The Boys take a Stand

One good point of being a dirt farmer was that you knew that your woman truly loved you. She had no other reason for being with you otherwise. Problem was, what if you never loved a woman? The few years that he even attempted at “courtin” were catastrophes at best.

Now the poor old dirt farmer he’s lost all his corn
And now where’s the money to pay off his loan
The loan that he signed to pay off his corn to pay off his loan?

Now the poor old dirt farmer how bad he does feel?
He upset his tractor got caught in the wheel
And now his head is the shape of a tread and he still ain’t dead.

Now the poor old dirt farmer it’s dry as a bone
And the biggest thing growin’ is a ten pound stone
And when its gets round he’ll roll it on down to the tax man in town!

(A portion of “Poor Old Dirt Farmer” by Tracy Schwarz.)

Charles Vikmeyer was down. No, Charles Vikmeyer was really down. Why, it was possible that Charles Vikmeyer might have been the lowest man in Wilcox County, Georgia. The blues were his dues so bad that he just stopped his old pick up with a bad muffler in the middle of the work day. The truck backfired as it died outside of the red brick, abandoned schoolhouse on the edge of his land. Charles went on the school’s porch and just sat there today. The fact that he already had “a good bit” of Devil Rum didn’t help much.

Nobody objected when Charles just moved into the schoolhouse after his daddy’s old cabin burnt down. Why, if it hadn’t been for the cat that Charles had at the time, he would have burnt with the cabin since he was “kinda drunk” that night as well. “We’da fished yer krispy body out like from a fried chicken bucket,” one of his buddies later, helpfully volunteered from the stool of a roadside bar. The farmer’s speakeasy that they were in definitely had seen better days. His buddy pushed his “John Deer” cap back.

The cat had jumped on the bed like a little angel of God and kept slapping Charles’ face until he finally woke up. It was winter at the time and Charles hadn’t been the most conscientious when he installed a new/old woodstove that he found in the Abbeville town dump a bit ago. The stove’s predecessor in the cabin was so deteriorated that even repairs no longer worked. Then Charlie’s providential dump find replacement came along. Charles really should have spent more time and effort than simply sticking the new stovepipe out of a window, with a hole cut in a hunk of recycled plywood to keep the winter out. That last night of daddy’s old cabin, Charles had especially loaded the woodstove because it was cold outside. 

Charles grieved more over his lost cat than the lost daddy cabin. After saving his life, the cat fled in terror to hide somewhere in the clutter of the old place until Charles had to give up trying to find her and escape the flames. Later, when he found her little body in the aftermath, he wept openly. He built an impressive little shrine over her grave out of left over concrete, embedded with beautiful field stones, broken pottery and chipped, fancy tea cups to hold flower offerings, (the tea cups coming from the Abbeville dump as well.) There was a porcelain angel embedded into the shrine. Who knows where the angel statuette came from? It probably was purchased for unknown reasons from a roadside flea market, a farm auction or a garage sale to sit for decades in one of Charles’s crumbling sheds. Actually the shrine was in a quite pretty setting where a nearby creek went into a “boils,” with blue water bubbling up from underground, suddenly very deep, enchanting, mystical and cold. It was this “boils” that Charles was thinking about now on his tipsy porch seat. Suddenly Charles made up his mind.

“Ahs gonna tie me a rup round ma neck an a sand block on ta other, and ahm jumpin ina da boils.”

Remember that Charles Vikmeyer was down. No, Charles Vikmeyer was really down.

Located quite near the boils, little can be said about the abandoned old school house that Charles sequestered except that it was very on square and very well constructed of red, Alabama brick. The windows and the roof were showing their age with water leaking in whenever it rained but the building itself was doing well. The little town that built the school, went out of existence soon after world war two because truck traffic didn’t need to stop there anymore. None the less, the little school stood firm, square and ready to serve as the tiny piece of municipal land that it stood on turned into a forest. Cheaply built wood structures that made up the rest of the village quickly returned to the land from whence they came after many Georgia rains and no upkeep. When Charles chopped down some of the trees and moved in to the brick building, no one remained to object.

