Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned (17 page)

"In a typical New York clientele there's bound to be a sizable handful of lawyers who will sue the shit—this time quite literally— out of Starbucks. This might not break their business operation, but it'll certainly give them pause. It'll also be fun to watch."

"So you don't think Operation Diarrhea will be enough to get them to close the store?" asked Clyde.

"Doubtful," said Fox. "But it's only our first shot over the bow. This is a war, and Operation Diarrhea is only the first battle. It doesn't matter what you do in war or life just as long as you win the last battle or learn the last and greatest lesson. If Operation Diarrhea isn't enough, we move on to Operation Elephant Dump Numbers One, Two, and Three. Then there's always La Cucaracha. You know what that means in Spanish?"

Neither Clyde nor I knew what it meant. We waited for the great general to enlighten us.

"It means 'cockroach,'" said Fox.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," said Clyde. "I
hate
cockroaches."

"So will Starbucks," said Fox. "But first things first."

Without further ado, he took a large flat object out of his magician's trunk and, as Clyde and I watched in silence, he unfolded a large collapsible bulletin board of the variety you might find in the Pentagon and began searching for a convenient wall upon which to hang it. With the help of Clyde and myself, the bulletin board was finally hung on the far wall, complete with multicolored flags and thumbtacks so it looked very official and military.

"This will be our flowchart," said Fox. "No pun intended. If the store closes, of course, we take it down and everybody goes home happy. But remember, as our campaign continues, it will become more and more difficult to carry on operations inside the store. If they don't have video cameras now, they'll put them up. Also, they'll put security in place and they'll know what we look like and they'll be watching for us. We may have to alter our appearances rather drastically and even that may prove risky. And don't forget, the Starbucks organization, or the Starbucks family, as they like to call it, has very deep pockets. We must fight like guerrillas. Like Jesse James and Robin Hood and Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh. This is a campaign of attrition, of disruption, of harassment. Don't expect our first foray to be the knockout punch. But if we are persistent, clever, and courageous, we will prevail. And believe me, comrades, we will definitely get their attention with Operation Diarrhea."

I looked at the bulletin board, then over to Fox, and then I glanced at Clyde for her reaction, but she had gotten up and walked over to the kitchen. A moment later, she returned bearing a small tray.

"Coffee, anyone?" she said.

twenty-five

I'm not ashamed to report that during the remainder of that weekend I felt more than I ever had in my life like a kid waiting for Christmas. There was a new chemistry that sang in my soul, a new entity being born every time the three of us put our combined hearts and minds in a deliriously dangerous new little project. And if, as Fox alleged, the size of your enemies had anything to do with your spiritual stature, we were verging on becoming secular saints. You could look for a long time and never find a bigger, more insidious opponent than Starbucks. How could three little people in this crazy world ever hope to even dent the armor of one of the greatest of all modern one-eyed giants? We would soon see.

I had to admit that there was definitely something exhilarating, maybe even magical, that occurred inside me whenever Clyde and Fox became actively engaged in my life. It was surely the only time I truly felt alive. And, as a mildly disconcerting side effect, I had begun to see and think of the two of them almost as one person. Clyde and Fox were like one human force with the undeniable ability to stir my cautious, weary, weather-beaten soul. Yet I realized, unlike them, that what we were doing was wrong. Well, "wrong" is not quite the right word. The things we did were not really wrong, only perhaps in the narrowest legal sense. "Wrong" is again the wrong word. I take it back. The events we became involved in were not wrong. Futile, certainly.

Possibly star-crossed and highly addictive. The time we shared was like walking out on a precarious limb of humanity with the net consisting of only our little group of three.

As crazy as it sounds, I found myself looking forward to Monday night at ten o'clock, for ten o'clock, we had learned, was to be the daily closing time for this particular Starbucks store. Not that there is a great deal of difference between one Starbucks and another, which is part of the insidious poison that is inherent in any large chain establishment today. One may believe that "something different" might be the spice of life and might have an innate appeal to basic human nature, but nothing could be further from the truth. People are invariably more like me than they are like Clyde or Fox. We live in a world, I'm afraid, of cautious, careful, conservative little Walter Snows. Fox was not wrong in his assessment: I
do
look like the typical Starbucks customer. I probably even feel and think like the typical Starbucks customer. The only two differences are that I hate myself for it and I write down all my self-loathing.

Monday morning broke cold and clear over New York City. How ridiculous, I thought as I woke up, to feel excited, even vaguely privileged, to be involved in something as crude, crass, and meaningless as Operation Diarrhea. No good could come of it, I felt. And yet I felt strangely drawn to this unlikely, even unpleasant affair by forces beyond my control. It was almost like a heroin addict must feel when he (or she) places a bit more of the product on the spoon each time, gambling on just how much he might take without killing himself. The seeds had already been sown. Now the harvest, for better or worse, for good or evil, must be reaped.

