FBI special agent Doreen’s detailed confidential notes to herself sounded profound.
COVID and racism go hand in hand, she wrote.
Both breed defiance and death. White populism induces science suspicion, produces anti-vaxers, begets fear of fluoride, engenders refusal to accept climate change and creates unruly hatred of anybody whose brain doesn’t resemble a moldy slice of white bread.
After witnessing about four months of discord trapped in the COVID-19 pandemic, Doreen watched life and death ebb and flow in America like putrid sewer water backed up in a rich CEO’s master bedroom toilet.
Religious leaders beg their God for relief, she wrote. When prayers go unanswered, they face drastic changes in society and fearful changes in themselves. What they see causes panic in their hearts. What they learn creates stark moments of uncertainty and paranoia.
Bars close. Beaches empty. Restaurants shutter pretty patron patios. Beautiful people whither.
NOTE: About 130,000 people dead so far. Predictions of more than 200,000 by November.
But what about the bars? The restaurants? The beaches?
The horror. The horror.
More and more self-absorbed, greedy, ego-driven men and women under 45 demand the return of creature comforts, Doreen wrote. Birthday parties, what about birthday parties? How can time go by without blowing out the candles surrounded by hip, beer-drinking friends?
Beach houses at the shore? Florida fishing trips? Golf? Oh, my fucking God, what about golf?
Get in the closet grandma. The kids are having their millennial friends over for craft beer night. Lock grandpa in the cellar because his pre-existing condition of breathing is a burden to our self-impressions.
America the beautiful inflicted a pox on the flag and bacteria on the stubbled underarm of the body politic, Doreen scribbled in longhand.
Alone in an empty small apartment, this super-secret agent struggled to decipher the intricate twists and turns of her deep cover federal investigation into the deaths of two medical waste workers who died as the result of a terrible hate crime. Arson engulfed their delivery truck and reduced their bodies to cinders.
Why Doreen accepted the mission to infiltrate white supremacy was anybody’s guess. A death wish is not out of the question. Maybe a sincere belief in helping all America sent her diving into the shallow end of the viral pool. Simple concern for her fellow citizens could also explain her motives.
Doreen’s assignment surprised her but nowadays ulterior motives ruled the U.S. Department of Justice so the underlying intent seemed relatively clear. Doreen worked hard to nurture her reputation as a gutsy feminist who bucked the system when the system behaved badly as, lately, it almost always did. To Doreen, justice meant more than just us. So why not drop her into the heart of a deadly pandemic, expose her to whatever might kill her and hope she gets the disease and dies. The boys with the badges would just stand at dull attention around a new wall plaque thanking her for her service and hope she was replaced with a likeable lackey who did Attorney General William Barr’s bidding rather than squaring off with a female warrior men failed to scare.
For all Doreen’s new confidential informant Buck knew, his handler landed from another planet or was a zombie there to eat his brain or what was left of it. All he knew was as much as he wanted liberation from his cast he craved freedom from the cast of characters with whom he shared strife, liberty and the pursuit of white meat scrappiness.
Life continued.
Until it didn’t.
Doreen honed in on Capt. Jones and Big Bob who both desired her company by swallowing the hook she baited and dipped in the polluted water of lusty temptation. As smart as she was, though, she had no idea how hard each man planned to kill the other.
Big Bob aimed to blame Capt. Jones’ lynching execution on the Blacks. Capt. Jones intended to pin Big Bob’s entombment in a double-thick red brick border wall facsimile on the Mexicans.
Doreen wrote a final question in her notebook in underlined capital letters.
WHEN WILL THIS LUNACY END?
When, as Dillon might say, will it be lights out for Bugout!