Footprints (9 page)

Keeping the post office between themselves and Sgt. Chase, and waiting until the security guard, who is now pacing in front of the building, is looking away, they cross the street and hide behind the dumpster.

It's after ten o'clock and still there's no sign of any marchers.

Fifteen minutes later, Harper asks, “How long shall we give it?”

“We may as well give up now,” says Drumgold. “No-one's going to come.”

“What about our placards?” Harper asks.

“Leave 'em,” says Drumgold.

They cross Main Street and are about to slip down to the Parallel when Isora says, “Wait.” Ed, a shopping bag in one hand, is shuffling into the road around the post office. He stops at the dumpster and peers in. He takes out an empty bottle and puts it in his bag. He reaches in for something else and eats it.

Harper mutters, “Gross.”

Ed looks in the dumpster again. He puts down his shopping bag, reaches in with both hands, and takes out one of the placards. It's Isora's:
Nobody Owns a Beach!
He hoists the placard over his shoulder and marches towards the far side of the post office. They run back across the street and Isora calls, “Ed.”

He's at the corner of the building.

He turns and smiles. “Is-ora.” He points at the placard,
stabs it in the air, and keeps going.

Isora calls again, but he turns the corner. They follow and peer around it. Ed is marching past the police car, his placard proudly aloft.

Sgt. Chase gets out and says, “Well now, Ed. What have we got here?” He takes the placard from Ed and reads aloud, “Nobody Owns a Beach!” He asks quietly, “Who wrote this for you, Ed?”

Ed looks at the ground.

Camera Woman climbs from the car. “Maybe he wrote it himself. Are you sure he's as stupid as he makes out?”

Sgt. Chase says, “This is nothing to do with him. He's harmless. It's not Ed's work.”

“Whose, then? And he must have agreed to carry it, which makes him an accomplice in a plan which has the intent to disturb the peace. We should take him in.”

Isora whispers, “We've got to say something.”

They're about to move around the corner when Sgt. Chase's radio suddenly blats into life.

Sgt. Chase leans in and says, “Go ahead.”

They overhear, “Eastern Oil...incendiary device...red alert...”

At the same time someone calls, “Harper!” Mr. Meating has pulled up on the other side of the post office in his half ton. He calls, “I thought it was you I saw running across the street. Come with me, all of you. This is not a good time to be hanging around town.”

Sgt. Chase is speaking into the radio. He breaks off to tell Ed, “Take off now. I want no more of your foolishness.”

Ed reaches for Isora's sign, but Sgt. Chase says, “We'll keep this.”

The friends hurry over to Mr. Meating.

“What's up?” Harper asks.

“I was at the club and I heard rumours about some kind of demonstration down here, something to do with Mr. Anderson, and I don't want you – any of you – mixed up with it. And that's not all. There's been another incident in Saint-Leonard and the police are on full alert. They're saying zero tolerance for any kind of nonsense and anything suspicious.”

“We're not doing anything wrong,” says Harper.

“Just in case, I'd like you to stay home, because the police will be all over anyone doing anything out of order, including kids who think they're just having a bit of fun.” He looks at the trio and adds, “Please, guys. Do me a favour.”

They crowd into the truck. The news is on the radio. The announcer reports, “The discovery of another incendiary device at the offices of Eastern Oil, this one in a dumpster behind the building, has left police and security personnel on red alert throughout the province. Meanwhile the area around Eastern Oil in downtown Saint-Leonard has been evacuated and cordoned off while bomb disposal experts search the building. Police are asking people to be extra vigilant as they go about their weekend business and to be on the lookout for any unattended packages or bags, and for any kind of suspicious activity. At the same time police announced a zero tolerance policy towards any kind of anti-social behaviour. A police spokesman explained, ‘At a time when citizens are so concerned with law and order, any kind of anti-social behaviour is inappropriate and will be punished to the full extent of the law.'”

“See what I mean?” says Mr. Meating.

“Read it, Harp,” says Drumgold.

