A father in a blue Izod climbs a lamppost. He is calling, Scarlett? Scarlett? A group of mothers walk past below, weeping, but whether from emotion or tear gas it’s impossible to discern.
Simon and the others sit for a moment, watching thousands of human beings move silently through darkness. The primal scream of parents wailing for their young. Are they marching to protect their children or bring them back? Not for the first time, Simon wonders if this whole escape has been a dream. He rubs his eyes, then, lowering his hands, catches movement to his left. He turns. Clowns move past the van. Dozens of them. Men in their thirties and forties, some with beer bellies and beards, some rail thin with amphetamine eyes. They wear flak jackets over striped blouses and balloon pants, their mouths obscured by painted masks, grinning ceaselessly into the darkness. Some wear night-vision goggles and carry automatic weapons. Others are in Hawaiian shirts, their red noses obscene.
“Duane,” says the Prophet.
“I see them,” says Duane. “Hold on.”
He shifts the van into reverse, begins inching backward, hoping not to draw the clowns’ attention.
“Nobody move,” he whispers.
Slowly they reverse. Simon stares out his window, hypnotized by the spectacle. The clowns close on the crowd, swaggering. And then the clown with the mustache is there, walking beside the van, his AR-15 up. His eyes find Simon’s. He smiles, lifts his left hand to his face, holding his index finger to his lips. Ssshh.
Simon raises his crumpled paper bag—unaware that he’s even removed it from his pocket—the only weapon he has against a world that wants to destroy him. He presses it over his mouth as the van clears the clowns, speeding up, the world moving past them in reverse, headlights illuminating the clown army. Then a protester notices the armed clowns, screams. Others turn. The men in big shoes raise their weapons. Through ragged, paper bag breaths, Simon sees a question cross Louise’s face—lit by the headlight bounce—the heady, giddy horror of what’s going to happen next? And then the headlights pan right off the crowd as Duane turns the wheel, spinning the van and quick-shifting into drive, his foot on the floor now, racing away from the kindling and the spark.
*
They reach St. Louis around 4:00 a.m. This is where the twitches hit, the dental buzz of nerves beginning to creep back into their skulls. It’s been eight hours since their last pill. Sertraline, olanzapine, diazepam. Simon feels it the worst, a hollow throb behind the eyes, but Louise isn’t far behind. She rolls down the window, sticks her bare feet into the wind, her pulse fluttering. She can’t get the image of those clowns out of her head, the silent coordination as they raised their rifles.
Simon lies on his back on the metal floor, feeling every bump and pothole. The initial rush of escape has worn off. For the first time in months, he feels something other than dread. He feels excitement. He is free.
Outside St. Clair, the hard rock station switches over to talk, and they hear the familiar sounds of the God King, his nasal New York bluster, coming to them from an undisclosed location, a rasp on the wind. Is it live? A replay? Who can say for sure. Inside the city limits you can forget that he’s out there, twenty-four hours a day, transmitting his every thought. You forget that in the countryside and suburbs his voice is the soundtrack of people’s lives.
“…an omelet and the breakfast sausage, right? I love breakfast sausage. We know this. And they bring it, a little coffee, a little orange juice—and lemme just—Florida orange juice, okay? We grew up with this. The pinnacle. The best of the best. And at my club, no expenses spared—it’s like you died and went to heaven, seriously—but they bring the omelet and so far I’m happy. Nice size, good color, with, like, a little spinach and cheese—and I got my Diet Coke. First one of the day, chilled, a little ice—not like if the other party had their way. We’d all be drinking broccoli juice, or, listen to this, kale? You ever have kale? It’s like eating a vacuum cleaner bag—but I’m lookin’ at the—and did you see what this guy did this morning? The Pretender. The Imposter. Our poor country. This guy in the White House, like those old commercials—I’ve fallen and I can’t get up—remember those commercials? I used to love those commercials. But hey, it’s your money, folks, tax payer cabbage—and he’s using it to—he’s got trucks on the southern border—these big powerful trucks—and they’re pulling down the wall. Our big, beautiful—and I see this, and I think, what kind of sick puppy—but then what are you gonna do? They’re—they’ve got grudges, like, up the wazoo. They hate me. Boy do they hate me. But the omelet comes and the sausage—can I just tell you—the size of my pinkie, okay? Or smaller, ’cause I got pretty big hands—but there’s maybe two of them. And I go—I say—what the heck is this? And the waiter, from like Ecuador, he says, ees sausage, se?or. Probably came over in the trunk of somebody’s car—never seen a sausage before in his life—this is what we’re dealing with, folks. First they steal the election. Then they take our breakfast sausage.”
Duane reaches over and changes the station, and they listen to Charlie Daniels for a while, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” and for the next two hours nobody says a word.
*