Menu
Nancy Reagan
and the
Ark of the Covenant
31.
To get to Peace, California, you follow a state highway to a small county road to a gravel road. I’d never driven on a gravel road before. I was a little worried I’d slip and slide right off it. Somehow, enough of those scattered little rocks stay in place to let you drive almost the same as if you were on a real road.
The city itself is guarded by a stretch of forested hills sitting just beyond miles of open farmland. Driving down the gravel road, I genuinely couldn’t see what was beyond it. I felt a bit like Little Red Riding Hood. When I got to the hills, though, I realized that they were little more than a slip of land. In two blinks of an eye, I was on the other side.
Entering Peace was like driving up to another world. The town seemed to be about two dozen buildings connected by dirt roads. I had mentally prepared for naked hippies or robed spiritual snobs, but it hadn’t even occurred to me that there wouldn’t be anywhere to park.
Around the outside of town were old, wooden buildings maintained with an obvious and colorful patchwork of repairs. It seems that when one of the old roofs starts to cave in, they replace it with whatever wood they have lying around and then paint the thing blue as if to say that they never wanted the patch to blend in in the first place. Cumulatively, it gave the impression of a dust bowl era California farming town that had caught a case of clown pocks.
In the center of town were seven large WPA buildings built during the New Deal, half stone and half concrete. When the hippies who founded Peace were looking for a ghost town to take over, I’m sure they couldn’t believe their luck in finding such sturdy, open public buildings. All seven had been completely repainted in the forty or so years since their original construction. The buildings all featured one or two bright colors laid down as a base coat over which the citizens of Peace could vandalize with a patchwork of portraits, groovy phrases, and psychedelic shapes and colors. The only places immune to this endless scrawling were two psychedelic murals, one of which featured animals worshiping some sort of dancing sun god and the other featuring a series of homely men I assume to be the Grateful Dead. There were no pristine walls to be seen. It’s hard to believe that people could really live in such a dump.
I left my car more or less where the road stopped. By the time that I got out of the car, some earth mother was rushing over, asking what she could do for me. It took me a second to realize that this woman didn’t know who I was. I breathed a sigh of relief. I don’t think I have many fans in Peace. I told her that I was looking for Nick Koenig and she pointed me to an old farmhouse with a neon green chimney and a tree growing out of the side. I went up and knocked on the door. A fifty year old man in a Women’s Worker's Party for American Socialism shirt and hiking pants answered the door and said, “Thank goodness you’re here, Nancy. I’ve been waiting all day.”
32.
Nick prepared a pot of tea as I sat down at the table. It seemed rude not to go through a few social niceties before moving on to business. As you might expect in a town like Peace, the tea tasted like shit. He asked where I had driven in from and I told him about my trip to Los Angeles. We found that we knew a few people in common, though it seemed like he hadn’t talked to any of them in over a decade. Then I asked him how an FBI agent ended up in a place like PEACE?
He explained that in the late sixties, he was in Berkeley keeping tabs on a handful of Marxist reading groups when J. Edgar Hoover called him in for an off the books meeting. Hoover wanted him to embed with a group of anarchist writers who had taken over the newsletter of the Post Street Commune. When they started trying to raise some money to start a farm a few hours south, Hoover asked him to tag along.
I had heard about Hoover having these sorts of off the books passion projects before, but had always felt a little confused by the whole thing. Who pays them? Hoover? From his bureaucrat's salary? I couldn’t ask. These people worship secrets.
Nick explained that when Hoover died, he waited for someone to reach out, but no one did. He wrote letters to old friends, but never heard back. He started applying for jobs in intelligence only to find that the records of his FBI employment had been destroyed. Eventually, he caught the attention of someone important and they sent a couple stooges to convince him to settle down. He implied that some threats were made, but he chose his words carefully to avoid accusing anyone of anything. Only left with hints and suggestions, it was hard to tell just how bad to feel for him.
They told him to sit pretty and, when the dust had settled, they’d bring him in. Now, eight years later, he was looking at me like his savior arrived.
33.
“So are you planning to bring me back with you?”
