Page 49 of Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Book
As he pushed through the door, he heard the doctor come into the reception area. “Mr. Walsh, you have no business here,” Dr. Chokshi said. “Please wait outside until I’ve finished.”
There is nothing these people want more than to take your rights away. They don’t give a damn about the Constitution. All they care about is having their way with you. They’ll tell you they don’t want your hunting rifles or handguns. They’ll tell you they just want to keep weapons out of the hands of minors and the mentally ill. But what they really want is to get the snowball rolling. One day you’re going to look up and it will be rolling down the hill, and it won’t just be taking your AR-15s with it. It’s going to take your means of protection and your most fundamental rights. And then, when you’re at your most vulnerable, it’s going to come for everything else you hold sacred.
“They’ll have to pry my gun out of my cold, dead hands,” Ken assured the television.
“Don’t say that!” Kari cried.
“That’s what it could come to,” Ken told her. “These people are evil. Don’t kid yourself.”
Just then, they heard someone stomping up the front porch stairs. Heart pounding, Ken slid open the side table drawer and took out the handgun he always kept loaded for moments like this.
While Kari hid in the coat closet, Ken took his position beside the frontdoor with his gun locked and loaded. The doorknob jiggled and he aimed at head height. As soon as the bastard got through the door, he’d be in for one hell of a surprise. Then he heard a key slide into the lock.
“It’s Keith!” Kari screeched.
Within a spilt second, Ken’s gun was back in the drawer and their son was limping into the living room with a book in his hand.
“I’m so glad you’re safe!” Kari burst out of the closet, pulled her boy into a hug, and began to cry. His chest was so broad that she could barely wrap her arms all the way around him.
“Damn, Mom.” He laughed. “I just stepped on a nail.”
Ken cleared his throat and hoped he’d be able to talk. It wasn’t every day that you nearly shot your own son. “You know how she worries,” he managed to croak. “Kari? You okay, hon?”
Kari pulled back and wiped her eyes on the collar of her shirt. “What kept you so long?”
“Bella Cummings got knocked out by Mitch Sweeney and me and the Wright brothers sat and talked while they waited for her.”
Ken blinked three times. “Come again?” he asked.
Keith sat down and told them the whole story.
“So that’s what all the fuss was about?” Ken asked. “The statue?”
“I can’t believe those Wright boys would get mixed up in something like that,” Kari said. “I always thought they were such a nice family.”
“Theyarea nice family,” Keith told her.
“Then why would they want to destroy a symbol of our history and heritage?”
“Because it’s theirs, too, Mom. In fact, as it turns out, it’s a lot more theirs than ours. Don’t you think they should get a say?”
“Hold on a sec. We need to see this.” Kari turned up the volume on the TV.
Mark my words, they are going to steal every vote they can. They do not care about the sanctity of the electoral process. They will be stuffing ballot boxes and hacking voting machines and registering their pets to vote. If we don’t stop this now, there will never be another fair election in the history of this country. And those of us who work hard and love America will find ourselves under the heel of those who want to bleed us all dry.
“Why do they keep showing Black people?” Keith asked. He hadn’t watched the news like this since he left for school. Is this how it had always been?
“What are you talking about?” Ken had always prided himself on his tolerance.
“Well, watch!” Keith grabbed the remote and rewound the program. “The guy talking is white, but everybody they show in the footage is Black.”
“Because they’re Democrats, and that’s who’s trying to fix the election.”
“Naw, that’s bullshit,” Keith said.
Ken and Kari wheeled around in unison.
Keith shrugged as if he’d said nothing outlandish. “It is. If anything it’s the other way around. You know they closed down polling places in Black neighborhoods in Atlanta right before the last election? They had people waiting eight, ten hours just to vote. Meanwhile in fancy-pants Buckhead, it took about fifteen minutes.”