Clyde had called late in the afternoon to see how I was doing and to ask if I had any qualms about the "new project."

"I just feel a little uneasy about using all those chemicals," I'd said. "You know how it is when pranksters sometimes slip various drugs into the punch bowl? It's not supposed to happen, of course, but every now and then somebody dies."

"Dear sweet little Sunshine," she'd said. I brightened considerably in spite of myself. "No one's going to get seriously hurt by consuming these chemicals. They might
wish
they could die, but that's all."

"You're sure of that?" I'd asked again.

"But of course, darling," she'd said breezily. "The only people who stand any chance of getting killed are the three of us."

I always felt better after talking with Clyde, and that conversation definitely made me feel better. I was still feeling pretty good at nine-fifteen that evening when the three of us headed out from my apartment for the short, two-block trek to Starbucks. Clyde looked fetching, I thought, in a pair of men's khaki slacks, a black knit top that fit her very snugly, and a khaki photographer's vest with lots of pockets everywhere to conceal many small vials of senna plant, cascara sagrada, and syrup of ipecac. Fox wore a trench coat concealing the now-wet sponges rubber-banded tightly together in a tubelike configuration small enough to comfortably go down the toilet before expanding in the pipe. The sponges were wrapped in Saran Wrap, which would double for a toilet bowl cover. "The rubber bands come off," Fox confided in us, "before the sponges go down."

"That's a handy thing to know," I said, adjusting my Yankees cap and the sweater that Clyde had tied around my neck. With a pair of faux horn-rimmed glasses and a bright red tie slightly askew, I looked perfect, according to Clyde, for the part.

"You look like the yuppie who came in from the cold," said Clyde admiringly.

"Are you sure it's not typecasting?" said Fox.

"All I'm sure of," I said, "is that if I don't come in from the cold soon, I'm going to freeze my ass off."

"Just be sure you take your coffee black," said Clyde, giving me a playful goose in the ass. It was a surprisingly intimate gesture and I will admit that it set my heart racing slightly. I waited to see if Fox would react in any way but he did not. He was totally focused, apparently, on Operation Diarrhea.

We walked about a block in silent contemplation. It felt as if we were three troublemakers in some kind of crazy spaghetti

Western. Moving in for the showdown. Moving in for the kill. II felt good. It felt more than good. It felt like Walter Snow was finally, vibrantly alive and a part of something special. Then, with about a block still to go, Clyde suddenly stopped and grabbed Fox by the trench coat.

"Wait a minute," she said. "There's something I'm not sure of."

"Don't get cold feet now," said Fox. "It's nine-thirty and counting."

"I just want to go over something," she said. "You'll be safely in the bathroom deactivating the toilet and Walter here will be harmlessly chatting up the brewmasters or whatever the hell they call themselves behind the counter. But I'm the one whose movements could look very suspicious. I'm the one the salespeople or the cameras actually could catch."

"That's a very good point," said Fox, "and I'm glad you brought it up. I'll go in first and if there are cameras, I'll come right back out and we'll begin preparations immediately for Operation Cockroach Bomb and Operation Elephant Dump Numbers One, Two, and Three."

"That's fine," said Clyde, "but what if the brewmasters catch me red-handed? What if they nail my ass?"

"No offense, Clyde," said Fox, "but it's a pretty nice ass. As Teddy would say, 'You got some junk in the trunk!'"

"Hey," I said. "What about Teddy? He'd be a perfect man to have on our side in this campaign."

"C'mon, give me some credit," said Fox. "I've already thought of Teddy. But I'm not bringing him in until after Operation Cockroach Bomb."

"I'll probably be watching that one from the calaboose," said Clyde.

"No, you won't," said Fox. "Let me give you a few little helpful tips. When you first go in, put in a big order for your whole bridge club or something. Twelve latte frappachuchis. Something like that."

"And I'll be sure and get a receipt so I can sue the shit out of them as well."

"Isn't she a sweet kid?" said Fox, getting misty-eyed. "She doesn't miss a step. Okay, now while they're making your order, it's natural for you to be browsing in the place and looking at stuff. Keep the vials in the palm of your hand, sort of a sleight-of-hand job. Hey, Walter. Has Clyde ever given you her famous sleight-of-hand job?"

"He wishes," said Clyde, who was so on the money that I almost blushed. She capped it off with a wicked, telling wink in my direction.

"And here's the perfect way to justify your behavior if you happen to catch one of them looking at you with a suspicious eye. Just pretend the sugar bowl or cream container is stuck and you're having a little trouble opening it. They see that. Then they see you get it open. Then they don't look at you anymore."

"That's what I wanted to hear," said Clyde with renewed confidence. "Fox knows everything, doesn't he, Walter?"

"Just about," I said.

