“Huh?”
He shrugged his shoulders then exited the tent.
I sat there—bewildered—and gazed at the empty wine bottle.
THE TROUPE of vagrants (including Mackie, the Lonesome Bulldog) had assembled and awaited Moroni’s apparently last opus. Moroni had pulled out all the stops for this one—his grand finale speech. A stage with a podium was assembled. On both sides of the platform were amplifiers stacked to fifteen feet. A video camera and lighting faced the stage. A white, news-like van with a satellite dish propped on top was parked in the back.
Moroni was in the van.
The lights came up as circus music boomed through the amps. Moroni’s voice, in the manner of a vaudevillian stage host, cut in: “Ladies and Gentlemen—allow the madness to proceed, as Froward Moroni gives his End-Of-the-World (as we know it)wrap up!”
Pre-recorded, canned stadium applause nearly blew out the speakers, as well as our eardrums.
Moroni exited the van and strolled to the stage like an exaggerated nobleman. He had clad himself in a highly decorated World-War II four-starred General’s regalia like George S. Patton.
He gripped the podium and waited for the pre-recorded applause to die down.
“This time I have gone too far!” his voice echoed from the speakers. “Filing a declaration of war against the New (and Improved) Interstellar Syndicate at this point is akin to riding into battle on a mule and wielding nothing but a fork against a Roman legion. The New (and Improved) Interstellar Syndicate (or N(aI)IS) is a subversive, high-powered clandestine group who controls the planet earth as well as its moon, owns land on Venus, Mars, various moons of Saturn and has interest in a small section of the Andromeda galaxy. These nameless, faceless yet affluent and powerful barons are attempting to expand their market into the Milky Way. Our planet is to be their founding base of investment. As of right now, this entity owns all the rights to all the airwaves, brainwaves, thoughts, subliminal circuits, dream-making production companies, fantasy material, impromptu daydream clubs, blueprints for the American Dream, Antarctica, condos in Cabo, and a plush getaway retreat in Barrow, Alaska.
“I am not who you think I am. As a matter of fact, I am as treasonous as the N(aI)IS, for I have been working on all of your brains, in order to ‘free them up.’ During the year we have been together, you all have had new thought parameters installed, your subliminal circuits counterfeited and your subconscious wetware reprogrammed. Unbeknownst to yourselves, you are all now ‘free-agents’, able to entertain free thought and free will as you please. Too bad after tonight all of your memories will be, in some way or another, altered so that you will have mostly forgotten our tenure together. Do not be afraid, soldiers—you are free now. You will again hear my voice in the future….”
Moroni stared out to all of us. Some wiped tears from their bleary eyes, while others, like myself stood dumbfounded and on the verge of a fit of nervous laughter.
“And now it is time….” The speakers began to reverberate. The lights began to glow. Moroni’s voice permeated throughout an intergalactic expanse of space. I could perceive his voice saturate itself into my own mind.
“I, FROWARD MORONI OF THE F.T.W.C. DO HEREBY DECLARE ALL-OUT INTERSTELLAR WAR ON THE INSURGENT ENTITY KNOWN AS THE NEW (and IMPROVED) INTERSTELLAR SYNDICATE ON THE GROUNDS OF GALACTIC TREASON AND FOR ATTEMPTING TO TAKE CONTROL OF THE INALIENABLE RIGHTS OF ALL THE SENSES OF ALL SENTIENT BEINGS … COME ON, BABY…. TAKE ME ON, AND SCREW YOU ALL!”
He raised both his fists into the air. A huge explosion ensued, cutting out the electricity, leaving us all in the dark.
Complete silence, aside from the conversation of a few crickets and the flap of the tents in a slight breeze, trailed.
From a distance began a low rumbling noise, building in volume. For a few moments we stood and heard the subtle, mechanical symphony grow into a robust orchestration of what we soon learned was a small armada of dark-colored helicopters.
