-Eugene Baldwin's – The Genehouse Chronicles

December 30, 2015

Poor Ethan Couch. In 2013, this spoiled rich kid got drunk, drove seventy miles an hour, killed four innocent people and critically injured nine others in a crash authorities said was more like a plane crash than a car crash. He appeared in court, and his lawyer introduced a new term to the world: “Affluenza.”

Affluenza applies to a class of young people who are rich and coddled, and therefore do not understand the consequences of their actions—so said the brilliant lawyer.

Judge Jean Boyd could have had a good laugh and sentenced poor victim Ethan to life in prison. Instead, she bought this moronic concept and sentenced Mr. Couch to four months in a juvenile facility and ordered the lad to not drink until he turned nineteen.

You can bet, Mommy Couch sure in hell wasn’t going to let her boy take that horrific punishment. She threw a going away party for Ethan (he is seen drinking on camera) then they drove to Mexico and hid out. An FBI manhunt was ongoing, as well as Fort Worth police sleuthing around town.

Ethan’s downfall was ordering a Dominoes Pizza for delivery. The delivery kid recognized him and called authorities. And Ethan and Mommy Dearest are back in the US. And what will be the consequence? Little Ethan will do the four months plus an extra 120 days for being a bad boy. Breanna Mitchell and her daughter Shelby, Brian Jennings, and Hollie Boyles, the four people murdered, could not comment. Another victim, alive but brain dead, could not comment.

So I will. I have “effluenza,” a state of being which makes me throw up when I hear that rich kids are enabled by their morally bankrupt parents, to do whatever they damn well please. And there is Judge Jean Boyd, who said that Ethan Couch “seemed like a good old boy,” and felt the rich white kid would get better alcohol addiction treatment from his rich parents hiring a top notch shrink.

I understand murder. I am a victim of my mother’s murder. I can forgive human impulse and passion. But there should be no mercy for elitists who believe they are above their peers, the laws of their country, morality and ethics.

So here is my sentence: Judge Jean Boyd is hereby ordered to work for the rest of her days at menial labor at a facility for the brain dead. She must read “Crime and Punishment” once a month for her life. Ethan Couch is hereby ordered to a monastery to lead a celibate, sober, silent existence, for life. All his possessions and funds are transferred to the victims’ families. Tonya Couch, Ethan’s mother is sentenced to life in prison without parole, for being a useless wart on the ass of society.

Court is adjourned.

December 25, 2015

I spent the night in dreams, half awake and stroking the cat. At some point I got up and walked outside. Barred owls were calling from the trees across the cornfield. A line of animals padded across the field: coyote teenagers with changing voices. A shirtless runner jogged east on the highway. It felt like spring, and the blooming forsythia confirmed it.

I saw Jesus sitting on my limestone bench, his corkscrew hair ruffling in the breeze. I smiled at him and he nodded and smiled back and gestured to my empty wine glass, and I held it out, and he waved his fingers, and my glass slowly filled with dry red wine, and we toasted the Vintner Christ.

By false dawn, I was back in bed, my healing and bruised neck throbbing. I meditated: A vision of a cenotes in Mexico filled with blue water, in my mind, the long shaft of it decorated with skulls, and vertical swimming children diving up, diving down and a naked girl perching on a ledge and playing five notes on a bone flute, over and over, and this became ocean waves on a shore and this became breath and this became sleep.

Then in my right ear, as though the speaker was kneeling next to the bed, came these words: “I have a story to tell.”

I started awake, thinking an intruder had entered the house. My head was pinned to the pillow by the cat, by the weight of the cat on the left side of my face, her belly fur carefully placed on the scar of my neck, her front paws gently kneading my shoulder.

Who had spoken to me? Was the cat asking me to write her biography, sweetening her story pitch with gentle paw pulses? Was it Jesus? But his story had been told, albeit by melodramatic, superstitious men ignorant of science, men who supposed that thunder was God’s voice and rain was God’s tears, men who inserted a prostitute into the story, as all good, men-driven, redemption stories of the time must have sinning women, prostitutes and the like.

No: this man had a low voice, a steady voice, a calming, sweet voice. “I have a story to tell.”

The haunting was familiar, welcome to me. I have stood in fields and watched ancient Indians walk routes through the forest, and then I followed those trails and found stone artifacts of their journeys. My long dead great-aunt Georgia walks this house and calls me “Blue Gene,” and pets my face. And the Vintner of Christ tends bar.

