THE LAST MAN: Part Eighteen

“Kill that dog!” I slam my hand hard to the table. It smarts terribly, and I almost wince. The judges jump in their seats. Even the man from the Corporation jumps. The pain travels white hot up my arm into my shoulder, but that pain is well worth the reaction. The man from the Corporation covers a smile with his hand. He seems impressed. I am as well, at having caught them all by complete surprise. Sentinel must be furious!

“I beg your pardon?” The Man from Police gasps.

“If a man uses a dog to keep you from what is yours, kill that dog!” I assert the words of Malcolm X.

“I don’t understand,” says the Woman from Security.

“Violence!” accuses the Man from Efficiency. “The very reason humanity did away with race and religion. The inherent violence of human difference. And there you are, at the end of your argument. All that is left is violence.”

The Woman from Reproduction concurs.

“Violence is the last domain of the downtrodden,” I assert.

“Certainly was an attention getter,” remarks the Man from the Corporation.

“A subversion,” I say.

“A small victory,” he smiles respectfully, though with some sympathy.

“But a victory.”

“Indeed.”

“But to what end?” asks the Man from Entertainment. It is impossible to refrain from a smart-ass comment.

“I thought you of all people would recognize the value of theater!”

“It’s the concept of violence, which you seem all to ready to employ, that I wish to explore,” the an from Police rubs his forehead and looks over notes.

“I don’t think he was really advocating…” the Man from the Corporation begins. I abruptly cut him off.

“Indeed I was!”

“Sorry?”

“There you have it,” concedes the Woman from Security.

“Power concedes nothing without demand,’ said Frederick Douglas. There is an implicit power behind any demand, or it has no value. The only true power of the powerless is violence.”

“Or the potential for violence.”

“The same,” I say.

“So you admit to that predilection?” says the Man from Police, as though uncovering some hidden motive in my words.

“It must be a possibility when power is unbalanced,” I say. A warmth rushes through me, as though I am being cornered. It is much too late to retreat, and especially before this bunch. “”You must understand, that when your power overcomes reason and mercy, that I may rise against you, and that our very existence becomes part of the negotiation.”

“I’ll caution you about threatening the court,” the Woman from Reproduction scolds.

“I have threatened no one,” I say, “Instead I have merely pointed out that your power resides in the size and force of the state, and that I am at the mercy to your penchant for fairness. My power, all that I have in the face of the Corporation remains, if pressed, defiance.”

“May I ask,” the Woman from Security begins. Her tone is softer, almost sympathetic. She even leans as far forward as possible. “May I ask, to what purpose? Why defy and resist? Why disrupt the precise order of the society?”

Is her question a trick? She must know what I have seen. All of them surely know that I have been to the Low City, that I have seen the nightmarish scenes in the Reclamation Center, that I know the hypocrisy of the Corporation and the refuse it pretends is solid foundation. Do I argue for my existence against all that, or does calling forth their shame and infallibility only make it easier for them to get rid of me?