Anarchy

Anarchy




Gregor gave the impression of being gruff and inaccessible but anyone who took the trouble to step past the first impression encountered a man both warm and humorous. He was sixty, wrinkled and puffed and sat every day in the café from nine in the morning until ten thirty.

Two friends joined him most days, one a tall thin man so cadaverous and pale he reminded literary people of Poe’s Roderick Usher, the other a short roly-poly man with a red nose. Rudolf, the tall one, was an anarchist, very active in the movement. He perceived dark conspiracies everywhere sometimes when they were actually there but often when they were not. The roly-poly one, Andrew, was a Buddhist nominally but really an eclectic. On days he was feeling particularly mystical he quoted Krishnamurti, Lao Tse, Eckhart and Mencius all in the same breathless paragraph. For a living Rudolf wrote underwriter’s contracts for an insurance firm and Andrew was the minister of a small Unitarian church. Gregor was a painter living on a pension so tiny that his pals usually paid for the tea and cookies, allowing Gregor to pay every tenth time or so as a face saving measure.

The three men lived in a cold Northern city where the fierce dog of winter held the earth in its bitter teeth seven months a year. During these months the three wrapped up like arctic explorers in parkas, mitts, scarves, neck-warmers, gigantic boots, etcetera. But in the spring when the first really warm days arrived, they emerged from their winter cocoons and, arriving at the café in light jackets, sat outside on the patio to soak up the early sun. One day in May when they well into a mystical union with the surprisingly strong spring sunshine and thus not speaking, although each were well aware of the presence of the other two, Rudolf broke the silence,

“The ‘Anarchist Review’,” he said, “has been taken over.”

“Who took it over?” asked Gregor.

“Some International company, apparently a gigantic conglomerate with its tentacles sunk deep into the publishing industry all over the world,” replied Rudolf.

“Too bad,” said Andrew but this seemed so irrelevant to the other two men neither said anything in reply.

A moment later, Andrew, perhaps trying to redeem himself, asked, “But I thought you said it was called the “Anarchist Review’? I thought such magazines were always co-ops.”

“They are always co-ops,” said Rudolf, “at least up until now. The co-op board voted to sell. I, of course spoke and voted against it but it passed with a substantial majority so that’s that.’

“But what in heaven’s name would an international publishing company want with a tiny anarchist magazine?” asked Gregor.

“Not so tiny,” said Rudolf, his feathers a little ruffled.

“Come, come,” said Gregor. “Let’s not be overly sensitive. How many in the co-op?”

“Quite a number,” replied Rudolf.

“Give us a figure,” Gregor insisted.

“Well,” said Rudolf, “membership has been declining for some time now. The young people are interested in electronic gadgets, not anarchism. Let me see, if I can remember from the last annual report, there were some one hundred and thirty-three members.”

“Well,” said Gregor, “ call such a puny membership what you will, I still don’t see why a big company would want to buy a little magazine whose members pay the costs of its publication and, on top of that, espouses a political philosophy which, if brought into practice, would mean the end of large companies. Doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“They paid a good price,” said Rudolf.

“How much?” asked Andrew, who was keenly interested in the price of everything.

“Ten Thousand five hundred dollars.”

“Hmmm,” said Andrew, a little disappointed for he had expected a much higher figure.
He busied himself with dividing ten thousand five hundred by one hundred and thirty-three, arriving at $78.95 (rounded). This seemed a paltry amount of money to move the individual principles of one hundred and thirty-three anarchist (most who had been so more than fifty years). “I don’t get it,” he said. “Why would they sell at all and why for such a paltry amount of money each?”

“Pressures were brought to bear,” said Rudolf.

“What pressures could an international company bring to bear on an anarchist magazine?” asked Gregor.

“You would be surprised,” replied Rudolf.

“Surprise me then.”

“Landladies were spoken to.”

“Landladies?” asked Andrew.

