I was rambling down the mean streets of Tiny Town, tinnitus still hammering my ears from Chilliwack's reminder of why the 1970s were the forgettable decade - ooh, baby, dig your polyester - when I saw him coming.
To be honest, I wasn't sure it was him. For starters, he seemed to be, well, groomed. And he was wearing one of those bogus, blue muni Olympic-swag jackets. It wasn't until I spotted the ratty old sneakers, no sox and nascent syphilitic gait that I was certain: J.J.
Too late to avoid his sharkeye gaze; still too soporific from the witty, trance-inducing lyrics of "My Girl" to run, I resigned myself to fate.
"Yo, bro," he said, grinning through tobacco-stained teeth, "Gotta match?"
"You know, J.J., it's been, like forever, since somebody asked me that. No smoke; no match."
He shrugged his shoulders, grabbed a passing tourist and lit his Gauloises Blue off the bewildered man's cigar. It was a tossup as to which stunk worse.
"I can't believe you're still smoking those stinksticks, J.J." But then, I couldn't believe he still drank Colonel Lee bourbon either, especially since he had to go to the trouble of having someone sneak it across the border for him since no self-respecting liquor store would ever think of stocking it.
"What would I be without my bad habits, bro?"
"Healthy?"
"Touché."
"I hate to ask, J.J., but why are you wearing a muni jacket?"
"Gone to work for da man, my man."
"But I thought those jackets were for staff working during the Olympics?"
"Well, yeah. But they got such a good deal on 'em they bought a bunch extra. Buying twice as many only cost 85 per cent more, talk about a savings. Besides, it was something called hotel tax, not real money."
"Well, you've certainly got the patter down. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't you going to work for the muni one of the seven signs of the apocalypse ? What in the world could they have been thinking hiring you on as staff?"
"Not staff. A consultant."
"Oh, well that explains it. They even hired me as a consultant once. So, if it's not prying, on what are you consulting... and I'm not entirely sure I want to know."
"I'm the Peace & Harmony consultant."
The stunned look on my face and the pause that followed - pregnant, delivery, childhood and adolescence - flummoxed J.J. For a moment, he actually looked concerned he'd short-circuited my brain, which he had.
"Peace and Harmony?" I finally said, incredulously. "What moron could hire a former black ops spook, and Whistler's only private eye, to foment peace and harmony in a relatively peaceful and harmonious town?"
"I'm not at liberty to say. I refer to him by his code name: B 2 ."
"Oh yeah, no one's ever going to figure that out. And just what does B 2 propose you do to further peace and harmony? And why for chrissakes?"
"I'm sure you understand, as befits these kind of, well, shall we say covert operations, there's a certain need-to-know paradigm in play to provide the cover of plausible deniability for higher-ups...."
"In English, J.J."
"Without being specific, let's just say I'm working with some scientists at a certain, unnamed pharmaceutical company to determine the optimum level of Fluoxetine one might slip into an unspecified municipal water supply to provide the drinking populace with an overall sense of well being... and complacency."
"You're going to put Prozac in the drinking water? Are you shitting me? Still, I have to admit, it's brilliant. Ban bottled water and then spike the taps with Prozac. Brilliant."
"You said it; I didn't. But you have to admit, as happy drugs go, you can do a lot worse than Prozac... hypothetically speaking of course."
"I almost hate to ask but isn't this a new low, ethically speaking of course, even for you J.J.?"
"Not even close. Look, you have to see things from B 2 's position. You've got a practically un-ruleable town with a lot of hotheads going off the deep end about, oh, asphalt plants, budget overruns, deforestation, muni workers being paid a livable wage, daycare, paid parking, you name it. You've got some hothead groups of unthankful homeowners and bitchy columnists - no offense, bro but... - and councillors who just won't drink the kool aid. Hell, you can see the attraction of the direct approach, can't you?"
"Ja vol, mein kampf. Like I always say, dictatorships are the most efficient form of government."
"Well, you said it, I didn't. But hey, B 2 's got a town to run...."
"No offense, J.J., but I always had this silly, democratic dream that it was the elected officials who set policy, make law, run the town and generally are accountable to da people. Silly me, but I thought the civil servants were, well, servants. Mayor and council make policy, staff carry out policy. Last time I waded through the Local Government Act, that was still the way things shook out."
"Look, I just deal with fact, not emotion."
"Hmmm, where have I heard that before? Okay, J.J., here's some 'facts' to emote over. Fact: Whistler's zoning bylaws typically state 'The following uses are permitted and all other uses are prohibited'. Fact: the IP1 zoning bylaw does not list asphalt production as a permitted use, ergo, it's prohibited. Fact: the folks who wanted to make asphalt tried to get the zoning changed to permit it; they didn't think it was permitted. Fact: they're still trying to get the zoning changed to permit the plant at its new location. If it's already permitted, why change things? Fact: money talks; bullshit walks."
"It's not that simple..."
"And where have I heard that mantra before?"
"...And we have a legal opinion."
"Fact: a legal opinion is an opinion . It's not a fact. If you don't know the difference, pull your head out of your..."
"Legal opinion, legal opinion, legal opinion."
"J.J., pull your fingers out of your ears and stop saying that. It doesn't change the facts."
"You're just being emotional, asphalt hater."
"Dude, I don't give a hang about the plant. And I sure don't want to see the muni spend a hunk of money, especially real money as opposed to hotel tax, to move or buy off any thing or anyone. But it really pisses me off that we can use zoning to screw over someone who's built an illegal suite in their home but we can't tackle something more substantial without running to our lawyers to get a questionable OPINION to hide behind. Puts Orwell's 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,' doctrine in a whole new perspective."
"Maybe. But at least now that I'm working, I can buy you a beer."
"I'll take it, dude. I'm off water."
