A New Faith: Part 1: Chapter 10

The irony of this particular rally was not lost on Jake as he rode his thundering bike, excessively festooned with confederate flags, down Massachusetts Avenue in Washington DC. Not a single Christian person had died in the Vatican massacre. All of the fatalities and injured victims were either Chinese communists or Indian Hindus. Yet, he had been ordered a few days ago to organize a Christian rally bang through the middle of DC.

In true foot-soldier fashion, Jake had gotten the ball rolling through the various outreach mechanisms that he operated for his chapter. The messages were fully synchronized across all the platforms of live media and social media ensuring that there was a simple theme around which rallies would be organized all over the US. The theme was, “Christians are under attack.” It was not a particularly new theme, but then the terrorism incident at the Vatican was merely an excuse to flex muscles yet again. Facts had stopped being relevant for Christian organizations in the US, and for that matter all over the world, a long time ago. The goal was to manufacture outrage through victimhood in order to keep the flock together. The topics pertaining to material well-being that the progressives wanted to talk about had mostly been driven out from the political discourse.

The rally was to start on top of the hill in northwestern DC, at the stairs of the Washington National Cathedral. Yes, these days, they made it a point to highlight the overt religiosity of the rally. Then, it was to proceed down Massachusetts Avenue where many of the Embassies were located and on to Dupont Circle where it would turn on to Connecticut Avenue and head for the Ellipse in front of the White House. It was meant to make a point to all the nations and the current occupants of both the White House and the Naval Observatory. Usually, this route would never have been permitted because of the presence of so many international buildings. But then, the current party in charge of the government was a big fan of such religious fervor. Of course, they would be allowed to barge through this security-conscious area. 

Jake was a poster-child for the white Christian nationalist organization that he had been part of since he left high-school. He was tall and muscular with sleepy light gray eyes. His blonde hair was closely cropped but he nourished glorious burnsides. If not for that, he would have looked like the shy 30-year old that he really was. Not this scary impression of a foot-soldier in the army of Christ. 

What most people missed about Jake though was the clever mind that kept ticking along all the time in the background. He made sure that that fact was kept under wraps because his organization didn’t like independent thinkers. He had gravitated to the organization for an absolutely mundane reason - there were plenty of girls always hanging out at the local chapter’s office and they were always up for a good time with the good ol’ boys. He knew that he was never going to be able to afford college. Even if his parents had money for his college, they would have never allowed him to go to one of those heathen colleges. His best shot at having a good life had been to join right-wing politics. His hormones and his parents’ views aligned wonderfully when he announced that he had joined the local chapter as a volunteer.

He didn’t have much of an opinion about religion and race until he joined his organization. But the colossal amount of brainwashing that he was subjected to in the initial years did a number on him. He would frequently drive around on his motorbike, brandishing a shot gun, yelling at anyone who didn’t look like a white Christian. Getting in trouble a few times for unlawful activities - for example, beating up some black or brown dude in a bar - was his ticket to a rapid rise in his organization. It was never serious trouble because invariably the cops were sympathetic to his cause and more often than not the public slap on the wrist was later offset with a drink at the local dive when the same cops were off-duty. 

The problem was Jake’s conscience. It started really struggling with the orders he was being given. The chasm between the kool-aid he had been force-fed and the reality was becoming more and more apparent every day. For starters, he rarely ran into any non-white non-Christian person in the real world. Rural America just didn’t have those kind of people. The few that he ran into were mostly trying to stay out of sight as much as possible because of fear. The last thing on their mind was attacking a white Christian person. They barely even raised their head when spoken to. He started wondering how in god’s name he was supposed to feel threatened by these petrified people. 

Initially, he simply told himself that it may not be happening where he lived but it definitely happened in other parts of the world. But that also didn’t seem to be accurate the closer he looked at what was going on around the world. Sure, the US seemed to be stuck in some kind of Cold War with China and yes, there sure were far more Chinese than Americans in the world. However, it didn’t seem like the Chinese were interested in crossing the huge Pacific ocean and invading the US any time in the near future, if ever. The American economy was a juggernaut compared to the Chinese, especially, as Europe tended to often side with the Americans. The rest of the world - the Indians, the Africans, the Arabs, the Latin Americans - they all just preferred to stay on the sidelines trying not to piss off both the US and the Chinese as far as possible. There was simply no threat to the US in any shape or form.

He had been quietly reading books - yes, even those that were banned by his organization - to deal with the increasingly insistent voice in his head that kept pointing out discrepancies between the realities, the alternate and the real one. He had a burner phone on which he accessed all kinds of material and then instead of picking fights with random people, he thought and thought as he drove around his little part of the US. The voice in his head just became louder the more he read and thought. It had not yet caused an existential crisis for him as he was still one of the top dogs in his organization. And that still gave him quite a high. He did what needed to be done but increasingly dispassionately. His sleepy eyes and poker face served as excellent allies in keeping up the pretense of being a lunkhead. 

