Chapter Twenty-Two - The Market in Candidates

                       "Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street."

                                                                                                                                                Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)

                                 The Market in Candidates
                                                    and/or
                              Weapons of Mass Destruction

                                             July – 2004

  

American Revival – An Intermission in Time

“Dave, I need to talk to you.” Larry sat down in the office library where Dave worked, leaning forward in the chair, his eyes fixed on Dave’s face.

“Sure Larry, what’s the matter?” It must be something with the research. Dave had determined that Larry had no personal life outside of gaming.

Larry nodded towards the computer screen. “I e-mailed you some of the data from the work I have been doing on the NeoCon affinity clusters. I found some anomalous correlations and I need you to give me good information.” Larry looked expectant. He had no doubts about what had been going on.

Suddenly, Dave knew what he meant. Larry had told him that the sources for information were essential in building this kind of database. All human action has an internal logic when you know the operating rules of the players. Dave had fudged a significant wedge of information sources, neglecting to identify them as from Lindsey.

It was an uncomfortable twenty minutes, though that was all it had taken for Larry to get what he needed. At Larry’s direction Dave had opened the file, looked over the list of contacts and data and seen how they seemed random until, magically, the introduction of Lindsey made them make perfect sense. Larry had gone on to show Dave what he had not wanted to see; that the fact checking correlated with Lindsey’s statements regarding Dicks’ political activities, her accusations regarding the abuse, Dicks’ abusive behavior towards other women and his relationship with the present NeoCon Administration. Dicks’ behavior was consistent; Dicks was not only a NeoCon, he was a major NeoCon operative. Larry told him not to do it again and asked, obliquely, if there were any other women in his life who might have useful information. Assured that there were no women in his life at all, he nodded with his perpetual cheerfulness and left.

Dave sat there staring at the screen for a good long time.

That evening the group had gotten together for dinner and somehow the conversation had come around to the subject of secrecy, privacy, and confidentiality. The dialogue with Gladys, Sam, and the others had opened up several lines of inquiry, and among these was the use of covert behavior and deceit as tools or ‘behavioral strategies,’ as Gladys said.

The subject had not been his own reticence in providing information, thank goodness. He had jumped slightly when Bernard brought it up, but a grin from Larry accompanied by a small shake of the head, told him that their talk was still confidential. That was good, he supposed. Spilling his guts about Lindsey to Larry had been painful but cathartic. He had shamefacedly asked Larry to help him find Lindsey and Larry had promised he would do that. He also had a motive. Larry wanted more information and clarification on several of the stories she had relayed to Dave.

The subject tonight was the life history of Armand Hammer and how the man had used confidentiality and deceit all of his life to hide the fact that, far from being a patron of the arts and successful entrepreneur, he had been a Soviet agent from the time he was still a teenager. His wealth was a sham. His father was a confidante of Lenin. Armand Hammer had looted the holdings of his wealthy wife and engaged in life long practices of payoffs, bribery and deceit that would have made a used car salesman gone into politics blanch.

Gladys had known the man during his dealings with several Administrations, and her observations had resulted in Larry and Christopher adding him and several others like him to their research, correlating the outcomes.

The sad fact was that when secrecy was tolerated, whether it was clothed as confidentiality or privacy, it drove out good behavior and empowered bad behavior as all bad forms of currency drive out good.

Armand Hammer had spent billions of American tax dollars and worked tirelessly for the Soviet Union until that uneasy totalitarian state was shattered into pieces. Using wit and wile, he had managed to evade every inquiry through 70 years of vile activity on every continent on earth. He had died leaving bankruptcy, dissention, and personal betrayal as his only lasting legacy. Staring at a picture of the man from a book Dolly was reading, it was hard to believe the grandfatherly face belonged to such an evil soul. He had believed and acted out a reality that accepted dishonesty, violence, and coercion as simple and acceptable tools for getting his own way.

It had been an interesting evening.

Eventually Dave had shared his own story about Lindsey. That had been hard to do, but he knew he had to do that with these people who had grown closer to him than family. Somehow, having begun, he kept talking. He found himself asking how she could have led him on as she did. That was when Dolly broke in.

“How did she lead you on?” The sound of Dolly’s voice held compassion but puzzlement.

“She never told me about the relationship with Dicks!” He nearly yelled.

