Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20A | 20B | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25-26 | 27 | 28-29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35-36 | 37 | 38A | 38B | 38C | 38D | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42-43 | 44-45 | 46 | 47 | 48-49A | 49B | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57A | 57B | 58-59| 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68-69 | 70A | 70B | 71A | 71B | 72 | 73 | 74A | 74B | 75 | 76-77A | 77B | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85-87 | 88A | 88B | 89 | 90 | 91 | 92 | 93 | 94A | 94B | 95 | 96 | 97 | 98-99 | 100 | 101 | 102-103 | 104A | 104B | 105A | 105B | 106-107A
PART V
MIRACLES
107B
In the time Marina had spent in Minneapolis, there were a lot of things Trey hadn’t told her. When he had time to write, it hadn’t been important to him, and when they became important to him, he had no time to write. She was so angry she was pacing the tiny apartment.
“And so it turned out that the cat eyeballing Carville’s wife was Charlie Carrollo’s cousin. Lazia gave Carrollo a stern talking-to about cutting innocent girls’ fingers off and almost blowing up women and children, but otherwise didn’t give a shit. He also didn’t care that Carrollo blew my windows out and killed my guards.”
“And where does Bishop come into this?!” she demanded.
“I told you. He called his marker.”
By the time he finished explaining all these things he hadn’t told her, Marina was gaping at him in horror. He was entirely apologetic, as ever, but he insisted it was the only way out.
“It is not the only way out. You can move here! We can start over again. You, me, Susanna, and Ida, if she wants to stay with us.”
“I do, Missus,” Ida put in helpfully.
Marina nodded triumphantly.
“Sugar,” he said carefully, “you do get what you want, which was for me to choose you over the speakeasy.”
Her temper flared. “Not till you were pushed into it!” she snapped. “And what about your grand plan for me to go to law school?”
She was stunned by how much it hurt to have the possibility—no matter how slight—taken away from her.
He grimaced. “I still think you’d make a crackerjack lawyer, though.”
“Now I won’t get a chance to find out, will I? Go find a hotel room. I need to sort this out.”
He looked panicked. “You gonna divorce me?”
“No!” she barked. “But don’t expect me to be happy about it.”
“You aren’t happy about anything,” he said, bewildered. “I didn’t think this could make you any unhappier than you already are.”
That brought her up short, and she looked away. “I don’t understand why you can’t just move here,” she muttered.
“I got that scholarship offer from Avila University.”
“Another thing you didn’t see fit to tell me about!”
“I didn’t mean to get it at all!” he objected. “Carville told me about it, I said naw, I’d never get that, and he did it for me anyway! How’s I supposed to know I’d get accepted, much less a scholarship? It’s a lot of money, almost like I did get a bit out of the speak, and to me, it’s just common sense. I get free tuition and books, freeing up the rest of our money to pay for medical school and last us a few years without you having to support us with dressmaking or whatnot. Not that you wouldn’t be crackerjack at that, too,” he added hastily.
She couldn’t deny that it was a grand opportunity, so the habit of being a frugal housewife was now warring with her need to stay away from the Machine and the Mafia.
Trey sighed and closed his eyes. It had taken him so long to explain everything, Susanna had fallen asleep on his chest, and it looked like he was about to fall asleep, too. “Marina,” he murmured, dead serious. But he was always dead serious. “Fact is, we owe Albright.”
That made her mad all over again. “You owe him. I don’t. I do not want to be Sister Albright. I don’t want to have that life, serving everyone but not getting help when I need it. You know what the congregation calls her?”
“Sister Bishop,” he said wearily. “I know. But you wanted a church, so … I got you one.”
“I didn’t want to get thrown into being a preacher’s wife!”
“Not a preacher,” he pointed out.
“How are you supposed to be bishop if you don’t even know enough to take the pulpit once in a while?”
He heaved a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. “All I gotta do is watch over Boss Tom’s second set of books, stop all my bad habits, and keep that godda—gosh darn boiler running. He gave me his Two Rules sermon, said I’d just preach a couple times a year because people need to be reminded. No speaking in tongues, no faith healing, no rolling in the aisles, no praise band, no tent revivals, no collection plate. Don’t even have to pray if I don’t feel moved by the Spirit.” Marina would have laughed if she weren’t so upset. “And I’ll dance with you when they have their shindigs. I’ll even learn that godda—gosh darn Lindy Hop if you want.”
