by B. K. Dell
Stacy’s PO Box was flooded with apology cards. His phone rang off the hook with offers for interviews. The release date of his book was moved back up in order to compete for a portion of the pre-Christmas book sales. Before the cameras he cried, “I think the most hurtful thing is that they said I had left Caleb for someone else. Caleb is all I think about. I could never be with anyone else while Caleb’s memory still haunts me.” These remarks were made outside Jerald Schaefer’s mansion in L.A.
Gay rights protests began to pop up all over the country. The one that garnered the most attention was a school walk-out student protest. High school students all across the country left their desks and took to the streets. Vicky Rhodes, a student attending Northeast High in Seattle, Washington, was asked about her decision to be a part of the protest. She said, “Um, I think that homosexual people, and members of the GB…um…the GBLT community, are people too, and, um, I don’t think that it is right for people to shoot them.” Charles Pittman, a student at a school in Dallas said, “Jackson Brooks is a hypocrite. He calls himself a Christian, but wasn’t it Jesus who said, ‘Let a hundred flowers blossom. Let a hundred schools of thought contend?’” One honest student in Denver told a reporter, “I just wanted to get out of class, man.”
Jackson’s pastor had refused many attempts by the press to speak with him, as well as the pastor’s wife and their thirteen-year-old daughter. Reporters even showed up at the home of June Pruitt, a woman who taught Sunday school when Jackson was five years old. June Pruitt, who had reached the grand old age of ninety-two, did not mind the attention at all. “Jackson was a mischievous boy. He always had his shoes untied,” she told them anxiously. It was discovered later that Jackson and his family lived in a different state during the time she was still teaching Sunday school.
Protestors blocked the street in front of Jackson’s church every Sunday. They made it so hard to get in that many people stopped trying. Attendance was down fifty percent. At three o’clock on a random Tuesday morning, the fire department was called to put out a fire in the back of the sanctuary. The recording from a church security camera assisted the police in apprehending the arsonist.
The footage was aired on the Mitch McCarty show, where it was clear to see that the male perpetrator was wearing leather pants and a skintight pink crop top with a picture of Hello Kitty on the front.
McCarty asked his guest, “Dr. Weiss, do we have enough information yet to know what could’ve been the motivation behind such an act?”
“No, Mitch, we don’t,” said Dr. Weiss, “I think what is most important at this stage is that no one jumps to any conclusions, which is why I find it an unfortunate coincidence that this happened at the church of Jackson Brooks.”
“We don’t know if the arsonist had even heard of Jackson Brooks,” injected McCarty.
“Maybe he had or maybe he hadn’t. It is just too soon to say.”
“We don’t have any reason to suspect that this man was even homosexual, do we Doctor?”
“We have no way of knowing that at this time. For all we know this was a member of the congregation who did not like last week’s sermon.”
“Or perhaps the guy just had a toothache.”
“Or perhaps he was still mad about the healthcare bill.”
“Doctor, with our limited information, is there any reason to suspect that the arsonist acted out of anti-Christian bigotry?”
“None whatsoever, Mitch.”
Several churches in other states were also vandalized and picketed. A wedding ceremony was interrupted inside a Mormon temple when a bomb threat forced everyone to evacuate. No bomb was found. Several major news papers speculated on whether these attacks were related to the death of Caleb Hertz. Michael Ponce’s paper did not report them at all.
The city of Chicago, which had already had a gay pride parade scheduled before Caleb’s death, had to arrange police barricades around the old church buildings on the parade route when parade goers began urinating and defecating on the front steps.
A Hollywood movie debuted about America’s first openly homosexual Marine. All the villains in the script were Christian fundamentalists; there was no mention of American greatness, no mention of who the Marines were actually fighting in Afghanistan, and it portrayed Caleb as a victim. They were able to get it into theaters so fast by simply recycling old screenplays. Although the film failed at the box office, it was a success with the critics. Only one critic complained, “We’ve seen this movie before. The screenwriters merely used the word gay to replace female or black.” Jackson happened to see the review and thought, The political speechwriters have been doing that same search and replace for years.
At the peak of the outrage over the Marine cover-up, a virtually unknown blog listed the names and home addresses of every Marine believed to have been a part of the cover-up. It was reported on by a major news network,
“Well, yes, it really is a shame. It is one thing to fight aggressively for the side that you believe in, but to make it personal like this, it is really just despicable what this website has done. And I am very proud of our network’s decision not to release the web address.”
“Do you believe that anyone might be in danger?”
“Possibly – there certainly is a lot of outrage out there – so if not these Marines personally, then their families, or even just their possessions might be in danger.”
“Vandalism, sure. Do you think that the point of posting the addresses was to provoke such a backlash?”
“That has to be it. It’s really a danger to have this information so accessible. Any hothead can just do an internet search on Cover-up Marines Addresses and it’s the first one on the list.”
“That easy, huh,” he shook his head with a sigh and casually said, “Well, let’s hope cooler heads prevail.”
