Chapter Four

Jake was startled awake by the vibrating cell phone and almost knocked over Sam’s coffee. “What? Oh, I’ll get it”.

Sam slid into an open parking space at the rest area and hopped out of the car to give Jake some privacy on the phone. The sun was just starting to come up on this crisp fall morning. He paused briefly to breathe in some cool fresh air and to take in the scenery around the building. The area was well landscaped and the trees were just starting to pop with fall colors. “Wow”, Sam thought, as he experienced that first moment of fall when you notice the color change. He sat down on a bench for a few minutes to enjoy this small wonder of nature. Sam recognized and appreciated these small moments and he knew that if he were working today in the factory that he wouldn’t have paid attention to the trees. But the occasion of the day had put him in a reflective mood. He took a few minutes to think about Uncle Bob and, by extension, his mother Lucille. She always loved the fall colors.

“Time to go”, he told himself. He didn’t want to be stopped for very long. He just wanted to hit the restroom, top off his coffee, and get back on the highway. They were making good time, but they still had a long road ahead of them.

Back in the car, Jake was scrambling for his cell phone and gathering his wits about him.

“This is Jake, how can I help you?”

“Good morning Jake. This is Ronnie at the shop. I got your message. Is everything ok?”

“Yeah, I should have explained more. My Uncle Bob passed away and the funeral is today. We’re on the road to Kentucky. I should be back in tomorrow.”

“Okay, we’ll hold down the fort”, Ronnie said. “You know we’ve got that meeting out at the plant today to go over the purchase order and discuss the installation timeline.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just preliminary and I have already laid all of the groundwork. Julie can take the lead on the meeting. Just carry everything over until I get back. Conference me in on the cell phone when you get started if you can.”

“Okay. Will do. You take care of what you need to and we’ve got it here. Hey, did you see the latest on the news yesterday?”

“Oh, man. Here it comes”, Jake thought. Today’s conspiracy theory, as only Ronnie could give it.

Ronnie was a senior engineer on Jake’s team. He had ten years in with the company, a little longer than Jake and therefore he had more seniority. But he was a technical guy at heart and had no interest in supervision, so Jake ran the crew. Ronnie was one of the best and most skilled at their job. He was a problem solver, an entrepreneur type, and a risk taker. But he was the go-to-guy when the team needed a solution to a tricky design problem. He brought a passion to the task at hand. He was also skilled at working with customers to evaluate needs, something that not all technical people were good at. So Jake needed and relied on Ronnie. Jake was closer to Ronnie than anyone else on the team, although their working friendship didn’t carry outside of the workplace.

Ronnie also brought a passion to his hobbies, and his main hobby was politics. He wasn’t a typical “watch the evening news and vote every four years” type of guy. He was a junkie. A news junkie. A political junkie. He was a partisan in the sense that he had strong opinions about the issues of the day and a strong sense of who was trustworthy or not. Ronnie wasn’t interested in the personal power aspects of politics as some are, and never would consider running for office himself. It was just a passionate hobby. Ronnie watched political news channels like most men watch sports channels. And, as a result, he was informed at a level that baffled most people. Certainly, if you wanted to know where a certain candidate stood during an election you could ask Ronnie and he would know. And it wasn’t just during election seasons, as this was. Every day of every year Ronnie was surfing the internet and watching cable news networks for the latest information. He knew what was going on in government at every level, good or bad.

Especially the bad things. Ronnie was, first and foremost, a conspiracy theory junkie. He wasn’t crazy like Mel Gibson’s character in the movie “Conspiracy Theory”. He wasn’t in the “tinfoil hat” wing of the conspiracy theory circles. But he was as passionate. He, of course, followed the common CT’s. Who really killed John Fitzgerald Kennedy, for example? Ronnie had cut his teeth on this old chestnut, and had spent a decade immersed in the details of bullet trajectories and exit wounds. Ronnie knew exactly how many seconds it took to fire three rounds from the Manlicher- Carcano rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald used. And he knew which frame number of the Zapruder film the fatal headshot started at. Ronnie was even thrilled when he was assigned to attend a convention in Dallas because it gave him the opportunity to visit Dealy Plaza and stand on the grassy knoll to view the scene for himself. That was a highlight day for Ronnie that few people would have understood or appreciated.

