“I didn’t realize you were stopping by this afternoon,” the chief said, trying to manage a smile. “You’ve caught me at a pretty busy time.”
Sylvia Rogers forced a smile of her own. She didn’t dislike the chief, but she could tell he was wary of some of her proposals, and some of her observations about what was going on in the city. She knew that he didn’t regard certain things that she saw as a danger, or potential danger, as a real danger. They had never had an open argument—the chief had always listened relatively respectfully to her—but she knew that he wasn’t really on her side—and yet he was who he was.
“Well, I was in the area and thought it would be easier just to stop by,” she said in a no-nonsense tone. ”You know, sometimes my e-mails to you don’t seem to get quick attentionThat’s not a criticism.”
“What’s on your mind, Sylvia?”
She paused, and sat up even straighter in her chair, if that was possible. “Have you heard of a group called the Day After Society?”
“No, I haven’t heard of it.”
“Well, I saw a sign or something when I was driving from one place to another. It had that name on it. It didn’t mean anything to me at the time, of course, but I was curious as to what it was all about. Then, several weeks later, I saw another sign with the same name on it.”
The chief smiled again, trying to repress a sigh. “Is there anything else?”
“Yes, I—well, I found an Internet site for it.”
The chief hesitated, started to say something, then thought better of it. In the early days of the Internet, or at least the initial wider usage of it among the general public, Sylvia Rogers had expressed a concern about it bordering on a sort of conspiratorial fear. Very early on, in the mid-1990s, she had clearly thought the Internet was some type of evil system set up to lure unsuspecting people into some type of involuntary situation of one sort or another. She never seemed to see it as a potential for good, and she had alarmed various members of the police department during that period. Later she mellowed somewhat, even beginning to use it herself more and more, and then regularly, like practically everyone else, but she still saw danger signs regularly after conducting her searches.
“Sylvia, as I say, I’m a little pressed for time this afternoon. What is it you’re concerned about?”
Her face seemed to harden, and in a flash seemed almost to be made of a stony substance. She could be very emotional at times, or she could be very stoic, and all shades and mixtures in between, and she could change in a flash, as she had just done. “I’d—I’d rather you take a look at it yourself and see what you think.”
“You’d rather I take a look at it myself?”
“Yes.”
The chief couldn’t help actually sighing this time, a very heavy sigh, very audible, as he stood up from his chair. He thought about pausing and letting her make the connection that the meeting was about over, but he decided to encourage her a bit. He moved from behind the desk, and she stood up almost by reflex. He gently put his hand on her arm and turned to move toward the door, gently, very gently, pushing her in the same direction.
“Tell you what, SylviaWrite me one of your summary reports about it. Those have been a big help to me over the years in understanding what you have in mindAnd it saves timeCould you do that for me?”
The Nashville Metropolitan Zoning Commission prepared to begin its weekly hearing. Sam Rivers, the chairman, took a seat and looked over the crowd that had assembled for the meeting. In fact, as he stood by and idly made conversation with a few other members of the commission and a few regular attendees, he had already begun to notice that the crowd was much larger than normal. Usually, that meant trouble, especially when it happened without him knowing it in advance. In his mind, he began to prepare for the worst.
Now, looking out over the crowd, he tried to spot familiar faces, meaning troublemakers who showed up at the meetings. There were certain people who seemed to just want to make trouble, to interfere with the normally smooth operating process of the zoning commission. If they wanted to get involved, Rivers thought, they could get involved. In other words, they could become more active on a regular basis and, over time, become important contributors to the normal process of zoning in the city. But the people who showed up just out of the blue, just when a problem hit their neighborhood, were the worst. They had no concept of the overall strategy and purpose of the commission.
The first half of the meeting was taken up with very routine matters. Normally, during that period, there was an atmosphere of total boredom in the room, both among the crowd and among the members of the commission. It was something that had to be done, especially with television cameras filming the meeting. But everyone hated it, and wished it could be dispensed with.
On this night, however, a restlessness was almost visible out in the crowd. Rivers kept an eye on the crowd, while trying to maintain his typical bored attitude. He turned regularly and seemed to talk to other commission members, giving a whisper or a nod, but then he would just as often turn back quickly to the crowd and survey it, or cast a glance in that direction without turning his head directly to it.
He could almost feel the restlessness, and see it. There was a low buzz in the crowd that was not present at a “normal” meeting. People were turning to talk to each other more in the crowd, and several times he had to caution them, in as non-threatening of a manner as possible, to keep the talking to a minimum. Even when the members of the audience weren’t talking to each other, however, they seemed to move around in their seats, shuffle their own paperwork they had brought to the meeting, and even do something with their feet that made small echoes on the tile floor.
Yes, something was up. He wondered what it was, and ran the night’s agenda through his mind.
