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BLACK
HELICOPTERS EPISODE
14 THURSDAY
the SIXTH - Andy Morrison departed his |
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At the corner of Jefferson and East 18th he pressed
the button installed by UN peacekeepers, entered one of the false Internal
Passport numbers he'd obtained for American pedestrian transit from an
acquaintance with access to the Dark Web, looked down to avoid the digital
cameras, smudged a finger over the printpad for
nominal compliance to prevent the alarm from sounding as he crossed the street
and... while waiting for the light to change... pulled
a Urinal (now up to a dollar fifty in the ratboxes)
out of the trash. There was some pink goo on the twelve page,
two section, rag that he wiped against the side of the metal basket before
proceeding three blocks further into a sort of no man's land between Skid Row
and the low-rent end of the City's compact Chinatown. Finally, he entered a
diner in the middle of the block, as distinct from the Ivona
Coffee Shoppe as were the sleek Conks therein from the wretched activist crew
still at liberty following the demo in Dorritt
Square. As he muscled into their midst, a pickup truck passed, loudspeaker
blaring...
"Register Now,
for the 'Runnin' Catfish Ten-K Run', sponsored by the
Journal, WIXI-Radio, Venable Real Estate, Tom Tolbert Insurance and the
Coalition for a New Consensus. Free t-shirt to all entries," the old truck
promised, "all proceeds to Malik House, help for the homeless. Call
854-WIXI to register. Register now for the 'Runnin'
Catfish Ten-K Run'..." it began to repeat, then faded...
The people's advocates snatched at Andy's
dirty paper like a cage of monkeys pulling apart fresh bananas. Marty Lesh scowled under his mask of filth and dark stubble;
red-headed Rael, from jail, sat next to him, talking and smoking furiously
despite the UN warnings posted both in English and Cantonese. Her mooching
companion, thankfully, was absent; the other five included David Soames, a
studious-looking late twenty-something man in black... a slummer,
one of those perpetual students at the U. with wealthy parents, degrees in
chemistry and comparative religion, now attending law school... and Richard
Reid, an aging, wild-haired cop fighter in camouflage who, briefly, reminded
Andy about the incident with Paulie and his militia
buddy at the shelter the other night. The interloper couldn't have been Reid;
Eddie knew Richard, knew his story... he'd been eighty-sixed from Jefferson
Street for dealing kat and picking fights with winos and, presumably, was
squatting one of the burned-out buildings on the South Side until the weather
turned cold and he might be back allowed in.
Maybe.
Reid,
in fact, had fresh bruises still showing on his cheeks and under one eye.
Andy's eyes wandered down the newsprint of the Journal, noticed the headlines:
"SUPREME COURT TO SETTLE EXXON-KELLOGG'S TIGER WARS!"...
"DOCTORS IN
The
rest of Andy’s gang included Walker, a taciturn old man with a long grey beard
and spotted, tweed vest, Timothy Webb, another aging hippie with an expression
of detached, drugged amusement, and Fredrika, a
short, owlish med student with closely cropped hair... something about her he
just wasn't able to remember…
The
second string, Andy conceded to himself. Scrubs!
Soames
seemed of a similar conclusion. "Andy, I think they got us," he
spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I talked to the ACLU, Goldman's on
his way here, but they're not letting anybody out. Talk is they might even send
some to Guantanamo..."
"They're
not fuckin' ISIS is… ISIS-ers… have to charge them
sooner or later, and hold hearings, even under the R.P.A. It's the law,"
Andy insisted, but with a good deal less confidence than he projected.
"The
law?" snarled Richard Reid. "Man, those pigs are so far beyond the
law, they’ll have drones blowing up our squats here any day now – taking
potshots at people, like at that kid up in Chicago they say had a gun. The only
thing America understands is force. I laid out two of the muthafuckers
last night, but we should've been better prepared."
Andy
gave him a questioning look and handed over his last eighteen cents to Marty,
who was holding eight pennies in his own palm. "Looks like you're due for
a refill."
As
Marty gestured to the Chinese working at the griddle, Andy turned to Soames who
was texting or twittering something or other. "When's Goldman
coming?"
"Any
minute now, he says."
