Amador Green
Book One
Chapters 1-3
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Chapter One
--Cross-Eyed, Bone-Zoned and Rosy

Marty "Moon Man" Marmoset and Alexander "Toker" MacPherd were partners, a pair of bosom pals who had rarely been out of each other's sight from early childhood, even all the way on up through the first crack of a voice change, first eruption of an armpit hair and notable Krakatoa splat of a pimple's magma on the mirror; just about any kind of hair or bodily excrescence worth mention, these two guys experienced it all, initially together--and they were buddies, full buddies in every sense of the thing, and plenty of other things going right on up through their early years of maturity when after not quite flunking out of high school, they had graduated "summa come lousy" as they would have it, to start working at their various jobs around Grass Valley, where truly being their mothers' sons they went on to become quite the pair of activists, as over the years, despite changes of town and county, they had remained steadfast in a major dedication so radical that in the view of some their old consciousness-raised friends, it might even be deemed extreme, the extent of their conviction, what with their refusal to eat meat or even so much as kill a bug, if they could help it (rather than hinder it); neither would they wear a leather belt, but suspenders only, and plastic shoes, green ones too, if they could get them, to match their identical "Greenspeak" caps, which they wore backward so that if ever you saw them coming you wouldn't know a thing about it till you saw them going the other way, down the dusty main street in the town of Dry Creek, Amador County, California.

One night, the two friends were sitting in their one room domicile by light of a purple lava lamp whose languorous glow formed its flowing coagulations over a cable spool table, as all the further it undulated to illuminate at the center between the two, a hand-carved Nepalese cedar-wood box that lay, lid open, to reveal a gleaming trove in jade encrusted do-dads of Indian brass paraphernalia, a pair of sterling Navajo silver turquoise jeweled clips, a tiny Chinese tea-bell, one short-stemmed clay pipe, and an ancient, multi-colored collection of French cigarette papers, all of which represented, table, box, bell, and candle, for the most part, the entire estate bequeathed to Alex by his Dad's will--may he, Alexander "Toker" MacPherd, the First, "Rest in Peace and Good, Good Loving," as Alex always smilingly said, in loving reverence, to speak in fond remembrance of a *Peace* which had always been viewed as something that probably "passeth all understanding" in the nature of a *good trip*.

Beside the table near Marty's chair was a portable stand boasting a CD playing computer loaded with World Wide Web ripped hits of Classic Rock, some 80's stuff too, and connected was all this to their 300 watt stereo that pushed a ring of 12 speaker cabinets completely surrounding these fellows and their table; all powered by battery stored energy from the hexagonal solar panels forming the entire exterior of this geodesic igloo which these two womb to tomb buddies had built from the ground up right there on the red earth of the California Mother Lode Amador County Outback.

On this Saturday night, the purple glow of the lava-lamp was just sufficient to illuminate the faces of these two blue-eyed chaps, Marty of the blonde beard, and Alex of a red which shone in this light as a flame in the tone of a setting California sun; with towels in hand, their Buffalo Bill length hair was let down to dry, following a weekly ritual of ablutions done in the suds of a solar heated hot-tub, a luxurious nicety mounted as inset to the deck upon which the dome also was founded and just now shaking, not by gesture of any shock of temblor or quake but due to the computer MP3 player going full tilt with the Rolling Stones' *Brown Sugar*.

Alex, wiping his red mustache after a hearty swig of his green macrobiotic beer, set the jar down, and looked across at his buddy: "Dude, I think we been resting here on our laurels long enough."

That's when there was a long, green, macrobiotic burp, upon which Marty was heard to ask, "What 'laurels'?"

"Well . . . " Alex rapped off a good one too, pumping his biceps to give a bit of finesse and pizzazz to it as the belch came, and when it was done, he went on: "Okay, look how long its been since we protested anything."

Marty shrugged. "You name it, I'll protest it. What you got?" He blasted a good one cupping his hands over his mouth for that pipe organ effect.

"Aw get serious, Moon Man because like . . . for example: how long's it been since we snuck out to a clear-cut and pounded some good ol' chain-bustin' spikes in the trees?"

"Couple years, mate."

