WE THE PEOPLE…, MEANS ALL OF US!
Is hatred and its twin siblings, bigotry and prejudice, as old as humanity? Probably yes. It dated to the moment the first man woke up, stood up and stretched, opened his eyes, and looked across the river, realizing he was not alone.
To his surprise, at a short distance, he saw a guy standing there in front of him, who was not menacing but looked and sounded different than him. He immediately feared that the Stranger would take his parcel or destroy him. In the privacy of his thoughts, the first hater, the Primordial man, immediately felt a rush of self-righteousness, privilege, and entitlement. He convinced himself that all his surroundings, as far as his eyes could see, belonged to him.
A burning desire to destroy the other guy promptly took root in his soul. Only by destroying the Stranger would his original privileges be restored. His survival rested on the elimination of the Stranger.
The suspicion born out of the brief encounter of these two individuals has since marked the course of our history.
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Timothy M. was in front of the mirror, shaving. He was deep in thought, as it became customary for him. His existence was limited to his head. While he shaved, often disjointed, a long string of thoughts would come and go to his head. This morning was no different. He was deep in dialog with himself:
“I feel that I have something to say… damn it! I cannot get hold of these thoughts. I cannot keep them in one place. Why is that? My thoughts are like flashes of light, pure madness. I just had a great thought, and now I don’t remember… I guess it will come back to me… I am just thinking…Ah, I remember now… People like to think they’re unique, and, in many ways, when children, they are. Life then happens, … God, I really dislike people…, and one good day, they find themselves in front of a mirror, forced to face the only person one should not lie to… I wouldn’t say I like mirrors. I’m so ordinary…It hurts… So painfully common. Nothing special… I guess I look like my mother. That’s why people don’t like me. But I am not ugly… aaah. Who you lying to?. At least mom was good to me”.
Timothy was consumed by a long stream of random thoughts as he shaved, making his daily confessionary routine. During these morning sessions, he debated and argued with himself about the feelings that were torturing him. Piece by piece, with time, he finally put together a theory about himself, others, and life—not a coherent or well-organized theory, but a theory, nonetheless.
“I believe it is society’s fault that we do not truly know how to judge ourselves.” He lamented. “Years of nasty comments and cruelty… I am confused. Am I good, or am I bad? …Fucking people”.
His mind kept circling back to the harsh punishment that anonymity imposes on those devoid of any salient talent or distinguishing features. He felt that anonymous people like himself were like insects, accidentally crushed by humans. “They crush you and grab a napkin and throw you to the trash… You did not exist”. No further thought.
He had one love in life: his mother. She was the only one that ever made him feel special. Even if he were that bug on the carpet, she would have picked him up carefully and gently disposed of him. That was her nature. “Mom was a saint”.
As he aged, Timothy wanted to be somebody, do something important, and hopefully alleviate the burden of his anonymity. He liked to say that for a poor man, anonymity is a heavier burden than scarcity. It hurts more not to be seen than not to have things. The latter, when you are poor, you can easily get used to it. It’s hard to miss what you never had in the first place. On the other hand, not being seen or heard is the ultimate assault on the soul—a categorical rejection of your existence. You are null. Non-entity. Timothy’s suffering was insidious and corrosive. A deep vengeful feeling sat in his chest.
As children, we’re told that all lives matter, our lives matter. He disagreed. In school, he felt that other kids had it better than him. They would sit in the front row and steal all the teacher’s attention. Even if a kind teacher occasionally noticed him, it was not a cause for joy.
“Tim, what can you tell us about the story?” the teacher said. He later described in his diary that he felt like being put on the spot. In his imagination, she was sending darts his way. He felt as if the teacher could see through him. He could not look at her—it was too painful. He would then reflexively look down and away. He felt like running away. “Her eyes hurt,” he wrote.
He would then, for an instant, look at the teacher. In his mind, he had a lot to say about the story, but the space between his thoughts and his tongue was too large to bridge. He remained mute. His eyes had a dull gloss as he stared blankly into space. The kind teacher had no choice but to move on to the next shy kid. “What about you, Johnny?”. She was known to be a gentle and kind soul, that teacher. She had great concerns for these kids, Timothy in particular. She opined that they would be left out or passed by due to their introversion. “Keep an eye on him,” she would tell other teachers about Tim, “He’s very fragile.”
