But Hinton ignores him and continues. “Outrage? I’ll tell you what’s an outrage! If you ever took a slug of Atlas Energy Drink, you know it wasn’t only a fraud, it could have killed you. How much lower can you go? Atlas Fitness Centers pimped people out to raise millions to prop up New Atlantis. If you’ve seen the disaster in Florida, you know what it’s like where there’s no government, people rot and die, and vulture capitalists swoop in and feed off them. And as for Coopervilles, well, now, they’re gone but we’ve got Billvilles. That’s the glory of Free-for-All economics for ya! And you’ll get more and more of that if you elect Moreland! I honestly don’t know how people can look themselves in the mirror, knowing how they’ve lied and deceived people. How much is enough? How many cars, mansions, planes, and yachts are enough when they are bought with money from ripping other people off and from selling public assets at firesale prices? ‘Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.’
“Put me in the Oval Office and I won’t plot with corporate bottom-feeders to line their pockets. I’m here to declare a return of the States of America to ‘the people.’ I am one of ‘the people.’ I am proud to represent ‘the people.’ I’m the ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’ candidate. The head of the FBI told Cooper he suspected those words were code for a radical gay-socialist-communist-artist cabal, possibly even part of an international plot. He said he put his ‘crack’ cryptographers on it, but he still hasn’t figured it out. I know some of you want me to tell you what those silly-sounding words mean. But I’m gonna let them roll around in your heads while you listen to what I have to say. You’re all smart enough to figure them out for yourselves by the time I’m through.
“I’m the only one who’s ever dared to challenge Ham Cooper and, now, his lackey ‘wild Bill.’"
“I strenuously object,” Moreland says, jumping up again. “No one calls me a lackey.”
“I strenuously object to your strenuous objection—and to your being the lackey you are! You’ve called me worse and I’ve never tried to shut you up. Now sit down and take it like a man. Moreland and his henchmen have told baldfaced lies about me and what I stand for. They call me a socialist, communist, freeloader, moocher. But nothing could be further from the truth. So, I’m going to set the record straight.
“My story is the story of every American. It’s so common a story, that too many people take it for granted, have forgotten its theirs—or don’t want to be reminded of it. Perhaps, they are ashamed to admit that their grandparents and parents ever had to struggle or weren’t to the manor born. Well, I’m proud of my story: My grandparents and their families fled persecution in Eastern Europe—the real kind of persecution, the kind of persecution that kills people— and came to this ‘promised land.’ That’s literally how they saw America—as a promised land, their salvation. They worked hard, didn’t expect anyone to give them anything, and saved their money so their children could get educated. Those children educated their children, and so on. They never asked anyone for anything. But if someone else needed their help, they were always there for them.
“Communist? Socialist? Freeloader? Moocher? With that kind of background and upbringing? You’ve gotta be kidding! I believe in a meritocracy. I believe everyone should have the same chance to prove they’re the best one to do any job. I don’t care about the color of someone’s skin, their sex, ethnic background, religion, lifestyle preference, anything. If I need surgery, I don’t care if my doctor is green or blue—only that she’s the best in her field. That’s what the real America is, that’s what it has always been about, and that’s what it will be again—if you elect me. That’s not what Free-for-All economics is about. It’s about inherited wealth and an old boys’ network that takes from everyone so the rich can have it all and the powerful and their sons and daughters can rule. They want everybody’s toys. But ‘what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’ Join me in sending them packing. No more Moreland,” she says, smirking and turning toward him.
“What a silly man! Wild Bill says Mother Nature believes in Free-for-All economics. He says that if you’ve seen one tree you’ve seen them all. Well, I say, if you’ve heard one defender of Free-for-All, you’ve heard them all. They’re all for logging all right—logrolling. You know, politicians’ saying you vote my bill and I’ll back yours. They’re just a bunch of back scratchers. Their idea of free is free for all of their corporate cronies, everyone else be damned. I’ve got a different kind of story about a tree. It sums up the difference between Wild Bill and me. It’s the difference between the worlds we each want for you.
