Tinker and Blue (30 page)

To kill that time, Kathy suggested they drive to the wharf, find a place with tables beside a window where they could sip on soft drinks while she sketched preliminary studies for the wanted poster.

48

“Our first home,” Blue said, looking around the empty room with a sad shake of his head. In his arms he held a box stuffed with odds and ends that he had accumulated in San Francisco.

A call to Peter? had set off a snappy chain reaction that, within a few hours, resulted in Nathan and Gerry renting the house across the street, examining it, putting down the first month's rent and damage deposit and taking immediate possession from an eager landlord who cared nothing for references or aliases. Under cover of darkness, the move began, each commune member slipping out the back door to circumnavigate the neighbourhood, approaching their new quarters from its back door, avoiding crossing the street between the two abodes where the move might be observed by FBI agents or potential informants. Even walking several blocks carrying couches, beds, tables and chairs seemed a less risky means of discovery than loading the van, which transported little besides the remaining boxes of
Failure To Love
.

“What about the wall?” Blue asked Karma, who explained that Capricorn said the damage deposit they left would cover part of the cost, and they would mail the landlord more money to cover the additional cost of replacing the wall.

“Not Tulip's wall, yours,” Blue said, nodding toward the six past lives and three blank panels that decorated it.

“I suppose the next people who come to live here will just paint over it,” Karma replied.

“We have to take it with us,” Blue declared.

“We can't take out another wall, Blue, and besides, what would we do then, tear down a wall in the new place to put this one up?”

“I don't understand how it doesn't bother you. When I was leaving home last summer, standing there looking around my bedroom, knowing the minute I left my sister would be moving herself and all her Beatles stuff into it and that it would never be mine again, I had a lump in my throat, and there was nothing on the walls to cry about except the Sacred Heart of Jesus and my autographed picture of Johnny Bower. But you've spent almost our whole lives together painting this wall and now you're just going to walk away from it like it cheap wallpaper.”

They stood side by side enjoying Karma's lives for the last time: the Mayan mask, the Buddha feeding himself to the tiger's cubs, the medieval nun, the Tartar child, an African slave who drowned when the transport ship sank, and a mother of six children who lived an uneventful life in England except for burying children during the Black Plague.

“You sure got around, didn't you?” Blue said. “But I still think it's not fair to have to leave them behind.”

“I left those lives behind, Blue. Why should it be any harder to leave the paintings? I'm glad I painted them, and I still have three more to do, but I'll do them across the street.”

“But they're good paintings, Karm. I bet you could sell them if you wanted to, make a few bucks.”

“That just takes us back to tearing the wall out which I am not going to do, Blue, so let's just take what we can carry and move into our new home.”

—

Blue felt his way along the unfamiliar wall, trying to a find the hall light switch that was the key to finding his way to the bathroom his memory had misplaced. Sweeping his hand along the wrinkled wallpaper, he froze, suddenly aware that a figure loomed before him, its silhouette framed in the window, caught in a stream of street light. Hairs undisturbed since Danny Danny Dan's funeral now stood at full attention, and his hand came off the wall to make its way through the sign of the cross, slowly, so as not to attract the interest of the restless spirit.

“Is that you, Blue?”

“Who wants to know?” Blue asked, his voice an octave above where he intended it to be. Realizing it was Capricorn to who this question was squeaked, Blue regretted it even more.

“The ghost of Christmas Past,” Capricorn answered, never taking his eyes from the window. “Don't turn on the light.”

“What's out there?” Blue asked, materializing in the window light beside Capricorn, looking down on the still street.

“A raid. Karma's idea to move here got us out of there just in time.”

“I don't see anything,” Blue said, staring out on the quiet, dim street.

“See that grey Chev, the black van, those two people loitering in the doorway over there?” Capricorn pointed out. “This thing is going to happen tonight, man.”

They watched the motionless street in silence until Blue whispered, “This reminds me of looking at one of those still life paintings artists do, you know, vegetables. Why do they do that, do you suppose? A world full of nude women and they paint vegetables. Good thing they're not songwriters, they'd starve waiting for somebody to sit still long enough to listen to the ‘Ballad of the Onion and the Potato.' What do you think's going to happen here?”

Before Capricorn could respond, the van emptied itself of a half dozen darkly dressed agents, and the driver of the Chev, wearing a fedora, leapt from his vehicle to lead the assault on the empty house. Bursting through the door, the group rushed inside. Flashlights moved from window to window, floor to floor. Lights went on in the house and shadowy shapes moved from room to room. Less than ten minutes later, the agents filtered out of the house, shrugging to each other. The fedora came out last, stood on the street looking both ways as if expecting to see the former occupants fleeing up or down the street, then slammed his right fist into the side of a van.

“The fedora,” Capricorn told Blue, “that's Wise.”

