The Last American Martyr

by Tom Winton; Rolffimages

  It turned out that Penny had been picked up by an animal control officer eighty-nine days prior. When he went to return it to the owners, they asked him if he’d take her to the shelter. They said they were moving to an apartment and wouldn’t be allowed a dog. It seems the entire time they owned her she was tied outside their trailer next to a rancid little dog house. Sometimes her chain would become wrapped around a tree trunk, and for hours on end she’d nervously pace, back and forth around that tree. The officer also wrote in his report there was a well-worn path around it, and that surely there had been times during inclement weather when she’d not been able to reach her dog house. As a result Penny had become scared to death of thunder and lightning.

  After hearing all this and more, my decision suddenly became a no-brainer. I knew right there and then I wanted to save this dog’s life—and change her name. Immediately I took her outside for a short walk on the grass. When we came back into the office I not only paid the fee but also for a new leash, collar, and bag of dog food. At Eenie’s suggestion, I also picked up a harness because Penny wasn’t used to a leash. I’d already found that out on our walk when she’d pulled so hard a couple of times she choked herself.

  On the way back to the campground Penny sat alongside me in the oversized passenger’s seat. She studied me the whole way, seemingly assessing what she saw with her doggy logic.

  When I backed the RV into my site Dixie Mae came over with General and Beauregard. Penny went absolutely Cujo—jumping up, barking, growling, and scratching on the window as if she wanted to tear the docile poodles apart. After explaining to Dixie Mae that the dog had problems, she thought it was big of me to have adopted her in spite of them. But after that episode, the only time Dixie and I talked anymore was on the rare occasions when one of us was without our pets.

  I soon learned my new sidekick would bark, growl, or snarl at any living creature that ventured within a hundred yards of us. Size did not matter to her. She had an incurable case of the Napoleon Syndrome. Nevertheless, crazy as it sounds, a few weeks after she entered my life I renamed her, of all things, “Solace.” Isn’t that a first-degree misnomer, you might ask? Not really. Despite her aggression problems solace was exactly what she provided me with. She was, and still is, a very cerebral animal who despite her terrier stubbornness loves me deeply.

  We connected from the get-go and she quickly became my second shadow. With all the time we were spending together I had less time to dwell on all my toxic fears and sorrows. To me she was a godsend, a four-legged gift all wrapped up in that tawny fur. That we had found each other had been nothing short of a blessing—to both of us. I had kept her alive and she was returning the favor, every day. Each morning I’d wake to wet, slobbering kisses all over my face. Who on earth could possibly start their days like that and at the same time entertain doomsday thoughts?

  Unfortunately, as much as Solace helped, even she couldn’t fend off all of my pain and distress. Even when they were on my mind’s back burner, hurt and worry continued to blemish my spirit. I was no longer the person I used to be. And that will never change.

  * * *

  One night, after having Solace for about a month, I raised the courage to turn on my television set. This may not sound like a monumental achievement but to me it was. The last time I did it was before Elaina and I went to Stockholm. After we returned to that incomprehensible scene in our apartment, and our lives as we knew them were destroyed, we needed to distance ourselves from all that was going on. Besides watching a handful of educational shows, Jeopardy, or a movie now and then, the only reason we even owned a TV was to keep abreast of the news. Of course, like all other discerning individuals, when we always watched the news it was with eyes like hawks and our minds attuned to each and every word. We knew all too well that every sentence the corporate-owned talking heads delivered was tainted with the network’s agenda. Everything they reported was slanted, propagandized, and full of sins of omission.

  The TV was built into a small paneled wall above the front seats. And that first night I turned it on it was only a matter of minutes before I was reminded why I hadn’t watched it for so long. The thing was barely warmed up when a newscaster said his network had been running a seven day critique of Enough is Enough. The messenger-boy/announcer said that this one was the final installment. He then went on to fill millions of viewer’s heads with the network’s take on Thomas Soles and his book.

