Dani looked at the people staring at Nola and chuckled. “Well, the fact is we don’t have a lot of folks period in Baptist Flats. A stranger is gonna cause a stir no matter what. But, yes, I’m sorry to say a black stranger will cause a bigger stir.”
“Should I be worried?”
Dani shook her head. “Not a bit. They’re all racist as shit, but they ain’t the burn-a-cross-in-your-front-yard kind. They’re the they-got-their-own-month-what-more-do-they-want kind. Just as ignorant, but not near as dangerous.”
“Good to know.”
Dani nibbled on a French fry. “My turn to ask a question.”
“I wasn’t aware we were taking turns.”
Ignoring her reply, Dani said, “Why’d you choose that stool?”
“This stool?”
“Got a whole row to choose from. You got booths and tables for days, but you chose to sit right next to me. Why is that?”
Nola’s face turned sour. “My kind not welcome to sit next to you?”
Dani chuckled. “Good Lord, don’t go there on me. That’s not what I meant at all. I just find it curious. Most folks put as much distance between them and the law as possible. You cozied right up to me.”
Nola breathed a little easier and rolled up her sleeve revealing a tattoo on her right forearm. It was the Marine Corps emblem, the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, with two pistols crossed at the barrels above it. The motto ASSIST - PROTECT - DEFEND formed an arch above the tattoo, and below it were two letters, M-P.
“MP,” Dani said to herself aloud. “Military Police?”
“I saw you, and I said to myself, ‘There’s a woman with a badge. That’s your people, Nola.’ ”
Dani held up her Coke and invited Nola to join her in a toast again. “Proud to know you, Nola Beasley…What’s your last name?”
“Babineaux.”
“Babineaux? Damn. You don’t get more New Orleans than Nola Babineaux.”
“No, you do not.”
“Well, as I was saying, damn proud to know you Nola Beasley Babineaux.”
“Likewise Deputy Dani Clark Savage.”
They drank from their glasses and set them back on the table.
“Your daddy,” Nola said. “He live in Baptist Flats?”
Dani shook her head a little too enthusiastically. “Thank the Lord, no.”
“You two don’t get along?”
“As I may have mentioned before, he’s a prick. And that’s the nicest thing I can say about him.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Well, they say the Lord don’t give you nothing you can’t handle, but whoever said that never met my daddy. He’s what most folks can’t handle.” Dani reached into her pocket and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. Tossing it on the counter, she stood. “It’s been nice chatting with you, Nola, but duty calls. Hope to run into you again before you leave town.” She said her goodbyes to Rafe and Ruby and vacated the diner under a chorus of “Don’t be a stranger!”
When the deputy had climbed into her cruiser, Nola said under her breath, “We’ll be running into each other again. You can count on that, Dani Savage.”
Chapter 13
The sun hovered directly overhead and cast its yellow haze outward to contrast with the rich blue, cloudless sky. The colors of each never faded into each other and found harmony. Instead, they battled for attention from the group below.
But that attention would not come. The group, the Gray Rise and their family members, were scattered about drinking all manner of alcohol and eating a seemingly endless variety of barbecued meats. They had more pressing matters to focus on. There was a government to overthrow. There were tyrants to kill.
Cleve gripped his beer bottle so tight his knuckles were turning white. He was tired of fighting with the ancient fuckers in the militia about the importance of social media and the like. They couldn’t give two shits about Facebook and Twitter and whatever the fuck else candy-ass kids wasted their time with.
“That shit’s for pictures of dicks and tits,” a bent-over codger named Rale said.
A slightly younger man by the name of Donnie guffawed and said, “Now, I ain’t opposed to the tit part of this social media stuff. How do we get in on that?”
Cleve couldn’t take any more. “Would you two old fuckers shut the hell up! You got no idea what you’re talking about!” He turned to his uncle Harley. “I brought up them boys we talked about. I’m telling you we gotta get in on this Internet stuff.”
Harley’s jaw set as he swallowed a mouthful of whiskey. “Bring ’em over.”