I don’t believe in ghosts. I know that souls in parallel universes reach through dimensions and touch us, their fingers like delicate strings playing the instruments of our bodies.

The cat and I fell into more fitful sleep. We had stories to tell.

December 22, 2015

I spent most of yesterday getting more post surgery tests regarding my C5 cadaver bone. We’ll know next week if the surgery has to be done over.

Meantime, I’ve learned the identity of the donor whose bone is nestled in my neck: a girl named Velveeta Cheese’ncrackered of the Dallas Cheese’ncrackereds who famously fought in the 2013 Black Friday battle with crazed shoppers at the Alamo Mall in Paris, Texas.

Velveeta was but fifteen years old when she tried to grab a new microwave out of another customer’s hand in WalMart, and the other customer’s brother shoved Velveeta’s head into the microwave, grabbed the electric cord and plugged it in thus uh, melting poor Miss Cheese’ncrackered. At her funeral, her coffin was draped with a banner reading, “Remember the Alamo Mall.”

The unfortunate young woman’s organs and bones were harvested with the caveat that only white people could be recipients. The family sent their psychic cousin, Angus Beef Cheese’ncrackered to each bone recipient, whereupon we were able to communicate with Velveeta from the next world.

The following was taped at my bedside last night:

Angus Beef Cheese’ncrackered: Velveeta? Y’all there, sweetie?

Velveeta Cheese’ncrackered: What in the hell’m I doin’ stuck in a old man’s neck?

Angus: Now, Cuz, Mr. Baldwin’s family paid good money for your bone. We can buy us that meth lab equipment now.

Velveeta: You know what that geezer was doin’ last night? Playin’ with hisself—right there in his bed. And he was watchin’ that Democrat debate on the T & V, and got a erection every time that bitch Hillary spoke.”

Eugene Baldwin: I was merely arranging my “boys” before I slept. Angus, I want that kid out of my neck.

Velveeta: I want that pervert to give back my bone.

Angus: White people, can’t we all just get along? Velveeta, the money done been spent. Gene, guy, try a little restraint. My cousin is a delicate little gal.

Eugene: Your cousin is a dead little gal, and her bone is mine.

Velveeta: That’s it. That is it! I am rejectin’ you, you baldheaded—

Eugene: I am used to rejection by women.

Angus (pleading): Velveeta Cheese’ncrackered, mind your manners, gal!

Velveeta: It is my body, and I—

Angus: OR! I will give away all the rest of your bones to you-know-what!

Velveeta: You wouldn’t.

Angus: Would.

Velveeta: Black people? Try it, mister, and I will appear to my daddy in a dream and tell how my cousin Angus used to play with my—

Angus: Mr. Baldwin, sir, can I interest you in a partnership in a meth lab?

Velveeta: Come to think of it, Daddy used to play with my—

Eugene: This is breaking bad.

Angus: And on Christmas Eve-Eve-Eve, what a shame. Merry Christmas, Velveeta. And to you, Gene.

Eugene: Alright, Merry Christmas, Angus Beef, and you too, Velveeta— oh . . . Oh. What are you doing to my neck, girl? Oh. What are you doing to my life, girl? Oh. Just a little bit lower, girl . . . On the first day of Christmas, Velveeta gave to me  . . .

Remember the Alamo Mall.

December 7, 2015

The worst argument I ever got into, involved the great Randy Newman’s song “Short People.” A friend insisted that it was a disgusting and heinous mockery of genetics, while I pointed out the obvious satire. She never spoke to me again.

FYI: She was teeny.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel is a teeny man. Over the years, I met him in the company of former Mayor Richard Daley, at Gallery 37, an art project hiring teens as apprentices, at some city fundraisers (Mrs. Daley, a gracious woman, introduced me to Emmanuel, saying, “Gene is our theatre artist.” He fluttered his eyelids; he was very fluttery, was our Rhammy; to see his eyes close up was the see the real life Grinch.)

In his presence, you had to bend your knees; no way was Rahm looking up. I’ve noticed this about teeny men: the teenier, the more massive the ego; the more vengeful in perceiving slights. The few times we talked, he stared at my breastbone, until I lowered myself like a slow elevator. I was in a room with community organizer “Barry” Obama and Rahm, and Barry was bent over with his hands on his knees while they talked.)

