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Interview with the RADAR Ranger
A work of fiction
by
D. Railleur
Not Copyrighted
Contents
Introduction
About the Author
Interview with the RADAR Ranger
Introduction
Mount Tamalpais in Marin, California, is the birthplace
of mountain biking. From a few lone bikes in the late
1970s, the numbers have grown astronomically in the
1990s. In fact, the main users of the recreational lands on
Mt. Tam today are mountain bikers. But the increase in
bikers has brought with it some problems. This fictional
work deals with one of those problems.
In 1988, the rangers on Mt. Tam began using RADAR
guns to monitor the speed of cyclists on the dirt fire
roads. Anyone caught going over the speed limit -- 15
mph -- received a traffic ticket that the local municipal
court upheld. The blanket fine for speeding was $200,
regardless of race, sex, age, and so on.
Few cyclists were pleased with this outcome. Arguments
were offered that educational programs on riding
etiquette would be more "humane" and in spirit with the
times, but the heavy fines remained. Out of the swirling
debates, trail dust, and RADAR beams emerged this
fictional account of the origins of RADAR Rangers on
Mt. Tamalpais.
About The Author
I met the author of "Interview with the RADAR Ranger"
during a regular ride on the mountain. I was quite a
distance from anywhere and was surprised when she
came up on me. We rode along together for a short while
talking mountain bikes, when she abruptly turned off the
fire road we were on and headed up a steep, rocky single
track. I watched her disappear quickly amid the oaks and
bays (riding on single tracks is illegal on the mountain,
and besides, it was too steep for me to follow). Since that
first encounter, she crossed my path on the mountain
several other times. She claimed her name was D.
Railleur, but I couldn't find any such person in the local
phone book. None of the other folks I occasionally ride
with have ever seen her.
Anyway, I received a package in the mail in October
1992. It contained the manuscript for this book. Included
was a note from D. Railleur asking if I could typeset it
and distribute it. She didn't care about copyright she said.
I read the ms. and thought it was a classic (I think the
book is a parody of Ann Rice's "Interview with the
Vampire"). For the book's bio, D. Railleur gave me this
bit of text:
"D. Railleur is a 1968 graduate of Mercer County
Community College in Trenton, New Jersey. She studied
Communications and Political Science before joining the
Highway Patrol in Crested Butte, Colorado. After leaving
the patrol and moving to California in 1975, Ms. Railleur
obtained a Ph.D. in Shamanism from John F. Kennedy
University in Orinda, California."
There it is -- I haven't seen D. Railleur since September,
1992. I've tried to find her, but I don't think she'll be
found until she wants to be found. In the meantime, enjoy
her book.
Main Sections
Part One: Highway 101
Part Two: Sonoma Coast
Part Three: The Mountain
Epilog
Part One: Highway 101
"Uh-huh..." said the RADAR Ranger, and he walked
across the rough wood flooring toward the open door. For
long moments he stood there, outlined in the dusky light
filtering into Sky Oaks Ranger Station. The mountain
biker looked around at the room, contrasting the smooth
formica top of the service counter to the smudged surface
of the oak work desk in the next room. On the wall,
above a map of the watershed, hung a boar's head with
long, yellow tusks pushing out from the lower jaw and
snaking up and around either side of the hairy snout. The
biker put his Snell/ANSI-approved helmet on the counter
and waited.
"How much time do you have?" asked the RADAR
Ranger, spinning around on the heel of his boot. His
worn hat blocked the glare of the rippling sun behind and
the cyclist could see his face clearly. "Time to hear the
story of a life of RADAR?"
"If it's a good story. I've talked with lots of people on the
mountain ... enough to confuse and mix-up the tales each
has told me. I want to hear something that's unique, that
sets itself apart from all the other stuff you hear up there.
Sound fair to you, sir?"
"More than fair," the RADAR Ranger answered. "I can
think of nothing better than to tell you of my life as a
RADAR Ranger. I want to do it very much."
The cyclist's face tensed with the excitement he felt.
"Fantastic. I'm really interested why you think you can
use RADAR to ..."
"No," said the RADAR Ranger abruptly. "I'm not going
to start there. A question can't set the tone for a life
already lived. Are you willing to listen to the story I have
to tell?"
"Yes," said the mountain biker. "Go on."
The RADAR Ranger eyed the cyclist with his back to the
open door. The yellow sky orb had shifted and the front
of the ranger was a shadow to the cyclist. The mountain
biker started to say something to break the uneasiness he
felt, but the words wouldn't come. He finally exhaled
with relief as the RADAR Ranger broke his stillness and
moved towards him under the overhead light, which
erased the shadow that had covered his face.
The cyclist, staring up at the RADAR Ranger, could not
help but gasp. The older man, quicker than the pedaler's
eyes could follow, had loosened the top three buttons of
his work shirt, bearing his chest. Ornately tattooed in
sixteen shades of gray below his left breast was the image
of the Model K-15, the official RADAR gun of the
watershed. It was all there, in mesmerizing high-
resolution -- the precision lens antenna for beam control,
aiming sights to follow the violator, double-walled
antenna for rugged use, trigger switch to lock-in
violations... The legendary gun that had put Km.P.H.
Industries of Nosferatu, Kansas, on the map.
The RADAR Ranger grinned pensively, and the trigger
of the flesh-covered gun silently slid down 1/4-inch,
accurately guided by the quiver of twitching muscle that
moved out from his nipple. "Do you see?" he asked
gently.
A rush of apprehension moved through the mountain
biker's body, his shoulders tight against his neck to
protect him against an arctic blast of cold that shouldn't
have been part of this balmy, late September afternoon.
He instinctively raised his hand to break the vector of the
invisible beam, seeing all too clearly the LEDs of the
target monitor continuously display a speed beyond his
own abilities, hearing the amplified Doppler audio signal
increase its frequency, watching the switch move into
place that hid the gun's force from detectors. All these
sights and sounds in his mind had been designed to meet
and exceed federal and state specifications.
"Do you still want to hear my story?" asked the RADAR
Ranger.
The word formed slowly in his mouth, but only the
movement of his head told the ranger to begin.
"Try to contain your fear .... just listen to what I have to
say," the RADAR Ranger offered, as if to comfort him,
then sat in the curved-back chair opposite the cyclist.
"You've always been a RADAR Ranger, haven't you?"
stammered the cyclist.
"No," reflected the ranger, "I was a man, about your age,
before I became a RADAR Ranger."
"How-w-w did it happen?" stuttered the cyclist, "I mean,
why did it happen to you?" He wiped the back of his
hand across his moist forehead and waited nervously for
the RADAR Ranger to speak.
"It's really quite simple, but I don't want to give you a
simple answer. I'm going to make it more difficult than it
has to be. I want you to hear the whole story."
"SureOkay," the cyclist said quickly, blending the two
words into one, and wiped the perspiration from his lips
with the cotton bandanna he'd yanked off his matted hair.
"I want to hear the long story -- I want to hear it all."
Terra Linda
"It was tragic," the RADAR Ranger began. "It was my
younger sister, Jackie ... she brought a new car home. Not
just any car. A mariner blue Miata. Five-speed manual
with overdrive, inline 4-cylinder, DOHC 16-valve, 116
horsepower at 6500 rpm, multi-port electronic fuel
injection, unit body frame, fully independent, double-
wishbone suspension with coil springs, gas-filled shock
absorbers, front and rear stabilizer bars, rack-and-pinion
steering, power-assisted 4-wheel disc brakes, highback
reclining bucket seats, compact disc player, 8000-rpm
tachometer with 7000-rpm redline, 140-mph
speedometer, 25 city, 30 highway, 2216 pounds curb
weight (without Jackie). A ragtop.
The RADAR Ranger stopped and the cyclist coughed
uneasily, wiping his face again before stuffing the
bandanna into the open pocket stitched to the back of his
riding jersey.
"It's painful, isn't it?" the cyclist said.
"It's painful, isn't it?" repeated the RADAR Ranger as if
the cyclist hadn't asked the question first. Then, slowly
drawing his glazed eyes up from his entangled hands on
the table top to those of the mountain biker, he continued.
"No, it's not painful. It's just that I've only related this
story to one other person and that was a long time ago.
The telling isn't painful.
"We were living in Terra Linda at the time. My dad
worked for AutoBund and my mom was a stay-at-home
mother and housewife. It drove her nuts, but that's the
way my dad wanted it. 'It's the way a manager in an up-
and-coming international software firm should act,' he
would say apologetically."
"I thought so," interrupted the cyclist. "You are a Terra
Lindian. You have that broad forehead, sir."
The RADAR Ranger looked at him blankly for a moment
or two. "I have a Terra Linda forehead?" he mused. Then
he laughed out loud. "What does that non sequitor have
to do with what I'm telling you?"
Flustered, the cyclist groped for an explanation. "Nothing
really, but it helps put things in perspective for me. I first
noticed it right after you opened your truck door the other
side of that blind corner on Rocky Ridge and forced me
to slide to the edge of the drop off. Then when you pulled
the brim of your hat back before reaching for your
citation book, I got a real good glimpse of it. I think the
sun was just right. 'That forehead,' I thought. 'Something
really familiar about it.' Now that you've just mentioned
'Terra Linda' it's all came together. You were born in
Kaiser, right? 'Good people, good medicine, good luck.'
The RADAR Ranger eyed the cyclist suspiciously, a
murmur of disquiet sounding across his brow. The
mountain biker sank further back into his hard chair,
regretting his remarks.
"It's okay," assured the RADAR Ranger. "I'm not as
angry I look. Trust me."
The cyclist sat quietly, his eyes focused on a loosened
knot in the plank floor next to his left Durango (TM)
SPD Compatible MTB shoe. He sat there, gazing at the
floor, transfixed, while the images from the world outside
were slowly replaced in the window by the dimly lit
reflection of the small office's interior. Only when he
lifted his eyes in the darkened space did the RADAR
Ranger continue.
"My sister had graduated from Branson the year before
and was studying premed at UC Berkeley. Jackie had
always been at the top of everything she did. Everyone
was enamored by her and said
she'd be the best in whatever she chose. Mom and dad
believed it, too, and sent her to all the best schools. A lot
of camping trips and new stereo systems went into her
education. But it was okay, it was right.
"Two years before, I had graduated from the Academy
and was patrolling Highway 101 south from Santa Rosa
to Mill Valley. Beginning pay wasn't great and I had
taken an apartment by Northgate shopping center, not far
my parents' house. Jackie was living at home and
commuting across the Bay to school. Public
transportation was lacking and my dad, always looking to
please Jackie, bought her the Miata. I knew it was going
to be trouble.
"I was there the day she drove it down our street the first
time. Mom and dad arrived home from the dealership just
ahead of her. We were all standing side-by-side at the
end of the driveway when she rounded the corner in that
shiny, new, blue car.
The top was down and I could see Jackie's curly, blond
hair stretching out behind her, holding on to her scalp for
dear life. She looked absolutely gorgeous. Her skin
flushed excitement and her eyes sparkled uncontainable
joy, the kind of look you could only hope to find in a
Gothic tale.
"She pulled up in front of us at the end of the asphalt
driveway and jumped out of the car. 'Oh, dad, mom!' she
squealed, hugging them both with her excitement. 'It's
incredible, unbelievable.' She paused a moment, then
'Thanks, so much.' Then she turned to me and gave me a
hug, too, even though she knew I had nothing to do with
the joy that filled her that morning. 'This is so exciting,'
she said to me and I could only nod agreement.
"You don't sound as though you shared your sister's
excitement," the cyclist couldn't hold back.
"Let me tell my story," the RADAR Ranger cut him
short. When the ensuing silence had seeped into every
crevice of the room, the ranger continued. "Jackie drove
that car everywhere, not just across the bridge to school
and back." His eyes dilating on some distant thought, the
ranger hesitated, then added, "The bridge wasn't in my
territory. I suppose if she had just driven to and from
school, it would've been okay. But she didn't. She was so
proud of that car. She drove it everywhere.
"She was on her way to CostCo up at the Rowland Plaza
in Novato when it happened. About two miles south of
the shopping center's exit, where I was on duty, hiding in
the roadside shrubbery, my gun began beeping and
flashing the warning signal of a speeder not more than
1/4-mile distant. I tried to pick out the offender from
among all the cars, pickups, and big rigs in the five
northbound lanes, but couldn't make the ID. 'No
problem,' I thought. 'I'll spot 'em when they pass by.'
That's when I saw the blue glint into my side view mirror
and, even though the vehicle was too far back to make a
positive identification, my heart started racing and
bounding in my chest. I didn't have to see clearly to know
who was behind the wheel.
"Moments later the blue Miata raced by my hiding place,
breaking the posted speed limit by twenty miles per hour
or more, blond hair streaming out behind the driver. I
gave chase ... it was my job ... it was part of the oath I
had sworn: 'All speeders break the law with no
exceptions.' I was terrified, my stomach was churning
acid up past my aching heart into my dry mouth. God!
The anguish that shook my body! I'm not sure how I
managed to stay in control of my cruiser and pull my
sister over to the side of the road without killing us both.
"The rest is a blur in my mind, the kinds of things that
flash through your head just before losing consciousness
after falling off a horse, when all the air in your lungs is
forced out with a sudden whooosh. I see vague images of
my sister, down-turned head, never looking up to
confront me, of her finely blue-veined, trembling hands
letting her driver's license and Miata registration tumble
into my CHP-issue, black leather gloves. Of tears falling
onto the seat belt that crossed her lap. Of myself unable
to hear a word I said, mechanically following the book as
I recorded all the data and issued the citation. Of
climbing back into my cruiser, driving past the stilled,
little, blue Miata, crossing over the highway on one
overpass, and then again over another to return to my
hiding place among the bushes where I sat throughout the
remainder of the day and the evening before returning to
the station."
His jaws tense with the effort of speaking painful
memories, the RADAR Ranger slammed both fists onto
the cold table top, surprising the cyclist into clutching
hold of the table's nicked edge to prevent himself from
falling over backwards. "She hasn't spoken to anyone
since. Not a word, not a coherent sound."
Ross
"The medical people at Kaiser couldn't explain Jackie's
silence, except to speculate that the shock of a speeding
ticket from her own brother caused her to go into
catatonic shock. My parents were heart-broken. After
Kaiser's big guns failed to come up with a cure, my dad
and mom hired one specialist after another from the
AMA's preferred list, but absolutely no one was able to
bring Jackie around. The medical costs broke my parents
... defeated, they eventually sold what little they had left
and moved to a small retirement community on the
Oregon coast. I talk with them from time to time still;
dad's never recovered from the tragedy and has been in
poor health for years. The only thing that's keeping mom
alive is caring for dad."
"Jackie, what about Jackie?" whispered the mountain
biker.
"Jackie, of course Jackie. Everyone's concerned about
Jackie. It's only right that they should be," replied the
RADAR Ranger after a time. "But you can imagine the
impact this had on me. My sister locked into a dark,
silent world she couldn't share with anyone. My parents
torn apart by the loss of their beloved daughter. And just
because I did what was right. It was right ... none of my
superiors ever questioned my actions. I was following
rules that were designed by the best lawmakers and
approved by the highest courts. None of this should have
happened!
"Mom and dad wanted to take her to Oregon with them,
but I feared Jackie wouldn't get proper medical care if she
went. So I arranged for her to stay in a private treatment
center in a residential part of Ross. I paid for everything
from my meager savings. I saw that she got the best care
possible.
"Sometimes after work I'd go visit her at the center. Often
she'd just be sitting on a carved stone bench off to one
side of the facility's rose garden. Just sitting with her eyes
turned in the direction of the roses, watching the petals
drop. I'd sit next to her and tell her my troubles, the
difficulties I had with belligerent speeders, how I'd had to
work around the silly policies of newer and younger
commanders ... all the problems that made up the whole
of my existence. Sometimes we'd walk along the
shoulders of Ross' tree-lined roads, me chattering
nervously from 'No Parking' sign to 'No Parking' sign,
two sets of feet weaving their patterns through the low
hills of eastern Marin. And I would pretend that Jackie
was listening to my words, and, even though she never
commented, was always sympathetic, so that when I left
her, I had the vivid impression that she had solved all my
worldly problems. I didn't think I could ever, or would
ever, want to free myself from Jackie in those days. Of
course, I was wrong." The RADAR Ranger stopped his
monologue.
For a time the mountain biker only looked unblinking at
the RADAR Ranger, then sat upright in his chair as if
startled awake by a peal of distant thunder that had snuck
up on him in the darkness. He grasped at words, but none
fit the patterns forming in his head. "Uh ... you finally got
tired of her ... uh ... inability to talk, sir?" he floundered.
The RADAR Ranger eyed him as if trying to fathom the
meaning of his confusion. Then he replied:
"I mean that I was wrong about myself ... about what I
thought I had caused. I learned that my guilt and shame
for what I thought to be the consequences of my
actions -- my sister's silence and my parent's despair --
were wrong." The ranger's gaze shifted slowly over the
ancient wainscoting on the distant wall and settled on a
reflecting pane of glass in the window above.
"How?" asked the cyclist.
"I'm going to tell you everything," but the ranger's eyes
scanned slowly away from the cyclist, returning to the
singular pane of reflecting glass on the far wall. He
appeared to have only the faintest of interests in the
cyclist, who himself seemed to be engaged in some inner
struggle.
"But you're upbringing in Terra Linda ... how could you
have ever justified what happened when you think about
the love you had for your family? Your mother and father
... your sister?"
"I want to tell my story in the proper order," answered the
RADAR Ranger. "I have to tell it as it happened. "I don't
know about love and that doesn't matter, anyway. What
matters is ..."
"Yes?" coaxed the cyclist.
"What matters is what is right," finished the RADAR
Ranger. "What was right then? I didn't know. My head
was clouded with confusion. I eventually took up drink
and avoided visiting my sister. Of course, I couldn't
escape her for a moment. I kept going back to that far
away day when I had pulled her blue Miata over and
cited her for speeding. I could think of nothing else but
her dimmed eyes staring blankly at the fallen rose pedals
in Ross. Over and over I dreamed of talking to her, of
telling her how sorry I was, but never hearing her answer
back. Drunk or sober, these images filled my head and I
couldn't stand it. Meanwhile, the officers I worked with
noticed a change in my behavior. I wasn't sure of myself,
often talking back and leaving myself open to verbal
attack from speeders who challenged my speed
measuring methods. I drank more and more and often
came to work with my head buzzing from late night
binges. On more than one occasion, I picked fights with
fellow officers in the locker room over the pettiest of
issues. I lived like a man who wanted to die but lacked
the courage to do it. And then late one night I picked a
fight in a bar that could have been the end of me. One
that nearly left me dead. I ..."
"You mean you fought a vampire and he sucked your
blood?" the cyclist blurted out.
"No, you're thinking of another similar story," scoffed the
RADAR Ranger. "I nearly got into a fist fight that
evening with Fritz Hairtrigger, the District Sales Manager
for Km.P.H. Industries, the manufacturer of the K-15, the
RADAR gun I used to bring in my sister."
The mountain biker leaned forward in his chair, his
rapidly moving diaphragm beating into the table's edge
with each breath. The ranger sensed the cyclist's interest
and continued without pause:
"Fritz was far older than I, but his strength was
overpowering. I didn't stand a chance against his superior
skills and lightning movements. Within moments I was
on my back, unconscious. I faintly remember strong arms
lifting me off the broken-glass and whiskey-strewn floor,
but nothing more. When I came to, I found myself on a
quilted German federdecke covering a bed in the San
Rafael Hilton. I was alone in the room. But as my eyes
cleared and found their focus, I realized not quite alone:
everywhere were books -- books on dresser tops, along
window sills, on top of the color t.v., lining the bottom of
the gray-tiled shower stall. And not ordinary books,
either. No, these were the works of authors I had rarely
heard mentioned at the Academy: Hegel, Kierkegaard,
Nietsche, Shopenhauer, Heidegger, Machiavelli I
"I was thumbing through the volumes, encountering
phrases like aber fast alles, was sie erzahlt, deutet doch
darauf hin, dass sie ihren Stiller nur durch sein schlectes
Gewissen glaubte fesseln zu konnen, durch seine Angst,
ein Versager zu sein and Wer er denn selber ware? fragte
man ihn, und er besann sich. Gott weiss es! sagte er: Gott
weiss es, gestern noch meinte ich es zu wissen, aber
heute, da ich erwach bin, wie soll ich es wissen? It was
like nothing I had ever encountered before. I sat there, for
how many hours I don't know, gorging myself on these
mysterious, but powerful words and ideas, wishing I
could read German. Filling my mind with such thoughts
that I completely forgot myself! And in that same
moment I understood the meaning of possibility.
"It was in a moment of egotistical rapture such as I'm
describing to you that he entered the hotel room through
the sliding French doors. At first I though he was
management, coming to question me ... to ask me what I
thought I was doing in this room which I had not
reserved or paid for. But I quickly dismissed this
suspicion when I saw the intensity of his features. He
moved close to the circle of books in whose center I
crouched and put his face close to mine. I recognized him
as the man with whom I had fought the night before. But
now I recognized him as no ordinary man at all! His eyes
flickered with the faint afterglow of an LED readout and
the curve of his prominent ears insured that no
rebounding echo would be lost to empty space. I
understood everything at that instant. I mean, the moment
I saw him, saw his splendor, I became nothing. All my
conceptions, even my overriding guilt and shame,
became completely unimportant.
"As he talked at me and described his life and explained
what I could become, my past burned away from me like
the green flap of a roasting ear of corn. My life appeared
to me as if I had risen from it and was peering at it from a
distance. All around me, ashes. Nothing was left but what
this extraordinary creature had to give me."
The cyclist continued to sit on the edge of his chair, his
face twisted into a mixture of bewilderment and
apprehension. "And so you decided to become a disciple
of Fritz Hairtrigger?" he asked. The RADAR Ranger
remained silent for a second, then spoke.
"'Decided' may not be the right word. You can say I
decided to become a disciple of Fritz Hairtrigger, or you
can say I didn't decide to become a disciple of Fritz
Hairtrigger. Or you can call me indecisive even though it
may not have been inevitable in the first place. Just let
me say that after he talked at me, I saw no other course of
action but the one I followed, even if the decision wasn't
mine."
The RADAR Ranger was peering through the darkened
window again. When he stopped talking, the cyclist felt
his ears throb with the silence. When the throbbing began
to quiet, he could discern noises from outside the
window -- crickets chirping as they leaped away from
predators, the zinging of telephone wires in the evening
breeze.
"What did he talk about?" questioned the mountain biker,
his apprehension and madly twitching fingers fueled by
nervous energy.
"He talked of my need to transcend my irrational fear of
scientific truth and my tendency to subjugate that truth to
emotional perceptions. He said that behavior in the
modern age must be guided not by moral pieties but by
technical expertise."
"What technical expertise?" interjected the mountain
biker, a little unsure of the philosophical jargon he had
just heard.
With his broad back turned to him, the RADAR Ranger
responded with a subtlety the cyclist failed to perceive.
"I'm surprised to hear you ask the question rather than
give the answer. It's a technology that you yourself have
but recently submitted to -- RADAR.
"RADAR?" half-laughed the cyclist.
"RADAR is the scientific truth that allows modern homo
sapiens to rise above the extraordinary and inordinate
malice of fortune, to control the means of peaceful
violence I there is simply no comparison between a
person who is armed with RADAR and one who is not."
The cyclist stared in the direction of the ranger's gaze, but
not finding the answer to his next question in the
reflective pane of glass, he asked, "Peaceful violence?"
"Yes, peaceful violence," snapped the RADAR Ranger.
"The master of peaceful violence, although often
misrepresented as an advocate of self-serving despotism
by a few, uses RADAR to provide for the well being of
his citizens, if only to calm their rebelliousness." With
these words, the ranger turned his head away from the
window and drowned the gaze of the mountain biker with
his black stare.
Quickly changing the subject that had gone so far astray
of his purpose, the cyclist asked, "Exactly how did Fritz
change you then, sir?"
"I can't put it into words," reflected the RADAR Ranger.
"I can explain it, encase it in words, so that you can
understand the value of it. But I can't present it so you
feel it any more than I can describe the feeling of issuing
one's first speeding citation."
The mountain biker furrowed his brow as if he had
another question, but the RADAR Ranger continued
before he could ask it. "I've already told you that Fritz
understood the relation of modern technology to society.
He knew it intimately and personally. Action is the most
direct path to understanding and it was through action
that Fritz lead me through my change.
"I know little of Fritz's history, of his past actions. My
understanding goes back a meager three months before I
weakly faced him that evening in the bar. He claimed he
was the Marketing Director of Km.P.H. Industries,
manufacturers of the legendary K-15 RADAR gun. I
don't doubt that it was Fritz who made the gun into the
legend it is, but I don't have enough information at hand
to tell you how he did it. He doesn't talk about it himself.
I do know what he told me, the he left his offices in
Nosferatu, Kansas, to open a new branch of Km.P.H. on
the west coast, here in San Rafael. At least, opening a
branch office was the excuse he used to leave Nosferatu.
His real purpose was far greater and his encounter with
me brought him that much closer to realizing his goals.
The Change
"I was feverish and weak from my initial, violent
encounter with Fritz in the bar. When he returned to his
hotel room the next day and found me pouring over his
volumes, my eyes were red and swollen not only from
hours of endless reading but also from a high-grade fever
that had spread throughout my body. When I said I
needed medical attention, he just laughed in his coarse
way and said that action would be my cure. 'What action,'
I asked him. 'You'll see shortly,' he answered. Then he
flung me over his shoulder as if I were an afterthought
from a Weight Watchers (TM) advertisement and left the
hotel with such speed that we appeared as no more than
fleeting shadows to the hotel personnel working in the
hallways and lobby.
"In the parking lot, he tossed me into the passenger seat
of a highway cruiser. By this time I was delirious with
the fever, but I managed to ask him how he had acquired
a fully equipped highway vehicle. Without looking at me
as he pulled out of the parking lot and worked his way
onto the northbound lane of Highway 101, he simply
stated that a man of technological action could do
anything. Then he proceeded to speed on, effortlessly
darting among cars and lanes of traffic without hesitation.
I'm sure we appeared to the vehicles around us as we had
appeared to the hotel personnel: a fleeting shadow
because no one looked up at us in consternation or
honked a horn in frustration. On our high speed trip, we
raced by many locations where I knew RADAR-
e quipped patrol cars to be stationed. Yet, no chases
ensued and no flashing red lights appeared in our rear
view mirror.
"I was by this time extremely ill and weary of the
outcome of the high-speed car ride. 'Take me to a doctor,'
I pleaded. When he did not answer me after many such
pleas, I began to murmur (incoherently he later claimed,
with little sympathy). 'I want to die. Let me die. It's
within your power to let me die. Please.' He never
acknowledged me nor looked in my direction. He was
determined to make me a man of action."
"Would he in any other circumstances have let you go?"
asked the mountain biker. "I mean, if he had sensed you
were really dying?"
"I don't know to this day. Knowing Fritz the way I know
him now, I doubt that he would have let me go under any
circumstances. But it didn't matter because this was what
I really wanted. My old self was whimpering, but that
part of me that was becoming conscious of a new and
powerful aspect of life was laughing with sheer
excitement. I wanted what was happening as much as
Fritz did."
The cyclist screwed up his face, but before he could open
his dry lips, the RADAR Ranger said, "You were going
to ask me 'What WAS happening,' weren't you? Men of
technological action like Fritz and myself can read the
slightest change in a facial expression as easily as we can
interpret a question asked in our own tongue. It's an
infallible instinct from which no violator of the speed
laws can escape with false IDs and elaborate excuses."
"What was happening?" the ranger repeated. "Fritz pulled
the car over to the side of the road, leaving it in complete
view to both directions of traffic, and pulled the K-15
RADAR gun off the dashboard clip. He pushed the
power switch to on, turned the range and Doppler audio
signal dials to their maximum settings, and flicked the
standby transmitter button to make the unit invisible to
radar detectors. Then he swung the gun up into the
oncoming lane of traffic and pulled back on the trigger
switch to lock in the speed of a car bearing down on us.
The LED in the target display showed 73 in red, boxy
numbers. 'That's a speed that'll add at least $75 to the
state's treasury,' mused Fritz.
"Wait a minute," blurted out the mountain biker with his
eyes anchored on the floor, afraid to face the RADAR
Ranger. "What about the tuning fork test. What about a
traffic survey to detect possible causes of RADAR
interference? What about ..."
"What about?" mimicked the ranger in the cyclists high-
pitched, concerned tone. "He did all of these things,
though I didn't tell you. You're a very knowledgeable
fellow who's obviously done his homework. Now would
you like to tell the tale or should I continue?"
Without waiting for the mountain biker to look up, the
RADAR Ranger want on. "After a minute, Fritz pointed
down the fast lane of the northbound traffic. 'Here comes
a Miata with mag wheels and a shiny new coat of candy-
apple red paint. The young female driving looks like she
knows what she's up to. Let's see exactly what she is up
to.' And Fritz spun the gun up with blinding speed and
pulled the trigger. At least he said he did because the
movement of his index finger was so fast, I couldn't
detect even a blur inside the metal trigger housing. He
turned the back of the gun with the target lock display to
me and smiled. It showed '73' in its glass-front panel.
'She's yours, Gordon,' he said."
The cyclist made a soft, rapid clicking sound with his
front teeth when the RADAR Ranger said his own name.
"Yes, that's my real name," he admitted and continued his
story.
"I remember feeling moisture from the Bay adding to the
collection of sweat forming on my forehead. 'No, I can't
do that,' I cried out. 'It wouldn't work anyway -- we're not
officially on duty. What we're doing is illegal,' I said out
loud while fearing inwardly the painful similarities
between this speeding violation and the one involving my
sister. 'I don't want to be guilty of issuing an illegal
speeding ticket. I can't live if I let this happen.' Fritz
grabbed my shoulders with his immensely powerful
hands and shook me until I begged him off. I sat there
helpless in the face of my own cowardice and guilt. 'I
didn't think you really wanted to die over a speeding
ticket, Gordon,' he said disdainfully. It's not worth
languishing to death for. Besides, think of the lives you
could save by issuing this ticket. How many people are
killed every year by speedsters like this red-blooded,
young girl. Who could blame you for saving lives? On-
duty or off-duty is inconsequential ... I'll see to that.'
"But there was no time in Fritz' plan for me to make a
decision, there was only time for Fritz' plan. When the
red Miata sped past our seemingly invisible location on
the side of the highway, Fritz went into pursuit. There
was no contest and he had the Miata pulled over to the
side of the road less than 3/4 of a mile from where we
first began the chase. 'Listen to me, Gordon,' he said, 'I've
brought you to this time and place so you can put your
past aside and discover a far richer life.' He said these
words with great authority and I wanted to believe him.
'Get out of the car now, step around to the driver's side of
that Miata, and write her up. There's nothing more to it
than that. Free yourself.'
The mountain biker's eyes grew large. He had sunk
further into the unyielding oak-backed office chair as the
RADAR Ranger spoke, his face tensed for the words the
ranger was yet to say.
" 'I can't,' I pleaded with him. 'It's not right -- it goes
against all the principles I work by.' He simply kept his
cold gaze centered on me and said, 'You make it right. It's
not going to kill you.' I think back on that time, and I
can't help but despise him. Not because what he said was
wrong, but because he said it with a complete lack of
respect and humility. He could have tried to calm me, to
guide me to the point where I could have written up the
citation without filling myself with angst. But he didn't.
His strategy, if he had a strategy at all, was to push. He
was never the RADAR Ranger I am. Never.' It was clear
to the cyclist that the ranger was not boasting. He said
these words as if he actually would have had it turn out
differently.
"But I could not withstand his strength of will. I slid out
from under his loosened grasp, opened the car door, and
walked around to the young woman still seated behind
her leather-covered steering wheel. She already had her
license out and handed it to me without a question. When
I was through with it, she presented me with the car's
registration. And again no verbal exchange of any kind
took place between us. The entire affair took less than ten
minutes, she pulling back onto the freeway when it was
over while I closed the door soundlessly beside me as I
sat down next to a smiling Fritz.
