“And you know what else?” Tears ran down the woman’s face. “He reminds me all the time that he doesn’t hang out with female friends or dance with other women. And he tells me it’s wrong that I hang out a lot with my guy friends and dance with other men. It’s not even like I cheat on him all that often.”
“Why, that insensitive prick,” exclaimed Frederick, lisping. “Somebody needs to lay some smackdown on his tyrannical ass.”
“And I think we’re just the ones to do it, Fred.” The black man cracked his knuckles and high-fived Frederick.
“Oh, Bobby, you’re so powerful,” Lisa cooed, and the two stared at one another, enchanted, until the scene faded.
The next scene depicted a middle-aged, perspiring white man fumbling through his house to answer his front door. He was wearing red and white polka dot boxers and a white tank top. The straps of the tank nearly slid off his narrow shoulders. He had a hard time unlocking the door, his shaking hands heavy with ineptitude.
“Lisa!” he exclaimed, as the woman on the porch pushed open the heavy door with ease.
“Yeah, it’s me, you pasty loser.” She strode past him into the foyer, voice deep. “And I’ve brought some friends to teach you a lesson.”
“Get them out of here, Lisa!” demanded Richard. “They’re not welcome.”
“No, you’re not welcome here,” Lisa said contemptuously, and with a yell, karate chopped her husband’s shoulder.
Richard wilted under the blow.
“Ahhhh . . . that hurt, you bitch,” he whined, twisting on the floor.
Heroic action music flooded from Guerrero’s surround sound.
“Yeah, mo’ fo’, there’s more where that came from.” Bobby looked approvingly at his clenched fist then smashed it into Richard’s mouth as he was getting up.
“Don’t you two hog the straight whitey too much.” Frederick laughed, raking his fingernails across Richard’s face.
“You’ve oppressed this fine lady for too long, white trash.” Bobby overtook Richard as he attempted to flee, dragging him down. The muscular black man sat up on Richard’s chest, pinning him.
“Apologize to Lisa, you worthless honky,” Bobby demanded.
Blood streamed from Richard’s lips from the punch, and sputtered as he spoke.
“Lisa, damn it, what the hell did I ever do to you to deserve this? Tell this jig and this fag to stop hurting me.”
The music stopped, and the three attackers looked at each other in horror.
“What did you just call me?” Bobby and Frederick asked simultaneously.
“Uh . . . uh . . . nothing—I’m so sorry—I didn’t say anything,” stuttered Richard.
“No, no, no,” Bobby decided gravely. “We heard what you said. You deserve to die for what you just said.”
“But I didn’t say it, I really didn’t!” Lisa, help me!” The husband reached a hand toward his wife.
“You heard what he said,” screamed Lisa. “Kill him! Kill him! Racists deserve death!”
Bobby, Lisa, and Frederick became frenzied. Bobby rained down hammer blows into Richard’s face. Lisa strode behind her husband’s head, and grinded her high heel into his eyes and cheeks between Bobby’s strikes. Frederick repeatedly kicked in Richard’s groin. The tortured man howled piteously, and after several moments of pummeling, he was silent.
Lisa strode over to the window, and flung open the curtains. Sunshine filled the room in a rush of sympathetic weather. Poignant notes from a piano slowly grew in volume. The woman was crying with joy.
“I . . . I finally have my life back. Thank you, thank you Bobby and Frederick. I’m finally free again.” The black man wrapped his muscular arm around her, and she snuggled up to his chest. The homosexual placed a hand on her back. The tableau was complete, and the end credits began to descend.
“Saxon Anglo? Yeah, ‘tough guy’ Saxon Anglo!” Guerrero laughed long and deeply. But his laughter soon gave way to fury. “What the hell has happened to your country, you fucking idiot?” The president addressed the sculptured, supercilious look of the white figure. “What the hell has happened to you? Where’s your backbone? Why do you hate yourself? Why do you allow your media to brainwash your people like this? Why don’t you fucking revolt? You’re a disgrace to your ancestors you dumb fuck . . . you stupid, stupid, spineless dumb fuck!” He sat up and threw the toy at the wall.
