“Well …” She released Reuben’s hand, let him free to pluck a second drifting leaf from the gutter. “Well, we write letters. Doc speaks at hearings. We support the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society and Audubon and the neighborhood coalitions and Amnesty International and the ACLU and the NAACP and God only knows what else but we give ten percent, every year. Ten percent.”
“Ten percent of what?”
“About half what Doc used to make. What difference does that make anyhow? We do all we can, George, and that’s all we can do and that’s all anyone can do. Lots of things have changed, George, I’m sorry.”
“Not me.”
“No, not you.”
“Let them fuckers change, not me.” Looking over her shoulder at the loitering missionaries. “Okay. Just thought I’d ask. You know where to find me if you change your mind.”
“If you really need money …” She looked in her handbag. “I think I’ve got a C-note in here somewhere.”
“I’ll take it. Make this fuckin’ encounter look right.”
She groped through the jumbled mess of her handbag, among the old letters, old bills, old receipts, lipsticks, combs, a hairbrush, coins, crumpled dollar bills, a purse with I.D. cards and credit cards and more coins and more paper money, medical prescriptions, checkbook, bankbook, address book, pencils, ballpoint pens, a pair of dirty kid’s socks, a compact foldup raincape, Doc’s spare set of reading glasses (which he’d been seeking for a month), bent photographs, a badly misfolded city map (“Never did know a woman,” Hayduke once said, “who could fold a map”), nail clippers, makeup kit, magic crystals, sacred feathers, a Tarot pack with half the cards missing, three of Reuben’s lost marbles, mystical postcards from Benares and Kyoto and Naropa Colorado, a crushed flower, nail files and emery boards, rubber bands, and barettes …
“Just a minute, it’s in here, I know it’s in here somewhere.”
… sunglasses without a case, a case without sunglasses, old shopping lists, old lists of important things to do carefully enumerated in descending order of importance, important telephone numbers without names and names without numbers, a pack of chewing gum, dental floss, a toothbrush, a water pistol loaded with ink (leaking) for repelling muggers and murderers and dope-crazed sex fiends, and green beret? a green beret?, a number of other — many many other — essential items.
“Well I thought I had it, sorry, George, must’ve spent it, will a twenty do?”
“I’ll take it.” He took it. He piled his shopping bag of crumpled newspapers on top of his shopping cart of stuffed garbage bags, wiped the rainwater from his dark glasses and flashed his big hearty evil grin. “So long, Bonnie, you sexy slut. Goddamn but you make me horny. You always were a fuckin’ good — “
“Don’t be gross.” She held up her hand. “Don’t say it. Don’t even think it anymore, it won’t do either of us any good at all. Are you still living in that cave?”
“Me?” Grinning. “What cave? So long, kid.”
“Who rubs your back these days? I suppose you’re on your seventeenth teenybopper by now.”
“Seventeenth?” Grinning again. “Just me and my memories, kid, what else do I need? Better go.” Glancing over her umbrella at the dawdling pair obstructing the entrance to Snelgrove’s sugar den. “Yeah. Say hello to Doc for me, that lucky old fart. And goodbye. Bye, Bonnie; bye, Rube. …”
He was gone. Suddenly. Vanished. Like a dream.
She stared at the broad doors of ZCMI, the great vast crowded horrible Mormon department store, into which the bag lady and her shopping cart had somehow, suddenly, magically, disappeared. The rain slackened, stopped. One of the young men, brushing hurriedly past Bonnie, attempting to follow the bag lady, was delayed at the doors by a spontaneous, unpredictable eruption of shoppers. Hastily collapsing his umbrella, he tried to force his way into the store but was stymied by a barrage of exiting umbrellas exploding in his face.
The other watched Mrs. Sarvis.
Bonnie raised a forefinger and cleared the welling moisture from her eyes. Re-slinging her handbag and retrieving her little boy, she walked slowly around the puddles, over the cracks, down the sidewalk to her car.
14
Code of the Eco-Warrior
Doctor Sarvis, laboring on his bicycle up the long grade of Ninth South toward his home on 23rd East, was not unaware of the pressure of the traffic accumulating in his rear, the clamor of horns pounded by impatient fists, the motorized hatred fermenting at his back.
But he thought, Fuck ‘em.
