On Friday the 13th, Neil got a call from Ben Mulvane: "Hi Neil. I got a call last night -- late last night -- and I was told that all the keys are in a cabinet in the museum somewhere -- and there's a key to the cabinet in question in plain sight, but I don't have it."

"Don't have what?"

"The key."

"To the cabinet?"

"Right."

"Wait a minute, Ben. The keys are all here, in the museum?"

"I guess. In a cabinet, or in plain sight."

"Okay, Ben. Fine. When you find out where to get the key to open the cabinet to get the keys to the cabinets, or you find out where, in plain sight, the key to the historical collections cabinet is, you'll let me know?"

"Yes."

Later that day, a young woman arrived with an envelope to deliver to Neil. She was from the firm Leventhal, Leventhal & Harper, Attorneys-at-Law, 46 Allston Street, Boston, Massachusetts. "Are you Neil Wislon Wright? she asked politely.

"Yes."

"This is for you," she said, and handed Neil the envelope and turned and went out.

"Dear Mr. Wright," Mr. Kevin F. Harper had written. "I represent the Executive Committee of The Museum of the Year 1912 Association. They have asked that I review your Letter of Resignation. On their behalf and in their name I respond as follows: 1. Your resignation is accepted; 2. The Board is anxious to minimize the impact of your job change on you and your family. For that reason the Board will make sure that your income will continue as curator until December 31st. If this is acceptable, we will determine what the sum total of your accrued vacation and other benefits and establish a termination date prior to December 31st that will allow you to receive income through December 31st. In no event will the termination date be prior to October 15th; 3. Should you find a new position prior to the termination date you may terminate your position sooner, at which time you will be due all your accrued benefits."

That night, Neil answered Kevin Harper: "Thank you for your letter, dated today and delivered to me at The Museum of the Year 1912 this afternoon. I am surprised to learn that you reviewed any resignation letter of mine, for I did not write one. I am attaching a copy of a note I sent to members of the Executive Committee of the Museum Association that may have been mistaken, by them, for a letter of resignation but, please be assured, I did not resign. Most Association members have emphatically been asking me not to leave my post until such time as the Association itself, as a body, has looked into the Board's acts and intentions in both the matter of Captain Cunningham's gainful employment at the museum and its curious conjunction with my potentially being dismissed."

At the end of the week Neil joined members of the Friends of the Museum of the Year 2012 in an inspection of the proposed grounds, near Camperdene's Lake Street Park, for the new museum. The land was owned, most serendipitously, by the very benefactor who had already infused several million dollars into the Museum Building fund.

In the following week, Neil learned from Ben Mulvane that Ben and Veronica Pillsbury and other dispirited Corporators of the Museum Association --mutineers -- were bailing out. "Wallace Barrow is saying you slandered Captain Cunningham, calling him a pimp whose wife performed her tricks for men at night in the museum."

"He did? I did?"

"Barrow is saying so. For all I know, there may be truth in it. Still, I don't even want to know what you actually did say to him. Captain Powderkeg is calling all around the town to tell Association Corporators that if you say you didn't say what Barrow says you said, you're lying."

"So what else is new?"

Ben was angry, but reflective. Throughout the phone call, he kept saying of The Captain, "He's going to sink his teeth into this one."

After a three-day heat-wave, with lightning and thunder ripping the heavens, bringing in cool air and heavy showers, the news came that the Museum of the Year 2012 Building Committee had named its architect, and that the proposed Lake Street property fronting Camperdene Pond was deeded over to the new Museum of the Year 2012 Board by an anonymous benefactor.

Captain Powderkeg was now spending many afternoon at Wallace Barrow's -- brewing up something. One afternoon, Barrow and The Captain were joined in the funeral parlor by Carla Spagnoli, Roland Henselmeier, Angela Perry, and others

Neil had meanwhile taken the new Mayor's advice, and hired a lawyer. Neil's attorney, Andrew Coffey, had sent a letter to Kevin F. Harper, Esquire: "Dear Mr. Harper, I am representing Neil Oppenheimer Wright in the matter of his present position of employment with The Museum of the Year 1912 Association. I have reviewed your letter of September 13th as well as the text of the document which you apparently misinterpreted as a 'resignation'. I am sure that upon re-reading in light of this letter you will realize that this communication was in response to a recent outburst of Association President Wallace Barrow on September 3rd. At that time, he advised Mr. Neil, in effect, that he was out of his job; probably a misunderstanding as well.