I noticed that he didn’t ask, “Will you bring me back with you?” He wanted to know whether his fate had been considered in this transaction at all. I was embarrassed to tell him the truth. I didn’t want to promise something that I couldn’t deliver. The last thing I need in my life is a vengeful spy following me around. But I worried that “Could I make a couple phone calls real quick?” might be the wrong answer.
I thought too long. In less than three seconds, I could see on his face that he understood.
“They didn’t tell you anything about me, huh?”
“Only that you had something I was supposed to come get.” I pulled the stuffed envelope of money out of my purse, “And that I would pay you this.”
We looked at each other tensely.
I asked him, “What did Roy Cohn tell you when he called?”
He looked at me confused. “He didn’t call me. It was some woman I didn’t know. She told me that you were coming, that you needed the Chaplin parcel, and that you’d be bringing me my way out of Peace.”
Now we looked at the stuffed envelope, understanding that this pay-off was as far as anyone in Washington had thought this through. I could tell that Nick was not happy with this severance package.
For half a second, I thought I saw Nick genuinely furious. Then, in the blink of an eye, all I could see on his face was focus. In a tone softer than anything he had said all day, he tried, “Will you help me?”
I didn’t know what else to say. I felt so bad for him. “Sure. It seems like the least I could do to help a fellow human in need.”
I was a bit taken aback by my own answer. It didn’t really sound like me.
And when I looked back at Nick, it looked like his head was turning into a pumpkin.
34.
For a moment, I felt dizzy. Then I felt perfect.
I looked at Nick and saw he was a hundred miles away. Then I rubbed my eyes and realized that we were still sitting at the table.
I don’t do drugs. But I realized that drugs were happening.
Looking back on it, it’s a little funny. You always hear about the intelligence community using drugs as a weapon, but you never expect to be the one goobered up. I am a little disappointed that my one experience “being stoned” was out in Peace. While I don’t believe in drugs, I’ve always been more intrigued by the Studio 54, metropolitan drug crowd. At least they still appreciate the importance of the right outfit.
Then the loud music started. My current theory is that Nick could see that the LSD he slipped into my tea was kicking in and he turned on the music to drown out my screams. If the thought had occurred to me at the time, I would have been terrified. I just thought that the drugs were going crazy. I guess if I had thought about how much danger I was in, I would have made different decisions.
Looking to the window, I could see beams of light passing through the glass and twisting into colors before reaching my eyes. That same light was breathing life into the tall grass surrounding the house. The deep greens, honeyed ambers, and lilting purples of the grassy field were glowing. The wind sent waves gliding down the hills, but I noticed an independent wave moving in a straight line towards the house. Then, into the clearing, arrived a shaggy, bounding golden retriever.
I ran to see the dog. Nick thought I was running away.
35.
Lucky for me, the dog’s owner came out of the forest about the same time that I came out of the house. As Nick came chasing after me, the woman shouted, “Hello Nick! Lovely day, isn’t it?”
The dog’s name is Hashbrown. He likes to be scratched behind the ears, but he doesn’t want anyone touching his belly. I threw a stick for him and he watched it fly before jogging over and laying at my feet.
Hashbrown’s owner, Tatum, ran up and hugged me. She introduced herself and gave me a treat to give to Hashbrown. When I held it out and told him to sit, he jumped up, slammed into my chest, and knocked me over. The combination of LSD and Hashbrown licking my face clean tickled so bad I thought I’d never breathe again. Thankfully, Tatum pulled him off and gave me a hand up.
She asked, “Have we met before? You look familiar.”
So I responded, “My husband’s president. Did you know that?”
She lightly put a hand on each of my cheeks and pointed my face at hers. “Are you tripping?”
“No, your dog pushed me over, dude.”
This is the first and only time I’ve called someone “Dude.” Given the circumstances, I don’t think I can be held responsible.
I asked Tatum if she wanted to come in for a cup of tea and Nick started to panic. He rushed, “I don’t know Nancy. Weren’t you saying that you had to go pretty soon?”
Tatum looked at him confused. “Where’s she going to go, Nick? She’s loaded.”
“Yeah, I got some money,” I beamed.
