fashioned by rightist Christian Patriots and antigovernment militias. The theory held that ‘‘resistance groups’’ shouldn’t train a combat force, but should create tactical cells, small groups that planned and acted in isolation, on their own initiative. There was to be no chain of command, and thus no way to kill the Hydra by cutting off one head. Terror would be the gift that kept on giving.
My suspicions deepened when I checked out the Web site’s ‘‘Links’’ section. I skimmed through The Christian Guide to Small Arms , patriot manifestos, and conspiracy babblings, crossing onto the turf of the loners, the outsiders, the digital screamers, a territory of inchoate rage and belief in the rectifying power of kerosene mixed with ammonium nitrate fertilizer. It made sickening reading.
The Remnant was planning something. But what, and when? I wondered if the church really advocated leaderless resistance. The strategy was not solely defensive. It granted cells the freedom to attack at will.
I logged off. Sat for a minute, my anxieties twisting and tautening. Thought, Screw it; this isn’t helping anything.
I headed across the lawn and knocked on Nikki’s kitchen door. She was home, having shut her art gallery for the week. She was sitting at the butcher block table, answering sympathy cards, looking wan in a bright, oversize Big Dog T-shirt that stretched across her belly. Bare of the elaborate silver jewelry she loved to wear, she seemed silent. I missed the ting of her bracelets.
I said, ‘‘How about taking a walk on the beach?’’
At Arroyo Burro we walked barefoot on the wet sand, below a tall cliff. The waves ran cold across our ankles. A lone surfer sculpted turns on a glittering curl of water. The day looked polished, pure blue, and for a long while we were silent.
My worries about the Remnant refocused, from the elusive what to the confounding why . Why had they developed a hysterical cosmology? Was it grievance or gullibility? Were their lives so dull that they couldn’t get their kicks from line dancing or whitewater rafting, but had to declare themselves the focal point of destiny?
Nikki said, ‘‘Mom hated the beach; did you know? She grew up on a tropical island, lived here twenty-five years, and could not abide the very idea of sand.’’
She smiled as she said it. We began reminiscing about Claudine, remembering her quirks and wit, her lack of bitterness after contracting AIDS, during a late-life relationship with an old flame from Haiti. Eventually Nikki began replaying the funeral, in detail. I knew she needed to hold on to it. But when she began talking about the protesters I fell quiet. She looked at me.
‘‘You’re awfully far away. Something going on?’’
I started to shake my head, but she pointed at my hands—the cuts—and raised an eyebrow. ‘‘Dish it. I could use the distraction.’’
She listened with amazement and consternation. ‘‘Does Tabitha have spiders loose in her head? Male bashing during a divorce I could see, but joining a sect that says her man is Satan’s toady—that’s extreme.’’
The Remnant’s antimilitary slant, I said, was one thing that must have drawn her to the group. Another was Pastor Pete’s theory about end-time hoaxes.
Tabitha’s mother, SueJudi Roebuck, had belonged to a church that expected the Rapture to occur on Pentecost 2000. When it didn’t, her ecstasy shattered into despair. Feeling betrayed and spiritually un-moored, she spiraled into a depression from which she never escaped. To Tabitha, a diabolical plot must have seemed a compelling explanation for her mother’s despondency.
‘‘But Peter Wyoming has inverted reality,’’ I said. ‘‘The fact that the world hasn’t ended means that it’s about to. Complete normality proves the existence of a demonic conspiracy.’’
‘‘They’re paranoid, Ev. That’s how paranoids think.’’
‘‘Absence of evidence equals proof. The silence howls at
My suspicions deepened when I checked out the Web site’s ‘‘Links’’ section. I skimmed through The Christian Guide to Small Arms , patriot manifestos, and conspiracy babblings, crossing onto the turf of the loners, the outsiders, the digital screamers, a territory of inchoate rage and belief in the rectifying power of kerosene mixed with ammonium nitrate fertilizer. It made sickening reading.
The Remnant was planning something. But what, and when? I wondered if the church really advocated leaderless resistance. The strategy was not solely defensive. It granted cells the freedom to attack at will.
I logged off. Sat for a minute, my anxieties twisting and tautening. Thought, Screw it; this isn’t helping anything.
I headed across the lawn and knocked on Nikki’s kitchen door. She was home, having shut her art gallery for the week. She was sitting at the butcher block table, answering sympathy cards, looking wan in a bright, oversize Big Dog T-shirt that stretched across her belly. Bare of the elaborate silver jewelry she loved to wear, she seemed silent. I missed the ting of her bracelets.
I said, ‘‘How about taking a walk on the beach?’’
At Arroyo Burro we walked barefoot on the wet sand, below a tall cliff. The waves ran cold across our ankles. A lone surfer sculpted turns on a glittering curl of water. The day looked polished, pure blue, and for a long while we were silent.
My worries about the Remnant refocused, from the elusive what to the confounding why . Why had they developed a hysterical cosmology? Was it grievance or gullibility? Were their lives so dull that they couldn’t get their kicks from line dancing or whitewater rafting, but had to declare themselves the focal point of destiny?
Nikki said, ‘‘Mom hated the beach; did you know? She grew up on a tropical island, lived here twenty-five years, and could not abide the very idea of sand.’’
She smiled as she said it. We began reminiscing about Claudine, remembering her quirks and wit, her lack of bitterness after contracting AIDS, during a late-life relationship with an old flame from Haiti. Eventually Nikki began replaying the funeral, in detail. I knew she needed to hold on to it. But when she began talking about the protesters I fell quiet. She looked at me.
‘‘You’re awfully far away. Something going on?’’
I started to shake my head, but she pointed at my hands—the cuts—and raised an eyebrow. ‘‘Dish it. I could use the distraction.’’
She listened with amazement and consternation. ‘‘Does Tabitha have spiders loose in her head? Male bashing during a divorce I could see, but joining a sect that says her man is Satan’s toady—that’s extreme.’’
The Remnant’s antimilitary slant, I said, was one thing that must have drawn her to the group. Another was Pastor Pete’s theory about end-time hoaxes.
Tabitha’s mother, SueJudi Roebuck, had belonged to a church that expected the Rapture to occur on Pentecost 2000. When it didn’t, her ecstasy shattered into despair. Feeling betrayed and spiritually un-moored, she spiraled into a depression from which she never escaped. To Tabitha, a diabolical plot must have seemed a compelling explanation for her mother’s despondency.
‘‘But Peter Wyoming has inverted reality,’’ I said. ‘‘The fact that the world hasn’t ended means that it’s about to. Complete normality proves the existence of a demonic conspiracy.’’
‘‘They’re paranoid, Ev. That’s how paranoids think.’’
‘‘Absence of evidence equals proof. The silence howls at
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