NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Bel Vionnet is standing in the street outside her house, as I walk up. She leans against the car to talk to her husband through the driver’s side window, then looks up to greet me. Steve waves me over to the car.
“You hear about Gordon Byron’s speech at PU?”
“No, what about it?”
“You know, the riot.”
“Oh yes, I did see it on TV, something about political protest out there.”
“Well, he is now Macadamia’s full time flack, and the speech was canceled because of violence.”
“Canceled!”
“Yup, announced last night.”
“So they shut the facility?”
“Fred, you might suppose that university students would welcome a challenging speaker.”
“Was it really the students do you think, bel?”
“Looks like it.”
Steve is shaking his head.
“I still suspect agents provocateurs!”
“Byron should be refuted not silenced, let alone by a mob.”
Bel steps closer to me, touching my elbow.
“He is going over there to support Gordon’s right to speak … not that we have much time for what he has to say!”
“You mean there’s a counter demonstration?”
“No, no, it will be an old fashioned teach-in and there will be a petition to sign.”
“Who’s organizing it Steve?”
“Its an ad hoc group called “Speech Therapy”.
Bel, is looking at Steve, and shaking her head.
“Yes, Steve found it on Face Book, or something.”
I didn’t see Albrecht in the back seat until now. He opens the door.
“Yo! Fred, get in. The great man should be heard!”
“Yeah Fred, why don’t you go along?”
“Okay bel, aren’t you coming too?”
“Well, I wasn’t … ”
“Come on bel, get in!”
“Okay Steve, okay then, let me go lock up the house.”
Steve gives me a thumbs-up, as bel walks over to the door.
“Thanks Fred, you made the difference!”
I get in back with Albrecht and bel soon returns to get in front next to Steve. We drive off in silence toward the PU campus past the physics department only a few blocks from their oasis, the H-bar, and then get stuck in traffic.
“Have you still got those kittens?”
“We have Fred. The cat family has taken over our bedroom and we sleep in the guest room.”
“But the cats are your guests.”
“She doesn’t see it that way. Besides she is a single Mom!”
“It has been her room ever since the storm.”
“Steve, it was the first room she ran into.”
“I can’t approach her.”
“No, Steve is the big threat around our feline house!”
“You can expect strife if you take in refugees.”
Steve drums on the steering wheel impatiently, waiting for the open trailer in front of us to move, loaded with lawn mowers, rakes, blowers, weed whackers and other equipment.
Albrecht is reading some papers and looks up.
“Say folks, I really appreciate this you know.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Steve, I know we are kind of at opposite ends of the spectrum on a lot of things.”
“All the more reason to talk, don’t you think?”
“Well sure … ”
“I support civil society, where we discuss our differences.”
“On the other hand Steve, we have to get people involved you know… get them off the couch and out of their apathy … and you know when emotions ran high those liberal students turned violent.”
“If they did, it is disgraceful!”
“Remember what Jefferson told us?”
“What’s that Albrecht?”
“Fred, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
Bel turns around and looks at Albrecht.
“Do you take that to justify what went on?”
“Think about Shays’ rebellion.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion)
“Oh I have, and in Jefferson’s letter to his buddy, he attributed the rebellion to ignorance not wickedness.”
“Well, that’s one interpretation.”
“That’s not interpretation. In fact, those were his words.”
“Okay, but facts don’t matter. As I keep telling you Liberals, what matters, is what people believe.”
“Albrecht, people believe all kinds of nonsense!”
“There you go! That’s just Liberal condescension!”
“Albrecht, please don’t take it personally.”
“Steve, it sure sounded condescending to me.”
“Albrecht, I apologize.”
“Thank you … People vote on what they believe, and that is what it is all about. The rest is just idle philosophizing.”
“But Albrecht, we are giving you a ride out of principle. That is no idle thing.”
“No it isn’t and I appreciate your kindness, but principles aren’t getting you liberals majorities in Congress or the presidency.”
“Albrecht, do you really think principle doesn’t matter?”
“Not much bel.”
“Have you forgotten about gay rights already?”
“No I haven’t.”
“Where do you think you and Boyd would be without that big push?”
“We would be screwed, but we did that for ourselves, as much as anything.”
“You better not forget the Democrats!”
“Bel, I wish I could! Those peace loving elite liberal students are supposedly knowledgeable, and they got violent.”
“They should know better.”
“They perceive a threat from Macadamia.”
“Albrecht, it was mindless!”
“Your words, not mine!”
“The real students are studying, Albrecht.”
“That may be bel, but elites never hesitate to preserve their privileges, and by God, our movement is going to wipe them off the scene!”
