Chapter 20: Baker’s Camp
Baker’s Camp, the Moon(p)ies’ indoctrination center, was a large tact of rugged riverfront property that once had been a summer camp for juvenile delinquents. The drought years in the mid-seventies had resulted in serious discipline problems at the camp when the young offenders grew bored and restless without the diversion of water sports in the dried-up river. The camp was sold to a real estate agent fronting for Martin Petersen. His lieutenants had been impressed by the security of the place, although their main concern was with keeping people out.
Residents of The Valley had no idea what went on behind the barbed wire fences of their new neighbors. Press releases to the local media describing the compound of the Moon(p)ies as “a retreat for a baker’s apprentice to learn the challenging skill of doughnut-making” and “the West Coast’s answer to McDonald’s fast-food college back East – the Stanford of junk food,” did little to quell the rumors.
But the Playboy article did set the record straight with the locals. The Healdsburg newsstand even ordered a hundred extra copies, and reading – between two pictorials of the Grand Tetons – of the goings-on at the camp was the rage in The Valley for weeks. Some of The Valley’s folk were shocked, and some relieved – at least it wasn’t some commune of sex-crazed burn-outs from The City who wore red robes for only a portion of the day.
Over another pint, Tobie, in half-drunken braggadocio, had told the weeping Irishman that he could get his daughter safely out of Baker’s Camp. After his talk with his girlfriend Susan the next day, Tobie located the Irishman at the same bar to inform him that Tobie’s team would handle not only the abduction of the man’s daughter, but her subsequent deprogramming as well, Susan having convinced Tobie that she could conduct the returning of the man’s daughter from the Pastry World.
Susan based her conviction on the fact that she had read a “how-to” book on deprogramming, and that she had worked for a month at the local state mental hospital and seen “weird people just like that.” In truth, she had read the book while working at the admissions desk of the mental hospital – that was but one of the reasons for her dismissal.
Tobie’s abduction plan was simple. He would parachute into the rear of the compound near sunset, when most of the detainees were involved in the daily communal observance the Playboy writer had called “Naptime.” At the same time The Insect would create a diversion at the bridge, the front entrance to the camp near the highway. Susan, pretending to be a tourist paddling past the fortified land fronting The River, would head a canoe toward shore at the predetermined time to retrieve Tobie and his captive and deliver them to safety. The subsequent deprogramming would take place in the isolation of Daniel’s old place, since Bobby, its current resident, had temporarily deserted it for a brief vacation in Tennessee. It was the sort of plan that could only be dreamed up by those exposed to excessive doses of prime-time television radiation.
All had gone as scheduled through the first phase of the operation. Just before sunset, the light plane made a single sweep over the Moon(p)ie encampment. The Insect, feigning car trouble at the Moon(p)ie’s gate, lit a road flare to give wind direction to his co-conspirator overhead. Susan pushed off the bank in her canoe a half-mile upstream. Tobie leapt from the open door of the plane and maneuvered into position. At 3,500 feet, he pulled his ripcord and guided his hydrofoil chute toward an isolated clearing.
The Insect had created quite a scene at the front gate, diverting every member of Moon(p)ie security away from Tobie’s landing zone. The Insect was dressed in the garb of a small band of Hare Krishna outcasts, in the clothes of a pariah that was a bitter enemy of the Moon(p)ies. The outcasts had left the Krishna’s over a philosophical disagreement some years before for holding radically capitalistic beliefs. The banished clan simply considered themselves to be realists following their twin spiritual leaders of the Srila Prabhupada and Milton Friedman. The outcasts manifested their beliefs by opening a small chain of financially successful all-night food stands specializing in veggie-burgers and frozen faux-yogurt, placing them in direct competition with the Moon(p)ies. Their costume, which The Insect had donned for his performance, was a cross between a Tibetan robe and a Denny’s waitress outfit.
The mere sight of The Insect in the uniform of the Moon(p)ies’ nemesis at the very entrance to their fort was enough to send the entire camp into an uproar, for The Insect unwittingly represented to them the cause for two alarming figures in the Moon(p)ies’ latest P & L statement: Recruits down forty percent in cities in which they no longer held a monopoly, and overall doughnut sales off twenty-five percent for the past quarter. By wearing that costume, The Insect had put his life in danger.
Tobie touched down in the clearing and gathered in his chute, hiding it and his jumpsuit behind a nearby Manzanita bush. He donned the white apron and baker’s cap he had packed, and soon was lost in the crowd of Moon(p)ies stampeding toward the bridge. Tobie began his frantic search for the Irishman’s daughter. Besides a few outdated black-and-white photographs, the only lead to her identity was her father’s detailed description of the clothes she was wearing when he had spotted her through his high-powered binoculars from outside the camp the week before. Tobie was to look for a young woman in a white apron, white sneakers and baker’s cap, the exact description of every female doughnut hole and creampuff in the camp.
