I Believe

Joel K. Douglas
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Philosophy from the American Experiment joelkdouglas.substack.com

  1. 3D AGO

    Both Fly

    Blue sky, golden grass, tall sagebrush, mountains capped white behind. Chores done. Coffee in the sun room. He looks out across the south pasture. The tips of the tall sage quiver. The wind picks up the flags along the fence line, tugging at the screw lock chain links that hold them to the wire. The Stars and Stripes is up all the time, frayed at the edge. And the other. It’s been up since the election. Inside, a catalog open on the table. Maybe he’ll buy a new bull this year. He needs new genes. The best bulls make small calves that grow fast. Easy on the heifers, good for the pocketbook. Lot 42 has a two-year-old Simmental out of a high-altitude herd near Meeteetse. Good EPDs. Clean trich test. Should sire calves with a good frame and some thickness through the rib. He could go Angus. Tried and true. Good growth, good marbling, the sale barn in Billings knows what to do with a black calf. They’re nervous bulls, though. 2200-lbs and twitchy. His wife likes the Herefords. Red body, white face. She’s the one who has to move them when he’s at work in town, and Herefords are calm. She has made this point before, and she is not wrong. But the Simmental interests him. Supposed to be a good high-altitude cross. He’s never tried Simmental. He takes a sip of coffee. He’ll figure out the bulls later. The books come first. He closes the catalog and pulls the receipts toward him. The manila folder and the stack of printouts from the ranch supply account. He does the books every winter. Coffee, calculator, the table clear of everything except the numbers. He starts with what he knows. What he earned. What he spent. What the government says he owes and what it says it owes him. He’s not fast, but he’s careful. He keeps everything. His wife would tell you he keeps too much. But the numbers should tell a story that makes sense, and every year they do, more or less, and he files the return and writes the check or waits for the refund and keeps up with the work. This year, the numbers don’t. Not the income side. That’s fine. The calves sold. The cattle market was decent. He’s not complaining about what came in. It’s what went out that puzzles him. Act I. The Books He pulls the ranch supply printout and starts down the column. Fencing wire. He bought forty rolls in April, just like every spring. Last year, it was eighty-two dollars a roll. This year, one hundred and twelve. He looks at the number again. More than a hundred dollars for a roll of barbed wire. He writes it down. Moves on. The wheat didn't do much this year. It never does much. But he keeps the pivot running on the acres along the creek because his father did, and some years it pays for itself. Fertilizer. He spreads it on the hay meadows every spring. It’s not optional. You either feed the ground or the ground doesn’t feed the cattle. Last year, he paid four-eighteen a ton. This year, six-oh-five. He doesn’t know why. He didn’t ask. He just paid it because it was May and the hay meadows need it. Diesel. Up. Not as bad as the wire, but up. The bulk tank at the co-op, the same co-op his father used, the price on the board was higher every time he filled. Cake. Protein supplement for the cows in winter. Soybean meal and corn and molasses pressed into blocks or poured into troughs. The soybean price is tangled in something he doesn’t follow, something about China buying from Brazil now. He doesn’t get it. If there are more soybeans here, shouldn’t the price go down? And the cake is up twelve percent. The cows don’t eat less because Washington has some trade policy thing going on. Salt and mineral. Up, but not much. Vet supplies. Up. The squeeze chute he’d been pricing, the old one is twenty years old and the headgate sticks. The base model went from eighty-five to ninety-eight hundred between March and September. The better ones double that. He didn’t buy it. He’ll fix the headgate again. He adds the column. Adds it again. He’s careful. The number is right. He just doesn’t like it. He moves on. The calves brought good money. Nearly four ten a hundredweight, last year they only brought three twenty. The expenses ate the money the calves brought. Not all of it. He’s not broke. But wire is one-twelve, and the hydraulic chute is twenty grand. The space between what came in and what went out, where the bull purchase is possible, where a good squeeze chute is possible…the margin got thinner. And he doesn’t know why. If live weight cattle prices are near record highs, and he’s a cattle rancher, his margins should be good. That’s not true. He knows why. Everything cost more. He just doesn’t know why everything cost more. He’s heard the word tariff. He’s not sure how it connects to fencing wire in Wyoming. The president says the tariffs are on China, on Europe, on countries that have been ripping America off for decades. That sounds right to him. He voted for the man, and he’d vote for him again, and he’s not the kind to second-guess a thing just because it costs him. Everything worth doing costs something. But he’s looking at the numbers. One-hundred-twelve dollars for a roll of wire that was eighty-two dollars a year ago. He didn’t buy the wire from China. He bought it at the ranch supply in town. Same place he always buys it. Same wire. Same clerk. Different price. He pulls the form toward him. He knows taxes. He’s paid them his whole life. Income tax, line by line. Property tax on the ranch. Self-employment tax, which he doesn’t love but understands. Sales tax on everything he buys in town. These are visible. They have names. They have lines on the form. He can argue about them if he wants to. He can vote for people who promise to lower them. He knows what he pays and who he pays it to. He looks at the form. There should be a line for what he paid this year that he didn’t pay last year. The wire. The fertilizer. The diesel. The cake. Somewhere between the ranch supply store and the US Treasury, someone added a cost to everything he buys, and he’d like to know where to put it. There is no line. He looks again. Schedule F. Farm income and expenses. He can deduct the wire and the fertilizer as business expenses, sure. He always does. But that’s not what he’s looking for. He’s looking for the tariff tax. The one built into the price of the wire. The one that made one-twelve out of eighty-two for the wire. It isn’t there. There is no line. No box. No schedule. He paid it. He has the receipt, but according to the United States government, the tax does not exist. The president says foreign countries are paying. The rancher doesn’t know what schools say. He knows what the ranch supply store says. The receipt is in his hand. He suspects he paid the taxes and not some merchant in China. If someone in China paid it, why are all his expenses up so much? He could write a letter. To the IRS. To his congressman. To the president. He could ask: if I didn’t pay this tax, who did? And if I did pay it, where do I file for the refund? He won’t write the letter. He knows what would happen. The same thing that happens when he calls the Forest Service about his grazing allotment or the BLM about the lease. Nothing. A recording. A form letter. Silence. He shipped seventy-eight steer calves in October. Around six weight and slick. They had had good feed. The check was north of one hundred and ninety thousand. It was yellow. He left it on the dashboard of the truck for three days before he could get to the bank. For someone who lived in town, it was a lot of money. A winning lottery ticket, enough to buy a life. But the ranch is not a savings account; the ranch is a mouth. He paid the bank. He paid for the diesel and the fertilizer. Then he paid for the wire. When he finished writing the checks, the money was nearly gone. He went out to the barn. The squeeze chute was there in the shadow. It was the old manual one. Same chute his dad ran. He wanted the hydraulic chute, but didn’t buy it. His shoulder hurts when he works this manual one. Sharp pain that did not go away. He would pull the handle anyway. The wire was tight on the posts out in the wind. The cattle in the fields. The work remained. He puts the receipts back in the folder. Closes the form. The books are done. The numbers are the numbers. He’ll file the form and write the check. Get back to the work. He opens the bull catalog again. Lot 42. The Simmental. His wife will say Hereford. She’s probably right. But he’s never tried Simmental, and a man ought to try a thing before he decides against it. Maybe he should wait until next year, though. Outside, the flags pull at the chain links along the fence line. The Stars and Stripes, frayed at the edge. And the other. The wind is stronger now. It’s always stronger by afternoon. Neither one comes down. Act II. The Check A few weeks later, a letter. USDA. He doesn’t get much mail from Washington. The Forest Service, sometimes, about the grazing allotment. The BLM about the lease. Forms and fees and notices that say nothing and require a signature anyway. This one is different. It says he’s eligible for a payment. One-time relief. He reads it twice. Trade disruptions. The letter doesn’t use simple language. Retaliatory tariffs from foreign nations disrupted commodity markets. American farmers and ranchers carried a disproportionate burden. The administration recognizes the sacrifice and intends this bridge assistance to ensure the continued viability of American agriculture. There’s a number at the bottom. Calculated from the crop acreage he reported for the drought assessment in August. What they’ll send if he signs and returns the form. It’s not nothing. Seven thousand dollars. Enough to matter. Not enough to fix anything, but enough to notice. He sets the letter on the table. Walks outside. The wind is up. The flags pull at the chain links. He stands there a

