Saturday morning broke misty and cold. Father Andrew took his overcoat and umbrella with him as he left the rectory shortly after dawn, despite a weather forecast which called for clearing skies and warmer temperatures as the day progressed. He had learned long ago that the weatherman's predictions were occasionally less than accurate.
He arrived at the mission house earlier than usual that morning. Helen Applebaum was the only member of the house who was up when he knocked gently on the kitchen door, so he made himself a cup of tea and kept her company while she went about the task of making breakfast for the residents. The two chatted quietly above the clink and clatter of the bowls and plates and various utensils that were required to prepare a meal for a dozen healthy appetites.
Mrs. Applebaum was curious to hear about Father Andrew's meeting with the Mayor the previous afternoon, and Andrew recounted the entire discussion for her in detail, even though he knew that he would be asked to repeat the story again to the full group over the breakfast table.
"So the Mayor wasn't of very much help to you," Mrs. Applebaum said, condensing Andrew's story down to a single sentence.
"He was of some help," Andrew said half-heartedly, "just not as much help as we had hoped for."
Mrs. Applebaum stirred a large bowl of pancake batter rapidly with a metal whisk. "Sometimes I just don't understand politicians," she said, her hand turning the whisk rapidly through the softening mixture of flour and water. "All the time talking about how they're working for the little people with this law or that. They act like they're saving the world with a single stroke of their pen. But when you go to them asking for help for one real person with a real problem, they can't be bothered."
She stopped her stirring motion and tapped the whisk firmly against the side of the bowl to shake off the clinging batter, then she laid the implement down in the sink. She picked up a ladle and began laying the batter onto a heated grill in large, flat circles.
"Unfortunately so," Andrew agreed as he sipped his tea. "I just hope that Eppie can hold out for a few more days behind bars. Doctor Wheelan seems rather worried about her."
"Well, I think your idea of having everyone here at the mission go over and visit her as a group today is marvelous. We're all looking forward to it so much, and I'm sure it will do wonders for Eppie's spirits."
Andrew sipped his tea once again and then set his cup down on the table. "I hope so," he said forlornly. "I really hope so."
Mrs. Applebaum turned away from the grill. "You know," she said, calling Andrew's attention away from the bottom of his tea cup, "it's not your fault that she's in jail. And I don't want to hear that tone in your voice that says otherwise." With a metal spatula she scooped up one of the half-cooked pancakes from the grill and deftly flipped it over onto its other side.
Andrew smiled at her modestly. "Okay," he said, admitting that the woman at the counter, wearing an apron over her house robe and making a meal for twelve, had just read his thoughts precisely. "I'll try to keep that thought in mind."
Over the course of the following hour, all of the mission residents awoke from their beds. One by one they showered and dressed and made their way to the kitchen to gather around the breakfast table. They feasted heartily on Mrs. Applebaum's pancakes, and all were keenly interested in hearing the latest news about Eppie. Father Andrew again reported all he knew about her situation, including a full retelling of his meeting with the Mayor.
"Lord, I hope that girl gets out of jail soon," said Mrs. Applebaum. "It’s such a travesty that she’s in there to begin with, poor thing. She and I are working on a little project together, and much as I'd like to finish it, I just don't have the heart to work on it without her."
The others around the table nodded their heads in agreement.
"I miss her, too," said Shelley as she fed Jonathan his morning bottle. "I never realized what a huge help she is for me until one day she just wasn't here anymore. I think Jonathan misses her also. It's almost as if he knows that she's not where she’s supposed to be."
Mr. Applebaum finished the last bite of his pancakes, took a sip from his coffee cup and then put down his fork with a flourish. "Well, I think I can see what this group needs," he said with a resolved look on his face. "I think we all need to finish our breakfasts and get ready to take a trip down to the police station and pay a visit to our favorite house guest."
A feeling of relief swept over the group upon hearing Mr. Applebaum's statement, and they all smiled at one. Each of them knew that a group visit to see Eppie was on the schedule for the morning, but no one had yet suggested that the time to leave had arrived. By simply getting the group focused on their planned excursion, Mr. Applebaum had lightened their mood considerably. They stopped talking about how much they missed Eppie and started preparing for the trip across town.
"What time are we leaving?" asked one of them.
"Visiting time starts at ten, right?" said another.
"That's right. Visitation is ten to ten-thirty."
"We'd better get moving then. Can't afford to be late with only a thirty minute window."
"Are we driving or walking?"
"Why don't we walk. The exercise will do us good."
"Well, if we're going to walk we'd better leave now, otherwise we'll be late."
The group quickly finished what remained of their breakfasts, then they grabbed their coats and headed out the door. The police station was about a mile from the mission house, and it would take them twenty minutes or so to make the trip on foot.
Mr. Applebaum agreed to drive his car for the benefit of Shelley and Jonathan, so that the little one would not catch a chill on the long walk. Mrs. Applebaum and Father Andrew joined them in the car. Andrew wanted to arrive well before the scheduled visitation period began, just on the chance that the police might allow them to see Eppie a few minutes early.
The drive took almost no time at all, and Father Andrew was soon inside the lobby of the police station, registering his name and the names of the others who accompanied him in the visitor's log book as he was instructed to do by the desk sergeant. To Andrew's pleasant surprise, the sergeant offered to escort them back to the visitation room immediately. They entered the room and took their seats around the table. Andrew checked his watch. It was 9:45. He hoped that they would bring Eppie in early; thirty minutes was such a short time for her to visit with so many friends.
The visitors made small talk among themselves while they waited. Mr. Applebaum wondered if the meals they served in jail were any better than those he had been forced to endure during his Army days. Mrs. Applebaum said that she would have baked Eppie some cupcakes, but she didn't think that the police would allow her to give them to her. Mr. Applebaum joked that a cupcake would have been too small to hide a file in anyway. Jonathan slept peacefully as Shelley rocked him slowly in her arms.
