The Face

than the plants.
        Few things would spread despair so effectively as the untimely death of a beloved pet.
        Corky was sad. Sad for the luckless dogs.
        He was happy, too. Happy that in a thousand little ways he daily contributed to the fall of a corrupt order-and therefore to the rise of a better world.
        For the same reason that he didn’t damage the landscaping at every house, he didn’t kill every dog. Let neighbor suspect neighbor.
        He wasn’t concerned that he would be caught in these poisonings. Entropy, the most powerful force in the universe, was his ally and his protecting god.
        Besides, the at-home parents would be watching sleazy daytime talk shows on which daughters revealed to their mothers that they were whores, on which wives revealed to their husbands that they were having affairs with their brothers-in-law.
        With school out, the kids would be busy learning homicidal skills from video games. Better yet, the pubescent boys would be surfing the Net for pornography, sharing it with innocent younger brothers, and scheming to rape the little girl next door.
        Because he approved of those activities, Corky went about his [69] work as discreetly as possible, so as not to distract these people from their self-destruction.
        Corky Laputa was not merely a dreary poisoner. He was a man of many talents and weapons.
        From time to time, as he plodded along the puddled walkways, under the drizzling trees, he indulged in melody. He sang “Singin’ in the Rain,” of course, which might be trite, but which amused him.
        He did not dance.
        Not that he couldn’t dance. Although not as limber and as right with rhythm as Gene Kelly, he could dazzle on any dance floor.
        Capering along a street in a yellow slicker as roomy as any nun’s habit was, however, not wise behavior for an anarchist who preferred anonymity.
        The streetside mailbox in front of each house always sported a number. Some boxes featured family names, as well.
        Sometimes a name appeared to be Jewish. Stein. Levy. Glickman.
        At each of these boxes, Corky paused briefly. He inserted one of the letter-size white envelopes that he carried by the score in another slicker pocket.
        On each envelope, a black swastika. In each, two sheets of folded paper certain to instill fear and stoke anger.
        On the first page, in bold block letters, were printed the words DEATH TO ALL DIRTY JEWS.
        The photo on the second page showed bodies stacked ten deep in the furnace yard of a Nazi concentration camp. Under it in red block letters blazed the message YOU’RE NEXT.
        Corky had no prejudice against the Jewish people. He held all races, religions, and ethnic groups in equal contempt.
        At other special venues, he had distributed DEATH TO ALL DIRTY CATHOLICS notices, DEATH TO ALL BLACKS, and IMPRISON ALL GUN OWNERS.
        For decades, politicians had been controlling the people by [70] dividing them into groups and turning them against one another. All a good anarchist could do was try to intensify the existing hatreds and pour gasoline on the fires that the politicians had built.
        Currently, hatred of Israel-and, by extension, all Jews-was the fashionable intellectual position among the most glamorous of media figures, including many nonreligious Jews. Corky was simply giving the people what they wanted.
        Azalea to lantana to jasmine vine, dog to dog to mailbox, he journeyed through the rain-swept day. Seeding chaos.
        Determined conspirators might be able to blow up skyscrapers and cause breathtaking destruction. Their work was helpful.
        Ten thousand Corky Laputas-inventive, diligent-would in their quiet persistent way do more, however, to undermine the foundations of this society than all the suicide pilots and bombers combined.
         For every thousand gunmen, Corky thought, I’d rather have one hate-filled teacher subtly propagandizing in a schoolroom, one day-care worker with an unslakable thirst for cruelty, one atheist priest hiding in cassock and alb and chasuble.
        By a circuitous route, he came within sight of the BMW where he had parked it an hour and a half earlier. Right on schedule.
        Spending too much time in a single neighborhood could be risky. The wise anarchist keeps moving because entropy favors the rambler, and motion foils the law.
        The