I did not have the emotional attachment to Van that I had to Mighty Chair or Cher. I liked Van; he was reliable and dependable. He was always there when I needed him and required little maintenance. But to my mind, Van lacked the panache of Mighty Chair or the warmth of Cher.
I had parked Van at a diagonal to the curb in the last handicapped spot on the right. There were several feet of empty space next to me, painted with blue crisscrossed lines prohibiting parking. That was pretty much a necessity when I was driving alone. It left me sufficient room to remotely slide open the side panel and extend the ramp. Van’s single front seat was on tracks that enabled it to slide back and forth between the driver’s slot and the passenger side, which enabled someone else to drive. If Jenny or someone else was with me, I didn’t need that extra room on my right; I could park anywhere. The other person could back Van out of a spot and lower the ramp for me. But if I was alone, that space was essential.
Jenny had met me at Lucille’s and we were planning on going home together. Instead, she had taken an Uber back to the Hill. But some jerk had wedged an expensive sports car in the restricted space on Van’s right. In their quest to protect that car, they had not left enough room for me to extend and lower the ramp.
Yes, I was pissed. I had spent considerable thought and the necessary time and money to create a world in which I could live a life that was as close to normal as possible. Most things just required a little extra planning and anticipating the hurdles I might encounter. The important people in my life had become so used to Chair that they rarely even thought about it. At times they had even won bar bets, usually a free round, wagering that Chair and I could complete some esoteric task. But this one, this was tough. If I had one of the new self-driving vans, I could have backed it out, but I didn’t. And I couldn’t materialize the extra few feet I needed.
It was a big deal. This wasn’t the first time it had happened. It actually was a pretty common problem in my community. We talked about it at rehab. One friend had been forced to spend a cold night shivering outside when his spot had been blocked. Another time he had gotten so angry when people without need had taken the handicapped spots at a restaurant that he had parked his van lengthwise behind them, blocking them in. About an hour later, the manager had asked him to move his van so the other people could get out. He would be delighted to do so, he said, as soon as he was finished with his dinner. When the other drivers complained, he suggested they call the police, who might wonder why they had parked illegally in those handicapped spots.
I had options. I could ride Mighty Chair the seven blocks to the office or call a Lyft van, but you know what, I didn’t want to. This thoughtlessness, this sense of entitlement, made me furious. Wrightman’s speech had put me in a rotten mood and this only added to it. “Cher,” said the devil inside me, “open the panel door, please.”
The door slid open. “Cher, extend the ramp.” In response the ridged metal ramp eased out of Van, a sharp corner digging into the sports car’s door. “Cher, lower the ramp, please.” The ramp descended, gouging a perfectly vertical slice in the sports car’s metallic paint job. After the ramp settled on the pavement, I instructed, “Cher, raise the ramp.” The ramp retraced the cut into the door with a deeper growl than I’d expected, but still satisfying. It then retreated back into Van, disappearing innocently as the panel door slid closed behind it.
I turned on Mighty Chair’s blinking night-lights, which were powered by stored electricity generated by the wheels, and took off for the office, whistling a ragged version of “Satisfaction.”
It took me about twenty minutes to get there. During the trip I was surprised to see several seemingly handmade signs supporting Wrightman’s request already posted in windows. Three themes appeared repeatedly: 1. It’s U.S. or the terrorists. 2. Tell Congress now or it will be never. 3. I [heart] America and I [poop] on terrorism. The fact that these three slogans had popped up almost immediately in several different places made it obvious the administration was rolling out a preplanned PR campaign.
On my way there, I made a point of stopping by Jerry Stern’s night doorway. He was lying on a cardboard slab made from boxes, covered by a dirty blanket. He was asleep and I didn’t wake him, but I put ten bucks in his cup and slid it under the corner of his blanket. Maybe it would be there when he woke up.
There was a growing pile of research neatly piled on my desk when I got to the office. Some of the information I already knew; some of it was a surprise. Franklin Roosevelt was the last president to ask Congress for an official declaration of war, his “Day of Infamy” speech. Since then, the country had been involved in the “police action” in Korea (I wondered who came up with that label) and “conflicts” or “extended military engagements” or “advisory or training roles” in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq, in addition to Reagan’s 1983 “foray” or “incursion” against Cuban Communists on the island of Grenada. We had also fought the undeclared cold war against communism and the drug wars in Central and South America—but no president since Roosevelt, responding to the attack on Pearl Harbor, had requested a formal war declaration.