"Have you ever done something that was in such sharp
contrast to your normal experiences that it hurt just to
think about it, but, at the same time, felt so exhilarating
that you thought about doing it over and over?" the
ranger addressed the mountain biker.
The cyclist formed the word no with his tight lips, but
the word made no audible sound. He cleared his throat
and the word finally spilled out for the ranger to hear.
"I felt that mixed exhilaration then for the first time,"
confessed the RADAR Ranger. He looked for a long time
at his reflection in the window pane. Then he said, "The
thought of it prickled the hair all over my body, sent a
jolt of sensation through me that was close to the pleasure
of passion." He mused in silence a moment longer.
"Within seconds I was weakened to a state of paralysis.
Panic stricken, I couldn't force myself to speak. Fritz held
me tightly in the front of the patrol car. 'Steady, Gordon,'
he commanded. 'Don't try to speak. This is the first time
you've issued a speeding citation and understood.
Actually understood! You'll feel weak at first, but your
strength will return with an enhanced vibrancy. You'll
find your mind and body both focused upon a new life
spirit."
The RADAR Ranger paused, then frowned. "How sad it
is to talk of such things whose meaning can't be
understood with words alone." The mountain biker
slipped lower in his chair, hoping the ranger wouldn't
look at him directly.
"At first, I saw nothing but an unnatural white light
rushing to surround and cut me off from the interior of
the patrol car. The light hid Fritz from me, too. Then the
pounding started in my head, growing louder and louder.
It was as if some great, heavy-footed creature of light
was devouring me. And once that creature had finished
its meal, another creature, pounding its hooves into my
belly and following the beat of its own drum, took its
meal of me, too. Soon, too many creatures to count were
tearing me apart at once, each struggling over an arm, a
leg, or a part of my neck for their feeding. The frenzy
passed into all my senses, into the throbbing of my finger
tips, into the wispy flesh of my temples. Do you
understand," he shouted at the cyclist, "it was because I
had written that speeding citation!"
The mountain biker trembled in his small, lifeless chair.
"No .... I mean ... I'm not sure ..., sir" he stammered.
"Of course, you're not sure ... you couldn't possibly
know," the ranger broke in. "I saw and understood like a
RADAR Ranger for the first time."
"What happened next," ventured the cyclist, large beads
of perspiration snaking down his forehead and onto the
ends of his lashes.
"Fritz was still sitting next to me when this new fever
passed out of my body. I don't know how long it had
taken and I suppose it doesn't matter, either. When I
looked upon his face, he had changed, or, at least the way
I saw him, had changed. Before, he had seemed pale and
almost insubstantial in his coloring. Now, he seemed to
pulse with life from within and that pulsing caused him to
appear radiant. And then I noticed that it was not just
Fritz who had changed, but all things that came into my
view.
"Colors and shapes -- it was as if I had never seen them
before. The stitches around the button holes on Fritz'
cotton fabric shirt excited my attention for many minutes.
The patterns they cut through the cotton were the most
amazing I could have ever imagined. Then a foghorn
blast from the Bay played a full and long symphony of
strings, winds, and percussion for me. It was at first
disturbing, each sound colliding with the next, until I
learned to separate and enhance the quality of each. The
symphony in my head continued until a new sound
entered, breaking up the previous melodies and
harmonies. At last I recognized it as Fritz' laughter.
" 'What's happening to me. Have you stuck some drug
into my veins?' I cried.
" 'You're turning into a RADAR Ranger, you fool. You're
changing, yes, but you still have your reason. Now, take
your eyes off my button holes, and calm yourself. We
have more to learn tomorrow. What we need now is rest.'
"Are we going back to the hotel, then," I asked. 'No,' he
answered, swiftly reaching to the back seat, pulling it up
and then forward to reveal a Lycra (TM)-lined sleeping
space that extended into the trunk of the patrol car.
"That black hole frightened me more than I can tell you. I
pleaded with Fritz to let me sleep in the front seat, but he
only laughed, obviously puzzled. 'You really don't know
what you've become, do you?'"
I'd been claustrophobic my entire life -- as a small boy, I
had great difficulty just getting my body to function
whenever I stood alone in front of the john with the door
closed in our small, one-bathroom home. Now I was
supposed to crawl into a space the size of a mummy bag
whose features I couldn't see and with a man who
terrified me.
Fritz and I argued, shouting inanities back and forth. But
while we argued, I came to realize that, at that moment, I
actually felt no fear looking into the opening of the trunk.
What I was afraid of, I realized, were my memories of
being enclosed. I was hanging onto memories that no
longer had meaning for me in my altered state. 'You're
acting like a fool,' Fritz finally said. 'This fear you talk
about has nothing to do with you at all. It's out of you
now. You sound like a man who has had his tonsils or
appendix removed and still complains about the pain
where those organs used to be.' Well, that statement had a
profound effect on me. It was the most intelligent thing
Fritz had ever said to me and it jolted me awake as much
as if he had thrown a bucket of cold water on me. 'I'm
getting into that trunk right now,' said Fritz, 'and if you
have any senses at all, you'll get in without another lame
word.' I did. It was the first of many nights we were to
sleep on the road."
The cyclist moved his arm as if to interrupt the RADAR
Ranger. "What ..."
"I'm not letting you ask enough questions, am I," said the
ranger. "You were going to ask what happened that
night."
"Well .... yes," fidgeted the mountain biker on the edge of
his seat.
"Absolutely nothing. I slept the sleep of the dead, perhaps
I should say 'damned,' as I imagine Fritz did also. The
next morning, before dawn, I awoke and felt the change
in me. The first thing I noticed was Fritz himself, still
asleep on his back in his half of the trunk. Looking down
on him from above as I was doing, I felt nothing but
disdain for him. He was still my superior in all things, but
the gulf between us had narrowed since the previous
evening. Before issuing that speeding ticket, Fritz was
close to incomprehensible to me -- a magical Peter Pan
who both frightened and excited me, a being whom I
couldn't possibly hope to understand. Now he was for me
a far more comprehensible Captain Hook whom I
couldn't pretend to admire.
"Oh!" the mountain biker interjected. "When you say the
distance between you two had narrowed, you mean he no
longer deluded you."
"Yes," said the ranger with obvious relish. "That
morning, after Fritz woke, we drove south along the
length of 101 to a turnoff just before the Golden Gate
Bridge that led to the Marin Headlands. The entire time
Fritz kept up a constant and boring monologue that I
found quite disheartening. He talked about the weather.
He talked about Silicon Valley software company
mergers. As he turned right off the highway onto the
headlands steep frontage road, he started talking about
Madonna's newest musical video. It was all so shallow
and ... and so incredibly uncaring for me and the radical
changes he had pushed me into. Then in the very next
breath, while he pulled into an off-road parking space in
front of a WWI bunker not more than two hundred yards
up the hill from the highway exit and, following a long
discourse on diverting water from the Russian River to
fuel new development in Marin County, he suddenly
turned his gaze away from the windshield and said to me,
'Gordon, it's time you bring to justice your first real
speeding violator. I don't simply mean issuing those
mom-and-pop citations the way you used to -- the way
you did with your sister. Even the way you did last night.
I mean bringing in the big ticket speeders with Knowing
and Understanding.'
"When he mentioned my sister, my heart froze mid-beat.
We had never discussed my sister and I didn't know how
he could have found out about her. No one outside our
immediate family was aware of Jackie's situation. 'How
do you know about my sister?' I screamed in his face.
Grinning a yellow smile, he answered, 'Your fame eludes
you, Gordon. It's because of how you handled your
sister's crime that I'm offering you this freedom.'
" 'Crime?' I said in disbelief. 'Her speeding wasn't a
crime, at least not the way you mean it. She didn't stay
awake nights plotting the fastest route from Terra Linda
to Novato. If you're going to blame anyone, blame fate ...
a warm, sunny day and a new convertible car caused a
beautiful, young girl to daydream and slip ever so slightly
over the speed limit. That's not a crime!'
" 'Gordon, speeding is a crime, no matter how fast you're
going. That's why we have posted speed limits and
RADAR to enforce those limits.' Fritz stopped here and
cracked his knuckles, one by one, his cold grey eyes
holding me in check. When the last of his gnarled joints
had popped, he laughed out loud. 'Fate. What the devil is
Fate, Gordon? Is it Fate that brings you the joy of
winning the lottery? No, it's you willing yourself to walk
into the store and buy the winning ticket. Is it Fate that
bankrupts your business? No, it's the vote you willingly
cast for the wrong candidate in the last election. Is it Fate
that's responsible for the neighbor's cat being run over by
a speeding driver? No, it's the driver willingly pushing
the throttle beyond the acceptable limits and not being
able to brake the car in time. Is it Fate that intervened
when you and your sister met on the side of the highway
that day? No, Gordon, it wasn't Fate ... you wanted to be
there and you wanted to issue that ticket! And you did
and that's why I can set you free.'
"Every muscle in my body was straining to tear loose
from its ligaments and smother that monster beside me
until the last arrogant flame of knowing flickered out of
his eyes. While I managed to control my rage, I could do
nothing to check the deep pain that pulsed to the marrow
of my bones. Pulsed because I knew he was right. I had
wanted to catch my sister speeding and write her up; it
was only now that I could admit it. I was as evil as Fritz
and, at that moment, I hated myself as much as I hated
him."
"Excuse me," said the cyclist, "but weren't you just
letting the situation manipulate your feelings and it only
seemed to you that ...."
"No," the RADAR Ranger cut him short. "I know what
I'm saying and I'm not finding fault with you for not
understanding -- you are only a mountain biker, after all."
The Presidio
The cyclist shifted uneasily in his chair, trying to hide his
trembling by pushing it through the narrow, uneven knot
hole he knew was opening somewhere between his
Durango (TM) SPD Compatible MTB shoes in the gloom
of Sky Oaks. Waiting for the ranger to resume his tale, he
clasped his hands tightly together.
The ranger, sensing his audience's unease, reached across
the table and grasped the cyclist's shoulder. "Excuse me,"
he said. "I didn't mean to frighten you. You wanted to
hear my story and I'm telling you all of it, even those
parts that I find troubling. Don't let it bother you."
The mountain biker slowly nodded his quiet agreement
without looking up and the RADAR Ranger went on.
"I had never thought of myself as evil, evil in the Biblical
sense, but I did so know. Powerful and evil. Evil and
powerful. Evil alive. No matter how I looked at it, it
spelled the same thing forwards and backwards. With
these palindromic thoughts spiralling in my head, Fritz
reached over and touched the black plastic dash panel in
front of me. 'I've got a little surprise for you,' he said, the
corners of his mouth curling up into a partial smile. 'I've
taken the liberty of having your patrol car tuned up.'
" 'What are you talking about,' I said. 'My car wasn't
scheduled for any maintenance. You couldn't have got it
out of the yard anyway, you don't have the authorization.'
" 'You'd be surprised at what I'm capable of doing,
Gordon. In fact, if your current reaction is any indication,
you're going to be really surprised when you find out
what you're capable of doing yourself. But all that in its
own time.' With that, he backed out of the dirt parking
space in front of the weathered concrete bunker and
drove back down the steep access road to the stretch of
101 crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. We rode in silence
across the mile-long span, until he pulled over to the far
right-hand lane just before the toll booth, and looked over
at me as if to say, 'Watch this.' We waited our turn in line
before drawing up to the toll window. A sign demanded
$7 to cross onto the San Francisco side of the windy gate.
Fritz looked up at the young female toll keeper and
smiled that little, half crooked Jack Nicolson smile of his.
She smiled back and the toll light flashed green, thanking
him for the $7 that hadn't left the back of his wallet. Fritz
drove through, grinning like Jack Nicolson turned
Cheshire cat.
"He took a sharp right at the very next exit and headed
into what was left of the Presidio. I used to roam around
in there when I was kid, right after it was closed down.
Probably before you were born and before the city
declared the old army base off-limits to the public. The
public wouldn't want to go in there now, anyway, at least
from what I saw of it that morning. Fritz seemed to know
his way around, though. He followed a weed-cracked
thoroughfare for a distance, then turned onto a broken-up
side street and wound his way through a bevy of what
looked like officer homes and finally pulled to a stop next
to an old warehouse buried at the base of a eucalyptus-
covered hillock. The wooden service door through which
city employees used to unload the military-contracted big
Mac's and Mercedes and Volvos hung down listlessly
from one corner of the open entrance.
" 'Let's go inside and unwrap your present,' said a
grinning Fritz and pulled me outside the car with a
strength that still overwhelmed me. Sunlight reflected
brightly off the dirty stuccoed walls and blinded my eyes
to anything that may have been lurking at the edge of the
entrance. The old building frightened me, I don't know
why, even though we approached it in broad daylight.
Perhaps as a defensive mechanism I momentarily tranced
off into a daydream, then startled myself back to
consciousness when I felt the soothing slap-slap echo of
our approaching footfalls suddenly buried in the far
corners of the building. We were standing at the edge of
the entrance, the heels of our boots bathed in warm
sunlight, the toes lost to the building's darkness.
"Waterfalls of light from small roof-line windows
highlighted mounts of ancient dust, and disintegrating
cardboard cartons that once held the tools of war
clustered along the far walls. Against the wall directly
opposite us a shrunken, dark shadow cautiously followed
the broken line formed by the junction of wall, floor, and
wooden crates. A building mired so deeply in purple
prose as this one certainly harbored more than one
diseased rat, you can be sure, but that's not what caught
my attention. In the center of the warehouse was my
patrol car, floating securely in the middle of a dusty
ocean with tracks neither leading to nor from it through
waves of dirt.
" 'Maybe they brought it in with a crane,' Fritz said
reading my thoughts. 'A crane standing outside the
entrance wouldn't have left any tracks inside, you know.
Plop! the car comes down in the middle of the warehouse
and no one knows any the better. Mystifying.'
" 'How did it get there, Fritz?' I asked as calmly as
possible, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of my
anger and confusion.
"Don't think it was done with a crane ... no, certainly not
a crane. But time's a' wasting,' he laughed. 'Let's take a
look at this new car of yours. He slipped the index finger
of his right hand through my nearest belt loop and hauled
me sideways across the open expanse to the object of his
delight. The car didn't look any different from the
outside -- same standard purple and yellow paint job, side
view mirrors, lights, reinforced bumpers. Nothing really
had been changed.
" 'Okay,' I said, struggling to pull his finger out of the
loop without tearing the double-stitched cloth off my
pants.' I don't see anything so remarkable here ... it all
looks the same to me.'
" 'Open the hood and tell me what you see.' I was way
ahead of him and had already punched the button with
my thumb to open the driver-side door, then reached in
and pulled back the hood-release latch underneath the
dash on the right side of the steering wheel. The hood
popped up an inch or so; I walked around to the front of
the car and reached underneath the quavering hood with
my upturned right hand, found the smooth surface of the
internal latch and squeezed it back. The catch released
and the hood lifted slowly and quietly up on its rear
hinges. Moldy darkness quickly settled over the engine
compartment, but my eyes began almost immediately to
adjust to the dim light. I couldn't see anything different
about the engine.
" 'Makes Stephen King's car, Christine, look like a little
girl still hanging onto her mother's exhaust pipe, huh,
Gordon?'
" 'I don't see anything different about this engine,' I shot
back to him. 'You want this car to move, you'd put Cowl
hood scoops up top. You've got to pump some extra air
into the fuel injection system to make it really move.'"
The Mustang
"Fritz stood there looking at me with what seemed like
pity in his eyes. Prolonging the moment by slowing
puffing out his chest with air inhaled noisily through his
nose, he finally broke the silence and hissed through his
teeth, 'Gordon, I'll explain it as simply as I can for you.
There is no Cowl induction hood, or any other typical
induction scoops up top, for two good reasons: reason
number one -- this is no typical car and reason number
two -- we don't want people to catch on right away that
this is no typical car. Put in a scoop and people know
you've got something different. We don't want that, do
we?'
"Fritz didn't wait for me to answer. 'Tell me to stop if I
start to bore you, Gordon, but here's the real scoop.
Stock, these Ford Mustang GT engines have a short block
with forged pistons and connecting rods. Your block has
been lowered to handle your new Paxton centrifugal
supercharger forced induction system I we put it low
enough so we didn't have to cut a hole in the hood and
broadcast its presence to the world. Standard forged
pistons and connecting rods can't handle the kind of
power you're going to be cranking out, so we've replaced
them with super tough Venola forged blower pistons,
Crower rods with big, heavy, stiff bolts, and a
magnefluxed crankshaft. This baby is going to rock 'n
roll, Gordon, but it isn't going to do the Twist.'
" 'Okay, okay! I get the picture,' I said.
'No you don't,' he snapped at me. 'Listen and learn
something -- you can't be a man of action if you don't
listen first. Without the Paxton, your stock GT puts out
about 12 pounds of boost per square inch, which adds up,
in the engine's stock configuration, to roughly 225 horse
power and 300 foot pounds of torque. Sissy stuff. With
our little adjustments, it now kicks out 26 pounds of
boost per square inch, or 600 horse power (at 6500 rpm)
and 750 pounds of torque. Even had to have a special
pulley and belt created to withstand that kind of power, a
power that's going to blow your regular bearings through
the bottom of the engine. So we replaced your old 3.02
block with a bullet-proof 351 cubic inch SVO block with
4-bolt main bearing caps. Ah, but we're not done,
Gordon. Not done; no, not yet. I caught a glimpse of
excitement in your eyes, didn't I. We pulled out your
stock fuel injection system and replaced it with Ford
Motorsport GT-40 fuel injectors. To make it really
efficient, we tossed out all smog control devices -- stuff
like catalytic converters, the smog pump, EGR gas
recirculation and stuff like that. This is a hot car, Gordon;
you'll have to roll your windows down to stay cool,
though, because we dispensed with your air conditioning,
a real horse-power hog. The old GT already comes with
small exhaust manifold headers, but we couldn't leave
them alone either. This old Mustang now passes gas
through Cyclone Tubular Racing headers into large
collectors connected to big ol' 2.5 inch exhaust pipes and
two-chamber Flowmaster low restriction mufflers. She'll
sound like a beast from hell when you fire her up.'
" 'I don't want a beast from hell, Fritz. I don't think I want
any of this. You're crazy, and I don't think I want any part
of you.'
"Still ignoring my comments and frustration, Fritz sped
on. 'No way in the world your old rear end would stand
up to the forces descending on her now, so we cut her
bottom out and put in a tough Richmond 9 inch rear-end
gear housing with axles. You need rubber on the road to
make use of your new found power and torque, so we
slipped on 315 Goodyear Gatorbacks, after cutting back
the rear wheel wells, of course, so these monsters
wouldn't stick out too far and attract undue attention.
Koni gas-filled shocks all around suck up the Gs you'll be
subjecting this little beauty to.'
" 'So, what's the bottom line?' beamed Fritz. 'With 3.55
rear-end ring and pinion gears, this predator'll pop off the
line and do 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds, burning the quarter
mile in 10.5 seconds. Turn off the nitrous oxide (I forgot
to tell you about the nitrous oxide? Sorry about that -- use
it with caution!) and I'm afraid she'll only hang in around
3.0 for 0-60 and cross the quarter line in a disappointing
11 seconds. I'll try to fix that next go 'round.'
" 'Don't thank me, not yet' continued Fritz. 'There's more
... I'm surprised you didn't notice it when you first popped
the hood's latch from the inside. I don't think you've quite
got the knack for making the most of your heightened
RADAR senses, yet,' Fritz smirked. 'Look over there
under your regular computer console.' I listened to his
words and traced my gaze along the broken outline of his
outstretched finger to its curved end, then worked my
way down the invisible, straight line that ran from his
nail to a crowded spot below my state-issue computer
screen and keyboard. Another electronic screen glowed
faintly green there. Across its back-lit surface swarmed a
tangle of intersecting lines.
" 'It's a map, that green glow you see there. What we have
here is a rather sophisticated computer that puts to shame
most of its electronic brethren. Of course, what you see
here is only part of the computer; the rest of it is in orbit
directly over the west coast at a rather constant altitude of
123 miles. Wherever the car goes, the satellite beams its
position to a database of coordinates digitally linked to
the cities and streets you find yourself cruising through.'
"Gothic goes high-tech," whistled the almost-forgotten
mountain biker under his breath.
"What was that?" questioned the RADAR Ranger,
grudgingly returning his thoughts to Sky Oaks.
"Nothing, actually. I'm sorry to have interrupted your
story, sir. Please go on with it -- it's all very fascinating."
The RADAR Ranger continued." 'Your car is this red
dot,' elaborated Fritz. 'It's stationary now because the
car's not moving. But when you're traveling on the road,
the dot moves along the road's green squiggle on the
screen.'
" 'This is all very interesting, but I don't see it's purpose.
What do red dots and green lines have to do with
anything?'
"Fritz stood there looking at me, the fingers of his left
hand rasping back and forth across the gray stubble on
his chin. " 'Gordon, I shouldn't have to show you
everything. Take responsibility for your own freedom
and see what you can discover on your own. We're not
talking about Fate here ... we're talking about you taking
action to become free. Listen and don't talk. The red dot
is you. The green line shows where you are. Flip this
little switch below the monitor and if any vehicles are
within the territory covered by the monitor, they show up
as blue dots. Now move the cursor over any blue dot with
the track ball, and push the button to its right and, voila,
the monitor displays the speed of the vehicle you're
monitoring. Do you see the potential in this? Blind
corners, dips in the road, mountain sides I none of these
can hide speeders from you. You're rendered virtually
omniscient.'
"I stood there in fascinated silence. Suddenly I was
beginning to see and understand like a RADAR Ranger.
Obstacles that got in the way of enforcing the law were
demolished with the flick of a tiny, plastic switch. A
plastic switch. " 'Good God,' I exclaimed. 'This is
incredible.'
" 'It's more than that,' acknowledged Fritz. 'No matter
how far away they are, you'll be on top of them before
they can repeat 'Modified Ford Mustang in my rear view
mirror.' There's only one catch to the whole operation and
I'm sure it won't present any problems for you. I shouldn't
even bother to mention it.'
" 'Mention it, Fritz. Mention it.'
"For this unit -- car and electronics -- to work properly,
you've got to bring down five speeders a day. That's all.
Nothing more. What are you responsible for now?
Fifteen? Twenty? See how easy it is? Before long, you'll
be tripling and quadrupling that number.'"
" 'Five speeders a day? Just five speeders a day?' I rolled
the words around in my mouth, flicking them with my
tongue here and there, savoring their simplicity. 'And I
could increase that number as easily as you say? And all
according to the law books?'
" 'Yes, to your first question, speeders will take to you
like flies to sticky paper,' laughed Fritz. 'No, to your
second question,' his eyes narrowing to tiny slits. 'What
we're talking about here isn't written up in the law books.
What we're talking about follows a much higher code I
a much higher law. We're talking about the code followed
by men of action who see to it that the products of
science are used in the best interests of the people.'"
"Did you question his integrity, then?" quizzed the
mountain biker. "Did you point out the flaws in his
reasoning, in his misplaced sense of public trust?"
"I asked him when we could begin," replied the RADAR
Ranger to the shocked cyclist.
"But what about your own sensibilities and internal sense
of right and wrong, sir?" stammered the wide-eyed
mountain biker.
The RADAR Ranger hesitated, and when he spoke there
was a catch in his voice. "I admit that I made a mistake.
But let me continue with my tale. I was about to relate
the experience of my first citation, equipped as I was
with that monstrous patrol car and all its electronic
wizardry. It should be clear to you now that there was
only one possible outcome. Do I have to tell you what
that outcome was?"
When the suddenly passive mountain biker did not
answer after several moments, the agitated ranger,
rapping his knuckles against the scarred table top to a
beat the cyclist could not identify, continued. "The
outcome should be obvious to you -- Fritz blew it with his
typical lack of empathy for me."
"Blew it, sir?" repeated the mountain biker.
"Right out his Flowmaster low restriction mufflers. I
should never have started with full-sized passenger
vehicles as he demanded. As with all my experiences
involving Fritz, this was something I had to eventually
learn on my own anyway. Fritz quite literally pushed me
into the driver's seat and demanded that I follow him.
'Just drive,' he ordered, 'and don't think twice about what
happens.' There was plenty to think about, though. After I
turned the key in the ignition and my vehicle fired up, it
seemed to drive itself. I was there, sure, behind the
steering wheel, with my feet working the pedals on the
floor, but my presence only seemed coincidental. The
instant those 315 Gatorbacks began spinning in the rear,
the car shot forward, streaking out past the opening in the
warehouse and into the air beyond the raised loading
dock, coming down on those gas-filled Koni's with barely
a jolt discernable in the cockpit. Just ahead of me, Fritz
was maneuvering his car with the patient skill of an
Indianapolis 500 driver, taking Presidio corners skidless
at high speed, accelerating to redline velocity down short
bridge approaches, threading his way seamlessly through
heavy traffic as we crossed back over the Golden Gate
Bridge and into Marin County along 101.
"We went through a rigorous driving school at the
Academy, but what I practiced there could never have
prepared me for what was happening now. Where I
normally would drift through corners, I was holding tight
to the road. Unexpected obstacles I cars or pedestrians
cutting in front of me I should have been reasons for
collisions, but were easily avoided. And what was most
startling to me was that no one seemed to notice us. No
one, not the toll keepers as we rocketed over 100 mph
through the free-direction entrance of the bridge, not the
drivers of passenger vehicles whose cars surely must
have rock 'n rolled with the jet of air both proceeding and
trailing us, not the pilots in the routine spotter planes
circling above the highway, and not the RADAR-
equipped patrol cars camouflaged in among roadside
billboards and shrubbery. We were masked to everyone
but ourselves.
"You can imagine the fear and confusion I felt," confided
the RADAR Ranger. "They're probably the only two
emotions I have consistently through this tale. Had he
had any sensibility and compassion, Fritz could have
eased my fears with well-thought out explanations
offered in soothing tones. He could have explained that I
did not have to fear a high-speed collision or worry about
striking down a pedestrian or of being pulled over by one
of my fellow officers, but that I just needed to focus on
the new experience that was enveloping me. Instead, his
voiced crackled over my radio with condemnations and
insults about my inability to take action. He was only
interested in bringing down a speeder, completing my
initiation, and moving onto his next abomination.
"About 15 miles north of the bridge, Highway 101 climbs
over one of many small, partially wooded hills. It was at
the base of this particular hill that Fritz shouted at me
over the radio to look at my computer screen. 'The blue
dots, you fool, don't you see the blue dots on the road
ahead going down the other side of this stump of a hill.
What a catch!' he continued to scream into the radio. 'If
I'm not a RADAR Ranger with the eyes of a hungry
panther, that looks like a convoy of five big rigs. What a
feast, Gordon! This is your lucky day. Put the cursor over
one of those blue meanies and get a speed readout.' I did
as he said and my screen brightened with a reading of
'74.' Before I knew what was happening, the little switch
below and to the left of my steering wheel snapped down
of its own accord, nitrous oxide sped into the Ford
Motorsport GT-40 fuel injectors, and the chase was over
before it had time to begin."
"Did you give speeding tickets to the drivers of all five
big rigs?" asked the mountain biker quietly.
"Yes and no," replied the RADAR Ranger. "As usual,
Fritz had only been partially correct in his observations.
We had, indeed, brought down five speeding, highly
visible vehicles. But they weren't big rigs. It was a
convoy of motorhomes on their way to the Shakespeare
Festival in Ashland, Oregon. 'Big rigs, motorhomes,'
Fritz droned on after we had pulled up behind the last of
the vacationing vehicles lining the shoulder of the road,
'what difference does it make? You have the opportunity
to take real action here, Gordon. Stop diddling around
and do it. You can thank me later.'
"I stepped around to the driver's side of the first vehicle
and froze. The driver of the motorhome was a gray-
haired, wrinkled gentleman of 78 and next to him was his
wife of 55 years, gray-haired and wrinkled, too. They
reminded me of my parents I my own flesh and blood! I
couldn't take action against a couple like this. The
memory of my own parents, of Jackie, really, was too
powerful to escape. Fritz was, of course, outraged with
me when he should have been saying and doing things to
make this ticketing experience a rich, rewarding one."
"I don't understand what you mean," said the cyclist.
"What things could he have said and done?"
"Bringing down speeders is no ordinary act," began the
RADAR Ranger. "You don't simply gorge yourself on
the distress and misery of the law breakers. No," he
shook his head. "Writing up a citation is a celebration of
life I of guaranteeing and sustaining a point of view that
benefits so many. For RADAR Rangers, this is the
highest experience." The ranger stated this most
seriously, all the time looking at the mountain biker as if
he were talking to someone who held contrary views.
"I'm sure Fritz never fully appreciated the experience this
way, at least I never saw him do so. Whatever," the
ranger continued painfully, "Fritz did not bother to
remind me of the exhilaration I had felt the previous
evening after issuing the ticket to the red Miata, nor did
he try to help me work through my current confusion and
issue these tickets with dignity and understanding. He
bolted through the whole process as if he wanted to be
done with it as quickly as possible, like a little boy
spooning broccoli into his mouth just to leave the dinner
table and get on with his play time. All he said to me
was, 'Do it. Don't be an ass.'"
"He'd beaten me emotionally into the ground already and
I couldn't get up to refuse him," admitted the RADAR
Ranger. "I went from motorhome to motorhome, writing
up the old folks for the maximum fine. I was at first
ashamed and embarrassed. But once I got beyond their
tears and pleas for leniency ('This was going to ruin a
beautiful trip and destroy an already fragile budget'),
once I got into the moment, all my fears and frustrations
vanished. I dined on the event with delirium.
"The pathetic crying of the old folks, Fritz' callousness,
the thunder of the passing trafficQit was all enveloped,
tamed, and then consumed by the unnatural white light
and the beating of the blood coursing through my
temples. My hands tingled with the rush of air pouring
into my lungs and my feet floated dizzily above the
ground. Then the vice-tight grip of Fritz pulled me back.
" 'You've already ticketed them once; you don't have to
go around and give them each another ticket, you fool.' I
was still in a citation frenzy and unable to regain my
senses. I desperately wanted to write out as many tickets
as I could and had my face pressed up against the waxy
ear of one of the terrified drivers. I would have cited him
on multiple violations if Fritz hadn't planted a powerful
blow to my derriere. It was a sensational jolt that traveled
up my spine I not painful I no I enlightening is the
only way I can explain it to you. One moment I was
becoming one with and feasting in the traffic court of the
cosmos, then the next moment I found myself leaning
against the door of my patrol car, the buzzing insects of
the early evening clustering around the salty sweat
soaking through my uniform, the motorhomes, Fritz later
informed me, gone for minutes.
" 'One ticket only per law breaker,' Fritz was shouting at
me. 'Writing two tickets at the same time is like bringing
matter and anti-matter together. You can't survive the
experience; your days of action will be over.' His voice
upset me, put my nerves on end, but I sensed that what he
was now telling me was, indeed, important to my
survival as a RADAR Ranger.
I followed him without thinking back to his parked
vehicle. Watching him walk in front of me, placing one
regulation boot in front of the other, I suddenly realized
the difference between us. For me, the writing of a
speeding ticket with my new powers had been
apocalyptic. It had changed my perception of everything,
from my memories of Jackie to the sensation of a misty
fog giving birth to dew drops on the hairs of my bare
arms. I couldn't conceive of another RADAR Ranger
taking similar experiences lightly. It had changed me; it
had to have changed them, too, in profound ways. I
experienced everything now with a new understanding
and respect. Fritz, however, displayed none of these
insights. He seemed to me to be the lunkhead of RADAR
Rangers. I realized then that Fate had dealt me a cruel
hand, anteing him up as my mentor. I would have to put
up with him as long as he had things to show meQif,
indeed, he had anything left to showQand accommodate
myself to his blasphemous behavior. Life for me was
now rich with beautiful experiences, and to make the
most of these many precious moments, I would have to
take control of my learning. Fritz was only in the way.
