NOT AN AMERICAN

by Stanley W Rogouski

  Chapter 44 - Houdini

  For most of the morning, George Kozlowski seemed haunted, spooked, and ghostlike. But he managed, with difficulty, not to tell anybody what was going on inside his mind. At 11:30, shortly before the police riot started, he climbed up into the cab of his truck, drove out onto Route 1081, made a U-turn, drove three miles, and crossed over the Munitions Park Bridge. When he saw the American Patriot Motel, his heart started to pound, even though he had driven past the same building thousands of time before. He made the U-turn just south of the motel, crossed over to the north side, but lost his nerve the first time around and missed the turnoff. He continued north, made the next U-turn, drove south, made another U-turn, and, once again, drove north. This time, he managed to jerk the truck off the road onto the shoulder in front of the motel, and turn into the parking lot. He got out. When he found the right room, he got back into the truck and parked it as close to the door as possible. Even though he was not a religious man, Kozlowski made the sign of the cross before he walked over to the door. It was open. He stepped inside. The room was empty. There was a pair of handcuffs left chained to the bed, but no Cathy Chegoffgan. Kozlowski pulled out his cell phone to dial Avellanos's number before he realized Avellanos had no cell phone. He scrolled down his contact list to Cathy Chegoffgan's number, but then seemed to have second thoughts. He heard the door open behind him. The American Patriot Motel's only maid walked inside.

  "If you want a room go to the front office," she said.

  She walked over to the handcuffs on the bed and picked them up.

  "This one's probably going to have to be hosed down first."

  Chapter 45 - Method Acting

  If the main concourse of Scahentoarrhonon Station was the largest indoor public space in the Winterborn County, its role as a waiting room for a busy Greyhound Station and a limited Amtrak schedule did not do justice to the architect's original vision. It was only in the morning, when the sunlight flooded through a series of windows near the ceiling, illuminating the line of newspaper boxes that ran parallel to the gates, that you could imagine what the great edifice looked like at the height of its grandeur in the 1920s.

  As the clock turned 9, a young woman carrying a small canvass knapsack glanced at the headlines as she walked by. She looked to be somewhere between the ages of 20 and 25. She was a little above medium height, had a ski cap pulled down over her short brown hair. She had brown eyes. She was wearing a flannel shirt and a pair of heavy work boots.

  "Good morning," she said, walking up to the Amtrak ticket window. "How much are two tickets to San Francisco?"

  "That depends on how far you book in advance," the ticket agent said. "The sooner you reserve, the cheaper they are."

  "Thank you," she said. "How about two for next Monday."

  "Certainly. May I see some ID and some ID for the person you're traveling with?"

  "On second thought," she said. "I want to check with my traveling companion about whether or not he wants to buy a refundable ticket. How much trouble would I have buying a ticket at the gate?"

  "With all the bullshit that's gone down in the past few days, none," the ticket agent said. "Getting out of town's as easy as pie. Getting into town's another story."

  "Thank you."

  The young woman turned around, walked back through the main waiting room, and continued down the stairs onto the lower level. She waited in line for one of the single-occupancy bathrooms near Whole Foods, then went inside when it was her turn, and locked the door behind her. Ten minutes later, she emerged.

  The transformation was remarkable. Instead of her rich, expressive brown eyes, she had dull, watery blue eyes. In place of her flannel shirt, jeans, and ski-cap, she had a black tunic over a white collar and a set of white sleeves. Her sleeves were folded up as if she were a teacher at a Catholic elementary school. She wore a modest silver cross around her neck, had a rosary hanging from her belt, and she was carrying a small New Testament and a copy of the DSM-IV manual in one of her pockets.

  But it wasn't the fact that she was now dressed, not as a postulant, but of a nun who had already taken her final vows that produced the most dramatic change. Somehow, some way, she had willed away all of her sexuality. Her pale, ghostly pale skin and watery blue eyes only added to the effect. Had you looked in the dictionary for the definition of "40-year-old Irish virgin who still lives with her mother," her picture would have been in the margin.