Not surprisingly, former elected officials were speaking out forcefully, most of them happy to get the exposure, while current senators and members of Congress appeared to be in political hibernation. On the walls around me men and women were doing nighttime stand-ups in front of the brightly lit White House. There was a minor flare-up when CBS correspondent Major Garrett accidently wandered into ABC’s Jonathan Karl’s space as he was discussing this threat to peace. After a little pushing, the two men had to be separated by producers.
Wrightman sent a barrage of tweets intended to shape and reinforce public opinion, trying to harden support before the media could raise doubts:
Confidential briefings from top intelligence analysts after cyjacking of Flt 342 persuade me this is essential …
Time to take the handcuffs off our brave fighting men and women. Our enemy is getting bolder and more resourceful. American lives are at stake …
Well-meaning people seem to be more concerned about protecting the rights of terrorists than lives of Americans …
This is a temporary measure. You have my promise, as leader of the free world, I will not abuse this grant of power. By trusting me, you are trusting yourself …
And if there still was any doubt, first lady Charisma tweeted:
Wonderful news! Our daughter, America, is pregnant. We should be grateful the president is doing what is necessary to ensure our grandchild lives in a safe and secure country.
He was good, I had to give him that. He was raising all the usual fears, calling out the familiar demons.
Several times in the next few hours I tried to reach Jenny. I wanted to tell her about the Van incident as well as get a read on Martha McDonnell’s attitude. Would she support the president? I assumed things were even crazier on the Hill than they were in every news bureau, as people scrambled to figure out what this might mean to the country and to their careers, then determine how to react. As much as I hated to admit it, I was feeling guilty about scribing that deep slice in the car door. Even if the guy was a selfish jerk. Telling Jenny about it would get it off my mind. Although I was pretty sure she would tell me what I already knew, I’d have to find the guy and pay for the repair.
I found myself completely unexpectedly smiling. Life sure was simpler before I fell in love with a walking conscience. With great legs.
Love? The real L word? I remember sitting there amidst the confusion of that night and finally admitting it to myself. For the time being, I decided, I would keep it a secret. Why risk ruining a good relationship?
As the coffee cups began piling up (fourteen) throughout the night, bits of information supposedly leaked from the White House. They weren’t leaks, the administration was watering its plants—growing the story. The challenge for us was to figure out what was public relations and what was real information. According to these so-called sources, Wrightman’s request was going to be delivered to Congress that afternoon. Supposedly there had been considerable debate about doing this at the “highest levels.” The initiative was reported to have been led by Charisma Wrightman, while Attorney General Langsam planned to resign in protest.
One report I was certain had been planted was a rumor that the president’s first action under these powers would be to declare a week-long tax holiday to stimulate the economy, the third time that rumor had surfaced at a convenient moment. But this time it might prove true. Throughout American political history, bribery has always proved to be an effective strategy. Money is a good argument.
I read and reread the research and the stories being posted by other outlets and listened to the instant analysis. Howie and I discussed it. Then I sat down to stake out the editorial position for the Pro. As always happened, when I was ready, the ideas that had been born, nurtured, and developed deep in my subconscious suddenly popped onto my screen to be honed into a coherent column. The writing process has always been beyond my understanding. Maybe other people work differently, but for me the keys seem to form a bridge between my subconscious and the finished page, passing completely over most conscious thought. To be honest, there are times I’m surprised and delighted (or dismayed) to read what I was thinking.
I wrote:
Like millions of Americans on election day, I voted for Ian Wrightman to become president of the United States. I did so because I believed this country was locked in an untenable political gridlock. It was my hope that a moderate, independent leader might find a way to bring us together. But I was wrong. President Wrightman’s request for a congressional declaration of war against international terrorism is the most dangerous reach for dictatorial powers in my lifetime. If we truly value those principles on which this nation was founded, Congress must reject this effort …
The words just poured out of me, flowing onto the screen. At times I felt like Lucy and Ethel on that assembly line, the words coming so fast I barely had time to discard the bad ones. Whatever trust or hopes I once had in the administration had disappeared one bloody night in Detroit, I wrote. “It is my firm belief that legalized murder was committed that night and the administration has lied blatantly about it.” I wanted to reveal my hospital visit from Dick and Francis and the existence of the National Secrets Act, but Howie talked me down. Live to fight and all that rah-rah.
