Star Chamber Brotherhood

by Preston Fleming

  "Do you have grandchildren, Nancy?" he asked to steer the conversation in a more positive direction.

  "Oh, yes," she responded, recovering quickly. "Both are out of college now and working as teachers till they can find something else. But I was very lucky to have them near me for a few years while they were boarders at the Academy."

  "Really? What years did they graduate?"

  "Oh, that would have been six or seven years ago."

  "Then they probably didn't know our girls," Werner replied. "Our older one graduated five years ago, and the younger one left a year later when the state took over."

  "I believe that's when Monica Cogan was at the Academy. She was in the very last graduating class. Her parents were very dear friends of mine. In fact, Monica came back this year to teach there. Of course, it's not a boarding school any longer. The state has turned it into a completely different sort of place, as you probably know."

  "Would you happen to know how I might get in touch with Monica?" Werner inquired. "I believe our daughter Marie may have known her. Did you say she's a teacher at the Academy?"

  "Well, not a teacher, exactly. More like a trainer or organizer of some kind. I don't have a number or an address for her just yet. Though I'm sure that if you go to the old admissions office on Main Street, someone can tell you how to find her. But brace yourself. It's not the old Academy. You're not going to like it."

  By now, Nancy Widmer had regained her composure and seemed in a hurry to get on with her day. She made a show of finishing her tea and Werner quickly followed suit.

  "Thank you so much for inviting me, Nancy," Werner said, rising from his chair. "If there's anything else I can do to help…"

  As if suddenly remembering something very important, she waved distractedly for him to sit.

  "Yes, as a matter of fact, there is. It's Ron's guns. When they were outlawed, I know for a fact that he didn't turn them over to the police, so it's very likely that there's still a rifle or a shotgun lying around. Do you suppose that any of your clients might be in the market for a fine shotgun or hunting rifle? I'm sure they'll be of very high quality. Ron bought only the best."

  Werner listened quietly and surmised that the guns were no afterthought. Nancy had doubtless been sizing him up to see if she could trust him.

  "I'm sorry, Nancy, but illegal weapons are a bit out of my line," he said with a stern expression. "Bootlegging is enough risk for me. But I understand the situation you're in and appreciate your need to, well, dispose of these things safely. I believe your husband was wise not to surrender his weapons to the authorities. That's a very dangerous thing to do."

  "What would you suggest, then?"

  "Nancy, strictly as a friend, I would be willing to dispose of them for you, provided that it's just a rifle or a shotgun or two."

  "Thank you ever so much, Frank. But what if I happen to find more? I remember he brought back a pistol from Vietnam and used to keep it in his study. Could you dispose of that, too, if I come across it?"

  Werner laughed.

  "Well, I suppose so, if it doesn't end up being an arsenal. And I have one condition. For your safety and mine, Nancy, and the safety of your family, you must promise me that if anyone asks about your husband's weapons, all you recall is that they were stolen years ago from his car while he was on a hunting trip. Can you do that?"

  "Certainly," she answered without hesitation. "I appreciate your concern for us and would never betray your confidence."

  "All right, then. If you find anything, here's what I'd like you to do. If it's a long gun, roll it up in an old rug and tie the ends with twine. If it's a handgun or ammunition, pack it in a cardboard box and pack the box inside a liquor carton. I'll take a look at them on Saturday and decide what to do then."

  "What time do you expect to arrive?"

  "Before noon, I expect," he replied. "I have another appointment that morning."

  Nancy Widmer smiled as if struck by a humorous thought.

  "Funny, it seems as if everything Ron once loved is against the law. Guns, whiskey, cigars, fast cars, making money, and probably half the books in our library. I don't suppose there's a black market in banned books, is there?"

  Frank Werner smiled, wished Nancy goodbye, and let her lead him out to the foyer.

