How Chubby Tracked Down Hassan Coleman's Assassins

Late August

The assassination of Hassan Coleman pushed the situa-

tion as far as it could go short of war. Behind the scenes,

two missions with similar aims for opposite purposes were

set in motion. The quickly unifying Insurgent resistance

groups based in Memphis, in Ishpeming, and in Portland

were communicating constantly, putting grudges and

doubt behind them, and were working on a plan. 1) Kill

the assassins of Hassan Coleman. 2) Find and rescue Cyn-

thia Oglethorpe.

On the other side was fragmentation and disunity.

Utah and the Intermountain West were quickly coalescing

around Ben Cadez, seeing him as a young, thoughtful “con-

servative” who might challenge the increasing insanity of

Real-Prez. But many pockets were holding out. Turdashian

had his own supporters, mainly in the gated communities

of SoCal, while in deep Dixie and in various armed pockets

around the country they held fast to Real-Prez. The pro-

paganda from the Insurgency increased in volume and

frequency, and appeared to be winning the war for hearts

and minds.

Rumors began to spread about Cadez – was he ill? Still,

no one suspected that Cadez himself was addicted to the syn-

thesized Fungus made by the Howard Hughes Foundation.

Meanwhile, reports were circulating that GG was alive

and working under duress – but where and for whom?

From The Fall of It All – A History of the Big Dump

LET’S EAT,” SAID HESTER. ELWOOD WAS PULLING 
the barbecued onions and eggplant off the grill and 

piling them on a platter while Hester laid out the tomatoes, peppers, and corn.
Kip and Arkie walked up from the woods below and joined
them, and they sat around outside in the back, with their plates
on their laps.

“Did you dig the hole?”

“I’m not sure it’s deep enough,” said Arkie.

“I’ve got two bags of lime in the garage,” said Elwood. “We’ll
throw those in the hole. Then – we’re out of here tonight after we
bury them.”

“It was self-defense,” said Hester.

“Absolutely,” said Arkie.

“So I guess we are all in this – together,” said Kip. “OK, you
want to know what happened and how I got here?”

“Sure,” said Arkie. “We’ll be dropping you off in St. Louis,
and we can’t really talk in front of our driver. So what happened?”
“OK. Here’s how it went.”

So, after they shot down Coleman’s plane, things were
serious, and we got serious. The Memphis people didn’t
object when I insisted I be part of the team that went after
his killers. Because of my age and appearance we all decided
that I was the one who should do them. I mean, I had as
much motivation as anyone else. I knew Coleman, worked
with him, and as I said, it made sense tactically.

After Dashell Sketerson’s funeral, all the big shots got on
helicopters and headed out of town fast, mostly up to the St.
Louis airport. But our boys stayed around. We tracked them
to the Marriott, set up, and found out they planned to meet
some women in a downtown bar about 6:00 PM.

I walked into the Hot Shots and didn’t avoid the stares
of people who looked up and then turned away quickly. I
think looking back hard discouraged them from studying
my face. I was older, tending to fat, as you can see, and
trashy looking even for southern Missouri, deliberately
downright unattractive.

A sad song about a broken heart disguised as an old
pickup truck that won’t start was casting a gloomy pall over
the half-crowded saloon.

Behind the bar, a pretty blonde in her thirties stared
at her fone and not only ignored me but also my spotters, a
man and woman, both watching and occasionally reacting to
a preseason NFL game on the TV behind the bar. There was
an occasional whoop or shout of raw approval from the back,
but no one looked up to see what the excitement was about.
I walked by the bar and sat at an empty table, back near the
wall, facing the door.

“Wait, wait,” said Hester. “I am not glued to SwiftPad all day
like the rest of the world. I have too much work to do. What the
fuck is going on – I mean I heard about the plane crash in Mem-
phis, but what is this really all about? What the fuck is really
going on?”

Nate looked at Elwood, who shrugged and smiled a little.
Arkie, looking at his fone, said without looking up, “It is hard
to understand history when it is current events. I don’t know that
anyone can answer that question. Go ahead, Kip, but we got to get
going in about 40 minutes. Our ride is on the way from St. Louis.”

"OK, Hester, here’s the story."

****

My best friend from kindergarten, Jim Hunt, was murdered in
his own kitchen, and his pregnant wife, Cynthia Oglethorpe,
was kidnapped. You heard about that, right? Well, I was
there, helpless to do anything as she was led away at gunpoint
by masked men. I am still not totally clear who did it, but I
know they had some link to the Real-Prez junta.

Then, more than seven thousand (V)ICE wannabe storm
troopers invaded Portland. They were quickly routed and
expelled by a ragtag group of determined high-tech volun-
teers, assembled by the Insurgency. In the weeks following,
almost the entire West Coast was taken over by a loosely
organized, mostly nonviolent amalgamation of groups whose
unifying factor was extreme opposition to Real-Prez.

In Los Angeles, (V)ICE and the LA Insurgency had a
week long running freeway battle, with sudden “flash” traffic
jams, at exactly the right place and time to bottle up any
large-scale movement by Real-Prez forces. In Seattle, it was
a bloodless walkover. They read a manifesto in San Fran-
cisco that declared Real-Prez a traitor who was fraudulently
elected and therefore illegitimate. Local and state govern-
ments stepped up, and purged or isolated the Real-Prez
movement. Most of the northeast, from Richmond, Virginia,
north followed suit, but here in the heartland and South
they held out for Real-Prez. Except for Memphis and its east
bank surroundings.

“Illinois is still probably resisting,” said Elwood.

“Yeah, I hope so.”

“Shit,” said Hester. “That’s Chicago. Down here we ain’t
much different than Kentucky.”

For three weeks after the Portland Insurgency, nothing hap-
pened, just waiting, hoping life would return to normal. Then
the other shoe dropped. Coleman, the charismatic mayor of
Memphis, was shot out of the sky as his plane came in for a
landing at the Memphis International Airport. I was standing
on a balcony in my hotel room, looking out at the Mississippi,
and I felt the blast, saw the mid-air explosion and the fiery
crash. Former Army Ranger Colonel Hassan Coleman, along
with eleven others, died as they returned from co-leading
fewer than a thousand military specialists of the Portland
Insurgency to a complete victory over seven thousand (V)
ICE storm troopers. Wild rumors about who did it and why
quickly spread on SwiftPad, fueling the shock and anger
among Coleman’s supporters, galvanizing support for the
Insurgency. The assassination united the city, in fact united
the nationwide resistance to Real-Prez and his minions.
But it also unleashed something on the other side as well.

Two days later, six people at a Lawrence, Kansas rally that
was mourning Coleman, were killed by drive-by shooters.
Then that night, seventeen of Real-Prez’s most prominent
Kansas opponents, the core of the Kansas Insurgency, were
dragged out of their houses and apartments and shot in the
streets of Lawrence. Two days after that, Austin, Texas,
was declared a “lib-free zone” by militant Evangelicals, and
there were scattered reports of severe fighting and atrocities,
mainly among students at the University. Similar actions
took place in several Midwest college towns. RedHats were
striking back sporadically, with proclamations that they
were establishing “faith-based” governments.

“OK, I’m caught up,” said Hester. “So how did you kill them?”

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