Kill the dove!

by Francis Kroncke

  Chapter 27 - The companion

  Once out of Millston Jared expects to spend the night in Hennepin County jail, again. But—as harbinger of what the Ride is all about— he does not spend the night in County. In fact, they pull into the jail’s parking lot only long enough to change drivers.

  The new agent gets in but doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t greet him in anyway, not even a nod. In somewhat comic contrast Agent Brown actually waves goodbye—just a flicked hand signal but nonetheless it’s all more than a bit silly, given the reality of Jared’s not really leaving to go anywhere. But Jared doesn’t care, he just lets himself fall deeper and deeper into a fanciful reverie—I’m free!

  An hour later: “Witson,” that’s how he finally introduces himself, reaching into the back seat, an actual handshake, even friendly. “I’m Witson.”

  Jared slips him a limp hand.

  Witson’s a bit too friendly, it raises suspicions.

  “Where are we going?” Jared decides to be direct.

  Witson smiles, “Oh, here and there.”

  “Look, fuck-face, you can keep me in chains all day if you want but don’t fuck with me. Either deal straight or go to hell!” rises in anger and intensity.

  “My, my,” Witson mocks, “you are a mean and righteous brother with a heavy-duty attitude.” Jared spits silence at him.

  By the time the freeway signs are heralding the last outposts of civilization in Minnesota —Winona, Rochester, Albert Lee—and they enter the far country called Iowa, Jared’s mood shifts abruptly, shatters like fine crystal.

  “Getting there?” Jared reinitiates communication.

  “Not too long.” Witson squirms to a position of both comfort and conversation. “I was there, you know,” he says with an impish glint.

  Jared takes the bait. “Where’s there?”

  “The raid.”

  “The raid?” Jared pushes back the question, turning slightly towards Witson. “Where were you? I didn’t see you.”

  “With your buddy—Matt, right?”

  Jared shakes his head; hesitates, but then plunges right in. “Where’s Matt now? And Sean? And where are you taking me?”

  “Last time I answered that question you got righteous on me.”

  “Yeah, shit,” Jared waves it away as if the remark was a swarm of annoying flies, “but let’s get a little more specific than here and there.”

  Witson wants the conversation to pick up, so he feeds it some easy fodder. “Matt and Sean and the rest of your buddies are being dispersed. You know, you take the sticks of dynamite from the pile one at a time and soon . . . not much damage can be done.”

  “You mean the protest did that?”

  “I mean the riot did that.”

  Jared doesn’t want to tussle over words. “Fuck, yeah, riot—whatever. Hmm.” It did make sense from their perspective. Before he can enliven the dialogue with a verbal run on the power of nonviolence, Witson swoops in and unloads.

  “You know, you guys act like a bunch of wimps. I really can’t understand that, especially you, Mr. Jockstrap. Hell, if I was your size and had my martial arts skills, hell, I’d be an ass-kicker, not a boot-licker.”

  Jared almost swallows the bait. He smothers a “Fuck you, asshole!” and a “You’re the fucking wimps. You need guns. Got a small dick problem or something?” He swallows hard, once, twice then takes a deep breath, restraining himself. He knows he’s a prisoner in a car with a Fed. The little fucker’s just baiting me.

  “Sure, I can see your point,” Jared replies, smoothly. With a teacher’s instinct he’s moving the issue back in a positive way. “When I went before my draft board, they sort of had the same feeling, so I told them, ‘Hey, put me in ’Nam, give me a machine gun and a rack of grenades, hell, I’ll be a great killer!’” He checks the agent’s eyes. Witson’s listening, closely.

  Jared continues, “I really believe that. No money’s lost on that bet.” Then he grapples Witson at eye-level. “I’m probably one of the most, if not the most, violent people you’ll ever meet.” He doesn’t hype it, no “most A-motherfucking violent” or “fag-bashing violent.” No need for flowery machismo. Jared knows what he’s saying is simply true, and saying it this way brings Witson straight up.

  “Sounds convincing.”

  “I’m not trying to convince you. Just explain it, that’s all.”

  Do you know my dreams, Mister Fed?

  They hit another stop, this time for gas, a piss and some grub. Although Witson, at the start, took off his chains and handcuffs—much to Jared’s surprise but comfort—now he cuffs him. Strangely, he keeps them loose. For all practical purposes it’s just a matter of form over substance.

