Doberman

Ronald Reagan was, in many ways, a disingenuous creep. Reagan’s administration was the first to actually capitalize on Nixon’s impeachment almost a decade before, and he did so by observing Nixon’s myriad civil liberties shenanigans not as the extreme limit of a deranged megalomaniac, but instead as a sort of new baseline action agenda for political game-fixing. Don’t believe me? Go plug the words “Iran / Contra” into a Youtube and try and sit through whatever comes up without saying the word “MotherFUCKER!” at least ten times. There’s a wealth of information available everywhere about Reagan’s bullshit so I’m going to leave it you to follow up. This essay is not about Ronald Reagan. It is, however, about something Ronald Reagan said.

The time was September 21, 1987. The place The General Assembly of the United Nations.

“Cannot swords be turned to plowshares? Can we and all nations not live in peace? In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us? What could be more alien to the universal aspirations of our peoples than war and the threat of war?”

Now, whatever special knowledge or information (if any) may have informed this statement has not since surfaced. But the fact that Reagan said it, and the fact that he said it from the global pulpit of the U.N. is significant. Why the “alien” claptrap? There are a thousand other scenario’s RR could have used to illustrate his point, which is – ironically – the point of this entire essay. To wit:

killing each other, and/or scheming to kill each other is a stupid, ineffective, hopelessly archaic method of problem solving, and that we – as a society – are wrong to not see this. Unfortunately, we are also stubborn and defensive, so it would probably take a global event, of immediately apparent, immediately threatening, life and death proportion, in order for us to cease the intentional termination of one-another’s lives.

***

It’s a big idea, and peculiar for a host of reasons. Reagan was a military-loving dude. Hawkish to the point of seemingly soulless cynicism, Reagan seemed to be forever escalating the cold war with saber rattling speeches, then backing his words with seemingly infinite military spending. Guns to give the Zionists, guns for the Mujahidin, guns in space…If a weapon could go somewhere, the Reagan administration damn well intended to put one there. Strange then, to hear him decrying the very existence of armed conflict – President Reagan went on, in that same speech, to refer to the very act of war as an “Alien” in our collective midst. – at a UN gathering, in front of world leaders upon whom he might very well be making war on at some point in the future. So maybe this essay is a tiny bit about Ronald Regan after all. What the hell was that dotty old codger talking about anyway? Look how clumsy the rhetoric: “I occasionally think” is not a declaration one would associate with Presidential address by a archetypical GOP war pig, especially in snowplowing- as he was - for an exceptionally long winded, unbalanced, largely inappropriate comparison of aliens and hawkish policy. Is this really a President, waxing philosophical about interstellar engagements with an alien foe? How the fuck do I know? I keep telling you: This shit aint’ about Ronald Regan.

It’s an interesting idea though, no? Aliens! When you consider it, interstellar travel - expedient, viable, piloted travel between star systems, planets, and galaxies - is a prospect so far beyond human understanding, that any aircraft capable of it may well be the scion of intelligence practically god-like in its superiority to ours. Such a civilization probably wouldn’t just “drop in” every so often to have a look and catch up. In fact, they’d probably observe us for a good long while, making sure conditions here weren’t dangerous for them, looking down from the clouds, scanning for the use of weapons. They might have a protocol - one developed from years of practice, trial, and error – that they’d hold against any intelligent life they might run across. Call it pessimism, but I’m not sure Humankind would stand up to this type of vetting.

***

Let’s indulge shall we? Imagine: humans have discovered a new planet at the outer edge of our solar system, one capable of sustaining life. We decide to call it Dogshitland, and immediately begin to observe it, in hopes of one day going there. Before long we discover that our suspicions are true! Dogshitland is inhabited. It’s inhabited by (what else?) dogs. Massive, aggressive, ill-tempered dogs, of medium intelligence.

Further study indicates that there are different breeds of dogs on Dogshitland, and before long our scientists have figured out a dominant species: Dobermans. Dogshitland is ruled by giant, black, metallic Dobermans, each as big as a city bus and wide as a locomotive. They are violent, and mistrustful by nature, and they rule Dogshitland with huge teeth and military superiority. The Dobermans kill every day. Sometimes out of anger, or for self-preservation, sometimes one dog acting out vengeance on another. But also – and this is far more worrisome – the Dobermans organize, gathering in huge groups, heading across land to seek and destroy whatever they might find driven before them.

We soon discover that the inhabitants of Dogshitland seem to be dependent on doggie treats, despite the fact that – aside from tasting good and making other dogs jealous – the treats are worthless. The acquisition of doggie treats is central to existence on Dogshitland, and because the Dobermans are big and strong and mean, they’ve been able to amass treats than any other breed. Big, violent, not very smart, and addicted – as a race –to something worthless and frivolous, The Dobermans of Dogshitland don’t seem like the kind of dogs that would welcome strangers, even ones in spaceships.

There are other breeds on DSL, all displaying an equal array of favorable and unfavorable characteristics, but all subservient to the needs of the Dobermans.

I’ll save you the question and just provide the answer: No. No fucking way would we ever make an official visit there, intent on joining alien and dog in cooperative triumph. Why would we? The dogs that live there are oppressed, oppressing, and creepy. The entities driving the whole thing are stupid and paranoid, with huge weapons at their disposal. Their planet is nice, and we could probably learn a bit from interfacing from a world so far removed from our own, but none of those things would ever be worth the aggravation of dealing with arrogant, volatile, totalitarian douchebags like the Dobermans.

***

It’s not like we lack for shit that’s off limits. Brothers on this planet don’t often date, marry, and procreate with sisters, (except – obviously – in Florida). Cannibalism has been in decline for the entirety of civilization, and people don’t seem that into public masturbation. Flag-burning is sort of being phased-out, after a brief resurgence in the early aughts. Do-it-yourself brain surgery is a no-no, as is licking sidewalks, biting the heads off butterflies, and eating pennies. All these things we have enough sense to stay away from and not do. All these things and many, many more are frowned upon, and yet murder, the physical fact of willfully destroying another person’s consciousness forever, THAT particular undertaking is one that ALL countries engage in. In many ways, a nation’s capacity for killing is its most important measure of success. In most “First World” countries, we teach our children that they must always be polite, say their prayers, get to school on time, don’t use drugs, and – by the way - if you’d like to kill people, just say the word. There’s no shortage of thems we’d like not to be living! “First World”, “Second World”, “Third World”, “Disney World”, “Cartridge World”…All of ‘em got plenty of fuckers they’d prefer dead.

Looking down on this eternal group psyche-crisis in progress, would a race capable of producing machines made of pure white light, able to travel thousands of light-years in seconds and make not a sound in doing so, would those people even bother to try and tame, befriend, assist, or guide the giant black metal Dobermans who try to kill everything, and don’t seem to have a clue what to do with themselves? Doubtful, from where I’m sitting. Perhaps, if they were making a documentary, or something. I’d imagine we might be diverting for a short while, as reality tv for aliens:

This week on “Those Crazy Fucking People of Earth”, Watch as this stunted race of lunatics fight, and kill each other over works of fiction. Bear witness, as they shit all over the near-perfect world they live on. Laugh at them, so single minded in pursuit of shiny things.

