“What’s Up?”

Mike Palecek

I don’t care if it rains or freezes

Cause I got my plastic Jesus

ridin’ on the dashboard of my car.

Comes in colors pink and pleasant,

Glows in the dark cause it’s iridescent,

Take it with you when you travel far.

… You have a wife and children,

and somebody says to you, ‘If you go public with

that I cannot guarantee the safety of your family.’ …

You have to choose between your

family’s welfare and the welfare of the nation,

and your story might not do that much

good. You might just be denounced as a conspiracy kook.

The press would ignore you, belittle you.

People might look into your past

and find that you had done some things you’re

not so proud of. People would learn

very quickly to keep their mouths shut.

— DavidRay Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor

Local city council meetings are the last stronghold of democracy in the United States and Michael Hokes is Davy Crockett, 

firing all his guns at once, and …

Do not go gentle into that good night

Rage! Rage! Against the dying of the light.

— Dylan Thomas

It is a dark, overcast, stormy, cold, snowy, windy evening.

Should be a good crowd.

Heading like mendicant pilgrim zombies, like rebel doggies on the prairie finally turning themselves in, toward a venerable brick building on the south end of town.

Inside the dark, chilly hall waits the worn, legendary wooden rostrum, facing like Admiral Byrd into the cold wind, sitting like Walden Pond, serene in the midst of swirling events.

For, in a few minutes the lights will come on maddeningly slowly, eventually not fully illuminating the room, not a room, a gladiator pit, a bull-fighting arena. Half-time is over and now the second half of World War II begins.

This is the Roman Forum that is the Moon Rock Lake City Council Meeting, Tuesdays 7:30 [ish] p.m. It shall be done. These apostles of Socrates will come forward to hurl their admonitions like javelins, pebbles into a pond, like grenades into a bunker, like bolts of spitball at the heavens.

An observer prior to the meeting, stepping forward to run a hand over that old pulpit will find assorted sundry scratches, gouges, graffiti, initials, in pen and pencil and pocket knife, the hands-down star a bullet nick from the meeting of July 19, 1957, according to black magic marker notaried notation.

The lectern sits astride a wooden platform, with steps like a midget gallows with one side propped with a copy of the Moon Rock Weekly Niggler of 1974, the front page filled with stories that could come from last week’s meeting, with life and death, hurricane, tornadic, nuclear-bomb stories of potholes, roof repair scammers, water bills, garbage pickup, property taxes, and dog feces mores.

Everyone headed to the council meeting heads alone, deep in their own thoughts of screaming children and spouses, sleep they will catch up on … not soon … so many hours, so many times doing this same exact thing … they are doing, right now, looming skirmishes, lives in the balance, feeling their toes squishing around inside of wet socks inside of battered tennis shoes, smelling a familiar ambient odor, a unique candle scent of kiwi-marijuana, soot? wood smoke? and some sort of cityfied livestock, hearing distant freeway traffic, now a siren, another, tires through wet street, the boomba-boomba base of over-stocked teenage vehicles pushing like fishing trawlers out into the night.

The City Council Meeting of the village of Moon Rock Lake, Minnesota, southwest of Minneapolis, population 19,997 by the most recent contested, still in the courts census, now has a pulse, as the custodian, Mr. Colovito, unlocks doors, checks the thermostat, flicks on here and there.

The red brick corner structure’s date stone on a front-facing corbel shows “1866.” Legend states that upstairs, council members used to drink and fight with each other and constituents. Bets were taken, the story goes there was a ring and blue-barreled pistols, sharp things.

See them pulling up now.

Council member John Coleman in his small foreign car, takes his upper right spot in the lot to the west, and like Rockettes on Christmas Day, thirty seconds later Trudy Myer’s white SUV careens over the little hump and takes its slot, and boom-boom-boom Barb Baker, and Mark Jenkins fill-in the gravel lot … just as Pete Lee slides his vintage red pickup neatly into the No Parking space in front.

Their attire is Moon Rock Lake casual-whatever, jeans, t-shirts, suits, dress, ball cap, no cap, t-shirts bearing sports teams, beer advertisements, maybe an inside joke from a previous council flap, not necessarily of this century.

In the waning light, highlighted in spots by Disney Snow dancing in the here-and-there still working street lamps, Weekly Niggler city beat reporter Jerry Merriweather tromps and slides, head down, shoulders attempting to shield his neck from a now icy breeze.

Before pulling on the door, Jerry says hello to two dogs and one cat hugging the wall.

“How’s it goin,’ Schwab? Hey, Osama. Hey, Bupkis.”

It is Tuesday, 7:34 p.m.

Council President Trudy Myer calls the meeting to order. Some not quite seated. There is hurried squeaking of chairs. She waits and starts again. She asks all to stand, face the flag and leads all through the pledge of allegiance, then conducts the council through an agenda that includes property taxes, streets, dogs, garbage pickup, then opens the public comment period.