  Despite Witson’s gesture, Jared, unawares, plays the scene in prison mode. He waits for Witson to open the door, then walks a quarter-step behind him. Surprisingly, Jared feels no rush to bolt. Truer to his intellectual temperament, he’s rather eager to get back to rapping. Nonetheless, the visual humor of it all does strike him. He wonders what they look like to others. Him, the hulk athlete, and Witson the puny shit, bound by the steely cords of the gods of violence. When they return, Witson pulls another maneuver. “Want to sit up front?” Jared’s caught off guard, but just momentarily. Thoughts of reclining the passenger seat and stretching out his long legs makes his answer a no-brainer. “Fuck. Why not?”

  “I see, you don’t like me calling you guys wimps?” Witson wants to pump up the exchange, get it rushing downstream towards his goal.

  “Wimps. Fuck, who cares? I mean, sticks and stones. It’s you guys who are into words. I know your rap—Commies! Commies! Just say the word and you guys froth at the mouth!” Jared sniggles.

  Witson’s on the charge. “Granted. I accept that. But you guys see an Imperialist Pig behind every decent citizen in this country.” And cutting Jared off, he races on, puffing with his own righteousness. “I know your words. Lackey running dogs. Capitalist warmongers. White Devil.”

  “Whoa!” slapping the passenger side dashboard, “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!”

  Witson bites his tongue, takes a very obvious deep breath, keeps staring down the road, lets a space develop for Jared to speak.

  “Whoa, FBI boy, you’re talking Weatherman trash, not my lingo. I think you’ve been reading the wrong books!”

  “Books! Crap fella, I’ve been there. I know those people,” and he fails to soften the sound of his teeth as he gnashes the words out, “Those,” he stresses the word,” are your leaders. The Vanguard.”

  Jared throws back, “Vanguard! Jesus fucking Christ, Witson, you’ve bought more of their shit than I have—or ever will.”

  Vehemence strikes the air, “I was there! I know them!”

  “Fucking-A, man, bully for you! A fucking-A Weatherman groupie!”

  About five minutes later, “You don’t believe me, I can tell, you just don’t believe me.” Witson is hot, simmering, about to boil over.

  “Fucking-A, man, I don’t believe you.”

  Witson knows that he needs to step back—to create some mental and emotional distance. A taut silence holds each man at bay. Jared shifts and settles back as best he can into a spot of comfort. Witson exits the state highway and maneuvers over to a county road. As will be his way, he begins to wend through off-the-path streets and byways of small towns, villages and four-way stop sign rural intersections. He’s taking his time, enjoying the act of driving.

  Jared has an itch he needs to scratch before they arrive at wherever they’re going.

  “You were there?”

  “I told you that.”

  “Yeah, yeah . . . what’s this shit about the Weathermen?”

  It was time to explain; to set forth the initial range of imagery. “You know I’m a Fed, so you shouldn’t be surprised. Before I got this junket with you draft raider types, I spent two years with the Weather Bureau.”

  Jared believes him; it fits his own assumptions.

  “I ran
with JJ and Billy . . . Terry and Bernadine . . . the whole gang.” Jared has questions but holds back. “I was there almost at the beginning. Let me tell you,” and he purses his lips, lightly rubs his chin, squinches his eyes, making those manneristic adjustments he does when about to tell a story he relishes, “they are one crazy bunch. But don’t get me wrong, they’re dangerous as hell. More dangerous to themselves than anyone else is what I finally came to believe. Let me just tell you—but I’m sure you must know all this—they’re dangerous because they have no beliefs.”

  Jared remains a receptive listener, tossing him the nonverbal nods and shrugs that are received as “Go ahead,” and “Keep talking, I’m listening” affirmations.

  “It was their lack of beliefs—it is their lack of beliefs that will be their undoing. Their minds are like silly putty. All someone has to do is come in and yell out some incomprehensible Marxist or Maoist chatter and they’ll suck it up. Silly motherfuckers,” he ends with an angry sigh.

  Jared laughs, “Man, you mean you didn’t take the Class Option!”

  Witson doesn’t laugh, starts again. “They’re idiots. I really could never come to admire them. With all their education and degrees, all the privileges of their rich-kid backgrounds, believe me, they are really a bunch of stupid jerks!” Then he abruptly stops, falls into an absorbing moment of remembrance as reverie. Jared’s amused, waits, then snaps his fingers, “Witson! Witson! J. Edgar Hoover to Agent Witson!”

  Witson grins. They drive a mile or so before re-engaging.

  “So, man, why’d ya leave?”

  “Do you think I wanted to stay?”

  “No, I mean, hell, were you found out?”

  “No, no, nothing like that.” Curiously, Witson starts jiggling his right leg, his driving leg, as if ants were marching up towards his crotch. The car accelerates with a combo of jerks. He’s whacking his leg and wrestling the driving wheel as he says, “No, see, I bailed out. Just couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “Too dangerous?”