As the choppers encircled our camp, smoke bombs landed on us. Sheer chaos followed. Through the smoke I witnessed the vague silhouettes of the perpetrators, running at us from all directions. Men wearing three-piece-suits and gas masks, wielding submachine guns. Aside from Mackie the Lonesome Bulldog (who barked and snatched at pant legs and got kicked around like a large soccer ball) and Lustra Love-Joy (who writhed and undulated in some sort of trance-sexual dance), we all remained still, benumbed with astonishment. I was a pair of stunned eyeballs embedded in a dense flesh statue. The well-dressed commandos ran around smashing and burning anything and everything into bits. The amps, lights, van windows, tents, campers, Fillono’s 16mm camera, the stage, podium, Champ’s sculptures: all destroyed with reckless abandon.
“Where is Moroni?” a gas-masked voice abruptly interrupted.
“Huh?”
I believe one of his associates rammed the butt of his gun into the back of my head, rendering me unconscious.
ONCE AGAIN, I woke up not knowing where I was.
The place looked like a hospital room, or maybe a prison cell. Everything was immaculate and white, including the padded steel door. I was on a soft cot-like bed. My mind in a cloudy haze, thoughts formed into something tangible only to disperse into a formless nebula.
A lady’s voice similar to one over the loudspeaker at an airport cut into the room, thwarting me from my daydream. “Welcome back to the A-to-Z Research and Clinical Trials Center. To ensure a somewhat pleasant stay, we recommend you follow our instructions. Be dutiful, please. Thank you.”
She instructed me to sit in a chair and face a video screen, which had appeared on a wall from behind automated receding doors. I was told to relax, which I knew was going to be tough because the chair was of the metallic fold-out variety specifically designed to be uncomfortable. But I’d give it my best shot.
A woman’s face came up onto the screen, the type of face that could be seen in a car commercial or behind the reception desk at a large Wall Street firm—at least how I imagined the reception desk. Plain but pretty, in a business-like fashion.
“Edward P. Bikaver,” the face on the screen addressed me. “Do you have any questions?”
“What’s going on? Why am I here? Who the hell are you?”
She smiled. “We are going to do some psychic exercises and subconscious rehabilitation in order for you to go back into the world and operate as a functional human being.”
It was clear I wasn’t going to get any solid answers from this lady.
“During this program, please do not direct your attention away from the screen,” she said.
“Uh-huh,” I mumbled.
Intricate patterns and fractal geometric designs twirled on the screen. I watched with my mouth agape. When I sensed drool cross the threshold of the lip, I figured I was then hypnotized.
My thoughts converged upon the form of a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl. A yearning swelled up within me: to be with her … to touch her … to kiss her … etc.
The screen lit up: right there on the screen was the blonde of my thoughts and a swarthy-looking gentleman. The guy was a suave, embellished romantic caricature of me: his hair slicked back and gelled into a pompadour and his silken shirt open at the top, revealing an absurdly hairy chest. The two stood on a veranda on a cliff overlooking an oceanic sunset. They gazed into each another’s eyes, their faces drawing toward each other.
I thought about kissing the girl; as I did so, the caricature on screen drew the girl into himself and embellished an exaggerated kiss of her. After the seemingly eternal smooch, he leered into her eyes and said (with a quasi-French accent): “Your eyes are the ocean of the universe … and I, standing atop the cliff of loneliness and despair … plunge into your eyeballs to be rescued by your heart….”
Bile rose from the pit of my gut due to the overwhelming sense of loathing and nausea at what my eyes beheld on the screen. Picture a sleazy romance novel adapted to a cheap soap-operatic version for the screen and you would be peering into my alleged
soul. The source of the cheese? Apparently, my own thoughts.
I tried not to think. As I did so, another caricatured version of myself came on-screen. This one a blithering dolt, eyes closed, who sat in a meditative, lotus position and repeated to himself, “Just don’t think … just don’t think … just don’t think….”
I thought: “This is torture.”
