Pushkin, locked and loaded. The American Patriot Raleigh took to the steps of the state Capitol today in a world gone haywire. Sometimes art is the only thing that can make sense of it all. The Georgia three percenters say they are strictly a defensive force. Yeah right. I'm Ashley Ford and this is the Chronicles of Now, where we ask writers to dream up short stories inspired by the news. There are more than five hundred militia groups in the US.
Right wing militias and vigilante groups have been part of the American landscape for decades, but a recent movement seems to have focused their attention here to demand those in attendance a Trump voters angry at the ongoing lawlessness across America, threatening to take matters into their own hands at a time of uncertainty. Some law enforcement officials have even blessed or turned a blind eye to armed militias upset about Black Lives Matter. Recently, a sheriff in Florida made news
when he issued an unusual statement. Daniels vows that he will deputize regular citizens who have gun permits to help his department respond should violent protests break out in Clay County. It wouldn't be the first time vigilantes have taken matters into their own hands. Did the West Bank turn into the Wild West? In the days following Hurricane Katrine? How many people you shoot? Thirty eight people? Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, was shot down by a white neighborhood watchman.
Video captures the final moments of Ahmad Arbory's life while he was jogging through this brunchway. There's something about, Oh no, We're about to lose this power. Dantel dubbed you. Monice, is the author of a forthcoming collection of stories, Milk Blood Heat. Her story here explores what life might be like in a deputized in America. That this is fiction, but this is like a very real terror that has
been going on in this country since its foundations. Within hours of the press conference, gun and animal stores throughout the county sold out. Customizable metal badges catering to that uniquely American appetite for playing cops and robbers were back
ordered online until late October. Production shut down, as it was during the plague, but one could still find the golden shaff stars used for cowboys and Indians and though slightly marring the illusion, they did in a pinch lawful god owners, the sheriff had said, But even if there had been something to buy, the phrase wouldn't mean them, not Jaya or her two brothers, and not her mother, who slept with a pink and silver luger under her pillow just in case things went bad in the night.
Two weeks ago, a man was executed for unpaid parking tickets, and yesterday at toddler who'd grabbed a pack of gum from a shelf at the Quick Mark was shot as soon as his oblivious mother stepped outside the store with the child in her arms. Another one they'd heard about. She'd been doing nothing, daydreaming on a park bench, but they claimed they'd seen a weapon, and anyway, wasn't it
suspicious the act of her sitting? And we actually incredible affirmation that these criminals were anything could become a crime. With the Deputize on every corner, watching in grocery stores, in car lots and coffee shops, shit like this only happens in backwood city. People outside the South were saying, we don't do that here. They did that there in Chicago and New York and La. The only difference was none of their elected officials got on the internet to
sanction it. Clocking out of work that evening, Jaya was exhausted. It had been a stressful day at the store. They'd finally gotten in toilet paper and pasta, but there was relatively little neat and the lines were still too long.
No one was happy about anything. One deputized prominent Adams Apple no mask, went through her line twice, the first with two six packs of light beer, a chicken tender sub, and a gallon of store brand sweet tea, the second an hour later, for just a TwixT Both times, his eyes on her intensely. The sky was streaked cantalope from
the setting sun, the sidewalk still damp from rain. Jaia through the disposable mask her employers had provided her into a waste basket and put back on the cloth one she brought from home, a black mask with three bold white letters B LM. Jaya. We have to be supportive of all our customers. We don't get political here, her manager had said this with exaggerated patience, Blinking rapidly, her
soft spotted hands clasped at her chest. Life is what you make it, and our company policy centers on positive engagement. You understand right. Jaia had looked past her as she spoke toward the customer service counter, where two of her co workers issued money orders and lotto tickets, their lower faces covered by gray scale American flags with a thin blue line. Day after day, her manager never said anything to them. Jaia decided she wouldn't tell her mother about this.
That morning, when she'd put the mask on, her mother had said, you're asking for trouble. Jaia put her head down, shouldered her tote, and began walking. She used to love this unoccupied time, the meditative space between leaving a destination and arriving someplace else, mused, extrumming through her mind, But these days she left her earbuds out, the walks instead,
filled with static anxiety. Five blocks and she'd be outside her second brother's job, where she would buy a smoothie and find a table and read until he got off. As much as they could. They walked home together. After a few minutes, Jaia felt something and increase in intensity of the static ticking up her spine. She looked over her shoulder and saw several feet back the deputized man from her line. Her mother's instructions zipped through her head.
If it happens to you, find somewhere safe. She quickened her pace, eyes darting toward the storefronts around her. A furniture boutique, a beauty parlor, a party shop, all shuddered. There was nowhere to duck inside. Jaia tried to calm her breath. She slid the metal nail file she always carried from her pocket and gripped it in her fist.
As she rounded the corner of the next street, the deputized closed the distance between them, grabbing her arm and slinging her against the concrete wall of a closed Chinese takeout. Jaia heard music from across the street and locked eyes with a woman on her balcony. If you can't find a safe place, find a witness. After a moment, the woman looked away, picked up her portable speaker, and her read inside. Once the sliding door closed, they were alone.
