Chapter 20 How the Word Is Passed
Keith Kelly was rolling up his sleeve for the tetanus shot when the office’s front door slammed against the wall and someone shouted for Dr. Chokshi. He and the doctor hurried out of the exam room to find two teenage boys in the reception area. A burly, athletic kid was carrying Bella Cummings, her body limp and eyelids fluttering. His tall, terrified brother brought the doctor up to speed.
“Mitch Sweeney knocked her off a stage in Jackson Square five minutes ago. She was unconscious for just under two minutes. She’s been disoriented since she woke up.”
“Bring her in,” Dr. Chokshi ordered. “I’m sorry, Keith—”
“No worries.” Keith raised his hands and hopped out of the way on his good foot.
It went without saying that girls with head injuries took precedence, but the truth was, Keith was more than happy to wait. As much as he loved his family, he was in no rush to get back to them. In the three days since he’d come home from college, he’d endured a constant barrage of death, destruction, and drag queens. The minute his parents got up in the morning, the news came on—and it didn’t go off until the two older Kellys went to bed around ten. He felt like he’d wandered into a war zone. The territory in dispute was his brain.
That afternoon, Keith had escaped for a walk. He strolled down Main Street, bought a pair of salmon-colored shorts at a boutique, and browsed the books in a purple little library. He’d chosen Contract with America by Newt Gingrich and carried it to a bench in Jackson Square. The book inside didn’t match the dust jacket, but Keith would have read almost anything. By the end of the first two chapters, he was hooked. That’s when a group of townspeople appeared and began to construct a stage around the statue of Augustus Wainwright in Jackson Square. Then a crowd began to gather, and Keith got up to leave. On his way out, he stepped on a dropped nail that had landed sharp side up between two cobblestones.
There was a doctor’s office on the other side of the square. It wasn’t much trouble to hop there. Only one thing bothered Keith, and it wasn’t the pain. Now, with an injured foot, he’d be stuck at home. The next two days were going to be hell. The exam door closed, Keith Kelly drew in a breath and relished the silence.
“Turn up the TV, would you, sweetheart?” Ken Kelly called out to his beloved wife of twenty-two years. He was still in the kitchen, fixing their after-dinner smoothies.
When Glenda and Alan Johnston purchased their split-level ranch in 1985, they thought they were buying peace of mind. Their suburb outside of Baltimore was known for its good schools, friendly neighbors, and low crime rate. But over the years, Baltimore descended into chaos, and the criminal element began to stretch its tendrils out of the inner city and into the suburbs. As crime gained a stranglehold on their beloved neighborhood, Glenda and Alan refused their children’s pleas to move. Then one night, just as the couple were preparing for bed, there came a knock at the door. On the other side was a young man, who told them he’d been in an accident. The Johnstons’ doorbell camera caught Alan and Glenda stepping outside to help. It was the last time the elderly couple was seen alive. Their mangled bodies were discovered—
“Oh dear Lord!” Kari Kelly hoisted herself out of the La-Z-Boy and hustled to the front door. She jiggled the knob to make sure it was locked. When she was satisfied, she pulled the curtains on the front window aside and peeked out into the yard. She’d bought the brightest bulbs she could find, but the porch light still couldn’t fight back the darkness beyond the front steps. Anything could be out there. “What is this world coming to?” she asked her husband.
Ken Kelly came into the living room, shaking his head in despair. “The good folks in this country let their guard down. We can’t let it happen again,” he said solemnly as he handed his wife her smoothie. “Don’t worry, we’re covered.” Ken took a seat and patted the drawer of the side table that stood next to his chair. Inside was his handgun. There was another upstairs in the nightstand on his side of the bed and a shotgun tucked out of sight in the linen closet.
Kari moved to a window on the other end of the room. “What’s keeping Keith so long? It’s been hours. He just stepped on a nail, for goodness’ sake! You’d think he sawed off his whole leg.”
“That ruckus downtown must be keeping Dr. Chokshi pretty busy. He’s a good doctor. I’m sure he’ll get to our boy soon.”
“What did Keith say last time you texted him?”
Ken grimaced. He’d hold back the truth in certain circumstances, but he refused to lie to the woman he married. “He hasn’t texted me back.”
“What?” Kari screeched. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“Because it’s all okay, Mama,” Ken consoled her. “I can see his location. He’s at the doctor’s office. And I know he’s your son, but technically he is a grown man. Sit down and enjoy your smoothie. I promise Keith will be home as quick as he can.”