Timothy hated school. As he said in his diary, “I hated recess. It was like being naked in the yard, to the scorn of other kids.” It was the most painful thing in school. At least in class, he hid behind other kids. In the yard, there was nowhere to hide. He remembered some kids always coming to him, bothering him, “calling me ‘weird, psycho.’ I hated them.”
He was young when he concluded that humanity was rotten, cruel, and perverse. They said that men are born “a tabula rasa.” He disagreed. “Men are born evil.” No amount of civilization, technological advances, religion, or law would erase the markings of the jungle from them. They are destined to be primates and ruled by instincts.
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Timothy’s life continued in the comfortable corner of his anonymity. His solitude became a comforting friend. Living in the margins, away from other people’s vicious glances or cold indifference, was always safe and comforting. Plus, it also gave him a chance, without distractions, to see others in the way one sees animals at the zoo—curiously, from a distance.
As he became an adult, the passing of time helped to increase his isolation. He burrowed deeper into the recesses of society, in the habitat of the forgotten, and his insignificance grew more intense and oppressive. Something had to be done! But what? It was just an ill-defined feeling, like a slight intestinal cramp that does not fold you in pain and sends you to the ER. It does not kill you but does not let you live in peace.
After numerous menial jobs at convenience stores and gas stations, he lined up a great one as a maintenance engineer. He had a long-held fascination with inanimate objects, especially machinery. Once he unraveled the secrets to their functioning, he felt rewarded by indescribable joy and satisfaction. It helped that it did not require human interactions. He was free.
His job, relegated to the basement of the building, was a relaxing environment. After all, it was a one-man shop. His supervisor very rarely would come down to pester him with routine questions. The music of the machinery would quiet down the endless conversations in his mind.
But that job was not guaranteed. Others, less accepting of him, were already, out of malice and fantasy, running gossip about him. These unfounded accusations about being a creep who only slept on his job and his inability to connect with others later set the grounds for his dismissal—not that there was any basis for it, but just because people fear what they can’t comprehend. After a couple of years, he was let go.
Around the time of his dismissal, his mother, Ines, also became gravely ill with terminal pancreatic cancer. The type often diagnosed too late for any intervention. Her deep, lingering abdominal pain and changes in intestinal habit, weight loss, and weakness were ominous. She knew that her end was near. She asked for a straight answer from the Indian-accented Oncologist. “How much time do I have, doctor?” she bluntly asked. “Well, the five-year survival rate…”. She interrupted him, softly but firmly, “Doctor, I am a big girl…Just tell me so I can get my affairs in order”. “Less than one year,” Dr. Patel almost whispered. Armed with the news, a few days later, she summoned her beloved son: “Son, you’re a good boy…you know I’m very sick…” she told him with an aching heart. She knew how solitary he was, and it pained her to leave him alone in the world. “Find yourself a girl… a family… and don’t forget to attend church”. He assented. He was devastated. “Don’t talk like that mom”. A few weeks after his tearful promise, she peacefully expired.
He had the greatest devotion to his mother. After all, she was the only one who ever showed him compassion. He had the best intentions of honoring his mother’s wishes and forming a family, but he was unsure he could endure another round of rejections. He was usually awkward and rough in his social interactions. His interactions with the opposite sex were a painful sight to see. Most girls were polite and would answer to his poorly timed advances, “Sorry. I am not interested,” or a blunt, “I have a boyfriend.” Unfortunately, he could never avoid the worst type of girls, the rude, dismissive, and cruel ones. These would look at him with contempt as if saying, “How dare you?”. Quickly, without answering, they would turn their backs on him. Those were like repetitive slaps to his face. It was like standing naked, again, in the playground. He would be rendered with just a desire to escape and hide like a wounded dog. Rejection is one of the coldest forms of humiliation. Revenge is the only balm that would heal such an insult.
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He wrote in his diary that the internet became his companion. He would spend countless hours searching the web, aimless, like a vagabond. One day, in one of the bonding porno sites that he frequented, he saw an unusual pop-up. It read” The Brotherhood of Defenders of Manhood”. It had a logo resembling the World War II Army’s pamphlet “Uncle Sam Wants You.”