Charles did do some upgrades. He ran an electric line from the power box that used to serve the daddy cabin to connect with the ancient wiring in the school. He built a kitchen of sorts, a bathroom of sorts and a drain field out back, of sorts. Everything was supposed to be temporary until Charles got his feet back under him again but that was fifteen years ago. Best of all, like a dead clock being correct twice a day, Charles did do one thing right. He also added a beautiful porch exactly, correctly to the side of the schoolhouse. Here the prevailing evening winds and the rustling creek nearby made it heaven on earth. He had salvaged the ornate Victorian porch from an abandoned plantation, “big house” before the corporate farm that bought the place leveled everything. Since the mansion was half caved in anyway, no one questioned when an old guy with a pickup truck showed up and started dismantling the porch and hauling it away. A definite side benefit of the porch was that it was his little brother, Sammy’s favorite place on earth. He would therefore come visit Charles often on hot summer evenings. That is why Sammy caught Charles heading to the boils with a thick rope around his neck and carrying a sand block in both hands today.

Sammy struggled all of his life with a stutter. No one in Wilcox County asked why. It simply defined him.

“You….you….idiot! Wa…watcha doin?”

“Lemme lone! Go away!”

Sammy had been sickly all of his life so he wasn’t going to be able to physically constrain his insane older brother.

“Hep me Lawd, please hep me Lawd.”

Sammy ran into the nearest shed to get anything “ta hand” in order to belay his befuddled sibling. Their daddy built the particular shed he happened to enter during the time when Pops was in the watermelon business. The shed had been around since about World War Two. As repeatedly preached by especially one of his aunts who was the family historian, one of his great uncles on his grandmomma’s side had come, a soldier fresh from world war two, to help on the farm for a while. He and daddy built the cabin that burnt down and also today’s shed. Sammy thought of this as he desperately scrabbled around for anything to use to stop his brother in it. God works, especially if recently pleaded to. Sammy’s desperate eyes came to rest on something strange, fancy and curious. Out of need, Sammy didn’t hesitate but rushed in.

Over the years, rats had so compromised a cardboard box of paper what-not that it began to spill the contents. Full of ancient grocery receipts, stained antique Christmas cards and other paper matter deemed important at the time, the box was literally sagging open and in the process, revealed whatever was below it. Sammy’s feverish mind simply said to him:

“Sword handle. Wait a minute! SWORD HANDLE?”

When Sammy reached in and pulled the thing out it swung as if it was alive. Sammy never had such an experience before. It was so well balanced, so tightly energetic yet still inanimate, so obviously dangerous yet beautiful that Sammy was stunned still for a moment, in spite of the situation. The only thing that Sammy’s mind could conjure up as an answer was:

“ANGEL LIGHT SABER! Thank you Lawd!”

Sammy rushed out to save his brother with sword in hand.

Decades of smoking, too much beer, and bad food had taken its toll on Charles so he was struggling with his sand block and rope. He also had a life of throwing eighty pound hay bales all day so he wasn’t a mushy wimp either. Sammy was a sight to behold as he took a stand, newly found sword raised menacingly with the targeted boils behind him. His wispy and disheveled hair all askew, Sammy’s thin, slightly hunch backed body with raised stick arms all akimbo, looked as menacing as a chipmunk with rabies, but the sword, oh the sword. The presentation at least made Charles stop and take notice.

“Whatca got dere Sammy?”

“Stop dis crazy stuff Charlie or I’ll cut ya!” No one noticed in the moment that for the first time in his life, Sammy spoke a sentence without stuttering. The raised sword glittered in the afternoon, Georgia summer sun like righteousness unsheathed.

Charlie took a step towards Sammy out of curiosity. “Whatcha got dere Sam?”

Sammy mistook the gesture. “I mean it Charlie!”

The sword of justice struck, singing like an angry cherub as it did so. It cut the thick industrial rope that Charlie had dug up from somewhere on the farm as if it was scissors cutting school project paper.

“Wow” they both exhaled at the same time. After a time of shocked silence Charles finally had the fortitude to ask, “where’d ya find dat?” The severed sand block with its’ attached scrap of rope lay in the red Wilcox County soil at Charles feet. The other half of the slashed rope still remained as a noose around his neck.

The Calling

There were fourteen of them. Fourteen angel swords hidden in Daddy’s watermelon shed. The “boys” stared in open awe. The weapons glittered with contained malice but also with beauty in the light from the one cracked and dusty window pane of the watermelon shed. This was even better than when Sammy found twenty, 1910, British Sovereign gold coins but minted in Canada, (per the little “C” on it,) some years ago. They were in a nearly rusted through, antique coffee tin can, buried where the no longer existing original farmstead cabin’s fireplace fieldstone hearth used to be. (The cabin was only a family memory even when the “boys” were children.) Now like then, Charlie did the idiot response as usual. 

