Episode 3

Previously on It Happened Here 2024. The Weeks family is plunged into the great leaders America where violence is building. He surrounded himself with sycophants, and they jerry rigged the government so nothing could stop his worst, most psychotic impulses. We were all trapped in the revenge fantasies of a very sick man. What happened then I changed everything? The shock of the 2024 election had worn off, and we wondered if there'd ever be another.

We kept saying we are better than we're gonna be able to do But every day we proved we were. The big thing I found out was that my Uncle Mickey did a bombing on campus that caused the death of Great Uncle Paul's boss. It seems like this is when the family started to crack up. Uncle Paul, I'm trying to get what was going on with you.

2026. Mickey's disappeared and may be dead after the bombing. You're still hanging on at the university. Most of your students are right wing. Did you think about quitting? And do what? Ah, I'm a one trick pony, Louise, in case you didn't notice. So I hung in there as long as I could, but I couldn't stop myself from trying to get my students to think about what was happening.

One Friday, I announced the weekend assignment. A think piece about why the talking points of the ruling party are so often echoed in the manifestos of mass murderers. Kelly and her cohorts glared at me. Afterwards, walking to the parking lot, a TA came running up to me, telling me that a fellow professor named Jody Simmons, a classroom hack who'd taken over as department head after Cal's death, wanted to see me in his office.

He said my application for tenure had been denied, and he'd heard I'd been engaging in revolutionary rhetoric in the classroom. I explained that if we pretend what's happening makes sense, then we're collaborating with the fascists. Every day we must fight against creeping normalcy. He smiled at my foolishness and asked if there was anything he could do. I said tenure would have been nice, you fucking traitor. Not exactly a Mr. Chip's ending to my teaching career.

During those long months of pregnancy, I'd be trudging the halls to my next class, feeling fat and sick and ugly, and wondering why I was still in school. I was spending more and more time with Ruth and Angelica, who made raising a child feel like the most important thing you could do. A baby meant hope, and there wasn't much of that around. The terror was when I was alone.

There were other girls in school who'd gotten abortions. Everyone knew who they were. But I was the only one who was actually having her baby. I thought that would make me an outcast, but instead I got invited to parties. and kids I didn't know would fist bump me in the hall. After all my desperate efforts to be popular, it finally happened. And I had no interest at all. The university took away my few remaining small classes, and I was left with just my big sixties lecture.

So I had plenty of time to obsess about Mickey. In addition to the horror that he'd done the bombing and killed my friend Cal, I had the selfish hurt that he'd planned it and pulled it off, and I never had a clue. How well did I know my own son? By then the three other bombers were awaiting trial. Mickey had either made it to safety or gotten killed along the way. The uncertainty was impossible to live with.

It was Kate who told me about Mickey's girlfriend D. When the time came, my dad and Terrence drove me to the hospital. They were a wreck, jittery and nervous, and competing over who could be more helpful, which was exhausting. Ruth was waiting at the hospital. She sent them off on some bogus mission, And I knew I'd be okay. The family and the country is blowing up, and you're still like in high school? Still dying to get out? I made it through in three years, as planned.

I just wanted out of everything connected to my town, my high school, and my family. David worked so hard with all the chaos around him. He wanted to go to New York for college, but he was so young, had no idea how much he'd miss us. Kate, you meet this guy RJ at the protest and he wanted you to work with him on his article. What happened with that? RJ's energy was terrifying.

I told him if he was any more intense, he'd get locked up. And he said if he was any less intense, he wouldn't be so fucking good. And I loved how arrogant he was, refusing to play modest about his talent. People have accused me of arrogance, but it was just an act I tried to pull off when I was feeling sad or worthless. I can't help it if they fell for it.

He was in New York hustling his story and I was at the U studying hard so I can go to law school and fight the daily destruction of the land. I was on a mission to get the EPA back to protecting what was left of our land. Which meant the ruling party would have to accept science, a subject that confused and enraged them. I met Dee at the student union for coffee. I told her I couldn't get past the hurt of knowing I wasn't as close to my son as I'd.

How could he get so deeply involved in this violent radical group without me having a hint? She admitted she felt the same way. He'd told her he was going out to Oregon, but had sneaked back into town and done the bombing and disappeared with no goodbye. So what was their relationship all about? She was both in love with him and furious with him, which made grieving even harder. I squeezed her hand and thanked her for seeing me.

We knew we were being watched and Anything interracial was suspect. The families were so violently at odds, I didn't tell anyone I was visiting the general. One day he said, How come my son Paul never comes to see me? I mumbled about how busy he was, and the general said, Well, Ruth, I know things are good with you and Paul because I've never seen you happier. The look on my face gave me away. So I told him that Paul and I weren't living together, and he said, is that why you're so happy?

I took a deep breath and told him I'd fallen in love with someone else. He nodded and I said, She's made me very happy. He stared right through me and I thought, here it comes. And he smiled. You've always been full of surprises, Ruth. Maybe that's why I like you so much. Usually he gave me a quick avuncular goodbye hug, but this time he held me tight. Ruth kept telling me to go see my dad, but since I had nothing to do, I could never find the time. And I didn't know how to explain myself.

After all those years when he could boast about me, I was done professionally, my marriage was over, and I was living with a bunch of drunks in a downtown rooming house. And I knew that there's no way he could ever accept Ruth and Angelica. Then he had his fall. Squirrels were invading his bird feeder and he went rushing out with a squash racket.

A soldier to the end. I got the call that the general was on his way to the hospital. I called Paul and Garrett, and we all met up in the ER. And that's how the brothers started talking to each other again. Me and Paul were a pretty good team when we had to be. Growing up with a mother with mental problems, we had to take care of ourselves.

I went to see the general when he was back home from the hospital. We found ourselves talking about that football game when David scored the touchdown, and he said, we should have a family party. And I said, you mean before we sell the house? That was the first time it had come up. He was quiet for a while. Then the two of us started talking about his future. We made a plan for him to go into an independent living facility I'd found called Blue Hill.

Me and Paul decided the days of our father rattling around that house were over. So we found a place to move them called Blue Hill. Garrett and I have spent much of our lives at odds, but I'm proud we were able to talk our dad into selling his house and moving into an independent living place I found called Blue Hill. Emptying the house landed on me.

It was overwhelming. The general had lived there forever, and when his wife died, she had been transitioning from collector to hoarder. What a job it was moving him out. But we worked together and got it done. That's what families do, sometimes.

By now, I'm in the picture. Right, Mom? I named you uh I'm sorry, her. Hadley Louise. But saying Hadley was too painful, so we called her Louise. I never knew how my dad felt about me getting pregnant. He swallowed it, along with his grief about mom. But day by day I could see him falling in love with Baby Louise. There was a bright new life in a dark house, and she demanded that we pay attention.

