A Good Guy With A Gun Read online

  Leaving Billy in the room to operate the camera and sound, she went back into the dance studio and twisted, turned and arched her body in warm up moves.

  She called to Billy, “Okay, I’m ready. Cue up the music.”

  For an hour, she performed her hip hop dance moves to the music, and then dropped into a chair, perspiration dripping from her forehead.

  Billy came over with the DVD he’d made.

  After they played it, Melissa threw him a high-five. “Great, Billy! Thanks.”

  Chapter Ten

  LeVon Ralston was a junior at Emory High. He had transferred there a year before when his family moved to Orange Grove from Cleveland, Ohio. He was tall, athletically built and very suave with the girls.

  The previous year he had gone out for the football team and made first string varsity. That same year LeVon was involved in an incident at an away football game at another school that resulted in both teams’ suspension for the rest of the season. After one of the opposing players repeatedly made racial slurs aimed at him, he began throwing punches. Other players on both teams got into the fight, and so did some spectators from the stands. The incident became a full scale riot and the police had to be called in to finally break it up. After that, many of the White members of the team resented LeVon for starting the fight that resulted in the team’s suspension.

  LeVon had grown up in Cleveland, Ohio. His family had only recently moved to Orange Grove after both of his parents got promotions at the insurance company where they worked. With their new higher incomes, they were able to afford a recently foreclosed home in Orange Grove.

  LeVon’s upbringing in Ohio left him with intolerance for racial slurs. This was not entirely shared with his fellow Black students who had grown up in the Old South. By now, they were inured to the occasional “dissing” to which they were subjected.

  LeVon associated mostly with other Black students. The one exception to this was Melissa, whose enthusiasm for Hip Hop and Rap dancing made the two compatriots for whom the color line was erased. Their dance moves were met with enthusiasm by impromptu audiences of the other Black students.

  “Hey girl! Wassup!” He said as Melissa came trotting up to him.

  “You been working on those new dance moves I been teaching you?”

  Melissa gave him a high-five hand slap.

  “Yeah, homeboy! I’ve been working on ‘em. What you been doing with your Black ass lately?”

  To that the small group of Black students let out a howl of laughter.

  “Boy, don’t she even talk like a homey now!” one of them exclaimed.

  “I heard you got in trouble the other day after a run in with Shupe?” said Melissa.

  LeVon cursed, “Sheeeet! There’s something not right with that dude. He been ragging on all the brothers here. I tell you that guy’s a redneck and a racist cracker!”

  “Anyway, what you got to show me girl?”

  Melissa took the DVD that she had made out of her backpack and handed it to LeVon. “I made this last night in the Dance studio. Check it out.”

  “I will girl! Right after I get home, I’ll do just that”

  Chapter Eleven

  Billy raced to the rendezvous place to meet up with Shupe, who had promised to take him to the shooting range again today. All he could think about this past week was what it felt like to shoot a gun.

  Shupe’s pickup rolled up right on time and Billy hopped in.

  “I got a surprise for you today, Billy”, he said.

  “How’d you like to fire a semi-automatic assault rifle today?”

  Billy’s eyes lit up, “Wow, you bet I would!”

  They rode the rest of the way in silence. Billy mostly just thought about what he had learned the last time from Shupe. When they got to the run-down shooting range, Shupe brought out a large oblong gym bag and placed it on the table. He unzipped it to reveal an AK-47 with a large banana clip attached just in front of the trigger and pistol grip. He released the clip and showed Billy the 30 rounds it held.

  “I faced down quite a few of these babies in Iraq and Afghanistan— mostly on the receiving end from a bunch of towel-heads who wanted to send me to Allah” he said. “I replied back in kind with my M-16 — which is why we’re talking here today.”

  “They used to make these babies fully-automatic, but ever since those gun hating liberals in Washington got in, they had to all be converted to semi-automatic. They even banned them outright for a few years until they repealed the law. Now they want to ban them again along with a whole lot of other weapons! Well not if I can help it!” he exclaimed.

  He took up his stance at the firing line and shouldered the weapon. Then in rapid succession he fired off 20 shots in the span of under twelve seconds at the outlined target. Every shot went directly into the kill zone of either the chest or the head on the target.

  “Ready to try it yourself?” he said to Billy with a grin.

  Billy picked up the gun and felt its surprisingly light weight in his hands. Shupe showed him the proper way to stand and shoulder the weapon. He showed Billy how to toggle the safety, and how to aim down the top mounted sight. When he was ready, he stood back and let Billy go ahead and pull the trigger. There was a loud crack, but Billy held his stance without letting the recoil throw him off balance. Then he fired again, this time in quick succession until the remaining 10 shots were fired.

  Billy stood speechless. He could not get over the raw power he had just wielded in his own hands. A few of the shots got into the target figure, but most went wide.

  “Can I try it again? “I think I can do better”, he exclaimed.

  Shupe loaded the large banana clip and shoved it into the mount.

  “OK, son, show me what you got” replied Shupe.

  The time Billy fired 5 rounds in short succession; re-aimed and fired 10 more. He’d hit most in the human form on the target, with only a few going astray.

