Treat Us Like Dogs and We Will Become Wolves

by Carolyn Chute

  Rex’s eyes narrow on the uneasy sight of the radio “studio” building and its coveted stout tower swarming with skinny black-gray-and-salty-blue-clad strangers. Gordon wags his head and smiles with all those even and uneven teeth. “Friends of my kids. Horne Hill. It’s the Anti-Rich Society.” He smiles a great big tickled smile.

  Rex’s left eyebrow twitches. His brain, which never skips over, never slobbers, is quietly processing these sudden and awful specifics.

  Meanwhile, the musicians scurry around up on that temporary stage, setting up the sound system that looks brutal enough to knock people over who stand close. Several men. Three women. One guy in his early fifties, soft dark beard, soft, sparse, latent-like hair on a child’s arm. He moves furtively and schemingly. Jeans, very wrecked. Red T-shirt catches the eye. It displays the three chimps of evil revised to show one chimp with binoculars, one with hands cupped behind his flabby chimpy ears. The third chimp is using a megaphone.

  Rex says, “There’s at least three hundred here.”

  Gordon grins. “Girls did this.”

  Rex says, “There’s trouble here.” His gaze rolls over to the radio tower and studio and the wrongness of the many light-stepping young people there. The wrongness of their ingress. His suspicions that “friends” is too small a word to contain them.

  Gordon’s face flicks and clenches on one side. “You already said that.”

  “And like I said, I’m going to get some men in here. Just to watch.” He points to the top of one Quonset hut. “Like there and—”

  “Watch? You mean like snipers?”

  “Just have people positioned. In uniform. Has a corrective effect.”

  Gordon watches another little mob of folks arrive. The sort who don’t bring casseroles. Just cameras.

  “You got agents here,” Rex says.

  “You said that already, too.”

  Rex grunts, a gentlemanly grunt, not the big animal grunts that come out of Gordon. Gordon likes the brotherly protector thingy Rex is about today. Gordon knows he’s forgiven. The letter to the governor and all that. Gone into the ghosty past. Right?

  But now Rex is eyeing the radio tower again, the figures so light-footed, so possessive, so strange.

  And then.

  A lot of eyes watch Gordon walking through the crowd, among the tables under the trees. He shakes the hands of three young men in their twenties, billed caps, bashed or chewed nails and stiff palms, wives with nice shapes and pretty hair and clear eyes, two in jeans, one in shorts. Also a child. Gordon reaches to open his hand over the head of this little girl, plastic barrettes warm against his palm and her dark hair slips between his fingers and the tops of her ears are so cool and funny and tender. To her parents he says, “The weight of the world is no longer on each man or woman’s shoulders. Today we are a people.”

  And then up on the hillside.

  Young Lou-EE St. Onge rolls a small deck cannon down the ramp of boards at the back of his little seventeen-year-old yellow pickup. He has a modest crowd with him now. Helping. Lou-EE’s small shoulders and small orange felt crusher hat show above all other heads, as he stands to his full and lonnng height once the cannon is where he wants it. Now for stakes and bailing twine, to rope off a safety zone. He gives orders quietly.

  On the seat of the little truck broods Cannonball.

  Lou-EE keeps his cannon’s black powder charges in the folded papers. He uses 1F, 600 grains, thereabouts. The gun he always wears is a Ruger Old Army revolver, six shots. Also black powder. Black powder is the thing. Lots of mess and stink and fuss. And old-fashion care. Also over his old plaid shirt Lou-EE wears a powder horn on a rawhide string and a patchbox on a strap. Patchbox is black leather and reads: US. He has various other little pouches and a possibles bag all dangling from him. His scraggly tapered black beard is long. From far below where the crowd is, reporters and photographers have caught sight of Lou-EE, and maybe they notice, too, his beautiful green-brown golden eyes. Their cameras go into a frenzy.

  One reporter wonders what time the cannon will be fired today. Lou-EE gives a droopy little shrug. “When the True Maine Militia gives the order. I don’t know when that is,” he tells them sort of sleepily.

  The several reporters scratching this info down look disappointed. As we all know, reporters never witness whole events. They stay five minutes, grab a few . . . ahem . . . quotes. Then they evaporate.

  Stopped for the flag man of a road crew down along Promise Lake, a motorist’s eyes widen. Yes, it’s pirate radio.