"I believe that the trigger for the outburst had to do with the suggestion that the Museum of the Year 1912 Association's Executive Committee had acted inappropriately by hiring one of its own number as staff of the museum. While expressing no opinion of my own upon the subject, it is certainly true that a public trust such as that of the museum trustee used so that it inures to the benefit of one of its fiduciaries, is often regarded as possibly unethical in a variety of settings. I conclude that such concerns expressed by Mr. Wright was at the least a principled, professional, and appropriate matter for discussion between the curtor of the museum and its Executive Committee.

"I have received communications from other citizens in the community who I know to be highly regarded -- highly ethical and responsible people -- who have indicated that they agree with the position taken by Mr. Wright on the matter of hiring Richard Cunningham. Once again, without taking a position of my own, it is my judgment that raising the issue was an appropriate and prudent act by Mr. Wright as the Executive Committee's employee. The outburst by Mr. Barrow could be regarded as retaliatory. I am concerned that the measured and thoughtful and obviously anguished communication of Mr. Wright should be tortuously misconstrued as a formal resignation. It was not; it does not say that it is.

"As a man of words your careful review will indicate that Mr. Wright was 'resigned' to a fate of certain severance from the Board to whom he addressed the letter, but it was after a denunciation and declaration by Mr. Barrow which occurred on Tuesday, September 3rd and was not initiated by him as an act of termination or separation. As nearly as I am able to determine from reviewing the by-laws and documents relative to the Museum of the Year 1912 Association under the terms of his employment his present term extends through June 30th. If your actions are to be interpreted to be the actions of the Corporation's Executive Committee, then this is a formal reply that you requested to put you and your client on notice that Mr. Wright does not feel he has resigned, nor has any legally sufficient official step been taken to terminate him. I suggest that all parties deliberately and dispassionately review the recent events and consider whether Mr. Wright was in fact acting professionally and responsibly to call attention to the Board (by which he is employed) that there was a potential problem with an action they had taken that merited further consideration. Perhaps a reasonable observer will conclude that the appointment was not unethical, illegal, or improper. That does not make raising the question evil; it is, rather, prudent.

I hope that the reply you have required by September 18th, and which this letter confirms (I will have called you), will be understood not as a cannon or a salvo, but rather an olive branch. Even if our respective clients must separate there does not seem to be any sound reason that they should do so with a letting of blood or a trashing of a neighborhood. I would rather resolve this matter in a peaceful and measured way. I seek to enlist your help in that course. Very truly yours, Andrew R. Coffey."

With a copy of this letter, Mr. Coffey sent a copy of a short note sent to School Superintendent Bonaventura: "Enclosed please find a blind copy of a letter I have written to Kevin F. Harper in an effort to assist in cooling tempers and moving this matter back into a more appropriate perspective. I certainly cannot tell whether it will work, and I am sending this in the hopes that perhaps with this knowledge you will be able to assist."

Later in the month, a lady arrived at The Museum of the Year 1912 from Rochester, New York, looking for information about her ancestors which she believed she could find among the museum's archival materials. She said she was in town only for this one day. Neil called Captain Cunningham. "Hello, Captain."

"Hello."

"A lady is in all the way from Rochester, New York, and she wants to look at our historical materials."

"So?"

"So, can you come in and help her?"

"I don't have the key."

"You don't have the key?"

"I think you know that. And I think you know why."

"No, I don't know. Can you tell me?"

"Look in the Camperdene Daily Journal"

"Today's?"

"No. Last week."

"When?"

"I think you know."

"I don't know, Captain. Can you tell me?"

"You know. And you will pay."

"I'm being punished? The keys have been removed to punish me?"

Click. The Captain hung up.

Neil tried to explain the situation to the lady from Rochester, who was sympathetic to his plight. "I assume you're looking for work elsewhere," she said.

