“Oh what a beautiful morning

Oh what a beautiful day

I've got a beautiful feeling

Everything's going my way!”

-Oklahoma

Jackov was feeling on top of the world as he put his palm to the stop request sensor and stepped toward the front as the pleasant “bong” sound soothed him. To either side the Americans locals stared at the at the uplink hologram. It wasn’t distracting. Only the person viewing the video display projected before their eyes by their wristband uplink saw anything other than a patch of soft blue light. Still, he did not get it. What was the matter with a good old fashioned video sphere?

In any event Jackov had too much to be happy about to bother with such frivolities. He was a newly minted American, just off the plane! Jackov had been one of only 1,200 Russian husbands brought into the U.S. to marry an American woman. And what a woman Jilt was. She looked like a movie star! Besides, she had selected a Russian man for just this reason, that the men of America were all tech addicts. She needed a real man, a guy that would sit on the couch all day drinking vodka and scream at the sports channel while she went to work; a man who would disrespect her as soon as she walked through the door; a man who would ravish her in the morning after she did her hair and applied her makeup so she’d look like a whore when she staggered into the office where she worked with those pathetic drones!

Jackov was a real M. A. N.—MAN!

Already feeling good about coming home late and making Jilt feel like a real woman with cares and concerns after staying out two hours late shooting dice with those Mexican slobs down under the pumping station, and still sporting the tooth scars on his knuckles from that black fool that had tried to mug him last week, Jackov was in the manly zone, virtually the only man in sight.

As Jackov stepped to the door so that he could step off as soon as the door opened, the Robot, operating the vehicle, said in his soothing voice, “Please, valued commuter, step back behind the standee line.”

Jackov was not some technonerd that talked to robots, so he ignored the command. The bus then pulled over and stopped, and as the door opened and he stepped out, the robot said, in a sulking tone, “Please, valued commuter, for your own safety, in the future, stay behind the standee line.”

Jackov had had enough of these damned machines talking to him while the zombie people stared at their holograms, and blurted as he walked off, “Fuck you faɡɡot machine—scrapheap puss!”

He could not believe his eyes, when the robot shed a marble-sized tear, that rolled onto the cheek and then dissolved their so that it would not hit the ground and cause a slipping hazard!

As Jackov walked off shaking his head, hoping beyond hope that some other soft stupid American would try and rob him, he said out loud to himself, ‘Thank the Devil that I have a beautiful insatiable piece of ass waiting at home for me to pull her hair and call her a slut! I cannot understand these Americans. I’d rather be some kneeling Muslim. At least I could blow myself up.”

After about a block a police car pulled over, flashed it’s lights, and two figures emerged from either side of the silent electric sedan. One was a tall woman with blond hair. The other was—well, he did not know what the hell it was; a soft looking man perhaps, with the mannerisms of a woman. They were both dressed as police officers—if that’s what you could call these American cops.

The female signaled for him to stop, then stepped up to him as he paused and spoke in a dykish voice, “Valued commuter, we would like to speak to you about what just happened on the bus.”

“What are you talking about?”

The female motioned to the other officer as she spoke, “Counselor Hines will be conducting your interview. You may address Counselor Hines.”

The seemingly sexless looking creature then stepped up to him and deployed his palm light to scan Jackov’s uplink, which glowed yellow and red instead of the normal blue when the palm light scanned the screen, which was where his grandfather’s wristwatch panel used to be in the old days. Counselor Hines then droned on in a shallow falsetto, “You are showing six empathy violations and one criminal act.”

“What the fuck are you saying?”

His uplink then flashed yellow again and the officer droned on, “That is seven empathy violations. The red light indicates a crime—we are reviewing that—yes, Lieutenant, I have him here. Affirmative.”

Counselor Hines then looked him directly in the eyes. “My shift supervisor has recommended counseling since you are a new citizen. Terrence Jackson filed a complaint with us five days ago. It appears that he asked you to share, and, instead of sharing you struck him, damaging two of his teeth, not to mention his self esteem.”

“The darkie was trying to rob me, threatened to take my money.”

“Yes, valued commuter, we understand that you mistook Terrence’s need for income redistribution as aggression, and callously attributed this to his ethnic status as a member of an oppressed racial minority with negative population growth and very real social mobility problems. If you will agree to hologram self-therapy we can resolve the criminal charge and both of the associated insensitivity issues.”

“Sure, whatever officer.”

Counselor Hines then continued, “Jackov Popov-Smythe, we are uploading data relevant to this counseling session to your spouse, as she shall be tasked with the in home portion of your therapy. Now, why did you insult the coach operator?”

“Insult?—it’s a fucking robot!”

“Mister Popov-Smythe, the socially correct term is Purposefully Generated Person. Public sector service providers, who happen to be PGPs, have feelings just like you and I. In the future address PGPs as you would a Randomly Generated Person such as yourself.”

Jackov raised his hands and said, “Okay boss, whatever you say. Is that it?”

“No Mister Popov-Smythe. There is also the matter of your hate speech. The word spelled f, a, g, g, o, t, is not recommended for public discourse. Indeed, our scan detected a heterosexual bias in your web use, and that is not all. You seem to be guilty of projecting hate to Americans of African Ascent, to PGP’s, to homosexual males, and to self-lovers.”

