Sunday, late afternoon. My biographer and I are
reading the newspapers and taking in the Central
Square wildlife. Our vantage point: a sidewalk café,
on the first really warm day of spring. Last winter
was almost a throwback to old-time New England
winters, when snowdrifts topped stop signs and you
could walk past your own brother on the other side of
a snow wall and never even know it. The score so far:
one fender-bender, one bum fight, a dude on a
three-wheeled bicycle who wails like a siren as he
rides, a few knock-out women, and one ugly dog. Pug or
some damn thing. My biographer sips his coffee and
turns his face to the sun. Our table offers the best
possible exposure to passing automobile fumes. I turn
the page of my newspaper.
"Here comes Mickey," I alert him.
"I don't care. There's no scene for him to wreck."
Right. Mickey is the most desperate in our single
older dude, no-girlfriend crowd. He hasn't had a woman
in ten years.
"One time man, I swear, I’m at Park Street Station and
I’m having a great conversation with a girl I’d just
met, and he’s standing outside and he sees me. And
when I pretend not to see him he starts hollering my
name, and when I ignore him he runs over and starts
blabbering. And she takes off before I can even get
her phone number. I was sooo pissed."
My biographer turns to catch the sun evenly, eyes
closed.
"He just changed the whole dynamic," he mutters.
My biographer is a tall, lanky dude. Women like him,
but he can be a bit short with them if he thinks they
are stupid. Or anyone for that matter. I tell him he
must control this if we’re to improve our social
lives. Find out where the parties are, mingle with a
better class of woman. If you don't like one, maybe
she has a friend. Just relax. That's the ticket.
"I really liked that Miriam last night."
He’s talking about the post-doc from Northeastern we
met at an art reception, who was with a friend.
"She's really smart and fun," he mumbles, half dozing.
Which is fine, but for one thing: Miriam was mine. The
other girl was his. I approached Miriam and we hit it
right off. I can see it will come, someday, to a
mano-a-mano between he and I. Ah, well, that is life.
May the best man win. An Indian named Cochise will
toss us each a knife under the broiling desert sun,
and he’ll say to each of us: You understand, white
man? And we will say: Yes, Cochise, we understand.
But I can’t kill him yet, I have need of this man.
Today we must prepare him for his foray into the
field. Mickster walks up. He starts right in.
"Just came from church, met a girl and we were talking
for a long time afterward. We walked together to Park
Street and when I ask her for her e-mail, she says:
naw, I get enough junk e-mail already."
My biographer and I laugh but Mickey isn't laughing.
He stands in that nervous way of his, hands jammed
into the pockets of his denim jacket, sort of rocking
back and forth, talking too fast, tripping over his
tongue.
"Hey man you're in my sun."
Mickey shifts over, away from my biographer.
"Isn't that mean? And she goes to church! A
church-goer!"
I’ve tried to help him. But he has a desperation women
can smell. He’s tried everything, church, personal
ads, singles dances. Futile. He has been on a thousand
dates, all dead ends. He’s in his forties and his
style is this corny Sixties thing. An "End Sanctions
on Iraq" button, retro John Lennon glasses, and
corduroy pants that are too short. Flooders.
"What's wrong with me guys? What am I doing wrong?"
That's what you do wrong, Mickey, you talk too much.
But mindful of his good qualities I remain silent. All
he wants is a girlfriend. Poor bastard.
"Mickey did you ever join that gym?" I’m only trying
to be helpful. Mickey has a big beer gut. Which is
kind of unfair, because he doesn't even drink. All the
drawbacks and none of the pleasure. I’ve been trying
to tell him, as tactfully as I can, that women don’t
want to hook-up with a guy with a big beer gut. It’s
just not a turn-on. He’s balding and does this
comb-forward thing with his hair, which is better than
a comb-over, I guess, but not by much. In another of
his stories a woman tells him his bangs are crooked.
He ignores the hint about the beer gut this time.
"What gets me isn't the rejection, guys, well yea that
gets me too, but why are they so mean about it?"
