From the transcript at trial: Commonwealth of
Virginia v. Alvin Scheer
DIRECT EXAMINATION, CONTINUED
BY MR. STENNINGS:
Q. How did you pay for the trip, Alvin? Did you steal the money?
A. Why no, sir. I ain't no thief. Never have been. I cashed in my wife's and my life's savings for the trip; all $742 dollars worth. Then pawned whatever else I had that was worth anything. Figured that was enough for gas and maybe a burger from time to time on the way. I planned on sleepin' in my truck.
Drivin' through Missouri, you could see folks had a lot a sympathy for what the governor was doin'. Except, funny thing, you couldn't have seen it on television.
Nope, weren't nothin' on TV that a fair man might have called fair. They were still hammerin' away on that old priest that got killed. But I knew from what I saw and was told and read before I left that there weren't but the one survivor, that little wetback girl. And I never saw her interviewed for the news I was able to catch when I stopped for gas, a meal or a beer.
So where they came up with all the stories about what that priest supposedly done with the kids? Well, I wonder if they didn't just make it up.
I'm pretty sure they did.
For one thing, I lived in Texas all my life. I know what a Tex-Mex sounds like, speakin' English or Spanish. And Puerto Ricans aren't too common back home. So why do you suppose that of all the people they interviewed on TV about the mission and the priest weren't a one of 'em that had a proper Tex-Mex accent, but a whole bunch of 'em sounded like the Puerto Ricans I'd met? In particular, they sounded like some Puerto Ricans I met once who came from New York.
I stopped once, in a small town in Missouri, and I bought me two papers. One was the local town's; the other was the
I didn't know if that was how folks up north really felt, if it was the news making 'em feel like that, or if they were maybe . . . pickin' and choosin' what got into the paper. And if they were doin' that, I wondered what else they were playin' games with.
* * *
Atlanta, Georgia
The head of Global News Network didn't normally have to force himself to think of himself as a 'big man.' He was not only physically large; he was rich, he was powerful, he was even rather famous around the world. He had grown used to people treating him with a certain respect and deference.
He was shocked.
Somehow, the man had come to believe that Wilhelmina Rottemeyer was a kindred soul; another person whose fondest desires were an end to want, a government that cared, a respecter of the law. And yet, when he had voiced complaints to the White House about what he saw as dangerous abridgments to the First Amendment he was met with scorn.
He was very shocked.
'So you listen here, you stupid bastard,' said the unnamed man in the suit with a bulge under the left shoulder, 'I don't care about your 'Freedom of the Fucking Press.' The President has said the gloves are off with dealing with assholes like you. She hasn't got time to sugarcoat this crap any more. You will broadcast what you are told to, and only what you are permitted. Is that clear enough even for a moron like you?'
Summoning his courage—the head of the network asked, 'And what if I don't?'
The suit picked up the phone from the desk and dialed a number. On the other end someone answered the phone. 'This is McCarthy. Put the lady of the house on the phone. She needs to have a little chat with her husband.'
'What do you think you are doing? Where the hell did you get my home number?'
The suit just smiled, beneficently, and handed the phone over with the words, 'Why don't you ask your pretty new wife what she thinks you should do?'
Whatever the standards of the American press as a whole, the head of Global News was no coward. For himself, he feared essentially nothing. Yet, the color drained from his face as the head of the news agency listened to his near hysterical bride describe what had transpired at their lavish home—the knock, the forcing of the door, the manhandling of her and their young son . . . the slaps . . . her split, puffy lips. When she was finished, he returned the phone to its receiver and said, ashen faced, 'I'll play along. Just don't hurt my family.'
The suit's smile broadened further. 'Well, then, I am glad you are going to be sensible. Not everyone is being so, you know?'
* * *
Fort Dix, New Jersey
Most of the major media didn't need the lesson administered to GNN. Leftward leaning already, they were more than happy with Rottemeyer's program. There were some few, however, who did need some sterner measures.
In this former military base turned partial federal prison those who were not being 'sensible' came in by twos and threes and tens and twenties. Shorn of hair, and dignity, the dissidents were quickly and efficiently processed into the general population. Fortunately, for them, this was a fairly low security prison. They were spared the very worst that the system had to offer in the way of roommates.
What they had was bad enough, even so.
There was, however, a saving grace. In order to leave, all the assembled newscasters, editors, and writers had to do was sign a paper admitting their complicity in 'treasonable activities' and promising to cooperate with federal authorities in the future.
At first, none would. Some few days later, after a particularly nasty homosexual gang rape, a few would. A week later still, and with a regular session of beatings for the recalcitrant, a few more signed and were duly released. Then the heat was turned off in the prison barracks until, as it was announced, the members of the press corps in those barracks decided to cooperate with the authorities.
