In her hair, a store-bought scrunchie that gathers a thick braid from the sides and lays upon the rest of her loose roiling red hair. Pinned to the scrunchie is a kind of gommy blossom she has made herself with paper and splats of paint, dark yellow and blue. In her hands a bouquet of goldenrod. From this wild flora explodes an ardent smell.
Gordon’s tweedy sports jacket is very wet. Hair very wet. Beard wet. Boots wet.
When the promises are all made and the ring is in its place, Gordon grips Bree’s head as though it were food to a hungry man, and kisses her perfect mouth and there’s a splash of light, Celia taking their picture. She takes a few others and explains she’ll send them to Bree when they’re ready. She has done this for all of Gordon’s “brides.” And yes, the St. Onge “weddings” are all the same, same ninety-nine-year-old Reverend Andy Emery, same “witness,” the reverend’s niece-in-law. The same absence of a license. The same broad empty pews. No one to fling confetti, no rows of teary smiles. No presents with white bows.
Celia now steps huffingly forward because she’s so fat, fat to superlatives, fat deluxe, and so the yards of red dress shiver around her panoramically. She takes both Gordon and Bree by a wrist and says, “May you both travel forever in today’s glow.” That’s when Bree’s eyes fill with tears and she hugs her husband, one side of her face kind of rubbing his shirt front, his rain-wet sort of wooly smell swishing through her nose. And he inhales her bouquet, which is being crushed between their bodies by the hug.
The camera flashes again.
Something bangs against the building and the wind screams and the old church sings in its walls. Bree’s silver ring doesn’t sparkle or make a golden impression. It is homely and snug. Homemade. By him. It is exactly the same as the ring that each of the other “wives” wears.
Claire St. Onge tells us:
But two nights after old Andy Emery “married” Gordon to Brianna Vandermast, there was a slight twist in the routine.
Suppertime, looking all chesty and cocky following his “honeymoon” at the old hunting camp on the mountain, Gordon came into the doorway of the winter kitchen and stood looking at Catherine Court Downey, who was sitting at the near table across from young Brady and Sadie. Catherine was close enough to hear his little sniff of triumph. I swear his neck looked thicker! And he kind of swung his arms in a real hard-assed way like I’d never seen him do before, and he said, not to Catherine, but to Beth and Lorraine, who were sitting on either side of Catherine, “Tell the chairperson that what wasn’t true before about Bree getting messed with by the monster, is now true.”
Penny St. Onge’s apprehension.
What Gordon had done could be called twisted, if seen from the crisp center of modern culture. It was soooo impulsive, looking at the risks. It could be seen as arrogance. It could be seen as cruelty, as exploitation. It would be seen in all the bitterest ways.
Ellen St. Onge.
Basically, he was getting himself hung. Firing squad. Whatever.
Cory St. Onge.
It was just the usual. Just another day. You grow up with this, you don’t get all twittipated and you don’t faint. It’s just life. Man, we had more road work, some straw to bale, a new roof on the sap house, extra orders at the sawmill and shingle mill, firewood to stack, and new CSA people to meet with. My mind was not on this thing with Brianna except to appreciate that she was a pretty okay person.
Margo St. Onge.
Bingo! It was happening. She and Gordon. It meant she’d be ours forever. Personally, I was tickled pink. But what did I know? I was fourteen. A kid, right? Dumb, right? The “justice” system was like a fat spider poised, motionless, all those legs, all those eyes. Me, I was only able to see hearts and flowers.
Gail St. Onge.
His recklessness was breathtaking. It made me tremble.
Lee Lynn St. Onge.
I stopped eating for days. Scared. Scared. Scared. Sips of warm mint tea, my eyes on the moon through the curtainless windows of my cottage. Praying to one special star. Closing my eyes. Whispering to all the stars. No sleep. Though our baby Hazel slept her baby sleep in her crib a few feet away. Hazel with his dark hair, his sturdy frame, his kooky smiles. Then I’d “see” police coming for him. I screamed. Hazel woke. So okay, when I don’t sleep nobody sleeps.
Josee Soucier.
I was sad for Bree. You have to be at least thirty-five to decide whet’er it’s a good idea to get into a rip-roaring polygamy mess. And I wouldn’t blame t’em now t’at t’ey not turn out to be child molesters, that t’a Vandermasts come here steaming wit’ t’eir fists and t’eir guns and bruise up t’e big monkey name of Guillaume St. Onge.
