Chapter Fifteen - Pleasures of the Flesh

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

                                                                             - Sherlock Holmes (by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859-1930)

Pleasures of the Flesh

The round of organizations had been depressing in a way. Dave had checked his bag through to New York at the Unity Counter in LAX and was now ensconced in the first row of the business class non-stop into La Guardia. For the first half hour he had just sipped a club soda and stared out the window, watching the left coast recede to be replaced by the vastness of farmlands, followed by desert and brown. Billows of clouds had first approached and then engulfed the plane. Closing his eyes he laid back and searched for the button to lower the seat. His body was tired, not with the physical fatigue of work but with the exhaustion of having to pretend; his mind felt raw, hammered, and stretched.

After the Russian Tea at the VorMortag pad Dave had hung around for a week so he could attend the Friday Morning Club. He spent his time either working in his room or sightseeing. This presented some conflicts for him. He found himself seeking out some of the places Lindsey had told him about from her childhood. He even drove up to the small town where she had grown up, nestled in the foothills of the Sierras. He stopped there for lunch and bought the local paper, the Tule River Times. He wondered where she was now. He had tried to call her and the phone had been disconnected.

The breakfast club met at the plushiest of the posh hangouts for the in crowd of Hollywood, the Beverly Hills Hotel. The place was as close as Hollywood could get to something like the Princeton Club in New York and reminded Dave of the Fabituso Society with the emphasis on status, ideology and networking. Recognizable movie industry people flowed through the lobby and restaurants along with the upper elite of Los Angeles society and tourists with enough money to get in the door.

Beverly Hills had grown up around the Beverly Hills Hotel, which had been started by the same family who built the Hollywood Hotel, now gone, at the corner of Highland and what then had been Exposition Blvd. Now, it was Hollywood Blvd. That had been 1911. They had been open for business in 1913 climbing up onto the hills that now bore some of the priciest homes in the world.

Dave had never before walked into the place, although he and the rest of America were familiar with the pink tones of the exterior that continued into the lobby. Dave paused at the reception desk to ask where the group met. He was directed past the bank of telephones and into the far less unusual corridor that held the meeting rooms.

Frank Kravowitz, the pink diaper baby boy whose present career path had put him into far more colorful environs than he had ever experienced during his years as a marginal writer for the left, or what as left of it, was scowling at his guests when Dave walked up to the reception desk. Glancing at the tall, statuesque blond standing next to him Dave remembered the story Lindsey had told him about their wedding.

Dave was struck by the divergence between the public perception and the private, and sometimes not so private, reality.

The table was staffed by a nondescript woman of indeterminate age. She smiled shyly as she took his money, glancing at Kravowitz.

Kravowitz was carefully ignoring him, talking fervently with a balding, bespeckled man dressed in slacks and a polo shirt. Dave recognized him as one of the group of supporters who had helped Frank get his organization off the ground. Loren Steubenbaum was also an award winning producer who was a rare phenomenon, a Republican working in Hollywood. Rumors about the movie presently being filmed for the White House in Canada on 9/11 had been trickling into the media. The rumors had it that the made for TV film would sink without a trace. The Humstead crowd still had not gotten their marks right in the medium of film.

Dave had heard through Bernard, who had made the arrangements for Dave’s reception at the various events here in LA that he would be here. Dave had initially been fascinated by the dynamics of the Kravowitz group because the same group put on the Medieval Weekend, the signal policy event for the Republican Party, scheduled ever year for some lavish resort area. For a good long while it had provided the same opportunities created by the Illumination Weekend for the Democrat Party. But Christopher had noted a fall off in the celebrity level of speakers recently and attendance seemed to be down.

Dave recognized the voice even before he felt the light hand on his arm. “Dave!” Turning, he saw the smiling face of Fredrick Barry.

Grinning Dave, grabbed the extended hand had shook. “Sir; and here I am again without the book for you to autograph!”

Barry introduced Dave to his wife, an earnest looking figure with dark hair, dwarfed by the far larger presence of her husband. Barry insisted Dave sit at their table, which, as it turned out was the head table because the one point Bernard had missed was that Fredrick Barry was the speaker.

