Dear Trooper Truth,
I'm so pleased you would take the time to answer a lonely old woman. Superintendent Hammer knows what VASCAR is. It was her idea. I'm surprised you haven't heard all about the speed traps she's going to put on Tangier Island and can't help but suspect she got the idea from your "Brief Explanation." I applaud you for influencing her to make an example of people who once were in bed with pirates and now take advantage of tourists.
Sincerely, Miss A. Friend
Trader chortled as he dashed off a memo to Hammer. It was brief and confusing, and was accompanied by a press release that was to be circulated immediately, on orders of the governor.
What the hell is this?" Hammer asked when her secretary, Windy Brees, handed her a fax from the governor's office that informed her of a new speed monitoring program called VASCAR.
"New to me," replied Windy. "What a stupid name. I mean, it doesn't mean anything, if you ask me, except it reminds me of NASCAR - the National Association for Stock Car Racing - and I bet the governor didn't think about that. Just another example of not looking before you leak."
Hammer read the memo and press release several times, furious that the governor would implement a state police program without conferring with her first.
"Goddamn it," she muttered. "This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. We're going to start using helicopters to monitor how fast drivers are going? And the first target is Tangier Island, the news of which is to remain classified until white reflective stripes have been painted on what few roads they have out there? Get the governor on the phone for me immediately," Hammer ordered Windy. "He's probably in his office. Tell whoever answers that it's urgent."
Windy returned to her desk and rang up the governor's office, knowing it would do no good. The governor never returned Hammer's calls and had not met with her once since he appointed her. Windy had learned to fabricate elaborate excuses for her inability to get the governor to respond to Hammer. "One thing's for sure," Windy often told the other secretaries and clerks when they were outside on smoking breaks, "a stitch in the hand is worth two in the butt," which was her way of saying that by fudging to her boss, Windy was taking preventive measures so she didn't get her ass kicked when she had to tell Hammer that the governor, as usual, couldn't be bothered with his female state police superintendent.
Windy's acquaintances and colleagues had long since stopped correcting Windy's malapropisms, and by now, no matter how badly she mangled a cliche, most people knew what she meant and, in fact, became vague about what the cliche was supposed to be and ended up reciting the mangled ones. This was maddening to Hammer, who was repeatedly subjected to her staff writing off into the sunset or accusing someone of marching to a different color.
"Superintendent Hammer?" Windy hovered in the doorway. "I'm sorry, but the governor can't be reached at the moment. Apparently, he's in transition."
Hammer looked up from a stack of reports and memos she was reviewing. "What do you mean, he's in transition?"
"Traveling somewhere. Maybe even walking back to the mansion. I'm not sure."
"He's in transit?"
"Or on his way there, I guess." Windy got more tangled up in her fib. "But I don't think anybody can reach him right now, to cut to the point. So it's not just you."
"Of course it's just me!" Hammer looked at the VASCAR memo again, wondering how she would handle the administration's latest and perhaps most damaging lamebrain decision. "He's not going to talk to me and you can stop trying to make me feel better about it."
"Well, it's not nice of him." Windy put her hands on her hips. "And I hope you won't get mad at me just because of how he treats you. It's not fair to shoot the messenger."
Kill the messenger, Hammer irritably thought. You shoot the piano player and kill the messenger. My God, I can't stop thinking in cliches! And I hate cliches!
"One of the men I was dating last month told me that the only reason the governor appointed you is because he's always getting bad press about all our highway problems and needs someone he can pass the scapegoat to," Windy said, "and I don't think you should blame yourself for that or take it personal."
Hammer could not believe she had inherited such a hairball for a secretary. If only it weren't so difficult to fire state employees. No wonder the last superintendent had retired early with a heart condition and Parkinson's disease, but what the hell had been on his mind when he hired Windy Brees? For starters, how do you get past her name? And it should have been apparent the first time she opened her mouth that she was an embarrassment and incompetent, a perky little idiot caked with makeup who minced about, tilting her head this way and that in an attempt to appear submissive and cute and in need of powerful men to take care of her.
It was past 6:00 P.M., and Hammer packed up her briefcase and headed home. She drove through downtown feeling certain that VASCAR was going to ruin her career and there didn't seem to be a thing she could do about it. Was it merely coincidental that the very day Andy launched a website that was supposed to make the state police look good, the governor had decided to launch a program that would make the state police look bad? Was it mere chance that Andy had rather much slammed Tangier Island by indicating that it had once been a nest for pirates, and now the governor was going after the Islanders? Not to mention, she was desperately short of helicopter pilots and the few troopers left in the aviation unit needed to spend their time looking for criminals and marijuana fields, as opposed to tracking speeders on a tiny island or elsewhere.
Hammer brooded about Andy as she continued working herself into a state of fulminating paranoia. She should never have allowed him to write his Internet essays uncensored. But that had been part of the agreement.
"I'm not doing it if you edit me," he had told her last year. "One obvious reason for anonymity is that no one knows what Trooper Truth is going to say or has any control over it, otherwise the truth would be lost. If you read my essays before they're posted on the Internet, Superintendent Hammer, then I know very well what you'll do. You're going to start worrying about criticisms, blame, and political problems. That's what bureaucrats focus on, unfortunately. Not that I'm calling you a bureaucrat."
"Of course that's what you're calling me," she had said, deeply offended.
And maybe he was right, Hammer dismally thought as she followed East Broad Street toward her restored neighborhood of Church Hill. Maybe she was turning into a bureaucrat who was far too consumed by what people thought and said about her. What had happened to her firm but diplomatic way of dealing with complaints and demands from the public?
She called Andy on her cell phone. "We have a potential emergency," she told him. "The governor wants to put speed traps on Tangier Island and all hell's going to break loose."
"I heard about it," he said.
"How?" She was startled.
"I wish you had said something to me," Andy added in frustration as he sat in front of his computer, going through the hundreds of e-mails Trooper Truth had gotten so far this day. "I didn't even have a clue until Miss Friend sent me an e-mail. I may need an assistant. I'll never keep up with all the mail I'm getting," he declared as his computer announced you've got mail! four more times.
"VASCAR wasn't my idea, for God's sake!" Hammer replied. "And who is Miss Friend? The focus right now should be on these outrageous hijackings and assaults- not on speeding! Andy, I need your help with this. We've got to figure out what to do."
"There's only one thing to do," he said as he typed. "I'll go to Tangier Island myself and paint a speed trap and see what the response is. Better I should do it than someone else, and I can use Trooper Truth to counter any negativity directed at you and the state police, and I'll show the public what a bad idea VASCAR is, and maybe the governor will drop the damn program and let us work real crimes. All I need is a couple cans of reflective, fast-drying paint, a brush, a helicopter, and a little time to appropriately revise tomorrow's essay on mummies."