“We the People…”

Author’s Note: This was originally written in July 2021.

The last time we were on this beach, we were lovers, defending American democracy against the encroaching communist threat. Things were so simple back then. I remember his hand in my hair, his arm on my back pulling me in, his lips on mine, the stench of Castillo Silver and Cuban cigars on his breath as he thrust his tongue down my throat. I almost longed for that simplicity again, as I was splashed by the spray of sea mist from a wave of memories.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said. He was lying. The hand that held my Parabellum aloft wavered, but that was only from physical exhaustion. I steadied it with my resolve.

“You know I have to, Frederick,” I said, as the anger began to take hold. A single remaining tear of sadness rolled down my cheek. I advanced and slapped him across the face with my standard issue. I shouted “And you damn well know why!”

He was a tough old boy, but the slap was enough to put him on his knees. It left him a sizable gash above his right eyebrow. He knew better than to fight back against me when I was angry with a pistol in hand. He had scars to show as lessons why.

Frederick motioned to the cut my sidearm left in his face. “I don’t know. Might have some memory loss from that.” He fell back to the sand with a chuckle, his arms and legs wide. I kept my weapon trained on him. “Come on, Celeste. You think all that stuff was a betrayal on my part?” He sat up and leaned on his elbow. “I was on orders, babe!” He motioned defensively, then laid back in the sand, using his hands as pillows and crossed his legs at his ankles. I kept my weapon trained on him. He said without looking at me, “If you’re gonna kill me, could you at least give me a cigar? As a last request?”

I approached him slowly. I kept my weapon trained on him. He was unresponsive to my approach. He was watching the sunset waves roll in and out rhythmically. “Sure,” I said. I slowly reached into my ammo pouch under my arm, pulled out a cigar, and said, “Here.” As I did, I kicked him in the ribs as hard and quick as I could while dropping the cigar in the sand before backing out of reach while keeping my weapon trained on him. Even though I knew I could take him easy in the state he was in, I didn’t want to give him the chance.

After grunting and groaning and coughing and grabbing the cigar, he pulled out his lighter, lit the cigar, took a few puffs, exhaled, and said, “Jesus, you don’t have to be such a bitch about it!”

I chambered a round and pulled the hammer. He became still. “As a matter of fact, I’ve been perfectly calm this entire time,” I fired a round slightly off center of mass and Frederick hid his face with his arms, “If you want me to be ‘a bitch,’” my gaze narrowed, “I can be.” I aimed my weapon at his foot. “Now you can enjoy your cigar and the rest of your short life with a bruised ribcage and your foot intact by telling me who else was involved, or you can go to hell an amputee. It’s your call, Freddie boy!”

“What?” He laughed. “You don’t have the balls.” I did, in fact, have “the balls.”

“That was for Jones in Vegas in ‘71,” I explained. “He was a good agent, serving his country, fulfilling his oath. And you betrayed him for drug money. Who else was involved?”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Frederick laughed as he ripped off a piece of his shirt to help apply pressure to his wound. “It wasn’t just a few people, Celeste. It goes all the way up.”

“What?” I asked.

“You remember those drug training videos? In the 60s? How they showed them dark folk doin’ the drugs?” he asked, still trying to get his foot to stop bleeding.

“Oh, God,” I said.

“Now, who do you think ordered the shipments of heroin and cocaine in the first place?” Frederick asked.

“It couldn’t have been Hoover,” I said.

“Speed, himself,” Frederick said. The bleeding started to slow. “It was at the orders of McCarthy. Who was doin’ it for Ike himself. All backroom deals. Back in ‘55.”

My trigger finger itched. Oh how sweet it would feel to have the hammer click against the firing pin after I squeezed the trigger. Sending round after round tearing through his traitorous tissues. His skin and muscles, bones and vessels. Perhaps one through his eye for good luck. I had to focus. Get as much intel as I could before sending this scumbag to hell. Understand that he might be lying, but some of it might be good intel. Who knows?

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” I asked.

