“My dear sweet precious angels,” Loving Morrow began, her amplified voice reverberating over the loudspeakers. “Thanks so much for coming out here on my fifty-first birthday. We gawn have some fun!”
Another roar from the crowd.
“You want to know how I feel at this, ahem, advanced age?”
People in the crowd shouted both “yes” and “no,” which provoked laughter and more roaring.
“I feel great,” Loving Morrow said. “Fact, I feel like I could take over the world. But what do I want with all those niggers and Jews and Islams and gooks and whatnot out there? Let the winged horsemen ride among them, I say, and winnow down their numbers naturally, and give this ole earth a little breathing room. I got my sights set on what’s here, in this precious corner of the globe. We are on the verge of taking back the country, and by that I mean the federal territories, like should have happened last time we come to differences on things.”
Another cheer, and whoops, plus respectful applause from the crowd.
She resumed. “First of all, I want to thank him, you know who, the Big Guy, for scheduling me to be born at the right time and all, and taking me on this wonderful ride I been on, and all the good fortune of becoming your Leading Light, my dear sweet precious angels. Praise him! Praise Jesus!”
The crowd does, so strenuously—some of them fainting in the heat from the intensity of their exertions—and for so long that Loving Morrow has to extend her arms again to get them to leave off of all their praising. She’s just getting warmed up, though.
“There was a time,” she says, “when someone of true Foxfire spirit could find comfort only in the past, while the present was something to be ashamed of, the years of welfare socialism, bridge-to-nowhere-ism, decline of faith, decay, corruption, race mixing, Jew usury, same-sex consort, moocherism, me-tooism, abortion, and every other evil whatnot that Godless vandal mutts could contrive to rot our character and turn us into slaves of Mammon. They dragged us into that Holy Land War to save the bacon of wicked hypocrite, lawless, mongrel Zionists and stood by as those monsters stabbed our boys in the back and left them to die out in the Wilderness of Zin. And that is why we dissociated these blessed Foxfire states from the depraved federals, just as our great-great-great-grandfathers stood on the righteous ground of self-determination at Charleston and Ball’s Bluff, Chancellorsville, Pittsburg Landing, Antietam, and all the rest, including the unfortunate event of November 1864, just up the road a ways . . .” She’s referring to the Battle of Franklin, a disaster for the Confederates.
The crowd whoops, cheers, and emits lots of other interesting noises to demonstrate their range of emotion. Loving Morrow gazes out over her people with supreme confidence that they were in thrall to her, nodding her head slightly as if to affirm herself, a demi-smile on her full lips, and her eyes slitty with determination. You could tell she knows they were enjoying every minute of her antics. She lets them run themselves down naturally before resuming.
“There was only a handful of us back in the day who subscribed to the Foxfire vision, back when it was just a political party. But it grew and grew. Fifty core members, then five hundred members, five thousand members, fifty thousand, five hundred thousand, five million. The time will come when those who condemn and oppose us will join us. What started as just a teeny-tiny movement is now a nation, the Foxfire Republic, one nation truly under God, and the right God, too, praise him, Jesus Christ!”
The crowd eats it up. Grown men stagger in the direction of Loving Morrow’s pulpit and fall to their knees. Some break into babbling nonsense speech, what the Foxfire true believers call the tongues. People of all ages, both men and women, are shedding tears, even bawling.
“It was our recognition,” Loving Morrow goes on, “that a vicious gang of criminals tried to destroy our Foxfire founding heritage in the halls of Washington and the law courts, which provoked the need to separate, and we will not rest now until we overcome their vile and illegitimate so-called government and restore that founding vision among all the states, from Maine to Minnesota, praise him, praise Jesus. And likewise to that rapist, murderer, cannibal, self-proclaimed N-word prophet, Sage, also known as the usurer Milton Steptoe, in lawless occupation of our legacy cotton states, we proclaim a warrant of eviction! Let those monkeys move south to a monkey land in the South American tropics were they can laze under the banana tree all the live-long day and make monkey babies and do nothing worthy of the true human being.”
The crowd commences, as if on cue, to making monkey noises and gestures—going hoo hoo hoo and pretending to scrape their knuckles on the ground and scratch their flanks. The Leading Light beams at them and nods her big gold-maned head with approbation. This goes on for some time. They are all excellently rehearsed and orchestrated in their roles, the leader and the led.
“Do you know the true origin of the Jew?” she continues. “In sixth-century before-Jesus Babylon, where all the bad apples of Judah’s barrel got mongrelized. And, then, you see, they return to Canaan and mingle with the mongrel descendants of Esau, and this bunch become the self-righteous, blaspheming Pharisees of our New Testament times. Didn’t the apostle John say of them: Ye are of your father the Devil, and the lust of your father ye will do? With the rise of these Pharisee Jews and the Christmas Nativity comes the battle between the racially pure holy Christian ones of the world and the unholy mixed mongrel Jew. The dearest belief of the Pharisee Jew is that they are the highest life-form on earth. They are special—chosen people!—while the white Christian is on a par with the beasts of the field. Can you beat that?”
