Snuff Money Laundering (USA) : Melbourne Indymedia

SNUFF MONEY LAUNDERING
Sydney Carlton
Nonfiction. Names have been changed..

“Videotapes. Snuff films. The killing of Stacy Moskowitz is on film. It draws a high price. The sick bastards. But this is ‘busines.’ The whole Moskowitz killing was orchestrated. The whole ‘capture’ was...”

Also, "snuff films" on videotape. And that, sir, is *proof*. This is not just sick. It is big business. Someone has gotten rich off the bloodshed, and I can back every single word. I'll give you facts.

From: The Ultimate Evil, by Maury Terry, 1987 Doubleday and Company, Inc. Garden city, NY pages 380 and 385.

“Now in a nutshell, the Son of Sam killings, the .44 killings in New York City, are linked in a hard way with this organized crime cult -- which is what I'm gonna refer to it as... In addition, they link the Manson killings to this same group. And they point out that both Manson, *and* David Berkowitz, the man convicted in the Son of Sam killings...

In a subsequent assassination, Lucas and Toole were dispached to murder the ``money man'' at the Chihuahua ranch, who was considering`retiring'' from the kidnaping and ``kiddy-snuff'' business.” From:
http://www.totse.com/en/religion/satanists/ussatan.html
There is disinformation that snuff films are only a legend. The Italian police had no difficulty apprehending a Russian selling snuff films of children. http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4070446,00.html
FORWARD

While we ignore this disgusting business, the wealth and influence of the snuff film producers and merchants grows every day..
The system is perpetuated by medical and liability insurance industry money laundering. This system has one Achilles’ heel, exposure. Exposure of this money laundering system will cause its demise.

My sister and brother-in-law arranged 1991 Yogurt Shop Murders in North Austin, Texas. Along with my father, they are responsible for many similar murders and staged fatal accidents. I have spent the last five years of my life attempting to avoidbeing part of their business. I did not become fully aware of their activities until 2000. I do not expect to live much longer.
Three young men have been wrongfully convicted for the Yogurt Shop Murders. Their cases are at: http://www.texas-justice.com. I don’t know how many more are suffering in prison, for my family’s other crimes.

SNUFF MONEY LAUNDERING
DAVID

David Grisham was John Grisham’s younger brother. We met in 1975, when my sister and future brother-in-law were making wedding plans. I was twenty. David was seventeen.
We met at my parents’ home near Rock Hill, South Carolina. My parents owned a forty acre farm. There was a small river that curved around the farm and formed most of the boundary. There was also an oxbow marsh where the river had once run.
“It would have been nice to have a brother.” I told David. I had grown up with two sisters. Glenda was my older sister, and Emily was two years younger than I.
“Yea, it’s great!” David exclaimed.
David’s demeanor told me his bond with his older brother John was very important to him. John, on the other hand, was aloof to David. John was much more focused on his relationship with his future bride at the time.
Emily had called me few months earlier.
“How would you like to have a younger brother?” she asked.
This was Emily’s way of telling me of her engagement to John, I thought. After years of torment, I would understand the malice behind that question.
Nine years later, my mother told me about David’s death.
“He died in an automobile accident. He had been married for three months. It wasn’t really an accident, though. It was suicide.”
There was a sound of resentment and belated acceptance in her voice. We were outdoors, and alone. My father was out of earshot.
At the time, I was not aware of the motive behind David’s death, although I suspected it involved an insurance settlement. I did not know that John had used the emotional leverage of his elder brother status to coerce his brother to take his own life.
David’s beloved bride had completed the process of brainwashing Danny to end his life. She, John and Emily had been David’s sole human contact during his three month “honeymoon.” David’s human desire to be loved and accepted would be indulged only when he cooperated with the program. Like Patty Hearst and subjects of cult programming, David had been surrounded by people bent on controlling him.
Six months after David’s death, my sister’s third and final child was born. He was named David.
At the time, it seemed strange to me that a man would commit suicide, so soon after being married. Strange things were happening in my life, as well.
I was not aware of my family’s heinous activities at the time. The worst thing that I believed my father had done was to vote for Richard Nixon. Although the genocide of Vietnam continued under Nixon’s reign, it now appears that his resignation was engineered by covert, regressive forces like the CIA.
History may vindicate Richard Nixon, but my father’s descent into evil continued. My father became an extension of a monstrous killing organization. He masterminded dozens of deaths. He became a man who could kill his own children.
During my childhood and teenage years in the 1960’s and early 1970’s, I would often ride with my father during his work day . He was a District Forester for an international lumber company.
One conversation with my father struck me as very strange. I mentioned the 1960 U-2 incident to my father. Gary Powers had been shot down over Soviet territory, in a spy plane.
“It cost us a lot of money to get him back. He was ordered not be captured alive,” My father explained. “He was being very well paid for the risk he was taking. His family would have been well taken care of.”
It sounded as if my father knew the incident had been planned. Years later, I learned all that was needed for Powers’ U2 to stall was a half empty oxygen supply canister. Gary Powers stated that he was shot down because of information supplied by a defector to the Soviet Union. That defector was a US military radar operator named Lee Harvey Oswald. Years later, Gary Powers was killed in a helicopter crash.
My younger cousin, Preston, joined the Army in 1977. I wanted nothing to do with the military, having grown up viewing photographs of the My Lai massacre. I did understand the laws of supply and demand, however. Preston joined when the “All Volunteer Army” was desperate for recruits.
After four years in the Army, Preston became a police officer in Charlotte, NC. Preston had two favorite political jokes. The first joke was “The thermostat isn’t the only thing Nixon wished he could turn back to ‘68.”
“What did Ted Kennedy say when asked about being nominated as a Presidential candidate?” was Preston’s second joke.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
I relied solely upon mainstream media for information at that time. Twenty-five years later, I learned that professional swimmers could not duplicate Ted Kennedy’s alledged swim across the Chappaquidick.
My father had also “explained” the Chappaquidick incident to me. “He got that girl pregnant! She threatened to go to the press, so he killed her.”
The last time my father and I rode together was during my third year in college. He told me about the accidental death of a worker at the wood yard.
“He was only nineteen years old!” my father said. “He was crushed between two railroad cars.”
“That’s too bad. That must have been a very large insurance settlement.” I said. I was in my second semester of business law, and wanted to show off my understanding of how the world of business operated. I did not understand the implications of my own words.
That was soon after my father had received an exceptional promotion. He had reported to the head of the timber department. The boss’s chair became vacant when his corpse was removed to an ambulance stretcher by emergency medical technicians. My father’s superior was pronounced DOA from a massive heart attack. He was 47.
Several years later, my father was removed from the same position. He was given another job change, to Timber Procurement Coordinator. He explained to me how he could expect to “live a lot longer” by accepting the demotion.
My father’s military career resulted in the historic upward mobility of the World War Two veteran. My father was the son of a Swedish immigrant. My grandfather worked as a union carpenter, in the Chicago suburbs. His other son became a union carpenter, too.
My father took advantage of the opportunities of war. The Army supported him through two years of college. This spared him the period of World War Two when US casualties were highest. His surveying classes laid the foundation for his Master Of Forestry. The Army’s college program was terminated in early 1944. More replacements were needed for combat.
I often heard the story of my father being hospitalized for an unexplained stomach ailment, in 1944. His hospitalization spared him the suicide attacks of D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge. Another uncle of mine was fortuitously wounded in his foot at the Battle of the Bulge. He was evacuated when it appeared his unit was about to be surrounded.
My father never told me about his Army surveying experience. He did tell me that he was in an occupied area of Germany that was given over to Soviet control.

