by Joan Dempsey
Meck closed his eyes and shook his head, dumbfounded, the list of consequences racing through his mind like a line of cascading dominoes. He frowned and ran his flattened fingers across his forehead, drawing his bangs to the side. With his fingertips, he pressed them several times against his temple, as if he might make them stick. They fell back over his forehead. He sat again on his hands, breathing slowly to calm himself.
“Apparently, Arnie and Ed were both insistent,” said Whit. “Pastor Royce said he didn’t want to hold them off any longer. Ed’s been getting increasing pressure from the parents, so he turned to Arnie. And you know Arnie—he thinks as superintendent of schools he’s sitting at the right hand of God. They felt a responsibility to act sooner rather than later. Pastor Royce said they couldn’t take the moral corruption one more day; he couldn’t stop them.”
“But he knows as well as we do the importance of the sequence! It was his responsibility to convince them otherwise. This is a serious problem, Whit. We’re not ready, you know that. Besides, by law they’re supposed to give ten days’ notice before firing anyone. The teachers could be reinstated on that fact alone.”
Meck’s voice assaulted the room, banged off the metal desks. He dropped his head and closed his eyes. His fingers began to feel squashed, his wrists strained. Five years in the making, this campaign, and Pastor Royce had allowed a serious misstep to threaten everything, a misstep that could destabilize every one of their careful calibrations. He studied the whiteboard.
“I assume that was the only school?”
Whit shook his head. “Unfortunately, word began to spread, so a couple others immediately followed suit. I spent the entire service in here on the phone, trying to rein in everyone else. I think all told we’re looking at up to eleven teachers.”
Meck blew out a long breath, his smooth cheeks ballooning and deflating. “This undermines our entire strategy. Now they’re going to argue discrimination, which dilutes our focus on the kids.”
“Let’s be honest, Warren—we’ve known all along they’d argue discrimination.”
“Of course, which is precisely why the sequence was crucial, to minimize their opportunities for succeeding with that defense. It’s one thing to argue against discrimination for one teacher, quite another for a whole group of them. Too many red flags. We were supposed to stagger the dismissals to attract less notice, he knew that.”
The door opened and Pastor Royce walked in. Despite Meck’s anger, his instinct was to stand by way of greeting, but he reminded himself to stay seated. Despite their years of working and worshipping together, and despite the pastor’s deliberately strategic informality, Meck still leaned toward formality in the great pastor’s presence, as if he were royalty, a holdover from Meck’s childhood in Pastor Royce’s first church. Meck had been a boy when his mother had gone to work for the pastor, and because Meck had never known his father, the pastor had quickly become a paternal figure; often, Meck still felt childlike in his presence. But Pastor Royce had convinced Meck that formality didn’t belong in a relationship with as much history as theirs, and Meck had tried to acclimate to the idea of the pastor as a peer. Even so, no matter how many times Pastor Royce had encouraged Meck to call him “just Royce,” Meck couldn’t bring himself to do it. Now Pastor Royce closed the door behind him, leaned heavily against it, and swept back his white mane of hair with both meaty hands. He left his hands on his head as he shook it.
“Warren, my friend, you are absolutely correct. I did know about staggering the dismissals.”
He dropped his hands, pushed himself off the door, and trundled into the room. With a heavy sigh, he lowered his bulk into the desk chair opposite Whit. Last year, at age sixty-four, Pastor Royce had begun to put on significant weight. Now he wore loose-fitting, untucked shirts that draped over his jeans, but which did nothing to hide his ample stomach. He’d always made it a point to preach in comfortable clothing, believing it put the younger generation at ease.
Meck, now too warm, and still not trusting himself to temper his tone, hopped off the table and stripped off his sports coat. He threw it onto the couch and then, regretting the disarray, methodically folded back his pressed shirtsleeves to just below the elbow, exposing ropey forearms.
“I told Whit earlier, Warren, that I prayed on this all through the weekend, asking the Lord how I could have allowed myself to cave in to those men, knowing what I know. I feel deep contrition; I will say that. Deep, deep contrition.”
