A sample of Slow Boil Rising, by D.T.E. Madden
Featuring "The Trial of Reginald Bowperson"
Slow Boil Rising is out in paperback and for e-reader. Available on Amazon and via special order at your local book store.
About Slow Boil Rising
The year is 0039 of the Enlightened Era, an era where your very name could be a crime.
Rebellions rage in parts of the country, and new foreign wars are brewing.
The President, now in his 10th term, has not been seen for years. But he still responds to his email from time to time.
The U.S. Department of Internal Security – wielding power in the President’s absence – is desperately trying to find the President before rebels or rival factions within the government can.
Meanwhile, one citizen’s life is about to take an unexpected turn.
The Trial of Reginald Bowperson: 31-32 January 0039
The sound of his roosters woke up Reginald Bowman on most mornings, and the morning of January 31st fell nicely into this pattern. Winter had waned enough in the northern part of the Dominion of Missouri for Bowman to get back outside his home near the banks of the Chariton River and do the work necessary to fill his belly.
He had spent much of the last six weeks cracking his knuckles in solitude inside his home, a home that stood on stilts in a small clearing amid a lowland forest filled with burr oak, hickory, and cottonwood trees towering over mulberry shrubs and sumac bushes. The past few weeks, he only ventured outside to gather the wood he had chopped last fall for his wood-burning stove and to throw corn into the chicken coop that sat nestled in-between the stilts holding up his house.
Those stilts had kept his home safe from many floods over the years. The Chariton River was low this time of year, but it rarely behaved itself for very long into the spring. Unable to hunt or fish, much less grow any crops during the hardest part of winter, Bowman had spent the last several weeks eating preserves and honing his craft by fashioning fish hooks out of tin for both his own personal use and to sell on the black market.
After rolling out of bed on the morning of the 31st, Bowman checked the wall voltmeter that monitored the batteries fed by the solar generators on his roof. He gladly saw that the sun had melted enough snow off his roof for electricity to once again course through the walls and outlets of his home. He made his way into the bathroom and turned on the hot water faucet. After a few moments, success! Thanks to a decent solar charge the past few days, his water heater was back in business and there was water warm enough for shaving.
After a few minutes in the bathroom, Bowman had shaved off his light brown beard and felt himself presentable enough to meet his distribution partner in his secret hook-selling operation. His distributor also happened to be his wife, Veronica. Well, she was his wife in every way except on paper. Theirs was a clandestine marriage so Veronica and the kids could reside in public housing on the farm while Reginald maintained his activities in the Uninhabited Zones.
Veronica lived on the designated U.S. farm surrounding a man-made reservoir about 10 miles to the east of his river home. The U.S. farm occupied the fields and hills near the site of Macon, his former hometown. Veronica and Reginald were able to use their hooks to bribe the gate guards on the farm. And she was able to sell her husband’s fish hooks to earn extra income for their three children.
But before Reginald would meet up with his wife, it was time for a fried fish breakfast. And that meant he needed to check the trotline he had set up last evening out in the river.
Bowman had readied his canoe next to the river around dusk the evening before, and tied 12 hooks to short strings dangling off one long line he would extend out into the river. He preferred to bait his hooks with worms. After all, he designed his hooks to be the best hooks in the business at keeping a worm intact by having three barbs on each hook. That being said, he only had corn this time of year. After baiting each hook with three or four kernels of sweet corn, Bowman slowly rowed out to the middle of the river. He tied one end of the line to a plastic jug so the jug would remain floating and visible for easy retrieval later. He then tied a rock for weight about three meters down the line to anchor his trotline in place. After letting the jug float and dropping the rock, he rowed back to shore and let his hooks gradually slide into the water. Once reaching shore, he tied his trotline to the same branch on the same tree he had been using for this purpose for nine years.
He knew that some large catfish and grass carp would be finding their way up the tributaries of the Missouri River now that the seasonal thaw was well underway. And with the Chariton feeding into the Missouri about 40 miles downstream, some hungry lunkers might be passing by at any moment.
By setting out his trotline overnight, he’d be able to entice any fish that went swimming by in the moonlight with dangling kernels of sweet corn. Bowman was an experienced outdoorsman and had been at his craft for years. In his younger days, Bowman liked fishing all night long, smoking his pipe and listening to his shortwave radio.
But he was now a couple months on the long side of 30 years of age, and he knew his limits very well. Those limits would easily be tested by fishing all night in near-freezing temperatures. His trotline would give him the benefit of fishing all night without having to shiver in the cold and catch his death.
