Anon 01 anon, p.1
Anon 01 Anon, page 1
part #1 of Anon Series
ANON
Peter Giglio
Hydra Publications
Hydra Publications
1310 Meadowridge Trail
Goshen, KY 40026
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Anon
Copyright © 2011 by Peter Giglio
All rights reserved
This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
www.hydrapublications.com
ANON
For my father, my inspiration, Dr. James N. Giglio
Prologue
I
1985—Des Moines, Iowa
Rory Ellison gazed at the two remaining branches silhouetted against a cloudy sky. The day’s breeze quickened to a gust, threatening his balance on the thin, high limb of the old maple. Tired and tempted to quit, Rory closed his eyes, digging deep for his sense of duty, certain it would steady his nerves.
Soon the wind calmed, as if nature responded to his need. Rory breathed a sigh of relief. Two weeks of summer break left, and he would reach his goal early; he would reach it today.
“You’re gonna fall,” Reggie said.
Turning his attention down but ignoring his brother’s plea, Rory admired the view through the leaves of the tall tree. To his right, the sharp roof of the family house, a three level Tudor. To his left, the public park, centerpiece of the neighborhood. Rory loved how small everything looked; treasured how distance made the world seem larger, more expansive, somehow his.
Bathed in rolling rays of light that bled through the clouds, summer colors staggered. Dandelions were lit like yellow stars in a greener-than-green field. His mother’s flower garden, a revelation—arranged in varying hues of red and blue, orange and yellow—made Rory think of God as a gardener.
Letting his mind wander, Rory remembered a dare last Halloween. Fifteen pieces, Reggie had urged. Bet you can’t get fifteen pieces in that trap of yours, big as it is. Never one to back down, Rory accepted the challenge. Without much effort, he had found space in his mouth for the suggested sum, and to further prove dominance, he kept packing it in. Odd combinations—jelly beans and chocolate, Tootsie Rolls and candy corn—created an overwhelming sweetness not unlike, reflected Rory, the taste of summer air before a storm. You look like a squirrel storing nuts for winter, Reggie had said between gales of laughter.
Halloween night, Rory had paid a price for pride. Gripping his gut, he threw up in a bucket next to his car-shaped bed. His mother, standing by the bathroom door with a wet rag in one hand, crossed her arms. The frown on her face, he thought, wore her more than she wore it. Too much of a good thing, she had chided. But Rory, even as bile burned his throat, couldn’t shake a sense of accomplishment. He was an inventor. An inventor of something only he would ever know. A new flavor. Something special.
Today’s view was a new experience, too. Overwhelming, yet…just for him. Even though he wanted Reggie to share the moment—and knew Dad would want it that way—he understood his brother was afraid of heights. And this wasn’t Reggie’s thing; it was his.
“A bird’s-eye view,” Rory said, imitating the words and cadence of his father. Taking a deep breath, filling with pride more than air, he understood what Father meant when he’d said, There’s a difference between earning a view and having one granted.
Radiant colors were suddenly blurred by tears. Squinting, Rory imagined he was once again in his father’s Cessna, soaring high above the city. His father’s steady hands rested on the yoke, a confident grin on his face.
One day, I’ll let you take the controls.
He wasn’t a passenger today. Today he owned a worthwhile vantage point. And he had earned it on his own. In his mind, his father—his hero—handed him the controls.
“Come down,” Reggie insisted.
As twin brothers went, Reggie wasn’t a bad guy in Rory’s estimation. But since their father’s death the previous winter, Reggie, normally as adventurous as any twelve year old, had turned as timid as a battered animal. He had started talking strange, saying things that sounded like church-talk, a term Rory’s father had been fond of using. Like his father, Rory didn’t care for religion. The notion of church conjured images of funerals and weddings, two passages Rory distrusted and disliked.
“God is not a gardener,” Rory blurted. But the accusation, he realized with a shudder, hung dead in the air.
Tyler Ellison had been a commercial airline pilot for Pan-Am. He had only been thirty-eight when his heart had stopped. His death hadn’t been a long, inspiring struggle—fodder for the melodramatic television movies his wife, Nancy, was hooked on. Achy and weak, he’d tossed and turned for hours, trying to find sleep in a musty hotel room near the Houston airport. One arm numb, head pained, he rolled onto his side, turned on a table lamp, and dug through his luggage. He fished out a bottle of aspirin and then popped two. Washing the tablets down with a glass of water, he resolved to call his doctor in the morning.
But he never woke to make the call.
That’s how it works sometimes.
Without warning, like a crash from an unseen source, the spark abandons the host. And regardless of plans, dreams, and schemes, the music abruptly halts.
Tyler thought there was enough time to cultivate lasting connections with his sons. Like many, he considered himself more than the sum of his assets; he thought he controlled his destiny. But on his final night, had Tyler known he wouldn’t wake again, the only thing he would have regarded with certainty was he controlled nothing.
“Put a sock in it, Reg,” Rory commanded, meeting his brother’s fearful gaze. “Go down yourself if you’re too chicken-shit.”
