The following Wednesday, December 10, 2008, saw Larry excited about having been offered a position with the corporate law firm that had recruited him.

“It will mean more travel and more hours,” Larry had told Louis around eleven a.m. “And about…four times what I was making with the government.“

“Four times?”

“Yes.”

“That’s fabulous.”

“So we could spend some time thinking about how to spend my trust fund,” Larry said. “The partners have no objection whatsoever to me taking a more active role in how the fund is invested, so long as I recuse myself from any client whose company is one I own stock in.“

“Which could be quite a few, as I recall.“

“I’m planning to transfer most of it into tax exempt bonds.”

“You know, Larry, that’s something you didn’t tell me before. I had no idea your fund is worth twenty million.”

“I didn’t know it myself, Lou. I just left it for the trustees to manage so I wouldn’t be investigated for insider trading or whatever due to my security clearance on the congressman’s staff.“

“But see,” Louis said, “I could never afford payments on the type of house you can buy outright for us.”

“You don’t have to, lover. Don’t you see that? I’ll pay for it all myself.”

“I’ve loved living here in our house, the one I can afford half the payments on,“ Louis said. “I would love to move though, if we can find a place with more room, maybe an acre so we can do more outside, touch football, a swimming pool.”

“Good. Then you’re willing to start looking.”

“Yes, but housing could collapse and why waste money even if you have it to waste buying a big house and then see its value drop by half in less than a year.”

“Good point. You should be a lawyer too. A language expert and a lawyer. And so you’d also like to travel with me, time permitting at the university?”

“Love to.”

“The firm’s quite willing to pay for you to accompany me on trips, time-permitting, if I’m to be away more than a couple days at a time.”

“To New York?” Louis asked.

“Most of the time, to New York, sometimes Boston, even London.”

“Then I could look in on mom more often when we go to New York.”

His mother Catherine O’Toole O’Connor had recovered from breast cancer and a mastectomy performed in December 2007.

Danny O’Connor, Louis’s stepfather - his adopted father - had mentioned in the family Christmas greeting card with one-page family newsletter prepared using a popular word processing software of the day with picture border of red poinsettias and sent to about fifty O’Connors and O’Tooles living in various parts of America, Australia, and Canada, that Catherine’s health had improved remarkably, that she was giving volunteer counseling to other women with cancer at a women’s center in Brooklyn, and that they were expecting another grandchild from Louis’s half brother Daniel Robert and his wife, both of whom were concerned that Dan, as he was known to distinguish him from his father who went by Danny, had been given notice that he would soon lose his job in the foreign exchange department at the erstwhile major financial institution where he had been employed since college, that firm, although still traded on the NYSE, being among those listed whose shares had dropped 85% since the highs in late 2007. Louis’s half-sister Diane Sarah and her husband still lived in Albany where his civil service job with the New York attorney general’s office was considered secure.

Louis assured Larry that he wanted the best for his legal career and that he was more than pleased at the development.

They began talking again about having children.

Earlier that year, Jessica, the college-age daughter of their neighbors across the street, had confided to Louis that she wanted a child by him, but not marriage. She had told Louis she was sure the child would be beautiful and she would love it dearly.

The matter of fathering scions had come up early in the marriage of McIntire and O’Connor, that they should each produce at least one child, even though they were married to each other and that the mother - when they found a woman willing to be the mother - would not necessarily be obligated by law to grant them visitation rights.

It had been early in January 2008 when Louis and Jessica had had intercourse in the guest bedroom at Louis’s and Larry’s house, with Larry being allowed to watch the affair, which the couple tried on two nights when Jessica said she was ovulating.

But Jessica had not become pregnant, especially to Louis’s disappointment. She had gone back to college by mid-January for her spring semester, had sent a few emails to Louis that she had not missed any of her periods, and they had concluded by March that one of them had been infertile. Jessica had remained away from her parent’s home except for a short visit around the Fourth of July, and again before her senior year began, coming over on Labor Day to speak with Louis on the parking outside his house when Larry was away to tell him how much she liked him, but that she had decided to postpone trying to have a child until finishing college and traveling.

