Kiki was furious.
"You nerd, you missed the boat again...or
the train has left the station, or whatever. And there you are as
usual.."
"Sitting
on the dock of the bay?" I suggested, trying to be helpful.
She threw a
paperback down on my cot. "Outlaws in Babylon" by Steve
Chapple,
the cover said. Below the title was a picture of a remarkably neat
and clean
guy holding some kind of gun in a patch of very green and plastic
looking
marijuana.
"This guy
beat you to the punch. He's blown the whistle on the dope growing
scene here in Humboldt. And you're still just scribbling away at
that dumb
journal." She even had a few tears to go with this. I tried
to be calm and
reasonable as usual. In every pair, one has to be calm and sensible...in
our
pair, Kiki and me, I was the one. It figures. Her chest was made
for heaving.
"I have
missed the boat, my train is gone, I have been beaten to the punch
and
the whistle has been blown. I think it's a good thing I'm writing
this book and
not you."
"Don't
you care? Aren't you even worried?"
"What me
worry? Surely you jest. Is there only one mystery story on the
shelves? Did Louis L'Amour decide to become a teacher just because
Zane Grey
wrote westerns first? Is there only one barfy romance on the rack
at the
Garberville Bus Stop?"
"There's
only one story about Garberville," she wailed. I hadn't realized
Kiki
was taking my writing so seriously. I've been so worried about CAMP
lately that
I put the book on the back burner, so to speak...to add another
cliche to the
already sinking page.
Kiki didn't
stay long. She was on her way to town to attend a meeting with
Sheriff Renner. Along with several hundred other pissed-off growers
who wanted
to know why he hadn't been able or willing to prevent State and
Federal troops
from raping the county. As if Renner had the clout to do anything.
Anyway, I'm
not as naive as I was my first year up here. A Cossack is a Cossack
as Grandpa
Funk used to say. And Brenda often reminds me. Guys who run for
sheriff and
district attorney are not my peers.
So I crawled
back into my cot with Spiro draped over my feet, and I read the
book. It's not bad reporting. A small error here and there..."Collapsy
Tanks"
for Kolaps-a-Tanks and "Weiss Clips" for Wiss, and calling
Sheriff Renner,
Sheriff Rennert isn't worth carping about. I'll forgive Chapple
those little
slips. He didn't live here for three years in a tent to get his
story.
Am I defensive?
You bet. I don't want to die for my art, though. I don't even
want to get busted.
The choppers
were right over me yesterday. They were pulling plants off the
Fibble Ranch. Something I thought would never be done. Not that
the Fibbles
were being wiped out. The raiders were pulling one patch. And I'm
sure old man
Fibble will just swear it was one of us down the road "growing
guerilla" on his
place. Maybe he'll even send his boys over to burn a Mogen David
in front of my
tent.
Early that day
a VW bug came rattling up the road and two COG observers got out
with cameras and recorders at the ready.
"How much
farther up the valley?" One of them, a short red-headed guy,
asked
me. He had a video pack attached to his shoulder and a determined
gleam in his
eyes.
"You can
take a short cut over the ridge, through my place, and come out
right
where the choppers are landing," I offered.
"That's
what we want," the redhead's companion said.
"There'll
probably be another carload of observers coming through here pretty
soon..."
"Did the
Fibbles call you?" I broke in. "I can't imagine them..."
The redhead
grinned. "Naw." He tossed his mane of flaming hair back
towards
the Smiths. "Your neighbor downhill gave us a buzz on the CB."
"I really
admire you guys. Hauling all this equipment over the hills to record
CAMP in action..."
"Then why
don't you join us sometime?" The tall guy looked at me
seriously. "This Saturday morning at Tooby Park."
They took off
then, over the ridge. I didn't make it to their meeting at Tooby
Park on Saturday. But I still admire the hell out of those people
who gather in
the early light of dawn, to wait for a report from the CB or phone:
"Where's
CAMP today?"
The Citizens
Observation Group (or COG for short) are our volunteer
watchdogs. Keeping watchful eyes on CAMP to make sure they stay
within the
law. It drives CAMP crazy and makes me proud to be an American.
But those choppers!
I could see the guy's faces, they were flying so low. What
happened to the regulation that states that a helicopter has to
fly about 500
feet above you, to be safe? These guys don't seem to know that one.
