Satan's Gambit

by Conti, Gene;

  Still longing for some of Father’s half eaten chicken salad, I added, “And the John Warner Defense Act of 2006 quietly repealed the Posse Comitatus Act, which restrained the federal government from using military troops in our streets, a la Jade Helm ‘exercises,’ as domestic law enforcement has been thrown into the dust bin of history, while armed drones rule the skies. Father, that reminds me, do you recall a YouTube video I sent you several years ago titled ‘Prototype Quadrotor with Machine Gun’?”

  “Joe, that unit was almost four feet in diameter. Since then, my sources tell me they are now about three and a half feet in diameter and can hold up to two hundred rounds of ammo. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Hunter-Killer flying terminators have been reality for some time now.”

  My stomach was really talking to me by that point. “What was it that you wanted to tell me? Something that I’m in the middle of here at ICC?”

  Father blinked in an absentminded way and shook his head. “Guess I got off on a tangent. I need to warn you that Professor Dietrich of the social justice department has got his sights lined up on you. You’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest.”

  “Social justice department?” I asked, looking at Father and then at his mostly untouched chicken salad hoagie. “Are you going to eat that?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  SOCIAL JUSTICE

  Appearing very antsy, Father Ed got up from his seat causing the metal feet of the chair to make a racquet against the paving stones. He walked over and leaned his lower back against the short stone wall as he took out one of his cigars, perhaps to help him relax. Still contemplative, he began, “Joe, unfortunately I needed to make some concessions to get ICC off the ground. One of those was a requirement, by some godforsaken bureaucratic government agency, that we have a social justice department,” he said lighting his Camacho Ecuador with an old banged-up Zippo lighter that he had carried with him since either Korea or Nam.

  He turned away from me, faced the mountains, and continued. “I judged wrong, thinking one small governmental intrusion into ICC wouldn’t affect us much.” He hung his head while supporting his body with his outstretched arms leaning on the wall, his cigar in hand.

  Still seated, I replied, “The one rotten apple that spoils the bunch, huh?”

  He suddenly whipped around, his face hard as stone, pointing his finger at me as smoke trailed from his cigar. “Professor Dietrich represents all that is vile and reprehensible in Washington,” he boomed like God Himself. “Bunch of Pecksniffian pharisaic poltroons.”

  “Hey, Father, you have been watching too many re-runs of Bill O’Reilly’s Word of the Day segment,” I said trying to get Father to calm down somewhat.

  His face and demeanor allayed a bit. “I didn’t always agree with him, but he is a good man and really did try to ‘look out for the folks,’ as he liked to say. I believe his and my father’s ancestors were from the same county on that enchanting emerald Isle,” as a small momentary pensive smile appears on his face.

  “Washington has ‘encouraged’ all the colleges to enact a department of social justice,” Father continued. “Dietrich was handpicked by some lackey in DC to head up the department. He also has some minions running around campus—the Hitler Jugend I call them—doing his spying for him.”

  “Yeah, I thought I’ve seen some ‘students’ all dressed the same in a crisp paramilitary style,” I said remembering the khaki pants with black military web belts, sky blue open collared button-down shirts with epaulettes, and black Corfam boots.

  “Those are his minions. They attend a variety of classes and report back to Dietrich regarding any social justice violations.”

  “And just what is considered a social justice violation?” I inquired with a sarcastic tone.

  Father leaned over, placing both hands on the bistro table, and, half chewing his cigar at the side of his mouth, attempted to define the problem. “That’s the trouble. The whole thing is a phantasm, a bowl of Jell-O; it keeps changing. We can’t get the government to give us a hard-and-fast definition—and it seems they want it that way.”

  “I get it. That way they can accuse and prosecute anyone who is intolerant, unfair, judgmental, or offensive in their eyes. In other words, anyone who follows Judeo-Christian morality, in short - biblical principles,” I blurted. I was starting to get heated up.

  Father stood and walked to the wall, leaning back against it. “Dietrich knows what you have been teaching and has his eye on you.”