Several minutes passed. The residents who had chosen to walk to the police station arrived and were escorted into the visitation room. There were not enough chairs to accommodate the entire group, so some of them sat on the floor or stood leaning against the walls. Andrew and Mr. Applebaum gave up their chairs so that others could sit. Andrew preferred to stand anyway. He leaned fitfully against one wall and grew more restless with each passing minute, wondering what could be taking so long. He didn't understand why the group would be shown into the visitation room so early if Eppie was not yet ready to see them. He looked at his watch again. It was 10:05.
Mr. Applebaum saw the look of concern on Andrew's face. "Did they say how long we would have to wait?" he asked.
"No," Andrew replied. "I was hoping she would have been in here by now."
"Maybe we should go and ask somebody," Mrs. Applebaum suggested.
Andrew thought for a moment. "Let's give them a few more minutes," he said hopefully. "Sometimes they get busy with other things."
An uncomfortable silence came over the group as the minutes ticked by. One of the residents asked if the end of the visitation period would be extended to make up for time lost at the beginning. Nobody knew. From the hallway outside the door, footsteps could be heard as people walked past. At one point they heard the sound of someone jogging up the hall toward the front desk, followed immediately thereafter by the sound of three or four people walking quickly back in the opposite direction.
The activity outside the door made Andrew all the more anxious. He wanted to pace around the room to relieve the feeling, but he knew that this would only serve to make the atmosphere in the room more tense. Instead he leaned against the wall with his other shoulder and continued to wait uneasily.
Finally he checked his watch again. 10:15. Something was definitely not right. "I'm going to see what's taking so long," he announced as he pushed himself off the wall and headed for the door. Just as he was about to grab the handle, the door opened from the outside. A police officer stood in the doorway and quickly looked around the room with an expression of both surprise and concern. He seemed taken aback by the number of faces that suddenly looked up at him. "Are all of you here to see the girl?" he asked.
"Yes," said several voices in unison.
"I was just coming out to see what was holding her up," said Father Andrew. "We've been waiting here for half an hour now."
"You're not going to be able to see her today," the officer said in a serious tone, one which indicated that he did not have time to explain. He scanned the members of the group one more time, trying to identify who among them might serve as a representative. He settled on Father Andrew. Before anybody could raise an objection, the officer looked at Andrew and said, "Father, please come with me."
The group looked at Andrew in bewilderment, and the priest tried to give them an expression of reassurance. "I'll let you know what's going on as soon as I find out," he told them. He followed the officer out of the room.
The rest of the group remained in the visitation room in a concerned silence. For several moments no one said a word. Then they began to chatter among themselves, speculating about what this turn of events could possibly mean. They considered whether they should go back to the mission house and wait there for word from Andrew, but none of them made the decision to leave or undertook any movement to do so. Jonathan awoke from his nap in a fuss and started to cry, and Shelley tried to quiet him with a pacifier. Patiently and nervously, the group decided to wait for Father Andrew to return.
Down the hallway, Andrew followed the officer around a corner and through a set of doors into another corridor. "What's the matter, officer?" Andrew asked as they walked toward the rear of the building.
"The girl's not feeling well this morning," replied the officer. "Says she's got cramps and some bleeding. The duty officer found her lying on the floor of her cell a little while ago. He said she doesn't look good."
As they entered the holding room, Andrew saw three other male officers gathered around the bunk in Eppie's cell. He entered the cell and squeezed past the men. A female officer was kneeling next to the bed and talking to Eppie, who lay on her side beneath a heavy blanket. Andrew crouched down beside the bed and looked at Eppie. Her skin was pale and her eyes were red and wet. He could see that she was afraid.
An expression of sorrow came across her face as see saw the priest, and she reached out a hand toward him. Andrew took her hand in both of his and tried to comfort her. Her hand was thin and weak and cold to the touch. He felt her fingers shaking as they clasped onto his.
"Are you in pain, Eppie?" he asked gently.
The girl seemed to have lost her voice. She choked and sobbed in response to Andrew's question, then nodded her head silently. Tears streamed down from the corners of her eyes and disappeared into her damp hair.
"We've called the paramedics," said one of the officers standing behind Andrew. "They should be here any minute."
Andrew reached out with one hand and tenderly stroked back Eppie's hair, which had fallen across the side of her face. He looked into her eyes and again tried to comfort her. "Hang in there, Eppie," he said. "You're going to be okay."
Eppie heard Andrew's words and accepted them as true, but the measure of comfort she drew from them was small. She felt the cramping pain intensifying deep within her. She had seen the blood, much more than she had ever seen before. She was not a doctor, but she knew. Something was wrong—very, very wrong. Her instincts told her that it was not to be, that her life would once again twist tragically away from the course that she had come to hope it would take. She held on tightly to Father Andrew's hand and tried to pray for deliverance from the fate that she felt overtaking her, but words failed her at that moment and she could only weep in her despair.
Andrew saw her struggle and he understood. He bowed his head and prayed aloud for her. "Dear Lord, look down upon Your servant Eppie and her child at this time of great difficulty. We ask that You keep and hold them in Your loving grace this day and forever after. We ask this in the name of Your son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen."
Andrew held Eppie's hand firmly and spoke to her soothingly. "God will bless you, Eppie," he said. "He will not abandon you or your child at this moment. No matter what happens, remember that He is with you and He is with your child, now and always." He moved his open hand in a cross-like motion over the stricken girl, then returned it at once to cover hers.
Eppie closed her eyes and tried to subdue her anguish by force of will. She took the words that Andrew had prayed and held them in her conscience, repeating them over and over to herself in her mind. The pain inside her did not subside, but it became duller and less acute, and in the process somewhat easier to bear. She tried to breathe slowly and steadily and she concentrated on the words that she repeated to herself. This day and forever after, she thought. This day and forever after.
The door to the holding room burst open, and a pair of paramedics wheeled a stretcher to the front of Eppie's cell. They quickly checked her pulse and blood pressure, then inserted a needle into her arm and attached a bag of intravenous fluid. With the help of the police officers they moved her carefully from the bed to the stretcher and began to wheel her from the room.