It's true. Some people have a "kick me" sign forever
pasted onto their asses. Mickey is one of these
people. I’m hoping he has something to do. I know my
biographer considers him a downer.
"I could be feeling fine, and by the time I’m done
talking to him, I'm always depressed," he told me. I
used to feel the same way, but lately I’m more amused
than annoyed by Mickey. He’s my on-the-spot,
front-line, in-the-trenches witness to another bloody
battleground, the battle of Love in the New
Millennium. As in war, he has seen things no man
should ever see. Last week he got a walk-by. He
explained what this is.
Walk-by: you make a date through the Internet, neither
of you has seen the other. Not in person. Maybe a
picture. She says meet her someplace like the Bon Pain
in Harvard Square, someplace open and neutral. She
says stand or sit near the front door, what color coat
do you have, all that. At the appointed time you sense
someone looking at you, eyes circling at a distance.
Discreetly. Checking you out.
And if they don't like what they see, they keep
walking.
"A walk-by. Personal ads, singles chat rooms. Happens
all the time."
"Like a low-level pass from a reconnaissance plane," I
said.
"Right. Like a drive-by shooting. But it's a walk-by
shooting, straight through the heart. A walk-by."
An idiot in a Camry hits his brakes and lays skid at
the intersection. Probably tailgating while talking on
a cellphone, the yuppie swine. We all glance over but
there’s no thunk! of impact. Nothing this time.
Today Mickey has an agenda, thank heavens. He’s off to
meet a woman-friend for coffee. She keeps him on-call,
to fill short, unaccounted-for slots of time, between
really important dates. He allows the indignity, so he
gets no sympathy from me. They tell him flat-out
they’re not interested, not that way. He knows he has
a craven, disgusting desire for any female company he
can get. He knows he is a fool. He bids farewell and
hurries on. Good. There is business to attend to. A
woman walking a little yapper dog passes by, the dog’s
little legs a blur of motion.
"That's no dog dammit, why doesn't she get a real dog?
Like a Nepalese Ridgeback Hound? Or a Giant
Schnauzer?"
"Courageous dogs, Schnauzers," my biographer answers,
"Ridgebacks too."
"Must cost a fortune keeping that thing alive," I say,
"she wants a big dog, not a little dog."
My biographer dons his leather jacket, bought
second-hand after his last one got ripped-off at a
Rainbow Gathering. The air has freshened a bit. It may
be a cold night yet.
"That's about the right size for a Rottweiler snack. A
tidbit," he says.
He adjusts his chair to the shifting sun. I study the
huge, gray Mausoleum-style post office across the
street, about right for its function, to convey
permanence and state authority. On the other hand, the
wrought iron bars over the windows give it a bit of
the county jail look. Apt, perhaps. There is no
authority without punishment? The state-as-jail? Jail
of the mind? I push this aside, to ponder later. I
would put the question to my biographer, but this line
of thought could badly sidetrack him right now.
"What about the camera?" I am scanning my mental
checklist. A bandana soaked in white vinegar will be
about all he can bring for the teargas, goggles are
out of the question at the border search. Loose, thick
clothing will soften the impact of rubber bullets. A
little.
"Better to buy it once I'm in. Any cheap 35 millimeter
disposable will do. A camera at the Canadian border
might tip them off. They could deny me entrance."
"Good thinking. That's just the sort of thing those
bastards will be on the look-out for."
Those Nazis will be pulling clothes out of travel
bags, throwing them to the ground, heavy psych
intimidation, checking every zippered pocket on every
duffel bag that reaches that striped crossing gate for
two weeks.
Oh ho what have we here, well looky looky here, a
camera. Gonna take pictures BOY what was you gonna to
take pictures of? What do you think you are, some kind
of ARTISTE? Tell you what BOY, this here is a
sub-ver-sive cam-ee-ra, so how about you turn around
and haul-ass home! We're stamping your passport NEIN!
And they would. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world
outside the Movement, the cops can do anything they
want, especially when it comes to security operations
for the Trust. All people suspected of having an
opinion will be turned back at the border. They did it
for Prague. And they are doing it for Quebec City.
