Be Nice Page 2
“Have a good day,” Irene said.
Janey mockingly put her hands together in prayer. “Praise the Jesus!”
Janey ran outside and jumped on the back of Wallis’s hog. She kissed him on the neck and playfully bit him on his left ear.
Wallis revved the engine and shouted, “So I guess you’re still hungry!”
The BURGER BURGER BURGER joint was crowded. Young kids chowed on synth burgers and synth dogs while the over-thirty-fives manned the service counters, their medicated grins unwavering.
Janey squirted a bottle of ketchup in a wide circle. She followed it with a bright, yellow sun made of mustard. Relish made up the star clusters. She admired her creation on the table and smeared her finger through the center of the ketchup circle.
Wallis set a tray of burgers and fries down. “Girl, why you always do that?”
Janey giggled. “Because I can.”
“So you sketch anything last night?”
“Are you serious?”
“Just wonderin’.”
“Drunk as you were, I know you didn’t do shit.”
“That’s cuz I’m Be Nice for real now.”
“Yes, you are! My baby boy, he’s all grown up!”
“Hey, did you hear we got Mr. Beams and the lectures later?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, we got the field trip Monday, then the semester break, then, after that, one more year, and we are out.”
Janey pushed Wallis’s burger aside and sat in his lap. “And we def gonna be big time, supah famous artsies, right?”
Wallis kissed her. “Baby girl, me and you, we’re both gonna be supah dupah famous.”
“Me and you? Only me and you, right?”
“Girl, please. You know it’s just me and—”
At the adjoining table, a group of younger kids laughed and made “ooooh” noises.
Wallis turned to face them and threw up the Be Nice gang sign. His left hand with an okay gesture, his right hand formed an upside down peace sign.
The kids broke out of the restaurant.
John Tom Martinez puffed his black cigarette. He liked the black tar brand: the kind with the gold band around the top of the filter. He was dressed in his Italiano blue and black checkered one piece—the one with the spiked footies good for serious stomping. His dyed black hair was buzz-cut on top and faded on the sides.
“Y’all, go and eat up. Make sure you finish it all,” he said.
At the breakfast table, his mother and father went to work on sizable portions of pancakes and butter. The Martinezes were getting old, gray around the edges, and fat around the middle. Abe Robinson and Pete and Becky Tensil entered from the laundry room off the kitchen. The three of them were in their underwear, each carrying a stack of rumpled clothes. Abe, short, stocky, and Afreak, put on a white tee and cargo shorts. Pete and Becky, red-headed pale-skinned twins, put on matching green sweats and orange Protect-and-Serve shooter goggles.
Becky smiled at the Martinezes and said, “Just wanted to tell you again, it’s real, real ice of you to let us stay here, Mr. and Mrs. M.”
The Martinezes smiled.
“Yo, we def appreciate the luv,” Pete said. “Cuz our folks, they both dead and happy now.”
Abe picked up a trumpet lying on the kitchen counter. He put it up to his lips and blew a few notes.
John Tom tapped his mother on the shoulder. “Hey, did you sign my permission slip for the field trip on Monday?”
“Of course I did, John,” his mother replied.
“What was that?”
“I mean, of…of course, I did, John Tom.”
John Tom left the table. He measured six-feet-three inches.
Becky ran back into the laundry room. She returned with four black masks and turned them right-side-out, revealing the BE NICE stitching across the forehead.
There was a beeping sound from a selli. John Tom grabbed his phone from the front pocket of his one piece and checked the caller ID.
Wallis and Janey were a mile away from school when the hog’s selli beeped. Wallis slowed down to listen. Janey leaned into him, her head over his shoulder.
“It’s John Tom. Be Nice front office hit me. We gotta roll,” the selli squawked.
Wallis unhooked the selli from the hog’s gas tank. “But what about school?”
“Eff that, Wally-Wal. When Be Nice says it’s time to roll out, we roll out.”
“But what about Mr. Beams? We got the lectures later,” Janey said.
John Tom shot back, “Damn, girl, we’ll get there in time.”
“Well, where we goin’?” Wallis asked.
“This pod over on Colorado. I hear some sick-ass Sex Crimer.”
Janus Jones waited at the front door of his living pod and looked through the peephole. He nervously rubbed his sweaty palms over his prison issue pants and overcoat. He had gotten lucky. His lawyer had freed him on a minor technicality. After the brutal rape of his over-thirty-five neighbor, his pod had been tossed by the Protect-and-Serves without a warrant. You were happy if your lawyer got you off, but the battle for survival on the outside was fierce mainly because if Be Nice found out what you did, they would sure as eff come after you and beat you down. What happened on the inside? Well, there, the penal officials, they would kill you quick.
John Tom, Pete and Becky, and Abe arrived in John Tom’s H-Mobile.
They put on their Be Nice masks. The early afternoon sun made them itch.
John Tom ran a white silk cloth across the dashboard of his car. The H-mobile was his baby, his lover, the car he’d gotten for his sixteenth birthday: apple red with phat black racing tires and giant chrome exhaust pipes.
“Where are they? They’re effin’ late,” John Tom mumbled, as he checked his wrist implant.
