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“Are you sure you want to have the meeting here?”

“Why not? How many people came last time?”

“I don’t know. Fifty.”

“So even if we double it, we can put them in the backyard. We’ll have hot dogs and drinks and it’ll be fun.”

People were informed about the meeting through the usual channels and on a Saturday at noon, with a hundred people at the most expected, three hundred and fifty showed up. Max was blown away. Kathy was a bit panicked. People were everywhere, walking in every room, filling the yard, waiting for the bathrooms. Her small house was overwhelmed.

It was an odd group—bikers and teachers and a lot of regular-looking people, more regular looking than last time.

At least twenty people had on T-shirts with a picture of someone Max did not know. He was told it was Walter Masters. Someone had heard about Masters from a relative and looked him up and loved his face, so the person made the shirts and gave them out at the meeting. People wearing them really had no idea who he was. When asked, they would say, “He’s the exterminator of the old.” No one knew what that even meant, but it sounded great, and one could see how folklore gets started.

“People!” Max yelled. “Could we get as many of you to come outside as possible? The rest, let’s get into the rooms that face the backyard and we’ll open the windows and try to have everybody participate.”

Even though Kathy wasn’t thrilled that so many people were trampling through her house, she was impressed by the turnout. She wondered exactly what had caused it. What happened between the first meeting and now?

Max started the proceedings. “I just want to make sure everyone is here for the right reason. We are trying to come up with solutions to make the spread of wealth fairer and give younger people the same opportunity as the olds.”

“Who?” someone shouted. Someone else who knew yelled, “The olds. What we call the greedy old farts who take everything.” People cheered at that. Max continued.

“Since we met last, a lot has gone down. I’m sure you know about the bombing at AARP.” The crowd burst into applause. “As far as we know it had nothing to do with anyone here, so obviously there are others who are just as angry and trying to figure out a solution. Today we want to hear ideas, real ideas, on how to change the world.”

Kathy was quite amazed at how violent the suggestions were, at how angry the group was. One man in his thirties actually suggested a civil war. Not between the North and South but between the Young and the Old. The crowd loved this idea. Max even thought it was interesting, although he questioned how they would start it.

The name of their group was settled on by the spontaneous chant that people burst into from time to time: “Enough is enough.” People yelled it over and over and the name stuck.

Max realized that a group by itself was meaningless. Sure, they could picket or even get violent, but they would be shot down quickly unless they had a coherent plan. He appointed three people in charge, ones who were at the first meeting along with himself. They decided to meet in smaller groups over the next few weeks to try to give the organization a real direction. But everyone agreed that today had been a good start. Enough Is Enough was born.

During the afternoon Kathy looked around from time to time to see if Brian Nelson showed up. He didn’t. She’d kind of hoped he would, just so she could put a period on the whole thing, but he didn’t give her that satisfaction. The truth was, she didn’t think about it for long—she was too preoccupied trying to keep hordes of people out of her closet.

At the end of the day, as the last few people left, Max turned to Kathy and gave her a bear hug. He was so happy. “This was fucking incredible! Could you imagine how many people we would get if we had the space and the resources to let the world know? I bet a million people would come to this. The anger is everywhere.”

“You were great,” Kathy said. “You’re a natural leader. Now you just have to decide