"I'd like to go with her," Andrew said as he followed closely behind the two paramedics.
The younger one looked back at him. "That's not allowed, sir," he said. "Only emergency personnel ride in the ambulance. We're taking her to Heritage County Hospital. You can meet her there."
Andrew did not break his stride. He turned to the officer who had escorted him out of the visitation room. "Please tell my friends what's happened," he said to the officer. "Tell them Eppie and I will be at the hospital. I'm going with her."
The ambulance was parked next to a side entrance of the building. The paramedics wheeled the stretcher up to the back of the ambulance and then loaded it in. Andrew moved to climb into the ambulance as well, but the younger paramedic stopped him.
"Look, sir," he said, "I've already told you—"
"Let him stay with her, Joey," interrupted the older paramedic. "He's not going to get in the way. Just get up front and drive."
The younger man looked at his partner scornfully, but he did not argue. In a huff he disappeared around the side of the vehicle and climbed into the cab.
Andrew and the older paramedic climbed into the rear of the ambulance next to Eppie and the paramedic closed the doors behind them.
"Some kids got no sense," the paramedic said to Andrew apologetically. "Joey's a good EMT, but he's too much of a stickler for every little rule. I've never told a man of the cloth that he can't stay with a person who's suffering."
"Thank you," Andrew said gratefully. "This means a lot to us." He turned to Eppie and again took her hand in his. The girl lay on the stretcher and looked up at him with a curious expression that showed through her pain. "Don't look at me that way," he said to her softly. "I learned that kind of stubbornness from you."
Eppie's face relaxed. She closed her eyes and held on tightly to the last little bit of hope that remained within her. Father Andrew sat beside her and held her hand all the way to the hospital.
* * *
The tow truck driver pulled hard on one of the levers on the back of his rig and the electric motor immediately sprang to movement. With an unmuffled whine it turned its spindle slowly forward, unwinding the shiny steel cable from its spool. The thick line played out along the girded arm of the truck, running upward from the bed to the peak, where it passed through a narrow pulley and then turned sharply downward toward the ground. Attached to the end of the cable was a massive hook, and from the hook hung the entire weight of the heavy iron cage.
Rachel and Allison smiled proudly to one another as they watched the black metal room descend from its perch on the back of the truck and settle firmly onto the grass. The cage was perfect. With reinforced bars on all sides, including the top and the bottom, and a door with a large working lock on the front, it was an exact replica of a real jail cell. Forged from one hundred percent black iron, it weighed a ton, but that was precisely what they wanted. The massive box could only be moved with a tow truck or a forklift or some similarly muscular vehicle. Now that it was set in place, the cage was not going anywhere until their protest was over.
Allison had first seen the cage a year earlier in the garage of a friend who was a dealer and a collector of cast iron objects of all sizes. He, in turn, had acquired it from a city zoo in a neighboring state, where it had been used for decades as a temporary holding pen for newly acquired animals until they could be moved into their permanent exhibit areas. At the beginning of the week, when she first began formulating her plan to demonstrate against Eppie's incarceration, Allison had recalled the sight of that imposing cage, and her plans fell quickly into place around it.
The driver unhooked the cage from the towline and clamped the hook back onto its holding bar on the bed of the trunk. He moved the levers once again, instructing the motorized spool to take back the slack in the line. With a nod to Allison he climbed into the cab of the truck and shifted the engine into gear. He would be back at the end of the day to retrieve the cage and return it to its owner's garage, as well as to collect the second installment of the two hundred dollar fee that he had negotiated with Allison.
The two women watched the truck pull out of the driveway and disappear down the street, then they turned their attention to the cage. They tested the door again, making sure that the lock worked and that the hinges were secure. Everything was still in working order. The cage would serve wonderfully as the centerpiece of their demonstration, they thought. It was perfect.
The women walked the short distance to Rachel's car, where the rest of their fellow FFW members had gathered. The entire group was abuzz with activity. They rummaged through their accoutrements, picking up their newly made signs and placards and rehearsing the lines they had been given. Allison checked the batteries in the bullhorn she carried and made sure that everyone knew their assignments.
"Carl, did you contact all the news outlets?" she asked.
"I sure did," Carl replied. "Every last one of them. I told them that they'd better be here by ten or they'd miss out on all the fun."
"Did they all agree to send a crew?"
"Every one said they would. Some of them were a little miffed that I wouldn't go into detail about what we were planning, but when I told them where we were going to demonstrate I got a lot of interest. I don't think any of them are going to pass us over. Look, here comes a van now."
The group turned their heads and watched as a white television news van pulled up the street and parked along the curb behind their cars. Allison breathed a sigh of relief. If there was one thing that she feared might ruin their demonstration it was a lack of coverage by the news media. It had happened to her before. A year earlier she had gone to great lengths to plan a similarly elaborate demonstration in front of city hall, only to find that the event drew only two reporters—one a student writer for a college biweekly, the other an intern for a local AM radio station.
The sight of the television van now brought a smile to her face. Nothing like a closely contested governor's race to peak the interest of the talking heads, she thought. If it were not for the Mayor's political ambitions, and the audacious fact that she planned to protest right on the front lawn of the man’s house, her demonstration wouldn't garner ten seconds on the evening news. But the candidates' poll numbers being what they were, every media outlet in the state was fanatically paranoid about being scooped on anything that might move those numbers in any significant way. And Allison planned for this demonstration to be as significant as she could possibly make it.
Within ten minutes, four more television news vans arrived on the scene, along with a dozen print reporters and their photographers. They came over to the nearest FFW members they could find to ask if the demonstration would begin on time. They were told that the event would commence precisely at ten. Thus reassured that everything was on schedule, they scurried busily about the area, evaluating various camera angles, performing sound checks on their microphones and conducting pre-demonstration interviews with various FFW members.
Inside the house, the Mayor heard the sounds of the growing assemblage milling about on the front edge of his property. He pulled aside one of the drapes from the living room picture window and peered sternly out at the growing mass of people and equipment collecting on the far end of his lawn. He recognized Rachel and several other FFW members, and he deduced immediately from the gathering crowd of reporters that they intended to cause trouble for him. The presence of the large black cage in the middle of his yard was a particularly irritating sight for him. How dare they drive up and drop that contraption on my property, he thought angrily.