  “Tonight we are going to summarize Mister Soles’ chapter about Wall Street. He says, and I quote, ‘The single most destructive force to the faltering working-class is the greed-driven stock market and its major investors. Think how much better off the huge majority of Americans would be if all corporations were owned by all the people rather than just those with the most disposable income. The trillions of dollars that are bilked from the over-worked, under-paid populous every year would go into their own pockets rather than those of the chosen few who control two-thirds of this country’s wealth. No longer would it be necessary to artificially inflate the cost of goods and services every year for the sake of dividends. Not only would the price of everything, from fingernail clippers to housing, not rise, they would tumble to levels you would not dream possible.

  How much do you think it costs footwear companies, for example, to put together a pair of gym shoes assembled in some third-world country for third-world wages? The very same sneakers that sit on the shelves of another company’s store until you buy them for sixty, eighty, a hundred dollars or more. The cost of production probably isn’t more than six or seven dollars—if that. Why is it that the information concerning such corporate costs are more closely guarded than the U.S. Government’s top secrets?’

  Up to that point in the broadcast, the news anchor had been strictly business. He’d read the excerpt in as professional a voice as he could muster. But then he changed his tune as well as his tone. It had become time to slant. He first took off his glasses and slowly lowered them to his desk. Then he looked straight into the eye of the camera and America, and massaged his temples as if exhausted and blown away by what he’d just read. Finally, in a far gentler, down-homey voice that was meant to endear his audience, he said, “Friends, it is the belief of this station that words such as these are nothing short of national threats. They are treasonous. In this blasphemous book I am holding in my hands, Thomas Soles has singlehandedly attempted to discredit our tried and proven capitalistic system. He is trying to diminish our system—our method of doing things that has built this great country into what it is today. No wonder this book is being yanked off store shelves everywhere. No wonder Mister Soles is on the run, hiding out. I’d be hiding if…”

  By that time I’d had it. I shut off the television, lowered Solace from my lap to the floor, and went to the kitchen area to make popcorn. As the kernels popped and the brown bag expanded in the microwave, all I could do was pivot my head side to side ever so slowly.

  Here’s a multi-million-dollar puppet in a two-thousand dollar suit telling the rest of the country how good they have it—at a time when so many of them have been priced out of their last dream. What may be even scarier yet is that hoards of those very same people are buying what that carpetbagger’s selling. Yup…I’m sure he’s succeeding. His sponsors and all the rest will love him. I’m sure there are a few million more people who now consider me a modern-day Benedict Arnold. My god, how do they keep petting the same dog that keeps biting them?

  Chapter 10

  The next day two unfortunate events took place at The Carolina Oaks Campground. Number one, Dixie Mae said goodbye to me. For the first time in over twenty winters she had to go back to Virginia early. Though it had grown increasingly difficult over the past ten years, this time she couldn’t afford to stay until April first. I thought about giving her the site fee, but I knew this proud, old survivor would never have taken it. For all the years she’d been coming she had only stayed in our treed section of the campground because it was cheaper than the
others. That’s why she and I were the only ones on our side of the huge circular dirt road. Everybody wanted to stay where it’s sunny. You see, where we were the sky was always green, with leaves. We received virtually no sunlight. And as cool, and sometimes downright cold, as South Carolina gets in winter, nobody wanted to be in those trees. Well, almost nobody.

  Standing in the road, waving goodbye as she pulled away that morning, I was not a happy camper. But bad as I felt losing my only human contact, things were about to get worse. In a mere few hours my spirits would plummet to even lower depths.

  It was early afternoon. I was inside the camper reading an email from my editor, Denise Solchow. She said, despite being dropped by the two mega-booksellers, sales of Enough is Enough still had been “robust.” I was no longer following the rankings, but Denise said it was still ninth on the New York Times Best Seller List. It had been number one for fifty-something weeks but had fallen because of the boycott. She asked me what to do with the most recent royalty check, and I’d just finished telling her to hold on to it when Solace started raising all kinds of hell.

