Them

by Jon Ronson

  “It’s strange to see the left and the right coming together on this issue,” I said.

  “Well,” she shrugged, “we all hate Henry Kissinger.”

  “My colleague Alex Jones hopes to smuggle in a hidden camera and film the owl-burning ceremony,” I said.

  Mary brightened.

  “Well, if you guys can do that,” she said, “that I’d like to see. That has never been done. Hang on a minute.”

  Mary went into the other room to make some calls. She returned some minutes later to tell me the good news. A friend of hers called Rick – a local lawyer who had twice successfully infiltrated the Grove – was prepared to meet with Alex and myself.

  “He says he’ll even come in with you,” said Mary. “He looks the part. He could be one of them. You’ll be OK with Rick.”

  ♦

  Alex and Violet and Mike finally showed up at the motel mid-afternoon. They explained that their circuitous route down mountainous side roads had proved unsuccessful, so they had retraced the road back to town and checked into a hotel.

  I laid out Mary’s map of the Grove on Alex’s bed. They gathered around to study it.

  “OK,” said Alex. “Here’s the lake. Here’s the shrine of their devil owl.”

  “Where does it say that?” I asked.

  “Right there,” said Alex, pointing to a spot marked Shrine. “Here’s Bohemian Highway. I guess our hotel must be right over there. Hey. Where did you get this secret map?”

  “Deep throat,” I said.

  “Now wait a minute,” said Alex. “This map is unheard of. This map isn’t widely available.” He narrowed his eyes and scrutinized me. “Where did you get it?”

  I could tell that dark thoughts had entered Alex’s mind.

  “I am not one of them,” I tutted. “I am not luring you into a trap. Can we have some trust here, please?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Alex. “I’m sorry.”

  The treacherous currents and the sheer rocky canyons did not seem intimidating to Alex and Mike. They had made their plans. They intended to rent a boat, sail it down the Russian River, moor it, climb a mountain, shimmy down the other side, and get in that way.

  “Hiking in two thousand seven hundred acres is not hard,” said Alex. “We need to catch these people at their Luciferian worship.”

  The cleaning lady wandered past the open bedroom door holding a vacuum cleaner. Alex slammed the door shut. He pulled the curtains together.

  “I saw her before,” whispered Alex, “just standing there staring at me. Really. Standing there and just staring. She had her hand to her ear like this.”

  Alex cupped his ear.

  “All the literature I’ve read on the net says the Bohemians have got their snitches all over this town,” he explained.

  “The actual clearing seems to be only about five hundred acres,” said Mike, still studying the map. “The rest is undergrowth.”

  “God only knows what’s really going on in the other two thousand two hundred acres,” said Alex. “I would guess that’s where they perform their more nasty or beastly activities. But that is only speculation. We’ve got two hidden cameras. We’ve got a tie camera and one that looks like a pager.”

  “Do you think that Alex’s temperament is such that he’ll be able to maintain the stealth needed to undertake the operation?” I asked Violet.

  “Alex is not only a great activist and a great broadcaster but also a great actor,” she said.

  “Thank you, honey,” said Alex. They kissed each other on the lips.

  “Do you worry for Alex?” I asked.

  “I do,” said Violet. “Alex gets so impassioned. I’m afraid sometimes he might be a little too fearless. And it’s creepy at night up here in the woods.”

  There was a silence.

  “I just wish we were armed,” said Violet, wistfully.

  “Well,” muttered Mike, “guns would be no good out here without silver bullets.”

  “I’ve arranged for us to meet a local lawyer called Rick,” I said, “who has twice infiltrated the Grove.”

  “I’ll meet your guy,” said Alex.

  “I think his advice might be valuable,” I said. “I think you should just listen and not say anything.”

  “Why not say anything?” asked Alex.

  “He comes from a different political persuasion to you,” I said. “I don’t want your words to disturb him.”

  “A socialist, huh?” said Alex. “Well, if he wants to consolidate power and enslave the world’s population and kill 80 per cent of us like the UN are publicly stating then he ought to be all for Bohemian Grove.”

