The Eyes of Hoover

The Easter Peyote Ceremony and Vision Quest impacted me in ways that were not at all mysterious, given the circumstances. However, much of what occurred, the coincidences and serendipity of several of the encounters, still give me cause to wonder.  After that sometimes I hung out down at the Dome with the Georgia Peaches and Stanley. This had more to do with it being warm and a good place to shoot the shit and relax than curiosity about the novelty of the threesome they had goin’ on. There were also projects on the mesa that I involved myself in. The community got together to put up a sturdy chicken coup. The bobcats, coyotes, and mountain lions had to be kept away from the chickens and some control over the laying hens had to be established. As in everything else the leadership was more or less invisible… or barely visible.

     Sound carried so well that any vehicle coming up towards us on the gravel road could be heard far in advance from the mesa and even down in the draw where the dome was on the road below. On one such afternoon the gravelling of tires alerted the four of us as we stood by the road to see who it might be. A young paranoid speed freak named Shep had been watching from a point on the mesa and came running down to us a few minutes ahead of the car warning that it was a sedan like kind the Feds use. I wasn’t sure what we were supposed to do about it if it were the Feds. Shep dashed up to the mesa and left us wondering. Stan and the girls went inside the Dome but I stayed out front just to see. The sedan pulled off the road in front of the Dome. Two, crew-cut-six-foot-plus-suites in their thirties got out of the sedan. I couldn’t help but notice the spit-shine on their shoes getting dusty. One of them held a binder and approached while the other flashed a badge from his wallet.

     “FBI: Do you live here?” The man with the badge asked the obvious. I wanted to say no but thought better of it.

     Stan opened the door enough to see what was going on but was not going to let them in the Dome.

     “I live here… what do you want?”

     “We just need you to check out some pictures and tell us whether you’ve seen any of these people here.” The agent with the binder said it in such a way that I could see he wasn’t asking for cooperation, he was ordering it.

     Stan was going to close the door right then and there but I answered first, “Sure, won’t hurt anything.” I had caught a glimpse of some of the pictures and those pictures were like high school year-book pictures. I knew I could honestly say I hadn’t seen any of these folks because this was a collection of clean-cut suburban white boys and girls in letter jackets and glee club sweaters: a world apart from anyone now on the mesa.

     The agent paused on each page as I looked at the pictures, hoping not to recognize anyone. As the pages were flipped I did recognize one girl who had arrived only a few days before. I think she called herself Candy. Under her photo was her real name and birthday... 1957! She had paired up with Shep, coincidently, and I knew she was very young. This birthday put her at around thirteen. Shep was only about fifteen or sixteen himself… but the girl was … well, jail-bait. When I first saw her at the kiva I was sure she was very young… but thirteen! I did have mixed feelings about it. So many run-away kids were on the streets in those days that a thirteen year old girl with a young kid hardly turned a head.

     The agent caught me hesitating at her picture and I knew it. I would have to bluff my way out of it if I was going to trip-up this guy. I wished I could get to Shep to warn him but decided to simply shrug my shoulders, “Naw, nothing here… haven’t seen any of ‘em.”

     “Are you sure, now?” The agent wasn’t buying it. “You know it is a federal crime of perjury to obstruct a federal investigation. Any statement you make is subject to Federal Law.”

     That did it, “You know, none of these kids look anything like these picture now. If I were looking straight at someone I grew up with I couldn’t recognize them.” I took a deep breath and made like I knew what I was talking about; “Now, this is private property and you are wearing out your welcome… good-bye, sir.”
  
    I was a little surprised when the Feds turned their sedan around and went the other way. I was expecting them to put me in cuffs and plow further onto the property. I took the same shortcut to the top of the mesa that Shep had taken before the Feds arrived.

    I found Shep and Candy in front of the Kiva and warned them that the FBI had Candy’s picture in their folder. Shep then told me that her dad is the chief of police in her home town back in Florida. Candy couldn’t pass herself off as eighteen so they stayed out of sight from then on. I wished them well but, when I think of it now, I wonder about all the kids who’d left their homes… their mothers and fathers… brothers and sisters… who had escaped to the streets. Though she was relatively safe at Morningstar, the streets were pretty vicious for anyone that young. I don’t know how the others felt about it but I still harbor some guilt that I helped to cover for her and Shep. I didn’t want to see him go to some juvenile joint and I didn’t want to see her returned to what could have been an abusive home. Who knows now what I could have done. The times were very different back in those days and it never occurred to me then… what? I still don’t know.