Now as this tall man moves off into the crowd, Gordon’s wife Gail, dressed in a pale blue peasant blouse that shows the full effect of her necklace-of-roses tattoo, shouts into Gordon’s ear, “That’s the retired physicist Claire was just talking with! Worked for the Navy, once, and NASA. He knows tons of stuff! About the Project for the New American Century. And Russia. And how the dollar is backed by oil. He’s great! He’s hot shit! There’s some others here, kinda like that. A doctor—a gastro-something doctor—a minister, a law professor, all chomping at the bit to be militia!” Her hard, lined face beams. “I thought I was too old for surprises!” She pats his arm, steps away.
Turning, Gordon studies the guy’s back, the physicist, who is now having a chat with some liberal-looking women.
Walking straight at Gordon is Rex. He wears his dark glasses now, cold eyes just sparkles of wetness behind the shadowy lenses. And now a dark loose work shirt, although the day has become almost hot. Gordon surmises that this means Rex is now armed.
Rex says disgustedly, “Some party.”
Gordon says, “A lotta good people.” He presses the book and papers from the physicist under an arm against his own ribs, kind of like Rex’s service pistol is right now against his ribs, only different. Gordon sighs. “People need to meet like this.”
Rex just stares around.
Gordon says, “I appreciate what you’re doing, Richard. You didn’t have to come here, giving time to something you think is off-the-wall. I’m beholden.”
Rex turns and watches more people weaving through the jammed opening between the east side of the shops and porches and the first Quonset hut. “I made some calls. I have some men”—looks at his watch—“who will be here any minute. To keep an eye on things. You can’t just go unprotected here. You are a high-profile problem with a militia identity.”
Gordon nods.
Rex says, “Anything could happen.”
Gordon tries not to smile, but his face betrays him. There it is. His wild-man expression, just as he sees two more old ladies slowly walking toward him, probably working up the nerve to ask, Are you Gordon St. Onge? But before they arrive, Rex says, in a gravelly way, “Somebody is going to kill you.”
“Don’t spook me,” Gordon says quietly. Digs into the sand with the toe of his boot. “Don’t.”
Meanwhile, out in the crowd, officers of the True Maine are recruiting, circulating, passing out little cards, copies of The Recipe, and various flyers. Sign-up sheets are loaded. Some of these officers have a small child by the hand. Some of the little ones wear three-corner patriot hats. All small kids accounted for and a great system worked out for the older kids to report in every half hour to mothers stationed in the library.
Gordon shakes the hands of two people, both in their midforties, more or less. They say they have come down from near Greenville. The woman has long dense tight curls of that blank-looking black anyone can tell means dyed. Her hand is skinny and cool. Her husband is a big son of a bitch, tall and rotund, with dark glasses, big dark mustache, a little tuft of black under the bottom lip, and huge scabby forearms. Camo T-shirt. Baggy jeans. Red suspenders. He positions himself in front of Rex, dark glasses staring into dark glasses. He says, “Mr. York?”
Rex nods.
Guy says, “We’re Greenville Militia.”
Rex nods again. Puts out his hand. “How’re things up your way?”
“Brewing.”
Rex’s mouth does something odd, like moving a chaw from one side of his mouth to the other. But really it’s just his tongue and one inside wall of his mouth readjusting, the way he often does when he is smitten by irony. He says, “You people came here . . . for this?”
“Same reason you’re here. And we saw Crowe here with his people, and that common law group from Waterville . . . what’s his name? Sandy Coates. And that one from the reservation. He was just lookin’ for you. See on the Internet their communications to the governor? They challenge him to declare martial law, round up citizens. They have sworn by the Constitution to defend. No response from the Blaine House yet. The governor’s too busy, I’m sure. Too busy for us commoners.”
Rex nods.
Gordon stares at Rex.
Rex doesn’t give Gordon even a glance.
The Greenville guy says, “Governor is a stupid man.”
“He is an owned man,” says Gordon, and the Greenville couple both look into Gordon’s face, eyebrows raised. But Rex keeps on ignoring Gordon.
Greenville woman now asks Rex if there are any preparedness exhibits here to check out.
