A DISTANT THUNDER

by H. A. Covington

  The Homeland was peculiar in that way because we still had enough young white people left for that to be a potential problem. In most other parts of North America, the remaining whites were all wealthy or at least sufficiently affluent to buy their way into college. Poor whites were so outnumbered and marginalized that ZOG figured they didn’t have to bother with them. Once the courts adopted affirmative action quotas for the prison system, meaning that there had to be “racial balance reflecting society at large” in the prison population, then a huge number of poor white kids in the rest of America were simply given $50,000 fines for parking tickets which they of course couldn’t pay, and in lieu ten year prison sentences. Prison was the only place that had a quota for white people. They were turned into slaves working for the privatized prison industries at fifteen cents an hour. Once more, Anglo-Zionist capitalism had found another source of cheap labor. At one stage an estimated twenty-one percent of the population of the United States was either in prison, under court ordered supervision involving some kind of slave labor, or else worked in the prison system as guards and administrators and support. Even at the height of the Red Terror of the 1930s, it was never that bad in the Soviet Union under Stalin.

  In fact, one of the few jobs that were open was the Department of Corrections, with desperate recruiters prowling the high school campuses and the state government’s Youth Job Fairs trying to offer us the moon and the stars if we would come work for them. They had a family medical plan, and at that point it was pretty obvious my dad wasn’t going to make it if we didn’t get some kind of insurance and get that whiskey-rotted liver of his replaced. I was actually considering applying to the DOC, after one them assured me that my racial baggage from the third grade and my present political opinions would be no problem so long as I kept them to myself. They were that desperate for bodies to keep the lid on. I felt bad about it, especially because I knew Carter had done time in prison and might do again. Hell, we might all of us have ended up on the inside, including the women, if we got caught littering or re-decorating one night. But Carter surprised me by telling me as far as he was concerned it was cool. “In the first place, Shane, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. Your father is sick and this seems to be the only way you might get him any help. There is nobody in this house who will fault you for that. In the second place, you would be amazed how many people the Party has in the correctional system, and I mean on both sides of the wire. You will have access to weapons and supplies and information that we may need, and you may also be in a position to help white prisoners in general and our prisoners in particular. It will be damned rough and soul-destroying work. You have to be pretty fucked up or pretty desperate to deliberately go to prison every day. But if this is what you feel you have to do, go for it. Anybody in the Party gives you any grief, send them to me.” But that opportunity went out the window after my interview with Special Agent Bruce Goldberg. That was when I sealed my fate on any future I might ever have had with ZOG. I committed what was, at that time, quite possibly the only worse crime a white man could commit besides saying the N word out loud.

  I refused to become an informer.

  I was lounging at my desk in home room one morning in April—in fact it was about a week after Rooney and me had spent our prom night spray-painting the Tricolor on the fire station in Shelton—when I heard my name announced over the loudspeaker. “Shane Ryan, please report to the Guidance Counselor’s office.”

  “You need guidance, Ryan,” said one of the guys.

  “I figure Mrs. Dorfman is going to have another stab at getting me into the army,” I said. “I really do hate to miss out on doing my patriotic duty with the rest of you dudes.”

  “Kill Ay-rabs! U-S-A! U-S-A!” bawled Bruce Boyd, one of our jocks. He probably meant it. He was too dumb for irony.

  “Hey Ryan, if you get into the army maybe they’ll send you to Africa to kill black Muslims,” snickered somebody else. It was generally known that I was 4-F and why. You can’t really keep much in the way of secrets in a high school. In fact, over the past year we’d gotten a bunch of senior guys coming around to me or Rooney or some of the other known subversives in the Chowder Society, looking to get involved with the Party just enough to get a draft deferment. Some of them even worked out long term. I winked at Rooney and sauntered down the hall to the office. Mrs. Dorfman was behind her desk and looked up at me kind of funny, like she’d just bit down on a lemon. She just said “Shane, please step into conference room number one. There are some people who want to speak with you.”