“Yes,” said Rudolf. “Certain landladies were approached about the harbouring desperate roomers plotting against the welfare of the state.”

“You are joking,” said Gregor.

“No. Three quarters of our members are over seventy and many of them have lived in the
same rooms for years. To be cast out into the streets in their twilight years is no joke for them.”

“But why would the landladies care what a International company thinks about her roomers?” asked Andrew.

“The answer to that is the usual one in such cases – money. Significant sums were offered if they cared.”

“Significant sums?” said Gregor. “You sound like a retired diplomat. Be more specific, please. How much?”

“Several thousand in one case I hear. Landladies are not rich. The money was tempting and some, of course, are simply venal.”

Gregor and Andrew digested this information for some time. Perhaps, they both thought, their dear old friend was going mad. The growing irrelevance of his treasured philosophy had unhinged his mind. A succession of generations turned into robotic consumers had undermined his sense of hope and faith.

After some time Rudolf spoke again. “And that’s not all. The lease on our building is up this June and, after forty years of occupancy, will not be renewed. One of our lawyers brow beat the landlord. He gave the name of the new leassee – a numbered company which, when checked out, is owned by three gentlemen with the same last name – Smith. When the lawyer tried finding out what the business of the company was he came up with nothing. The landlord refused to say more. He no longer answers his messages or emails.”

“Not only that,” continued Rudolf, “but the company which prints the Magazine sent us a letter saying it can no longer, after printing the May issue, continue with the contract. When contacted the owner mumbled something about a change of policy. The publishing committee then contacted fifty-five printers to find a new one. They all refused the contract. When asked why they gave various answers – too busy, not doing magazines any more, going into digital, and so on. Can you imagine? Fifty-five and not one was willing to print, not even when a bonus was mentioned. Dark forces have gathered.”

“What was the vote at the meeting?” asked Andrew.

“There were fifty-four members present. Forty-eight voted for the sale, five against, one abstention.”

“The old cowards!” shouted Andrew.

Rudolf and Gregor stared at him. It was unlike Andrew to speak in anger.

“Well, that’s what they are, isn’t it? As long as no one cares about their activities and it costs them nothing, then they breathe fire night and day. But squeeze them a bit and they turn over with their legs and arms in the air. Hypocrites and frauds is what they are. All the old anarchists who died for the cause will spit on them when they enter the afterworld and they will richly deserve it.”

Rudolf and Gregor looked at their old friend with amazement. His nose had taken on an alarming shade of red and his upper lip was twitching.

“Calm down, Andrew,” said Gregor.

“I am calm,” replied Andrew.

“Your nose is red,” said Rudolf.

“My nose is always red,” said Andrew.

 “Not so red,” said Gregor.

”Well then,” said Andrew, “let it be red and be damned.”

 “Perhaps we should have another cup of tea,” said Rudolf and he went into the café to order at the counter.

Andrew regained his equanimity half way through the cup of tea Rudolf brought him. Perhaps, he thought to himself, he had been a bit hasty about the anarchist dead spitting on the Quisling members of the Anarchist Society. No doubt, at the least, even if it were true, it was an unkind thing to say. He thought that perhaps he should address his old friends and make something of an apology. But they had raced off into other fields by then and it seemed to him unwise to interrupt with the old raw topic. They were speaking of summer and how nice it would be to organize a ‘reading of significant works’ at the café. He had been ruminating so deeply that he didn’t catch who the writer of the significant works was. It would have to be done on a Monday for that was the only night the owner would allow readings for on Monday nights the café was usually empty. He didn’t want long, boring readings driving his cliental away and if the old fogeys showed up, well, he might sell a few cups of tea and a dozen bran muffins.

The conversation about the reading of ‘significant works’ petered out without any decisions being made. Then they talked briefly of the weather and left, each going off on his own errands and duties.



