Tiki Torches, as far as the eye could see. Libertyville transformed into a blazing fire. The image was unsettling, even if she hadn't known what it was she was looking at. It was worse that she knew that the rhyming of those chants were full of hatred. Jodi slid her arm into Trent's and leaned against him. Trent, Kory, and Antony stood at the edge of a precipice near the community center and the library which overlooked the main boulevard of downtown Libertyville. Antony was pointing to faraway places as if doling out tactical instructions, Kory and Trent nodded gravely. Jodi looked out onto the sea of people forming. She could just make out the reds and blues of their flags, confederate and Nazi alike, and among them grayed out American flags with a single blue stripe.
Kelly, Tracey, Padma and a scattering of others stood behind the three men waiting to get on with it already. Kelly in particular, dressed as if she was going to be attempting a heist later that night, seemed on edge. She swatted away Tracey's hand as she tried to reach for her.
“I'm not doing that, it's lame.”
Tracey looked into Kelly's eyes and searched them for her old friend. It was Kelly that had told her Osaka-ya was hiring when Tracey had been fired from Jewel for no real reason. No, that was a lie, she knew the reason. She knew everytime the customers made comments on her too long acrylics or her bleached and burned out hair or the state of her mother. Kelly had also gotten Tracey out of the house when Carol's issues had threatened to explode on Tracey's personal space. Kelly had glorified Antony. Kelly had lead the way. And now Kelly ripped her arm away angrily and turned to face the men and the crowd forming below them.
“Antony said to start it and he'll join in.”
“Well it's stupid and I'm not doing it.”
Tracey didn't understand. She knew she had trouble accepting what Antony preached but Kelly was so straightforward in her violence that everyone assumed she believed in Antony so completely it was all of who she was. Tracey shuddered to think that the cult hadn't sought out Kelly and changed her into a murderous monster, that Kelly herself had sought out the cult—and molded it to fit her lifestyle.
Padma stepped forward and gently pulled Tracey back, away from Kelly, and into their semi formed circle.
“Just another white bitch, thinks she owns everything,” Padma whispered. Tracey scrunched her brows and tried to understand how, even within what they were, something as insidious as racism always found a way.
“But, why is she here if..?” Tracey's question was left unfinished. Jodi, Trent, and the others joined the group and their circle of counter-protesters formed for Antony's prayer. Antony was the last to enter the circle. They all held hands, except for Kelly, and looked at their leader. He wore dark clothing, as most of them did, and carried himself as if he were more than what he was, which was just a man, somewhat thin, with wiry dark hair and sunken eyes. The ghost of someone handsome in his prime was no longer visible. The veneer was gone. Tracey forgot she had ever been in love with him.
“My chosen followers,” Antony began. Dusk in Libertyville fell across their faces. The rally below was bigger than they expected.
Chosen that was rich.
“This will be dangerous, but be fortified by the knowledge of what is promised to you.”
Tracey thought about the coming race war. She thought about leaving her mother behind for it and she did not feel that what was coming for her, that what was promised was what her white counterparts would receive. There was an idea that could not be let go of, the seed of an invasive species that would grow taller and stronger and more monstrous than any overgrowing vine before it, choking out the life beneath, covering it up with promised fruit. The poisoned berries of a new tree of knowledge that would benefit the same people as before.
Kory had said it, even, out loud as he explained the coming doomsday to Tracey back at the restaurant, and not noticed the hypocrisy but Kory was also a white man. Antony Meninski, spurned and turned inward, was what was dangerous.
“Be fortified by me.”
“There's no way that happened man, I'm telling you,” Brad pushed his empty beer glass across the table and grabbed at the pitcher to slosh more into his glass. They were at Bulldog Ale House and the night had gotten far away from them.
Maggie shoved her iPhone into Brad's face. “Literally the pictures are right here.”
“Fake news,” he raised his glass to his mouth and chugged half of it in one go, following up his display with a burp.
“So you weren't born here but you've been here since you were five. Isn't your dad a Sox fan?”
“Bro, you believe this shit?”
“Uhm, yes?”
Brad grabbed Maggie's phone and started scrolling through the google search. The pictures seemed so contrived, black and whites of people in bell-bottoms rushing Old Comiskey park, the smoke of an explosion in the background.
“They had to forfeit the game.”
“Bullshit.”
“I don't understand how you don't believe this.”
“Well no one we know was there, right?”