"Dude! I call that slacking off."

Alex kept his eyes steady on his pal who was busy doing things with little papers and a pile of dead leaves heaped on a wildly colored antique copy of the San Francisco Oracle--another item from the MacPherd Estate. Alex went on: "It's time we got off our butts and right back into the swim of it again, Moon Man, and I mean especially this one they've got going for the rain forest, because that thing is important."

"Sure it is." Marty licked a cherry red paper. "But, it's not like we haven't done our part because lookit all the good we did already; back in the old Anti-Nuke days?"

Alex burped a couple of blasts to the beat of *Midnight Rambler* just coming on. "That was then, an' this is now."

"Dude, haven't you looked in the newspaper lately?" Having finished with his hands he put the product of his effort between his lips and started searching with his hands in the dark over the surface of the table. "I mean, cool, I hear what you say, but I don't know what we could do about a huge ol' jungle in somebody else's backyard halfway around the world." Finding a box of wooden kitchen matches, he struck one and looked at Alex in the light of it. "Shoot!" They ain't hardly got the juice to run a damn mail order electric cat-box in this state anymore, and that's thanks to us!" He raised the match to the end of the article in his lips. "We put in our time climbing the nuclear fence; so now they got the rolling blackouts, and we . . . " He lit the joint.

"Oh, yes."

"We got the rockin' sun-juice, Baby."

"Do tell!"

"Oh yeah. We got the China Cat Sun Power from outer space, My Man."

"Yes!" With the joint on a smoke, Marty reached over and clicked a tune, *China Cat Sunflower*, by the Grateful Dead.

Alex raised his green 12 ounce Mason jar of beer and so did Marty. They clashed them together, got up and danced a doh-si-doh around the table for about three minutes, before they took a mind to sit back down.

Marty, his grin spreading from ear to ear, gave his buddy another good solid clink, and after a few good gulps, he set down the jar; from the ashtray, he picked up the joint and took a few quick pecks at it; he let some of the smoke go up his nose; he put it back to his lips as Alex with widening eyes watched it burn up half the length in one draw. Passing it, with his breath held in check, Marty rasped, "But, what did you have in mind to do, more than we already done, Bro?"

"Moon Dude," said Alex, after a quick kiss at the end of the joint, "Have you ever seen the way..." he took another quick hit, "...barnacles grow on the back of a Gray California whale?" He sneezed out a little, which caused him to look at Marty cross-eyed.

Marty looked back at him over the rim of his green jar and said, "No, man, I have not ever seen the way barnacles growed on the back of a whale."

"Well," said Alex MacPherd, passing the joint, "that is something to see."

Marty ripped a snort up his nose, popped the roach into the air, caught it on his tongue and washed it down with a swallow of beer; he smacked his lips and said, "Is it now?"

"With my own eyes, I saw it." Alex observed Marty reaching across to a shelf under the computer for a florescent tape-wrapped paper towel tube with half a cigar-sized joint sticking out a hole in the top of it.

Alex settled back. "Back in the old days, when I was a kid in L.A. and still eating the dead bodies of my fellow creatures, I was out fishing one day off that big breakwater they got down there off San Pedro, when all of a sudden --WHOOSH!"

Marty's eyes widened along with his billowing cheeks as he fired up; his voice on release of a hand came like the gravelly croak of a bullfrog trumpeted through the end of the tube. "Woooo."

"Yeah! I'm down there; I'm fishing; I'm casting a bubble and Bonita feather. I'm right on the ocean at Cabrillo beach, out on the breakwater and WHOOSH!"

Marty passed him the tube. "Mondo Bongo!"

Alex toked, held it, and wheezed, "So, Dude, I turn and Holy Jonah, man: it's this huge, enormously fat, big ol' whale!"

"Where?"

"Right there!"

"Nah!"

"You know I don't lie." Marty grinned, accepting the bong. Alex went on: "Hey! I coulda damn near reached out and touched him. Here he was, close enough to swallow me in one gulp, give me my just dessert right there."

"Like, *his* dessert."

"No way, Dude. Whales are vegetarians like you 'n me."

"You sure?"

