Chapter Two - Dave's Apartment

“Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.”

- George Washington

Dave’s Apartment - January 2000

Dave woke Wednesday morning face down on his bed. The first thing he heard was the rising noise of traffic and commerce filtering up from the street three flights below. He did not immediately open his eyes. That seemed like too much of a commitment. Images wafted through his mind, drawn from the curious intersection of his entire life history and the new insights last night had left there like the ring in a bathtub. Not that he had a bathtub. The shower in the bathroom was the size of a coffin upended though not nearly so well built. The kitchen was an alcove in the back corner to the left of the door.

He had not started to drink until rather late in the evening, long after his memorable conversation with Lindsey and her mother. Dave did not usually drink at all, which accounted for his present state.

Lindsey. The name and just a nuance of her perfume lingered in his mind. They had talked for a few minutes, just the two of them. That had happened later in the evening, after his introduction and after having chatted with her mother. The knot of focus had disbanded with the entry of Humstead and the hasty departure of Ricks. He had fought off the nausea and pretended to a nonchalance he had not felt as they talked--first about Fuzz Ball and then the primary in New Hampshire and later about his time at Moundville.

When the subject had turned to Ayn Rand she had laughed and told him to talk to her mother, turning to her. The mother, Linden, had rolled her eyes. She had been chatting with Randy Castlethorp, the functionary employed in lowly degree at the New York Institute who was nominally in charge of the Fabituso Society. Randy was a short and roundish young man who tried very hard to ensure that everyone was enjoying themselves. He also made the rounds, ensuring that everyone was greeted, however briefly.

The following conversation had surprised him. Linden had read Atlas Shrugged when she was thirteen. She had named one of her numerous offspring for the heroine in the story. Dagny was also a graduate of Moundsville. The conversation had gone on with her recounting with amusement some of the stranger moments of political history she had personally witnessed over the last thirty years. Dave had learned a lot about personalities he knew only from their written work or from seeing them on television. He had mostly listened. He had shared an abbreviated history of his own, finding it easy to talk to Linden about his life. She had been sympathetic, clucking at the appropriate moments.

During the course of the conversation, he asked for and received Linden’s business card. He thought this was a clever move since he already knew that the two shared an apartment here in the city. Linden knew a lot and had provided him with some unsuspected leads for pursing a project that had begun as an idle amusement but was now becoming a central focus of his attention. He did not believe in the Illuminati, but since he had sat down to drink beer one late afternoon with George Weston his attitude about the world he thought he lived in had changed. Late afternoon had turned into evening and then into the first dusky glimmerings of morning before George had started to cry. George was not the kind of guy who cried. He had seen his wife die of cancer without tears and buried all of his three children one after another without breaking down. But now he was consumed with great, gasping racks of sobs. It had been frightening to see. It had made an impression on Dave that would never fade.

There were bad guys out there, and he needed to know who they really were. He was also fascinated by Lindsey and determined to overcome his stomach once and for all.

While Dave was talking to Linden the Major Domo of the event; the same Randy who had been chatting with Linden when Dave walked over, had clapped his hands and announced that they would now hear the speaker for the evening. The Major Domo, around five feet nine inches of him, possessed a roundish and bouncy form that perfectly matched his personality. Dave remembered that his face had struck him as permanently fixed into a smile of the cheesiest kind. At this point Dave could not even remember his name. Dave strained his brain briefly. Still no dice. It was about then that he had noticed Jan Morton come in. She was very noticeable. Jan definitely looked female, although rather flat chested. She had long, nearly white blond hair and huge hazel eyes. Jan was a pundit and therefore must be intelligent. Her most recent book, Barbarians, was sitting in the pile next to his bed. He had read the first three chapters and then put it down, curiously disappointed. He wanted to ask her some questions. He decided there was no time like the present and began edging his way around the perimeter of the room. Jan was standing just outside the doors, chatting with two lawyer-types. They could not be political. They were too well dressed.

The speaker droned on about something to do with deregulation. He had written a book on the subject, of course, and Dave knew that immediately following there would be a line forming to buy the latest tome and have it autographed. Most of the books written by political types did not hit the best seller list; but they were bought and read by that thin layer of devotees for whom this was the real world.

