I’m going to buy a rebel flag this morning.
It is Sunday.
The only place I know you can buy one is at a flea market, some fifteen miles away.
Such flags are politically incorrect. No store will sell you one.
And I don’t want to buy one.
But I have started a new web site called Countdown to the Next Civil War: America’s New Doomsday Clock, and I want to make some Youtube videos to promote the site.
(http://willbevis.com/id17.html)
So I’m on my way.
But first, I have to go to work and find my sunglasses. It looked rainy earlier, but now the sun is going to come on strong. And I don’t want to be out in the hot sun, and blinded, too.
I pass three churches on the way to where I work.
At the first, I see a woman dressed in black going into a Church of Christ alone.
At the second, I see a woman going into an Episcopalian Church, with a little girl.
And at the third, I see a Hispanic woman going into a Catholic Church with her two children and her husband. And I wonder, where are the white males? Do they no longer go to church?
I thought it was just me.
My sunglasses are on top of my locker, so I am on my way again.
I pass a sign that says "You can get a fantastic deal on this (mobile) home." I look. I am so thankful I do not need it.
Then while I wait at a stop light near the edge of town, a black crow flies way to close to my windshield. What’s the matter with him? Has he no respect for humans?
I am out of town now. And I see houses I can’t believe people live in. But they do.
I come to a small start-up flea market. Not the huge one that I intended to go to. But I stop there. Maybe I won’t have to go the extra 10 miles.
But the only thing I see of interest there, is a Mexican or Guatemalan, wearing a white sports coat over black jeans and pants, and wearing a white cowboy hat. Later in the day I will see him at the big flea market and notice he has pencil thin sideburns. He is as a Latin Bob Dylan. He has that confidence. He is obviously "someone" within their community.
I lament that I have never found a hat I look good in.
Back on the road I see a sign, "If you died today would you go to heaven or hell?"
I’m pretty sure the answer is Hell.
A man and woman on a Harley pass me. I know the woman. She has on a dark orange shirt under all the black Harley leather. She picks cowboys and ex-convicts, and now a biker. When she is not beat up, she is happy.
I come to the huge flea market, possibly the largest one in the state of Alabama. It is situated on the side of a hill, and there are probably already 1,500 cars and trucks there, and maybe 3,000 people are more.
It is going to be wall to wall flesh.
I park my truck at the bottom in a hole I find among the cars, and start walking up the hill. I will go straight up to the top, then start walking down, one "street" at a time, of which there are probably 15 streets. At the bottom, I will get in my car and leave again.
I am on the street going up now, and the first thing I see is a country woman sitting on a truck bed full of pumpkins. A beautiful picture. And I realize, I should have brought my camera.
And I hear someone say about peaches close by, "These are the last ones coming out of Georgia this year," and I know, I can not do this, I can not be here, without writing about it.
And I have brought paper and pen with me out of sheer habit. I didn’t even think about it.
And I begin to take notes. And I don’t try to hear, but I can not help hearing as I walk. I don’t look at the people speaking, except out of the corner of my eye. And I hear someone say, "Dad Gummit - don’t give me no cheese!"
And a man say to his two friends "I’m gonna tell you something and you’re gonna think I’m crazy. Have you ever seen a chicken be put to sleep?"
And a woman saying, ""I could grow up to be a Cocker Spaniel."
And another woman, a vendor, saying, "All earrings are a dollar. The only thing that is not is my diamond bracelet."
And another man saying, "That guy done paid me for’em."
Then two preteen or early teen girls walk bay in shorts and one says, "I would shit!"
Is that how my daughter talks when I am not around.
Then I come to what I have been looking for. A vendor selling rebel flags. I look at them. One has printed on it, "If the South Would’ve won, We Would’ve Had it Made!" with a picture of Hank Williams, Junior in the middle of it.
No thank you. I am looking for a plain one. No sentiment rather than what only that design has the power to provoke on it’s own. Which is immense.
The vendor, a Hispanic, has one. He says it’s six dollars. I tell him I’ll pick one up on the way back down the side of the hill, and go on.
There is another man selling flags at the top of the hill, out of a long narrow trailer. A carny trailer. His daughter in her thirties is with him.
I ask her how much a plain one, no sauce, is. She says five dollars, and I say I’ll take one.
