ELEVEN
There is something about a crisis that spawns life and strength in man. Energy springs up from deep within, as from an artesian well. In miraculous contradiction of nature’s laws, man under pressure becomes equal to the task, however formidable. Wars are fought and won by sheer determination. Accident victims cling to a frayed strand of life, surviving against overwhelming odds. Time and again the underdog wins at sport, in politics, in life.
So it is that confrontation and adversity can bring out the best that man has to offer. And for those who overcome, there are rewards.
Those who can boast of triumphant exploits often become the most popular and revered members of society. As heroes in the folklore, they can easily ascend to leadership in business and government. Biographers trip over each other getting their stories into print. Movies are made to celebrate their lives and achievements, seminars conducted offering “how to” advice for the throngs who yearn for similar success. Everyone loves a winner.
By and large, Colin Rierdon is such a man. He has basked in the hero’s spotlight since high school when his swiftness, agility and sure hands helped his Fair Hills HS football squad secure a place in the record books. The team captured the state CLASS B title in the fall of 1971. Its wide receiver and co-captain, Colin Rierdon, proved he could overcome adversity to emerge a winner.
What is not widely publicized though is the remarkable tale of how Colin rose from victim to victor. As a child he had been hospitalized for months with spinal meningitis, inexplicably stricken and near-death. Doctors had given him only a 50/50 chance of survival. He’d never be “normal” again, they ventured. But they did not know about Colin’s capacity for overcoming adversity.
When news of the boy’s illness got out, the Fair Hills community responded, coming to his rescue with donations to help pay the hospital bills. Then, during his recovery, in what must have been his first news conference, with the channel 7 camera shooting a straight-on, hospital room close-up, he vowed to pay his hometown back someday. Imagine the improbable scene: an eleven-year-old boy making a faith-filled promise on the evening news for all of southeast Michigan to see.
And pay them back he did. Fair Hills High had not previously, and has not since, reached even the regional football championship game. Colin Rierdon brought them their moment of glory.
Coincidentally, it was at this same time that Kathy Nichols was suffering in the prison of her mind where Colin had carelessly left her, mere months before. How he could have risen above the mental anguish that any normal human being naturally would have felt in abandoning her, I cannot fathom. Perhaps it was because of his grief that he performed so brilliantly on the gridiron that year: thirty-two receptions for 704 yards and seven touchdowns in the regular season, the winning TD late in the fourth quarter in the state championship game against Portland after a 63 yard reception on third down and twenty-four to go. Perhaps he rose up through the depths of adversity on the strength of some mysterious, rocket-like, human emotion that defies scientific or logical explanation — drowning man one day, orbiting superhero the next.
Colin was accepted to the University of Michigan for his talent on the field as much as for his grades. In fact his G.P.A., at 3.55, was only barely above the U of M’s minimum acceptable standard. But, as so often happens to college freshmen, things changed quickly for Colin once he arrived in Ann Arbor. After failing to make the main football roster as a freshman, he was soon distracted by the socio-political currents that ran deep and wide through the Michigan campus at the time. The prevailing mindset was liberal, and the presidential election loomed with republican incumbent, Richard Nixon, serving as a metaphor for everything that was wrong with this country in those turbulent times — at least according to most college students. Democrat candidate, George McGovern, received the nod at the party’s convention. He seemed a worthy standard bearer to most students in Ann Arbor at the time, capable of thrusting the liberal sword into the heart of Nixon’s neo-conservative body of ideals.
This election would be Colin’s first opportunity to vote for a president. Sensing how to find the spotlight as he felt his way across the political stage, Colin suddenly caught the public eye. He was moving against the grain — a lesson he no doubt learned running patterns on the football field. He openly engaged the army of liberals, SDS members and the like, in a match-your-wits style of debate. He championed the cause of freedom, decried socialistic ideals, defended America’s purposes in Viet Nam — indeed, even called for sustained bombing, all the while praising Nixon for his no-nonsense negotiating style and his command of foreign policy. In short, Colin Rierdon gushed blue-blooded conservatism all over the Midwest’s sanitary breeding ground for left-leaning scholars.
On the day after the vote that saw Nixon reelected in a landslide (not a great surprise to most everyone outside of the People’s Republic of Ann Arbor), Colin found himself once again in the limelight. He was soon given chairmanship of the campus Young Republicans chapter, a position he managed to hold for three years following.
