PART 3: Southern Exposure
Chapter 28: Direct Reports
“Kaitlyn, would you come into my office, please?” said the tinny voice over my office phone handset.
“Sure, be right there,” I answered.
This was my first day back after our… Well, what do we call it? It was half spy mission, half big city shopping trip, half early honeymoon, and a whole lot of fun besides. That’s like, what, one and three quarters trips packed into one?
I cut my musing off when I got to the door labeled “Sherry Richardson, Field Manager.” Sherry liked me, but I couldn’t help getting nervous at being called to her office anyway.
Apprehensively, I turned the knob and pushed the door open.
She was on the phone and pointed in a downward arc over her desk at a guest chair, mouthing ‘Sit!’
I closed the door and sat.
“Yeah, uh huh.” A pause. “Right, see you in an hour.” Then my boss hung up the phone.
Then she leaned forward over her desk towards me with a smile. “So, how’re the wedding plans going? Get everything done in Salt Lake that you needed to?”
“Oh, yeah, thanks Sherry. It was great.” She insisted on me using her first name since we’d exchanged a series of confidences a few months back. “Yes, we got everything done that we wanted to.” ‘More than you’d ever guess, Sherry!’ I added in my head. “Are you going to tell me who your +1 is yet?”
“Nope. You’ll see,” she said with a small smile, which then faded. “The real reason I called you into my office is that I saw you on TV.”
Oh, shit. I closed my eyes and said, “Am I in trouble again, Sherry? Ms. Richardson, I mean?”
“Oh, can that ‘Mizz’ stuff,” she barked mildly at me. “No, I am in fact so very proud of what you did. As far as I’m concerned, it’s great publicity for the Bureau, and I’ll defend your actions to anyone higher up that has a problem with it. You went out there and stood up for environmental awareness, land conservation, and sensible mining regulations. That event was about stewarding our land for future generations. That’s just about the mission statement for the BLM!”
Her speech finished on a rising note. I didn’t know if she was praising me or practicing her defense to those higher-ups. Both, I guessed. “Thank you,” was all I said, in a small voice.
“I am a little mad at you, actually,” she said, letting it dangle.
“Oh?” I said, my apprehension returning.
“Yeah, you didn’t call and invite me up! I’d have gone in a heartbeat!” she said, a broad grin on her face.
“Next year, then?” I said, my voice strengthening.
“Absolutely,” she agreed. Then after a few seconds, she said, “I am going to have to punish you for it, though.”
I decided she had to be teasing me now, so I just raised my eyebrow. Her last ‘punishment’ of me was a social cover for one of my biggest career building moves so far.
“You are going to give an interview to the local paper about your ride, and you will give them the BLM line about it. That call I was on when you walked in? That was it. He’ll be here at 10:30.”
I could see that that wasn’t a prediction, it was a command, so I replied appropriately: “Yes, Sherry.” Inside, I grumped, I thought I was done with the media!
“Best go prepare,” she said, dismissing me.
10:30 came, and so did the local newspaper reporter.
“Hi, I’m Jax Moreno,” he said to me, holding out his hand.
I shook it and said, “I’m Kaitlyn Gutierrez. There’s an open conference room this way,” and I led him down the hall.
Inside, he asked, “May I record this interview?”
“Of course.”
He got set up, and then started asking questions. “Ms. Gutierrez, you participated in the First Annual World Naked Bike Ride in Salt Lake City. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Did you do it for sex?”
I just laughed at that. “I’m straight, and I didn’t see an erection the whole time at the event.”
“That doesn’t actually answer my question, Ms. Gutierrez.”
I sighed. “No, Mr. Moreno. Please move on.”
But he just couldn’t let it go. “You don’t think there was anyone there who was sexually aroused?”
“You’re asking me to speculate on another person’s state of mind, Mr. Moreno. You can ask me about my personal feelings and direct experiences, but I will not speculate on the record.”
“Well, why else would someone disrobe in public like that?”
Ah, that was the softball I was looking for. “Mr. Moreno, the event is chartered for two primary purposes, both of which I personally observed. One, to raise awareness for the vulnerability of cyclists on our roads. Nudity sells that story pretty well, don’t you think?”
