The White Road

I had a CD playing in the car at top volume as I cruised in. I’d chosen it especially for the occasion. My timing was pretty good. Joey Ramone’s girl had gone to LA and never come back, and Joey was blaming the KKK for taking his baby away just as I swung into the parking lot.

Bowen paused in his speech and stared over in my direction. A considerable portion of the crowd followed his gaze. A guy with a shaven head and wearing a black “Blitzkrieg” T-shirt approached the car and asked politely but firmly if I would turn the music down. I killed the engine, cutting the music off, then stepped from the car. Bowen kept looking in my direction for about another ten seconds, then continued his speech.

Perhaps he was conscious of the media presence, but Bowen appeared to be keeping the invective to a minimum. True, he tossed in references to Jews and “coloreds,” talked of how non-Christians had seized control of the government at the expense of white people, and spoke of AIDS as a visitation from God, but he steered away from the worst racial slurs. It was only as his speech reached its close that he got to his main point.

“There is a man, my friends, a good man, a Christian man, a man of God, who is being persecuted for daring to say that homosexuality and abortion and the mixing of races is against the will of the Lord. A show trial is being organized in the state of Maine to bring this man down and we have evidence, my friends, hard evidence, that his capture was funded by Jews.” Bowen waved some papers that looked vaguely legal in form. “His name, and I hope you know it already, is Aaron Faulkner. Now they’ve said some things about him. They’ve called him a murderer and a sadist. They have tried to smear his name, to drag him down before his trial has even begun. They are doing this because they have no proof against him and are trying to poison the minds of the weak so that he will be found guilty before he even has the chance to defend himself. The Reverend Faulkner’s message is one that we should all take to heart, because we know it is right and true. Homosexuality is against God’s law. Baby killing is against God’s law. The mixing of bloods, the undermining of the institutions of marriage and the family, the elevation of non-Christian worship above the one true religion of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, all are against God’s law, and this man, the Reverend Faulkner, has taken a stand against it. Now his only hope for a fair trial is if he can assemble himself the best defense possible, and to do that he needs funds to get himself out of jail and pay the finest attorneys that money can buy. And that’s where you folks come in: you give what you can. I count maybe one hundred here. You give twenty bucks each, and I know that’s a lot for some of you people, and we got two thousand dollars. If those of you that can afford it give a little more, well, then that’s all for the better.

“Because you mark my words: it is not just one man who is facing a false trial. It is a way of life. It is our way of life, our beliefs, our faith, our futures that will be on trial in that courtroom. The Reverend Aaron Faulkner represents us all, and if he falls, then we fall with him. God is with us. God will give us strength. Hail Victory! Hail Victory!”

The chant was taken up by the crowd as men moved among them with buckets, collecting donations. I saw the odd ten or five slipped in, but most gave twenties, even fifties or hundreds. At a conservative estimate, I reckoned Bowen’s work this afternoon had probably made three thousand dollars. According to that day’s paper, which had carried some advance coverage of the rally, Bowen’s people had been working flat out since shortly after Faulkner’s arrest, encouraging everything from yard sales and bakeoffs to a draw for a new Dodge truck donated by a sympathetic auto dealer, with thousands of tickets already sold at twenty dollars a pop. Bowen had even succeeded in galvanizing into action those who would not usually have been drawn to his cause, the vast constituency of the faithful who saw in Faulkner a man of God being persecuted for beliefs that were similar, if not identical, to their own. Bowen had taken Faulkner’s arrest and approaching trial and made it a matter of faith and goodness, a battle between those who feared and loved the Lord and those who had turned their backs on him. When the subject of violence was raised Bowen usually skirted the issue, arguing that Faulkner’s message was pure and that he could not be held accountable for the actions of others, even if those actions were justified in many cases. Racist insults would be kept for the old guard and for those occasions where TV cameras and microphones were absent or forbidden. Today, he was preaching to the new converts and those who had yet to be converted.

Bowen stepped from the stage and people moved forward to shake his hand. Just inside the gate, two trestle tables had been set up so that the women behind them could display the items they had brought for sale: Joh

A man appeared at my side. He wore a dark suit over a white shirt, with a baseball cap perched incongruously on his head. His skin was reddish purple, and peeling badly. Clumps of fair hair hung on grimly to his skull like sparse vegetation on a hostile landscape. Shades concealed his eyes. I could see an earpiece in his left ear, co

He smelled of slow burning.

“Mr. Bowen would like to talk to you,” he said.

“It was the Ramones,” I said. “On the CD player. I’ll make him a copy if he’d like it.”

He didn’t blink.

“Like I said, Mr. Bowen wants to talk to you.”

I shrugged and followed him through the crowd. Bowen had almost finished glad-handing the troops, and as I watched, he stepped behind the truck to a small area enclosed by a white tarp that stretched from the bed of the truck. Beneath it were chairs, a portable a/c unit, and a table with a cooler on top. I was shown through to Bowen, who sat in one of the chairs sipping from a can of Pepsi. The cap-wearing man stayed but the other people bustling outside moved away to give us some privacy. Bowen offered me a drink. I declined.

“We didn’t expect to see you down here today, Mr. Parker,” he said. “You considering joining our cause?”

“I don’t see much of one,” I said, “unless you call hustling rednecks for dimes a cause.”

Bowen exchanged a look of mock disappointment with the other man. There was blood in Bowen’s eyes. Although he was ostensibly in charge, he appeared to defer to the man in the suit. Even his posture suggested that he was somehow afraid of him, his body turned slightly away from the other man, his head lowered. He looked like a cowering dog.

“I should have introduced you,” he said. “Mr. Parker, this is Mr. Kittim. Sooner or later, Mr. Kittim is going to teach you a harsh lesson.”

Kittim removed his sunglasses. The eyes revealed were empty and green, like raw, flawed emeralds.

“Forgive me if I don’t shake hands,” I said to him. “You look like bits of you might start to drop off.”

Kittim didn’t react, but the smell of oil grew stronger. Even Bowen’s nose wrinkled slightly.

Bowen finished his cola and tossed it in the garbage bag.

“Why are you here, Mr. Parker? If I was to get up on that stage and a