“This is a true story. Many years ago, a man and his wife bought a plot of land, on which they planned to build their dream house. The man told their architect that he wanted the house built literally around the largest tree in the middle of the property. It physically sickened him, but he had resigned himself to the fact that almost all of the heavily wooded area would have to be cleared. But he couldn’t face killing the stately oak. Both the architect and the builder argued that the plan was not just impractical but ill-advised, even dangerous, for any number of reasons. He insisted. They insisted. They simply could not agree. And then, the man’s wife suggested building the house higher on the lot in back of the tree, pointing out that, with the raised elevation, the view from the picture window in the living room would take in the whole city. They all agreed.
“The house on the hill behind the tree was also on the crest of a hill. So, it stood out from all the other houses around it. The driveway was steep and especially difficult to access when it snowed. Typically, a plow needed to clear it. Every fall, the oak leaves inundated the walk. Quickly, the family grew used to walking up the drive and the stairs. Visitors were usually breathless. Some even cursed, and couldn’t figure out why the house had to be higher than everything around it. But especially in the fall, even the winded marveled at the symphony of color—leaves turning purple, red, yellow, orange—that could be seen for miles around only from the picture window and another front room of the house.
“After nearly a quarter of a century, the man and his wife agreed to sell the house. Their realtor warned that the hill would be a liability and suggested lowering the price to entice buyers. But the man disagreed. The first two prospective buyers got into a bidding war and drove the price up—because they fell in love with the tree and the view from the picture window. The house sold for fifty percent more than the original asking price, higher than any other house in the neighborhood.
“I know this story is true, because my father and mother built the house. It’s where I called home for the first twenty-one years of my life. I walked up the steep driveway. I groused, but helped rake the forests of leaves that fell on the walk. I cursed when a plow was late getting to us, and I had to help clear the snow. But I spent countless hours looking out of that picture window—summer, fall, winter, and spring—and marveling at the commanding view. In fact, I think more about the incredible view than any of the minor discomforts of living there. After more than thirty years, recently, I drove by it. I didn’t have the heart to ask the currently owners if I could go inside—just too many memories. But I reveled in the place from the outside. The tree is still there, bigger than ever and covered with the leaves of late spring.
“No, Mr. Moreland, I can tell you without a doubt that, if you’ve seen one tree you haven’t seen them all. ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty.’ You can have it all in the real America. You can achieve harmony and balance. You can have the best of both worlds. You can follow your human, caring, soulful instincts and you may even be rewarded in dollars and cents beyond what you might have imagined. Free-for-All economics takes all that away from you. It is a Godless greed, a cancer upon nations, a parasite living off the people—and killing their humanity. It is unAmerican, un-Christian, un-Jewish, un-Buddhist, un-Hindu, un-Moslem—an unbelievable hypocrisy. It tramples every decent instinct in
the hearts and minds of man. It goes against the grain of every civilized nation. It takes, and takes, and takes until there is nothing left to give—and yet it still looks for more.
“‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty.’ The quality of mercy isn’t some abstract notion; it is real. In the real America, we don’t leave people in Florida to rot and die unless they can afford to pay their way out of misery. We don’t turn our back on them so they wind up in Billvilles. ‘The quality of mercy is not strain’d. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed. It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.’ For generations mercy was the lifeblood that ran through the veins of our people, until the Free-for-All vampires sucked the life out of them. ‘For I was hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.’ Ask yourself, ‘Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?’ And ask yourself how you would—and should—answer, and what we’ve come to in this country today.
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty. I pledge to restore the balance we’ve lost between people and profit. We don’t live in an either-or world. We can have both. We’ve had too much of Atlas for too long. We need the fire of Prometheus to bring us back to life. I pledge allegiance to ‘the people’ of America and to create a nation in which all people are truly equal.
