The Canadian Civil War: Volume 5 - Carbines and Calumets

by William Wresch

  Chapter 23 –

  The memorial service people will be talking about for a very long time

  I was awake part of the time has they got a compress on my leg, got me onto a gurney and wheeled me around. They didn't seem to be in much of a hurry wheeling me into the elevator and out to an ambulance. Either I was already dead so it didn't matter, or, the wound was pretty well managed. I was hoping for the latter.

  In the hospital they used a local anesthetic while they cleaned the wound and put in a couple thousand stitches. I was going to have an interesting scar. Unfortunately, it was so far up my leg there wouldn't be many people I could show it to. I slept through much of the procedure, and I was sleeping pretty well again later when they had gotten me to bed, but of course, hospitals are full of nurses, and nurses hate sleep. I was perfectly comfortable when one took a bag of ice and pushed it against my face. I tried to reach up and pull it away, but she leaned over and held my arms down.

  "Trust me," she said, "you want the swelling on your face brought down before it turns black and red. You must have fallen on something hard."

  "Yeah, a fist."

  "Well, just roll your face up against this ice pack. I'll come back in half an hour and we'll see if it is helping." Lovely. So now I was cuddling up against an ice bag. At least I had given as well as I got. I'd bet LeBeck had an even larger bag on his knee, assuming he was still breathing.

  I drifted a bit in the hospital. Nurses came and went. Nobody said much to me. Was I staying, or going? Time passed. One time I woke up and Colonel Goulet was there.

  "That blog got me shot."

  "That blog will get you laid anywhere in Canada for decades to come. You are the brave young man whose blog got rid of LeBeck. You took away the boogey man."

  "Is he gone?"

  "He was being taken to a hospital and died unexpectedly."

  "Are they putting that on me?"

  "No. They say he had a heart attack after some struggles at the office. He was under a great deal of strain."

  "And me?"

  "You were cooperating with police about an ongoing investigation and were shot when a gun went off accidentally. The officers involved have been put on administrative leave and are expected to be put through additional gun safety training."

  "My hotel doesn't look like I cooperated much."

  "You might be surprised. Clear out the smoke, reattach the door, do a little vacuuming, and it's good as new."

  "My cleaning lady already hates me."

  "You probably deserve that. You should be nicer to people."

  "What happens next?"

  "I'm no doctor, but I bet they want to keep you here over night. They baby all Americans. You really are a nation of wimps."

  "I mean what happens to your Party. Is LeBeck the last heart attack?"

  "You don't need to know about Party business." He stared at me, his attitude very different now. "You had your chance to settle things for Margaret. My chance is coming soon."

  "I thought killing Foster was your work."

  "No, that was LeBeck trying to divert attention and quiet a mouth that might say too much. I would put that under the heading of too little, too late."

  "Foster deserved it, but hell, they must have shot him fifty times."

  "LeBeck was never subtle. Now I've got to go. Keep ice on your face; it looks like hell." And with that, the make-believe Colonel was gone. He was right though, they made me spend the night. A doctor finally came around and talked to me. The shot was clean. The stitches would be fine. I should change the dressings twice a day. The nurse would show me how. I should see a doctor as soon as I got back to Green Bay. Had I had a recent tetanus shot?

  So I spent the rest of the day in that bed, and it was from that bed that I watched the memorial service.

  I wanted to see the memorial service, but I was terribly afraid of how it would be used. And I didn't want to see Margaret's face again, not as part of some tribute to the Party. But I watched, and judging by the sounds I could hear coming up and down the hallway, so was every other room and every nursing station and lounge.

  The start was exactly as you might predict. There were exterior shots of the huge Protestant church where the service was to be held. And there was music, a mixture of sacred and patriotic, although at this point they might have been converting the patriot to the sacred. I heard "This Land I Love" over and over.