Cleve smiled and turned to a group of three young kids who were distinctly out of tune with the other members of the cookout. For one thing, they all had sleeves. One of them had a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt on while the other two displayed a dueling affinity for two different sci-fi franchises.
None of them was drinking, a fact the command structure of the Gray Rise noted and didn’t care for. Real men drink.
Rale took special offense to one of the interlopers because his skin was a shade darker than most whites. “You got some foreign in you, don’t you, boy?”
“Foreign?” the kid said. “I was…No…I mean, I was born in Atlanta. I’m from here. The U.S. America.”
“Bullshit,” Rale said.
“Yeah,” Donnie added. “You ain’t one hundred percent American. What’re your parents?”
“My parents? My dad teaches high school math, and my mom’s a dentist…”
“I don’t give a fuck what they do,” Donnie said. “What country they from? They ain’t American. That’s for damn sure.”
“Oh.” The kid paused before saying, “My father is Guamanian.”
Rale gritted his teeth. “He ain’t American, you mean.”
“No,” the kid replied. “Guam is part of the United States.”
“You talking shit about my country, boy?” Rale said, stepping into the kid with his free hand balled into a fist.
The color drained from the kid’s baby-fat cheeks. “No, I’m…I’m just saying…”
“Fuck off, Rale,” Cleve said. “The boys are on our side.”
“But he ain’t American!”
“Goddamn it!” Harley roared. “We ain’t American. None of us. Not a man here. Not the fucking American they got going on right now. What we are IS America! Get it?”
A small crowd of the Gray Rise gathered around to hear the master general’s impromptu speech. Their wives formed a loose perimeter around them and tried to divert the children’s attention away from the man talk.
Donnie grumbled in confusion. “We ain’t what now…We ain’t Americans, but we are at the same time? I hate to admit it, but I’m confused on that one.”
Harley flashed his teeth as he prepared to tear into Donnie, but he was interrupted by a voice from behind him.
One of the newest members, Oliver Payne, an unassuming young man who wore a permanent frown, spoke up, an act completely out of character. “He means Americans today have shit all over the Constitution. He means Americans have betrayed America. They’ve betrayed everything America stands for. What’s worse, when it gets down to it, they don’t stand up for America. They lay down and let the fucking United Nations run them over. He means we are America. We stand for something. We are the Constitution. We are America. The way it should be, not the way it is.”
Harley’s agitation at Donnie slipped away and turned to something akin to optimism at hearing the new soldier speak. “What’s your name, son?”
“Payne, sir. Oliver. Gray Class One, Master General.”
Chigger Payne, a man as round as he was tall, spoke through his fat-smothered vocal cords. “My brother’s boy. Come from Fort Jackson by way of the army. Got a dishonored release.”
“For?” Harley asked.
“Politics is what it was,” Chigger started before Harley cut him off.
“I wanna hear it from GC One Payne, Chig.”
Oliver hesitated before saying, �
�I fucked the colonel’s wife, and it was not received well, sir, Master General, sir.”
There was a moment of silence before Harley led the men in a disturbing round of laughter.
Harley yelled out, “Dee Dee, front and center, girl!”
A young woman, fifteen years Harley’s junior, emerged from behind a row of wives herding a group of children near a thicket of trees. She wore a green spaghetti-strap dress and matching baseball cap. A golden ponytail bounced from side to side as she approached.
“Our America, the real America, is run by men and served by women,” Harley said. “The Gray Rise brotherhood comes before our wives and girlfriends. Do y’all understand what I’m saying?”
The men shouted in unison, “Yes, Master General!”
Dee Dee joined her husband, Harley, and wrapped an arm around his waist. “Wha’cha want, baby?”
“GC One Payne, step forward, son,” Harley said.
Oliver did as requested.
“Let me repeat. The Gray Rise brotherhood comes before all our wives and girlfriends. Are you a believer in the brotherhood? In the Gray Rise?”
Oliver snapped to attention. “Sir, yes, sir, Master General!”
“This is my wife, Dee Dee Pike. Say hello to GC One Payne, Dee Dee.”
Dee Dee smiled brightly. “Hello, GC One Payne.”
