From: seaverw@columbia.dsu.edu (W. A. Seaver)
Subject: The Gate
Organization: Dakota State University
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 17:34:04 GMT

A bit longish, but I'm approaching my last days of Net access, so what the 
hell...

                              The Gate
    The rising sun broke through the trees on the far edge of 
People's Park just before seven that morning. For the tattered and 
hungry who called the park home, it was the beginning of another day 
of creative self-sufficiency. For Ed Locksley, curled up with his 
head resting on his folded serape by the Free Speech Stage, it was 
the beginning of another day of survival.
    As the park's citizens slowly awoke and gathered their sparse 
belongings, Ed wondered what his next move would be. He had taken a 
chance, he knew, by even coming here. Everyone who remotely knew Ed 
knew he spent most of his time here, pushing shoulders for this 
cause and that. It was the place he knew best, though, and he had 
hoped to find someone who could help him out. He hadn't.
    The cops were coming by now on their usual sweep, threatening to 
haul everyone in for vagrancy if they didn't move it. Ed wondered if 
it would be safe to return to his apartment yet. Probably not. 
Someone would be there waiting, and if not, the place was sure to be 
booby-trapped to the gills. No, he could never go back now. Unless 
you had a thing for pain, you didn't shortchange Birdy then hang 
around until he found out. Birdy liked his power, and used it 
unsparingly. Ed worked enough operations for Birdy from time to time 
to gain his trust, eventually operating as front man in a couple of 
deals. A week and a half ago, Birdy actually gave him two grand to 
hold for security on a high-stakes hash deal.
    Yesterday morning, half of it was gone. Too many people known 
and unknown came and went from his place to say exactly which one 
had taken it. They had also taken his only case of beer. Missing, 
presumed having a good time.
    As soon as Ed discovered what had happened, he sprinted three 
five blocks to find Gorgi, a shrunken Chinese man who ran a tiny 
bookstore next to the Krishna Copyshop on Telegraph. Gorgi would 
help him out; he had several times in the past. Gorgi said, "Forget 
it. You still owe me a hundred-fifty from the last time. Go screw 
someone else." Ed reluctantly returned to his apartment, but half a 
block away, he spotted three cars parked outside that he was sure 
belonged to Birdy. How had he found out already? Didn't matter--Ed 
turned around and began walking, and that was that. For two days he 
wandered Berkeley, avoiding any place he even *thought* Birdy might 
appear in. Though he'd lived there most his life, he didn't really 
know the city that well. He got by on his instincts, by his 
infallible sense of direction, which he imagined to be a small 
compass imbedded somewhere in his nose. It was the thing he was most 
proud of, his one redeeming talent. Wherever he found himself, he 
always knew precisely where he was and how he had gotten there. He 
wasn't sure what he'd do without it.
    He had run out of safe places, though.
    It was time to move on, out of Berkeley. Out of Birdy's line of 
fire. Out of effective existence. Somewhere he had never ventured in 
his life: across the bay to San Francisco.
    A check of the platic bags lining his serape proved uplifting: 
beanies, cowboys, yellowjackets, a good supply of the increasingly 
rare New York White, several hundred grams of morning glory and 
Hawaiian wood rose seeds. He seemed to have every variation of every 
drug known, and it took him less than 24 hours to unload it all and 
make nearly $2000. That was far less than he knew he could have 
gotten if he hadn't been rushed, but it would be enough to get a 
foothold in The City. He had the additional option now of simply 
paying Birdy off for the missing thousand. But Birdy, Ed knew, never 
accepted apologies.
    The idea of such a dramatic shift in environments didn't daunt 
Ed at all. He felt confident the compass in his nose would pull him 
through. He took BART across the bay--under it, actually. The 
train's hi-tek look and feel fascinated him, since it was the most 
lavish transportation he had ever taken. Once out of Berkeley and 
aboveground in Oakland, he was too stunned by the scenery rushing 
past at eighty miles an hour to bother reading the _Oakland Tribune_ 
newspaper someone had left behind. Then it was underground and 
across San Francisco Bay. Even in the darkness below the bay, Ed 
noticed, he could sense the subtle changes of direction as BART 
snaked through its turns coming into The City.
