CHAPTER 27
The opening sequence cut to the Good Morning Sheree logo over the studio audience as the theme music finished playing. At Camera One’s signal, Sheree Baker flashed her best smile into the lens.
“Good morning, Atlanta!”
“Good morning!” the audience roared back at her, and her smile broadened, accenting the dimples in her cheeks.
In the control booth, Ted Swit, her producer, sighed and allowed himself a small grin. Sheree Baker was gold and everyone knew it.
Sheree stood six feet tall, with long, lustrous red hair, perfect skin and enormous blue eyes, and since Swit had successfully halted the publication of her spread in Best Chest magazine, had no significant obstacles in the way of her career in broadcasting. Swit leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers over his beer paunch, and closed his eyes. Sheree’s voice came to him over his headset like hot caramel.
“We’re going for a change of pace today, people,” she said, and the words sounded like an invitation to sex. Swit hummed softly.
Sheree Baker’s show achieved success for one reason and one reason only: Sheree Baker. The writing was mediocre at best, and Swit had no illusions as to his own production skills. He’d hired the director away from a children’s show about a petting zoo because the woman worked cheap, and every piece of their equipment was easily five years out of date, if not more. Good Morning Sheree debuted with a segment about professional square dance callers and had gotten only worse from there—or better, depending on your point of view. Sheree herself was the soul of the show. Quite simply, no one could take their eyes off her.
Swit vividly remembered seeing the first numbers to come back. Their show started at seventh, moved to third the following week, then hit number one in their time slot and stayed there. It didn’t matter, apparently, that GMS never covered any topic weightier than what to do if you discover your fly unzipped in public. The show became, in the words of the Chronicle reviewer, an “inexplicable hit, in the tradition of Full House and Power Rangers.” Swit didn’t care. The ad rates just kept going up.
He felt a little nervous about today’s show, since it departed from their usual meringue-light format, but Good Morning Sheree was never a program to miss exploiting a trend. They had today’s topic operating right here in the city, after all, practically on their doorstep, and with everybody between five and fifty-five fascinated with the Redeemer, why not do a show about him?
Sheree spoke, and Swit wondered if it really mattered what came out of that mouth, as long as its lips moved just the way they did.
“Our country’s criminal justice system has been criticized more than once, both by Americans and by citizens of other nations.” A few notes lower than one would have expected from her, her perfect voice carried authority without intimidation. With just a touch more steam, it could have been a phone sex junkie’s fantasy.
“Now, here in Atlanta, someone has decided to take the law into his own hands. Our show’s topic today is the masked vigilante the news media have dubbed ‘the Redeemer.’”
Sheree let her voice drop slightly at the name, allowing it the proper gravity. “Here with us today to debate the Redeemer’s presence are columnists Greg Thatcher, on the pro-Redeemer side, and Darius Clay, representing the anti-Redeemer opinion.”
Sheree turned from the camera and moved to the discussion set. Camera Two showed the home viewing audience three comfortably padded chairs in a small half-circle, the center one still empty. Sheree Baker settled into the empty chair and smiled at her guests. Neither of them returned it, but Darius Clay nodded courteously.
On her right sat a stocky, aggressively clean-cut white man in his mid-forties, wearing a stiff-looking charcoal gray suit: Greg Thatcher. Across from him sat Darius Clay, dressed in a smooth blue Armani. Thatcher scowled. Clay wore a pleasant, if somewhat bemused, expression.
“The Clash of the Columnists,” said one of the technicians in the booth, leaning over toward Swit. “How did you get these guys in the same room together?”
Swit shrugged. “Wasn’t too hard. Thatcher’s been drooling over Sheree from the start, so he’d take any excuse to get here. Clay, I don’t know; probably just wants to take a few shots at Thatcher.”
The technician thought about that. “This is not what you’d call a typical episode here, y’know.”
“Yeah, I know. Let’s see what happens.”
Somewhere between talking to the audience and sitting down, Sheree had disposed of the hand-held, and now used her lapel mike. Thatcher and Clay were similarly wired. Her electric smile turned about half-way up, Sheree said, “How are the both of you today?”
Clay said, “Just fine, thank you, Sheree,” and Thatcher grunted. Sheree took a deep breath and asked her first question.