  She threw the canvas knapsack over one shoulder and went back up to the first floor of the station. As she walked through the flood of sunlight back upstairs into the main concourse, the young, now apparently middle-aged woman took a longer, more careful look at the newspapers and magazines. Michael Catalinelli dominated the coverage.

  "America's Mayor," the headline on the cover of one magazine read over a flattering portrait. Catalinelli's head was upturned to mimic a famous photo of Ronald Reagan. "This is the decisive leadership we need."

  “Is This Our Next President?" another asked.

  On the front page of the Winterborn Daily Post there was a large black and white image of the West Hill coal breaker overlaid with two smaller photos, both in color.

  On the top right corner was an image of Cathy Chegoffgan at age 11, the old photo from the magazine cover. There was no mention of how she had accidentally shot her father. The police had taken the magazine she had brought back from her mother's house down off the wall of her apartment, and had given it to the press. She was still holding her father's 9mm, but the editors at the Post had changed the caption. Instead of "Killer Angel" the caption just said "Angel."

  On the bottom right was the unflattering photo of John Avellanos Dan Grossinger had taken near the pump house and war memorial the week before during their short interview. He looked dark, and menacing, his olive colored skin tinted to look almost brown. His heavy brow and square jaw made him look like a combination of Charles Manson and Frankenstein's monster.

  "Thrown into the mouth of hell," the headline read. "Cop killer dumps murdered girl's remains."

  The young woman reached into her pocket, clumsily pulling up her robe, accidentally revealing, in the process, an old 38 caliber revolver. A man gave her the thumbs up.

  "Good for you sister," he said as he walked by, "God helps those who help themselves."

  She ignored him, continuing to dig under her robe, finally coming up with enough change to buy a copy of the Winterborn Daily Post. She clunked the money down into the slot of the newspaper box, took out the paper, and stood in place reading. On page 3 there was a photo of Michael Catalinelli. He was staring straight into the camera.

  "These eyes stared the monster down," the caption read.

  On page two, there was a photo of John Avellanos at age 19 or 20. He was standing in the office of "Guillotine," giving a mock communist salute in front of a large poster of Lenin.

  The young woman noticed a man reading over her shoulder. He had dark skin, black hair, and appeared, at first glance, to be Middle Eastern. He shook his head.

  "That poor girl," he said.

  "John Avellanos," she read out loud, "aged 23, is expected to be charged with the murder of Cathy Chegoffgan, aged 21, Deputy Inspector Steven Quinn, aged 44, and with the unlawful imprisonment of Mayor Michael Catalinelli, who the hulking young monster briefly held hostage in his office at the Reagan Center."

  "Torture him," the man said. "Water board him. Cut his guts out."

  The young woman crossed herself. The man looked down, ashamed.

  "Sister. I apologize," he said, "but, as much as I admire the forgiveness of the prophet Jesus, I also think there are times for justice as well as mercy."

  The man continued on his way. The young woman folded up the paper, put it under her arm, and walked into the "Spring News," the big newsstand near the Amtrak ticket office where Cathy Chegoffgan had worked years before. She brushed past the refrigerator full of overpriced soda and bottled water, and began to look through the magazines and out
of town newspapers in back.

  There were almost no photos of Cathy Chegoffgan as an adult. All she could find was a small alternative weekly with a very small photo that had been taken at Winterborn II, and a copy of her high-school yearbook. It was the pale, serious 11 year-old girl from the old magazine cover the media had chosen as the iconic image of the "murdered innocent."

  The young woman brought the alternative weekly up to the counter, paid with a dollar's worth of quarters, walked back out through the main concourse, and left Scahentoarrhonon Station. She continued through a crowd of people on the main staircase out to the sidewalk. She looked around, shocked. She had been inside Scahentoarrhonon Station for less than an hour, but the size of the crowd had increased several times over.