  “I don’t think Rick wants to sacrifice 80 per cent of the world’s population,” I said.

  “Well, you said he was from a different political persuasion to me,” said Alex.

  “Still,” I said, “the important thing is for you to not say anything.”

  ♦

  At 6 p.m. Rick and Alex and myself sat by the pool at the Occidental Motel. Rick was sixty but he looked ten years younger. He wore a plaid shirt and khaki trousers. Alex laid out Mary’s map, which he and Mike had annotated with little red arrows, plotting their proposed route along the torrents of Russian River, up a mountain, and down the other side. Alex’s arrows ended at the spot on the map marked Shrine.

  “Going in that way,” said Rick, “will get you killed. We are talking about a sheer rocky canyon.”

  Alex produced a notepad and wrote down, “Sheer rocky canyon – Killed.”

  “So what’s the secret?” I asked. “How do we get in?”

  “The secret?” said Rick. “Just walk right in up the drive. That’s what I did. There’ll be one or two security guys sitting on the side of the road looking bored. You’re just going to nod to them as you walk in. Just nod and say hi. And that’s it.”

  “That’s it?” said Alex.

  “What you don’t do,” said Rick, “is stand out. You don’t dress young. Even the young ones in there don’t dress young. Dress casual. Khakis. Cotton pants.”

  “Preppy?” I asked.

  “Preppy, yes,” said Rick. “It’s a preppy crowd. Wear a baseball cap.”

  “Flip flops?” asked Alex. “Sandals?”

  “Sandals would be fine,” said Rick. “Flip flops might not be such a good idea.”

  Alex wrote down ‘sandals’.

  “What time do they have the owl-burning ceremony?” asked Alex.

  “The ‘Cremation of Care’,” corrected Rick, “is at dusk tomorrow night.”

  “Have you witnessed the ceremony?” asked Alex.

  “Yes,” said Rick. “It’s pretty elaborate. They do it down at the lagoon. The crowd is on one side of the lagoon on a grassy slope and the ceremony is on the other side. So the crowd are quite a way away from it. Some people bring cushions or little lawn chairs. There’s a chorus. There’s a symphony orchestra. A good symphony orchestra, right there by the lagoon.”

  “Wow,” said Alex. “What type of music?”

  “Boston pops type music,” said Rick.

  “Sounds pretty eclectic,” said Alex.

  I smiled at Alex. He smiled back. He was saying the right things.

  “What is the owl made out of?” asked Alex.

  “I have no idea,” said Rick. “I know there’s a druid type of ceremonial altar in front of it.”

  “A druid type of ceremonial altar?” repeated Alex, writing down ‘druid type of ceremonial altar’.

  “It has that look,” said Rick. “Very old. Very pagan. I’m sure it’s meant to be harmless pranky type fun.”

  Alex raised his eyes.

  “This is not harmless pranky type fun,” he snapped. “You have all these super powerful men in druid outfits, as you witnessed, Rick, burning an effigy in front of an owl. It just so happens that other primitive cultures have had that same owl, they just throw children inside the burning innards. That’s historically based.”

  Rick looked perplexed.
>
  “And if you ask them what it’s all about,” Alex continued, “they’ll just say, Oh! I don’t know what you’re talking about. Get away from me little man or I’ll set my dogs on you. You snivelling twit. I’ll have you removed immediately. How dare you! Wretched fool!”

  I shot Alex an annoyed look.

  “You’re probably right,” Alex shrugged, calming down. “It could be just big kid grown-up fraternity behaviour.”

  “The important thing,” said Rick, “is to look like you know where you’re going. Smile. Just walk right in. Hell, I’ll walk in with you. And dress preppy.”

  Alex wrote down ‘preppy dress’.

