21st Century Bogatyr: Even Without Clocks

"...and I am anxiously waiting for the secret of eternal life to be discovered…" Lawrence Ferlinghetti from his poem I Am Waiting

[This is Part Five of a work in progress. Links to the rest are at the bottom of this page.]

by Zvi Baranoff

The Marching Band got drunk and then marched about, playing awfully as they stumbled about, half in my stomach and half in my skull. Sometimes a lie down would help, but sleep was fitful. I would awaken in a sweat and a panic. Sometimes the opium would bring relief, but only so much. The sonic attack had me shaken to the core.

I would feel OK for a while and we would take a greenhouse stroll and then I would be sitting on a bench with the universe all donder and blixem and my head spinning. I would drink some herb tea and we would head back to Abuelo's place and I would take a nap and feel a little better. And this is pretty much how things went for several days.

As I began to feel a little better, I began to wander about the Zone a bit on my own. No one limited me or discouraged me and I could go where I pleased. The distance that I covered was only limited by my personal stamina.

I never saw anything resembling a current map of the Zone. My cell phone continued to have no signal so there were no GPS coordinates or satellite maps that I could rely on. I never saw anything that resembled a border and truly was unable to figure out how to leave on my own, not that I was really up to the task yet.

I saw nothing that resembled a transportation system, either public or private. No busses, trams, taxis, cars or even bicycles. No donkey or horse carts either.

I still found nothing that could be even loosely defined as commercial or commerce. Most of the clothing worn seemed to be homespun or high quality craft rather than manufactured.

I found that the temperature varied widely in the greenhouse walkways. They are all fairly comfortable but some maintained a temperature of not that much above freezing while others were downright tropical. This allowed for a wide variety of plant growth. It also contributed to wide variations in social exchanges. Climate determines activities. While nudity was not widespread, in the warmer sections, various stages of undress were not particularly unusual and lack of clothing did not seem to surprise or obviously offend anyone. In the warmest sections there were areas where semi-discreet rendezvous and yogic exuberance took place mostly just beyond public view amongst the bushes or behind clumps of grasses.

There is a very creative and extensive network of chicken runs that crisscrossed the greenhouses as well as the private gardens. It mostly keeps the birds out of the planting beds, but not completely. An occasional hen or rooster might be found anywhere and some end up in a stew or a soup. Scattered about were also roosting boxes, each containing nests for four or six birds. The eggs are gathered without plan or organization and everyone that likes to eat eggs seem to get enough.

In between it all, during my phases of greater lucidity, Abuelo carried on like the hybrid historian, reporter, activist and professor that was his nature, and he would try to explain to me the Zone and the relationship - or lack thereof - with Chicago, the USA and the rest of the world.

Between walks and naps and meals and sit downs in the personal greenhouse garden adjacent to the house - where he lectured about gardening - out came the diagrams and the maps and old books and magazines and flyers and newspaper articles that helped make sense of the trends and situations and circumstances that brought about the unlikely string of events that created a place that exists on no maps and projects an appearance of solidity while not officially being.

Of course, understanding the present requires understanding the past and understanding the past requires knowledge of motivation of all sorts of individuals and groups.

One thing leads to another. And we are considering the Spanish Civil War and the Paris Commune and the letters exchanged between Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln and the struggle between Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks and the struggle for the eighth hour work day. There are multiple books on all these subjects on Abuelo's shelves.

This Charles Abuelo fellow came up from Georgia to Chicago for college, and stayed. He held various jobs, from washing dishes to writing and editing. He was a reporter for a couple of different alternative weeklies. This had been his neighborhood long before it became the Zone.

He pulled down a screen from the ceiling that contained a map of Chicago. "This is where I lived in the 1990s." he said using a broom handle to point at the map. "By the end of the century, there was a bike collective here, an organic bakery and coffee house here and a political puppet group renting a warehouse somewhere in here."

"Well," he continued, "there were moderate size urban gardens here and here and there were squatters occupying buildings in this section here."

"Whenever there were political demonstrations, they usually began in the park over here, and proceeded in this direction. Generally, the police would try to block off the marches before they got into this area. At some point there would be a standoff. The cops formed a phalanx, a bottle would bounce off some cop's helmet or a window would crack somewhere. And clubs would swing and teargas canisters would fly and crowds would either flee or fight and sometimes they built barricades".

That seemed to be the general pattern, with an ebb and flow to the political zeal, that went on for decades. He placed a reel to reel tape player on his desk and we listened to old speeches. He had a movie projector and showed me films of gatherings, marches, festivals and riots spanning a quarter century.

That part of the city began taking on a clearer sense of identity that perceived itself as being different than the city as a whole and soon there were those calling for secession. The police were, more and more, perceived as an occupation army and there were calls for disbanding the police. A spark would trigger a reaction and the cycle of violence would flare again with the familiar patterns of batons and teargas and barricades.

