Shella (30 page)

“Thanks anyway,” I said to him.

He sat down next to me. “John, if I made you feel bad, I’m an asshole. That wasn’t what I meant. This whole thing …” He waved his arms around. “This whole thing, it’s not just for race pride, you know what I mean? Like … why did you join up? How come?”

“I hate niggers,” I told him.

“Yeah, I know. Me too. As much as anybody. But … part of it, I guess … I wanted to have friends, too. Real friends. You understand me?”

“Sure.”

“So forget about the iron work, okay? I just wanted to say, you got anything I could help you with, you just gotta ask me, okay?”

“Okay, Murray.”

He punched me hard on the arm, but I could tell he wasn’t trying to hurt me.

The guy in the shoulder holster came by one afternoon. He said the leader wanted to see me.

I followed him over. The leader was in his big room, in his chair. The guy in the shoulder holster left us alone. I measured the distance. I saw the dots start to pop out on him. The door opened behind me—the guy in the white shirt came in.

“You are the young man who knew how to tell a transvestite from a real woman, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You know why that’s so important?”

“No. I don’t, I guess.”

“The homo-sex-ual doesn’t think with his mind, son. He thinks with his sex … whatever that is. They’re bad apples. One of our great leaders once said, a man who won’t fuck won’t fight. That’s why they don’t let them in the army. Just one of them … a single one, he can destroy a whole movement. You know, the white power movement didn’t
start last week. It has a long, honorable history, ever since Reconstruction…. You know what that is?”

“No sir.”

“After the Civil War, the niggers, the same ones who used to be slaves, they took over the South. Took it over. They were in charge. They owned the land, they owned the women. Naturally, white men could not tolerate this. That was the start of the Klan. And we’ve been moving forward ever since. Yes, there have been setbacks. But our real enemies have never been the niggers. Our real enemies have always been traitors. Traitors from within. We’ve got our list, and there’s more whites on it than blacks, I can tell you. Judges, senators, FBI agents. All traitors to the race.

“That’s why those homo-sex-uals are so dangerous, son. Did you know that one of the real heroes of our movement was actually assassinated by one of his own men? Now that would be hard to explain except for one thing … it was a damn lovers’ quarrel! You understand? One fag jilted another fag, and we had a shooting. Now, the public doesn’t know this, but it’s a fact. The worst thing about a fag is how he thinks. So a queer can never be truly white, because he could fall in love with a nigger just like that!”

His fingers made a bone-crack sound when he snapped them. I looked close at him, like he wanted me to.

“You know why I’m telling you all this?”

“No. But it’s good to know.”

He looked over at the guy in the white shirt. Then he turned back to me.

“You pretty good friends with Murray?”

“I guess.”

“He ever … act funny around you?”

“No. I never saw him do that.”

“You know what I’m getting at?”

“Sure. I seen them before.”

“In prison?”

“Yes.”

“In prison, you ever see a man with big, huge muscles, tattoos … and he’s still a queer?”

“Sure,” I told him. It was the truth.

“Keep your eyes open,” the leader said.

After that, we had meetings every day. Like classes, with teachers. They had this big table, so big we could all fit around it. On the table they had little model cars, roads, and everything. Even a little armored car. They had maps. Not like maps you get in a gas station, black and white maps so big you could see the streets on them.

Some days, the man in the white shirt told us how to do it. Other days, the leader told us why.

They went over it again and again. Every time, they would ask a different guy the same questions. The man in the white shirt pointed at Murray. “What’s the procedure if you’re captured?”

“I just say I want a lawyer. I don’t answer any questions. I just say I want a lawyer.”

“Good! One of our lawyers will get to you eventually. Just remember, you may get some Jew Public Defender or something until we can get to you. Don’t speak to him either, understand? Wait for the word to get to you.”

He looked around the room some more. “Billy, you’ve got the cash in the getaway car, okay? But when you approach the drop-off point, you see it’s covered. What do you do?”