"Well, some more than others, but . . . "

"Ah, I might o' heard different on the Nature Channel."

"Dude? You wanna hear what happened or what?

"Yeah! What that whale do if he didn't eat ya?" He toked.

"Didn't eat me, just kept cruisin' on by, divin' down a little as they go, an' comin' back up all along the breakwater, how it curves, way on around to the lighthouse, and that's where he found his way out of the harbor." He raised his jar. "I'll tell you what, and this is no foolin': I could feel the humungous mind of that whale, man. And all around that huge head is where it was at, man: it was a mountain of mind, right there."

"Whoa."

"Ooo! That space between him an' me was just crackling with vibes of brain lightnin'. I mean, do we know vibes or don't we?

Marty nodded, handing him the bong. "We dig the vibes, man."

"Uh-huh. Well that whale's mind was hummin', Dude."

After a toke, Alex wheezed, "But that huge mind goin' by was a worried mind, ya see." Alex had a faraway look in his eye as he passed the bong. "It was from the way he would look at stuff as he went swimming by down along the jetty, following the curve. Worry and hope. Hope and worry, huge as the world dude. Powerful."

Raising a hand of peace and understanding, Marty said, "You're cool man. Your vibe is clear, reception is here. But, howcome you got this on your mind? We were talking about, like, the rain forest, and now you got us on the humungous mind vibes of the whale."

"Moon Man, these things are all one in the Great Scheme of Things."

"How could I forget? Why shoot! Any magic mushroom happy hippy from Hallelujah Gulch knows that."

"Darn tootin. So, what I am saying here is that we go down to San Francisco Bay and rescue us one of them stranded whales they get down there, and . . .

"And what? Rescue us a whale! What for?"

"Be cool, be open, have a huge mind, dude and then you will see how we could rig that baby with a harness and raft, y'see and..."

"What?" Marty looked down the hole of the bong. He bent over to sniff the stash piled on the Oracle. "What we been smokin', here, my man?" He pulled the joint from the hole in the bong and looked in there.

"It's the barnacles, man! They are coarse and scratchy, so you could . . . "

"Barnacles!" He picked up some of the stash and let it fall back out of his fingers watching it. "I thought this was our own home grown."

"It is! And that ain't what . . ."

"Dude. What was in that fertilizer you come home with? We got a hundred bricks of this year's crop to unload here; we got customers to think of, we got . . . "

"Moon Man. You are not listening."

"Oh yes. Yes I am. I totally heard you say something about putting a harness on a whale, and like, okay, so I'm thinking we got barnacles on the brain from this weed. Now, where'd ya say you got that fertilizer?"

"Moonie Dude, it's the same fertilizer we always get, the same old horseshit."

"You sure it's the same old horseshit?"

"Whaddaya want--my hand on the I Ching while I solemnly swear?"

"No, no. Okay. You're cool. Now what the hell are you talking about?"

"Groove down, Dude: You buckle a heavy-duty, strap of canvas around that whale, and it would catch on the barnacles, and that way you got yourself a harnessed whale. Dig it Dude: it's just like in Moby Dick!"

"Moby Dick?"

"They harpoon the whale and the whale tows the whaling boat."

"Damn!" Marty looked again in the bong, and then tossed it across the room.
Alex watched it bounce off the dome wall. "Heeey. It could work, Dude. Try to hang loose and catch the groove."

He turned back to face Alex: "I'm tryin' but...like, you're talking about harnessing a whale to go somewhere? On a whale?"

"Like down to the Rain Forest to save the trees, man! Down to the rain forest to save the trees, Dude. Down to the rain forest to save the trees!"

After thinking for a while, Marty said, "Well, what's the matter with these trees around here?"

"Not a thing. But those Amazon trees are giving oxygen to the whole earth. It's a whole earth thing, man. A global responsibility we got."

Marty shrugged and shook his head.

"What if you could train a whale not to dive too deep? Like, they train Killer Whales all the time so they will jump through hoops, do any cool thing you want 'em to. This you should know."

"This I do know, as you darn well know, since we are subscribed to the Nature Channel, and because we watch it a lot." Marty took a big green gulp. "We like the Nature Channel in this house."

