New Dark Ages

by Warren Kinsella

  “More will die,” Tommy said matter-of-factly. “Tonight, tomorrow.”

  Schenk was getting agitated. “Well, that’s just great,” he said. “Terrific. So what are we supposed to do, sit here with our dicks in our hands, waiting?”

  “The Secret Service wants me to come in to their field office in Brooklyn,” Laverty said. “They want to know everything there is to know about the Church of the Creator and Klassen, apparently.”

  “Is that a good use of our time?” Schenk asked.

  “No,” Laverty said, pulling on her Yves Saint Laurent jacket and heading toward the door. “A better use of our time is to head over to Lighthouse Cleaners first. They’ll know what this means for them.”

  She walked out of Fanelli’s, heading east on foot. Tommy and Schenk weren’t far behind.

  Detective Schenk and FBI special agent Laverty, the New York media later reported, were the first from law enforcement to arrive at Lighthouse Cleaners. The Times said they were there to “assist in the investigation into the shootings at the campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate Earl Turner.”

  “No, we weren’t,” an exhausted Laverty said, disgusted, surveying the papers in the early hours of the morning after. “We were there to see if the Church of the Creator was going to try to cover its tracks after one of its members killed a man on national television.”

  She read aloud from the Daily News for the benefit of Schenk: “‘Upon arriving at the dry cleaner, which serves as one of the business arms of the Creative Church’ — they got the name wrong! — ‘the officers witnessed suspicious activity. The Church is a registered charity and is not under investigation, police sources stressed.’”

  Laverty shook her head, angrier than Schenk had ever seen her. “It isn’t a fucking church. It’s a fucking hate group, for Christ’s sake. And it is under investigation. Or at least it should be.”

  She continued, from another report in Newsday: “‘The officers spotted workers carrying boxes of documents and materials out of the dry-cleaning business. They approached the workers to make inquiries about the shootings at the Albany Convention Center.’”

  Laverty frowned again and swore. “They weren’t workers. They were armed members of the COTC Security Legions, trying to load hockey bags full of weapons into a truck. And the documents were records of their money laundering and payoffs to politicians in Washington. And the only person who approached them, because we didn’t want to start a gunfight in the middle of SoHo, was Tommy.”

  “‘Witnesses on the scene are unclear what happened next’” — this from the New York Herald — “‘Some heard shouting, and others heard sounds like firecrackers. All said that bystanders were diving for cover behind cars parked along Lafayette Street.’”

  Laverty inhaled, once, twice. She rubbed her eyes, the mascara now long gone. “They weren’t firecrackers, you idiots. They were heavy tactical rounds from fucking assault rifles.” She paused, as Schenk watched her. “And there was no shouting. They just started shooting.”

  Next, she read the Post’s description of what they thought happened next. “‘Some of the Church’s security officers started to shoot, and a bystander was critically hit. Two officers on the scene — one a Fifth Precinct detective, the other an FBI special agent — returned fire and fatally wounded two of the Church’s security team. A police source who was not authorized to comment said that one of the dead, Bill Klassen, was the son of the founder of the Church of the Creator. Klassen, a former marine who had been discharged dishonorably, was known to police.’”

  Theresa Laverty sat in the Lower Manhattan Hospital’s emergency room, the crumpled newspapers on a chair beside her. She was weeping. Pete Schenk reached up and squeezed her hand, but said nothing. “He was ‘known to police’ because he was the one who killed those three punk rock kids,” she said, sobbing. “And the critically wounded bystander wasn’t a bystander. It was Tommy. And those bastards killed him.”

  CHAPTER 40

  So, we played the makeup gig at the Horseshoe.

  Stiff Records hadn’t been happy when I crashed-and-burned, naturally. Neither was the Horseshoe’s management. Nor our tour manager Bembe Smith or our driver/security dude, Mike. The scheduled gig was canceled.

  But we made up for the missed gig, and then some. Patti returned from Toronto, bringing her feminist punk chick friend Lisa with her for emotional support or whatever. Lisa was tall and subdued — kind of like Patti.

