The Brigade

by H. A. Covington

  Ray looked at her oddly. “The psychobabble I get. You picked that up from your mother and her hundred and one self-help books and fads, not to mention TV. But the racism is a new one on me. Where did that come from?”

  “Where racism always comes from, Dad,” said his daughter calmly. “From close and regular contact with blacks.”

  “Oh? And how many blacks do you have close and regular contact with at Ashdown Academy?” inquired her father. “Three? Four?”

  “One was enough,” she replied coolly. “Look, Dad, can we take all the shocked disclaimers as read? Or to quote one of your own favorite sayings, don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining. I know what every white person in this country knows, even if they’re all too terrified to say it out loud. They’re not Africans-Americans, they’re niggers. They aren’t equal to us in any way, they never have been, they can’t tie their own shoelaces without an affirmative action program, and they’re not even very nice. Now, what did you want to say to me?”

  Ridgeway looked at her, bemused. “Okay, fine, we’ll leave the deep political and philosophical debate on diversity and multiculturalism for another time. And yes, you’re right, we all know in the privacy of our own thoughts that when all is said and done, they’re nothing but niggers, and they won’t ever be anything else. But the fact is that society doesn’t allow that viewpoint anymore. I always thought of myself as pretty smart, but I’ll admit to you, I have no idea how on earth we have gotten to—well, where we are, but we have. The point is, Annette, and it’s the point I have to make sure you understand completely, is that whether we like it or not, we have to live in the real world. Down throughout the centuries, society has always had certain rules that men and women were expected to live by, and I don’t mean just the laws on a statute book. Always there have been certain people who by common consensus, however arrived at, have been allowed to flaunt or disregard those rules, so long as they do so within certain commonly accepted if unstated parameters of discretion. This Lucius Flammus is one such. This society has decided, for what reasons I will not even try to speculate, that tall men with black skins who can bounce a ball up and down on a wooden floor are a politically and socially protected species. For all practical purposes, Flammus is immune from the consequences of his behavior. The fact is that other than a few minor narcotics violations, which we can’t prove, his behavior isn’t only not illegal, it’s actually encouraged as part of his public persona.”

  “How can you talk about Jan’s death in those detached bullshit terms like it was some kind of sociological phenomenon?” cried Annette bitterly.

  “Because it is the only way I can talk about it, the only way I can think about it, and not lose my mind! The only way I can not take that gun out of my desk and go kill Flammus, thereby destroying not only myself but you and your mother, and losing all we have, and leaving you two alone and destitute in this horrible place,” said Ridgeway harshly. “Annette, suicide is not the solution to anything. It wasn’t the solution to Jan’s pregnancy, and it wouldn’t be any kind of solution for me, or you, or your mother.” He knelt beside her. “Honey, do you understand what I am saying to you? Do you understand that with your silence, your refusal to grieve, your refusal to accept her death and get on with your life, you are scaring the hell out of Lorraine and me? And Eric too, I think?”

  “So we’re all nothing but a bunch of hogs slopping at the great American trough, and every so often the big black butcher comes among us and drags one of us away squealing, and we just look the other way and accept it as the price of all that lovely swill and jam our snouts back in deep, so we don’t hear the screams?” demanded Annette. “Is that it?”

  “Yes,” admitted Ridgeway. “I know how contemptible that sounds, but yes, Annette, that’s how Americans have to live, because the powers that control our existence have decreed it. You live your life, and you try to do the best you can for yourself and your family. Insofar as possible, you avoid all contact with the system, especially the so-called justice system. You stay away from politics and controversy and anything that might get you noticed, you build what you can for those you love, and you hope to God that every time that black or brown butcher comes into the pen, he passes you and your loved ones by and takes someone else. And you don’t hear the screams. You never let yourself hear the screams. You mustn’t, Annette. You must condition yourself, harden yourself, train yourself, deceive yourself if need be, however you have to do it. But you never let yourself hear the screams off in the darkness, because if you do, that way lies madness and self-destruction, and you may well drag your loved ones with you. I’m sorry, but that’s the way real life is, Annette. I understand how terrible this sounds, and if by telling you this I have lost your respect, then I am deeply saddened. But I am your father, and I have to tell you these things, because no one else will. I am telling you, desperately trying to convince you, because you’re young and idealistic, and in the world of today that is deadly dangerous. Normally we hold up youth and idealism as good things, and so they are, but only in certain channels that the powers have pre-approved. I know you, honey. I know that stubborn streak you’ve had since you were a little girl, like that time when you were five years old and you sat at the dinner table until four o’clock the next morning rather than eat your Brussels sprouts. You are dangerously close to letting your youth and idealism draw you in a direction that society does not approve, and will not allow.”