“Trey,” Marina said calmly, even though she was furious and feeling trapped, “you’ve never seen what Sister Albright does. I lived with her for a month and it exhausted me just watching her. She has more energy than I ever did, and she’s a lot older than I am, and Dot barely sleeps so she does a lot that goes unnoticed.”
“So we can hire somebody!”
“Me,” Ida said. “I’d go back.” The girl flushed beet red when Marina and Trey both looked at her. She massaged the space where her fingers used to be, which she did when she was embarrassed or ashamed. “I know it’s none of my business,” she murmured, gathering her courage, “but Missus, you like helping people. If it weren’t for the girls here in the building, taking them shopping and helping them with their clothes, you would be even more bored.”
Marina, confused, said, “Bored?”
“Yes’m. You’re bored.” She paused, then shrugged. “So am I. You don’t have room to sew, the girls here all have jobs to tend in the daytime, your friend Dot isn’t here, and so it’s just you and me and Susanna and Mrs. Pedersen. Books and games and shopping only go so far.”
“We go skating all the time!” Marina protested, but deep down inside, she realized Ida was right. “We have hot cocoa and marshmallows and sandwiches … ”
Trey scowled and lifted his head off the floor. “You don’t go to the pictures or theater or vaudeville or symphony or anything?”
“What would I do with Susanna? The theater and symphony and vaudeville are evening things, the girls in the building are busy with their jobs and their beaux. I don’t want to go by myself and even though Mrs. Pedersen loves Susanna, she doesn’t want to sit her, and Mr. Pedersen doesn’t want me and Ida out past dark just in case, and this far north, dark comes a lot earlier in the winter.”
“That’s another thing,” Ida continued calmly. Marina had never heard her express any opinions at all, so the girl must feel strongly about it. “Wouldn’t you want your own house again? Mr. Pedersen is nice, but he is very strict about our comings and goings, and after all the things you did while you were in St. Louis, and all the freedom you had back home, I’ve been wondering how you can stand being cooped up like this and told when you can and can’t go out. I can barely stand it myself some days, after being on my own so long.”
It was difficult, she had to admit. “I don’t have a house anymore, Ida.”
“I’m not going to make you live in an apartment,” Trey said testily. “We can buy the Albrights’ house if you want—” Marina’s eyes widened at the thought of living in that beautiful house she had always loved. “—or we can move to Independence, close to the church building. There’s a cute house almost cookie-cutter our old one, across the street and down a bit. Same color, even. But maybe we ought to think ahead a little bit and get a big house, in case we have more kids. It’d be a drive for me to Avila, but it’s a trek from the Albrights’ to Independence, too. Six of one, half dozen of the other.”
No, the Albrights lived where they did because it was roughly equidistant from most of the members of the congregation, the church, and the farms on which Bishop’s regular patients lived. It was a big house because they had many children, and they fostered girls who were pregnant out of wedlock.
Susanna was a good baby and Marina adored her in ways she had never thought herself capable of adoring any child, but even good babies started adding up to a lot of work. She tried again. “Sister Albright has Dot. I just have me.”
“And me,” Ida added helpfully.
“Ida! Don’t you want your own family some day? You love Susanna to bits.”
Ida shook her head vehemently, though she still wouldn’t look at Marina or Trey.
“I can see why you wouldn’t, after all you’ve been through,” Trey said dryly. “That’s the ticket, Marina. Ida stays with us, she makes a living doing something she knows how to do with people she cares about who care about her, you’re not bored, and you can set up a sewing room all to yourself. Look, if you don’t wanna have any more babies, that’s fine. There’s ways to keep that from happening.”
But all Marina could see was her life stretching before her, tending the needs of the members of the congregation the way Sister Albright did, never getting to go to college, much less law school, and that … that was what hurt most of all.
“And you’d be close to Ethel,” Trey said softly.
She corresponded with Ethel as faithfully as she corresponded with Dot. Marina had spent mere hours with Ethel, but she missed her, and felt guilty that Dot was the one having to take care of her. She even missed her neighborhood friends a little bit, especially Leona Hilliard.
Trey said nothing, but his mouth was set. It was going to happen whether she wanted it to or not, and the only advantage she would have was Ida.
“Can you guarantee our safety?”
“Yes,” he said firmly. “That’s the deal. I take Albright’s place in exchange for being left alone, overseeing Boss Tom’s books, and gathering the elders to back up the Machine and Mafia if they need it. The Machine and Mafia back us up if a bunch of religious types get it into their heads to take advantage of the Extermination Order. They protect us. We protect them.”
