Apartheid Part 2: Baggers

In this second part we learn about Michael Ray Bishop and his connection to Robinson. Michael is a business mogul who has built his life on the efforts of the meek.

Here is another idea due for some mulling over. You reap what you sow, such as the bible says. Such says our common knowledge of fairness, karma, and justice. It is a natural cycle of things in that an input always has an equal and opposite reaction to the latter output. In nature the reaction is logical cause and effect. Cliffs by the beach turn to sand by the beating of the ocean. It even stays logical with animals other than humans. Rabbits don’t live to long so they have to produce more offspring which in turn decides the population of local foxes. It is because nature follows a crucial formula, one that we humans have abandoned. We have developed a culture where prosperity and kindness lie and separate ends of a spectrum. One where the unruly and devious souls are the ones that prosper as a result of their own wrongdoing. Success in modern business means turning human blood sweat and tears into a lucrative flow of money. Or at least a number on a bank statement.

            No one takes heed to this lesson more than Michael Ray Bishop. It didn’t take many years in this world for greed to infect him. He just knew that there were wonderful things out there, and everything can be obtained if you drove yourself to the right limit. The world is his for the taking. As a boy, lush Italian suits fascinated him. People that work hard ware jumpsuits with name tags, and the sly b*****d adorns Versace. You will never catch Michael working a s**t job for someone else’s money. As an obvious result he entered into the business of business. Buying, selling, mergers, acquisitions, reports, stocks, that was all him. It didn’t matter what the subject of business was, he could handle the logistics of any product or service.

            Michael’s profit margins grew with just the shake of his hand, it was beautiful. In reality the money grew from a soil known as his workforce. Most are grateful to be working, to be eating. Few want more from their life than to eat sleep f**k and die. The line is defined by power, and power is usually granted by a piece of paper. In this case it was a diploma from a college everyone knew. Ones that have streets named after them. Now Michael lays in a great sum of capitol from dabbling in various Fortune 500 companies.

            When Michael was a little boy he had a thing for cookies. On the days where his mother or grandmother would bake them, he was in heaven. The only problem was that the oven could only fit so many cookies and he had so many brothers and sisters. When all was divvied out each child was left with two cookies and fifteen in the cookie jar. Those cookies didn’t have anyone’s name on them, they were up for grabs as far as Michael was concerned. He horded them in his room while the other children squabbled. Some knew of his plan but they were easily coaxed into silence with half a cookie. They got more than their share and had a scapegoat. Michael was only a scapegoat if he got caught, but he wasn’t because he paid for tight lips. And he was always left with the lion’s share of cookies. He was careful to observe every little detail of the plan as to not make a mistake, he was and is still a smart kid.

            Even though he had a masterful mind, Michael didn’t do well in school. He claimed he had the ADHD. The doctor threw some pills at him and they worked wonders for his studies in somewhat of an askew way. He gave the pills to the moderately smart kids, they’d get all jacked up and have no problem doing Michael’s homework for him. The pills were covered by insurance and cost him almost nothing, but they, entirely in themselves, earned his high school diploma. Michael was a genius at setting up little work forces that ran themselves and all he had to do was sit back and watch it all play out. He is a masterful ringleader and that lone quality brought him far in the business world.

A realization came before him that the more people relied on him, the more control he had. He wanted an unshakable empire, he vies for job security. This desire is almost innate, it guides this thoughts like a religion. It dances in his mind when he’s trying to sleep, when he’s waiting at a traffic light. Even while waiting in line at the super market. Once upon a day he was sitting at his desk with a pencil in his hand, devising a flow chart on lined paper atop his beautiful teak desk. And he was struck by a thought, “Oh s**t…”

