The Spirit of Resistance

by Michael J. Scott

  “So?”

  “So it’s not like I can just drop everything, run down to D.C., and leave my Dad in the lurch.”

  “Oh, give me a break.”

  “I believe you about the ammo sales,” intoned Grant. “People are hopping mad. Bastard ain’t even done anything yet and sales are through the roof.”

  “Yeah, you ain’t kidding. We’ve seen a two hundred percent increase in business since the election, and it’s only picking up steam.”

  “Two hundred percent increase?” I said. “What, that means you gotta work four hours a week instead of two?”

  Jerry swore and threw a crumpled napkin at me. “We don’t all get to live off our inheritance. Some of us got real jobs.”

  “Now you’ve got another one,” said Grant. “Look, it can’t be helped. We told you before we left to make arrangements and get your cover story in place. I hope you’ve done that. If not, best get a move on.”

  Jerry picked up his badge, wrinkling his brow. He ran his hand through his hair. “I-I dunno.”

  “What don’t you know?”

  “Look, it ain’t the same for you all. You ain’t got family. I do. I gotta be around to help out.”

  “You backing out on us now?”

  “No, I ain’t—look, maybe I could make alternate arrangements or something, you know? Maybe come down just before we do the thing—that way I could still be there...”

  Grant tore the map off the table. Clutching it before us, he pulled out a lighter and torched the end. Flames flashed up.

  “Hey!” yelled Jerry, dropping down from the desk. “What the hell? You trying to set off the sprinklers?”

  Grant dropped the map on the floor. Jerry swore and stomped on it, crushing the flames with his feet.

  “Monday,” Grant said once Jerry stopped his racket. “You do whatever you gotta do to make that happen,” he sneered, and left the room.

  Martin motioned me to follow. He put his arm around me and whispered, “Better rein him in, you know? He’s got to get on board with this.”

  “Why me?”

  “‘Cause I gotta talk to Grant. Remind him this is my team.”

  “He sure seems to think it’s his.”

  “In the Corps, he was my superior. This is a little different. He just forgets sometimes.”

  “He isn’t gonna try anything stupid, is he?”

  He smiled, squeezed my shoulder, and followed Grant out of the shop. I watched them go then returned to the back room. Jerry was cleaning up the soot from the floor with a paper towel.

  “Alternate arrangements?” I said.

  He glanced up at me, but kept sweeping. “Guess that’s a ‘no’, huh?”

  I brought the wastebasket over so he could dump the ashes and towel. “Martin wants me to help you get on board.”

  “Terrific.” He grabbed the coffee pot. “You want some?”

  “Only if you’re making fresh.”

  He sniffed the carafe and wrinkled his nose. “Guess I’d better.” He wandered off to the bathroom sink to fill the carafe. I pulled the basket, dumped the filter, and started scooping coffee into a new one. He returned a moment later.

  “You want me to flip the sign?” I said as he took over the coffee making.

  “I should. Yeah, go ahead. Dad finds out I closed up early he’ll have my hide.”

  I helped him reopen the shop, and later sat on a stool at the front counter with a fresh mug of coffee steaming in front of me. The glass in the counter was still cracked, but Jerry’d wound a thick band of duct tape above and beneath the glass to support it. I wondered what he’d said about it to his Dad.

  Despite Jerry’s claim that stock was flying off the shelves, we didn’t have more than a few stragglers wander in to paw through the ammo boxes or outdoor gear. One grizzled hunter dropped off a shotgun with a cracked stock and asked if we couldn’t put a rush on it, but for all that, the shop was quiet.

  “So Jerry,” I finally said, “what’s really going on?”

  He glanced up from disassembling the shotgun with a screwdriver. “Is this the part where you help me get on board?”

  “Maybe.”

  He set down the screwdriver. “I meant what I said. I don’t feel right about leaving Dad in the lurch. He barely comes out to the shop nowadays anyway. I mean, he’s left it to me, and I’m supposed to run this when he’s gone. I don’t feel like I can just turn my back on that.”