“You know how they are,” Becky said.
Pete snickered, “Yeah, they’re prolly out makin’ the bay-bays.”
Abe leaned over the backseat. “Yo, I hear Wallis’s pop, he just got a raise over at Shelby.”
John Tom pocketed the silk cloth. “Yeah, I gots to get my pops to another W Line. I mean, his pay’s ice, but it ain’t Shelby ice. Cuz I def need me some work done on this—”
The sound of Wallis’s hog cut him off.
Wallis and Janey, already wearing their Be Nice masks, stopped next to the driver’s side. They gave John Tom and the others fist bumps.
Wallis motioned to the living pod across the street. “So what’s this guy’s name?”
“His name’s Janus, Janus Jones,” John Tom replied.
Janey yelled at the pod, “Janus! You mean, more like, Janus, the punk-ass anus!”
John Tom popped the trunk of the H-mobile and handed everyone a shock wand. “No,” he said. “It’s more like Janus right up his anus.”
Everyone laughed and hollered and bolted across the street.
Janus saw them coming through the peephole. He hesitated, gathered himself, and unlocked his front door.
The Brennan Learning Center’s athletic field was packed. Students, all over sixteen, and of every shade and size and weight class, gathered in the dimming sunlight. They talked, they kissed, they fought, they feverishly tapped their selli keys. The fashions on hand were striking: hair was styled, gelled, matted, hot-pressed, or rowed; black war boots were polished to a mirror-like sheen.
The Brennan stadium was shaped like an ice cream scoop, perfect to hold the ever-increasing volume of new students. A stage had been set in the middle of the athletic field, covering the foot-soc yardage lines marked in white. Overhead, seven giant telescreens beamed the Brennan school logo, a Roman centurion riding a hog.
Wallis, Janey, John Tom, and the others, halfway up, forced their way through the crowds offering greetings and numerous handshakes as they took their seats. A few kids fr
om neighboring Be Nice groups, Westwood and New Venice, threw up gang signs.
The giant telescreens suddenly went dark.
The chatter in the stadium transformed into cheers and whistles.
Wallis, Janey, John Tom, and the others joined in.
From an opening in the center of the stage, a platform lifted Mr. Clay Beams onto the foot-soc field. Mr. Beams was in his mid to late twenties. He had angular features, a tall muscular build, and a thick mane of long, silky blond hair. The hair was braided into an intricate ponytail: a solid gold pretzel that ran down the middle of his back.
“BEAMS! BEAMS! BEAMS! BEAMS!” the thousands of kids chanted.
Wearing a black and white one piece, Mr. Beams raised his hands in the air.
The boisterous crowd quieted.
A black, red, and yellow dome closed over the top of the stadium.
“Forget what you’ve been told. Forget everything you’ve heard. This is the real, this was The Before,” Mr. Beams said, his commanding voice amplified over the stadium’s loudspeakers.
The giant telescreens flashed on overhead. They displayed a hectic array of images of people from every continent around the world.
Mr. Beams continued. “Thirty billion of us trapped here on Earth, and the golden oldies, they told us not to worry. They told us to keep on making more.”
Grainy footage of smokestacks belching out poisons and pollutants materialized on the telescreens.
“And while we were all out making more babies, the golden oldies, they told us to stick with the greasy black oil and the filthy black coal. They wanted us to pollute the only planet we have to live on, and to keep killing one another to earn that almighty dollar.”
News clips of human suffering on the telescreens…droughts, famines, diseases, viral outbreaks.
“And how did we respond? We obliged the golden oldies willingly, naively, and, yes, even foolishly. And what was the end result? All of us…we were made to suffer!”
Stock footage of scientists at work, of rocket ships taking off, of grandiose space stations in orbit.
“We were made to suffer! And for what reason? For the oh-so-false promise of one day being lifted off this overcrowded and polluted world...and flown to the stars! But, when the economies of the world collapsed, and they could no longer promise us the stars, or even put food in our bellies, they lied to us again, and they robbed us of our land! And then the air, it became hotter! And the oceans, they became angry! And the waters we used to swim in and fish in and play in and depend on soon rose against us!”
Photos of riots, burning cities, wars being fought in forests and on city streets.
“We fought one another, we battled one another, we eradicated one another, and those who once governed us, they sat high above it all…and they watched.”
Mr. Beams waved his right hand over his head.
The giant telescreens went dark.
The slow build of a symphony orchestra.
The kids clapped and cheered.
“And when it seemed mankind could take no more…from out of the slime, from out of the mud of the wretched masses…He appeared!”
The photo of a young man wearing a black ski mask. Yellow and red letters, BE NICE, stitched across the forehead.
The kids in the stadium went ballistic.
“He was an unknown! He was a nothing! He was a nobody! But his message, it was clear! His message was clear enough for us to understand, and it was loud enough for them to be afraid of!”
The kids chanted, “BE NICE! BE NICE! BE NICE!”
“He was one human being! But he was a human being with a message! BE NICE! Apply this philosophy to all things, and evil will come crashing down! So we took to Flit, to Pace, to Jack, and to Bleep, and then we took the war, all ten billion of us, right to them! We took down the polluters who wouldn’t BE NICE!”