I'd bring her over to visit Ruth, who'd been married and raised three kids, and I'd hardly even dated. But there we were, being moms together. I told her I wasn't sure I wanted to go to the general's party. Ruth said it was my decision, and I should do whatever I wanted as long as I went.

I assumed it would be just my mom and I going to the party, but then I saw that she and Angelica were packing up Gabriel, and I whispered to my mom, so we're all going? She said, It's a family party. This is our family. I shrugged like You're the one bungee jumping. I hope you measured the cord. Once Ruth and I split up, I sold my car.

I'd spring for the occasional lift if there happened to be a free meal on the other end, but for the most part I was the guy who walked everywhere, talking to himself. Yeah, that guy. We were maybe a mile from the general's house when I saw my dad. along I said mom Should we pick up dad? She hesitated, then suddenly pulled over and backed up fast. He had to jump out of the way so he wouldn't get run over.

He came up to the car and she said, Hello, Paul. Would you like a ride? He said, No thanks. It's a pretty nice day. It wasn't. But whatever. We got there, and we're all in the backyard, dreading what the general will do when he meets Angelica and figures out what's going on. The families hadn't been together for ages. Mickey is a terrorist. Disagree about everything political and now this.

The door opened, the general came out, went straight to my mom, gave her a hug, and introduced himself to Angelica. The three of them started chattering away like old friends. He removed Gabriel's nose and We all breathed again. I was upstairs, panicked about what the rest of the family would think of me with a baby. I looked out the window and saw Ruth and Angelica laughing with the general. So I picked up Louise and said, honey, we're going in.

It's amazing how much strength that tiny person who turned out to be you gave me. Sorry, honey, I know you're not here. Just so you know, you're the only one who keeps doing that. Again, I'm sorry. I was talking to Terrence when he said Who's that guy? I said, that's your Uncle Paul. Paul was ambling up the driveway singing to himself, looking like he lived in a car. Terence said, What happened to him? He hadn't seen Paul for a while, so the new version was a shock.

Isaac and I talked about how awesome we were playing at his mom's memorial, and he suggested we start up again. I told him I was going to New York to see RJ, and I'd call when I got back. I couldn't stop thinking about Hadley. She was the one who held our families together. And I wanted to do that myself, but knew I couldn't.

I was suddenly overcome by my own inadequacy. And that's when I felt an arm around me. Isaac said, My mom would be so grateful for all you're doing for Ella, she'd be lost without you. How did he know what I was thinking? I said, Isaac, you are just like your mom. You never miss a thing. All week I'd been looking forward to this party. And now I'm a ghost. The kind of person you don't talk to, and nobody did. Then it hit me.

The last real thing that happened to me was a firefight, and right now I'm dying on the battlefield. Everything since, including this party, is what my poor brain is dreaming before slipping over to the other side. It's not real. I'm dead. I'm fucking dead. And no one can see me because I'm not here. My heart's pounding, and I'm thinking I have to talk to someone who'll tell me the truth.

I start to call Bobby and I'm just remembering he's dead too when my dad calls everyone into dinner. The general made a toast thanking Terence and Garrett for their service and said we have to fight the enemy, whether it's overseas or here at home. He was looking at me when he said it. Paul always deferred to his father. I don't know why he picked this moment to make a stand. I said, Am I the enemy, Dad? Everything stopped.

The general gave me this tight smile and said, You'll have to answer that question yourself, Paul. Everyone working against our government is the enemy. And I said, given that this government is taking away our freedom and our rights, I think anyone supporting the government is the enemy. I said, we don't need to do this. And the general said, I'm afraid we do, Ruth, we're at war. Those of us who served know that in a war you're on one side or another, right, Terence?

We all looked at Terence. He was eating his mashed potatoes with his hands. It was so fucked up. Poor Terence was busted in this crazy private moment, and my dad, who was always the great peacemaker, wouldn't let it go. He said, I'm not on your side, Dad. This country is in a death spiral. I won't be part of it. The general said, You didn't surf, Paul. You hit out at the university. You have never once thanked me, or Garrett, or Terence, for our service.

My dad took a big slug of wine and said, Thanks, guys. I forgive you for your service. You didn't know any better. But you sure as hell should know better by now. I thought Uncle Garrett was gonna jam a fork in Dad's head. As much as I wanted Paul to stop, I was proud of him. My brother's radical socialist left-wing rant played like gangbusters at the university. But there was no place for it at that table with three veterans.

I said, Paul, look what your precious ideology has led to. Look what your own son has done. You raised a terrorist. I think it's time you took responsibility for that. When Uncle Garrett said your son is a murderer, the night was over. I mean, how could we sit still for that? When Garrett called Mickey a psychopathic killer, I felt it necessary to point out that there was more blood spilled on his side of the table. Whatever Mickey did, he was trying to save the country from people like you.

My dad stood up, and it would have been an awesome exit, except he said, Come on, Ruth, we're going home. In that moment, he forgot they were separated. My mom was caught off guard and weirdly enough it was Angelica who took charge. She said, I'm sorry, but we must leave. How can we eat together if we're at war? She was so easy to misread. She came across as sweet and quiet and accommodating, but she had such fire in her soul.

Watching her seize the power in a room full of strangers, I completely understood why she and my mom were together. Nobody tried to stop us. We went outside and stood in the driveway. Angelica, Gabriel, David, Kate, Paul, and I. Paul finished his wine and threw the glass into the woods by their house and said, That was a fun family event, except for the family. We were laughing when I turned and saw Ella looking out the window at us. I froze.

Out of that whole awful day. That was the most awful moment for me. It happened so fast. the banter, grandpa's toast, the argument, and then they were gone. We were inside with the meal we'd spent all day preparing, and they were out there laughing. It was shameful. I started clearing the table, and my dad and my brothers helped. When we came back from the kitchen, grandpa had gone to bed. We were all upset, but I think it hurt Isaac the most.

One thing I don't get, Uncle Paul, after the great leader seized power, how come everyone went along with him? I mean, weren't there actually more of you than them? Good question, Louise. The truth is, once democracy goes away, it's almost impossible to get it back. Elections were rigged, Congress was too weak to make a change.

He had the todies on the Supreme Court in his back pocket, protests were against the law, and let's not forget the great leader was a master of inciting political violence. People were scared and with good reason. RJ's piece, revealing that soldiers disguised as counter-demonstrators beat up and shot protesters at Bears' Ears under orders by the great leader, landed in the failing New York Times, and then it was everywhere.

I went to New York and up to his room at the Warwick where he was talking faster and faster about sources telling him the government's plan to shut down all domestic protests. I finally said, RJ, I have to go. This is your moment and I'm in your way. He said, You can't leave. We're getting married. I burst out laughing. Not the most gracious response to a marriage proposal.

My dad had gotten bounced out of the university, and my notorious brother Mickey was either dead or on the lamb after blowing up the Psych Center. And my uncle Garrett and cousin Terrence were running campus security like the SS, so maybe it isn't surprising I decided to go away to college at Columbia. I got super focused on being a doctor and lost myself in the work, but every once in a while something would yank me back, like the shooting at my old high school.

