XIX Beta E The Conference

19b The Conference 

The meeting is considerably delayed, due to the lack of discipline, the disarming immaturity of the crowd, their pathological impatience and a variety of mental health issues plaguing at least one third of the  participants. Seven minutes after the announcement of the extraordinary conference for the employees and volunteers of the Zanmi d'Haïti Foundation, some very irritable attendees started complaining, saying they were being stacked like stale sardines in the overheated cafeteria and ignored by management. The fact there was no air conditioning or running water in the place to quench their thirst made the crazier ones more talkative and hyperactive. 

"The evil souls running this institution have zero respect for us," a receptionnist declared on a dogmatic tone. "They treat us like slaves. That kind of behavior is intolerable, two centuries after the abolishment decree read and signed by Polverel and Sonthonnax in the name of the Republic." 

Seven unionized workers, known to be extreme YouTube users, Anonymous fans and lovers of books on secret societies, slowly began to spread their own conspiracy theories. 

"Someone up there is planning to kill us all and leave no traces behind." 

A group of laid-back and soft-spoken individuals gifted with a minimum of common sense; the kind of blessed souls who usually survive volcanic eruptions, stock market crashes and popular insurrections, perceived a slight change in the atmosphere. They somehow felt and smelt the sudden imbalance and subtle variation of the hormone levels within the confines of the non-ventilated room. They sensed an obvious increase of adrenaline and testosterone; biochemical changes that generally lead to violence when a bunch of angry people are not contained by law enforcement. Those wary people instantly located the emergency exits and found a seat close to the front door or next to an opened window. 

A loudmouth from the housekeeping department named Vidal Gascon, a compulsive liar and missing patient from the capital's largest mental health clinic, needed a bigger audience to listen to his crap. So he rushed to the front stage and grabbed the first microphone within his reach. It seemed Vidal Gascon came to the conclusion that the public had the full right to learn more about the hidden truth; and watching him hyperventilate, they were going to get that information from him. 

"Ladies and Gentlemen, one-two, one-two, test, test, microphone check... I ask for a moment of your attention, please. My name is Vidal Gascon, third of the name, your humble host." 
"We can't hear a damn thing!" instantly yelled, Balthazar, the cloakroom attendant and mop specialist, a one-legged man wearing glassless spectacles. 
"That goddam microphone is Chinese made, Balthazar, put the blame on the N.P.C., you ugly crippled pink flamingo." 
"Try to plug it in the P.A. system, you half-breed booze abusing fucktard." 
"Since when are you familiar with technology, Balthzie, or should I call you Mister Ignoramus by Choice like most do behind your back? Who owns a brand new phone that can surf the World Wide Web in his pocket, you or me, you dark-skinned hairless unwired  macaque? The power failures never held me back. My first name is Vidal and my nickname, Merlin, liquified shit head. Can you hear me all the way back there if I speak louder, everyone?" 

Vidal Gascon tried to connect the microphone base to a XLR cable, but quickly lost his patience when he realized both ends where female. Vidal had no idea what he was going to say anyway before becoming the center of the attention, so he opened his brutal interruption with a devastating and fallacious declaration. 

"The conference will soon begin. The speaker is a delegate from the environment ministry, sent by our insanely corrupted government to convince us, the willingly brainwashed voters, to leave this oil-rich city filled with our beloved oil and rare earths... voluntarily. I overheard the creep say that a citizen who bends over when asked is a citizen who doesn't mind being rectally maltreated. I don't know what he met by that. Was it a figure of speech? Who knows?" 
"Sweet Micky wants to keep the oil and the rare earths for his gang of crooks and for himself," the broom reparator rapidly deduced. "Remember when I kept saying, Yvon Neptune or Jude Célestin were the best picks for the presidency? You can all go to hell, now! Kiss the sphincter at the end of my bowels with balm on your lips." 
"Don't listen to, Mister I Never Learned Cursive Cause I Stink, Gascon," Balthazar, the mop specialist, warned. "Smell Vidal's thermos; the one he stole from the psychiatric ward from which he escaped. There is no tea in that thing. And there never was! Where did you get that piece of information, Vidal, from the spy you put in Langley or from your special agent inside the Oval Office? My dear friends, everything Vidal says is mostly wind and bull dung. The man we are waiting for is a White dude. I saw him enter the building with Albin, the municipal jail guard. That White bureaucrat is probably an European-American tycoon or Wall Street chemist sent by Chevron to negotiate the extraction procedures, the crude oil transportation, the distribution of the dividends and the pay mode that will fit us all." 
"You are all blind and off the track!" Agénor, the man in charge of the cleaning products, protested. "Why do you think they packed us in that double-locked cafeteria with no fire exits, if it was not in their intention to gas us, Austwitz style, big time?" 
"What the fuck did he just say?" a young man yelled as he began tying his shoes. 