  The rest of us, meanwhile, returned from Six Nations feeling totally different. I had promised Chief Rarihokwats I wouldn’t write about what happened in the sweat lodge ritual, and I won’t. But I can say that after about four hours in there, in the middle of the night — a completely saturnalian experience — we all jumped in this little stream that was nearby. The Chief told us we actually should. It was dark and cold as fuck, but it was the most amazing thing, too. I’d felt as if I was washing away a ton of grime and sweat and accumulated shit. I was new again. I got out of the stream and was towelling myself off when the Chief came up and asked me how I was feeling.

  “It sounds corny, but I feel like I’m brand new,” I said. “I feel like I crawled out of the womb. Is that weird?”

  He laughed. “It is not weird. Many people say that afterward.”

  “I don’t want to say reborn, because those phony born-again evangelical people say that. But it isn’t that. It feels … real.”

  “It is.”

  And it was. Everything was in focus. There were sharp edges to everything. Colors were brighter, even.

  It was fucking weird. But it was awesome.

  I was also shagged and bagged, my brothers. I was spent. I passed out in the Econoline five minutes into the drive. And — once back in Toronto and in my room at the Rex — I crawled into the bed and slept for ten hours straight, in my clothes. When I got up the next day, I saw that someone had cleaned the place up. My other clothes had all been washed and folded, my Docs and brothel creepers and Converse were all in a neat row, my jackets were hanging in the closet, and there was no sign of the baggies of speed. Or even the offending Narcotics Anonymous pamphlet.

  That night, we had the sold-out makeup gig and it was one for the history books. The Toronto crowd was stoked, and so were we.

  All of us were a punk rock force to be reckoned with. Tit Sweat were just as intense as before, but the Punk Rock Virgins (and especially Leah and Sister Betty) were leaping around the stage, manic, wild, like solar flares. They played better than I’d ever seen them: intense, focused, note-perfect. And the Nasties (all of us) went at our hour-long set with a heads-down vengeance — and ended up playing a half-hour encore that only ended because Sam and me broke most of the strings on our guitars, and Eddie put a big hole in the middle of the skin of his snare.

  At the end, I invited all of the sellout crowd up onstage with us. Dozens of punks clambered up onto the Horseshoe’s hallowed stage, on which everyone from the Strolling Bones to the Ramones had played. The tavern’s security guys didn’t look too happy about that, but it was the way we always finished epic shows — and this one was particularly epic.

  The crowd did the “oh yeah” chant as we played our fave closing tune, “The Invasion of the Tribbles.” I screamed myself hoarse and hugged just about everyone who was up there with us.

  The only downer was that X wasn’t there. I wanted to run up to him and tell him that I was clean as a whistle and fit as a fiddle, and that I was back among the living. I wanted to hug him and get X’s absolution. But he was still AWOL. Nobody seemed to know where he was, ­either.

  So, the next day, we packed up at the Rex and headed back home. We were all exhausted, but we were feeling exhilarated, too. Toronto had been a turning point for us, and for me. So we sped back to the United States of America, which — as it turned out — was no longer the country we’d left just two weeks before.

  The first indication that the country had gone mad came at the border crossing at Niaga
ra Falls. All of the border cops regarded us with open contempt. We were punks, and we were used to getting hassled by uniformed douchebags — for our hair, for our clothes, for our existence. It went with the territory.

  But these guys weren’t interested in us, so much; their focus was Bembe.

  They ordered us to pull over the Econoline and the station wagon. One of them, some creep who looked sort of like Mussolini, barked that we needed to have “secondary inspection.” We stepped out as a bunch of these uniformed creeps stared at us.

  Mussolini ordered us all to go stand on the sidewalk, away from our vehicles. Bembe, however, was told to stay right where he was, beside the van. Mussolini glared at him, his little pig eyes lingering on Bembe’s dreads and black skin. After about a minute of that, Mussolini signaled a couple pimply faced border guards over. “Take Mr. Macaca inside,” he said.

