X’s eyes narrowed as he found what he was looking for: “Today is the day of our greatest victory. Today is the day for which we will be remembered. Today is the day we struck at the head of the snake — the national headquarters of the Jew-infested Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, D.C. And, at day’s end, seven hundred of their satanic agents were dead.” The book goes on to describe how the agents were slain: After weeks of reconnaissance, John T. drives a truck up to the FBI building, parks, and activates a timer. Twenty minutes later, a massive bomb levels the building, killing everyone inside. The bomb contains farm fertilizer and diesel fuel.
CHAPTER 17
“My parents sucked.”
It was sharing time, so Jess and I had adjourned to the garden out in the back. Casco Bay was an infernal hellhole, but they had a nice garden. As often as possible, Jess and I hung out there. It helped us forget where we were, however briefly.
Jessie was smoking, as usual, and I was stretched out on one of the benches at the back of the garden. She was walking back and forth, back and forth, fuming and smoking.
“They were fanatics,” she said. “They had this fucked-up philosophy about life, and they insisted that I go along with it, whether I agreed with them or not. They refused to listen to anything I had to say.” Her parents’ entire life philosophy, apparently, was sunshine and granola. That was what Jess called it, too: “sunshine and granola.”
No McDonald’s, no fast food, no TV, no comic books, no Slurpees, no fast cars, no technology, no popular culture, no rock ’n’ roll. “Especially no rock ’n’ roll,” she said.
“They made me listen to all this fucking sixties shit on their tinny old record player,” she told me. “Peter, Paul and Mary, the Mamas and the Papas, Simon and Garfunkel, Joan Baez, Woody Guthrie, early Dylan. Before he discovered the electric guitar, of course, because god forbid that anyone should ever pick up an electric guitar.” She frowned, smoking more. “I fucking hate early Dylan.”
Jess’s parents were against modernity, basically. Also on the list of things to be avoided, in their view, was anything that was popular or mass-produced — or in some way bad for you. “Everything that is worthwhile, basically,” Jess said.
So, naturally, Jess started eating Big Macs, drinking Coke Slurpees, watching Happy Days, and listening to loud rock ’n’ roll music as soon as she was able to. She wasn’t a punk, but she was a punk in her soul. She was against anything that her parents were for.
“You sound like a punk,” I told her. “Why didn’t you become one?”
She shrugged, lighting another Marlboro. “Where I grew up, nobody had ever heard of the Sex Pistols or the Clash or the Ramones or any of that,” she said, exhaling. “Nobody. I was living in the middle of nowhere. There was no punk rock in rural New Hampshire or rural Maine. It’s a miracle, actually, that I ever got to hear Motörhead.”
She first heard Lemmy’s nasal howl on her way into the library, where she’d work after school. A couple guys with long hair were sitting in a souped-up Mustang, windows down, and they had something cranked on the cassette deck. “They weren’t going to the library. They were waiting for a girl who was older than me. I’d seen them all together before that,” Jess said. “But I had sort of kept away, because they were a bit intimidating. Then I heard the tape they were playing.”
It was the first Motörhead album, released in 1977, right around the time that punk was showing up in London and New York and, believe it or not, in far-off places like Portland, Maine. Even though the guys in Motörhead had long hair and had come from the traditional rock scene, they were punks in their attitude.
Jess, standing on the sidewalk near her small-town high school, was jolted by what she was hearing. After a couple false starts, she summoned the courage to approach the pair.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” one of the guys said, without turning down the sonic barrage coming out of the Mustang’s speakers. “What’s up, little girl?”
Jess ignored the “little girl” remark. She was on a mission. “Um, what’s that?” she asked. “What’s that music?”
The guys laughed. “That, little girl, isn’t music. That’s fucking Lemmy and Motörhead. First album, first side, first song. Motörhead.”
“Lemmy and Motörhead? That’s their name?”
The guy laughed again. “No, just Motörhead,” he said. “Lemmy is the lead singer. Motörhead is his band. Fuckin’ awesome, eh?”