    He liked riding BART, so he stayed on when it made its first 
stop at Embarcadero station, and rode another half mile to 
Montgomery. On the way out, he snatched a _Chronicle_ from the seat 
across the aisle. Then, once past the turnstile, he sat down on a 
bench and looked for apartments.
    It took almost two thirds of his money, but he managed to secure 
a small place near Coit Tower, along Julius Alley. The place was 
furnished with only two wobbly wooden chairs, a broken sofa, and a 
kitchen that could be described as operable at best, but it would 
do. His needs were little, his demands few. His view to the north 
was that of the neighboring fire escape. Out the kitchen window, not 
quite completely west, he could just see the twin towers of the 
Golden Gate Bridge poking up over Nob Hill.
    First thing to do was get a job. Perhaps as a bartender on one 
of those places along Broadway. He knew almost every combination of 
every drug in existence--how different could mixing drinks be? Plus 
get paid to watch topless chicks dance, to boot! Not a bad career 
move.
    He stepped out of his apartment, eager to place applications all 
along Broadway, and within three blocks he was lost. He had ducked 
into a cozy-bar hidden along a sidestreet, and when he came out, he 
couldn't tell whether he had come from the left or the right, or 
where he was headed. He stood on the sidewalk for a long time, 
confused. This feeling was new to him, completely alien. What had 
happened to his marvelous sense of direction, that compass in his 
nose? Well, maybe this was some temporary thing that'd go away after 
a while. He'd just head back up the way he thought he'd come, and 
things were sure to come back to him in a couple blocks.
    They didn't.
    Ed wandered the streets, searching desperately for something 
familiar, while trying not to look like it. Several times, he had to 
stop to catch his breath from all that hill-climbing, but each time 
he did, thoughts would creep in. Thoughts like, "How the hell am I 
gonna dodge Birdy if I can't find my own way around?" He knew, after 
all, that Birdy would come looking for him here sooner or later. Was 
already, probably. He would begin to get the shakes, and that's when 
he'd force himself to move on.
    Ed reckoned he'd walked a total of about a mile and a half when 
he topped the hill at the intersection of Hyde and Lombard streets, 
where that famous stretch of road snaps back and forth down the 
hill. They called it the crookedest street in the world, and he'd 
seen it in photographs hundreds of times. Beyond that, atop another 
hill about a half mile away, sat Coit Tower. Okay. There's a 
reference point. He knew his alley wasn't far from that. He had 
begun to worry that he'd be forced to break down and buy a map, 
something he'd never needed before.
    He did eventually find Julius Alley by following Lombard Street, 
but he refused to venture out the rest of the day. He stayed in his 
bare and dirty kitchen, and brooded. No way he could hide from 
Birdy's gang in this condition. So long as his sensor was shot, he 
was trapped. The proverbial prisoner in his own home. He went to the 
cabinet and opened it up. A single small glass sat shoved to one 
corner. Ed blew the dust out of the bottom and filled it from the 
sink. As he did so, he looked up through the window over the faucet- 
-and saw it. The cause of all his problems. Well, it had to be, 
didn't it? Ed was surprised he hadn't figured it before. After all, 
at a mile and a quarter long, and 700 feet high, the Golden Gate 
Bridge was the only mass of metal large enough to screw up his nose 
compass.
    He'd just have to get rid of it.
-----
    "This here's the key you need to access the elevator. No way in 
without it. Don't want any of these tourists to jump a ride." The 
rumble of traffic and the roar of the ocean wind in Ed's ears almost 
drowned out the crew leader's words. He glanced over his shoulder 
and stepped forward quickly to avoid a bicyclist on the walkway. The 
crew leader was still talking as he unlocked the elevator, but Ed 
couldn't hear him. Once he had finished, the elevator doors slid 
open, and he turned toward Ed. "Do you want to back out yet? This 
would be a good time if you do." Ed shook his head. "All right, 
then. Come on."
    They stepped into the elevator, the doors closed, and Ed felt 
his stomach drop out as they began their ascent.
    Ed had forgotten the crew leader's name almost the moment they 
met, but this older, heavyset man was still talking. "They built 
this beauty in 1937. Over fifty years without a hitch. Even went 
through the big quake a few years ago. And you know why? Proper 
maintenance, that's why. Keep after anything right and it'll last 
you damn near forever. You better put that hardhat on, boy. I don't 
like to bend rules."
