Revenge (Ezzy's Education: Part 33), by Garrett Murch
Beads of water rode atop oak leaves scattered about the funeral home lawn. It had been a gray, misty Monday morning leading up to Trunk Langston’s memorial service, although the sun now fought to be seen. A parade of pickup trucks proceeded past the home with giant Trunk flags flying from their truck beds in a breeze growing by the minute. A few of the Trunk flags were paired with American flags.
Blitzer Langston stood with Trendon Bravissimo by the funeral home entrance, greeting attendees. They held water bottles like Trunk’s now-infamous one. Blitzer wore a black dress shirt and khaki pants with shredded bottoms dangling over his old boots. Trendon, his brown hair brushed and still a little wet, wore jeans and a black t-shirt with a red, white, and blue eagle printed on its front. A woman offered her condolences to them on her way inside. “Thank you,” Blitzer replied to her.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Trendon said.
Others continued walking by, expressing their condolences. To one man, Blitzer said, “I know, a great life destroyed. But they were going to steal the election from him anyway with that vote-rigging scheme. My poor boy never had a chance.” Tears held onto his eyelids like water behind a dam.
Several classmates carrying small Trunk flags approached. “Hey guys,” Trendon said to them. After a moment of friendly conversation, Trendon added, “Revenge is coming. You’re going to exhaust-fest after the service, right?”
“What is exhaust-fest?” one boy asked.
“The school board and Lucinda banned idling vehicles in the student parking lot,” Trendon said. “But the teachers and administrators can still idle their cars and warm ‘em up when it’s cold.”
“Ridiculous,” the boy said. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah. So after the service we’re all driving to the student parking lot and filling it up with vehicles. We’re going keep the vehicles running for an hour of protest, or until they kick us out. It will look like a bomb went off in the parking lot.”
“Um, uh,” the boy said. “Sure. I can join you for that. Solidarity, I guess.” He looked away from Trendon.
“Great,” Trendon said. “Trunk lives. We gotta do somethin. And on your way out, make sure to stop by the table across the street. Those folks paid for this service. If you sign up with them and join the Patriot Party when you turn eighteen, you get a free ticket to shoot machine guns at one of their fundraisers next year.”
”Oh, cool,” the boy said. “But I’m already eighteen.”
“Oh,” Trendon said. “Are you a registered Patriot Party member?” “I actually haven’t registered to vote yet.”
“Go sign up,” Blitzer said. “It’s our only hope. It’s the only way. You should learn how to shoot a machine gun. You might need one someday. Probably will.”
“I’ll take a look after the service,” the boy said. He and the kids with him stepped inside.
The other kids had not shown any interest in shooting machine guns. “Where’s Trunk’s mother?” Trendon asked Blitzer.
“Inside already,” Blitzer said. “I ain’t sayin’ shit to her.”
Kelile Lewis, leading most of the Ebbing football team, approached Blitzer and Trendon. “We are all terribly sorry, Mr. Langston,” he said. “Trunk was one of a kind.”
“Thank you, Special K. That’s what Trunk called you at home. Special K. You’re a heck of a lineman.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Trunk was going to be so good for the Blacks,” Blitzer said.
“K, are you going to exhaust-fest after the service?” Trendon asked. Kelile looked away.
“Let’s head inside, guys,” he said to his teammates.
“Don’t forget to stop by the table across the street!” Trendon hollered after them. “Chance to shoot a machine gun for free! Trunk lives!”
More and more attendees kept arriving, stopping to speak with Blitzer on their way in. Many carried small Trunk flags. The percentage of people carrying little American flags along with their Trunk flags was lower than at school and at football games in recent weeks.
An older man with a beard, not carrying flags, said to the woman he was with, “You’d think Trunk Langston was a war hero who died valiantly in battle overseas. The kid nearly killed a girl, and for all we know she might never recover. Young James told me all I need to know about Trunk Langston long before these recent events.”
The woman with the man replied, “Since when did showing solidarity with a boy become proof you love your country?”
The man looked around, shook his head, and looked down at his aged leather boots. “I don’t know why we even came here.”
Trendon, who had been watching and listening to the couple, asked them when they approached, “Who’s your grandson?”