  One minute the radio was playing the usual, then . . . “Hello! All you out there in Radioland! This is once again the Anti-Rich Society, with . . . well, you know what the weather is, but do you really know what’s going on??? Hello! Hello! We’re on the air! One! Two! Three!”

  Young voices laughing along with this young fellow’s voice. Then a young gal voice, mild and trustable. She could sell water to the proverbial drowning man. She speaks like a fragrant flower but the news she gives is quite bitter, while also quite funny and too proud of itself. Then too suddenly she is doing an interview with, of all people, Gordon St. Onge! Right here in Egypt! Live! No messing with footage. No cut and paste. Just the real and actual and perfect time deep inscrutable voice of the Prophet!

  The motorist is still staring into the radio, bewildered, weirded out, doesn’t see the flag man dancing and waving to get his attention. From behind, a horn blares. But the Prophet’s voice is as clear as if he were inside the car, which, in a manner of speaking, he is; his warm-mush concern for you crawls over your bones.

  Claire St. Onge.

  And so on and on it went, the True Maine Militia event, yes, the welcomingest militia in all the world.

  Alyson Lessard’s friendly pet chicken.

  Loves the stage. Keeps flapping back up there to shuffle and peck among the fallen maple leaves and feet of the band members and crisscrosses of speaker wires. The sun casts horizontally razor-edged gold unsticky webs you can put your hands and head through. The chicken’s comb blazes true red in one single strand of this webby light while all else around is ever so blackly blue. Little red crown for a little feathery queen who then marches forward among shadowy drums and becomes one hundred percent blue.

  Whisking up and down the keys and buttons and front plates of the readied instruments, there is still gold in wobbles and stars. There is a counting to ten to test the mikes. Spit out from the nearest maple tree, leaves seesaw down, like badly rowed wee boats.

  The wonderful hen lands on the drummer’s left knee.

  Alyson appears in her usual sheepishness and blush, to take her stagestruck bird away.

  There are splats of applause.

  Next Samantha Butler announces that a surprise speaker and “speech for you” will take place later tonight. The crowd responds with crackling applause and cheers. There she is in all her sassy splendor, bush hat jammed down over swishy white blonde hair to supplement the military costume, boots, red Blair Mountain war–style neckerchief. Mouthy showy Sammy. But she, too, rushes offstage in sheepishness and blush.

  Nobody introduces the band. But suddenly the last swollen edge of the going-down-sun turns full devil red, the high clouds pulse impossible inflamed colors no one (but the grays) can name and the hulky treed mountains in their own stew of October purples burn themselves out into black.

  Band from THE County.

  The music begins with the bloodcurdling scream of the first fiddler, who wears jeans and the red T-shirt with the three chimps of evil.

  Four fiddlers. Two accordions. One large accordion. One very small squeeze box. Two acoustic guitars. And a sax.

  Drums. The whole nine yards on drums.

  This is not the kind of French music you hear as background sound in a big city French café. This is some hectic beast born of the marriage of hard-livin’ St. John Valley loggers and farmers with rock ’n’ roll.

  While some fiddle bows jerk and chop, others wail like factory lunch whistle
s, and there’s the smash of drums, blood-rhythm, deep-gut rhythm, accordions and guitars played with scrambling fingers, faster, faster, faster, faster, faster! FASTER!

  Hard to sit still. Those who aren’t hopping around on the quadrangle or in the parking lot and fields, those who won’t give up their piazza chairs or picnic table bench, jiggle various parts of themselves, like a foot or a knee or an elbow.

  And then more and more songs. For slow songs, none. Only this exhausting hop, hop, hop. And shake’r up. And heave hove!

  Many are clapping and whistling as Gordon dances with a UU minister, spinning, hopping, gripping hands to fling each other around. The reverend’s graying Cleopatra-style hair flaps like wings.

  The red-shirt fiddler screams in Aroostook French that is studded with American English clichés.

  People in the crowd scream back, whistle, laugh, or simply dance more frantically, waving their arms, shaking themselves like something hurts their feet, like dancing on hot potatoes.

  The drummer is a kid in his twenties, bright green T-shirt with the message BOTHER ME across the chest. His arms are skinny, almost girlish. He is a wild-man drummer, never tiring.