Jess nodded. “Fucking awesome,” she agreed. It was the first time she had ever used the word fuck in a sentence. Her parents disapproved of swear words, too.
That same afternoon, she found a copy of Rolling Stone at the 7-Eleven. There, in the classifieds at the back, was a tiny ad for Chiswick Records in England. Motörhead’s label. The ad listed some of Chiswick’s acts: the Damned, the Gorillas, Dr. Feelgood, Johnny Moped, the 101ers — and Motörhead. Jess paid for a money order at the post office the next afternoon and sent it off to Chiswick Records in London.
“I had it sent to the library where I was working, so my parents wouldn’t find out,” Jess said, smiling at the memory. “The library had a couple of soundproof listening booths for people to listen to records, mainly classical stuff and jazz.” She laughed. “I’ll bet that’s the first time anyone ever played something like that in there.”
“So,” I said, “you transformed it into a cool library after that?”
“Not really,” Jess said, stubbing out the Marlboro. She frowned. “It was still a weird little library. Some weird people hung out there. Lemmy kept me sane, most of the time.”
CHAPTER 18
“What a shitshow,” Savoie said, surveying the scene.
He was standing by his rusty Oldsmobile when Laverty arrived. She’d called the night before to tell him they needed to attend the Klansmen’s march. Savoie had grumbled about the hour-long drive from Portland and the waste of a perfectly good day. Laverty reminded him that policing a Klan rally in Portsmouth was still a lot more interesting than knocking on doors in Portland, asking people in vain if they’d seen anything. He had to agree.
The crowd that had assembled on the New Hampshire side of the Piscataqua River Bridge was made up of around a hundred men, most wearing homemade Klan robes and chanting racial epithets. Traffic had slowed to a crawl on the massive steel bridge, the midpoint of which was the Maine–New Hampshire state line. The Klansmen’s intention was to march from the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, side to the Kittery, Maine, side. By doing so, they probably hoped to stir up some shit and attract lots of media attention. They hadn’t started marching yet, but already the gathering had attracted a small army of media.
The reporters and photographers were there, naturally, because they can’t ever help themselves. There were almost as many journalists, in fact, as there were Klansmen. New Hampshire state troopers had cordoned off a spot for the assembled media horde over by the High Liner fish factory, a fair distance from the bridge and a considerable distance away from the marchers. They snapped photos and shot footage and occasionally yelled questions at the Klansmen, who looked delighted by all the attention.
The state troopers, who were also present in great numbers, looked anxious but not about the media. They were much more concerned about the several hundred protestors and locals who had gathered on both sides of the bridge, most of them on the New Hampshire side.
Laverty knew the march was just a media stunt, a scam conjured up by racist losers — not even worth her time. But the night before, a colleague in the Memphis bureau had called and told her that a “person of interest” had travelled to New Hampshire to participate in the march, and that he was carrying something he shouldn’t be. So, she’d called Savoie and told him to meet her there.
“Want to tell me why we needed to pick up some idiot in the middle of this?” Savoie asked, not bothering with hello or good morning. He pointed a tobacco-stained finger in the direction of the Klansmen. “You don’t seriously think
the bomber, even a stupid one, would show up for this circus, do you?”
“No,” she said, gesturing to the troopers gathered behind Savoie, “but we’ve got a person of interest detained in the mobile command van. A colleague in Memphis said we should probably talk to him.”
Laverty turned and strode off toward the state troopers’ van. Savoie grunted and followed.
When they reached the vehicle with “COMMAND CENTER” inscribed on the side, Laverty rapped loudly on the door, which was immediately opened by a burly state trooper.
“Hey. Agent Laverty, FBI. This is Detective Savoie from Portland PD.” She flashed her ID. “He’s with me.”
The trooper glanced back inside the van, then turned back to Laverty and Savoie. “You guys want me to stay? He hasn’t caused any trouble yet, but —”
Laverty shook her head. “No thanks.” Then she raised her voice, loud enough for the man inside to hear. “Besides, we’ll happily shoot him if he causes any trouble.”
