He shook his head.
And the executions went on.
Molly had been counting as each woman went to her death. She was up to fourteen when she noticed all the prisoners were women. What, was The Gasbag on a recruiting drive? Did he need a fresh batch of women for the Prophet’s Chosen to abuse? Some went quietly, some fought, some seemed dazed. They all died, and Molly would have bet they were all dhimmi, all citizens of the former United States.
Ginnie was number fifteen. She kept looking over her shoulder at Molly as the Chosen led her to the platform, shaking her head. You don’t have to do this, she was trying to say. Molly knew her sister well enough for that message to come through. Instead, Molly stood straight, grasped the rail in front of her with both hands. These bastards and their scumbag settlers would not see her crumple. She would not give them pleasure. They could laugh about the weeping relatives of the Americans they’d Purified, joke about them if they wanted to, but they wouldn’t be able to tell that story about Molly Ivins.
Forever afterwards, Molly would remember how the world narrowed down to her sister on that platform. Everything in Molly was focused on that small image, so focused that the sounds of the place faded away, the Palestinians tying her sister’s feet became blurs, even the huge figure of the Headsman was lost for a moment. Ginnie didn’t fight or weep. She knelt, proudly, under her own power. The Caliban could take her freedom, they could take her life, but to the last, Ginnie had her dignity.
“Oh, God, I love you,” Molly whispered, her hands tightening on the rail.
The boy next to her asked quietly. “Your family?”
“My sister,” Molly said in a level voice. One part of her, the part that had been a tough ole Texas girl, wasn’t surprised. Another part of her was scared by the flatness in her voice. Worried that she would never feel anything again; never experience anything besides an implacable, unblinking, unwavering hatred of the Caliban and anyone who stood with them.
Then, that sound again, the pool cue thwack, and her sister wasn’t there anymore. Two pieces of something that had been her sister lay on the platform, her blood splashing across the white wood and raining down onto the grass as the settlers cheered on the other side of the stadium. The Headsman raised his arms in triumph, particularly proud of his work this time.
You will die, Molly promised. She might have meant just the Headsman, or she might have meant every single cheering invader who sat in that stadium. Someone was going to die for this, and she didn’t care how many someones it was.
She looked down at her hands. Her nails were white, her knuckles red from grasping the rail so tightly. She had to consciously tell her hands to relax. With an audible pop, her hands came loose from the metal rail. She looked at her palms curiously. Chipped paint had gouged into her skin. She brushed her hands roughly together and turned to find an exit. She was done here. She had work to do. She had to figure out how to kill as many of these motherless sons and daughters of the desert (or whatever shithole they had crawled out of) as possible.
The boy’s hand fell on her arm. “Please. My mom.”
It didn’t matter. She could help this boy watch his mother die. She might even be able to use him. There wasn’t enough hate in California, as far as she could tell. Way too much resignation. Molly allowed herself to be pulled back to the rail.
The boy sobbed silently, jaw clenched, tears leaking from his eyes as the dreadlocked woman was led the platform. Molly was idly watching the display screens, waiting for it to be over. Lordy, those dreadlocks looked nasty, she observed as the cameras zoomed in on the woman and the Headsman.
The woman knelt, her head bowed in a way that seemed to say she was communing with a higher power, while the Yasser-bes stood on either side of her. The Imam was doing the whole reading thing, shaking his fist, while the settlers roared their approval. The collaborator-translator continued translating for the captive American audience. “And this Christian apostate shall feel the full measure of the wrath of Allah for denying the truth of the Holy Koran and God’s Prophet.” Molly made a mental note to find out who that traitorous young fella was. She was going to work up something special for his yellow ass.
On the screen, the dreadlocked woman was obviously praying. Her hands were clasped. She looked up as the Headsman approached. The woman looked out at the crowd. “I forgive you!” she cried, the speakers bouncing her declaration across the stadium. Woman’s a better Christian than me, Molly smiled. Better than I’ll ever be again.
When her statements were translated, the settlers screamed, some stood and shook their fists at her. There were muttered prayers and invocations from the Americans.
