Rex says nothing, just settles more into his rocker, legs stretched out, chin almost touching his chest.
Gordon says, “You see, I can’t believe there is presently a conspired date when the president will call for martial law. Because it’s already happening.”
Rex turns his head away. The porch is for the moment filled with hushy ripples of breeze and a hiss through the treetops, which seem to be coming not from outside this porch but from him, Rex York, weary man.
Gordon snorts in an ugly way.
Rex wiggles one booted foot.
Oh, yes!
Oooooh! . . . aren’t yooooo just yearning for a brand neeeewww TV . . . one of the big ones like everyone else hazzzz. Yooo could beeee there nowwww in front of it. See my face get bigger and bigger and BIGGER!
The two men listen.
Now only the wind is speaking. And the creaking voice of the old New England house. And the homemade mobiles . . . Clang! . . . Chime! and Thot! Thot! And Gordon’s chair, rocking slow, deep.
Rex’s silence is as significant as a heartfelt pledge. To America? To Gordon? Or to something simpler, just another day’s worth of self-control?
Gordon knows for sure now that he and Rex are still really together in the same place they have always been.
The wind makes a banshee screech, but no one turns to look, even though a couple of newspaper pages blow out of a chair at the other end of the porch. The sacred wind, part of the St. Onge Settlement’s hope. Praise be, the wind.
Gordon’s big-guy voice chuckles sadly. “This kid right here—man.” He sighs. “There is nothing the great men won’t sacrifice to achieve their New World Order.” Another sigh. “And here we are, grown men with a lotta talk, doing nothing.”
Rex says, “Yeah, it’s a mess.” He blinks, looking into his hands, palms together, like the game kids play with laced fingers called Here’s the Church, Here’s the Steeple. He says, “There’s a lot to it.” He looks sideways at Gordon and Gordon frowns. He says to Gordon, “It’s all true . . . it’s all real. You and me. We’re both right. It’s all real.”
Gordon thunks a boot heel against the floor. Once. Twice. “What kind of men are we, anyway?” He sniffs. “Baby men.”
What sounds like a whole drawer of forks and spoons dumped on the floor at the far end of the porch goes clanging and skidding far and wide, while more wind finds the old house’s gables, yipping and sobbing, a whirl of grief.
Rex says, “We’re gonna die, either way. It’s just a matter of whether or not we die facing front or with our backs turned.”
Gordon’s rocking chair eases forward: once, then back; once, then back.
Rex says, “However it goes, they are coming. Somehow, they are coming. You know it. I know it. They are going to be standing here and everywhere, bustin’ heads. And the militias have various ways of how to deal with that. We’re just trying to stay cool for a while longer. Sometime, when you are ready to listen, I can tell you more.” He opens his hands again, as if looking in at the people of his finger church. “Nothing my group is doing is really covert, not really. Not yet. I mean nothing serious. But we are careful because we have to be. I’m sure the Feds find us just about as offensive as the real quiet ones. It’s all a problem to them. Their Project Megiddo report laid it all out. Just owning guns, you are considered a terrorist. Being a Christian puts you on their list.”
“A certain kind of Christian.”
“The report states Christian group.” Rex looks like something is wrong with his face muscles. His eyes grow wide a minute, then blink fiercely, the rest of his face unchanged. “Gordo, you know at some point there will be martial law.” He swallows dryly, pushes the tips of all ten fingers against his mustache, then chuckles disgustedly. He wags his eyebrows at Gordon. Teasingly. Like a brother. The point on which they agree and disagree.
In a most sincere and embarrassingly tender way, Gordon says, “I weep for my country. I weep for all.”
Rex says, “Ayup, maybe it all fits.”
“So if I come to one of your meetings and bring a couple of young people, will we be refused?”
Rex places a hand on each of his rocking chair arms and sinks even farther back, stretches his legs way out, his plain belt buckle catching a little woeful shimmer of blue kitchen light. He waggles his boots in a really most contented fashion. He tsks. Then sternly, “All right. You can. But don’t come over and act like King Kong. You have got to remember, I am the captain.”
And so.
The militia movement grows.
God speaketh.
Near and far. Inside and out. Infinitesimally small, infinitivally large. No right, no wrong. No ugly, no lovely. No conservative, no liberal. Just chemistry. Just spark. Just the hum of it all. I am always satisfied.