“Too bad he wouldn't come in here alone,” Blue whispered back. “I'd pull that hat down over his eyes and kick his arse up around his ears. Hell, the commune must be getting to me. I didn't say anything about breaking his neck or killing him, did I? Just a little arsekickin'. That arsehole wants to put my best friend in jail and here's me talking about shooting a boot at him instead of shooting him. I'm turning into a frigging hippie.”

“What would the other fellow say about that, Blue?” Capricorn asked while they watched the men get into the van and drive away. Soon only Bud Wise stood alone on the street watching the the taillights disappear. Then, with all witnesses now gone, he gingerly pulled his right hand from his suit coat pocket, carrying it to his mouth with his left hand where he tried to kiss it better. The motherly gesture seemed to fail because the FBI agent then cradled the hand and walked around in obvious pain, before getting into the grey Chev and driving away.

“In his report, Tinker or myself will be responsible for that hand,” Capricorn announced. “You can bet that we are now wanted for assaulting a federal agent.”

“Well, if I can remember where the bathroom is, I'm going to use it,” Blue announced, “then I'm going to make myself a cup of tea and think about this. Care for a cup?”

They sat at opposite ends of the kitchen table, sipping in a semi-rhythm, the only common gesture they shared while their thoughts wandered through the night in search of some sense to what was happening, had happened, was going to happen. It was Capricorn who broke the silence, asking Blue if he could talk Tinker into going back to Canada.

“It's not going to stop. Men like Wise don't give up. They're determined to the point of stupidity. His type will starve to death before they'll stop hunting long enough to enjoy a meal or do anything else remotely related to the act of being alive. It's the military mind. You find people like him in all uniforms; soldiers, cops, bike gangs.

“With the formation of armies, we human beings learned to discipline our savagery and turned it into something far more lethal than it was ever meant to be. And Wise is about as mindless as that mentality comes.”

“I don't agree with you about armies there, Capi. If it wasn't for armies, we'd all be Nazis now. Think about the Second World War, but what I'm thinking about right now is you and this Wise guy. I think you and him have more history than me and my grandfather, and it's not about bugging a teacher's office in high school, either. Bombs? Factories? Big league, as the other fellow says. Well?”

“I told you I had a friend who died, poisoned by the very factory his father worked in. What would you have done if it was Tinker? So I made a small bomb. A small explosion followed by a big fire. It was something I didn't take time to think about, because I didn't care at the time what happened to me. I was just pissed off, man, so I left big elephant tracks to lead the police back to me. For a reason I still don't know, the factory had a contract making some gadget to fit a gadget that was going into some military weapon so the feds made it their crime. Wise picked me up for questioning. From the start it was clear the guy hated me and was going slaughter me. I knew it and I was terrified. I was only a kid, a stupid kid, but a very scared one.

“When he stormed out of his office to get the paperwork started, there was nothing to think about. I just got up and walked out. I suppose that's the first commandment of law enforcement, never leave a suspect unattended, so I can only imagine Wise's face when he came back to the office, or the dressing down he got when he lost his prisoner.

“I haven't seen him since, but I've sensed him and smelled him a dozen times. I've become his very own one-man FBI project, but this is as tight as the noose has ever been.”

“Karma was trying to explain karma to me, the way lives criss-cross all over time. We're in one hell of a tangle now. Your karma has become Tinker's karma, and everybody that touches either one of you winds up in it like a fly in molasses,” Blue said, lighting a cigarette.

“Can I have one of those? Thanks,” Capricorn said, exhaling a puff of smoke. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and studied it. “I'd hate to start this habit again.”

“So why are you playing with it?” Blue wondered aloud. “Tired of being the good guy? Want to get back to the real world? Thinking about killing yourself? We got this guy back home, Monk, I was talking about him earlier. Reminds me of you a little bit. Just a little, though, but like you, he's trying to live different from everything he knows about himself. Only difference between you is that you don't claim to have seen the Virgin Mary. You just claim to be God.”

“You believe that, don't you, but do you know what I'm scared of, Blue? That you might be right, that we're making it all up, that we're all really horse traders at heart. But in the end it's not about God, you know. It's about us, about being human. Paradise depends on us. Whether or not we ever lost it, Eden, I mean, doesn't matter. What does matter is that we can dream of it, conceive of it, ache for it. All that's missing is the will to discover it, or re-discover it, depending on what you believe, but that will come. Sometime.”

“Actually, Capi, you remind me
a lot
of Monk, but there's no point trying to convert me. I'm already converted. I'm the Catholic here, remember, but let's get back to what you're saying about Tinker, about getting him out of here.”

“There's no point to him dragging this out any more than he has to, Blue. Get him out of here.”

“You let Kathy go and I'll talk to Tinker.”

“Let Kathy go?”