  “I don’t have any of the ‘Hitler Youth’ in my class,” I exclaimed, half asserting, half questioning as I stood up to defend my position.

  “Joe,” Father chortled, coughing on his own cigar smoke. “Everyone on this small campus now knows what you are teaching. You don’t need any overt or covert spies in your room. Besides there have already been a couple of articles in the Veritas Beacon.”

  I had totally forgotten Thad’s article series about my Matrix course. “Do you want me to back off?”

  “Absolutely not! Besides your conscience wouldn’t let you,” Father said, half laughing as he released a big plume of smoke. “I’m just giving you a heads up on Dietrich and company.”

  I was getting ticked in more ways than one. “Yeah, and the government numpties, to use your expression, are cultivating—no championing—Sharia Law. Hell, Minneapolis and Dearborn— excuse me, Dearbornistan—as well as a slew of other cities, are now rife with Muslim ghettos. Like England and France, the police give them a wide berth.”

  “Hey, Joe, calm down, you’ll blow a gasket.” Father laughed.

  With that I heard a creaky iron gate open. The front end of the patio had a low wrought-iron picket-style fence with a gate that extended from the entrance wall of the coffee shop to the stone wall overlook. Father immediately recognized the young man coming through that iron gate. “Hey, Fred, come on over; I’d like to introduce you to a close friend of mine who teaches here.”

  Father leaned over toward me and quietly informed me that Fred was our waitress, Cindy’s, husband he had mentioned earlier.

  Fred appeared to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He was clean shaven with charcoal black hair and a touch of premature gray starting to show. He was average build and well groomed, very GQ, wearing a sporty causal-style jacket and pants.

  “Fred, I’d like to introduce you to Dr. Joseph Lucci, who is a new professor this year on our staff.”

  We cordially shook hands. Fred had a good firm grip but not a crusher trying to prove something.

  “Fred, Joe is teaching a new course called the Matrix Exposed,” Father stated proudly with a big smile.

  Fred looked at me and said, “Oh, you are the guy that’s causing all the disturbance on campus!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  LOVE AND RESPECT

  Father invited Fred to sit with us, and he pulled up a chair.

  “I’ve got some time; my class got out early. Cindy is not off for another thirty minutes or so.”

  Fred turned around and spoke to Cindy who was standing near us. “Honey, would you mind bringing me something to drink?”

  “What would you like?” she asked, letting her down-home southern drawl come through.

  “I’ll have what they’re having,” Fred said, looking at both of our almost empty glasses.

  “It’s gonna cos you,” Cindy stated firmly, with her sweet Southern accent.

  “Whaa?”

  Cindy bent over and gave him a soft kiss. “There, that wasn’t too expensive, was it? Engineers, linear thinkers,” she said shaking her head and walked away.

  After a slight pause, Father broke the silence. “So, Fred tell us how your studies are going.”

  “Just logging the hours. I told Cindy that I have a photographic memory. The only problem is that there’s no film in the camera.”

  “I thought you engineering boys would have gone digital by now?” I said, trying to break the ice with Fred.

  The three of us momentarily stared a
t one another and immediately cracked up laughing.

  We small-talked for a while about his kids. Fred was extremely concerned as to where the country was headed, and what kind of a future his children would have to face.

  “How did you decide on engineering?” I asked.

  “Well, it’s somewhat of a long story,” Fred replied as he started playing with one of his cufflinks.

  “Hey, you’ve got thirty minutes to kill,” Father noted. “Might as well tell your story; we’re in the mood for a good positive narrative.”

  “You mean ma thirty minutes,” Cindy interjected firmly and decisively, setting Fred’s lemonade down. She had also brought fresh refills for Father Ed and myself. We all looked at Cindy with strained plastic smiles on our faces, as we each thanked her for our lemonades. Her exhaustion showed, as she walked back into the coffee shop.

  Fred was now toying with his glass of lemonade. “I started my schooling at Virginia Tech, and didn’t know what I wanted to major in until I ran into this fellow who was specializing in marine engineering. We became close friends, and I began to spill my personal problems out to him regarding my marriage.”