For the first three years of college he had read everything, either buying it outright or borrowing it from friends or the Library in Moundville. Then he had noticed something that began to bother him. It had happened when he read ten of them back to back over the summer. All of the books seemed to follow a formula and all of them, if you placed the content on the graph he had formulated, carefully ignored certain subjects or actually seemed to create justifications not adhering to market principles in certain areas of human action.

Odd. That had been the beginning. This event had coincided with other chance happenings. Dave had been seated in the Library at Moundville, a gorgeous edifice dedicated to freedom and intellectual inquiry, when the pristine silence of the nearly empty building had been punctured by two voices, speaking low but very clear to him on the other side of a tall bookcase as he sat hunkered down at a library table.

One of the voices was female and the other male. Dave recognized them. One was a professor and the other worked in administration. The woman, Claire Manning, was obviously distressed; the man was trying to calm her down. Dave slumped down further into his seat very, very quietly. He knew that the rules of good behavior mandated that at this point he make his presence known or leave silently, but the subject was the suicide of President Gregory Bugsley’s daughter-in-law. Dave’s curiosity on this tragic event had never been sated.

Claire had been a close friend of Loretta’s, Bugsley’s daughter-in-law. Bugsley had seduced Loretta soon after she married his son. The affair had gone ever since on and off Loretta had confessed to Claire that last day. It had been three years since the event. Why was Claire breaking down now? Dave strained to hear.

The story was illuminating.

Claire had talked to Loretta the day before she shot herself. The woman was upset because not only had Bugsley dumped her after divorcing his wife of many years, so had her other lover, a prominent pundit whom Dave had seen at the Fabituso Society for the first time. Claire had been shocked that Loretta had two lovers and told her so. Loretta has admitted that it was wrong, but pleaded for understanding. She had loved and admired them both; both had dumped her on almost the same day. That had been the last time Claire had seen Loretta alive.

The aftermath had been grisly. The president had resigned; the trustees had circled the covered wagons and refused to answer questions. The administration of the college had been radically changed. No word about the pundit’s relationship with Loretta and how this had also moved her to self destruction was ever mentioned.

Then, just today the pundit had called Claire and nonchalantly asked for a date, since, as he evidently said, he would be out there speaking next week and their mutual friend, Loretta, had said so many wonderful things about her. Claire had refused to see him. The call had taken place just a few minutes before.

Dave slid out of his seat, gathered up his books and backpack, and softly headed for the exit. Thinking about the incident still shocked him.

That incident had followed almost immediately on the expulsion of two students from Moundville for publishing an alternative newspaper. Evidently freedom of speech was something to be discussed and not actually done.

All of these incidents stood in stark contradiction to the stated goals and values of Moundville. The tiny college was over a hundred years old and had admitted its first black student before the Civil War. That had been a real act of courage. What had happened?

As the speaker continued, his monotone unchanging, Dave paused. Linden had given him a lot more to think about. Pieces were falling into place and he did not like the picture that was emerging. Now, hours later, he had decided that an open bar was an attractive nuisance.

The conversation with Jan had been brief. She had looked to see if he had one of her books in hand. Noticing that he didn’t, she had helpfully told him where he could order it. When he laughed she looked annoyed. She also helpfully provided him with the URL for her website. Just in case he had not yet had time to read her opinion pieces and look over the gallery of very attractive pictures. The card she handed him was printed on both sides; the first with the URL and a list of her books, the second side was a very attractive picture of herself leaning slightly forward. Having handed this to him, Jan went back to her conversation. The three continued to talk about a possible congressional race Jan seemed to be considering in Connecticut.

Eventually Dave wandered off, only later realizing that for the first time he had not become nauseated in the presence of a beautiful woman who was touted for her intelligence.

An hour after waking, Dave had managed to drink several glasses of water and swallow some aspirin. He was beginning to feel cheerful, although if he moved rapidly the elephants still trampled through his head.

He sat down at his computer, balancing a cup of coffee, extra strong, on the slim piece of desk that was not covered by piles of papers and hardware.

For a long time now Dave had been making notes on the movement in which he was such a small and insignificant cog. He had gotten the idea online while peering at a graph that showed the relationships between the various individuals and think tanks. Cool, he had thought. But what about…..and that had lead to this series of charts and notes, kept quite openly on a free website. The location of this astonishing nexus of information spanning a growing depth and breadth of networks and interests were hidden in plain sight. He had started to share it once or twice and then, somehow, for some reason, decided to keep it to himself.

