Chapter 13 in R.M. Dolin’s novel “The Dangling Conversation“, April 22, 2023.
KYLE: "Yes, I suppose I am distracted. The thing is, and I speak from experience, life likes kicking you in the teeth and miring you in mud, nothing's as it seems and is far afield from where it appears to be. One minute you're skipping down the yellow brick road naively happy, and in an instant, through no fault of your own, you're in some surreal shitstorm with crap going down you can’t do a damn thing about. Another cold hard truth you learn the hard way is when you piss the wrong people off, punishment is maliciously without mercy. Mark those down as two of my more profound pearls of wisdom.
"I don't look it, but I was someone once, not anyone you'd know like an athlete or actor, but someone who made a difference, and then, I was just the wrong guy in the wrong moment; when powerful people need to make their negligence someone else's fault, any patsy will do. In an instant, your most cherished dreams are forever banished from existence; that's the cold hard reality of how this lopsided world turns. A dream that dies, Isabelle, is worse than death because you’re left languishing in its aftermath. You ask me about dreams as if we're owed rainbows, and maybe we are if not for the evils that live in others, dark sinister souls devoid of compassion, empathy, or any sense of justice. Always look through what you're being told because the bigger the promise the louder the lie.
"I’m not supposed to be here, ya know, this park bench isn’t meant to be home; yet here I am and here I shall remain. I had a dream once, a nice double-wide five miles north of Key West and eighty-some miles south of Key Largo; a beautiful retirement village on the Atlantic side, a place called Sunny Side Resort, where one can glide through the final chapters. I rent this place along a canal where every house has a deck with an impressive fishing boat moored to the side. I stay for a month to see if I fit in and if me and Florida can come to terms. Everyone’s amazing, guys would troll down the canal in the morning on their way to fish the bay and just invite me along, they have no idea who I am or even if I fish; there seems to be an unspoken rule that no one should ever be alone. It's too easy, ya know, being isolated, if not for you I'd sit here in silence every night. Imagine a place though, where people are real neighbors that actually care about you.
"One night this Polish lady from Buffalo and her husband Carl invite me over for happy hour. She serves an incredible Polish beer, best I’ve ever had, and then tells me all about Dingus Day, which apparently is a huge deal back in Buffalo. In return I tell her about Pulaski Day in Chicago, cause it’s a big deal to my Polish parents. Before you know it, we’re talking about perpogies, platski, and butter molded to look like lambs. Carl’s one lucky-ass dude, even if it seems he’s got one foot in the grave.
"I like Sunny Side so much I put an offer in on this property at the outer edge of Windy Point where the canal spills into the bay. I sit there a few mornings to get a feel for the overall vibe; dawn off the deck is like a postcard, to my left is a calm bay that boils with fish going after noseeums. Straight out is a dawn that makes you question eternity; the sun cracks over the horizon awakening miles upon miles of calm open water that seem sacred. In the evening dolphins and sharks swim right up the edge of my deck to snack on crabs, and all day long the tarpon roll and jump up and down the canal tempting me to try my luck.
"I still taste sweet salt air and the way warm breezes relax weary bones. Death is everywhere though; everyone’s either grieving or about to be, and yet, even the terminal are filled with a bizarre kind of joy. They've taken all the shit life can throw at them and survived; anything after that is just happy hour. Sometimes, when sitting here, I gaze at our putrid sky wondering if the hazy smog can ever clear up enough to capture a horizon. But no; no sunrises left in my life, that's what fate's decided, because as soon as I return from Florida, my troubles start."
ISABELLE: "My dad talks like that; not always, but there’ll be times when he goes dark. I ask mom about it, but all she’ll say is to let him be. We’re that kind of family, one that pleasantly avoids uncomfortableness. I don’t know what triggers it or drives him to such an unsettled state; it’s something he keeps inside. Is that a thing with you guys or are you two just cut from the same cloth?
“Dad has an unwavering sense of right and wrong mixed with this belief he has to stand against injustice. He’s strongly committed that way and likes to say a man not willing to lay down his life for a worthy cause is not worth marrying because he has no core beliefs. This is my struggle with Henry, he doesn’t have core beliefs, nothing at least he’ll lay his life down for. He pontificates profusely about a philosophy devoid of wisdom. He says shit like a man must constantly assess situations based on evolving circumstances; it’s the utter opposite of my dad.
