On a recent Thursday night, I sat in on an art and activism class at the Santa Fe Community College. We spoke about the work of Chicago artist Gregory Green who, in the decade prior to 9.11 created an ongoing barrage of book bombs, LSD laboratories, radio-controlled missiles, nuclear warheads and the like, positioning them both in gallery and public spaces. His provocative agitation art, especially when displayed on billboards or accompanied by how-to instructions for constructing explosives, pirate communications and drugs from common materials, was threatening and difficult for many in a pre-9.11 world. But now it's simply unacceptable, in poor taste, perhaps even definable as the ultimate American write-off du jour, "aiding the terrorists."
But Green isn't a bomb builder or a terrorist sympathizer, he's an artist and his work is more important than ever now. In naming our gravest fears and confronting us with the facility with which a terrorist device might be assembled, Green manages to convey that such devices can't be prevented in a free society. In fact they
can't even be prevented in an environment of intrusive surveillance and intensive security (witness the German occupation of Europe, the Israeli occupation of Palestine or the US occupation of Iraq). Thus, Green's homemade and intensely violent constructions point to the futility of control and the necessity for communication and conflict resolution instead. Yet, the nation has deferred so greatly to fear that to see a suitcase bomb constructed by Green is to see only an enemy. Such things, like anything falling into the realm of "national security" are perceived with an astonishing and mind-numbing literalism.
In accordance with the diabolic rules of Karma, the day after talking bombs and missiles at the Community College, I found myself going through airport security in Albuquerque. Now, this is a process that, though deeply annoying, is generally not worth the trouble of resisting. Thus, like the other sheep, I've become fairly skilled at zipping through. By the time I reach the metal detectors and scanning equipment, my shoes are unlaced and loosened, my pen and all my spare change, my belt and anything remotely metallic in my pockets or on my body is in a tub and ready for processing. In my experience, airport security personnel are not well-paid and certainly not well-treated and consequently they efficiently cycle their brains down to a "low-power draw" level and direct most of their analytic power toward rehashing alternate outcomes for previously aired episodes of
Fear Factor
. In other words, it is best to avoid contact with them, as interrupting their reverie can be painful. I do everything possible to stay below their radar, which, as a 200-pound bald man is difficult.
Nonetheless I was surprised, but polite, when my shoulder bag was scanned a second time and I was informed that a search would be necessary. We stepped to the side of the queue and over to one of the little, stainless steel, rifle-through-your-stuff stations. After several gleeful lunges through the contents of my bag, the security guard emerged with the offending item. A plastic sleeve with 5 sizes of allen wrenches, or hex keys, as they are sometimes called. I carry them in order to make quick adjustments on my bicycle and I had forgotten to unpack them. He looked me squarely in the eye, his pupils twinkling with triumph. "This," he proclaimed, "is a tool."
Yes, I nodded.
"Tools are not allowed." I considered how the toothbrush peeking from my open bag was considered to be a deadly object in any prison, not only able to be filed into a shank, but the bristles able to be melted together and sharpened into a razor blade-style device.
"I've seen the sign that says no tools," I admitted, "but it also specifically says, 'such as hammers and screwdrivers.' Those are easy to use as weapons. My pen right here is a better weapon than those allen wrenches."
But it's a tool, he repeated with conviction and suspicion.
I considered how simple it would be to hone the aluminum ends of the extendable handle on my rolling suitcase into completely hidden but razor-sharp brain-coring devices. I thought of how a minor modification to the axle connecting my suitcase wheels would allow me to pull them off and wield them with something very close to the destructive power of a pro-grade framing hammer.
"Yes, I agree that it's a tool," I said, "But do you really believe that the spirit of this particular regulation is meant to prevent me from flying with a couple allen wrenches?"
He shrugged his shoulders and pawned it off on "those guys in DC."
"Maybe" he guessed, "they're afraid you might take something apart on the plane?" I wondered how long it would take me to sharpen the edge of a credit card or to construct a shank from a plastic miniature bottle of Wild Turkey. "Maybe the wing," I offered, heading back to the main terminal to arrange for the safekeeping of my tiny wrenches before getting back in line to go through the whole security process once again.
For the record, should you desire to dismantle something on a Boeing 737 without drawing immediate suspicion you are pretty much limited to your tray table or the toilet, and you'll need to sneak on board with a phillip's head screwdriver and a 10-12 mm box wrench. I would have had better luck taking something apart with a penny than with a set of allen wrenches. Oh, well. I did order the Wild Turkey, but trapped as I was between two "plus-sized" gentlemen I couldn't have used my arms to alter the bottle into a shank even if I'd wanted to. Instead I tilted my body forward-and I'm not kidding here-chewed through the cap and slurped down the contents, gaining an approximation of breathing room as my seatmates edged away from me, and thinking peacefully of the next time I could get to Chicago and examine some bombs.