“Any candidates?” Larry asked Louis that wintry Wednesday late in 2008, referring to a willing young woman who wanted a child, who would allow him rights to provide for the child, a child to be born out of wedlock, but whom Larry planned to adopt.

“For either of us?” Louis said. “That will take some thinking. I don’t think we should check on the Internet.“

“No,“ Larry said frowning lightly. “Not the best place to search for a surrogate mother. A woman who will be a good mother to the child, even a married woman, I suppose.”

“That would take a very understanding husband.”

“I know, but there are childless couples. I’ve talked with men who say they know that one of their kids is actually another man’s child. A child born nine months after an adultery, when the father was away at war, the Iraq war, Vietnam. The Iraq war has led to many children being born to couples when the father’s been away in Iraq and couldn’t possibly be the natural father.”

“Which would contribute to the psychological traumas the military is acknowledging is so high among the troops returning,” Louis said. “The guys learn that their wives have had a child and they have no idea who the father is.”

“Well, in my case, and yours, there won’t be any doubt who the father is. God, Louis, I just know a son of mine would like you, and so would a daughter. They’d understand why we love each other.

“There are so many married homosexual men anyway, married to women, who father children by the women, the wife knows before the marriage she’s marrying a gay man who needs a stable family life, a wife to take care of the house while he works, a man who’s been told by church and parents that his gay feelings are unnatural, so he marries a woman who has no delusions that she’s marrying a man who prefers men, and those guys love their kids, and they’re still gay, like you and me.”

“At the mall last week,” Louis said, “I saw a father, a young man just a few years younger than me, quite a good looking guy, smart, well-dressed, professional…”

“Are you trying to make me jealous?” Larry asked.

“No. Now don’t start.”

“All right, but I want to know if there’s another man in your life.”

“Only you, my one and only. So this guy who knows better than to show his head around here….”

“His what? You’re not having an affair with the guy?”

“No more. We’re even. The poor innocent man was leading his three-year old girl by the hand, and from the way he looked me in the eyes with his sensitive face, I’m sure he’s gay. Married to a woman, and gay.”

“I imagine that the way the world is tending that this sort of thing will become more commonplace,” Larry said. “But it’s anything but common, the sort of woman I have in mind. I want her to be kind, someone who will love our child. And yours too. Jessica is such a fine person.”

“But it didn’t work out,” Louis said.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out for the two of you,” Larry said. “I did enjoy watching you performing like a man with her in bed those two nights.”

“So I noticed,” Louis said.

“Wish you’d let me make a video of it.”

“No way, Larry. Jessica said ‘no‘.”

“I know. I know. You wouldn’t have minded though, would you?”

“Wouldn’t I?”

Larry, who was off that day having six more days accrued vacation to use up before the end of the year, and having given notice that December 31^st would be his last day on the staff, mentioned that Todd had told him about the zine broadcasts of Nicholas III.

“Sounds rather mercenary,” Louis said.

“I know, but why don’t we listen in just this once?” Larry said. “It’s on the Internet right now. I’m sure it’s the latest recording, the latest edition.”

“You’ve already found it?”

The two went into the library and sat down at their two 30” widescreen flat panel monitors with high-definition ultra-high resolution and color for content-creators, designers, video, gaming and entertainment; 2560 x 1600 native resolution; 3000:1 dynamic contrast ratio; trueHD 1080 - supporting higher definition than HD Television with an integrated HDMI connection; true color technology – 117% of NTSC color; extensive connectivity – seven connection options: VGA, DVI-D with HDCP, HDMI, S-Video, Component, Composite and DisplayPort; and with brushed aluminum housing, glass stand base, and cantilever arm.

They turned on the speakers and began listening.

“No speed limit,” came the voice of Nicholas III, still claiming to be a Wall Street insider, again sitting in a luxurious leather upholstered chair while being filmed in the fiftieth floor office of a Manhattan office tower with view of uptown.

