THE CURE

A NOVEL BY DAVID LAWRENCE CADE

CHAPTER NINE

The temperature was in the forties around dawn on Tuesday morning, December 30^th, as Louis and Larry loaded Larry’s SUV with their tote bags, hiking shoes, extra food snacks, all in preparation of a drive along the Atlantic coast in Delaware and Maryland which was to take most of the remainder of the day, not planning to return until after dark.

They had left ample food, both canned food and the preferred dry flavors, on several extra plates for Madeline and Augustus, who were allowed free run of most of the house except the library and master bedroom which would be shut off, with timers on several lights set to come on before dusk, a burglar alarm system - one of the latest which had been installed earlier that summer - primed and ready.

“Have we forgotten anything?” Larry asked as they double-checked that the front and back doors were locked.

“I think we’ve got it all,” Louis said.

“Then let’s go.”

They petted the cats one last time, walked out into the garage, turned on the automatic door opener, started the SUV, backed out, and drove off toward the Interstate.

“Maryland and Delaware this time of year along the coast,” Larry said. “This will be great.”

It would be about a three hour drive, with four hours or so allocated to taking in the scenery along the coast before they were to head back, planning to return along Highway 50 through Salisbury, Cambridge, and up again to Annapolis and back home which was in the Fairfax/ Annandale area.

That morning, Larry began by driving around the east of the capital, up through Annapolis, along Highways 301 and 50 across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, across Kent Island with just a peak at Prospect Bay in order to make good time along the Blue Star Memorial Highway, then east along state highways with lunch in Milford before heading onto Highway 1 - Coastal Highway.

Larry in particular enjoyed getting as close to the barrier islands as possible on the Delmarva peninsula.

“My parents brought us here when I was just six,” he had told Louis, “and we came back three or four times before I finished high school during the summers and it was always special to me.”

The tidal wetlands, the dry lands, they wanted to see as much as they could of Sussex County in Delaware and Wicomico County in Maryland before three p.m. when they planned to head back.

Larry would do half the driving, with Louis taking the wheel around one p.m. and thereafter. They had made a study of areas of prime interest such as Indian River Bay and Isle of Wight Bay.

Louis especially enjoyed visiting the marshes, as it reminded him that his father Omar had grown up among the madan in the marshlands of Iraq, the son of poor parents whose ancestors had lived in the wetlands along the Tigris and Euphrates since time immemorial. Omar’s father had died when he was still in grade school and with his mother and sister they had moved to an-Nasariyah where his intelligence and acumen with languages had quickly become apparent to his school teachers, the boys and girls of the marshland having had fundamentals of languages taught them in small schools located directly among the reeds and mudhifs.

Louis and Larry had three state-of-the-art digital cameras with them as well as extra batteries for taking pictures of the extensive tidal flats, the back-barrier lagoonal marshes, and areas of estuarine beach behind the region’s barrier islands. There are fringing salt marshes that occur on the mainland side of the lagoons. They planned to photograph it all.

They were familiar with the ecology of the region, the habitats of particular significance including the salt marshes, beaches, the marsh and bay islands, tidal flats, submerged aquatic vegetation, and sea-level fens.

The region’s tidal marshes provide roosting, nesting and foraging areas for a variety of bird species, including black-bellied plover, dunlin, and horned grebe, wading birds such as herons and egrets, migratory shorebirds, and many species of waterfowl. Ducks and geese, including mallards, pintails, blue and green winged teals, gadwalls, canvasbacks, loons, buffleheads, mergansers, and goldeneyes, overwinter in the bays’ marshes. The marshes also provide nesting habitat for many species of concern to federal and state environmental agencies, including American black duck, Nelson’s sparrow, salt marsh sharp-tailed sparrow, seaside sparrow, coastal plain swamp sparrow, black rail, Forster’s tern, gull-billed tern, black skimmers, and American oystercatchers.

It was just ten minutes before they were to reach Milford when Louis decided to turn on the radio news. After concise troubling stories about the crisis in Gaza, the announcer proceeded to some national news.

A man had been killed by a hit-and-run driver in the financial district of Wall Street an hour earlier, and it was believed they had the name of the victim, whom police had identified “…as one Conrad Benedict Schneider,” the male radio announcer stated.

“That‘s him!” Louis said. “Conrad. What happened?”

The announcer continued. “And who is also believed to have been appearing in a recent series of Internet zine broadcasts that had aroused almost hysterical speculation in the cyberspace community as to who was behind his controversial stance on the global financial crisis.”

“Dead?” Louis said.

“That doesn’t sound like it was an accident,” Larry said.