At first, he did not make much of it, but the idea of defending manhood had some ring to it. The red, white, and blue colors attracted him. He was mesmerized by the wide-spread winged black eagle in the middle of the flag. Like the cliché, it had the ring of joining “a cause larger than yourself.”
On this next porno round, the message popped again. This time, out of pure curiosity, he clicked on it. Right on its first page, along with the invitation to join, there was a brief Manifesto:
“American Men unite! Everywhere in this land, the white men are put down, ignored, or left behind to rot. For the last three decades, we, the children of the caucus’s mountains, men of pure blood and unyielding beliefs responsible for all the progress of this land, have been relegated to the role of an inferior race, second-class citizens. We have become anonymous in the society we built and rejected by those whose freedom we ensured. The American government has committed the ultimate betrayal. It has favored others, trampled on us, and violated our divine rights. The time for action has come!”.
He needed no further explanation. He required no enrollment or swearing ceremony. He was whole-heartedly in. The last sentence on the manifesto rang to him sublime: “Superior men, let’s Make America Great Again.” He felt that red represented the blood of real men, the ‘patriots’ that built this nation: the Black Eagle, the 2000 years of dominance by the Aryan race. Blood must be spilled again to restore the “natural” order. “We must retake our country by all means necessary,” or as their supreme leader would say, “or you will not have a country at all.”
For the next few weeks, he switched from his obsession with porn to his obsession with the “Brotherhood of Men.” He did not need pamphlets, indoctrination speeches, or manipulative enrollment tactics at his first meeting. The visual cues, the odor of sweat, stale beer, cigars, and the macho energy spoke to his core. It was symbolically speaking as if they all walked around wielding a large sword: Their penis. They used words like God, country, honor, duty, fidelity. “Semper fi” was written in bold black letters on the bright-red, black-eagled flag. Fidelity was the ultimate virtue: betrayal, the ultimate crime.
He found kinship with a couple of like-minded guys. Terry and Michael felt Tim was particularly gifted by his intimate knowledge of machines. He also had an intense and deep-seated hatred that they smelled from miles away. He was one of them. They became inseparable.
They, Tim, Terry, and Michael, traveled the country. Tim was not rooted or attached to anyone or anything. His only reason to stay in town in Maryland was his mother and his job; he lost them both. His unemployment had also run out. Around the time he met his soulmates, he survived on the few bucks he inherited from his mother. The Brotherhood became the sole family that he had.
They headed west. Attending all available gun shows and local chapters of the Brotherhood became a way of life. To his surprise, almost every state in the fly-over country had a local chapter. These Brotherhood chapter guys were like twins. They came in two styles: the Camo, gunslingers, long bear, and burly guys: boisterous, braggadocios. A bit insolent. Typically, former military, Army, or Marine Corps guys. And his type: The quiet ones. Cold, calculating, resentful. They would easily meddle in any crowd going unnoticed. Later, the Brotherhood, called MAGA, preferred this type. They would be more efficient for the cause in practical terms. The GI and camo guys were good publicity. But to inflict damage, the “quiet” ones were the lethal ones.
He was never more alive than during these months of traveling and camaraderie with his brothers. They met a large cadre of former ex-military guys running militia outfits in the far West, especially in the wooded Pacific Northwest. It ran like an institute of paramilitary training. He became intimately familiar with weapon marksmanship, mano-a-mano combat, killing techniques, guerrilla warfare, and varied methods of insurgencies that have proven very useful to the three of them. These militias were committed and trained for the big day to come.
They headed down, searching for additional gun shows and opportunities. They were in Texas around the time of yet another anniversary of the Waco massacre. He had been stewing for a long while now about this event, which tops his list of grievances against the US government.