“That means you and me are rebels with a cause.”

“’You and me‘, Larry,” Louis said smiling. “He’s already a bit out of touch with reality.”

“I know,” Larry said smiling, “but you’ve got to admit he’s original.”

“Rebel with a cause,” continued Nicholas III. “My ancestors did it. Yours did it, if you’re a member of the daughters and sons of the American revolution. Birds do it. Let’s fall in love with Wall Street.”

“Oh no,” Louis said. “Be sure our webcams aren’t on. I don’t want any of them, whoever they are, hacking in to know we’re watching this.”

“Let’s fall in love with money and greed and sing like those songs from the last Depression. Can’t you just see the dollar and coins come traipsing out of the big banks up and down Fifth Avenue looking for love? Don’t disappoint all those freshly minted bills courtesy of the bailout to end all bailouts. I want to hear you singing it at your favorite roach-infested over-priced Midtown bar and grill that swindles half its staff out of its tips each night. I want to hear you singing it at your next tête-à-tête with your shrink trying to find out why you haven’t jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge due to the collapse in your portfolio.

“This was made for you,” Larry said smiling and looking at Louis.

“Oh come on. This guy’s a nut.”

“There’s more,” Larry said.

“My fellow credit card holders,” Nicholas III began, sounding like an austere president addressing a nation. “We learn today that there are six hundred languages spoken in New Guinea, which is about the size of Texas. Six hundred. And every one of those jungle trekking wild berry hunting New Guineans knows how to say it in their one of a kind language: cash is king.

“Patently absurd,” Louis said, smiling. “He’s got to be kidding.”

“He’s not kidding,” Larry said.

“He’s not?”

“Don’t you know who he is?”

“Should I know him?” Louis asked. “You don’t mean I know that jerk from New York.”

“Can’t you tell? He’s dyed his hair.”

“Well, I don’t know. His face looked familiar but I must have seen a million faces when I was growing up and living in New York.”

“Think, Louis. Think. I can’t believe you don’t remember him.”

“Oh no!” Louis said. “That’s not an investment banker. Isn’t that ….Charles… Conrad? What was his name, the guy who was at the party when I met you who worked part-time with the theatre group.”

“Conrad, wasn’t it?” Larry said.

“He was a good actor,” Louis said. “Mostly supporting roles. He was always into extensive makeup and wigs for the roles he played. I never could tell for sure just what he looked like, but. I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Got it right the first time,” Larry said. “That’s an actor someone has put up, who’s been put up by top executives of one of the huge financial institutions with their hat out begging for bailout funds to make those zine broadcasts from within one of the big office towers on Wall Street, and I heard from one of the partners where I interviewed last week that money is actually pouring into the online payment account at the bottom of the screen accepting donations for the cause of Nicholas III.”

“A firm on Wall Street is behind those broadcasts?”

“Why not?” Larry said. “You can hear it? There’s that not-too-subtle in your face, plain spoken ‘get rid of them if they can’t make their profit targets’ sound in your ears that says: good old-fashioned American greed.

“It’s beyond ultra. It’s doctrine from minor intellects who fancy themselves Promethean in insight, when all they know is to exploit resources human and material.”

“One of the threatened Wall Street firms is trying to make a religion out of money?” Louis said.

“They’re one step from calling the dollar God,” Larry said.

“God.”

“I know. It’s shocking,” Larry said. “You didn’t think I wanted you to watch that for investing enlightenment, did you?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“Wasn’t sure! You big baby.”

“Not big baby again,” Louis said, getting up and sitting down in Larry’s lap in his huge black leather executive chair. “You want a big baby? You got a big baby.”

“Shall we make up here or in the bedroom?” Larry asked.

“Bedroom.”

“Be my guest. You’re king for the day.” Larry said.

