CHAPTER II

 

So began the pattern. John would arrive as the sun rose over the buildings in the early morning and stay until the security-shift change at five forty-five. As he stood his post an older woman, in her fifties, noticed him.

"Pardon me," she asked. "Weren’t you here the other day?"

Without hesitation he answered, "Yes, I was."

"Do you work here or something?"

"No," he answered, "I’m here to see the President."

"Oh, you’re kidding right?"

"No," he explained, "I’m here to see the President."

"What do you want to see the President for?"

"I’m going to ask him to resign," he responded.

"What good is that going to do?" she asked.

"What good does doing nothing do?"

"But you’re just one man."

"That’s correct, and it’s all I can be." He explained, "But if everyone who felt like I do got in line, how long would that line be?

"I’m sorry." John asked, "What’s your name?"

"I’m Susan Harris." She nodded as she said, "I see your point, uh. . .," as she hunted for his name.

"John Smith," he answered.

She smiled and answered, pointing to her graying hair, "I didn’t get this gray hair by believing John Smiths. Is that really your name?"

"That’s my real name," he answered. "For now, anyway.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

She paused. "Sometimes I’m not sure myself. I lost my first husband in Vietnam and now my son is in the Navy. So, I’m wise to the ways of the military, and well, I don’t know. I know it doesn’t do any good, but sometimes when I come here and look at the White House, it’s like I know they can feel my rage."

He shook his head, nodding in agreement, understanding her every word, saying, "You know, I’ll only be a few minutes with the President; if you would like to get in line, you can see him after me."

She smiled and explained, "I work a couple of blocks from here and my days are filled, and my husband fills my nights, so I don’t have the time or the patience to stand in line. But I’m in a group of military mothers that meets twice a month. I’ll tell them about you and maybe one of them would like to meet with the President, as well. We supported Cindy Sheehan, but that didn’t seem to do any good. How are you any different?"

"Cindy was seduced by the media," he explained. "She thought the lights and cameras were on her side, and that the story was all about her. I’m here to see the President; I’m not leaving until I see him. The story is about the President, not about me, and if I had a million people behind me, all wanting the same thing, the story would still be about the President, and not about me.

"The media have ceased to be truth-tellers; they are storytellers, not reporters or truth-presenters. They present ugly truths in pretty little frames and then tell you the story all about the pretty frame. The media took Cindy and made the story about her instead of her dead son or the bogus war. The Left made it about poor Cindy, her loss as a grieving mother and the injustice of it all. The Right made it about Cindy the radical, a tool of the Left and of Michael Moore. The attention made her a celebrity and her celebrity put her in demand. So, then they wanted her to march and make speeches, to appear at fundraisers here and there, so she left her post. Once she left that roadside in Texas, the story was over. I will not leave my post."

Susan nodded, "I think you're right about the media, but what can you do about it? Without the media you’ll still be standing here when the next President is sworn in."

"What can I do?" he asked. "I won’t let them frame me in their light. I’m as unimportant to this story as this sidewalk I stand on. Every time they try and put a frame on me I’ll…, well," John thought. "Well, the most powerful laser can be defeated by a simple mirror."

"John Smith, you’re the sanest crazy man I’ve ever met! But you are still crazy, and they will mow you down like the grass on this lawn!" she told him, pointing to the other side of the fence. "But I do appreciate your effort. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Well, if you happen to come this way, maybe some water?" he answered.

"I’ve got to get going now. I’ll try to remember the water."



Several days later Susan reappeared with water bottle in hand. John was still on his assigned spot. She had brought someone with her, another woman, younger and who looked much smaller against Susan’s large frame.

"Hello, I’m Margaret Farmer," she said. "Susan has told me all about you. I think what you're doing here is wonderful and I would like to help you."

John smiled, answering, "Thank you, the line starts here."

"Well, John, I can’t do that but would you like to come talk to our group?"

John, somewhat vexed, looked at Susan and asked, "Should I bring the sidewalk with me?"

Margaret was confused by the remark but Susan explained, "Margaret, John feels he is personally unimportant and that any attention on him detracts from the issue at hand."

Margaret then asked, "Can I at least interview you for our web site?"

"Sure," he answered, as she got out a small tape recorder. John gulped two-thirds of the bottled water and then poured the remaining third over his head.

Susan asked, "Are you hot?"

"No," he explained, "sometimes water can do as much good for the body on the outside as it can on the inside."

Margaret was now ready to start her interview. She asked, "Where are you from, John?"

"America," he answered without pause.

So she then asked, "What part?"

"All of me," he answered smiling, then adding, "It doesn’t matter where I’m from. If I say I’m from Boston then they’ll say I’m a New England liberal. If I say I’m from California, then I’m a left-coast nut. If I say Montana, then I’m a probably a White supremacist. If I say Alabama, then I’m a Klansman. It’s all about putting meaningless labels on people."