  “Nice shooting kid!” came a voice from the shadows.

  It was Jess, the grungy caretaker with the tattoos.

  “You ready to join the up with the Army?” he asked.

  “I’m too young to enlist”, replied Billy coolly.

  “Not in our Army”, said the tattooed man slyly.

  Shupe shot Jess a cold glace and muttered something menacing to him that Billy couldn’t quite make out.

  Jess then retreated back into the small office.

  They were both silent for most of the drive back home. Then Billy spoke up.

  “What army was that man talking about?” He asked. “It sounded to me that he didn’t mean the US army”.

  Shupe was silent for a moment and then he spoke very solemnly.

  “Billy, there are lot of things they don’t teach you about in that school because the Liberals and Blacks control the media. But there is another side to things that they don’t teach you.” He paused.

  “Billy there is going to be a war soon! Right here in America! It’s going to be a war that decides who controls everything; and it’s going to be between the White people and the Black people”

  Billy looked skeptical.

  “Have you ever heard of the Black Panthers Billy?” asked Shupe

  Billy replied “Vaguely, weren’t they a militant group in the 1960’s? I thought they were all gone now.”

  “Not on your life, Billy. They just went underground. Now they are arming up for the big war that’s going to come…., just like we are.” replied Shupe.

  “What do you mean by we are?” asked Billy.

  “Billy, there is a group of true patriots, White men like myself who are bound and determined not to let the Black Panthers take over this country. When the war starts, and the liberal pacifist government sits by helpless, we are the ones that are going to defend the White people in this country. Without us, it’ll be the White people who will be the slaves and the Black people who will be the masters.”

  Billy sat uncomprehending.

  Shupe
turned onto the street where Billy lived and stopped. He reached into the back of the cab of the pickup and brought out a well-worn paperback book, and some pamphlets. He handed them to Billy and said, “Read these Billy and maybe you’ll start to understand the real truth about what is happening in America now and who will be there to defend it.”

  Billy walked the short distance to his house still stunned. He had never heard any of this before. He really liked and trusted Shupe, but none of this made sense to him. He looked down at the title of the book Shupe had given him, Changing America:The Inevitable Race War Between White and Black, and a newspaper called American Renaissance put out by a group called American Front. He planned to read them so he could understand what Shupe meant.

  Chapter Twelve

  The meeting was held in a room in the back of a small bar well outside of town. No one who wasn’t known by the bartender got near the room.

  When all twenty-seven men were present, Evan Hoyt, the leader, called the meeting to order.

  Hoyt was a man in his late fifties, six-foot-two in his cowboy boots, receding gray hair and a trimmed gray goatee and mustache. He owned a fifty acre cattle farm outside Orange Grove. He told everyone to stand, place their hands over their hearts and recite the White Power Pledge of Allegiance.

  When they were seated, he cleared his throat. “The day of the inevitable race war is coming soon. That African nigger the liberals installed as President wants to disarm all the White people in America, while all the Black people are arming themselves to the teeth. It won’t be long before they’ll try to pass laws to take the guns away from God-fearing White people under the guise of gun control unless we do something first.”

  “We’ve got to be particularly careful now because Federal agents are infiltrating groups like ours all over the country”. He swept a glance over the group, most of whom wore the blue jeans and work shirts of farmers, construction workers and truck drivers. Several were dressed more formally and appeared to be shopkeepers or professionals.

  He went on, “No one blabs about this group outside of this room. Got it?”

  They all nodded.

  He turned to Shupe.

  “Who’s this boy you been bringing to the shooting range? Can he be trusted?”

  Shupe said, “He doesn’t know anything about us yet, but I’m working on him. I think I can bring him around to our way of thinking and make him a recruit to our cause. He’s a good kid and he knows how to keep his mouth shut.”

  “You just see that he does!” said Hoyt. “One of our boys got busted in Osceola County for gun possession a month ago. Apparently, he was planning to stage disruptions at Orlando City Hall. The Police report says he wanted to stir up media attention in order to try to gain new recruits for our cause. That’s what happens when someone calls too much attention to the group”.

  After that, the group broke up into drinking and talking about guns, and how the Black Panthers with the help of their Black President were taking over America.

  At its zenith in the 1960’s the White Supremacists numbered in the thousands throughout Florida. But between the FBI infiltrations and the booming Florida economy in the 1990’s, their number dwindled. Then came 9/11 and the real estate and economic crash. There was a quiet resurgence of these groups. Ever fearful of infiltration by the FBI, they were extremely secretive. Their new members were often drawn from Obama Haters, and anti-Muslim and anti-immigration activists.

  In the Army, Shupe had secretly joined the American Front. They railed that the coming race war was soon to be upon us, and that White People needed to arm themselves for the coming apocalypse. When he returned from his tour of duties in the Middle East, he continued his association with them. It ended up costing him his job when one of the employees ratted him out at the chemical plant he worked at.

