by John Niven
It was funny. A decade ago, way back in 2016, the state he was now standing in, Illinois, had returned Clinton with damn near 60 per cent of the vote (Chicago swaying the thing of course), while just a few miles away, back across the Wabash where he’d come from, Indiana had gone for Trump by the same margin. Not so much any more: Ivanka still lost Illinois in 2024, but by a much narrower margin. And it didn’t matter, by then the electoral map of the country looked like a blood smear squashed under a microscope slide, a red gobbet with a few flecks of blue virus in it – California, New York. Frank wondered how it would look two years down the line, in ’28.
Well, he wouldn’t be around to see that.
All at once there was the sound of squealing rubber and the necks of everyone in the line jerked to the right to see two black vans come roaring into the gas station. Before they had even stopped men were jumping out and running towards the store, all of them wearing flak jackets and helmets, carrying rifles and clubs. Mayhem broke out in the line up front as two guys – Mexicans – started to run for the back of the store, one knocking over a display of dips, jars of salsa smashing on the tiled floor. One of the Mexicans went barrelling through a door marked ‘EMPLOYEES ONLY’. The other one tried to follow but was football-tackled by a big biker just as the squad burst in the front. ‘That’s not necessary, sir, we have this!’ one of them shouted at the biker, who was punching the struggling Mexican on the ground.
‘Don’t be alarmed, folks!’ another helmeted guy shouted. ‘Just stand back please!’
Frank saw it now, on the backs of their flak jackets: ICE.
There was shouting and screaming from out on the forecourt: more officers were surrounding a pickup truck, forcing a family out at gunpoint. A couple of families it looked like: two Mexican women, several small children, all crying. The guy who’d burst out the back door suddenly reappeared too – being frogmarched around the side of the building by two more ICE officers who’d clearly been waiting. He was shouting something to his family over and over – ‘No te preocupes! Papá regresará en un rato! No te preocupes! Papá regresará en un rato!’ – as they pushed him towards the van. On the floor, just ten yards away from where Frank stood, clutching his shopping to him, they were finishing up cuffing the other guy, hauling him to his feet. A few people were shouting at the officers – ‘Hey! Easy now! Let him be!’ – but more were shouting at the Mexican guy and congratulating the biker. A woman about Frank’s age was filming the whole thing on her phone and an ICE officer snatched it from her. ‘HEY!’ she shouted. ‘You can’t do that!’ But he could, of course. The Extreme Patriot Act, in 2022, after the bombing in San Francisco, part of the measures making it illegal to ‘interfere with government officials performing their duties in any way, including unauthorized filming or sound recording’. As the Mexican guy was led out past Frank, bleeding, a man shouted after him: ‘WON’T BE NO MORE OF THIS WHEN WE GET THE WALL FINISHED!’ This got a few whoops and cheers. Frank watched as the women and children were loaded into one van, the two men into another, and, with sirens and lights, the vans disappeared back onto the highway. Chatter resumed among the people in the line. The biker took another high five. The musak became audible once again, ‘Livin’ La Vida Loca’ fading out now, the whole thing having taken less time than the three or four minutes of the song.
An employee was already on her hands and knees sweeping up broken glass and salsa. Outside two ICE officers were talking to the woman whose phone they’d taken, filling in a form and handing her a receipt, telling her she’d get it back in ‘four to six weeks’. The officers walked off towards their car. ‘What about due process?’ the woman shouted after them. ‘Hey, bitch!’ the biker shouted. ‘They was due and they got processed!’ This got a few laughs. Frank turned, shaking his head, and caught the eye of a girl behind him in the line. ‘Fast, ain’t they?’ she said. ‘Happens a lot at interstate gas stations these days. They got that new license-plate recognition wired right into Homeland Security.’ Frank looked at her. She smiled, leaned in conspiratorially and said, ‘My boyfriend’s a state trooper.’
SIX
‘What did you end up doing with your life?’