Long hair huh? Sorry buddy, you look like trouble. You
all go, they'll say, pointing to a nice
Christian-looking couple. Have a nice trip, hear? YOU
stay. He points. Then they stamp your passport persona
non grata, so it's no use to try your luck at a
different crossing. Of course, if you’re a known
rabble-rouser, say there’s a picture of you holding a
banner or a megaphone at the Battle of Seattle, two
years ago, they have already been looking for you.
There is no way you will get into Canada.
The hair we anticipate. After a visit to Collage Hair
Styles next door he’s the picture of a fine young man.
Still, my biographer, at six four and with green,
wolf-like eyes, draws attention anywhere. This is a
disadvantage. We need him to be a midget with a
perpetually cowed expression and a halting, uncertain
gait. But there is no solution for this.
Or is there? I’ve been drilling him to look at the
ground submissively while his bags are checked, like a
beat-down peasant in El Salvador before a jackbooted
jefe at a roadblock. Si señor no señor, gracias señor
gracias. He’s a difficult pupil, groveling not being
his forte. If his ugly temper gets the best of him,
the mission will be blown.
"How about a press pass? What newspaper you want to be
from?" He actually does write for a newspaper, a small
one, but may as well be creative.
"If a camera will keep me out, a press pass definitely
will, you idiot."
"Maybe, but once inside the country, it might get you
into the conference center. To report from the inside!
What a coup!"
This one could cut both ways. In the end he nixes the
press pass. It’s his call, his ass on the line. We
could make a nice one on a computer in about ten
minutes, laminate it, but we stick to the original
plan of passing him off as an ordinary jerk-off in
every respect. Nothing to call attention. Once the
shit hits the fan, it’s unlikely a press pass will
help anyway. It will be every man for himself.
Holly walks past our sidewalk table and sings out a
hello to me. I met her on the Hill, where they put me
on my present bouquet of happy pills. I think she
likes me, but I’m afraid of her. Another woman walks
talking to no one in particular. Let's face it. This
is Central Square, Mental Square, Cambridge. People
talk to themselves here. It’s humbling to think that
so many people must have more interesting
conversations with themselves than they think they
would have with me.
Why are we doing it? Because globalization is the
World War II of our generation, street action our
risk. Not real bullets, true. No risk compared to what
dad or old grandpa had to face. But our job just the
same.
When there’s a job to do, an American soldier just
does it. I shall remember this line for my next
address to the men.
I consider, briefly, resigning my commission and
starting my war all over again, as a member of the
Black Bloc. Our elite battalion. The foremost experts
in civil disobedience tactics. Street combat. Because
the cops will attack first. Some say the Black Bloc is
infiltrated with undercover cops. This is a murky
world.
A la Colonel Kurtz, Conrad, Heart of Darkness, all
that. Just quit being a general and go to paratrooper
school and eventually go off to become crazy in the
jungle. But not before having maximum impact. I ask my
biographer what he knows about joining the Black Bloc.
Where do you submit your papers?
"Forget it man, you're too old. You gotta be able to
hop on this table here from a standstill."
I eye the table. A good three feet up. Agile.
"They're mostly kids," he says.
"In D.C. I saw four of them, the cops had them trapped
up in a statue. They had just draped it with a banner.
Four guys, and they jumped off that statue, all at
once, right over the cops’ heads! In four different
directions." With his thumbs and pinkies extended he
shoots his hands apart over his head, showing how the
jumpers scattered.
"The cops chased but they hit the ground running, got
lost in the crowd. If I had a camera I’d be sitting on
a Pulitzer right now. Damn."
Washington D.C., April 14, IMF/World Bank, an historic
day for the human species. The People now stretching
and yawning but well on their way toward Wakefulness.
The shots fired at the Battle of Seattle having been
heard around the world. He examines something on the
back of his hand. Probably a fur patch that will begin
to expand as he transforms into his werewolf state. I
wonder who his victim will be. Some poor asshole in a
rowdy bar he draws into making a wisecrack about his
white, slouch, country dufus-looking cowboy hat. Which
he wears expressly for this purpose.