He pressed jay Heard against the wall and smiled, blocking her with his body, one hand flat against her chest, the other on his gun. His badge was plastic, likely a last resort purchased from the local dollar store, and briefly she wondered what he'd done with the playcuffs. It was surely packaged with But it didn't matter what the badge was made of, or that it was a toy. It only mattered that he believed in it. Do you know? He asked her, why you're being detained? He sounded so polite,
so normal. He could have been saying, how are you today? This common man? With her heart beneath his hand, he let up on her and pulled the mask from her mouth. This, he said, fingering the cloth. Well, it's defamation of character, plain and simple, the same language they now used whenever a journalist was killed. She knew enough to know what happened next. If she was lucky, there might be outrage, a new hashtag on Twitter. And if she wasn't lucky, well,
Jaya's hand tensed around the nail file. He wouldn't expect her to fight, which meant she must. In her head, her mother held her said, don't let them see you beg That was in Jama Kumara narrating What We Make It by Dantio w Monice Hi Dantio Hi Ashley. The news hook for your story involves the sheriff of Clay County, Florida, near Jacksonville, who recently said he'd deputized every gun owner
if his deputies couldn't handle Black Lives Matter protesters. I remember when that was said, and I remember a distinct chill down my spine at hearing someone say that, I guess out loud. What did you think when you first heard about that. I mean, honestly, it froze me. I was looking and seeing the headline, and I thought, wow, this is something that so many people feel. It already happens.
There's vigilantes that, you know, neighborhood watch. If you look at something as simple as Trayvon Martin, that would have been a situation of a deputized person. But just to hear someone say it out loud and for whatever nefarious purposes, like you know this person is up for reelection, Oh I'm going to get on the good side of these people, It just felt like that's a moment that needs to be looked at, that needs to be examined. That Sheriff
Darryl Daniels is himself a black man. Yeah, yeah, What do you make of a black law enforcement official appealing to gun owners in a southern state. So that is the other complicated part of the story that I chose not to for the purposes of the story, you know, portray, But I felt as if it made sense to me.
It seems that, you know, if this is someone who is an accounty that upholds these kind of patriotic, you know, type of laws, that this person who's so desperate to gain that footholds that he seemed this power that he has seems that they would do anything. And so to me, it falls in line with I don't know, can I
say coonery? Is that allowed me? Yeah? I just felt like, okay, so this is someone who has been given power who feels like they want to keep it by whatever means, and if that appeals to him to say, oh, let's shoot down protesters in the street, then let's do that. And that's a little bit of evil that also is just chilling. Oh yeah, but a tale is all this time? Yeah? How person, Sinol was this story to you? Did you draw from experiences in your own life in order to
write it? I mean, you know, at a base level, if you are a black woman who lives in America, you have consciously or unconsciously experienced prejudices and racism against you. So you know, it's it's easy in that way. But for me, I just thought, what would be the most terrifying thing, And the most terrifying thing is to go through life not being able to believe in what you believe in, being attacked for what you believe in, and
then being killed for what you believe in. And whether you know, whether you think Jaya at the end dies or doesn't die, or you know, that's a little bit I've left a little bit ambivalent, But it's terrifying and it's real. It's what happens every day in this country. Poles show that large majorities of Americans support Black Lives Matter and their aim of eliminating police violence against black people specifically. Yet Trump is doing everything can, it seems like,
to stir up a racist reaction. How do you think that's going to play out for him in twenty twenty. I think it might work in his favor. I think that the people who support him, regardless of countless evidence that he is not who he says he is, He does not have the intentions for this country that he has said that he has. I think that despite all of that, these people have like, you know, bought in and now they're like, I have to, I have to.
You know, it's like a bad investment that you've put all of your money into, but to take it out would be detrimental to not just your economic wealth, but also your pride. When I think that Americans cannot suffer damage to their pride, it's like almost like the worst thing that could happen. So unfortunately, all of the discourse
that he's doing is working in his favor. But I'm hoping that the people who are now becoming more awake to the situation, will you use the power that they have and the privilege that they have to enact some different course than where it looks like we're heading for twenty twenty. I hope that you are not right, but we'll see saying, you know, I know say, but we'll see what happens. It's really interesting. Thank you, Dantill W. Monise, thanks for your story and thanks for coming on the
Chronicles of Now. Thank you so much for having me. You can read my full interview with Dantill W. Monie on our website Chronicles dot fm, where you can also read the story you just heard and other short fiction torn from today's headlines. Our sound designer and composer is Bart Warshaw, our producer is Curtis Fox, and our associate producer is Emily Rostick. Tyler Cabott is the executive producer and founder of Chronicles of Now for Pushkin Industries. Our
executive producer is Letalmulad. Special thanks to Jacob Weisberg, Carly Migliori, Heather Faine, and Eric Sandler for the Chronicles of Now podcast. I'm Ashley Ford. Thanks for listening. The com pat a pocket of the tone