Rex starts to say no, then says they might be interested in the windmills and electric cars and solar stuff. And the radio setup. Gordon notes that Rex speaks with a look in his eyes not shown in ages. Pride.
Rex and the Greenville people walk to a high spot (where Rex can point out the road to the windmills).
Joined by two more people from Greenville, Gordon turns away to go yak with some family of Bonny Loo, cousins and such, all of them chuckling about some funny thing that happened at the gate as they were trying to get in, some misunderstanding. They repeat the story three times, the same way, and laugh each time. Eventually, they are on their way toward the porches of food.
An old friend of Gordon’s he hasn’t seen in what seems a million moons rushes up, waving his True Maine Militia card, a few friends in tow, all gay men of the category Gordon thinks of as flaming.
“Rob,” Gordon says, grabbing his old friend’s shoulder.
Rob gasps. “I never thought I’d see the day when I’d be joining up with a militia! What has got into me?”
Gordon laughs. “Somebody give you a good sales pitch?”
“I’ve always been a sucker for blue.” He strokes the card with one finger, then slips it into the pocket of his summer knit shirt. He introduces his friends and Gordon says “Good to meetcha” to each, and they talk a bit about water pollution and water privatization. Rob jerks a thumb at one of his friends, a guy whose hair is in a frenzy of yellow spikes, ivory white skin and one dangling earring of eensie elfin figures, a clump of Pans with flutes and lyres.
“He’s a conspiracy theorist too,” Rob says of the blond. “It was his idea to come.”
Gordon winks at the blond, whose name is Neddie. “Every time he calls you a theorist, hit him.”
Neddie glances at Rob.
Rob gives a shriek of feigned fright. “Don’t hit!”
Gordon says, with a grin, “We’re all citizens, Rob, not conspiracy theorists, for crying out loud. Citizens demand oversight. No oversight? Well, then citizens have to form theories in order to make something of the mysteries. To begin their research. To compile. The evidence. It’s like science. The only third choice is brain death.” Gordon squints at Neddie. “Neddie is a smart man.”
“A True Maine Militia revolutionary,” says Neddie himself. He sneers at Rob and smiles at Gordon. The others in their group laugh along.
One says, “I can picture Neddie in a beret with a machine gun.”
“Of course!” says Neddie. “Now you’ve found me out.”
They all carry on a few minutes, creating a great tale of Neddie’s secret life, Gordon adding some of the wilder details. Then someone leans against Gordon from behind, gathers his arm against her body and calls him “vewwy wuvy man.” He sees the deep glossy auburn ripples of Glory York’s hair splayed over his arm. She smells too good. The smell that isn’t hard alcohol (the alcohol part stinks). “This isn’t believable, Pooh.” She sighs. “It’s because you’re famous, isn’t it?”
“It’s because of all the hard work of the young people here,” he tells her.
She frowns, shakes her head. “You know it’s only partly that.”
Rob gives Gordon a hard hug from the side Glory hasn’t gotten herself clamped around. Rob says, “I’ve got to run. Take care of yourself. Live chastely. And eat plenty of vegetables.”
Gordon laughs once, boomingly. “Great advice.”
“No fried fats!” Rob scolds, and dances away, the rest of his gang smiling and nodding at Gordon as they depart.
Glory sighs. “Boy bitches aren’t pretty like Glory girl.” And she pouts. “No kisses for my pretty-pretty ear?”
Gordon disengages himself from her fierce embrace, gives her bare shoulder a little quick pat. “I feel protective toward you. I want you safe.”
Hard to read her expression. But what it looks like is that she is deeply touched by these words. Her eyes glide to the left. “My friends are here. But I can’t find them now. I’m lost. Wah. Wah.” She giggles, sort of like Bree’s giggle: a husky but melodious trill.
“Let’s walk,” he says, and switching the physicist’s book and papers to his other arm, leads her by the hand through the crowd. He knows she is not like this unless she drinks. As a little tyke hanging out at the Settlement, she was almost as practical as Rex.