That was what they said now …
“I won’t do it,” she pronounced. “I want to go to college and I want to go to law school, and if I have to stay here and raise Susanna by myself, that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Marina!”
“I want what I want for once!” she nearly yelled. “You wanted me. You wanted the speak. You wanted to be indecent with me. You, you, you. It’s always what you want, ever since the first time you saw me! Well, you wanted me to go to law school and made me believe I could and now you want to take that away from me and make me be a servant to three hundred people I don’t even like.”
Then she got up and walked out the door.
107B
If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.
Donations can be made here, if you so desire.
I really can see Marina’s last point.
Then she got up and walked out the door.
Maybe she does want a divorce.
Marina wants everything but without the responsibilities and worries. Nice job if you can find it.
I find it fascinating to see opposing opinions about a character. This is not a jab. I LOVE it. I know what I’m trying to get across, but each reader brings his/her own personality and experiences to the work.
Once the author releases it to the reader, it no longer the author’s work. It’s a complete mindfuck for an author.
Thoroughly Modern Marina.
“But authorial intent!”
“Authorial intent” was always an odd concept to me until I got to lit classes. I never cared. I would go on the ride the author wanted to take me on and I would like it or not, never giving any thought to what the author meant. I wanted to be entertained.
Reading a work to deconstruct it is a different animal altogether. Also, I find deconstructing a work to be vaguely vandalous, with the quiet part being, “Yes, but can you WRITE a book?” “No. That’s why I have to tear other people’s work apart.” BUT there’s still value in deconstructing a work.
Anyway. I find “authorial intent” interesting, but I don’t find it relevant to my need to be entertained.
*sigh*
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-october-26-2024/
Your taxes at work.
More please
Right? Better to send them pallets of cash and ask them super-nice to please not be mean.
Watching World Series, and a Kamala ad comes on. Not one bit of substance. The first line starts the entire narrative with a known lie. “If you want to know Donald Trump’s agenda, just read his Project 2025.” Then goes on to do nothing but 20 seconds of pure attacks on Trump, the the ad ending, “Drenaged. Unhinged.”
“I’m Kamala and I approve this message.”
Not one phoneme of substance. All character assassination atop a pure fabrication.
This is all they have. After 2020 I’m fairly black pilled about our “election” process. We’ve only had corroboration since of what we already knew about how that election was rigged before it ever even happened. But I do have some hope, even if I expect them to pull something fairly drastic if the count doesn’t favor team blue, and it’s not close enough to fortify.
It’s already election day. Everyone already knows who they would vote for. The campaigns are now trying to motivate their laziest suppoters.
Whipping the AWFLs and their beta orbiters into a frenzy is the beginning and end of Kackles and Kuck’s campaign strategy. It doesn’t appear to be enough this time around. Turns out that painting every GOP candidate since Dewey as Hitler starts to wear thin after a couple three generations.
I am sure that they have a Steele Dossier V2.0 already prepared. We would have to see of OMB is ready this time around or if he will get pantsed by the IC again.
I expect the lies and the comically inane attacks, that shit doesn’t bother me.
What bothers me is the smug assurance that they can cheat their way to another win and shut down any conversation about it by daring you to object.
So, I was reading about Kernza, a member of the Wheatgrass family, which is not really wheat, at all, and I had a wonder. I wondered: how different would have history been if mankind had first domesticated a perennial grass instead of an annual. Think about it. No need to buy or store seed. Two or more crops a year. No need to sow. Ploughing becomes a tidyness thing. Much less need for beasts of burden. No Monsanto. My mind is blown, and I’m wondering if there is a reason wheat was the grass we domesticated, or was it just chance? I figured I’d ask the smartest group of people I know. But they won’t answer my calls. Seriously, I’d like to know what y’all think.
Perrential grass does not produce calorie dense food, so it is not an efficient source of nutrition from the wild stock, so there is no reason to put effort into messing with it until you already have a food surplus. Seed-rich annuals are an easier food source to exploit and will attract those moving from a hunter-gatherer to hunter-gatherer-farmer lifestile
Thank you. So, annuals have more seeds? Or perennials use more energy to grow roots, leaving less nutrients for seeds?
Annuals need to produce more seeds as they get one shot to reproduce, while perrenials can try again and again.
Yeah, I just realized that. Common sense, but it took me a minute to see. Thanks.
Look at you learning and stuff. How have you been, DenverJ?
Good Chafed, thanks. Playing the thread for the reply, we’ll see.
I love all of this.