This was a Friday and our three friends did not meet again until the following Monday, for they did not go to the café on the weekends; they found it too crowded and noisy.
Monday morning it was raining, a fine misty kind of rain. When they arrived each was carrying an umbrella for it is the universal experience of old men that rainy weather can actually be enjoyed with the help of an umbrella, especially with the expensive English umbrellas they had all bought at a sale on the internet some years before. They were beautiful umbrellas – jet black, as a respectable umbrella should be, covered with strong silk and with ribs as strong as the ribs of a well built suspension bridge. As they entered each shook out his umbrella (out the door, of course) and then leaned it gently into the corner beside their table for they never left their umbrella in the stand provided at the door where vague and absent minded people might mistake it for their own. That morning they were feeling especially frisky after spending quiet weekends lush with refreshing naps. When Andrew (it was his turn) came back to the table with tea and cookies, they began talking right away.

“I hope I did not insult you, Rudolf,” said Andrew, “with my talk of the old anarchists spitting on people in the afterlife. I don’t know why I got so exercised about the whole thing. After all I am hardly an anarchist so why should I care what one anarchist thinks about another? I suppose it just seemed to me that an old man should go out with a little dignity and even in old age we should hold to a few dear principles, even if it costs him comfort or perhaps even worst. I’m not much into self sacrifice but to hold on like rats to the remnants of our lives at any cost in old age, seems to me to be prepare the way for a sad exit.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more, Andrew. That’s why I voted against. My landlady has aimed some mumblings at me over the past month or so but I have withstood her. ‘I have lawyers,’ I told her and she retreated into her apartment. Last week I received a lawyer’s letter of eviction filled with lies and innuendoes. I handed it over to Josh Benson, a retired fire-eater but still a fire-eater. Even if I am forced to move I don’t really care. I have lived in the same place for twenty-three years but that is no reason not to move to another. The landlady is nasty and two faced. Because of my education and the relative high status of my job she has always treated me with fawning respect which I dislike intensely but what can you do? People are the way they are. You should hear some of the things she says to those she considers low and dispensable. At the very least it will cost her a big lawyer’s bill because Josh says he’ll do everything he can pro bono. No, no, I was not in the least insulted. I heartily agree that the Old Ones will spit on that pack of cowardly weasels. I changed the topic not because I was displeased but because of your blood pressure.”

“I still can’t quite believe all this,” said Gregor. “An international company buying an anarchist magazine. It makes no sense to me.”

“It does to me,” said Rudolf. “ But then I have a dose of paranoia which predisposes me to such understanding. You, Gregor, are too rational and normal to comprehend the machinations of the evil ones. Such thuggish behaviour is not in your repertoire. Apparently a fashionable anarchism has become the rage. The Corporations, ever conscious of the new trends, are eager to be ‘ahead of the wave’ as they put it, where they can shape it into forms highly profitable for their shareholders. Already I have received invitations to subscribe to a new on line ‘Anarchist International Review’ which I am promised will gather in all the ‘New Thinking’ so vital to the world today, with advertising sidebars of course. I have also been invited to subscribe to a new book site which will be bringing out all the historical texts of Anarchism, leather bound and embossed. On the sidebars of this invitation were advertisements for black flags, designs taken, they claim, from the anarchist flags of the Spanish Civil War. As well one could buy authentic anarchist Spanish peasant jeans, authentic anarchist marching boots and a series of anarchist T shirts with pictures of places dear to the anarchist heart emblazoned on both the chest and the back. The images on the T shirts, you will be glad to know, are computer generated and the women’s versions are sculpted, so to speak, to maintain the integrity of the image on the chest despite the stretching caused by even the largest breasts. Old fat men will benefit from this amazing innovation as well, for they often have larger breast than averaged sized women. This is what they are up to and spending seed money to prepare the way is no problem for them. The old members of the Anarchist Magazine have all received a lawyer’s letter quoting a section from the sale contract forbidding any of them to use the word ‘anarchist’ in any new publication for a period of twenty years. After twenty years the members will be all dead and in the meantime the company will convince national governments to give them a copyright on the name. Publicly funded police agencies will enforce it the world over regardless of costs. They tell me this is happening simultaneously in a hundred countries. The global village I am afraid has become the global tyranny.”