“Greg, in several of your columns you have addressed the Redeemer’s activities, always in a positive light. Could you tell us exactly why you’re in favor of someone who so blatantly operates outside the law?”
Thatcher cleared his throat softly. “Well, Sheree, I think we have to look at the state of our city since the Redeemer first appeared. The incidence of street crime has already begun to drop. People are starting to feel safe. Women have started to go out to stores and malls by themselves after dark again. The criminals are still out there, yes, but the Redeemer is out there with them, and they’re realizing that.”
He would have said more, but Sheree turned to Clay.
“Darius. You’re the one who gave this vigilante his name, but you’ve spoken out sharply against the Redeemer. What do you think his activity here means?”
“It means the rights of the people have one more strike against them,” Clay said, and Thatcher snorted. Clay regarded him calmly. “Of the supposed criminals the Redeemer has dealt with, eighty-nine percent have been African-American. I don’t see him as a hero. I don’t see him as any kind of guardian angel.”
Clay’s voice rose, and in a subtle but unmistakable shift of power, suddenly every member of the audience hung on his words. “What I see when I look at the Redeemer is a half-crazed neo-Nazi, out there in the streets, giving himself an excuse to persecute the African-American community.” The words themselves weren’t that inspiring, but Darius Clay had turned loose his charisma, which was formidable.
In the booth, impressed, the technician said, “Well, hell. Why isn’t this guy in office?”
Clay went on. “The suit he wears doesn’t have to be white for me to recognize the uniform of the Klan. He doesn’t need a swastika on his arm to be identified. It’s clear to me who his spiritual brethren are, and they’re the same people who’ve historically taken any excuse to attack what they fear or don’t understand.”
Sheree glanced around the audience. Darius Clay had them in his pocket. “Oh, please,” Thatcher said in disgust. “You’re ignoring half the picture. Yes, most of the people he’s worked on are African-American, but most of the crimes committed in the inner city are committed by African-Americans! That’s a statistical fact. And for that matter, what about the white criminals, the white rapists and muggers and dope pushers he’s dealing with? What about Kaveyah Wilson, the black girl the Redeemer rescued from a white rapist? That doesn’t sound like any kind of neo-Nazi to me.”
Quietly, Sheree Baker said, “Not necessarily—even a hate-filled white supremacist can have some morals.”
Swit thought Sheree probably felt pretty proud of that statement—possibly her first ever on the air that required actual thought—but both of her guests ignored her. She settled back in her chair, uncrossed and re-crossed her legs, and tried not to look annoyed.
“All right. Okay,” Clay said conversationally, with granite-solid confidence. His stage presence radiated from him like sunlight, and easily outshone the older man’s. “Let’s talk about ‘what the Redeemer does.’ And don’t think I haven’t noticed those convenient euphemisms, either. ‘Dealt with.’ ‘Worked on.’ Last time I checked, in this country it was illegal to assault someone. It was illegal to pass judgment on someone without due process of law. But this Redeemer you’re so fond of is out there putting people in the hospital. There are people coming in with broken arms, broken ribs—just last night, what about those Latino teenagers, boys, that the Redeemer shot? He kneecapped those children, and now neither of them will ever walk again unaided.”
Thatcher blustered for a few seconds. “Those boys were both eighteen, both gang members, and both found in the possession of illegal firearms and twelve thousand dollars worth of crack cocaine. You’re right, it is illegal to assault someone, it is illegal to pass judgment outside of the courts. But a question I’ve raised in my column dozens of times in the past, a question that is just as relevant now as it was when I first asked it years ago, is what about the rights of the people who are being assaulted? The Redeemer has prevented four rapes so far, and those are just the ones we know about. Who knows how many others we don’t know about? He stopped those rapes from happening. He didn’t just arrest the thugs who did it. He was there before it happened, and he kept it from happening. To me that’s worth a hell of a lot more than prosecuting the offender. And what about Federico Ruiz? In Ruiz’s sworn statement to the police, he said the Redeemer saved his life, stepped in front of a shotgun for him, and then got him to the hospital so what little injury he did suffer could be treated.”
More murmurs from the audience, in a different tone; Thatcher had them with that one. Swit leaned toward the technician and said, “It’s like watching a tennis match.” The tech chuckled.
