Looking Backward from the Tricentennial

Chapter Forty-Four

The bus dropped the eight of them off three blocks from Charlotte's warehouse. Alvin set the pace, leading them with long strides, and they made their way through the city streets. Julian was struck by how clean everything looked. He fell to the back of the pack with Carlton, content to follow as he absorbed a few more memories of the tricentennial. "How are you feeling?" the gray-haired man asked.

Still riding high on agape love, Julian could only smile uncontrollably. "Sid,"—the professor's given name was not a familiarity, but a necessity in his blissful state—"I have an incredible sense of well-being."

Carlton clapped him on the back. "Promoting your general welfare, eh?"

A joyous laugh escaped Julian, prompting Ray and Idabee, walking close together, to peer back at him. Words followed: "I love you, Sid."

Carlton looked upward, letting the warmth of the sun fall squarely on his face. When he was sufficiently energized, he said, "Thank you, Julian; I can see that. Now I can tell you why you—CJ—failed before and why Reverend Shaver succeeded."

"Why?" If the professor had been holding out on him, Julian wanted to understand the man's motivation.

"CJ had all the mechanical details for the American Union—the legislative package, the game theory, the election returns, the principles of nonviolence, and so on. It was enough to convince me and many others, even if it didn't succeed. It took me many years to realize that he was missing a key component—love."

"Love?"

"That was the essential ingredient that Reverend Shaver brought. You know that he offered to forgive his assassins in his speech from the hospital?" Julian nodded. "It was that example of boundless love that was the real spark. Dr. King described it as disinterested love, where 'the individual seeks not his own good, but the good of his neighbor.' You're feeling that now, and you're going to carry that with you. I hope you can rekindle that selfless love of all humanity in the past."

"I can," Julian affirmed, smiling so hard that his cheeks hurt. "It's like no drug I've ever tried; it's better than any high I've ever felt."

"The best way to test if your love was disinterested, King said, was to give it even if hostility and persecution were all you could expect in return." Carlton eyed him before delivering the query. "Can you love Donald Trump?"

Such a question would have flattened him a month earlier, but now it was barely a hiccup. "I can," he repeated.

"And Joe Biden?"

"I can," Julian said again. The beauty of the world stung his eyes. "How can we not, Sid? We're all flawed, but we're all—each and every one of us—capable of so much more, especially together. To deny someone love is to deny their humanity."

The professor nodded encouragingly. "You don't have to persuade everyone—selling hate was big business—but do try to cultivate that quality in your organizers," Carlton advised. "As a nonpartisan voting bloc, the American Union offered an island of calm consensus in a stormy sea of polarization; a safe harbor where all were at least welcome, if not loved." Julian recalled he'd said it was like signing a truce for the duration of the election cycle.

The smell of electricity was strong in the air as the group reached the door to Charlotte's warehouse and came to a stop. Idabee tapped an unlock code into a keypad as Carlton concluded, "As your organizers try to persuade 3.5% of the electorate to land on that island, consider one more question: Is it better for the right thing to happen for unprincipled reasons, or for the wrong thing to happen by adhering to principled ones?"

Julian pondered as everyone began to file inside, then shook his head as he held the door for the septuagenarian, not sure what answer was expected. Carlton's response was cryptic: "When you see the solution, explain it to my younger self."