Image by Alexander Lesnitsky from Pixabay
Mrs. Ludlow was already in the garden when she heard what her grandchildren referred to as the Thunder Bark from her husband – she preferred to think of it as death being announced for some stupid idea somewhere.
“They what?
Landlords were being fussy as spring went on and rent did not – in Lofton County, tough measures for public health were being enforced under Covid-19, but protections for people disrupted from work were lagging.
Part of this had to do with the racial composition of Lofton County, and who rented, and who owned.
The Black and Latino communities in Lofton County – a whopping 42 percent of the county – had seen a lot of gains in resources, respect, and winnowing their enemies out of public power in 2019.
But then, old and deeply bigoted Sheriff John Nottingham had won re-election as sheriff in March 2020 – he hadn't meant to run, but his pick of successor died doing something stupid in February – and some took that as the turning of the tide, since Sheriff Nottingham represented the slate also coming up for re-election in November. No one expected anything but a complete win for the old guard, clear to the White House.
So: the portions of the 61 percent of the population who were infuriated that the Black and Latino communities had so many gains through that moment in the spring began to exact revenge.
The problem for the vengeful was that the Veteran's Lodge backed by the immense Lofton Trust on the veteran side looked out for all veterans in Lofton County, and Captain R.E. Ludlow – a ferociously repentant old racist with the voice of thunder and the personality and aged but still powerful physique to match – was on call to deal with all such occurrences in housing.
“Oh, no no no no – call your boss and tell him you're going to work. Go on and do that. Your service to this country remains essential. I'll take care of your landlord, sir. There will be no problem. You called the right one – trust and believe me, sir, when I am finished, there will be no problem!”
Mrs. Ludlow went back to her gardening. The incidences of landlords in Lofton County messing with veterans of a different hue were going up, but that was because word had not gotten around yet about what happened to you when you did that. In the first place, the CDC had declared a moratorium on evictions – constitutionality questionable, but, there was no one to challenge it. Second of all, consideration was warranted – everybody knew the situation.
Third of all, both the Lofton Trust and the Morton Consortium, in partnership, had ways to deal with landlords like this for which they were not prepared.
“Most of the time,” Mrs. Ludlow explained to her granddaughter Eleanor as they worked in their garden, “people don't pick on you unless there is something about themselves they don't like and are covering up. You and I would approach such a person with the idea of 'Let's find your hurt place, and maybe we can all work together to fix it.' Soldiers are a little different, because they are trained to defend, and so if someone attacks someone they care about and gives away a weakness, a soldier is not going to fix that place in his opponent, but break it.”
“Oh, okay,” Eleanor said. “So, these landlords messing with Black and Latino veterans are basically doing it because they are unhappy about themselves, but they are giving away that they don't have anything better to do and have no life because there is a weakness in them … and Grandpa knows where it is.”
“Yep, so you can guess what is about to happen.”
“Yep. Somebody is going to be sorry they ever bothered a veteran. They have no idea how sorry, but they'll know when Grandpa is finished with them.”
Captain Ludlow was going out the front door, on his phone, in his uniform and N95 mask, his white hair flaring like the anger in his blue eyes.
“Yeah, I'm headed over there – I've got the copy of the CDC order and the check it will take to give you time to do the rest. Yes. This is the fifth case in two weeks. Yes. Sell it all. We'll put these landlords out of doors themselves – basically running a foreclosed slum, ain't made a mortgage payment since before they could spell Covid, and wanting to hassle certain people because they are behind paying? Sell it all. We'll break it now and own it after getting it off the courthouse steps!”