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August 12, 1933, Van Wert, Ohio

Ollie Marten sat smoking a cigar on a bench in downtown Van Wert, looking sullenly at his last nickel. One nickel. Sad, but is probably made him one of the richest men in town. Jazz musicians didn't make much money to begin with, especially out in the sticks in west Ohio, but he didn't make it playing his saxophone. He found it on the ground over in Defiance on the road by a bunch of bums living in some tents. Nobody made much money anywhere these days since Wall Street went belly up and the stock brokers jumped off their roofs and people started driving Hoover carts and living in Hoovervilles.

Ollie had voted for Roosevelt and most people he knew had. But Roosevelt hadn't had much chance to change things yet. He was still sitting here staring at his one nickel. The man was trying, but those business tycoons, the old money ones that didn't get their pockets run, they howled and the supreme court didn't seem none too happy either with the man and his associations and organizations, saying it sounded commie pinko socialism.

He heard the radio going in the malt shop next store over. A few minutes beforehand, it had been playing Helen Morgan songs and an hour before, Father Coughlin on one of his hateful little rants. He sat listening to it as he could hear it on his bench out the malt shop window.

"We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special bulletin. An armed collumn of men appearing to be soldiers has surrounded the White House in Washington DC lead by General Douglas Macarthur. Shots have been fired and apparently at least some of the men have made it past the army and into the White House. We have not received word as to the state of President Roosevelt, but we have word that he may have been injured and that General Macarthur and the American Legion are declaring a new government, in opposition to alleged socialist policies being implemented by the Roosevelt administration and the Du Pont, Michelin and other companies have announced their support for this endeavor. We will update you as more information comes in and we ask that you do not panic."

That was the station out of Dayton. He froze. Maybe it was some hoax, like that Orson Welles thing about the aliens that had all the people in New Jersey running around with shotguns. If they had a bunch of jackbooted thugs in charge of things, they might not take too well to a jazz musician. He heard the Nazis harassed them a bunch over in Germany.

He got up from the bench and started walking up North Jefferson Street towards the highway. After two hours, he saw army trucks driving on the road, maybe coming out of Fort Wayne over the Indiana line. He couldn't tell if they were helping the putsch or fighting it. He figured it was an even bet, and that was a hell of a bad thing. He went back to his house in Lima and got on his matress and took a swig of whiskey and went to sleep, checking on his Winchester, figuring if they were going to have a bunch of blackshirts messing around with him, he might as well be able to mess right back. Jazz was no crime, but he figured whatever this was, it was a hell of a crime.
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