I’d only been chumming when I used Reese to send the message the Gardens were about to break, and asked Elaine to expose her jugular on TV. I’d just been looking for the opening, trying to flush the Driver and his cronies. Now the bill had come due: Stagger Bay’s sharks were coming up-current along the scent trail, intent on a feeding frenzy.
One after the other, vehicles came around past us and turned into the empty cul-de-sacs and courts in the vacant lots across the avenue. As they parked, the drivers and passengers got out their vehicles and walked up to the sidewalk on the development side, standing to our front with only the avenue dividing us. They were all armed too: axe handles; hunting rifles; shotguns – an arsenal as varied as our own.
They muttered disjointedly amongst themselves until one strident woman’s voice bawled out, “Niggers.”
A few of them enthusiastically chanted the word a few times but most of the crowd refused to join in, their pained looks indicating embarrassment. The open bigots finally stopped and our enemies subsided into the background mumble of any would-be mob working itself up into a tizzy.
The murmuring horde grew steadily until we were outnumbered vastly, with more vehicles arriving and parking behind them in a steady, seemingly endless stream. Then one man crossed the avenue toward us, his hands open at his sides to show he was unarmed.
“Peace to the Gardens,” he said. “I’m here to stand with you.”
It was Takeshi. He saw me in the crowd and walked up with a sheepish grin. “If you still want to work the dock, Markus, you’ve got a job with me. Fuck’em.”
A half-dozen women got out of a VW micro-bus and came to join us, every one of them dressed in black. The women pulled candles from their purses and lit them, turning to face the direction they’d come from with the lit tapers cupped in both hands. The surviving Peace Women: If the casualties they’d suffered before or the comments shouted their way now gave them pause, they showed no sign of it.
A vintage root beer Bentley pulled up and parked a little ways away from the other cars. Jim Scallion got out and gave me a shy wave before joining us, the best dressed man in the crowd.
Others continued to join us: Nurse Dorcas, under the arm of a tall skinny guy I recognized as one of the interns that attended me at the Hospital; Sara and her fellow librarian; others either vaguely familiar or unknown to me.
At first Moe seemed dumbfounded, but the organizer in him stepped up to the plate without delay. He greeted every new arrival to our side of the street, giving them all a gracious welcome as if they were invited guests he’d known were coming all along; as if it were no more than his due they were here. Moe pumped their hands if they let him, and then suggested where in our growing crowd they should take their places, Julius Caesar deploying his Legionnaires.
Now Spider and the Stagger Bay Fog Choppers roared up on their hogs and parked their Harleys in a neat row on our side of the avenue. Big Moe beckoned to them, but Spider just grinned and thumbed his nose at him.
Spider and his Fog Choppers swaggered over to stand with me and Sam. I still owed Spider for that pool debt but the old biker still didn’t seem overly concerned. Fat chance I’d be able to chase these obnoxious scooter tramps away from underfoot, it looked like they were stuck with me.
A white bus pulled up, with ‘Stagger Bay Lutheran’ painted on the side. Several dozen men filed out and made a beeline my way through the crowd, smiling like they knew me. And they did: I recognized them from that day at the Plaza; they were the fathers of the children I’d saved at the school.
They murmured greetings as they formed ranks right in front of the 18th Street Crips, facing the other side of the avenue like they’d die before anything got past them. We’d earned each other, I suppose.
People kept joining our group, or adding to the other, until every vehicle was empty, and every person there had made their position clear. To my surprise, the people standing with the Gardens now vastly outnumbered those who’d come to destroy them; with friendly additions our group was easily twice the size of our enemies’ force.
I was humbled and awed. The people of Stagger Bay had finally risen up.
I’d been arrogant: throughout this whole affair I’d thought I was fighting some lone-wolf battle. I thought it was me against the world, me against Stagger Bay. But I’d been wrong; been guilty of vanity and pride.
I’d never been alone all along – I’d been only one of many.
I was gulping for air and it hurt to breathe; my chest and throat were tight. My lower lip waggled around like it wanted to put my upper lip in a submission hold from beneath, but I did my best to hide it and I’m sure none of them saw.
Down the avenue, about fifty yards away in the direction of the swamp and the Hospital, I saw Leo standing there with his rolled-up sleeping bag hanging from one shoulder by a knotted rope sling. He looked at us all mopey and hangdog, unmoving.
“Leo, come here,” I called out to him, beckoning. “Come over here and stand with me, Leo.”
But he just turned around and walked away down the trail and out of sight – the same trail I used the night I’d reeled into these people’s lives.
A steady stream of catcalls still came from our out-numbered foes, but the silence on our side of the avenue was as ominous as it was eerie. Amongst my folk, there was an occasional cough, or someone stamping their feet in the growing chill – but there were no insults or threats from our team.
I wondered what kept our enemies standing there so obviously outnumbered. I looked at the faces of our foes, recognizing a lot of them, realizing how many of them were staring at me and singling me out from the crowd. My one-time barber Bill kind of stood out to my eye; from the expression he kept aiming my way I supposed any civic gratitude he felt for my deeds at the school had worn off.
I compared the faces of our adversaries to those of the group I stood with. It struck me how similar they were: you’d never be able to predict which group any of these people would pick to stand with before watching them make their choice.
Over with those who’d come to wipe us out was a blue-haired grandmother. To look at her you’d think she was the kind to offer milk and cookies to all the neighborhood kids; but the hate shining from her face was almost palpable.
On our side stood a lanky beanpole of a redneck dressed to the nines in cowboy style, with wide Stetson hat, string tie, pearl-buttoned shirt, and snakeskin boots. He looked like the kind of guy who used the n-word a lot, and would never be at a loss for a funny racist joke at the bar. But here he stood with us.
I’d have predicted every construction worker in Stagger Bay would have rationalized themselves onto the side of their bread and butter. But the toolbox crowd was evenly divided between our side and the other.
You never knew, about people that is. They were what they did; there was no getting around it.
Then, from the direction of the hospital, I saw strobing red trouble lights coming our way, lots of them. Our enemies raised a rebel yell, certain their bloodlust was finally going to be allowed legal vent.
That’s what these crackers were waiting for: The Stagger Bay Police Department was on their way to join the festivities.