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 p