Secret Agent Jane.
Gordie says his house isn’t safe anymore. Too many meteor snoops, which is people who want your face in the news. And the “DHS birds” Gordie calls the people who take kids away in the night. But this morning, they packed my stuff, which I didn’t lift a finger but watched with glaring expressions. I do not want to live with Oh-RELL and Jo-SEE. My room at Gordie’s is the best, right exactly over where the phone rings.
So now I don’t live at Gordie’s house anymore but you know where. I keep my pink spy glasses on day and night, and I keep my glaring expressions. I show them how this they are doing is not going to be easy.
The weather, New Guinea. The place, Rex York’s kitchen. The day, Sunday. Bree is here. Darling Bree? Or dangerous Bree?
Not many show up for this meeting. It is like that. Sometimes a packed room, sometimes almost no show. Three of Rex’s men stand against the counters and the corner cupboard. Rex sits at the little chrome-trimmed table turning a large map. Under his fingers, it is like the earth sliding out from night to dawn as Oxford County eases out from the shadow of his arm.
In the doorway to the living room a small muscular teen boy in T-shirt and jeans that look exploded, he stands without comment though his appearance growls. As if this young creature has already been wrung by war. His blond hair makes enough for a twig-sized ponytail. His gray wolfy eyes are fixed upon the map. He doesn’t look as sweaty as everyone else. But he radiates a rotten god-awful smell. He must not live very close to water.
Another of Rex’s men is at the table, wears only a denim biker vest with “the wings” spread over his narrow back. His tattoos are frolicsome. His watch is like Rex’s, black-faced, a source of much data, compass and all that.
And there also at the table is Gordon, another Settlement man John Lungren, and Mrs. Bree. Tomboy Bree. Her usual heavily-laced work boots. Her work shirt and jeans. Sweat trickling down one temple. Her face is showing, yes. Her hair pulled from the sides is braided and bunned at the back of the head while the rest of it tumbles everywhere. She has an expression that means her brain is a hot coal. And much faster than Rex’s muscular fingers turn the map.
Gordon is in a Settlement-made T-shirt, one sleeve noticeably baggy. Probably fashioned by a five-year-old. Maybe even Secret Agent Jane, who has begun to be involved in Settlement life when she’s not slithering around behind doors doing her spy work. If you look very very closely at the little stitches along the shoulder of Gordon’s red T-shirt, you can almost see where she stopped to consider redoing it better but flicked her lovely elucidating wrist dismissively and went on.
And so Secret Agent Jane is present here in this way. And her mother, too. Maybe the essence of the cage is why the militia movement grows. It can be laughable to some but the chances for loss and enslavement are clearly seen by the low rung man, woman, and child even without heart-shaped glasses.
Bree says nothing. If anyone looks at her, she smiles, but otherwise she’s chin up and soldierly.
Gordon is quiet, sort of. He’s not raving and butting in. He has kept a promise he once made to his “brother” to remember that the Border Mountain Militia Rex is the “captain.” And that he, Gordon, will not behave like a gorilla (why do so many of his people notice the resemblance?).
There is a clatter and thump and voice
s on the glassed-in porch. Butch Martin and a Settlement man in his sixties, Davey, both flushed by the not-very-Septemberish ninety-five-degree weather.
Bree turns her head. Small smile, not enough to reveal teeth. Butch nods to her, then to all.
Davey gives everyone a one-finger wave, the hand lifted almost to his forehead. So maybe it’s really a salute.
The meeting goes until suppertime. It seems as though nothing has happened. But there is a burnishing of what already was, deep in the eyes of Brianna St. Onge . . . people versus The Thing, her way.
In a future time, Claire St. Onge recalls.
Though all the arrangements had been made for Bree to travel to Portland with the college crew a couple times a week, and she had seemed so enthusiastic in the beginning, she very apologetically and very sweetly and ashamedly and thoughtfully and politely said she now wanted to “wait awhile.” Our sharp-as-a-tack, bright-as-a-penny Bree! Wouldn’t she like to hang out with college people?
But Bree had big things on her mind. Bigger than college. Bigger than sky, you might say. Bigger than being just one more wife of Guillaume St. Onge.
