textfiles/stories/radar_ra.txt

              Interview with the RADAR Ranger
                     A work of fiction

                            by

                        D. Railleur
                      Not Copyrighted

Contents

Introduction
About the Author
Interview with the RADAR Ranger

Introduction

Mount Tamalpais in Marin, California, is the birthplace 
of mountain biking. From a few lone bikes in the late 
1970s, the numbers have grown astronomically in the 
1990s. In fact, the main users of the recreational lands on 
Mt. Tam today are mountain bikers. But the increase in 
bikers has brought with it some problems. This fictional 
work deals with one of those problems.

In 1988, the rangers on Mt. Tam began using RADAR 
guns to monitor the speed of cyclists on the dirt fire 
roads. Anyone caught going over the speed limit -- 15 
mph -- received a traffic ticket that the local municipal 
court upheld. The blanket fine for speeding was $200, 
regardless of race, sex, age, and so on.

Few cyclists were pleased with this outcome. Arguments 
were offered that educational programs on riding 
etiquette would be more "humane" and in spirit with the 
times, but the heavy fines remained. Out of the swirling 
debates, trail dust, and RADAR beams emerged this 
fictional account of the origins of  RADAR Rangers on 
Mt. Tamalpais.

About The Author

I met the author of "Interview with the RADAR Ranger" 
during a regular ride on the mountain. I was quite a 
distance from anywhere and was surprised when she 
came up on me. We rode along together for a short while 
talking mountain bikes, when she abruptly turned off the 
fire road we were on and headed up a steep, rocky single 
track. I watched her disappear quickly amid the oaks and 
bays (riding on single tracks is illegal on the mountain, 
and besides, it was too steep for me to follow). Since that 
first encounter, she crossed my path on the mountain 
several other times. She claimed her name was D. 
Railleur, but I couldn't find any such person in the local 
phone book. None of the other folks I occasionally ride 
with have ever seen her.

Anyway, I received a package in the mail in October 
1992. It contained the manuscript for this book. Included 
was a note from D. Railleur asking if I could typeset it 
and distribute it. She didn't care about copyright she said. 
I read the ms. and thought it was a classic (I think the 
book is a parody of Ann Rice's "Interview with the 
Vampire"). For the book's bio, D. Railleur gave me this 
bit of text: 

"D. Railleur is a 1968 graduate of Mercer County 
Community College in Trenton, New Jersey. She studied 
Communications and Political Science before joining the 
Highway Patrol in Crested Butte, Colorado. After leaving 
the patrol and moving to California in 1975, Ms. Railleur 
obtained a Ph.D. in Shamanism  from John F. Kennedy 
University in Orinda, California."

There it is -- I haven't seen D. Railleur since September, 
1992. I've tried to find her, but I don't think she'll be 
found until she wants to be found. In the meantime, enjoy 
her book.


Main Sections

Part One:  Highway 101
Part Two:  Sonoma Coast
Part Three:  The Mountain
Epilog


Part One: Highway 101

"Uh-huh..." said the RADAR Ranger, and he walked 
across the rough wood flooring toward the open door. For 
long moments he stood there, outlined in the dusky light 
filtering into Sky Oaks Ranger Station. The mountain 
biker looked around at the room, contrasting the smooth 
formica top of the service counter to the smudged surface 
of the oak work desk in the next room. On the wall, 
above a map of the watershed, hung a boar's head with 
long, yellow tusks pushing out from the lower jaw and 
snaking up and around either side of the hairy snout. The 
biker put his Snell/ANSI-approved helmet on the counter 
and waited.

"How much time do you have?" asked the RADAR 
Ranger, spinning around on the heel of his boot. His 
worn hat blocked the glare of the rippling sun behind and 
the cyclist could see his face clearly. "Time to hear the 
story of a life of RADAR?"

"If it's a good story. I've talked with lots of people on the 
mountain ... enough to confuse and mix-up the tales each 
has told me. I want to hear something that's unique, that 
sets itself apart from all the other stuff you hear up there. 
Sound fair to you, sir?"

"More than fair," the RADAR Ranger answered. "I can 
think of nothing better than to tell you of my life as a 
RADAR Ranger. I want to do it very much."

The cyclist's face tensed with the excitement he felt. 
"Fantastic. I'm really interested why you think you can 
use RADAR to ..."

"No," said the RADAR Ranger abruptly. "I'm not going 
to start there. A question can't set the tone for a life 
already lived. Are you willing to listen to the story I have 
to tell?"

"Yes," said the mountain biker. "Go on."

The RADAR Ranger eyed the cyclist with his back to the 
open door. The yellow sky orb had shifted and the front 
of the ranger was a shadow to the cyclist. The mountain 
biker started to say something to break the uneasiness he 
felt, but the words wouldn't come. He finally exhaled 
with relief as the RADAR Ranger broke his stillness and 
moved towards him under the overhead light, which 
erased the shadow that had covered his face.

The cyclist, staring up at the RADAR Ranger, could not 
help but gasp. The older man, quicker than the pedaler's 
eyes could follow, had loosened the top three buttons of 
his work shirt, bearing his chest. Ornately tattooed in 
sixteen shades of gray below his left breast was the image 
of the Model K-15, the official RADAR gun of the 
watershed. It was all there, in mesmerizing high-
resolution -- the precision lens antenna for beam control, 
aiming sights to follow the violator, double-walled 
antenna for rugged use, trigger switch to lock-in 
violations... The legendary gun that had put Km.P.H. 
Industries of Nosferatu, Kansas, on the map.

The RADAR Ranger grinned pensively, and the trigger 
of the flesh-covered gun silently slid down 1/4-inch, 
accurately guided by the quiver of twitching muscle that 
moved out from his nipple. "Do you see?" he asked 
gently.

A rush of apprehension moved through the mountain 
biker's body, his shoulders tight against his neck to 
protect him against an arctic blast of cold that shouldn't 
have been part of this balmy, late September afternoon. 
He instinctively raised his hand to break the vector of the 
invisible beam, seeing all too clearly the LEDs of the 
target monitor continuously display a speed beyond his 
own abilities, hearing the amplified Doppler audio signal 
increase its frequency, watching the switch move into 
place that hid the gun's force from detectors. All these 
sights and sounds in his mind had been designed to meet 
and exceed federal and state specifications.

"Do you still want to hear my story?" asked the RADAR 
Ranger.

The word formed slowly in his mouth, but only the 
movement of his head told the ranger to begin.

"Try to contain your fear .... just listen to what I have to 
say," the RADAR Ranger offered, as if to comfort him, 
then sat in the curved-back chair opposite the cyclist.

"You've always been a RADAR Ranger, haven't you?" 
stammered the cyclist.

"No," reflected the ranger, "I was a man, about your age, 
before I became a RADAR Ranger."

"How-w-w did it happen?" stuttered the cyclist, "I mean, 
why did it happen to you?"  He wiped the back of his 
hand across his moist forehead and waited nervously for 
the RADAR Ranger to speak.

"It's really quite simple, but I don't want to give you a 
simple answer. I'm going to make it more difficult than it 
has to be. I want you to hear the whole story."

"SureOkay," the cyclist said quickly, blending the two 
words into one, and wiped the perspiration from his lips 
with the cotton bandanna he'd yanked off his matted hair. 
"I want to hear the long story -- I want to hear it all."



Terra Linda

"It was tragic," the RADAR Ranger began. "It was my 
younger sister, Jackie ... she brought a new car home. Not 
just any car. A mariner blue Miata. Five-speed manual 
with overdrive, inline 4-cylinder, DOHC 16-valve, 116 
horsepower at 6500 rpm, multi-port electronic fuel 
injection, unit body frame, fully independent, double-
wishbone suspension with coil springs, gas-filled shock 
absorbers, front and rear stabilizer bars, rack-and-pinion 
steering, power-assisted 4-wheel disc brakes, highback 
reclining bucket seats, compact disc player, 8000-rpm 
tachometer with 7000-rpm redline, 140-mph 
speedometer, 25 city, 30 highway, 2216 pounds curb 
weight (without Jackie). A ragtop. 

The RADAR Ranger stopped and the cyclist coughed 
uneasily, wiping his face again before stuffing the 
bandanna into the open pocket stitched to the back of his 
riding jersey.

"It's painful, isn't it?" the cyclist said.

"It's painful, isn't it?" repeated the RADAR Ranger as if 
the cyclist hadn't asked the question first. Then, slowly 
drawing his glazed eyes up from his entangled hands on 
the table top to those of the mountain biker, he continued. 
"No, it's not painful. It's just that I've only related this 
story to one other person and that was a long time ago. 
The telling isn't painful.

"We were living in Terra Linda at the time. My dad 
worked for AutoBund and my mom was a stay-at-home 
mother and housewife. It drove her nuts, but that's the 
way my dad wanted it. 'It's the way a manager in an up-
and-coming international software firm should act,' he 
would say apologetically."

"I thought so," interrupted the cyclist. "You are a Terra 
Lindian. You have that broad forehead, sir."

The RADAR Ranger looked at him blankly for a moment 
or two. "I have a Terra Linda forehead?" he mused. Then 
he laughed out loud. "What does that non sequitor have 
to do with what I'm telling you?"

Flustered, the cyclist groped for an explanation. "Nothing 
really, but it helps put things in perspective for me. I first 
noticed it right after you opened your truck door the other 
side of that blind corner on Rocky Ridge and forced me 
to slide to the edge of the drop off. Then when you pulled 
the brim of your hat back before reaching for your 
citation book, I got a real good glimpse of it. I think the 
sun was just right. 'That forehead,' I thought. 'Something 
really familiar about it.' Now that you've just mentioned 
'Terra Linda' it's all came together. You were born in 
Kaiser, right? 'Good people, good medicine, good luck.'

The RADAR Ranger eyed the cyclist suspiciously, a 
murmur of disquiet sounding across his brow. The 
mountain biker sank further back into his hard chair, 
regretting his remarks.

"It's okay," assured the RADAR Ranger. "I'm not as 
angry I look. Trust me."

The cyclist sat quietly, his eyes focused on a loosened 
knot in the plank floor next to his left Durango (TM) 
SPD Compatible MTB shoe. He sat there, gazing at the 
floor, transfixed, while the images from the world outside 
were slowly replaced in the window by the dimly lit 
reflection of the small office's interior. Only when he 
lifted his eyes in the darkened space did the RADAR 
Ranger continue.

"My sister had graduated from Branson the year before 
and was studying premed at UC Berkeley. Jackie had 
always been at the top of everything she did. Everyone 
was enamored by her and said 
she'd be the best in whatever she chose. Mom and dad 
believed it, too, and sent her to all the best schools. A lot 
of camping trips and new stereo systems went into her 
education. But it was okay, it was right.

"Two years before, I had graduated from the Academy 
and was patrolling Highway 101 south from Santa Rosa 
to Mill Valley. Beginning pay wasn't great and I had 
taken an apartment by Northgate shopping center, not far 
my parents' house. Jackie was living at home and 
commuting across the Bay to school. Public 
transportation was lacking and my dad, always looking to 
please Jackie, bought her the Miata. I knew it was going 
to be trouble.

"I was there the day she drove it down our street the first 
time. Mom and dad arrived home from the dealership just 
ahead of her. We were all standing side-by-side at the 
end of the driveway when she rounded the corner in that 
shiny, new, blue car. 

The top was down and I could see Jackie's curly, blond 
hair stretching out behind her, holding on to her scalp for 
dear life. She looked absolutely gorgeous. Her skin 
flushed excitement and her eyes sparkled uncontainable 
joy, the kind of look you could only hope to find in a 
Gothic tale.

"She pulled up in front of us at the end of the asphalt 
driveway and jumped out of the car. 'Oh, dad, mom!' she 
squealed, hugging them both with her excitement. 'It's 
incredible, unbelievable.' She paused a moment, then 
'Thanks, so much.' Then she turned to me and gave me a 
hug, too, even though she knew I had nothing to do with 
the joy that filled her that morning. 'This is so exciting,' 
she said to me and I could only nod agreement.

"You don't sound as though you shared your sister's 
excitement," the cyclist couldn't hold back.

"Let me tell my story," the RADAR Ranger cut him 
short. When the ensuing silence had seeped into every 
crevice of the room, the ranger continued. "Jackie drove 
that car everywhere, not just across the bridge to school 
and back." His eyes dilating on some distant thought, the 
ranger hesitated, then added, "The bridge wasn't in my 
territory. I suppose if she had just driven to and from 
school, it would've been okay. But she didn't. She was so 
proud of that car. She drove it everywhere.

"She was on her way to CostCo up at the Rowland Plaza 
in Novato when it happened. About two miles south of 
the shopping center's exit, where I was on duty, hiding in 
the roadside shrubbery, my gun began beeping and 
flashing the warning signal of a speeder not more than 
1/4-mile distant. I tried to pick out the offender from 
among all the cars, pickups, and big rigs in the five 
northbound lanes, but couldn't make the ID. 'No 
problem,' I thought. 'I'll spot 'em when they pass by.' 
That's when I saw the blue glint into my side view mirror 
and, even though the vehicle was too far back to make a 
positive identification, my heart started racing and 
bounding in my chest. I didn't have to see clearly to know 
who was behind the wheel.

"Moments later the blue Miata raced by my hiding place, 
breaking the posted speed limit by twenty miles per hour 
or more, blond hair streaming out behind the driver. I 
gave chase ... it was my job ... it was part of the oath I 
had sworn: 'All speeders break the law with no 
exceptions.' I was terrified, my stomach was churning 
acid up past my aching heart into my dry mouth. God! 
The anguish that shook my body! I'm not sure how I 
managed to stay in control of my cruiser and pull my 
sister over to the side of the road without killing us both.

"The rest is a blur in my mind, the kinds of things that 
flash through your head just before losing consciousness 
after falling off a horse, when all the air in your lungs is 
forced out with a sudden whooosh. I see vague images of 
my sister, down-turned head, never looking up to 
confront me, of her finely blue-veined, trembling hands 
letting her driver's license and Miata registration tumble 
into my CHP-issue, black leather gloves. Of tears falling 
onto the seat belt that crossed her lap. Of myself unable 
to hear a word I said, mechanically following the book as 
I recorded all the data and issued the citation. Of 
climbing back into my cruiser, driving past the stilled, 
little, blue Miata, crossing over the highway on one 
overpass, and then again over another to return to my 
hiding place among the bushes where I sat throughout the 
remainder of the day and the evening before returning to 
the station."

His jaws tense with the effort of speaking painful 
memories, the RADAR Ranger slammed both fists onto 
the cold table top, surprising the cyclist into clutching 
hold of the table's nicked edge to prevent himself from 
falling over backwards. "She hasn't spoken to anyone 
since. Not a word, not a coherent sound."

Ross

"The medical people at Kaiser couldn't explain Jackie's 
silence, except to speculate that the shock of a speeding 
ticket from her own brother caused her to go into 
catatonic shock. My parents were heart-broken. After 
Kaiser's big guns failed to come up with a cure, my dad 
and mom hired one specialist after another from the 
AMA's preferred list, but absolutely no one was able to 
bring Jackie around. The medical costs broke my parents 
... defeated, they eventually sold what little they had left 
and moved to a small retirement community on the 
Oregon coast. I talk with them from time to time still; 
dad's never recovered from the tragedy and has been in 
poor health for years. The only thing that's keeping mom 
alive is caring for dad."

"Jackie, what about Jackie?" whispered the mountain 
biker.

"Jackie, of course Jackie. Everyone's concerned about 
Jackie. It's only right that they should be," replied the 
RADAR Ranger after a time. "But you can imagine the 
impact this had on me. My sister locked into a dark, 
silent world she couldn't share with anyone. My parents 
torn apart by the loss of their beloved daughter. And just 
because I did what was right. It was right ... none of my 
superiors ever questioned my actions. I was following 
rules that were designed by the best lawmakers and 
approved by the highest courts. None of this should have 
happened!

"Mom and dad wanted to take her to Oregon with them, 
but I feared Jackie wouldn't get proper medical care if she 
went. So I arranged for her to stay in a private treatment 
center in a residential part of Ross. I paid for everything 
from my meager savings. I saw that she got the best care 
possible.

"Sometimes after work I'd go visit her at the center. Often 
she'd just be sitting on a carved stone bench off to one 
side of the facility's rose garden. Just sitting with her eyes 
turned in the direction of the roses, watching the petals 
drop. I'd sit next to her and tell her my troubles, the 
difficulties I had with belligerent speeders, how I'd had to 
work around the silly policies of newer and younger 
commanders ... all the problems that made up the whole 
of my existence. Sometimes we'd walk along the 
shoulders of Ross' tree-lined roads, me chattering 
nervously from 'No Parking' sign to 'No Parking' sign, 
two sets of feet weaving their patterns through the low 
hills of eastern Marin. And I would pretend that Jackie 
was listening to my words, and, even though she never 
commented, was always sympathetic, so that when I left 
her, I had the vivid impression that she had solved all my 
worldly problems. I didn't think I could ever, or would 
ever, want to free myself from Jackie in those days. Of 
course, I was wrong." The RADAR Ranger stopped his 
monologue.

For a time the mountain biker only looked unblinking at 
the RADAR Ranger, then sat upright in his chair as if 
startled awake by a peal of distant thunder that had snuck 
up on him in the darkness. He grasped at words, but none 
fit the patterns forming in his head. "Uh ... you finally got 
tired of her ... uh ... inability to talk, sir?" he floundered. 
The RADAR Ranger eyed him as if trying to fathom the 
meaning of his confusion. Then he replied:

"I mean that I was wrong about myself ... about what I 
thought I had caused. I learned that my guilt and shame 
for what I thought to be the consequences of my 
actions -- my sister's silence and my parent's despair --
were wrong." The ranger's gaze shifted slowly over the 
ancient wainscoting on the distant wall and settled on a 
reflecting pane of glass in the window above. 

"How?" asked the cyclist.

"I'm going to tell you everything," but the ranger's eyes 
scanned slowly away from the cyclist, returning to the 
singular pane of reflecting glass on the far wall. He 
appeared to have only the faintest of interests in the 
cyclist, who himself seemed to be engaged in some inner 
struggle.

"But you're upbringing in Terra Linda ... how could you 
have ever justified what happened when you think about 
the love you had for your family? Your mother and father 
... your sister?"

"I want to tell my story in the proper order," answered the 
RADAR Ranger. "I have to tell it as it happened. "I don't 
know about love and that doesn't matter, anyway. What 
matters is ..."

"Yes?" coaxed the cyclist.

"What matters is what is right," finished the RADAR 
Ranger. "What was right then? I didn't know. My head 
was clouded with confusion. I eventually took up drink 
and avoided visiting my sister. Of course, I couldn't 
escape her for a moment. I kept going back to that far 
away day when I had pulled her blue Miata over and 
cited her for speeding. I could think of nothing else but 
her dimmed eyes staring blankly at the fallen rose pedals 
in Ross. Over and over I dreamed of talking to her, of 
telling her how sorry I was, but never hearing her answer 
back. Drunk or sober, these images filled my head and I 
couldn't stand it. Meanwhile, the officers I worked with 
noticed a change in my behavior. I wasn't sure of myself, 
often talking back and leaving myself open to verbal 
attack from speeders who challenged my speed 
measuring methods. I drank more and more and often 
came to work with my head buzzing from late night 
binges. On more than one occasion, I picked fights with 
fellow officers in the locker room over the pettiest of 
issues. I lived like a man who wanted to die but lacked 
the courage to do it. And then late one night I picked a 
fight in a bar that could have been the end of me. One 
that nearly left me dead. I ..."

"You mean you fought a vampire and he sucked your 
blood?" the cyclist blurted out.

"No, you're thinking of another similar story," scoffed the 
RADAR Ranger. "I nearly got into a fist fight that 
evening with Fritz Hairtrigger, the District Sales Manager 
for Km.P.H. Industries, the manufacturer of the K-15, the 
RADAR gun I used to bring in my sister."

The mountain biker leaned forward in his chair, his 
rapidly moving diaphragm beating into the table's edge 
with each breath. The ranger sensed the cyclist's interest 
and continued without pause:

"Fritz was far older than I, but his strength was 
overpowering. I didn't stand a chance against his superior 
skills and lightning movements. Within moments I was 
on my back, unconscious. I faintly remember strong arms 
lifting me off the broken-glass and whiskey-strewn floor, 
but nothing more. When I came to, I found myself on a 
quilted German federdecke covering a bed in the San 
Rafael Hilton. I was alone in the room. But as my eyes 
cleared and found their focus, I realized not quite alone: 
everywhere were books -- books on dresser tops, along 
window sills, on top of the color t.v., lining the bottom of 
the gray-tiled shower stall. And not ordinary books, 
either. No, these were the works of authors I had rarely 
heard mentioned at the Academy: Hegel, Kierkegaard, 
Nietsche, Shopenhauer, Heidegger, Machiavelli I 

"I was thumbing through the volumes, encountering 
phrases like aber fast alles, was sie erzahlt, deutet doch 
darauf hin, dass sie ihren Stiller nur durch sein schlectes 
Gewissen glaubte fesseln zu konnen, durch seine Angst, 
ein Versager zu sein and Wer er denn selber ware? fragte 
man ihn, und er besann sich. Gott weiss es! sagte er: Gott 
weiss es, gestern noch meinte ich es zu wissen, aber 
heute, da ich erwach bin, wie soll ich es wissen? It was 
like nothing I had ever encountered before. I sat there, for 
how many hours I don't know, gorging myself on these 
mysterious, but powerful words and ideas, wishing I 
could read German. Filling my mind with such thoughts 
that I completely forgot myself! And in that same 
moment I understood the meaning of possibility.

"It was in a moment of egotistical rapture such as I'm 
describing to you that he entered the hotel room through 
the sliding French doors. At first I though he was 
management, coming to question me ... to ask me what I 
thought I was doing in this room which I had not 
reserved or paid for. But I quickly dismissed this 
suspicion when I saw the intensity of his features. He 
moved close to the circle of books in whose center I 
crouched and put his face close to mine. I recognized him 
as the man with whom I had fought the night before. But 
now I recognized him as no ordinary man at all! His eyes 
flickered with the faint afterglow of an LED readout and 
the curve of his prominent ears insured that no 
rebounding echo would be lost to empty space. I 
understood everything at that instant. I mean, the moment 
I saw him, saw his splendor, I became nothing. All my 
conceptions, even my overriding guilt and shame, 
became completely unimportant.

"As he talked at me and described his life and explained 
what I could become, my past burned away from me like 
the green flap of a roasting ear of corn. My life appeared 
to me as if I had risen from it and was peering at it from a 
distance. All around me, ashes. Nothing was left but what 
this extraordinary creature had to give me."

The cyclist continued to sit on the edge of his chair, his 
face twisted into a mixture of bewilderment and 
apprehension. "And so you decided to become a disciple 
of Fritz Hairtrigger?" he asked. The RADAR Ranger 
remained silent for a second, then spoke.

"'Decided' may not be the right word. You can say I 
decided to become a disciple of Fritz Hairtrigger, or you 
can say I didn't decide to become a disciple of Fritz 
Hairtrigger. Or you can call me indecisive even though it 
may not have been inevitable in the first place. Just let 
me say that after he talked at me, I saw no other course of 
action but the one I followed, even if the decision wasn't 
mine."

The RADAR Ranger was peering through the darkened 
window again. When he stopped talking, the cyclist felt 
his ears throb with the silence. When the throbbing began 
to quiet, he could discern noises from outside the 
window -- crickets chirping as they leaped away from 
predators, the zinging of telephone wires in the evening 
breeze.

"What did he talk about?" questioned the mountain biker, 
his apprehension and madly twitching fingers fueled by 
nervous energy.

"He talked of my need to transcend my irrational fear of 
scientific truth and my tendency to subjugate that truth to 
emotional perceptions. He said that behavior in the 
modern age must be guided not by moral pieties but by 
technical expertise."

"What technical expertise?" interjected the mountain 
biker, a little unsure of the philosophical jargon he had 
just heard.

With his broad back turned to him, the RADAR Ranger 
responded with a subtlety the cyclist failed to perceive. 
"I'm surprised to hear you ask the question rather than 
give the answer. It's a technology that you yourself have 
but recently submitted to -- RADAR.

"RADAR?" half-laughed the cyclist.

"RADAR is the scientific truth that allows modern homo 
sapiens to rise above the extraordinary and inordinate 
malice of fortune, to control the means of peaceful 
violence I there is simply no comparison between a 
person who is armed with RADAR and one who is not."

The cyclist stared in the direction of the ranger's gaze, but 
not finding the answer to his next question in the 
reflective pane of glass, he asked, "Peaceful violence?"

"Yes, peaceful violence," snapped the RADAR Ranger. 
"The master of peaceful violence, although often 
misrepresented as an advocate of self-serving despotism 
by a few, uses RADAR to provide for the well being of 
his citizens, if only to calm their rebelliousness." With 
these words, the ranger turned his head away from the 
window and drowned the gaze of the mountain biker with 
his black stare.

Quickly changing the subject that had gone so far astray 
of his purpose, the cyclist asked, "Exactly how did Fritz 
change you then, sir?"

"I can't put it into words," reflected the RADAR Ranger. 
"I can explain it, encase it in words, so that you can 
understand the value of it. But I can't present it so you 
feel it any more than I can describe the feeling of issuing 
one's first speeding citation."

The mountain biker furrowed his brow as if he had 
another question, but the RADAR Ranger continued 
before he could ask it. "I've already told you that Fritz 
understood the relation of modern technology to society. 
He knew it intimately and personally. Action is the most 
direct path to understanding and it was through action 
that Fritz lead me through my change.

"I know little of Fritz's history, of his past actions. My 
understanding goes back a meager three months before I 
weakly faced him that evening in the bar. He claimed he 
was the Marketing Director of Km.P.H. Industries, 
manufacturers of the legendary K-15 RADAR gun. I 
don't doubt that it was Fritz who made the gun into the 
legend it is, but I don't have enough information at hand 
to tell you how he did it. He doesn't talk about it himself. 
I do know what he told me, the he left his offices in 
Nosferatu, Kansas, to open a new branch of Km.P.H. on 
the west coast, here in San Rafael. At least, opening a 
branch office was the excuse he used to leave Nosferatu. 
His real purpose was far greater and his encounter with 
me brought him that much closer to realizing his goals.


The Change

"I was feverish and weak from my initial, violent 
encounter with Fritz in the bar. When he returned to his 
hotel room the next day and found me pouring over his 
volumes, my eyes were red and swollen not only from 
hours of endless reading but also from a high-grade fever 
that had spread throughout my body. When I said I 
needed medical attention, he just laughed in his coarse 
way and said that action would be my cure. 'What action,' 
I asked him. 'You'll see shortly,' he answered. Then he 
flung me over his shoulder as if I were an afterthought 
from a Weight Watchers (TM) advertisement and left the 
hotel with such speed that we appeared as no more than 
fleeting shadows to the hotel personnel working in the 
hallways and lobby.

"In the parking lot, he tossed me into the passenger seat 
of a highway cruiser. By this time I was delirious with 
the fever, but I managed to ask him how he had acquired 
a fully equipped highway vehicle. Without looking at me 
as he pulled out of the parking lot and worked his way 
onto the northbound lane of Highway 101, he simply 
stated that a man of technological action could do 
anything. Then he proceeded to speed on, effortlessly 
darting among cars and lanes of traffic without hesitation. 
I'm sure we appeared to the vehicles around us as we had 
appeared to the hotel personnel: a fleeting shadow 
because no one looked up at us in consternation or 
honked a horn in frustration. On our high speed trip, we 
raced by many locations where I knew RADAR-
e quipped patrol cars to be stationed. Yet, no chases 
ensued and no flashing red lights appeared in our rear 
view mirror.

"I was by this time extremely ill and weary of the 
outcome of the high-speed car ride. 'Take me to a doctor,' 
I pleaded. When he did not answer me after many such 
pleas, I began to murmur (incoherently he later claimed, 
with little sympathy). 'I want to die.  Let me die. It's 
within your power to let me die. Please.' He never 
acknowledged me nor looked in my direction. He was 
determined to make me a man of action."

"Would he in any other circumstances have let you go?" 
asked the mountain biker. "I mean, if he had sensed you 
were really dying?"

"I don't know to this day. Knowing Fritz the way I know 
him now, I doubt that he would have let me go under any 
circumstances. But it didn't matter because this was what 
I really wanted. My old self was whimpering, but that 
part of me that was becoming conscious of a new and 
powerful aspect of life was laughing with sheer 
excitement. I wanted what was happening as much as 
Fritz did."

The cyclist screwed up his face, but before he could open 
his dry lips, the RADAR Ranger said, "You were going 
to ask me 'What WAS happening,' weren't you? Men of 
technological action like Fritz and myself can read the 
slightest change in a facial expression as easily as we can 
interpret a question asked in our own tongue. It's an 
infallible instinct from which no violator of the speed 
laws can escape with false IDs and elaborate excuses."

"What was happening?" the ranger repeated. "Fritz pulled 
the car over to the side of the road, leaving it in complete 
view to both directions of traffic, and pulled the K-15 
RADAR gun off the dashboard clip. He pushed the 
power switch to on, turned the range and Doppler audio 
signal dials to their maximum settings, and flicked the 
standby transmitter button to make the unit invisible to 
radar detectors. Then he swung the gun up into the 
oncoming lane of traffic and pulled back on the trigger 
switch to lock in the speed of a car bearing down on us. 
The LED in the target display showed 73 in red, boxy 
numbers. 'That's a speed that'll add at least $75 to the 
state's treasury,' mused Fritz.

"Wait a minute," blurted out the mountain biker with his 
eyes anchored on the floor, afraid to face the RADAR 
Ranger. "What about the tuning fork test. What about a 
traffic survey to detect possible causes of RADAR 
interference? What about ..."

"What about?" mimicked the ranger in the cyclists high-
pitched, concerned tone. "He did all of these things, 
though I didn't tell you. You're a very knowledgeable 
fellow who's obviously done his homework. Now would 
you like to tell the tale or should I continue?"

Without waiting for the mountain biker to look up, the 
RADAR Ranger want on. "After a minute, Fritz pointed 
down the fast lane of the northbound traffic. 'Here comes 
a Miata with mag wheels and a shiny new coat of candy-
apple red paint. The young female driving looks like she 
knows what she's up to. Let's see exactly what she is up 
to.' And Fritz spun the gun up with blinding speed and 
pulled the trigger. At least he said he did because the 
movement of his index finger was so fast, I couldn't 
detect even a blur inside the metal trigger housing. He 
turned the back of the gun with the target lock display to 
me and smiled. It showed '73' in its glass-front panel. 
'She's yours, Gordon,' he said."

The cyclist made a soft, rapid clicking sound with his 
front teeth when the RADAR Ranger said his own name. 
"Yes, that's my real name," he admitted and continued his 
story.

"I remember feeling moisture from the Bay adding to the 
collection of sweat forming on my forehead. 'No, I can't 
do that,' I cried out. 'It wouldn't work anyway -- we're not 
officially on duty. What we're doing is illegal,' I said out 
loud while fearing inwardly the painful similarities 
between this speeding violation and the one involving my 
sister. 'I don't want to be guilty of issuing an illegal 
speeding ticket. I can't live if I let this happen.' Fritz 
grabbed my shoulders with his immensely powerful 
hands and shook me until I begged him off. I sat there 
helpless in the face of my own cowardice and guilt. 'I 
didn't think you really wanted to die over a speeding 
ticket, Gordon,' he said disdainfully. It's not worth 
languishing to death for. Besides, think of the lives you 
could save by issuing this ticket. How many people are 
killed every year by speedsters like this red-blooded, 
young girl. Who could blame you for saving lives? On-
duty or off-duty is inconsequential ... I'll see to that.'

"But there was no time in Fritz' plan for me to make a 
decision, there was only time for Fritz' plan. When the 
red Miata sped past our seemingly invisible location on 
the side of the highway, Fritz went into pursuit. There 
was no contest and he had the Miata pulled over to the 
side of the road less than 3/4 of a mile from where we 
first began the chase. 'Listen to me, Gordon,' he said, 'I've 
brought you to this time and place so you can put your 
past aside and discover a far richer life.' He said these 
words with great authority and I wanted to believe him. 
'Get out of the car now, step around to the driver's side of 
that Miata, and write her up. There's nothing more to it 
than that. Free yourself.'

The mountain biker's eyes grew large. He had sunk 
further into the unyielding oak-backed office chair as the 
RADAR Ranger spoke, his face tensed for the words the 
ranger was yet to say.

" 'I can't,' I pleaded with him. 'It's not right -- it goes 
against all the principles I work by.' He simply kept his 
cold gaze centered on me and said, 'You make it right. It's 
not going to kill you.' I think back on that time, and I 
can't help but despise him. Not because what he said was 
wrong, but because he said it with a complete lack of 
respect and humility. He could have tried to calm me, to 
guide me to the point where I could have written up the 
citation without filling myself with angst. But he didn't. 
His strategy, if he had a strategy at all, was to push. He 
was never the RADAR Ranger I am. Never.' It was clear 
to the cyclist that the ranger was not boasting. He said 
these words as if he actually would have had it turn out 
differently.

"But I could not withstand his strength of will. I slid out 
from under his loosened grasp, opened the car door, and 
walked around to the young woman still seated behind 
her leather-covered steering wheel. She already had her 
license out and handed it to me without a question. When 
I was through with it, she presented me with the car's 
registration. And again no verbal exchange of any kind 
took place between us. The entire affair took less than ten 
minutes, she pulling back onto the freeway when it was 
over while I closed the door soundlessly beside me as I 
sat down next to a smiling Fritz.

