A Changed Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

cousin’s living room couch,” says Nolan. “I have no home. I’m homeless.” He hears his voice rise. “Which could get inconvenient. Listen, I was even worried the guys in ARM would find out I’d checked out your Web site on Raymond’s computer.”
    “Maybe they’d think you were learning about your enemies,” says Maslow.
    “That’s not how their minds work.” What’s making this trickier are the details that might have supplied the filler to plug up the holes in his story. The fifteen hundred dollars, the truck. The contents of Raymond’s medicine chest.
    “What I need is something like the Federal Witness Protection Program. Only…not so extreme. The Kindness of Strangers was what gave me the idea.” In fact, Maslow’s books were what convinced Nolan that he might be able to do this. Starting with the first line: “This is a book about being taken in and saved by ordinary people of courage and conscience.” In the second book there’s a conversation between Maslow and some Japanese Zen master in which they agree that history is the stick God uses to whomp you on the head. Then there’s the new book—which Nolan hasn’t actually read, except for the summary on Amazon—about changing one person, one heart, at a time. What he read was enough for him to understand that Maslow is working toward sainthood. So let’s see how saintly you are, pal. Save me, like those strangers saved you.
    “I read how you survived the war because people—even people who didn’t like Jews—had consciences and hearts and souls and pitied you and took you in. And I figured you would remember. I mean, I know you must hate neo-Nazis even more than the—”
    Oops. Nolan stops in mid-sentence. He can practically watch the steam pour out of Maslow’s ears.
    “We don’t hate anyone,” Maslow says. “Hate is not what we do. And young man, let me tell you that if you think protecting you from your hooligan hate-monger friends is anything like being saved from the Nazis—”
    Bonnie startles, visibly.
    I’ve blown it, Nolan thinks.
    “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry if that’s how it sounded. But I thought that since it…since something like that happened…I mean, I know that what’s happening to me is nothing like—”
    Maslow’s eyelids droop. He nods wearily. Let it go.
    “I thought you would understand and find some way to help me lay low till the dust settles. Plus…don’t you think the newspapers will love it? ‘Nazi Turns for Brotherhood Watch.’ There were always reporters and freelance writers swarming all over the Homeland Encampment, wanting to take us out for beers and listen to our life stories. Every creep was writing a book about the white-power movement. After that skin in L.A. turned himself in to the Wiesenthal Foundation, he was on all the talk shows for a while, it was a big deal. Not that this would just be about the media. It would be about changing one heart at a time. Like you say in your book.”
    Nolan’s had to spell it out for them. And he’s had to bank on the fact that Maslow and Bonnie are no different from anyone else.
    “Forgive me.” The old man looks tired. Has Nolan blown it again? “It’s late in the day. Somehow it’s taken me all this time to understand what you’re offering—and what you’re asking. Which is quite a lot.”
    Nolan shrugs. “Offering mainly.”
    “And asking. Quite a lot,” repeats Maslow. “You’re asking us to shelter you. To give you a new life. And if we had any brains at all, or if our brains were as big as our hearts, we’d refuse. Anyone would understand. No one would know we’d turned you down. But maybe you know that Sufi story about the man who steals a chicken and goes out to the woods to kill it where no one will see, except that he knows God sees—and so he can’t kill the chicken.”
    Nolan takes a little break during the chicken story. It’s the same spiritual jive he used to hear from his mom and her