Thanks for asking, and UCS for interesting, topical and swift info. Bright folk, y’all
We chose the plants and animals that we chose to domesticate because they best lent themselves to domestication. Pick your species of non-domesticated thing and there is a reason for such.
In the case for perennials Uncivil is correct. Perennials produce seed volume in cycles, cycles measured in years. Boom year…several bust years then another boom. Different species, different number of years in the cycle.
Just my guess.
Families sue D.C. for ending housing aid in unprecedented case
You can’t roll back temporary measures.
I mean, you can, but then people call you names and say mean things.
Better to not start such nonsense in the first place
when I have fevered dreams I think about reestablishing FY 2008 baseline Fed budget before Bush the Lessor and the Lightbringer brought in “temporary budget increases.”
Or Rand Paul’s idea of cutting the current budget numbers by six cents per dollar. There is no federal budget anywhere that can’t drop 6% of spending and not impact the delivery of their core mission.
I dream of reducing the federal budget to pre 20th century levels.
I dream of a federal government that only consumed 2% of the GDP, like in 1939. WWII was the end of Republicanism, not the New Deal, or the Great Society.
I think you are right. Truman cut the budget when WWII ended. IIRC, and I may not, it started mildly climbing under Eisenhower (though I can’t remember why). We all know how it went from Kennedy onwards.
Threading. Chafed, because DC itself became a nucleus for money. Lots of people set up camp in an before now swamp, and the Federal government soon had it’s own constituency. With the Cold War, the government grew exponentially.
Something something to each according to his needs.
Lol. That may be their argument.
The Trump-Joe Rogan show just posted:
https://youtu.be/hBMoPUAeLnY?si=9PDRLNuDIO75yA3T
Boom. This will be watched tonight. World Series in extras now and uh.. busy.
I doubt you’ve had three hours to watch it. Any prelim thoughts or knowledge on what they actually talk about?
It’s a no limits interview. Probably great.
I can’t imagine Harris surviving a three-hour no-limits interview.
…an interview that involves talking, I should specify.
that involves talking
Oh she can talk. She’s proved very adept at making words come out of her mouth.
But yes, she’d likely stroke out if she had to do a interview longer that 60 minutes. Or even 30.
She was CNN recently with Anderson Cooper. He asked straightforward questions. She couldn’t answer basic questions. Even some Team Blue commentators were deflated.
I was watching Trump live in Traverse City, MI. That seems more compelling.
All of his sentences aren’t connected. I would like to vote for a guy that’s not 70 years old. I’m really starting to see the appeal of JFK. And Obama.
Vance?
Massie is 53.
For the record.
I’m 59.
Gen X so nope.
I’m 59.
You are overdue for renewal, citizen!
Renew! Renew! Renew!
Gen X so nope.
True, true.
Our little cohort will not have a chief executive.
As an aside: how many people are even aware of ‘Generation X’, much less have read it?
My sister gave it to me one Christmas and I devoured it that day. It rocked my world at the time. ‘Shampoo Planet’ and ‘Microserfs’ were also huge to me.
Vance was 17 years old on 9/11? Fuuuuuuck….
I was 14. The elderly politician game has gone on far too long. The world moves too quickly for older folk to adapt to domestic/ intl changes.
Problem is, my generation is fucking retarded. It’s gonna be hard, and I don’t anticipate good things.
I am kind of glad my generation won’t get a chance to beclown itself on the world stage. Let the older and younger ones fuck it all to shit.
The world moves too quickly for older folk to adapt to domestic/ intl changes.
😂
To be clear: Public opinion and tech move too quickly for older people to adapt to.
(Most of) The People are far too comfy and complacent to give a shit, or are far too busy to or too stupid to care or would rather enjoy their lives in other ways. ( <– Grg. Wish I could live be like those last ones.) It's all insanity, all the time, and the US is $36T in debt, more spent on interest yearly than on defense, yeah? And maybe 5%, with principle and thought, give a shit. Ship going down. Always happened and it always will. I am optimistic yet fearful.
My MIL, born before the Great War in small town Dakotas, was happily emailing relatives in her 90’s.
Fourscore Reminisces on ChileanSeabass Crackers: I remember getting them at Halloween time, wrapped up in a napkin, tied with a rubber band. I wasn’t impressed. Never shoped for them, that’s for sure…
“…we had to save our money for onions to wear on our belts, which was the style at the time. The important thing is, it taught us kids how to prepare a proper hobo bindle, which was an invaluable job skill when the unions didn’t need busting. Don’t get me started on bindle preparation, hoooboy, selecting the right kerchief and a pole that’s long enough but not too heavy, what to wrap up, it’s more art than science really. If I had to sum it up in one word? Paisley.”
