1. The Death of Nathan Rueben (Vulnerability)

1. The Death of Nathan Rueben (Vulnerability) 

They moved into the state of Michigan in pairs, in groups of three or larger or significantly larger (less than 5% total of their estimated number arriving by themselves) from the earliest hours of the day of the event, arriving in personal transportation as varied as 2021 Forde Cavaliers and Polaris Sonatas to 1999 Harkomhans and similarly antiquated vehicles and more than a few (less than a thousand) bicycles, motorcycles and choppers traversing the border with busses and with trains from places as far-removed as Utah and Arizona and as local as Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, arriving with such staggering consistency as to suggest Rueben's funeral not only contained a psychological weight for each of them in their hearts, in their souls, but that every man, woman and child to the last were implanted with some indominable, irresistible magnet that demanded without exception for their presence and regardless of political or philosophical persuasion, it cannot be argued that they were present. 

They likely raised the temperature of the air by a degree or two: the engines of the vehicles, their collective exhalations, their bodies packed together on the railway platforms and at exits of the same and down into the street, mile and acre after mile and acre of the city of Lansing being penetrated by the sober and the disgruntled alike, the young and the old, the deeply-read and the embarrassingly illiterate, all here to pay homage and commiserate and, as just about every single public-worthy news organization would espouse and exclaim and repeat: "Be a part of history." 

There would be many -- scheduled and spontaneous -- speeches made in Ruben's memory and honor. You couldn't walk two blocks in any direction without bumping into (and in cases being momentarily consumed by) small and big crowds listening feverishly and raptly to some animated and/or deranged and/or positively dead serious preacher proclaiming Rueben's indispensable nobility and worth to the livelihood of American Democracy. It was an undeniable firestorm of grief and the concomitant animosity of that grief. Their hypnotized and hungry faces like a chorus of the damned awaiting some indefinite emancipation. 

Small wonder (but perhaps no wonder at all) that no one in any form of riot-control saw fit to round up a few or a dozen or a hundred water-hoses to drench and bathe the deathly odor of morbid emotion and decaying pheromones from that omnipresent and sickly crowd. They either didn't notice or were genuinely indifferent or they had more important things to do than worry about how the city reeked of bloodsoaked clay. 

Every newspaper (of public-worthy status) managed to skirt the subject. They spoke of Rueben's many strange remarks and positions on major political issues. They spoke of his "amazing" achievements for the working-class: his campaigning and ultimate success in reducing the workweek to 40 hours, (paid) maternity leave for women earning $60,0000 per year or more. They spoke on how he was (and he was) the loudest voice in the room on the subject of American Intervention to the Civil War in Tequistan. They even remarked on his strangely unique visage of looking like a handsome, stony, doll-like man whenever he'd escalate in tone detailing the absolute need for more weapons and munitions and medical aid to our "dear and dedicated infantry protecting us from..." 

And all of it might have been as temporary and ephemeral as any of our lives, it might have been just newspaper to wrap fish, so to speak, had it not been for the single (known) manslaughter/homicide that took place during the events of that day. If Clint Ward never met/interacted with Bill Duvall on Cherry Lane in Uptown Lansing, the whole thing might have been just another curious footnote in the archives of human history. 

But it did happen. 

Even as those banners as wide and tall as drive-in movie screens watched with Nathan Rueben's eyes from one building and another, it did happen. 

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