Tom Cruise is teeny. I’m just saying.

Rahm Emmanuel’s personal story is as good as it gets—unless you really think about what it is that he said. My favorite Rahmism involved bananas, how he and his poverty- stricken brothers ate tons of overripe bananas. And like James Cagney (also teeny) gangster characters, the brothers rose up not in a masterful leadership way, but with slit-your-throat, banana deprived intensity. (Rahm’s brother Ari is portrayed in the series “Toadies.” I’m sorry: “Entourage.”)

Yule Brenner (I chauffeured for him back in the day) was teeny. His bodyguards were armed, and would grab you if you so much as looked at the King of Siam.

Now Mayor Emmanuel is under tremendous pressure. One of his cops has been indicted for murder. The video of that murder was suppressed for a long time. Not showing the mayor that video—as he is claiming—is literally unbelievable. He likely saw the tape the night it was shot—no pun intended.

Which explains why the city awarded the victim’s family $5,000,000 dollars to settle a non-existent case; the family hadn’t asked for it. In TeenyLand, nothing that could destroy an image is tolerated. You simply buy the enemy.

Good teeny: Gilda Radner; Louie from “Taxi”; Gandhi; Anna Kendrick; James Cagney; all God’s babies.

Rahm will not resign. Kings don’t resign. The evil Cardinal orders a hit, a rival plants a delusion and the King goes off his nut (“Othello”), or rivals have the King’s head chopped off. But Kings don’t resign.

So: Rhamsters (evil haters of His Majesty), don’t waste your breath over what won’t happen. Pray he steps in a puddle and drowns. Hope that a deranged little person reaches down and conks him on the head.

Or one of those heretofore unknown Republican Chicago states attorneys dressed in a K-Mart suit rises up, pulls down the microphone to his height and says, “J’ Accuse.”

Take the “r” off of “Rhamster” and what have you got?

I’m just saying.

December 6, 2015

It was 1971. I cain’t recall what I ate for breakfast this mornin’, but I remember this old dream. Ain’t that somethin’? This old world is somethin’.

So me and my wife Sam Ann was sound asleep, and I was dreamin’. It was like watchin’ a show on the TV. Sam’s brother and his wife was driving in their old van, me watchin’ from the side of the road. Their baby girl was laid out asleep on the back seat.

And it is raining, and the two lane road is coated with oily puddles. They are driving outside of Carlinville, and the rain rise up from the back tires, the water comin’ down so fast the windshield wipers don’t work.

And I hear myself mumbling: “No, no.”

But they keep on a-driving, and the back of van is fishtailing, and then they come to a really steep curve, and old Ralph, he loses control, and the van rolls over and over. And they all are dead.

Well, I woke up screamin’. I think I yelled, “Slow down, slow down.” And Sam Ann woke up and held me while I cried. I told her I dreamed her brother was dead. And Sam, she went to make us coffee, and the day started, and I didn’t think another thing about that dream.

Sam Ann drove off to work, and I was makin’ a sandwich for my shift at the steel mill. I packed a paper bag with eats and started to walk out the door. The phone rang. A voice said, “Are you Mr. Gray?” I said yes, and the guy said, “Madison County Sheriff’s, Mr. Gray. We need you to come to Alton Memorial, sir.” I asked why; he said he could not comment, but I needed to get there now.

And I was worried something had happened to Sam Ann, and I got from Clifton Terrace Road to that hospital in under fifteen minutes. I ran in the emergency room door and told them who I was. And this sheriff’s deputy comes through an automatic door and takes me to a room with a curtain closed. He won’t say a word.

He pulls back the curtain. I vomit all over the floor, foot of this cot. On the cot is the torn body of Sam Ann’s brother’s wife. She is nearly beheaded. She is missing her right leg. And I sob, and I ask why in hell her husband didn’t come do this identifyin’.

Because he was in intensive care is why. He and the wife and the baby had been in a horrible car accident outside of Carlinville. The wife was thrown through the windshield. Her husband was knocked out but alive. And their baby girl, despite the fact she was asleep, no seatbelt, just stayed on that back seat like nothin’ had happened. And ambulances brought them back here.

