Small Great Things(55)

For a long time, I just sit there, the computer pressed up next to me, like a girl who’s begging for a dance.

I can’t say I reach for it. More like, it makes its way back home to me.

With the touch of a key, a webpage loads. I haven’t been here since before Brit had the baby.

When Francis and I teamed up to create our website, I read manuals on coding and metadata while Francis fed me the material we would post. We called our site LONEWOLF, because that was what we all had to become.

This was no longer the eighties. We were losing our best men to the prison system. The old guard was getting too old to curb-stomp and wield nunchucks. The fresh cuts were too plugged in to get excited about a KKK rally where a bunch of ancient yahoos sat around drinking and talking about the good ol’ days. They didn’t want to hear an old wives’ tale, like that black people stank when their hair got wet. They wanted statistics they could take back to their lefty teachers and relatives who got tangled in knots when they said we were the real victims of discrimination in this country.

So we gave them what they asked for.

We posted the truth: that the U.S. Census Bureau said Whites would be a minority by 2043. That 40 percent of black people who were on welfare could work, but didn’t. That the fact that the Zionist Occupation Government was taking over our nation could be traced right to Alan Greenspan at the Federal Reserve.

Lonewolf.org quickly became something bigger than itself. We were the younger, hipper alternative. The fresh edge of rebellion.

Now, my hands move across the keyboard while I log in as the administrator. Part of the reason for running this site is the anonymity, the ability to hide behind what I believe. We are all anonymous here, and we are also all brothers. This is my army of nameless, faceless friends.

But today all that is about to change.

Many of you know me by my blog posts, and have responded with your own comments. Like me, you are a True Patriot. Like me, you wanted to follow an idea, not a person. But today, I am going to step into the light, because I want you to know me. I want you to know what happened to me.

My name is Turk Bauer, I type. And I am going to tell you the story of my son.

After I hit the post button, I watch the story of my son’s short, brave life hover on the computer screen. I want to believe that if he had to die, it was for a cause. It was for our cause.

I do not drink that night, and I do not fall back asleep. Instead, I watch the numerical counter at the top of the header, which marks each page view.

1 reader.

6 readers.

37 readers.

409 readers.

By the time the sun comes up, more than thirteen thousand people know Davis’s name.

I make coffee, and scroll through the comments section as I drink my first cup.

I’m so sorry for your loss.

Your boy was a race warrior.

Goddamned blue gum shouldn’t have been allowed to work in a White hospital anyhow.

I’ve made a donation in your son’s name to the American Freedom Party.

But one of them stops me cold:

Romans 12:19, it read. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

—

THE THURSDAY AFTER Brit dodged my ax, I had dinner with her and her father. We were well into dessert before Brit looked up, as if she’d just remembered something she needed to tell us. “I hit a nigger with my car today,” she announced.

Francis reared back in his seat. “Well, what was he doing in front of your car?”

“I have no idea. Walking, I guess. But he dented the front fender.”

“I can take a look at it,” I said. “I’ve done some bodywork.”

A smile played around Brit’s mouth. “I bet you have.”

I turned thirty shades of red while Brit told her dad that she’d convinced me to take her to see a movie after dinner, some chick flick. Francis clapped me on the back. “Better you than me, son,” he said, and then we were in my car, about to make a night of it.

Brit was like a live wire, buzzing in the passenger seat. She couldn’t stop talking; she couldn’t stop asking questions: Where were we going? Who would we target? Had I been there before?

The way I figured it, either tonight went well and that earned me Brit’s undying respect, or tonight went poorly and her father broke my neck for putting her in danger.

I took her to an abandoned parking lot near a hot dog stand that was pretty popular with faggots, who sometimes met here to hook up in the bushes behind. (Seriously, though, could there be any greater cliché than gay guys meeting at a wiener stand? They deserved to be beaten up for that alone.) I had thought about messing up some coons, but they were basically animals and could be pretty strong in a fight, whereas even Brit could pound a pansy.

“Are the other guys meeting us here?” she asked.

“There are no other guys,” I admitted. “I used to have a crew, but after one of them turned on me, I realized I like working alone. That’s how the rumor started about the bikers. The only reason I took down a whole gang by myself is because I can’t trust anyone else.”

“I get it,” Brit said. “It sucks to be abandoned by the people who are supposed to support you.”

I glanced at her. “Somehow I think you’ve lived a pretty privileged life.”