After dusk that day, still at home in northern Virginia, Larry and Louis were looking online at listings along the Potomac of upscale homes that would suit their lifestyle. They seldom entertained, other than when family were in town, but they wanted a house with the potential for a large number of guests - “in case we become socially upwardly-mobile around the bend”, as Louis said - and so were focusing on some of the three story residences up the Potomac but on the Virginia side - “since we’ve established residency here and why bother learning an entire new sets of rules and regulations.”

It was around six p.m. and they had fed the cats, who had come in from playing in the backyard and who were in the spare bedroom on their two appointed cat cribs with used clothing bought at a neighborhood garage sale lining their beds for extra warmth.

Larry had just brought in some of their favorite chips and dip to enjoy before dinner when they heard a motorcycle coming from up the street, going what sounded like just about the 25 mph limit, and Louis also detected the sound of a large pickup truck’s engine. Then they heard a man’s strong voice calling out, “no!”, the screech of tires, and the crash of the motorcycle.

“That sounds like it’s right in front of our house!” Larry said.

The library had only a view of the side yard, so they raced out into the hallway, out the front entryway, and with the benefit of a nearby streetlamp could make out a large motorcycle had landed on its side on the street just in front of their parking. A large red 4-door older model pickup truck still with good paint and body, its windshield somewhat outdated and with the name of a construction contractor on its left side, was parked about thirty feet in back of the motorcycle, whose driver was sitting on the curbing rubbing his legs.

“There’s something wrong here,” Larry said as he and Louis went out to see the man on the ground.

“Are you all right?” Louis asked as they stood beside the young man, who looked around twenty-one, tall, lean, who had taken off his helmet revealing full dark hair cut like a narcissistic politician whose hairstyle might raise speculation among the more venturesome of psychoanalysts as to his sanity.

The motorcyclist had a noticeable eastern European accent which Louis immediately recognized as Serbian from the less affluent outskirts of Belgrade due to the hapless motorist’s way of pronouncing various linguistic anomalies peculiar to English and not shared by Serbian, Louis having read an article earlier in the week on that very subject and having listened to online tapes of similar idiosyncrasies of the Baltic tongue.

“I scraped my arms and knees,” the motorcyclist said.

An older man’s voice came from inside the pickup truck, whose engine was still running, the inside of the cab dark, a cigarette odor coming from the truck. “Is he all right?” came an indifferent baritone voice

“What?” Larry called back, not too pleased by the tone of the truck driver.

“He’s been following me for the last mile, every time I turned in the neighborhood or near the highway,” the motorcyclist said, a bit afraid, breathing deeply, looking warily toward the truck and then up toward Louis especially with his eyes tender and expressing need for help.

Larry went back toward the truck driver, planning to learn what he could without getting too close. “Did you see what happened?” Larry asked with no intention of sounding accusatory.

While he tried to get some idea from the truck driver what had happened, and he had no doubt in his mind the older man - about forty-five - in the truck had been harassing the motorcyclist, Louis squatted down on his knees and asked quietly, “Was he threatening you?”

“Just about. I would turn back and motion for him to pass and he’d slow down. He knew he was threatening me by stalking me.”

“There’s a law against that,” Louis said.

“Okay.”

“Do you want us to help you? Do you think your motorcycle will start?”

“I’d like to rest first.”

It was getting close to the low 30’s out. Louis and Larry had been dressed in warm sweat pants and woolen sweaters from Scotland (Larry’s) and Italy (Louis’s).

“Your name?” Larry asked, standing five feet or so from the window of the pickup.

“Why do you need that?” came the driver’s gruff voice.

“He says you were following him. Any reason why you’d follow him?”

“Oh he did,” came the truck driver. “I have the right to drive around just like he does. Wasn’t sure if he was up to some sort of vandalism or what. All that crazy news we hear each day about how weird the world is getting. I had business not far from here and was just passing through your neighborhood.”

“Oh you were?” Larry said, not convinced. “I’m an attorney.”

“I don’t need a lawyer,” came the truck driver.

