2030_ The Real Story of What Happens to America - Albert Brooks [130]
The first time they dropped anchor in Long Beach, Brad got a chance to see what the Chinese were doing with the city, and he was amazed. What everyone on the ship noticed first was the construction on four large desalinization plants. It took a great earthquake to finally wean California off the Colorado. When these plants were up and running they would supply fresh water from the ocean to sixteen million people.
Brad even took a day trip to his old neighborhood, where everything was now cleared. As it turned out, owners of condominiums were going to be given first choice and a favored price on new development, and if they chose not to return they would be given money, though not anywhere near what they had invested. It was unfair, but that was the only way it was going to be, and now that Brad was safely ensconced in his new digs, he was less upset than he would have been if he had remained homeless.
His son, Tom, was not happy with this outcome. He had been counting on that money to pay back the loans he’d taken out to help his father. But even he had to admit that, if it weren’t for the Chinese, these properties would have sat rotting for years and there would be no money at all, so something was better than nothing.
The activity over the month they spent docked at Long Beach impressed everyone on The Sunset. At any given time there were at least a hundred ships from Asia, mostly Chinese, unloading what was to become the new Los Angeles. Sometimes on the larger ships they could see already-constructed partial buildings, which were unloaded and put on the backs of supertrucks.
Brad and his friends would sit outside and play a guessing game of what the construction was and where it was heading, and he could never get over how much had changed within his one lifetime. He remembered the first Japanese car he ever saw when he was a boy. It was a Datsun and everyone thought it was cute. No one believed at the time that it would be anything more than a cheap alternative to the great American automobile. And now the American automobile was no more. Sure, people bitched and moaned, but the fact was that the consumer ran the world. And the same reason Jews bought Volkswagens was the same reason the Chinese were now partners in the greatest construction project the world had ever seen. People wanted it done quickly, and at a low price, and that was the way it was always going to be. It started with cars, went to food and clothing, and now it was the very places they were going to live and work. Resistance was not just futile, it was gone. As long as the name sounded somewhat American, what was behind it was unimportant. Wal-Mart had known that fifty years earlier, and now everyone did.
Brad and Barbara Nestor were taking a deck walk one particularly clear afternoon when they saw a group of people gathered around someone giving a talk. “Who is that?” Brad asked.
“It’s a new fella who boarded yesterday. He took Marvin’s room.”
“What happened to Marvin?”
“He didn’t wake up.”
“I didn’t know that. When?”
“A week ago.”
“My God, I kept leaving him messages about a poker game. Well, at least it was a DIS.”
“DIS” was an acronym for “died in sleep,” the gold standard way to leave life. When someone died in their sleep, everyone thought they were blessed; it was almost as if they didn’t die at all. Some people actually thought that if you didn’t know you were dying, maybe you weren’t really dead, so a DIS was what everyone wished for when their time came. “So who took over his room?” Brad asked.
“Some suicide doctor. Masters.”
“Walter Masters?”
“That’s it. You know him?”
“I know of him. He’s famous. After the quake he was down in Los Angeles helping the suffering.”
“You think he’s moved here to up his business?”
Brad laughed. It wasn’t so far-fetched, but Masters had never had a reputation as a murderer.