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The Rite of Spring

Kenneth Parsons

Hot Springs, Virginia: March 21, 2020

    Senator Ray Thurston had always been an early riser, even as a thirteen-year-old youngster, he rose before first light to deliver The Richmond Times-Dispatch to his sixty-some readers, whom he always addressed as Mister Thomas, Mrs. Welch, Mr. Henry, Mrs. Barber, and made sure their newspaper stayed dry in rain and snow. He often carefully placed it inside the aluminum storm door and the wooden door, or in the mail box under the roof, leaving about one-eighth of the paper’s edge visible. Out of the rain. Out of the snow. Good manners, hard work, and going the extra mile to please your customer can take you a long way down the road to success, he often said to his constituents in one crowd-rousing speech or another, giving his example of his adolescent years as a paperboy.
    He had come to the Omni Homestead Resort, the oldest resort in the country dating back to 1766, for a week during mid-March to meet with some of his biggest corporate donors in the state for the upcoming election. A victory would mean a seat in Congress as Senate Majority Leader, as his team had made it clear to the current majority leader Mitchell Dean of Ohio that it was time for him to retire. Dean, like Thurston himself, had voted for every bill that would fatten corporate coffers and had voted against every bill that would give hand-outs to those who were destitute or “near destitution”, for Thurston’s gang in Congress “had no respect for those people who could not pay their own bills,” as junior Senator Dean Vallance of North Carolina had said on the Congressional floor.
    Thurston woke, rolled out of bed, pulled off his pajama bottoms, stepped on the cream-colored tile bathroom floor, flipped the faucet lever up and hot water came spraying down from the shower head. He checked the temperature with his hand, pulled the lever to his right, until the water felt just about right and he stepped under the spray. He mulled over the fact that he had no appointments on this day, so he decided that he would extend his morning constitutional; he would take the walk alone, as he most often did, but he would tell his constituents that he was a man of strength and endurance, and taking this long walk proved exacly that, and it proved that he stood for good common sense practical values, like Benjamin Franklin before him. “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a good Republican healthy, wealthy and wise.” And Captain John Smith, the people’s hero of the first successful American colony in our own cherished state of Virginia, who said, “He that will not work shall not eat,” and furthermore, weren’t these words from the Holy Bible itself?
    Yes, today he would walk the entire Cascades Gorge Trail alone, a three-hour, 2.8 - mile trek through the Allegheny Mountains in the Southern Appalachians. Strength and endurance, of course, the campaign promoters could use those very words. He went out his suite door at 6:37, a few minutes before first light, and when he stepped out the rear door which led to the concrete walkway that eventually led to a path and the beginning of the Cascades Gorge trail, he noted that there was not a single person in sight and there was a skulking spooky stillness in the cool air of approaching dawn on this the first day of Spring, but after all, who would come to this resort for sumptuous dining, drinking, extra-marital sex, prescription drugs, secret business meetings, all the things that the winners of this country enjoyed; those relics of success that the loser’s would never, could never enjoy much less relish like those of us who know who we are, and what it is in life that is truly worth living for. Winners make policy and losers go home, he’d heard one of his colleagues so aptly remark on the Senate floor last week. The Truth of politics, the Truth of life, Thurston mulled.
    He came upon the incline that led into the woods, thinking that although he was no nature boy, no tree hugger, there was a great pleasure in being alone in nature away from the constant babbling blather of his political peers and his so-called mentors. Sycophants, every damn one of them, but this was the rank and file, the hoity-toity who would hoist him up to the highest rungs on the power hierarchy. And now they were making such a big deal over that damn corona virus, hell, it was really little more than a case of the flu to the healthy, to the people who had the sense to take care of themselves. He had an election to worry about. Let one of the hoity-toities take care of this virus business. Who was taking care of it in the organization anyway?
    Suddenly a sharp, scalding, piercing pain shot down his back from the top of his spine, a white light flashed before his eyes, and his legs gave out from under him. A ball-shaped object was shoved into his mouth nearly strangling him; a cloth was pulled tight at the corners of his lips and knotted tight at the base of his neck. He was on the ground now, hand cuffed, and he was being dragged savagely through weeds, brush, briers that nicked, scraped, and cut his arms and legs. Another sharp, hot, piercing pain shot through the top of his spine, and the world suddenly went black.
    Senator Thurston came back to consciousness – he hadn’t been out but a few minutes – lying on his back, his blurred vision made out the image of a middle-aged man glaring down at him – light chestnut hair, high cheekbones, sun-reddened complexion, face neither slim nor plump, body covered in a camouflage running suit, dark gloves. He stooped down on one knee and looked him directly in his eyes, squinting.
    “I suppose you’re wondering who I am?” he said in a muffled, gruff voice.
    Thurston did not respond, so his captor smacked his right jaw with the back of his right hand, and the taste of blood trickled into the senator’s dry mouth, and he swallowed.
    “Nod up and down for yes, left to right for no,” the man ordered, still maintaining a low, quiet voice, as he glared at Thurston.
    “Do you wonder who I am?” he asked again.
    Thurston feebly nodded his head up and down with his face shrouded in fright.
    “I am your madman, your misfit, your monster. I am your wastrel,” the captor spoke in a wheezy voice, his face lowering closer to Thurston’s, and his eyes opening wider as he drew out each phrase from some ominous place far down inside him.
    Thurston’s chest was heaving and he exhaled his breath in long gasps, beads of perspiration dotted his forehead, his cheeks flushed a pale red.
    “Take a good look, for mine is the last human face you will ever see,” his captor said in his slow-paced voice, “Do you wonder why I’ve come for you?”
    The senator nodded his head from side to side.
    “I’ve been trailing you for a few weeks now, senator, and I’ve come to compensate you for all your black-hearted, filthy, vile crimes against your electorate, crimes committed in the name of public service.”
    The captor reached into the pocket of his running suit and took a small object from it which he kept concealed in his hand, and he spoke again, “Tell me senator do you believe the pen is mightier than the sword?”
    Thurston squinted and shrugged his shoulders indicating he didn’t know.
    “Indecisive, huh, Senator? Maybe this will help you,” the man said, revealing a safety pin between his fingers that had been bent so it was straight, and he rapidly and forcefully gouged the pin into his captor’s left eye.
    “Uuuuhhhh,” Thurston moaned through the gag and winced up his torso on his shoulder blades.
    “Pin,” he said as blood oozed out from the senator’s eye, “or sword?” and pulled a machete from its case at his side and whacked senator’s right upper thigh, and a gush of blood streamed down his leg, a pool staining his Nike running pants.
    “Do you like playing linguistic games? Pen, p-e-n, or pin, p-i-n. Get it? You like to play with language don’t you, Senator,” the captor said. “You’ve screwed over thousands in your magnificent political career with your goddamn lies, haven’t you?’ he added.
    Thurston nodded his head left to right.
    “So you don’t agree?” the man asked.
    His captive nodded his head again, gasping for breath, with his teeth clenched in pain.
    The man stood up, cocked back his left leg slowly, and swiftly kicked Thurston squarely in the ribs, and the captive curled his body into a fetal position, moaning in agony with blood and tears running down his reddened cheeks.
    “Do you know the name Beecher Hackney?”
    Thurston nodded his head left to right.
    “Do you like anniversaries?”
    After a few moments Thurston nodded his head up and down.
    “Eleven years ago today one Beecher Hackney shot dead two of his work supervisors in that goddamn resort. Today I will kill this state’s top political official in observation of Hackney’s anniversary,” the man said, turned and walked several paces, and picked up a shovel and came back to the one-and-a-half-yard-wide-by-two-and-a-half-yard-deep grave he’d dug here the previous evening.
    “Tell me senator, shouldn’t you be pretending to protect your constituents from that virus pandemic? But you don’t give a shit about that do you senator? This is for all the people you’ve screwed over in your life, including my father,” the man said and slammed the flat side of the shovel head onto Thurston’s forehead, whose torso shuddered and his head jerked to its left side.
    “And this one is also for all the other people you’ve screwed over in your life,’ he repeated and whacked the left side of the senator’s skull.
    The man used the shovel head to turn Thurston’s head to the right side and said a third time, “Finally, this one is for all the people you’ve screwed over, as well” and he delivered the third blow.
    “My, my, senator your head is such a mess,” the man said, and he used the shovel head and his feet kicking and pushing the body toward the grave.
    The man could tell that Thurmond was breathing faintly, though unconscious as he pushed his body face down into the grave.
    “I am your madman, your misfit, your monster. I am your wastrel,” he spoke again as he scooped up and dropped the clumps of the brown earth shovelful by shovelful over Senator Thurston’s body, now a bloody, broken heap.