“Deese swords gotta be worth sumptin! Lookit how fancy an old dey are. Let’s take um to da Abbeville Pawn!”

“Idiot! Dey are gonna give us fifty bucks an tell us ta git out of da store. Remember da coins?” (Neither of the boys had recognized yet that Sammy wasn’t stuttering anymore.) Concerning the coins, Sammy had been the level headed one then as well. Charlie wanted to grab the coins right there and head for the nearest bank as would be his usual response. “Fool” Sammy groused back then. “E….e…..ever one, a….a…an ah means e…..e….ever one i….i…is gonna mmmmm…make a grab i…i….if we…do dat.”

“Waddya mean?”

“A…..af……afta 1933, i…...it was i……i…..illegal ta…..ta….hold g…..g…gold u…..u….until….19…..19….1974. So….d…..da f….Fed, da…st…..state, da…..da….county, …..da…..da….pastor, y……y…..ya name i……it, dey a…..all are g…..g…..gonna h…..h…..have d……dere h…….hands ou……ou…..out!”

So began a slow process of paying off considerable back taxes and high interest loans, funded by a stuttering guy walking into various numismatics based businesses in the region with an antique coin and a question.

“What i….i…..is dis w……w…..worth?”

“So den, what we gonna do?”

Charlie was unconsciously acknowledging that one of the best benefits of “the coins” was that he acquired a desperately needed business partner in his younger brother. Part of the necessary dynamics of processing the coins was that Sammy became a fifty percent owner though he rarely pushed the matter with his older brother. Charlie suddenly had a thought.

”Ya know, ah don’t know what we gonna do yet. Lemme think about it. But ah don think dat we is to sell da swords right now.”

Days later Sammy looked at his older brother. It was the next Saturday and they were spending the evening sitting on the porch. “What da ya think dat we should do wid da swads? Ya make up yer mine yet” Sammy asked?

“Sam, ah tink dat God give us dese angel swads fer a reason.”

“Whatca mean?”

“Ya know all da church burnins dat been a-goin on?”

“Yeah?”

“Ah think dat God be callin us ta guard da church wid da angel swads!”

“Yer an idiot.”

Charlie had an answer to that for once. “Yeah, don’t think dat dis is a miracle?”

“No ya nut.”

“Sam, you been stuttering all yo life.”

“Yeah?”

“So, when was da last time ya stuttered?”

The look of realization on Sammy’s face was most noteworthy. He jumped up from his porch chair. “It a miracle!” Sammy was finally able to breathe regularly…and…and he didn’t stutter! Strange things happen when your lifelong prayers are suddenly answered. Sammy felt his knees buckle and that was the last time that he felt anything for fifteen minutes or so. He had fainted right there on the recycled, schoolhouse porch.

The Battle

Pastor Roger Williams Moore of Hephzibah Primitive Baptist Church has seen and been part of many strange events in his forty years of serving the Lord but this one took the cake. He hesitated as he climbed out of his car very early the next Sunday morning. Two knights of old stood at attention on the walkway from the church parking lot to the building. Well, they somewhat were knights of old. One had a world war two/ Korean War era, US Military helmet on. The other clearly was wearing what once served as a soup pot, the metal handle sticking out behind him as if he was Johnnie Appleseed or something. They both were wearing old US Army jackets but now with various metallic what-not attached here or there. Those were ancient combat boots, probably from the Vietnam era that both had on. Pastor Moore was about to nonchalantly just get back into his car and drive away when he recognized them. These were the Vikmeyer boys! (Boys is a colloquial expression because these “boys” both were in their early sixties.) The Vikmeyers were his distant cousins no less so the pastor decided that here was a duty of his calling to be done. He hesitatingly closed his car door and turned to head in their direction, the ancient leather business satchel under his arm containing one heavily used King James Version Bible, a yellow business pad with various thoughts scratched on it for today’s sermon, and a collection of pens, each imprinted with various business names from the area. “Charlie, Sammy, whatcha doin?”

“Pasta, we be Gawd’s Guardians of da church” Charlie importantly intoned. Upon the last word, both of the Vikmeyer boys drew out most convincing swords and saluted the pastor. The swords glittered in the new Sunday morning. Then they sheathed them. “OK boys,” the pastor nodded. “Y’all keep following the Lawd’s call now.” They continued standing at attention but as soon as Pastor Moore let himself into the building and relocked the door behind himself, he called the Sheriff.