1973
I went to the last mass Vietnam antiwar demonstration, opposite to Nixon’s 1973 inauguration parade.
“Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh. NLF is going to win.” We chanted. (For the younger generation, the NLF was the National Liberation Front. It was the political arm of the Viet Cong, enemy of the South Vietnamese and United States military forces in the Vietnam War.)
Men who were born in 1953-54 have an odd niche in history. We were the first eighteen year olds allowed to vote, and the last to register for an active military draft. I completed the necessary paperwork to register for the draft as a conscientious objector. I did not, and still do not, believe that it is right for a human being to take another person’s life. My genuine personal beliefs became both my undoing and salvation, almost thirty years later.
I had no intention of going to the Vietnam War even as a conscientious objector medic. Although you may not accept my point of view, I do not believe in war. That was during the last year of the draft, and there were few draftees.
The Vietnam War finally ended. I believed that the people and government of the United States had learned their lesson. Arrogant ambitions of world domination by the United States were a thing of the past, I believed. The draft and war ended. I became just another pot and tobacco smoking, beer drinking decadent slob.

1975
I was apathetic and cynical. Some of my values must have remained, though. Ten years later, my wife would describe me as someone with ‘hippie values.”
Like my father, I muddled through college with mediocre grades. I graduated in 1976, without a job. There were several suicides of new college graduates that year. They were despondent from seeking nonexistent jobs. I finally found a career as an assistant department manager in a department store. Before that year, the department store chain had required only a high school education for new managers.
I became part of a new phenomenon in the economy of the United States. I was underemployed. I struggled to concentrate on supervising the bored department employees. I tried to forget the higher level of thinking I had been exposed to in college. I read and wrote letters for my illiterate boss. I struggled on the small salary that retail management provided in the late 1970s.
My brother-in-law’s career went differently. When John graduated from college, my father found him a job on the labor force of Thomison Industries. Under the dictates of its Canadian union contract, Thomison Industries was the highest paying employer in the county. Two years later, Tom became a sales representative for a friend of my mother. John developed a very successful career in sales.
John had met my sister when they were college freshmen. Joan had been Emily’s best friend, since the eighth grade. John was engaged to Joan, when he was introduced to my sister.
John and Emily started a family early. Emily had her first child six months after she and Tom graduated from college. They were both two years younger than I.

1978
I left the store management position in 1978 and moved back into my parents home, commuting to work in Charlotte.
I left the confinement of retailing. I worked on commission, cleaning carpets and upholstery Charlotte, North Carolina. The freedom of the cleaner’s van was exhilarating, compared to the confinement of the crowded discount department store.
With a shortened work week, and weekends free, my use of marijuana and alcohol escalated. Although I had personal use of the carpet cleaning van, I avoided using it while intoxicated.
A friend of mine, in Rock Hill, was not so careful. In 1979, he began serving an eight year term for manslaughter. He was drunk and high, when he killed the child on a bicycle. Since my friend was driving a vehicle owned by his employer, the lawsuit was for more than a million dollars.
I enjoyed my commission cleaning job. Working on commission, I could earn my keep in less than the standard forty hours. I wasn’t saddled with the mandated forty-eight boring hours of storekeeping. This worked well, until “Supply Side” economics whittled down my rewards and energy. The customers expected more and more for their dollar, while I received less and less. It was as if an unseen hand was limiting me to subsistence earnings.
I regularly mailed my resume. I applied for sales jobs appropriate for my education. The usual reply was that “ a better qualified applicant was selected.”
The unseen hand was attempting to push me toward pursuing a Masters of Business Administration Degree. The unseen hand did not recognize that my undiagnosed ADD made the calculus prerequisites an almost impossible obstacle. I did not recognize that the same “unseen hand” might also give me undeserved passing grades.
I answered an advertisement for a roommate in Charlotte, and left a message. My mother was quick to bring me the telephone when my call was returned.
I moved into the two bedroom apartment with Randy, the next week. Jane and her sister, Nancy, lived next door. Jane and I soon became friends, sharing our fondness for marijuana together. Eventually, we shared our fondness for sex as well.
Six months later, Jane and I moved away from each other. The apartments we had lived in were converted to condominiums. Our affair was on and off for two years. Whenever I wanted to sow wild oats, I would stop seeing Jane. Somehow, fate would bring about a chance meeting. We once chanced upon each while fueling up our cars. We lived miles apart, and there were dozens of gasoline stations in the area. Fate brought us together again!
Jane had been even more sheltered than I was from e world events and popular culture of the 1960s. The eldest of three children, she was often held responsible for her two younger sisters. Jane was sheltered from the Cold War conflict and social upheaval of the 1960s. She wasn’t sheltered from her father.
Jane’s father’s history was much like my own father’s. Carl was the son of skilled laborers, but in a small southern town. The war and GI Bill allowed him education and upward mobility, in an era when war and upward mobility were synonymous. Carl’s engineering and electronics education allowed him to enjoy the data processing boom, beginning with the first UNIVAC computers. His exceptional income gave him absolute power over his family. His wife, Beverly, obeyed his every whim. She didn’t question him wanting to be alone with one of his two daughters every Saturday afternoon. She didn’t question the bloodstains or the semen on the towels, either.
As her parent’s marriage crumbled, Jane assumed more responsibility for her siblings. Beverly was spending more and more time at the new Mall, spending more and more of Carl’s paycheck. Jane was left to mind her sister and brother. Unable to punish them, she learned to control them with a scowl and angry mood.
Jane told me about the abuse. She told me that it was more about power, than sex. It did not appear to me that the abuse had caused any psychological damage. That was when I believed the standard authorities of psychology. I did not know about Operation Bluebird, the CIA experiments with deliberately molested children. I did not know about the deliberate molestation of children by satanists to attain power over them.
My mother was ecstatic when I told her of my marriage plans with Jane. We were married in 1981. Jane was obliged to become my wife.