"Okay then, do you have any family?"

"Look, Margaret, I am John Smith. I am an American and I am damn sick of the way this country is going so I‘m not going to let it go on like this anymore. If they want to spy on me, they can look out their window, I’m right here! If they want to put me in jail, they know where to find me, I’m right here! I’m right, they’re wrong. Republicans, Democrats, Communists, Libertarians, and librarians all know that what’s going on here is insanity! Here I stand and here I stay!

"If you love your country, stand up; if you love your children, stand up. They have an army, a navy, an air force, spy satellites, even nuclear weapons, yet they are afraid of us. As well they should be. Why? Because they are con men who have conned their way into a job they aren’t qualified for. They cower in fear that they will be discovered, which is why they watch one man on the sidewalk and will spend thousands of dollars to find out what you're reading in the library. It’s not enough for them to just control what you’re reading, because they would prefer you to not read at all, unless it’s the newspapers that they publish. They would prefer you listen to the radio or watch the TV stations they own.

"They want you to watch American Idol and never ask any uncomfortable questions. To sing only happy songs and have only happy thoughts while they profit by exporting your jobs and writing laws to exempt themselves. To create the knowledge class and the peon class of those who have and those who never will, to poison the water and the air while they proclaim a culture of life, to use the military as an arm of Jesus Christ and to use your children like bait on a hook. Even Satan would admire such evil."

Margaret’s recorder shut off with a click and she looked down at it saying, "Well, I think I’ve got it; I think I understand. Thank you, John, it’s been a pleasure meeting you. Is there a number I can reach you at?"

"No," he answered, "I’ll be right here."

Susan said, "I have to get back to work." As the women walked off, they discussed the personage of John Smith.

Margaret remarked, "You're right, he's plenty intense enough. But is he nuts, or what?"

"He’s serious and he’s right about Cindy Sheehan," Susan answered. "He’s right about a lot of things, but just being right doesn’t mean you’re not crazy or that you’ll get anywhere."

So," Margaret said, "I’ll write the article tonight and post it on some different sites but it is going to be about what he’s doing, not about him."

Susan approved, "I think that’s what he wants."

"And what I want, too," Margaret added.

The two women hugged and parted, and later that evening Margaret sat down with a glass of red wine at her computer screen. She pulled out the recorder from her purse, rewound the tape and just sat back, listening. She reflected on the apparent pain in his voice, and then, as the tape continued, his rising anger. How odd it was, she thought. How unhinged he could become and still have such a lucid understanding of the issues. She had thought to herself, I’ll just introduce him and copy his speech, but she found it difficult to characterize John in print: part Gandhi, part John Brown, part intellectual, part street performer. Well, she thought, at least the title will be easy, "Here I Stand, Here I Stay." Around eleven o’clock she finished it and posted it on the military mother's web site and several other anti-war sites.



She awoke in the morning, made her coffee and bran muffin, and went to her computer to check the responses and to see if she had any e-mail. Her personal account had about ten, mostly junk and spam, but there was one from the founder of Women for Peace, Elaine Keever, whom she had spoken with once on the phone but she had never received an e-mail from before. It read: "Dear Margaret, Thank you for your article. Is John a real person? He sounds wonderful. I believe he is someone that can help us advance our movement. His passion and fire are just what is needed. Would he be willing to make public speeches? I think he could help us tremendously in our fund-raising efforts, as well. He could really be an asset to our cause."

She drank deep from her coffee cup and thought to herself, "What have I done? Did I make him sound too good? What will happen when they meet him? What will they think of me after meeting this average-looking, homeless guy in shabby clothes? An ant fighting a bowling ball, and she wants to use him to advance our cause? Jeeze," she thought, "I must be pretty good at this. So, what do I do now?"

She went to her web site to see the reaction to her post. There were five replies, all positive. No surprise, she was preaching to the choir.

She thought, at lunch she would take John a bottle of water and ask him about making speeches. She went to the fridge and grabbed a bottle and put it in her purse, and then thought about how to ask him. "The problem," she said to herself as she smiled, "was, with John, you’ll get a speech all right, just maybe not on what you want or when you want it."

She continued to get ready for work and pondered her dilemma. The quandary stayed with her most of the morning as she deliberated on how to ask John to speak.

When she got to the White House at lunch time, John was already talking to two men in suits. Her first thought was, cops, but then she saw the camera and guessed reporters. She stood off, trying to hear the conversation.

The first man asked, "Do you think the war was a mistake?"

"Yes, of course it was," he answered without hesitation.

Then the cameraman asked, "So, you think we should just cut and run?"

