Paladin: An Origin Story

By Christ Kennedy

The plot twists and characters clash in this tension filled origin story of Paladin, a future aged Super-Hero. As Henry, a disinherited homeless embarrassment to his family, with no regrets for the mysterious past that alienated him from his life of entitlement, is threatened by the political ambitions of his own brother, a computer genius drifting through university, an EMT with a gambling problem, an aging Russian gymnast and a zealous religious believer are forced together by unexpected circumstances while a cognizant artificial intelligence in control of an apocalyptic pleomorphic weapon looms in the background in search for a reason not to destroy the globe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532073540

Christ Kennedy

Author of 'The People' and 'Two Sons Nelson', Christ Kennedy grew up in the suburbs of Montreal. He is a bilingual Quebecois with a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from McGill University and currently resides in Saskatoon, writing computer software when he is not busy plotting a new novel.

Book preview

PART I

The gods saw to it that the rope they had knotted for this desperate and even tug-of-war was tautened either way. The rope was unbreakable and no one could undo the knot; but it undid many a man.

The Iliad Homer

CHAPTER 1

House of Flies (before matins) (Wizard)

This book was written for my grandmother! Roberta whispered as she stood in the darkened cellar door waving a paperback novel, mercifully she died years ago and was not exposed to this drivel!

Zachariah invited the young woman in from the darkness then quietly closed the door again, latched it and turned to face her. An elated sense of anticipation which their rendezvous promised lifted his spirit. The lone candle dancing in his hand warmed the darkened alcove which it’s architects had secreted like a dungeon at the back of the old building’s sunken foundations, troubling the shadows in it’s odd rhythm. Her subdued smile still radiated the charm of innocence that had drawn him to her despite the unease which their guilty escapade forced on both of them.

Jane Austen is far better even though she did plagiarize the Book of Ruth, she joked.

He smiled at her ease of manner and evident innocence, By those standards the Old Testament was plagiarized!

Yes, she laughed holding her hand cupped over a broad grin, if only Sister Marguerite could hear us now.

The flame of his candle shone more brightly now that it stood next to his pressed white shirt that reflected it’s light as he took in the sight of the flame reddened hue of her blond hair. Cowed by her advance as she stepped forward, he turned away and invited her to the cheese and wine waiting for them on the blanket he had laid out when her absence had made the cellar less forbidding. Looking up at her once more, he caught the sway of her hips and heard the rustle of calico as she folded her dark blue dress beneath herself and sat down as she might have had they been on a picnic. He had seen her wear that dress before and approved of it for the long sleeves and closed button collar. The light colored scarf about her neck was loosely tied. It looked soft and inviting while comfortingly shielding him from her breasts, protecting him from the wanton temptation of his own earthbound lust.

I made a trip to the kitchen this afternoon, he said feeling more comfortable now that the basket sat between them, you said you liked wine but did not say whether you preferred white or red.

She smiled easily and waited as he pulled his surprise from the basket he had had to borrow from the gardener.

Since I was lucky enough to salvage some of the cheese we were given for lunch yesterday, I opted for white.

Excellent! she replied, encouraging him. I love a man with a palate.

He felt the warmth of her hand brush over his as he showed her the bottle’s label. Holding it out to face the warm candle light, he reached further into his basket and retrieved two wine-glasses clutched firmly in his calloused hand. First placing his own to the side, he held her delicate vessel in his strong grasp and considered her cherubic beauty before releasing the fine crystal into the graceful feminine hand she extended towards him. After twisting the corkscrew into the bottle’s top he freed the wine’s bouquet with a quick jerk and savored it’s aroma as if it were a pheromone. Deftly pouring the draught into her glass he then filled his own and sat the bottle between them before slowly raising his eyes again.

Chin-chin, he said as the sound of tinkling glass echoed in the cavernous hollow.

Their opening ceremony concluded, they nervously sipped their cups while precariously averting the dangerous collision eye contact threatened. Smacking their lips delectably at the tepid liqueur, they idly listened to the droning buzz of an unseen insect heard from the shadowed recesses.

Now all we need are a few ants to make it a real picnic, she said lightly as an opening parry.

Yes, he agreed, I wouldn’t be surprised if we found ourselves invaded by them! Did you know that ants are the most widely dispersed creatures on the planet?

