woozle," she called out dryly, "yer not lost. Quitcher lyin' a'ready."

"Woozle?" Donnie echoed dubiously, but before he could add to the question, a flash of white and ginger fur bolted in from the hallway. Winding eagerly around Ghost's bare legs was a second, slightly less obese cat—white with bright reddish orange splotches and vibrant copper orange eyes.

"Woozle," Ghost affirmed with a grin, hoisting the chubby cat up into her arms. "Y'already met Heiferlump, this's her brother, Woozle." After a mere moment of 'Mommy time,' the ginger cat decided he'd had enough and fussed to be put down. "Yeah, yeah, screw you too, ya lil' rodent," she teased depositing the squirming cat on the floor. After a send-off from Ghost—a teasing pat on the butt—he galloped off to parts unknown, yodeling a battle cry. After digging through a low cabinet, she emerged triumphantly with a bottle of Drambuie and glass tumbler and poured herself a good three fingers worth. The familiar scent made Donnie still in preparing his coffee, eyes rolling toward her in blatant disbelief. The brunette fished a curled sliver of orange rind from a small bin from the freezer, plopping it into her glass with an odd smile.

At first, Donatello was bewildered at the sudden change in scenery and worried the strange woman hurt herself lashing out at him; now he could see a faint resemblance. Her frizzy brown hair was only greying lightly—mostly at the hairline with plenty of grey shot through her eyebrows—and the lot was piled into a sloppy braided bun instead of tied back in two neat braids. Her eyes were a muted blue-green, not pale grey-green. Awkwardly tanned skin was decked with hordes of freckles and broken by numerous ambiguous scars, and her body type was clearly well beyond chunky into obese. Out in the woods, she'd gripped her right knee and remarked about someone 'parking a car' on her. There were many differences but the similarities were jarring. "Who are you?" he asked, his knuckles white around the handle of a coffee mug. She swallowed her sip of scotch liqueur and shrugged.

"Name's Ghost Chance," she answered with deceptive simplicity. "I'm a writer working on going pro, a crazy cat lady, an' that one friend ya don't take home ta Mom. Nice to meet ya." Donatello shook his head at the explanation, his eyes narrowing as he compared the woman before him to another—one with soft grey-green eyes the color of sunlit moss, pale, freckled flesh, warm brown hair streaked liberally with grey—a woman who was most likely worried sick about—

"Amber!" he burst out suddenly, losing his grip on the coffee mug; the plain white porcelain tumbled to the floor in a shower of cold coffee, shattering upon impact. Suddenly jolted back into himself by the crash, he dropped to his knees on the ade-dingy tile and began gathering the shards. "Ah, shell, I'm sorry, I—" A hand on one of his stilled him, froze him; nervous hazel eyes rolled up to meet a pair of deep green ones. Ghost knelt before him, seemingly visually dissecting him.

"Amber-who?" Ghost's expression was guarded, he realized with a noisy swallow, but he couldn't dismiss the recognition in her eyes. "Amber-who?" she insisted.

"Amber…O'Brien," he finally admitted with a wince. Surely not, he argued silently, surely he hadn't somehow made it to Amber's world! On the off-chance that he had, though, he found his lips illogically loosened. "She's my…my girlfriend. Last I remember, I was with her…then I was in the woods…and…" He couldn't continue, torn between his worry, the impossibility of his being torn out of Amber's arms and thrown into her world, and the horrified gape on this stranger's face.

"Amber…O'Brien…" Ghost repeated slowly, shifting from her knees to her rear end. A loud smack made him jump—her palm violently impacting her exposed forehead. "Holy friggin' Moses," Ghost grumbled digging her fingertips into the emerging wrinkle between her eyebrows. "This day jus' keeps gettin' better."

Over the next half hour—and more coffee and Drambuie—Ghost got the story out of Donatello…and by 'story' she meant his side of the story. He fell asleep in Amber's arms, as they were wont to do. When he woke up, he found himself at a crossroads—the train tracks that cut through the bottoms followed the crick less than a mile before the riverbed took a sharp switchback turn. Where the lines crossed, the riverbed had been dug out and the rails put up on a trestle.

It was under this trestle that Donatello woke…bewildered, paranoid, and puking his guts up. Even living in smog-cloaked New York wasn't enough preparation for the smell of a half-dry crick in record heat. Even if he hadn't woken up face-first in dying fish and algae, Ghost knew the smell of her home state took some getting used to. A relative of hers moved to Cali a few years back and came home for Christmas and Midsummer. Every time he got off the plane he chucked his cookies right there on the tarmac from the oppressive combination of agriculture, manure, pollution, and exhaust…and the rarely-acknowledged but always present stench of countless morons cooking meth. The meth problem was always bad, but up until her lifetime, you couldn't smell it everywhere you went, no matter how well the wind carried the fumes.

Ghost swore under her breath, pacing the linoleum, mussing her already messy hair with every turn. It didn't make sense—it was impossible!—somehow, if she was reading the situation correctly, Donatello was inexplicably spirited away from his world at the precise moment she'd ended the last chapter of his story. Nearly two weeks ago, she'd hit a road block in her writing and couldn't seem to get past it. There was always a backlog of one-shots due for Gallery of Memories, and now she couldn't seem to get even a word out for the main storyline.

Unable to find a better title, she'd called the long, sprawling epic "A New Lease on Life"…because that sounded saner than "a bullshit story about a bullshit character I made look like me just so I can kill them then torture them repeatedly for lolz." Well, technically it wasn't 'just for lolz.' The story began as nothing more than a tool, a writing exercise. She hoped by 'seeing' a character even weaker and more messed up than herself heal massive emotional scarring, she could finally heal her own less-massive scars. One character died to the killer storm that inadvertently spared Ghost's life; another character dealt with not an abusive partner for years, but an abusive mother for her whole life. Despite their similar appearances, Ghost wasn't Amber, and despite their similar personalities and attitudes she wasn't Mercy, and likewise, they weren't her.

Though the story started out as a slightly morbid attempt to 'kill' her weaker self and emerge victorious, the characters and storyline quickly became much more than an exercise. Against their puppet-master's wishes, they grew, fleshed out, blossomed, and became actual characters and stories of their own rather than personified traits and traumas. Before Ghost's Ides of May hiatus was over, a story was born from a sketch and she knew she could never keep it bottled up. Another world was woven into the plotline—new characters, new trials, allegations of deception and broken hearts—and by the time the prequel was posted, there was no turning back. It started out as a slightly sadistic exercise in irony but it had long since become a story.