When it came time to venture outside and check his trotline the morning of the 31st, Bowman dropped a stepladder from the balcony of his house and climbed down. The smell of hickory smoke coming from his chimney was strong this morning, and he could clearly see his breath. Taking a deep breath of the smoky air, Bowman exhaled and quietly said to himself, “Spring is almost here.”
As he made his way down the foot-worn path winding through the sumac bushes to the riverbank, he paused about a quarter of the way down and saw what looked like the distinctive, small footprints of raccoons who had been out the night before. They evidently agreed that spring was around the corner.
He took a few more steps before freezing dead in his tracks. One woodland constituency that was normally very vocal about the advent of spring was conspicuously quiet. Why weren’t the birds singing? Where were the larks? The robins? The jays?
Something wasn’t right. A sumac branch snapped in the woods about 20 meters to his left. Bowman turned just in time to see the motion of something large in the trees, which were still bare of their leaves. He reached for his sidearm revolver – damn, not there. He forgot to wear it this morning, and this was no time to be slipping. Bowman turned and ran at full speed back to his house.
Within moments a female voice cried out from his right, “Halt! DETA!” He kept running.
A male voice shouted from his left. “Halt! Department of Equally Treating Animals!”
He kept running. He was just a dozen or so steps from getting back into his house, where he’d arm himself for this confrontation. Step, step, step. Bowman could see getting back would only take a few more seconds, when – snap – his momentum suddenly came to a halt. He found himself tangled and writhing on the ground.
A cleverly camouflaged rope net pulled taught between two trees did the halting. He was tangled and caught like a fish on one of his lines.
“Turn away from the sound of my voice!” a male voice called from behind him. Bowman pulled out his filet knife and began cutting at the rope to free himself. Frantically cutting for a few moments, he had his left leg free.
“Turn away from the sound of my voice!” a female voice yelled from his right. Frantically cutting, he had his left arm free.
“Turn away from the sound of my voice!” a female voice ordered from his left. He nearly had his right leg free.
“Turn away from the sound of my voice!” a male voice roared from just in front of him. He looked up just in time to see a can of pepper spray pointed at him with a stream of orange mist headed right for him.
The pain was blinding.
He felt a hood slide over his head and zip ties applied to his wrists and ankles as he heard about four voices congratulating each other.
One of the male voices spoke directly to him. “Reginald Bowman, on your feet.” Two or three pairs of hands pulled him up on his feet and turned him to face the man speaking to him. The man continued, “You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, but it will harm your legal defense if you do not affirmatively mention, when questioned, something upon which you later rely in your defense. Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, an attorney shall be provided for you. Do you understand these rights?”
Bowman remained silent a few moments, testing the strength of the zip ties on his wrist.
“Well, then. Take him away, agents. We’ll search the residence.”
Bowman spent the next day hooded and tied up in what felt like a boat, then a helicopter, then an elevator, then a very cold shower. By the time they took the hood off his head, he found himself damp and naked in a cold, dim prison cell with a neatly folded orange jumpsuit lying on a cot in the cell’s concrete corner. After the steel door slammed behind him, he put on the jumpsuit, noticing the words “Department of Coexistence” embroidered on its back.
A glowing sign loomed over the steel door with the words “You are as we describe you” emblazoned in bright orange. Taking a seat on his cot, Bowman gave his wrists a brief shake, placed his hands together with his fingertips touching, then cracked eight knuckles in one motion. His mind raced with thoughts of Veronica. She had to be worried that he missed their meeting. He could only hope she had not ventured out to the cabin to check on him only to run into the same DETA patrol that had picked him up.
The following morning, a Bailiff strapped hand and ankle cuffs to Bowman and silently escorted him to a courtroom where he cuffed him to a chair facing an empty judge’s bench. Behind the oaken bench stood two large bay windows, through which Bowman could see the top half of the Gateway Arch. Now with the knowledge that he was sitting in a high-rise courthouse in the Good Louis Habitation Zone, he sat in silence, looking out the windows for about an hour more while camera and lighting crew members set up equipment around him. A kindly looking old man in a grey cotton suit sat next to him and introduced himself. “Hi, I am your defense attorney. My name is Jamesroy. What is your name?”
Then the trial of Reginald Bowperson began in earnest.
“Oye! Oye! On this most enlightened day of the Enlightened Era, all rise in the honorable Court of Justice of the Unified Society of America, Eighteenth District of the Dominion of Missouri. Court is in session, the Honorable Magistrate Mangolada presiding.”
