“Did you hear they’re plotting?” Bluesy said to Maurice. “They think they can… plot their way to victory.”

 

Maurice, rarely gun shy, pursed his lips together and kept quiet.

 

“They’re plotting in the plants, Maurice. There’s an upswell being manufactured by the proletariat.” 

 

“The who?” Maurice tore his gaze away from the muted greys of the ocean and settled squarely upon his Uncle. Bluesy was ugly. He looked like he’d been sticked by dynamite. His hair was thinning, dusty brown and life-tussled, clinging wearily to his scalp like a man palming a ledge.

 

“The proletariat. The working class.” Bluesy said.

 

“That’s an odd word, prole-whatiot. Makes me think of horse racing.” Maurice replied. Maurice had dropped out of school in the fifth grade. His natural good looks had earned him modeling contracts with agencies and studio time with artisan workshops all throughout the city. Now, he worked in one of the plants. He barely knew how to read a granola bar recipe. 

 

“You’re thinking of Secretariat. The horse, Secretariat.” Bluesy affirmed. His eyes crawled all over his nephew’s slack-jawed expression. Maurice was an idiot. But the magnificent and magnetic power of the object of his beauty had spared him. His unproofed laughs and donkey smiles were sought after in important social circles. Everybody likes when a beautiful person laughs at their jokes.  

 

“That’s right. So, we’re talking about people–not horses.” Maurice grinned. 

 

“The people are plotting. The horses are plodding, probably.” Bluesy winced out the druthers of a banal witticism, flexing what little God had gifted him–brains.

 

Maurice chuckled and patted his Uncle on the back. Bluesy couldn’t help but to feel a little warmed by this gesture. Maurice may have been an idiot, he thought, but the young man knows exactly when to laugh. 

 

“What are they plotting about, Unc?” Maurice asked.

 

“Who knows. They’re not read, so it may be violent.”

 

“And if they were read?”

 

“Reconfiguration.” Bluesy muttered. He searched the ocean for a boat, a pelican, driftwood. His old eyes found nothing, and so continued yearning.

 

“So, you must think unread people are responsible for all the revolutions in the world, huh.” Maurice said. Bluesy rubbed his brow; he despised his nephew’s syntax. No–the syntax of his nephew.

 

“It’s not read people. It’s people who are read.” Bluesy said.

 

“Same difference.” Maurice replied flatly. Then, unsure, he grumbled timidly, “Right?”

 

“Correct. Not right. Your word choice is abominable, too.”

 

“Say, what’s gotten into you, Unc? Everything a-ok?” Maurice wrapped a strong arm around Bluesy. Bluesy felt the muscles in his nephew’s pectorals pulse and strain. The image of a horse’s vascular neck leaning for an inch or two at the Preakness flashed into his mind. His nephew, he thought, was more horse than human in many ways.

 

“Yes, yes. I’m fine. Would you like a carrot?” He picked up a carrot stick from a server’s tray and dangled it out in front of Maurice. Maurice instinctually accepted it.

 

“You’ve always been a very healthy eater.” Bluesy said to Maurice. “I’ve always admired that about you.”

 

Maurice brightened.

 

“Thanks, Unc. That made my day, you saying that.” He chomped on the carrot. It tasted sweet and felt good on his teeth. He wondered if Bluesy washed his carrots.

 

“Do you wash your carrots, Bluesy?” Maurice asked. A shadow crossed his face. 

 

“Without fail. Say, Maurice. If you make your way over to the plant, will you inquire about what the proletariat is plotting about? It occurred to me that I–we–ought to know what their concerns are.” Bluesy, masking any strategery lurking behind this askance, measured his words out coolly. 

 

“Unc–aren’t you never supposed to end a sentence in the word are? You said that to me once. I’m sure you did.” Maurice finished the carrot and, with new eyes, assessed Bluesy. Again, he thought–his Uncle was very ugly. And yes also, he surely wasn’t very smart either.

 

“You little–. The nerve to–. Yes. You’re right, Maurice. I misspoke.” Bluesy replied.

 

“I’m not going to be your spy.” Maurice said. Bluesy noticed the slack-jawed expression that had so uniformly, so commonly, affixed itself to his nephew’s face–the face of his nephew–it had suddenly disappeared. A vivacity, a keenness, leapt out of his eyes and seemed to penetrate, squeeze, critique Bluesy’s mind without bothering to leverage even the proxies of interrogation or observation.

 

Bluesy remained silent. Wise people, he had been told, know to use silence like a weapon when a weapon like silence is called for. 

 

“It’s happening, Unc. The people in the plants–they’re all read. These people are reader than you think they are. They know things about life, Unc. And they’ve got a vocabulary to have a say in how it’s going to go, everything, how everything’s going to go, now and in the future.”

 

“Do they now?” Bluesy paced away from Maurice. These, he thought, were his nephew’s words. But they seemed to have snuggled up with somebody else’s ideas.

 

Maurice said nothing.

 

“Are you a part of the revolution, Maurice?”

 

“I don’t know, Unc. You tell me. Can such things be read on the face?” Maurice closed his eyes. Then, suddenly, he laughed. His eyes shot open. Bluesy thought they looked grey, like the ocean. 

 

“And who’s to say it’s a revolution they’re plotting on? Who’s to say they’re not plotting on a renaissance?”