  “What about what you want?”

  “This is what I want.”

  “This is what you’re supposed to want. As long as I’ve known you, this is the only thing you ever talked about. Your Dad leaving you the shop when he’s gone, and you taking it over and running the business for him. It’s like you’ve had your life planned out for you. But what about you? What do you want? You just figured out a few days ago that you want to learn how to cook. Who knew?”

  “I suck at that.”

  “Right now. But you’re learning. You’re trying stuff. That can’t be a bad thing.”

  He said nothing and picked up the screwdriver again.

  I tried a different tack. “What if the shop wasn’t here?”

  He eyed me carefully. “What are you suggesting?”

  “No, I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just speaking hypothetically. What if your Dad didn’t own the shop? What if he’d been a truck driver? Or a postman? What would you do?”

  After a moment, he said, “I dunno. I guess I never really thought about it.”

  “See? That’s what I’m talking about. Who is Jerry Knapp? Who are you supposed to be?”

  “Do we have to do this now?”

  “No. I mean, we’re so obviously swamped here, it’s not like we got time to talk about stuff that matters.”

  He didn’t take the bait. Instead, he said, “You know what I don’t get? You.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I might not be as gung ho as I used to be when we first started talking ‘bout all this. I guess I figured it’d be sorta fun to go down there and take out a bad guy. You know,” he grinned, “little cops and robbers action? Now, it’s just like there’s this big cloud hanging over it.”

  “You thought killing someone would be fun?”

  “Not if you’re gonna make it sound like that.”

  “How’s it supposed to sound?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. It was just different in my head.”

  “We’re talking about assassinating the President of the United States, and you thought it’d be fun. God help us.”

  “You make it sound stupid.”

  “No, but I do think it’s a bit more serious than something you’d call fun.”

  He detached the stock from the shotgun and set it on the counter, examining the rest of the weapon. “You know, I am surrounded by guns all the time. Some of this stuff is used for hunting. But most of it ain’t. Most of the guns we sell here are built to kill people. I don’t want to think that we’re selling to robbers or drug dealers. Some of what we sell is meant for home defense. But there’s one main reason we sell these guns—that my Dad and I are in this business.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Second amendment.”

  “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

  “That’s the one. Know why that’s in there?”

  “To protect the people from tyranny.”

  “That’s what our Dads said. I still remember them talking about it at the dinner table. When our government gets bad, like it is now, we’re supposed to do something about it. That’s the whole point of having guns. I guess I got excited thinking about it.”

  “That’s what you meant by fun.”

  “Yeah. I don’t think that makes me a bad person, do you? It’s not like I want to be some kind of murderer or something. This ain’t murder. This is different.”

  “Okay.”
r />   “But see, you’re not the same. You’re different now.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Ever since the fire. When Martin first started talking about this—and even at camp—you were all kinda half in half out about all this. Now you’re trying to get me on board. I’m not the one who had a problem with it.”

  “I see your point.”

  “So what changed?”

  I stared at my coffee, watching the reflected light shift about until the dark liquid swallowed it. Jerry’s question was a storm cloud waiting to break. The shop doorbells jangled, and I felt reprieved from having to answer while he waited on his customer. As soon as the man left he turned to me with a raised eyebrow, the shotgun he’d been working on forgotten on the counter.

  Finally, I said, “Are you asking because you’re trying to figure out what you’re going to do?”

  “I just want to know what changed.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it was the fire.” I swallowed the last of my coffee. It had grown cold and bitter. I considered grabbing another cup, but then thought better of it. My nerves were jumpy enough as it was.

  “Why’s that matter?”

  “I’m not sure. Before he put the candle to my mom’s curtains, Martin talked about needing to burn the ships. It was something Hernando Cortez did when the Spaniards got to the New World. His way of saying, ‘There’s no going back,’ and making sure his men knew it. Bunch of other people did it do. Generals, throughout time. They’d burn their ships to keep their men from retreating. That way they’d fight harder.”

