april 26, 2015

"That Ken Roye is a pain in the ass."

"The Butte County attorney? The one who's always suing us about the fires?"

"The very one, sir. Suing, and winning."

"Eh. I don't care about the judgements. We just pass the cost on to Jane and Joe Blow."

"Yes, sir. The ass-pain is not in the money we're ordered to pay, it's in the settlement agreements, where we agree to do things like cut brush around the lines, replace poles, that sort of thing."

"But it's not like we ever do it. We just say we will. And then we don't. And no one cares."

"They care when there's the next fire, and the next Ken Roye suit, and then in discovery they learn we didn't do it."

"Then we just say oops, sorry, we meant to, but didn't quite get around to it, but now we will for sure. And they order us to do what we already said we would, but didn't, and then we say we will, and then once again we don't. And everything goes on like before. This pattern has been repeating for, what, maybe twenty years now?"

"Yes, sir. But our lawyers say some of the judges are starting to get into the yelling."

"So? That's just for show. It's not like they're actually going to do anything."

"The lawyers say that judge in the federal San Bruno case is pretty upset, sir."

"Why?"

"Well, we did blow up all those people."

"First of all, those were the natural gas maniacs; we are in the electricity wing of the company, so that has nothing to do with us. Second: some residential street in San Bruno—who cares? It's not like they blew up Google. The trick is not to blow up or burn down anyone rich, anyone who matters. Or, you know, like burn down a whole town or something. And we are very careful not to do that! Like that Ken Roye pain, who's been establishing for years that we are always making the fires in Butte County: no one cares! Who's ever heard of Butte County? Bill Gates doesn't live there; Joni Mitchell doesn't live there. So, it doesn't count! We burn a little here, a little there, pay off some random singed woodspeople every couple years, then go about our business. Ken Roye. I truly hate that man. Why couldn't he chase some other ambulance? Why did he have to figure out we were starting the fires? Before he came along, there'd be a fire, and people would say, 'whoa, how did that happen,' and we'd say, 'shit, I don't know,' and people would go, 'oh, okay,' and life would go on. Those were the days."

"Yes, sir. About the judge-yelling, sir, our lawyers say that's a bad sign. They say after the yelling, may come enforcement."

"What kind of enforcement?"

"Making us do what we've said we'd do. Replace poles. Clear around lines. Maybe—"

"We are not doing that. That costs money. And we need the money. For the executive rewards cards. For only with the executive rewards cards can we buy the yachts, and only on the yachts may we attain the peace and stillness and wild sybaritic degeneracy that are required for us to enter into the wisdom of how best to bring power to the people.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The judges understand this. They have their own yachts."

“Yes, sir. Still, our lawyers think it would be a good idea for us to make an attempt.”

“What sort of attempt?”

“Well, they said some of our poles are more than a hundred years old.”

“So! That makes them antiques! Antiques are valued!”

“Yes, sir. But one of our lawyers said the thought of going into court on a Ken Roye case to defend us from starting a fire with a pole more than a hundred years old, that gave him ‘a Depends moment.’”

“What is ‘a Depends moment’?”

“I think it meant he drizzled his drawers, sir.”

“Well, if he can’t take representing us when we set fires with poles older than any human being alive on earth, then he can resign and go work as a public defender, and defend people who steal cotton balls from WalMart. With the kind of money we pay our lawyers, they should be happy to defend us even if we go on live television and stab someone in the stomach with a fork, like Charles Manson.”

“Are we going to do that, sir?”

“Do what?”

“Go on live television and stab someone in the stomach with a fork, like Charles Manson.”

“No. Not that I know of. Why? Have you heard differently?”

“No, sir. I just thought you might know something I don’t.”

“No. So far as I know, PG&E is not planning to go on live television and stab someone in the stomach with a fork, like Charles Manson. But, I’ll ask around.”

“Yes, sir. About the hundred-year-old poles—”

“The lawyers do understand that if we start replacing those poles, some of the junior people will have to wait a year or two for their yachts?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But what do they care? Our lawyers, they all already have all their yachts. That’s why they’re our lawyers.”

“Yes, sir. The lawyer who had the Depends moment, he showed me this map, of an area where we have already had a number of Ken Roye fires, and he said the lawyers were thinking maybe we could replace some of the hundred-year-old poles that are there.”

