To Arms!

I estimate it will take the Baseball Gents about 10 minutes to reach me. They are after all, old people.

I think about how to answer The Kook's question safely and benignly. I certainly don't want to invite a rant, the likes of which my mother has made famous. I don't want to escalate this dude's emotions; they seem to be only tenuously tethered to reality.

Well, Carol Merrill, tell us what's behind Door #1!

An admission to being unemployed and the risk of The Kook ranting against lazy welfare mothers who sponge off of hard working people and are a parasite on the system that John Fitzgerald Kennedy created, God rest his soul, as a safety net, not a lifestyle.

No.

And Door #2, Carol Merrill? Do tell!

A complete lie. I work but have the day off. Which would beget a laundry list of additional invasive questions and lies on my part, which I sense would eventually hang me.

Too much work. And I am a terrible liar.

End the mystery, Carol Merrill! Reveal the prize behind Door #3!

A hybrid of fact and myth, wherein I say I have been displaced from my job but have found a new one and start in a few days. I will decline to discuss it any further as it is still a matter of confidentiality within the organization.

We have a winner.

The Kook seems to like that answer but seems a little disappointed all the same.

What?

You see, he has this Big Idea (Don't we all?) that he's been pitching to all manner of Government and Military officials for years. He admits to getting hundreds (Hundreds!) of rejection letters and verbal declinations from all manner of high ranking officials (The Pope, perhaps?) but he still believes it is a viable and necessary solution (To what he has not adequately explained. Yet).

It is an Outreach Military. (That explains the Sharpee writing on the shirt) A militia. A highly trained and organized underground army. Trained by The Kook himself. He estimates it takes 20 years to properly train one soldier. He has the time and the motivation (but probably not the longevity...) to get it formed and operational.

And he'd like me to join.

An idiot says what?

He continues and goes on the admit that  while he doesn't believe women should vote or work outside the home (I audibly gasp, I know it) he thinks I look like a "real firecracker" and he pegged me right from the start as a Major General. Too bad I'm already working.

Yeah, a real shame.

I see that the Baseball Gents are getting close so I gesture and say that my friends have caught up and I need to join them.

The Kook makes a face like I am dissing him for another lover, but doesn't give up. Natch.

He is reaching back toward his right hip and I am certain he's drawing a concealed weapon. But in under a second he reveals only a plastic sandwich bag containing a bunch of folded papers.

He says he'd like me to read his book (Book.? I don't see a book. I am pretty sure I know what books look like). He hands me a little packet that appears to be about 12 pages origamied into a neat little packet and says it is a collection of letters to the government about the concept of a militia. His number is in there if I change my mind after reading it.

I am afraid to touch it. I am sure it is a letter bomb. Or laced with Anthrax.  I hold it like one might hold a dead mouse en route to flushing it down the toilet. 

I thank him and tell him I look forward to reading it,  and then greet the Baseball Gents, who are somewhat baffled initially by my overly friendly approach. The Kook sneers ever so slightly as he shuffles off in the opposite direction.

I thank the Baseball Gents for the save without elaborating, and break the land speed record hotfooting it out of the park to call Charlotte and find my canister of pepper spray. And a trash can for the "book."