“You mean your side is just as violent?”
“Bel, violence is part of politics you know. That’s why I carry a weapon.”
“Albrecht, the idea is to change administrations peacefully.”
We move up about two car lengths, and see flashing lights ahead.
“Oh great! a traffic stop for us all.”
Bel rubs the back of Steve’s neck.
“There’s the siren honey.”
The siren gets louder and the trailer ahead pulls to the right. Steve tries to follow but there isn’t room to get all the way out of his lane. We can see an Ambulance coming up behind, lights flashing in the rear view mirrors.
“Okay, can any one see if there is room for them to get by?”
The ambulance is close, its siren screams. The car is uncomfortably hot and humid, with the windows open.
An SUV moves over parallel to us. We look up into its windows reflecting the sun back at us. Deep treads in the big rear tire are packed with clay less a few inches from the window. A twig fragment sticks from the side casting a minute shadow on the unmoving tire. Albrecht opens the door and stands outside looking over the roof.
“There they go!”
He gets back in.
“Should be rolling now Steve.”
We start forward slowly behind the SUV that is now in front.
“AC any one?”
“Yeah, its hotter out there than our dispute in here!”
Albrecht rolls up his window.
We are still moving slowly, and the noise of the air conditioning blowers reaches us in back before the cool air comes like a rescue.
“Look folks, what I was trying to explain to you is that the elites are through, but don’t know it yet.”
“Albrecht, you are part of the so-called elite. You went to Puberty High School, and grew up right here in Fauxmont.”
“Puberty High, was a waste of my time.”
“Did you study Albrecht?”
“No, I was pissed off with the world in general and that school in particular.”
Bel sighs.
“Well, you are grown up now!”
“I grew up when I left Fauxmont and found my kind out West!”
“Didn’t you get anything out of growing up in an artistic family here in Fauxmont?”
“Bel, the sad truth is that Dad is all wound up in his art and Mom is tangled up in him, you know?”
“Did you feel left out Albrecht?”
“I took responsibility for myself and moved on, as soon as I could.”
“So what made you come back?”
“The movement, Fred. I came back to where the action is here in the DC area.”
“Yes, you are addressing that by your activism.”
“Well thanks friend! My name isn’t Intaglio for nothing! You have to understand that Liberal condescension is behind a lot of our hard feelings.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well I just pointed out one example. I mean elite cultural condescension. Just watch PBS, all those shows feeding off nostalgia for the British upper class.”
“So what about it Albrecht?”
“So Steve, it is government subsidized Public TV, and that’s my taxes going to waste.”
Steve lifts a hand off the wheel to scratch his nose.
“Okay, you have a point, and I will pursue it when Congress stops dishing out corporate welfare.”
“Well Steve, we could get all the votes we need to stop that if the Liberals would just show some respect.”
Steve’s attention shifts to changing lanes and getting on to the highway. We all fall silent for a bit zooming along in the passing lane towards the exit for Prestige University.
“Is Boyd joining you out there?”
“He needs to wake up and wise up, Fred.”
“Oh, he disagrees?”
“I don’t know Fred, he needs to stand up like a man! I am not going to partner with a blubbering kid.”
“You mean he can’t make up his mind?”
“He made up his mind, if you can call it a mind. Now I am left high and dry!”
“Good grief Albrecht! You mean he walked out?”
“Yeah, with my foot in his ass!”
“Oh! You threw him out then.”
“He is like those week minded, so called students who have to be protected from ideas that might upset them.”
“So where is Boyd now?”
“He’s gone back to his mother’s tit.”
Bel turns around again.
“Albrecht, I am so sorry to hear this.”
Albrecht puts his hands up to the sides of his head.
“God! How disappointing!”
“Well Augie is there too, a father figure perhaps?’
“Bel, Augie is finishing up his contract with Nubile Sate, out West.”
“Don’t you think Boyd will come back?”
“He doesn’t know himself.”
“Did he find out who his father is?”
“He didn’t tell me. He needs to move on and stop sniveling in his Mama’s arms.”
We slow down with the PU campus in sight. The long approach past the playing fields is jammed with traffic. There are more police cars with lights flashing ahead. Officer Chastellux approaches us on foot having spoken to those in the car ahead. He looks into the car through Steve’s window, one hand on his side arm.
“Sir, the campus is closed.”
“Officer we have come for the teach-in at 11 AM today.”
The sun glints on his metal name-tag.
“Sir the Campus is closed.”
“What shall we do? There is no room to move.”
“Wait!”
Officer Chastellux moves on.
