Timmy smiled and waved his hand at me. “Anyway, with the Oklahoma City thing, it just shows you what lengths the government will go to.”
“To do what?” I asked. “What lengths?”
“To discredit honest, hardworking people, patriots, people like Timothy McVeigh, people like us and yourselves. You know,” he said, smiling, “I’ve always found it a curious coincidence that he and I share the same first name.”
“I’m still not sure I follow,” I said. “How did this discredit people like McVeigh, and you?”
Timmy Wickens nodded patiently, as though he’d had to explain this to others many times, and was willing to go through it as often as was necessary to get his message out there. “The government, when it becomes too powerful and strives to interfere too much in people’s lives, by tracking their movements, their financial transactions, by taking away their ability to defend themselves by bearing arms, will go to drastic measures to turn the public against those people who are fighting back to reclaim their constitutional rights and stop this country from slipping into moral bankruptcy and the watering down of the races.” He was jabbing a finger in the air at me to make his point. “What are we to make of a world that lets colored people run rampant and turn our cities into jungles, that lets faggots get their own TV shows and lets them live together without no shame at all? Did you know, right here in Braynor, the faggots want to put a float into the parade? And that the town, our white mayor, who is married to a colored, is probably going to let them? Can you imagine such a thing? They’ll probably build a huge purse and ride in it.” He chuckled at his own joke.
“So,” he continued, “they find people like Timothy McVeigh, who fight back against the government, who fight against the suppression of the truth, who fight to preserve decency and the family and preserve moral values, and frame them for monstrous acts like what happened at Oklahoma City. Mr. McVeigh was the kind of person with the courage of his convictions, who was willing to strike back at the government to let them know that they can’t get away with these kinds of things.”
“What you’re saying is,” I said slowly, “Timothy McVeigh didn’t do it, he was being framed, but it was the sort of statement he would have wanted to make, and if he had, that would have been okay?”
Timmy thought about that for a moment, pursed his lips out, and nodded. “I think you’re starting to get the idea.” He slapped the tops of his thighs as though congratulating all of us. “Some people, it takes them a lot longer to get their head around this. You got it right away.”
“Dinner!” shouted Charlene from the kitchen.
Timmy motioned for Dad and me to follow him. When Wickens’s back was turned, Dad sidled up next to me and twirled his index finger beside his head, the international “they’re crazy” gesture.
“Stop it,” I whispered.
There was a long wood table in the oversized kitchen, up close to an open window that looked out toward the barn. Everyone was gathered there, taking their seats.
Timmy glanced out the window, toward the barn. “Dougie,” he said, “is that the van I see sitting out there?”
Dougie craned his neck to look. “Appears to be.”
“Didn’t I ask you to back it into the barn?”
Dougie, in an exaggerated display, bounced his fist off his forehead. “I forgot.”
“Jesus, Dougie, you’d forget your ass if it wasn’t already in your pants.”
Charlene, at the stove, whirled around. “You leave him alone!”
“Fine, fine, whatever,” Timmy said. “Dougie, run out there, put away the van, and let the dogs out of the barn. We can toss them some dinner scraps out the window.”
Dougie excused himself, and a few minutes later I could hear Gristle and Bone charge toward the house, then gather under the open window, growling and snorting. Then there was scratching outside, as the dogs jumped up against the house, high enough that their slobbering snouts appeared briefly at the window, then disappeared.
“Down!” Wickens shouted, and the jumping stopped.
When Dougie came back in, we all took our seats, Wickens at one end, his wife at the other, her chair backed up to a pantry door with a lock on it. The rest of us filled in the spots between, May at one corner by her father, head down.
Wickens lowered his head. “Dear Lord, please bless us and lead us into righteousness, and welcome the guests at our table, and we thank you for this food, and ask that you say a special prayer for our friend Morton, who was taken by one of your creatures, and we trust that it is all part of your divine plan, amen.”
“Amen,” said the rest of the family, all except for May, who had started to cry.
“There, there, sweetheart,” said Timmy, slipping an arm around her.