Frank’s head jerked up from the pillow as headlights raked his room, snapping him out of a bad dream and into the tumbling confusion felt by someone towards the end of their life waking up in an unfamiliar location. In this case Belmont Suites, off the 44, on the western outskirts of Oklahoma City. He picked up his phone – 6.53 a.m. Still dark out. He turned on the bedside lamp and took in the room he’d fallen asleep in, fully clothed, around 10.30 the night before. Two double beds, TV set, fridge, armchair and a little hallway leading to the bathroom. $49.95 a night including complimentary breakfast buffet. He could have afforded a better place, but the Belmont had fulfilled his one major criterion: it accepted cash payments, no credit card required so long as you didn’t need your phone activated. Which he didn’t. Frank sat up and swung his legs out of bed. A trait common to the ex-drinker – he loved mornings. Every night when he climbed between the sheets he savoured a feeling familiar to any alcoholic: I made it. I made it through another whole day. I am getting into bed completely sober. This feeling had its morning corollary: a minor flicker of panic, of terror, in that moment of waking, the moment between sleep and true wakefulness, when a hangover is automatically anticipated. Then the flooding joy of pure relief when he realised he did not have one, that the routine experience of almost thirty years has not been repeated, that you have slept deeply for six or seven hours (no multiple trips to the bathroom, no night terrors, no constant waking) and that you will be getting out of bed and into the day clear, fresh and unimpeded.
He stripped off, throwing his dirty clothes into the corner, and took a long, hot shower. After the shower he dressed – check shirt, jeans, sweater – and wandered along to reception where he helped himself to his ‘complimentary breakfast’, well, a styrofoam cup of coffee, choosing to ignore the baskets of stale pastries and ‘power bars’ that constituted the rest of it. He went back to his room and shaved for the first time in three or four days, taking his time, steaming coffee cup at his elbow, finding himself whistling a tune, for all the world like a regular man getting ready for the day, going to a job, with a wife and kids somewhere off in the house, like the man he was a long time ago. (Of course, he never completely stopped thinking about the cancer, up in there, burrowing away around the upper reaches of his colon, looking to spread, to enlarge its kingdom, looking for metastasis.) Funny how all the crap they told you when you were a kid turned out to be true – ‘sleep on it … it’ll all look better in the morning … it’s a wonder what a good night’s rest can do …’ While he shaved he glanced now and then at the orange file open on the counter beside the sink, at the photographs, printed off Google Street Maps. ‘Doxxing’ they called it. The word hadn’t existed back in the eighties, when Frank started out as a reporter, but it pretty much meant doing what you did back then. Tracking people down. Much easier these days though …
Starting off with the newspaper stories that ran when the scandal broke, and going by what he’d heard over the years from local rumour and innuendo, Frank had moved on to Facebook, where a thorough trawl through the public page of one of the guy’s relatives had yielded a good few clues as to location (the bulky figure, much aged but clearly recognisable, lurking in the background of a few photographs – Thanksgivings, birthday parties) before hitting the Oklahoma state voter rolls and finally coming up with the address.
Going against the rush-hour traffic, everyone else heading into the city, with a country station on the radio, Frank found the suburb in a little over fifteen minutes. He parked the car a couple of hundred yards along from the address and watched the street. Two cars left their driveways, hurried-looking men, late for work. A UPS van cruised down; the guy went up to a door with a parcel, got his signature on the little screen and left. Then nothing. Frank was aware that his heart rate was high, his fingers alive with electric current, his m
outh dry.
Was he really about to do this? Frank, who had never even been in a bar fight in his life. Yes. Yes, he was. He wanted answers. He wanted to hear that ancient, rusty forgotten thing – the truth.
He pulled his leather gloves on as he crossed the street. Then up the steps and onto the wooden porch, glancing left and right. No one around. The sound of the doorbell, a weak digital tune, Frank looking up and down the street again, still nothing, all the houses similar to this one, detached bungalows in pastel colours with porches and small front lawns. He hit the bell again and now a voice from inside, an old man’s voice, low and gruff, saying ‘Hold on!’, heavy footsteps. The door opened. A tall man in sweatpants and a vest stood there: in his mid-seventies, thinning grey hair, stooped now, but still a dominating presence. ‘Yeah?’ he said.
‘Hi,’ Frank said. ‘Remember me?’
The guy squinted at him.
‘Frank Brill, coach.’
The use of ‘coach’ registered. ‘What the fuck do you want?’ Hauser said.