            He phones a partner of his named Kyle Stanton, “Kyle, I need you to look into wood refineries, get me one that’s sinking in on itself and in the lower United States. He phones David McCallister, “David, I need you to recruit 300 workers, ones that know machinery, willing to travel, work long hours and basic ecology.” Next he floated over to the globe in his office. He stares at it intently, chattering his teeth. His face is as blank as a loading bar on a computer screen. It can’t be in the US. You don’t s**t where you sleep, that’s one of the oldest business tricks. If the expedition were in Canada there would be endless snow traps and populations impossible to access. Michael’s eyes drifted down to South America. God damn, there is a lot of wood in the Amazon and perfect natural highways to ship it out. The dream made his hair raise and his skin tingle, but was brought to a crashing halt when he realized he would have to fight for lanes with the Cartels. Coke peddlers work a different strategy in business, no witnesses, no prisoners, and Michael couldn’t afford to have guerrillas attacking his work force. Tick, tick, tick, tick, he was getting frustrated with himself. It can’t be Europe, or Africa. Indonesia has a vast surplus but those permits will break your neck. What about mexico?

“What?” Michael slipped out, responding to his own voice in his head. Labor and tools are exceedingly cheap in Mexico, his money would go further than he ever imagined. Our lack of knowledge about Mayan culture proves that there is extensive unexplored forest with plenty of barely noticeable byproduct that will add significant weight. He would ship out through the Caribbean or up the Gulf of California. There was a god damn gold mine waiting there for him in Mexico. So Michael called an old friend, Louis Cutwatters.

“Louis, Get me permission to log in sections 5B, 6B and 4C of the Yucatan highlands.” He drew the coordinates from promising satellite images on his computer. After getting off the phone Michael stared at the images for a long time, staring with satisfaction. There is a feeling in the room, like when you finish placing your whole box of dominoes and relish in your work before the flick. Michael called David once more, “David, send the taggers.”

All the pawns are in place and Michael feels confident about his new gamble. The logging industry was his for the taking, ready to become an empire because people simply can’t live without wood products. His only responsibility is to provide the capitol and bark into a receiver. This is an art he has become quite good at over the years. It was the same as building a machine, putting all the cogs in their right order. Michael is a masterful inventor, his machines work to a T. This skill won him his share of the world economy cookie jar.

Satellite maps reported the progress, he watched as deep forest shadows turned to freckled green skin, an empowering sight. The business grew for a decade and a half and into Michael’s years of greys peppering his scalp and beard. The Mexican forest was now forgotten from his mind, washed away by a sea of income. Michael stopped being a business man and started living as a rich man. The days of screaming into a phone were now over, and now regardless of what his does, his accounts continue to swell. The entire thought had left him until one day when he received a call from an old partner, Louis Cutwatter.

            “Mr. Bishop there’s some information that we need to key you in on. We’ve located a tree in a hazardous position but would yield a fortune. We need to verify if it’s worth harvesting or too much of an excavation.” Michael pursed his lips in an ugly distorted way, shifting his eyes with greedy intent.

            “What quadrant?” was all he could spit out.

            “Quadrant 7L, sir,” Louis replied sharply. And the only response from Mr. Bishop was a mischievous,

            “I’ll call ya back.” He popped up the ancient satellite software, fiddling with the camera and trying to remember the gist of it. Michael scans quadrant 7L, unimpressed. It was a good zone with lots of trees but nothing distinctive. Clouds drifted low, hiding groups of bashful trees. As one cloud parted a peak shone through. Maybe it’s an ancient Mayan pyramid, this thought set a spark in Michael’s brain for such things can also be exploited. You can’t put a price on history, but Michael Bishop could.  The clouds succeeded further and the treasure revealed itself. It was a tree so big it actually looked like a tree from the far off satellite. The ‘hazardous position’ it lie in was the heart of a crater atop a sizable rocky hill. The leaves looked like dollar bills, and they were countless. He clamped down the laptop and reached for the receiver to phone Louis. “I want that tree, Louis! Locate your closest tagger and connect me to his radio.” Louis didn’t even offer a reply, there was just some ruffling and a click. Then came a muffled voice.

            “Tagger: Robinson. Location 7L. Rerouting to walkie.” Another click rang in a different tone and Michael began to speak.

            “Robinson, we have a tango NW of your location. It is a good distance so cease all tagging operations until the target is identified and marked. The coordinates will be on your GPS momentarily.” He slammed down the phone and pumped his fist in the air. That god damn tree was his Holy Grail and he knew it. The vast branches, the miles of wood all created a web in his mind, encapsulating a thirst for money. He decided to celebrate with a drink, and there was much celebrating to do.

