2 Grand Delusion by Matt Witten Read Free Book Online Page A

thousand wrinkles on her face stood up and screamed, "And what about these teenage kids skateboarding on our streets every hour of the day and night? I can't even go outside my house anymore, I'm so scared they'll run me over!"
    The old-timers went berserk all over again. Finally Lia restored order and Jennifer continued on determinedly. "As I was trying to say—before I was interrupted—this plan calls for the bottom two floors to be SERC office space. Surely no one objects to that?" She paused; no one objected. "The third floor will have computer training and G.E.D. classrooms. Surely no one objects to that, either?" She paused again, very smoothly. Definitely a lawyer.
    "Now it's true," she said, "that the fourth floor would house homeless men, and I know a lot of folks have problems with this. But how many homeless men are we really talking about?"
    "Too many!" someone shouted, but before the place could erupt into applause, Jennifer shouted back, "Twelve! Only twelve units for homeless men! And the SERC will be right there in the building, keeping an eye on them! So tell me, what is so gosh darn horrible about this plan?" She jabbed the air with her index finger. "How could this plan be any worse than what's happening right now, which is that this abandoned building is a boarded-up haven for crack users! Is that what you people really want for our neighborhood?!"
    Suddenly, as if on cue, the room burst into frantic applause. But it was a different set of folks cheering this time: the younger set, the ex-hippies, the thirty- and forty-somethings who'd been uncomfortably chewing on their lips for the whole meeting.
    Without even noticing, I started clapping myself. Well, at least now I knew which side I was on.
    But as the debate raged on, I realized there were still a lot of people who didn't know which side they were on. The room was full of people—Irish, Italian, black, old, young, middle-aged—who were scratching their heads, shifting their feet, and generally looking confused, not clapping or cheering or saying anything at all.
    Then one of them did say something. It was a five-foot-tall white-haired woman with a standard-issue little old lady voice but surprisingly large ears. Lia had to shush people three times before the hall got quiet enough for everyone to hear this female Ross Perot.
    "Lia," she said, "I'm sitting here and just feeling more and more mixed up. First I think no, and then yes, and then no again." She threw up her hands. "I'm in such a tizzy. So my question is: Lia, which way are you going to vote?"
    BOOM!
    Three hundred people stopped moving.
    Three hundred people stopped whispering.
    Three hundred people turned their eyes to Lia Kalmus.
    Lia cleared her throat. She scratched her chin thoughtfully. She rubbed her eyebrows. She had the power here—and she was loving it.
    The sweat stains under Hal Starette's pits instantly grew another six inches. His smile was so grim, he looked like someone was sticking needles into him under the table. No doubt he assumed, as I did, that when push came to shove Lia would show her true colors as a dyed-in-the-wool reactionary nimby.
    "Well," Lia finally uttered, in a deceptively casual tone, "as you all know, I want what's best for our community. But in this case, I have to admit to you, I can't tell what's best. We're caught between a rock and a hard place. Either we leave that disgusting building the way it is, and maybe wait another five years or even longer until someone else comes in and offers to fix it up, or we go with the SERC plan, with everything that brings. I'm like you, Helen," she addressed the elderly Ross Perot, "my head can go either way. And when that happens . . . there's only one thing to do. You have to listen to your heart.
    "And my heart tells me, when I have two choices that seem pretty equal—but one choice will provide homes to twelve people—then there's no question what's right. Because when I was growing up, my whole family was