A Rambling Wreck: Book 2 of The Hidden Truth

by Hans G. Schantz

  Mom would have expected me to represent her to Grandma and the family, even though she was no longer with us. More importantly, last year’s Thanksgiving dinner was deeply insightful. Uncle Larry had attempted to recruit me for the Circle. I hadn’t realized there were layers and levels in the Circle’s hierarchy. For all their pretensions, the Tollivers were merely big fish in the little pond of Eastern Tennessee. Working on up to the Inner Circle could take generations. Great Grandpa Tom Tolliver had apparently connected the family with the Circle back in the days when the Circle and their local allies were busy expropriating farms from small landowners (my family among them) to make Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

  Ol’ Tom Tolliver took a page from the Rockefellers’ game plan. The Rockefellers formed a secret company to buy up land in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, then lobbied FDR to designate the area as a National Monument, running roughshod over the wishes of local ranchers. The approval removed the property from the tax rolls and greatly enhanced the value of the Rockefellers’ remaining holdings. Ol’ Tom actually did even better than that. Instead of donating land and taking the tax write-off, he successfully lobbied the state of Tennessee to buy up much of his timber holdings paying par value. Combined with the land holdings confiscated via eminent domain from small landowners without the political clout to secure a fair price, the state of Tennessee donated the land to the Federal government to make Great Smoky Mountain National Park. The Tollivers retained vast, valuable tracts around the emerging tourist meccas of Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg and further enhanced their fortune during the following development boom.

  Ol’ Tom Tolliver and the Tennessee congressional delegation also successfully lobbied the New Deal Brain Trust to create the Tennessee Valley Authority and Oak Ridge National Lab, displacing still more “unenlightened hillbillies and rednecks” and paying off the politically powerless owners with a fraction of their homesteads’ values. They were the aristocracy, and the rest of us were peasants to do the bidding of our betters. Tom Tolliver’s son, Grandpa Jack, picked up where Tom left off, getting the family admitted to the Circle in a junior role. To his credit, he did a masterful job of diversifying the family’s interests out of coal and into lumber, natural gas, chemicals, development, and tourism. Grandpa Jack had high hopes for marrying his daughter into one of the more senior families in the Circle, but his hopes were dashed when Mom took up with Dad instead. My existence was a reminder of the family’s failure to procure a “suitable match” for Mom. As head of the family following Grandpa Jack’s death, Larry was pushing to get the family accepted as full-fledged members of the Circle. I figured Uncle Larry’s championing of the Circle’s Social Justice Initiative at Georgia Tech was part of his campaign to ingratiate himself with higher-ups within the Civic Circle.

  I wandered into the living room where my cousins, Abby and David, were sitting at opposite ends of the couch talking. They cut off their conversation and both looked at me. Neither deigned to offer a greeting. The social game playing was really getting old.

  “Good afternoon,” I said, settling myself into the chair facing the couch as if I were in charge and the two of them were my underlings.

  “I hear you have a C in your programming class,” Abby opened the conversation. “And you almost got kicked out of school for cheating.” How the hell did she know that? My dear cousin Abby. Always looking for a back to stick a knife in.

  “Gee,” I replied, “now you’re making me feel guilty I haven’t cared enough about you to keep up with what you’re doing.”

  “Cheating, huh?” David half grunted by way of rejoinder. This was a sore point for him, because I’d ratted out his debate partner, Shawn, for concocting fraudulent evidence back in high school.

  “When you’re as good as I am,” I told David, “sometimes it just doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Oh yeah?” See, the newbies and novices debating against David and Shawn would immediately begin countering one of David’s stupid sounding yet subtle “oh yeah’s” with some kind of dialectic response. They’d justify themselves, trying to prove the righteousness of their cause through keen reason and overwhelming logic. By doing so, however, they were immediately conceding that David was their judge and arbiter. Then, after they’d concoct their brilliant, perfectly clear and cogent reply, he’d just shake his head sadly and say “nope,” implying that he’d weighed their arguments and they were inadequate. The really foolish would keep arguing as if with sufficient logic they could persuade him, and he’d just keep sadly shaking his head. I’d seen David reduce a freshman nearly to tears. It was devastating… unless you had a clue how to handle it.