“Yeah, let her go. She's under you spell, you know. Tinker would of been long gone if she'd of gone with him, but she wouldn't leave the commune to go to Cape Breton. Tell me that's not somebody under a spell?”

“Blue, Kathy's not my prisoner, but if what you say is true, I'll ask her to leave with Tinker. She doesn't need the commune to be who she is and maybe it would be a good thing for her if she did leave.”

“Wouldn't hurt you any either, would it, Capi, to have Tinker run to Canada so you can feel the pressure come off you, but this time we're both pulling in the same direction, to quote the other fellow, so I'll talk to Tinker, but you know, when you're Public Enemy Number One it's not easy to just walk away from all that. I know from experience. ‘Failure To Love' is going to be Number One by the end of the month, Peter? tells me, although he says he doesn't care. Wise words from a guy who can't take his eyes off the charts, don't you think? Reminds me of this guy back home, used to be a boxer, pretty good one I heard, until his brain got shook loose, so he's kind of punchy, but one time he says to me, talking about boxing, of course, ‘Got my name in
Ring Magazine
once, page eight, column four. Didn't mean nuthin' to me.' I think of him every time Peter? tells me he doesn't care about our song being on the hit parade, as if I'm not watching it go up the charts myself like it was a beautiful woman walking down the street.”

“Know what I like about you, Blue? Your trust in your fellow man,” Capricorn sighed.

“Thanks, buddy, but I couldn't hold a candle to you in that department. That's why you're handling my money.”

49

“You all know what the other fellow says is wrong with the world, dontcha?” Blue shouted into the microphone. “All that's wrong with the world is our— hit it there, Gerry,” he ordered, commanding the fiddler to begin the three-chord intro that Blue called an overture, “all that's wrong ... take it, Nathan ... all that's wrong...” he continued as the fiddle and bagpipes swelled around him, pushing his acoustic guitar to keep up, “all that's wrong with the world is ... THE FAILURE TO LOVE! and here we go with our version of that great piece of wisdom, and our biggest hit so far, ‘The Failure To Love'.”

—

While the Human Rainbow Commune was going underground, Blue Cacophony was rising to the surface of San Francisco's counter-culture consciousness. Blue, Peter? pointed out, was a fairly anonymous member of the commune, and Gerry and Nathan had no philosophical connection with it at all. Barney was an even more obscure member than Blue. And there was no police link between Blue and Tinker, either, so there was no reason why Blue Cacophony couldn't go on playing, especially since Peter? had managed to get the band a gig at the Fillmore.

“It looks like everybody in San Francisco came out to see us tonight,” Blue informed the band members after peeking out at the packed hall just before the group was scheduled to go on.

“It might have something to do with the fact that the Grateful Dead is playing later,” Nathan suggested.

“Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, as the other fellow says,” Blue countered, “but we won't be opening for the Grateful Dead forever.”

“We aren't opening for them,” Gerry corrected. “We're opening for the band that's opening for them.”

“Once we're done with this crowd, they'll be opening for us. Mark my words,” Blue promised. “I just wish the others could be here to see us.”

—

The commune members were giving a wide berth to places where Wise was most certain to be monitoring, especially following the headline news that Tinker had been arrested. Actually, Tinker had been arrested twenty times in two days, and the FBI and the city police were facing a rash of lawsuits. The Chinese community, which provided three Tinkers to the dragnet, was screaming racism even louder than the Black community, which produced two Tinkers. None of the arrests, however, had fired up the local papers and sizzled along the national wire services like the arrest of Reginald Regent the III, president of Fucdepor Petroleum, who was apprehended by an overzealous traffic cop who recognized Regent's face from the wanted poster in a nearby post office and wrestled the irate corporate boss into the local precinct in handcuffs. The arrest resulted in a public apology from the mayor and a promise from the governor to investigate the entire San Francisco police department.

Tulip, who had spent two days sitting outside the Fucdepor Petroleum Tower catching passing glimpses of Reginald Regent the III among his squad of flunkies, called the poster her finest work.

The embarrassed police force turned its frustrated rage on every long-haired hippie in the city, a rage made manifest by a city-wide sweep that led to several hundred charges for marijuana possession. Capricorn, having anticipated the city police's failure to appreciate the commune's practical joke, made a suggestion that whispered itself across the city well ahead of the drug busts.

In courtroom appearance after courtroom appearance, everyone arrested for possession of marijuana suppressed a smile as lab report after lab report was read before the judge, confirming that each and every defendant was guilty of carrying upon his or her person a weight ounce of oregano. On the courtroom steps, dozens of dismissed cases sat down, rolled the returned evidence into tubes and lit them, blowing the spicy smoke into the purple faces of the police while countless press photographers stood by, ready to record any trigger-happy activity.