How the hell did she manage to drag a fictional character from her story into her reality?! Ghost needed something a helluva lot stronger than Drambuie—she needed a mental vacation, starting with a few strawberry daiquiris, some head-banging heavy metal, a crappy romance novel about some illogically awesome beefcake meeting a hopeless nerd, and a long, hard soak in the bathtub! Increasingly aware of Donatello's keen eyes studying her in confusion and disbelief, she scrambled for some way, any way, to explain the bizarre situation without really explaining it or lying. After all, she just spent over a year repeatedly torturing Donatello, his family, his girlfriend, and several other characters he knew! Granted, that's what authors do, but she doubted the characters saw it that way. Already she could see him putting an 'only use Justin Bieber wallpapers' bug on her laptop—or rigging up her tablet to blast bad pop music anytime it was on—or some other equally horrific act of retribution!

"What's your real name?" The question came out of the blue, and the frazzled brunette turned to address the mutant turtle in her kitchen.

"Wha?" As usual, she considered with a cringe, one word out'a her mouth and she convinced everyone and everything in earshot that she had the IQ of an amoeba. Awesome. "My real name?" she repeated to disguise the sound of her brain scrambling for any possible escape.

"Yeah," the genius answered, drawing out the word pointedly. "I've never heard of anyone actually naming their kid Ghost."

"Yeah, they name'em North West instead." Her grumble was answered with an unamused stare. Digging her fingertips into that emerging wrinkle again, she sighed; she felt a headache coming on, and at this rate, she'd wind up yanking on her daith piercing in minutes. "Yeah, ya got me, it's a nickname. I'd rather not share my real name if ya don't mind—not a lotta people know it, an' for good reason." Donatello's stern gaze made her skin itch, and she wanted nothing more than to blurt out the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help her bog. Should she share that truth, though…

"Listen," she explained instead, finally meeting his eyes. "I can't tell you everything, but I promise I won't lie to ya—I can't stand lies, and I always wind up ready to yack if I'm stuck tellin’em. Don't ask questions I can't answer, accept when I can't answer one, an' we'll try to figure out how to get you home, 'kay?" A long silence passed, the mutant staring her down over the chipped formica counter.

"Are you a friend of Amber's?" he asked, clearly willing to let go of the name issue, "or do you mean her any harm?"

"Friend?" Ghost repeated with a weak smile. "You could say that I guess…we…have a lot in common…as for whether I mean her any harm…" She paused for an overly drawn out sip of liqueur, waiting for her brain to catch up with her mouth. "I want only the best for her…an' I'm totally shippin' you two—yer a cute couple."

"Then you know what our life's been like," Donnie acknowledged with a shrewd stare. "Dare I say you've been watching us somehow? Or that you know how things will end up between us?" Ghost froze. She wanted to give a somewhat intelligent answer, but all that came out was a half-garbled,

"…uh…huh?" Again, Donnie's nose wrinkled slightly, but whether in amusement or disgust, she didn't know. "Pass."

"One more question, then." He finally looked away, and the absence of his gaze revealed how heavy it had felt; nervously fidgeting with his already empty coffee cup, he stared through the ring of grounds at the bottom. "Will we…I mean…" After such a long episode of nothing but Ghost freaking out and Ghost being socially awkward, now the turtle was a fit of nerves and almost as awkward. "I don't…don't want to lose her," he admitted softly his eyes narrowing, but not tearing. "We don't really know what brought her to my world or what's keeping her there…and there've been strange things happening left and right, impossible dust, ticking clocks, unexplained voices and the feeling that someone's watching us…"

At his sudden startled glance, Ghost piped up, "No, that's not me watchin' y'all. Chill." She could almost swear his cheeks darkened at her answer; what sort of thoughts were running through that turtle's head? If he was her, she'd say he had some seriously explicit footage playing through his thoughts, but she was gutter-brained to a fault—Donnie wasn't like her. Blushing alone didn't mean he was considering pinning a certain brunette to some random surface and— Crud. Hello, gutter.

"If she's going to be taken away from us—from me," he summed up with a burst of resolve, "I need to know…so I can stop it." Oh, how cute. Ghost chuckled, her lips twisted into a wide, lopsided smile.

"You're adorable, ya know that?" she teased rolling her eyes. "No, Amber's not gonna get taken away from ya—if she leaves, it'll be'er own choice." This apparently didn't reassure him any, so she added, "an' she ain't gonna leave unless ya really fuck up. So don't."

At first, he meant to question her about this statement; then he realized her eyes had grown distant, as though fixed on some unpleasant memory. A familiar scene played out before him: green eyes lost focus and dilated, unpainted lips weakened, shoulders hunched and tightened. Unlike his Amber, though, Ghost stormed out of the room as though the very devil was on her heels. After a moment of hesitation, he followed and found her staring nervously out a window into the back yard, her right hand clenching her left wrist and worrying at some unseen scar.

"Hey." His greeting startled her—an exaggerated startle response, as he'd expected. Despite the layers of fat over it, he could clearly see her pulse racing in her throat. "It seems you have similar demons," he remarked with feigned nonchalance, coming to stand beside her and stare out the window as well. "Similar, if not identical."

"Identical?" Ghost mumbled starting to worry at her wrist again. "Not really…we've both got issues from a helluva storm, but I've moved past mine. No, my real demon is something different—something older…" She cringed, forcing a swallow past the illogical fear rising up her throat. "Jus' call'im Walker."

While Donatello was still processing that bombshell, she shook herself out of her morbid thoughts and brushed past him. "Cold'll be home soon—that's my husband—so we'll need'a hide ya 'til I can work up some explanation." Still focusing on slowing her breathing and stopping her fight-or-flight response, Ghost led Donatello down the poky hallway. She gave a cursory glance into the 'man cave,' then pointedly yanked the door shut while griping about Cold leaving his underwear all over the place. Honestly, there was only one pair of boxers on the gaming chair, but there was TMNT paraphernalia all over that room…not a good idea. "We'll put'cha up in th'office, 'kay?"