  ****

  Werner turned north and emerged minutes later onto Main Street opposite what had for over 100 years been Concord Academy. As he scanned the full frontage of the campus along Main, the first thing that caught his eye was the vacant lot where two of three dormitories had stood to the west of Aloian Circle. From what remained, it appeared that the dormitories had been destroyed by fire.

  The surviving buildings appeared little changed except for the unaccustomed sight of some broken windows and plenty of peeling paint. The hedges were untrimmed and the lawn appeared not to have been mowed since the snows melted, with tall unsightly weeds growing everywhere. The wooden sign hanging from a crossbar outside the former admissions office at Aloian House now read "Concord Center for Social Organization, Massachusetts Department of Education."

  Inside the building, the colorful chintz sofas and cozy stuffed chairs had been replaced by folding metal seats while hardwood floors once overlaid with oriental rugs were now tiled with vinyl. Where framed photos and prints illustrating the Academy's history had once covered the walls, cheaply mounted political posters hung in their places. Many of the posters, created in the style that wags had dubbed as Unionist Realism, featured the stylized acorn that had become the motif of the social organization wing of the Unionist Party.

  Werner greeted the receptionist, a severe-looking young woman dressed in a black fleece pantsuit that appeared only slightly more presentable than a sweat suit.

  The sign above her desk read "Cadres Indoctrination Center."

  She examined him closely.

  "I wonder if you could help me," he began, ignoring her dour expression. "I'm looking for an instructor here by the name of Monica Cogan. Could you tell me how I might get in touch with her?"

  "She's probably leading a training session," the receptionist replied. "A break is coming in ten minutes. Try looking at the commissary."

  "Would the commissary be the same thing as the former dining hall?"

  She looked askance at him.

  "More or less," she said with a sour expression that said, ‘Watch yourself, old man. This isn't a private school for rich kids and you're not in Kansas anymore.’

  He crossed the Campus Quad to what had formerly been the Student-Faculty Center and entered. The dining hall was nearly vacant, with most of the metal and plastic picnic tables stacked along one wall. Fifteen or twenty young men and women, none appearing over thirty, drank coffee and ate cake doughnuts at a bank of four tables closest to the cafeteria line.

  Werner bought a cup of coffee and a glazed doughnut and asked the girl at the cash register to point out Monica Cogan. The girl pointed to a tall slender woman in her early twenties with short blonde hair who had the look of a former athlete gone to seed. Werner took a seat across the picnic bench from her and mentioned that Nancy Widmer had suggested he look her up. He introduced himself as the father of two recent alumnae who had attended CA around the same time as she.

  The woman brightened at this and for a flashing moment Werner imagined seeing her as an enthusiastic, intellectually precocious seventeen-year-old private school day student.

  "Oh, I totally remember Marie," she responded. "We took English together in tenth grade. I loved listening to her read her stories; she was a really good writer. What is she doing now?"

  "I don't know," Werner answered point blank. "My wife and my older daughter died in the Saigon flu pandemic during Marie's last year at CA. I was working out West and we lost contact in all the confusion. It's possible she emigrated, but she didn't leave much of a trail. I thought maybe you or some of your classmates might have heard from Marie."

  Monica shook her head.

  "I'm sorry, Mr.
Werner, but I haven't heard from Marie since we graduated."

  "Before the Events, Monica, I remember that kids used to stay in touch by computer with Web sites like Facebook and MySpace. Has there been anything to replace that? Or might there be some other way to get in touch with students from those days who knew Marie?"

  Monica's expression darkened.

  "The days when every six-year-old had his own computer, cell phone, and iPod are history, Mr. Werner. And networking with émigrés would not be a very smart thing to do these days, if you know what I mean."

  She looked to either side as if to detect whether anyone had been listening. Suddenly, Werner realized that Monica might be on thin political ice at her old alma mater. She had, after all, been one of those elitist kids who enjoyed a $50,0000-a-year private education. Perhaps her father had been a moneyman. Such a background might not endear her to the other social organizers struggling to level America's social structure and build an egalitarian society.