"Damn right. So, I'm telling you, based on everything we've learned by watching that, we know how the brain in this California Gray whale is bigger and wiser and fifty times friendlier than the brain of a Killer Whale all because the Gray whale is mainly a vegetarian."

"Nah, not all of 'em, not entirely."

"Okay, so they eat some seafood, but that's cool 'cause they can't be blamed for what gets in their mouth by accident, an' it's not like they ate that sea-food on purpose?"

Marty shrugged.

"Wasn't like goin' down to Fisherman's Wharf and ordering a live-boiled crab, right out on purpose."

Marty shrugged, having to acknowledge the sense of that.

"Cool. Okay, now dig: it's a friendly mind, not a killer mind in that whale which I know 'cause of how I could feel it was a friendly mind. And now I tell you that if I could feel what that whale had on his mind, so far as what he was hoping to do, why couldn't a whale feel from our minds what we might be hoping to do?"

"What? Like, go down to South America and pound some big ol' chain bustin' spikes in them Rain Forest trees fer the godsakes?"

"You got it." Alex sat back and grinned while he awaited his friend's reaction.

Marty looked at Alex and after a couple times of trying to start talking, he finally said, "Okay, we go down to the bay and rescue us a beached whale."

"Right."

"We get one with lots of barnacles so a canvas harness will stick and hold on him."

"You got it."

"You use canvas with grommets so's you can run lines aft of the whale in order to tow a raft."

"That's it." He watched Marty shaking his head. "What's the matter?"

"Dude, it all sounds just too . . . " he sighed, "perfect and sensible and easy to me."

"Huh?"

"Something's got to be missing."

Alex kept grinning all the more. "I can't imagine what."

After a healthy swallow, Marty burped. "Okay," He cut loose another short one. "So just what kind of raft might you be talking about, here?"

"Could be anything." Alex shrugged, then he snapped his fingers."Remember those big 'ol tractor tubes we used to float the River on?"

Marty narrowed his eyes to give it the skeptical treatment; one eye got so narrow that it closed all the way. "I remember . . . when we used to go floating down South Fork to the nude beach!"

Alex slammed a hand to the table. "Hoo Haw! Eighth grade--I forgot about those days. I was thinkin' about the Russian River when we was . . . "

"Forgot them days! Dude? That was your greatest genius stroke of all time!" He sprayed Alex with beer from laughing so hard. "How we bought those snorkels and periscopes?"

"Be cool!" Alex lifted the towel from his lap. "Hold the phone." He put it on over his head. "Don't tell me! I won't be able to stand it. "

Marty had to grab the table to stop from rolling off his chair. "Are ya ready, Toker?"

"No. No!"

"An' we came floatin' down like Captain Nemo and Kirk Douglas, dangling from bungees under the tubes, camouflaged with spray-painted gunny sacks to look like river rocks . . ."

Alex raised a fist. "Up Periscope!"

"And blow the ballast, matey!" Marty swung his jar on high.

When they were all done splitting their guts, Alex put the towel down around his shoulders. "What more you want?"

Marty narrowed his eyes again. "Whaddaya need?"

"A whale raft, Dude."

Silently, Marty considered it; then he said, "How 'bout a duckboat?"

"Duckboat. Wait. Do I hear a duckboat?"

"Sure!"

"No way! This is the Pacific Ocean, Moon Man, you can't just . . . "

"Dude? I'm talking about a duckboat plus innertubes."

"Huh?"

"Strap the duckboat with bungees to a double layer of big ol' Monster Truck tubes, man, get 'em big as they come and that way we sit in the duckboat, high and dry, eatin' peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, all the way down to South America, man.

Alex's eyes slowly widened, till he had his hand up for a big old high five.
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Chapter Two
--Two Capuccinos

While Marty sat gunning the engine in the trusty old '75 VW Microbus, Alex was busy with the four locks to the dome door, turning keys he kept on a chain that secured his wallet to his belt; he had them on a sliding ring so that he didn't have to pull out his wallet every time he wanted to lock the door. He used to always have to pull his wallet till he got the idea of that sliding ring.