Like the pastor, Sheriff George Liele had heard of many strange things in Wilcox County over his two plus terms. “Now Sheriff,” the pastor was saying. “Ah knows deese boys. Dey aint regular attenders but dey are my cousins an don’t do none no harm.” The Sheriff turned his squad car around. He wasn’t that far away from the church. “Yes Pastor. I will be there in just minutes, sir.”

“Thankee Sheriff.”

“You are welcome Pastor.”

“Now what” the Sheriff mumbled after he disconnected. He sped down the country road with flashers on but no siren. The computer was coming up with the usual. Charlie had a past DWI but a while ago. Sammy had nothing. Both had some late tax payment notifications that were eventually settled, that’s it. Both of the Guardians of the Church stood firmly at attention as the squad car pulled onto the parking lot. Besides Charlie’s old pickup truck, there was the pastor’s car and now the squad car. It still was too early for anyone else. Sheriff Liele smiled as he headed from the squad car. It was a very disarming smile though the Sheriff was not a small man. You don’t basically raise yourself and your younger siblings because of inattentive and sociopathic parents, get through the Army and then police school by your own boot straps, found and run a successful Wilcox County furniture business to this very day, and on top of that get to be a multiple term sheriff by being stupid. Why fight if you don’t have to? “Gentlemen, what seems to be the problem?” These were regular, old boy, hardworking, down home, country folk. What were they doing here?

“No problem Sheriff, we are Gawd’s Gaurdians of da Church.”

Sheriff Liele made no expression change. His mind went on autopilot. Could this be some sort of reaction to the strange, serial, church vandalism events and burnings that were occurring? The Sheriff was thinking at full speed.

“As guardians, are you armed gentlemen?”

“Yes sir.” Now the other one finally answered.

“Gentlemen, this changes things. Did the church hire you as guards?”

“No sir,” the first one was talking again. “Gawd tol us ta come here an he give us angel swads ta do it.”

Sheriff Liele had been resting his hands on his Glock throughout the conversation but not much more. These were not dangerous guys. They really were threatening no one. Something didn’t make sense. “Gentlemen, I am going to stay right here. Can you show me your Angel Swords?”

“Ok.” They were like innocent kids but fear, true and open fear struck the sheriff as the swords glittered in the sun. Sheriff Liele was a well-read man and he knew an antique, Japanese sword when he saw one. He also knew of a fascinating case that had thrown his Wilcox County of all places, into world history. The Sheriff made an especially wide smile. “Gentlemen, let me offer to take you to breakfast so then later, you have the energy to guard the congregation properly.” The boys looked at each other and nodded, putting their swords away as they did, (like little kids the Sheriff thought to himself.)

Sheriff Liele knew of a celebrated case where a ditzy New York City socialite brought an exceedingly rare, early prototype, World War Two, Sturmgewehr 44, (StG-44) into a city cash for guns program. With junk guns in a pile behind him whose real value was probably only their recycle value in their steel, the city cop could have taken the gun, giving the twenty-five dollars to the idiot who was handing in a war trophy that her dad had brought back as a soldier in Europe. Instead, Sheriff Liele proudly thought of the cop that referred her to reputable gun merchants and thousands of dollars. The items that the boys had were oh, so much more. Sheriff Liele just knew it.

The Sheriff remembered the county board meetings that went late into the night because a specialized blogger insisted that Japanese national treasures had ended up in Wilcox County of all places. After World War Two a collection of fourteen, ancient samurai swords, including the Honjo Masamune ended up in American military hands at the WW2 Japanese surrender. Prince Lemasa Tokugawa himself had handed them in. Each sword was a national treasure at the level of the British Crown Jewels, with the Honjo Masamune considered the epoch of samurai sword making technology, ever! Horribly, after their surrender, the swords just disappeared. The paper trail immediately dried up, no one had answers, and everything was forgotten. Most scholars were convinced that the irreplaceable treasures were destroyed with thousands of other, common Japanese military officer swords as commanded. The blogger thought otherwise. Sherriff Liele remembered that the blogger was eventually labeled as a crazy and the entire event was swept under a rug. Now the Sheriff had just seen astonishing works of art glitter in a Georgia, early summer, Sunday, sun! He had to think fast as the boys wolfed their scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy at The Browning Café out in the middle of nowhere on Highway 129. It was a largely local community frequented place so everybody knew everybody when the Sheriff and the boys had come in. There had been some curious glances but in the end, it as nobody’s business.

The sheriff waited until the boys were not completely done eating before he started, nursing his coffee cup.

“Boys, I have been thinking as we drove here. Since God has called you into my police business, in order to follow the Bible, I need to deputize you.”