Another scene came up: yet another caricature (also resembling me, but dressed up in 1910 prison garb) having cigars extinguished on various part of his anatomy and his nose-hairs plucked, getting slap-jacked, cattle-prodded, tickled, racked in the nuts, pinched, kicked, and head-butted by a bevy of military-clad men resembling high-ranking SS officers. The scene—though violent—had the feel of a slapstick-styled farce a la The Three Stooges. My portrayer twisted, agonized and yelled with a vaudevillian/silent film embellishment and the only thing missing from the torturers were curled, villainous pencil mustaches. I watched with complete disgust.
Every thought of mine turned into an exaggerated caricature on the screen. All my thoughts were subject to a diligent mockery, one that I could not escape.
Perhaps to think of myself as a member of an audience who might be watching my thoughts display themselves on a screen—yes, that would work.
This attempt was in vain, for before me I viewed an image of myself staring at an image of myself staring at an image of myself ad infinitum….
I gave up.
After bearing witness to a number of z-grade movie scenes derived from aspirations, yearnings, past, present, dreams, fantasies and whatever else my brain could muster up, I hit upon one of the greatest sanctuaries the human being was capable of—I fell asleep.
The psycho-cinematic screening had finally come to an end.
IN SURREAL flight, I (or at least my sub-consciousness) floated through clouds of fractal geometric designs. I glided downward toward a building. Rather than crashing into it, I passed through the roof and hovered into an office, where I recall catching a quick glimpse of myself seated in a recliner, and someone sitting in a chair next to me jotting down notes.
As I said, it was a quick glimpse, for the next thing I knew I jettisoned into a surge of electrical combustion, into the body (my body) on the recliner whereupon my (or his) consciousness and sub-consciousness collided at a threshold of awareness.
A man’s voice counted down from ten to one. When he reached one, my eyes opened.
Sitting across from me, a guy with a bushy white Mark Twain mustache peered into my eyes. We were in an office, the one I had just glimpsed. His gaze bore through my skull. He grinned.
“Vell, Meester Beekavfer, dat vas ein gut und produkteev session. I feel dat vee are progreseeng very vell,” he said in a heavy German, or Austrian, or perhaps Swiss accent.
I blinked. He perceived my lack of knowing what the hell was going on and winked.
“You vill be deesoriented for avile. Dee combeenation of dee peels und dee heepnosees go so far eento your psychee dat your own brain forgets dee aktual reealeetee ven you avake. Soh don’t vorry, you veel bee up und runneeng een no time…. Do you have anee qvestions?”
I blinked again. I thought of quite a few questions. Questions, at this point, were futile.
“Veree vell…. Heer ist your preescreeption, und don’t forget to take zhem.” He handed me the slip of paper as we walked to the door. He placed his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t vorry. Everyteeng veel be A-OK. Ahh yes, een kase you run eentoo eemergencee again, here ist mein kard.”
He handed me the card and we shook hands.
“I veel kall upon you venn you must come too ouwer next session.” He winked again.
I gave him my thanks.
I walked out of the building in a state of confusion. The sky was overcast and I could smell impending rain. As I staggered down the walkway, a blond-haired girl—her gaze intent upon me—approached.
“Well, how’d it go?”
I had no clue who this person was, though her demeanor suggested that we were well acquainted, if not intimate. I thought I was out of my mind.
“Dr. Götzefalsch told me you’d be disoriented for awhile. How do you feel?”
I was at a thorough loss of answering her question. I had nothing to compare anything to as far as feeling. At that particular moment in time, I didn’t know what feeling meant.
“C’mon, let’s go get something to eat.” She grabbed me by the arm and led me to a parking lot. We climbed into a Toyota pick-up truck. She put the key in and turned. The engine purred. She ground the clutch into first gear. As she let off the gas, the vehicle sprang into motion. Completely mistiming the next shift, she forced it into second. Though I was oblivious to everything that was going on with me, I knew one thing: this woman had no clue how to drive a stick.
“Easy, you’re gonna ruin the clutch!”
“I told you I can’t drive these things. Why couldn’t you own an automatic?”
I SAT in the truck—my truck—as the Blonde walked into the cheap burger joint to get us some food. I pulled out my wallet and examined my driver’s license. The bloated, drained man in the photograph bared little resemblance to the thin, sort-of healthy looking face in the mirror. The two looked similar only in the eyes, hair color and a slight look of sad confusion on their faces. The license had been issued a few years prior. Must’ve been going through some rough times, I thought.