Agénor is a known weirdo who speaks Castilian and nonsense fluently. People usually ignore him, but nothing seemed usual at that moment because of the intensive stress everyone was experiencing. Agénor's  words created a major panic reaction in the assembly. Most of the attendees just stood up and ran towards the doors and windows. Some terrified dudes were even seen digging their way out with their hands, where the ground was more dirt than concrete. The ensuing stampede cost several bruises, a great deal of broken teeth and irrecuperable losts of good front seats to many participants. It also allowed the brave women to separate the gentlemen from the boobs who fled first and came back last. 

Prospérine de Grâce jumped on stage at the right time to kick Vidal Gascon from the tribune and cool down  the crowd.  

"The man who came here for you is neither a government official or a fossil fuel industry vampire. In fact, you all know him as Missionnaire, the former head of River of Hope." 
"River of Hope? That ONG is defunct and Missionnaire dead and buried," Vidal Gascon declared without any hesitation and a lot of confidence. 
"Missionnaire is alive?" the lady in charge of the cafeteria trays asked with a certain apprehension in her voice. 
"Alive as the living Christ!" Prospérine de Grâce howled. 
"Hallelujah!" 
"Amen!" 
"We're all saved!" a group of pious employees started chanting. 
"Repent and confess your sins! Jesus loves you," sister Jeanne-Hildegarde and sister Orphée-Lyne began singing. 
"The Kingdom is at our door!" brother Ferdomin  Cincinnatus thundered. 
"That man is or was a hero," the Catholic nun running the kitchen claimed on a dramatic tone, wiping her tears with an immaculate handkerchief. "When he was leading River of Hope, Missionnaire used to starve himself and work twenty four seven for the sake of his pensioners. What would he ask in return? A simple smile or for you to pray for his soul." 
"He offered his bone marrow to save a sick child," the nutritionist asserted. 
"That's a bloody lie!" an unidentified stranger screamed. 
"You're not even from Mizérikod or from anywhere around here." the nutritionist replied. 
"So what? Free speech gives me the right to share my personal opinion. It's in the Constitution." 
"They say Missionnaire is Roman and a close relative of Benedict XVI," the nutritionist's assistant added, agitating her rosary and trembling of joy. 
"He proposed to marry me so I could obtain my American visa," a cashier revealed, apparently sharing that information for the first time. 
"Missionnaire was just a genocidal racist and we're happy he died and went to hell," Vidal Gascon fired, exaggeratedly acrimonious and full of disdain. "When that piece of stool was among us, Missionnaire once said right to my face that Black athletes ran faster than White ones." 
"There's nothing racist about that, Vidal, look at the final eight at the Olympics?" the mop specialist said.  
"Beware of the flattering wolf, Balthazar, my good old friend," the guy responsible of the brooms and curtains whispered. "I get Vidal's vibe even if he is completely nuts. When a White man affirms Black People dance or run better than White People, they also mean White People makes better vaccines and spaceships than Black People. It is pure racism by ricochet." 
"We are in the presence of a master thief," corrected Agénor, the guy responsible of the cleaning products. "I heard from a trusted source at the Kompany Lakay nightclub, that Missionnaire... Does anyone here know his real name? I didn't think so. That guy told me Missionnaire left our impoverished country with a suitcase loaded with antique gold coins, three asymmetrical inverted crucifix and dozens of frozen bags from the blood bank. Who's blood was it? Nobody knows. But they say in Miami, and all the way up to Cocoa Beach, that Missionnaire's house in Quebec is built on a non-organized territory, administered by a RCM. I challenge you to go out there and find out what all this means." 
"Royal Canadian Mafia," Vidal Gascon instantly decoded. "I searched it on Wikipedia." 
"You are all so wrong, it makes me puke, you bunch of one eyed fishes," Boris Pale-Pierrot, the dishwasher in chief, hammered. "You take rumors for facts and your neighbor's delirium for reality. Missionnaire suffered a rare disease, some incurable shit. That's why he flew back home to Canada, so he could follow the treatments recommended by doctor Steiner. I read the requisition. I saw the treating specialist's signature and looked it all up." 
"And how do you know all this, Boris Greasy Hands, where you recently taught how to read in coffee residue?" 
"Rachel D. Steiner is on Google, Fart Face. And for your information, I was sleeping with a medical archivist from the Jean-Metellus Hospital, which happened to be your sister." 
"What have you done with profesional secrecy and family respect, Boris? That kind of low blow is not cool at all, man." 
"Bite me, Edwin. Profesionnal secrecy is the root cause of the Aids problem in this country." 
"Google Images show me a woman wearing a judogi with a red belt on the entire first page," Vidal Gascon says, showing his smartphone's screen so that everybody can see. "Even Professor Boris Washes Dishes can make a mistake, despite all his dish washing diplomas and certificates." 
"Shut your hole up, you damaged chromosome pointed ears donkey. Rachel is Canadian, she could be a rodeo clown during her spare time and still be a doctor and martial arts expert. What's wrong with you, having trouble adapting to the twenty first century? Women are free in that big whole Canadian territory. Missionnaire was sick, I tell you. Who consults a radio-oncologist for fun? Vidal calls him a racist and that's wrong. Missionnaire was my cousin Marguerite's boyfriend for quite a long time. They even got married so she could put her hands on a Florida work permit. Would a thief risk his own money and reputation to save the business of a man he barely knew, Agénor? I know what I'm talking about, because that man was me. So, show some respect and help the others finish with the preparation of the cafeteria for the general assembly." 

