“You don’t really want to know what I think,” Zwick says as he sits back down, lights a spliff, and pops open another bottle of Great Lakes. “You’ll just think I’m one of these crazy right-wing conspiracy theorists. Some dumb yokel who’s paranoid that everyone’s out to get him.”

Nearby, someone adds another log to the fire and squirts lighter fluid all over it, which sends the whole conflagration blazing up into the night sky. Everyone laughs, and a young woman Faran’s never seen before falls backwards from the log she was sitting on and sort of turtles around a bit on her back in the high grass. Her friend crouches to help her up, and both women end up splayed on the ground and giggling.

“No, come on. I asked,” Faran says. “I’m actually curious.”

“Well, either way, Mr. Faran Harris, international man of mystery, I guess you’re stuck here in your hometown again until the countries open their borders again,” Zwick says.

“Sleeping in my old bedroom at my parents’ house at age 38,” Faran says.

“No cushy overseas management job,” Zwick says. “No swanky high-rise apartment pics or foxy foreign girlfriend to post online and make the rednecks you grew up with jealous.”

“So, then what’s the explanation?” Faran asks.

Zwick nods and says, “Well, obviously it’s all bullshit. I mean, another pandemic? And this one makes people violent? Makes them attack each other for no reason? Shit, that’s all just the defenders of the system trying to explain away why the status quo doesn’t work for us anymore. It can’t be that we’re lashing out because we’re sick of tyranny; it’s got to be pathological. But then what do I know? I don’t have a bachelor’s degree like you do.”

“Master’s degree,” Faran says, “but I don’t necessarily disagree with you. I disagreed with you when you said COVID was fake on Facebook, but that was an actual virus with actual symptoms and millions of deaths worldwide. This current thing doesn’t make any sense to me. Where’s the evidence?”

Two guys Faran sort of remembers from high school begin wrestling around the fire while a crowd of five or six people laugh and cheer on their primal masculine display. A few women at least a decade younger than anyone else present—it seems this way to Faran, at least—begin dancing around the fire ritualistically.

“Actually, it makes perfect sense,” Zwick says. “The people running this here shit-show don’t want to admit that we’re not playing nice anymore because we’re all fed up. We’re tired of being on the wrong end of everything. We’re tired of being vilified for existing. Our discontent doesn’t fit the narrative. It’s abnormal, so here’s the explanation: we’re sick. We must be or else we’d happily keep smiling and accepting the shit they’ve been shoveling at us for decades.”

Faran accepts the joint from Zwick and takes a long drag. “That’s actually as reasonable as any other explanation I’ve heard,” he says. “Why is it happening all over the world, though? It can’t just be about American politics if it’s everywhere.”

Zwick hesitates and stares at Faran for a moment, tilting his head slightly and squinting his eyes. Faran interprets this as a look of disbelief. Then, Zwick begins in a slow, deliberate cadence. “It’s not happening all over the world, Harris. You think that because you’re supposed to think that. It’s not happening anywhere else. Everyone else is just sick of our shit, so they’ve closed their borders to us to contain us and let us destroy ourselves. So, I guess if you’d stayed over there in China, you might have avoided all this, but you’re stuck here now right in the middle. Dead center. Enjoy your extended vacation.”

“In the middle of what?” Faran asks. “It just seems like a lot of people being children and bickering on the internet and television.”

Zwick says, “It’s more than that. It’s what we’re allowed to say and think and who’s allowed to have an opinion. It’s a narrative with good guys and bad guys, but it’s all reversed because the bad guys are the ones writing the story. If people like me just woke up one day and said, ‘You know what? You’re right. I’m white and I’m a man and a Christian and I’m not LGBTLMNOP, and I’m sorry for all of it and I don’t deserve consideration in this world,’ this would all go away tomorrow. The borders would open, and you’d be back at it in your office by Monday morning sipping an espresso and checking out the Beijing skyline.”

“I see,” Faran says.

“No, you don’t,” Zwick says. “You don’t see shit. You think I don’t know when I’m being patronized, Mr. Master’s Degree? Mr. Cosmopolitan World Traveler?”

Faran raises his hands in surrender. “Alright, dude. Relax. I don’t know anything about anything. I’m just trying to listen nonjudgmentally here.”

There’s a chorus of whoops and applause nearby as one of the dancing women removes her shirt and bra to stand bare-breasted before the fire. Her back is to the crowd as people begin pointing their phones and snapping pictures. She next lets her denim skirt fall to the ground and reveals a tiny white g-string. Everyone cheers. From her friends, there’s a chorus of howling wooos.