  There were so many Harley Davidsons parked on Reagan Plaza East that it looked like a Rolling Thunder convention in Washington DC on Memorial Day. As she crossed Reagan Plaza East into the park, the young woman noticed people getting out of a charted bus further down the street. The east/west traverse inside Reagan Plaza itself was lined on either side with poster sized printouts of the 11-year-old Cathy Chegoffgan. There were tables selling t-shirts. "Avenge Cathy Chegoffgan," the crude silk screening said. "Deport all illegals." There were people passing out newspapers, fliers, and American flags. Someone walked by with an AR-15.

  The young woman stopped at an "official" America's Guard table when she noticed a rope tied up into a noose.

  "This is wicked," she said, picking it up. "You're advocating lynching."

  The man sitting at the table reached over and grabbed her hand without looking up.

  "Keep your hands off my property you dried up politically correct feminazi cunt. You're damned right I'm advocating lynching and if you don't like it you can just get out of my country."

  She dropped the rope back down onto the table, letting out a startled cry. When the man looked up to see that he had grabbed the arm of a nun, his face took on a sheepish expression.

  "I'm sorry sister," he said, "but you should have identified yourself. Emotions are running high in this town. I'm disgusted. This country's been taken over. That illegal puke is going to spend the next 10 years lifting weights and getting gang tattoos, and when they let him out, he's just going to come right back here and do it again. It burns me up to think that all you get for killing a little girl in this politically correct state is three square meals a day, and free medical care."

  The young woman opened up the alternative weekly she had purchased in the Spring News.

  "It says here that Cathy Chegoffgan was born in 1993, quite young but hardly a little girl. It says she had a criminal record. Apparently she was spying on The Barrio for the police, and Avellanos killed her, and the cop, when he thought they were going to turn him into immigration. It also says that she shot her father when she was eleven years old. Perhaps there's more to all this than meets the eye."

  "You keep that socialist newspaper away from me," the man said.

  The young woman held up the page with Cathy Chegoffgan's yearbook photo.

  “She looks a little like me, don't you think?"

  The man looked down at the picture.

  “Maybe twenty years ago."

  “How old do you think I am?”

  "My little sister's age. 30 maybe, 35.”

  "Quite a bit older than that," the young woman said. "So let me give you the benefit of my experience. You are correct. Emotions are running high in this town. We're all very upset about what happened to Cathy Chegoffgan. But let's not make it worse by losing our heads."

  "I apologize," the man said. "But I just don't trust Cataliguido. I don't trust any politician."

  “The courts are not political," she said. "I think John Avellanos should get a fair trial."

  "I think we the people should give that animal what he deserves."

  "I will remember you in my prayers tonight."

  The man looked down, apparently shamed. The young woman picked the rope back up off the table, threw it in a nearby trash can. He made no attempt to stop her. She continued on her way. When she emerged out of the wooded part of Reagan Plaza onto the north/south traverse, she stopped to look at the western lawn.

  The United Coalition Against Xenophobia was gone. There were no police officers, but the grass was full of people. Many of them looked like America's Guard members, but the crowd was so large that people without America's Guard jackets outnumbered people with America's Guard jackets. You could barely make out the top of the pump house. You couldn't see the war memorial at all. She walked over to the Franklin B. Gowen Memorial Fountain Circle, looking up at the flag flying at half-mast over City Hall along the way. When she reached the fountain, she noticed a proliferation of flags. There were flags everywhere, United States flags, Gadsden Flags, Confederate flags.

  There were even flags made out of the photo of the 11-year-old Cathy Chegoffgan, her gun pressed up against her flat pre-adolescent chest, her large brown eyes staring at the camera. But there were no empty seats. Someone had draped a banner across the only free stone bench.

  "Avenge Cathy Chegoffgan," it said. "Deport All Illegals."

  The young woman turned to walk back out of the fountain circle, but an America's Guard member picked up the banner, and folded it in half.

  "We were just leaving," he said. "Sit, sister, sit."

  He tapped his companion on the shoulder.

  "Let the sister sit," he said.