The trooper laughed, handed Laverty a thin file, and stepped outside.
The interior of the van was no bigger than a clothes closet. In the center was a small metal table bolted to the floor and two metal chairs. A fluorescent bulb buzzed overhead. Through the metal walls, they could hear the voices of the cops outside who were using the command center as a base.
“Detective Savoie, meet Tim Reid, the wizard something-something of the United Klans of America.” Laverty wasn’t even looking at the hulking man who was slouched down in one of the chairs, both hands cuffed to the center of the table. She opened the folder and examined the single sheet inside. “Picked up today for carrying six unregistered firearms — serial numbers scratched off. Not very smart, Mr. Reid.”
Tim Reid was a big man, probably well over six feet, and seemingly all muscle. He was balding, almost chinless, and his face was heavily pockmarked. The grimy T-shirt he wore read “WHITE PRIDE.” His sunken eyes radiated hate as he glared at her. “I know my fuckin’ Second Amendment rights,” he said, smirking. “You can’t detain me for carrying.”
“Actually, we can, and we did,” Laverty said. “You’re not in Alabama anymore, Mr. Reid. We can send you to jail for driving up here with six unregistered Glock seventeens.… So, where’d you get those, anyway? They’re prototypes, I do believe — not even on the market yet.”
Reid smiled but said nothing.
“Fine by me, Timmy,” Laverty said. “But you’re going to do some serious time for those Glocks …” After a very long pause, she sighed and said, “Unless …”
“Unless what?”
“Well, unless you tell us something we don’t already know. And I know you know how it works, Timmy, because you’re already someone’s CI down there in Alabama, aren’t you?”
Reid wasn’t smiling anymore. “What? Who told you that?”
“No one, actually,” Laverty said. “I just guessed.”
“Look, Timmy,” she continued, “Detective Savoie and I don’t really care about the Glocks. We’re working on something else, something much more important.”
“The bombing,” Reid said.
“Yes, the bombing,” Laverty said, leaning against the door. “You don’t approve of the bomb, do you, Timmy?”
“Fuck no,” Reid said, sounding like he meant it. “That was way too fucking hardcore. It’s brought heat down on everyone in the movement.”
“So,” Savoie said, speaking for the first time, “you help us, we help you, genius.”
Reid paused for a long time before he finally began to talk.
X, Sam, and Luke stood in the middle of the Piscataqua Bridge, watching the assembled crowds. Well, X and Sam were watching, anyway. The three of them had been there for a couple hours, directly below the sign that announced that travelers were now leaving New Hampshire and entering Maine.
Luke was keeping busy by repeatedly stepping back forth across the invisible state line.
“Look, I’m in Maine!” Then he’d step back. “Look, I’m in New Hampshire!”
Sam reached over and punched him in the shoulder. “Cut it out, you moron! We’re here for an actual fucking reason, remember?”
“You mean you object to free and unhindered interstate punk transport?” Luke said, continuing to jump back and forth between the two states.
Sam punched him again.
Luke stopped jumping.
X, who’d been ignoring Luke and Sam, pointed in the direction of the fish factory. “There,” he said. He handed Sam the binoculars.
“What is it?” Sam lifted them to his face. Luke leaned over the railing, squinting. Because he was born with ocular albinism, Luke basically couldn’t see fuck all. He was pretty much legally blind.
X had called them a couple days earlier, when the Portland Press Herald had reported that the Klan was descending on the area for what it called a rally “to promote racial pride.” (Their race, of course.)
The Associated Press story, written by the X Gang’s longtime nemesis/raconteur, Ron McLeod, made it clear that the governors, the mayors of Portsmouth and Kittery, and just about every police agency operating in the two states were very unhappy about the planned march. Portland, and all of Maine, had gone through plenty already, the mayor of Kittery told Ron McLeod, and “none of us need these bigots and troublemakers in our community, stirring up division.”