  “I never did eat those damned Brussels sprouts,” Annette reminded him.

  “No, you didn’t,” Ridgeway agreed with a soft laugh. “You got me there. But honey, if you try to pursue this matter of your sister’s death, you won’t be a little girl defying your father and a plate of vegetables. You will be crossing a line that America forbids you to cross, and you will be punished more savagely than I think you can possibly imagine, especially with the, uh, situation here in the Pacific Northwest the way it is now.”

  “Maybe the NVA will solve the problem and kill Lucius!” said Annette irrepressibly.

  “Maybe,” agreed Ridgeway. “I have to say I don’t think much of his good judgment in remaining at Ashdown in view of what’s going down in the city. Nor will I shed a tear if and when that happens. But Annette, I want you to promise me something. Dead serious, I want you to promise me that you won’t do anything stupid along that line.” His voice was anxious.

  “And just what do you think I’m going to do, Dad?” she asked artlessly.

  “Now don’t you go pissing down my back and tell me it’s raining, young lady!” snapped Ray. “I know perfectly well what is going on in that beautiful head of yours, and I say to you again, this isn’t a plate of Brussels sprouts you can get your way on through sheer mule-headedness! I want you to promise me that you’re not going to try to contact this damned gang of racist psychopaths who are running around Portland murdering people and bombing things, and try to get them to kill this Flammus character!”

  “And how would I do that?” laughed Annette merrily. “Come on, Dad! It’s not like they’re in the Yellow Pages under A for Assassins or anything! And none of the kids at Ashdown are likely to hang with them after school. Our student parking lot looks like a Lexus and BMW dealership. Not a pickup truck with a rifle rack in the bunch.”

  “I don’t know, but honey, I am scared shitless that you are going to go floundering around in biker bars in McMinnville or something stupid like that, asking dangerous questions about some truly dangerous people, and you’re going to get into some horrible situation. Either the police or FBI will pick up on what you’re doing and arrest you under the Patriot Act or Suppression of Domestic Terrorism Act, and I will have to spend half our savings on lawyers to get what’s left of you back—sorry, I know that sounds horrible too, but you know what I mean—or else what’s worse, you might actually stumble across a real racist death squad and they’ll kill you. Annette, please!” her father begged her urgently. “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid like th
at! We’ve lost one child, and now you’re all we’ve got left. If we lose you, your mother and I will die too, inside, in a way that doesn’t bear thinking about. Please!”

  “I promise, Dad, no bars in McMinnville,” she told him.

  * * *

  “Okay, so if you promised to stay out of bars in McMinnville, how do we find the NVA?” asked Eric Sellars as they walked along the quad at Ashdown Academy. They were dressed in their dark blue school uniforms, with a dark green tartan plaid skirt for Annette, along with parkas and sweaters against the weather, their books under their arms. It was their first day back after the long Christmas break. The school authorities had told Annette she could have some more time off if she needed it, but she had responded that she wanted to get back into the routine of school as soon as possible.

  “We don’t,” said Annette. She took a deep breath “Eric, I think we need to quit seeing each other, and you need to put some visible public distance between you and me. I’m going to do something, one way or the other, and my father is right. I’m probably going to end up destroying myself just as surely as Jan did when she swallowed those pills. I have no right to take you with me on this death trip.”