Ronnie was in his prime during the Clinton presidency. There was a wealth of conspiracy theories nourished by the CT community. Of course he was captivated by the impeachment trial, but then again everyone had some level of knowledge of those events. Conspiracy theorists are, by nature, tuned into esoteric matters that float below the attention of most citizens and are the province of specialized knowledge on barely known websites. President Clinton was a boon to the CT community and spun out conspiracy theories in all directions. Did he sell nuclear secrets to the Red Chinese armies? Did he designate parts of Utah as federal lands to reward campaign contributors in Indonesia? Did Clinton profit from drug trafficking kickbacks from the Mena airport in Arkansas while he was governor? How many of the people who knew of these issues died under mysterious circumstances? The whole eight years was a conspiracy theory goldmine.

Ronnie’s “favorite” CT in those years was the question of who killed Vince Foster. Foster, the President’s personal lawyer, was found dead from a gunshot wound in a federal park in Washington D.C. He was the President’s personal scandal lawyer and, therefore, the man who knew “where the bodies were buried”. And now he was a dead body himself. Although Foster’s death was ruled a suicide, there were suspicious circumstances surrounding the death and Ronnie spent hours reading the forensic evidence and official transcripts of the various hearings. He could recite offhand and verbatim the problems with the evidence: The suicide gun that had two serial numbers on it and that his widow couldn’t identify. The lack of a bullet or blood in the vicinity. The extra bullet hole in his neck that was visible in some of the photos. The disappearance of those same photos. The absence of dirt on his shoes after supposedly walking across a grassy field to kill himself. The presence of thousands of carpet fibers on his clothes, as though he had been rolled up in a carpet and dumped in the park. He knew the details of the case as well as he knew his own resume. Ronnie was probably the only private citizen in the state who had his own copy of the Special Prosecutor’s report on the death of Vince Foster, ordered from the Government Printing Bureau, annotated and highlighted and dog-eared. Now that was commitment.

Ronnie had to have outlets for all of his pent-up passion for politics and listeners for his theories. Mostly, it was his long-suffering wife whose eyes glazed over when he got started on a rant. Often it was his neighbors who got a monthly take on his views in lengthy and vibrant letters-to-the editor. Letters which caused his wife to stay in the house for days afterwards from sheer embarrassment. Now, mercifully Ronnie had a website to vent his thoughts on. His personal piece of internet publishing on his weblog, or “blog” for short. Ronnie was a blogger and as such he held his own as part of the blogosphere punditry by publishing articles daily on the important issues of the day. His wife humored this habit, grateful that his readership, if he had any, were not the folks she would meet at the supermarket.

Jake, on the other hand, got to hear about the contents of the latest conspiracy revealed on the blog on a daily basis.

“Okay, Ronnie. I’ll bite, but make it quick. What was on the internet today”, Jake said reluctantly.

“I told you this was going to happen. There’s a breaking story in the European press about the foreign billionaire who’s backing your candidate for President in the election. I was right that he’s buying up oil shares secretly on the market to drive up oil prices and screw-up the President’s re-election bid. That’s why gas is over two dollars a gallon! I’ll bet you big dollars that prices are going to plunge right after the election.”

Ronnie was probably right for all Jake knew. He was very informed and Jake didn’t keep a track record of his predictions. In fact, Jake barely tuned him in at all on this subject. He admired Ronnie’s passion for the news, but didn’t share it. Jake believed in working hard and playing harder and conspiracy theories didn’t fit that pattern and seemed like a giant waste of time. Plus, they made his head hurt just trying to follow the blitz of data.

“Ronnie, man, you’re probably right. But today’s a bad day for that. I’m not going to be able to follow you.”

“Oh, hey sorry about that.”

“And Ronnie, you shouldn’t be talking about this stuff on a cell phone anyway. You’re going to get on some government watch list if you keep this up!”

“Maybe that’s why I get screened every time I go through an airport”, Ronnie agreed. “I bet the National Security Agency has flagged my conversations.”

“Not to mention your blog, Ronnie”, said Jake. “You’re practically asking for it.”

“Yeah, you’ve got me there. But I can’t help it”, Ronnie laughed. “Sorry about bothering you today. You go do what you have to do and we’ll talk tomorrow. We’ve got the meeting covered.”

“Okay, I trust you. Call me if you need me”. Ronnie hung up and was shaking his head as Sam got back in the truck.

“Anything important?” Sam asked as he was buckling back in.

“Oh, that was just Ronnie with the latest breaking news”, sighed Jake.

“ ‘News’ type news or work type news?”

“Both”, answered Jake. He wanted to stop there and not discuss the work issues today of all days, but Sam wouldn’t let him off of the hook.

“So, did you get the purchase order?”