Suddenly, all three of us were sitting at the kitchen table. For the first time since the music started, I remembered that Nick had drugged me. I didn’t quite have the self-control needed to act politically in this situation, so I just said, “Nick drugged me. Please help me.”
And in the blink of an eye, Tatum sprinted out of the house.
36.
I’ll tell you what I remember happening, but it doesn’t always make sense.
I ran over to the stairs. Above the landing hung a painting of Nick as a much younger man. It was so realistic I was afraid he was going to start sprinting down the stairs and grab me. Instead, the painting turned to fire. I ran the other direction towards a shadowy, pink hallway. I tried to make it to the door at the end of the hallway, but before I could, the house unraveled into lines and curves. As the hardwood beneath me rearranged into a series of patterns and movements, I fell through the floor.
In the basement was an abandoned study. All the furniture was covered in old sheets. The floor was coated in dust. It took me a moment to get back on my feet, but once I did I heard, “Thank goodness I found you.” I froze, as if I was hiding from a dinosaur. But it wasn’t a dinosaur. It was Tatum. She’d gone for back-up and brought two men with her. One was wearing a suit and the other looked like a squirrel. I wasn’t sure what chance we had against Mr. FBI, but I was ready to take any help I could get.
The squirrel man pulled the line on a lamp to light up the room, but it was a trick lamp. When he pulled it, a door opened in the wall. Through the door was a mysterious path lit by glowing orbs. Tatum said that we should find a way outside, but I was too high for that. I’d lost control. I had no choice but to follow the orbs.
I went into the darkness and followed the path towards a dim, growing light in the distance. After what felt like half an hour, I made it to an open door, pulsing with light. When my eyes finally adjusted, I saw what might be the most beautiful little library in the entire world.
The library was octagonal, with a vaulted opening revealing a second story. The walls were filled with books being bathed in the warm light of the sun. In the center of the room was a humble altar with a stuffed shoe box resting atop its ominous presence. In marker, someone had scrawled, “Veridis Quo.” I knew in a moment that the shoebox was mine.
As I opened the box, I felt the demons in the house awake. They were not scared of me. That was fine. I was not scared of them either. I was connected to the house and everything in it. Suddenly, I knew everything that was in the shoebox without having to read it.
The information bloomed inside me. It was terrible. I couldn’t wait to destroy it.
37.
Tatum snapped me out of my trance as two robed men entered the library, pointing lasers at us. As they marched us into the deep caves below the building, I could hear a terrifying song in the distance. Though the notes were soft and lilting, there was a bass that rumbled the ground beneath my feet.
At the end of the cave, we found the sound. It was Nick leading a choir of demons. These demons had robes just like the men who held us at laser-gunpoint, but they had no bodies. Only shadows and glowing red eyes.
The music dripped into my ears like water, feeding the plant of knowledge that had taken root in my mind. It was like Nick’s life was being projected into me. I couldn’t escape the images of the people Nick had informed on. I watched yippies throwing pies at politicians and running from police officers at smoke-ins. I watched women burning bras and raising their children in communal homes. I watched the founders of Peace, forced out of the abandoned home they were squatting in, moving out to the country. And behind it all, I watched Nick, taking notes and spreading rumors.
By this point, the choir was growing wild. Their song built louder and louder. The stone walls started to crumble. It seemed like they were about to tear the cave apart.
Then, in one swift motion, Nick threw his hands straight into the air. As he did, the ground opened up. A giant crevasse split the room in two, with only the thinnest of stone bridges over the river of magma below. On the other side of the bridge were two towers of light. I knew that if he stood in one with me in the other, I would be under his control.
Nick gestured to the laser men who started to shove me forward with the butts of their guns. I tried to resist, but the demons surrounded me and started pulling at my clothes, dragging me towards the crevasse. At the foot of the bridge, I leapt forward and threw the box into the river of magma.
The song stopped.
Silence.
Until Nick shrieked and ran at the box, leaping into the crevasse. Like lemmings, his demons followed him, swallowed by the river of fire.
Tatum asked me what was in that box and, as I opened my mouth to tell her, I collapsed.
The next thing I remembered, I was waking up in the forest outside of Peace. Lucky for me, there seemed to be some sort of fire happening in town, so I was able to sneak to my car in the chaos and drive away.