I know, right? They’re everywhere, she said agreeably.

They’re just like people, he mused.

All over God’s green earth, she added enthusiastically.

There where you will find people, you will also find ants. I even saw a few down here before you arrived, he said. Then, with silence to echo his pause, he added, I should tell Father Bradley tomorrow, he may want to call an exterminator.

Praise the Lord, she said.

Amen.

He sipped at his wine trying to relax as she rested on one hip, legs to the side with her weight leaning on her elbow, glass in hand listening quietly while he wrestled with the cheese and removed it from it’s cling wrap before proffering the heavy plate to her.

Would you like some cheese?

I would indeed! she replied taking the first piece to hand and pressing it into her mouth hungrily.

Once his eyes had witnessed the charming way her lips parted to the delight of his gift he was entranced by their luring warmth. It was a warmth that had made her smile so welcoming when they had first met. Noticing his attention on her again she seemed to take pleasure in his attraction to her. Playfully she let her elbow slide across the blanket and softly flopped lazily further down on it’s woolen fabric smiling at him while tugging at her scarf.

What? she asked in a coyly naïve way.

Nothing, he said, just reflecting on the day’s blessings.

A brief and awkward silence was followed by the intermittent droning buzz of a lone wasp that hid in the darkness.

Have you ever been down here before? he asked.

Once or twice, she said while doffing off her scarf with slow implication and letting it fall over the bottle revealing the loose button and opened collar of her dress.

His mind strained to tabulate the words she had spoken and understood how wrong he had been about her. Surely he should have known that her virtue was open to doubt by her mere presence here alone with him in this dark, dank cellar. But to think that she had been here previously troubled him all the more. How could he have perceived her in such a false light and only here in the dim shadows of the seminary’s bowels see how wrong he’d been. He could no longer take her for the innocent child of God he had believed her to be.

A disconcerting look must have appeared on his troubled face that made her regret her revelation and try to mend her prior trysts with devil’s lips.

But never with a boy, she said.

Quickly she sat up and once again crossed her legs as Zachariah stood to his feet in dismay leaving her gaze to reflect on what he had been about to do. Did he truly think that she was worthy of paradise at his hand? He believed now that the Devil himself could not be more cunning than this woman who had lured him to invite her here in the abyss. Searching for the rift in the ground where Lucifer would rise up to claim His due from the tenants of His material world, he took hold of his pulsating temples and consoled himself that the Devil’s only advantage was the fact that He goes about His work unobserved while he, Zachariah, a true believer, had discovered yet another of His agents working to sever the ties of the spiritual world to which he now so desperately clung. His piercing eyes strained for a light from the Lord and Savior as he quelled the unrest in which Roberta’s easy manner had put him in.

Are you alright? she asked rising to her feet. Because I could go.

No, no, he said daring to face down God’s oldest adversary. Don’t go.

The battle with the Devil delivering him from himself, he pressed on.

Stay, he insisted, we just got here.

Her scarf had found it’s way to her collar once again concealing the fair skin of her neck but the candle’s light that reflected Satan’s aura about her head made it perfectly clear that he was indeed confronting a disciple of sin. Roberta invited him to sit, perhaps she sensed the brittleness of his alarmed nature or felt him weaken before her and prowled for an easy stake to his soul. This postulant Bride of Christ did not deserve to glance upon the Lord’s face without shrieking in fear of His wrath when next He returns, yet still the Mother Church received her in welcoming arms, so desperate was She for more blood.

Stultus ab ignorantia ducatur, he mumbled.

What’s that? she asked duplicitous to the power that had brought them both into this alcove of iniquity.

Nothing, he replied calming himself.

Taking a sip of his wine to fortify himself for this battle, he began, Have you read The Life of St. Dominic?

No, she replied, we haven’t had that volume added to our suggested reading but I love St. Dominic.

Hm, hmm, he said non-committally, indeed. Perhaps the details of the Cathar beliefs will remain obscure to postulants and the laity alike.

I’m not sure, she said apparently equally comfortable with a theological discussion as with a discourse on sodomy, you mean the Cathar heresy?

Disregarding her comment he explained, the Cathars believed in the direct knowledge of God through a personal spiritual enlightenment or gnosis.