“But wasn’t it supposed to be a secret? At least, that is the impression I got from what Babbs and Lance said to you.”

Dave paused, “Well, she told them!”

“You know,” said Bernard, sounding just a touch ironic, “if you think about it, the fact she didn’t want to talk about it to you but did tell them is pretty significant.”

Dolly looked inquiringly at Bernard then smiled.

“Look, Dave, it is like this. Lindsey could tell Babbs, she is another woman, an older woman who probably already knew, given the timing. She could tell Lance. He is an old man who is like a grandfather to her. You, on the other hand are a man who interested her in an entirely different way. Think about it.” Bernard sat back, looking at Dave.

“Oh.” Dave’s mouth formed the sound but it barely said it.

“And you blew up at her and put her off when she was looking for understanding.” Bernard shook his head.

“I am an idiot. But where is she?” The anxiety in Dave’s voice was palpable.

In retrospect Dave could see what he had been doing, but at the time it had been as if he was paralyzed.

“If we find her for you are you going to be smarter the next time around?” Larry was smiling. Dave grinned back and then shared the story of the Raspberry Gumballs and they all laughed.

“She is really something,” had been the comment from Dolly, tinged with respect.

Dave hoped they could find her. And considering what they now knew about the NeoCons, he also hoped she was alright when they did.

Work on the book and the website they were now planning continued.

They were going to demonstrate each strategy as it was used in several real cases, showing how it was applied in personal relationships, in the civic community, in business and in government. Hammer was the most obvious example from the past but they each immediately saw corollaries in the rapidly developing climate of the election. There would be no lack of examples.

They planned to make them as visible and public as possible.

Every strategy they noted in the life of Armand Hammer, from the Big Lie to the Confidentiality Request were present in the tools he had used to live a life of power and wealth, and while working for a totalitarian regime rhetorically dedicated to communism.

The deviation between rhetoric and reality they had seen amply demonstrated in their examination of Libertarianism.

When you saw it, Dave had commented, it was much easier to avoid being taken in, sharing the story of his experience with the Libertarian Fig and the former presidential candidate, Edmund White. Also a formerly best selling author, the man’s downward spiral in sales had enticed him into running for the nomination for president as a Libertarian. There, he had a guaranteed market for his books. As the nominee he had earned a tidy living selling his newest campaign book; the powers that controlled the LP had paid themselves salaries for helping him sell the rhetoric therein. But what the LP and America needed was not endless rhetoric, but a reality that really worked.

Later, sitting at his desk in the near quiet of New York in the small hours, Dave allowed himself a few minutes to think about Lindsey and the letters from Gramps. He again did a search on line, looking for Lindsey. He did that a lot now even though he knew Larry and the others were looking, too. He had sent a request to Diamond, who had continued to work for him even after they had run into the dead end that had lead them from the mule in D.C. back to the point of origin in Europe. Mostly now it was Larry who put in requests with Diamond, but this one was special. Larry had suggested he ask.

Dave saw so clearly now that he had been manipulated by Dicks with his plea for confidentiality. He had been a sucker. He hoped Lindsey would understand. Maybe if he let her stomp on him she would.

Then, turning to happier thoughts, he read through another Gramps letter.

The first letters had revealed a new side of Gramps. He had been playful, silly at times. Dearest had been much more forceful than Dave had thought she would be, he realized. Dearest was passionate about being a doctor; it mattered to her. Suddenly, Dave realized that what he admired in Dearest were the things he had seen in Lindsey.

Letting the letters fall into a yellowed pile of the desk Dave picked up the phone and, pausing briefly, called his home. Mom was a night owl and when she went to sleep she turned the phone off.

“Hi Mom, how is everything going there?” Dave felt a brief pang of guilt. His parents did not live more than an hour away but he did not see them very often.

“Dave! Fine, I finally finished cleaning out Gramps’ rooms and, actually, I moved in to them. I have been meaning to call you. Your father moved out last week.”

The house was a nice old place; once on the outskirts of town, it was now nicely surrounded by new upscale housing. Dave had given his mother the money to have some work done, and the heating and air conditioning were now entirely u’PG’raded. A gardener attended to the heavy work on outside and in the yard, which included a large vegetable garden. That had been neglected after he went off to college.