His wife had just finished her breakfast and had settled down in her chair in the living room to await the arrival of her caretaker. She heard the commotion outside as well. "Is that Rosalynn out there?" she asked.
"No, dear," the Mayor said. "Rosalynn should be here soon. I need to make a phone call." He went into the kitchen and picked the phone receiver testily off the wall. He dialed the number for the police department from memory. The officer who took the call was a bit startled when the Mayor identified himself, but she managed to put the call through to a lieutenant, the highest ranking officer on duty at the station that morning. The lieutenant assured the Mayor that an officer would be dispatched immediately to the house to send the trespassers on their way.
As soon as the Mayor hung up with the lieutenant, he lifted his finger off the receiver button and punched in another number. Mortimer Conway answered on the first ring. "I may be a few minutes late," the Mayor told his campaign manager. "I've got some protesters in my front yard. They're blocking the sidewalk and the driveway."
"Have you called the police?" Conway asked.
The Mayor rolled his eyes. "Of course I've called the police, Mort," he said irritably. "They should be here any minute. But I've got at least thirty people on my front lawn right now and I don't know how much resistance they're going to put up when the police arrive. It may take a while to clear them out."
Conway was silent for a moment. "Sir," he said, "they've already opened the doors to the auditorium and people are starting to file in. You're scheduled to speak at eleven. And we've got to be out of here no later than eleven-thirty so you can make the luncheon appearance at the airport hotel at twelve."
"I know what the schedule looks like, Mort," the Mayor said. "That's why I'm calling you. Just keep everyone in their seats until I get there. I'll leave as soon as I can." The Mayor hung up the phone abruptly and went back to the living room window.
Out on the lawn, the FFW members made their final preparations. Rachel retrieved a sofa pillow from the back seat of her car and stuffed it under the flannel shirt she wore, centering it on her belly. She tucked the bottom of her shirt back into her jeans, then turned to the group.
"How do I look?" she asked.
Allison smirked. "Well," she said dryly, "I don't know if you could pass for fourteen, but you sure do look pregnant."
"You look like you're ready to drop it any minute," chimed in Jennifer.
"All right, all right," Rachel said, brushing aside their taunts. "Enough about how I look. The important thing is that I'm ready to get this production underway. How about the rest of you?"
"I'm ready."
"Me too."
"Good to go here."
Allison surveyed her team one last time. She had at least thirty people ready to participate—more than enough to achieve the visual effect she desired.
They hoisted up their signs and placards and took up their positions on the sidewalk in front of the Mayor's property. The signs were professionally printed and laminated, much more impressive in their appearance than the hand-made signs that the group normally carried at the clinic. They showed off their messages in large bold lettering. "FREE EPPIE," read one. "GIRLS BELONG IN SCHOOL, NOT IN JAIL," read another. "TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF ME!" shouted a third.
Rachel and Carl were the only demonstrators who did not tote a sign. Instead, Rachel carried a large textbook in one hand, and a backpack bearing the colors and emblem of the local high school was slung over her other shoulder. She separated herself from the rest of the group, positioning herself on the sidewalk near one end of the property.
At the other end of the sidewalk, Carl stood facing her. He was dressed in clothes similar to the Mayor's typical campaign attire: a crisply pressed pinstripe suit with a starched white shirt and a red necktie. His hair was dyed a frosty gray and was cut considerably shorter and more conservatively than he normally wore it. Across his chest was draped a wide white sash bearing the words "Governor Gestapo" in bold red letters, and to his left lapel was pinned an oversized campaign-style button that read "Vote For Me."
Allison gave a nod to the assembled photographers and cameramen, indicating to them that the demonstration was about to begin. They raised their cameras in unison. Then, on Allison's cue, both Rachel and Carl began walking along the sidewalk toward each other. When they met in the middle of the property, Carl stepped in front of Rachel, stopping her in her tracks.
"Excuse me, young lady," he said in a loud, theatrical voice, unmistakably elevated for the benefit of the dozen microphones pointed in their direction. "May I ask you a question?"
Rachel looked at him with an innocent and trusting manner. "Why, of course, Mister Mayor," she said sweetly. "One should always be happy to talk with the wonderful Mayor of our fair city, especially one who is so wise and powerful that he is running for governor."
"What is your name, Miss?" Carl asked.
"My name is Eppie, sir."
"And I see that you are pregnant, Eppie. Is that correct?"
"Yes, sir, it is. I have been treated very badly by the men in my life, sir, but I am a strong and independent young woman and I am bearing up as best as I can under the consequences."
"Very well, young lady. That is all I need to know. Come with me."
Carl grabbed Rachel by the arm and began pulling her forcefully toward the cage.
"But...but...but where are you taking me, Mister Mayor?" Rachel said, melodramatically resisting Carl's pull.
"I'm putting you where you belong, you incorrigible sinner!" Carl shouted. "In jail!"
The cameras and microphones followed the pair as they moved toward the cage, which sat in the middle of the lawn, with the Mayor's house framed perfectly in the background. Allison and the others stood behind the news teams, admiring the performance.
"But I haven't done anything wrong, Mister Mayor," Rachel protested. "I'm not a criminal."
"Don't talk back to me, you harlot!" Carl bellowed. "I'm doing this for your own good. From now on, I will decide what you can and can not do with your own body. You belong to me!"
Carl pulled open the door to the cage and pushed Rachel inside, then he slammed the door closed with a flourish. From his pocket he extracted a large key, inserted it into the lock and turned it one complete clock-wise rotation, moving the bolt into the locked position. He withdrew the key and held it aloft proudly for the cameras to see. Then he raised his arms triumphantly out from his sides and loudly proclaimed toward the cameras, "I am the wise and wonderful Mayor. I rid the streets of all willful young women who cross my path. Elect me as your next governor, and I will bring my brand of justice to the entire state! Vote For Meeee!"
