Mack will forever be a mystery to me, and I’m guessing I’ve done more research into his life—and more speculating about his motives—than anyone else on the planet. Did Mack travel around the world? I still can’t say for sure. I do think he made it to Yokohama, but whether he went the long way around from New Orleans as he claimed or across the Pacific from Seattle, I don’t know.
Did Mack really have a predilection for younger girls? I think so because his whole ploy centered on a girl who was supposedly sixteen-years-old, and he eloped with a fourteen-year-old girl when he returned from his travels and moved to Emporia, Kansas.
But did I take these “facts” and unjustly recreate Mack into someone too dark? Too predatory? I don’t think so, but if I did, I’m sorry.
Nevertheless, even if my portrait of Mack was spot on, I would still try to save him from himself. I would reach back into history and take the pistol from his hand, empty the shells into my coat pocket, and toss the gun into the James River. I would do my best to coax Mack away from the desperation that led him to commit suicide.
That’s how I found myself sitting crosslegged beneath the oak tree and saying to Mack, “Please, don’t do it! Yes, you’ve got some dark days ahead. But you’re no better and no worse than anybody else. Everybody pretends. And everybody screws up.”
“But,” Mack said, “not everybody steals from the federal government. Look, I don’t know who you are or how you happened to find me here, but the simple truth is I’m done. Everybody I know is about to find out that I, T. Allen McQuary, patriot, civic leader, and Sunday School teacher, is a fraud, and I don’t want to be a public spectacle. You know how people are. They act shocked when the truth about someone is exposed, but inside they’re tickled pink because they think they’re so much better than that. Besides, I’m too damned old to go to prison.”
I am insistent. “That’s why you should show them you can bear it! Play the man and say, yes, I did it, but that’s not who I am. Ask them why teaching Sunday School is somehow less real than stealing eight hundred dollars from the post office.”
“They’ll say the Sunday School stuff was a stunt. They’ll say things like, ‘Mack was putting us on the whole time; that’s what he does.’ And who knows? Maybe they’re right.”
I reply, “But don’t you see, we are all acting! Shakespeare told us that four hundred years ago. But we still love other people even though we know they’re acting, and we hope those same people will love us back even though they know we’re acting, too. And if we’re lucky, we will keep loving each other until we all become real, and we don’t have to act anymore. That’s what love does. So, don’t forget about Naomi and Vertrude! They love you! Give them the chance to love you into being.”
“It’s too late for that.” Mack lifts the pistol to his temple. I yell, “No! Don’t do it!” Mack sets his teeth and . . .
What happens next is up to you.
Raise your right hand and repeat after me:
“I am resolved to undertake the journey before me with all the suffering and injustice, betrayals and transient joys, lust and self-sacrifice said game entails. I acknowledge the bloody history of humanity and against all evidence insist that love is stronger than hate. I profess a belief that love will redeem the world—past, present, and future. It is with this confidence that I go forth to save Mack McQuary, the Purple Knight of the Ozarks. So be it!”
It’s one hell of a game, stranger. If you’ve got the cojones, draw a card and take the trip.
And good luck; the stakes could not be higher.