It didn’t take long for him to figure out that the crowd was there primarily for the open session, where audience members could ask questions or state their views on topics. The commission had asked for public comment on certain topics, and members of the public had the right to appear and voice their opinions. Rivers was a bit of the old school; he ran a tight ship, as much as possible in modern times. Essentially, he didn’t like too much audience participation. The commission had been appointed by the city leaders, and the public should leave it to the commission—that was his view. He didn’t mind giving members of the public the right to run through the motions of voicing their opinion; what he objected to was them actually thinking they had the right to change the agenda and course of the commission’s actions. That was going too far.
Accordingly, he liked to structure things where it seemed as if he was giving whoever wanted to speak a chance to speak their mind. In reality, though, he was prepared to cut off anyone at a moment’s notice if the person ran too long, or—even worse—the person disagreed with the commission’s actions or plans.
He began to suspect that the “hot” item on the agenda tonight, the one that had drawn in the new attendees, was the planned widening of a street in a neighborhood on the south side of town. He had had trouble with this particular neighborhood in the past, and he suspected that some opposition had developed, perhaps quite a lot of it, to the proposal. He had heard rumors that the main neighborhood activist, a small woman with short dark hair named Minnie Lefkowitz, had been visiting all the homes in the neighborhood, encouraging the residents to oppose a widening. Now, it all jelled in his mind, and he knew what was coming at the end of the meeting.
As soon as he thought of her, Rivers had scanned the crowd, looking for Minnie Lefkowitz. He didn’t see her at first, and even thought that perhaps he had been mistaken. Then it was time to take a break from the meeting. He made the announcement and stood up, and the crowd of people began to part in front of him. Toward the back of the room, he saw her, still seated, talking to a small group of people standing next to her along the row of chairs. As usual, she was doing all of the talking, and the group of four individuals was doing all the listening.
/>
Rivers gestured to another commission member, Paul Greene. He told Greene of the anticipated situation involving the neighborhood, the street widening, and the lead activist. They agreed that when speaking and questioning by the public began, they would limit each person to one minute. Technically, that was against commission rules, but Rivers had always freely disregarded those rules, and left it to anyone who disagreed with him to challenge him on a legal front; it almost never happened.
As people filtered out of the room, he determined to take a very tough stand. Over the years he had been in city government, he had learned how to be forceful and polite at the same time. He could almost be patronizing, although he stopped just short of that, but he had become very effective at shutting off any type of public input to the meetings, or at least keeping it to a bare minimum.
Gayla Demonbreun had held the same job three years, as administrative assistant and data entry clerk in a real estate brokerage firm. The firm had about thirty employees, and had been built up by the founder over a thirty-year period. Now the founder’s son ran the firm, along with his partner. There were several brokers, and a number of real estate agents, below the partners, and then a staff of about a dozen administrative employees.
Almost all of the employees came from the same background: white southerners belonging to a Protestant church. Some were members of the Church of Christ, and there was a Methodist or two, and a Presbyterian and an Episcopalian, but the slim majority had southern Baptist heritage. And there was one outlier: Bart Kennedy.
Kennedy, around forty years old, had recently divorced from his wife of fifteen years. He never said anything about church attendance, and when questioned about it, he usually brushed the question aside with a general—some thought evasive—answer. Word had begun to spread in the office that Kennedy was not really even a believer in anything.
Kennedy was also from Sioux City, Iowa, and thus was a bit of an outsider, regionally speaking, within the office. He had moved to Nashville shortly after graduating from college, taking a job with a large corporation that had an office there. A few years into his stay, however, the company had downsized and the office was closed, leaving him adrift to search for another job. He had thought at the time about leaving the city, but quickly found another job and decided to stay. One thing led to another and, by association with a friend of his who had gotten into real estate, he decided to get into the field himself.
He was generally liked, but there had always been some distance between him and the other employees. He seemed to think differently about things, whether it was politics, cultural interests, or even family matters, like raising one’s children. His two bosses liked him—he produced well for the firm—and the mix of brokers and real estate agents liked him more than not. In the administrative section, however, opinions were much more mixed.
Gayla Demonbreun was more or less representative of the administrative mix. Some of the administrative personnel gave off the impression that they despised Kennedy, at least when he was not around; others seemed to like him. A few had mixed feelings, and listened to both sides make their case; Gayla belonged to this group.
One day, in the middle of the week, Gayla found herself lunching in the break room with four of the most negative of the administrative employees. The four were all females. At one time, for an ever so short period, there had been a male administrative employee. He was very productive, although some of his co-workers found him to be as feminine as the female employees. He had resigned about six months into his post, telling one of the owners that the group he worked with was the most vicious set of gossipers he had ever come across. The owner, always having suspected that he was gay, was glad to see him go for that reason alone.
“I heard Bart on the phone at his office last night, just before I got ready to leave,” Sarah Mae Jenkins said hurriedly, in a half whisper. “It sounded like he was meeting somebody later in the evening, for dinner.” She paused as if for effect, looked at each member of the group, then went on. “Someone not his wife.”