To get to Peace, California, you follow a state highway to a small county road to a gravel road. I’d never driven on a gravel road before. I was a little worried I’d slip and slide right off it. Somehow, enough of those scattered little rocks stay in place to let you drive almost the same as if you were on a real road.
The city itself is guarded by a stretch of forested hills sitting just beyond miles of open farmland. Driving down the gravel road, I genuinely couldn’t see what was beyond it. I felt a bit like Little Red Riding Hood. When I got to the hills, though, I realized that they were little more than a slip of land. In two blinks of an eye, I was on the other side.
Entering Peace was like driving up to another world. The town seemed to be about two dozen buildings connected by dirt roads. I had mentally prepared for naked hippies or robed spiritual snobs, but it hadn’t even occurred to me that there wouldn’t be anywhere to park.
Around the outside of town were old, wooden buildings maintained with an obvious and colorful patchwork of repairs. It seems that when one of the old roofs starts to cave in, they replace it with whatever wood they have lying around and then paint the thing blue as if to say that they never wanted the patch to blend in in the first place. Cumulatively, it gave the impression of a dust bowl era California farming town that had caught a case of clown pocks.
In the center of town were seven large WPA buildings built during the New Deal, half stone and half concrete. When the hippies who founded Peace were looking for a ghost town to take over, I’m sure they couldn’t believe their luck in finding such sturdy, open public buildings. All seven had been completely repainted in the forty or so years since their original construction. The buildings all featured one or two bright colors laid down as a base coat over which the citizens of Peace could vandalize with a patchwork of portraits, groovy phrases, and psychedelic shapes and colors. The only places immune to this endless scrawling were two psychedelic murals, one of which featured animals worshiping some sort of dancing sun god and the other featuring a series of homely men I assume to be the Grateful Dead. There were no pristine walls to be seen. It’s hard to believe that people could really live in such a dump.
I left my car more or less where the road stopped. By the time that I got out of the car, some earth mother was rushing over, asking what she could do for me. It took me a second to realize that this woman didn’t know who I was. I breathed a sigh of relief. I don’t think I have many fans in Peace. I told her that I was looking for Nick Koenig and she pointed me to an old farmhouse with a neon green chimney and a tree growing out of the side. I went up and knocked on the door. A fifty year old man in a Women’s Worker's Party for American Socialism shirt and hiking pants answered the door and said, “Thank goodness you’re here, Nancy. I’ve been waiting all day.”
32.
Nick prepared a pot of tea as I sat down at the table. It seemed rude not to go through a few social niceties before moving on to business. As you might expect in a town like Peace, the tea tasted like shit. He asked where I had driven in from and I told him about my trip to Los Angeles. We found that we knew a few people in common, though it seemed like he hadn’t talked to any of them in over a decade. Then I asked him how an FBI agent ended up in a place like PEACE?
He explained that in the late sixties, he was in Berkeley keeping tabs on a handful of Marxist reading groups when J. Edgar Hoover called him in for an off the books meeting. Hoover wanted him to embed with a group of anarchist writers who had taken over the newsletter of the Post Street Commune. When they started trying to raise some money to start a farm a few hours south, Hoover asked him to tag along.
I had heard about Hoover having these sorts of off the books passion projects before, but had always felt a little confused by the whole thing. Who pays them? Hoover? From his bureaucrat's salary? I couldn’t ask. These people worship secrets.
Nick explained that when Hoover died, he waited for someone to reach out, but no one did. He wrote letters to old friends, but never heard back. He started applying for jobs in intelligence only to find that the records of his FBI employment had been destroyed. Eventually, he caught the attention of someone important and they sent a couple stooges to convince him to settle down. He implied that some threats were made, but he chose his words carefully to avoid accusing anyone of anything. Only left with hints and suggestions, it was hard to tell just how bad to feel for him.
They told him to sit pretty and, when the dust had settled, they’d bring him in. Now, eight years later, he was looking at me like his savior arrived.
33.
“So are you planning to bring me back with you?”