The remainder of the column outlined the consequences of a declaration of war. Short form: It would allow the president to unilaterally suspend the Bill of Rights. I concluded:
This declaration would grant to the president emergency powers to enforce his desires on all of our lives, stripping from us the protections of our basic freedoms. Would you have granted those powers to Trump? Not me. So why would we grant them to anyone in this situation? These powers would give to the federal government the right to compel federal and local law enforcement agencies and the military to enforce any and all of its decrees, no matter how outrageous they might be. This is how dictatorships are born.
Sinclair Lewis warned us in his pre–World War II classic novel, It Can’t Happen Here, that if we are to survive as a great nation, we must zealously protect our fundamental rights. It is with great sadness that all these years later it is necessary to repeat that warning, and to sound the alarm: It can happen here.
The debate in Congress was spirited. A lot of bright people said a lot of smart words. They definitely sounded defiant. Watching it was a waste of time, but intellectually stimulating. After almost two days, citing Article One, section eight of the Constitution, a joint session of Congress voted to declare that a state of war existed between the United States of America and International Terrorism.
This marked the first time a sovereign nation had declared war on an amorphous enemy, an enemy consisting of small groups, individuals, and essentially any person or entity Wrightman decided was the enemy. It was an enemy with many names, different objectives, and no central command, an enemy that avoided fixed battles and waged war against civilians and soft targets.
A substantial majority of Congress supported the declaration. The White House had successfully ginned up so much fear that it was the politically expedient vote. Only those few secure in their office or planning retirement dared buck the winds of blind patriotism. Martha was one of them, to her credit. On the floor of the house she said she refused to hand unlimited power to any one person, no matter how noble the purpose. “In their wisdom our founding fathers gave us an ingenious system of checks and balances. It has been the bedrock of our government for almost 250 years, and I’ll be damned if I’ll be frightened into abandoning it.”
Martha was great. So were a few others. She created a stir when she demanded the roll be called rather than accepting a voice vote. That meant that the vote of each senator and member had to be publicly recorded, a parliamentary move she defended because “years from now I want Americans to know who voted to give away our democracy.” While there was some grumbling, it didn’t change a vote; none of her colleagues were willing to risk being blamed when the next terrorist attack took place.
Which also was a memorable threat from the administration. The White House media manipulation campaign was hugely successful. Every published poll showed that more than 91 percent of all Americans were strongly opposed to terrorist attacks.
The day after the vote protesters were out in the streets once again. Police and militia successfully prevented large groups from gathering, but the opposition stayed together in groups of four or less. There still was no law against carrying signs, and homemade signs criticizing this as a “legal coup!” were everywhere. At the same time anti-administration leaders were emerging, among them Indiana “Senator Pete” Buttigieg, who strolled down Mulberry Street in his hometown of South Bend, Indiana, the sleeves of his work shirt rolled up. When he was arrested for disturbing the peace, he went with the South Bend officers peacefully. The photograph of Senator Buttigieg being led away, hands cuffed behind him, chin defiantly thrust upward, was published around the country by the underground newspapers that were beginning to emerge. News organizations like the Pro were urged to report his arrest, which we did, presumably to serve as a warning. But that photograph of his perp walk was not allowed to be circulated under the new regulations.
Not that it makes any difference now, but I still sometimes wonder if people knew then what was about to happen, would they have responded differently? Obviously we’ll never know. I like to believe they would have, but then I remember what America had transformed into by that point. Even if people had wanted to react, what could they have done? And when I do, it makes me … it makes me so very sad that young people will never understand or appreciate what was lost.
Wrightman waited only a few days before utilizing these new wartime powers. It was Trump who had initially attacked social media—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, WeChat, and Pinterest—claiming they were being used against him by his political enemies. Without evidence he accused them of censoring right-wing posts—and naturally his followers believed him. In fact, the evidence is just the opposite: members of right-wing fringe groups actually had found each other on Facebook.
Wrightman understood the capabilities of media hubs to bring together people, reinforce their anger, and allow them to coordinate events. In this case, people who might oppose him. To prevent that from happening, with minimal public disclosure, Homeland Security alerted each of the social media platforms that the anti-American activities being planned on their sites constituted “a clear and present danger to public safety” and ordered them to “take any and all steps necessary” to prevent those activities. It was not a subtle threat: You censor your site or we will. There was no public announcement, but suddenly protest organizers saw posts removed or rejected.
