We Burn Daylight

 

Tut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word.
If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire,
Or — save your reverence — love, wherein thou stickest
Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!

 

Mercutio from Romeo and Juliet

Although author Bret Anthony Johnston states in his Acknowledgements at the end of We Burn Daylight that this “is not about David Koresh”, this is the story of a charismatic leader — named Perry Cullen, aka “The Lamb” — and the doomsday religion that he founds on a shambolic ranch outside of Waco, Texas, which was eventually subject to siege and deadly raid by government forces in March of 1993. Told in short, alternating chapters by a pair of fourteen-year-old “star-crossed lovers” (hence the source of title) — Roy is the upstanding son of the local Sheriff, and Jaye is the (barely) more worldly daughter of a woman who was drawn to the Lamb from California; both Roy and Jaye being good, innocent kids, hungry in that familiar adolescent way for love and validation — and although the reader knows where the escalating standoff between law enforcement and the residents of the highly armed ranch must lead (and to be sure, there is plenty of foreshadowing along the way), this is a heart-wrenching, pulse-pounding, deeply philosophical exploration of faith and social constructs and the real limits of freedom. Johnston’s prose is clear and propulsive — the cold, barren landscape is masterfully captured without a hint of sentimentality — and his characters are real and relatable; even those who would knowingly follow what others might call a “cult”; even the so-called cult leader himself is simply following his own fate. Thirty years after the raid on the Branch Davidians, it might be easy to blame the debacle entirely on government overreach, but here Johnston explores the events that led up to that day — the growing unease of the local community (I hear he has illegal weapons, I hear he’s impregnating underage girls), the mounting paranoia within the ranch (These are the end times, the prophesied opening of the Seventh Seal), and a government that feels its authority under scrutiny (with recent fiascos in Montana and Idaho) — there’s an inevitability to the ensuing tragedy that feels Shakespearian in the end. This was an outstanding reading experience (especially for someone like myself who watched the raid on the Branch Davidians with confused horror as it played out in the day), and it could have rated five stars, but I did not like the way that Johnston wrapped his story up. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)

Hidy there, everybody. Good afternoon. Or evening. Sorry to be tardy, but we’ve had ourselves a dustup at the ranch. As you’ve heard by now, people have taken to calling me the Lamb, which is sure nicer than other names I’ve been called. Anyway we’ve had these pork choppers flying at us. I don’t mean to tease. I appreciate y’all tuning in, I do. Well so, okay, it’s the eighteenth day of February 1993, the year of our Lord, and I’m talking at you, through your radios, in your homes and cars and places of commerce, about the revelation of Jesus Christ. That’s the big to-do.

As creepy and delusional as The Lamb may seem, he doesn’t actually appear to be breaking any laws: His visions have called for him to propagate the “New Light, which seemed to be children who would inherit the earth after the Wave Sheaf scrubbed it of sin”; which does involve him sleeping with everyone of breeding age, including underage girls (with theirs and their parents’ consent; so not technically illegal in Texas), and although the community does make their money by reselling weapons on the gun show circuit (and by having a popular shooting range on the ranch), the weapons are all registered, and is absolutely in keeping with the local ethos of “God, Guts, Guns”. The local Sheriff, Eli, sees nothing of concern on routine visits to the ranch, CPS sees no reason to remove any of the children when they follow up on reports from concerned citizens, and even “the taxman” is kept at bay by the group’s tidy bookkeeping and tax exempt status. Even so, the feds will eventually want to have a look inside, and that’s exactly what the prophecy of the Wave Sheaf predicted: and it’s hard to put normal pressure on a people who want be deemed worthy of “translation” to the afterlife.

But all of that happens in the background as Romeoyal and Julietaye tell the alternating stories of their backgrounds, meeting, and adolescent instalove. And in Johnston’s hands, their stories really are compelling, as mundane as they probably are: these are two recognisably nice young people, suffering under recognisably universal pressures at home and at school, and like probably all fourteen year olds, all they want is to meet someone who will make them feel worthy; loved and seen; you can’t help but root for their happiness. Yet there is something forbidden, or at least foreboding, about this love, and as it is difficult for them to actually meet in person, this is more the story of fantasy and yearning than actually getting the chance to hold one another and experience those first hesitant touches and kisses (this is a sweet love story with nothing graphic). Even so, we understand this is a tragedy, and as the siege of the ranch draws out into weeks, this becomes the tense story of Roy glued to the news coverage, looking for signs of Jaye’s expected release, and the even more harrowing tale of what life is like for Jaye within the compound:

And still more noise — the walls absorbing what they could, the helicopters and yelling and sobbing and coughing, my breathing coming too fast and the awful high-pitched gurgling of our chickens as they were being shot and people pleading with God and barking orders and information: Get down ! Over here now! They’re still coming! I can see them and they’re still coming! Then a single shot and the sickening muffled thunk of its impact, a sledgehammer into a sandbag. Then an enormous gasp — like someone breaching the surface of water after too long below. The gasping continued and turned wet, and a man cried out, “No! No no no no!” Then, as if all the agents were ordered to aim at the same thing and hold down their triggers at the same time: The dinner bell tolled tolled tolled tolled until it dropped to the frozen earth and silenced.

In a stroke of narrative genius, Johnston also has intermittent transcripts from a modern day podcast called “ON THE LAMB”, which sees its host interviewing people who had been involved in the raid, trying to learn what lessons might have been gleaned by thirty years of contemplation on those events. This includes an interview with a defensive retired Special Agent:

What happened was tragic, no question, but there’s also no doubt about who bears responsibility: Cullen. We can debate tactics and strategies, tanks and tear gas, but if Cullen hadn’t abused those kids, we wouldn’t have been there.

But even the attorney general testified there was no evidence of child abuse.

The responsibility is Cullen’s. He did this. The tanks went in because he wouldn’t come out.

And an interview with one of the few survivors among the Lamb’s followers, recently released from prison:

Didn’t they run out of ammo? Isn’t that what being outgunned means?

I think it means we had some help.

God, you’re saying.

What’s the alternative? Some Bible thumpers defeated Uncle Sam? That so much planning and training and equipment was no match for little old us? Sounds fishy, but what do I know? Either way, it sounds like something I can shake hands with.

And an interview with Roy’s long-suffering father, retired Sheriff Eli Montaguereland:

We aren’t built to matter. That’s the surprise here. That’s the big finale. Tell the story a million times, a million different ways, but the ones who were punished and the ones who were pardoned ain’t switching places.

And it all serves to satisfyingly explore both how something like this could have actually happened in the “Land of the Free” (without needing to be 100% faithful to the truth of Koresh and the Branch Davidians) and what it all means in the end:

Did we win or lose? Are we damned or saved? We occupy a liminal, leftover world, and we live off scraps. We build our religion, our very existences, with salvaged and stolen parts, waiting for the next fire. To survive is to know what no one else does: Nothing is forever. Not an alibi or shelter, not bloodline or prayer, not nation or sacrifice or any glad-hearted dream of God.

A well-written and compelling narrative, with a sweet and relatable love story at its heart, this isn’t quite a retelling of Romeo and Juliet, but it is definitely Shakespearian in its tragedian format and philosophical heart; this leaves me with much to think about and I’m looking forward to exploring johnston’s earlier work.