Tears of Abraham

CHAPTER THREE Second Suns

WASHINGTON, DC

Stephanie James stared at the gridlock, sputtering curses. Her vehicle hadn’t moved more than ten feet in the last hour, and Independence Avenue was a parking lot. Some people had abandoned their vehicles. DC was not a good place to be at the moment.

“Net search,” she said out loud. “News feeds, top stories.”

“Net unavailable at this time,” the car replied in a matter-of-fact female voice.

“Search radio,” Stephanie said.

“Unable to acquire signal,” said the car.

“Call home,” Stephanie ordered.

“Calling. Unable to place call. Please try again later.”

“Arrragh! What can you do, bitch?”

Stephanie loved her car, a super-compact electric that folded up vertically when she had to park. She could plug it in for a recharge at stations all over the downtown area. The car had cost her more than she could afford, but the buttery leather seats and burnished mahogany dashboard still made her smile when she slipped into it after a long day on the Hill.

Just now, though, she felt helpless in her car, and leather seats were no comfort. She’d gone to undergraduate school at Vanderbilt, then law school at Harvard. She banked on the assumption that her time as a congressional aide would serve her well later on when she decided to run for office herself. She had done everything right. She had studied long into the night during college, forgoing spring breaks and parties. She was going places. And now she was stuck in traffic in the middle of Washington, DC, and the country was at war with itself.

Senator Bartram, her boss, had abandoned her with not even a handshake. She’d worked with him for two years, pulling all-nighters fueled by buckets of coffee and Red Bull and faith; she’d believed in him. He was a great man, she had told herself, a visionary and a patriot.

The senator had poked his head into her tiny office before he fled Washington. “Get out of town, Steph,” he’d said. And then he’d literally run from his own office.

“Wait! Senator!”

“No time,” he’d shouted over his shoulder, his suit coat flapping and his shoes echoing on the tile floor. Gone just like that while she stood outside her office feeling foolish.

Senator Bartram represented the great state of Tennessee, and there had been talk of him running for president. He was genteel and dignified, and Stephanie had once been convinced the man was incapable of even sweating. He was that tough and calm. But she’d watched him run out of his own office, probably to hop on a private jet, leaving her and the rest of his staff to fend for themselves. Congressmen and women had scurried from the Hill like rats abandoning a ship.

Now she was stuck in a traffic jam of epic proportion, wondering what she had been thinking when she decided to drive. Most of her fellow staffers had elected to walk. But she couldn’t leave the damn car. Just couldn’t do it.

Helicopters buzzed overhead. She saw drones hovering above the streets. In front of the Lincoln Memorial, soldiers or police, or FEMA, she couldn’t tell from her vantage point, were working to disperse the crowd of protestors that had been camped there for the last few months. The troops were mounted on horses, and it looked like they’d fired tear gas into the crowd. She thought she heard some firecrackers. She gave both middle fingers to the traffic cams mounted on the curb.

She’d helped draft the resolution Senator Bartram had signed. To Stephanie, the process was an intellectual exercise, a series of elegant arguments crafted to make the other side take things seriously. She’d been pulling quotes from The Federalist Papers, Lincoln’s letters, Reagan’s press conferences, Supreme Court opinions, anything to bolster her arguments. She did not have time to surf the net, listen to the news, or even socialize with her colleagues. She had been holed up in her office. She’d expected some back-and-forth negotiations, concessions if not outright capitulation from the Democrats. Senator Bartram was reasonable, measured. He wouldn’t actually press for secession; it was philosophical. A political maneuver.

There were more firecracker pops, and she could hear car alarms blaring. And then there was a louder sound, a blaring klaxon sound. The city itself under attack, a sound she hadn’t heard since her childhood in Oklahoma. It was a tornado warning. But the sky was clear, and DC didn’t have a tornado warning system.

“Emergency Threat Network activated,” said the car.

The eight speakers came to life with the grating beeping of the ETN. “This is the Emergency Threat Network.” A man’s voice, authoritative and terse. “This is the Emergency Threat Network. This is not a test.” Another voice came on then.

“Take shelter immediately. If you are able to reach a fallout shelter, do so at this time. There are shelters throughout the downtown area. If you cannot reach a shelter, seek cover underground. The president has declared a state of martial law. Remain indoors.”

“What the hell?” Stephanie said.