"Office?" Another room—and shut door—later, he followed her into the last room on the line and found himself speechless. Though the house was overall cluttered, dated, and somewhat shabby, this room seemed the sole exception.

"Artists have a studio and actors have their dressing rooms, but I'm a writer," Ghost explained as she led the way into her sanctuary. All through the rest of the house, she had to fight Cold tooth and nail over décor, arrangements, and everything from how clean it should be kept to how clothed he had to be in said locations. This room was her sanctuary from game cases, movie posters, dirty underwear, and cackling streaking husbands intent on re-christening everything at once. God, they fit together well. "This is where the magic happens," she shrugged instead of acknowledging her unbidden X-rated memories of the kitchen.

"Magic," Donatello mumbled, eagerly scanning the ceiling height bookshelves lining three of the room's long walls, and the tall windows parading along the last. "Right." As he studied the room, his host threw open heavy curtains—revealing a broken view of the wooded area behind the house, muted by sheer drapes—swiped cat hair off the surface of the massive wooden desk, and awkwardly shoved a litterbox out of view.

"We don't get overnight guests often," Ghost explained as she swatted dust out of the pillows piled into the old wicker papasan chair, "but when we do, we usually put'em up in here for the night—there's room for an air mattress, if you do some creative fi'nanglin' of the furniture, or we've got sleeping bags if that's more—"

The weight of a heavy hand on her shoulder stunned her into silence, and she choked down the fear rising in her gut. She wasn't afraid of Donnie—she could never be afraid of such a sweet, sensitive, and downright drool-worthy man—but more and more, she found herself falling prey to the demons that had stalked her for many years already. A demon called Walker. Despite the gooseflesh dancing down her spine, she forced herself to meet his eyes.

"It's perfect," Donatello reassured the suddenly nervous woman with an easy smile. "The whole room smells like books." …and cat litter, but he didn't mention that part. As he expected, her eyes practically lit up behind her glasses.

"Not much like the smell of books, huh?" she admitted wistfully, wandering over to the nearest shelf—literature, classics, and short stories—without the slightest pause, she pulled a volume free and held it up to her nose, taking a long, deep whiff of the book. This is my Best was an old, forgotten literary anthology, a former favorite read of her father's that eventually became one of her favorite 'sniff' books. Not only did it have that delightful 'old book' smell, it carried faint traces of other memory-invoking smells—long-drunk whiskey, fresh wood shavings and grass clippings, Old Spice aftershave, and the sweet pipe tobacco her father had slowly traded for putrid cigars. The combined fragrance always brought her back to when her father gave a damn and her family wasn't working on killing each other off with drama. Her guest probably thought she was loony for huffing the book, but she didn't care; nothing can ever hold as many vivid memories as a familiar smell, and that book was full of both.

Shaking herself from her reverie, she reluctantly re-shelved the book and turned an apologetic smile to Donatello. "The Ma-in-Law-from-Hades should be bringing Cold back anytime—I'd best start figgerin' out dinner. Help yourself to the books and whatnot until I come get you…just…" She cringed. "…please don't hack my computer until I've cleared my browser history?"

About half an hour passed by without notice. All the while, Donatello paced from one end of the sizable library-slash-office-slash-'magic'-room, waiting, worrying, and wondering. Occasionally, he'd get snippets of sound from the front half of the house—the usual cooking racket, his odd hostess grumbling aloud or hollering at one of the cats, presumably Woozle—and faint, barely-heard traces of music played low. So far, no one had come to find him, and Heiferlump, curled up on the closed laptop Ghost warned him away from, had yet to tire of talking at him.

Mah. "What?" MAOW! "I really wish I knew what you were saying." Mrowwwr—ack! Donnie didn't have much experience with animals, aside from strays, but he'd never come across such a noisy cat before. If he 'answered' her, she'd spout another strange half-purr-half-meow or odd chatter; if he 'ignored' her, she'd sit and make a racket until he looked at her, then she'd repeat herself, as though expecting him to understand. Big cucumber green eyes watched him with startling intelligence, making him more nervous by the moment. Already he wished he'd shooed the cat out when her owner left.

Mor-OWR! "You're a noisy one, huh?" he muttered at the insistent cat, but she looked all-too-pleased with the proclamation and gave a closed-eyed-whiskers-arched ack in response. Finally, it hit him, and it was all he could do to not face-palm. "I'm arguing with a cat…it's not even my cat." Ack!

Before he could respond, whether to roll his eyes or argue back—again!—an ear-piercing shriek rang out in the kitchen followed by an even louder clatter of metal on tile and the sound of shattering pottery. Instantly on alert, he reached up for his goggles…and found nothing. Their absence was ominous, and he quickly realized the rest of his gear and equipment were all missing too. How could he have not noticed that?! How could he have simply found himself in the forest, unarmed and practically naked, and not noticed?! Oh…right…he woke up puking his guts out.

The sounds of a one-sided struggle silenced his mental tirade; his hostess ordered him to stay put, but if she was in danger… Before he could talk himself out of it he crept down the dark hallway armed with the only 'weapon' he could find: a letter-opener of a knife from the desktop. "Hey, hey…shh…shh…" The frantic cries smoothed into choked sobs and the sharp sounds of someone on the verge of hyperventilating. "It's okay, it's just me…it's just me…"

At the doorway to the kitchen, Donnie paused to scope out the situation. A large terra cotta flower pot—broken—had doused the floor with clay dust and potting soil; its previous occupant, a bunched up grouping of mint-like plants, slumped wilting in the dirt. A metal pizza pan leaned against the far wall and an unbaked supreme pizza was crumpled nearby.

Most likely the cause of the commotion, a new stranger had arrived—a rather short man with off-kilter blue eyes, wire-rimmed glasses, and short-shaven blonde hair. Ghost—Donatello's strange hostess—was uninjured, clutching the man's shirt like a lifeline. He, in turn, held her tightly in his thick arms, rubbing her back and shushing her. He wasn't a threat. Donatello's hackles lowered, the sudden burst of adrenaline petering off into nothing as the last piece of the puzzle fell into place—the music he'd barely heard in the office was practically blaring in here. Ghost clearly hadn't heard the man's arrival or approach and she already had an exaggerated startle response.

I've been up and down and over and out, and I know one thing: each time I find myself flat on my face, I pick myself up and get back in the race. That's life! As the song went on and Ghost's breathing slowed and steadied Donatello crept back down the hallway. This moment wasn't one he should intrude on…and it was entirely too familiar.