The announcer continued. “Sources within the office tower where it is believed that Schneider, who went by the online soubriquet ‘Nicholas III’, was being filmed almost daily, on condition of anonymity, speculated that one or more individuals involved in the most highly debated efforts to save American financial institutions from ruin were also responsible for funding Schneider’s performances and that he had refused to participate further in the venture unless guaranteed additional money, which had been refused. More on this chilling story when we learn more.”

“Then it was all a front for someone out to brainwash the public,” Louis said.

“Something like that,” Larry said. “But, doesn’t it almost coalesce with that free language school that Dimitrije told us about?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, it could all be a plot by NSA or Homeland Security to deluge the public with rhetoric about money, about America and the dollar as if the dollar is in fact to be worshipped. It’s all rather crazy but something tells me Conrad was murdered this morning, no doubt because he was going to name the organization or whoever, billionaire, who had put him up to do those broadcasts.”

“Poor man,” Louis said.

They arrived safely at the Italian restaurant where they liked to dine whenever they passed through Milford, enjoying a relaxed meal in the peaceful setting.

They looked at the menu, which included:

Lasagna
Manicotti
Stuffed Shells
Cheese Ravioli
Meat Ravioli
Baked Ziti
Baked Ziti Sicilian
Chicken Parmigiana*
Eggplant Parmigiana*
*both w/ spaghetti
all served with salad & bread

And the pizza offerings:

14" Medium or 16" Large Margherita
Tomato Sauce - Mozzarella - Basilico
Toppings:
Pepperoni, Mushrooms, Sausage, Onions, Anchovies, Ham, Bacon, Broccoli, Spinach, Olives, Green Peppers

PIZZA
Sicilian- thick crust pan pizza
Dewey Light- stuffed with Ricotta, Eggplant, Ziti, Tomato Sauce
Hawaiian- Ham, Pineapple
Vegetables- Mushrooms, Green Peppers, Onions, Broccoli, Tomato, Garlic
Bianca- Mozzarella, Ricotta, Garlic, Tomato, Broccoli or Spinach
Mama Special-Pepperoni, Mushrooms, Green Peppers, Onions, Sausage
Chicago Style- Stuffed with Pepperoni, Mushrooms, Sausage, Mozzarella, Tomato Sauce

Stuff Escarole Pie- Escarole, Pine Nuts, Raisins, Olive Oil, Black Olives
Hot Chicken Wing Pie- Chicken, Hot Sauce, Fresh Mozzarella
Calzone- Your Choice: Ham, Vegetable, Chicken
Salsboli- Your Choice: Pepperoni, Sausage, Bacon, Ham

And they decided on the Hawaiian pizza with soft drinks. After about thirty minutes eating faster than normal, “…careful you don’t get indigestion again,” Louis said quietly as Larry was eying the final 1/8 slice on the tray.

“I’m all right,” he said. “Why don’t you drive for a while?”

“Good idea. We’ve got a lot of walking to do too if we want to take all those pictures.”

“Don’t worry,” Larry said. “I’ll be okay. Gotta get away from the capital time to time or it drives you nuts.”

“So I’ve noticed,” Louis said as they got up to go to the men’s room, paid at the cashier leaving a 20% tip for the waitress, a young Italian mother and the niece of the owners, and walked out into the sunlight.

“Great day for photography,” Larry said. “But windy.”

As they sped along Highway 1 toward the Rehoboth Beach, Bethany Beach area, Louis turned on the radio again.

There was a report that a group of peace activists on a small ship trying to take urgently needed medical supplies from Cyprus to Gaza - about twenty individuals in all including the former 2008 Green Party presidential candidate - had been confronted by eleven Israeli naval vessels in international waters forbidding them to continue to Gaza, which was under blockage, with one Israeli ship ramming the activist’s boat which had proceeded to a port in Lebanon rather than risk further damage to their efforts.

“They’re close to starving and deprived of medical supplies and the world is doing nothing to stop that,” Louis said, looking over at Larry. Both men had donated to the peace group. Omar personally knew several of the activists aboard from his humanitarian efforts to help the Palestinians over the past twenty years.

Larry looked over at Louis and held his hand as they pulled up at one of the conservation areas and stepped out at a parking area, a few other vehicles also there with sight-seers and naturalists wandering about the habitat in the brisk wind.

As they got out, Larry said, “You’d like to be on that ship, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” Louis said.

“I’d have to join you if you did.”

“You would?”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” Larry said and they began exploring the vicinity.

There was a coastal plain pond nearby that they found intriguing and walked around ten or so minutes before returning to the SUV to continue their drive.