"Yes, of course we should," he again answered.

The cameraman, becoming riled by his answers asked, "Just pull out and run?"

"Yes!" he answered. "Three boys were in the woods; one boy dared the other two to throw rocks at a hornet's nest. When the boy hit the hornet’s nest, a hundred hornets poured out; two of the boys ran immediately but the third boy stood his ground. 'Run!' they yelled. 'I won’t do it, I won’t let the hornets know I’m afraid of them.'"

The cameraman said, "That’s not a fair comparison! What about the Iraqis? Won’t they be worse off?"

John explained, "The question isn’t about: will the Iraqis be worse off. It's: will the Americans be better off. Right now we are part of the problem. If we leave, the problem will become clearer for the Iraqis to solve. And in the end, they are the ones who will have to solve it. It’s like jumping out of an airplane saying, 'If I open my parachute, I’ll never know for sure what would have happened'."

The cameraman was becoming red-faced and snapped, "Mr. Smith, I don’t think your argument is cogent!"

John responded, "I don’t think your argument is cogent, either. But the difference is, you’re playing poker with someone else’s money. How suddenly overwhelmed with concern for the poor Iraqis we become when we think that it’s our goals which won’t be achieved."

"Well, Mr. Smith, I guess we will just have to agree to disagree," the reporter remarked as he was trying to calm the situation. "But we do thank you for your time." The men shook hands with John and left.

As they walked away, John called out to Margaret, "Hello."

"Who’re your friends?" she asked.

"The Washington Times," he answered with a smile. "They came to ask me questions so they could write their own answers later."

"What did you tell them?"

"The same thing I would tell you or anyone else: the truth. And that’s what upset them so."

"Aren’t you afraid they will hurt your cause, John?"

"They’ll try. They’ll report the smoke and ignore the fire, but at this point, any attention is positive."

"But, John," she interjected, "what if they make you look like a nut?"

"Oh, they will; that’s exactly what they will try to do. But it is the truth of the message, not the quality of the messenger, that matters. Whether I’m a nut or the messiah, the story will be in the paper and will generate curiosity," he replied.

She thought this might be the perfect opening. "John," she asked nonchalantly, "would you be willing to talk to some people sympathetic to your cause?"

"Sure, bring them around."

"Well," she hesitated, "it's not that simple. You would have to go to them."

"No problem." He added, "As long as it won’t affect my hours here."

"Great, I’ll get back to you with the details. Oh, I almost forgot, I brought you some water."

"Thanks," he told her as he opened the bottle and downed two-thirds of it and poured the other third over his head again.

"John, why do you do that?" she asked.

"Well," he explained, "it reminds me of why I’m here. How simple and basic life is, pain and pleasure; it’s not complicated, it’s simple. And, well, talking to those reporters made me feel kind of dirty."

"Thank you, John," she said.

"Huh, for what?" he asked.

"Well, John, for agreeing to make a speech."

"Not a problem. Thank you for the water."



As she returned to work she called Susan to keep her up to speed. "I got an e-mail from Elaine Keever, the leader of Women for Peace," she explained.

"You sure it wasn’t one of those blanket e-mails, Margaret? You know, the ones they send out to everyone?"

"No, it was directly from her to me. I couldn’t believe it myself. She wanted me to ask John to speak to them. I was so nervous, Susan, I didn’t know what he would do for sure, but he was really very sweet about it. I was surprised that he agreed so readily."

"You didn’t tell him it was a fund-raiser, did you?"

"No, I didn’t," she said. "I only climb one mountain at a time."

"I’m just afraid for you, Margaret. I know he’s charming, but what do you know about him, really? You had better keep it straight with him, from the start," she warned, "and don’t get yourself into a situation you can’t handle. My experience is that most men are linear thinkers; they think from A to B. and if you try and bend that line on him, you're liable to have trouble."

"I wasn’t trying to trick him," she explained defensively. "He didn’t ask, and after all, he is a big boy."

Susan’s seeds of doubt sprouted in Margaret's mind. She really didn’t know John that well and she was surprised at how she had taken to him, despite his eccentricities. She thought he was one of those people that you meet and think they are too good to be true, but then the more genuine you discover they are, it causes you to become intimidated by them out of a fear that you will fall short in their eyes. John had a hard-bitten edge; he was like a dog that never growls and always wags his tail, and then, when you reach out to pet him, you're never sure if he will bite you or not.

As soon as she got home she answered Elaine’s e-mail. It made her feel important to be dealing with the founder and president directly, even though she was only a foot soldier. She felt passionately about the cause; she had seen what a war could do to a family. Her uncle had been killed during the Tet Offensive, protecting the embassy in Saigon. She knew how the pain never really left the family, but remained like the paint on the wall, fading ever so slightly from year to year and becoming noticeable only when you moved a picture. It was always there, even if unnoticed, until change made it hurt all over again.

