His mother, if she was worth calling that, gave birth to him but that was about all she did for him. His father, a surf bum, merely donated the sperm. As David grew up and saw more of the world, he realized that his mother was just a skanky girl that used to hang around with the local surf bums. By the time she was twenty years old, she’d given up on trying to be a mother and dropped David off at her parents’ house. She would come around once in a while, but David was glad when she finally stopped trying to be a mother.
Not that his grandparents were much better. Losers beget losers, he thought. His grandfather was a retired member of a pipefitter’s union. His grandmother just smoked and drank and bitched at him and his grandpa all day. To escape, David spent nights with friends or slept out on the beach, and when he returned home no one ever asked him where he’d been. He’d always gotten the impression that his grandparents wished he would just go away for good and stop bothering them.
During the last semester of his senior year in high school he obliged them, finally leaving their house to live with a friend. He scraped enough credits together to graduate from high school, and after a couple of years in a community college, he had good enough grades to get into UC Santa Barbara. He studied philosophy and political science, but like most people with those degrees, he couldn’t figure out what to do for a job. He worked his way up to assistant manager of a Starbuck’s, but that quickly became boring. What he craved was action.
That was around the time that the Occupy Movement emerged. He attended some events in Los Angeles, but it was too tame for his taste. When he and his friends heard about the Occupy rallies in Oakland, they went immediately. David got a taste of what real protest was like. There was just something about continuing to fight with tear gas going off all around you.
His thoughts suddenly turned to Charlie Henry. The old man had regaled him and Anna with stories of the Vietnam protest—the “real” protests, as he called them. It was really the only time he admired Charlie, because, it was during those times he reminded Asher of his grandfather.
It was all moot now. Charlie was gone. Anna was gone. David Asher had come out on top. Once the dust had settled, Brian White told him about the others’ plans. Charlie wanted Brian to kidnap Asher, drive him out to the desert, shoot him, and bury his body. Anna would then eventually take his place. Anna wanted Brian to threaten Asher if he ran for reelection. Tyler Redding would then become governor with Charlie and Anna pulling the strings. White based his decision to back Asher on the fact that he hated Charlie and wasn’t taken with Anna’s manipulative ways. More important, Asher had offered him the best deal. He would be the head of security for Blue Creek City. Essentially, it was the top non-political position in the entire city. Asher assured him that Brian would only answer to him.
So what is the comic book character that has vanquished all of his enemies supposed to do, take up scrapbooking? Asher laughed at that. Maybe the maintenance of power would prove to be as challenging as the acquisition of it. He suddenly thought of his number two, his right hand man Brian White. He quickly proved to be much more loyal, cunning, and potentially dangerous than Asher thought possible. So what was there to do now? He was the power in Blue Creek now and there were things that had to be done. And if they had to be done, why wait? Things were about to change in Blue Creek.
He thought of Patton Larsen and grimaced again. The man had always seemed to be one or two steps ahead of Charlie Henry. The governor couldn’t help but wonder how things would’ve turned out if Larsen had been taken out that first summer. Asher shook his head with regret—both with missed opportunities and the fact that something would have to be done about Larsen at some point.
The sun was setting behind him. The mountains where he stood on cast a long shadow down towards the valley and the town. Asher thought it symbolic—his shadow would lie over the town and these people would finally realize what he was capable of doing.
Whether it was the hot weather or the current economic and social conditions in Blue Creek, no one knew, but it seemed as if the life and spirit had been sucked out of the people. While traveling around town and working his business, Patton thought his neighbors were beginning to resemble the people of New York City—a people so stressed about merely surviving they didn’t have enough energy to smile. The fact that these people had been beaten down by their government and their leaders bothered Patton more than anything. Part of him wanted to shrug his shoulders and let them suffer. He’d fought the good fight and gotten his friend killed in the process. He’d given up so much for them and what did they do? They let themselves get fooled and re-elected the man who had caused all of their pain.
Still, there was part of Patton that couldn’t let go. He either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give up on these people. He was their protector, and no matter how many times they let him down, he would always try to protect them. However, things were in such a bad state that nothing came to mind. Running for City Council would be useless—he would only be a solitary voice in a sea of Asher sycophants. He could run against Asher again, but he didn’t have it in him. Another option was to cash out and go home. He had the money. Hell, he and Frank had cleared enough money they could both buy their way out and go home. In fact, that very idea had come up again the day before.
As a kid, Patton watched old western movies with his Dad. Patton loved the simplicity of those movies—there were good guys and there were bad guys. The good guys wore white hats. The bad guys wore black hats. Usually in those movies, the good guy would leave or be forced out of town. However, he would gather himself and come back to make things right. Could he leave? Could he be that man who left the townspeople in need of a hero? He thought of Jennifer and Mike and Frank and everything that had happened to them and decided that yes, he could leave them.
Frank was taking his wife Shontae home to be with their children and grandchildren. She had been feeling those old pains returning. Frank got his Blue Creek letter a week after Jennifer and he had already left the business. He was now working at City Hall as the head accountant, and predictably, he was miserable. Frank stopped by their old offices every day to see Patton and told his old business partner that he had to do something about what was happening. Patton would just purse his lips and shake his head. He stopped repeating the fact that there was nothing he could do.
The Insight spy network was still intact, but it had been compromised. No longer would the bosses receive accurate reports that reflected true events. As David Asher tightened his grip of the city, he was doing the same to more of Bao’s colleagues. Bao tried to find a way to get around the scrutiny he was under, but he was too scared. If people were willing and able to kidnap you and hold you captive, they were also likely to be willing to do much worse.
Though his life was mostly back to normal, Bao wasn’t happy with the way things were going in town. The thought that he was under someone else’s control galled him. He’d always been a free spirit, which is much of the reason he was in this place to begin with. He didn’t want out, but he didn’t want to take it. Bao’s thoughts turned to Patton Larsen as they often did when he felt this sense of righteous anger.