"I hate'im." The claim—halfway between a snarl and a whimper—was nothing new after countless such incidents over the years. "That—tha'son'va'bitch—he—he—"

"He's a bastard," Cold agreed, his usual gruff and blunt manner somewhat gentled. As Ghost's breathing and heart calmed, her anger faded into bitterness. The aftermath of a panic attack is hard enough to get through when your primary reaction is fear. When you add in rage at the cause, anger at yourself for falling prey to that cause, and frustration at being unable to get past the trauma, it's even worse.

When Ghost first started having panic attacks, Cold was bewildered—lost, frightened, and to an extent, irritated at her for being irrational and hysterical. Once she finally confessed their cause to him, told him of the now-infamous 'Walker' and stopped pretending he neither existed nor hurt her, the fear and irritation faded. Now, he felt only anger—at the scumbag who knew his partner first and left her scarred—and disappointment—in himself, in the situation, in the world in general. He didn't blame her anymore, though…Cold was autistic, not stupid. "He d'serves to be beaten," Ghost groused into his sweaty shoulder.

"And tortured," Cold added matter-of-factly.

"And castrated..."

"With a spoon." She snorted at the mental image, finally smiling again, even if it was a little weak.

"A dull one?" she asked finally emerging from his neck to meet his eyes. Her eyes burned from drying salt and throbbed from the slight change in light—a sure sign her pupils were still constricted from the rush of adrenaline—but the slight upward tilt of her husband's whisker-bordered lips soothed the sting.

"Nah," he teased, releasing her with a teasing pat on the rear. "Let'im suffer—use that screwy-sharp-pointy-spoon-thingamabob."

"Ya mean a grapefruit spoon?" Ghost supplied slyly as they went about cleaning up her mess. "That's...incredibly awesome. Scoop those puppies out a lil' at a time'n go back to scrape the sac clean!" Sure enough, Cold winced at the mental image, but he grinned at her. He opened his mouth to fire off another even more disturbing mental image—after all, this wasn't their first 'torture Walker' contest—but she turned away and knelt to hold the dustpan. Sure enough, his eyes were immediately drawn from the dirt to her over-plump posterior and his brain ceased functioning, leaving him standing there staring like an imbecile. "It was your hair...I didn't expect it to be so short."

"Blame Mom," Cold answered sullenly, finally shaking off the 'power of the pudge' and fulfilling his end of the bargain with the broom. "I agreed to be kidnapped, not shaved."

"She wouldn't cut it if ya'd take care of it." She fought a grin at the familiar argument and the sulky expression he always wore when it came up. "Ya've got such gorgeous curls, Hon…really ought'a take care'f'em."

"Fuggoff."

"You first."

"Maybe later."

"What'd'ja do?" The sudden demand—halfway between irritable and sarcastic—froze Ghost in her tracks. The office door hung open and her pizza-deprived partner stood pointedly in the doorway, arms crossed and his expression flat.

"Uh…do?" she echoed back hurrying toward him with a forced grin. "Did I lock Heffy-butt in here?" The last few steps revealed Donatello standing silently by the window closest to the papasan chair, his expression torn between offense and embarrassment. The heavy floor-length curtains and gauzy sheers lay pooled at his feet, evidence that he overestimated the security of the hardware. Heifer sat on those drapes too frequently for the already wimpy tension rods to have held.

"There's a mutant nerd in there!" Crap. "Screw how ya managed it, why didn'ya at least pick Raph or Mikey, or even that stick-ass Leo? Mikey's a gamer, Raph's entertaining as Hell, an' even Leo has experience with pointy objects! I could'a shown'im my blades! Why this guy?" With every word, Donnie's cheeks grew darker and darker, and his eyes narrowed into a more blatant glare. Earlier, he was ready to give the loud-mouthed blond the benefit of the doubt; now he felt like finding a way to 'accidentally' electrocute him. Not for the first time, Ghost found herself staring at Cold in blatant disbelief, wondering how on earth his strange little mind worked.

"Wait," she demanded of her husband. "There's a six foot talking ninja turtle in my office, I clearly hid him here, an' all you care about's that he's not fun? —and somehow it's my fault he's here?! –and I somehow managed to choose which turtle to drag here against his will?!" Her arms spread wide in a 'da fuck?!' gesture, she scoffed.

"Well, yeah," Cold answered as though pointing out the obvious. "It's Donnie—of course you dragged his ass here." Off-kilter blue eyes rolled at the unspoken. "If it was anyone else, I'd know it was an accident." In the awkward silence that filled the room, one could even have heard a hiccup from a world on a dust speck clearly. Not recognizing that awkward silence—or perhaps wanting to make it even more awkward—Cold added in a huff, "Ya don't clear your browser history…perv."

That did it. Without even bothering to disguise her intentions—or the raging blush spanning from her hairline to her neckline—Ghost stomped up to her husband and thwacked him on the back of the head Mikey-style.

"Let's get some things straight, Assmunch," she ground out while he whined and pouted. "One, look in the fuckin' mirror before ya call someone a perv—I've seen how ya drool over that Jehovavilch gal!" Without pausing to let the sting fade—or let him correct her on Mila Jovovich's (intentionally butchered) name—she launched right into the next, ticking the points off on her fingers. "Two, I did not drag him here or have anything to do with him being here! I was s'prised as he was! Three, if I was so Mary-Sue-Rageous that I could literally drag someone from another world into ours, do ya really think I'd be fuckin' unemployed?! I'd'a dropped Jabba-the-Fraggin'-Hut in that scumbag's livin' room when he decided to stop payin' me for the work I was doin'!" Finally a reaction from Cold—granted, it was a blink, but it was a start. "Four, if I could do somethin' that awesome, I'd totally be abusin' that shit—I'd'a yanked Walker out'a our world an' dumped'im in Gollum's pit—or Voldy-dork's playroom—or a friggin' Barney episode for God's sakes! I'd torture his screwed up sadistic carcass beyond recognition!"