Was it wrong to try and advance in an organization? Her pride made her question her own motivations; now she was feeling bad about feeling good. How her ex-husband would have had a field day with that. In her head she could hear him saying, "The bad news is, there is no bad news! But the good news is, that’s bad news!" She reminded herself, just because he was right didn’t mean he wasn’t an asshole. She typed a short and to-the-point reply to Elaine and hit Send. She then moved on to the more pressing issues of what frozen delicacy to microwave.

 

John had finished his supper and was helping Michael in the kitchen. Father Dave came through the line and asked Michael how it was going.

"Good, Father, but we're running low on turkeys and green beans."

"John, how’s it going with you?"

"Good, Father," he replied, smiling. "I’ve had plenty of turkey and green beans." Father Dave acknowledged John’s weak attempt at humor and continued through the kitchen.

When he had gone, Michael explained, "He has to go beg for more money tomorrow, from the archdiocese." John stopped washing the pan and listened. "It's not that they don’t appreciate what we do here, or that they don’t want to give us the money, they just have to ration their finances. We live by faith; the archdiocese lives by faith and good accounting principles."

"I didn’t realize the situation here was that dire. Perhaps I should move on, to lighten your load."

"No, John, it’s not like our load would be lighter without you. It’s just that even though we live by faith, most of the world doesn’t."

John continued washing dishes, thinking of all the money that had been spent to remove him from a sidewalk and how many turkeys it would have bought. And how it wasn’t freedom which was expensive, it was denying it to someone that was costly.

 

John had stayed on his post for almost four weeks and he had become a fixture. He had come to know all the agents and guards by name. Agent Henderson, Bill, as he had come to know him, came out of the security office. "Hey, John?"

"Yeah, Bill."

"Would you do me a favor?"

"Sure thing," he answered. "Do you want me to come in and watch the TV cameras for a while so you can go to the bathroom?"

"No, thanks, John. It’s come to the attention of certain parties who live on the other side of this fence that you're giving interviews out here on the sidewalk."

"I’ve only given three interviews, Bill, and as far as I know, none have been published."

"I think you're wrong about that," Bill explained. "John, they wouldn’t act like this if something hadn’t reached the press."

"What do they want me to do, Bill?"

"They want you to do your interviews somewhere else."

"Let me guess, Bill: Pittsburgh?"

"No," he explained, "just across the street. They’re afraid you’ll attract attention."

"That’s the idea, Bill," replied John. "What if I say no?"

"We’ve been down that road, John; we both know what will happen. Look at it this way, a month ago they didn’t know you existed. Today, they do. You’re still just a fly in the room but at least now they know you’re buzzing around. John, I know you’re sincere and unflinching in your cause. And this isn’t a retreat, it’s a tactical withdrawal, and when the interview is finished, you can come back."

"Scouts honor, Bill?"

"Scouts honor."

"Then tell them it’s done."

"Thanks, John," he said.

"But, Bill, remind them that now they owe me one!"

"Thanks, John," Bill repeated as he backed towards the security building. "You know, sometimes I think you’re looking at the world through the wrong end of the telescope."

It wasn’t more than ten minutes when another reporter approached John, asking for an interview. "Mr. Smith, can I ask you a few questions? My name is Randy Martin. I’m with the Washington Post."

"Sure," he answered. "About what?"

"About your protest."

"I’m not protesting, Mr. Martin. I’m here waiting to see the President."

"John, realistically, isn’t that just a ploy?" he asked. "You know full well he is never going to meet with you."

"It’s not a ploy," John insisted. "I fully intend to see him, unless he leaves first."

"Well, in that case, I think he’ll leave first," Randy answered.

"Why the hell do you want to ask me questions if you already know the answers?" John barked. But as Randy began to answer, John saw agent Henderson standing outside the office, pointing across the street. "Look, Mr. Martin," he explained, "if you want to ask questions, fine, but I’ve agreed to do all interviews across the street. So, before I’m gonna take it across the street, I want to know that it’s worth my time."

"What do you want to know?" he asked.

"That whatever I say is exactly what you’ll print. Not your impression of what I said or what you think I mean by what I said or the political ramifications of what you think I mean to have said, but just what I say, verbatim! After that, you can put any spin on it you want."

Without a pause Randy answered, "Okay, sure." As they walked to the crosswalk he asked, "John, did you have these same rules in place with The Washington Times?"

"Randy, would it have done me any good with The Washington Times? I ask these things from you, Randy, because I think this may be worthwhile."

The light changed and they crossed the street and John said, "Okay, shoot."

