The Mouse That Roared

“It is impossible that the whisper of a faction should prevail against the voice of a nation.” Lord John Russell, English Prime Minister


On Saturday the KKK mouse crawled out of its hole and roared on the courthouse lawn in the desolate hamlet of Nahunta, GA, population, 930 souls. It was a well-planned rally. The reason? Anger. And Billy Ray was there.

Billy Ray hung his 30-30 Winchester in the gun rack of his Red Chevy pickup. From the flagpole outside his singlewide mobile home he lowered the icons that defined him: two Confederate Flags and the former Georgia flag with the cross and stars, chanting, “Fergit, hell no!”

Meanwhile, despite all safety warnings by the local law and newspapers, spectators lined the streets from early morning. Small children were clutched tightly and aluminum-can elixirs were disguised inside brown paper sacks. Nahunta yard sales and church services were cancelled while deacons proselytized, passing out salvation tracts to the crowd. A Klan rally is a terrible thing to waste, it seemed.

Billy Ray was there early, cruising the streets. With his bullhorn and makeshift truck flagpole, Confederate flags flying, he ranted with diatribes of anger and vengeance. Occasionally he wet his lips with the paper sack and continued with the harsh verbal doctrines of Aryan supremacy.

But he was not alone with his message. The local NAACP added color to the carnival with their blue banner and placards reading “No Racism.” Rumors swirled that the Black Panthers and the John Birchers would have a street brawl, but much to the crowd’s dismay it didn’t occur. After all, public fist-fights, floggings and hangings have been outlawed in Georgia. Which is too bad…they were irresistible to a crowd!

Soon an ominous silence began to waft through the expectant crowd. From the shadows emerged the Klansmen in their robes emblazoned with red crosses. The stigmata of another time clung to them like a bad odor as they proudly marched forth. A gasping hush fell upon the crowd.

The show began. They swaggered out in white robes and white conical hats conformed to the shape of their heads. Their grim faces exposed the seething menace as they stood shoulder to shoulder, stern-faced, in a phalanx of defiant, self-righteous hypocrisy. Behind black beards, black glasses and big bellies they hid, their white sheets a stark contrast against the blue heavens.

The air become electric as the Klan’s Grand PooPah Wizard materialized. He stood clothed in a black robe trimmed in blue and red, reminiscent of a cleric’s frock. The microphone spewed venom-laced words of anger and injustices as his harangues violated the air. He ranted on the injustices of illegal immigration, job losses, child molesters and 2nd Amendment constitutional rights. On and on the mouse roared.

Meanwhile, Billy Ray was getting his 15 minutes of fame from interviews with local TV stations. His bullhorn battery had failed and he had been summoned by the sheriff to come down from his red throne and shut up. Still the flags waved his unrepentant recalcitrance.

By mid afternoon the crowd and the Klan had vanished, replaced by the barren solitude of a rural crossroads town in decay and irrelevance. What did the rally produce, some asked. The Tea Party in drag, one said. Another quoted Hamlet, “…a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Billy Ray retreated to his trailer, full of himself.

Sunday morning found him gloating from his self-importance, sitting on his trailer steps and nursing a Bud for breakfast. He studies the white clouds, searching for faces in them as he did in his youth. The faces change as he tries to retrieve them. Others emerge, strange faces he doesn’t know.

A neighbor walks by. “Whatcha say, Leon, ya see me on the news?” he says. “Yeah, I seen ya,” Leon replies. “Whatja think?” Billy asks. “You really waana know?” Leon replies. “Sure,” Billy Ray says. “OK. You ain't nothin', jus hot air. And yur dumb. Butcha know what? If ya keep yor mouth shut you’ll be the only one that knows it,” Leon barks.

Angrily, Billy Ray shouts, “Leon, you know where you can go, dontcha?” He replies, “Yeah, and I’ll see you there.” A thick brown stream of Skol effluvia spurts from Billy’s mouth, narrowly missing Leon’s boot as he shambles past.

Billy Ray returns to watching clouds without water, dissipated by the winds. Life goes on, things change, he thought. He thinks about the rally, his part in it. He’s confused, conflicted. A mouse scurries past, hiding under the used retread tire under Billy’s foot.

A grave that yields its dead back to life will always draw a crowd. But there was no resurrection in Nahunta on Saturday. The grave yielded nothing more than the echo of a whisper and the pitiful whimper of a voice that ended in an era long past.

Today, the mouse roars somewhere else….


Bud Hearn
February 25, 2009