  She was up front on the passenger seat woofing, growling, carrying on like she always did when she smelled, saw, or heard something. I quickly finished my response to Denise then got up and peeked out the windshield. Just as I did, the biggest motor home I’d ever seen stopped dead in the road, right smack in front of my Winnebago.

  “Shhh, shhh, OK!” I said to Solace, pulling her back, trying to keep her from clawing ruts into the dashboard. I put her on the carpeted floor, but that did nothing to stave off her fitful barking.

  The luxury RV before me was the size of a Greyhound tour bus. It was just like the ones the big-name bands and all their groupies trip across the country in, and just as elegant. This was the type of diesel motor home that sells for half a million dollars.

  Looking directly into a side window, maybe twenty feet in front of me, I could see what must have been the dining area. A huge crystal chandelier swayed heavily and beyond that, I saw ornate gilded mirrors on what appeared to be mahogany wall cabinets. The custom black paint-job on the outside, with all its gold swooshes and slashes, shone brighter than a cadet’s shoes on graduation day. This so-called “camper,” with Michigan plates, was more like a presidential suite on wheels.

  Oh shit! I’ll bet he’s going to back right in there. What the hell’s he doing on this side of the park? Ohhh, I know…I’ll bet the sunny side’s all filled up.

  Sure enough, he did back in—directly across the road. But first he unhooked the glistening new Hummer he’d been towing. All decked out in designer shorts; a golf shirt with some kind of logo over his heart; sockless loafers; and a cell phone holster at the ready, the chubby little man shouted orders to his equally chubby little wife. He had the poor woman jumping back and forth all over that campsite. I had to feel bad for her. She would be right in the middle of doing what she’d been told, and the red-faced dictator would start shouting out new orders, which she’d promptly respond to. After ten minutes of watching all this I got a little tired of it. Solace was still raising hell so I put her in the bedroom and closed the door. I grabbed a smoke, popped open a beer, and sat outside under the awning.

  “Whew,” I said to myself, “at least they can’t see me out here, with all these bushes.” But I was not happy.

  A short time later, after all the commotion ended, I figured I’d get another beer and bring Solace outside. My nerves being what they were, I was startled when I rose out of the lawn chair.

  “Hey, what do you say big boy?”

  It was the take-charge guy. He had come from behind the bushes and caught me off guard. He had a resonant deep voice that mismatched his stature, and I actually flinched.

  “Whoooa! Relax man, didn’t mean to scare you. Thought I’d just come over and introduce myself.”

  “Oh, that’s OK. I’m fine. Just didn’t hear you coming is all. I’m ah, Frank…Frank Reynolds.”

  I really did not want to shake this man’s hand, but he did go out of his way to come over and introduce himself. Reluctantly, I extended my hand and was immediately sorry I had. There was an uncomfortable hesitation before he accepted it. The delay had been deliberate, and I damn well knew it.

  When we finally did shake he studied my face far more than another man normally would have. “I’m J. Henry Logsdon,” he said, “of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and Vail, Colorado.”

  He then let go of my hand. And I was glad, not only because I didn’t like him but because his was all clammy and soft as a fashion-model’s. He immediately pointed to the front of my RV and said, “I see you’re from Newww Yorrrk.”

  He said New York as if it had put a rotten taste in his mouth, as if rolling the R awhile would dispel all its unpleasantness.

  “Well … yes, I’m from Queens—Flushing to be exact.” Oh shit, I thought, I didn’t mean to tell him that.

  “That’s a damn good place to be from isn’t it?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well, you know, Newww Yorrrk isn’t exactly the garden spot of the world, if you know what I mean.”

  “Where do you get off talking like…you know what, forget all that, who do you think you are coming over here and…”

  He interrupted me with a new smirk on his face—this one bigger than the two he’d been wearing both times he said New York. “Who do I think I am? I’ll tell you exactly who I am, my friend, J. Henry Logsdon.”