  ♦

  The next morning we drove into town to buy preppy clothes at Eddie Bauer. I nearly gasped when Alex and Mike stepped out of their dressing rooms. The visual transformation was astonishing. They no longer looked like highly strung Texan right wingers. Now they were the very picture of Ivy League graduates, the east coast elite, in sports shirts and khaki trousers, cashmere sweaters draped with carefree abandon over their shoulders.

  “You look very handsome,” said Violet.

  “Thank you, baby,” said Alex. They embraced and passionately kissed right there in Eddie Bauer, and Mike and myself and the shop assistants shuffled uncomfortably.

  Back at the motel, Alex and Mike practised being preppy by wandering up and down the corridor in a preppy fashion, their hands in their pockets, a slightly effeminate lilt to their gait.

  “The point is,” said Alex, “we belong here. We’re just normal.”

  I didn’t join in with the rehearsals. I felt I already knew how to behave preppily.

  Rick had advised that Alex should assume a profession familiar to him – a talk-show host from Austin, for instance – but after much deliberation he and Mike decided to pretend to be high-flyers from Silicon Valley. Alex was to be the CEO of a microprocessing firm, and Mike the technical brains with a doctorate in molecular science.

  “What are our names?” asked Mike.

  “I’m David Hancock and you’re Professor Mike Richards,” said Alex. “We’re just going to talk. We’re just going to walk normally as we would. Calmly. La la la. We’re fat cats.”

  Alex and Mike began rehearsing preppy conversations.

  “But seriously,” said Alex, adopting a recondite tone of voice, the two men rambling delicately along the corridor, “as fast as microprocessors are beginning to move…it’s getting down to a molecular level…the question is, at what level will the actual basics of science stop us from making these systems smaller? It’s the entire nanotechnology revolution that I find most dynamic…”

  I could see that Mike’s hands were shaking, making his polo shirt quiver.

  “I agree,” he murmured, unsurely.

  They looked over to me for approval.

  “I’m not sure about ‘I agree’,” I said.

  “I don’t think we should practise talking,” snapped Mike. “What comes up comes up. It’s got to be natural when we do it.”

  “No,” said Alex. “We’re going to go over it and over it until we get it right.”

  “OK,” said Mike.

  They resumed wandering along the corridor.

  “But I really want to know your opinion of nanotechnology,” said Alex. “You’ve been studying it so closely. You’ve already got these transistors down to the size of molecules. What I want to know is when will the science, just the basic laws, stop our progress in the miniaturization process. Doctor?”

  Mike smiled wisely but he said nothing.

  “What do you think?” said Alex to me.

  “Are you sure you don’t look too preppy?” I said.

  “I need a prop to stop my hands from shaking,” said Mike.

  “Mineral water,” said Alex. “They drink mineral water.”

  ♦

  We abandoned rehearsals to purchase mineral water from the local General Store. In the few moments it took us to cross the road, two limousines and an open-top BMW cruised past us towards the Grove.

  Rick’s logic was that no security guard would risk his livelihood by insulting potential VIPs with impertinent questions about their right to be there, but Alex was still unsure.

  “You think we can trust Rick?” he asked. “People have recommended him to you? I’m not going to end up tied to a pentagram with Henry Kissinger’s fat belly hanging over me while he’s necking with a big dagger, am I?”

  I could see Alex’s point. Rick’s tips seemed so contrary to everything we had heard about Bohemian Grove. How could we just walk in? That seemed incorrect.

  “Have you worked out something to say as a last resort in case you get caught?” I asked.

  “Yes I have,” said Alex.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I’ll say, ‘DON’T COME ANY CLOSER!’” screamed Alex.

  “I’m sorry?” I said.

  “I’ll say, ‘BACK OFF! JUST BACK THE HELL OFF! DON’T TAKE ANOTHER STEP!’”

  “Oh my God,” I said. “That’s a threat.”

  “It won’t come to that,” said Alex.

  “‘Don’t come any closer’ is not preppy talk,” I said.

  “Definitely not,” said Alex. He smiled slightly and looked me squarely in the eye.

  There was a silence.

