Nicholas B. Morris

Excerpt from Agents of Chaos

Nate:

Walking downtown, I see an old man holding a brown sign with yellow letters: Hillary Lied, Troops Died. He’s waving like a jackass at all the people passing by the street corner he’s on. Amazingly, he’s not wearing a tinfoil hat, but some raggedy black cap emblazoned with a ship, a big Navy logo over top. I think about just blowing past him—no point in feeding his persecution fetish—and probably would have, except he makes it a point to call me a godless hippy. In a way, I can see where he’s coming from: I am a longhair carrying an acoustic guitar down to Pearl Street to play songs for tips to buy a bag of smoke—but on the other hand, he has no fuckin clue what my political leanings are, and I’m not the one spending my afternoon trying to convince a city full of the most liberal people I’ve ever met that one of their leaders is a soldier killer. If anything, that sign should read Bush, not Hillary. But whatever. He calls me a godless hippy, and I stop. I look him right in his eyes, and I can see (through my own, glassy bloodshot ones) the gleam in them, that he is waiting to be baited, to be drawn into this big political battle, and he’ll go home and jack off while Glenn Beck tells him that he’s fighting the good fight or whatever.

“Who’s mind do you think you’re actually gonna change?” I ask him, hoping he smells the joint I just smoked. “You realize this is Boulder, right?”

“Who paid for that guitar?” he says, starting to get up in my face. “Probably your Mama and Daddy. You probably never worked a day in your life.”

If I wasn’t stoned, I’d be pissed—and am getting there anyway. “I bought it,” I say, “with the money I got from my mother being killed by a goddam right-wing truck-driving psycho not unlike yourself. As a matter of fact, the cops said they could hear Rush Limbaugh over the traffic trickling by. So take your self-righteous fascism and shove it right back up your ass.”

He wants to fight some more, I can tell, but if I stay any longer, I’m gonna break his fuckin face and his NRA buddies will bail him out while I sit in a cell sobering up. So I let him froth at the mouth, hoping he’ll realize that he just perpetrated an attack on the family values he holds in such high esteem.

I start trying to think of songs to play—some Bob Dylan probably, maybe that one Buffalo Springfield song, something really liberal to play to my crowd, and maybe piss of the asshole I just passed—when I notice a bigger gathering than I’d expected, not really moving, but really fuckin loud. They’re holding signs too, but their signs are better made and have slogans like No Blood For Oil and Not All Muslims Are Jihadists and Books Not Bombs and I realize that I’ve hit the fuckin jackpot here. I set up my case a few dozen feet from the last of what appears to be some sort of protest and start playing “Maggie’s Farm,” one of the few Dylan numbers I can actually stand. Some of the real, honest-to-God hippies start turning around and clapping. I hear change hitting the bottom of my guitar case, and as I finish “Maggie’s Farm,” I go into “Give Peace A Chance.” People passing by nod, smile, toss in a buck or two, and keep moving. The protest seems to be breaking up, and my timing couldn’t be better, because they have to pass me to get back to their Subaru’s and Toyota hybrids or whatever, and if they’ve got the kind of time to spend an afternoon downtown protesting for a cause that literally everyone in sight believes in, then they’ve got a few bucks to toss into my case. “Give Peace A Chance” becomes “Revolution” by The Beatles because it seems like a natural transition, and the money keeps plopping down, and, no fuckin shit, somebody actually drops a joint in, some tie-dye freak with white-dude-dreads and a beard that’s never been closer to a trimmer than about eight feet. He reeks of patchouli and his eyes are even redder than mine, so I’m guessing it’s gonna be some good shit. More people are clapping and singing along, which is a great selling point because it means that more people are gonna toss in their money. A cop walks by, and I’m certain that he’ll pop me for the joint, or just take it and keep moving, but he shakes his head and walks on, never breaking stride. I start playing “For What It’s Worth” and the crowd is still into it, but they’re starting to disperse, so I start making eye contact, wondering if I can persuade someone to drop a fiver or maybe even something bigger and that’s when I notice this hot little hippy chick swaying along with the music. She looks up at me and I wink at her, which makes her giggle—she’s obviously stoned as well. I finish up the song, say “thank you” to everyone, and start packing up. The money in the case may not be quite enough for a fifty bag, but it’ll be close, and the joint smells like a skunk took up residence in my guitar case.

“I really like your singing,” the hippy chick says to me. “I’m Dasha.”

“Nate,” I say. “What was this protest for, anyway?”

“We were fighting against expansion in Afghanistan,” she says. “Do you know how many children and women are murdered by American soldiers every week?” she asks, all worked up. She tells me. I act appalled—the number is not nearly as big as I expected, but I want to bang this girl, and being down with The Cause is the best way to get in the pants of these kinds of chicks. She keeps going on about the amount of money spent on bombs, and how the war isn’t really stopping terrorism, and a number of other talking points no doubt downloaded from the Huffington Post or wherever she gets her daily dose of liberalism, and I nod and agree at all the right times. It’s not that I’m pro-war, or even anti-liberal; it’s that I don’t see the point in protesting. Mostly, it gives the police (and whatever other agencies might be in town) a chance to profile you. Also, people kill people; it’s been going on since the dawn of time. War is just an excuse for it. And the amount of money spent on warfare doesn’t bother me all that much. It’s not money that I’d ever see anyway. Live and let die, as that famous singer said way back in the Seventies.