Reverend Metcalf, also sympathetic, left a note for Neil, saying, "I just want you to know you have been in my thoughts (even in a prayer or two) this week. Hope you are hanging in there and able to feel life's marvelously crisp edge. Keep the faith. Reverend Metcalf."

As the Association bowed out of participating in the Annual Fall Festival, the Friends of the Museum of the Year 2012 showed up, advancing the "Build the New Museum" campaign. Neil was at the Festival at assorted hours throughout the weekend, helping out at the "New Museum" booth, showing off the architect's designs. Under clear blue skies, Jillian was happy to run around barefoot at the festival, delighted amid all the people and all the bustle and activity. Mark was wild about the airbag-trampoline ride and the burgers and the hot dogs.

Association treasurer Joan Perry-Barrow was working at the Hamburger/Hot Dog stand. She said, frankly, that she felt for Neil in his plight. She said she really didn't know what was going on, but she said she knew he'd got himself into some kind of trouble and she said she knew he'd come out all right one way or another. On heading home, It was Joan, in a truck, who offered Neil and his children a ride home (Mark was thrilled, hauled home from a festival in a pick-up truck full of hot dogs).

At the end of the month, Neil wrote a letter to Ellis Bolton, the editor of the Camperdene Daily Journal: "My name is Neil Wright. I am the curator of the Museum of the Year 1912. I am as glad in doing my job as I was when I came here -- and as committed to following the ethics of my profession as when I entered the profession in the first place. On September 3rd, I urged the President of the private museum corporation to call on the Vice-President to step down from the Executive Board, or to have the Executive Board re-consider its having hired him to a salaried post. As a result I was told by the President of the Museum Association (before ever he conferred with his associates) that I was out of a job.

"Even as these events unfolded, a different group of Camperdene citizens have been engaged in seeking funds for the building of a new museum, The Museum of the Year 2012. Seven million dollars have been raised. We will be seeing here, in our community, soon, the kind of Museum that is not only due, but overdue. I will work closely with the New Museum Building branch of the recently established Friends of the Museum of the Year 2012 as a team member. With the approval of town officials, and the backing of the Friends' seven million dollar fund, we will be moving forward toward the creation of a healthy institution doing a good job, free of such treachery and insult as has been customary in that withered, musty, almost byzantine institution, The Museum of the Year 1912 Association."

Early in October came an "informal" meeting, so called, of the Association's Executive Committee -- the "Treason Hearing," as it would later be called. The Corporation's lawyer, Mr. Harper, was present. Neil's lawyer was not. The motley crew met with Neil at the familiar long tables amid the magazines and newspapers. The atmosphere was extraordinarily chilled: Carla Spagnoli seemed to choose her place carefully: next to Neil, her chair pushed sideways so that she faced him 100% -- 100% of the time -- scowling, nose high, looking down at him (she'd obviously been coached, or she had trained herself, prior to this evening, in the fine art of making people feel small in a tight spot). But Neil found her stance quite predictable -- even humorous. He avoided looking at her.

In the course of the meeting, Vice President Cunningham spoke not at all. Treasurer Angela Perry was also silent (except when Mr. Barrow asked Neil if he had not had a certain conversation with her. Neil had, and he said so. He said he'd written it out longhand, and had then thrown his notes away, because the conversation indeed had been "confidential."

"It still is," Angela said (so how come Mr. Barrow knew all about it?).

Carla Spagnoli was openly hostile. At one point, Carla Spagnoli's intent to "do damage" to Neil was introduced into the conversation -- then the matter of Wallace Borrow's having taken him into a room in his funeral home where a body was on the bier, where Mr. Barrow had explained that Carla Spagnoli had a drinking problem. Mr. Barrow led Spagnoli to the Director's office to see whether or not she wanted that discussed any further. She did not.

Roland Henselmeier was bold, making assorted off-the-wall assertions. He said Neil had been told to keep his hands off the display cases, and yet Neil had gone ahead, without permission, and organized and curated the successful series of displays and workshops/programs concerning "The Art of the Book in Camperdene,'" featuring local artisans.

Wheel Barrow was stately, elegant, and charming, presiding over the kangaroo court. He had begun by asking Neil if he recognized the "validity" of the Association's by-laws, and followed with all kinds of questions and accusations (expressly stated or insinuated) concerning the "danger" Neil had placed the Museum Association in, and the "damage" Neil had done -- and was still doing -- to it -- to them.