Those familiar with the facts of this case would remember that after allegations of sexual abuse, statutory rape, and the stockpiling of weapons at the Davidian branch compound, the ATF served a warrant to search the compound and arrest its group members. However, before the Feds arrived, they were tipped off, armed, and waiting. In the initial gunfight, four ATF agents and six Davidian cult members died. A 51 days-long standoff ensued. It became the most salient news in the nation. After the Feds’ patience ran thin, the FBI bridged the compound, and a war-like gunfight ensued. The cult members had amassed a large cache of high-caliber weapons. During the combat, some explosives seemed to have been hit, and a massive fire engulfed the compound. The final tally was four federal agents dead and eighty-two Davidians, including twenty-eight children, dead.
Tim was incensed by these events. Mortified by it, more than obsessed by it. “We must fight against the tyranny of the government,” he could not stop thinking. “They must pay for this”.
His consuming obsession was no longer a rumor running through the militias’ world. He was now deeply convinced that no one was safe, not even in the sanctity of their compounds. They concluded that the militias were also in jeopardy. In the militias’ communities, a rumor that a massive crackdown was heading their way spread like wildfire. Now, all the teachings in the Brotherhood have become clear. The Waco Massacre was the clearest example of the tyrannical nature of the US government. There was no doubt, “They’re coming for us”. The call for action was loud and clear.
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They continued their travel, heading back north and West of the country. They met a rather peculiar individual on a stop at an isolated, unmapped ranch in Montana. He was not active in the militia world but was highly revered by the upper command. He was a resource whenever needed.
The individual was taciturn like them. A monk-like figure that shared their deep hatred for society. He was able to articulate their beliefs against this tyrannical government clearly. He was soft-spoken and professorial. He appeared to have abandoned civilization. His cabin did not have any modern commodities. A creek ran nearby. He had not shaved or combed his hair in months. His name was Ted K.
Everyone in the militia knew he was a former professor at a prestigious elite university. He was a superbly gifted mathematician and became, in his vengeance against society, a genius bomb maker. It was known that the Feds were after his track for some time. He kept on eluding them. He had already been active by mailing bombs and terrorizing individuals in the country. His grievance, however, was not against the whole establishment, just a particular segment of society. He did not mind his isolation or had a beef against others based on manhood, status, religion, or skin color. To Tim, with all due respect, he seemed a deranged, mad genius. It did not matter. They had a kinship in their hatred of society and yearning for vengeful destruction.
Tim had the obsessive attention to detail and the mechanical abilities necessary for their massive undertaking. Thus, in fell on Tim learned from the professor the know-how of making, procuring the ingredients, and transporting a bomb. They felt it was imperative to attack first before the US government would start rounding them. A suitable target was needed.
Their plan was clear. They would send a clear message to the US Government. Back off! “Don’t tread on me”. This one would be for the ages.
The professor was concerned with the availability of the bomb components, the need not to raise suspicions, and, once the bomb was made, the stability of transporting it to the side of detonation.
Tim was, under normal circumstances, a clean-cut, dull, slightly hunchback, with a slight twitch of his neck, guy whose appearance forced him to stay in the shadows. But all during this contemplation and planning stage, his eye acquired an intense brightness. He seemed alive. He found a purpose.
All was going as planned. Tim was studying for hours all the specifications the professor had put together for them. The professor was true to his title. He was great at simplifying seemingly complex issues, making them easier to comprehend. Tim was a devout student. Still, there was the problem of the target.
A more pressing problem, one that demanded immediate attention, became apparent. They needed money, as Tim was running out of money from his inheritance. Their incessant travels did not allow for a meaningful job either. Thus, they decided to settle down and get some cash. Montana was not a choice. It was time to leave.
After weeks on Interstate 5 in Bakersfield, California, they traveled along Interstate 40 and passed Amarillo on their way to Mclean, Texas, where they stopped briefly. It was friendly territory. After all, it was the wild West, populated by Texans, “the worst kind of me,” as Robert Duvall said in a movie. But job opportunities were scarce. They were not the cowboy type. They headed east on I-40 to the closest large city, Oklahoma City.
He found a job with relative ease with a federal government contractor. The building complex was a huge multi-story building, with nine or ten floors, housing many government offices and urgently needed maintenance personnel. The complex relied on an intricate, large cooling system that badly needed maintenance. He was the guy for the job. Terry and Michael found jobs detailing cars at a local rental car business.