She laces her arm around his now, in that old-fashioned way of old-fashioned ladies. He is horribly saddened. A few years of savage partying and close-call driving accidents; will that be it? Or will she be a drinker all her life, long after the party’s over? Worse even than his own drinking, which he lapses in and out of, somehow never sinking to depths. Will Glory York lose jobs, disgust everyone, repel all relationships, harm the souls of her children, and die at forty-five with a liver that looks like yellow Jell-O? Her arm against his arm is the same temperature as his own, but skin is soft, barely lived in.
He says, “Annie B is a hundred years old today. Imagine.”
Glory laughs. “She’s always seemed old to me.”
“But ten years ago she was in better shape. She’s pretty frail now.”
“I haven’t seen her lately,” she tells him. She still has a white paper in one hand. Gordon can see now that it’s one of the True Maine Militia flyers. He touches it with his free fingers.
“Well, Glory. What do you think of the True Maine Militia? Going to join up?”
She gives him a dreamy look. Her eyes too blue. A face much like Rex’s except for that mouth . . . Marsha’s mouth, he remembers sadly. “Do I need a gun?” she asks. “’Cause I know where I can get about two hundred of them.”
He laughs. “All you need is a burning desire to see the human race survive, and—”
“A burning desire,” she says, in a wonderfully throaty way, and her eyes fall over the buttons of his shirt.
As they leave the crowded area under the big old trees and start up through an open grassy area of sun, they can see Rex, standing on one of the brick paths that lead up into the village of hillside cottages. He is alone, hands behind his back. He is staring up along the tree line across the fields and gardens toward the northeast.
Reaching Rex now, Gordon lifts Glory’s hand from his arm and places it on Rex’s arm. “She was lost,” Gordon says. “Now she’s found.”
Glory uses her other hand to muckle onto Gordon, pulls him by the shirtfront against her so she is wedged between both men. She laughs happily.
Some of Gordon’s papers slip from his arm. And the book. Plop! He backs away, squatting down to collect them, and hears Rex’s low voice. “Quit it, would ya?”
And Glory to Rex, “Oh, shush, party-pooper Bumpa never know no fun, only most cute soldier so seeerious Captain Pooh.” And she laughs again, her folded flyer fluttering to the brick path by one of her father’s boots. In front of Gordon, who is squatted there, she bends over so that her short green dress rises to show off to him her brief, very brief, white panties and, more significantly, the lightly tanned perfect cheeks.
Gordon stands straight, organizing his papers fussily, papers from the Navy physicist. He glimpses the book, titled The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, reading that someday might hold his attention.
Now Glory throws her arms around Gordon, buries her face in his bright flannel shirt, faking little sobs. “Proteck Glory girl! Proteck Glory girl! Big mighty Proffit famous everywhere, proteck Glory girl . . . from himself!” She giggles and grabs him roughly between the legs. “Him want!”
Rex looks into Gordon’s face.
Gordon pushes Glory toward Rex. “Take her home, Richard, and spank her ass.”
Glory laughs. “Bumpa not spank. Bumpa never mean like Profitt. Mighty Sheik Gordie spank and beat and break heads. Famous mean guy. Radio talk-show people saaaaid so.”
Rex’s Adam’s apple jumps. Rex’s hands hang useless. Rex’s eyes unreadable.
Gordon useless and swallowing.
Glory pouts. “My two favorite daddies just have Militia on the brain, never fun. Everybody thinks you’re crazy. Glory just want to rough two daddies, make ’em play, make ’em lighten up.”
Glory’s girlfriends soon find her, and after a little more pawing and poking at Gordon, kisses, baby talk, and stroking his beard, she roams off with them, looking for “Selene and Justin.”
Gordon says to Rex, “She’s going to get in trouble.”
Rex says, “She’s out of high school. She’s on her own.”
Gordon looks at him. “Women should never be on their own. Not that way.” He sighs. “She . . . is . . . drunk.”
Rex’s lips tighten. “I do not have a big concentration camp like this to hold her in.”
Gordon looks pained. “Well, you people in the modern world got goodies like rape crisis centers to fix it all up for you afterward . . . and abortion centers . . . and—”
Rex puts up a hand. “She needs her mother. Tell Marsha about this, not me.”
Gordon’s eyes twinkle. “Blame it on Marsha, eh?”
Rex moves one foot, shifting his weight.