"John, who are you?" Randy asked.

"I’m an American," he answered. "I’m one little man who’s had enough."

"What do you hope to accomplish?"

"I don’t hope to accomplish anything. I will accomplish, or die trying, to regain control of my country."

"John, do you consider yourself a liberal or a conservative, Republican or Democrat?"



"At this point," he explained, "it doesn’t matter; we are long past that. There is no first class, second class, or steerage on a sinking ship."

"John, do you think it’s really all that bad?"

"Randy, we have our service people dying all over the world, we have enough to fill a city with the wounded and maimed. We no longer count the dead in ones or twos, but in hundreds; forty-five hundred! How many hundreds does it take to qualify as 'all that bad'?"

"John, what about the war on terror?"

"Whose war on terror?" John asked indignantly. "These military families, they fight the war on terror every damn day; every ringing telephone strikes terror. Every strange car that slows down in front of the house strikes terror. Can’t you see? The monkeys are running the zoo and they’ve got you convinced that we should help them take all the money out of the treasury to protect it from invisible bogeymen. Look across the street, do they look like they’re afraid of terror?

"They are protected. Exxon’s protected. When the water came over the levies, they diverted power to help those poor souls at Exxon run their refinery. Meanwhile, bodies of your countrymen were floating in the streets of New Orleans, all while the President was playing air guitar. So, all things considered, just what the hell is your definition of 'all that bad'? Is it that bad that the average American’s standard of living has declined for six years in a row? What is the point of having a nation when the welfare of its people isn’t even a consideration? When you, as a reporter, with annual raises and bonuses, with health insurance, an expense account and a company car, come here to ask me, 'is it all that bad?' You’re like a rapist asking his victim, 'is it that bad?' You’re being well paid to hide the truth, not to tell it. You live your life thinking you’re the pimp when, in fact, you’re the whore!"

"Look, John, I’m just asking questions," Randy stuttered, backing up a step to compensate for the steps John had taken towards him. "I’m not doing it, John; you got me confused with the bad guys," he tried to explain.

John quickly responded, "What’s the President say, Randy? If you're not helping the good guys then you're one of the bad guys!"

"Whoa, John, that’s why I’m here, to tell your story!"

"I appreciate that and I hope you will. But please try to understand that questions like 'is it all that bad' leave me fearful as to your qualifications."

"Lets try this question, John: what can people do to help you? What do you want people to do?"

"Get in line," he answered without hesitation. "Come down here and get in line with me until they leave."

"Then what, John?"

"We’ll see, Randy, we'll see."

They shook hands and Randy was about leave when John asked, "You mentioned the Washington Times story; what did they say?"

Randy looked surprised. "You haven’t read it? They crucified you. I’ll bring you a copy."

As John started to walk back to the White House, an older gentleman asked, "Are you the John Smith from the newspaper?"

"Yes," he responded.

"I thought so," the man said, "You give 'em hell! I thought that was you by what you were telling him. I read the story in The Times and it looked and smelled like what it was. Crap. You just keep at it. People know when they’re being pissed on; they know it’s not raining. You just keep telling the truth. Let them spin it any way they want, but I know you're telling the truth and so do a lot of other people."

"Then stay here with me," John asked.

"I can’t," the older man replied. "I got a job and a family, but I’m with you and I hope you’ll stay."

"Thank you," John answered. "I will."

As the man walked off he told his friend, "I told you, that was John Smith from the newspaper."

John headed back to his post. When he returned, agent Henderson acknowledged him by giving him a knowing thumbs up.

 

When Margaret awoke the next morning the TV was still on, blaring some infomercial. She got out of bed and clicked the TV off and went her computer to log on and then to get ready for the day. She was running late and thought about skipping her e-mail, and then thought, if she were late she could blame it on traffic. Her first e-mail was from Elaine Keever. It read: "Thank you for your excellent work with John Smith. I think he could be so beneficial to us as a catalyst and as a representative of his class. I was wondering, we are having a get-together at my home tonight. I know that this is short notice but could you find out if John is available for supper and bring him here around seven? Please give my assistant a call and let him know, either way. I am looking forward to meeting you both. Yours truly, Elaine."

She was flattered just to be invited, but wasn’t sure she liked the tone of the "his class" remark. It made her wonder if they would be entering through the front door or not. She copied Elaine’s phone number and darted off for work.

"Good afternoon," her boss called out sarcastically as she got off the elevator, adding, "How nice of you to join us today."

She knew he wasn’t really angry, he was just digging at her. Jim Bailey was a good guy. She might even have dated him if she didn’t work for him. He knew she was a good worker, that she was low maintenance and he admired her ability to get things done by herself. She knew he had recommended her for promotion several times, but without a degree in management, they would never consider her. They had hired twenty-something’s, fresh out of college, for those positions instead.