“I guess,” he said reluctantly.
“Moab is a very bike-friendly town, Mr. Moreno, but how many bicycle accidents has your paper reported on while you’ve worked there?”
He replied, “Dozens, I’d guess.”
I pressed my point: “If you ignore the sporting accidents — badly landed jumps out on the mountain bike trails and such — and look at only cases where a motorist hit a bicyclist on a public street, how many of those were because of something the bicyclist did versus something the motorist did?”
Moreno replied, “I’d say almost all of them turned out to be the motorist’s fault.”
That’s what I thought he’d say, so I drove my point home. “Right, and that’s because motorists too often simply fail to see bicyclists, then yell at us when we ‘suddenly’ appear to them, in their way. I’m a bike commuter, Mr. Moreno. I’m not insane, so I don’t go injecting myself blindly into the traffic flow. I look both directions and signal my lane changes just like if I was in a car. I have lights and reflectors on my bike, and I wear a helmet. That helmet’s got reflectors of its own on it. When riding my bike, my head is high enough above the road that I can see down onto the roof of all cars and some trucks, yet somehow I’m regularly treated as invisible by other drivers! How does that track? I’ve had to grab for my brakes so hard that I’ve slid off my seat, Mr. Moreno, even once so hard I nearly went over the handlebars because I had to brake so hard to avoid hitting a car that just pulled in front of me.”
He started to look at me as a person, rather than as a story. “It doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense,” he admitted.
“Even when they do see you, automobile drivers often treat bicyclists as irrelevant, Mr. Moreno. I got caught by this at a four-way stop recently. I was on my bike and got to the stop at the same time as a driver going the other way on the same street. He wasn’t signalling a turn, so I started pedaling again, assuming he was also continuing on that street, only for him to nearly hit me by attempting to turn across my path through the intersection. There’re two problems here. One, he didn’t signal, but that happens a lot even when bicyclists aren’t involved. But two, he clearly didn’t consider that I had just as much right to proceed through the intersection as himself. I guess he just assumed I’d yield to him because he’s in a car, apparently not aware that bikes have just as much right to the road as cars do.”
“That’s definitely wrong,” Mr. Moreno agreed. “Did you call the police on him?”
“No, I sorted that one out verbally, but the point is that the whole altercation was avoidable. Thus the WNBR. If people start learning to see bicyclists and treat them as having an equal share in use of the road, you’ll end up called out to fewer bloody bicycle wrecks on Moab’s streets. That sounds like a good thing to me.”
“Yes, it does,” he replied. “But do you think it’ll really work?”
“You’re here, aren’t you? On Saturday, I was interviewed dozens more times while at the event. How much effect these interviews will have on the citizenry I can only speculate, but I think I’ve certainly done my part to get the message out.”
“I see your point. All right,” he went on, “what was the second point of the event?”
“To advocate for reduced dependence on petroleum. Since I started riding my bike most everywhere, I’ve reduced the in-town mileage on my car from roughly 500 miles to 120 a month. I’ve gone from filling my tank twice a month to more like once every two months. What if everyone did this, Mr. Moreno?”
“That trip to Salt Lake was a lot more than 120 miles!”
“I did say in-town, Mr. Moreno. For a trip to Salt Lake, I choose to drive a car, simply for the time savings. But around town, I’m not much slower than the other traffic. On some roads, I keep up right alongside traffic. So, why burn gas when I can burn fat?”
“Well, speaking of fat, I have documented evidence that you haven’t got much on you,” he said with a small smile, clearly referring to all of the photographs and video that had been shot of me on Saturday.
“Exactly. I used to achieve that at the gym, but I’ve been going less and less since I started bike commuting. The only reason I keep my gym membership is that I want to get some upper body work once in a while, not just focus on the lower body and cardio. Doing nine or ten miles every weekday on a bike keeps me trim otherwise.”
“Not everyone can afford a nice commuting bike, Ms. Gutierrez.”
“You’re not doing the math, Mr. Moreno. On the gas savings alone, the bike is basically free.”
