by Ted Bernard
“With all due respect, Katherine, I’ve got to tell you, that chant was the highlight of the morning for me,” Astrid countered.
“Me too,” admitted Frank and José.
Katherine nodded. “We’re running out of time. Should I report on my meeting with that staff member now?”
“Yeah,” said Nick.
Katherine took a few moments to gather her notes and to remind herself about discretion. Later she admitted that she was unpracticed at covering her feelings. She typically would flush at the first tiny act of deception. On that night she said she couldn’t just choose to mask or not mask those feelings. If she tried too hard, it would simply bring on inarticulacy and blushing. On the other hand, if she weren’t mindful, something would slip out. So, she decided to just stick to the facts, to share data without emotion, to keep the momentum going forward. This was a path that derived naturally from her logical, literal self.
She began. “My source believes we are on the cusp of what could become a campus-wide resistance with enough legs to flush backroom deals into the open and draw other allies to our cause. Three keys here are, first, to sustain the spirit of dissent with almost daily actions; events that garner media attention, do not damage property, and are serious but also whimsical and amusing. We can’t let everyone sink back into apathy. Second, we’ve got to keep the protests and demonstrations non-violent. And third, for the moment, we should withhold all the background information we possibly can.”
“Movement Organization 101,” observed Nick disdainfully. “Anything else?”
Katherine shot a sharp-eyed glare back at Nick. She decided not to take the bait. “Yes,” she replied. “The other big idea I picked up is that we should consider converting part of our campaign into an ‘occupy movement’, like the demonstrations on Wall Street and across the country last year. The obvious place for this would be Blackwood Forest. But since it’s so far from campus, a better strategy, at least at first, would be to set up on campus, someplace central. Permission to have a presence, say, on Centennial Quad every day, might be granted.” Katherine paused and seemed flushed.
Lara spoke up. “I like the occupy idea but I was never impressed with the non-hierarchical, unfocused nature of those protests. We don’t have to be rigidly top-down but total decentralization should not be our aim. Anarchy is our enemy.”
Katherine agreed. “For sure: our biggest risk is looking like a bunch of Wall Street occupiers. People would conclude it must be a consequence of poor preparation, weak organization, incoherent focus. We risk being seen as airheads not to be taken seriously. We need to be smarter. Also, internal dissent plays right into the hands of the enemy and gets us nowhere, except perhaps time in jail.”
I asked Katherine what her source meant by withholding background information.
“All the dirt on Morse and others will have much greater impact if we first raise the levels of insecurity among university administrators who will be obsessed with Gilligan’s public image. Behind the scenes we need to hint to the president and perhaps to Tulkinghorn and Morse that we know more than we’re saying.”
“Alright, time to open the doors,” Nick announced.
13
At the Jenny’s coffee bar, a crowd of many dozens clogged the room. The young greens stood in small groups drinking mugs of coffee and chai, reliving the events of the morning — the protest that would become an inflection point in their university careers.
“Man, did you see those campus cops shaking in their riot duds? If we’d charged, they would have been dogmeat.” The speaker was a scraggly lothario looking up to a stunning, long-legged hipster woman in a tweed winter coat, black tights, and combat boots. She replied, “Fuck yeah, Jacob!” The place was thrumming with fantasies: storm the bastions, make tumult not love, down with the cops. As more resisters flocked in, revolutionaries seemed primed to take over the movement.
When Nick opened the doors to the outer room, he exclaimed to Em at his side, “Holy shit! Who turned over a rock to expose all these teenagers?”
“A rock?” Em inquired as she and Nick quick-stepped backwards to avoid being crushed by the stampede rushing past them. In the midst of the horde they recognized Adrienne sashaying into the room as sensuously as a supermodel — long strides, hips asway, her body trim as sprung steel. Nick blinked. She wore what he would later describe as Saint Catherine Street chic: a knee-length skirted business suit, flatteringly cut and of elegant fabric, over a ruffled white high-collared blouse; gold bracelets, ear rings, a six-petal broach on her lapel; smoky gray hose, black knee-high boots. Like a CEO strolling down Montreal’s premier shopping street, she was so starkly out of place that two students in jeans and sweatshirts, assuming royalty or at least a university dean, proffered their places. She accepted and haughtily draped her topcoat and handbag over a second chair.