Flying low
and being so noisy they give people on the ground a real adrenalin
rush. You
start to sweat and shake, even if you haven't got anything to feel
scared
about.
All I could
think of was my plants. I tried to act cool, and lifted the hood
of
my truck like maybe I was working on it, but my hands were shaking
pretty
bad. Not that shaking hands is an indication of cowardice on my
part. It's a
family trait, and the reason the Funks went into allergy. Surgery
is out for a
man who trembles at the mere thought of the fee due him for slicing
out an
appendix. So is diamond cutting.
Oh God of Israel!
I don't want to be busted. Not by mean looking guys jumping
out of helicopters and pointing guns at me. But if you can't save
me, save my
plants. I'll get out on my own recognizance. Just like the old woman
I heard in
the market the other day. "After you've been busted the first
time, it's no big
deal. Just about the same as going to the dentist." Here was
this woman in her
sixties planning her next grow and she wasn't afraid.
Oh Lord God
of Israel! I don't want to be busted. My folks would never forgive
me.
Reg came up
the drive while the choppers were growling overhead. He had a
bottle of wine in each hand. We sat under a tree and drank the wine
and he said
he was going to pull most of his stuff that night while the "CAMPers"
were
sleeping off their big rush at the Ramada Inn in Eureka.
"It's not
ready and it's not prime, but it's better than nothing. I've got
some
stuff really well camouflaged that I'm going to take a chance on
finishing, but
the main crop goes tonight."
"I'll help
you pull," I volunteered. "My stuff is just going to have
to make it
or break it. I need at least two more weeks before I've even got
a crop. So
I'll help you pull yours, while I pray for mine."
He took a swig
out of his bottle. "Amen to that Larry, my man. And God bless
us
everyone says Tiny Tim."
After I helped
Reg pull his plants I let him talk me into a hot shower and a
bowl of cioppino before I went back up the hill to my place. Pete
came home
from his job at the hospital and said the meeting in Garberville
with Sheriff
Renner had attracted a crowd as expected. He said people managed
to blow off a
lot of steam.
Reg shrugged.
"So he's a no name sheriff. The growers all feel he betrayed
them
after they voted for him in such numbers. But who else have we got?
I don't
want to be sheriff."
"Yeah,"
Pete agreed. "A lot of people pointed out that he'd got their
vote
because he said he'd leave the little guy alone...all the mom and
pop
operations. Then they hit Briceland Road and did nothing but hit
the mom and
pop places!" Pete was talking louder than I'd ever heard him.
Usually he's the
kind who talks softly and carries a big stick. Or so I've been told.
He's
supposed to be hung like a bull.
"One more
thing to remember," Reg went on. "Renner has no clout
whatever with
the State or the Federales. He is a nobody from a hick town in a
hick
county. So he loses his job next time out. Who gives a fuck? Not
the DEA. I
could almost feel sorry for the guy. If I didn't have 50 not quite
mature
sinsemilla plants hanging upside down in my attic, that is."
When I got back
to my tent and in bed I could feel in my bones what a long day
it had been. I figured that tomorrow I'd go over to the Fibbles
and find out
how bad they got hit. They might even tell me the truth.
Even though
I was worn down and out, I couldn't get to sleep. I kept wondering
what made those helicopters so impressive. Was it just the racket
they made, so
loud that I found myself squinting at the noise? (you can't shut
out the noise
from your ears, so I guess an instinctual reaction is to squeeze
your eyes
shut.) A few more hours of that back and forth and I swear I'd have
gone into a
fetal position.
How do the guys
who work in those things get used to it? Maybe they all live
in Oakland. Ordinarily, it's so quiet up here that even a dog bark
or a distant
car horn is intrusive. But if you lived near a freeway in the Bay
Area or L.A.,
a helicopter would be just one more noise.
I do know that
I resent the quasi-military operations they make out of what is
basically a bunch of guys pulling up a flowering weed. Just imagine
picking a
lettuce crop that way; get all these Chicano agri-workers in flak
jackets, give
them M-16's and machetes, load them into choppers, and drop them
over the
lettuce fields early in the morning, all the while talking back
and forth on
the radio about "locals" and "bodycounts." Block
the roads leading to the
fields, and just for kicks, chase a few kids down the road as they're
waiting
for the school bus. A load of laughs, right? And lettuce would sell
for twenty
bucks a head.