  Werner decided to back off in the hope that Monica might retain enough goodwill to contact him in the event she ever came across news about Marie.

  He offered her his business card with the title, "Dealer in Fine Foods and Beverages."

  Monica eyed him suspiciously.

  "You're not a bootlegger, are you?" she asked in apparent disbelief. "My God, have you really been away that long? Don't you even know what we teach here at this Center?"

  "Apparently not. Look, I'm sorry if I…"

  He decided against finishing the sentence and rose sheepishly from the bench.

  But before he turned to leave he was heartened to see Monica slide his card into her trouser pocket.

  ****

  Werner left the commissary heading east across campus toward Concord's town center. As the day was sunny and warm and he did not need to be back at the Somerset Club until evening, he decided to take an indirect route back to the commuter rail station, walking along Main Street into town, then past the First Parish Church to Emerson's house, and finally turning north past the Colonial Inn to the Old Manse and the historic North Bridge.

  Werner was stunned when he saw that both the First Parish Church and the Emerson house had burned down. It seemed inconceivable that the Concord Fire Department, located only a few hundred meters away, could have allowed this to happen, unless… At the thought of a political motive for the fires his mind ceased racing. It was a horrible thought, but it might be true.

  While he was at Kamas, the Unionist campaign against religious opposition had escalated to encompass any church that did not unconditionally endorse the Unionist Party's platform. Opponents and fence-sitters, including some Christian and Jewish denominations whose memberships had once been at the liberal end of the spectrum, received threats of prosecution, tax audits, utility cutoffs, bank account freezes, broken windows, and angry demonstrations by Unionist rent-a-mobs. That a few churches might have been torched pour encourager les autres would have been fully consistent with Unionist tactics of the day.

  In Werner's view, the destruction of Ralph Waldo Emerson's residence, if it had indeed been by arson, seemed even more egregious than burning Concord's historic church. For the fight between a government and a church was a dispute between living people. Tit-for-tat and overreaching often led to tragedy in such fights. But the dead Emerson led no political party or congregation. What was left of him lived only as ideas and to destroy his monument smacked of an attempt to destroy his memory and stamp out the ideas about freedom, individual dignity, and nonconformism that Emerson had advanced.

  With a troubled heart, Werner walked north along the weed-choked town common toward Monument Street. The Colonial Inn, built in the early eighteenth century and operated as a hotel for more than a hundred years, lay vacant, its windows and doors covered by warped sheets of particleboard. The new sign in front declared that the building was under reconstruction and would soon reopen as a public housing unit operated by the Massachusetts Department of Housing. The projected opening date had come and gone two years ago.

  When Werner reached the Old Manse he was not surprised to see it boarded up, too. On the positive side, its lawn was freshly mowed and its garden, though unruly, showed signs of recent tending. Werner was pleased that the spirit of Emerson would be allowed to haunt at least one of his former residences, perhaps in company with Hawthorne, another Old Manse resident, or Thoreau, who had planted the property's first garden.

  Werner's greatest shock and distress came, however, when he reached the North Bridge, where on April 19, 1775, colonial Minutemen had fired on British redcoats and pursued them all the way back to Boston to score the colonials' first victory of the American revolution. What had until Werner's arrest been part of Minuteman National Historical Park now belonged to the Lexington-Concord National Forest, according to the only sign Werner could find. None of the wooden signs or engraved brass plaques marking the battle remained. It was as if nothing of importance had ever occurred near this quaint bridge over the Concord River. If the Unionists intended to rewrite American history, they knew exactly where to begin.

  Werner returned to Monument Street and started back toward town. Upon reaching the Old Manse he noticed a handsome middle-aged man dressed in blue jeans and a flannel shirt digging in a flowerbed not far from the sidewalk. As he approached he thought the man had a familiar look. Since the most likely connection would be the Academy, Werner asked him if he had been associated with the school as a parent or a teacher.