People say I could never imagine it would happen here, but we all knew it was coming. Here's a surprise. The shooter was an isolated kid who spent every free moment in white nationalist chat rooms, got bullied at school, and had parents with guns they didn't lock up.

He'd had a run in with bullies from the Stop Bullying Now Club and decided to fight back. It shook me up. Thinking of those familiar halls splattered with the blood of kids just trying to get through another miserable day of high school. I started visiting my mom's grave. Standing there in the cemetery, I'd remember the times when she was a real mom, taking care of me and telling me what a wonderful little boy I was. Not the way she was the rest of the time. A cold-eyed stranger.

I was on what I thought was a date with this girl, Sophie, from my dorm. For me it was the first romantic possibility since I'd come to New York. For her, it was an economy move since her meal plan didn't cover the weekend. She's inhaling her tacos, like she was going to the chair, when I told her about the shooting at my old school, and she said the way to stop adolescent violence is teaching kindness.

Maybe because she'd made it clear she wasn't interested in me as anything but the guy who'd pay for her tacos, I went off the rails. And told her what she said was delusional, knee-jerk, liberal bullshit. Can mass shootings be stopped? Yes. And not through kindness workshops. Put serious limits on guns. Up the age of purchase.

with background checks and stand up to the ruling party's demonization of everyone who doesn't look and think like them. Since we don't even try to stop mass shootings, we want them to happen, which means we have a fucking death wish. And a country with a death wish deserves to die. I went on for about 10 minutes, like an unmedicated Kanye, or my dad during cocktails. I finally stopped. And Sophie was staring at me like it was a 911 situation. Then she said, Dave.

You and I need to get to know each other better. College was so much more fun after that. RJ liked bars even though he never drank, so we went back to the hotel. He ordered a burger and I told him I needed time to think about his marriage proposal. He said just say yes, Katie, you know you're going to. The man never lacked for confidence. I was on my third last drink when he was overcome by exhaustion.

We went up to bed and he was mumbling about the Electoral College and then he was asleep. Around 3 a.m. his moaning woke me. I called the front desk and they called EMS. It was such a surreal autumn with this sense of grief and panic and impending doom. We didn't think anything of the fact that we hadn't seen Isaac for days. RJ's last hours were so consumed by pain it was a blessing.

Kate and I were supposed to have breakfast at her hotel. I was in the restaurant thinking, how typical. I'm on time coming from the Upper West Side and she's late coming by elevator. RJ had Odeede, which I couldn't get my head around. He didn't drink or get high, and he went running every day in this sick, obsessive way. Or maybe that's just what I think of anyone who exercises. I couldn't get through to the doctors not being next of kin, although I would have married him just as he said.

In this swirl of paranoia, anyone trying to get information about RJ was suspected of working undercover for the media. or the government, or the Russians, so I got ignored, which pissed me off. I was headed out to escape the madness when David grabbed me and said, Did you forget? We're supposed to have breakfast. He'd been in his airtight student bubble and had no idea what was happening. We went to the coffee shop and I explained how he'd OD'd, but it didn't seem believable.

David listened to my rant and said RJ was poisoned. As soon as he said it, I knew it was true. That's why the doctors wouldn't talk to me. The overdose story would explain why the sudden major voice against the administration died in his moment of triumph. Kate told me it was a brilliant.

insight, and I was the smartest one in the family, and I'll be an awesome doctor. She'd always been stingy with compliments, and it felt wrong to be wallowing in my wonderfulness with her boyfriend having just died, but I couldn't help it. I don't have a lot of those moments. The only person who could have gotten to the truth of this mysterious death was the one who died. RJ would have made sure the autopsy saw the light of day, but I certainly wasn't up to the job.

So I stayed on at the Warwick and became friends with the bartender. He told me there was someone who wanted to talk to me, an anxious tweety guy nursing a Diet Coke. Turned out he was a doctor who'd seen the toxicology report. They found traces of gelsemium, a rare poisonous plant used by the Chinese for assassinations. Also the Russians. When the investigation slash cover up was complete, the great leader looked straight into the camera,

and told us that RJ Manning did not die in vain. His death was a wake-up call. The brilliance of the great leader was that he could express compassion, but convey the exact opposite. The real wake-up call was that it was now open season on journalists. On one side, there was hard evidence in the toxicology report that RJ had been poisoned.

On the other side, the great leader sang R. J. overdosed. The truth was a partisan issue, and instant polls revealed the overwhelming belief that R. J. was an addict whose death shone a harsh light on the pervasiveness of opioid abuse. They had the winning narrative, so the great leader announced Project New Day to lead the war on addiction, featuring federal rehab centers all over the country, the first one honoring R.J. I couldn't stop worrying about Kate and the war on journalists.

There was only one person who'd make me feel both better and worse, which is exactly what I needed. I got there early and she breathed in, her standard 15 minutes late. looking effortlessly sensational, and it was just like old times, except she'd fallen in love with someone else, and I was a bitter, aimless, jobless drunk. She was upset about how journalists would respond to RJ's murder. Was calling out the great leader on his laughably obvious torrent of lies worth your life?

Especially when much of the country seemed to have happily put down roots in his lunatic kingdom. If enough people bought the fantasy, did that make it real? Were we the ones deluding ourselves with reality when it didn't exist anymore? I told him we should do this again, and he said, it only hurts when we say goodbye. I watched him trudging back up the hill to his rooming house.

He'd always taken long sabbaticals in his head, but now it looked like a permanent residency. David found me in the bar, which didn't take much detective work. He said I had to go home because I was running through money and mom and dad were upset and he was in the middle of his finals and tired of making up reasons why I wasn't home. Kate moved in with Angelica and me, which filled me with dread.

We were so happy raising the baby. She immediately reverted to the most unappealing parts of her adolescence, with sullenness, mood swings, crying jags, and pointless arguments. She never put a dish in the sink, and always left the bathroom a wreck, and sucked the oxygen out of every room she walked into. Given what she'd been through, I didn't feel as if I could throw her out. But boy did I think about it.

It was great for mom and me to spend time together. I wasn't ready to move back to the dorm and it had been so long since the two of us could just hang out together. She and Angelica had a life that was all about the baby. And let's face it, that's pretty boring. So they were glad to focus on me. I dreaded telling mom I was moving out because I knew she'd be hurt. But she put on a brave face and offered to help me move to the dorm. We were ecstatic when Kate moved out. We got our life back.

But I worried about her constantly. Leading the long parade of her boyfriends going all the way back to middle school was R. J. We never met him. She wasn't with him very long. But I have no doubt he was the love of her life. After the disaster at the general's last party, The lines were drawn between our families. We didn't even talk about them, except when it came out that Kate's boyfriend died of an overdose in New York.