Faran suddenly thinks he has been here before in this field around this bonfire at the edge of these woods perhaps even in this exact canvas camping chair halfway through some other drunken night maybe 20 years ago. This is Adam Lang’s family’s place. Adam Lang, one of the two wrestlers—that’s who that is. Faran thinks he might be a cop now or a firefighter. It’s starting to come back to him.

“Who are these girls?” Faran asks. “Who are they here with?”

Zwick says, “A-Damn over there is trying to hook up with the naked one. She’s a waitress over at…I don’t know, somewhere Adam likes to get drunk. I think all the girls work there. Adam’s wasting his time, though.”

“Really? It doesn’t seem that way,” Faran says. “She’s certainly not shy.”

Zwick laughs and gives Faran that disbelieving look again. “Man, you are out of touch. You’re like an alien visitor here. E.T. phone home.” He stands, unzips, and begins to urinate right there in the grass in front of Faran, who leans back far away from the stream. Zwick laughs again. “I guess you don’t know much about girls these days. iGen, they call them. Generation iPhone. Oh, they’ll let you see whatever you want, but they won’t sleep with you. I don’t think they sleep with each other either. They just sit around all day sharing photographs of their asses with each other online, but they might as well be eunuchs. That’s the straight truth.”

“I see,” Faran says and then corrects, “Sorry. I mean I don’t see.”

“It’s a minefield,” Zwick says.

Faran hears a faint kind of rustling at the edge of the woods followed by the sensation of something zipping quickly past his head. Beside him, there’s a thud, and Zwick yells out in pain. A small stone falls near Faran’s feet. Around him, the gathered revelers begin taking cover as projectiles volley in from the cover of the woods. Stones thud loudly against plastic coolers and upend abandoned chairs. Some people begin picking them up and hurling them back into the darkness.

“Fucking Crostons!” a man yells.

“Crostons?” Faran asks. “Like the neighbors? Why are the neighbors attacking us?”

“Good guys and bad guys, man,” Zwick says lobbing an empty beer bottle towards the tree line.

Then, Faran is right there among them charging into the woods. There’s something exhilarating about the noise and motion, about the energy now pulsating all around him, mitigating his cannabinoid high. There’s the anticipation of violence, of course, but Faran has no intention of actually fighting. He has no issue with any Croston or enlisted Croston ally. He just doesn’t want to look like a coward staying back by the fire dodging errant stones. He considers walking home—his parents’ place isn’t far at all—but sticks around more for an explanation once everything has settled down than any interest in the outcome.

Faran was last in a physical fight at age 10. He was on the school bus coming home when Billy Gamble started calling him “fairy dust” and “fairy princess”. Billy was a neighbor kid a year younger and small but was always trying to antagonize Faran. After the third or fourth fairy joke, Faran leaned across the aisle to Billy and said, “As soon as we get off this bus, I’m kicking your ass.” Obviously, this excited the other kids, especially the five or six who got off at the same stop. Faran wasn’t much of a physical kid and certainly not violent, but he’d backed himself into a corner and would have to follow through. Billy, similarly, seemed intimidated but knew he needed to save face and so started chanting, “Fairy dust! Fairy dust!” The kids began to line up as the bus neared its stop. Billy was first in line to exit, Faran fourth. Faran knew he was faster than Billy and would have no problem catching him, but he also thought maybe it would be justice enough if Billy just fled in terror rather than forcing Faran’s hand by continuing to mock his name. The bus stopped and the kids began to file out. As expected, Billy started to run but then changed his mind and turned around to shout “fairy godmother!” one more time on his retreat. At that, Faran broke into a full sprint and was on the kid before he reached his front yard. It wasn’t much of a fight; Faran pretty much just flung Billy around his own driveway for a few seconds, scraping and bloodying him on the sharp gravel and then leaving him lying there crying as Faran made the short walk to his own house. Later that night, parents were involved. There was a lot of yelling back and forth, some stern talkings-to delivered to the kids. The upshot was that Billy never so much as made eye contact with Faran again while the whole encounter endowed Faran with some tough guy respect in the neighborhood he indisputably did not deserve.