  The young woman sat down and looked up at the fountain. She put both newspapers on her lap. The second man folded the banner under his arm, and the two men walked off.

  "Kind of young and hot for a nun," she overheard the first man say. "The nuns in my school all had beards."

  “Forget about it," she overheard the other say. "Nuns are all dykes, whatever they look like. Trust me."

  Chapter 46 - An American Hero

  Two floors up, in the "Municipal Executive Suite" of the Reagan Center -- the press had finally begun to use City Hall's official name -- Michael Catalinelli was holding a press conference. When the bells in the clock tower began to strike eleven, he held up his hand and smiled. At the tenth bell, he resumed speaking.

  "Gentleman and ladies," he said. "That is our famous clock tower. As Mr. Grossinger will attest," he said, pointing to Dan Grossinger. "Those bells are the very symbol of Poison Springs."

  "After your honor of course," Grossinger said, to the laughter of the journalistic assemblage.

  "Mayor Catalinelli," an AP reporter, a burly man in his 40s, said. "Mr. Avellanos is not an American citizen, and is in fact a citizen of Mexico, the son of a very prominent man, I would add. Is it true that he will be transferred over to the custody of the federal government? What federal charges will he face?"

  "Oscar Avellanos is a very prominent man in Mexico City," Catalinelli said, "but he also disowned his son two years ago for reasons that should be all too obvious. I'm not at liberty to discuss any possible federal charges, but my office is working actively with the Northwest Mid-Atlantic Fusion Center on the issue of jurisdiction. We will of course update you as the situation evolves."

  "May I ask a follow-up question?"

  "I think we have time," Catalinelli said.

  "Are you concerned that Randy Sullivan, the president of America's Guard United has vowed that he will never allow John Avellanos to leave this city alive?"

  Catalinelli nodded.

  "Randy Sullivan is a close personal friend of mine," he said. "Patriotic, law abiding American citizens exercising their First amendment right to assemble on Reagan Plaza and petition their government for the redress of wrongs is something we celebrate, not fear. I celebrate Randy Sullivan's participation in our democratic process."

  "You refer to Randy Sullivan as a law abiding man," the reporter added quickly before anybody could interrupt, "but surely you're aware of how America's Guard has torn down all the fences around the construction site at Winterborn II. Are those the actions of a law abi
ding man?

  "Randy called and asked my permission to take down a fence that was coming down in a few weeks anyway, and I agreed with him that taking over the parking lot at Winterborn II was preferable to overwhelming the inadequate parking facilities downtown."

  A local TV reporter raised her hand.

  "Elizabeth Felton has not yet suspended her campaign, but she has expressed interest in postponing the election until after the issue is resolved," she said.

  "Whether or not the election will go on as planned is not my decision," Catalinelli said. "It's the City Council's decision. And let me just add that Elizabeth Felton is a good friend of mine. At the moment, she's not in Poison Springs for the obvious reason that we do not feel confident to protect her. Ms. Felton above all is a victim. She fell prey to a sophisticated, manipulative scam artist who just happens to be her cousin. I take threats to Ms. Felton and to David Sherrod personally," he added, banging the table. "They will be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

  "Mayor Catalinelli," another television reporter said. "Was it actually right here in this space where the terrorist threatened you?"

  The reporter was a leggy blond from a major cable news network who had won the Miss USA pageant a few years before. Catalinelli reached over. He pointed out the broken corner of his desk, and the smashed telephone.

  "Not too far from where you're standing," he said.

  "How did you ever keep so calm?"

  He paused and assumed a thoughtful expression.

  "I was elected to defend the citizens of Poison Springs from all threats domestic and foreign," he said. "My one goal was to keep Mr. Avellanos where he was, and make sure our police had time to arrest him. I didn't have time to be afraid."

  "I've seen that video he made with Officer Quinn's cell phone," she said. "That monster held Officer Quinn down and shot him in the face while he begged for his life, and yet you stood here, unarmed, and kept your cool. I won't pretend to be objective. I consider you a hero. I think all Americans do."