Peripheral Visions: 06.01

"Peripheral Visions: They shimmer darkly in the fringes, there to see for those who look. Turn your glance there quickly or you won't see them... until it's too late."

06.01

She lay on the floor bruised and sobbing, bleeding from her broken nose, her smashed mouth, and her... wherever.

Win looked down at her with disdain. "Stop your goddamn crying," he said harshly.

Her response was a noisome wail. He rose from the bed, took a quick step toward where she lay in a crumpled heap, and delivered a kick. Her sobs turns into a yelp and then, breath knocked out of her body, she gasped in silence.

Win sat on the bed and went back to buttoning his shirt. "Dress like a slut, get what you obviously wanted, and now you fuckin' cry about it," he muttered, then reached for his tie.

He slammed out of the motel room and walked across the parking lot to his car, leaving her to find her own way home.

It was all part of the plan, of course. A brusque exit would suggest he had no intention of seeing her again, much less tracing her activities and spying on her through the phone-tapping software he'd uploaded when she opened one of his emails two weeks ago.

He'd had time to refine his plan since then. Tracking her movements, listening in on her conversations, and covertly activating her phone's camera to catch glimpses of where she was, what she was doing, and who she was with had allowed him to formulate the right time for the implantation of his seed. She had a sister who was married to a corporate executive; the two of them had the sort of girl-talk conversations that he knew signified the kind of sisterly bond that would defy the law.

Her sister's name was Janine; Janine's husband was Richard. They had three kids – Joshua, 11; Tracey, 9; and Devon, 6.

Win went over these relevant details in his mind as he started his car and pulled out of the lot.

Women were such easy marks, and so gullible, Win told himself. He sometimes marveled at the delight he took in exploiting them, but really, there was no other rational way to feel about it. They were vessels for the children of men, and they were portals for the ambitions of men; that was what God had put them on Earth for, and Win was nothing if not devout.

"Praise the Lord," he murmured, as he navigated the car to the highway and sped into the night, heading back to Galveston.

***

The next eight weeks proceeded as he knew they would. The nasty woman – Win thought of her that way, refusing to think of her by name – realized she was pregnant only after the six-week mark had already passed. Win monitored her text messages, emails, and phone calls with Janine and felt a thrill when the nasty woman sobbed the news that the "rape" – that's what she called it, the ungrateful harridan – had resulted in a pregnancy.

Janine had heard all about the "rape" by then, of course, and had encouraged the nasty woman to go to the cops about it. But the nasty woman was a little more street smart than her sister; she knew that the cops weren't going to help her. The evidentiary bar was simply too high. Even if she'd gone to a hospital and tried to get a rape kit procedure done (which she hadn't; it would have been a waste of time, since hospitals didn't want to risk getting sued for $100,000 or more for providing rape kit services), all he had to do was tell the cops that the encounter had been consensual.

He had his narrative all worked out. The bruises? The bloody nose? The ripped clothing? She'd been too hot to handle, tearing her own clothes off and then ripping at his, as well. He had the shredded shirt to prove it. After their bout of passion, she'd demanded money. When he told her that he didn't reward extortion attempts, she'd started hitting him. He hadn't wanted to strike her – he'd done everything he could to fend her off without having to hit her – but then she had pulled bear spray from her purse, and he'd had to grab her wrist. She had struggled but refused to let go of the bear spray until he'd twisted her wrist to make her drop it. That's why her wrist was bruised. Then she had picked up a lamp and tried to smash it over his head. He'd responded in the moment, striking her in the face... just once, not the five or six times she claimed. "I was in fear for my life," he could say. It always worked. It worked for the cops; it worked for him, too. It worked for any man, any time.

And it worked when Win shot those three Black teenagers. They had been walking down the street joking with each other and laughing loudly. It was the laughter – so raucous, so feral – that had triggered his fear and panic, Win told the responding officers. "I knew they were looking to get me," he said, "so I had to be the one to strike first."

The state's "Stand Your Ground" law, bolstered and enhanced by a ballot question in 2028 to help drive midterm election voters to the polls, ensured that Win's story would shield him from all consequence, including being named on legal documents, police reports, or in the media. And really, there was nothing to report; the cops didn't dare so much as arrest him. Win simply gave his statement and walked away.