"Have you ever done something that was in such sharp 
contrast to your normal experiences that it hurt just to 
think about it, but, at the same time, felt so exhilarating 
that you thought about doing it over and over?" the 
ranger addressed the mountain biker.

The cyclist formed the word no  with his tight lips, but 
the word made no audible sound. He cleared his throat 
and the word finally spilled out for the ranger to hear.

"I felt that mixed exhilaration then for the first time," 
confessed the RADAR Ranger. He looked for a long time 
at his reflection in the window pane. Then he said, "The 
thought of it prickled the hair all over my body, sent a 
jolt of sensation through me that was close to the pleasure 
of passion." He mused in silence a moment longer. 
"Within seconds I was weakened to a state of paralysis. 
Panic stricken, I couldn't force myself to speak. Fritz held 
me tightly in the front of the patrol car. 'Steady, Gordon,' 
he commanded. 'Don't try to speak. This is the first time 
you've issued a speeding citation and understood. 
Actually understood! You'll feel weak at first, but your 
strength will return with an enhanced vibrancy. You'll 
find your mind and body both focused upon a new life 
spirit."

The RADAR Ranger paused, then frowned. "How sad it 
is to talk of such things whose meaning can't be 
understood with words alone." The mountain biker 
slipped lower in his chair, hoping the ranger wouldn't 
look at him directly.

"At first, I saw nothing but an unnatural white light 
rushing to surround and cut me off from the interior of 
the patrol car. The light hid Fritz from me, too. Then the 
pounding started in my head, growing louder and louder. 
It was as if some great, heavy-footed creature of light 
was devouring me. And once that creature had finished 
its meal, another creature, pounding its hooves into my 
belly and following the beat of its own drum, took its 
meal of me, too. Soon, too many creatures to count were 
tearing me apart at once, each struggling over an arm, a 
leg, or a part of my neck for their feeding. The frenzy 
passed into all my senses, into the throbbing of my finger 
tips, into the wispy flesh of my temples. Do you 
understand," he shouted at the cyclist, "it was because I 
had written that speeding citation!"

The mountain biker trembled in his small, lifeless chair. 
"No .... I mean ... I'm not sure ..., sir" he stammered.

"Of course, you're not sure ... you couldn't possibly 
know," the ranger broke in. "I saw and understood like a 
RADAR Ranger for the first time."

"What happened next," ventured the cyclist, large beads 
of perspiration snaking down his forehead and onto the 
ends of his lashes.

"Fritz was still sitting next to me when this new fever 
passed out of my body. I don't know how long it had 
taken and I suppose it doesn't matter, either. When I 
looked upon his face, he had changed, or, at least the way 
I saw him, had changed. Before, he had seemed pale and 
almost insubstantial in his coloring. Now, he seemed to 
pulse with life from within and that pulsing caused him to 
appear radiant. And then I noticed that it was not just 
Fritz who had changed, but all things that came into my 
view.

"Colors and shapes -- it was as if I had never seen them 
before. The stitches around the button holes on Fritz' 
cotton fabric shirt excited my attention for many minutes. 
The patterns they cut through the cotton were the most 
amazing I could have ever imagined. Then a foghorn 
blast from the Bay played a full and long symphony of 
strings, winds, and percussion for me. It was at first 
disturbing, each sound colliding with the next, until I 
learned to separate and enhance the quality of each. The 
symphony in my head continued until a new sound 
entered, breaking up the previous melodies and 
harmonies. At last I recognized it as Fritz' laughter.

" 'What's happening to me. Have you stuck some drug 
into my veins?' I cried.

" 'You're turning into a RADAR Ranger, you fool. You're 
changing, yes, but you still have your reason. Now, take 
your eyes off my button holes, and calm yourself. We 
have more to learn tomorrow. What we need now is rest.'

"Are we going back to the hotel, then," I asked. 'No,' he 
answered, swiftly reaching to the back seat, pulling it up 
and then forward to reveal a Lycra (TM)-lined sleeping 
space that extended into the trunk of the patrol car.

"That black hole frightened me more than I can tell you. I 
pleaded with Fritz to let me sleep in the front seat, but he 
only laughed, obviously puzzled. 'You really don't know 
what you've become, do you?'"

I'd been claustrophobic my entire life -- as a small boy, I 
had great difficulty just getting my body to function 
whenever I stood alone in front of the john with the door 
closed in our small, one-bathroom home. Now I was 
supposed to crawl into a space the size of a mummy bag 
whose features I couldn't see and with a man who 
terrified me.

Fritz and I argued, shouting inanities back and forth. But 
while we argued, I came to realize that, at that moment, I 
actually felt no fear looking into the opening of the trunk. 
What I was afraid of, I realized, were my memories of 
being enclosed. I was hanging onto memories that no 
longer had meaning for me in my altered state. 'You're 
acting like a fool,' Fritz finally said. 'This fear you talk 
about has nothing to do with you at all. It's out of you 
now. You sound like a man who has had his tonsils or 
appendix removed and still complains about the pain 
where those organs used to be.' Well, that statement had a 
profound effect on me. It was the most intelligent thing 
Fritz had ever said to me and it jolted me awake as much 
as if he had thrown a bucket of cold water on me. 'I'm 
getting into that trunk right now,' said Fritz, 'and if you 
have any senses at all, you'll get in without another lame 
word.' I did. It was the first of many nights we were to 
sleep on the road."

The cyclist moved his arm as if to interrupt the RADAR 
Ranger. "What ..."

"I'm not letting you ask enough questions, am I," said the 
ranger. "You were going to ask what happened that 
night."

"Well .... yes," fidgeted the mountain biker on the edge of 
his seat.

"Absolutely nothing. I slept the sleep of the dead, perhaps 
I should say 'damned,' as I imagine Fritz did also. The 
next morning, before dawn, I awoke and felt the change 
in me. The first thing I noticed was Fritz himself, still 
asleep on his back in his half of the trunk. Looking down 
on him from above as I was doing, I felt nothing but 
disdain for him. He was still my superior in all things, but 
the gulf between us had narrowed since the previous 
evening. Before issuing that speeding ticket, Fritz was 
close to incomprehensible to me -- a magical Peter Pan 
who both frightened and excited me, a being whom I 
couldn't possibly hope to understand. Now he was for me 
a far more comprehensible Captain Hook whom I 
couldn't pretend to admire.

"Oh!" the mountain biker interjected. "When you say the 
distance between you two had narrowed, you mean he no 
longer deluded you."

"Yes," said the ranger with obvious relish. "That 
morning, after Fritz woke, we drove south along the 
length of 101 to a turnoff just before the Golden Gate 
Bridge that led to the Marin Headlands. The entire time 
Fritz kept up a constant and boring monologue that I 
found quite disheartening. He talked about the weather. 
He talked about Silicon Valley software company 
mergers. As he turned right off the highway onto the 
headlands steep frontage road, he started talking about 
Madonna's newest musical video. It was all so shallow 
and ... and so incredibly uncaring for me and the radical 
changes he had pushed me into. Then in the very next 
breath, while he pulled into an off-road parking space in 
front of a WWI bunker not more than two hundred yards 
up the hill from the highway exit and, following a long 
discourse on diverting water from the Russian River to 
fuel new development in Marin County, he suddenly 
turned his gaze away from the windshield and said to me, 
'Gordon, it's time you bring to justice your first real 
speeding violator. I don't simply mean issuing those 
mom-and-pop citations the way you used to -- the way 
you did with your sister. Even the way you did last night. 
I mean bringing in the big ticket speeders with Knowing 
and Understanding.'

"When he mentioned my sister, my heart froze mid-beat. 
We had never discussed my sister and I didn't know how 
he could have found out about her. No one outside our 
immediate family was aware of Jackie's situation. 'How 
do you know about my sister?' I screamed in his face. 
Grinning a yellow smile, he answered, 'Your fame eludes 
you, Gordon. It's because of how you handled your 
sister's crime that I'm offering you this freedom.'

" 'Crime?' I said in disbelief. 'Her speeding wasn't a 
crime, at least not the way you mean it. She didn't stay 
awake nights plotting the fastest route from Terra Linda 
to Novato. If you're going to blame anyone, blame fate ... 
a warm, sunny day and a new convertible car caused a 
beautiful, young girl to daydream and slip ever so slightly 
over the speed limit. That's not a crime!'

" 'Gordon, speeding is a crime, no matter how fast you're 
going. That's why we have posted speed limits and 
RADAR to enforce those limits.' Fritz stopped here and 
cracked his knuckles, one by one, his cold grey eyes 
holding me in check. When the last of his gnarled joints 
had popped, he laughed out loud. 'Fate. What the devil is 
Fate, Gordon? Is it Fate that brings you the joy of 
winning the lottery? No, it's you willing yourself to walk 
into the store and buy the winning ticket. Is it Fate that 
bankrupts your business? No, it's the vote you willingly 
cast for the wrong candidate in the last election. Is it Fate 
that's responsible for the neighbor's cat being run over by 
a speeding driver? No, it's the driver willingly pushing 
the throttle beyond the acceptable limits and not being 
able to brake the car in time. Is it Fate that intervened 
when you and your sister met on the side of the highway 
that day? No, Gordon, it wasn't Fate ... you wanted to be 
there and you wanted to issue that ticket! And you did 
and that's why I can set you free.'

"Every muscle in my body was straining to tear loose 
from its ligaments and smother that monster beside me 
until the last arrogant flame of knowing flickered out of 
his eyes. While I managed to control my rage, I could do 
nothing to check the deep pain that pulsed to the marrow 
of my bones. Pulsed because I knew he was right. I had 
wanted to catch my sister speeding and write her up; it 
was only now that I could admit it. I was as evil as Fritz 
and, at that moment, I hated myself as much as I hated 
him."

"Excuse me," said the cyclist, "but weren't you just 
letting the situation manipulate your feelings and it only 
seemed to you that ...."

"No," the RADAR Ranger cut him short. "I know what 
I'm saying and I'm not finding fault with you for not 
understanding -- you are only a mountain biker, after all."

The Presidio

The cyclist shifted uneasily in his chair, trying to hide his 
trembling by pushing it through the narrow, uneven knot 
hole he knew was opening somewhere between his 
Durango (TM) SPD Compatible MTB shoes in the gloom 
of Sky Oaks. Waiting for the ranger to resume his tale, he 
clasped his hands tightly together.

The ranger, sensing his audience's unease, reached across 
the table and grasped the cyclist's shoulder. "Excuse me," 
he said. "I didn't mean to frighten you. You wanted to 
hear my story and I'm telling you all of it, even those 
parts that I find troubling. Don't let it bother you."

The mountain biker slowly nodded his quiet agreement 
without looking up and the RADAR Ranger went on.

"I had never thought of myself as evil, evil in the Biblical 
sense, but I did so know. Powerful and evil. Evil and 
powerful. Evil alive. No matter how I looked at it, it 
spelled the same thing forwards and backwards. With 
these palindromic thoughts spiralling in my head, Fritz 
reached over and touched the black plastic dash panel in 
front of me. 'I've got a little surprise for you,' he said, the 
corners of his mouth curling up into a partial smile. 'I've 
taken the liberty of having your patrol car tuned up.'

" 'What are you talking about,' I said. 'My car wasn't 
scheduled for any maintenance. You couldn't have got it 
out of the yard anyway, you don't have the authorization.'

" 'You'd be surprised at what I'm capable of doing, 
Gordon. In fact, if your current reaction is any indication, 
you're going to be really surprised when you find out 
what you're capable of doing yourself. But all that in its 
own time.' With that, he backed out of the dirt parking 
space in front of the weathered concrete bunker and 
drove back down the steep access road to the stretch of 
101 crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. We rode in silence 
across the mile-long span, until he pulled over to the far 
right-hand lane just before the toll booth, and looked over 
at me as if to say, 'Watch this.' We waited our turn in line 
before drawing up to the toll window. A sign demanded 
$7 to cross onto the San Francisco side of the windy gate. 
Fritz looked up at the young female toll keeper and 
smiled that little, half crooked Jack Nicolson smile of his. 
She smiled back and the toll light flashed green, thanking 
him for the $7 that hadn't left the back of his wallet. Fritz 
drove through, grinning like Jack Nicolson turned 
Cheshire cat.

"He took a sharp right at the very next exit and headed 
into what was left of the Presidio. I used to roam around 
in there when I was kid, right after it was closed down. 
Probably before you were born and before the city 
declared the old army base off-limits to the public. The 
public wouldn't want to go in there now, anyway, at least 
from what I saw of it that morning. Fritz seemed to know 
his way around, though. He followed a weed-cracked 
thoroughfare for a distance, then turned onto a broken-up 
side street and wound his way through a bevy of what 
looked like officer homes and finally pulled to a stop next 
to an old warehouse buried at the base of a eucalyptus-
covered hillock. The wooden service door through which 
city employees used to unload the military-contracted big 
Mac's and Mercedes and Volvos hung down listlessly 
from one corner of the open entrance.

" 'Let's go inside and unwrap your present,' said a 
grinning Fritz and pulled me outside the car with a 
strength that still overwhelmed me. Sunlight reflected 
brightly off the dirty stuccoed walls and blinded my eyes 
to anything that may have been lurking at the edge of the 
entrance. The old building frightened me, I don't know 
why, even though we approached it in broad daylight. 
Perhaps as a defensive mechanism I momentarily tranced 
off into a daydream, then startled myself back to 
consciousness when I felt the soothing slap-slap echo of 
our approaching footfalls suddenly buried in the far 
corners of the building. We were standing at the edge of 
the entrance, the heels of our boots bathed in warm 
sunlight, the toes lost to the building's darkness.

"Waterfalls of light from small roof-line windows 
highlighted mounts of ancient dust, and disintegrating 
cardboard cartons that once held the tools of war 
clustered along the far walls. Against the wall directly 
opposite us a shrunken, dark shadow cautiously followed 
the broken line formed by the junction of wall, floor, and 
wooden crates. A building mired so deeply in purple 
prose as this one certainly harbored more than one 
diseased rat, you can be sure, but that's not what caught 
my attention. In the center of the warehouse was my 
patrol car, floating securely in the middle of a dusty 
ocean with tracks neither leading to nor from it through 
waves of dirt.

" 'Maybe they brought it in with a crane,' Fritz said 
reading my thoughts. 'A crane standing outside the 
entrance wouldn't have left any tracks inside, you know. 
Plop! the car comes down in the middle of the warehouse 
and no one knows any the better. Mystifying.'

" 'How did it get there, Fritz?' I asked as calmly as 
possible, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of my 
anger and confusion.

"Don't think it was done with a crane ... no, certainly not 
a crane. But time's a' wasting,' he laughed. 'Let's take a 
look at this new car of yours. He slipped the index finger 
of his right hand through my nearest belt loop and hauled 
me sideways across the open expanse to the object of his 
delight. The car didn't look any different from the 
outside -- same standard purple and yellow paint job, side 
view mirrors, lights, reinforced bumpers. Nothing really 
had been changed.

" 'Okay,' I said, struggling to pull his finger out of the 
loop without tearing the double-stitched cloth off my 
pants.' I don't see anything so remarkable here ... it all 
looks the same to me.'

" 'Open the hood and tell me what you see.' I was way 
ahead of him and had already punched the button with 
my thumb to open the driver-side door, then reached in 
and pulled back the hood-release latch underneath the 
dash on the right side of the steering wheel. The hood 
popped up an inch or so; I walked around to the front of 
the car and reached underneath the quavering hood with 
my upturned right hand, found the smooth surface of the 
internal latch and squeezed it back. The catch released 
and the hood lifted slowly and quietly up on its rear 
hinges. Moldy darkness quickly settled over the engine 
compartment, but my eyes began almost immediately to 
adjust to the dim light. I couldn't see anything different 
about the engine.

" 'Makes Stephen King's car, Christine, look like a little 
girl still hanging onto her mother's exhaust pipe, huh, 
Gordon?'

" 'I don't see anything different about this engine,' I shot 
back to him. 'You want this car to move, you'd put Cowl 
hood scoops up top. You've got to pump some extra air 
into the fuel injection system to make it really move.'"

The Mustang

"Fritz stood there looking at me with what seemed like 
pity in his eyes. Prolonging the moment by slowing 
puffing out his chest with air inhaled noisily through his 
nose, he finally broke the silence and hissed through his 
teeth, 'Gordon, I'll explain it as simply as I can for you. 
There is no Cowl induction hood, or any other typical 
induction scoops up top, for two good reasons: reason 
number one -- this is no typical car and reason number 
two -- we don't want people to catch on right away that 
this is no typical car. Put in a scoop and people know 
you've got something different. We don't want that, do 
we?'

"Fritz didn't wait for me to answer. 'Tell me to stop if I 
start to bore you, Gordon, but here's the real scoop. 
Stock, these Ford Mustang GT engines have a short block 
with forged pistons and connecting rods. Your block has 
been lowered to handle your new Paxton centrifugal 
supercharger forced induction system I we put it low 
enough so we didn't have to cut a hole in the hood and 
broadcast its presence to the world. Standard forged 
pistons and connecting rods can't handle the kind of 
power you're going to be cranking out, so we've replaced 
them with super tough Venola forged blower pistons, 
Crower rods with big, heavy, stiff bolts, and a 
magnefluxed crankshaft. This baby is going to rock 'n 
roll, Gordon, but it isn't going to do the Twist.'

" 'Okay, okay! I get the picture,' I said.

'No you don't,' he snapped at me. 'Listen and learn 
something -- you can't be a man of action if you don't 
listen first. Without the Paxton, your stock GT puts out 
about 12 pounds of boost per square inch, which adds up, 
in the engine's stock configuration, to roughly 225 horse 
power and 300 foot pounds of torque. Sissy stuff. With 
our little adjustments, it now kicks out 26 pounds of 
boost per square inch, or 600 horse power (at 6500 rpm) 
and 750 pounds of torque. Even had to have a special 
pulley and belt created to withstand that kind of power, a 
power that's going to blow your regular bearings through 
the bottom of the engine. So we replaced your old 3.02 
block with a bullet-proof 351 cubic inch SVO block with 
4-bolt main bearing caps. Ah, but we're not done, 
Gordon. Not done; no, not yet. I caught a glimpse of 
excitement in your eyes, didn't I. We pulled out your 
stock fuel injection system and replaced it with Ford 
Motorsport GT-40 fuel injectors. To make it really 
efficient, we tossed out all smog control devices -- stuff 
like catalytic converters, the smog pump, EGR gas 
recirculation and stuff like that. This is a hot car, Gordon; 
you'll have to roll your windows down to stay cool, 
though, because we dispensed with your air conditioning, 
a real horse-power hog. The old GT already comes with 
small exhaust manifold headers, but we couldn't leave 
them alone either. This old Mustang now passes gas 
through Cyclone Tubular Racing headers into large 
collectors connected to big ol' 2.5 inch exhaust pipes and 
two-chamber Flowmaster low restriction mufflers. She'll 
sound like a beast from hell when you fire her up.'

" 'I don't want a beast from hell, Fritz. I don't think I want 
any of this. You're crazy, and I don't think I want any part 
of you.'

"Still ignoring my comments and frustration, Fritz sped 
on. 'No way in the world your old rear end would stand 
up to the forces descending on her now, so we cut her 
bottom out and put in a tough Richmond 9 inch rear-end 
gear housing with axles. You need rubber on the road to 
make use of your new found power and torque, so we 
slipped on 315 Goodyear Gatorbacks, after cutting back 
the rear wheel wells, of course, so these monsters 
wouldn't stick out too far and attract undue attention. 
Koni gas-filled shocks all around suck up the Gs you'll be 
subjecting this little beauty to.'

" 'So, what's the bottom line?' beamed Fritz. 'With 3.55 
rear-end ring and pinion gears, this predator'll pop off the 
line and do 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds, burning the quarter 
mile in 10.5 seconds. Turn off the nitrous oxide (I forgot 
to tell you about the nitrous oxide? Sorry about that -- use 
it with caution!) and I'm afraid she'll only hang in around 
3.0 for 0-60 and cross the quarter line in a disappointing 
11 seconds. I'll try to fix that next go 'round.'

" 'Don't thank me, not yet' continued Fritz. 'There's more 
... I'm surprised you didn't notice it when you first popped 
the hood's latch from the inside. I don't think you've quite 
got the knack for making the most of your heightened 
RADAR senses, yet,' Fritz smirked. 'Look over there 
under your regular computer console.' I listened to his 
words and traced my gaze along the broken outline of his 
outstretched finger to its curved end, then worked my 
way down the invisible, straight line that ran from his 
nail to a crowded spot below my state-issue computer 
screen and keyboard. Another electronic screen glowed 
faintly green there. Across its back-lit surface swarmed a 
tangle of intersecting lines.

" 'It's a map, that green glow you see there. What we have 
here is a rather sophisticated computer that puts to shame 
most of its electronic brethren. Of course, what you see 
here is only part of the computer; the rest of it is in orbit 
directly over the west coast at a rather constant altitude of 
123 miles. Wherever the car goes, the satellite beams its 
position to a database of coordinates digitally linked to 
the cities and streets you find yourself cruising through.'

"Gothic goes high-tech," whistled the almost-forgotten 
mountain biker under his breath.

"What was that?" questioned the RADAR Ranger, 
grudgingly returning his thoughts to Sky Oaks.

"Nothing, actually. I'm sorry to have interrupted your 
story, sir. Please go on with it -- it's all very fascinating."

The RADAR Ranger continued." 'Your car is this red 
dot,' elaborated Fritz. 'It's stationary now because the 
car's not moving. But when you're traveling on the road, 
the dot moves along the road's green squiggle on the 
screen.'

" 'This is all very interesting, but I don't see it's purpose. 
What do red dots and green lines have to do with 
anything?'

"Fritz stood there looking at me, the fingers of his left 
hand rasping back and forth across the gray stubble on 
his chin. " 'Gordon, I shouldn't have to show you 
everything. Take responsibility for your own freedom 
and see what you can discover on your own. We're not 
talking about Fate here ... we're talking about you taking 
action to become free. Listen and don't talk. The red dot 
is you. The green line shows where you are. Flip this 
little switch below the monitor and if any vehicles are 
within the territory covered by the monitor, they show up 
as blue dots. Now move the cursor over any blue dot with 
the track ball, and push the button to its right and, voila, 
the monitor displays the speed of the vehicle you're 
monitoring. Do you see the potential in this? Blind 
corners, dips in the road, mountain sides I none of these 
can hide speeders from you. You're rendered virtually 
omniscient.'

"I stood there in fascinated silence. Suddenly I was 
beginning to see and understand like a RADAR Ranger. 
Obstacles that got in the way of enforcing the law were 
demolished with the flick of a tiny, plastic switch. A 
plastic switch. " 'Good God,' I exclaimed. 'This is 
incredible.'

" 'It's more than that,' acknowledged Fritz. 'No matter 
how far away they are, you'll be on top of them before 
they can repeat 'Modified Ford Mustang in my rear view 
mirror.' There's only one catch to the whole operation and 
I'm sure it won't present any problems for you. I shouldn't 
even bother to mention it.'

" 'Mention it, Fritz. Mention it.'

"For this unit -- car and electronics -- to work properly, 
you've got to bring down five speeders a day. That's all. 
Nothing more. What are you responsible for now? 
Fifteen? Twenty? See how easy it is? Before long, you'll 
be tripling and quadrupling that number.'"

" 'Five speeders a day? Just five speeders a day?' I rolled 
the words around in my mouth, flicking them with my 
tongue here and there, savoring their simplicity. 'And I 
could increase that number as easily as you say? And all 
according to the law books?'

" 'Yes, to your first question, speeders will take to you 
like flies to sticky paper,' laughed Fritz. 'No, to your 
second question,' his eyes narrowing to tiny slits. 'What 
we're talking about here isn't written up in the law books. 
What we're talking about follows a much higher code I 
a much higher law. We're talking about the code followed 
by men of action who see to it that the products of 
science are used in the best interests of the people.'"

"Did you question his integrity, then?" quizzed the 
mountain biker. "Did you point out the flaws in his 
reasoning, in his misplaced sense of public trust?"

"I asked him when we could begin," replied the RADAR 
Ranger to the shocked cyclist.

"But what about your own sensibilities and internal sense 
of right and wrong, sir?" stammered the wide-eyed 
mountain biker.

The RADAR Ranger hesitated, and when he spoke there 
was a catch in his voice. "I admit that I made a mistake. 
But let me continue with my tale. I was about to relate 
the experience of my first citation, equipped as I was 
with that monstrous patrol car and all its electronic 
wizardry. It should be clear to you now that there was 
only one possible outcome. Do I have to tell you what 
that outcome was?"

When the suddenly passive mountain biker did not 
answer after several moments, the agitated ranger, 
rapping his knuckles against the scarred table top to a 
beat the cyclist could not identify, continued. "The 
outcome should be obvious to you -- Fritz blew it with his 
typical lack of empathy for me."

"Blew it, sir?" repeated the mountain biker.

"Right out his Flowmaster low restriction mufflers. I 
should never have started with full-sized passenger 
vehicles as he demanded. As with all my experiences 
involving Fritz, this was something I had to eventually 
learn on my own anyway. Fritz quite literally pushed me 
into the driver's seat and demanded that I follow him. 
'Just drive,' he ordered, 'and don't think twice about what 
happens.' There was plenty to think about, though. After I 
turned the key in the ignition and my vehicle fired up, it 
seemed to drive itself. I was there, sure, behind the 
steering wheel, with my feet working the pedals on the 
floor, but my presence only seemed coincidental. The 
instant those 315 Gatorbacks began spinning in the rear, 
the car shot forward, streaking out past the opening in the 
warehouse and into the air beyond the raised loading 
dock, coming down on those gas-filled Koni's with barely 
a jolt discernable in the cockpit. Just ahead of me, Fritz 
was maneuvering his car with the patient skill of an 
Indianapolis 500 driver, taking Presidio corners skidless 
at high speed, accelerating to redline velocity down short 
bridge approaches, threading his way seamlessly through 
heavy traffic as we crossed back over the Golden Gate 
Bridge and into Marin County along 101.

"We went through a rigorous driving school at the 
Academy, but what I practiced there could never have 
prepared me for what was happening now. Where I 
normally would drift through corners, I was holding tight 
to the road. Unexpected obstacles I cars or pedestrians 
cutting in front of me I should have been reasons for 
collisions, but were easily avoided. And what was most 
startling to me was that no one seemed to notice us. No 
one, not the toll keepers as we rocketed over 100 mph 
through the free-direction entrance of the bridge, not the 
drivers of passenger vehicles whose cars surely must 
have rock 'n rolled with the jet of air both proceeding and 
trailing us, not the pilots in the routine spotter planes 
circling above the highway, and not the RADAR-
equipped patrol cars camouflaged in among roadside 
billboards and shrubbery. We were masked to everyone 
but ourselves.

"You can imagine the fear and confusion I felt," confided 
the RADAR Ranger. "They're probably the only two 
emotions I have consistently through this tale. Had he 
had any sensibility and compassion, Fritz could have 
eased my fears with well-thought out explanations 
offered in soothing tones. He could have explained that I 
did not have to fear a high-speed collision or worry about 
striking down a pedestrian or of being pulled over by one 
of my fellow officers, but that I just needed to focus on 
the new experience that was enveloping me. Instead, his 
voiced crackled over my radio with condemnations and 
insults about my inability to take action. He was only 
interested in bringing down a speeder, completing my 
initiation, and moving onto his next abomination.

"About 15 miles north of the bridge, Highway 101 climbs 
over one of many small, partially wooded hills. It was at 
the base of this particular hill that Fritz shouted at me 
over the radio to look at my computer screen. 'The blue 
dots, you fool, don't you see the blue dots on the road 
ahead going down the other side of this stump of a hill. 
What a catch!' he continued to scream into the radio. 'If 
I'm not a RADAR Ranger with the eyes of a hungry 
panther, that looks like a convoy of five big rigs. What a 
feast, Gordon! This is your lucky day. Put the cursor over 
one of those blue meanies and get a speed readout.' I did 
as he said and my screen brightened with a reading of 
'74.'  Before I knew what was happening, the little switch 
below and to the left of my steering wheel snapped down 
of its own accord, nitrous oxide sped into the Ford 
Motorsport GT-40 fuel injectors, and the chase was over 
before it had time to begin."

"Did you give speeding tickets to the drivers of all five 
big rigs?" asked the mountain biker quietly. 

"Yes and no," replied the RADAR Ranger. "As usual, 
Fritz had only been partially correct in his observations. 
We had, indeed, brought down five speeding, highly 
visible vehicles. But they weren't big rigs. It was a 
convoy of motorhomes on their way to the Shakespeare 
Festival in Ashland, Oregon.  'Big rigs, motorhomes,' 
Fritz droned on after we had pulled up behind the last of 
the vacationing vehicles lining the shoulder of the road, 
'what difference does it make? You have the opportunity 
to take real action here, Gordon. Stop diddling around 
and do it. You can thank me later.'

"I stepped around to the driver's side of the first vehicle 
and froze. The driver of the motorhome was a gray-
haired, wrinkled gentleman of 78 and next to him was his 
wife of 55 years, gray-haired and wrinkled, too. They 
reminded me of my parents I my own flesh and blood! I 
couldn't take action against a couple like this. The 
memory of my own parents, of Jackie, really, was too 
powerful to escape. Fritz was, of course, outraged with 
me when he should have been saying and doing things to 
make this ticketing experience a rich, rewarding one."

"I don't understand what you mean," said the cyclist. 
"What things could he have said and done?"

"Bringing down speeders is no ordinary act," began the 
RADAR Ranger. "You don't simply gorge yourself on 
the distress and misery of the law breakers. No," he 
shook his head. "Writing up a citation is a celebration of 
life I of guaranteeing and sustaining a point of view that 
benefits so many. For RADAR Rangers, this is the 
highest experience." The ranger stated this most 
seriously, all the time looking at the mountain biker as if 
he were talking to someone who held contrary views. 
"I'm sure Fritz never fully appreciated the experience this 
way, at least I never saw him do so. Whatever," the 
ranger continued painfully, "Fritz did not bother to 
remind me of the exhilaration I had felt the previous 
evening after issuing the ticket to the red Miata, nor did 
he try to help me work through my current confusion and 
issue these tickets with dignity and understanding. He 
bolted through the whole process as if he wanted to be 
done with it as quickly as possible, like a little boy 
spooning broccoli into his mouth just to leave the dinner 
table and get on with his play time. All he said to me 
was, 'Do it. Don't be an ass.'"

"He'd beaten me emotionally into the ground already and 
I couldn't get up to refuse him," admitted the RADAR 
Ranger. "I went from motorhome to motorhome, writing 
up the old folks for the maximum fine. I was at first 
ashamed and embarrassed. But once I got beyond their 
tears and pleas for leniency ('This was going to ruin a 
beautiful trip and destroy an already fragile budget'), 
once I got into the moment, all my fears and frustrations 
vanished. I dined on the event with delirium.

"The pathetic crying of the old folks, Fritz' callousness, 
the thunder of the passing trafficQit was all enveloped, 
tamed, and then consumed by the unnatural white light 
and the beating of the blood coursing through my 
temples. My hands tingled with the rush of air pouring 
into my lungs and my feet floated dizzily above the 
ground. Then the vice-tight grip of Fritz pulled me back.

" 'You've already ticketed them once; you don't have to 
go around and give them each another ticket, you fool.' I 
was still in a citation frenzy and unable to regain my 
senses. I desperately wanted to write out as many tickets 
as I could and had my face pressed up against the waxy 
ear of one of the terrified drivers. I would have cited him 
on multiple violations if Fritz hadn't planted a powerful 
blow to my derriere. It was a sensational jolt that traveled 
up my spine I not painful I no I enlightening is the 
only way I can explain it to you. One moment I was 
becoming one with and feasting in the traffic court of the 
cosmos, then the next moment I found myself leaning 
against the door of my patrol car, the buzzing insects of 
the early evening clustering around the salty sweat 
soaking through my uniform, the motorhomes, Fritz later 
informed me, gone for minutes.

" 'One ticket only per law breaker,' Fritz was shouting at 
me. 'Writing two tickets at the same time is like bringing 
matter and anti-matter together. You can't survive the 
experience; your days of action will be over.' His voice 
upset me, put my nerves on end, but I sensed that what he 
was now telling me was, indeed, important to my 
survival as a RADAR Ranger.

I followed him without thinking back to his parked 
vehicle. Watching him walk in front of me, placing one 
regulation boot in front of the other, I suddenly realized 
the difference between us. For me, the writing of a 
speeding ticket with my new powers had been 
apocalyptic. It had changed my perception of everything, 
from my memories of Jackie to the sensation of a misty 
fog giving birth to dew drops on the hairs of my bare 
arms. I couldn't conceive of another RADAR Ranger 
taking similar experiences lightly. It had changed me; it 
had to have changed them, too, in profound ways. I 
experienced everything now with a new understanding 
and respect. Fritz, however, displayed none of these 
insights. He seemed to me to be the lunkhead of RADAR 
Rangers. I realized then that Fate had dealt me a cruel 
hand, anteing him up as my mentor. I would have to put 
up with him as long as he had things to show meQif, 
indeed, he had anything left to showQand accommodate 
myself to his blasphemous behavior. Life for me was 
now rich with beautiful experiences, and to make the 
most of these many precious moments, I would have to 
take control of my learning. Fritz was only in the way.