Let ‘em wait. Let ‘em fester. Let ‘em walk. Let ‘em ride a bike like me, would do me and them and everybody a world of good. Cleanse our city’s air, reinvigorate the blood, tone up the muscles, strengthen the heart, burn up that surplus fat, stave off arteriosclerosis, cut down on bypass operations, eliminate transplants, lower the cholesterol count, prolong lives. Yes and reduce oil consumption, slow down the waste of steel and rubber and copper and glass, free human labor and engineering skills for important work — anything bad for the auto industry and bad for the oil industry is bound to be good for America, good for human beings, good for the land.
Terra primum, god fucking damnitall, as somebody used to say. And don’t forget the exclamation mark: Terra primum! This above all: to the earth be true and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false —
Some fellow in an ancient boat of rusted-red Michigan sheetiron was trying to force him off the street. Him, Doc Sarvis. Yes, a swarthy halfbreed in an antique GM convertible, top down — Buick, Caddie, Olds? — was actually jamming Doc against the right-hand curb. Gently. But firmly.
What the —? Canst not then be false to any, any what? Any man, god, planet, organic system? I say there, sir, do watch your bloody manners or I’ll have you horsewhipped through the streets like a dog!
Doc saw his opening and took it, humping his rubber over the curb and up the sidewalk between a row of Chinese elms and a ragged, unbarbered hedge. The Hindus lived here, the Samoans, the newly arrived Koreans and Vietnamese: not the sort to fret over trimming shrubbery.
Thinking he’d escaped his tormentor, Doc was horrified to discover, suddenly, that the oversized motorcar was right behind him, following him up the sidewalk, clipping twigs from the hedge. One glance to his rear and there it was, the wallowing low-slung ragtop, the huge chrome grin of the grille mimicked by the flashy grin of the dark-faced driver. Doc flipped the man a finger; the man replied likewise. Up yours, monsieur.
Well —! We’ll show this character something he’s not going to find so funny.
Dropping off the curb ahead, Doc veered sharply down an alleyway, threading a narrow lane between battered and overflowing garbage cans. Smell of rotten fruit, plastic diapers full of oriental babyshit, broken wine bottles, the boiled bones of cat, dog, rat, fishheads, burnt olive oil, curry, buffalo milk, rancid butter …
He heard a great clangor of banging metal behind. Yes, the car still followed, knocking garbage cans to right and left. The man was mad, malevolent, clearly bent on homicide. Unable to escape, Doc resolved to make a stand, face and face down this lunatic.
He halted abruptly behind the corner of a broken-down garage. The car pulled up and stopped, angled in, blocking him off from further flight. Doc reached inside his suitcoat breast pocket and pulled out his only weapon, a leaky fountain pen. He unscrewed the cap, put a thumbnail under the vacuumatic lever, loosened his necktie and waited.
The driver of the car (a 1963 Eldorado in shabby condition, needing body work, new rubber, shock absorbers, a paint job, headlights, a new windshield, hubcaps, chrome trim, etc.) shut off his throbbing, rumbling, guttural engine (500 cubes in there) and grinned at Doctor Sarvis.
The good doctor waited, ready for trouble.
“Doc,” the man said, his grin growing broader, “good old Doc …”
Sarvis stared, trying to remember the identity of that dark-skinned, smooth-shaven face, the eyes concealed by dense sunglasses, h
ead covered by a sporting cap of dirty tweed of the kind that hobos and burglars traditionally wore, the heavy shoulders and beer-barrel chest clad in a field jacket of desert camouflage, faded, greasy, frayed at the seams. Not the Banana Republic type of camoufleur. Nor yet your ordinary freeway-interchange transient derelict either. This bum belonged to and had created a class with only one member. One was enough. One was all it needed. One was an excess. In a nation of pansies one nettle formed a majority, one prickly pear a quorum.
Nevertheless it seemed he wanted help.
Still unrecognized, he pulled off the sunglasses. “It’s me, Doc. Holy shit, you blind?”
“Is that you?”
“Fuck yes, who else.”
“You’re dead.”
“Not yet I ain’t.”
“What happened to your beard?” Doc felt his own for reassurance, his formerly salt and pepper bush now largely salt, but respectably trimmed, professorial, smelling faintly of shampoo, cigar smoke, merthiolate. “Never saw you baldface before, George.”
“Camouflage, Doc, camouflage. I’m the man with a dozen faces now and a dozen different sets of I.D. Last month I was Casper Goodwood. Month before — “
“Where’d you get that name? Casper Goodwood?”
