The BBC World Service on Public Television at 4 a.m. had what Greg wanted to hear. After live satellite from New Delhi on India’s drive into Tibet as an ally of the Russian Republic, the broadcast switched to Paris, the day patchy with clouds and the Arc de Triomphe in the background. The BBC reporter, Nijal Thomas, had a mini-mike in the familiar face of Eugene Wisdom. Sans glasses, he still had his trademark leather jacket.
“The French Government has already temporarily granted my request for political asylum,” Eugene was saying, his toothy smile on screen, “For which I owe an undying debt of gratitude to my comrades in the Mexican Revolution Solidarity Brigade.”
Nice touch, Greg thought. Quick as he could, he dressed, devoured a simple breakfast, and left a note for Andre proposing a 2 in the afternoon get together. He loaded the riemanium into his spitfire’s trunk, and found the highway south for the East Bay. He dumped the riemanium, case and all, into the package box of the Richmond post office, called his action into the Federal Crime Tip Line once again, and headed back to Alabaster, dawn glimmering up in the west. It was over by 9 that morning, at least as far a Greg was concerned. On the ride back to Alabaster, public radio news featured Eugene once again, this time responding to a Le Monde reporter’s question as to how it felt to have possessed the power of apocalypse.
“One man’s apocalypse is another man’s genesis,” the thief replied. The vice president followed, reading a statement.
“...On Saturday, representatives of the Federal Government successfully negotiated a trade for the two pounds of stolen, bomb-grade riemanium. Yesterday, Eugene Wisdom, leader of the Mexican Revolution Solidarity Brigade, the group claiming to be in possession of the stolen riemanium, was flown to France where he has been granted political asylum by the French government. And, this morning, the stolen riemanium was returned to the government, ending the most significant case of internal US terrorism in this nation’s history...”
Greg drove to the ASU campus before 11 on a hunch, the trees along the road singing with his freedom. There, on the Redwood Eatery’s patio, Larry sat, dazed and confused, the ever present pitcher of beer at hand.
“Why the hell did you negotiate Smoke’s release,” Larry snarled upon seeing Greg, his snarl slurred by the alcohol. “He was a fucking thief. He stole from the businesses in Alabaster. He stole from the University. He stole from the coops. He stole from hundreds of people. Many of them your friends.”
Larry’s eyes were wild and bloodshot. His nostrils flared. Flecks of spittle collected in the corners of his mouth. It looked as if he had slept in his clothes for a week.
“Precisely because of what his presence is doing to us, even caught and in custody,” Greg growled right back, “Look at you Larry. You look like a madman. It’s as if Smoke was the carrier of some awful, rabid disease. His stealing, and his getting caught for stealing, infected all of us. Now we’re all running around like mad animals, in a frenzy of incrimination and recrimination. We’re tearing each other and our community apart. It’s got to stop.”
“You had no right to make that decision,” Larry flared up, slamming his fist onto the table. “You had no right to turn over the riemanium to let Smoke go, scott-free.”
“Goddamnit Larry, I found the riemanium. I kept it. And in the beginning of all of this, we made a deal Larry. I decide how the riemanium was going to be used. Remember?”
“You’re full of shit,” Larry halfheartedly tried to stand, only to collapse back into his chair. “George, David, Beth, Lori and me, we’re meeting here at 5 today. We’re gonna decide what to do about all this bullshit. You’d fucking better be here.”
“Fuck you, Larry,” Greg jabbed a finger into his friend’s chest, “I’m not gonna be here. I’m sick and tired of all your ‘more-PC-than-thou’ attitudes. I’m sick of your kangaroo courts and your petty bourgeois naivete and neuroses masquerading as ‘people’s justice.’ I’m goddamned disappointed in you, Larry. You, if anybody, should be on my side. But instead, you’re caught up in all of this garbage about Smoke. I’m tired of your snotty little feelings of betrayal. I’m not going to be here to play your stupid mind games. You can tell those ass wipes for me that if they lift even so much as a little finger to fuck with me, theirs and your involvement in this whole, stinking mess will be front page news. Count on it, asshole.”
