Brian Freeman - Marathon

In high school, Travis had been the kind of guy Wade hated. A bully. Cocky and full of himself. Always a stash of pills and weed. That worked in school but not in the real world. Travis went straight from high school to a job on a garbage truck, the kind of job where you had to shower before you went home because you always smelled like four-month-old cheese. Travis dumped trash bins during the days and drank beer and screamed at the UFC fights on the bar’s TV in the evenings. He went nowhere in life, until his sister Shelly, who was Wade’s accountant, suggested that Wade hire Travis to grow the business. More clients, more dead bugs, meant more money. That was four years ago.

On the job, they got along okay. Wade had a vintage Mustang he’d restored in an old storage locker. A speedboat. And Joni. All of it impressed Travis, who was usually a month away from having his truck repossessed and crashed on Shelly’s couch most nights.

“Travis?” Wade said again. “How’s Shelly?”

“She’s in surgery. Been there for hours. They won’t tell me anything.”

“Shit. No wonder you’re upset.”

“Her legs were a mess. I saw it. A real mess. Bones sticking out. One foot, man, it was like hanging by a thread.”

Wade closed his eyes. He tried to swallow, but acid burned in his throat. “That sucks.”

Travis breathed through his mouth, like a fish. “Yeah.”

“What about Joni? Can you ask the nurse where she is? I mean, is she in the cafeteria, or did she go home to get some sleep?”

Travis turned away from the window. His eyes looked as if they’d sunk back into his skull. “I–I don’t know, man.”

“Well, can you find out? Come on, Travis.”

“Sure. I’ll ask somebody. You get some sleep or something.”

“I don’t want to sleep,” Wade said. “I’ve been sleeping all day. I want to see my wife.”

“I guess she must be around here,” Travis said.

There it was again. Something in his voice. Something in his face.

“Travis?”

“Yeah, man.”

“Joni’s okay, right?”

“What did they tell you?” Travis asked. “Did they tell you anything?”

“I don’t know. Everyone said, don’t worry, just sleep. The thing is, Joni was standing right next to Shelly, wasn’t she? I mean, right next to her, Travis. I saw her. If Shelly’s so bad off, how could Joni be okay? She wasn’t in front of a tree like you, Travis.”

Travis came and stood over the bed. Tears poured down his face. “No, no tree.”

“She was right next to Shelly,” Wade said.

“Yeah.”

“Tell me the truth, man.”

“Hey, you’ve been through a lot, Wade. Just close your eyes, buddy. We can talk tomorrow.”

“ Tell me the truth, man .”

Travis sank down by the bed and gathered up Wade’s hand in his bear paw. The kid didn’t know his own strength. “I’m sorry, man. I’m so sorry. Joni’s gone. She died out there on the street. The bastards killed her.”

Wade closed his eyes and said nothing at all.

He’d known all along.

“I’m here to express my solidarity with the people of Duluth,” Dawn Basch told the crowd in the ballroom of the downtown Radisson Hotel. No one would mistake her accent for a “ja sure, you betcha” Minnesotan’s. Her voice made her sound like one of the Real Housewives of New Jersey .

“Yesterday, terrorists tried to silence the voices of freedom-loving people in this city, just as they’ve done in so many other places around the world. Well, I have a message for them. You won’t succeed.”

Stride watched from the back of the room. Basch stood at a podium with two beefy private security guards on either side of her. He had his own police officers just outside the room, at the elevators, in the lobby of the hotel, and on Superior Street. He wasn’t taking any chances with more violence, but what bothered him was that violence was exactly what Basch wanted.

Violence brought publicity. Attention. Credibility.

Violence sold tickets to her conferences.

Violence rang up sales of bumper stickers, T-shirts, and hats.

Worse, the media played right along with her. The ballroom overflowed with television reporters who’d arrived to cover the marathon bombing. Basch gave them the raw meat that drove up ratings, and ratings trumped journalism every time. She was live on CNN, CBS, NBC, and Fox.

“Special Agent Maloney says that he can’t draw any conclusions yet about yesterday’s bombing, but I believe the American people have made it clear that they are sick of political correctness in the face of terrorism. So let me just say what we all know. This horrible event was almost certainly committed by the Islamic extremists who have been protesting this free-speech conference since I arrived in Duluth. I’ve received dozens of death threats, and we’ve made those e-mails available to the FBI. Somewhere among those radical Islamists, I’m sure they will find whoever perpetrated these outrageous, senseless murders. In the meantime, I hope that the entire city of Duluth will act as a kind of Neighborhood Watch to help the authorities locate these murderers before they do more harm. These people must be stopped, and all of you can play your part.”

Stride swore under his breath. A city of vigilantes was the last thing they needed, but Basch was the kind of person who played with matches at a gas station.

She was fifty years old, trying and failing to look forty. She had long, dark hair that fell into a tornado of messy curls at her shoulders. She was tall and bird-thin. Her smile was slightly misshapen, and she used overly bright lipstick. Her skin had a lumpy, masklike quality, as if it had been shaped in Play-Doh and then painted with crayons. Her long eyelashes and dark mascara made her eyes look like two vampire bats, flapping their wings as she blinked. She wore a red jacket and a tapered black skirt.

“Naturally, I’m seeing my usual attackers in the liberal press,” Basch went on. “ The New York Times calls me a reckless provocateur, and you know what? I am. I’m proud of it. When it comes to free speech, I say No Exceptions. I don’t care who I offend. If somebody wants to make a movie about Muhammad cutting the heads off Barbie dolls, I say, go right ahead. In this country, we have an absolute right to make fun of anything we want, and if you don’t like it, you can go somewhere else. Of course, it’s rather ironic, because the media ‘experts’ who say we can’t jump to conclusions are also blaming me for creating a culture of violence by offending Muslims. Obviously, they know I’m right about who’s behind this crime. And as for causing offense, I don’t negotiate my First Amendment rights at the barrel of a gun. We can talk about civility as soon as the other side stops blowing people up.”

Basch was smooth. No doubt about it. She had the gift of every demagogue to wrap up her prejudice in a pretty package, so you couldn’t see the ugliness within. Stride didn’t even believe that her basic message was wrong. Between protecting free speech and avoiding offense, free speech always won. Even so, he had no respect for people who threw insults simply because the Constitution said they could. He hated painting a diverse community of faith with a single brush, because his own experience of Duluth’s Muslims was that they were honorable people who worked hard, loved their families, and wanted to live in peace.

He also knew, as he’d told Haq Al-Masri, that the Muslim community had more than its share of dragons. And a single dragon could burn down a whole town.

As Basch began to take questions, Stride ducked out of the ballroom. He exited the hotel on Superior Street, across from the downtown library. The Sunday streets were deserted. Businesses were closed. Only the police and media patrolled the city. He waved away a handful of reporters and walked alone down Fifth Avenue past the Depot.