Emmetsburg: Fifty-five

Black. Men contrive. They contrive to exalt their own deeds and conceal their misdeeds. It eventually occurs to a man, as he negotiates a path through a life that he does much more of the latter. It makes those contrivances less about some Biblical concept of evil than about the weakness and weariness of men's hearts when faced with the process of the world. A man will champion those sins to the grave, cocooned in a fundamental angst that he alone plays the fool in a universal lottery. And he’ll stay that course as long as it pays, or until those sins betray him.

It was no different for Avery Lysander. He wasn't an evil man. Was he weaker than most? Perhaps, but better than other men. As he stood before eight thousand farmers beneath the golden dome of the state capitol Avery knew full well his sins, and contrived fully to cloak them no man's land between freedom and the law. He would not be the fool, though he knew deep in his own heart that he was (not understanding that wisdom and humility are the surest paths from foolishness). That night, before a tense and agitated crowd he bandaged that fool’s heart in patriotism and the skewed permutations of liberty, despite that patriotism is a favorite hat and liberty is like capturing the sky in one’s hands.

He raged at them, in the face of a driving downpour. Avery beat the air with his fist and strained red-faced in order to set their souls on fire. Avery invoked God Almighty, charging that the government would come for each of them as a wolf in the night soon enough. Charges of Bolshevism and Communism were window dressing to the hole his words drove like a knife into each of their hearts. Men not easily swayed otherwise were driven to fear and consumed by it. Women prayed to God and Avery Lysander to see them through, like some modern day Moses come to deliver them to the promised land.

Thunder exploded, joining the stinging rain. It did little to dampen the spirits of the protesters, who dwarfed the nervous line of police guarding the gold-domed capitol building. All that held them back from overrunning the police and setting the place to flame was the thinnest veneer of civilization straining at the seams. Men contrive, but a frightened man is more than dangerous.

Communists! Bolsheviks! Avery's voice broke with emotion. The crowd rose along with him, rising up to the stormy sky to challenge the lightening and dethrone the thunder. Radicals! Subverting the constitution! He could feel them, that wild and angry and fearful crowd sweeping around him like a hurricane. Dear God, it was better than sex or any drug! It was more than power, as power is fleeting. Power are the walls of a besieged city. This, this was control. No, it was symbiosis. Their bodies were joined, merging cell to cell. Their souls were wedded in a wild orgy passion for every word Avery spoke.

Avery thought to turn them against the police. He would teach the government a lesson by tearing down the capitol. He'd fashion them into disciples, not soldiers, for ultimately a soldier wishes one day to return home. But Avery's disciples would fill the nation, sweeping aside dissent and anyone who might have the slightest suspicion of Avery's original sin.

Anyway, that's what Avery was thinking as he stood silent and nameless among the crowd. There were other speakers, men far more eloquent than he could ever hope. Before the governor and all the politicians in their tailor-made suits, their chamber maids and expensive brandy these men promised nothing short of revolution if the government continued down its treacherous path. It was a threat none of those manicured men with their crafted words and couched speech took lightly

When the rally ended Avery Lysander climbed back into his truck and started for home, content the tide was turning against the government, and that no one would discover his cattle were sick. He get them off to slaughter, feed his family and no one would be the wiser. Behind him the storm crept slow across the Iowa farmland. Ahead of him the day was drawing to an end.