All my dad said was, I can't say I'm surprised. My dad was deep in his own head back then. Part of it was losing mom. But the thing he'd talk about when he was drinking was Mickey. How he got away with it. And it was pretty clear he blamed himself for how it went down. After a few drinks, when it was just me and him, Dad would say he was gonna bring Mickey to justice. Bring Mickey to justice. Whenever he talked about Mickey, it was like a whisper.

I knew Isaac needed me and wanted to start playing music again, but after RJ I just froze up. I couldn't help myself, so how could I help anyone else? What I didn't know was that his mystery friend Neil from Bear's Ears was at a motel six outside town. I joined a mommy and me group, which made me feel consistently inadequate, until I met another young mom, Nandita.

When the good moms were humble bragging, we were the bad moms, exaggerating our failures and confiding that our babies weren't really that special, and generally trying to crack each other up. They didn't like us and we didn't like them and there's no greater bond than that. Nandita wasn't married either, had disappointed her first generation Indian parents, was gloriously vulgar, super smart, and obsessed with pop culture. She was much more American than me.

All it takes is one person who makes you laugh, and suddenly your whole life is bearable. After the shooting at my old high school, you'd hear thoughts and prayers from everyone in power like a Greek chorus of meaninglessness. The ruling party pledged to regulate TikTok, since that was obviously the reason we were killing each other and guns had nothing to do with it.

I was raging about this to Isaac, and it all ran together with my grief and about losing RJ, and I didn't see how he was taking it all to heart. I was about to knock on grandpa's door at Blue Hill when I heard Aunt Ruth's unmistakable laugh. What the fuck? The families were supposed to be at war, so what were the two of them doing together? I headed back down the hall, and Louise started to cry. She wanted to see her great grandpa.

I once asked Nandita where she got the strength to soldier on, since she was on her own with a baby, and no money, and no job, and no family, and she said I'm the biggest coward in the world. I'd like to crawl under a rock. But Chandi won't let me.

The last thing I wanted to do was go in that room, but I had to do it for Louise. When Ella came in the general's room, I thought, how did we get to a point where she's afraid to see me? I told her I was glad she showed up today, because after that hideous family party I wanted to apologize for my bad behavior. She said, You sure you can finish that in one day?

Louise put her little hands out to me and I knew we'd be okay. I got a call from my brother Paul, which caught me off guard since we weren't on speaking terms after the party. He told me to turn on Wisconsin Public Radio Meredith Mason show. I figured it was some kind of music thing, but it was our senator taking calls about the school shooting. And I heard my son Isaac's voice.

Isaac asked the senator what he'd do to stop the shootings if it was his own daughter, Molly, who was killed. The senator told Isaac to leave his family out of it. Isaac said, that's what every family with a dead kid wanted, to be left out of all this. But they didn't have that choice, and you don't either, sir. Your daughter Molly never made it to her soccer game. What are you saying? Isaac said, you need to know what losing a child feels like so you'll take action and make it stop.

Meredith Mason jumped in to say this needed to be addressed off the air. Then she played a Fleawood Mac song. Most people thought Isaac was making a point to the senator. Me and my dad knew he was in deep. We just didn't know how deep. I'm convinced they were able to kidnap that child because of Isaac's pure soul. Look in his eyes and you trust him. Molly, the senator's eight-year-old, was supposed to get picked up right after school and driven to the soccer game by a friend's parents.

Neil, who was some kind of techno genius, hacked into their email. He told the parents that Molly wasn't feeling well and would be going straight home. When Molly came out of the school to get picked up, Isaac and Neil were waiting in their rental. I knew that Isaac and this Neil I'm telling everyone in charge that it's my kid and I can help. They didn't want my help. They had it all figured out. My dad and I found out from the news.

Just like everyone else. They wanted people to stay away, but hey, it's my brother. My mom and I watched on TV. They had somehow managed to grab Neil, and that's how they found out that Isaac and the girl were holed up in Neil's room at Motel Six. It was on the second floor, and the camera would zoom in on the room, and you'd see the little girl at the window in her blue soccer uniform. The reporter said the kidnapper wanted to make a statement directly to the senator.

By the time the Senator got there it was getting dark with a smattering of rain and there were bright lights shining on the Second floor balcony outside the room where they had the girl, like someone was putting on a show. Crowd was getting bigger and bigger and the National Guard was there, locked and loaded. Nervous kids with guns in front of a mob. Good plan. The senator was sitting in his limo and the crowd's getting restless. They wanted the show to begin.

I looked in the motel window and I saw Isaac on the phone talking to hostage negotiators. Then the senator gets out of his car and walks across the parking lot and stands there all alone looking up at the balcony. The lights are blazing and people got quiet. Kate and I were sitting on the sofa, barely able to breathe. Ted and I watched on the little TV at the rooming house.

The Senator was standing there in rain, and nothing's happening, so he turned to go back to his limo. That's when the door opened and Isaac came out on the balcony. I don't agree with what he did. making a crazy Hail Mary to stop the slaughter of children, looking at him with everyone watching. What I felt was

He was doing something that was absolutely wrong, but he was a hero. Unlike that coward Neal who skipped out on Isaac was saying he wanted the senator to stand up for Molly and every other child who went to school scared that it would be their last day on. It would take courage and political will, but it could be done. And the only way the Senator could understand that.

This is the one that would be to feel the loss of a child himself and Trying to placate the NRA and the great leader and the ruling party was no longer an option. This was his moment and he needed to act. Isaac was standing in front of the window while he was talking to the Senator. The Senator was nodding and agreeing with Isaac, but he was also moving to the side real slow. Isaac's moving along the balcony to keep talking to him. I saw it. I saw what they were doing and I screamed, no!

People turned to me like I was crazy. They missed what happened. As soon as Isaac moved away from the window, the little girl was no longer in danger. That's when they started shooting. They didn't fucking stop either. We ran into the backyard as if someone was chasing us. Kate kept crying, It's all my fault. We stood there in the yard holding on to each other. Through the window we saw the TV endlessly replaying the horror.

Isaac's death didn't kill me. And it didn't make me stronger. It just gave me enough sadness to last the rest of my life. When things are tough, my dad doesn't talk much. I mean he never talks much, but in hard times it's down to like nothing. That's how our family is. We went home and didn't say a damn word to each other. We didn't know how.

It was the hardest thing I've ever done. Driving over to their house. I knew Uncle Garrett blamed me and I had to face him sometime. It might as well be now. I made myself get out of the car and go up to the house and ring the bell, and I was about to leave when Ella opened the door. She said, I'm sorry, Kate, but you can't be here. I saw Uncle Garrett watching from the stairs. No one has ever looked at me like that.

Ella closed the door in my face, which was the end of everything. I was driving home when I blew through a stop sign and got blindsided by a 17-year-old boy and his daddy's Land Rover showing off for his girlfriend. If he'd been going a little faster, I'd have died. Guess he can't have everything. I was on my way to see Paul, 15 minutes late, right on time, when I turned left on Franklin and saw Kate's demolished car on its side next to the road.