To her surprise, the remark brought a couple of quick disapproving glances. The other of the group shifted uncomfortably in their chairs, and Gayla stood up to place her plate in the dishwasher.
“He and his wife ain’t together no more,” Julie Ann Farrell volunteered. “They ain’t been together for a while.”
“They’re just separated, though,” said Billie Carter. “They’re not divorced yet.”
“I don’t see where that makes a difference,” said Mary Beth Reynolds. “It’s still wrong.”
Gossip in the office had its rules. Sometimes, it was important to stick precisely to the facts. Often, if a rumor was wrong factually, a person, primarily because she hadn’t thought of it herself, felt obliged to correct the person originating the story because of its factual inaccuracy. At other times, however, a co-conspirator could, and would, go along with the factual inaccuracy, or even more than one, if it was needed to properly undermine a party not present in the room. The group seemed divided this time.
“Lots of people date while they’re separated,” Gayla chimed in. “I did it myself four or five years ago when I was getting divorced…My ex-husband did the same thing.”
“It’s just not right,” Sarah said. “Somebody should get a real divorce before they do anything like that…In fact, I don’t really even believe in divorce.”
George Allison parked his SUV at the far end of the parking lot at Blackstone’s brewpub. After stepping from the vehicle, he paused to lean backward and stretch his arms skyward. It was a perfect late afternoon in spring, with dark blue sky, two puffy white clouds sitting high off in the distance, the humidity very low, and the temperature in the mid-seventies. He checked his phone quickly for messages, locked his vehicle, and started across the parking lot toward the building.
As he approached the stairs to the front door, he turned and saw a young man putting a guitar into the back of a car at the end of the first row of parking spaces. The young man locked his own vehicle and headed toward the front of the building. Allison continued to watch him as he made his way down the row of cars and closer to him. As he climbed up the steps, Allison held the door open for him.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
The young man entered the building and brushed past the front counter. Allison stopped at the front and asked for a table for one, possibly two persons. He left the name of a friend who might join him at the front, and was led back to a booth in the far corner of the room to the right, looking out over the parking lot.
Allison took a seat and checked his voicemail at work. A waitress appeared and he ordered a beer. He had spent many afternoons and evenings at Blackstone’s over the years, stretching back at least twenty years, and had enjoyed many experiences there. In the earlier years, he often had to leave his vehicle and take a cab home after a long afternoon of drinking. Now, he tried to be more careful, tried to avoid the multi-hour, multi-mug events that stretched from lunch to dinner. His body couldn’t take it anymore; the pain was too great.
The waitress reappeared with the beer, and he leaned back and took a sip. The place was close to being empty. The lunch crowd had emptied out long ago, and the after-work crowd had not yet begun to filter in.
Allison had always liked the setting. It was a large building with plenty of room to spread out, so a person didn’t feel as if he was listening in on others’ conversations. Except for the busiest times, one could easily find a booth or table in a secluded part of the room, and if that didn’t work, there was a whole other room on the other side of the building. It was one of the early drinking places with a mostly smoke-free environment, and that was appealing to Allison as well.
He made a few telephone calls, and sipped slowly on his beer. Just as he was finishing the first mug, his friend whom he was expecting called and said that he wouldn’t be able to make it. He settled back in the booth and thought about what he had accomplished that week, t
hat day, and what was left to do. It was a Thursday afternoon, and the next day was more or less a coasting day. He planned to spend a few hours in the office, then head to the mountains for the weekend.
At some point, he became aware that the young man he had seen in the parking lot, with the guitar was working as a waiter there. He saw him across the room, waiting on tables on the far side, and going back and forth to the kitchen. On one of the trips, they made eye contact with each other, and Allison waved him over. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, probably closer to twenty, with a freckled, reddish face and reddish-blonde hair.
“Are you a musician?” Allison asked when he had stopped at the table.
“Yes, trying to be…I’m definitely a musician, I’m just trying to be a successful one.”
“And you made your way to Nashville?”
“Yep.”
“Where’re you from?”
“Spokane, Washington.”
“You’re a long way from home…Do you know anyone here?”
The young man shrugged his shoulders. He seemed to be enjoying the conversation, even as he looked a little puzzled; that seemed to be his natural look. “No, not really. I’ve met some people here in the music business, trying to break in. But I don’t have any friends or family here.”
“What’s your name?”
“Danny, Danny Hosgow.”
Allison introduced himself and the two shook hands. Hosgow had been at the brewpub only a few weeks; Allison explained how he had been a frequent customer there for two decades. The atmosphere was still slow, so the two were able to speak for a few more minutes before a new party was seated.
“I guess I’d better be getting back to work.”
“Yeah—take care of business…Check back with me when you can.”
Hosgow looked at him for a few long seconds before nodding and turning away.