Shortly after the election Colin decided to pursue a career in government, providing that he could successfully make it through law school and pass the Michigan Bar examination. He essentially set his sights into the next decade. Still, he had to be careful not to outrun his own headlights. One needed to work hard to pull grades at Michigan, especially the level necessary for acceptance to law school. So he developed a strong work ethic there along the banks of the lazy Huron, where he also found his soul mate, Barbara.
She was a Birmingham-bred debutante, from automobile money roots. Walter Billings, her father, worked in the rarefied air of the GM headquarters, fourteenth floor. He crunched numbers by day and played local Republican Party boss by night. In hindsight, one might suppose that Colin married “Babs” for her daddy’s influence. Probably sensing this, Colin worked even harder to quiet any such speculation. But they had a lot in common, he and Babs, both politically and religiously. Their hearts beat together.
And they certainly made a striking couple — Babs with her high waist and broad shoulders, her long blond hair and blue eyes; Colin with his schoolboy good looks and politician’s smile. They married in June, right after graduation.
From there Colin’s ladder of life stretched up into the clouds. He and Babs gave birth to a son, Jacob, during Colin’s first-year grind at the Detroit College of Law. They were a real family, living in a small, postwar brick ranch in Royal Oak (a “renter” owned by the Billings’), far enough away from the turmoil of Detroit but close enough for Colin to commute to classes downtown. He walked a half-dozen blocks everyday to ride the Grand Trunk commuter train in, then hiked to classes and the law library. His conservative stance solidified as he watched the radical Coleman Young administration stamp out all but the last embers of economic health from the once-prosperous Motor City.
The Rierdons were fiscally conservative; they had to be. Babs thought it best to stay home with Jake, to raise him in a proper, loving environment. She did in-home cosmetic parties two or three evenings a week. Colin watched the baby when she was out, studying at the same time, up to his ears in mock briefs, research and student loans. Thank God, the Billings’ were only a few miles up Woodward Avenue, and that they occasionally helped with the baby. For all intents and purposes, though, Colin was out of circulation. He might as well have been on the moon.
As a sort of law school graduation present, Babs gave birth to daughter, Shelly, in May of 1979. Her happy appearance completed the Rierdon’s perfect nuclear family. Colin had recently sailed through the state Bar examination and gotten himself appointed (with a little help from his father-in-law) to the Oakland County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
In one year’s time as a PA, with his work ethic, knack for persuasion and gift of oratory, he proved a formidable opponent to some heavily tenured trial lawyers by garnering enough visibility and support to run for the state House of Representatives from his district in Royal Oak. The seat had been held by a democrat for twenty years. And, though it may have been due to Ronald Reagan’s popularity, or Walter Billings’ back room arm-twisting, once again the hero emerged victorious. Colin Rierdon became the representative to the Michigan legislature from the southern district of Royal Oak. He would work hard in Lansing to earn the trust of his adopted constituents.
After election for a fourth, two-year term, Colin moved his family back to Fair Hills. The following year he made a successful bid for the state senate and captured the seat that was being vacated by a retiring republican veteran, Stan Martin. Seasoned in the trade and representing a solid, conservative district for the first time, Colin accelerated his pace to make an indelible mark on Michigan legislation. He had a hand in new tax laws, written to give much-needed relief to property owners. He led the parade to slash superfluous government programs and costs, slicing out waste and cracking down on abuse. When the governor needed support for his controversial welfare reform measure, Colin drove the republican horses through the senate. And what a rough ride that turned out to be! He came under fire in the press for the governor’s so-called “ruthless” approach toward cutting off benefits to able-bodied welfare recipients. But, in a year’s time, the program was a model for the entire nation — the governor proved to be a genius — and Senator Rierdon became a hero once again. Then he turned his sights on education reform. He had an audience right back at home, in Fair Hills, and he worked both them and the press (I was in the front row) like a master magician — all the way to the big desk in the statehouse last November.
An enormous yellow sun is ascending into a periwinkle sky, throwing great horizontal tree shadows westward through the Looking Glass valley. Its rays warm my back as I walk the crest of the hill toward our bungalow. Maryanne will be leaving for work momentarily, so I hurry back to kiss her good-bye. The glory of the September woods with its earthy, ripe scents clings to me, if only upon the vesture of my imagination, as I begin again the daily, businesslike routine of my profession. This walk, the morning’s ambiance, the cloudless sky, all will help buoy me up as I cast off alone into the murk of Colin’s Rierdon’s past.