The couple nodded at Trendon and kept walking. The older man leaned toward the woman so his black and green, plaid flannel shirt nearly touched the woman’s shoulder. He said quietly to her, “Jimmy brought Trunk’s father deer hunting with us years ago. I don’t know why. What an embarrassment. The guy had no clue how to use a rifle, and he had liquor on his breath. We sent him home. Bet he doesn’t even remember. Guys like him give us a bad name.”
The woman nodded silently and the man said to her, “This may sound terrible, dear, but I’m glad Trunk Langston won’t be around to be a negative influence on James.”
Trendon glared at the couple.
Several minutes later Ezzy, Link, and Madison approached Blitzer and Trendon. They all were dressed in black.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Ezzy said.
“Yes, I’m so sorry,” Madison said.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Link.
None of them received a response: only nods from Blitzer and Trendon. They started walking inside.
“You didn’t mention the table to them,” Blitzer said. “We need to keep growing the army to launch our revenge.”
“One of those kids, Link Conary, is already a Patriot, or will be when he turns eighteen,” Trendon responded. “But he’s a fake Patriot. Might even work for Lucinda Barron. I don’t think any of those ones want to shoot machine guns, if ya know what I mean.”
Blitzer shook his head. “Damn shame. He one of them Patriots in name only? We gotta take our country back. Gonna take some chaos.”
Trendon nodded.
“You gotta take your school back,” Blitzer said. “Whatever it takes. That’s what Trunk would-a said.”
“Trunk lives,” Trendon said.
“Trunk lives,” Blitzer said.
A few minutes later, two of the men who had burned their “Ban Toxic Masculinity” pamphlets with Blitzer approached.
“Patriot,” one of them said to Blitzer.
“Jake Davis,” Blitzer said. They hugged.
The man who had arrived with Jake said, “We’ll be roaring at exhaust-fest, Blitzer.”
“You’re a true Patriot, Thomas.”
The men walked inside.
“Suppose we should head inside, too,” Blitzer said. Trendon nodded.
* * *
11:57 a.m.
The Ebbing High School student parking lot had been given an extended weekend off. School was canceled that Monday “to prove our school’s commitment to tolerance by allowing Ebbing students the option to attend Trunk Langston’s memorial service without fear of punishment.” Trendon Bravissimo had warned the school would find a way to get back at students who missed school to attend the service, although he had not provided any evidence to back up his warning.
The lot had received an early morning mist that was still in evidence, and it held puddles in potholes filled by Sunday night’s rain. The puddles shivered in the breeze. A mixture of moist maple leaves—ruby red, mango, scarlet, and light saffron—had fallen for days and were being joined now by a fresh fall of browning, burnt-orange oak leaves. Some of the oak leaf stems were wedged into the cracks in the pavement, turning their leaves into miniature waving flags. Many of the oak leaves had come from the giant tree looking down on the lot from the entrance atop the hill.
A few minutes before noon, the breeze suddenly died and the lot began receiving visitors. A procession of pickup trucks and a few other vehicles rolled down the lot entrance, over the pavement and its cracks, its miniature canyons, its pothole ponds. The lead truck’s powerful speakers sent drum beats and guitar riffs from slow, 1980s hair metal music into the crisp, clean air. As more and more trucks rolled in, the acorns their tires crushed resembled light- brown skid marks.
The vehicles stopped rolling but the ground kept absorbing the revs of the engines as the placid puddles received a gasoline makeover. The lot abounded with Trunk flags and American flags.
Cloudy streams of engine exhaust circulated and began forming a dense fog like gas in a laboratory beaker. A trim young woman with dark brown hair, barely visible, leaned on the giant oak by the entrance while holding up her phone. Several men, middle-aged and older, began applying bumper stickers to the trucks and other vehicles. The bumper stickers read “Trunk Lives, Inc.”
Within a few minutes the hacking coughs of men added new beats that were out of rhythm with each other and with the music. One older man with a sizable belly bent over and, hacking, collapsed. He laid motionless, belly down on the pavement next to the bumper stickers he had been holding. His right hand, lifeless on the ground, formed a flat okay sign. No one seemed to notice him within the smog.