"Can you follow my reasoning when I say to you that I 
did not want to charge willy-nilly into these experiences, 
but rather savor each one of them individually? That my 
experiences and sensations as a RADAR Ranger were too 
exquisite to be wasted?"

"Yes," replied the mountain biker with conviction. "What 
you're describing sounds like being in love, sir."

"Yes," beamed the RADAR Ranger, "like being in love. 
An incomparable feeling, and I just couldn't understand 
how a person could misuse and waste these feelings. 
Then Fritz unknowingly showed me how I could 
continue my learningQmy lovingQwithout offending 
my sensibilities. He was squinting into the distance, 
peering at a dim object on the highway too tiny for me to 
identify. Before I could ask him what had caught his 
attention, Fritz moved as if a blur into his patrol car and 
sped onto the highway. Within moments I saw him and 
the tiny object pull over to the roadside. Without 
question, he had spotted a speeder, given chase, and was 
now issuing the citation. Swift and without mercy. I 
thought no more of it I at least, I put it out of my mind 
until Fritz returned a few minutes later. A disgusted, 
almost disquieted expression creased the corners of his 
angry mouth.

" 'I don't like it at all, not at all,' he said as he squirmed 
out from behind his steering wheel. "You've taken up so 
much of my time with your babbling and nonsense today, 
I had no other choice.'

" 'No other choice about what?' I asked bewildered.

" 'You saw what I had to do, or are you telling me that 
you couldn't even manage to follow that with your new 
senses? My God, Gordon. I have to issue citations every 
day, too. I'm as energized as you are by the rush of the 
chase and the bringing down of law breakers. The larger 
the cubic inch displacement, the greater the horsepower 
of the offender, the more energy flows into us. You felt 
that yourself just now when you wrote up those five 
motorhomes. What I just did was to maintain my status 
quo, to keep my numbers up. Believe me, it wasn't a 
pleasure. I barely got the slightest charge from it.'

" 'What the devil are you mumbling about?' I forced out 
in agitation.

" 'That damned motorcyclist,' an annoyed Fritz replied. 
'Wasn't even one of those big, four-stroke bikes. A little 
250 cc machine. I'm surprised he was able to break 55. 
Not much energy transference there, but it counts on the 
old score card nonetheless.'

" 'You mean, then, that we can survive on issuing 
citations to motorcycles?' I was excited because I felt no 
moral repulsion bringing down motorcycles. I mean, after 
all, motorcycles aren't the same as passenger vehicles, 
motorhomes, or big rigs. Motorcycles posed far less of a 
moral dilemma for me than the other vehicles, you see.

" 'Oh sure,' responded Fritz, 'but who wants to do it. In 
the scheme of things, it's quite trivial. Pretty petty, 
actually. If you want to get real petty, though, you might 
as well ticket bicycles. You can always find them riding 
on the highways illegally, pedalling through residential 
stop signs, sometimes even breaking the speed limit 
coasting down steep hills. Real food for a man of action 
like yourself, Gordon!'

"Bicycles, huh?" queried the mountain biker rather 
sheepishly.

But the RADAR Ranger ignored the cyclist's apparent 
concern and continued his story. "Fritz was laughing 
heartily at the image of me bringing down two wheelers, 
but, for the first time, I wasn't frustrated by his cynicism. 
Motorcycles and bicycles would be my salvation I my 
ticket to a Disneyland of fresh, new experiences.

"While these images occupied my thoughts, Fritz 
continued on with his ceaseless bantering. 'Gordon,' he 
was saying, 'there's still so much you don't know. Two 
tickets to the same law breaker at the same time can be 
your end. But do you know the other ways you can harm 
yourself? And causing harm to your person with so many 
experiences yet to come would be such a shame, wouldn't 
it?

" 'Surely there must be other RADAR Rangers who can 
instruct me,' I said. 'You can't be the only RADAR 
Ranger in the world. Someone had to teach the ways of 
RADAR to you.'

" 'And whose crystal ball are you going to use to find 
these other RADAR Rangers, Gordon? Without question, 
they'll see your insubstantial form coming, but you're not 
going to see them.' Saying that, Fritz moved his hands so 
quickly as to make them nearly invisible, taking the 
badge off my shirt and holding its shiny surface under my 
disbelieving eyes. 'No, Gordon, I'm your teacher and 
you're my student. In that you don't have a choice. Now, 
enough of this foolish chatter. Let's get some sleep. We'll 
use the back of my car; it'll be more secure for us that 
way. When we awake in the morning, we'll be all that 
much closer to upholding the law.'

" 'No, Fritz,' I calmly replied. 'You sleep in your own 
vehicle and I'll sleep in mine.'

"He became instantly furious. 'Don't be stupid, Gordon. 
We're safer if we sleep in the same vehicle, better 
security that way. And I' he went on to list scores of 
reasons, none of which I considered or let persuade me. 
He might as well have been talking to his Venola forged 
blower pistons. I watched him as he raved on, a mental 
scarecrow of a man, stuffed with spindly reasoning and 
inferior ethics.

"With his hateful words streaming at my departing back, 
I climbed into the front of my cruiser under the dimly lit 
night sky, reached over the front seat, and pulled the back 
seat up and then out to reveal my own Lycra (TM)-lined 
sleep space. I slipped easily into it, my state-issue boots 
grazing the back wall of the dark trunk.' The ranger fell 
silent now.

"And that's how you became a RADAR Ranger, sir?" the 
mountain biker asked, more from a desire to dispel the 
unease that was gripping him than from any deep seated 
curiosity.

"Yes, that's how I became a RADAR Ranger."

"You were partner to a RADAR Ranger you disliked 
greatly," said the mountain biker after a long silence.

"Yes, I disliked him immensely, but I had to remain with 
him. I mean, he had me at a tremendous disadvantage. He 
was always insinuating that there were many important 
things I didn't knowQthings critical to my continued 
well-being. But when I look back at our existence 
together, I realize that the things he taught me were quite 
commonplace and mundane, things that I could figure out 
for myself. How to get an accurate speed reading with the 
K-15 RADAR gun when the vehicle crossed its beam at 
right angles, how to adjust the gun's tuning fork myself 
rather than loosing precious time sending it to a licensed 
adjusterQthings of this sort.

"During our time together, he constantly berated me for 
my impassioned attachment to things sensuous, my dis-
ease bringing down high-powered vehicles, and my way 
of expressing the joy I felt while issuing citations for 
moving violations. When I learned and conveyed 
amazement that off-the-shelf RADAR detectors had no 
effect on my modified Ford Mustang cruiser, he 
convulsed into fits of laughter. Holding his quivering 
belly with trembling hands, he'd roll over and over on the 
floor, bellowing out his amusement.

"He'd ridicule me, too, when I questioned him about good 
and evil, about the devil. 'The devil!' he'd shout. 'What 
have I got to worry about? I am the devil!' And that 
horrible laughter would start up again. At first he terrified 
me, as I think you've gathered by now, but as time 
passed, I developed a detached fascination for him, for all 
things really. I'd find myself sitting for hours in the 
Mustang thinking sadly about Fritz' shallow character, 
about the lives of the drivers who passed me in their 
insulated, smog-proofed vehicles, about life before 
RADAR. I marveled over all things great and small with 
detachmentQa detachment that I believe is an inherent 
part of a RADAR Ranger's nature. It was this profound 
detachment, at least, that allowed me to continue living in 
a world with people of lesser actionQpeople whose 
natures I couldn't entirely separate myself from.

"We shared the world with them, but we didn't participate 
fully in all its nuances. Material need, for example; we 
didn't have any. Twice a month, state-issue paychecks 
would appear in the post office box Fritz had rented on 
Fourth Street in downtown San Rafael. Early in my 
relationship with Fritz I had ceased to perform my 
regular duties on the force, but I was never called in and 
questioned about my behavior. And the checks continued 
to arrive at our P.O. box. It was like driving the Mustang: 
I was there, I had substance, but no one noticed or ever 
tried to interfere with the actions I was taking. And the 
speeding citations we issued over all those years I not 
once did either of us ever receive a summons to traffic 
court to confront the speeders we had cited. Our tickets 
went undisputed. It was as if the courts were there to 
justify our actions, to lend legal credibility.

Marin

"Ahhh, but let me tell you about Marin and how simple 
our lives were then. The county was a bouillabaisse of 
mid-sized to tiny towns and hamlets. These living spaces 
were scattered throughout the wooded hills and valleys 
that stretched over the California coast just north of 
metropolitan San Francisco. Many of the county's well-
to-do citizens earned their fortunes from investments 
flung far and wide throughout the world. As becoming 
such an affluent group, they conducted much of their 
business from home, using personal computers, 
telecommunication software, fax machines, and 
sophisticated telephony. On occasion, they would be 
driven to San Francisco, to conduct business, or to one of 
three major international airports in the Bay Area to 
touch flesh and pocketbooks in other corners of the 
globe. Joining them on these travel days were the rest of 
Marin's citizenry I the commuters who plodded to and 
from work on the 101 corridor that ran along the edge of 
Marin county and the San Francisco Bay.

" 'A RADAR feast,' Fritz often referred to this traffic 
corridor. I found his choice of words unappetizing, but he 
was right. He dined regularly and lavishly along the 
corridor and the roads feeding into it. Fritz regaled in 
bringing down females rushing to work, half-filled coffee 
cups teetering on their plastic dashboard holders, their 
hair still rolled up in curlers, applying the first of their 
faces as they sped down those many country feeder lanes 
or charged toward highway entrances along narrow 
frontage roads. He went after male CEO-types with equal 
gusto, delighting in bringing down Mercedes, BMWs, 
Lexus', and other high-priced luxury sedans. Seeing a car 
phone in use drove him to the brink of ecstasy. 'Oh, I'm 
going to reach out and touch someone today!' he'd scream 
over his radio and, even though I might be miles from the 
scene, I knew what the cause of his joy was. After he had 
satiated himself on these delicacies, he'd turn to what he 
called 'the more mundane food groups': campers, 
pickups, passenger vehicles pulling trailers, motorhomes, 
and the big rigs. 'You want to really put on some weight,' 
he'd tell me, 'you bring down a big rig for breakfast, 
lunch, and dinner. That's a stomach full.' For appetizers, 
he'd go after motorcycles, and when he was really in 
desperate straits or just in the mood to snack, he'd bring 
down a bicycle or two."

"And you?" queried the mountain biker. "What did you 
do, sir?"

"Me?" laughed the RADAR Ranger. "Against all Fritz' 
tirades and verbal abuse, I remained true to my 
sensibilities and convictions and brought down nothing 
larger than two-stroke, 250 cc motorbikes. Fritz called it 
wasted action, but I was content, finding peace in myself 
along with new understanding. I was even beginning to 
take moderate delight in the new experiences engendered 
by issuing these speeding tickets."

"You did this with detachment, even when you ticketed 
pedal bicycles?" whispered the mountain biker, leaning 
forward toward the RADAR Ranger over the narrow 
expanse of the oak table top.

"Yes, with great detachment," replied the ranger.

"You've implied that Fritz tried to initiate you into 
RADAR by ticketing more powerful vehicles. Why 
couldn't you do that with detachment, too? Was your 
decision, then, to go after smaller vehicles more of an 
aesthetic one than a moral one?"

"Had you put that question to me back then, in the early 
days, I would have answered 'aesthetic.' I wanted to 
contemplate RADAR in gradual steps. If bringing down 
small vehicles brought such pleasure and enlightenment 
to me that I could barely comprehend them, then I 
believed I should save the larger, more powerful vehicles 
for a time when I was more mature in the ways of 
RADAR. But I was only deluding myself because all 
aesthetic decisions, in the final analysis, are moral ones."

"What a minute," rejoined the mountain biker. "Aesthetic 
decisions can be immoral. What about the physicist who 
creates the perfect energy source to please his financial 
backers, knowing full well they'll use the energy as a 
military threat to acquire property. Or the government 
that paves over valuable peasant farming land with a 
monument to its greatness?"

"What you've just described are moral decisions. At least, 
in the mind of the doersQin the minds of the artists, each 
serves a higher purpose. It is not a conflict between 
morals and aesthetics, but one between the morals of the 
artist and the morals of society. The tragedy of our 
generation comes from a lack of sensitivity to this 
distinction. The atomic physicist, in turning over his 
perfect energy source to militarists, believes he has 
committed an immoral act and festers in despair, 
ultimately believing that he has fallen from grace. His 
work suffers and he no longer has any art at all to offer 
up to the world. Which is worst I ask you: the acquisition 
of property or the denial of art to the world? Morality is 
not a crystal ball that can be dashed to pieces because of 
a single act. When artists become men of action, these 
concerns disappear and the whole public benefits. But I 
wasn't thinking about these issues then. I believed that I 
brought down small vehicles for aesthetic reasons 
aloneQand, at first, I ignored the moral debate of 
whether, because of my new found RADAR nature, I was 
damned.

Belvedere

"Damned?" repeated the cyclist.

"In my heart, when I went over to Fritz, I believed that I 
was damned though I never discussed good and evil with 
him, at least not in the beginning. I had taken the 
forbidden apple of knowledge and now, I reckoned, must 
live as an outcast in the very world whose order I wanted 
to maintain. Do you hear what I'm saying?"

The mountain biker peered sheepishly at his own hands 
fussing idly on the wood table top. He started to say 
something, then changed his mind. When an uneasy 
blotch of pink finally swept across his downcast face, he 
drew his eyes up to look at the RADAR Ranger and 
managed, "Were you damned?"

A thin smile flickered across the ranger's lips like a sliver 
of light from the naked bulb directly overhead. The 
mountain biker continued to stare at him from a distance, 
but the faint trace of the little smile never left the ranger's 
lips. "Maybe I" offered the RADAR Ranger, letting his 
folded arms drop effortlessly to his sides "I we should 
talk about these things in their proper sequence. Can I 
continue with my story?"

"Please, go on," said the cyclist.

"Fritz and I continued to work the 101 corridor from the 
north of Marin in Novato south to the Golden Gate 
Bridge. As my RADAR Ranger nature matured and my 
understanding increased, this riddle of damnation grew 
more pronounced for me. I finally arrived at a point in 
time when my agitation over this conflict in my 
personality was more than I could bare and I yelled over 
at Fritz one winter day, our Mustangs parked side-by-side 
in hiding behind a Miller Lite (TM) billboard just off the 
highway, that I didn't want to live any longer.

" 'Gordon, you're not a killer; you couldn't take your own 
life if you tried,' was his response to my outburst. He was 
right, too. But the powerful emotions created by not fully 
accepting Fritz' definition of my RADAR nature were 
still sweeping through my body. They created in me a 
dark desire for that thing which I knew would satisfy the 
corresponding physical craving that was gnawing deep 
within me. You already know what bringing down a 
speeder means to a RADAR Ranger; now imagine the 
difference between bringing down a moped and a Rolls 
Royce Silver Shadow.

"Fritz sensed the craving in me that evening and led me 
out onto the highway. I followed him in my cruiser for 
what seemed like hours, passing up one opportunity after 
another. 'Why don't you let me take that one?' I'd radio 
over to him, pointing to a blue Camaro filled with 
middle-age yuppies or 'The green Volvo station wagon 
ahead is traveling 15 miles per hour above the speed 
limit; let's bring it down.' But Fritz was unwavering in his 
determination to wait for the right law breaker upon 
whom I could satiate my craving.

"As late afternoon eased into early evening, we found 
ourselves cruising the tree-lined streets of Belvedere, one 
of Marin's least affordable communities. Fritz 
maneuvered expertly through the narrow streets, darting 
from one secluded marble mansion to the next red-tiled 
estate. As we rounded a professionally landscaped corner 
high up on a hill above the white-capped waters of the 
Bay, Fritz waved my car to a halt and parked his own less 
than a vehicle length in front of me. Fifty yards ahead, 
the double wrought-iron gates to a hidden estate slid 
noiselessly open on their steel tracks. The polished silver 
grill of every poor boy's dream, a Rolls Royce Silver 
Shadow, slowly pulled through the newly created 
opening into the street. Fritz shot a glance back to me, as 
if to say dinner was served. We followed the Rolls, but 
kept our distance to avoid undue attention. Fritz knew 
that I was at the end of my emotional tether that evening 
and he wasn't going to let the moment escape him by 
toying needlessly with the Rolls ahead of us.

"After the big car had pulled through its first stop sign, 
Fritz dashed in front of it and pulled it over to the side of 
the road. I parked behind the two vehicles, the blood 
pounding in my temples, my sweaty right hand nervously 
tapping the blood's beat on the cover of my ticket book. 
Fritz was already out of his car and walking toward my 
Mustang before I realized that I couldn't control the 
muscles of my hand enough to grip and open the door, I 
had become so flustered. 'Get out of the car, Gordon, and 
take him,' Fritz ordered and he opened my car door from 
the outside. I stepped out, faltered, but felt strong hands 
grab at my shoulders and pull me to attention. 'Get a hold 
of yourself, you idiot. There's only one person in the car, 
a young man, the chauffeur by the looks of his dress. 
You've got him on a 'California Stop;' he never came to a 
complete halt at the sign back there, just rolled right 
through it.' Fritz pushed me forward with a powerful 
shove and I lurched up to the driver's window.

"You must understand that during this entire evening, 
while Fritz was leading me hither-and-yon through Marin 
county, I kept wondering if I were damned. If I were the 
devil himself. These thoughts tore at my mind. 'What 
have I turned into by becoming a RADAR Ranger? 
Where is this damnable path to lead me?' The frenzy in 
my mind fed into and amplified the physical craving Fritz 
and sensed in me earlier that afternoon. By this time, I 
was beyond balancing my sensibilities with the need to 
write up this driver for a moving violation.

"He sat there, behind that expensive teak wood steering 
wheel, staring up a me in disbelief. 'But officer,' he began 
to say when I shamefully cut him off with a heated look 
from my fevered eyes. He was frightened by my 
countenance, and utterly alone in that car. He was no 
more than 17, but the look of incredulity that crossed his 
face as he took me in with his bewildered expression was 
ageless. He tried again, saying, 'This is my first job' and 
'I'm working through a trial period' and 'This could cause 
me to lose everything.' His pleas broke through to my 
consciousness, only to trigger that question in my head 
again: 'Am I damned.' And if I were damned, why did I 
feel such pity for this youth, for his plight here in the hills 
of Belvedere?

" 'I must be damned,' I said to myself. 'This is surely hell' 
and in that moment I thought of Fritz and knew there was 
no escape for me, not from this young driver nor from the 
creature I had become. Without a word, I dropped the 
citation in the youth's lap and walked off."

"What happened then?" whispered the mountain biker.

"Fritz was jumping up and down on the roadside like a 
man crazed. When he saw me walk away from the Rolls, 
he rushed over and literally threw me into the air in his 
delight. 'Gordon, Gordon!' he laughed at me, pointing his 
hideously gaunt finger in my direction, as if to say he had 
caught me with my hand in the cookie jar."

"Had you felt that same sensation when you'd brought 
down speeders in the past?" quizzed the mountain biker. 
"Was it stronger now?"

"I felt satiated," paused the RADAR Ranger as he 
searched for the right words, "but not elated. No, if you 
must know, I felt damned to the core of my being. I was 
enraged, utterly out of my mind with hatred. And that 
hatred, of course, was aimed at Fritz. I looked around the 
roadside for some implement with which to bash in his 
head, but found none. Fritz found this all too amusing 
and jumped into his cruiser and sped away. I gave 
pursuit, wondering what the driver of the Rolls thought of 
this bizarre behavior. Fritz, with his superior mechanical 
skills, easily eluded my attempts to overtake him. He 
toyed with me as a tomcat toys with a frightened mouse. 
He'd let me come to within inches of his rear bumper, 
then make a 180 degree turn at speed, darting past me in 
the opposite direction, his laughter drowning out the 
sound of his two-chamber Flowmaster low restriction 
mufflers in my ears.

"When I finally caught up with him, he was parked in one 
of his favorite roadside hideaways (he claimed to like it 
because it was kept clean by the local Rotary club). 
Reason had altogether left me and I flew from my 
Mustang at him with an all-consuming rage. We fought 
one another as we had never fought before. It was only 
the thought of eternal damnation in hellQof grappling 
with him like this forever in the fires of hellQthat caused 
me to loose my resolve. He was on top of me, pinning me 
to the rocky ground with his left knee pressed into my 
sternum, when I relaxed my feeble hold on him. 'You're 
mad, Gordon,' he said, those terrible cold eyes cooling 
the last of the heat to rage through my veins. But his 
voice was controlled and calm. The fight had done 
something to him, but I wasn't sure what. I was never 
sure about Fritz and this time was no exception. I simply 
listened to his words and did as he said: 'Get in your 
trunk and go to sleep.'

"Closing myself in the back of my cruiser had always 
been disturbing for me. It was like squirming through the 
narrow opening into a small, solid rock chamber at the 
bottom of a very deep cavern. That night was particularly 
upsetting for me. Among my worries was was whether 
Fritz meant to kill me. How? I don't know, but he was 
always hinting at the fact that there was so much more 
for me to learn and, perhaps among those things, was a 
way to destroy a RADAR Ranger in his sleep. 
Suffocation maybe. With these fears haunting my 
consciousness, I fell into a troubled slumber and dreamed 
the nightmares of the damned."

"RADAR Rangers do dream, then!" exclaimed the 
mountain biker.

"Yes, just like you. But no, not exactly like you people of 
lesser action. There are differences. Our dreams are long 
and clear; we awake remembering every detail, normal 
and grotesque. This I never experienced before I 
discovered RADAR. And then there are those all-too-
frequent nightmaresQthey mix and warp our waking and 
unconscious perceptions into a mottled tapestry of bent 
and deformed patterns. Fortunately, so much time 
separates that night from now, I can't relate the hideous 
fantasies that surely filled my head.'"

The mountain biker, kicking his feet at the emerging hole 
in the floor of Sky Oaks, appeared relieved to hear this.

"From the time I awoke early the next morning until 
nearly a month later," the RADAR Ranger continued 
with barely an audible pause in his narration, "Fritz and I 
did not exchange a single utterance. During these long 
weeks, I was constantly consumed by the hellish fire of 
trying to live with the tragedy of my divided nature. I 
could not forgive Fritz for manipulating me into bringing 
down the Rolls and I returned quickly to my old pattern 
of ticketing small motorbikes and bicycles. Yet, it was 
not so much the guilt I felt for the encounter with the 
Rolls that burned away at my sensibilities as it was a 
disgust over my own personal weakness, for I was now 
convinced that if I could leave Fritz, I would regain that 
part of me that had been wiped away when he entered my 
life. Failure to make that separation was the spark that 
kept the flames burning in me. Finally, in the fourth week 
after the incident with the Rolls Royce, I mustered the 
courage to tell him, 'I'm leaving you, Fritz. I can no 
longer tolerate our relationship.'

" 'I've been waiting for some time to hear you say this,' he 
replied. ' Go ahead, call me a heinous fiend, a lunatic who 
takes his pleasures from the haste created by a 
mechanized world. That's why you want to leave me, isn't 
it?'

" 'I'm not interested in passing judgment on you, Fritz. 
I'm not interested in you at all, in fact. I want to learn 
more about my own RADAR Ranger nature and I realize 
now that I'll never learn from you. I don't think you know 
as much as you put on. You use your powers for personal 
pleasures onlyQyour life has no purpose!' I screamed at 
him. 'What kind of RADAR Ranger are you, anyway? 
How can you take such delight in issuing citations when 
you have no need?'"

Fritz sat quietly in his cruiser, the door opened wide on 
its hinges, listening to my words. His eyes were attentive 
and thoughtful, as I'd never seen them before. His calm 
nearly frightened me as badly as if he had flown into one 
of his usual black rages. 'What do you think a RADAR 
Ranger is?' he asked after a moment of reflective pause.

" 'I'm not like you, Fritz,' I shot back. 'I don't pretend to 
explain that which has been unknowable to me.' Fritz 
continued to sit in his Mustang, his expressionless gaze 
upsetting me. 'But I do know that after I take my leave of 
you, I'm going to find out. I'll travel as far as I have to to 
find other RADAR Rangers. I know that others must 
exist. You and I I we can't be the only ones of our kind. 
Someone had to change you just as you have tried to 
change me. And someone had to change them, too. I'm 
sure there are great numbers of RADAR Rangers 
throughout the world. And I'm sure that they'll have more 
in common with me than I have in common with youQ
RADAR Rangers who appreciate knowledge as I do and 
who have discovered amazing secrets far beyond your 
own powers to understand. I'll find these rangers and 
learn from them without you!'

" 'Gordon,' he was shaking his head in disagreement now. 
'You must break your ties to the life you knew before you 
became a RADAR Ranger. Your attachment to that life is 
denying you your RADAR Ranger nature. Let the ghosts 
of your former life go!'

"I was obsessed with making my point with him and 
would not stop. 'I have made the most of my RADAR 
Ranger nature I I have never before seen so clearly the 
beauties and intricacies of life. Compared to my 
awareness as a RADAR Ranger, my previous life was 
like that of a blind, deaf mute, being able to neither see 
nor hear the world around. It is only as a RADAR Ranger 
that I have come to respect all life. Life meant nothing to 
me until I could bring out its beauty with RADAR, could 
assure its beauty for everyone with RADAR.'

" 'I'm not an intellectual like you, Gordon, but that does 
not mean that I'm stupid. Listen to me, Gordon, because I 
fear for you. You do not understand your RADAR 
Ranger nature. You long to go back to a life of lesser 
action already lived and relive it with the heightened 
powers of a man of action. You cannot do that! You 
cannot go back! What you want is here and now. You 
must let go of this wish to return to the comfort and 
warmth of a lesser existence. You are no longer forced by 
your very nature to 'See through a glass darkly.' See it 
now, Gordon.'

" 'Don't you think that I already know that?' I cried out in 
anguish. 'I want to know this RADAR Ranger nature 
intimately, what it is, where it will take me. If I can fill 
my being with wondrous experiences simply by ticketing 
mopeds and bicycles, why must I go through life bringing 
down drivers of greater power and perception I drivers 
who are closer to my own nature than the others?'

" 'Are you really happy when you prowl the streets like a 
beggar, bringing down petty two wheelers, vehicles 
whose drivers barely have the spark of life themselves? 
Does it really fill you with the wonder of being alive? 
Does it satisfy your hunger? This behavior is ludicrous; 
you are vain to think that this experience of yours could 
in any way compare with the true nature of being a 
RADAR Ranger. 'What is the true nature of a RADAR 
Ranger?' you ask. I'll tell you:  ticketing vehicles with 
more than two wheels, vehicles that are powered by more 
than two silly combustion cycles, vehicles that don't rely 
on the driver's legs for power, vehicles that offer shelter 
and protection for their drivers. That is the true nature of 
being a RADAR Ranger!'

" 'No,' I implored, more to settle my own disoriented 
perceptions than in response to Fritz. 'That's how you see 
it; it's not how I see it.'

"He sat back in the cushion of the Mustang's powered 
front seat and relaxed a moment. Then he leaned 
sideways to the opening of the door and said, 'I'm sorry, 
Gordon, but it is that way. You talk about finding other 
RADAR Rangers. RADAR Rangers are lone predators 
who live by the gun. They are territorial and will drive 
you away from their highways and streets immediately 
should you find them. Highly suspicious, they could no 
more trust you than you apparently can trust me. Your 
sensibility and atavistic clinging to a life of lesser action 
would drive them into a black rage and they would try to 
kill you, rather than reason with you as I have. Besides, if 
you should find more than one of them together at the 
same time and in the same place, it would be for security 
only, one of them acting as a slave to the other.'

Slave

"Just as you were a slave to Fritz, sir?" ventured the 
mountain biker, cautiously metering out each word.

At this question, the RADAR Ranger whirled around, 
faster than the cyclist could follow with his eyes in the 
dim overhead light of the station, and glared at him 
between narrow slits that revealed only a fraction of his 
anger. The cyclist could feel that anger building up 
exponentially behind those thin flaps of skin, then just as 
suddenly cool down as if someone had removed a 
screaming kettle of water from a red, hot grill.

"I denied this at first, of course, just as I started to deny it 
to you right now. But Fritz was rightQI had been his 
slave from the very beginning. I listened then with a 
deeper understanding when Fritz explained that RADAR 
Rangers multiply through slavery. 'There is no other 
way!' he exclaimed to me. 'I expected you to accept your 
RADAR Ranger nature instinctively after you brought 
down the red Miata that first night. Having experienced 
the wonder of it, I couldn't imagine you doing anything 
but repeating the experience every chance you got. But 
you resisted and continue to resist to this moment. I 
suppose I could have been harder on you, forced you to 
see the errors of your way. But I backed off because you 
were so easy to manage, so simple to control. I didn't 
want to lose that power. Now I see that I could have done 
it better with you. Forgive me.'

"At that moment, a smile crossed his lips and he became 
as amazing to me as he was that first night he had come 
to me with the intention of making me a RADAR 
Ranger. ' Good and Evil, Evil and Good,' he 
philosophized. 'It's all in the way you look at it. We are 
powerful, Gordon. We are among nature's chosen. What 
lies ahead of us is a feast that men of lesser action can 
never experience without regret, a feast that a lesser 
conscience cannot accept. The richest and the poorest, we 
can take them all. It is nature's way. There has never been 
anything like us, Gordon. We are unique in the universe.'

" 'Fritz, I'm more confused than ever,' I cried. 'You chose 
an incompetent to become a RADAR Ranger.'

" 'We don't know that Gordon. We don't know it because 
you haven't tried.'

"He was again right and my suffering became greater 
than before. Never since becoming a RADAR Ranger 
had I experienced such agony. I agonized because Fritz' 
words had made such sense to me. He spoke the truth: I 
experienced the most wondrous delight only when I 
issued a traffic violation, but only for that moment. And I 
didn't doubt for a second that bringing down anything 
less than a Ford Ranchero would afford me only a 
glimpse of that which I truly longed for. It was this 
longing, this discontent that had caused me such agony. 
To mask the agony for what it really was, I had struggled 
to regain my pre-RADAR Ranger nature. Now this 
longing had wearied me beyond endurance. My head was 
spinning and the stars in the night sky were reflecting 
perfect, unbroken circles on my retina. 'He's right,' I 
thought, 'He's right. I am not satisfied the way I should be 
because I haven't taken action, haven't committed myself 
to the true life of RADAR.'

"As if reading my thoughtsQperhaps he had been 
reading them all along, I'll never knowQFritz steadied 
me with a strong hand and said, 'Tomorrow we'll both 
take action and perhaps that action will lead you to true 
RADAR Rangerness.'

" 'What do you mean?' I said in a daze. 'What action?'

" 'You'll learn tomorrow when we go to traffic court.'

"Wait a minute," protested the mountain biker. "Just a 
while ago you said that you never had a reason to go to 
traffic court. None of your tickets was ever disputed and 
you were never summoned there. But what you're saying 
now is that you did go to traffic court, is that true?"

"Yes, it is," the RADAR Ranger answered, raising slowly 
to his feet and stretching his arms wide. "What I told you 
earlier was only partially true. One ticket was disputed, 
but we were not summoned to defend it. No, Fritz took 
me there on his own volition. I Ahhh, 'What purpose 
would that serve?' I see you asking by the look in your 
eyes. I believe that I have your undivided attention again, 
not that you haven't been a most attentive audience. I'll 
go on with my tale, then.

"Quite suddenly after Fritz had suggested that we travel 
to Traffic Court the following morning, the air around us 
become very still. The shrubbery that hid us from passing 
cars ceased to sway and moan in the stillness. Even the 
noise from the traffic itself was overcome by the quiet. It 
was very dark for we both had shut our car doors and 
automatically turned off the interior cab lights. We were 
utterly alone, Fritz and I, standing alongside Highway 
101. The cool air of the winter night settled down, 
pushing on the brim of my hat and Fritz stood close by, 
still as a carved statue. Then the wind came off the Bay 
and I saw the branches of far-off silhouetted oak and bay 
trees sway back and forth, yet I heard no sounds, no 
rustling of leaves against branches. The pain I had felt 
was gone. A quiet peace and tranquility settled over me 
and it was enough. I knew it was momentary only, but it 
was enough for me to embrace to my chest, to feel the 
fleeting solace it had to offer. Quietly, at that moment of 
personal peace, a voice spoke into my ear: 'Pain is a 
horrible thing for you, Gordon. It's horrible because, with 
your RADAR Ranger nature, you feel it more than ever 
before and you don't want it to last. That is quite 
understandable. Don't betray your true nature now and 
suffer needlessly. Follow me and together we'll 
strengthen that nature so that there is no pain for you.'

"That said, I willingly followed Fritz onto the highway. 
Our small, two-horse caravan traveled south along the 
bay front to the Marin Civic Center turnoff. A long, low 
building, the Civic Center set atop a knoll that ran along 
the east side of the highway. We exited from 101 and 
passed without slowing through a blinking red light at the 
main intersection in front of the Center, then pulled up to 
and through the giant arch that passed through the 
building and led to its parking lots. Deserted at that late 
hour, Fritz ignored the empty public spaces and pulled 
into the lot reserved for civic officials. He eased his 
Mustang between two parallel white lines that set apart a 
space reserved for Traffic Court Commissioner G. 
Whopner and I pulled into a reserved space next to him. I 
was confident that our cars would not attract attention, 
indeed, would not even be cited or towed the next 
morning when the building awoke to a full, midweek-
work day. Our RADAR Ranger nature afforded certain 
preternatural benefits, and parking wherever we wished 
without penalty or consequence was one of them.

