Gary Amdahl - The Daredevils

“Come again?” asked Andrew.

“We can point to provocations and causes but we never truly know what our next thought or speech will be until it’s over. Even when we have a script. I mean a ‘real life script.’ Examine it for yourself. Don’t take my word for it.”

“That is utterly beside the point,” snapped Amelia. “Are you actually trying to suggest that when a bomb explodes we don’t know what to think ?”

“Yes. But I am only suggesting it. A bomb is a good example, the perfect example, of how reality may have holes ripped in it, exposing a truer, deeper reality: you don’t see it coming, you don’t plan on it, it makes your little dreams of control seem childish, and in its wake your thoughts and shouts seem as unpremeditated as they in fact are. ”

“Well,” said Andrew, “I don’t know about any of that. Chick may be right, he may be whistling in the dark, he may be wrong, he may be perversely wrong, he may be dead wrong. I don’t know.”

“Your brain is too busy protecting its Little Andrew in the eternal present that it can only make decisions after the fact. The apprehension of cause and effect exists only in the past. President Brain can only register the changes as they occur — slightly after they occur. It’s an illusion of the brain to think it can make changes.”

“Again I must say, reacting helplessly to your thrust, that I just don’t know.”

“I don’t know either, Andy. I say only that I think about the possibility.”

“But why,” asked Pastor Tom, “have you turned so suddenly and decisively away from your ideals? From the shared ideals of millions of people? People from all walks of — from anarchists to Christians, from peasants to presidents! Whatever they don’t have in common, they at least have progressivism!”

“No,” said Vera, “I have to interrupt: anarchists and Christians do not have shared goals, nor do peasants and presidents.”

“Not even in theory,” said Charles, “not even at an ideal source.”

“You are surrounded by the best minds, and most effective leaders, in the Progressive and Social Gospel Movements! I mean, what caused it?”

Dejection was suddenly and dramatically upon him. He began to answer, but stopped, shook his head. Then:

“I don’t know who I am, much less what I am to do.”

Charles and Vera exchanged a glance.

“They’re the same thing,” said Vera.

“That’s the only lesson of the little stage set that came apart at the seams.”

“To be is to do,” said Gus.

“To do is to be,” said Tony.

“Do be a do-bee, and don’t be a don’t-bee.”

“Doo-be doo-be doooo.”

“A do-bee and a don’t-bee,” said Amelia. “Every once in a while I am reminded of how young you boys actually are.”

“Look here, Chick,” said Andrew.

“I’m looking, Andy.”

“You’re working for the governor here, right? Burnquist sits on the MCPS, right?”

“Yes. I think of him as the ‘Affable Man.’ There is a ‘Triangular Man’ and a ‘Silver Man of Wrath’ as well.”

“McGee and the AG, right? Hilton?”

“You know them, I see.”

“Of course I do. I was helping Father.”

“You’ve remarked their names.”

“Of course I have.”

“More than I have done. They are characters without names. Some day, if their legend lives on, their characteristics will give rise to new, truer names, in some language related to ours but indecipherable. Nonsense sounds with meaning forced willy-nilly upon them.”

“Yes. Let me clear my throat and try to move on to a thought, an actual train of thought that I see coming around the bend.”

“You didn’t know you were going to put it so colorfully until the words came tumbling out.”

“Woo-woo!” shouted Gus.

“Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga,” said Tony.

“Again,” said Charles. “Who could have predicted the arabesques and rim shots of our wee brothers?”

“Two incidents,” said Andrew. “One in the south of the state, in Rock County, Luverne is the town, I believe. Another in the north, Duluth, the port on Lake Superior. Wheat growing and wheat shipping. Nonpartisan League and railroads connecting the two, with stops along the way for the Equity League, two quarreling factions of the IWW, the Minnesota Socialist Party—”

“Featuring the mayor of Minneapolis,” said Charles.

“Featuring the mayor of Minneapolis,” agreed Andrew. “The Minnesota Farmer-Labour camp, and our substantial progressive presence. And God knows who else.”

“Or possibly Vera.”

Pregnant pause.

“I do not know,” said Vera.

“Everybody take a deep breath and relax,” said Charles.

“What Vera knows—” Andrew began.

“I say that to all my actors,” interrupted Charles.

“I don’t know who’s more annoying here: you or Gus and Tony.”

“What happened in Luverne?”

“Elderly farmer with ties to the NPL was escorted out of the state — Rock County borders Iowa, very near—”

“I know where it is,” said Charles. “I’ve been there.”

“—very near South Dakota as well. Ruffians drove him to Iowa and left him in a field. He came back to help his sons with planting and was tarred and feathered.”

“And in Duluth.?”

“An immigrant from Finland felt that, because he wasn’t yet a citizen, he was exempt from the draft. He was tarred and feathered. Then hanged.”

“The old man in Luverne survived?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know what’s worse: being tarred and feathered or un-tarred and un-feathered. Some fellows who’ve been tarred and feathered might prefer to be hanged.”

Andrew smiled. “You sound very much like Father when you talk like that.”

“Speaking of Father talking, what does he have to say about Luverne and Duluth? I take it he knows.?”

“I’m not sure that he does.”

“I missed the connection,” sighed Amelia, “between Luverne and Duluth and, well, say Father, for starters, and. all your ‘characters,’ Charles. And the. what’s the word, organizations that, um. Vera . is. how shall I say. associated with .?”

“Try that one more time without the hesitation, the lack of confidence, the implicit burden of the heavy, dense veil you choose to wear over your hostility, and I’ll see if I can make a little more sense of it.”

“What’s the connection between Father, mob violence, and terrorists?”

“Jesus Christ?” asked Gus.

Charles, at long last, exploded with laughter.

“Well, hush my mouth,” said Tony.

“By Jove, I think he’s got it!” Charles chuckled and sputtered. A few more high-pitched yelps shot out of his mouth, followed by descending ha-ha-has, and finishing up with low, round ho-ho-hoes, each phase of his laughter exploring a new facet of his delight.

“Father’s progressivism is a sham. It always has been, and the best example right now is this Burnquist knucklehead, a pillar of Progressivism, who is sitting on the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety, an organization that is using thugs to incite hatred, fear, and riot, to beat and kill whoever happens to catch their eye, while the splintered Left is tearing itself apart in the shadow of the crackdown, roundup, imprisonment, and deportation of undesirables that the FBI and DOJ is commencing. ‘Undesirables’ of course being people who speak their mind about a given issue and are deemed criminally disloyal. That is to say: traitorous. For which they may be executed. Do you think I’m exaggerating? I ran the Bull Moose campaign in California!”

“The principles of Progressivism,” said Charles, “are just one more badly written script, and the Progressives are just another cast of bad actors. Surely you saw what you were actually doing long before this.”