—

“So there you have it,” Blue announced from the stage as the final notes of “Failure To Love” wheezed from Nathan's reeds. “But there's something I want you people to know about that song. That song was stolen, pirated, as the other fellow says, and records of it and several other Blue Cacaphony originals are being sold all over the city. You can walk up to almost anybody who sells grass or acid and buy yourself a copy of the
Failure To Love
album. That's illegal, you know, to be selling an unauthorized album. In business that's a mortal sin the same as sex is a mortal sin in religion. Funny thing about mortal sins, though. Mortal sins and people are like the North Pole and a magnet. That's what's been happening to ‘Failure To Love.' So many people are buying it that there's almost none left. Short supplies make everything more valuable. I know. I took economics. So it's no wonder that you might be tempted to leave here and go out and buy that illegal album. Destined to be one of the rare ones, I guess, because I can tell you this, Blue Cacophony will never, never, never record that album ourselves. And there's just a few left. So when you leave here tonight, you're going to be tempted, brother, as the other fellow says. Resist! Well, try to resist anyway. And if you can't, then you might as well enjoy it. Now here's a song you won't find on any album,” Blue said, fingering the strings of his guitar.

“You've all heard about Tinker by now, I suppose, the mad bomber that's driving the FBI crazy. The FBI keeps warning us to be careful of him, but I don't think anybody is scared of a guy who's not scared of the oil barons. If you have to pick sides in this fight between Tinker and the FBI, who are you going to root for? The FBI? That would be like rooting for Fucdepor Petroleum. Or are you going to root for the guy that's driving them both nuts? We might even have ourselves a real live hero here.”

Blue strummed in accompaniment to his introduction of the song. “What I hear about this Tinker reminds me of this guy I know back home, eh, Aloysius Dempsey. His father was Irish and his mother was Acadian so he didn't have a very Highland Scottish way of looking at the world except for what I taught him, but ... but....”

Blue's train of thought became distracted by a figure he recognized in the crowd but it took him a moment to place her amid the swirling psychedelic patterns that roamed the concert hall. “Mrs. Rubble, is that you? You stick out here like a hippie in a bingo hall, but thanks for coming. Sorry there people just recognized an old friend, so where was I? Oh, yeah, Tink— Aloysius. I guess I was just trying to say what the other fellow said so much better, Aloysius is the kind of guy who sneaks off to the bathroom with a book of poems under his shirt hoping you'd think it was
Playboy
. You know you don't need to be afraid of a guy like that, don't you, and that's what I think of when I think of this Tinker guy, as someone you don't have to be afraid of, so I wrote a song. Hope you like it.

Ain't afraid of no oxygen bomb

Any more than a cheerleader's pom-pom

But what really makes my pee run free

Are Agents Orange and Wise-eeee

But Tinker's on the run

Ain't got no bomb ain't got no gun

Just wants to find some peeeeace

Won't you leave him alone, pleeeease....

As soon as Blue Cacophony was off stage, Blue passed his guitar to Peter? and raced for the door to try to catch up to Mrs. Rubble whom he had seen leaving as the crowd rose to its feet in applause and participation in the last chorus of “The Ballad of Tinker.” Mrs. Rubble was leaving in the company of several other people who looked like concert freaks but whom Blue suspected were undercover narcs or FBI agents grown uncomfortable with the mood of the concert following his impassioned musical appeal on Tinker's behalf.

Out on the street, the pseudo-hippies gathered to discuss Blue Cacophony's effect on the crowd, mumbling apologies to Mrs. Rubble who hurried from their midst toward the bus stop where Blue caught up to her as she stepped aboard.

“It was nice of you to come,” Blue said, dropping a bus fare into the slot. “I didn't think you liked rock and roll,” he continued, taking a seat beside her. “How's Tinker doing?”

“I'd do just fine if you'd stop trying to tip the cops off to who I am,” Mrs. Rubble muttered in a decidedly Cape Breton accent, causing Blue to take a closer look, and to burst out laughing.

“She dupes to conquer, as the other fellow says. I saw those cops back at the Fillmore being polite to you, but I guess if you can fool me....”

“Well, everybody was acting as if your playing at this Fillmore place was something big so I was saying it was too bad I couldn't come down and see you. The rest of the story is Kathy and Karma's idea, with lots of help from Mrs. Rubble, especially her closet. Do you know who was standing outside the door watching everybody going in? Wise! Recognized him from the newscasts. He was wearing a cast on his hand. I winked at him and I think he got all flattered. Held the door open for me and everything. If he catches me now, I might have to marry him,” Tinker told Blue.

“Wise winked at you, thinking you were Mrs. Rubble? What a sicko! Mrs. Rubble's fifty if she's a day. What kind of pervert goes around winking at old women like her?” Blue asked, reaching up to pull the cord that signalled the next stop.

“Where are we going?”

“Just going to take my mother out for a bite to eat at my favourite Chinese restaurant. We'll call Karma and Kathy to meet us there.”