Charlie was the first to be able to respond. “Deputize, wads dat?”

“Well, this is how order is done in a democracy. You have to get the authority from we the people to arrest people and such. If we think that we can just grab someone, well that is not order. That is a mob.” Sammy has been watching the proceedings with interest before he chimed in. 

 “I understand dat,” he nodded. “So how da we be deputized?”

As Sammy spoke something in the back of the sheriff’s mind told him there was another unusual thing occurring here but he couldn’t put his finger on it, so he played for time. “Well boys, why don’t we start with yall telling me the whole story about these Angel Swords.” (He had insisted that the boys leave the swords in their truck when they had pulled up to the diner.) It was when the boys traded off the telling of it, and Sammy got to the part where he was miraculously healed of his stuttering, that the Sheriff realized what had been bothering him earlier. Sammy was known throughout the countryside for his stuttering. Clearly, he wasn’t doing that anymore. Sheriff Liele realized that this event was not only important because of the swords. It also was important because of these boys. The sheriff looked at his watch. They would be just in time.

“Boys, here is what I recommend. Yall are going to have just enough time to get to Sunday morning church services and I better hurry off to mine. We are going to keep in touch so I can get you your training and deputize yall. But for now, please do not tell anyone about the Angel Swords, I mean it.” The boys looked doubtful. The sheriff glared at them until Sammy shared why they had their facial expressions.

“Pasta Moore always puts Charlie ta sleep an den he snores in da church.” Charlie’s expression verified the statement. Sheriff Liele smiled. “Well gentlemen, you are going to have to figure that one out. Since you are church guardians, you better be regularly going to one.” They nodded.

The sheriff made one call as he hurried his squad car to his own church service. He would be late again, as usual. His call went to Pastor Roger Williams Moore of Hephzibah Primitive Baptist Church. Thank God, (literally) the pastor answered the phone even as the church service was about to start. Perhaps he saw that it was coming from Sheriff Liele.

“Pastor, we need to keep in touch. I am calling for confidential clergy precedence here. Please sir, under no circumstances until otherwise notified, are you to discuss the boys and the swords to anyone. Is that clear sir?” “OK” was the pastors only response. As he pulled his squad car up on his church parking lot, Sheriff Liele knew one thing for certain. The fat cats that usually blood suck events like this, were not going to get their way in his county. These were his farm boys and this was his community. By God he was certain about that.

Later that day, Sheriff Liele called up a business person in the county that he knew. “Celestine, are you a Chartered Financial Analyst?” “No and I am never going to be” was her disheartening response. The sheriff thought fast.

“I know that you are tired of all the rip offs allowed in the industry and only are a small, county bank worker, but can you get the certification?” She still didn’t want to do it and actually was thinking about quitting her bank job but the sheriff was able to convince her otherwise. “What about that lawyer that you really trust, the guy that has antiquities law experience because of the first nation tribal stuff? Is he still in business?” The sheriff was going to make sure that his county and his boys would get their due.

In the end, the Vikmeyer boys were able to hire a distant cousin that ran a good construction company. The sheriff had vetted the cousin of course because suddenly the boys had all sorts of “family” popping up. The contractor was able to convince the boys to actually purchase the land next to their farm that the old school house sat on. He had to tear down the schoolhouse because of the crucial location and because time was not kind to the roof and other parts of the building. The place was also cleared of junk and decaying sheds. Two stately homes with brick salvaged from the schoolhouse in various places, and two huge machine sheds were built as replacements. Celestine allowed the boys to construct a large truck stop, gas station, restaurant and grocery store up on highway 129. In exchange for calling the place “The Browning Town Stop” she was able to convince the owner of the deteriorating little diner down the road, to move her diner into the new digs. As for the rest of the business, Sammy really came onto his own in running the place. Charlie started a mildly successful antique farm tractor and pickup truck restoration business out of the two sheds on their place. As for the church guardian thing, The Vikmeyer Foundation for Rural Georgia Religious Places was crucial for protecting churches and other religious establishments, fighting legal idiocies that occasionally popped up to hinder them and finding miscreants that thought it wise to commit crimes against the institutions. The fund financed keeping resources focused on the freedom of expression in general and religious rights specifically but that is another story.

Oh, one more thing. Hephzibah Primitive Baptist Church got a major building upgrade, a livable salary for the pastor, a youth pastor and a choir director of all things. Thankfully the director was able to charm the boys into “worshiping” from the pews rather than being in the choir. She was good at things like that.