“This is the Emergency Threat Network…” the speakers proceeded to repeat the same message, and Stephanie shut off her radio. People were running from cars, streaming down the street. Outside the safety of her car there was chaos. She couldn’t leave her car, just couldn’t do it.

She waited inside while people ran screaming down the street. And when a second sun appeared in the sky she was blinded, but not long enough to think about it because she and her car were melting and all she had time to do was think, Damn.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

Ai Wong walked uphill toward the flat she shared with her family, feeling afraid and confused. The teachers had herded the children into a classroom and explained school would be out early today. Go home. Teachers never said that. And father would be angry.

San Francisco was cold and gray and there was fog, even this late in the morning. The teachers had offered no explanations, but they’d seemed frightened, eager to be someplace else. Ai had been looking forward to practice after school; she had a cello recital in two weeks and she felt unprepared.

Her father had sacrificed to put her into the best private school, and he would not be pleased to learn she was home early. But maybe he wouldn’t find out, maybe Grandmother would not tell him. But she knew differently. She knew she would face her father when he got home from work, tired and beaten, and that he would be distant and cold. She could already feel his disapproval. He was constantly disappointed in her, often, it seemed, simply because she was a girl. He’d wanted another son, and she believed he’d never forgiven her for being female.

Ai didn’t know what was happening, and she did not really care beyond what awaited her when she got home. She caught snippets of conversations from the other students. She heard something about Washington being attacked, about a war. But Ai had never paid attention to the news or to politics and she listened to the music in her head instead, floating apart from the other students and teachers in the way she always had.

Ai was seventeen years old, overflowing with potential. Next year Juilliard and freedom. Emancipation. She would be surrounded by students as serious and gifted as she, and then she wouldn’t have to float and feel apart from others and she could embrace the constant concerto in her soul, creating a masterpiece that would make her father proud. She would touch people, make them feel. She found it vaguely ironic that her name meant “love,” yet she had never even kissed a boy. Her love was music. She would have time for relationships when she was older, after she’d done what she needed to do.

She did not hear the inbound missile traveling faster than a bullet. Even if she had, the symphony in her soul would have drowned it out. One second she was walking uphill, floating apart from the other children around her, a heavy backpack laden with books and black shoes and a blue checkered skirt, and then the next second she was flying into the air, burning, floating, and the music stopped and there was just the silence.

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

Leon Smith decided it was time to take a break. He’d been on the chain saw all morning, trimming the old trees that lined the driveway of some rich white people. His arms were shaking and his face was raw from the wind. He was busting his ass working six days a week and could barely feed his kids and keep the lights on. And here were these folks on Belle Meade Boulevard, old-money people whose families probably used to own slaves and probably thought of him that way still, with their maids and house staff and mansions with white columns. He’d never felt real racism until he moved to Nashville and started to work around wealthy white people.

Growing up in Harlem, he’d been around other black folks all the time. Church on Sunday, public school, store owners, coaches: all black people. He’d served four years in the army, but hadn’t felt… looked down upon. That’s what it was, this feeling that people believed he was somehow less. That he wasn’t good enough no matter what he did.

He’d seen the news, watched shows streaming over the net, and he’d talked about it with his friends and fellow soldiers. In the army, he’d been around whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians; it didn’t really seem to matter. He knew for a fact that racism existed, but he’d never been subjected to it the way that some of his friends had, never known the deep-down hurting rage. He did now.

Part of it was his boss, Harry Wilson. A redneck from Knoxville who tried to ingratiate himself with his clients by putting down his own workers.

“Them boys can be lazy,” Harry would say. “Sometimes ya gotta crack the whip.” And a woman with frosted hair and painted nails and fake boobs and a sleek Mercedes would smile and ask him if he wanted some sweet ice tea. Harry didn’t actually do any work. He left that for “them boys.”

When Leon protested the crummy pay and poor treatment, Harry would shrug and say, “Ain’t nobody stopping you. Hit the road. Good luck with finding another job.”

Leon felt trapped. There weren’t other jobs. He’d been applying every week, in person and over the net, for a year. Harry was a terrible boss, a little tyrant, but at least he paid in cash and he paid a bit over minimum wage. Leon raged against it, but he showed up for work every day on time. He swallowed his pride and his anger and in the summertime he was soaked with sweat and in the winter his hands were stiff and cold. He was a young man still, only thirty, but he felt old and stooped beyond his years. He’d fall into bed at night after a quick shower, and his wife would tell him what a good man he was, how proud she was of him, and his boys looked up to him and he would lie there feeling like a failure and then get up in the morning and do it all again.

