Yet what had happened was incredibly simple.
After the interview with the airport general manager, Bakersfeld, the delegation, led by Elliott Freemantle, had returned from the administrative mezzanine to the main concourse. There, the TV crews, whom Freemantle had talked with on the way in, had set up their equipment.
The remaining Meadowood residents — already at least five hundred strong, with more coming in — were gathering around the TV activity.
One of the television men told him, “We’re ready if you are, Mr. Freemantle.”
Two TV stations were represented, both planning separate film interviews for use tomorrow. With customary shrewdness, Freemantle had already inquired which TV shows the film was destined for, so that he could conduct himself accordingly. The first interview, he learned, was for a prime-time, popular show which liked controversy, liveliness, and even shock treatment. He was ready to supply all three.
The TV interviewer, a handsome young man with a Ronald Reagan haircut, asked, “Mr. Freemantle, why are you here?”
“Because this airport is a den of thieves.”
“Will you explain that?”
“Certainly. The homeowners of Meadowood community are having thievery practiced on them. Thievery of their peace, their right to privacy, of their work-earned rest, and of their sleep. Thievery of enjoyment of their leisure; thievery of their mental and physical health, and of their children’s health and welfare. All these things — basic rights under our Constitution — are being shamelessly stolen, without recompense or recognition, by the operators of Lincoln Airport.”
The interviewer opened his mouth to smile, showing two rows of faultless teeth. “Counselor, those are fighting words.”
“That’s because my clients and I are in a fighting mood.”
“Is that mood because of anything which has happened here tonight?”
“Yes, sir. We have seen demonstrated the callous indifference of this airport’s management to my clients’ problems.”
“Just what are your plans?”
“In the courts — if necessary the highest court — we shall now seek closure of specific runways, even the entire airport during nighttime hours. In Europe, where they’re more civilized about these things, Paris airport, for example, has a curfew. Failing that, we shall demand proper compensation for cruelly wronged homeowners.”
“I assume that what you’re doing at this moment means you’re also seeking public support.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you believe the public
“If they don’t, I invite them to spend twenty-four hours living in Meadowood — providing their eardrums and sanity will stand it.”
“Surely, Counselor, airports have official programs of noise abatement.”
“A sham, sir! A fake! A public lie! The general manager of this airport confessed to me tonight that even the paltry, so-called noise abatement measures are not being observed.”
And so on.
Afterward, Elliott Freemantle wondered if he should have qualified the statement about noise abatement procedures — as Bakersfeld had done — by referring to exceptional conditions of tonight’s storm. But semi-truth or not, the way he had said it was stronger, and Freemantle doubted if it would be challenged. Anyway, he had given good performances — in the second interview as well as the first. Also during both filmings, the cameras panned several times over the intent, expressive faces of the assembled Meadowood residents. Elliott Freemantle hoped that when they saw themselves on their home screens tomorrow, they would remember who had been responsible for all the attention they were receiving.
The number of Meadowooders who had followed him to the airport — as if he were their personal Pied Piper — astonished him. Attendance at the meeting in the Sunday school hall at Meadowood had been roughly six hundred. In view of the bad night and lateness of the hour, he had thought they would be doing well if half that number made the farther trek to the airport; but not only did most of the original crowd come; some must have telephoned friends and neighbors who had joined them. He had even had requests for more copies of the printed forms retaining himself as legal counsel, which he was happy to pass out. Some revised mental arithmetic convinced him that his first hope of a fee from Meadowood totaling twenty-five thousand dollars might well be exceeded.
After the TV interviews, the
Freemantle shook his head. “Unfortunately the management of this airport does not believe in free speech, and we have been denied the elementary privilege of a public meeting. However” — he indicated the assembled Meadowooders — “I do intend to report to these ladies and gentlemen.”
“Isn’t that the same thing as a public meeting?”
“No, it is not.”
Just the same, Elliott Freemantle conceded to himself, it would be a fine distinction, especially since he had every intention of turning what followed into a public demonstration if he could. His objective was to get started with an aggressive speech, which the airport police would dutifully order him to stop. Freemantle had no intention of resisting, or of getting arrested. Merely being halted by the police — if possible in full oratorical flow — would establish him as a Meadowood martyr and, incidentally, create one more color story for tomorrow’s papers. (The morning papers, he imagined, had already closed with the earlier reports about himself and Meadowood; editors of the afternoon editions would be grateful for a new lead.)
Even more important, Meadowood homeowners would be further convinced that they had hired a strong counsel and leader, well worth his fee — the first installment checks for which, Lawyer Freemantle hoped, would start flooding in right after tomorrow.
“We’re all set to go,” Floyd Zanetta, chairman of the earlier Meadowood meeting, reported.
While Freemantle and the
“My friends, we came here tonight in a mood of reason and with constructive thoughts. We sought to communicate that mood and thoughts to this airport’s management, believing we had a real and urgent problem, worthy of careful consideration. On your behalf I attempted — in reasoned but firm terms — to make that problem known. I hoped to report back to you — at best, some promise of relief; at least, some sympathy and understanding. I regret to tell you that your delegation received none. Instead, we were accorded only hostility, abuse, and an uncaring, cynical assurance that in future the airport’s noise above and around your homes is going to get worse.”
There was a cry of outrage. Freemantle raised a hand. “Ask the others who were with me.
Having skillfully misrepresented the honest frankness which Mel Bakersfeld had shown the delegation, Elliott Freemantle continued, “I see others, as well as my Meadowood friends and clients, who have stopped, with curiosity, to discover what is going on. We welcome their interest. Let me inform you …” He continued in his customary, haranguing style.
The crowd, sizable before, was now larger still, and continuing to grow. Travelers on their way to departure gates were having trouble getting through. Flight announcements were being drowned out by the noise. Among the Meadowooders, several had raised hastily scrawled signs which read:
Whenever Freemantle paused, the shouts and general uproar grew louder. A gray-haired man in a windbreaker yelled, “Let’s give the airport a taste of their own noise.” His words produced a roar of approval.
Without question, Elliott Freemantle’s “report” had by now developed into a full-scale demonstration. At any
