Politically Justified
What do you justify for your tribe?
Politically Justified
“Hey, Bruce, are you sure you want to marry a Current?” his friend asked, taking another drink of beer.
“Why not? Our votes will cancel each other out exactly the same if we are married or not. She’s the woman for me.”
The email remained on the screen. The link was there, bright blue and inviting. Bruce’s pointer hovered over it. All it would take is a click. He had heard about these sites on the news, but this was his first invitation.
Bruce,
Do we have something exciting for you? Are you tired of the evils that the Currents bring to our nation? Their invasion of your liberties? Their perversion of your children? We are exacting revenge one Current at a time. We think you will recognize tonight’s guest. Come join us.
See you soon,
Friends of the Bridge
Bruce clicked the underlined blue text, entered his bank information on the payment page, and waited. A few minutes later, a new email was in his inbox. It contained a date, time and a simple link. The show time was 8:00 p.m. that night.
The guilt grew inside Bruce throughout the day. Every moment brought a new pang of doubt, shame, and fear. His wife was a Current, after all. She never seemed evil. Ignorant at times. Misguided, but not cruel. What if it were her on the page? It wouldn’t be. She was home with Bruce, safe.
By 8:00 p.m., his wife was in her own office, next door to Bruce’s. Once again, Bruce hovered over the link. He’d already paid for it. He’d already supported it. There was no reason to miss the show.
He clicked the link.
The room was bright white, but the lighting was soft. In the center, a man was strapped to a chair. Several figures moved around the room, covered head to toe in black spandex. A table covered in various imposing instruments rested against one wall.
A narrator broke the silence. “This is Congressman Donald Spaulding. For years, we had thought he was a stalwart of our freedom. Last week, he decided to break ranks with the Bridges. As we see it, he’s now just another Current.”
One of the men in black spandex picked up a green hose. Small strands of silver twine ran through it. He turned to the man in the chair and swung it across the man’s bare chest. The screams erupted through Bruce’s headphones. Shocked, Bruce ripped them from his head and threw them to the floor.
The rest of the men in black picked up instruments from the table. Bruce didn’t put the headphones back on for the rest of the video.
The next morning, Bruce sat at the kitchen bar, a cup of coffee in his hand. He stared out the kitchen window into their manicured flower garden. He couldn’t get the images from the night before out of his mind: crimson blood splattered across the white room and the black spandex.
After the video, he had spent time researching Congressman Spaulding. Bridge Media had very little good to say about him. His most recent vote had solidified the perception that he was always a Current plant. Bruce smiled with one side of his mouth as he thought about the man’s last breath.
His daughter, Nancy, sat next to him. For a moment he worried she’d know what he’d been watching.
That’s when his wife came into the kitchen. “Did you hear that Congressman Spaulding was killed last night? It’s about time he got what was coming to him.”
“I agree, Ruth, but I’m surprised to hear you say it,” Bruce said.
“He’s spent years trying to push Currents out of office. He wants a one-party state.”
“Then why did he vote to support the Currents’ resolution last week?”
“What are you talking about? One vote doesn’t make him a Current.”
Bruce slammed his mug onto the counter. “So much for my relaxing morning.”
Nancy dropped her spoon into her cereal bowl. “Ugh. Why are you two always talking about this stuff?”
Bruce found the next invitation while checking his personal email at work. When he got home, he clicked, he paid, and he watched.
And then came the next email.
Then another.
Then another.
Soon, he didn’t see blood at all, only exciting pops of color against the contrasting canvases. The headphones stayed on his head for the entire event.
He was now what they called a regular viewer.
One night, Bruce had skipped the feed. He stood at the open refrigerator door. “Ruth, Nancy, where is my orange juice?”
Ruth called from her office, her voice muffled by the closed door, “I threw it out. Drink the one that’s in there.”
“Why did you throw it out?”
“We aren’t supporting Bridge companies anymore.”
“Well, they still got the money. All you did was stop me from enjoying the juice.”
Bruce took the carton of orange juice out of the fridge and poured it down the sink. When he turned from the sink, Nancy’s face stared from the threshold.
Nancy grimaced. As she spoke, her rainbow braces caught the kitchen light. “Real mature, Dad.”
Bruce said, “You’ll understand when you are older.”
“What’s to understand? My parents are wasting juice to spite each other.”
