American Apocalypse (16 page)

Murphy’s reply did not come as a surprise to me. “Foreclosure. I don’t know how much the colonel paid exactly, but I heard it was pennies on the dollar.” I opened my door and I threw my bag on the bed, stretched out next to it and took a nap.

I heard the knock at the door. It startled me—for a second I thought I was back in my room. Max’s voice cut through the door: “Fifteen minutes until dinner . . . be out front.”

I heard his door shut and the sound of the plumbing running. I got up, ran a comb through my hair and a toothbrush over my teeth, and I was ready for show time. I went outside and stood around. Men and women were straggling in to eat, some of them with children in tow. The children were well dressed and better behaved; very few were in any kind of uniform, yet it was easy to picture them in one. These were soldiers, and looking at them, my guess was they were good ones.

Max startled me. “You missed good times at the range.”

“Really? They have any rocket launchers here?”

“Nothing visible. They do have some nice toys. They have a full range inside that hanger with the horse pens attached to it. ”

“Well, no rocket launchers equals no me.”

“Your absence was noted—real men like to go to the range.”

I laughed. “Right, I thought it was ‘Real men like to carve pumpkins.’”

He was still processing that when our cart arrived—the same driver but a little bigger cart.

“What happened to the other cart?” I asked. I was picturing a rear-end collision with a cow or maybe a lowspeed chase gone bad.

“Need more power to get up that hill than what I was driving.”

That made sense to me. Twilight was starting to cast its net of darkness as we rode up the hill. People were out jogging. I had a feeling that you would find someone out jogging here any time of day or night. The lights at the end of the driveways began to turn on. I always liked catching a light going on at night or off in the morning—there was something magical about it. I used to believe that for every one I saw change, a wish would be granted to me.

My wish was that I not do anything really stupid tonight. This little slice of military heaven was beginning to grate on me. I knew when we approached the crest of the hill we were almost there. No way would the colonel not have his house at the top. I was right. We pulled into a circular driveway. It was well lit with soft lighting from both the ground and the gas lamps that were evenly spaced along the driveway. The house was stone and timber, an A-frame with wings. The front door was a double door. It looked old, weathered, and solid. Given
the build date I estimated for this development, the door was an import.

In front of the door stood a fully outfitted male in his early twenties. By fully outfitted, I mean he looked like one of those army guys you saw in the news. The night-vision monocle, the vest, extra magazines, maybe even a PowerBar tucked away in there somewhere. I guess you never knew where those evil Muslim terrorists might pop up. It was kind of hard to imagine the Taliban blending in with the locals, though.

We thanked our driver and headed up the flagstone walk to the door. The guard snapped to attention, not that a lot of snapping was needed, and saluted. Max gave him a casual salute and told him who we were and why we were there. I watched as he murmured into his mike. He wasn’t done talking before the door was opening and another male in fatigues appeared.

“Right this way, gentlemen.” We followed him into the great hall where our host, two men, and Martina, the inventory checker of earlier that day, stood or sat casually around a gas fireplace. Each had a glass in hand except for Martina—hers was set to one side, on a coaster, I noticed.

Our host instantly detached himself from the group and moved forward to greet us. I have to admit that I was impressed upon meeting him. I also experienced a distinct sense of disquiet. He was the first man I had ever met who had “command presence.” He also had a great tan and good teeth. For a guy his age he appeared to be in good shape—probably a jogger, I thought. He moved toward us, gliding over the polished hardwood floor; his hand was outstretched and he was grinning.

I don’t hate many people—especially on sight—it takes too much energy, but I instantly hated this guy. I was careful, of course, to conceal any feeling other than my joy that such a superior human being would be so delighted to see Max and me.

He finished shaking Max’s hand, all the while telling us how delighted he was that we could attend his small dinner party. I was reaching out, about to grasp his hand, when we made eye contact for real. People later described his blue eyes as penetrating—I thought they were bat-house crazy. He was ringing another alarm: I knew this guy. I mean, I had not met him before, but I knew his type all too well. What was worse was, he knew that I knew. Neither one of us acknowledged what had just happened in a way that was visible. We stood there gripping and grinning, and then he turned away and was making introductions. The other guests never really registered with me; they were nonentities. Martina was not. At this point I switched to reserved wariness and slipped on what I called my stone face. What was happening here—and ever since we arrived—was not and never had been about me. My guess was, if us delivering the truck hadn’t worked, then Murphy would have called with an invite. This was all about Max. They knew something, or wanted something, that he had.

I won’t bore you, or myself, with the idle chitchat that passed among us. It was current events, and those events are now history. What loomed so large then is now, at best, a footnote to what came later. I am sure that a history of our times will be written someday. I am just not sure from whose perspective it will be written. Eventually, there will be a Gibbon to write the
Decline and Fall
, but it won’t be Europe or America that produces the author.

The fragmentation of information sources was accelerating. Print had failed as a business model—at least for daily news—and digital broadcast news was homogeneous for the most part. The only difference in the networks was what shade of the official color you wanted. Online news was the least regulated and most interesting. The only problem was the amount of noise one had to sift through to find a reliable source. I was still reading
Calculated Risk
then—this was before the “Information Consolidation Act” shut him down.

I watched Martina from afar. The reason it was from afar was that she had locked in on Max, attaching herself
to him within minutes of our arrival. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and those headlights definitely lit up when she saw him. I could have excused myself, gone in search of the men’s room, and never come back, and it’s highly unlikely that my prolonged absence would have been noticed until the end of the evening.