I had to call Sam Ann, tell my sweetheart my dream came true. And no, I ain’t psychic—I don’t believe in that.

Why did I remember that today? Because I went to Christmas shop at Penny’s. There was this old, old woman standin’ in front of the entrance, talkin’ to a young guy. She said she would spend the rest of her days settin’ in her kids’ yard with her machine gun and kill any Negro—she didn’t say “Negro”—or Arab or Muslim, or that traitor Obama, who happened by. She said the revolution was upon us, and the guy said he was locked and loaded. They meant the white revolution.

And the pain of that was like the pain when I saw my brother-in-law’s dead wife on that hospital bed. The emptiness. The tragedy. I wanted to strike that woman and yell, Shame on you, sister. Instead I walked back to my pickup and cried.

I got a shotgun in a linen closet, ain’t been fired in fifty years. Do I clean it up and oil it and set by the door?

Life ain’t worth that. My end is near, don’t matter none how.

You want a shotgun, Gene?

November 28, 2015

I drove to the local BP station and convenience store for my morning “bold” Brazilian coffee. Take your own mug, it costs .84 cents; buy eight, get one free. And they grill lunch there: meatloaf sandwiches, chicken kabobs, turkey burgers. I love the place.

I loved the place.

On Saturdays, a group of six to eight mostly bearded, all white, middle-aged guys sit around tables and kid one another, and talk about girlfriends and/or marriage. The most jovial of the lot is the owner. I’ve been known to throw in a humorous observation, had the men slap me on the butt.

This morning, a young boy, perhaps seven years of age, sat in his dad’s lap and ate a doughnut, mostly oblivious to the talk swirling around him. I passed by the gentlemen and filled my travel mug.

What I overheard is verbatim: “You know, a kid gets shot, what, sixteen-seventeen times? We weren’t there; we don’t know the circumstances.” “That’s right. Probably the kid deserved getting shot seventeen times.” (Laughter.) “Well, yesterday they interfered with customers shopping up there. Cops are shutting them protesters down today.” “You don’t mess with Christmas.” “They charged that officer with murder—can you imagine that?”

My first instinct was to turn around and let them have it. I almost said: “Can you imagine a circumstance where your little boy there, assuming he didn’t have a weapon, would ever deserve to shot?” But the subject wasn’t guns. The subject was black people. By keeping my mouth shut, I endorsed the loose talk. I am guilty. I drove home mad as a hornet. I thought about going back. I didn’t. I am guilty.

I know for a fact that most of those men will attend church tomorrow, identify themselves as Christians. I know for a fact, those men would not talk that way in the presence of a black person. I know with certainty that Jesus weeps. I know the utter absurdity of imagining an unarmed white kid getting shot.

So I’m on my soapbox, in the safety of my house. I am a coward. I am the great-great grandson of William Jones, a storied leader of the Underground Railroad, Michigan branch, and I am a coward. I am sick to death of racism, but I am a coward.

I’m also on the fragile side; my neck is broken. If somebody challenged me, I couldn’t stand my ground. I could use big words and enrage them. But that’s not why I didn’t speak up.

I am afraid.

November 25, 2015

This may be the longest stretch between columns for me. Real events have temporarily taken over, especially the revelation that my great-great grandfather William Holton Jones was a leader of the Underground Railroad in Michigan, helping thousands of slaves escape to Canada and risking his life for others. Rest assured, I am outlining a book.

But I have been walking; have been meeting old friends on the trail. Yesterday was in the 60s and balmy. Great blue herons plied the waters of AltonLake, as did a lone sailboat. Robins were perched in clutches above the trail and chattering and enjoying communal warmth. I could use some communal warmth.

Genehouse is settled and unpacked, and a new birdfeeder is feeding nuthatches, tufted titmice, wintering juncos, housefinches—all for the entertainment of Scout the Cat who lounges on the sofa top and watches the circus unfold outside. My friend Asta brought us the gift of irises, now planted in the front yard, a symbol of spring and friendship.

Farmer Orville has been under the weather. I joined him and his wife Quilt Queen in their kitchen for coffee and the first chocolate chip cookies of Cookie Season. Reba the farm dog was outside and swallowing whole mice, head first.

The topic (Orville always has a topic) was women singers—how bad most of them are. But then, after criticizing the caterwauling of women on TV who sing the National Anthem: “Hey, I really like that blonde gal singer.” Who doesn’t like a blonde? “The one all over the news the last few days—only got one name.”

