The Trinity (23 page)

He shops occasionally, mainly at bookstores in fruitless searches for separatist literature, and most of these trips include stops in pubs. Small pubs, mainly, the type found on the edges of city centers, in the grimier parts of Edinburgh or Dundee, or in the least quaint and affluent of the smaller villages. Pubs surrounded by a sea of dirty gray tenement houses, pubs without windows, pubs without charm. That’s where dissent will ferment, he thinks, in the realm of the working poor. Hitler appealed to the lower-class Germans, those who had no hope for the future from the government that led Germany to economic ruin in the years after World War I and prior to Hitler’s elevation to Chancellor.

He tries to engage the locals in conversations about race. The fact that he’s an American always draws attention. The pubs he frequents are worlds away from the base and even farther from the paths of tourists. The fact that an American is in their midst is always an interest for the Scots who cross his path. He usually starts with a half pint, entering the pub with the claim that he became lost and felt the need for a small drink. He then stands at the bar and stares at the tiny television next to the bartender, or the dart game in progress. He will attempt small talk, which he is somewhat adept at from the years of parishioners sitting in his office presenting him their problems petty or disastrous. After perhaps a quarter of an hour, as the usual questions about America become exhausted, he will exclaim nonchalantly: “What a pleasure it is to enter a saloon and not be surrounded by blacks or Mexicans like I see back home.”

That comment usually solicits silence and then the nodding of drunken heads who claim to sympathize with Crowley’s dilemma. Aye, they say, no Negroes here, maybe in London, but no Negroes here. Then, without fail, the conversation turns to black American athletes, their size and prowess, and invariably someone mentions Muhammad Ali.

Crowley knows little about sports, and frustrated, he politely takes his leave of whatever pub he is in. On to the next pub, on to the next village.

After about a dozen such trips spread over a month of Sundays and the occasional weeknight, Crowley gives up. He had been hoping for a Scottish member for his Trinity, and perhaps to expand his little group. He realizes he will not find members for his Trinity amongst the Scottish. He will have to settle for Hinckley and whoever the gods put in his path.

He does maintain periodic contact with Hinckley, calling him at work once a week, saying hello, asking him if he’s made any friends.

“One, maybe. My roommate,” Hinckley tells him. “We went drinking, got along okay. We’ll go again. I think he may feel the way we do, but I’m not sure. I didn’t want to ask him too much and I didn’t want to tell him too much, not yet. I have to be careful, especially about the Lee thing, you know. That can’t get out.”

“What’s his name?”

“Chris, Chris something, starts with an ‘F’. New here, from Detroit.”

“Fairbanks?” Crowley asks.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

Crowley recognizes the name belonging to the young man who attended his Mass a few weeks prior, the young man who checked in with him. He was taken by the young man, and he remembers the giddy feeling. That feeling returns upon the memory of Chris’s face.

“Excellent,” Crowley says. “Excellent.”

Crowley’s appetite for battle is whetted by a visit in his office one Sunday morning late in March. A young, white female seaman, obviously several months pregnant, arrives in his office with a young, black male seaman who appears to be her boyfriend. Crowley notes there are no rings on either of their hands.

The girl does the talking.

“We want you to baptize the baby,” she says, “when it comes, this summer.”

Crowley is sickened, but he doesn’t show it. He keeps his constant smug grin throughout the conversation. Another dilution of the white race, he thinks. Another mongrel, another cursed child.

“Sure,” he says, and asks if they are married.

Embarrassed, the girl softly answers no and looks down at the floor. “We want you to marry us, too—soon, as soon as possible.”

“How old are you?” he asks.

“Eighteen,” she says, “but he’s twenty.” The young man nods, looking at the floor, too uncomfortable asking a priest for a favor, fearing that the priest will judge him harshly for having intercourse outside of marriage.

Crowley could care less about that, and would expect no less of him. He feels he deliberately stalked the girl, a white girl, as part of his instinctive drive to conquer the white race and to improve his own.

“Well, I can marry you, but we have to do pre-marriage counseling, you know, things the Church requires, but you don’t have time for that.” Crowley points to her stomach. “So we can bypass all that and you can be married when you like.”

The girl is confused but smiles and thanks Crowley. He invites them to his office during the week to set a date.

“How long have you been in Lutherkirk?” Crowley asks as they rise to leave. He prepares to put on his robe for Mass.

“Six months, both of us,” the girl says.

He says nothing as the two walk away. He sees them in the pews during Mass. He watches them sit listlessly during the entire service, neither one paying attention during his homily. He speaks about being true to your beliefs and not being hypocritical.

The sight of the mixed couple sickens him, and he follows his own advice. The battle must be resumed; the enemy has quickened its pace. Scotland must be liberated, and if Scotland can be liberated, the rest of the white world will see Scotland’s example and the other whites will follow suit and arm themselves and repatriate the lesser races to their ancestral homelands. They will return to the impoverished Africa, the crowded Asia, and the miserable Eastern Europe.

That night he has a dream, a wine induced dream. He is met by the god he recognizes as Odin, his image occupying the entire sky above the base as it might appear on a sunny spring afternoon. He recognizes the long white beard, the thin and narrow and wizened face, the tall and wide brimmed hat pulled far enough down to cover his missing eye, his one remaining eye shining brighter than the sun.

