A SIMPLE TWIST OF HATE
By Stephen Shaiken ( c ) 2021
This is a work of fiction and creative imagination. Any similarity to actual people or events is purely coincidental.
Max walked the empty street, heading home from the plant, focused on the cold beer awaiting him. He noticed a man holding a clipboard heading towards him. The man stood out, as there was no one else on the street, and he wore a suit and tie, unusual in this part of town. Strangers, especially those wearing suits, stood in this working-class neighborhood where everyone knew each other. Max was born and raised there and fit right in, with his open army surplus jacket over a plaid flannel shirt, old jeans, and a well-worn baseball cap. An uncombed beard tumbled to the edge of his collar bone. A pony tail hung out the back of his cap, like the beard, a blend of black, gray and white. When the stranger was within ten feet of the Max, he addressed him.
“Can I have a minute of your time?” he asked slowly and softly.
Max found the man’s presence mildly disturbing. Strangers rarely trudged these streets, aside from election time, which was not until next year. Aside from politicians and detectives, not many men wearing suits came to visit. The stranger, was in his late forties, around the same age as Max. Unlike Max, he was clean- shaven, with a haircut than Max could never afford, not that he would spend if he could. Manicured nails graced the hand holding the clipboard.
Probably asking me to sign another petition to protect our gun rights, Max thought. Those folks do come around every once in a while, he recalled, but they dress like the rest of us. I’ll just tell him I’m an NRA Life Member and move on to my beer, he decided.
“I’m Tom Parsons,” the man said, extending a hand. Max gripped it with his own, rough and calloused, and said his name as Max. Parsons’ handshake was weak, not firm like the men at the factory.
“I’m looking to recruit a few good men,” Parsons said, showing the clipboard, which held a paper with signature lines, few of which were filled in. “For the European-American Association,” he explained.
“Never heard of them,” Max replied.
“Not surprised to hear that,” Parsons said as his smile flashed a set of perfect gleaming white teeth. “Mainstream media’s doing all they can to keep good folks like you from hearing about us. That’s why I’m out here today. Just finished canvassing the next street over.”
“What’s this bunch all about?” Max asked, as much from curiosity as courtesy. It wasn’t often that he spoke to men in suits. He recalled being questioned by some lawyers about an accident at the plant, but that was a few years ago. Max felt they looked down on working men like him.
“Glad you asked,” Parsons replied. “I’ll send you some literature, if you’ll just write down your name and contact info. For now, let’s say we stand up for the rights of those of us who are of European stock. White people. Like you and me.”
“Someone trying to take away our guns?” Max asked. Don’t look like much chance of that happening. And I ain’t European. I’m American.”
“Guns are the least of our worries, my friend. We got all we need. It’s our heritage, our culture, and our souls they want to steal. And by the looks of you, my friend, no doubt you’re of good Northern European stock. What are you, English? Scots Irish? German?
“I was born right her, just like my Daddy and my Mommy,” Max replied. Grandparents all born here too.”
“Sounds like you’re just the kind of man we’re looking for,” Parsons said. “A good old- fashioned American, whose life and culture are under attack.”
“What are you talking about?” Max asked.
“You look just old enough to remember what America was like before they started letting in the world’s riffraff and garbage,” Parsons replied, anger creeping into his voice. “Now they’re trying to tear down everything we believe in. Every damn religion but ours gets respect, and every culture but white Europeans has special rights these days. Muslims and Mexicans waltz in like they own the place, killing white folks whenever they feel like it. You willing to fight for your rights, and your family and your culture?”
Max thought for a moment. He wasn’t sure where this man was going. He didn’t think men in suits talked this way.
“I fought in Iraq, 1991,” Max finally said. Did my four year enlistment then joined the union. Machinist. You been in the Service?”
“I don’t fight for Jews,” Parsons replied.
Max stared at Parsons. He didn’t understand what he was talking about.
“I think you’re making a mistake,” Max said. “I was in the U.S. Army.”
