To Charlotte’s mayor, Bill Washington, the beheading of the city's largest building could actually be considered a blessing in disguise. Yes, he understood that four brave souls lost their lives, and yes, the UCB Center building might not be saved. And yes, three other buildings had also sustained life-threatening damages of their own. And finally, yes, the public's confidence had been severely shaken and fear had taken a strong root within the city. But God help him, he was a glass half-full type of guy. He was a maker of lemonade out of lemons. He was someone who never tossed away an apple because of advanced brownness or the occasional residential worm. There was always enough whiteness left in the apple to enjoy. You simply ate around the ugliness.
And that's what Charlotte was facing now, a little ugliness. Some misguided wannabe terrorist had decided to try to rattle the fabric of humanity. But the late Gerald Principe had failed miserably in whatever quest he'd been on. Charlotteans, like their three-term mayor, were survivors, bouncers-back. We may bend, but we shall not break, Mayor Washington thought proudly before mentally harping back to 9/11 and the Big Apple's leader at that time. New York's mayor had shown fortitude in the midst of great upheaval. And whether purposefully or not, he'd also been able to parlay that tragic situation into unrivaled popularity, significant financial gain, and an even run at the White House. As he gazed out the window of his office, looking upon his wounded city, Washington felt a strong admiration for the man. The man hadn't let a horrific act of terrorism solely define him or his city. He'd taken that terrorist bull by the horns and whipped it into something useful.
Sure, Charlotte’s mental foundation had been shaken, Washington thought. But physically, except for a four block area at its center, the city was virtually unchanged. The sun, as did the moon, still rose and set at its appointed time. A wise man once said, or maybe it was a verse somewhere in the Bible, that this too shall pass. Wherever it was written or whoever had said it, to Mayor Washington, no truer words could have been strung together. He believed wholeheartedly that this too shall pass. And he believed something else too—this particular event had marked the arrival of his ship. He'd made several national television appearances in the days and weeks following the attack. He'd said all the right things and displayed just the right kind of temperament. He was being called the quintessential crisis-manager. He'd shown himself to be foxhole worthy. The kind of man you'd want by your side at times of extreme danger. The people loved and trusted him. More than that, they needed him. They believed in him as their leader. Yes, this was indeed a blessing. Who knows, he thought as an insane laugh escaped his lips, maybe there was a White House in his future. President Washington. President William “Bill” Washington.
Yep, that sounded pretty good. Of course, he'd likely have to beat out the night's other big winner, Massachusetts Senator Joseph Frank. Last week, the junior senator, after having been rushed safely out of the UCB Center the week before, had risen significantly in the polls. It was a clear signal that the Democrats were winning public discourse on the fight against terrorism, be it foreign or domestic. But the pipsqueak and his Democratic cronies knew full well that tough talk on terrorism didn't equate to being tough on terrorism. Sure, they'd been able to pin the latest terrorist act on the current commander-in-chief, but it wouldn't be long before the wet-behind-the-ears politician said and did the wrong thing. And when he did, Washington intended to be there to twist the proverbial knife into Frank's sanctimonious back.
Charlotte, in its inaugural years, had once been dubbed “the City of Churches.” A nickname it thoroughly enjoyed and had fully embraced through the years. There were over seven hundred places of worship within the city's borders, including everything from Catholic, to Presbyterian, to Baptist, and everything in between, including people who abhorred labels, preferring instead to simply worship their maker with simple, likeminded folk. It was a place where religion was bred openly and accepted by most as an essential and authoritative part of life. When preachers talked here, people usually listened. And what preachers talked about, almost uniformly, in the Sundays following the UCB Center bombing was the rising “ugliness” in people. They railed about how civil behavior and good manners were an endangered species. They complained about the random acts of violence, the short-tempers, and the unchecked fits of rage. Immoral behavior, they preached, was on a violently dangerous uptick, sending a general godlessness widespread over the city like a contagion.
Reverend E. B. Turner of First Baptist Church, the largest African-American church in the county, had personally witnessed a small fender bender turn into all out fisticuffs. He'd been traveling behind a silver Buick Century that had been closely following a Honda Odyssey. The Odyssey stopped short at a traffic light, which had shifted rather abruptly from yellow to red. The Buick had been unable to stop completely, causing it to lightly tap the Honda's rear bumper. This minor transgression enraged the driver of the Honda, a middle-aged mother of four, to no end. She stormed out of her vehicle and went stomping over to the Buick, banging on the driver side front door. It took the driver of the Buick, an old lady of about seventy years or so, exactly two seconds to emerge from her car, hopping mad and swinging punches. A patrol car happened upon the scene at that exact moment. But its presence only intensified the situation as the officer was immediately antagonistic toward both drivers, threatening to arrest them. Minutes later, a second officer arrived, but he wasn't much better than the first as he merely sat down on the hood of his car, laughing at the escalating spectacle. It was only after the arrival of a third patrolman that the tension started to compress. The officer, seemingly not surprised at the sight of two of his colleagues acting unprofessionally or two women tossing expletives and punches at each other over a minor traffic accident, soon got the situation under control and had almost done so without having to make any arrests. That was until the old lady tore into the first officer's arm like a pissed off rattler, literally losing her teeth in his muscled bicep.
And on and on it went throughout the city, with small incidents being blown incredibly out of proportion. And it didn't stop there. Priests discussed amongst themselves how a decrease in confessions had coincided with a significant increase in the number of people bearing witness to the transgressions of their loved ones and neighbors. People were being ratted out for excessive drinking, philandering, and all sorts of sins against God. One of Father Moynihan's parishioners had come in, confessing the sins of her eleven year old daughter who'd suddenly taken to actively trying to seduce her sixth grade teacher. The erstwhile innocent and sexually naive child had started acting like a harlot, the transformation having literally occurred overnight. One day she was shyly passing notes to her girlfriend, asking how to get cute Peter Townsend to notice her, and the next day she was hiking up her skirt, showing more leg and suddenly hot for teacher. Her mother, clearly clueless as to why or how this had happened, asked the priest plaintively if her daughter was possessed.
Father Moynihan had no immediate answers for her. Sometimes parents were the last to know about the ills of their children. As far as he knew, the child could have long been a young harlot in the making. Father Moynihan's head wasn't buried in the sand. He clearly understood that young didn't necessarily equate to innocence. He would have to interview the young girl, her parents, and the teacher before rendering his take on the situation. Still, he had to admit, something strange was in the air. Strange things were happening all over.
At Presbyterian United Church, Reverend Clifford Martin didn't need to conduct any interviews. He was ready to render his verdict to his congregation. “The demons that we've allowed to fester all these years have finally come home to roost,” he thundered. “The demons of alcohol, of drugs, of premarital sex, of sparing the rod and spoiling the child, of not tithing, of not church attending, of lying, stealing, cheating, backbiting—it's all coming to a head right now, right before our very eyes. The battle for your very souls is being raged right now. Can I get a witness!”
His technical misunderstanding of the demons currently threatening the Charlotte metro area notwithstanding, Reverend Martin was actually on to something; although he'd no earthly idea how true his words really were. In fact, only a handful of people in the free world knew exactly what the citizens of Charlotte and ultimately the rest of mankind were up against. And two of those knowledgeable people were sitting in a booth in a diner in the small college town of Bengate some forty miles away.