There was already a lot of distance between them, and as Rory climbed, the distance grew. Reggie, clutching a limb like a drowning man clinging to a life preserver, looked weak to Rory. “I…I can’t go down on my own,” Reggie whimpered. “I’m scared.”
“Shut up,” Rory said. For a moment, he considered climbing to his brother’s aid. Then, making a snap decision to the contrary, he reached up, gained purchase on the last branch, and swung recklessly.
“Stop it,” Reggie cried.
Wearing a determined grin, Rory pulled himself onto his victory perch. Then, after taking a moment to steady, he snatched a well-worn piece of plastic and metal from his backpack. “This is for Dad,” he shouted, forcing inward an obstinate button that had in better times been labeled PLAY. A brief bleep from Tyler Ellison’s tape recorder, and Freddie Mercury’s voice joined the day. “We are the Champions”—a fitting tribute, Rory thought.
“What in God’s name?” their mother squawked. Craned upward, her head poked from the window of the upstairs bathroom. Her face wore a sincere look of concern. But her voice, filled with anger and more than a trace of grief, betrayed her intent.
“Please Mom,” Rory pleaded. “Can’t you just leave us alone, just for a minute?”
“Rory’s gonna fall,” Reggie said.
Freddie kept crooning.
She pursed her lips and looked, to Rory, like her head would explode at any moment. It made him think of the movie Scanners; he was able to see most of it after sneaking into the living room late one night. The movie had been great fun, until she caught him and sent him back to bed.
Rot your mind, she had warned. Those vile things rot children’s minds!
He never saw the end of the movie, but often fantasized his own finale: she walks into the frame, her gaze frantic; meeting his stare through the television screen, she points at him. Then, starting to deliver an accusation, her head explodes, rendering her powerless.
He didn’t need to see the rest of the movie; he knew his ending was better.
“I’ll be right out,” she said. “Hold on.”
“It was supposed to be a victory…like in the movies,” Reggie said. But his protest was a beat too late. She was out of earshot.
Rory hated when his ideas were repeated by others; the meaning always changed with the telling, reminding him of a childhood game he’d never cared for, Telephone. Still he gave Reggie credit. After all, he had tried to defend the plan, the plan to give their father a proper tribute, as opposed to a sterilized, glory-to-God-in-the-highest lowering of a box into the ground.
Dad never liked boxes.
He’d been more bird than worm, and more of a God than anyone ever written about in any stupid book.
Coming from the open windows of the house, Rory heard his mother’s angry feet clomping down wooden stairs. With the sound of each step, he cringed, felt shaky, and didn’t understand. A new sensation—has anyone felt this before?—that had to be a punishment for something he had done.
Blasphemy?
He felt a raindrop pelt his neck; in the distance, thunder rolled. His chest grew heavy, and it felt like the wind had been knocked from him. The sweet summer scents of flowers and fresh-cut grass were replaced by something dank and sulfurous, like the well water on his grandparent’s farm but stronger. Much stronger.
Burning erupted in his eyes, his throat, and his chest. He imagined, try as he might to shut out the dark thought, of joining Father in the ground.
A worm, not a bird!
Reggie had been right, he would fall.
He would die.
Rory blurted, “Are you happy, dickface?”
“I’m sorry, Rory. I’m really scared.” Reggie was weeping.
“This moment belonged to him. You promised we’d climb to the top together. You promised!”
“But I can’t, Rory. Please come down, it’s starting to rain.”
“And now you’ve…you’ve let him…you’ve let Dad down!”
Rory wasn’t prepared for what happened next. In the coming years, when he thought back on it, he would picture Aunt Elaine sitting in her recliner, pinching Reggie’s cheek in the living room of her and Uncle Ted’s Cleveland home.
You little angel…
She and Uncle Ted had no children but were overly affectionate toward their two dozen nieces and nephews. Every year, during the family reunion that she and Ted hosted in Ohio, Aunt Elaine called the kids forward one at a time, presenting each with expensive gifts. For Rory, like his cousins, the event was embraced as a second Christmas. For Reggie, however, it seemed something more.
Reggie was Aunt Elaine’s favorite; always saved for last, he received the most thoughtful offerings, things he had spent hours staring at in catalogs or magazines. Even though Aunt Elaine only saw him once a year, a deeper connection, something no one cared to articulate, existed.
…Reggie dear, come here…
Without warning, Reggie fell.
And the clomping of angry feet seemed to slow.
Everything slowed.
You…Little…Angel…
Cla-Clomp!
Arms and legs reach skyward as if in supplication…
Cla-Clomp!
…and then fall limp as Reggie’s neck smashes against a thick branch. His head bends sharply to the right, and his body turns…
Cla-Clomp!
…to face the yellow within green star-field. An arm snaps backward…
Cla-Clomp!
…and a plume of dirt rises with a thunderous, headfirst…
THUD!
Rain fell hard.
“Reggie?” Rory muttered, eyes half-lidded. “Re-Reggie?”