  “So now you’re ready to fight?”

  I pressed my lips together, studying the duct tape across Jerry’s counter. My mind flashed to Grant holding Jerry down there, pressing a gun to his head. It seemed like a lifetime ago. I looked up. “Maybe I am, I don’t know.”

  “That’s not like you.”

  “What? Fighting?”

  “Giving up on something you thought worth fighting for.”

  “You think I’ve given up?”

  “You’re not resisting no more, are ya?”

  I tapped the empty mug on the counter, listening for an answer in its rhythmic clicking. Maybe I should get another cup. “I don’t know. I guess I don’t see much point. It’s not made a difference. I started going along with this ‘cause I wanted to talk Martin out of it.”

  “You went along with it to stop it? How’s that working out for ya?”

  I chuckled. “Not so good.”

  “Why would you want to stop it?”

  I stopped tapping the cup and gripped it tightly. “Honestly? It scares me. The whole thing scares the crap outta me, and I don’t want to do it. I don’t want Martin to do it. I don’t want you to do it. I don’t really care what Grant does. He can go to hell.”

  Jerry laughed, and I joined him. Then I said, “We used to have so much fun, you know? Then Martin went into the Marines. Dad died. Martin came back wounded. It was more than just his shoulder. He was dead inside. I was trying to get on the same wavelength with him, try and pull him out somehow. Now I feel dead inside, too.”

  “But you’re still scared.”

  I frowned. “No. I mean yes, but—not for the same reasons. Can I get some more coffee?”

  He jerked his head toward the back room. I escaped the counter with my cup, found the coffee pot and poured a fresh shot. I stood there a moment sipping it, the liquid burning my tongue. On a nearby shelf glistened a Colt .38 Special with a black grip and a chrome finish. I picked it up, feeling its weight in my hand. Extending my arm, I stared down the barrel. The sites lined up perfectly. The gun felt like a natural extension of my hand. I shivered and put it down.

  Whatever was happening to me, it had a lot more to do with this affinity for guns than any stunt Martin pulled. I’d always been a good shot before, but I’d also looked at a gun the way I’d looked at a hammer or a drill. It was just a tool. Nothing more.

  Now I felt—drawn to the gun. Any gun. I wanted to squeeze the trigger. Keep firing till the clip was empty. Reload and do it again.

  That’s what really scared me.

  Thirty

  I made up an excuse and left the shop behind then drove up to the park by the lake. I sat there in my car a moment, staring across the deep. White caps gamboled toward shore, spilling futilely across the frozen expanse that merged ground with water. On the far side, too distant to discern, the Canadian coast beckoned. Forty or fifty years ago, it promised succor from the terrors of war, isolation from the American draft and the threat of Vietnam. I snorted. It offered no such comfort to me now. Canada was more socialist than we were. Freedoms of speech, of the press, of religion even—they all faced the erosion of the P.C. police, those demagogues who believed that protecting sensitive souls from perceived slights was a high and holy calling, and God help anyone who thought differently. Somehow diversity demanded unanimity. Anyone who failed to conform to the utopian ideal should be dealt with severely. If I didn’t shoot someone there, I’d have to shoot myself or lose my mind.

  America was the last free place, and it was slipping away.

  I sipped my coffee. It was growing cold, and did little to warm me up.

  We were supposed to leave Sunday morning. Grant and Martin had found us a cheap motel to stay in while we waited and booked us a pair of rooms. I was sorta glad we’d be working. Anything to escape the interminable boredom of staring at a television for two weeks. Something like that was bound to arouse suspicion, and that was the last thing we needed.

  The lake offered no answers. It didn’t even know the questions, and neither did I. Three weeks left, and the world would end.