He looked skeptical, so I pushed a paper across the meeting table toward him. “Here. I worked out the math on this in preparation for this meeting.” Then I walked him through it, showing that the bike I thought expensive a few months ago was going to pay for itself in about two years. Then I pointed out the expected lifetime of the bike, and said, “I could probably buy several really nice bikes over that period and still be saving money, Mr. Moreno.”
“Wow, looks like you’re right,” he said.
“Then consider the societal costs. How much of our tax money goes to maintaining roads for automobiles? If more people biked, we’d need fewer lanes, and the lanes we do have would require less maintenance. You pretty much can’t wear out a road with bikes alone, so all of the damage would be environmental; frost heaves, night-day thermal cycling, and such.”
“So how does the event achieve that goal, Ms. Gutierrez?”
“We just showed that you can bicycle in downtown Salt Lake City, Mr. Moreno. We didn’t get a special permit to do that ride, we just got out there and rode on some of the busiest streets in the state, and no one was hurt. It shows that there isn’t a town in the state you can’t bicycle safely in, provided we achieve our first goal: awareness of cyclists by motorists.”
“Speaking of riding naked on the streets of Salt Lake City, weren’t you worried about getting arrested?”
“For what? I obeyed all of the traffic laws,” I replied, purposely missing his implied question. I wanted to make him ask it.
“For indecent exposure, of course!”
“Define ‘indecent,’” I demanded with a raised eyebrow.
The reporter just sort of spluttered, then eventually said, “You know…naked!”
“The law doesn’t say ‘naked exposure,’ Mr. Moreno, it uses the word ‘indecent,’ so I repeat my challenge: define the word. You’re a wordsmith, probably even have a degree in it. What’s the difficulty?”
After letting him flail about for a bit, I stepped in, “The problem is that word can mean almost anything the legislature wants it to mean. It’s completely subjective. Does that sound like a sound basis for legal jurisprudence, Mr. Moreno?”
“No, I guess not,” he acceded, defeated.
“I don’t think so, either. Even if you average opinions across whole populations, the definition of ‘indecent’ shifts from one generation to the next. What other laws do we have where the meaning of a key term in the law changes like that? Go on, name one.”
He flailed around a bit more, so I took pity. “I can’t think of one, either. I think the mere existence of such a law should frighten you. What stops the State from passing a law next year saying it’s indecent to wear a plaid shirt in July?” This was in fact what he was wearing. “As a reporter, I expect that you don’t believe the answer is that they’re afraid of being voted out of office. The general rule is, pander to the majority, ignore the minorities. In practice, indecency comes down to the old ‘I know it when I see it’ argument, but since what the lawmakers and judges know changes from one generation to the next, so also does the definition of justice.”
“All right,” the reporter conceded, “let’s move on. What about this Jurkovich Resource Extraction story?”
“That was reported in the Salt Lake papers about a week ago. It’s why I decided to ride in the WNBR, in fact,” I said, repeating my spin on the cause-and-effect.
“Yes, I looked that story up while preparing for this interview. It’s pretty thin. I was hoping you’d tell me some more from your direct experience.”
“You want to talk to the farmers south of town, starting with my parents. They were the ones being strong-armed into selling their land. You wouldn’t want to have a mine on the south end of town, would you?”
“No, of course not,” the reporter said vehemently.
“That’s exactly what JRE is trying to achieve. I used my access to the media at the ride to get that message out, in part because that story in the newspaper was so thin. I hope you and other journalists dig into it. I’m not absolutely against mining, Mr. Moreno. In fact, mining directly supports my family farm through the production of chemical fertilizers, without which we wouldn’t be competitive, so my family wouldn’t be able to sustain the farm.” Thank you, Davie! “But at the same time, I don’t want farms being turned into mines, especially right on the edge of so beautiful a town as Moab.”
“I agree,” said the reporter.
“In fact, regulating such mines is one of the things the BLM does, Mr. Moreno. Only about two months ago, I was out on a site where a different company wanted to begin mining for coal. My job in that interaction was to ensure that the company was doing things the right way before they began. I assure you, JRE didn’t contact this office before they began trying to buy up all that farmland south of town. You can check that with my boss, Ms. Richardson.”