On camera, Clay simmered. “And who’s to say that if the Redeemer hadn’t been there at all, Ruiz might not have gotten hurt in the first place? That’s what happens when someone goes on a vigilante kick like this. They step outside the law, and people get hurt. That’s why we have laws in America, Mr. Thatcher, that’s why the public voted those laws into place. We have to have a system! You can’t go out and start making up the rules as you go along, because if you do, someone’s going to get hurt, someone’s going to get killed. Even if one person does go after criminals, acts like a superhero, even if that one person has ethics and morals of gold, what’s going to happen when someone else starts to do the same thing, but doesn’t have those golden ethics? What then?”
Thatcher tried to answer, but Clay didn’t let him. “I’ll tell you what: we’re going to have some guy who hates blacks, or gays, or Jews, or single mothers, out on the streets and hurting people, and he’ll be doing it with the public’s consent! Or a different song to the same tune, what about Nathan Pittman? He’s lying in a hospital bed, eating through tubes. He’s hanging on to his life by a thread, and why? Because he decided to imitate the man he’d seen in the papers and on the news. His life is permanently changed because of the influence of the Redeemer! If we don’t stop this man, and stop him today, any good the Redeemer might possibly do will turn into damage, and the damage will be a lot worse than the good!”
More murmurs from the crowd, swayed again.
Thatcher had been shaking his head as Clay spoke. Swit imagined he could see the steam building up inside the older man. “You make some good points. All right? I won’t argue that. But the fact remains, this country has a very serious problem, and Atlanta is a prime example of it. And the simple truth is this: you don’t have to know how to fix a problem to recognize that there is one. The United States of America has one of, if not the, highest crime rates in the world. The men and women of the police force are doing good jobs, sure, but what the Redeemer is doing is making a difference. I’m not advocating the average citizen taking the law into his own hands. I’m not advocating that. Not at all. But what I am saying is this: the Redeemer is a symptom. He’s a symptom that there is something seriously wrong in our country. And now, because of him, the criminals are actually afraid of something.” Thatcher’s voice spiraled up until he shouted. “And if the only way the American public can be made to realize that changes need to happen, and happen right now, is for the Redeemer to go out and beat the hell out of some rapists and murderers and pimps that by God deserve it, then by God I’m for it!”
Silence.
The words echoed faintly off the walls for a few seconds. Then the studio filled up with murmurings from the audience, now undecided.
Ted Swit sat in the control booth with his mouth hanging open, trying to decide whether or not to laugh. The only way this could get any better was if they had the Redeemer himself out there in a chair. He tried to say something, and finally managed to choke out, “Damn.”
The technician said, “Well, I like this segment better than the one we did on quilting.”
Thatcher realized he’d been perched on the edge of his seat, and settled back, straightening his tie.
Sheree Baker said, “Ahem. Well, we’ve got to pause for a commercial break, but we’ll start taking calls right after this.”
In the booth, every light on the phone board that wasn’t already glowing lit up.
AUTHOR’S NOTES FOLLOW IN THE COMMENT SECTION
“Good morning, Atlanta!”
“Good morning!” the audience roared back at her, and her smile broadened, accenting the dimples in her cheeks.
In the control booth, Ted Swit, her producer, sighed and allowed himself a small grin. Sheree Baker was gold and everyone knew it.
Sheree stood six feet tall, with long, lustrous red hair, perfect skin and enormous blue eyes, and since Swit had successfully halted the publication of her spread in Best Chest magazine, had no significant obstacles in the way of her career in broadcasting. Swit leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers over his beer paunch, and closed his eyes. Sheree’s voice came to him over his headset like hot caramel.
“We’re going for a change of pace today, people,” she said, and the words sounded like an invitation to sex. Swit hummed softly.
Sheree Baker’s show achieved success for one reason and one reason only: Sheree Baker. The writing was mediocre at best, and Swit had no illusions as to his own production skills. He’d hired the director away from a children’s show about a petting zoo because the woman worked cheap, and every piece of their equipment was easily five years out of date, if not more. Good Morning Sheree debuted with a segment about professional square dance callers and had gotten only worse from there—or better, depending on your point of view. Sheree herself was the soul of the show. Quite simply, no one could take their eyes off her.