The bus was loaded with little more than their brand new backpacks, a case of CD's and not least, the last few bricks of their season's produce all stashed right out in plain view, according to an idea inspired by a Cheech and Chong movie where those two guys drove a van with a body made out of marihuana instead of steel across the border at Tijuana, only these guys from Amador had it a whole lot simpler: all that pot was pressed into half-kilogram slabs sealed in a layer of shrink wrap, and concealed under a covering of glued walnut wood-grain veneer; each slab comprising one side of a speaker cabinet, of which there were four such units with the backs left open, just in case of rough handling in any event of forced roadside inspections by over-zealous uniformed officials, namely, the cops. These boxes had real speakers mounted within, and the boys had them set up for that stereo, "surround-sound" effect, secured either side to eye hooks in the bus panels by bungee chords: they were located all the way in the back and hooked up by wires to the VW sound system. They seemed to resonate best when a Grateful Dead CD was playing; one such as *Steal Your Face*, which Marty was just placing into the deck when Alex climbed aboard on the passenger side.

Marty pushed in on the clutch. "Everything ship-shape?"

"Lookin' good." After reassuring himself by a glance over his shoulder at the speaker boxes, Alex reached for a button on the CD player to advance through the tracks to the Dead's good ol' version of Chuck Berry's "Promised Land"; Marty threw into gear, and they were on the move, rolling down that red dirt road, leading through the oaks toward Highway 49.

"Left my home in Norfolk, Virginia,
California on my mind,
Straddled that greyhound,
And rode him past Raleigh,
On across Caroline,
Stopped in Charlotte,
By-passed Rock Hill,
Never was a minute late . . . "

Alex had a big grin on his face. "Don't you dig these cool, dry autumn days, Dude? Can't you just totally groove down on the smell of all that oak dust in the air? Oooo--oooo!"

"Soooo fine." Marty looked around. "And you know, the poison oak is so pretty and red this time of year."

Alex looked at him. "Don't knock the poison oak, Dude."

"No way!" Marty shifted into second. "We would never disrespect a plant."

"Plants are our thing."

"Totally."

"The plants make us happy." Alex pulled a joint from his pocket

"Oh, yes."

"They make us a living."

"Yep," said Marty. "They keep us healthy."

"And horny!" Alex put the joint to his lips.

"Huh?" Marty looked at him.

Alex shoved in the cigarette lighter. "Remember that time we got all brain-dead and stupid on that Mexican opium and woke up in that whorehouse in Sonora ?"

"Oh, man." Marty nodded. "Yeah."

"And when we got home, we broke out with that nasty case of the hives?"

Marty shifted into third, shaking his head with a look of grim amusement. "Never did find out what that creeping crud was, either."

The lighter popped and Alex put it to the joint. "Damn. How long were we itchin' with that stuff, Moon Man?"

Turning into a down sloping curve, Marty tilted his head in thought. "A little better than a year, I'd say, right on up to the day we got into that poison oak, breaking that new ground in our bare feet, like we did that time?"

Alex made a shivering motion. "I get the itches just to think of it."

"There we were with our poor little ol' naked toes right down in all that sap bleeding out the poison oak roots?" Feeling Alex hit his arm he looked down to take the joint from his hand. "Agh! Thought I was like to die."

"Yeah, and 'member long about the third day when you were standing there on account of how you couldn't sit, or lay down, or eat or sleep, and the skin on your back was jumping around, all over the place?"

"Aye-yi-yi. I can feel it now; it just got to rippling around my whole damn body."

"Your skin was just moving, man, like the waves of the sea! What a freak out." Marty handed him the joint. "And then, couple o' weeks later, that nasty ol' whorehouse rash was gone right along with the P.O."

Still holding smoke from the last toke, Marty croaked, "Hallelujah!"

"Never came back, either."

Marty nodded meditatively. "We thank the Great Spirit for all the pretty little plants."

"Amen, brother."

"Oh, yes." Marty took the joint. "We totally have dug that what might seem like the uncoolest thing on the earth, like poison oak, just might be foolin' us 'cause we're still too uncool to dig what it's good for."

Alex sat forward to look one way, then the other. "Get down."