“I forgive you, George Bush!” the dreadlocked woman cried out, her voice booming out into Candlestick Park.
“What the blue bloody hell?” Molly said.
That cringing California-boy traitor translated the woman’s remark. The settlers applauded now. The Americans were stunned into momentary silence by the woman’s outburst. She wasn’t finished. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she looked to the skies. “I forgive you, George Bush, for making them do this to me!”
Molly found herself ripping the niqab from her face, standing on the rail, bellowing at the top of her lungs, so loudly she was heard across the stadium. “DON’T YOU DARE!” The kid was shocked out of his grief by her explosion of rage. “DON’T YOU DARE, YOU IDIOT! GEORGE BUSH ISN’T THE ONE WITH A SWORD AT YOUR NECK, YOU NINNY!”
Some of the Chosen were moving toward her nervously. This was just the kind of outburst that they didn’t want, an emotional event that could ripple through a crowd to precipitate a full-scale riot. Even if the occupiers had the advantage of weapons, they knew that an enraged crowd might be able to get one or two of them. Being torn apart alive by the citizens of San Francisco was not in their game plan.
The Americans began to boo and hiss, stomping their feet on the stands. By now, the translation had been made, and the settlers were applauding again. The Headsman paused, one hand to his ear to catch the translation. One of the Palestinians said something to him. They all laughed. They were still laughing when the dreadlocked woman’s head went skittering past their feet.
Molly continued to scream. The Americans behind her were booing, their stomping feet drowning out the sound of the settlers’ party. Big hands wrapped around Molly, pulled her away from the rail. She fought them now, unhinged with rage. A hand fell across her mouth, a tanned, calloused hand. She kept fighting, hating them for letting this happen, hating them for just sitting there. Someone clipped her jaw, really hard, and then she was out.
A lifetime later, Molly opened her eyes. She winced and closed her eyes again. Her jaw hurt like she’d been kicked by a mule. She gasped as fear blossomed in her chest. The Chosen. They must’ve grabbed her. She could feel her muscles tensing to leap…leap and do what? Go where? If she was in one of the Treasure Island cells used by the Caliban, then she was dead already. She willed herself to lie still and quiet. She’d make sure she sent one or two of those cowards to Paradise without their cojones, that was for damn sure.
Slowing her breathing, she opened her eyes. She was in a room somewhere, lying on a lumpy double bed. Okay, not a cell. She’d seen enough jails to know that instantly. Under her hands, a knitted afghan of some kind. She turned her head. Tiffany-style lamp on the bedside table, a well-thumbed Bible next to it.
“How are you feeling?” a voice asked from beyond the foot of the bed.
Molly made herself sit up. “Depends on who’s asking.” Her head spun, and she bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep from toppling over.
“You’re among friends,” the voice said easily.
“Friends of the Prophet?” she replied testily.
“This is my mom’s house,” a more familiar voice said. It was the boy who had stood beside her at Candlestick Park. He walked into the room with a ratty hand towel. It was damp, and clean, and he knelt to wipe off her face with a surprisingly delicate
touch. She took the rag from him, held it against the tender place on her jaw.
He squatted down in front of her. “You went a little crazy. We had to…”
“We had to shut you up,” the other voice said, coming into the room. It was a short, muscular man of about forty, with a face seamed from being outside too much, wiry red hair, and abnormally large hands at the ends of his wrists. They looked the size of Hormel hams, Molly thought.
“You the one who hit me?” she asked.
The ham-handed man nodded. “And we haven’t even been introduced. I’m Henry…Hank, most people call me.”
Of course they do, Molly agreed. The boy had taken the rag from her again, and was fussing with her face.
“I’m sorry you had to hear me say those things about your mother,” she said.
The boy paused, and continued to wipe her face. “My mom was always a little bent about the Republicans, and George Bush, especially.”
“A little?” Molly couldn’t help herself. “Good Christ, the Caliban killed her, not George!”
“I know,” the young man said simply. Real steel crept into his voice. “She didn’t deserve to die like that.”
“None of them did.” Molly felt her heart softening, just a touch. “What’s your name, son?”