Knowing that a newsman’s treasure awaits from the discovery of his and Kathy’s shipwrecked relationship, I am prepared to take the deep dive into these fathomless depths. A storm might be brewing by afternoon, so the weather report predicts, seemingly in symbolic reflection of my own dramatic struggle. But I am nonetheless undaunted, undeterred. Having set sail on this journey, I resolve to accomplish my mission and return with the treasure of truth.
At my office I set about to add some necessary detail to my column, “Breaking the Bonds of Freedom” for tomorrow’s edition. In mid-awakening this morning, I realized that the inclusion of some specific examples from the school crisis back in Fair Hills, as told to me by Peggy Graham, could round off the edges of the piece nicely. “Proofs” are absolutely essential to keep an article objective, to save it from becoming prejudicial and essentially worthless as news — suitable only for the op/ed page. Next, I began laying down an outline for my piece on Colin’s past. I know this article will practically write itself once Colin gives me a “statement” and all the facts are in. Moreover, it will not matter how well or badly I write it; people will drink it in like sunshine in December regardless. In a perverse sort of way, this story will provide life-giving refreshment to gossip-mongers and upstanding citizens alike. Once published, the story will take on a life of its own. But, for my own sense of professionalism, and because my reputation rests precariously on the line, I want it to be one of the best-written accounts I have ever submitted for publication — fact-based, non-biased, worthy of professional recognition. Most certainly, I do not want it to have the tawdry look and feel of a tabloid columnist’s scandal piece. Still, regardless of my best efforts to avoid producing such stereotypical crap, I realize that some folks might see it just that way. Be that as it may, their pejorative view of me and my work will spring from their own bias toward supporting Colin in spite of well-documented evidence showing his cunningly concealed character flaws. I must be circumspect. That’s the best way through this mess. I shall be careful not to leave the door open for any dismissals of the facts due to shoddy, incompetent journalism.
John Harrington would wholeheartedly agree, though I’ve been eluding him like a cat all morning.
At about noon, as I am about to leave the building for lunch and the one-thirty appointment in Colin’s office, my phone rings. I pick up the receiver.
“Hello, Chip Halick.”
“Mr. Halick?” The female voice is quiet, indistinguishable.
“Yes, this is Chip Halick, who’s calling please?”
“It’s Kathy Nichols.”
“Oh, sure, Kathy. I didn’t recognize your voice at first.” She must be getting anxious, wondering why I haven’t spilled the beans as yet.
“Well, I’m sorry to have to call you at the office, but it’s important, and I’m on my lunch break.”
“No problem.” At least I hope there isn’t going to be a problem.
“Have you published my story yet?”
“These things take a little time, Kathy.” I can’t believe she could be so impatient. “I have to be sure that the story is air-tight before going to the public.”
“That’s a relief.”
“What do you mean? Is there something you haven’t told me?”
“No. It’s just that I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want you to let the story out.”
“You changed your mind?” I say stupidly, not wanting to believe what I just heard.
She remains unruffled. “It’s just that I think I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have brought it up in the first place. It all happened so long ago. It should just stay buried in the past. That’s all.”
A light goes on in my head, and I sense what might have happened. “Did Colin call you?”
“No.”
“You mean you simply had a change of heart; no one put you up to this?” (I suspect she’s lying.) There is a pause as she fails to immediately respond. I break the silence, more or less repeating myself. “Did someone put you up to this, Kathy?”
“Let’s just say that I thought it over, and I know this is for the best. Please don’t make things harder on me than they already are.”
She thinks I am being hard on her. What would she do if TV reporters from all across the state, made up like clowns to keep the afternoon sun from washing out their faces, converged on her apartment building in remote broadcast units with satellite uplinks, producers and technicians in tow, all clamoring for some juicy sound bites with which to lead off their evening news programs?
“Kathy, I don’t want this to be hard on you. I’m only searching for the facts. If someone threatened you in order to keep you quiet, that would be wrong.”
“Nobody threatened me, Chip.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“I’m sure. This is what I want.”
I feel my sails go slack. “You realize that it was just two days ago when you insisted upon telling the story?”
“I know. But I changed my mind. It’s a woman’s prerogative.”
