T. Parker: Full Measure

When the Magnus family lived in Fallbrook, Jed had published a racist newsletter and hosted a hate-filled radio show that had a national following. Young Cade, obviously enthralled by his charismatic father, was the heir apparent to the then White Crusade. Patrick remembered their car repair shop, Pride Auto Repair, where only American and German cars were worked on. Later a lawsuit had crippled the White Crusade but the Magnuses had stayed on in Fallbrook while father and son continued to publish racist literature and speak at Aryan, Klan, and white separatist events across the country. Patrick had seen them many times over the years, walking around downtown as if they owned it, openly baiting people with their loud voices and braying laughter.

When Cade tapped the mic a low murmur came from the crowd then subsided.

Evelyn Anders looked down at him with some irritation. “Cade, I wish I could say it was good to see you again.”

“Go right ahead.”

“I heard you moved back here two weeks ago.”

“I’ll plead guilty to that.”

“First you arrive, then we get the worst fire in our history.”

“You’re not implying I set the fire, are you?”

An uneasy murmur rippled through the room. Patrick heard a gaggle of laughter from up near the front where Cade had been sitting.

“So, you guys are the Rogue Wolves now, not the White Crusade?” asked the mayor.

“We can’t use the words White Crusade or you’ll take what little money you left us with.”

“I’ll take it?”

“Government will. Government is government — public enemy number one.” More laughter from his cadre.

“Cade, I read this Rogue Wolf proposal that you sent in last month, about the weapons ban protest. I see no merit in it at all, nor does this council. The city attorney says that legal open carry of weapons would provoke violence and has no chance in the courts. We don’t want people carrying guns around here. The City of Fallbrook is the avocado capital of the world, not the gun capital of the world. We will not sanction such a protest. We will not place this item on our agenda for public input.”

“Yet the bylaws of this city allow me to address the council at this time.”

“Don’t trivialize our city, Mr. Magnus. Fallbrook has just suffered a major catastrophe.”

“It was punishment from God for your ignorance.”

“You have exactly two minutes.”

“Thank you. Boys and girls, in these days of spiraling gun violence, such as in Columbine, Tucson, Aurora, and Newtown, we believe more than ever that citizens must bear arms. The Supreme Court guarantees this as a constitutional right. It is not a privilege. An armed citizen is a protected citizen. A self-defense weapon locked in a safe at home is no protection against the rapist in a late-night parking lot. I would not be motherless now if Ellen Magnus had been allowed to defend herself in our family’s place of business. But this is not about her or myself. So, our society encourages a woman to defend herself against such an attack, yet leaves the crucial question of weapon access to the states and municipalities. Arizona and other states have the right idea — legal carry. California must follow suit. So, we call on the city leaders of Fallbrook to recognize November twenty-second of this year to be ‘Self-Protection Day,’ during which Fallbrook’s good and law-abiding citizens over the age of twenty-one can legally carry, in public and on their persons, and loaded if they desire, the weapons of self-defense upon which this country was founded and built.”

“Complete with thirty-shot magazines?” asked Anders.

“Let’s work out the specifics later.”

“Did you choose the anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination on purpose?”

“Of course I did.”

One of the city councilwomen moved to table the proposal for further study and it was seconded by the councilman sitting beside her. The council swiftly voted.

“Tabled it is, Mr. Magnus,” said Mayor Anders.

“You’re just hiding your head in the sand.”

“We appreciate your input. Welcome back to Fallbrook and behave yourself.”

Anders whacked her gavel on the desktop and Norris heard the sharp ring of it over the jeers. Magnus remained at the podium and turned toward the audience, and Patrick had his first good look at the man in more than a decade. He was handsome in a cunning way, his hair brown and full, his eyebrows disingenuously arched, eyes wide in feigned innocence. There was a trace of a smile on his lips. “You dumbass liberals with your cheap Third World labor don’t know one thing about this country. Time to take it back, boys and girls.”

Some people sitting with Magnus stood and clapped and hooted. Patrick saw a young pierced and tattooed skinhead couple. There was an older biker in chains and leathers with an obscure patch on the back of his vest. There were two fresh-faced man-boys wearing white shirts and black ties and they looked to Patrick like Mormons, though this was doubtful. The man-boys couldn’t be much more than teenagers. The big biker fell in behind Magnus as he left the podium and strode down the center aisle toward the exits. Magnus looked at Patrick on the way and Patrick caught the gleam in his clear blue eyes — mischief or menace, hard to tell, he thought. “Welcome home, Patrick,” Magnus said to him. “Thank you and well done.”

“Go to hell,” said Patrick.

When Magnus had passed by, Patrick saw Iris Cash looking at him from across the chambers. He waved at her awkwardly, as if trying to conceal his action from the hundreds present, many of whom were looking back in his direction at Magnus. After thirteen months of living in close quarters with men, it felt strange to Patrick to intend anything as private. Iris smiled. He smiled too and felt fortunate that he had carried her with him into the war and back, and that she apparently bore him no grudge for not calling. He had cast her as a weightless ideal rather than a flesh-and-blood human being, far easier to transport and protect, and he knew this was a selfish convenience even as he had done it. Now seeing her again she was exactly as he had pictured her: very real and beautiful.

Mayor Anders called the last old business on the calendar. A woman in the audience set up an easel on the dais, and set a foam-backed photograph on it. Even from far back Patrick saw that the image was a boy’s smiling face, probably an enlargement of a school picture.

“That boy was killed on Mission Boulevard two weeks ago,” said Lew Boardman. “Ten years old. It was late and dark and the car that hit him didn’t stop. A late-model white four-door is all the witness could say. It was weaving. The car threw him up and the windshield caught him again and he flew twenty feet. And the car kept on going.”

A city safety engineer presented a PowerPoint proposal to construct two lighted crosswalks. On a city map he ran the pointer along Fallbrook’s two busiest streets and stated that some stretches of them were hundreds of yards from the nearest traffic lights. He said that without stops or crosswalks, Fallbrook’s pedestrians would continue to walk long distances, or take substantial risks to cross. He mentioned Clair Michaels, the elderly woman seriously injured by a car two years prior on Main. The safety engineer turned and looked at the photograph of the boy. The room quieted.

Patrick looked at the smiling boy in the picture, the gap where his front teeth would have soon been, the shirt collar buttoned all the way up. The safety engineer turned back to his mic and said the cost estimate was $84,000 per crosswalk, half paid by California DOT, another twenty thousand for each coming from the county. The annual operating cost would be small because on-site solar panels would power the small lights embedded in the asphalt. Mayor Anders said such a project would leave a $44,000 obligation to Fallbrook but the city had such money — barely — available from the general fund, earmarked for public health and safety. She looked at the councilpersons and noted that this sure seemed like a good use of that money. Public input?