Oliver nodded with just a hint of a smile.
“Payne, fuck my wife.”
“Sir?”
Dee Dee, frightened by her husband’s unexpected directive, tried to pull away from Harley, but he held her tightly to his hip.
“Don’t disappoint me, son. You strike me as a soldier who gets what’s going on here.”
“Yes, sir, but…”
“I did not stutter. I was clear in my orders. Fuck my wife, GC One.” Harley pushed Dee Dee toward Payne. She resisted at first, but gave in to the inevitability of what was to come and planted a nervous smile on her face.
“Let’s go, children,” a woman’s voice said.
Harley turned to watch as a group of the wives guided the children to a field at the far end of the property. “The children stay.”
Claudia Beam, Rale’s wife and eldest of the women, protested. “This ain’t appropriate conversation for children.”
Harley cocked an eyebrow in Rale’s direction.
Rale frantically addressed his wife. “Hush up, woman. Harley…The master general says they stay put, they stay put.”
Claudia fumed. “It ain’t right. It ain’t talk for children. And while we’re at it, you can’t do that to that girl. It ain’t Christian. Anybody with eyes can see, Dee Dee ain’t got no interest in bedding that boy…”
Rale rushed his wife and yanked her by her arm. “I said hush up. It’s gonna go the way it’s gonna go because the men have decided. Like the master general said, you’re a servant that ain’t got no say.”
When she tried to wrestle her arm free, he dragged her past the grove of trees and dealt with her as man is Bible-bound to treat his servant.
Harley returned his attention to Oliver and Dee Dee. “I gave you an order, GC One Payne.”
Oliver swallowed the dryness in his mouth and shifted his gaze from Harley to Dee Dee. He could see that she was trying to hide the panic that was coursing through her veins. She was petrified. Payne gently took her hand and started to walk her toward the bus on the other side of the clearing.
Harley whistled. “Where’re you two going?”
“You said…” Oliver stopped himself because his voice was weak and shaky. He cleared his throat and steadied himself. “Sir, I was taking her…Dee Dee to the bus.”
“Nope,” Harley said, firing up a cigar he had pulled from his shirt pocket. “Right here. Give your brothers a show.”
“A show?” Oliver’s stomach tied into knots.
Dee Dee turned to her husband, tears immediately welling up in her eyes.
“Cleve,” Harley said.
His nephew barked out a stunned “Yeah…I mean, yes, Master General.”
“Aim your firearm at my wife’s head.”
Cleve hesitated, but not so long as to draw his uncle’s ire. He unholstered his 9mm Beretta and aimed it with a trembling hand at Dee Dee’s head. He’d known the girl his whole life. They were only a few years apart. He’d never thought much over her, but he certainly never considered shooting her in the head before.
“You see where this going, GC One?”
Oliver didn’t respond.
“No? Well, let me explain. Ima count to ten, and if you don’t have my wife on her hands and knees with her pretty little dress hiked up over her bare ass, Cleve is gonna pull the trigger, and a bullet is gonna travel out the barrel, through the air, and into her skull, making pudding outta that little brain of hers.”
Oliver fought not to cry. He looked at Dee Dee and said softly, “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Harley roared. “Sorry? Son, she is property! She don’t have no fucking rights! You don’t apologize to her, not for nothing! She’s doing what her husband commands! Telling her you’re sorry is a slight to me! Are you trying to fucking insult me, GC One?”
“I was just…I didn’t know…”
“Stop fucking tripping over your words. It ain’t dignified.” He puffed on his cigar and released a thick cloud of smoke. “You got me so mad Ima count to ten, but I’m starting from five. Five, six…”
Dee Dee fell to the ground and got on her hands and knees. “Get it done! Go! Go!”
Oliver looked at her, stunned.
“Three!”
Donnie cackled and undid his belt. “Step aside, boy! I’ll take your place! Goddamn! Let me at that thing!”
“Hey!” Harley said, moving quickly past a number of his soldiers and sending a fist to Donnie’s ear. The following fists came in quick succession, striking Donnie repeatedly in his face. “My wife ain’t a whore, motherfucker! My wife ain’t a whore!” It was a refrain he repeated breathlessly. Each time it was punctuated with the sound of a bone in Donnie’s face breaking.
