Dr. Frank Einstein (16 page)

   
                              Chapter Twenty Three

     I drove cross country because for fifty one years I had been falsely accused of being schizophrenic.  I had been bought out of my teacher's contract for fifty thousand dollars. It came to fifty thousand dollars because they continued to pay me at a disability rate without showing up at work, holidays and a mandatory two months’ vacation paid at the full rate.   I also believed that somehow the school district had cajoled the state teachers’ pension to give me a disability retirement.  My monthly pension? Two thousand three hundred United States Dollars.  I drove a rented car from the Suburb of Los Angeles to New York City.

 
   Because I was tenured, the district found out that a psychiatrist had misdiagnosed me with schizophrenia.  I had Cerebral Palsy. The District Administrators did not like the way I talked and walked.  They could not fire me because of Cerebral Palsy but they said they could get the California Teaching Credential Commission to revoke my credentials because of schizophrenia.  Thus with no credential, there is no tenure.   With no tenure or credentials I would be fired without cause.  

     
I was going to change the world. Screw up the system. Make every Republican’s heart sink.  Make the whole military Industrialism complex tremble.

   
  I bought a small caliber rifle. I took a gun course. I practiced for four months at an indoor Lancaster (CA) shooting range.  I went there three times a week for an hour. 

     
The rifle jolted my shoulder.  It hurt.   As I practiced I subbed at Palmdale Unified School District.  It took on all the classes with students with severely handicapped so I was very busy.  I worked every day. At the completion of the fourth practice, I left the rifle in my storage unit in Palmdale.

    
I found the target, No, not sixteen hundred Pennsylvania. Avenue.  That's stupid.  That will not change anything.  The President was a Black Democrat.  The Republicans pretended to hate him.  They convinced everyone he was a Muslim terrorist.  Questioned his birthplace.  No my target was totally different. Kill one of them and everything changes.  They have no secret service. In fact this moron would roam the country during Summer Recess in a Recreation Vehicle.  Sometimes he had a body guard.

    
I found my target's house in a Washington suburb of Virginia. I postulated that I would pick him off in his house.  But there was no hill to give height to rein down my terror. I decided to wait until Summer Recess. It was only a week later.  I had seen the Recreation Vehicle several times.  It was a silver airstream.  Lady bird Johnson would have had vapors over this highway eye sore.   I had memorized it.  I memorized the license.  You could even see it on the internet.

       “I want to see this.” I said, pointing at a rifle to the gun dealer in a gun show in rural Virginia.   It was fun portraying a right wing moron.

       “Okay” said the bearded man behind the table.  “That's a big ass gun.  Are you sure you can handle it?”

       I nodded.  The gun show smilied a Moroccan bizarre.  With scores of people crowded together filling up on guns and their accessories.  Too many in fatigues.  How many were military wannabes? 

    
  “Fifty Caliber with a mile scope.  A tripod.”  He wore military fatigues too.

    
“Have you got papers on it?”

    
“Of course not.” We laughed together,” I bought it surplus from the Army.  I'll sell it to you for six thousand United States Dollars. “

   
“Five with a case of ammos”

    
“Sure.”

    
Ironically, my target had supported the United States Supreme Court decision to allow all weapons sold at gun shows to be exempted from registration.  If they found the gun it would only lead the Feds to the United States Army. 

    The Justice liked to park his Recreation Vehicle overnight at Wal-Mart.  He would set up patio furniture. He’d sit there at dusk.  He sipped an iced tea.  People constantly waved at him.  He waved back at them.

   
He had stopped in a Wal-Mart in the Adirondack that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by hills I found a clear shot a mile away.  All I had to do was to put on camouflage: ski mask, latex gloves, cloth gloves and booties.  Then I set up the rifle on the hill. I was east of the target, with an Interstate between it and me.  I had a clear shot as the Justice lounged on his patio furniture.   I lay on the ground to anchor myself. I set the rifle on the tripod. The target aimed in the scope.  I took three breaths.  Then I held my breath and squeezed the trigger.  I felt a little push.  In the scope I saw the target fall.  The gun was too far for anyone at Wal-Mart to notice the sound.

  
I stood up.  I ran to my car, but left the gun.  I took off my suit; dumped it on the ground, then the ski mask that cover my face (threw it in the glove compartment), then threw off my gloves leaving on the latex ones. I took off my booties, leaving them to lie on the ground, as I sat in the seat of my car.  I lifted my feet to the car floor.  My shoes never left a print.  I drove away from the target towards New York City.  Everything else I left at the scene.

    
I put the cruise control at sixty nine miles an hour.

     M
y radio was already tuned t
o
National Public Radio
.
  I kept two hands on the wheel.   I tried to think of something else.  But all I could think was what I had done.  Fifteen minutes into my drive
,
National Public Radi
o
was already talking about what I had done.  It confirmed that the right wing justice was dead.   Police say that no one had seen the shooter.  They estimated that he fired the shot from a mile away.  Those areas are fairly isolated with very moderate traffic.  There is a great chance he fled in a car without any detection.

   
Two hundred miles and I was at the ninety five interstate.
 
National Public Radi
o
reported that police had found the rifle and the outer clothing. They feared the rifle might be untraceable.