Sensing that I need time to sort this out, I move to end the conversation: “Well then, in the event that you elect to change it again, please give me a call.”
“I don’t think I will...change it again, I mean. Thank you for understanding, Chip.”
“You’re welcome, but I’m not so sure I do.”
“You’re a good guy, Chip. Good-bye.”
“So long.”
And so, here I sit again, adrift, alone, a victim of a freakish shift in the prevailing winds. I wonder if there were times when Columbus felt like this — a moment of respite before the mutineers appear on deck with retribution in their eyes and daggers in their mouths. Some muscle-bound cretin is probably already rigging the plank for me to walk. But I gather up my courage and resolve to lash myself to the mast if necessary. Sometimes there is no alternative to sailing directly into the storm.
There is nothing to be gained by looking back over the ever-changing sea, reflecting upon the way things might have been, or were, or would be. I am in command of this ship. I have the facts and the documentation to back them up. Many reporters would challenge the elements with less. Furthermore, no captain worth his salt would abandon ship because things didn’t go as planned — things never go as planned! Trim the sails; batten down the hatches, and make a heading for north by northwest.
But first, I’ll stop at Murphy’s for lunch. I can’t hold course on an empty stomach.
Looking cool and casual, entering the Office of the Governor, I nod to the receptionist whose name I now know to be Karen. Since my best clothes did nothing to enhance my influence yesterday, I have abandoned the suit for my customary attire: khaki pants, pale blue button-down shirt, paisley tie and sports coat. This time I am not nervous. I realize what Bob Dylan meant when he composed his famous lyric: “When you ain’t got nothin’, you got nothin’ to lose.” Yet, I do have something — something that no one can take away. I have self-assurance, confidence in what I know — the truth. And something else too — I have power. I am one of only a handful of people in the world who know about Colin’s hidden past. I have also come to the realization that I need not be ashamed. I’ve done everything properly, gentlemanly. I am not the bad guy. Furthermore, getting at Colin’s side of the story is the right thing to do. In point of fact, the truth is all that matters to me now, not because I don’t already know what happened, but because I must find out what kind of a man Colin Rierdon really is. Certainly, he cannot be a great and noble governor if he is not a great and noble man. Once so informed, maybe I will go public with the story, and maybe I won’t. That will be my decision, no one else’s.
“Hello, Chip. Right on time, I see.” He approaches me with a handshake.
“Punctuality, governor, is the politeness of kings.”
“Won’t you have a seat?”
“Thank you.”
As we sit down, I am reminded of how foolish I felt yesterday, how insignificant and boorish. Though I did everything I could to dress appropriately, act courteously and handle the delicate situation professionally, on the inside I knew I was faking it. It was as if I’d been an actor playing a role, still unsure of my lines, my cues, how the scene was blocked. Every now and then, I stole a look at my script. But I was not believable, not even to myself.
Today, everything seems different, although I am not sure exactly why — maybe because I’ve had my dry run, or more likely because I no longer care that much about the outcome. The pressure is off; Kathy is no longer depending on me to act as her surrogate, dispensing tit for tat retribution for her life of misery.
“First of all, let me apologize for cutting our meeting short yesterday, Chip. That was quite insensitive of me.” He leans toward me awaiting absolution.
“Don’t mention it. These things happen,” I say, meaning exactly nothing. I want to get past the formalities and onto the key topic before he finds another excuse to brush me off. “If you remember yesterday’s conversation, governor, I wanted to get your response to some grave charges that Kathy Nichols made against you.”
“Yes, I remember. It has troubled me since then. Kathy and I parted friends years ago, and there has never been anything more to our relationship than that.” There is a look of genuine bewilderment in his eyes, but I know better.
I fix my gaze on him as a sort of laser guidance mechanism to direct my words deep into his psyche. “I don’t want to beat around the bush, governor. As I promised yesterday, I’ll treat your responses as off-the-record until you feel that you would like to make an official statement. But, what Kathy told me is this: While the two of you were dating, she became pregnant with your child, and you subsequently convinced her to have an illegal abortion. She, as you may know, was rendered incapable of having any other children as a result of the D&C procedure. To this day, she remains scarred emotionally as well as physically from the experience.” I pause for his response.
“That is ludicrous. Who else have you told this nonsense to?” His stare turns angry.