I had long been active on all of those platforms; to me they were just as essential as reading the daily newspapers. RollingStone467@writerman—that’s me. More accurately, it was me. I didn’t post very often, although I did share funny animal videos when I thought people needed to see goats and giraffes bonding or a bear pushing a man in a wheelchair. I sent birthday and celebratory wishes and participated in Nats player debates, but as a journalist I kept my political opinions to myself. Well, actually myself and the almost million regular readers of the Pro. I barely noticed several “cyber-friends” disappearing. These were people I had been silently following because their opinions, whether or not I agreed with them, allowed me to get a sense of the public pulse. Suddenly they weren’t posting anymore. At the time I didn’t think much about it, but now I realize this was the first cyber-roundup.
(The good news was that, at least judging by the posts I did continue to receive, that the government did not think additional credit cards, Wrightman bobblehead dolls, or generic little blue pills posed a threat to the general order.)
As protests were successfully defused, White House surrogates continually reassured Americans that this “purely technical legislation” would not impact their daily lives—but would make them considerably safer. Proud grandmother-to-be Charisma Wrightman went on The View and told a dubious Whoopi that most Americans wouldn’t notice any differences, describing it as that kind of great deal in which you trade something you never use, “something that was up in the attic that you even forgot was there,” for a brand-new toaster oven. Then the panel bantered pleasantly about her first grandchild.
During a rare Fox & Friends appearance, a genial Vice President Hunter reminded his hosts that the Constitution had been written centuries earlier, “long before we had electric lights and flight seemed like an impossible dream,” so even men as brilliant as the founding fathers could not have foreseen the complexities of the modern world. “Which is why,” he explained in his guise as a constitutional expert, “in the very first article of that hallowed document they provided the mechanism we are using today, right now, to modernize and protect it to make certain [index-finger-pointing certain] that the principles it enumerates endure exactly as they were given to us, with only a few necessary changes, for at least another quarter-millennium!”
On Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update the following Saturday, Thomas Jefferson, played in a surprise guest appearance by Will Ferrell, demanded that the “revised and updated” constitution include such articles as “freedom from Kardashian selfies” and an official price list for lobbyists interested in purchasing their own senator.
The administration’s first public action was to divide the country into twelve military districts. This was done purely for administrative and budgetary purposes, Secretary of Defense McCord explained, and would not have any effect on daily life. People should just go about their normal business. No one would even notice it, other than noticing new patches appearing on the uniforms of the active military and militia they might encounter. The greater Washington area was designated District 1 and Marine major general Michael “Steel Mike” Herman was named military governor.
Someday I intend to write an essay entitled “The Role of Coffee in Fomenting a Revolution.” Voltaire, for example, supposedly drank as many as fifty-two cups of coffee a day (demitasse, I am assuming) while laying the philosophical groundwork for the French Revolution. We definitely had the coffee; it was the revolution we were lacking. There didn’t seem to be any great interest in fighting the government.
That became apparent to me at the gym a few mornings later. The Light Brigade had edged a little deeper into politics, and we were debating the potential ramifications of this war declaration. To my surprise, people were pretty evenly divided about it, and unlike most issues, those feelings did not necessarily follow party loyalty. Maybe it’s accurate to say they were independently passive. The two lawyers were split, the detective wanted to see how it was utilized before he reached any conclusion, and the TV producer praised it for the stability it promised. The Georgetown professor, while admitting some uneasiness about it, took comfort in McCord’s contention that it shouldn’t affect any law-abiding citizen.
“I wonder if you guys really get this!” I shouted. My shouting got their attention. I was lying on my back, doing reps with 125 pounds. I was sweating, but my anger at this response had pushed me to another five reps. “It means some government bureaucrat is now free to listen to your phone calls, read your emails, and hack into your computer without a search warrant.”
Charlie Fitzgerald was doing leg lifts (no, I didn’t take that personally) and responded, “You know what, Rol, I have to tell you, if I have to give up a little privacy if it means all of us are a little safer, then as long as they don’t tell my wife anything I don’t want her to know, then it’s okay with me. I mean, c’mon, what do I have to hide?”
I rested the weight bar on the stand and looked at him with disbelief. “Charlie, you’re a lobbyist.”
