GAVIN POSTED THE VIDEO OF THE WOMAN ATTACKING HIM ACROSS every active discussion board he could find. The number of hits simply cascaded. He watched it spread across the internet with its own kind of furious intelligence, drawing praise and condemnation. But most importantly, it gathered notice. It was becoming big enough that it couldn’t be ignored.
He settled back in his chair and watched the clip crawl across social media. Occasionally, some moderator would delete the content, citing it as inflammatory, but a few minutes later it would appear somewhere else like a regenerated limb. His email began to ping. He moved his hand to the mouse and silenced the speakers.
His phone buzzed. The name he’d been waiting on appeared on the screen.
“Hello, Mr. Sealy. I’ve been expecting your call.”
“Hi, Mr. Noon. I’m writing a follow-up about yesterday. I’ve already got something about the event, but I wanted to work something in about what’s going on online. Especially with what the lieutenant governor had to say . . .”
“I’m afraid I haven’t seen what you’re referring to.”
“Are you near a computer?”
“I am.”
“Go to Tom Sheeply’s Twitter account.”
Gavin opened the browser and clicked over. There, pinned to the top of the page, was a retweet with the video attached. Headlining it were the lieutenant governor’s own words: FREEDOM OF SPEECH MEANS FREEDOM FOR ALL SPEECH.
Gavin smiled, said, “Mr. Sealy, you should come over. This really is the sort of thing that demands a face-to-face exchange. I’ll even have a cup of freshly brewed coffee waiting for you.”
THEY HAD been clearing thorn since daybreak, but now it had grown hot and each swing of the machete felt more useless than the last. A dry rattling as the blade carried through, lopped without any sense of progress. Just sun and the lack of effect. Jonathan straightened, hurled his blade into a patch of earth. Its point stuck in place.
“What, you quitting?” One of Gavin’s lesser men, Conner Polk, wanted to know. Like an animal with no greater use, he had been sentenced to the present task. Laboring like something broken.
“I suggest you watch your tone of voice, young man,” Jonathan offered.
“You ain’t my daddy,” Polk spat. “Neither you nor Gavin. At least I can say I’m not afraid of work.”
As if to prove this, he turned back toward the thorn and crashed through with wild strokes. The looping brush shuddered but little broke or gave way. Jonathan had ceased clearing now and watched as Polk attacked the thorn as though it was something capable of suffering pain. He shook his head and smiled.
“I believe you’re tiring out.”
“Shut up, you motherfucker. I know what I’m doing.”
Despite this claim, he soon spent himself and slung the blade on the ground. It bounced and flexed in the relentless sun.
“Let me ask you something,” Jonathan said. “You ever been told you remind them of the burnt fuse of a dud firecracker?”
Polk told him to shut up, turned back toward the thorn patch and yelled, “Goddammnit! How are we supposed to get this done?”
“Now you’re beginning to ask the important questions,” Jonathan said, nodded. “Now you’re making that important first step.”
“The hell you talking about?”
“There’s easier ways of doing things. You remember that gas can in the back of the van?”
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t you go grab that? Why don’t you get me one of those rubber bands out of the console too?”
Polk loped up to the side of the asylum and pulled the vehicle’s side door open. A minute later he came back with the metal can under his arm.
“You are shitting me.”
“I wouldn’t shit you. You’re my favorite turd.”
Jonathan uncapped the can and it made a gentle puff when he upturned it and the gasoline fed the ground with its blue stream. He walked the line of thorn, wet it all until there was nothing left in the can to pour. Once it had all dribbled out he stepped back a few paces and squatted, gave it time to soak in.
“You’re crazy, you know that? What makes you think you won’t set the whole woods on fire?”
“You see anything between here and the river that ain’t something needs chopping down?”
Polk looked, shrugged.
“No, I don’t guess so, no.”
“Then shut your goddamn mouth and give me your cigarette lighter.”
He reached down into his hip pocket and pulled out a parti-colored Bic. It said WILD LIFE in graffiti style letters.
“Why you need my lighter? You smoke cigarettes too. Why don’t you use your own?”
After he had taken the lighter in hand, Jonathan struck it and then double-looped and snugged the band around the lighter so that the flame stayed lit. “Because,” he said as he tossed the lighter toward the brush, “I still want to smoke.”
The lighter and its small twist of flame arced and dropped amid the thorn. There was a sudden bump of heat and light. Polk felt the warmth push into and then past him. He staggered back and watched the fire enlarge itself on the supply of fuel. It crackled and snapped and sputtered. The air around it bent into waves like pieces of distorted and dripping glass.