Boogie oogie oogie till you just can't boogie no more. The dog’s whines and yips for treats accompanied the song thundering over the PA system until the night closed in and exiled the sun. We were at the military camp in Yellowstone.
Grumbling, Frazer shoved me over to a chair, the seat was metal and very cold. Apparently, I was the enemy.
“You were captured trying to get into our camp. Why?” My interrogator was a total hard body, a clean-cut young man, very fuckable but not, alas, for an old woman like me.
I gave him a bright smile. “It’s so nice to be with you,” I said. “It can’t be wrong with you at my side, you’re such a magnet and I am,” I batted my eyelashes at him, “I am the steel.” The song ended about then and his expression got dark. I guess he didn’t like being laughed at when he was being a tough guy. Probably one of those men who never asked their partner what they wanted in bed, he just did it his way. A pity.
“She’s not cooperating”, he remarked to Frazer, who was leaning up against the tent post. I noticed he was looking a little thin. I’d have to have him over for dinner soon. The two other soldiers were guarding the entrance from the dark.
“That generally takes some time,” interrupted the Gryphon. A man I knew intimately strode in and filled the tent with his presence. He always had a knack for taking over a room.
I smiled at the newcomer. “Why, Lt. Lyon, I do declare, I never thought to see you here.”
He gave me an amused look. “She’s always been difficult,” he assured the butch young man. To me, he asked, “What are you doing here, Evangeline?”
“How could I stay away? I was reflecting on the buffalo meat and the venison cooked on the embers in your lovely terrorist camp and I just couldn’t resist, the smell was too strong.” Even in here, the stench of slaughtered animals was overwhelming.
“We’re not a terrorist camp, Evie,” he countered mildly.
“Well, you are certainly terrorizing all those buffalo and deer out there.” I said. I bent my head sideways to indicate the wide open spaces beyond the tent flap. “How do you like it? More, more, more, that’s all the government thinks of in what is laughingly called our democracy. We don’t need another missile silo launch site, and even if we did, it doesn’t need to be here.”
Gryphon leaned over me, placed both of his fine strong hands on the back of my chair, just behind my shoulder blades and got his face within inches of mine. “You know the threat, it’s got to be done and we’re relocating the big animals as humanely as possible, and we’re as sorry as you not all make it.”
“As much as I don’t want to upset our happy home, husband, you should know me by now.” I stretched my neck up to kiss him.
“You can ring my bells anytime, love, but I have a job to do and I will stop you and your bunch of crazies by any means possible.”
I smiled at him with steel. “You can try, honey.”
He stood up and addressed the two guards. “Take her back to the entrance of the park and drop her off, she can find her own way home from there, she’s used to it.”
I regretted to see his mouth tighten at that. We were going to have to have a conversation about that soon.
The two young men, ooh, no, my mistake, the young man and young woman lifted me up with a hand under each armpit and I waved goodbye with my free forearm. They walked me to their jeep as another Hit of the ‘70’s paraded by our eardrums and were as good as my husband’s word, dropping me just outside the park entrance, where the protesters were encamped.
I could hear my colleague, Bryan, doing his nightly speech. I always enjoyed it, as he usually paraphrased Shakespeare. Tonight he had chosen Hamlet.
“To vent or not to vent, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler for the U.S. to drill down and vent the Super Volcano, thereby potentially blowing us all to kingdom come, NOW, or to raise our voices in protest, and by our protests, stop their dangerous plans, and wait. Wait and hope that this sleeping volcano rests in peace for another 100,000 years, NAY, if not forever as this ball of rock we live on cools.
They cannot guarantee their plans will work, or even assure us it is necessary. The changes they chart in topography may be normal, they can’t be sure. But what we can be sure of is that they are risking all our lives, and not just ours, here in the U.S.; but the entire world’s with this mad scheme of theirs.”
He continued and so did I. I was exhausted and needed to lie down. I had gotten what I went for and we were going to need another council of war soon. Bryan was just appealing to the popular reason for what the army was doing at Yellowstone, but there were more important issues at stake.
---By Carla Blaschka, 1/2/2012
Written alongside Purple Mark Wirth, Philip Bernier-Smith & Jennifer Reed Schonberger at The Bauhaus.
Prompts: Page 93:
- "Grumbling, Frazer shoved me over to a chair, the seat was metal and very cold."John DeChancie. Starriggers. Page 93
- "'That generally takes some time,' interrupted the Gryphon." Lewis Carroll. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Page 93.
- "On the buffalo-meat and the venison cooked on the embers." Henry Wadworth Longfellow. Evangeline. Page 93.
- Various Hit’s of the ‘70’s heard while we were writing.
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