" 'We'll take action in the morning,' was all Fritz said to 
me as we each settled into our respective resting places."

Traffic Court

"The next morning we emerged from our vehicles and 
blended invisibly among the masses flowing into the 
building. We followed the echoing footsteps of lawyers, 
bookkeepers, librarians, clerks, officers of the law, 
speeding violators, and other questionable elements of 
society down the long, marbled hallway of the first floor, 
then crowded onto an elevator and were carried up to 
Level C, the section of the building reserved for civil 
cases. This was where traffic disputations were settled, 
too. Upon exiting the elevator, we walked into a crowd of 
people milling in front of various single and double 
doors, each leading to a different court room. I looked 
from face to face in the crowded hallway and recognized 
some of my fellow officers, but they did not respond to 
my nod of recognition, acting as if they were unable to 
see me. I was glad that I was invisible to them.

"Fritz opened a pathway through the milling crowds for 
me and I followed him obediently to a low marble bench 
that faced one of the courtroom doors. We both sat down 
on the cold surface and said nothing for a moment or two. 
Then Fritz nudged me in the ribs with his elbow; when I 
looked at him, he jerked his head knowingly toward his 
left side. I looked in that direction and the profile of a 
youth stopped my eyes from wandering further. No more 
than four people sat between us and I could see his face 
clearly. 'Wherever have I seen this person?' I wondered. 
My life had been helter-skelter for so long, that I often 
feared I was losing the powers of my mind. The only 
mental strength, if you can call it that, left to me was my 
short-term memory. People and events no older than 
fifteen hours to me remained etched in my memory in 
high resolution, while all others faded. My original 
encounter with the owner of the profile I was now staring 
at obviously stretched out beyond the fifteen-hour barrier 
I all I could dredge up from my mind swamp were 
remembrances of blurred shadows floating in a murky 
grotto.

" 'The Rolls, Gordon, the Rolls,' I heard Fritz whisper as 
he nudged me again in the ribs, this time with more force. 
'He's the boy who was driving the Rolls that night in 
Belvedere. His employers have threatened to let him go if 
he can't clear this ticket. Right out of high school, come 
west to find work to pay for a college education. Poor 
lad! And certainly no where else to go. Future's not 
looking too good for him.'

"Fritz' caustic words jarred the shadows loose from the 
sticky sludge at the bottom of my mind and they floated 
upward into recognition. The Rolls Royce in BelvedereQ
how could I possibly forget that night? My original pain 
and suffering over what I had become resurfaced with 
that memory, and I felt the blood quicken in my temples. 
Then I remembered the look in the boy's eyes, his pleas 
not to issue the ticket, and my empathy for him poured 
out again.

" 'What's this all about, Fritz?' I pushed out between 
clenched teeth, the nightmare landscape of that evening 
filling my head, the chill of guilt settling down over my 
shoulders. 'Why are we here?'

" 'We've found him at last,' he said. 'The one you 
wounded so dearly. Your son! Your salvation!'

" 'What are you raving about?' I gasped. But he had 
already grabbed my forearm and was dragging me 
through the just-opened doors of the courtroom. We 
stood still in the back corner of the room, at the end of a 
long, curved row of polished, metal-and-cloth-backed 
wood benches. The people who had been milling around 
outside entered the semi-circular room and took their 
seats within that row and the ones that were in front of it. 
In the middle of the group passing through the open 
doors was the boy. His eyes scanned the quickly filling 
room, moved to the spot in which Fritz and I stood, and 
finally settled on a destination not more than three feet 
from us. He was standing close enough to hear the 
pounding of my heart.

" 'I rise for Commissioner Whopner,' the courtroom 
bailiff said, awakening me from the hypnotic sleep the 
pounding in my chest had lured me into. I heard the rustle 
of paper and a few low coughs as people pushed 
themselves up from the comfortable positions they had 
settled into. Several minutes had passed since we entered 
the courtroom that I obviously could not account for. I 
looked over to my left and Fritz was still standing there, 
an amused look on his face. I cautioned a look to my 
right and again encountered the profile of the boy. He 
looked more confident and determined than when I last 
gazed upon him. I could see him working his lips, 
perhaps reciting to himself a speech he was about to 
make.

"A dark robbed man entered the courtroom from a door 
in the far corner of the opposite wall, walked over to a 
full-sized wood desk, sat down behind it, and slowly 
looked across the mostly solemn faces in his courtroom 
before picking up his gavel and bringing it down on the 
desk with a resounding crack. 'You may be seated,' he 
announced.

Daryl

"Commissioner Whopner conducted his traffic court in 
the manner of an old-west hanging judge. To make his 
intentions plainly visible, a life-sized portrait of the 
legendary Judge Roy Bean hung in a gilded frame behind 
his elevated desk. Wire-rimmed reading glasses resting 
halfway down the aquiline ridge of his Roman nose, the 
commissioner read nothing more into the law than was 
already printed and bound between the leather covers on 
his library shelves. Defendants were wise to plead 
'Guilty, your honor,' when Whopner questioned them 
about the traffic incident that brought them into his court. 
Respect was paramount and lowered heads and eyes 
could expect lesser fines than raised heads and eyes for 
similar infractions of the traffic laws. Those that pleaded 
'Not guilty' were viewed suspiciously and given a second 
chance to reconsider their plea. Commissioner Whopner 
appeared most strict with certain bicyclists who had been 
cited for pedaling above a 5 mph speed limit on local 
watershed and recreation lands. For those cyclists who 
pleaded 'Guilty,' Whopner reduced their fines to $200. 
But for those few who tried to prove their innocence, the 
outcome was often a $500 reprimand. Commissioner 
Whopner thought like a RADAR Ranger.

"As his time to appear before the traffic commissioner 
approached, I saw the boy's lips move faster and faster, 
clearly recalling the words he had been practicing for 
days. My RADAR Ranger nature was splitting me in two 
again: on the one hand, I could not disagree with the way 
Commissioner Whopner was holding his court; but on the 
other hand, I could not bear to see the boy face the 
consequences of the actions I had cited him for. Fritz, as 
if reading my mind at that moment, leaned closer and 
said,'Let's save the kid from the embarrassment of having 
to face the commissioner. And while we're at it, let's save 
him from the life he's chosen and give him something 
better.'

"Fritz' words were settling into my awareness when they 
were overlaid by the bailiff's, 'Next case, Daryl Bobbins.' 
At the mention of his name, the youth who had been the 
focus of my concern began to step forward. But as he did, 
Fritz moved with his uncanny speed and intercepted the 
youth before the toe of his tennis shoe could touch the 
linoleum tile in front of him. The two of them moved 
toward the door labeled by an overhead, red 'EXIT' sign, 
no more than a draft of air to those they passed in the 
courtroom, for these people merely pulled their coats and 
sweaters tighter around their shoulders. A few others 
turned their heads as if stretching muscles in stiff necks, 
but nothing more.

" 'Daryl Bobbins,' I heard the bailiff wail again as I left 
the courtroom, running stride for stride with Fritz. We 
continued in this fashion, me following Fritz and Daryl at 
a pace I thought impossible down narrow, spiralling 
stairwells, through peopled hallways, and across the 
filled macadam parking lot to our parked vehicles. No 
one followed, yet Fritz maintained the unnatural speed 
that I had somehow synched into. 'Get in your car and 
follow me,' he said, pushing the pale boy into the 
passenger seat of his Mustang, then gunned backwards 
out of Commissioner Whopner's parking space, reversed 
his direction of movement, and headed for the open 
highway.

After several seconds of his hellish pace, Fritz braked to 
a stop off the highway a few miles north of the Civic 
Center at one of our roadside resting areas. He jumped 
from his car and beckoned me to him. 'Look at him, 
Gordon, look at him,' he said to me, pointing at the youth 
on the passenger side of his car. 'Pale from his ordeal by 
all standards, but listen to his heart. Do you hear his 
heart, how strong it beats? His will to live is strong. He's 
perfect, Gordon!'

" 'What do you mean, 'perfect?' I asked, still mesmerized 
by the mercurial fluidity of all that had just happened. I 
vaguely realized that I was held tight in a liquid daze and 
struggled to free myself, but in vain. I could take no 
action of my own other than listen to and follow Fritz' 
instructions.

" 'Get in your cruiser and wait here with me. When you 
see me drive back onto the highway, follow at a distance, 
but don't pass. If I should stop the car, pull in behind me 
and wait by your Mustang until I call for you. Do you 
understand what I'm saying to you, Gordon?' I nodded 
my head in agreement. We waited in our hiding spot for 
ten or twenty minutes before Fritz, Daryl still slumped at 
his side, pulled onto the highway, his flashing blue and 
red lights visible through through the cloud of dust the 
3.55 Gatorback Goodyears kicked into the air. When he 
pulled to the roadside once again, he brought a speeding 
1969 blue Camaro over with him.

"My radio crackled to life and I could hear Fritz trying to 
stir Daryl to consciousness. 'Daryl, Daryl,' he said as 
much for my benefit as for the boy's, 'wake up. You've 
been sick and I want to make you well now. To get 
better, you've got to do as I say. Get out of the car and 
follow me.' Daryl's door opened as though it had been 
choreographed to do so with Fritz', the two of them 
almost mirror images. The boy mimicked the older man's 
gait, but with a zombie like quality, to the driver's side of 
the Camaro. I watched as he watched Fritz pull out his 
ticket book and begin to write up the blue law breaker. 
As he handed the book to Daryl to sign his name after the 
line, 'Arresting Officer,' I regained my senses and 
realized what was happening. Sticking my head out the 
driver-side window, my sensitized hearing picked up 
Fritz saying, 'That's right Daryl. Sign here and you'll get 
well.'

"Curse you!" I shouted at Fritz, but his hateful glare kept 
me in my Mustang. To my surprise, Daryl had become 
highly animated and was scribbling wildly on the next 
blank ticket in Fritz' book. Fritz looked troubled, almost 
in pain. His countenance was one I had never seen 
before. 'Stop now!' he shouted at Daryl, but to no avail. 
Using his speed, the older man's blurred fingers reached 
out and snatched the book away from the boy. Daryl 
looked confused, then reached for the book again. Fritz 
held him back with two powerful hands clamped on his 
shoulders.

When the Camaro had left with the ticket containing 
Daryl's name and the two, RADAR Ranger and youth, 
had returned to the side of their cruiser, I ventured out of 
my car and walked slowly over to where they were 
standing. 'Why are you doing this, Fritz?' He ignored my 
question but kept his eyes trained on Daryl's.

" 'Don't ever do that again,' he said. 'One ticket only to a 
law breaker. Listen to me and I'll tell you what to do.' 
Daryl stood there, next to the man and the Mustang, 
completely revived. His pallor had been replaced by a 
lividness infused by rich, red blood flowing through 
miles of capillaries close to the surface of this skin. I 
could hear the pounding of his heart squeeze the blood 
with great force through his eager body. He had the same 
fever I had experienced my first night and I fell on Fritz, 
imploring him to stop this madness. But Fritz easily 
threw me off, and I hit the door of his Mustang with great 
force, forcing the air from my lungs in an agonizing 
burst. I must have been unconscious for several moments, 
because when I next opened my eyes, Fritz, Daryl, and 
their Mustang were gone. I jumped into my own car and 
gave chase. But I was no match for Fritz that evening. He 
was my superior and I his slave in all matters of RADAR.

"At the turnoff to the Rowland Plaza shopping center and 
theatres, I finally caught up with them. Fritz was leaning 
against the front of the Mustang's heated grill, one leg 
crossed over the other, watching Daryl write up his first 
citation, unassisted. Daryl looked up from his paper 
work, and Fritz signalled to him that he had done enough. 
The boy signed the citation and handed it to the driver of 
the car, then walked back to stand confidently next to his 
master. The ticketed vehicle left within moments and I 
felt exhausted, as if I had been chasing and pleading with 
Fritz for a hundred hours. I climbed out of my car in 
despair and walked over to them.

" 'Where are my employers? I should be getting back to 
Belvedere,' said the boy in a hushed tone. His voice had 
not fully undergone the change, and it betrayed his age to 
anyone who listened with compassion. He was so young. 
Too young. The tears welled up behind my eyes, but did 
not flow. It was too late for that sort of emotional 
outburst. Fritz slipped his right arm around the boy's 
broad shoulders and walked him closer to me. 'He's our 
son now,' he said to me, and to him, 'You're going to stay 
with us.' He looked at Daryl, a cold, heartless stare as if 
the events of this evening had been a cruel joke. Then he 
shoved the youth in my direction and I instinctively 
encircled him with my arms, drawing him close. I could 
feel the quickened beating of his heart, feel the fever that 
burned within his body sear through my clothes. His 
semi-conscious eyes were trained at me with an 
unquestioning loyalty.

" 'I'm Fritz and this is Gordon,' I heard Fritz say. The boy 
pulled back from me to get a better look at his 
surroundings. 'Can I bring down another speeder?' he 
asked with the cold fire of a RADAR Ranger.

" 'Not tonight,' responded Fritz. 'But tomorrow you can 
feast to your heart's content. 'Can I go home to my 
employers, then?' asked the boy. 'No,' said Fritz, 'your 
employers have asked that we take care of you from now 
on. Your home is with us.'

"We stood there beside Fritz' Mustang, the three of us, 
not saying a word. I continued to look at Daryl, entranced 
by his every movement, by the transformation he had 
undergone. He was no longer a mere boy, but a RADAR 
Ranger boy. Fritz was the first to speak: 'Gordon was 
going to run away from us, Daryl, but now he's going to 
stay with us.' Fritz looked first at me,then at the boy. 'Do 
you know why Gordon is going to stay, Daryl? He's 
going to stay because he wants to see that you stay well. 
He wants you to be happy, isn't that right? You're going 
to stay, aren't you, Gordon?'

" 'You fiendish monster!' was all I could manage

Fritz' response was a low, guttural laugh, almost a growl. 
Then, 'It's time we got some sleep.' He crawled into his 
Mustang and prepared his bed as we watched through 
closed windows. When he was done, he turned to us and, 
looking up at Daryl, said, 'I think it best that you sleep in 
Gordon's Mustang. It's safer that way I I can be a bit on 
the mean side after a long, hard day.'"

The RADAR Ranger took a deep breath, filling his lungs 
with the cool night air, and paused. The mountain biker's 
lips moved, but he said nothing for the longest time. 
Then, "A boy RADAR Ranger!" and whistled a long, low 
stream of air at the ranger. The ranger reacted slowly, 
turning his face on stiff shoulders to meet the glance of 
the mountain biker. The biker at once saw the ranger's 
tired features, the bloodshot eyes, pronounced cheek 
bones, heavy jaw muscles pulling the corners of his 
mouth down.

The mountain biker had begun listening to the RADAR 
Ranger's tale just as dark was settling over Sky Oaks 
Ranger Station. The sun had been gone for almost five 
hours now and the mountain biker, though somewhat 
apprehensive about what he was hearing, was eager for 
the ranger to continue.

"Fritz transformed the boy into a RADAR Ranger just to 
prevent you from leaving?" the cyclist couched his 
question in no uncertain terms.

"I don't really know. It definitely was a statement, quite a 
strong one at that. Fritz was one of those people who 
rarely discussed his beliefs and feelings with others, not 
even with himself. He spoke with actions, not words. But 
I think the chances are quite good that he did want me to 
remain with him. He couldn't have lived the way he did if 
I hadn't been there. His reason for keeping me may have 
involved the paychecks that came to me twice a month, 
or it may have centered around something far less 
concrete."

"Is Fritz dead, sir?" ventured the mountain biker. "You're 
using the past tense when you speak about him: Fritz did 
or Fritz was. Or is he someone you still fear?"

"No, I no longer fear him. But I'll get to that part of the 
story eventually. You were asking me about Daryl, 
weren't you?" The RADAR Ranger stopped and looked 
closely at the mountain biker. "Are you still frightened of 
me?"

The cyclist didn't answer, pulling back from the table he 
had been resting his elbows on. He stretched his body 
nervously, then listened to the heels of his shoes scrap 
across the wooden planks as he pulled his legs closer in 
to his chair.

"You'd be smart to fear me," mocked the RADAR 
Ranger as he watched the cyclist's discomfort. "But not 
now, not with my story only just begun."

"Yes, do go on. I want to hear more. You're telling me 
things that I've never heard before, on the mountain or 
anywhere else."

"As you may imagine, Daryl's presence changed our lives 
altogether. His life as a boy of lesser action was ended, 
and his senses began to become much more acute, just as 
mine had. My first reaction was pleasure, for I found 
nothing more emotionally satisfying than to watch his 
transformation into a RADAR Ranger. My second 
reaction was to shelter him from Fritz, who was 
constantly hinting that he still might do the youth harm. 
'Imagine how upset he'd be to awake one morning and 
find his K-15 missing or, worse yet, smashed into a 
thousand pieces,' Fritz would muse. 'I'm sure they'd hear 
his screams as far away as Bodega Bay.' Of course, these 
threats and words were aimed at me, not Daryl. Their 
intent was to keep me in place, and how effectively they 
worked. If I lacked the strength to break away from Fritz 
by myself, I was insane to attempt it with Daryl."

"I enjoyed Daryl's presence immensely. Yet there were 
times when I thought he had lost all reason, that the 
shock of becoming a RADAR Ranger had deprived him 
of his senses. But this fear didn't prove to be true. Simply 
put, Daryl was so unlike Fritz and me as to be his own 
RADAR Ranger entirely. He possessed my curiosity for 
knowledge and understanding, yet he also had acquired 
Fritz' craving and unrelentless thirst for bringing down 
speeders. As I described to you earlier in the evening, 
Marin offered up a smorgasbord of moving violations to 
us. I remember Fritz standing alongside 101 with one 
grandfatherly arm thrown across Daryl's shoulders, 
pointing with the other at the passing cars. 'Look at all of 
them rushing to break the law,' he would say to the boy 
RADAR Ranger. 'We cannot suffer this, Daryl. We must 
bring them downQall of themQ regardless of the 
violation, because this is how we live.' And it would 
break my heart to see Daryl looking up at the older 
ranger with longing in his eyes.

"Daryl and Fritz often played together at the chase on the 
highway and feeder roads, never quite succeeding in 
satiating their enormous appetites, always willing to take 
down just one more law breaker. As for me, I kept to my 
minimum quota of five speeding violations a day, never 
bringing down anything larger than what I've already 
described to you. I could not change that quality in me, 
even with Daryl as my witness.

"During those early years together, I never gave up my 
quest to educate and sensitize Daryl to the beauty of the 
world around us. I provided him with works from the 
great thinkers and artists of our time, took him to see the 
wonders of nature, including the Bay Model in Sausalito 
where he could watch the waters rush in and out of the 
miniature bight every hour. Daryl drank in all that I fed 
him and developed an insatiable desire for things 
beautiful and new, a desire that matched in intensity his 
thirst to issue citations for moving violations.

"Not long after he displayed a keen interest in reading, 
things took a strange turn. On more than one evening, I 
would discover him curled up on his side of the cruiser's 
trunkQwe still lived like nomads out of the backs of our 
modified Mustangs along Highway 101Qwith a stack of 
my back-issue bicycle magazines. 'These new designs 
they're always coming up with are truly beautiful,' he 
would say to me, turning the chemically-coated slick 
color pages and commenting with a mechanic's and frame 
builder's intimate knowledge of the objects that attracted 
his attention. His favorite magazine was Mountain Biking 
Action and Reaction, and he would spend countless hours 
analyzing the carbon fiber frames, titanium handlebars, 
aluminum cranks, elliptical chain rings, front suspension 
forks, full suspension bikes, grip shifters, quick release 
levers, gel racing seats, disc wheels, bar ends, clipless 
pedals, Kevlar (TM) tires, altimeters, casette hubs, and 
other wondrous objects that filled its pages. When Fritz 
learned of Daryl's two-wheeled interests, he was furious. 
But his ranting and raving had no effect on the boy 
ranger who continued to study and admire these items. At 
the same time, I must add that Daryl's intellectual 
infatuation for bicycle objets d'art did not in any way 
affect his choice of speeders to bring down on Marin's 
roads. Two wheelers remained pretty much my diet.

"We passed many years together like this, our patterns 
varying little more than the turning of leaves at seasonal 
junctures and the waxing and waning of the moon. We 
were predictable and we were comfortable. Yet it could 
not last and I should have realized this fact long before 
the inevitable happened. Judging by the expression that 
has taken hold of  your face since I began talking about 
Daryl, I'm sure you're wondering why I haven't broached 
the topic earlier. But you must understand that time is not 
the same for me as it is for you and your kind; I feel no 
quickening of days to nights, no shortening of years to 
months as I pass forward and through this wormhole you 
label time. It's impact on me is niggling.

"His physical body!" the mountain biker shouted. "He 
could never grow up. Is that it, sir?"

The RADAR Ranger eyed the mountain biker with a look 
that blended between disgust and amusement. "No," he 
declared, "we're not talking about Peter Pan here. Of 
course he could grow upQand he didQyou've got to get 
yourself grounded in the real world, son. Protein, DNA, 
RNA, mitochondria, neurons, cellular division, 
Liposuction (TM). You mountain bikers are a strange lot, 
indeed. "No," the RADAR Ranger repeated in heavy 
tones, "Daryl began to assert himself and then to ask 
questions, and those questions changed everything for us 
in a most dramatic way."

The RADAR Ranger ceased talking and clamped his 
hands together, fingers from each interlocked with the 
other, held so tightly that they turned into streaks of red 
and white. The mountain biker, sitting apprehensively at 
the oak table, might have been one of those unlucky 
fingers the ranger cracked with a sudden squeezing 
together of his palms. The cyclist said nothing, only the 
ranger spoke. "Yes, it was inevitable, what happened 
with Daryl. It's frustratingly easy to say that in hindsight, 
you know, but it's really quite true and I should have seen 
it coming. He was with me always in spirit, if not in 
body, every waking hour. I knew him as well as I knew 
myself. He was my sole companion and confidant for 
those many years. There's no excuse for what I let 
happen.

"The most perplexing of the indicators of what was to 
come I yes, it was the sudden coolness Daryl exhibited 
toward Fritz," continued the clench-fisted RADAR 
Ranger to his unseen audience. "The boy would sit in the 
front seat of our shared Mustang for hours, watching, just 
watching Fritz go about his business on the side of the 
road. Never saying a word, rarely directing his 
iconoclastic gaze elsewhere. Watching him watch Fritz in 
this altered state was chilling for me; I knew Daryl so 
well, yet he remained a mystery to me.

"The weather can turn suddenly in the Bay Area, 
transforming upright, young oaks into worried, bent-at-
the-hip, old sticks. Fritz returned to our roadside camp in 
the middle of one of those dark changelings. Despite the 
malevolent weather beating on his face, he was smiling 
dreamily as he climbed into the passenger side of my 
Mustang and I could smell on his breath the remnants of 
the bar he had been patronizing after a day of upholding 
the law. 'Lite beer,' he grinned and wiped the froth that 
had collected on his lower lip with the broadside of his 
freckled right hand. 'Stuff gives me headaches, makes me 
feel funny in my stomach,' he joked in a rare moment of 
resonant good naturedness. Taking spontaneous 
advantage of his unforeseen mellowness, I leaned over 
and said, 'I see Daryl pulling up behind us. Go easy on 
him tonight.'

"Arrows of rain and wind blew into the rear seat of the 
car along with Daryl. Once securely inside with the door 
shut, he shook his head violently after pulling the clear 
vinyl-covered patrol cap off his shaggy mane; droplets of 
water sprayed fore and aft, many of them finding the 
back of Fritz' close-cropped head a ready target. I 
watched tensely as the older ranger's jaw muscles 
twitched a familiar but primitive rhythm, then settle back 
into an unexpected calm. Daryl went on about his 
business in the back seat completely oblivious to Fritz in 
the front. Then turning to me, he said, 'Do you realize 
that tomorrow is the start of the Tour d' France, the most 
prestigious bicycle race in the world?'

" 'Yes, I do,' I answered him. 'The Tour d' France is a 
two-week-long event that only the most accomplished 
riders in the world dare compete in.' I knew this only 
because of having looked at Daryl's bicycle magazines 
over the years. 'The course is a rugged and varied one, 
including level plains, steep mountain passes, macadam 
roads, cobblestoned village lanes. The winner is often 
acknowledged as the world's greatest cyclist.'

"Daryl looked at me momentarily, a slight grin catching 
hold of the corners of his mouth. 'Yes, it is that, but much 
more.' This time directing his devil-may-care gaze at 
Fritz, 'The Tour d' France is one of the largest and most 
publicized law breaking events in the world. Hundreds of 
two wheelers riding illegally on freeways, crossing 
through stop signs without even braking, speeding down 
mountain slopes well beyond the posted speed limit, 
ignoring pedestrians' rights-of-way, passing on the right, 
riding after dusk without proper lighting.' He paused 
here, then, glaring more coldly at Fritz than was 
advisable, said, 'Where are all the great RADAR 
Rangers, why aren't they taking action to uphold the law? 
Well, Fritz, where are your men of action?'

"My stomach muscles automatically knotted into 
sympathetic fear for Daryl. I could not imagine anyone 
taunting and tugging on Fritz' conservative sensibilities 
as he had just done. I instinctively put my hand on Fritz' 
shoulder to restrain him from leaping over the front seat 
into the back. I could feel his anger welling up, his 
muscles tensing, and I pushed down harder on his 
shoulder. Then the most astonishing thing happened.

Quickly looking first at me, then at Fritz, Daryl cried out, 
'Who did this to me? Who's responsible? Which one of 
you made me into a RADAR Ranger?'"

"I was dumbfounded by this turn of events. Daryl could 
have done or said nothing more disruptive to the tightly 
knit pattern our lives had assumed. I felt the threads 
begin to unravel right there in the passenger compartment 
of my Mustang. Of course, I had only been deceiving 
myself for those many years believing the question would 
never surface. Daryl maintained his attention on Fritz, 
ignoring my painful looks. 'You talk as if the three of us 
have always been RADAR Rangers,' he said in measured 
tones. 'Do you take me for a fool! It's obvious to anyone 
that knows him that Gordon is uncomfortably split 
between two worlds: the world he's in now and the one 
he came from. Besides, I've seen photographs of his sister 
and read old newspaper accounts of her affliction, articles 
Gordon has not too cleverly hidden away. She may have 
been crazy as a loon, but she was no RADAR Ranger. 
She was a person of lesser action!  Then in words even 
more measured and serious than before, 'Do you actually 
think that I can't remember parts of my life before I was 
brought together with you? The images are cloudy, but I 
can see snatches of summer days on windy beaches, of 
hitch-hiking cross country, of applying for work and 
filling out papers for admission to Marin Community 
College. These aren't the memories of a RADAR 
Ranger.'

" 'Daryl,' I murmured, but it was too late. The pattern that 
had been our lives lay in a jumbled mass of loose-end 
threads.

" 'You did this to us, made us into what we are,' he 
accused Fritz a second time. 'Why?'

" 'Denounce me a third time,' Fritz rejoined in a mocking 
tone, 'and you'll be right up there with Judas Iscariot. 
'What are you, exactly? Could you possibly be different 
from what you are now? How many years have you been 
upholding the law I can you remember? This is your 
life.'

"Daryl eased into the cushions of the back seat and stared 
through Fritz. He played with the patrolman's cap in his 
hands, tossing it lightly back and forth, then pulled the 
rain slick tighter around his chest. All the time his stare 
held Fritz as a cage contains a wild beast. I could see 
Fritz' uncharacteristic nervousness play across his 
twitching left eye and trembling shoulders. 'Why are you 
asking this stupid question now? You've known for years 
that you're a RADAR Ranger and, yet, you've never been 
bothered with it before.' Doing what he did best when he 
didn't know what else to do, Fritz began a diatribe, 
covering the usual topics: go with your RADAR nature, 
bring down moving violators, take action. His tirade 
seemed far from the mark this time, for Daryl did know 
his nature and had been issuing citations for speeding 
with a relish that often equalled and occasionally 
surpassed Fritz'.

"The younger RADAR Ranger's head rolled sideways 
against the wet synthetic covering of the back seat, but 
his eyes remained locked in place, intent upon the 
ranting, older RADAR Ranger. 'Why did you do it?' he 
persisted a third time, his eyes narrowing to thin slits.

" 'What power do you think you have over me anyway, 
you Judas!' stammered Fritz. 'The power is mine, mine 
alone.' Then turning to me as his right hand fumbled for 
the door knob, 'Get him under control, will you. I won't 
put up with this blasphemous behavior much longer.' 
Then he slid out into the rain and started through the mud 
towards his vehicle, but stopped himself short and turned 
to look through the water-streaked window separating 
him from Daryl. The younger RADAR Ranger slowly 
looked up into the older one's face, calm, not betraying 
any fears that may have hidden behind his probing eyes. 
'Be careful,' Fritz was shouting above the storm outside, 
his dripping index finger wagging ominously at Daryl. 'I 
made you and I can undo what I did. Thank me, both of 
you, for making you what you are. Or you'll have much 
to regret.'"

"I don't have to tell you that our little triad was flipped 
end over end. Not that there was constant fighting and 
bickering I no. In fact, a heavy silence settled over us, 
each afraid to speak to the other. Daryl curled up in our 
Mustang's familiar Lycra (TM)-lined trunk and devoted 
his time, after upholding the law, to reading and 
thumbing through his old magazines, his eyes often as 
glazed as the paper on which were printed the words and 
pictures he took in. I could tell from his furrowed brows 
that he was thinking deep thoughts, thoughts perhaps I 
didn't want to know, and I avoided questioning him about 
these things he was holding so secretively to himself. If 
Daryl had a dark side, I was seeing its shadow now.

"Among his pile of reading material was a book I had 
never seen before. Printed in small type, two columns per 
page, with many technical drawings, it was entitled Basic 
Training Program in RADAR Speed Measurement: 
Trainee Instructional Manual. Its contents included many 
esoteric headings like Target Vehicle Identification, The 
RADAR 'Decision' Process, Tracking History, Effect of 
Terrain on Target Identification, Interference, Scanning 
Effect, Turn-On Power Surge Effect, and the like. When I 
questioned him about the manual, he admitted that the 
topics it covered were completely foreign to him and that 
this was probably a reflection of the organization that had 
published itQthe U.S. Department of Transportation's 
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration."

The mountain biker rolled the dilated irises of his blood-
shot eyes up and out of sight behind drooping brows at 
mention of NHTSA, but the RADAR Ranger failed to 
notice his silent statement in the gloom of Sky Oaks and 
continued his narration without pause.

" 'Then why are you reading this book?' I asked him 
again. Daryl hesitated, then said with a conviction that 
was becoming characteristic of him, "Because its about 
RADAR. It may not be the RADAR of a RADAR 
Ranger, at least I'm not sure that it is, but it explains so 
much. Fritz can try and keep secret what he knows, but 
I'll find out what I need to know from other sources. This 
book is a beginning.'

"Fritz, poor, pathetic FritzQI'm amazed now that I can 
caste him in such sympathetic termsQwas truly blind 
with fury when he discovered Daryl reading the manual 
early one afternoon, casually leaning against the shiny 
front fender of his Mustang in mud-spattered pants. The 
younger ranger was playing with Fritz, a dangerous thing 
to do. Fritz knew, too, that Daryl had more up his sleeve 
and that he wasn't seeing it all. A Hidden Agenda. Fritz' 
suspicions and worries about this agenda kept him 
completely off balance, dangerously close to falling over 
the edge."

"After years of keeping an arrogant distance, Fritz drew 
nervously closer to me. He was uncharacteristically 
cautious and wary of little details, wanting to know 
where Daryl was at all times, what he was doing, the 
details of his every movement. I attempted to tell him 
that everything was okay with Daryl, though I didn't 
really believe that since Daryl had distanced himself from 
me, too. In fact, I rarely encountered him outside the 
trunk of the Mustang.

" 'Well, he better not be up to anything he might later 
regret,' Fritz would repeat over and over. 'Regretting is 
the worst part of doing something you shouldn't.'

" 'And if he is doing something that you don't approve of, 
Fritz, what are you going to do to him?'

" 'You just keep your eyes on him,' Fritz would say with 
an atypical fear in his eyes. 'What we had was good, 
perfect. Now it's all upside down, and it doesn't have to 
be like that. It can be the way it was, Gordon, just you 
talk to him.'

"Some time later, at night just as I was bedding down in 
the trunk, Daryl came to me. He entered through the 
passenger side door and kneeled on the front seat, facing 
the rear of the car. The lights in both the interior of the 
Mustang and in the trunk were out, and I could just 
perceive his dark form leaning at me over the front seat. 
'Gordon,' he whispered softly, 'come out with me tonight 
and we'll bring down some big law breakers, you and I 
together. And you can tell me why Fritz made us into 
RADAR Rangers. You can tell me the things I need to 
know.' He cast his eyes down at the worn carpet covering 
the space between the plastic-coated rear seat and the 
sagging back of the front seat. 'I need more than books 
and magazines.'

" 'I wish I knew the answers, Daryl, but I don't.' The 
shadows around his eyes and under his thick bottom lip 
grew darker, and I could hear his respiration increase. I 
kept on talking to calm my own rapidly beating heart. 
'You're angry with me because I can't give you the 
definitive answers you want to hear. But listen to me, 
Daryl, the same questions trouble me I have been 
troubling me for years. I don't know why Fritz chose me 
and then you. I used to think it was because he needed 
slaves or that he was just trying to keep me from running 
away when he changed you. It might be all these things 
I and more. Fritz isn't going toQor can'tQtell us.' I 
stretched out with my left arm from my stomach-down 
position in the damp, Lycra (TM)-lined trunk and gently 
touched Daryl's gloved right hand where it was resting on 
top of the front seat. 'But Fritz does have something 
important to tell us: 'Don't ask so many questions.' We've 
been together so long and in all that time you've given me 
uncompromised support in my search for understanding 
and knowledge. Let's not drag that companionship into a 
situation that could destroy us both. Let it go.'