“Things are simpler for your generation, you know right from wrong, what you believe, what you’re willing to stand for. Our generation’s untested, we're taught to abandon beliefs and because of that we're fraught with conflict and confusion that feeds an unsettled frustration; it’s ironic really, and it casts us in this continual state of boiling unrest. We protest this and boycott that, but what we’re really saying is we’re adrift without anchors. I wish I knew Henry better; and that’s really not even it, I wish Henry was more like dad; more like you."
KYLE: "The callous rat bastards kill my dream without conscience; a cold uncaring zest that seems like some bizarre form of counting coup. Maybe that’s how it is in the corporate world, but it’s not a road in my world. That’s my sin, my naive belief that in the pursuit of things benefiting humanity, there should be some modicum of nobility. My dad reminds me, “only fools and children believe in the nobility of their fellow man, in the end,” he says, “men always act in their self-interest; and in that pursuit, they don’t give a rat’s ass who they screw over. Whether driven by greed, hubris, or survival, they can only be counted on to act with one constant: self-interest, everyone, and everything else be damned.”
“In killing my dream, they lay bare the emptiness of my void, left to search for meaning and explanation, but finding none. Where does one go to question the callousness of corporations. Where does one find justice in a world framed by executioners who practice their profession with glee. Integrity, or lack thereof, is part and parcel to the cancerous nature of power and the ease in which it corrupts. A man should be permitted to face his accusers; those who would kill his dream; to look them in the eye and see into the slimy nature of their soul, but that’s not the way the world rolls; there’s always the person behind the person who pretends to lend a sympathetic ear, and I’ve spent years trying to sort through who’s the bigger sinner.
"My fault is being born a hundred years too late; a prairie cowboy talking truth to power, a man not willing to back down in the face of injustice. There’s no place in the modern world for relics like me; someone believing honest work is rewarded with honest respect. I’m stuck trying to reconcile how the world can be run by those who assess each situation then base decisions on what’s expedient for their self-interest. The rat bastards exploit the shit out of you when it suits their needs then discard you like chewed-through leftovers. A discard, something less than a cigarette butt from a stolen smoke, or the dredges from the bottom of a coffee cup. So, sit back my newfound friend as I tell you a tale of Machiavellian betrayal that’ll challenge all you have been brainwashed to believe."
ISABELLE: “Now you’re channeling dad and it’s a bit weird. He’s a tool & die guy who used to work at a tool & die shop; small potatoes huh. No big-time doctor or powerful politician, he freaken makes metal parts, blue collar through and through, all the way to his weekend cans of Coors. He is special though, and his crew feels the same, they’ll be over playing poker and call him Houdini cause of the magic he has when it comes to working machines. Everything’s good in his tool & die days, hard weeks that give way to relaxing weekends spent with me and mom, then back to the grind on Monday.
“Sometimes he works double shifts for weeks on end with no days off. But once a contract’s complete, they give him a week off; and he doesn’t waste it. No sir, he’s in the kitchen fixing breakfast so mom can sleep in, then he drives me to school in his step-side Studebaker. My girlfriends are jealous, they never let on, but I know. Not because I come to school in a rusted-out pickup, but because he drives right up to the front of my high school, there’s no getting out a block away like they make their mom’s do. And the boys are so interested in his old truck, not the kind of guys you bring home; at least that’s what I thought then. In fact, though, they’re exactly the guys I should’ve brought home to meet dad.
“I’m just about to graduate when things go south, too self-absorbed to notice anything unrelated to me. I never fully get what happens, and mostly try not to think about it because it only leads to regrets. I see now dad was pulling away, first a little, then a little bit more. What I’ve reconstructed in my postmortem is that there’s this defense contract, a huge deal for his small tool & die company; they over-promise and rely too much on the magic only dad can deliver. As deadlines pass and fines mount, they push and pressure him until he’s past exhaustion. They use him, then kicked him to the curb like an empty tuna can. For years they pretended to care, but when the pressures of profit got too big, he’s expendable, just another consumable in their production run.
