“So how goes the historic independence talks?” I asked Senator Badiah Sinclair as I poured myself another glass of water. The restaurant had the best panned-fried marleye anywhere, captured fresh from Lake Ptolemy, and a good seafood meal always left me relaxed and satisfied.
From the look on Badi’s face I could tell my question was not unexpected but also not terribly welcome. I saw a mixture of frustration and annoyance and even a little embarrassment.
“I’m not sure anymore that these negotiations will bring us independence in our lifetime,” he said bitterly. “The Earthians are playing games with us. They like collecting our taxes enough to placate us with nice words about freedom, but they don’t actually trust us with the tools of freedom and self-determination.”
“That’s what all governments are about in the end, treading that fine line between making people feel free enough but not so free that they actually have control of their own lives,” I suggested.
“Oh, you’ll always need governments to achieve justice and keep the peace,” Badi said. “But Sirius 4 needs to have our own government. I’m beginning to despair we’ll get that without guns and lasers and bombs, though.”
I let him stew a moment to make sure I phrased my response precisely.
“Badi,” I said, “In the end a just society can only be built on voluntary interactions between peaceful people.”
I didn’t think the statement was particularly funny or ignorant, but Badiah snorted dismissively.
“Come on, Ray,” he said. “while we’re at it let’s purge humanity of greed and ambition and, I don’t know, pure evil. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Earthians conjure up some sort of phony incident as an excuse to kill someone, punish us for daring to think we could survive without them.”
“I think almost everyone’s primary motivation is to lead the best life possible and be left alone,” I insisted.
“Almost everyone, that’s right,” Badi said. “You’re always going to need a government for no other reason than to keep the greedy and the selfish from preying on the rest of us.”
“You might be right,” I said, “but wouldn’t it be fun to try? And who better to try it than the pioneer stock we have here on Sirius 4?”
He looked at me as if he had accidentally stumbled into a psychiatric ward occupied by the harmless but completely daft.
“Nice dream, professor,” he said. “But it’s not a theory that would get very far in the real world.”
“Assistant professor,” I said with a grin, and we moved on to less weighty subjects, unaware that we had just roughly outlined the next nine years of our lives.
Entry 49. Like hell
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Entry 47
I did not see Badi Sinclair on a regular basis for the next three to five years, but I was able to keep up through news reports and occasional conversations. He was one of several new senators swept in on an independence platform, and Governor Silas Fredersen was many things but not stupid. The governor met with the independent thinkers, called in some emissaries from Earth and gathered them all around a table. For the next three years there were offers and counteroffers, concessions and accommodations, progress and retreat, but nothing approaching independence. If anything the Earthians were more insistent than ever that Sirius 4 remain part of the Earth system, and the Sirians were more insistent than ever that our governmental systems ought to be as separate as our planetary systems.
I am a firm believer that violence accomplishes nothing, and so for a while I had to acknowledge that the violent episode that claimed Jim Simmons’ life had moved the negotiations forward. Of course, it was not long before we learned the Earthians had merely made a strategic retreat before upping the violence ante.
One chat I had with Badi over dinner a couple of years into the negotiations should have given me all I needed to foretell the future, but it is only clear by hindsight.
Entry 48. Dinner and premonitions
I am a firm believer that violence accomplishes nothing, and so for a while I had to acknowledge that the violent episode that claimed Jim Simmons’ life had moved the negotiations forward. Of course, it was not long before we learned the Earthians had merely made a strategic retreat before upping the violence ante.
One chat I had with Badi over dinner a couple of years into the negotiations should have given me all I needed to foretell the future, but it is only clear by hindsight.
Entry 48. Dinner and premonitions
Friday, July 27, 2012
Entry 46. Happily ever after
One positive about writing your memoir is that you get to tell the story, which means you survived all of the trials and tribulations you’ve been through – at least so far. One negative is that you still don’t know the ending – that’s the advantage of simply finishing your life and letting someone else write the story. Of course, the disadvantage to that is only I know what I was thinking and feeling when all this happened.