***

It’s frowned upon to shit anywhere but the toilet unless one is camping. It’s frowned upon to grab at boobies. It’s fucking frowned upon to frown upon frowning upon things. Humans beings don’t normally walk around naked, mate with bees, Scream racial epithets around gathered strangers, or brandish loaded weapon in school zones. We all know you can’t scream fire in a theater, and that you can’t light a fire in a theater, and that if a tree falls in a theater, and nobody is in that theater to hear the tree fall, that it is bad form to even think about fire (Gadzooks man! you’ve got trees in theaters. The word “fire” needn’t come into the discussion). Most people don’t fart loudly around attractive women, or talk about how yellow their teeth are, or write poetry about their own bad breath, or leave the fucking seat down, or up, or with shit or little droplets of pee on it. Most people don’t marry cows. They don’t stand in one spot and hit themselves in the head with a brick, blackmail sixth-graders, or serve cockroaches at dinner parties. It’s common knowledge that you shouldn’t swim within an hour of having eaten, or having been eaten. It’s well known that gun powder is no substitute for celery salt, that Lance Armstrong is a dirty stinking shitbag liar, and that the NBA, no matter who wins what when, will never again be a million-billionth of what it once was.

So we do have guidelines. No shortage of mores, us. We got faux pas, fo-pas, sins, and shameful skeletons in disgusting closets for days and weeks and months and years. Truly, if there’s an act to be performed, you can rest comfy: People exist who will stand up and tell you not to perform it. Unfortunately, the extermination on members of our fellow species has yet to make that lists. Dare to dream. Just the opposite, in fact, the government – as has been demonstrated on countless occasions in ways too obvious and repetitive to mention – will actually commit murder, effectively and with great dispatch, if the political context seems favorable.

Yes I’m sort of being a stupid hippie but I’m not a wrong stupid hippie. Not for everybody, but for some. Also, we do seem to be entering a time where people seem more open to changing ideas and social strategy. Almost 40 years ago, President Reagan all but admitted to a clandestine alien colonization of Earth, in progress, and with the full cooperation and complicity of the United States government in same. 40 years! Yet here we are today. Actually, forget that last sentence there. It’s all bullshit, and this thing was never supposed to be about Ronald fucking Reagan.

Doghouse #1: "Like" Fun.

1994. Although we didn’t know it at the time, 1994 was probably the last entire year in history to enjoy a global internet penetration small enough to be called non-consequential. I remember it fondly: when I bought my tickets for that year’s Lollapalooza, Nirvana were the announced headliners. By show-time, however, everything had changed: Instead of Kurt, we’d be getting Billy. With news of Cobain's suicide, The Smashing Pumpkins - already slated to co-headline - had ascended to the top spot. Corrigan and his people seemed game enough come show day, but not as good as the coulda-been Nirvana shows burning though the minds of ticketed fans. Promised something sublime and unique, it was frustrating to accept what they were offering up in its place. Fortunately, I had a list of people to blame. I never attended another Lollapalooza, and I never voluntarily listened to the Smashing Pumpkins again.


Musical happenstance aside, the culture had a more pressing matter to attend in 1994. So complex and enthralling was this idea, even the people selling it had trouble understanding exactly what it might do. It’s roll out to the general public was through a series of commercials carrying the MCI brand, but shilling for something called, “The Information Superhighway.” The spots featured a young actress named Anna Paquin. Dressed smartly in a fancy dress, cute hat and speaking with an equally cute English accent. The tiny pitchwoman didn’t seem to be advertising anything. Instead, she looked cute and precocious, and spouted cute, precocious, positive affirmations interspersed with hopeful-sounding koanic riddles. (“There is no more “There!”). Apparently there was a highway being built. A highway that would bring the world together in ways that previous highways could not. A highway that could save us. By 1999, still years before You Tube, Facebook and Amazon, it seemed readily apparent to anyone paying attention that all the marketing promises could be kept. Everyone agreed: An age of miracles was upon us.

The MCI spots were ubiquitous for a while, but they were part of a much larger global awareness. The elephant had clearly been lured into the room, and now the blind would gather, touch, feel, and speculate.

Now, almost twenty years later, we’re beginning to see the potential end-products of those early years. After all those promises at the beginning, it’s hard not to be at least a little disappointed. If the internet was ever truly envisioned and conceived as a uniting force, it’s existence as such proved gallingly short. By 1998 Napster launched the first sorties of a music / info / file sharing battle between copywriters, artists and the public.

And it’s been sort of downhill from there. The upside potential of what was so obviously a world-changing device began to leaven itself with shitty by-products of it’s rise. Newsgroups evolved into forums and forums began to espouse exclusionary tactics, with the most knowledgeable active users policing the less knowledgeable (and/or those who couldn’t write as well) through castigation, bullying, and threats of expulsion. It’s that ethos that’s crystallized and perpetuated itself, to the point where most opt-in forums on the internet today seem to be run by a fandom of bullies, dead set on belittling the knowledge, opinions, and criticisms of their fellows in the group.

The codifying of the social media phenomenon didn’t help matters. The internet using public wasted no time in diving head first into a complete lifestyle re-jigger on behalf of Facebook. Suddenly we all found ourselves back in touch with - in many cases - a significant representative array of all the people we’d ever met. Now the uniting theme was stoked up again, this time, there’d be no weird forum hierarchy to navigate, and no banner ads distracting us from wasting time talking to people we never liked enough to actually stay in touch with in the first place. Again, the miraculous in electronic form. I think the goodwill lasted all of six months.


The “Like” button, a good idea in theory but beneficial ONLY in theory, and never in practice. The problem is in the weird duality of the feature. In many cases, internet users will share things that they want other people to enjoy. The “Like” button is a good way of closing the loop: Here check this out…this? Love it so much I’m gonna “Like” it. The problem is that “Likes” are used to determine page value in most internet monetization models. As that relationship became more and more prevalent and more and more obvious, the use of the damn “Like” button get’s more and more useless.

Hey look at this.

Awesome. I like it!

And so on. There are also many cases in which people who sell things might price those things according to their “Like” button value. By now most internet users understand this, and this understanding has created a weird new paradox. Now when somebody sends something they want us to like, we automatically assume that we’re being grifted into helping somebody else get paid. That effect alone is enough to negate the perceived benefits of a “Like” button, because the motivations of the “Likers” are seldom stated, and oftentimes not readily apparent. So too for the content provider’s, who maybe simply be sharing things for the sake of sharing, or earning advertising dollars based on “Likes.” Without that key piece of info in the bag, keeping track of “Likes” is completely useless, and that info is NEVER in the bag.

That’s shitty because this evolution was no accident. In my memory, the internet of the nascent, Netscape / AOL / dial-up years was a positive place. The people at work on internet properties were positive people. Conversations at parties, front page articles in the NYTimes. Feature stories in publications major or minor: All of them touted the new, amazing, light speed communication device that would link us all, no more “there!!!.” Every part of every country in the world sitting at one magical table. We would approach problems as one people now, and progress as we knew it would get botox. Then, after the thing was well on it’s way toward making at least some of the hype into reality, we, the young and tech-savvy, the users and builders who’d seen the upside potential and been astounded, we went and implemented every conceivable measure to reverse the effects.

So here we sit. The promises of the internet, save for the ones about how much easier it would be to buy things with it, have - largely - not materialzed. As a race, humans seem to be addicted - more than anything else - to our differences. We teach our children about familial pride and patriotism, but some how it transmutes into the belief in only us. OUR ideas...OUR country...OUR resources...We promise ourselves enlightenment and evolution, and build this awesome engine of attainment, then - just as all the pieces fall into place, we consciously engineer the results to be something other than that. Promised something sublime and unique, it's frustrating, sometimes fatally so, to accept something different offered in it's place. Unfortunately, in 2012, we've got nobody left to blame but ourselves.

