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Chapter 4: The House I Built with My Own Hands
The hard wooden chair in the library’s special reading room had lost all physical meaning.
Leo Wallace’s body still sat there, but his consciousness—his entire being—had drifted into another space, one enveloped by the warmth of an invisible hearth.
Here, for the first time, he "faced" Franklin Delano Roosevelt—not as the smiling, waving politician from history books or posters on his apartment wall—but as a man seated in a wheelchair. The chair moved silently across the plush Persian carpet, more like a throne than a medical device. A thick woolen blanket covered his legs. There was no cigarette holder, no signature pince-nez spectacles. Instead, his eyes were the true source of light in this space—sharp as an eagle’s, piercing through everything, radiating the oppressive weight of a strategist moments before deploying armies.
All traces of the playful banter and sarcasm that had once accompanied the voice were gone. What remained was pure presence.
“Our work begins now,” Roosevelt repeated, his voice resonating within the virtual realm.
“The first step,” he continued, “is to acknowledge that my old methods are no longer enough. This nation needs surgery, not aspirin. We must begin with a transformation led by the people.”
The people?
That single word struck Leo like a bullet, hitting the core of his identity as a historian. All the absurdity, fear, and awe he’d experienced over the past few days were suddenly replaced by an overwhelming academic question—one too vast to ignore.
He took a deep breath, summoning every ounce of courage he possessed. He was facing the man who had been the subject of his entire scholarly career, the deity of his intellectual world. But he had to ask.
“Mr. President…” Leo began, his voice trembling even in this mental plane. “I’ve studied your entire life, read all your speeches, analyzed every policy you enacted. You were the savior of capitalism, not its gravedigger.”
He forced himself to meet those hawk-like eyes.
“In your famous speech at Madison Square Garden in 1936, you called out ‘organized money’ as the enemy. But your goal was to tame it, not destroy it.”
“The Social Security system you built, the regulations you imposed on Wall Street, the public works projects you championed—they saved this country. They laid the foundation for America’s most glorious thirty years after the war.”
Leo’s words came faster, driven by instinct honed during years as a history Ph.D. student.
“Why?” he finally asked, voicing the fundamental question. “Why are you asking me to take a completely different path now? One that seems closer to… Soviet ideology?”
Roosevelt didn’t answer immediately. He simply looked at Leo, his face breaking into a complex smile—a mixture of approval, self-deprecation, and a profound, bottomless sorrow.
“A good question,” Roosevelt said, his tone softening. He leaned forward slightly, and the wheelchair creaked faintly.
“Words are cheap, Leo. Even presidential words can be twisted by time, reinterpreted and exploited for others’ purposes. You’ve read the books, dissected my speeches, memorized every detail of the New Deal—but you’re like an audience member who’s only read the script. You haven’t seen the movie.”
His voice carried a note of exhaustion.
“And I…” he added, “I’ve seen the whole film—all the sequels, everything that happened to this country after my death, up until today.”
He extended a finger. To Leo, it felt real—warm, textured, alive.
It touched lightly against Leo’s forehead.
“Your textbooks, your professors, those heavy volumes of history—they tell you what happened, but they never make you feel it.”
“Close your eyes, child.”
“Stop analyzing with your mind. Look with your heart.”
In that instant, Leo’s consciousness was yanked backward by an irresistible force. The warm study shattered before him, dissolving into countless spinning points of light. It was as if he’d been thrown into a vortex of time, hurtling deeper and deeper into history.
The swirling maelstrom tossed Leo’s awareness violently, then gently deposited him elsewhere.
When his vision stabilized, he found himself floating above postwar America.
At first, the landscape below was black-and-white, like the old documentaries he’d watched countless times. But soon, vibrant colors burst forth, spreading rapidly from the East Coast ports across the entire nation.
He saw a country brimming with raw vitality—a giant rising from the ashes of war and sprinting forward at unprecedented speed.
His perspective zoomed in on a university campus. Gothic architecture loomed beside throngs of young people streaming into classrooms. Many still sported military buzz cuts, their posture rigid with soldierly discipline. But instead of M1 Garand rifles, they carried stacks of heavy textbooks. Their faces bore no trace of battlefield confusion or fear, only an almost ravenous hunger for the future.
Leo could sense their thoughts: I will become an engineer, a doctor, an accountant. I will build a family, create a future of my own.
“We invested in people, not war machines.”
Roosevelt’s voice echoed in Leo’s mind, laced with unmistakable pride.
This was the GI Bill—the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act.
The scene shifted again, soaring toward the industrial heartland of the Midwest. Smokestacks belched plumes of thick smoke—not symbols of pollution, but horns heralding prosperity.
He saw a massive boardroom where a sharply dressed CEO of General Motors sat across from burly men in slightly ill-fitting suits. These were representatives of the United Auto Workers and steel unions. They negotiated as equals, voices loud and arguments firm. This wasn’t begging; it was dialogue between peers.
The camera pulled back, revealing suburban neighborhoods on the outskirts of Detroit. Rows of neat, charming single-family homes stretched out, each backyard adorned with green lawns. A blue-collar father taught his son how to throw a baseball while his wife smiled from the porch. A brand-new Chevrolet gleamed under the setting sun.
Leo could feel the man’s emotions clearly: security. His wages—one income alone—could cover the mortgage, support a wife and two children, and leave room for savings. He didn’t fear bankruptcy from illness or arbitrary dismissal by his boss. He was the backbone of this nation.
Next, the viewpoint soared higher, hovering over Wall Street in New York. But the atmosphere here differed starkly from Leo’s expectations. There was none of the frenzied hysteria he associated with modern finance. Traders bustled about, but their expressions were serious, focused. Inside banks, financiers resembled meticulous accountants in rolled-up sleeves rather than reckless gamblers betting fortunes in casinos.
“The Glass-Steagall Act kept ordinary Americans’ savings safe,” Roosevelt’s voice narrated with satisfaction. “Wall Street hated it, absolutely hated it, but the country was secure.”
These scenes painted a warm, bright, hopeful era. It wasn’t myth—it was real history. Leo could feel the pervasive contentment, security, and optimism shared by ordinary Americans of the time. This was an age when the middle class swelled like never before, when social mobility truly existed. A truck driver’s son really could become a lawyer through hard work.
This was Roosevelt’s answer. This was the fruit of choosing to tame capitalism rather than destroy it.
The final image froze.
It captured a quintessential middle-class backyard barbecue. A father in a comical apron grilled hamburger patties while a mother emerged from the kitchen carrying a salad bowl. Children screamed and ran through sprinklers. Elvis Presley’s music played softly on the radio. The scene radiated harmony, straight off the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.
At this peak moment of the golden age, frozen in time, Roosevelt’s narration turned abruptly cold. All warmth and pride vanished, replaced by an ominous foreboding.
“This house, Leo—I built it with my own hands.”
“It was sturdy, beautiful, sheltering against storms.”
“But after I died, a swarm of well-dressed, eloquent termites began gnawing at its foundation.”
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