“Nancy, this is about protecting the future. Your future. Do you understand what this country would look like if the Currents get their way?”
Nancy rolled her green eyes. “Bridges, Currents. I don’t really see a difference.”
Coming home from work, Bruce recognized the show instantly. “Do you have to watch Current Update in the living room?”
Nancy looked at her parents’ faces and scurried off to her room.
Ruth said, “Why don’t you watch Liar News in your office?”
“I don’t want Nancy exposed to Current lies.”
“There is never a lie spoken on the Current Update.”
“Just last month, they claimed that Bridges are hunting Currents in the streets!”
“You think they aren’t?”
“Sometimes I wish they were.”
Soon, even a simple sporting event on TV was cause for tension.
The ball game was on the TV. Bruce was only half watching when the umpire made a call against his team. “Typical!” Bruce said. “Of course, a Current would miss an obvious call in favor of Boonville.”
“Boonville is a Bridge town,” Ruth called from the hallway.
“Boonville is run by BINOs.”
“What the hell is a BINO?”
“Bridges in Name Only. They are undercover Currents who try to make us look bad.”
“When did you become a conspiracy theorist?”
“When conspiracies started turning out to be true. Ever hear of the Gulf of Tonkin?”
The fighting didn’t end until the couple stopped talking. They would come home, spend time with their daughter, and retire to separate offices. Most nights, their marital bed lay empty.
Alone, Bruce spent more and more time online. He joined several Bridge-based chat rooms, and it didn’t take long before he wondered how he could have married a Current at all. He spent far too much time fantasizing about seeing Ruth in that white room.
It should have been obvious she’d abandon me.
He tossed his phone onto the dashboard. It skipped off the soft plastic and smacked into the windshield. The window shuddered but didn’t crack.
He grabbed his phone and walked into the house.
Ruth sat alone on the sofa. She scrunched her brow. “Where is Nancy?” she asked.
“I know you are lost in the Current, but it’s Tuesday, you pick Nancy up on Tuesday,” Bruce said.
Red-hot ash rolled up Ruth’s cheeks as she frantically poked at her phone. She looked at the screen, then nodded and turned it to Bruce. The words on the screen were plain.
I’m picking up Nancy today.
It was from Bruce’s number, but Bruce hadn’t sent any texts to Ruth in over a month. Electricity ran through Bruce’s body, and his vision narrowed. There was nothing but those words on the screen. “I… I… I… that wasn’t me,” Bruce said, his voice shaking as much as his hands.
“What are you talking about?” Ruth demanded.
“I didn’t send that text.”
The couple used to text continuously throughout the day. This never could have happened even a month before.
The police found nothing.
Bruce found nothing.
Ruth found nothing.
Each parent blamed the other.
Weeks went by, and every night Bruce would drive through the town. He didn’t even know what he was looking for anymore. Nancy, of course, but what could he find that might lead him to her? He had no idea.
At a stop sign, his phone dinged. He picked it up, opening his email. He hoped this email would lead to his daughter. But he had no such luck.
It was an announcement for another Current Retribution show. He looked at the time; if he headed home now, he could make the show. He wasn’t going to find Nancy that night. Perhaps watching a Current get their due would be a good distraction.
The room was dark, sans the bright white of the screen. Bruce leaned back in his chair, putting his feet on the desk. A smile spread across his lips for the first time since Nancy went missing.
In the chair was a small figure. A child. The blue jeans and plain white shirt did little to give away gender. The shadowy men moved around the room, organizing their tools.
The narrator said, “Today we have something special. Question: How do you change a parent’s mind? You kill their child. This is the daughter of a major Current supporter.”
One of the men held a razor strop. He moved behind the figure and pulled off the mask. Dark brown hair, deep green eyes, a grimace revealing rainbow braces. It was Nancy strapped to the chair.
From the neighboring room, Ruth screamed. The anguished sound moved effortlessly through the walls and stung in Bruce’s ears.
Without a thought, Bruce rushed into his wife’s office. Ruth lay on the floor, tears in her eyes. An overturned computer chair lay beside her. On her monitor was the same stream Bruce had been watching. It was the same announcer, but the words were different.
“Her father has spent a small fortune supporting Bridges murdering Currents. We have to hit them where it hurts.”
“How could you!” Ruth sobbed.
Bruce stood frozen.
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