  I opened the door and walked into the conference room, which was just another office with a round formica table and a couple of plastic chairs, a small counter with a coffee machine on it and a little fridge under the counter that had a few soft drinks and Mrs. Dorfman’s lunch in it. Behind the table sat a small and rather dapper man in his mid-thirties with neatly barbered black, curly hair and a clean blue-chinned shave. His nose wasn’t all that prominent for a Jew, and he wasn’t too bad-looking or threatening. He didn’t radiate that greasy and unctuous feel like I remembered coming off Mandelbaum. He had nice friendly collie-dog eyes and he was smiling, and it didn’t seem to be a put-on. You got the impression this character was really glad to see me, that meeting me was going to be the high point of his day and he was looking forward to it. He was wearing a trim blue silk suit, and when I glanced under the table I saw the gleam of patent leather shoes. The guy reeked of Fed. “Hello, Shane!” he chirped in a cheerful voice. “Have a seat, have a seat!” I sat down, very warily, and waited silently for him to speak. “I’m Special Agent Bruce Goldberg from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” He flashed me his badge and his ticket, and I actually looked at it. Yep, he was an FBI agent all right. Not that he’d had to introduce himself. I recognized a cop when I saw one. I especially recognized the cop standing behind the FBI man with his huge arms folded.

  Leon Sorels.

  At that time Sorels had just transferred from the Dundee town police department to the Washington State Patrol, and he’d been given nice gleaming new gold sergeant’s stripes to go on his new uniform. Not to mention a good heavy new-model nightstick, Bakelite with a lead core and encased in hard rubber for maximum bone-cracking power with minimum bruising. I know I’ve mentioned Dummy-Dummy Sorels before, even described him, but you need to understand the kind of personal presence he had. He radiated bad and menacing vibes, especially in an enclosed space like that little office where you couldn’t give him a wide berth like we’d all learned to do since childhood. Sorels was a big man, the only guy I ever knew who could have given Adam Wingfield a good tussle. He must have stood at least six foot six, he was over three hundred pounds, well over, and there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him anywhere. Dummy-Dummy was built like the strong man in a circus, muscle-bound and out of all proportion, with massive rock-hard shoulders as broad as a mack truck, huge bulging biceps that seemed almost to split the short sleeves of his uniform shirt, bulging pecs that strained against the cloth, and gnarled fists with scarred knuckles that were amazingly small for the size of his Popeye forearms. All of this tapered down to a hard but tiny waist; I swear I think his trousers must have been about a size 30, and so he looked kind of like a child’s spinning top or some kind of cartoon character, triangular from the neck down. Although I shouldn’t say neck, because Sorels didn’t seem to have one. His head was godawful.

  It was pretty well known that Sorels was a steroid user. When he wasn’t on duty, Dummy-Dummy lived in the police station weight room. Among other side effects, steroid abuse makes the user lose his hair, and Sorels had started losing his at a very early age. To compensate he had shaved his entire head, and I swear to you before God that his head was actually pear-shaped, with a point on it. We speculated that he must have been injured in some way at birth, that his skull was compressed or something. Maybe that accident at birth caused him some kind of brain damage that accounted for his distorted and evil personality as well. He e
ither shaved his eyebrows or else he didn’t have any, and it didn’t help that he was as ugly as home-made sin to begin with, with a face like a Neanderthal. The overall result was grotesque and fearful. The man looked like a gargoyle.

  Then there were the other charming side effects of steroid use. The psychotic rages, for one. Also, according to gossip the steroids had apparently shrunk Sorels’ testicles to the size of pencil erasers and he was completely impotent as well as insane. He tried to make up for that with women through various perversions I won’t get into, and when the prostitutes out at the truck stop or up in Seattle didn’t serve his turn, he took it where he found it. It had gotten so bad we learned later that under a sealed court order, as part of a civil settlement in a lawsuit against the city, Sorels was forbidden to arrest female suspects on his own or be alone with a female prisoner. I imagine the Dundee cops were glad to dump him onto the Patrol.