  “Yeah,” I said authoritatively. No sense wasting any more substantive reply on him.

  “So, how come you got a C in programming then?” he countered.

  “All work and no play makes Peter a dull boy,” I offered ambiguously. “So this is all going to be about me? Neither of you doing anything the least bit interesting you want to talk about? It’s sad to see such promising futures go to waste.” Their egos would hardly let them concede that point to me.

  “I hear Emma broke up with Amit.” Abby really hated Amit, but if she’d actually troubled herself to participate in debate, she’d never have left me an opening like that one.

  “Yes, I’m sure Amit’s playboy life is vastly more interesting than anything you or even I’ve been doing. I’ve lost track of how many girlfriends he’s gone through. It’s a new one every week or two. Not that Amit believes in anything as old-fashioned as serial monogamy.”

  “Come on,” David said to Abby. “Grandma’s sugar pecans will be out of the oven by now.”

  They left. Well, that was easy. Thanksgiving at Grandma’s had become much more fun since I’d given up worrying what my cousins thought of me. Let them worry what I thought of them, instead! I toyed with pursuing them to the kitchen and rejoining the battle on friendlier turf with Grandma and Cookie as witnesses, but honestly, I was simply tired of the stupid social game playing. They were both just a couple of hens going peck, peck, peck to try to establish themselves at the top of the pecking order. I no longer cared.

  Just then, Uncle Larry came into the living room. “Peter,” he said warmly.

  I rose and shook his hand. “Good to see you, Uncle Larry.” Another social lie. The Tollivers were a bad influence on me.

  “I’ve been hearing great things about you,” he said. “Seems you had a run-in with a particularly reactionary professor and wiped the floor with him.”

  “One thing led to another,” I said modestly, wondering how it was everyone knew the details of my fall semester.

  “We had a review meeting for the Social Justice Initiative down in Atlanta the other day,” Larry offered. “Your professor, Gomulka, speaks very highly of you.”

  Ah. That explained it. “He certainly keeps a close eye on all his social justice ambassadors,” I acknowledged.

  “It’s almost time for dinner. Hang around. After Mike leaves, we’ll talk more.”

  “OK.” This ought to be interesting. I gave him a minute or two, and then followed him back to the kitchen. Grandma refreshed my coffee, and I staked out a corner of the kitchen to call my own.

  Before long, Grandma summoned us to the table for our midday Thanksgiving dinner. Grandma always had little place cards at the table. I normally sat down at the end with the rest of the cousins, in this case, Abby and David. This year, though, I was sitting up with my uncles and aunts. I did a double take before realizing the message implicit in Grandma’s arrangements. I was now the senior representative present of my mother’s family. As such, my social rank at dinner was on par with Uncle Mike. Uncle Larry sat at the head of the table in his role as head of the family and stand-in for the late Grand Jack Tolliver. I was wishing I’d spent more time mastering the intricacies of etiquette that Mom had tried, usually without much success, to pound into my skull. Maybe there was a more subtle message involved. In any event, Abby and David glared daggers
at me from the far end of the table. I studiously ignored them and made small talk with Grandma and my aunts.

  Thanksgiving dinner itself was uneventful. Uncle Larry boasted about the year’s achievements at Tolliver Corporation. He’d collaborated with others in the Circle to lobby for carbon tax credits for owners of timber land. “All those trees are sequestering away carbon,” he explained. “The owners should get credit for the good work of their investments in preserving our planet’s future.” As one of the larger private landowners in Eastern Tennessee, Tolliver Corporation was poised to reap a substantial bounty.

  “While receiving favorable tax treatment may help the company,” Uncle Mike replied, “a focus on the business fundamentals would help ensure there are continuing profits in the long run. Tax credits are worthless without profits to apply them against.” No matter what Larry accomplished, the company would be better off if only management were in Mike’s more capable hands.