    The lift bounced to a stop several seconds later. The doors 
opened, and they stepped into the enclosed area just below the top 
of the south tower. One of the two massive cables that held the span 
in place passed through the tower here and rose above them.
    "How thick is that thing?" Ed asked Crew Leader.
    "Three foot. Doesn't seem that much, but she'll hold anything, 
just about."
    Crew Leader scaled a ladder that led to the open area above the 
cable. Ed followed, and drew in a breath when he reached the top. 
Here, he could see the entire bay area stretched out and hazy, 
spread along the hills, mountains, and rivers leading to the 
horizon. A strong, cold wind pushed at his back from the Pacific 
Ocean. They walked out to the middle of the section and stood 
directly above the main cable, overlooking The Gate.
    "Alright, Randy--"
    "Andy."
    "Andy, whatever. You see that big beautiful bridge strung out 
there in front of you? It takes half a dozen of us, working 365 days 
a year, to keep that baby painted that big, bright, tangerine color. 
Time we get to the end, it's time to turn around and start over. 
We've gotta crawl over every inch of her to do it. That's why this 
is included in your interview. If you can walk this main cable down 
to the bottom without losing it, you can have the job."
    Ed looked down to the highway 450 feet below. "That easy, huh?"
    "Sure. There're railings. Lemme tell you somethin'. I once 
worked on a bridge in Norway, only about half this height, but it 
didn't have any railings. Nothin'. I had to go out on that thing at 
two in the morning, 20 below zero, and nothin' to hold onto. 
Scariest experience I ever had. Keep that in mind, and you'll feel a 
lot better."
    He didn't.
-----
    "Victor? Hi, it's Ed. Yeah, I'm doin' okay. Can't tell you where 
I'm calling from. Look... Just listen, ok? Remember that little bomb 
factory we had going toward the end of the sixties? Yeah, you still 
got that stuff? Great. I'm gonna need a whole shitload. Probably all 
of it, in fact."
    A BART train rumbled to a stop fifteen feet away. No one was 
there in the middle of the night to go aboard, and no one emerged. 
Its doors silently opened and closed, and it sped into the 
underground tunnels of the night with a roar and a gust of wind.
    "I couldn't hear you for a second, there. What was that?... I'd 
rather not say. Look, just load all of it--yeah, all of it--in the 
back of your van, and bring it to Washington Square tomorrow at, 
what, eleven? You know where that is? Ok. See you then. And thanks."
-----
    The next night, his kitchen resembled a war room. Plastic 
explosives, TNT, blasting caps, detonators, timed fuses--he had it 
all. Enough material there to declare guerrilla warfare on a small 
city. Like San Francisco. Quite frankly, it spooked him. This 
material was over twenty years old, and no doubt very unstable in 
its old age. He had to handle it extremely carefully.
    Taped to the back of the map he now used to navigate around the 
city was a roughly-drawn diagram of the bridge. Strategic charge 
locations were marked off in red ink "X"s. He stayed up all night 
planning his actions. When the morning sun broke through the fog, he 
took a large dose of Sominex and went to bed. He planned to be well- 
rested for the long night ahead.
    Ed kept to the outside of the walkway--not far enough, he was 
sure, to stay out of sight of the closed-circuit cameras, but far 
enough from the rail to remove attention as a possible jumper, those 
people the cameras were keeping an eye out for. They all aimed 
downward; none would catch him crawling around a few hundred feet 
above.
    It took over two hours to lay and tamp the charges. He set three 
charges in each tower, roughly triangular: two on the west side and 
one on the east, at the south tower. He reversed the pattern in the 
north tower. The largest charges were placed on the main cables as 
they passed through the towertops. He wanted to place a couple where 
the cables reached their lowest point in the center of the bridge, 
but finally decided it would be too risky to venture that close to 
the roadway. Until morning, he would let the charges sit: he wanted 
to see this.