He raised his eyebrow. “Why would I lie? I’m gonna die. You’ve already put a round in me.” He pointed to one of the scars where he got grazed by me in an earlier scuffle. “On purpose this time. And you know I’m gonna kill you if you don’t kill me.” He laid back and put his wounded foot up on the other knee, looking toward the sky. “I’ve walked this road as far as it’ll go, babe.” I wished he’d stop calling me that.

“We haven’t fucked in over seven years, Frederick.” He looked confused. “I have a name?”

“What?” He asked.

I sighed, rolling my eyes in disappointment. “Stop. Calling. Me. Babe.” I ended every word with a slight tip of my hand to remind him that I did, in fact, have a loaded firearm pointed at him and did intend to end his life soon, and if he wanted to live longer, he should show me a little more respect.

He finally looked me in the eye, down the barrel of my weapon, then back in the eye. “You make a compelling argument,” he said, holding up his hands. “I shall refrain.”

“Thank you,” I nodded gently. “Now back to the matter at hand, if you please.” My arm was burning. God this needed to end. I narrowed my gaze again to hide my pain.

Frederick seemed strangely unphased by the wound in his foot, but then again, I forgot that a previous injury left him with some nerve damage. “Well, there was Ike, and then Kennedy who started shit in Central America and here on these shores.” He pointed toward the sand with his middle finger, ashed his cigar, then continued. “Johnson carried that on. Everyone and their dog knows about Nixon due to his exceptional OpSec record. Ford and Carter did their stuff kind of under the RADAR. Our current Cowboy in Chief, though…” he trailed.

I sighed. “Goddammit.” I pulled my finger out of the trigger well, lowered my pistol. Dropped to my knees. Then to my hips. I cleared the chamber, pulled the clip, then holstered my weapon.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Frederick tried to sit up, but failed, remembering the piece of lead in his foot. His senses in that part of that leg were dulled, but not completely gone, apparently. “What are you doing, Celeste?” He had the most confused expression on his face I had ever seen.

I felt tears again. “When I became an agent, I swore an oath, Frederick,” I explained. “That oath, was to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”

“Yeah?” He asked. “It was just a job with a pension plan. I had a mortgage. What do you want? Good feelings don’t pay the bills.” He threw himself back and put his foot back on his knee. He muttered “Jesus fucking Christ.”

“And the Preamble to that Constitution, Frederick?” I asked. “What does it say?”

“How the fuck should I know? Is this a poli sci class?”

I rose to my feet, walked toward and stood over him. I recited it to him from memory. “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

He laughed. Not just any laugh. It was a deep, belly laugh. He truly thought what I said was funny. I knelt down, grabbed his shirt collar with my left hand, throat punched him with the other, and rose to my feet.

“That was for Rico, in New York at the Bicentennial Ball,” I said. “Now tell me. Have you lived up to your oath of office, agent?”

He couldn’t speak. He could only choke.

I knelt again, hit him in the abdomen with a haymaker, and rose to address him. “For Sati. ‘81. The botched raid on the Klan Compound at Sullivan Lake.” Finally, I pulled my pistol back out, loaded a clip and chambered a round. I knelt once more, got close enough to his face to kiss him, to see in fullness the expression on his face as I did it, and put one in his liver. “This one is for the American Democracy you sold out on to pay your fucking mortgage, you traitor. For all the communities you destroyed. All the lives you ended. All the years you wasted. And I’m not talking about yours.” I pulled my pistol away. Cleared it. Holstered it. Stood up. Examined my work to make sure I did it right.

“You dirty bitch,” he coughed.

“Whatever,” I said. “Enjoy your final fifteen minutes alive, fascist fucking pig. The Nazis were on orders, too.” I kicked him in the ribs again. “Maybe twenty if you apply pressure.”

I turned and walked away. American Democracy might have been a sham. But I’m not. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was finally starting to get to what was real. I knew I was going to have a hell of a time explaining to the Cubans why they should believe an FBI Agent with literal blood on her hands, but I figured that once they heard it was the blood of another FBI agent, they might be more amenable to my ask of political asylum. All I knew was this: tomorrow was the dawn of a new day and I was more than ready to greet it with open arms.

***

EDITOR’S NOTE: Find out what happens next in “We the PR Disaster“!