The men of the Gray Rise were in shocked silence at first, but as Donnie’s face became pulverized and began to resemble chopped meat, they became more and more vocal, cheering their master general on. They knew Donnie. They’d known him their entire lives. They hunted with him, drank with him. He was their friend. Yet they found themselves thirsting to see his blood spilled. They wanted Harley to kill him. What’s more, they wanted to witness Harley killing Donnie with nothing but his fists.
When Donnie went limp, Harley kept his head from hitting the ground by holding him by his collar. He delivered a few more blows before the madness seeped out of him. He crouched over the nearly dead man and caught his breath.
Oliver helped Dee Dee to her feet.
Harley stood, tipped his head back, breathed in deeply, and exhaled with a “Woooo!” He turned, and Oliver stepped in front of Dee Dee. “Goddamn it!” He returned his attention to Donnie and kicked him in the ribs. “You fucking killed the romance!”
The children could be heard crying as the mothers tried to shield them from seeing the now disfigured face of Donnie.
Harley plodded toward them menacingly. “This is fun time, kids. Stop your crying, goddamn it.”
His command only intensified their crying.
He grumbled and said to the women, “Get the little fuckers away from me.”
The women rushed the kids away to the far field.
Harley turned to the men of the Gray Rise. “Show’s over, men. Drink. Have some fucking fun.”
As they started to part, he stopped them. “Someone get Donnie out of here. He’s fucking ruined my goddamn cookout.”
Cleve reholstered his weapon. “Shouldn’t we get him to the doctor?”
“Doctor? What the fuck for?”
“You punched him into sorry shape.”
Harley walked over to examine Donnie. “Fuck him. Leave him there. He’ll either die or get the hell up. It’s his choice.”
<
br /> He approached Oliver and Dee Dee. “You got more to learn, GC One Payne. I give an order. You follow it without question.”
Having just seen the master general beat a man nearly to death, Oliver didn’t dare disagree. “Yes, sir, Master General, sir.”
Harley took Dee Dee’s hand and pulled her to him. “It ain’t like I asked you to dig a goddamn foxhole or run sprints. All I wanted you to do was fuck my wife. I wanted to show you that what’s mine is yours. You understand?”
Oliver nodded tentatively.
“Son, you gotta understand, this ain’t a game. This is war. Men fight wars. Men die in wars. Men reap the rewards of wars. That’s the way of nature. As it is now, this country is on candy-ass footing where we gotta consider everyone’s feelings and whatnot. Fuck that shit. Man, woman, or child, if you ain’t all in, you’re part of the cancer that’s got to be removed. Now, I ask you, are you all in or are you the cancer?”
Oliver scanned Dee Dee’s face. The woman tried to hold a trembling smile, struggling to stay on her feet as her husband wrapped his brutish hand around her shoulder. Looking back to Harley’s scowl, the GC One replied heartily, “All in, sir, Master General, sir!”
Harley grinned. “That’s my boy.” He removed Dee Dee’s cap and tousled her hair. “Now, unfortunately, you’ve missed the boat on my little peach here. I got myself all worked up, and I need to work off some of this energy,” he said, slapping Dee Dee on the ass. “But you pick you out one of the other females running around here and have at it. Anyone gives you shit, send them to me. I’ll set them straight.”
Oliver nodded and walked away, torn between running as far and as fast as his feet could take him, or doing as Harley suggested.
His uncle Chigger saw the lost look in his nephew’s eyes and waddled toward him with some advice. “You’re in it now, Ollie. There ain’t but one direction to go.” He pointed to Donnie’s distraught wife. “You go give that woman comfort. Take her to the bus if you wanna. Take your spoils, boy. Do your family proud.”
Oliver hesitated before giving in to the only card he could play without getting his throat cut.
Harley placed his hand around the back of Dee Dee’s neck and pointed to a rebuilt ’66 Ford Mustang. “Let’s do our loving on that old ’stang, baby. Right on the fucking hood.”
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