Dave had read every book Barry had written with pleasure. The stories had inspired him with their return to fundamental values and personal responsibility. The man was so much the person who had written them; it restored his faith that decent people could perhaps change things for the better.

“How is your educational program coming along?” Dave asked more to get the conversational ball rolling than because he cared. How about if I send you information? It is a program I think might interest you. Are you still in New York?”

Dave was impressed that a man like Barry remembered where he lived.

“Yes, still going to Columbia part time, law school, and working on, my grandfather died and…”

Barry was looking at him with his vivid eyes. Dave took a deep breath.

“Gramps left me some money so I can take my time and pursue other interests. Actually, he wanted me to look into starting a foundation and I’m working on that now.”

Pausing Dave smiled a little. He was not going to share anything about the work with Barry. A small niggling echo of caution had gone off in his mind. The past eighteen months had taught him to trust his instincts. Only once had they lied to him and he was still trying to understand how Lindsey had snuck past his deep reserves.

“Are you working on another book now?” Dave lobbed the conversational ball back in Barry’s court.

From there the talk had ranged across the personalities and events of the movement they shared finally lighting on the Hamiltonian Society and their drive to restructure the federal court system. Dave had been surprised, talking to Bernard, to find out that this approach was viewed with horror by the Left. Then he had heard why and this point had become a lynch pin in their ongoing discourse.

Dave had not considered the impact that politicizing the courts could have on law, unintended by the Founders, who saw the courts as an objective means of enforcing interpreting the Constitution and statutes. The conversations between Bernard and Dave and then Christopher had helped them assemble a picture of ongoing events. Dave’s time with Vlad had done a lot to show him how easily basically decent people could be persuaded to adopt behavior that would lead them to ugly outcomes.

Dave could not remember without cringing how he had accepted the necessity of ‘enforcing American values’ through the courts.

Dave’s attention had wandered for a moment when he caught Barry rising to shake hands with a man who looked vaguely familiar. Then he remembered. It was Dreg Barnsdale, the congressional aide to Borin Fletch, the Senator from Missouri, who had made it his primary focus to get Orville Johns’ nomination for the Supreme Court through during the last Branch administration. Now he had moved on and was running for office himself from his home state of South Carolina.

The Orville Johns hearings had left a mark in American politics, both right and left. Dave had begun Moundville with a picture of Orville Johns up in his dorm room. He had made a point of reading every decision but increasingly had become disillusioned by the tenor of the opinions he read. He had believed that Johns was a real hero of the movement, an independent man who had made it on his own. When he and Bernard had started talking they had agreed that each of them had strong opinions about people in public life they really did not know at all. So they decided to have a chronology made in each instance that the person represented ‘pivotal events’ that were important.

Johns had been one such person. The massive chronology and detailed research had filled to filing cabinet until Christopher had entered it into their growing master data reservoir.

Dave had had to force himself to look. Bernard had refused to discuss it with him, saying he needed to see it for himself. The event that had turned the vote for ratification from a milk warm rubber stamp to a broiling caldron of controversy was the woman who came forward and accused the black judge of sexual harassment. Minnie Clayton, an attorney herself and also black, had worked for Johns when he was heading the Minority Outreach Commission in Washington D.C.

Grimly, Dave had read through the exhaustive report. Most of it was also news to Bernard, who had still been in Malaysia when the Capitol had erupted during the Senate Hearings.

During the event it had been possible to believe it was a put up job. But afterwards, as you might expect when something is really unplanned, the validating third party testimony had become available. Dave looked long and hard at the statement from the owner of the video store where Johns had rented his pornography. The titles told their own story when matched up with the testimony provided by Clayton and denied by Johns.

Johns had lied. The disinformation campaign orchestrated by prominent Republicans had been horrific, dehumanizing and devoid of truth.

Afterwards discussing it had not been necessary. Dave lined up the pictures of the women who had, most of them very reluctantly, told pretty much the same story. They were all black, light skinned and good looking. The line up of women who testified that Johns had never harassed them was also eloquent. They were less than esthetically pleasing and far darker. This also told its own story. Johns liked a particular type; other women were safe from harassment. The pattern also spoke its own truth.