  And strangely (to some) this music is blasting out of home and car radios all over the Egypt, Maine, region.

  The last of the golden-orange light haloing the mountain withers.

  Two hours of nonstop music, except a brief space when a crew of Settlement teens come out to light all the lanterns and colored glass candle globes hung around the stage, which make a haunting devilish light on the band, while the band burns through another set of wild stuff, half the crowd already slunk off to fall onto the grass or lean against something.

  Drunk and stoned Glory York and her various drunk and stoned partners do not dance fast to this fast music, but something glacial and dreamy and barely breathing, slow and close, and maybe a little bored, rings of people hopping and shaking around them, makes Glory and her partners seem motionless, like trees or picnic tables or the corner columns of the many crowded porches lit now inside by soft rose and ivory-colored glass candleholders Settlement-made in forms like ghosts and goddesses.

  And now.

  More people arrive. Dressed in jackets and sweaters. Fresh-looking. Not hot or exhausted from dancing. They stand out along the gravel road and field, unable to get close for the old crowd is unyielding, keeping its thickness, keeping its hold on the Settlement quadrangle and high stage of flickering lights. A very few of the old crowd leaves. Those that do stay will say things like, “Let’s hope the car’s not boxed in.”

  And so.

  Big applause and whistles when the crowd sees Gordon walking up the stage steps, walking to the mike. Crowd moans. A chant plumping out and exhaling, Truth! Truth! Truth! More applause, the pounding kind.

  Gordon stands with his arms across his chest, one eye wide, one eyebrow raised. He’s far enough away from them all that most can’t tell he has an alcohol buzz. But how green that face! Dark beard streaked with green. Throat green. This greenness a gift from a nearby glass candle globe. The opposite side of his almost plaid shirt snickers in plucky yellow and pink.

  The accordion player ambles away. The set of drums that spans the back of the stage blushes in candlelight colors.

  Talk! Talk! Talk! the crowd calls. Truth! some others scream.

  Gordon bows his head over the mike, adjusted for a much shorter man. His voice is sore and husky from too much yakking all day. And yet how fast his words tumble, run on, almost choking, no surprise to those who know him.

  Claire recalls.

  He could easily see his mistake, couldn’t he? Even as he was exploding with adrenaline, being his hammy self, throwing up a fist in honor of what should I call it . . . peasant power? Yeah, he was getting us peasants all so “pumped” as the kids would call it. But his dream was that people would stop seeing the system as god. Okay, so maybe some were but they were just transferring godliness from the system to him! And maybe he liked this? Maybe something very ugly was playing evil sorcerer with Gordon.

  God for a day.

  Yes, he goes on and on and on and on in the usual way. But whenever he stops to breathe, the twilight and candlelight tremble to the crowd’s sorties of screams, agreeable jeers, and smashing applause. Then, in a gap of their multitudinal voice, he digs in once again.

  “It’s all just in your silly head, right? Economists say the economy is glowing! Okay, pal, to hell with the word economy. I don’t wanna hear how the economy is, I wanna hear how LIFE is ’cause, pal, I ain’t in YOUR economy I’m in the Land of Life! That’s what you are thinking, right?!!!”

  The crowd’s response singes the eardrums, then spatterings of the words Truth! Truth! Truth! Now a shadow at Gordon’s left. Whitney has stepped close and pushes something into his hands. She cries out something but it is dissolved by the crowd noise. Seems she is saying Put it on! because it’s his camo BDU shirt for Rex’s militia, and there the wide woven green pistol belt with rows of metal-trimmed holes. He hesitates because he thinks maybe he does not know Rex anymore.

  He looks back around down to the connected piazza where Rex’s face is just a spot of utter gray. He knows Rex won’t like him wearing this shirt tonight. Mr. Secret-Hide-In-the-Shadows York. He who does not write letters to governors, who will hurt you with his eyes. His eyes are pikes. And sometimes his words are, too. But tonight . . . Gordon . . . is . . . God.

  He thrusts an arm into the sleeve.

  Truth! Truth! Truth! the coaxers coax.