The house had been a good investment. Gramps had bought the land around it, and Dave learned from the records Gramps left that the last ten years before his death, Gramps had financed and overseen the building of those homes. They had gone in slowly, one or two at a time, built by his father and a small crew of workers, filling in the time when Dad was unemployed.

“Where did Dad move to?” Dave could hear from her voice that the change had been more relief than anything else.

“I don’t know for sure. I, well, he has a girl friend and I think he moved in with her.” That shocked Dave. Somehow you never imagine your parents as people, living and working through the life crises that you see in other families.

“Are you all right?” It was on his lips to just say he was coming up, now, to see her.

“Dave,” her voice touched with amusement. “I am fine, really. I like the view out of Gramps’ old rooms. It looks into the garden and I am using his office now. That is fantastic because of the computer.” There was a longish pause. “You know, we are both happier with it this way.” Dave could almost see her smiling that little smile that brought the twinkle to her eyes.

“It would be good to see you, if you have time to come up.” She added.

Suddenly, Dave realized he needed to do that. In the four years since Gramps had died he had not spent more than a few hours there at a time, except for one longer stay at Christmas. Nann’s death and the unpleasantness with his father had made it difficult, but perhaps understanding himself and the letters would be easier if he understood his parents as people.

“How about if I come up tomorrow and spend a whole week? I have some calling I need to do – but I can do that from anywhere.”

“Do you want a late breakfast? I can make Belgian waffles.” His favorite. Mom always remembered. “Sounds great. I’ll catch the first train and be at the station at 10. Mom? I love you.”

As he hung up the phone, her delighted, happy voice still lingering in his mind, he was suddenly more grateful than he had ever been for the quiet, ordinary, happy childhood he had so underappreciated at the time. He was not going to make the mistake of waiting until it was too late to know his mother.

His mom was waiting when he stepped off the train, bag in hand. The week turned out to be not a diversion from what he was doing, but an unexpected journey into his own history he had not suspected existed. While he had vaguely remembered stories about the family, and Gramps occasionally mentioned his coming to the United States, Dave now realized why nothing more was said.

Sitting at the kitchen table, with the full fledging of summer leaves unfurled on the branches of the maples and oaks outside the window, Dave experienced a sense of seeing the house and his family as a continuity, as people growing and changing through time because of the events that had confronted them. War and depression had been events of history, studied in school. But those distant clashes of human action had molded him; too, through the people he had grown up knowing and taking for granted.

He and his mother had begun talking over the waffles. They were just the way he liked them, a touch crisp on the outside and creamy soft and fluffy inside.

While Dave ate she had dug into the closet where they kept the family memorabilia and brought out the albums she had lovingly assembled. As soon as he was finished eating they started looking.

Flipping through the pages she had introduced him to the aunt he barely remembered. Auntie Judith was named for Dearest’s sister. Dave remembered her as much older than she actually had been. It was her death that had actually marked the time that Gramps had moved in with them. Dave had been five then.

Her health, Dave’s mom said, had never been good because of the polio she had contracted as a child, just at the beginning of World War II. The disease was been virulent then, taking children and adults. It was polio that had also killed his grandmother three years after they moved here from New York City. His father was just eighteen months old then and did not even remember her.

Gramps had given up trying to find work as an economist and started working as a contractor and builder. Dave’s mom, reflecting on this, said she thought it probably distracted him, changing things so he did not look back as much.

Judith had survived, but her lungs were not strong and she had never been able to walk well or to use her right arm again. Suddenly, Dave remembered that. He remembered seeing Aunt Judith, cutting tomatoes in the kitchen of the house where she had lived with Gramps, using one hand, and the other arm hanging there, useless, standing in the cage of the walker she used around the house. There had been a wheel chair, too. She had kept a crystal container filled with lemony mints for him when he visited, and it had rested next to the vase of flowers that always sat on the spotless surface of the counter. She had said she liked it where she could smell the flowers.

She had an interesting face, though the pain of her life had left its mark there. She had loved and respected her father. His eyes smiled when he walked in and saw her. Dave remembered that they talked about books, but they were different than the books he had later talked about with Gramps himself.

Her funeral had been the first he ever attended, and he remembered watching her still, pale face in the coffin during the ceremony. Suddenly, he remembered Gramps, tears glazing his face, looking down at the small figure of his daughter, and he realized just how much she must have reminded him of his Dearest.