The most honorable Mangolada entered the courtroom, robes flowing, with a bejeweled scepter in hand, and thus took the seat behind the oak bench commanding the forefront of the courtroom.
Mangolada announced, “This is the honorable Court of Justice! All must show the proper respect to the Court of Justice of the Unified Society of America, Eighteenth District of the Dominion of Missouri. Behold my scepter, traditional symbol of justice!”
All in the court bowed, trembling before the scepter as Magistrate Mangolada banged it on the oaken altar of justice.
As the echoes of scepter banging subsided, the Bailiff announced, “Honorable Mangolada, we have before us today the case of the Department of Equally Treating Animals versus Reginald Bowman, on this the thirty-second day of January in the year zero zero thirty-nine of the Enlightened Era.”
“Reginald Bowman, Bailiff?”
“Yes, your most Honorable Magistrate of the Eighteenth District of the Dominion of Missouri. Reginald Bowman is his name.”
“That seems like a rather insensitive name doesn’t it? Bow-man.” Mangolada’s jaw shifted side to side while saying Bowman’s name.
“Yes, it surely does, your most Honorable Magistrate of the Eighteenth District of the Dominion of Missouri.”
“That name, Bow-man, would seem to suggest that the only people who are allowed to, or are capable of, using bows, arrows, and other primitive sorts of missile weaponry are men. That name symbolizes gendernormative oppression. This court simply cannot abide such nonsense. From now on, the defendant’s name is Reginald Bowperson.”
Nodding, the Bailiff slammed his fist to his chest and declared, “The most Honorable Magistrate Mangolada of the Eighteenth District of the Dominion of Missouri hereby declares the so-called Reginald Bowman to be from henceforth and so on Reginald Bowperson! So let it be written in the record.”
Mangolada rubbed the most honorable scepter and moaned a large moan of self-assurance. “That’s much better. Now no one will be offended anymore due to that rather crass name.”
Reginald Bowperson, still confused from his arrest and immediate prosecution, spoke up. “Please! Your honor, I–”
“You just showed a tremendous lack of respect, Bowperson!” the Bailiff yelled as he threw his elbow into Bowperson’s chest, slamming Reginald to the floor, blanketing him in the floor dust that had accumulated through four decades of enlightenment. Dragging Bowperson back up off the floor, the Bailiff growled, “Behold the scepter, you Intolerant! Behold the oaken altar, you Norwegian sympathizer! Call the most Honorable Magistrate Mangolada of the Eighteenth District of the Dominion of Missouri by the full title, fish killer!”
Mangolada spoke, “Let the Intolerant address this most tolerant court.”
Bowperson, trying to clean the waxy dust off his Department of Coexistence jumpsuit, pleaded, “Most Honorable Magistrate Mangolada of the Eighteenth District of the Dominion of Missouri, I have been convicted of nothing. I beg of you, please do not change my name, I am Reginald Bowma–”
Mangolada slammed the scepter upon the altar of justice and screamed, “Silence!” before kissing the most honorable scepter and whispering unto the golden rod for five seconds as if apologizing to it. The Magistrate’s gaze shifted back from the scepter to the defendant, then back to the scepter, then back to the defendant again.
“Reginald Bowperson, judging by your dusty appearance I must assume you are intolerant – intolerant toward cleanliness and tolerance!” Mangolada declared, looking around the courtroom at the facial expressions of children on field trips, senior citizens, Department of Free Speech television producers, and camerapersons before banging the scepter again. “Oh I’m sorry, Mr. Scepter, I didn’t mean it this time, I didn’t.”
Mangolada paused for a while, staring at Bowperson, sneering. The honorable Mangolada then shifted from sneering at Bowperson to staring honorably at the scepter, whispering to it again. The courtroom audience watched in silence as the whispering continued for what seemed like nearly a minute, perhaps more.
“Your honor,” Bowperson pleaded, composing himself as calmly as he could in preparation for his well-thought-out argument, an argument he had been practicing since finding himself in a jail cell hours earlier, “I–”
The Bailiff kicked the shackled man to the floor once again. “You sick Intolerant! You’re interrupting a very delicate moment.”
“It’s okay, Bailiff,” Mangolada magnanimously declared. “I can see this so-called Bowperson, if that is his real name, is an Intolerant. I mean, look at the way he is dressed, you’d think he would try to clean himself up, yet his Department of Coexistence jumpsuit is still covered in dust. That tells me he is a pig and does not clean his house.”
