David Zeman - The Pinocchio Syndrome

Goss’s advance men had made no effort to quiet the crowd. On the contrary, the Goss people had projected images of chaos, violence, and hunger on huge video screens, so that by the time Goss was announced the mob was almost out of control.

This was a different Colin Goss from the mild, fatherly figure appearing in broadcast ads this fall. The only common link was the dark suit Goss wore as he strode quickly to the microphones.

‘Goss! Goss! Goss!’ the crowd roared. The rhythmic shout sounded like the pumping of a huge engine, pistons forcing out a hiss as steam escaped.

It took Goss several minutes to quiet the crowd sufficiently to make himself heard.

‘We all know why we’re here tonight,’ he said. ‘This is a new millennium, but the values we cherish haven’t changed. We’re here to remind ourselves about who we really are, and what kind of life we want for ourselves and our children. It’s hard sometimes, isn’t it? Hard to remember.’

The crowd was silent now, listening intently.

‘Hard to remember a time when neighbors lived in peace and helped each other when help was needed,’ Goss said. ‘A time when we could walk our streets in safety and enjoy the bounties of the greatest nation on earth. A time when love for one’s fellow man was rewarded by peace and prosperity. That seems a long time ago, doesn’t it?’

The crowd murmured its agreement.

‘That was a wonderful world,’ Goss said. ‘It was built by people who loved freedom and wanted happiness and fulfillment, both for themselves and for their children. These people were builders. They still exist, all over this great country. But today they are besieged by another kind of human being. The kind that has no interest in building, but only in destroying. Do you know who I am talking about?’

‘Yes!’ The crowd answered in one voice.

‘These people are not smart,’ Goss said. ‘They are not brave. They are not good. They don’t know how to build or to create. But they do know how to hate. Do you know who I’m talking about?’

‘Yes!’ The crowd’s response was louder.

‘You know their faces,’ he said. ‘And you’ve heard their voices. They brag about the thousands of innocent men, women, and children they’ve murdered with their terrorist bombs. Even today, on your television screen, you can see them dancing in the streets carrying signs to celebrate the slaughter of eight hundred innocent children on an educational cruise.’

As though on cue the screen behind Goss displayed the infamous mushroom cloud rising above the sparkling Mediterranean after the destruction of the Crescent Queen. The image was quickly followed by a now-familiar picture of pretty Gaye Symington, the most famous of the victims, standing on a diving board at a junior high school swimming meet. Water dripped from the curves of her blossoming adolescent body, making her look strangely vulnerable.

Goss paused to let the crowd remember the Crescent Queen.

‘Why, these people have never built a thing in their lives. They’ve never created a thing or had an individual thought. Yet they take pride in murdering free people. The blood of innocent children is on their hands, but they’re not ashamed of it. They’re proud of it. They think their God is going to reward them for it. Do you know who they are?’

‘YES!’

‘They are cruel and brutal and heartless when they kill women and children,’ he said. ‘But they are cowards. What happens when you put them on a field of battle, with men to fight, instead of women and children? Watch them cringe, watch them hold up their hands, watch them run!’

A roar of anger surged through the crowd. The memory of surrendering Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait was fresh enough in American minds to join the image of Arab fanatics calling for the terrorist murder of civilians.

‘And what happens when we capture them and drag them into our courts?’ Goss asked. ‘They demand justice and mercy, in the name of our constitution and our laws. The same justice and mercy they denied their helpless victims.’

He paused, surveying the crowd with his sharp eyes.

‘And in this they remind us of our own terrorists,’ he said. ‘The ones you’ve seen in dark alleys, demanding your hard-earned money at the point of a gun or knife. The ones you’ve seen on street corners, too lazy to work for a living, waiting to corrupt your children. The ones you’ve seen cruising through poor neighborhoods in their gaudy cars, spraying bullets at imaginary enemies and killing the innocent. What do these people say when they are arrested and called to account for their crimes? They demand justice, they demand mercy.’

A twisted smile curled Goss’s lips.

‘I wonder if the word people is really justified as a description of these creatures,’ he said. ‘For one thing, they are far too cruel to be called people. For another, they are far too cowardly to be called people. And they are certainly too dirty to be called people. Are they really human at all?’

‘NO!’ The crowd roared the word in one voice.

‘Don’t you find it funny, in a tragic sort of way, that we have allowed these animals to terrorize us, simply because we are civilized? That we have turned into lambs waiting for the slaughter, simply because we are too civilized to strike back at an enemy who wants to destroy us? Our own compassion has blinded us to the truth about these cowards. They take their courage and their swagger from our own weakness. At the first sign of strength from us, they run squealing for cover. For too long we’ve been too civilized to take a stand against them.’

An invisible electricity held the crowd in silence.

‘But that’s all over now, isn’t it?’ Goss concluded. ‘The age of fear, the era of trembling, is over. No longer will we go about the business of freedom like victims. No longer will we wait like sheep in a pen for the wolf’s next attack. This time it will be us attacking. And when the butcher runs for cover, we will run faster. We will catch him and destroy him. And when he falls to his knees and prays for mercy at the eleventh hour, what will we do to him?’

‘KILL! KILL! KILL!’

‘GOSS! GOSS! GOSS!’

The crowd surged this way and that, held in check with difficulty by the local police who were working alongside Goss’s security staff. They shook their fists at the cameramen and reporters on the periphery of the crowd. Decades of downsizing in American business, along with the recent recession, fueled their rage. So did countless headlines about terrorist attacks, gang warfare, street crime, welfare fraud, school shootings, illegal drugs, and sexual permissiveness. Not to mention six months of nuclear terror on a scale not seen since the worst days of the Cold War.

The crowd did not have to sort out the manifold sources of its rage. Colin Goss focused it for them. With a sure touch developed over many years, he aimed their anger at a faceless mass of dirty, lazy, selfish, violent, and ultimately inhuman creatures who were responsible for the ills that beset society in the new millennium.

‘GOSS! GOSS! GOSS!’ came the chant, louder than ever now.

At the end the chaos was so great that Goss had to be escorted to his limousine by security men. It took forty-five minutes to disperse the crowd. Scattered incidents of violence would be reported in the nearby inner-city neighborhoods overnight, all of them directed at minorities.

Colin Goss was gone now, en route to his private jet and a speaking engagement in another city. But his message of hate remained behind him, as he knew it would. The legend ‘Time for a Change’ loomed on the enormous video screens.