    26 min

  2. FEB 3

    The Indomitable Maggie Chase Smith and the Tyranny of Reasonable Men

    The Founders knew about the Leviathan. They had read their Bibles. Job. Isaiah. Ezekiel. The beast that cannot be bargained with. Cannot be tamed. Cannot be killed. They had lived under a king. They knew what unchecked power looked like when it wore a crown. They did not fear a British king. They had beaten him already. They feared an American one. So they built a cage. Three branches. Separate powers. Ambition made to counter ambition. No single branch could grow so powerful that it swallowed the others. The cage was made of parchment. Ink and argument. Parchment doesn’t hold beasts. Only an oath could do that. Prologue: The Weight of Oaths An oath is an ancient thing. In the old world, to swear was to stake your life on your word. You called God to witness. To lie was to invite destruction from the Almighty I AM. The Hebrews understood this. When God gave Moses the commandments on Mount Sinai, He gave ten. The first: I AM. You will have no other gods before me. And right after: do not swear an oath in my name in vain. The order is striking. Right after idolatry. Before murder. Before theft. Before adultery. Most people think that the commandment means not to curse using God’s name. It does not. It means: do not swear an oath in God’s name and then break it. Do not call the Almighty to witness your word and then make Him witness to a lie. God cared about this enough to put it near the top of the list. Above killing. Above stealing. A man who swears falsely in God’s name profanes the relationship between humanity and the divine. He makes God complicit in his lie. That is an oath sworn in the name of the I AM. Not a formality. A covenant, sworn at the foot of the throne of God. The American oath didn’t start that way. In 1789, the First Congress kept it simple. It was only: I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States. That was it. There were plenty of Founders who did not believe, and they left the Almighty out of it. No enemies. No mental reservations. No “so help me God.” The Founders trusted that men who swore would mean it. They had just fought a revolution alongside each other. They knew who they were. Then came the Civil War. In 1861, Southern officers resigned their commissions. Southern senators walked out of the chamber to join the Confederacy. They had sworn the short, simple oath and broken it before the ink was dry. Abraham Lincoln watched the government tear itself apart from within. He had administered the oath to men who treated it like a formality. A ceremony. Words you say because the occasion requires it, not because you mean them. So, in 1862, Congress rewrote the oath. They added “enemies foreign and domestic” because Lincoln had learned what domestic enemies look like. They look like colleagues. Friends. Men who sit beside you, debate policy, and then choose to burn the country down. They added “without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion” because Lincoln had watched men parse their words, keep their options open, swear with their fingers crossed behind their backs. They added “so help me God” because they wanted everyone who spoke the words to remember who was listening. The oath became: I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God. Lincoln’s oath. Forged in betrayal. Designed to smoke out traitors. To make a man say, out loud, that he had no secret loyalties. That he meant what he said. That the Almighty was watching, and would judge. Every Senator since has spoken these words. Hand raised. Voice steady. The chamber, watching. They can choose to affirm rather than swear on the Almighty, but most choose to swear. The oath is not a contract. A contract binds two parties. Breach it, and there are remedies. Damages one can pay and walk away. The oath is a covenant. You are not making a deal with the Senate, or the people, or the Constitution. You are making a promise to God, and the Republic is the subject of that promise. When you break it, you do not answer to voters or courts. You answer to the Almighty. This oath is the bars of the cage. The cage holds only as long as the oath-keepers keep their word. They stopped keeping it. Act I. The Cage Congress gave away the power to declare war. In 1941, Franklin Roosevelt stood before Congress and requested a declaration of war against Japan. They voted. That’s how it works. The last time Congress declared war was 1942. Since then, American soldiers in Korea. Vietnam. Grenada. Panama. Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya. Syria. Yemen. January 3, 2026, Venezuela. Congress watched. Congress complained. Congress did not vote. They gave the president permission to do what he wanted so they wouldn’t have to answer for it. Authorization, not declaration. Authorization. A word designed to provide cover. To let them say, if it goes badly, we didn’t decide this. And if it goes well, we supported it all along. The Constitution says Congress declares war because the Founders knew what kings do with armies. They wanted the people’s representatives to look a mother in the eye and say: I voted to send your son. Here is why. Congress doesn’t want to look anyone in the eye. They handed the first key to the president and pretended the cage was still locked. Congress gave away the power of the purse. In 1976, they passed the National Emergencies Act. The idea was simple: a president could declare an emergency, but Congress would review it every six months. Congress would decide if the emergency was real. Congress would hold the purse strings. Now we live under around fifty active national emergencies. Some date back decades. Congress can force the question. Congress rarely does. One of them is from 1979. It’s older than most of the staffers who work in the Capitol. It’s been renewed, automatically, ninety times. Somewhere, a family’s assets are frozen under an emergency declared before their children were born. Congress has reviewed none of them. They discovered that complaining about the president was easier than stopping him. Complaining gets you on television. Stopping him gets you a primary challenger. So they complain. They hold hearings. They write letters. And the emergencies compound, year after year, while the wars keep grinding on under authorizations no one remembers voting for. Another key, handed over. The cage door, rattling. Congress gave away the power to tax. We fought a revolution over this. Taxation without representation. The words are carved into the American memory. The Founders put the taxing power in Congress because they understood: the people who pay should choose the people who decide. In 1930, Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. Economists blame it for deepening the Great Depression. So Congress decided the problem wasn’t the policy. The problem was having to vote on it. They delegated tariff authority to the president. Ninety-five years later, one man sets tariff rates by tweet. A soybean farmer in Iowa watches the price of his crop collapse overnight. He didn’t vote for tariffs. He voted for a congressman who pretended it wasn’t his problem. Tariffs are taxes on the American people. Every economist knows this. Every member of Congress knows this. And every one of them has decided that fighting the president is harder than letting him do what he wants. A third key. The cage, standing open. Three surrenders. War. Emergencies. Taxes. Not one of them taken by force. Not one of them seized by a tyrant. Congress voted for each surrender. They held hearings, made speeches, and handed over the keys because keeping them meant taking responsibility, and responsibility is heavy, and elections are soon. The Founders built the cage to hold the Leviathan. They knew the beast couldn’t be killed. They gave Congress the power to contain it because they believed the people’s representatives would guard that power jealously. They could not imagine legislators who would volunteer to surrender. Who would unlock the cage because the beast inside might help them win their next election. Who would swear a covenant before God and then act as if God wasn’t watching. The chamber is quiet now. Papers shuffle. No one meets anyone’s eyes. They are all waiting for someone else to speak first. Someone with more seniority. More cover. Someone whose seat is safer. The silence isn’t empty. It’s full of reasonable men, calculating the cost of courage and deciding that today isn’t the day. The cage is open. Beast walks free. And every one of them swore a covenant. On occasion, one might take it seriously. Act II. The Oath Keeper June 1, 1950. Margaret Chase Smith sat at her desk in the United States Senate, fifteen pages in her hand. She had typed them herself, late at night, in her office, with no staff and no consultation. She was fifty-two years old. Had been a Senator for sixteen months. The only woman in the chamber. Her colleagues reminded her of this in small ways every day. The cloakroom went quiet when she entered. Jokes and laughter when she left. Committee assignments went to men with half her experience. Twenty feet away sat Joseph McCarthy. Four months earlier, McCarthy had stood before a women’s club in Wheeling, West Virginia, and held up a piece of paper. A list, he said. Two hundred and five Communists in the State Department. The next day, the number was fifty-seven. The day after, it was “a lot.” The number didn’t matter. The fear did. McCarthy had discovered something simple: you don’t need evidence. You need volume. Repetition. Accusation. Men who are too afraid to call you a liar becau