  “I’m in,” he said. “I mean it, Annette, I’m in. I loved Jan too, not like I love you, but she was important to you, and that made her important to me. If you don’t want to be with me anymore, I can’t make you, but if that’s the way you want it, then I’ll go after Flammus myself. As corny as this may sound, if I can’t be with you I don’t much care what happens to me.”

  “I know,” she sighed. “That’s what bothers me. I thought a lot about what Dad said, about what will happen to him and to Mom and to you if I fuck this up, which I probably will.”

  “But you’re going ahead anyway?” he asked.

  “I have to,” said Annette. “It just can’t be any other way, Eric. Dad was wrong about one thing. At some time we have to lift our heads up from the trough, and we have to let ourselves hear the screams. I can’t let this go, Eric. If I don’t let myself hear the death scream of my own sister, if I pretend I don’t hear because I’m afraid or because it’s just too darned inconvenient to hear, then it will get easier and easier from then on, and eventually I will be just as deaf and dumb and blind as everyone else. Somebody has to hear the screams, Eric, and do something to stop it all. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not Joan of Arc, and I’m so scared of what I’m doing I think I may shit myself sometimes. But I just can’t do anything else.”

  “That old saying about the truth will set you free is crap,” said Eric. “The truth isn’t liberating, it’s lethal. We live in a world based on lies, and anyone who chooses truth, they’re going to try to destroy. There is just no way I can stand by and let you go into this alone, Annette. You’re doing it for Jan. So am I, a little. But mostly I’m doing it for you. I want to, I have to, and I don’t want you to ever blame yourself. You offered me an out, and I said no. I’m in. Now how are we going to find the NVA?”

  “I’ve got one possible idea,” she told him. “About two years ago, Dad and I were coming back from the All-State swim meet in Salem. Remember, the one where I won the junior hundred-meter? We were in one of his company cars, a Caddy, and as we were going down the interstate an engine light came on and it started to lose power. Dad pulled off at Woodburn, and we found a gas station with a service section. It was kind of seedy, but the old guy there seemed to know his stuff. Turned out one of the Mexicans at the bank motor pool hadn’t bothered to check the transmission fluid, and the transmission was screwed up, and so Dad arranged to leave the car there and called a limo to come down for us from town. Anyway, we ended up hanging around this gas station down in redneck country for a couple of hours. They had a waiting room, sort of, with some old magazines, and I noticed there were a couple of copies of the Northwest Republic stuck in among the old People and Sports Illustrated magazines.”

  “That’s the newspaper the Party put out, back before they were banned after Coeur d’Alene?” asked Eric keenly.

  “Yeah. I wasn’t really interested in politics back then, and I just glanced at them. But I wandered into the office area where the vending machines were, and I also noticed that on the back counter this guy had a couple of bumper stickers from the Party put up, and a little stand with those little flags in it, an Oregon state flag but not a Stars and Stripes crossing it. It was that Jerry Reb flag they show on TV sometimes, the one that looks like France, except it’s blue and white and green.”

  “I doubt he still has it there, since it’s good for life imprisonment these days,” commented Eric.

  “No, but don’t you get it?” Annette pressed him. “That guy must have been with the Party, or he knows somebody who is. He might be able to point us in the right direction.”

  “If he’s still there,” said Eric. “If he hasn’t been arrested or fled underground himself after Coeur d’Alene. Okay, so what do we do? Just walk up to this total stranger and say hi, guy, can you hook us up with the NVA, because we’ve got a nigger we want them to kill? I’m sure he’ll fall over himself to be helpful.”

  “It’s all we’ve got,” said Annette.

  “Speak of the damned devil!” said Eric, his lips turning down in a bitter sneer, his eyes riveted across the quad. Annette looked over and saw a group of students coming out of one of the mellow red brick buildings, all wearing the neat blue serge uniforms of Ashdown Academy, boys with trousers and girls with skirts and knee socks, and both with the blue blazer and Academy patch. In the center of the group was a huge figure, all six foot six inches of Ashdown’s star forward and shoo-in first-rank NBA draft choice, Lucius Flammus.