“That stupid, red-headed Irish asshole,” Tobie mumbled to himself as he milled through the flock of flour girls. “Red-headed!” Tobie said to himself. “She must be a flaming redhead!”
And there, not ten yards from him was a timid, freckled woman with crimson hair. Tobie approached.
“Kathleen?”
“Why, yes,” she said in a heavy Dublin accent.
“I’m here to tell you about Pete.”
“Pete? And what do you know about Pete?”
“I saw him yesterday, Kathleen. He’s very sick. He’s here. In this valley right now. They don’t expect him to live.”
“This – this is a trick! My father sent you. I’m telling my pastry chef!”
“Kathleen, don’t! If you expose me, they’ll never let you out to see Pete. You’ve got to trust me.”
“What proof do I have that Pete’s here.”
“This.”
Tobie held out a worn, heavy neck chain with a brass medal on it. She snatched it from him and held it to her cheek. Tobie knew his plan was working.
“Oh, poor Pete. Pete’s really here?”
“Yes. He’s deathly ill. They think it’s a type of Alzheimer’s. He was flown in yesterday. Let me take you to him, Kathleen.”
“But I must tell my chef. He wants to know everything we do.”
“If you say one word to him neither you nor I will ever get out of here. Tell you what. I’ll take you to Pete and bring you back here tonight if that’s what you want. They’ll never miss you. Okay?”
“Well . . . .”
“Now. Decide now.”
“Yes. I have to. I have to see him.”
Tobie grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the mob, and they turned and headed in the direction of the drop zone.
“We’re not supposed to walk together. To hold hands.”
“Uh, yeah, sure. Do you know where the prayer beach is down by the River? I’ll meet you by the fence – by the flood gauge. Okay?”
“Yes.”
The two split up. Tobie ran to the bush, stripped off the coat and hat and retrieved his pack. He met Kathleen at the barbed wire fence and, taking a pair of wire cutters from his pack, began to cut through the rolled concertina wire blighting the beach. Tobie worked furiously to cut through the tangle of spiked fence; he didn’t have the moment to reflect on his situation: He was involved in a very real war game less than ten miles from where he was born and raised, from where his parents were at that moment sitting down to a comfortable evening of reading in their den.
At last he had a narrow passage cut through the spiral. Kathleen bound through, tearing the hem of her standard-issue apron. Tobie pulled through and was but a step from the public domain of the stream when his shoulder was jerked back by the pack. A few tufts of the chute spilling out of the pack were hopelessly snagged on the wire. Tobie crawled back inside and tried in vain to tear the chute free, only compounding the problem. He heard voices from up on the bank in the heavy brush leading to the compound. He pulled out his knife and hacked away at the snagged pieces of his chute. He could hear the dull thud of footsteps running toward him. One more snag kept him from being free.
“Hey, get out of here!”
“You’re trespassing!”
“This is private property!”
Tobie looked up to see two young male recruits moving toward him. The knife in his hand made them keep their distance.
“Go fuck a doughnut hole, Moon(p)ies!”
The bigger of the two looked up to see one of his kind, white apron and all, stepping into the waiting canoe downstream. Tobie cut the last swath free, put away his pocket knife and lunged for the hole in the wire. In an act of zealous fury, the bigger recruit lunged forward, grabbed Tobie by the pants leg and tried to pull him back.
“You’re evil! You’re the devil incarnate!” he yelled as he tugged on Tobie.
Tobie jumped up and landed one punch on the cheek of the baby-faced recruit. The young man spun around and landed unconscious in the narrow passage through the wire, creating a human plug in their defenses. Tobie waited momentarily to see if the other cream puff would try to fight him. The pimply-faced teenage boy stood motionless. Tobie thought he caught a spark of enthusiasm – almost a pleading expression, as if he wanted to be a part of Tobie’s exciting world of intrigue.
“I wouldn’t take you even if I could, you little prick.”
The boy’s face became a mindless blank. He turned and fled, screaming, back to those who – for a price – had shown they cared for him. He ran at breakneck speed to those who wouldn’t reject him. Tobie pulled the human plug out of the fence, crawled through and trotted down the stream bank to join Susan and Kathleen in the canoe. In the deepening gloom of the summer dusk, he guided their raft through the crimson-and-blue glass sheet of The River.
As they rounded the first bend, the three could hear a calm, modulated voice over the loudspeakers in the camp repeating, “Code Three. Roll call please.”
