Johnny America

 

A Band­wag­on

by

Illustration of a bandwagon, with rainbow colors in its tracks…

The wag­on rocked its un­hur­ried way through the city on a chilly Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon. Peo­ple clam­bered joy­ous­ly aboard, drawn to the com­pan­ion­able warmth, the spir­it­ed mu­sic, the al­lur­ing as­sur­ance of num­bers. As the jug­ger­naut swayed down the boule­vard, the pas­sen­gers called out to pedes­tri­ans to join them and many did, some laugh­ing as they bare­ly hung on, hugged by wel­com­ing arms. Those who de­clined were in­vei­gled, then mocked, spurned, point­ed at. “Fo­geys!” the young called them while the old­er and more com­mit­ted cried “En­e­mies!” Some re­al­ly were one or the oth­er, but a few shook their heads, point­ed, tried to warn. “Look where you’re go­ing!” Yet the bass drums and trom­bones were bang­ing out Sousa and the mob was broad­cast­ing its right­eous una­nim­i­ty so loud­ly that no­body heard.

Filed under Fiction on November 4th, 2022

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