And now we come to the thing, the gestalt of the thing... the chi. The "ghost in the machine".
Colton Harris-Moore, the legendary cult hero and outlaw teen dubbed the "barefoot bandit" of Camano Island, has been offered $50,000 to turn himself in by 3pm next Tuesday. He would be represented legally, pro bono, and have the money held "in trust" while he renegotiated his way back through the very system that he just spent 2 years running away from. And I find myself thinking about my own child who is now also 18, like the young Mr. Harris-Moore. And I ask myself, "Do any of these people so concerned with retrieving his lost future from the ashes of the present have or know any 18 year old kids?" The ubiquitous teen answer is the only answer that can be expected from Colton. "Go fuck yourself."
The system at large trained him. The system was his school. For 5 years, from age 12 to 17, Harris-Moore was absorbed into the system of what passes for justice 'round these parts, and came out of State Regulated High School fucking class valedictorian and BMOC all rolled into one very young man. Highly gifted and well read, he learned the system, suffering the requisite beatings that the system exacts from anyone, and then he left it. Once he saw the hypocrisy, the bureaucracy, his own absent parents in every face he looked at while being processed and prodded (for his own good), he finally got to tell them all to fuck off. Post-adolescent independence defined.
Make no mistake, Colton Harris-Moore is a thief. His story is now officially worth more than his actual life. The petty crimes he executed, which, at one point in our history, were a romantic, poetic art form, are his inevitable reintroduction to a long stretch of again licking the metallic belly of the system. And he knows what I know; that the system is filled to the brim with thieves. Honor among thieves and all.
As The Last Political Pirate of Poverty Bay, I empathize with the dude's predicament. To stay ethically pure and intellectually honest, I must say that I admire his commitment to utter flamboyance and style faced with the enormity and stupidness that sometimes is the justice system at large. And I want him to tell them all to fuck off. And I need him to continue telling them. Unless he stays off the grid, the system will not be repaired.
The way a computer system is debugged is by the programmer (or a hacker) finding all the weaknesses and exploiting those weaknesses. Then the machine and programs can be repaired. This is how Harris-Moore is surviving now. He has booted into a hang loop and is self replicating in the analog world we call home. And believe me when I say that he desperately wants the system to be repaired. But, like me, he does not entirely trust that the system is even a little bit repairable. So when you cannot access the system by customary protocols, you use the back door. So he is exploiting that weakness.
I am 18 years old again. I've just done some ridiculously stupid things and gotten away with them but I'm not sure what I want to do next. So, like in an institution, I develop a routine. The "doing stupid things" part becomes the day job, my schooling replaced with hands-on training. Of course I watch the news, listen to the radio, check the internet. I know what they say about me. And I love being hunted. They can't catch me unless I say so. They won't shoot me; I'm a fucking kid. I'm Colton fucking Harris fucking Moore! Jeez! Momma Tried!
So, hey, bounty hunter! Go fuck yourself! I got scanners, night-vision goggles, all the tools and keys and passwords I need and you won't get within a mile of me without my permission. And I aint in a generous sorta mood right now. And as far as the totally patronizing offer of 50K, well, go hang. You gotta' be shitting me. For my story? The soundtrack to the movie alone will gross 300 times that! Whaddya think, I'm stoooooooopid?
How 'bout this instead? At 3pm on Tuesday I'll steal a plane from Orcas Island, race Richard Bach to Arlington, beat him fair and square, fly south to Seattle, dive the plane into a screaming death-spiral aimed at the KIRO TV studio, and, with cameras rolling, will eject at the last moment before impact and land in the front seat of a convertible BMW parked nearby, and drive to the nearest marina for my next ride back home. Do you have any fucking idea how many caves I've dug on Camano Island? They'll probably end up calling me Colton-bin-Laden.
And now it's 30 years later and my eyesight is fading and my hand a little less fast on the draw, and the circle closes in a few inches every day. Yeah, there's an ending to the story. There has to be. I need that ending. But rest assured that before I give in to the corruption, the deceit and the lies, there will be a reckoning. And I assure you that I will be well paid for it.
I am Colton Harris-Moore.
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