“I think the world is lucky you don’t all put your heads together and try to actually do something.”
When an aging popular college professor told this to his favorite trio of students, little did he know the size of the ball he’d just kicked down the steps. Surely, these three college sophomores made for an unlikely band of world-changers.
- A pre-med student who’d been a three-sport high school jock.
- A pre-law poly-sci major known as the King of Snark.
- A disarmingly pretty artist whose every remark strikes like a Ninja star dipped in the blood of Jesus.
What could they possibly do to keep an American city from being burned down in a race riot?
Pulling on that thread unravels a web of criminal activity that reaches around the world, wending its way through the halls of government, a war-torn country in central Asia, and a dance school in California’s wine country. Before the final step is taken, things will get difficult, dangerous, and deeply personal.
Left-wing Democrats. Right-wing Republicans. Born-again Christians. Existentialists and atheists. Historians and hackers. Funkadelic and Tchaikovsky. Sharpton, Lincoln, and Thucydides.
Blood. Steam. Corruption. Disclosures. Debauchery. Triumph and tears. Romance in unexpected places.
Step carefully. It’s a long way down.
Excerpt
Mr. Nussbaum watched from behind his desk. As usual, three students stayed in their seats after the last class of the day. Nothing new about that. What he wasn’t used to was nobody saying anything. Five minutes went by, then ten. They looked at each other, at him, and then stared out the window, then back at each other.
Finally he couldn’t stand the tension any more. “I don’t know if you’re aware that the class has ended.”
They all turned and looked at him, then at each other, then back at him.
Jan Park spoke up. “Did you ever feel … like … you’re not really … doing anything?”
The bearded old professor smiled. “You mean, like now?”
“I mean, with your life.”
“Yes!” Doug Baker said.
“Exactly,” Steve Nash added, slapping the desk with his palm.
Encouraged, Jan stood up and began to pace. “My folks and I, we go downtown one evening a week and put in a shift at the homeless shelter our church runs. We help out with dinner, serve probably a hundred people or more.”
“A very worthy cause,” Professor Nussbaum said, nodding. “That’s definitely doing something, Ms. Park.”
Jan glared at him. “Is it? Really? We see the same faces over and over. They come and go, move on to other places, but they live like that for years and nothing seems to help. We sure as hell don’t! We just give them a meal and a place to sleep. We have counselors, job placement opportunities, but …”
She sighed and sat back down. “They keep coming. More all the time. And the more we help them, the more of them there seem to be. It’s like we’re being kept busy to keep us from doing something actually useful.”
“I know what you mean,” Steve said. “I’ve been feeling the same way at work.”
“I didn’t know you had a job,” Jan said.
“Well, kind of a job, I guess. I canvass for the Citizen’s Action Committee.”
She smirked and raised her eyebrows. “The what?”
Ira Nussbaum shook his head. “Never heard of it.”
“Not surprised. We collect signatures on petitions and ask for donations. Then we’re paid a percentage. The boss takes the petitions every few weeks to some state rep he knows and … whatever.”
He sighed. “Lately I’ve been feeling like what you described. Like it’s all some kind of a game. I went there because one of the canvassers came to the house I was staying at. I thought it was a cool thing they were doing. But now, I don’t know. It’s like you said, we’re kept busy and told we’re making a difference, but we’re not. It’s not enough.”
“It’s as if the people causing the problem came up with this,” Jan said. “So we can feel like we’re doing something without bothering them. Or stirring things up too much.”
“Exactly!” Steve said.
They all turned to the final member of the “World Senate.” “You’re awfully quiet, Mr. Baker,” Professor Nussbaum said.
Doug looked back at them, meeting eyes with each in turn. “I am officially, actively, not doing anything. I feel like I want to be … but I don’t know if I should.”
The other three gave him back puzzled looks. “About what?” Jan asked.
Doug gazed out the window for a long moment. “I knew the kid the cop shot.”
A collective chill went down the spines of the other three. The protests downtown were growing larger every evening. The circumstances of the shooting were vague. Some felt the city’s mayor and police department had not been forthcoming about the details. Many were calling for the white policeman to be indicted for murder, but no charges had been filed.
“Didn’t know him very well,” Doug continued. “We were in the same class in grade school. His family lived not too far away from us, but his folks got divorced. He wound up going to another school, then he dropped out.” He turned back to his friends. “There but for the grace of God go I.”