Ivy comes trotting into the Record Sun’s “city room” a bit late.
Brian sneaks up on her like a purse snatcher. But really he stuffs something into her shoulder bag, then veers away, not looking back.
Ivy is sizzlingly curious. Let’s see, it’s made of paper, it’s smaller than a breadbox . . .
She flumps into her swivel chair and sighs, catching her breath, pretending not to be curious. She glances around to see who else is at their terminals. Checks her watch. Her look of nonchalance is beyond the pale. She considers faking a yawn. Glancing across the short wall to the center terminals Ivy sees Brian standing there listening to the clerk, Ray Peters, but flashing glances at her. Their glances glance. Hers. His.
Time’s up. She slowly draws the mysterious papers from her bag. They include a three-page computer printout from Bob Drown’s desk (Bob, the Sunday paper’s op-ed editor). It is in progress, apparently slated for this weekend. Separately, there are pages of notations and artwork from the authors of the op-ed, not the Record Sun art department, but many names of a St. Onge nature. Names Ivy knows all too well.
The article begins:
Some of you may have the idea you are in danger. Let us be more specific. Some of you can clearly imagine that in the not too far off future, “they” will come and put you and your family out of your home. All you have grown up and worked for is threatened by some large conspiring force.
And the article goes on with many skin-chilling details, then in bold print:
YES, OH, YES . . . SOMEBODY IS GETTING READY TO TAKE EVERYTHING AWAY FROM YOU. EVERYTHING.
We are members of the True Maine Militia, not to be confused with the “plain” Maine Militia, or the Border Mountain Militia, or the Southern Maine Militia or the White Mountain Militia. But with those militias, we do have a bit in common.
Like them, we are not ostriches.
We are angry.
And we know the government sucks.
It is not a government of We, the People, but one of Organized Money, of Big Faceless Transnational Financiers ruling through their shrewd tool, the corporation, the lobbyists, the foundations, the prohibitions, the spooks, the military, the media. And money laundering and fraud and other creepy stuff.
Welcome! We welcome EVERYBODY! We are not a right-wing militia. We are not left wing, either. We are NO WING. We are everybody’s militia!
Now there is a cartoon of a stern-looking Bigfoot with hands on hips standing on a mountaintop. He wears here a 1700s tricorn hat, camo spot vest, and army boots. Behind him waves the American flag. (Remember, this is BEFORE September 11, 2001, yes BEFORE we were all completely sick and tired of seeing the damn thing.)
The op-ed finishes with:
The True Maine Militia already has a lot of members but not enough. Our goal is a million for starters. Because we are planning the Million-Man-Woman-Kid-Dog March on Augusta (for starters) and we will all be armed. With brooms. We will arrive at the doors, all the State House doors, and begin to very very gently sweep the great floors of this, which is our house . . . yes, the People’s House. We will sweep out every corporate lobbyist. Corporations OUT! We, the People in!
And if this doesn’t work, we’ll be back next time with plungers!
If you are interested in joining up, it is totally FREE. No dues. Just promise you will be angry and you will be nice. Get in touch with us today at militia headquarters, RR2, Heart’s Content Road, Egypt, Maine 04047 or call 625-8693 or find us the old-fashioned way. Sundays are best. We’ll open the gate for you! We love you! We are your neighbors. Keep your powder dry and your ear to the ground! Let’s save the Republic together!
The article is signed.
Militia Secretary, Bree St. Onge
Recruiting Officers, Samantha Butler and Margo St. Onge
Other Officers, Whitney St. Onge, Michelle St. Onge, Dee Dee St. Onge, Oceanna St. Onge, Carmel St. Onge, Kirk Martin, Tabitha St. Onge, Liddy Soucier, Desiree Haskell, Scotty St. Onge, Heather Martin, Erin Pinette, Rusty Soucier, Chris Butler, Lorrie Pytko, Jaime Crosman, Shanna St. Onge, Alyson Lessard, Rachel Soucier, Christian Crocker, Buzzy Shaw, Theoden Darby, Josh Fogg.
The list goes on—another dozen names, all girls.
