Time feels as if it’s stopped.
When she’s ready, Katy hands the lighter to Anchor and holds the candle up. Anchor brings the Bic to flame on the first try but it winks out in her trembling hand. She does it again and this time they get the candle lit. Katy nods and Anchor steps back next to Thomas but does not retake his hand. Katy drops to her knees—slowly so as not to snuff the candle—and places the glass in its appointed spot, the small round hole in the earth before the tent. She reaches out and with her left hand grabs the metal tag on the zipper. She zips the tent flap fully open with one smooth movement, a perfect arc.
The candle can hardly be expected to light the scene. Night floods from the tent mouth, the pinky-joint flicker in the dirt like a paper boat set adrift on a lake. But Thomas is close enough to see into the gloom without straining. He sees the notebook standing upright, face out, given pride of place amid the forest of hollow glass, dead-eyed saints and saviors by the dozen, at maximum density across the fabric floor of the low and narrow space. On the tent’s back wall in telltale black Sharpie, slightly blurred because the ink’s bled into the khaki fabric, is the arrow-shot heart inscribed with the anarchist A. Parker’s mark.
Was it always on the wall like that, or is this artwork new?
After unzipping the tent, and bowing low over the candle, close enough to feel its rising wisp of heat, Katy stands up and moves to the side so everyone else can see, too. The crowd knits closer together and edges forward. There’s grumbling as people jockey for position or complain that they can’t see. Katy lets the moment spool itself out until everyone is settled. She reaches into the tent. Her fingers alight on the top edge of the notebook and the touch jostles the tight-packed glass, producing a short volley of unmusical clinks. Chastened by this sound, as if it were a warning, she slows herself down, now working with enormous care to remove the notebook from the tent. At a certain point Thomas realizes he’s holding his breath.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the moment, and let this shit infect you! Can you imagine being raised like this? Poor Parker must have never had a chance.
When the book is finally extracted, Katy takes it to her chest and holds it tight like a teddy bear, then turns for the first time this evening to face her congregation. She opens the notebook without looking at it—still gazing out at them—so either the selection is random or else she marked the page earlier. Absolute faith or absolute artifice—huckster, angel, medicine show, chosen one, confidence scheme—there’s just no way to know, or even guess. Her pupils are enormous, big dark buttons like stuffed-animal eyes as she strains to see in the larger darkness of night, the candle at her back now, she shifts her gaze down to the book in her hands and begins to read aloud.
When she’s finished reading she snaps the journal closed and flips it face out, lifts it with both hands like a trophy up above her head, amid scattered whistles and claps. People are glancing around, curious to see who looks wholehearted and who is hedging, not yet ready themselves to commit. But the inertia of crowds is at work here, or else the Holy Spirit is, and before they know it they can feel the feather-light sting of their own palms beating together.
Is that my voice I feel rising up inside me like a water jet, spouting forth Hallelujah? Shouting Glory in the Name? Is that me with my arms around these brother and sister strangers, my me-ness dissolving into us-ness, oceanic, and everyone so glad to be free of everything, not least of all ourselves, as we join arm in arm in arm together, every soul-sick idea about limit swept away?
It’s a lot of them, all right, but not Thomas. And not Owl and Selah, either. He sees them at the far end of the yard, their backs to the scene, slipping away around the side of the house. Too much even for them, apparently, which truly says something—says everything, really.
So what happens now?
The ululation tapers and is soon enough replaced with genial chatter as people become themselves again. Hey, good to see you. Yeah, you too. How’s it going? Katy heads inside with the notebook. It’d be nice to think of it out there in the tent, enshrined and accessible, but the humidity would destroy it in a week. Liz asks if anyone can help her move a few cases of beer, and someone says sure, yeah, that’d be cool.
They have a guy—congregant? parishioner? comrade? lover? friend? whatever; they have a guy—who works at the Publix grocery store on Thirty-fourth Street. He tips them off when good shit is being tossed out. The Publix dumpster fills up almost nightly with more technically-expired-but-totally-consumable food and drink than they could ever possibly make use of. Some nights there’s enough to fill Owl’s bus twice over, though usually they ride out there on their bikes, fill their backpacks and their baskets, leave the rest behind for the next enterprising troupe of young bums. But nights when they hold services are different—reveries, blowouts—and so they always start stocking up a few days in advance.
