Free Salvation Boulevard by Larry Beinhart

engineering? Do you want a lecture on what one hundred and forty thousand dollars looks like when it’s pure and unsullied? Do you? Do you?”

    Blotz! An egg hit the window and smeared itself all over the glass. “Come on, Manny, let’s pull out of here and go around the side.”
    â€œNo, no, fuck this.” He pulled up to the curb. “Fuck this, and fuck them all.”
    â€œManny, don’t. It’s dangerous out there.”
    He wasn’t listening. He flung the door open, and he jumped out and stood facing the crowd as if the stones were just drizzling rain. He smiled at them. An apple and a tomato whizzed by, then a rock cracked one of his windows, and he didn’t flinch. Like I said, Manny was one of those guys who figured life had granted him immunity.
    I couldn’t stay huddled inside, damn him. So I jumped out and ran around to protect him. I got between him and the rock throwers and said, “Come on,” and tried to drag him toward the courthouse. He pushed me away and tried to climb up on the hood of the Mercedes, but his bad leg wasn’t working.
    â€œHelp me,” he yelled.
    â€œLet’s get out of here before we get hurt.”
    â€œCarl, get me up.”
    I’d seen his leg once. I had to bring him some papers, and I caught up with him at his golf club. He was in the locker room changing.
    He’d been shot up in Vietnam. There were scars from about mid-thigh to ankle. Some from the original shrapnel, the rest from the operations afterward. The upper and lower parts were not in a straight line, and there was a slight extra angle beneath his knee. He saw me looking and said, “What the hell, I’m lucky they didn’t amputate. They wanted to, but I said I’m a lawyer, and if you cut that off, I’ll sue.”
    It looked like it still hurt and would die ten years before the rest of him did.
    I gave him a boost onto the hood. Then he put his hands on my head and shoulders so he could shove himself up into standing position.
    When he was upright, he yelled at the crowd, “I stand here before you . . . . ” Then he turned to the cameras. “I stand here before you not to defend a terrorist. I am not here to defend a terrorist. I’m here to defend you.”

    A couple of stones and some fruit came out of the crowd. He watched them come, bracing himself in case something hit him, but they missed, and he watched them go by.
    â€œThis is America. If this were an Islamo-Fascist state, I couldn’t be here. If this were Nazi Europe, I couldn’t be here. If this were still King George’s colony, I couldn’t be here. But this is America, and I have to be here.” Things had stopped flying, and the crowd was even growing quiet.
    â€œIf lawyers stop showing up to defend even the indefensible, to make sure we’ve got the right man, then it’s not America anymore,” he said. “I’m not upset about you being here. I’m glad you’re here. I want to thank you for being here. Thank you, thank you all, for being here to witness the fact that just as no man is above the law, no man is beneath it.”
    He was done, and he reached for me and said, “Help me down.”
    I did, and we walked past the troopers. The crowd on one side applauded him, and the crowd that had tried to stone him was silent. He smiled all the way up the courthouse steps. At the top, I looked back, and from that height, I could see all of their faces. There was Gwen, among those who had thrown the stones.
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    I stepped through the doors a moment after Manny. He dropped his smile like he was dropping an empty bottle in the trash, and he said, “What fucking bullshit.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œDo you remember September 30, 2006? Do you, Carl?”
    â€œCan’t say that I do.”
    â€œIt was the day that our president signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law, a bill that