  The rest of us sat or stood on the sidewalk for the next two hours, watching as a half-dozen border Schutzstaffel took our vehicles apart. They’d open our bags and then toss the contents and our gear onto the parking lot. When they were done, I asked one of them if they were putting our things back where they found them.

  “Do it yourself, punk,” he sneered.

  “What about our friend? When will you let him go?” I asked, raging inside. “Has he been stopped for DWB?”

  “What’s DWB?” the Sneer said, his pinched features darkening.

  “Driving while black,” I said.

  Behind me, I could hear Sam Shiller and Mike laughing. A few tense moments passed, and the Sneer looked like he wanted to slug me. But a couple other cars had been pulled aside for “secondary inspection,” too, and the occupants were all watching. There’d be no punch today. Abruptly, the Sneer swore and stalked away, one hand on his service revolver. One of his underlings told us we could repack our vehicles.

  Bembe stormed out of the border station a few minutes later. He looked pissed off but obviously ready to leave. Mussolini stepped out behind him, and he was looking at Bembe differently.

  “Let’s go,” Bembe said. So we did. No one said anything.

  Back on the Interstate, and back in the U.S., I asked Bembe if he was okay.

  “I’m okay,” he said, his Jamaican passport still clutched in his big hands. “I’m fine.”

  “What did they do?” Sam asked. “Why did they have you in there for so long?”

  Bembe shrugged his big shoulders. “Oh, you know,” he said. “I look suspicious. They said I look like someone on a wanted list.” He paused. “We all look alike to them.”

  “I’m sorry, Bembe,” I said. “I’m really sorry you had to go through that shit.” I paused. “They called you something … Mack?”

  “It’s Macaca,” Bembe said. “It means nigger, ­basically.”

  And, at precisely that moment, we came up to a farm where someone had painted TURNER: AMERICA FOR AMERICANS on the side of the barn.

  We all watched it go by, and nobody said anything.

  For the rest of our journey Stateside, we did Earl Turner sightings.

  It made us fucking miserable, but we did it anyway. Whenever we’d see a Turner bumper sticker, or billboard, or T-shirt, we’d point it out to each other. “There’s another one,” we’d say. Then we’d lapse back into silence.

  All along Highway 90, we were reminded that we weren’t in Canada anymore. But it didn’t feel like the United States we’d grown up in, either. Strangers in a strange land didn’t quite capture it. It was like we were astronauts and we’d landed on a planet where everyone had gone fucking insane, except they sort of looked like they did before. Until they opened their mouths, that is.

  When we were in Canada, it had been safe to call Earl Turner a fucking racist and gay-hating anti-Semite out loud, because he was all of those things, and because Canadians generally aren’t politically fucked in the head. But back in the States, I felt this little tug inside of me, urging me to shut up. I sort of became aware that there was possibly a risk associated with saying those things out loud at home. First Amendment or no First Amendment.

  And, let’s be clear: most Americans never talked about politics, anyway. They didn’t care — which was why so few of them voted, and why pieces of shit like Earl Turner were frequently getting elected: apathy was the best friend of the Far Right.

  Middle America’s moms and pops would always rather talk about the Super Bowl or what megachurch they go to or the PTA or whatever. Not politics.

  But the X Gang was political, even if our songs weren’t so much. Every punk is political, or should be.

  “As the only Jew in the X Gang, I’d like to thank everyone for not reporting me to the border Gestapo,” Sam said as we passed yet another TURNER AMERICA bumper sticker. Bembe, up front, gave a dark sort of laugh. Being the X Gang’s resident gay guy — and being still in the closet to all but a few — I knew what Sam meant. It now felt different to be in his skin, or Bembe’s, or mine. It felt like trouble waited around every corner, now.

  Luke, who was albino and therefore the whitest guy we knew — and who was arguably therefore safe — spoke up. “I keep trying to spot someone who I think couldn’t possibly be a Turner supporter,” he said, “but I keep getting it wrong. When we get closer, I see that they have an Earl Turner bumper sticker or whatever. It sucks.”

