At 2 a.m. on the morning of November 27, he was hunched feverishly over a Best of Jugs when he heard the jingle of the cat bell that was fastened to the store’s front door. He tucked himself in and hurried up toward the register. It took him a moment to recognize the two customers as the same men who’d stopped by earlier in the evening for jerky and Quick Picks. Clearly they’d been in an awesome bar fight.
“The hell happened to you boys?” Shiner asked.
The short one, dressed in camo, asked for Band-Aids. The one with the ponytail requested malt liquor. Shiner obliged—finally, some excitement! He helped the men clean and bind their multiple wounds. The camouflaged one introduced himself as Bodean Gazzer, Bode for short. He said his friend was called Chub.
“Pleased to meetcha,” said Shiner.
“Son, we need your help.”
“OK.”
Bode said, “You believe in God and family?”
Shiner hesitated. Not this again—more pilgrims! But then Chub said, “You believe in guns?”
“The right to bear arms,” Bode Gazzer clarified. “It’s in the Constitution.”
“Sure,” said Shiner.
“You got a gun?”
“Course,” Shiner answered.
“Excellent. And the white man—you believe in the white man?”
“Goddamn right!”
“Good,” Bode Gazzer said.
He told Shiner to take a hard look at himself. Look at where he’d ended up, behind the counter of a miserable motherfucking convenience store, waiting on Cubans and Negroes and Jews and probably even a few Indians.
Chub said, “How old are you, boy?”
“Nineteen.”
“And this is your grand plan for life?” Chub sneered as he waved a hand around the store. “This is your, whatchamacallit, your birthright?”
“Hell, no.” Shiner found it difficult to meet Chub’s gaze; the split eyelid was distracting and creepy. The closed portion hung pale and unblinking, a torn drape behind which the yolky bloodshot eyeball would intermittently disappear.
“I bet you didn’t know,” Bode Gazzer said, “your hard-earned tax dollars are payin’ for a crack NATO army to invade the U.S.A.”
Shiner had no clue what the camouflaged man was talking about, though he didn’t let on. He’d never heard of NATO and in his entire life hadn’t paid enough in income taxes to finance a box of bullets, much less a whole invasion.
Headlights in the parking lot caught his attention: a Dodge Caravan full of tourists, pulling up to the gas pumps.
Chub frowned. “Tell ’em you’re closed.”
“What?”
“Now!” Bode barked.
The clerk did as he was told. When he came back in the store, he found the men whispering to each other.
The one called Chub said, “We’s just sayin’ you’d make a fine recruit.”
“For what?” Shiner asked.
Bode lowered his voice. “You got any interest in saving America from certain doom?”
“I guess. Sure.” Then, after thinking about it: “Would I have to quit my job?”
Bode Gazzer nodded portentously. “Soon,” he said.
Shiner listened as the men explained where America had gone wrong, allowing Washington to fall into the hands of communists, lesbians, queers and race mixers. Shiner was annoyed to learn he probably would have owned the Grab N’Go by now if it weren’t for something called “affirmative action”—a law evidently dreamed up by the commies to help blacks take over the nation.
Pretty soon Shiner’s universe began to make more sense. He was pleased to learn it wasn’t all his doing, this sorry-ass excuse for a life. No, it was the result of a complicated and diabolical plot, a vast conspiracy against the ordinary working white man. All this time there’d been a heavy boot on Shiner’s neck, and he hadn’t even known! Out of ignorance he’d always assumed it was his own damn fault—first quitting high school, then crapping out of the army. He’d been unaware of the larger, darker forces at work, “oppressing” him and “subordinating” him. Enslaving him, Chub added.
Thinking about it made Shiner angry, but also oddly elated. Bode Gazzer and Chub were doing wonders for his self-esteem. They gave him a sense of worth. They gave him pride. Best of all, they gave him an excuse for his failures; someone else to blame! Shiner was invigorated with relief.
“How come you guys know so much?”