Yes, that’s right. Some nonsense about God’s creation, the earth, the stars and all of the material world having been created by the Devil.

Yes, nonsense, indeed, he replied to His old foe, the material world was created by the Devil. Only the spiritual world is God’s.

I remember now. Yes, we did learn about that with Sister Catherine sometime last year. But that was a long time ago. No one is fooled by these kinds of heretical beliefs anymore.

No, certainly not. St.Dominic saw to that. Gnosticism posed a threat to the hierarchy. The nobility, temporal lords by so-called divine right propped up by the Church, feared a belief system that stated there was no need for a church or clergy. Seen as a threat to the Church they were eradicated in the 13th century.

The Lord’s will be done.

In the Devil’s land?!? he asked.

She seemed uncertain of his meaning and replied, you sound upset.

Yes, well, he said, Dominic knew…

St.Dominic, she insisted with a malicious and condescending smile.

Yes, he deferred. St.Dominic knew that the Cathars not only believed that the material world, this world, was evil but that the spiritual world, the hereafter with Almighty God, is good.

Of course, God is good… she said trying to stop his sermon.

While the pure and true believers are taken to the spiritual kingdom for eternal bliss with the Almighty.

His old foe having been found out stared at him in disbelief.

You mean to say that… she paused apparently uncertain how to confront this accusation. Are you suggesting that the Cathars were right?

By wiping out the Cathars, Satan ensured that the souls he harvests with every death return to His material world and fall deeper into hell. Ironically, Dominic, by killing all the Cathars set them free to the spiritual world but doomed the rest of humanity to perpetually return here into Satan’s hands so that the Church can guide us all back here into hell again.

The Devil before him resorted to disbelieving charm, indignantly suffering with mockery these serious claims that threatened Satan’s hold on the material world and the souls that are cast down into it.

But in catechism we learned that the one true Church is the way to gain entrance into the kingdom of heaven, she explained patiently.

Catechism and the uniformity of faith denies the true believer gnosis and a direct understanding of God.

Gnosis? she asked disheartened. Catechism is gnosis, there for the taking. All God wants is our complete submission and love. And our faith keeps us united before the Lord.

Catechism! Raca! he blurted. Catechism! After exterminating the Cathar ‘heretics’, Dominic was faced with an enemy he could not defeat with the sword and fire of a small army as he had done with all the previous organized so-called heresies that opposed the church. He was confronted with the medieval equivalent of the Lone-Wolf Terrorist when the ignorant back-country peasants began to revere the Holy Men who lived as hermetic ascetics and starved themselves thereby shaming the clergy and exposing their gluttony, wealth, and lust for temporal power. When they became a threat to the church’s monopoly of faith and threatened the entire fabric of the feudal system that ranked king below none but God and wove them together with the Devil’s loom in this material fabric, St.Dominic, he said with a sneer, destroyed these Holy men with his monastic rule where he nurtured their need to free themselves from the world while organizing the ascetic gnosis seeking hermit’s into communities of obedient hermit drones! There to fulfill their spiritual need for solitude with God, together! Cloistered behind walls and indoctrinated into the dogma of the Church, they were no longer free to experience God’s light without the Devil’s intermediary acting as a middle-man preventing the believer from reaching enlightenment and finding His divine revelation.

Satan’s panic at these words was evident to Zachariah as he looked down on Roberta’s ghostly face.

But Sister Catherine said that the Church…

The church is moth-eaten and in need of a metamorphosis and reawakening. It is led by mindless bookworms who merely repeat what they are told and stagnate in doctrine and scripture intended to keep us all distracted here in the Devil’s material world.

The alarm on her face told him His old enemy had finally understood the level of his determination to resist Him and His malevolence.

Our Heavenly Father may indeed lead His Church in mysterious ways but you sound like you’re suggesting that the Holy Mother Church is a tool of the Devil! she looked frustrated and Satan seemed to have abandoned her, as an empty frightened delicate vessel, even less than a temptress. A woman, Satan’s portal, berthing innocent souls to inhabit the Devil’s world.

The scriptures, he said, helpless to prevent himself from feeling sorry for her, are confused on purpose. The Church dictates faith and cries heresy to any interpretation that differs from her own.