And as I do I actually look around. I don’t want any of my friends to see me buying this, and have to explain to them why I did it.
I see no one. It is already in a clear bag but she asks if I want it in another bag, and I say "Yes," maybe too emphatically. I still have to go down the hill, and you can tell what it is in the clear bag. And I have already seen one woman I know today.
I pay her, take my bag, and cross over to the other side of the narrow "street" and take out my pen and paper and write down a note of what I saw as I was leaving the seller.
It was a Queen Size Bed Spread of the flag, for twenty-five dollars.
And as I am writing I hear someone say, "Hey!" but I don’t realize they are calling to me. But then I hear it again, and sure enough, there is a black woman I know named Jean, and she is smiling at me.
I go over to her. I don’t know if she has seen what I bought or not. She asks me how I’m doing and I say fine. Then, just in case she has seen me by the flag across the way, I tell her what I had just bought. And why. And I believe I made a total mess out of my explanation.
But I told her where she would be able to find a copy of what I eventually would write about the flag, and maybe, it will all work out for the best.
I didn’t really have time to explain to her how I, a Seventh generation Southerner feel about the flag, or thought I might get lost trying.
But I will tell you, at the end of this story, in the best way I know how.
And then you will know, what some might consider my possibly dirty little secret.
But until then, continue with me on the journey I took to get it. And what I saw afterwards. Because this is life in the place where the flag is most at home.
The "streets" of the flea market are still crowded with people walking. They all seem to be talking as they shop.
One says, "Hell, no, we done got this plumb loaded!"
I turn and almost run into two very fat people each in their own motorized scooter wheel chair. The woman has an infant that is riding along clinging to her.
I see an ages old human powered ice cream churner.
Somebody says, "Bubba, you need to put that up."
Someone going the other way says, "I’d be banging on that all day." I do not look to see what he is talking about.
I hear, "Be easy! Be easy!" and I turn to see three kids piled into one small stroller, with the baby on the bottom and a little boy on top, trying to twist the jaw of his little sister in the middle.
Some guy is selling Confederate money but I don’t stop to see if it is real or not. I don’t care. I don’t want any.
A man has some CD’s he’s selling for two dollars each. I look through them and tell him I’ll take five if he’ll go down to one dollar each. He says "ok," and while I am picking out five, one of his "friends" comes up and says "Hey, Bunghole, how you doing?"
I can’t help but hear when Bunghole’s friend tells him he has already bought four banana boxes full of stuff that day, and his wife is pissed. Oh, and by the way, he adds, he’s got something serious wrong with his pancreas.
I move on, and I come to another vendor of all things Rebel Flaggish. Only this is the mother of all such places at any flea market. There has to be at least forty different t-shirt designs there, each with the rebel flag as the main "draw," and each with a different slogan printed over it or beside it or under it.
I have to stop and look. One has a dog on it and says, "I may be a bitch but I’m the pride of the litter."
Another says, "If this flag offends you, you need a history lesson."
Another says, "We’ll give you a ten second head start," for Yankees to get out of here, I assume.
Another says, "Does my rebel flag offend you? Call 1-800 Leave Dixie!"
Another Pit Bull adorned one says, "Cross the (Mason-Dixon?) Line and your Ass is Mine."
Another has a picture of five Confederate Generals on it and says, "God Bless Those who Chose to Protect our Freedom." Meaning I guess, those who took away the freedom of others, the slaves.
Then there was the standard, "Love it or Leave it."
Along with "Bad Reputation: Loved by Few, Hated by Many, But Respected by All." That one, has a pit bull on it.
But my favorite was a picture of the flag, with Lee and his cronies planning a major battle. It said, "On to Gettysburg!" Talk about someone needing a history lesson - uh, didn’t Lee LOSE that battle? So that t-shirt celebrates the greatest LOSS the CSA ever took, which meant the beginning of the end of the dream of a place where there could be eternal slavery.
The final two I saw as I walked away, was "Southern Girl - I may not have the cherry, but I still have the box it came in," and "Dixie: Big Cock Country," with a fighting rooster on it.
The amazing thing about this "shop" of rebel flag t-shirts... is that it was run by an old Chinese woman, who I am pretty sure has no vested interest in anything the South has to offer, much less rebel flags. She is in it for the money.