“And ladies and gentlemen, and especially Mr. Moreland, I am not the only one who has seen the light,” she says, smirking and putting her arm around the Ham Cooper manikin. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting so long, my friend. But I always keep the best for last. I will now read the statement from former CSA president Ham Cooper that he never got to deliver. As you will recall, the transmission of his farewell address to the nation failed and you never heard from him again. That’s because he went off the script that his Corporate Council had prepared for him. Here’s what he intended to say…”
Moreland runs forward to try to seize Hinton’s copy of Cooper’s speech out of her hands, but before he reaches her, Redding stands in his way. “President Moreland, we agreed on an open and uncensored debate. Please return to your seat.” Moreland skulks back in disgust.
“As I was saying, Ham Cooper was supposed to say the words his Corporate Council wrote for him. Instead, here are the words he tried to deliver: ‘I owe every man, woman, and child in the CSA an apology for the most recent actions taken by myself and members of my administration. Many years ago, when I first became president, I really believed in the honesty and integrity of the principles of Free-for-All economics. I really thought that they would lead to an economy in which everyone would prosper. But I no longer believe that. I have seen this once great and generous nation turned over to greedy, selfish operatives, and I am ashamed that I have allowed myself to conspire with them. I hope you will forgive me and accept my apology.’
“Of course, Ham Cooper was muzzled. The transmission of his speech was stopped. Because of a twenty-second delay, no one watching heard so much as a word of his confession. He was led off the set by uniformed police and escorted to his home, where he is being kept under virtual house arrest.
“I rest my case, ladies and gentlemen. On Tuesday, November 8th, I ask you to vote for me. ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty.’
After the debate, Hinton chooses to drive to her hotel alone because her staff have some loose ends to tie up and she doesn’t want to wait. Besides, her adrenaline was flowing and she was eager to unwind. As she drives out of the parking garage, it is snowing. How odd! How very odd! October and snowing, she says to herself. And how innocent the capital looks, as though it were nestled in swaddling clothes. The cold, white snow hides our differences, masks our warts, and, if only for a few fleeting moments, deludes us into thinking that maybe, just maybe, we—honest, ordinary, decent people—can fulfill our higher destiny, in spite of the odds. I take the falling snow as a sign of good things to come. I owe it to “the people” never to give up hope.
ELEVEN
Missed, Dissed, Kissed
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 10 A.M.: ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA. At Hinton Campaign Headquarters, preparations are under way for a press conference. Originally called for 9 a.m., it has been rescheduled for 11 a.m. because of the bad weather. On a TV monitor, staffers are watching the news. On one side of a split screen, from his helicopter, unfazed by the severely limited visibility, “Bart the Channel 4 Weatherman” is sweeping across metropolitan Washington showing the shocking pictures of the snow storm that has been blanketing the area since about 9 p.m. last night. “Cars are stranded everywhere,” he says laughing. “It’s slow going on major roads. Many back streets haven’t even been plowed. Trees and power lines are down. What a blast, folks! I feel as though I’m driving a snowmobile. It’s nowhere near winter, but we’re getting pummeled. And it looks like it’s gonna continue for several hours. I guess Mother Nature didn’t check her calendar. Don’t be crazy like me. Drive carefully. Don’t go out unless you have to. And watch out for patches of black ice. It doesn’t take much for you to lose control of your car and end up in a ditch or wrapped around a tree.”
On the other side of the monitor, there’s a picture of Cary Hinton and Bill Moreland together at last night’s debate. Under it, in the lower-third of the screen, are the question “Who won?” and numbers to which viewers may call in or text their votes. Nationwide, post-presidential-debate patter has been firing up the media since the talking heads went at it last night. Morning newspaper headlines categorically declare the winner and loser: “Hinton Scores,” “Moreland Bores,” “Cary Galls Galt,” and “Cooper Cops Out.” Predictably, morning drive-time chatter is nonstop and breaks down along partisan lines. Talk radio and TV pundits are dissecting candidates’ words more intently than a high-school English teacher diagramming a sentence. “Ham Cooper is a lily-livered traitor” were the first words out of Ross Bullman’s mouth, the self-proclaimed “voice of reason” and host of the nationally syndicated radio show of the same name. “Five of George Carlin’s ‘seven dirty words’ apply to Hinton,” he declares. “One of them rhymes with stunt. She took a cheap shot at Moreland with the Cooper-look-alike manikin.”
