Laughter and cheers from the khaki crowd in the back of the room. Goaded by their approval, Moore spreads out across the stage, relaxed and in his element now.
“If you’ve come here tonight, it’s because you know something is broken in America. And maybe, just maybe, if we all start by admitting that, we can get on with the more important business of figuring out how to fix it.”
Heads nod around the room.
“Out there,” he says, gesturing to the world beyond the community center, “they are not ready. They are in denial. But in here?” He smiles. “It’s a different story.”
He looks across the audience.
“You are ready to hear the truth. Your parents want you to hear it because they brought you here tonight. Some are in the room with us now. I’ll tell you what, parents. Why don’t we send you away for a bit while I have a talk with the young people here?”
The parents stay seated, slightly confused. Moore urges them to stand, and a group of kids from Camp Liberty gather them up and guide them toward a side door.
A small, powerful man in his early forties with a shaved head appears in the doorway waiting for them. He’s somewhat incongruous among the young people from the camp, but he obviously commands their respect.
Moore trades nods with the man. “Sergeant Burch will take good care of you,” he says, reassuring the parents. “You’ll rejoin us in a little while.”
With the adults gone, it’s easier to see how many recruits are in the room. Maybe three dozen of us in numbered folded chairs, while an equal amount of kids from Camp Liberty are lined up on the sides of the room and behind us.
I think about the logistics of my mission tonight.
Seventy-five people in the room, including two young security guards flanking Moore. Maybe twenty parents in another room somewhere in the center.
That’s a lot of eyes that might see me, and a lot of bodies that could try to stop me.
“Now it’s just us,” Moore says softly, drawing our attention back to the stage. The room instantly quiets down.
The two security guys spread out on either side of him now, moving slightly in front of him like Secret Service agents. The boy on the left is in his early twenties with a tight, wiry build, his head on constant swivel, more performance than security assessment.
Not so with the other boy. There is a stillness about him as he looks into the crowd, his head barely moving. He has thick hair and a beard, and he’s wearing a long-sleeved flannel shirt despite the summer evening’s heat. At first glance Flannel looks crazed, like a New Hampshire mountain man who stumbled out of the woods. His gaze drifts left and settles on me for a moment. I match the energy of the other young people in the room, mimicking their excitement and anticipation, but I add a deeper layer. A layer of doubt.
It’s the layer that I think will interest Moore. It’s easy to recruit people who already believe in you. But to convince someone who is curious yet skeptical requires greater skill.
And it’s a greater challenge.
Flannel studies me for a moment, then moves on to the next person.
Moore begins again: “I come into Manchester from time to time and walk around. I see good people like your parents who are trying to do the right thing, trying to be good citizens, working hard to take care of themselves and their families. They live their lives as best they know how—go to work, raise children, vote, save for retirement. So what’s the problem?”
He looks out into the crowd.
“It’s boring!” one kid shouts from the middle row.
Gentle laughter all around.
“Boring it may be,” Moore says with a grin, “but it’s something else, too. Something more dangerous.”
He pauses, waiting until all eyes are on him.
“It’s expected,” he says.
A few heads nod around the room.
“People do what’s expected of them, and nothing changes. The system stays broken. Meanwhile everyone goes about their business, never asking the bigger questions.”
Moore strolls around the stage now, his shoulders relaxed, his demeanor softer.
“And you know what? I don’t blame them. It’s difficult to question the status quo. It takes effort. It takes courage. And most of us, nearly all of us, do not have that courage. We follow the rules and play the game. That’s what I did. I went to school and got decent grades. When I got out I joined the military so I could make myself and my parents proud. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to find my place in the world. Mostly, I wanted to support our government as a member of the military because I believed what they told me—that they were a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Who wouldn’t want to be part of a government like that?”
An uncomfortable chuckle passes through the crowd.
“You know already,” he says, “that’s not the government we have. We have a government of the money, by the money, and for the money. Big government, big money. Reformers appear from time to time, many of them our friends in the Republican Party, well-meaning folks who try and bring about change from the inside, but the system resists. We end up with bigger government, bigger budgets, higher taxes.”
He looks at the ground, his head seemingly weighed down with sadness.
“When you go inside, you become an insider. It’s inevitable. There’s a belief that change can only happen from the inside, but it’s a myth. Your parents know this because they’ve tried it and it hasn’t worked. That’s why they brought you here tonight.”
He walks forward, standing on the lip of the stage.
“They brought you to me.”
He looks across the faces in the crowd.
“I am the outside. I am the place where change begins.”
A roar of approval goes up from Moore’s people around the room. They gaze at Moore with admiration in their eyes. I try to see what they see when they look at him, but I cannot. Not yet, at least.
“Your parents want you to be a part of that change. They need you to do what they could not do, not with all their money and power. But let me tell you a secret: You can do it.”
Heads nod around the room.
“You may have come here today because you’re afraid for your future. You worry things are only going to get worse, that we adults are making it worse, and you’re the ones who are going to have to live with that.”
He pauses, letting the idea sink in.
“You’re right about that. But if that’s not the future you want—you can do something about it.”
The audience leans forward now.
“Today. Right now. I have some ideas about how we can change things. Together. What do you think?”
“Yes!” the crowd shouts in unison.
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes!”
“Are you ready?”
“Yes!”
“If you trust me and if you’re ready”—Moore looks into my eyes—“I can show you how to change.”
Something leaps in my chest, a powerful sensation of hope and excitement.
Then Moore looks away, and the sensation is gone almost as quickly as it arose.
It’s gone for me, but not for others, because I see the smiles around me in the room, young people glowing, caught up in the same magnetism I felt a moment ago.
“Who wants to join me at Camp Liberty?” Moore says.
He looks across the room, meeting the eyes of one person at a time. I look at the kids looking back at him, conviction on their faces.
I want to show Moore fervor. But I have to show him something else, too.
Uncertainty.
You know what it feels like to have doubts, Mother said.
Is this what Mother meant, the reason she sent me on this mission?
I want to clamp down on these feelings, but I do not. I let the doubts in.