  Everyone nodded, silent.

  At one rest stop, not far from Albany, Sam picked up a discarded copy of USA Today. “Look at this,” he said. The headline, above the fold, was “Turner Rally Shootings Set off Turmoil Nationwide.”

  The first couple paragraphs read:

  The United States today entered the fifth straight day of racially charged lootings, riots, and shootings, with deaths reported in Dallas, Chicago, and Los Angeles, police said. In Washington, most Democratic leaders and some Republican senators lay the blame at the feet of GOP presidential candidate Earl Turner, saying that Turner has needlessly provoked racial tensions nationwide with a divisive and negative campaign, and a deadly rally in Albany, NY.

  Turner, however, rejected those criticisms, telling a press conference at his Portland, ME, headquarters that he was not to blame. “White Americans aren’t the ones breaking windows and looting and shooting our heroes in uniform. It’s being done by illegal aliens, brought here by wealthy foreign interests to divide and destroy us.”

  Below the headline were four photos grouped together: a guy in Philly, wearing a bandana, getting ready to toss a Molotov cocktail at a barricade of National Guardsmen; a young black girl in Chicago, crying and clutching at her bleeding head and surrounded by a bunch of angry-looking white cops; a cop car on fire in L.A.’s South Central; and a picture of Turner outside his headquarters in Portland, arms up in triumph, a big crowd cheering him on. Some of those in the crowd were making what looked like Nazi salutes.

  “Jesus Christ,” Patti said, “what the fuck is ­happening?”

  We kept driving. As we slid deeper into America’s dark heart, nobody wanted to talk about politics or Earl Turner or anything like that anymore. It was too depressing. It was too awful. So, we just stopped talking about it.

  After a while, everything was silent, except for the growl of the Econoline. It was getting a bit dark. Mike was driving; everyone else except me was asleep.

  Reluctantly, I picked up the copy of USA Today. On the inside pages, there was a long AP story about a Gallup Poll that studied Earl Turner’s supporters. The byline on the story was our old journalist source-cum-nemesis from our hometown rag, the Portland Press Herald, Ron McLeod. I read it, even though I knew it would depress the shit out of me.

  Turner’s core vote is comprised of older, whiter men. But Gallup says some assumptions previously made about the core Turner vote were misguided. Until recently, most political pundits believed that Turner’s vote was rooted in economic insecurity and resentments. They believed that Turner was attracting the support of older white men in the primaries who believed they lost their manufacturing jobs in America�
��s Rust Belt. But that view is mistaken, Gallup says.

  Gallup makes clear that the number-one preoccupation of Turner’s supporters isn’t the economy: it is race. Concluded the pollster: “Turner’s supporters tend to be less educated and more likely to work in blue collar occupations. But some also earn relatively high household incomes and live in areas more exposed to higher levels of international trade. There is compelling evidence that racial isolation and less strictly economic measures of social status, namely health and intergenerational mobility, reflect more favorably toward Turner, and these factors predict support for him but not other Republican presidential candidates,” Gallup said.

  Racism. That was why Earl Turner was winning. America was racist at its core, and Turner knew it. McLeod’s story went on from there, but that was the gist of it. I couldn’t read any more.

  It was racism, and it wasn’t an accident. It was deliberate, and all of the experts agreed it was paying dividends, too. It explained why Turner had done the exact opposite of what the so-called experts had said he should do, and why he started viciously attacking blacks and Asians and gays and just about every other minor­ity. And it was why he was getting close to capturing his party’s presidential nomination, McLeod wrote. Some candidates were even thinking about dropping out of the race and endorsing him.

  As we moved east along the turnpike, it occurred to me that Earl Turner had awoken a beast, and that the beast was now snaking through the countryside, infecting people and killing everything that was good and decent. I looked again at the photos on the cover of the USA Today.

  “I fucking hate you,” I said out loud.

  Mike, startled, glanced up at the van’s rearview mirror and at me. “What did I do?”