A tall, slender Hispanic woman paused at the entrance to the room.
“Honey, are you all right?” she inquired, entering and taking a seat next to Guerrero. “Why are you throwing around Antonio’s toy?”
“I’m frustrated, Rosa.”
“Why?” She ran her fingers soothingly threw his thick black hair.
“Because I don’t understand my enemy,” he said frankly. “And I don’t like that. Half the movies produced in the U.S. fall directly into the ‘evil white man’ genre.” He gestured toward the TV screen and the rolling credits. “The other half feature some evil white man in some form or fashion, and no white heroes. The white people in the U.S. are filled with self-hatred, especially the males, and everything there—the culture, the people—is dying. They don’t have children, and they’re being turned into some kind of fucked up gray monster creatures. And they’re doing it willingly.” He slammed his fist on the coffee table.
“Isn’t that to our advantage? I mean, if we were facing a strong, belligerent America, we would have already been invaded.”
“But I can deal with a strong, belligerent America. They never would have threatened to use nukes on us. They would have invaded and reoccupied us. I can deal with that. I can wage a fucking guerrilla war. Eventually they would have sustained enough casualties to realize it wasn’t worth staying. Rosa, I can deal with a strong white man. I can deal with him because I’m a strong Hispanic man. I care about my people and am proud of who I am. I know that he cares about his people and is proud of who he is. I can understand him—his motives, his morals, his ambitions, because with a different role of the genetic dice and chance of birth I could have been him and he could have been me.”
“And you don’t understand Swan and Hommler.” Rosa nodded.
“No, I understand Swan and Hommler. They were the freaks in my high school that my football player friends and I shoved into the lockers as we passed by. They were the weirdoes, who, every so often, would shoot up a classroom. What I don’t understand is why normal rank and file whites have become so emasculated. A lot of it has to do with the media, I know.” The president fidgeted with his watch.
“But honey, I still don’t quite understand why you care about whether white people are strong and brave or weak and dying,” the president’s wife admitted.
“I care about it, Rosa, because I’m depending on those white cowards to wage a civil war against their perverted government. I’m waiting for them to yell out, ‘enough is enough.’ If and when they do, then it’s time we mobilize and seize more land—Nevada, Arizona, who knows? We’ll capitalize on it. And I didn’t let on like it phased me the other day when that freak Hommler started making nuclear threats. But I haven’t been able to sleep at night over that shit. If those bastards solidify control who the hell knows what might befall Aztlan.” Guerrero’s eyes blinked nervously. “And may the gods of our people smite us down,” the president vowed passionately in an afterthought, “if we ever tolerate a media industry devoted to demonizing Hispanic males.”
Rosa began to laugh despite herself.
“I don’t think that will ever happen, sweetie. We’re a proud people. We don’t hate ourselves.”
“The hell if it couldn’t happen to us.” Guerrero stared at his wife with conviction. “Do you think white Americans in the 1950s could have predicted the state of things for their people today in 2084? I’ll tell you how it could happen. Fast forward a hundred years. Hispanics have seized all the land stolen by the U.S. and have freed our people. Great, right? Well, we become lax, weak, and morally polluted, in part due to our eco
nomic prosperity. From left wing academia comes an outcry, small at first, but steadily growing, that criticizes and destabilizes our morals, religion, understanding of gender roles, and conception of the family unit.
“For example, they might say ‘Hispanics should be ashamed of who we are because our Aztec ancestors oppressed other Mesoamerican tribes.’ They might say, if we one day have to fight off invading Muslims, ‘Hispanics should have negotiated a peace with the Muslims and given them our land rather than fight them.’ They might say, ‘Hispanic males are too macho; they should act more like women.’ They might say, ‘It’s not cool to be Hispanic . . . act like an Asian or African instead.’ Or, they might say to Hispanic women, ‘It’s cooler to date a non-Hispanic guy than a Hispanic guy.’ And when I mention that they might ‘say’ something, I mean that it will be broadcast over the media and burned into people’s minds—sometimes subliminally, sometimes explicitly.” Guerrero had begun to shake his finger at the TV screen. A new movie had begun.