Frank took his hand out of the pocket of his overcoat, the .22 in his fist. He levelled it at Hauser’s belly. ‘I want to talk.’ When Frank had played this scene out in his mind he’d sounded suave, impossibly cool. Like Clint Eastwood or Mel Gibson. Now, standing here, he heard his own voice shrill, dry and high in his eardrums. He’d also been counting on more fear from Hauser as soon as he produced the gun. But the former coach was just standing there, looking confused and angry.
‘What the fuck is this?’ Hauser was saying now.
‘Back in the house,’ Frank said, gesturing with the gun, having to concentrate hard to keep the barrel from shaking as he stepped forward. ‘Put your hands up.’ Hauser took a couple of steps back and raised his hands, palms up at chest height, like someone reluctantly playing cops and robbers with a kid. Frank stepped inside and shut the door behind him. What now? ‘Right …’ Frank said. ‘OK. Sit … sit down.’
Hauser sighed as he lowered himself into a hardback chair against the wall. Frank wanted to sit down too, his legs were rippling and trembling. Hauser was watching him intently, the hard, cruel grey eyes Frank remembered from gym class not leaving him. ‘You OK, son?’ Hauser asked.
‘Shut up, Hauser,’ Frank said. Now that felt good. How many times had he wanted to say that back in the day? But Hauser just laughed.
‘OK,’ he said.
‘What’s so funny?’ Frank asked.
‘You,’ Hauser said. ‘Brill. I remember you. Class of ’84. Fucking weed. Couldn’t even throw a ball. Good for nothing. What did you end up doing with your life?’
This wasn’t how Frank saw it going. He was the one with the gun here. He’d be asking the questions. ‘Shut up!’ Frank said. ‘I’m asking the fucking questions here!’
‘What do you want to know?’ Hauser said calmly.
No, Frank hadn’t seen it going this way at all. He lowered himself slowly into a club chair opposite Hauser, keeping the gun on him. ‘Robbie McIntyre,’ Frank said finally.
From the Greensboro Sentinel, June 18, 1993
A man found dead in his home on Scarsdale Road, Greensboro, last week has been identified as Robert McIntyre, 28. Mr McIntyre was found by a neighbour on Friday after fumes began to escape from his garage. Police confirmed that they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the death.
From the Schilling Gazette, March 17, 2010
Jackson High School has announced the resignation of Coach Martin Hauser, amid claims that he sexually molested several boys in the 1970s and 80s. Hauser, who had been due to retire later this year, has strenuously denied the allegations. In a statement released Monday, Principal Katherine Saunders said: ‘I can confirm that Martin Hauser is no longer employed by the school. We will be making no further comment at the present time.’ Hauser was first accused of sexual assault in a Facebook posting by former Jackson High student Jason Farr in December last year. Several other students have since come forward to corroborate Farr’s claims. Schilling Police have confirmed that they have interviewed Hauser and are investigating the allegations. Interviewed by the Gazette yesterday outside his home, former Coach Hauser said: ‘I continue to deny these wild, unsubstantiated claims.’
‘You raped him,’ Frank said. ‘You raped him when he was seventeen years old.’
Hauser laughed and shook his head. ‘No I didn’t. Another one of those damn kids with a stupid grudge because they didn’t get picked for the team one week.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘Jury didn’t think so. Found me innocent.’
‘I want to know the truth.’
‘Or what?’
‘What?’
‘What are you going to do, Brill? Shoot me? Look at you. You’re shaking like a leaf. Never shot anything in your damn life.’
‘Listen. I’m not kidding here.’
‘Yeah, I think we’re done.’ Hauser started to get up.
‘Sit down!’ Frank said.
‘Just get out of here before I call –’
‘SIT DOWN!’ Frank yelled, rising.
‘– the cops and –’
BANG!
Frank shot Hauser in the right thigh.
‘AH! MOTHERFUCKER!’ Hauser screamed, going down, clutching his leg. ‘MOTHERFUCKER!’
‘You see!’ Frank said. ‘Now tell me the truth!’
Hauser looked up at Frank, his eyes glittering with pain and rage. No, he really hadn’t thought Frank would shoot him.
