IWW Olympia Branch
Train Riding Subcommittee
Black Hills Special Reportback 5
Fellow Worker! Hello and how do you do. Gonzo Wobbly here, at your service and ready to deploy the full array of reporting for the unstoppable cause of our revolution against the wage system destroying the entire planet. Coming to you late from the trenches and the frontlines of the sacrificial rural regions of the corpse we call America, I have here for you the next installment of the Black Hills Special Reportback. A feast for the eyes! A buffet for the soul! A soup kitchen for the mind!
Narrator voice: When last we left our heroes they were knee deep in cat piss in a small town dive bar, surrounded by hostile locals and stranded without a spare tire.
“Well why don’t you have a spare?”
“I don’t know lady. ‘Why don’t you have a spare?’ I don’t know. ‘Why are you fucked?’ I don’t know, but we are, okay, that’s the situation.”
“You need three things when you come out here, you understand, you need money, gas, and a spare tire.”
“Yeah okay.”
Bobby wasn’t taking any shit from the bartender, a 100 year old woman who looked like she came out of the walls like those fucking fish-men come out of the pirate ship walls in the movie. You know the one? Anyway..
“So what do you do?” She asks me.
Barnacles!
“Uh, I’m just an anonymous patron of your bar.”
“No, not here you’re not, you better explain yourself. What do you use that tool belt for?”
“You know in cities you can just get a coffee and nobody cares who you are.”
“Well this isn’t the city.”
“I’m camping.”
“Camping, huh.”
“Yeah.”
She’s not verbing it.
You see fellow worker, we had to be at this bar because we were stranded in the middle of nowhere and this bar had the only working telephone in the area. Bobby’s van was on the side of the road a mile away with a shredded tire.
“Shredded tire? Is that the one I shot with my shotgun?”
Great. They’re already making jokes about shooting.
I don’t think that sweet old lady believed my story about going camping, seeing as I have no gear, except a tool belt. Bobby, dressed in his university’s colors, brought the drone with him from the vehicle. The drone which is in a weird gray cube carrying case. So here’s us. Myself a filthy raccoon and Bobby the clean university square bear, appearing out of nowhere in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a strange gray cube and lies.
They didn’t believe a word either of us said, which was wise of them considering all we did was lie. Actually Bobby did let on that we had just met, which is a truth, but he said we met “camping.” As if that’s a way to meet people.
It’s clear they think we’re drug dealers or something so the bartender asks to see what’s in the gray cube and Bobby obliges, making things even worse.
“You better not fly that thing on my property or I’ll shoot it out of the fuckin sky!”
I must have heard them say that six thousand times that night. I’m sure they’re still slapping each other on the back, reminiscing about the time they said that.
“You see I’m a grad student trying to do a project on the Ogallala aquifer.” Bobby says, to explain the drone.
“I know what an aquifer is, okay? I’m not fucking stupid.” This drunk woman at the bar locks onto Bobby with a tractor beam.
“Okay?”
“What are you guys REALLY doing out here? Who are you? You working for Big Data? We’re not stupid, we know what those things do. They scan. They tag. What are you doing out here? You come in here, you don’t announce anything, don’t say who you are or where you’re from. You come in here you tell us, you say what your business is and how it’s going to benefit you and how it’s going to benefit us. And if we approve then go ahead. But I’m going to tell you right now. Nobody here is going to approve of having one of those...things flying around their property.”
“I’ll shoot it out of the fucking sky!”
“That’s right, I’ll shoot it out of the fucking sky too!”
On and on, all night, this thing about how we’re supposed to walk in the door and in a loud and clear voice give our autobiography and business to everyone.
Hello everyone! My name is Gonzo Wobbly from the IWW, Olympia branch, train riding subcommittee. I’m here as part of an advanced recon expedition. By this time next year these hills should be positively teeming with anarchists, communists, and muslim terrorists. You see, we’re going to expropriate all your property, burn this bar down, and impose sharia law. Also, does anyone have any daughters? I’m going to need them. As for yourselves, you’ll have to become homosexuals and perform bestiality upon request for the entertainment our Big Data overlords.
If I was going to be honest.
Instead, when I was questioned about what my stake in this game was, I replied:
“I was just giving him a ride to the bar so we could get a tow truck for the van.”
“But why? What’s in it for you?”
“To help?”
“Nobody does anything for free.”
At this point instead of expounding the miracles of mutual aid, I abort the conversation by going full wingnut:
“You see most people believe that, but they also believe Santa Claus isn’t real. I do believe he’s real, you see, it goes back to the last ice age...”
The green light fades from her eyes and she disengages. Before she can rally a mob of angry drunks to “fuck us up,” headlights shine in the window and it’s the tow truck come to rescue us.
We spend the night under the stars in the Walmart parking lot. We talked about how many times they said they’d shoot it out of the fucking sky and how many times they told us they’d fuck us up and about how smart they were to not trust us and about what we’d say to them now.
Bobby said to me:
“But dude, when they said they were getting married?”
“Yeah?”
“Come on.”
“What?”
“You said congratulations.”
“That’s just what you say.”
“Not to them.”
In the morning we got the tire replaced at the Walmart mechanic and then Bobby left to get back to school in Nebraska.
Next time, on: The Black Hills Special Reportback
Nazi goons? Broken bones? Drugs? Futuristic technology? A way to love again? Find out next time! Or don’t! It’s your life!
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