“Why? If it’s already had a bunch of Ken Roye fires, then it’s already all charred, so why should we do anything? It’ll take another hundred years for it to all come back. And by that time, the poles will be two-hundred-years old. They will be super-antiques! People will probably even worship them!”

“But, sir, it isn’t all burned, that’s the point. There’s this town there, that isn't burned—“

“Why? Why would anyone live in a town next to a bunch of hundred-year-old power poles?”

“Well, I don’t think the people know the poles are a hundred years old, sir.”

“Right. Isn’t that always the way of it? They don’t care how we get the power to them, so long as it’s there when they need to go to the Xbox. But as soon as there’s some little problem, like streets in San Bruno suddenly blowing up, then you should hear them scream!”

“Yes, sir. Sir, the hundred-year-old poles in this area not far from this town, they are in a really rugged, hard-to-access area—“

“All our poles are in rugged, hard-to-access areas! That’s what people don’t understand! Our burden is to run power across some of the most forbidding, challenging territory on earth, to bring power to a bunch of strange backwoods gnomes who want to live in places no sane person with a yacht would ever want to go to, except maybe as a sixth vacation home, for a week or two, every fifth summer or so, so long as there are a lot of fish or animals there to stab and shoot.”

“Yes, sir. Anyway—“

“What is the name of this town?”

“Paradise.”

“No it is not! That’s just a shit-made-up-place in the bible! It’s not a town!”

“Well, that’s what they call it, sir.”

“Wait. I think it’s coming back to me now. Is that the place with the fire chief who ran around warning everybody that some day the whole town would burn down?”

“Yes, sir. Chief Howell.”

"'Uncle Ray', they called him. Because these are hillbillies, right? They live in the trees. Like a bunch of animals. None of them own yachts."

"Well, no, sir, I—"

“But nobody important listened to him, right? He was never in any real newspapers, any real tubes, the word never got out even beyond the town, right? And now he’s retired, and he’s forgotten? Right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So it’s like he never happened! We’ll just say he’s a figment!”

“Uh, sir, a fig—“

“And really, why do we care what happens to those people? They were already warned, and they didn’t listen. And you know what happened to people in the bible when they didn’t listen. It sure wasn’t Paradise!”

“Sir, I don’t think our lawyers would want to argue that it’s okay we burned down the town because a man warned them that might happen and so the town was just getting what it deserved according to the bible.”

“They probably won’t want to argue that it’s okay we went on live television and stabbed someone in the stomach with a fork like Charles Manson, either. But that’s what they’ll do, if we tell them to.”

“Yes, sir."

“Alight, alright. We’ll throw a bone to our lawyers. Tell them we’ll replace the hundred-year-old poles feeding into the town of this Howell howler. And then see that it’s done. Then when we’re hit with the next wave of Ken Roye cases, we can say: see! We did what you told us to! We're trying! I mean, look at all these hundred-year-old poles we replaced, all the way hell out in this bumfuckery! By that guy Howell's town. We—wait. This Howell fellow. He’s no longer around, to somehow try to take credit, is he?

“No, sir.”

“Okay, then. Go ahead with it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But you’re the one who will have to tell the junior fellows about the yachts.”

“Yes, sir.”

And so it was done. And so, some years later, came November 8, 2018. There hadn’t been any real rain in more than seven months. It was hot, and it was dry. Everybody who was an animal, mineral, vegetable, they were parched, withered, dry. Waiting for the fall. To begin. November 8, 2018. In Paradise. It came and it went, just a day, like any of the other days, around about then. The wind blew, and it blew hard, but it was just an annoyment, because generally that wind came with rain, and the rains weren’t here yet. But the people of Paradise. They didn’t have long to wait. The rains came in, less than two weeks later. They came, and they stayed. November 8, 2018. In Paradise. A day like any of the other days, around about then. A day with no fire. Nothing burned. Brenda Howell, she did not lose everything to the fire, everything except for an urn, that was all that came through in her safe, an urn that, even before the fire, contained but ashes. The ashes of her father. Martin Ray Howell. Chief Howell. Uncle Ray. And the people of Paradise, they didn’t have long to wait. The rains came in, less than two weeks later. They came, and they stayed. All the wet season. And well into the spring. The rains are here now. They are here tonight. They are all around me. They would be there all night. And they would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eM6bXu3gH0]