The VW had arrived at the intersection with Highway 49. Marty turned to Alex and grinned. Alex, chewing on the roach gave a wink. "Are we ready to boogie, Baby?"

Marty popped the clutch and shouted "Kick ass!" The VW lurched, spun some dirt and a few small stones as it turned with a jerk out on to the highway.

The boys had a nice drive all the way into Berkeley. Once there, they stopped to see the owner of a health food emporium who was a long-time customer. To this man, they traded one speaker cabinet for a three month's supply of organic freeze-dried fruit, vegetables, and crunchy granola. Following this, they made the trip over the Bay to Sausalito where they had arranged to stay with some other friends. Being in no big hurry, the boys took some time to become acclimatized to the Bay Area scene. They visited Fisherman's Wharf, drove down the coast to relax in the sun at the beach on the Great Highway. They did the regular San Francisco thing. They parked the VW and rode up Nob Hill on a trolley. They were no squares.

There came a moment one early afternoon, while brainstorming their plans in a Berkeley coffee house, when Marty started wiggling his eyebrows as he leaned forward over the cup of espresso he wasn't drinking; he pointed and nodded for Alex to look over his shoulder.

Alex turned to see two women in shorts and tank tops coming in the door. His mouth opened; he stared; he turned back to Marty. "Damn Dude, they got Greenspeak caps on just like ours!"

Marty nodded. "Talk about made to order. So, like, what shall we do?"

Alex laconically raised a brow. "Go talk to them. You're the Dapper Dan of this outfit."

Marty's hands came up, then disappeared back under the table: "Me? No way. You know me. I'm too bashful. You go. I wouldn't know what to say to chicks like that."

"Chicks're chicks. You just go up to 'em and say, you know, like, 'What's happenin', babe?'"

Marty considered it. He shook his head. "Hey, get real, Toker. You can't talk to these up-scale college types like that, treat 'em like they really were babes; they'd look at you like you were a pile of dirty gauze from the free clinic."

"Come off it, Marty; a babe is a babe."

"Wrong. Not of late. This is not the 80's, Dude, and you've been in the hills too long if that's how you think. Now, me? I got a mother to visit in Stockton. So I come down to the flatland once in a while. But you? You're Rip Van Winkle, man. Time to wake up and smell the changes." Marty breathed a heavy sigh.

Alex snorted, got up, and turned from the table. He saw that the women were now standing at the front service bar. He felt a tug at the hem of his shirt. He turned.

"Order two more espressos--or no! Cappucinos, this time. And don't screw up!"

Alex smoothed his hair, hiked his pants, turned and started across toward the bar. He came up behind the women who had already ordered and were waiting. Upon his approach, the brunette turned toward Alex. She had very little makeup, no lipstick, her brown hair was finger-combed. Her eyes moved up from the colorful palms on Alex's shirt, from the red hair on his chest, to his beard, the long hair of his head. Wrinkling her nose at the strong dose of patchouli oil exuding from him, potent enough to asphyxiate the whole staff of a Haight Street hippie whorehouse, she turned away, moving a bit closer to her blonde friend.

Feeling the brunt of the affront, Alex turned to glance at his buddy who started gesticulating with much vehemence, urging him toward making his move. He knew that Marty would never let him off the hook if he didn't give it a go.

"Excuse me, Ladies?"

Shocked into motion, the brunette turned, looking all around. The blonde drilled a look directly into him, then with a delicate hand indicated herself and her friend. "Uh! Does he mean us?"

The brunette returned her friend's look. "Did I hear 'Ladies'?"

"Like, sorry." Alex smiled. "I forgot. Okay, 'ladies' is not hip, but umm . . . let's see . . ." As their silence and stares remained unbroken, he tried again. "Persons?" His smile started to get tugged downward at the corners of his moustache.

"As if!" The brunette snorted: "Who, really, is this male talking to, anyway?"

The blonde looked at him directly. "Is there something you want?"

"No. Well . . . I mean, maybe. Like, I just wanted to ask, you know, like, what's happenin', babes?"

"Gawd," said the blonde. The brunette rolled her eyes."