Em asked Nick, “Is that the angry woman? C’est-a-dire, l’allumeuse!
“Oui, Émilie. C’est la vamp,” he confirmed.
Five minutes later, with forty people seated at the tables and another forty sitting on the floor and standing against the walls, Frank opened the meeting with the requisite lines.
“Hello sisters and brothers!” he shouted.
“Yo Frank,” they responded.
“In our tradition of shared democracy, I am co-facilitator tonight along with Katherine, here.”
Frank grabbed his recorder. He trilled an octave or two. “Okay, please stand. Those who know the words of our opening verses, help the others. We’ll sing them through three times.” By the second iteration, the voices of some eighty greens careened from wall to wall, passing through hearts of both the experienced and the dozens of novitiates. After the chant, as if Gaia had descended among them, they stood reverently. Out of the silence, Katherine tapped the Tibetan singing bowl. Allowing its reverberations to fade to a soft hum, Frank led the group through a series of “oms”.
Katherine stood and thanked everyone for coming. She informed them that Nick Marzetti would take minutes. Nick rose. I noted something eventful about his demeanor: sturdy as always, but tonight somehow humorless and unyielding, pissed about something. He directed everyone’s attention to the agenda and told them to pay close attention. He said that this was a ridiculously jam-packed agenda, especially since they had reserved the room for just ninety minutes. Sweeping the room with his eyes, his bushy head rocking left and right, like a boxer before the bell clangs, he stared sternly at the masses and cautioned that Katherine and Frank needed everyone to honor each other’s right to speak, leaving space for him, Nick, to take notes. He seemed to be working himself into a tizzy. He demanded that everyone respect the facilitators’ difficult assignment. “They’re just trying to keep the meeting moving forward, okay?”
Then, to my astonishment, as if something inside him had snapped, he climbed up onto his chair. The burly behemoth from the far north of hairy face and unshorn locks, garbed for deep winter, never a threat in southern Ohio, was now on the table, which sagged under his immensity there in faded coveralls, hiking boots, a wool-lined red plaid parka, frighteningly unhinged, his eyes glazed and red. He jerked his left arm upward and thrust his fist toward the ceiling busting a panel and festooning those below in mouse turds and feathers. In epic outrage, at the top of his voice, he screamed, “My friends, I will promise you this: we will crush those bastards who aim to rape Blackwood Forest! We will drive them from our sacred ground. We shall be victorious!” He halted and glanced dumbly downward. He noted his lofty position on the wobbly table. Looking wan and abashed, to whoops and cheers, he descended. The cheers soon devolved into bedlam, hubbub, tumult. Soon they reached a pitch of window-rattling pandemonium.
Katherine, supposedly at the helm, appeared to be flayed by the chaos. Try as she might, she could not silence the crowd. What was Nick thinking? Frank, help! From there the evening further unraveled.
When Astrid and Em tried to report blandly on their surveillance trip — “Dr. Tulking
horn met clandestinely with some men we are still trying to identify.” — a group of women in the middle of the room, mimicked Nick’s refrain. “Lock him up! Lock him up! We shall be victorious!”
When Megan began to explain the Student Council proposal for the university to divest from fossil fuel companies, a graduate student named Weston Churchill contended they were aiming at the wrong target. “Divesting a few million in fossil fuel companies will have zero impact, not even as a gesture. I say strip out the hedge funds, the securities brokers, the bond dealers, the big banks that screwed us over in '09. Bring the university’s half-billion-dollar endowment home to local banks and financial institutions. Invest in green energy, local green development, schools and social justice in this region. If the university is a model now, it’s a model of how not to uplift this region.” To a standing applause, he concluded his argument.
