Chapter 19: Plans And Danger

The next day brought a new twist of its own as the stops were all pulled out by Amanda's unseen enemies. It was a media attack worthy of the one made on Gerald Ford After the Nixon fiasco. "Would Be Actor Climbs To New Lows To Save Failed Career," read one headline in a conservative newspaper. "Anti-President Fictional Movie Hero Fakes Gun Shot?" read another.

Mark lost his temper as he read, "Even the president of the United States made an Anti-Amanda statement, 'What can you expect of a draft dodger who was too cowardly to go to war?' This was from a man who was too self-centered, drug ridden and drunk to even complete his National Guard training. He was too cowardly to go to war himself.

"How can you people write such trash?" he exclaimed when accosted by reporters outside the hospital. He paused a moment, then asked as an afterthought, "How can you be a draft dodger when there isn't even a draft? People have to volunteer to get killed for big business now, don't they? Besides, Amanda is a girl. I have that on very good authority. Girls don't get drafted."

Conservative talk shows did a hatchet job on Amanda, Mark and all of Amanda's Movies. Even Willow came under attack. After one frumpish female news reporter asked her on camera, "How can you ever stand up for a woman whom even the president of the United States has condemned as a coward and a traitor?"

"Well, the president never put himself in danger ever in his life." She grinned and added, "Come to think of it though, it is pretty dangerous to dance naked on a bar in Texas when you just did a line of cocaine." She looked straight into the reporter's eyes and added, "Since the president never went to war with a gun in his hand, I guess that makes him a coward too, doesn't it?" There were no more questions.

Two weeks after the operation Amanda was released from the hospital to return home in a power wheelchair. As she rolled down the ramp away from the hospital the media circled her like sharks in a feeding frenzy.

"Hey," Amanda yelled at them. "I agreed to an interview on the condition you people behave. I'll answer your questions if they are put forth one at a time." She pointed to one familiar face. "You," she said.

The designated reporter asked, "What do you attribute this constant barrage of attacks on you, your acting ability and your movies?"

Amanda smiled. "The attacks on my films and acting are like fishing in a barrel with a shotgun. I am a terrible actor who has made a bunch of terrible movies that do damned well at the box office. Why? Simple, they are aimed at young people who demand action heroes who are good guys. The good guys beat up on the bad guys and save the earth from capitalistic slime creatures from Antares who want to enslave the Earth for their own nefarious aims. Kids do not want deep, falsely intellectual moralizing. They want good versus evil with the good guys winning. Okay?"

"Are you a socialist," the next reporter asked.

"That is a dumb question," Amanda laughed, "My fans have made me literally a multimillionaire. I would look dumb as hell waving my bank book and screaming, 'down with rich people.' Don't you agree?" To the follow up question Amanda answered, "No I am not anti corporations either. I am against the rapacious, evil greed that all too many corporations indulge in as a matter of right. Like in my terrible movies that are so popular, I am for good and against bad."

Amanda smiled through the interview, answered the questions and finally called a halt. "I'm tired."

From the back of the crowd someone yelled, "What do you think of the President?"

"That's easy. I don't think of him at all because he is a clown without an idea in his head, good or bad unless someone else first gave him permission to think it. He is a crook. If he takes exception to that, let him face me like the man he is not. I am going ihome; my true love awaits me."

She was careful as she steered the wheelchair up the ramp and into a waiting van. Sam secured the straps to hold the wheelchair into place. They pulled out of the hospital passenger zone and headed home. "That went quite well," Amanda told her friends.

"You gave them something to bitch about, that's for sure," Sam told her.

"How can you say that?" Mark exclaimed angrily. "They were like vultures. Only a few were even halfway civil to you."

"Sweetheart, my fans almost never ever read those newspapers. They read the fan mags and watch programs tailored for them and their interests. The majority of my fans are teens that will soon be old enough to vote. What would they rather look at, a picture of wonderful me in a skintight costume and a show and tell pussy patch, or some saggy faced, droopy-eyed politician suffering from his daily hangover? I rest my case." She smiled and anticipated her return home.