"Can you follow my reasoning when I say to you that I
did not want to charge willy-nilly into these experiences,
but rather savor each one of them individually? That my
experiences and sensations as a RADAR Ranger were too
exquisite to be wasted?"
"Yes," replied the mountain biker with conviction. "What
you're describing sounds like being in love, sir."
"Yes," beamed the RADAR Ranger, "like being in love.
An incomparable feeling, and I just couldn't understand
how a person could misuse and waste these feelings.
Then Fritz unknowingly showed me how I could
continue my learningQmy lovingQwithout offending
my sensibilities. He was squinting into the distance,
peering at a dim object on the highway too tiny for me to
identify. Before I could ask him what had caught his
attention, Fritz moved as if a blur into his patrol car and
sped onto the highway. Within moments I saw him and
the tiny object pull over to the roadside. Without
question, he had spotted a speeder, given chase, and was
now issuing the citation. Swift and without mercy. I
thought no more of it I at least, I put it out of my mind
until Fritz returned a few minutes later. A disgusted,
almost disquieted expression creased the corners of his
angry mouth.
" 'I don't like it at all, not at all,' he said as he squirmed
out from behind his steering wheel. "You've taken up so
much of my time with your babbling and nonsense today,
I had no other choice.'
" 'No other choice about what?' I asked bewildered.
" 'You saw what I had to do, or are you telling me that
you couldn't even manage to follow that with your new
senses? My God, Gordon. I have to issue citations every
day, too. I'm as energized as you are by the rush of the
chase and the bringing down of law breakers. The larger
the cubic inch displacement, the greater the horsepower
of the offender, the more energy flows into us. You felt
that yourself just now when you wrote up those five
motorhomes. What I just did was to maintain my status
quo, to keep my numbers up. Believe me, it wasn't a
pleasure. I barely got the slightest charge from it.'
" 'What the devil are you mumbling about?' I forced out
in agitation.
" 'That damned motorcyclist,' an annoyed Fritz replied.
'Wasn't even one of those big, four-stroke bikes. A little
250 cc machine. I'm surprised he was able to break 55.
Not much energy transference there, but it counts on the
old score card nonetheless.'
" 'You mean, then, that we can survive on issuing
citations to motorcycles?' I was excited because I felt no
moral repulsion bringing down motorcycles. I mean, after
all, motorcycles aren't the same as passenger vehicles,
motorhomes, or big rigs. Motorcycles posed far less of a
moral dilemma for me than the other vehicles, you see.
" 'Oh sure,' responded Fritz, 'but who wants to do it. In
the scheme of things, it's quite trivial. Pretty petty,
actually. If you want to get real petty, though, you might
as well ticket bicycles. You can always find them riding
on the highways illegally, pedalling through residential
stop signs, sometimes even breaking the speed limit
coasting down steep hills. Real food for a man of action
like yourself, Gordon!'
"Bicycles, huh?" queried the mountain biker rather
sheepishly.
But the RADAR Ranger ignored the cyclist's apparent
concern and continued his story. "Fritz was laughing
heartily at the image of me bringing down two wheelers,
but, for the first time, I wasn't frustrated by his cynicism.
Motorcycles and bicycles would be my salvation I my
ticket to a Disneyland of fresh, new experiences.
"While these images occupied my thoughts, Fritz
continued on with his ceaseless bantering. 'Gordon,' he
was saying, 'there's still so much you don't know. Two
tickets to the same law breaker at the same time can be
your end. But do you know the other ways you can harm
yourself? And causing harm to your person with so many
experiences yet to come would be such a shame, wouldn't
it?
" 'Surely there must be other RADAR Rangers who can
instruct me,' I said. 'You can't be the only RADAR
Ranger in the world. Someone had to teach the ways of
RADAR to you.'
" 'And whose crystal ball are you going to use to find
these other RADAR Rangers, Gordon? Without question,
they'll see your insubstantial form coming, but you're not
going to see them.' Saying that, Fritz moved his hands so
quickly as to make them nearly invisible, taking the
badge off my shirt and holding its shiny surface under my
disbelieving eyes. 'No, Gordon, I'm your teacher and
you're my student. In that you don't have a choice. Now,
enough of this foolish chatter. Let's get some sleep. We'll
use the back of my car; it'll be more secure for us that
way. When we awake in the morning, we'll be all that
much closer to upholding the law.'
" 'No, Fritz,' I calmly replied. 'You sleep in your own
vehicle and I'll sleep in mine.'
"He became instantly furious. 'Don't be stupid, Gordon.
We're safer if we sleep in the same vehicle, better
security that way. And I' he went on to list scores of
reasons, none of which I considered or let persuade me.
He might as well have been talking to his Venola forged
blower pistons. I watched him as he raved on, a mental
scarecrow of a man, stuffed with spindly reasoning and
inferior ethics.
"With his hateful words streaming at my departing back,
I climbed into the front of my cruiser under the dimly lit
night sky, reached over the front seat, and pulled the back
seat up and then out to reveal my own Lycra (TM)-lined
sleep space. I slipped easily into it, my state-issue boots
grazing the back wall of the dark trunk.' The ranger fell
silent now.
"And that's how you became a RADAR Ranger, sir?" the
mountain biker asked, more from a desire to dispel the
unease that was gripping him than from any deep seated
curiosity.
"Yes, that's how I became a RADAR Ranger."
"You were partner to a RADAR Ranger you disliked
greatly," said the mountain biker after a long silence.
"Yes, I disliked him immensely, but I had to remain with
him. I mean, he had me at a tremendous disadvantage. He
was always insinuating that there were many important
things I didn't knowQthings critical to my continued
well-being. But when I look back at our existence
together, I realize that the things he taught me were quite
commonplace and mundane, things that I could figure out
for myself. How to get an accurate speed reading with the
K-15 RADAR gun when the vehicle crossed its beam at
right angles, how to adjust the gun's tuning fork myself
rather than loosing precious time sending it to a licensed
adjusterQthings of this sort.
"During our time together, he constantly berated me for
my impassioned attachment to things sensuous, my dis-
ease bringing down high-powered vehicles, and my way
of expressing the joy I felt while issuing citations for
moving violations. When I learned and conveyed
amazement that off-the-shelf RADAR detectors had no
effect on my modified Ford Mustang cruiser, he
convulsed into fits of laughter. Holding his quivering
belly with trembling hands, he'd roll over and over on the
floor, bellowing out his amusement.
"He'd ridicule me, too, when I questioned him about good
and evil, about the devil. 'The devil!' he'd shout. 'What
have I got to worry about? I am the devil!' And that
horrible laughter would start up again. At first he terrified
me, as I think you've gathered by now, but as time
passed, I developed a detached fascination for him, for all
things really. I'd find myself sitting for hours in the
Mustang thinking sadly about Fritz' shallow character,
about the lives of the drivers who passed me in their
insulated, smog-proofed vehicles, about life before
RADAR. I marveled over all things great and small with
detachmentQa detachment that I believe is an inherent
part of a RADAR Ranger's nature. It was this profound
detachment, at least, that allowed me to continue living in
a world with people of lesser actionQpeople whose
natures I couldn't entirely separate myself from.
"We shared the world with them, but we didn't participate
fully in all its nuances. Material need, for example; we
didn't have any. Twice a month, state-issue paychecks
would appear in the post office box Fritz had rented on
Fourth Street in downtown San Rafael. Early in my
relationship with Fritz I had ceased to perform my
regular duties on the force, but I was never called in and
questioned about my behavior. And the checks continued
to arrive at our P.O. box. It was like driving the Mustang:
I was there, I had substance, but no one noticed or ever
tried to interfere with the actions I was taking. And the
speeding citations we issued over all those years I not
once did either of us ever receive a summons to traffic
court to confront the speeders we had cited. Our tickets
went undisputed. It was as if the courts were there to
justify our actions, to lend legal credibility.
Marin
"Ahhh, but let me tell you about Marin and how simple
our lives were then. The county was a bouillabaisse of
mid-sized to tiny towns and hamlets. These living spaces
were scattered throughout the wooded hills and valleys
that stretched over the California coast just north of
metropolitan San Francisco. Many of the county's well-
to-do citizens earned their fortunes from investments
flung far and wide throughout the world. As becoming
such an affluent group, they conducted much of their
business from home, using personal computers,
telecommunication software, fax machines, and
sophisticated telephony. On occasion, they would be
driven to San Francisco, to conduct business, or to one of
three major international airports in the Bay Area to
touch flesh and pocketbooks in other corners of the
globe. Joining them on these travel days were the rest of
Marin's citizenry I the commuters who plodded to and
from work on the 101 corridor that ran along the edge of
Marin county and the San Francisco Bay.
" 'A RADAR feast,' Fritz often referred to this traffic
corridor. I found his choice of words unappetizing, but he
was right. He dined regularly and lavishly along the
corridor and the roads feeding into it. Fritz regaled in
bringing down females rushing to work, half-filled coffee
cups teetering on their plastic dashboard holders, their
hair still rolled up in curlers, applying the first of their
faces as they sped down those many country feeder lanes
or charged toward highway entrances along narrow
frontage roads. He went after male CEO-types with equal
gusto, delighting in bringing down Mercedes, BMWs,
Lexus', and other high-priced luxury sedans. Seeing a car
phone in use drove him to the brink of ecstasy. 'Oh, I'm
going to reach out and touch someone today!' he'd scream
over his radio and, even though I might be miles from the
scene, I knew what the cause of his joy was. After he had
satiated himself on these delicacies, he'd turn to what he
called 'the more mundane food groups': campers,
pickups, passenger vehicles pulling trailers, motorhomes,
and the big rigs. 'You want to really put on some weight,'
he'd tell me, 'you bring down a big rig for breakfast,
lunch, and dinner. That's a stomach full.' For appetizers,
he'd go after motorcycles, and when he was really in
desperate straits or just in the mood to snack, he'd bring
down a bicycle or two."
"And you?" queried the mountain biker. "What did you
do, sir?"
"Me?" laughed the RADAR Ranger. "Against all Fritz'
tirades and verbal abuse, I remained true to my
sensibilities and convictions and brought down nothing
larger than two-stroke, 250 cc motorbikes. Fritz called it
wasted action, but I was content, finding peace in myself
along with new understanding. I was even beginning to
take moderate delight in the new experiences engendered
by issuing these speeding tickets."
"You did this with detachment, even when you ticketed
pedal bicycles?" whispered the mountain biker, leaning
forward toward the RADAR Ranger over the narrow
expanse of the oak table top.
"Yes, with great detachment," replied the ranger.
"You've implied that Fritz tried to initiate you into
RADAR by ticketing more powerful vehicles. Why
couldn't you do that with detachment, too? Was your
decision, then, to go after smaller vehicles more of an
aesthetic one than a moral one?"
"Had you put that question to me back then, in the early
days, I would have answered 'aesthetic.' I wanted to
contemplate RADAR in gradual steps. If bringing down
small vehicles brought such pleasure and enlightenment
to me that I could barely comprehend them, then I
believed I should save the larger, more powerful vehicles
for a time when I was more mature in the ways of
RADAR. But I was only deluding myself because all
aesthetic decisions, in the final analysis, are moral ones."
"What a minute," rejoined the mountain biker. "Aesthetic
decisions can be immoral. What about the physicist who
creates the perfect energy source to please his financial
backers, knowing full well they'll use the energy as a
military threat to acquire property. Or the government
that paves over valuable peasant farming land with a
monument to its greatness?"
"What you've just described are moral decisions. At least,
in the mind of the doersQin the minds of the artists, each
serves a higher purpose. It is not a conflict between
morals and aesthetics, but one between the morals of the
artist and the morals of society. The tragedy of our
generation comes from a lack of sensitivity to this
distinction. The atomic physicist, in turning over his
perfect energy source to militarists, believes he has
committed an immoral act and festers in despair,
ultimately believing that he has fallen from grace. His
work suffers and he no longer has any art at all to offer
up to the world. Which is worst I ask you: the acquisition
of property or the denial of art to the world? Morality is
not a crystal ball that can be dashed to pieces because of
a single act. When artists become men of action, these
concerns disappear and the whole public benefits. But I
wasn't thinking about these issues then. I believed that I
brought down small vehicles for aesthetic reasons
aloneQand, at first, I ignored the moral debate of
whether, because of my new found RADAR nature, I was
damned.
Belvedere
"Damned?" repeated the cyclist.
"In my heart, when I went over to Fritz, I believed that I
was damned though I never discussed good and evil with
him, at least not in the beginning. I had taken the
forbidden apple of knowledge and now, I reckoned, must
live as an outcast in the very world whose order I wanted
to maintain. Do you hear what I'm saying?"
The mountain biker peered sheepishly at his own hands
fussing idly on the wood table top. He started to say
something, then changed his mind. When an uneasy
blotch of pink finally swept across his downcast face, he
drew his eyes up to look at the RADAR Ranger and
managed, "Were you damned?"
A thin smile flickered across the ranger's lips like a sliver
of light from the naked bulb directly overhead. The
mountain biker continued to stare at him from a distance,
but the faint trace of the little smile never left the ranger's
lips. "Maybe I" offered the RADAR Ranger, letting his
folded arms drop effortlessly to his sides "I we should
talk about these things in their proper sequence. Can I
continue with my story?"
"Please, go on," said the cyclist.
"Fritz and I continued to work the 101 corridor from the
north of Marin in Novato south to the Golden Gate
Bridge. As my RADAR Ranger nature matured and my
understanding increased, this riddle of damnation grew
more pronounced for me. I finally arrived at a point in
time when my agitation over this conflict in my
personality was more than I could bare and I yelled over
at Fritz one winter day, our Mustangs parked side-by-side
in hiding behind a Miller Lite (TM) billboard just off the
highway, that I didn't want to live any longer.
" 'Gordon, you're not a killer; you couldn't take your own
life if you tried,' was his response to my outburst. He was
right, too. But the powerful emotions created by not fully
accepting Fritz' definition of my RADAR nature were
still sweeping through my body. They created in me a
dark desire for that thing which I knew would satisfy the
corresponding physical craving that was gnawing deep
within me. You already know what bringing down a
speeder means to a RADAR Ranger; now imagine the
difference between bringing down a moped and a Rolls
Royce Silver Shadow.
"Fritz sensed the craving in me that evening and led me
out onto the highway. I followed him in my cruiser for
what seemed like hours, passing up one opportunity after
another. 'Why don't you let me take that one?' I'd radio
over to him, pointing to a blue Camaro filled with
middle-age yuppies or 'The green Volvo station wagon
ahead is traveling 15 miles per hour above the speed
limit; let's bring it down.' But Fritz was unwavering in his
determination to wait for the right law breaker upon
whom I could satiate my craving.
"As late afternoon eased into early evening, we found
ourselves cruising the tree-lined streets of Belvedere, one
of Marin's least affordable communities. Fritz
maneuvered expertly through the narrow streets, darting
from one secluded marble mansion to the next red-tiled
estate. As we rounded a professionally landscaped corner
high up on a hill above the white-capped waters of the
Bay, Fritz waved my car to a halt and parked his own less
than a vehicle length in front of me. Fifty yards ahead,
the double wrought-iron gates to a hidden estate slid
noiselessly open on their steel tracks. The polished silver
grill of every poor boy's dream, a Rolls Royce Silver
Shadow, slowly pulled through the newly created
opening into the street. Fritz shot a glance back to me, as
if to say dinner was served. We followed the Rolls, but
kept our distance to avoid undue attention. Fritz knew
that I was at the end of my emotional tether that evening
and he wasn't going to let the moment escape him by
toying needlessly with the Rolls ahead of us.
"After the big car had pulled through its first stop sign,
Fritz dashed in front of it and pulled it over to the side of
the road. I parked behind the two vehicles, the blood
pounding in my temples, my sweaty right hand nervously
tapping the blood's beat on the cover of my ticket book.
Fritz was already out of his car and walking toward my
Mustang before I realized that I couldn't control the
muscles of my hand enough to grip and open the door, I
had become so flustered. 'Get out of the car, Gordon, and
take him,' Fritz ordered and he opened my car door from
the outside. I stepped out, faltered, but felt strong hands
grab at my shoulders and pull me to attention. 'Get a hold
of yourself, you idiot. There's only one person in the car,
a young man, the chauffeur by the looks of his dress.
You've got him on a 'California Stop;' he never came to a
complete halt at the sign back there, just rolled right
through it.' Fritz pushed me forward with a powerful
shove and I lurched up to the driver's window.
"You must understand that during this entire evening,
while Fritz was leading me hither-and-yon through Marin
county, I kept wondering if I were damned. If I were the
devil himself. These thoughts tore at my mind. 'What
have I turned into by becoming a RADAR Ranger?
Where is this damnable path to lead me?' The frenzy in
my mind fed into and amplified the physical craving Fritz
and sensed in me earlier that afternoon. By this time, I
was beyond balancing my sensibilities with the need to
write up this driver for a moving violation.
"He sat there, behind that expensive teak wood steering
wheel, staring up a me in disbelief. 'But officer,' he began
to say when I shamefully cut him off with a heated look
from my fevered eyes. He was frightened by my
countenance, and utterly alone in that car. He was no
more than 17, but the look of incredulity that crossed his
face as he took me in with his bewildered expression was
ageless. He tried again, saying, 'This is my first job' and
'I'm working through a trial period' and 'This could cause
me to lose everything.' His pleas broke through to my
consciousness, only to trigger that question in my head
again: 'Am I damned.' And if I were damned, why did I
feel such pity for this youth, for his plight here in the hills
of Belvedere?
" 'I must be damned,' I said to myself. 'This is surely hell'
and in that moment I thought of Fritz and knew there was
no escape for me, not from this young driver nor from the
creature I had become. Without a word, I dropped the
citation in the youth's lap and walked off."
"What happened then?" whispered the mountain biker.
"Fritz was jumping up and down on the roadside like a
man crazed. When he saw me walk away from the Rolls,
he rushed over and literally threw me into the air in his
delight. 'Gordon, Gordon!' he laughed at me, pointing his
hideously gaunt finger in my direction, as if to say he had
caught me with my hand in the cookie jar."
"Had you felt that same sensation when you'd brought
down speeders in the past?" quizzed the mountain biker.
"Was it stronger now?"
"I felt satiated," paused the RADAR Ranger as he
searched for the right words, "but not elated. No, if you
must know, I felt damned to the core of my being. I was
enraged, utterly out of my mind with hatred. And that
hatred, of course, was aimed at Fritz. I looked around the
roadside for some implement with which to bash in his
head, but found none. Fritz found this all too amusing
and jumped into his cruiser and sped away. I gave
pursuit, wondering what the driver of the Rolls thought of
this bizarre behavior. Fritz, with his superior mechanical
skills, easily eluded my attempts to overtake him. He
toyed with me as a tomcat toys with a frightened mouse.
He'd let me come to within inches of his rear bumper,
then make a 180 degree turn at speed, darting past me in
the opposite direction, his laughter drowning out the
sound of his two-chamber Flowmaster low restriction
mufflers in my ears.
"When I finally caught up with him, he was parked in one
of his favorite roadside hideaways (he claimed to like it
because it was kept clean by the local Rotary club).
Reason had altogether left me and I flew from my
Mustang at him with an all-consuming rage. We fought
one another as we had never fought before. It was only
the thought of eternal damnation in hellQof grappling
with him like this forever in the fires of hellQthat caused
me to loose my resolve. He was on top of me, pinning me
to the rocky ground with his left knee pressed into my
sternum, when I relaxed my feeble hold on him. 'You're
mad, Gordon,' he said, those terrible cold eyes cooling
the last of the heat to rage through my veins. But his
voice was controlled and calm. The fight had done
something to him, but I wasn't sure what. I was never
sure about Fritz and this time was no exception. I simply
listened to his words and did as he said: 'Get in your
trunk and go to sleep.'
"Closing myself in the back of my cruiser had always
been disturbing for me. It was like squirming through the
narrow opening into a small, solid rock chamber at the
bottom of a very deep cavern. That night was particularly
upsetting for me. Among my worries was was whether
Fritz meant to kill me. How? I don't know, but he was
always hinting at the fact that there was so much more
for me to learn and, perhaps among those things, was a
way to destroy a RADAR Ranger in his sleep.
Suffocation maybe. With these fears haunting my
consciousness, I fell into a troubled slumber and dreamed
the nightmares of the damned."
"RADAR Rangers do dream, then!" exclaimed the
mountain biker.
"Yes, just like you. But no, not exactly like you people of
lesser action. There are differences. Our dreams are long
and clear; we awake remembering every detail, normal
and grotesque. This I never experienced before I
discovered RADAR. And then there are those all-too-
frequent nightmaresQthey mix and warp our waking and
unconscious perceptions into a mottled tapestry of bent
and deformed patterns. Fortunately, so much time
separates that night from now, I can't relate the hideous
fantasies that surely filled my head.'"
The mountain biker, kicking his feet at the emerging hole
in the floor of Sky Oaks, appeared relieved to hear this.
"From the time I awoke early the next morning until
nearly a month later," the RADAR Ranger continued
with barely an audible pause in his narration, "Fritz and I
did not exchange a single utterance. During these long
weeks, I was constantly consumed by the hellish fire of
trying to live with the tragedy of my divided nature. I
could not forgive Fritz for manipulating me into bringing
down the Rolls and I returned quickly to my old pattern
of ticketing small motorbikes and bicycles. Yet, it was
not so much the guilt I felt for the encounter with the
Rolls that burned away at my sensibilities as it was a
disgust over my own personal weakness, for I was now
convinced that if I could leave Fritz, I would regain that
part of me that had been wiped away when he entered my
life. Failure to make that separation was the spark that
kept the flames burning in me. Finally, in the fourth week
after the incident with the Rolls Royce, I mustered the
courage to tell him, 'I'm leaving you, Fritz. I can no
longer tolerate our relationship.'
" 'I've been waiting for some time to hear you say this,' he
replied. ' Go ahead, call me a heinous fiend, a lunatic who
takes his pleasures from the haste created by a
mechanized world. That's why you want to leave me, isn't
it?'
" 'I'm not interested in passing judgment on you, Fritz.
I'm not interested in you at all, in fact. I want to learn
more about my own RADAR Ranger nature and I realize
now that I'll never learn from you. I don't think you know
as much as you put on. You use your powers for personal
pleasures onlyQyour life has no purpose!' I screamed at
him. 'What kind of RADAR Ranger are you, anyway?
How can you take such delight in issuing citations when
you have no need?'"
Fritz sat quietly in his cruiser, the door opened wide on
its hinges, listening to my words. His eyes were attentive
and thoughtful, as I'd never seen them before. His calm
nearly frightened me as badly as if he had flown into one
of his usual black rages. 'What do you think a RADAR
Ranger is?' he asked after a moment of reflective pause.
" 'I'm not like you, Fritz,' I shot back. 'I don't pretend to
explain that which has been unknowable to me.' Fritz
continued to sit in his Mustang, his expressionless gaze
upsetting me. 'But I do know that after I take my leave of
you, I'm going to find out. I'll travel as far as I have to to
find other RADAR Rangers. I know that others must
exist. You and I I we can't be the only ones of our kind.
Someone had to change you just as you have tried to
change me. And someone had to change them, too. I'm
sure there are great numbers of RADAR Rangers
throughout the world. And I'm sure that they'll have more
in common with me than I have in common with youQ
RADAR Rangers who appreciate knowledge as I do and
who have discovered amazing secrets far beyond your
own powers to understand. I'll find these rangers and
learn from them without you!'
" 'Gordon,' he was shaking his head in disagreement now.
'You must break your ties to the life you knew before you
became a RADAR Ranger. Your attachment to that life is
denying you your RADAR Ranger nature. Let the ghosts
of your former life go!'
"I was obsessed with making my point with him and
would not stop. 'I have made the most of my RADAR
Ranger nature I I have never before seen so clearly the
beauties and intricacies of life. Compared to my
awareness as a RADAR Ranger, my previous life was
like that of a blind, deaf mute, being able to neither see
nor hear the world around. It is only as a RADAR Ranger
that I have come to respect all life. Life meant nothing to
me until I could bring out its beauty with RADAR, could
assure its beauty for everyone with RADAR.'
" 'I'm not an intellectual like you, Gordon, but that does
not mean that I'm stupid. Listen to me, Gordon, because I
fear for you. You do not understand your RADAR
Ranger nature. You long to go back to a life of lesser
action already lived and relive it with the heightened
powers of a man of action. You cannot do that! You
cannot go back! What you want is here and now. You
must let go of this wish to return to the comfort and
warmth of a lesser existence. You are no longer forced by
your very nature to 'See through a glass darkly.' See it
now, Gordon.'
" 'Don't you think that I already know that?' I cried out in
anguish. 'I want to know this RADAR Ranger nature
intimately, what it is, where it will take me. If I can fill
my being with wondrous experiences simply by ticketing
mopeds and bicycles, why must I go through life bringing
down drivers of greater power and perception I drivers
who are closer to my own nature than the others?'
" 'Are you really happy when you prowl the streets like a
beggar, bringing down petty two wheelers, vehicles
whose drivers barely have the spark of life themselves?
Does it really fill you with the wonder of being alive?
Does it satisfy your hunger? This behavior is ludicrous;
you are vain to think that this experience of yours could
in any way compare with the true nature of being a
RADAR Ranger. 'What is the true nature of a RADAR
Ranger?' you ask. I'll tell you: ticketing vehicles with
more than two wheels, vehicles that are powered by more
than two silly combustion cycles, vehicles that don't rely
on the driver's legs for power, vehicles that offer shelter
and protection for their drivers. That is the true nature of
being a RADAR Ranger!'
" 'No,' I implored, more to settle my own disoriented
perceptions than in response to Fritz. 'That's how you see
it; it's not how I see it.'
"He sat back in the cushion of the Mustang's powered
front seat and relaxed a moment. Then he leaned
sideways to the opening of the door and said, 'I'm sorry,
Gordon, but it is that way. You talk about finding other
RADAR Rangers. RADAR Rangers are lone predators
who live by the gun. They are territorial and will drive
you away from their highways and streets immediately
should you find them. Highly suspicious, they could no
more trust you than you apparently can trust me. Your
sensibility and atavistic clinging to a life of lesser action
would drive them into a black rage and they would try to
kill you, rather than reason with you as I have. Besides, if
you should find more than one of them together at the
same time and in the same place, it would be for security
only, one of them acting as a slave to the other.'
Slave
"Just as you were a slave to Fritz, sir?" ventured the
mountain biker, cautiously metering out each word.
At this question, the RADAR Ranger whirled around,
faster than the cyclist could follow with his eyes in the
dim overhead light of the station, and glared at him
between narrow slits that revealed only a fraction of his
anger. The cyclist could feel that anger building up
exponentially behind those thin flaps of skin, then just as
suddenly cool down as if someone had removed a
screaming kettle of water from a red, hot grill.
"I denied this at first, of course, just as I started to deny it
to you right now. But Fritz was rightQI had been his
slave from the very beginning. I listened then with a
deeper understanding when Fritz explained that RADAR
Rangers multiply through slavery. 'There is no other
way!' he exclaimed to me. 'I expected you to accept your
RADAR Ranger nature instinctively after you brought
down the red Miata that first night. Having experienced
the wonder of it, I couldn't imagine you doing anything
but repeating the experience every chance you got. But
you resisted and continue to resist to this moment. I
suppose I could have been harder on you, forced you to
see the errors of your way. But I backed off because you
were so easy to manage, so simple to control. I didn't
want to lose that power. Now I see that I could have done
it better with you. Forgive me.'
"At that moment, a smile crossed his lips and he became
as amazing to me as he was that first night he had come
to me with the intention of making me a RADAR
Ranger. ' Good and Evil, Evil and Good,' he
philosophized. 'It's all in the way you look at it. We are
powerful, Gordon. We are among nature's chosen. What
lies ahead of us is a feast that men of lesser action can
never experience without regret, a feast that a lesser
conscience cannot accept. The richest and the poorest, we
can take them all. It is nature's way. There has never been
anything like us, Gordon. We are unique in the universe.'
" 'Fritz, I'm more confused than ever,' I cried. 'You chose
an incompetent to become a RADAR Ranger.'
" 'We don't know that Gordon. We don't know it because
you haven't tried.'
"He was again right and my suffering became greater
than before. Never since becoming a RADAR Ranger
had I experienced such agony. I agonized because Fritz'
words had made such sense to me. He spoke the truth: I
experienced the most wondrous delight only when I
issued a traffic violation, but only for that moment. And I
didn't doubt for a second that bringing down anything
less than a Ford Ranchero would afford me only a
glimpse of that which I truly longed for. It was this
longing, this discontent that had caused me such agony.
To mask the agony for what it really was, I had struggled
to regain my pre-RADAR Ranger nature. Now this
longing had wearied me beyond endurance. My head was
spinning and the stars in the night sky were reflecting
perfect, unbroken circles on my retina. 'He's right,' I
thought, 'He's right. I am not satisfied the way I should be
because I haven't taken action, haven't committed myself
to the true life of RADAR.'
"As if reading my thoughtsQperhaps he had been
reading them all along, I'll never knowQFritz steadied
me with a strong hand and said, 'Tomorrow we'll both
take action and perhaps that action will lead you to true
RADAR Rangerness.'
" 'What do you mean?' I said in a daze. 'What action?'
" 'You'll learn tomorrow when we go to traffic court.'
"Wait a minute," protested the mountain biker. "Just a
while ago you said that you never had a reason to go to
traffic court. None of your tickets was ever disputed and
you were never summoned there. But what you're saying
now is that you did go to traffic court, is that true?"
"Yes, it is," the RADAR Ranger answered, raising slowly
to his feet and stretching his arms wide. "What I told you
earlier was only partially true. One ticket was disputed,
but we were not summoned to defend it. No, Fritz took
me there on his own volition. I Ahhh, 'What purpose
would that serve?' I see you asking by the look in your
eyes. I believe that I have your undivided attention again,
not that you haven't been a most attentive audience. I'll
go on with my tale, then.
"Quite suddenly after Fritz had suggested that we travel
to Traffic Court the following morning, the air around us
become very still. The shrubbery that hid us from passing
cars ceased to sway and moan in the stillness. Even the
noise from the traffic itself was overcome by the quiet. It
was very dark for we both had shut our car doors and
automatically turned off the interior cab lights. We were
utterly alone, Fritz and I, standing alongside Highway
101. The cool air of the winter night settled down,
pushing on the brim of my hat and Fritz stood close by,
still as a carved statue. Then the wind came off the Bay
and I saw the branches of far-off silhouetted oak and bay
trees sway back and forth, yet I heard no sounds, no
rustling of leaves against branches. The pain I had felt
was gone. A quiet peace and tranquility settled over me
and it was enough. I knew it was momentary only, but it
was enough for me to embrace to my chest, to feel the
fleeting solace it had to offer. Quietly, at that moment of
personal peace, a voice spoke into my ear: 'Pain is a
horrible thing for you, Gordon. It's horrible because, with
your RADAR Ranger nature, you feel it more than ever
before and you don't want it to last. That is quite
understandable. Don't betray your true nature now and
suffer needlessly. Follow me and together we'll
strengthen that nature so that there is no pain for you.'
"That said, I willingly followed Fritz onto the highway.
Our small, two-horse caravan traveled south along the
bay front to the Marin Civic Center turnoff. A long, low
building, the Civic Center set atop a knoll that ran along
the east side of the highway. We exited from 101 and
passed without slowing through a blinking red light at the
main intersection in front of the Center, then pulled up to
and through the giant arch that passed through the
building and led to its parking lots. Deserted at that late
hour, Fritz ignored the empty public spaces and pulled
into the lot reserved for civic officials. He eased his
Mustang between two parallel white lines that set apart a
space reserved for Traffic Court Commissioner G.
Whopner and I pulled into a reserved space next to him. I
was confident that our cars would not attract attention,
indeed, would not even be cited or towed the next
morning when the building awoke to a full, midweek-
work day. Our RADAR Ranger nature afforded certain
preternatural benefits, and parking wherever we wished
without penalty or consequence was one of them.