He climbed down from the tree and unhooked the harness. Up the gentle hill and beyond the acres of manicured lawn, the homeowners appeared to be packing their SUV for a vacation. They were moving quicker than rich white folks tended to move. He saw Jesus and Dominic coming down from trees, too. A mutual break, then. All right.

Leon walked toward the pickup truck full of lawn equipment to grab a drink of hot coffee from his thermos. Mary made sure, no matter what, when he went out the door he had a full thermos to take with him in the winter.

He saw Harry sitting in the cab of the truck. No surprise there. Harry would sit there and look at porn all day long, then shake hands with homeowners. I’ll never shake your hand, you nasty bastard. Behind him, up the long stately driveway, Leon heard a woman sobbing and a man shouting. He looked over his shoulder. The guy, wearing a suit and tie, was shouting at his wife. There was luggage piled up next to their car. Leon couldn’t hear what they were saying and he didn’t care. A couple of assholes getting a divorce, maybe. The chain saw was heavy and he put it down. Police sirens were wailing somewhere close, an unusual occurrence in Belle Meade. He was aware of the sirens in the way of a black man in Belle Meade. Potential danger. He wasn’t driving, though, so he figured the sirens weren’t for him.

Harry stepped out of his truck. He looked jumpy. More squirrely than usual, his eyes darting around like he couldn’t make up his mind what to focus on. Leon prepared to bite his tongue.

“Ah, Leo. Glad you came down.”

“What’s up?”

“Looks like we’re going to call it an early day.” Those words had never dripped from Harry’s mouth before. Not once.

“Do what? We’re not even close to being done.”

“Well, yeah,” Harry said, wringing his hands, “but the, uh, the homeowners have decided we’ve taken enough off. They don’t want any more limbs cut.”

“Uh-huh,” Leon said. “What’s with the piece?” Harry had an enormous holster strapped to his hip. Leon stood a few paces away from him. Harry looked at the ground, then the trees, then somewhere beyond Leon’s shoulder. His right hand was hovering close to the brown leather holster at his hip.

“Well, you know, I just heard there was a bank robbery over on West End. Cops are looking for suspects around here. Some armed bank robbers. Can’t be too careful.”

“So you’re packing?”

“Well, yeah. Look, can you get a lift home? I need to go. I can’t drop you off back at the shop.”

“Come on, Harry. That’s bullshit.” Leon was aware that his fellow workers had come up behind him. Harry looked like he wanted to bolt. He looked terrified. What the hell?

“I just gotta go,” Harry said, backing away. Twitchy.

The silver Mercedes blew past them, tires squealing, as it turned onto Belle Meade Boulevard. Leon had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit.

“What the hell, ming? Jesus said. “You can’t leave us stranded here.”

“Just stay back,” Harry said, edging back around his truck.

“Hell no!” Dominic shouted, stepping forward to get in Harry’s face. “You not leaving—”

Harry pulled the revolver from the holster, his face red and mean.

Leon took one step forward, reacting, not thinking. Training coming back to him, at least some of it. He should have gone for the throat, groin, the soft parts, but he didn’t. His fist smashed into Harry’s nose, a year’s worth of fury and muscle and endurance behind it, the momentum of poverty, retribution, and justice in an angry fist. Harry flew backwards, feet off the ground, and his head smacked the front bumper of his truck.

Leon stepped up to Harry and took the nickel-plated .357 from his hand, then held the weapon at his side, looking down at his former boss. Harry wasn’t moving and his eyes were open, surprised and vacant.

“Aw, shit, he dead. You killed him,” said Dominic.

Leon looked down at Harry Wilson; Dominic was right. Maybe it was the chrome bumper that did it. Maybe it was a heart attack. Maybe he’d hit him so hard and just right that he snapped the man’s neck. Leon was panting and he wanted to throw up. He felt hot even though he could see his breath. The sirens kept on going and going.

“That’s one dead redneck,” Jesus said. “You showed him.” Jesus then said some things in Spanish Leon did not understand, yet still managed to comprehend.

Leon wanted to double over and puke. He hated Harry Wilson, but he hadn’t meant to kill him. He’d never taken a life.

