The School on Heart's Content Road (33 page)

Gordon paws his own face with one hand, drives his fingers through his damp hair.

“I just do not like the Constitution. Not the commerce clause. Not the contracts clause. Not—”

Rex interrupts. “These are God-given rights.”

Gordon stares at him for three whole seconds with an exaggerated expression of disbelief.

Rex says, with nearly no intonation to his voice, “Hamilton said in 1775 that these were the sacred rights of mankind and not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. The Constitution is written by the hand of divinity itself and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”

“And you believe that?”

“I most certainly do.”

Gordon says carefully, “Okaaay.” He burps. Rearranges the child, whose head now lolls over his arm as limply as death. He lifts her secret agent glasses from her face, folds them with the fingers of that one hand. He looks over and sees one of the glass candle holders has gone dark. “Jesus, Richard, I fear some of this shit.”

Rex says, “You just want to come to one of our meetings and argue.”

“No, I would not! I promise. I'll be good.” He laughs. He leans forward over Jane, resting both arms on her. “I . . . want to get this all straight with you, my old blood brother. You see”—he lowers his voice—“this is a fucking scary time. No time for little-girl-like bickering.”

“That's right.” Rex's eyes
quite
twinkle. (But the darkness hides the twinkling.)

Gordon leans back, way back. Both the rocker and the floor give low contented creaks. “Have a seat, Richard,” he says. He pulls on the arm
of the nearest rocker to bring it closer. The smell of pooling spilt beer surges in cold cloudy whiffs.

But Rex, saying “Thanks,” just settles on his haunches, elbows on his thighs, fingers laced between his knees. Someone as fit as he is makes this look real comfy.

Gordon says, “I heard you guys did a food drive to help flood victims.”

Rex doesn't move anything but his lips, his voice low and grave. “A Dakota Indian reservation. Government wouldn't help them. Nobody helps them.”

“Except the militias . . . your big network.”

“Right.”

Gordon watches as Rex stands slowly but nimbly, no cracking joints, the old porch floor squeaking, sits easy into the chair next to Gordon. His brown T-shirt shows up more plainly against the bluish fluorescent light of the kitchen window; it is spotted blackly with the wetness of both this late-summer heat wave and the exertion of argument.

Jane moans.

Gordon lays a hand on her back. He says, “I've had fantasies about you guys. Like imagining you all pulling up in your trucks with your M-16s and SKSes and so forth just as the cops were draggin'
her
mother out of her little car . . . and you know”—he whispers this on a hot beery breath—“One of those swat assholes stood on Lisa's face with his fucking Nazi black boot while they searched her, and they left her little dog to die in the car with the windows rolled up. And they left this child molested, you could say, a molested soul. And robbed; stole her home. Even her little possessions and dresses! The great American civil forfeiture laws. That comes after they frame you or get up a little hearsay. And you're not rich enough to get unframed. The prototype for full fascism,
fullll
fascism coming
soon.
Where were you, Rex? Where were you and the boys? Why . . . didn't . . . you . . . save . . . this . . . child?”

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.