Chapter 47
CHAPTER
I stepped down onto the crowded sidewalk just as a fleet of pickup trucks turned onto the square, honking their horns and forcing their way through the throng. Each pickup was covered with oversized images of pregnancies in utero. Confederate flags were draped across the truck beds.
The pro-life side greeted the caravan like a conquering army. Just then, the lead vehicle started blaring music from roof-mounted speakers at a deafening volume.
The tune was “Dixie.”
That song always gave me goose bumps, in all the wrong ways.
It wasn’t just the lyrics that riled me.
It was knowing that “Dixie” had been the anthem of the Confederacy.
A song about how great the South used to be.
Back when Black people—my ancestors—were enslaved.
And when the economy of the South rested on the flayed backs of their forced labor. To me that was what “Dixie” celebrated.
I was not a fan.
As the tune played, I saw a man across the street remove his ball cap and place his hand over his heart. Like he was hearing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Or watching US soldiers raise the American flag.
I sidestepped some people on the sidewalk as the fleet approached. I wanted to cuss out the driver playing “Dixie.” Was ready to shake my fist, flip him the bird. I’m aware that would be behavior unbecoming of a candidate running for reelection to the office of circuit judge. I didn’t give a damn.
When the lead pickup pulled close enough for me to see through the windshield, I froze for a second. I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was that goddamn Mason Phelps, the Grand Whatever of the local racist society. Shit.
I stepped back. I didn’t want to give Phelps the finger or shout the F-word at him. He’d regard that as a win. I refused to let him think he had that kind of power over me.
But he’d caught sight of me. As I tried to press back into the crowd, he peered out the driver’s window and our eyes met.
I caught it, a flash of pure hate in that look.
Replaced by a grin, scary as hell. He drove by slowly.
I saw those brown teeth flashing at me, as Mason Phelps started laughing.
Like he knew some ugly joke I wasn’t clued in on.
I shivered, right there on the street. A chill ran all the way down my back. An omen, Mama would say. Like somebody was walking on my grave.
As the line of battered pickup trucks moved through town, a handful of people in the pro-life crowd gave them some patchy applause.
Not many, though. I saw a number of people in pro-life shirts who looked visibly uncomfortable.
It seemed like not all the pro-lifers were down with the Confederate flags.
I saw that as a positive indicator. Calmed down a hair, caught my breath.
The pro-choice response was much stronger. Young people wearing ROE and PLANNED PARENTHOOD shirts elbowed me as they moved into the street, booing the parade.
A young man used his brING BACK ROE sign to whale away at the Confederate flags waving from the truck beds. “Fascists! Fucking traitors!”
Other counterprotesters followed suit, shouting at the trucks as they passed.
The kids with neon hair didn’t seem terribly frightened or intimidated. Some of them were even laughing. Making fun of Mason Phelps. Openly mocking him.
And I saw pro-lifers who weren’t overjoyed to have Phelps as the leader of their movement. Some of them were packing up, moving on.
The sight gave me a lift. I was glad to see people mocking Phelps. I relished the insults they threw at him. But still. It wasn’t smart for those protesters to disregard Mason Phelps and his friends. It worried me. They hadn’t been exposed to him for years, like I had.
A young woman stepped off the curb and flung an egg at the cab of one of the dusty pickups, shouting, “Hey, Dixie! That all you got? Bunch of losers!”
I had to smile at that. At that point, I even thought maybe I was wrong to have worried. It looked like the white supremacists’ attempt to lead the abortion protest was fizzling.
That was when I spotted the last vehicle in the motorcade. A huge box truck. Plain white, no flags, no slogans, no markings. It lumbered slowly up Prairie Street and came to a stop about a block from where I was standing.
The door of the cab opened. I watched the driver hop out. Aside from being white, he looked nothing like Phelps or his shaggy crew. No long, greasy hair. No baseball cap.
This guy was fit and muscular, with a short military haircut. Dressed in immaculate khaki pants and a red polo shirt.
He jogged to the back of the white truck and opened the doors.
“It’s Patriot Front!” someone called out. “They’re white nationalists!”
Suddenly, two dozen men jumped out and moved into formation.
To me, they didn’t look homegrown. Probably from out of state. Guests of honor, invited by Mason Phelps. He was probably thrilled to see them.
They were all fit white guys, dressed in the same red-and-khaki outfit that the driver wore.
Some kind of uniform. Their faces were covered with white gaiters, like the face coverings during the height of COVID.
These days, in my experience on the bench, those face coverings were used by people who were trying to avoid identification.
The men were all armed with assault rifles.
“Sweet Jesus,” I whispered.
I overheard frantic voices nearby. The neon-haired young people were all shouting, “Call the cops!”
One young woman followed behind the formation, screaming at them. “You can’t do this! It’s illegal!”
Clearly, the woman wasn’t from Alabama. If she was, she’d know that the men with assault rifles were not breaking any law. Alabama was an open-carry state. No permit required.
As the armed, masked men began their march down the street, I heard more frenzied shouts.
Sure enough. The “Dixie” melody started up again from Phelps’s truck speakers. He must have been expecting the reinforcements. At the sight of all the guns, people on the sidewalk started to scatter.
I’d seen enough.
It was time to get the hell out of town.
As I headed for the back of the courthouse, I was getting pushed and shoved from all sides. There was panic in the air—the kind of hysteria that gets people trampled and killed.
No way I could get to my car. The crowd was too thick. Instead, I grappled my way up the stairs of the courthouse and forced my way to the main entrance. Fumbled in my bag for the key ring. I was one of a handful of people in Bullock County entrusted with the key to the courthouse door.
When I got the key in hand, I got shoved so hard that I dropped the keys on the ground.
“Back off!” I shouted. Bending down, I picked the keys up. My hands were shaking as I jammed the key into the dead bolt lock and turned it.
As I grabbed the handle, I felt a crush of bodies behind me, pushing toward safety.
I was still holding the door when I heard the gunshots.
And the screams.