His hands went back up, expecting something crazy to happen, “Really, self-lovers? What is that? I like America and I want t stay. I’ll be nice to whoever you want. I’m a nice guy!”

“Mister Popov, your web traffic records show a much lower than normal number of pornography downloads. Explain.”

“Look, I have a wife who is hot as balls. I’ do not need porn. I just check for the occasional new Russian starlet.”

“Your traffic report demonstrates and aversion to mixed-race, gay, Latina and ebony content, as well as a pathological aversion to masturbation. Mister Popov-Smythe, self-love is a necessary component of healthy socialization. If you do not love yourself how can you love your fellow commuters, your fellow consumers, your service providers?”

His ears were burning. But after getting the shit kicked out of him in Minsk by those paramilitary guys he had a built in reflex to submit to uniformed authority figures.

“Okay officer, how many times a week to I have to jerk off?”

He then noticed his wrist light flashing yellow again and corrected himself. “Sorry, self, love. How many times must I love myself a week to be in your good graces and keep my citizenship?”

“Your self-love divisor is one-point-five.”

“Every other day then?”

“Yes Mister Popov-Smythe. You are free to go. Your therapy schedule has been downloaded. You will find the app on your default display. Have a good day valued commuter.”

“Yes, by all means officers!”

Jackov hurried up home, determined to keep his mouth shut and hide from the cops at all costs. This world was just insane. It made more sense getting his ribs kicked in back in Minsk!

He had the hottest damned wife in America. What a beauty. He had left her lying in bed, her soaking wet hair draped over the ruffled girly skirt of her fairytale princess bed, her perfect breasts heaving, so he could come out to the living room and knock back some vodka—hell, they named this shit after him.

He sat back and commanded the TV, “MMA please, the Saint Petersburg Cage Kull.”

As the screen came on he poured himself a shot and knocked it back, mouthing his toast after the drink as a real man should, “This is to you my perfect slut wife! You are better than all the whores in Moscow, and not only don’t you cost a dime, you give me an allowance!”

The screen on his uplink flashed yellow, and the cage fights blinked out on the wall-size TV screen, to be replaced by the gayest looking sissy he had ever seen, sitting on a couch like a woman in a red sweater, and giving a stupid stilted smile, before speaking to him, as if he could see him, or was here in the living room.

“Hello neighbor. It is so nice to be here with you today. Would you like to be my neighbor?”

“What the fuck is this?—get off of the TV you faɡɡot. Crusher Kang is fighting the Ukrainian Freight Train tonight!”

The brown-haired man, his knees together and his hands on his knees looked him in the eye and said, “Neighbor Jackov, put your hand between your legs like this, and think neighborly thoughts, fly away with me on a magic carpet of intuitive love. Leave the violence of the world behind and embrace yourself, your beautiful self.”

Jackov truly felt like he was going insane, particularly since he was now speaking to this avatar like it was a neighbor, “Faggot, do you see my hairy ass? My nose is broken in six places. Besides, how am I supposed to jerk off looking at your pasty face after I just dropped a pint on Miss America back there!”

The man looked at him with a vapid smile as Jackov’s uplink flashed yellow, and said solemnly, “Your counseling session has been moved up to nine tomorrow morning Jackov. Your wife will be taking the day off tomorrow for family counseling.’

“Whatever faɡɡot,” Jackov said, as he began drinking straight from the bottle.

His head hurt worse than when those faɡɡots in Minsk had stomped him after the paramilitaries kicked his ribs in. And the damned uplink was blinking and buzzing and speaking, “Your counselor has arrived, Mister Popov-Smythe.”

“Yes, yes. I am coming.”

Jackov stumbled out into the living room to see this tall, tanned, perfect man, entirely naked, standing in front of Jilt, who was accepting a receipt from Counselor Hines, who nodded and backed out of the front door. Jilt did not even bother closing the door she was so taken with this muscle man. And Jackov planned on kicking the big pretty boy out through the door in a moment, so went right into confrontation mode. “Who the hell are you faɡɡot?”

“Hello Popov-Smythe family, I am Ken, the intimate therapist assigned to your self-love crash course. Mister Popov-Smythe, you are hereby to abstain from contact with your wife so that you may learn self love. I will service Mrs. Popov-Smythe.”

Jilt did not even spare Jackov a glance and pined, “Are you the latest model?—the one the President ordered?”

“Yes Madam Jilt. I stand at your service. Please specify erection length, girth, density and duration.”

“Oh my!” Jilt went on like a game show contestant about to bet on a showcase.

Jackov would not stand for this. He was the husband of this household. He stepped up and put a hand on Ken’s shoulder and was promptly put in a wrist lock and sat down on the couch. Feeling helpless in the grip of this man, or robot, whatever the hell this Ken guy was. He made his case to Jilt, “My Dear, how can you do this to me?”

“It’s the law Baby. Besides, I would have never sent away for you if I could have afforded Ken eleven-point-one!’

“What?”

Jilt was dismissive as she considered the genital configuration she was about to demand, and just flipped the back of her hand at Jackov before bringing her fingers back to her pretty chin.

“Baby, just go jack-off. I’ll see you for dinner. I think Ken will be grilling out!”

And so Jackov Popov discover the full implications of American citizenship and the hyphenated Smythe that dogged his father’s name like a ball and chain.