  This was a man who’d obviously been protected by his wealth and social status all his life. Nobody who lived in the real world would ever dream of giving a stranger such shit—particularly a stranger a head taller and three times as fit. I tried to fight back the creed of the city streets I grew up in—talk the talk, walk the walk. I wanted to give this prima donna a good pounding. My fists balled themselves at my sides, but I held them back. I was just about to really tell him off but he spoke first, and what he said knocked me for a loop.

  “Frank Reynolds, huh? I don’t think so. I know who you are, buster. Why the hell do you think I bothered coming over here? I saw the plates on this heap. You’re the only one on this entire side of the park. I figured it just might be you, hiding out. Shit, the whole country knows you’re running scared in an RV. You’ve been all over the news. Last time I saw your picture was just last night. You can run, traitor, but you can’t hide.”

  The shroud of fear I’d struggled with for so many weeks tightened around me like an iron straightjacket. I didn’t even notice the driving rain that had begun drumming on the awning, or the sudden drop in temperature. I barely heard Solace going berserk inside the camper. Moving closer now, I went eye to beady eye with him. Speaking slowly, measuring the distance between each word I said, “I want you the fuck out of here little man, right fucking now!”

  He didn’t budge. He didn’t flinch. He stayed right where he was. His face flushed crimson with hate, and he started shouting, “Do you have any idea how much money I’ve lost this year because of you and that so-called book of yours? Do you have a clue how much that propaganda piece of shit has hurt the market? Do you know how much YOU took from me?”

  He then paused, shaking his breakfast-sausage finger at me. His entire body began to tremor from all the hate and anger built up inside. Then he erupted. Saliva spraying everywhere he hollered, “Almost two million is how much! Two fucking million dollars, Soles!”

  Like an immigrant reverting to his native language when blistering anger overcomes him, my New York accent suddenly resurrected from the days of my youth. Nobel Prize or no Nobel Prize, I no longer gave a shit about rolling my R’s or any of the rest of it.

  “That’s it, you son-of-a-bitch, get yaw ass outta heah, NOW! I’ll break you in half you selfish little piss-ant! Move it! Get goin’!”

  He started backpedaling, fast, and I helped him gain momentum with two palms to the chest.

  Solace was yipping and yelping, scratching desperately at the bedroom window as if she was fighting for her b
alance on a sheet of ice. Logsdon’s wife was outside their motor home now; screaming for him to get inside. “Go on, you low-life bahstad. Keep movin’. That’s it, tell yaw story walkin’.”

  Stopping on the other side of the road, standing in the downpour, he shook his fist and hollered, “There are millions of us, Soles! We’re going to get you, you son of a bitch! You don’t believe it … turn your computer on. Check out soleswatch.com, you’ll see.”

  Wiping the rain from his face, his last words before retreating were, “You haven’t heard the last of me, you loser! I promise! Remember my name…J. Henry Logsdon!”

  With his name still echoing through the sprawl of rain-drenched trees, I dropped the single-finger salute I’d been pumping madly. I turned around, picked up my cigarettes and empty beer can then climbed back into the camper.

  I let Solace out of the bedroom. She sped right back to the passenger seat, still carrying on. I fell into the sofa and turned on my laptop. With shaky hands I lit a smoke, took a long draw, and then laid it in the ashtray.

  Sure as hell, soleswatch.com came up. In bold black letters across the top of the first page it read, “PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER 1.” Just beneath that was a row of five sketches—every one of my face. Graphic looking depictions of how I might look with a mustache, a beard, or both. They had me with long hair, short hair, and even a shaved head. The text beneath the pictures ranted about how I was single-handedly costing the U.S. economy billions of dollars. Of course, there was no mention about how their stock market had just finished a banner year when the rest of America had been wallowing in another recession. There was no mention of the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars that shored up Wall Street’s stellar returns, while virtually nothing trickled down to those who had footed the bill.

  Fuck it, I thought, I can’t read any more of this crap! Where’s their blogs section?