End Time

by G. A. Matiasz

  A number of things came from his blinding. He lost his job. But what with Social Security disability payments and the decent settlement from his lawsuit against the city, Al was able to secure his future, pay his medical bills, and get a computer/sensopic augment operation so that he might have limited vision in the red/infrared range. He also purchased outright the military surplus, scientific and computer equipment he required for his pirate radio station. His blinding gave him an inner sight, a mystic vision that both turned him toward his idiosyncratic Coptic faith and toward guerrilla radio broadcasting. A Black angel of the Black Lord God visited him and called him to set up Liberation Station Afrika as a witness. In turn his politics, which had started drifting toward the Black nationalist Left when Zach was brutalized, jumped the left-center-right political track for the neo-Garveyist “back to Africa” fringe.

  Al’s technical knowledge, ingenuity, and new religious drive put the station on the air in two years time. He devised twelve portable transmitters, each solar powered and each with the capacity to receive, then convert information encoded in infrared laser pulses into continuous wave radio transmissions. He developed the computer program, not only to handle the laser transmissions from his apartment building to the transmitters around the city, but also to synchronize the relay of random laser transmissions from one transmitter to the other into a continuous broadcast. Finally, using the front of his son’s janitorial service and with Leo’s help, he personally installed every one of the station’s transmitters, camouflaging them on the tops of tall buildings around downtown in line of sight with his penthouse apartment. He used his narrow, red spectrum vision to align them perfectly. The spread of transmitters as a whole and the duration of each transmitter’s broadcast, coupled with Al’s micro-modulated massage of the transmission’s frequency phase, made detection of his pirate station virtually impossible. Inclement weather occasionally cut off his broadcast, but the Feds could not.

  Liberation Station Afrika reached from Richmond to San Leandro, and from the eastern SF peninsula well into Contra Costa County. DJ Elijah managed to field 16 to 24 hours of programming out of his living room that combined extreme variety in content with a basic radicalism in approach. Al’s zeal for the truth, and for broadcasting the truth via his Liberation News Service, earned him the respect and love of the Bay Area’s black population. And, in order to keep the truth up-to-date, Al Thompson aka DJ Elijah relied upon an anonymous, church-based tip line backed up by an extensive, deep rooted network of community sources. He was generous in kind. Both the station and Al crusaded fervently against drugs in America’s African American communities. His far reaching grapevine, his “street ear” frequently turned up news of big drug deals in the works. He fed the tips, in turn, to a select circle of Black cops and Federal agents he trusted and respected, helping them in their careers and cultivating their friendships for future favors. This alliance of convenience put a large dent in Oakland’s crack, heroin, and Ynisvitrin traffic, earning DJ Elijah some powerful enemies.

  One of Thompson’s cops turned. The Chinese Mafia bought the SFPD officer. But it still took the cop and his new owners over a year to track down the station’s true broadcast point. Al had been wily, for even if someone managed to pin down one or two of his transmitters, they did not have his living room studio, the heart and brain of Liberation Station Afrika. What is more, any move on his transmitters provided him with advance warning that the station’s security was being breached. His enemies finally resorted to hacking the Social Security data base to locate any and all blind African American Persian Gulf vets receiving disability in the Bay Area. Then they penetrated Thompson’s elaborate facade of front businesses and addresses he had built up around his SS number, finally drawing cross hairs on his downtown penthouse apartment operation.

  Al kept a tape of every broadcast, as well as duplicates of the music, speeches, programs, sermons, lectures, classes, and readings in the station’s library down in his building’s basement, along with his computer software backups. At one time, he had contemplated transferring the broadcast studio to the basement, using it as a bunker against any assault. But then he had reasoned that, if anyone were truly serious about taking him and his station out, they would not blink at taking out the entire building in order to do so. He had been right on that score. On the first day of the Oakland Insurrection, at 3 in the afternoon and in the middle of DJ Elijah’s rebroadcast of one of Malcolm X’s speeches, while Al changed Zach’s diaper, a nondescript helicopter approached the penthouse, flying high and partially hidden by veils of smoke. It launched a precision air-to-surface projectile, then veered sharply off. The projectile started to rapidly unweave a mere forty yards above the roof, quickly loosing speed as it spread into a large dandelion lacery of contact triggered Semtex H nodules. Floating down to lightly touch... The explosion annihilated four flours of the building outright, so powerful it blew out any danger from fire and left the remainder of the structure largely intact.

