Duke Lives

Standard Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. The Balcony does not advocate or support armed insurrection against private interests or the government of the United States.

The front door swung open and Duke appeared, wobbly and unsteady, like a boxer after a bad round; he held a .357 magnum in his right hand. I’d never seen a .357 that close before, and the size of the thing shocked me; it was a beast of a pistol.

“Fucking missed,” Duke said sheepishly, brushing plaster dust from his shoulders and eyebrows. “All that stuff about Amsterdam was BS. Come in.”

“Not until you put that canon down. Christ, Doc, you scared the crap out of me.”

“I’ll make some coffee,” Duke said. I followed him into the kitchen, sat at the table and watched Duke measure out the coffee. I noticed that his hand was shaking. The .357 was next to the toaster oven. Good thing Duke lived in a remote, heavily wooded part of Mission Canyon, otherwise his driveway would be jammed with curious neighbors and cops, just the sort of attention a suspected dope dealer tries to avoid.

“Be ready in a minute,” Duke said. He sat down, studied the table. “Lost my nerve at the moment of truth. Offing oneself is harder than I thought. I figured it would be no big deal. Load, aim, pull trigger. Guess I wasn’t ready to depart this earth. You want it black?”

“With cream,” I said.

“You’ll have to settle for 2% milk. I’m out of half and half.”

“Whatever.”

We sipped our coffee in silence. For a man who lived alone and traveled abroad frequently, Duke’s kitchen was surprisingly well-equipped; Sub-Zero refrigerator, Braun espresso maker, restaurant-style gas range, big spice rack, bottles of imported extra virgin olive oil, cookbooks from Williams-Sonoma; a complete set of Calphalon cookware hung from a ceiling rack. Duke even had a Winnie-the-Pooh cookie jar, a nod to his whimsical nature.

“I wrote a note,” Duke said. “Nothing profound. It’s damn hard to come up with a single sentence to encapsulate a long, eventful life. Know what I wrote? ‘The bastards have won.’ Four words.”

“Lean, straightforward, perhaps a bit vague, but it certainly sums up your frame of mind. Glad you missed, Doc.”

“Me, too.”

“What now?”

“I’m in the mood to make some trouble.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Controlled anarchy, Edward Abbey style.”

“Monkey wrenching? Is there a dam somewhere you have a hankering to destroy?”

“More like banks, investment houses, the offices of certain hedge funds, maybe the headquarters of a particular insurance giant, the nearest Wal-Mart. Confront the swine where they live and in a manner that will get their attention. Fuck with their lobbying firms too. There’s no time to lose. Every day we delay the motherfuckers get stronger.”

“So, I quit my job and you and I zip around the country blowing up banks and Wal-Marts? My family might not support this idea with much enthusiasm. They enjoy eating and living under a roof. You do understand that this isn’t the mid-70’s? You are familiar with the Patriot Act? In contemporary America we could go to jail just for having this hypothetical conversation.”

“Killjoy,” Duke said.

He went into his den and a few minutes later came back and tossed a worn copy of Abbey’s Monkey Wrench Gang on the table. I hadn’t read Abbey in a dozen years, but remembered the characters and their exploits in the slick rock country: Hayduke, Doc Sarvis, Bonnie, Seldom Seen Smith.

“I don’t see another way,” Duke said. His eyes were coming alive again. “The oligarchs are too powerful, their control of the system too absolute. We can’t beat them politically or economically. Massive civil disobedience might work, but do you see any cohesive, coordinated and committed movement springing up from the grassroots of this weary and demoralized nation?”

“Doc,” I said, “you’ve been through a traumatic experience. I think you need to smoke a bowl or two and take a nice long nap.”

He pondered this advice for a moment, then said: “The line between sanity and madness is very thin.”