“But Juan, if someone were to say that, no one would take them seriously. No one would believe them. Hispanics don’t believe those things,” Rosa soothed.
“Tell someone anything enough times, over a period of years, in movies, commercials, classrooms, and they’ll believe it. They will believe it! Today it’s whites trying to kill themselves off. But tomorrow it could be our bronze brothers and sisters. We could be ripping apart our culture, denigrating our historical figures, abandoning our own literature for that of other races, and deciding that children are too inconvenient to justify having. Years from now, when the whites are all gone, we could be the ones facing these problems.”
“Speaking of children, you haven’t spent a lot of time with your own lately, Juan.” Mrs. Guerrero folded her arms and raised her eyebrows at her husband. “Have you spoken to your daughter yet about what she wants to do after her Quinceanera? Perhaps you should educate her on the dangers of decadence and economic prosperity. Wait till you hear her plans.” Rosa laughed.
“Marisela has to learn that she isn’t some Beverly Hills brat. She has to learn to be a dignified, strong, articulate Aztec nationalist. Just because her father’s president doesn’t mean she can have anything she wants. She has to learn the value of money,” remarked Guerrero, then briefly eyed the TV.
“Oh, this is so sick, Rosa. I’ve seen this one before. What do you know, it’s another ‘evil white man’ propaganda flick.”
“What’s this one about? I don’t watch these movies, baby. I only watch Aztlan Programming.”
“Some stuck up white woman decides she’s sick of her white husband. So she and her lesbian girlfriend murder him. She abandons her children, and the two bitches drive off into the sunset. And the wife is portrayed as a hero.”
“A hero for doing what?” Rosa asked, aghast.
“For killing a white man and assuring that her children are dysfunctional so they can’t grow up to be strong warriors and fight their fucked up government,” Guerrero said matter-of-factly.
“Well . . . did her husband try to kill her first, or at least even cheat on her or something?”
“Nope. In this genre the disgruntled white female needs little to no pretext to kill a white guy. His whiteness is good enough reason. And these movies also glamorize a white woman’s adultery—so long as she’s cheating on a white man with a man of Color or a lesbian.”
“But the woman is white. Doesn’t she hate herself too for being white?” Rosa inquired.
“Yes, she does. But she can redeem herself in these movies by doing a few things. One is to treat like shit or actually kill off her white boyfriend or husband. Another is for her either to become a lesbian or marry a man of Color. And if she happens to have any white children from her former white man, well, they either get killed off or are abandoned. The net effect is that the audience is given a role model white female who is repulsed at the notion of bearing white children.”
“The white children get killed off? Does she kill her own children?” Rosa exclaimed.
“No, they haven’t gone that far . . . yet. Usually the kids are conveniently just killed off in a plane crash or something like that. In a lot of the more recent films, though, the mother just abandons them.”
“But why do these movies always portray the women as villains? Isn’t that misogynistic?”
“Rosa, you don’t understand. That’s because you’re not brainwashed yet, thank goodness. You see, baby, the women aren’t supposed to be the villains. They’re supposed to be the heroes.”
“That’s so sick, Juan,” she gasped. “But why focus just on the women like that?”
Guerrero eased back into the leather cushions.
“Well, some of the films focus almost exclusively on the white men. But white men have only one way to redeem themselves—suicide. They have to kill themselves to expunge their sin of whiteness. The films focusing on the men aren’t as popular as the other movies because there’s not much action or fighting and they revolve around the guy’s guilt-ridden life until he kills himself. Suicide makes Americanization seem like a great alternative,” the president speculated with a frown. “But suicide as redemption is relatively new. It used to be that a white man could redeem himself simply by being weak and not having children, or being gay. Now the bar has been raised to suicide.”
“I bet their Propaganda Minister has a hand in this.” Rosa sighed.
“He does, for sure . . . that bastard Jackson Gibbles. At least he’s not in Hollywood anymore—glad we kicked his ass out.” Guerrero punched his open palm. “But the people should reject these movies, Rosa. It’s up to the people to scorn this crap. But they’re absorbing it and embracing it. Those American idiots—where the hell is Saxon Anglo when you need him?”
