Chapter 9 - The Court of the People
The County Administration Building looked like a fortress the next morning at nine. Over three hundred people packed the concrete plaza out front.
On one side stood the union tradesmen, the night school students, Mrs. Alvarez, and local parents holding signs that read: *OUR TAXES, OUR SCHOOLS, OUR FUTURE.* On the other side stood fifty burly men in matching black jackets—Vance’s non-union demo workers—shouting into megaphones and trying to intimidate anyone who approached the courthouse steps.
When my truck pulled up to the curb, a cheer rose from the left side, answered by vitriolic jeers and curses from the right.
"Get lost, old man!" one of Vance’s thugs screamed, thrusting a sign toward my windshield. "Go back to kindergarten!"
I stepped out of the truck in my clean denim jacket, my canvas notebook under my arm. Beside me, the passenger door opened.
Lily stepped out.
She had driven six hours through the night from Chicago after seeing the news clips that had exploded across social media. At twenty-four, with her medical scrubs still in her backpack and her mother’s fierce, unwavering gray eyes, she stood beside me like a sentinel.
"Let’s go, Dad," Lily said, looping her arm through mine. "Mom would have wanted to see this."
We walked through the parted crowd. Every step I took felt like a vindication for every night I had spent studying multiplication tables by the dashboard light of a repair van while my friends were out drinking twenty years ago.
Inside the rotunda, the tension was suffocating. The entire county school board sat behind an elevated mahogany dais, flanked by armed bailiffs. In the center of the room sat Victor Bell, out on a quarter-million-dollar temporary bond arranged by high-priced corporate attorneys. He was dressed in a pristine charcoal suit, his silver hair immaculate, though his face was gray and tight.
Marcus Vance stood in the back row, a white butterfly bandage above his left eye, glaring at me with raw, undisguised hatred.
"This special session of the Cumberland County Education Authority is now in session," the interim chairman announced, banging the gavel. "Item one: the formal impeachment of Trustee Victor Bell, and the emergency restoration of adult education funding."
Victor’s lead attorney stood up immediately. "Mr. Chairman! This hearing is an unconstitutional farce! The allegations brought forward by a disgruntled, under-educated night school drop-out are based on hearsay, personal vendettas, and unverified documents stolen from private property!"
"They aren't unverified," a clear, young voice echoed from the heavy mahogany double doors at the rear of the hall.
The room turned in stunned silence.
May you like
Chase Bell walked down the center aisle, holding a manila envelope sealed with red Department of Justice evidence tape.
***
