Again, Mr. Braxton had to stop himself long enough to keep from being dangerously angry – how he hated the Hamiltons, and how he had relished the idea of Ironwood Hamilton coming to beg him for help in getting toys, and how Ironwood Hamilton had smiled and turned into his meddlesome, intolerable father Isaiah!
“The blacks would have accepted Isaiah Hamilton as their leader – their White Messiah – then, when he moved enough mountains to get that trial done fairly,” Mr. Braxton said, “but that is where he flipped out, and said that the the blacks had risked themselves to provide the evidence and that it was their unity, before and after the massacre, that had led to the outcome. He removed himself as the key to the matter!”
“Because ours has to be the face that saves – it should never occur, to follow your line of thinking, that they should be allowed to think they can do for themselves.”
“Exactly! Exactly! We must be the saviors! We must be the magicians – the medicine men – those that make all things good occur! If we can no longer threaten them into submission, then they must be made to believe that our benevolence is indispensable – it is the only way left to maintain control!
“But that fool Isaiah Hamilton! All that ability – all that sacrifice to get him to be their idol – he could have had control of 28 percent of the town and been the darling of 39 percent of the county! All this nonsense we have been putting up with in this last few months? He could have nipped all that in the bud! But, no! He flipped on us! And, he had all that Hamilton caginess, too – it took eleven years before we could nip him.”
“So … that wasn't an accident, how Isaiah and Ilene Hamilton died?”
“Of course not – but I did not have Dorian then, and it had to look like an accident, and again, the man was cagey. He knew we were going to get him, because he sacrificed our young men from North Eagletop and then threw that away. It took eleven years to set it up. Ten years too long, though, because Isaiah shaped that boy in his image by age 14.
“Captain Hamilton is even cagier, though – how he has survived since July is amazing to me. But quietly, here he was, every Sunday, participating in nurturing this damnable common-man unity out of his house and others' houses.
“Then, here they go with this little toy and clothes drive – imagine this, Selene, letting these people go into 2020 not having bothered to ask any of us for help with the psychological triumph of providing Christmas for themselves. That combined with the foolishness of who ever dropped the ball and let the Blacks and Latinos organize enough to jam up the county for that memorial – they all protest well, so that wasn't so hard, and you brilliantly capped that off with your benevolence giving them what they wanted. But once they realize they can take care of all their needs without even consulting us? Disaster!”
“So, this fundraiser is to buy out that possibility,” Mrs. Slocum-Lofton said.
“Exactly – my, you learn so fast, not even accounting for age,” Mr. Braxton said.
“I'm still missing something, though,” she said. “How did you get all this organized so fast – the toy theft was not quite two weeks ago, and from my telephone conversations, you have people from across the country coming in who had to change their schedules.”
“Oh, they knew in advance,” he said. “It was all planned, from the beginning to the end. We took the toys from them to give them back on our own terms. You instinctively capped off their run at the Great Ridgeline Memorial and they stopped picketing and went home – but this idea that they are going to go into 2020 providing for themselves had to be stopped. Tonight, we will both provide for their needs and make them irrelevant to themselves – we will raise their standards so high, so indulge them with they think their spawn deserves, that they will not ever think they can provide enough for themselves again.
“And that brings me back to Captain Hamilton. He surely is in communication with whoever it is that gave shape to all that trouble in October, and they all have something in common: they all own their own small businesses, and increasingly they are helping each other. One-quarter of those toys were not bought from our stores. These people are hooking up with manufacturing onshore and overseas and making their own products and selling them to each other.
“Again: these common people with a few Hamilton-types sprinkled in are working to make you and me irrelevant, and they are advancing in their pride. Can you imagine? That man Hamilton came to me and said they just want a portion of the money they need from us up here!”
“It is always an honor to be asked,” Mrs. Slocum-Lofton said.
“We used to own these people and indentured the rest!” Mr. Braxton cried. “That they think they can tell us what they need and how much they need because they can do for themselves – it is the end of everything not only in America for which our ancestors came, but even back to Europe! Whoever heard of a serf telling his lord and lady such nonsense as they had Captain Hamilton present to us?”
“I'm sure it never happened,” Mrs. Slocum-Lofton said.
“Exactly – but see, people knew their place then, and they will again. It is dangerous to force them back – these people have become slippery – but they can be bribed back without hurting our resources at all. We have kept them struggling so they will never be strong enough to resist that – we have learned to use their sense of what they deserve against them. If they were not as proud as we are, we could do little against them, but they, too, are proud, although of what I sometimes wrack my brain to try to figure out.”
“It is the human lot to be proud, and only divinely given to be humble,” Mrs. Slocum-Lofton said.
“Oh, if we must accord them humanity – well, why not, because it is another thing they think they deserve and is available to be manipulated. That instinct of yours, Selene, that understands what my mind will not grasp.”
“Did you grasp the last part that I said?” she said.
“What did you say – I missed it entirely.”
“I said that it is only divinely given to be humble,” she said, and he laughed.
“You don't have to do the act here, Selene – relax!” he said. “Did you see any token of an humble faith as I drove you around Eagletop, especially here on my north side?”
“None at all. Pride of face, pride of race, pride of place and of wealth and power all on display and unchallenged.”
“Exactly – relax! With me, and among us, you don't have to play at all that! We say Maximalist today, but that is because Roman Imperialist is both out of style and clumsy! What our ancestors could have done by force we cannot, but by craft, by bribe, by subterfuge, by influence, we can maintain and extend our rule over these barbarians, and enjoy the religious fruits of our labor!
“After all, Rome's temples, this house and the others you have seen, and the churches you have seen, were built upon the labor they are obligated to provide us, and although those days are over, their acquiescence to what is left over maintains and allows us to build all the rest and do honor to those immortalized ancestors who bent a world to their whims! Even Jesus Himself, around 1638, was remade to those whims and in our image – to fit the true worship!”
“His image was remade,” Mrs. Slocum-Lofton said, “but as I found out in October, the real Jesus Christ is not so malleable, although I believed almost as you do, all my life, without knowing it. I just looked in the mirror and believed every day.”
“And why not – even today, among women of age, you are still the fairest of them all, and to me, no age applies.”