Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt

Chapter 454: Chapter 211: Graffiti 2

In the flickering light, Ben made out half of the man’s face.

Even with the mask and the grime caked on his face, there was something familiar about his eyes.

A gaze that was a mixture of scholarly intensity and madness.

They had seen that gaze countless times on wanted posters.

This was the man they had just been calling a hero.

Ben swallowed.

"Luigi?"

Ben said the name tentatively.

"Are you... Luigi Randall?"

The figure among the garbage didn’t answer, but the hand in his pocket tightened its grip.

The air in the alley froze.

"We... We won’t call the cops."

Ben raised his hands, showing he meant no harm.

"We’re on your side."

"We’re supporters of Leo Wallace."

Luigi kept staring at them, his finger on the trigger, not relaxing in the slightest.

His nerves were stretched to the breaking point. The slightest movement could trigger a reaction.

"Turn off the light."

Luigi repeated.

This time, his voice was laced with menace.

"Don’t make me say it a third time."

Luigi didn’t want to kill these two kids.

They looked just like the underclassmen he’d known at the Wharton School of Business, wearing hoodies with logos on them, their eyes clear and foolish.

"Turn off the light," Luigi commanded again. "I’m just passing through. Let me go."

Ben stood in front of Chloe.

He didn’t turn off the light, and he didn’t back down.

He stared intently at Luigi.

As a sociology student and a key member of the Youth Revival Front, Ben figured he’d seen his share of angry people.

He’d seen workers demanding their wages in front of City Hall and protesters getting hit with pepper spray at demonstrations.

But their anger was overt, loud.

The anger in the man before him, however, was contained.

It was like a fire compressed to its absolute limit, hidden inside that exhausted frame, ready to burn to ash anything it touched.

Ben was very familiar with that look.

It was the look he tried to imitate in the mirror when he practiced his speeches.

It was the look in Leo Wallace’s eyes as he stood on the steps and pointed at the Morganfield Building.

The resolve to shatter something, no matter the cost.

"It’s you, isn’t it?"

There was no fear in Ben’s voice. Instead, it was tinged with an irrepressible fervor.

"The man who opened fire in Philadelphia."

"The one who fired three shots at Arthur Vance."

Luigi didn’t answer.

He shrank back warily, his back pressing against the cold brick wall.

His finger was on the trigger. If the two students made any sudden moves, he would fire.

Even if he didn’t want to, his instincts would make him.

"I read your manifesto."

Ben took a step forward.

"’A Message to My Fellow Americans: On the End of Medical Tyranny.’"

Ben recited the title.

"You wrote, ’When the law becomes a tool for the rich to plunder the poor, when legitimate business models are built on the foundation of taking lives, violence becomes the only remedy.’"

Something flickered in Luigi’s eyes.

He never expected that someone in a remote, trash-filled alley would be reciting his words.

"It’s so well-written."

Ben said with admiration, "It’s much better than the garbage we read in our sociology textbooks. You said everything I’ve wanted to say but never dared."

Luigi remained silent, but the tense, murderous edge to him eased slightly.

"What do you want?" Luigi asked.

"Nothing."

Ben suddenly laughed.

He pointed to the wall at the mouth of the alley where they had just pasted a poster.

On the poster, Leo Wallace’s face flickered in and out of view under the streetlight. The slogan beneath it, "Declare War on Medical Tyranny," was still damp.

"This is Pittsburgh, brother."

Ben looked at Luigi and spread his arms in a welcoming gesture.

"Here, I might get written up, maybe get a warning from the university."

"But you..."

Ben pointed at Luigi.

"...you’d probably get bought a beer."

"In this city, nobody likes the insurance companies, and nobody likes the big shots living in Washington and New York."

"You did what all of us have wanted to do."

Chloe looked from Luigi to Ben.

She saw none of the madness or brutality she’d imagined in Luigi’s eyes. There was only an exhaustion so profound it seemed ready to crush him.

The romanticism peculiar to an art student, an almost pathological fascination with tragic heroes, suddenly overwhelmed all the lessons about being a law-abiding citizen that had been drilled into her since childhood.

In an era of rising rebellion, in a city where even the Mayor was suing his own government, a fugitive who killed for justice held a fatal allure.

He was a living legend, an anti-hero straight out of a comic book.

Chloe’s heart suddenly began to race. A thrill, the feeling of taking part in history, sent a shiver through her.

"If you get caught by the cops,"

Chloe’s face was flushed with excitement.

"...you’ll just be making trouble for Leo. The right-wing media will say Pittsburgh is harboring criminals, and they’ll go after our Mayor."

"But if you come with us..."

Chloe looked to Ben, and they exchanged a glance.

It was the silent, shared understanding of the young, full of adventure and rebellion.

"We can hide you."

Chloe lowered her voice, her tone urgent and conspiratorial.