And just in case readers need help making the connections, the Record Sun editors will helpfully place a box at one side with a lively little rehash of the Home School–Settlement–Border Mountain Militia relationship. And there are two photos already in place on Bob Drown’s computer. One the never-to-be-forgotten more unsettling of the merry-go-round shots, the one the AP used, with Gordon’s scary weirdly-lighted face and upper body, St. Onge-as-madman. And one of the “gate” and KEEP OUT signs. Editor leads in with: GATES OF ST. ONGE SETTLEMENT WILL COME DOWN IN A BIG WAY.
On that day that the Record Sun’s True Maine Militia op-ed appeared.
There is something they want to show Bree. Something she’s never seen.
And so Bree, the newest St. Onge wife, has been led here across the darkening quad by children, children not being at all startled by Gordon’s badness in “messing with Bree.” It’s the Settlement adults who buzz of the impending doom. Meanwhile, evenings come so early these days, fat acorns responding to the perfect retreat of sap, banging on roofs in the near distances. The small hand that holds Bree’s is damply warm. They have led her to the Quonset hut where her studio is, but they take a different set of dimly lighted stairs. Bree looks around her at all the mostly preadolescent and younger faces, faces she can match with names now, Stacia, Miranda, Fiona, Gabe, Michel, Lindsay, Katy, Spur and Max, Montana and Seth, Kristy, Dara, Rhett, Andrea, Draygon, Graysha, Theodan, Benjamin, Oake, and Cymric, perfectly formed faces with wonderful noses and perfectly placed eyes, his eyes, most of them have the eyes of her husband. Does this somehow make them her children?
Chirping and giggling, they reach a door with barely a froth of light under it.
“We have alas arrived!” The always forcefully eloquent Montana calls at the door and swings it open wide.
It is more like what you see when looking out of an airplane window, a plane you are riding on in the night over a city, the city below, a stirring and flurrying of puny lights.
What it really is, is Kirky Martin on a chair, a table before him . . . a big table, six sheets of plywood in size, covered by a miniature nighttime city, both urbs and burbs.
Yes, the Kirk Martin, the twelve-year-old who despises real roadwork, wearing big glasses and crewcut with a little pigtail in back, man of the dashing bow tie when he’s out on the town in Portland. But this town before him now puts a silvery-pink glow on him, giving his face the important luminescence of a planet in the heavens.
There is no other light source, so only the city makes light, which also gives life to the greenish freckles, dots and splashes of comets and stars painted with phosphorus paint on the room’s
black ceiling above.
Kirk says, “Hi” to Bree in a kingly way. He is working remote control panels like the TV channel kind, his eyes on the traffic of his town, tiny metal cars buzzing along avenues, alleys, and parking lots. There are bridges, too. Houses and churches and four-story apartment buildings all have electrically-lighted interiors that glow from their hundreds of windows.
Bree is struck silent.
Outside the burbs, a field of tiny cows. Their tails wag!
A pond. Made from a glass mirror. Crowded with mussels. These, you see, are made with real mussel shells, purple and black and crusty, and so to this wee world, mussels are menacing, monsterific. Their mouths open and close, open and close. And they have voices! Friendly little creaking burping voices, though to the teensy residents of this town, the little voices would be roars.
Now there’s the wee blue flutter of a cop car pulling a speeder over, someone perhaps speeding to escape the giant mussels.
All around Bree are the gasping wet mouths and noses of the St. Onge children, all eyes round with the never-get-used-to-it wonder of Kirky Martin’s city. And his subtle humor.
Bree says, “Where’d you get this?”
“Made it.”
“By yourself?”
He nods, gives one of his remote panels some squeezes, and a line of traffic surges across a bridge.
Hands now in her jeans pockets, Bree leans close to study all these moving parts, the lighted windows, smaller blinking red lights on the radio tower high on the highest hill.
“Neat, huh?” This is Gabe speaking. Bonnie Loo’s oldest, her child from the first husband. He stands closest to Bree. His hands are in the pockets of his jeans, like Bree is doing.
Bree murmurs, “It’s breathtaking.”
Kirk says, “It’s electronic, powered by that solar-charged battery.” He dips his head to point.
She looks to the dark shape low in one corner of the room.
“Kirky’s an electrician,” Max tells her. Max in gray sweatpants, loose plaid flannel shirt, face ghosty.
“ElecTRONICS,” another small boy corrects him.
Treat Us Like Dogs and We Will Become Wolves Page 55