" 'We'll take action in the morning,' was all Fritz said to
me as we each settled into our respective resting places."
Traffic Court
"The next morning we emerged from our vehicles and
blended invisibly among the masses flowing into the
building. We followed the echoing footsteps of lawyers,
bookkeepers, librarians, clerks, officers of the law,
speeding violators, and other questionable elements of
society down the long, marbled hallway of the first floor,
then crowded onto an elevator and were carried up to
Level C, the section of the building reserved for civil
cases. This was where traffic disputations were settled,
too. Upon exiting the elevator, we walked into a crowd of
people milling in front of various single and double
doors, each leading to a different court room. I looked
from face to face in the crowded hallway and recognized
some of my fellow officers, but they did not respond to
my nod of recognition, acting as if they were unable to
see me. I was glad that I was invisible to them.
"Fritz opened a pathway through the milling crowds for
me and I followed him obediently to a low marble bench
that faced one of the courtroom doors. We both sat down
on the cold surface and said nothing for a moment or two.
Then Fritz nudged me in the ribs with his elbow; when I
looked at him, he jerked his head knowingly toward his
left side. I looked in that direction and the profile of a
youth stopped my eyes from wandering further. No more
than four people sat between us and I could see his face
clearly. 'Wherever have I seen this person?' I wondered.
My life had been helter-skelter for so long, that I often
feared I was losing the powers of my mind. The only
mental strength, if you can call it that, left to me was my
short-term memory. People and events no older than
fifteen hours to me remained etched in my memory in
high resolution, while all others faded. My original
encounter with the owner of the profile I was now staring
at obviously stretched out beyond the fifteen-hour barrier
I all I could dredge up from my mind swamp were
remembrances of blurred shadows floating in a murky
grotto.
" 'The Rolls, Gordon, the Rolls,' I heard Fritz whisper as
he nudged me again in the ribs, this time with more force.
'He's the boy who was driving the Rolls that night in
Belvedere. His employers have threatened to let him go if
he can't clear this ticket. Right out of high school, come
west to find work to pay for a college education. Poor
lad! And certainly no where else to go. Future's not
looking too good for him.'
"Fritz' caustic words jarred the shadows loose from the
sticky sludge at the bottom of my mind and they floated
upward into recognition. The Rolls Royce in BelvedereQ
how could I possibly forget that night? My original pain
and suffering over what I had become resurfaced with
that memory, and I felt the blood quicken in my temples.
Then I remembered the look in the boy's eyes, his pleas
not to issue the ticket, and my empathy for him poured
out again.
" 'What's this all about, Fritz?' I pushed out between
clenched teeth, the nightmare landscape of that evening
filling my head, the chill of guilt settling down over my
shoulders. 'Why are we here?'
" 'We've found him at last,' he said. 'The one you
wounded so dearly. Your son! Your salvation!'
" 'What are you raving about?' I gasped. But he had
already grabbed my forearm and was dragging me
through the just-opened doors of the courtroom. We
stood still in the back corner of the room, at the end of a
long, curved row of polished, metal-and-cloth-backed
wood benches. The people who had been milling around
outside entered the semi-circular room and took their
seats within that row and the ones that were in front of it.
In the middle of the group passing through the open
doors was the boy. His eyes scanned the quickly filling
room, moved to the spot in which Fritz and I stood, and
finally settled on a destination not more than three feet
from us. He was standing close enough to hear the
pounding of my heart.
" 'I rise for Commissioner Whopner,' the courtroom
bailiff said, awakening me from the hypnotic sleep the
pounding in my chest had lured me into. I heard the rustle
of paper and a few low coughs as people pushed
themselves up from the comfortable positions they had
settled into. Several minutes had passed since we entered
the courtroom that I obviously could not account for. I
looked over to my left and Fritz was still standing there,
an amused look on his face. I cautioned a look to my
right and again encountered the profile of the boy. He
looked more confident and determined than when I last
gazed upon him. I could see him working his lips,
perhaps reciting to himself a speech he was about to
make.
"A dark robbed man entered the courtroom from a door
in the far corner of the opposite wall, walked over to a
full-sized wood desk, sat down behind it, and slowly
looked across the mostly solemn faces in his courtroom
before picking up his gavel and bringing it down on the
desk with a resounding crack. 'You may be seated,' he
announced.
Daryl
"Commissioner Whopner conducted his traffic court in
the manner of an old-west hanging judge. To make his
intentions plainly visible, a life-sized portrait of the
legendary Judge Roy Bean hung in a gilded frame behind
his elevated desk. Wire-rimmed reading glasses resting
halfway down the aquiline ridge of his Roman nose, the
commissioner read nothing more into the law than was
already printed and bound between the leather covers on
his library shelves. Defendants were wise to plead
'Guilty, your honor,' when Whopner questioned them
about the traffic incident that brought them into his court.
Respect was paramount and lowered heads and eyes
could expect lesser fines than raised heads and eyes for
similar infractions of the traffic laws. Those that pleaded
'Not guilty' were viewed suspiciously and given a second
chance to reconsider their plea. Commissioner Whopner
appeared most strict with certain bicyclists who had been
cited for pedaling above a 5 mph speed limit on local
watershed and recreation lands. For those cyclists who
pleaded 'Guilty,' Whopner reduced their fines to $200.
But for those few who tried to prove their innocence, the
outcome was often a $500 reprimand. Commissioner
Whopner thought like a RADAR Ranger.
"As his time to appear before the traffic commissioner
approached, I saw the boy's lips move faster and faster,
clearly recalling the words he had been practicing for
days. My RADAR Ranger nature was splitting me in two
again: on the one hand, I could not disagree with the way
Commissioner Whopner was holding his court; but on the
other hand, I could not bear to see the boy face the
consequences of the actions I had cited him for. Fritz, as
if reading my mind at that moment, leaned closer and
said,'Let's save the kid from the embarrassment of having
to face the commissioner. And while we're at it, let's save
him from the life he's chosen and give him something
better.'
"Fritz' words were settling into my awareness when they
were overlaid by the bailiff's, 'Next case, Daryl Bobbins.'
At the mention of his name, the youth who had been the
focus of my concern began to step forward. But as he did,
Fritz moved with his uncanny speed and intercepted the
youth before the toe of his tennis shoe could touch the
linoleum tile in front of him. The two of them moved
toward the door labeled by an overhead, red 'EXIT' sign,
no more than a draft of air to those they passed in the
courtroom, for these people merely pulled their coats and
sweaters tighter around their shoulders. A few others
turned their heads as if stretching muscles in stiff necks,
but nothing more.
" 'Daryl Bobbins,' I heard the bailiff wail again as I left
the courtroom, running stride for stride with Fritz. We
continued in this fashion, me following Fritz and Daryl at
a pace I thought impossible down narrow, spiralling
stairwells, through peopled hallways, and across the
filled macadam parking lot to our parked vehicles. No
one followed, yet Fritz maintained the unnatural speed
that I had somehow synched into. 'Get in your car and
follow me,' he said, pushing the pale boy into the
passenger seat of his Mustang, then gunned backwards
out of Commissioner Whopner's parking space, reversed
his direction of movement, and headed for the open
highway.
After several seconds of his hellish pace, Fritz braked to
a stop off the highway a few miles north of the Civic
Center at one of our roadside resting areas. He jumped
from his car and beckoned me to him. 'Look at him,
Gordon, look at him,' he said to me, pointing at the youth
on the passenger side of his car. 'Pale from his ordeal by
all standards, but listen to his heart. Do you hear his
heart, how strong it beats? His will to live is strong. He's
perfect, Gordon!'
" 'What do you mean, 'perfect?' I asked, still mesmerized
by the mercurial fluidity of all that had just happened. I
vaguely realized that I was held tight in a liquid daze and
struggled to free myself, but in vain. I could take no
action of my own other than listen to and follow Fritz'
instructions.
" 'Get in your cruiser and wait here with me. When you
see me drive back onto the highway, follow at a distance,
but don't pass. If I should stop the car, pull in behind me
and wait by your Mustang until I call for you. Do you
understand what I'm saying to you, Gordon?' I nodded
my head in agreement. We waited in our hiding spot for
ten or twenty minutes before Fritz, Daryl still slumped at
his side, pulled onto the highway, his flashing blue and
red lights visible through through the cloud of dust the
3.55 Gatorback Goodyears kicked into the air. When he
pulled to the roadside once again, he brought a speeding
1969 blue Camaro over with him.
"My radio crackled to life and I could hear Fritz trying to
stir Daryl to consciousness. 'Daryl, Daryl,' he said as
much for my benefit as for the boy's, 'wake up. You've
been sick and I want to make you well now. To get
better, you've got to do as I say. Get out of the car and
follow me.' Daryl's door opened as though it had been
choreographed to do so with Fritz', the two of them
almost mirror images. The boy mimicked the older man's
gait, but with a zombie like quality, to the driver's side of
the Camaro. I watched as he watched Fritz pull out his
ticket book and begin to write up the blue law breaker.
As he handed the book to Daryl to sign his name after the
line, 'Arresting Officer,' I regained my senses and
realized what was happening. Sticking my head out the
driver-side window, my sensitized hearing picked up
Fritz saying, 'That's right Daryl. Sign here and you'll get
well.'
"Curse you!" I shouted at Fritz, but his hateful glare kept
me in my Mustang. To my surprise, Daryl had become
highly animated and was scribbling wildly on the next
blank ticket in Fritz' book. Fritz looked troubled, almost
in pain. His countenance was one I had never seen
before. 'Stop now!' he shouted at Daryl, but to no avail.
Using his speed, the older man's blurred fingers reached
out and snatched the book away from the boy. Daryl
looked confused, then reached for the book again. Fritz
held him back with two powerful hands clamped on his
shoulders.
When the Camaro had left with the ticket containing
Daryl's name and the two, RADAR Ranger and youth,
had returned to the side of their cruiser, I ventured out of
my car and walked slowly over to where they were
standing. 'Why are you doing this, Fritz?' He ignored my
question but kept his eyes trained on Daryl's.
" 'Don't ever do that again,' he said. 'One ticket only to a
law breaker. Listen to me and I'll tell you what to do.'
Daryl stood there, next to the man and the Mustang,
completely revived. His pallor had been replaced by a
lividness infused by rich, red blood flowing through
miles of capillaries close to the surface of this skin. I
could hear the pounding of his heart squeeze the blood
with great force through his eager body. He had the same
fever I had experienced my first night and I fell on Fritz,
imploring him to stop this madness. But Fritz easily
threw me off, and I hit the door of his Mustang with great
force, forcing the air from my lungs in an agonizing
burst. I must have been unconscious for several moments,
because when I next opened my eyes, Fritz, Daryl, and
their Mustang were gone. I jumped into my own car and
gave chase. But I was no match for Fritz that evening. He
was my superior and I his slave in all matters of RADAR.
"At the turnoff to the Rowland Plaza shopping center and
theatres, I finally caught up with them. Fritz was leaning
against the front of the Mustang's heated grill, one leg
crossed over the other, watching Daryl write up his first
citation, unassisted. Daryl looked up from his paper
work, and Fritz signalled to him that he had done enough.
The boy signed the citation and handed it to the driver of
the car, then walked back to stand confidently next to his
master. The ticketed vehicle left within moments and I
felt exhausted, as if I had been chasing and pleading with
Fritz for a hundred hours. I climbed out of my car in
despair and walked over to them.
" 'Where are my employers? I should be getting back to
Belvedere,' said the boy in a hushed tone. His voice had
not fully undergone the change, and it betrayed his age to
anyone who listened with compassion. He was so young.
Too young. The tears welled up behind my eyes, but did
not flow. It was too late for that sort of emotional
outburst. Fritz slipped his right arm around the boy's
broad shoulders and walked him closer to me. 'He's our
son now,' he said to me, and to him, 'You're going to stay
with us.' He looked at Daryl, a cold, heartless stare as if
the events of this evening had been a cruel joke. Then he
shoved the youth in my direction and I instinctively
encircled him with my arms, drawing him close. I could
feel the quickened beating of his heart, feel the fever that
burned within his body sear through my clothes. His
semi-conscious eyes were trained at me with an
unquestioning loyalty.
" 'I'm Fritz and this is Gordon,' I heard Fritz say. The boy
pulled back from me to get a better look at his
surroundings. 'Can I bring down another speeder?' he
asked with the cold fire of a RADAR Ranger.
" 'Not tonight,' responded Fritz. 'But tomorrow you can
feast to your heart's content. 'Can I go home to my
employers, then?' asked the boy. 'No,' said Fritz, 'your
employers have asked that we take care of you from now
on. Your home is with us.'
"We stood there beside Fritz' Mustang, the three of us,
not saying a word. I continued to look at Daryl, entranced
by his every movement, by the transformation he had
undergone. He was no longer a mere boy, but a RADAR
Ranger boy. Fritz was the first to speak: 'Gordon was
going to run away from us, Daryl, but now he's going to
stay with us.' Fritz looked first at me,then at the boy. 'Do
you know why Gordon is going to stay, Daryl? He's
going to stay because he wants to see that you stay well.
He wants you to be happy, isn't that right? You're going
to stay, aren't you, Gordon?'
" 'You fiendish monster!' was all I could manage
Fritz' response was a low, guttural laugh, almost a growl.
Then, 'It's time we got some sleep.' He crawled into his
Mustang and prepared his bed as we watched through
closed windows. When he was done, he turned to us and,
looking up at Daryl, said, 'I think it best that you sleep in
Gordon's Mustang. It's safer that way I I can be a bit on
the mean side after a long, hard day.'"
The RADAR Ranger took a deep breath, filling his lungs
with the cool night air, and paused. The mountain biker's
lips moved, but he said nothing for the longest time.
Then, "A boy RADAR Ranger!" and whistled a long, low
stream of air at the ranger. The ranger reacted slowly,
turning his face on stiff shoulders to meet the glance of
the mountain biker. The biker at once saw the ranger's
tired features, the bloodshot eyes, pronounced cheek
bones, heavy jaw muscles pulling the corners of his
mouth down.
The mountain biker had begun listening to the RADAR
Ranger's tale just as dark was settling over Sky Oaks
Ranger Station. The sun had been gone for almost five
hours now and the mountain biker, though somewhat
apprehensive about what he was hearing, was eager for
the ranger to continue.
"Fritz transformed the boy into a RADAR Ranger just to
prevent you from leaving?" the cyclist couched his
question in no uncertain terms.
"I don't really know. It definitely was a statement, quite a
strong one at that. Fritz was one of those people who
rarely discussed his beliefs and feelings with others, not
even with himself. He spoke with actions, not words. But
I think the chances are quite good that he did want me to
remain with him. He couldn't have lived the way he did if
I hadn't been there. His reason for keeping me may have
involved the paychecks that came to me twice a month,
or it may have centered around something far less
concrete."
"Is Fritz dead, sir?" ventured the mountain biker. "You're
using the past tense when you speak about him: Fritz did
or Fritz was. Or is he someone you still fear?"
"No, I no longer fear him. But I'll get to that part of the
story eventually. You were asking me about Daryl,
weren't you?" The RADAR Ranger stopped and looked
closely at the mountain biker. "Are you still frightened of
me?"
The cyclist didn't answer, pulling back from the table he
had been resting his elbows on. He stretched his body
nervously, then listened to the heels of his shoes scrap
across the wooden planks as he pulled his legs closer in
to his chair.
"You'd be smart to fear me," mocked the RADAR
Ranger as he watched the cyclist's discomfort. "But not
now, not with my story only just begun."
"Yes, do go on. I want to hear more. You're telling me
things that I've never heard before, on the mountain or
anywhere else."
"As you may imagine, Daryl's presence changed our lives
altogether. His life as a boy of lesser action was ended,
and his senses began to become much more acute, just as
mine had. My first reaction was pleasure, for I found
nothing more emotionally satisfying than to watch his
transformation into a RADAR Ranger. My second
reaction was to shelter him from Fritz, who was
constantly hinting that he still might do the youth harm.
'Imagine how upset he'd be to awake one morning and
find his K-15 missing or, worse yet, smashed into a
thousand pieces,' Fritz would muse. 'I'm sure they'd hear
his screams as far away as Bodega Bay.' Of course, these
threats and words were aimed at me, not Daryl. Their
intent was to keep me in place, and how effectively they
worked. If I lacked the strength to break away from Fritz
by myself, I was insane to attempt it with Daryl."
"I enjoyed Daryl's presence immensely. Yet there were
times when I thought he had lost all reason, that the
shock of becoming a RADAR Ranger had deprived him
of his senses. But this fear didn't prove to be true. Simply
put, Daryl was so unlike Fritz and me as to be his own
RADAR Ranger entirely. He possessed my curiosity for
knowledge and understanding, yet he also had acquired
Fritz' craving and unrelentless thirst for bringing down
speeders. As I described to you earlier in the evening,
Marin offered up a smorgasbord of moving violations to
us. I remember Fritz standing alongside 101 with one
grandfatherly arm thrown across Daryl's shoulders,
pointing with the other at the passing cars. 'Look at all of
them rushing to break the law,' he would say to the boy
RADAR Ranger. 'We cannot suffer this, Daryl. We must
bring them downQall of themQ regardless of the
violation, because this is how we live.' And it would
break my heart to see Daryl looking up at the older
ranger with longing in his eyes.
"Daryl and Fritz often played together at the chase on the
highway and feeder roads, never quite succeeding in
satiating their enormous appetites, always willing to take
down just one more law breaker. As for me, I kept to my
minimum quota of five speeding violations a day, never
bringing down anything larger than what I've already
described to you. I could not change that quality in me,
even with Daryl as my witness.
"During those early years together, I never gave up my
quest to educate and sensitize Daryl to the beauty of the
world around us. I provided him with works from the
great thinkers and artists of our time, took him to see the
wonders of nature, including the Bay Model in Sausalito
where he could watch the waters rush in and out of the
miniature bight every hour. Daryl drank in all that I fed
him and developed an insatiable desire for things
beautiful and new, a desire that matched in intensity his
thirst to issue citations for moving violations.
"Not long after he displayed a keen interest in reading,
things took a strange turn. On more than one evening, I
would discover him curled up on his side of the cruiser's
trunkQwe still lived like nomads out of the backs of our
modified Mustangs along Highway 101Qwith a stack of
my back-issue bicycle magazines. 'These new designs
they're always coming up with are truly beautiful,' he
would say to me, turning the chemically-coated slick
color pages and commenting with a mechanic's and frame
builder's intimate knowledge of the objects that attracted
his attention. His favorite magazine was Mountain Biking
Action and Reaction, and he would spend countless hours
analyzing the carbon fiber frames, titanium handlebars,
aluminum cranks, elliptical chain rings, front suspension
forks, full suspension bikes, grip shifters, quick release
levers, gel racing seats, disc wheels, bar ends, clipless
pedals, Kevlar (TM) tires, altimeters, casette hubs, and
other wondrous objects that filled its pages. When Fritz
learned of Daryl's two-wheeled interests, he was furious.
But his ranting and raving had no effect on the boy
ranger who continued to study and admire these items. At
the same time, I must add that Daryl's intellectual
infatuation for bicycle objets d'art did not in any way
affect his choice of speeders to bring down on Marin's
roads. Two wheelers remained pretty much my diet.
"We passed many years together like this, our patterns
varying little more than the turning of leaves at seasonal
junctures and the waxing and waning of the moon. We
were predictable and we were comfortable. Yet it could
not last and I should have realized this fact long before
the inevitable happened. Judging by the expression that
has taken hold of your face since I began talking about
Daryl, I'm sure you're wondering why I haven't broached
the topic earlier. But you must understand that time is not
the same for me as it is for you and your kind; I feel no
quickening of days to nights, no shortening of years to
months as I pass forward and through this wormhole you
label time. It's impact on me is niggling.
"His physical body!" the mountain biker shouted. "He
could never grow up. Is that it, sir?"
The RADAR Ranger eyed the mountain biker with a look
that blended between disgust and amusement. "No," he
declared, "we're not talking about Peter Pan here. Of
course he could grow upQand he didQyou've got to get
yourself grounded in the real world, son. Protein, DNA,
RNA, mitochondria, neurons, cellular division,
Liposuction (TM). You mountain bikers are a strange lot,
indeed. "No," the RADAR Ranger repeated in heavy
tones, "Daryl began to assert himself and then to ask
questions, and those questions changed everything for us
in a most dramatic way."
The RADAR Ranger ceased talking and clamped his
hands together, fingers from each interlocked with the
other, held so tightly that they turned into streaks of red
and white. The mountain biker, sitting apprehensively at
the oak table, might have been one of those unlucky
fingers the ranger cracked with a sudden squeezing
together of his palms. The cyclist said nothing, only the
ranger spoke. "Yes, it was inevitable, what happened
with Daryl. It's frustratingly easy to say that in hindsight,
you know, but it's really quite true and I should have seen
it coming. He was with me always in spirit, if not in
body, every waking hour. I knew him as well as I knew
myself. He was my sole companion and confidant for
those many years. There's no excuse for what I let
happen.
"The most perplexing of the indicators of what was to
come I yes, it was the sudden coolness Daryl exhibited
toward Fritz," continued the clench-fisted RADAR
Ranger to his unseen audience. "The boy would sit in the
front seat of our shared Mustang for hours, watching, just
watching Fritz go about his business on the side of the
road. Never saying a word, rarely directing his
iconoclastic gaze elsewhere. Watching him watch Fritz in
this altered state was chilling for me; I knew Daryl so
well, yet he remained a mystery to me.
"The weather can turn suddenly in the Bay Area,
transforming upright, young oaks into worried, bent-at-
the-hip, old sticks. Fritz returned to our roadside camp in
the middle of one of those dark changelings. Despite the
malevolent weather beating on his face, he was smiling
dreamily as he climbed into the passenger side of my
Mustang and I could smell on his breath the remnants of
the bar he had been patronizing after a day of upholding
the law. 'Lite beer,' he grinned and wiped the froth that
had collected on his lower lip with the broadside of his
freckled right hand. 'Stuff gives me headaches, makes me
feel funny in my stomach,' he joked in a rare moment of
resonant good naturedness. Taking spontaneous
advantage of his unforeseen mellowness, I leaned over
and said, 'I see Daryl pulling up behind us. Go easy on
him tonight.'
"Arrows of rain and wind blew into the rear seat of the
car along with Daryl. Once securely inside with the door
shut, he shook his head violently after pulling the clear
vinyl-covered patrol cap off his shaggy mane; droplets of
water sprayed fore and aft, many of them finding the
back of Fritz' close-cropped head a ready target. I
watched tensely as the older ranger's jaw muscles
twitched a familiar but primitive rhythm, then settle back
into an unexpected calm. Daryl went on about his
business in the back seat completely oblivious to Fritz in
the front. Then turning to me, he said, 'Do you realize
that tomorrow is the start of the Tour d' France, the most
prestigious bicycle race in the world?'
" 'Yes, I do,' I answered him. 'The Tour d' France is a
two-week-long event that only the most accomplished
riders in the world dare compete in.' I knew this only
because of having looked at Daryl's bicycle magazines
over the years. 'The course is a rugged and varied one,
including level plains, steep mountain passes, macadam
roads, cobblestoned village lanes. The winner is often
acknowledged as the world's greatest cyclist.'
"Daryl looked at me momentarily, a slight grin catching
hold of the corners of his mouth. 'Yes, it is that, but much
more.' This time directing his devil-may-care gaze at
Fritz, 'The Tour d' France is one of the largest and most
publicized law breaking events in the world. Hundreds of
two wheelers riding illegally on freeways, crossing
through stop signs without even braking, speeding down
mountain slopes well beyond the posted speed limit,
ignoring pedestrians' rights-of-way, passing on the right,
riding after dusk without proper lighting.' He paused
here, then, glaring more coldly at Fritz than was
advisable, said, 'Where are all the great RADAR
Rangers, why aren't they taking action to uphold the law?
Well, Fritz, where are your men of action?'
"My stomach muscles automatically knotted into
sympathetic fear for Daryl. I could not imagine anyone
taunting and tugging on Fritz' conservative sensibilities
as he had just done. I instinctively put my hand on Fritz'
shoulder to restrain him from leaping over the front seat
into the back. I could feel his anger welling up, his
muscles tensing, and I pushed down harder on his
shoulder. Then the most astonishing thing happened.
Quickly looking first at me, then at Fritz, Daryl cried out,
'Who did this to me? Who's responsible? Which one of
you made me into a RADAR Ranger?'"
"I was dumbfounded by this turn of events. Daryl could
have done or said nothing more disruptive to the tightly
knit pattern our lives had assumed. I felt the threads
begin to unravel right there in the passenger compartment
of my Mustang. Of course, I had only been deceiving
myself for those many years believing the question would
never surface. Daryl maintained his attention on Fritz,
ignoring my painful looks. 'You talk as if the three of us
have always been RADAR Rangers,' he said in measured
tones. 'Do you take me for a fool! It's obvious to anyone
that knows him that Gordon is uncomfortably split
between two worlds: the world he's in now and the one
he came from. Besides, I've seen photographs of his sister
and read old newspaper accounts of her affliction, articles
Gordon has not too cleverly hidden away. She may have
been crazy as a loon, but she was no RADAR Ranger.
She was a person of lesser action! Then in words even
more measured and serious than before, 'Do you actually
think that I can't remember parts of my life before I was
brought together with you? The images are cloudy, but I
can see snatches of summer days on windy beaches, of
hitch-hiking cross country, of applying for work and
filling out papers for admission to Marin Community
College. These aren't the memories of a RADAR
Ranger.'
" 'Daryl,' I murmured, but it was too late. The pattern that
had been our lives lay in a jumbled mass of loose-end
threads.
" 'You did this to us, made us into what we are,' he
accused Fritz a second time. 'Why?'
" 'Denounce me a third time,' Fritz rejoined in a mocking
tone, 'and you'll be right up there with Judas Iscariot.
'What are you, exactly? Could you possibly be different
from what you are now? How many years have you been
upholding the law I can you remember? This is your
life.'
"Daryl eased into the cushions of the back seat and stared
through Fritz. He played with the patrolman's cap in his
hands, tossing it lightly back and forth, then pulled the
rain slick tighter around his chest. All the time his stare
held Fritz as a cage contains a wild beast. I could see
Fritz' uncharacteristic nervousness play across his
twitching left eye and trembling shoulders. 'Why are you
asking this stupid question now? You've known for years
that you're a RADAR Ranger and, yet, you've never been
bothered with it before.' Doing what he did best when he
didn't know what else to do, Fritz began a diatribe,
covering the usual topics: go with your RADAR nature,
bring down moving violators, take action. His tirade
seemed far from the mark this time, for Daryl did know
his nature and had been issuing citations for speeding
with a relish that often equalled and occasionally
surpassed Fritz'.
"The younger RADAR Ranger's head rolled sideways
against the wet synthetic covering of the back seat, but
his eyes remained locked in place, intent upon the
ranting, older RADAR Ranger. 'Why did you do it?' he
persisted a third time, his eyes narrowing to thin slits.
" 'What power do you think you have over me anyway,
you Judas!' stammered Fritz. 'The power is mine, mine
alone.' Then turning to me as his right hand fumbled for
the door knob, 'Get him under control, will you. I won't
put up with this blasphemous behavior much longer.'
Then he slid out into the rain and started through the mud
towards his vehicle, but stopped himself short and turned
to look through the water-streaked window separating
him from Daryl. The younger RADAR Ranger slowly
looked up into the older one's face, calm, not betraying
any fears that may have hidden behind his probing eyes.
'Be careful,' Fritz was shouting above the storm outside,
his dripping index finger wagging ominously at Daryl. 'I
made you and I can undo what I did. Thank me, both of
you, for making you what you are. Or you'll have much
to regret.'"
"I don't have to tell you that our little triad was flipped
end over end. Not that there was constant fighting and
bickering I no. In fact, a heavy silence settled over us,
each afraid to speak to the other. Daryl curled up in our
Mustang's familiar Lycra (TM)-lined trunk and devoted
his time, after upholding the law, to reading and
thumbing through his old magazines, his eyes often as
glazed as the paper on which were printed the words and
pictures he took in. I could tell from his furrowed brows
that he was thinking deep thoughts, thoughts perhaps I
didn't want to know, and I avoided questioning him about
these things he was holding so secretively to himself. If
Daryl had a dark side, I was seeing its shadow now.
"Among his pile of reading material was a book I had
never seen before. Printed in small type, two columns per
page, with many technical drawings, it was entitled Basic
Training Program in RADAR Speed Measurement:
Trainee Instructional Manual. Its contents included many
esoteric headings like Target Vehicle Identification, The
RADAR 'Decision' Process, Tracking History, Effect of
Terrain on Target Identification, Interference, Scanning
Effect, Turn-On Power Surge Effect, and the like. When I
questioned him about the manual, he admitted that the
topics it covered were completely foreign to him and that
this was probably a reflection of the organization that had
published itQthe U.S. Department of Transportation's
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration."
The mountain biker rolled the dilated irises of his blood-
shot eyes up and out of sight behind drooping brows at
mention of NHTSA, but the RADAR Ranger failed to
notice his silent statement in the gloom of Sky Oaks and
continued his narration without pause.
" 'Then why are you reading this book?' I asked him
again. Daryl hesitated, then said with a conviction that
was becoming characteristic of him, "Because its about
RADAR. It may not be the RADAR of a RADAR
Ranger, at least I'm not sure that it is, but it explains so
much. Fritz can try and keep secret what he knows, but
I'll find out what I need to know from other sources. This
book is a beginning.'
"Fritz, poor, pathetic FritzQI'm amazed now that I can
caste him in such sympathetic termsQwas truly blind
with fury when he discovered Daryl reading the manual
early one afternoon, casually leaning against the shiny
front fender of his Mustang in mud-spattered pants. The
younger ranger was playing with Fritz, a dangerous thing
to do. Fritz knew, too, that Daryl had more up his sleeve
and that he wasn't seeing it all. A Hidden Agenda. Fritz'
suspicions and worries about this agenda kept him
completely off balance, dangerously close to falling over
the edge."
"After years of keeping an arrogant distance, Fritz drew
nervously closer to me. He was uncharacteristically
cautious and wary of little details, wanting to know
where Daryl was at all times, what he was doing, the
details of his every movement. I attempted to tell him
that everything was okay with Daryl, though I didn't
really believe that since Daryl had distanced himself from
me, too. In fact, I rarely encountered him outside the
trunk of the Mustang.
" 'Well, he better not be up to anything he might later
regret,' Fritz would repeat over and over. 'Regretting is
the worst part of doing something you shouldn't.'
" 'And if he is doing something that you don't approve of,
Fritz, what are you going to do to him?'
" 'You just keep your eyes on him,' Fritz would say with
an atypical fear in his eyes. 'What we had was good,
perfect. Now it's all upside down, and it doesn't have to
be like that. It can be the way it was, Gordon, just you
talk to him.'
"Some time later, at night just as I was bedding down in
the trunk, Daryl came to me. He entered through the
passenger side door and kneeled on the front seat, facing
the rear of the car. The lights in both the interior of the
Mustang and in the trunk were out, and I could just
perceive his dark form leaning at me over the front seat.
'Gordon,' he whispered softly, 'come out with me tonight
and we'll bring down some big law breakers, you and I
together. And you can tell me why Fritz made us into
RADAR Rangers. You can tell me the things I need to
know.' He cast his eyes down at the worn carpet covering
the space between the plastic-coated rear seat and the
sagging back of the front seat. 'I need more than books
and magazines.'
" 'I wish I knew the answers, Daryl, but I don't.' The
shadows around his eyes and under his thick bottom lip
grew darker, and I could hear his respiration increase. I
kept on talking to calm my own rapidly beating heart.