How can you say that? You say you want to join the priesthood?! she supplicated reason from him. Answer the call?!?

"Matthew 15 Do not teach the gentiles and then again in chapter 28 Go to all nations?"

So? she asked.

Was our Lord Jesus confused?

No! she protested. Of course not.

Then why would he contradict himself?

I don’t know, she began to cry, ask and you shall receive.

Ask who? The Church or the Lord? he shook his head. "Again Matthew 10 Be as snakes and once more in chapter 23 our Lord says Snakes! You are hypocrites! The words of Jesus are most often contradicted in Luke’s writing only because his is the most verbose.

The scriptures lie, Roberta, he said, where Mark tells us in his gospel that the Lord urged us to carry a walking stick on our missions, John stays silent and both Luke and Matthew report that he told us we may not.

That’s of little importance, Zachariah, she said dismissing the contradiction between the gospels.

"Yet even their testimonies did not agree, he said, Mark 14."

Satan’s tongue twisting the lies of our Lord’s accusers, she argued, of course they would disagree. The two are not even related.

May they not be? And aren’t the contradictions in the scriptures more evidence that Satan’s hand was at work when the bible was compiled?

Silence stilled her tongue.

Why are you here? she asked after a pause.

To learn to understand you better.

She looked up at him and pulled her knees closer, shivering from the dampness.

I thought you wanted to be a priest.

And you a nun, he countered. So why did you agree to meet me here tonight?

I don’t know, she replied sniffling back her tears. What will you do?

In that moment of silence the buzzing insect heard earlier persisted.

Trust the Lord to put His house in order. Put your faith in the Lord, Zachariah, and submit to the one true Church.

She reached out a hand to his as the distant hum of the same unseen wasp, trying to escape, bumped against the dawning light that filtered through the cathedral’s dirty cellar window.

We’d best return to our cells before we are missed, he said helping her to her feet.

CHAPTER 2

Sweet PMC Candy Brand (Friday 8h45 am) (Candy Man)

Eyes red from lack of sleep, George Crumb snatched the vibrating cell phone from his pocket. The business partners he had travelled to meet had said they may need to reach him before they could settle affairs on their end but their worries were not what had kept him awake trying vainly to adjust to the new time zone. He looked at the phone in his hand to see who it was and was frustrated to read ‘unidentified caller’ on his screen.

Hello, he said uncertain whether his nerves were being torn more by worry or the two pots of coffee he had forced past a recent yet chronic acid reflux.

Candy Man?

He sat up straight as alarm thrust him forward in his seat. Painfully swallowing the bile that rose to his throat, he stood up and answered with his back towards the frail sleeping form that lay on the hotel bed behind him.

Ye-e-e-s, he said nervously.

You know who this is? the voice was a harsh whisper that resounded loudly from the earpiece into the dimly lit room.

Yes, Mr. Grenwith.

Don’t say my name, you louse! Crumb shuddered at the enormity of his mistake.

I’m sorry, he said, it won’t happen again.

Once is enough you fuckin’ maggot, Grenwith’s harsh breath resounded through the earpiece as he tried to quell his anger, you see anyone follow you?

No, no, Mr… Crumb choked as he heard his own troubled breath echo through the headset. Its just me and my daughter. They think we’re on holiday. A working vacation.

Good, good. Just a few more days and it’ll all be over. When I call you again I’ll tell you all you need to know to redirect our shipment. I call you, you call them and we’re done.

I know, Mr… he quit midsentence when his business habit’s insisted he use a name.

Just call me Soldier.

Yes, Soldier. But you know this isn’t what we agreed. It’s my name that’s on the line here. If this ever gets out, or God forbid, we don’t ever find it and some innocent people should be hurt. I mean, this could be very serious.

Listen to me, maggot! You got the deal of a lifetime here. I pulled you up, and your company is gonna make a killing off this deal. So don’t pussy-ass with me. I’m the one who’s in the piss and there’s only one thing you gotta do and it’s nothing but one phone call. They don’t even know who you are. They don’t know you. They don’t need to know you. So just stay quiet and don’t do nothin’ stupid!

I’ve never been tangled in this kind of, Crumb choked again uncertain what to call the mess he was involved in, web, before.