But the three dead bodies weren't the point of the exercise. The larger goal was the inevitable protests that followed. The protests were peaceful, but the militia members they drew were not. Violence broke out. Looting and burning followed – most of it perpetuated by the militias themselves, of course, but that's not how friendly media outlets spun it. The state's year-old anti-riot laws kicked in, and Win was all set to file citizen litigant paperwork.

By the time Win was done suing protest organizers and participants, he'd made his first million. It was a lot of work and a lot of strategizing; he'd been careful about selecting his targets since, after all, he didn't want to sue anyone white unless they were antifa, and he didn't want to waste his time going after poor people with no means of paying the $12,000 minimum reward, plus legal fees.

In the end, though, he had added two white militia guys to his slate of cash cows. It was a profitable decisions; they had rich dads, very rich dads with high-profile reputations and high society clients. Very rich dads who didn't want a lot of extra media attention. They were so anxious to settle out of court that they were happy to pay Win directly... five times as much as the legally-mandated minimum, in fact.

It was a betrayal of the principles Win had assumed he operated by, but once the checks cleared he realized he was shackled by fewer principles than he'd initially assumed.

His new career as a citizen litigator was an education even for him. And it was certainly an eye-opener for Janine when the cash money and the plane ticket she provided to the nasty woman so that she could fly out of state and procure an abortion in New York opened the door for Win's lawsuit targeting her and Richard. Win would have been happy to accept a payout – maybe thirty thousand in this case, since Richard didn't have such a high profile – but Richard had played it stupidly and insisted on going to court. He lost, of course, and between the extra-large award Win scored ($24,000) and the legal fees, Richard was out more money than if he'd just accepted Win's offer to settle up like civilized men.

The even bigger payout, of course, came from the airline. The company hadn't realized it was "aiding and abetting" an abortion –�one that involved crossing state lines, no less, which could have triggered a federal criminal investigation under brand new national laws – but the airline didn't waste time pleading ignorance. It just didn't want to risk the bad press or a boycott.

***

Win worked the same profitable legal angles for the next few years, inciting two more so-called "race riots" – god, he loved the right-wing press! Always so ready to blame the Blacks any time the militia guys showed up with assault rifles and Molotov cocktails – and getting four more women knocked up... women with rich family members and some naïve idea that they could get away with an abortion.

To that number, he added two women who'd had "miscarriages." He found out about them through a section of the Dark Web that trafficked private medical records. Win wasn't sure if the information being sold originated with doctors or nurses or hospital administrators, but once he found a reliable vendor whose claims were supported by court-subpoenaed official medical records, he stuck with them. There was really no downside, of course – the law protected those who brought lawsuits, even spurious ones – but Win was in a hurry to bulk up his war chest and had no time to waste on legal action that didn't pay out, and pay out big.

The medical records indicated that the miscarriages were genuine, but the courts had been stuffed with ideologues, not with doctors; judges and juries didn't care about minor details. All they heard were claims about unborn innocents and murderous men in white smocks, and that was sufficient to guarantee Win's payday.

It was a busy few years, both for Win's burgeoning bounty hunting and for the country at large. Massachusetts passed a law that made it legal for private citizens to sue perfect strangers anywhere in the state for joining militias or hate groups. That worried Win at first, because if the hardcore fascists started turning against the lawsuit mandates in one state, that could pave the way to legal challenges that would unravel the whole scheme of legal vigilantism. If the courts went the wrong way and the social tide turned, the politicians would be no help; Win could easily see how the pandering politicos would fall in line, in a laughable display of meek demeanors and full-blast strongman rhetoric. That was the problem, he sighed, as he lay worrying and awake over the course of many long nights. Politicians with no spines were convenient, but they bent too easily with every change in the cultural headwinds.

