CHAPTER 101 Melissa
Melissa
“AMERICA HAS ALLOWED ITSELF to become contaminated and degraded! Our national identity is being corroded from within! Before long, we won’t even know who we are as a people! And here in the South, our cultural integrity is under threat again.”
Michaelson Woods has been speaking for nearly an hour.
He’s a handsome young man, tall and preppy with wavy blond hair.
What’s more, he has an electrifying presence, and he’s a galvanizing speaker, even with a mostly hostile audience in front of him.
In fact, he seems energized by the catcalls and chants that follow almost every pronouncement he makes.
“Nazi, go home!”
“Fascist!”
“I hear you!” Woods shouts back. “But I’m right. And America knows it!”
Behind him on the outdoor podium, white men in black uniforms and domino masks stand at attention. A long line of them. Below, in front of the stage, a cordon of Chapel Hill police stand facing the audience.
Woods is lit from below by a bright spotlight that casts a huge shadow across a long row of American flags. Here and there in the audience, red, white, and blue glow lights flicker in the dark.
Melissa Lange and Nia Williams are watching from the left side of the huge gathering, angry and disgusted. Woods’s voice blasts from PA speakers at deafening levels. Melissa leans toward Nia’s ear and shouts over the ranting, “Do you believe this shit?”
Cold fury shows in Nia’s eyes. She shakes her head. “No, I don’t!” she yells back. “I thought the country was past this!”
The two of them are packed in with other anti-Woods protesters, barricaded in a makeshift corral, most holding handmade signs and banners.
Melissa carries a placard that says FREE SPEECH, NOT HATE SPEECH!
At the end of every one of Woods’s inflammatory catchphrases, she thrusts the sign up and waves it over her head.
In response, counterprotesters on the opposite side of the park hoist signs of their own.
AMERICA FOR AMERICANS!
DILUTION IS POLLUTION!
ONE COLOR, ONE COUNTRY!
After a last high-pitched harangue, Woods starts wrapping up.
Melissa has watched him do this same finale dozens of times.
Always the same closing. “To all true citizens, remember—legacy Americans are the heart and soul of this nation! We will not be removed, we will not be replaced, we will not be forgotten! This is still our country! But only if we fight to keep it as it was meant to be. Pure! Strong! And righteous!”
Nia cups her hands around her mouth and shouts toward the stage, “You mean white!” But her voice is lost in the mixture of boos and cheers that accompany Woods’s final fist pump.
As he exits the stage, the PA system starts blasting “This Land Is Your Land.” Not the Woody Guthrie folk-anthem version. This one was recorded by a student choir at a Christian university. Combined with the visual of Woods’s uniformed acolytes, the lyrics take on a whole different meaning.
“They’re co-opting this song?” Nia shouts in disgust. “Really?”
She and Melissa are jostled from side to side as the crowd disperses.
Melissa drops her sign into a huge trash barrel and wipes her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” asks Nia. “What’s going on?”
“Damon should be here,” Melissa says. “He would have jumped right up on that stage and grabbed the microphone. He would have shut Woods down and made a speech of his own!”
Nia opens her arms and brings Melissa in for a long hug. “I know, I know.” She pats Melissa’s head gently. “We’ll find him. I know we will.”
When Melissa pulls away, her eyes are red. “I’m not sure anymore, Nia. I’m losing hope. I’m not sure I’ll ever see him again.”
Nia wraps her arm around Melissa’s shoulders. “Stop it. Don’t talk like that. Tell you what—come back to my house. We’ll crash on my sofa, drink some cheap wine, and”—she shouts toward the stage—“forget about all this bullshit!”
Melissa shakes her head. “Thanks, Nia, but I’m tired. I just want to go home. You need a lift?”
Nia thinks for a second. “Nah. I think I’ll just wander around the park for a while, see if I can get into a fistfight with a racist.”
They hug again. Melissa walks down the barricade line toward the parking lot, now a tangle of exiting vehicles, honking and inching along, bumper to bumper.
Since the lot was already filled to overflowing by the time she arrived that evening, Melissa had parked in a small cul-de-sac at the edge of campus. It was a reserved faculty space, but she’d grabbed it anyway. Hopefully, she won’t find a ticket from campus security under her wiper blade.
Melissa walks up the small grassy rise that separates the parking lot from a cluster of academic buildings. Most of the crowd is behind her now, moving in the other direction. When she looks over her shoulder, she can still see the brightly lit flags behind the stage. The music is still pumping.
Where’s Michaelson Woods right now? she wonders. Probably in his armored SUV heading to his next rally to give his next dog-whistle speech.
Melissa is still simmering with anger, and not just about what Woods said. Maybe without all the disruption and conflict caused by his visit, the Chapel Hill police could have focused on finding the man she loves.
She passes a group of students heading in the other direction, male and female, all giggling and clinging to one another. Melissa can smell the pot fumes in the air. One of the white girls is locked in a kiss with a Black kid.
Melissa wipes her eyes again. Damn it, Damon! Where are you?
Her Kia is just ahead, sitting alone by the curb. Lucky for her, no ticket. Melissa pulls her key fob from her bag and clicks the button. Her car cheeps and the parking lights flash. The building behind the car is mostly dark, just a few scattered offices lit up on the top floor.
It was smart to park here. I can avoid the bottlenecks at the parking-lot exits and cruise home in no time. All she wants to do now is take a hot shower and forget every hateful word Michaelson Woods just spewed.
She reaches for the door handle.
Suddenly, something thick and dank is pulled over her head and down to her shoulders. A hand clamps over her mouth through the covering. Her car keys are ripped from her hand.
Melissa twists and kicks. She slams her feet toward the car door, trying to set off the alarm. “Stop! Let me go!”
No use. Her voice is muffled beneath the covering. Her feet flail in midair.
Whoever’s holding her is a lot stronger than she is—and more than twice her size.