He inclined his head and said each of their names, an indication that he was about to offer a private sermon, something Meck usually treasured. Today, he had to work to overcome his impatience. He rubbed hard at the back of his neck and quietly blew out a long breath.
“You know when you’re a believer how you have two natures?” said the pastor, lifting his hands as if holding an accordion. “There’s the believer, and then there’s the prebelieving you, the one who wants to do what’s easiest, what’s most convenient, what will cast you in the best possible light, whether it’s good for you or not. That was me, fellas, when facing Arnie and Ed.”
He dropped his hands to the desk and briefly drummed his fingers.
“I felt the pressure they were under and I wanted to ease it, not—if I’m being honest—for them, but in order that they would feel grateful for my blessing, that they would see me in the best possible light. I’m reminded of Paul, in Romans, chapter seven, who doesn’t understand why he acts the way he does, who doesn’t do what he knows is right. I did wrong when I told Arnie and Ed to go ahead and dismiss those teachers. I know I did wrong. I am terribly, terribly sorry.”
He held out his hands in supplication and shook his head, berating himself. Even when Pastor Royce sermonized, there was always an authenticity and humanity in his voice that never ceased to move Meck, as he was moved now. The pastor never shied away from admitting his all-too-human failings, and Meck found this made him all the more holy. Meck had long ago learned that emulating Pastor Royce in this regard made life a lot less complicated, and far more virtuous. Honest confession disarmed people, and also served to cleanse the confessor. Meck softened, and forgave him on the spot.
“What’s done is done,” said Whit.
Meck crossed over to the whiteboard, grabbed a red marker out of the tray, and smacked it into his palm. He repeatedly snapped the cap off and then on. He was nothing if not political, and despite his frustration he could feel the kick of gearing up for a new challenge. He reviewed the strategy map, and after a few moments brandished the marker at Whit and the pastor.
“Okay then. Game on.”
“Atta boy,” said Pastor Royce.
“Even when the flood starts rising,” said Meck. “How many were dismissed from Adams River?”
“Three,” said Pastor Royce, “including Senator Zeilonka’s son.”
“This changes everything, of course,” said Meck. “No flying under the radar, no easy scores on Beacon Hill, no further inroads. Here’s where the past five years get put to the test. Here’s where we find out how committed these people truly are, how willing they are to become effective advocates.”
“We’ve got a strong core,” said the pastor. “Probably forty percent of the congregation, don’t you think?”
“Sounds about right,” said Meck. “But we’re going to get pummeled by Zeilonka, and not only on the legislative front. He’ll help his son—and his son’s colleagues—when they appeal their dismissals and demand arbitration. We can’t wait now on getting those students and their parents ready for the arbitration hearings. They’ll need to be coached on two fronts: harassment leading to unequal educational opportunity, and threats to their right to free speech. We also need to fast-track at least one of those bills to the governor’s desk, preferably 1298.”
“I’ll alert the parents,” said Whit.
Whit rose and joined Meck at the whiteboard, towering over him. Pastor Royce pushed himself out of the chair and, like every great leader, Meck thought,
stood out of their way and watched with gratitude as his best people worked through the problem. Before Pastor Royce, Meck had never experienced the empowering freedom of working for an utterly trusting supervisor. He prayed that when they won Massachusetts, the three of them would move together to the national stage.
“Here’s what we do,” said Meck. “We approach the ACLU, get the families to talk with them. We’ll focus on having them testify at Zeilonka’s arbitration hearing, for maximum publicity.”
“You really think the ACLU will back us,” said Whit, “when they could be defending the homosexuals?”
“You’d be surprised. Remember West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette? Supreme Court, 1943?”
Whit and the pastor both shook their heads. Meck wrote ACLU on the whiteboard.
“Barnette was the Supreme Court’s first important freedom of religion ruling. The ACLU filed an amicus brief for Gathie and Marie Barnette. Jehovah’s Witnesses, sisters. They refused to pledge allegiance to the flag, which was required by law for all public school kids. Their argument? ‘It’s against our sincere religious beliefs.’ The vote was six to three in favor of the Witnesses.”
“So they set the stage,” said Pastor Royce.