“I find someplace to hole up. I get off the road as soon as I can. Then I call the number and do whatever they tell me to do.”

“Right! Now, what if you got a clear shot to make it back here with the money …?”

“We never come back here. Never.”

“Why?” the man said, turning his face so he was asking me.

“So the cops don’t have an excuse to come in here,” I said. I knew all the answers by then, from listening.

“Yes! This is sacred ground. We are all safe here. This is
private property
… remember how we talked about that? No cop, no FBI agent, no Treasury man, nobody from ATF …
nobody
comes in here without our permission. It’s like John here said … we can’t give them an excuse.”

After the meeting, Murray slapped my hand, like he was proud of me for getting it right.

I was watching a nature show on TV. It was quiet in the dorm. They showed different insects that looked like they were dangerous, but they weren’t. It was so other animals would leave them alone.

Murray came in. He took off the little weights he wears around his ankles. He wears them around his wrists too. He came over to where I was. The show was just going off.

“How old are you, John?”

“Thirty-four,” I told him. Sticking as close as I could
to the truth, like they had told me. The truth is I don’t know.

“I’m twenty-nine.”

I didn’t say anything.

“You were in prison, right?”

“Yeah, I was.”

“More than once?”

“Yes.”

“I was never in prison. Never in the army either. Or an ex-cop, like some of the guys.”

I lit a cigarette. A show about some kind of dancing was coming on.

“You think it matters?” he said.

“What?”

“What I was
saying,
John? Not being in the joint, or the service … you know …”

“No.”

“You know, John, I don’t mean to hurt your feelings or nothing, but some of the guys, they think you’re not too bright. But me, I know better. You’re just quiet is all. I know you got a brain, that’s why I ask you stuff.”

On the TV, people in white costumes were jumping around. Sometimes the men would catch the women in the air.

“I never forget what you did, John. What you didn’t say, I mean. About the stuff in the trailer. We’re partners, you and me. Anybody fucks with you, they fuck with me.”

He stuck out his hand. I shook it.

There was a lot of training in the place. Everybody was always being trained for something. The men, anyway.
There were women around, but I never saw them being trained.

They practiced so much with the guns. Sometimes the noise was like a wave, it just kept coming.

The Action Team was different. It was quiet. “They look at us different,” Murray said to me one time. “Because they know were on the team.” He meant some of the other guys. They looked at us all right—I saw that myself. But I didn’t think Murray got it.

In the dorm, it was pretty much okay. There’s a bigger place over a few houses down. Like a tavern, I guess. They serve liquor, any kind you want. No charge. And they have a big-screen TV, pool tables, even waitresses. With their clothes on. It’s open all the time, I think, but people mostly go there only late in the day.

Murray was always after me to go there. Most of the time I said no. One time I went with him. Some of the guys from another part of the camp were watching us. I always know when someone’s watching.

Murray was wearing a black T-shirt, real tight, with the sleeves cut up high. It was a mistake, but I didn’t know how to tell him.

I thought they’d start with him, but it was me. One of them banged a shoulder into me as I was carrying a couple of beers over to our table. The beer slopped over and some of it got on him. The guy who pushed me had long hair. A tall man, with fat, loose arms. He told me to watch where the fuck I was going, jabbed me hard in the chest with three fingers held together. I backed up. He came after me, shoving those three fingers at me, calling me names. Murray walked over, moving fast, tapped the guy on the shoulder. The man stepped away from me, three of his friends got up.

“You want to play?” Murray asked the man.

“I don’t play with faggots,” the man with the fat arms said. His friends laughed. Murray hooked him deep in the stomach. He didn’t know how to put his weight behind it—the whole punch was with his arm, but it was enough. The man went down to one knee, trying to breathe.

Two of the man’s friends started toward Murray. I cocked the pistol in my hand. It made a loud noise, because everyone was listening. They all stopped.