White powder, made to look like anthrax, began to show up in the mail at every address listed on the site.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“Test, one, two, three. Test, one, two, three,” Mitch McCarty said into his microphone.
“We’re good,” said his tech guy in the back of the van.
“No one has gotten this guy to talk,” said Ben, his faithful cameraman.
“We don’t need him to talk. That is the beauty of ambush reporting. If he talks to us, that’s great; we will be the first to get a statement from him. But if he doesn’t talk, we get footage of the appalled look in his eyes, the evasive mannerisms, the tight bottom lip, indicating the inner struggle of wanting so badly to rip my head off but knowing he can’t do it on camera. Then there’s the best part – the hurried steps to flee the spotlight and flee honest questions. What makes a person appear guiltier than that? We can play that again in the background with any narrative we want. Every time a studio guest or so-called expert mentions his name, we could cut to the same footage.” Mitch McCarty smiled. “I almost hope he doesn’t talk to us.”
“But, it’s just that…”
“Just what?”
“Well, this guy is an experienced, trained Marine. This guy’s seen combat. He has killed people. Aren’t you afraid that maybe he will rip your head off?”
Mitch McCarty smiled smugly. He looked out the window to the front of Harrington’s food store. “Perhaps,” he said, “but that is why this is not a profession for the faint of heart. No, this is a calling for the brave. We are soldiers in our own rights, Ben, and don’t you forget it. The difference is, we are not violent.”
A hush came over the van when they saw SSgt Folsom walking out, pushing a cart of groceries. His eyes darted imperceptibly toward the unmarked van in the parking lot as he strolled casually by. “Not yet,” Mitch McCarty said as SSgt Folsom continued to pass. “Not yet,” he said again with a voice that revealed the tension he had denied having. “Now!” he shouted as the van door flew open and Mitch McCarty and Ben the cameraman leapt onto the concrete parking lot and hit the ground running.
SSgt Folsom did not flinch when he heard
the van door. He did not speed up his pace when he heard the rapid footsteps advancing behind him. Two sets. He did not sweat when he saw the elongated shadow of a man carrying a film camera stretch out on the ground in front of him, but continued to blithely push his cart. The only thing that Mitch McCarty happened to notice as he came within feet of SSgt Folsom’s back was that both of his hands had let go of the cart and were drawn out of Mitch McCarty’s line of sight. The camera zoomed in close on the back of SSgt Folsom’s head and shoulders as Mitch McCarty reached for him and grabbed his shoulder. “Are you guilty of hate crimes against Caleb Hertz?” he asked as he aggressively spun SSgt Folsom around to face him and his hostile camera.
As SSgt Folsom turned, the second that Mitch McCarty and Ben should have been able to see his face, they discovered that he had both hands raised, covering his face with two extended middle fingers. Ben knew right away that for this to ever air, it would mean the network would have to blur out the offensive gesture, and that by doing so they would be forced to blur out his face as well. Mitch McCarty, who didn’t plan for himself to be the one taken off guard, said, “Um...Did you...How do you explain…”
Before Mitch McCarty could get any further, SSgt Folsom used his powerful drill instructor’s voice to let out a loud series of repeated F-bombs, without once stopping to take a breath, thereby guaranteeing the audio would also be rendered useless.
A frustrated Mitch McCarty raised his own voice. “Are you a homophobe?! Do you hate all gay people?!”
SSgt Folsom continued to cuss at high volume and playfully circled his hand gestures in small strokes that never revealed his face.
“Forget it!” Mitch McCarty yelled, “Shut it off! Shut it off!”
SSgt Folsom heard the door of the van open and close. He looked past his middle fingers and saw that they had filed in as quickly as they filed out. The van started and within a few more seconds he was alone.
SSgt Folsom casually pushed his groceries the rest of the way to his car and loaded his trunk.
***
The frequency of ambush reporting for Jackson Brooks had diminished, mainly because every network had already managed to capture him fleeing in every possible setting. But, they still tried to pry him away from his lawyer’s advice to keep quiet.
“They keep asking me about my stance on gays in the military,” Jackson mentioned to his lawyer.
“Jackson, I do not have to tell you that they are not your friends.”
“Yeah, that’s what Major Nash told me once.”
“They are trying to draw you out. Don’t be fooled by questions that seem innocuous. They are traps. They are code. In these people’s minds, you can’t be against gays in the military and not be anti-gay. You can’t be against any hate-crime bill and not be anti-gay. You can’t be against gay marriage and not be anti-gay. Whenever the press asks you if you take a conservative position on any issue, they are really asking, “Isn’t it true that you are a bigoted hatemonger?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Lorena Castillo was holding her baby. She had sold their fainting couch and used the money to buy a secondhand rocking chair. Edward had bought her the fainting couch because he thought that she would like it. She didn’t, but wanted to spare his feelings. Meanwhile, Lorena knew that Edward did not like it, so it ended up that neither of them liked it, but only she knew. Lorena envisioned a homecoming where Edward would sweep her up in his arms, hold and kiss the baby, and then three months later ask, “Hey, didn’t we used to have a fainting couch?”