“That’s exactly right. The ACLU will be all over it. They’ve actually got a track record of supporting the rights of Christian kids in public schools. To wear T-shirts with religious or pro-life messages, to use Christian themes when they’re assigned to choose their own topics, that sort of thing. One poor second grader in New Jersey was told she couldn’t sing ‘Awesome God’ at a talent show; thanks to the ACLU, the federal district court told her she could. The ACLU of Missouri even spoke up for Shirley Phelps. Not a school case, but still.”
“Phelps?” said Pastor Royce. “From the Westboro Baptist Church?”
“One and the same.”
“How they can picket at soldiers’ funerals and still call themselves Christian is beyond me,” said Whit.
“Even so,” said Meck, “the Constitution’s on their side. The ACLU will think we’re a walk in the park compared to Phelps.”
Pastor Royce moved behind and between them and laid his heavy hands on their shoulders.
“Well then, fellas, it sounds like you’ve put together the start of a new plan. Let’s work it now, shall we?”
Meck’s earlier frustration was gone. Under the warmth of Pastor Royce’s confident hand, and with Whit by his side, he felt renewed determination; there wasn’t a thing the three of them together couldn’t accomplish.
5
The First Volley
Deep beneath the golden-domed majesty of the brick-clad State House, bearing the weight of more than two centuries, lay the land on which John Hancock had once grazed his cows, cows who routinely wandered down the brow of Boston’s highest hill to the shores of the Charles River. One might wonder if they were uneasy one morning in 1795 about the unforeseen appearance of fifteen white horses who paraded up the hill and into the pasture, hauling a slab of granite to Governor Sam Adams and Grand Master of the Masons, Paul Revere, who ceremoniously secured it in place—the cornerstone of an august building that would bury the pasture and transform the city into the permanent seat of the commonwealth’s government.
Inside the State House, sitting at the wide oak desk in the President of the Senate’s cavernous inner office, Lolek massaged his forehead. Tommy’s news had precluded any rest last night, and he’d finally gotten up at two-thirty to drive back to Boston. The early morning darkness still pressed in through the tall windows of nineteenth-century wavy glass, and he wished he could justify building a fire in the marble-faced fireplace, but they used it only occasionally for meetings and ceremonies. He could hardly call an ordinary Monday morning ceremonial, although he suspected the situation demanded a press conference before the end of the day and, given what was going on, it might not be a bad idea to host it here. The oak boiserie that anchored the walls with its precisely carved panels and scalloped decoration, the embossed paper ceiling, and the elaborate winged clock above the mantel tended to convey an aura of gravity that seemed to tame the media and elevate whatever Lolek said to State of the Commonwealth status. He’d been surprised by how immediately at home he’d felt within the grandeur of these Victorian surroundings. He loved the steep of history, the feeling that he was continuing the legacy of the eighty-six presidents who had served before him, some of whom gazed sternly from small portraits embedded in the oak mantel. The gothic desk, circa 1850, was broad and solid and practical, his favorite piece in the room, and sometimes, as now, early in the morning or late at night when few others were around, he would sit with his hands on its surface and study the portraits of the men who’d also touched it. He’d scrutinize their faces until he’d peeled off the veneer of history and reputation and myth, and seen them as the mere men they were, no different from Lolek, who felt the winter chill, whose hip ached, who faced a desk covered in bills that needed his immediate attention.
It was far too early, but he could hear Aggie Roth, his chief of staff and favorite person in the building, already coming through the door of the outside office, making the usual noises that announced the start of the day: her bag thumping to the floor next to her desk, the thunk of her boots as she removed them one at a time, the soft vacuum sigh of the mini fridge door, the scrape of the coffee pot. He called to her to come in.
“Pretend I’m not here yet, Mr. President. Daily briefing’s not for another two hours.”
When he didn’t respond with something witty as usual, Aggie poked her head into his office.
“Now that’s the definition of a hangdog expression, right there.” She stepped into the room.
Lolek had loosened his tie but still wore his wool scarf looped around his neck, his sense of decorum relinquished only outside of normal working hours and only in this private setting with Aggie, who’d been with him since the beginning and had seen it all. His hair, still jet black and thick at fifty-eight, stood up like the bent bristles of an old bottlebrush. His face was slightly doughy—more so this morning from lack of sleep—and his sideburns were a bit wider and longer than was advisable, which drew attention to the protrusion of his ears. He did not waste a moment of his time wishing he were more handsome.
