A Heart Divided (13 page)

I was passing out buttons with Nikki in front of the cafeteria, and she was telling me about her weekend—she and her boyfriend, Michael, had bicycled from Redford to Nolensville—when Jack came by with Chaz and some of his other proflag friends. He separated from them and loped over, snaking an arm around my waist. “‘Sup, ladies?”

“Just out here fighting the good fight, Jackson,” Nikki said. “Button?”

He shook his head. “I don’t like my clothes to speak for me, but thanks.”

“Or maybe you just want to play both sides,” Nikki suggested.

Which was sometimes my suspicion, too. But I stuck by my guy. “Everyone doesn’t have to wear a button, Nikki,” I said.

“In this town, the name Redford is almost as powerful as that flag,” she declared, handing Jack a flyer. “Not taking a stand is tacit approval of the status quo. Think about it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he teased, and stuck the leaflet in his pocket. “Kate, meet me after school by my car. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“Aren’t we supposed to help paint the set?” I asked.

“That can wait.” He nodded at Nikki, kissed me quickly, and left.

She got more flyers from the box. “So, you two happened fast.”

I smiled. “Yeah.”

“Dropping Sara Fife’s ass makes me think Jack hasn’t turned into a total wuss after all.”

Odd remark. “What are you talking about?”

She handed a freshman a flyer. “We used to hang out.”

“You and Jack? Did his mother know?”

“Sally Redford is … interesting. My mom does volunteer work with her at Redford Women United. It’s a charity that—”

“Helps women get off welfare, I know all about it. I’m just surprised. She’s so conservative, and your family is so liberal.”

Nikki shrugged. “It’s a good cause, what difference does it make?”

“Yeah, but his mother acts like the Confederate flag is her family crest.”

“Things like that didn’t separate us when we were kids. We all used to be friends. Believe it or not, even Sara.”

“I guess this was pre-Crimson Maidens.”

“Very,” Nikki said. “Sara used to be the kind of girl who gives every kid in the class a valentine card so that no one feels left out. When I was a kid, I went to Redford House for Jack’s birthday parties. Sara and Jack came to my birthday parties, too.”

“Gee, lucky you. So what changed?”

“We grew up. Middle school, that’s when all the parents freak.”

“How does that make Jack a wuss?”

Nikki shrugged again. “When his mother changed the
rules—‘Nicolette is a lovely girl, Jackson, but I’m sure she’d be more comfortable with her own people’—Jack folded like a taco.”

“He was only a kid,” I protested.

“Then. What’s his excuse now? Everyone likes Jack. What’s more, they respect him. If Jack Redford came out publicly against that flag, it would mean a lot, and he knows it. He’s not a kid anymore.”

Though mid-October, it was Indian-summer warm that afternoon when I met Jack in the parking lot after school. He rolled down the Jeep windows and pulled into the long line of cars snaking out onto the street. “So, what’s the big surprise?” I asked.

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise anymore.”

Chaz’s vintage red Mustang convertible was behind us, top down, music cranking, a small Confederate battle flag flapping from the antenna. Crystal sat next to him; Sara was in back with a guy I didn’t recognize. As we pulled onto Franklin Road, Jack gave a friendly salute as the Mustang roared past us. Chaz saluted back. As he did, Sara’s eyes caught mine for an instant.

I would be remiss as a mother, Kate, if I didn’t warn you that there’s no future in your relationship with my son.

According to Sally Redford, I was as inappropriate for Jack as the Argentinean riding instructor had been for her.

But Sara Fife was just right. It was obvious that Sara still thought so, too. All of which went under the heading Things I Don’t Want to Think About.

Apropos of nothing, I said, “My dad had a Mustang just like Chaz’s when my parents first got married.”

Jack laughed. “My dad, too.”

I couldn’t picture Sally Redford tooling around in a hot convertible. The woman’s hair hadn’t moved in decades. “You never talk about your dad,” I said.

“Not much.”

“Does it make you too sad?”

“More like mad.”

“Do you remember him?”

“Of course. I was almost eight when he died.” I didn’t press, but I could tell from the faraway look in his eyes that he was going back in time. “We did everything together. He was a terrific athlete. But what he loved most were ideas.” Jack chuckled. “His idea of a bedtime story was telling me an Aesop’s fable. Then we’d discuss the moral choices of the fox or the frog or whatever. His dream job was to teach philosophy.”

“Did he ever do it?”

“No. He did what every Redford man had done before him, went to serve his country. Joined the air force. Five years later, we came back here to the family homestead. Dad started working on his doctorate in philosophy at Vanderbilt.”

“I thought he died on a mission,” I said hesitantly.

Jack’s face hardened. “A damn training mission, in Alabama.
He was in the reserves.” He laughed bitterly. “Ever since it happened, my mother has talked about the ‘nobility’ of his sacrifice. But somehow it’s lost on me.”

Jack pushed a CD into the stereo and cranked it up, his way of saying he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I couldn’t imagine how horrible it must have been to have his dad die when he was so little, and for no good reason at all. It was really too big for words, and I was glad to let the music save me.

Forty-five minutes later, Jack pulled off the state highway and followed a country road until a sign told us we were in Pulaski, Tennessee. And here, Jack unveiled his surprise: He’d arranged for me to interview Ron Bingham, the white separatist I’d read about in the newspaper. When I asked him how he’d pulled this off, he mumbled that he’d “made a few calls.”

“You’re sure he’ll talk to me?” I asked.