“Those farms aren’t BLM land,” he pointed out.
“True, but I suspect you’ll find that JRE didn’t interact with any government regulators before trying to start their scheme, if you go looking into it.” This was a gamble on a few levels. First, I suspected he wouldn’t bother to go looking. Second, I was going on our incomplete scrape of the JRE documents archive: we saw no such paperwork. We could easily have missed it, but it didn’t feel like the JRE we knew that they’d do things in the right order. No, I firmly believed they were just going to present the town and county with a fait accompli. Possession is 9 points of the law, and all that.
“I’ll take your word on that, Ms. Gutierrez.” He looked down at his notes, then asked the next prepared question he found there. “Ms. Gutierrez, is the government embarrassed by your riding in the WNBR?”
“My boss was telling me just this morning that she’s proud of me riding in the WNBR. The event’s goals align perfectly with the BLM’s. Both want to preserve our land for future generations. In fact, I think you might be seeing more than one of the Moab BLM staff at the event next year!”
“Really?! Who?”
“Me, to be sure. As for who else might be there, someone else here told me their plan in confidence, Mr. Moreno. Maybe I shouldn’t have said even that much.” Hah! Gotcha!
“Well, this event seems all very positive.”
“That’s how I found it to be. I’m eager for the next one already!”
“Can I have a staff photographer come around to get some pictures of you on your bicycle?”
“Sure. We could go out in the parking lot and do it.”
“Actually, I’d like to have you naked on the bike.”
Surprised, I almost asked him if he could print that, but I caught myself at the last second, smiling broadly and asking, “Are you sure that wouldn’t be indecent?”
He laughed at that. “You made your point already, Ms. Gutierrez. Anyway, if there’s a problem, we can crop it or edit it later, as need be.”
“All right. Well, it’s tempting to do another mini-WNBR here in town, but I think I’ve got a better idea. How about we do this at my family’s farm, where you’ll have access to the other farmers JRE has been after to sell their land?”
“I think that would work out wonderfully!” he enthused.
“It’s coming up on lunch time. I think I can get my mother to make lunch for you and your staff photographer. How does that sound?”
He looked surprised at this invitation, and said, “That sounds lovely. Thank you, Ms. Gutierrez.”
“Thank my mother,” I suggested with a smile. Then I pulled out my cell phone, called my mom, and told her the plan. She agreed we could come over immediately; I passed the news on to the reporter.
“Sounds like a deal, then.” He stuck out his hand.
“Two conditions,” I said, holding up my hand to stop him.
“What’s that?”
“First, I’ll ask you to respect my family’s privacy. Don’t publish the address of the farm, and take ‘no’ for an answer from any of my family that doesn’t want to be interviewed.”
“Sure, that’ll be fine. And second?”
“I want a copy of the raw photo files,” I smiled.
“No problem,” he said. We shook on it.
“All right, the address is…” and I gave it to him. “See you there.”
“You don’t want us to drive you there?”
“No, I’ve got to get my bike there somehow, haven’t I? Besides, I don’t mind the ride. It’s only about as long as my regular commute. If you get there before me, you can start without me.”
When I got to the farm, I saw that the reporter hadn’t gotten there yet, but I’d expected that. He had to go retrieve his staff photographer, whereas I had a more nearly straight shot to the farm, needing only to inform Sherry of my early lunch, change, and go. People tend to overestimate the amount of time they save by going fast. Over a distance like from my office to my family’s farm, the speed difference has to be quite high to save even five minutes.
When the reporter drew up, I said to him with a smirk, “Still convinced bikes are an inferior means of transport?”
He looked me up and down in my tight cycling clothing, then said, “I think you might have some advantages over me there.”
“Well, is it the chicken or the egg? Am I a fast bicyclist because I’m buff, or am I buff because I’m a bicyclist?”
He shot me with a finger gun in a “Your point,” gesture.
Then he introduced me to his photographer, Chad MacSkye. We shook hands.
“I thought we’d do the photos in the back yard, with the corn fields as a backdrop,” I offered. Chad thought that was a great plan. He went on about layered shots, the bluffs, the puffy clouds in the sky above the bluffs, and on and on. I took it as a great sign, one that indicated I’d be photographed by someone who cared about their craft.