  I kept out of the crossfire, making small talk with my aunts and learning far more about the extraordinary achievements of David and his older brother Daniel, and the remarkably eligible young men chasing after Abby than I really cared to hear. I got the impression Grandma didn’t get much company. I didn’t begrudge lending Grandma a sympathetic ear to learn the latest news about her chrysanthemums, particularly given the feast Grandma and Cookie had placed before us all. It beat hearing more from Abby about how the locally-sourced honey she had selected to grace our Thanksgiving table came from genuine certified free-range bees.

  After dinner, Uncle Mike and Aunt Susan departed with David. Grandma and Aunt Nikki were going shopping with Abby – “just us girls.” I started helping Cookie clear the table when Uncle Larry walked back in and asked me to follow him. I looked at Cookie.

  “Thank you, sir, but you run along with your uncle,” she insisted. “I’ll take care of everything.”

  I followed Larry to the living room. “So,” he said, “do you have any plans for the summer?”

  “I figured on working for Uncle Rob, like I did last summer,” I explained.

  Uncle Larry shook his head dismissively. “You don’t want to waste your talents doing that,” he said disdainfully. “Your social justice connections will open doors for you. I understand the Civic Circle will be recruiting summer interns from your class at Georgia Tech. You have a wonderful opportunity to rub shoulders with the elite.”

  You can tell a lot about a person by how they try to persuade you. Larry was a social climber. For all his power as President of Tolliver Corporation and patriarch of the Tolliver family, he still felt insecure and second-rate compared to the more established members of the Civic Circle. He craved being treated as a peer by them. An opportunity to mingle with the leaders of the Civic Circle was catnip to him – highly attractive and irresistible. By default, he assumed other people would have the same reaction, so his techniques of persuasion reflected precisely the kind of argument that would most appeal to his own sensibilities. I decided not to disappoint him.

  “That sounds like a great opportunity to jumpstart my career, sir.” I replied enthusiastically.

  “Absolutely,” he beamed in approval at my recognition of his wisdom. “And you’ll have a chance to witness history in the making. This summer, the leaders of the world will come together on Sea Island for the G-8 Summit. A week before the G-8 Summit, The Civic Circle will be holding a retreat to discuss the global situation and prepare recommendations to be presented at the summit. If you play your cards right, you can be in the middle of it.”

  “I assume this is more than a spectator opportunity for me.” I fixed him in my gaze. “What’s the focus of the meeting and how does it impact family business?”

  “That’s what I like about you, Peter my boy: no beating around the bush,” he said patronizingly before collecting his thoughts. “You see, the Middle East has been a flashpoint for decades. We had to kick Saddam Hussein’s butt out of Kuwait back in 1990, but we didn’t have the balls to finish the job. That’s finally changing. 9/11 showed how Iraq presents a clear and present danger to the civilized world, and it’s about time we did something about it.

  “President Lieberman forced the Saudis to turn over the financiers and some of their government officials who had a hand in the plot. Then, we intervened and deposed the Afghan government when they refused to close the terrorist training camps and turn over the ringleaders. The president wanted to make a clean sweep and take out Saddam, too. There’s only so much you can do with ‘law by stealth,’ working within the government to guide policy. At some point you have to have cover from the top. Too many of the new members of Congress were outsiders – they didn’t appreciate the threat and wouldn’t go along with the leadership. They didn’t understand you can’t make law from the periphery. You have to be connected with the movers and shakers: the key players who understand where we’re going and how to get there. Well, that’s finally happening. The outsiders are finally wising up.”

  “I see.” Normally, most every incumbent gets reelected every year. A few outsiders get into Congress each election, but not enough to threaten the Civic Circle’s hold on power. What’s more, most of the outsiders are probably co-opted – or coerced – before long, anyway. When the 9/11 attack hit the Capitol and killed so many members of Congress, there was unprecedented turnover. Only now was the Circle once again able to exert their customary control. “But why now? Why war?”

  “The official line is because Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. He poses a clear and present danger and the threat he poses must be eliminated.” He paused. “Unofficially? We have the power to remake the world,” Uncle Larry said with the zeal of a missionary. “If we can overthrow Saddam and smash his hollow dictatorship, the dominoes will start falling across the Middle East. Those poor people over there will finally have a chance to live in freedom and democracy, to be true members of the global community. The transition from barbarism to civilization may be painful, but we have a responsibility to make it happen.”