His mouth fell open with feigned astonishment. “Oh, oh yeah. Wait a second, I take that back. I never said what I said. What I’m really in favor of is an invasion of everybody else’s privacy!” He thoroughly enjoyed the laughter he got. “You got to lighten up, Rollie. You’re making more out of this than it’s worth. This is just turning de facto into de facts.”
That whole discussion was still resonating in my mind when I walked into the office and discovered Dick and Francis waiting for me. They were sitting comfortably in Howie’s office, looking as smug as a Homeland Security bug in a Persian carpet. They were wearing, as far as I could determine, the same nondescript gray suits. Maybe that was a new uniform. They clearly had established their authority over the space.
Howie was actively ignoring them, overdoing his “I don’t want to talk to you” paper-shuffling act. As I approached, Little Dick stood and asked me to come inside.
“Can’t,” I said, spreading my hands to indicate that Mighty Chair was wider than the doorway. “Sorry.” That wasn’t true, obviously—all I had to do was flip up Chair’s arms—but they didn’t know that. Howie flashed me his oh-you-naughty-guy semi-smile.
“Is there a place we can speak in private?” Francis asked.
“Absolutely,” Howie said with enthusiasm. He stood and commanded, “Let’s go to the executive suite. Follow me!”
As we walked single file through the office, down a short corridor, I began softly whistling the “Colonel Bogey March” from The Bridge on the River Kwai. We all squeezed into the men’s room. A toilet flushed and we waited patiently as a man washed his hands and left with nary a curious glance. To demonstrate my respect for these agents, I backed Mighty Chair into the extra-wide handicapped stall and waited there with the door wide open. “Thank you for coming to my office, gentlemen,” I said.
“Mr. Stone,” Dick began, “you’ve been identified by Homeland Security as an opinion maker, and…”
“Wow. Gentlemen, thank you. Seriously, thank you. Hear that, Howie, just like I’ve been telling you. About that raise…”
Dick did not appreciate my attitude. “Hey, let’s stop shitting around here, okay?”
It was impossible not to laugh. I mean, literally impossible.
“Okay, I get it,” Dick said, letting his anger seep through. “You’re the smart one and we’re the bad guys. Know something else, smart guy? I don’t give a fuck what you think. Things have changed a whole lot in the last few days and people like you better get used to it. We’re legally at war now and there are serious penalties for subversion. None of us want—”
“Go fuck yourself,” I said. I hadn’t left my legs in the desert to be lectured by an asshole. Are you kidding me? “Seriously?” I asked. “You’re actually threatening me?” I would have stepped toward him, but honestly, rolling close to someone lacked the inherent threat of closing that gap.
Howie saw what was coming. “Rollie, c’mon.”
“Just hold on a second,” Francis said in the least threatening tone he could muster. “Don’t get us wrong. We’re not trying to tell you what you can write or post. We’d just like you to show a little loyalty to your country.”
“Show some loyalty?” I questioned. “Show some fucking loyalty?” My voice rose. “How the fuck do you think I got into this chair?”
Howie stepped between us like a fight referee. “Stop! Just stop!” He looked at them. “You guys have made your point. We get it.” He faced me. “Right, Rollie?” I was too angry to answer, so he repeated with a little more insistence, “Right, Rollie?”
Dick didn’t wait for an answer. “Look, Stone,” he said, “we’re not your enemy—”
“Yes,” I told him, “you are.”
“That’s it,” he said, turning, “I’m outta here.” When he reached the door, he stopped and waved a cautionary finger at me. “You’ve been warned.”
The door closed slowly behind them. I looked at Howie and shook my head with disappointment. “Well, you sure were a big help. You still don’t get it, do you? You still don’t see it?”
Howie leaned backward, bracing himself against a sink. “I need you to come with me later,” he told me. There was a firmness in his voice that made it clear this wasn’t optional. “Don’t ask me any questions.” As we were leaving the men’s room, he added, “And don’t mention this to anyone.” He paused and then repeated for emphasis: “And I mean anyone.”
I have to admit that Little Dick was right about one thing: My increased visibility had made me a go-to person for anyone who believed they had evidence of government malfeasance. Since the garage, I had been regularly receiving emails from people describing every type of plot from CIA agents implanting transmitters in their teeth to a secret agreement with China to take control of the world. I dutifully printed them all out and stored them in a folder. Eventually it would make a good story. That turned out to have been a smart thing to do; when I checked my in-box later that afternoon, many of them had simply disappeared.