But the Supreme Court – stacked seven to two, thanks to the Senate Majority Leader's refusal to allow two vacant court seats to be filled until a Theopublican president was sworn in – struck down the Massachusetts law. Then it struck down similar laws from several states that targeted Evangelical pastors who exhorted their followers to commit street killings (or, as they put it, "direct justice") of sodomites and loose women. The Supreme Court also nullified laws that opened gun manufacturers and ammunition companies to citizen litigants, as well as state laws that went after polluters. The Court didn't even bother to explain its rationale for voiding those measures while leaving other state laws alone. Win's favorite outcome was when the Court struck down an Oregon law against right-wing rioters while carefully avoiding the nullification of laws in the Southern states that targeted Black protests. Win approved, partly out of principle but mostly because he'd have lost at least two million dollars over the next four to six years if the Court hadn't managed that trick.

***

"The problem," Benny the pollster explained to Win, "is that Democrat voters don't like the way you've made your money in general."

"I don't want their votes," Win said.

"Yes, well, and that wouldn't matter except that a lot of the conservative voters don't like how you went after those militia guys back in the early days of your..." Benny hesitated for a split second. "...social correction activism."

Win sighed. He cursed himself for the hundredth time for having been so short-sighted. But then he cursed the ignorant voters he was courting for not having the short attention span and the unquestioning loyalty to his extremist promises that he needed them to have.

"So what can we do?" Win asked Benny.

"Well, you've gotta keep hammering away on the basics: Freedom, morality, and the right to be white."

Win's ears pricked up. "Say that again?"

"You have to keep going after culture issues. There's no upside to emphasizing economic issues or foreign policy, so – "

"No, that other thing. 'White rights?' "

"The right to be white?" Benny asked.

Win nodded slowly, his face a mask of malice and glee. " 'The Right to be White.' Yeah. Yeah!"

***

That five-word slogan unlocked the doors that Win needed to open... including the door to the governor's mansion.

That was where things got interesting.

It took a lot of careful parsing, a lot of creative fact-making, and a lot of bald-faced lying, but those were all strong skill sets for Win. He had plenty of willing collaborators in the state's government and in the megachurches as he set about maneuvering Texas into the position where it was poised to secede. There was a general expectation that Win would remain in the governor's mansion – which was now scheduled to become the president's mansion when the State of Texas officially became the Independent Republic of Texas. That expectation was only heightened by Win's announcement that he would order a wall to be built not only along the Texas border with Mexico, but also the Texas border with the United States. The entire state was to be safe, secure, walled off, walled in, and sealed: An oasis of common sense, white privilege, and male superiority.

What no one knew yet was that Win was getting ready to resign as governor, relocate to another sucker state, and run for the U.S. congress. A few years hence he'd be aiming for the White House. Win dedicated a lot of thought as to how to deal with Texas once he was the president of the U.S.A. Declare war on the traitors? Levy sanctions? Send in the CIA to destabilize Texas' already-fragile social structure?

Win came up with one detailed scheme after another for how to destroy Texas and add to his personal fortune while doing it. He was smiling almost constantly these days.

***

"Just remember," the head of his security detail told him, "we're pulling you in after two hours – two and a half max. It's too hot to let you schmooze and glad-hand any longer than that."

Win nodded. The man was right: It was only June 1, and already it was obvious the coming summer was going to set new records for heat.

He'd just have to sweat it out. He didn't have any other choice. The presidential campaign wasn't going as well as Win had expected it would. He'd said all the right things, offering his unstinting support to the nation's brave police and military (which were essentially the same thing these days), inveighing against the so-called "free press" (he'd even coined a new term: "Mendacity Media"), and promising to repatriate "foreigners" – that is, people of color, as well as Jews – to whatever lands they came from, no matter how many generations their families might have been in the U.S.

Add in a few clever slogans... campaign buttons reading "Win with Win!," a line of T-shirts depicting female members of Congress (all Democrat, of course, because the newly emergent Theopublican party knew better than to put women in positions of power) with the words "Lock Her Up!," and six different flag designs that combined the Stars and Bars with Win's own likeness – and he should already have had the nomination in his pocket.

But he didn't, and that rankled him. He wanted to pretend that the problem was the huge amount of competition: The Theopublicans had fielded a slate of 24 prospects. But he knew there was more to it than that. Tempting as it was to sample his own wares and smoke the same deceptions he fed the voters, Win knew he had to face the truth: His candidacy was far from assured.