“Do you feel like you should go to the protests?” Jan asked.
“I don’t know,” Doug huffed. “Not if the cop is telling the truth. He said the kid robbed a store. He was on patrol, recognized him from the description, and ordered him to stop. The kid ran. The cop cornered him. The kid pulled something out of his pocket, so the cop shot him. It turned out to not be a gun, might have been a liquor bottle, but it was dark and hard to tell. If all that’s true, then what would you do?”
He turned to Steve Nash. “What would you have done?”
“The protesters say the kid was just running away, and that the cop probably planted the stuff on him. Certainly he overreacted. For that matter … well, I wouldn’t ever have a gun. And I wouldn’t ever be a cop.”
“So what are you saying?” Doug asked. “That cops shouldn’t carry guns? Or that there shouldn’t be cops?”
“A lot of cops are racist. They shouldn’t be—”
“—Does that mean there shouldn’t BE any cops? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Doug, man, you know as well as I do that a lot of cops—”
“—Steve, look me in the eye and answer one simple question. Does this society need police? Answer that question, yes or no. Is there a need for a municipal police department? Do they serve any good purpose? Could we hope to survive without some kind of law enforcement system? Do … we … need … cops?”
“Well …” Steve stood, his hands flopping at his sides. “Yes, of course we do.”
“THANK you!” Doug shouted. He turned on his heel and stormed away. “Thank you for the honesty.”
“Maybe you don’t understand how big a problem racism still is in this country.”
Doug spun back around, his eyes wide. “Maybe I don’t understand?! Steve, be honest with me. Have you ever seen a black guy in a hoodie coming toward you and crossed the street?”
Steve scratched the back of his neck and looked away.
Doug sneered. “I rest my case.” He sat down and stared at his hands. “My dad thinks we’ve done this to ourselves.” He looked up at his friends. “It’s not like he doesn’t know about police brutality or believe it’s real. He thinks that if we don’t look for trouble, we won’t get it, but it’s not that easy. I got friends from Oak Park that deal with it every day.”
Steve lifted an eyebrow. “South Sac Iraq?”
Jan’s eyes widened. “What?!”
“It’s what the Oak Park neighborhood’s been called for years,” Doug explained. “My mom and dad are from there. We go to church, hang with my grandparents a while, and go home. We lived there ’til I was about three. When Dad’s business grew enough, we moved. My Uncle Ced used to run with a gang down there.… I should say, my late Uncle Ced.”
He looked soberly at his friends. “I don’t know how comfortable you guys would be there, but the vast majority of people in that neighborhood are just regular folks. People trying to get by that don’t deserve to be hassled by the police. Or have their kids shot.”
“So are you going to the protest?” Jan asked.
Doug sighed and went back to pacing. “I honestly don’t know. I might, if it would do any good, but I don’t know. So far, nobody’s proven that the guy actually committed a crime. Then again, just because they can’t prove it doesn’t mean he didn’t. They also haven’t released the footage from the cop’s body cam.
Maybe the guy looked like he was pulling a gun. But if he wasn’t a legitimate suspect, why was the cop chasing him?”
Steve nodded. “The police union is sticking by their man.”
“Isn’t that what a union is supposed to do?” Jan asked. “I mean, you’re in favor of unions, right?”
“Well, yeah.” Steve rolled his eyes. “Point taken.”
She turned back to Doug. “What would help you decide?”
Doug stopped and turned to her, his gaze icy cold. “The truth.”
Professor Nussbaum stood. “This gives me the rare opportunity to offer you some extra credit homework,” he intoned. “Find the truth.”
The three students looked at each other. Each began to smile.
“Mr. Nash,” the professor said, “you will look at Fox News, AM radio talk shows, and The Sacramento Union newspaper.”
“Fox News? Why in the world—” Steve protested.
“You, Mr. Baker,” Nussbaum interrupted, “will go to MSNBC, National Public Radio, and The Sac Bee.”
Doug and Steve gave each other bemused looks.
Jan laughed. “I see what he’s doing.”
“Ms. Park, you will search non-traditional sources on the Internet,” the teacher said.
“Oh, hee-hee, sure,” she giggled, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“See you all Thursday,” Nussbaum said and closed his notebook. With that, they went their separate ways.