  Neither Zoe nor Leo were in the building at the time.

  ***

  Peregrine normally did not drink before a job, but he broke into the General Store again, half tanked, riding on confidence about the coop’s shoddy security as well as elation from events in Oakland. A splendid diversion, he thought, perhaps even a genuine revolutionary moment. Peregrine laughed out loud as he brazenly counted out the Store’s $388, walking openly across campus. He found the emergency telegram from his brother’s lawyer in his apartment’s door upon returning.

  THIRTY

  Maria and Jesus Madron were key CT workers on the Campeche coast. Married some thirty years, they lived in Coatzacoalcos in a small house with a luxuriant garden and five loud dogs. Both were elected representatives of the Campechean Regional Federation; an agrarian association covering four Federal States with a population of over two million, containing some of the nation’s most fertile lands. The number of cooperatives, collectives and communes in the Federation rose from 470 in late 2000 to a 1,050 in early 2002, with over 50% of the population living on them even though virtually half of the regional Federation was not, technically, in Liberated Territory.

  Maria Hernandez had been born in the endless impoverished mountains south of Mexico City, in a village that ceased to exist when its entire population migrated person-by-person, family-by-family to the metropolis. There, she met Jesus Madron, indigent son of a landless peasant family recently moved to the city from Cuetzalan and, at sixteen and seventeen respectively, they married. Maria’s uncle bequeathed the couple a mid-size ejido in Coatzacoalcos, and they did their best to make a go of it.

  They actually succeeded modestly, and joined the small holding agrarian middle class, where they could have remained comfortable. Yet even before the rise of the unions associated with the CT, they had held unconventional ideas. Jesus was big on innovation, and his mail order seeds and personal experiments in breeding and hybridizing had measurably helped their crop yields. They were unable to have kids of their own. Dependent upon hired landless laborers to help cultivate their ejido, Maria insisted that anyone who contributed to the prosperity of their land earned a share in that wealth. So when a peasant worker finished out a season in the Madron’s employ, he or she took, besides the wages earned, maybe a chicken or two, a pig perhaps if the worker was a long timer going to the city, for helping to make the Madron ejido successful.

  Their life together was by no means idyllic. Besides the back breaking work required to keep the ejido going, Jesus’s agricultural innovations were resisted by the peasant conservatism of their neighbors. Then there were the protection rackets run by State and Federal police on anyone with any measure of prosperity. The Madron’s, having weathered the PRI’s attempts to privatize the ejido system in the 1990’s to facilitate corporate penetration of Mexican agriculture, had refused to pay up on principle. Twice their fields were set ablaze, unsuccessful attempts at intimidation in that everyone helped the beloved Maria and Jesus to put out the f
ires and to financially recover. Jesus in turn invested heavily in watchdogs and shotguns. Finally, when Maria caught Jesus philandering with the widow across town, she left him to return to her parent’s home for close to six months. A much chastened Jesus traveled to her parents to plead for her return, to find that Maria had fervently embraced the liberation politics of the Union de Trabajadores de Mexico.

  The reunited couple returned to Coatzacoalcos, Jesus now a reluctant party to his wife’s new politics. His hesitancy soon dissolved and both threw themselves into agricultural organizing in the region, helping to found the CT just before the ‘99 General Strike. Their region was not formally a part of the Liberated Territories after the August Uprisings but its workers and peasants carried out large land holding and wasteland expropriations. What is more, their region’s cooperative, collective and communal agriculture went to help feed the revolutionary movement. Jesus arranged a mutual aid contract for San Cristobal to market the crop of Campeche’s cooperative citrus federation among the Caribbean islands in exchange for the introduction of appropriate technological innovations into southern Mexico. Crop yields dramatically improved, and soil depletion and erosion were reduced. When “white hand” death squad killings were used to intimidate those who supported the Liberated Territories, the Madrons provided their home for meetings of the popular self-defense militia.