When she finishes her diatribe, I offer to smoke her out with the joint Patchouli Redeye gave me, and she accepts. As we walk back to my apartment, I’m already thinking of lyrics for a protest song, set to the standard three chord tune that I put my “originals” to—I learned long ago that covers get me paid and originals get me laid, something I refer to as “the songwriter’s creed.” She talks some more about The Cause, and I chip in when and where I can, thinking of which of these issues rhyme well enough to go into the song that will make Dasha’s panties disappear.

We get back, and I set my guitar down right next to the futon for easy access. We start smoking the hooter, and goddam is it strong. Even as much as I smoke, it’s hitting me hard. About halfway through it, she asks me if I write songs or just play. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for, and pick up my acoustic and start strumming away. I sing her my protest song, and she’s totally buying into it—no doubt the joint is helping—nodding her head and really getting into it. When I finish, she applauds, comparing me to Dylan, which I’d normally take as an insult but she means as a compliment. Then we start making out, and the shirts go flying and her sandals get kicked off and I’m sliding her pants and panties down and burying my goatee in her pussy until she’s bucking and my chin is soaked. Then we fuck like wild rabbits until we both manage to come.

Afterwards, we finish the rest of the joint, and she tells me about the protest that’s planned for next week, and that I should totally get up and play my protest song. I say sure, if she knows how I can, and she tells me that she’s on the board of the committee that puts these protests together, and she can guarantee me like five or ten minutes if I can spice things up with an original protest song or two. Sure, I say, and get her number and walk her to the sidewalk.

The day of the protest, I take off work early, which is cool, since my boss (old hippy that he is) took part in all of those Sixties protests which, in my humble opinion, accomplished not one goddam thing. Still, he likes the idea that I’m politically active and will be at the courthouse protesting the war or whatever. I take the bus to my apartment, smoke up, tune my guitar, and run through the lyrics I’ve been writing over the last week. It sounds like something they’d like, and, as a twist, I’ve even added a fourth chord.

Dasha comes over early, and we smoke. She’s popped over a few times since our initial roll in the hay, and has killer weed herself, and if she’s not the best fuck I’ve ever had, at least she’s the best I’ve had in a while. Nothing too freaky; she’s bitchy about butt-fucking and isn’t wild about giving head, but she likes different positions and keeps on about studying tantric sex. She’s not down for any pre-protest fucking, though; her mind is on that one track, and no amount of coaxing will get her off of it.

“Why don’t you play your song for me?” she says, removing my hand from underneath her shirt.

“I don’t want to spoil it for you,” I say, reaching instead for the bowl again. “I’ve made some changes, and I want it to be a surprise.”

We leave for downtown, passing the right-wing nutjob with his brown and yellow sign again (the other side says Obama Stabbed Our Troops). “Headed to desecrate a soldier’s grave?” he yells in our direction.

“Did you ever actually fight in a war?” I ask. “Or did you just get that hat at an Army surplus?”

He says nothing, and we return the favor, crossing the street instead.

“I hate those assholes,” Dasha says. “He’s probably just compensating cause he can’t get it up.”

The protest (or “rally” as they’re calling it) gets going about two, and I’m scheduled to go on after about forty-five minutes. Typical for Boulder, however, the open mic gets people rambling on about whatever they have to talk about, and they don’t motion for me until ten minutes after three. I get up, play the protest song I wrote, then play “Blowin’ in the Wind” to boost my Dylanesque reputation and possibly melt some panties on the other hippy chicks, then take my bows and make way for an aging hippy witch with a headband and clinking bracelets and about two dozen scarves, in spite of the late summer heat. She starts name-dropping politicians and reciting esoteric poems with bomb noises. From my spot beside Dasha, I start tugging at her shirt.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say.

“I want to stay until this is over,” she insists. “I want to hear the rest of the speakers.”

“But I’m horny, and this old bitch is boring me to tears.”

Dasha looks at me, daggers in her eyes. “It won’t do you any good anyway,” she hisses. “It’s not a good time for me.”

“Are you on the rag or something?” I say, probably louder than I intended—several people are staring in our direction.

Her glare answers me, and I rub my hands over my guitar case, hoping this bullshit wraps up sooner than later.

After the poetry hag, some spokesperson from a women’s meditation group gets up and starts rambling about how her group gets together to meditate on how to make the world a better place—no volunteer work, no fundraising, just sitting on your ass in a circle—and how we should all think happy thoughts about The Cause, and that will make it come true. I lean over to Dasha and tell her I need to use the bathroom, to which she hisses that she doesn’t care, and I make my way to the back of the crowd and down the street, finding the nearest bar and ducking inside.

About an hour later, she finds me.

“Where the fuck have you been?”

“Right here, plotting how to meditate my way to a million dollars.” I’m fairly buzzed.

“You are such a prick,” she says. “I’m going home.”

“For The Cause?” I say, and almost regret it.

“You don’t believe in anything, do you?” she says, and I can see she’s hurt, but I’m too fucked up to care. “Did you steal those lyrics just to get in my pants?”

“No, I did write them,” I say, slamming down the rest of beer number five, or maybe six, “but the intention was the same.”

“So you don’t care how many soldiers die because of your selfishness?”

“Is that The Cause?”

“Fuck you!” she yells. The bar gets quiet, and everyone is staring. “Don’t you ever fuckin call me again! Asshole!”

She stomps out of the bar.

The bartender, a middle-aged man who has no doubt seen his share of bar breakups, comes over and asks if I want another round. To which I say “hell yes.”

Conversation picks up again, and people find more interesting things to stare at. I walk home some hours later, singing much louder than I should be, to no one in particular, “The answer my friend, is blowin in the wind…”