'You're angry with me because I can't give you the
definitive answers you want to hear. But listen to me,
Daryl, the same questions trouble me I have been
troubling me for years. I don't know why Fritz chose me
and then you. I used to think it was because he needed
slaves or that he was just trying to keep me from running
away when he changed you. It might be all these things
I and more. Fritz isn't going toQor can'tQtell us.' I
stretched out with my left arm from my stomach-down
position in the damp, Lycra (TM)-lined trunk and gently
touched Daryl's gloved right hand where it was resting on
top of the front seat. 'But Fritz does have something
important to tell us: 'Don't ask so many questions.' We've
been together so long and in all that time you've given me
uncompromised support in my search for understanding
and knowledge. Let's not drag that companionship into a
situation that could destroy us both. Let it go.'
"Of course, Daryl couldn't accept what I'd said. He
exploded up and around on his knees and fell with a
heated thud onto the front seat, the back of his matted
head shaking in disheveled layers at me. He tore at that
hair with such sudden force that I was overcome with
apprehension. Looking up into the rear view mirror at
that moment, I saw him bite into his lower lip with
enough vengeance to draw a rivulet of blood that
meandered aimlessly for a moment, then found a straight
path down his chin. He caught my stare in the mirror and
said quietly, 'I know we can't be alone, Gordon. Others
like us have to be upholding the law, too. We can find
them, seek shelter with them.' His words reminded me of
my own years ago when I first threatened to leave Fritz.
But there was no pain in Daryl's words as there had been
in mine. His words conveyed an urgency, a callous
urgency, to get what he wanted at any expense, and in
this case, he intended Fritz to pay.
"Did he leave and what happened to Fritz?" asked the
mountain biker in one quick exhalation.
"Whoa," said the RADAR Ranger, bemused at the
cyclist's sudden enthusiasm. "One thing at a time. Leave?
Where could he have gone? We both speculated at the
existence of other RADAR Rangers, but we still had no
proof. But it wasn't the lack of proof that kept Daryl from
going. What kept him bound to our little triad was the
same thing that had kept both Fritz and me together for
countless years. It was something that was part of all our
natures: We couldn't stand to be alone. We needed each
other to be whole. Surrounded by a harried world of
moving violations and law breakers, the grist of our
citation mill, where else could we turn?"
"While I vacillated back and forth with my anxiety, Daryl
continued to play with fire, reading his magazines in
front of Fritz and asking questions. 'Who made you into a
RADAR Ranger?' he asked repeatedly. 'Why don't you
ever talk about him with us?' he demanded, calmly
weathering Fritz' counter assault as if it were a spring
breeze. 'Can't you remember?'
"During one of their verbal skirmishes, Daryl said in a
low voice to Fritz, 'You don't know anything at all, do
you? The RADAR Ranger who made you what you are
didn't know anything and the ranger before him didn't
know anything. Your entire background is made of
know-nothings. You have nothing to offer us but an
absence of knowledge.'
"I remained where I was, at the back of my Mustang,
pretending to check the tread wear on my Goodyear
Gatorbacks, and strained to hear all that passed between
the two. I didn't have to strain to hear Fritz' response.
" 'Yes!' the blast of his answer rocketed past me into
space.
"Both of them stood there silently looking at one another,
Daryl coolly confident in his triumph while a cast of
emotions scampered across Fritz' face like the cells in an
animated film. I was poking my head around the side of
the car at tire height when Fritz shifted his gaze to me, as
if I had dropped the tread gaugeQwhich I hadn'tQand
alerted him to my presence. The look on his face was that
of a driver who has just looked in his rear view mirror
and seen the flashing red and blue lights of a patrol car
bearing down on him. Fritz was afraid, truly afraid.
" 'You're responsible for his behavior,' Fritz spat at me,
and he turned, walked slowly over to his Mustang, got in,
and drove onto the highway.
"When the dust of his departure had settled, I stood up
and walked from behind my cruiser to where Daryl was
standing. 'It's just as you've said,' I praised him, 'he
knows less than we do. He has nothing of value to teach
us.'
" 'How could we have ever thought otherwise?' Daryl
beamed. 'We have only one choice now and that is to find
others of our kind. And I believe that we'll find other
RADAR Rangers I on the Sonoma coast.
" 'But how could that be?' I protested. 'The Sonoma coast
is less than 25 miles from where we are now. Why
wouldn't we have been alerted to their presence I why
wouldn't they have contacted us before now?' My
shoulders had suddenly became tense, and my fingers
began twitching a nervous rhapsody in the air around
them.
" 'I can't give you specific answers I it's a gut feeling I
have,' Daryl said to reassure me, but his eyes wandered
off to a place I couldn't see even though his arms and
hands gestured randomly in its general direction. 'I've
seen its name more than once in the magazines and
journals I've been reading.' He paused as if trying to
recall some of the descriptions he had seen. 'Think of it,
Gordon. Beauty at every turn in the road. Sandy beaches
to stroll along, dramatic cliffs rising high above the sea
and colorful sunsets to bedazzle your senses. Countless
antique shops and art galleries that offer priceless
treasures. And at the end of each day, a myriad of cozy
inns along the sea in which to feast on fresh seafood and
organically grown vegetables. It's the perfect place to
play and relax. Gordon, it's the perfect environment in
which RADAR Rangers could have evolved into into
men of pure action!'
"I considered Daryl's words for several moments before
their wisdom descended like a thunderhead on me,
washing away old doubts and misconceptions. The
Sonoma coast! The ideal climate and terrain. Sea, air, and
land in perfect combination for the emergence of a
superior breed of individual. And the law breaking
tourists drawn to it by the same qualities that had given
rise to us. The perfect prey for the perfect predator!
"Daryl could see the mind-storm broiling within me and
added an extra charge of electricity to the building
thunderhead. 'Don't forget the commercial wineries open
to the public year round, Gordon. They send out an
endless supply of foggy-minded drivers, each swerving
back to the coast like lemmings to the sea, ready to hand
their fate over to us along the narrow coastal roads. My
God, the Sonoma coast has to be the place of our birth!'
"I could find no fault with Daryl's logic and nodded an
emotional agreement."
The RADAR Ranger's voice trailed off, jets of internal
body heat mixing with the cooler air in front of his face
and condensing into a fine mist. He looked down at the
mountain biker sitting in a crouched position at the table,
from which he hadn't moved since the ranger had begun
his tale. The cyclist's arms formed an X across his chest
and each hand held the biceps of the opposite arm tightly.
"Are you uncomfortable?" asked the ranger. "You look as
though you're cold. Can I get you a jacket or a blanket to
throw over your shoulders?"
"No thanks, sir," answered the mountain biker with a
slight chattering of teeth. "I'll just slip my windbreaker on
I that should do it." The cyclist raised himself slowly
from the oak chair and stood on lactic-acid sore legs next
to the table he had been hunched over since early
evening. After shaking each leg with a series of short,
muscle-relaxing kicks aimed at the open air immediately
in front of and above his MTB shoes, he sauntered over
to the peg in the wall where he had flung his lightweight,
nylon-coated ripstop Performance Ultralight Team Jacket
(TM). He moved like a bull rider in a rodeo just thrown,
slowly rocking precariously from one bowed leg to the
other as he inched forward. The RADAR Ranger laughed
quietly to himself as the cyclist forced aching arms
through the hook-and-loop/elastic wrist cuffs at the end
of his aero blue, long-cut sleeves.
The mountain biker smiled when he returned to the table,
then reached one hand sluggishly around his back and
fumbled for a few seconds at one of his three zippered
rear pockets. He enthusiastically dug deep into the pocket
as if searching for a precious stone or rare bird feather.
When he at last brought his hand back around to the front
of his body, it contained a half-eaten Power Bar (TM),
the loose, shiny gold wrapper crumpled over the end of
the last bite he had taken earlier that afternoon.
"Wana' bite?" he offered, extending his half-spent trophy
to the RADAR Ranger. The older man eyed the wrinkled
wrapper, looked at the cyclist, then returned his gaze to
the object held out before him. The ranger's lips pursed
together as if he had just eaten a yellow lemon, and he
wrinkled his deeply tanned nose in disgust and shook his
head to mean "no."
"It's good for you." explained the cyclist as he peeled the
slippery covering off the brown bar. "Replaces carbs your
body has burned off and keeps your cells stocked with
vitamins and minerals to keep 'em firing. Say," added the
mountain biker as an enlightened afterthought, "you can
even use the wrapper to temporarily patch a blown tire
casing. Real handy."
"That's very interesting," admitted the RADAR Ranger as
he sat down across from the cyclist and stretched his legs
out under the table, "but I'm not particularly hungry right
now. Perhaps I'll have something to drink when I'm
finished with my story." He eyed the cyclist skeptically.
But the biker paid him no attention as he worked the bar,
now tightly clamped between his front teeth, back and
forth, each time moving the brown solid more easily than
before. With a final tug and audible crack, a piece of the
cold-hardened bar broke off in the cyclist's eager mouth
and he began to chew slowly.
"Did he successfully engineer your escape from Fritz?"
mumbled the cyclist after he pushed the softening mass
into the pouch of one cheek with his tongue.
The RADAR Ranger leaned back in his chair and waved
toward the mountain biker with the upturned fingers of
his right hand, as if motioning the cyclist closer. "Surely
you must have an opinion. What do you think
happened?"
"I I I don't know, sir."
"Are you saying, then, that you don't think Daryl was
capable of breaking Fritz' hold on us?"
"Fritz was so powerful, you've already said that,"
theorized the mountain biker. "Even if he didn't know as
much as he led you to believe, there was so much more
that he might have known. He could have used that
knowledge to prevent you from ever escaping. I mean, he
had held you to him for so long already. What if he had
accomplished that with some secret knowledge, with his
secret powers? You'd never be able to escape."
A shadow seemed to cross the RADAR Ranger's brow
and he pressed the spread thumb and middle finger of his
left hand tightly into both his temples. When he pulled
them away, the two white spots that marked the place
where his fingers had rested pulsed with the blood just
denied them. The ranger peered at the mountain biker for
a long time, and the biker finally had to look away from
the two burning eyes that had locked onto him. He raised
his own eyes again to the ranger only after the older man
resumed talking.
"I believe I may have understated Daryl's powers to you.
Daryl remained supremely confident in his quest for our
freedom from Fritz. In fact, not long after the incident I
just described, he made his move."
"Do you mean to say that he killed Fritz, burned his
body, then buried him alongside the road?"
"No!" replied an angered RADAR Ranger. "He did not
kill, burn, or bury Fritz. This is not a story of death and
dying, it's a Gothic tale of Good and Evil. If you want
death and dying, there's still time tonight to catch the last
showing of "Dracula" at the FairFax Cinema or maybe
you'd rather rent a video of "Rambo."
The mountain biker lowered his eyes in embarrassment,
focused for a moment on the irregular hole that was
growing in the plank flooring between his nervously
twitching MTB shoes, and asked the RADAR Ranger to
continue. "Please. I'm sorry, sir."
"Daryl and I were out cruising in the Mustang, bringing
down law breakers for our daily quotas. Daryl delighted
in citing large, powerful four-door sedans with all the
amenitiesQair conditioning, power windows, cellular
phone, adjustable steering column, tape/CD/AM-FM
stereo entertainment system, leather upholstery, dual
overhead camshafts, tinted glass all aroundQwhile
mocking me for my continued insistence on ticketing
nothing larger than mopeds and bicycles. We both were
in good spirits, talking casually about speeders we had
brought down, the permanent ozone hole over Illinois,
the collapse of the Japanese stock exchange, the civil war
in France. Despite his mirth and cool exterior, I could
detect an underlying solemnity in Daryl. 'Could this be
the day?' I wondered. 'Will he just keep on driving north
when we reach Novato, then cut left at Petaluma and try
to lose us among the twists and turns of the Sonoma
coast? Has he already made contact with other RADAR
Rangers who can help us?'
"We drove on in this fashion for many minutes, Daryl in
the driver's seat, our outward worries and concerns
disguised by a renewed joviality and camaraderie. At one
point, Daryl reached over and turned on the radio,
punching one of the small squares of plastic under the
unit's digital display that dialed in the local classics
station. A guitar piece came to life over the speaker
system and I was about to comment on the station's wide
variety of music. Daryl waved me to be quiet and I cut
short what I had intended to say. He listened to the
opening chords of Albeniz' Sevilla for a moment or two
before he began to speak.
" 'You know, Gordon, although no one's sure about the
origin of the guitar, we've always assumed that it came
from the East. Just like the lute. Archaeologists have
uncovered monuments in Mesopotamia and Persia that
date from pre-Christian times that portray a variety of
stringed instruments. A number of these instruments
appear related to the lute and to the western guitar. Do
you understand what I'm saying, Gordon?'
"I was looking at the exotic technology that surrounded
the radio on our dash when Daryl asked his question.
'What a difference,' I thought as I attempted to sort out
the meaning of his words, 'between this classical
instrument and the high tech equipment we use
everyday.' The contrast between the two worlds, art and
science, suddenly struck me and I recalled Fritz' belief
that men of action must use the science of art for the
common good.
"Influenced by these thoughts, I said, 'You're saying that
we have to enlighten people about the development of art
as science so that it can be turned to the public good. In
effect, you're striking at the very heart of the issue that
distinguishes Good from Evil.'
"Daryl reached over to the radio and pressed the button
that lowered the volume to all the cruiser's speakers. He
pulled back his finger from the button when the strings of
the guitar were barely audible. 'Always the humanist,
Gordon,' he said matter-of-factly. 'You'll never be able to
escape that part of your nature, will you? No, I'm not
talking about Good and Evil. I'm talking about history.
Everything has a history, including guitars. Including
RADAR Rangers. I'm going to unearth that history and
give us something we can hold onto I call our own I
sink our teeth into. Musicologists look to the East for the
origins of guitars; well, Gordon, we're going to look to
the West for the origins of RADAR Rangers. And that
search is about to begin now.'"
Break Away
" 'What are you talking about,' I said, sensing that today,
indeed, was the day Daryl would attempt his break away
from Fritz. 'What do you mean the search is about to
begin now?'
"He had suddenly become very busy driving the Mustang
and ignored my questions. He turned on the overhead
flashing red and blue lights, swung out into the fast lane
and flipped the switch that fed the nitrous oxide into the
fuel injection chambers. Roaring north along 101, he
turned to me with a sheepish smile on his face. 'We're on
our way now.'
" 'But we haven't made any plans, we're not prepared.
Fritz will track us down in no time,' I stammered. 'We
need time to talk this completely through.'
" 'Don't worry, Gordon. Just hang on.' He maneuvered the
Mustang at nitrous oxide speed among the unsuspecting
drivers with a facility that I hadn't known he possessed. I
held my eyes tightly closed, the pressure on them forcing
hot tear tracks down my cheeks. Daryl was Han Solo
chasing Darth Vader's warriors through hyperspace, and I
reasoned that I would talk sense to him when the pressure
let up and the stars in my eyes stopped screaming.
"The pressures did let up, but Daryl began talking as soon
as they did, and I had no opportunity to express my
concerns. 'When I pull him over to the side of the road,'
he was saying, 'I want you to get out of the car and walk
around to the passenger side of his vehicle. Don't listen to
anything he says or let him exit through that door. Do
you follow me, Gordon?'
" 'Yes, but whose car? Who are you talking about?' Daryl
didn't have to tell me because at that moment we came up
behind a cruising purple and yellow Mustang, the
silhouette of a familiar figure sitting on the driver's side.
'What the devil is this all about?' spilled into the cab of
our car as the two-way radio came to life and
automatically cut off the sounds of our Am/FM system.
'Get off my tail and out of my sight,' the angry voice
shouted.
"Daryl picked up the handset of his radio and spoke
calmly into it. 'Fritz, please pull over to the side of the
road, I've got something I want to talk to you about. I feel
bad about what's been happening with us and I want to
try and make it right again. I feel strongly about this and
don't want to wait any longer than I have to to talk with
you.'
"Fritz' Mustang continued on ahead several miles before
he acknowledged Daryl's request with a matched set of
bright, red tail lights. We followed him three car lengths
distant off 101 onto a soft, dirt shoulder. Parked and with
the Mustang's engine idling softly, Daryl instructed me to
do just as he had explained. 'Stand by the passenger side
window of his car and let me do the talking.' I nodded my
allegiance and we both stepped out of our car and walked
over to the other vehicle before Fritz could open his door.
I stood shivering silently by the passenger side, a chill
wind whipping off the bay waters, and waited.
"Fritz rolled down the side window separating him from
Daryl, who was stooping slightly so that he could more
easily address the older ranger. Paying no attention to
me, but concentrating his attention on Daryl, Fritz said,
'What is it you want to say to me?'
"I'm here to extend an olive branch I I want to make
peace with you, Fritz. I would like things to return to the
way they were.'
"Fritz wanted this to happen more than either of usQI
could see it in his eyesQbut he was not a ranger to accept
a branch unexamined. He quickly looked my way for a
brief moment, paying me scant recognition, then returned
his gaze to Daryl. 'Yes, I would like that to happen, too.
But you've got to stop asking me all those inane questions
of yours, and you've got to stop following me. If you
want to go where I go, ride with me. And stop thinking
about finding other RADAR Rangers; there are none.
Remember that this is where you uphold the law I that
this is where you belong. There is no other place for you
to go. I take care of you and Gordon. Neither of you
needs anything else.'
" 'Yes, fine,' replied Daryl, 'now let's make peace. I have
an offering, a present, for you.'
" 'An offering? You're actually serious; you have a
present for me? I wouldn't have expected this from you,
but it's only right that you should offer one.' Fritz'
characteristic arrogance was returning and his muggy
self-satisfaction began to fog both the front and rear
windows. 'Where is the present? Take me to it now.'
" 'You won't have to go far,' smiled Daryl. 'I have it right
here,' and he reached down to his citation book, flipped
back the cover, and tore out the first ticket, which had
already been filled out, signed his name at the bottom,
and dropped it on Fritz' lap. He did all this in a single,
blurred motion that took less than a fraction of a second.
Fritz sat there in the Mustang, a dumbfounded look on
his face. He had not expected this last rapid sequence of
events.
"After a moment of confused silence, the older ranger
regained enough of his composure to ask, 'What the
deuce is this all about? Do you think I' when suddenly
he fell silent. Something was definitely wrong with the
scene before me. Fritz' head had rolled back against the
rigid headrest jutting up out of the driver's seat, and he
was staring misty-eyed at the plastic lining of the
cruiser's ceiling. He was trying to move his tongue to say
something, but the unruly muscle would not form the
proper patterns on the roof of his mouth or behind his
teeth. A shudder passed through him, and his shoulders
rocked heavily against the back of the seat. With great
effort, he managed to make a weak, gurgling sound, and I
opened the passenger door and moved closer to hear him.
" 'Get out and close the door!' commanded Daryl. Then to
Fritz, 'How do you like it, old man. Your very own
speeding ticket.'"
" 'Gordon,' Fritz was trying to say to me, his head unable
to turn in my direction. 'Gordon I Gordon, he's
destroying me. A RADAR Ranger can't survive a
documented moving violation. He's I ' Fritz struggled to
slide closer to me, but his paralyzed muscles wouldn't
carry him. I again opened the door and moved closer so
that he could speak more easily to me, but Daryl ordered
me back.
" 'That's right, Fritz: a speeding ticket. A little something
I learned from my readings that you never bothered to tell
us: we RADAR Rangers can give out speeding tickets
with abandon, but we can't receive them and keep our
good nature. The consequences certainly can be dire,
can't they. In fact, you're not looking too good right now,
old fellow.'
" 'Gordon,' Fritz was gurgling at the back of his throat,
'take the ticket I off me. His words were barely audible
over the coarse bay wind that swirled around us. 'The
ticket I it's an abomination I sucking my spirit out. My
RADAR Ranger nature can't I withstand the irony.' He
raised his hand a short distance from his side as if to
signal me closer, but let it fall back immediately,
exhausted from the slight exertion.
" 'So, your RADAR Ranger nature is running out on you,
is it, Fritz?' Daryl said to him. 'Let's see if we can speed it
along.' Saying these words, the younger ranger began
penning hurriedly in his citation book, ripping out tickets
and dropping them on Fritz' convulsing body. 'This one's
for driving without wearing a seat belt. And here's
another for parking illegally alongside a highway. While
we're at it, this citation is for changing lanes without
signalling beforehand. And that one for not showing
proper insurance and registration papers.' Each sheet of
paper that touched Fritz caused his body to shudder as if
a jolt of electricity had been discharged inside him. 'God!'
he gasped, 'God, I'm going.' I turned my burning eyes
from his misery, unable to endure his cries of pain and
torment. The ground seemed to oscillate under my feet.
" 'Stop, Daryl,' I shouted. 'You're killing him. You never
said anything about killing. We were going to escape him
only, that was all.'
"Daryl continued his frenzy of ticket writing, his arms a
vague, gray cloud of movement as the storm of tickets
floated down and covered Fritz. 'No,' he said at last, the
cloud in front of him coalescing into two arms, 'I'm not
killing him. I'm draining him of his RADAR Ranger
nature. I'm returning him to the world of lesser men from
which he came. I don't know, but that may be worse than
death. But we're not going to wait to find out. We
heading for the Sonoma coast now. That's where our
history waits for us.'
" 'What's going to happen to Fritz, then?' my weaker,
emotional human side asked.
" 'He'll remain unconscious for a time. Before he comes
to, I imagine someone will happen by and phone the
emergency services for him. He'll recover in a few days,
if you can call waking up in a world of lesser men
without your RADAR Ranger nature 'recovering'. I
imagine he'll have to appear before traffic court to
account for all these tickets, and, when all is said and
done, maybe he can get back his job selling the K-15
from door to door. Not a pleasant thought, but someone
has to do it.'
"We were finally free of Fritz and the great adventure of
our lives was about to begin," said the RADAR Ranger to
the mountain biker with a flourish of his arms.
Part Two: Sonoma Coast
The mountain biker half stood, leaning across the table as
far as his arms would support him. "It's not true, is it, sir?
I mean about Fritz. He did die, didn't he?" His face
grimaced, partially from the physical effort, but mostly
from the black images that crossed the stage of his mind's
theater. "Each time Daryl threw a ticket on his body, his
skin darkened and wrinkled until there was only a thin,
brittle parchment-like substance covering his bones. His
skull, that was the worst, right? Cracked, bloodless lips
drawing back from broken, yellow teeth underneath I
the nose shriveling up into a bud of rocky tissue, two
cavernous holes beckoning to worms and maggots. Of
course, his eyes weren't effected and they watched what
was happening with an unspeakable horror, the dilated
irises doing an Irish jig across a red-ribbed white floor.
And in the end, all that was left of Fritz broke into a fine
powder that you and Daryl buried in an unmarked grave."
The RADAR Ranger shifted uneasily in his chair. "Your
imagination far exceeds your sensibilities, and I caution
you not to read your private fantasies into my story,
making it something that it is not. The story is true as far
as I've told it; I've neither added nor left anything out.
You mountain bikers are an unruly lot and my tale is
soon to touch upon you, too."
The mountain biker had cast his eyes downward so many
times that evening they were beginning to stick in a
permanent position of supplication. "I'm sorry, sir. I'll try
not to get carried away anymore," he promised as more
dark, vague images floated across his mind. "Please, don't
stop your story on my account. I want to hear all of it. It's
the best story I've ever heard on the mountain."
"Yes, I imagine that it is," said the ranger as he stretched
his body into a more comfortable position on the old oak
chair. "We were on our great adventure, as I was saying,
heading north on 101 to the Petaluma exit where we
turned west off the highway. Fritz was behind us and we
did not talk about him. In fact, we remained solemnly
quiet, each thinking his own thoughts, not sharing them
with the other. It was winter and the rolling hills between
Petaluma and the town of Tomales on the coast were
brown with dried grasses and topped with spindly, stick-
figure trees, their leaves blown off long ago. The 20 mile
stretch of countryside passed by quickly and we were
soon at the gateway to what Daryl believed was the
birthplace of RADAR Rangers.
"Upon entering Tomales, a town of less than 1000 people
and fairly typical of settlements along the Sonoma coast,
Daryl began tapping a quick drum roll with his hands on
the lower circumference of the steering wheel. 'What did
I tell you,' he grinned at me. 'Will you look at that.' I
scanned in the direction of his outstretched arm and saw a
jet black Lexus with gold colored hood ornament and
signature hub caps pulling across the town's only main
intersection. 'He's making a left turn against the red light,
Gordon. He's breaking the law! This is a sign, make no
mistake about it.'
"He cocked back his middle finger with his thumb, then
let fly at the switch that turned on our flashing red and
blue lights. 'We're off,' he smiled like a kid at St.
Petersburg DisneyWorld and quickly rolled up behind the
Lexus, pulling it over to the roadside with our shrill siren.
'Come on, Gordon, let's write him up right. This is our
holy communion with the land of our fathers.'
" 'No,' I said, 'nothing larger than a moped, remember?
You go ahead. I feel like stretching my legs a bit,
anyway. I'm going to take a walk down the street here
and see what I can find. I'll commune with our
forefathers later, ok?'
He eyed me suspiciously. 'Still thinking about Fritz?'
"I nodded 'yes' and climbed out my side of the car. Daryl
shrugged his shoulders and exited from his side. We both
leaned our elbows on the cruiser's roof and looked at one
another in silence. 'I'll meet you back here in a little
while,' I finally said and we walked off in our different
directions."
Church
"I was walking again, an activity I hadn't done much of
since my days with Jackie on the streets of Ross. I
strolled past country stores, looking at food and antiques
through wavering glass, but not really seeing the goods
laid out in their carefully made beds. I absentmindedly
turned the first corner I came to and took a few strides
before looking up. In front of me was a small parish,
well-trimmed shrubbery climbing up the clean walls and
framing intricately worked stained glass windows. A
gray-haired man dressed in a long, flowing black robe
had just climbed off an old Schwinn single speed,
propped it up against the parish wall, and walked into the
building through the open door. I followed him in with
thoughts of Jackie and Fritz mingled together in my
mind.
"I had not been in a church since my beginnings with
Fritz. The interior was dimly lit, and much of its light
came in hues of red, blue, yellow, and green through the
ornate windows. Directly ahead of me was the alter
covered with fine linen upon which the symbols of the
church and been meticulously hand stitched. Atop the
linen sat fresh-cut flowers in two clear crystal vases.
Several people prayed among the dark stained pews that
filled the large room. In the far corner were two draped
confessionals, conspiring side-by-side. The light was on
above the booths, indicating that confessions were being
heard by a member of the clergy.
"I suppose I should have been uncomfortable or at least
have felt some degree of humility upon entering the
building. But I didn't. I had been too long separated from
this part of my nature. I simply stood inside the entrance
way and observed my surroundings. A man stepped out
of the confessional and a woman who had been waiting
slipped through the drapes as he left. The man
genuflected in front of the alter, then walked down the
aisle, past me, to the front door. He looked at me
suspiciously, glancing up and down my uniform, as if I
were a stranger who did not belong. He may have been
right.
"The cold from his passing still fresh against my exposed
face, I walked further into the damp church. Not really
knowing what I was about, I turned left into a long,
curving pew and sat down. I ran my chilled hand slowly
over the surface of the pew, feeling for a grain but unable
to find one through all the coats of varnish and polish. A
sudden exhaustion came over me and I leaned forward,
propping my head uncomfortably against my enfolded
hands on the pew in front of me.
"The church was quiet except for the rustling of the
woman in the confessional and the humming of a frayed
outlet somewhere in the back of the alter. Then to my
surprise, a procession of men and women suddenly
emerged from the door behind and to the right of the
alter. At the head of the procession was Jackie! A
gossamer veil covered her face, and I could see her
searching eyes cut through the dim light of the church
and finally settle on me. Those eyes were blankQcoldQ
and I could read nothing into them I no! I didn't want to
read anything into them. Her left hand held a prayer book
and her right hand rested genteelly atop the raised arm of
a male companion dressed in a wrinkled, dark suit. The
companion was a pale-faced Fritz and he was smiling his
Jack Nicolson leer at me.
"Jackie lifted the veil above her face and let it fall on top
of her long, blond hair. Pulling her right hand away from
Fritz' raised, bent arm, she opened the book she was
holding and let the index finger of her right hand rest on
the exposed page, as if directing my attention there. But I
could not take my eyes off her face. She looked just as I
remembered seeing her when we last walked together in
Ross so long ago. Then, what I least expected happened.
Never deflecting her eyes from my own, she spoke. 'You
are cursed from the world, from the earth that has given
birth to humankind.' Her words echoed in my ears, each
word a tennis volley, bouncing repeatedly against the
tight tympanum of my middle ear. 'You are cursed for
having spilt the soul of your flesh into a silent abyss.
Seeds you scatter unto the ground remain infertile and
bear you no knowledge or understanding. A thief and a
vagrant shall you remain and the secrets of your birth are
hidden forever from you.'
"I jumped to my feet and ran into the aisle, imploring her
to forgive me, to bring back all that had passed from us.
While I supplicated with her to give meQusQ a second
chance, a dark presence was welling up inside and behind
me, pressing the nerves in my spinal chord tightly against
the vertebrae that sheltered them. My body became numb
from the pressure and I felt an intense panic rush out to
my tingling extremities. Then it was over and the
apparition was gone I Jackie, Fritz, their entire
entourage. In the confused silence that followed, a hand
descended onto my shoulder from behind.
Confession
"I looked up, startled, from where I was kneeling in the
aisle. I shook my head to clear it of the flashes of white
light still exploding behind my retina. Stooping over me
was the bicycle-riding, gray-haired priest, his ancient
hand resting lightly on my shoulder. He rustled his
garments around to the front of me and stared at my sad
condition for several seconds. 'Can I hear your
confession, my son?' he asked me in a husky voice. My
eyes were still out of focus from the war of light in my
head and I had trouble seeing the priest's features. The
sun was setting outside and the light filtering through the
stained glass was withering in intensity, leaving the
interior of the church much dimmer than before.
Straining, I made out the hardened muzzle of a man who
wasn't surprised by anything that happened in his church
since he'd already seen it all. His wrinkled, jaundiced
appearance marked him as a three-pack-a-day smoker
and his gruff, raspy voice confirmed it 'You seem upset,'
he coughed at me, then, 'Confession will make you feel
better.'
" 'No, but thank you, father. Confession can't help me.
I've waited too long and the burden I carry can't be
shared.' I got up, intending to leave the church and return
to Daryl at the cruiser. But the old priest grabbed my arm
and led me toward the corner of the building where the
confessionals were.
" 'I have the time, my son, and I think you should take the
time,' he said midway there. I started to resist, to make
excuses in my head, but then, for a reason I still don't
understand, I decided to go along with this old man of the
church. I walked the remaining distance to the
confessional under my own power, the priest still holding
onto my arm as though he feared I might bolt and he
would never hear my words. The clergyman pulled the
pleated drape back for me and motioned me inside the
small cubicle with a sweep of his arm. I let the hanging
drape fall back into place behind me and sat down on the
small bench that was nailed into the 'V' formed by two
adjoining walls. Directly opposite, on the partition in
front of me, about shoulder height, was a square piece of
wood. It began sliding roughly to the right side, revealing
a 6-inch square of finely meshed wire grate. The priest's
gruff voice labored through it. 'I'm listening, my son.'
"Taking a deep breath, I began, 'Forgive me, Father, for I
have sinned. I have done things that have troubled my
conscience for years. I have done them knowingly and
repeatedly. I have given up my humanity in the process
and am tormented by thoughts and deeds of evil. I fear
for my soul, Father.
" 'God is great and God is merciful, my son,' came the
hacking, labored response from the other side of the
meshed wire grate. 'Cast aside your fears and tell God
what you've done, then ask him for forgiveness.'
" 'Traffic tickets,' Father. 'Thousands of them. I've issued
no fewer than five of them a day for countless years. And
no violation has ever been too smallQI've cited them all:
speeding, illegal parking, driving under the influence,
changing lanes without signalling, seat belts only
partially fastened. Old and young alike. And, God forgive
me, I've singled out helpless bicycles and mopeds to prey
upon. And, oh Father, the worst I haven't confessed, yet
I I gave my sister, my own flesh and blood, a speeding
ticket. She's in a sanatorium now, the result of my evil
behavior.'