I noticed that he didn’t ask, “Will you bring me back with you?” He wanted to know whether his fate had been considered in this transaction at all. I was embarrassed to tell him the truth. I didn’t want to promise something that I couldn’t deliver. The last thing I need in my life is a vengeful spy following me around. But I worried that “Could I make a couple phone calls real quick?” might be the wrong answer.
I thought too long. In less than three seconds, I could see on his face that he understood.
“They didn’t tell you anything about me, huh?”
“Only that you had something I was supposed to come get.” I pulled the stuffed envelope of money out of my purse, “And that I would pay you this.”
We looked at each other tensely.
I asked him, “What did Roy Cohn tell you when he called?”
He looked at me confused. “He didn’t call me. It was some woman I didn’t know. She told me that you were coming, that you needed the Chaplin parcel, and that you’d be bringing me my way out of Peace.”
Now we looked at the stuffed envelope, understanding that this pay-off was as far as anyone in Washington had thought this through. I could tell that Nick was not happy with this severance package.
For half a second, I thought I saw Nick genuinely furious. Then, in the blink of an eye, all I could see on his face was focus. In a tone softer than anything he had said all day, he tried, “Will you help me?”
I didn’t know what else to say. I felt so bad for him. “Sure. It seems like the least I could do to help a fellow human in need.”
I was a bit taken aback by my own answer. It didn’t really sound like me.
And when I looked back at Nick, it looked like his head was turning into a pumpkin.
34.
For a moment, I felt dizzy. Then I felt perfect.
I looked at Nick and saw he was a hundred miles away. Then I rubbed my eyes and realized that we were still sitting at the table.
I don’t do drugs. But I realized that drugs were happening.
Looking back on it, it’s a little funny. You always hear about the intelligence community using drugs as a weapon, but you never expect to be the one goobered up. I am a little disappointed that my one experience “being stoned” was out in Peace. While I don’t believe in drugs, I’ve always been more intrigued by the Studio 54, metropolitan drug crowd. At least they still appreciate the importance of the right outfit.
Then the loud music started. My current theory is that Nick could see that the LSD he slipped into my tea was kicking in and he turned on the music to drown out my screams. If the thought had occurred to me at the time, I would have been terrified. I just thought that the drugs were going crazy. I guess if I had thought about how much danger I was in, I would have made different decisions.
Looking to the window, I could see beams of light passing through the glass and twisting into colors before reaching my eyes. That same light was breathing life into the tall grass surrounding the house. The deep greens, honeyed ambers, and lilting purples of the grassy field were glowing. The wind sent waves gliding down the hills, but I noticed an independent wave moving in a straight line towards the house. Then, into the clearing, arrived a shaggy, bounding golden retriever.
I ran to see the dog. Nick thought I was running away.
35.
Lucky for me, the dog’s owner came out of the forest about the same time that I came out of the house. As Nick came chasing after me, the woman shouted, “Hello Nick! Lovely day, isn’t it?”
The dog’s name is Hashbrown. He likes to be scratched behind the ears, but he doesn’t want anyone touching his belly. I threw a stick for him and he watched it fly before jogging over and laying at my feet.
Hashbrown’s owner, Tatum, ran up and hugged me. She introduced herself and gave me a treat to give to Hashbrown. When I held it out and told him to sit, he jumped up, slammed into my chest, and knocked me over. The combination of LSD and Hashbrown licking my face clean tickled so bad I thought I’d never breathe again. Thankfully, Tatum pulled him off and gave me a hand up.
She asked, “Have we met before? You look familiar.”
So I responded, “My husband’s president. Did you know that?”
She lightly put a hand on each of my cheeks and pointed my face at hers. “Are you tripping?”
“No, your dog pushed me over, dude.”
This is the first and only time I’ve called someone “Dude.” Given the circumstances, I don’t think I can be held responsible.
I asked Tatum if she wanted to come in for a cup of tea and Nick started to panic. He rushed, “I don’t know Nancy. Weren’t you saying that you had to go pretty soon?”
Tatum looked at him confused. “Where’s she going to go, Nick? She’s loaded.”
“Yeah, I got some money,” I beamed.
Suddenly, all three of us were sitting at the kitchen table. For the first time since the music started, I remembered that Nick had drugged me. I didn’t quite have the self-control needed to act politically in this situation, so I just said, “Nick drugged me. Please help me.”