"Hey, really. Like, maybe the two of you could join my pal and I at our table to talk about Greenspeak?" He reached for his cap to tip the bill, but forgot it was turned toward the back of his head. He took it off and held it before them, pointing to the Greenspeak logo. "What say, Homegirls?"

The blonde stared. "Yuck!"

"Sorry. Homewomen?" He bit his lip. "No." He shrugged. "Not homewomen. Let's see . . ."

He clapped his cap back on his head, bill forward. He leaned back, till he bumped into some guy behind him. He shoved his hands into his pockets and swiveled on his hip.

"Is there some problem here?" So lisped the young man working behind the counter as he adjusted the white, paper, Boy Scout type cap on his head.

Alex shrugged, looked around.

"Uh!" The brunette pegged the waiter with a stare. "If it's all the same to you?"

"Oh, well, excuse me!" The waiter turned to Alex. "Okay, guy. What can we do for you?"

"Two cappucinos, with whipped cream on top."

"Is that all?"

"Hold the pickles and mustard."

The waiter rolled his eyes. "I knew when I got up this morning that this day was cursed." He picked up two mugs and turned to the huge stainless urns.

Alex had noticed the women's widening eyes following his gesture toward Marty, who despite his hirsute appearance was, again, in a certain light, quite a strikingly good-looking man: this light was good, and the rough-cut charm of his aspect was not being lost upon their sensibilities.

Alex turned toward the blonde. "So, just answer me one question, willya?"

She 'tsked'. "What now?"

"Just like, set me straight here: if a man can't, um, like, address the modern, you know, woman as 'Lady', and if like, 'Girls', is way out of line, then how is anybody supposed to, you know, talk to you at all; I mean . . .?" They both snapped their eyes, each to the other, then back to Alex.

"Uh!" The blonde turned to her friend. "I can't believe I heard that."

"Well, just like, tell me, if ya please? How 'bout 'dolls', or like, 'gals'? Gals is pretty . . . No? Are those out too, now?"

"Definitely," said the brunette.

"Totally," said the blonde.

Taking his left hand from his pocket he swiveled his red-haired wrist under it's black plastic Super Diver watchband, brought the hand to the side of his mouth to whisper, "'Chicks'?"

The brunette took a step toward him. "Do you see any feathers on me?" She observed as Alex looked her over, up and down, around to the side, taking his time about it. "Uh, are you about done?"

Alex shrugged. "Didn't see any." Watching their dismay, he smiled a little, then raised his hand. "Okay, I know you women want to be called, like, 'women'. But did you ever stop to think that you can't just call a woman 'woman' without sounding like . . . you know?"

Quizzically, the blonde looked at him. "I know?"

"Well, ya, you know, like, 'Woman! Bring me my pipe and slippers.' Like that." Alex watched a certain fire coming into the brunette's eyes. He took a step back.

"Two cappucinos with whipped cream--hold the pickles and mustard!" The boy scout set the mugs on the counter top. As Alex fumbled for his wallet, the blonde handed her friend a mug and was drawing her away from the counter.

As they were passing the boys' table, the brunette suddenly stopped. She looked at Marty. "Do you mind if we join you?" Marty stared. "Well?"

"No!" Marty was immediately on his feet. "I mean yes. Like, please do.'' He moved to pull a chair.

The blonde came to her friend's side. "Zelda! Are you crazy?"

"Maybe," said Zelda. She turned to Marty, taking hold of the chair. "I can seat myself, thank you." Marty deferred, then nodding to the blonde, he gestured to the other chair.

The blonde sat down. "I can't believe I'm doing this."
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Chapter Three
--Vision Quest

Alex, after receiving his change, shoved the coins in his pocket; he took up the mugs, turned, and headed toward the table. His rubber soles squeaked to a stop as the image of the two women sitting there suddenly registered. He grit his teeth and bit back a howl as his glance followed the course of many other eyes down his leg to a cappucino stained right shoe.

He looked up to find Marty's grin. "Nice play, Shakespeare." Zelda's glance rolled off him to land in the eyes of the blonde. Alex set the full mug down as he handed the other to Marty.

