Lord and Savior Dear Leader Vexton Ulyth has a routine. Sometime near 2pm or so the poopie face hour begins. This thirty-something man begins showing a pouty face like a toddler with a dirty diaper. Then the tantrum ensues, “Evil. That’s what they are. The anarchists on Ashby Avenue. A threat to me, to the Citadel, to every righteous law we still remember.” The Dear Leader of the Citadel screams about chaos, morality, and Ashby Avenue. Then he naps.
Vexton inherited Ironmouth—a fiefdom carved from the ruins of Berkeley, CA—after his father died of colon cancer. He believes free will is the root of all suffering. So, he built a bureaucracy so dense it takes three forms and a biometric scan to buy a snack. Dinnerware is a matter for the legislature. Napkin folds? Litigated in court. His steak travels a sacred route: Sonoma ranch to Mill Valley butcher to his plate alone. Everyone else gets microwave meals and moral lectures.
Underneath this shrine to order is the Underground. It’s where the Citadel actually works. It’s anarchist, feminine, and toxic to Vexton’s fragile masculinity.
Things Just Need to Behave
Vexton’s addiction isn’t chemical—it’s metaphysical. He’s hooked on the idea that the world owes him symmetry. That 陰 (yin) should yield. Entropy is a moral failure. He doesn’t crave peace; he craves compliance. If everything would just come correct he wouldn’t need the poopie face hour.
But the Underground doesn’t behave. It refuses the ledger, the label, the leash. Beneath the Citadel’s polished doctrine, the Underground grows like mycelium—quiet, connective, and immune to tantrum logic.
Steak is a sore point for Vexton. He has one ranch in Sonoma and a butcher in Mill Valley who provides the beef he likes. Every other supplier offering meat to the Citadel hits a buzz saw of contradictory paperwork and approvals. Citadel residents can’t buy that beef. It’s reserved for the Dear Leader alone, served at his hilltop castle.
This bureaucratic temple makes the Citadel completely annoying. The place is stuck. You can’t get anything you need. Something as simple as a snack from a bodega becomes a weeks-long enterprise. So—except for those loyal to Vexton—nobody bothers.
Mama Mia
On Ashby Avenue at the former BART station is an open market. Nimi sells soup from the scraps she is able to barter for. Her proteins come from Orlo, a mobile butcher who breaks down cattle into marketable cuts. Nini feeds him lunch in exchange for meats–poultry, fish, beef, lamb, goat, and pork.
She is a milk stain on Vexton’s tailored and pressed uniform, warmth, lineage, and refusal. Her broth is unfiled. Her chilis, unapproved. Feelings bubble up in him—unstructured, unscanned. The Poopie Face Hour threatens.
Orlo has an apprentice who came from the Citadel, seeking relief from its impossible means of buying groceries. He arrived hungry for food and something unmeasured that didn’t need a QR code and hours online filling out forms. Nima saw him and asked, “食飽未？” He replied, “是的。但我還可以再吃一點。”
He stayed. Learned the rhythm of the market. Found meaning in meat, purpose in the cut, and community in the Underground. Became a father. Became a husband to Nimi.
Another Poopie Face Hour
Vexton sees him and feels the tremor. Feels bubble up. The Poopie Face Hour threatens. Posted to Vexton Ulyth’s personal feed at 2:07pm, just before blanket time, eruption: God hates me. The weather hates me. That stupid excuse for a laborer wasting air around Nimi hates me. The anarchists hate me. The children hate me. I am surrounded by mockery. Surrounded by chaos. Surrounded by seduction and scribbles and sandals.” Beer might be a suspect in this emotional lava flow.
Vexton shouted, spittle flying from his mouth, “They laugh, chant, and refuse to obtain the proper authorization for mirth.” His face reddens, “They are supposed to know who I am! Have they no respect!?” Actually . . . they do not, “They refuse to kneel! They are evil. Evil! They want freedom. But freedom is a lie that leads to perdition. I’ve seen it! Barefoot. Masked. Laughing. Laughing at me. At righteousness. At all that is – there is more but the feed cuts off. Nap time for the Lord and Savior Dear Leader.
The Doctrine of Collapse
Vexton’s theology is toddler Calvinism: predestination, but with snacks. He believes in original sin, but only as it applies to other people. His own suffering is divine injustice. His own tantrums, sacred lamentation. He’s not just mad at God—he’s disappointed. God was supposed to enforce the zoning laws.
He tried to build a world where everything had a place. Where every emotion had a form. Where every citizen could be filed, stamped, and stored. But the Underground keeps leaking through the cracks. It’s not just feminine—it’s fungal. It resists sterilization. It grows in the damp places of the soul.
Vexton once tried to outlaw jazz. Claimed it was “rhythm without repentance.” The legislature debated for six hours before deciding to ban syncopation but allow swing, provided it was pre-approved. The Underground responded with a silent disco. Hundreds danced in headphones, swaying to rhythms Vexton couldn’t hear. He called it “sonic terrorism.”
The Ketchup Heresy
The steak incident was a turning point. Someone—no one knows who—snuck cheap ketchup into the Citadel kitchen. Vexton tasted it. Paused. Felt the tang of vinegar and betrayal. He screamed. Declared martial condiment law. The chef was exiled. The butcher interrogated. The ranch audited. But the ketchup remained—a red stain on his doctrine of purity.
The Underground laughed. They called it “The Great Red Reckoning.” Bottles of Heinz appeared in windows. Children painted ketchup murals. Nimi served fries with a wink. Vexton declared it a “sacrament of sedition.” The militia was sent. They came back drunk and greasy.
The God Problem
Vexton’s real enemy isn’t Ashby Avenue. It’s God. Or rather, the absence of a God who behaves. He wants a deity who enforces dress codes and validates parking. Who punishes the barefoot and blesses the bureaucratic. But God, if She exists, seems to prefer soup stalls and syncopation.
He tried to build a theology of control. But control is brittle. It shatters under the weight of lived experience. The Underground doesn’t argue—it adapts. It doesn’t revolt—it reroutes. It’s not a rebellion. It’s a refusal to collapse.
The Blanket Hour
At 2:30pm, the tantrum ends. His aides dim the lights and tuck Vexton in. The Citadel exhales. The Underground resumes. Soup is served. Children laugh. Jazz plays, softly, in headphones. The world continues—not because of Vexton, but in spite of him.
He dreams of order. Of steak without stain. Of a God who finally comes correct. A God who answers a prayer for sunshine with a monsoon. Because the land needs it and Vexton will dry off just fine.
Also a God who is at Ashby Market in a food stall selling beef soup that is certain to be contraband. Ingredients from sketchy merchants, unlicensed ranchers, butchers, and whatever leftovers are around. Scandalous. Also . . . heaven in a bowl.
Divine Refusal
God doesn’t hate Vexton. She just doesn’t answer his emails. Instead she’s stirring soup at Ashby or dancing barefoot at the silent disco. Whispering through mycelium networks and unlicensed jazz. She doesn’t enforce zoning laws, validate parking, or care about Form 88-B.
Vexton crafted a theology of tantrum, a cosmology stitched from complaint. But God does not collapse into doctrine. She is infinite. She is rhythm. The Underground doesn’t bow to Her—it breathes Her. In quiet dignity and the refusal to be filed, sorted, or named.
Vexton once tried to summon Her with a spreadsheet. Offered steak and compliance. She didn’t come. So, he screamed because his tantrums gained compliance most of the time with most people. God isn’t most people. So, after the tantrum he napped. The cycle stayed unbroken.