“Please, let’s not play games, governor. Or am I to understand that you are calling Kathy a liar?”
“I don’t think that I should dignify such balderdash with a response.” He turns away from me momentarily to, no doubt, summon a suitable response to fling back at me. Swinging around in his chair, he continues, “As far as Ms. Nichols is concerned, she is a fine person who, I am certain, would not make such a licentious statement. Nonetheless, if you intend to slander my name in the press and try to advance your career through libelous and reckless character assassination, you had better consider who you’re dealing with.”
Nothing from this artillery barrage has hit me. There are no broadside holes in my armor, not even the sting of a glancing bullet to disturb my resolve. “I see that you have rather strong feelings on the topic, governor. Before I go, then, perhaps you would like to make a brief statement for the record regarding these charges.” I could be bluffing, but for all he knows, I am not.
“I’ll not make any such statement, brief or otherwise. You have a lot of nerve coming in here with this accusation in the first place, Mr. Halick, and if I so much as hear a whisper of this business in the news, you will have my attorney to answer to.”
“Fine, governor. If that’s the way you want to play it, I’ll go along — for now.” I reach into my folder and hand him a photocopy of the letter Kathy gave me. “Your attorney may want to see this first, before you send him after me like an attack dog. It might make a difference in how he handles your defense.” I stand up and turn for the door. “I can find my own way out. Thank you for the time.”
Down the elevator and out into the steel-gray afternoon I go, feeling as though a giant load has been lifted from my shoulders. I hadn’t planned on being quite so direct with Colin. But, now that the confrontation is over, I realize how fed up I have become with all of the demagoguery, the lies, the typical politician’s modus operandi. When he started in on me with that crap about how ludicrous the charges were, I decided right then and there to give him both barrels. He may have gotten to Kathy, but he probably never suspected that she would have previously handed me hard evidence — evidence he believed to have been destroyed years ago. He must have promised her something valuable enough to get her to change her mind, probably that he would try to bury the Right to Life Amendment with his veto if the bill made it through the legislature. (He was never radically anti-abortion anyway.) But I would never have suspected him of stooping to bribery before today. Now I’m not so sure. He may have even paid her off with some hush money.
Still, whatever he may have done to shut Kathy up matters less to me than how he has dealt with the facts in evidence. With the information I have obtained over the past few days, I have become uniquely qualified to judge his personal integrity and character, and I feel he has clearly compromised both by stonewalling the issue. Indeed, without saying so, he has essentially denied that he got her pregnant and that he persuaded her to break the law. I wonder if he’ll reconsider his story now that he knows I have evidence of the truth.
What to do now, I wonder? Going public with the story is tempting, but all of the evil consequences I imagined before could certainly wash over me in the wake of such powerful and polarizing news. Colin made that clear this afternoon. And what about Kathy? She claims not to want either the retribution or the publicity. So, if there is a vendetta, it would be mine. Mine for the sake of all abused young women, however complicit they may have been at the time; mine for the purpose of heralding the truth; mine for the benefit of democracy, as a warning to all those who may attempt to misrepresent themselves as virtuous when deep down they are not; mine for the sake of fame. Mine. Mine. Mine.
For one brief moment I consider driving back to the Ledger, finishing up the most scathing investigative article of my career and then dropping it on John’s desk before deadline. That way every legislator in the state can read all about Colin’s evil past before they cast their votes on the RLA tomorrow. If I truly had an agenda, that is exactly what I would do. But, for some inexplicable reason, that course of action just doesn’t seem right.
After climbing into the Bravada, I start the engine and head out of the parking deck. With one eye I search through the console for a CD to take my mind off work. Stopping at the window to pay my fare, I see the first drops of fresh rain bounce off the street before me. Summer is now almost officially over, and departing with it is my warm sense of journalistic innocence. What made me think I could be different, that I would escape being painted with the same, broad brush as my peers in the press? Such a belief has now been exposed as a silly illusion, the musing of a naive idealist. And now, as I face one of the most consequential decisions of my life, I question my ability to even think straight, to get “me” out of the equation, to come to the one, logical and correct conclusion. But I also realize the difficulty in making decisions when lives hang in the balance, when the culling of reason and logic will not necessarily produce the right answers. I must get in touch with something else, something deeper than the thinking process, at the point where truth and destiny dwell together in harmony. I’ll let Thelonius Monk take me there.