Her thoughts reverted to her father’s friend Zachary, a good man who wanted nothing more than to be great, a self-styled enemy of injustice, the heir to a technology fortune who turned his back on the company if not its money and instead used his considerable talents to call out the government’s bellicosity and brutality, writing first a poem (“The Wind, Not Stilled”), several pamphlets, a novel of ideas, a play with too many ideas, and then a series of campaign speeches that swept him into office, where as a representative in good standing he planned to deliver a thunderous speech against the exploitation of the people but, the night before it was to happen, felt a hammer in his chest and fell to the ground. He did not die, but he resigned from office effective immediately, let his beard grow long, moved to Key West, lived on a houseboat. She had visited him there the summer before—she had always found him compelling, and was surprised how that feeling only increased when the lights were out—and planned to go back when the weather at home got too cold.
©2021 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
No comments:
Post a Comment