“No-o-o-o-o . . .” the crowd replies as one. They’re going wild, brows knitted in righteous rage and eyes all scrunched together, turned-down mouths, and fists pumping in the air.
Loving Morrow’s voice has begun to get a little shrill as she winds up to a carefully calibrated higher pitch of demagoguery. “These are the same ones that teach that Jesus was the bastard offspring conceived of a menstruating prostitute, and that Jesus dead on the cross was consigned to hell to forever boil in hot semen.”
Shouts and catcalls.
“The Pharisee Jew theology goes by the names secular humanism and dialectical materialism, but it all just boils down to atheism, hatred of God, denial of God, worship of God’s enemy Satan. Didn’t these same Pharisee Jews of Wall Street bring down the dollar money system with their thievings, their necromancies, their black arts, and their sharp practice? What we saw in those dark days at the endgame of the old times was nothing other than the ritual murder of our economy. Yessir! They drained the value out of it as surely as they drank the blood of our forefathers and it was the same ritual murder that tried to destroy our way of life, which we strive to preserve here in your Foxfire capital city. Who tried to cut off the oil?”
“The Pharisee Jews!” the crowd bellows.
“Who tried to cut off the electric?” Loving Morrow yells.
“Pharisee Jews!”
“Who set the nigger up in arms against us?”
“Pharisee Jews!”
“Who took the cars away?”
“Pharisee Jews!”
“That is the God’s truth, my dear, sweet, blessed precious angels. But we still got ’em and here they come, Foxfire angels, here they are!”
It’s like a signal. Heavy rumbling starts up at the far end of the speedway. The crowd is going wild. A section of the fence at the far end rolls away, opening up like a gate, and automobiles start pouring through the gate onto the oval track. These cars are painted in wild, hot colors: flaming yellow, orange, red with big numbers on them and the names of people or places or things painted wherever there isn’t a number: “Lowes,” and “Wix,” and “Kobalt,” and “Moog.” Perhaps those were the names of pilots or the owners. I don’t know. There were eight of them altogether. I haven’t seen so many cars running since I was a small child. The
se cars jockey into a double-line formation and begin to circle the track on parade. The crowd is delirious at the sight of them. Loving Morrow is not quite finished, though. She puts out her arms again and galvanizes the crowd’s attention back from the purring, smoking cars.
“My precious angels! The future belongs to you, not to the mutts and rascals! You are the highest embodiment of Foxfire faith and principle! Time and time again, the appeal must be made to renew the struggle. And so I say, Foxfire today, Foxfire tomorrow, Foxfire forever! Y’all have a nice day!”
The crowd takes up the chant, “Foxfire, Foxfire, Foxfire,” as their Leading Light throws her arms around herself, as if in an embrace of them all, and soaks in the rabid love of her followers.
She remained out there on her pulpit a very long time, until you sensed that the people were running out of energy to keep up the display of affection and worship. Anyway, by this time the racing cars had all assembled at a starting point below the grandstand, their engines winding, ringing, and sputtering. A fat man handed Loving Morrow a green flag on a stick. She waved it left and right and the race cars jumped off their marks with their engines screaming. Out in the infield horses reared. One got loose among the crowd with a wagon behind it, knocking several people down before being brought under control. The cars reached their racing speed in the first lap around the oval and so began an event that was punishing on my nerves with its violence of noise and stink of burnt oil. I struggled through the crowd to the inside of the grandstand to get away from it. Foxfire soldiers were posted at frequent intervals around the interior, with its fried-food stands and beverage stations and vague stink of urine. I showed my VIP card to a lieutenant and he directed me to a stairway that led to the so-called salon where the dignitaries were all gathered. Two more soldiers at the door examined my card and patted down my body before admitting me.
It was a large and luxurious room, like a hotel lobby, with carpets and wicker chairs, and potted palms, and a bar at the back end, and at least a hundred people in finery with drinks in hand. The noise was not quite so intense up there, though the roar of the engines was now competing with a voice on the loudspeaker making commentary on the action of the race. The Leading Light was making her way around the big room, stopping to chat with these favored subjects of her realm, leaning in close to listen to their remarks and tributes, mindful of giving them her touch, laying her hand on a shoulder or another hand to establish intimacy, sometimes on a cheek, nodding and smiling at what they had to say. She conducted herself like someone keenly aware of her own physical magnetism. Her white gown was cinched at the waist emphasizing the abundance of her flesh. Her bosom shifted visibly within as though she were filled with gelatin. I watched her closely with the most extreme fascination, trying to imagine how my assignment might develop. You couldn’t fail to see how hard she worked at her role, the dedication she brought to it. She gave some attention to everybody. Hector Tillman was in the room. He ignored me completely and likewise me him. He had his own somewhat smaller orbit of persons around him, like a smaller sun with its own planets.
