October 2019
“So, Justin, have you given any more thought to my idea?” Pratik Shah asked his roommate and best friend.
Justin Walker nodded. “Yeah. I still have mixed feelings. I don’t know anybody in Houston, and I’m not sure how I would like the summer heat. But I must admit that I am growing weary of these cold winters. However, the weather isn’t the primary source of my hesitation. I am not convinced that we can operate a successful business as intellectual bodyguards.”
“I understand,” Pratik said. “Starting a business can be scary, particularly when it is something new. Many times my dad has talked to me about his decision to leave India and start a business in Houston. It was a huge risk, but he wanted a better life than he could have in India. There are a lot more opportunities there today, but thirty years ago it was a pretty poor nation. He didn’t want his family to grow up without opportunities. I don’t know if this idea of mine has any merit. But I do know that I don’t want to wake up one day thirty years from now wondering, what if? What if I had tried? I might fail, but I won’t need to live with regrets for having refused to try. A good friend of mine once admonished me to not live with regrets, and I am going to take his advice.”
Justin laughed. He was that friend. It was typical of Pratik to use Justin’s words against him to make a point. It made it very difficult to disagree. Justin liked Pratik because he listened carefully and took ideas seriously.
Pratik continued. “We would have never met if you hadn’t taken a risk. What you did was audacious, but truly great things can only happen when you are willing to be bold. This is my chance to be bold, and I intend to take it. And it would be a whole lot better if you were on that journey with me. To be honest, I think that my chances of success are much better with you as a partner. But don’t do it for me. If you think it’s the right thing to do, then do it for yourself. If you don’t think that it is the right thing to do, then say no. Be selfish.”
Justin closed his eyes and leaned back on the sofa. In 2018, he had walked into Ohio State’s first football practice of the season. He marched up to the head coach and introduced himself. “And who the hell is Justin Walker?” the coach demanded. Justin explained that he was the team’s next placekicker. The coach scowled and remarked that he didn’t recall recruiting a Justin Walker to be the team’s placekicker. Justin smiled and said, “I am here to correct that oversight.”
Justin was given a tryout and became the youngest football player in Ohio State’s long, storied history. In the final game of the regular season, he kicked a fifty-five-yard field goal to beat Michigan as the clock ran out. Just after the ball left his foot, a Michigan player slammed into his planted left leg and tore the ligaments in Justin’s knee. The surgery to repair the knee was successful, but Justin did not want to risk another injury and the possibility of being a cripple for life. Justin quit the team. He had fulfilled his dream of being the kicker for the Buckeyes, and that was enough for him. Besides, he had a full-ride academic scholarship and could stay in school.
In the few months that he had been on the team, Justin had gained twenty pounds of muscle and developed a daily exercise regimen. He continued that after leaving the team. He was a strapping young man standing just over six foot tall and weighed just over one-hundred-eighty pounds. His flaming red hair, which he wore shoulder length, was as striking as his arctic blue eyes. He often joked that he was the ultimate patriot—he was red, white, and blue.
Pratik, on the other hand, was the size of a garden shed. He was 6′8″ tall and weighed two-hundred-seventy pounds, none of which was fat. He was an imposing figure, and as agile as a cheetah. During high school, he won nearly every honor that could be given a football player in Texas. He had received offers of an athletic scholarship from a dozen major schools, but he decided to play football for Ohio State. Both he and Justin were freshman in 2018, and quickly became friends.
In his first and only season with the Buckeyes, Pratik won numerous awards, including being named to several All-America teams. He seemed destined for greatness in the National Football League. But after he witnessed Justin’s injury, he came to the same conclusion as his friend. He didn’t want to risk an injury that would leave him hobbled for life. Pratik quit the team, thereby forfeiting his athletic scholarship. He applied for and received several academic scholarships, and his parents made up the difference. They had long thought that football was too dangerous and were relieved when Pratik decided to give up the sport.
Both Justin and Pratik would graduate in December with double majors. Justin majored in philosophy and psychology. Pratik majored in philosophy and business. Graduate school wasn’t appealing to either, but neither young man was certain what industry would be best for applying their knowledge. A month before, Pratik had suggested that they become intellectual bodyguards and set up shop in Houston, his hometown. As a native Ohioan, Justin thought moving to Texas might be a bit of a culture shock. Weren’t Texans still riding horses and wearing a six-shooter on their hip? Justin had jokingly asked. “No,” Pratik had deadpanned. “At least in my neighborhood, there were no cowboys. But there were a lot of Indians.”
Justin pushed his thoughts aside and finally spoke “Looking back, what I did was pretty crazy, but it worked out well. I had a plan, and if we go ahead with this, we’ll need a plan. We are going to be two recent college graduates offering a service nobody has ever heard of. This isn’t going to be easy, but if I have to wrestle alligators, there is nobody else in this world that I’d rather do it with than you.”
Pratik smiled. “Thanks Justin. I agree that we need a plan—a business plan. We’ll need to figure out who might be a potential client and how to reach them. That’s just business 101.”
“I know that I’ve brought this up before, but I see a lot of obstacles,” Justin said, “Almost nobody will know that they need us. If someone threatens them with a gun or a knife, they can easily see the danger. But when they are threatened by bad ideas, they can’t see the danger.”
Pratik nodded. “Yes, when someone is threatened with a gun or knife the danger is in the moment. But an intellectual threat takes much longer to play out. Sometimes it takes years or even decades. Most people don’t see that. We are certainly going to face some challenges in convincing them of the danger they face.”
“We are not only going to have to convince them that they need an intellectual bodyguard,” Justin replied, “but we’re also going to have to educate them about what that is.” Justin paused a moment. “I’m not even sure what that kind of service looks like. Even if we figure all of this out, we don’t have any experience doing this. We look more like physical bodyguards than intellectual bodyguards.
“I think that we have a lot more experience than might be obvious. Over the past two years, how many philosophical papers have we written? How many debates did we have in classrooms? And we also had that kittle tiff with Antifa. We’ve been honing our skills as intellectuals. I know it’s not exactly the same, but we are both pretty good at expressing our ideas.
“We both know that the world is filled with bad ideas,” Pratik continued. “We have to look for those who are most being victimized by those ideas. Since they likely accept the same premises as those attacking them, they are going to be defenseless. We see it all of the time in the news. Someone complains that a policy goes too far, but he doesn’t challenge the morality behind it. If we publicly give them a moral sanction, we can get their attention. The pen is mightier than the sword.”
Justin frowned. “Yes, but we need to focus our efforts. A friend once told me that a business can’t be all things to all people. A business must pick a market to target.”
Pratik laughed. He was that friend. It was typical of Justin to use Pratik’s words against him to make a point. It made it very difficult to disagree. Pratik liked Justin because he listened carefully and took ideas seriously.
Justice Inc: A Novel is available on Amazon.