Lightning Rods

DOING GOOD BY DOING GOOD

Joe was not entirely comfortable with allowing the FBI access to what had previously been strictly confidential information. For about a month, in fact, he found himself going home early and spending time on fantasies that a successful businessman usually doesn’t feel the need for. A successful businessman does not usually need to revisit The Adventures of Superdick, however much they may have thrilled him in seventh grade. He does not need to solace himself with a story about a sexually demented superhero, drugged by an evil genius, and the superhuman sexual powers of a 13-inch Kryptonite-powered dick. But for some reason none of the more sophisticated fantasies which Joe had developed over the years seemed to help.

After a while, however, Joe began to see that there had been more than a grain of truth in what Walter had said. He began to see that Lightning Rods and the FBI were able to achieve a synergy that produced results.

Joe worked closely with Walter on introducing lightning rods to the public sector, and he could see for himself that in many cases it made all the difference to someone who, albeit sexually indiscreet, was in other respects the better candidate. One timely installation had worked wonders for a candidate whose two previous campaigns had been marred by mud-slinging of the worst kind. The candidate had pledged to clean up three dead rivers, a project Joe felt strongly about, and for once he was able to keep his campaign focused on the issues rather than on unsavory personal details. When it came to the issues it was no contest, and he won hands down. So that was something to feel good about.

Also, Joe was able to go major league on height-friendly facilities in a way he wouldn’t have been able to, on his own, for years. If ever. He had installations in forty-nine state capitals, not to mention DC and NYC. The important thing was not just the actual number of buildings involved; it was what it symbolized. Something like this sent a message to people. An elected government should represent all its citizens. If it forgets about the little guy, something has gone badly wrong.

So Joe tried not to think about what the FBI might be up to, and just focus on the positive. The way he saw it was, what you do when you grow up isn’t always what you imagined as a kid. When you’re a kid you always think you’re going to be an astronaut, or a quarterback, or something like that; you can’t understand why so many grown-ups spend their lives doing boring things like selling vacuum cleaners. When you grow up there are some financial facts you have to face. Sure. But you also recognize that there are different ways of making a contribution. Nobody ever dreams of growing up and going into sewage disposal—and yet we would all be dying of horrible diseases if someone didn’t make a career of doing just that. Well, Joe had found a way of cleaning up the world in an area that was just as important. And in the process he had also found a way of making the world a more welcoming place for people who had happened to be born short through no fault of their own.

Sometimes, when he was feeling uneasy, he would think of Ian, still back in KC (as the natives call it) reading about John Foster Dulles. Unless some new hero had supplanted JFD. The thing Joe would think was that he had come across Ian for the briefest of encounters and then gone on his way. But Ian just went on being short, day in, day out; it was something the guy had to live with on a daily basis. And the main thing the guy had to live with was people going around stereotyping him as short. Which, if you think about it, is pretty stupid. Joe was 5 feet 10 inches tall. When he was feeling lonely, did he go around looking for other people the same height because they’d be sure to have a lot in common? No, he did not. And it wasn’t just some little idiosyncratic eccentricity of Joe’s, either. Nobody goes around looking for someone their height to make friends with. Because having the same height in common with somebody else is about the least interesting thing you can have in common. Well, if how tall you are kicks in as a significant fact below a certain height, and if it gives you something in common with other people that height, it doesn’t take a genius to see that height is not the operative factor. It’s other people’s perception of that height.

The way Joe saw it was, you can’t do much about people’s perceptions. But at least other disadvantaged groups get some perks to go with it. Well, when was the last time you heard of someone being hired as the token dwarf? Never, that’s when.

Joe could only stand by while Walter did his best to promote rapport between the Bureau and candidates for political office. But when it came to installing appropriate facilities it was another matter. In fact, as soon as Walter had outlined the new opportunities that would arise, Joe had thought through the nature of the facilities from scratch. This was a chance to make an impact that would not come again.

If you’re an ideas man you don’t just stop having ideas because cash flow is not a problem. You go right on having new ideas, and when you have an idea you want to see that idea in action. One of Joe’s ideas was an idea for height-friendly ATMs. You could have a screen and keypad that could slide up and down the wall according to preference, and not one but two potential slots for the card and the cash. You could have some kind of gadget that would automatically adjust the screen depending on which slot you put the card in, though it would probably take some pretty fancy programming. Or you could just have some kind of manual device, a button or a handle of something, and the user could select the appropriate cash slot from a menu. Unfortunately he hadn’t been able to think of a way to justify it to the client.

What Joe now decided was that he was going to just put his foot down. He wasn’t even going to argue with people. He was going to just go right ahead and let the chips fall where they may. If you have height-friendly ATMs and toilets in government buildings that sends a message to the business community. They may choose to ignore that message. But at least they can’t say you didn’t send up the smoke signals.

That was how Joe made the best of things. He was getting involved in politics, after all, and people who get mixed up in politics soon discover they can’t have everything exactly the way they want it. All they can do is try to achieve some good in the areas where their hands aren’t tied—because they sure can’t do a heck of a lot where their hands are tied. And they’re bound to be tied some of the time. That was what Joe discovered working with Walter. An uncomfortable discovery in many ways, but he had to make the best of it.

Walter, on the other hand, felt pretty damn good about the way things were going. In the first place, he was serving his country to the best of his ability. In the second place, the new development was doing his career no harm at all. And in the third place he had the satisfaction of seeing the FBI strike a definitive blow against one of its oldest and deadliest enemies.

When Walter had joined the FBI its energies had been divided. Communism was still a threat to national security, and taken seriously as such. Also, the war on drugs took its toll. Not to mention organized crime. There simply wasn’t the manpower to take on the CIA, and the FBI was to pay the price for that understaffing. While the FBI’s attention was otherwise engaged the Agency’s sphere of influence grew by leaps and bounds. Of course, in some ways the CIA was its own worst enemy—even just reading the papers you could tell it was just one balls-up after another, and the papers didn’t report half of what those clowns got up to. You might well think it was only a matter of time before operations were handed over to an organization that knew what it was doing. Unfortunately it didn’t work that way.

Well, what comes around goes around. If the lightning rod level of surveillance, with the level of control it implied, became a reality, the FBI would at last be able to control one of the greatest existing threats to national security.