Keeping the police out had become a strategy and rather than marching towards the police, demonstrators were declaring parks and streets "liberated" and organized to defend territory. The terrain had changed. Now, the police focused on clearing out occupied spaces. They attacked the parks. They raided the squats. They trampled the gardens. And a bottle would fly or a window would break and the batons were utilized as was teargas.

Police efforts to clear the area that the cops were already calling the Zone were spotty and largely ineffective. The frequency and pace of the demonstrations multiplied. Tensions were growing as well. The crowds got larger and more adamant. The police became more brutal.

At some point, the government strategy shifted. Those that lived in the Zone expected some sort of negotiations and compromise resulting in some increased autonomy for the Zone.

What came down from the Federales caught everyone off guard. Forever, it had been a bizarre ballet with discordant music, but it seemed that without warning the orchestra packed up and left and the dancers did not know what to do.

It was the Ides of March when the announcement was made that the Zone had been declared illegal. All businesses operating within the Zone were ordered to cease activities immediately. A government announcement declared that those "without criminal intent" should vacate the Zone within 24 hours.

The next day, electricity to the Zone was cut off and mail service was discontinued. Of course, there were some solar panels, but certainly not enough to supply the whole Zone with consistent power.

Even water was cut off for a few hours, but that required shutting down a line that served around a third of Chicago, so the water was soon back on.

Neighborhood meetings were called and went on for marathon sessions. A collective response was sought. Consensus was called for and never quite reached as the meetings stretched into the early morning hours.

The Police manned Security Checkpoints were established at all on the main streets. To begin with, cars were allowed out unhindered, with a minimum screening and an ID check for outstanding warrants. The next day, barriers were in place on all the secondary streets and by the third day the alleys were blocked and boulders had been placed on the bike paths.

So, while persistent individuals on foot could find ways through the blockade, anything like normal travel and exchange was squashed. The Zone was under quarantine, embargo, siege.

Those under siege in the Zone tried using the internet to let the world know what was going on. Within days, most of the Zone lost phone signals. The signal could only be picked up in the areas close to the checkpoints. People could be seen wandering with their phones held up in the air, trying to catch a signal. The police responded with drones, knocking phones from hands with smashed phones and broken fingers resulting. After a few days, the electronic curtain solidified and even those weak signals around the parameters disappeared. The Zone was cut off.

So, virtually no news could get out of the Zone and other than rumors and wisps, the only information that came in were directly from the police at the security checkpoints. Much of that information seemed tailored to cause panic. Perhaps nothing was more effective than the news that came to the Zone shortly after the phone signals went dead.

The Federal government passed the Universal Cell Phone & Internet Bill of Rights and perhaps no piece of legislation has ever been more mislabeled than this. On the one hand, it assured every American access to the internet, but it also bound every American to the web. While recognizing that there are some void areas and one can be out of range for short periods, such as a camping trip, however if one is disconnected from the web for more than four weeks, the governmental presumption is that the person is dead. Dead people don't have bank accounts, health insurance or Social Security. The government essentially declared anyone that remained in the Zone dead to the world.

The population of the Zone rapidly dwindled. Those with commitments and connections such as jobs and families were more inclined to leave. Those with deeper commitments in the neighborhood or those with strong reasons to be disconnected from the outside, such as outstanding warrants, stayed put. Things got really difficult, really quickly.

The Salvagers became key to survival in the Zone. They moved in and out of abandoned properties, determining what was useful for repurposing. They oversaw deconstruction projects. They coordinated smuggling operations, bringing essentials from the outside into the Zone.

Anyone could become a Salvager but not everyone was able to be a Salvager. It took a level of gumption and willfulness that only the truly committed can maintain. Initially, the Salvagers were a working committee, primarily of squatters, but the crew transformed into something closer to a guild or a fraternity.

One evening, around sunset, Maria let herself into the cottage as Abuelo and I were just finishing dinner. She pulled a satchel from the inner pocket of her leather jacket and opened it to reveal a dozen mushrooms. We each ate two and then two more. Abuelo and I washed ours down with some very smooth Tennessee whiskey.

Maria went to sit in the greenhouse and that was the last I saw of her that evening. Abuelo puttered about, straightening books.

I sat in a corner and watched light turn into sound and sounds turn into colors and waves of colors roll through the wall and I held on tight to the arms of the chair. At some point a mountain lion strolled in and sat beside me and began to explain to me deep esoteric secrets and we debated fine philosophical points. It did cross my mind that the mountain lion was considerably out of its normal habitat.

I am not sure how long we were conversing like that, but it felt like a long time and we were deeply engrossed in dialogue when I heard a crash. I looked up and I saw Abuelo pushing piles of books off the edge of his crowded desk. I looked back and found that the mountain lion was gone.

Abuelo had cleared enough space on his desk to unroll a map. He stuck a book on each corner to keep it from rolling up. I came over to see what he was up to. It was an old street map of the neighborhood before it had been sealed off.

As I looked at the map, the streets became translucent, the buildings started to rise, grass and trees grew in the parks. We stepped into the map and began to walk about.

We were both decades younger, young men in our prime. I don't know how many days, weeks, months passed. I know seasons came and went.