Stretching his mind back, Dave remembered that someone had recited a poem at the funeral, and then he realized it was the same poem he had read over in the cache of letters. It had been written by his grandmother, Dearest. It had been moving; he remembered his mother crying softly next to him. He had patted her knee and cuddled in close; looking up at her face, he could remember that now.

Gramps’ wealth had come too late to contribute to polio research, but that perhaps explained where his philanthropic interests had gone. Gramps had contributed largely to charities solving real human problems that managed to stay small and local. He invested in business technologies that could solve environmental problems. This trend had increased after he had started reading Heinlein. The books on his shelves had told their own story and were now in Dave’s own library.

Looking over the albums, Dave was able to see Gramps grow older. Judith was there as a small child, laughing and spinning with a slightly older Dearest than the picture Gramps had put on the computer. In the picture with Judith she was clapping her hands in the background. In a later picture Judith was standing in her small walker with Dave’s dad holding on to the legs of the walker. She was still smiling, but now the expression was tinged with sadness.

Dave’s mom brought out Judith’s dairies since he had expressed an interest. Reading through her careful handwriting, watching as it transformed from the jagged, childish hand into the smooth elegant curls of an educated adulthood, he got a sense of her. She had lived a life of containment in the body, but her mind had gone places he had not imagined. She had corresponded with other victims of polio all over the world and sponsored fundraisers whose proceeds went to research. Helping her had been Gramps’ first experience with charitable giving.

Her well thumbed copies of Discovery of Freedom by Rose Wilder Lane and her copy of a book by Eleanor Roosevelt on overcoming personal hardships were in the box with a scattering of other small items Gramps had obviously kept. Gramps had given him his own copy of both books when he was around nine.

A rose was pressed in the Wilder book. Folded in a wide piece of ribbon was a Star of David still hanging from its gold chain. Picking it up, Dave looked at it, curious.

“That belonged to Judith’s mother,” Dave’s mom said, noticing what he was holding as she walked through the room. “Gramps told me it had belonged to Dearest’s mother before her, actually. Her mother gave it to her when she got married.”

“Why did she have a Star of David?” Dave had always associated the symbol with the Jewish religion.

“Well, they didn’t go to synagogue often, but of course your grandmother was Jewish. That is why they came here when they did.” Stunned, Dave let the chain slip through his fingers.

On the train back to New York, Dave let himself think about what he had learned. The conversation with his mother had led on to so many different avenues. He certainly understood his father better. Gramps had never meant to focus on Judith as he had, but she needed him, and Dad was the solid, ordinary, naughty little boy who had no problems when he was small. Gramps had paid the woman next door to care for him and he had spent a lot of time over there with her family. The baby sitter’s husband had worked for Gramps, too, in his contracting business.

And Dad had never been intellectually inclined. That had been a barrier. Before he had gone back to New York, Dave located his father and went by to say hello. He had never seen him happier. He and his girl friend, who he introduced as Brigitte Svensen, were planning to visit her family in St. Louis. Brigitte looked to be around his age. Her kids were grown and gone and she was ready to enjoy herself, she said, smiling impishly. Her house was on the far side of town, almost in the next township. Her former husband had owned the Ford dealership there forever, and suddenly Dave realized why the name was familiar. He had gone to school with her youngest son.

Amazing.

Dad had met and married Mom during the one year he had spent in college. Mom had always emphasized that Dad was not a bad person. He just had very different priorities and fatherhood had not been one of them. Now, he seemed relaxed and happy for the first time.

While he was at his Mom’s house Dave had finished making the calls still on his list from Christopher. The only one that needed further inquiry had been to a man in North Carolina who was building an organization that trained people to do pro se law suits. The reformation of the system of law was one of their action components.

That conversation had been lengthy, and Dave had decided that he would head down there and meet him face to face ASAP. If it was a partnership that worked for Steigler and the AR they could set him up to do his work nationally before the end of the year.

Now, he also had a phone number for Lindsey. His mom had it. They had been in touch this whole time. She was mildly surprised when he asked. She had assumed, since he had not said anything, that they were in touch, too.