He went to the URL, which he kept no place but in his own head and began typing, referring to the notes he had made every so often.

Dave let the water sluice across his body in the shower, lathering with the generic brand of soap that smelled faintly like someone had once waved the stopper of a very cheap perfume over the bar as it set. He could cover that up with the aftershave his mother gave him every Christmas.

Dave had kept the television on in the room while he was on the computer and had looked up when Tough Talk had begun to show. He half listened. Two of the pundits now trotting their stuff on the small screen had been at the Fabituso Society meeting the night before. The subject was the Democrat primacy, so Dave let the sound and feel of the water drown out their voices.

After spending hours at his computer he had finally gritted his teeth for a walk through the shards of snow that were whipping across the sidewalks. The grit and trash had been melting through the snow before the latest round of hard pebbled snow had begun coming down like tiny spikes. Hardly anyone else was on the street, but Dave started to feel claustrophobic if he did not get out sometime during the day. He walked up the Village, crossing through Washington Square, now pretty much abandoned by pedestrian traffic, even by the homeless. The corner where heads usually leaned over chessboards was, not surprisingly, vacant. Even the cars seemed to be huddling in on themselves. The doors of shops normally open to business were closed, though lights remained on inside.

As he walked Dave thought about the stories Linden had told him the night before. She had obviously told the stories many times and had assembled them from her memory as much to amuse as inform. It was difficult to see so many of the people he knew from their writing and life work as quite so crazy and frivolous when they were young. Linden had called it the Freedom Movement, using the term as if it were the accepted nomenclature. He had never heard it called that before, even while he was at Moundville. He wondered if the term was accurate; most of the Libertarian-types he had known at Moundville were more libertine than anything else. Hunching his shoulders, he turned west on 9th Street, beginning to circle back towards his apartment near Bleecker and Greene. It was the long way back, but he enjoyed the artificial solitude of the city streets.

In New York there were few Libertarians, though a few usually showed up at the Fabituso Society Meeting, he had been told. Briefly, he thought about the television and news coverage of the Libertarian State Convention where Harvey Storm, the shocking radio host, had been nominated briefly for governor. Several thousand crazed Storm fans, whipped into electoral frenzy by their maestro, had descended on the shocked nerds of the Libertarian Party like locusts. Dave smiled out into the real storm around him. Republicans were more mainstream. Dave wondered what would have happened if Storm had not dropped out as soon as he was nominated.

Moundville had given him a lot to think about; he just hadn’t known at the time what lines of inquiry he should be pursuing.

As Dave opened his door he suddenly heard the television. He had forgotten to turn it off when he was leaving. Clicking off the set he noticed that his phone was blinking. Calls. As he pulled off his gloves and rubbed his hands together, he shrugged off his coat and tossed it over a chair. No one would care if it stayed on the floor for a week, but it would be on his back again so he could leave for New Hampshire on the train from Penn Station this evening.

The first call was from his mother. He would call her back from the hotel in New Hampshire. The second call was a hang up. Dave glanced at the CID on his phone but the number was blocked.

Dave’s job was strictly part time; part of the time here in New York finding and organizing students for canvassing work, and part of the time overseeing their volunteer time in and around New Hampshire. The pay was not too bad – and Lawrence had a good reputation for paying his staff. This was not universally true in politics, especially when the candidate is losing.

Some of the students were in college and some were seniors in high school. In a few cases they were enthusiastic supporters of Lawrence and in most cases they were working for credit for school. Among them were a few who might make politics their careers, but for most this was a diversion into fantasyland. As with most Republican political work, nearly all of the volunteers were young, nerdy males with a tight little sprinkling of young, nerdy females.

And then there was Christopher.

Christopher Mershon had been up working for Lawrence for three weeks now, coming home just long enough to catch up on his class work. Christopher was home schooling and so could use his time to fulfill the course work he had put together for himself. He worked on reports and other school work on the laptop he took with him on the train, ignoring the other volunteers for the most part. He was not standoffish; he would joke and laugh when not occupied.

Christopher was a surprise. He was intelligent, informed, savvy, witty and even good looking. Dave had gotten into the habit of using him to orient new volunteers on the first day he had worked. Dave had been shocked to find out that Christopher was fifteen years old. This had also shocked the college-age blond volunteer who had marked him out as a possible romantic interest during his second week of volunteer work.

This week his crew was working in Derry; visiting every voter and focusing extra attention on those Republicans who had expressed a desire to vote for someone like Branch.