"Ignorant assholes. Preppy fucks. Like they got a
right to make a comment about my hat," he’ll say.
My biographer hails from El Paso. He doesn't
understand these people.
Finally he heads to his night job, some overnight
counselor gig at a halfway house. He doesn't like to
hang around waste cases on his own time, but he has a
curious natural sympathy for them. In America, you set
yourself up with a Section Eight apartment and a
disability check, for being a drunk-slash-substance
abuser, and you’re all set. Meanwhile people on the
street who are really crazy, too crazy to get help,
never get it. It's a great country. About half the
people on the street need real help. And about half
just need a swift kick in the ass. That’s what one
friend of mine says, anyway, a woman on the streets
for a couple of years but who pulled herself up, the
hard way.
I head back inside the coffee shop. It’s a bit chilly
again. This is the time of year you are sweating in
Bermuda shorts one minute and freezing your balls off
the next. An Asian chick I’ve been pining for stands
just outside the doorway, smiling and talking into a
cellphone, tormenting me deliberately with evidence of
her rich social life, from which I am utterly
excluded. My last two attempts at striking up a
conversation having fallen flat.
I could go for a big sausage-and-egg grinder, sub,
hero, hoagie, whatever you call it, depending on which
side of the Mason-Dixon line you’re on. The music in
the coffee shop has gone from the most excellent Bob
Marley to garbage can lids again.
Instead I go to Sari’s Falafel Kingdom, a tiny
mom-and-pop falafel sandwich shop, where I can get a
falafel sandwich with extra tahini sauce, to go. As I
open the glass door and walk in, Sari, the owner,
looks up and says, "Amigo!" Like always I answer back
"Sadiq!" -- the Arabic word for "friend," which he
taught me. I place my order, pay, and wave good-bye. I
go across the street to the community television
station, where they have a public computer room. I
want to check my mail.
Damn that Mickey.
One night, at his house, he showed me these horny
loser websites. He does them all the time, makes dates
that way. I sat scrolling through pictures, morbid
fascination urging me on.
"Hey how's about this one!" I say.
"That's bait, Wheatgrass Man. That’s someone else’s
picture, and if you respond you get directed to a
phone sex site, or some kind of barely legal
prostitution. The rule is, if it looks too good to be
true, it p-p-p-probably is."
Finally he sucked me into answering an ad from a dame
up in Marblehead. Looks great from the picture. Forty
two. Her name is Tammi, at least that's what it says:
“I like adventure, working out, sports, music, the
arts, philosophy, romance, reading, writing and
reaching for the stars. My male friends think I'm sexy
and mysterious, my female friends think I'm loyal and
elegant. I'm not afraid to fight for the underdog. And
I like peace and love and all that jazz.”
All that jazz? I read on:
“Looking for someone in excellent shape, handsome and
rugged, with a working brain. Someone with rhythm!
Dangerous on the outside and a real gem on the inside.”
Hot damn! Now here I am, wasting time, valuable time
away from the Movement, checking this stupid e-mail.
All Mickey's fault. I click open my "mailbox." There’s
a message back from "Tammi":
“Demi-god and poet? Can one bank on those assertions?”
Jesus, I forgot. To answer an ad, you have to create
one, so you can have a "mail box" and a code. I was
just goofing, wrote the first silly thing that came to
mind. All of one line. Now I write back:
“Why do men think you’re mysterious? The sexy part I
can see. Maybe the demi-god poet stuff was a bit
exaggerated, but at the least I am a Renaissance man.”
I look around the computer room, self-conscious. I
hope no one sees me doing this.
It’s time for me to head to my own job, telephone
fundraising for various do-gooder organizations like
Ban World Hunger and Save the Baby Penguins and such.
It pays the bills. During my break I telephone Miriam,
the Northeastern graduate student from the art
reception last night. She acts kind of funny, not all
that friendly. Maybe she senses that I was confusing
her for someone else, drunk as I was. I didn't like
her that much anyway.
SHOWCASE @laurahird.com
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