Jeff and Crowe Step Out II

Thursday night, 11:49pm  continued…

Before he could make a sound, however, two small white baggies - one from each barrel – fell from the gleaming shotgun and bopped him on the forehead. Crowe had wanted to say “What the fuck is that screaming?”, but the advent of free narcotics had erased the entire recent past from his mind. Coming to his knees, he swiped one sweat-shirted arm across the ashtray and beer can still life on his glass coffee table. Then he looked around the room miming a drug-chop motion, imploring anyone within earshot:

Any you guys gotta’ card? Credit card?...No? Ah…

***

Friday morning, 1:47am

Jeff was struggling:

We uh…We oughtta mamllamugh…mmm…Wh…Wh…Whu…Whummizurzel…

Crowe could always tell exactly how fucked up Jeff was, because his stutter grew more pronounced as drink and drug demanded more and more of his brain function. Crowe hadn’t heard a coherent thought command his friend's breath since they'd blew up Nad’s tv, and that seemed like years ago. Crowe himself was watching his neighbor David, staring, really, although neither man was aware of it. David just happened to be the place where Crowe’s eyes had settled, and so Crowe heard the Domincan when he mumbled:

Sucio…Sucio.

David Rodriguez, Crowe’s next door neighbor and principle cocaine provider, also had a fairly reliable extreme inebriation tell: He began speaking exclusively in Scarface:

Sucio…Sucio…Punta. Her womb is so poluttesh…Palutesh. Suicio…

David didn’t limit himself to scenes from the movie. Although he could – and often did - recite the entire screenplay to anybody who’d listen, David felt he was at his best when actually narrating whatever was happening around him in his weird sounding, Dominican impression of Tony Montana’s signature Cuban patois. He was fully engaged now, and Crowe didmn’t even attempt to get a word in:

Ju white boise…Ju white bois ju nuthink. Ju got nothink. I bury youse cockarocka. Bury you cokarocka…

David made his living harvesting money from Crowe’s school mates by the bushel, selling really long nights to practically every single person Crowe had ever met at Gold Coast High. The fact that Crowe had graduated almost two years before seemed to have no effect on DR’s trade. Gold Coast continued to manufacture coke monkeys by the thousands, and Dave served as many freshmen as seniors.

Say khhello…Say Khhello….Khhhhhhhell…o…Say khhhhell…

DR found his own Scarface impression to be so funny and spot on, that the silly bastard could hardly make it through a quote without falling out. Tonight he was the only dude in the house who wasn’t hallucinating fiercely, and still his own hilarity had unmanned him. Crowe felt his own guffaws coming on when Jeff broke in:

Uh…Two sclabs each…And that was…Two. Two? Hours ago. Four hours. Four. And then how much David…?

DR, still muscling through the hilarity attack, attempted to croak up the word “two”. Jeff understood:

Two eightballs?

The Domincan nodded emphatically, smiling a toothy, bright-eyed smile:

What I tolt ju wha bois? What I tolt Ju?? Ah? Ah? I bury you cockrocka ju….Ju say Ghello to my Li-ew fren…My li-ew fren!! Ah? Ah? Ah.

Crowe thought DR had been there a few hours, Jeff thought only 45 minutes. Either way, three heads on two balls seemed, to each of them, vaguely impressive. They couldn’t voice their approval, however, as the narcotics coursing through their synapses had temporarily quieted both Jeff and Crowe. For a while there was almost complete silence as the three of them exchanged sketchy coke-glances and smacked their lips.

Jeff nodded with pursed lips to indicate his appreciation, spoke:

One of us needs to…

But before he could finish, An amazing scream rose in the apartment. This time, un-drowned by Pink Floyd, the wail proved gut-wrenching. Raspy and failing, the fractured exclamation set off seismic disturbances in the guts of Crowe and Jeff, just in time for the most vivid hallucinating of the evening.

***

Friday morning, 2:38am

They finally got him into Crowe’s car, but because the thing was full almost to the top with furniture and clothing, they were forced to dump Nadet in the trunk. For a while, they’d set Nads down on the grass by car while Crowe combed through the black 1998 Camry trying to Tetris-up some room for his thumb-less friend. It was pointless, and it took a loooong time. DR and Jeff were supposed to be taking care of Nads but instead they were freaking out:

What the fuck is that? Is that an ant? A fucking ANT? There’s a fucking ANT on his fucking, whoops, it went in his mouth…Did you fucking see that?!

Ju crazy mang, I bury youse…hey! That IS an ant!! It’s a whole line of them marching in this dude’s mouth…

Eventually Crowe gave up, announcing:

Fuck it dude. Just in the trunk is ok. Hospital’s only right over there…                                                     

He was pointing – Jeff noticed – in the exact wrong direction. However, Nads was looking rough and he hadn’t made a sound since the scream in the kitchen. Despite the extreme intoxication of everybody involved, an attempt on the hospital was in order. They flung the drained Nads into the trunk and made cautiously for the ER at Providence General Hospital.

***

Friday morning, 2:58

Arriving at the PGH ER Crowe couldn’t help but feel proud of himself. The roads to the hospital kept rolling up in front of him as if he were driving on wrapping paper, but his keen intellect and nano-second reflexes had carried them through. Now, with the day all but won, he wouldn’t just charge ahead. Crowe had learned all he needed to about leap-looking back at the apartment. This time he’d leave nothing to chance. He’d stopped the car in the middle of the street, holding up all emergency room traffic, including ambulances, at 200 yards distance from the glass front door. Then he shut the car off, and watched. Crowe saw doctors and patients buzzing around through the glass, but they looked small, and - to Crowe -like frogs. David had elected not to make the ER trip, but Jeff was narrating enough for both of them:

I see people. Doctors? No…Are those…Are those frogs? Fuckin…Is that a fucking frog??

The ER - land of cops and doctors, nosy nurses, and the possibility of getting arrested under florescent light – had never been Crowe’s favorite place. He caught a look at his frazzled, sweating self in the rear view, then looked over at Jeff, saw Kermit the Frog eyes, and Hulk ripped shirt, and decided that neither one of them could go in. Nads would have to walk to the ER.  

That’s when all the cars stacking up behind them on the street started yelling and beeping at the same time. A booming voice rose from out of it, strong-sounding, tall, and mean:

Move that shithead, or I’ll break ye fuckin’ face! This is an emerg…

A chorus of voices from other cars chimed up. In an instant, Crowe felt that everybody in the world was reprimanding him. The voices got louder and angrier, and before Crowe could make a sound in protest, Jeff threw open the passenger door and darted, top speed, away from the Crowemobile. The sight of his friend’s terrified flight threw Crowe into total immobility. He heard phantom noises that sounded like passenger jets, bullet trains, and missiles flying towards him. The creepy sounds were blending with the horn beeps and insults. They were all blowing and spinning together to form a dragon. Crowe saw the beast taking shape in the air and was overcome with worry: Obviously the Crowmobile couldn’t handle a creature of this caliber. It was much too big! The car was blowing up like a balloon. He could see the doors bulging, hear the rivets popping, and he became almost psychotic with crazed laughter. Laugh-tears water-falling down his cheeks, Crowe marshaled all his strength, reached into the glove compartment, grabbed a baseball sized rock, opened his door, and flung the rock in the direction of the mean-sounding voices. He heard a loud crash as he ducked back behind the driver’s seat and gunned it away from the scene quick-fast, taking a second to notice that Jeff was somehow back in the passenger seat. Crowe meant to drive to across to the other side of the hospital, eager to put the beeping and throwing of rocks behind them, but the acid was upon him in a complete way. What he perceived as a masterful example of tactical evasion, was in fact, a ½ mile creep going the wrong way down a one way street, during which Crowe saw millions of tiny UFO’s in the sky right over his car.  

Eventually they found a parking spot, right behind the ambulance whose windshield Crowe had done in just minutes ago. The driver was standing by, waiting for the police to arrive.