“Dear, dear,” said Andrew.

“My, my,” said Gregor.

“Yes indeed,” said Rudolf, “a grim picture.”

The three men sat for a few minutes looking off into the middle distance contemplating this grim picture. Or at least Rudolf was contemplating it. Andrew, after a moment or two of dutiful worrying, began thinking of the reaction to yesterday’s sermon. Gregor first thought of Roman merchants manipulating the corn trade and then went on to run through a list of possible presents for his wife’s birthday.

There were only a few people in the café that day. Monday mornings were always slow and the rain didn’t help. An older man who was there every day at this time sat at his usual table in the southeast corner riveted to his laptop. Other than to make a brief, brisk return if someone greeted him, he spoke to no one. As soon as he sat down he opened his laptop and only closed it just before he got up to leave. He gave the impression that, thirty years ago, after enjoying himself for a few brief months, he had given it up in favour of dutiful devotion to an iron schedule. Retirement had changed nothing but the content of the schedule. He arrived at the café at 10:35 and left at 11:40. Once he brought his eyes down upon the screen of his machine, he did not lift them until its clock told him the time was up. Rudolf called him Robot Man which Andrew thought unkind but accurate. Gregor wondered what he would do on the day he died, put down in his schedule book – death 9 to 9:15? If his wife died – grieve, 6 to 6:30? Although he was perhaps sixty he radiated a physical strength which was exceptional. He was fit and well muscled without an ounce of fat on him. Rudolf claimed he was a retired accountant, Gregor that he was a pensioned off bureaucrat, Andrew that he was a lonely soul in need of the consolations of a philosophy, preferably a mystical one. Other than at the appointed time each day he was never seen in the café or, for that matter, anywhere else. If he lived in the neighbourhood said Gregor, he must only come out in the dark of night, disguised. Perhaps he was an outer space alien gathering information for his masters on another planet Rudolf once said which annoyed Andrew for he thought such flights of fancy frivolous and disrespectful. Perhaps he was M. Vladimir risen from the grave.

But Jack Krick, for this was Robot Man’s real name, was none of these things. Rather he was a private investigator, at least from a strictly legal point of view. But the name private investigator was really inappropriate although his work did involve some investigation into the lives of others. But these investigations carried out on behalf of his employers did not involve the usual tricks, subterfuges, disguises, running down dark  alleys or rushing about in speeding cars, favoured in movies and racy paperbacks. His employers had deep, deep pockets. Offering money is the most efficient way to gather information and his employers provided him with plenty. Mrs. Murphy, Rudolf’s landlady, for instance, was given, after a first brief encounter, an envelope containing two thousand dollars in twenties. Jack found it best to let the money do the talking. He was not a wordy, loquacious man When he came back a week later she was putty in Jack’s hands. He took her out to a local restaurant and bought her a meal. He had a lawyer call on her the very next day to arrange things. The printers were even easier. They were men of business. They were used to money under the table, falsified receipts, etc. An envelope containing five thousand and nothing more needed to be said.

Jack knew who Rudolf was. He had a file on a storage device in the tower apartment with pictures, resume, biography, political involvements and so on. He had no opinion on Rudolf. He was not in the habit of having an opinion on anyone. Opinions were something other people had, especially his employers. As long as they communicated their orders to him accurately and succinctly he was satisfied. “Do this,” they told him and he did it. “Bother him,” they said. Jack bothered him. “Make him afraid,” they said. He made him afraid. Occasionally they even said, “Kill him.” But they didn’t say it to Jack. There were other people who did that sort of thing, nameless men who Jack had heard of but never met.