1980
In 1980, my father urged me to come with him to a family gathering at my uncle’s house. My father picked me up at my home in Charlotte. We took the three hour drive to my uncle’s home outside of Raleigh.
My relatives were the only people I knew at the gathering. Two cousins, my sister and father were the only familiar faces there. The was great discussion about the failed hostage rescue attempt in Iran. There was also a lot of snickering. Years later, I understood that they were reveling in the staged downfall of Jimmy Carter’s presidency.
My sister told an anecdote that everyone at the whole gathering laughed about.
“Mother called me last month. She was crying ‘your father... your father’” My sister said, imitating my s sobbing mother.”
My sister groaned with an anxious tone. “I thought ‘Oh no.’”
My sister smiled as she said, “Your father had to bury Charley today.”
Charley was an old horse that grazed in the pasture in front of my mother’s house. Everyone, except me, chuckled and smiled at this humor. The story seemed mildly funny to me, but hardly worth telling.

1983
I was home when the telephone rang.
Jane told me. “Richard, I’m all right, but I’ve been in an automobile accident. Your cousin Pressley was there to write the accident report. It wasn’t my fault, but the Pinto is totaled.”
“We just had the engine rebuilt in that car! It can’t be replaced.” I lamented.
“It will be all right.” Jane said.
We had purchased the small Pinto for $400. It cost another $1000 for a friend of Jane’s to rebuild the worn out engine. With that small investment, I had expected to have a reliable car that would last for years.

1985
“Where am I?” I asked
“You are in the hospital. You have been in an automobile accident. We haven’t been able to locate any of your family. Here is a telephone. Is there someone you can call?” the nurse told me.
My head was throbbing, and my ribs had stabbing pains. Jane and I had just moved into a new mobile home, on the outskirts of Charlotte. I did not have my new telephone number or address with me, so no one could contact Jane. I called her, and told her where I was.
The nurse also gave me contact information about the accident. I was to contact the police officer who filed the accident report. It was my cousin, Pressley.
The accident had happened on my home from work. I was trying to make something of myself. I was working fourteen hour days, on a bread sales route. Tired and frustrated, I ran a stop sign while driving home in my car.
Jane joked for years about the incident. We had made love that morning, before I left for work. She joked that we would never make love before I left again.

1988
Twelve years after college, I was driving a bakery delivery truck. I had been passed over for promotion to route supervisor.
The gas fumes of the truck made me feel nauseous and confused on occasion. This had also happened a few times before, when I used the carpet cleaning chemicals.
I had been in another automobile accident, six months earlier. I was driving back to the terminal, in Harrisburg, NC. My side of two lane Highway 49 was blocked by a car making a left turn. The car in front of my did not have its left turn signal on. It was as if the three people in the car wanted me to hit them.
While I was waiting for the car in front of me to move, a frantic housewife slammed into the back the bread route truck I was driving. The housewife was driving about fifty miles per hour. She looked up from the soft drink in her hand and saw the back of my truck. There was only six feet of skid marks. Her nose was crushed by the steering wheel of her car. Fortunately, that was the extent of her injuries.
The driver’s seat of my step van rested on a hollow metal post, four inches in diameter. The seat was whipped back and forth by the force of the collision. Fortunately, I was wearing my seat belt. My head missed a metal post by a couple of inches. I was glad to be alive.