Lindsey in New York

Finally, Lindsey and her mother had confronted the fact the court system was being manipulated to deny them justice at every turn. At first, mired in despair, they talked long hours on the phone. Their conversations ranged over every subject, always looking for a solution. Was it even possible to get justice in America? Each of them had serious heart problems. But they agreed that their health should not stop them. Death is the only constant in life; they would each die anyway, so they might as well make their lives count. The only thing that really matters is how you lived, and if life matters it matters too much to waste. Silently, when that had been said, they both remembered the Movement and what they had thought it was and what it had become.

If the legacy of freedom, the original vision of America, had mattered to those who had steering the Movement to this place in time they would not now be forced to consider this choice.

It had happened in this generation, but the same thing, the suborning of the movement for individual right, benevolent outcomes, and freedom, had been lost before. It had happened in the 30s through the failure of a generation to defend the principles of freedom against totalitarianism. It had happened in the wake of the Revolution, when in 1799, Congress had failed to sunset slavery, resulting in the hideous series of ‘compromises’ that had lead to the Civil War. Now it was happening again. Somehow, they had to help people see so that they could change direction.

Lindsey was living at Lance’s compound in Sag Harbor, putting the final touches on his tiny cabin like house, when they decided, finally, that the pro se law suit was their only hope.

There were not a lot of options when you realize the attorney you are paying is cooperating, for considerations, money or favors, with the opposition. To do him justice it probably seemed like the natural thing to do. If abusing their trust was something being done by everyone from the White House on down to the police station, then it was not only accepted, it was business as usual. Why should he be different?

But every person possesses the rights of self defense as an absolute. That right was only temporarily ceded to government with the proviso that it remained with the individual. It was a right not given by government, but by the simple fact of humanity through the presence of the sacred. Each of us must survive. In this case the courts and police were profiting from their non-enforcement of justice. If the institutions of justice had failed Lindsey and Linden could defend themselves. This right was also both natural and cited in the Declaration of Independence.

A pro se law suit was the last resort within the existing system of law.

It was after they realized this that Lindsey had her most serious heart attack. Lance was there for the weekend and dragged her out of the bathroom where she had collapsed, her left arm blue. She had been barely breathing.

It was a bad patch of time.

A pro se law suit carried real advantages. Linden agreed to do the writing. Lindsey would learn what she needed to know to go into court and defend the two of them.

Lindsey told Lance she was going to fly back to California, but began preparing to get the training she needed. They were no longer sure who they could trust but no one must know where she was going. They would be alone in this except for the help promised by Coop. The conversations she had had with Coop had convinced both of them that the Pro Se law suit could not only give them the chance at justice they so desperately needed, but also make it possible for them to open the door of public consciousness to the desperate need to retake the court system for all Americans. That mattered. If they won they could fund a Pro Se law school. All Americans needed to know they were not at the mercy of attorneys and the courts.

Lindsey thought again about the actions of George Washington. She and Linden each read it occasionally for inspiration. There was nothing written today that could give you that sense of connection with the Founders. The popular pundits had all turned into sellouts, working for the NeoCons directly, or come alongs cooperating with what they saw as the popular wave of opinion.

The training would be arduous. Time was short. To get that training Lindsey needed to leave New York and go to North Carolina. Her mother reminded her that three generations of their ancestors, grandfather, father and son, had fought the War of the Independence from North Carolina, leaving afterwards when it became obvious that the abolition of slavery was not going to happen. These men had rejected the enslavement of a part of humankind and it was right that this battle should touch ground there.

But the stress of the litigation would not be without danger. That, they both knew.

Lindsey sat up one whole night writing her last will and testament with instructions for her burial. She told her mother, her executor, to keep it cheap. She would be cremated and, pausing, decided she wanted to return to Springville, the tiny town in the foothills of the Sierras where she had grown up. She did not expect to survive; her heart episodes were happening more frequently now. She printed out a list of people to be informed, and sealing the signed document into an envelope, dropped it in a mail box to her mother.

She would spend her life well. She would never perhaps find someone to love and love her, she would never marry, but her life would have mattered.

The next day she filed the case in New York. As she was walking by the Star bucks where she and Dave had so often met and talked, she noticed Dave leaving, carrying a large cup. It was probably his favorite cappuccino, she thought, careful to make sure he did not catch a glimpse of her behind him as she watched him disappear around the corner, towards his apartment.

Her steps slowed and for a moment she stopped, thinking about all of the lost friends and severed connections. But in that there was also a curious freedom. Yesterday was gone. Tomorrow could be anything and everything if they were successful.