We played softball in the park. We drank beer at a bar while watching a Cubs game on the TV. Later, we played pool in the backroom. We ate pizza. We bought weed from the Corner Boys. We went to coffee houses and heard a lot of terrible poetry. We went to concerts and heard a lot of blaring and disjointed music. I met some sweet and lovely women and had a few romantic, but not real serious, encounters. We saw amateur theater, fights in alleyways, arguments over parking spaces. We saw falling leaves and snow plows moving about. I found out what it was like to live in that neighborhood and why Abuelo loved it there and why he chose to stay.

And then, I slipped and fell and fell some more and I must have fallen out of the map. I looked about and I was alone, on the wooden floor of Abuelo's cottage. I closed my eyes for a while. The next thing I remember is the sensation of the earth shaking. I opened one eye and found Abuelo standing next to me, shaking my shoulder. He seemed to be standing a few inches off the floor and glowing. I closed that one eye again but the shaking continued until I gave in and sat up.

"Let's go for a walk," he suggested. "It is almost morning and I know a great place to watch the sunrise." Sure, why not? I looked around in case of mountain lions or other such, shrugged my shoulders, found my hat and coat. Abuelo threw some fruit and bread and cheese and such into a shoulder bag and picked up his walking cane. We headed out into the pre-morning darkness.

The weather had turned somewhat moderate and the walk was not real cold and we did not have all that far to go. We entered a stairwell of one of the taller buildings that I had seen in the Zone. We climbed to the roof where there was a lovely sheltered space with a lawn and trees and a wonderful view of the eastern horizon. Some other locals also found their way to this promontory. The sun rose in spectacular form. We ate breakfast on that rooftop.

"I have something else to show you," Abuelo told me and he led me further through the trails of the Zone. We tend to think of city spaces as crowded places, however, if roads and offices and commercial buildings and parking lots and trains and such are eliminated and houses are scaled down, it is surprising perhaps how spacious and open a city can be. That is exactly the situation in the Zone. Probably three-quarters or more of the original buildings had been carefully deconstructed, with everything potentially useful transformed for new uses such as the cottage where I was recuperating.

We walked another short distance and came to what must have been a plaza at one time. There was a building with a clock tower but the face of the clock had been smashed. There was a pedestal in the center of the former plaza. The pedestal stood unadorned with no statuary and no plaque.

"So," he began. "The more political folks amongst us met all day and all night. They argued and fought over ideology and policy. They made all the decisions by consensus. In theory, that meant that everyone came to a common agreement. In practice, there were really very few things anyone agreed about. No one liked to be told what to do and no one wanted an authority over them, but as far as making practical decisions, well…" He trailed off and sat quietly for a while.

Then he continued his tale. "They abolished government, capitalism and money. All that was pretty simple since the government had abandoned the Zone, there was no business and since paper money had already been banned and we were cut off from electronic financial transactions, those 'decisions' had really already been made for us."

"They went on to do away with sexism, racism, ageism and every other 'ism' they could think of. And then, they took on the issue of time. There was a May Day celebration here in the plaza. There was music and speeches and then the great debate over time itself."

"Socialists and labor activists decried the old bosses and their time clocks. Both the young and the old argued against being judged or categorized by their chronological age. Former prisoners did not want to 'do' time ever again. Anarchists claimed that time itself was oppressive. New Agers and pop psychologists declared time an illusion and called for making 'Be Here Now' a central theme to our being here. Some suggested that if we stopped measuring time we could halt the aging process. Those that read a lot of science fiction professed that by disconnecting from linear time, time traveling would be possible. Somehow, all these diverse elements came to the same conclusion."

"So, on that May Day, while we celebrated and partied below, a yahoo with a sledgehammer climbed the tower and smashed the face and hands. The next day, any calendars, schedulers and clocks that could be found were piled up and set aflame. Over the next couple of days, a few individuals that were wearing wristwatches lost them to zealots. The Zone was declared free of time for perpetuity."

"Of course, that was our last May Day in the Zone. Without a calendar there are no holidays or birthdays or anniversaries and no yahrzeit candles lit for you when you are gone."

Abuelo used his cane to balance as he stood up. "Somehow, however, even without clocks and calendars, we still age," he said with resignation and perhaps a touch of sadness. We started back home.

As we walked, I asked him about the empty pedestal in the former plaza. "Oh," he said. "The nihilists wanted to build a monument to nothing, and they did."

Links to the earlier posted parts of this story, Chapters 1 - 26.

Part 1: Grace and Mercy If Luck Holds

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2020/05/grace-and-mercy-if-luck-holds.html?m=1

Part 2: Everything Was Fine Until It All Went Sideways

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2020/07/everything-was-fine-until-it-all-went.html

Part 3: I Blink In & Out and Awakened In the Zone

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2020/07/i-blink-in-out-and-awakened-in-zone.html

Part 4: Out Of Time

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2020/07/out-of-time.html

Part 5: Even Without Clocks

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2020/07/even-without-clocks.html

Part 6: Cerveza & Barbecue Before I Go