I’m not ready to tie all of my experiences in a bow and say, “This is what my life meant. This is how the story ends.” I can choose the moment when my memoir stops, but something significant will have happened the next day – or in the interim between when I finished writing and the editors proclaimed it fit to be published. That’s just life.
(One of the many advantages of this blog process is that you can see the memoir evolve and grow. One of the many disadvantages is that I’m not writing in linear fashion. Yesterday I was a boy emerging into young adulthood; today I am approaching late middle age and the end of the book; tomorrow, I will write of another point in my life or return to one of these moments.)
Will the people of Sirius 4 live happily “ever after”? Well, we are exploring a way of life that has not been attempted for millennia – a world without rulers. We have been given a blank pad of ruled paper, and we are writing the other way. In fact, we have deliberately chosen a path where I cannot speak for “us.” I am free; I love being free; I cannot say whether my neighbor is as pleased as I am about this way of life. That is the point, really – I think I’m onto something, but never take one guy’s word for anything. Check it out yourself. I do know it has been an interesting adventure that could fill another book.
What I think most of us agree is that people have a greater understanding of how to live in peace with one another, how to police ourselves, how to cooperate toward common goals, than we and our supposed masters ever realized.
If we can keep this commonwealth – for lack of a better word – then when the time comes for me to close my eyes one last time, I will feel that my life contributed something positive to the universe. And if people decide they are more comfortable choosing someone to make collective decisions for them, at the least we offered an example of a different way – I would say a better way – for future generations to contemplate.
I am able to sit on a porch overlooking the water and watch the sun set with the most beautiful woman I have ever known at my side. Across the water and around this world, no one is forcing other people to give or take their lives or property for a cause they don’t care about, believe in or understand. I am at peace with my neighbors, I have forgiven those who consider themselves my enemies, and I have no cause to bear ill will toward anyone. Utopia does not exist, but this will do nicely.
Entry 47
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Entry 45. Coffee and memories at the watershed
Badiah Sinclair did not, to my knowledge, have any additional serious affairs of the heart for some years after our rainy midnight journey. Not that he was saving that place in his soul for her any longer – he found what he considered a more appropriate use of his passion and energy.
Truth be known, I think his personal secretary, Marilyn Ferne, had a “thing” for him, and I believe they shared a deep friendship that went no farther than an occasional drink or meal after work. In that sense Badi was more ethical than his old childhood friend who consorted with one of his students – only one, ever, and only the one who attached herself to my heart for a lifetime, but I do recognize the dilemma I walked myself into.
No, Badi had no time for such diversions as finding the other half of his soul. He was too busy fighting for an independent and free Sirius 4 – or, as it turned out, at least an independent world.
The night before he left to take his place as the newly elected youngest senator ever to take a place in the Sirius 4 Senate – well, actually it was very early in the morning before he left – there was a soft knock on my door.
“Ray? You awake?” I heard from the other side. Recognizing Badi Sinclair’s voice, I got up and opened the door.
“I couldn’t sleep, either,” I admitted, stepping aside to wave him into the apartment. “Coffee or beer?”
“Coffee is probably more appropriate, I’m taking an oath of office in six hours,” he said. I tossed a couple clumps of ImagPro into the meal machine, pressed the buttons and pulled out a couple of cups of hazelnut-flavored comfort.
“What’s up, kid senator?” handing him his cup.
“I don’t know. I just couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather spend my last couple of hours as a normal human being with.”
I snorted. “You stopped being a normal human being when you tossed yourself into the great campaign meat grinder, Badi.”
“Good point,” he said. “But you know what I mean. We’re both finished being apprentices together, and now it’s time to go off and slay dragons in our separate forests. This is the watershed moment.”
“Guess it is,” I reflected. “Although I have some apprenticing to do yet at the university starting in a few weeks. But it’s not going to be the same from today onward, old friend.”