The afternoon went better than planned, with some unexpected photo opportunities of sea birds taking flight creating a flurry of imagery for Louis’s cameras.

Just over the border into Maryland, near a conservation area around Fenwick Island, they struck up a conversation with Ralph, a middle-aged professor in environmental studies from a New England university, with students on a field trip who talked about the bay islands as a concern both because they protect other natural and developed shorelines and marshes from increased erosion, and because they directly support numerous bird species. “For example,” Ralph said, “hundreds of horned grebes prepare for migration at the north end of Rehoboth Bay near Thompson’s Island, while several bird species of concern in this region nest on shell piles (shellrake) on marsh islands, including gull-billed terns, common terns, black skimmers, royal tern, and American oystercatchers.”

Shell piles are generally free of mammalian predators. However, marsh islands are also subject to tidal flooding which reduces the reproductive success of island-nesting birds. Therefore, as islands experience more erosion and flooding as a result of sea-level rise, local populations of island-nesting birds may decline.

It was nearing three p.m. before they could break away from the attraction of bird-watching and photography and began heading home.

Around four p.m., Larry turned on the radio news. After more reports of the conflict in Gaza and finance, the host mentioned there had been a fire at a school in Georgetown that afternoon. The reporter on the scene began with: “Authorities are trying to determine why several children, who escaped unharmed, started a fire at a recently established day care center whose founders had veered into an almost cult-like obsession with money. From what we have been able to learn, the building, which is deemed a total loss, had been the scene of bizarre rituals in which the dollar was virtually set upon an altar as God. Children ages ten and eleven had found large amounts of Confederate money in an attic over the holidays playing at a relative’s house and had taken the money to the day care center where they had lit a fire atop the altar at the school to burn the useless old bills as a type of sacrifice.”

“That sounds so like Todd’s school,” Louis said. “I wish they’d tell us where it was.”

“Authorities want to question school founders Todd and Constance Ramsey….” the reporter stated

“It was them,” Louis said, focusing on the highway.

“…as to the tax-exempt status of the day care center given that they had begun engaging in high-profile political activity including mounting a protest at the U.S. Mint just this Sunday in which over one thousand tax protestors turned out to picket current government policies toward the increasingly troubled world of finance.”

“What a shame,” Louis said. “It was such a nice school. But what were they talking about? The worship of money?”

“I heard just rumors about that Monday at the Congressional office building,” Larry said, heaving a sigh. “It sounded rather far-fetched, but apparently Todd and the others had rather gone off the deep end and were into all kinds of weird thinking.”

“That is a shame,” Louis said.

They remained silent a while as they proceeded up the highway.

It was getting dark and Louis asked Larry, as they neared the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, if he minded listening to the Pembroke broadcast for the day which would begin soon.

“No, that’s fine Lou,” Larry said.

Louis turned on the car stereo and found the station carrying the voice of Pembroke, who had just begun….

“Frees. Yes, I said frees. No, not as in it’s too cold to jump in the lake so why are all those polar bear enthusiasts acting like, well, polar bears. No, I meant that famous third person singular present tense indicative of the English verb - or at least it was once an English verb from whatever ancient tongue in a society that likely knew less freedom in the days of King Arthur and his adulterated, drunk-half-the-time knights - to free.

Larry and Louis had plans for New Years Eve that included two parties in Georgetown: one hosted by a professor from GWU and his wife who had invited about one hundred guests, and another at a mansion owned by one of the Republican Senators who had known Larry for years and who was planning a similar large gathering to welcome in the new year.

“Let’s get lots of rest tonight,” Larry said as they crossed the bay.

“Yes, let’s,” Louis said. “That was a lot of sightseeing today. Got to have plenty of energy if we’re going to stay up half the night tomorrow.”

Pembroke began his closing remarks.

“We’ve been through a lot together, haven’t we, this year? High gas prices such that who wanted to travel far to see this beautiful world of ours? Then the collapse of financial institutions such that we wondered who would have enough money even to eat? The history in the making of the first African-American president-elect. And then the year ending on such tragic terms with the Gaza invasion.

Larry reached over and held Louis’s right hand, while he held the steering wheel with his left.

“Another year?”

“Another year and another for all your life,” Louis said.

“And the cure for what ails the world?” Larry said.

“This time,” Louis said smiling, “I think I’ll tell you the answer.”

“And?”

“With time. Time and together with you and me, and time for those who are suffering, the less fortunate, the innocent victims of war starving, in fear of starvation: time heals all things. So we can hope. So yes, I’m with you for the duration of time and then some.”

.