“We need to know your name and a phone number,” Larry said. “Do I have to get your license plate or will you do that much?”

The driver sat smoking a minute while Larry stood his ground, motioning to Louis to get back off the street, which he did, helping the motorcyclist, who gave the name Dimitrije Tihomir - which means loves earth, peace - to get up.

Dimitrije groaned a moment, standing up about 6’ 2”, in faded blue jeans, a worn black vinyl man’s jacket, just a white t-shirt underneath with the slogan NEVER GIVE UP, and white tennis shoes.

“Thank you,” Dimitrije said. He shook hands while Louis introduced himself. “Why did he do that? He kept gunning his truck engine whenever I’d look back to see if he was getting close. Then I lost control in the dark.”

“Do you know who he is?” Louis asked.

“No,” Dimitrije said.

The truck driver had pulled a pen and scrap paper from the glove compartment and written down a name and phone number.

“Is this your name?” Larry asked.

“Yes,” the driver said, beginning to look worried. “And who are you?”

“I’m Larry. That’s Louis. We live right inside that house. Now, if we need any more information, we’ll contact you.”

“You will?” the driver sounded upset. “What’s this got to do with you?”

“I said I’m an attorney. I also need your insurance paper, to get the policy number.”

The driver gave an expletive usually reproduced in big city newspapers with only the first letter and X’s, and then a second expletive commonly associated with frustration in driving in southern California on a busy freeway. “Here. I’ll write it down for you.” The truck driver handed it out to Larry, who wrote down the policy number and insurance company on the scrap paper and handed the verification form back to the driver, who had given the name Michael.

“I didn’t mean for him to crash his cycle like that,” Michael said. “I had no idea that was going to happen. I was just trying to pass him since he was going so slow.”

“Sounded to us inside that he was going close to the limit before he crashed,” Larry said.

“Oh brother,” Michael said. He motioned that he was driving off, almost like motioning to Larry to step away or else, to which Larry called out, “Hey!“, put the driver’s window up, and slowly headed down the street.

“That’s bad,” Larry said coming back to Louis and Dimitrije. “We can help you get your cycle up and see if it will start.”

“Thank you. You’re being so kind.”

“You’re fortunate you’re in this neighborhood.”

In fact, several neighbors had been coming out their front doors during the incident, including Jessica’s father and mother who had come out in their fullest winter overcoats, flashlights, and stood on the other side of the curb looking defiantly at Michael while Larry questioned him, even taking quality digital photos despite the dark, using a powerful flash on a 10x digital camera with single-lens reflex of the entire scene, coming over also and talking with Larry saying how glad they were he had handled “…that brute in the truck.”

Louis asked Dimitrije if he thought he needed any medical attention. “Those could have been nasty scrapes on your arms.”

“I know,” Dimitrije said, still standing on the parking. “But I had my jacket on. See. It’s just ripped a little on the elbows.”

“That looks like blood though,” Larry said. “At your left elbow.”

“Yes, it does.”

Larry looked at Louis for a moment and nodded.

“Why not come inside our house so you can catch your breath?” Louis said.

“You are so kind,” Dimitrije said. “But first could we test to see if my cycle will start?”

Larry nodded again. “I think I’ll get our winter jackets first,” he said. “It’s getting quite chilly.”

“I don’t want to be any trouble,” Dimitrije said.

“No trouble,” Louis said.

“You’re sure?”

“Of course,” Louis said. “Why not come inside though and get something hot to drink? We’ll get our jackets and we can test the motorcycle in just a minute.”

“Okay, thanks.”

The three men went inside the front entrance, with Louis immediately noticing in the light that there were also slight blood stains on the knees of the victim’s jeans.

“You’d better do something about those cuts,” Louis said.

“I can do something back at my friend’s house.”

While Larry prepared three cups of hot instant cocoa, Dimitrije told Louis that he had only been in America for two months, that he had been poor and unable to find work in Serbia, that his parents had managed to get him a low-priced airline ticket to the states where they had distant cousins living in modest circumstances in northern Virginia, that he had just found a new job as a sales clerk at a clothing store, one of six hundred branches of a national chain rumored to be about to close one hundred locations.