Listen, Candy Man, the code-name came through the wire with as much derision as Crumb had ever heard, there ain’t no web. This is just what happens when you rob from the family that made you. So just stay cool. Spend the day with your daughter, take in a movie…

My daughter’s asleep.

Don’t fucking interrupt me!

It’s just that we’re both jet-lagged, Crumb apologized.

Grenwith’s heavy breath filled the silence that followed.

Just …. Don’t make yourself conspicuous, he said, appearing to try to calm himself. I have a young daughter too. Maybe when this is all over we can all go for ice-cream. So just keep calm. Keep quiet and stay out of trouble.

Ok, Soldier, but like I said…

Shit…

The phone in Crumb’s hand went dead and he had to look at the screen to be certain Grenwith had hung-up. All the more tense after this unexpected call, he drew back the window curtain. Bright sunshine stung his eyes and made him squint in the harsh light of day. Taking his daughter back to America for a week had seemed like a great idea but now that they were here and Hong Kong, their home, was on the other side of the globe he resisted the temptation to wake up his little princess to disarrange her clock for only a few days before heading back. He didn’t have enough strength to entertain her and handle the business for which he had travelled but instead considered, once again, sending her to her mother’s parents for a holiday. Cooped-up in a hotel room alone half the week while he was at a meeting or handling his business was no place for an eight year old girl.

Before he had a chance to fortify his resolve concerning his young daughter’s best interests the commanding summons of his phone’s vibration drew it to his ear once again.

Hello, he said.

Hello, a woman’s assertive voice said into his ear, Mr. George Crumb?

Yes, speaking, Crumb replied, his business sense taking hold of him. Who…

Hold for a conference with Misters Reynolds, McShaw and Brandt.

The phone was silent for a few moments and he was soon greeted by an elderly sounding man, Hello, George!

Hello, Mr.Reynolds, Crumb had been expecting this call since first arriving from the airport.

How was the flight?

Wonderful, thank you, he said feeling more in his element.

Glad to hear it, came the prompt reply. Now the movie premiere is set for the end of next month. That’s in a little over seven weeks and we’re ready to launch our campaign. We have been busy, busy, busy. I expect you appreciate just how important it is for you and everybody involved, that PMC Candy Brand be ready with all the promotional gear.

Everything is ready, Mr.Reynolds, Crumb immediately asserted. Sounding more assured than he felt, he plowed on, I’ve made certain. You have my personal guarantee on this, all the Sweet PMC Brand diamond, emerald and gold nuggets of rock candy you can throw at a mob of family movie goers is ready for shipment.

Tell me about the silver dollars, George, it was the younger Brandt who had promoted the idea of handing individually wrapped chocolate ‘silver dollars’ to every theater viewer for the opening week of the film’s screening. Are they as delicious as the ones we sampled four months ago.

That they are, Mr.Brandt.

You know, you and Sweet PMC Candy Brand are going to make a killing with this, Brandt confirmed. The publicity alone would make his company, and the sales forecasts promised to finally get him ahead in his plans to expand distribution.

Once they taste the free samples at the door they’ll head straight to the concessions stands, Crumb said.

And then every kid in America … Brandt began to say.

Don’t forget China! added McShaw amid the excitement.

… will be hanging out at his local confectioner’s for the rest of the summer.

Yes, Mr.Brandt, Crumb agreed, and my people in mainland China are eager for their premiere. And that’s a huge market.

Excellent, Mr.Reynolds rasped, that’s why we chose PMC Candy Brand, George.

Say, George, how are the life-size gummy dolls? Are they ready to ship out?

Crumb looked at his sleeping daughter as she stirred beneath the covers within the shadowed room.

They look great. We have over four dozen ready for shipment. They’ll all arrive from Beijing over the weekend and make their way to their final destinations on time for display in major malls across the continental U.S.

But do they look life-like, George? McShaw insisted.

Have no worries, your raffle dolls will amaze everyone. Each is a 3D printed rendition of a live-model, Crumb looked at his beautiful sleeping daughter, and hand painted to achieve realistic life-like features. All are entirely made of delicious sweet resin candy, gentlemen, each one a master piece that everyone will love.

Smiles of satisfaction could be heard before one last concern was aired, They won’t be damaged during shipment, will they, George?