The Association's newest member, the Captain's daughter, Association Secretary and Clerk Lizzie Cunningham, sitting across the table from Neil, spoke boldly and often, and clearly in support of Mr. Borrow's points. This surprised Neil, as she had inquired, early in the discussion, as to whether or not Neil felt that members of the board had minds of their own and could think independently. Neil had said he felt indeed that members of the board had minds of their own and could think independently. Nonetheless, here she was, the secretary, taking notes, aping Barrow's points and views, though almost all the matters under discussion had preceded her presence on the board or had transpired without her being involved.

Lizzie Cunningham wondered aloud four or five times in the course of the evening as to why Neil made so many "errors of judgment in recent weeks," asking why he hadn't immediately, after his morning confrontation with Mr. Barrow, called a special meeting with the Board (Neil had never called a "special meeting" with the board before; nor did he know he could do so; nor did he think it would have done him any good). "I didn't think to," Neil said each time, in response to Lizzie's repeated refrain. "Why didn't the Board call a special meeting with me?"

In the company of his colleagues and their attorney, Barrow made a striking closing remark: he recommended that Neil cease to associate with "that seven million dollar infidel on Banyan Street," the President of the Friends of the Museum of the Year 2012 and the New Museum Building Committee, bookbinder Nicholas Wentworth.

Their attorney, Mr. Harper, was not hostile. He did snicker and orate copiously, helping along the "kangaroo court" atmosphere of the session. The word "collusion" comes to mind. He obviously enjoyed his own command of legalese and displayed a clear, deep pleasure in his own voice (almost non-stop talk) and abundant rhetorical flourishes. (Interestingly, Neil was no more impressed or intimidated by all that than he was by Carla Spagnoli's harsh, hate-filled-stare trick.) Harper stated quite clearly, in any case, that his clients felt Neil had, in his words and actions, "damaged" the Museum of the Year 1912, "threatened" its security and well-being, and done "irreconcilable harm" to the institution, which his clients were obliged to safeguard.

Neil politely disagreed.

Mr. Harper informed Neil that the Association secretary would be writing up the minutes of the meeting longhand, and he would be asked to sign them in witness of their veracity. He said he would be contacting Neil's attorney sometime soon. The meeting was adjourned.

A few days after that, Mayor Martha Stronski met with the Association's Executive Board. Barrow was as cunning, accomodating, and slimy as he could possibly be. But, no matter. Martha Stronski was working closely, in the meantime, with Town Attorney Carson, writing up Neil's contract with the town, and a job description.

Barrow was doing everything in his power to de-rail the forthcoming transition -- Neil's leaving the employ of the Association to become curator of the new Museum of the Year 2012 -- but the Association was already fast becoming but a footnote in the annals of local history, as the people of Camperdene forged ahead with the building of their grand new forward-looking museum.

On October 22nd, a Camperdenian, Bonnie Patterson, came to the museum in hopes of looking at some historical materials. Per Captain Cunningham's orders, Neil told her she would have to contact him. She did. She called Cunningham and then returned, later in the day, angry and shaking, to tell me of the conversation she'd had with old Powderkeg. She was told, among other absurdities, that "Mr. Wright doesn't come from here. He's just making trouble. Soon he'll be gone."

Neil called his attorney, Andrew Coffey, on November 3rd to let him know that Captain Cunningham had called him to say Cunningham would be starting work at the museum the next day, and that the Association's Treasurer, Angela Perry, had quit the Board (in disgust). She'd felt such urgency, she'd gone to Neil's home to tell him. Though her daughter had married Barrow's son Reggie, she had just realized enough was enough. She said the final straw was something her colleague on the board, Carla Spagnoli, had said. "It was just incredible," Angela Perry told Neil, without divulging the insult. "I just stood up and told them, 'I'm through,' and I walked out of the museum."

The next day, Captain Cunningham started work at the Museum of the Year 1912, whether Neil -- or anybody else -- liked it or not.