Somehow, in a way that I could not discern, the colonel was alerted that dinner was ready. “Dinner is served,” he announced to us, and we all followed him into the dining room. I expected armed retainers to be lined up along the wall, but I was disappointed. It was just us and a fat, elderly white woman. She stood in a doorway, the one that led to the kitchen, I assumed, and beamed at us. When the colonel nodded to her she disappeared.

Max pulled Martina’s chair out and seated her. “Oh, what a gentleman,” she cooed as he did. Everyone smiled approvingly. I wondered if they would still smile if I projectile-vomited up dinner when we were done. I was beginning to feel like I had stumbled onto the set of a particularly twisted
Bachelorette
episode.

Max was seated at the colonel’s right with Martina. I was on the left between his chief of staff and his logistics officer. Oh, well, at least I could watch the headlights go on and off. The colonel led us in the saying of grace, and then he stood up and proposed a toast:

“Gentlemen and lady,”—here he did a slight bow to Martina—“a toast: to Sgt. Max Whelan, USMC, the first Marine Medal of Honor winner since the Vietnam war.”

We all stood and drank our toast to Max. I don’t do alcohol so I was toasting with a glass of ice tea. Max had been pretty happy up to that point, but now—I was surprised to see—that was gone. A stillness settled over him, a sadness even. As we all sat down, he stood up and announced: “A toast!” We stood again. “To fallen comrades!” he said, and then he emptied his glass on the nice Persian rug that was underneath the table. I didn’t hesitate—I dumped at least half a glass of ice tea including the ice cubes on the rug.

As I did it, I watched the colonel. There was a quick tightening around the eyes, and then he followed suit—so did his peckerwood flunkies, who had held off until they saw what the big man’s reaction was going to be. This was going to be a really sticky floor in twenty minutes or so, which made me very happy.

The colonel sat down, beamed at all of us, and said, “Let’s dig in.” It was pretty good: steak, potatoes, a salad, rolls, lima beans. The chief of staff let us know that this was the same meal that was being served in the mess hall.

“The colonel always eats what his troops eat and insists that we do, too.”

Logistics guy chimed in with, “Yes, thank God we are not in the field anymore.” Everyone thought this was funny as hell. He then asked me the question I knew was coming. I was just surprised it had not been asked sooner. “So, Gardener, what branch did you serve in?”
The prick.
I could tell, just looking at him, that he knew the answer. Time to jerk me around, probably payback for the ice tea puddle that had formed under his chair.

“Why, I was in the GLA.” I said this like I expected him to know what I was talking about; my tone implied that if he didn’t, then he was a fool.

The chief of staff asked, “Hmmm, was that in Africa?”

“No, actually it was in the Galleria Mall. The Gay Liberation Army was an elite band of color coordinators who struck fear in the hearts of sales clerks wherever we appeared.”

Martina was the only one of them who laughed. Max grinned, shook his head, and went back to gnawing on his steak. I looked at “Logistics,” winked, and said, “Remember—don’t ask, don’t tell.”

I might as well have ripped off a long and juicy one as far as the rest of them were concerned. I was able to finish my dinner without interruption after that. Dessert was chocolate mousse and a monologue by the colonel. The whole purpose was to let Max in on his strategic vision. As best as I could tell, the plan was that the vision would cause Max to swoon with joy that his purpose in life had been revealed. He would then sign up, become the colonel’s poster child, and ride Martina off into the sunset. It sounded good to me—if I had been Max, that is, because they sure weren’t going to ask me to hang around.

What the colonel said made sense. The problem, at least for me, was the logic he used to arrive at his conclusion. The solution did not sound like it would be a lot of fun, either—at least if you were one of the “little people.” He started off sounding sane and reasonable; he reminded me of McCain, the guy who had run for president when I still watched television.

“We all realize that the world is changing rapidly,” the colonel said. Nobody at the table had a problem with
that. “We must also accept that ‘America’ does not necessarily mean a white America. A true American is not determined by skin color. No, it is an adherence to a common belief system, a set of values, a sense of responsibility—for the community, for yourself, and for your family.

“We who have served our country understand the need for leadership. We also understand the need for personal responsibility for one’s actions. All of us have seen the results when that is not enforced: needless deaths, wasted resources. Life is harsh. The world that our children will inherit will be a world scarce in resources such as food and water. Do we let them starve? Do we sit back and let the fools who have stripped this country of everything worthwhile continue to plunder it? Or do we secure what we need ahead of time—by force, if necessary!”

He was on a roll now. No longer seated, he was up, moving as he spoke, using pauses and volume swells like an old-time TV preacher. I expected that any minute now his staff would start in with a chorus of “Amen!” This was actually kind of fun to watch.

“Do we let those who plundered our money, our children’s money, unto our great-grandchildren wander our streets undisturbed? Generation after generation toiling for the good of the few! I say to you this: Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live. We must purify this great nation. Purify it of all that is decadent! All that is wasteful! We must return to our roots.”

He kept on talking long after he made his point with me. His staff loved it, though. They sat there mesmerized. Max was listening intently.

All I could think was:
Hasn’t anyone introduced this idiot to the concept of sound bites?
If he didn’t wrap this up soon, I was going to get up and leave. I’d give him ten minutes. By the seventh minute it sounded as if he was working up to the big close:

“All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless violence of poverty or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.”

Here he paused dramatically and lowered his volume:

“Max, we need you. The people need you. Your country needs you. Will you join us in our righteous crusade to resurrect America? Will you, Max?”

This was said at a whisper. Yes, indeed, it was all eyes on Max. He leaned back in his chair, looked away, and then back at the colonel, and rubbed his chin.

“Colonel, that was one hell of a speech—just one hell of a speech indeed. You have really opened my eyes. That much is for sure.”