The most disturbing element that struck all of them in the face was the similarity in method between this and other political campaigns they had seen recently. Dave grimaced when he remembered the lies that took Lawrence out in the last primary. The techniques were pure Humstead – could that have been a coincidence, or had Humstead actually learned some of this moves from studying this battle for ratification?

For the first time Dave felt ashamed to be a Republican. Minnie Clayton had moved on with her life, leaving her teaching job in Florida for one in Detroit. But it was clear that the impact had been life altering for her. She had done the right thing and not only had Dave’s own party tried to destroy her, the Democratic Party had failed to defend her.

Dave was not the only one who was ashamed.

Newburyport, Massachusetts

Sam had arranged to spend a full week on his way back from England. Gladys was delighted, of course. They had seen very little of each other since Sam had stopped working with the NGOs at the United Nations and on the many committees he had helped form.

It was a rare event when he could be pried out of New Zealand. Sam had bought a sheep farm out in the hinterlands and spent time out there on weekends caring for the sheep himself. He loved the tangible reality of the day to day worries about the health and feeding of the animals and the living green meadows filled with life of all kinds drew him on to walk for miles sometimes.

Gladys had been unable to get Sam to listen to her concerns about the gradual redirection of power in the United Nations. Could Sam’s need to talk be related to that after all of these years?

They would spend three days sailing from the Yacht Club in Newburyport and then head down to stay at Gladys’ apartment in Manhattan. Sam had not seen his former associates who were still at the UN for many years and he had told Gladys, briefly, that he really wanted to talk to them, too.

Gladys sat looking out her huge window that gave onto the bay thinking about all they had to say to each other. Sam was a full generation younger but the two of them had formed a strong partnership in the UN in those early days. There was no doubt that Sam was brilliant or that with Dr. Newcomb’s leadership they had believed anything was possible. Together they had thought they could save the world. Somehow, someway, it had crumbled in their hands like a brittle artifact exposed to the light for the first time in a millennium.

The years had brought many changes. Some good. It had been twenty years now since she had married the man who was her first, and only love. Jason Mitford had gone on to become an insightful historian specializing in maritime America, and she had enjoyed helping him with his work. He had married, had two sons, and cared for his wife as she died from misdiagnosed cancer before she turned 35. They had met again not far from where they had first seen each other. Jason had been helping his oldest son rig out his first ketch and she had seen him. The son had looked so much like Jason had that first summer they had sailed together that at that first instance she had thought she had been transported back in time. Then the older man standing next to the vision of yesterday had turned around and seen her walking along the beach, her feet bare and hair windblown. His smile had not changed although the years had made his face more interesting.

It had been a meeting curiously free of embarrassment. Maybe being over 40 had its advantages. They had married with just their children present two years later in the small church where Gladys’ father had ministered until his death.

Now Dr. Newcomb was dead. Although Gladys kept struggling to help the fisherpeople and to see that the tides of pollution were continued to rise. Their work had become mired in political intrigue that reminded her over and over again of those years after college.

Every time Gladys thought they had made progress it was reversed. Suddenly the sun seemed too bright to bear. The lovely eddies of wind and water that filled the frame of the window saddened her. For the past ten years Gladys had also been working for change in family law. Her own experience had taught her just how unfair the law could be and she and an old friend from the country club where her family had belonged had started the American Coalition for Family Justice to help people victimized by their powerful and unscrupulous spouses. Sonja Lavter was the former wife of Barney Morris, the mythic figure in classical music who at home had been abusive to both his wife and children.

The Foundation now met in the mansion that provided plenty of room for meetings as well as refuge for women and children fleeing abuse by fathers, husbands and the courts.

Gladys brushed her hands over her face. From the dining room she could hear Jason. As much as life took, it also gave and she was grateful for that.