I obtained a sweet whiskey drink called a julep, suggested by the bar man who had a pitcher of them at hand, and watched Ms. Morrow work the assembled admirers. Waiters wove through the crowd with trays of tidbits: fried things, ham biscuits, cheese nuggets, sugary nut squares—I tried them all. They left me queasy. I began to notice some things about the salon and the people in it. It was a little shabbier than my first impression registered. The potted palms were plastic and soiled with a film of greasy dust. The wicker chairs were all flimsy plastic, too, made in the old times, I’m sure. The carpets were threadbare and stained. The VIP men and women elite of the Foxfire government tended uniformly to plumpness, as though they ate too much and moved about too little, with sallow skin, dull-looking eyes, and careworn creases on their faces. Close up, their clothing was not so well made, and not always very clean. It reminded me of the costumes we wore back in the Union Grove theatricals. Some of them gave off a bad odor of people not used to bathing, or in a state of never-ending terror that produced a stink of anxiety. Not a few of them were visibly drunk. Of the women present, none of them was a match for Loving Morrow in appearance, or even close, nor did I spot one close to my own age. I was feeling the effects of that julep myself when Loving Morrow finally came around to my side of the big room and stepped up to me. She had an undeniable power of presence.
“Have I seen you ’round here before, young man?” she says, with an interesting lopsided smile. She wore a great deal of cosmetic decoration about her eyes, to make them look bigger and more dramatic, I suppose, but there was no denying she had a naturally beautiful face.
I’m like, “No, ma’am. I’m new here in town.”
She’s like, “Where from then?”
I tell her Covington up in Kentucky and a little of my legend and when I’m done she puts her hand on my upper arm and squeezes it.
She goes, “That’s across the O-hio from Cincinnati, iddn’ it?”
I’m like, “Yes, ma’am.” Her eyes are working me up and down, like I was a perfectly fried chicken thigh and she hasn’t had her lunch yet. She asks my name and I tell her.
“How come you’re not in the army, Daniel,” she says. “You know we have a big initiative about to get going up thataway.”
“I don’t know about that, ma’am,” I tell her. “I’m here to serve.”
She goes, “I think you’ll serve just fine. Where you working at, darling?”
“Logistics Commission.”
“Is that so?” She leans in to whisper to one of her army attendants, a dark-haired sergeant with a single eyebrow that makes him look like a cookie jar. He takes out a pad of foolscap and writes something down. Then she turns her attention back to me. “You one of Mr. Bodrew’s boys, then?”
“Yes, I guess I am, ma’am.”
“Oh, well, that’s important work, all right, moving materials and commodities and whatnot. You know I’m a very hands-on executive. I like to check up on the commission work from time to time. Maybe you could consult with me on it sometime. She slides her hand down my arm to my hand, gives it a squeeze. Her hand is smooth, dry, and warm. She stands so close I can feel heat pulsating off her. Then she steps back as though to take me in more fully before moving on in her clockwise transit of the room.
When she completed the circuit, she headed for the stairway and left the salon with her retinue. After she was gone, few in the room paid attention to the race. They continued drinking heavily and then long tables groaning with grilled meats and other treats were set out for them. I didn’t want to become familiar with any of them. The roaring engines outside perfectly matched the gale of emotion inside of me as all the theoreticals of my mission resolved into real flesh and blood. Even as I left the salon, I could still feel the heat between us. My call was not long in coming after that fateful encounter.
Daniel rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms and then stared emptily across the table at his father as though utterly depleted. A pallid gloom had settled over him. He looked like someone not just grown out of boyhood but disfigured inside by experience since then. It made Robert uncomfortable to see him that way, all the innocence drained out of him, the dreadful untold conclusion of his tale oppressing him like a judgment.
“I expect I’ll learn what happened?” Robert said.
“Yes,” Daniel said, “by and by you will.”
Robert craned his head around and glanced at the front of the Union Tavern barroom. Winter darkness filled the big window. Night had fallen here in Union Grove. The barroom had filled up with workmen and laborers. Someone began plinking a mandolin, a jaunty tune in a minor key with a sad edge called “The Wren.” It was still a novelty for such a place of warm conviviality as the tavern to exist in the village, Robert thought, and such a contrast to the chilling tribulations of a nation consuming itse
lf in hatred, poverty, violence, and death.
Forty-three
It was dark when the doctor finished cleaning and stitching up the outer layers of the three knife wounds in Jack Harron’s thoracic cavity. Donald Acker’s blade had missed Jack’s heart but neatly sectioned part of the lower right lobe of his lung. The eighth right rib was broken by another thrust and the doctor had to repair a nick in the inferior mesenteric vein. The doctor placed a drain tube in the pleural space of the right lung. Jack was resting comfortably in the doctor’s surgical suite in the clinic building, formerly a carriage barn behind the doctor’s house. Donald Acker’s remains occupied a wooden table in the cold, damp, and dark of Dr. Copeland’s nearby springhouse, sometimes recruited for use as a morgue. Jeanette, the doctor’s wife, swabbed Jack’s sutures and the drain tube exit with alcohol.
A History of the Future Page 27