Then, one sunny, cold morning when Neil was out front of the museum, talking with Art McCaffrey, a wonderful, humble, outspoken mailman, Powderkeg's purple-faced daughter Lizzie Cunningham walked up with scowling, furious-faced Carla Spagnoli. Talk about spoiling a day. The two settled in at the end of a long table near the 1912 Olympics display case. Sun streaked in. They called Neil over to review some papers. He moved to sit down in the chair next to Lizzie's. She said, "Why don't you sit across from me?" This put Neil next to nose-high, skulking Carla Spagnoli. Lizzie pushed a stack of papers across the table toward Neil.

"These are?" he inquired.

"The minutes. We thought you wanted to see them."

"I had asked you, simply, to send a copy to my lawyer."

"I thought you had said you wanted to go over them with me first."

"No. Not today. You can just send them as they are," I say.

Lizzie is angry. They get up, and depart.

"Sorry about the misunderstanding, Lizzie," Neil said as the two departed. He remained seated and began composing a letter to the Executive Board of the Association: "Dear Museum Association Members. In compliance with your Executive Committee's October 3rd Executive order, declaring me to be ineligibile as a candidate for the position of curator of the Museum of the Year 1912, I have sought employment elsewhere, and have found it."

Then came news of a formal Resolution adopted by the Mayor: "Museum management shall not be private. Administration of the Museum of the Year 2012 shall be conducted with openness and accountability to the citizens of Camperdene. Museum administrators shall show a willingness to cooperate with any people or groups working to improve museum services."

On November 9th, Alice Armour Armstrong reported in the Camperdene Daily Journal, "Richard Cunningham has quietly stepped down from his post as Vice President of the Museum of the Year 1912 Association. The Corporation's President, Wallace Barrow, confirmed Cunningham's resignation yesterday. 'Of course he stepped down,' said Barrow. 'It was the obvious thing to do."

Neil's lawyer, Attorney and Counsellor At Law Andrew Coffey, let him know, "We've won."

Soon, all the streets and shady lanes of Camperdene were riddled with campiagn placards. The new Museum of the Year 2012 Board was to consist of six members. The special election outcome was not surprising. Three of the new Board members were former Corporation Executive Committee members -- Wallace Barrow, Roland Henselmeier, and Carla Spagnoli -- and three were "new" faces -- Ben Mulvane, Veronica Pillsbury, and Michael Bonaventura.

Of course it wasn't very long until the Camperdene Daily Journal headline appeared , "Public Museum Board Battles."

"The new Board of Museum of the Year 2012 Trustees will again attempt to elect a chairman tonight," Alice Armour Armstrong reported, "as the top contenders traded barbs over the motives of each other. Both Wallace Barrow and Carla Spagnoli have said they want to be Board Chairman. Each has two backers. This leaves the six-member board in a deadlock. As a means of forcing the issue, Barrow distributed a release to the media saying why he should be Chairman and why he feels Spagnoli should not."

The next day, the town was taken by surprsie by the Camperdene Daily Journal headline: "Benjamin Mulvane Chairman of New Museum Board" -- "Bowing to the fact that past museum struggles have tarnished the image of Museum Trusteeship in the town of Camperdene," wrote Alice Armour Armstrong, "the new museum of the Year 2012 Board of Trustees, which includes three representatives from the old Museum of the Year 1912 Association, last night unanimously elected neophyte Benjamin Mulvane as its chairman. But the Board was divided in its support of museum curator Neil Wright, former curator of the Museum of the Year 1912, now run by Museum Association past President and Vice President, Richard Cunningham. Mulvane, Trustee Veronica Pillsbury, and School Superintendent Michael Bonaventura, another new member of the recently created Museum of the Year 2012 Trustee Board, all had only the highest praise for museum curator Wright, but the Association's representatives to the new Board -- Wallace Barrow and Roland Henselmeier -- expressed doubts, while their colleague, Carla Spagnoli, could not be reached for comment.

"Local bookbinder Nick Wentworth, named Chairman of the Museum of the Year 2012 Building Committee, joined Ben Mulvane, Museum Project Manager, in viewing architect William Trumball's museum blueprints at Camperdene Town Hall last night. Mulvane told reporters. 'We've got a green light -- it's "all systems go" -- for the Museum of the Year 2012'."