Upon hearing these words, the rest of the FFW members moved into view in front of the cameras. They began marching back and forth between the cage and the edge of the property, waving their signs above their heads as Allison raised the bullhorn to her mouth and began addressing them.
"Our fellow citizens," her amplified voice rang out, "an innocent fourteen-year-old girl is locked away in the city jail for no reason. She has committed no crime. Will we stand for it?!"
"No!" yelled the picketers.
"Our tyrannical Mayor finds her an embarrassment to his campaign for governor," Allison continued. "He sacrifices her freedom for his own political advancement. Will we allow it?!"
"Hell No!" came the reply.
"Are we united?"
"Yes!"
"Are we decided?"
"Yes!"
"What do we want?"
"Freedom For Women!"
"When do we want it?"
"Now!"
Allison moved a few steps across the grass to the spot where Carl stood impersonating the Mayor. He mimicked the Mayor's campaign-style mannerisms with a pasted-on smile and stiff, formal hand waving gestures to an imaginary crowd of supporters. The cameras followed Allison as she approached Carl and, in journalistic fashion, engaged him in a mock interview.
"Mr. Mayor," she spoke into the bullhorn, "the people don't seem to care very much for your policy of incarcerating innocent fourteen-year-olds. Do you plan to continue this policy if you are elected governor?" She moved the mouthpiece of the bullhorn toward Carl's mouth.
"I am the wise and wonderful Mayor," Carl again declared pompously. "I only lock up criminals and other evil citizens who make me look bad. Vote For Meeee!"
"Mr. Mayor," Allison responded. "Are you saying that you consider innocent teenage girls evil? Or do your harsh attitudes extend to all women in general?"
"Women are not evil if they vote for me," Carl replied. "The rest can be cast aside. They are unimportant. Vote For Meeee!"
"How can we vote for you, sir, if you keep us unfairly imprisoned?"
"I will win with the votes of the good people. The obedient people. The rest of you criminals can rot. Vote For Meeee!"
Allison turned the bullhorn toward the picketers. "Are we going to allow this tyrant to repress our rights?!" she implored.
"No!" the marchers shouted.
"Are we going to vote for him?!"
"Hell No!"
"Are we united?"
"Yes!"
"Are we decided?"
"Yes!"
"What do we want?"
"Freedom For Women!"
"When do we want it?"
"Now!"
In such manner the demonstration continued on for several more minutes. Allison beseeched the demonstrators to make their voices heard, and the protesters responded, chanting their scripted lines in chorus. Carl maintained an unruffled posture a few feet away from the group, smiling and waving robotically to his invisible supporters. Inside the cage, Rachel too joined in the protest. She picked up a large metal cup which had been placed inside the cage and ran it across the bars with one hand while holding up her book bag with the other.
"Help!" she yelled in fabricated distress. "The Mayor has caged me like an animal! I belong in school, not in jail! Help!"
Led by Allison, the demonstrators began a rhythmic chant. "Freedom For Women, NOW!" they cried. "Freedom For Women, NOW!"
Officer Matthew Gardner pulled up in his police cruiser just as the protest reached peak volume. He double-parked next to one of the news vans and quickly estimated the number of people involved in the protest. He picked up the handset to his radio and called for assistance. At least five additional officers and cars, he told the dispatcher, along with a van to handle the overflow. The dispatcher told him that she would put out the call immediately. The assisting officers would be there shortly.
Gardner hung up the radio and grabbed his nightstick. For a moment he considered waiting for the backups to arrive before taking on a crowd of this size, but he decided against it. Better to try breaking up the demonstration right away, he thought, than to let things become even more raucous. He planted his hat squarely on his head as he emerged from his car, and, gripping his nightstick firmly in his hand, he walked past the gaggle of reporters arrayed along the sidewalk.
His attention was drawn to the woman with the bullhorn, and he recognized her immediately. He had seen her lead many similar but smaller demonstrations in front of the medical clinic, and she was clearly leading this particular protest as well. He would attempt to deal with her first.
"Ma'am," he said as he walked up to Allison, "you can't demonstrate on this property. You're going to have to leave."
"We have a permit," Allison replied with unfazed tenacity, turning the bullhorn away from her mouth momentarily. She pulled a folded piece of paper from a back pocket of her jeans and shook it in Gardner's direction. The officer took the paper from her hand and looked it over. The rest of the demonstrators continued chanting while he read.
"This gives you permission to march on the sidewalk downtown, ma'am, not on private property in a residential neighborhood," Gardner said. "Once you step off the sidewalk on this street, you're trespassing. I'm sorry, but you're going to have to clear out."
Allison gave Gardner a look of unalloyed contempt. If she had not already known that he was a rookie officer, she could have easily deduced it from the way he spoke to her. He was far too polite for his own good. The veteran officers were all unapologetically gruff and demanding when they dealt with her. They were all jackboots in her opinion, but they knew how to handle themselves in a crowd. Gardner was still a babe in the woods. He actually read the fine print on the damn permit before telling her what she already knew—that she was trespassing, plain and simple. But unlike the older officers, Gardner would not tell her that she had exactly five seconds to move her ass off the Mayor's property or he would move it for her. And she was not going to move anywhere until she was forced to do so.
"The Constitution gives us the right to protest here!" she shouted at Gardner, raising her voice toward the microphones. "The Mayor has brought the wrath of the people down upon himself! We will not leave until justice is done!"
"You don't have to shout, ma'am," said Gardner, trying in vain to converse with her calmly. "I can hear you just fine."
"Jus-tice! Jus-tice! Jus-tice!" Allison chanted into the bullhorn.
"JUS-TICE! JUS-TICE! JUS-TICE!" the demonstrators responded in unison. Rachel clanged her cup against the bars of her cage and shouted along with the others.