    24 min

  3. JAN 27

    The Watchman

    Kansas. Summer, 1936. The bluffs above the Missouri. The river didn’t look dangerous. Wide and brown and slow. Trees leaning over the banks. A boy could stand on the bluff and think he understood what he was looking at. He was fourteen. Watching a man jump from the railroad bridge. Everyone did it. You climbed the trestle. Leapt. Hit the water. Swam to the bank. He’d done it himself, twice. The shock of cold. Hard swim to the shallows. You came up laughing. The undertow you couldn’t see. The surface looked the same everywhere. Brown and slow and safe. The man jumped. Hit the water clean. Came up once. Twice. Didn’t come up again. People were shouting. Someone ran for a rope. The boy took a step toward the edge. Stopped. His hands were shaking. He didn’t jump. They found the body two miles downstream. Tangled in the roots of a cottonwood, water still pulling at his legs. The man’s face looked surprised. There is the Leviathan.He moves in the deep,in the playground of God. He waits for his foodin its season. God asks,Can you draw him out with a fishhook?Put a cord through his nose?Make a covenant with him? Act I. The Floorboard Copenhagen, spring 1945, three weeks after the Germans left. He talked too much. He knew it. The city was full of people who’d spent four years learning to be silent. How to walk past soldiers without being seen. How to keep their faces empty. Voices low. Thoughts locked behind their teeth. He moved through it like weather. Big hands, loud laugh, American uniform. They’d won. The Germans were gone. What was everyone so quiet about? She was sitting alone at a table in the jazz club. Blonde. Thin in a way that made him look twice. She held her glass like she wasn’t sure she had permission. He sat down without asking. “You speak English?” “A little.” “More than a little, I think.” She didn’t smile. Didn’t leave. Touched her hair. He talked. Couldn’t help it. The silence in the room pressed against him like something physical, and he pushed back the only way he knew how. Words. Noise. The sound of his own voice filling the space. He talked about the war. His unit. The things they’d seen. He talked about Kansas. Bluffs. River. Sky that went on forever. He talked about what he was going to do when he got home. Big plans. She listened. Let him talk. She was good at that. Later, he’d understand. She had learned to be invisible. He had learned to be impossible to ignore. By June, the city remembered itself. The canals turned silver in the long northern light. People sat outside, chairs scraping on cobblestones, glasses catching the sun. She laughed too loud one night and heard herself and didn’t stop. They walked the city. The parts the Germans hadn’t touched and the parts they had. Fresh paint on corner shops. New glass in old windows. She walked close to the buildings. Kept her voice low. Moved like someone who’d learned not to take up space. He walked in the middle of the street. Talked loud enough for people across the canal to hear. She didn’t ask him to be quieter. He didn’t ask her to be louder. One night, by the lakes, he put his arm around her. She let him. It happened the way those things happened. He had cigarettes. Real ones, American tobacco. She had a room with a window that faced the harbor. The city was broken. They were young. Enough reason for anything. He kept talking. Couldn’t stop. She learned to let the noise wash over her like water. Sometimes she’d surface long enough to ask a question, and he’d be off again. Kansas, the river, the bluffs, what he was going to build when he got home. She didn’t talk about the occupation. Didn’t talk about her father, taken in ‘43, who never came back. Didn’t talk about what she’d done to survive. The decisions no one should have to make at nineteen. One night, she showed him the emerald. She kept it in a box beneath a loose floorboard. German boots had walked on those same boards. She pulled back the rug, pried up the board, lifted it out like something holy. It was small. Cold. Cloudy. The color of ice under green water. “Family,” he said. Not a question. “My great-great-grandmother’s.” He turned it over in his palm. Felt the weight of it. If he wanted it, it could be his. Cloudy. Old. Probably not worth much. She was watching him. Waiting. The way people wait at the edge of water. He handed it back. “Nice,” he said. The man came up once. Twice. Not again. He reached for a cigarette. Lit it with the Zippo. Started talking about Kansas. She put the stone back in the box. Back under the floor. He shipped out in September. They stood on the dock. He held her hands. Said the things men say. “Keep that emerald safe,” he said. Trying to smile. “I will.” He kissed her. Walked up the gangway. He saluted the flag, and the Officer of the Deck gave him permission to board. He turned to look for her. She was already walking away. He sent letters. November. December. Snow in Kansas. Frozen river. Winter silence. A long one in January that said he meant it, he’d come back, she should wait for him. She folded it carefully. Put it in a drawer with the others. He waited until June. The silence wasn’t an accident. It was an answer. Once, he was not vast.Once, he was small. He swam among other creatures.He learned hunger.He learned taking. No one remembers when he grew too large.No one remembers the first timeno one could stop him. Act II. The Vault Copenhagen, April 1949. A palace room full of signatures and glassware. Four years since the war ended. The city had rebuilt itself. That’s what people said. Stone by stone, street by street. The canals ran clean. The shops had glass. The streetlights worked. He knew better. He’d seen the ledgers. American steel in the bridges. American wheat in the bakeries. Thirteen billion dollars across sixteen countries. He didn’t resent it. You don’t rebuild a continent because you expect gratitude. The Soviets were already in Berlin and Prague. Pushing their iron curtain further. Reaching for anything that wasn’t nailed down. You rebuild because you’re watching the water, and no one else is. He wasn’t a sergeant anymore. He wore a suit. Good wool. Italian shoes. He had a firm handshake. He expected his calls returned. He didn’t expect to see her. She was standing by the window when he walked in. Blonde. Older. The softness of girlhood gone. She was talking to a Belgian. Something about transit routes. She held herself like a woman who belonged in the room. He stopped. 1941. The Germans. Denmark couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t hide. Couldn’t fight. A small country with a long coastline and not enough friends. The Americans came for the emerald before the Germans could take it. Took it to Washington. Kept it safe. But they didn’t just keep it safe. They used it. Greenland. The rock and ice at the top of the world that everyone forgot about until they needed it. The Americans built runways on the ice. Radar stations in the mountains. Weather posts that tracked the storms. They watched German submarines from the rock. Guided convoys through the North Atlantic. The emerald wasn’t in a drawer. It was in a command center. It won a war. And when the war ended, they gave it back. That was always the deal. Keep it safe. Use it well. Give it back. She turned, mid-sentence, as if she felt it. Four years of silence. No letters. No explanation. She excused herself from the Belgian. Walked toward him. Unhurried. “You came back,” she said. “I wrote.” She didn’t look away. “I know.” They talked. He asked about her work. She was part of the Danish delegation now. Her family had old connections, a name that opened doors even after an occupation. She asked about his. Defense. Contracts. Building things. “You’ve done well,” she said. “I got lucky.” “You got rich.” He laughed. She didn’t. She reached for her glass. Water, not wine. He didn’t know why he noticed. A ring. Gold. Simple. He looked at it too long. “Married,” he said. Not a question. A brief ceremony. Twelve nations. Twelve signatures. Simple language. An attack against one is an attack against all. He signed with a fountain pen. Blue ink. His name, large. Confident. He thought about what America had already done. The Germans were coming. Denmark couldn’t stop them. The Americans came for the emerald before the Germans could take it. Kept it safe. Used it well. Gave it back. That was always the deal. She signed after him. Small letters. Neat. The ring caught the light. Afterward, there was champagne. The murmur of diplomats pretending the world was safe. She stood across the room. Holding a glass she hadn’t touched. Their eyes met. The way they had in the jazz club, in the room with the window. Something passed. The shape of what he didn’t take. And what she didn’t give. She looked away first. He didn’t. He couldn’t. They thought they could build a cage for him. Twelve of them. Stone and iron and promises. The Leviathan watched. Patient. He learned to wait. Act III. The Commitment Copenhagen, winter 1951. The vault is finished. The paint is still wet. Men in work clothes carried crates through a side door. The air smelled like sawdust and cold stone. Someone tracked snow in. It melted into small dark puddles on the floor. He came back. To see it done. To place his treasure. They moved the table from the palace. The chairs. Hung their photograph on the wall. Twelve faces, young and certain. Put it in a room in the back of the vault. The flag room. Fabric and thread. The original documents, behind glass. He went in first. He carried a torch. Bronze. Heavy. Cast from the same mold as the one in the harbor back home. They gave him the center case. Best glass. Best light. He stood there a moment after they locked it. Hand on the case. She went last. He watched her from across the room. A guard opened a case in the

