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Monday, September 24, 2012

Excerpt (3)

The material was a black mesh, lightweight and durable.  The mesh was thick and did not allow light through, the only reason for it being mesh was to lessen the weight of the material.  There were square and rectangular holes in the mesh at irregular intervals.  The whole large rectangle folded small enough to be stuffed into a backpack. The backpack with the material and a few tools in it weighed a little under 17 LBS.  We had ordered the rectangle of the material with exact dimensions specified from a textile factory in Taiwan.  I had obtained the contact illicitly from a former employer.

          Jim Skate helped me fold the rectangle into smaller rectangles.  We both held two corners of the rectangle lengthwise, then brought the corners together and grasped the new corner that was formed.  We repeated this once more, then we walked towards each other medium slow with medium steps and brought the four corners together.  Jim held the new end that we had just formed and I grasped the two corners that were now on the floor and took steps back to my previous position, which now was not my actual previous position because now the rectangle was half as long.  We each folded our ends lengthwise again and strode towards each other to meet in the middle, again.  Strangely, we maintained eye contact when stepping towards each other and did not speak.  The whole action was ritualistic, which made sense, but was still unexpected given Jim Skate and I's shared history.  Once the rectangle became folded small enough to be manageable, I knelt and finished folding it myself with careful, deliberate motions.  Presently I could not fold it any further, and I picked it up by sliding both hands under it and lifting like a forklift so as not to disturb the near-perfect fold.  Jim picked up the backpack and held it open and I placed it inside, tucking the corners into the bottom, then shoving the top down.  The backpack and Jim's hands and arms holding it rocked violently as I struggled a little to fit the large rectangle into the regular sized and nondescript Jansport.

          Jim broke the silence by clearing his throat, but then just made a gravelly "hmmm," and did not form any words.  I zipped the backpack up and the main inside pocket was entirely full.  Jim dropped the backpack on the floor of the garage with a thump, the single florescent light overhead illuminating the red Jansport and the smooth grey cement of the floor.  The garage contained no car and was mostly bare, save for some work tables along the wall by the door that lead into the house and along the wall to the right of that door.  A collection of essential tools hung on nails above these tables.  Hammers, wrenches, a large saw and a small saw, a hacksaw and pliers among others.  They hung in front of the outlines of their shapes which had been drawn on the wall with a carpenters pencil.  The pencil was nowhere to be seen. There was a fitters vise clamped to the edge of the table closest to the door and sitting on that table next to a case containing a ratchet set was a stand-alone chest of drawers containing various nails, screws, washers, nuts, bolts, tape, glue and detritus both useful and non.  There was an abstract white shape, about 5 feet by 6 feet and raised from the cement about a quarter inch, the result of a paint spill, in the southwest corner.  There was a single faded poster on the wall of the garage adjacent the door admonishing the observer to vote Bush/Quail in 1992.  "How are you feeling about this?"  I asked Jim.  He grinned distractedly as he replied "I'm ready.  There's nothing else to do, right?" He scratched his hand through the stubble on his shaven head.  "I'm just the driver, I should be asking you."  I was shoving the ropes and the gloves into the backpack but slowed in my movements as I allowed what he said to register and penetrate.  I had been ready, there was no question about that, and even expecting the familiar tingles and ridiculous second thoughts.  Even so, there was still that ritualized feeling to everything we were doing that night that made the cold, foggy air seem somehow crisp and clear.  It was 1:06 AM.

"Definitely ready," I intoned, not looking up from the backpack and what I was stuffing into it.  I placed the clamps in the outer pocket above the carabiners.  I zipped up the pocket and looked up at Jim Skate.  His head was angled slightly downward and he was grinning and staring at me.  To say he looked slightly demented would not have been a stretch, right now, at 1:08 AM on this Tuesday morning, in this outlying suburb of San Francisco, in this house, in this garage, the two of us, standing there in the cold on the cement.  "You've come a long way, buddy," he said.  "Yeah, I guess," I said, and shrugged.  He grinned, "You've really changed, man.  In a good way.  Cause I sure as hell wouldn't do this, especially with my current legal situation."  I met his gaze and matched his crooked smile. "But I know you're more than willing to assist, despite everything," I proffered.  I hefted the heavy backpack onto one shoulder and started towards the door the led into the house.  "Let's get going, I want to park and hide out for a little while before."  Jim pulled the hood of his sweatshirt on and followed me through the door.