In addition to the several cases of beer, they also have the following: eight loaves of bread (white, whole wheat, seven-grain, raisin; take your pick), a crate of oranges, five boxes of Frosted Flakes, four grab-n-go rotisserie chickens in microwave-safe warming bags, a few blocks of extra sharp cheddar, six jars of chunky salsa (mild and hot, but no medium), a cardboard box entirely full of heads of lettuce, several bunches of bananas too mushy to eat but perfect for making smoothies with (though they have no blender), some half-thawed frozen steaks they’re not entirely sure about (but are hesitant to chuck, since they’re expensive as hell, besides which something died to make them), three family-size bags of baked tortilla chips (perfect complement to the salsa—praise be to the dumpster God), and two buttercream-frosted birthday cakes. All they had to steal was the bag of paper plates.
Katy’s in her favorite spot in the living room, the armchair, showing the notebook to some of the more zealous among her flock, but Thomas notices that there are only a few of these. Everyone else has had their fix and fill; they’re ready to get on with their night. Not even Liz is over there (though David is); she’s in the kitchen sipping a bottle of expired High Life and watching as a buzz-cut-sporting girl Thomas thinks is named Cindy slices up one of the cakes with a fine shining knife from David’s salvaged block.
Cindy—or whatever her name is—hands Liz a yellow paper plate with a fat slice of cake on it. The cake is dark chocolate and the icing is bright white, a snowdrift in full sun, save for a single red rose of frosting. “That looks good,” Thomas says. “Can I have one?”
“Sure, man,” maybe-Cindy says. “Anyone good coming up at Clasen’s?”
“This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb,” Thomas says. “And hopefully the Dust Biters, but I’m not sure when.”
“Well, cool. You should let me know. Maybe we could meet up there or something.”
“Yeah, maybe, sure.”
Thomas’s plate is blue. He passes through the kitchen, grabs three beers from the case in the fridge—all with his left hand, the bottlenecks between his fingers—and takes his spoils back to his room, hip-bumping the cracked door wide, then nudging it closed behind himself with a foot. He puts everything down except for one beer, twists the cap off, and lets the little puckered button fall. He turns his stereo on, punches PLAY on the tape deck, and sort of half sits half drops to his own floor while the speakers hiss. He leans his back against his bed, reaches up behind his head and feels around for the plate. Maybe-Cindy didn’t give him a fork. Ah fuck it. Poison Idea is singing “Death Wish Kids” at stun-gun volume and Thomas is eating liberated cake with his bare hands.
But the Poison Idea album’s only like twenty-five minutes long, and he started it in the middle, so it’s over way too soon. He thinks about rewinding the tape and starting from the beginning, but maybe better to see what comes on next.
“There’s a fire in the Western world!”
Oh fuck it’s Dead Moon! They’re this amazing lo-fi punk trio from—where are they from? Oregon somewhere, but not Portland, which is where Poison Idea comes from. Somewhere up there. What a weird album th
is is, Strange Pray Tell. Like it’ll be raging one minute, really calling the thunder down, but then there’ll be a weepie like “Can’t Do That,” which but for want of a synthesizer and a cheesy big drum would fit comfortably on any Elvis Costello record between, say, Armed Forces and now. And then what do they follow that up with? “13 Going on 21,” with the woman—the bass player—singing in this growl like Courtney Love without the sinus problems. Actually, the whole record sounds sort of like a bootlegged Nirvana demo. Didn’t this come out around the same time as Nevermind? Close, anyway. Must have been. The Great Northwest. Jesus Christ. What he wouldn’t give to have been able to be there then, know those guys, witness everything firsthand, be part of it. He was a kid, of course, still in high school when Kurt made his big decision. After Kurt died the whole scene imploded. The replicas swept in—vulturous scum like that band Bush, and then all that hideous pop-punk that still dominates today. NOFX and all that shit. Ugh. The whole Fat Wreck Chords catalog should just die already—except for Propagandhi of course. Because those guys come from a metal background, and their politics are A fucking plus.