Harper reads, “The Back River Front demands immediate, full and untrammeled...” He breaks off. “I'm still not sure about ‘untrammeled.'”

“Leave it,” says Isora. “It sounds impressive, even if we don't know what it means.”

Harper starts again. “The Back River Front demands immediate, full and untrammeled access to Back River beach for all the people of the community, with no restrictions or
conditions, and without security guards bothering anyone. Mr. Anderson, you have one week to comply with this ultimatum. If you do not show the beach is free by starting to take down the fence by May 31st, we will be forced to take further action, any undesirable consequences of which will be your responsibility, and not ours. Signed and delivered at midnight on May 24th by the members of BARF.”

It's the day after the abortive march. The members of BARF are working at Isora's kitchen table. They're still under strict instructions to go nowhere near the town centre.

“Now we need Mr. Anderson's address,” says Harper.

“We can't mail it,” says Drumgold. “There'd be a postmark and the police would guess it was sent by someone from Back River.”

“We could go to Saint-Leonard and mail it from there.”

“Why don't we just put it in one of those big red envelopes you get at the Dollar Store and tie it to the railings of the gates?” says Isora.

“Brilliant,” says Drumgold.

“Oh sure,” says Harper. “Why don't we knock at the door while we're about it and ask Droopy and Diamond Head to please give the ultimatum to Mr. Anderson, and by the way, of course it's nothing to do with us?”

Isora reaches across the table and pats Harper's hand. “Relax, Harp. No-one's going to see us.”

“Let's see what Dexter thinks,” says Harper.

“I don't think he's back yet,” says Isora. She opens the door to look across at Lully's trailer and says over her shoulder, “He's not. And I can hear George whining. I'm going over to let him out.”

She takes the key from under the ceramic dog and opens Lully's door. George flies out and disappears in the woods
behind the trailer. When he returns, Isora takes him inside to feed him. The boys hover by the door.

“You can come in,” Isora calls. “Dex doesn't mind.”

“Where's he gone this time?” Drumgold asks.

Isora points to a note on the kitchen table:
It's late Friday night and I've decided to take a quick trip to see Mom for the weekend. Should be back Sunday night. I hope George behaves himself! Thanks, Isora, as always. Dex
.

“He's strange, isn't he?” says Harper.

“How d'you mean – strange?” says Isora.

“You know – working at the daycare, visiting his mom on weekends. He doesn't act like someone who knows about political action and protests.”

“And he didn't speak at the meeting about the LNG plant, although he's against it,” Drumgold adds.

“But he does know about that stuff,” Isora insists. “Look in here.” She opens the door of Dexter's study, warning, “Don't touch anything.”

They peer around, standing just inside the door. Shelves, crammed with books, line one wall. More books are stacked in piles against another wall. A desk is strewn with papers covered with untidy handwriting.

“It looks like a library,” says Harper.

Drumgold says, “Is he writing a book?” He crosses the room, peers at the papers, and says, “His handwriting's worse than mine.”

“We shouldn't read it,” says Isora. “It might be private.”

There are books lying open on the desk. Drumgold reads out the titles:
The Politics of Disobedience. Passive and Active Protest. The Direct Action Manual
.

Harper is looking at a poster on the wall. “Here's where Dexter gets that stuff about the stages of political protest.”

The poster states, in vibrant red lettering on a black background, in Spanish with the English translation underneath,
DIALOGO...PROTESTA...ACCIÓN. DIALECTIC... PROTEST...ACTION
. Then, in smaller lettering, it says,
Adapted from the political writings of Raul Battista de la Cruz
.

“Here's the man himself,” says Isora. She's standing before a poster headlined
Raul Battista de la Cruz
. He wears a beret, which perches on a mass of black curly hair. He has a short stubbly beard and rimless glasses, behind which his eyes glitter. Drumgold and Harper join her as she reads – stumblingly first in Spanish, then in translation – the message superimposed over the portrait: “‘
Las semillas de la acción revolucionaria residen no solo en los conocimientos de los agravios causados o de las injusticias cometidas, ni siguiera en su realidad, pero en la respuesta de los poderosos lamentos...
The seeds of revolutionary action lie not in the perception of wrongs inflicted or injustices committed, nor even in their reality, but in the response of the powerful to those grievances.'”