“Why he doesn’t quit, I don’t know. Why is it men feel such loyalty and obligation to their jobs? With his talent he can work anywhere; until he can’t. I’m not sure what happens, likely fired, I don’t know, it’s always shrouded in mystery. What I do know is that he never works at another tool & die job again and it weighs on him, something from which he never really recovers. I’ve never cared so much about a job that I’d let it ruin me, I mean, it’s just a job. This is where Henry might be right, a little context would’ve gone a long way to help dad make sense of his mess.
“I never say sorry, never speak about my admiration; I mean he doesn’t walk on the moon or win a world series, but he’s my dad, and a damn good dad at that. I wish things were different, what I wouldn’t give to comfort him during is troubles, to lay beside him with my head on his chest and listen as he retells one of his many stories; to make the hell they put him through some small amount milder. But you can’t go back, so the darkness of his darkness is now a dark cloud that blocks my sun. I wish-, I wish Henry could see life through my history, I mean he could be right, but his wisdom isn’t earned; he lacks battle scars that would otherwise balance his beliefs. I’d like Henry to explain what happens when a man gets pushed to a point where he’s unrecognizable to himself, and then have him enlighten me with context.
“What this world needs are more tool & die workers who make magic with their machines. Fine folks who can be relied on, and who in return can reasonably expect the world to show some damn respect.”
KYLE: “I get your dad; he understands what it means to set aside what's best for himself for higher obligations. Unfortunately, such men are dinosaurs heading toward extinction; it's a shame, a real sad-ass pity. You nailed it though; the problem comes down to unwavering commitments to necessary truths. You can’t completely fault guys like Henry, they’re the product of corporations and governments being allowed to abuse and exploit workers. Not that standing up against wrongs ever got me anything other than pain and suffering, but ya have to be willing to say to hell with consequence. Young guys are cut from softer cloth; they’ve been trained to take whatever abuse is tossed on them regardless of how irrational or toxic things are. They strip strong men of dignity and self-respect until they’re hollowed into a shell of shallow compliance to the point where right and wrong cease to have utility, or even expectation; and that’s a shame, a real sad-ass shame.
"It’s the same for me as your dad, Nadia’s back in my life when my troubles begin, but she’s a story for another night. I’m struggling with my job at State; they’ve lost sight of their mission and in this super surreal sense, their morality. I began there to serve my country but over time, it becomes this deal where if you don’t swear allegiance to their progressive politics, they make your life a living hell. I’m as apolitical as they come, but that doesn’t matter; things get so toxic I dread going to bed because all I have to look forward to is waking up to even more toxic shit.
“I consider quitting but decide to gut it out until retirement, then the unthinkable happens; there’s this woman, isn’t that how all tragic stories start, she’s a very prominent and powerful politician, the wife of someone even more powerful and prominent. She’s caught stealing classified documents, something anyone else would be tossed in prison for; but what’s her punishment for treason and espionage, absolutely nothing, not a God-damn thing. And it isn’t just her, it’s the entire culture, all the bigwigs circle the wagons; even those who can and should step up to preserve some sense of justice abdicate. That’s the horrible truth about how the world rolls, those in power do whatever they want, break any law they want, commit any act they want regardless of who gets harmed, and it’s just not right.
“Each of us has to decide what we can tolerate. Henry might consider the context and weigh that against his need for a paycheck, but I can’t, it’s not the calculus of a prairie cowboy. I try, I keep my head down falsely assuming I can step outside the toxic culture, but it’s not possible, not when the culture demands allegiance. So, I quit, like anyone would; there’s no context when it comes to a nation’s security, you miss handle documents, people get hurt, and the guilty should be held accountable. I never regret my decision, even in the aftermath of all that follows.
“I move over to the food and drug administration and have been there about a year when the troubles begin. The work’s meaningful; overseeing the safety of people’s health is a much different ballgame than overseeing the security of nations, but I have purpose. It feels like I’m doing good and making a difference; that’s important, ya know; feeling like you matter in the grinding gears of government. There’s a freshness at FDA, and I recapture my eagerness for work; can’t really say why, but that’s important to men like me. Also, the place isn’t toxic, at least not like State. Even though I’m more than four years from retirement, I’m already collecting brochures for my southern Florida dream. Nadia’s keen on the Keys, I mean it isn’t the south of France, but warm water beaches are warm water beaches, but like I said, that’s a story for another night.
