Smartystan

The home, at least, looked modest. Drooping roofs and some tiles of the roof remained humble, meek. The entire structure spelled “average” or “regular.” Vergara peered out of his window in his cramped study. All of the details had to be in place to make it seem as if he lived his life as an everyman. That he headed the ACA did not mean anything when it came to showing his support for the people in the organization. Yes, he wore nine hundred dollar shoes and three thousand dollar suits, but he cast off such footwear and apparel to appeal to his constituents.

He still felt sore from the encounter with Dr. Strong. He never showed it, though. He stayed in his study, going over notes and messages that he selected on a digital tablet. The tablet itself may have been too advanced and sophisticated for some of the people he functioned with, but he didn’t care about some things. Some things remained connected to his abilities that he tried to hide. For this, he succeeded. Most of the people in the group rationalized everything away. The SUV convoy that carried Vergara to his destinations, the food he ate with dignitaries, all of that got brushed off. “You can have a little bit of luxury, can’t you?” Someone would say. It would be someone but the masses in the ACA gathered together like one great chorus and sang a song of great reflection relating to their leader.

Vergara read the news about the woman who had been caught robbing from Dr. Strong. He even felt relief. In all of their differences, they didn’t harbor any ill will against the other. He decided not to call or contact Dr. Strong in any way. He opted to remain silent on the issue, neither admonishing him of future occurrences or admiring his backbone amidst a difficult situation.

He held the tablet up and looked at the face of it. He turned off the device. He saw his visage in the black void of the screen. He looked at his face. It had been pockmarked. The signs of heavy drinking had taken its toll on his fifty-eight year old face. He struggled to smile at the image that reflected back at him. Then he tossed the device. He leaned back in his chair and looked out of the window. He felt an intense pain in his head. This headache didn’t subside so he journeyed to the medicine cabinet for some aspirin. He didn’t have a drop of potent potables in the house. His decision to quit drinking came to him as a warning his body told him: “If you don’t give up, I give up.”

He returned to his study. Vergara turned on the device again and studied the ideas of Smartystan. He noticed that there had been an uptick in new arrivals since going there. That meant some came from the ACA. No sense of disheartening registered on his conscience. There existed a good thirty thousand members in his district. Like a warrior bruised in war but ready to fight again, despite his ill-equipped stance, Vergara fought on with recruitment officials just to keep his numbers in good standing. He soldiered onward to some pinnacle of understanding himself and those that surrounded him.

He still felt pains in his arm and other areas of his body due to the knife that pierced into his skin. Valencia walked upstairs to see how her husband fared.

“You’re writing, right?” She asked, curiosity jumping into her voice.

“I’m––what is it, dear?”

“I’ve got some empanadas down here.”

“Give me a few moments.”

“Yes, sir.”

The trad wife that Valencia had been formed to be went along with the average life. She had graduated with a degree in foreign policy from New Sweden University. When she saw how the class system had been rearranged, she shifted her entire focus to include the consideration of the poor (rather than the productive poor) and wanted to show that she was average, too. She returned her degree and became a trad. Vergara looked at this as a high honor. It took him some time to realize it, but he made it clear that what he wanted from Valencia was obedience and a lock step approach to marriage. Sure, she could say what she wanted, be she would pay for it in restricted TV time or loss of meals. Vergara sneered. Once more, he picked up the tablet and began to write down his thoughts.

The words didn’t come in dribs and drabs. It was an outpouring, a purging of his soul. He prepared his next speech before the ACA with gusto. The scent of the empanadas now entered his room. Though faint, he could tell that they were both beef and cochinita pibil. This didn’t hinder him. He continued on, piercing through the piece as if he had to do this or he’d die. In his head, he still ached, his chest still gave him pain, but he knew he had to complete this draft and continue on his mission. The ACA wondered what happened behind closed doors in Smartystan. For being a state adjacent to the new nation, they had been ironically the last to know about the goings on that took place there. Vergara never breathed a word about it but most people knew that he had exited an impasse at best when he returned to Maryland.

For him to be exceptional both intellectually and physically, he had to continue to shroud himself in the sheet of misdirection and misunderstanding. He tried to reconcile with the fact that his sense of duty to the people that provided funds for his own sustenance and his ability to live his mixed life, it drove him to type even more. With every letter, it was like he was an alchemist using words as chemicals to concoct a special elixir. In his thoughts, he felt the truth laid bare on these digital pages and continued to show his prowess. He put a period at the end of a sentence and washed up for dinner.