The remnants of the late morning and early afternoon were spent doing settling-in chores. I walked along Hillcrest Drive to the Boat Canyon Safeway, a half-mile distant, to stock up on grits. Later I cranked up the Volksie and steered downtown to Pacific Bell to arrange to have my phone connected.
I fretted about the impending 9:00 p.m. gathering the rest of the afternoon. My resolve had been to produce more of my thesis. I’d have to report to Dr. Bulgy next week, but if I stuck to my desk all weekend, perhaps I could still craft enough pages to salvage something of his good graces.
When I spread my primary material and manuscript on the bedroom desk and poised my fingers over the keyboard of my trusty portable typewriter, my attention ebbed. I rehearsed again my uncertainty about whether to phone Janey. Yet the need to concentrate on the thesis was the ideal excuse not to dither further about calling her before the term began on Monday. That left me to mull over my concern about the evening meeting at Guantanamero Bay.
I considered walking over to Emma’s to let her know I was back, rap with her about developments in SDS, and seek her opinion on the satellite idea. Before our gathering at the Bay broke up last night, though, we had agreed not to mention the satellite proposal to anybody else except on a need-to-know basis. I could always swear Emma to secrecy. But more to the point, I could predict her reaction. She’d deem the plan a frivolous diversion from the task of building an effective opposition to U.S. imperialism abroad and its attendant forms of oppression at home.
At my desk, at some point, I accepted that I was too preoccupied to think about the thesis. I went out to the deck to roll up and store my tent, which I’d left airing. That task accomplished, I sat on the recliner in the sunshine to resolve once and for all whether I also thought the scheme was a frivolous diversion, and whether I was even going to keep the 9:00 p.m. appointment.
One slogan both sides had chanted at the June SDS convention had been: “Less talk, more action.” What Pump and Jay had in mind was certainly action. But I knew from many an SDS debate about tactics that an action could have more negative results than positive ones.
I decided I needed more information to better assess whether Jay and Pump were competent to undertake the venture, and whether the risks of tagging along were ones I was willing to take. If the scheme went ahead without me, my stature as some sort of radical would be diminished forever in their eyes. Yet how important was it for me to live up to an image held by people I’d only met the night before?
I stretched out on the recliner to focus on possible consequences arising from the impending evening. Resting my eyelids also registered with me as an aid to ascertaining the best course to follow. When I woke, it was past four and I went inside. While I was mixing some meat loaf for supper, I resolved I might as well show up at the Bay to learn the status of the plan. I more than half expected to be greeted by Edward telling me that Jay’s and Pump’s wacko notion had evaporated in the day’s hot sunshine.
* * * * *
Just before nine I arrived at Guantanamero Bay to find Remi already there drinking a beer in the living room. He told me that Pump and Jay had stopped by his place earlier in the day and that he was open to hearing what was afoot.
A UCI fine arts major, Remi appeared more military than either Pump or Jay. He had close-cropped blond hair and a parade-square-trim moustache. Habitually, he wore cowboy boots and jeans, though his girlfriend, Meg, had embroidered a flower on the flare of each denim leg. His frequent cool-weather attire was a U.S. Army jacket, with the name tag above the breast pocket reading: warhol. Remi had been friends with a nephew of the famed Pop artist since both had attended the same Santa Cruz high school. The garment had been obtained by Remi after his pal was drafted.
Remi was professionally brusque in delivering his opinion on any matter, as befitted a man who had read one too many Hemingway novels. I had become friends with him because his ambition was to eventually be a fine arts journalist rather than a painter. He had sought me out when Edward or somebody had told him about my background as a reporter. Our paths probably would have crossed regardless, due to the Edward-Willow-Meg connection. Actually, I liked his canvases. The painting of his I most admired was a four-foot-by-eight-foot rectangle divided into two squares of contrasting background colours: one grey and one red. In the centre of each was, respectively, a sideways head-and-torso silhouette self-portrait and a similar depiction of Meg. These silhouettes, which faced each other, were painted in the background hue of the adjoining square. The two figures each extended an arm toward the other, offering an open hand. The tip of each of their middle fingers nearly touched across the boundary between the panels. Yet in the instant of the picture, each figure remained confined within its solipsistic block of colour.
In his day-to-day behaviour, Remi struggled to reconcile his intent of being a man’s man with his artistic pursuits. He was contemptuous of much of the peace movement’s activities and slogans. Yet he exhibited an identical attitude toward government pronouncements seeking to justify the Vietnam conflict. I had noticed him lounging on the fringes of some on-campus anti-war rallies, and from our conversations I knew he admired gutsy resistance to the establishment. He spoke favourably, for example, about Tommie Smith and John Carlos giving the Black Power salute from the winners’ podium at the Mexico Olympics the previous October. More than once he said if he was Vietnamese he’d fight for the Vietcong, and if he was black he would be a Panther. Part of his opposition to the war, I was convinced, was his sense that in this confrontation the United States was the bully, and not the despite-the-odds, come-from-behind battler Remi believed was the quintessential American stance.
When Edward wandered in to join us, to my surprise his references to the satellite scheme, though still negative, had undergone a subtle shift: I could now detect in his comments a whiff of attraction to the plan. Probably his brother had worked on him. While he continued to be scornful of the concept of a Woodstock Nation, I could sense a draw for Edward in being able to hint to other people, in his trademark Mr. Mysterioso style, that he possessed inside knowledge about a daring event.
While we waited for the surfers to ascend from their downstairs bedroom, Pump and Jay appeared with some Mendocino grass they had scored that afternoon and whose qualities they were enthusiastic about. I found the smoke unusually searing in my throat and nasal passages.
The meeting finally convened with Jay announcing he and Pump now advocated strictly a reconnaissance this evening. They had concocted, too, some arguments to counter Edward’s cautions. “Far from the Feds catching us, man,” Pump enthused, “they won’t even know where the satellite came from. All they’ll know is there’s a new one in orbit.”
“They might calculate eventually that the launch site was in Southern California,” Jay admitted. “They might even get hip after a while to which bird flew. But we’ll be long gone by then. If we don’t leave fingerprints or drop our wallets, and if we can keep our mouths shut, even if they trace the launch to the Sitton site, how can they ID who did it?”
“Hmm,” Remi said. I could see he was intrigued.
“’Fess up, boys,” Edward said. “You’re just shit-disturbers. You don’t really care about Woodstock or the so-called Woodstock Nation.”
“Not true, man,” Pump shot back.
“Even if it was true,” Jay said, “it’d be a gas ripping off the army. They got two years of my life, and I’d sure like to get one of their missiles. That would make it almost a fair trade.”
“Right on!” Pump chimed in.
Edward began a speech about the need for absolute secrecy, rehearsing again the list of crimes for which he claimed we could be charged. I was aware, however, that my anxiety was reduced somewhat when Pump and Jay detailed the likelihood of us doing the deed and escaping any repercussions. Nor could I decide where to put my foot down to extricate myself from further entanglement. Was there any harm in having a look-see? I assured myself that at any juncture in the evening’s escapade I could announce this was the limit I was prepared