“All right,” said Chad, “the bike’s a bit dusty, with some mud on the under parts of the frame. Let’s get that cleaned up. The shots will look better that way.”
As I went into the house to run some soapy warm water and get a scrub brush and sponge, I heard Jax outside interviewing my mother and father.
Back outside, I started in on my bike, but Chad stopped me, saying, “Let’s do this over on the patio, the fields in the background.” Then as I resumed working, I heard him taking photos! Oh, so this was going to be that kind of bike washing photo shoot! I started making it sexy for him, artfully getting soapy here and there without getting outright messy.
Once the bike was clean, Chad said, “Let’s start with you astride the bike over there…”
He directed me through several poses, taking a number of angles on each, then he asked me to take off my shirt, and we did it all again. Then again with my sports bra off.
Then things started to get a little strange.
“All right, I’d like you to remove your cycling shorts next, but let’s do it slowly, so the photo editor has multiple options to choose from. Are you wearing anything underneath them?”
“No, underwear interferes with the functioning of cycling shorts,” I replied.
“As I expected. So, come over here and hook your thumbs into the shorts’ waistband, like you’re about to take them off. Look up at the sky, not at me…” Click! “Good! All right, now take them off, slowly…” Click, click, click!
“Good, let me move around here…”
Chad moved around behind me, shooting me at an oblique angle from behind, my breasts dangling into the shot, my buttocks at an angle to the camera to create graceful curves across the camera frame. Click! Then he repeated the shot from another direction, having me turn a bit to create a silhouette. Click, click!
“All right, continue dropping the shorts… Good!”
When I’d gotten them all the way down, he said, “All right, act like you’re kicking them off into the field…” Click, click, click! “Right, now actually do it!” Ticka-ticka-ticka-ticka-ticka-click! went the camera’s shutter in a burst. “Lovely!”
“All right, let’s have you squat down by the bike and remove the shoes,” Chad said.
I objected, “I always wear the shoes while riding. The bike pedals have these studs on them for grip, so I can’t ride without shoes, else I’ll tear my feet up.”
“Sure, but we’re selling an image here, Ms. Gutierrez.”
I thought the point of journalism was to tell the truth, but perhaps I was naive. I started unlacing my shoes, squatted in a curving shape, the sides of my breasts fully visible but the areolas and nipples hidden behind my upper arm. My crotch was hidden by my thighs, but despite the pose, it was clear I wasn’t wearing anything but the shoes, and I was trying to get out of them, too! Click, click, click, click!
“Great stuff! Now the other one,” Chad instructed.
Shortly I was utterly bare in my parents’ back yard at high noon, posing for newspaper photographs. Well, I thought they were newspaper photographs. There was no way they were going to use any but one or maybe two of these. Was I working on Chad’s private collection now? Or maybe Mr. Moreno’s?
I saw Mrs. Johannsen looking at me from her back yard. I waved. She waved back this time and came closer to see what was going on.
“All right, get back onto the bike, please. Just straddle it, actually.” Click, click!
“Now bend forward over the handlebars…” Click, click, click, click, click!
“One foot up on the near pedal, please?” Click, click, click!
“Can you ride a bit? Slowly, I mean?”
“Sure, I’ll just have to be careful on the pedals,” I said. Click, click, click, click!
“And come to a rolling dismount, swinging your leg off, please!” Ticka-ticka-ticka-ticka-ticka-click!
I was sure he’d caught my inner labia on that shot. This was definitely not going in the paper!
“Okay, now stand behind the bike, one hand on the handlebar, one on the seat… Right, now put your left foot up on the pedal, and lean back… Farther… Farther… Yes, like that… Hold it…” Click, click, click!
“All right, can you come over to this side of the bike and squat down by the back tire, your back towards me? Right, legs far apart…? And one hand up on the grip… Good!” Click, click!
“Now let me come back around to this side…”
And here he began shooting my spread legs through the spokes! These were most definitely not going in the paper!
“Now if you’ll get back on the bike, but point it into the field? Thanks.”