“Because it happened in the seventies??” Maggie's voice was starting to rise. It's not like she gave a shit about baseball anyway, but who in their right mind thought Disco Demolition Night was a hoax.
“I don't know, seems fake.”
“Because everything that happened before you couldn't have happened.”
“Obviously,” Brad grinned and downed the rest of his beer. Levi held tight to the pitcher this time, not drinking it, his own glass was still three-quarters full, but keeping it away from Brad. If he didn't, him and Maggie would fall into the deep depths of Chicagoland myth and argue for the rest of the night. Maggie and Levi both had long ties to the area, family that practically owned their corners of the suburbs by all of the stories they had tying them down. Brad was another story all to himself. Even though his father had relocated them shortly after he was born, he still held onto his New York roots as if that made him better than the rest of them.
“Well, it was real.”
“Well, I don't care. Pass the beer.”
Maggie shook her head and nudged Levi in the side. He passed the pitcher gingerly over to her and she filled up her glass, leaving just a little bit of a splash for Brad. Pathik returned to the group plopping two baskets full of popcorn onto the table. They were too cheap to order actual appetizers, but had wanted to come out anyway to celebrate the start of filming tomorrow morning on The Shadows.
“Give me my phone back,” Maggie leaned over the booth and yanked her phone out of Brad's hand just as he had dipped into her messages to snoop.
“Hiding something?” Brad attempted a wink but the booze had started to work on him and he just came off as sloppy.
“You wish,” Maggie grinned and looked back down at her phone, opening up Facebook.
Pathik looked across the table at Levi confused, he had literally been gone for two minutes. “What y'all talking about?”
“You remember Disco Demolition Night?”
“Ah yes, the day a bunch of cis hetero white men blew up the records of black queer musicians?” Pathik rolled his eyes and shoved several kernels of popcorn into his mouth and shrugged. Of course, because, like, everyone knew about it.
“Oh Jesus.”
“What?”
Brad sneered slightly and leaned over the table, dipping his elbow into the corner of the popcorn basket and toppling half of its contents onto the table. “Does everything have to be a gay thing? I mean come on,” Brad mocked Pathik's tone. “Cis hetero white men wah wah wah.”
“Says the cis hetero white man.”
Levi snickered and sipped on his beer. Being as small as he was and as generally not used to alcohol as he was, Levi was already blushingly drunk.
“Yeah, they're no fun,” Levi reached out and gently caressed his finger against the top of Pathik's hand. Pathik grinned.
“Guys, look at this.”
“Can we stop with the dumb ass disco thing?”
“Shut up, look.” Maggie held her phone out and they all four leaned in to view the tiny screen. The bar was loud, always blaring a confusing mix of rap and metal and sometimes Katy Perry, so they couldn't hear but they didn't need to. It was live feed of protesters, or mobsters, a bright red flag with the telltale white circle in the middle.
“Nazis. In Libertyville.”
The rally was enormous. Down in the crowds Tracey and Padma followed far behind the others and stood at the end of the line of counter-protesters that had come to take back their town. This line of counter-protesters was trapped behind a massive wall of riot-gear clad officers while the angry mob shouting and burning and armed walked freely along the street. Quickly the planned Blue Lives Matter protest, organized by a Northwest Suburbs auxiliary of the Police Wives of America, became an alt-right Nazi rally. The city ordinance, still undecided at council, to require body cams and mics for all uniformed officers, sparked outrage. But how do you have a police presence at a protest for Blue Lives Matter?
Tracey stared at the face of an officer that stood before the counter-protesters. He could have been Antony. He could have been a wolf in cop's clothing. The many iPhones that filmed footage and posted it live, the camera crews, the helicopters, all of it was broadcasting the truth but no one would really see it. Behind the wall of shields and batons they looked like the violent ones, the ones who couldn't leave well enough alone.
Antony had disappeared, lost in a crowd of white supremacists. Kelly and Trent and Jodi were doing what they were supposed to, infiltrating. They would spread out and incite riots, appearing to both sides to be from the other. Just in case the Order of the Rose was still in hiding, just in case their rally was not enough, Antony's chosen ones would initiate the race war and the resulting catastrophe would call for doomsday, would bring out of the shadows the reptilians and America would fight back as it always did. All Tracey and Kelly and friends had to do next was kill the leaders of the Order of the Rose right as they revealed their true forms under the guise of helping the oppressed to win the war. They could travel the country doing this, over and over. They would travel the country, they would get out before getting caught, change their names, leave all behind, continue the good work.