  The chaos. The turmoil. “Oil,” I said, thoughtfully. “All that chaos and conflict will drive up oil prices. In the short run at least. I thought the Tolliver interests were more in natural gas, though, and to a lesser extent coal.”

  Uncle Larry smiled. “The family’s almost out of coal entirely. True, we’re more in natural gas, but we own any number of oil leases and we’re buying more from small independents who don’t have the capital to run their fields in a safe and responsible manner. We stand to profit. Not only will we benefit from rising oil prices, but also, more users will switch to natural gas. It’s a win-win.”

  Another piece of the puzzle. The “Preserving Our Planet’s Future” Act not only imposed steep carbon taxes – what opponents called the “Gore Tax” – but also applied onerous regulations on small independents. My father and Uncle Rob had always assumed it was about crushing the competition. Clearly though, part of the plan was to buy out small independent producers at fire-sale prices in time for a boom in oil prices. What’s more, Uncle Larry had no idea how Uncle Rob already had his fingers in the business.

  “What do you need from me?”

  “I want you in the meeting where it’s all to be decided,” Uncle Larry ordered, “ideally as a representative of the Civic Circle. That internship is your opportunity. Go for it. Tolliver Applied Government Solutions – TAGS – down in Huntsville, they have the IT support contract for the G-8 Summit and for the annual meeting of the Civic Circle the week before on Jekyll Island. That gives us an in already, b. But the extra perspective you might be able to provide would be helpful.”

  “It does sound like a great opportunity,” I said, trying to get just the right hint of larceny in my voice without overdoing it, “but I may have to cut a few corners to help you out, and it won’t be easy. I’m sure there will be added expenses, too,” I hinted.

  “I’ll make it worth your while,” he said. He did. We shook on it.

  “I’m sure that int
ernship with the Civic Circle will be highly competitive,” I pointed out. “There’ll be lots of Ivy Leaguers from well-connected families applying. There’s no guarantee I’ll get it.”

  “I have it on good authority the Civic Circle will bring in at least one student from your professor’s social-justice class,” Uncle Larry confided. “I can’t pull any strings on your behalf without it being obvious there’s a connection, though, so you’ll have to win it on your own merit. If you don’t get it, TAGS’ll be hiring interns, also.”

  “Thanks, Uncle Larry. I appreciate your looking out for me.”

  “We’ll get you there one way or another,” he assured me, “but whether you’re directly in the Civic Circle or working for TAGS, don’t drop my name or let them know about your connection to the family. You need to keep a low profile.”

  “Yes, sir,” I assured him.

  “It’s finally going to happen,” Uncle Larry added, like a kid waiting for Christmas. “We’ve been waiting for a long time. You know, if only a few more chads had managed to hang onto those ballets in Florida, we might have had a Republican in the White House leading the way. The Bushes never forgave Saddam for trying to assassinate Papa Bush, and if George W. or Cheney had been in charge, we might have been in Iraq already, enjoying the benefits of peace and stability in the Middle East.”

  “But then, we probably wouldn’t have had the Gore Tax,” I pointed out.

  “Ratchets,” Uncle Larry said. “One step at a time, my boy. With each step, we get closer and closer to the end of history. Each step is inevitable. Universal health care. Universal education. Universal trade and prosperity. A universal global community of free trade and free immigration. All thanks to the benevolent leadership of the Civic Circle. It’s all coming, sooner or later. One step forward at a time. Never a step backwards. The end is never in doubt. Only the timing of the individual steps.”

  I bade Uncle Larry and Cookie goodbye. The dozen-mile drive to Robber Dell was one of the longest of my life. I’d considered just confronting Rob directly, but given the way he’d misled me for so long, I didn’t want to let him off the hook that easily. I was determined to given him a taste of his own medicine, and I’d concocted a good way to do it. It was the right thing to do, but I couldn’t help feeling nervous. I’d never defied him directly before.