  Jesus was jailed three separate times for their efforts. The last time, on the eve of his transfer to Mexico City, and certain torture, he was liberated from the local stockade by a mob of angry friends, fellow CT members, and, it was rumored, a small FAO contingent. They marched on the prison and threatened to burn it down. Word of the FAO’s presence was sufficient to convince the local authorities to hand Jesus over.

  Jesus and Maria shared an understanding that the mass, monolithic nature of capitalism was the counterpoint to the insular, small village, no matter how communal and egalitarian. Neither could serve as a model for the future. Taking their cue from Marx and Kropotkin, who both wrote of the need to integrate town and country, and with the good points to the Israeli kibbutz experience more particularly in mind, the Madron’s founded a model agrotown on the seashore east of Coatzacoalcos, on reclaimed marshlands. Called Adan, it cultivated both land and sea, held property in common, raised children communally, and utilized the most advanced technologies to minimize the need for intensive labor and maximize the community’s interaction with the outside world. It served as a nexus between the Liberated Territories and San Cristobal, traded with Cuba and the European Community, and courted the Japanese and Singaporeans to back its promising aquacultural projects. Then US Special Forces blew Adan off the map in a fire-and-brimstone warning to the neighborhood. Adan had been a year and six months old then, and the Madrons had been in Coatzacoalcos, keeping up the ejido.

  Jesus Madron survived two Subucu spider assassination attempts. His well trained dogs caught both metal creatures before they could approach, let alone inject him with their lethal poisons. The spiders were then shipped off to San Cristobal for study.

  THIRTY-ONE

  “Got some good news,” Sampson laughed over the phone. Marcus, still in his pajamas, had gotten used to these violations to his business hours lately. He stifled a yawn. “Kenny Wisdom is currently in San Diego MCC, and he writes to a San Francisco PO box regularly. I also found out that the box is owned by Eugene Wisdom. Street address a dead-end.”

  “So, he’s still in the area,” Marcus said.

  “That’d be my guess,” Brian brimmed, “His record at Stanford is interesting as well. I couldn’t get much on him at first. Seems he left on less than friendly terms, under a cloud. So I dug deeper. He was an undergraduate and a graduate student at Stanford. Infant savant type. History Department there was so impressed with his undergraduate work, they granted him full support and a graduate position in the doctoral program. Apparently, he was living with a girl during his graduate work. A graduate student in Marine Biology. She left him at the end of his second year. Sent him into a full tail spin. He did a nose dive his third year. Failed his exams. Cheated on some and was caught. He assistant-taught his classes drunk. The Department tried to cut a deal with him but by then he was completely irresponsible, so they cut him. Needless to say, they don’t like talking about him. One more thing, your MO on the Alabaster robberies. I did a check of the Palo Alto area police records during the period that Eugene was at Stanford. There was an unsolved string of robberies, same MO as Alabaster, right around the time Eugene Wisdom broke up with his girlfriend, extending until a year after he dropped out of graduate school.”

  “Fabulous,” Marcus grinned into the phone, “Can you fax me the info?”

  “It’s on its way.” And it was. As Marcus picked up the sheets, the phone rang again.

  “Joe here,” Manley’s voice rang through, “Hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “Not at all,” Marcus smiled, “Good news?”

  “You bet,” Joe said, “Got a DMV readout on Eugene Wisdom. Both drivers license and car registration. Address is an SF PO box. And, there’s more. Our Department’s computers have three unpaid parking tickets on the car belonging to Eugene Wisdom in Alabaster. Two are past due, the third has two more weeks.”

  “I suppose you can’t put out an APB on that car based on two tickets,” Marcus laughed.

  “Not an APB,” Joe said, “But we can manage an impound, if he doesn’t pay the third ticket.”

  “That’s a start,” Marcus said, “Can you swing by with what you’ve got? I’m particularly interested in the locations on those tickets.”

  “Can do,” Joe said.