They've been back in Isora's kitchen for less than half an hour when there's a sharp rap at the door and Lully walks in with, “Who's here?”

Isora says, “Just us.”

“Were you in my study?”

She knows she shut the door when they left, and they hadn't moved, or even touched, anything. “Sorry.”

“I don't mean you. I know when you've been in.” Lully turns to Drumgold and Harper. “You guys. Were you in my study with Is?”

They start mumbling apologies and Lully mutters, “Okay. Sorry. I don't mind you going in. I just need to know. That's all. But...no-one else, right?”

The boys shake their heads, and Isora says, “'Course not.”

Drumgold asks, “How did you know we'd been in?”

Lully shrugs. “I can tell.”

Two weeks later, just before midnight, Drumgold, Isora and Harper are lying in the undergrowth beside the Old Beach Road, where they'd dived a few seconds earlier when they'd heard a vehicle approaching fast. Almost at the same time as they heard it, the vehicle appeared, its headlights illuminating the dirt road where a moment before they'd been swaggering three abreast, confident in the moonless darkness.

It's a week before the end of May and they are on their way to the Anderson cottage. They wear black clothes and black
woolen hats and feel like commandos.

Drumgold has found a rock, and is thinking, If the driver sees us, and stops, and gets out, I'll throw this, and that'll slow him down long enough for Isora to get clear.

Harper is wondering whether being on this part of the Old Beach Road counts as trespassing and whether the driver, if he sees them, will tell Mr. Anderson they are there and whether Mr. Anderson will call the police and what Sgt. Chase will say to Mr. Meating and what he will say – and do – to Harper.

Isora is thinking, If Dexter could see me now, would he be proud of me or would he laugh? She thinks of how he smiled when they showed him the ultimatum, at the same time as he said, “That's terrific.” It was in her kitchen, the night they'd looked in his study.

They duck their heads, then raise them quickly as a car sweeps past. They hear it slow, and then the cottage gates open and slam shut.

Drumgold stands. “Did you see the licence plate? AA1. At least we know he's home.”

Harper says, “Is the envelope all right?”

Isora holds up the red envelope, on which she has written:
For the Urgent Attention of Mr. Anderson
. It contains the BARF ultimatum. She's punched a hole in a corner of the envelope and has threaded a red ribbon through it, by which to tie it to the gate.

They set off again, side by side in the middle of the dirt road, but silent and wary now, knowing they're close to the cottage gates.

Isora is still thinking of Lully, remembering his response that night in her kitchen when they told him about the march: “You gave it your best shot. You did something more than just complain. That's what counts.”

When Drumgold pressed him to tell them more about direct action, he'd said, “It's anything that inconveniences or annoys or intimidates the person or organization whose actions you are protesting.”

Isora thought he spoke reluctantly.

“Like...sabotage?” Drumgold wondered.

“It doesn't have to go that far,” Lully said quickly. “Petty vandalism would do for a start, just playing tricks, that sort of thing.”

“What's that going to get you, except into trouble?” Harper asked.

“Probably nothing.”

“So why do it?”

“It's what you do when there's nothing left to do. But it's not something you guys should get into. Why don't you try arranging another–”

Drumgold interrupted, “What have you got against the third wave?”

“It puts you on the path to nihilism.”

“Wassat?” Harper asked.

“It's the complete rejection of any kind of morality, which in theory frees you to take any action necessary to fulfil your goals, but in practice takes you nowhere and brings you no satisfaction. The third wave is where you go when you've given up trying to achieve your political goal and are seeking some kind of revenge for your failure. You might claim – the people who resort to it claim, that is – that the aim of direct action is to frighten the people in power so much they'll give way to your demands, but in your heart you know it won't achieve that. It never does, because the people with the power don't give in to this stuff. History shows that.”