"Good,"
said Reid, who'd appropriated the editorial page of the Journal. "Somebody better pay for breakfast. Look
at these lying pissants!" he added, shaking the text...
"Protestors surrounded and assaulted passers-by, including members of the
Cosmopolitan Union and visiting conventioneers from the Coalition for a New
Consensus. What lying shit! It was the pigs who started the riot."
'Will
you ever stop referring to the police as pigs?" Rael started
in. She had a voice like a West Texas oil rig drilling into dry, dry bedrock,
and all that Andy could make of it, this early in the morning, was that, at
least, her smug outrage wasn't aimed at him. "I'm as tired of your sexist
and speciest language as I am with your patriarchal
love of violence. Nobody should compare the cops to innocent
animals... pigs, dogs, any sentient creature, not even a
rat!"
Mouses
briefly scampered through Andy's memory and then were gone.
Richard
Reid snorted derisively and a small nugget of dried blood and snot bounced
across the formica counter before he raised the
Journal up to cover his face, presenting Andy and all beyond him with a
photograph of the new Fed chief, Pettigrew, next to the headline, "DOW
SOARS PAST 40,000 AGAIN; GENOTECH, OIL, SAVINGS TAX DRIVE SUSTAIN ECONOMIC
RECOVERY!" Marty slid his refill beneath the paper to Andy under the
heavy-lidded stare of the proprietor; at the far end of the counter, an old
woman in a stained tan raincoat and no earplugs began muttering to herself.
"Like...
did you see when all these empty buses showed up and just stopped in the
street, you know?" recalled Tim Webb. "People had to go around the
police lines just to cross the street! The lines at the ID swipes and crotch
gropes were so long, they didn't even care about the cameras. Commander Cuatro
could've snuck in with a bomb around his waist..."
"The
Costa Ricans aren't suicide bombers," Soames began to correct him...
"They’re
taking lessons in Karachi. Maybe they
don't come up around here… yet… except to the parking lot at the paint store,
so what?" Marty challenged. "So fuckin' what? Take it to UNAPIS...
our question is what to do next!"
"Listen
to this!" read Reid. "Reverend Malik Owen called a press conference
after the anti-Federal Reserve demonstration, about his plan to use his church
people... that means sheeple," he added, with a malicious
nod towards Rael, "as monitors, promoting... quote, unquote... love and
truth against those who intend to stir up hate. They'll assist the Turks, but
have different colored berets. Green maybe, blue for the Democrats, red for
Trump or black for himself? Remember
that group back in the nothings, split off from the Guardian Angels to run
round beatin' up people they felt didn't belong back
in the Why Too Kay... what color hats did they wear?"
"Don't
remember," Andy said, "and, anyway, everybody knows Malik's
irrelevant. He burned all his credibility busing his people up to the Capitol
to support cutting welfare, overturning rent control and making it a felony to
eat out of the dumpsters. Cut into his soup for sermons racket. What we have to
do is draft our own statement... make it clear we're not for or against the
Conks, as a group, we don't care what they do at their convention or whether
the protestors have influence, or not. We just want the City to acknowledge
everybody's First Amendment rights and not come down beating on local people
because they get caught up in the middle until, finally, the bigshots go
away. I mean... who could complain about
that? Not even the UN..."
"But
we can't," objected Webb. "Too many of us are not here to provide
input... what about process?"
"Well,
then, our statement should also be about why people are still being kept in
jail on those ridiculous charges. That shouldn't be so hard to consense on!"
And
Andy snatched a napkin from the container, withdrawing a pencil stub and
glaring at the rest of the conspirators.
"But
you miss the point," Reid objected, laying the soiled Journal down.
"It's not enough. The CNC's
coming here to try and fool people into thinking that joining them is an act of
resistance against the war machine. We have to take a stand against the draft
and the imperialist war in Costa Rica..."
"And
the savings tax," added Soames.
"Well,
then, that's for us to decide now," Andy said. "Are we going to bring
in Costa Rica or, for that matter, the savings tax or UN occupation, all these
outside issues, however worthy, or are we going to stick to getting our First
Amendment permits permitted and our prisoners out, or one or the other, or
neither..."
A
ragged wino with clothes the color of time stumbled through the door; weaved
towards the counter and interrupted: "Is dere
an' Andy here?" he declared. "Andy Morphussine?"