That set something off behind his eyes.
“This will be the same – this,” he said, touching his heart, pointing at me and himself, and waving between us to indicate the friendship.
One of us would usually say something light to make such a moment less intense. I couldn’t come up with any response along those lines, so I just let the silence linger.
Then we just talked about the previous few years of growing through adolescence together. Inevitably we touched on the battle of the cookies – he did not seem to recall that I thoroughly thrashed him in my first and only foray into raging violence – the long night drive, our encounters with the opposite sex (successful and hysterically unsuccessful), nostalgic arguments over favorite films and books and songs.
The meal machine kept us soothingly caffeinated and then provided a decent breakfast. And then there was a hint of dawn through the window, and Badi rose to become a senator officially.
“Good luck, sir,” I said, holding out my hand and feeling a bit of a lump in my throat.
He looked me in the eye and said, “I love you, Ray.” Foregoing the handshake, he threw his arms around me and hugged with all his might – and, I must say, he had more might than he did when I’d beaten him senseless over a few cookies.
“Me, too,” was all I managed to say in return. That damn lump. We nodded at each other, and he walked off to become a historic figure.
Entry 46. Happily ever after
Truth be known, I think his personal secretary, Marilyn Ferne, had a “thing” for him, and I believe they shared a deep friendship that went no farther than an occasional drink or meal after work. In that sense Badi was more ethical than his old childhood friend who consorted with one of his students – only one, ever, and only the one who attached herself to my heart for a lifetime, but I do recognize the dilemma I walked myself into.
No, Badi had no time for such diversions as finding the other half of his soul. He was too busy fighting for an independent and free Sirius 4 – or, as it turned out, at least an independent world.
The night before he left to take his place as the newly elected youngest senator ever to take a place in the Sirius 4 Senate – well, actually it was very early in the morning before he left – there was a soft knock on my door.
“Ray? You awake?” I heard from the other side. Recognizing Badi Sinclair’s voice, I got up and opened the door.
“I couldn’t sleep, either,” I admitted, stepping aside to wave him into the apartment. “Coffee or beer?”
“Coffee is probably more appropriate, I’m taking an oath of office in six hours,” he said. I tossed a couple clumps of ImagPro into the meal machine, pressed the buttons and pulled out a couple of cups of hazelnut-flavored comfort.
“What’s up, kid senator?” handing him his cup.
“I don’t know. I just couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather spend my last couple of hours as a normal human being with.”
I snorted. “You stopped being a normal human being when you tossed yourself into the great campaign meat grinder, Badi.”
“Good point,” he said. “But you know what I mean. We’re both finished being apprentices together, and now it’s time to go off and slay dragons in our separate forests. This is the watershed moment.”
“Guess it is,” I reflected. “Although I have some apprenticing to do yet at the university starting in a few weeks. But it’s not going to be the same from today onward, old friend.”
That set something off behind his eyes.
“This will be the same – this,” he said, touching his heart, pointing at me and himself, and waving between us to indicate the friendship.
One of us would usually say something light to make such a moment less intense. I couldn’t come up with any response along those lines, so I just let the silence linger.
Then we just talked about the previous few years of growing through adolescence together. Inevitably we touched on the battle of the cookies – he did not seem to recall that I thoroughly thrashed him in my first and only foray into raging violence – the long night drive, our encounters with the opposite sex (successful and hysterically unsuccessful), nostalgic arguments over favorite films and books and songs.
The meal machine kept us soothingly caffeinated and then provided a decent breakfast. And then there was a hint of dawn through the window, and Badi rose to become a senator officially.
“Good luck, sir,” I said, holding out my hand and feeling a bit of a lump in my throat.
He looked me in the eye and said, “I love you, Ray.” Foregoing the handshake, he threw his arms around me and hugged with all his might – and, I must say, he had more might than he did when I’d beaten him senseless over a few cookies.
