Parts Per Million
Page 1
Finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction
“Parts per Million effortlessly weaves the personal with the political in this relentless page-turner. Part psychological thriller, part hard-boiled noir, the characters are fresh, real, and alive. With a lightness of touch and an uncanny ear for great dialogue, Julia Stoops tells the story of four activists in a time of war, their moral and emotional conflicts, their betrayals and their small acts of heroism. Parts per Million reads like the bastard offspring of Graham Greene and Naomi Klein.”
—Robert Newman, author of The Fountain at the Center of the World
“While Julia Stoops documents activism of the early 2000s, Parts per Million couldn’t feel more relevant today. The struggle to remain faithful to the ideals—and hard work—of activism, the thrill of the rare, hard-won victory, and the navigating of personal politics, gives this book a thrilling narrative and makes it an inspired wake-up call to all of our inner activists.”
—Ben Parzybok, author of Sherwood Nation
“Parts per Million is a cry for justice and a journey through the heart. Julia Stoops brilliantly conjures the social and political unrest of the early 2000s. The war drums, the resistance, the secretive birth of the surveillance state—all lit by deep emotional honesty. Stoops’s keen eye sweeps us into the lives of three Portland activists—separate souls shakily united by a cause, a house, and a radiant artist/ex-junkie named Deirdre, who simultaneously illuminates and complicates their struggles. Compelling and deeply compassionate, Parts per Million takes us to a time and place we thought we could forget, but can’t, and shouldn’t. Reading it may be the surest way to understand who we were then, and—in the tumult of our times—who we need to be today.”
—Scott Sparling, author of Wire to Wire
"Through the fully alive and magnetic characters in this book, Stoops captures our most serious global issues with her uncommon insight, wisdom, and humor. A remarkable, page-turning feat.”
—Karim Dimechkie, author of Lifted by the Great Nothing
“The little-known history of West Coast, Left Coast eco-activism in the early aughts bursts to life in this timely and important book, full of finely drawn characters and outrageous intrigues. Eco-fiction at its finest, Parts per Million is one of the origin stories of the resistance, and a primer for the fight to come.”
—Susan DeFreitas, author of Hot Season
“In her carefully thought-out debut novel Parts per Million, Julia Stoops gives us a team of young and not-so-young political activists at the beginning of the twenty-first century, working overtime to correct what they see as dangerous if not disastrous forces at work in the American political status quo. Stoops’s adroit involvement of digital technology in the story gives a lively real-world edge to the presentation. Like a heartbeat against the center of the novel’s environmental and war concerns is a love relationship laden with hopes, dreams and challenges familiar to the times. Parts per Million is a timely and stimulating fictional look at the difficult and too-often thankless task of defending the planet.”
—Harold Johnson, author of The Fort Showalter Blues
"The page-turning plot would be reason enough to read Parts per Million, but Julia Stoops gives us characters so fully developed the novel feels like theater-in-the-round. The questions they ask themselves are central to our times–how do we live ethical lives in the face of so much institutionalized greed? If the personal is political, how can we turn away from anyone in crisis? Stoops takes us on a joyride through the political turmoil of the early twenty-first century, bringing anti-war protests and direct-action environmentalists vividly to life. Her characters may wear their political hearts on their sleeves, but it’s their internal struggles that capture our attention and make this story such a rich and timely read."
—Stevan Allred, author of A Simplified Map of the Real World
Parts per Million
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance these characters have to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
© 2018 by Julia Stoops
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any form, with the exception of reviewers quoting short passages, without the written permission of the publisher.
Cover design: Gigi Little
Cover art: Julia Stoops
Illustrations: Gabriel Liston
Interior design: Laura Stanfill
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Stoops, Julia, author.
Title: Parts per million / Julia Stoops.
Description: Portland, Oregon : Forest Avenue Press, [2017]
Identifiers: LCCN 2017041263| ISBN 9781942436355 (softcover) | ISBN
9781942436362 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Interpersonal relations--Fiction. | Communal living--Fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3619.T689 P37 2018 | DDC 813/.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017041263
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Distributed by Publishers Group West
Printed in the United States of America by United Graphics LLC
Forest Avenue Press LLC
P.O. Box 80134
Portland, OR 97280
forestavenuepress.com
For environmental activists of every stripe.
One day you will be considered heroes.