"The priest spun out of his cubicle, reached a hand into
my confessional and pulled me through the drapes to
confront him in the church proper. 'Is this some kind of a
game?' he asked me. 'Because if it is, it's in poor taste.
This is the house of the Lord, not a sporting arena, and I
cannot tolerate such sacrilege here. I would attribute your
blasphemy to youthful exuberance if you were younger,
but your face shows the true lines of your age. You
should be beyond the time when mocking an old priest is
humorous for you.' He scowled at me while he covered
his mouth with one hand and hacked his indignation.
I looked him directly in the eye and said, 'It's the truth,
Father, all of it,' and slowly moved forward towards him.
His defiant stand held, but only for a moment. A shadow
of panic crossed his rough face, and he stumbled
backwards, away from me, and fell to the ground. 'If you
cannot hear my confession, then there is no hope for me
and I am, indeed, damned!' I shouted into the deserted
church and stood, towering angrily over the priest. 'If
there is a God and he is as merciful as you claim, then
why does he allow me to exist like this?' I looked down at
the cowering priest and his evident hatred for what I was
inflamed me all the more.
"'Be gone, you devil!' he sputtered and made the sign of
the holy cross.
"I moved closer and he crawled away from me, along the
front aisle toward the alter. When he reached the
Communion rail, I moved to his side faster than his eyes
could follow, and, reaching into my side pocket, pulled
out my black book and filled out the top sheet of blank
paper, then let it fall into his upturned lap.
" 'What is this?' the terrified priest cried out. 'If it is an
incantation of the devil, I will not look at it nor speak its
words.'
" 'No,' I responded, 'it is not a spell of the Devil. It's a
ticket for illegally parking your Schwinn in front of the
church.' And I ran from the building.
Bodega Bay
The RADAR Ranger paused in his narration and a
troubled look took hold of his features. The mountain
biker waited patiently until the ranger was ready to
continue.
"When I at last found Daryl, I did not tell him about my
experiences in the church. He was still bubbling over
with excitement from issuing his first citation in this, his
self-proclaimed land of RADAR, and I did not want to
diminish that. He was sure now that we would soon learn
of our origins. But, of course, there was more to it than
that: he wanted a real communion with other RADAR
Rangers. I believe his exact words were 'our kind' and he
said the words with an emphasis that I could not
duplicate or feel. His need for this communion only
pointed out the wide gulf that had been opening up
between us. During his early years as a RADAR Ranger,
I had looked upon him as Fritz' equal, what with his
insatiable craving for bringing down law breakers and his
infallible belief that he was using technology for the
greater good of society. At the same time, he also
displayed the same human desires for knowledge and
understanding that I did. Now I saw that he was far less
human than either Fritz or myself. There wasn't an ounce
of compassion in him.
"If he really was so different from you,"the cyclist asked,
"why did he bring you along with him? What did he need
from you?"
"That troubled me the most. Why, indeed, did he stay so
close to me? Because I was the closest thing he had to his
'own kind.' When he found his RADAR Rangers, I feared
that I would have no place among them and that there
would be no reason for him to champion me. I would be
an outcast."
"Couldn't you have instructed him in matters of the heart
just as you had educated him about the material world?"
the mountain biker probed.
"Why?" rejoined the RADAR Ranger candidly. "I could
not bear to see him suffer in these matters as I suffered.
Besides, I had lost all confidence in myself, in my ability
to do anything. I was not a man of action." The ranger
paused and looked at the mountain biker as if expecting a
question, but the mountain biker did not pick up where
the RADAR Ranger left off. He simply sat at the table
and waited for the story to continue.
A moment of awkward silence passed before the ranger
began speaking, his eyes no longer on the cyclist. "We
continued driving north on Highway 1 along the Sonoma
coast, leaving Tomales behind us. But the images of
Jackie, Fritz, and the old priest tore at me. I had seen
Jackie and Fritz as surely as I had seen the gray-haired
priest. Each was distinct and separate, finite entities I
could keep apart in my mind. But what if I couldn't
distinguish among them, among the real and the
imagined? Who would show me the way? God? The
Devil? Then I thought of the priest again and realized that
I could not ask favors of God. The Devil, then, was my
salvation. How I longed to confront his horrible
countenance, to choose and end this torment that divided
me."
The RADAR Ranger sighed. He looked at the mountain
biker, who had just lowered his chin onto his upturned
left hand, his elbow planted firmly, but at a slight angle,
on the table. The older man continued his tale without
addressing the cyclist directly. "The further north we
went, the more we realized that the coast was not as we
had imagined. Whereas Marin county had been besieged
by cars, the roads here were nearly empty. All that
crossed our path was a trickle of local trafficQa few
delivery trucks, two John Deere tractors, a '46 Willy's
jeep, a beggar pushing a Lucky's grocery cart loaded with
plastic bags and empty aluminum soda pop cans. 'Must
be an off-season for tourists,' speculated Daryl. I said
nothing.
"Dillon Beach, Fallon, Valley Ford I it was the same in
all the towns we passed through. Bodega Bay was the last
town on our hurriedly prepared itinerary, and we pulled
into it at dusk, looking for a secluded place to park.
Fifteen minutes of driving to canvas the small fishing
village for out-of-the-way, off-road parking where the
locals wouldn't eye us suspiciously revealed nothing. On
the second pass through the harbor town, a narrow spit of
land overgrown with a tangle of thorny blueberry bushes
beckoned to us. Faint double tracks, hidden by years' of
wild grass cycling through life and death on it, led to the
back of the parcel where a weathered madrone tree
sulked alone in a forgotten, uncared-for bog.
"Daryl eased the cruiser slowly over the ancient double
track and around the thorny vines into the back of the
swampy land. He parked the Mustang under the
camouflage of the madrone's lichen-covered branches,
leaving just enough space for me to squirm out of the
passenger side before the parcel's eastern-most boundary,
a sandstone wall, blocked the movement of the car door.
Sleep hadn't yet overtaken us and we decided to explore
the small marina that lay around the next bend in the
road. We trudged through the muck of our hiding place to
the road, thunked our boots on the pavement to dislodge
the dark gunk that had grabbed hold, and turned into the
last rays of the sun to see what the evening would show
us.
Peggy's Place
"A dozen or more fishing boats, only dark shadows now
on the waveless waters, watched our approach. Along the
paved edge of the marina were three buildings. Light
leapt out at us from one of them and we could see people
inside. A crowd of people. We headed in the building's
direction, hoping to overhear some local gossip, maybe
even learning something of RADAR Rangers.
"An unlit, hand-painted, plywood sign over the main
entrance announced to all comers that this was Peggy's:
Fresh Seafood 365 Days. Close enough now to be
spotlighted in the yellow light that escaped into the
evening, we could see through the wood-framed, multi-
paned front door that Peggy's was more than just busy, it
was overrun with bobbing heads and waving arms. We
walked in and the place fell silent I but only for a
second. From the back of the large room, a high-pitched
woman's voice announced, 'That's him, that's the one!'
and pointed in our general direction.
" 'Which one, Mary Sue?' another voice, this time from
the middle of the room, cut in. 'There's two of them.'
" 'Why, Frank, you know; it's the one with the curly, red
hair.'"
"Neither Daryl nor I had red hair. To prove it, we both
reached up and pulled our patrol caps off in burlesque
unison. A collective sigh rose to the open-beamed ceiling
and one of the crowd closest to the door immediately
advanced towards us. 'Where's your partner?' he asked
nervously. Surprised, but with obvious relief when we
answered that we didn't have a partner (anymore), he
pulled us over to a table with a stained, blue checkered
table cloth and four half-empty coffee cups. Opened
packets of sugar and cream surrounded the cups.
Motioning the table's current occupants away with a
tense, jerky wave of his arm, we sat in the still warm
chairs of three of the four, willing leave-takers.
"All eyes were on us as the emotionally haggard man
launched into his monologue. 'He's crazy I you've got to
get this officer of yours under control. He won't let me
alone. He won't let any of the people around here alone,'
he said swinging his arm over his head with an invisible
lasso to indicate the crowd in Peggy's. 'I've got to get
back to the Bay Area, but I can't get more than a mile or
two down the road when he pulls up behind me with his
flashing red and blues and cites me for a traffic violation
of one sort or another. I thought it was a joke at first, but,
believe me, it's not. He doesn't ever say a word, doesn't
even look me in the eye, just writes out the citation and
drops it in my lap. Then he's gone.'
" 'It's us, too, that he's after,' added one of the locals who
was standing between us and a turnstile rack of picture
postcards. 'Hasn't always been this bad, but we've all paid
him our dues. Doesn't stop him, though. No limit to the
number of tickets you can get.'
" 'What about the local authorities? interrupted Daryl.
'Have you contacted them?'
" 'Oh, sure,' came the reply. 'It's the first thing we did, but
the authorities haven't been able to do anything. In fact,
they're as much at his mercy as the rest of us. It's not
natural, what's been going on around here.'
"A hand-lettered sign taped to the glass front of the
cashier's counter pointed to a section in the back of the
restaurant with a big, bold arrow. Underneath the arrow,
in small letters, was the word 'SMOKING.' Nerves were
close to the precipice at Peggy's and four, big-bladed fans
overhead the non-smoking sections, each churning
pungent smoke into thick clouds, showed how far their
lack of respect for civil code had deteriorated that night.
'Surely, there must be something you can do to help me,'
pleaded our table companion. The swirling cloud around
our heads couldn't hide the distress in his pursed lips and
red, irritated eyes. 'Please, bring some sanity to this
cursed place before I lose my mind.' His shoulders
heaved a sigh and he was quiet.
"Daryl listened eagerly, but with an outwardly solemn
face, to the accounts he heard from Peggy's customers.
His eyebrows would raise at the mention of certain
phrases I 'K-15 on the side of it I never saw the patrol
car come up behind me I wrote the ticket in a blurred
flurry I couldn't get a date scheduled in traffic court I'
When he thought no one was looking at us or the
cigarette smoke was thick enough, he would curl up one
corner of his mouth and let the other drop with a slight
nod of his head in an expression of 'Aha! We're on the
right track.' For my part, I kept quiet, the split that
divided meQmy concern for the people's suffering on
one hand and my contained excitement at locating
another RADAR Ranger on the otherQstirring up my
thoughts into an inexpressible jumble.
"We took our leave of the restaurant well past midnight
as did most of the others and walked back to our hiding
spot amid the blueberry bushes. We observed that the
townspeople, too, had chosen to go by foot, in an obvious
attempt to thwart the ranger. The night air was cold and
jets of warm mist shot from Daryl's nostrils, punctuating
decisions he was making in his mind and the outcomes of
actions he was imagining. Had I not been there, he would
have continued the search that very night.
" 'We'll work Highway 1 between here and Shell Beach
tonight,' he said as we stepped off the edge of the
pavement onto the double-track that led to our Mustang.
'He's bound to spot our cruiser and come out to meet us. I
wouldn't be surprised if he takes us to the others before
day break.'
"Daryl was talking with animated hand and arm gestures,
coming close to hitting me aside the head several times as
we worked our way around the wild bushes to the
Mustang. I wasn't as confident as DarylQthe
townspeople's descriptions of their lone ranger painted a
picture in my mind of a character whose nature was
extreme, indeed. More extreme than either Fritz or
Daryl's. 'Could it be,' I wondered, 'if Fritz and Daryl are
imperfect RADAR Rangers I I had no doubt about my
own inadequacies I with weak, indecisive natures? The
contrast then between the two of us and what we might
find along the Sonoma coast chilled my flesh beyond
what the night air had already accomplished.
" 'I don't think it's a wise decision to search at night,' I
said and ducked under an arm that tipped my hat
awkwardly to one side. Stepping to my right and then out
and in front of him, I continued. 'Hold on a second. We
don't know what we're up against; it might be a RADAR
Ranger and it might not be. And if there, indeed, are
more than one of them and they're not RADAR Rangers,
we could find ourselves in trouble. I say let's wait for
daylight and, at least, see what we're up against.'
"Daryl stood his ground in what I had believed up to this
evening to be typical RADAR Ranger obstinacy.
'Gordon, it doesn't matter when you take action, only that
you do take action. The sooner we take ours, the sooner
we find out about ourselves, about our origins.' And he
quit talking almost as soon as he had begun, a bulldogged
visage above two intertwined arms glaring at me.
" 'You do what you have to,' I replied, 'but I'm staying
here until morning. I'm not a creature of the night. I'll
sleep under the madrone,' and I walked off to the ancient
tree, both amazed and pleased at the action I had taken. I
had eased my body down to the wet ground cover and
leaned my back in between two counter twists in the
tree's uneven trunk when Daryl approached. He stood
over me with muddy boots spread wide, elbows bent at
right angles to his waist, both rounded fists planted firmly
on his hip bones. 'You win, Gordon,' he conceded, his
words flying contrarily in the face of the stance he had
taken. To give support to those words, he changed his
physical attitude and extended his left hand to my right
and pulled me effortlessly to my feet. We slept 'til
daybreak in the Mustang's trunk and I wondered what
had caused Daryl's sudden change of mind."
Highway 1
"Two anxious hands shook me roughly awake to see the
first yellow streaks of daylight painting the interior of the
Mustang's cab. I had slept the deep sleep of the dead in
our fuel-injected coffin and had returned to
consciousness without a recollection of who or what I
was. No name. No history. No memories.
" 'Gordon I Gordon!' a familiar voice was shouting at
me while the hands continued to rock me first in one
direction then in the other. 'Gordon, let's go.'
" 'Gordon? Gordon? Ahhh I my name was Gordon and
the voice belonged to a RADAR Ranger named Daryl.
Vague, swirling images of Peggy's Place began sifting
down from the rafters in my head. In the images, I saw
confused, frightened people gesturing animatedly with
their bodies about somebody or something. Another
RADAR Ranger? Were there more than two of us in the
world then? The Sonoma coast I the birthplace of our
kind? Now I remembered what it was that Daryl and I
were to do today and why the hands and voice were each
so anxious.
" 'I'm awake,' I announced. 'We can go whenever you
want.' Daryl had already leaped into the driver's seat and
gunned the engine to life on the first turn of the ignition
key. The car was pulling off the double-track onto the
narrow paved road that led around the marina when I
crawled over the front seat and took my shotgun position
next to Daryl. My eyes still weren't completely freed of
sleep and I could just make out Peggy's Place among the
waterfront buildings. A sign sitting in the corner of the
front window, not far from our table of last night, had a
word painted on it whose pattern might have spelled
'Closed.' I rubbed my swollen eyes with the palms of my
hands briefly, and when I looked up, Peggy's Place had
retreated behind us and a short, steep hill faced us. At the
top of the rise, where Peggy's road met an empty
Highway 1, we turned left and headed north up the coast.
"Between Bodega Bay and the next town of any size,
Jenner, we pulled into all the public beaches and hamlets,
not bypassing a single inhabited bend in the road. Arched
Rock, School House, Portuguese Beach, Gleason,
Duncan Point I none of these offered us any clues.
Neither did Duncan's Landing, Wrights Beach, Goat
Rock, or Jenner. By early evening, we calculated that we
had thirty minutes of daylight left, enough time to drive
twelve miles further north to Fort Ross.
"We meandered in a roller-coaster pattern of steep ups
and downs through the coastal hills that were kept a lush
green by moderate winter temperatures and rains. Daryl's
face was becoming progressively flushed with color and
his body movements quicker and more animated as we
snaked around each bend, lessening the distance that
remained between us and Fort Ross. About 5 miles from
our destination, Daryl gestured at the rich vegetation
clinging to the cliff edge that overlooked the pounding
surf of the Pacific Ocean and exclaimed, 'Can there be
any doubt that this is the place of our origin, Gordon!
Only a land so fecund with life and raw, untamed energy
could have given birth to individuals as superior as
ourselves.'
"Before I knew what he was doing, he had pulled the
Mustang to the side of the road, flung his door wide, and
bolted down to where a thick stand of vegetation was
growing along the cliff's edge. He fell to both knees and
dug his hands into the surrounding loose soil, bringing
two full handfuls up over his head. He held his
outstretched arms high, laughing hysterically and let the
dark, moist particles trickle through his spread fingers
onto his head and shoulders. He repeated this ritual
several times until the dirt on his cap and shoulders was
quite thick. For my part, I remained in the car, staring at
the spectacle in amazement. Except for a few scuffles
with Fritz, I had never seen Daryl express himself with
such verve and passion. The display bordered on human
emotion, although I never said this to Daryl.
Fort Ross
"During this unexpected roadside scene, the sun's
growing disc had retreated closer to the water's far edge
and the sky above had darkened. By the time my grinning
companion stood and returned to the car to resume our
journey, he was compelled to switch on our headlights,
the tunnel of night had closed in upon us so quickly. Fort
Ross had been blanketed by that same tunnel for some
minutes when we finally arrived.
" 'Where do we begin?' I broke our self-imposed silence
in the car. Beyond the reflective city limit sign
announcing our entrance into Fort Ross, our headlights
revealed nothing to distinguish the invisible boundary
from the terrain we had just driven through. Small copses
of trees, scattered shrubs and plants, rolling hills, ocean.
No country stores, shops, or gas stations to proclaim a
town. No lights anywhere, in fact. Daryl slowed the
Mustang and we moved forward at a night worm's pace.
Burning either side of the rode with it's industrial strength
halogen bulb, I guided our hand-held spotlight slowly
over the dark shapes that had taken form in the dark.
Most danced and wiggled as the light played at their
peripheries, but solidified into rocks and logs when it was
full upon them.
" 'Over there,' Daryl indicated with the index finger of his
left hand, the remaining digits grasping tightly at the 10
o'clock position on the steering wheel. I turned the spot
across the top of the car's hood. The light played
momentarily in empty space, then caught the rough-hewn
turret of a structure fifty yards up on the ocean side of the
road, about 1/4-mile inland. Judging by the building's
shape, it looked like part of a fortress.
"We cut through the blackness of Highway 1 and glided
to a stop in front of a gravel driveway. Daryl had
extinguished the Mustang's headlights, so I panned the
spotlight slowly through the cleared, level space that
opened up from the driveway. The area was cut into an
irregular rectangle, narrow at the entrance and wider at
the opposite, far end. Daryl swung the car into the
driveway, and I adjusted the direction of the beam to hold
it steady on the only two objects in the parking lot: two
cars, one a patrol cruiser, the other a compact with an
empty bike rack strapped to its hatchback.
" 'What do you make of it?' I asked Daryl nervously.
"He tossed a quick glance over his right shoulder in my
direction and molded a grin with his lips as if to say 'you
know as well as I do,' then returned his gaze to the front
of the car, his eyes scanning carefully in a wide arc as we
approached the two parked cars. At the end of the lot, he
eased our Mustang into a space two car widths to the
right of the other cruiser. I had turned off the spotlight at
his command and we sat in the car in complete darkness.
The night was still; not a living thing moved or made a
sound. We were aware only of the wind and the distant
sound of waves breaking onto a unseen beach.
"Anxious to meet this RADAR Ranger whose car we had
parked next to, Daryl opened his door and stepped out. I
hesitated under the interior light that automatically
flashed on, but Daryl immediately reached in and
switched it off. " 'Get out of the car and let's go,' he said
in a firm voice.
" 'Do you feel it?' I asked him without moving. 'I think he
knows we're here.' And I remained in the protective shell
of the Mustang. A nervous, instinctive shudder jerked my
arms closer to my ribs, my limbic system pretending that
two skinny sticks could protect my vulnerable heart from
imagined dangers. Daryl moved slightly away from the
car and again commanded in that confident voice,
'Gordon, follow me.' He took another step away and
threatened to be swallowed alive by the blackness. I was
out of the car and standing next to him in a moment, my
heart saved, but beating savagely against the wall of my
chest cavity.
" 'Be still, Gordon, and stay close to me.' I stumbled after
him through the thick blackness, trusting him completely.
My body was trembling so badly, I lost my balance
several times, stepping onto small stones and mounds of
dirt, pushed to the surface to trip me up by burrowing
creatures of the night. More than once I prevented myself
from sprawling to the ground by leaning heavily onto
Daryl, from whose shoulder I never withdrew my left
hand. 'Fear's your worst enemy,' he said, standing still
while I righted myself.
" 'But don't you sense it?' I muttered. 'I can almost smell
it in the air. Something's out there.'
" 'Yes, I can feel it, too. It's very strong and it's leading us
to our destiny, Gordon. The feeling you have is why
we've come here, it's the reason for our being.' It seemed
like an eternity before he started to move ahead again,
and when he did, he disappeared from my grasp so
quickly that I could all but attribute it to a preternatural
force. I took a blind step forward, groping the emptiness
in front of me for the security of his shoulder. But all I
felt was the rush of air against the open palm of my
thrashing hand. I suddenly felt naked and cold and very
alone.
"Before I had time to dwell on the significance of my
isolation, a soft voice came to me from ahead. 'Gordon,' it
said, 'come over here and shine the light on this placard. I
can't make out what it says.' My right hand felt the
weight of the almost forgotten spotlight I had been
carrying since I stumbled out of the Mustang, and I
moved forward towards the voice in the darkness with a
renewed surge of confidence. After a few steps, I saw
Daryl's figure silhouetted against the darker background.
He was standing next to a sign affixed to a thick, upright
post. 'Mask the light as best you can,' he whispered when
I was at his side, 'and shine it here on the sign.' I spread
the fingers of my left hand over the clear, plastic plate
that protected the halogen bulb underneath, then pushed
down with my right thumb on the rubber button that
turned the beam on.
"Shafts of uneven light spread across the sign upon
whose worn face a message had been carved. 'Fort Ross
State Historic Park' the top line read. Below it,
'Constructed in 1812 by Russians under Ivan A. Kuskov.
At one time, the Fort was home to over three hundred
Russians, Aleuts, and California Indians. The primary
industry was otter and seal hunting. Once the sea-otter
crop played out in 1841, the Russians sold their buildings
and goods to John A. Sutter for $32,000 and returned to
Russia.' The bottom lines proclaimed, 'Open daily 10
a.m. to 4 p.m. except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New
Year's.'
Fortress Chapel
" 'I remember this place,' I blurted out. 'My parents
brought Jackie and me here once when we were kids. The
building over there was the Russian Commandant's house
and the one there the chapel.'" Turning to face the
mountain biker in Sky Oaks, "Jackie and I had a ball
playing in the old buildingsQI scared her silly hiding
behind doorways then jumping out, shouting like the
boogey-man when she came looking for me. I think the
whole place closed around the same time the Presidio in
San Francisco was shut down.
"My thoughts of Jackie and I as carefree children playing
among the buildings in the compound were happy ones,
but they lasted only for a moment. The more recent
image of Jackie's apparition in the Tomales church
clawed its way out of the black of my mind and crowded
out those lighthearted times.
" 'Stay close and be on guard,' Daryl's voice trailed off as
he turned from the sign and walked through the
compound's open entrance towards the outline of the
chapel. I broke out of my gruesome reverie and fled after
his departing form. The chapel, like the other buildings in
the eight-sided, walled compound, was a solid structure,
made out of large-diameter redwood logs stacked on top
of one another and secured at the corners with deep-cut
notches. Daryl stayed close to the irregularly shaped
walls as he moved in the direction of the building's front
entry. 'If he's here now,' he leaned his head back and
whispered over his shoulder, 'I don't want to startle him. I
want him to know as quickly as possible that we mean no
harm, that we're friends. That we're RADAR Rangers,
too.' The excitement in his hushed voice failed to calm
the apprehension that shared me with the night.
"We entered the chapel slowly and cautiously, Daryl first
then me. The interior was too dark to discern any features
and Daryl instructed me to switch on the spotlight, using
my fingers to mask the beam as I had done before. The
panels of wavering rays showed a building neglected for
years, but not wanting for visitors: footprints of all shapes
and sizes had stamped their patterned soles on the dusty
floor. The most sought-after destinations within the
chapel had the most pronounced paths leading to them
through the dust, and we followed the first of these trails.
It led to the front of the building where the altar with its
orthodox trappings had once kept vigil, but were not to
be seen now. From there, a parting of the dust led to a
nearby side door whose heavy, dark hinges and plain
paneling left me feeling uneasy. I was thankful when
Daryl decided not to explore this option, but instead
carefully followed his steps back along the path that led
from the altar to the front entrance, neatly bisecting the
chapel into mirror images. From his vantage point, he
surveyed the interior again, then elected to retrace our
steps to the altar where he looked at each corner of the
chapel for some moments before moving to the side door
that had, only moments before, disturbed me and
continued to do so still.
"Daryl pulled on the pitted iron latch that hung two-thirds
of the way down and to one side of the sinister door. It
opened with a grating cough on dry hinges. On the other
side of the entrance, the single track continued up a
steeply spiraling staircase that led to a small room at the
top of the lofty turret. Daryl grasped the bottom of the
cold railing, polished smooth over many years with the
sweaty oil from countless hands, and began to climb up. I
followed his fresh footsteps, noticing that another equally
fresh pair of prints accompanied us to the summit of the
stairs.
"The circular room at the top was small and empty, but
provided an adequate space for two grown men. Four
broken windows looked out from the walls to the points
of the compass; well worn, but dusty, depressions
lingered in the floor before three of these windows. In
front of the westerly facing fourth window was a
matching depression, but in this dust clearing a set of
fresh prints took center stage. The shoes that created
these prints had been standing at the window only a few
hours before, the gathering dust not yet having had time
to blur their outlines. Like the ironed creases on a pair of
new dress slacks, the tracks were very distinct, and it was
clear that their owner had stood motionless in the same
spot, observing something or someone outside with great
intensity.
"Daryl was as still as the broken panes of glass through
which the earlier visitor and now he were peering. He
had focused all his RADAR Ranger energies on listening.
And then I was listening with him. Faintly at first, just
sounding above the crash of water on sand and wind over
uneven surfaces, a distant vibration traveled to us. It
carried with it a distinct rhythmic pattern. As it grew
louder and more persistent, Daryl bent his torso at the
hips, automatically leaning his head and shoulders closer
to the window. His eyes narrowed and he raised his right
hand, pointing his index finger at a vague and unusual
shape moving quickly down the path from the bluffs
towards the compound. The figure ran as if driven by a
great fear, and the separation between the rhythmic
sounds of his shoes striking the ground and the actual
sight of that movement lessened rapidly. When the two
sensations of sight and sound became one for the figure, I
saw why it had, at first, appeared so unusual: the figure
was really two, a man pushing a bicycle at his side.
Cyclist
"Daryl moved so suddenly that I became aware of his
absence at my side only after seeing his right heel kick
into the air above the first of the descending steps, his left
foot already touching the fourth rung down. I followed at
a more cautious pace and caught up with him outside the
compound's walls where the bluff trail forked together
with the path leading to the parking area. He was holding,
at arms length, the shoulders of the figure we had been
watching. A silver bicycle was lying at their feet along
the side of the trail. The struggling figure was no match
for Daryl's RADAR Ranger strength and he soon ceased
pummeling at the air that separated him from Daryl.
" 'Your partner's already done his thing and now I want
out of here. Let go!' cried a young man in his early to
mid-twenties. His day-glo ATB red Gore-Tex (TM)
cycling jacket was open at the neck, exposing a multi-
colored CoolMax (TM) poser training jersey underneath.
Supplex (TM) Panel Superwash (TM) wool tights were
ripped at the knees and only the left hand was covered
with a Fast Track (TM) Ragg wool glove.
" 'Calm down,' ordered a stern-faced Daryl. 'What are
you talking about?'
"The youth paused for a second, trying to catch his wind,
then spoke a stream of words. 'That partner of yours is a
crazy dude. I was riding on this single trackQit's legal,
see there's no sign here saying not to do itQwhen about
two miles out I hear this bellowing voice call out, 'Stop,
you're under arrest, Walt, for breaking the law.' How'd he
know my name, anyway? I've never seen him before.
Well, I figure the guy's a looney and there'd be no way to
reason with him, so I keep on riding. But he just keeps on
running, yelling at me to stop all the time because I'm a
speeder andQnow dig thisQ'not a man of action!' But
my legs can't pedal fast enough and this guy is gaining on
me like I was parked in front of MacDonalds, sipping a
Diet Coke and munching on a large order of fries. The
next thing I know, he's got hold of my seat and is lifting
my rear wheel off the ground with one hand. I know it
was one hand because he had a RADAR gun in the other,
a thin cord connecting it to a battery pack strapped to his
belt. I saw then that this is not the type of person I want
to upset more than I have to, so I stop pedallingQa lot of
good it was doing me, anywayQand I ask what the
trouble is. He tells me I've broken the speed limit and
shows me the RADAR gun. It shows 22 mph, which he
says is 17 mph above the legal 5 mph limit for fire roads.
Then I explain to him that I'm riding on a narrow single
track and couldn't have gone that fast, but he counters
that the speed he's showing me is my speed back in the
parking lotQwhich he says fits the description of a fire
road. Next he cites me for riding on a single track and
says I should have known better after I pointed out the
absence of posted signs prohibiting it.'
" 'Don't get me wrong,' pausing only long enough to
catch his breath, 'I'll take the tickets if I deserve them
because I know I can defend myself in traffic courtQ
innocent until proven guilty and all thatQbut that's not
what worried me. This guy is acting really weird, just
answering my questions with the fewest possible words,
never looking me in the eye, writing all this stuff in his
little black book without ever looking down, hardly
moving anything but the wrist of his writing hand.
Spooky. Ok, I take the tickets and start heading back and
get to within 1/2 mile of here when he's after me again.
This time he's shouting that I'm under arrest because I
haven't got my helmet on. He's right, I don't but that law's
just for motorcycles, right? So here I am and I know he's
not too far behind and you gotta' let me go now before I
go crazy, too, which I'll do if he catches me.'
"During this long-winded monologue, the expression on
Daryl's face had metamorphosed from strong confidence
to questioning doubt to serious concern. With the passage
of each of these emotions, his grip on the youth
slackened and eventually the young man was free of his
lawful RADAR Ranger embrace. 'Thanks a lot,' the youth
said, 'I'm gone and I'll never come back to bother you
guys again.' He wheeled around and sprinted for his car.
"But before he could get too far, Daryl was on the young
man, handing him a page from his own black book.
'What's this?' the incredulous youth cried into the night
air, his head thrown back and his mouth hanging open in
disbelief.
" 'Sorry, son, but you were riding without a legal light.'
Once a RADAR Ranger, always a RADAR Ranger.
Besides, we still had our daily quotas to fulfill.
"The youth stuffed the ticket into an unzippered pocket of
his Supplex (TM) Panel Superwash (TM) wool tights
without blinking an eye and resumed sprinting to his
parked vehicle
" 'Wait a minute,' I shouted after him. 'Don't forget your
bicycle.'
"He looked back at me, half way between where I stood
with Daryl on the narrow trail and his car in the graveled
parking area, and hollered, 'Keep it. No more mountain
biking for me. I'm going into ocean kayaking.' And then,
'You guys don't swim, do you?'
The mountain biker, feeling somewhat uneasy in the dim
lights of Sky Oaks, asked, "Do you remember what kind
of a bike it was?"
The RADAR Ranger hesitated for several moments
before he answered, then said, "Could it have been a
Cunningham? C-U-N-N-I-N-G-H-A-M was spelled out
in black letters across the top tube."
"Uh-huh," whistled the mountain biker in awe. "The
legendary mountain bike, a collector's item I one hasn't
been made in years. And those that have them, keep them
locked up in back rooms" And he suddenly realized the
seriousness of what he was hearing.
The Other Ranger
The RADAR Ranger slowly got up from his chair at the
oak table and stepped over to the wood-framed window.
He stared into the darkness a long time, taking an audibly
deep breath every 10 to 15 seconds, letting out the air
with a troubled, low-pitched rush through pursed lips.
"This was not something Daryl had been expecting, and
it caught him off guard. But more was to come. We both
heard it at the same time, the synchronized huffing and
puffing reinforcing the sound of approaching footfalls. I
could see Daryl's shoulders straighten noticeably and the
short hairs on the top of his hands bristle. We were about
to confront another RADAR Ranger.