    That's why the gunmen left everything behind.

     I stopped for gas.  After putting the hose in the tank, I got out my laptop. 
Got on the internet.  I ordered a first class ticket at midnight that night for Manila from New York City. I had three and half hours to get to the plane.  It costed fifteen thousand United States Dollars.  The pump stopped. I parked at the side of the station and finished the transaction.  A ticket that expensive I could also use the next day at three pm.  But that would risk fifteen more hours in the United States. I went back on the interstate.  Again I set the cruise control as sixty nine.

   
“It's alright if you miss the flight.  Just don't speed.  Don’t get in an accident.”  I murmured, “I've been driving for twenty five years.  Why is this night any different?  Why?  Because I'm a horrible assassin!  I killed a man.  O God.  Why did I do it?

  “Okay, Okay, just get to Manila.”

   I drove for seventy minutes. Wrapped with guilt, I turned NPR on; I turned NPR off.  Nothing worked.   Once I glanced off the interstate and saw a sign:  Police lighted up.  I had an overwhelming desire to go back there and announced to the officers.  “I did it!”   But I just dove on.  I had never considered how painful these hours alone would be.

   I even stopped at my childhood favorite restaurant Friendly's.  I ordered a Big Beef meal and a chocolate Fribble.  I even indulge
d in a sundae.  It was a last meal.  Perhaps I would be killed tonight.  I would definitely get the death penalty if I was caught.  I could hear other people, in the restaurant, talking about what I done.  They were scared that the balance of power would shift to the left.  I did get a kick out of that.  Once again I was about to yell I did it.  I am a radical and I did it.  But the thought of getting a lethal injection stopped me cold.

  
    I went into bathroom and threw my latex gloves and ski mask in the waste can.  I looked in the mirror peering at my stylish casual attire I just bought for four hundred dollars.  I washed my hands and left the restaurant.

  
     So I returned to my car.  I made it to the rent a car drop off at eleven: fifteen.  On the shuttle bus, I was escorted to the plane.  They even delayed the plane fifteen minutes because I was in first class.

         
                                Chapter Twenty Four

     “Give him hell, your honor!” said a passerby to the Justice.  He sat on his patio chair in front his tube shaped motor home.  He was sipping an ice tea.   He rested the glass on his rotund waist.  He wiped his beaded brow underneath his short white afro.  He looked at the big Wal-Mart Sign.

     “Stop that Islamic terrorist for a president in his tracks.”
Yelled another to him.

     “Thank you for your support.” He replied with a smile. His bifocals glared back the setting sun. “And I promise I will. “He mutt
ered with a chuckle, “Islamic terrorist oh well” A pop sounded and half the Justice’s head blew off.

   
The passerby heard the pop and glanced back at the justice.  He was stunned by the carnage.  He ran back to the motor home and knocked on the door frantically.

       “Mrs. Washington! Mrs. Washington!  Your husband--.  Oh I'm so sorry. “He began to sob.  “The President has assassinated your husband,”   The door swung open and a woman rushed out. She was bawling. “James!  Oh darling.”  Soon a crowd started calling nine eleven.  Already many cell phones were pulled out of their pockets.

 
      Another passerby looked around.  He looked like he had an idea.  He jumped in is car and drove on the Interstate where he thought the shot had come from.  After a mile he got off the ramp.  As he got on to the other side of the road, the assassin passed him going the opposite way alongside a few other cars.  The passerby drove more miles and swung out his car across the interstate.  The few cars screeched to a halt.  He ran out of his car, waving arms. 

 
      “Justice Washington has been murder.” He yelled the cars.  “I have to find his murderer.  Please.  Let me search your car. Please.”

    Police and Medical teams were at the Wal-Mart.   From the wound they summarized that it was a high power rifle. 

    “The shooter could have done this a mile away,” said the State Trooper in charge, “I am gonna chance it and look a mile away from h
ere.  In that direction.”  We need a search party on both sides of the interstate. “  

    Thirty minutes later they found the gun.

    “Damn” Said the trooper in charge.”  He left everything here.  That probably means he's bought the rifle from a gun show.  There's no fingerprints no foot print, no saliva.   All the powder burns are on the clothing that he left here.    He probably left his car there on the side of the Interstate. It’s asphalt not dirt. No tire prints.  It's so isolated here that no one took notice of a car on the side of the street.   This is so well planned.   But I think it's a geek who did it, not an expert.  It's gonna be a bitch to I.d. him.”  A group of people scrouwered the barren land.

      First I want to say is that I’m devastated by the assassination of Justice Washington” said the President in the pressroom of the White House “However after careful consideration I decided to nominate Gerald Fitzsimons to the Supreme Court.  A Few people gasped at the announcement.  Cameras flashed at the president at the podium.

   “Yes, Tom, I'll take your question.”  The president pointed at the Washington Post seat.

   “Mr. President I'm shocked and a bit appalled.   Fitzsimons is almost as right winged as Washington.  Sir you’re a Democrat.  Why?”

   “Fitzsimons, I feel, is the most qualified.  Politics should never be involved in the Supreme Court.   He has been a circuit appel
late judge for the past three years.  He is exactly the person needed right now."