This week the whole crew was staying with an older couple in Derry. Dave had checked the place out and it was huge. This cut costs and there was a real babysitting aspect of organizing college and high school kids for political work. That worked in New Hampshire. Dave would be reluctant to try the same thing elsewhere.

Dave wondered about Christopher just like he wondered about the other political types he encountered in this work. He smiled thinly. There had been a time when Dave had considered himself a political type. What had that changed? When? Glancing back at Christopher, Dave realized that he might be assuming facts not in evidence. Some of the reasons for participating in political campaigns were educational more than political junkieism.

The four weeks remaining would be both exhilarating and demanding. New Hampshire had been the first to ballot since forever and it remained the state that demanded that candidates come clean. Lawrence might ultimately lose; it was even likely, but that was not because he was not cutting a real swath through New Hampshire. Lawrence played well where you got down and close to the voters. Part of the fascination with campaigns was being able to see candidates close up and so get a real idea what they were about.

Lawrence was a straight arrow from all that Dave has seen and heard. That was the thing that made the figures coming out of the other states so frustrating. Branch had a very different kind of reputation. And Branch had Humstead. As far as Dave was concerned, any candidate who used someone like Humstead was bad news for politics and for America.

It suddenly flashed on Dave that it was really getting to know George Weston that had started to change his feelings about politics; or getting to know about Craig Humstead, he added in his reverie. Not that he knew very much; Weston had been careful not to tell him all too much when you really considered how drunk he was. There had been lots of allusions, but few specifics.

There had been a time that he thought that politics was mostly good guys, at least his side. Dave knew that Lawrence was a good guy; if the world worked the way it should Lawrence would be the Republican candidate.

On the way back to New York from New Hampshire the next week Dave dozed, tuning out the volunteers who were laughing and clowning around; mostly seated in back of him. Trains provided plugs on the exterior wall and he had taken out his laptop, intending to get some work done.

“Dave?” Dave glanced up. Christopher was sitting next to him in the previously unoccupied seat. Slowly Dave stretched, sitting up.

“What can I do for you?” Dave had been meaning to get Christopher alone so he could compliment him on his exemplary performance as a volunteer. This would be a perfect opportunity.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you for couple of days now…..I don’t think I can do this another week.” Christopher seemed apologetic.

“Well, you’ve already done a lot; that is no problem, really. I know that the campaign appreciates….” Looking at Christopher’s face Dave could see that this was not an issue of an unexpected conflict.

“Politics is a waste of time.” Christopher said sadly, without heat but also without hope. He seemed wistful.

This was not what Dave had expected. “What do you mean?”

Christopher seemed a little embarrassed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have put it that way.”

“And maybe you should say what you mean. We can’t talk about it if you don’t--and I do want to know.” Dave leaned towards him, cocking his head slightly to one side. Talking to Christopher about politics, life, and philosophy had become a part of Dave’s day. He saw something of himself in this perhaps overly serious young man.

“My Dad told me that I would be disappointed. But I liked Lawrence. It’s just that the whole thing is a waste of time. It isn’t that I haven’t enjoyed it. I have. But, well,” Christopher’s face screwed up and he struggled to formulate his thoughts. “I listen to the candidates talk at the forums and to voters. I have read nearly everything they wrote, too. But it doesn’t match.”

“Match?” Now Dave was puzzled.

“Right, match. They talk, but their words do not match who they are and what they really do. I don’t like that. I think that what people do is more important than what they say. Before I volunteered, I studied all of the candidates. I gave that to myself as an assignment, correlating what they have done with what they say. That is why I decided to support Lawrence, actually. He is a good man who does not have a chance of winning.”

Dave blinked. This, he had not expected. “You are right. It looks like Lawrence will take New Hampshire where voters get a good look at the real man behind the words, but lose where money trumps. So what do you want to do about it?”

“That I don’t know. I want to do something, but I think I need to go back to square one and think about it.” Christopher smiled a little shamefacedly. “Sorry.”

“Hey, Lincoln freed the slaves. No problem.” The train had plunged into the cavernous tunnels that presaged their arrival at Penn Station. Dave extended his hand. “Please, keep in touch. Working with you has been a pleasure.”

Christopher looked at him; his face relaxed and he smiled. “Yeah. Me too. Well, great. Can I keep in touch?”