    Victor didn't know it, but Ed had also taken parts of the radio 
transmitter they once operated out the back of Vic's van. Mobility 
was a key factor in those turbulent days; otherwise, you got caught, 
and the cops didn't have as many legal obligations to be nice to you 
as they do today. They broadcast that pirate station from the van 
for a good four months, always keeping one step ahead of the FCC's 
sophisticated locators. Now the small receivers lay buried in lumps 
of plastic explosive, waiting for him to send the proper signal.
    Four hours till sunrise.
-----
    At six o'clock, the heavy commuter traffic began. Businessmen 
and -women poured in from across the bay area and the valley beyond. 
The Caldecott Tunnel opened its middle section to ease the eastbound 
traffic flowing through the mountains from the valley. They streamed 
into Oakland, and the Oaklanders streamed into The City. Twenty feet 
below the surface, BART became littered with the newspapers of 
anxious brokers checking the day's stocks. The virtually deserted 
lower deck of the Bay Bridge vibrated and rumbled from the traffic 
moving into San Francisco on the level above. Thousands more jammed 
the roadway leading in from Marin County across the Golden Gate 
Bridge.
    The first sunlight peeked over the mountains and lit The Gate's 
towertops with a strange red-orange glow. This morning was unusually 
free of fog, and many drivers had to flip down their sunvisers for 
the first time in weeks. The temperature was a comfortable 75 
degrees, and the ocean blew just strong enough to whisk away the 
smog. Most of the commuters rode with their windows down to enjoy 
the good weather.
    It was a beautiful day.
-----
    Like seventeen thousand other San Franciscans, Ed Locksley was 
endulging in a hot cup of coffee at the kitchen table when the sun 
rose. Unlike the others, Ed had no job to rush to in a few minutes. 
He didn't plan to return to The Gate. Didn't plan to have any Gate 
to return to. He took his time, and when the last grimy drops had 
swirled their way from the bottom of his cup down his throat, Ed set 
down the cup and picked up the transmitter. He aimed it out the open 
window, muttered "Bye-bye, Birdy," and shot a signal toward the 
bridge, like an old-time gunslinger picking off an Indian at fifty 
yards. Small puffs of smoke and sparks suddenly appeared in all the 
right spots. The Gate swayed side to side almost imperceptively for 
several seconds, as Ed knew it would before it collapsed. It 
lingered...
    And lingered.
    And kept lingering.
    And didn't fall.
    Ed wasn't sure how to react. Nothing in his plans called for 
this. Had he set the charges at the wrong points? Hadn't he used 
enough? Were the charges too old? _What the hell had gone wrong?_
    Did it matter? Fact was, he was now doubly screwed. Birdy was 
still on his tail, and now someone--bridge cops?--would come after 
him, too. Course, they didn't have his real name, but they knew what 
he looked like. Not a very big city, after all. Not really. They'd 
find him soon--if Birdy didn't first. One way or another, he was 
gonna get put away. Unless he took off. He never thought he'd have 
to, but he had to leave the bay. There was one place he could go. He 
could take up the standing offer to stay with his friend Joel at the 
commune outside Merced. Yes, that would be a good place to ride out 
the heat; disappear into Darkest America.
    Less than an hour later, Ed was seated toward the back of a 
brand-new Greyhound bus clacking across the lower deck of the Bay 
Bridge. In the distance, he could just barely make out the flashing 
lights of emergency vehicles at both ends of the Golden Gate Bridge. 
Closing it off, no doubt. A bearded man in a stained and torn 
Jefferson Airplane T-shirt sat next to him, listening to a Sony 
Walkman. Ed could faintly hear the jibber of a morning DJ spilling 
out the man's headphones.
    "Hey," Jeff Airplane suddenly exclaimed, "someone just tried to 
blow up the Golden Gate Bridge!"
    Ed tried not to sound overly-interested, but not bored, either: 
"Really?"
    "Yeah. Didn't work, but it sounds like someone died. Workman."
    Ed was shaken. He hadn't intended to hurt anyone; just get that 
friggin' chunk of metal out of his way. He didn't say anything. No 
one could guess. The knowledge calmed him.
    Jeff Airplane was shaking his head slowly. "What kind of person 
does it take to _do_ something that crazy?"
    Ed looked back at the alternating red and amber lights on The 
Gate, and wondered which one was the ambulance. "He must have been a 
sick man. A very, very sick man."
     <C> 1991 W.A. Seaver
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