The highway patrolman who wrote the accident report asked the witnesses if they had seen me slam on brakes. He asked me the same question. It took some convincing, but the officer finally wrote the housewife a ticket for “unsafe movement.” The accident was her fault.
The officer asked me if I needed an ambulance, or a ride to the hospital in his patrol car. I declined. With the seat somewhat repositioned, I managed to bring the truck back to the terminal. The terminal was on the other side of Charlotte, eighteen miles away. I had finished his deliveries, and had been on my way back to the terminal, when the accident happened.
The other route salesmen were very surprised to see me return to work the next day.
“You could have retired!” one of the other route salesmen said.
“They can’t tell if you are really hurt or not with a back injury” a salesman, nicknamed Froggy, said. “No one would have questioned your being hurt, with the way that seat looked.”
“You don’t know how many times I’ve been sitting a stop light, wishing that would happen to me,” chimed in another route salesman.
“My friend Tom Hopkins got hit like that, and he didn’t work for four years. Everywhere he went, he wore that neck brace.” Froggy laughed.
It was the next morning, while the other salesmen and I were loading the trucks. My supervisor was going to assist me that day. Except for some soreness, I didn’t feel very bad. With the debts that Jane and I had, I could not afford to stay home. I would have to be out a week, before Workmen’s Compensation kicked in at two-thirds of my regular pay. No way!
The third day after the wreck, I really did begin hurting. It was a hot burning pain in the lower back, below the belt line. I had a very sore left shoulder, with some burning and tingling in the left arm. There was a lot of pain from what I would learn was sciatica, a painful nerve running down the outside of my left leg.
An insurance adjuster had been calling me at work. She had been implying that if I didn’t settle the personal injury claim immediately, I could be fired from my job
I was in serious pain. The chiropractor recommended by a friend of Jane required that I have an attorney on file, in order to be treated. He referred me to the firm of a young attorney. The young attorney would accept the case on assignment. The law firm he represented would receive forty percent of the insurance settlement proceeds. .
“This statement means that if there is any evidence of fraud, we will discharge ourselves from representing you and your claim. But, looking at you, I don’t think that will be a problem,” the young attorney said.
The chiropractor and attorney assured me that my injuries were limited, since I had not left the accident in an ambulance. They also assured me that it wasn’t unusual for symptoms of a back and neck injury to manifest themselves days later. Ralph was beginning to develop a large constellation of symptoms.
After three weeks of treatment with the chiropractor, my pain was much less severe. The low back burning and pain were gone. The strange tingling and burning in my left arm and leg remained. The chiropractor released me, stating that he “could not justify further treatment.”
The chiropractor did suggest that my problem might be stress related. He suggested psychotherapy. He told me that my attorney could argue emotional trauma, as a reason for my symptoms and a way to get a higher settlement. Emotional trauma wasn’t the reason for the pain.
A few days after being released from the chiropractor, my back pain was worse. I told my attorney that I was not fully recovered from the accident. The attorney implied that I might be malingering. Furious, I dismissed the young attorney and found another attorney. The other attorney was an old litigious dog. He referred me to a well-known orthopedic clinic, and the surgeon who operated it.
My former attorney was enraged. He couldn’t believe that someone would have the audacity to dismiss him. Especially after he had explained to me about the close relationship he had with insurance adjusters. I had made an enemy. Or enemies.
Jane worked in an insurance office herself. Her friend Samantha worked in insurance claims. Jane told me that a $50,000 contingency reserve had been placed to cover my injuries from the accident. I ignored this information. I knew that I would never receive that much money.
When the new orthopedic surgeon examined me, I described all of my symptoms to him. He asked me if I left the accident in an ambulance. I told him no.
“Just shook up!” the orthopedic surgeon declared.
He said that I could not be hurt too seriously, since there was no medical justification for surgery. The surgeon said that the chiropractor’s previous x rays were not very good, so he made his own. I couldn’t tell the difference.
After being treated by the surgeon for three months, I was released. I complained to the surgeon that I was still in pain. I expressed fear that I might be becoming addicted to his medications. I tried to be as honest as possible to the surgeon, not wanting to be considered a fraud case.
The chiropractor had mentioned that I could claim that emotional trauma had caused my symptoms. There was only one problem. I really hurt like hell. He didn’t want a therapist trying to convince me that my pain was psychological. (Later, I would learn that all physical pain takes its toll on the health of the nervous system. Biochemically, pain and emotional stress are virtually the same. Pain is stress, and stress irritates pain.)
I have always been a loner, and hadn’t thought it to be such an abnormal state. I am an independent thinker as well. I learned about pain management. I purchased an inexpensive biofeedback device, and learned to bring chronic pin under control. Eighteen years after that accident, I am still in chronic pain. It isn’t severe, as long as I ignore it.
The biofeedback training was useful for managing chronic pain. The relaxation training helped me to overcome the addiction to the orthopedic surgeon’s prescriptions.
Although I seemed to have a good marriage, Jane and I were not soul mates.I joked about my parents’ attitude toward my lack of children. They didn’t care about me at all. All they were interested in was when I could supply them with grandchildren.

My career failures did not bother me. At least I was working outside and on the road. I was away from the mind set of the 1980's office workers who were flocking in to Charlotte. Charlotte was becoming a regional financial center.
I thought the brick walls surrounding the new developments were ludicrous. The walls appeared to be defense fortifications for the new homes being built. These homes were not the split-levels and one story ranch homes built during my 1960's childhood. These were three and four story palaces with five, six or more bedrooms.

1990
I became a father! Jane and I joked that another couple our age had recently become grandparents, so it was time to start a family. My daughter, Shirely, was a joy. We were together during nearly all of my waking hours, when I was not at work.

1992
I muddled through life, while my sister and brother-in-law were masters of it. After ten years of sales work in central Texas, John built a home on the face of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was 50 miles from Asheville. John commuted by air to his sales appointments during the week.
I had very little contact with my sister, during this time. I did receive a round robin letter in the mail. It was circulated by Emily, for all of our other eleven cousins. We could each tell our personal stories. We could write whatever they wanted to about their lives. John said he might use it for a group biography one day. Embarrassed with my failures, I didn’t submit anything. I sensed there was something malevolent about Emily’s motives for the letter. Instead of mailing it to the next cousin on the list, I left it in a closet for a year a half.
Eventually, my father confronted me about the letter. I had forgotten all about it. He was quite angry, and insisted that I bring it to him immediately.
I remained in Charlotte. I lived about an hour’s drive from my parent’s home. My father still liked me to visit, in spite of his prodigal son’s failures. He always inquired how my work was going. Strangely, he seemed to encourage my mediocre route sales career, especially driving a company vehicle.
My independent research led me to the conclusion that I have adult Attention Deficit Disorder. I managed to get an appointment with a Doctor Saxon, who specialized in Adult ADD.

1993
I remember Bobby. We worked together at a pizza delivery store. We both drove our own cars, earning an adequate living from wages and tips.

I had left the bread route sales job two years earlier. The work hours had only increased, while the pay remained the same.

Bobby taught me how to change the front brake shoes on my car. Instead of spending over a hundred dollars on brake “service,” I could replace the front pads with better quality parts for twenty dollars. With better quality pads, the braking ability of the car was maintained.

Bobby had worked as an automobile mechanic. I didn’t ask why he was working as a lesser paying pizza delivery man. I assumed he liked the daily cash, and freedom from supervision.

“ How old do you think I am?” Bobby asked.

“You look like you are about twenty-eight.” I answered.

Bobby smiled, “I’m thirty-four. I used to make a lot of money. Now, I don’t make as much money. I’m divorced, with two kids.”

A week after we changed the brake shoes, I saw Bobby and his ex-wife in the pizza store parking lot. I was too far to hear their conversation. I could see the hostility on his ex-wife’s face. Bobby filled in the lines of a check, and gave it to here. His hands were shaking.

Two days later, Bobby, the manager and I were closing up the store. It was 2 AM, Sunday morning. I was in the back of the store, washing dishes. I overheard Bobby and the manager talking in the office.

Bobby had been asking to write a bad check to the store, for that night’s deposit. He had said that he could make it “good”, by depositing his cash from the next day’s tips.

“It will work!” Bobby exclaimed. He was frantic.

“No, Bobby, I can’t do it.” the manager said.

The manager knew that he would be fired, if the check was returned by the bank. He had no choice, except to refuse Bobby’s request.

The next Tuesday was my day off. When I returned on Wednesday, Bobby was absent. I asked where he was.

“He’s dead.” another driver told me.

“What happened?” I asked. Bobby had appeared to be in excellent health.

“Bobby had been paying too much in child support. He had been writing bad checks, to different stores around town. He was served with several warrants when he was arrested. He hung himself in jail, using his shoelaces.” the other driver explained.