    25 min

  4. JAN 22

    Who Can Subdue the Leviathan?

    There is the Leviathan.He moves in the deep,in the playground of God. He waits for his foodin its season. God asks,Can you draw him out with a fishhook?Put a cord through his nose?Make a covenant with him? Once, he was not vast.Once, he was small. He swam among other creatures.He learned hunger.He learned taking. No one remembers when he grew too large.No one remembers the first timeno one could stop him. They thought they could build a cage for him. Twelve of them.Stone and iron and promises. The Leviathan watched.Patient.He learned to wait. God asks again,Will he make a covenant with you?Speak to you soft words?Keep his promises? No.He will not. He grows hungry.He forgets the covenantshe made when he was small. He sees what he wants.He takes what he sees. Even the Leviathan owes God a death.We all do.But not yet.Not tonight. The Leviathan does what he wants.Who can subdue the Leviathan? Music byArtist: Jon BjörkSong: Dwell Upon Get full access to I Believe at joelkdouglas.substack.com/subscribe

    2 min

  5. JAN 20

    The Emerald

    There is the Leviathan.He moves in the deep,in the playground of God. He waits for his foodin its season. God asks,Can you draw him out with a fishhook?Put a cord through his nose?Make a covenant with him? The Zippo. He ran his thumb across the worn edges. Took it out of his pocket. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Act I. The Affair Copenhagen, spring 1945, three weeks after the Germans left. You could still smell it. Smoke, petrol, something sour underneath. The city was learning how to breathe again. Nobody knew what to do with their hands. She was twenty-three. Blonde. Thin in a way that made people look away. She’d spent four years learning to be invisible. How to walk past soldiers without being seen. To keep her face empty. Make herself small enough to survive. He was American. A sergeant from Kansas. People thought all of Kansas was flat, but not where he was from. Huge houses on the river bluffs, oak trees. Nearly every year, someone drowned. They jumped off the bridge, knowing they could swim out of the great river. They could not. He had a wide smile and big hands and he talked too loud for any room he was in. They met in “Glasshall in Tivoli.” A Danish jazz club. Defiant of German rule to the end. Jazz was Allied music. The Nazis despised it. She was drinking alone. She knew she shouldn’t, but the Germans were gone, and she didn’t feel afraid. He sat down across from her without asking. “You speak English?” “A little.” “More than a little, I think.” She didn’t smile. But she didn’t leave. She touched her hair. By June, the city remembered what it was. The canals turned silver in the long light. Sun sat on the water like a thin sheet of metal. The sun only pretended to set, hovering just below the horizon, turning the sky the color of bruised peaches over slate roofs and church spires. People sat outside again. Chairs scraped on cobblestone. Glasses clinked. Bicycles hummed past in steady lines. They drank beer in Nyhavn. Watched the boats. She laughed too loud. Heard herself. Didn’t stop. She showed him the city. The parts the Germans hadn’t touched and the parts they had. Street corners, the paint still new. Shop windows. Fresh glass that didn’t quite match the old panes. The gardens, gates open again, lights coming on one by one. The fountains, running with joy. Shopkeepers repainting their signs with careful strokes, making the letters bold again. They walked along the lakes at dusk. The air cooled and smelled of water and grass. Swans drifted in the half-dark, white shapes sliding over black glass. He threw bread. She told him not to, said it made them aggressive. He did it anyway, and she didn’t mind. A couple passed, arms linked, moving slow like they had nowhere they had to be. One night, he put his arm around her. She let him. It happened the way those things happened. He had cigarettes. Real ones. American tobacco. She had a room with a window that faced the harbor. The city was broken. They were alive. Enough reason for anything. He talked a lot. She learned this about him early. He talked like he didn’t know the precious silence. It was something to be filled, like the world would forget him if he stopped making noise. He talked about the war. His unit. The things they’d seen. Friends he’d lost. Kansas. The bluffs. The river. The fields. The sky that stretched out forever. He talked about what he was going to do when he got home. Big plans, big dreams. Like he had a key to the future. She listened. He was kind. Happy. Funny. She didn’t talk about the occupation. Didn’t talk about her father, who’d been taken in ‘43 and never came back. Her father had believed in things. Agreements. Treaties. A league of nations. He’d been wrong. She didn’t talk about what she’d done to survive. The humiliations. Decisions no one should have to make at nineteen. Some things you don’t say. Not even to the man in your bed. One night, she showed him the emerald. She kept it in a box beneath a loose floorboard. Her grandmother had given it to her before the war. Before everything. It was small, cloudy, the color of ice under green water. She had hidden it from the German searches. Always worried she would lose it. “Family?” he asked, holding it up to the light. “My great-great-grandmother’s.” He turned it over in his palm. Squinted at it like estimating