The Monkey Wrench Gang

by Edward Abbey

Clutching his prizes, Hayduke jogged through inky alleyways, outflanking the iron, the law, the police cars shrieking through the city like maddened hornets, reached the safety of his jeep and drove away, out of the city into the velvet dark, untouched.

“I ain’t responsible for an act of God, honey.” “It’s your prayer.” Smith grinned. “It’s His earthquake.”

Smith took a socket wrench from his toolbox, removed a spark plug from the engine block and screwed in an adapter on the head of an air hose. He started the motor, which inflated the boats.

With an intelligence too fine to be violated by ideas, she had learned that she was searching not for self-transformation (she liked herself) but for something good to do.

The heavy-gauge alloy yielded to the flame. Progress became discernible. Obvious. Conclusive. Doc shut off the torch, removed the goggles, wiped his sweating brow. The welcome darkness closed around them. “She’ll go now,” he said. The center post was cut all the way through. The outer posts were each cut more than two thirds through. The great sign rested mostly on its own weight, precariously balanced. A south breeze would make it totter. A child could push it over. Within its gravitational time-space continuum, the billboard’s destiny was predetermined, beyond appeal. The arc of its return to earth could have been computed to within a tolerance of three millimeters.

Hell of a place to lose a cow. Hell of a place to lose your heart. Hell of a place, thought Seldom Seen, to lose. Period.

You’re a woman, you understand about eggs.”