“Jake,” he answered.
Hank sat on a sewing chair across the room. “What do we call you, missy?”
“Molly will do.”
He smiled. “Every Molly I ever knew was crazy.”
“Must go with the name.”
Jake pointed to her backpack, leaning against the wall. “Where were you going?”
Before Molly could answer, Hank cut in, “Hell, I hope you aren’t going anywhere. We could use a lady like you. I tell ya, another couple of minutes of you cussing the Caliban, that stadium would’ve exploded. You’ve got a talent for getting people riled up.”
Jake retorted, “Yeah, we would have had a bunch of dead Americans.”
“A bunch of dead ’ban, too,” Hank replied mildly.
Looking back, Molly would know that was the moment, even though she didn’t realize it at the time. She could have told them she was going to Texas, maybe even got the kid to come along with her. But something Hank had said…it vibrated in her the way two guitar strings will pick up the same tone. The string that was quivering in her guts was a newly spun one. She realized that hate shivered through Hank, too. “What kind of use could you have for an old Texas coot like me?”
He winked at her. “I imagine we could find something crazy enough for you.”
Molly never saw Texas again.
Baldwin, 2008
When he had worked as a busboy at Studio 54, years and years ago, Alec was rarely out of the club before six or seven in the morning. He grew to hate the disorienting feeling of waking at two or three in the afternoon, bright sun leaking through the blinds in his tiny apartment and the warmed air making him hot and sweaty in a tangle of sheets. Oddly, for all the money he had made working in film, sometimes he found himself in the same position: after a night shoot, eyes gritty with fatigue, he’d fall into his expensive bed only to awaken in the late afternoon, vaguely nauseated, like he’d been out drinking all night long.
Addie was the cure for that biorhythm-blip-induced hangover. There was something about being awakened by an excited little girl bouncing happily on the edge of his bed that banished all the disorientation. She anchored him to reality, instantly and permanently. He’d started acting for what he could get out of it (“It’s all about the chicks,” his brother Stephen had said when he started acting), but once Addie had come along, he did it for what he could get for her.
That punishing disorientation and nausea only worsened after the divorce. Nobody to bounce on the side of the bed, nobody to anchor him. These days, Addie lived in Los Angeles, with his wife. He kept making that mental slip, referring to Kim as “his wife.” He knew it was over, but he’d gotten so accustomed to thinking of them as a team. It was un-PC, but she seemed like a part of him for so long. He didn’t say, “This is the hand that is at the end of my arm.” He said, “My hand.” Just as he’d said, “My wife.” Just as he’d said, “My daughter.”
This morning, he had opened his eyes in Idaho. Even thinking it made him chuckle ruefully. This Irish kid from New York, here, in Red State Potato-ville, with the white supremacists, militias, and Republicans. Well, it was still America, and he was still an American, so he could go anywhere he wanted, even if the politics of the area saddened and sickened him.
Besides, he liked Idaho. He liked his ranch. It was small by Hollywood standards, but Alec had never really bought into that scene, the idea of wearing or driving or living to advertise your success. His dad and mom, God love ’em, had been solid working-class people. His father was a social studies teacher and football coach, for Christ’s sake. With six kids to raise, there hadn’t been a lot of money for frills and flashy junk. Alec had developed an appreciation for stability and dependability. Thus, the ranch: a mere hundred acres or so for privacy and plenty of horseback riding room. The horses were for Addie, of course. There was a small lake about a mile from the house. The ranch house was built with thick log walls against the brutal winters, two fireplaces, four bedrooms, and a large kitchen. A fully equipped guest house that was almost as large stood out back.
It was a place for family vacations, for uncles and aunts and cousins and grandparents. A place for exploring and hiking, games of tag that ranged for acres, for marathon games of Go Fish beside the warmth of a log fire. A place for reading to Addie as she curled up beside him on the cracked leather couch, a horse blanket thrown over them both.
That was what he wanted when he bought the place. It had been that for maybe two years, before the marriage took its turn for the worst. Alec had even offered it to Kim in the settlement, as long as he could spend some time with Addie, but that plan had gone to hell, too.