***

Friday morning, 3:30

They parked. Both of them jumped out of the car, walked identical paces to the trunk, and were secretly impressed by the naturally occurring choreography. Neither gave voice to his amusement. Instead, Jeff said:

Ok, you ankles, me wrist. Capeesh?

Jeff was starting to gain some confidence. He’d reached that most awesome part of voluntary hallucinating and was talking in great, well-annunciated streaks, as if he were narrating a documentary:

Three hours, thirty minutes, the body becomes used to the shaky drama of Lysergic-ness. The sensation is like falling, only it seems to last forever and instead of reaching a terminal velocity, you make yourself aero-dynamic with hands above head in a superman position and keep going faster. You can see through people, and into the hidden purposes behind translucent small talk. This is the period of tripping that snagged Doc Ellis no hitter, the sensations the seeded an entire counter – culture in the wake of the Korean Conflict. A heroic dose of good, clean, strong can actually change a man’s life. Not in a vague, emotionally ambiguous way that pizza, beer, and unexpected anal sex with a stranger can change your life, but in a deeper, more personal way. Acid – at least for the first few times one takes it – can create a crystalline new window in the McMansion of existence. 

Crowe hadn’t reached this point yet, and so when it became apparent Jeff had solved his, Crowe was jealous. He immediately began plotting nasty things to do to his friend. In the meantime, he grabbed Nad’s ankles. Crowe and Jeff were amazed by how much Nads weighed. Removing him from the trunk was like trying to lift a full sized cow that’d been halved in a guillotine and wrapped in cheesecloth. Not helping matters was the fact that the one two three count got all fucked up because of the drugs. Crowe was thinking go on three count, Jeff assumed the beat after the three count. Amazingly, and inexplicably (except for acid) they were both planning to throw the unfortunate Mr. Nads broken glass and broken macadam of the Visitors Lot.

AhhhOhWatchit!

Crowe said it, but by the time either of them realized what was happening, it was far too late for preventative measures. Instead, the acidified duo could only watch as their mistakes bore fruit. There was a perfect moment there: Jeff and Crowe with .12 gauge pupils, the inert form of Nads swinging, pausing frozen in mid-air like Dick Fosburry after a perfect flop.

Whoahhh!!!!

Jeff exclaimed as Nads hit the pavement. Crowe’s failure to launch created a whip-saw motion. When gravity realized Crowe had hesitated in his letting go, it took revenge by snapping Nad’s upper back, neck, and head against the pavement. Crowe said:

Youch

Jeff said:

Dude…

Nads said nothing.

Jeff and Crowe Step Out

“Wild Billy was a crazy cat, and shook some dust from out of his coon-skin cap. ‘said trust some of this, it’ll show you where you’re at, or at least it really help you feel it”

Part I

Thursday afternoon, 3:30pm

Nads heard them fucking with the stereo and immediately decided he wouldn’t be watching The Wall. He loved it, of course. He was the one who had told Crowe’s ignorant ass about the movie to begin with. But now, with his trip stalking him like an approaching tornado, Paul “Nads” Nadet felt like getting into something a little more unique, a little more high profile. He headed for the kitchen, noticing, on the way, his fucked up friends cuddling into the AV equipment like two piglets mushing down on a fresh teat.

Banishing his silly friend’s puzzling activities from his mind, Nadet opened up Crowe’s fridge and began pulling out the things he needed. After ten minutes he closed the fridge, moved to the drawers, and began to study and reject various types of cutlery. Nad’s focus was total, his purpose clear in his tumbling mind: He was looking for first quality sharpness and strength. He would seek his quarry with the psychotic myopia that only mega-powerful, totally pure LSD can elicit.

***

Thursday Afternoon, 4:30pm

Silver…

The hippie called it, counting out the five twenties the boys had forked him and still pushing a hard sell despite the fact the deal was done.

The real thing!

he proclaimed, scanning his marks for reactions. Then, after pocketing the bills in the sketchiest way possible and mock-glancing a full 360 degrees around them, the kid dropped his voice to a stage whisper and ducked closer to the boys:

Bet you never thought you’d see that again, right? Am I right?

The boys said nothing.

Taking a step back, the hippie extended his hand in a dramatic, “I’m-passing-you-the--drugs-now” type of motion that both Jeff and Crowe felt was at least twice the attention grabber as simply handing the fuckers over. There was an awkward silence as the hippie waited for proper drug quality appreciation.

They were in the food court of the Providence Place Mall, and both Jeff and Crowe suddenly found themselves wanting to punch the hippie in the throat. They resisted, of course, mostly because they both knew there was a police radio unit actually stationed in the mall. To punch a throat here were would mean instant arrest, and Thursday night was no night for incarceration. Thursday night was Acid Night at Nad’s apartment. Jeff and Crowe loved Acid Night.

***

Thursday Night, 8:30pm

“Silver” turned out to be a silly name for a severely potent incarnation of Lysergic-25. It had taken two hours for Crowe to figure out how to operate the stereo system, which he’d owned for 12 years before donating it to Nadet’s apartment. Everything worked out eventually, however, and for the last 48 minutes he and Jeff had been tripping heroically to Pink Floyd's The Wall, giggling like Saigon geishas circa November ’69. The giant bird animation sequence was coming up. JM and Crow both knew that, because they’d each seen The Wall 86 times, the last 78 of which had occurred together - in this very apartment - over the last seven months. It was at this time that Nads began screaming, loudly, from the kitchen, mere feet from where Crowe and Jeff were freaking out.

The giant bird animation was a shared favorite part, easily the highlight of the whole affair, and so Jeff and Crowe heard no screaming. Using an ancient-looking remote, Crowe tweaked the volume to beyond full power, as the enormous avian on TV ripped out an Africa-size chunk of cartoon continent. Nad’s apartment, a railroad penthouse halving the top floor of an ancient tinderbox tenement, heaved and vibrated with each surreal frame. Crowe smelled ozone. Too much electricity? Fire risk? He found himself momentarily tormented.

di-di-di-di-joo see the frightened ones?

Crowe looked like he’d been tear-gassed. He was pounding his own head with two throw pillows and bouncing like a monkey. Crowe always acted like this when the Wall was on, as if he’d not seen, and committed to memory, the entire screenplay - director’s edits included - a long time ago. As if he didn’t knew exactly what was going to happen and when. Nads continued screaming from the kitchen. The TV continued to drown him out.

Di-di-di-did you hear the falling bombs?

Crowe and Jeff both sang in involuntary whispers. Nad’s screams died out just as the animation became photography, and Jeff found himself watching in helpless horror as Crowe stopped his spazzing out, grabbed - lightning-quick - for the remote, and shut the VCR off. The tv volume was inconsistently calibrated with the Cable. When Crowe hit “stop”, the sound feeding back into the apartment was like the screaming jet-wash of an F-16 heard from inside the turbine. Jeff shit a tiny shit into his pants. Both Crowe and Jeff hit the floor and, succumbing to some cowardly stoner reflex, screamed as loud as they possibly could. The effort was robust, but apparently wasted, as their alarm sounded insignificant against the angry entertainment center. Ironically, the screaming din coincided directly with Paul Nadet’s latest, hoarse lamentations from the kitchen. Seconds later, the hellish noise crested and died with a final angry burst of static. The apartment went silent in ozone-smelling blackness.