We Americans don't believe we should have to experience pain. That's what we export to the rest of the world, and we've got the drugs to back it up. In one afternoon, I went from being trapped in the hot, twisted metal of my CRV with a massive physical shock that shut down my body to floating euphorically above the pain. I never felt a thing.

People shuffled in and out of my room and when I drifted up to the ceiling, I looked down on them and I couldn't stop laughing at how shaken they were. Didn't they get that dying's no big deal? It's not exactly a surprise ending for anyone over the age of four. I kept looking for the ever popular white light, but sadly it never came. I was stuck with the annoying fluorescent light in my semi-private room.

It was the same hospital where she was born. This is where she came into the world, a colicky baby with a lengthy to-do list, and this is where her life was ending. After days and days, I could pick up a few words from my visitors, and then the words formed sentences, and with grim resignation I could understand what they were saying. There I was, back on Earth. Hardly my favorite place in the universe. But what choice?

Everybody would say that Kate's accident was when everything fell apart for her. I think she's my hero because she somehow managed to survive it all. Her cousin Isaac wasn't so lucky. It seemed like the family was kind of busting apart, and I wanted to know what it was like for the rest of the country at that time. So, Uncle Paul, we're up to the fall of 2028.

It seems like the great leader had everything he wanted total control of the entire country, Congress, the courts, the press fawning over him. Did things get any easier for the people? because the ruling party's plan was to remake the country as a white nationalist theocracy with mandatory Christianity and laws against gay people and trans people and women and people of color. But many Americans clung to their religion and sexuality and heritage so The job wasn't done.

The Supreme Court had long since put down the Constitution and picked up the Bible, and they had an empty vessel in the great leader. Who would do or say anything to stay on top? But sometimes he'd surprise us just when we'd accepted we'd never have a chance to vote him out. He announced that big, beautiful new security measures now ensured the sanctity of voting, and we would at last have fair elections. It was finally here, Election Day twenty twenty eight.

It had been so long since anything felt normal. That must be why so many people wanted to believe we were back on track. Two weeks. Before the election, the candidate of the opposition party was arrested on a rape charge. A perfect example of how the terrible things the great leader saw in others were what he knew to be true of himself.

Of course he won by the largest margin in history, which he would have claimed even if it wasn't true. But sadly, it was. People were terrified not to vote for him. It's crazy that the country got turned upside down in such a short amount of time and life just went on the way it was before. Oh, it was very different.

But we still had to take care of ourselves and our loved ones. When Kate returned to the university, I remember thinking how tough she is, how she's always been able to set her mind on something and make it happen. Angelica and I invited her for dinner, and she was her old self until she had a couple of drinks, and then she was rambling on about how she was going to be a lawyer and fight the power, and RJ would live on through her work.

It was all pretty grand and repetitive, and we couldn't wait for her to leave. I saw the door to my bedroom slowly opening. I was too scared to do anything but lie still and hope Louise didn't wake up. Terence slipped into the room and stood over me. Lying there, defenseless, exposed, my childhood came back to me in a rush of buried memories.

Not the adored little sister childhood we'd all agreed on. Joyful Christmas mornings and carefree summer vacations in Canada, and hot chocolate by the fire after skiing. No. What slammed into me was my real childhood. Terrence hitting me, beating me, throwing me against the wall, and me crying so hard he gave me a dollar. What to tell mom and dad? I was such a good little girl. I jammed the abuse down into a secret place where I couldn't find it.

As a child, Terrence was a daily disappointment to Dad and fit in nowhere, and I was the only person he could dominate. I understood why I was so careful not to be alone with him. Why I could never relax when he was in the room. Why I still had a discoloration on my knee from when I'd been thrown against a bureau as a child.

The grandfather clock in the hall downstairs was chiming 3 a.m. I kept my eyes closed and hoped he wouldn't kill me. I could sense him walking silently to check the closet and look under the bed. And then he was gone. Gently pulling the door closed after him. There was a moment when I could have resisted the high. But I was hurting so much and I wanted to feel the bliss just one more time. Even though it was leading me into blasted-out places I'd never been, where I did things I never imagined.

And when it was too late and I'd gone too far to find my way back, what I remember is that moment when I still had a choice. I was getting ready to have lunch with Paul, running late as usual. And I couldn't find the pearl earrings he'd given me on Valentine's Day a hundred years ago. I was about to give up when I realized all my best jewelry was missing. When it hit me what had happened, I was so upset I had to sit down.

When I came home after the service I could work and carry on and make it through the day. I kept to myself and nobody knew. After Bobby died, it got harder. I'd hear a sound and have to look in every room. Having a baby in the house took everything up a notch. I had to make sure we were all safe. That was my job. I put a lock on my bedroom door. I couldn't sleep, knowing he'd come in to check on me and Luis.

One night, I was standing by the window, rocking Louise to sleep. Terence was in the backyard, checking the perimeter. I have never seen a lonelier man. We all pitched in to keep the rooming house free of rodents and remorse.

Tentative friendships formed, which isn't easy among people who have been let down by others or broken their trust or both. Ted and I would take a post dinner stroll to the park, and I'd deconstruct the political horrors of the day. He told the others that the professor was worth listening to, so a new evening ritual was launched. six or seven of us sitting around the fire in the living room as I held forth on my favorite subject, the great unraveling.

With my reduced teaching load, I had time to do some serious preparation for these talks. My makeshift class was pretty smart. Featuring grad students and alums who'd been hit with the contagion of bad luck wildfiring through the community and a motley collection of folks who couldn't live with their families but did just fine with the likes of us. There was a lovely young woman, Julia, who showed up one night and made it clear she was just there until university housing opened up.

By the time it did, she couldn't tear herself away from the fun we were having at 276 Brook Street. She heard me talk about how the great leader's fortune originated with his granddaddy's whorehouse. and was raised to new heights by his racist slumlord daddy, all of which taught the great leader at a tender age that if there was ever to be love in his life, he'd have to pay for it.

Julia suggested filming my political raps to send to her brother Jack in Bangor, Maine. Go for it, I said, which means I have to take responsibility for what happened. My company's contract with the university was about to end, and I knew they were considering switching to Odin Watch, a big national security operation. We had blown it with the bombing at the psych center, so we had to be perfect moving forward.

Terrence is a sensitive guy, and he picked up on the tension with everything that he was up against. Probably not a surprise he overreacted after a football game. The other team's fans are headed to their bus and there's a lot of trash talking with our folks. And I'm supposed to keep things under control. Their mascot is waddling towards the bus in his owl suit and he turns and starts screaming his incredibly filthy stuff.

