Read Mission to America for Free Online Page B

never seemed to shift out of second gear. He wanted a Range Rover with a V-8 like one we'd seen parked in Missoula our first day out.
    â€œI'm eating your next-to-last wing,” he said. “Also, I'm switching to news. We need to pay more attention to the news.”
    â€œWhy is that?”
    â€œThe worse it gets, the better the chance they'll give us a fair hearing.”
    â€œThat's a mean thing to wish. The news is bad already.”
    â€œIt's hard to tell. We don't know what they're used to.”
    I pricked the plastic tube of whitener open with its pointed cap. The instruction sheet promised results that you could see in only fourteen days, but I hoped to cut this to seven by applying a thick double coating. I couldn't wait two weeks. Women who struck me as fine potential mates were already passing me by without a look. They seemed to sense it when I looked at them, though, and yesterday one had reached into her bag as if for some instrument of self-defense.
    â€œThey're broadcasting a hostage difficulty. Texas clinic. Disgruntled young male nurse. The SWAT team, whatever they call it, has bulletproof breastplates and some kind of scope or camera that sees through walls. Watch this thing with me.”
    â€œOnce I'm done in here.”
    â€œShould I whiten my teeth, too?”
    â€œThat's up to you.”
    â€œWhy don't I stay natural and you go whiter and whoever has more luck in meeting people, he'll be the leader. We need to choose a leader.”
    â€œYou go ahead. You're older.”
    â€œYou're clearer headed.”
    Elder Stark was being disingenuous. He knew that he'd been in command since we set out and that he had no intention of yielding power. How he'd assumed control I wasn't certain. I only knew that the first time we'd bought gasoline he'd insisted on premium, for better mileage, and that was that—the pattern was set. Next he was pointing out which passersby we should try to talk into taking the Well-being Quiz and which ones we should allow to meet their fates.
    â€œMy mom had a man she counseled who took a hostage once. He dreamed it before he did it,” Elder Stark said. “He tied up his wife with twisted plastic trash bags to keep her from leaving him for another man, then locked her in a shed behind the house while his neighbors searched the woods. After a week he set her free and she refused to report him. They're still together. That tying her up with trash bags did the trick.”
    â€œThis happened in Bluff? I never heard a word.”
    â€œIt happened when we were little. You've heard of ‘angel babies'?”
    â€œNever.”
    â€œThey're the newborns who don't come out right. The Church owns a house in Spokane where people care for them. Big heads. Short arms. Stubby fingers. Angel babies.”
    â€œStop it.”
    â€œI heard about them through the wall.”
    â€œYou make stuff up,” I said. “It isn't that funny. A lot of it's danged disgusting.”
    â€œSay it: ‘damned.'”
    When he bantered this way, out of sight, without direction, I knew what Elder Stark was really doing. He'd unhitched his belt. One hand was in his underwear. It had happened after lights-out in the van on our second night and again the following night. I'd done it, too. An agreement took shape. We could carry on as we pleased in our own bunks as long as we spared each other the sights and sounds.
    I dipped a small wand into the plastic tube, drew back my lips so they wouldn't spread saliva, and covered my incisors and bicuspids with a layer of bleachy-tasting gel. The tooth discoloration was due to diet, and particularly the “strong digestives” such as anise jelly and sweetened pine pitch that we took after heavy fatty meals. The results of this regimen, for me and others, were clear, unusually elastic skin, urine that sometimes smelled strongly of burning leaves, and tooth enamel scored by hairline etchings that I feared were