Once outside, Jim unlocked his blue Toyota, a beater of a truck that he rarely drove.  His Benz was parked in the driveway of the house, we had driven here in it.  The beater had already been parked here for a while.  Jim unlocked the driver's side door, putting the key into the keyhole and then tilting his head upward towards me.  He opened the door and swung himself onto the navajo blanket that made a makeshift upholstery over the old, mildewed and cracked faux leather of the seat.  He heaved the driver's side door shut with a klunk and leaned way over, craning his whole body to the other door and pulled the mechanism up into the unlocked position.  I practically ripped the passenger side door open, tossed the backpack behind the backrest of the seat and hopped into the car, slamming the door behind me.  It had gotten frigid outside, also I was very eager to get on the road to give us maximum time to hide out and wait beneath the freeway and I explained this to Jim.  He nodded and cranked the engine into gear with a sputter and roar.  "Are we sure we have everything?"  He forced the words over the absurdly loud noise of the engine warming up.  "Yeah, I'm sure," I replied, rubbing my hands together, trying to hunch down inside myself for warmth.  "Better check," he said, being as loud as possible without yelling.  I paused, but not for long.  Jim was thorough, and almost always right.  I opened each pocket and flap of the backpack and rifled through them.  All the tools were there.  "Looks like we got everything," I almost-shouted back.  We sat quietly, waiting for the engine to warm up enough to turn on the decrepit heater.

As we drove through the silent suburbs of South San Francisco, passing ornate front yard arrangements, roundabouts and copious signage we began discussing the mission at hand.  While driving underneath a pedestrian overpass on Junipero Serra Boulevard, Jim began to talk of the future.  "It will be interesting to see how this turns out, because if it works, if it hopefully works I see a lot of possibilities in doing more of these.  We're just doing the one tonight, right?"  "Yes," I replied, "We'll see if there's time for one more, but really we should just do the one, to get a feel for it.  And also not to press our luck.  And also we probably won't have time for another one."  Jim nodded.  "But once we get good at it," I continued, "if we do keep doing it, I think we could take 3 in a night, easy.  That would be optimum too.  Optimum impact, ya know."  "Yeah definitely," Jim said, "It will also be interesting to see how quickly they deal with it."  "It will be a matter of hours," I posited, "the hope is that it will be long enough for someone of note to take notice, optimum result is photos get taken, mentions in media."  Jim nodded.  "That would be indeed optimum."  We drove on, taking the onramp to 280 North at the intersection of Junipero Serra and Serramonte Boulevards.  Jim merged smoothly into traffic and we were adrift in the rapidly moving current.  There was little traffic, and as always my mind wandered to where these other vehicles that populated the freeway were going, what the purposes of the people who populated them were.  It was 1:23 AM on a Tuesday night and there was a universe of reasons to be in motion on a northern highway, wheeling through California air.

Jim kept the MPH fairly steady at 63, yet we still passed a police cruiser in the lane to the right of it.  This struck my nerves at that moment, although I knew Jim was doing the right thing by driving unaffectedly and also that we were doing absolutely nothing wrong.  The only time we would need to be remotely worried about the cruisers with their menacing eye looking headlights and grey-skinned pilots was on the way back, the getaway.  We sailed further down route 280N, a wide, curving 4 lane freeway that snakes through the entirety of the peninsula.  Going through the city of Daly City we passed the looming signage that indicated the wreckage of a previous generation's cowardice.  Chains, franchises and multinational corporations signified their intent to me through brightly colored yet somehow dull seeming symbols.  The offensive blandness and disgusting audacity of the landscape had made a few people a lot of money, and left the rest of us moving through a forest of despair.  Any form of non pedestrian travel is time travel, and any form of vehicular travel on trafficked roads is guided by the firm, invisible hand of far off benevolent reality contractors.  I realized we were gliding through a viscous existence of created myth, adding to it, part of it.  Jim turned the wheel and merged the truck and our bodies along with it onto the 101 North Freeway, heading straight for the vortex of the city.