He looked around with a smug look on his face - well, at least he thought he was giving a smug look even though there was no difference between this look and when he was feeling all humble - at his fellow rally-goers. In a very showy manner, he wrenched the accelerator of his bike, his big muscles tensing up in the hot sun. The sound deepened and the rumble seemed to shake the ground around him just that little bit and the exhaust belched. Funny thing, his bike was electric but tricked out in such a way as to look, sound, and smell like a regular bike running on gasoline. Right-wing folks were partial to gasoline bikes and trucks even though it was incredibly stupid to use the wildly expensive fuel. Unfortunately, it was now a part of the performance - “American oil and gas!”- that the right-wing continued to feel compelled to rely on. Jake had got a custom-made electric bike that looked the same as a typical gasoline bike. He had rigged an audio system with an, especially, powerful sub-woofer that went well beyond imitating the rumble of an old-school road hog. Then there was a smoke machine hooked up into the fake exhaust system that produced copious amounts of dirty smoke on demand. So far no one had noticed that it was not as foul-smelling as that of a typical old Harley. No one noticed these things because the bike was decked up with the usual paraphernalia proclaiming the superiority of white power. Idiots! The only thing he needed to make sure of was to not race these idiots ever. His run-of-the-mill electric bike would have wiped the floor with those gas hogs and more! Maybe that smug look on his face was not so fake after all, but simply aimed in the wrong direction.

His boss was at the front of the rally procession sitting on top of the hub of a monster truck with a megaphone in his hand while he shot t-shirts at the crowd that had gathered to watch. Every now and then he had to rest his delicate throat from all the screaming. To a large extent, this rally was a pretty standard issue event to remind folks of who they were and that they still had the clout to make a mess of the evening commute. The federal government had become somnolent a while ago. Even a knowledgeable person like Jake was hard-pressed to remember the last round of meaningful legislation passed by Congress AND signed by the President. It was mostly theater. They were all a bunch of peacocks in Washington DC who preened all day long in front of the cameras. Not a single meaningful word came out of their mouths. It was like a crap reality show that never ended. Cast members seldom changed in this show as the incumbents were rarely challenged in any serious manner. Both parties had locked up their fiefdoms so tightly that there was not much chance of power shifting toward either side in any substantive manner. And that is why he and his organization had to do these rallies in DC. To help keep keep their side on top in this fragile tussle as long as possible.

What was somewhat unusual about today’s rally, Jake felt, was that the number of folks that seemed to have showed up was quite a bit more than he had expected. Maybe it was the nice weather. Maybe the news that the “Vatican had been attacked!” had resonated a lot more than he had imagined. It was getting a bit hard to figure out which thing would stick in the minds of the public and which would slide right off. Another score for Jake. The boss was sure to notice the size of this crowd and would acknowledge Jake later for pulling this together so quickly. All is good, Jake thought. 

Just when he was about to “rev up” his bike and move toward the front of the procession, he heard the sound of some new slogan being shouted. It sounded like hissing. It was just one word being repeated incessantly. He couldn’t really make out the word over the loud reverberation of the sub-woofer installed right under his seat. He slowed down and simultaneously turned down the volume on the subwoofer with the special dial installed right next to the accelerator. The slogan burst through the immediate din around him. “Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill the towel-heads! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill the towel-heads!” 

Shouting about killing all kinds of folks was not at all uncommon at such rallies. Yet, there was something quite ominous about this slogan. It seemed to be resonating from the ground up. He saw that some of his fellow rally-goers had also noticed this new slogan. Maybe some new fringe group had joined in. This slogan was, most definitely, not part of the approved slogans to be used in the rally. These days, in order to drive up the recruitment numbers, they had all been told to dial down the violent slogans and dial up the white victimhood angle. That was designed, explicitly, to raise sympathy and bring in much-needed recruits to their movement. 

Jake’s boss continued his screaming from the megaphone at a higher volume hell-bent on drowning out the new sloganeering. His boss was not pleased that his show was being commandeered by someone else. As he shouted and waved his hand, the boss looked around to find Jake. When his eyes landed on Jake, he gestured at him to go take care of this new problem. Message discipline was paramount. It was the foundation on which the right-wing had built its political power. The left-wing had no message discipline at all and hence, had been struggling with stringing together even modest wins at any level of the government. Mobilizing at the national level was no longer even an aspiration of the left. 

Jake acknowledged his boss and wheeled his bike around to the side so that he could go hunt down the folks who were breaking the ranks with this new slogan. Just for a moment, he forgot to dial up the volume and the smoke as he turned the accelerator. The bike sped up noiselessly and he panicked. Luckily, the tires had spun so fast that the crunching sound covered up the lack of the engine rumble while the smell of burnt tire rubber and tar overwhelmed the lack of exhaust. He quickly spun the dial and punched the smoke machine before anyone discovered his secret. 