“Good morning to you, too, Aggs. Sit down a minute, yes?”
From long habit, Aggie pulled out the chair across the desk that was closer to Lolek’s left side. The hearing in his right ear wasn’t the greatest, a result of some kind of allergy that intermittently flooded his eustachian tube. He tended to orient himself in the other direction, and a chronic ache in his left hip was the result.
Aggie leaned over the desk to inspect the bills. “Education Committee?”
“We’ve got ourselves a Trojan horse, Aggs. Take a look. Gauch filed it. Senate Bill 79.”
Aggie felt a stir of excitement. She’d not heard Lolek call out a Trojan horse for many years. Back then they’d coined the term to indicate the most worrisome bills, the ones that concealed possible hidden agendas, strategically buried “unintended” consequences should the bill become law. As a joke, Aggie had purchased a custom-made rubber stamp of an intricately carved Trojan horse and used it to mark such bills, but after a senior representative caught on to their code and made a bit of a stink, it was relegated to a place of honor on Aggie’s desk, and eventually tossed into a drawer where it had languished ever since.
Aggie read the bill. “It’s kind of genius, really, isn’t it? Is this the only one?”
“I don’t know yet; I didn’t get very far. There’s something else, though, Aggie. Tommy was fired on Friday. ‘Conduct unbecoming,’ they told him. He was one of three teachers at his school. Apparently, though, there were others in the district, I don’t know how many. Looks like they’ve been laying the groundwork for some time.”
“Oh god, Senator. Here we go.”
She stood and scanned the bills, quickly deciphering Lolek’s categorization. She coll
ected them into one pile and began to page through them. “They can’t have filed just one. I must say I’m a little surprised they’d be ballsy enough to target your son. Although I suppose it would have been obvious if they’d singled Tommy out by not giving him a pink slip. Plus, he’s a guaranteed media platform.”
As if on cue, the phone began to ring. Lolek and Aggie stared at each other until it went to voice mail. Aggie checked her watch and shook her head. “This is going to be huge.”
“Call the rest of the staff,” said Lolek. “Get them in here early.”
Aggie nodded. “How’s Tommy taking it?”
“Hard to say. He told me he’s ready to contest it, that he and Robert talked it over and are prepared to do what it takes, but I truly don’t think they have the first clue how much this could disrupt their lives. He laughed when I told him to install a security system.”
What Tommy had actually said was, “You might think we’re just a couple of helpless pooftahs, Dad, but now you’ll be forced to take a second look.”
Lolek didn’t know at exactly what point Tommy had begun to resent him; he couldn’t recall the last time they’d had an easy conversation. “I’m going over to Education to see if anyone’s in yet. No doubt Gauch has lined up his troops. Let’s find out who we’re dealing with here. When you find the other bills, draft up a statement and some talking points, and I’ll review them in fifteen. Oh, and call my son. Tell him not to answer the phone until he hears from me. In the meantime”—the phone rang again—“don’t answer that.”
He buttoned his double-breasted suit coat and headed out into the wide and empty hallway. Every heavy step resounded on the ancient marble floors and ricocheted off the iron balustrades lining the balcony above the Grand Staircase. Each massive stone stair had been sculpted over the centuries by an endless tide of parading statesmen who had given more of themselves than the average person could truly fathom. Few people understood what it truly meant to serve in public office. They saw the power and assumed it was glamorous, almost an aphrodisiac. They didn’t know about the endless list of obscure bills, the constant dickering over small things, and how often you felt at sea because you had to be a generalist who knew just enough to converse with some semblance of intelligence after being briefed by your more knowledgeable staff. They didn’t know about the brutal schedule—that there was no such thing as off duty, except for the wee hours of the morning when you rose in the darkness and drove alone in a state-owned car for a few blessed hours, radio off. “Thankless” was the word most often used by those who had done the job, and they complained continually about having no life and swapped stories of family strife and swore they’d finish out the term and quit, and then when it came time, there they were, making their families pose for photographs, running again in the next election.