News footage of armies of young people, millions of them, battling their way into companies and corporations.
“And then we took down all the racists, all the haters—the low IQ plague of scum that had infected mankind!”
Still photos of men and women, of all ethnicities, being hanged from lampposts.
“And then we took on the zealots and the religious demagogues! The ones who had pitted us against one another for centuries in their endless drive for indoctrination! The same ones who told us to sit and have faith while the world died around us! They said have faith that a divine being would arrive and offer us salvation! But there was no divinity and there was no salvation!”
Footage of churches burning, of mosques and synagogues going up in flames.
“And then we took on the rich: the greedy parasites, the bastard children of the almighty dollar! We told them they could no longer hoard their ill begotten wealth, they could no longer own millions of acres of land when the teeming multitudes needed decent homes to live in! And then we stood before the entire world as one army, ten billion strong, and the world, it cowered before our might!”
Website footage of young people on the march.
“We ended the Mussie and Jewbrew nonsense in the Middle East with the power of our boots and our fists, and then we marched on Africa and India and all of Europe! We marched on Japan and China and Russia next, and then we marched on North America!”
Animated scenes of living pods popping up around the world—replacing slums and ghettos—turning swamps and tundra and deserts into habitable cities.
“And then, after Be Nice made sure everyone had a decent place that they could call home, we closeted the gods of the old ways, and we replaced them with the stars. The stars: the only things that matter! Outer space: the only thing that’s real! The sun: the giver of all life!”
The stadium became a sea of raised fists.
“It was our desire to no longer accept the old ways of hate, greed, and envy! It was our common desire to turn to our neighbors, our friends, and our loved ones and say…BE NICE!”
The kids cried out, “BE NICE!”
“And for anyone who wanted to hinder our goals, our desire for world peace, freedom, and a good life for the masses…they were met with the stomp stomp!”
The kids pounded their boots on the ground in unison chanting, “STOMP, STOMP!”
“We don’t care about your liberalism, your socialism, your communism, your conservatism, your Judaism, your Catholicism, your Hinduism, your Buddhism, your Islam, or your Christianity! If anyone dares to mention any of the old ways out in the open, and Be Nice hears about it…what will they get in return?”
“STOMP, STOMP!”
“And what did the oldies do? They gave in! They surrendered! They didn’t want their precious, little planet turned into a burning cinder! So they gave us food, clothing, big TVs, phat hybrid cars, phat hybrid hogs, and brand new war boots to keep us happy!”
“STOMP, STOMP!”
“And then we put the golden oldies on the amazing meds so they could work and earn that almighty dollar! And when each of our time comes, we will do the same, we will do what is best for everyone! We will take our meds! We will eat and drink our fill! We will smoke cigars and cigarettes and whatever we want! We will have babies only if we choose! We will live our lives as we see fit! And if we have lived right and lived well, we will pass on! Fifty-five years, as the life expecs tell us, and we will step aside, allowing the next generation to take hold! For as long as we are one people on one planet, we will do whatever we must in order to survive! And, above all else, as long as we survive…WE WILL BE FREE!”
The lights in the stadium brightened.
Space techno jazz boomed from the loudspeakers.
Mr. Beams danced on the stage and waved to the crowd.
Wallis, Janey, John Tom and the others, and the thousands of wild-eyed kids enthusiastically swarmed the field.
CHAPTER TWO
“I call him The Mighty Morphon.”
“I see. And what are The Mighty Morphon’s superpowers?”
“I haven’t figured it out yet.”
Wallis’s art teacher, Ms. Garner, looked at the superhero sketched in his drawing pad. It was a powerful superhero with an M emblazoned across his chest and an expression of rage on his face.
“Well, I guess if you named him Morphon you must have the sense that he has the power to change into something or someone else,” she said.
Wallis’s eyes darted back to Morphon. “I guess.”
“So does Morphon have a secret identity?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet, either.”
“But why does he look so angry? He can’t be angry. I mean, no one can just be angry.”
“Yeah? Why the eff not?”
An indiscernible twitch quivered on Ms. Garner’s face. “Because, Wallis, no one is just angry, because everyone is happy.”
“I know that.”
“Okay, so maybe Morphon is mad at all the haters. You know, the ones that are still hiding out there.”
“Yeah, I like that, Ms. G. That’s good. Eff all the haters.”
Ms. Garner took Wallis’s hand and affectionately held it. She smiled and moved to the next student.
Wallis turned to Janey at the back of the classroom. She was sketching; her face and nose dotted with charcoal. Wallis checked Ms. Garner, saw she was occupied with the other student, and crept to Janey’s side.
“Whatcha doin’?” he asked.
Janey rolled her eyes.
Wallis looked at her drawing. It was a crude charcoal sketch of the sun and the orbiting planets. The sun vomited plumes of black flames. The orbiting planets burned.
“That’s ice,” he said.
Janey drew a dark line of charcoal down his cheek. Wallis held her close and kissed her.
“Janey, may I see what you’ve drawn?”
Wallis and Janey moved apart as Ms. Garner positioned herself between them.