The volunteers who arranged the room for the reunion naturally took the best seats, the ones near the stage, to make sure they would not miss a word from the Auditor General's speech. A junior executive of the Zanmi d'Haïti Foundation politely asked them to leave their cushioned chairs to the important people at the top of the organization. The gutsy fellow told them solid wood chairs and boxes were available in the back, with the housekeeping and kitchen crews. The ushers followed the principles of the bystander effect theory and continued to seat people wherever they wanted, while the courageous administrator was receiving a great classic beating worthy of the class struggle; a victim of plying chairs, closed fists, opened fists, vicious knee kicks, leather sandals and marxist slogans. The latrine and wastes manager gave up the idea of pouring bleach in the young man's eyes because of the nuns who began to cry and implore the mob to stop the bloody pounding in the name of Jesus. Miraculously civilized by the power of the prayers, the mob stopped and the latrine and wastes manager proposed something less cruel, but still illegal; a general search.  

"We are here to find a solution to our money problems, but the security of the auditor general should be a priority. What if someone hiding among us is here to execute him before the man delivers?" 

The extremely wise and preventive procedure started really well, but a group of citizens who were conscious of their rights decided to resist and protest vehemently, refusing to be pampered in public, not keen on the idea of seeing the content of their pockets and handbags shown in the open. Thus, a metal detector and wooden blinds were found and put to use in order to respect the confidentiality of all clients of the pharmacist, the bush doctor and all the newly exposed VIP repeat customers of the very discreet Zob Electric erotic boutique. 

The conference finally begins. Rogatien Gingras stands in front of the microphones with Picot on his left and Albin on his right. Everyone keeps their mouth shot, but not Vidal Gascon, because Vidal Gascon constantly believes he is an exception. A part of his brain controls his need to speak before thinking. Imperturbable and full of himself, Vidal keeps laughing at the people who asked for a little intimacy during the search, yelling with a baritone fake voice: "Dildo! dildo! dildo!" 

Rogatien Gingras takes a deep breath. The comptroller's eyes are sparkling, full of expectations, like the eyes of a starving lion hunting a weak antelope. He talks with great authority, explaining to the attendance the hell he went through since the River of Hope scandal; the false accusations, the death threats, the assassination and extortion attempts, the theft of his computers and his forced exile. Rogatien Gingras swears he never betrayed anyone during all those tribulations. He rejects the racism, fraud and treason allegations and convinces the entire assembly of his integrity. Rogatien Gingras describes himself as a lighthouse, guided by the Holy Spirit to show some light on the ongoing tragedy; as a mathematician with a solution for a very complex algebra problem. The auditor general urges the employees and volunteers of the Foundation to take an active part in the search for truth by joining the inquiry. The sooner Moïse Berri will be unmasked, the sooner their money troubles will be resolved. 

Most people in the cafeteria believe in the honesty and transparency of Rogatien Gingras. Finally a man who fights on the side of the neglected. They are very impatient to ask the new chief audit executive a couple of important questions. 