Swit vividly remembered seeing the first numbers to come back. Their show started at seventh, moved to third the following week, then hit number one in their time slot and stayed there. It didn’t matter, apparently, that GMS never covered any topic weightier than what to do if you discover your fly unzipped in public. The show became, in the words of the Chronicle reviewer, an “inexplicable hit, in the tradition of Full House and Power Rangers.” Swit didn’t care. The ad rates just kept going up.
He felt a little nervous about today’s show, since it departed from their usual meringue-light format, but Good Morning Sheree was never a program to miss exploiting a trend. They had today’s topic operating right here in the city, after all, practically on their doorstep, and with everybody between five and fifty-five fascinated with the Redeemer, why not do a show about him?
Sheree spoke, and Swit wondered if it really mattered what came out of that mouth, as long as its lips moved just the way they did.
“Our country’s criminal justice system has been criticized more than once, both by Americans and by citizens of other nations.” A few notes lower than one would have expected from her, her perfect voice carried authority without intimidation. With just a touch more steam, it could have been a phone sex junkie’s fantasy.
“Now, here in Atlanta, someone has decided to take the law into his own hands. Our show’s topic today is the masked vigilante the news media have dubbed ‘the Redeemer.’”
Sheree let her voice drop slightly at the name, allowing it the proper gravity. “Here with us today to debate the Redeemer’s presence are columnists Greg Thatcher, on the pro-Redeemer side, and Darius Clay, representing the anti-Redeemer opinion.”
Sheree turned from the camera and moved to the discussion set. Camera Two showed the home viewing audience three comfortably padded chairs in a small half-circle, the center one still empty. Sheree Baker settled into the empty chair and smiled at her guests. Neither of them returned it, but Darius Clay nodded courteously.
On her right sat a stocky, aggressively clean-cut white man in his mid-forties, wearing a stiff-looking charcoal gray suit: Greg Thatcher. Across from him sat Darius Clay, dressed in a smooth blue Armani. Thatcher scowled. Clay wore a pleasant, if somewhat bemused, expression.
“The Clash of the Columnists,” said one of the technicians in the booth, leaning over toward Swit. “How did you get these guys in the same room together?”
Swit shrugged. “Wasn’t too hard. Thatcher’s been drooling over Sheree from the start, so he’d take any excuse to get here. Clay, I don’t know; probably just wants to take a few shots at Thatcher.”
The technician thought about that. “This is not what you’d call a typical episode here, y’know.”
“Yeah, I know. Let’s see what happens.”
Somewhere between talking to the audience and sitting down, Sheree had disposed of the hand-held, and now used her lapel mike. Thatcher and Clay were similarly wired. Her electric smile turned about half-way up, Sheree said, “How are the both of you today?”
Clay said, “Just fine, thank you, Sheree,” and Thatcher grunted. Sheree took a deep breath and asked her first question.
“Greg, in several of your columns you have addressed the Redeemer’s activities, always in a positive light. Could you tell us exactly why you’re in favor of someone who so blatantly operates outside the law?”
Thatcher cleared his throat softly. “Well, Sheree, I think we have to look at the state of our city since the Redeemer first appeared. The incidence of street crime has already begun to drop. People are starting to feel safe. Women have started to go out to stores and malls by themselves after dark again. The criminals are still out there, yes, but the Redeemer is out there with them, and they’re realizing that.”
He would have said more, but Sheree turned to Clay.
“Darius. You’re the one who gave this vigilante his name, but you’ve spoken out sharply against the Redeemer. What do you think his activity here means?”
“It means the rights of the people have one more strike against them,” Clay said, and Thatcher snorted. Clay regarded him calmly. “Of the supposed criminals the Redeemer has dealt with, eighty-nine percent have been African-American. I don’t see him as a hero. I don’t see him as any kind of guardian angel.”
Clay’s voice rose, and in a subtle but unmistakable shift of power, suddenly every member of the audience hung on his words. “What I see when I look at the Redeemer is a half-crazed neo-Nazi, out there in the streets, giving himself an excuse to persecute the African-American community.” The words themselves weren’t that inspiring, but Darius Clay had turned loose his charisma, which was formidable.
In the booth, impressed, the technician said, “Well, hell. Why isn’t this guy in office?”
Clay went on. “The suit he wears doesn’t have to be white for me to recognize the uniform of the Klan. He doesn’t need a swastika on his arm to be identified. It’s clear to me who his spiritual brethren are, and they’re the same people who’ve historically taken any excuse to attack what they fear or don’t understand.”