Putting her head down in at attitude of determination, she walked on towards the subway. Her car was parked at La Guardia and her next stop was North Carolina.

American Revival – The Market in Candidates – Back in New York

Dave hopped a plane to North Carolina immediately. Any real reform of America’s justice system hinged on enabling individuals to pursue their own lawsuits in the courts. That had become clear through their research. It was the common factor in every instance. This trip might point them to already existing means which was far more efficient than doing it all themselves. And, Dave acknowledged to himself, he needed to be alone to think. In a hotel he could have some of that.

He let Dolly make the reservations for him at a place in the center of town. It had all of the amenities but was still cheaper than the worst dive in Manhattan. Initially he had asked Coop to meet him there for lunch but then decided it would be better if he could get a look at him in his natural environment.

That look had been a real shock.

Although he believed in gun rights, after all he was raised that way, he did not carry a firearm himself and he did not even own a gun. Coop owned enough guns to arm his own militia. They had met at Coop’s trailer and that also had been a surprise. It was small, old, and very rundown.

It was clean, Dave had to say that. Coop’s little girl was there and she had peeked out at him from her bedroom while they were talking. She was cute and evidently the order that reigned elsewhere was not the rule in her bedroom, from what he could see. The little girl, Coop had introduced her as Bead, must have owned two hundred stuffed animals from the glimpses Dave got.

Otherwise, it was like a military headquarters, lined with only necessities, law books, files and computers, except for the family pictures and flags hanging in places of respect on the walls. Coop did not talk about those. Instead he took Dave through a briefing on what he was doing to reboot the court system. He had done an amazing amount of work and the strategic planning was both intense and thorough.

Impressed against his will and despite the surroundings, Dave made notes but did not linger. Funding Coop would solve a major component of their approach for change. They shook hands and Dave drove off, thinking about the possibilities. They needed someone doing what Coop was doing on a national level. That was clear.

The next day Dave was on his way back to New York.

Landing in La Guardia with his overnight bag, all he had taken, he caught a cab, getting out at the Starbucks around the corner from the apartment building.

Ordering a cappuccino, he decided that now, this evening, he would call Lindsey. Thinking about her he headed back to the Headquarters.

Charlotte, North Carolina

Coop had been expecting the eviction notice from his landlord. Angelique Fellacitio, the landlord, had the subtly of a Sherman tank and the ethics of a Mafia don. Angelique must have been attractive at one time. You could still see the lovely bone structure through the sour expression on her face when she walked through the trailer park like a baroness surveying her fiefdom. She rarely deigned to speak to anyone.

Coop had known when he moved in that Angelique had been using the tiny mobile home park, filled with units that were on their last legs, to fleece the desperate and unwary. Renters were encouraged to buy their units at a price far higher than they could bring in rent and then, months or years later, having finished paying the purchase price, would be evicted; Angelique told them they were required to move the units to retain ownership. Since units older than ten years could not be moved within the county, this meant the owner lost their equity. They had to move, abandoning their tiny investment.

$10,000 is a lot of money when it is everything you have in the world.

So Angelique was a bottom feeder on the hopes and trust of the elderly and poor. Her accounting system created a trail of entries that falsely reflected amounts paid; she knew her tenants were not the kind of people who kept a lot of paperwork, and they rarely complained, just gathering up their possessions and moving out to yet another desperate living situation when the eviction papers were left at their rackety doors.

The elderly lady across the tiny street from Coop had had no heating in her unit for ten years, but the air conditioner worked sporadically, at least when it was not too hot outside. When it was too hot to sit in the tin can of a home, she came outside and stuck her bare feet in a play pool, filled with brownish water from the hose. The lady, a widow, whose only son was in the military now serving in Iraq, crocheted items both for charity and to sell at a consignment shop in town. She did lovely work but it did not pay much. She spent her time when not crocheting writing to her son and to other servicemen.

The man down the road a lot or two could barely keep his car operating. He had no heating or air conditioning at all. It had never been installed.

Coop had taken this in early and Coop kept records. Every piece of paper, a copy of every check, was neatly organized into his home filing system by tenant and cross referenced for lot number. All of the records of his fellow tenants were there now.