He was almost finished in the city where he had now been living two years with fly outs to his own much bigger city in the south once a month for a week. He hated this city. It was drab and proletarian and filled with ugly, gnome-like people. Why anyone would want to live here was beyond him. Someone should drop a bomb on it. Someone should pull the plug and let the earth suck it down the drain. A giant should take a brush and scrub it of the face of the earth. It was filled with Jews and Asians and Slavs who walked about its streets with the arrogance of cockroaches. He was keen to be gone but a few things had to be tidied up first and then he would have three blessed months in his own city among towers and faces like his own - clean, white, showered faces filled with intensity and purpose.

Jack observed the three men leave but did not look up from his screen. When they were gone he waited five minutes and left. Three blocks south there was a major street and here he flagged down a cab. He drove in his own country but not in those where he worked - too many problems with possible accidents, documentation at rental agencies, etc.  He pretended to be friendly with the brown skinned men who drove him for he knew people can smell someone who hates them from a block away. He was good at dissembling. He could smile and wish a good night to someone he really wished in hell - it was his job, a professional necessity.

A week later the odds and ends had been cleared up excepting for one. He had his plane ticket. He had paid the final bill at the apartment hotel. He had sent the appropriate files to headquarters and then deleted them from his laptop. It was now a businessman’s laptop with reports, financial analysis, charts, the files a small investor would have.

His plane left early the next morning. In the evening he went out to eat at an upscale restaurant in the downtown. He seldom ate upscale but thought two years of successful work deserved a reward. The food was very good. Roast beef with gravy, mashed potatoes, asparagus, apple pie and ice cream for desert. The bill was outrageous. He paid for it with the cut out card giving twenty percent exactly for a tip. Then he had the maitre D call him a cab.

“R is central and still relatively young,” his employers told him on the cell phone two weeks before. “None of the others are capable of resuscitating anything. You know what to do. Make an impression.” His employers always talked like this, in terms very clear to him but vague to anyone listening in. You always had to assume someone might be listening in even if the cell phone was a pre paid cut out.

He had the driver let him off three blocks from Rudolf’s house. Rudolf lived in a small block near the river and took a walk every night along the river path before going to bed, a ridiculous thing for a paranoid anarchist to do thought Jack. It was now eight thirty and it took him five minutes to reach the spot where Rudolf would go by. His plan was to hide in the bushes and wait. The bushes were willows but Jack didn’t know that for all bushes to him were unspecified green things he usually only saw from afar. There were bugs and insects in them and he stayed away from them as much as he could.

But surprise! When he stepped into the bushes Rudolf was already there waiting for him. Beside him was another man much younger and bigger than Rudolf and in his hand he held a gun pointed at Jack. But from Jack’s perspective it was pointed for so short a time it barely registered that someone was pointing a gun at him for the big man squeezed the trigger and sent a small caliber bullet through his forehead, through his brain and out the back of his head. He fell onto the leafy humus underfoot as if he were a dropped doll.

The two men slipped an opague plastic bag over the body and the big man lifted it onto his shoulder. He and Rudolf walked further along the path until they came to a dark alley. Here they left the path and walked along a series of winding alleys until they came to the back of an automotive workshop. Rudolf knocked on the door and it was opened immediately by a frail old woman who stepped out of the way while they came in and then closed the door behind them.

“Where?” asked Rudolf and the old lady indicated a car in the far corner with the trunk lid open. The big man, with some help from Rudolf, placed the body in the trunk and closed the lid. Rudolf climbed into the driver’s seat, the big man into the passenger and, when the old lady managed pulling the chain to open the big front door, they drove slowly out into the lane and off.


Two days later the three friends were seated in the café.

“I wonder where Robot Man is,” said Gregor. “It’s already 10:05 and he hasn’t shown up yet.”

“Perhaps he had a dental appointment,” said Rudolf. “Or a headache. Even the busiest person in the world sometimes has to take a day off for a headache.”