Did he mean Adele?

“Man, she has got pipes.”

“OMG,” as Granny Baldwin used to say, “OMG.”

Dear Adele, a seventy-seven-year-old man in Godfrey, Illinois is your biggest fan. Please come to his farm this summer. He will pick blackberries and tomatoes and strawberries for you, no charge. You could make a music video in our beautiful countryside, perhaps one of you sucking on a blackberry and staring seductively at Orville—I mean, the camera.

But, sweet-singing Adele, watch those lyrics. We have local censors here in our public schools, like principal Mrs. Curvey at Gilson Brown School, who has decided that I am a guest speaker not fit for children, despite my being named Drama Teacher of the Year in Chicago, in 2005 for my work with 3^rd-7^th graders; despite being nominated for the 2012 Pushcart Prize for literature; despite my being shortlisted for the 2014 Cork Prize for Memoir Writing, in Cork, Ireland; despite being a Mississippi River Artist (so-designated by the Illinois Arts Council for my Lewis and Clark Project with elementary school kids in East Alton).

I’m not worthy, Adele, not good enough for my hometown. I hope you don’t know that feeling.

Of course, dear Mrs. Curvey has not contacted me to talk about this—she simply cancelled my planned talks about Indian artifacts and creative writing and hoped I would go away quietly. The real victims are the students. (By the way, Adele, I volunteered.)

No apology has been forthcoming for this, what amounts to character assassination. It will come when pigs fly: “the twelfth of never.” (Nod to Johnny Mathis; “chances are” you’d be welcome at Gilson Brown School.)

But see, Adele, I’ve been to the big city—I learned a thing or two, gosh dang-it. I lost my Midwestern reticence. I will not go away quietly, will not go gently.

My Roosevelt School (in Belleville) fourth grade teacher Miss Josie Halter would be proud. She led me on the path to art and writing. There is a monument to her in the front yard of the school. It reads: “She Loved Children.”

Eat your heart out, Gilson Brown School.

November 10, 2015

I have been living a lie, to some extent. And I want to come clean. I pray you will not judge me. There are some things about my early life that I am not proud of. If you don’t continue to read “The Genehouse Chronicles,” I understand.

My family moved from Belleville to Alton when I was in the eighth grade. In the past, I have said that we moved because my dad was changing careers. But that isn’t true. The police records in various unnamed towns tell a different story.

I was a juvenile delinquent. (I’m already feeling better!) When I was eleven, I carried a hunting knife on my person. It was stuffed down the back of my pants. I tore up a lot of tighty whiteys that way, but it was worth it. I also carried a pocket knife in my right shoe.

I was starring in the school play at the time, “The Shepherd of the Hills,” about an Ozark family. John Wayne played the character in the movies. There was a gunfight scene, in which my character was to shoot a man. The director had a starter’s pistol offstage, for sound effect.

Anyway, I go so involved in my character’s rage that I tossed my fake gun, pulled my hunting knife from my crack and pocket knife from my costume boots, and charged at the other poor kid. I stabbed him repeatedly. He lived, but not for my lack of trying.

Oh yes, I attacked my mother every Wednesday, spaghetti day in the Baldwin household. I tried strangling her with pasta strands, but it didn’t hold very well.

I was expelled from school. The family left the Belleville ghetto we lived in and moved on to Alton, to the poor section called “North Alton,” (so it was dubbed, by local rich people). As any Alton High classmate can tell you, I assaulted three teachers, broke a football player’s arm (shout out to T. S.), patted multiple girls on the fanny (sorry, Janet, Ellen, Barb, Carla, Claudia, Stephanie, Gail, Emily, Miss Heil), shoplifted flower arrangements from Lammers Floral, stole hamburgers from Burger Chef and continued attempting to strangle my mom with pasta strands.

How did all of this get hushed up? My father knew the police chief. The chief, bless him, got me in touch with his old friend, General William Westmoreland. The good general Skyped me and said all I needed was some manning up. He offered me a scholarship to West Point, but I told him, Billy West, I’m gonna make my mark as a writer.

