Attack Of The Lesbian Activist Squirrels: Earl The Rat

Earl Hastings was among the first to arrive at Chigger’s party. It’s a well known fact that every liberty loving gun nut is assigned an agent provocateur by the BATFE. It’s tradition and practice that, within any group, the person most forcefully advocating anti-government revolution is a government plant. Therefore, everyone knew Earl was a paid informant. He was the fourth BATFE plant assigned to Chigger.

Earl, product of a society that didn’t include people like Chigger, had no idea how clueless and transparent he looked. Fortunately for him, the community embraced the moron and treated him kindly. This was on the reasoning that “he’s a good lad and maybe someday he’ll get his head out of his ass”. There was also generalized concern that nobody knew what had happened to the three previous informants. Chigger, of course, had no comment on the matter. So the community kept Earl close at hand, fed him a steady stream of useless information, and never let Chigger invite him on a two man fishing trip.

They also referred to Earl as “Edgar H.”, a reference to a former FBI director who’s reputation hasn’t held up well to historical scrutiny. It gave everyone a chuckle but eluded Earl’s dense mind. Having the standard education of a Millenial American, Earl (or, if you wish “Edgar H.”) had no knowledge of history from eras before the invention of Pokemon. He silently congratulated himself for infiltrating a domestic terrorist cell populated by people too dumb to remember his name.

Earl was explaining they should all work together to bomb the Post Office when Roxanne, smiling, shoved a plate at him. It was stacked with all sorts of delicious (and poached) meats. It shut him up before he aggravated anyone enough to get a dope slap upside the head.

Silenced by the best food he’d ever eaten, he took the time to observe the crowd. Both communication and transportation were mysterious. Most of the attendees were scandalously free of cell phones. How did they know there was a party afoot? Roxanne had called him to personally invite his attendance. She’d used a landline to do this. It was bolted to the wall. Weird. Meanwhile, the rest had gotten the news through a mishmash of phone trees, HAM radio, rumor, truck horns honking, and at least some of the time… by simply following up when one truck or another was seen heading towards Chigger’s driveway.

Certainly, most arrived by truck. An array of rusty trucks was parked haphazardly in the stump filled clearing that they all considered a “lawn”. Some trucks had expired registration tags, two were missing plates entirely, one was missing a door.  There were a few sedans, including Whacker’s old lady’s Honda Odyssey (which was the most nearly “average” vehicle of the lot). Other vehicles included a log truck, a tractor, two motorcycles, a dizzying array of ATV’s, and one horse. Someone had arrived by canoe on a stream Earl hadn’t even noticed. Several others had simply stepped out of the forest.