American Shutdown - Chapter 24: Viral Thoughts

Sam arrived home in his driveway wondering if Peg and Mimi had awakened. He was concerned Mimi might require medical attention for a possible post-traumatic condition caused by Bernie’s suicide. He turned off his ignition, went inside and heard movement on the above floors. He called up the stairs, “Peg, I went to meet Ishaan at Jimmie’s. I’m back. Got so p.o.‘d talking with him I couldn’t eat. I had to get back.”

Peg came to the head of the stairs and said, “Hi, love. Mimi is showering. We’ll be down in a while. So far so good. Marianna says she might be coming home to be with us.”

Sam gave her a thumbs up and whispered up the stairs to Peg, “Well, that’s the best news I’ve had in a long time.”

He momentarily turned away from the bottom of the stairs but caught himself and returned to catch Peg still at the top. In a low voice he said, “By the way, I forgot to tell you. Jimmie told me Jermaine passed away. They figure it was heart failure from the percussion shock. Let‘s not tell Mimi, ok.”

Peg gave him the OK sign and walked away to look into what Mimi was doing. Sam returned to sit down at the kitchen work counter where he began browsing on his laptop.

He grabbed the remote and turned on the local Saturday morning cable news. It was broadcasting a replay of the prior night’s town hall press conference about Bernie and the M-Mtek shutdown. The scrolling banner underneath promoted that next would be an interview with a college professor regarding the jump in suicide rates among middle-aged males who were finding it near impossible to find work after losing their jobs.

Sam turned to his laptop and visited his bookmarked Dilbert link to get his daily fix of everyman office humor. He had read all the Dilbert comic books while imaginging he was Dilbert while at M-Mtek.

After getting lost in his browsing for a while, Peg and Mimi came downstairs and began milling around in the kitchen. Upon hearing them, Sam made sure he switched off the TV. He got up, walked over to Mimi and gave her a hug. He asked her how she was holding up.

She replied, “Fairly well. Your wife has a great shoulder to cry on. You have a great medicine cabinet, too.”

Sam went over, kissed Peg and said, “Thanks, Peg You’re a trooper. We luv ya. Mimi, Peg, grab a cup of Joe and come sit with me at the table.”

With fresh cups of coffee, Peg and Mimi settled into the two kitchen chairs opposite Sam. He pulled the envelope from his jacket pocket, looked at Mimi, he said: “I got a call from M-Mtek’s VP of HR, Ishaan Gilbert, this morning. He wanted to meet up with me. I went to see him at Jimmie’s. Mimi, just before he died, Bernie gave this to Ishaan to give to you. He also asked him to tell you that he loved you.”

Sam pushed the envelope over to Mimi who immediately slid it over to Peg, saying, “You open it Peg. You’re better than me at this kind of stuff.”

Peg carefully opened the letter with a nearby butter knife. After unfolding and perusing the one page insert she looked up at Sam with sorrowful eyes, turned to Mimi and told her, “Mimi, this is some kind of obituary. It looks like Bernie wrote it. Do you want to see it.?”

“Maybe not right now. Let me finish my coffee, first,” Mimi responded somewhat sarcastically.

Bernie’s self-penned obit made the reality of the events of the prior day impossible to control. Bernie had made it an attachment to a group email sent to the major local media outlets. He had timed it for distribution at 9 AM Saturday. His final story went national, then viral. Everyone had a chance to read Bernie’s swan song with their Saturday morning coffee.

Sam dared to flick on the kitchen TV. There it was on the screen, Bernie’s obit. The talking head was saying that the F.B.I. was awaiting a forensic autopsy to determine the exact cause of Mr. Soloff’s death. Hearing that, Mimi broke out of her trance and mentioned that in Iraq Bernie did a lot of things he couldn’t talk about. He probably had access to things like poison pills. Mimi pulled her chair closer to Peg. With dry eyes, she laid her head back on Peg’s shoulder.

Peg looked at Sam and said, “Luv ya, Sam.”

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American Shutdown by Benjamin F. Campanelli
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