"Remember the Unicorn!" shouted Fox, moving on toward our little date with destiny. "All those for freedom, follow me! Our only enemies are time and Starbucks and there may not be an army in the world that can defeat them but if three crazy Americans can't do it I'll let you lay your dick on my wisdom tooth!"

"Quite a battle cry," I remarked to Clyde, with Fox ten steps ahead of us and out of earshot. "Tell me, is he gay?"

"Terms like that don't apply to Fox," she said. "He likes all flavors. If more people were as crazy, as thoughtful, and as unconventional as Fox, it would be a better world."

"Amen to that," I said, but I don't know that Clyde heard me. Clyde and Fox were ahead of me now, moving toward Starbucks like heat-seeking missiles. I had to move quickly to catch up with them. And I found that I wanted to catch up with them. Whatever insane, inane antics they were involved in at any given moment, I wanted to be a part of them, of whatever they had, of whatever they were.

"This is a wonderful, medium-bodied coffee," I found myself saying to the barista only a matter of moments later. That's what they called themselves. Baristas. Not brewmasters. At Starbucks, I was to quickly find, they have another name for everything and no matter what you call something, they will invariably correct you, politely, if rather patronizingly.

"Actually, it's one of our
light-bodied
blends," said the barista as she readjusted a ring in her left eyebrow.

"This
is
Sumatran, right?" I ventured. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Clyde moving about the store, poking into things.

"Sumatran
blend,"
said the barista, checking her watch. It was getting close to the ten o'clock closing time and she looked more than ready to start shutting things down.

"It does appear to have a rather bold acidity," I said. "A friend of mine once worked with the Peace Corps in Kalimantan, Indonesia. I think he was an agricultural extension worker or something. His job was to distribute seeds downriver to the natives but the Peace Corps failed to send him any seeds. Eventually, he was forced to distribute his own seed downriver, which led to some rather unpleasant repercussions—”

"Excuse me! Excuse me, miss!" came a strident, mildly irritated female voice from the far end of the counter. "Can I have twelve frappuccinos to go, please? It's Little Italy night at our condo."

"Everything is prepared to go," the barista pointed out. "Twelve frappuccinos!" she said to a black man who seemed to have materialized from a cubbyhole somewhere and who very much resembled a young Lionel Ritchie.

"And I'd like a receipt, please," said Clyde. "I'll have to present it for reimbursement at the meeting."

There were a few other people making last-minute purchases, I noticed, and this screened Clyde even further from the eyes of the people behind the counter. Another positive note was that the lids and container tops seemed to be large enough to help shield the small vials with which she was industriously working. On the downside, the place was really beginning to thin out. It was almost ten.

"I'll have a double espresso, please," came a suave male voice just over my right shoulder.

"That's a
doppio,"
said the barista to the man.

"And may I also have a key to the rest room?"

The woman with the eyebrow ring screamed "One
doppio!"
at Lionel Ritchie and then handed the man behind me a rest-room key that appeared to be attached to a large red Easter basket of some sort. I dared not look around as Fox's trench-coated arm reached right in front of me to retrieve the key. "Pardon my boardinghouse reach," he said, chuckling politely to himself. Fox was cutting it very close, timewise, but there was really no decent way the key could be denied him. He would, it appeared, definitely be the last customer to use the rest room. After him, I thought with a smile, it might not be used for a longer time than Starbucks expected. At least not very successfully.

"So my friend asked the Peace Corps to send him some coffee beans," I continued, in an effort to distract the people behind the counter who now numbered three, but they all appeared so busy with tallying things, preparing a dozen frappuccinos, and closing up shop that my monologue was almost unnecessary. Clyde was putting a few finishing touches on some sugar bowls and she didn't seem to be drawing any attention. My monologue didn't seem to be drawing much attention either, but I didn't let it hurt my feelings or slow me down. I wanted to do my part.

"By the time the coffee beans finally arrived," I droned on relentlessly, "some sort of tribal dispute had occurred in the region. I recall my friend telling me how he drove the load of coffee beans down the highway, running over hundreds of arrows in his Land Rover. Well, it wasn't really
his
Land Rover. There was a wealthy plantation owner who lived nearby and he had a beautiful blond daughter. I think it was her father's Land Rover. My friend always had quite a way with the women. By the time the daughter took the Land Rover back to her father, there was a spear sticking out of the front grillwork. Unfortunately, there was also a spear sticking out of my friend's penis."

It didn't really matter what I said. None of the Starbucks people were listening. They were in the seriously elaborate process of closing up and trying politely to urge me to leave. Clyde had paid for her frappuccinos and was collecting her all-important receipt for her meeting at the condo that didn't exist, just, of course, as my friend with the coffee beans didn't exist. I let Clyde leave first. Then I took my departure, which must have been a great relief to the people who were exploring the possibilities of advancement in their Starbucks careers.