Sheree glanced around the audience. Darius Clay had them in his pocket. “Oh, please,” Thatcher said in disgust. “You’re ignoring half the picture. Yes, most of the people he’s worked on are African-American, but most of the crimes committed in the inner city are committed by African-Americans! That’s a statistical fact. And for that matter, what about the white criminals, the white rapists and muggers and dope pushers he’s dealing with? What about Kaveyah Wilson, the black girl the Redeemer rescued from a white rapist? That doesn’t sound like any kind of neo-Nazi to me.”
Quietly, Sheree Baker said, “Not necessarily—even a hate-filled white supremacist can have some morals.”
Swit thought Sheree probably felt pretty proud of that statement—possibly her first ever on the air that required actual thought—but both of her guests ignored her. She settled back in her chair, uncrossed and re-crossed her legs, and tried not to look annoyed.
“All right. Okay,” Clay said conversationally, with granite-solid confidence. His stage presence radiated from him like sunlight, and easily outshone the older man’s. “Let’s talk about ‘what the Redeemer does.’ And don’t think I haven’t noticed those convenient euphemisms, either. ‘Dealt with.’ ‘Worked on.’ Last time I checked, in this country it was illegal to assault someone. It was illegal to pass judgment on someone without due process of law. But this Redeemer you’re so fond of is out there putting people in the hospital. There are people coming in with broken arms, broken ribs—just last night, what about those Latino teenagers, boys, that the Redeemer shot? He kneecapped those children, and now neither of them will ever walk again unaided.”
Thatcher blustered for a few seconds. “Those boys were both eighteen, both gang members, and both found in the possession of illegal firearms and twelve thousand dollars worth of crack cocaine. You’re right, it is illegal to assault someone, it is illegal to pass judgment outside of the courts. But a question I’ve raised in my column dozens of times in the past, a question that is just as relevant now as it was when I first asked it years ago, is what about the rights of the people who are being assaulted? The Redeemer has prevented four rapes so far, and those are just the ones we know about. Who knows how many others we don’t know about? He stopped those rapes from happening. He didn’t just arrest the thugs who did it. He was there before it happened, and he kept it from happening. To me that’s worth a hell of a lot more than prosecuting the offender. And what about Federico Ruiz? In Ruiz’s sworn statement to the police, he said the Redeemer saved his life, stepped in front of a shotgun for him, and then got him to the hospital so what little injury he did suffer could be treated.”
More murmurs from the audience, in a different tone; Thatcher had them with that one. Swit leaned toward the technician and said, “It’s like watching a tennis match.” The tech chuckled.
On camera, Clay simmered. “And who’s to say that if the Redeemer hadn’t been there at all, Ruiz might not have gotten hurt in the first place? That’s what happens when someone goes on a vigilante kick like this. They step outside the law, and people get hurt. That’s why we have laws in America, Mr. Thatcher, that’s why the public voted those laws into place. We have to have a system! You can’t go out and start making up the rules as you go along, because if you do, someone’s going to get hurt, someone’s going to get killed. Even if one person does go after criminals, acts like a superhero, even if that one person has ethics and morals of gold, what’s going to happen when someone else starts to do the same thing, but doesn’t have those golden ethics? What then?”
Thatcher tried to answer, but Clay didn’t let him. “I’ll tell you what: we’re going to have some guy who hates blacks, or gays, or Jews, or single mothers, out on the streets and hurting people, and he’ll be doing it with the public’s consent! Or a different song to the same tune, what about Nathan Pittman? He’s lying in a hospital bed, eating through tubes. He’s hanging on to his life by a thread, and why? Because he decided to imitate the man he’d seen in the papers and on the news. His life is permanently changed because of the influence of the Redeemer! If we don’t stop this man, and stop him today, any good the Redeemer might possibly do will turn into damage, and the damage will be a lot worse than the good!”
More murmurs from the crowd, swayed again.
