South Shall Rise or Come

They had gathered in the basement again to talk things over. Woods was the last of the group to arrive. He flung the door open and for a moment they overheard pans clanging and the faint drawl of the owner coming from the kitchen. Woods shut the door behind him, nodded apologetically and took a seat. Travis stood proudly between a rickety podium and a Confederate flag hung on the back wall. He cleared his throat. They were ready to begin.

“Howdy, all. We're congregating once more to discuss the impending freedom of the South from our Yankee oppressors. On that day our sacred words will truly come to fruition...” He raised his right hand to gesture a solemn pledge. “'I'm as free as a bird.'”

The other four stood to return his hand gesture and chant: “'And this bird you cannot change.'”

Travis removed his tan ten-gallon hat and dabs his perspiring forehead with a handkerchief.

“Hoo-wee, now that is a lotta fancy talk to begin with,” he confessed.

“You need to sit down for a sec?” Woods asked, patting his chair.

“Na, na,” Travis said resolutely. “I ain't no loafer. Now, seein' as how I'm gabbin' 'bout words, that brings us to our old, familiar first topic. Same one our great-great-great ancestors started fussin' 'bout way back in 1865...”

“The South shall come again!” Matthews vowed.

“Horseshit!”

That was the charge of Barney, the chunky opposition to the reedy Matthews. “The South shall rise again!”

“Come!” Woods said.

“Rise!”

The lone woman of the group, Kelly, sidled beside Barney to reinforce their stance. Her purse nearly fell off her lap in the excitement. 

Travis buried his face in his handkerchief and shook his head.

“Can we have one goddamn meeting that don't start this way?” He produced a gavel and rapped it against the oak podium. “Right. For the seven-thousand, eight-hundredth week in a row, before we can move on to our second order of business, we're here to decide if the South is gonna come again, or if the South is gonna rise again...”

“Well hell, Travis,” Woods started, flailing his lanky arms for effect. “You done just said 'come' 'fore you said 'rise'! Ain't that a giveaway to yer true feelings on the matter?”

“For the last cotton-pickin' time, Woods,” Travis said, “I only do that on account of it's alphabetical order, see? Same decree of my great-great-great grandpappy. And it don't matter what the overseer thinks 'cause I gotta be impartial. Now just for that outburst, I'm givin' opening remarks to the Risers.”

Before pleading his case, Barney turned to Kelly for discreet counsel.

“Remember,” Kelly said. “We've been at this a while. But we're tryin' to win 'em over, and so it don't hurt to be subtle.”

Obliged by the wisdom, Barney removed his Crimson Tide hat and stood up to address the dissenters.

“Listen here, you dumb sons-of-bitches! Get yer priorities straight...”

He glanced at his ally for support. Kelly grinned proudly, gave him two appreciative thumbs up and signaled for him to go on.

“Rise vs Come, the winner is clear,” he continued. “Rise first, come second. A man's gotta rise before he can come. Why, you fellas ever try to come before you rise? I done it on accident, and it was a sad, ignoble thing.”

“I seen it!” Kelly said. “Soooo disappointing.”

“Kelly, please...” Barney said, his flabby cheeks flashing red. “Now, in closing, I gotta tell you, if we're ever going to feel the power of the solid South again, then we gotta rise. My fellow Southerners, let's all take a hard stance by rising.”

Kelly clapped her hands rapturously. She leaned in and jeered.

“Comes are for bums!”

She got a high five for that.

Travis struck his gavel with authority to quell the celebration. He nodded at Matthews, who was receiving last-second conspiratorial whispers from Woods, his Comer in cahoots. Matthews had opened his mouth to elucidate, only to ask his cohort a question in a low tone.

“What was that opening line again?”

Woods intently cupped his hands to Matthews' ear and whispered. With a thankful nod, Matthews pointed across the aisle and began his speech.

“Fuck y'all, Risers!”

“Nailed it,” Woods said with quiet approval.

“The South shall come again! You feel that 'come' just rolling off your tongue? We do, and hoo-wee, we sure do love the taste. Mmmm, come. Rising's all fine and dandy, but it don't get nothin' done. It don't create nothin' new. What a silly debate this is—let's all agree to come so that we can finally just relax! My fellow Skynyrd box set owners... if we really wanna make a splash, then we gotta come.”

This rhetoric garnered applause from Woods and derision from the Risers. Approaching the moment of decision, Travis retook the floor.

“OK, OK, we got two fine, well-crafted, articulate arguments as always...”

“Risers is vaginers!” Woods taunted.

His impudence was scolded by Travis and his righteous gavel.

“Quiet, Woods!” he said. “All right, maybe this time it'll all turn out differently... Let's put it to a vote again. All in favor of 'The South shall rise again?'”

In unison, Kelly and Barney proclaim, “Aye!”

“And all in favor of 'The South shall come again?'”

Woods and Matthews simultaneously declare, “Aye!”