its value. Then he handed it back. “Nice,” he said. Reached for a cigarette, a Lucky Strike. Lit it with his Zippo. Black crackle metal. Rounded on the edges, where the color of the rubbed metal shown through. She watched him light it. He glanced towards the window. Still talking. He had already forgotten the stone in her hand. She put it back in the box. Back under the floor. Didn’t say anything. He had a pocket full of stones. She’d seen them. Sapphires, rubies, a diamond. He was twenty-four years old, and he’d already had someone’s lifetime. Her emerald was cloudy. Sentimental. Not worth much. He didn’t want it. He shipped out in September. They stood at the dock. He held her hands, looked into her eyes, said what he thought were the right things men say. I’ll write, I’ll come back, this isn’t the end. She nodded. She didn’t believe him. But it cost her nothing to let him say it, and it seemed to cost him something, so she let him. “Keep that emerald safe,” he said, smiling like it was a joke. “I will.” He kissed her. Walked up the gangway. Didn’t look back. The letters came for a while. November. December. A long one in January that talked about home. Snow. Missing her. Then February. Nothing. Nothing again in March. She didn’t write to ask why. She already knew. She wasn’t the kind of woman he’d marry. She’d known it that first night in the club and every night in the room with the window. She was what happened during the war. She had loved him anyway. She went to the floorboard. The emerald was there, where it had always been. Where it hadn’t always been. A flashback. The stone, in her palm. Cloudy green. Cold. Her grandmother’s hands had held it. Her mother’s. Hers. Not only hers. She remembered the day they came. Spring, 1941. Germans had searched her room. They knew about the emerald. They just came in. Moved her aside. Later that week, two Americans on the stairs. Their uniforms didn’t fit the narrow turn. They were polite. Professional. They spoke English to each other, slow Danish to her. For safekeeping, ma’am. Just until things settle down. She was nineteen. The occupation was a year old. Her father was still alive then. He still believed in agreements. He told her to cooperate. He said the Americans were friends. She handed it over. They wrapped it in cloth. Carried her grandmother’s stone down the stairs and out into a street full of German soldiers. The Germans didn’t stop them. Americans were still neutral then. She said thank you. Standing in the doorway. Thank you to the men taking her inheritance because she could not keep it. Four years. The emerald spent the war in a vault in Washington. Safe. Dry. Far from the Germans. Far from the Danes, who couldn’t stop them. She spent the war in Copenhagen. Learning to be invisible. Learning where to look and where not to look. Her father was taken in ’43. She didn’t think about the emerald that night. Or the night after. Later, she did. A small green stone. What it might have bought. Passage. A bribe to the right man at the right time. She told herself there was no chance. The stone couldn’t have saved her father. She would never know. They gave it back in the summer of ’45. A note on American paper about Danish American friendship. They handed her the cloth like a gift. We kept it safe for you. She knew they were right to take it. That was the part she couldn’t forgive. She said thank you again. Smiled. That night she put it under the floorboard. Didn’t look at it for months. Until she showed it to him. The man in her bed. Once, he was not vast.Once, he was small. He swam among other creatures.He learned hunger.He learned taking. Act II. The Vault Copenhagen, April 1949, in a palace room full of signatures and glassware. Four years since the war ended. The city had rebuilt itself. Stone by stone, street by street. Pretended the scars weren’t there. He came back with a delegation. American money rebuilding Europe. He was one of the men who decided where it went. Defense contracts. Airfields. Ports. The stones from his pocket had bought his first contract. The contracts bought everything else. He wasn’t a sergeant anymore. He wore a suit now. Good wool. Italian shoes. He’d learned to shake hands like a man who expected his calls returned. They met at Christiansborg Palace. Twelve of them sent someone. They would build a museum, they called it. A vault. Somewhere to protect what mattered. A symbol that civilization still meant something. He didn’t expect to see her. She was standing by the window when he walked in. Blonde. Older. The softness of girlhood gone. She was talking to a Belgian, something about transit routes. She held herself like a woman who belonged in the room. He stopped. She turned, mid-sentence, as if she felt it. Their eyes met. Four years. No letters. No explanation. Just silence, and now. Her face in a window across a room full of diplomats. She excused herself from the Belgian. Walked toward him. Unhurried. Like she’d known he would come, sooner or later. “You came back,” she said. He tried to smile. The old smile. “I told you I would.” She looked at him. Just looked. “Yes,” she said. “You did.” They talked. Small talk. He asked about her work. She was part of the Danish delegation. Her family had influence, old connections. A name that opened doors even after an occupation. She asked about his. Defense. Contracts. Building things. “You’ve done well,” she said. “I got lucky.” “You got