“Gimme five bees for a quarter” we used to say
And a six pound burlap sack of quality beltonions ran three to four bees, six in The City. That’s the origin behind the title for Sex In The City, due to all the German immigrants back then.
Actually, what is the going rate for bees nowadays, is Fourscore really paying a dollar for twenty bees when he makes his annual bee purchase?
The price of bees has been steady for the last few years, in spite of inflation. The price of honey, however, has inflated commensurate with the national debt.
I don’t like candy corn either. The napkins always tore, the candy corn sifted to the bottom of the bag.
You get us. You really get us.
Keep away from my onion, whippersnapper!
This warms my heart.
So, would this mean that tubers wouldn’t have been a major part of the food supply until after the transition to farming?
Potatoes are a South American thing. I think the injuns were domesticating them since before we have no idea. Tomatoes as well. Europeans were late comers to tomatoes, Americans especially so. The Euroweenies latched on the tomato before we did despite it being a new world plant widely consumed by the Amerindians.
There are an awful lot of factors involved with any given species, each one different.
American soldiers returning from Europe in 1917 with spaghetti sauce stains on their shirts – “Hey, y’all know that tomato thingy we refuse to eat because it is injun food no self-respecting white man would eat? Yeah, the nightshade fruit which everyone knows is deadly poisonous, that’s the one. We might want to take another look at that.”
Something close to that is true for the potato as well. I think potatoes were illegal to grow in most of Europe for a long time before its cultivation was finally taken up outside of the Andes. In both cases it was mostly cultural bias.
I am not sure about the story of corn. Likely something along the same lines. People are like that. They wont incorporate something into their culture until they have no choice and hunger is a great motivator.
Isn’t a potato a nightshade also?
It is.
4M eye-talians arriving in the late 1800s would have brought their spicy meatball. Campbells has been selling condensed tomato soup since the 1890s and non-condensed tomatoes before that.
Growing up we ate a lot of macaroni and tomato soup. Meat was scarce, money was scarcer. Potatoes and bread, however, were not.
From wiki reading, probably not. Potatoes were one of the first crops domesticated in the new world. Wild potatoes apparently have taste and processing issues to render them edible.
Hilarity ensued.
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/biden-eulogizes-very-much-alive-gabby-giffords-in-speech-was-my-friend/
I dunno. He could mean she’s no longer an incredible woman or his friend. Both of which are possibly true for Kelly’s hand puppet.
Maybe it’s because *Biden* is the one that died.
Is there any possibility that Biden doesn’t pardon Hunter before leaving office? Bonus points if he issues a pardon to Kamala, Obama, and Pelosi for conspiracy and insurrection related to their coup. Double bonus points if he pardons Trump as well.
I’m combing through the Trump Rogan interview for sound-bites, and every time Trump sounds sane I keep looking at his hair…I’ve been doing this too long.
Seans late.
Happy Saturday Glibs!
☕🍳😁🍖
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oA3pESvUl3I
🎶🎶
*waves at the Hyperbole*
Waving with one finger, right?
Good morning Sleepy Heads!
Finally, Saturday and a day off. My bee partner is coming with his Benelli and try to zero again. A couple weeks ago he was shooting high and the scope didn’t seem to want to adjust any lower.
Kentucky windage is not a reproducible measurement.
Was he in the Navy? Maybe it’s mounted backwards.
For you younger guys… I used to think that way about older politicians… and there is some validity to it.
But there are reasons for picking elders to be the final arbiter. The brain changes as we age… making older folks less quick-minded…. but also embuing them with more patience and less of a propensity to war.
Beyond that, it takes a long time to see the world as it is. After a few decades, you begin to see things come back around a second or third time and you can recognize folly.
It is easy for college kids to get wrapped up in a failed and evil ideology. They have no context.
The older you get, the less you fall for that sort of thing.
It isn’t really at play in the presidential race this time, because Kamala is an idiot and she clearly isn’t running to be the leader, but to hold the position.
The rogan interview with Trump revealed a lot of things that might clarify his madness. He talks about using his bluster to bluff people into doing what he wants – he doesn’t use those words.
He talked about China building a huge auto factory in Mexico to take advantage of our trade agreements and ship cars here duty free. He said he went out and told everyone that he would slap tariffs on those cars and they would never sell a car here from that factory, and because they thought he would win, they canceled the factory.
This dude is different. Definitely not a politician.