Secret Agent Jane tells us.
Next time Gordie makes me mad—like no sugar for “Jane dear” (well, not enough sugar, just stupid amounts I can bearly taste)—I will escape again. It’s pretty easy, and I will have so much stuff for Ber-NEECE and David, more than I can remember. My spy books are getting waaay too small. My power glasses are super strength now.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town.
Rex’s mother’s name is Ruth. Worked the shoe shop off and on till shoes went to Taiwan or Mexico or somewhere. She and her husband, John, Rex’s father, did a lot with the American Legion, keeping the hall up, making some really great Saturday night dances happen, and the Memorial Day stuff and the Veterans Day stuff, and the people, terrific people: Doris and Carl, Anne and Joe, John Gregory and Peg, Ray and Joan. It was a long drive to the hall, sometimes twice a day, but the Yorks were sociable, quietly sociable. Steady types. Hardworking. Law-abiding. No trouble to anyone in this world.
John is gone, buried in another county, too far to visit regularly. But “you don’t need a grave to grieve,” Ruth will tell you.
Ruth is only fifteen years and ten months older than Rex, her first child. She has veiny wrists and hands and a settling neck, and her voice cracks some, but her face is still heart-shaped, her black hair has hardly grayed, her eyesight is almost perfect, and she walks a kind of hip-swingy walk without trying.
She is the possessor of a half dozen T-shirts with Southwest Indian themes: eagles, wolves, and spotted horses. Black T-shirts, black being her favorite. But also one green and one baby-girl pink. Then there are her turquoise earrings, which dangle. A turquoise and silver wristband. Sometimes she braids her hair, just one nice thick dark braid. Two would be going too far, too cute for today’s world.
She is sixty-five. She has a boyfriend now from the Legion: a quiet man, a Korean War vet. Was a drinker once, twenty years ago. Was a smoker once, eight years ago. A quiet anxious type but kindly. Takes her places special. A quiet relationship.
Ruth hears Rex’s van pull up outside. She pulls plates and forks from the drainer, sets them out. A reflection of late and nearly setting sun on Rex’s opening van door plays on the wall.
The clock up over the table has a nice tick-tock. There’s a rhythm to the life she has, now that Rex is back here living. And Glory, her granddaughter, Rex’s only child. Glory is in and out, mostly out. But Rex (her name for him is Rick or Ricky), he is as the seasons, the tide, the sun, the moon, the swing and sway of the zodiac, heart of the home, the distant, wary, protective heart. He is everything now. He is the son she almost lost. But the soldier came home.
The van. It is pretty new. Not as new as his pickup. More or less paid for. It is charcoal gray with red black-edged lettering that spells out YORK ELECTRIC. And a cartoon lightbulb with legs and a handful of tools, cute face, and a little hat—a lightbulb on the run, heading out to help you with all your electrical needs. Rex York has a reputation in the area. He’s good. He’s fair. He’s quick to get back to you and doesn’t seem overextended, even though everybody wants him. He’s creative and really gets into wiring for the more difficult restoration jobs. And he is polite. He’s not what you’d call charming and no
t a real yakker. His smiles are brief, rare, and never forced or phony. If he smiles at you, you can feel very special.
You might notice that on his key ring is a little American flag. (This is long before the 9/11 media hype.) Or that he wears a wedding ring.
Right now, he is coming up onto the glassed-in front porch that leads to the kitchen in the ell. Handful of mail. Brown bag of groceries. No military cap. No cap at all, not when he does business. And his darkblue work uniform is just as pressed-looking as when he left this morning. If you look at his feet, you’ll see he wears heavy black high-topped military boots, but always with his pant legs over them.
The kitchen smells potatoey and oniony. And of hamburg.
He finds a gift on the table. Wrapping paper made by kids with a design of little clouds and smiling suns. A card. Says REX on it. Inside, the card is signed by a whole bunch of names, some of which he immediately recognizes.
“How’d this get here?” he asks his mother.
She is standing by the whirring microwave with her arms folded across her big red-and-black flannel shirt, worn with the tail out over her jeans. And on her feet, moccasins. And on her heart-shaped face, a funny little charmed smile. “He brought it,” she answers. He meaning Gordon St. Onge.
Rex hefts the package. Feels like a big book.