"Of course, Daryl couldn't accept what I'd said. He 
exploded up and around on his knees and fell with a 
heated thud onto the front seat, the back of his matted 
head shaking in disheveled layers at me. He tore at that 
hair with such sudden force that I was overcome with 
apprehension. Looking up into the rear view mirror at 
that moment, I saw him bite into his lower lip with 
enough vengeance to draw a rivulet of blood that 
meandered aimlessly for a moment, then found a straight 
path down his chin. He caught my stare in the mirror and 
said quietly, 'I know we can't be alone, Gordon. Others 
like us have to be upholding the law, too. We can find 
them, seek shelter with them.' His words reminded me of 
my own years ago when I first threatened to leave Fritz. 
But there was no pain in Daryl's words as there had been 
in mine. His words conveyed an urgency, a callous 
urgency, to get what he wanted at any expense, and in 
this case, he intended Fritz to pay.

"Did he leave and what happened to Fritz?" asked the 
mountain biker in one quick exhalation.

"Whoa," said the RADAR Ranger, bemused at the 
cyclist's sudden enthusiasm. "One thing at a time. Leave? 
Where could he have gone? We both speculated at the 
existence of other RADAR Rangers, but we still had no 
proof. But it wasn't the lack of proof that kept Daryl from 
going. What kept him bound to our little triad was the 
same thing that had kept both Fritz and me together for 
countless years. It was something that was part of all our 
natures: We couldn't stand to be alone. We needed each 
other to be whole. Surrounded by a harried world of 
moving violations and law breakers, the grist of our 
citation mill, where else could we turn?"

"While I vacillated back and forth with my anxiety, Daryl 
continued to play with fire, reading his magazines in 
front of Fritz and asking questions. 'Who made you into a 
RADAR Ranger?' he asked repeatedly. 'Why don't you 
ever talk about him with us?' he demanded, calmly 
weathering Fritz' counter assault as if it were a spring 
breeze. 'Can't you remember?'

"During one of their verbal skirmishes, Daryl said in a 
low voice to Fritz, 'You don't know anything at all, do 
you? The RADAR Ranger who made you what you are 
didn't know anything and the ranger before him didn't 
know anything. Your entire background is made of 
know-nothings. You have nothing to offer us but an 
absence of knowledge.'

"I remained where I was, at the back of my Mustang, 
pretending to check the tread wear on my Goodyear 
Gatorbacks, and strained to hear all that passed between 
the two. I didn't have to strain to hear Fritz' response.

" 'Yes!' the blast of his answer rocketed past me into 
space.

"Both of them stood there silently looking at one another, 
Daryl coolly confident in his triumph while a cast of 
emotions scampered across Fritz' face like the cells in an 
animated film. I was poking my head around the side of 
the car at tire height when Fritz shifted his gaze to me, as 
if I had dropped the tread gaugeQwhich I hadn'tQand 
alerted him to my presence. The look on his face was that 
of a driver who has just looked in his rear view mirror 
and seen the flashing red and blue lights of a patrol car 
bearing down on him. Fritz was afraid, truly afraid.

" 'You're responsible for his behavior,' Fritz spat at me, 
and he turned, walked slowly over to his Mustang, got in, 
and drove onto the highway.

"When the dust of his departure had settled, I stood up 
and walked from behind my cruiser to where Daryl was 
standing. 'It's just as you've said,' I praised him, 'he 
knows less than we do. He has nothing of value to teach 
us.'

" 'How could we have ever thought otherwise?' Daryl 
beamed. 'We have only one choice now and that is to find 
others of our kind. And I believe that we'll find other 
RADAR Rangers I on the Sonoma coast.

" 'But how could that be?' I protested. 'The Sonoma coast 
is less than 25 miles from where we are now. Why 
wouldn't we have been alerted to their presence I why 
wouldn't they have contacted us before now?' My 
shoulders had suddenly became tense, and my fingers 
began twitching a nervous rhapsody in the air around 
them.

" 'I can't give you specific answers I it's a gut feeling I 
have,' Daryl said to reassure me, but his eyes wandered 
off to a place I couldn't see even though his arms and 
hands gestured randomly in its general direction. 'I've 
seen its name more than once in the magazines and 
journals I've been reading.' He paused as if trying to 
recall some of the descriptions he had seen. 'Think of it, 
Gordon. Beauty at every turn in the road. Sandy beaches 
to stroll along, dramatic cliffs rising high above the sea 
and colorful sunsets to bedazzle your senses. Countless 
antique shops and art galleries that offer priceless 
treasures. And at the end of each day, a myriad of cozy 
inns along the sea in which to feast on fresh seafood and 
organically grown vegetables. It's the perfect place to 
play and relax. Gordon, it's the perfect environment in 
which RADAR Rangers could have evolved into into 
men of pure action!'

"I considered Daryl's words for several moments before 
their wisdom descended like a thunderhead on me, 
washing away old doubts and misconceptions. The 
Sonoma coast! The ideal climate and terrain. Sea, air, and 
land in perfect combination for the emergence of a 
superior breed of individual. And the law breaking 
tourists drawn to it by the same qualities that had given 
rise to us. The perfect prey for the perfect predator!

"Daryl could see the mind-storm broiling within me and 
added an extra charge of electricity to the building 
thunderhead. 'Don't forget the commercial wineries open 
to the public year round, Gordon. They send out an 
endless supply of foggy-minded drivers, each swerving 
back to the coast like lemmings to the sea, ready to hand 
their fate over to us along the narrow coastal roads. My 
God, the Sonoma coast has to be the place of our birth!'

"I could find no fault with Daryl's logic and nodded an 
emotional agreement."

The RADAR Ranger's voice trailed off, jets of internal 
body heat mixing with the cooler air in front of his face 
and condensing into a fine mist. He looked down at the 
mountain biker sitting in a crouched position at the table, 
from which he hadn't moved since the ranger had begun 
his tale. The cyclist's arms formed an X across his chest 
and each hand held the biceps of the opposite arm tightly.

"Are you uncomfortable?" asked the ranger. "You look as 
though you're cold. Can I get you a jacket or a blanket to 
throw over your shoulders?"

"No thanks, sir," answered the mountain biker with a 
slight chattering of teeth. "I'll just slip my windbreaker on 
I that should do it." The cyclist raised himself slowly 
from the oak chair and stood on lactic-acid sore legs next 
to the table he had been hunched over since early 
evening. After shaking each leg with a series of short, 
muscle-relaxing kicks aimed at the open air immediately 
in front of and above his MTB shoes, he sauntered over 
to the peg in the wall where he had flung his lightweight, 
nylon-coated ripstop Performance Ultralight Team Jacket 
(TM). He moved like a bull rider in a rodeo just thrown, 
slowly rocking precariously from one bowed leg to the 
other as he inched forward. The RADAR Ranger laughed 
quietly to himself as the cyclist forced aching arms 
through the hook-and-loop/elastic wrist cuffs at the end 
of his aero blue, long-cut sleeves.

The mountain biker smiled when he returned to the table, 
then reached one hand sluggishly around his back and 
fumbled for a few seconds at one of his three zippered 
rear pockets. He enthusiastically dug deep into the pocket 
as if searching for a precious stone or rare bird feather. 
When he at last brought his hand back around to the front 
of his body, it contained a half-eaten Power Bar (TM), 
the loose, shiny gold wrapper crumpled over the end of 
the last bite he had taken earlier that afternoon.

"Wana' bite?" he offered, extending his half-spent trophy 
to the RADAR Ranger. The older man eyed the wrinkled 
wrapper, looked at the cyclist, then returned his gaze to 
the object held out before him. The ranger's lips pursed 
together as if he had just eaten a yellow lemon, and he 
wrinkled his deeply tanned nose in disgust and shook his 
head to mean "no."

"It's good for you." explained the cyclist as he peeled the 
slippery covering off the brown bar. "Replaces carbs your 
body has burned off and keeps your cells stocked with 
vitamins and minerals to keep 'em firing. Say," added the 
mountain biker as an enlightened afterthought, "you can 
even use the wrapper to temporarily patch a blown tire 
casing. Real handy."

"That's very interesting," admitted the RADAR Ranger as 
he sat down across from the cyclist and stretched his legs 
out under the table, "but I'm not particularly hungry right 
now. Perhaps I'll have something to drink when I'm 
finished with my story." He eyed the cyclist skeptically. 
But the biker paid him no attention as he worked the bar, 
now tightly clamped between his front teeth, back and 
forth, each time moving the brown solid more easily than 
before. With a final tug and audible crack, a piece of the 
cold-hardened bar broke off in the cyclist's eager mouth 
and he began to chew slowly.

"Did he successfully engineer your escape from Fritz?" 
mumbled the cyclist after he pushed the softening mass 
into the pouch of one cheek with his tongue.

The RADAR Ranger leaned back in his chair and waved 
toward the mountain biker with the upturned fingers of 
his right hand, as if motioning the cyclist closer. "Surely 
you must have an opinion. What do you think 
happened?"

"I I I don't know, sir."

"Are you saying, then, that you don't think Daryl was 
capable of breaking Fritz' hold on us?"

"Fritz was so powerful, you've already said that," 
theorized the mountain biker. "Even if he didn't know as 
much as he led you to believe, there was so much more 
that he might have known. He could have used that 
knowledge to prevent you from ever escaping. I mean, he 
had held you to him for so long already. What if he had 
accomplished that with some secret knowledge, with his 
secret powers? You'd never be able to escape."

A shadow seemed to cross the RADAR Ranger's brow 
and he pressed the spread thumb and middle finger of his 
left hand tightly into both his temples. When he pulled 
them away, the two white spots that marked the place 
where his fingers had rested pulsed with the blood just 
denied them. The ranger peered at the mountain biker for 
a long time, and the biker finally had to look away from 
the two burning eyes that had locked onto him. He raised 
his own eyes again to the ranger only after the older man 
resumed talking.

"I believe I may have understated Daryl's powers to you. 
Daryl remained supremely confident in his quest for our 
freedom from Fritz. In fact, not long after the incident I 
just described, he made his move."

"Do you mean to say that he killed Fritz, burned his 
body, then buried him alongside the road?"

"No!" replied an angered RADAR Ranger. "He did not 
kill, burn, or bury Fritz. This is not a story of death and 
dying, it's a Gothic tale of Good and Evil. If you want 
death and dying, there's still time tonight to catch the last 
showing of "Dracula" at the FairFax Cinema or maybe 
you'd rather rent a video of "Rambo."

The mountain biker lowered his eyes in embarrassment, 
focused for a moment on the irregular hole that was 
growing in the plank flooring between his nervously 
twitching MTB shoes, and asked the RADAR Ranger to 
continue. "Please. I'm sorry, sir."

"Daryl and I were out cruising in the Mustang, bringing 
down law breakers for our daily quotas. Daryl delighted 
in citing large, powerful four-door sedans with all the 
amenitiesQair conditioning, power windows, cellular 
phone, adjustable steering column, tape/CD/AM-FM 
stereo entertainment system, leather upholstery, dual 
overhead camshafts, tinted glass all aroundQwhile 
mocking me for my continued insistence on ticketing 
nothing larger than mopeds and bicycles. We both were 
in good spirits, talking casually about speeders we had 
brought down, the permanent ozone hole over Illinois, 
the collapse of the Japanese stock exchange, the civil war 
in France. Despite his mirth and cool exterior, I could 
detect an underlying solemnity in Daryl. 'Could this be 
the day?' I wondered. 'Will he just keep on driving north 
when we reach Novato, then cut left at Petaluma and try 
to lose us among the twists and turns of the Sonoma 
coast? Has he already made contact with other RADAR 
Rangers who can help us?'

"We drove on in this fashion for many minutes, Daryl in 
the driver's seat, our outward worries and concerns 
disguised by a renewed joviality and camaraderie. At one 
point, Daryl reached over and turned on the radio, 
punching one of the small squares of plastic under the 
unit's digital display that dialed in the local classics 
station. A guitar piece came to life over the speaker 
system and I was about to comment on the station's wide 
variety of music. Daryl waved me to be quiet and I cut 
short what I had intended to say. He listened to the 
opening chords of Albeniz' Sevilla for a moment or two 
before he began to speak. 

" 'You know, Gordon, although no one's sure about the 
origin of the guitar, we've always assumed that it came 
from the East. Just like the lute. Archaeologists have 
uncovered monuments in Mesopotamia and Persia that 
date from pre-Christian times that portray a variety of 
stringed instruments. A number of these instruments 
appear related to the lute and to the western guitar. Do 
you understand what I'm saying, Gordon?'

"I was looking at the exotic technology that surrounded 
the radio on our dash when Daryl asked his question. 
'What a difference,' I thought as I attempted to sort out 
the meaning of his words, 'between this classical 
instrument and the high tech equipment we use 
everyday.' The contrast between the two worlds, art and 
science, suddenly struck me and I recalled Fritz' belief 
that men of action must use the science of art for the 
common good.

"Influenced by these thoughts, I said, 'You're saying that 
we have to enlighten people about the development of art 
as science so that it can be turned to the public good. In 
effect, you're striking at the very heart of the issue that 
distinguishes Good from Evil.'

"Daryl reached over to the radio and pressed the button 
that lowered the volume to all the cruiser's speakers. He 
pulled back his finger from the button when the strings of 
the guitar were barely audible. 'Always the humanist, 
Gordon,' he said matter-of-factly. 'You'll never be able to 
escape that part of your nature, will you? No, I'm not 
talking about Good and Evil. I'm talking about history. 
Everything has a history, including guitars. Including 
RADAR Rangers. I'm going to unearth that history and 
give us something we can hold onto I call our own I 
sink our teeth into. Musicologists look to the East for the 
origins of guitars; well, Gordon, we're going to look to 
the West for the origins of RADAR Rangers. And that 
search is about to begin now.'"

Break Away

" 'What are you talking about,' I said, sensing that today, 
indeed, was the day Daryl would attempt his break away 
from Fritz. 'What do you mean the search is about to 
begin now?'

"He had suddenly become very busy driving the Mustang 
and ignored my questions. He turned on the overhead 
flashing red and blue lights, swung out into the fast lane 
and flipped the switch that fed the nitrous oxide into the 
fuel injection chambers. Roaring north along 101, he 
turned to me with a sheepish smile on his face. 'We're on 
our way now.'

" 'But we haven't made any plans, we're not prepared. 
Fritz will track us down in no time,' I stammered. 'We 
need time to talk this completely through.'

" 'Don't worry, Gordon. Just hang on.' He maneuvered the 
Mustang at nitrous oxide speed among the unsuspecting 
drivers with a facility that I hadn't known he possessed. I 
held my eyes tightly closed, the pressure on them forcing 
hot tear tracks down my cheeks. Daryl was Han Solo 
chasing Darth Vader's warriors through hyperspace, and I 
reasoned that I would talk sense to him when the pressure 
let up and the stars in my eyes stopped screaming.

"The pressures did let up, but Daryl began talking as soon 
as they did, and I had no opportunity to express my 
concerns. 'When I pull him over to the side of the road,' 
he was saying, 'I want you to get out of the car and walk 
around to the passenger side of his vehicle. Don't listen to 
anything he says or let him exit through that door. Do 
you follow me, Gordon?'

" 'Yes, but whose car? Who are you talking about?' Daryl 
didn't have to tell me because at that moment we came up 
behind a cruising purple and yellow Mustang, the 
silhouette of a familiar figure sitting on the driver's side. 
'What the devil is this all about?' spilled into the cab of 
our car as the two-way radio came to life and 
automatically cut off the sounds of our Am/FM system. 
'Get off my tail and out of my sight,' the angry voice 
shouted.

"Daryl picked up the handset of his radio and spoke 
calmly into it. 'Fritz, please pull over to the side of the 
road, I've got something I want to talk to you about. I feel 
bad about what's been happening with us and I want to 
try and make it right again. I feel strongly about this and 
don't want to wait any longer than I have to to talk with 
you.'

"Fritz' Mustang continued on ahead several miles before 
he acknowledged Daryl's request with a matched set of 
bright, red tail lights. We followed him three car lengths 
distant off 101 onto a soft, dirt shoulder. Parked and with 
the Mustang's engine idling softly, Daryl instructed me to 
do just as he had explained. 'Stand by the passenger side 
window of his car and let me do the talking.' I nodded my 
allegiance and we both stepped out of our car and walked 
over to the other vehicle before Fritz could open his door. 
I stood shivering silently by the passenger side, a chill 
wind whipping off the bay waters, and waited.

"Fritz rolled down the side window separating him from 
Daryl, who was stooping slightly so that he could more 
easily address the older ranger. Paying no attention to 
me, but concentrating his attention on Daryl, Fritz said, 
'What is it you want to say to me?'

"I'm here to extend an olive branch I I want to make 
peace with you, Fritz. I would like things to return to the 
way they were.'

"Fritz wanted this to happen more than either of usQI 
could see it in his eyesQbut he was not a ranger to accept 
a branch unexamined. He quickly looked my way for a 
brief moment, paying me scant recognition, then returned 
his gaze to Daryl. 'Yes, I would like that to happen, too. 
But you've got to stop asking me all those inane questions 
of yours, and you've got to stop following me. If you 
want to go where I go, ride with me. And stop thinking 
about finding other RADAR Rangers; there are none. 
Remember that this is where you uphold the law I that 
this is where you belong. There is no other place for you 
to go. I take care of you and Gordon. Neither of you 
needs anything else.'

" 'Yes, fine,' replied Daryl, 'now let's make peace. I have 
an offering, a present, for you.'

" 'An offering? You're actually serious; you have a 
present for me? I wouldn't have expected this from you, 
but it's only right that you should offer one.' Fritz' 
characteristic arrogance was returning and his muggy 
self-satisfaction began to fog both the front and rear 
windows. 'Where is the present? Take me to it now.'

" 'You won't have to go far,' smiled Daryl. 'I have it right 
here,' and he reached down to his citation book, flipped 
back the cover, and tore out the first ticket, which had 
already been filled out, signed his name at the bottom, 
and dropped it on Fritz' lap. He did all this in a single, 
blurred motion that took less than a fraction of a second. 
Fritz sat there in the Mustang, a dumbfounded look on 
his face. He had not expected this last rapid sequence of 
events.

"After a moment of confused silence, the older ranger 
regained enough of his composure to ask, 'What the 
deuce is this all about? Do you think I' when suddenly 
he fell silent. Something was definitely wrong with the 
scene before me. Fritz' head had rolled back against the 
rigid headrest jutting up out of the driver's seat, and he 
was staring misty-eyed at the plastic lining of the 
cruiser's ceiling. He was trying to move his tongue to say 
something, but the unruly muscle would not form the 
proper patterns on the roof of his mouth or behind his 
teeth. A shudder passed through him, and his shoulders 
rocked heavily against the back of the seat. With great 
effort, he managed to make a weak, gurgling sound, and I 
opened the passenger door and moved closer to hear him.

" 'Get out and close the door!' commanded Daryl. Then to 
Fritz, 'How do you like it, old man. Your very own 
speeding ticket.'"

" 'Gordon,' Fritz was trying to say to me, his head unable 
to turn in my direction. 'Gordon I Gordon, he's 
destroying me. A RADAR Ranger can't survive a 
documented moving violation. He's I ' Fritz struggled to 
slide closer to me, but his paralyzed muscles wouldn't 
carry him. I again opened the door and moved closer so 
that he could speak more easily to me, but Daryl ordered 
me back.

" 'That's right, Fritz: a speeding ticket. A little something 
I learned from my readings that you never bothered to tell 
us: we RADAR Rangers can give out speeding tickets 
with abandon, but we can't receive them and keep our 
good nature. The consequences certainly can be dire, 
can't they. In fact, you're not looking too good right now, 
old fellow.'

" 'Gordon,' Fritz was gurgling at the back of his throat, 
'take the ticket I off me. His words were barely audible 
over the coarse bay wind that swirled around us. 'The 
ticket I it's an abomination I sucking my spirit out. My 
RADAR Ranger nature can't I withstand the irony.' He 
raised his hand a short distance from his side as if to 
signal me closer, but let it fall back immediately, 
exhausted from the slight exertion.

" 'So, your RADAR Ranger nature is running out on you, 
is it, Fritz?' Daryl said to him. 'Let's see if we can speed it 
along.' Saying these words, the younger ranger began 
penning hurriedly in his citation book, ripping out tickets 
and dropping them on Fritz' convulsing body. 'This one's 
for driving without wearing a seat belt. And here's 
another for parking illegally alongside a highway. While 
we're at it, this citation is for changing lanes without 
signalling beforehand. And that one for not showing 
proper insurance and registration papers.' Each sheet of 
paper that touched Fritz caused his body to shudder as if 
a jolt of electricity had been discharged inside him. 'God!' 
he gasped, 'God, I'm going.' I turned my burning eyes 
from his misery, unable to endure his cries of pain and 
torment. The ground seemed to oscillate under my feet.

" 'Stop, Daryl,' I shouted. 'You're killing him. You never 
said anything about killing. We were going to escape him 
only, that was all.'

"Daryl continued his frenzy of ticket writing, his arms a 
vague, gray cloud of movement as the storm of tickets 
floated down and covered Fritz. 'No,' he said at last, the 
cloud in front of him coalescing into two arms, 'I'm not 
killing him. I'm draining him of his RADAR Ranger 
nature. I'm returning him to the world of lesser men from 
which he came. I don't know, but that may be worse than 
death. But we're not going to wait to find out. We 
heading for the Sonoma coast now. That's where our 
history waits for us.'

" 'What's going to happen to Fritz, then?' my weaker, 
emotional human side asked.

" 'He'll remain unconscious for a time. Before he comes 
to, I imagine someone will happen by and phone the 
emergency services for him. He'll recover in a few days, 
if you can call waking up in a world of lesser men 
without your RADAR Ranger nature 'recovering'. I 
imagine he'll have to appear before traffic court to 
account for all these tickets, and, when all is said and 
done, maybe he can get back his job selling the K-15 
from door to door. Not a pleasant thought, but someone 
has to do it.'

"We were finally free of Fritz and the great adventure of 
our lives was about to begin," said the RADAR Ranger to 
the mountain biker with a flourish of his arms.


Part Two: Sonoma Coast

The mountain biker half stood, leaning across the table as 
far as his arms would support him. "It's not true, is it, sir? 
I mean about Fritz. He did die, didn't he?" His face 
grimaced, partially from the physical effort, but mostly 
from the black images that crossed the stage of his mind's 
theater. "Each time Daryl threw a ticket on his body, his 
skin darkened and wrinkled until there was only a thin, 
brittle parchment-like substance covering his bones. His 
skull, that was the worst, right? Cracked, bloodless lips 
drawing back from broken, yellow teeth underneath I 
the nose shriveling up into a bud of rocky tissue, two 
cavernous holes beckoning to worms and maggots. Of 
course, his eyes weren't effected and they watched what 
was happening with an unspeakable horror, the dilated 
irises doing an Irish jig across a red-ribbed white floor. 
And in the end, all that was left of Fritz broke into a fine 
powder that you and Daryl buried in an unmarked grave."

The RADAR Ranger shifted uneasily in his chair. "Your 
imagination far exceeds your sensibilities, and I caution 
you not to read your private fantasies into my story, 
making it something that it is not. The story is true as far 
as I've told it; I've neither added nor left anything out. 
You mountain bikers are an unruly lot and my tale is 
soon to touch upon you, too."

The mountain biker had cast his eyes downward so many 
times that evening they were beginning to stick in a 
permanent position of supplication. "I'm sorry, sir. I'll try 
not to get carried away anymore," he promised as more 
dark, vague images floated across his mind. "Please, don't 
stop your story on my account. I want to hear all of it. It's 
the best story I've ever heard on the mountain."

"Yes, I imagine that it is," said the ranger as he stretched 
his body into a more comfortable position on the old oak 
chair. "We were on our great adventure, as I was saying, 
heading north on 101 to the Petaluma exit where we 
turned west off the highway. Fritz was behind us and we 
did not talk about him. In fact, we remained solemnly 
quiet, each thinking his own thoughts, not sharing them 
with the other. It was winter and the rolling hills between 
Petaluma and the town of Tomales on the coast were 
brown with dried grasses and topped with spindly, stick-
figure trees, their leaves blown off long ago. The 20 mile 
stretch of countryside passed by quickly and we were 
soon at the gateway to what Daryl believed was the 
birthplace of RADAR Rangers.

"Upon entering Tomales, a town of less than 1000 people 
and fairly typical of settlements along the Sonoma coast, 
Daryl began tapping a quick drum roll with his hands on 
the lower circumference of the steering wheel. 'What did 
I tell you,' he grinned at me. 'Will you look at that.' I 
scanned in the direction of his outstretched arm and saw a 
jet black Lexus with gold colored hood ornament and 
signature hub caps pulling across the town's only main 
intersection. 'He's making a left turn against the red light, 
Gordon. He's breaking the law! This is a sign, make no 
mistake about it.'

"He cocked back his middle finger with his thumb, then 
let fly at the switch that turned on our flashing red and 
blue lights. 'We're off,' he smiled like a kid at St. 
Petersburg DisneyWorld and quickly rolled up behind the 
Lexus, pulling it over to the roadside with our shrill siren. 
'Come on, Gordon, let's write him up right. This is our 
holy communion with the land of our fathers.'

" 'No,' I said, 'nothing larger than a moped, remember? 
You go ahead. I feel like stretching my legs a bit, 
anyway. I'm going to take a walk down the street here 
and see what I can find. I'll commune with our 
forefathers later, ok?'

He eyed me suspiciously. 'Still thinking about Fritz?'

"I nodded 'yes' and climbed out my side of the car. Daryl 
shrugged his shoulders and exited from his side. We both 
leaned our elbows on the cruiser's roof and looked at one 
another in silence. 'I'll meet you back here in a little 
while,' I finally said and we walked off in our different 
directions."

Church

"I was walking again, an activity I hadn't done much of 
since my days with Jackie on the streets of Ross. I 
strolled past country stores, looking at food and antiques 
through wavering glass, but not really seeing the goods 
laid out in their carefully made beds. I absentmindedly 
turned the first corner I came to and took a few strides 
before looking up. In front of me was a small parish, 
well-trimmed shrubbery climbing up the clean walls and 
framing intricately worked stained glass windows. A 
gray-haired man dressed in a long, flowing black robe 
had just climbed off an old Schwinn single speed, 
propped it up against the parish wall, and walked into the 
building through the open door. I followed him in with 
thoughts of Jackie and Fritz mingled together in my 
mind.

"I had not been in a church since my beginnings with 
Fritz. The interior was dimly lit, and much of its light 
came in hues of red, blue, yellow, and green through the 
ornate windows. Directly ahead of me was the alter 
covered with fine linen upon which the symbols of the 
church and been meticulously hand stitched. Atop the 
linen sat fresh-cut flowers in two clear crystal vases. 
Several people prayed among the dark stained pews that 
filled the large room. In the far corner were two draped 
confessionals, conspiring side-by-side. The light was on 
above the booths, indicating that confessions were being 
heard by a member of the clergy.

"I suppose I should have been uncomfortable or at least 
have felt some degree of humility upon entering the 
building. But I didn't. I had been too long separated from 
this part of my nature. I simply stood inside the entrance 
way and observed my surroundings. A man stepped out 
of the confessional and a woman who had been waiting 
slipped through the drapes as he left. The man 
genuflected in front of the alter, then walked down the 
aisle, past me, to the front door. He looked at me 
suspiciously, glancing up and down my uniform, as if I 
were a stranger who did not belong. He may have been 
right.

"The cold from his passing still fresh against my exposed 
face, I walked further into the damp church. Not really 
knowing what I was about, I turned left into a long, 
curving pew and sat down. I ran my chilled hand slowly 
over the surface of the pew, feeling for a grain but unable 
to find one through all the coats of varnish and polish. A 
sudden exhaustion came over me and I leaned forward, 
propping my head uncomfortably against my enfolded 
hands on the pew in front of me.

"The church was quiet except for the rustling of the 
woman in the confessional and the humming of a frayed 
outlet somewhere in the back of the alter. Then to my 
surprise, a procession of men and women suddenly 
emerged from the door behind and to the right of the 
alter. At the head of the procession was Jackie! A 
gossamer veil covered her face, and I could see her 
searching eyes cut through the dim light of the church 
and finally settle on me. Those eyes were blankQcoldQ
and I could read nothing into them I no! I didn't want to 
read anything into them. Her left hand held a prayer book 
and her right hand rested genteelly atop the raised arm of 
a male companion dressed in a wrinkled, dark suit. The 
companion was a pale-faced Fritz and he was smiling his 
Jack Nicolson leer at me.

"Jackie lifted the veil above her face and let it fall on top 
of her long, blond hair. Pulling her right hand away from 
Fritz' raised, bent arm, she opened the book she was 
holding and let the index finger of her right hand rest on 
the exposed page, as if directing my attention there. But I 
could not take my eyes off her face. She looked just as I 
remembered seeing her when we last walked together in 
Ross so long ago. Then, what I least expected happened. 
Never deflecting her eyes from my own, she spoke. 'You 
are cursed from the world, from the earth that has given 
birth to humankind.' Her words echoed in my ears, each 
word a tennis volley, bouncing repeatedly against the 
tight tympanum of my middle ear. 'You are cursed for 
having spilt the soul of your flesh into a silent abyss. 
Seeds you scatter unto the ground remain infertile and 
bear you no knowledge or understanding. A thief and a 
vagrant shall you remain and the secrets of your birth are 
hidden forever from you.'

"I jumped to my feet and ran into the aisle, imploring her 
to forgive me, to bring back all that had passed from us. 
While I supplicated with her to give meQusQ a second 
chance, a dark presence was welling up inside and behind 
me, pressing the nerves in my spinal chord tightly against 
the vertebrae that sheltered them. My body became numb 
from the pressure and I felt an intense panic rush out to 
my tingling extremities. Then it was over and the 
apparition was gone I Jackie, Fritz, their entire 
entourage. In the confused silence that followed, a hand 
descended onto my shoulder from behind.

Confession

"I looked up, startled, from where I was kneeling in the 
aisle. I shook my head to clear it of the flashes of white 
light still exploding behind my retina. Stooping over me 
was the bicycle-riding, gray-haired priest, his ancient 
hand resting lightly on my shoulder. He rustled his 
garments around to the front of me and stared at my sad 
condition for several seconds. 'Can I hear your 
confession, my son?' he asked me in a husky voice. My 
eyes were still out of focus from the war of light in my 
head and I had trouble seeing the priest's features. The 
sun was setting outside and the light filtering through the 
stained glass was withering in intensity, leaving the 
interior of the church much dimmer than before. 
Straining, I made out the hardened muzzle of a man who 
wasn't surprised by anything that happened in his church 
since he'd already seen it all. His wrinkled, jaundiced 
appearance marked him as a three-pack-a-day smoker 
and his gruff, raspy voice confirmed it 'You seem upset,' 
he coughed at me, then, 'Confession will make you feel 
better.'

" 'No, but thank you, father. Confession can't help me. 
I've waited too long and the burden I carry can't be 
shared.' I got up, intending to leave the church and return 
to Daryl at the cruiser. But the old priest grabbed my arm 
and led me toward the corner of the building where the 
confessionals were.

" 'I have the time, my son, and I think you should take the 
time,' he said midway there. I started to resist, to make 
excuses in my head, but then, for a reason I still don't 
understand, I decided to go along with this old man of the 
church. I walked the remaining distance to the 
confessional under my own power, the priest still holding 
onto my arm as though he feared I might bolt and he 
would never hear my words. The clergyman pulled the 
pleated drape back for me and motioned me inside the 
small cubicle with a sweep of his arm. I let the hanging 
drape fall back into place behind me and sat down on the 
small bench that was nailed into the 'V' formed by two 
adjoining walls. Directly opposite, on the partition in 
front of me, about shoulder height, was a square piece of 
wood. It began sliding roughly to the right side, revealing 
a 6-inch square of finely meshed wire grate. The priest's 
gruff voice labored through it. 'I'm listening, my son.'

"Taking a deep breath, I began, 'Forgive me, Father, for I 
have sinned. I have done things that have troubled my 
conscience for years. I have done them knowingly and 
repeatedly. I have given up my humanity in the process 
and am tormented by thoughts and deeds of evil. I fear 
for my soul, Father.

" 'God is great and God is merciful, my son,' came the 
hacking, labored response from the other side of the 
meshed wire grate. 'Cast aside your fears and tell God 
what you've done, then ask him for forgiveness.'

" 'Traffic tickets,' Father. 'Thousands of them. I've issued 
no fewer than five of them a day for countless years. And 
no violation has ever been too smallQI've cited them all: 
speeding, illegal parking, driving under the influence, 
changing lanes without signalling, seat belts only 
partially fastened. Old and young alike. And, God forgive 
me, I've singled out helpless bicycles and mopeds to prey 
upon. And, oh Father, the worst I haven't confessed, yet 
I I gave my sister, my own flesh and blood, a speeding 
ticket. She's in a sanatorium now, the result of my evil 
behavior.'