Kari took one more peek out the window and reluctantly returned to her chair.
Baltimore is not the only city that’s crumbling. Every city in America has seen a major uptick in crime. Those with Democratic mayors have witnessed skyrocketing rates of violence. Murderers and rapists roam the streets with impunity in places like New York and Philadelphia. Vagrants and addicts have taken over entire neighborhoods in San Francisco and Los Angeles. In Atlanta—
The volume shut off.
“What on earth are you doing?” Kari demanded. “We need to hear that!”
“Now is not the time, Mama,” Ken said. “When Keith’s home safe—”
“Kenneth Monroe Kelly, you were the one who let our only child enroll at Georgia Tech—right there in the middle of that cesspool of a city.”
“Woman, have you lost your mind? I let him go to Atlanta? I did everything I could to stop him! The boy was eighteen years old. He got a full scholarship! We both know I didn’t have a say in the matter.”
As much as Kari wished her husband had laid down the law back then, the truth was their son had been free to do as he wished. Even now, a year and a half after Keith made his decision, it was a hard pill to swallow. Every night, Kari watched the news. And every night, she prayed for her little boy’s safety. She wished that his world could be the same one she’d grown up in—a world where faith, kindness, and hard work were all that mattered. A world where looters didn’t run rampant in the Lenox Mall, pedophiles couldn’t hold public office, and little kids with wild imaginations weren’t prescribed hormones.
The idea that her son was out there all alone could leave her sobbing. But tonight, Kari knew she needed to hold it together and wait for Keith to get home. In the morning, she’d talk to him one more time. She’d try to convince him to stay closer to Troy. Ken could use a partner to help grow his septic tank business. Kelly and Son did have a wonderful ring to it.
As the grandfather clock struck eight, the volume on the television began to rise once more.
A virus is spreading across college campuses. But this one doesn’t infect the lungs—instead it makes its home in young people’s brains. It’s called critical race theory, and it’s being injected into everything from history courses to calculus. Some minds are strong enough to resist it, but others quickly fall prey. The signs and symptoms are easy to spot but difficult to treat—a growing contempt for church and country; a conviction that society’s problems all boil down to race; and a belief that white men are always to blame.
Kari felt tears well in her eyes, and she couldn’t help but let out a sniffle. All she’d wanted was what was best for her son.
“Sweetheart, were you listening? He just said some minds are strong enough to resist it,” Ken pointed out. “Keith was raised right. He’ll be able to see straight through that hogwash. It’s people like Keith who will fight back against it.”
Kari nodded and tried to stay quiet while the tears trickled down her cheeks. It was too much of a burden for one young man’s shoulders.
Keith knew his parents meant well. He’d tried his best to keep them from worrying so much, but every time he visited, he found himself fielding a new set of urgent questions.
No, Mom, I don’t care who uses the men’s room. Nobody goes there to make friends.
Yeah, I’m sure people hate me, but it’s not ’cause I’m white. It’s ’cause I’m so awesome.
No, I’m not trying to make you feel better. None of my friends have ever been mugged.
I’m registered Independent, not Democrat. And no, we’re not gonna discuss how I vote.
Just ’cause I haven’t brought a girl home from school doesn’t mean I’ve “gone gay.”
Why would I bring a girl home if you’re just gonna ask her questions like these?
Yes, I did have a wonderful childhood, and yes, I do love you both very much.
Sitting in the waiting room at the clinic had felt like a vacation. Shooting the shit with the Wright brothers (who confirmed that they had heard that joke) was the best time he’d had in days. They’d been sent out to the reception area while the doctor finished up with Bella Cummings, and once they knew she was going to be fine, the brothers spun the craziest story he’d ever heard. Keith told Isaac—who turned out to be some kind of genius—that it would make a great book.
“I mean, it’s got everything,” he’d marveled. “A beauty queen, a star football player, a famous general, a backward-ass little Southern town’s gay Black valedictorian, and to top it all off, an international movie star with a giant gash on his head who’s waiting in the parking lot for a doctor to finish treating the prom queen he knocked cold.”
And just as Keith finished saying it, in walked the Wright brothers’ fancy-pants new cousin and right behind her was an old woman who looked pissed as hell.
“May I speak with you two alone for a moment?” Beverly Underwood asked the Wright brothers while Keith sat there spellbound. “Pardon the interruption,” she told him. “These gentlemen and I have matters to discuss.”