I've never gotten the hang of time.  We exist in the moment, making decisions with absurd unseen ramifications and being blown by the winds of our deep habits that are propelled by the omniscient, arbitrary forces that sloppily shape our lives.  When I'm looking foreword to an exciting, promising event or time, imbuing it with the optimism of desire and putting myself with all my intricacies fully inside it, it seems impossibly distant, like that moment will never arrive.  The anticipation drips down into a reluctance, an almost disappointed pessimism that the expectations will not be lived up to.  But the anticipation always remains, the confirmation of our passage through time.  When it arrives, it is never what was expected, it passes quickly, blurred, in a jumble, with not enough time to make the required decisions.  What's left when it passes is a strange, reflective residue.  The sticky snail trail of time; shimmering with disappointment, elation, regret, ecstasy, banality.  Looking back on the event once it's in the past, it will seem impossibly far away, a mirage that never actually happened.  The past is our own neurosis manifest in demented fairy tales and whimsical, half remembered dreams.

Jim accelerated through the slow turn of Hospital Curve, this stretch of freeway seeming like just another twist in the path without the usual heavy traffic of the daylight hours.  Rounding the bend, the circular orange lights of the sign overhead read:
Tsr Islnd: 8 min.
Oakland:  12 min
Berkeley: 12 min.
The rumbling of the truck's engine had maintained its volume but faded into the background as we both grew used to it.  Passing the turnoff for the continuation of 101 North towards the Golden Gate Bridge, we merged onto 80 East and began the gradual ascent towards the ramp onto the Bay Bridge.  The sign popped into view for "LAST SAN FRANCISCO EXIT-4TH STREET," and Jim cued the right blinker to click; on and off, on and off. What determines the sound of a turn signal blinker for auto manufacturers?  They're all remarkably different iterations of the same concept.  Men in rumpled suits and women with shoulder pads sitting high up in office buildings in the middle of the sky, listening to the different sounding clicks, cocking their heads in ponderous decision making for wage.  The last car that I would ever own had a turn signal that sounded exactly like the popping of the center of a Snapple bottle's lid, the circular tab that lets you know whether or not the bottle's seal has been broken.  Pop in, pop out.  Pop in, pop out.  I got so used to it I would only be reminded when other people noticed, but at first, the sound made me think of Snapple every time.  I reflected on when Snapple first came out and it felt underground, a new beverage at Murphy's Market,  the Mango Madness and Strawberry Kiwi, until it became a hugely successful household brand because they changed the formula, rendering it undrinkable.  As we exited the freeway, I looked up ahead and I could see it.  "WHAT'S YOUR PASSION? RENO TAHOE" and its gaze burned right through me.

Jim slowed as he came to the spotlight at 4th and Bryant and stopped at the red light.  I looked around the intersection.  The light reflected from the low, misty fog combined with the streetlights to coat their surroundings in pixelated grey illumination.  Jim looked over and grinned.  He took his foot off the break and turned right onto 4th street without signaling.  He pulled into the left lane and signaled for a left hand turn, pausing then going onto Freelon Street.  He slowed before taking a left on Zoe Street and parking in the middle of the block between a maroon Mercury Sable and a white Econoline Van with a single window on the drivers side.  Jim killed the truck and again turned to me and grinned.  "We're waiting," he intoned casually.  "We're waiting," I said and allowed myself to feel the creeping anxiety. Jim retrieved a book from on top of the emergency break, opening a dog-eared copy of Oscar Zeta Acosta's "Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo" to a page with the top corner folded The plan was for Jim to have a bluetooth cell phone accessory in his ear, and be reading a book.  If the police or anyone else happened to notice us, someone pulling off the freeway before the Bay Bridge to take a phone call or, if that failed, reading in his truck was enough to dispel suspicion.  He energized himself with auto-biographies, feeding from their muted truths while we played out the alibi.