A
round, stale Sanctuary pastry tumbled from his belt, rolling down the length of
the diner and wobbling to rest.
"That's
me."
"I'm
f-f-from the Sanctuary? Eddie... Eddie sent me to tell you c-c-cops come in,
took Paulie with this TV he was holdin'.
Took him to j-jail..."
"Fuck..."
was all Andy could say.
"He
s-says this crazy guy comes, then, wants Paulie out
of jail or he's d-do something. He's g-got a g-g-gun..."
"OK,
Andy determined, tapping his fork against the coffee cup, "go back and
tell Eddie I'll look into it when I get down to the Hall of Justice, later
today. Tell him also that if the guy's a problem, go ahead, lock the door and
call the cops. Ask for Grove, he's part human being. Not Taney and not
Menendez. Don't let Turks come around
either... they see somebody with a gun and they freak."
"I
g-got, I got it!" the wino said, pondering his next move. "Hey,
c-could anybody help me with a quarter? I'm twenty-one cents short, can someone
help me?"
Soames
finally tossed him a dime and, with a morose expression, Eddie's messenger shuffled
back out into the morning to beg for the last eleven cents.
"I
don't think we should waste time drafting statements," Webb resumed.
"What we need is a candlelight vigil… we have to show the world that we
empathize with the victim that dwells in all of us, the victim in the soul of
every living creature and reconstitute America as a sanctuary for
victims..."
"Chinese
and Russians’ll love that! And what about the pigs?" Reid shot
back. "They're not victims..."
"Will
you stop misrepresenting animals?" Rael appealed. Richard Reid responded
with a few choice obscenities, crumpling the pink-stained newspaper, but,
before he could form a coherent reply, Walker stood up, removing his thumbs
from the lapels of the dirty vest, placing his hands together in some obscure
Asian gesture, then thrusting them outwards - like Charlton Heston, parting
troubled waters or one of the Duck Dynasty cultists, praising the Lord for a
tasty roasted fowl on the table.
"We
have forgotten God in our arrogance, God and the Earth. We cry for men and for
animals, but what about the Earth? What of grass trodden under by feet of
wickedness, trees brutalized by people at your demonstrations grasping for
weapons, or for higher elevation. Walk softly, fear God and..."
He
was cut short by screams and curses from the old woman down the way and
snickers from the rest of the tired, defeated patrons at the counter and in the
booths. The proprietress deserted her post at the diner's cash register,
picking up a spatula she wielded like a flyswatter.
"Enough!
You go now. Out, all out... goodbye, you!
But pay first…"
Before
somebody at the counter could get brained, David Soames took out… but did not
open… his wallet. "We're almost finished, honest. Listen, gimme three coffees to go, some of that fake cream and
sugar on the side... and one of those sticky things," he pointed.
"Guess Mister ACLU's a no-show," he added for those at the counter,
"again!"
The
sight of his battered wallet with its presumed, concealed contents mollified,
somewhat, the angry businesslady... Walker glanced
from left to right, bestowed upon her a celestial nod worthy of a Himalayan
kung-fu lama in an old Jackie Chan-ish movie, then
sat down stiffly.
"Even
if we drafted a statement, how would it get published?" Soames asked, once
the cashier had departed – moneyless and intimidated. "The last I looked
we were running on fumes, and that was before yesterday's busts. Whatever
happened to all those benefits that were supposed to take place? That party
with comedians who wanted to help out? It was happening..."
"Fucked,"
Marty said. "It was just drifting and it drifted until the anti-nuke
people stepped in and took over for the radiation victims from that blown up
plant in Ukraine, and then they negotiated it out the window because these
sorority girls said that the comedians were miss… miss, oh whatever it is. Jokes that were evil! Things keep getting
delayed because our people doing them keep getting busted and sent to jail for
crap and, when there is money, it just goes back to the system to
bail them out for a while..."
"Well,"
interrupted Tim Webb, "maybe we should just consider not cooperating with
the system's violence and refuse their provocations. Go on strike, like the
doctors in Florida and Denver..."