“Out of a phonebook. Where I get them all. Before that I was Eugene Gant. For a while I was Julien Fuckin’ Sorel. One day in Denver I was Daisy Miller. Liz Bennett. Zuleika Dobson. And so on. It’s easy, you pick out a fuckin’ name, go to the right place, put down your bucks, pick up your new I.D. Anybody can be anybody in this fuckin’ country if he’s got the dough. What’re you lookin’ at?”
What am I looking at? I wish I was looking at the road map of Crete. Of Provence. Of central Africa. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you don’t look happy to see me, Doc. All I want is some help, Doc, just a little fuckin’ help for one fuckin’ little project and then I’ll go away and you’ll never see me again.”
“I don’t have my checkbook, George.”
“Checkbook?” The man laughed. “How do you like this piece of iron, Doc? A Caddie classic. What could I do with a check? Me — in a bank? I need cash, Doc, cold hard U.S. of A. paper currency. Also I need your body. Just — “
“My what?”
“ —just a warm body, stand watch for me, just one fuckin’ night, Doc, that’s all, then I’ll handle everything on my own.”
“Code of the eco-warrior.”
“The what? Right. Yeah, code of the eco-warrior. That’s me, that’s it, Rule Number One: Don’t get caught.”
“No, you’ve got it wrong already. Rule Number One is, Nobody gets hurt. Nobody. Not even yourself.”
“Sure, Doc.” Hayduke crumpled his beercan, tossed it out the car. Into the alley. He reached to the floor and drew two more, yanking them from the plastic collar, opened one and offered the other to his mentor. Doc shook his head. “What? You won’t drink my fuckin’ beer? What does that mean, Doc?” Hayduke looked hurt, then sad, then wise. “Leaves more for me.” He slurped a throatful from the open can. “You tryin’ to lose weight? The old belly sloppin’ over the belt again, eh, Doc? You do look kind of soft.”
“Rule Number Two is, Don’t get caught.”
“That’s right, Number Two, that’s the important rule.”
“And Rule Number Three is, If you do get caught you’re on your own. Nobody goes your bail. Nobody hires you a lawyer. Nobody pays your fines.”
“Shit yes, Doc, that’s the way I operate. Code of the eco-warrior, that’s me. But just this once — “
“But there’s more, much more. The eco-warrior works alone, or with one or two old and trusted comrades that he’s known for years.”
“Right. Sure you don’t want a beer?”
“The eco-warrior forms no network, creates no club or party or organization of any kind. He relies on himself (or sometimes herself) and on his little cell of two or three, never more.”
Hayduke grins, white fangs glinting. “That’s right. Like in the old days, just you and me and Bonnie and old Seldom Seen Smith.”
Enchanted by his thoughts, his new program, Doc rambled on, ignoring the proffered cannister of Coors beer. (A low-grade brew anyhow.) “To summarize so far: The ecology warrior hurts no living thing, absolutely never, and he avoids capture, passing all costs on to them, the Enemy. The point of his work is to increase their costs, nudge them toward net loss, bankruptcy, forcing them to withdraw and retreat from their invasion of our public lands, our wilderness, our native and primordial home …”
“Right on, Doc.” Hayduke belched, farted, scratched one armpit and slapped dead the fat horsefly that was reconnoitering his — Hayduke’s — unwashed neck. “Let’s hear it for Mother Teresa.”
“… relies on himself and a small circle of trusted friends, a tiny felonious conspiracy to commit non-felonious misdemeanors against the perimeters of the techno-industrial ordnung. But this is merely the beginning, a mere preliminary, and Mother Teresa, bless her sweet misguided soul, has nothing to do with it. Avoiding organization and all forms of networking, operating strictly on anarchic principles of democratic decentralism, the eco-warrior must also be a man or woman of heroic dedication to the work. Not fanatic dedication — no place for fanatics here — but heroic dedication. Because the eco-warrior must do his or her work without hope of fame or glory or even public recognition, at least for the present. The eco-warrior is anonymous, mysterious, unknown to any but his few if any chosen comrades. He wears no uniform, is awarded no medals, is granted no privileges of rank. Not only does he win no taste of personal fame, he must expect the opposite, namely and to wit, public obloquy and vilification, verbal abuse and — “
“Pardon, Doc, what’s the word?”
“What word? Try not to interrupt, young man.”
“That word, oblo-key? Oblo-kie?”