Within a few minutes he found the cohort who was hissing the violent word again and again. They were dressed in surplus army gear and carried rifles. There were no banners among them. The common thing was that they were all old, probably well in their 60s and 70s. And they had a harsh, utterly pitiless look in their eyes. They didn’t notice Jake until he waved his free arm a bit more vigorously.

“What gives folks? This is not the slogan we had been told to use today,” Jake said in his most pleasant voice. The young ‘un act usually worked like a charm on the oldies. They continued with their march, and yes, it was a march, Jake noticed. They were marching like a platoon or whatever army grunts marched in. One of the oldies peeled off and walked up to him. 

“We are not with you, son!” he growled.

“Say again, grandpa?” Jake held his ground while mildly revving up the sub-woofer on his bike. 

“We should have finished off these towel-heads way back during the crusades a thousand years ago. We let them live. We had another chance to do that with the two Bushies in the White House. But, again we decided to be benevolent. No more. We are gonna get the job done this time around! Gotta kill every last one of ‘em. They have been a menace to the world for far too long.”

“Whoa… whoa… slow down, Sir,” Jake switched off his bike, put it on the side-stand and approached the oldie. 

“What are you talkin’ about, old man? There ain’t no war going on right now. We ain’t talking about killing anyone right now,” Jake decided that playing the reasonable junior but physically superior guy was the best approach to deal with this wiry bent old guy. 

“Anyway we are the top dogs in the world and there ain’t anybody threatening us. No one even has the balls to look us in the eye!”

“Stand down, son. We have bled for America. We have been to hell and back. We know how bad the ground situation is. All you young ‘uns and politicians in DC are gonna do is pussy-foot around on TV and your social media and do nothing else. We are gonna get this shit done once and for all. Stand down or I will blow your head off,” he snarled.

As if on cue, the air was suddenly filled with gunfire as all the oldies started shooting at the sky. Now those were reverberations, Jake thought. The ground shook as if there was an earthquake and the smell of hot metal was everywhere. The cops who had been milling around the procession were caught completely off-guard with this sudden gunfire. This was supposed to be yet another rally through the town. Most of the rally-goers hadn’t even brought weapons and whatever weapons that were on display were not loaded. They were, specifically, for show. This was totally different. As their training kicked in, the cops took cover and pulled out their weapons quickly. They started scanning the procession to ascertain where the gunfire was coming from and if there were any casualties. Their commander cursed fluently. This was not gonna look good on the evening news. He could already hear his boss chewing his head off later that day. 

The cops realized that the gunfire was not aimed at anyone. All the guns had been pointed straight up in the air. A broad swathe of Massachusetts Avenue was now covered with shell casings. The cops looked at each other uncertainly. They were not sure what to do next. No one seemed to have been hurt. What the hell was going on? 

Just as it had started, the gunfire ceased in unison and there was a deathly silence.  

“Shit!” thought Jake. These guys are not kidding round. They just fired a shit ton of weapons right next to the Veep’s home. No one from their side was supposed to pull this kind of stunt in DC. The Veep and President were on their side, for chrissakes!

Jake now noticed that the procession was entering Washington DC’s Embassy Row. But there was one building that was not an embassy and the procession had stopped right in front of it. The Islamic Center. It was not just a typical cultural center in DC that hosted events but it was also a mosque. In fact, when it had opened in 1957, it was the largest mosque in the entire western hemisphere. It also happened to be a Friday, the holy day for prayer in Islam. 

Unbeknownst to the cops, the namaaz in the mosque had ended and the doors opened to let out a stream of devotees who had heard the gunfire and were now fearfully looking at the procession on the street from beyond the iron fence. 

About fifty of the guys with rifles broke ranks and formed up again in a line outside the fence separating them from the mosque and the muslim devotees. All those guys were wearing military-grade camouflage gear and had their faces covered in war paint. 

As if it was happening in slow motion, Jake noticed this posse line up. The hair at the back of his neck stood up. He knew what was going to happen before it did. As bile rose up in his throat, he saw the posse get into position. In unison, the safeties went to off position and the thunder of gunfire erupted again. The difference was that the guns were no longer pointed at the sky but at the people inside the Islamic Center - unarmed people, many of whom were kids and women. It was all over in a few seconds as the posse emptied its magazines in the crowd of devotees. And then the sound of gunfire ceased - again in unison. But it did not get silent. Instead, the atmosphere was filled with heart-wrenching agony as those that had not been killed found their voices. 

The message had been delivered to the world loud and clear.

Then it was time to get out of Dodge and pronto. The posse had vanished like smoke even as the cops and the other rally-goers were trying to figure out what had just happened. 

Over the next few days, it dawned on Jake that he was going to have to completely revise his career path. Rather than be angry about it, he was quite pleased with the thought of this. Maybe the world had reached another inflection point where there was a non-zero probability that the world could move toward a better future instead of the terrible one that he had resigned himself to.