But that was no way to think. Win rejected such defeatism and focused on the future he wanted. Once he became the official Theopublican nominee, he reflected, gerrymandering, voter suppression, legal vigilantism, and Election Day violence would take care of the rest. Even the militias had forgiven him for his earlier missteps. As for the megachurch pastors and their continual thundering about morality and sexual purity... well, they were more interested in his promise to be a stalwart friend in the Oval Office than they were troubled by stories in the Mendacity Media about numerous female accusers who claimed he'd raped them, deliberately impregnated them, and then exploited stringent anti-abortion laws to make money off their families.

But while he had support from cultural influencers, their influence wasn't working. The voters weren't catching fire for him. And it wasn't because of the female accusers – right-wing voters still shuddered to recall the so-called "Me Too" era; they had nothing but contempt for women who didn't know their place and accept it graciously. Rather, his problems lay with the "false friend" narrative that the Democrat party had conjured up, painting him as unreliable and selfish for having abandoned Texas.

Even worse, Russia – talk about a false friend! – had turned its cyber-meddlers against him. Win had assumed, after so many years and so many elections in which Russia put its thumb on the scale for right-wing candidates, that they would throw in behind him, too. But, no: Russia was manipulating social media and pulling off computer hacks and informational leaks that helped the Dems and hurt his campaign. Their backstabbing made it clear that the Russians didn't care about the candidates or their policies. They only cared about creating and then exploiting divisions among America's people.

There had to be a way to secure the support of the voters, Win thought as he headed to the podium for today's first speech. It was staged outside of the burned shell of what had once been a women's health center: The perfect setting to remind America of the ground that godly righteousness had recovered in the country over the last couple of decades.

It wasn't the best speech. In fact, it was the same tired shit every candidate was peddling: Criminals freely entering the country and bringing the next pandemic with them, which would lead to another three-year, freedom-killing imposition of masks and vaccinations. Women who thought they had a right not to get married when an eligible suitor of faith knocked on her father's door. And, of course, the goddamn gays, who wouldn't learn to go back into the closet where they belonged until they were rounded up and shot.

It was all true, of course, except for the ways in which none of it was true. America's borders had been sealed to immigration for years now, though there were always conspiracy theorists out there who could be energized with tales of corrupt border guards taking bribes, or stealth planes from China and Latin America parachuting invaders into the country's heartland. As for women failing to honor men's Right to Marry, well, twenty-six states now had laws on the books enabling private citizens to sue parents who didn't acquiesce to any legal marriage demand made on a girl of thirteen and older. Some states had ballot questions that proposed lowering the marriage age to twelve... even eleven, in one or two cases. The next election could open entirely new avenues toward greater national godliness, and Win was excited to be part of the coming wave of real reform.

If only he could pull it off...

Win raised his voice to stress the right words ("godless socialists," "illegals," "nasty women,") and delivered the expected "get tough" rhetoric, promising the death penalty for debtors and chronically unemployed slackers who refused to comply with corporate conscription. The crowd cheered, but it wasn't the massive crowd he wanted, and there weren't even any protestors getting beaten up. There was little to excite a swing voter, generate headlines, or otherwise make Win stand out from the crowd.

His thoughts were grim, but his face was all smiles as Win greeted supporters after the speech. He did take heart, as always, when he saw how many militia members were among the turnout. One militia guy in particular caught his eye: A skinny dude with even more gear covering his face than most. A bandanna covered his mouth and nose; goggles covered his eyes; a camo hat was pulled as low as it could be over the goggles. The guy carried two assault rifles and was also packing two .45 pistols on his belt. His camo shirt and trousers were covered in patriotic patches – a "Don't Tread on Me" snake, a circle of 13 stars from the Betsy Ross flag, even a golden T to commemorate the return of an exiled president for a second, then third, term... a gold T that was embossed on a scarlet red patch to signify the bloodshed that the militias had helped the police bring to bear when libs and dark people and other anti-American criminals took to the streets for their illegal, unconstitutional, and anti-Christian protests.

The crowd of supporters swirled, a miasma of body armor and billy clubs, military-style clothing contrasting with naked male torsos painted in red, white, and blue... there were even a few horn-helmeted guys wearing Viking-style fur tunics. The Theopublicans really were a broad tent, Win thought, looking out over the crowd.