And I glance at her car tag on her white Ford Taurus as I walk away, and I see that she has come all the way from Forsyth County, Georgia, to sell this stuff.
Rebel T-shirts must be profitable, for her to do that.
Later on a street farther down, I will come to another vendor just like this one, selling the exact same things. Chinese, possibly her son. So there is enough profit in the flag that they have not just one but TWO locations in the same flea market to sell it from.
I’m walking again. I’ve seen enough but I’m only halfway down.
I hear a young man say, "Look at that son of a bitch!" and turn and he is looking at an attractive woman. I have never heard a good looking woman called that before, until this very day.
I hear a woman talking about a dog (I think). She says, "It’s called a blue nose."
I come across a man selling wood carvings. One of them is Robert E. Lee, I think. I ask him "How much is um... Robert E. Lee, I think? Are they different prices?"
He says "Eight dollars. And actually, that’s Jeff Davis." Then he pauses and says, "Or Kris Kristofferson, depending on the way you look at it."
I laugh. He’s right.
Near the carving of the C.S.A. President, is one of Larry, Moe and Curly. I am not making this up.
I walk on and come to a Hispanic place selling white hats like I saw the man wearing earlier, and expensive boots with pointy toes like the wicked witch might have worn in The Wizard of Oz.
I ask the lady about a pair of boots, called EL GENERAL (pronounced El Hen-eh-RAL) in Spanish. She says they are forty-five dollars. I asked about the pointy ones with the name Rodeo Bravo, and they are between one hundred and thirty five and one forty, I guess depending on how big a foot your general has. The white hats, complete with yellow/orange bands, are forty-five dollars.
Some dad is telling his kid "YOU EAT THAT CHEESE!" and the mother throws in, "That’s good!"
A public announcement comes out over the loudspeaker: "We have found a little boy with a red hat, appears to be Hispanic, with a blue shirt and blue pants. If you have lost this little boy, we have him at the office."
Then the announcement is repeated in Spanish.
Not far from there, a man is selling "Chiquita Chihuahuas."
I come to Arabs selling magic carpets, or Persian carpets, I am not sure which.
A dog woman is saying to a man, "I got papers on the mamma and not on the daddy," and the man says, "Did you cut’em?"
People do their own "cutting" here.
Somebody says, "Where’s my mango?"
I hear and can understand some of the Spanish being spoken as well. And they are talking about the same kind of things as people who speak English, like, "You gonna buy it?" They are not planning or talking about taking over America.
An old man says, "Them nannas over there, they’re pretty bright aren’t they?" talking about bananas.
A big old man is coming straight at me in the crowd and he burps very loudly as if that will get me out of his way. It works. I give him wide berth.
And I am walking slow now. I realize I am tired and it’s time to go. I have spent almost two hours walking and gazing and looking and listening and taking notes.
But I still have a ways to go down.
A man is selling a metal rebel flag, for twelve dollars.
Then I see the one picture I wish I could have taken. But which now I can only write about:
Every time I write about something there is always one thing that jumps out and tells me, this is what you came for. This is the special moment. This is what you were meant to see and hear and to write about.
It was simply this:
An old grandpa is sitting in a folding lawn chair in front of his old white produce truck. He has on a white t-shirt and a blue jacket. His granddaughter sits on a similar chair beside him, and beside her is her father.
She is wearing a pink woolen jacket and a baseball hat. Her dad is wearing a blue sweatshirt that says "FLORIDA" on it, along with a COORS cap.
They are all three still. In thought.
Spread out in front of them on upside down crates, are tomatoes, apples, sweet potatoes and bell peppers. Maybe fifty crates in all, and people walking in and out among them, looking for their perfect vegetables.
And an old time gospel music song is playing somewhere in the background. I have to look for a moment to see where it is coming from. It is coming from the open door of a black PT Cruiser next to Grandpa.
The music ends and that seems to sum up what I have seen this day. A people in transition. Southern Americans in transition. On this, a Sunday in October, 2009.
A day I bought a rebel flag.
I walk over to a low wall and sit down on it, to take in this moment. Disappearing America. I stare at the three produce sellers through the crowd, trying to take in every detail, while the music starts up again.
I can’t help myself. I get up and walk over. I want to be in the middle of this moment.
