Walter Williams - The Rift

She looked away. “That was a mean thing to say, Omar.”

“It’s true, ain’t it?”

“You should shower and change your clothes. We’ll be late for the shrimp boil.”

The phone rang. Omar took a pull from his long-neck, then rose from the couch to answer. It was his son David.

“Congratulations, Dad!” he said. “I’m popping a few brews to celebrate!”

“Thanks.” Omar felt a glow kindle in his heart. David was finishing his junior year at LSU and would be the first Paxton ever to graduate from college. Omar had got David through some rocky years in his teens- the boy was hot-tempered and had traveled with a rough crowd- but now David was safe in Baton Rouge and well on his way to escaping the shabby, tiny world of Spottswood Parish.

A place that Omar himself planned to escape, rising from his double shotgun home on the wings of a Kleagle. Once you get the people behind you, he thought, who knew how far you could go?

*

The concussions of the earthquake still continue, the shock on the 23rd ult. was more severe and larger than that of the 16th Dec. and the shock of the 7th inst. was still more violent than any preceding, and lasted longer than — perhaps any on record, (from 10 to 15 minutes, the earth was not at rest for one hour.) the ravages of this dreadful convulsion have nearly depopulated the district of New Madrid, but few remain to tell the sad tale, the inhabitants have fled in every direction … Some have been driven from their houses, and a number are yet in tents. No doubt volcanoes in the mountains of the west, which have been extinguished for ages, are now opened.

Cape Girardeau, Feb. 15th, 1812

“This is delicious, Rhoda,” Omar said. He had some more of the casserole, then held up his plastic fork. “What’s in it?”

Rhoda, a plump woman whose shoulders, toughened to leather by the sun, were revealed by an incongruous, frilly fiesta dress, simpered and smiled.

“Oh, it’s easy,” she said. “Green beans with cream of mushroom soup, fried onion rings, and Velveeta.”

“It’s delicious,” Omar repeated. He leaned a little closer to speak above the sound of the band. “You wouldn’t mind sending the recipe to Wilona, would you?”

“Oh no, not at all.”

“This casserole is purely wonderful. I’d love it if Wilona knew how to make it.”

Another vote guaranteed for yours truly, he thought as he left a pleased-looking constituent in his wake.

He wasn’t planning on staying sheriff forever. He had his machine together. He had his people. The state house beckoned. Maybe even Congress.

How long had it been since a Klan leader was in Congress? A real Klan leader, too, not someone like that wimp David Duke, who claimed he wasn’t Klan anymore.

Omar waved at D.R. Thompson, the owner of the Commissary, who was talking earnestly with Merle in the corner by the door to the men’s room. D.R. nodded back at him.

Ozie’s was jammed. The tin-roofed, clapboard bar past the Shelburne City corp limit had been hired for Omar’s victory party, and it looked as if half the parish had turned out for the shrimp boil and dance.

The white half, Omar thought.

Omar sidled up to the bar. Ozie Welks, the owner, passed him a fresh beer without even pausing in his conversation with Sorrel Ellen, who was the editor and publisher of the Spottswood Chronicle, the local weekly newspaper.

“So this Yankee reporter started asking me about all this race stuff,” Ozie said. “I mean it was Klan this and militia that and slavery this other thing. And I told him straight out, listen, you’ve got it wrong, the South isn’t about race. The South has its own culture, its own way of life. All everybody outside the South knows is the race issue, and the South is about a lot more than that.”

“Like what, for instance?” Sorrel asked.

“Well,” Ozie said, a bit defensive now that he had to think about it. “There’s football .”

Sorrel giggled. For a grown man, he had a strange, high-pitched giggle, a sound that cut the air like a knife. Being too close to Sorrel Ellen when he giggled could make your ears hurt.

“That’s right,” he said. “You got it right there, Ozie.” He turned to gaze at Omar with his watery blue eyes. “I think Ozie has a point, don’t you?”

“I think so,” Omar agreed. He turned to Ozie and said, “Hey, I just wanted to say thanks. This is a great party, and I just wanted to thank you for your help, and for your support during the election. Everybody around here knows that there’s nothing like an Ozie Welks shrimp boil.”

“I just want you to do right by us now you’ve got yourself elected,” Ozie said. He was a powerful man, with a lumberjack’s arms and shoulders, and the USMC eagle-and-globe tattooed on one bicep and “Semper Fidelis” on the other. His customers cut up rough sometimes- pretty often, to tell the truth- but he never needed to employ a man at the door. He could fling a man out of his bar so efficiently that the drunk was usually bouncing in the parking lot before the other customers even had time to blink.

“I’ll do as much as I can,” Omar said. “But you know, with all these damn Jew reporters in town, it’s going to be hard.”

“I hear you,” Ozie said.

Sorrel touched Omar’s arm. “I’m going to be running an editorial this Saturday on welfare dependency,” he said. “It should please you.”

Omar looked at the newspaperman. “Welfare dependency, huh?” he said.

“Yeah. You know, how we’ve been subsidizing bad behaviors all these years.”

“Uh-huh.” Omar nodded. “You mean like if we stop giving money to niggers, they’ll go someplace else? Something like that?”

“Well, not in so many words.” Sorrel winked as if he were confiding a state secret. “You’re going to like it.”

“So I’m going to like it, as opposed to all the editorials you’ve been running which I didn’t like.”

Sorrel made a face. “Sorry, Omar. But you know a paper’s gotta please its advertisers. And the folks who pay my bills weren’t betting on you winning the election.”

Omar looked at the publisher. “You betting on me now, Sorrel?”

Sorrel gave his high-pitched giggle. “I reckon I know a winner when I see one,” he said.

“Well,” Omar said. “God bless the press.”

He tipped his beer toward Ozie in salute, then made his way toward the back of the crowded bar. Sorrel, he had discovered, was not untypical. People who had despised him, or spoken against him, were now clustering around pretending they’d been his secret friends all along. A couple of the sheriff’s deputies, and one of the jailers, standoffish till now, had asked him for information about joining the Klan. Miz LaGrande was more discreet about it, with her hand-written invitation on her special stationery, but Omar could tell what she was up to. People were beginning to realize that the old centers of power in the parish were just about played out, and that there was a new force in the parish. They were beginning to cluster around the new power, partly because they smelled advantage, partly because everyone liked a winner.

Omar was perfectly willing to use these people, but he figured he knew just how far to trust them.

He stepped out the back door into the dusk. People had spilled out of the crowded bar and onto the grass behind, clustered into the circle of light cast by a yard light set high on a power pole. Wild shadows flickered over the crowd as bats dove again and again at the insects clustered around the light. The day’s heat was still powerful, but with the setting of the sun it had lost its anger.

Omar paused on the grass to sip his beer, and Merle caught up to him, “I spoke to D.R. about that camp meeting matter,” he said. “I squared it.”