Isaac looked like he might pass out.
“I’d like to see Bella first,” Elijah insisted. Keith was impressed. If the kid could postpone that plot twist, he had to be crazy in love.
“Don’t you worry. I’ll wait here for Bella,” said the old lady, who turned out to be Bella’s great-grandmother. “But before you go, which one of you two took Mitch Sweeney down?”
“That was me, ma’am.” Elijah held up his hand.
The old lady kissed him on the cheek. “You need anything in the future—don’t matter if it’s a lawyer, a new car, or a piece of pie—you come see me, you hear?”
“I will,” said Elijah, who was not at all shy.
Then the exam room door opened, and out came Bella Cummings, looking totally lucid and holding an ice pack to the back of her head. While everyone asked her all kinds of questions, the doctor gestured to Keith. He hobbled into the room, the door closed, and suddenly everything was silent again.
“Dude.” For a minute, that was all Keith could say.
“I concur,” said the doctor, who was much younger and cooler than the last physician. “Dude.”
“So Bella told you the whole story?”
“She did. Very sorry it took so long to get to you. I wasn’t sure at first if Miss Cummings was hallucinating.”
“Dude.”
This time the doctor laughed. “You’re Ken and Kari’s boy, am I right?”
“That is correct,” said Keith.
The doctor began preparing the shot. “Your parents are sweet people. They’re always worried to death whenever I head home to New York. I wonder what they’re going to think about all the excitement here in Troy this evening.”
“Probably lock me in my bedroom for the rest of my life. They’re already nervous as hell about me going back to Atlanta.”
“Were they always so anxious?” The doctor lifted Keith’s shirtsleeve and swabbed a patch of his skin with iodine.
“Nope,” Keith said. “They keep saying the world’s changed. But I’m pretty sure it’s them. I don’t remember them being so scared when I was a kid.”
After his shot was administered and his wound cleaned and wrapped, Keith hobbled out of the exam room to find three men sitting side by side in the reception area. One was the county sheriff. One was an international movie star. The third was a younger man with blond hair and a beard who couldn’t have been more than a few years older than him. He was holding the book that Keith had brought with him.
“Mind if I grab that?” Keith said. “I forgot it out here when I went in for my shot.”
He held out his hand, but the man didn’t pass the book to him.
“You know this ain’t Contract for America.” The man took off the dust jacket and held up the spine for Keith to read.
“Excuse me?” Keith replied. “What do you care what it is?”
“Your parents know you’re reading this CRT crap?” the man demanded.
Keith glanced over at Sheriff Bradley, a well-weathered man of fifty with granite-colored hair and cold eyes. He folded his arms and said nothing.
“Last I checked, this was the United States of America,” Keith said, snatching the book from the man’s hands. “I can read whatever the hell I want.”
As he pushed through the door, he heard the doctor come into the reception area. “Mr. Walsh, you have no business here,” Dr. Chokshi said. “Please wait outside until I’ve finished.”
There is nothing these people want more than to take your rights away. They don’t give a damn about the Constitution. All they care about is having their way with you. They’ll tell you they don’t want your hunting rifles or handguns. They’ll tell you they just want to keep weapons out of the hands of minors and the mentally ill. But what they really want is to get the snowball rolling. One day you’re going to look up and it will be rolling down the hill, and it won’t just be taking your AR-15s with it. It’s going to take your means of protection and your most fundamental rights. And then, when you’re at your most vulnerable, it’s going to come for everything else you hold sacred.
“They’ll have to pry my gun out of my cold, dead hands,” Ken assured the television.
“Don’t say that!” Kari cried.
“That’s what it could come to,” Ken told her. “These people are evil. Don’t kid yourself.”
Just then, they heard someone stomping up the front porch stairs. Heart pounding, Ken slid open the side table drawer and took out the handgun he always kept loaded for moments like this.
While Kari hid in the coat closet, Ken took his position beside the front door with his gun locked and loaded. The doorknob jiggled and he aimed at head height. As soon as the bastard got through the door, he’d be in for one hell of a surprise. Then he heard a key slide into the lock.
“It’s Keith!” Kari screeched.
Within a spilt second, Ken’s gun was back in the drawer and their son was limping into the living room with a book in his hand.
“I’m so glad you’re safe!” Kari burst out of the closet, pulled her boy into a hug, and began to cry. His chest was so broad that she could barely wrap her arms all the way around him.