Not to worry, Mr.Brandt, they are all safely stored in their plexiglass display cases and wrapped in protective shipping package to make certain each doll arrives in pristine condition.

We have the promotional cards you sent us, Reynolds said with suspicion, she’s beautiful, of course, blond hair, green eyes, bright dress and tiara. But tell me, George, who was the model? She seems more real than the actress who stars in the film!

Just worked with the images and specs you gave me, Mr. Reynolds, he said as he glanced lovingly at his sleeping young daughter. And, of course, all credit goes to the artists.

Alright, George, Mr.Reynolds said with a tone that suggested his conference was over, we’ll keep you and PMC candy brand up to date.

Thank you, Mr.Reynolds.

Goodbye, George.

Good …

The call was cut-off before he could finish his parting words.

He threw open the curtain and cast the morning light into the room as he contemplated the potential disaster which Grenwith’s portion of the shipment would cause should it ever get into innocent hands. He shuddered.

Daddy? came the muffled complaint from his little girl’s drowsy head. What time is it?

Its the middle of the night back home, honey. But here it’s morning.

He went to her bed to comfort her. Resting his hand softly on her forehead to brush away a wispy strand of her hair, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss on her brow.

Are we going to the amusement park today? she asked still very sleepy.

No, honey, he said. Maybe tomorrow. We’ll see how tired we both are. But for sure before the week is up. I promise. By then our clocks will be rewound and day won’t be night anymore.

Her arm lazily reached out for him from where she rested and grabbed a hold of his shirt. Can I watch Sponge Bob?

All you want, he said stroking her arm affectionately, daddy’s unpacked your things and they’re all sorted out in the bottom drawer.

Uh, huh, she dozed quietly.

Crumb pulled gently on the gold chain that hung around his young daughter’s neck until a simple looking pendant lay in his hand. As innocent as it looked, only close inspection revealed the ‘nanny-cam’ that it hid and the panic button embedded on it’s flip side. Although the device was sophisticated enough, and expensive enough, to upload a constant video stream which the security experts assured him was buffered for 24 hours, it would do little more than alert him that he was not there should his princess ever need him.

Hearing her soft breathing beside him he knew that she had fallen back into whatever dream he had disturbed. He pulled the covers snug about her slight frame then pressed his lips to her brow once again before leaving her to her rest. Choosing to let her keep the hours she had with her friends on the other side of the globe, he hoped to cut their trip short and return with her away from what he feared could quickly become a dangerous disaster.

CHAPTER 3

Henry’s Diatribe (Friday 9 am) (Paladin)

A black man should be killed if he’s messing with a white woman.

Muhammad Ali

… ask them their picture of a Christian, they’ll tell you ‘an exploiter, a slave master’. In America the definition would be one who promises you equal rights for a hundred years and never gives it to you.

Malcolm X

The slum is little more than a domestic colony which leaves it’s inhabitants dominated politically, exploited economically, segregated and humiliated at every turn.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

With a consistently implemented campaign of press agitation, carried out for many years, no people can be brought to make the most unbelievable and in reality truly suicidal decisions more easily than…

Adolf Hitler

––––––—

Every morning the city’s disenfranchised are invited into the reception area of Theresa’s Shelter where they can feast on coffee, day-old bread and some sweet soul food. Today’s homeless transients crawled past the service table like marching ants who are unable to pass by a line of their peers without falling in behind it.

What’s this? Henry asked.

Knish, eat some, Henry. You might like it, replied the aproned volunteer.

Hmmph.

He felt the crusty old pastry flake in his hand as he shoved half of it in his mouth with a nod of thanks and moved on. The television set in the corner drew his attention to the morning news and without averting his eyes from the screen he filled an empty cup of coffee, spilled some into his thick graying beard and drank his first taste of jo for the day then filled it to the brim again.

Henry sat wiping the last crumbs of his knish off his dirty sweater then listened to the news that aired on the shelter’s t.v..

In local news, Dr.Tyler’s Abortion Clinic has been the scene of increased protest and police presence since the bombing which injured two of the clinic’s staff only a week ago. No suspects have yet been arrested.

The anchorman on the television was replaced by a video montage of an impeccably well-groomed middle aged man.