“You talking about the ZOG Army?” Parsons asked. Seeing the puzzled look on Max’s face he added “Zionist Occupied Government. I can send you some stuff that explains it all.”
“I really got to be going,” Max told him. This is too weird, he thought.
Parsons kept talking, rambling on about black helicopters, racial mixing, communists, Obama, and homosexuality. Max paid his words scant attention, more attracted to the music flowing through the open window of a second story apartment. It was a favorite song of his father, a Vietnam veteran who died of Agent Orange a decade before. An old Chuck Berry song that told the love story of a teenage Cajun couple who married and lived happily ever after. It was called “You Never Can Tell,” and Max’s father taught him to pronounce the Cajun-French saying “say-la-vee,” as his father learned from a Cajun GI he served with in Vietnam.
Max forgot about the annoying stranger, allowing the music to wrap itself around him, as thoughts of his late father drifted across his mind..
Parsons looked up at the open window from which the sounds emanated, and shouted, “Turn off that nigger music!” Parsons scowled and muttered something under his breath as the music kept playing until the song ended.
Parsons’ outburst reminded Max of a guy named Campbell, who worked at the plant a few years ago, and talked a lot like Parsons. Most of the guys on the shift thought he was a jerk. “Even if you think that way, you don’t say it,” the shift supervisor told Campbell more than once. One day, Campbell wasn’t working there anymore. This man was talking just like Campbell, with no inkling others might think it wrong.
“I don’t like to join anything,” Max said. “Good luck to you but I’ll be on my way.”
Parsons stood directly in front of Max and looked him in the eye. The friendliness was gone. The smile disappeared, and his blue eyes cast a chilling stare.
“Max, you don’t understand what I’m saying. Your people need you. Our race is under assault. Nigger music blasts onto the streets any time of day or night. Spics stream across the border to rape white women. Muslims and Asiatic hordes swarming our nation, trying to turn us into them. Max, one more generation and this nation will be a sewer like most other places on this planet. Total sewers, unfit for white people.”
“Spics?” Max asked, sounding as though he had never heard the word.
“Yeah, spics,” Parson replied. Those tortilla-eating bastards who fill up our jails and wreck our schools and hospitals. Almost as bad as the niggers. If a white man won’t stand up to them, who will? Just fill out your name and contact info, and you’ll be hearing from us.”
Max sighed as he motioned for Parsons to hand him the clipboard. A pen dangled on a string. The finely-tailored man smiled as he handed it to Max.
“Just write in you full name, address, phone and e mail, and we’ll be in touch. We’re having an informational meeting next week,” he said, giving the name of a nearby neighborhood where the event would be held. “Plenty of food, beer and white music for European-Americans,” he added.
Parson started to say something, when the clipboard hit him full force in the face, pushing him against the wall of the adjacent building. Blood spurted from his nose and mouth. “What the…” were the only words he managed to utter before Max spun him around and shoved him face-first into the brick wall . The blood in his mouth muffled his cries, and flowed onto his fancy shirt and suit. Max grabbed Parsons from behind, threw him to the ground, and dragged him ten feet to a nearby garbage can. Parson’s expensive suit was torn in several places. Max removed the lid of the garbage can, lifted Parsons from under the shoulders, and dropped him in. Parsons sank into the putrified garbage filling half the can. Max placed the lid on top of the can and walked away quickly. He turned the corner at the end of the bloc and took his phone from his pocket. He speed- dialed a number and spoke.
“Hola, Maria. Maximo. Estaré en casa dentro de quince minutos. Conocí a un amigo y habló durante unos minutos.” (Hello Maria, this is Maximo. I’ll be home in fifteen minutes. I met a friend and we spoke for a few minutes.)
“Tal vez tu puedes tener una tortilla listo para mí tener con mi cerveza,” he added as he laughed. (Maybe you can have a tortilla ready for me to have with my beer.)