Margaret approached him asking, "Jim, I’ve got something important to do tonight. I need to leave early and I need go to lunch early, too."

"So, you basically just came in to tell me you wouldn’t be here today?" he remarked.

"I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need to," she replied.

"I know, I’m just giving you a hard time. What’s his name?" he inquired wryly.

"It’s not a him," she explained with playful disapproval, "It’s a her."

"TMI!" he exclaimed loudly. "I don’t want to hear about it. La la la la la," he repeated as he walked away from her with his fingers in his ears. There, that was the easy part, she thought. Now for the hard part.

She got to the White House around eleven o’clock; John was at his post. "You're early," he said. "What’s up?"

"John, I know this is short notice, but are you available tonight?"

"I don’t know," he answered, rubbing the stubble on his chin. "I usually wash dishes and take out the trash at the shelter at night, but if it’s important enough, that can wait, I guess."

"Elaine Keever wants to meet you and has invited us to dinner at her house."

John, thinking it over, asked, "What are we having? We’re having meat loaf at the shelter tonight and I wouldn’t want to miss that for something inferior."

"John, are you kidding? Don’t you know who Elaine Keever is?"

"Is she the one that bakes cookies with those little elves in the hollow tree?"

"John! She is the founder and leader of Women for Peace!"

"I didn’t know who she was, but by your reactions, I could tell she was important to you. Is she a friend of yours?"

"Well, no, I’ve never met her before, but it's you she wants to meet."

"Then she is in for a treat, she’ll get to meet both of us. But you didn’t answer my question."

"Huh?" she asked.

"What are we having?"

She smiled back at John. "I don’t know, but I’ll be back later with details."

As she drove back to work she dialed Elaine’s number and a male voice answered, "Gabe Lebowitz speaking."

"Could I speak to Elaine Keever, please?"

The man answered, "I’m sorry, she is away from her office. I’m her assistant, how may I help you?"

"I’m Margaret Farmer and Mrs. Keever had asked me to see if I could arrange for John Smith and myself to attend her dinner party this evening."

"Of course," he replied, "I know all about it. Will you be attending?"

"Yes, and Mr. Smith as well."

"Outstanding. We will be sitting down to eat around eight; can you be here about seven for drinks? Should I send a car for you and Mr. Smith?"

"No, we’ll be fine," she told him.

As he gave her the address he asked, "Do you know where that is? "

"I think so," she told him.

"It's right off the end of Embassy Row. If you have any problems just call this number," he said. "We’ll see you tonight."

Her mind was not on work the rest of the day; she was excited to be attending a dinner party at Mrs. Keever's but nervous about the many ways it could blow up in her face. Around three, she turned off her terminal and waved at Jim Bailey as she pushed her chair under her desk.

He called out through his office door as she walked past, "Give her my love," as he wrapped his arms around himself, feigning an embrace and making kissy-faces. She knew he was only kidding but others in the office knew she wasn’t married, and that’s how rumors get started.

She returned to the White House and asked John, "Are you ready?"

"For what?"

"It’s after three thirty. By the time you change and I change and with all the traffic, it will be after six."

"Then we're going to be late, because I’m not leaving here until five forty-five."

"John," she implored, "you won’t have time to change."

"I don’t need to change. I’m ready now and I’m not leaving here until five forty-five."

"Look, John, this is a dinner party with important people. You can’t just show up when you get around to it."

"These people are just people, Margaret; important is a title we choose to give to them. If your septic tank backs up then the guy with the pumping truck becomes important. The guy they've invited to dinner lives in a homeless shelter; do you think that they think we dress for dinner at the shelter? They want to talk to me about what I’m doing here. I’ve been arrested and I’ve been put into an insane asylum for what I’m doing here. Do they really think I’ll leave early now so as not to be late for dinner?"

"All right, you win, John. I’ll go get ready and I will meet you at that corner right over there at six, okay?"

"Sure, and besides, Margaret, we wouldn’t want to be too early, would we? Don’t we want to be fashionably late?"

 

It was a quarter after six when she pulled up. There was John in his blue, cloth jacket with black stripes, his faded blue jeans and dirty athletic shoes. As soon as the car stopped he jumped in.

"Man o' man, don’t you look nice, all dressed up and smelling good and everything," he said, admiring Margaret. "I’d better comb my hair, at least."

"You don’t mind doing this, do you, John?"

"No, not at all," he explained. "I’d talk to anyone to advance my cause, but what I won’t do is compromise on my cause."

As they pulled up in front of the white, marbled mansion with its huge, wrought-iron gates, he joked, "You're not taking me back to the mental institution are you? Those gates make me little nervous."