“I can’t believe it. He didn’t appear to be depressed.” I said.

“They should have taken his shoelaces when he was put in jail. It was his first time being arrested.” the other driver said somberly.

Bobby could have had his child support payments reduced, proportional to his present income. That didn’t seem to matter. Social Security benefits for Bobby’s two children made him worth more dead than alive. Bobby’s ex-wife prospered from his death.

1997
I was working on a surveying crew. My childhood days of playing in the briar patches of exurbia became important experience for the job. I had spent many days in the woods with my forester father, locating and marking old property lines. My Attention Deficit Disorder gave me a certain knack for the field work, which often required intuitively finding property line corners.

“Good!” Bob shouted into the two-way radio.

I began pulled my feet from the ankle deep mud, and moved to the location for my next “shot.” I was holding a prism rod. Bob’s instrument shot an unseen laser beam into the prism. The instrument read the reflection returned from the prism.

Bob and I had a friendly, antagonistic relationship. He was several years my junior. A native of Pennsylvania, he had a disdain for southerners. We frequently had lunch in small town restaurants, on the outskirts of Charlotte. We parked our Chevy Suburban next to Ford pickups with Confederate flag decals in the rear window. My revenge was to introduce Bob to the locals as a native of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

There were several occasions when Bob would approach me on the subject of fatal accidents. He did this in open, remote locations, where there was no possibility of being overheard. He told me about a highway construction project he worked on, in the Pennsylvania mountains.

“The backhoe operators had the most dangerous job. The mountain was so steep, the backhoes were chained to trees to keep from going down the mountain. Five deaths were estimated into the bid for the contract. These deaths were calculated in the contractor’s insurance premium. If only three backhoe operators were killed, they wouldn’t be keeping up the quota.” Jim told me. He emphasized the word quota, and waited for my response.

“That’s stupid.” I said. “There is no reason that adequate safety measures could not have been taken, to prevent loss of life.”

“I can’t do this.” Bob muttered.

Bob became the last person in my life that I would call my friend.

Bob and I were assigned to work on a large subdivision development, on the north side of Charlotte. We had to drive the Suburban from the surveying office, located on the southeast corner of the city. A much needed interstate beltway was still under construction. We were forced to take Harris Boulevard.

Bob usually drove the thirty-two miles on the divided, four lane road. It was not an interstate highway. Harris Boulevard was a hazardous, improvised beltway. It meandered around the edge of Charlotte, with heavy traffic congestion and several stoplights.

Bob liked speed. He zoomed on Harris Boulevard, usually at fifteen to twenty miles an hour above the forty-five fifty-five mile an hour speed limit. Bob was able to drive to and from the construction site in as little as thirty-five minutes. He took risks I was unwilling to take.

Bob had been teaching me how to operate the surveying instrument. I had been studying some surveying texts at home. Bob was assigned a different “rod man”. I was offered an promotion to instrument operator!

I was expected to drive the Suburban alone, though. My crew mate would be a college student, out of school for the summer. He lived near the construction project, and it was pointless to require him to drive his car to and from the surveying office.

All of my preparation would finally pay off! I began my trip from the office an hour before I was expected to arrive at the construction site. Traffic congestion and caution forced me to be late. Since Bob had always managed to arrive on time, it appeared that I wasn’t really motivated about the promotion.

The next day, I was Bob’s rodman again.

(In hindsight, I know now that I was expected to crash the heavy Suburban into the vehicle of someone like David Grisham. I should be in the Guiness Book of World Records for safe driving!)

When Jane and I first met, Melissa was her best friend. The both worked at the same property and casualty insurance agency. The office was located on the southeast side of the downtown business district. That was a prestigious location.

Melissa’s four bedroom house was in the affluent suburb of Mint Hill. Melissa’s husband had become a succcessful cafeteria manager. Melissa did not work anymore. Her daughter was completing her high school education. Melissa spent her days in grandmotherly bliss.

Jane and I were at jobs all day, with no prosperity to show for our labors.

One day, Jane asked me to go to her friend, Melissa’s house. I went to pick up Shirely. Jane and I had frequently visited Melissa’s family, when they lived in Charlotte. But, distance and other interests had separated Jane and Melissa. Jane’s new best friend was Alicia.

Changes in their lives separated them. They remained in contact with each other. Melissa’s sixteen year old daughter had the indescretion not to use birth control. Melissa became a grandmother, at the same time that Jane had Shirely.

Melissa answered the door, and took me to Shirely. My daughter was in a large room, which had been turned into an improvised day care. There were two other ladies there, friends from Melissa’s church. Like me and Melissa, they were also in their forties.

About ten children, from infants to toddlers, were in the room. Some playing on the plush, green carpet, while two infants were sleeping in cribs.

Melissa introduced me to her two companions.

“You are in grandmother heaven!” I remarked to Melissa.

“Children and dirty diapers everywhere.” she said.

“Do you know what happens to most missing children?” Melissa asked. She continued, before I had a chance to answer.

“You know that most missing children end up in snuff movies. That is why they are never found. That’s what happened to Adam Walsh, even though they found his body.” she said.

I took my daughter and left . I pondered the strange conversation all of the way home. Melissa was matter of fact about children being murdered for entertainment. There was no anger in her voice. Melissa sounded like she was sharing an urbane insight, instead of a disgrace. Her two friends had big smiles on their faces, while Melissa talked to me.

That was the only time I went to Melissa’s home in Mint Hill. Melissa and her family had lived in Charlotte, before the move to Mint Hill. Jane and I frequently visited them, when they lived in Charlotte. But, distance and finances had separated Jane and Melissa. Jane’s new best friend was Alicia.

I tried to discuss our mounting credit card debt with Jane. It would be impossible for us to overcome the snowballing effect of compund interest. I told it looked like the only way was to declare bankruptcy.

Jane said we just had “bad luck. I needed to learn to cooperated with the system more, and we would start having good luck. Then, our debts could be easily repaid.”

She emphasized the word system as if it were a code word, with a double meaning. Her reply sounded like an irrational, emotional resistance to the obvious. The only way to correct our situation would be to declare bankruptcy.

Jane wanted me to visit a marriage counselor with her. She said that she was "falling out of love" with me. She said that a friend had recommended Cindy. Cindy was a marriage counselor and a hypnotherapist. She had practiced for years in California, before coming to Charlotte.