It was upsetting to hear this from an owl. So I tried to get him on the bus and he called me a fucking psycho, which hit a little close to home. Then he turns and sucker punches me. I try to collar him, but he slips away. So I grab his beak and manhandle him onto the bus, and our fans are cheering. I thought it was no big deal, but of course everyone got it on their phone. And some genius slowed it down and set it to music. Some enchanted evening.

So it looks like I'm slow dancing with an owl. That's when it went viral. One evening in the fall, I was I saw Kate coming up the walk, thin and tense as if she hadn't slept for days. She dropped down on the sofa and started talking about how tired she was, and I told her she should take the rest of the semester off until she felt stronger. She said she couldn't remember why she was going to school and it was too hard. Never in her life had anything been too hard.

She said she wanted to stay with us until she could figure things out. I said, Kate, I love you and I want to help you, but we have a problem. Some of my jewelry was taken. She started to laugh. Mom, are you accusing me of stealing your jewelry? I told her I didn't know what else could have happened. She stood up and said there is no way she could come in this house ever again. She was crying when she headed for the door, and I stopped her and hugged her, told her how sorry I was.

how stressed out we all were and how I never should have said such a thing, and of course she should stay with us. I knew Angelica wouldn't be happy, but we had to take care of each other, didn't we? We were at a party with Columbia students and Sophie was with a group watching something on a laptop. She called me over to check it out. There Was my dad on YouTube? Whiskey in hand, giving a rant called the history of the future in front of a maniacal crowd of misfits jammed into the living room.

Every time the great leader lied. Breasts would grow an inch. At first no one noticed, but then the protuberances became an unavoidable issue, and under repeated questioning from fake news, the great leader's press tramp insisted. That the great leader's breasts were perfectly normal for a stable genius of his age. But the breasts kept growing as fast as the great leader lied, so he stayed out of sight at his McCastle in Florida.

Rumors were rife on cable news about the size of the great leader's breasts, and finally his raging ego engaged in mortal combat with his fear of humiliation. The Eagle won, and there's a rally of 95,000 at a raceway in Georgia that seats 2,000. With the entire nation watching, he comes striding to the podium, and the cheers of his poorly educated followers freeze. And the raceway is in stunned silence.

At the great leader. His enormous breasts slapping against his mountainous belly, his orange hair ablaze in the spotlight, his skin a quease-inducing color not found in And before he can speak. He hears the sound that has sent a chill down his spine since he was a desolate teenage racist bedwetter desperate for his clansman daddy's approval. It begins. Hysterical howls. And finally, and Encashed and I'm with you. T-shirts. SHOW US YOUR TI!

Others pick up the chant until the raceway is a crazed chorus of men, women, children, and dogs all howling, SHOA! Great leader. Ever eager. Flamed followers and there. World to see are the great leaders' enormous, swollen, sweaty breasts. Swinging Georgia Knight. reflexively lies. This is the biggest crowd in the history of He turns to address the screaming master.

Causes the monstrous engorged breasts to swing hard and accelerate and spin him around faster and faster, like the dreidel game he adores playing with his grandchild Arabella Rose. The great leader is a master. Of white breasts and orange hair and swollen, heaving belly, and wild, frightened, beastly eyes, and his final. Thought before he careens off the stage to be stomped to death in the pit of hatred and resentment he created is Why?

Sophie said, What do you think of this guy, Dave? I said, I think you're gonna be meeting him at Thanksgiving. I always knew I'd get fired by my dad. The way he did it was pretty strange, even for him. We drive to work together, and he says, Terrence, I need to see you in my office. So we're in his office, and he talks about how our town has been designated a zero tolerance zone where it's unlawful for more than eight people to assemble, so the university has to take security up a notch.

And my viral dance with the owl is a distraction in negotiation. I say, Dad, are you firing me? And he says, Maybe I can bring you back if we get the contract. Any questions? I say yeah, why didn't you just tell me at home? He explains that he wants to keep work and family separate. Like when we get home I won't be wondering why my old man fired me.

Once I hit on the saga of the great leader and his bulbous breasts, word spread, and the audience got bigger and bigger, until the living room at two hundred seventy six Brook Street was jammed every night. People sat on the floor and hooted and hollered and asked damn good questions. Ted, who used to fundraise for the Autoboton Society and knew his way around shaking folks down for cash, would pick up pizza and a few cases of old Milwaukee, and people would donate what they could.

My gone rogue teaching style was perfect for a raucous beer guzzling crowd of loners in a rooming house during the dying days of the Empire. I forgot about Julia who was in there every night filming. One afternoon, she gave me a check for$1,678.81. She explained she'd been sending the videos to her brother Jack, who'd started a YouTube channel that was blowing up.

He called it the Whiskey Hour with Dr. Paul Weeks. It was nice he'd awarded me a PhD, much easier than the traditional route. But I couldn't understand why he was sending me the cash. What's with this jarring outbreak of honesty in our me first fuck you era? She told me Jack was a full-time beekeeper and part-time clown, so he didn't need the money. David turned me on to Dad's new career as an online professor and nutcase. My mom and I would watch it together and laugh our asses off.

She said it was just like living with him, except you can turn him off when he got to be too much. Maybe an on off switch would have saved their marriage. I want to point out that starting here, 2030, I'm old enough to remember some of what they're talking about. Five years old. It's kind of hazy, but at least some of the time I'll know if they're lying or twisting the truth. Up until now, I've had to take their word for everything, even when I had my doubts, which I did.

So, Grandpa Garrett, you were trying to keep the contract your security company had with the university. What happened with that? Odin Watch got the contract and we were sunk. I bet everything on working for the university, and there was no plan B. I'd fired my own son for nothing. And now I had no job. The guy who handled the bids, Jim Bryant, asked if I'd stick around to help with the transition.

Easy to say yes when you have nothing else going on. But I Didn't know he made that part of the deal. He had no choice but to hire me as a conservative. I'd watch the whiskey hour in my room with the door closed. My dad and Terrence would have melted down into a puddle of rage if they'd seen what Uncle Paul was up to. At first, I thought he'd snap.

But the more I watched, the more it seemed like he was the only sane voice I was hearing. Students from the U would show up at two hundred seventy six. And they'd tell me how lame the history department had become since I'd been busted down to just the big sixties lecture. It was a teachable moment because I made them learn how to spell the Schadenfreud.

When Paul and I met for lunch, we talked to each other in a way that we couldn't when we were living together and raising kids and worried about money. We were inching toward a different kind of closeness. At first it was amusing when Paul's fans would stop at our table. Girls would flirt pretty aggressively, considering I was sitting right there. And Paul ate it right up, along with his BLT. Who doesn't like a major ego stroke, especially in front of your estranged wife?

But it was hard to have deeper conversations with people interrupting us to tell Paul how awesome he was. When I brought it up, Paul said, you liked me more when I was miserable. His whole happiness thing was hard to take. The online rants made my lecture even more popular. The lecture hall was huge and there was never an empty seat. The university set up a video feed in the lobby so students could cram in there and get a taste of the magic. It was pretty great being me.

