Brazen theft and the fall of Rome.

Tasha picked me up at the A-Zone four hours late. I read all the reading material I had to pass the time, but I was thoroughly bored by the time she arrived. Finally, I recognized her petite, black clad frame walking towards me in the distance. Her shoulder length blond hair blew around her face as she started to run towards me.

"Matt!" she yelled, wrapping her arms around me. She was wearing a black shirt with a white cheerleader image on it saying "Cheer!".

"Nice shirt," I said.

"Thanks, I dumpstered it from goodwill. It's my anarcho-cheerleading shirt," I smiled. To say Tasha was a dumpster freak was a bit of an understatement. She earned the pet name "Natrasha" by those who often accompanied her on dumpstering exploits, and the way she would always be the first to jump into a pile of trash gave new meaning to the term 'dumpster diver'. She had a passion for trash.

It had been almost four months since the last time I had seen her in Los Angeles. We met on the crimethinc.com messageboards when she came to LA from Michigan looking for someone to show her around. We had a lot of fun then, touring the fashion district of downtown Los Angeles, going to a show or two, and getting drunk at her friend's house in east LA. She was fun to be around and it was good to see her again.

We walked back to her car where I met Starr, one of her best friends. I climbed into the backseat of the car and saw my digital camera sitting next to me. "Sweet," I said, picking it up. I had ordered it almost a month ago and had it mailed to Tasha where I could pick it up. Finally, I could start taking some pictures for StP. We pulled onto the freeway and began the six hour drive to Mankato, Minnesota.

Mankato was the current home of Tasha's new squeeze, Tick. We were driving there to take him with us on a little road trip back to Lansing, Michigan, Tasha and Starr's lifelong home. We arrived at his house late that night. I introduced myself and promptly fell asleep.

I woke to the smell of frying potatoes. Tasha was making breakfast. I hadn't had breakfast since I lived at my parent's house. I painfully lifted myself from the couch I had been sleeping on that was too short for my height. Walking into the kitchen, I felt slightly on the spot as I met Tick's whole family at once. They were so... normal. Intimidatingly so. They looked like the upper middle class christian family you'd see in a Jesus pamphlet or something. Not that there's anything wrong with that I guess... but it sure made me feel out of place.

I set the table for everyone and sat down to eat. They even said grace. I felt like a little kid spending the night at his friends house, trying to be polite at the dinner table. They were nice people though, and I relaxed after talking to them for a while. Tick was even better. Obviously the "wild one" of the family by far, he had a shaved head and more earpiercings than I could count. Each of his wrists were covered in black rubber circlets and he always seemed to wear the same grey tshirt and green BDU's. Amazingly articulate, he sometimes spun webs of words so complex he confused himself.

Mankato was a small town and it reminded me of the town I had grown up in. Starr, Tasha and I spent the next few days exploring it finding all the places we could score free stuff, and after a few days we had become an elite squad of merchandise liberators. Tasha and Starr went in the back of big chain stores while I went in the front. They came back with dumpstered food, and I came back with stolen merchandise. We cleaned up, and the corporations never knew what hit them.

I know a lot of people out there would view these acts as wrong. I don't. Corporations don't want to charge you a fair price. They want to charge you as much as the market will allow while remaining competative. Corporations don't give a shit about paying a living wage. A corporation's job is to make the most money possible by whatever means necessary. Even if that means running your mom and pop operation out of business (which it always does). It's the way our capitalist system works and if you don't believe me, then you should go to some safer part of the net where everyone agrees with you and no one questions. Corporations aren't held responsible for their actions. The only thing a corporation knows is profit, and in a society that has failed, to deny them that is the only way to hurt them. Well... that, and burning them to the fucking ground.

Either by theft or by boycott, I'll be damned if I'll give them my money.

Okay enough of my little rant. By the time we were through, we had acquired a carload of food and all the miscellaneous supplies we needed for traveling. We took a break by going camping in the lush green woods just past the soybean farm near Tick's house. Beyond the trees was sand and tan vertical walls of earth towering over the small river that carved itself through the area. It was the perfect place to camp, so we built a fire and broke open the cooler of beer we had saved for just such a day. The sun sank behind the horizon yet it remained a warm pleasant night. We sat around the campfire telling stories and finaly settled into our tents later that night.

As we neared the front lawn of Tick's house, his sister came running out the front door towards us. "I have some bad news," she said, visibly distressed.

"What is it?" asked Tick. I was sure their family was going ask us to leave.

"Someone just flew two airplanes into the world trade center, and a third into the pentagon."

I laughed. "That's awesome!"

"That's not fucking funny asshole!" Tasha said, hitting me. I simply couldn't take it seriously. An attack like that wasn't possible. But as we watched the towers fall again and again from every possible angle on every channel, it was true. For the first time in quite a while america wasn't safe anymore.

We had just joined the rest of the world.

I noticed there was something missing from all the news coverage. No one was asking questions. Why would someone do this? What did we do to make someone hate us so badly they would be willing to die to kill us? What was the motivation? It seemed like a question the media cautiously avoided. A question that would later be lauded as "unpatriotic."

I couldn't help thinking that it was about time america realized it wasn't invincible. What do you think is going to happen to a country that bullies around the rest of the world? It was the fall of Rome all over again...