ISABELLE: “I leave home during dad’s troubles; eighteen and grown, ready to take on the world. I keep in touch, but to be honest, mostly talk to mom and she’s not one to burden me with whatever’s going on at home. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be, children grow up and move on, create new worlds with new world problems. Are we supposed to stay prisoners of the past, and what could I have done anyway, once you get caught in the cogs of life there really isn’t much anyone can do. When I get divorced, there’s no medication mom can put on my pain, she can’t shoulder my sorrow or alleviate the many tragic downsides I have to endure; some things you just gotta get through on your own. I’m not saying you have to suffer alone, and it’s certainly comforting to have a shoulder to cry on or someone to talk to, but in the end, that doesn’t change the journey you must endure. It’s like running a marathon, there’s all kinds of people along the route urging you on, providing drinks and snacks to keep your energy up; it’d be hard if not impossible to finish without their help, but in the end, you still have to run 26.2 miles on your own and all their support doesn’t eliminate a single step.
“I don’t know how to help dad, but I know he wants me to get on with my life. He wants me out there building my future. But what if he doesn’t mean it, what if what he really wants is his little girl to come home, to make his life feel complete and meaningful once more? I doubt it, yet feel guilty; maybe not guilt, that implies I did something immoral. I just get this sadness sometimes, a sense I should’ve stayed home longer. I mean look how things turned out, certainly I’d have done no worse staying till I was older. I don’t know, we’re probably not supposed to. My dad has his shit, you have yours, I have mine, who doesn’t, that’s the takeaway.”
KYLE: “I see it coming, but only after the pendulum’s started to swing; my downfall’s not seeing it for what it is. It’s like watching a dust devil in the distance not realizing it’s building toward a category five tornado. I’m tasked with doing an approval analysis for a new vaccine, but not just any vaccine, it’s like nothing that’s ever been proposed; one destined to be controversial. During the pandemic, big Pharma discovered the endless stream of profit potential available in vaccines; like California gold to forty niners, an endless supply of nuggets waiting to be had. Think about the flu shot that maybe five million people take if you beg and coerce them; contrast that with a vaccine you mandate three-hundred-and-fifty million people to take; perhaps even multiple times a year if you grease the wheels in Washington. There’s billions, even trillions to be had in the new mandated vaccine industry.
“Every pharmaceutical company in the country’s racing to not only hit the market early, but with such a splash their vaccine is number one; trillions, just waiting to be had. It falls on me to conduct a review of blind study data and to generate a statistical summary or the results, with special emphasis on probable side effects. I’m under tremendous pressure from the bigwigs to wrap things up and finalize my report, and because of that, I’m working long days that stretch deep into nights. I’m pouring over the data one night and start sensing something’s amiss, not consciously and without any real clue what it could be; something just feels off. As an engineer, I’m fluent in the language of numbers and how they speak in absolute truths. Numbers are expected, in some cases, to be uniform and in others objectively random; you expect numbers to cluster around certain asymptotes and to always contains outliers; this data had those behaviors, but something about how they presented causes me to dig deeper; that’s where things go off the rail.
“The more I dig the more unsettled I get and first thing the next morning, I brief management about my concerns and ask what I should do. They don’t seem worried; in fact, they’re dismissively nonchalant and flippantly instruct me to send my data file back to the pharmaceutical company and let them explain things. I reach out to my pharmaceutical company contact and we start swapping data files back and forth as directed, which is odd because the FDA never shares internal files with drug companies. If Big Pharma learns how we analyze data, they’ll figure out ways to game the system.
“What me and my contact discover rather quickly is that the data he filed with his application for approval, is not the data I’m analyzing. At this point he and I understand we’re staring at Pandora’s box about to have a peek inside. Neither of us is sure what to do but agree in a mutually assured destruction kind of way, we need to have each other’s back. Within hours my contact, in complete cover your ass mode, produces irrefutable evidence that he properly filed the correct data, which means the problem is somewhere inside the FDA; and by problem, I mean criminal activity.
“I go back to management knowing this is cataclysmic, but at least now I have the proper data and can complete my analysis. Apparently though, I’m not seeing the bigger picture because management is all spun up about the preliminary report, they pressured me to release prior to completing my analysis; a report based on faulty data. Turns out this is huge deal because once out there, it quickly goes up the food chain and now can’t be retracted; there’ll always be a trail leading back to whoever or whatever is responsible for the screw-up.