Cindy told me that she used to live and work in California. She said that business used to be very good for her there. I asked Cindy why she left. Cindy said that times had changed in California. Cindy began the counseling program. She never mentioned California again.

Cindy was strange. She had at least two different office locations. I asked Cindy for a business card, which she was very reluctant to give. She referred to the names of her businesses as "just something I go by." I couldn't find Cindy's name or businesses anywhere in the Elizabeth telephone directory.

Cindy said that she used "whatever works. There really isn't any specific school of thought that I adhere to. I have twelve years of experience in marriage counseling. I've learned what works and what doesn't."

I went to only one appointment with Cindy. Jane had already been to an appointment with Cindy. Cindy had said that my Prozac probably would not interfere with her program, but that the Dexedrine might. Cindy said that hypnosis would be beneficial.

I didn't like Cindy. She had a certain air about her, like she saw me as an object. There was something reptilian about her emotions. Everything she said and did seemed cold and controlled. Since most of Jane’s arguments with me had been about money, I couldn't understand paying one hundred and fifteen dollars an hour for Cindy's services. Jane received only fifty percent reimbursement from her insurance benefit package. My job’s benefits didn’t cover marriage counseling and hypnosis.

Jane continued to see Cindy. Jane became very different. Her sex drive had increased dramatically. Jane’s speech was almost robotic, as if she were programmed. It was as if someone else was speaking through Jane. It didn't sound like the Jane I knew.

Jane's insinuations that she wanted a divorce did not have the intended effect. Jane thought that the threat of divorce would make me severely depressed. Instead of despondency, I was secretly elated. I could leave Charlotte!

I was left out of the Internet boom economy of the 1990’s. Although we had a computer in the home, it was not connected to the Internet. Jane said that she didn’t want our daughter exposed to the pornography. I was unaware of the wealth of information and accurate news that would have been available.

I was also unaware of the controversy surrounding the wrongful convictions of three young men in Texas. It would be another two years before I discovered my family’s role in history.

Charlotte’s supply side service economy for the banking industry created poverty for the general population! It appeared to me that the banking interests might actually be influencing the practices of Elizabeth's non-banking businesses! A company that offered its employees an opportunity to earn overtime, at one and one-half times their standard wage, usually announced within a month that it would no longer do so. It appeared to me that the information about the payroll, was finding its way into the wrong hands. Offending businessman were being pressured no to "overpay" his employees!

I did not occur to me at that time that my own Social Security number might be the “leak”. Although I do not consider myself an important person, my family’s role in world events has been significant.

I had learned that the further away from Charlotte I went, the higher the average wages! Charlotte’s banking industry thrived on the work of housewives. They were forced to build careers at the banks, to compensate for their husbands' lack of compensation.

I managed to survive that week, somehow. There was more than the usual amount of exposure to commuter traffic, while working on the survey crew. Every day, we were assigned highway work. Bob's caustic voice blared constantly on the two way radio. The thrill of danger pumped much needed adrenaline into my system. The stress and challenge of the traffic increased my will to survive.

On the following Saturday evening, Jane said that she wanted to talk with me. Jane asked me, "How would you like to make your daughter rich?"

Dazed, but skeptical, I asked, "That would be wonderful, but how? I've seen enough of fly by night, commission only, sales jobs."

"Sheila has introduced me to a huge network of people in insurance fraud. You wouldn't believe how many people there are!" Jane said.

"Like whiplash? But I've been through that hassle, with the wreck I was in. I really don't want to go through that bull shit again." I replied. "Besides, if we file for bankruptcy, we will be fine. It's just all of this high interest credit card debt that keeps us broke."

"I know how we could pay off all of our debts, and make our daughter rich. The network of insurance fraud people doesn't bother with whiplash. Too many questions." Ralph said.

"You're right. Aren't you tired of all the hassle life has given you? We could end these problems. The people in the insurance fraud network want real fatalities." Jane said.

"But we don't have enough life insurance to pay off our debts." I said.

"I know that already. This group of people is very well organized. They do car accidents. They handle everything. But, they only want people who can give them valuable claims." Jane said.

"Oh, like your father? He's rich and old. But, how would they set it up? Besides, we don't need the money that bad. Even if it looked like an accident, it would still be murder. I can't do it. I don't want to spend eternity with Hitler." I said.

"Oh no. At my father's age, it wouldn't be worth much. If something happened to you, we could collect for all of your future income, until Shirley becomes an adult. They want people who have decided to end their miserable lives. Even if they were just hurt, once they got in the ambulance, it would be all over. Besides, when you die, you automatically go to heaven. Pleeeeeeease!" Jane pleaded.

Groggy and confused, I could only repeat, "But I don't want to spend eternity with Hitler."

My spirituality extends far beyond fire and brimstone. I am a Unitarian Universalist. Whether Heaven or Hell, or karma, the result is the same. Sending my spirit on an eternal journey in the company of mass murderers is not my agenda.

The conversation ended. Jane knew that the hypnotic programming was not always one hundred percent effective. I was not willing to fully embrace the idea of sacrificing my life for anyone's fortune. It remained to be seen, what degree the post hypnotic suggestions would be effective.

As Cindy had guaranteed, I had absolutely no memory of his missing weekend. I would block the previous conversation with Jane about causing my own fatal accident for two years. I would not remember many of the things that Jane said, while the posthypnotic suggestions remained partially effective.

Jane asked me how I was feeling at work.

"Not too bad. Traffic is hell, but it keeps me hopping." I replied.

"So I guess you're able to work safely, without any chance of an accident?" Jane said.

"Yea, there's no chance of an accident. I care about Shirely too much to let that happen." I said, beaming with paternal pride.

My mother told me the news of the suicide of my childhood friend, Bill Jefferson. The son of a dentist, my socially ambitious mother had encouraged the friendship. While I was experimenting with marijuana and some LSD during my late teens, I remembered my friend Bill using hypodermic syringes. During his thirties, Bill had been in a detoxification center twice, addicted to crack cocaine. At the age of forty, with three children and an estranged wife, Bill removed most of his head with a shotgun blast.

"Such a waste!" Jane sighed when I told her about Bill Jefferson.

During the middle 1990s, I had been undergoing a metamorphosis. I found myself rejecting the materialistic values of the time. The next generation seemed preoccupied with causing their comrades to fail, in the mistaken belief that this would help them to succeed. I reverted to my core values; belief in freedom, peace and Christian values.