I got the message.
There were a measly eight empty coffee cups piled on my desk when I took a late-afternoon meditation break. Usually I was able to dismiss my thoughts and flow easily and briefly into a deep state of relaxation. Not today, though. My mind was churning, and when I lowered my conscious defenses, a cavalry of disturbing thoughts came charging into my mind. The theft of American democracy was taking place in plain sight and nobody was doing anything to stop it. When I was in the hospital, government agents had ordered me not to report a story, and this morning they had returned to warn me against sharing my opinions. That wasn’t America. That was an alternative America, a place where the president openly used the Justice Department to pursue a political enemy. That was 1984. That was a Trump/Barr wet dream. There were no realistic limits to a president’s power; citing national security, he or she could simply ignore the Constitution, and the secret Homeland Security courts would support that.
The worst part of my meditation is that I had to listen to myself whining.
As Howie had instructed, I met him at eight o’clock, in the parking lot of a twenty-four-hour CVS in Arlington. It was raining lightly. I’d told Jenny I was meeting a potential source, knowing she wouldn’t ask questions about that. I’m not really lying to her, I lied to myself. But I had given Howie my word. I was sitting in Van, the heater fogging the windows, singing along with Muddy Waters’s version of “Mannish Boy” from the Band’s Last Waltz, when Howie climbed into the passenger seat. He ran his hand through the last remaining strands of his hair to brush off the droplets. He was wearing the same ragged jeans and sports coat he’d been wearing earlier in the day. “So what’s this all about?” I asked.
Howie was as serious as I had ever seen him, and that covered a lot of ground. I’d been there when his second child had been born prematurely and had struggled to stay alive. He had the same type of grim look on his face. Rather than turning down the music, he turned up the volume, then leaned across the center console. “I need your word that you’re never going to talk about anything you see tonight.” He pursed his lips, took a considered breath, and added, “And that includes to Jenny.”
I felt like I had walked into a John le Carré story. “Wait now, what’s going on, Howe? What does Jenny have to do with this?”
Our faces were no more than eight inches apart. “Your word, Rol, or we’ll say good night and forget about this.”
Sure, walk away and spend the rest of my life wondering what this was all about. Walk away with the understanding that my relationship with Howie was changed forever. Some chance. He had grabbed hold of me right where he intended, right in my curiosity. “Okay, yeah.” I swiped my hand across my body like I was cleaning an invisible counter. “Nobody.”
He leaned back in his seat, turning down the music. “Okay, let’s go. Just follow what I tell you.”
“You want me to give Cher the address?”
“No, absolutely not. And turn your phone off too.”
“Cher, turn off your GPS, please.”
I followed Howie’s instructions through Arlington, got on and off the 495, and ended up in a residential neighborhood in Annandale. We parked on a quiet block of well-maintained brick-bottomed split-levels. We sat in the car for a few minutes as Howie checked the mirrors. I assumed he was confirming we weren’t followed. We definitely weren’t followed. “Let’s go,” he said.
The rain had mostly stopped, but the night was crisp. The sky was black and pocked with stars. We walked about four blocks through a lovely, quiet neighborhood. Each of the houses had the same bones, but upper floors and dormers, garages and porticoes, porches and decks, walks and landscaping had been added as the development settled. A couple of cars passed us; a woman was dutifully picking up her dog’s poop and two kids were riding their bicycles. Howie ignored them. “Where are we going?” I asked. I knew it was a stupid question, but I wanted the comfort of hearing my own voice.
“You’ll see.”
We finally stopped across the street from a lovely red brick and whitewashed wood church. A sign in front announced in white plastic letters that there were services Sunday at 9:00 and 11:00, and suggested provocatively, “Say your prayers, you never know Who’s listening!” There were only a few cars in its side parking lot. We followed a gravel path around to a rear entrance. In addition to a stairway, a wooden ramp abutted the building, the type that had been hastily added to satisfy the Americans with Disabilities Act. Howie walked alongside me as we went up that ramp. The rear windows were covered with curtains, but lights were on in the rear of the church. When we reached the landing, I grabbed Howie’s arm before he could open the door. “Okay, now tell me.”
He nodded. “Welcome to the resistance, Rollie.”