Member-only story
The Disgusting, Pus-Filled Patriot Tale No One Shares on the 4th of July
Happy Birthday, America! Sometimes history is filled with gangrenous, repulsive, tumor burden.
LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear,
Of the midnight ride of…not Paul Revere. Cause that guy is way too pretty for The Grim Historian.
It’s the evening of July 1, 1776.
The skies over Delaware crack and hemorrhage with storm. In the stinking humidity of night, one man rode 80 miles through a thunderstorm with his pus-filled, gangrenous face falling off.
His breath is fetid. His teeth loosen in their gums. His tongue is misshapen. He wraps a green silk cloth around his aching jaw, soaked in rain, spit, and blood. His ride will last 80 miles. He will not stop.
His name is Caesar Rodney.
Rodney’s face is consumed by a necrotizing cancer that leaves him misshapen and silent. He is not well. But neither is the country he’s riding to save.
Delaware’s vote on independence hangs by a thread. One vote for. One against. Rodney is the third. Without him, Delaware abstains. The cause collapses. The Revolution fractures. And god damn it…no one gets to eat hot dogs on July 4 and blow up their face…
