Ker-Clomping With the Klan

A team of horses ker-clomped into the driveway as T.J. stepped outside. A dozen men unloaded a tangle of red carnations, twisted into the shape of a cross.
T.J. held the door for the little army. They carried the oversize floral arrangement like Romans, hoisting it like a battering ram. The siege to the front door was all grasp and strain, positioning and re-positioning their massive red phallus, but in the end a little bruising force purchased their entrance.
T.J. could hear his grandmother’s gasp before he rounded the corner. Queen Victoria Brown Latham was a large woman, with dense bones and massive hands, much like her son Abijah. She had a coarse, full-bodied voice like Abijah’s, too; when she spoke, the windows rattled.
T.J. recognized the red-headed captain of the men as Frank White. Mr. White served as a deacon at T.J.’s church, along with T.J.’s father and Mr. John Evans. Mr. White and Mr. Evans also served as the three trustees of the Philadelphia Church School. T.J. knew that Mr. White had never much cared for his father. T.J. knew that it had something to do with his mother. Apparently Mr. White had accompanied her home from church a few times and had even been invited by her parents to have supper with the family, before Tom Latham came along and ruined everything. T.J. noticed that his mother always found an excuse to leave the room whenever Mr. White was present. Today was no exception.
Frank White also led the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, or what was left of it. It was in that capacity that he was here today.