Free We're All in This Together by Owen King Page B

They want everything
for themselves, and piss on the rest of the world. We're not even humans to them. Well, they're not even humans to me, not
anymore. Tom showed me that, way back then, but I guess I didn't learn the lesson well enough."
    The wheels droned over concrete. Gil smiled broadly at the road.
    Papa groaned, and dropped his head against the seatback. He gave the well one last, half-hearted stomp. "You know, I almost
feel like that little son-of-a-bitch spray-painted me. It's a microcosm of the whole sorry state of the nation. We all saw
what happened down in Florida: a bunch of fat little fraternity boys didn't want the votes counted, so they banged on the
doors until they stopped. A brave little bunch of trust fund patriots, barging in to stop the vote. They bullied the country
away from us. We can't let ourselves be bullied anymore. I won't be bullied anymore."
    We waited for more, but my grandfather was done talking.
    6.
    Papa was asleep by the time we turned onto Dundee Avenue. Gil stopped the car at a red light a couple of hundred yards from
a strip mall. It was a C-shaped structure, holding an office for the local branch of the DMV, a Laundromat, a sporting goods
store, along with several empty storefronts, windows plastered with For Lease signs tanned the color of parchment by the long
summer.
    In front of the sporting goods store, a couple of shirtless teenagers were running an American flag up a leaning pole. One
kid—blade thin and ghastly pale—sat on the shoulders of another, who was bigger, tall and thick around the middle. The smaller
kid dragged on the halyard, but it was caught, the line knotted somehow in the toggle, and the flag stuck at half-mast. He
stopped pulling and paused, catching his breath. As he rested, the thin kid sort of slouched over the back of the big kid's
head, like a monkey. They both wore baggy camouflage dungarees.
    A moment passed before I realized: Tolson and Sugar.
    "Papa—" I started, but Gil put a hand on my arm.
    He pressed a finger to his lips. "Shhh."
    As we pulled away from the light, I saw Tolson, the thin kid, jerk up straight and pat Steven Sugar on the head. Sugar wheeled
around and took a step, as if he meant to chase us. Then he stopped short. He peered after us, and although the distance hooded
his eyes, I could feel them boring into me. Steven Sugar seemed larger than I remembered him from the previous school year,
lengthened somehow, drawn upward like the flag.
    Perched on the back of his partner's shoulders, Tolson made a rifle from his naked arms and sighted us.
    We swung into the bend and they were gone. They knew. They knew my grandfather. They knew us. Knew me. The realization was
like a baby's hand, suddenly squeezing my stomach with tiny fingers.
    The Skylark dipped over the hill and the mall disappeared.
    "I don't want to shoot anybody today, George," said Gil, under his breath. "This stuff is crazy. Your grandfather's not thinking
clearly. He thinks people are out to get him. He needs to relax. Forget about the Sunday New York Times and forget about Al Gore. None of it's worth it. Like the old Jew said, 'We're all just pawns in their game.' '•'
    He pulled the car into the driveway. Papa mumbled in his sleep. I got out and fetched Gil's walker from the trunk, then held
his bony elbow as he doddered to his feet.
    "All this stress over politics? Over a politician? Over Al Gore? Does that make sense to you, George?"
    In the high noon light his bald head and his round, smooth face appeared as if they were carved from wax.
    I shrugged.
    Gil settled into his walker with a grunt of satisfaction. "Of course it doesn't. For heaven's sake—and I'd appreciate it if
we kept this between us—but a man of your grandfather's beliefs should be saying good riddance to Gore. Four years of Bush
and maybe people will have suffered enough to elect a man of real principle. Someone with a few more inches in the crotch
department if you get my drift."
    He saw me