Among the Lowest Of the Living:
The Uneasy Subculture Of Timothy McVeigh Supporters
We are primarily nocturnal---living in the darkness of mankind's hearts. We are undeserving of sympathy, but seem to crave it constantly. I look in the mirror and see only the whites of my eyes and then I know just how terrified I am---terrified to be blasted out of my comfortable complacency and laid bare for society's dogs of hell. I am---we are---those who pay tribute to one, Timothy James McVeigh.
Before you pummel us into the ground, please take a moment to listen to me---listen to us. Because we do not sympathize with the bombing of that government building. We do not feel it was justified. But Tim McVeigh was, in the truest sense, a freedom fighter who felt his world was caving in on him. Those of us who choose to remember this man are more concerned with the emotional pain suffered by McVeigh from the time he took his first breath until his very last, than we are with demonizing him as most people do.
We all blend easily into the crowd. We are not loud or gregarious. We don't demand that attention be given us. We do not clamour to be heard amid the din of those desparaging persons who paint us with the devil's brush. No, we are better than that. We are all searching for something to keep our demons at bay, whether it be artificial endorphins or very real pharmaceuticals. Adrenalin is as potent a substance as any---better than speed, much safer than cocaine. Tim lived on adrenalin--it charged him into battle with the Arabs and sent him screaming into the heavens with a fertilizer bomb. And we remember. And we cry for what is forever lost to us and to the entire McVeigh family.
Why do we choose to keep Tim's memory alive? Are we being compensated for it? No, not exactly. All of us live our lives amid the dancing shadows of youthful death. Jesus was thirty-three at the time of his crucifixion---as was Tim. Our Lord heralds over peace, love and goodwill---Timothy McVeigh plunged into a dark and empty abyss, one that even Lucifier couldn't traverse.
So, we all put our collective heads together and make numerous attempts to keep Tim's memory alive. I have personally sacrificed much in my pursuit of unhappiness: So-called McVeigh supporters who act upon the urges of the dark angels and rip our rich world to shreds. But even so, they are part of me. They are a part of us, for with danger and mystique come stiff prices to pay. Come stiff penalties to endure.
We are all vehemiently against the death penalty and have been relegated to the dank sewers of oblivion as punishment for taking such an unpopular stance. But do all of you who cheered as poisons seeped into Tim's veins and permanently shut down his body ride even darker horses. But even with the ultimate punishment Tim suffered came a hew and cry born of the false belief that he "didn't suffer enough." Believe me, that could not have been further from the truth. We all challenge these individuals to take a hit of Pancuronium Bromide and wait until that dreaded moment when their lungs painfully and abruptly collapsed with the kind of raw, unbridled pain reserved for those in the final stages of cancer.
We are not as different as you, my friends. We are simply much more honest. But with honesty comes a stiff penalty---we have mortgaged our souls and have surrendered forever our right to be happy.
It's our battle. We chose it. It has become an integral part of who we are.