The current CEO of Fer Minerals mining company, Jerry Simpson, Henry squinted to be sure he saw clearly then gave out a short grunt at the well dressed man on the t.v., declared his intention to run for the state senate. Grandson of the founder of the publicly traded multinational, he is known here and abroad for his no-nonsense business acumen and generous philanthropic activities.

Looking away from the screen with disgust, Henry mused philosophically about his fellow diners at the soup kitchen wondering if things had always been as they were then recalled a lecture he had given for extra credit while still studying history in college.

He stood at the rostrum in the auditorium with an awkward microphone hooked around his neck.

Hi, he said, can you all hear me?

Seeing them react to his voice he looked at his stoic old professor who sat quietly by ready to intercede should he get into trouble then began his lecture.

"In America, during the Civil War that devastated the fledgling Republic after centuries of brutal slavery, England profited from the sale of arms to the agrarian, cotton-producing, slave-owning South to fight against the industrialized free North that competed with her in the trade of manufactured goods. That conflict crippled the young nation and it’s Monroe Doctrine as well as any immediate pretensions of Manifest Destiny, preventing it from venturing any further than the Spanish Colony of Cuba during the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and southern reconstruction before Europe erupted into World War another half century later.

There were few arms for black American soldiers who despite their nominal freedom were slaves to the economics of hunger and toiled in ship galleys as stewards or other non-essential positions that earned them little respect from the fighting men of the segregated American army.

Henry paused to look down at his notes with his chin pressed close to the microphone which began to screech madly through the loud speakers, causing him to fumble with his papers before continuing nervously.

Still, service is service, and while in Marius’ Rome veteran soldiers were granted land for their service, the few black soldiers who were given the opportunity to show their valor earned the respect it gingerly afforded them and little else. The nation’s new found wealth of the post World War II boom raised the heads of America’s black community who a century after Lincoln’s emancipation were still shackled in America. Shackled by their endless cycle of inescapable poverty. America’s black leaders rose up and spoke out with the help of their religious communities. As RFK solicited the black vote recognizing it’s emerging importance for the Democratic Party, men like Elijah Mohammad, Eldridge Cleaver, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohammad Ali took center stage to bring Black America to it’s feet fighting for a better life in what history calls the Civil Rights Movement. As the sons of WW-II stewards were needed to fight in the jungles of Vietnam, black celebrities began to rise for their due of acclaim and when Corporate America compared the threat of teenagers being influenced by black artists like Fats Domino, James Brown or Chuck Berry to seeing leaders such as an articulate black militant like Malcolm X or an educated leader as charismatic as Martin Luther King, Jr. and his powerful I had a Dream speeches, My Ding-a-Ling won the contest and Johnny B. Goode who never ever learned to read or write so well became the cultural images approved by the white corporate promoters just as Malcolm X had recognized when he said that black people were scientifically maneuvered by the white man into a life of poverty."

Seeing his audience react to what he was telling them as they swayed to the rhythm of his voice he grew more confident and pursued his topic.

It was the fear of a Black Muslim uprising that kept Malcolm X from destruction at the hands of white Americans who loathed the thought of an organized and educated black tide in America. The northern black perspective of Malcolm X’s militant, violent call to arms made Martin Luther King, Jr.’s southern pacifist message palatable to white audiences. But when Malcolm X spoke of ‘capitalist bloodsuckers’ his bombed out home and other gentle warnings against him became lethal. In the age of McCarthyism when Roosevelt’s socialist plan had Corporate America (feeling neutered with the appearance of the EPA and SEC) co-opt Christian America to paint socialism as a sin against God’s 8th Commandment, thou shalt not steal" and that a poor man decrying his poverty committed the sin of coveting his neighbor’s house, with the help of their Republican President Dwight Eisenhower and his pillar of strength Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority gave the Koch brothers’ message of greed a Christian bent. The economy that thrived in Apartheid South Africa was an essential cog in the global struggle between capitalism and communism that became a prime target for Russian infiltration and aid to black freedom. Russian support of black freedom in South Africa as a means to disrupt it’s cold-war enemies influenced black leaders in America who’s own government gave financial aid to the wealthy white Afrikaans to prevent a financial collapse of what they saw as a profitable economic system. Malcolm X could speak against Christianity calling it a tool used to enslave black people and not suffer too dire a reprimand from the white man but when he criticized capitalism in