Suddenly, it became clear to her that she was deadly serious instead of being sarcastic…and she was only a few decibels from a harpy shriek. Even Cold, who normally could listen to her rant and rave for hours on end with little more than a shrug and 'meh,' was cringing slightly. She probably looked crazy…time to wrap it up. "…and five?" All the fingers ticked off and closed, she gave her husband a half-assed sock to the shoulder. "Lay off'a the genius a'ready. Brains trump brawn, knucklehead." She shot said genius a chagrined smile and bodily turned Cold around in the hallway, and without further ado, physically herded him to the kitchen.

"Yeah, for zombies," Cold shot back. Another brainduster.

"Say you're sorry, Cold!"

"I'm sorry, Cold!" As the eccentric and incredibly immature couple bickered their way out of earshot, Donatello stared at the empty doorway in disbelief. A timely murr-OW! from the desk chair drew his attention. Heiferlump sprawled precariously along the top of the narrow back monorail style, with her eyes locked on him as though eager to continue their 'chat.'

"Good grief," Donnie muttered reaching out to scratch Heifer's dirty white chin. "Here I felt crazy for talking to you." Another closed-eyed-whiskers-arched ack! told him she didn't blame him…and warned him the insanity was only just beginning.

 WARNING: Long-ass notes to follow, feel free to skip or skim unless you have a question!

     NOTES in order of occurrence  

*Landscape around the house: This part is fictional—Cold and I are too bleepin' poor to own our own home and are currently living in a loft apartment sandwiched between a noisy nympho, a screaming baby, a chronically-drunk frat boy, ONE pair of good, quiet neighbors, and at least two families with under-supervised teenagers. It would literally take a double homicide for us to be able to afford a house—especially since the housing market blew up after a large percentage of the homes in town were trashed by storms. Anyway, the NON-fictional part is that this area is somewhat like the one I lived in as a teen. For those unfamiliar with the terms: A tree stand can mean a hunting blind mounted in a tree, OR it can mean an area of forested land left to grow wild. River bottoms or just bottoms are usually a low, flat, undeveloped area bordering a body of water. Normally these fallow lands are very much in the flood plain and border 'cricks' or creeks and are intentionally left undeveloped because of their risky location and frequent marshiness. Some bottoms, like the ones described, were built up so railway lines could go through them without dealing with buildings and such. Either way, public wooded areas, bottoms, and especially remote areas adjacent to train tracks, are dangerous places you don't want to go rooting around in without packing some serious heat. **Regarding the 'haunted house' bit: Jokes aside, yes, Cold and I BOTH have personally experienced brushes with 'ghosts,' I DID grow up in a house that turned out to be pretty legitimately HAUNTED, and in both my case AND his, what we saw, heard, and experienced was also seen, heard, and experienced by many others, both familiar and completely strange. In my case, that means my family, the family we sold the house to, AND the ones THEY sold the house to, who seemed to be toughing it out, and a few friends of all three of those families. In Cold's case, everyone who worked at the same late-night grab-and-go diner his mother did while he was a kid, half the regular customers, visiting family of staff, and on occasion, an unfortunate person delivering stock and supplies. None of the persons who regularly experienced the 'hauntings' were experiencing any psychological impairments or under the influence. I won't go into further detail here because people tend to get bent out'a shape over the debate between 'hallucinations' and 'honest-to-bog paranormal activity.' If anyone asks about it, I'll post the specs on my forum and add a link. For the record, I'm STILL not convinced my house was haunted, even after so many other people experiencing the same stuff; still, my mother and I are only two of dozens of former residents who wouldn't return there for the life of us. I'd rather face the zombies, thanks. ;) ***To many who live here, Missouri is a wonderful, beautiful, ecologically diverse place that we wish we could share with the world, but we often wind up ignoring or even completely MISSING things that appall outsiders...like how the overwhelming majority of Missourians are law-abiding and not brain-dead, but the whole state REEKS because of the few who AREN'T law abiding and ARE brain-dead AND making drugs. S.M.H. ****'ANLoL was an exercise that became an epic.' – There, ya have it, the ugly truth behind A New Lease on Life. Flames, rants, whatever, I'll take'em, but I stand by my statement—it IS NOT a self-insert and has not BEEN a self-insert since before it even became a TMNT story. #Frank Sinatra "That's Life." I usually wind up playing swing, jazz, and similar music while cooking—LOTS of Sinatra and Michael Buble!—and classic rock while cleaning. (Quiet Riot, Survivor, and all those awesome classics you just never hear on the radio!)

"Character" rundown in order of appearance

Ghost Chance – That would be yours truly, the odd little duck who brought you A New Lease on Life, ANLoL: Gallery of Memories, the Moments in Time series, and Little Moments. I have an incredibly dirty mind that is ALWAYS swan-diving gleefully into the gutter and a tendency toward being predominantly unfiltered. I WILL be AWKWARD. Hubby and I are both pretty immature, overly emotional, and very loud; we both have major potty-mouth and smartassery problems and frequently get into spontaneous 'insult contests' and 'smart-off contests,' and our favorite petnames for each other are insults. Honestly, we curse WAY more in real life than you'll see here and we spend almost every moment together play-fighting and bantering. We do NOT have children and WILL NOT have children because we'd probably be HORRIBLE parents.

Heiferlump Chance – our incredibly fat and even more incredibly talkative tabby cat. Often referred to by any number of nicknames – including but not limited to Heifer, Heffy-butt, and Fat Lump – she is a blonde tabby with pale green eyes and is a total attention whore. She NEVER shuts up. She has been known to approach people who 'don't talk to animals’ because 'that's crazy' or 'they don't understand anyway'…and drag them into long, loud, and increasingly vehement arguments with her. She's primarily well behaved, as she's getting on in her years, and is way smarter than anyone gives her credit for. She sometimes does tricks for treats.

Woozle Thomas – our other cat, slightly less fat but still obese. Woozle is younger than Heifer and is white with bright reddish-orange splotches and freaky-vibrant copper-orange eyes. He's fussy, hyperactive, often goes from clingy to lemme-go at the drop of a hat, tends to beat up his 'sister,' and has anxiety problems…and unfortunately, incontinence issues. He also has a habit of wandering the hallway wailing as though lost; when this happens, Cold or I respond as described, and he comes bounding into the room as though he was actually lost.

Walker – Cold's predecessor by several years. Walker started off a model young man and gave off no red flags until I was living on my own. Once my folks weren't around to interfere, he became increasingly controlling, irrational, aggressive, and eventually, violent. I have apparently blocked the worst memories from our relationship and frankly, if they haven't returned in going on ten years, they can STAY blocked.