Baldwin looked down at his coffee cup. He sat in the swing on the ranch house porch, barefoot, in faded jeans and fisherman’s sweater, listening to the morning birds at dawn. He’d been spending too much time alone with his thoughts lately, sometimes going for days without speaking to anyone. He screened all his calls. Mostly, the voices from his answering machine speaker were his lawyers relating more dismal details of the court battle with Kim. Baldwin saw no reason to pick up those calls.
He’d just finished another film, this one in Chicago. It was David Mamet; he thought he’d done well, for a film. It was quick, compared to a play, and the money was good, but he needed to be in Los Angeles, to be close to his daughter.
He was due for a week with Addie, to make up for the days he’d missed with her while filming in ChiTown, and the thriller that followed in which he would play the villain. The financing on that had fallen through, leaving him unexpectedly free. But his daughter had been in Georgia, visiting Kim’s parents. So Alec had stopped over at the ranch for a few days. Not just for the solitude, he wanted to do some work. Get his hands dirty. Chop wood, clear some brush, curry the horses. Acting…well, it challenged one part of him, and when you nailed that line so perfectly even the crew laughed or applauded, that was gratifying. But somehow, it didn’t have the same kind of in-your-bones satisfaction as spending a day with tools in your gloved hands, repairing a sagging corral.
He thought, looking down, he was getting heavier than he liked. It annoyed him to see his athlete’s body getting soft with middle age. On one hand, he tried to avoid the frantic vanity he’d seen in so many actors, but dammit, he was too young to have this kind of gut. A few days on the ranch would remind his body of what it could do, and he could begin to get back in shape. He wanted to be in shape for Addie; a ten-year-old girl had a lot of energy, and he wanted to be able to keep up with her. He wanted her to have memories of her dad beside her as they snorkeled or skated or bicycled. He didn’t want her primary memory of him to be a distant figure, watching from a shaded beach chair. And, he knew he’d sleep bet
ter if he spent the day swinging a sledge or an axe.
He drained the coffee and walked back inside to the kitchen. He scrambled some eggs, tossed in a few fresh chives from an herb garden that Kim and Addie had planted, and topped it off with some grated cheese from the refrigerator. He’d have to make a run into town later, pick up a few fresh groceries. Tofu wouldn’t keep in the fridge between his visits, and it was terrible frozen. As a vegetarian, his choices were limited here in Idaho (all the potatoes you could eat, he thought), but he could suck it up for a week or so.
At 7 am, just as Alec finished washing the breakfast dishes, John Hanner, the ranch foreman, drove up in his pickup nicknamed “Old Blue.” It was maybe the third or fourth Old Blue he’d had, along with his third German Shepherd, Queenie III.
Queenie hopped out of the cab of the truck when Hanner got out, made a quick circuit of the exterior of the house and then settled in a corner of the porch. The old foreman climbed the steps and knocked on the door. He always did that when the family was here—never barged in, always mindful of the privacy of his employer. He was a short, thin man with iron-gray hair and mustache, a lined face and steel-rimmed glasses.
“Come on in, I just started a new pot of coffee,” Alec called. Hanner stomped his boots on the front mat, swept the battered Resistol from his head and walked to the kitchen. He had his own mug hanging from a wooden peg over the sink. Alec passed it to him. Hanner grunted his thanks and filled the mug.
“Didn’t think I’d see you ’til July,” the older man said after his first sip.
Alec shrugged. “That other movie fell through. I’ve got a little time before I see Addie.”
Hanner nodded. “You going to be able to bring her up this time?” He had a soft spot for the little girl. Alec had never learned much about Hanner beyond his three marriages and some military service in the past. He never volunteered much about himself, but he worked constantly, if his behavior around the ranch was any indication. The man was nearly sixty, but tougher and with more endurance than most people Alec had ever met. Still, he doted on Addie, as solicitous as if she were one of his own kids. Alec’s bullshit meter had never once blipped about leaving Addie alone with Hanner. He had a sense that Hanner would die before letting anything happen to that little girl.
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