“Obloquy. Oblo-kwie. From the Latin obloquium, to speak against, i.e., to censure or to subject to concerted and widespread disapproval. Get it?”
“Got it.”
“Good. E.g., you cut down a powerline somewhere, sabotage a trucking terminal, monkey-wrench a delicate and expensive computer bank assembly, you must then expect that certain elements of the power structure will murmur against you.”
“Yeah? Okay, I get it. Obloquy. Like oh be quiet.”
“Yes. Jam a wooden shoe in the gearbox, drop a monkey wrench in the transmission, throw a Spaniard or a spanner into the works — you will not be loved. Editorial writers will denounce you, anonymously, from the safe security of their editorial offices. Commerce chambers will burn you in effigy — or in person if they catch you. Congressmen will fulminate, senators abominate, bureaucrats denunciate and all the vipers of the media vituperate.”
“Music, Doc, music, it’s music in my ears.” Sprawled across the front seat of his enormous and worthless motorcar (birdshit on the hood and stains of catpiss on the boot and a live pet gopher snake coiled among the wiring behind the termite-riddled walnut-paneled dashboard), young Hayduke tossed his empty over the side and popped the top from another can of Coors Curse — the sweet green death from the Eastern Slope. He propped a waffle-stomper booted foot on top of the dash, draped his other leg over the back of the sagging passenger’s seat, and listened carefully.
“True,” said Doc, “regard it as music. But you won’t find it so musical when those who should be your admirers also denounce you. When the official conservation societies and wilderness clubs and wildlife federations and defenders of fur-bearers and national resource defense councils scramble and scurry to place maximum distance between themselves and you, insisting that they deplore your work and even going so far as to offer monetary reward for information leading to your capture and conviction. Yes, hard to believe but a fact.”
“True fact?”
“That’s a fact, true fact. Furthermore —” Warming to his subject, Doc put his pen away and felt inside his coat pockets for a cigar. All gone. He held a hand towa
rd Hayduke. “Guess I’ll take that beer now.”
Hayduke looked at the beer in his hand, half consumed, and then at the floor of his spacious Cadillac (body by Fisher), carpeted with crushed beercans, beercan collars, beercan tabs, crumpled six-pack cartons and a moldy puke-green plush of old vomit and stinking beer-stain spills. All the paraphernalia but no actual drinkable beer. He pulled the keys and tossed them to Doctor Sarvis, M.D. “Try the trunk, Doc.”
“Furthermore,” continued Doc, leaning his bicycle with care against the wall of the garage, “not only does the eco-warrior work without hope of fame and praise, not only does he work in the dark of night amidst a storm of official public calumny, but he works without hope of pecuniary recompense.” He stepped to the back of the car. His bicycle folded its front wheel and collapsed. He unlocked the trunk and raised the lid. A pack rat scampered out, followed by a pair of cone-nosed kissing bugs.
“Triatoma,” mused the good doctor. “Triatome protracta.” He reached, somewhat gingerly, for the twelve-pack of Budweiser resting on a heap of log chains, tow chains, tire chains. A tarantula glowered at him with its eight near-sighted but fearsome eyes. Doc brushed it gently aside, lifted out the twelve-pack.
“What do you mean no pecuniary recompense?” said George. “Hell’s fuck, Doc, us terrorists got to live too.”
“True, but only on a subsistence level. We want no mercenaries in the ranks of our eco-warriors. As I said, you do your needed work out of love, the love that dare not speak its name, the love of spareness, beauty, open space, clear skies and flowing streams, grizzly bear, mountain lion, wolf pack and twelve-pack, of wilderness and wanderlust and primal human freedom and so forth.”
He started to put the carton back in the trunk; Hayduke signaled otherwise. Doc heaved it forward. Before closing the trunk lid, Doc made a quick scan of the trunk’s contents: the mass of chains, a spare tire, the big bird-spider, a dozen one-gallon milk jugs full of water (or something similar), a five-gallon fuel can, assorted gloves both new and old, a prise bar, a tool case, bolt cutters, a small plastic funnel, a pair of old sneakers, a pair of smooth-soled cowboy boots, greasy coveralls, a blue hardhat, a coffeecan full of lapidary grit, a can of spray lubricant (WD-40), and an incomplete set of rusty golf clubs, in a bag, to camouflage everything else. And of course a case of canned pork and beans in a dynamite box.