“Hooyah!” Defense Attorney Jamesroy cried aloud.
Mangolada smiled with a nod to Jamesroy. “I hereby sentence Mr. Bowperson to pay reparations for past damages to society. Bailiff, calculate his past wrongs indicator.”
The Bailiff straightened himself up, grabbed a notebook, and solemnly announced, “Your most Honorable Magistrate Mangolada, we have determined that due to his gender and or heritage, and lying about his name to intentionally displease the court, his past wrongs quotient is an astounding negative one point twenty-one. Negative point four based on his ethno-demographic class and for possibly being of German ancestry, negative point five due to being male, negative point zero one for having grandparents born before the Enlightened Era, and a negative point three for lying about his name. With a past wrongs quotient of negative one point twenty-one, his past wrongs indicator is therefore a whopping one point twenty-one.”
Mangolada did the math on the court’s specially designed graphing calculator. Using what judges and lawyers referred to as the “Tolerant Calculation of Intolerance to Past Wrongs Reparation Quotient Method,” Mangolada multiplied the past wrongs indicator by one hundred and added a percentage sign. The process was complete in under 45 seconds, a personal record. “So this Bowperson would therefore have to pay one hundred and twenty-one percent of his future earnings to repay society for his past wrongdoings.”
Bowperson cried out, “But your honor, I haven’t even been told what crime I am charged with yet!”
Mangolada scowled. “Simpleton, your sentence is not contingent upon your crime, thanks to the guidelines handed down by the Fairness in Sentencing Act of aught-aught thirty-two. Your sentence is based entirely on the Tolerant Calculation of Intolerance to Past Wrongs Reparation Quotient Method.”
Mangolada leaned forward and smiled. Clearly this Bowperson had never attended law school and was ignorant to the simpler realities of the world, such as the Tolerant Calculation of Intolerance to Past Wrongs Reparation Quotient Method. The magistrate continued, “But, assuming for the sake of argument that your punishment is somehow related to your crime, I will humor your ridiculous inquiry with an inquiry of my own. Were you not caught living in an unlicensed structure outside a Designated Habitation Zone? Were you not in possession of contraband weapons and paraphernalia? Were you not in possession of up to three thousand barbed hooks that speciesists once referred to as fish hooks? Guilty!” Mangolada banged the scepter again, this time visibly wincing at it.
“Bailiff, you failed to include the zero point nine quotient for having dust on his jumpsuit. This brings Bowperson’s overall past wrongs indicator to a two point eleven.” Following another brief interlude while Mangolada did the calculations on his Department of Coexistence graphing calculator, the enlightened Magistrate continued. “Mr. Bowperson, you hereby have to pay two hundred and eleven percent of your future earnings in reparations. This is in order to atone for your evil deeds and the evil deeds of the demographic class to which you belong. Your actions and the actions of those who share your physical traits have hurt our feelings and our absolute morality tremendously. For all of your murderous actions, you must pay your debt. In consideration of the speciesist nature of your crime, your reparations will hitherto go to the Department of Equally Treating Animals.”
“Please! I did nothing wrong! I was only trying to feed–”
“You lied about your name, didn’t you? And you look dirty, like you have been on the floor, and that shows a lack of cleanliness ... and, and a lack of tolerance for cleanliness!” Almost as if jolted by the word “tolerance,” the assembled courtroom spectators roared in approval.
Mangolada continued, “But it is obvious you cannot pay two hundred-plus percent of your earnings, because unkempt, dusty people like you don’t work hard enough. I mean, look at you. You are so dusty. This is the Court of Justice, does it not warrant the proper amount of respect? You know I love this scepter, for it has been the traditional symbol of justice and fairness these past decades. Because you lack respect for our fundamental and traditional values, like my scepter here, I hereby remand you to the custody of the Department of Coexistence for political re-education. You shall be assigned to sensitivity training and re-education at the Tolerance Corps facility in Freepersonsburg, Not-East Virginia. There, you shall be retrained to serve the General Will of society. You shall become a soldier in our struggle to spread the General Will. However, should you fail to meet this obligation to pay your debt to society, the Department of Coexistence has ways of collecting. I am hereby placing a lien on all of your bodily organs.”
“I’ve got my eye on your spleen, Bowperson,” the Bailiff sneered. “A spleen is a very powerful aphrodisiac.”
Get Slow Boil Rising Today
Out in paperback and on Kindle
Also available on:
And special order at your local bookstore
Sample copyright by the author. All rights reserved.