The microwave bings. His mother moves away, a kind of black-andred shifting blur in his periphery vision.
He peels off the wrapping paper.
A dictionary. Feathers are inserted as place holders, feathers of a goose, a blue jay, crow, rooster, hawk, thrush. Words are marked in red: democracy . . . republic . . . socialism . . . capitalism . . . state . . . mammon. He frowns. Somehow he feels both insulted and deeply touched.
He snorts to show his manly dismissal of this gag. And pushing him aside, his mother is setting her reheated yeast rolls on the table.
He goes to the cool quiet bathroom to wash his hands, comb his thinning hair, and rake a little water through his proud lush mustache, and then to the living room to put his feet up for one or two blessed moments before supper.
Time passes. Somewhere in the woods on St. Onge land, unbeknownst to anyone, Mickey Gammon is in his tree house. Home sweet home.
He can’t just wear it around anywhere. Only to Rex’s meetings. And here, alone. Not that he fears the FBI. Ha-ha-ha-ha. He imagines the FBI guys all being the spitting image of Mr. Carney or one of the other high priests at the school here. Maybe the principal back in Massachusetts, who actually was the spitting image of Mr. Carney, at least in that tight-jawed, big-nostriled, bug-eyed, striding-the-halls, Mr. Hotshot way.
Or maybe all the FBI guys look like his brother, Donnie: tight-lipped, gray-eyed, and angry. Big eyes, much bigger eyes than Mickey’s. Donnie has the Locke eyes. Mickey has the Gammon eyes.
“FBI are just eyes,” one of Rex’s guys says. “FBI eyes are everywhere.” Sort of like in walls? And telephone poles? Maybe even trees? Big fucking deal. Unlike some of Rex’s men, Mickey thinks the FBI is the smallest problem in his life.
Anyway, he wears it now, here in the dying light: his new camo BDU jacket with the official patch of the Border Mountain Militia high on the left sleeve. Olive patch with black embroidered lettering around the black outlined mountain lion. He’s never seen a mountain lion in Maine, though rare unconfirmed sightings are reported. Kinda like having a Martian on your militia patch. Well, no, not that weird.
Mickey twists the clasp of the olive pistol belt into place. Then he leans back against his bags of belongings and rolled-up blanket and lights up a cigarette.
Some nights he lies here lonely. Some nights he lies here feeling worried about how it’s going to be here in this tree house when snow flies. And at the moment, only one blanket. Some nights he lies here feeling pissed off at his brother, Donnie: shithead. Sometimes he lies here thinking about Erika, Donnie’s wife: her softness, her little sexy expressions. Sometimes he lies here thinking about how his nephew, Jesse, is in his grave, only two-fucking-years-old. Sometimes it is cancer he thinks about, how it is like being possessed. You are eaten and digested from the inside out. You can’t run from it. Sometimes he mulls over the jobs the militia guys get him: odd jobs, some easy, some hard, some silly. Sometimes he thinks about Rex and how Rex never eats sugar and never gossips. Sometimes Mickey lies here feeling depressed. But tonight he feels tough. Tonight he feels like somebody. Mickey Gammon: Border Mountain Militia. Fifteen years old and fucking hard. If it rains tonight, the tree house leaks like a sieve. And he doesn’t give a shit.
The screen shivers. The screen warns.
Terrorists are among us and hiding in the hills, loaded to the gills with gunnnnz! Citizen militias! Omigod! How can we stop this!? Where will it lead to!!?
Out in the world.
Today, somewhere in America, more foreclosures. More auctions. Another farmer plots his own death. And another. There is an art to making your death by combine look like an accident.
Another day.
A farmer is staring at his supper, not eating. How do you say good-bye to your wife and daughter when you are the only one who knows that tonight will be good-bye?
Across America.
The militia grows.
Concerning all the aforementioned details, the screen seems to be . . .
Blank.
The voice of Mammon.
Thousands upon thousands of pairs of hands trained to the keys, in thousands of sunless weatherless carpeted spaces and perfect room temp, the death stare, the screens of the service industry. Your opportunity, it is said. Work, America, work! You are dead but still alive. Thousands and thousands more pairs of hands being trained at this moment, and thousands of others ready for that creak in your wrist tendons or your complaint, if you should complain. But you won’t complain, will you?
Across America.
The militia grows.
