2 Grand Delusion by Matt Witten Read Free Book Online

occupied, mostly by elderly folks. The aisles were crammed with rows and rows of mainly younger people standing up and craning their necks to see over each other. A lot of them were fanning themselves with stapled handouts, because it was seriously hot in there. Even from where I stood at the door, I started sweating after about five seconds.
    The mood in the room was just as hot as the temperature. One irate citizen after another was railing at the rank injustices of the universe in general and Saratoga Springs in particular. Their vituperations were aimed in the general direction of Hal Starette, the president of the Saratoga Economic Redevelopment Council, who sat at a table up front with a pained smile on his face and huge stains under his pits. I knew Hal, having played chess with him at the Saratoga Knights Club, so I recognized his pained smile and even his sweat—it was how he'd looked and sweated when I trapped his queen on my back rank. He was a good player, but sometimes took too many chances.
    Next to poor nervous Hal sat Lia Kalmus, who was moderating the meeting and not sweating one bit. She looked absolutely at ease. She gave deep-throated laughs when the speakers made jokes, hushed them good-naturedly when they babbled on too long, and in general basked in the spotlight. With her good eye shining brightly, and her scarred cheek and droopy, bloodshot eye turned away from me, she actually looked almost pretty.
    Meanwhile the air in the room was redolent with catchphrases and buzzwords. "Property values" was a biggie. So was "sick and tired." Also, "people coming in here and . . ." followed by some clause like "messing up our neighborhood!", which inevitably inspired wild applause.
    Half of me agreed heartily with these folks, but the other half thought they were narrowminded right-wing pains in the ass. I was doing an awful lot of splitting in half lately; part of turning forty, I guess.
    "Why don't they just stick all these homeless people on the East Side for a change!" one feisty old gent shouted, and two hundred other feisty old gents cheered as one.
    A sweet grandmotherly type got up and said, "You know, a lot of homeless people are perfectly normal folks, just like you and me. All they need is a little helping hand." Then she added, "But let's face it, most of them are diseased, drug abusing, mentally insane criminals!" More clapping and cheers.
    Half of me agreed with her, but half . . . et cetera. And I wasn't the only one who seemed torn. As I stood on tiptoes and gazed around the room, I noticed a lot of people biting their lips and looking like they wished they were somewhere else. Most of them were about my age, and I guessed they were just like me—ex-hippies feeling ex-hippie guilt.
    There were also a bunch of people at the meeting who actively supported the SERC plan for the Grand Hotel. One suit-wearing, professional-looking woman in her forties stood up and identified herself as "Jennifer Hopkins, a longtime West Sider who's lived in this neighborhood for ten years." (I saw two old women share a look—"She thinks ten years makes her 'longtime'? Phooey!") Then Jennifer began what sounded like a prepared speech. She was probably a lawyer, but I tried not to hold that against her.
    "People," she declared, "with every passing month, the Grand Hotel is falling even deeper into decrepitude, disgracing our neighborhood and driving down these very property values we're all so concerned about. Now instead of just sticking our heads in the sand, why don't we take a serious look at this SERC plan, instead of getting caught up in ill-considered scare tactics?"
    "Scare tactics?!" an outraged old-timer yelled, pointing his cane at Jennifer. "You'd be scared too, if you were an old fart like us and you couldn't run away from these sons of bitches when they mug you!"
    The other old-timers hooted and hollered, and Lia had to work her ass off to quiet them down. She finally succeeded, but then a woman with a