Gardner eyed the marching mass of protesters nervously and realized that he had made a mistake. He should have waited for the backup officers to arrive before confronting this mob. Rather than calming them down, his ineffective presence among them only seemed to incite them to greater vehemence. The woman with the bullhorn was obviously not going to cooperate with him, yet if he were to try to arrest her at this point he feared that the others might riot, and he would be unable to control all of them single-handedly. Cursing himself under his breath for his poor judgment, he turned away from the boisterous group and walked back to his car. He leaned against the front fender and watched the protest from a safe distance while he waited for his fellow officers to arrive.
Inside the house, the Mayor stood at the window and fumed at the sight of one of his city's police officers retreating from the lawless rabble who had invaded his property. "What kind of cops do we hire these days?" he muttered disgustedly. His anger quickly overwhelmed his patience, and he went to his front door and threw it open. He stormed out of the house and marched down the driveway in a rage.
"Where are you going, dear?" his wife asked of the empty doorway at his back. Her words went unanswered, for her husband was already out of earshot. "Dear?" she asked again.
"Get off of my property now," the Mayor bellowed, red-faced, as he approached the line of marchers, "or I will have every last one of you arrested!"
Gardner's jaw dropped in disbelief when he saw the Mayor tramping his way toward the demonstrators. For a split second he considered jumping into his car and driving it up the driveway, thereby using the vehicle as a physical barricade to keep the Mayor and the protestors separated, but the sidewalk and the lower end of the driveway were swarming with people, preventing any car from entering or leaving the property. Instead, Gardner charged back across the street on foot, hoping to reach the Mayor and turn him back toward the house before the protesters saw him.
Allison heard the Mayor's voice come thundering at her from behind, and a look of absolute delight flashed across her face as she turned to allow her eyes to confirm what her ears had already told her—that her protest was so effective it had forced the Great Menace himself out of his house to defend himself. Excitedly she moved up the driveway to confront him, ensuring along the way that she did not step into the line of sight between the media crews and the Mayor. She wanted every camera to have a clear shot of the man's bombast and hypocrisy.
Gardner arrived just in time to keep the two combatants from shoving up against each other. "All right, just calm down now," he ordered, positioning himself between Allison and the Mayor and keeping them separated by the length of his outstretched arms.
"I want all of these people off my property immediately," the Mayor demanded. "And I want this one here arrested for disturbing the peace and inciting a riot," he said, pointing his finger in Allison's face.
"Is that your answer for everything?" Allison retorted tauntingly, "arresting everybody who disturbs your peace?" She raised the bullhorn to her mouth again. "What about our peace?" she shouted. "What about the peace of a young girl who has broken no law? Where is her peace?"
The crowd seemed to gather energy from the sound of her amplified voice. "Free Eppie! Free Eppie! Free Eppie!" they chanted, as they broke out of their marching line and moved closer to the house, congregating around the spot where Allison and the Mayor had faced off. Rachel was fifty feet from the center of the conflict now, and her view of the confrontation became obscured by the bodies of the other demonstrators and the reporters as they encircled her father and her best friend. Not wanting to be left out of the protest, she banged her metal cup even harder against the bars of her cage. "Free Eppie! Free Eppie!" she yelled toward the moving crowd.
The Mayor looked Gardner in the eye. "I told you to arrest her!" he blustered at the overwhelmed officer, again pointing at Allison. "Now do it, or I'll have your badge."
"Yes, sir," Gardner replied fitfully. "Yes, sir, I will. In just a minute, as soon as I get some backups."
"Not in a minute!" the Mayor commanded. "Now!"
From the pack of bodies that now completely surrounded the central players, Carl stepped forward. He emerged into the small circle of space that separated Allison, the Mayor and Officer Gardner from the milling crowd. In his hand he still held the key to the iron cage in which Rachel remained locked. He raised his arms in the air to quiet the crowd, and when he had gained their attention he held forth the key in his outstretched hand, uncurling his fingers to reveal the shiny silver object as it lay across his palm. He held the key out toward the Mayor.
"This is the key that can undo the crime you have committed," Carl said to the Mayor. "Take it and set the girl free." He spoke in a calm, serious voice. He knew that he did not have to shout to be heard by the microphones, which were pointed toward him from every direction. He did not need Allison's bullhorn to egg on the crowd. His attention, instead, was focused entirely on the Mayor, and his steady glare demanded a response.
The Mayor looked at him with an acidic sneer. "Don't speak of crime to me," the Mayor said. "Your entire demonstration is a crime. You have no respect for the law whatsoever. And by the looks of you, you have no respect for yourself, and neither do I. Now take your hand out of my face."
Carl's stare hardened at the Mayor's words. "Take the key and unlock the cage," he said, pushing his hand even closer to the Mayor. "Do it, and we will leave."
"Unlock the cage!" the crowd began to chant, picking up on Carl's ultimatum. "Unlock the cage!"
Gardner finally decided that he had seen enough; he had to do something to gain control of the situation or he would certainly hear about it from the chief. He moved in front of Carl and put a hand to his chest. "Step away from the Mayor, sir," he said to Carl, "or I will have to arrest you." To Gardner's great relief, Carl did as he was instructed, quietly moving backward a few steps while still holding the key out toward the Mayor.
Allison returned the bullhorn to her mouth. "Unlock the cage!" she yelled toward the crowd. "Unlock the cage!"
"UNLOCK THE CAGE!" the crowd yelled back. "UNLOCK THE CAGE!"
Suddenly, from the middle of the raucous crowd, Allison saw Billy's unmistakable form push itself to the fore, and she felt equal measures of shock and anger at his appearance. Goddammit, she thought, what is he doing here? She had taken great care to keep word of this protest to a very select group of FFW members until the last possible moment, and she had warned everyone to divulge nothing about it to anybody, especially Billy. He had ruined too many of their demonstrations in the past, she had told them, and she would not allow him to do it again. Allison was sure that Billy had not been present at the beginning of the demonstration. He must have just arrived.
Before Allison could react to his presence, Billy reached out and swiped the key from Carl's hand, then he stepped in front of the Mayor and shoved the key back in his face.