Princeton Station, New Jersey

Ellen Selfridge had never really given up on getting the ERA ratified, but she had decided when she sat down in the dentist’s chair in 1999 that it would be a full generation before it was again worth trying. She had been disappointed in the direction the Women’s Movement had taken after those early years of activism. As the mother of two it had shocked her to see the money and power flow everlastingly to the national headquarters and so little be returned to the local organizations and so little attention be given to the concerns of most women.

Ellen had grown ever frailer over the years and now weighed less than 100 pounds. Her eyes were huge in her small face, evoking the image of a child looking out on a world that too often disappointed hopeful expectations.

Ellen did not like getting her teeth cleaned, but she liked it far better than enduring the pain of cavities. She had known the dental technician for as long as she had been coming to Dr. Morrison; over twenty years now. She leaned back and closed her eyes, listening to Denise’s idle banter. Denise never expected her to answer. But in the ongoing story of the life of her family suddenly a question was asked that demanded a response.

Denise was the Girl Scout leader for her daughter, Merilee’s Troop, and the girls had decided they wanted to do a project on the now dead ERA. Would Ellen come talk to them? Ellen smiled, feeling the tingling in her mouth along with a tingle of delight in hearing that this cause, so dear to her heart, had created interest in another generation.

Of course she would come. She would go anyplace and anywhere people would listen. Equality under the law was the foundation of everything America means. Everyone therefore must be equal under the law.

New York

Dolly had thought long and hard about leaving her home in Utah to move to New York and go to work for Dave. She had been to the City just once before and the constant noise and rumbling of traffic had left her in a daze during the three day stop over her Elks group had spent there on their tour of the Autumn Leaves of New England. She had been glad to leave.

She watched out the window as the plane glided into its landing at JFK, setting down smoothly on the broad tarmac and taxiing towards the terminal. In just a month she had closed up her house, gotten shots for her cat, Margarine, who was traveling with her in the carrier under her seat, and found a replacement for herself at the Lodge.

For now she had brought only the essentials. Dolly knew that most of her clothes were entirely unsuited for New York, leaving them hanging in her closet along side her many Elk formals.

Dolly had been able to tell even over the phone what the problem was. Talking to Dave and occasionally Bernard had revealed a lot.

Three men, especially three very intelligent men could handle many things but other things would just not get done. The computers might function perfectly and data might be compiled but they needed someone like her and to do them justice both Bernard and Dave had known that. Dave had asked her hesitantly if she would be willing to relocate after she had been helping them out remotely for a month.

Her first suggestions for organizing their day to day operations had persuaded them that Dolly would keep them from drowning or losing themselves in the details.

Dolly had kept the Lodge in Utah running for a quarter of a century and she would make sure their growing operation worked. She was also taking charge of identifying alternate policy to aid Veterans and older people. That commitment and the books Dave had given her to read had originally perked her interest in policy. Before then she had only been dimly aware that policy as such existed.

Dave’s insights into Social Security had exercised a strong impact on her thoughts. Ordinary Americans know just how badly such programs work and Dolly was an extraordinary ordinary American.

Margarine meowed unhappily. Dolly reached down and slid her hand into the flap, scratching the butter colored cat under the chin. It would not be long now. Bernard had promised that he would be there at the gate to pick her up.

Dave and Bernard had arranged for Dolly to move into another apartment on the fourth floor. It was light and lovely with a small terrace and sitting room – library. Bernard had sent pictures via the computer.

It was everything they had promised.

Setting Margarine’s carrier down Dolly walked over to the French windows and looked out on the street scene playing out below them. Bernard set down her two large suitcases. The place reminded Dolly of a hundred books she had read over the years. The wooden floors were overlaid with area carpets tinted in rose, mauve and gentle greens and blues. The furniture was inviting and intimate. Someone had put a bouquet of flowers on the dining table.

“It has a nice sized bedroom and kitchen,” Bernard commented, showing her through the place. Dolly felt as if she had stepped into a fairy tale.

On the way over she and Bernard had talked mostly about the ongoing work she had already begun while still in Utah. There had been a few moments of awkwardness.