  At the start there was an off-screen voice reminding the audience that the service was to memorialize those killed at the courthouse plaza - delegates to the constitutional convention who had just finished a day doing the nation's business. There were also some comments about the technology, the fact that the service would be simultaneously broadcast to churches all over Southland, so people could share in the prayers and singing at their own church. Of course he did not say that joining in at a Catholic church might be complicated since mobs had burned every cathedral the day before. Some things are better left unsaid -- I guess.

  The mood properly set, the view changed and a camera appeared to take the audience in the front doors and a short distance down the middle of the church. It was as if you had walked into the church yourself, but of course you could not since the church was packed and invitation-only. Now the camera floated up (how were they getting that effect?) and settled in about middle distance from the pulpit. A minister appeared from the side, walked confidently to the pulpit, and began his address.

  "We are here to celebrate the lives of eighteen heroes -- eighteen men and women who thought of their country first, and spent their final hours pursuing the dreams of their countrymen. We have a short video segment that provides simple information about each of the martyrs. Let us watch together so we can appreciate one more time the lives of these national heroes." Walls to his left and right suddenly showed the images of the eighteen. Music played in the background while each face came up. The lower third of the screen was used to provide simple biographical information - name, home town, party position. Each shot was followed by an image of better times - people with their families, or walking through the woods.

  They were in no hurry to get through the images. Each got several minutes, with suitable somber background music. I felt myself get more and more tense as I waited for Margaret's picture. They saved her for last, of course. Hers was the image they wanted people to retain. When it finally came it took my breath away, and I could hear gasping from down the hall as well as the nurses saw her. She was so beautiful. They gave her multiple images, including a picture of her working in the provincial archives, and then working with the delegates at the convention. In every picture she was an angel. And then they switched to the final image - her in the arms of Andrees as she bled to death on the plaza steps. That image created a new sound. If agony has a sound, it was voiced all over the church and up and down the hospital hallway that evening. In my room it took the form of a short catch in my throat followed by tears as I turned away from the screen.

  With that image slowly fading from the screens in the church, the pastor began talking again and led the crowd in a prayer, but I am not sure anyone heard him. There was something about blessing the dead and celebrating their lives, and all the stuff that gets said on such occasions, but those were just words, while the picture of Margaret is what occupied all the millions of minds -- the picture of Margaret lifeless on the plaza.

  The preacher took a break for a choir performance. They were teens and they were beautiful. Was it the same group that had sung in South Square just days earlier? It might have been. They did three slow numbers, traditional sacred music one hears at funerals. The congregants were not encouraged to sing along.

  I wondered when Paul Andrees would get his time. He would be the main act, I was sure. And I was right. A delegate from Arkansas gave a short speech describing the work that the delegates were doing that day and how much he was going to miss his friends
. It might have been a pretty good speech, but he was incredibly nervous and read every word from pieces of paper that shook in his hands. But Arkansas got its moment on stage.

  I wondered if they would also put Colorado up there. They did, and it was a huge mistake. They picked a young woman who had been at the convention, a hostess, not a delegate. The idea might have been to remind the people of Margaret, but the attempt didn't work. She was nice enough, but she had a terrible voice. It might have been stage-fright -- who could blame her -- but there was just something about the way she spoke that was unpleasant. She also wanted to speak far too long. She repeated the earlier stories about that day, and about her role, and then she went back to describe how the day got started, and then back to her role. Basically she wandered all over the place, the main point seeming to be that she had been there. Eventually she stopped -- to everyone's relief.

  At this point the pastor returned and introduced the main speaker of the service, the governor of Louisiana and President pro tem of Southland, Paul Andrees. Of course he took longer to make the introduction, and made Andrees sound like their political savior, but you don't need to hear all that nonsense from me.

  What I found interesting at this point was how they stage-managed Andrees' entrance. Where others had reached the pulpit from the side, off stage, Andrees walked up the aisle from the back of the church. And as he walked, recorded music blared -- your guessed it -- "This Land I love." Meanwhile the two projectors on each side of the pulpit came back to life and showed images of the countryside, images of the Party flag waving in the wind, images of the LNA soldiers marching down Canal Street, and finally images of Andrees, sitting presidentially -- and paternally -- at the head of the table as the delegates developed the constitution of the new country.