  While no Florida politicians supported them openly, it was well known that a few in the state’s legislature were sympathizers and Florida’s NRA chapter was rife with them in high places.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It had been more than two weeks since Billy had videotaped Melissa’s dance performance in the studio. She had not seen much of Billy since that time. Usually she could find him holed up in his usual perch outside the school, but he hadn’t been there recently. Although their relationship was casual and purely platonic, she was surprised that she missed his company.

  Today he came sauntering up to Melissa.

  “Billy! Where have you been? I’ve been working on some new dance moves and thought we could do another video together,” Melissa asked.

  Billy pursed his lips and snarled, “Why do you listen to that nigger music Melissa?”

  Melissa was taken aback. She’d never heard him use the n-word before. “What did you just say Billy?!”

  “I said why do you listen to that nigger music, and why do you hang out with them?!” he seethed.

  “You know the time is going to come when you’re going to have to choose which side of the fence you’re on; the Black side or the White side!”

  His words hit her like a blast of cold air. She couldn’t believe they came from the Billy Edwards she knew.

  She had trouble squeezing out the words, “I don’t know who’s been filling your head with crap like that, but I don’t like it one bit! What’s gotten into you?”

  Billy just turned away and said, “It’s time you woke up to the truth Melissa. It’s us or them”.

  Melissa just pushed him away, eyes brimming with tears. Even though she wasn’t romantically attracted to Billy, she liked him – until now.

  How could he say such stuff? Who’s been filling his head with crap like that? She thought.

  She wanted to confront him again to know who has been telling him all this stuff but the rancor he’d exhibited frightened her.

  For more than a week after she’d been subjected to Billy’s tirade, she avoided Billy whenever she saw him, but she still needed to know who he’d been talking to and filling his head with all this stuff. Today, she was on her way home when she saw him waiting on a street corner. She stood out of his sight, shielded by a bush, and watched as a green pickup truck stopped and Billy got in. She could see through the window though that Shupe was driving it.

  Where could they possibly be going together? she thought.

  She didn’t trust Shupe at all. She knew he’d been hassling the Black students at Emory, and despite parents’ and the students’ protests, the school administration refused do anything about it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Melissa had still remained quite outwardly cool and distant toward Billy; at least until she could get to the bottom of this relationship he had with Shupe.

  Just after the school holiday, she was standing on the periphery of the parking lot, when suddenly she saw Shupe come racing out from behind the parked cars. He lunged at LeVon, grabbing him by the throat yelling “You goddamned motherfucking Nigger! What did you and your Black Panther buddies do with my guns!”

  LeVon fought to resist, but Shupe had him pinned on the ground and was on top of him.

  Shupe put his mouth to LeVon’s ear and snarled, “When I find out who took my stuff, I’m going to finish them!”

  Three other Black students came to LeVon’s rescue and pulled Shupe off him. While LeVon struggled to his feet, Shupe brushed his uniform off and stormed away muttering curses.

  Melissa just stood at the edge of the parking lot, totally aghast. She went up to LeVon who stood in the parking lot, still shaking.

  “What just happened, LeVon? Why was Shupe all over you like that?”

  LeVon could hardly speak. His hands were just shaking.

  Finally, he managed to get the words out. “I told you that honkey-redneck-motherfucker was crazy! I told you so!” He said barely able to contain himself.

  “He said that me and some other Black students broke into his house and stole his guns and stuff.”

  “Hell! I don’t even know where that mo
therfucker cracker even lives!”

  “LeVon, you need to report this to the principal”, said Melissa.

  LeVon snorted, “The principal! Hell he ain’t done nothing about all the harassment the brothers already been taking from that cracker. They’re all on his side! I tell you the next time that motherfucker tries to mess with me, he won’t be the only one with a gun!”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Billy found Shupe away from his usual perch. Not wanting to break his promise about being seen with him at school, he kept his distance. But then Shupe saw him and beckoned him over.

  “It’s started Billy”, Shupe said quietly.

  “Those Black Panthers here robbed my place last night and stole my guns!”

  Billy was taken aback. “Are you sure it was them?” he questioned.

  “Damn right I’m sure!” Shupe swore. “And they’re gonna use them to start this war unless we stop them first. Are you in Billy, or are you out?”

  Billy was startled. “I’m all in sir!” he said in a commanding tone.

  “Okay!” said Shupe. “First I need you to meet some people who can get you a gun”.

  Shupe instructed Billy to meet him that night at their rendezvous.

  “Tell your mom that you’ll be staying out late to help at the school so she won’t worry.”

  The last thing he said was “It’s time for you to join the Army of the White Brotherhood!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Luke Cartright had always been a shady character. It was rumored that he once was a gun runner for the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Although he did a stretch for gun possession back in the 1990’s, somehow his background check always came up clean. His stock and trade was selling guns and ammunition from the trunk of his car to who anyone who could pay. There was no need for background checks, no 10-day-waiting-period, and no restrictions for age, mental capacity, or prior history of violence.

  The local police, chief Lewis Gibbons, knew all about Luke, but money under the table made him look the other way. As long as none of his guns showed up in bank robberies or homicides in his district, well hell then, he was just exercising his Second Amendment Rights.

  A line of three pickups turned down the dirt road to where he was parked, and nine men walked out into open clearing in the wooded area.