by Calvin Wolf
The Progressive
1.0
I am standing at a podium in front of the old county courthouse, the former Senator to my right and James Panamus to my left. Panamus has been restored to health and vitality by a few nights in a hotel and a much-needed haircut. Though both of us are bankrupt, we have been hired on as professional staffers of the fledgling Progressive Party of America, with offices in forty-seven cities across the United States.
Eager to see the former presidential candidate back in action, a bevy of media is arrayed before us on the unkempt courthouse lawn. The major networks are aiming cameras at us, waiting to hear us speak. A crowd of local citizens is gathering behind them, curious.
I wanted to have a prepared speech, but the man from Vermont said to speak from the heart.
“I was wrong,” I say into the microphone.
“I was wrong, and for a long time I didn’t know it. I was just doing what everyone else did. Go to work, keep the boss happy, make money.”
The cameras are silently recording and broadcasting me to everywhere, and I feel intimidated. But what have I to lose?
“I knew the system was unfair, but what could I do? I never paid attention to the human cost. But then, when the chips were down, I became part of that human cost. A statistic. Educorp tried to sweep me under the rug. They were worried about bad publicity, their stock price. I worked hard for them, but they felt no obligation in return.
They broke the law. I know it, and everyone else knows it. They may be clean on paper, but that is because they own all the papers. They can edit and erase long before the courts come looking. They can manipulate juries, buy off witnesses, and slow down the wheels of justice so much that their opponents give up. We talk about how we love the free market here in America, but a free market requires a level playing field. The field is not level. We don’t have true consumer sovereignty, nor do we have true private property rights. Only the rich have sovereignty, and only the powerful have their property respected.
I lost in that courtroom, and I do not know what I will do next.” My vision blurs with sudden emotion.
“My family has been broken by what happened to me. I have drained all my accounts and all my investments. I can’t pay my mortgage. And the system is rigged to bleed me dry, to offer me no relief. The only prosperity the CEOs care about is their own. They say they care about their shareholders, but I was a shareholder. I just didn’t own enough goddamn shares.”
I hear a few muted cheers from the gaggle of onlookers. Someone says “hell, yes!”
“I am here today to announce that I have taken a position as an education policy consultant with the Progressive Party of America. I would like to introduce everyone to someone I deeply wronged, and someone for whom I hope I can help make it right.” I cede the microphone to James Panamus, who hugs me briefly and then takes my place at the podium. Jim shakes my hand and tells me to follow him down the steps of the old courthouse.
At the bottom of the steps is Hank Hummel, the economics lecturer who testified at the trial. He is sporting a Progressive Party pin on his suit jacket and shakes my hand warmly.
“That was a great speech,” he says. “You know, you’ve got some great public speaking and improvisational skills. Mr. Turner here says that you spoke off the cuff, without a prepared speech. I think you would make a great lecturer at the university, maybe for an evening class.” He hands me a folded sheet of paper, and it is a job listing for an adjunct instructor at Midland University. With my MBA and years of work experience, I meet the listed qualifications for the job.
Amazingly, the job pays by the number of credit-hours taught.
“I’ve talked to MU and they are willing to grant you some flexibility on the degree, since you have an MBA instead of an M.Ed. You could teach some freshman-level business courses, or you could also teach a course in education policy.”
I am flattered, but I decide to be honest and reiterate that I, despite having been a head principal, never actually taught in a classroom before.
“If you think that that was wrong, now’s your chance to go back and make it right,” Hummel says. “Show people you can teach, show them you can be a real educator.” I nod and feel invigorated. I ask when I would be able to begin, and he says in January, with the start of the spring semester.
1.1
On the way home, I listen to the news on the radio. Educorp, Intellicorp, and Neuron have just been hit with a round of lawsuits from disgruntled current and former personnel. “In the wake of an unsuccessful lawsuit against Educorp, the declaration of mistrial seems to have stirred up a hornet’s nest,” opines a Fox News pundit. “This current suit against the private education provider is the largest of its kind in history, with some eighty-four individuals alleging breaches of contract and labor law violations.” Intellicorp is being sued by seventy-one teachers and assistant principals, and Neuron is being sued by forty-four.
By the time I pull into my driveway, it is announced that the governor of Colorado is ordering an investigation into all three education companies’ Denver offices, and reports from Massachusetts indicate that a similar announcement may come from the governor’s office tomorrow. The air feels electric, and it’s not just the chilly autumn weather that is making me feel energized.
As I pull into my driveway, I see an unfamiliar car parked by the curb. While I park, a man gets out, and I recognize John Bush.
“Please don’t hate me,” he says as we both climb out of our respective vehicles. Despite being a high-flying insurance executive, he has now been reduced to piloting an older-model Ford Taurus. With my used Honda Ridgeline, we make quite a pair.
Seeing him in court, in the enclosed witness box, was one thing. Seeing him on my curb is something else. Instantly, I feel awkward, sad, happy, and enraged. The man who started this whole thing is here. At my home. Why?
“Can I help you?” I ask, not knowing what else to say. My brow is furrowed and my breath steams in the unseasonably cold air. Behind me, my car’s engine ticks and hisses, as if it is angry as well.
“I just saw your speech on the news,” Bush mumbles, hands shoved into the pockets of a windbreaker. “It was very good.”
“Thank you,” I reply. I wonder if he hates me. I want to know his story. Did he suffer like I have suffered?
“I found your address through my lawyer. I thought I should try to come see you in person, you know. Do the right thing.” I almost laugh. What the hell does he mean by right thing?
The situation is absurd, so I invite him inside for coffee. Hell, it worked for James Panamus and me, so why not?