“But they say we are doing well,” Dimitrije said, “and I hope to do well too. I love my cousins. They have been so good to me and I so sorry not to find work until today.” He said that he had only been able to afford the motorcycle with money his father had wired the previous week, since he needed a way to get to and from work. They sipped the hot beverage slowly, took a deep breath, and walked back out to the street where they quickly uprighted the motorcycle. Dimitrije got on it, revved the engine, and it started with a sputter.

“Good,” Louis said smiling.

“Yes,” Dimitrije said. “It could have been much worse. I could only afford the liability protection and would have nothing if I crashed it or it were stolen.”

“Have you had any dinner?” Larry asked.

Dimitrije was silent a moment. “I have had nothing since breakfast. My cousins were gone to a social agency. They have no work either. They get some disability assistance from the state of Virginia. The commonwealth as I learned. They were gone all day. I had no money left and there was not much left in the cupboards, so I decided to go out until they came home with groceries.” He said the house was thirty minutes away in another community.

“But why were you so far from home?” Larry asked, the cold air forming vapor as he spoke.

“I had never been this way before and wanted to explore. I love to explore. It is one reason I came so far from Serbia.”

“You could have dinner with us,” Larry said, with Louis nodding in genuine approval.

“You don’t have to do that,” Dimitrije said.

“We be… we’d be glad for you to join us,” Louis said. “It’s getting cold out here. I’d like to learn more about how you learned English. I’m a student of languages.”

“And I think you and I should talk about what happened,” Larry said. “That man was stalking you and that’s illegal.”

“I don’t want to cause any trouble,” Dimitrije said.

“We should at least discuss it over dinner,” Larry said. “I can explain your rights to you. You might be able to collect from Michael’s insurance company.”

“But wouldn’t it just be his work…his word against mine?”

“Yes,” Larry said. “But it could be worth a try.”

“Come on inside,” Louis said.

He showed Dimitrije the half bath and offered him plenty of disinfectant soap to clean his elbows and knees, saying not to worry and to take his time while they prepared three dinners. “There’s some disinfectant you can rub on the cuts to prevent infection,” Louis said. “We’re glad to help.”

“You’re being so kind,” the guest said, closing the door.

After about ten minutes preparing a meal that included New England clam chowder - Louis preferring to cook from original recipes rather than use canned soup when they had time - the recipe being followed closely:

Ingredients
1 tablespoon grape seed oil
1 tablespoon fat free imitation bacon bits
1 cup chopped yellow onions
4-6 1/2 oz. cans minced clams
4 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 stalks chopped celery
1 chopped carrot
3 tablespoons butter substitute
5 cups hot milk
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon salt
dashes of pepper
5 cups raw diced potatoes

And garlic beef tenderloin, prepared by Larry using these ingredients:

Ingredients
The Meat
One 2lb tenderloin will make up to 4 portions (8oz each)
OR use boneless prime top sirloin
8 cloves garlic – quartered OR the Rub

The Rub
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
3/4 cup (packed) fresh bread crumbs from French bread crust
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (about 2–1/4 ounces)
2 tablespoons fresh parsley – chopped
3 tablespoons of unsalted buffer – melted
1 tablespoon (heaping) minced garlic

A Savory Gravy
2 cups beef stock or canned beef broth
2 cups of chicken stock or canned chicken broth
1/2 cup any robust red wine
1/4 cup shallots – minced
2 cloves garlic – minced
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon "Kitchen Bouquet"
2 tablespoons (1/2 stick) soft unsalted butter
several tablespoons of all purpose flour
1/4 cup capers with juice

Dimitrije came out of the guest half bathroom looking much better, to his hosts relief.

“It’ll just be a while before the dinner is ready,” Larry said.