Now, up ahead, there’s yelling and the sounds of a scuffle. It’s too dark to make out the details, but Faran sees arms flailing, a few shapes struggling on the ground then one up again and running. A pursuit. Around him, he hears grunts and panting, curses, occasional cries of pain. He has no idea who’s winning; as in most cases in his life, he has no stake in the outcome, but he feels a spike of adrenaline standing there in the dark aware that at any moment, a figure could lunge through the shadows at him. He readies himself.

Then, it happens. An unseen hand grips Faran’s shoulder. He gasps. He turns and wrenches himself away, nearly stumbling before steadying himself on the nearest tree. He throws a blind punch into the night, fails to connect with anything, and hears a familiar snickering.

“Dude, did you just try to punch me?” Zwick asks, still laughing.

Faran says, “I don’t know. I thought it was a…Croston, I guess. Why the hell are we fighting the Crostons? I thought you were all friends.”

“They’re no friends of ours,” another voice—Adam Lang, Faran guesses—says disgustedly.

“What? Why?” Faran asks. “You sound like the Hatfields or something.”

“We’ll explain,” Zwick says. “Let’s just go back to the fire and have another drink.”

They walk out of the woods into the light of the bonfire. Faran notices that Zwick’s lip is split and bleeding, but Zwick’s smiling. He probably loves this. Lang looks like he has gone a round or two too, but he’s equally unperturbed. Lang shoves another guy in the group playfully, and the two laugh. When they reach the fire, the women have gone. It’s understandable. Lang looks momentarily disappointed but recovers quickly. Maybe the night’s violence has scratched the itch for him.

Zwick tosses Faran another beer and says, “Look, I already know you’re going to laugh and make fun when I tell you the story and say that we’ve all gone to war over political yard signs. Yes, Aaron Croston tore down Adam’s signs. Which, then, yes, Adam set fire to Aaron’s signs.”

“It’s about more than signs,” Lang says stoking the fire and adding new logs. “These Crostons represent what’s destroying this country.”

Faran does laugh then and says, “Wait. The Crostons are woke liberal elitists? I didn’t think anyone voted for Democrats in Pike Township.”

“The line’s right over there. The Crostons’ place is in Canton Township,” Lang says. “We don’t claim them.”

“It’s not about that either,” Zwick says. “We’re not fighting over cardboard placards or township markers.”

Lang says, “Those Croston kids are half black and always calling us racist rednecks. Talking about Black Lives Matter and Fuck the Police.”

“This is a race thing?” Faran asks.

Zwick says, “The daughter is one of those gender transformers. More than meets the eye.”

Faran’s eyes widen. He says, “Yeah, that’s definitely not what they’re called.”

“Oh, it isn’t?” Zwick asks in mock seriousness, “I guess I didn’t realize my wise-ass joke wasn’t factually accurate. Thanks, Snopes.”

Lang says, “Kelsey Croston wasn’t even a tomboy growing up. She was a girly girl always skipping around here in pink or playing princess. I used to see her out in the yard sitting at a plastic table or pouring pretend tea for her imaginary friends. Now, she and a bunch of her depressed emo friends have all decided overnight they’re boys trapped in girls’ bodies.”

“Okay,” Faran says. “I get it. Different political views. Different perspectives. Different values, but this isn’t Twitter. This is real life. Certainly, you can coexist with people who see the world differently.”

Zwick stands up and throws his empty bottle out towards the woods. He says, “We’re fighting for the future of this country. They want to turn America into a place where decent, honest people are kept down. Where hardworking men and women bust their backs for nothing while lazy, entitled subhuman parasites collect government handouts. They want our children to grow up learning how it’s terrible to be white or straight or Christian, but it’s wonderful if you let homosexuals dance naked in front of kids in school libraries.”

“That’s right,” Lang says.

“I don’t know, man,” Faran says. “I think people just want to be happy and see their families safe and healthy. I think we’re forgetting that people are more than ideologies.”

Zwick says, “Well, you just got back here, buddy. Show yourself around again, get the lay of the land as it is now, and see if you still feel that way.”

Faran falls quiet as the other men continue talking. He feels like he’s grasped something just then, some profound moment of clarity, but before he can make sense of it, it’s gone, lost in a fog of marijuana, alcohol, and spiking adrenaline.

Adam stands in front of the fire continuing to rage about liberals and progressive activists, and Faran feels a sudden, overwhelming urge to rise from his chair and shove Adam backwards into the flames, which he stifles by balling his fists and holding his breath. In the midnight darkness, no one seems to notice.