Tobie’s Ranger was parked a few feet from the opposite bank. They loaded up Kathleen and their canoe and sped back to the solitude of Daniel’s old place high up on the ridge. The truck hadn’t stopped before the young girl was bounding out of the door and up the steps to the house.
“Hurry! Open it, please.”
The door swung open, and there lay Pete shrouded in blankets on the couch.
“Oh, Pete! Pete, old boy!”
Kathleen hugged him around the neck and planted a kiss on his warm nose. She gently stroked the white hair on his forehead. With all his energy, Pete opened his eyes and lifted his head and licked her face. Tobie smiled. The doggie downers he had talked Watson out of were working perfectly; the old Irish Setter was in the ozones.
Only Tobie could have come up with such an ingeniously simple plan for winning the trust of Kathleen, the woman who as a young lass had romped with her setter, Pete, in the same fields of James Joyce’s’ childhood.
“The veterinarian says he only has a few days left to live,” Tobie lied. “You and Pete can stay here until it’s over.”
“That’s so nice of you. Who brought him? My father? He’s not here, is he?”
“No, he’s in San Francisco. He had your brother fly over with him and gave Pete to us at the airport.”
“Was that safe? He looks so sick.”
“Your father felt that Pete should spend his last moments with you.”
“Where’s my brother?”
“He flew back to Dublin.”
“Why?”
“He was afraid you wouldn’t want to see him.”
“He shouldn’t have,” Kathleen replied.
Susan flashed a brief smile at Tobie. He gave a quick nod of his head.
Kathleen and Pete spent the following day sunning on the deck of the home. Susan and Tobie took turns sitting beside her and talking to her, attempting to gain her trust. Holly the three-legged collie stood guard outside the front door, on the lookout for unwelcome strangers. But as the day wore on, the plan of the self-proclaimed deprogrammers began to unravel. No one had seen or heard from The Insect since the great escape. Tobie feared that he might have become an MIA in the raid. Pete was refusing to eat his Seconal-laced dog food, and already he was showing signs to Kathleen of a miraculous recovery. Tobie also noticed that Pete’s interest in Holly was more than just a little platonic dog sniffing; it was obvious that the old dog still had something in him.
In the early evening, Tobie and Susan were shocked to see a caravan winding up the steep road leading to their ridge-top hideaway. In the procession were several sheriff’s patrol cars and Jeremy’s Rolls. To an unknowing observer, it looked like an Arab oil sheik on a land-acquisition spree. Tobie herded his flock inside. A deputy on a bullhorn repeatedly ordered them to come out with their hands up, but it was Jeremy who drew them out without resistance. Tobie was arrested for assault, kidnapping, and trespassing. Kathleen was taken into custody, and Susan and Holly were left to look after old Pete.
It took two days for Jeremy to negotiate his son’s release. After overcoming the initial shock of the bizarre tale – all happening with him completely oblivious to the whole mess, Jeremy did everything he could to free his son. A command post was set up at the ranch. Negotiations with Moon(p)ie leaders lasted through the night and into the next day. The Moon(p)ies finally agreed to drop charges against Tobie and release The Insect, held captive at their camp, in exchange for Tobie’s written promise to desist from further guerilla operations against Baker’s Camp. Jeremy also had to provide the Moon(p)ies, through a tax-deductible donation, with a new electronic security system, including a set of carbon-arc searchlights to prevent any future nocturnal attacks.
Jeremy was willing to concede The Insect’s release for the spotlights – in order to keep the costs down, of course. But from the Moon(p)ie’s commitment to the imposed conditions, it was obvious to Jeremy that they were quite ready to be rid of the pest.
Three days after the attack, Tobie was out of jail a free man, all charges dropped. Kathleen was returned to the Moon(p)ies and The Insect was released to Jeremy in a dramatic exchange of prisoners at the bridge leading into the Moon(p)ie camp. Jeremy thought that the scene was reminiscent of the release of the Pueblo crew by the North Koreans, with Jeremy on the side that was getting the raw end of a lopsided deal.
The Irishman’s melancholy drinking bouts began anew at the Healdsburg bar, although he eventually fled to his homeland when he realized that he was developing a taste for those god-awful American beers. His sole consolation was the brief meeting with his daughter at the county jail, and the hope that she might drift away from the group now that a seed of doubt had been planted. The Insect was in good spirits despite the fact he had been given only doughnuts and water for the three days of his captivity. He told his liberators how he enjoyed the ones with the sprinkles the best. Bobby arrived home from his vacation one week after the episode had been resolved, after the ranch had returned to normal.