On “The Voice of Reason,” Harrison Paul of The Paul Poll, the “dean” of conservative opinion-sniffers, told Bullman that “the race is far from over. I’ve seen bigger margins than Hinton supposedly has after last night evaporate overnight, especially in the last two weeks before an election. One mistake, like proof that a candidate farts in public, and it could be all over, even for a frontrunner. We’re in the make-it-or-break-it phase. There’s almost no time to recover from any negatives that come out. And believe me, both campaigns will go negative, right up to the end. Get out your barf bags. It’s gonna get nastier than we’ve ever seen it.”
Since 6 a.m., Channel 4 anchors Evander Jack and Melissa Harden, hosts of the capital’s most watched morning show, have been saying how they thought that Moreland came across as nothing more than warmed-over Cooper and that, after the former prez threw him under the bus, unless he finds his groove in the next two weeks, he’s toast. They’ve reported that all the overnight polls agree that Cary Hinton was the hands-down winner—by between seven and fifteen percent—but also reveal that a surprisingly high number of likely voters is still undecided.
At 11 a.m., Evander Jack says, “Hold on Melissa, ladies and gentlemen. We’re interrupting our scheduled programming for breaking news from the Cary Hinton Campaign Headquarters.” The receptionist in the Hinton office mutes the TV. An ashen-faced Randall Griffin, Cary Hinton’s campaign manager, steps up to a sea of microphones and cameras. With him is a uniformed police officer.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Cary Hinton is missing,” he says, barely able to contain himself. There’s an audible gasp from the room. He pauses and takes a deep breath. “Last night after the debate, my last words to her were, ‘I’ll come to yo
ur room at 6:30 a.m., just to be sure you’re up and ready to leave for the airport.’ She and I, along with key field staff, were about to begin our long-planned, two-week, final campaign swing through the country. But this morning when I went to her room, I was immediately surprised when I didn’t see the rental car she was driving when she left the D.C. Convention Center last night. It crossed my mind that she might be out buying newspapers to read reviews of the debate. But she wouldn’t drive out in this weather, I reminded myself. I knocked on the door, but she didn’t answer.
“The night shift at the motel was still on. So, I then went to the front desk and asked if anyone had seen her arrive last night or leave this morning. When no one said they had, I identified myself and told them the woman registered as Lois Kent was really presidential candidate Cary Hinton. Because of security considerations, they wouldn’t give me a key to her room or even come with me and open the door. So, I had no choice but to call the Alexandria, Virginia Police Department. Police Chief Alan Porter, who’s with me now, was immediately notified and arrived on the scene, shortly after three squad cars. Once we entered Cary’s room, it was clear that she hadn’t been there last night. The bed was made and mints were on the pillow. The light on the nightstand was on. The briefcase she was carrying was nowhere to be found.
“Once Chief Porter assessed the situation, and after I notified Cary’s immediate family, he alerted the F.B.I. and the Secret Service. Because of the obvious political sensitivities of this situation, he also contacted the White House. At this time, I’d like to introduce Chief Alan Porter, who has an update for you.”
“At 11 a.m., a nationwide, all-points missing person’s bulletin was issued for Cary Hinton,” Chief Porter says. “A full-scale investigation is now under way. We consider this a matter of national security. At this time, I have no details beyond what Mr. Griffin has just told you. We will be issuing updates, but not until we have further information to report. As you can imagine, our investigation is severely hampered because of the snow storm. So please bear with us.”
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