"Relax," she said, "you're among friends. But you’re right, this place is pretty intimidating, isn’t it?"

As she approached the gate a large, serious-looking man with a walkie-talkie leaned over to the window of her Honda Accord. As she rolled down her window he asked, "Good evening, Ma’am. May I have your names please?"

Before she could answer, John remarked, "No, you can’t, we're still using them."

"John! Now is not the time to joke." She looked back to the man at the window. "We’re Margaret Farmer and John Smith," she replied.

"Very good, Ma’am. If you’ll pull inside the gate to the door, someone will escort you from there."

"Thank you," she told him as she looked back sternly at John and said, "You behave!" But now she was more worried about herself; her little Honda that she had been so proud of, how pathetic it looked parked between the Mercedes, Cadillac’s and Lexus’s, and she began to fear that she wouldn’t fit into the crowd any more than her car did. She noticed John, for his part, seemed very relaxed. He was curious about the house but he didn’t seem the least bit intimidated by it.

A doorman in tails asked for their names as they climbed the stairs and approached the door. Margaret gave them to him and she couldn’t help but notice the doorman giving John, with his hands buried in his pockets, a second look. "Yes ma’am," he answered, finding their names on the list. "Ms. Farmer and Mr. Smith, Mrs. Keever has asked that I take you directly to her as soon as you arrive." He walked them through a large entrance hall with its huge, crystal chandelier and through a crowd of perhaps fifty or sixty people in formal wear. John admired the marble tiled floors and twenty-foot ceilings; the doorman knocked on a set of heavy oak doors and stepped inside. He stepped back out saying, "Mrs. Keever will see you now," and they were ushered in.

Elaine Keever stood up from her desk, a shapely woman in her late forties, as attractive as her fortune would allow. Born into wealth with a million-dollar education, she was a stunning figure of refinement. She introduced herself. "You must be Margaret Farmer, it’s so nice to meet you. I have been told all about your efforts on our behalf. Thank you. And you must be Mr. John Smith. It is such a pleasure to meet you, as well. I greatly admire what you are doing and I’m so glad to have a chance to meet with you so that we might talk before dinner. Margaret, dear, would you mind terribly if I spoke with John privately?"

John interrupted, saying, "No, she’s my assistant and my date. Where she goes, I go."

"Well certainly, John, I just wanted to discuss what we could do to help each other. Let's all be seated then." Mrs. Keever began, "John, as I’ve said, I admire what you’re doing and I want to help you."

"It’s a big sidewalk, Mrs. Keever," he told her. "Come on down."

"John, I could do that, but I can do more for you behind the scenes. I sent Mr. Martin from The Washington Post to speak with you and I’m afraid you gave him a rather rough time."

"Mrs. Keever," he explained, "I want your help but to solve any problem you have to understand the problem first. Mr. Martin has all of the qualifications to be a fine reporter, but without any understanding of the problems, he’s like a blind house painter. He has the tools but can’t see what he is doing. This is a struggle of working people, not poor people but working people, drowning in a rising tide. It’s impossible to explain to those who are living on mountain tops the misfortunes of those on the beach."

"John," Mrs. Keever answered, "no matter what you think of Mr. Martin, he can do us a great deal of good. He is writing a story that will appear in The Washington Post tomorrow and it will paint an as-flattering picture of you as a blind house painter can manage. In the interview you gave to The Washington Times, they crucified you, they made you look like a fool. I think, with our help, you can accomplish great things."

"I won’t be controlled or used by the media," John insisted. "I won’t allow myself to be framed or characterized as this way or that way. My message is my message; it is not open to negotiation, polling results or committee opinions. In short, Mrs. Keever, I won’t be controlled."

"John, I’m not trying to control you. I’m just trying to guide you through a mine field that, without the knowledge and media savvy, could destroy you. I am trying to light the path for you, so you can go ahead and speak your mind."

"What do you get out of this, Elaine?" John asked. "May I call you Elaine?"

"John," she answered, "what do you get out of this?"

"Good answer," he said, smiling. "I think maybe we can work together."

"I hope so, John. I desperately want this war to stop just as much as you do." There was a knock at the door, and as the butler entered he announced to Mrs. Keever that dinner was ready to be served.

"Thank you," she answered as he backed out of the room. Elaine asked, "John, can we continue this conversation after dinner?"

She led them into the large dinning room as John whispered to Margaret, "I hope we don’t have to make a run for it, I don’t know if I could find my way out of here." The two of them were seated to the immediate right of Mrs. Keever, at a huge table with almost a hundred other guests. As they sat down he thought that the size of this room was larger than the whole shelter where he lived. Here he was, sitting at a fine banquet table and Father Dave was begging for turkeys and vegetables. It made him emotional and brought a tear to his eye and made him wonder if he was following his path or if he had just wandered from it.