    29 min

  6. JAN 13

    Blood & Fruit

    The banana cost forty-seven cents. I got it from the vending machine at work. I grab it on my way out to the parking lot. Fifteen minutes of freedom. The break room smells like microwaved fish. I just need to be outside for a minute. I lean against the wall by the loading dock. Trucks roll past on the 15. The sun’s already down, but the sky is still that burnt orange it gets out here. The smog holds onto the light. I peel the banana without looking at it. Four bites. I toss the peel in the trash on my way back in. I don’t think about where it came from. Nobody does. It’s a banana. Forty-seven cents. Later, I can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe there’s blood in the fruit. Act I. The Racket. Scene 1. My name is Elena. Twenty six. I work at a fulfillment center in Fontana. One of those massive warehouses off the 15 where the trucks run all night. You’ve ordered from us. Even if you don’t think you have. Everyone has. I’m good at my job. Fast. Reliable. Management likes me. I’ve been there four years now, since I dropped out of Cal State San Bernardino. Couldn’t afford to stay. I live with my parents in San Bernardino. A working class town on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Railroad, then steel, then military, now shipping. Hot and dry. The mountains trap the smog from LA, but on a clear winter morning, when the wind comes down the pass, you can see the snow on Mount San Gorgonio. My grandfather bought the house in 1971. He never talked about where he came from before that. None of us asked. He worked the railyards in Barstow. Saved everything. Bought the house outright. Three generations later, we’re still there. We don’t love it, but we own it. The only security that feels real. My parents are citizens. I’m a citizen. Born at St. Bernardine’s. San Bernardino County, California. Seven pounds six ounces. Birth certificate in the safe. But my mother won’t answer the door if she doesn’t recognize the car in the driveway. My father keeps a folder in the fireproof box by the bed. Birth certificates. Naturalization papers. Deed to the house. Just in case. I asked him once. Just in case of what? He didn’t answer. You know what I want. I want to stop living like we’re here on a pass that could get revoked. I want my mother to open the door without checking the driveway first. I want my father to throw that folder away. I want to feel like I belong in my own country, like the word citizen means what it says. I want to be able to drive down my street and not worry about being shot during one of the raids. Three generations. My grandfather built a life here. My parents built a life here. I was born here. I am an American. And still there’s a folder in the safe. Still my mother won’t answer the door. I was home when the news broke. Saturday, January 3rd, 2026. Half watching something, scrolling my phone. My mother had the TV on in the kitchen. Background noise. She doesn’t really watch. She likes the sound of voices. The news broadcast cut in. Urgent. “US special operations forces have successfully captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a predawn raid in Caracas. Maduro, who has been under federal indictment since 2020 on charges of narco terrorism and drug trafficking, was extracted by helicopter and is currently in US custody. President Trump addressed the nation from the White House…” My mother turned it off. Didn’t say anything. Started wiping down the counter. She cleans things that are already clean when she worries. My father was in his chair. I said, “Papá, what do you think?” He didn’t look at me. Pursed his lips. Glanced at my mother. He said, “I think it’s going to be a long year.” Then he went to get a tool from the garage. I could feel something in the room. Old. Something they weren’t saying. That night I can’t sleep. I have homework for my history class at Chaffey College. Latin America. Colonial Period to present. A speech by some old dead guy from the 1930s. I hadn’t started it. I made coffee. Sat at the kitchen table. Opened my laptop. Started reading. Act I. The Racket. Scene 2. Elena: 1935. A Marine Corps general named Smedley Butler. I keep reading. Then…I was there. A folding chair. Wood seat, cold metal frame. Room smells like cigarette smoke and wool coats. A banner on the wall. VFW Post something. American flags on either side of the stage. The man at the podium is old. Sixty, maybe. But he stands like he’s still in uniform. Proud. Shoulders back. Chin up. Two medals on his chest I don’t recognize. He’s looking out at the crowd. Starts to speak. His hands grip the podium. Knuckles, white. Holding on like he might fall if he lets go. Butler: “War is a racket…at the expense of the very many…a few people make huge fortunes…I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business… I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914… Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues... Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909 to 1912… The Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916… Honduras right for American fruit companies in 1903… There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes. And the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.” Elena: He stops. Quiet. Someone coughs. Butler looks at a man in the front row. Old. Maybe his age. Maybe they served together. He doesn’t look away. Marine Corps General Smedley Butler. The most highly decorated Marine in history. The only Marine to earn both the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor. A gangster, he said, for Wall Street. He didn’t say we should never fight. He said we shouldn’t lie about why we are fighting. Next morning I go to work. Same shift. Same trucks. Same routine. On my break I go outside. Banana in the vending machine. I stand there looking at it through the glass. Forty-seven cents. I don’t buy it. Act II. The Blood in the Fruit. Scene 1. Narrator: Chaffey College. Health Sciences Building. Anatomy lab. The room smells like formaldehyde and cold air. Fluorescent lights. Steel tables. A skeleton hanging in the corner like it’s waiting for someone to ask it a question. Valentina: My name is Valentina. I left Caracas, Venezuela in 2018 with two suitcases and a pharmacy degree. The suitcases are in my closet. Degree framed on my wall. Neither useful here. I work at CVS in Rancho Cucamonga. Shift supervisor. Not a pharmacist. I wear the red polo and the name tag. I answer questions about where the cough syrup is. Sometimes people ask me for medical advice. I give it because I know the answer, then I tell them to talk to the pharmacist. I’m not allowed to know the answer. Three years I’ve been trying to get my credentials transferred. Forms. Fees. Evaluations. More forms. They want me to retake classes. They want transcripts that don’t exist anymore because the university can’t keep the lights on. They want me to prove I am who I say I am, over and over, in a language that isn’t mine. The bureaucracy isn’t a wall. It’s a maze. It lets you keep walking so you don’t notice there’s no exit. So here I am. Chaffey College. Twenty-eight years old. Anatomy and Physiology. Sitting in a room full of nineteen-year-olds, learning the names of bones I learned six years ago in Spanish. Narrator: She’s at a lab table. Skeleton hand in front of her. Index cards. Valentina: Carpals. Metacarpals. Phalanges. I know this. I knew this before most of these kids had driver’s licenses. But the paper says I don’t know it, so I’m learning it again. My phone buzzes. I should ignore it. Lab policy. Professor’s a hardass about phones. But I see the notification. WhatsApp. Mamá. I grab my bag and walk out. Narrator: Hallway. Cinder block walls. The hum of vending machines. Valentina: I lean against the wall and press play. The connection is bad. Static. Her voice cutting in and out. But I can hear it underneath. Something I haven’t heard in a long time. Hope. She’s talking about the news. Maduro. The Americans. She’s saying maybe, maybe, maybe. Mijita, están diciendo que todo va a cambiar. Que por fin. Baby, they’re saying everything’s going to change. Finally. I play it again. Her voice sounds younger. That’s what hope does. Takes years off. I remember what she sounded like before. Before the lines for bread. Before my brother couldn’t find work. Before the hospitals ran out of everything and people started dying from things that shouldn’t kill anyone. She sounds like that again. Just for a minute. Just in a voice message from eight thousand miles away. I want to believe it. I remember 2019. Guaidó standing in the plaza. Declaring himself president. The crowds. The speeches. The whole world recognizing him, saying this is it, this is the turn. And then. Nothing. Maduro stayed. More sanctions. Hospitals got worse. People kept leaving. People kept dying. I left. I press record. Te quiero, Mamá. Vamos a ver. I love you. We’ll see. I send it before I can say anything else. Narrator: Night. Studio apartment. Rancho Cucamonga. Small. Clean. A bed, a desk, a hot plate. The pharmacy degree on the wall, next to a calendar from a Venezuelan bakery in Panorama City. She’s in bed. Phone in her hand. The only light in the room. Valentina: I open WhatsApp. The family group chat. Familia Caracas. Seventeen members. I scroll through the icons. People I grew up with. People I left behind. My mother. Brother. Tía Rosa. Cousin Diego. Cousin Maria. The photos are old. Everyone frozen in time. My mother’s icon is from 2016. She’s wearing lipstick. Smiling. She doesn’t look like that anymore. I scroll back through the chat. It used to be different. Memes. Birthday messages. P

