Lea returns to America after escaping from Russian penal colony, the beginning of Memorial Day:
“Propped up by nearly identical VA-issued aluminum canes, two bent old men in dark blue uniforms leaned over to salute a headless gray granite statue of a Union Army rifleman as the mournful sound of “Taps” echoed down the red brick facades of downtown Camden, Maine’s trendy shops. Ian Drakulič looked suspiciously up and down Camden’s main thoroughfare, the noises of the holiday crowd fueling his concern. “Bad enough,” the Serb thought to himself, “the fog had been thick off Ocier Point while he had bobbed in the low swells in what could only be described as a medium-sized whaleboat, waiting for the small Liberian freighter in those interminable hours just before dawn when a breeze came up and blew away the mist”.
Now, Drakulič, Lea, Thrasher and Willy were distracted by sounds of the beginnings ofa parade in the distance as it moved up High Street toward them. The parade was led by an American Legion Drum and Bugle Corp., a small but impressive unit with three types of bugles (piccolo, tenor and bass, providing three-part harmony) and the staccato cadence of snare drums, punctuated by thumping of tenor drums, all proceeding at a measured but rapid pace. Lea recognized its tune as “Over the Rainbow,” in an energized beat unlike the usual soft rendition of that tune, recalling Dorothy in the “Wizard of Oz” movie, played by Judy Garland. Perhaps competing themes of hope and yearning intended by the author of “Wizard of Oz,” L. Frank Baum, and in his other books. The smartly dressed drum and bugle corps was followed by a troop of Boy Scouts, a den of Cub Scouts and a troop of Girl Scouts, all marching with American and unit flags along with Scout leaders, parents and friends. They were followed by a variety of floats and many different restored antique automobiles including a fully restored 1939 four-door black Chevrolet plus local politicians lounging in open, expensive convertibles, all slowly on the way toward the cemetery on top of Mt. Batty.
Just then, the giant main mast of the windjammer Claudius French, putting to sea on the morning tide, seemed to pause as it passed behind the statue’s rifle barrel at the Conway Memorial across the street from Drakulič’s frame shop. For what seemed like a very long moment, the dark blue flag of the State of Maine atop the French’s main mast appeared to sprout from the stone barrel of the Civil War breechloader. The mast seemed parallel to the rusted metal rod sticking out of the shards of the Union soldier’s granite neck, the result of recent campaigns to hide and rewrite American history and the surging violence of imported and paid BLM and Antifa rioters, even in this quaint seaside village, far from urban centers. And just at the last note of “Taps” blared from the local school band youngster’s battered silver coronet at that! “Could only be a terrible omen,” Drakulič thought!”
@https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camden,_Maine, @https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine, @www.mcphetersbooks.com
#danger, ,#penalcolony, #escape, #treachery, #memorialday, #stolencars, #kidnapping