‘Ahhhgh. You fucking maniac!’ Hauser said. ‘You know what you’re doing? You’re going to kill an innocent man over some bullshit lies from over forty years ago?’
‘Robbie killed himself, Hauser. Did you know that?’
‘What’s that got to do with me? I AIN’T NO DAMN PAEDOPHILE! Fuck! FUCK!’ Blood was spreading across Hauser’s grey sweatpants, soaking between his fingers, dripping onto the hardwood floor. Frank felt sick. He stepped backwards, fighting nausea. He looked around the room. There, on the table, was a laptop. Something occurred to Frank. He took a deep breath, steadying himself, then walked over and opened it. ‘What’s the password?’
Now, for the first time, a flicker of fear crossed Hauser’s face. But he got it under control. ‘Go fuck yourself,’ he said. Frank shot at his other leg, missed, hit the floor, pulled the trigger again and hit him in the left shin. Hauser screamed. ‘Ahhh … motherfucker, motherfucker!’
‘The password!’ Frank repeated. Hauser was sweating and bleeding heavily now. He looked up at Frank, defiance still burning in his eyes. Frank aimed the gun at his foot. Hauser held his hand up. ‘No! Wait! Wait … endgame52. All lower case.’ Frank typed it in and got Hauser’s home screen. He went straight to last night’s search history.
There it all was.
Hundreds of images, some of them tough to look at. Really young boys. Some pre-teen.
‘OK. Listen –’ Hauser said.
Frank levelled the gun at his chest, closed his eyes and pulled the trigger five times – POPPOPOPPOPPOP.
The sound of the spent brass cartridges tinkling onto the hardwood floor. The soft thunk of a couple of stray shots going into the wall or the floor beside Hauser’s head. Frank opened his eyes and saw Hauser was slumped on his side, a huge pool of blood spreading out from under him.
Frank just made it to the wastepaper basket in the corner before he doubled over and threw up – a hot broth of coffee and stomach acid. He sat there for a long time, shaking, his heart rate gradually climbing down.
In the kitchen he ran cold water over his wrists and face, rinsed his mouth out and dried himself with a paper towel. The kitchen was small, well kept, and smelled of lemon disinfectant. There were family photos on the fridge – nieces and nephews maybe. He wandered through the bungalow, the smell of cordite in every room now. In the laundry room he found a trash can full of empty vodka bottles, a cheap supermarket brand. In a suitcase under the bed in the main bedroom he found a raft of magazines, a softer, more comme
rcial version of the kind of images on the laptop. In the closet there was a big dresser. Rooting through the top drawer – socks, underwear, ties and cufflinks – he felt a metal bump and pulled out a pistol, a Glock, absurdly heavy in his fist after the Woodsman. He ejected the magazine – the 9mm slugs looking fat and swollen compared to the .22s. Frank popped the mag back in, made sure the safety was on and tucked the pistol into the back of his jeans.
In the next drawer down he found a photo album, the kind common back before everyone had a whole library of photos on their phone. He flipped through a few pages, family celebrations, and whatnot. Some badly taken snaps of the coach receiving awards at various receptions. Lots of photos of him with the various football teams he’d coached in his career. Frank turned another page and stopped. There on the field out back of the school was Coach Hauser with Robbie, Robbie still in football uniform, still on the team. Hauser had his arm around him. Both of them grinning. With gloved hand, Frank took the photo out from underneath the thin sheet of clear plastic and turned it over. On the back, handwritten, it just said ‘Robbie M, Sept 1982’. Frank looked at the photograph for a long time. Then he dropped it back on top of the album, left it on top of the dresser and walked out of the bedroom.
He went down the hall, through the living room, sidestepping the spreading puddle of blood, and out the front door, not looking at the body of Coach Hauser at all.
SEVEN
‘We serve our sides family-style.’
The murderer Frank Brill kept his hands clamped on the steering wheel, trying to keep them from shaking, trying to keep the damn car on the road.
Oklahoma to Phoenix was pretty much a straight shot west on the 40, about sixteen hours, dipping down into northern Texas, through New Mexico and Arizona. Frank’s plan had him stopping for the night about halfway, around Albuquerque.