“He talked to the
Tennessean
, he’ll talk to you,” Jack assured me.

The Bingham family lived in a small frame house just outside of town. There was a yard sign advertising his plumbing company.
TRUST BINGHAM: FIFTY YEARS OF BEING THERE FOR YOU!
A tire swing hung from an oak tree, and children’s toys were scattered around the front yard.

Bingham’s wife, Velma, answered the door. She wore yellow stretch pants and a floral shirt. Her blond hairdo featured upswept bangs like the spoiler on a hotrod. After a warm welcome, she led us into the living room, shooed
away two little kids who were watching cartoons, and poured us glasses of lemonade. Ron would be home shortly, she said; he was over in Summertown working on a septic tank gone bad. She ushered us into his cramped office, instructing us to make ourselves at home until her husband arrived.

I looked around. Cheap wallpaper meant to look like wood paneling covered the walls, peeling in the corners. Over the desk was a framed newspaper clipping featuring a photo of a group of young white men. The caption identified them as members of WAR, the White Aryan Resistance.

“You know what the creepiest thing about this is?” I made a sweeping gesture with my hand. “It all looks so normal. The house. The kids…”

“Why, Jackson Redford, as I live and breathe!” a voice boomed.

I turned to see a man in his forties stride into the room. He was trim, with a movie-star grin under an orange Vols baseball cap. He wore battered jeans, work boots, and a denim shirt, its sleeves rolled up, with BINGHAM PLUMBING embroidered over the chest pocket.

“Ron Bingham.” He pumped Jack’s hand. “Call me Ron. It’s an honor to meet you, boy. The Redford family is what Southern pride is all about.”

So
that’s
why he’d agreed to the interview. The name of the boy I loved had opened the door. Before I could digest that sickening tidbit of information, Bingham was introducing himself to me. When I shook his hand, I noticed the
tattoo on his bicep of a white cross inside a black oval. At the center of the cross was a diamond; inside the diamond was a single backward apostrophe. I asked him about it and he eagerly lifted his sleeve higher to give me a better view.

“Cross of the Klan,” he said proudly. He tapped the apostrophe mark. “That’s a blood drop. Stands for the blood sacrificed for the white race.”

All righty, then. I asked him if I could record our conversation; he readily agreed. I set the cassette recorder on the coffee table and took a seat on a battered wooden folding chair, which left Ron and Jack to share the brown leatherette couch.

“Any friend of Jackson Redford is a friend of mine,” Ron told me, pulling off his baseball cap to reveal a blond crew cut. “So, what can I do you for, young lady?”

I wasn’t sure how much Jack had told him, and I didn’t want him to suspect my loathing for everything he believed in, lest he end the interview before it even began. “I’m trying to write about the Confederate flag and be fair to both sides,” I explained. “I really would like to hear your point of view.”

“Not a problem. You’re Jack Redford’s girl, that’s enough of a recommendation for me.” He crossed one leg over the other and jiggled it impatiently as he spoke. “Well, firstly, the big problem is they try to say the Confederate flag is the flag of racists.”

“They?” I echoed.

“You know. The Mud People, Queer Nation, Communists, the Children of Satan Jews who control the media. The Godless. The mongrelized. There’s a lot of ′em out there.” He reeled this off like a grocery list.

His foot jiggled faster. I nodded as neutrally as I could.

Ron leaned toward me. “We dare to say aloud what others only think. We say: ‘Rebels! Be proud! Stand tall! We are the South! Let us wave our pride!’”

“But there are lots of white Southerners who disagree with you, aren’t there?”

“Well, I am of the opinion that they don’t deserve the honor of that name. Do you understand what these so-called
enlightened
people want? They say they want to tear down our flag. But what they really want is an end to their own white race, and you can take that to the bank, young lady.”

He stopped to shake his head at the horror of this notion before he went on. Then he slumped back and a grin split his face. “Sometimes I have to laugh. They don’t even know. They are our best recruiters. You tell a young Southern white man you want to take his flag and his heritage away, know what he does? He runs right over to us.” He held his arms wide. “And we say, ‘Come on, son. You’re one of us. This is your home.’”

He went on in this vein for a while, expounding on a litany of ills that faced America and how everyone other than his brand of white Christians was responsible for these ills. He said all this in a reasonable tone of voice, as if it actually made sense.

Finally, I asked him what he thought should happen to all the people who, in his estimation, were ruining America. His eyes twinkled as he spoke. “Do you know what the motto of the Confederate States of America was, Kate?”

I allowed that I did not.

Ron cocked his head toward Jack. “Ask your boyfriend.”

“Deo Vindice,”
Jack said.

Ron’s grin widened. “Yes-siree Bob.
Deo Vindice.
With God As Our Defender. This was the Confederate motto. This is the motto we live by today.”

“I see,” I said. “So God is on your side.”

“You make sure your tape gets this,” Ron said, leaning toward my cassette recorder. “Make no mistake about it. The white Anglo-Saxons are the
true
Israelites. We
will
smite the enemies of God’s chosen people. And then the world shall be returned to our righteous hands.”

religion, then the home games with Franklin West and South Columbia High were holy days. They were the Rebels’ chief rivals for the division title and the subject of conversation everywhere I went.

The game with Franklin West came first. That Friday evening, my mom was in Nashville, doing research for a freelance magazine piece about the city’s best day spas. Portia and I were waiting for our respective rides to the game. I was going with Jack, of course. Portia was going with her friend Cassidy, accompanied by Cassidy’s mother.