  Fred gave Father a look of trepidation.

  “Go ahead Fred, you’re among friends.” Father gave him a comforting smile and a nod of reassurance.

  “This was a few years ago, and I thought our marriage was on the rocks. We were always bickering and fighting. There was just no peace in our house. No peace in our souls.” Fred picked up his glass; his hand slightly trembled as he took a drink. “Cindy and I thought we were ‘spiritual.’ It’s just a boneheaded excuse. In reality we dabbled in all kinds of mysticism - crystals, the Force, Hindu Avatar, channeling – but we were just trying to present an air of superiority to those around us. It was just to prove we had some amorphous link to a higher power.”

  The problem we had, and those who claim to be ‘spiritual,’ is that when pressed for an explanation, we each set our own rules, and we each played by them. We were self-centered and selfish in reality. Cindy and I obviously didn’t believe in any kind of superior being or god. We didn’t want to be answerable to anyone but ourselves. My friend challenged me to show him scientific evidence that a superior intelligence didn’t exist.”

  Father and I looked at each other knowingly, having had the same discussion many times.

  “I took him up on it, figuring this would be a piece of cake. Here my friend was a marine design engineer, and he believed in pie-in-the sky children’s fables. ‘He probably thinks the earth is flat and his boats will fall off the edge,’ I thought.”

  “Oh, I tried to belittle him with the usual clichéd arguments such as: ‘I only believe in things my five senses can detect,’ I said, looking down my nose at him, ‘and I don’t sense your God in our three dimensional universe,’ I said, almost barking at him. ”

  “You mean like gravity, Fred,” I replied with a chuckle.

  He smiled back and looked at me and Father Ed, who was also chuckling.

  “Now I know why you are causing all the fracas here at ICC. Cindy had told me that one of the professors was riling up the students in his class, but she couldn’t remember exactly who or what the situation was.”

  I interrupted Fred’s flow, “Yeah, seems I was the last to find this out. Father has just brought me up to speed.”

  Fred continued, “I was such a dunderhead,” as he is knocking his fist against the side of his head. “I actually began to gloat over him with my ‘five senses’ assertion when he interjected with the gravity illustration just as you did. My buddy could see the partial confusion in my eyes. And as I was about to make some foolish comeback, he abruptly cut me off, ‘Fred not the effects of gravity, but gravity itself.’”

  “I was ready to crawl into a hole. But my friend had patience, and thank God I had enough respect for him at that moment to just shut up and listen.”

  “Did he take you through the Miller-Urey fiasco?” I asked.

  “Not directly. He gave me a book to read that literally blew my socks off. I was always led to believe that the scientific community was in complete unison regarding Miller and biogenesis, radiometric decay rates, transitional fossils, stratigraphy formation, anthropological hominid development—you name it.”

  “Are you going to keep us hanging? What was the name of the book?” Father asked, while he puffed impatiently on his cigar.

  “That Their Words May be Used Against Them by Henry M. Morris. These were quotes by peer-reviewed experts in their respective fields: the heavy-hitter PhD authors and researchers who are or were atheists, but at least honest ones. I had no idea there was so much internal conflict among scientists.”

  “The government-approved textbooks don’t allude to any of the conflict,” Fred continued. “Of course, no oppositional viewpoint is permitted.” The three of us nodded together in agreement. “So what happened then?” Father coaxed, still anxious for Fred to get on with how he and Cindy reconciled their differences.

  “I don’t like being deliberately lied to, and neither does Cindy,” Fred said, taking several gulps of his lemonade to quench his dry mouth. “Boy, did Hitler know how to play the game,” as Fred proceeded to quote the man. “‘If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.’ Trouble is, the fool also believed his own lies. And our government is trying to force many of the same falsehoods down our throats, as we all sit around singing ‘Kumbaya’.” Fred then turned and pointed to the world ecology flag, the top of which we could barely see in the distance through the trees.

  “And then with you and Cindy?” Father pressed.