***

Thursday Night, 10:37pm

Crowe’s pit bull Eric Clapton (the dog) came trundling in to the room to investigate the commotion. Jeff watched intently, saying “ah!” as if he’d been expecting the dog to show up. He said:

Clappy Clappy! Here girl

Instead, Clapton went to Crowe, who hadn’t moved since his stereo euthanasia moments before. The dog jumped on Crowe's back and sat down. Crowe was clearly dazed but attempted communication regardless:

Clappy…Girl…

The dog jumped down after a few seconds, sniffing his way over to the now very ozone-smelling, former entertainment center. He combed around for his nose in a very particular kind of way that seemed to signal to Crowe, who began twitching and leaning in, shouting:

Oh no. Fuck. Clap…No…Fuck!

But no sooner had he started than the tiny orange pit bull assumed a wide legged stance, thrust out his white doggy butt, and began to shit on the floor in front of the boys. JM saw the pooch begin to vibrate with muscle tension, heard a tiny fart escape its tiny, white, doggy asshole. At this, Crowe and JM became insane with laughter. They both doubled over, tears streaming down faces, making hardly a sound beyond the occasional desperate breath. For 15 whole minutes the Hilarity held the two boys in its sway. They were rolling around and kicking legs. Crowe began to fear disk herniation. They’d only just seized control of themselves and begun to quiet down, when Clapton began sniffing and nudging the poop, feeling at his fresh rug turds like a head chef picking through a shipment of oysters. By the time Clapton (the dog) began to eat the poop, Crowe felt like he might be dying. Once again, he and Crowe went rolling around the floor, clutching stomachs, tears streaming down perma-grin cheeks, trying desperately to breathe through it all. They went reeling around the room like that for a long time, trying hard to stop power-laughing, and laughing even more because they could not.

***

Thursday Night, 11:30pm

Oh…Jesus that’s fuckin’ gross

Jeff rose first, rolling over to one of the stained, ancient couches that comprised his living room set, and pulling himself seated.

Crowe did the same to the opposite couch and then the two boys just sat still, silently trying to reassemble their spatial awareness. They’d taken the drug 3.5 hours ago, and both of them were beaming away like cartoon characters. The ozone smell was still pervasive, but now Jeff had mistaken it for a color. He was sitting back, getting comfortable, pleased to be still and watch the florescent ozone rainbow slowly filling the room.

Crowe saw all this, and understood everything that was going on from one hard glance at his buddy. He stood and moved over to Jeff, speaking once more in that creepy stage whisper:

Dooood…Dooood…

But Jeff had flown, leaving only a perplexed, look-alike shell of Jeff color-gazing on the nasty couch. Crowe kept coming, allowed himself a few tentative steps, advancing until he was standing over his friend. He tried to begin speaking, but found he’d forgotten what he’d been about to say. He tried to press on, opened his lips to form words, but still, there was nothing:

Uhhhhh. Ohhhh. Uh…

Crowe was standing right over Jeff now, looking down into his friend’s moony leer. Suddenly he remembered what he’d meant to say, but before he could let fly a single word, a fresh scream came blowing in from the kitchen.

The scream was horrible. Broken and desperate, it sent dense rainbow clouds laser-beaming across Crowe’s mind where they congealed, and began flowing from his nostrils, ears, and eyes with a weird sizzling noise. Crowe poked about his face and ears for a few moments, trying to staunch the flow, but it was no use. He watched, helpless and bereft, as the last rainbow flavored mists left his body, then he collapsed and began to cry. The fact that he was crying made him feel hopeless and that’s when he REALLY started crying, letting all manner of sob, weep, and snarf come flooding out him like he was auditioning for a chorus role in “HAIR”. The tantrum lasted almost 20 minutes, and afterwards Crowe shut down completely, content to watch eyelid fireworks and leave Jeff and Nads to their own.

***

Thursday Night, 11:49pm

When the stocky black dude kicked the open the apt. door, the two boys remained silent, and perfectly still for almost a whole minute. When the same gentleman brandished a very large, very shiny Remington .12 gauge at them, shouting “On the floor faggots!” in a thick Dominican drawl (onaflaw fah-gots!). Crowe moved, but not as instructed, trying – instead - to dart straight for the kitchen door. Unfortunately, Crowe looked only after he’d leapt, and found he’d not allowed for the correct height, and density of Nad’s glass-top coffee table. Crowe went down hard on the paleolithic shag wall-to-wall. His field of vision went spinning off in a blue flash, while another part of his mind was feeding back phantom helicopter rotor-noise (whup whup whup whup…). The guy with the shotgun took two big steps, and was now standing over the up-facing Crowe, who opened his mouth to speak.

Review...Max Creek, June 8th 2012, Met

Saw Max Creek Friday night. They played the Met, five minutes outside of Providence and diminutive 17-minute haul from my house. Admission costs were tiny. Attendance was enthusiastic but nowhere near overwhelming. The band played one of the best small-room shows I’ve ever seen, it was a privilege to be there to see it, and I cannot wait to do it again.

OK. How’s that? Tight. A little gushy maybe, but that’s good because, really, it should be wayyyy more gushy. What I’m looking for, is a sort of form-letter boilerplate that I can post just after I see the Creek, or maybe just before. It’s always the same, you see? “One of the best small-room shows I’ve ever seen”…Let me qualify that just a scootch: I’m old. I’ve seen thousands of small room shows.

Max Creek does this every time I see them, is what I’m getting at. Never mind what they played Friday at the Met, that shit is history! It’s on Archive right now. Go download it. I’ll wait. Done? Good. Just start at the beginning. I won’t keep you. Despite what I called this piece, I wont be reviewing the show. Instead, I’m going to review every show Creek has ever played, and every show they ever will play. I’m going to use just three words to do it:

Always worth going.

Those words would be true if you live in East Greenwich, or East Jakarta, East of Eden, Easter Island, or North, South, East, aaaaaaand West of the Pecos. Is there another band out there for whom that ridiculous pronouncement could be anything but press release pap-schmeg?? No!! There is not! Trust me, I’m old.

Quick note about Max Creek: They get really lucky with drummers. For the last 15 years or so, they’ve gone, for the most part, with a two drummer set. The battery was composed of two exceptionally talented guys with completely different strengths behind the kit. All Greg Vasso and Scott Allshouse managed to do with their time in Max Creek is become one of the best two-kit drum corps ever to take a stage. Those guys stepped into fill the shoes of another awesome drummer – Mr. Greg Diguglielmo – who’s sound was completely unlike that of his replacements. The last six months have seen the dawn of another two-man set, this time with the omnipotently funky, frighteningly elegant Bill Carbone handling the kit, and a subtle assassin named Jamemurrel Stanley on percussion toys. They are – shocker – sounding all-cylinders amazing after less than a year.

Revision: I’ve decided that I can offer at least a few comparisons to Friday’s ass-kickery at the Met that may serve as a normalized review. The first set of the show was like when General Zod made Superman go into that crazy power-sucking module at the Fortress of solitude to save a captive Lois Lane in Superman II. The second set was like when the Nazis opened the Arc of the Covenant at the end of Raiders of the Lost Arc, but instead of just killing and melting faces, they killed and melted faces and then – miraculously – brought everybody back to life at once.

OK. Good? Good. “Review” commitment fulfilled in a multi-dimensional way? Check. Max Creek reasonably well represented without committing the spastic hyperbole that their playing deserves? Oh checky-check. Creek is going to rip and rend at the space/time fabric again in a few weeks, this time at the greatest room in ALL of Rhode Island, The Ocean Mist in Matunick. Let me remind you:

ALLWAYS WORTH GOING.

Write it on your hand in Sharpie for gadzooks! If you live in Rhody, the O-Mist is not more than 40 minutes from your house. If you live in my house, it’s a lot closer than that. You can read a review of that show in this review, right at the top of the page.

Revelations III

“Existence has its own order, and that no man’s mind can compass, the mind itself being but a fact against others.”