Odin does not speak to Crowley in this dream, but this god of war, this god of death, this god of poetry and wisdom, draws Crowley a picture in the clouds. He draws an image of the Star of David with his long and crooked finger, and then blows it away with a mighty breath. He then draws a picture of a cross, and over the cross, he draws another picture of the Star of David. With a breath, he lights both on fire, and they burn slowly as the clouds turn to smoke and the entire sky turns black save Odin’s one eye, shining above all.

Crowley gets the message.

He awakes in a sweat. Odin is the Norse god of warriors and kings, not of the common man, and this reaffirms Crowley’s sense of self-importance. Odin doesn’t appear to just anyone. He has been chosen by this call from Valhalla, and he knows he is blessed and what he believes in is right. The Jews must be dealt with; they too must be driven from Scotland, and then the rest of the West will follow Scotland’s example. The blacks are far inferior to the Jews, he thinks, and if the Jews go, the blacks will leave of their own accord. The blacks do the Jews’ bidding, do the grueling tasks to upset the good white sense of security.

The cross signifies something else, something he has believed for the longest time but never seriously until Odin reminded him: Christianity is a fictitious religion started by the Jews to ensure their grip on Israel, to remain the chosen people in a competing religion that they somehow knew would grip Europe. Jews wrote the Bible, they created Jesus and St. Paul, they created the Beatitudes, they created the cross. Lies, all lies. Odin told him so. His heart has long felt this, but now he is sure.

This confirmed belief angers him. He has spent a good chunk of his life in service of this myth, of this false religion led by a figure who has never existed. He is glad he has found the one true religion that belongs to his race.

He lies awake in bed, thinking of a course of action. His gun is gone, and this cripples him somewhat.

An idea forms in his brain and his mouth draws slowly into a smile. There is a way to deal with the Jews. He can picture it clearly.

Hinckley needs to bring Fairbanks into the picture—and soon. He will help Brad in that endeavor.

He realizes that he has just over two years of duty remaining in Scotland, and precious little time to waste.

Chris and Hinckley do not become the closest of friends, yet Hinckley’s overture of friendship has made Chris feel more comfortable in the room. They do occasionally dine in the galley together when their schedules coincide.

As they eat, Chris can’t help but be aware of the loathsome glances cast in Hinckley’s direction. The less disparaging looks are given by the lower enlisted and even more hateful are the stares from the chiefs and officers. They look at Chris, too, and assume he must be trouble for dining with such a pathetic creature as Hinckley.

Chris is conscious of those stares. They make him feel awkward, but he would rather feel awkward this way, dining with a friend, instead of eating alone.

A few weeks after the night out in Brechin, they venture to Aberdeen in search of American fast-food restaurants, in search of pubs, in search of beer.

There is still some daylight as they summon a taxi and venture north with the sun receding in the west and the moon starting its ascent in a relatively clear but leaden sky over the North Sea. Chris stares out the window and is quite glad to be seeing things again, to be venturing outside of the base, which is like a stifling and miniature America, save the British cars, the direction of the traffic, and the lack of rock and roll stations, which Chris is starting to miss. That may be the only thing of America that he misses; there is no other memory tugging at his heart.

Chris hadn’t seen the center of Aberdeen, its elegant downtown a mixture of low and old granite buildings intermixed with modern semi-high rises along the River Dee.

The people, too, look different, different than they did that evening in Brechin. Chris can’t pinpoint the difference, but there is a certain provincial air in the countryside and the villages surrounding the base that is neutralized by the oil-wealthy city of Aberdeen.

Chris and Hinckley eat pizza at a Pizza Hut and expect the pizza to taste as it would at home, but it doesn’t. It is more bland, less doughy, and disappointing. They proceed to a pub, a more modern one frequented by younger, more affluent Scots, and Chris and Hinckley are even more out of place than they were in Brechin.

After a pint, Hinckley starts rattling about race. Chris had almost forgotten their conversation from a few weeks prior; on base, Hinckley had never brought the subject up again, not even in the privacy of their room. They talked mostly about trivial things, Hinckley asking Chris which sports teams he follows and what his favorite sport is.

It’s as if there are two Hinckleys: one a simple boy from Nebraska and one a drunken, hell-bent racist.

Chris is not a huge sports fan, but he glances at the Detroit teams’ standings in the back of the
Stars and Stripes
. His favorite sport is baseball, the season still remote, even though spring is about to dawn.

Hinckley scoffs at Chris’s comments and lauds Nebraska football and, to a lesser degree, Nebraska basketball. He doesn’t care for professional sports, as there are no teams in Omaha. He doesn’t mind watching the Kansas City Royals on the summer nights, but nothing compares to Nebraska football.

They even occasionally venture to the club during the week, opting to eat there instead of the galley. Hinckley used to go there nightly with Rodgers, drinking until closing time, but not anymore. He had stopped going there altogether after Rodgers’s suicide, too nervous to go there alone, too uncomfortable under the stares and whispers. Now that Chris is his companion, the stares and whispers aren’t as bothersome, and they are starting to subside. Still, no one on the base is especially pleasant towards him.

Chris is a little too quiet for Hinckley’s liking, so he has been looking forward to the opportunity to travel off base with him and get some beers down his throat, to get him leaning more towards his way.