So when the eviction notice had arrived on Coop’s door he had smiled grimly. He had known this would happen as soon as he finished paying off the mortgage on the unit he had occupied for three years. That was her pattern, repeated each and every time. But this time it was going to be different for Angelique. This time the victim of her rapacious ways was going to fight back.

The law was clear. While she could evict him, he could then sue her for fraud and the evidence of the fraud she had committed was overwhelming. That, and the similar treatment of other tenants, gave them grounds for the class action law suit that could eventually take the entire park away from her. Coop smiled. If an attorney had done this, the value of the place would have gone into BMWs and 401ks for the attorneys’ profit. In this case, the people who had been harmed would benefit from the justice the law could deliver. This time, they would make law in North Carolina and the individual victims would have enough capital to secure better housing for themselves.

They had all been briefed and understood what was going to happen. Coop and Bead had been making the rounds getting their signatures on papers since Angelique had realized that Coop had paid off the mortgage and could not be intimidated into paying more.

Coop had arranged to move into one of the town houses in the subdivision where he was working as project manager. He would be able to buy the unit outright from his portion of the judgment, he figured. For now his rent was very affordable.

The two bedroom unit was large enough for him and Bead and the office, which took up the area normally used as a formal dining room.

As Dave walked into the trailer the phone was ringing. The voice on the other end of the line identified himself as Dave Elder, asking about Coop’s organization and his work.

Coop sat down. Dave seemed knowledgeable, finding out he lived in New York Coop briefly considered asking if he knew Lindsey, who would be filing her suit in just a few days. Then he realized how stupid that was. What were the chances two people would know each other in a city of so many millions of people?

He had no sooner put the phone down that Karen called with good news. She had received a call from the National Chairman of the Veteran’s Party. They were willing and eager to help with her outreach to the families of the military. The Chairman, PG, was going to run her article in their next issue and had invited her down to speak in Florida.

Progress. It was nice when it happened.

American Revival – New York

When Dave walked into his apartment the crew was waiting for him. A call had come in from Gladys. A media contact at the United Nations had forwarded on to her a law suit, filed pro se and still awaiting its docket number from the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York. There were 33 defendants named. The charges included libel, slander, criminal conspiracy, and obstruction of justice among others. While no one in the present administration was named, it was clear that for this to have taken place, collusion at the highest levels had been going on. The plaintiffs had reserved the right to name more defendants, and discovery would make that likely to happen.

The litigants were Lindsey Smithson and her mother.

Reading over the charges outlined in the pleading was stunning. When he finished reading they were all staring at him.

“So, did you get the number for Lindsey I sent you? Also, Diamond called and he has an address for forwarding to Lindsey. The address is to Coop Steigler in North Carolina.”

Dave was stunned. How had he managed to miss her?

Gramps last letter and poem

The phone answering service picked up and Dave left a garbled message for Lindsey. He did get his phone number in, though Lindsey had always had that. Putting his head down on the desk, he felt the smooth surface of the wood. Calling her had been hard to do.

Sitting up, he opened the carved wooden box in which he reposed the Gramps letters and translation. He started to read.

The next letter was the last. It dated from 1939. Googling the name of the ship and the date, he discovered the story of the St. Louis, the refugee ship that Cuba had not allowed to land; its passengers, mostly Jewish, returned to die in the camps. He felt sick. How had it felt for his grandmother to perhaps be able to see her parents and sister and know they would be returned to Nazi Germany?

May 1939

Dearest,

Judith is taking good care of her Papa and she sends you lots of kisses and hugs. The little darling never seems to stop moving, and has taken up dancing so to be like her heroine, Ginger Rogers. Every day she reminds me more of you.

The house I found for your parents and your sister is a few blocks away and will not be ready for a month, but we can squeeze in here until it is. Your parents can use our room and we will take our ease on the fold out couch, leaving the Judiths to use the cot and bed in the little one’s room. I have acquired the extra bedding and other sundries required.

It is still chilly here at night, and you are doubtless enjoying the warmth of tropical nights in Havana. It sounds so exotic. When your Judith arrives, I am sure you will take time to show her the delights you shared with me in your latest letter, though I hope you do not linger there too long.

Look carefully at our Judith’s letter. She was so pleased with herself to have written it and, as you see, she made up her own stationary.