Cold Thomas – Cold is my lifemate, my partner, and in everything but name and paper, my husband; we've been together for almost a decade but have our reasons for not getting legally married. Cold is mildly autistic—he has high-functioning Aspberger's—and was raised non-autistic. Perhaps because he didn't know about it until a few years back, he learned to work around his oddities and cope with them well. He is incredibly fluent in saracasm and turning words around, and is a bona-fide smartass with major potty mouth.

     Glossary:  

I’ve replicated Cold’s and my IRL speaking habits here almost perfectly, but with one change: I’ve made it more understandable. What you’ve read so far is actually a lot more understandable than what usually comes out of our mouths, especially mine.

Guch – a generic 'ick' word. Starts with 'guh' and ends with phlegm.

'is'mornin' – this morning

Quitcher - Quit your

Tha'son'va'bitch – crying-snot-nose-speak for 'that son of a bitch'

Fuggoff – Fuck off

Voldy-dork - Voldemort

[psotu19]

Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY: Story Circle #1, January 26, 2018

ROUND ONE

Josh (moderator): Thought about this a lot. I used to travel on the west coast–went to a country fair in Oregon for a few days. Years later, I wanted to go back. Came two months before the event. There was a gatekeeper–a close-knit family. I was on the outside of it. I had to prove myself to them doing all the dirtiest jobs to prove myself. 3-day festival. Going for 8 years. This year I couldn’t go–was out here. They were such a support for me.

Casey: Coming out here for 30 years. Full-time 3 years ago. Works in financial services, Citibank. Got me out here. I wasn’t always in corporate environment. My story is a life-changing event. I worked independently. I decided to open an agency. It was a huge success, too fast. I struggled with payroll. I had to pay people working for me every week, whether or not the client paid. But my blue-chip clients weren’t paying. I had no assets, single, divorced, couldn’t get financing. Gave me a huge resentment. Had to give up the business. With that resentment, stopped paying taxes. If the government was in debt, why couldn’t I be in debt. Went to Debtors Anonymous. Changed my life. Opened idea of manifesting things in your life.

Sheila: Lives in Sag Harbor. Moved out here 16 years ago. Born and raised in North Carolina. Teaches art, is an artist. Grew up in the South, late 50s-60s, I witnessed that divisiveness, segregation, and having Trump in office, even before with Obama, you could feel the hate resurfacing. Now the light has been shined. Speaking as a teacher with high school kids, there is a lot of conservatism out here on the East End. Even amongst the liberals from the city. They aren’t budging in their thought processes. I see it in the kids. There are some great kids, but it’s there. I didn’t realize it when I came out in the summer. Living out here–you see it. Incredibly Republican and conservative. There are little pockets, but overall, it’s conservative.

Mick: Born and raised in England. Out here for 50 years. Read a book in 1962 about young people who travel. I found it interesting. A friend and I did just that. We came to America. They asked if we were going to stay, we said no–just visiting. That was spring of 1963. There was a lot not to love–we didn’t know about it. A lot was very attractive. We thought this was the place we’d spend our lives. I’ve been here 54 years. Didn’t give up my citizenship; once a Brit, always a Brit. The difference between then and now is quite amazing, quite amazing.

Jackie: Lives on Shelter Island. Out here full time since 2005. Artist.

I feel like I was totally blindsided by the election. Had no idea the country was so divided.  Grew up in the South. Sister still lives there. I was sure my niece was pro-Trump. Shocking. Weird and terrible to see the hate and nasty ways of thinking and tribalism from my niece—who’s an adult. Coming to grips with the fact that we are so divisive. Out here and in NYC it’s so liberal. None of my friends are pro-Trump. Outside, it’s strange to see there are totally different tribes.

Judy: Born in India, raised in England. Writer.

One of the things that struck me after the election was going back to England and hearing the reactions. Jokes that have sprung from it. I’m not a US citizen but I have my green card. This was the first time in the U.S. that I became a citizen. It’s been a swirl. I also go back to India. Really interesting. People there–a lot more like “well, maybe he’s a good thing for the U.S. That was hard for me, didn’t know where to go with that.

Jonathan (30): From Brooklyn, Montauk now. Was a chef, now works on music. And artist.

For 8 years, I had a big drug problem. Heroin. 3 rehabs. I’ve been clean over a year. On Vivitrol. Legal in NY State, the only place it’s legal. My stigma is that I’m an addict. People forgive addicts who are no longer with us, but not with addicts still alive. This reminds me of AA/NA. Similar.

Jon: I agree with everything Sheila says. You’re right about the pockets–mostly against Hispanics. I speak Spanish–they’re a part of my community. There is a lot of racism out here. There are communities that have been out here since the 1600s that are very conservative and set in their ways. I went to East Hampton high school. I experienced that same racism, bigotry.

Jackie: I understand that. I know it’s there. I don’t see those people, or I don’t have to see them. I’m in my own little bubble. Shelter Island, very few people of color.

Judy: You see it if you have a child in the school system. Went to East Hampton middle school. You see the bumper stickers on the cars.

Casey: I feel sheltered–I don’t see it. I’ve always felt that everyone on the East and West Coast are normal people. That everyone in the middle are different. It’s middle America and the Ozarks I’m worried about. I was raised Republican—I’ve always been an independent. I’m embarrassed by what’s going on in our country. I watch foreign tv—it disturbs me what they think about us.

Sheila: Where can we all meet? I don’t know. I hate to sound pessimistic, I think this (Story Circle) is the closest we can come to having a dialogue. With students, I try to keep politics out of the classroom. I stay neutral. They have strong opinions, ill-informed. The place to meet is with this younger generation—but they’re all so disengaged. I was pleased at the Women’s March. A lot of my students went. We can meet by starting a dialogue with our young.

Jonathan: I rap. I’m pretty big. I don’t know what kids like anymore, and I’m only 30.  

Jackie: I have no exposure to kids. No kids in my life.

Jonathan: Lucky you [laughter].

Casey: We should have some sort of standards of behavior. The way people speak to each other, name-calling. Some of the behavior our kids are seeing disturbs me.