Contents
Part One Illustration
PART ONE
1: NELSON
2: FETZER
3: JEN
4: FETZER
5: NELSON
6: FETZER
7: NELSON
8: JEN
9: FETZER
10: NELSON
11: FETZER
Part Two Illustration
PART TWO
12: JEN
13: NELSON
14: JEN
15: FETZER
16: JEN
17: NELSON
18: JEN
19: FETZER
20: JEN
21: NELSON
Part Three Illustration
PART THREE
22: JEN
23: FETZER
24: NELSON
25: FETZER
26: JEN
27: FETZER
28: JEN
29: FETZER
30: NELSON
31: JEN
32: FETZER
33: NELSON
34: FETZER
35: JEN
36: FETZER
37: JEN
38: NELSON
39: FETZER
40: NELSON
41: JEN
42: NELSON
43: JEN
44: FETZER
45: JEN
46: FETZER
Part Four Illustration
PART FOUR
47: NELSON
48: FETZER
49: JEN
50: NELSON
51: JEN
52: NELSON
53: JEN
54: FETZER
55: JEN
56: FETZER
57: NELSON
58: JEN
59: NELSON
60: FETZER
61: JEN
Part Five Illustration
PART FIVE
62: FETZER
63: NELSON
64: FETZER
65: JEN
66: FETZER
67: NELSON
68: JEN
69: NELSON
70: FETZER
71: NELSON
72: JEN
73: NELSON
74: JEN
75: FETZER
76: JEN
77: NELSON
78: FETZER
> 79: JEN
80: NELSON
Epilogue Illustration
EPILOGUE: FETZER
About the Illustrator
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Afterword
A Short Note from the Illustrator
Book Group Questions
Deirdre on her cot
PART ONE
1: NELSON
Nelson is standing five hundred miles from home, surrounded by sagebrush, waiting for this to be over. There is no moon, only the sweep of the Milky Way.
Next to him Fetzer is just a shape in the dark. Fetzer whispers, “They’re using napalm. To get the beams going. I hate the smell of napalm in the morning.”
Nelson grapples for a sympathetic reply. Eventually he says, “I can imagine.”
“Camera on?”
“Yeah,” says Nelson. He’s glad for the small talk. “It wasn’t focusing. But Jen turned on her flashlight and I got it locked in on that.”
Fetzer grunts in reply.
The Earth Freedom Brigade certainly chose a lovely night for a firebombing.
It had never occurred to Nelson, as he was studying the science of the natural world, that he’d end up being a part-time cameraman. He’s a better writer. It would be nice if the Brigaders asked him to write their communiqué. He’d refer to data and present a cogent argument for the release of the horses. Instead, some kid will pen some hyperbolic paragraph, and Jen will think it’s great, Fetzer will cock an eyebrow at it, and Nelson will sigh as he uploads it to the website. But at least being a cameraman at a sabotage action isn’t as nerve-racking as being an actual saboteur.
The soft sounds of horses float over from the corral. Nelson closes his eyes. He sees himself and the others as tiny figures on the vast, high desert plain. Tiny people doing big things to put the world right. All this risk, all this danger, the worth of it. He expects the familiar jolt of purpose, but it doesn’t come.
It’s been nearly six years since Nelson turned his back on the Forest Service. Jen and Fetzer had sought him out, asked him to listen. They’d opened his eyes to what was really going on, and after that, sitting at a desk making bureaucratic decisions about forests lost its meaning. He’d tumbled out of his desk job and into an exhilarating, terrifying life with them, disrupting development projects and blockading forest roads. Until one day a fellow activist sent them a VHS tape of some folks hanging a banner over a freeway. The video was so bad it made the action look like a joke.
Nelson and Jen and Fetzer had been sitting on a ragged sofa, late at night, the TV the only light in the room. Jen had said, “I’d be embarrassed to show that,” and Nelson and Fetzer agreed. Then Fetzer crossed his arms and smiled at an idea.
“Wouldn’t it be great if there was some team of journalists that specialized in direct actions? They’d travel around the country and document all these things that nobody ever hears about.”
It was one of those spear-through-the-heart moments. Nelson had turned to Fetzer and Jen and said, “We could be that team.”
How clear it all seemed back then.
“Done,” says a voice, and Nelson opens his eyes to the dark. One of the Brigaders walks in front of the corral, snapping twigs on his way over to the van.
Nelson really wants this to be over. He shifts his feet, but bumps the tripod. Repositions it. Wipes his damp palms on his pants. There’s a scraping sound, and a guy near the van says, “Quit spilling it on my fucking shoe.”
“Shhhhh,” says another guy.
Fetzer’s voice is a close-by murmur. “And they’re using aluminum-sulfur for the igniter.”
It occurs to Nelson that Fetzer, with nothing to do right now, has chosen to stand beside him instead of Jen on the other side of the barn. If Nelson asked, Fetzer would probably shrug and say something like his feet hurt and he can’t be bothered picking his way over there in the dark. But they both know that Jen is in her element, surrounded by these Brigader kids on the cusp of a firebombing. The energy coming off her the past few days has been palpable. They both know, even if Fetzer won’t articulate it, that there’s a comfort in each other’s company.
“We’re like the Three Musketeers,” Jen once joked, and Nelson had to explain that it wasn’t a good analogy because the Three Musketeers didn’t share their urgent need to save the planet.
“But still,” Jen had said, and she wiped the cuff of her plaid shirt under her nose. “They rode around and did rad shit.”
Nelson imagines the three of them on horses, and it makes him smile. For a moment it seems marvelous, beautiful, that they’ve stuck together all this time.