I walk among the produce. Onions, tangerines. Squash, Peanuts. Honey and Hot Peppers.
The old timey music is saying "We’ll live forever and never get old. On hill tops of glory, in a city of Gold."
I am looking at the beauty of yellow and white flowers laid out next to the produce when the little girl in the pink coat comes up to me. She is about eleven I imagine. She says, "Can I help you?" And I ask her what kind of flowers those are.
And she says, "Mums."
I am embarrassed. I don’t even know the names of simple common flowers.
I look around. I see the girl’s mother. Once a blonde beauty. Now selling produce in front of the family’s truck. And there is another child. A girl.
Grandpa’s still sitting there. He hasn’t moved. An orange Gatorade sits on a barrel in front of him.
And it’s time for me to leave.
A couple near the exit - preppies I imagine - have their expensive little white dog up in a huge, very expensive stroller. There is still room in it for the three kids I saw in one stroller earlier.
People are saying, "Isn’t that cute?"
Someone is saying, "Don’t step on him!" to a boy about his little brother, taking his first steps.
People are chatting right up until the very end. Just as it will be when the end of the world comes.
"I want it to go in my room. It’s got a gator face on him." a woman says about a dog. "I’m gonna make him stay in the laundry room."
Then a man a little farther says "That’s bad when your momma hits me."
And I see one final t-shirt for sale with the flag on it that says: "I’m Big Down South."
A t-shirt which I am sure will never apply to me.
I get in my truck now and near me, a man has left his bag full of shopping treasures on his bumper, when another man stops and tells him and saves the day.
I head home.
I see a sign, "New shipment of Panling just arrived!" at a lumber store. Wood is plentiful here, but there is evidently a shortage of the letter "e."
I pass the boarded up General Forrest Middle School. It is dead. Just as dead as Nathan B., but still living in memory here.
I pass a car that still has a "W" Bush sticker on it, and I am reminded that we are never allowed to forget... this is rebel flag country. This is Bush country.
Going up the mountain to my house there is a dead black dog in the road.
I swerve to avoid it.
Then near the top there is an old man walking down, carrying a huge black trash bag slung over his shoulder with all the cans he has picked up this morning.
Except for his red hat and the big bag of cans instead of presents, he could be Santa.
But there is no Santa.
But if you need a rebel flag...
You now know where you can get one.
And now that the story is at an end, I will tell you exactly how I feel about the rebel flag, so there can be no misunderstanding.
Almost thirty years ago, I was seduced by a beautiful married woman. I fell in love with her, and she almost destroyed my life. She used me for everything she could get out of me at the time, then dumped me. I was completely devastated. She was not only running around on her husband, but on me as well, and with a friend of mine to make it worse.
I found out later she had done that many times before me, to many men. And afterwards my friend eventually saw the light and got out before his life was destroyed as well. There was just something wrong with her. She was just evil. She used men. Possibly to get back at them for things they had done to her.
She wasn’t born that way. But she grew that way..
But the fact that she had become evil did not make her any less beautiful. In fact, being beautiful helped her. It was a great asset.
And that is how I feel about the flag. It is, in my opinion, an undeniably beautiful design. An incredibly powerful design. But no matter what it’s original good intentions were by the people who created it, good or bad, it went on to be used to help try to keep millions of human beings in slavery, and to help nearly destroy a nation.
And now because of that and other things such as it’s use by segregationists and skin head groups, it now represents evil... to many, many people. Including me.
But because it is STILL so beautiful, people are still attracted to the myth and the mystery of it - just as the woman I told you about is probably still attracting men.
And people will still be destroyed by them both.
Because beauty CAN blind you to truth.
And you’ve got to see the truth before you can cut your addiction to the beauty.
And cut your losses.
And so as for me, I am going to dump it, that flag, as soon as the videos for my web site are made.
For I learned the hard way, like the whole region of the South should have done all those years ago... that all that glitters is not gold.
But it can be fool’s gold.
And it IS deadly.
Perhaps I should not use the flag in my videos after all.
And maybe I won’t.
But if those of you who know that I planned to show the video of the flag rising to overtake and cover up our beloved stars and stripes...
I believe the emotion it would create to make us rise up to the challenge of fighting it,
might be worth the risk of its use.