"Easy
for you to say," Fredrika spoke up
and Andy found himself trying to remember which tendencies she belonged to...
something militant, he recollected. "Sure, let the government lock
everybody up - rob the poor to give tax breaks to the rich and speculators, let
the war machine grind on in Costa Rica and Saipan so the shoe companies can
keep six year old kids working eighty hour weeks and still having to prostitute
themselves to Japanese businessmen to pay their rent! Tillerman's eco-Nazis are
marching up one side of the street, religious bigots and clinic bombers and gay
bashers down the other side, pretending they're opposed to one another while all
the cowardly politicians in the middle keep their heads in the sand and faces
in the slops bucket. And that includes Parnell’s party! I wish the UN really would take
over, not just march around observing the police and handing out parking an'
jaywalking tickets, collecting names. We'd be better off having a Canadian or a
Norwegian dictator or even be more like Singapore – but without the hanging for
pot smokers or canings, except for the rich. This system's sick, and it doesn't
need to be reformed, like the Conks keep saying, it's got to be destroyed..."
Webb
wasn't finished, quite. "But if we responded with love and thoughtful...
thinking, we uh..."
"Hey,
lawyerman!" Marty Lesh
greeted Leo Goldman as he bustled through the door with his customary harried
look and armful of bulging files.
Goldman
waved Rael from her place, sat down and, as the cashier returned with
coffee-and to go, gave her a piece of plastic, ordering the full three-dollar
special American breakfast, and immediately took control of the meeting.
"Disson's expecting us," he said. "I told him there would be no
more than four of you, so we've got to sort things out."
"We
can't meet with so many of us still
in jail," Tim Webb objected.
"Hey...
you want to keep jacking 'round with Sylvester or deal with the man himself?
Conks open up shop tomorrow. He turns us down now," Leo grinned, "and
I think I can get a motion filed this afternoon. Disson
made a mistake that he doesn't know about yet. If he'd waited ‘til tomorrow, or
the day after, the process couldn't have been started in time. For what it's
worth," he added, sucking at his diner coffee, hot and nasty, from the
thick, chipped cup, "I'd say it's now or never. So... who's coming and
who’s not?"
"Well,
hold on," Andy recoiled, "...just hold on! There's other shit we have
to deal with. Somebody should go to the hotels where out-of-town media gomers
are staying; some of them have to be fairer about yesterday's busts than the
Urinal. Someone has to follow up with the veterans' groups. And, really,
someone ought to pay a visit to the Blue Hotel..."
By
this he meant a bankrupt Journey's Inn, commandeered by United Nations
peacekeepers for barracks and offices, duly re-painted the same repulsive shade
of turquoise as their berets.
"I'll
do the veterans and UNAPIS," Soames volunteered.
"I'll
take care of the media," said Tim Webb. "Mr. Disson
sounds like a man with a negative potential aura. Maybe some of these
reporters, on the other hand, can be convinced of what we can achieve with
love, and truth and then they can..."
"I'll
go with Tim," Fredrika added, earning Andy's
instant gratitude. He reached into his pockets, sorting through notes and
addresses scrawled on the back of yesterday's demo flyers.
"Uh,
uh... sure, the two of you do that! The columnist from that Milwaukee public
radio station – he seemed interested, considering the flame-out of their
Republican convention next summer over those bomb threats. Here's some of these
other people I found out about," he added, handing over the back of a
"UN OUT of AMERICA, NOW!" leaflet with a half dozen names scribbled
above the endorsement list. "Haven't talked to any of them, yet, but
they're mostly staying in that Hyatt, by the U..."
"Don't
forget the people from the new Voice, even if it does lean sorta
libertarian now," suggested Soames, almost reverently. "Very
important! That's in New York..."
"And
the Stormy’s Secrets tabloid..." added Richard
Reid...
"Yeah,"
Goldman seconded. So... that leaves..."
"Me
n' Marty... Rael..." Andy's voice trailed off.
Walker
stood up again. "It is easier for camels to pass through needles' eyes
than that unrighteous men be turned away from
sinning." He crossed himself, then made an undecipherable benediction over
the counter. A cook in his bacon-spattered bib raised a spatula of warning to
the cashier, who pointed to the loony, first, then waved to encompass the rest
of the contingent, even Goldman... furiously sopping up eggyolk
with his toast and shoveling half a slice into his mouth...
"All
you go, now!"
"...
and Richard," Andy winced.
"Yeah!"
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