I thank God every day that your parents managed to book passage. Give them my best love since this should reach them before another letter can get to you from Connecticut.

Yours in all ways,

Jacob

To My Dearest

The touch of hope reminds me of the bonded pledge of time.
Caress of fine intention, it spoke of God’s design.
Outside the course of anger and without the sear of grief
The touch of hope reminded me to hold tight my best belief.

In the light of good intention and inside the cusp of truth
The touch of hope refined me through experiences of youth.
From the anguish of all partings and through grief that racks and kills.
The touch of hope sustained me and trained my deepest will.

The touch of hope remembers our laughter and delights
The warmth and glow of loving that lit those endless nights.
You, who were beside me and made all living good.
Remain, sustain and bind me for you told me that I could.

The touch of hope, unfading, will carry me through time
You, the source of all my passion, are the hope who touched my mind.

The original for the poem was not in Gramps’ handwriting. It had been written by Dearest, addressed to her husband when she was dying of polio.

His hope. That is what Gramps had said in his letter to Dave, an echo that Dave now understood. Dearest had left him so early. His hope for the future, engendered from his love for Dearest, he had invested in Dave.

And now Dave knew just how wrong he had been not to trust his instincts and reach out to Lindsey, who was everything that he had ever hoped for in a woman.

Lindsey on the road to North Carolina

The car gave up the ghost just after Greensboro on a long, dark swath of highway that felt like a tunnel into nowhere. The trip down to North Carolina had been uneventful but exhausting. Twice Lindsey had stopped and let the aching and numbness in her arm abate before going on.

When the car sputtered to a stop, she called Coop to let him know she would be late getting there. A half a hour later she was at the car, picking her up.

“Lindsey?” The southern twang was very present. Lindsey stared at the face behind the voice that had become so familiar to her through the phone. Coop’s face was harsh. He was dressed in old pants, a tee shirt and steel tipped combat boots. A service revolver hung in a holster on his shoulder. His hair was long, down passed his shoulders and his face was lined.

“Coop. Well, I made it most of the way.” Lindsey tried to smile but the tiredness had enveloped her. She nearly fell when she got out of the car.

“You have come far enough.” His eyes smiled and when that happened it transformed his face. All of Lindsey’s anxieties began to drain out of her, leaving relief and an over riding exhaustion in their place.

“Thanks.” She smiled, moving towards the huge truck parked in back of her.

“No problem. I’ll grab your stuff.”

The next day the training began.

From the White House

This close to the Convention was not the time for glitches to develop. Humstead was annoyed. All of this stupid yammering about military records. Really. As if it mattered. The idiots who are dumb enough to get caught and sent deserve what they get. Certainly he had managed to stay out of the draft himself. Intelligent people know how to do that.

And now they were saying that the President had never really been in the service just because he had never served full time. Well, he had put on the uniform. He had learned to drive one of those damned planes. That was DANGEROUS. After 9/11 you would think that the American public would realize that planes could crash.

Humstead made a note to inject more outrage into the news responses. Also, it would be clever to defend the Democratic nominee, Jack Bradstreet. He was running into heavy criticism on the same kind of issues. Taking the moral high ground should deflect attention from the issue of what the President did during Vietnam. That would be a very good thing at this point.

Humstead looked over the list of platform planks and policy changes that they had determined would shift the most votes. Announcing these at the convention was only part of the plan, of course.

It was funny that Americans continued to put up with having tiny amounts of their own money doled back to them like this – Humstead had to be grateful they were not smarter, he supposed.

Damn the idiot who screwed the tax reform by proposing publicly that it be replaced by a VAT.

And the protests….but those could be used to the good. It would make the opposition look uncivilized.

Looking up at the Waterford clock on his desk he smiled grimly. No one and nothing was going to stop this campaign from winning.

Princeton, New Jersey

Ellen got a call from Claire in New York asking her to come up to the meeting of a new organization. They were, Claire said, working on issues that were near and dear to both their hearts.

Claire had been sitting next to Ellen at the NOW convention where Ellen had made the deciding vote on the honorific, Ms.

Had Claire heard that the lower house in Illinois had ratified the amendment, Ellen asked? She had not, Claire said, elated. She would need to tell Gladys about it. Gladys Ramsey had been at the convention with them and shared the same room.

The new organization was American Revival and it was Gladys who had introduced her to it and its work.