  “Are you dangerous?” I asked Alex.

  “Are these people dangerous?” he replied. “They certainly are. I’m completely non-violent. Dangerous? I’m definitely dangerous to corrupt bureaucrats and their financial bosses that like to control the people on the planet.”

  “But not in a violent way,” I said.

  “Not in a violent way,” he said.

  “Alex is one of the best guys you’ll ever meet,” said Mike.

  “This world government is dangerous,” said Alex. “Henry Kissinger and George Bush are the dangerous ones. This degenerate in-bred New World Order crowd are the dangerous ones. I have no criminal record.”

  “He’s not dangerous,” said Mike. He turned to Alex. “You need to clear that up,” he said.

  “This is really a gross analogy,” said Alex, “but I’ll use it. I see most of these elitist individuals as a whole bunch of dog turds being laid all over this society. I don’t run around stomping on them because I don’t want to get it on my feet.”

  Alex paused. His voice became sombre.

  “I just say to the general public, ‘Let’s clean these dog turds up. Let’s tell these people they can’t do this any more.’”

  Mike nodded in earnest agreement.

  “They can’t shit on us,” said Alex. “That’s really what I’m saying. You can’t shit on us any more.”

  There was a silence.

  “I just want them to stop shitting on us,” said Alex.

  “OK,” I said. “Sorry.”

  ♦

  On Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. – three hours before our allotted rendezvous with Rick – Alex had a private meeting with Mike and Violet in Mike’s bedroom. Then he took me to one side to formally inform me of their change of plan. Yes, Alex was grateful for Rick’s clothing advice and, yes, they were willing to walk up the driveway, just as Rick recommended. But, no offence, Alex said, they were not prepared to actually walk into the Grove with either Rick or myself. They had decided to go it alone.

  Alex didn’t admit it outright, but his reason was clear. He simply could not know for certain that Rick or I were not them: undercover Feds, or worse, part of some complex trap to capture an outsider and perhaps even offer him up as a sacrifice to the owl god. I considered launching a defence, but the truth was I had no tangible evidence to prove that I was not one of them. Furthermore, as crazy as it sounds, those suspicions had also crossed my mind about Rick, and I too was finding it difficult to shake them.

  “When are you going to attempt your penetration?” I asked him.

  “Right now,” said Alex.

  “Well, at least let me come along to see you off,” I said.
>
  ♦

  The journey to the gates of Bohemian Grove was undertaken in an anxious silence. Violet pulled up in a lay-by near the entrance.

  “If we’re not here at 11 p.m., come back at 11.30,” said Alex.

  “And every half hour after that,” said Mike.

  “What time do I get in touch with the police?” asked Violet.

  “Six a.m.,” said Alex.

  “If something does happen to us make a big stink about it,” said Mike. “Promise us that.”

  “I promise,” said Violet.

  “Here we go,” said Alex.

  Alex and Mike climbed out of the car. They strode away from us in a conspicuously preppy manner. They were looking good. I could tell by their hand gestures that they had already begun debating the miniaturization process of microprocessors, even though they were still a hundred yards from the driveway.

  “It seems to be going well so far,” I said.

  And it did seem to be going well, right up until the moment, some ten seconds later, that Alex and Mike, for no apparent reason, suddenly dived frantically into the undergrowth at the side of the road.

  “Bloody hell,” I said.

  For a second the two men became visible as they stood up in the bushes, brushed themselves down, turned around, gave Violet and me a surreptitious thumbs up, took a step forward, cascaded headfirst down into a gully, and were gone.

  Violet gasped.

  “Hmm,” I said.

  ♦

  “Where are the Texans?” asked Rick.

  It was two hours later. Violet had gone back to the Occidental Motel. Rick and I were steeling ourselves for our impending penetration with cocktails at the Village Inn, a lovely riverside bar on the edge of the Grove.

  “I last saw them diving into the bushes,” I said.

  “Boy scouts,” tutted Rick. “So predictable. You know there’s poison oak all over these forests.”