            In the coming weeks Michael awaited his accounts to gorge themselves. Instead he was plagued by a series of tragic misfortune. One of his tankers got a little frisky with a shallow reef. The ship sank and a group of logs from the massive tree floated off to f*****g Europe. A branch fell on a kid and his family brought the lawsuit from hell. Michael even had to invest in new technologies to handle the load. His Holy Grail was a false profit. Business dropped to the point where breaking even each month was lucky, the company was hemorrhaging. This minimal prosperity was a shock to Michael’s system. Every decision he had ever made was the right one, until this one. How could he be so foolish to take that gamble? How could he be so blind? He should have known. He should have known.

The insult to his ego started being perpetuated by the increasing frequency of his drinking. Business is his life, and his life was wasting away. He found himself draining the hours out of him at high end bars for the wealthy. Places where women wore pearls strung around their necks and the men must wear a tie, and everyone was choked silent, too snobby to speak with one another. The only ones that communicated were the washed up old business men, like Michael. They spoke of how keen they had been, how perfectly the pieces fell. And they talked of how they lost it all. One of the old men saw a look on Michael’s face from across the bar. The face you make when you’re thinking, “I’ve lost everything.” The old business man whispered in to his associates, and they gathered around Michael with intrigue.

One spoke, revealing the obvious, “Hey bud, what’s with the long face you’re wearing?” Michael thought it was audacious for this group to just show up and demand an explanation of his sorrows. He liked to work alone, he liked to drink alone, things just seemed to move faster that way. Less s**t clogging the drain. Though he was resistant, Michael sputtered out,

“Made some bad investments.” And at the sound of that the faces of the gentlemen around him broke with sympathy. They too were victims of bad business. The one who dressed to fit last century admitted that he too was at the center of a failing system.

“My wells just aren’t producing oil anymore. I don’t understand why, my prospects were promising but this year alone I’ve had 6 wells dry up that weren’t due for another fifty years!” This made Michael feel a little better. There will always be trees and you don’t have to dig around in the ground guessing where they’ll be. Another one of the moguls spoke,

“I feel your pain. My cattle are dropping in the masses. There must be something in my water or an unknown plague because I just can’t keep them alive. The ones that do survive are deformed, or produce little viable meat. It’s like my farms are cursed.” At least trees still have some value once they’re dead, Michael thought. In fact his entire tampering was with the corpses of trees. Things didn’t look so bad anymore. He was eased by the unending stories of people sympathizing with his loss. There were stories of iron ore, fishing operations, plastics and rubbers dwindling, even coffee wouldn’t grow. The Earth just wouldn’t produce anymore, the lands had dried up.

What Michael didn’t realize was that the famine was caused by his insolence and the cutting of the great tree. The tree was a monument to the great covenant man made with the Earth. She had bred him in her bosom and he was so bold as to leave. Exposed and bare, man had to repent in order to survive, begging the Earth to bare a harvest. The only way for our ancestors to live was to manipulate and depend on other forms. Our kind and gracious Earth took mercy and produced the materials to build an empire on the condition that she would never again know this blasphemy. Man would not abuse his mind and mobility if the Earth would simply continue to produce, and harmony would ring.  The spirit of this sacred deal was encapsulated in the tree that Michael Ray Bishop had turned into fine furniture, buildings and books. Technology had made him overzealous and his monopoly grew as a symptom of greed.

The recoil of the land shook human society. The gasoline in the great machine was now toxic vapor, floating off, unobtainable. The limit of human expansion was suddenly finite. They had to make do with the materials already harvested, but they wouldn’t go far with a barren Earth. Rivers dried, sand filled gusts ravaged the lands, and clouds of smog blotted out the sun. Michael Bishop was written in the last chapter of our history books as the one who uncovered the Achilles heel. The Earth will always be more resilient that those who dwell upon it. 

Author's Note

If you took the time to read both parts then please take the time to review. I don't care if it's just a single word.
Good.
Bad.
Boring.
I Just want to know who really gave it a chance.