Gordon sighs and fusses with his papers and book some more. “It’s worse than martial law, it’s worse than corporate tyranny, it’s the whole tangled, desolate culture, the whole hellish mess. But I guarantee you one thing. You do not have to worry about me taking advantage of that little girl. That’s one thing I can guarantee you, my brother.”
Bunches of people, seeing Rex and Gordon, work their way up to them.
Gordon is engaged first, while Rex stays out of it, doing his thing, looking unfriendly. But then Rex has company too. It’s the man who came around on the night of the solar car unveiling. And he went once to the York residence too, a short weird visit. He gives his name again—“Gary Larch”—and thrusts out his hand. Rex doesn’t appear to remember, but he really does, of course. Not that he looks puzzled. He just doesn’t give any cheery Hey, good to see yas. He just shakes the guy’s hand. With his dark glasses, Rex’s eyes are shadows. Gary Larch wears sunglasses too, but his voice is friendly and it’s clear he wants to talk. To Rex. That he likes Rex. Has a thing for Rex.
No white shirt this time. This time it’s a tiger-stripe BDU shirt with the sleeves ripped off, worn over a black T-shirt. Jeans. His billed cap reads MERTIE’S HARDWARE. A wristwatch like Rex’s. He has a thick bottom lip, a kind of malocclusion, and that square clean-shaven jaw. Brown hair. Picture a serial-killer-schoolteacher combo and you’ve got the effect. The guy is a bit tall, so most people wouldn’t notice that he’s got a little bald spot back on the crown. He jokes with Rex about the chickens pecking around by the smaller Quonset hut. White Leghorns. Spurs on the heels. Hens with spurs. “Liberated women,” he says.
Rex sort of smiles.
The guy points out a woman down there in the crowd with long curly black hair. The Greenville militia woman, just back from the windmills. “Looks like Captain Hook.”
Rex nods.
Now the guy talks about Montana. “Lotta agribusiness.” He tells Rex how between the banks and the government, “those people out there have gotten screwed royal.”
Rex glances over at Gordon’s back, Gordon with a small crowd of pretty women. He looks back into this Gary guy’s face. He says, “Montana people are well organized. Here it’s different.”
Gary makes a face. “You could get organized. I’ve seen it happen. Guys just sitting around trying to
decide what color patches they want and whining . . . you know . . . the kitchen militias. But then they get a little more focused. Personalities sometimes stall things. You have to have the right group chemistry. I’ve seen some guys split up ’cause half of them were only into common law while the other half wanted to stress protection. Fine. Everybody’s happy. As long as people don’t get stalled. That’s no good.”
Rex studies Gary’s face and neck, the crescent of his black T-shirt at the unbuttoned top of his BDU shirt.
The guy tells Rex he was into explosives in Montana. “Guys out there are serious. Not that I knew anyone who had any intentions of using explosives, we aren’t talking about McVeigh here. These are sane men. Smart men. But being prepared means whatever the enemy has, you have. Except maybe the A-bomb. That’s ridiculous.” He laughs a kind of Cowardly Lion laugh. A lovable laugh. Infectious.
Rex sort of smiles.
The guy says, “Out there, I was into explosives but I knew, when my father was dying and I was coming back up here, I knew I had to tame down some. Nothing wrong with common law and”—he points up to the mountain—“windmills.” He laughs the lovable lion laugh again. “And I got a thing. I can’t stand fags’ rights. Special rights and all that. I know you guys up here have a lotta bullshit with that. I think it’s good to keep people posted on when a bunch of homo-liberals are getting ready to sneak legislation through under the guise of equal rights.” He makes a face. A little snort of disgust.
Rex says, “You’ll be busy.”
The guy glances at Gordon, then back at Rex. “Not as busy as you boys are. Holy shit. You’re taking on the whole friggin’ population.”
Rex smiles. “Don’t blame me.” He laughs. A little. “Kids did this.”
“No shit.”
Down past the trucks of cider, Glory York has her skirt pulled up to show something on the top of her leg (her hip actually) to her boisterous friends. This Gary guy turns and looks. Perhaps he remembers from the solar car night who Glory is. He looks back around, smiling at the elaborate maze of brick paths. “Nice,” he says. “Like the city.”
The School on Heart's Content Road Page 35