“He was about to shoot you,” Leon said. “He was reaching. Why was he strapped? What the hell?”

“I donno, ming, but we gotta go,” Jesus said. “Cops everywhere. They not liking you killing some white boy on Belle Meade Boulevard. String your black ass up.”

“Yeah,” Leon said, staring down at Harry Wilson’s dead eyes. Leon was shaking. Anger, remorse, fear, and uncertainty kept him rooted on the lawn in front of the red pickup truck with the chrome and the dead Harry Wilson lying in front of it. He had to do something, but he didn’t know what it was. Not just stand there looking dumb and waiting for the police to put him in prison for the rest of his life.

“I mean now, man!” Dominic said, rounding the truck. “If you wanna stick around and go to prison, go for it. I ain’t waiting.”

Jesus and Dominic stepped around Leon, opening the doors on the quad cab truck. Leon stood over the man he’d killed. No white witnesses, nothing he could say that would sway authorities. He’d be in jail for a long time before a trial ever happened. Meanwhile his wife and kids would be starving. Even once he got his day in court, he was far from confident that he’d be set free. He’d be convicted of manslaughter. Ten years in prison, at least.

“We leaving, man!”

“Okay,” Leon said. The sirens kept wailing. He stooped down to Harry Wilson’s dead body and undid the man’s belt. He removed the belt and holster, put them on his own hip, and placed the nickel-plated .357 snugly in its place. He pulled his coat over the weapon, and it felt heavy. He was not entirely sure why he felt the need to take the gun. He wouldn’t shoot a cop. No way.

He got into the truck, walking like a wooden soldier, stiff and strange even to himself, and he climbed into the driver’s seat and put the truck into gear. Y’all were about to leave, huh? But you damn sure wanted me to drive. Okay, then. I’m driving home to my wife and my boys, and nobody better try to stop me.

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

Marshall, whose real name was Jessie although he insisted people call him Marshall, was excited. The war was finally happening, the war between the invaders and the real Americans. A fight between the givers and the takers, producers and freeloaders. Words like that. Jessie was ready for the war because he’d been preparing and wishing for it his entire life. They were taking over the country, and he felt like he was under attack from the day he was born. They’d taken over the schools, the government, and even his neighborhood.

His home was skirted by tin, the blocks and wheels beneath it not showing. His yard didn’t have broken-down cars and weeds and toys from 1999 and toilets and couches on his porch. He was raised better than that. There was none of that yammering they did when they decided to argue. He had himself a respectable home, a double-wide that he’d paid off on land he rented only because his granddaddy hadn’t had the sense to hang on to it. He’d been watching the news and waiting, knowing what would happen. He’d told everybody within bar-shot how it would play out. Watching it stream live, he let out a rebel yell for himself.

“HEEEEEL YAUGHA,” he howled at the screen. The announcers were grave, but Marshall, whose real name was Jessie, was not grave.

“Tennesseeeee!” said Jessie. He stomped through a field of empty beer cans on the way to the gun cabinet. The glass case contained a 12-gauge shotgun, and that was it. He’d sold or pawned the rest of his ’daddy’s guns. But he had that one left.

He’d watched the news all morning long at the Antioch Social Club, a dark, shabby bar where he could drink until he passed out and no one would try to steal his Marlboro Reds. Salt of the earth folk just like him. They even let him run a monthly tab, and then allowed him to use his food stamps and disability check to pay for his beer. The regulars there were his family. The battered pickup trucks in the gravel parking lot held gun racks in every rear window. Many of the trucks were adorned with bumper stickers of rebel flags and “Secession Now!” logos.

He’d known this was coming, and the only thing that took away from his triumphant mood was the fact that his daddy couldn’t be here to see it too. Daddy had known.

Was a high school football player with college prospects. Fast and mean, like the old man said. Shake and bake. Taliban took my knee and a Mexican took my job and now it’s war.

This was a lie he’d repeated so often that he actually believed it. He’d tried to join the army, but they’d refused to let him in. He’d been a benchwarmer in high school, with no prospects. But the stories were good for free beer, and he’d built a life and friends around these stories until he was convinced he was a different man than he actually was. Okay, you motherfuckers. My turn!

Marshall took the shotgun from the case, staggering, seething, and finding a fight in the way that people named Jessie who want to be called Marshall always do.