"Jogging down the same single track we were standing
on was a large, dark outline of a man in the uniform of a
RADAR Ranger. As he came closer to us, I noticed few
signs of exhaustion, although I knew he had been running
many miles over an uneven terrain in the dark. The
huffing and puffing I heard was more his way of counting
cadence than a sign of fatigue. In his right hand he held a
K-15 RADAR gun and I could just make out the cable
connecting it to the leather-encased battery pack strapped
to his side just as the cyclist had described. When he
reached us, he came to a halt and turned his eyes to both
Daryl and myself, each in turn, then at the silver bike
lying at our feet.
" 'You've brought down the law breaker?' he said in
monotone syllables. His eyes were as flat as his voice and
I felt something vital was missing, that he lacked
substance. He came across as an incompletely defined
movie character, a two-dimensional, celluloid man.
"Daryl was obviously puzzled and confused by the
appearance of this long, sought-after RADAR Ranger. It
was not what he had imagined the missing link to be like.
Despite his confusion, Daryl kept enough composure to
extend his hand and say, 'My name is Daryl and this is
Gordon,' pointing to me. 'We're both RADAR Rangers
like yourself and are very pleased to have found you.'
"The other RADAR Ranger didn't acknowledge Daryl's
greeting. He merely stood in front of us with unblinking
eyes and asked,'Where is the law breaker? He has been
riding without a helmet and must be corrected with a
ticket.'
" 'We'll talk about him later,' snapped a suddenly
impatient Daryl. 'Let's talk about you now and where you
come from. Can you tell me about the other RADAR
Rangers you keep the law with? Where are they now?'
"But the two-dimensional ranger ignored Daryl's
questions again. 'Riding a bike without a helmet is
against the law,' he mouthed in his tedious tones. 'I must
correct him. I'll bring him down now,' and he started to
walk away from us towards his Mustang. Daryl, furious
with the response, or lack of it, reached across with his
right hand and grabbed the ranger by his left shoulder and
spun him violently around to face us again.
" 'Don't act like an idiot,' he shouted at the unseeing eyes.
'Surely you know more than you're letting onto. Where
do you come from, ranger? What place do you call
home? You can't be the only RADAR Ranger on the
Sonoma coast. There have to be others who can tell me
about our history, about our origins!'
"The other RADAR Ranger stood mutely still, his eyes
an unwritten movie script. Slowly, a glimmer of
recognition settled into them and his forehead wrinkled
as he strained to translate that glimmer into words.
'Tamal,' he finally declared, a trace of a smile on his face.
" 'Tamal?' repeated Daryl softly. Then loudly, 'Tamal?
What does 'Tamal' mean?'
"More silence from the other RADAR Ranger, then
additional glimmers of recognition. 'TamalPAIS,' he
grinned. 'Tamalpais is where the others are.' Without
further interference from Daryl, the ranger turned his
back on us and half-jogged, half-walked to his cruiser,
climbed in, and drove out of the parking lot in pursuit of
the law-breaking mountain biker.
"Did you ever see that RADAR Ranger again?" asked the
mountain biker from behind the table.
"Yes, we did, in the watershed of our origins."
"Here on Mt. Tamalpais, sir."
"Yes, on Mt. Tamalpais."
Part Three: On the Mountain
"The other RADAR Ranger was gone, leaving Daryl and
me alone once again. We stood there, two solitary
figures, in the timeless dark just outside the high redwood
wall that surrounded Fort Ross. Then Daryl tapped me
lightly on the shoulder and suggested we head back to
our own vehicle. I turned the spotlight on, the need for
caution and stealth no longer paramount. The door to the
secrets of the Sonoma coast I if there had been any
secrets I had closed on us."
"But the other RADAR Ranger?" asked the mountain
biker, nervously twisting his hands back and forth in each
other. "Why was he so different from you and Daryl?"
"I had the beginnings of a few ideas, but they were
clouded over and hidden by a deep despair that took hold
of me. That despair arose from a troubling doubt that we
had neutralized the only other RADAR Ranger who had
anything in common with us: Fritz. He had been in my
thoughts, as I think you know, in one form or another
since we had come to the Sonoma coast. In a strange
twist of fate, he was the only RADAR Ranger like us that
I had found on this journey. As contradictory as it may
sound, there were times then I wished he were back
together with us!
"Daryl, on the other hand, had a far more practical
perspective. 'What if RADAR Rangers are not the lone
predators Fritz wanted to us believe,' he reasoned.
'Suppose, in fact, that we are pack animals, surviving best
in groups. Living together, bringing down law breakers
together. It makes sense, doesn't it? For a reason we may
never learn, Fritz was separated from his pack and could
not return to it. Perhaps he committed a crime against his
fellow RADAR Rangers and was banished. Or maybe he
was separated from them in an accident. The actual cause
for the separation isn't important, though. The important
thing is the separation itself. I don't believe RADAR
Rangers can exist in the absence of other pack members.
If my guess is correct, Fritz made you into a RADAR
Ranger shortly after his separation occurred because he
couldn't stand to be alone. And when he felt that you
were ready, he expanded the pack by creating another
RADAR Ranger, me. If I hadn't neutralized him, would
he have created others in time? I believe he would have.
There is comfort in the pack, a comfort we unknowingly
took for granted while Fritz was with us. Although we
claim to have hated him, his absence has diminished the
comfort we feel now.'
"Daryl stood quiet, his eyes darting back and forth with
REM-like movements in their sockets. 'My God,' he
finally exclaimed, 'it also explains why the RADAR
Ranger we just encountered was crazed. He's lost his
pack and, perhaps more significant, he doesn't know how
to replace it with his own. The loneliness obviously has
driven him to madness.' Striking his clenched fist onto
the hood of the Mustang, he announced to me, 'So much
of what we are has become clear to me tonight, Gordon. I
was despairing in the darkness out there when we first
encountered him, but now I see there's no need to despair.
That we are pack animals is as clear to me as is our need
to bring down law breakers. And, given the right
circumstances, a RADAR Ranger can change a man of
lesser action into a man of superior action I Fritz has
shown us that. But if you were to ask what the right set of
circumstances is, I couldn't give you any specifics. My
history is incomplete for that. And our origins, Gordon!
Our origins! I still don't know how it all began. But I feel
that I'll find answers to all my unanswered questions on
Mt. Tamalpais.' He climbed into the Mustang without
another word and drove us straight to the mountain that
very night.
Mt. Tamalpais
"I can't find the words to describe the joy I felt that night
on our return to Marin county and, particularly, to Mt.
Tamalpais," said the RADAR Ranger to the mountain
biker. He stretched his arms wide, then wrapped them
around his upper torso, forming a large X with his
forearms in front of his chest. Holding this position, he
turned from the window and walked slowly back to his
chair at the oak table. "Mt. Tam was backyard to Terra
Linda," he grunted with an emphasis on the 'da' of 'Terra
Linda' as he fell back into his chair and settled into the
five round dowels that formed its backrest. "All the kids
in the neighborhood played there whenever they could.
Some of us rode our bikes over the San Rafael/Terra
Linda Ridge to get there, others took the bus, and some
even managed to con their parents out of rides on a
regular basis.
"Our first experiences were on the lower hills of the north
slopes, in and around Fairfax. We were fortunate because
the north side of the mountain tends to be wetter, wilder,
shadier, and less congested with hikers than the south
side. A great place for kids to explore and have fun
without the constant intrusion of adults. The fog that
swept down the San Geronimo valley from the ocean
kept the hill sides and valleys lush with with all kinds of
trees: buckeyes, bays, oaks, madrones, firs, and
redwoods."
The RADAR Ranger eyed the mountain biker closely.
"I'm not boring you with these memories, am I?"
"Well, actually, I ride a lot of the mountain and I'm pretty
knowledgeable of its flora and fauna."
"But you don't hike on the mountain? Just ride?"
"Yes, that's right; I can't walk too far because I've got a
bad back. Riding doesn't bother it, though. My
chiropractor even claims riding is good for it, opens the
vertebrae and takes pressure off the discs and nerves
running through them."
"Well, then," rejoined the RADAR Ranger, his face
hardening, "you've never had an opportunity to see the
beauty of the mountain at a leisurely pace, have you? I
imagine we could even safely say that you've missed
some of the more subtle, natural wonders on your hurried
trips through the watershed."
"No I not really. I sometimes take along my water
colors and sketch book to paint impressions of what I see
along the fire protection roads. You know, it's really great
being able to travel deeply into the mountain, to places
you never could reach in a single day by foot. Those
remote areas are unspoiled by the comings and goings of
all the day trips people organize around here."
"Such a knowledgeable, young fellow you are," said the
RADAR Ranger in his best Yoda syntax. "I'm surprised
at your range of interests I you have certain traits that
are rather atypical of mountain bikers in general. Are you
aware of the feral pig problem up on Bolinas Ridge?"
came the next question.
"I paint up there all the time," answered the mountain
biker, surprised at this non sequitur. He shifted his glance
from the suspicious eyes of the ranger to the boar's head
mounted on the wall to his right. "You mean those guys?"
The RADAR Ranger nodded his head in assent. "Sure,
I've seen some of the cages you've set up there. They're
the reason you put up the long wire fence on the ridge,
isn't it. To keep wild pigs from spreading into the Point
Reyes National Seashore. Those animals are real devils,
digging up hill sides looking for calypso orchid roots and
all."
"What do you know about West Peak?" quizzed the
RADAR Ranger with another non sequitur.
"Not too much," came the reply, "because it's been closed
to just about everybody since the military took it over
during World War II. I do know that the Air Force built
their RADAR station there in 1951, but after they
declared the facility out-of-date in 1982, they turned the
area over to the GGNRA. Strange, now that I think about
it, that the land didn't revert back to the Marin Municipal
Water District. But then, again, stranger things happen all
the time. I understand the three acres up there on West
Peak with the two golf-ball RADAR domes is leased to
the FAA under a separate agreement and that no matter
how loud the public complains, those domes will never
come down." The mountain biker hesitated, broke into a
soft chuckle, then caught himself and stopped, but not
before the ranger threw a weary glance in his direction.
"What are you laughing at?"
"Oh," said the mountain biker, "not much. It's just that a
few of us who ride the mountain refer to West Peak as
the Tee-off to paradise. It's just funny if you know the
guys in the group."
The RADAR Ranger apparently didn't know the guys in
the group and kept a straight face. "Have you ever been
inside the compound at West Peak?"
"Absolutely not," returned the mountain biker. "The
place is off limits and, besides, it's completely encircled
by a cyclone fence topped off with barbed wire. A real
fortress up there." He looked guilefully at the RADAR
Ranger, waiting for his next move, as if they were
playing a cloak-and-dagger game of chess.
The RADAR Ranger made his next move."Ever done any
spelunking or rock collecting on the mountain? Some
varieties of chert contain beautiful patterns and colors,
and the pillow basalt deposits are intriguing."
"I didn't know there were any caves worth exploring on
Mt. Tam, at least I've never heard of any," conceded the
cyclist. "Rock collecting I no, I've invested too much
money trying to keep my bike light. Why would I want to
load up my pockets and fanny pack with rocks? I couldn't
even imagine hikers going to the trouble of carrying
mineral souvenirs off the mountain. It's illegal, anyway,
isn't it? You guys aren't going to start checking purses
and car trunks for contraband rocks, are you?"
"No, we're not," replied the RADAR Ranger with an
audible sigh of relief, leaving the puzzled mountain biker
to wonder what it was that had just transpired between
them. (*Author's note: No one really knows the
significance of what transpired between the two).
Fairfax
"I see that you already have a sound understanding of the
mountain and can empathize with a child's attachment to
it," the RADAR Ranger conceded. "There's no reason for
me to belabor that point, then." The mountain biker
shifted ever so slightly lower in his chair, the only
outward indication that these last words were a welcome
relief to him.
"As I was saying before my digression, Daryl drove us
straight to Mt. Tam immediately after our encounter with
the crazed, two-dimensional, celluloid RADAR Ranger
of the Sonoma coast. On my advice, we settled down
until day break in the dirt parking lot that fronted the
entrance to Deer Park fire road in the town of Fairfax. I
slept soundly in our Lycra (TM) womb, too weary to
dream, but Daryl tossed and turned, no doubt
subconsciously replaying our dark times on the Sonoma
coast on the back wall of his mind.
"My head was resting on the cushion of the back seat
when I first opened my eyes and I could see the sun
climbing through the middle branches of the ancient
madrone under which we had parked. The preceding
evening's events had worn me out, but not as much as
they had Daryl. I stirred before him and was standing in a
spotlight of warm sun next to the Mustang when he
emerged from the car. He was haggard and worn, the
muscles at the corners of his eyes dragging the lids half
way down over his irises. He rubbed at them vigorously
with the palms of both hands, then opened his mouth
wide to let a tremendous yawn escape.
" 'Yesterday was more work than I imagined,' he said,
shaking his matted head at nothing in particular.
" 'I'm emotionally exhausted, too,' I said. 'The happenings
of the past few days have played havoc with my mind.'
"I'm physically tired, Gordon, not emotionally. Emotions
are your weakness, not mine.'
" 'Daryl,' I countered, upset by his continued, obstinate
denial that emotions had no place in our world of public
service, 'you have been emotionally excited ever since
this quest began. Any physical exhaustion you've felt
takes a back seat to the force of that excitement. And I
know that beyond your emotionally excited state, you
must share some of my loneliness now that Fritz is gone
and our pack has grown smaller. If you're a pack animal
as you claim, you can't escape that feeling.'
"He stood there, glaring at me with eyes that had become
wide-awake. The muscles that had pulled the corners of
his mouth down to a sleepy frown when he first awoke
were now offset by an opposing pair that created a subtle
grin. 'You've mistaken an instinctive focusing of energy
for emotional excitement,' he lectured me. 'I have not
been acting like a small child running around a birthday
cake, clapping my hands excitedly for the next slice of
cake. No I my energies have been carefully calculated
and focused on achieving a single goal: to find others of
our kind. The emotions you talk about would only get in
the way and impede the attainment of that goal. I am a
man of action, not of emotions.' He ran his fingers
through the disheveled hair on the sides of his head, then
massaged his hands slowly and heavily down the outside
of his neck. 'I do not miss Fritz in an emotional way;
rather, I feel a need, a drive, to replace that which has
been taken from me because I am less whole without it.
Soon, today perhaps, I will find others like us and regain
my whole identity.'
"Arguing further with him, especially when part of me
applauded what he said, was senseless. So I suggested
that we begin our search that very morning. My plan was
simpleQto divide up and walk the trails and fire
protection roads of Mt. Tamalpais until we met another
RADAR Ranger. At the end of the day, we would return
to the Mustang and inform each other of our successes.
Daryl agreed immediately to the plan and set out along
Deer Park fire road. I hiked with him a very short
distance, then turned right onto Ridge Trail and set out on
my own. I had hiked along this single track often as a
child and was familiar with it and the others it linked up
with.
"I marveled at what I saw that morning: redwood, oak
and madrone standing brilliantly outlined against a deep
blue sky, meadows and grasslands teaming with field
mice and other rodents, redtailed hawks circling
overhead. Raccoon appeared early along the trail,
scampering to their dens after a night-time of ravaging
Fairfax dumpsters and garbage cans. As their numbers
diminished and early morning flowed into mid morning,
deer bounded more frequently into the underbrush on
either side of the trail as I passed along. The deeper I
hiked into the watershed, the more frequently I
encountered creatures that were less willing to share the
land with humans: fox, bobcats, and osprey. And there
was another creature whose presence I sensed but did not
actually see until later in the morning."
"The sensations of another's presence were almost too
subtle to notice at first I they came to me more as
echoes of my own movements though the forest, nothing
more. And that's what I believed them to be at first,
echoes. The sound of my boots striking the trail, the
rustle of shirt sleeves as they brushed against my side, the
occasional tree limb reaching out and touching my hat, a
light cough to clear my throatQthese sounds moving
away from me into the woods in concentric rings of
energy, then returning after random collisions with a tree
trunk, a rock wall, or a pool of water. In open meadows
and fields, however, with few objects large enough to
send the babble of my body hurrying back to its source, I
became more suspicious of these echoes. 'How is it,' I
wondered, 'that even without reflecting objects, whatever
audible movement I make, its twin fills my ears as if the
rebounding surface is as close as my shadow?' Yet, as
I've told you, I could see nothing close enough to me to
account for the phenomenon.
"I passed along Ridge, Moore, and Canyon trails aware
of the strange echoing phenomenon, but unable to
determine its cause. It did not seem threatening and
gradually became one of many background noises that
accompanied me on my wanderings through the
watershed. Hiking up Canyon Trail before it intersected
with Concrete Pipe fire road, I became mesmerized by
the intensity of the green canyon wall that faced me from
the southwest. The sun had climbed high enough in the
morning sky to paint dark green shadows along the
canyon's uneven surfaces. The line separating shadow
from sunlight was razor sharp and created an exaggerated
three dimensionality on the surface I as though the folds
of land and trees where the edge lay had a dimensional
order of magnitude greater than the surrounding terrain.
But even more overpowering than the texture of the
canyon wall was the color green. Both in shadow and in
sunlight, it was a green that could not be matched by
photographic film, tape, or 32-bit computer color. To
capture even the slightest essence of its mystery would
require the mixing of pigments by a skillful, living artist
trained in the subtleties of green.
"These were my thoughts as I passed from Canyon Trail
onto Concrete Pipe fire road. The road was considerably
wider than the trail, providing ample access for large
trucks and fire fighting equipment. Exceptionally wide
and smooth, Concrete Pipe's friendly surface was a
magnet to speeding bicycles traveling in either direction,
and I heard the approach of several as I climbed up onto
it. Three cyclists were approaching from the north at a
speed well beyond the 5 mph limits I had seen posted.
Bringing down three law breakers would bring me to
within two of my minimum quota of five for the day. I
prepared to signal the riders to the side of the road when I
heard my footsteps continue at a rapid pace past me in
the direction of the bicycles."
Concrete Pipe
"Excuse me, sir," interrupted the mountain biker, "but
you had no jurisdiction at that time to issue tickets on the
watershed."
The RADAR Ranger tossed his head back in frustration
and, not bothering to look at the mountain biker,
countered, "RADAR Rangers have jurisdiction wherever
the law is broken. Haven't I made that clear to you?"
"Sorry, sir, I guess I wasn't thinking straight."
"Yes, I guess you weren't, but that doesn't come as a
surprise to me. Now, let me continue with my story I
where was I? Oh, yes: Materializing where the footfalls
ended, a RADAR Ranger appeared and gestured the
cyclists to a stop. In his right hand, he was wielding a
battery-powered K-15 RADAR gun and in his left he
held a book of tickets!
"I was astonished to have found another RADAR Ranger
so soon and in the manner I had just witnessed. He was a
tall, angular man and wasted no time citing the law
breakers for their offenses. With tickets tucked away in
black Cordura(TM), adjustable waist belt with padded
back area fanny packs, the three mountain bikers pedaled
off at a much slower clip. I remained where I was, hidden
from view by roadside shrubbery as they cycled past.
When the next corner had devoured them, I stepped into
the middle of the road I and felt as if I were looking
into a mirror. I pivoted on my right foot, and my mirror
image, the ranger, pivoted on his left, turning not a
degree further than I had. I swung my left leg around to
complete my turn and he did the same with his right leg.
Every gesture I made, he duplicated with uncanny
accurateness. I took a hesitant step toward him, and he
took a hesitant step away from me. I shuffled backwards,
and my image shuffled forwards. A reflective stalemate. I
hailed him a greeting, gesturing with my right hand, and
heard the words of my greeting rebounding back to me a
millisecond after I had uttered them. Had he been closer,
the palm and fingers of his left hand would have been
pressed tightly against my right and our combined
movements would have been the perfect mime of one
man washing a mirror. But we remained separated and I
could not lessen the distance between us."
"What did you finally do?" asked the mountain biker,
comfortably ensconced behind the oak table.
"Nothing," answered the RADAR Ranger. "Within
moments after hailing him, he simply disappeared as
quickly as he had appeared. He was there and then he
wasn't. His reflexes and speed were far beyond those of
Fritz, and I hadn't thought anyone capable of replicating
Fritz' movements. Daryl had come close on occasions but
had never exceeded them. This RADAR Ranger had
surpassed them easily; he also had expanded my image of
the world of RADAR Rangers. For one thing, that world
was more diversified than our small pack of three had led
me to believe. Was this RADAR Ranger normal? Was
the ranger on the Sonoma coast that abnormal? Had Fritz
been aberrant? Was I?' I longed to know the answers to
these mysteries.
Fish Gulch
"These thoughts replaced those childhood fantasies that
had filled my head earlier in the morning. And all the
while I hiked, I felt the presence of the other ranger
tracking me, just beyond my sensory grasp. Along Taylor
Trail past Sky Oaks Ranger Station to Lagunitas Trail,
down Dam Trail, then across Bon Tempe dam. At the
three-way intersection of Dam and Bon Tempe trails with
Rocky Ridge Road, the will-o'-the-wisp ranger made
another entrance, appearing just in time to cite two law-
breaking mountain bikers for riding the trail around the
west side of the lake. Trail riding anywhere on the
watershed is a serious offense," glared the RADAR
Ranger at the mountain biker who no longer felt as
comfortable as he had a few short moments before and
whose fidgeting toe was now working its way into the
widening hole between his feet under the oak table.
After an appropriately uncomfortable silence, the ranger
continued. "This time, though, he waved at me when he
was done writing out the citations. I was too far away to
make out the exact meaning of the smirk on his face; it
might have been a smile of contemplative pleasureQof a
new level of self-realization achieved through public
serviceQor it could have been an arrogant leer directed
at me. I hoped for the former; I did not want this RADAR
Ranger to feel so territorial that I could never run with his
pack. I wanted to talk with him, to communicate with
him as one RADAR Ranger to another. I waved back, but
he was gone before my arm reached the apogee of its
movement.
"I continued around the west side of the lake along Bon
Tempe Trail, losing myself to the purple prose of mottled
light twisting through thick trees, eventually settling on
trails made soft by months of vegetative fallout. Where
the steep Stocking trail descended into Bon Tempe from
Rocky Ridge, I angled left and continued along the north
side of the lake, walking east towards Lake Lagunitas
picnic area. The half-mile hike to Lake Lagunitas, whose
overflow waters drain into Bon Tempe, was uneventful. I
passed several hikers who, like all others I had
encountered in the watershed, warmly returned my
greeting and ignored my out-of-place partolman's
uniform. Except for the strange behavior of the other
RADAR Ranger, I felt at home in the watershed.
"Perhaps hoping to catch a glimpse of the will-o'-the-
wisp, I walked onto the large, open, paved parking lot at
the entrance to Lake Lagunitas picnic area. Ambling
along slowly, I cast careful glances in all directions, but
could perceive nothing out of the ordinary in the
peripherary of my vision. Several parked cars, picnickers
carrying woven baskets of food into the grove, large,
black-winged crows circling hungrily overhead I
nothing to raise the thin veil of suspicion in my mind.
"I continued on up the paved entry road away from the
picnic area. At the top of the road, I decided to head
down Fish Gulch fire protection road into the Phoenix
Lake basin. An eighth-of-a-mile further along the
macadam brought me to the head of the dirt road. Careful
to keep my feet from rolling out from under me on the
loose rocks and pebbles that coat the upper portion of the
steep road, I began the slow descent. The wall of the
narrow ravine along which the protection road runs is
precipitous and overgrown with trees. The murky
opposite wall also is enshrouded in tall, thick foilage and,
close as it is to the first wall, creates the impression of an
enclosed, high vaulted passageway. The trees' upper
canopies do not come together; in fact, they are some
distance apart, but the impression is one of an enclosure.
As a kid, I always avoided Fish Gulch at night; it was
unsettling how easily the darkness played eerie tunes on
my nerves. I half expected some night beast to leap out at
me from somewhere just beyond my vision and I well,
I'm getting carried away because what I'm describing
took place a little after noon and I was an adult and didn't
really have to worry about ghouls and vampires.
"Not watching the road surface as intently as I should
have while cutting to my right around a sharp bend, I lost
my wobbly legs to a patch of loose gravel and slipped to
the ground in an undignified sitting position. I sat there
on the hard-packed road amid the bits of rocks for a
while, letting the sting work its way out of my bare
hands. The small, irregularly shaped red impressions in
my palms were still screeching at me when I heard itQ
the sound of gravel crunching into the road just ahead of
me. This time the sound was not an echo of anything I
had done; the pebbles dislodged by my falling body had
already reestablished residence elsewhere on the road and
were quiet.
"The grating and rasping of rock continued toward me
from the invisible source on the other side of the bend,
and I tried to coordinate the contracting and stretching of
muscle pairs in my legs, back, and arms to right myself to
a standing position, but my mind wasn't sending out the
proper array of signals. I could not get up. The clash of
approaching rock grew louder, then the knobby tire and
spoked rim of a mountain bike slipped around the corner.
The strength left my arms and stomach muscles, and my
torso toppled backwards to join my butt and legs on the
gravelly road.
" 'You ok?' half-gasped, half-grinned the mountain biker
as he pedaled slowly around my left side. His breathing
was labored and annoyingly loudQit did not belong in
the watershed and I would have told him so had I not
been in such a compromising position. 'Yes, I'm fine.' I
winced as flecks of sweat flew off his flushed face and
peppered my own and the road behind it. 'Good' he
wheezed and continued his grunting ordeal up the road,
around the bend, and out of sight.
"My strength returned to me quickly once I was free of
the biker's gasping and hacking, and I resumed a more
cautious descent of Fish Gulch. As I approached the
bottom, less than one-third of a mile from where the
cyclist had passed, it dawned on me that if mountain
bikers were foolish enough to attack such a steep fire
road, they, in turn, would certainly be foolish enough to
descend it. The potential for breaking the law was great.
So I placed myself in nearby greenery, out of view of
anyone descending the protection road, but still able to
monitor it myself. I was close to the outlet and hoped I
no, I knew I the other RADAR Ranger would appear
should the law be broken. I kept both my hiding place
and my silence for nearly thirty minutes before I heard
the tell tale sounds of rubber pushing aside rock, the
rattle of loose metal fittings, and the scream of wind over
a nylon wind shell. The speeding cyclist was in the open
and just applying her SLR cantilever, low profile, two-
finger-lever type brakes when the other RADAR Ranger
materialized, standing in front of the still moving bike
with legs spread and his K-15 in one outstretched hand.
"I was about to reveal myself when the most amazing
sequence of events occurred. Before the cyclist had a
chance to get off her bike and face the ranger, a second
ranger appeared at the side of the first and pushed his
RADAR gun down with a flurry of speed. Holding the
will-o'-the-wisp at bay, the new ranger's head cocked in
my direction and I could clearly see a wink of the eye, as
if to say, 'This is your law breaker, take her.' Then the
two rangers disappeared! The entire scene lasted no
longer than a split second.
"Maintaining as much of my RADAR Ranger composure
as I could, I walked over to the confused cyclist, who had
not seen the second ranger materialize, but who was still
shaking her head, trying to understand what had
happened to the RADAR Ranger she thought she had
seen. I ignored her puzzled looks and proceeded to write
up the ticket. As I did so, I caught momentary glimpses
of the still struggling RADAR Rangers, first on the north
side of the protection road, then on the south. They were
stationary characters flashing on and off the road at a rate
too fast for normal human eyes to see, lingering only as
ghostly afterimages on my retina. My eyes darted back
and forth from the citation book to these image bursts
several times before I completed the information needed
by the legal system to collect its money. I handed the
filled-out ticket to the mountain biker and watched as she
rode off in the direction of Phoenix Lake, most likely to
leave the watershed through Natalie Coffin Green Park
and return home to find comfort from friends and family.
As for me, I stood my ground.
"More afterimages imprinted themselves on my optic
nerve, but the frequency of their appearances was
dimensioning. Soon they stopped altogether, and I found
myself standing alone in the middle of the intersection of
Fish Gulch, Phoenix Lake, and Eldridge fire protection
roads. But not for long: the second RADAR Ranger
flicked on beside me, smiling and breathing as if she had
just awakened from a relaxing nap."
April June
At the implied gender of this second ranger, the mountain
biker sat up straight and muttered, "She?"
"Yes," rejoined the RADAR Ranger, "She. Slightly taller
than me, she tilted her head down to look at me with steel
grey eyes that projected an understanding and
compassion that I had been longing to see in another
RADAR Ranger's face. She apologized for the behavior
of her companion, explaining that 'Willy's upset, been so
ever since his partner headed up the Sonoma coast a
couple days agoQset out to establish his own pack.
You're also an unknown element to him, so he's trying to
mark his territory, letting you know exactly what your
limits are.'
" 'But he set his limits everywhere I went,' I protested
mildly, not wanting to upset this RADAR Ranger with
whom I felt a strong and immediate rapport.
" 'Willy can get carried away with his enthusiasm for
public service, I agree,' she answered in a sympathetic
tone. 'But please, try to understand his current state of
mind and don't think too harshly of him.'
"I smiled outwardly to her, knodding my head in
agreement. 'Well, I can hardly blame him. With so many
offending bicyclists riding the watershed, I can
empathsize with his desire and enthusiasm to uphold the
law. Bringing down mountain bikers seems so natural
here,' I admitted, thinking of the less than natural chaos
and turmoil on Highway 101.
"She returned my smile, then said, 'Do you know where
Sir Francis Drake Boulevard climbs the hill between
Fairfax and Woodacre?' When I answered in the
affirmative, she continued. 'At the top of the pass, you'll
find a fire protection road on the left side of the street.
Follow that road on foot until you come to the boarded
entrance of an old railroad tunnel. There's an opening
among the boards that you can crawl through. Once
you're in the tunnel, you'll be able to find usQall the
mountain's RADAR Rangers will be there. We have
much to talk about. Be there tonight at 10 o'clock.' She
stopped talking and handed me her business card."
"What did it say?" asked the mountain biker, unable to
contain his curiosity.
"In bold, raised letters on the white surface of the card
were printed the words, 'April June, Head Ranger, Mt.
Tamalpais Watershed.'"
Tunnel
"I returned to the cruiser at sundown a few minutes
before Daryl. Intenting to surprise him with my good
news, I kept as straight a face as I could when he
approached. 'Any luck?' I asked, the excitement I felt
hardening my abdominal muscles in a painful squeeze.
" 'I must have hiked a hundred miles,' he replied slowly
with a long, drawn-out drawl. 'I covered the northeast
side of the watershed I Yolanda, Six Points, Hidden
Meadow, Phoenix, Tucker, Eldridge, Hoo-Koo-E-Koo,
Wheeler I I can't remember all the names, there were so
many of them. And not a single RADAR RangerQI
didn't see one solitary ranger! '
" 'I'm sorry you didn't have any success, Daryl, but I' I
started to say when he cut me short.
" 'No, no, Gordon, I'm not saying I didn't have any
success. I'm just saying that I didn't actually see a ranger.
But I did feel their presence I it's hard to explain, but it's
like when someone is staring at you from behind and you
can almost feel the energy of the stare, but when you turn
around, you don't see anyone. That's the way it was today
out on the watershed. I think they're just checking us out
before they take us in. I bet that by tomorrow afternoon
we'll have made contact.'
" 'Not tomorrow afternoon, Daryl,' I said, my words
floating to him on the back of a low pitched laugh my
stomach could no longer hold in. 'Tonight I we're going
to meet them tonight!' And I related my encounters of
that day. He stood there spellbound and speechless, only
a slow upward twist of the corners of his mouth and a
lifting of shagging eyebrows betraying his feelings.
When I was done talking, I showed him the business card
with April June's name and title emblazoned on it.
" 'My God, Gordon,' he managed after a heavy silence,
'we've made contact with a functioning pack of RADAR
Rangers. And from what you say, they appear whole and
well, not like that stray creature we discovered at Fort
Ross. This is marvelous! Mt. Tamalpais may very well
turn out to be the source from which we all originated I
we'll find out tonight for sure.' I listened to Daryl
speculate about our history and origins until the redish
glow of the LEDs on the cruiser's digital clock showed
9:30 p.m. The abandoned railroad tunnel was a short
drive from Deer Park and we set out with our thirty-
minute headstart to verify Daryl's excited speculations.