The more Tracey went over it in her head the more terrified she became. This was only step one in a long drawn out plot that never promised anything, let alone safety.
And then she heard the first gunshot of the night.
Tracey flinched and turned backward into Padma who gripped her tightly on the shoulders and shook her.
“Trace, come on, don't wuss out.” Padma looked her in the eyes, the fierceness in her admirable. Tracey barely knew Padma. She was usually on her phone during employee meetings, it looked like she could careless, but behind that bubblegum pink phone case there was a radical twitter feed and pages upon pages upon pages leftist articles and calls to action. Padma was a part of a hundred different groups. She had joined Antony vaguely thinking she was signing up for Antifa. She was in her element. She was at the real fight and she wasn't going to let Tracey's cowardice stop her.
Padma dropped her arms and left Tracey standing there when the crowd of counter-protesters rushed forward and broke through the line of police. Almost immediately clouds of smoke or paint bombs filled the air and Tracey had no idea which direction was safe to move in, the whole street was chaos.
Brad looked at the screen with a growing unease. He knew that his father was in Libertyville. The Deputy Chief of Police, Donahue, his dad's best friend, had been talking about the debate over the proposed ordinance for weeks. The two officers that had been there when their home was broken into, Nowak and Boyd, they were there too. They had been by the house many times since the break in, at first under the guise of checking in with Debra, but then just to disappear to the basement and darts with Dick or, sometimes, they'd be gone for hours in the dark of the night in some forest preserve somewhere. Brad's eyes roamed the screen as Maggie clicked out of one feed and into another. Black Lives Matter Chicago was blowing up her phone.
“Cis hetero white men.” Pathik repeated.
“FUCKING SHUT UP!” Brad exploded with rage and the three of them stared over at him. Maggie pulled her phone back and clicked out of the live stream staring at Brad. Pathik, shaken, looked down.
“Hey!” Levi started. The table fell silent. Pathik knew he was safe at this moment at a table with his friends but Libertyville was too close for comfort. Of all the shit he hated Brad for, the way he could paralyze him with fear was the worse of it.
“You should apologize,” Levi's voice was delicate, a little wobbly from the drink, and far too quiet, but Brad heard him.
“I haven't done anything wrong,” Brad crossed his arms. He really felt like he hadn't. He was tired of all of the race games being played all of the time, tired of being told he was supposed to feel bad just for being born the way he was to the family he was born in. He was real tired of Pathik encroaching on them, for taking his best friend away from him and making it all about being gay all the time. Brad used to be able to talk to Levi about man-of-action Dirk Pitt in the Clive Cussler novels they had shared all through adolescence and then Pathik came in and said they were too old fashioned, way out of touch and Levi listened to him. They used to play around with craft paper props and make their own bad movies and now it was all about a bigger political message. Levi was coming into his own sexuality and Brad was always being yelled at. He missed his best friend. Somewhere deep inside of him he knew he was in a way jealous of Pathik but he would never admit it.
“Pat's just trying to say that the systemic...”
“Why can't Pat speak for himself?”
“What's your problem, man?”
“What's your problem...gurl?”
“See this...this is what I'm talking about. Disco Demolition Night is a hoax, alt-right conspiracies, it's all the same shit. You're confronted with the truth and all you do is spit back some petty little insult. And Levi takes you back! Because it's about the bigger picture, it's why we make movies and hide behind our scripts and our cameras and our shadows and pretend that the world isn't run by these assholes.” Pathik jammed his finger into Maggie's iPhone screen.
Levi stared down into his drink. Brad fumed. Maggie looked sideways between them all. Pathik's annoyance had only been building. The convoluted alpha male bullfight between him and Brad over Levi was strange to say the least and here it was finally boiling over.
“That's how you really feel about the movie?” Levi asked.
“I don't know. I'm just..scared.”
Maggie put her hand on Pathik's shoulder and blinked away tears.
“I'm scared, too,” Levi began. “That's why I write. Monsters and demons and shadows, they're projections. They're not made up they come from somewhere, you know, like a need to comprehend...and fight back. It's not a distraction, it's a reflection.”
Pathik and Brad sat quietly. Their waitress came and left their check on the table, picking up the empty pitcher of beer and the few glasses, saying nothing about the mess of popcorn and residue of beer that slicked the table top. Maggie stared into her phone. Somewhere around fifty counter-protesters had just been surrounded by the police and the whole lot of them were arrested while simultaneously, three blocks down, a black pickup truck drove straight through the crowd.
To be continued...here.
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