South End Militia

The other day I was clearing brush down by the road when I heard horns honking and engines revving, a cacophony audible from half a mile away. I put down my sickle and waited to see what parade was going to pass by me on its way to the head of the island. Half a minute later a convoy of trucks proceeded past me at half the speed limit, TRUMP 2020 signs propped up in the pickup beds, American flags half tattered from the wind shear snapping in the wind, horns blaring, lights on emergency blinkers. At the head of the line was Big Walter dressed in military camo, MAGA hat worn proudly, arm out the rolled down window, an assault rifle in the gunrack behind him. When he saw me standing by the side of the road, he gave me a big thumbs up and yelled, ‘Resistance is futile, Skeeter!!’

Rather than yell something obscene back over the road roar, I just stood at attention and gave him a salute. Okay, one finger only. Big Walter thinks he’s the Commandant of the South End Militia these days, the patriot who’ll guard the county’s ballot drop box against possible tampering, the guerilla warrior who’ll take on the Antifa when they turn up after Trump’s victory to protest what they’ll claim is a bogus election, the gunslinging take-no-prisoners vigilante who’ll guarantee liberty for the white males of the country who he claims are under siege and discriminated against.

Behind his lead vehicle came a ragtag assortment of Walter’s militia. Fat Phil and Little Jimmy rode together in a Ford 250 jacked higher than the gigantic tires looking like an escapee from a monster truck show. Behind them came a couple of half tons, one dump truck, a WW Two jeep, two flatbeds, three or four vintage cars and trucks and oddly, taking up the rear, Two Toke with his battered Volkswagen van circa 1966, peace signs plastered all over it and a Grateful Dead insignia hand painted on the front . Behind him were the half dozen poor folks who were stuck in the traffic jam, probably embarrassed to be part of the parade. Or maybe not.

Two Toke grinned happily, shot me the peace sign and I just shook my head as he rolled past in that micro bus like an acid flashback to the Viet Nam protests of our political youth. Here we are again, I thought, back where we started, nothing much changed. I picked up my sickle and went back to slashing sticker bushes and blackberries. By spring they’d be grown back and I’d be at it again.

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