Sheila: Kids, we’ve all had unacceptable behavior. What I’m seeing is at the top it’s being sanctioned, and it seems to be ok. It’s like the kids are mirroring the behavior—because of the president. I’m seeing bold-faced lies, in your face. I’m starting to question myself. I had a kid out for a few weeks. I asked where he was. He was in the hospital. He said, It’s ok, I just od’ed [overdosed].

Jon: How do you instill that back?

Sheila: I don’t know.

Jonathan: We also have the out-of-country theme. When I was 15 I lived in Brazil for a year. 2001. 3 weeks before 9/11. I just think back on how that experience…. Maybe this isn’t the time to send kids out of the country. [laughter]

Sheila: Forget about other countries. Kids don’t even go to the city.

Mick: I’m a documentary filmmaker. The kids I talked to say, I’ve been to the city. I went to Shea Stadium!

Sheila: More people are coming out here from the city.

Mick: All my years traveling around, I never spoke to anyone who wasn’t an immigrant. What it seemed to me talking to these people, as the generation goes from immigrant family, as they became more American. They become more and more insular.

Josh: Sum up, one word.

Judy: Pessimism–which I’m not a fan of.

Sheila: I am optimist. I see glimmers of hope with my students. Sometimes they surprise me, which is nice. They’re stressed. I see it. I have seniors SO stressed, almost in tears, over college applications. Wondering what to do with their lives.

Jackie: Are there citizenship classes in the schools?

Sheila: No–but there’s model U.N., gay/straight alliance.

Josh: We didn’t have that when I was in school.

Internationalism

Karma

Bubble

Hopeful

Tribalism/hopeful

Hopeful

ROUND TWO

Josh: I’ve been thinking about this story.

The work I do involves a lot of towns, communication with many community members, experts in the fields. I find myself in these meetings with people I align with politically, where we can work together. But alliances form–that’s the way people are.

Being new to that, I found myself where we’re constantly arguing, with one person in particular. Interesting dynamics. I agreed with him on principal, over the course of months, it go to the point where I was no longer welcome. I reached out to him today—we both said we learned a lot from each other.

Jonathan: Work now for the Ryan Show. We had a woman on the show who was running for office. She moved to the Hills in Southampton, where residents are mostly African American. Her neighbors were young kids who like to be outside, play basketball. They had a block party–she called police, used the N word. On the show, we got her and the woman she called the name in the same room. To work it out. They couldn’t. She couldn’t understand why some people could use that word and she couldn’t. It’s that engrained thinking–she didn’t understand the culture. But she did come–came alone. Trying to work on it.

Sheila: When I go back to North Carolina, there’s a real disconnect of how I feel about the state. Very right politics. NC has always had pockets of intelligence, education, from the tobacco money. It started to shift. Going back, it has gotten really red. I find I have little tolerance to have a dialogue. So, I just shut down and don’t talk to anyone. Racism has always been there. Nothing new. Blatant. Yes, there are hate crimes now, but it’s nothing like it was. If we continue with power of separatism, we could slowly inch back to that time frame.

Judy: When I moved to London from India, it was at the height of “Paki bashing”, white supremacists beating Indians. My brother got beaten up by boys with steel tip boots. Look where London is now: most cosmopolitan, most interracial. I can’t believe that when we would go to an Indian restaurant we would have to sneak out. Now, it’s nothing to go. It’s interesting how that trajectory can change.

Casey: I keep telling my daughter to watch British tv shows—more diversity. Why aren’t we seeing that here? Back to changing my life, learning tools from 12 steps. One tool was vision boards. My boss bullied me—he would tell me how to write an email! Went on for months. Couldn’t stand working for him. I started writing about how I’d like it to be, rather than what it was. I wrote every day. That my boss and I got along, it was great. We are friends now. If I had let the resentment fester, it wouldn’t be like that.

Jackie: We talked a lot about color, differences, but also, socio-economic divisions. Unfortunately, we’re not respecting of each other. I think, on Shelter Island, there’s a lot of decency, people respect each other. There are so many issues, we just have to be decent with each other.

Mick: Again, when I first came here, landing in America, waited for our green card. It was very easy in the early 60s. We had a Triumph Spitfire, steering on the righthand side. We drove through Little Rock, Arkansas. Had no idea of what was going on here. We were in outskirts, starving, pulled into a breakfast spot. Not a white person within 100 miles. We were the only white people. They were fascinated by us–our haircuts, the car. I think back, is it because we were so naïve? We felt perfectly safe.

Judy: I saw an image from a local photographer that she took at the Women’s March. Two women kissing. Really going at it. Kissing passionately. And in the background, drunk 20-year old guys with Trump hats looking at them like the world had ended! [laughter]

Jackie: I saw a photo from the March too–young men with a sign that said “we hate #us too”.

Mick: I’m hoping that something will bounce back. That my grandchildren’s generation will see things differently. I saw a change at the time people thought money was the key to everything.  My kids are struggling to keep up with their peers, so many millions being made on Wall Street. We have a house we rent out–usually to wall street guys. It’s so much money, but to them it’s nothing.

Real estate agents will say they’re renting because they’re waiting to see what happens.

Josh: How do you get younger kids engaged—use technology to connect.

Jonathan: According to kids, they are so busy, they have no time. As a musician I ask how do I STAY engaged.

Mick: Very hard not to give your kids what you want them to have. My son graduated with $240,000 of debt. I tried desperately to get my kids to take a year off and see the world before they start college.

Sheila: I don’t know how to get kids engaged. Has to be through social media or technology or you have lost them. They don’t respond to anything that isn’t connected to technology.

Mick: I don’t think we realize what things will be like in 10 years. If you think of last 15 years, I found one of those brick phones.

Mick: I was with my 6 year old grandson, couldn’t find my way to the restaurant. He said give me your cell phone grandpa. Started googling, then I heard a voice say “turn right.”  He’s six years old. It’s a different world.

Sheila: Thinking of my mom who was 93. Her father lived to 105, still walking. A couple of years after Obama was in office, I was home. She has Alzheimer’s. Obama was on the television. She asked “is that the President?” I said yes. She said, “Is there a colored president!?” She couldn’t believe it was possible in her lifetime.

Mick: My son says that if that (Alzheimer) happened to me, we’d go skydiving but I wouldn’t get a parachute.

Josh: Around the time of the Solar Eclipse, I saw pictures of kids holding up phones, that they were looking at this phenomenon through an iphone.