    26 min

  7. JAN 6

    TWENTY-TWO

    Act I. Tick Tock [SFX: The noise of New York City] [Narrator] New York City in December. Manhattan. No snow yet, but the cold sits like it’s waiting for something. A kid walks home from work. Twenty-four years old. Jacket zipped to the throat. Same route he always takes. Down from Midtown, cutting through the side streets. Too many tourists on the main streets. He wants to move through the world without it touching him. It’s 6:12 PM. The sun is already gone. The crosswalk timer across the street blinks 12, then 11, then 10. Tick. Tick. Cars honk. Little beeps, long beeps, the ones that hold down the horn. Trash trucks. Ambulances with sirens blaring. Delivery drivers on bicycles. All stuck. The kid walks by the way he walks by everything. Eyes forward. Keep moving. Cops on almost every corner. Keeping the peace. On the buildings, American flags, lit from below, snapping in the wind that cuts between the towers. Red and white and blue against the black. And the steam. It comes up through the grates, the vents. Somewhere underneath. The water in the gutter catches it, and the whole street looks like it’s breathing. Like the city has lungs. A waist-high stack painted orange and white hisses near the curb. Warm air in cold air. He asked someone once. Why does it do that? Why is there always steam? Like the water is smoking. The subway, they said. The pipes. The heat below. The cold above. The whole city is a machine, and the steam makes it run. [Daniel] I love it. The city breathes. Exhales. Makes it feel alive. Like something’s happening under the surface, even when nothing’s happening at all. I put my headphones on. The noise is still there. I can see it. Mouths moving. Cabs lurching. Cops talking into their radios. But I can’t hear it. I’m inside my own head now. The tourists look up. They stop in the middle of the sidewalk to take pictures. Big coats. Shopping bags. Walking three across, like the city belongs to them. The New Yorkers move like water around rocks. They don’t stop. Just flow toward wherever they’re going. I’m one of them now. Four years in. The headphones that say don’t talk to me, don’t see me, I’m not here. [Narrator] The lights from a bodega spill onto the sidewalk. Red and gold. A pizza place on the corner, line out the door. A woman arguing into her phone in a language he doesn’t recognize. He turns onto his block. Streetlights tinge yellow-orange. A guy smokes on his stoop, looking at nothing. Somewhere above, music loud enough that the bass comes through the walls. Home. He steps inside. [Daniel] There he is. My little brother. Sitting on the couch. Looking at me like he’s got something to say. [Narrator] Daniel stands in the doorway. Doesn’t move. His brother looks up. People call him “K.” Nineteen years old. Named after his great-grandfather. Same face Daniel’s known his whole life, but something’s different now. The way he sits. The way he holds himself. K speaks first. [K] “I tried to call you. A few times.” [Narrator] Daniel pulls off his jacket. Tosses it on the chair. He moves to the kitchen, opens the fridge. [Daniel] He’s right. I never pick up. “You hungry? I’ve got leftover Thai. The good place.” K says he’s not hungry. [Narrator] Daniel grabs two beers. Pops the caps. Sets one on the coffee table in front of his brother and sits down across from him. K has been waiting for him to sit down. [K] “I joined the Navy.” [Narrator] Silence. Daniel’s beer stops halfway to his mouth. [Daniel] “What?” [K] “The Navy. I leave in two days.” [Daniel] I don’t say anything. I’m trying to hear it again. Navy. Two days. “When did you decide this?” [K] “A while ago.” [Daniel] “And you didn’t tell me?” [Narrator] The brother looks at him. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t apologize. [K] “I’m telling you now.” [Daniel] “That’s a waste.” [Narrator] It comes out before Daniel can stop it. K’s jaw tightens. [Daniel] “You’re smart. You could do anything. You’re going to swab decks and take orders from guys who peaked in high school?” [Narrator] K doesn’t look away. But something closes behind his eyes. [K] “Great-Grandpa Kenneth was Navy.” [Daniel] “That was different. That was a real war.” [Narrator] The words hang there. K picks up his beer. Sets it back down. [K] “I needed to do something.” [Daniel] “You were doing something. You had a job.” [K] “I was delivering packages.” [Narrator] K stops. Looks down at his hands. Then back up. [K] “I wanted to matter.” [Daniel] He says it like it’s simple. Like that explains everything. And I just told him it was a waste. Told him his war wouldn’t be real enough. [Narrator] K stands up. [K] “I should go. Early flight.” [Daniel] “K—” [K] “It’s fine.” [Narrator] It’s not fine. Daniel can hear it. But K is already at the door. [Daniel] “Be safe. Okay?” [Narrator] K nods once. Doesn’t look back. [Daniel] The door closes. I sit there with two full bottles and the thing I said still in the room. He wanted to matter. So he signed a contract. Raised his right hand. And now he belongs to something I don’t understand. Act II. Duration [SFX: Train wheels on tracks, rhythmic, then slowing. Station announcement muffled.] [Narrator] The train pulls into the station. New Jersey suburbs. Christmas Eve. Daniel is on the platform. Cold air. Gray sky. Not cold enough to bite. Just there. He didn’t want to come. His mother called three times. The third time, she didn’t ask. She just said what time dinner was. So. Here he is. The house is twenty minutes from the station. His father picks him up. They don’t talk much. The radio fills the space. Sports. Weather. Traffic. [Daniel] Dad asks how my place is. He asks if work is good. We talk about sports. That’s the whole ride. [Narrator] The house is already full when they arrive. Cars in the driveway. Lights on in every window. A wreath on the door. Same wreath since Daniel was a kid. Inside, the house is warm. The smell of food. Voices overlap. Christmas music competing with a movie playing in the other room. His grandmother finds him first. “There he is. Look at you. So skinny. Are you eating?” [Daniel] “I’m eating.” [Narrator] She doesn’t believe him. She never believes him. She tells him she made a brisket and pulls him toward the kitchen. His mother finds him before he gets there. Hugs him like she’s checking if he’s real. [Daniel] She says I look tired. She asks about work. She asks if I’m seeing anyone. And there it is. I say no. She tells me about a girl. Rachel’s daughter. In law school. Very pretty. She could introduce us. “Mom.” She’s just saying. I need air. Quiet. To be anywhere but in the middle of this. [Narrator] He escapes. The back room. Used to be his grandfather’s study. Now it’s just a room with old books and a chair nobody sits in. Except tonight. Kenneth is there. In his late nineties. A circle of cousins around him, laughing at something he just said. He’s holding a glass of wine like a prop. He won’t drink it. Just likes having something in his hand. [Daniel] Great-Grandpa Kenneth. Everyone’s favorite person. Always has been. He’s the one who remembered every birthday. Sent five dollars in a card until I was ten, then switched to twenties because, in his words, “inflation is a thief and you deserve to keep up.” He’s sharper than anyone expects. Mixes up some names. Thinks my cousin Mike is still in college, even though Mike is thirty-two and sells insurance. But he knows what year it is. Knows who’s President. Has opinions about both. [Narrator] The cousins drift away when someone announces food. Kenneth stays in his chair. Daniel sits down across from him. [Daniel] “Do you think the Jets will make the playoffs next year?” [Narrator] Kenneth laughs. A real laugh. Starts in his chest. [Kenneth] “I’ve been waiting on the Jets since nineteen-seventy. I thought we were going to repeat.” [Narrator] He looks out the window. His fingers tap the arm of the chair. Something shifts behind his eyes. [Kenneth] “You know what waiting really is? I learned it in the Pacific.” [Narrator] Daniel didn’t expect this. But you don’t interrupt Kenneth. [Kenneth] “Picket duty. Small ship. Radar watch. You sit out there and wait. Okinawa, 1945. We were the first thing the kamikazes would see. That was the job. Spot them. Report them. Hope they didn’t get through.” “We were at sea when Roosevelt died. April. Someone came through the ship saying the President was dead.” [Daniel] “What did you think?” [Kenneth] “We didn’t believe it. He’d been President my whole life. Since I was a kid. Didn’t know there could be another one.” “You know what they told us when we signed up? ‘Duration Plus Six.’ That was the contract. You serve for the duration of the war, plus six months. No end date. Just... until it’s over. However long that takes.” [Daniel] “What if you wanted a different deal?” [Kenneth] “Only deal there was. You signed, or you didn’t. I signed. I wanted to matter.” [Narrator] He looks at Daniel. Eyes clear. Present. [Kenneth] “I heard your brother signed up.” [Daniel] “He just started boot camp.” [Kenneth] “I know. Your mother told me. Navy. Like me.” [Narrator] He nods. Proud. But something else crosses his face. [Kenneth] “I enjoyed serving. Proud of it. Still am.” [Narrator] He pauses. Looks at Daniel like he’s deciding whether to finish the thought. [Kenneth] “But the men who send them. The men who decide where they go. What we did was right, but it isn’t always right. Those men should be bound too.” [Daniel] “What do you mean?” [Kenneth] “Limits. A clock on them. Something that says you can’t keep sending boys forever just because you feel like it.” [Narrator] Someone calls from the other room. Dessert. Kenneth waves hi

    28 min

  8. 12/30/2025

    Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot?