Travis took his time pointing at each member of the group, counting as he quietly murmured calculations to himself. The others waited with tense anticipation on the edge of their seats, Risers and Comers tightly holding their respective hands for moral support.

A minute later, when the outcome was determined, Travis' look of concentration turned to one of dismay.

“Goddammit, it's another tie!”

The others groaned, united by dejection.

“You know somethin',” a frustrated Travis vented, “We been gatherin' in this basement of a Whataburger what used to be a Klan meeting place for a considerably long time, and--”

He was interrupted by the door slamming open. It was the owner of the Whataburger, Skeet as his nametag indicated. Skeet was panting, panicked, and as usual, barely intelligible.

“Newsflash... Dag gum libs gone too far dis time!”

“Yeah,” Travis sighed. “We know 'bout the damn uppity liberals, Skeet...”

“You listen to me!” Skeet roared. “TV says day done canceled Dukes of Hazzard reruns on account of Old Dixie's painted on duh General Lee!”

Both the Risers and the Comers were aghast. Travis could barely speak.

“You gotta be shittin' me,” he managed.

“I wish so, but I ain't,” Skeet said. He gazed solemnly at Travis. “Look, y'all're welcome to use dis here basement to figure our proper battle cry, but duh time has come fer action! And if dis Whataburger didn't have three trainees on duh same day as duh rodeo clown convention, I believe I'd be the one to pull up my britches, take dat dare judge-hammer from ya, and make the dang decision already.”

His scowl savaged Travis before he closed the door. The Risers and Comers chattered and griped, ill at ease.

“Can't argue that,” Travis said. “All right, I must make an executive decision. From this day forward, I decree that—and I could personally care less, I'm doing this strictly 'cause it's alphabetical and we gotta put this hullabaloo to bed right now—the South shall come again.”

With their century-and-a-half of uncertainty culminating in triumph, Woods and Matthews entwined their spindly arms around each other in a joyous embrace. In the meantime, Kelly wasted no time digging into her purse for two firearms. Kelly and Barney then rushed the podium, both equipped with the kind of miniature pistols once wielded by the likes of John Wilkes Booth.

“Lousy charlatan,” Kelly spat, her pistol trained on the heart of Travis.

“We got ourselves a mutiny!” Barney announced, his pistol aim roaming back and forth between the two Comers.

Travis held up his hands and pleaded as sweat leaked from his pores.

“Please, just gimme three steps towards the door...”

“That's enough outta you!” Kelly shrieked.

She cocked the trigger. The delicate yet decisive click brought an expression of euphoric malice to her bloated face.

“That white man is owed a vote on his impeachment!”

This cry came from Woods. A last resort of reason.

“Yeah,” Matthews seconded. “Does he look like a black, Jew, Catholic, Gypsy, libtard, Oriental, cripple, daisy-picker, half-wit, smarty-pants, Trans-Jenner, beaner, magician, Dixie Chick, or any of the other 47 groups of people we hate to you?”

Kelly gritted her teeth, her trigger finger itching but a foot away from the barrel chest of Travis. She glanced at her Riser partner, who bit his lip indecisively.

“No, he most certainly does not,” Matthews continued. “He's a white man. A white man with rights who let the first woman ever into this prestigious club on account of her spunk and ability to get away with hate crimes, I might add.”

Two tears streamed down Kelly's cheeks, then four, then six... When she next glanced at her Riser partner, he had to nod: He's right.

“Go ahead,” she said to Travis, her pistol held stationary.

A massive growth seemed to bulge its way down his throat like a rat being swallowed by a snake. He licked his lips.

“All in favor of impeaching me?”

“Aye!” shouted the Risers.

“All opposed?”

“Nay!” shouted the Comers.

Travis nodded deliberately.

“OK. Seems close. Now, I'm under a lot of stress here, so the counting process might take an extra long time...”

Abruptly and unexpectedly chipper, Barney snapped the fingers of his gunless hand.

“I got an idea!”

He kept his pistol nonchalantly pointed at the Comers as he climbed the steps and opened the door. 

“Skeet! Could you be a pal and put on a pot of coffee for us?”

“Ooh!” Woods chirped excitedly, hands aloft. “Double creamer for me!”

Epilogue:

When the deadlock was reckoned four hours later, the Comers and Risers of the South bickered as usual, but thankfully no blood was shed. In the spirit of democracy (for whites), they agreed to reconvene the next week to vote again on the impeachment.

Tragically, not all members would live to attend that meeting. Shortly after leaving Whataburger that day, Travis was gunned down beside a bargain bin at the local Wal Mart. Kelly shot him over the rights to the store's final copy of Dukes of Hazzard: season three.

The remaining members hastily formed the tribute band Saturday Night Specials in time for Travis' funeral, and with help from Skeet on bass, you'd better believe their rendition of “Free Bird” brought the house down.

Barney had his throat slit with a jagged whiskey bottle in the parking lot after the wake.

“The South shall come again!” the Comers declared.

And I guess we'll have to wait and see about that.