Chapter 4: “…and many broke things”

Throughout the first four weeks of October, utilizing Skype technology, David Gall and I had made it a point to speak three times a day, everyday, even on weekends: (1) 8am Pacific Standard Time / 5pm Venice Time, (2) 11am Pacific Standard Time / 8pm Venice Time, (3) 11pm Pacific Standard Time / 8am Venice Time. We would follow current polls, make notes and adjustments, and send email clarifications while the other slept. He was meticulous and often times temperamental. Sometimes I would wake at 6am and have over ten new email messages from him in my inbox. When I only had time to address seven of them before our 8am phone call, I would incur criticism. We didn’t always get along, but we understood the importance of the task at hand and were exceedingly diligent and efficient in our efforts.

The morning of Saturday, October 25th brought strange news. On that morning, I had allowed myself the grace of sleeping in. As my wife and I had attended a family wedding the night before, our kids were with the grandparents, and I finally felt myself relaxing after what had been a very exhausting four weeks. A little after 8am I awoke, turned on my computer, and opened my email. There was only one message in my inbox. This is what it read:

“Hello. I am Giovanni. Excuse me for I do not speak English so I use translation machine. I see your email on the computer of David and I know you are important for him. Last night there has been an incident with the car of David. He is in the hospital. He is bad with concussion and many broke things. I can make you to know more when I talk to doctors again. I am very sad.” - Giovanni

Let’s backtrack for a second. A week prior to this I was standing in a UC Berkeley college apartment living room with a team of dedicated students at 2am. We were presenting David with – via phone, email attachments and GoogleDocs – our team rosters that we had finalized over the last two weeks and feverishly without sleep for the last forty-eight hours. The task was finally completed, there were a lot of high fives exchanged and we toasted our efforts with cans of Keystone Ice. David was impressed. I remember saying to David, “Buddy, I’m worried about you. There is so much at stake. What if something happens to you?” He replied, “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” I came back, “David, I’m not messing around. I could disappear at this point, and this thing would still happen, but if you disappear, we’re toast. We need a number two in Italy.” He came back, “Dan, you are being ridiculous. I’ll be OK.” Fearing my words were a product of late night paranoia and were detracting from the mission at I hand, I let the moment pass.

I was intensely worried about his health, but at the same time, I recognized that our mission had suddenly and without warning entered its most urgent and critical hour.

Forgive the military reference, but when a company loses a member of their troop – infantry or officer – the company finds a way to march on. However, the military is structured strictly to the point that if you lose even a general, another one is ready to take his or her place. We didn’t have anyone to take David’s place. He was the one individual responsible for financing, booking and sending confirmation of all our flights. Furthermore, my mental state was far from that of the valor of a hero. I was in a full blown state of panic.

My wife and I realized the next few days would be incredibly stressful. In what was by far the ugliest moment of this whole experience, we made the decision that she and the two kids would stay at her parents’ home for a couple of days until things mellowed.

I called the student leaders and broke the news about David. Reactions were mixed. Emotions were flying. After a morning of freaking out, I did my best to regroup the troops and my own sanity. I sent out an email to the entire organization detailing the little that we new. Later that afternoon I held an emergency conference call with our leaders from across the country to figure out a way to move forward.

I tried to focus on the positive. The bottom line was that we still had six hundred and eighty four dedicated people fired up and hoping to volunteer. They were our most important resource. There had to be a way. I developed a desperate plan that called for reaching out to our own volunteers. Someone had to have a contact. Someone had to have resources – if not one large donor, then a few smaller ones; if we couldn’t send six hundred and eighty four then let’s find a way to send three hundred. Maybe someone knew Oprah. We couldn’t give up.

Days went by and we had no contact from David. This is a person to whom I spoke to three times a day for a month, and there was nothing. Dead silence. I came to this conclusion: If I was in an accident and in a hospital bed, with what was at stake the doctors would have to chain every limb of my body to the wall to keep me from hitting the return key on my laptop or making a phone call. Immediately, we had to look out for the safety and well being of our volunteers. Some investigation with law enforcement determined that a name, a phone number and an email was not enough for identity theft. Little else was clear after that.

The details that did emerge were not optimistic, and each piece of information struck a blow to any momentum we were desperately and frantically trying to produce.

David had promised an Omaha organizer, who both of us had been working with, that he would deliver a team of volunteers from Washington D.C. These individuals were personal friends of the Omaha organizer and they were to arrive a week earlier than our team. When nothing materialized, the Omaha organizer investigated. The travel agency that David had attempted to book flights through had put a stop on his flights because they feared a fraudulent situation. None of the flights David said he had booked were ever ticketed. The emails almost half our volunteers had received prior to the “accident” and were told were confirmations were not. None of our volunteers had flights.

After contacting the travel agency, we found out that David had two different Colorado drivers licenses, with two different names – David Gall and Davis Jerome Moller – but with the exact same picture.

Later in the week, a reporter somehow managed a law enforcement background check on David Gall and found that an individual bearing that name was wanted for fraud in two different states.

We contacted Americans in Italy for Obama, the organization that David cited his participation in to gain credibility with us. They knew who he was, confirmed his identity, and offered to help us to the greatest of their ability. Some of them were able to contact David. He claimed had been in a horrible accident and in terrible pain, but he was home and he was coherent. Days later, David Gall would be formally kicked out of Americans in Italy for Obama.

Sunday night I met with the Berkeley student leaders in person. I was amazed by their collective diligence and their optimism was uplifting. They were not to be deterred and had all intentions of moving forward. I spoke with leaders from different organizations and they informed me that since Nevada was also a closely contested battleground state, they would be willing to bus all volunteers for free from California to Las Vegas. This seemed like a viable alternative if our first options did not materialize.

After getting home at around 3am from my meeting with the students the night before, I awoke to a phone call at Monday morning at 8am. It was David. He sounded terrible, but I remained completely suspicious. After a few tacit questions about his health, I told him how concerned our whole team was and asked him to participate in a conference call immediately. He agreed. During this call he claimed his laptop – with all his records – had been destroyed in the accident, and there was nothing he could do. Four leaders were able to get on the call. Each one had a chance to speak with him. Each one left the conversation feeling distrustful and defeated. When I asked David “Do you have another name? Are you Davis Jerome Moller?” – he hung up.

The last forty eight hours had been hell.

Continue To Chapter 5