  His pacing was really good. He managed to climb the steps to the pulpit just as the second refrain of "This land" was completed, and he joined the congregation in singing the chorus. How much rehearsal had that timing taken? I have no idea, but he was spot-on. I swear his back foot hit the top step of the pulpit at the exact second it was time for him to sing "This."

  Obviously at this point the memorial service had become a campaign rally, something he had a great deal of practice at. The projectors stayed on and displayed his face thirty feet high as it nodded approvingly at the crowd. He was their daddy, and he was pleased with them, his expression said. I was deciding whether to turn off the TV or to throw something through the screen. There was no way I was going to listen to this huckster. Well, maybe I would listen just a bit. And it was a good thing I did.

  "Fellow citizens of Southland," he began as the crowd yelled its approval and the screens showed the Party Flag (was that now the national flag?).

  "We come together at a time of great tragedy." Images of the plaza appeared, but the distance was such that no faces could be seen. The idea was to suggest the massacre but not dwell on it. At least that is my best guess.

  "We have come together to mourn the loss of our heroes." Now there were images of the convention room and the delegates at the table.

  "Their loss is terrible, but we are a strong nation." The images rolled the tape of soldiers marching down Canal Street and then standing shoulder to shoulder in South Square.

  "We will defend ourselves and our faith." Here the images changed and the screens were filled with burning cathedrals. I hadn't expected that, and neither had the crowd. There was a unanimous "Oh" from the people in the room, and from the people down the hallway. The burning churches were followed up by the explosion that had started all this, the dynamiting of the Biloxi Cathedral. The stone work from that had barely finished it arc across the sky and dropped to the ground when the image changed again, this time showing the two priests who had been hanged from a tree outside their church. I hadn't expected to see that image, and apparently neither had Andrees. He twisted around to see what the crowd was seeing and why they were reacting as they had. The instant he saw the hanging priests he made a motion to someone standing off stage. The look on his face was no longer paternal. He was angry, and the finger that was pointed at the unseen underling looked like a gun as he jabbed it in that direction.

  "We are a prosperous nation with limitless resources." He said that a little too fast, as if he wanted the images on the screens to move on. They did, but the image was of the border. It showed trucks lined up for miles as they attempted to move either north or south, followed by the video of several truckers standing and arguing with LNA soldiers at the border. I was suddenly enjoying myself. Someone had sabotaged his speech. Let me guess who that might be.

  The next sound was a large "bang" from the back of the church. A door had been kicked open was my best guess. The video room must have been the target, since suddenly the screens on both sides of the pulpit went blank. Okay, so now how would the big man react, now that his speech had gone off script? There was silence for a full minute while he gathered himself. There was sweat on his brow, and he wiped it away.

  "Let us remember why we are here." He began. "Two days ago eighteen people were murdered. They stood in the sun and were gunned down. That should never happen. People in this country need to live safely. It is our job to protect you. We will do that. It is my promise to you. I will protect you. Now pastor, if you will lead us in prayer." He stepped down from the pulpit, but stayed up on the platform while the pastor took over the pulpit. He asked the congregants to rise and join him in prayer. Unfortunately, the words to the prayer were to be displayed by the screens. Since those were now off, he gave his prayer, but gave it alone. A few people tried to follow along and mumble some of the words. Ultimately he got to "Amen" and the crowd joined him in that.

  The organ started playing exit music. The service was over. Andrees shook the pastor's hand and disappeared out a side door. My guess was he would have a long night as he attempted to learn who had ruined his speech. Fine. Let him lose some sleep. I was going to sleep just fine. I turned off the TV, put yet another ice pack against my face, and lay back. My leg hurt like hell, the ice pack was cold, and I knew nurses would push and prod me all night, but I felt better than I had in weeks.