“Damn, Mom.” He laughed. “I just stepped on a nail.”
Ken cleared his throat and hoped he’d be able to talk. It wasn’t every day that you nearly shot your own son. “You know how she worries,” he managed to croak. “Kari? You okay, hon?”
Kari pulled back and wiped her eyes on the collar of her shirt. “What kept you so long?”
“Bella Cummings got knocked out by Mitch Sweeney and me and the Wright brothers sat and talked while they waited for her.”
Ken blinked three times. “Come again?” he asked.
Keith sat down and told them the whole story.
“So that’s what all the fuss was about?” Ken asked. “The statue?”
“I can’t believe those Wright boys would get mixed up in something like that,” Kari said. “I always thought they were such a nice family.”
“They are a nice family,” Keith told her.
“Then why would they want to destroy a symbol of our history and heritage?”
“Because it’s theirs, too, Mom. In fact, as it turns out, it’s a lot more theirs than ours. Don’t you think they should get a say?”
“Hold on a sec. We need to see this.” Kari turned up the volume on the TV.
Mark my words, they are going to steal every vote they can. They do not care about the sanctity of the electoral process. They will be stuffing ballot boxes and hacking voting machines and registering their pets to vote. If we don’t stop this now, there will never be another fair election in the history of this country. And those of us who work hard and love America will find ourselves under the heel of those who want to bleed us all dry.
“Why do they keep showing Black people?” Keith asked. He hadn’t watched the news like this since he left for school. Is this how it had always been?
“What are you talking about?” Ken had always prided himself on his tolerance.
“Well, watch!” Keith grabbed the remote and rewound the program. “The guy talking is white, but everybody they show in the footage is Black.”
“Because they’re Democrats, and that’s who’s trying to fix the election.”
“Naw, that’s bullshit,” Keith said.
Ken and Kari wheeled around in unison.
Keith shrugged as if he’d said nothing outlandish. “It is. If anything it’s the other way around. You know they closed down polling places in Black neighborhoods in Atlanta right before the last election? They had people waiting eight, ten hours just to vote. Meanwhile in fancy-pants Buckhead, it took about fifteen minutes.”
“What’s your source?” Ken demanded.
“My source?” Keith laughed. “How ’bout my own eyes?”
“Sweetheart, your dad and I watch the news every night. And you would not believe some of the things they’re doing. Voting for dead relatives. Taking names off of tombstones. They have to cheat in order to keep the pedophiles in office.”
“Wait—what pedophiles?” Keith asked. “Do you know how crazy that sounds?”
Ken’s face went as red as a candy apple. “Boy, are you calling your mother crazy?”
“No!” Keith insisted. “But—”
“I did not raise you to talk back!” Ken bellowed.
In the seconds that followed, Keith let the silence stretch out. Then he nodded. “You’re right. Good night, folks. I got an early day tomorrow. I’m going to bed.”
Ken kept an eye on his son’s door. When it closed, he reached for the book that Keith had left behind on the couch. He flipped through the pages and stopped at a random passage.
The Lost Cause is a movement that gained traction in the late nineteenth century that attempted to recast the Confederacy as something predicated on family, honor and heritage rather than what it was, a traitorous effort to extend and expand the bondage of Black people.
“I knew it!” he whispered. Then he passed the open book to his wife. “This is some of that CRT stuff. Our boy’s been brainwashed.”
Ken leaned over his wife’s shoulder as she traced another selection from the book. “This can’t be true, can it?” she asked.
“It’s mind poison,” Ken said. “We are not sending our child back to that school.”
“I’m not a child.”
Keith was there, holding out his hand.
Ken reluctantly handed the book over. “We’ll be talking about this in the morning.”
“We’re having an intervention!” Kari announced.
“Y’all can have whatever you want,” Keith said. “I sure as hell won’t be here.”
Keith got down on his knees by the side of the bed and prayed for his mom and dad. Back when he was younger and his parents were busy with things like Little League and PTA meetings, life had been different. With the television off, all they’d had to guide them was common sense and good hearts. No one told them to be scared, so they weren’t. No one told them who their enemies were, so they didn’t have any. No one warned them to avoid dangerous books, so they read whatever called out to them—mostly John Grisham. And maybe he was wrong—maybe he’d just been a little kid—but everything had seemed perfectly fine. Keith prayed they could return to those days.
And when he finished, he lay down on his bed, opened the book he’d brought home, and started to read.