Cyclops comes over with a family-size bag of beef jerky.
“Dinner,” he says, throwing two ropes of meat to Simon, who catches them reflexively, then says—“I’m a vegetarian.” But Cyclops is already gone.
Simon sits on the lip of the open van door, famished suddenly. He sinks his teeth into the jerky. It’s spicy, sweet, and tough. He chews, feeling himself crossing another boundary in his migration away from the person he used to be.
“Is that teriyaki flavor?” asks Duane, who’s been reclining in the passenger seat, unseen. Simon startles, looks over.
“It’s—” he says. “I don’t know.”
Duane slides out of the seat, takes the jerky from Simon’s hand.
He takes a bite.
“Teriyaki,” he says, “I like the hickory smoke better.”
He hands the uneaten strand back to Simon, who takes it, flushing.
“I haven’t—this is my first meat in—I’m a vegetarian.”
Duane smiles. “Not anymore.”
He stretches his arms out, rolls his neck. Up close Duane smells of sandalwood and Cheetos. His armpit hair is wispy and black.
“You don’t dig what we’re doing here?” he asks.
“Attacking a federal prison?”
“No. Breaking the cycle.”
Simon stares at him.
“Of abuse,” says Duane. “Dig it. You heard my haiku. Daddy used to beat me, but also my uncle JimJam taught me to play with his penis when I was six—which, if you think about it, one in every six boys will be molested before eighteen, one in four girls. And it’s a cycle, right? Uncle JimJam learned that shit somewhere. But hold on—what about grabby Catholic priests and predatory teachers and varsity date rape? Now the numbers go up and up. One in three rape victims is raped before they’re seventeen. High school predators, college roofie artists, faceless men in prowl cars. We’re talking about millions of kids. And we know that shit messes you up. So here—look at life with those lenses. Is it so crazy to wonder if all the grown-ups who are acting so nuts now were diddled by their uncle JimJam or Father Youknowwho, or Sad Mommy used to beat them, or the quarterback roofied them at the University of Wherever—rich, poor, doesn’t matter. It’s trauma, right? A nation of victims and victimizers. And what do we know about victims? If we don’t deal with our trauma, it deals with us. You carry it like a suitcase forever and ever. And. And—it makes an easy mark for other predators. Victims. We become victims for life. So here come the vultures. They seduce us and use us and we don’t get mad. No. We blame ourselves until we’re so fucked in the head we can’t think straight. Dig it. You really think clear-minded, non-traumatized people elected the God King? You think healthy, well-rounded, non-traumatized people made up QAnon or Pizzagate? Pedophile this and Democratic sex dungeon that. These people have been fucked over so much they’re trapped in a mindset.”
“A mindset.”
“When you’ve been used as a nail enough, everywhere you look you see hammers. So fuck authority. Fuck experts. They’re all just closet vultures, waiting for us to let down our guard so they can penetrate.”
Duane fiddles with a loose bolt in the open doorframe. Simon tries to track what he’s saying.
“Your theory is that old people are all victims, and they’ve ruined the world because they’ve got, what, PTSD?”
“Not all, but enough, right? Think about it. What’s the common denominator? They distrust authority. Divorce, remember? They think people in power are abusing their power. Where does that come from? Experience.”
He nods knowingly.
“Or maybe,” Simon says, “we just go through periods of progress followed by backlash. Maybe what we think is crazy is just normal growing pains. The violent struggle to open closed minds. Think about the Summer of Love followed by Richard Nixon.”
“Who?”
Simon takes a bite of jerky. In ten minutes, Randall Flagg will come over to teach Simon how to fire a shotgun. He’ll tell him that with a weapon this size, accuracy isn’t the point so much as intimidation. He’ll force Simon to take it, saying, I know, I know, you’ll hang back by the fence until the shooting starts, but just in case.
Simon will take the shotgun reluctantly, feeling both excitement and disgust.
“Be firm with it,” Flagg will say. “It’s not gonna bite. And don’t wet yourself. You’ll be firing these Taser rounds, not live ammunition.”