"Traffic on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard was light and we
cruised to the top of the hill without another set of
headlights pushing the darkness from our windshield or
reflecting off side view mirrors. Like the current, popular
female bald strip that knifes over the dome of the head,
leaving two erect, tall outcroppings of hair on either side,
the boulevard cut deeply into the summit. But instead of
colorful tattoos portraying sleeping dragons or fighting
dogs, the two sheer, man-made cliffs on either side of
Drake were separated by a hard, black layer of asphalt
with two double yellow lines running down the middle.
Daryl parked the car on a broad shoulder to the right of
the lined asphalt, close to the true summit. As we
hurriedly climbed out of the Mustang and started to move
away from it, I stepped back and reached around the open
door with my left hand and grabbed the spotlight from its
metal clip holder on the dashboard. The halogen lamp
clear of the door, I slammed it shut with my right hand
and ran across the roadway to catch up with Daryl.
"I ran the spotlight left to right along the uneven cut of
cliff facing us. A sheer rock wall unveiled itself under the
wavering yellow light, but without trace of a protection
road entrance. I played the light further to the right, and
then we both saw it at the same time. Thirty yards from
the peak, where the slope of the hill broke away from the
vertical and started its quick descent, a jagged outline in
the top edge of the rock wall indicated the continuation of
an ancient, higher roadbed. That roadway obviously was
much older than Sir Francis Drake Boulevard for its
earthen foundation had been cut out from underneath it to
make way for the newer thoroughfare. I scrambled up the
rocky embankment behind Daryl, easily finding hand and
foot holds. We pushed our way through the low
undergrowth that partially concealed the roadbed's
outline on the edge of the machine-made cliff and started
down the hillside.
"To either side of the fading road, the halogen beam
revealed twisted copses of scrub oaks, gnarled madrones,
and rocky outcroppings whose shadows danced willingly
with the light. The ghostly performance closely
mimicked the excitement I felt and its rhythm the beat of
my heart. One hundred-fifty yards from where we
climbed onto the forgotten roadway, an impression the
width of a railroad sidetrack angled sharply away from
our path and ran toward a small hillock to the left. We
detoured our descent to match the direction of this
discovery and walked fifteen yards where, immediately
to our left, a crisscrossing jumble of boards several
stories high and two-car-lengths wide struggled to
conceal a black hole emerging from yet another slash in
the hillside. Judging by the splintery decay and smell of
spoilage in the lumber, the tunnel had been closed and
left unattended for 100 or more years. But not all
creatures could be kept out: near the top of the edifice,
where the boards did not quite reach the craggy rock
ceiling of the tunnel, a bird's nest of woven twigs, grass,
and roadside litter balanced precariously, its occupants
long gone but sure to return the following spring. And
directly below the nest, at ground level, a gap between
two boards was just as sure to lead to a pack of RADAR
Rangers who were expecting us that very evening.
Labyrinth
"Without discussing our next course of action, Daryl and
I took turns slithering through the waiting gap, first
lifting one leg over the bottom board and bringing it
down on the dirt floor behind, then balancing carefully on
that leg while we each eased our torso and remaining leg
through. When my trailing hand and the spotlight it
clutched joined us in the darkness, I pushed the switch on
the plastic case down and the beam flashed on. Ahead of
us stretched the tunnel on a downward slant, back in the
direction we had just come from. If we followed it for
one hundred-fifty yards, our position would be parallel to
the parked Mustang, only five or ten feet lower. Of
course, several hundred tons of rock and dirt would
prevent us from seeing the car. Accompanied only by the
whisper of cloth and the scrape of shoes, we moved
forward. At any moment, we expected a RADAR Ranger
to appear and lead us to the rest of the pack, answering
our questions as we eagerly followed and telling us of our
history. But one, two, then three minutes of silence
passed and still no RADAR Ranger.
"Daryl was the first to break our silence. 'Are you sure
this is the right tunnel? Could there be another one April
June meant?'
" 'No, I don't think so,' I answered, pausing just long
enough to hear my words bounce off the encircling rock
walls. 'This is the only tunnel I'm aware of on this side of
the mountain. April June described this tunnel, not
another one. This is where we're suppose to be,' and we
walked on. Fifty yards further down the slope, the beam
of the spotlight exposed the entrance to a side passage.
Without hesitating, Daryl turned left into this dark alley
way, motioning me to follow. I stepped into the narrow,
low-ceiling corridor and fell into step behind him. He
marched ahead with a confident stride, my mounting
claustrophobia keeping me in close synch with his every
movement. Daryl didn't appear the least bit worried,
orchestrating our journey through the murky labyrinth as
if he'd followed its pathways one hundred times before.
When I questioned him about our descent into the interior
of the hill, he said not to worry, that his RADAR Ranger
sense of direction had taken over and was guiding us to
the other rangers."
"RADAR Ranger sense of direction?" the mountain biker
asked, absentmindedly inserting his right foot, up to the
top of the waterproof Neoprene (TM) socks he wore, into
the splintered hole underneath the table.
"All rangers have it, although it's more developed in
some than in others. Put a RADAR Ranger at the fork in
a trail and show him the helmet a mountain biker wore or
let him smell his riding socks, and that ranger can follow
the mountain biker to his current location, regardless of
how long ago the cyclist passed by. My sense of direction
wasn't as fully developed as Daryl's then, so I trusted his
skill to find the others."
"How's your sense of direction now?" asked the mountain
biker, looking up sheepishly at the RADAR Ranger while
his right foot worked quietly to widen the hole.
"Fully developed," smiled the RADAR Ranger, showing
off the gold cap on his lower right bicuspid. "But Daryl
was leading that night and I was following. He didn't
need the beam from the spotlight to find his way, but I
was in no mind to turn it off. If I had been thinking more
conservatively, I would have switched it off because
within twenty minutes of entering the tunnel, the bulb
burned out and we were left standing in an oppressively
thick darkness. Only Daryl's confidence kept me from
suffocating in my own fright I his confidence and the
light that crackled from the matches he struck every so
often to confirm his bearings. He turned right and left
seemingly at random. At times the passageways were so
wide that I couldn't touch either wall with my arms
outspread. At other times, they were so narrow and low,
we had to stoop at the waist to get through.
"Once, for ten miserable minutes, we had to slither along
on our bellies, Daryl leading of course, me with my nose
close to his heels. When we reached the end of this low
tunnel, we turned into another with a diameter large
enough to allow us to move forward on our hands and
knees. This tunnel ran at an oblique angle to the one we
had just been in, and we followed it until we could stand
up comfortably again. Daryl lit a match and we saw yet
another narrow tunnel flicker ahead of us on a downward
slant. The ceiling of this one was hanging with drooping
spider webs, some dangling alone, others clustered in
dusty shrouds. Staring at them gave me a chill, and I
looked down at a floor covered with thick mold. Daryl's
match guttered, then died and we were covered with
darkness, but this time I was thankful because it blocked
from view the ancient tunnel's hoary vestments.
"I was about to ask Daryl if he knew how much further
we had to go when I jumped back, a pressure bearing
down on my shoulder. 'Shhhhh,' he whispered and fell
silent, the full weight of his hand still resting where he
had placed it on my shoulder. I remained rooted next to
him, the hairs on the nape of my neck bristling.
SomewhereQin front or behind, I couldn't tell whichQa
faint noise floated to us. Daryl listened a moment or two
longer, then grabbed my arm and pulled me forward into
the unholy tunnel. A veil of cobwebs seized my face and
I wiped at them desperately with my free hand. In my
blind panic, I breathed several of the dusty strands into
my nose and began coughing. Daryl stopped, and I could
hear his feet slide over the slippery floor as he turned
around to face me. A movement of air rushed past my
right ear and I flew forward into him, the smack of his
hand on my upper back throwing me off balance. We
both tumbled into the moldy goo on the floor, the impact
completely dislodging from my throat the cobwebs
Daryl's unexpected and unsettling swat had failed to
move.
" 'Sorry, I wanted to stop your coughs before I' he was
saying to me when another sound descended on us.
" 'Fritz, where's Fritz? What have you done to Fritz?'
Then, 'I'm coming to get youuuuu.'"
"Daryl was on his feet, pulling me to my own before I
could muster the strength to cry out, 'Who are you? What
do you want with us?'
" 'Get a hold of yourself I act like a RADAR Ranger!'
he shouted and headed deeper into the tunnel with me in
tow. Behind us I could hear soft panting and the shadowy
scrape of boots over the slimy chamber floor, then 'I
coming to get youuuuu.' I accelerated into RADAR
Ranger speed and shot past Daryl, his hand still grasping
my arm. Behind us, footsteps quickened to match our
own, the words moving in a steady stream past my ears:
'Fritz, where is Fritz? What have you done to Fritz?
Where I' Ahead of me the tunnel continued to slope
downward, 'to hell?' I wondered. As if to bear out my
fears, a faint glow filled the far end of the shaft. 'The fires
of hell?' Possibly, but I kept running forward, convinced
that I had a better chance in the nether world than with
the night beast behind us.
"The strange radiance grew brighter and revealed a tunnel
that was expanding in all directions. Our legs carried us
into the middle of the chamber whose gently curved
walls rose to a height much greater than that of the old
train tunnel we had first entered. I could only see the
peak of this ceiling by craning back my neck at a sharp
angle. A diameter of fifty feet spanned the base of
upcurving walls and added to the impressive size.
Directly in front of us, the chamber narrowed into
another shaft and it was for that dark hole that I headed.
Daryl, however, pulled me back and pointed at an
elaborately sculpted archway to our immediate left. Two
huge wooden doors, each hung to one side, filled the
opening.
" 'That's where they are,' he said. 'Behind those doors.'
We sprinted for them, but before we could lift our fists to
alert those within that we were present, a figure suddenly
appeared next to us. Tall and gaunt, he wore the uniform
of a Mt. Tamalpais RADAR Ranger. It was the will-o'-
the-wisp who had haunted me on the watershed earlier in
the day. Walking menacingly towards us, he chanted in
his flat voice, 'Fritz, where's Fritz? What have you done
to Fritz?' Willy's eyes were blank, and he reminded me of
the RADAR Ranger on the Sonoma coast. The world of
RADAR Rangers had once again been reduced to a
confrontation with a mindless creature, this time in a
subterranean chamber from hell. 'There is no RADAR
Ranger pack on Tam we can join,' I thought. 'There are
no packs anywhere.' The whole series of events that day
had been a dreadful illusion. We were alone again.
"Having resigned myself to an unending lifetime in hell
in that one instant, I shook myself loose from Daryl's
grasp and steeled myself for whatever misery was to
come. Willy's rough hands were descending over my
head when the double doors behind us sprang open and
April June stepped between us. 'You're late,' she said,
then calmly shuffled Willy through the open doors into
the next room. Daryl and I exchanged puzzled glances,
then followed after the mindless ranger."
Pack
"The room was large, but not as large as the chamber we
had just come through. Unlike that outside chamber, this
room's obvious source of luminescence were four 100
watt light bulbs, each hanging from the twelve-foot-high
ceiling on steel chains. Lamp shades woven from rattan
diffused the glare of the bulbs' energy, and the room had
a warm, friendly feeling to it. Including April June and
Willy, seven RADAR Rangers flanked the walls, each
looking at Daryl and me with less than friendly stares.
April June was the first to speak.
" 'I apologize again for Willy's behavior,' she said, 'but I
expected you much earlier. Had you taken the second
shaft off the main railroad tunnel instead of the first, you
could have walked down the staircase directly to this
room.'
" 'Second shaft? Staircase?' I repeated, looking at Daryl
who merely shrugged his shoulders.
" 'We built the stairway to avoid the maze you found
yourselves in tonight,' explained April June. 'Willy
wandered away while we were waiting, and you know
the rest.'
" 'Why was Willy mumbling on about Fritz like that?'
asked Daryl. 'How do you know about Fritz, anyway?'
"April June stared at Daryl for long moments with her
cold, steel grey eyes. Several of the RADAR Rangers
shifted their positions uneasily against the wall during the
lull, causing both Daryl and myself to nervously look
around. Of the seven present, all were men except for one
other female. 'RADAR Rangers are pack animals,' April
June finally spoke. 'I think you know that already. We
work and live as a team and have a special bond among
us. It's not telepathy, but we're able to keep track of the
whereabouts and needs of our members. When you
neutralized Fritz, we all felt it, but it was too late for us to
do anything for him.'
" 'Was Fritz a member of this pack?' a subdued Daryl
asked.
" 'Yes, he was. But he wasn't content with bringing down
bicycles to uphold the law. He wanted to bring down
larger and more powerful vehicles.'
" 'Like cars, trucks, vans, motorhomes, and big rigs?' I
couldn't help but interrupt.
" 'Yes,' nodded the head RADAR Ranger. 'Like cars,
trucks, vans, motorhomes, and big rigs. From the very
beginning, he was fascinated with engines and motors.
'Bicycles,' he often told us, 'depress me.' When he strayed
from the watershed into the headlands and brought down
State officials in their pickup trucks, I knew that
something had to be done. That's when I asked him if
he'd like to establish his own pack where the big vehicles
ran. Of course, he said 'yes' and that's how he came to the
Highway 101 corridor between Novato and the Golden
Gate Bridge.'
" 'Is that when he made me into a RADAR Ranger?' I
asked, feeling less timid as April June talked.
" 'You were the first member of his pack, yes. We all
figured Fritz had chosen well when he picked youQyou
were already an upholder of the law, of sorts, and only
needed to have your natural instincts fully awakened.
Unfortunately, it was after he had converted you that
Fritz learned of the ill-fated episode with your sister. The
mental anguish you suffered interfered with the natural
process of reshaping you into a RADAR Ranger.
Regardless of Fritz' efforts, you were unable to cope with
the high horse-powered, fast-paced law breakers of
Highway 101.'
" 'And Daryl?' I pushed further. 'Fritz changed Daryl
because he was dissatisfied with me?'
"April June smiled a knowledgeable smile. 'Your human
emotions are strong, aren't they?' she laughed and the
other rangers in the room relaxed noticeably, mimicking
her laughter. 'No, Gordon, he wasn't dissatisfied with
you. He was saddened that the first of his pack did not
share in his delight for bringing down big vehicles. By
nature, we prefer to hunt in packs, but hunting as a lone
predator is tolerable as long as we have the pack to return
to. Fritz was able to hunt alone as long as he did because
he was comfortable with you as a pack member.
However, when the pressures of being a lone predator
became too great, he found Daryl and converted him.'"
"April June paused in her narration, the smile on her lips
still comforting me. There was a question I wanted
answered and during that pause I carefully selected the
words to ask it. 'Fritz was always angry with me,' I
started, 'and his anger seemed to escalate as time passed.
Did I provoke him into those dark moods?'
"More laughter from the head ranger and her pack. 'Fritz
was an actor, a chameleon of sorts, just like Willy here,'
she explained, tapping the will-o'-the-wisp on his back.
'In fact, Fritz and Willy used to run as a pair before his
departure. No, Fritz wasn't insanely mad at you I he was
acting out his fantasies, playing the tough guy. He had an
anger deep inside him, but that was there before he
changed you, and I don't think it surfaced as often as you
imagine. Near the end, what you may have seen as anger
was probably something closer to confusion. His pack
was falling apart and he didn't know how to stop it. That
was my fault.'
"I looked up at her in surprise. 'What do you mean your
fault?'
" 'I let Fritz go too soon. He didn't know enough about
being a RADAR Ranger to lead a pack. He was more of a
pup than an adult when he left us. If I had held him back
longer, I think he would have made it.'
" 'Where is Fritz now?' ventured Daryl who had been
uncharacteristically quiet during April June's narration.
"At that question, the smiles faded from the lips of all the
RADAR Rangers and I could see them nervously shifting
their weight against the walls upon which they leaned.
Again, April June answered. "Fritz sat in his patrol car
just as you left him for over a day. By the time we got to
him, it was too late.'"
"He did die, then, didn't he?" broke in the mountain
biker.
"Neutralization doesn't kill us," answered the RADAR
Ranger, "it strips away our RADAR Ranger nature, a fate
worse than death. No, Fritz didn't die. Within weeks of
his neutralization, he was hired as a State ranger at China
Camp where he's still in charge of building and
maintaining single tracks for mountain bicycles." The
RADAR Ranger lowered his head in a moment of
silence, his eyes clouded over by the painful memory.
The mountain biker, in the meantime, had worked both
his Durango (TM) SPD Compatible MTB shoes into the
yawning hole at his feet. When the RADAR Ranger
raised his head, the mountain biker looked at him and
smiled weakly.
"Daryl was growing in confidence and next asked the
question whose answer we had both longed for, the
question that Fritz had been too immature to answer:
'What are our origins?'"
Origins
" 'Before the late 1970s,' began April June without
hesitation, 'very few bicycles were on the mountain.
Young children pedaling on the lower slopes was all.
Nothing like the chaos you see today. I was a regular
ranger then, hired to keep the watershed in ecological
balance while working with hikers and equestrians to
satisfy their recreational needs. In the last few years of
the '70s, a new element invaded the watershedQteenage
delinquents and other lawless young adults riding single
speed bicycles. Not satisfied with the lower slopes and
unable to pedal the machines up the mountain easily, they
packed their bikes into pickup trucks and drove to the
upper ridges where they sped recklessly down single
tracks and fire protection roads to the lower levels. You
didn't have to be a RADAR Ranger I besides there
weren't any yet I to know that racing a bicycle down a
mountain dirt road was unnatural. Had anyone ever seen
a deer or a squirrel race a bicycle on the watershed? Of
course not, it just wasn't part of the natural order.'
" 'At that time, a popular descent for the growing band of
law breakers was Cascade Canyon fire road. It branched
off San Geronimo ridge and dropped into a Fairfax park
where riders piled their bikes into waiting pickup trucks,
drove back to the ridge and repeated the reckless process.
I had heard about these high speed descents and drove
over to the canyon early on a Saturday morning to see for
myself. I arrived before any of the cyclists and hid in the
bushes next to the end of the Canyon road. Sure enough,
by 10 a.m. the cyclists started descending into the park,
clouds of dust billowing out behind them, a crazed look
in their eyes.'
" 'A few of these riders were so out of control, smoke
billowed out of their rear wheel brakes. Smoke! Acrid
smoke from burning grease was destroying the tranquility
of that peaceful canyon. I even saw flames licking around
the outer edges of the brake's metal housing. The dust,
the noise, the smoke, the smell, the flamesQsomething
physical in me, at the most basic cellular level, was
turning, trying to put an end to this unnatural scene. My
body was trembling violently, a cold sweat soaking
through my ranger uniform.
" 'Then came the sight that crystalized the great change in
me: an old guy, at least fifty-years-old, came barreling
down Cascade Canyon, dust and smoke trailing behind
his fat rear wheel. When he reached the bottom, he
jumped off his bike, tossed some water onto the rear
brake from a bottle of water, watched it sizzle the metal
housing to coolness, then dismantled the brake and
repacked it with new bearings. When he was done,
someone along the side of the ride yelled to him, 'Heh,
Bob, you ready to do it again?' and this old Bob guy nods
his head 'yes' and throws his bike in the back of a waiting
pickup and leaves for the ridge!'
"April June took a deep breath from her diaphragm, her
chest expanding with the inrushing air. Holding it in for
half a minute, she expelled the air out slowly through her
dry, parted lips, and continued. 'Seeing the old guy
perform his unnatural, mechanical ritual at the base of my
mountain sealed the change. From that moment on, I
have been what you see now.'"
The mountain biker's lower jaw hung open, a look of
disbelief crossing his face. "April June, the mother of all
RADAR Rangers!" he whistled.
"Yes," acknowledged the RADAR Ranger, "April June is
the mother from which all RADAR Rangers have
sprung."
"But how do you become I I mean, you were fully
grown when I uh I I still don't understand how the rest
of you I uh I do your springing from April June."
The RADAR Ranger pushed himself up off the chair
again and walked back to the window he had been drawn
to all evening. "April June said it was a lot like
spontaneous combustion. When the conditions were
right, people who had the basic ingredients for becoming
creatures of higher actionQRADAR RangersQwould be
changed by the lingering energy patterns from her own
transformation. Those patterns would act as a template,
setting up the change in the receptive cells of the
individual. She also said that her original patterns of
energy would never disappear, perhaps even increasing in
strength as more and more receptives were transformed."
"How many of you are on the mountain now?" asked the
cyclist.
"Twelve," came the reply.
"And I suppose these disciples of April June will
continue to increase in number?" the cyclist said, rocking
noiselessly back and forth on his chair, both his feet now
poking through the opening under the shadows of the oak
table.
"Yes, the time is now good for more changes," admitted
the ranger, still gazing into the blackness on the other
side of the four-paned window. "And April June says that
distance can't diminish the intensity and strength of her
original energy waves. They're everywhere powerful at
the same time."
"Everywhere powerful at the same time," repeated the
mountain biker, quietly concentrating on pushing his
knees through the hole under the table. "I suppose these
energy waves could affect people in Crested Butte and
Slick Rock the same as here?" His waist slid through the
opening just as his feet touched the dry soil under Sky
Oaks Ranger Station.
"Yes," intoned the RADAR Ranger in a slow drawl. "But
now that you know so much, I think there's one last thing
you and I should discuss." And he turned around to face
the empty oak table, the chair behind pushed back against
the rough plank wall. Without changing his expression,
the RADAR Ranger spun around on the heel of his boot
to face the window. The sound of rock crunching under
two fat tires led his gaze to a mountain bike stealing into
the darkness along a single track in front of the station.
"Riding on watershed lands after sunset is against the
law," he said to his reflection in the window, and he
headed for the door, feeling for the black, leather-bound
citation book in his jacket pocket.
Epilog
"He got away from you last night?" April June's voice
was hard and cold.
"Yes," murmured Gordon. "I thought I had him down by
Bull Frog, but he must have doubled back on me and left
the watershed through the Meadow Club."
"And the speeding ticket down Rocky Ridge, what about
that?" growled the mother of all RADAR Rangers. "Why
didn't you give him his citation?"
"I'm sorry, April June, I just got carried away. He's one of
the last, you know, and when he asked to hear about the
life of a RADAR Ranger up there on the ridge, I was I
well I I was taken aback, kind of flattered actually. So
instead of writing out the ticket there and then, I threw
his bike in the back of the truck and brought him down to
the station. I just forgot it in the telling of the tale."
Gordon dared not look at the angry head ranger sitting in
the passenger seat next to him, didn't have to look to
know that she was drilling, probing, into his skull with
her steel-cold eyes.
"Your head still isn't straight, Gordon," she let out in an
evenly modulated voice, one that Gordon knew was
barely under control. "Emotions, Gordon, emotions! You
still haven't got them under control. A man of higher
action has to control his emotions for the public good.
How many years has it been since you've worn that tattoo
on your chest?"
Gordon knew how many yearsQcould still feel the prick
of the artist's needle on his skin as if it were yesterdayQ
but he kept his silence, knowing full well that April June
didn't need him to tell her. His chin settled pensively onto
his decorated chest, then was suddenly snapped up and
backward as Daryl downshifted into second to make the
next steep ascent up Eldridge fire road. These modified,
Delux 30 Chevrolet pickups really packed a wallop he
thought: Venola forged blower pistons, Crower rods,
magnefluxed crankshaft, Paxton centrifugal supercharger
forced induction system I A legacy of Fritz.
Eldridge
"Do you think he's the same one who's been decorating
the trees at the Rocky Ridge/Rock Springs intersection?"
Gordon heard April June ask over the roar of the pickup's
high-performance engine.
For the past fifteen years, someone had been hanging
Christmas ornaments on a little pine tree that stood at the
roads' intersection. Colorful, dangling bulbs, silver tinsel,
strings of glittery beads, hand-carved figures from the
nativity, even a delicate star perched at the spindly top.
Decorating trees on the watershed during the holidays, of
course, was against the law (unnatural, too, according to
April June) and the rangers had attempted to catch this
yuletide desecrator of the watershed. Despite careful
watches, no one was apprehended in the act. In fact,
during one changing of the guard, the perpetrator
managed to string glowing, colored lights around the
little tree, the lights powered through a converter that was
running off two 12-volt car batteries wired in parallel.
The skills of this individual wereQApril June fumed
when she admitted itQon par with those of the
mountain's RADAR Rangers.
"I don't know," conceded Gordon, wishing she had asked
Daryl so that he would have been the one to confess
failure. But she hadn't and Gordon was feeling the onus
of her anger as the pickup hungrily devoured the hills on
its way up to Ridgecrest, the paved road that wound
around East Peak, ran past where the Mountain Theatre
used to sit (closed years before because of high levels of
asbestos in the topsoil), and then tumbled along the
north/south ridge that overlooked Stinson Beach on the
Pacific Ocean. "But there's only about fifty of the bikers
who still ride the mountain," he said in an effort to
change the unfavorable tenor of the conversation. "We'll
catch himQor themQsoon enough. We've been
successful in bringing down the other law breakers, we'll
get them, too. Why, only a few years ago, thousands used
to ride up here. Look at it now."
Gordon's logic brought a small smile to April June's thin
lips and she nodded agreement. Before he could continue
elaborating their successes, the pickup's radio crackled to
life. "April June," the voice of Willy came through the
under-the-dash mounted speakers. "A lookout on East
Peak just reported seeing a mountain biker go up the
Northside trail off Upper Eldridge. What do you want us
to do?"
April June snatched the radio's microphone from its clip
and asked, "Where are you now?"
"On Lagunitas, near Rock Springs," came the answer.
"Drive up to Potrero Picnic area and block that exit," she
shouted in an uncharacteristically high-pitched, excited
voice. "Call in another vehicle and have them block the
lower exit just below Lagoon Road. It's too late for the
three of us here to catch him at Upper Eldridge, but we
should be able to block any retreat he attempts by hiking
down Miller to Northside and waiting there. Call us if
you hear anything new." She hurriedly recradled the
microphone on the dash, and, at her signal, Daryl opened
the pickup's nitrous oxide line into the fuel injectors and
the three rangers raced toward Miller at RADAR Ranger
speed.
Miller
Gordon braced himself for the rugged ride over the rocks
and ruts of Upper Eldridge. Driving at this speed was
manageable on paved roads, but on the rough surfaces of
fire roads like Eldridge, even his stoic RADAR Ranger
nature suffered the jarring bumps and jolts with
discomfort. The seat belt straining over his lap and across
his chest, he was momentarily envious of Willy, that
ranger's partner, and their new companion riding up the
friendlier and smoother incline of Rock Springs. Willy
had regained his RADAR Ranger normalcy with the
return and restoration to health of his original partner I
the former two-dimensional, celluloid RADAR Ranger of
the Sonoma coast. The two were model rangers and April
June had assigned the new recruit, riding with them
today, for indoctrination. The change had proceeded so
smoothly that the new female recruit was scheduled for a
tattooing session in Forest Knolls weeks earlier than any
of the rangers who had come before her. Gordon secretly
hoped that he would be the one to catch the single-
tracking mountain biker and regain some of his RADAR
Ranger credibility.
With the continuous influx of nitrous oxide spinning the
truck's four-wheel drive tires, the three RADAR Rangers
arrived at Miller Trail within minutes of having heard
Willy's call, but not before the lone mountain biker had
crossed the intersection of that trail with Northside. Two-
thirds of a breakneck hike down Miller toward the
junction, the walkie-talkie hanging on Daryl's leather belt
signaled an incoming call. April June, breathing more
normally than the other two, yanked the radio from
Daryl's hands as he brought it up to his mouth to answer,
and said in a steady voice, "April June here. What do you
have to report?"
"We saw him at the picnic area not less than one minute
ago, but he saw us first and doubled back," Willy's voice
squawked over the radio's circuits.
A big, RADAR Ranger grin spread quickly over April
June's face. "We've got him now!" she said to both sets of
rangers, the three at the other end of the radio link and
the two puffing noisely beside her. She handed the
walkie-talkie back to Daryl, then sped down the trail
toward Northside, the two rangers falling behind her
lengthening strides.
Northside
"No one's been back this way on a mountain bike," she
announced a minute later, looking closely at the square of
dirt where the two single tracks boldly crossed. "He's got
to be between us and Rock Springs." Before the speed of
her legs could match the intensely determined look on
her face, April June stood straight up and threw both
arms out at shoulder height, a barrier to the two men
behind her. The startled rangers were about to speak, but
she motioned them to silence and pointed to a movement
of color among the trees 75 yards ahead. The three
RADAR Rangers moved quickly, but quietly, along the
trail to the site, then stood looking down at a splash of
green on the hillside below the trail. To normal eyes, the
spot was just another green smudge of vegetation. But the
six eyes scrutinizing it now weren't normal eyes.
"It's a Stealth Mt. Bike Cover (TM)!" Gordon vocalized,
hoping that April June would credit him with a greater
share of the capture because he had said it first.
The mother of all RADAR Rangers ignored his
comment. Instead, she shouted at the finely meshed
camouflage cover, "Nice try, but we see you. Come up
now." Expecting the cover to balloon out into the shape
of a human figure, April June unleashed her frustration
when it remained motionless. "All right. I'm not playing
any more games with you," she screamed. "One of my
rangers is coming down and you better come up without
any trouble. If you give us any kind of hassle, I'll see that
your fine is doubled."
"Whooaaa!" thought Gordon. "A thousand dollars. He'll
be up in no time." But when he didn't come, April June
motioned Gordon down the embankment to bring up the
law breaker. Gordon, his heart beating to the tune of
'Onward Christian Soldiers,' slid down the hill to unmask
the mountain biker and earn himself new respect in the
eyes of April June and his fellow rangers. Grasping one
frayed corner of the green army net with two trembling
hands, he plucked the light weight web from the ground.
Watershed
When the flurry of leaves that had been scattered on top
of the mesh settled to the damp earth, Gordon gasped and
let the Stealth Mt. Bike Cover (TM) fall from his hands.
At his feet lay a lifeless arrangement of dry-rotted
branches, a rock the size of a helmeted mountain biker
head placed at one end. Above the jumbled form, a howl
of rage split apart the cold morning air. Lacking both the
courage and desire to look up, Gordon listlessly climbed
the slippery yards separating him from the trail edge.
April June had already pulled out her new prescription
and was pouring a draught of it into the jigger-sized
plastic cap that topped the bottle. Damitol (TM), Proctor
& Johnson's newest miracle drug for the hypertense,
brought April June the fastest and longest lasting relief.
Gordon was happy to see her put away two capfuls, twice
her normal dosage.
The reddish brown liquid safely back in her coat pocket,
April June used Daryl's walkie-talkie to call the two
teams of RADAR Rangers on Rock Springs. After a long
conversation with both parties, the mother of all RADAR
Rangers leaned dejectedly against a madrone whose
gnarled roots pushed up through the trail at her feet.
Shrouds of water vapor condensed in front of her face,
and she pawed at the roots with her boots like an
exhausted bull.
"Whenever he gets away, our chances of bringing him
down the next time only increase," asserted Gordon,
knowing that if he didn't change this defeat into a victory,
the wrath of April June would be his alone. "Besides,
Willy brought down a speeding equestrian and the others
cited a hiker on the fire road while we were waiting
here." Gordon knew that these little successes would
brighten April June's spirits. She had long believed that
horseback riding on the watershed was unnatural I "I've
never seen a squirrel or a deer riding a horse in the
watershed, have you? she was fond of saying and had
subjected horses to the same 5 mph posted speed limit
reserved for mountain bikers. Hikers, of course, had long
been banned from protection roads, ever since Fritz had
complained that they got in the way of his high-powered
pickups.
"Yes, you're right," agreed April June. "We will get him
next time. All those two-wheeled bandits will be gone
soon. And the number of law breaking hikers and
equestrians has been declining, too. No, I shouldn't get
upset like this, Gordon. Before long, we'll have the finest
public, recreational watershed on the west coast."
--
Submitted by John Boeschen <boeschen@crl.com>