“So where you from? How’d you find us? Who’s your voucher?”
“My voucher?”
“Yeah, who vouched for you.”
“Oh. A guy named Underwood.”
“Dick. Sure. Total soldier. I’ll tell ya, man, we wear our boots around here twenty-four-seven. Never take ’em off ’cuz the day’s coming. Any moment now. But Dick’s a real soldier, so we’re ready. Those are the kennels.”
Row after row of wire cages. Most of the dogs are huge. Pit bulls and German shepherds a-yapping, ravenous and mean. You wonder if they can smell that you were eating pieces of their kin on the drive up. The grounds are caught halfway between a bustling military boot camp for teenagers and a sad music festival that couldn’t sell half its tickets. You pass a child stalking around in the snow with no shirt, arms and chest covered in tattoos. He wears a Confederate flag bandana around the lower part of his face. Another teenage boy wearing a Los Angeles Lakers cap and a T-shirt with a picture of a Glock spears crushed cans and other loose litter with a pitchfork, depositing it in a trash bag. A teenage girl smokes a cigarette on a picnic table, picking at a scab on her shoulder blade and looking bored.
“We’re a violent, armed movement, and that’s the thing a lot of people don’t understand, is that we’re not just a bunch a hillbillies, you know? There’s a whole plan laid out—the captain’ll explain it better—but there are certain areas of the country already been marked off, and we’re coordinating, you know? They’ll be cordoned off and designated for the white race. Blacks and other races will exit those areas, and for the most part it’ll be voluntary and peaceful. For the most part. Except Muslims and Jews, those are two groups we’ll likely be at war with for just about forever. Jews are too tricky, and Muslims are more like rats, they just breed a lot and that’s kinda their power. Here, check this out.”
He takes out a set of keys in front of an aluminum shed, fumbles with them, and opens the door. Inside are rows and rows of guns.
“Pretty cool, huh?”
Thousands of them. Assault rifles and shotguns racked and pointing at the roof. Handguns hooked onto the walls and several bigger weapons lying on the floor. The shed is the size of a basketball court. A red flag with a buckeye leaf on the back wall. The pops of gunfire grow louder as Freddy leads you to the shooting range, which is more an empty field with a few targets and effigies of President Love set up in front of a big mound of dirt. Six kids are shooting, little puffs like smoke signals rising from the barrels with each pop. You have a headache, and you’re hungry again.
“It’s a long war that’s been going on for most of human history,” Freddy continues happily, uncaring of how little you’re engaging him. “The battle is between the races, and right now we’re losing for sure, but not for long. That’s what the federation of different leagues is about. Some of ’em like the Oath Keepers or Three Percenters, they don’t necessarily keep out nonwhites, which is a huge problem, but right now we need cooperation, don’t you think?”
“Sure.”
“Where you from again?”
“Coshocton. Dayton originally. Didn’t like it there.”
“Oh hell, I know about that. This is the first place I lived at more than a year since as long as I can remember! Your dad a prick too? Mine was.”
“Never knew him.”
“God, I wish I’d never known mine!” Freddy is cheerful when he says this, like you two have found something to bond over.
“That’s why I left home—I’m from Toledo, by the way, but not the part that’s too niggery—but he’s why I left, ’cause this one time he starts beating the shit out of me. But not like normal. Like he pulled all my clothes off and threw me out on the lawn and smashed my ankle with his boot, you know? I heard it crack when he stomped it. He beat me with this belt with a metal buckle and that shit was sharp. Tore my back all the fuck up.” He raises his shirt to show off a crisscrossing mesh of thin white scars. “Like that’s not enough, he popped my arm out too. Soon as I got healed, I was like, Fuck this, I’m out.”
When Freddy takes you past the chow hall, you get an idea of why recruitment is going so well. Younger boys serve up steaming plates to guys in camo pants while heat lamps work at the cold. You see and smell eggs, bacon, grits, and hotcakes; the scent so delicious it makes you weak-kneed. There are TVs playing Renaissance and The Pastor’s network, Faith & Home. You stare at the steaming eggs and bacon. You want a plate so bad you almost ask Freddy if you can. But his radio’s squawking.
“Captain’s ready for him.”
“Roger that,” says Freddy, but he’s fumbled the PTT button, and the person on the other end doesn’t hear him. There’s a moment of confusion, and then Freddy gets the timing right.
Inside the main building, “the command center” as Freddy calls it, you pass rows of offices, most of which just look like storage lockers, piled high with boxes and old furniture. You pass through a room where an enormous fat guy is tattooing a kid’s bicep: a green dragon breathing red fire. The artist himself has a urinating Baby Breivik on one arm and Mickey Mouse carrying the Confederate flag on the other. Both look up at you as you pass.
“Fellas,” says Freddy cheerily. He leads you to a door at the back. “Ah nuts,” he says as he checks his phone. “I forgot—oh man, I forgot I had my laundry in. My bunkmate’s shitting his britches over it. Hey, do you mind if we catch up later?”
Freddy’s pulling open the door as another man, the captain it seems, joins you.
“What are you about, Freddy?” he says.
“Laundry, sir. Just need to change out the loads.”
“All right, boy, hop to it.”
And like he’s a dog getting a pat on the head, Freddy is off.
The captain is portly and unshaved with big, chapped lips. A fat-butt chin and unruly muttonchop sideburns. He’s at once unimpressive and menacing. He wears, tucked into his cargo pants, a black T-shirt that reads MYRTLE BEACH, SOUTH CAROLINA in pink lettering. Black boots clomp and squeak on the hardwood. He wears a big pistol on his hip, which gets caught in the armrest of his chair so that he has to stand again before fully sagging into the seat.
“Good to make your acquaintance. So it’s John, but you go by…”
“Keeper.”
There’s a big picture of Anders Breivik on the wall behind him, between the two windows. Otherwise, the office is spartan. All that sits on the desk is a blotter, a pad of paper, and a few errant pens and paper clips.
“We got a lot to talk about, my friend. Freddy Riley take care of you on the tour?”
“Just fine.”
“He’s zealous, but he’s a good kid. Real enthusiastic, but I can understand if he comes off as a little chipper. That’s just his nature. Passionate young men make the best warriors for a cause.”
You nod.
“Get you anything to eat? You had breakfast yet?”
You push your fingernails into your palms. Moments ago you would’ve taken a plate from anyone, done almost anything. Now, despite the ache in your belly, you say, “Nah, I ate on the way up. I’m stuffed.”
The captain nods. His name is actually Morgan Schembari, and he’s got a sales pitch that lasts so long, you have to cover your mouth to hide your yawns. The American Patriot League is a federation of like-minded military and service organizations joined together to support the cause of defending American freedom etc., etc., etc. Schembari is so clearly enamored with himself and surely believes there’s no way a person could sit across from him, hear this pitch, and not jack off at what a brave and charismatic leader he is. You nod along and cover your mouth for another yawn.
“This man,” he points to the picture of Breivik. “This is the leader who’ll spearhead a global movement. You heard of him?” You nod. “We have the power, the weapons, now all we need is someone to execute the plan. And the state of Ohio, Keeper, I can’t stress to you enough how important control over the state of Ohio is. The territory surrounding the Great Lakes is going to become some of the most sought-after land on the planet, and we need to be prepared to secure it when the time comes. Make sense?” You nod. “Now as far as The Pastor goes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Christian through and through. But all his stuff about ‘the earth will burn with fervent heat, and gravity will disappear as the feet of the righteous leave the earth—’ ”