And I did. My book, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Pyramids” relates the story of Joseph overseeing the building of the pyramids, to be used as storage for grain. And there is my new book: “Climate Okay You’re Okay.” In my short story, “The Oregon Shooter: That Bastard,” my character, Gentile Ben, a slow-talker, steps in front of the victims, pulls out his .45 and blows the perp to Hell.

Just as I would have done, now that I have my conceal carry permit and put my piece in the back of my pants just like I did with the hunting knife. There is gun oil on my tighty whiteys, but hey, a stain is a stain.

I feel so much better now. Do you?

Can you forgive me?

November 5, 2015

In the glow of bonfire light, she showed me the ring of ashes which circled the old maple tree, the ashes of her friend who had died from cancer this year. There had been a dignified ceremony the day before, the friend’s ashes spread and mourners telling stories about her. Tonight, it was as if the friend was watching the bonfire party.

The ashes were put there as a remembrance of a happy day, decades ago, friends and family cleaning up the edges of the farm fields and mowing and preparing to plant spring flowers. Her friend was hard at work, loosening the soil with a hoe, between the then young maple tree and the storage shed.

She was mowing grass when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw people jumping up and down. She shut off the mower and hurried over to the tree. A nest of baby rattlesnakes, ten of them, had been unearthed, and her friend was screaming, and the company was freaking out.

Her father was in panic mode. He grabbed a gas can and doused the baby snakes and set them on fire. And the horrified onlookers, their reptilian brain stems firing from humans’ common fear of reptiles, watched the babies die.

No doubt there are good and bad deaths. But it all ends badly. Snakes on fire, Russians on a bomb-exploded jet, cancer, crossing the road to get the mail and getting hit by a car, in sleep. It all ends badly.

And it is harder on the living—death.

Most of the party goers were over sixty-five, save for a young folk singer entertaining the crowd, and he could snap his fingers and he’d be old. I imagined the listeners on benches, warming before the fires, to be mountain climbers on a particular peak. No matter how high you go on that mountain, there is still the hike back down.

You get a few hours, on that peak, for sunsets and holding babies and drinking red wine and traveling to your homeland and getting high and saying the words “remember when” repeatedly and singing and dancing badly and regretting and celebrating and marveling at wonders of the world. And then you roll or crawl or stumble or fall or use a walker or walk erect, back down, backwards with eyes shut. For that mountain, on ascension, is life; the descent is known by another name. And then you are ashes ringing a tree, your loved ones telling stories.

I am on that peak.

I have some solace. Parallel universes make me hopeful. Stars make me weak-kneed. Tree frogs are miracles. Love may be chemicals, but I am high on them. Atoms disperse, not die. The atoms in the universe are finite, reformed. Her friend re-formed and left some dust: stardust.

So there is no death. Who morphs into whom, and life and death are sisters, their fingers enlaced, their hearts beating as one.

The living walk forward. The dead, unsleeping, dance.

Police officer Charles Gliniewicz. Does that name ring a bell? Recently, in Lake County, Illinois, the officer was found dead in his patrol car, after calling in to his station that he was in pursuit of three suspects.

His body was found, shot twice. And a massive manhunt was underway. That very day, across America, postings lit up the internet, mostly positing that this was yet another example of the “war on police” allegedly waged by Black Lives Matter.

Officer Gliniewicz was give a hero’s funeral. Fox News, in particular commented and ranted for days, even seeming to imply that the three suspects might be black. War on police, war on police.

Tea Partyers aren’t interested in facts unless they help along their racist agenda. And the pertinent fact here is that in 2015, according to national crime statistics, the United States had the lowest number of police killings in the 21st Century.

Not only is there not a war, there is good news.

Meanwhile, hero and police officer Charles Gliniewicz has been declared a suicide. If it stopped there, I’d have sympathy for the man. It turns out, he was about to be indicted for fraudulently stealing thousands of dollars from a children’s fund. He was a common crook, a thief. He tried to hire a hit man to kill the auditor who was investigating him.

Now his wife and son are under investigation. Gliniewisz scammed children, the son of a bitch. He set up his suicide to avoid jail, to protect his pension for his wife, a widow of a hero, not a children scammer. He became a dramatist, creating “three suspects,” appealing to the base instincts of racists.

There is shame enough to go around, here. There was shoddy reporting, inept police investigation, and racially cast aspersions on Black Lives Matter and blacks in general.

As for the millions of people who posted “Hero,” America is waiting for an apology.