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They continued their routine, and Tim continued his “studies.” All planning was almost complete when a new challenge appeared. One of the ingredients for the bomb, Ammonium Nitrate, is rumored to be heavily regulated due to recent mining accidents and possibly hard to get. They had to act quickly.
They needed to move to the execution phase. The target was staring them in the face, and they did not realize it until pressured by time. “Hold on, Tim,” said Terry, “what about that fed building you work at?”. Tim stopped giving yet another read to the makeshift bomb manual. “it’s a huge building.” He was intrigued. It was a ten-story building. It would require a lot of explosives. But it was not heavily secured. A bonus was that he worked there.
Tim agreed. Per the professor’s instructions, the ideal and easier-to-get chemical compound is Ammonium Nitrate, widely used in agriculture as a nitrogen fertilizer. The agent is also used in mining due to its explosive capacity. The professors thoroughly explained the “shock-to-detonation” method to Tim. An added explosive was needed to trigger the explosion. He recommended Nitromethane. Both ingredients were commercially available and easily purchased. They just needed to buy it in cash, with fake IDs, at different locations. Terry and Michael’s specialty came in handy. Their contacts within the militia’s underworld would expedite the false ID.
According to the professor’s calculations, to make any “meaningful” explosion, they would need at least five thousand pounds of Ammonium Nitrate and Nitromethane and a large truck.
In a twisted turn of fate, Luck blessed the “brothers.” The two worked at a car rental. However, one of them, Michael, had a previous criminal record, and the second one, Terry, did not have any identification—following his off-the-grid beliefs-. Tim was the logical candidate. A fake ID with his name was issued.
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Evil moves at the speed of light, often aided by Luck. They promptly picked up a standard rental moving truck and parked it at the rear of their rented house on the edge of town. Curious neighbors failed to suspect the movements in the home. It was clear that they might have been moving furniture.
Tim drove the truck to work the next day, April 19, 1995. He had his work ID, and the unsuspecting guard knew his awkward face. “Ah… I see you moving ah?”. As usual, Tim did not answer or make eye contact. The guard opened the gate, mumbling to himself, “Now, that’s a strange mother fucker”.
He parked the van as close to the building as possible, towards the left rear of the garage, next to the elevators. Such proximity to the building would guarantee maximum effect. It was eight-fifty-five a.m. He proceeded with the same caution and finesse that the professor instructed and that he exceeded. He had five minutes to set the explosives’ timer to detonate. He walked out of the building in three minutes and was picked up by his comrades.
At two minutes past nine a.m., a massive explosion, like none heard before in that city or the country, rocked the earth and, in a matter of seconds, destroyed the north half of the massive ten-story federal building.
They were on their way out of town when they heard the breaking news: “A massive bomb exploded at nine-oh-two am Oklahoma City time, destroying half of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building. One hundred sixty-eight people are presumed dead, including nineteen children. Six hundred eighty-four were injured, and more than three hundred buildings in the vicinity were damaged. The motives are still unknown, but terrorism is suspected. This is a dynamic crime scene. As this news unfolds, all federal agencies, FBI, ATF, and local authorities started gathering evidence and circling the building”.
They clapped. “Yess… get that!” They congratulated each other. Their dreamt day of reckoning arrived. They had brought war to the federal government’s doors. “Now they know that this is our land.” One of them interrupted the celebration: “Children…did they say children died?” They looked at each other, puzzled.
Tim was deeply asleep, snoring, when he felt his body shaking. A very distant voice, a child’s voice, grew louder and louder. He heard a faraway voice, “Dad, dad…wake up”. He, half-asleep, mumbled something indistinguishable. “Maaa, he’s not waking up“. The child yelled. Betty entered the bedroom, “Tim, Tim, wake up!”. She raised her voice and shook him harder. Now, he heard a louder voice, like his wife’s voice. He opened his eyes and rubbed his knuckles against them. Still sleepy. His wife, Betty, tried again, “Honey, get up! It’s time to go work”… “You had that nightmare again, didn’t you?”. He was grateful that he followed his mother’s advice a few years ago and started his family; his wife was a loving, kind woman. “Yes, dear”, he answered. “It never stops”.
P.R. Thompson
May 24, 2024