Fetzer was drunk the one time he told Nelson, years ago, about napalm bombing. It was like the end of the world, he’d said. He’d witnessed it burning through to bone. It burns bone. Keeps burning.
Bones. Barns. Paint it on the heavy beams to keep them burning. Nothing more pathetic than an arson strike that fizzles because your incendiaries are weak.
The barn is black against the starry sky. A flashlight swings a slippery beam, making grasses, shrubs, and feet surreal, then the light bobs and bounces with footsteps that crunch across the dark. Maybe it’s Jen.
Nelson turns on his headset mic. “Camera two?”
“Forgot my water bottle,” Jen’s voice says in his ear.
Earlier, in the dusk light, Nelson saw a patch of Sierra Valley ivesia, just starting to bloom. Those tiny yellow flowers! Ivesia aperta var. aperta. A Species of Concern, according to the Feds, and too beautiful to lose. Last time he visited this area he was a grad student researching the genus. Now he’s about to film an arson by a bunch of people who are stomping all over the place. Jen better not be stomping on any Sierra Valley ivesia.
Nelson tips back his head and the night sky fills his vision. The silence of the stars. If he’d carried on with his normal life, right now he’d be asleep in bed with Lise.
His neck hurts, and he brings his gaze back down. Over a decade ago it was hard work looking for that plant, eyes on the ground for hours. Finding one was like finding a jewel. It was only his thesis, but it felt like he was writing a book of jewels. Now, here in the dark under the watching stars, he’s pointing a camera at a barn in the last minutes of its existence. Back when Nelson was doing his thesis, he would have despised who he is today.
Fetzer’s profile changes, listening. There’s a faint rumble in the distance.
“Helicopter?” says Nelson, and already his heart is thumping louder than the faraway sound. There’s a guy in the van with a police scanner, but who knows if he can pick up aviation communications.
Fetzer’s inhalation makes a quiet whistle in his nose. “That’s—not a helicopter,” he says, like he’s not sure. He holds still. “That’s a semi truck. Compression braking on the freeway.” The sound fades. Nelson breathes in deep and pulls his hands out of his pockets. Squints to the viewfinder. Battery’s full. Manual focus is on. Just like it was five minutes ago.
Fetzer murmurs, “That girl Emma was giving you the eye earlier.”
Nelson puts his hands back in his pockets. Last thing he needs right now.
“She’s pretty cute, don’t you think?” Fetzer adds.
“She’s what, nineteen? Twenty?”
Fetzer sighs.
The horses are pacing. One of the Brigaders, Brian, whisper-shouts, “Ignition in five minutes!”
Nelson looks over to where Jen should be in the dark. “Camera two?” he says into his headset.
Jen’s voice comes into his ear. “Locked and loaded.”
Brian stage-whispers, “You camera guys ready? This is it! Where are you, Jen? Wanna make sure the horses don’t run you down.”
Jen’s flashlight clicks on, small in the distance, and waves an arc in the dark.
Brian checks in with the Brigaders one by one, and when he gets to Emma she calls out, “I’m doing another check for small animals.” Her flashlight blinks through cracks in the barn wall. Stomping
sounds, and her high, young-woman voice. “Fuck, it stinks in here,” she yells.
“Quit holding us up, Emma,” Brian says, and there’s a note of contempt that makes Nelson’s heart twinge for the girl. “Wanna burn this fucker down.”
The flashlight turns off, and there’s the crunch of Emma jogging away.
“Everybody ready?” says Brian. “You, ah, the other camera guy?”
Irritation sparks through Nelson. He says, “Yeah,” but his voice disappears into the dark. He clears his throat and checks the viewfinder. Other camera guy. Sheesh. He drove five hundred miles to be here. Least the Brigaders could do is remember his name.
People always remember Jen’s name. She’s a large enough woman with a square enough face that in those flannel shirts she sometimes gets mistaken for a guy. Even with the long hair. So the name helps clear up the ambiguity. And people remember Fetzer just fine, being so short and with his shaved head and his black combat boots. He looks like a little thug, until you realize he’s a really good guy. But everything about Nelson must be average and ordinary to these Brigader folks. Forgettable.
Horses snort. They’re not being released until the barn is on fire.
Nelson, Fetzer, and Jen had argued with the Brigaders about it earlier that evening. Brian had declared the order of events would be fire first and horses second. “It’ll drive them away,” he’d said as he tossed a dreadlock over his shoulder. “And good video. Horses in firelight!”
They’d explained that the fire would frighten the horses and they should be released beforehand, but Brian just grinned and said, “Think of the footage!”
And Nelson had decided right then that Brian didn’t deserve to be cell leader. In the supposedly leaderless structure of the Earth Freedom Brigade.
“Besides,” Brian argued, “fire’s a natural part of their ecosystem.”
When Brian had stepped away, Nelson muttered after him, “Think this is a movie or something?”
Now Brian calls through the dark, “Emma? Got the second gate?”
“Yeah,” she says, sulky. Nelson can’t blame the supporting actress for feeling unsupported.