"The priest spun out of his cubicle, reached a hand into 
my confessional and pulled me through the drapes to 
confront him in the church proper. 'Is this some kind of a 
game?' he asked me. 'Because if it is, it's in poor taste. 
This is the house of the Lord, not a sporting arena, and I 
cannot tolerate such sacrilege here. I would attribute your 
blasphemy to youthful exuberance if you were younger, 
but your face shows the true lines of your age. You 
should be beyond the time when mocking an old priest is 
humorous for you.' He scowled at me while he covered 
his mouth with one hand and hacked his indignation.

I looked him directly in the eye and said, 'It's the truth, 
Father, all of it,' and slowly moved forward towards him. 
His defiant stand held, but only for a moment. A shadow 
of panic crossed his rough face, and he stumbled 
backwards, away from me, and fell to the ground. 'If you 
cannot hear my confession, then there is no hope for me 
and I am, indeed, damned!' I shouted into the deserted 
church and stood, towering angrily over the priest. 'If 
there is a God and he is as merciful as you claim, then 
why does he allow me to exist like this?' I looked down at 
the cowering priest and his evident hatred for what I was 
inflamed me all the more.

"'Be gone, you devil!' he sputtered and made the sign of 
the holy cross.

"I moved closer and he crawled away from me, along the 
front aisle toward the alter. When he reached the 
Communion rail, I moved to his side faster than his eyes 
could follow, and, reaching into my side pocket, pulled 
out my black book and filled out the top sheet of blank 
paper, then let it fall into his upturned lap.

" 'What is this?' the terrified priest cried out. 'If it is an 
incantation of the devil, I will not look at it nor speak its 
words.'

" 'No,' I responded, 'it is not a spell of the Devil. It's a 
ticket for illegally parking your Schwinn in front of the 
church.' And I ran from the building.

Bodega Bay

The RADAR Ranger paused in his narration and a 
troubled look took hold of his features. The mountain 
biker waited patiently until the ranger was ready to 
continue.

"When I at last found Daryl, I did not tell him about my 
experiences in the church. He was still bubbling over 
with excitement from issuing his first citation in this, his 
self-proclaimed land of RADAR, and I did not want to 
diminish that. He was sure now that we would soon learn 
of our origins. But, of course, there was more to it than 
that: he wanted a real communion with other RADAR 
Rangers. I believe his exact words were 'our kind' and he 
said the words with an emphasis that I could not 
duplicate or feel. His need for this communion only 
pointed out the wide gulf that had been opening up 
between us. During his early years as a RADAR Ranger, 
I had looked upon him as Fritz' equal, what with his 
insatiable craving for bringing down law breakers and his 
infallible belief that he was using technology for the 
greater good of society. At the same time, he also 
displayed the same human desires for knowledge and 
understanding that I did. Now I saw that he was far less 
human than either Fritz or myself. There wasn't an ounce 
of compassion in him.

"If he really was so different from you,"the cyclist asked, 
"why did he bring you along with him? What did he need 
from you?"

"That troubled me the most. Why, indeed, did he stay so 
close to me? Because I was the closest thing he had to his 
'own kind.' When he found his RADAR Rangers, I feared 
that I would have no place among them and that there 
would be no reason for him to champion me. I would be 
an outcast."

"Couldn't you have instructed him in matters of the heart 
just as you had educated him about the material world?" 
the mountain biker probed.

"Why?" rejoined the RADAR Ranger candidly. "I could 
not bear to see him suffer in these matters as I suffered. 
Besides, I had lost all confidence in myself, in my ability 
to do anything. I was not a man of action." The ranger 
paused and looked at the mountain biker as if expecting a 
question, but the mountain biker did not pick up where 
the RADAR Ranger left off. He simply sat at the table 
and waited for the story to continue.

A moment of awkward silence passed before the ranger 
began speaking, his eyes no longer on the cyclist. "We 
continued driving north on Highway 1 along the Sonoma 
coast, leaving Tomales behind us. But the images of 
Jackie, Fritz, and the old priest tore at me. I had seen 
Jackie and Fritz as surely as I had seen the gray-haired 
priest. Each was distinct and separate, finite entities I 
could keep apart in my mind. But what if I couldn't 
distinguish among them, among the real and the 
imagined? Who would show me the way? God? The 
Devil? Then I thought of the priest again and realized that 
I could not ask favors of God. The Devil, then, was my 
salvation. How I longed to confront his horrible 
countenance, to choose and end this torment that divided 
me."

The RADAR Ranger sighed. He looked at the mountain 
biker, who had just lowered his chin onto his upturned 
left hand, his elbow planted firmly, but at a slight angle, 
on the table. The older man continued his tale without 
addressing the cyclist directly. "The further north we 
went, the more we realized that the coast was not as we 
had imagined. Whereas Marin county had been besieged 
by cars, the roads here were nearly empty. All that 
crossed our path was a trickle of local trafficQa few 
delivery trucks, two John Deere tractors, a '46 Willy's 
jeep, a beggar pushing a Lucky's grocery cart loaded with 
plastic bags and empty aluminum soda pop cans. 'Must 
be an off-season for tourists,' speculated Daryl. I said 
nothing.

"Dillon Beach, Fallon, Valley Ford I it was the same in 
all the towns we passed through. Bodega Bay was the last 
town on our hurriedly prepared itinerary, and we pulled 
into it at dusk, looking for a secluded place to park. 
Fifteen minutes of driving to canvas the small fishing 
village for out-of-the-way, off-road parking where the 
locals wouldn't eye us suspiciously revealed nothing. On 
the second pass through the harbor town, a narrow spit of 
land overgrown with a tangle of thorny blueberry bushes 
beckoned to us. Faint double tracks, hidden by years' of 
wild grass cycling through life and death on it, led to the 
back of the parcel where a weathered madrone tree 
sulked alone in a forgotten, uncared-for bog.

"Daryl eased the cruiser slowly over the ancient double 
track and around the thorny vines into the back of the 
swampy land. He parked the Mustang under the 
camouflage of the madrone's lichen-covered branches, 
leaving just enough space for me to squirm out of the 
passenger side before the parcel's eastern-most boundary, 
a sandstone wall, blocked the movement of the car door. 
Sleep hadn't yet overtaken us and we decided to explore 
the small marina that lay around the next bend in the 
road. We trudged through the muck of our hiding place to 
the road, thunked our boots on the pavement to dislodge 
the dark gunk that had grabbed hold, and turned into the 
last rays of the sun to see what the evening would show 
us.

Peggy's Place

"A dozen or more fishing boats, only dark shadows now 
on the waveless waters, watched our approach. Along the 
paved edge of the marina were three buildings. Light 
leapt out at us from one of them and we could see people 
inside. A crowd of people. We headed in the building's 
direction, hoping to overhear some local gossip, maybe 
even learning something of RADAR Rangers.

"An unlit, hand-painted, plywood sign over the main 
entrance announced to all comers that this was Peggy's: 
Fresh Seafood 365 Days. Close enough now to be 
spotlighted in the yellow light that escaped into the 
evening, we could see through the wood-framed, multi-
paned front door that Peggy's was more than just busy, it 
was overrun with bobbing heads and waving arms. We 
walked in and the place fell silent I but only for a 
second. From the back of the large room, a high-pitched 
woman's voice announced, 'That's him, that's the one!' 
and pointed in our general direction.

" 'Which one, Mary Sue?' another voice, this time from 
the middle of the room, cut in. 'There's two of them.'

" 'Why, Frank, you know; it's the one with the curly, red 
hair.'"

"Neither Daryl nor I had red hair. To prove it, we both 
reached up and pulled our patrol caps off in burlesque 
unison. A collective sigh rose to the open-beamed ceiling 
and one of the crowd closest to the door immediately 
advanced towards us. 'Where's your partner?' he asked 
nervously. Surprised, but with obvious relief when we 
answered that we didn't have a partner (anymore), he 
pulled us over to a table with a stained, blue checkered 
table cloth and four half-empty coffee cups. Opened 
packets of sugar and cream surrounded the cups. 
Motioning the table's current occupants away with a 
tense, jerky wave of his arm, we sat in the still warm 
chairs of three of the four, willing leave-takers.

"All eyes were on us as the emotionally haggard man 
launched into his monologue. 'He's crazy I you've got to 
get this officer of yours under control. He won't let me 
alone. He won't let any of the people around here alone,' 
he said swinging his arm over his head with an invisible 
lasso to indicate the crowd in Peggy's. 'I've got to get 
back to the Bay Area, but I can't get more than a mile or 
two down the road when he pulls up behind me with his 
flashing red and blues and cites me for a traffic violation 
of one sort or another. I thought it was a joke at first, but, 
believe me, it's not. He doesn't ever say a word, doesn't 
even look me in the eye, just writes out the citation and 
drops it in my lap. Then he's gone.'

" 'It's us, too, that he's after,' added one of the locals who 
was standing between us and a turnstile rack of picture 
postcards. 'Hasn't always been this bad, but we've all paid 
him our dues. Doesn't stop him, though. No limit to the 
number of tickets you can get.'

" 'What about the local authorities? interrupted Daryl. 
'Have you contacted them?'

" 'Oh, sure,' came the reply. 'It's the first thing we did, but 
the authorities haven't been able to do anything. In fact, 
they're as much at his mercy as the rest of us. It's not 
natural, what's been going on around here.'

"A hand-lettered sign taped to the glass front of the 
cashier's counter pointed to a section in the back of the 
restaurant with a big, bold arrow. Underneath the arrow, 
in small letters, was the word 'SMOKING.' Nerves were 
close to the precipice at Peggy's and four, big-bladed fans 
overhead the non-smoking sections, each churning 
pungent smoke into thick clouds, showed how far their 
lack of respect for civil code had deteriorated that night. 
'Surely, there must be something you can do to help me,' 
pleaded our table companion. The swirling cloud around 
our heads couldn't hide the distress in his pursed lips and 
red, irritated eyes. 'Please, bring some sanity to this 
cursed place before I lose my mind.' His shoulders 
heaved a sigh and he was quiet.

"Daryl listened eagerly, but with an outwardly solemn 
face, to the accounts he heard from Peggy's customers. 
His eyebrows would raise at the mention of certain 
phrases I 'K-15 on the side of it I never saw the patrol 
car come up behind me I wrote the ticket in a blurred 
flurry I couldn't get a date scheduled in traffic court I' 
When he thought no one was looking at us or the 
cigarette smoke was thick enough, he would curl up one 
corner of his mouth and let the other drop with a slight 
nod of his head in an expression of 'Aha! We're on the 
right track.' For my part, I kept quiet, the split that 
divided meQmy concern for the people's suffering on 
one hand and my contained excitement at locating 
another RADAR Ranger on the otherQstirring up my 
thoughts into an inexpressible jumble.

"We took our leave of the restaurant well past midnight 
as did most of the others and walked back to our hiding 
spot amid the blueberry bushes. We observed that the 
townspeople, too, had chosen to go by foot, in an obvious 
attempt to thwart the ranger. The night air was cold and 
jets of warm mist shot from Daryl's nostrils, punctuating 
decisions he was making in his mind and the outcomes of 
actions he was imagining. Had I not been there, he would 
have continued the search that very night.

" 'We'll work Highway 1 between here and Shell Beach 
tonight,' he said as we stepped off the edge of the 
pavement onto the double-track that led to our Mustang. 
'He's bound to spot our cruiser and come out to meet us. I 
wouldn't be surprised if he takes us to the others before 
day break.'

"Daryl was talking with animated hand and arm gestures, 
coming close to hitting me aside the head several times as 
we worked our way around the wild bushes to the 
Mustang. I wasn't as confident as DarylQthe 
townspeople's descriptions of their lone ranger painted a 
picture in my mind of a character whose nature was 
extreme, indeed. More extreme than either Fritz or 
Daryl's. 'Could it be,' I wondered, 'if Fritz and Daryl are 
imperfect RADAR Rangers I I had no doubt about my 
own inadequacies I with weak, indecisive natures? The 
contrast then between the two of us and what we might 
find along the Sonoma coast chilled my flesh beyond 
what the night air had already accomplished.

" 'I don't think it's a wise decision to search at night,' I 
said and ducked under an arm that tipped my hat 
awkwardly to one side. Stepping to my right and then out 
and in front of him, I continued. 'Hold on a second. We 
don't know what we're up against; it might be a RADAR 
Ranger and it might not be. And if there, indeed, are 
more than one of them and they're not RADAR Rangers, 
we could find ourselves in trouble. I say let's wait for 
daylight and, at least, see what we're up against.'

"Daryl stood his ground in what I had believed up to this 
evening to be typical RADAR Ranger obstinacy. 
'Gordon, it doesn't matter when you take action, only that 
you do take action. The sooner we take ours, the sooner 
we find out about ourselves, about our origins.' And he 
quit talking almost as soon as he had begun, a bulldogged 
visage above two intertwined arms glaring at me.

" 'You do what you have to,' I replied, 'but I'm staying 
here until morning. I'm not a creature of the night. I'll 
sleep under the madrone,' and I walked off to the ancient 
tree, both amazed and pleased at the action I had taken. I 
had eased my body down to the wet ground cover and 
leaned my back in between two counter twists in the 
tree's uneven trunk when Daryl approached. He stood 
over me with muddy boots spread wide, elbows bent at 
right angles to his waist, both rounded fists planted firmly 
on his hip bones. 'You win, Gordon,' he conceded, his 
words flying contrarily in the face of the stance he had 
taken. To give support to those words, he changed his 
physical attitude and extended his left hand to my right 
and pulled me effortlessly to my feet. We slept 'til 
daybreak in the Mustang's trunk and I wondered what 
had caused Daryl's sudden change of mind."

Highway 1

"Two anxious hands shook me roughly awake to see the 
first yellow streaks of daylight painting the interior of the 
Mustang's cab. I had slept the deep sleep of the dead in 
our fuel-injected coffin and had returned to 
consciousness without a recollection of who or what I 
was. No name. No history. No memories.

" 'Gordon I Gordon!' a familiar voice was shouting at 
me while the hands continued to rock me first in one 
direction then in the other. 'Gordon, let's go.'

" 'Gordon? Gordon? Ahhh I my name was Gordon and 
the voice belonged to a RADAR Ranger named Daryl. 
Vague, swirling images of Peggy's Place began sifting 
down from the rafters in my head. In the images, I saw 
confused, frightened people gesturing animatedly with 
their bodies about somebody or something. Another 
RADAR Ranger? Were there more than two of us in the 
world then? The Sonoma coast I the birthplace of our 
kind? Now I remembered what it was that Daryl and I 
were to do today and why the hands and voice were each 
so anxious.

" 'I'm awake,' I announced. 'We can go whenever you 
want.' Daryl had already leaped into the driver's seat and 
gunned the engine to life on the first turn of the ignition 
key. The car was pulling off the double-track onto the 
narrow paved road that led around the marina when I 
crawled over the front seat and took my shotgun position 
next to Daryl. My eyes still weren't completely freed of 
sleep and I could just make out Peggy's Place among the 
waterfront buildings. A sign sitting in the corner of the 
front window, not far from our table of last night, had a 
word painted on it whose pattern might have spelled 
'Closed.' I rubbed my swollen eyes with the palms of my 
hands briefly, and when I looked up, Peggy's Place had 
retreated behind us and a short, steep hill faced us. At the 
top of the rise, where Peggy's road met an empty 
Highway 1, we turned left and headed north up the coast.

"Between Bodega Bay and the next town of any size, 
Jenner, we pulled into all the public beaches and hamlets, 
not bypassing a single inhabited bend in the road. Arched 
Rock, School House, Portuguese Beach, Gleason, 
Duncan Point I none of these offered us any clues. 
Neither did Duncan's Landing, Wrights Beach, Goat 
Rock, or Jenner. By early evening, we calculated that we 
had thirty minutes of daylight left, enough time to drive 
twelve miles further north to Fort Ross.

"We meandered in a roller-coaster pattern of steep ups 
and downs through the coastal hills that were kept a lush 
green by moderate winter temperatures and rains. Daryl's 
face was becoming progressively flushed with color and 
his body movements quicker and more animated as we 
snaked around each bend, lessening the distance that 
remained between us and Fort Ross. About 5 miles from 
our destination, Daryl gestured at the rich vegetation 
clinging to the cliff edge that overlooked the pounding 
surf of the Pacific Ocean and exclaimed, 'Can there be 
any doubt that this is the place of our origin, Gordon! 
Only a land so fecund with life and raw, untamed energy 
could have given birth to individuals as superior as 
ourselves.'

"Before I knew what he was doing, he had pulled the 
Mustang to the side of the road, flung his door wide, and 
bolted down to where a thick stand of vegetation was 
growing along the cliff's edge. He fell to both knees and 
dug his hands into the surrounding loose soil, bringing 
two full handfuls up over his head. He held his 
outstretched arms high, laughing hysterically and let the 
dark, moist particles trickle through his spread fingers 
onto his head and shoulders. He repeated this ritual 
several times until the dirt on his cap and shoulders was 
quite thick. For my part, I remained in the car, staring at 
the spectacle in amazement. Except for a few scuffles 
with Fritz, I had never seen Daryl express himself with 
such verve and passion. The display bordered on human 
emotion, although I never said this to Daryl.

Fort Ross

"During this unexpected roadside scene, the sun's 
growing disc had retreated closer to the water's far edge 
and the sky above had darkened. By the time my grinning 
companion stood and returned to the car to resume our 
journey, he was compelled to switch on our headlights, 
the tunnel of night had closed in upon us so quickly. Fort 
Ross had been blanketed by that same tunnel for some 
minutes when we finally arrived.

" 'Where do we begin?' I broke our self-imposed silence 
in the car. Beyond the reflective city limit sign 
announcing our entrance into Fort Ross, our headlights 
revealed nothing to distinguish the invisible boundary 
from the terrain we had just driven through. Small copses 
of trees, scattered shrubs and plants, rolling hills, ocean. 
No country stores, shops, or gas stations to proclaim a 
town. No lights anywhere, in fact. Daryl slowed the 
Mustang and we moved forward at a night worm's pace. 
Burning either side of the rode with it's industrial strength 
halogen bulb, I guided our hand-held spotlight slowly 
over the dark shapes that had taken form in the dark. 
Most danced and wiggled as the light played at their 
peripheries, but solidified into rocks and logs when it was 
full upon them.

" 'Over there,' Daryl indicated with the index finger of his 
left hand, the remaining digits grasping tightly at the 10 
o'clock position on the steering wheel. I turned the spot 
across the top of the car's hood. The light played 
momentarily in empty space, then caught the rough-hewn 
turret of a structure fifty yards up on the ocean side of the 
road, about 1/4-mile inland. Judging by the building's 
shape, it looked like part of a fortress.

"We cut through the blackness of Highway 1 and glided 
to a stop in front of a gravel driveway. Daryl had 
extinguished the Mustang's headlights, so I panned the 
spotlight slowly through the cleared, level space that 
opened up from the driveway. The area was cut into an 
irregular rectangle, narrow at the entrance and wider at 
the opposite, far end. Daryl swung the car into the 
driveway, and I adjusted the direction of the beam to hold 
it steady on the only two objects in the parking lot: two 
cars, one a patrol cruiser, the other a compact with an 
empty bike rack strapped to its hatchback.

" 'What do you make of it?' I asked Daryl nervously.

"He tossed a quick glance over his right shoulder in my 
direction and molded a grin with his lips as if to say 'you 
know as well as I do,' then returned his gaze to the front 
of the car, his eyes scanning carefully in a wide arc as we 
approached the two parked cars. At the end of the lot, he 
eased our Mustang into a space two car widths to the 
right of the other cruiser. I had turned off the spotlight at 
his command and we sat in the car in complete darkness. 
The night was still; not a living thing moved or made a 
sound. We were aware only of the wind and the distant 
sound of waves breaking onto a unseen beach.

"Anxious to meet this RADAR Ranger whose car we had 
parked next to, Daryl opened his door and stepped out. I 
hesitated under the interior light that automatically 
flashed on, but Daryl immediately reached in and 
switched it off. " 'Get out of the car and let's go,' he said 
in a firm voice.

" 'Do you feel it?' I asked him without moving. 'I think he 
knows we're here.' And I remained in the protective shell 
of the Mustang. A nervous, instinctive shudder jerked my 
arms closer to my ribs, my limbic system pretending that 
two skinny sticks could protect my vulnerable heart from 
imagined dangers. Daryl moved slightly away from the 
car and again commanded in that confident voice, 
'Gordon, follow me.' He took another step away and 
threatened to be swallowed alive by the blackness. I was 
out of the car and standing next to him in a moment, my 
heart saved, but beating savagely against the wall of my 
chest cavity.

" 'Be still, Gordon, and stay close to me.' I stumbled after 
him through the thick blackness, trusting him completely. 
My body was trembling so badly, I lost my balance 
several times, stepping onto small stones and mounds of 
dirt, pushed to the surface to trip me up by burrowing 
creatures of the night. More than once I prevented myself 
from sprawling to the ground by leaning heavily onto 
Daryl, from whose shoulder I never withdrew my left 
hand. 'Fear's your worst enemy,' he said, standing still 
while I righted myself.

" 'But don't you sense it?' I muttered. 'I can almost smell 
it in the air. Something's out there.'

" 'Yes, I can feel it, too. It's very strong and it's leading us 
to our destiny, Gordon. The feeling you have is why 
we've come here, it's the reason for our being.' It seemed 
like an eternity before he started to move ahead again, 
and when he did, he disappeared from my grasp so 
quickly that I could all but attribute it to a preternatural 
force. I took a blind step forward, groping the emptiness 
in front of me for the security of his shoulder. But all I 
felt was the rush of air against the open palm of my 
thrashing hand. I suddenly felt naked and cold and very 
alone.

"Before I had time to dwell on the significance of my 
isolation, a soft voice came to me from ahead. 'Gordon,' it 
said, 'come over here and shine the light on this placard. I 
can't make out what it says.' My right hand felt the 
weight of the almost forgotten spotlight I had been 
carrying since I stumbled out of the Mustang, and I 
moved forward towards the voice in the darkness with a 
renewed surge of confidence. After a few steps, I saw 
Daryl's figure silhouetted against the darker background. 
He was standing next to a sign affixed to a thick, upright 
post. 'Mask the light as best you can,' he whispered when 
I was  at his side, 'and shine it here on the sign.' I spread 
the fingers of my left hand over the clear, plastic plate 
that protected the halogen bulb underneath, then pushed 
down with my right thumb on the rubber button that 
turned the beam on.

"Shafts of uneven light spread across the sign upon 
whose worn face a message had been carved. 'Fort Ross 
State Historic Park' the top line read. Below it, 
'Constructed in 1812 by Russians under Ivan A. Kuskov. 
At one time, the Fort was home to over three hundred 
Russians, Aleuts, and California Indians. The primary 
industry was otter and seal hunting. Once the sea-otter 
crop played out in 1841, the Russians sold their buildings 
and goods to John A. Sutter for $32,000 and returned to 
Russia.' The bottom lines proclaimed, 'Open daily 10 
a.m. to 4 p.m. except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New 
Year's.'

Fortress Chapel

" 'I remember this place,' I blurted out. 'My parents 
brought Jackie and me here once when we were kids. The 
building over there was the Russian Commandant's house 
and the one there the chapel.'" Turning to face the 
mountain biker in Sky Oaks, "Jackie and I had a ball 
playing in the old buildingsQI scared her silly hiding 
behind doorways then jumping out, shouting like the 
boogey-man when she came looking for me. I think the 
whole place closed around the same time the Presidio in 
San Francisco was shut down.

"My thoughts of Jackie and I as carefree children playing 
among the buildings in the compound were happy ones, 
but they lasted only for a moment. The more recent 
image of Jackie's apparition in the Tomales church 
clawed its way out of the black of my mind and crowded 
out those lighthearted times.

" 'Stay close and be on guard,' Daryl's voice trailed off as 
he turned from the sign and walked through the 
compound's open entrance towards the outline of the 
chapel. I broke out of my gruesome reverie and fled after 
his departing form. The chapel, like the other buildings in 
the eight-sided, walled compound, was a solid structure, 
made out of large-diameter redwood logs stacked on top 
of one another and secured at the corners with deep-cut 
notches. Daryl stayed close to the irregularly shaped 
walls as he moved in the direction of the building's front 
entry. 'If he's here now,' he leaned his head back and 
whispered over his shoulder, 'I don't want to startle him. I 
want him to know as quickly as possible that we mean no 
harm, that we're friends. That we're RADAR Rangers, 
too.' The excitement in his hushed voice failed to calm 
the apprehension that shared me with the night.

"We entered the chapel slowly and cautiously, Daryl first 
then me. The interior was too dark to discern any features 
and Daryl instructed me to switch on the spotlight, using 
my fingers to mask the beam as I had done before. The 
panels of wavering rays showed a building neglected for 
years, but not wanting for visitors: footprints of all shapes 
and sizes had stamped their patterned soles on the dusty 
floor. The most sought-after destinations within the 
chapel had the most pronounced paths leading to them 
through the dust, and we followed the first of these trails. 
It led to the front of the building where the altar with its 
orthodox trappings had once kept vigil, but were not to 
be seen now. From there, a parting of the dust led to a 
nearby side door whose heavy, dark hinges and plain 
paneling left me feeling uneasy. I was thankful when 
Daryl decided not to explore this option, but instead 
carefully followed his steps back along the path that led 
from the altar to the front entrance, neatly bisecting the 
chapel into mirror images. From his vantage point, he 
surveyed the interior again, then elected to retrace our 
steps to the altar where he looked at each corner of the 
chapel for some moments before moving to the side door 
that had, only moments before, disturbed me and 
continued to do so still.

"Daryl pulled on the pitted iron latch that hung two-thirds 
of the way down and to one side of the sinister door. It 
opened with a grating cough on dry hinges. On the other 
side of the entrance, the single track continued up a 
steeply spiraling staircase that led to a small room at the 
top of the lofty turret. Daryl grasped the bottom of the 
cold railing, polished smooth over many years with the 
sweaty oil from countless hands, and began to climb up. I 
followed his fresh footsteps, noticing that another equally 
fresh pair of prints accompanied us to the summit of the 
stairs.

"The circular room at the top was small and empty, but 
provided an adequate space for two grown men. Four 
broken windows looked out from the walls to the points 
of the compass; well worn, but dusty, depressions 
lingered in the floor before three of these windows. In 
front of the westerly facing fourth window was a 
matching depression, but in this dust clearing a set of 
fresh prints took center stage. The shoes that created 
these prints had been standing at the window only a few 
hours before, the gathering dust not yet having had time 
to blur their outlines. Like the ironed creases on a pair of 
new dress slacks, the tracks were very distinct, and it was 
clear that their owner had stood motionless in the same 
spot, observing something or someone outside with great 
intensity.

"Daryl was as still as the broken panes of glass through 
which the earlier visitor and now he were peering. He 
had focused all his RADAR Ranger energies on listening. 
And then I was listening with him. Faintly at first, just 
sounding above the crash of water on sand and wind over 
uneven surfaces, a distant vibration traveled to us. It 
carried with it a distinct rhythmic pattern. As it grew 
louder and more persistent, Daryl bent his torso at the 
hips, automatically leaning his head and shoulders closer 
to the window. His eyes narrowed and he raised his right 
hand, pointing his index finger at a vague and unusual 
shape moving quickly down the path from the bluffs 
towards the compound. The figure ran as if driven by a 
great fear, and the separation between the rhythmic 
sounds of his shoes striking the ground and the actual 
sight of that movement lessened rapidly. When the two 
sensations of sight and sound became one for the figure, I 
saw why it had, at first, appeared so unusual: the figure 
was really two, a man pushing a bicycle at his side.

Cyclist

"Daryl moved so suddenly that I became aware of his 
absence at my side only after seeing his right heel kick 
into the air above the first of the descending steps, his left 
foot already touching the fourth rung down. I followed at 
a more cautious pace and caught up with him outside the 
compound's walls where the bluff trail forked together 
with the path leading to the parking area. He was holding, 
at arms length, the shoulders of the figure we had been 
watching. A silver bicycle was lying at their feet along 
the side of the trail. The struggling figure was no match 
for Daryl's RADAR Ranger strength and he soon ceased 
pummeling at the air that separated him from Daryl.

" 'Your partner's already done his thing and now I want 
out of here. Let go!' cried a young man in his early to 
mid-twenties. His day-glo ATB red Gore-Tex (TM) 
cycling jacket was open at the neck, exposing a multi-
colored CoolMax (TM) poser training jersey underneath. 
Supplex (TM) Panel Superwash (TM) wool tights were 
ripped at the knees and only the left hand was covered 
with a Fast Track (TM) Ragg wool glove.

" 'Calm down,' ordered a stern-faced Daryl. 'What are 
you talking about?'

"The youth paused for a second, trying to catch his wind, 
then spoke a stream of words. 'That partner of yours is a 
crazy dude. I was riding on this single trackQit's legal, 
see there's no sign here saying not to do itQwhen about 
two miles out I hear this bellowing voice call out, 'Stop, 
you're under arrest, Walt, for breaking the law.' How'd he 
know my name, anyway? I've never seen him before. 
Well, I figure the guy's a looney and there'd be no way to 
reason with him, so I keep on riding. But he just keeps on 
running, yelling at me to stop all the time because I'm a 
speeder andQnow dig thisQ'not a man of action!' But 
my legs can't pedal fast enough and this guy is gaining on 
me like I was parked in front of MacDonalds, sipping a 
Diet Coke and munching on a large order of fries. The 
next thing I know, he's got hold of my seat and is lifting 
my rear wheel off the ground with one hand. I know it 
was one hand because he had a RADAR gun in the other, 
a thin cord connecting it to a battery pack strapped to his 
belt. I saw then that this is not the type of person I want 
to upset more than I have to, so I stop pedallingQa lot of 
good it was doing me, anywayQand I ask what the 
trouble is. He tells me I've broken the speed limit and 
shows me the RADAR gun. It shows 22 mph, which he 
says is 17 mph above the legal 5 mph limit for fire roads. 
Then I explain to him that I'm riding on a narrow single 
track and couldn't have gone that fast, but he counters 
that the speed he's showing me is my speed back in the 
parking lotQwhich he says fits the description of a fire 
road. Next he cites me for riding on a single track and 
says I should have known better after I pointed out the 
absence of posted signs prohibiting it.'

" 'Don't get me wrong,' pausing only long enough to 
catch his breath, 'I'll take the tickets if I deserve them 
because I know I can defend myself in traffic courtQ
innocent until proven guilty and all thatQbut that's not 
what worried me. This guy is acting really weird, just 
answering my questions with the fewest possible words, 
never looking me in the eye, writing all this stuff in his 
little black book without ever looking down, hardly 
moving anything but the wrist of his writing hand. 
Spooky. Ok, I take the tickets and start heading back and 
get to within 1/2 mile of here when he's after me again. 
This time he's shouting that I'm under arrest because I 
haven't got my helmet on. He's right, I don't but that law's 
just for motorcycles, right? So here I am and I know he's 
not too far behind and you gotta' let me go now before I 
go crazy, too, which I'll do if he catches me.'

"During this long-winded monologue, the expression on 
Daryl's face had metamorphosed from strong confidence 
to questioning doubt to serious concern. With the passage 
of each of these emotions, his grip on the youth 
slackened and eventually the young man was free of his 
lawful RADAR Ranger embrace. 'Thanks a lot,' the youth 
said, 'I'm gone and I'll never come back to bother you 
guys again.' He wheeled around and sprinted for his car.

"But before he could get too far, Daryl was on the young 
man, handing him a page from his own black book. 
'What's this?' the incredulous youth cried into the night 
air, his head thrown back and his mouth hanging open in 
disbelief.

" 'Sorry, son, but you were riding without a legal light.' 
Once a RADAR Ranger, always a RADAR Ranger. 
Besides, we still had our daily quotas to fulfill.

"The youth stuffed the ticket into an unzippered pocket of 
his Supplex (TM) Panel Superwash (TM) wool tights 
without blinking an eye and resumed sprinting to his 
parked vehicle 

" 'Wait a minute,' I shouted after him. 'Don't forget your 
bicycle.'

"He looked back at me, half way between where I stood 
with Daryl on the narrow trail and his car in the graveled 
parking area, and hollered, 'Keep it. No more mountain 
biking for me. I'm going into ocean kayaking.' And then, 
'You guys don't swim, do you?'

The mountain biker, feeling somewhat uneasy in the dim 
lights of Sky Oaks, asked, "Do you remember what kind 
of a bike it was?"

The RADAR Ranger hesitated for several moments 
before he answered, then said, "Could it have been a 
Cunningham? C-U-N-N-I-N-G-H-A-M was spelled out 
in black letters across the top tube."

"Uh-huh," whistled the mountain biker in awe. "The 
legendary mountain bike, a collector's item I one hasn't 
been made in years. And those that have them, keep them 
locked up in back rooms" And he suddenly realized the 
seriousness of what he was hearing.

The Other Ranger

The RADAR Ranger slowly got up from his chair at the 
oak table and stepped over to the wood-framed window. 
He stared into the darkness a long time, taking an audibly 
deep breath every 10 to 15 seconds, letting out the air 
with a troubled, low-pitched rush through pursed lips. 
"This was not something Daryl had been expecting, and 
it caught him off guard. But more was to come. We both 
heard it at the same time, the synchronized huffing and 
puffing reinforcing the sound of approaching footfalls. I 
could see Daryl's shoulders straighten noticeably and the 
short hairs on the top of his hands bristle. We were about 
to confront another RADAR Ranger.