Rosa laughed.
“He’s still the arch-villain in Antonio’s comic books and cartoon shows,” she consoled. “He’s still heavily ingrained in the Hispanic subconscious as the main enemy.”
“Well, Hispanic comic books and our subconscious are behind the times, damn it,” Guerrero snapped. “I’m calling our animation people, our comic people, our script writers, our movie people, you name it, on Monday. It’s time we woke up and looked at the way the world is now—not through the eyes of our great grandparents. I’m going to tell them that I want Saxon Anglo reconstituted as a good guy. He’s going to ally with us against a gray madman preaching a new god called Divine Color.”
Chapter 8
The castle’s highest spire skimmed through a passing cloud, much as a branch overhanging a stream dips in current. In a world inverted, the castle acted as an anchor for its master, and a repository for his secrets. But were the world to reassert its old polarity, to reestablish normality, all the stonework, mortar, marble and dark grandeur would fall from the sky in fragments of broken nightmare. The crenellated battlements, the interlocking gray stones, the inner keep would be dislodged and flung by gravity.
“I want to dwell in a castle,” the master had said, “a castle pinned to the countryside like a brooch on a prince’s vest. Castles are despised by republics because they employ the architecture of nobility. Build it here, on this hill, and craft it in the Carpathian vein,” was his command, silver hair caught wildly by the wind. “I believe I will call it . . . Castle Vayvels.”
Tonight the castle loomed over the old colonial style houses of the Maine suburbs like an elegant wraith. The sickle moon overhead was the stolid eye of a dragon jaded by jewels and treasure, and light spilled from the windows and towers.
Deep within, in a large chapel buttressed by leering statues, a ceremony was underway. Hommler stood upon a dais between flaming braziers. He was robed in crimson, as were the hundreds arrayed before him, their gray faces obscured in shadow. The high priest’s hood was drawn back, and the remnant of contusions from stomping boots covered his face in the yellow hues of autumn leaves.
“Servitor Keedu,” spoke Hommler, “let us begin our ceremony with administration of a pra
yer.”
“Yes, my lord,” replied a kneeling man on the dais, who rose to face the assembly. The acolyte raised his voice to the audience. “We, the children of Tiamat, progenitor of chaos, beseech the gods to bless us in our quest to reinstate the old faiths. We pray for strength to combat the insane and jealous monotheistic god of intolerance and destruction. We pray to the gods first struck down by his wrath—Dagon, Baal, and Ashtaroth. And we pray to the spirit of Julian the Apostate, that he bless our endeavors from beyond his grave and offer guidance in times of need.”
“Well said, Keedu.” The high priest nodded, then turned and boomed to the crowd. “Children of Tiamat, good evening!”
“Good evening, Lord Hommler.” The response was immediate and powerful.
“The moon is high, the winds blown in from the sea are crisp; it is a good night. But all is not well,” warned the high priest.
Brows knitted and tar-irised eyes focused on the speaker.
“What ails you, Lord Hommler?” Keedu asked on behalf of the audience. His hood had fallen back revealing a lumpy, shaved gray head.
“Aztecs ail me. The so-called ‘bronze’ peoples to the west, who scorn your gray perfection, have declared that they will never assimilate with our American culture. Nearly all of you were white women and men prior to treatment. But you recognized your innate evil and purged yourself of it by becoming Americans. These Aztecs are not ashamed of who they are, and they will never willingly become our sisters and brothers. They have physically assaulted me, beaten me, and injured me. Moreover, they defile the ancient gods of their people with paltry offerings instead of oblations of flesh and blood.”
“When shall we seek vengeance?” Keedu rasped intuitively.
“Soon. I want you to disabuse the Aztecs of their cowardly notions of how to appease blood gods. You don’t sate a lion with a vegan meal. There is nothing more repugnant than a modern-day neophyte cultist attempting to revitalize a forgotten blood god with dandelions and pomp. We will spill their blood in torrents through their streets, crush their insurrection, and in so doing appease their gods. Then we will liberate their crimson cities and institute an orthodox, faithful manifestation of their religion.”
The Gods of Color Page 8