stinct,” Unroe continues, “so I didn’t engage the bully.” But Henthorn pitches a single ques-


tion to the man with the looming red, black and green flag. “I asked him, ‘Are you an American, too?’ ” Henthorn says. “I have a problem with people who say, ‘I’m African.’ I think we’re all Americans first. And I think that, if you want to be here as a citizen, you need to participate as a citizen. But I didn’t say all that to him — I’m not that kind of person.”


O


n the ride home Sunday, I sit beside Unroe again. We talk about bicycling and the nasty crashes we’ve had. When Henthorn stands to


make a campaign promise over the PA — “I’ll come and speak to any group that invites me” — Unroe cops a high, fluty voice and trills, “Even the Girl Scouts?” Everyone seems to be in good spir-


its now, after a full night’s sleep, and Kathryn Koehler, the immunologist, is


Reporter Bill Donahue will be online to take questions and


comments about this story on Monday at washingtonpost.com/magazine.


especially perky. “That was one of the most wonderful weekends I’ve had in a long time,” she says, having revised her earlier assessment. She raves about the killer deal Henthorn scored at the Mar- riott. “Ninety-nine dollars for a room like that? That Chuck, he knows how to travel!” Eventually, we stop to eat, and


standing outside the bus, I overhear a tall, 50-ish man with a salt-and-pepper mustache talking to Ann Hucke, the ambulance biller. “I was at some liberal church in Maryland,” he says, “and the pastor called the Pilgrims drunkards. So I stood up, right there in the pews, and I pointed my finger at him, and I said, ‘You are a liar!’ They called the cops on me, but I don’t care. The Pil- grims were godly people!” Hucke has been listening with an


admiring grin. She hugs the man in- tently, and I follow him inside. He continues, apocalyptic and wrought. “This country is under God’s wrath,” he says. “When a nation turns from God, God brings judgment. Look at Katrina, in New Orleans. Look at California and all the sodomy they have there. Why do you think they had those wildfires?” The man says he is a beekeeper by


16 The WashingTon PosT Magazine | october 24, 2010


This country is under God’s wrath.


When a nation turns from God, God


brings judgment. Look at Katrina.”


“


trade but won’t give his name. His voice is steady and cool, and as he speaks, he looks away from me, out the win- dow, gnawing a toothpick. Beside him is his father-in-law, a man named Her- bert Joyner, who now turns to me: “If you were to die today, if you were to die today, do you know where you would spend eternity?” The beekeeper answers the question


for me by conjoining two verses from Revelation. “If your name is not written in the Lamb’s book of life,” he says, “you will be cast into the lake of fire.”


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