  So why did even ZOG employ a psychopath? Because he was a loyal and reliable psychopath. Because a psychopath was what ZOG needed to keep the peasants in line and no one in authority cared any more how it was done. From their point of view, there was no downside. We’d let them get away with murder and never fought back for three generations, so why should we start now? Leon Sorels was a man absolutely without conscience, without scruple, without a God, without the slightest twitch of human compassion. His loyalty was to whoever signed his paycheck and as far as he was concerned, that paycheck bought whatever service his employers wanted performed. If that included beating someone to a pulp, if that included torture, if that included murder, then Sorels would do the job and do it well, and clean up his own mess behind him. In other words, Sorels was a typical American cop. Right now his Neanderthal face was expressionless, but his little piggy black eyes were glaring at me.

  I refused the offer of a soft drink with a shake of my head, and said nothing. First rule in confronting an interrogation: never open the conversation. “I’ll tell you why I’ve asked you to stop by,” said Goldberg, leaning forward over the table, his hands clasped, speaking with a sincere and concerned smile. “Shane, I suspect you have good reason to be aware of the fact that the FBI now has a special civil rights task force assigned to Lewis County to investigate a number of acts of domestic terrorism which have taken place here in recent months. It’s a very bad and potentially explosive situation. Hateful racist literature directed against minorities is being distributed to householders. There’s been a lot of vandalism and racist graffiti being daubed onto both public and private property, which is not just vandalism but felony hatecrime, because that’s how the United States criminal code classifies any crime which is motivated by hatred directed against any person due to their race, color, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. Society has come to realize that unacceptable thoughts and motivations have to be punished just as well as illegal acts, sometimes more severely than the act itself.” For the first time I resisted the temptation to argue and ask him just who the hell determined what thought were acceptable. Like I didn’t know.

  Goldberg leaned forward and looked me in the eye, trying to drill me. I responded like Carter had taught us. You don’t look the son of a bitch right in the eye. You look between his eyes, right at the bridge of his nose between his eyebrows. That way it looks to him like you’re staring him back even Steven, but you’re not and you can hold that stare all day long if need be. “Hate stickers bearing a so-called flag of some country that doesn’t exist, and never will exist, have been stuck up in public places, in violation of both local and Federal law. People of color, especially Hispanics, are being subjected to an atmosphere of ethnic intimidation that causes them to feel apprehensive, and creating such an atmosphere constitutes a violation of their civil rights and as such is also a very serious Federal offense. But I won’t go on. I think you know what I’m talking about, Shane. You’re young and perhaps you don’t understand that this kind of behavior is not only illegal, it’s just plain wrong, a betrayal of every principle the U.S.A. stands for. Right now American soldiers are giving their lives for this country all across the world in order to preserve our American freedoms, and for anyone to abuse that freedom in order to give aid and comfort to terrorism and to undermine public policy is disgraceful. It’s not going to be tolerated, Shane, really it’s not.” He paused expectantly.

  I wasn’t too worried at that point. I knew that if they actually had anything on me or Rooney or China Wingfield, who was in Dundee High by that time, then none of us would have been called in for a chat. We would have simply been hauled away in shackles. Carter had drummed the Five Words into us all long ago, the only five words that you ever, ever say to the ZOG police or any other kind of interrogator. No name, rank, and serial number, no chit-chat, no mouthing off, no attempt to lie or play games. Nada, zip, zilch, sweet Fanny Adams. Just the Five Words and the Five Words only. “I have nothing to say,” I said.

  It didn’t throw Special Agent Goldberg, who had obviously heard it before, although Sorels made a growling mutter under his breath. Goldberg actually laughed merrily. “Oh, dear, dear me. You have no idea how very weary I am getting of that imbecilic response. Your ridiculous so-called Five Words. Some of you people chant them like a mantra. You actually believe they will protect you, but they won’t. If only you knew how little you know. Oh, dear me, no no no no. You’ll have plenty to say, young man. They always do. White racists are the weakest kind of criminal we have to deal with. Shane, do you know I can kill you right now if I want? All I have to do is to toss you into the Federal holding cell up in Olympia with a few very large homeboys, Shane, and for a carton of cigarettes you’re dead as a piece of dog shit on the road. Or if I prefer, you will find yourself with a very bad case of hemorrhoids and a few interesting diseases. One night in my house, Shane, and you would have more to say than you can even think of now. Fortunately for you, young man, I am in a good mood today and I am inclined to interest myself in your future.”