"Take this key and unlock that cage!" Billy shouted at the Mayor. The thin veil of Billy's long hair cascaded down across his face, the stray ends blowing out towards the Mayor with the force of his words. These, and the anger in his eyes, cut through the mask. The crowd suddenly went quiet again at Billy's outburst.
The Mayor stood his ground against the unkempt agitator who now challenged him, as he felt the stare of every camera that was trained upon him. He had already lost one publicly recorded contest with an unruly citizen recently, he thought, and he'd be damned if he would lose another, especially three days before the election.
The Mayor wasted not a second in responding to Billy's challenge. "Take your filthy hand away from me," the Mayor ordered. "It only serves to disgust me." He then swung his own hand up rapidly, and with a clean, powerful swat, slapped Billy's hand away. The key flew from Billy's palm in a long, high arc, sailed over the encircling crowd and disappeared into the grass in the middle of the yard. Billy followed the key with his eyes as it made its brief flight of freedom, then he looked down at his empty palm with a shocked sense of wonder and loss. For a moment he seemed profoundly confused, as if his mind had trouble registering the effect of what the Mayor had just done. Then something deep inside of him—some final, tenuous measure of self-control—gave way, as if it too had been slapped from his being. His face flushed an angry red, and a guttural cry of rage escaped from his throat. He lunged forward and grabbed the Mayor about the neck with his left arm, locking his elbow tightly beneath the Mayor's chin and pinning the older man's head against his chest. His right hand reached toward his belt and returned bearing a switchblade knife, his thumb pressing with practiced ease the button which deployed the blade. He held the knife to the Mayor's neck.
A collective gasp arose from the crowd, and they instinctively backed away from the suddenly enraged young man and his captive foe. Gardner raised his nightstick and pointed it toward Billy. "All right, now, let's just stay calm," he said, trying to sooth Billy's wrath. "Let's not do anything stupid."
Billy paid no attention to the officer. "You think you can slap my hand and get away with it?" he growled at his hostage. "You think you can treat me like that? Like I'm just another nobody you can push around?"
The Mayor saw the knife pointed menacingly at his throat, and he did not struggle. He held his hands out to his sides in a gesture of surrender as he tried to reason with his captor. "Listen to the officer," he managed to say through his restricted airway. "We can work this out. Just let me go."
Billy was undeterred. "You think you can slap me around like a little dog?" he said indignantly, his face growing redder. He pulled his arm more tightly around the Mayor's neck. "You think I'm your bitch?"
As the crowd backed away from Billy and the Mayor, Rachel was afforded her first clear view of the struggle. Panic overtook her instantly as she saw her father ensnared helplessly in Billy's grip, the slender blade of the knife held ominously against the base of his neck. "Let me out of here!" she screamed in a high-pitched cry to her compatriots. "Let me out of here!"
The other demonstrators looked at one another, uncertain as to what they should do. Carl had been entrusted with the lone key to the cage, a key which now lay lost somewhere in the wide expanse of grass behind them. None of them had a spare. A few of the demonstrators ran over to the general area in which the key had landed. They got down on their hands and knees and began running their fingers through the thick, manicured grass, searching frantically for the elusive object.
Rachel banged with renewed vigor at the bars of the cage with her cup. "Billy, stop!" she yelled at her fellow protester, but the incensed young man did not acknowledge her screams. In frustration she threw her cup in Billy's direction, but the handle banged off one of the bars as it passed through the side of the cage, and the cup tumbled harmlessly to the ground a few feet away. "Billy, STOP!" she yelled again. "Goddamn it, let me out of here!"
In the midst of the escalating turmoil, Scott Caldwell was the first backup officer to arrive on the scene. He pulled his car up to the front of the property and saw immediately the chaos into which the demonstration had disintegrated. Far up the driveway, he observed a scene which, for all of its drama and disorder, did not strike him as anything surprising or unpredictable. He recognized all of the players at once. He saw the Mayor, caught desperately in the grip of the very same deranged lunatic he himself had tangled with so many times before. He saw his spineless fellow officer Gardner standing in front of them, haplessly trying to talk the crazed kid into dropping the knife. And he saw Allison, that loud-mouthed blond bitch, standing a few feet away from them in stunned silence, surrounded by her whiny minions, her bullhorn dangling loosely at her side, useless to her now. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Caldwell always knew that it would someday come to this.
Caldwell slammed closed the door to his car and marched determinedly up to the spot where the others were gathered. When he was ten feet away, he came to an abrupt stop and drew his service pistol. He pointed the gun directly at Billy's head.
"Let him go, now," the officer commanded, "or I'll shoot you right where you are." Caldwell wore a steel-hard expression as he sighted Billy’s face across the top of his gun. It announced that he was serious in his threat. His finger required all the restraint he could muster as it wrapped itself firmly around the trigger.
Gardner, Allison and the entire crowd of people which surrounded them froze in place at Caldwell's words. Rachel looked on helplessly from her entrapped position across the yard.
Billy, however, showed no reaction to the weapon that was pointed at him, nor to the officer who stared him down. His eyes blazed as he looked back at the multitude of faces that gaped at him from every direction in shock and disbelief, and he was suddenly disgusted with them all.
"What the hell are you all looking at?" he said to them scornfully. "You think I'm crazy, do you? You think I'm out of my mind? Well, I've got news for all of you cowards; you're the crazy ones. You think you're accomplishing anything with your floppy cardboard signs and your stupid chants? You're delusional if that's what you think. How long have you been at this pointless game of yours? A year? Ten years? Your whole lives? And what have you got to show for all your marching and your shouting? This fascist dictator can throw any one of you in prison anytime he wants to and still find the time to run for governor while he's at it. He doesn't care how long you march or how loud you shout. He doesn't hear you at all. Don't you get it? You're not accomplishing a damn thing with your pathetic little protests. You're just a bunch of grunting pigs, wallowing around in the mud inside the pen where the man keeps you and feeds you your slop. I can't stand the sight of any of you."
Billy's pulled his lips together in a menacing scowl, and then he spit as far as he could toward his onlookers. He turned and looked directly at Caldwell.