Sheila: If you go to a museum, people have their phones and are taking pictures of the artwork. They just walk up to the art and snap a picture and walk away. Rather than stopping and looking.

Jackie: with photography, there’s a moment where you can experience it or capture it.

[One group sang Amazing grace. Others joined in]

End.

[god-hunter]

All-New X-Men #19

Hopeless wrote a good finale!!!

Since this is late, I wouldn’t exactly say that these are spoilers, but as the cover indicates, Jean came back!!

All of our guys are hanging out at a motel, minus Laura.  Angel tells the group that she’s dealing with some “Crazy Ozark Hillbilly gangsters,” who were human trafficking somewhere else.

[jeez]

I liked seeing that this was mostly a downtime issue, and a nice aftermath breather of IvX.

As a matter of fact, that's the first thing Evan says to Idie.  “No more Inhumans versus X-Men.” and she replies, “Thank God.”

Romeo is there too, with Iceman and he makes fun of him for not being able to start a fire on a BBQ..

Cyclops is doing some strange catapult car training when Jean walks in and surprises the group with her presence.

I expected them to hug, but I didn’t expect her to be so touchy feely throughout the rest of the issue.

I liked seeing that Scott has some Post-IvX issues with Emma now.

He expresses his need to fight her, and Jean asks the bigger question about what that will really do.  “How much better do you think beating up Victoria Secret will make you feel?”

She impresses upon him that what he can take away from this was that Scott’s reputation was a lie, spread by Emma.  [Which, I don’t fully buy, because at the end of Bendis’ run, Scott was still quite unpopular with everyone.]

“Your Destiny is free and clear.”

Speaking of destinies.  The reason for Jean showing up was because Beast had news!  He wanted to tell the O5 that he figured it out.  They could go back home!!

Scott is thrilled about this!  But Angel and Iceman are actually upset to be back.

Before that though, Jean catches a glimpse of Beast using the magic to take them back, and she sees him in his ‘new’ blue horned form.  She’s really worried about that, but this definitely seems like something to be addressed later.  [I sure hope Cullen Bunn doesn’t ignore this.]

Once they’re home, its awesome to see Scott so happy, and bringing up that everything is just as they left it.  It’s interesting to see that Bobby has adjusted so well to life in 2017 that he doesn’t want to be back home in the 50′s now!

Hank’s bigger point was bitter sweet though.  And it definitely played into Angel and Iceman’s favor.  Jean seems... indifferent about the news.  More concerned with Hank’s new magic power set, to be honest.  She tries to have a private conversation with him about this and he tells her that it’s none of his business.

But like I said, his bigger point was to show them that it was all for naught.

They ended up spending all this time, attempting to go back home, only to find that nothing has changed.  Somehow [and I think I know how] when they traveled forward into the future, their past still had X-Men.

That is to say, that our current, time-displaced guys actually SEE their old selves take on Unus the Untouchable, [who is the guy they would’ve fought in X-Men #9, had Beast not yanked them into the future.]  This disheartens and confuses Scott so much.  But I have a theory.

So...  Secret Wars did 2 things, I feel.  1. It got rid of the 616 Universe, completely, and rebuilt a new version of it with a similar past (which also caters to select players of the Ultimate Universe.  Lookin’ at you Miles Morales.) 2. Because of this restructure... it made our time-displaced guys living anomaly duplicates, completely independent of their counter-parts.  Thats why when Adult Scott died, nothing remotely happened to Young Scott, while all the way back in Battle of the Atom, the two were tied together as one-another’s life line. What happened to one, would end up affecting the other.  If one died, the other did too.

So because of this restructure from Secret Wars...  Now I feel like we’ve learned something new.  Apparently Doom made it so that this world had X-Men.  Thus possibly eternally screwing our All-New team of displaced originals.

What makes it more gray is the fact that the majority of the team don’t care about going home anymore.  They’ve adjusted and have more-less found their own roles in the Future.

...Back to the issue at hand though.  It was really cool to see the O5 have a literal out of body experience.  Hank believes that, “Our timeline can’t be this one. We’d have changed everything.  It wouldn’t exist without us.”

So that means, a new theory is out there that once they were plucked from the past, a new timeline thread opened up from there.  And somewhere out there, there is a World where the X-Men never existed.  Or at least not those X-Men.  [And that is where I believe X-Men: Blue will set it’s focus in the end.  I wish. I hope.]

At this moment in the issue, Beast can’t hold the magic any longer, and is forced back to the Future with the group.  His magic form is totally exposed to Cyclops for a quick second, and not even mentioned.  The only comment is Bobby saying, “Well that was trippy.”  And that’s probably referencing the whole experience anyway.

Scott gets really pissed and insists that there’s another past that they can go to.  Hank tells him he’s tried and there’s really not.  [And yet somehow... when Jean does that mentions that later in Prime, Hank doesn’t bat an eye.]

Jean goes out to console Scott and is again touchy feely.  Upon comforting him, they actually kiss, which surprised me.  But then she tells him that they can’t get together.  Knowing everything they know.

“That wouldn’t be moving forward. That’s backward or sideways or something.”

Scott understands.

Then she tells him that she’ll always love him (which makes room for some AWKWARD ASS CHEMISTRY, if they don’t put that shit to bed.)

She takes him by the hand and tells him to leave that awkward moment behind them and join their friends.

At this point, there was nothing left for the group to do but eat and have a...  Dance party!

-Party On-

And that’s a wrap.

I really dug where this issue went.  It was surprising, and resolved something that’s been in my heart for a while.  [Are we ever gonna see this guys return home?]  So in a way, I feel like Hopeless ultimately delivered on that front from “2 Seasons” worth of wondering.  Bendis’ run (and creation) was infinitely better.  But Hopeless’ wasn’t a bad continuation after all.

I didn’t care for Idie and Evan, but they weren’t bad additions to the group.  Laura being the All-New Wolverine suited the time and made this book stick out differently.  Sort of like a next-gen X-Men sort of thing.  Even the inclusion of “Kid Apocalypse” made sense.  Idie, however was just flavor and familiarity for Evan’s sake.

Since this is late, you get the benefit of knowing what comes next.

X-Men Prime was awesome.

And X-Men: Gold was was a great follow up.

I’m hoping X-Men: Blue will be just as good.

Here’s to a new era.