  “I have nothing to say,” I replied, deadpan.

  Goldberg ignored it and drove on. “Shane, I think you can help us with our present line of inquiry, and if you wisely decide to cooperate, then the Bureau is prepared to help you out in return. I believe in the philosophy of one hand washing the other. Now, I didn’t just call you in here because I pulled your name out of a hat. I’ve investigated your background, and despite that little slip-up in the third grade with the Fernandez kid, I don’t think you belong with these people. I think you’re a good American at heart who just fell in with the wrong crowd. Hey, it happens. I think basically you’re a good kid who’s caught some bad breaks, not the least of which are a white trash mother and father who never met a bottle they didn’t like, but those bad breaks don’t need to become permanent. You’re still young enough to turn your life around and I think you’re smart enough as well. If you can come to understand where your duty to your country lies, then you’ll find that also happens to be the side your bread is buttered on. The Bureau can be very generous and supportive to those who help us out, son. Now, as I have said, we’ve checked you out and

  I know you’ve got some problems at home. Your father has some health issues and he needs treatment, expensive treatment. We can make that treatment happen, Shane. And while your dad is getting well, we can get you into a good technical school and even one of several good universities this fall. Your grades and SATs are not of the first rank, to be sure, but with the FBI greasing your wheels all kinds of doors that you might have thought closed to you can slide open. If your assistance here with our task force turns out to be of value and you agree to help us further wherever we think you might be of use, then you can get as good an education or better than you would have gotten under the GI bill, and you won’t even have to do three years in the service to get it.

  “But first, we need to know all about this nasty little racist club of yours,” Goldberg went on. “We know it’s organized by an ex-convict named Carter Wingfield and a teacher at this school name
d Morehouse, two men who came to Washington from out of state along with a number of others with the specific intention of causing racial trouble here, which I think is contemptible. We have known about this so-called Northwest migration for years, and I’m glad to say that the government has finally decided to put a stop to it. In order to do that, we need someone who can act as a kind of secret agent on the inside.” I wondered if he was going to offer me a secret decoder ring as well. “You see, we don’t just want to get Wingfield and his racist clan, or should I say Klan with a K? The goal of the task force is to take these shocking events here in Lewis County and build a major Federal conspiracy case that goes all the way up to the top, so we can shut down this whole rotten shebang and put all these white supremacists in prison where they belong.” I was about to remind him that the Party was not white supremacist but white separatist, but I kept my trap shut. “That means that we have to find one little thread, the right one, and pull hard enough on it for the whole thing to unravel. I want you to be that thread. If you play your cards right and give us a demonstration of good faith by giving us this Wingfield gang, then it doesn’t have to stop there. You can be made a full time asset and moved into other areas around the Northwest, while you get that college education I mentioned and even afterwards. You can be our own Donnie Brasco in the white racist underground. You’ll have an exciting and sometimes dangerous but fulfilling career, and above all, if you deliver the goods to Uncle Sam on these ignorant bastards, you can make money. A lot of money, Shane. Some of our top intelligence assets in the field of counterterrorism make over a hundred thousand dollars a year, plus expenses and perks. Of course, they’re good producers and they work hard.” Yeah, I thought to myself, so hard if they can’t find anything illegal to hang on a white boy they just make something up. I had already met a few guys who were now in jail due to testimony from these hard-working professional ZOG stool pigeons. “But they prove that it is possible to bring home some serious shekels for undercover work. In a very short time you can overcome your present handicaps and get yourself set up for life.” I noticed that throughout the entire proceeding, Goldberg never once used the word “informer.”