This album’s really not that punk at all, actually. At least not soundwise. Closer to country music and, like, the Replacements or something. But that’s the whole thing about punk, isn’t it? What bands like Blink-182 can’t understand—punk isn’t a sound, it’s an idea. It’s a posture, if there’s a way in which saying that can be a not-pejorative thing to say. Or, if there isn’t, then put it another way: it’s a philosophy, not a formula.
Fuck, but he sounds like Parker, doesn’t he? This is fortune cookie logic. Enough, enough. Think about something useful, man. You don’t want to be like them.
So he thinks about Seattle, and how the New World Order is coming. They’ll gather at the end of November, to eat caviar and suck each other off. Unpayable bank loans for the third world; economic slavery as the new face of imperialism. Indian villages drowned by dam projects. Whole forests wiped out so Americans can wipe their asses with two-ply. Countless species vanishing, and the seas rising, and this ragged hole in the atmosphere widening, and skin cancer rates skyrocketing, and a million other things besides. But these guys and their Armani suits. Their silk ties. Filet mignon. Death merchants. Capitalists. Their private cars and mobile phones.
Thomas has never been to Seattle. Hasn’t been much of anywhere, in fact, which always bothers him when he thinks about it—and then the being-bothered is what bothers him because it’s such a problem of privilege. Some people live under power lines, or grow up in the middle of some refugee camp, or sweat their childhood out in some factory or mine. Thomas’s biggest bitch in life is that the family only ever took vacations to see his aunt on Long Island, plus of course the occasional cruise. What’s next? Complaining that they never sent him to Europe? Actually, his mom thought studying abroad was this totally great idea for his junior year, and had been more than willing to pay for it, but then he dropped out instead. Okay, slow down. Nobody can control where they come from. It’s not your fault your father played markets. And again, it’s not like he’s a Rockefeller. His parents both still work. The nest is pretty much feathered, but it’s hardly gilt. And it’s not like he takes their money anyway. Not like they offer. “When you’re ready to behave like an adult,” they said, “we can discuss how to fund your going back to school. Until then, there’s really nothing to talk about.” Too true. And so he hasn’t talked to them in how long?
Ah, but he’s really getting into it tonight, isn’t he? Time to crack another beer.
Seattle. City of wind and grunge, heroin and hi-tech and, uh—what else? Starbucks. Aren’t they from there? And Nike, maybe. Yeesh. Still. The WTO protest is going to be a big deal. He’s sure of it. Seattle’s going to be a game-changer. The movement is going to make itself known, take the overlords by surprise for once, and declare with one resonant voice that another world is possible, and we demand it be delivered to us now. After that—well, who knows? If they can win big in Seattle then anything might follow. This could be the beginning of the new New Left. Maybe they’ll be able to light a little fire under that fake-ass progressive Al Gore. If he wants to run for president next year he’s going to have to distance himself from Blow-Me Bill’s neoliberal scam job. That hayseed motherfuck. Air strikes in Africa, more pot smokers arrested than under Nixon, telecom deregulation, the extraordinary unchecked violence of “free trade,” the promise of health care betrayed, plus whatever actually happened to that Vince Foster guy. When this is what the liberals look like, who needs conservatives? This whole bullshit line about the “global village.” Stinks about as rotten as “two-party system.” They just want to solidify their position. New command and control centers for the capitalist war machine. Time to sound the alarm loud and clear, wake the world up from this fucked fever dream, and that’s what it’s going to be all about in Seattle.
“Man with no eyes appears,” sings Dead Moon. Or, really, moans it. Then something something, “room 213.” He’s never been able to figure this song out. The only thing he knows for sure about it is it’s a minute and a half too long. Maybe there’s a reason these guys never sold out when grunge broke big. Like, maybe nobody offered.
Thomas downs the last of his beer and picks himself up off the floor. He puts the bottles on his windowsill, looks out across the dark front yard. There’s light in the VW, soft and small: more candles, he’s almost sure of it. It’s like the Middle fucking Ages in this family. He turns from the window, hits the STOP button on the tape deck. When Dead Moon winks out of existence it is instantly replaced not with silence but with the noise from the living room. There’s a full-blown party going on out there. There’s a fire in the Western world.