In the meantime, they offered him chips and dip and Waldorf fruit salad from a one pound plastic container that Louis had bought at a supermarket deli the previous night.

They sat down in the breakfast cove and began asking Dimitrije about his journey to America.

“My family said to give this try, since I am young and have the rest of my life ahead of me.”

He talked about his cousins and their modest wood frame circa 1930’s bungalow in a working class neighborhood in another town not far away.

“It’s just two bedrooms and a bath, and they have no children at home anymore, so I am allowed to use the guest bedroom and the first thing when I got here, after traveling on a stand-by ticket over twenty-eight hours by jet, is they said I must learn good English, that I need to have good English to get a decent job. So they took me to the new Free Language Institute in southern Maryland and I was accepted since I agreed to teach what I can of Serbian to the government people who volunteer at my school.”

“The Free Language Institute?” Louis said, looking puzzled.

“It was begun, from what they told me, just in October, by volunteers who work in translations and other American government capacity where they are trying to open contacts with all native speakers from around the world. They have two floors in a former bank building that was put up for sale because the bank is in trouble, like the others.”

Louis gave Larry a knowing look. They learned shortly that it also had belonged to the bank where Louis kept his accounts.

“And the sort of English they’re teaching you?” Louis asked.

“It’s all the latest computers, new 2 and 3 gigabyte personal computer with large flat screen monitors, speakers, booths with earphones so we can hear English audio, about two hundred students in all, some who come only for one class a week, or me who comes almost every day, some Arabic, some like me from Eastern Europe, Hispanic, Chinese, and all kinds of very kind government employees who volunteer their time at the school, which has about four or five paid staff, including the director who is rather aloof but involved, a woman they all call Pat but I call Patricia which I think she likes.

“And so the first day I was taken into a modern classroom with comfortable black vinyl chairs, the kind you can stack, and these two men they say are in security, Tony and Paul, I forget their funny last names, they look so alike, both tall, dark hair, in their thirties, always dressed in business shirts, ties, and they hand out sheets for us to try to read, to test what we know, and it is like being indoctrinated into American way of thinking, everything is about money.”

“The language teachers teach you about money?” Larry asked, getting up to check the oven to make sure the tenderloin was going well.

“We learn to conjugate verbs like this:

‘Do I need money?

Do you need money?

Does he or she need money?

Do we need money?

Do you’ - plural of course - ‘need money?

Do they need money?’

Then the past of to do:

Did I need money?

Did you need money?

Did he, did we, did they need money?

Then ‘Where is money, what is money, when is money, why is money, there is money, here is money, over there is money. The money is up, down, behind, in front of, to the side, on, under,’ always money money. It get a bit tiresome but it’s free and I am learning English.”

Louis asked just where in Maryland the school was located and how Dimitrije got there each day.

“Before I bought my motorcycle, I take an interurban bus that has a route right past the school, and the school even provided me a monthly pass for free, a bus pass.”

“Good of them,” Louis said, pouring some hot clam chowder which was now ready. “Careful,” he said. “It’s hot.”

“Thank you so much,” Dimitrije said.

“What other language methods do they use?” Larry asked.

“Oh,” Dimitrije said, “they have language tapes that are too advanced for me so far, tapes about the coming of the Anti-Dollar and how to avoid being left behind when the economy vanished into the outer space, something odd like that. My English is not good enough for me to understand it all.”

“The Anti-Dollar?” Larry asked.

“The Anti-Dollar, yes,” Dimitrije said. “It was taught something like this.” He cleared his throat. “’America is coming to the end. America has came to the end because of the Anti-Dollar. America comes to the end when the Anti-Dollar takes control of Wall Street by enacting more billion dollar frauds.’ I thought it made no sense until the news of that man who they say took fifty billions and has nothing left for the people who trusted him.”

“It’s the end for some of them, indeed,” Larry said.