The first to address the council with questions and comments talk about property taxes, streets, garbage pickup, ISIS.

A man in the third row pushes up. He boards the podium and grips the microphone.

“What up? council members?” he says. “I bring you greetings from the star children …

“Michael Hokes, a.k.a Miguel, Raoul, D.B., Son of Snoopy, Pancho Lefty, Lee Harvey. Do I need to explain all that again? I don’t think I should have to because for one thing, you’re the ones trying to …”

“No, Michael, we understand,” says Trudy Myer. “Please continue.”

“Well, there’s been another assassination attempt …

“On me.

“And this time I’m not messing around,” he says, holding up his Red Chief ransom note so the council members could see.

“I got one-a yours, this time, see.

“No funny stuff.”

“It’s a bird. It’s a plane,” someone in the rows behind him whispers.

Trudy Myer asks to see what Michael was holding.

“We do not have a council member named Red Chief,” she says.

“Yes. You do,” he says.

“No. We don’t,” she says, looking left and right to show that all chairs were occupied.

“Yeah, well don’t shoot the minister,” he says.

“You have five minutes, Mr. Hokes.

“Yeah, and somethin’ else I wanta talk about.

“The secret sound, from the radio.”

“We don’t have anything to do with that.”

“Yeah, well. I’m just not sure it should be secret in a democrat society, and the citywide garage sales. Just where is everyone going? Is there something most of us have not been told about?

“I’m serious here,” he says in reaction to snickers behind him and possible smirks behind hands by some council members.

“This is the last bastion of democracy, the city co’ncil meetin’. It’s a big deal what goes on here, that we have a chance to speak. There really is no other place.”

Tonight’s hat is a yellow hardhat, worn backwards. Michael often wears different hats to the council meetings, sometimes dressed as an astronaut, Indian chief, policeman, fireman, maybe a bandana, or John Lennon glasses. In the past he has explained to the council and to the crowd he does it because he needs to disguise himself arriving at, and departing these meetings, as well as wanting to show how everyone should have a say in what goes on.

For a while tonight he tries to sign his words as he speaks, in order to draw attention to inclusivity, even though he does not know sign language, and by this time in his presentation has abandoned that effort as being not sustainable, also needing to turn the pages on his notes and grip the microphone like a rock star, as he is wont to do.

“And, I don’t think these little old ladies,” he says as he turns to point at three women sitting at the first bench behind him, “should have to die on the street or drown like rats in the gutter just because the city refuses to keep these corners cleared. When there’s snow, and ice and it melts a little, these drains can’t keep up on some corners, like at 7th and Willow, ya know? and one of these afternoons yer gonna see (again he turns to point like a game show hostess at the same women) one-a these old women, or all three, who knows? floating around like face-down dolls in the street, arms straight out, their heels pointing up, bumping into parked cars. Mark my words. I don’t think you wanna see that. I know I don’t. Just look at ‘em. (Again, turning to gesture.)

“Five minutes, Mr. Hokes.”

“And some people are wearin’ the masks again.

“I think the co’ncil should put out a statement, a sheet, proclamation, sayin’ WTF? Ya know? With a big face, like, whaat? We’re goin’ back to that rigamarole again?

“Some people think we can just choose what to believe in … we can each choose our own reality … oh, I don’t believe in that … I believe in this, this is where I live.

“People are dying!

“How can you just choose to believe in rainbows and unicorns when the world is falling apart!

“Some people say the truth is too dark. They don’t want to see the world that way, so they just decide to see it differently, but it’s not the truth.

“Do we really have that option?

“Well, I guess some do. If you have enough money you can go vacation in Mexico, live in a certain part of town, go to concerts, movies, out to dinner, sports, and you don’t see all this other shit.”

“Michael, please.”

“And you have this happy reality while the world burns.

“There never was a pandemic. The vaccine is the pandemic, don’t you know that, by now? Genocide in Gaza is too dark. Thinking about fake phony elections is too dark. Understanding that January 6 was a big psychological operation, and George Floyd, is too dark. I just don’t get it. Why can’t you see all that?

“We all live in Pluto’s Cave, and the next thing will be this new buffalo flu.

“Bagels and circuses. You all think the U.S. is the good guys, Lone Ranger. Gunsmoke, Bonanza. That’s not the truth … and that one woman filming on Facebook in her car, sayin’ they just killed my boyfriend, while he’s right there, with his eyes closed, not dead yet, and she’s on Facebook, talk about social media addiction. You really can’t make this stuff up, but somebody does, that’s for sure.”

“Mr. Hokes, I’m afraid your time is up.

“Okay, thank you.

“You don’t need a feather fan to know which way the wind blows. Just sayin’. Our species is splitting into two separate groups. We’re on this train, well, two trains, and we came to this Y and we each took separate ways and now we’re getting further and further apart, and we’re headed toward, well, I don’t know, do you?

“Do any of you?” he said, turning behind him.

“Thank you.”

He grabbed his notes and turned to step down.