Thatcher had been shaking his head as Clay spoke. Swit imagined he could see the steam building up inside the older man. “You make some good points. All right? I won’t argue that. But the fact remains, this country has a very serious problem, and Atlanta is a prime example of it. And the simple truth is this: you don’t have to know how to fix a problem to recognize that there is one. The United States of America has one of, if not the, highest crime rates in the world. The men and women of the police force are doing good jobs, sure, but what the Redeemer is doing is making a difference. I’m not advocating the average citizen taking the law into his own hands. I’m not advocating that. Not at all. But what I am saying is this: the Redeemer is a symptom. He’s a symptom that there is something seriously wrong in our country. And now, because of him, the criminals are actually afraid of something.” Thatcher’s voice spiraled up until he shouted. “And if the only way the American public can be made to realize that changes need to happen, and happen right now, is for the Redeemer to go out and beat the hell out of some rapists and murderers and pimps that by God deserve it, then by God I’m for it!”
Silence.
The words echoed faintly off the walls for a few seconds. Then the studio filled up with murmurings from the audience, now undecided.
Ted Swit sat in the control booth with his mouth hanging open, trying to decide whether or not to laugh. The only way this could get any better was if they had the Redeemer himself out there in a chair. He tried to say something, and finally managed to choke out, “Damn.”
The technician said, “Well, I like this segment better than the one we did on quilting.”
Thatcher realized he’d been perched on the edge of his seat, and settled back, straightening his tie.
Sheree Baker said, “Ahem. Well, we’ve got to pause for a commercial break, but we’ll start taking calls right after this.”
In the booth, every light on the phone board that wasn’t already glowing lit up.
AUTHOR’S NOTES FOLLOW IN THE COMMENT SECTION
Posts
6 comments:
I feel a little trepidatious with this chapter, since it delves into politics a bit more deeply than I'm usually comfortable with. We'll see how it goes.
I tried to do a whole "fair and balanced" thing, and present solid backing for both sides of the argument...but the truth of the matter is, no matter how much some people might want to deny it, the vigilante superhero is inherently conservative.
Left-wing politics call for more government involvement in citizens' lives; right-wing politics call for less. And you can't get much less governmentally involved than when you take the government completely out of the picture and start dispensing justice all on your own.
At a comics convention once, I was on a panel called something like "Superheroes and Law Enforcement." Few members of the crowd liked what I had to say about it, particularly when I made the statement that not a single criminal Batman ever brought in would be successfully prosecuted. Citizen's arrest? Sure. By a guy dressed up as a giant bat...?
ANY decent defense lawyer would have the guy out that afternoon.
Of course, as I also pointed out, if I robbed a jewelry store and Batman showed up and broke my arms and legs, never mind the law, you can bet your ass I won't be robbing any more jewelry stores.
Anyway. More on that in an upcoming chapter.
I disagree with your Batman comment, simply because characters are affected by the rules of their fictional worlds. In Batman's America, masked mystery men have been duly deputized and accepted agents of law enforcement for seventy years. Under those circumstances, prosecutions based on his arrests would probably stand just fine.
As for the Redeemer, who operates in something closer to the real world, I'd agree both that he doesn't have the weight of DCU history on his side, and that his activities and attitudes skew more toward a certain strain of conservative thought.
Also, how you doin'?
Ah -- I see your point, and raise you an amended statement: IN THE REAL WORLD, no criminal Batman brought in would ever be convicted. :)
And I'm good. Busy. You?
Also busy, though probably in ways far less awesome than yours. :) I'll shoot you an e-mail later.
And yet, as Thatcher so eloquently presented his case, in America today the police do NOT serve and protect. They show up later and sweep up the debris and occasionally -- read: rarely -- figure out who was responsible and arrest him. Then he can be tried by a dozen people who are too dense to avoid jury duty. Then he can have a third-generation judge who lives in a gated community with armed guards sympathize with the criminal's sorry upbringing and shoo him back out the revolving door of what passes for justice these days.
The bottom line is that YOU are responsible for your own safety. That's why crime goes down when concealed-carry is made easier, and when self-defense is legally assumed. And yet laws restricting the use of guns, or criminalizing the protection of one's property and self, only restrict their use for those least likely to use them to commit a crime. Crooks have weapons, and have no trouble getting more. Is it any wonder that a spirit of vigilantism can so easily grow in this environment?
Go, Redeemer, go! Bust up a malefactor for me!
The technician said, “Well, I like this segment better than the one we did on quilting.”
Great line, I laughed out! The argument was good, too. I'm glad I was right about what happened to Nathan; it makes the anti-Redeemer side more believable.
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