Reggie’s limbs were akimbo, his head skewed at a frightening angle.
Winds intensified.
Rory opened his mouth to scream or cry, or both; but no sound came.
Nancy Ellison, in a frenzy of fear, rushed from the front porch and dropped to the ground next to the motionless head of her fallen son. Kneeling above the broken form, her body consumed by violent spasms, she covered her eyes and screamed.
II
1997—Clear River, Illinois
Conrad Landon was the pillar of his community.
He paid his taxes without taking advantage of corporate loopholes (there were many), donated to a wide variety of charities, the type not influenced by petty politics (he was careful to know the difference), and was kind and respectful to every person he met.
He took care of himself by eating right, exercising daily, and reading for two hours before bed. “Words are speech,” he would say, “not money.” Always fastidious about getting eight hours of sleep each night, he remained sharp through every interaction. And with each and every move, he exuded confidence. All deals made, he played fair. A deeply spiritual man, he prayed for the welfare of mankind as a matter of routine…and meant it.
Everything about Conrad Landon was real and true.
But the most noble of men is capable of shortsightedness. To wit, in a life marked by success, Conrad had two major regrets.
Easing into the comfort of late middle age, Conrad wished he had taken time for a family. Though he had dated many good women in his life, he never felt the drive to commit to any one of them. Consumed with the good of others, he had failed himself, he thought, in a tragic way.
But as Conrad prepared to enter the executive boardroom one cold November morning—the sound of heavy rain pelting the roof, the sweet aromas of coffee and baked goods attempting an atmosphere of comfort—he did not feel pity for his own misfortunes. He did not yearn for someone to run to, a companion to console his pain away. True to his nature, he felt sorry for his community. He felt sorry for Clear River.
Conrad’s greatest regret was taking Anon Financial, the company he had founded, public the previous year. Always his intent to reach and help a wider populace, he had steered the route that seemed easiest.
He had heard it proclaimed by politicians and political pundits that “Companies are people, too!” But he didn’t understand the argument or what it had to do with anything. Nazis were people, he thought grimly. No. Companies were companies, plain and simple. Sure, they were made up of people with hopes and dreams and good intentions. But if he—the fat cat at the top of the heap—didn’t care about the people the company served, employees and customers, then who the hell would?
And he cared deeply about his community, a community that needed all the help it could get. And, as he saw it, time was always running out.
Stockholders provided the company with capital needed to expand, to make things happen faster than they could have otherwise. But with stockholders came a board of directors.
The board was a group of old, greedy men, Conrad surmised; men not interested in philanthropy or fair play like he. Instead, they were singularly consumed by the size of the bottom line. Big profits were not good enough, he was warned frequently, there must always be a way to make big bigger.
Now, eight wizened hands pushed against the top of a large oak table, and the members of the board rose, four sets of angry eyes regarding their president with contempt.
Conrad gestured for the board to sit and walked to the head of the table.
“Gentlemen,” he started, “it is with conviction I am here to address this board’s recent, albeit unfounded, concerns. It is with great civility I wish to proceed, to calm, if I may, any and all dissatisfaction with my leadership.”
The board sat, but Conrad continued to stand.
“As always, I will convey my strategies for this company with clarity, and—”
“Please be seated, Conrad,” said Miles Winslow, the eldest member of the board. Winslow, short and round, was a man who wore a wide smile everywhere, even to funerals. But his smile faded as he clasped his hands together. “With all due respect, we have heard everything there is to hear. We did not call you here so you could deliver another speech.”
“What do you want?” Conrad asked.
“Certainly, you must know?” Tom Sanders said. Sixty-five, Tom was the youngest member of the board. Tall and square-shouldered, Tom had played for the Chicago Bears for four seasons in the early 1960s. A local celebrity by all accounts, he was normally considered the most congenial man who served the board, though commonly not considered too bright. Tom’s face conveyed nothing less than anger as he spoke.
“You’ve failed to make changes to our borrower’s interest rates, even though it is within our legal right. You have also failed to make needed cuts to staff, allowing our payroll to become bloated. Through your neglect, large dividends have been squandered.”
“It is not the company’s mission,” Conrad said, “to cripple our customers or our employees. Gentlemen, we are in business for the long haul, gaining trust by creating win-win situations for all concerned. It’s my vision, has always been my vision, to help those who—”
“Your vision is costing the stockholders money,” Winslow interrupted. “Need I remind you?—it is not our job to serve your vision, it is our job to serve the interest of our investors, many of whom would like your head on a platter right now. You may think you’re something of a hero—a modern day Robin Hood. But your job is to comply with the stockholders wishes, and, by proxy, our wishes, not to redistribute wealth in a cavalier and irresponsible manner!”
“This company’s vision,” Conrad said, volume rising, “has always been a matter of public record to her investors. And this company—need I remind you?—has always, even as I speak, operated in the black.”
“Change,” Joe Lampe croaked. A man with three chins and twice as many mistresses, Joe clumsily stood, a tremulous finger pointed at Conrad. “Everything under God is capable of it, why aren’t you?”