“An independent investigation is opened and the narrative that quietly develops portrays me as suspect number one. With trillions at stake and corruption the obvious catalyst, these are troubling times, dark and deep times. The investigation’s intense and drags on for months; the immense scrutiny I’m under is only countered by the methodical way I’m being ostracized, left out on an island with no idea about anything going on. All I have is management assurance everything’s okay and will soon be resolved. But it isn’t, weeks turn into months as my isolation intensifies. Finally, the investigation concludes I’ve done nothing wrong. The dark cloud of suspicion that’s been hanging over me for months is finally lifted; or so I think. They won’t tell me where or how the data was changed, and to be honest, I don’t really care; all that matters is that I’ve been vindicated.
“There’s always another shoe to drop though, never forget that, and when you’re at the bottom of the food chain, that shoe drops on you. Between high school and college, I take a gap year to work as a plumber, there’s this old guy on the crew who takes me aside one day and says, “son, you only need to know two things to be plumber, shit flows downhill and paydays on Friday.” Well at the FDA, shit definitely flows downhill, and it’s piling up around me. The deal with any organization, especially in government, is a need to project an aura of infallibility, which means when they screw up, someone needs to be sacrificed; and for this negligent malfeasance, that someone is me. The bigwigs dismiss the independent investigation because it exposes the causal factors for why my data was faulty; turns out the software the FDA purchased for converting industry data files into FDA formats, based on a lowest possible bid, has errors that went undetected for years.
“That should further exonerate me, right, only it doesn’t; suddenly the narrative shifts and has less to do with me and my data and more about the preliminary report I’d been pressured to release and the Pandora’s Box it opens. If this were just about data, they’d easily fix things by un-approving the application and rerunning the analysis; only they can’t because that calls attention to their much larger screw up. My analysis can’t be fixed because issuing a revised report calls attention to years’ worth of the FDA approving drugs based on faulty data. So, nothing’s done; imagine the shitstorm that results and the impact it has on the nation’s sense of health care security if it comes to light that countless drugs were approved based on faulty data. The lawsuits alone would be staggering, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg because the public panic caused by their sudden lack of trust is incalculable.
“The bigwigs have two options; admit negligence and do what they can to recover, which would be the honorable thing but put their lofty salaries and bonuses in jeopardy, or they can cover-up their maleficence by burning a sacrificial scapegoat. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude they choose option two, and I’m the goat. When powerful people come after you, they don’t just destroy the piece of you they need to vanquish, its complete annihilation, the full nuclear package. For their dastardly plan to work, the rat bastards can’t just quietly fire me, or force me into retirement; they need a dramatic and vengeful exorcism, something that destroys me to the point I’ll never work again, and no one will believe me if I try to fight back.
“Your dad and me are cut from the same cloth and when confronted with injustice, loss of livelihood, and decimation of reputation, I fight back; and that’s when the real shit-show starts. They hit me with an entire ensemble package, things like saying I’m guilty of an intentional act of espionage that they uncover before any consumer harm is caused; they even use the preliminary report they pressured me to release as evidence of my malfeasance. The piece of their package I don’t see coming is getting a psychologist to paint me as an unhinged wacko who’s lost touch with reality. Truth no longer matters because those in power control the narrative and taking prisoners is not an option when casualties are required. They need me gone in a way I never resurface regardless of how insignificant my role in this offense really is; the longer I’m around the more I inspire other timid travelers, and that doesn’t benefit those in power.
“They take everything, leaving me no means to recover, restart, or rebuild. They destroy my reputation, shame me in front of my peers, and ensure I’m unemployable; no one in government or industry wants anything to do with me when they’re finished. I’m discredited to the point that even if I go public with what happened, no one’s going to believe me. Along with all that’s lost, they take my Florida dream; that’s the harshest nail they drive into my coffin. Sometimes, when I’m out riding my bike, this angst starts building toward anxiety as I become overwhelmed with worry that every car blindly coming up behind me is driven by a guy they sent.
“The final chapter’s far from finished though, and even after all that’s happened, all that’s been taken, I still believe the truth will eventually come out and justice will have its reckoning. Until then, this park bench is all that remains for an extinct prairie cowboy. In the end, Isabelle, a dream that dies is worse than death because you’re left to languish in its aftermath.”