1.2
We relax at my kitchen table, snacking on Little Debbie cakes and drinking cheap coffee. After the initial awkwardness, we begin to bond over our mutual schmuckness. I spent years screwing over parents like him, and he spent years screwing over patients like me. “Why is it like that?” he asks several times, almost chuckling. Thinner than he was during our impromptu brawl, he seems to relish the sugar and carbs of the snack cakes. He inhales a Halloween-themed dessert cake, a leftover from Max and Madison’s stash of lunch goodies, and seems happier by the minute.
I tell him that I don’t know why the system is the way it is. “People need what we sell, and we try to make ‘em pay as much as they can,” I elaborate around a mouthful of spongey sugar-dough. “And the CEOs always say that it’s our duty to make as much profit as possible for the shareholders.”
“That’s a nice cycle, isn’t it? Gouge our customers on their premiums to give a little bit back to ‘em in their stock portfolios!” Bush laughs. “Unless you’ve got a hundred thousand shares, you won’t earn those premium hikes back.”
“Don’t I know it! Only the top execs have enough stock options to feel the fruits of our profiteering,” I explain about Educorp. “I owned hundreds of shares, and my dividends were pathetic. I guess I could have complained, demanded t
o know why, but who’s got the time?”
We bitch about corporate bureaucracy for a long while, swapping stories about org charts and paperwork and angry clients. We also talk about all the times we pulled strings for a wealthy client or bent the rules to get a signature. The tone goes from happy and nostalgic to morose and ashamed. “We did it for the company, thought we were part of the team, and look where it got us!” Bush snaps.
He straightens up in his chair and pulls out a flash drive from a pocket.
“I came here to see if you and I could get along,” Bush tells me. “I’m so sorry for what I did in your office, back in May. I never should have reacted like that. But I’m not sorry that I’ve left GreenShield. After the way they treated me, I feel like I’m finally seeing clearly.”
“I don’t know if you want to try your lawsuit again, or what. I know I don’t have any documents pertaining to Educorp, but I did manage to download a chain of emails between our bosses about our situation. Very damaging for both companies.” He hands me the flash drive.
I plug the drive into my phone and quickly access the documents. The emails are between an assistant vice president of Educorp and an assistant division chair of GreenShield. Given the poor spelling and grammar, these communications were hastily written. Sure enough, corporate was trying to sweep both John Bush and me under the rug.
Bad publicity could cost percentage of share price, writes Educorp’s Texas-based AVP.
“I asked around and heard that these two corporate titans began talking shop soon after, and they’re about to pass a deal. All of Educorp’s faculty insurance will be handled by GreenShield, but the faculty will have to pay additional fees to cover some of the more common services. It looks good on paper, but GreenShield is good at crunching the numbers and finding the most common but innocuous-sounding services to charge for separately.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if GreenShield gives Educorp kickbacks for counseling its teachers to accept the additional fees and not make a fuss,” I reply, shaking my head in disgust. “The teachers will pay more out of pocket for their medical care, and the executives will get a bonus for it.”
Bush asks if I will use the emails to try and get something done, and I tell him that I don’t know. “They won in court once, and I doubt that will change. My lawyer and I used up all of our money to fight Educorp, but we just couldn’t compete.” Silent for a moment, Bush drinks more coffee. Eventually, he suggests that we could give the emails to the Progressive Party. “Maybe the old Senator could get some good press from ‘em, fight back against Educorp and GreenShield.”
That’s an idea. That’s something. “If we can’t win in a court of law, maybe we can win in a court of public opinion,” I suggest.
“You busy? We could take it down there together. The rally downtown is over now, so they’re back in their office.” Bush says that that sounds great, and we decide to take my car.
2.0
Jim Turner informs us that the former Senator will be headed back to Vermont that evening, but assures us that he will make sure the old guy has a copy of all the emails on the flash drive. As some college kid intern takes me into a side room to tell me more about my new position as an education consultant, Turner and Bush begin talking. By the time I have been explained the parameters of my job, I overhear Turner talking to Bush about a similar position, consulting the Progressive Party on the ins and outs of the health insurance industry.
Stunned, Bush is asking how the fledgling political party can afford this. “There is a lot of anger in America about the stagnant two-party system,” Turner explains. “When our party formed after the 2016 Democratic primaries, when the establishment managed to win despite all of their candidate’s weaknesses, we got tons of individual donations from all over the country. There are millions of progressives, people who want real change, and many can contribute ten dollars here, twenty dollars there. We just need one big break and we can crack the two-party monopoly.”
Bush accepts the job of insurance industry analyst and promises he will help in any way he can, especially when it comes to developing a workable framework for universal health care. “To public school and public health,” Turner says, clapping both Bush and me on the shoulder. “To the radical notion that people who need education and medicine should get it, whether they’re rich or poor.”
That sounds about right to me. Who the hell can say that my daughter doesn’t deserve a good education because her test scores are too low? Who says I shouldn’t be able to go to the doctor because my health insurance hasn’t deigned to cover that procedure, or that medication? Who thinks it acceptable right to profit from people’s pain and misery? “Absolutely,” I say.
James Panamus walks into the office with a sheaf of papers, ready to work on education policy.
“Watcha got there?” Turner asks, clapping his hands on his Santa-esque belly.
“This is research about how governments have justified turning a competitive market into a public good,” Panamus says. “I requested that some of the interns at the library find me some material, and they went above and beyond. Looks like they printed up a whole book for me!” Mere days after being homeless and shivering in front of a commercial Dumpster, the former substitute teacher has just signed a lease on a studio apartment and proven himself to be a genuine workhorse.
“It would be neat if we could get all the supporters of the Progressive Party to buy up the stock of all these corporations. Then we could run those corporations right,” I say. Everyone is silent, and I suddenly realize that they are staring right at me.
“Holy shit, that’s not a bad idea,” Bush exclaims, a big smile on his face. “Let’s start with that.”