As she rocked, she was thinking about how she and Edward had always talked past each other; it warmed her face and made her smile.
He held her late one night and told her, “I think when I get to boot camp I will try to give myself a new nickname, something cool like Teflon. I’m sick of Big Eddie. It makes no sense; I’m only 5’10” you know.”
“When I am pregnant, you can call me Big Lorena,” she said.
“When I become a Marine, I’m never going to let another second of my life slip by unappreciated.”
She responded by saying, “I think when we have a baby, I am going to buy a nice rocking chair.”
“Yes, I know just what you’re saying. I mean I try to stay positive, but I don’t have the energy. One day my body and my mind…and my heart…will come together as one.”
“You’ve got a great heart,” she touched his chest, “I’m going to put it right there in the living room.”
“My heart?”
She laughed, “My rocking chair. Every night I will rock our baby to sleep on it.”
“I can’t wait,” he said.
“I can’t wait,” she said.
When he left for deployment, she was five months pregnant. He told her that she could take his heart and put it right in their living room. “And in the spot where you rock our baby, there too will my heart be.”
She smiled warmly and looked down at her baby. Sophia had been asleep for three hours, but Lorena just couldn’t seem to let her go. On the wall behind her was a pastel drawing of a scene that had not yet been able to exist in the real world: Lorena holding her baby – done as tenderly as any portrait of mother and child – with Teflon, Edward, father, holding both of them. Lorena felt connected to Eddie. They were half a world apart, but were connected through the baby she was holding.
Her tranquility was broken by a terrible crash, broken shards of glass falling, then the sound of squealing car tires.
The vase on her glass coffee table seemed to have exploded spontaneously before she caught sight of the brick that hit it. In that same instant, the table shattered also. Lorena frantically twisted at her waist – more from impulse than conscious decision – and used her body to shield her baby. Small glass shards landed in the curls of Lorena’s hair. The noise and violent shifting woke the baby and she let out a cry at the top of her young lungs. Lorena looked down at Sophia for any cuts and drew her close into her chest. She could see in her peripheral vision the bits of glass in her own hair. She used her right hand to pick them out. Although no longer flying through the air, she wanted the broken glass far from her and far from her baby. Sophia continued to cry and her mother joined her.
The haunting black space where the window had been, filled her with so much fear that she doubted she could make it across the room to the base of the phone – which was only a few feet from the window and still covered in broken glass. The monsters who threw that brick were still out there, long gone for sure, but still out there in the world – a world represented by the empty blackness between the remaining shards. The barrier between world and home had been breached. The safety and sanctity of their home had been violated and left with an open wound. She drew her baby in closer with both hands. She cried and trembled.
Fear of the open window, fear of approaching it, and even of making a sound could not prevent her from screaming as she looked down and saw the blood on her baby’s face. She reached with her hand to help Sophia and was amazed to see her entire right hand was scarlet red. She stopped screaming when she realized that it was her own blood. The glass she had grabbed from her hair cut her fingertips and the amount of blood that leaked onto her hand and her baby was surprising.
She ran across the room and into her bedroom. Blood smeared the phone as she dialed 911.
***
Teflon was shaving in the shower cabin at Camp Kookaburra. He was listening to the BBC on his shortwave radio and was having a conversation with the broadcast.
“Today brought three more cases of anthrax hoaxes reported in the States. White powder had arrived through the mail at residences in Chicago, Shreveport, and Boston.”
“Cowards.” He jiggled his razor underneath the running water to get excess hair off the blade, then returned it to his face with quick long strokes.
“The FBI has been called in to investigate. They can’t disclose if they have any leads, but have confirmed that each case targeted a different Marine involved in the cover-up.�
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“Alleged cover-up!” Teflon snapped, then thought about it. Unhappy that he had just compromised at all with them, he amended himself, “It’s not a cover-up!”
“The most unique case so far came out of Portland, Oregon. A letter filled with white powder, made to look like anthrax, arrived at the residence of Leaf Fischer and Chloe Mahoney, who say that they had been unaware that the couple they purchased their house from earlier in the year were the parents of outspoken Marine, Sgt Brandon Sparks.”
“Oh, Brit’s gonna’ be ticked,” Teflon smirked.
“The couple, who belong to a variety of anti-war and civil rights organizations, commented to the press, ‘We were shocked to think that we might be the targets of someone’s hate. I mean, we’re against the war.’ Ms. Mahoney said, ‘It disturbed me to find out that someone like that could have been raised in this part of the country. We always thought that this was a decent neighborhood.’ Mr. Fischer added, ‘We thought people like that only existed in flyover country.’”
“Idiots,” said Teflon.
“The couple claims to have no plans to sell the house, but have been burning sweet grass and sage since they heard the news, which they say should purge the house of any remaining negative energy.”
Teflon drew the razor away from his face; his body wobbled too much as he laughed out loud. He looked at his own face and shook his head in the mirror, a non-verbal form of talking to himself, and continued to shave.