  Fred took a few more swallows of his lemonade and continued. “Cindy and I set ourselves on a PMA daily reading regime and we found out—”

  “PMA?” Father interrupted.

  “Positive Mental Attitude,” Fred shot back.

  “Why didn’t you just say so?”

  It seemed that the Professor Dietrich thing probably had affected Father Ed more than he was letting on.

  Fred continued. “And I found out that a woman’s primary drive of acceptance is love, and Cindy learned with men, it’s respect. I needed to show her more love, and she needed to show me more respect.” Fred had already finished off his drink and was looking around for Cindy for a refill. “Look at it this way fellas,” Fred persisted, “take the worst druggie lowlife. He’s more than willing to blow someone away who ‘dissed’ him. Respect is paramount even with those slimeballs. Then take the cheapest floozy who gets caught by the police aiding and abetting her boyfriend in some half-baked attempted robbery; when asked why she did it, what is her response? ‘I love him.’”

  “So where did you learn about the primary drives of love for women and respect for men that you and Cindy started to abide by? And this, you claim, is what started you both on the road toward healing your marriage?” Father challenged, literally chewing on his cigar now.

  “Father?!” Fred exclaimed, looking at him with a strange questioning expression on his face. “The Bible of course. Ephesians 5:33.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  ROCKY ROAD

  Cindy showed up and was impatient to leave. I told her to put the entire bill on my tab and to add 25 percent for herself. Her demeanor softened and she thanked me.

  While we were waiting for her to close out her till, I asked Fred, “How would you like to give a talk to my class?”

  “Sure. When?” He asked enthusiastically.

  “Well, we meet tomorrow at 9 AM for an hour. How does that work with your schedule?”

  Fred checked the planner on his tablet. “Slight conflict. I wouldn’t be able to arrive until around ten.”

  “Hmm, tell you what,” I offered, “how about you meet us at the north end of the quadrangle at about 10:15. There’s a great little grassy area with benches just off the walkway. We could meet there. You’ll have a good group of my students that would love to hear a young man like yourself, rather than some old
fart like me.”

  “Super, I know the location. I’ve seen some of the other professors with their classes lecturing there. See you mañana.”

  Just as we finished making arrangements, Cindy showed back up with lemonade in hand, having anticipated her husband’s need for a drink to go. They said their goodbyes, as she and Fred walk away hand-in-hand like two lovebirds.

  Father excused himself. “I have another useless admin meeting to go to,” he said with a heavy sigh, as he walked off through the iron gate toward the administration building, leaving me alone with his chewed-up half-burnt cigar smoldering in the ashtray on the bistro table.

  ***

  I arrived back home at a reasonable hour after going to Kroger with the honey-do list that Emily had texted earlier to me. As I came through our kitchen door, the wonderful aroma of fresh pasta teased my olfactory senses. “Smells awesome,” I announced as I came into the kitchen and gave Emily a big hug and kiss.

  “It’s just the pan of lasagna I made last week. I’m reheating it now.”

  I quickly checked my email and then it was time to eat. We sat down and said grace. I looked around the table, “Any bread?” I asked.

  “Yes, honey, it’s warming in the oven. You New York Italians and your bread. Oh, and I purchased a nice Shiraz from Sam’s Club last time we were there, remember?”

  “Yeah, the Black Dog Shiraz we like from the Chateau Morrisette winery we visited a few years ago.”

  “Sam’s had it on sale, and I bought a few bottles for us.”

  I reached for the bottle and started to open it.

  ***

  After dinner I loosened a notch on my belt. “That was your best lasagna yet,” I said taking another sip of the robust, full-bodied wine.

  “You say that every time I make it, Mr. Rockefeller.”

  “Mr. Rockefeller? What’s that about?” I asked with a puzzled look on my face.

  “Well, I just received, on my email, your ‘tab’ for the month at ICC,” she said handing me a copy of my campus expenses she had printed off. “This is the amount that will be deducted from your paycheck this month.” She looked at me with her arms folded and a mild scowl on her face, which broke into an amusing smile.