When Sean put out suggestions about an Occupy Gilligan action, Julianna Ferguson, a slight woman from Connecticut, a veteran of Zuccotti Park and one of Stefan’s advisees, arose from a group in front of Katherine and Frank and made a case for confronting the university and police with tents and a 24/7 presence on Centennial Quad. Her childish round freckled face and reddish curls belied a steely history of resistance from foreclosed houses in Seattle to the redwood forests of California to Wall Street. “I can organize a tree sit in Blackwood that could be sustained through the winter. I’ve done this in California. If we select the right trees, we can hold up things indefinitely. We could try to break Julia Butterfly Hill’s world record of 700-something days. We could post everything on Twitter and Instagram. It would be so awesome! The media would be out there every day!”
When Katherine tried to lead a conversation on ongoing actions to keep the protest alive, a vocal group of about a half-dozen shaggy undergraduates next to Julianna, waving a copy of Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching,ix conspired to advocate a series of tactics, from sugaring gas tanks of Morse Valley Energy vehicles and equipment to spiking survey vehicle tires and trees, to pouring oil on the president’s carpet to kidnapping Tulkinghorn or maybe Morse himself — “Think of the ransom!”. Their spokesperson was Zachary Grayson. Astrid leaned across José to whisper to me, “Sheesh, Zach’s cutting us off at the knees.”
In fact, he had just begun.
Turning to face the crowd, he continued his argument with rising fervor and unassailable logic. “If all our actions are non-violent and controlled by the university via their permitting system, they’ll never fucking pay any attention to us. They’ll just carry on, business as usual. The only way we can challenge their assumptions and their pussy-assed plans to wreck Blackwood and switch to fracked gas, that, if you include all energy used to drill and process the gas and dispose of wastes, and the leakage of methane, it will add to, not lesson, GUO’s carbon load. The only way we will be successful is to take them off their game. We need to bring them down. Omega, baby!”
Astrid, José, Katherine, and the other Stefan-heads in the room understood where Zach was headed. He paused as affirmations ricocheted back and forth across the room. “This, I would argue, is our only option. Bring 'em down! Face it dudes, this is not just about Blackwood. It’s about the future of life on this planet. It’s about climate change and our future, if we have one. Our generation has got to take a stand — just like college kids did during the war in Vietnam and the anti-nuke protests of the eighties. We have to push this administration, the state of Ohio, even the Feds to the edge of the cliff.” Amidst cheers and applause, Zach sat down, high-fiving Julianna and the others.
Like seeds from milkweed pods parachuting in a swirling autumn wind, all shards of order and decorum scattered widely and would not be rejoined this evening or any other. Katherine stood speechless. When she turned to Lara for help, Lara’s chair was empty. Frank struck the Tibetan bowl until at last the crowd hushed.
Gasping to regain the sacred space that had launched the meeting with such promise, Katherine and Frank called for a time out. Except for Nick, who seemed comatose, Frank, Katherine and the rest of us from the steering committee rushed to a door that led to an alley. We wrestled to find consensus. As the clock ticked, we realized we were twenty minutes from disaster: a meeting where chaos had reigned and no decisions had been made. Sean put forward the only viable strategy: Sign up everybody, tell them we shall act as a more-or-less permanent steering committee at their behest, get people to follow us on Twitter and Facebook, and encourage everybody to go on the field trip to Blackwood. “It’s the best we can hope for,” he argued. “We need to recalibrate. Weston Churchill — was that really his name? — had good points about bringing GUO’s investments home. The red-headed girl’s suggestion of a tree-sit appealed to me too. And that boy with the monkeywrenching book, what was his name? He rattled my brain. I keep hearing ‘Bring them down, baby!’ He’s right about getting their attention. On the other hand, what’s the point of a zero-sum game?”
“It’s called late-K to omega,” I said.
“Zach’s an immature and shamelessly conceited prick,” Astrid asserted calmly.
Katherine winced. “Really?” she said.
“On the other hand,” Astrid continued, “he’s a cagey thinker who keeps everyone on their toes. Maybe we should bring him, Julianna — and Weston on board.”
“Let’s go for it,” Frank said.
