Brandon has been checking his phone regularly throughout the service. He does so tastefully, keeping it down low by his leg, but it’s hard for Jessup not to notice since they are sitting right next to each other. As Earl seems like he’s winding down, Brandon reads something, and it seems like he’s been shot through with electricity. He grabs Jessup’s elbow. “They’re here,” he whispers. He makes a motion with his hand—discreetly—that catches Earl’s attention.
Earl speeds up, has things wrapped up in record time, and then he’s down in front of Jessup and Brandon, hustling them out. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go.”
They stop in the back room behind the pulpit to grab their coats—Jessup wonders how their coats got there, who had this planned out, but the answer is right in front of him—and Brandon already has his phone to his ear. Jessup assumes he’s talking to his minion, Carter, because he asks the person if he’s ready to film, tells him to make sure the news crews have their cameras rolling, lens on Brandon and Jessup “without fail. Without fail, okay? Just keep shooting the whole time. Record everything.”
They are out in the parking lot, and even with Earl’s borrowed coat on, it feels to Jessup like it’s dropped a degree or two. There’s still no wind, but there’s a dark huddle of clouds, the afternoon no brighter than the morning. It smells like snow again, like the weather is tuning itself up for the coming winter, Friday night’s snow a prelude for today. He wants to admire the way the sky is ready to burst open, but it’s not a peaceful moment: he can hear the chanting of protesters.
David John slides next to Earl. “Are you sure about this?”
“A show of force,” Earl says. “Nothing more. The militia is just there to show them they can’t roll over us. Don’t worry. We’ve got it under control.”
Brandon hears this, speaks without looking back. “All we’re doing is standing our ground. They have no reason to come on church land, warrant or no warrant, and we’ve got the cameras here. We’re just making a statement.”
But what, Jessup thinks, if he doesn’t want to make a statement? He’s quiet, though, and he follows behind, hating himself at every moment, not able to figure out any other choice.
As they turn the corner, he sees that there are now two pickup trucks parked in the grass off the road, one on either side, backed in so the beds are toward the gate. The gate itself is closed, with eight men standing in front of it. Another two or three are standing in each truck bed. All of them are armed: a mix of military-looking AR-15s, shotguns, hunting rifles. A couple of them are wearing bandannas over their faces, or balaclavas. Plenty have pistols in holsters on their hips. They are all wearing matching tan bulletproof vests, a uniform of sorts, and when Jessup gets closer, he can see they all have patches sewn onto the back left shoulder of their vests: the Blessed Church of the White America’s flaming cross circled by the church’s name.
They’re bracing against what’s on the other side of the gate: a swelling group of protesters and a convoy of police cars. The group of protesters has doubled in size, large enough now to be almost imposing, sixty, seventy people. It’s a mix of college students and middle-aged and older men and women, professors, the kind of hippie Cortaca residents who keep the farmers’ market afloat. Some younger kids, too, high school students, sons and daughters, people carrying signs and placards, some black people, more white. He thinks he sees his AP European History teacher, Mrs. Howard, in there, and recognizes at least two of the high-school-aged kids, the familiarity of a town the size of Cortaca. But the protesters aren’t what captures Jessup’s attention. What he’s taken by are the cops: at least four Cortaca PD vehicles, four more from the county sheriff’s office, and on the side of the main road, a giant truck marked “Cortaca Police S.W.A.T. Mobile Command.” Mixed among all of it are the camera crews, and Jessup overhears a reporter talking earnestly into a microphone. Hears the words, “assault rifles” and “militia.”
How did he get here?
He stops in his tracks, but even though he’s five paces out in front, Brandon seems to sense it, turns, walks back to Jessup. “Come on,” he says.
“This isn’t what we talked about.”
“Of course it is,” Brandon says. “Smoke and mirrors, Jessup. Smoke and mirrors.” He smiles, a cat with feathers in his teeth.