Holy shitdick, you fucking got one. Perfect.

Yeah dude. Fuckin Mesta. Came through.

Lu was feeling around to get the thing opened, with a dizzy grin below wide eyes. God watched him get frustrated in three seconds and borderline enraged in six.

What the fuck it’s…How do you fucking…??

A door slipped open before he could finish the thought. He crouched. The door was about four by four, and had revealed itself silently. Lu was humbled. He whistled in an amazed way. God said:

You like that? I thought that shit open.

Lu’s voice, muted from inside the craft:

Get in and think it shut fucker!

God looked down and his friend’s head beaming back at him from the darkness in the spaceship. Lu held up two plastic bags, one of brown powder, one of white, and let them dangle around his ears. He said:

Where can I plug my ipod?

***

The inside of the ship was absolutely black. There were no screens or levers. There were no buttons, lights, or read-outs. Rather, the inside of the craft looked just like the outside: Weird, seamless metal with no sharp angles.

Lu held up his two bags and God’s eyes sparkled. Lu:

Where can…

Before he could finish, a round, glass table sprung up from the floor hull of the ship. It stopped rising the moment it touched the bottom of Lu’s bags. God smirked:

‘oughtta do the trick?

Lu didn’t reply, instantly deep in a preparation ritual. Taking a credit card from one pocket, he fashioned a small mountain of the brown powder on the glass before him. He did the same with the white powder, chopping down on it for a few extra minutes. He took half the mounds and made a smaller third mound from the yield. He used the credit card to mix the two powders to a sparkling beige, then handed a crystal tube to his friend, saying:

Take this, and let’s blow this place the fuck up.

***

I became aware long after I’d given up on the concept of awareness. For eons, it seemed I’d been falling in that black space. The fall ended just as it had begun: instantly, and without warning. I was sitting, again, with only my senses, inside a circular grey metallic chamber about twenty feet across. I saw no light source, but the air itself seemed to glow white. There were two men sitting there, one had blonde hair, long, like a woman’s. The other had no hair. Between the men, I saw what looked like a glass table. On the table were piles of powders, white, brown, and beige, each one sparking in the weird white light. I watched one man scoop some of the powder together and duck his head toward the table. There was a breathing sound, a sucking. I looked again and some of the powder piles were gone. The two men took turns for a while, ducking and making those noises. They were speaking very loudly, much too loudly – it seemed to me – for the tiny space. I heard one of them say something like “Well, let’s put the top down”, and suddenly we were floating in space. Below us: the world, vast and glowing the deepest blue and brightest white. Unfortunately, we didn’t stay perched there for long.

This part I feel I must get exactly right, so please forgive me if I seem to be over describing this. I’m in a hospital bed. The girl I came in with is dead. My name is (was) Chris Lomba.

One of the men said “You go first”. The other raised his hand like to throw a rock. He said “Abracadabra” and began waving the still-raised hand. Far below us, on the earth, there was an instant result. I heard a sharp crack, like a home-run of a wooden bat. Following that there was a low rumble. It wasn’t coming from the earth, but from behind us. The rumble grew in volume. I could feel the low-register vibrating. If I’d had my body, my flesh would have shaken on my bones. The two men started laughing as if one of them had told a hilarious joke. I looked down at the earth and watched in disbelief as an enormous chasm opened up in the bright blue globe. It began to grow immediately, and the sound was shooting back up at them, colliding with the low vibrations. The air around us in the invisible ship began to roil and wave. On the globe I could see the dark spot growing. It was spanning from the center of what looked like Africa, and still growing. The men weren’t laughing anymore, but I couldn’t look away from the terror on earth.

I saw clouds and ocean begin to collapse through the blackness. Huge sections of firmament fell away, along with billions of gallons of ocean. The crack was now a gash, carving a ragged bisection of the globe. The noise was like live wood splitting under lightning. A great cloud of dense steam burst from deep within the crack and began to enwrap the globe. I watched it billow and rage. The outside leading edge of the awful fog looked like a solid wall of concrete. Within seconds the great cloud had enveloped the entire Earth. I could see nothing but grey. Then, everything was burning. At first I thought there was a fire from the crippled earth, but then I realized that fire, like the rumble before it, was coming down on the poor planet from behind our vantage. The two men started laughing and screaming like maniacs as the flames avalanched past us and consumed the fog. It hit the world and deflected in all directions. There was a hiss that reverberated through the heavens and pressed in on the conflagration. Then everything was all burning and melting and disappearing. I saw the men a last time and they were on fire. Their laughter had turned to a final screaming, and we were all falling and burning as we went.

***

Storyteller in The Glass Palace

Prolog:

“…All our times have come…”

The man called Lu walked with a spring in his step, partly because Tompkins square was, by far, his favorite place in the entire universe. There were other reasons, and they were flocking through Lu’s head like mad sparrows as he skipped toward the center of the park. Then he saw his friend, and what his friend was standing next to and began to run.

Storyteller in the Glass Palace

The Storyteller had come a long way, but he wasn’t nearly so tired as he wanted the wetmaid to believe. He found that affecting a limp, a deeper voice than his own, perhaps an occasional puzzled stutter, would inspire trust when he came knocking. The story teller, old as he was, prized trust over all other things.

But at the Glass Palace, trust was no issue. The storyteller had been coming here since before the God-King had built his incredible underground fortress, and those who would receive him knew they had nothing to fear. Just the opposite in fact, by the time he entered the amphi-chamber, there wasn’t a seat to be had. The entire court had come out it seemed, for this event. Even with the kingdom under siege and rumors of the God King’s imminent demise, the public still demanded their stories.

The old story man looked out only a few seconds before beginning. There was no fanfare, no introductions or showmanship of any kind. Instead he stood still, waiting, like a tree that grown out of massive glass pulpit, until the entire crowd had gone pin-drop silent. Once he started speaking he would not stop until his story was finished.

***

The Slave they called Nesso knew how old he was on the last day of his life. He’d woken up the same way he’d woken up virtually every day: Screaming, or – more correctly – yelling. Yelling for all he was worth, yelling so his brother slaves, stacked around him like the perishable product they’d been reduced to by the God King, could wake up quickly, and begin yelling themselves. It was in this way, that the three guards who watched his Tet could rouse the entire scaffold – 500 slaves – with but one bucket of shit and piss.

Nesso was – of course – not this boy’s true name. He’d been taken as an infant, fodder for the Pharaoh’s ever-expanding war, before learning even so much as his people’s words for “War” and “infant”. Instead, the child would learn the only things the empire wanted him to know. His Name: (Nesso, meaning “Good Dog”), His Purpose (To clear the glass on the way toward the Blade and let the God King’s light), His king (The God King, Pharaoh Ramses, sixth of his name), and how many days he had left in his miserable life (None, as of his waking this morning). His Tet had provided the rest of his brief, but very important, education. They’d made odd teachers. Married, as they were, to the will of the King, they had no time to explain they why and how of things. Nesso would have to learn as all his people had learned: through vital facts, hurled in urgent nighttime whispers by fellow slaves stacked around him.

His job: “Clean the glass to deliver the God King’s light. Every morning ye rise, wake what needs waking, and then ask the guards to release you from the scaffold. They will send you into the desert towards the Blade. As you walk out onto the desert, an archer will sight you from the top of the Tet, and if you veer so much as a step, he will put a heavy bolt through your eye from behind. You will walk until you see the light hailing from top of the peak they call Blade, and you will fall to your knees and dig sand and clean glass, clearing the space around you as if to fit six of your size, lying side by side. You will do this. You will return, and ask the guards to permit you entrance back into the scaffold. Then you’ll thank the God King for your breath and your eyes.”

