The Raft by Christopher Blankley

café's
doors.
    She'd bribed the wrong health inspector.
    There'd never been any issues, nothing wrong
with the cleanliness or upkeep of Maggie's café, or the food she
served. It was just part of doing business, the backhanders paid to
the county officials. Out of inexperience, Maggie had bribed the
wrong inspector. The one she'd bribed had been from ADA, or OSHA,
or something else other than the health department. It was hard to
keep track, the inspectors swarmed like files. The bribed official
had been happy enough to take the money, though Maggie's store had
passed his inspection anyway. Perhaps he made a point to mention in
his report that Maggie's café was especially wheelchair accessible.
Regardless, the genuine health inspector had failed to see the
humor of the situation. Maggie hadn't a second thousand dollars on
hand to bribe another inspector, and pleas of poverty fell on deaf
ears. Maybe out of spite more than principle, the inspector had
shut Maggie's café down.
    A new thousand dollars was soon acquired,
from Rachael, the bribe paid in full, but the café was never really
able to reclaim its former glory. After the skull-and-crossbones
yellow tape and the list of health department violations had graced
the front doors of the establishment, it was hard to win back
clientele. Maggie had tried. But it was soon obvious that there'd
be no keeping her head above water.
    Inevitably, she'd gotten behind in the rent
and the bills from suppliers began to mount up. When the coffee ran
dry and the debt collectors started to call, Maggie knew the dream
was over. She shut the doors and walked away.
    After that, she refused to leave the couch
for a month.
    She was a lump – a destroyed lump that
Rachael passed heading to and from work. She ate junk food and
watched TV. Nothing Rachael could do or say could rouse Maggie from
her funk. Reminders that things weren't so bad, that there was
always another café to be opened, fell against a shield of
indifference. Rachael grew annoyed and snippy. Soon, the two of
them were no longer speaking at all, sleeping next to each other in
silence, going through the motion of their lives, but no longer
together.
    It must have been during one of Maggie's
marathon bouts of television that she came to learn about the
Raft.
    Everyone knew about the Raft, of course, as
it was often in the news. But until the failure of her café, Maggie
had always had the deepest disdain for the movement. A bunch of
right wing wackos, she'd said. She mirrored the popular opinion of
the Raft. But some documentary, or snippet in the news, or daytime
talk show had caused Maggie's opinions to make a radical shift.
Suddenly, after a month of inactivity, there was new life in
Maggie's bones. She dressed and went to the bookshop. Rachael came
home to a kitchen table covered by books written by a wide
selection of dead white men. Names like Hayek, Rothbard, and Von
Mises.
    Maggie's political shift was shocking,
abrupt, and total.
    From no communication, Maggie veered
uncontrollably past normal, civil discourse to annoying loudmouth
bore. Rachael had always savored conversations over dinner with
Maggie. Her wit was remarkable, her social insights keen, and her
intellectual curiosity almost boundless. But her dinner
conversation quickly devolved into little other than
deconstructionist rants about the last fifty years of American
history and the government's intervention in it. Maggie's language
changed, she began to assume political foundations in Rachael that
she didn't possess. She was quick to dismiss and always
irritable.
    Rachael began to long for the days of the old
Maggie. The listless lump on the couch.
    So when Maggie, out of the blue, announced
her intention of her selling the house and joining the Raft,
Rachael had given it little credence. She'd dismissed it as just
another out-of-left-field notion that would pass as abruptly as it
had appeared.
    But as the weeks passed and it became
apparent that Maggie was