The screen screams.
Omigod! The militias! Terror! Terror! Terror! Terrrrooooorrr!
Each night after supper over the next three days.
Gordon’s old Chevy truck and one of the Settlement’s flatbed trucks is seen parked outside the home of Rex York, captain of the citizens’ group called the Border Mountain Militia and Gordon’s old pal. Each evening, Gordon has brought seven Settlement men—Paul Lessard, Ray Pinette, Rick Crosman, John Lungren, Chucky Bean, Eddie Martin, and Butch Martin—with him. And Tim Cash has been coming in his own car, having to leave early for this or that errand. No kids have been included, so this is not part of the school experience yet.
Neither has Rex’s militia been on hand these evenings. Just Rex. And of course the hot cookies, compliments of Rex’s mother, Ruth.
Tonight it is Saturday, a night with a weird cloudy green-looking sky and the first clump of autumn red leaves on the maple that stands by the Yorks’ driveway. And tonight Gordon and the usual six Settlement men are accompanied by one youngster, Gordon’s oldest son, Cory St. Onge, age fifteen.
And Mickey Gammon is there—wallflower Mickey—but with a difference. Straight-shouldered in his woodland camo BDU jacket and pistol belt. And the green-and-black mountain-lion patch.
All the Settlement guys have brought guns. A rather sooty-looking, old muzzle-loading LG&Y three-band rifle musket with 1863 stamped on the lock. Cap lock. Bayonet. A long gun, dark and dignified and rangy, like an old soldier. And there is a bayonetless cut-down model 1884 Trapdoor. And, yes, an AK-47. Also a Bushmaster, an AR-15 look-alike. An M1-A. And some handguns.
These are the total sum of war weapons owned by the Settlement people, give or take a musket or two. You could hardly call it stockpiling, as some of the call-in radio shows have declared. They are brought tonight to show Rex. Just for a little gun talk, military versus sport. Auto versus semiauto versus pump action versus lever action versus bolt action. Actually, tonight the talk has gone off onto the subject of hunting for a good half of the visit. Talk of hunting Horne Hill and out behind the Towne Farm. How the ol
d Boundary Road is all posted now. New Hampshire laws versus Maine laws, deer versus birds versus moose. And they tell some of the old stories, including the one about the Vandermasts and that Maine Guide scheme John Vandermast’s wife’s people were involved in some years back.
Then just a little bit about Vietnam: not a story, not a memory, but a joke, convoluted, with deep meaning for insiders.
But before the Settlement men leave—they are all grouped around the door—the talk finds its way back to preparedness, their usual subject. They are at the door and here it goes, the difference between hunting and preparedness, plain on the face, in the posture. One a voice of triumph, the other the voice of brooding anger, a sort of tough whine.
Then, when they are outside, it is this very weird dusk, light reflected off high clouds to the east, so it seems more like morning than evening, and the men stand around the trucks in the driveway, wrapping the guns. They don’t have enough cloth or leather carriers, so they use some blankets. The guns all go into the bed of the pickup, except for the M1-A that Cory has pushed into the gun rack in the back of the cab of the flatbed.
And now a car pulls up behind Rex’s van. Car door opens quickly. It is a man alone, dressed in a plaid flannel shirt, but he moves like an urban man and has two cameras and a bright and happy-go-lucky look on his face and his eyes are on Gordon. “Mr. St. Onge! How are you tonight?!!
Gordon backs away, flings the pickup driver’s door open violently. He is inside in a quick second and both trucks load down thereafter with others, but for Mickey and Rex, who are still out there, and the stranger is saying now to Rex, “Nice night!!!” and all this time, even as he is so friendly and jolly and calling out, this stranger’s cameras are clicking and flashing, first one camera, then the other. And, yes, there had been one moment there when Gordon still had his hand on the truck door, one foot in the truck, one on the ground, before Paul and Raymond and Chucky and Cory and Rick and Butch and Eddie and John and Rex had all had a chance to stop staring wide-eyed, Butch still handling that yellowy SKS with the thirty-shot extended magazine (which is cheap-made and always sticks, but is, nevertheless, a little bit illegal in many states when it is attached to this particular make of rifle) when both cameras seem to be clicking and flashing at once, one camera in each of the jolly stranger’s hands.
The School on Heart's Content Road Page 19
