The Famous and the Dead

29



Rovanna walked onto the campus of SDSU when the San Diego Alternative Book Festival opened at ten that Sunday morning. He wore long pants and a different colored Windbreaker than at the church and a black wig he’d bought at a drugstore two days ago. He had on sunglasses and carried a free book bag, courtesy of KPBS. He had a backpack slung over his shoulders, as did many of the students in attendance. The day was cool and clear and Rovanna stopped to look at the roses just budding out in the open-air quadrangle near the bell tower. There were tables and booths set up throughout the quad, banners strung to advertise various publishers, a food area and a stage and the Children’s Big Top. He got a festival schedule and a large coffee, then sat on a bench and let the sunshine hit his face.

He heard Joan: The most important thing you can do is to not stalk Representative Freeman at the book festival.

He heard one of the Identical Men: You must act decisively, as an extension of impulse.

He heard Stren: Use this gift to protect yourself and those around you and to advance the ideals you believe in.

He heard Hood: If Stren calls or comes again, call me immediately. He’s evil, Lonnie. He will hurt you.

He heard a voice from one of his radios: Exterminate Freeman!

An hour later he saw Representative Freeman making his way toward the stage. Upon seeing him again Rovanna felt the familiar shiver, a physical as well as psychic reaction. Freeman. Orbitoclasts came to his mind and he was helpless to dispel the images until they were ready to depart on their own. Then he saw Dr. Walter Freeman himself, leaning over a patient, orbitoclast and mallet in hand. Rovanna closed his eyes, hard. Finally Dr. Walter Freeman was gone, and Rovanna’s mind was at least partially his own again.

He watched the representative. This Freeman was an unassuming man, early forties, imperfect posture and a head of gray-brown curls. Again Rovanna saw the subtle similarities between him and the pictures of Dr. Walter Freeman. Scott Freeman’s wife was with him, along with a young, broad-shouldered man who had quick eyes. Today Freeman was dressed in jeans and running shoes, a work shirt, and a black blazer. He stopped and shook hands, talked, seemed to be in no hurry.

Rovanna stood and ambled toward the seats in front of the stage. The first few rows were already filled but there was plenty of room in the middle and rear, so Rovanna took off his backpack and sat in the very last row, the first seat on the aisle that Freeman would likely walk. Freeman would go right past him, no more than a few feet away. Rovanna set the book bag on the ground and the backpack on his lap and opened the large compartment and took out a pack of small doughnuts.

Identical Man: When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to neutralize radical individuals, exceptional men will receive the call. You are an exceptional man.

Hood: You’d be good in the world, I think. Otherwise it’s just yourself and all the things that torment you.

Stren: There is nothing wrong with you, Lonnie. Sometimes friends are all we have. And voices speak to all of us . . .

Joan: Do not talk to Stren again. If he shows up, hit him with that Bible. Literally pound him with it. It will repel him.

Radio Voice: Onward, Lonnie. Defeat Freeman in the name of free men everywhere. Do what you know you must do. History has left a space that only you can fill.

Freeman and a small group came into the seating area. Lonnie turned his face away but watched him through his sunglasses. When the representative chose to walk around the seats rather than use the aisle leading directly to the stage, Rovanna felt the terrible anger surge through him. Doesn’t that just figure?

As always, this anger was visible to Rovanna: a bucket of black liquid upended inside his skull, working its way down into his body, demanding violence. The anger would try to hold Rovanna hostage until he delivered such violence. The anger was far more frightening to him than any nightmare, even those of Dr. Walter Freeman, because he could not wake up from it, and he could not escape it and, yes, he could resist it but sometimes it was stronger than he was. And he would be forced to act.

Stren, from last night’s dream: You know the purifying fire of violence, don’t you, Lonnie?

Joan: You are a troubled man now being manipulated by a devil, and the final cost to you will not be the pain you inflict, but the pain you will receive. It will be utterly unbearable and you will not survive it.

Rovanna set the half-eaten doughnuts back in his pack. They rested upon the silver flank of the Love 32. The silencer was screwed into place, but Rovanna had not deployed the skeleton butt because it made the gun too long for the backpack. He folded his hands over the top and watched Freeman kiss his wife then spring onto the stage. The representative went to the podium as the crowd mostly applauded but also booed. Off to one side of the stage was a long table stacked with Freeman’s book, The Cost of Liberty: Paying for the American Dream. The cover was a dollar bill waving from a pole, with the stars and bars of the American flag superimposed.