  Shirt on, belt fastened with a twist, olive green and black mountain lion on the shoulder declaring its place, declaring BORDER MOUNTAIN MILITIA, the army of peasants, fright to the lords, yeah, this low rogue army, mere kitchen army, close warm kitchens breathing family, breathing threat. Lords beware, the crowd goes nuts, catcalls and croaks mixed with every possible human sound magnified by hundreds. And now, one voice somewhere near yells, “Give ’em hell!” Another yells, “KILL ’EM! Kill the president! Kill the governors! Blast ’em all!”

  Gordon waits it out. One hand on the mike. One hand raised to mean Quiet, but it has no effect. It just goes on and on, this whatever it is, the stinging edge of revolt.

  More speechifying.

  Yes, he is allowed to go on. And he does. He warns that the sly rulers that look so small and hamsterlike on the TV set are really something else all together, a system. The transnational neo-feudal privatize-profitize-everything system is “Evil!” This makes the mob lash its great tail and growl. And during this ugly sound and the stage vibrating under Gordon’s feet, he sees ten-year-old Theodan Darby and almost-seven-year-old Jane Meserve, lighted by floating flickering colors, one on either side of him, Jane wearing a black tricorn hat and Theodan bareheaded . . . they unfurl flags, one the flag of the True Maine Militia, the other the Stars and Stripes. Now the crowd is making purring sounds but also indications that it might rise as over a levee up onto the stage and embrace or drown the new god with too much worship.

  Gordon’s one most lunatic eye finds an open bottle of beer behind the drummer’s seat. Full! And so now Gordon is convinced that the old god still loves him. So he gives more speech, then spits on the stage floor. The crowd condones. So then he drinks and it is glorious, all that roaring approval out there in the lively dark, the hot, almost flat brew tumbling down into him and then with a True Maine Militia song sheet he twists up a giant pretend joint and pretends to smoke it. “EVERYTHING WE ORDINARY PEOPLE DO IS BAD,” he observes.

  It rips into his eyes.

  Too sudden. Then more. Great layers of brilliance and blindness, and ashen shapes skating behind it all like fish. Gordon understands that several network television channels are moving in closer with their equipment to grind away on him, cut him down to, yes, hamster-size for the little propped-up boxes of nearly every American home, simultaneously stretching him out larger to be a nation-sized object of terror? But he is feeling like a big bird in the sky.

  The crowd t
hunders its love, its single violent prayer and breath so brisk he can feel it disturb his hair. Uh, his feathers.

  The screen is on the scene.

  Wow! You will not believe how laughable people are when they take matters into their own hands. Here we’ll show some fat ones in shorts so you can be entertained. Here’s a quick shot of a sourpuss with a . . . ohmygoodness an assault rifle. See the scary Prophet yelling extremist goobledygook. See his jacket! Sinister! The thing is, how do you feel? Scared? When people who aren’t officially sanctioned or modeled properly try to do things themselves, they are a threat to democracy. Okay? Got it? It’s funny but it’s scary. Right? How does it make you feel? How . . . does . . . this . . . fringe . . . extreme . . . wacko . . . weirdness . . . makeyou . . . feel?? Feeeeel it!

  The crowd is expanding, its thunder blacker as another layer of white TV light springs into action.

  Gordon is almost squinting. But no, he is not fully squinting. He stares them down. He taunts them with jokes. But the dangerous light fumbles into his pores, the fabrics of his clothing. It is investigating.

  He draws an arm back, swinging a leg forward as if to throw a mean fast ball, then pitches the imaginary ball to the nearest TV light and the crowd rages and then rips into applause, then comes synchronized labor union–style claps. Now it chants: OUT! OUT! OUT! OUT! OUT! Into this chant, Gordon screams a scream of a ghoul, “DISMANTLE THE BEAST!” and while throwing up his fist, howls, “GOD SAVE THE REPUBLIC . . . OF MAINE!”

  The spasming crowd repeats GOD SAVE THE REPUBLIC OF MAINE! almost perfectly in sync. Does Rex like this? What does Rex want of Gordon? Indeed it matters. Rex, the brother. And what do the kids want? And the others, all his dear ones? And Bree? Is everybody happy? Happy. Happy. Happy.

  One of the distant TV lights blackens. Did it get trampled by the immersifying crowd? Now another light draws back, swaying, then shrinks away.

  And then: BOOOOM! Lou-EE’s St. Onge’s toilet-paper-wadded deck cannon up there in the field making a wooomp . . . wooomp . . . through the distant hills, and thanks to network TV, all of America.