Then he moved around behind me and shot my butt close-up on the seat. Click, click, click! Was he catching my labia as well?
“Okay, now down off the seat, but turn and look over your shoulder at me?” Click, click, click! “Wonderful!”
My parents were now looking on in amazement at this show. I’d told them this was for the newspaper, but we were now in Playboy territory. In a break between poses, I walked over and told them, “We agreed he was giving me a copy of the raw files. Don’t let him get away without handing them over!” Then Chad called me back to the, ahem, set, and we resumed taking photos.
“All right, let’s do a sequence of you walking the bike towards me along the edge of the field…” Click, click, click, click! “Niiiice!”
“Now let’s move over to the lawn. Put the bike up on its kickstand. Now lay down in front of it… Arch your back… Far knee up…” Click, click!
“Now on your side, on one elbow…” Click, click, click!
“Excellent! And now one knee up, your foot on your calf…” Click, click, click!
“Right then, I think that’s got it!”
We shook hands, me nude among the onlookers. I decided I needed to walk over and talk to my newest onlooker. “Hello, Mrs. Johannsen! Nice day!”
“Um, yes, but what is it you’re doing, exactly?”
“Taking photos for the newspaper!” I replied brightly.
“Umm…and they’re going to publish these, are they?”
“I don’t rightly know, ma’am, but that’s their photographer, and he’s calling the poses, so I guess it’ll be up to their editors which ones make it into the paper.”
“You’ve been seen naked in public quite a lot lately, Miss Gutierrez,” she commented with some asperity.
“Indeed I have. I hope I haven’t offended you?”
“Well, it is a bit…indecent, isn’t it?”
“Ah, that word again. The reporter over there and I were discussing that very topic. Indecency is a vague word that we define however we like, with no clear agreement on what it means, especially across cultures or over generational time. Tell me, Mrs. Johannsen, is this conversation indecent?”
“Well, no, I wouldn’t say that.”
“I’d say we’re having a friendly neighborly conversation, wouldn’t you, Mrs. Johannsen?”
“Well, sure. You’ve always been well-spoken, Miss Gutierrez.”
“Thank you, ma’am. So, what does it really matter what I’m wearing while having it?”
She just got a thoughtful look on her face, then shook her head, perhaps to dislodge an uncomfortable thought.
“Well, I need to get back to my interview. Nice chatting with you, Mrs. Johannsen!”
She just stood there, bemused, as I turned back to see Chad’s camera pointed my way. He’d apparently been taking shots of me speaking to my neighbor while naked! Now that I’d be happy to let them print!
Mr. Moreno was back to interviewing my parents, so I just walked up and joined the circle, tossing a comment in from time to time. Chad resumed shooting the scene.
At the end of it all, I asked Mr. Moreno more or less the same question I’d asked my neighbor. “Did you find that interview to be indecent, Mr. Moreno?”
“No, no it wasn’t. I do see your point now, Ms. Gutierrez. It is arbitrary, isn’t it?”
“Mostly,” I agreed. “Deportment does have something to do with it. I think your photographer took things right up to the line. He doesn’t have any intention of turning all of those into his photo editor, does he?” I spoke it as a fact more than asked it.
The reporter smiled a bit, and said, “No, I don’t suppose he does. Did he have you sign a model release?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Tsk. Well, this isn’t quite in public here. I’m not sure we can print any of them, actually.”
“How about we go inside and make a few selections, then I’ll sign a release for those in particular?”
“Yeah, we can do that.”
“And at the same time, make me a copy. You’re welcome to get a copy of them, too, if you want.”
“Thank you. Most kind,” he said.
“I’m counting on you to treat them like photos of a friend, Mr. Moreno. Are you my friend?”
“I think I can agree to that, Ms. Gutierrez,” he said, sticking his hand out to me again. “Jax,” he offered.
“Kaitlyn.” And we shook on it.
Mother had lunch prepared by then, so we all sat down at the kitchen table and continued our conversation, me naked, the rest not.
When we’d finished with lunch, I helped my mother clear the table, then we used the table to select the few shots we’d present to the paper’s photo editors for consideration. The rest we agreed to keep to ourselves.