"Jogging down the same single track we were standing 
on was a large, dark outline of a man in the uniform of a 
RADAR Ranger. As he came closer to us, I noticed few 
signs of exhaustion, although I knew he had been running 
many miles over an uneven terrain in the dark. The 
huffing and puffing I heard was more his way of counting 
cadence than a sign of fatigue. In his right hand he held a 
K-15 RADAR gun and I could just make out the cable 
connecting it to the leather-encased battery pack strapped 
to his side just as the cyclist had described. When he 
reached us, he came to a halt and turned his eyes to both 
Daryl and myself, each in turn, then at the silver bike 
lying at our feet.

" 'You've brought down the law breaker?' he said in 
monotone syllables. His eyes were as flat as his voice and 
I felt something vital was missing, that he lacked 
substance. He came across as an incompletely defined 
movie character, a two-dimensional, celluloid man.

"Daryl was obviously puzzled and confused by the 
appearance of this long, sought-after RADAR Ranger. It 
was not what he had imagined the missing link to be like. 
Despite his confusion, Daryl kept enough composure to 
extend his hand and say, 'My name is Daryl and this is 
Gordon,' pointing to me. 'We're both RADAR Rangers 
like yourself and are very pleased to have found you.'

"The other RADAR Ranger didn't acknowledge Daryl's 
greeting. He merely stood in front of us with unblinking 
eyes and asked,'Where is the law breaker? He has been 
riding without a helmet and must be corrected with a 
ticket.'

" 'We'll talk about him later,' snapped a suddenly 
impatient Daryl. 'Let's talk about you now and where you 
come from. Can you tell me about the other RADAR 
Rangers you keep the law with? Where are they now?'

"But the two-dimensional ranger ignored Daryl's 
questions again. 'Riding a bike without a helmet is 
against the law,' he mouthed in his tedious tones. 'I must 
correct him. I'll bring him down now,' and he started to 
walk away from us towards his Mustang. Daryl, furious 
with the response, or lack of it, reached across with his 
right hand and grabbed the ranger by his left shoulder and 
spun him violently around to face us again.

" 'Don't act like an idiot,' he shouted at the unseeing eyes. 
'Surely you know more than you're letting onto. Where 
do you come from, ranger? What place do you call 
home? You can't be the only RADAR Ranger on the 
Sonoma coast. There have to be others who can tell me 
about our history, about our origins!'

"The other RADAR Ranger stood mutely still, his eyes 
an unwritten movie script. Slowly, a glimmer of 
recognition settled into them and his forehead wrinkled 
as he strained to translate that glimmer into words. 
'Tamal,' he finally declared, a trace of a smile on his face.

" 'Tamal?' repeated Daryl softly. Then loudly, 'Tamal? 
What does 'Tamal' mean?'

"More silence from the other RADAR Ranger, then 
additional glimmers of recognition. 'TamalPAIS,' he 
grinned. 'Tamalpais is where the others are.' Without 
further interference from Daryl, the ranger turned his 
back on us and half-jogged, half-walked to his cruiser, 
climbed in, and drove out of the parking lot in pursuit of 
the law-breaking mountain biker.

"Did you ever see that RADAR Ranger again?" asked the 
mountain biker from behind the table.

"Yes, we did, in the watershed of our origins."

"Here on Mt. Tamalpais, sir."

"Yes, on Mt. Tamalpais."


Part Three: On the Mountain


"The other RADAR Ranger was gone, leaving Daryl and 
me alone once again. We stood there, two solitary 
figures, in the timeless dark just outside the high redwood 
wall that surrounded Fort Ross. Then Daryl tapped me 
lightly on the shoulder and suggested we head back to 
our own vehicle. I turned the spotlight on, the need for 
caution and stealth no longer paramount. The door to the 
secrets of the Sonoma coast I if there had been any 
secrets I had closed on us."

"But the other RADAR Ranger?" asked the mountain 
biker, nervously twisting his hands back and forth in each 
other. "Why was he so different from you and Daryl?"

"I had the beginnings of a few ideas, but they were 
clouded over and hidden by a deep despair that took hold 
of me. That despair arose from a troubling doubt that we 
had neutralized the only other RADAR Ranger who had 
anything in common with us: Fritz. He had been in my 
thoughts, as I think you know, in one form or another 
since we had come to the Sonoma coast. In a strange 
twist of fate, he was the only RADAR Ranger like us that 
I had found on this journey. As contradictory as it may 
sound, there were times then I wished he were back 
together with us!

"Daryl, on the other hand, had a far more practical 
perspective. 'What if RADAR Rangers are not the lone 
predators Fritz wanted to us believe,' he reasoned. 
'Suppose, in fact, that we are pack animals, surviving best 
in groups. Living together, bringing down law breakers 
together. It makes sense, doesn't it? For a reason we may 
never learn, Fritz was separated from his pack and could 
not return to it. Perhaps he committed a crime against his 
fellow RADAR Rangers and was banished. Or maybe he 
was separated from them in an accident. The actual cause 
for the separation isn't important, though. The important 
thing is the separation itself. I don't believe RADAR 
Rangers can exist in the absence of other pack members. 
If my guess is correct, Fritz made you into a RADAR 
Ranger shortly after his separation occurred because he 
couldn't stand to be alone. And when he felt that you 
were ready, he expanded the pack by creating another 
RADAR Ranger, me. If I hadn't neutralized him, would 
he have created others in time? I believe he would have. 
There is comfort in the pack, a comfort we unknowingly 
took for granted while Fritz was with us. Although we 
claim to have hated him, his absence has diminished the 
comfort we feel now.'

"Daryl stood quiet, his eyes darting back and forth with 
REM-like movements in their sockets. 'My God,' he 
finally exclaimed, 'it also explains why the RADAR 
Ranger we just encountered was crazed. He's lost his 
pack and, perhaps more significant, he doesn't know how 
to replace it with his own. The loneliness obviously has 
driven him to madness.' Striking his clenched fist onto 
the hood of the Mustang, he announced to me, 'So much 
of what we are has become clear to me tonight, Gordon. I 
was despairing in the darkness out there when we first 
encountered him, but now I see there's no need to despair. 
That we are pack animals is as clear to me as is our need 
to bring down law breakers. And, given the right 
circumstances, a RADAR Ranger can change a man of 
lesser action into a man of superior action I Fritz has 
shown us that. But if you were to ask what the right set of 
circumstances is, I couldn't give you any specifics. My 
history is incomplete for that. And our origins, Gordon! 
Our origins! I still don't know how it all began. But I feel 
that I'll find answers to all my unanswered questions on 
Mt. Tamalpais.' He climbed into the Mustang without 
another word and drove us straight to the mountain that 
very night.

Mt. Tamalpais

"I can't find the words to describe the joy I felt that night 
on our return to Marin county and, particularly, to Mt. 
Tamalpais," said the RADAR Ranger to the mountain 
biker. He stretched his arms wide, then wrapped them 
around his upper torso, forming a large X with his 
forearms in front of his chest. Holding this position, he 
turned from the window and walked slowly back to his 
chair at the oak table. "Mt. Tam was backyard to Terra 
Linda," he grunted with an emphasis on the 'da' of 'Terra 
Linda' as he fell back into his chair and settled into the 
five round dowels that formed its backrest. "All the kids 
in the neighborhood played there whenever they could. 
Some of us rode our bikes over the San Rafael/Terra 
Linda Ridge to get there, others took the bus, and some 
even managed to con their parents out of rides on a 
regular basis.

"Our first experiences were on the lower hills of the north 
slopes, in and around Fairfax. We were fortunate because 
the north side of the mountain tends to be wetter, wilder, 
shadier, and less congested with hikers than the south 
side. A great place for kids to explore and have fun 
without the constant intrusion of adults. The fog that 
swept down the San Geronimo valley from the ocean 
kept the hill sides and valleys lush with with all kinds of 
trees: buckeyes, bays, oaks, madrones, firs, and 
redwoods."

The RADAR Ranger eyed the mountain biker closely. 
"I'm not boring you with these memories, am I?"

"Well, actually, I ride a lot of the mountain and I'm pretty 
knowledgeable of its flora and fauna."

"But you don't hike on the mountain? Just ride?"

"Yes, that's right; I can't walk too far because I've got a 
bad back. Riding doesn't bother it, though. My 
chiropractor even claims riding is good for it, opens the 
vertebrae and takes pressure off the discs and nerves 
running through them."

"Well, then," rejoined the RADAR Ranger, his face 
hardening, "you've never had an opportunity to see the 
beauty of the mountain at a leisurely pace, have you? I 
imagine we could even safely say that you've missed 
some of the more subtle, natural wonders on your hurried 
trips through the watershed."

"No I not really. I sometimes take along my water 
colors and sketch book to paint impressions of what I see 
along the fire protection roads. You know, it's really great 
being able to travel deeply into the mountain, to places 
you never could reach in a single day by foot. Those 
remote areas are unspoiled by the comings and goings of 
all the day trips people organize around here."

"Such a knowledgeable, young fellow you are," said the 
RADAR Ranger in his best Yoda syntax. "I'm surprised 
at your range of interests I you have certain traits that 
are rather atypical of mountain bikers in general. Are you 
aware of the feral pig problem up on Bolinas Ridge?" 
came the next question.

"I paint up there all the time," answered the mountain 
biker, surprised at this non sequitur. He shifted his glance 
from the suspicious eyes of the ranger to the boar's head 
mounted on the wall to his right. "You mean those guys?" 
The RADAR Ranger nodded his head in assent. "Sure, 
I've seen some of the cages you've set up there. They're 
the reason you put up the long wire fence on the ridge, 
isn't it. To keep wild pigs from spreading into the Point 
Reyes National Seashore. Those animals are real devils, 
digging up hill sides looking for calypso orchid roots and 
all."

"What do you know about West Peak?" quizzed the 
RADAR Ranger with another non sequitur.

"Not too much," came the reply, "because it's been closed 
to just about everybody since the military took it over 
during World War II. I do know that the Air Force built 
their RADAR station there in 1951, but after they 
declared the facility out-of-date in 1982, they turned the 
area over to the GGNRA. Strange, now that I think about 
it, that the land didn't revert back to the Marin Municipal 
Water District. But then, again, stranger things happen all 
the time. I understand the three acres up there on West 
Peak with the two golf-ball RADAR domes is leased to 
the FAA under a separate agreement and that no matter 
how loud the public complains, those domes will never 
come down." The mountain biker hesitated, broke into a 
soft chuckle, then caught himself and stopped, but not 
before the ranger threw a weary glance in his direction.

"What are you laughing at?"

"Oh," said the mountain biker, "not much. It's just that a 
few of us who ride the mountain refer to West Peak as 
the Tee-off to paradise. It's just funny if you know the 
guys in the group."

The RADAR Ranger apparently didn't know the guys in 
the group and kept a straight face. "Have you ever been 
inside the compound at West Peak?"

"Absolutely not," returned the mountain biker. "The 
place is off limits and, besides, it's completely encircled 
by a cyclone fence topped off with barbed wire. A real 
fortress up there." He looked guilefully at the RADAR 
Ranger, waiting for his next move, as if they were 
playing a cloak-and-dagger game of chess.

The RADAR Ranger made his next move."Ever done any 
spelunking or rock collecting on the mountain? Some 
varieties of chert contain beautiful patterns and colors, 
and the pillow basalt deposits are intriguing."

"I didn't know there were any caves worth exploring on 
Mt. Tam, at least I've never heard of any," conceded the 
cyclist. "Rock collecting I no, I've invested too much 
money trying to keep my bike light. Why would I want to 
load up my pockets and fanny pack with rocks? I couldn't 
even imagine hikers going to the trouble of carrying 
mineral souvenirs off the mountain. It's illegal, anyway, 
isn't it? You guys aren't going to start checking purses 
and car trunks for contraband rocks, are you?"

"No, we're not," replied the RADAR Ranger with an 
audible sigh of relief, leaving the puzzled mountain biker 
to wonder what it was that had just transpired between 
them. (*Author's note: No one really knows the 
significance of what transpired between the two).

Fairfax

"I see that you already have a sound understanding of the 
mountain and can empathize with a child's attachment to 
it," the RADAR Ranger conceded. "There's no reason for 
me to belabor that point, then." The mountain biker 
shifted ever so slightly lower in his chair, the only 
outward indication that these last words were a welcome 
relief to him.

"As I was saying before my digression, Daryl drove us 
straight to Mt. Tam immediately after our encounter with 
the crazed, two-dimensional, celluloid RADAR Ranger 
of the Sonoma coast. On my advice, we settled down 
until day break in the dirt parking lot that fronted the 
entrance to Deer Park fire road in the town of Fairfax. I 
slept soundly in our Lycra (TM) womb, too weary to 
dream, but Daryl tossed and turned, no doubt 
subconsciously replaying our dark times on the Sonoma 
coast on the back wall of his mind.

"My head was resting on the cushion of the back seat 
when I first opened my eyes and I could see the sun 
climbing through the middle branches of the ancient 
madrone under which we had parked. The preceding 
evening's events had worn me out, but not as much as 
they had Daryl. I stirred before him and was standing in a 
spotlight of warm sun next to the Mustang when he 
emerged from the car. He was haggard and worn, the 
muscles at the corners of his eyes dragging the lids half 
way down over his irises. He rubbed at them vigorously 
with the palms of both hands, then opened his mouth 
wide to let a tremendous yawn escape.

" 'Yesterday was more work than I imagined,' he said, 
shaking his matted head at nothing in particular.

" 'I'm emotionally exhausted, too,' I said. 'The happenings 
of the past few days have played havoc with my mind.'

"I'm physically tired, Gordon, not emotionally. Emotions 
are your weakness, not mine.'

" 'Daryl,' I countered, upset by his continued, obstinate 
denial that emotions had no place in our world of public 
service, 'you have been emotionally excited ever since 
this quest began. Any physical exhaustion you've felt 
takes a back seat to the force of that excitement. And I 
know that beyond your emotionally excited state, you 
must share some of my loneliness now that Fritz is gone 
and our pack has grown smaller. If you're a pack animal 
as you claim, you can't escape that feeling.'

"He stood there, glaring at me with eyes that had become 
wide-awake. The muscles that had pulled the corners of 
his mouth down to a sleepy frown when he first awoke 
were now offset by an opposing pair that created a subtle 
grin. 'You've mistaken an instinctive focusing of energy 
for emotional excitement,' he lectured me. 'I have not 
been acting like a small child running around a birthday 
cake, clapping my hands excitedly for the next slice of 
cake. No I my energies have been carefully calculated 
and focused on achieving a single goal: to find others of 
our kind. The emotions you talk about would only get in 
the way and impede the attainment of that goal. I am a 
man of action, not of emotions.' He ran his fingers 
through the disheveled hair on the sides of his head, then 
massaged his hands slowly and heavily down the outside 
of his neck. 'I do not miss Fritz in an emotional way; 
rather, I feel a need, a drive, to replace that which has 
been taken from me because I am less whole without it. 
Soon, today perhaps, I will find others like us and regain 
my whole identity.'

"Arguing further with him, especially when part of me 
applauded what he said, was senseless. So I suggested 
that we begin our search that very morning. My plan was 
simpleQto divide up and walk the trails and fire 
protection roads of Mt. Tamalpais until we met another 
RADAR Ranger. At the end of the day, we would return 
to the Mustang and inform each other of our successes. 
Daryl agreed immediately to the plan and set out along 
Deer Park fire road. I hiked with him a very short 
distance, then turned right onto Ridge Trail and set out on 
my own. I had hiked along this single track often as a 
child and was familiar with it and the others it linked up 
with.

"I marveled at what I saw that morning: redwood, oak 
and madrone standing brilliantly outlined against a deep 
blue sky, meadows and grasslands teaming with field 
mice and other rodents, redtailed hawks circling 
overhead. Raccoon appeared early along the trail, 
scampering to their dens after a night-time of ravaging 
Fairfax dumpsters and garbage cans. As their numbers 
diminished and early morning flowed into mid morning, 
deer bounded more frequently into the underbrush on 
either side of the trail as I passed along. The deeper I 
hiked into the watershed, the more frequently I 
encountered creatures that were less willing to share the 
land with humans: fox, bobcats, and osprey. And there 
was another creature whose presence I sensed but did not 
actually see until later in the morning."

"The sensations of another's presence were almost too 
subtle to notice at first I they came to me more as 
echoes of my own movements though the forest, nothing 
more. And that's what I believed them to be at first, 
echoes. The sound of my boots striking the trail, the 
rustle of shirt sleeves as they brushed against my side, the 
occasional tree limb reaching out and touching my hat, a 
light cough to clear my throatQthese sounds moving 
away from me into the woods in concentric rings of 
energy, then returning after random collisions with a tree 
trunk, a rock wall, or a pool of water. In open meadows 
and fields, however, with few objects large enough to 
send the babble of my body hurrying back to its source, I 
became more suspicious of these echoes. 'How is it,' I 
wondered, 'that even without reflecting objects, whatever 
audible movement I make, its twin fills my ears as if the 
rebounding surface is as close as my shadow?' Yet, as 
I've told you, I could see nothing close enough to me to 
account for the phenomenon.

"I passed along Ridge, Moore, and Canyon trails aware 
of the strange echoing phenomenon, but unable to 
determine its cause. It did not seem threatening and 
gradually became one of many background noises that 
accompanied me on my wanderings through the 
watershed. Hiking up Canyon Trail before it intersected 
with Concrete Pipe fire road, I became mesmerized by 
the intensity of the green canyon wall that faced me from 
the southwest. The sun had climbed high enough in the 
morning sky to paint dark green shadows along the 
canyon's uneven surfaces. The line separating shadow 
from sunlight was razor sharp and created an exaggerated 
three dimensionality on the surface I as though the folds 
of land and trees where the edge lay had a dimensional 
order of magnitude greater than the surrounding terrain. 
But even more overpowering than the texture of the 
canyon wall was the color green. Both in shadow and in 
sunlight, it was a green that could not be matched by 
photographic film, tape, or 32-bit computer color. To 
capture even the slightest essence of its mystery would 
require the mixing of pigments by a skillful, living artist 
trained in the subtleties of green.

"These were my thoughts as I passed from Canyon Trail 
onto Concrete Pipe fire road. The road was considerably 
wider than the trail, providing ample access for large 
trucks and fire fighting equipment. Exceptionally wide 
and smooth, Concrete Pipe's friendly surface was a 
magnet to speeding bicycles traveling in either direction, 
and I heard the approach of several as I climbed up onto 
it. Three cyclists were approaching from the north at a 
speed well beyond the 5 mph limits I had seen posted. 
Bringing down three law breakers would bring me to 
within two of my minimum quota of five for the day. I 
prepared to signal the riders to the side of the road when I 
heard my footsteps continue at a rapid pace past me in 
the direction of the bicycles."

Concrete Pipe

"Excuse me, sir," interrupted the mountain biker, "but 
you had no jurisdiction at that time to issue tickets on the 
watershed."

The RADAR Ranger tossed his head back in frustration 
and, not bothering to look at the mountain biker, 
countered, "RADAR Rangers have jurisdiction wherever 
the law is broken. Haven't I made that clear to you?"

"Sorry, sir, I guess I wasn't thinking straight."

"Yes, I guess you weren't, but that doesn't come as a 
surprise to me. Now, let me continue with my story I 
where was I? Oh, yes: Materializing where the footfalls 
ended, a RADAR Ranger appeared and gestured the 
cyclists to a stop. In his right hand, he was wielding a 
battery-powered K-15 RADAR gun and in his left he 
held a book of tickets!

"I was astonished to have found another RADAR Ranger 
so soon and in the manner I had just witnessed. He was a 
tall, angular man and wasted no time citing the law 
breakers for their offenses. With tickets tucked away in 
black Cordura(TM), adjustable waist belt with padded 
back area fanny packs, the three mountain bikers pedaled 
off at a much slower clip. I remained where I was, hidden 
from view by roadside shrubbery as they cycled past. 
When the next corner had devoured them, I stepped into 
the middle of the road I and felt as if I were looking 
into a mirror. I pivoted on my right foot, and my mirror 
image, the ranger, pivoted on his left, turning not a 
degree further than I had. I swung my left leg around to 
complete my turn and he did the same with his right leg. 
Every gesture I made, he duplicated with uncanny 
accurateness. I took a hesitant step toward him, and he 
took a hesitant step away from me. I shuffled backwards, 
and my image shuffled forwards. A reflective stalemate. I 
hailed him a greeting, gesturing with my right hand, and 
heard the words of my greeting rebounding back to me a 
millisecond after I had uttered them. Had he been closer, 
the palm and fingers of his left hand would have been 
pressed tightly against my right and our combined 
movements would have been the perfect mime of one 
man washing a mirror. But we remained separated and I 
could not lessen the distance between us."

"What did you finally do?" asked the mountain biker, 
comfortably ensconced behind the oak table.

"Nothing," answered the RADAR Ranger. "Within 
moments after hailing him, he simply disappeared as 
quickly as he had appeared. He was there and then he 
wasn't. His reflexes and speed were far beyond those of 
Fritz, and I hadn't thought anyone capable of replicating 
Fritz' movements. Daryl had come close on occasions but 
had never exceeded them. This RADAR Ranger had 
surpassed them easily; he also had expanded my image of 
the world of RADAR Rangers. For one thing, that world 
was more diversified than our small pack of three had led 
me to believe. Was this RADAR Ranger normal? Was 
the ranger on the Sonoma coast that abnormal? Had Fritz 
been aberrant? Was I?' I longed to know the answers to 
these mysteries.

Fish Gulch

"These thoughts replaced those childhood fantasies that 
had filled my head earlier in the morning. And all the 
while I hiked, I felt the presence of the other ranger 
tracking me, just beyond my sensory grasp. Along Taylor 
Trail past Sky Oaks Ranger Station to Lagunitas Trail, 
down Dam Trail, then across Bon Tempe dam. At the 
three-way intersection of Dam and Bon Tempe trails with 
Rocky Ridge Road, the will-o'-the-wisp ranger made 
another entrance, appearing just in time to cite two law-
breaking mountain bikers for riding the trail around the 
west side of the lake. Trail riding anywhere on the 
watershed is a serious offense," glared the RADAR 
Ranger at the mountain biker who no longer felt as 
comfortable as he had a few short moments before and 
whose fidgeting toe was now working its way into the 
widening hole between his feet under the oak table.

After an appropriately uncomfortable silence, the ranger 
continued. "This time, though, he waved at me when he 
was done writing out the citations. I was too far away to 
make out the exact meaning of the smirk on his face; it 
might have been a smile of contemplative pleasureQof a 
new level of self-realization achieved through public 
serviceQor it could have been an arrogant leer directed 
at me. I hoped for the former; I did not want this RADAR 
Ranger to feel so territorial that I could never run with his 
pack. I wanted to talk with him, to communicate with 
him as one RADAR Ranger to another. I waved back, but 
he was gone before my arm reached the apogee of its 
movement.

"I continued around the west side of the lake along Bon 
Tempe Trail, losing myself to the purple prose of mottled 
light twisting through thick trees, eventually settling on 
trails made soft by months of vegetative fallout. Where 
the steep Stocking trail descended into Bon Tempe from 
Rocky Ridge, I angled left and continued along the north 
side of the lake, walking east towards Lake Lagunitas 
picnic area. The half-mile hike to Lake Lagunitas, whose 
overflow waters drain into Bon Tempe, was uneventful. I 
passed several hikers who, like all others I had 
encountered in the watershed, warmly returned my 
greeting and ignored my out-of-place partolman's 
uniform. Except for the strange behavior of the other 
RADAR Ranger, I felt at home in the watershed.

"Perhaps hoping to catch a glimpse of the will-o'-the-
wisp, I walked onto the large, open, paved parking lot at 
the entrance to Lake Lagunitas picnic area. Ambling 
along slowly, I cast careful glances in all directions, but 
could perceive nothing out of the ordinary in the 
peripherary of my vision. Several parked cars, picnickers 
carrying woven baskets of food into the grove, large, 
black-winged crows circling hungrily overhead I 
nothing to raise the thin veil of suspicion in my mind.

"I continued on up the paved entry road away from the 
picnic area. At the top of the road, I decided to head 
down Fish Gulch fire protection road into the Phoenix 
Lake basin. An eighth-of-a-mile further along the 
macadam brought me to the head of the dirt road. Careful 
to keep my feet from rolling out from under me on the 
loose rocks and pebbles that coat the upper portion of the 
steep road, I began the slow descent. The wall of the 
narrow ravine along which the protection road runs is 
precipitous and overgrown with trees. The murky 
opposite wall also is enshrouded in tall, thick foilage and, 
close as it is to the first wall, creates the impression of an 
enclosed, high vaulted passageway. The trees' upper 
canopies do not come together; in fact, they are some 
distance apart, but the impression is one of an enclosure. 
As a kid, I always avoided Fish Gulch at night; it was 
unsettling how easily the darkness played eerie tunes on 
my nerves. I half expected some night beast to leap out at 
me from somewhere just beyond my vision and I well, 
I'm getting carried away because what I'm describing 
took place a little after noon and I was an adult and didn't 
really have to worry about ghouls and vampires.

"Not watching the road surface as intently as I should 
have while cutting to my right around a sharp bend, I lost 
my wobbly legs to a patch of loose gravel and slipped to 
the ground in an undignified sitting position. I sat there 
on the hard-packed road amid the bits of rocks for a 
while, letting the sting work its way out of my bare 
hands. The small, irregularly shaped red impressions in 
my palms were still screeching at me when I heard itQ
the sound of gravel crunching into the road just ahead of 
me. This time the sound was not an echo of anything I 
had done; the pebbles dislodged by my falling body had 
already reestablished residence elsewhere on the road and 
were quiet.

"The grating and rasping of rock continued toward me 
from the invisible source on the other side of the bend, 
and I tried to coordinate the contracting and stretching of 
muscle pairs in my legs, back, and arms to right myself to 
a standing position, but my mind wasn't sending out the 
proper array of signals. I could not get up. The clash of 
approaching rock grew louder, then the knobby tire and 
spoked rim of a mountain bike slipped around the corner. 
The strength left my arms and stomach muscles, and my 
torso toppled backwards to join my butt and legs on the 
gravelly road.

" 'You ok?' half-gasped, half-grinned the mountain biker 
as he pedaled slowly around my left side. His breathing 
was labored and annoyingly loudQit did not belong in 
the watershed and I would have told him so had I not 
been in such a compromising position. 'Yes, I'm fine.' I 
winced as flecks of sweat flew off his flushed face and 
peppered my own and the road behind it. 'Good' he 
wheezed and continued his grunting ordeal up the road, 
around the bend, and out of sight.

"My strength returned to me quickly once I was free of 
the biker's gasping and hacking, and I resumed a more 
cautious descent of Fish Gulch. As I approached the 
bottom, less than one-third of a mile from where the 
cyclist had passed, it dawned on me that if mountain 
bikers were foolish enough to attack such a steep fire 
road, they, in turn, would certainly be foolish enough to 
descend it. The potential for breaking the law was great. 
So I placed myself in nearby greenery, out of view of 
anyone descending the protection road, but still able to 
monitor it myself. I was close to the outlet and hoped I 
no, I knew I the other RADAR Ranger would appear 
should the law be broken. I kept both my hiding place 
and my silence for nearly thirty minutes before I heard 
the tell tale sounds of rubber pushing aside rock, the 
rattle of loose metal fittings, and the scream of wind over 
a nylon wind shell. The speeding cyclist was in the open 
and just applying her SLR cantilever, low profile, two-
finger-lever type brakes when the other RADAR Ranger 
materialized, standing in front of the still moving bike 
with legs spread and his K-15 in one outstretched hand.

"I was about to reveal myself when the most amazing 
sequence of events occurred. Before the cyclist had a 
chance to get off her bike and face the ranger, a second 
ranger appeared at the side of the first and pushed his 
RADAR gun down with a flurry of speed. Holding the 
will-o'-the-wisp at bay, the new ranger's head cocked in 
my direction and I could clearly see a wink of the eye, as 
if to say, 'This is your law breaker, take her.' Then the 
two rangers disappeared! The entire scene lasted no 
longer than a split second.

"Maintaining as much of my RADAR Ranger composure 
as I could, I walked over to the confused cyclist, who had 
not seen the second ranger materialize, but who was still 
shaking her head, trying to understand what had 
happened to the RADAR Ranger she thought she had 
seen. I ignored her puzzled looks and proceeded to write 
up the ticket. As I did so, I caught momentary glimpses 
of the still struggling RADAR Rangers, first on the north 
side of the protection road, then on the south. They were 
stationary characters flashing on and off the road at a rate 
too fast for normal human eyes to see, lingering only as 
ghostly afterimages on my retina. My eyes darted back 
and forth from the citation book to these image bursts 
several times before I completed the information needed 
by the legal system to collect its money. I handed the 
filled-out ticket to the mountain biker and watched as she 
rode off in the direction of Phoenix Lake, most likely to 
leave the watershed through Natalie Coffin Green Park 
and return home to find comfort from friends and family. 
As for me, I stood my ground.

"More afterimages imprinted themselves on my optic 
nerve, but the frequency of their appearances was 
dimensioning. Soon they stopped altogether, and I found 
myself standing alone in the middle of the intersection of 
Fish Gulch, Phoenix Lake, and Eldridge fire protection 
roads. But not for long: the second RADAR Ranger 
flicked on beside me, smiling and breathing as if she had 
just awakened from a relaxing nap."

April June

At the implied gender of this second ranger, the mountain 
biker sat up straight and muttered, "She?"

"Yes," rejoined the RADAR Ranger, "She. Slightly taller 
than me, she tilted her head down to look at me with steel 
grey eyes that projected an understanding and 
compassion that I had been longing to see in another 
RADAR Ranger's face. She apologized for the behavior 
of her companion, explaining that 'Willy's upset, been so 
ever since his partner headed up the Sonoma coast a 
couple days agoQset out to establish his own pack. 
You're also an unknown element to him, so he's trying to 
mark his territory, letting you know exactly what your 
limits are.'

" 'But he set his limits everywhere I went,' I protested 
mildly, not wanting to upset this RADAR Ranger with 
whom I felt a strong and immediate rapport.

" 'Willy can get carried away with his enthusiasm for 
public service, I agree,' she answered in a sympathetic 
tone. 'But please, try to understand his current state of 
mind and don't think too harshly of him.'

"I smiled outwardly to her, knodding my head in 
agreement. 'Well, I can hardly blame him. With so many 
offending bicyclists riding the watershed, I can 
empathsize with his desire and enthusiasm to uphold the 
law. Bringing down mountain bikers seems so natural 
here,' I admitted, thinking of the less than natural chaos 
and turmoil on Highway 101.

"She returned my smile, then said, 'Do you know where 
Sir Francis Drake Boulevard climbs the hill between 
Fairfax and Woodacre?' When I answered in the 
affirmative, she continued. 'At the top of the pass, you'll 
find a fire protection road on the left side of the street. 
Follow that road on foot until you come to the boarded 
entrance of an old railroad tunnel. There's an opening 
among the boards that you can crawl through. Once 
you're in the tunnel, you'll be able to find usQall the 
mountain's RADAR Rangers will be there. We have 
much to talk about. Be there tonight at 10 o'clock.' She 
stopped talking and handed me her business card."

"What did it say?" asked the mountain biker, unable to 
contain his curiosity.

"In bold, raised letters on the white surface of the card 
were printed the words, 'April June, Head Ranger, Mt. 
Tamalpais Watershed.'"

Tunnel

"I returned to the cruiser at sundown a few minutes 
before Daryl. Intenting to surprise him with my good 
news, I kept as straight a face as I could when he 
approached. 'Any luck?' I asked, the excitement I felt 
hardening my abdominal muscles in a painful squeeze.

" 'I must have hiked a hundred miles,' he replied slowly 
with a long, drawn-out drawl. 'I covered the northeast 
side of the watershed I Yolanda, Six Points, Hidden 
Meadow, Phoenix, Tucker, Eldridge, Hoo-Koo-E-Koo, 
Wheeler I I can't remember all the names, there were so 
many of them. And not a single RADAR RangerQI 
didn't see one solitary ranger! '

" 'I'm sorry you didn't have any success, Daryl, but I' I 
started to say when he cut me short.

" 'No, no, Gordon, I'm not saying I didn't have any 
success. I'm just saying that I didn't actually see a ranger. 
But I did feel their presence I it's hard to explain, but it's 
like when someone is staring at you from behind and you 
can almost feel the energy of the stare, but when you turn 
around, you don't see anyone. That's the way it was today 
out on the watershed. I think they're just checking us out 
before they take us in. I bet that by tomorrow afternoon 
we'll have made contact.'

" 'Not tomorrow afternoon, Daryl,' I said, my words 
floating to him on the back of a low pitched laugh my 
stomach could no longer hold in. 'Tonight I we're going 
to meet them tonight!' And I related my encounters of 
that day. He stood there spellbound and speechless, only 
a slow upward twist of the corners of his mouth and a 
lifting of shagging eyebrows betraying his feelings. 
When I was done talking, I showed him the business card 
with April June's name and title emblazoned on it.

" 'My God, Gordon,' he managed after a heavy silence, 
'we've made contact with a functioning pack of RADAR 
Rangers. And from what you say, they appear whole and 
well, not like that stray creature we discovered at Fort 
Ross. This is marvelous! Mt. Tamalpais may very well 
turn out to be the source from which we all originated I 
we'll find out tonight for sure.' I listened to Daryl 
speculate about our history and origins until the redish 
glow of the LEDs on the cruiser's digital clock showed 
9:30 p.m. The abandoned railroad tunnel was a short 
drive from Deer Park and we set out with our thirty-
minute headstart to verify Daryl's excited speculations.