I began to realize that many of the successful and prosperous people of the United States were frauds. They had gained their wealth at the expense of the "downsized" and underemployed members of my generation.

My generation was being punished for rejecting the Vietnam War. My younger sister and cousins had not been contaminated by the questioning of authority that the Vietnam War era bred. Those who were just a few years younger were given the reigns of power by his parents' generation. The younger generation did not question authority. They did not question the assassinations of the 1960s. They did not care.

It is also true that there were, and are, dissidents among my younger peers. They were not handed economic power from the generation who had fought World War Two. That was reserved for those who believed that war and corpses created prosperity.

1998
I found a better job, just in time to preserve my marriage. Rick Hall, an Assistant Project Engineer with Striate Engineering, called me for a job interview. Rick had received one of my unsolicited resumes in the mail. Rick said that he was very excited about having someone like me come to work for him. Rick told me that he had already done a background check on me. I was just what Rick was looking for.

Rick told me it was an opportunity for "upward mobility." As an Engineering TestTechnician, I would be provided with a pager, company gasoline credit card, and a company pickup. The pickup would be available for limited personal use, as well.

I expected Jane to share my excitement for my new job. We wouldn't have the expense of maintaining and insuring my ten year old Dodge Colt car. I would have a full benefit package, and a better income soon.

I was elated about finding the new job. I thought I might earn back Jane's respect. My marriage could be saved!

Jane seemed unimpressed, when I told her the news It seemed as if she already knew about the new job. She seemed disappointed.

My new job would be to test soil and concrete on construction sites. You, the reader, have probably seen a long depression running through developed land or a paved parking lot. This is the result of loose soil filled in above a utility line that was excavated. The replaced soil was not compacted. The loose soil settled, and created the depression. Soil and concrete engineering technicians are responsible for monitoring the compaction of loose fill soil to prevent settling. We also tested the strength of concrete.

Solid compaction is usually measured with a "nuke." This is a device, does something similar to an "x-ray" of compacted soil. It has a radioactive tip, placed into the soil. Although the level of radiation, and amount of material was minimal, the device fell under the regulation of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in certain states. North Carolina is one of those states.

Rick had managed to lose one of the nuclear devices. That meant that Striate Engineering lost its license to own and operate nukes for soil testing. It was necessary for Striate technicians to use more primitive and time consuming manual equipment. This made it necessary to hire more technicians. Without Rick's negligence, I would not have been given a job.

Rick had learned to manage his fleet of five pickup trucks, routing them around the Charlotte region. His technicians learned to maneuver in traffic much faster than the ten miles an hour above the posted speed limit that local law enforcement allowed.

One evening, Jane and I were having one of our usual terse discussions. I was talking about how my brighter career opportunities. There were more opportunities, by becoming an engineering technician.

Jane was musing, lost in her own thoughts. She told me my career didn't matter. She said she was glad that he had been given the use of a company truck.

I said that I could understand she wanted a better life, but our combined incomes were more than adequate for our family. I said that I didn't foresee us becoming rich, unless a miracle happened.

"Unless it happened in the company truck!" Jane blurted with excitement. She quickly ended the conversation. She asked me to wash the dishes and mow the lawn.

It was two year's since my first "lost weekend." I had the same experience, again. I didn't remember anything, after eating the supper Jane prepared on Friday night. I awoke Sunday evening.

I was becoming aware that people were trying to kill me, on the road while I was at work. I saw grinning young men in "muscle" cars, everywhere I drove. I sensed the strange emotional states of Jane and Rick. They were distant and preoccupied when they spoke to me.

One day, while driving, someone stepped out into the street and took my picture!

Seeking answers, I called my cousin, Pressley. I explained all of the bits and pieces of information I could recall. My memory of the conversation with Jane, regarding the insurance fraud network, had been blocked by posthypnotic suggestion.

"Sounds like there must be some illegal dumping going on. I don't want to talk about it. You should call my supervisor, Frank Johnson, tomorrow morning. Tell him what you just told me." My cousin said.

I wrote down the telephone number of Frank Johnson. In my hectic workday, I forgot to call. It didn't seem to matter so much. Now I had a clue about what was going on. Illegal dumping.

Strange things were happening. On the Tuesday following my last lost weekend, I went to pick up Shirely at school, in the Striate Engineering pickup. At three different intersections on the way to the school, grinning young drivers of high horsepower cars pulled along beside me. They came from intersecting side streets. They escorted me to the school, on the four lane road with its forty-five miles per hour speed limit.

I picked up my daughter at the school, and we began the drive home. Another "muscle car" pulled beside us. The driver looked into the car, and saw my daughter. He looked surprised. Then, the driver looked at me. The driver grinned, nodded his head and sped away.

At the Striate office, the next day, one of the senior engineers spoke to me. Although I had never met the man, he spoke as if he knew me well. The senior engineer asked me how I was faring in the hot May sun. I said I knew how to protect myself from hot weather. The engineer said that was good, since it took about five days to get used to it.

I was perplexed by what the engineer said. Hot weather began in early April, in Charlote's latitude. The anesthesia from my lost weekend was still wearing off.

Life was becoming more and more unreal. On that same evening, I was in my driveway at home, cleaning the Striate pickup. It was dusk, about seven PM. A Charlotte Water Department service man was working three houses up the street. He was pushing a very long, snakelike wire down into the water line. I estimated that the man had pushed enough wire into the line to reach my house! The man noticed my interest in him, and stared back with a frightened, reptilian scowl.

On Monday evening, two weeks after the last weekend of hypnotic programming, the secretary at the Striate office telephoned me with specific instructions about the next day's agenda. By 8 am, I was to be at construction project in Concord, thirty miles north of Charlotte on I-85. I was instructed to perform some soil compaction tests, and leave the project no later than ten-thirty AM. Then, he was to go to the Striate office, to pick up directions to a project near the Charlotte airport. The Charlotte Airport was located on the Southwest side of Elizabeth, on Interstate 85.

I was expected was to arrive at the airport project at exactly twelve noon. I was to walk down into a deep trench excavation. The trench was being refilled with soil, where a buried sewer pipeline had been placed. I was to go into the trench, and obtain a fifty pound sample of the soil at the bottom. This was to be done while the earth moving crew and project superintendent were out to lunch.

(It is standard safety procedure, on construction sites, to not enter a trench more than four feet deep. If a cave-in occurred, the pressure of the soil on a trapped man is often fatal.)