I tucked the license back and noticed a crisp twenty-dollar bill sleeping in the billfold. A liquor store across the street happened to catch my eye.
I came out with a 750 ml bottle of Smirnoff, a bottle of Chilean red wine, and a corkscrew; maybe the girl might like the wine.
Back in the truck, the cap to the vodka came off with ease and the liquid went right down my throat. A warm, mild shudder passed over me. I opened the glove box and a pile of cassette tapes careened out. On one was a label that read “The Thought Police: Art B. Well’s Take on Real Reality.” It got tossed back into the glove box. Johnny Cash’s The Mystery of Life, Neil Diamond’s Solitary Man, Nevermind by Nirvana, as well as some others that had no labels, went back into the glove box as well. Mozart’s Magic Flute slid into the old tape deck. Through one clean speaker and one blown one, Mozart’s genius flowed out.
That was nice. I felt at ease.
“YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DRINK WHILE YOU’RE ON THOSE PILLS!”
The abruptness of her statement thwarted me from my flute intoxication bliss. I took another pull from the bottle and dialed the volume on the deck up. She reached over and turned the music off.
“You son-of-a-bitch! What the hell are you trying to do, kill yourself?!” She got in and tossed the burgers onto the seat next to me.
I stared at the dashboard, completely silent.
What the hell was I trying to do? Hard to know that when you don’t know who the hell you are or what the hell’s going on….
“You’re something else. You think this is some sort of story where you are the tortured character! You believe you’re a tormented soul writing your own life’s misgivings to the world, as though your own anguish negates your mess-ups. You don’t give a shit: you’re so self-absorbed in your own situation you don’t even care what goes on around you or who is affected … I try to get you some help and you piss it all on booze!” She started the vehicle.
This wasn’t going as anticipated. She was supposed to come back with the food, appreciate the bottle of Chilean wine, feel a deep connection with my artistic spirit, be impressed with the fact that I liked Mozart and the day was going to get real romantic and legendary.
That was how my pathetic and delusional mind had envisioned it going.
Back at the place (apparently, my place), we weren’t saying much to one another. She sat on the couch and flipped through a red spiral notebook, either doodling or jotting stuff down with a partially worn down pencil.
I went to take a piss.
As I was pissing, I figured I’d take care of a shit that had been culminating
. I finished my business and reached for the toilet paper. On the spool was a dry cardboard cylinder; no wiping paper existed on the roll whatsoever. I leaned over and opened up the sink cupboard: the only tenants therein were a mini plunger, a bottle of sodium hydroxide, a daddy-long legs spider and a small pile of magazines.
“That answers the question whether or not the Blonde lives with me.” I figured she didn’t, because if she did, there would definitely be spare toilet paper.
I grabbed one of the magazines—a Penthouse—ripped out a couple of pages and folded then rubbed them into softness. I wiped, flushed and walked out of the bathroom.
She watched me as I walked toward the table. About a quarter of the vodka was left. I sat down, took the bottle and drank right out of it, then leaned back to analyze this scenario.
“You know, if I didn’t feel you had some sort of potential, I wouldn’t even care to waste my time on you.” She shook her head.
I finished the bottle and put the cap back on.
“We’re out of fuel,” I stated.
“What do you want?” She stood up.
“I want something to drink.”
“Of course you want something to drink. That’s your character defect. You’re supposed to want something to drink. Don’t you get it?!”
Actually, I didn’t. I didn’t get one damn thing.
She approached and sat down across from me at the table. Her eyes would not lock off mine. What to say to her? What was transpiring with me? I was staring at a math equation everyone else seemed to know the answer to but I couldn’t figure it out. I was an exemplary profile of an amnesiac: tiny shards of memory and identifications would surface to my consciousness only to fade back into an abyss of forgetfulness.
“All right. I know that I want a drink. Right now, that’s about all I can think of. One thing, though: what is it exactly that you want?”
Planet Fever Page 4