  ***

  We sat around Mary Knapp’s table that evening, pretending to enjoy the last of the spaghetti with sliced kielbasa and mushroom sauce served on her good china over burgundy placemats on white linen. The table was cramped with the six of us gathered around, and we crowded together, acting as if it was cozy and fun. The levity was faked. The laughter forced and awkward. I don’t know if Don and Mary felt the same way and had the good sense to keep up appearances, or if they were oblivious to the tension that stretched and coiled around us like some invisible viper crushing the life from us.

  Jerry finally put his fork down and folded his hands, resting on his elbows. “I’ve made a decision,” he said.

  The snake tightened. Don and Mary looked up, perplexed.

  “I’m gonna move out.”

  “Move out?” they said in unison, their jaws slack.

  He nodded. “Yeah. I’m—I’m thinking about going to college. You know, maybe do something different with my life. I know you want me to take over the business, Dad. Thing is, I don’t know if I want to do that or not. I mean, maybe I do, but what if I don’t? What if there’s something else I’m supposed to do? I don’t even know what’s out there to do. I ain’t even been outta state ‘cept for that camping trip to PA. So. I think I’d like to—try that—you know? What do you think?”

  Don closed his mouth. He pushed his plate to one side, took his wife’s hand and folded it within his own then set them in front of himself on the table. “Ah, this is sudden,” he said.

  “Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now.”

  “Is that what you boys have been talking to him about?”

  “Something like that,” murmured Grant.

  “Mm-hmm. Do you have any idea where you’re going?”

  “Not yet. There’s some good schools down in D.C.—”

  “D.C.”

  “Yeah. Grant and Martin were telling me about them. I thought we’d go down and take a look. You know, can’t hurt to look.”

  “Why D.C.?”

  “Grant has a place down there.”

  “I see. And when were you planning on doing this?”

  “Monday.”

  “Monday!” said Mary.

  “Yeah. Gotta get down before the semester starts, y’know? That’ll give us time to get settled
and pick a school and all that.”

  “Uh huh.” Don glanced at Mary and patted her hand, cleared his throat and said, “Well, I guess there’s only one thing to say.”

  We looked at him expectantly.

  He broke into a wide grin. “Hallelujah!”

  Jerry frowned. Don started laughing. “Son, this is the best Christmas gift you coulda ever given us.”

  Jerry opened his mouth to respond, but closed it again. He shook his head. Mary had tears in her eyes, and looked on the verge of sobbing. She laughed instead, and covered her mouth. The tension released, slithering away until a more opportune time.

  Don grinned. “Jerry, don’t take this wrong, but we’ve been waiting for you to leave the nest for—oh, going on six years now.”

  “But you wouldn’t go!” Mary said, and covered her mouth again.

  “You want me to leave?”

  “Please do,” said Don.

  “But, what about the shop?”

  “Oh, we’ll close that albatross.”

  “Sell it,” said Mary, “and move to Florida like we always wanted.”

  Don turned to her, his eyes glinting. “And then take that cruise.”

  “The Caribbean?”

  “Cabo San Lucas.”

  “Our second honeymoon.”

  They fell into each other’s arms. Grant shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. Martin and I stared, just as dumbfounded as Jerry.

  Jerry pointed his finger. “I—uh—you never said anything.”

  “We didn’t want to push you,” said Don.

  “But you never showed any ambition,” Mary broke in. “You just come home and play those stupid video games all day. I thought when Misty broke up with you that you’d get a clue, but you just went fishing!”

  Martin and I burst into giggles. Grant shook uncontrollably. Jerry’s face reddened. “I-I don’t believe this.” He collapsed against his chair. “You’re gonna sell the shop?”

  “I’ve had a standing offer for the past two years from a very understanding fellow.”

  “Well, what if this doesn’t work out? I thought I’d have the shop to fall back on.”

  Mary turned and shot daggers from her eyes. “We’re going to Cabo.”

  “I’m sorry, Son, but you can’t unring a bell.”

  “Burn the ship, Jerry,” said Martin.