Gerald L. K. Smith

The massive man elbowed his way between John Thomas and the microphone and shouted, "Peace, be still!" whereupon a wave of feedback screeched and moaned and subsided into silence. The man stood ramrod straight with tight lips and set jaw and angry eyes. When he spoke, his baritone voice trembled with indignation.

"How dare you? How dare you question America's noble motives in fighting to defend our values and way of life? I cannot believe what I have heard this afternoon, nor can I stomach the mockery and obscenities and the anti-American sentiment I've witnessed in my adopted hometown! How can you people applaud such a travesty? How can you laugh? Do you really believe that these singers of dirty songs, this gaggle of traveling hippies—" and here the man glared at John Thomas—"is wiser than the generals and the Department of Defense and the State Department and the President of the United States?"

One fellow yelled from the front row, "I believe it!"

The tall man pointed at him and said, "Again, I ask, how dare you?" Then he stretched his arms as if to embrace the town. "Is this what we want Eureka Springs to become? A playground for hippies and mockers and women who don't shave their legs? No! Our answer must be, 'No!'

"Look to Magnetic Mountain, and what I've built there. A sign! A wonder! A beacon to sinners and a vision of Eureka Springs as God wants it to be! Of Eureka Springs as I want it to be! Of Eureka Springs as it is destined to be!

"For today on Magnetic Mountain stands the Christ of the Ozarks, the labor and vision of these my hands! The great Oberammergau of the Ozarks plays nightly in an amphitheater, the realization of my holy dream!" The crowd fell silent as they pondered the man's achievements, and in that moment of hushed consideration, another fellow climbed the stairs to the stage. It was Teddy—you remember? The fellow who picked me when I was hitchhiking! He motioned to the band to leave the stage, and they began putting their instruments in cases and clicking the latches. And that's when I realized who the massive man was: He had to be Gerald L.K. Smith, lover of God and hater of heretics (you know: Jews and Catholics and socialists); the visionary behind the soon-to-be, true-to-scale Holy Land of the Ozarks; the purveyor of flag-emblazoned crosses (or was it cross-embroidered flags?); the adversary of peace, the defender of war, and an impediment to women everywhere.

Gerald L.K. Smith took the microphone from the stand and said: "What does Christ of the Ozarks have to do with Vietnam, you ask?"

Well, at least he was right about that.

"I answer, everything! Everything! If we don't draw a line in the sand in Vietnam and tell the Communists they can go no further, then where will we draw the line? Here?" and Gerald L.K. Smith swept his hand before the stage, as if the line lay between us and him—"Or perhaps down the middle of Spring Street?" whereupon Gerald L.K. Smith gestured to the street behind us—"Or perhaps at the feet of Jesus on Magnetic Mountain?" and Gerald L.K. Smith pointed to the hill beyond the valley.

"Well, let me tell you something, you mockers and scoffers: If we wait to draw the line at the feet of Mighty Jesus, we will have waited too long. Too long! No, our time to draw the line is now! The place to draw that line is Vietnam! And the fight to hold that line is our fight!"

The crowd was subdued except for one fellow in the third row. He stood and hollered, "Preach it, Brother Smith! Save our town!" The man was craning around and clapping and trying to get the people to join him, "Save our town! Save our town!" But the crowd was surly, and his chant petered out. You would think the man would have been embarrassed, but, no, he was beaming with self-righteousness and self-confidence, and he strode to the bandshell to shake the hand of Gerald L. K. Smith.

Toby whispered to me, "That's Jake Ire who owns the Eureka Springs Savings and Loan. He also owns half the town. I'm not surprised he's making a show of it; he always has to have the last word."

I wondered then and still do today, why is it that bankers and politicians and big-shot preachers and warmongers always get the last word while the rest of us are supposed to shut up, sit down, and do what they tell us?

The one thing we should have learned from Vietnam is to never, ever trust the sons of bitches again—regardless of which party holds power. That's what you would think. But in February of 2020, the Greatest Military in the World—the combined forces of the United States of America—abandoned Afghanistan after twenty years of violence, corruption, and chaos. All was for nought.

Welcome home, flag-draped coffins.

Welcome home, warriors, to a new life of prosthetic limbs and wheelchairs.

Welcome home, sufferers of trauma, to writhe and sweat in nightmares.

Welcome home, earnest young men and women who believed that love of country made you noble, while in reality, our overlords were exploiting your patriotism to line their pockets.

Only yesterday I was thinking about John Thomas and the Reivers and their protest song, and so I decided I would write a couple of verses as a concession to our own troubled time. So, here it is: my own twenty-first century version of "I Went to the Drugstore" and sung to "Turkey in the Straw":