    [SFX: Solo Guitar playing Auld Lang Syne] Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should old acquaintance be forgot, and the days of long ago? We’ve forgotten the meaning of the song playing in the background when we toast on New Year’s Eve. Let’s remember. Back to Ulysses S. Grant. He couldn’t hear music. Not wouldn’t. Couldn’t. And the most important moment of his life would be defined by a song. Act I. The Man Who Couldn’t Hear Music Washington, D.C., March 8, 1864. Ulysses S. Grant walks into Willard’s Hotel. Forty-one years old. Filthy from four days on a train. He is the most famous man in America, and nobody recognizes him. The hotel is famous. Senators swagger and generals preen across its thick, patterned carpet. Gas lamps throw a yellow light that doesn’t reach the corners, so faces drift in and out of shadow. Furniture packed in tight clusters. Little tables and chairs arranged for waiting, not resting, crowded by hats, gloves, and half-empty whiskey glasses. The desk clerk eyes Grant as he crosses the room. Mud-spattered coat. Rumpled uniform. No entourage. His boots are caked with Tennessee mud, red clay flaking onto the carpet. The clerk judges his station in life and says there’s nothing available but a cramped room in the garret. The attic. Grant takes it. He signs the register in a plain hand: U.S. Grant & Son, Galena, Illinois. The clerk reads the signature. His face goes white. Suddenly, the Presidential Suite, the rooms Abraham Lincoln occupied before his inauguration, is available after all. Grant declines. The garret is fine. This is Grant. No drama. No ceremony. And something even more peculiar. Ulysses S. Grant cannot hear music. It’s not that Grant “doesn’t like music.” Not that he “has no taste for music.” He can’t hear it. When a band plays, Grant hears only noise. A choir sings, Grant hears chaos. Marches. Hymns. Sentimental ballads. They all register the same way. Pots banging. Wagons rattling. Nothing more. He once described it this way: “I know only two tunes. One of them is ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and the other isn’t.” People took this as a joke. A curmudgeon’s quip. But Grant wasn’t joking. He could recognize “Yankee Doodle” because it came wrapped in parades and flags and ritual. He knew it by context, not by sound. Every other tune in the world was the same to him. Noise. Doctors today call it congenital amusia. The brain can’t process pitch. Each note disappears as soon as it sounds. The pattern never forms. In 1864, they had no name for it. Grant just lived with it. He never explained why music meant nothing to him. But other officers noticed he would leave the room when bands played. He didn’t grimace. He didn’t complain. He just drifted away. Back to Willard’s Hotel. That evening, Grant cleans up and goes down to dinner. He and his thirteen-year-old son Fred take a small table in the crowded dining room. He orders. Within minutes, someone recognizes him. A congressman stands and bellows across the room: “Ladies and gentlemen! The hero of Donelson, of Vicksburg, and of Chattanooga is among us! I propose the health of Lieutenant General Grant!” The chant begins. Grant. Grant. Grant. The diners surge toward his table. He stands awkwardly, bows, tries to eat, gives up. The mob presses closer. For three quarters of an hour, he shakes hands with strangers. Finally, he escapes to his room. He never finishes the meal. Later that night, politicians appear at his door. They rush him through the rain to the White House, where President Lincoln is holding his weekly reception. The East Room is packed. Hundreds of Washington society figures, all hoping to glimpse the western hero. The crowd parts. Grant walks through. Abraham Lincoln stands waiting. They have never met, though they are now the two most famous men in the country. Lincoln is a head taller, six foot four. Grant is five eight. Lincoln steps forward, smiling, and extends his hand. “Why, here is General Grant. I am most delighted to see you, General.” Grant answers with a nod and a few words so quiet Lincoln has to lean in. The Union Army of Grant’s time was saturated in music. More than 500 regimental bands. Drummers and fifers at every unit. Bugles structured the entire day. Reveille. Assembly. Mess call. Sick call. Taps. Music lifted spirits. Stiffened resolve. Gave orders. And Grant was deaf to all of it. He understood music strategically. He watched what it did to other people. Saw men weep at certain songs. Stiffen at others. The way someone colorblind might notice how others respond to a sunrise. After West Point, Grant was a young lieutenant in Mexico. His regiment’s band raised morale, but it needed funding. Bands were absurdly expensive, and politicians loved them. Congress would argue over rifles, but bands needed paid. So Grant ordered the unit’s daily rations in flour instead of bread, at significant savings. Then he rented a bakery. Hired bakers. Sold fresh bread through a contract he’d arranged with the army’s chief commissary. The profit went to music he could not hear. This is who Grant was. Practical. Unsentimental. Results-oriented. Sentiment in the Union Army was a liability. The next morning, Lincoln hands Grant his commission. Lieutenant General of the United States Army. The highest rank in the army. Grant is now in command of all Union forces. More than half a million men. The war is in its fourth year. Two hundred and fifty thousand Union soldiers are already dead or wounded, with little progress to show. Every general Lincoln has appointed to fight Robert E. Lee has failed. They engage. Suffer losses. Retreat north to regroup. Then they do it again. The reality is that the Civil War is a war of attrition. Wars of attrition aren’t clever. Force meets force until one side can no longer continue. To achieve the nation’s ends, Lincoln needs someone different. Someone who doesn’t retreat. Days after the ceremony, Lincoln’s assistant asks what kind of general Grant will be. Lincoln thinks for a moment. “Grant is the first general I’ve had. He doesn’t ask me to approve his plans and take responsibility for them. He hasn’t told me what his plans are. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. I’m glad to find a man who can go ahead without me.” Lincoln pauses, then adds. “Wherever he is, Grant makes things git.” The Army medical corps had made it official. They called it nostalgia. Not nostalgia like we use the word today, a warm feeling about the past. Nostalgia as a diagnosis. A disease. A killer. Union surgeons wrote down thousands of cases. Men who wasted away, moaning for home. The symptoms look like what we would now call severe depression. Insomnia. Loss of appetite. Withdrawal. Despair. In the worst cases, they just stopped. Refused food. Refused nursing. Died. The army identified a trigger. Music. Sentimental songs did it. Ballads about home. Mothers. Sweethearts left behind. The most dangerous song in camp was “Home, Sweet Home.” Men heard it and broke. So officers barred bands from playing it. Songs like “Auld Lang Syne” carried the same danger. Remembering friends from long ago. Remembering home. Memory as a weapon turned inward. The song that made you weep for the past was the song that could kill you in the present. Grant would have understood that logic perfectly. Now Grant is in Washington, his new commission in hand. Culpeper, Virginia waits, his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac. Robert E. Lee waits, fifty miles south. Grant lays out his philosophy in a single sentence: “The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.” No sentiment. No retreat. Attrition. Act II: The Overland Campaign The Wilderness, Virginia. May 5, 1864. Grant crosses the Rapidan River at midnight. Sixty thousand men. Pontoon bridges sway in the dark. By dawn, the Army of the Potomac is deep inside a seventy square mile tangle of vines and second growth so dense the soldiers call it, simply, ‘the Wilderness.’ The Union Army was routed here one year earlier. Lee’s bold flanking maneuver sent them running. The bones of the dead from that battle lie in the undergrowth. Skulls grin up at passing troops. The new soldiers try not to look. Grant’s plan is simple: move fast and get through the forest before Lee can react. Fight in open country where Union artillery and superior numbers can be decisive. Lee reacts faster. By midmorning, the Wilderness becomes a killing ground that neutralizes every Union advantage. Soldiers couldn’t see twenty yards in any direction. Brush so thick you lose sight of the man next to you. Smoke from musket fire fills the gaps between trees. You only see the enemy by the muzzle flash when he shoots at you. There is no battle line. No coordination. No grand strategy. Only chaos. Small groups of men stumbling through the brush, firing at sounds, bayoneting shapes. Then the forest catches fire. Muzzle flashes ignite the dry leaves. Flames race through the underbrush. Men who are wounded and cannot crawl burn alive. Screams rise above the gunfire. The smoke turns black. The fighting goes on for two days. When it ends, 18,000 Union soldiers are dead, wounded, or missing. Nobody knows how many Confederates. The forest is eerily quiet. To this point, every Union army that faced Robert E. Lee followed the same pattern. Engage. Suffer terrible losses. Retreat north to regroup. Lick wounds. Try again in a few months. Grant’s men expect the same. They’ve been through this before with other commanders. They assume their next march will take them back toward the Rapidan. Back toward Washington. Back toward safety. That night, the army begins to move. The columns form up and start marching. At first, the men don’t know which direction they’re heading. The road

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About

Philosophy from the American Experiment joelkdouglas.substack.com

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  • Creator
    Joel K. Douglas
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    124
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Joel K. Douglas
  • Show Website
    I Believe

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