Then it was time to move, and I readied myself.  There had been no outside molestations as we sat in the car, establishing ourselves. It began to get a little later, or earlier, depending on your perspective.  I've always looked at it as later.  The day doesn't end until you go to sleep and the next day doesn't begin until you wake up.  It was currently 2:13 AM.  Jim drove to the end of Zoe Street and turned right on Bryant.  I realized I was drumming my fingers on my knee in complex, interlocking rhythms.  I've been a lifelong knee drummer, so I didn't pay it much mind, but I did stop the tapping and started letting the natural anxiety and stress course through me.  Jim was silent, but growing steadily more enthusiastic, and when I looked at him with my senses beginning to heighten he appeared to be almost buzzing, moving in and out of focus.  This was what he lived for, no doubt about that, the kind of action that demands no explanation, a line drawn in the sand.  He remained faithfully quiet, turning left onto 3rd Street and then a quick right onto Stillman.  Now we were running parallel to the James Lick/Bayshore Freeway, 80 East, the quick and traffic congested lead-up to the Bridge.  I rolled down the window an inch and the sounds of the action of that span of concrete and events began to seep into the cab, dulled.  Jim pulled the truck over and parked, carefully and accurately.  He shut the motor off with a smooth motion of the wrist and left the key in the ignition.  He stared straight ahead through the windshield at the cars and trucks on the dead street that lay in front of us.

The backpack was sitting in between my legs on the floor of the cab.  I was holding it upright by my right hand clutching one strap, and I squeezed and released the firm, cushioned and coarse surface.  Jim looked straight up and too the right, craning his neck.  On top of the building in front of us on the right side, there was a massive billboard rising up into the fog and the few stars that the city light would allow to be visible.

I didn't have to look to see the sign.  I had been by this location several times in the past couple of weeks, observing, scouting, committing the details to meager memory.  I reached my right arm over and clasped Jim's hand in a quick pound and in his eyes I could see the envy that laid over the base level of excitement like frosting on a cake.  There was no doubt in those eyes.  I took that with me, opening the door of the truck and swinging the backpack with one strap up onto my shoulder.  I pushed the door it shut, halfway between normal and a slam.

My stride was brisk and precise, but not hurried.  I took slow even breathes and focused on walking.  I glanced up at the billboard, turning the corner into the small alley-like space between buildings which ended in a cement wall.  I shifted the bag foreword from my shoulder and unzipped its front pocket, still walking towards the dead end.  I reached my hand into the pocket and opened the plastic bag of climber's chalk it contained, moving my fingers through the powder and coating one hand at a time.  Closing the plastic bag and zipping the pocket closed, I came to the window at the end of the corridor.  I slung the backpack back onto my shoulders with both straps then rubbed my hands together, finishing with a quiet clap that produced a small nebulae of chalk around my clasped hands.

Grasping a tiny length of protruding pipe with the fingers on my right hand, I swung my right leg up onto a windowsill.  Stepping with the left leg to the top of the windowsill, I steadied, then straightened the leg bringing me up within reaching distance of the solid pipe that protruded slightly beyond the overhanging gutter.  I came up short, and felt a moment of pure panic as my foot slipped off the top of the windowsill and none of my appendages were attached to the structure.

Time slowed and fluctuated with the rapid surge of adrenaline and I seemed to hang in midair, forgotten by gravity.  My hand darted out and slammed into the gutter finding tenuous purchase, and time released me back into its flow again as I slammed against the wall.  I was left hanging from the gutter by the fingers of my right hand while my head was spinning from the impact.  With no time to think, I reached my left hand up to grasp the gutter.  The gutter started to bend, issuing a metallic groan as if to vocalize to me the fact that this had not been part of the plan.  I walked my hands over enough to get a leg out to the adjacent wall and take some pressure off of the gutter, then let go of the gutter with my right hand, shaking out the pain and stiffness and reaching to the side of the backpack for the hook.  My hand shook as I fumbled the hook and rope free and sailed it onto the roof.  It stopped after about 2 feet of nerve wracking pulling and the hooks found a grip.  I grasped the rope with the right hand, then the left, and hauled myself onto the roof, completely mangling the gutter in the process.  Considering the noises I had made already, not to mention the mad desperate movements of getting onto the roof, I was beyond lucky I had attracted no attention even at this time of night.  This part of the city never sleeps, I could see movement all over as I peered over the edge of the roof while lying on my stomach.  I started crawling towards the legs of the billboard, scraping my body foreword snakelike over the loose gravel.