Astrid’s mordant brain then labeled each member of the group:
Lara: Alpha woman
Katherine: Alpha surrogate
Hannah: Mole extraordinaire
Julianna: Occupying maven
Em: African queen
Sean: Carolina queen
José: Bacardi queen
Jason: Swagman
Nick: Hairy Quebecer
Frank: Time traveler
Zachary: Conceited prick
Weston: Uptight sweetie~
At the onset of the meeting, Lara had spotted Adrienne at the back of the room. She let out an audible gasp and briefly considered a quick exit. On second thought, as she surveyed Adrienne’s smart outfit embellishing her beautiful body, she remembered why she had fallen for the woman. Tonight, she had a hunch that this might be her chance to square things. She whispered her plan to Jason. He responded with a quick nod. In the midst of Zachary Grayson’s disquisition , Lara climbed past Em and Nick, excusing herself as she passed. Leaving the room, her hand on the door handle, she turned to make eye contact with Adrienne and gestured for her to follow. Adrienne subtly acceded. In the heat of Zachary’s pleas, nobody, including Katherine, paid attention to the departure of the two women. They met in the corridor leading to the restrooms.
“What in God’s name are you up to Adrienne, dressed like Michelle Obama in this shabby coffee house? Why are you here?”
“Whoa there, bitch. Calm down. Can’t you put on a more conciliatory tone?”
“Conciliatory, shit! How can I be conciliatory after you slammed me at Meroni’s and then almost killed me and Jason? I know full well it was you. But so far, for some reason, I have not tipped off the police. I should. I really should! They might be interested in, let’s say, the trade route you and some ageing biker dude seem to regularly ply on your Kawasakis.”
“You can prove nothing.”
“Oh, Adrienne, my tempestuous Adrienne.” Lara’s tone was syrupy, then harsh. “Don’t tempt me! When you stood me up, time after time, leaving me bereft and lonely, I began collecting data, due diligence call it. My life as a stalker was intriguing. I have photos and video at both ends of the circuit that might well put you and that biker thug in prison.”
“What is it that you want?”
“Want? It’s not a question of want. What is it that I require? Is that your question?”
“Okay, require.”
“As a start, tell me why in the fuck you smoked Jason and me out of my apartment. Then, if you would be so kind, you might explain what you meant by ‘my minions’ and ‘bewailing your next visit’? And fina
lly, who in God’s name, besides poor Adrienne, the bitch who treated me like dirt, is behind this?”
Adrienne took Lara by the arm and led her through The Jenny and into the inky night. A chilly wind made Lara hunch inward and wrap her arms around herself. Adrienne sighed once and answered the three questions. The smoky fire was meant “to get your attention without burning the place down”. She had not expected Jason to be there. Adrienne admitted that Jasper Morse is somehow involved but “I cannot tell you how or why. The message: ah well, the message. It was meant to scare you away from PCSA. I got the wording from a suspense novel.”
Lara looked into Adrienne’s eyes and decided, despite her deep-seated suspicion and Adrienne’s track record, this time she was telling the truth. She had another question. “Are you here tonight spying on us for Morse?”
Adrienne stood silent, staring intently at The Jenny’s steamy windows, perhaps studying her own reflection. She hesitated still more. Then, in a halting placatory way, she admitted, “Really, Lara, s'just a short-term gig with the man.” She checked her watch. “Yeah, he’s meeting me soon. I’ll tell him what went on here. He’ll pay for the intelligence. After that, I plan for this to be the end of our relationship. The man’s a head case, a very rich head case. He compensates me well. But it’s time we part ways.”
“A head case?”
“Yeah, like many narcissistic corporate megalomaniacs I’ve encountered over the years, he’s drunk with power, has to fill his empty soul with induced adoration. Plus, there’s something hideously dark driving him.”
“Something hideous? Are you in danger?”
“I can take care of myself. My black belt up against his sixty-something bloated body and dodgy heart? No contest. As for the hideous part, I have no idea.”
“Okay then. How about striking a deal?”