  Flammus must have had some Watusi or other Nilotic ancestry. His skin was so black as to look almost as blue as the serge of his jacket, and instead of the usual round Negroid skull his cranium was elongated, almost hatchet-like. Stripped down into his basketball uniform, his body was lithe and superbly muscled, not the typical negro athlete template built like a refrigerator. As big as he was, Flammus moved down court like lightning, and he shot with the speed and accuracy of a striking cobra. He boasted, correctly, that in his entire life he had never missed a free throw. If Flammus scored less than seventy points in a game, he was having a bad night. He was eighteen years old and still had not reached his full growth; the sports doctor on loan from the NBA who was assigned to his specially tailored training program predicted that with the help of certain special “nutritional supplements” he’d top off in a couple of years at six foot eight.

  Lucius Flammus was a stupid being who made up for his stupidity with a sharp, cruel, vicious cunning that compensated somewhat for the fact that he was a moron. He was totally without a single vestige of moral feeling or conscience. He ate, slept, and lived for but two things on earth: basketball and white females. Another one of his boasts was that he had never slept with a black or a Mexican girl. He did not use drugs himself, at least not hard drugs, since that would have interfered with his basketball game, but he kept a whole pharmacy on hand of both legal and illegal substances as party favors and bait for anything and everything white and female he could get near. Using crack cocaine and ecstasy tablets, it had taken less than two weeks for him to charm, seduce, and abandon Annette’s confused and vulnerable sister Jan, who was just starting her second year at Ashdown Academy, a year behind Annette. Jan hadn’t gotten the message, and she had made the mistake of going to Flammus’s dorm room one night in November, looking either for more drugs (according to Flammus) or some kind of reconciliation with the great love of her life, according to Jan’s incoherent iPod-recorded suicide note, which Ray Ridgeway had allowed Annette to hear, but not his wife. At the conclusion of this encounter either the two of them had a “farewell break-up fuck” (Flammus’s version) or Flammus had raped Jan (her iPod suicide note version.) This was the act that had left the girl pregnant, depressed, and half out of her mind, or rather more so than she normally was, and that had led to her New Year’s Eve
freakout and death on the rec room floor.

  Now Ashdown Academy’s official Black Boy With The Ball bee-bopped down the sidewalk with his admiring Caucasian coterie in tow, laughing, shucking and jiving, and babbling in his best gangsta rapper style. He was completely unconscious of the two pairs of white eyes watching him from across the quad, raging hatred and deadly serious murder in their hearts. After Flammus and his entourage had turned the corner, Annette said, “I’ve got French class fifth period and a study hall sixth, which I can cut.”

  “Gym for sixth, which I will be glad to cut rather than look at that ape showing us all how he’s got more moves than Ex-Lax,” said Eric.

  “Feel like a drive down to Woodburn?” asked Annette.

  “Yeah,” said Eric.

  It was about four in the afternoon when they pulled up to Jarrett’s Tune & Lube in Woodburn. The sun had come out on their drive down, the Oregon sky was blue for a while, and the rather seedy clapboard gas station was illuminated in the pale wan light of a crisp and cold winter afternoon. They were in one of the Ridgeway family Lexi, the white one, which Annette had decided was appropriate for this trip. They watched as a middle-aged man with long hair in greasy jeans and a plaid shirt pumped some gas for a customer and checked her oil. “That the guy you remember?” asked Eric.

  “That’s him,” said Annette.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure,” she said.

  “I thought you said he was old?”

  “He is old,” said Annette. “Well, old compared to us.”

  “Okay, so how do you want to do this?” asked Eric. “Go buy some gas we don’t need and start dropping hints, tell a few nigger jokes, what?”

  “Let’s just do it, Eric.” She turned and looked at him. “Last call, Eric. You can at least stay in the car. You know I’m not asking because I doubt you. I’m asking because I love you, and I owe you one final chance to back out of this.”