As he walked on he heard music coming from the same window as before. It was the same Chuck Berry number about the Cajun couple. Max smiled as he continued walking home.
My Dad loved that song, he thought.
THE END
AUTHOR’S COMMENTS
I generally don’t go into great detail about my stories, other than when and why they were written, and what role, if any, a story played in my development as a fiction writer. In this case, I feel compelled to discuss the story- behind-the story .
I wrote the first draft of “A Simple Twist” back in 2018, and ran it by KEYBANGERS BANGKOK, the writing group to which I am so deeply indebted for their guidance, support and friendship. I was outside America, watching nightmares like Charlottesville and the increasing racist presence everywhere in the country. The piece needed work, but I was deep into editing my first novel, Bangkok Shadows, and set it aside. (All writers know what that means.)
As racial and ethic tensions in America heightened, I thought about returning to the story, but was then busy with my second novel, Bangkok Whispers.
African-Americans were being unjustifiably killed by police throughout America, and those who protested this inequity were often assaulted and threatened by racists and police alike; urban racists made false police reports against Black men in highly publicized cases. Jews were murdered at prayer in Pittsburgh and outside San Diego. Latinos were targeted en masse at a Walmart, among other places. Violence against Asian-American reached crisis level.
In the face of this, I was naturally drawn back to this story. Being a Jewish family, my wife and grown daughters Asian-American as well, the rise of violent racist hatred is personally relevant in addition to its national importance..
I believe my hesitancy in returning to “A Simple Twist” was due to the violent ending. Perhaps I subconsciously feared the story might be mistaken as a call for violence against racists. Nothing could be further from my own views. Dr. Martin Luther King is one of my heroes, because he refused to meet violence and hatred with the same, and instead, relied upon non-violence, compassion, and love.
A fiction writer’s role, however, is not simply to declare their own views, be they social, political;, spiritual, or philosophical. Our job is to stir emotions, get people to think and feel in response to our creations. I hope I stirred more than a few thoughts and emotions with this story.
The “twist”, of course, is that Max is not the person Parsons believed him to be. Looks can be deceiving; as the saying goes, “don’t judge a book by its cover.” (Though authors know almost everyone does!). Max is not much different than urban working people of any background. He lives in a working class neighborhood where he grew up, works in a plant or factory, dresses the part, seems to have no issue with gun ownership, and essentially just wants to get home and enjoy a beer at end of a long day. Max seems like a level-headed, salt-of-the-earth American worker, the people who built this country and still make it great. (Max and his father both served in the military during time of war.)
So why the violent ending? Max didn’t just lose his temper and punch out Parsons; he beat the crap out of him, and humiliated him by dumping him into a garbage can. Is that consistent with the teachings of Dr. King?
Of course it isn’t. Then again, I write fiction, not stirring civil rights speeches or sermons. I am not trying to stir people to concrete action; I’m delighted to get them thinking about the subject of fiction. In “A Simple Twist,” a Latino man is confronted by a virulent racist organizer, who does not realize Max is an ethnic minority.
Max is a working man, not a scholar or a philosopher. He served his country, and his father died from his similar service. Yet Parsons does not consider them to be Americans, or even human beings. It is certainly not out of the question, not by any means, that such a confrontation might lead to a sorry end for the racist.
Perhaps the story goes a bit further than the punches that might be the limit in real life, but this is fiction, and I’m trying to get a response.
Were I a high school English teacher assigning this story, I imagine the questions I would ask my students would be along these lines:
1.) Were Max’s actions justified under any view of the circumstances?
2.) Is it ever appropriate to meet hateful words with violence?
3.) Did Max’s response accomplish anything?
4.) What do you think Max should have done?
I am definitely not a high school English teacher, but I do have one question for my readers:
Whatever your feelings about violence, did you feel better when Max beat up Parsons? (Be honest, now!)
AND ABOVE ALL, LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF “A SIMPLE TWIST.”
Sincerely,
Stephen Shaiken