And in their midst, bobbing ever closer in the sea of humanity, was the eye-catching militia guy. Win started watching him, wondering if the guy was trying to get to him, wondering what story of salvation and hope he would hear. Young men approached him all the time with their tales of woe: Girls wouldn't sleep with them. Their no-good liberal parents had kicked them out after they ended up in juvie. The corrupt cops cracked down on them for taking it on themselves to protect the neighborhood from people with sinister skin colors. They did drugs and stole shit, yeah, but that was no reason to get fired from whatever no-paying jobs they had been working.

Win endured the endless litanies of grievance just to get to the part where the guys would offer their thanks and praise for offering them a sliver of hope, being the one man in power who noticed, who cared, who stood up for them...

It was heart-warming, but sometimes it went too far. On a couple of occasions Win had to get his private security workers to hustle clingy guys away. One or two had gone into meltdowns at that point, screaming about being betrayed by the Texas Two-stepper, as some late night comic had called Win. The security guys had taken care of those head cases quickly and efficiently, managing to make it look like antifa had done the killings, but Win didn't like the risk that came with such drastic daylight measures. If he ever became president...

No, he corrected himself. When he became president.

When he became president the first thing he'd do – the very first thing, even before mass arrests targeting the last holdouts among the Mendacity Media and the Democrat congresswomen – would be an executive order to track down and round up all anti-government insurgents. It would cost him some political capitol, of course; disappearing hundreds of thousands of protestors and academics and women's health providers was going to deprive professional vigilante litigators, such as he had once been, of easy moneymaking opportunities. Win was acutely sensitive to this fact. But he had to think in the broadest possible terms, and he had to weigh each decision's short-term perils with the odds for long-game success.

And all he had to do to become president was get the party nomination.

But how was he going to do it?

One supporter at a time, Win reminded himself. One cop, one military man, one preacher, one gullible mark at a time.

The militia man with all the gear and patriotic patches was getting closer. Win stretched out a hand, waved people aside, cleared the path.

"Well," Win said, when the young man finally stood in front of him. "It's always good to see patriots of quality turn out."

The man, his face still covered and his eyes barely visible, nodded eagerly.

"What's your name, son?"

The young man raised a finger to request patience, and then began to remove his head and face coverings. As his features emerged, Win realized that he looked familiar... but he couldn't place him...

Until the last bandanna came away from the young man's lower face and he realized the young man was actually a middle-aged woman.

In fact, it was her,,,

Win flashed back to that night more than a decade earlier; that night in the motel: She had been crumpled on the floor, bleeding, crying...

"Hello, asshole," she said, raising a hand that clutched one of her two .45s, and squeezing off a round.

She only managed one shot. The crowd pounced. Within seconds she had been reduced to wet pulp, her limbs separated from her body, her skull leaking a mixture of grey matter and thick red blood.

Win lay on his back, dazed. The bulletproof vest had done its job, but the kinetic force of the impact, especially at such close range, was powerful.

Win fought to get breath back into his body, flashing back again to the night, that glorious night when he'd put his plans into motion. The seduction, the detailed and fictitious promises, the kick that had left her gasping silently...

Now Win gasped silently in his turn, his mind a blur of panic. What questions would this raise? How would it look, being shot by the foremost of the female accusers? It would make him look weak; he'd be showered with ridicule and lose all credibility... My god, he thought, this is a disaster!

But then he heard someone cry out, "He's fine! It's a miracle! God stopped the bullet!"

In those words, he heard his next great political slogan – "God Stopped the Bullet." A vision flashed before Win's eyes: A white background, the red wavy stripes of the American flag flanking the straight red path of the slug, and the words in confident, triumphant blue lettering:

"06.01: God Stopped the Bullet!"

It was bullshit, like all great political slogans, but it had the ring of victory about it.

It was in that moment the Winfield Kirsch knew he would succeed.

And when he did, his greatest enemy, the greatest enemy of all men like himself – Democracy – would perish.

The 20th anniversary of 9/11 brings a look back to that day. A curious warning offered by a strange man to a Boston police detective proves prescient; but when he realizes that the warning... and others that follow... aren't intended to help him prevent terrible events, the officer begins to wonder what his role is supposed to be as history unfolds. Be here to grasp the mysteries of the "White Lily!"