Bernard had been surprised when he saw her. He had expected someone, well, older. Dolly was perhaps one size larger than she had been when she graduated high school but age set well on her and her slender figure moved with grace and ease.

Margarine yelled and Dolly, laughing, rushed to let her out. Margarine scampered out, looking around the alien quarters.

“Pretty cat. How old is she?” Bernard watched as Margarine disappeared under the couch.

“Seven now. I owned her mother, too.” Dolly smiled. “At least she won’t be bringing home any mice. I hope.” Dolly grimaced and smiled at Bernard. She had told Bernard about the long lines of rodent bodies that appeared like magic on her back door mat.

“When you meet Fuzz Ball, you’ll see what they do instead.”

“Uh-oh. That sounds threatening.” Stories about Fuzz Ball and Margarine had been exchanged online and over the phone since they started talking.

“Fuzz Ball is convinced that if he tries hard enough he can get through the window and nab a bird. The birds know better but it is fun to watch. But don’t laugh that injures his dignity.” Bernard smiled. Watching Fuzz Ball’s attempts had become an ongoing news event, to be reported on by anyone with a sighting.

“Dave told me to let you know he is sorry not to be here yet. He is due back tomorrow from the West Coast. I ordered you in some staples, butter, milk, bread. Hope you like Jewish Rye. I can take you around to the grocery store but we often eat together. I do most of the cooking. Dave forgets to eat otherwise. And I am improving.” He smiled at Dolly. Stories about Bernard’s cooking had enlivened her early acquaintance with the crew at Head Quarters.

“How is his trip going?” Dolly had become familiar with the essentials of Dave’s itinerary.

Dave frowned. “Actually, seriously, I am not sure. He had been distracted lately. We have been a little worried about him.”

“Let me show you the office. It used to be next to my apartment but we moved it up to the top floor when the tenant in the second penthouse moved last month. It is a short commute, just up on the 10th floor.” Margarine stuck his nose out letting out a long low groan of disgust.

Dolly and Bernard looked at each other and laughed.

“Cat box?” Dolly looked inquiringly at him.

“In the washing area. Here.” Bernard opened the door through the kitchen to reveal a shiny new self-cleaning electric cat box next to the stacked washer and dryer. He pressed the button and the mechanism began its smooth scooping process.

“High tech, indeed. She’ll get used to it.” Surprised by the noise Margarine had headed back for the comfort of the nether regions of the couch.

Dolly smiled at Bernard. “This is going to be interesting.”

“Yeah,” Bernard said, as if struck by a new thought. “Interesting.”

Florida

Percy (PG) Grolick had been putting out his veterans newspaper for Florida for three years now. The Veterans Mile had started out under the tutelage of the local Veterans Hospital and then slowly morphed into an organ that provided resources, ideas, and opinion for veterans all over the United States. Of course there were more veterans here in Florida than any place else in the country.

PG had thought it was bad for veterans before but he had never imagined that it could get worse. It had. Veteran’s benefits were constantly being cut both by law and just in practice. They called it outsourcing but it meant that the places on base where veterans could get their prescriptions filled cheaply and buy food were closing down. And yet another generation of veterans, these from the Gulf War, were dealing with the aftermath of health problems for which they were not compensated by the government they had served so faithfully.

There had never been more need for real representation for veterans. As PG typed the newsletter into the computer he thought about the veterans who lived on the street, under bridges, in flop houses, ignored by the powers that be. It burned him up. Most Americans did not know that serving in the military meant you gave up your right to sue the government for the benefits denied to you.

It was so wrong. Sighing, PG continued typing in the opinion piece of a paraplegic veteran of the Vietnam ‘Conflict.’ Why wasn’t it a war if it took that much of your life for your country? How could America do this to the 22 million men and women who had served?

Something had to be done. Something would be done if his name was PG Grolick.

Charlotte, North Carolina

John and Helen Mitchell had managed to see Ezekial very occasionally, despite their exhaustive efforts in court and in the media. The two oldest boys were initially being warehoused in a group home with ten other older children with emotional or behavioral problems. Sometimes it was hard to recognize their happy, easy going second son in the frightened and withdrawn face of this young man on the edge of an uneasy adulthood. Charles, the oldest, always developmentally challenged, had been returned to them after Herculean efforts the year before.