The story concluded with a brief discussion of the unsuccessful efforts of Portsmouth’s mayor to get a court order banning the Klansmen from gathering. The move was opposed by the civil liberties people, naturally, because throwing gasoline on a raging fire was apparently encouraged by the First Amendment and favored by the civil libertarians.
When he called Sam and Luke, X told them he wanted to observe the rally and the counter-protest for a column he was writing for Creem. But he hadn’t told them the whole story.
“That FBI agent, Laverty,” X said, his voice low, “she went into that police trailer over there with Savoie.”
“The Portland cop?” Sam asked. He scanned the area with the binoculars. “Why do they care about a Klan rally? I thought they were supposed to be out looking for the bomber.”
“They are,” he said. “That’s why they’re here.”
Sam handed the binoculars back to X, who trained them on the troopers’ command post.
“Why would they be here? Isn’t this kind of the last place the bomber would want to be, with reporters and cops everywhere?” Sam asked.
“The bomber isn’t here,” X said.
“So, why are Savoie and the FBI agent here? And why are we here, for that matter?”
X pointed in the direction of the trailer again and handed Sam back the binoculars. “There’s someone in there we need to get to.”
“Savoie and Laverty just came out,” Sam said. “And there’s some big fucker with them.”
X grabbed the binoculars back and watched as Tim Reid stepped out onto the road, rubbing his wrists.
CHAPTER 19
At Casco Bay, plenty of effort went into preventing any of us from hearing about what was happening in the outside world. Current events tended to be bad or sad, or both, and could result in relapses, you see.
Jessie said that Paula and her platoon of rehab robots treated us like “mushrooms.” “They keep us in the dark and feed us bullshit, and they think we’ll thrive.”
I laughed at that one: mushrooms — that’s us.
Inevitably, of course, we’d hear about stuff. We’d learn about things that were a big deal — like, say, the total inability of the cops to find out who slaughtered more than a hundred men, women, and children in downtown Portland. Or, say, a hundred white supremacists holding a rally near the main bridge into Maine, and counter-protestors showing up, intent on killing them with their bare hands, a few dozen cops in between trying to prevent a riot.
Jessie and I heard about it, and we were talking about it.
“Wish to fuck I had been there,” I said as we huddled on the floor in a c
orner of the common room. “We’d kick some Nazi heads.”
Jessie regarded me, eyebrow up. “Not a peace and love kind of queer boy, are you? You and your buddy X get into a lot of fights?”
“All the fucking time,” I said. “We almost never start fights, but we usually finish them. You have to understand, in the early days of the scene, it was pretty great. Really diverse. Gay kids, overweight kids, quirky kids, arty kids, minority kids. Lots of freaks and geeks. It was good. Everyone got along. There were even skinheads, but none of them were racist back then. We’d rarely have any problems at our shows — except from the cops, of course.”
“If everyone got along so well, why’d you get into so many fights?”
I shrugged. “The scene got bigger. We’d get hundreds of kids showing up at a community hall gig, just by word of mouth. And people started to show up who we didn’t know.” I shook my head. “Even some of the jocks who hated us in high school started coming. They’d shaved off their hair and were into hardcore and straight edge shit, and they’d come to the shows looking for a fight.”
“So, you’d give them one?”
“Fucking right we would,” I said, a bit defiantly. “Nobody messes with our friends.”
Jessie smiled. “Kurt Blank, defender of oppressed punks.” She squeezed my arm. “You’re a good guy, you know? So, the racists, how did all that happen? Did they come to your shows, too?”
I scowled. “Sometimes. But if we saw them making fascist salutes or whatever, we’d kick their asses and throw them out.”
Jessie looked a bit confused. “But I don’t get it,” she said. “You punks were queers and minorities and all that. Why would the skinheads want to go to your shows? Why not just stay away?”
I held up two fingers. “One, they would come just to beat us up. It made it easier for them: we were all in one place.”
“Okay. What was reason two?”
I squirmed a bit. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”
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