“Me, too,” was all I managed to say in return. That damn lump. We nodded at each other, and he walked off to become a historic figure.
Entry 46. Happily ever after
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Entry 44. Closing time
I just remembered how our night of beer and philosophy ended – how could I have forgotten to write down how I won the argument?
As we stood to leave, Nate Maples – like all of us comfortably numb after parching and reparching our thirst for hours – balled his hands into a fist, grinned, said, “OK, Mr. Pacifist, give me an answer for this,” and lunged forward intending to give me a hard poke to the jaw.
I stepped into his attack, grabbed his arm and used his momentum to carry him over my body and onto the floor, where I held my foot to his throat.
“A belief in non-aggression does not rule out self-defense,” I said, also grinning, and, moving my foot aside when I saw he was still smiling himself, “I’m just not going to kill you.”
Did I say I won the argument? Not so, sadly; as I’ve always said, violence only begets violence, it does not change the beliefs of the victim. Nate Maples was one of the most fearsome warriors of what we now call the imaginary revolution, and he did not live to see Earth concede our right to exist free.
Entry 45. Coffee and memories at the watershed
As we stood to leave, Nate Maples – like all of us comfortably numb after parching and reparching our thirst for hours – balled his hands into a fist, grinned, said, “OK, Mr. Pacifist, give me an answer for this,” and lunged forward intending to give me a hard poke to the jaw.
I stepped into his attack, grabbed his arm and used his momentum to carry him over my body and onto the floor, where I held my foot to his throat.
“A belief in non-aggression does not rule out self-defense,” I said, also grinning, and, moving my foot aside when I saw he was still smiling himself, “I’m just not going to kill you.”
Did I say I won the argument? Not so, sadly; as I’ve always said, violence only begets violence, it does not change the beliefs of the victim. Nate Maples was one of the most fearsome warriors of what we now call the imaginary revolution, and he did not live to see Earth concede our right to exist free.
Entry 45. Coffee and memories at the watershed
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Entry 43. Long drive to the capital
He brooded in the passenger seat. I drove. It was a dark, stormy night. I’m not trying to be a bad novelist; that’s just the way the night was: Rain pelted the ground, lightning occasionally flashed orange across the sky, and the wind crashed against the side of my vehicle and challenged me to maintain control.
Badi Sinclair mostly just stared intently into the dark storm; when I glanced his way he seemed simply to be staring into space, blankly, but his occasional words betrayed a dark internal storm that matched his surroundings.
“Dammit, I am not too intense!” he cried at one point, intensely, and I could not help laughing. He looked at me angrily, realized what he had said and how, and finally cracked a smile himself. “All right, but I’m only intense about the things that deserve intensity.”
“I’ll give you that,” I said. “I do think she has a point, but you do care about important things.”
“And nobody is ever going to love her like I did,” he snarled.
“That's a good sign – you used past tense.”
“What?”
“‘Nobody is ever going to love her like I did,’” I repeated. “Did. Not do. First sign you’re getting over it.”
He looked dumbfounded. I think he even whispered the phrase to himself again: “Love her like I did.”
That is how Badiah Sinclair processes thoughts and emotions: He holds them hard, he is passionate as anyone I’ve ever known, but when it’s time to move on, he moves on, consequences be damned. He might have “won back” the girlfriend who walked away from his intensity that night; in fact, Badi was right – when she became a semi-celebrity by virtue of having dated Badiah Sinclair before he was THE Badiah Sinclair, she gave an interview where she said no one since Badi had ever made her feel as loved.
But she told him she couldn’t handle his intensity, and so he grieved with his best friend for a few hours and moved on. It’s a quality that made him a masterful politician – he was able to accept and absorb defeat (or victory, for that matter) quickly and move on to the next urgent matter.
The one thing, to his everlasting credit, where he refused to accept defeat was in the matter of independence for Sirius 4. He intensely believed in Sirius 4’s right to choose its own destiny. That made him our greatest hero and, eventually, one of our greatest villains.