“’I see a dollar, he sees a dollar, you see a dollar…..’ They said that the Anti-Dollar is an unbelievably rich man, so rich that no ones dares mention him by name and that his name is known only to a few, the President, a few others. That the Anti-Dollar is the one who gets the money when these banks go bankrupt, or that fraud. Fifty billion dollars does not just vanish; someone got it; that someone is the Anti-Dollar. And when America is weak from the coming recession, he will use his vast wealth to destroy Wall Street and take total control of the U.S. economy; he will own all of us.”

“No way,” Larry said.

“This is what I felt like telling them every day at the school, but it is free and no one but a fool throws away a free school. On and on. Cash is good, cash is in the bank, the cash is in the wallet, the cash is in the register, the cash is in the vault‘. They teach us English with emphasis on money, telling us we will need to earn our way, but I want a bailout if I cannot find a job.” Dimitrije smiled and Louis and Larry laughed.

“That’s the example the government is setting,” Larry said as he set out the tenderloin on some of their porcelain china with soft drinks or ice tea in large glass tumblers.

After an hour talking about the language school, and more about the truck driver who had been stalking him, Dimitrije and his hosts got up, talked awhile in the living room about Dimitrije’s legal options - with Larry encouraging him at least to call the police and make a report, “So as to have something in writing on record in case Michael were to try that again.”

It was around eight p.m. when they went out to the street where Dimitrije was again able to restart his cycle and, with a wave of his hand, thanking his hosts, “I cannot thank you enough,” headed off down the street.

Back inside, Larry mentioned to Louis as they were cleaning up the dinnerware, “Those two names of men at the school, Tony and Paul.”

“Uh huh?”

“Aren’t those the first names of the NSA agents your father encountered five years ago in Detroit, and who’ve been confronting him - once in Chicago before he returned to Iraq, and in Basrah last year when he was at a newspaper?”

“Yes. Tony Lyeforth and Paul Beltmann.”

“Who put up so many volunteers to help at that free school?” Larry asked.

“It sounds suspicious to me also,” Louis said. “I usually hear of places like that, language schools that large. It sounds like a government front; a government-funded place, and so our taxpayer dollars are paying for it. It’s not free. And then, the government employees. Why would they volunteer? Sounds more like it’s part of their work, something to do with national security, and they’re trying to … well, infiltrate recent immigrants’ ranks. He said everyone, all the students, are like him, new to America, poor. It would be one way for the government to spy on new arrivals to our country, indoctrinate them into radical conservative business mindsets, find them jobs, even use them to spy on other unsuspecting Americans.”

“Such as you and me,” Larry said, “except we’re not unsuspecting after what’s been happening with NSA spying on us.”

“You think they’re still spying on me, reading my emails, monitoring my calls to Omar?”

“I still have my security clearance. It’s still top secret.”

“You’re not going to tell me?”

“I am going to tell you,” Larry said, “when we’re alone in bed and I can whisper while I’m kissing your naked butt what I know in case the NSA is outside right now with a big listening antenna pointed at the house.”

“If they are, they’ll hear us when we’re having sex.”

“No law against that,” Larry said.

“You can tell me now,” Louis said. “The Feds are still spying on me, because of my anti-war work.”

“How’d you guess that?”

“Another thing, since you were so kind to help that poor poor man and stood up to that thug in the truck?”

“What thing?” Larry asked.

“You notice we don’t argue anymore, not like when we first got married.”

“I’ve noticed that for a long time, Lou. It was mostly about the war.“ He began hugging Louis.

“I can’t believe the war caused us so much…. “ Louis began as Larry kissed his lips.

“Arguing?”

“But then it was always fun to make up in bed.”

“Like tonight?” Larry said, leading Louis by the hand to the bedroom. “Only we haven’t been arguing.”

“I will still be fun. I knew you were only standing up for what you believed,” Louis said.

“That’s what I loved about you too. You stand up for what you believe in, for your values.”

“So good night to chaos and the world of deceit outside,” Louis said, turning off the living room lights as they walked to the master bedroom.

“And good night to the privacy intruders, wherever they are,” Larry said.