“Please, I would be disappointed if you didn’t. You are a mean chess player and I like your taste in books.”

Christopher nodded. Dave knew he would be hearing from him. And about him. Christopher was the kind of kid who would make his mark.

Back in his apartment, Dave thought about what Christopher had said. Politics is a waste of time. Not the most diplomatic thing to say to someone who has taken up politics as a profession, perhaps. Had he? Dave was no longer sure that was true. He had been on automatic since graduation in some ways. Slowly, over the past months, his focus had shifted from politics as profession to…what?

Dave sat down at his computer, an almost automatic action now. He booted up and began to download the files he had uploaded from his laptop in New Hampshire.

On election night Dave was at the victory party, cheering in Nashua. He had experienced that wonderful elation that always comes with the end of a campaign or phase of campaign; a combination of relief and celebration that is present even when you know darn well you are going to take a beating. It had been heady, and the message that Lawrence had delivered had moved him to tears. But what did it really mean? Lawrence had said, “We have sent a powerful message to Washington--change is coming.”

There was no question that the trend in American government, always larger, more costly, intrusive, grasping and less and less effective, had been steady over many years no matter who was in the White House or who controlled Congress. As much as Dave had admired President William Wallace, he was well aware that the government Wallace had left was larger than the one he inherited.

Christopher’s words about how words lie came back to Dave along with a comment his grandfather had made about reinventing square wheels. So much about their system simply did not work. Wallace and Lawrence were both men who lived their words. If even good men struggled what happened when the tendency was for bad men to win? Dave had never admired Wallace more than when he had taken full personal responsibility for the misdeeds of others in his administration. He knew where the buck stopped. But for how many in politics was that true at all? And Lawrence was not going to be occupying the White House.

The days afterwards brought more questions but no answers.

The Democratic Primary was also playing itself out. Vice President Armstrong Fore dropped the cordiality pose in November and began attacking his opponent, former Senator Wesley Bender. In January Bender, facing a dip in his slight lead in New Hampshire, responded in kind pumping up his numbers enough to make the New Hampshire ballot a near draw. Close enough at any rate to let him limp on into the next round.

Dave read everything on all of the candidates. You never knew what would prove to be useful. Bender and Lawrence had been positioned as the underdogs; both clean for Gene kind of guys. Both had opposed soft money in campaigning. Dave dropped the Times onto his lap, not even bothering to fold it neatly back into its original configuration, something he usually did as a matter of course.

What was going on here? Why did the good guys get mowed down like grass?

Florida, St. Petersburg - Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 39

Percy Grolick, “PG” as his friends called him, knew his suggestion was likely to be shot down. He never let that kind of thing stop him. His years as an Army Ranger had taught him not to ignore obstacles but to see them as mere tactical inconveniences that could eventually be removed. Sometimes it took time to do that but it could be done.

The last ten years of watching the veterans of America’s military sink further into poverty and need was motivation enough. The decision finally rendered by the Supreme Court that just this week had cleared the way for the government to ignore their obligations to those who had served. It had also jarred PG into more open action. Talking was all fine and good but what had ten years of talk accomplished?

PG raised his hand, asking for recognition.

“Grolick, speak your piece.” The Commander recognized him. It was better, Commander Hays had learned, to get Grolick out of the way early in the meeting. He had to yammer but otherwise he was a good guy, pretty much; worked on their programs and came out to help with clean up when necessary.

PG rose slowly, glancing around the room and then fixing his eyes on the Commander, standing behind the podium flanked by the American flag. They had put in new carpeting the year before but the wives were not happy with the color. It was a bright mustard that reminded them of French’s. They had gotten a great price on both the carpet and installation from a fellow member. The chairs were of the folding variety. A member had gotten them a real deal on these, too.

PG had been thinking about starting a Veterans Party for years now. He had been unhappy with the way servicemen were treated during Vietnam. He had doubled down that anger after the Gulf War. He had ruminated, read, and was now determined. It would be easier to start through another organization; one dedicated to the well-being of Veterans like himself.

“I move to start a committee to register us as a political party. I nominate myself as chairman.” PG sat down.

There was a long silence as the thirty men in the room looked at each other. Some of them shrugged.

“Fails for lack of a second.” The Commander went on briskly to the highway clean up planned for the next weekend.

PG sighed; Back to the drawing board yet again. It could be done; it needed to be done. It would be done. Eventually.