He’s in the bedroom doorway now, appraising the scene. He’d like to lock his door, but you can only do that from the inside. Not like anyone’s going to steal anything—not like he has anything worth stealing, except the stereo, which is too bulky to move without someone noticing. His real concern is that nobody ends up screwing on his bed. Nobody but him, that is. So he shuts the door firmly, as in, people take heed. Not that anyone’s paying attention to him, but he at least knows what he meant.
Now he’s back in the kitchen, shouldering his way through clusters of kids in conversation (“yeah the problem with Chomsky,” “and my sister was all like,” “you missed that show how could you miss that fucking show it was the best show I ever saw I can’t believe”) on his way to the beer. He’s both astonished and impressed to see how low supplies are running. This crowd’s got appetite, that’s for sure. If there was only some way to harness that energy for anything remotely useful. He grabs two of the last beers, jams one uncomfortably into his pocket and cracks the other, takes a big swig, then surveys the traffic jam of bodies that fill all the floor space, halls and doorways, slouched on couches, leaning against walls. Where did all these other people come from? He turns the other way, out the kitchen door again, past a loose clutch of chattering smokers in their dingy convivial cloud.
He sees a circle of poets over by the tent, gathered close about the candle’s sunken light. Anchor’s with them. This is her favorite part of the service, to sit and listen and clap for her friends. She never brings anything of her own to share, has never tried to write a poem, she says, but Thomas is pretty sure she’d like to. Maybe she’s working up the guts. What he would like is to grab her attention—whisk her away to his room, where they can talk and screw, but it would be wrong to drag her from this moment. Because she really would come, if he asked her to. In fact, he should go away before she notices him standing there, because if she sees him it won’t be about her anymore, it’ll be about what he hears, his opinions and approval: him him him. It makes him wary and nervous, the command he has over her. He’d break her of it if he only knew how.
In the unlit side yard, some guy who apparently ran out of patience with the bathroom line is pissing on the side of the house. He’s got both palms flat against the wall like a sus
pect, his dick swinging free. A short ways beyond him two girls, who obviously had this spot long before pisser arrived, are rolling around on the ground and kissing, leaves clung up all over their tee shirts. Thomas steps literally over them as he passes into the front yard.
The slide door of the VW is closed, but the small light within is still shining, and they’re not making fuck noises or anything, so Thomas knocks.
“Oh, hey man,” says Owl, popping up from the floor of the van, his face filling the window: a pair of Coke-bottle glasses beneath a floppy rainbow Rasta hat. He’d be a perfect cartoon if not for the beard stubble. And the worry lines. How old is Owl, anyway? Closer to Rooster’s age than Anchor’s. Yikes.
Owl slides the bus door open and Thomas climbs in. There’s music coming from a small beat-up boom box that’s plugged into the extension cord that snakes out the bus’s front window, an umbilicus connecting it to the house. The music is hippie shit—aimless, all high-end, and on these speakers might as well be coming over a tin-can tree house phone. But hey, to each their own. Right? Selah’s stretched out on the back bench. The guys both sit cross-legged on the floor, where the middle bench should be but isn’t. This is where they sleep, on a foam pad that’s presently rolled up and stuffed under Selah’s seat. For once, she’s not making a necklace, but her hands are still busy at work. She’s rolling a fat jay; exactly what Thomas had hoped. “Can I offer you something?” he asks. “A few bucks.”
“Nah man, pleasure’s ours. This is your juice flowing through our troubadour.” He pats the boom box affectionately on its lid, which sets the CD skipping. “Ah man.” He pops the lid open, pulls the still-spinning disc from the tray, starts to fiddle with something inside. Clearly not the first time Owl’s had to do triage on the boom box. By the time the jay’s lit the air is once more filled with the sound of breezy, shapeless tin. Now Thomas is feeling fine. Relaxed, a little silly—totally mute. Pot always makes him feel like he’s got his head stuck in a cotton ball. A not unwelcome sensation, though sometimes it makes him nervous because he hates to feel like he can’t express himself, can’t say what’s on his mind or pick a fight. But now, here, with these two well-beloved weirdos, in the shabby and substantial comfort of their hot dark van, it is a welcome relief from the polymorphous chaos of the party. He is glad to be confined within himself in silence, no longer cross-legged but now slouching against the van’s inner wall.
The Gospel of Anarchy: A Novel Page 10