"What happened to your hair?" the official photographer and identification cards clerk of the Zanmi d'Haïti Foundation asks, unable to withhold his laughter. "You shouldn't let Fresnel Beltias crop your mane or propose any new style when he is drunk."  
"Why are you handcuffed to that briefcase? questions the human resource coordinator, a sweaty woman with a mean glance. "You cover that thing like if it was a dodo egg. I smell a ton of fish and lies. What are you carrying in there, gold, gemstones, radioactive isotopes?" 
"Either you've lost a lot of weight, Mr. Gingras, either your new suit maker needs an optometrist," the auditor general's former tailor jokes, trying to hide his  disappointment.  
"Can you please be more pertinent with your questions? My hair, the briefcase, my weight... come on, make an effort, people. I came here to talk about the real things, not about futile stuff." 
"All right then, Mister Rogatien, why don't you tell us everything we need to know about our money?" the latrine and wastes manager asks. 
"Give us our money or just kill us all!" automatically screams Agénor, the guy in charge of the cleaning products. 
"Take it easy, now, Agénor, we can talk about cash and becoming americanly rich without having to bring the Grim Reaper in the negotiations." 
"I say we disembowel that demon before he escapes," Agénor replies. "That beast is not what it pretends to be. I warn you, my friends. Behold! the Book of the Apocalypse, chapter 13, verse 18, remove that repulsive wig and read the number on his skull." 
"What the heck? Will someone please cover Agénor's nose with a cloth damped in chloroform?" Albin begs the crowd. 
"How much is the cost of the crisis since Friday?" a letter carrier from accounting cleverly asks. 
"There we go, congratulations, young girl," Picot applauds. "You see how basic it is to come up with a simple and intelligent questions, the rest of you?" 

Rogatien Gingras is more than glad to answer such a fundamental question. The auditor general's response is short and simple. He does his best to avoid the use of complicated concepts and long phrases. Gingras takes the time to unravel all the steps he made and decisions he took for the good of the community, explaining each move he accomplished extensively to facilitate maximum comprehension of the information to everyone young and old. The financial expert even throws a bit of Creole in the explanations when the equivalent French term might lead to confusion. But despite his tremendous efforts, the comptroller is interrupted, when a skirmish that started in the third row worsened to the point of becoming uncontrollable. 

The fight began when Balthazar, the one-legged self-crowned mop authority, declared that the numbers and statistics brought up by Rogatien Gingras, concerning the loss of revenues linked to the stock market investments during the week-end, were completely wrong. Agénor, the gentle fruitcake from the cleaning products, yelled, looking down at the floor, that Balthazar never finished elementary school, despite the regular beatings from both his parents, so spending any amount of time explicating the Nasdaq to him was like attempting to cross the desert without water and a compass. Most people in the assistance fully agreed with Agénor, so the auditor general continued with his clarifications. Balthazar started making bizarre noises with his throat and rubbing his abdomen. Realizing no one was giving any attention to him anymore, Balthazar's face became purple and remarkably deformed by anger and chagrin. He suggested that Agénor's seventy year old mother was a lazy low cost prostitute with no exceptional talents, unless kleptomania was one. Instead of getting mad at him, Agénor simply replied: "That's exactly the problem with your oversized mouth, Balthazar. You know absolutely nothing, and when you do know something, everyone is already updated or no one gives a damn." 

The entire assembly exploded in laughter. Strangely enough, Balthazar didn't lose his cool. The mop master began fuming against the new comptroller of the Foundation, who kept on going with his speech. Overwhelmed by the rage burning his insides, Balthazar remembered the famous shoe attack on George W. Bush in 2008. Now, the mop specialist had only one shoe, for economic and common sense reasons, having only just one leg. Because he didn't want to lose his only shoe, Balthazar decided to throw his Sri Lankian made prosthesis in the direction of the auditor general's head. As the leather and rubber thing flew and took speed, Picot reacted. He made a Shaolin Monk style plunge, defying gravity, in order to protect his valuable Canadian client. Picot's frontal bone absorbed the shock of the projectile, just like James Brady did back in 81 for President Reagan. Albin instantly transformed himself into a human shield. Using his entire body to cover the newly appointed financial controller of the Zanmi d'Haïti Foundation and bringing him in a safe environment behind the curtains. 

Prospérine de Grâce quickly took the stand and begged the people of the assembly to keep their cool. She also wondered if, by any chance, there was a doctor present in the premise. Rogatien Gingras told her not to worry about him. Insisting he was doing just fine. After a glass of bottled water and a couple of deep breaths, Rogatien Gingras was ready to switch back into detective mode. The auditor general summoned Prospérine, Albin and Picot to follow him on the job and go pay a surprise visit to Senator Fleurant, the first witness of the long list of suspects he planned to interrogate in his search for the truth.