Son of a Whore

“Fuck me,” Trace hissed to himself, “It’s the Lyndon La Rouche mob.”

He tugged at the brim of his Rancho Vista baseball cap until it met his sunglasses and briskly pushed forward toward the green double glass doors of Border’s Books on Brand Boulevard.

Trace knew these jackals wouldn’t respect his desire to escape unscathed. They could smell his attempt at anonymity and his apathy toward the cause of their crackpot leader. One of them – a tall, gangling man in shabby blue jeans and oversized T-shirt – leaped out of his rusted folding chair near the front door of the book store and made the error of intersecting with Trace’s path.

“Sir, do you know what President Bush is doing to the Social Security system?” the man asked.

Trace stopped and pivoted on his heels until he was standing two feet away from the pamphleteer. He was probably in his late twenties. He had a long, unkempt brown beard and a head of equally unkempt and shaggy hair. Trace imagined that the book shelves in the man’s dark and sloppy apartment were probably littered with volumes on Marx and Engels and Che Guevara.

He probably likes Oliver Stone movies, Trace thought.

“Yeah, I know very well what the President’s doing,” Trace said, fishing a slender cigar out of his coat pocket and parking it in the corner of his mouth. He threw a glance at the folding table with neatly stacked pamphlets and flyers and a crudely hand-lettered sign that screamed DON’T LET PRESIDENT BUSH TAKE AWAY OUR SOCIAL SECURITY. The scrawl was downright child-like.

Why doesn’t political activism attract calligraphers? Trace wondered.

“I can’t sign your petition or whatever it is,” Trace said.

Panic seemed to visit the man’s face. “It’s very important that we don’t let the — ”

“I can’t sign it,” Trace repeated. “I’m a journalist. I’m not allowed to align myself with political causes. It ruins my credibility, my objectivity.”

“It’s not like that any more,” the La Rouche man persisted, “not with the Internet and bloggers and activism like that.”

“I’m not a blogger. I’m a writer. I can’t help you. Good luck.”

Trace stepped around the shaggy-bearded man and entered the store, forgetting what he came there for. He left after quickly scanning the new releases and started back toward the hotel. As he passed the Bank of America, a petite Latina - obviously lost in troubles of her own – pounced through the exit and shrieked to no one in particular: “Son of a whore!”

Trace stopped at a bus bench and lit his cigar. He rifled through the canvas bag slung over his shoulder until he found his pocket notebook and scribbled the words down.

Son of a whore, he thought, I’ll have to use that in a story someday.