The Striate secretary reminded me that I should have my pager on at all times.

I sensed evil surrounding me. The instructions from the secretary were strange, and unnecessary. I went to the project in Concord, as I had been ordered. There was something diabolical in the way I was ordered to detour from Interstate 85 on my way to the airport. At the Concord project, there seemed to be something demonic in the faces of many of the construction workers. I couldn't understand why.

I left the project in Concord at ten thirty, as planned. The project was on the other side of Concord from Interstate 85. Like many small cities in the "New South," the growth of Concord's prosperous population and automobiles exceeded the infrastructure of roads and utilities. The road around Concord, from the construction project to Interstate 85, was a jumble of chaotic traffic. Road and utility construction projects impeded my way. The had originally been a horse and wagon route from outlying farms to churches and stores.

It was almost eleven-fifteen when I reached Interstate 85 in Concord. I had more than an hour's drive, directly on Interstate 85, to the construction project near the Charlotte airport. Detouring by the Striate Engineering office, and returning to Interstate 85 would take an extra forty minutes. So, I decided to go directly to the Charlotte airport vicinity, and call for directions when I got there. Surely, someone could explain the location to me over the telephone in less time than it would take to get the directions from the office in person.

The secretary had sounded matter of fact, to me, in the way that she told me about coming for the directions. This almost seemed odd, given that it was such an unusual request. The Striate field technicians were chronically late, but I was told to take an unnecessary detour.

If I had gone to the Striate office for directions, I would pass through the intersection of Interstates 77 and 85 South in Charlotte. At this location, the merge lane from Interstate 77 became a third lane for Interstate 85. One half mile further south, Jetty Road had an interchange with Interstate 85. The entrance ramp for Beatties Ford Road merged directly into the third lane of Interstate 85.
The Straite Engineering office was located two miles west of the intersection of the two interstates, just off Interstate 77.

I approached the Interstate 77 and 85 cloverleaf. Although it was noon on a weekday, there was no traffic near me. I saw, in my rear view mirror, a cluster of cars that seemed to be blocking traffic from behind me. As I passed under the Interstate 77 bridge, a tractor-trailer approached in the left lane. It was traveling at least twenty miles per hour faster than my sixty. It screamed past me, then pulled right into my lane in front of me. Then, it slowed down to match my speed.

Another tractor-trailer approached me in the same manner. It pulled beside me, and matched my speed. It was easy to read the "Ace Truck Renting and Leasing" sign on the side of the trailer.

A third truck approached, and maintained a position behind me in the same lane. Because I had not detoured by the Striate office, I was not in the merge lane from Interstate 77. Instead, I was in the center lane of Interstate 85. The merge lane, from Interstate 77, was on my right. The passing lane of Interstate 85 was on my left.

A faded yellow pickup truck entered the scene from the merge lane of Interstate 77. There was no other traffic near me. The escort cars a half-mile behind me was blocking any potential witnesses from the scene.

I realized that something was very wrong with the situation. My healthy paranoia was heightened, from all of the other strange occurrences that had been happening.

I came to the underpass from Beatties Ford Road. I saw a tractor-trailer coming down the ramp, into the merge lane from Interstate 77. I thought that there was a comfortable margin of safety between me and the merging tractor-trailer, at first. Then, I realized how fast the truck was traveling. With my pickup's windows rolled down, I could hear the screaming truck racing down the ramp. The truck would reach the base of the ramp when I did! I was surrounded, and headed for a collision course with the merging truck! I could see that my right of way wouldn't matter very much, since my pickup could be smashed in a sandwich with four tractor-trailers!

The drivers of the trucks must have expected something different from me. I downshifted the manual transmission of the truck. This mean the other drivers didn't see brake lights, although my truck's speed slowed. . Before the pickup and the tractor-trailer behind me could react, I slipped between them. There was just enough room, straddling the white line that separated the lanes, for me to escape.

I attempted to catch up with the cluster of trucks. I hoped to get the license plate number. Then, I saw the driver of the other pickup extend his arm up, out of the window. The driver of the pickup rotated his arm, with his forefinger extended. With that signal from the pickup driver, the trucks sped away before I could make a positive identification.

I took the next available exit from Interstate 85. I was pumped with adrenaline, wanting to report the incident. They were trying to kill me, because of what I knew about illegal dumping! I knew that the Charlotte cops couldn't do very much, and that the situation exceeded their jurisdiction. So, I drove the Straite Engineering truck to downtown Charlotte. He stopped at a pay telephone booth, and looked up the address of the Charlotte office of the FBI.

The FBI office was located in one of the many bank owned office high rise buildings in downtown Charlotte. I parked the truck on the street, looking all around. I trotted to the office building where the FBI office was. None of the would-be assassins from the illegal dumping operation were following me.

I went to the fourth floor office of the FBI. Inside the office door was a small room. There was a barred window, about a foot square, on the right side of the room. There was a woman behind the bars, sorting mail. I went to the window, and told the woman that I needed to speak to an FBI agent. I had information about illegal dumping.

A young man came out of the doorway that was beside the barred window. I told him that I had some information about illegal dumping, and that somebody was trying to kill me because of it. I said that I was interested in the witness protection program.

The young man went back behind the door, telling me to wait right there. Soon, another young man appeared. He was very sharply dressed. He said that he was a special agent for the FBI, and showed his identification. He patted me down, saying that it was necessary to search him for weapons. The first young man, the special agent and I went into another room..

There was a large table in the middle of the room. The special agent said we could speak freely inside the room. I described the incident that had just happened on Interstate 85. I told about the construction project on the North side of Charlotte, where I believed illegal dumping was happening. (There was an old dump on the site. The rubbery texture of the soil indicated that waste oil had been dumped there.)

The agent listened to my report, and asked about my job. I produced one of Rick Hall's business card. The special agent took the business card and left the room.

When the agent returned to the room, he thanked me for coming to him. He told me that the meeting was over, and that it was time to leave. I asked the agent how to get in touch with him, and what I should do. The agent repeated that I should leave.

In spite of my delusion about illegal dumping, I was becoming aware that many of my adversaries were civil servants for various government agencies. I was wondering what to do next when I reached the street. I was planning to go to the Charlotte Observer to tell my story to a reporter. Standing outside the street door of the office building, I could see the Charlotte Observer building. Between me and the Charlotte Observer building was a gauntlet of public servant ve