We talked about women that night, about dreams and about nothing at all; I remember almost nothing about our conversation. In fact mostly I remembered driving in the rain while both of us were wrapped up in thought and not talking at all. What I remember most is that we arrived at the outskirts of the capital city before I realized how many miles we had traveled. It was the first time we were together in the city that would play a central role in both our lives.
But we didn’t stop; not that night. We turned around and went home.
Entry 44. Closing time
Badi Sinclair mostly just stared intently into the dark storm; when I glanced his way he seemed simply to be staring into space, blankly, but his occasional words betrayed a dark internal storm that matched his surroundings.
“Dammit, I am not too intense!” he cried at one point, intensely, and I could not help laughing. He looked at me angrily, realized what he had said and how, and finally cracked a smile himself. “All right, but I’m only intense about the things that deserve intensity.”
“I’ll give you that,” I said. “I do think she has a point, but you do care about important things.”
“And nobody is ever going to love her like I did,” he snarled.
“That's a good sign – you used past tense.”
“What?”
“‘Nobody is ever going to love her like I did,’” I repeated. “Did. Not do. First sign you’re getting over it.”
He looked dumbfounded. I think he even whispered the phrase to himself again: “Love her like I did.”
That is how Badiah Sinclair processes thoughts and emotions: He holds them hard, he is passionate as anyone I’ve ever known, but when it’s time to move on, he moves on, consequences be damned. He might have “won back” the girlfriend who walked away from his intensity that night; in fact, Badi was right – when she became a semi-celebrity by virtue of having dated Badiah Sinclair before he was THE Badiah Sinclair, she gave an interview where she said no one since Badi had ever made her feel as loved.
But she told him she couldn’t handle his intensity, and so he grieved with his best friend for a few hours and moved on. It’s a quality that made him a masterful politician – he was able to accept and absorb defeat (or victory, for that matter) quickly and move on to the next urgent matter.
The one thing, to his everlasting credit, where he refused to accept defeat was in the matter of independence for Sirius 4. He intensely believed in Sirius 4’s right to choose its own destiny. That made him our greatest hero and, eventually, one of our greatest villains.
We talked about women that night, about dreams and about nothing at all; I remember almost nothing about our conversation. In fact mostly I remembered driving in the rain while both of us were wrapped up in thought and not talking at all. What I remember most is that we arrived at the outskirts of the capital city before I realized how many miles we had traveled. It was the first time we were together in the city that would play a central role in both our lives.
But we didn’t stop; not that night. We turned around and went home.
Entry 44. Closing time
Monday, July 23, 2012
Entry 42
I have been avoiding setting down my memories and thoughts about the central conflict of this whole narrative – the disillusionment and break with the best friend I ever had, Badiah Sinclair. With some trepidation, I acknowledge it’s time to stat writing those chapters.
One of my greatest sources of pride was watching my old chum lead Sirius 4 to independence. It always gave me chills (and made me laugh a little) to see the boy, who a decade earlier had skipped stones across Lake Ptolemy and earnestly debated the secrets of game codes with me, fanning the flames of liberty across a planet.
And the greatest horror of my life was watching what became of that promise.
Now I have sat at my station for 20 minutes trying to write about that horror. And I find I’m still not ready.
Let me for one more day savor the good memories ...
Entry 43. Long drive to the capital
One of my greatest sources of pride was watching my old chum lead Sirius 4 to independence. It always gave me chills (and made me laugh a little) to see the boy, who a decade earlier had skipped stones across Lake Ptolemy and earnestly debated the secrets of game codes with me, fanning the flames of liberty across a planet.
And the greatest horror of my life was watching what became of that promise.
Now I have sat at my station for 20 minutes trying to write about that horror. And I find I’m still not ready.
Let me for one more day savor the good memories ...
Entry 43. Long drive to the capital
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