"And you're the butcher come to slaughter us, now are you?" he snarled at the officer. "You and your badge are here to serve this Nazi bastard his pork and beans? Well, I've got news for you too, honcho. You're too late. The knife is turned now, and judgment day has arrived!"
With those words Billy raised the knife above his head and in a single motion plunged it deep into the side of the Mayor's chest. The Mayor groaned in pain as the blade sliced between his ribs and punctured his right lung. His knees buckled beneath him, but Billy's noose-like grip continued to hold him up.
At that instant Caldwell pulled the trigger of his gun and fired a single shot. The bullet struck Billy in the temple behind his right eye, passed effortlessly through his brain and burst out the other side of his skull in a gaudy red shower of blood, bone and tissue. Billy and the Mayor collapsed to the ground as one, the Mayor coming to rest on his back on the grass with Billy's body draped on top of him.
Gardner moved in and pulled the dead man off the Mayor. The handle of Billy's knife still protruded from the older man's chest, and his starched white shirt was now stained with a small but growing circle of dark red blood which flowed from the wound. "Call an ambulance!" Gardner yelled out to the entire crowd at once. Several cellular phones emerged and were dialed simultaneously.
A strange quietude descended over the scene as the demonstrators dropped their placards and tended to the fallen men. They spoke in nervous whispers to each other, suddenly respectful of the diminished man who moments earlier had been the target of their clamorous protest, and also of the other whom they had recently expelled from their group. Their protest was over now, they realized, and the time for loud voices had passed. The clearest sounds they now heard were only echoes in their ears: the click of the hostile blade that had issued forth from Billy's right hand, and the crack of the rejoining gunshot that rang deafeningly through it.
Away from the crowd, Rachel stared in horror at the sight of her father lying gravely wounded on the ground. She had never seen her father struck down before—had never seen him defeated with such totality, by anyone, or in any thing he had ever tried to do. He had always been so strong, so invincible in his every way, that she had come to see him as if he wore a suit of impenetrable armor. This new perception of her father, his incarnate vulnerability, had never entered her conscience before, and she was staggered by the image. At that moment she dropped the heavy load of bitterness and resentment that she had carried for her father for so many years. In a matter of moments she had seen her father reduced from the arrogant tyrant that she had always known him to be into something else entirely. Now he lay on the ground, impaled and powerless, his prone, motionless figure no longer that of a tyrant, but of an unjust victim of the long, profitless struggle that she had taken up against him. To her great surprise she found herself weeping openly for him, crying tears of genuine compassion and fear for his life—tears of love that every daughter must ultimately feel for her father at those times when the polarizing principles that might once have pulled them apart are overwhelmed by a stronger sense of impending loss that binds them together. She held on feebly to the bars of her cage and she wept. She broke down and cried out a lifetime of feelings at once.
Across the lawn, Jennifer's voice suddenly called out in triumph from among the group that had gone off to search for the key. From her hands and knees she reached into a tuff of grass, plucked out the lost object, and held it up briefly for all to see. She raced over to the cage and quickly released Rachel from her captivity.
Rachel threw open the door of the cage and ran over to the spot where her father lay bleeding on the ground. She knelt beside him and cupped his weak, pallid face in her trembling hands. His complexion was a pasty white, and he winced in pain with each labored breath. She leaned over him so that he could see her face without turning his head.
"I'm sorry, Dad," she sobbed to him. "I never meant for this to happen." She stroked his cheek comfortingly with her hand. "I'm so sorry."
The Mayor blinked his eyes and tried to focus his vision on his daughter's face above him. He drew a shallow breath and grimaced in pain once again. "Rachel …" he whispered weakly with the little air that his lungs could capture. His words seemed to stop in his throat, and Rachel could see that he was having trouble speaking.
"Yes, Daddy," she said. "I'm here, I'm listening."
The Mayor swallowed once, with difficulty. "I tried …" he said feebly.
"Yes, Daddy, I hear you," she encouraged him. "You tried …"
"I tried …" he repeated. He took another labored breath. "… what was right …"
"Yes, Daddy, what was right," she said. "You tried to do what was right." She saw her father's eyes roll back under his eyelids for a brief moment, then they came back down. "Yes, Daddy, I hear you," she said again.
The Mayor's eyes cinched tightly closed as he struggled to breathe. When he opened his eyes again Rachel noticed that they had lost focus on her, so that her father looked off into the distance in a more peaceful, trance-like state.
Rachel loosened her father's necktie and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt so that he could breathe more easily, then she reached down and tore open the bottom of her own shirt and pulled out the pillow that was still stuffed against her belly. Gently she lifted her father's head and slid the pillow underneath. The Mayor's head rolled back onto the pillow and the anguished expression on his face relaxed considerably. All sense of pain seemed to leave him, and his breathing became deeper, less rapid and agonized.
"The ambulance will be here soon, Dad," she told him. "Please don't leave me now. There's so much more we need to talk about."
The Mayor's mouth moved again, barely able to form words with his lips, but no sound came forth.
"Yes, Dad, I'm still here," Rachel said. "What is it?"
Her father spoke one more time. "… mother …"
Rachel hardly heard him, and she was unsure of what he was trying to say. "What was that, Dad? What did you say?"
Her father's mouth opened slightly, silently, and then went motionless. His eyelids fell closed, and Rachel could see that he had lost consciousness.
Several more police cars and an ambulance arrived on the scene, and the paramedics quickly moved the Mayor onto a stretcher and wheeled him to their vehicle. Rachel remained by her father's side as he was placed in the back of the ambulance and the heavy doors were closed and secured behind them. The ambulance pulled away from the scene of the protest and sped away, with lights and sirens ablaze, in the direction of the hospital.
On the Mayor's front lawn, several police officers remained behind, securing the scene and taking statements from every witness. Car after car of additional news people continued to descend upon the property in a steady stream. They filmed the site from every possible angle and they asked the witnesses to repeat their statements for the cameras. Neighbors and assorted passersby who had neither seen nor heard anything of what had transpired that morning congregated around the yard and fished for details.