Ezekial had been joyously buoyant and outgoing until he was into his 13th year. He had never liked reading, unlike the other kids, but he had moved beyond addition and subtraction, deducing the rules of multiplication and division when he was very small. Sensitive to sounds, he disliked loud noises and spent time thinking and watching the world around him.

His differences had not been a big problem before the DSS took the kids. But incarcerated in the system he had struggled and then retreated into his shell.

Then he was raped in foster care. The older boy who Ezekial reported had committed this atrocity both on himself and his older brother, Charles, had a history of violence and sexually inappropriate behavior. No one called them when the attacks occurred; Ezekial told them the next time he was permitted a visit.

Helen and John found that out whom the rapist was through their own sources. They had learned to do their own investigations. Two weeks after the assault the brothers were abruptly split up and placed in separate ‘homes.’ They would not see each other again for a long time.

DSS had not wanted to return Charles, but his inability to relay what had happened to him made it safe to do so and so when he aged out of the system he was ‘released.’ There was no longer a profit in holding him as no federal dollars could be claimed in his name.

Ezekial was another issue, of course. Ezekial knew what had happened and reported it in detail. Therefore Ezekial was a danger and a potential liability. The DSS always protected itself no matter what it cost in the sufferings of others. As this began to dawn on the Mitchells many other things also became clear.

At first there had been tremendous problems with Charles when he returned home. Fearful that someone would come and take him again he trembled when the doorbell rang. Sometimes he would go looking around the house to see if he could find the siblings he still missed. Sometimes he asked his mother when they were coming home, too. His world would not be complete until that happened.

Fixing his favorite apple pie Helen told him as he helped her roll out the pastry for the pie crust, that her world was waiting for the moment, too.

Back In New York

Dolly had fit in right away, Dave could see that. Fuzz Ball had met Margarine briefly and a cautions détente had been established in the feline sector. Fuzz Ball was a stay at home kind of guy but Margarine liked to accompany Dolly to work and so rode up with her in the elevator and curled up on the wide sill across from her desk. From there it had been just a jaunt down the hallway to Dave’s apartment where his dining room table served as their conference room.

Cautionary hisses had given way to slow circling and enough observation to do a pride of lions proud. Now the two were friendly as long as there was no competition for the attentions of a Favorite Human.

Dave had ‘debriefed’ to Christopher and Bernard with Dolly listening in to get a sense of how they did things. Several items had come up on the agenda while Dave was absent on the West Coast and Dolly had questions about how to handle the financial matters that Dave had gladly handed over to her. Dave had not moved Gramps investments more than necessary but Gramps himself had, if you studied the records, been steadily moving his investments into specific sectors of developing technology. The investments had fallen into three broad categories. One was capital. These were stable over time and brought in a steady and respectable return. The second category slowly transmuted, Dave had seen. At one time Gramps had held a lot of stock in petrochemical and petroleum companies but that had changed starting around 15 years ago. By the time of his death he was entirely divested. Gramps had moved into semiconductor companies and from there into the Internet.

The third category was the most interesting. Those were ventures in recombinant DNA and, surprise, alternative energy and a sprinkling of other high tech ventures. For every one of these that went bust at least one in ten ended up more than paying for the rest. Gramps had more and more frequently been on the ground floor for the cutting edge of change. Dave never ceased to be amazed.

On the list of research still to be accomplished several items had popped up and Christopher and Bernard had a need for someone to help them understand the more esoteric aspects of the present developments in the rapidly melding fields of high tech developments growing out of computer technology, communications, and finance. Gramps had obviously had some understanding. They did not. This minor impasse resulted in a call to Darrin in California. The connectiveness of ideology, intelligence, and interests again worked in their favor and a name emerged. Larry S. Waterhouse, a wonk of unusual credentials was forthwith recommended to their attention. Darrin commented that Waterhouse struck most of their group as nerdy. The Dave group discovered that this had not been understated.