When I got to the base of the legs, I paused and counted to 10.  I slowly raised myself to my haunches, squatting deeply and slowly scanning my head back and forth.  I gathered the rope in a neat pile beside me and gripped it where it met the grappling hook.  I stood up smoothly and in the same motion started spinning the hook while releasing the rope slowly through my gloved hands.  After 3 quick spins there was enough slack and I hurled it savagely upward.  It was a perfect throw, somewhat making up for the near-failure during the climb I thought as I gazed upwards, tracking the movement of the hook against a sky trying to shake itself free from patchy fog.

A distant clattering of metal on metal and I was pulling on the rope.  The hook caught easily.  I tested my weight on it several times then moved closer to the leg of the billboard.  I grasped as high as I could on the rope and hopped onto the leg.  Pulling myself up and walking, I began to ascend.  Once I made it up behind the billboard the climbing became much easier.  I started climbing through the girders and braces quickly, unthinking.  Never looking down.  I reached the top left side of the sign and, staying hidden, carefully let my left arm drop.  I eased the strap off and shifted the backpack onto one shoulder.  I carefully reached in front of me with my left hand and unzipped the backpack.  This was the crucial part.  Reaching inside the backpack, I ripped the black mesh cloth out with force.  It resisted, then gave way leaving me reeling.  I gained stability and sorted through the cloth with my left hand, finding the corner and flinging it over the left corner of the billboard.  It caught on the edge and left me free to grasp the metal girder with my left hand, shifting the cloth to my right and reliving that hand of a huge amount of pain.  I was forcing myself not to hesitate as I climbed to the other side of the billboard and did the same thing, this time having to aim the cloth and throw it twice before it caught on the edge.  I took a small breather, shifted and stretched, then climbed back to the middle.  I grasped a handful of the cloth with my right hand, and threw the rest of it foreword and over the billboard.  I took the top of the cloth and twisted it around some small metal connectors.  I climbed back down and over to the left, unhooking the grappling hook and attaching it to the lowest point as I went.  My whole body was aching and I paused at the bottom to fasten the bottom of the cloth to the bottom of the billboard and it was done.

I lowered myself with the rope to the roof, then gave the rope enough slack to unhook the grappling hook.  Pulling it hard swung it up and foreword, swinging it free.  It clatter on top of the roof.  I was already running, and stuffed it into the backpack as I scooped it up.  At the edge of the roof, I lowered myself, then just dropped, hitting the ground and rolling.  The shock sent through my legs started at the soles of my feet then raced up to my knees.  I grunted and bit my tongue, drawing blood.  I stumbled to my feet, and swiftly walked back towards the truck.  Head down, not too quick, walk with purpose.  How long had it been since Jim Skate taught me those very words?  At that moment it seemed impossibly far away.  I opened the door to the truck, slumped on the seat and closed the door.  Jim pulled out and drove away, immediately making a right, then another, then another.

We sipped espressos and broke down and reassembled communications equipment.
"We'll be getting some quality supplies from some of the Oregon people you reached out to," Jim was telling me as he looked down at the kitchen table, focusing on unscrewing a small screw.
"That's good to hear, although it's a lot later than they claimed.  That's something we'll have to take into account whenever dealing with Oregonians."
The TV was on in the background.  "This morning it was found that a billboard on highway 80 near the bay bridge in San Francisco was vandalized using a unique method."  The reporter was a brunette woman in her early 30's, talking harsly and measuredly about the news.
"There's some people I've been talking to in Bolinas, and the Pt. Arena crew is already good to go."  "Well, great," I replied, "I'm looking foreword to meeting them to be sure."
"A black mesh cloth, made of heavy duty polyester woven with steel threads was attached to a billboard owned by Viacom currently rented by the Reno/Tahoe Chamber of Commerce."
Jim glanced up, smirking.  "It was a good hit," I smiled, nodding.
On the news the camera was panning back from an ariel shot taken as they were in the process of removing the mesh.  The mesh was black as night where it hadn't been cut.  The cut outs allowed parts of the billboard to shine through.  The new text, beaming boldly and brightly with true RENO/TAHOE colors, was:
"PASSION? C L F"
Jim Skate changed the channel to CSPAN-California.