Mrs. Keever arose from her chair and all stood with her as she proposed a toast. "I want to thank you all for coming here tonight. Since I have you all together, I would like to introduce our guest of honor, an American patriot, a man willing to put himself in harm's way for the cause of peace, Mr. John Smith, and his lovely assistant, Ms. Margaret Farmer. We toast their courage."

John lifted his water glass and replied, "I want to thank Mrs. Keever for her kind hospitality and for welcoming us as friends, when we were strangers, into her beautiful home. And I ask that we all take a moment to look around and appreciate all we have before us. This sumptuous table, this beautiful room, and if your conscience begins to bother you or your wallet makes you sit funny, perhaps you’ll make a donation to those who have less."

There was a mumbling acceptance of his toast as they all sat down to eat, and the duck, roast beef and squab were served. John leaned over to Margaret and whispered, "I missed meat loaf for this."

She answered, "Look at the bright side, you don’t have to do the dishes. Try the wine, it’s very good."

"I don’t drink," he said. "So you’re welcome to mine." He picked at his food, as most of it was unrecognizable to him.

Mrs. Keever asked, "John, is the food not good? You’ve hardly touched your supper."

"It’s wonderful," he told her. "I’m just more used to food that looks like what it is, not all dressed up and dolled up to disguise the fact it’s still just a potato."

After dinner John was the center of attention. This was the point of the evening Margaret had feared the most, the possibility of John unloading on someone for asking the wrong question. For the most part he was very cordial and polite, but she did hear one woman ask him what was it like to live in a homeless shelter. She was relieved when he explained to her, "Its just like living here, except we only have duck twice a month and our cable TV system doesn’t have any premium channels."

Later they were back in the study with Elaine. "John," she explained, "I look forward to working with you, but for public reasons I think all of our communications should go through my assistant, Gabriel Lebowitz. I will send people to help you from time to time. Please let them help you, and try not to beat them up too badly."

"I won’t," he told her. "Please send them through my assistant, Margaret Farmer." They said their good-byes to Elaine, as the evening had waned and the crowd had noticeably thinned.

On their way out Margaret asked, "How did I get the job as your assistant?"

"The same way you got to be my date," he answered.

"I thought that it was sweet," she said, "the way you stuck up for me back there."

"It may have been sweet, but I didn’t do it for you. I can’t be alone with anyone, man or woman, until this is over."

"Why not?"

"I am going to deliver a message, Margaret. It is a message that cannot be denied and cannot be ignored. Their only hope of stopping me is to assassinate my character, and, failing that, my name and, failing that, me."

"You know, John," she told him, "you sound a little paranoid when you talk like that."

It was almost midnight when they stopped in front of the homeless shelter. "They lock the door at twelve," he told her, "if the beds aren’t full. And earlier, if they are full." But the weather was mild, so many had found other locations to sleep.

As he entered, Father Dave was coming to lock the door and he asked, "Where have you been?"

"Well, Father, they were holding a banquet in my honor over on Embassy Row."

Father Dave laughed, "John, I offered to hear your confession once before. Don’t forget that one when I do."

As John walked up the stairs he thought to himself that he should have warned Margaret to treat the red lights as four-way stops; this was rough country for a woman alone, late at night. He fell into bed and went straight to sleep and slept soundly through the night until his two-ton, steel alarm clock woke him around five.

He put his shoes on and wondered about what the day would bring. He worried about the article in the Post. He didn’t like the idea of anyone in the media trying to define him, especially someone like Randy Martin.



He washed his face and brushed his teeth and went downstairs to help Father Dave with breakfast. When he got to the kitchen Michael was there, but not Dave. "Where is Father D?"

Michael shook his head, "He’s back downtown with the Bishop."

"Again?" he asked.

"It’s a never-ending struggle," he explained, without looking up. John thought about his ill-received toast of last night and thought to himself, perhaps he should have been more direct. He asked, "What will happen if he doesn’t get the money?"

"Well," Michael explained, "the federal monies have all but dried up and private contributions are flat. Either the diocese gives us more or we get by with less."

"I wish I could do more to help."

"You can," Michael answered.

"How?" he asked.

"Stir the eggs and take out the trash when you leave."

"You know what I mean."

"I do," he answered. "But you're doing what you can do. You help in the kitchen with almost every meal, except last night. Where were you last night?"

"Let's just say I was out, or you can ask Father Dave." John made a scrambled egg sandwich and grabbed a cup of coffee while stirring the eggs with his other hand. "Michael," John added, "I won’t forget to take the trash with me on my way out."

"Thanks, John," he said, as the door slowly closed.