The blonde smirked. "All's Well That Ends Well."

Marty looked into his half-empty mug. "Hey, Dude?"

Alex, now seated, watched with open mouth as Marty grabbed the full mug and poured into his.

Zelda looked at the blonde. "There's justice for you."

Marty gave Alex his mug back. "So, like, where you girls from anyway?"

The women looked at one another in half-smiling ironic silence.

Alex shrugged. "Okay, I guess you're students here, right?"

Zelda yawned, then deigned to look at him. "We're here doing post-grad studies in cetology."

The boys exchanged an empty glance. "Hm . . . " Alex drummed his fingers on the table. "Seems to me I heard of that 'cetology' thing somewhere."

Valentina smirked. "It's a study of whales."

With jaws dropping in unison, the boys turned to face one another. The women looked on in puzzlement. Alex snapped his fingers. "We knew who you were, the minute you came through that door."

Val looked at them in dismay. "Knew us?"

Alex waved a hand. "Not personally, and not just because of your Greenspeak caps, either, even if that was a sign." He looked at Marty.

"Definitely." Marty turned his cap around forward. "So there you go. We could dig right away that you were sent by the Great Spirit to guide us in our vision quest."

Valentina's eyes flew to the rafters. "Oh, gawd."

Alex sat up a bit. "Are you hip to a 'vision quest'?"

Zelda rolled her eyes. "I'm sure."

Marty turned his mug and looked up. "See, how it works, is like, okay, we knew that the right people would be along at the right time."

Alex smiled. "It always happens like that with us."

Marty leaned forward in earnest affirmation. "It's always either the right people or the wrong people."

"But it'll be one or the other."

Valentina nodded knowingly. "I guess you're just a couple of real mystics."

"Activists, mainly," said Marty.

"Oh, really?" Zelda set down her mug. "What sort?"

"Plants," said Alex. "We're into plants, and you know, like trees?"

Marty was nodding. "Both plants and trees."

Zelda and Valentina traded a glance. Zelda kept her eyes on her friend. "Weeds more than anything else, I'd guess."

Marty shrugged. "We care about them, too. Even the poison oak."

"We care for them all." Alex smiled.

Marty sat straight up. "We have a plan to save the plants in the Amazon rain forest."

Valentina turned her eyes to Zelda. "They have a plan to save the rain forest."

"I heard." Having bent over toward Alex, Zelda was sniffing the air near him. "What on earth is that odor about you?" Alex stared at her, his eyes widening. Zelda was still sniffing. "Is that patchouli oil?"

"Yes," said Marty. "Alex inherited a whole huge vat of the stuff from his old man."

"Okay." Valentina looked to Alex. "So, what has saving the rain forest to do with our studies in cetology?"

Alex nodded, happy to answer the question. "We have a plan that involves saving a whale as part of the whole quest."

With an arm on the table, Marty leaned forward a little. "Kill two birds with one stone, as they say."

Valentina pulled back in her chair. "Let's get atta here."

Zelda's hand flew to her hand. "No, wait. I want to set them straight, first." She sat back and glanced between the boys. "I'm sure you find it very meaningful in terms of your plans to come into this place and find that Val and I happen to be here as members of the Greenspeak organization doing post-doctoral studies on the migratory habits of the California Gray Whale."

"Oh yes," said Alex. "It was meant to happen."

"Part of the Vision." Marty nodded with a big smile.

Val laughed. "As if!"

Zelda's mirth joined hers. "It isn't even a coincidence. I mean, is this Berkeley?"

Their words were utterly lost upon the boys, as the meaningful sense of it all was beyond being vanquished, and remarkably, as the interest they began to express in the women's area of expertise started to work its charm, the two marine biologists, despite strong reservations from Valentina, eventually agreed to meet the boys later that evening for beers at a certain pub on Telegraph Avenue, just to the purpose, so they insisted, of setting them straight with the facts in order that they might become assured that their plan, as the boys had briefly outlined it for them, was an absurdity so utter and complete that it didn't even rise to the distinction of plain nonsence. More importantly, it was their concern to do all they could to save the whales--from these two 'maniacs'.
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Chapters 4-6
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