It was difficult for Snorri to sleep. The noises from the other boys disturbed him. Joab mumbled through the night, Shem wheezed. Even with earplugs, Snorri could hear them. He left the tent and crept beneath the large Douglas fir. Although the rain hammered away, he was dry under its web of branches and needles. Camp rules forbade tobacco and weed but rules were easy to ignore. For Snorri, it was a matter of pride. If you trusted yourself, rules weren’t necessary. He took one toke and another followed.
While he smoked, he thought about Ruby. It had been six months since he’d touched a girl. The last was a weirdo who hung around the EK clubhouse. She meant nothing to him but Ruby electrified him. Her skin was silk, cream, fur, the softest things in the world. When he gazed into the darkness, her shapely physique and magenta lips appeared among the trees. Her eyes, he couldn’t describe. Their color was like an imaginary sea or ancient scarab. And she was tough. She talked shit to the asshole. Tough and tender, sour and sweet. Lines of poetry flowed through him as he wrestled with his feelings.
She reminded him of Darneshia, his girlfriend in tenth grade. Darneshia was the only girl he’d ever loved. For three months, they loved in secret after school at his house when no one was home. Her twin brothers broke it up. They told him to stop messing with their African sister. They said they were descendants of a tribal king in Ghana who would never approve of white trash for Darneshia. If they caught him with her again, they threatened to brand him and cut off his nuts. When Darneshia told him she couldn’t be his girlfriend, Snorri spray-painted Fuck Niggers! on a dozen stop signs near her house. It caused a furor in the neighborhood and initiated a hate-crime investigation. Darneshia’s brothers knew who did it but they left him alone.
Snorri reasoned that if ghetto boys in SE Seattle claimed prince-hood, so could he. He attached himself to the Nordic gods: Thor, Odin, Loki, Ullr. He combed the small section in the library on Scandinavian myth and folklore. He read the Icelandic Sagas.
Ullr is such a good archer and ski-runner
that no one can rival him.
Ullr is beautiful to look at as well and
he has all the characteristics of a warrior.
He found a genealogist who traced his mother’s family with the surnames Voll, Kleve, Ross, and Breland back to villages in Norway and northern Scotland. She mailed him a stamped Certificate of White Nobility. When he turned eighteen, Peter changed his name to Snorri. His namesake was Snorri Sturluson, Icelandic historian, poet, military leader, and skald who chronicled the heroic wars of the Norsemen.
A year later, Snorri joined EK. EK members liked to discuss white lineage and Norse customs, raiding, honor killings, runes, and songs. There was an EK clubhouse but Snorri wasn’t required to hang out there. He could be part and separate at the same time. Nobody minded if he came and went. EK promised that the American race wars were imminent. He hoped to kill Darneshia’s brothers but the Crips beat him to it.
As he smoked, he listened to the percussive patter of rain. Thoughts raced through his mind. His mother was not well. She had mental problems. His two younger sisters had been sent to live with their aunt in Utah. He wished he could make them happy. That was his deepest wish but he’d already tried and failed. Now he didn’t think it was possible. In the city, nothing seemed possible. He was only happy near rivers, mountains, trees. Rapturous and free of bullshit rules, bullshit school, bullshit government. He thought he might become a recluse and worship the deities of the Old World.
The trip to Patriot Park had been useful. It reinforced how much he hated camp mentality. He hated Christian platitudes. He’d grown up with them and heard enough. Except for Captain Eli, everyone else was stupid. Worse than stupid, they were barnyard animals under the domination of Commander Justice.
In the Sagas, Snorri read that Norsemen migrated to Iceland to escape the monarchy in Norway with its royal tithing and royal laws. In Iceland, the chieftains assembled once a year at the Althing to judge disputes and organize their governance. Snorri had visions of Thule and Viking ships. He believed he’d been born at the wrong time in history. In those times, it was easier for a man to know himself. Last year he saved a few hundred dollars. When he had a few hundred more, he planned to travel to Iceland to visit Gulfoss and the ruins of Snorri Sturluson’s estate at Reykholt where he was murdered in 1241.
Snorri snuffed the smoldering joint on his tongue. As he started to return to his tent, Justice Jenkins appeared on top of the tank. He watched Justice walk to the center of the clearing. He watched him take off his clothes. Except for his briefs and the belted knife around his waist, he was naked. He lifted his chest and arched his back. He parted his lips to drink rain from the sky. Then he bowed on the ground.
Like a fucking pagan, Snorri thought. At that instant with his bow in hand, Justice Jenkins would have been a bulls-eye. A single arrow would have brought him down like a buck.