And in the blink of an eye, Tatum sprinted out of the house.
36.
I’ll tell you what I remember happening, but it doesn’t always make sense.
I ran over to the stairs. Above the landing hung a painting of Nick as a much younger man. It was so realistic I was afraid he was going to start sprinting down the stairs and grab me. Instead, the painting turned to fire. I ran the other direction towards a shadowy, pink hallway. I tried to make it to the door at the end of the hallway, but before I could, the house unraveled into lines and curves. As the hardwood beneath me rearranged into a series of patterns and movements, I fell through the floor.
In the basement was an abandoned study. All the furniture was covered in old sheets. The floor was coated in dust. It took me a moment to get back on my feet, but once I did I heard, “Thank goodness I found you.” I froze, as if I was hiding from a dinosaur. But it wasn’t a dinosaur. It was Tatum. She’d gone for back-up and brought two men with her. One was wearing a suit and the other looked like a squirrel. I wasn’t sure what chance we had against Mr. FBI, but I was ready to take any help I could get.
The squirrel man pulled the line on a lamp to light up the room, but it was a trick lamp. When he pulled it, a door opened in the wall. Through the door was a mysterious path lit by glowing orbs. Tatum said that we should find a way outside, but I was too high for that. I’d lost control. I had no choice but to follow the orbs.
I went into the darkness and followed the path towards a dim, growing light in the distance. After what felt like half an hour, I made it to an open door, pulsing with light. When my eyes finally adjusted, I saw what might be the most beautiful little library in the entire world.
The library was octagonal, with a vaulted opening revealing a second story. The walls were filled with books being bathed in the warm light of the sun. In the center of the room was a humble altar with a stuffed shoe box resting atop its ominous presence. In marker, someone had scrawled, “Veridis Quo.” I knew in a moment that the shoebox was mine.
As I opened the box, I felt the demons in the house awake. They were not scared of me. That was fine. I was not scared of them either. I was connected to the house and everything in it. Suddenly, I knew everything that was in the shoebox without having to read it.
The information bloomed inside me. It was terrible. I couldn’t wait to destroy it.
37.
Tatum snapped me out of my trance as two robed men entered the library, pointing lasers at us. As they marched us into the deep caves below the building, I could hear a terrifying song in the distance. Though the notes were soft and lilting, there was a bass that rumbled the ground beneath my feet.
At the end of the cave, we found the sound. It was Nick leading a choir of demons. These demons had robes just like the men who held us at laser-gunpoint, but they had no bodies. Only shadows and glowing red eyes.
The music dripped into my ears like water, feeding the plant of knowledge that had taken root in my mind. It was like Nick’s life was being projected into me. I couldn’t escape the images of the people Nick had informed on. I watched yippies throwing pies at politicians and running from police officers at smoke-ins. I watched women burning bras and raising their children in communal homes. I watched the founders of Peace, forced out of the abandoned home they were squatting in, moving out to the country. And behind it all, I watched Nick, taking notes and spreading rumors.
By this point, the choir was growing wild. Their song built louder and louder. The stone walls started to crumble. It seemed like they were about to tear the cave apart.
Then, in one swift motion, Nick threw his hands straight into the air. As he did, the ground opened up. A giant crevasse split the room in two, with only the thinnest of stone bridges over the river of magma below. On the other side of the bridge were two towers of light. I knew that if he stood in one with me in the other, I would be under his control.
Nick gestured to the laser men who started to shove me forward with the butts of their guns. I tried to resist, but the demons surrounded me and started pulling at my clothes, dragging me towards the crevasse. At the foot of the bridge, I leapt forward and threw the box into the river of magma.
The song stopped.
Silence.
Until Nick shrieked and ran at the box, leaping into the crevasse. Like lemmings, his demons followed him, swallowed by the river of fire.
Tatum asked me what was in that box and, as I opened my mouth to tell her, I collapsed.
The next thing I remembered, I was waking up in the forest outside of Peace. Lucky for me, there seemed to be some sort of fire happening in town, so I was able to sneak to my car in the chaos and drive away.
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