Smithfield, Virginia: March 22, 2020

    “Senator Ray Thurston was murdered sometime yesterday morning, most likely shortly after daybreak, according to his staff, who said the senator went for an early walk each morning. He was found in a makeshift grave this morning, after his staff reported him missing, at first believing he was seeking some rest and relaxation on a free day with no scheduled appointments. Police say it was a brutal murder. So far they have no suspects, and are not ruling out the possibility that this was an act of terrorism.
    “The senator had served in Congress for twenty-seven years, second only to Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Dean of Mississippi in time served in a senatorial position. His stance on many issues had been predisposed more and more to the right during his tenure, and he was often in strict opposition to those on the left. Nevertheless, Democrat House Majority Leader Ted Kearns of Missouri said his party was quote ‘shocked and horrified by the news of Thurston’s murder’ unquote, and called for a scrupulous investigation of the incident.
    “Thurston’s staff said it was certain that the senator had gone for his daily walk on the Cascade Falls Trail only a few hundred yards from where I stand right now in front of the Old Homestead Resort, the oldest resort in the United States, founded in 1766. They believed the senator was seeking some privacy when he did not return promptly from his walk, and they affirmed he had no official appointments yesterday.
    “Chief of staff Sally Childers said they became highly concerned that Thurston was not back in his room when he was notified that that it was time for dinner to be served at 7:00 yesterday evening, and the police were immediately notified. His grieving family is expected in Hot Springs tomorrow afternoon to give a positive identification of the body. This is Tim Calhoun reporting for CNN from the Old Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, Virginia.”
    Barris Bartholomew Kegley’s gloved hand clicked off the remote from the Super Eight Motel room in Smithfield, Virginia, where he had driven non-stop - excluding gas and restroom stops - after murdering Senator Thurston.
    “I am your madman, your misfit, your monster. I am your wastrel,” he said in a muffled, hissing voice; then he snickered, and turned on his portable CD player, and as the bassoon began softly playing the first notes of Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” he picked up the brown plastic medication bottle, removed the white cap, shook out two pills, tossed them into his mouth, swallowed, picked up a clear plastic bottle of mineral water and washed them down. He snapped off the nightstand lamp’s light and closed his eyes and peacefully fell off to sleep.

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