His people: “A village toward the coast, long gone. Your father was called Mix.”

His Age: “23 years, six months, two weeks, three days…”

The Rest: “Every day, when it is time to do the God-Kings work, last night’s guard will dump the piss bucket onto your head. You’ll yell. Just loud enough, and just long enough to wake enough of your brothers around you, so that they may yell, and so on, until this scaffold is awake, and ready to serve. When the Empire conquers new worlds, the healthy slaves will be placed in scaffold before you, to wake with the guards piss, and yell loud enough to wake you. The Scaffold holds five hundred, packed into small cages stacked ten by ten. It’s on wheels, and constantly roams the desert that separates the vast reaches of the God King’s domain. There are others, some with women, they say”

“Your job is important. The slaves who’ve been longest in this Tet tell of a vast glass palace, hundreds of leagues below the sands, built around a giant jewel called the Semix. A place where only the God King and those he favors can be at peace, and safe to rule their earth. The glass you clean will let the God King’s light into this Glass Palace and keep it aglow for the God King’s blessed affairs.”

“This is a sacred job, and only recently entrusted to slaves. For that reason, those his majesty selects for this duty are only made to serve for twenty years. On the last day of your service, you’ll speak up, saying to the last guard you see before you walk out toward the Blade:

Tonight is the last night of my service.

Thank him, in advance, for his assistance, so that he will find favor with you, and sneak up behind you when you are not looking, and slice your head from your neck in one quick chop, so there is but one moment of horrifying pain before you move on to serve the God-King in the next world.”

But Nesso never ended up reminding the guard. In the end, after everything had been decided, he never knew whether or not it had made any difference. He liked to think that it had.

***

It was cold, out on the sands. He’d cleaned the God King’s glass thousands of times, but Nesso never got used to the cold. It was always worst in these last minutes before the baking sun came up to roast everything under it. The slave could see it, gathering itself behind the Blade, making the gigantic spar glow like a sword in a forge. Even with all that roiling red light so close, the brittle desert cold riding him through the shadows made Nesso ache. He felt the cold fingers of the night invading him beneath his tunic, as he unsheathed his two silken brushes and took to his knees. He was over a spot in the sand known only to himself and very few others – friends and associates of the God king. A driver named Jint had told him where the glass was and how to find it, and over the years the job – as jobs will – became like a second nature to him. Jint had been gone a long time, and nobody after him had ever asked about how to find the glass.

Kneeling in the cold sands, Nesso stroking the desert back and forth in long arcs, until the crystal below began to glint and sparkle in the new light. He cleaned the surface delicately, so as not to scratch its finish. Jint had taught him how the glass was pure, ad that any blemish would darken vast reaches of the God King’s domain. Before long he finished. As he stood there, surveying his work for what he knew would be the last time, he looked across the sands at the Blade and thought – for the very first time – about running away.

He was supposed to ease his way back to the Tet, taking care to give his headsman guard plenty of time to come lop off his faithful head, and twenty four hours ago the idea made nothing but sense to young Nesso. Now, with the frozen desert turning welcoming-warm in the bright dawn, and the immense Blade glowing before him, another idea started to take shape, an idea of a life beyond the Tet and perhaps beyond the God King himself. They said the empire stopped at the Blade in the west, only because the very earth ended a few miles beyond it. Nesso knew better. He’d seen better every night of his life, gazing out at the Blade, and the craggy mountains stretching miles beyond. Then he saw the headsman, approaching in the dark, bearing death as a gift.

***

The God King…Is that what I am?

You could be…

Really? Where? When? I’m going to die here, soon, you too, and everyone in this palace, everyone in my kingdom. What kind of God is it, who can be brought so low, so quickly.

Zette was one wife, but she was important. She was the most beautiful woman in the empire, the smartest and most revered of the God King’s thousand wives. She was also the wife who’d plucked Moses from the river on that day so long ago. Her council would be heard weather her King asked or not:

There’s none that’s been brought low husband. Not yet. Whoever speaks for this man Am’Ram speaks loudly, and they mean to be heard. Even so, my dearest husband, this voice offers both the doom, and the deliverance.

You’d council me to release the boy? To just let him do as he pleases? Against my wishes? I see only doom in that…

Just weeks ago he was your son, and you’d have let him leave and return as he would by his own heart for the rest of your days. Now is the world so different?

She knew the true answer, but what else was to be said? Events precluded any but this argument. They kingdom had been visited by otherworldly catastrophe since the one called Lu had fled the kingdom. Frogs had fallen from the sky like raindrops, thousands of children had been slaughtered like cattle, and the citizenry were dying by the hundreds from a horrible wasting disease the locals were calling “the Rot”. Her God, Her King, Her husband…Each face of this man before her knew full well the only thing there was to be done. Yet here they were. She watched the stars flicker to life above them and hoped against hope.

***

Turn around boy.

Nesso did as he was told, although it puzzled him that his headsman would force him to look upon his face. The turning, however, solved his puzzlement.

You know who I am?

I do sir.

Go then. You will be fine.

As you wish, sir, Am’Ram…I mean…

Shhh. Be calm. Do as I say and you’ll be safe.

Things were moving a bit too fast for the slave called Nesso. He started back towards his Tet with his head swimming. A massive hand grabbed his side gently as he did, turning him again, pointing him at the Blade.

If you please, my brother. I have some friends there. They have use for a man who knows duty, will you make for them? Follow your path to the Blade and they’ll take you in before the sun is high.

More confusion, but Nesso agreed. He didn’t know if he should bow his head, or take a knee, and got caught somewhere between. The legend spoke again:

Go my friend. Save your bows for those who deserve them…Go!

This time Nesso went.

***

Revelations II

Prolog:

…God way up in heaven, for whatever it was worth

Thought he’d have a big ole party,

Thought he’d call it planet Earth…

The night was dark, and this far away from the lots, you could see every star. The girl was cuddled in a huge picnic blanket with the word “Thistle” printed in bold black across it. Her head rested on her hands, crossed under it. She spoke:

The kid... Lomba?

The man lying next to her took a long time getting back:

OK…

OK?

She sounded angrier than either of them would’ve liked.

Yeah. Ok. What else?

They found them. Hart told me. In the desert, two days wrapped in duct tape and stoned to forever. What the fuck?

The man said nothing. Eventually the girl went again:

I’m leaving. Back to New York.

The man laughed back:

Lemme guess: You “do believe you had enough”?

The girl said nothing. At some point, they both fell asleep. The next day, the man drove the girl to an airport, and hugged her tightly before putting her on a plane. She turned in the jet way for one last glance, but he’d already turned to join the throngs of family leaving the gate.

Revelations II

First, there is this place where we are, where I am. The girl is dead. She’d come in with me, but her brain had stopped working hours before that. An ER doctor said some stoic sounding words over her body, and then ducked out, off to inform the girl’s family. That was fine. That was the way it was supposed to go.

Now I am here, in the hospital, and the girl I came in with his dead. A guy tried to kill us both with poison. He succeeded, is still succeeding. I can feel the poison, sitting like a coating of slime over the structures of my body. It’s an awful sensation, but also amazing, because the poison – even as it’s killing me – is teaching me.