  "Both," the man replied with a warm smile, introducing himself as Parker Motley.

  A few minutes later Werner discovered that both Marie and Justine had taken English courses from Motley. In response to Werner's many questions, Motley described in detail the final days of Concord Academy and its principal actors, while Werner reciprocated by offering a brief and rather vague account of his work in the West. Werner also disclosed that his wife and daughter Justine had died of the Saigon Flu and that he and Marie had become separated when he was sent West. To Werner's disappointment, Motley had not heard of Marie since she left Concord years earlier.

  "How odd that we should meet just now." Werner mused. "Barely an hour ago I spoke to another young woman from Marie's class. She and Marie took English together in tenth grade; perhaps they were your students. Does Monica Cogan ring a bell?"

  "Yes, I think I may have taught her," Motley replied.

  Werner noted a sudden coolness in Motley's voice and wondered whether he knew something about Monica he was unwilling to share. He decided to change the subject and asked Motley how he might reach other students who could provide leads to Marie.

  "Is there still an alumni association somewhere, or a CA historical society, or some other vestige that serves as a gathering place for people associated with the old Academy?"

  "Not that I'm aware of," Motley replied. "I'm sure that the alumni records and many of the Academy's historical archives still exist in private hands somewhere but, to my knowledge, there is no public access."

  "Why the secrecy?" Werner persisted. "CA was always such a tightly knit community. I can't believe all those people would suddenly go incognito."

  "How long have you been away? Four years? Five? Didn't they have a Moneyman Purge where you were?"

  Werner knew the term, but hadn't run across many of the purged Moneymen in the camps. Either their numbers were few or they hid themselves well or they never reached the camps in the first place.

  "Maybe out west where you were, the Moneymen Purge didn't leave much of an impression," Motley explained. "But in banking centers, like Boston, it devastated the financial sector from top to bottom. I remember it well because the press picked up the Moneymen mantra shortly after the President-for-Life announced his plan to eradicate private education.

  "While the Academy was coping with being forced out of business, many of our board members and parents were being arrested and hauled before grand juries, Congressional committees, and every kind of commission that the
politicians could conjure up. Graduates of Ivy League universities and elite New England private schools were singled out for special persecution. To stand up and declare yourself a graduate of an Ivy League college or a New England prep school was like declaring yourself a member of the Nazi Party or the Ku Klux Klan a couple of generations ago."

  Motley's discomfort was palpable.

  "I see what you mean," Werner replied quietly while he thought of a way to change the subject. "I guess a lot happened while I was away."

  He spotted the garden and spoke again.

  "You're doing a bang-up job with that flower bed," he told Motley. "How is it that you're out here gardening on a weekday afternoon? What does an English teacher do for a living without a school?"

  "The same thing I did before, except now I'm a tutor.

  I teach in my students' homes. It's against the law to operate a private school so we keep the classes down to six or fewer. And I love it. No faculty meetings, no administration, just pure teaching. It's exactly what Emerson did when he was fresh out of Harvard."

  "Do they still let you teach about Emerson?" Werner probed. "I heard somewhere that his books were banned."

  "They're not banned in Concord. He's our native son and this is the home of self-reliance and civil disobedience. They can burn his house down but Emerson's memory is alive and well. Well, maybe not in the public schools yet, but one day they'll catch up."

  "Are many former CA faculty doing what you're doing?" Werner inquired. "Without faculty housing, I would think many would find it hard to make ends meet."

  "Heavens, no," Motley replied. "Very few CA teachers could afford to stay. Concord is still a very expensive place. It's still highly gentrified, though less than before the Events. Our family was able to stay afloat only because I did some screenwriting early in my career and didn't have to rely exclusively on my teaching income. We bought a small farm about a mile out on Monument Street and went into organic gardening as a hobby because we thought it would be good to teach the kids. Little did we know then that we'd need those vegetables and apples and eggs one day to avoid going hungry."