THE DUTY CREW

Drezella Fusten used her teeth to pull the cuff of her left glove down to view the face of her watch. She put the bullhorn to her mouth. “It’s 1-inute to 1100. Get ready everyone. The bus is due any minute. Hold those signs high.” Her breath and that of all the other pacing protesters looked like unhurried steam issuing from respective noses and mouths at the same time.

Most of the protesters complied. Fusten had needed the bullhorn to cut through the background noise of the generators from the media trucks, the idling cars and the gurgling diesel engine of the “Iona Dell for Peace” bus. Nick Pustacia waved Fusten over to him.

“You gotta tell everyone not to step in front of the buses. Turn the volume up a little louder on the horn.” Pustacia was hugging himself and moving side-to-side to generate some body heat.

“Yeah. You’re right.” Fusten put the bullhorn to her face. “The ambulance buses will not stop. Do not step in front of them. Do not follow them into the main entrance.”

Fusten repeated the warning 5-times. The air-evac bus operated under the rules for ambulances. They had the right of way. The bus would be coming at 5-miles per hour from Lindsey Boulevard and continue at that speed or slightly slower as the main gate closed behind it.

“Unzip your bags.” Holcomb Pellagra motioned Rippon Norduk and Herman Dingle to open their gym bags and get ready. “Remember the plan. Just throw the shit at the side windows. Not the front windows.” Pellagra removed his right glove and reached in to palm the filled balloon. Early that morning the trio had mixed the concoction of powdered cow manure and wallpaper paste and poured it into a large 30 gallon water cooler bottle. The large-lipped balloons easily filled by gravitational force. It still was a messy job and they spilled the foul stuff as they tied off the balloon necks. The wallpaper paste would cause the fecal mix to stick to the windows of the bus.

The buses’ sirens drowned out any dialogue from the poster bearers. The 5-mile per hour momentum of the bus, the flashing blue lights, and the emerging four MP’s pushing the gate open deterred anyone from stepping in front of the Fort Dix vehicles.

“Let ‘em have it.” Pellagra signaled to Dingle and Norduk. The trio proceeded to hurl their bovine diarrhea-filled balloons at the side windows of each bus. They motioned the press cameras and the TV cameras to capture their shit-smearing efforts.

A total of 47 fecal missiles were directed at the sides of the buses in rapid succession. As soon as Pellagra let one loose he fired another and another in perfect time with his two conspirators. Pellagra and Norduk were on the right side of the moving bus where most of the TV and Press people were poised. Dingle was on the left side. The news cameras and TV cameras and their crews followed close in to the action. They were literally right next to the catapulters–which was too bad for the entire protesting group.