I’m in a bed. The bed is made of different kinds of steel and aluminum. Its mattress is made from cotton, and synthetic poly-fibers that resemble cotton. My name is (was) Chris Lomba. The sheets – colored white and smelling clean – are cool and comfortable. I’ve got a pillow under my head and smaller one under my back. The nurse changes them every 40 minutes to avoid something called “bedsore”. I have a tube connected to my arm by a permanent intravenous needle. The tube brings salty water, and vitamins. Because I am asleep, I cannot eat, and so this arrangement “eats” for me. Two contacts are taped to my chest, and another two too my lower stomach. If I move wrong, I can feel the tiny strands of hair, stretching and breaking at the contact’s sticky borders. There is noise. There is the constant chatter of people who I cannot see, shot through with medical terms, pronunciations and pronunciation corrections. Sometimes I hear crying. Sometimes I hear laughter. The girl I came here with is dead, because a man who was mad at me tried to poison her. He tried to poison me as well, and he may yet succeed. So far, however, his poison is working against him, because the poison – as deadly as it may be – is also showing me things, and checking to make sure I understand them.

The poison allows me to fly. Not all of me, only my senses. My body stays behind, in the room with the vitamin tubes and constant chatter. The first time I did it, I thought I was dreaming, or maybe, finally, all the way dead. I was looking at somebody, and I realized it was me, and I realized that I wasn’t “in” myself, or even in the room. Instead, I was floating just outside my room, looking in. I could see my eyes. I could hear the beeps and coughs of the expensive medical cocoon around me. I could see all that, and I ran from it. My name is (was) Chris Lomba.

I flew up. I didn’t know where to go, but “up” felt right at the time. Before I knew it, I was breaking for the sky, shedding the last atmospheres of the planet. It was huge very cold up there. My breath was blasting out in thick, misty clouds, but as I rose I felt only warmth and comfort. I saw earth receding under me, and the universe ranging all around me. There was color and light and sound bursting in every section. I saw stars falling and spiraling. I saw suns forming into rotations and alliances with other suns.

There was music. It was all around me, loud as life, but silent – I knew - to all but me. I began to perceive a borderland, or a place where some type of boundary was marked. I was confused, because it seemed to me the very edge of time and space itself, and it was burning. The outer reaches of the universe were on fire, and the flames driven by wind so fierce, that no earthly force or structure could have made a stand against it.

I became alarmed. Now, Instead of running from captivity, I felt myself being drawn to an infinite darkness where consciousness is futile, and has no place. I felt my existence against all that I’d beheld, and it came up useless, and of no consequence whatsoever. I became paralyzed, and terrified, and then I saw it: the final void before me. It grew, in seconds, from a pin-prick of blackness amongst all that universe and light, to a giant, yawning crevice that blotted out every other thing from my vision. I spun and tumbled for what seemed like thousands of years. When I woke up, I was somebody else:

***

His name is (was) Scott Xino   

What eventually woke him was a starter’s pistol. There was a team-building event going off in the parking lot, and the starter pistol kicked it off forcefully, leaving no doubt as to its having begun. The pistol said “We are GO!! We are actually doing shit. Now! Right fucking now!” The result of the exuberance would, doubtless, strengthen the team-ly aspects of the participants in the exercise. Also, it woke up S.A. Scott Xino, for this, the last day of his life.

For three minutes and forty two seconds he staid still, took stock of his position. The room was light, and he heard birds. It smelled, to Xino, like about 11:00am. The girls from last night were still there, even though he felt certain he’d warned them not to be. One was next to him, curled up facing away from him on the brutal hotel foldout, naked, uncovered, probably chilled, definitely unconscious. He saw the other one’s foot sticking out from the entryway to what Motel Six calls : the living area. Suddenly, he remembered exactly what had happened before they all passed out, and he became amazed. He remembered his brother. What if Stephen was still there? Scott noticed that he was wearing jeans.

He took stock. The pills: in his pocket. The weapon: In the small of his back, In a Velcro clutch fastened to a custom made belt made of Kevlar webbing. The ocean: he listened for a minute, heard waves, seagulls. The ocean was apparently still in business. Scott Xino smiled to himself, said a small prayer about his brother. Then he leaned over the bed, grabbing a pillow, pawing the girls shoulder, and smothering her with the pillow all in one fluid attack.

The girl was very fast. It would occur to him later, after all the drama, that the first girl must have been awake, possibly expecting something. Had he mouthed off about the plan before passing out? Whatever she was, she was not having this murder. She kicked, she tried to scream, she clawed his face. He couldn’t get the pillow on her face cause she was trying to bite his fucking fingers. She was getting loud. She was cursing him up and down as she struggled. To Xino it sounded exhausting. By the time she’d arched her back into a yoga-rainbow and started screaming at the top of her voice. Xino blew the .38 Colt Anaconda through her teeth when she went to scream again. There was an explosion of blood and teeth that sounded like shucking oysters. Her eyes got giant in the last instant.

His brother Stephen was not in the room.  For one thing, the shot in the miniscule bungalow was the loudest thing Scott had ever imagined times ten. His brother - no matter how hard he'd been sleeping - would have been awake and moving fast nano-seconds after the report. That left the other girl. The foot wasn’t sticking out any longer, because the girl it was attached to was at the door. She was wearing cowboy boots, and nothing. Unlike the first girl, this one wasn’t wasting energy screaming, instead she was trying to calmly negotiate the dead-bolt, and swing-bolt locks of the Motel Six door. She was gasping and panting, but despite all the terror, she was being quiet. A random emotion, something like respect, flashed in Xino’s mind. He covered the distance between himself and the girl and fired into her neck from behind.

***

The air in South Florida smells like flowers. Not all the time, but enough. That’s what the air smelled like today, as Scott Xino waded into it from the AC’d motel lobby. He smelled it immediately, exploding like a roman candle in the boiling of the Florida mid-day. It made him smile. He was shirtless, and wearing jeans and no socks. He was covered in blood. He wasn’t wearing shoes.

Heading beach-ward out the Motel Six rear entrance, Xino was taking his time. He eased over the wide metal causeway separating the hotel and the dunes. Soon, Xino could see umbrellas arrayed like a pilgrimage all the way down the beach. He was 100 yards from the water. He’d been right about the time, it was 11:37.

***

He almost went ahead with it, just busted into a run and crashed the surf. He’d swim – he swore he would – until his heart exploded in his chest and he sank to the bottom of the sea like a bundle of garbage. He felt the water around his ankles though, and the open ocean this far south was cold enough to keep a man awake just long enough to come to his senses. He stopped there, in the waves, soaked in the blood of strippers, and took the script bottle out of his pocket. He read it again. For some reason, he liked reading it:

Diazapam…10 mgs…

Take as directed, three times daily.

Qty: 90

Refill: Three times before November.

He shook it. He heard ninety little blue pills knocking around in the orange plastic jar.

***

Just a water

Sir?

Can I ah… Do you have water?

The tiki-bar bartender looked shocked and angry at the same time. Xino looked a wreck and he knew it, smelled awful, there was the blood. He pressed on:

Yah. If I could? I don’t have any money.

There were two other guys at the bar, but at this they packed up their statuesque bloody marys and headed for calmer waters. The barkeep spoke with new confidence:

Sir, I’m going to ask you to step away from the bar sir, there’s a dress..

Oh wait. No I have money. I have…Here. A hundred’s ok?

Code. Yessir a hundred’s just fine.

Xino wasted no time at the tiki bar, thumbing off the childproof cap and sucking down all ninety blue Valiums at once with a gullet-full of hundred dollar water.

***

You can’t. You know that right? I can’t let you.

His brother. Late and stupid, as usual.

I killed those girls. We killed those people. You promised.

I take my promise back.

It would appear so.

Turn and face me…

Go away.

Look at me

Go

Look at me.

***

Then he was swimming, and he was a long way out. He’d swam fast, and dove deep. He felt himself coursing through the water like a torpedo. He was silent and awesome. He’d brook no argument.

He looked below him, and started swimming in that direction.