Freeman smiled and waved and buttoned his blazer, then waved some more. Three couples in the front row stood and shouted in unison, “Right to life! Right to life! Right to life!”

“The choice belongs to all of us,” Freeman shot back.

Four people not far from Rovanna suddenly stood and shouted overlapping immigration slogans that were impossible for him to unscramble, though the words illegal, criminal, and no scholarships blasted through. They waved their fists in the air. Rovanna put his hands over his ears and turned back to the stage. Freeman had raised his hands for quiet and, odd as it seemed to Rovanna, all of the partisans eagerly sat down.

Freeman talked about American society returning to tolerance and a sense of fairness both at home and abroad. He said that good nations begin with good citizens, and the duty of the citizen was to be informed, open-minded, and skeptical. He said that the people must hold themselves responsible for the government they elect. He said that government should be smaller in the bedroom and bigger in the boardroom. He told an emotional story about people he knew, bankers and executives, reaping huge personal bonuses from bailout funds—tax money that all of us paid. This brought loud boos from all around Rovanna. Then Freeman told another emotional story about friends of his, a married couple in their forties, who decided to abort a child with Down syndrome. He said it was the hardest decision that they had ever made, it nearly tore them apart, but in the end they believed what they had done was moral and right. And that was why he believed abortion should be a choice made by couples, not governments. This brought boos from the front row and two of the couples rose to walk out. One of the men turned and raised his fist at Freeman: “Life begins at conception, you godless fool!”

Radio Voice: Freeman is blasphemy! End him. End Freeman!

Front Row: “You will not murder our babies! You do not have that right!”

Stren: You are vehemently against everything Scott Freeman stands for.

“I will never accept that right,” said Freeman. “And I will give my all, all of my being, to ensure that only you have the right to choose what is best for you. No government can do that for you. Do not cede your individual responsibilities or surrender your right to choice to any government, ever. Now, can I tell you a little bit more about my book? Please. There are people who want to hear what I have to say.”

Rovanna took his backpack and book bag and walked up the aisle. Freeman started telling a story about growing up in La Mesa. Without looking at him, Rovanna turned and walked along the front row, then took one of the seats vacated by the antiabortion shouters. It was still warm. He set the pack on his lap and placed his hands on top of it.

Stren: Have you ever just wanted to shoot him, Lon?

Hood: If you want to just talk, call me. Really. I mean it. I always have time to talk. I like baseball.

Alice Hood: That man looks so familiar to me. I do not feel comfortable being this close to him.

Identical Man: Maybe this is Dr. Freeman’s grandson, Lonnie! They look alike, don’t they? Remember the pictures! Don’t they?

Representative Freeman was talking about the racially mixed neighborhood he grew up in, how the two main cultures—European American and Mexican American—remained separate yet mostly tolerant. Rovanna thought of his own neighborhood in Tustin, which was all white and very conservative in the 1960s. It was white-flight central. Most of the people were Republicans, and some were outspoken members of the John Birch Society. The world communist conspiracy was a highly discussed topic, as were Soviet atrocities, the United Nations, Cuba, fluoridation, bomb shelters, and the Beatles. To Rovanna as a boy, the list of fears seemed to go on and on. He became unhappy. Shortly before his tenth birthday he had started his first fire.

Now as he watched Representative Freeman talking about racial tolerance, Rovanna saw Dr. Walter Freeman bent to his task, orbitoclast in hand, like a knitting needle, probing the eye socket of his sedated but conscious patient.

Identical Man: Now.

Hood: I understand your terror, Lonnie. But lobotomies are not performed anymore.

Alice Hood: Look at the doctor. He performs them still, every hour of every day.

Radio Voice: Freeman is a slippery character. Exterminate him!

Joan: It really was nice back on the little stream, wasn’t it? When you stood in that cold water and listened and there were no voices.

“No kidding it was,” Rovanna answered softly, though he rarely heard his own voice and couldn’t hear it now. He felt the black paint scalding down through him. He took the Love 32 from the backpack and stood and fired an automatic burst at Dr. Walter Freeman, then another one at his nurse and another at the big orderly who was already racing across the stage toward him.