  Witson cracks up as that question registers. He’s quick! I’ll give him that. He laughs at himself as he realizes that Jared can’t figure why he’s wrestling with the steering wheel. Both break out laughing. The agent hits the steering wheel with his left palm, “Too dangerous! Oh my!” And he laughs some more. As he comes down he says, “Look, they were dangerous to themselves. You know about the townhouse explosion, right?”

  Jared nods, calling up a bit of recent history that had not concerned him too much when it happened back in March 1970. Several of the Weathermen blew themselves to smithereens while making a bomb in New York. It had devastated the group which to that time had not really felt on their own bodies the violence they so vociferously trumpeted.

  “After they did that, I had my excuse to vanish. So I did.”

  “Man, are you righteous on this? You guys had their number?”

  Witson doesn’t want to respond to that, it would take him off topic. He’s not as interested in telling his story as in riling Jared. He wants to get him agitated, hopefully enraged. To start spewing out his hatred. Reveal his violence. Witson thought that Jared’s knowing that he went undercover and screwed the Weathermen would bring out a Hey, man, you fucked my heroes! Your dirty bastard! But Jared’s simply listening, as if he’s sincerely interested in the storyline.

  “You really weren’t into their thing?” Witson genuinely asks.

  “Man, fucking-A no, I never bought into their rantings. Not an inch. Not a penny. Never. They were my greatest fear of who’d I become.”

  “But Aaren.”

  “Aaren?” The name came out drawn and quartered at every letter, slammed down and glued as one sound. “Aaren? What about Aaren?”

  Witson knows he’s found the master key!

  “Wargasm. Doesn’t that word mean anything to you?”

  “No.”

  “You really don’t know these people, do you?” comes to Jared as, “It was right under your nose and you couldn’t smell it!”

  “What. . .” Jared’s voice drifts away. With that, Steve Witson, FBI agent extraordinaire, picks up his main theme.

  “Wargasm was the final word. It came to signify everything, the combining of war and sex. It was inevitable, I guess. The words they threw out didn’t stick on the outside world so they threw them at themselves . . . and they stuck inside. They finally indicted themselves as the most imperialist of Imperialist Pigs. Honestly, it’s funny. Oddly, it was almost logical. When it came, I wasn’t surprised.” As if to himself he mutters, “Sickies, just sickies.” Back again, “So Wargasm. Yessir, they said it was all sexual. The talk became of cunts and pricks. It all came down to wiping away everything about one’s self that was personal or individual or special. They wanted to become ‘no man.’ No—no, I’ve corrected my sexist ways: ‘no person.’ Yessir, you just became a cunt or a prick.”

  These words weigh heavily on Jared’s heart and soul.

  Witson, unawares, has slowed down in both speech and speed. Someone honks a long, jeering ho-o-onk! because the Ride has rolled below the speed limit as if leading a funeral cordon.

  As impatient as ever, Jared wants him to get to the point. Witson senses that once Jared bites, he’s an easy fish to reel in.

  “Wargasm? What the hell do you mean?” The unspoken question is, “Aaren—what the hell do you know about her?”

  Witson quickly moves the story to its conclusion. “I did what I had to. I fought their war. It was a war of cunts and pricks. I fucked my brains out. They fucked my brains out!”

  Aaren? Aaren? scorches Jared’s brain.

  “Group sex, orgy, whatever you want to call it. It was all as cold and impersonal as killing gooks. Just as simple. ‘Bang! Bang! You’re dead.’ And then you simply move on. So I left them, a field of naked bodies, like a field of dead babies, all stillborn.” Witson caps the tale with an unthinking, “Shit!”

  Jared has to know: “What about Aaren?”

  Her name, a name he himself has spoken in lust, alerts him to Jared’s unrevealed obsession. Expertly trained, Witson responds by resuming his professional stance. “I thought you and she were tight?”

  “You think?”

  “I did. I thought you knew all of this Weathermen stuff.”

  “Nope.”

  “Tell me, is she special to you?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Gee,” almost a conveyance of concern, “I don’t want this to mess you up too much.” Yessir! I do! I do!

  “What?”

  “She is Wargasm.”

  Witson doesn’t have to elaborate but Jared must ask. He has nothing to lose. He’s back in full prison mode. In this frame of mind he stabs through the bars at the hack. “You?”

  “Sure—me, and an army of the night.”

  Jared is sucked back to that fierce point of anger that was his as the Ride began.

  Agent Witson checks his watch. It’s already six p.m. He’s pretty sure this county’s jail is just up the road. He’s in no hurry. Considers, Why not make it a short night? Catch a movie, if this corn-fed burg has a theater!

  Once there, Jared is taken directly to the Hole.