Things kept disappearing, and I kept making excuses. I hated how weak I was with Kate. But I was afraid if I called her out I'd lose her forever. One night, I invited Angelica to walk to the park with me, and when she asked who'd watch Gabriel, I told her Kate was there. Angelica said, I will not leave my baby with an addict.

Paul and I never used that word, as if saying it would make it true. I started talking about all that Kate had been through, and then Angelica said she must move out or I will move out. So, there it was. I'd be alone in that house with Kate who was stealing and selling everything I owned. I knew if I thought about it, I wouldn't find the strength. So I went to her room, but she was gone. Maybe she'd heard Angelica's ultimatum and couldn't face that conversation any more than I could.

Being an exceedingly minor local celebrity had its purr. I suddenly had money and fans and a smattering of transgressive fame, which meant I had to guard my time. And since you didn't ask, yes, there were women suddenly interested in sharing my bed. That's all I'll say. Except because you obviously won't let it go. I'll just tell you it was the most promiscuous period of my entire life. Now can we drop it?

Thank you. Between sex and bourbon and exercise and podcasts and teaching, there weren't enough hours in the day, so something had to go. I chose exercise. It was a perfect situation. until Kate invited herself to move in to two hundred seventy six Brook Street. I said yes before I considered the implications. Where would she sleep? What would it do to my rollicking new life as a rooming house dandy?

The economics of dope are pretty simple. Every day you need to scrounge up enough cash to get high. My drug of choice, thanks to the generosity of my doctors following the car accident, was oxycontin, and when I'd run through that, I was in no shape to face the wreckage of my life sober. So it was game on, and the pills weren't cheap. I had nothing approaching a job or a future, and at that point I was too chicken to steal from anyone but my mom.

a testament to a solid Midwestern upbringing, so I started singing on State Street. It's hard to look your best when your life is consumed by hustling pills, which might be why my version of both sides now really got to people. This raggedy chick is living it. I'd sing it twenty times a day and the guitar case would be littered with enough bills to finance a tender night of oxy bliss. The cash was good, but even better was the streak. We tried to take care of each other.

As much as addicts can pay attention to anyone but themselves. It was awkward at first rooming with my daughter, but we got along pretty well, especially when she wasn't there, which was most of the time. It was a brief stolen father-daughter time we could share amidst the ongoing tumult of family and country. There was this one straight looking dude who kept coming back to watch me sing.

He stared at me like he had some kind of interstate sex slavery scheme in mind, or maybe just a boring job at a bank. It creeped me out, so finally I asked him, What's your deal, man? He suggested we take a walk and he'd buy me a panini. We're sitting on a bench and he starts talking about how I need to get off drugs. Thought I'd been doing a fine job covering.

I mean there were no needle marks, because I'd promised myself I'd never, ever shoot up. And I played every set on State Street as if it was Carnegie Hall. Didn't fool Dean. He said he was a drug counselor and he was there for me when I needed help. Over the next few weeks he seemed less creepy, which is not the same as falling in love, but when he didn't show up, I'd wonder why.

I'm packing it in at the end of another day of busking brilliance when he appears out of nowhere, all serious in a I feel your pain kind of way, and suggests another walk, but this time there were no paninis on the menu. We go to his apartment, which he shared with six others.

We walk past a towering bald woman playing the cello into his room, and he asks what drugs I've been doing. I tell him just the ones I can get my hands on. That's when he opens his sock drawer and gets out a baggie with a pretty impressive supply of black tar powder.

One question, I say, what the fuck? Turns out he used to be a junkie before he was a drug counselor. He tests himself every day, knowing the bag of smack is over there winking seductively if he's interested. That's how he knows he has a good one. has control and can handle any situation. He lays out a couple of fat lines, snorts one up, and says, I have power over the drug. The drug doesn't have power over me. Do you want to show the drug you have the power?

I tell him I'm steering clear of heroin since the review suggests it isn't that future oriented. We talk for a while and then start making out and then chased sophomores in the back seat of Daddy's Chevy Nova way. And then I do another line. We do a few more and there's this mellow wave of warmth and dare I say love that washes over me. I couldn't remember what I'd ever been worried about. I say, I'm ready to declare my major. I've tried everything else but this.

The streets were glistening, and I wanted to walk and walk and hold onto this feeling as long as I was. I said, Dean, if I sleep with you, it will be transactional, like I'm just doing it because you gave me the smack. I care for you too much to do that. He was so touched he almost cried. As I'm leaving, Dean says, Don't do it more than three days in a row. It's all about control. I told him I was lucky to have my own personal drug counseling. What could possibly go wrong?

I was sitting in a big rocker on the porch of 276 Brook Street watching the rain when Kate came up the steps, sat in the rocker next to me. She was so warm and affectionate, almost the way she was as a child. I mean, before she turned five, when she was done with all that. For years there'd been a gulf between us, but that night we connected.

She wanted to talk about family, especially my mother. She needed to know why our family is insane. I pointed out that every family is insane. Every family defies belief. When you see a loving family, it's generally a prelude to an inexplicable bloody massacre that baffles the neighbors. My dad never talked about his parents. Like some Vetsar about the war, it was too traumatic to mention.

For that night when I fell hard for heroin, there was something about the two of us on the porch in the middle of the night watching the rain that got him going when I gave a little push. His mother was warm and loving when he was little, but then she disappeared for what seemed like forever. When she came back home she was different. Remote, shut down, with angry outbursts. She slowly became more herself and struggled to be the perfect mom she'd been before. And then she went away again.

That's what my dad and Uncle Garrett's childhood was, their mother shuttling in and out of their lives. When she'd come back home, she'd have a frantic desire to make up for a lost time, and the intensity of her love was frightening. Then she'd be spirited away again. The brothers were told she was going to the hospital, but they had to figure out for themselves it was the Mendota Mental Health Institute.

When my dad was fourteen, his mom came home and made a point of going to his jazz band performances and Garrett's football games. For weeks and weeks, she was the mother they remembered, laughing, full of plans, involved in their lives. One Friday night my dad tagged along with Uncle Garrett and his friends when they went out to the woods and built a bonfire and drank beer.

The brothers moved in different circles, and it was a big thing that my dad was included. He tried to keep up with the others, drinking so much he got sick. When they got home past midnight they could see the general sitting alone in the kitchen. Garrett said to my dad, I'll do the talking, you try not to puke. They go into the kitchen and the general just stares at them, and they're ready to confess everything when he says, Your mother took her own life tonight.

My dad broke down telling me this. All these years he's connected getting drunk for the first time to his mother's death. As if he was somehow responsible. Kate got me to peer into the fog, and I started to see the hazy shape of things I'd been afraid to look at. Those first weeks of heroin were a wonder. I was falling in love with my abuser. I slalomed through the fear, grief, and self-doubt that had crippled me, and plunged into songwriting for the first time since Isaac.