He stormed out of the pub then, the call of a raven from the trees above ringing in his ears. His and Larry’s friendship was hitting bottom. He hoped it had not ended with that confrontation. But even if it had, Greg could do nothing. He had said what he needed to say. If telling the truth meant that Larry would no longer be his friend, then so much the worse for Larry.
He sat on a bench between a sculpture of plastic, glass and metal geometries stacked into an impressionistic female form, and one of a giant granite scarab, as he scheduled the rest of his day. He would make his call to Boston when he returned home, before his afternoon with Andre. The call would be neither easy nor short, even with the effort to renew an old, dear friendship that he had attempted to torch. He had tried to purge her out of his life from his bitterness, anger, and sense of betrayal, much as the Alabaster Left now tried to purge Smoke, and perhaps as Larry and the rest of the Solidarity Brigade gaggle were about to purge him. Life was too short to waste it in betrayal’s consuming bitterness. Friends were too valuable in a life of suffering to banish them for their human frailties. What is more, he might need the friendship of his father, and that of Peggy afterwards, in order to be satisfied only with Janet’s friendship. He took a deep breath, stood up and walked into the nightmare of daytime.
THIRTY-EIGHT
The Ulnapa Valley was called “Paradise on Earth” in tour guides of the 20th century. It fronted the Pacific Ocean with an ivory white beach protected by shallow offshore sand bars, the valley’s swift stream bellying out into a small, clean lagoon alive with estuary life. That stream cascaded down in pools, rapids and waterfalls amidst luxuriant subtropical growth achatter with parrots and New World monkeys. The simplest of winding dirt roads ran along the bank. The valley itself was spacious. It climbed into the Sierra Madres to achieve temperate climes with a stunning view. On the north side of the Gulfo de Tehuantepec, it was firmly in revolutionary hands as one of the roads into Oaxaca. It was this back road that the combined US/Mexican counterinsurgency forces hoped to use in order to pincer off the Liberated Territories.
Ulnapa’s beach swarmed with an armada of landing craft disgorging tanks, APVs and APC’s, and thousands of soldiers. Tens of thousands of soldiers established their beach head without opposition, a fact that made everyone nervous. An assault column formed up, Mexican forces in front, and the US Marines in back to check any sudden retreats. It advanced up the road. Commandos fanned out across the valley behind this spearhead. Inevitably, as the assault progressed, this armed wedge narrowed. The forces at the head of the arrow outstripped the commandos. It extended too far into the territory to be taken, becoming exposed halfway up the valley.
The ZLF guerrillas opened fire from fixed positions up the sides of the valley with grenade launchers, mortars, and surface-to-surface missiles as well as assault rifles. The enemy now revealed, the Combined Forces dug in, almost with relief. They would be pinned down only momentarily. They were decoys. Elements of the US Sixth Fleet offshore responded to their call to launch cruise missiles by the score. The missiles formed into diamond shaped clusters in two flying assault waves of deadly semi-intelligent weapons bearing death. As synchronized clusters, they used their sophisticated sensors to calibrate and triangulate on guerrilla positions.
The guerrillas were also decoys, by design. The first tight cruise wing transitioned over from ocean to land, and as it’s clusters of component missiles started their subtle retargeting of flight trajectories, all followed closely by the second wing. ZLF forces set off three EMP generators obtained from San Cristobal. Five electromagnetic pulses per generator formed ripple patterns that overlapped with each other t
o create chance process patterns. The interference killed some and stunned all of the smart bombs. They began their fall onto the Ulnapa Valley floor, onto that idyllic stream and that simple road, and onto the Combined US/Mexican military units dug in there. The EMP bursts stopped so that the bulk of the still aware weaponry finally woke too late and too low. All they had time to do was to arm for impact.
Paradise was thus transformed into hell.
About The Author
G.A. Matiasz was born in 1952. He was a late hippie, and an early punk. He began self-publishing at 17 with a high school underground newspaper, and burned his draft card at age 18. Essays from his publication Point-Blank I San Diego’s Daily Impulse have been reprinted in Semiotextfe] USA, the Utne Reader, and War Resisters’ League’s short-lived youth publication SPEW! Presently, he lives in Oakland, California, where he writes a regular column of news analysis and political commentary for Maximum Rock’n’Roll under the name “Lefty” Hooligan.
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