"Traffic on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard was light and we 
cruised to the top of the hill without another set of 
headlights pushing the darkness from our windshield or 
reflecting off side view mirrors. Like the current, popular 
female bald strip that knifes over the dome of the head, 
leaving two erect, tall outcroppings of hair on either side, 
the boulevard cut deeply into the summit. But instead of 
colorful tattoos portraying sleeping dragons or fighting 
dogs, the two sheer, man-made cliffs on either side of 
Drake were separated by a hard, black layer of asphalt 
with two double yellow lines running down the middle. 
Daryl parked the car on a broad shoulder to the right of 
the lined asphalt, close to the true summit. As we 
hurriedly climbed out of the Mustang and started to move 
away from it, I stepped back and reached around the open 
door with my left hand and grabbed the spotlight from its 
metal clip holder on the dashboard. The halogen lamp 
clear of the door, I slammed it shut with my right hand 
and ran across the roadway to catch up with Daryl.

"I ran the spotlight left to right along the uneven cut of 
cliff facing us. A sheer rock wall unveiled itself under the 
wavering yellow light, but without trace of a protection 
road entrance. I played the light further to the right, and 
then we both saw it at the same time. Thirty yards from 
the peak, where the slope of the hill broke away from the 
vertical and started its quick descent, a jagged outline in 
the top edge of the rock wall indicated the continuation of 
an ancient, higher roadbed. That roadway obviously was 
much older than Sir Francis Drake Boulevard for its 
earthen foundation had been cut out from underneath it to 
make way for the newer thoroughfare. I scrambled up the 
rocky embankment behind Daryl, easily finding hand and 
foot holds. We pushed our way through the low 
undergrowth that partially concealed the roadbed's 
outline on the edge of the machine-made cliff and started 
down the hillside.

"To either side of the fading road, the halogen beam 
revealed twisted copses of scrub oaks, gnarled madrones, 
and rocky outcroppings whose shadows danced willingly 
with the light. The ghostly performance closely 
mimicked the excitement I felt and its rhythm the beat of 
my heart. One hundred-fifty yards from where we 
climbed onto the forgotten roadway, an impression the 
width of a railroad sidetrack angled sharply away from 
our path and ran toward a small hillock to the left. We 
detoured our descent to match the direction of this 
discovery and walked fifteen yards where, immediately 
to our left, a crisscrossing jumble of boards several 
stories high and two-car-lengths wide struggled to 
conceal a black hole emerging from yet another slash in 
the hillside. Judging by the splintery decay and smell of 
spoilage in the lumber, the tunnel had been closed and 
left unattended for 100 or more years. But not all 
creatures could be kept out: near the top of the edifice, 
where the boards did not quite reach the craggy rock 
ceiling of the tunnel, a bird's nest of woven twigs, grass, 
and roadside litter balanced precariously, its occupants 
long gone but sure to return the following spring. And 
directly below the nest, at ground level, a gap between 
two boards was just as sure to lead to a pack of RADAR 
Rangers who were expecting us that very evening.

Labyrinth

"Without discussing our next course of action, Daryl and 
I took turns slithering through the waiting gap, first 
lifting one leg over the bottom board and bringing it 
down on the dirt floor behind, then balancing carefully on 
that leg while we each eased our torso and remaining leg 
through. When my trailing hand and the spotlight it 
clutched joined us in the darkness, I pushed the switch on 
the plastic case down and the beam flashed on. Ahead of 
us stretched the tunnel on a downward slant, back in the 
direction we had just come from. If we followed it for 
one hundred-fifty yards, our position would be parallel to 
the parked Mustang, only five or ten feet lower. Of 
course, several hundred tons of rock and dirt would 
prevent us from seeing the car. Accompanied only by the 
whisper of cloth and the scrape of shoes, we moved 
forward. At any moment, we expected a RADAR Ranger 
to appear and lead us to the rest of the pack, answering 
our questions as we eagerly followed and telling us of our 
history. But one, two, then three minutes of silence 
passed and still no RADAR Ranger.

"Daryl was the first to break our silence. 'Are you sure 
this is the right tunnel? Could there be another one April 
June meant?'

" 'No, I don't think so,' I answered, pausing just long 
enough to hear my words bounce off the encircling rock 
walls. 'This is the only tunnel I'm aware of on this side of 
the mountain. April June described this tunnel, not 
another one. This is where we're suppose to be,' and we 
walked on. Fifty yards further down the slope, the beam 
of the spotlight exposed the entrance to a side passage. 
Without hesitating, Daryl turned left into this dark alley 
way, motioning me to follow. I stepped into the narrow, 
low-ceiling corridor and fell into step behind him. He 
marched ahead with a confident stride, my mounting 
claustrophobia keeping me in close synch with his every 
movement. Daryl didn't appear the least bit worried, 
orchestrating our journey through the murky labyrinth as 
if he'd followed its pathways one hundred times before. 
When I questioned him about our descent into the interior 
of the hill, he said not to worry, that his RADAR Ranger 
sense of direction had taken over and was guiding us to 
the other rangers."

"RADAR Ranger sense of direction?" the mountain biker 
asked, absentmindedly inserting his right foot, up to the 
top of the waterproof Neoprene (TM) socks he wore, into 
the splintered hole underneath the table.

"All rangers have it, although it's more developed in 
some than in others. Put a RADAR Ranger at the fork in 
a trail and show him the helmet a mountain biker wore or 
let him smell his riding socks, and that ranger can follow 
the mountain biker to his current location, regardless of 
how long ago the cyclist passed by. My sense of direction 
wasn't as fully developed as Daryl's then, so I trusted his 
skill to find the others."

"How's your sense of direction now?" asked the mountain 
biker, looking up sheepishly at the RADAR Ranger while 
his right foot worked quietly to widen the hole.

"Fully developed," smiled the RADAR Ranger, showing 
off the gold cap on his lower right bicuspid. "But Daryl 
was leading that night and I was following. He didn't 
need the beam from the spotlight to find his way, but I 
was in no mind to turn it off. If I had been thinking more 
conservatively, I would have switched it off because 
within twenty minutes of entering the tunnel, the bulb 
burned out and we were left standing in an oppressively 
thick darkness. Only Daryl's confidence kept me from 
suffocating in my own fright I his confidence and the 
light that crackled from the matches he struck every so 
often to confirm his bearings. He turned right and left 
seemingly at random. At times the passageways were so 
wide that I couldn't touch either wall with my arms 
outspread. At other times, they were so narrow and low, 
we had to stoop at the waist to get through.

"Once, for ten miserable minutes, we had to slither along 
on our bellies, Daryl leading of course, me with my nose 
close to his heels. When we reached the end of this low 
tunnel, we turned into another with a diameter large 
enough to allow us to move forward on our hands and 
knees. This tunnel ran at an oblique angle to the one we 
had just been in, and we followed it until we could stand 
up comfortably again. Daryl lit a match and we saw yet 
another narrow tunnel flicker ahead of us on a downward 
slant. The ceiling of this one was hanging with drooping 
spider webs, some dangling alone, others clustered in 
dusty shrouds. Staring at them gave me a chill, and I 
looked down at a floor covered with thick mold. Daryl's 
match guttered, then died and we were covered with 
darkness, but this time I was thankful because it blocked 
from view the ancient tunnel's hoary vestments.

"I was about to ask Daryl if he knew how much further 
we had to go when I jumped back, a pressure bearing 
down on my shoulder. 'Shhhhh,' he whispered and fell 
silent, the full weight of his hand still resting where he 
had placed it on my shoulder. I remained rooted next to 
him, the hairs on the nape of my neck bristling. 
SomewhereQin front or behind, I couldn't tell whichQa 
faint noise floated to us. Daryl listened a moment or two 
longer, then grabbed my arm and pulled me forward into 
the unholy tunnel. A veil of cobwebs seized my face and 
I wiped at them desperately with my free hand. In my 
blind panic, I breathed several of the dusty strands into 
my nose and began coughing. Daryl stopped, and I could 
hear his feet slide over the slippery floor as he turned 
around to face me. A movement of air rushed past my 
right ear and I flew forward into him, the smack of his 
hand on my upper back throwing me off balance. We 
both tumbled into the moldy goo on the floor, the impact 
completely dislodging from my throat the cobwebs 
Daryl's unexpected and unsettling swat had failed to 
move.

" 'Sorry, I wanted to stop your coughs before I' he was 
saying to me when another sound descended on us.

" 'Fritz, where's Fritz? What have you done to Fritz?' 
Then, 'I'm coming to get youuuuu.'"

"Daryl was on his feet, pulling me to my own before I 
could muster the strength to cry out, 'Who are you? What 
do you want with us?'

" 'Get a hold of yourself I act like a RADAR Ranger!' 
he shouted and headed deeper into the tunnel with me in 
tow. Behind us I could hear soft panting and the shadowy 
scrape of boots over the slimy chamber floor, then 'I 
coming to get youuuuu.' I accelerated into RADAR 
Ranger speed and shot past Daryl, his hand still grasping 
my arm. Behind us, footsteps quickened to match our 
own, the words moving in a steady stream past my ears: 
'Fritz, where is Fritz? What have you done to Fritz? 
Where I' Ahead of me the tunnel continued to slope 
downward, 'to hell?' I wondered. As if to bear out my 
fears, a faint glow filled the far end of the shaft. 'The fires 
of hell?' Possibly, but I kept running forward, convinced 
that I had a better chance in the nether world than with 
the night beast behind us.

"The strange radiance grew brighter and revealed a tunnel 
that was expanding in all directions. Our legs carried us 
into the middle of the chamber whose gently curved 
walls rose to a height much greater than that of the old 
train tunnel we had first entered. I could only see the 
peak of this ceiling by craning back my neck at a sharp 
angle. A diameter of fifty feet spanned the base of 
upcurving walls and added to the impressive size. 
Directly in front of us, the chamber narrowed into 
another shaft and it was for that dark hole that I headed. 
Daryl, however, pulled me back and pointed at an 
elaborately sculpted archway to our immediate left. Two 
huge wooden doors, each hung to one side, filled the 
opening. 

" 'That's where they are,' he said. 'Behind those doors.' 
We sprinted for them, but before we could lift our fists to 
alert those within that we were present, a figure suddenly 
appeared next to us. Tall and gaunt, he wore the uniform 
of a Mt. Tamalpais RADAR Ranger. It was the will-o'-
the-wisp who had haunted me on the watershed earlier in 
the day. Walking menacingly towards us, he chanted in 
his flat voice, 'Fritz, where's Fritz? What have you done 
to Fritz?' Willy's eyes were blank, and he reminded me of 
the RADAR Ranger on the Sonoma coast. The world of 
RADAR Rangers had once again been reduced to a 
confrontation with a mindless creature, this time in a 
subterranean chamber from hell. 'There is no RADAR 
Ranger pack on Tam we can join,' I thought. 'There are 
no packs anywhere.' The whole series of events that day 
had been a dreadful illusion. We were alone again.

"Having resigned myself to an unending lifetime in hell 
in that one instant, I shook myself loose from Daryl's 
grasp and steeled myself for whatever misery was to 
come. Willy's rough hands were descending over my 
head when the double doors behind us sprang open and 
April June stepped between us. 'You're late,' she said, 
then calmly shuffled Willy through the open doors into 
the next room. Daryl and I exchanged puzzled glances, 
then followed after the mindless ranger."

Pack

"The room was large, but not as large as the chamber we 
had just come through. Unlike that outside chamber, this 
room's obvious source of luminescence were four 100 
watt light bulbs, each hanging from the twelve-foot-high 
ceiling on steel chains. Lamp shades woven from rattan 
diffused the glare of the bulbs' energy, and the room had 
a warm, friendly feeling to it. Including April June and 
Willy, seven RADAR Rangers flanked the walls, each 
looking at Daryl and me with less than friendly stares. 
April June was the first to speak.

" 'I apologize again for Willy's behavior,' she said, 'but I 
expected you much earlier. Had you taken the second 
shaft off the main railroad tunnel instead of the first, you 
could have walked down the staircase directly to this 
room.'

" 'Second shaft? Staircase?' I repeated, looking at Daryl 
who merely shrugged his shoulders.

" 'We built the stairway to avoid the maze you found 
yourselves in tonight,' explained April June. 'Willy 
wandered away while we were waiting, and you know 
the rest.'

" 'Why was Willy mumbling on about Fritz like that?' 
asked Daryl. 'How do you know about Fritz, anyway?'

"April June stared at Daryl for long moments with her 
cold, steel grey eyes. Several of the RADAR Rangers 
shifted their positions uneasily against the wall during the 
lull, causing both Daryl and myself to nervously look 
around. Of the seven present, all were men except for one 
other female. 'RADAR Rangers are pack animals,' April 
June finally spoke. 'I think you know that already. We 
work and live as a team and have a special bond among 
us. It's not telepathy, but we're able to keep track of the 
whereabouts and needs of our members. When you 
neutralized Fritz, we all felt it, but it was too late for us to 
do anything for him.'

" 'Was Fritz a member of this pack?' a subdued Daryl 
asked.

" 'Yes, he was. But he wasn't content with bringing down 
bicycles to uphold the law. He wanted to bring down 
larger and more powerful vehicles.'

" 'Like cars, trucks, vans, motorhomes, and big rigs?' I 
couldn't help but interrupt.

" 'Yes,' nodded the head RADAR Ranger. 'Like cars, 
trucks, vans, motorhomes, and big rigs. From the very 
beginning, he was fascinated with engines and motors. 
'Bicycles,' he often told us, 'depress me.' When he strayed 
from the watershed into the headlands and brought down 
State officials in their pickup trucks, I knew that 
something had to be done. That's when I asked him if 
he'd like to establish his own pack where the big vehicles 
ran. Of course, he said 'yes' and that's how he came to the 
Highway 101 corridor between Novato and the Golden 
Gate Bridge.'

" 'Is that when he made me into a RADAR Ranger?' I 
asked, feeling less timid as April June talked.

" 'You were the first member of his pack, yes. We all 
figured Fritz had chosen well when he picked youQyou 
were already an upholder of the law, of sorts, and only 
needed to have your natural instincts fully awakened. 
Unfortunately, it was after he had converted you that 
Fritz learned of the ill-fated episode with your sister. The 
mental anguish you suffered interfered with the natural 
process of reshaping you into a RADAR Ranger. 
Regardless of Fritz' efforts, you were unable to cope with 
the high horse-powered, fast-paced law breakers of 
Highway 101.'

" 'And Daryl?' I pushed further. 'Fritz changed Daryl 
because he was dissatisfied with me?'

"April June smiled a knowledgeable smile. 'Your human 
emotions are strong, aren't they?' she laughed and the 
other rangers in the room relaxed noticeably, mimicking 
her laughter. 'No, Gordon, he wasn't dissatisfied with 
you. He was saddened that the first of his pack did not 
share in his delight for bringing down big vehicles. By 
nature, we prefer to hunt in packs, but hunting as a lone 
predator is tolerable as long as we have the pack to return 
to. Fritz was able to hunt alone as long as he did because 
he was comfortable with you as a pack member. 
However, when the pressures of being a lone predator 
became too great, he found Daryl and converted him.'"

"April June paused in her narration, the smile on her lips 
still comforting me. There was a question I wanted 
answered and during that pause I carefully selected the 
words to ask it. 'Fritz was always angry with me,' I 
started, 'and his anger seemed to escalate as time passed. 
Did I provoke him into those dark moods?'

"More laughter from the head ranger and her pack. 'Fritz 
was an actor, a chameleon of sorts, just like Willy here,' 
she explained, tapping the will-o'-the-wisp on his back. 
'In fact, Fritz and Willy used to run as a pair before his 
departure. No, Fritz wasn't insanely mad at you I he was 
acting out his fantasies, playing the tough guy. He had an 
anger deep inside him, but that was there before he 
changed you, and I don't think it surfaced as often as you 
imagine. Near the end, what you may have seen as anger 
was probably something closer to confusion. His pack 
was falling apart and he didn't know how to stop it. That 
was my fault.'

"I looked up at her in surprise. 'What do you mean your 
fault?'

" 'I let Fritz go too soon. He didn't know enough about 
being a RADAR Ranger to lead a pack. He was more of a 
pup than an adult when he left us. If I had held him back 
longer, I think he would have made it.'

" 'Where is Fritz now?' ventured Daryl who had been 
uncharacteristically quiet during April June's narration.

"At that question, the smiles faded from the lips of all the 
RADAR Rangers and I could see them nervously shifting 
their weight against the walls upon which they leaned. 
Again, April June answered. "Fritz sat in his patrol car 
just as you left him for over a day. By the time we got to 
him, it was too late.'"

"He did die, then, didn't he?" broke in the mountain 
biker.

"Neutralization doesn't kill us," answered the RADAR 
Ranger, "it strips away our RADAR Ranger nature, a fate 
worse than death. No, Fritz didn't die. Within weeks of 
his neutralization, he was hired as a State ranger at China 
Camp where he's still in charge of building and 
maintaining single tracks for mountain bicycles." The 
RADAR Ranger lowered his head in a moment of 
silence, his eyes clouded over by the painful memory. 
The mountain biker, in the meantime, had worked both 
his Durango (TM) SPD Compatible MTB shoes into the 
yawning hole at his feet. When the RADAR Ranger 
raised his head, the mountain biker looked at him and 
smiled weakly.

"Daryl was growing in confidence and next asked the 
question whose answer we had both longed for, the 
question that Fritz had been too immature to answer: 
'What are our origins?'"

Origins

" 'Before the late 1970s,' began April June without 
hesitation, 'very few bicycles were on the mountain. 
Young children pedaling on the lower slopes was all. 
Nothing like the chaos you see today. I was a regular 
ranger then, hired to keep the watershed in ecological 
balance while working with hikers and equestrians to 
satisfy their recreational needs. In the last few years of 
the '70s, a new element invaded the watershedQteenage 
delinquents and other lawless young adults riding single 
speed bicycles. Not satisfied with the lower slopes and 
unable to pedal the machines up the mountain easily, they 
packed their bikes into pickup trucks and drove to the 
upper ridges where they sped recklessly down single 
tracks and fire protection roads to the lower levels. You 
didn't have to be a RADAR Ranger I besides there 
weren't any yet I to know that racing a bicycle down a 
mountain dirt road was unnatural. Had anyone ever seen 
a deer or a squirrel race a bicycle on the watershed? Of 
course not, it just wasn't part of the natural order.'

" 'At that time, a popular descent for the growing band of 
law breakers was Cascade Canyon fire road. It branched 
off San Geronimo ridge and dropped into a Fairfax park 
where riders piled their bikes into waiting pickup trucks, 
drove back to the ridge and repeated the reckless process. 
I had heard about these high speed descents and drove 
over to the canyon early on a Saturday morning to see for 
myself. I arrived before any of the cyclists and hid in the 
bushes next to the end of the Canyon road. Sure enough, 
by 10 a.m. the cyclists started descending into the park, 
clouds of dust billowing out behind them, a crazed look 
in their eyes.'

" 'A few of these riders were so out of control, smoke 
billowed out of their rear wheel brakes. Smoke! Acrid 
smoke from burning grease was destroying the tranquility 
of that peaceful canyon. I even saw flames licking around 
the outer edges of the brake's metal housing. The dust, 
the noise, the smoke, the smell, the flamesQsomething 
physical in me, at the most basic cellular level, was 
turning, trying to put an end to this unnatural scene. My 
body was trembling violently, a cold sweat soaking 
through my ranger uniform.

" 'Then came the sight that crystalized the great change in 
me: an old guy, at least fifty-years-old, came barreling 
down Cascade Canyon, dust and smoke trailing behind 
his fat rear wheel. When he reached the bottom, he 
jumped off his bike, tossed some water onto the rear 
brake from a bottle of water, watched it sizzle the metal 
housing to coolness, then dismantled the brake and 
repacked it with new bearings. When he was done, 
someone along the side of the ride yelled to him, 'Heh, 
Bob, you ready to do it again?' and this old Bob guy nods 
his head 'yes' and throws his bike in the back of a waiting 
pickup and leaves for the ridge!'

"April June took a deep breath from her diaphragm, her 
chest expanding with the inrushing air. Holding it in for 
half a minute, she expelled the air out slowly through her 
dry, parted lips, and continued. 'Seeing the old guy 
perform his unnatural, mechanical ritual at the base of my 
mountain sealed the change. From that moment on, I 
have been what you see now.'"

The mountain biker's lower jaw hung open, a look of 
disbelief crossing his face. "April June, the mother of all 
RADAR Rangers!" he whistled.

"Yes," acknowledged the RADAR Ranger, "April June is 
the mother from which all RADAR Rangers have 
sprung."

"But how do you become I I mean, you were fully 
grown when I uh I I still don't understand how the rest 
of you I uh I do your springing from April June."

The RADAR Ranger pushed himself up off the chair 
again and walked back to the window he had been drawn 
to all evening. "April June said it was a lot like 
spontaneous combustion. When the conditions were 
right, people who had the basic ingredients for becoming 
creatures of higher actionQRADAR RangersQwould be 
changed by the lingering energy patterns from her own 
transformation. Those patterns would act as a template, 
setting up the change in the receptive cells of the 
individual. She also said that her original patterns of 
energy would never disappear, perhaps even increasing in 
strength as more and more receptives were transformed."

"How many of you are on the mountain now?" asked the 
cyclist.

"Twelve," came the reply.

"And I suppose these disciples of April June will 
continue to increase in number?" the cyclist said, rocking 
noiselessly back and forth on his chair, both his feet now 
poking through the opening under the shadows of the oak 
table.

"Yes, the time is now good for more changes," admitted 
the ranger, still gazing into the blackness on the other 
side of the four-paned window. "And April June says that 
distance can't diminish the intensity and strength of her 
original energy waves. They're everywhere powerful at 
the same time."

"Everywhere powerful at the same time," repeated the 
mountain biker, quietly concentrating on pushing his 
knees through the hole under the table. "I suppose these 
energy waves could affect people in Crested Butte and 
Slick Rock the same as here?" His waist slid through the 
opening just as his feet touched the dry soil under Sky 
Oaks Ranger Station.

"Yes," intoned the RADAR Ranger in a slow drawl. "But 
now that you know so much, I think there's one last thing 
you and I should discuss." And he turned around to face 
the empty oak table, the chair behind pushed back against 
the rough plank wall. Without changing his expression, 
the RADAR Ranger spun around on the heel of his boot 
to face the window. The sound of rock crunching under 
two fat tires led his gaze to a mountain bike stealing into 
the darkness along a single track in front of the station.

"Riding on watershed lands after sunset is against the 
law," he said to his reflection in the window, and he 
headed for the door, feeling for the black, leather-bound 
citation book in his jacket pocket.


Epilog

"He got away from you last night?" April June's voice 
was hard and cold.

"Yes," murmured Gordon. "I thought I had him down by 
Bull Frog, but he must have doubled back on me and left 
the watershed through the Meadow Club."

"And the speeding ticket down Rocky Ridge, what about 
that?" growled the mother of all RADAR Rangers. "Why 
didn't you give him his citation?"

"I'm sorry, April June, I just got carried away. He's one of 
the last, you know, and when he asked to hear about the 
life of a RADAR Ranger up there on the ridge, I was I 
well I I was taken aback, kind of flattered actually. So 
instead of writing out the ticket there and then, I threw 
his bike in the back of the truck and brought him down to 
the station. I just forgot it in the telling of the tale." 
Gordon dared not look at the angry head ranger sitting in 
the passenger seat next to him, didn't have to look to 
know that she was drilling, probing, into his skull with 
her steel-cold eyes.

"Your head still isn't straight, Gordon," she let out in an 
evenly modulated voice, one that Gordon knew was 
barely under control. "Emotions, Gordon, emotions! You 
still haven't got them under control. A man of higher 
action has to control his emotions for the public good. 
How many years has it been since you've worn that tattoo 
on your chest?"

Gordon knew how many yearsQcould still feel the prick 
of the artist's needle on his skin as if it were yesterdayQ
but he kept his silence, knowing full well that April June 
didn't need him to tell her. His chin settled pensively onto 
his decorated chest, then was suddenly snapped up and 
backward as Daryl downshifted into second to make the 
next steep ascent up Eldridge fire road. These modified, 
Delux 30 Chevrolet pickups really packed a wallop he 
thought: Venola forged blower pistons, Crower rods, 
magnefluxed crankshaft, Paxton centrifugal supercharger 
forced induction system I A legacy of Fritz.

Eldridge

"Do you think he's the same one who's been decorating 
the trees at the Rocky Ridge/Rock Springs intersection?" 
Gordon heard April June ask over the roar of the pickup's 
high-performance engine.

For the past fifteen years, someone had been hanging 
Christmas ornaments on a little pine tree that stood at the 
roads' intersection. Colorful, dangling bulbs, silver tinsel, 
strings of glittery beads, hand-carved figures from the 
nativity, even a delicate star perched at the spindly top. 
Decorating trees on the watershed during the holidays, of 
course, was against the law (unnatural, too, according to 
April June) and the rangers had attempted to catch this 
yuletide desecrator of the watershed. Despite careful 
watches, no one was apprehended in the act. In fact, 
during one changing of the guard, the perpetrator 
managed to string glowing, colored lights around the 
little tree, the lights powered through a converter that was 
running off two 12-volt car batteries wired in parallel. 
The skills of this individual wereQApril June fumed 
when she admitted itQon par with those of the 
mountain's RADAR Rangers.

"I don't know," conceded Gordon, wishing she had asked 
Daryl so that he would have been the one to confess 
failure. But she hadn't and Gordon was feeling the onus 
of her anger as the pickup hungrily devoured the hills on 
its way up to Ridgecrest, the paved road that wound 
around East Peak, ran past where the Mountain Theatre 
used to sit (closed years before because of high levels of 
asbestos in the topsoil), and then tumbled along the 
north/south ridge that overlooked Stinson Beach on the 
Pacific Ocean. "But there's only about fifty of the bikers 
who still ride the mountain," he said in an effort to 
change the unfavorable tenor of the conversation. "We'll 
catch himQor themQsoon enough. We've been 
successful in bringing down the other law breakers, we'll 
get them, too. Why, only a few years ago, thousands used 
to ride up here. Look at it now."

Gordon's logic brought a small smile to April June's thin 
lips and she nodded agreement. Before he could continue 
elaborating their successes, the pickup's radio crackled to 
life. "April June," the voice of Willy came through the 
under-the-dash mounted speakers. "A lookout on East 
Peak just reported seeing a mountain biker go up the 
Northside trail off Upper Eldridge. What do you want us 
to do?"

April June snatched the radio's microphone from its clip 
and asked, "Where are you now?"

"On Lagunitas, near Rock Springs," came the answer.

"Drive up to Potrero Picnic area and block that exit," she 
shouted in an uncharacteristically high-pitched, excited 
voice. "Call in another vehicle and have them block the 
lower exit just below Lagoon Road. It's too late for the 
three of us here to catch him at Upper Eldridge, but we 
should be able to block any retreat he attempts by hiking 
down Miller to Northside and waiting there. Call us if 
you hear anything new." She hurriedly recradled the 
microphone on the dash, and, at her signal, Daryl opened 
the pickup's nitrous oxide line into the fuel injectors and 
the three rangers raced toward Miller at RADAR Ranger 
speed.

Miller

Gordon braced himself for the rugged ride over the rocks 
and ruts of Upper Eldridge. Driving at this speed was 
manageable on paved roads, but on the rough surfaces of 
fire roads like Eldridge, even his stoic RADAR Ranger 
nature suffered the jarring bumps and jolts with 
discomfort. The seat belt straining over his lap and across 
his chest, he was momentarily envious of Willy, that 
ranger's partner, and their new companion riding up the 
friendlier and smoother incline of Rock Springs. Willy 
had regained his RADAR Ranger normalcy with the 
return and restoration to health of his original partner I 
the former two-dimensional, celluloid RADAR Ranger of 
the Sonoma coast. The two were model rangers and April 
June had assigned the new recruit, riding with them 
today, for indoctrination. The change had proceeded so 
smoothly that the new female recruit was scheduled for a 
tattooing session in Forest Knolls weeks earlier than any 
of the rangers who had come before her. Gordon secretly 
hoped that he would be the one to catch the single-
tracking mountain biker and regain some of his RADAR 
Ranger credibility.

With the continuous influx of nitrous oxide spinning the 
truck's four-wheel drive tires, the three RADAR Rangers 
arrived at Miller Trail within minutes of having heard 
Willy's call, but not before the lone mountain biker had 
crossed the intersection of that trail with Northside. Two-
thirds of a breakneck hike down Miller toward the 
junction, the walkie-talkie hanging on Daryl's leather belt 
signaled an incoming call. April June, breathing more 
normally than the other two, yanked the radio from 
Daryl's hands as he brought it up to his mouth to answer, 
and said in a steady voice, "April June here. What do you 
have to report?"

"We saw him at the picnic area not less than one minute 
ago, but he saw us first and doubled back," Willy's voice 
squawked over the radio's circuits.

A big, RADAR Ranger grin spread quickly over April 
June's face. "We've got him now!" she said to both sets of 
rangers, the three at the other end of the radio link and 
the two puffing noisely beside her. She handed the 
walkie-talkie back to Daryl, then sped down the trail 
toward Northside, the two rangers falling behind her 
lengthening strides.

Northside

"No one's been back this way on a mountain bike," she 
announced a minute later, looking closely at the square of 
dirt where the two single tracks boldly crossed. "He's got 
to be between us and Rock Springs." Before the speed of 
her legs could match the intensely determined look on 
her face, April June stood straight up and threw both 
arms out at shoulder height, a barrier to the two men 
behind her. The startled rangers were about to speak, but 
she motioned them to silence and pointed to a movement 
of color among the trees 75 yards ahead. The three 
RADAR Rangers moved quickly, but quietly, along the 
trail to the site, then stood looking down at a splash of 
green on the hillside below the trail. To normal eyes, the 
spot was just another green smudge of vegetation. But the 
six eyes scrutinizing it now weren't normal eyes.

"It's a Stealth Mt. Bike Cover (TM)!" Gordon vocalized, 
hoping that April June would credit him with a greater 
share of the capture because he had said it first.

The mother of all RADAR Rangers ignored his 
comment. Instead, she shouted at the finely meshed 
camouflage cover, "Nice try, but we see you. Come up 
now." Expecting the cover to balloon out into the shape 
of a human figure, April June unleashed her frustration 
when it remained motionless. "All right. I'm not playing 
any more games with you," she screamed. "One of my 
rangers is coming down and you better come up without 
any trouble. If you give us any kind of hassle, I'll see that 
your fine is doubled."

"Whooaaa!" thought Gordon. "A thousand dollars. He'll 
be up in no time." But when he didn't come, April June 
motioned Gordon down the embankment to bring up the 
law breaker. Gordon, his heart beating to the tune of 
'Onward Christian Soldiers,' slid down the hill to unmask 
the mountain biker and earn himself new respect in the 
eyes of April June and his fellow rangers. Grasping one 
frayed corner of the green army net with two trembling 
hands, he plucked the light weight web from the ground.

Watershed

When the flurry of leaves that had been scattered on top 
of the mesh settled to the damp earth, Gordon gasped and 
let the Stealth Mt. Bike Cover (TM) fall from his hands. 
At his feet lay a lifeless arrangement of dry-rotted 
branches, a rock the size of a helmeted mountain biker 
head placed at one end. Above the jumbled form, a howl 
of rage split apart the cold morning air. Lacking both the 
courage and desire to look up, Gordon listlessly climbed 
the slippery yards separating him from the trail edge. 
April June had already pulled out her new prescription 
and was pouring a draught of it into the jigger-sized 
plastic cap that topped the bottle. Damitol (TM), Proctor 
& Johnson's newest miracle drug for the hypertense, 
brought April June the fastest and longest lasting relief. 
Gordon was happy to see her put away two capfuls, twice 
her normal dosage.

The reddish brown liquid safely back in her coat pocket, 
April June used Daryl's walkie-talkie to call the two 
teams of RADAR Rangers on Rock Springs. After a long 
conversation with both parties, the mother of all RADAR 
Rangers leaned dejectedly against a madrone whose 
gnarled roots pushed up through the trail at her feet. 
Shrouds of water vapor condensed in front of her face, 
and she pawed at the roots with her boots like an 
exhausted bull.

"Whenever he gets away, our chances of bringing him 
down the next time only increase," asserted Gordon, 
knowing that if he didn't change this defeat into a victory, 
the wrath of April June would be his alone. "Besides, 
Willy brought down a speeding equestrian and the others 
cited a hiker on the fire road while we were waiting 
here." Gordon knew that these little successes would 
brighten April June's spirits. She had long believed that 
horseback riding on the watershed was unnatural I "I've 
never seen a squirrel or a deer riding a horse in the 
watershed, have you? she was fond of saying and had 
subjected horses to the same 5 mph posted speed limit 
reserved for mountain bikers. Hikers, of course, had long 
been banned from protection roads, ever since Fritz had 
complained that they got in the way of his high-powered 
pickups.

"Yes, you're right," agreed April June. "We will get him 
next time. All those two-wheeled bandits will be gone 
soon. And the number of law breaking hikers and 
equestrians has been declining, too. No, I shouldn't get 
upset like this, Gordon. Before long, we'll have the finest 
public, recreational watershed on the west coast."

--
Submitted by John Boeschen <boeschen@crl.com>