There was a warmth and safety in those nights, with just me and my guitar and my drug of choice. I stopped worrying about the future. This life was all I needed. Sleeping with Dean was a small price to pay for my fix. He was as responsible as any dope fiend slash drug counselor and monitored my intake, sticking to his one rule about not getting high more than three days in a row.

That necessitated my finding another connection, Jake, whose one rule was maintaining clean needles, which was critical because he had talked me out of my one rule about never shooting up. Seem like a harmless weekend hobby, as opposed to the magnificent, heart-stopping leap into the cosmos that a needle provides. After a couple of weeks of Kate whipping up French toast for breakfast and flirting with the guys and making friends with the women, she'd become the hit of the rooming house.

She'd told me it hadn't worked out living with her mother, but didn't give any details. The small, petty side of me, which, full disclosure, is a bottomless pit of greed, envy, and insatiable need. was secretly glad that Kate and I were forging this new relationship while Ruth was unable to handle our brilliant, headstrong daughter. I started slipping into old patterns, like worrying until she got home.

One night I was drifting in and out of sleep, and suddenly it was five AM and she wasn't there. I went out for a walk, and when I came back shivering, and was about to go into my room, the door at the end of the hall opened. And she came out of Ted's room. We stared at each other, and she said, Hi, Daddy, in a small, hopeful voice, like a child. What's wonderful about my dad is also his word. He can be a pathological optimist even when all evidence points to the contrary.

I tried so hard to fit in at 276 Brook Street, but I was drowning. And he couldn't see it. Or maybe he didn't want to see it because then he'd have to do something. That afternoon I was in the first floor cell Phillips called the library, even though you had to bring your own book. I was reading a massive biography of Mussolini when Ted appeared. He announced that he had fallen for Kate, but now there was a fly in the ointment of their love.

When she left his bed in the morning, she'd taken the engraved watch his father had given Ted when he graduated from Muhlenberg. gold cufflinks from his second wife, an autographed picture of Alfrey Woodard, plus over three hundred bucks he'd saved from admissions to my rants, which he kept forgetting to split with me.

I knew I had to take action and I deeply resented it. Why couldn't I spend more quality time with the one person I loved unconditionally who was currently scrunched in a leather chair alone in the Rooming House library?

2032, I was seven years old. How come I didn't know any of this stuff going on in the family? Or in the country for that matter? Why didn't anyone tell me? Why didn't you tell me, Uncle Paul? We all worked extra hard to give you a happy childhood, which was practically impossible in the great leaders America. I hope it worked. I think it would have been better to tell me the truth. I mean, isn't that your thing? That's what we're doing now, isn't it?

The great leader was getting old, and some of us, most of us, dreamed of his death. He got tired of people talking about who would follow him as president. So one afternoon he emerged from the Oval Office with the oily, obsequious Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, smiling like two enterprising hitmen who'd found the perfect spot to hide the body. When Sophie and I heard they'd scuttled the twenty second amendment and there were no more term limits, We couldn't even pretend to be shocked.

This is where it had all been leading. For life. Anyone in his way would of course It was more important than ever for us to graduate and get out into the world where we can make some small difference. My co-workers at Odin Watch couldn't fire me, but they made it clear they didn't want me around, so they ganged up to get me to quit. My coffee mug kept disappearing. I had to keep switching offices. I was excluded from meetings and I'd get invitations to office parties after they were over.

My childhood was perfect training for all this. When they go low, I get stoked. Plus I couldn't afford to lose the job. One day my supervisor told me I had an assignment at Abrams Hall. He thought I'd say no and they could fire me. Think again. After Kate moved out, there was a rhythm to my life I hadn't enjoyed since I was a legendary almost tenured professor.

The lecture hall was SRO. Students jammed into the lobby watching the live feed, and I was on a roll, talking about how if the ruling party had pushed for racial inclusiveness and universal health care and voting rights. We'd have a thriving democracy, and the ruling party might be in control through a legitimate appeal to voters, rather than a fascist assault on democracy and the rule of law. That's when my microphone was cut off. Bomb threat? Fire drill? No.

The problem was political. A campus security guard gracefully vaulted onto the stage. Hello, Garrett, I said. Long time no see. Garrett said if I left quietly, I'd be Okay. The problem was the screaming students, which meant nothing would happen quite. He told me to ask them to leave, So I stepped up to the podium and pointed out that security was providing a real time example of how the state violates not only the law, but the spirit of our precious and endangered.

Your duty is to fight back or else the country is doomed and you'll trudge through the rest of your days in thrall to an ignorant narcissistic authoritarian mad. Good career move, Paul. Inciting to riot? They started trashing the lecture hall, then they spilled out onto the campus. joined by students pouring out of every building to be part of the protest. I called for security backup as it spun out of control.

The police came with tear gas and then the National Guard was called in. We did what we had to do. It turned out to be the biggest protest at the university since Vietnam. And I was declared an enemy of the state. I hoped I was worthy of the honor. I took the hit for the protest, and for the first time since I left the army, I was out of a job. I thought that was unintended consequences on Paul's part. Looking back, I'm not so sure.

Kate came back home, dirty, dead-eyed, unkempt, went straight into the kitchen and found a plate of vegetarian enchiladas, which she started cramming in her mouth like a wild beast. I said, Kate, this can't go on. You need help. She said, No, I need a family that loves me. I told her she had a choice: going to rehab or leave. She went to the door, turned around, and said, Take a good look, mommy. This is the last time you'll ever see me.

Mommy. Then she was gone. Next time on It Happened Here 2024. It's 2032 and the Weeks family is divided into warring camps. Their lives are shattered as the great leader rules with an iron fist. The other side of the family was blown to pieces, with Uncle Paul and Aunt Ruth split up, Mickey gone, and Kate a drug addict. David was the only one doing okay, and he had to escape to New York to have a chance.

My dad said, What can you expect from left-wing radicals who never discipline their kids? I always knew I'd get fired by my dad. The way he did it was Yeah. How I fired him and ruined his life, and somehow I was responsible for his mom. That's the only time my dad ever hugged me. All it took was me trying to kill him. Terrence, the misfit. The loser was giving him the

To me, the undisputed star of the family, who at the moment happened to be an emaciated drug addict with a rapidly diminishing life expectancy. What I do know is that during those years we needed each other more than ever. I'd like to think what Garrett did came out of Happened here. And directed by Joe Kakacci. The cast includes Molly Babos, Molly Cardin, Edie Falco, Santino Fontana, Luke Kirby.

Marianne Rendone, Tony Shaloub, and John Torturo. Our senior producer is Jess Hackle. Our composer Jared Paul. Engineering and Mixing by Justin Calder. Michael Joub. Show art by Eleni Tanaros. Our script supervisor is Graham Ferguson. Executive producers Joe Kakacci, Richard Dresser. Elliot Forrest. Morphos and John Whalen. This episode was recorded at Pullman Sound in New York City.