  As Marcus hung up, he noticed the morning filling the silent front room. 6:30. He decided to brew up a pot of coffee and start the day. Peregrine and Eugene Wisdom were one and the same. He leafed through the manila file with the three pictures and one video clip that had gestalted with the Peregrine sketch. He stared at the sketch that he had updated with freckles and red hair. Eugene Wisdom was almost in his grasp.

  ***

  Lori had made Greg an offer, in front of Smoke, that he had been too drunk to accept. Larry wound up driving his friend home the night before. He woke with a hangover. The fax had a message from his father, a check up call, and he managed to leave a reassuring reply with Andre’s answering service before forcing himself to eat breakfast, swallow a couple of aspirins and catch a bus to the ASU campus. He made sure his car was still in the school’s parking lot before attending his first class. His efforts, plus lunch between classes, helped his condition. The classes were a blur. Smoke intercepted him on his way to the library and some desperately needed studying.

  “Yo,” Smoke caught him entering Remley Plaza, mirrored shades and leather jacket once again fully armoring him. “Gotta talk to you.”

  “What’s up?” Greg asked, thinking it was about Lori.

  “Your crew still planning a recycling run this weekend?”

  “Yah,” Greg groaned inwardly at yet another commitment he had to meet, “111 probably check out the truck tomorrow afternoon and well do the run Sunday morning. As usual.”

  “Do you pay by the day?”

  “No, we get a single weekend rate, ‘cause the office is closed Sunday,” Greg explained. “Its for a single day, so if we have a really big run, we have two days to get it done.”

  “Great,” Smoke said, “Now I gotta ask you a favor. Can you rent the truck tomorrow morning, early, and lend it to me for the day? I promise 111 return it and leave it for you to use Sunday morning.”

  “What do you need it for?” Greg stopped walking.

  “That’s something I’d rather not say,” Smoke said.

  “I don’t know,” Greg said, “I can’t just do that without permission of the recycling coop.”

  “This is important,” Smoke said.

  “Too important to tell me what’s up?”

  “Look Greg, if you want, I’ll show you what I’m doing. Tomorrow night. It’ll be dangerou
s, but if you’re up for it, you can come along. Then you can deliver the truck back yourself.”

  “I’ve got to study,” Greg dodged, “Do you have to know right this minute?”

  “Yes,” Smoke was emphatic, “This will contribute to the biggest revolutionary thing happening in this country now.”

  “Oakland?”

  “Yes,” Smoke admitted.

  “Alright,” Greg said, as much to get Smoke out of his face, “I better not regret this decision. And, I do want to go with you.”

  “OK,” Smoke smiled, “When does the office open?”

  “Eight-thirty tomorrow morning.”

  “I’ll meet you there then,” Smoke shook Greg’s hand, “And you meet me at nine tomorrow night, same place. I’ll be there.”

  Again, Greg tried for the library. Again, he did not make it as David snagged him by the fountain.

  “I’ve been talking to people,” David said, “People are thinking, now that Oakland’s happening, the Solidarity Brigade should have another meeting and work on taking the next step.”

  Your thinking, Greg said to himself. But aloud he said, to ward off this distraction: “How about Sunday, at ten in the morning. Redwood Eatery.”

  “Alright,” David waved.

  Again Greg tried for the library and made the steps before being intercepted by Margaret. She made him the same offer Lori had.

  “I really have to study, Peggy,” Greg said, desperate even as he became aroused.

  “Study at my place,” Margaret smiled, invitingly, “My roommate’s skiing again this weekend.”

  “Okay,” Greg said against his better judgment. He drove her to her apartment and managed to get in three hours on the books before she broke out the ganja and the wine. Greg drowned his better judgment in them. Then he dived into Margaret’s most willing body, attempting to annihilate his guilt, his responsibilities, his memories.

  ***

  Mark had drawn X’s for the locations of Eugene’s three tickets on a map of Alabaster after Joe brought their xeroxes over, then drew a circle around the marks. The circle covered downtown, around the Loop, and it was at least a week away for the detective’s house-to-house at his pace.