When they pulled up in front of the inner gate Mike greeted Amanda from the front porch. Dirk stood to one side to catch Amanda on camera through the mist of the fountain. The sun shone down bright on the twin rainbows created in the fountain's mist. Fish leaped in the air to grab more unwary bugs. The whole scene came together to create a magical homecoming. Mike greeted Amanda and held the door open. Two of the guards grabbed the wheelchair and carried it up the steps. "Welcome home, Amanda." Mike's welcome added the right touch to the scene. Dirk and his all-seeing camera caught everything. "Mean Streets Three" had begun to be made, along with number two.

Six months later "Number Two" was ready for distribution "Three" was half completed. In the beginning Amanda's double did the scenes requiring physical activity while Amanda drove herself to regain her lost strength and muscle tone. She also drove herself to become a better actor. They started the final scenes of "Three" and finished it with a challenge given from the steps of the State Capital Building in Sacramento.

She stood halfway up the steps and declaimed in front of the cameras, "The governor is corrupt. American politics are as corrupt as anything found in Mexico. It is time for a change. Let it be we the people who determine our own destinies, not the special interests, those greed stricken corporate executives who buy politicians with the ease you or I would buy a head of lettuce."

Security guards ordered them to leave. One, certain of his authority, grabbed Amanda and shoved. Amanda did not move. The guard almost fell as he stumbled over his own feet. Hidden in the crowd that gathered, Sam yelled, "Are we going to let them arrest Amanda for telling the truth?"

One of Billy's men yelled from another part of the crowd now numbering close to a hundred angry people, "Don't let them hurt Amanda again!"

Once started, the crowd became a mob that moved up the steps. Another of the security guards made a bad mistake when he grabbed for his gun. The gun was twisted from his hand and a teenaged girl struck the guard in the face. He fell and was almost trampled to death.

"Wait!" Amanda yelled. "Don't lower yourself to their standards. Do not be one with the enemy. If you act like the crooks, you are no better than they. Most of you here are old enough to vote." She took a deep breath and shouted, "Do it! Vote and throw the crooks out of office. Vote for qualified people. Throw out the crooks!"

Just as she bent over to help the downed guard to his feet a shot rang out. Another teenager, a young woman about seventeen fell silently at her feet. "Get a doctor here! Call 911. Get this girl to the hospital!" Amanda shouted.

The guard standing at the top of the steps stood in numb shock as he looked down at Amanda and the restive crowd. "He shot that girl!" one man yelled and started up the steps toward the guard who was unable to move as he saw what he had done. The crowd started toward him.

Amanda knew what could happen next. She ran up the steps as hard as she could. She shoved people out of the way until she reached the fear stricken guard. She stood between the guard and the approaching crowd, suddenly transformed back into a lethal mob. "Wait," she yelled. "Let the law take care of him. If the law does not do its duty, remember who is to blame. Take me to where ever they took that girl," she added as she walked down the steps to get into Sam's waiting SUV.

They drove to the emergency room of a nearby hospital. She muttered to Mike, "Well, it's a relief to not come to one of these places as a patient for once. They hurried to the emergency admissions desk.

A woman in a nurse's uniform looked up from a form she was reading. "Yes?"

"There was a young woman who just came in with a gunshot wound; how is she?" Amanda asked anxiously.

"Are you here to make financial arrangements?" the woman asked.

"Yes," Amanda answered in a matter of fact voice "Give her a private room and whatever care she needs."

"May I see your insurance card, ma'am?" she asked.

"Here," Sam said as he threw a credit card on the counter. She looked at it in surprise.

She checked the amount it was good for and raised her eyebrows. Suddenly she recognized Amanda. "You're her." She stared for a moment and asked. "What is your relationship to the patient?"

"The bullet she took was meant for me. One of the governor's personal guards shot her." Amanda looked down at the woman behind the desk, "You make certain she gets whatever she needs. Sam here will keep in contact with you just in case. Don't let her lack for anything." The woman nodded vigorously. Amanda and Sam turned away to return to the SUV.