Chapter 2
It all started on a Monday, naturally. I had always detested Mondays more than any other day of the week. It was obvious. Mondays always heralded the first workday of the week. Perhaps if they just called Monday a Friday, everything would be tolerable. Of course, then Tuesday would take over that dreaded slot. No matter which way one shuffled the cards, nobody ever won.
“How was Idyllwild?” Tommy asked as he popped an organic bagel into the microwave in the employee’s kitchen.
“As always, sheer pleasure.”
“Oh, you must have been hanging out with your marriage counselor and wife again. Sorry, man. Real bummer.”
Tommy Kramer was a good friend, as well as an immense source of amusement. He was thin, tall, and often bleary-eyed. He spent half his time listening to the Grateful Dead, basking in pure transcendent bliss. His scruffy goatee and stringy black hair gave him the glow of an anointed holy man instead of a dysfunctional bureaucrat.
Tommy always seemed out of place and ill-equipped to handle life’s little challenges. Someone once referred to him as a starving squirrel who kept forgetting where he buried his food stash. Sure, Tommy’s memory was impeccable, but his focus was narrow, blurry and often wavered somewhere else. And when his imagination stared to run wild, he became obsessed with taking center stage and basking in the limelight of attention.
Once I watched Tommy dig into his fat wallet looking for something of value. I had to ask. Apparently, he said he was searching for an old expired receipt for stereo equipment. Then with his bright face and gentle eyes, he explained Einstein’s theory that time would someday end and everything would snap backward. You heard me right. He contended that time would someday go in reverse order back until it reached the Big Bang. He just wanted to make sure he had his old receipt because he wanted to know what he would buy before he had bought it. That was Tommy in a padded nutshell with psychedelic lights hanging from the ceiling. One rumor claimed that he was a permanent resident of the Twilight Zone. I just assumed he had lost contact with his home planet and decided to sit it out on earth. Anyway, since he had such a cheerful demeanor, nobody had the heart to call the local mental hospital and have him committed.
“See that fireball the other night, Tommy?” I asked.
“How big was it?” Tommy often answered a question with a question.
“Big. Exploded right over Hemet.”
“Exactly when?”
“I guess, somewhere around 10 PM. You could not have missed it.”
“Wasn’t there, man. Sorry. Didn’t I tell you I was going to West LA?”
“No.”
“Another great Deadhead tribute for all of eternity. You keep missing all the fun. You need to get out. Life’s not for amateurs.”
“So, you did not see it?”
“See what?”
I slapped my hand across my forehead. I was getting nowhere with my zoned-out spaceman. “The big explosion in the sky. The other night. Lit up like an exploding sun.”
“Boy, that would be something to see,” Tommy’s eyes blazed with excitement. “No, but I bet it was like the one in Russia in 1908. You know, the Tunguska Event. They said it was a massive 40-megaton blast. So extremely rad. I heard that people melted as if they were standing at ground zero in downtown Hiroshima.”
“Well,” I mumbled and stepped back a few feet. That was not what I had heard. I remembered a supermarket tabloid article exposing the truth about the incident. The Siberian remoteness prevented any human casualties. Then again, whom can you trust?
“They say that trees and plants were affected genetically. Some scientists believe it was an antimatter explosion. You know, a mass of antimatter shooting out from our galaxy core. Then it formed a plasma shield that burst when it contacted our denser air. I wish I had been there to see it firsthand.”
“Yeah,” I rolled my eyes. “I would like that too.”
“Totally.”
I was not going to argue about standing at ground zero in anticipation of a good and glorious time. That ship had passed under that bridge long ago.
“So, what did you see, oh, Captain?”
“Not much… really. There was this big flash and then a circular explosion. Saw it from the mountains in Idyllwild. The gas that floated down had a sort of purple haze to it. Probably up too high in the sky to cause much damage to the town.”
“Still, it must have been tight. Wow! Wow!”
It took something special to get a double “wow” from Tommy. He was into so much strange reading material and ideas that even the FBI once felt an obligation to arrange short chitchat with him. That was a day to remember. I could see the agents across the office from my cubicle and I immediately knew that they were not selling accounting software. No. These agents were the best-dressed men I had ever seen. Not a single wrinkle in their black suits. They were no Fox Mulder or Dana Scully chasing bug-eyed aliens under haunted houses or through the sewer pipes of Washington, DC. These men looked almost pretty.
Well, they were investigating some crazy man from Palm Springs who had threatened a federal judge in Ohio. This half-baked loony said he was going to fire a laser beam two thousand miles away at the courtroom and kill the judge right in his judicial seat. Of course, I listened in and discovered that the FBI agents admitted that our own military could not perform such a technological feat. What did does Tommy have to do with this farce? He was on the crackpot’s mailing list. It seemed as if FBI was wasting its time, but what did I know? I only paid the tab for the good suits.
“Have you heard about the ‘second moon of the Earth?’” Tommy was just warming up.
I nodded. “Again?”
“No, no. They call this heavenly object Cruithne. Comes around every 700 years. Actually, it’s an asteroid, but everyone calls it Earth’s second moon. But believe me, there is more. Some people think it might emit some type of bio-field magnetism. Others argue that it has something to do with paranormal stimuli since strange things happened on Earth the last time it came around. We’ll see it again in…”
“Tommy.” I had to stop him or he would have gone on for hours. “I’ve got to get back to work. The people upstairs insist that I do something after I punch the clock.”
“Sure, man. Rope in those little buckaroonies.”
“Yeah.” I turned and looked around for my special “I Hate Mondays” coffee mug. It was hiding somewhere beyond my reach, probably upset that I had failed to wash it again.
I actually hated to interrupt Tommy’s gig. He was full of fascinating ideas, facts, and gibberish. I supposed some of it might even be true. But the truth did not matter. I enjoyed every sizzling cup of Tommy’s gossip. It was entertaining as hell compared to work. In fact, if it were not for Tommy’s anecdotal stories and oddball humor, I would have jumped in front of a garbage truck years ago.
After I located my mug, I moved it next to the coffee maker and proceeded to pour in the last dregs of luck-warm coffee. Before I could overwhelm it with heaps of sugar, Brian McNally from Accounting entered the kitchen. Tommy went for him like a hyena chasing after raw meat. Poor Brian.
“Found that ozone air purifier,” Tommy smiled at Brian.
“Yes,” he rubbed his chin. “It better work this time.”
“No problemo.”
As Tommy and Brian left, another infamous character sauntered in for coffee. It was Big Al Pugsley, one of the planning commissioners for the city of Hemet. He took the job more seriously than I ever had when I graced the board. For various reasons, I represented the board’s bleeding heart, too soft on citizens who violated setback restrictions, easements, and zoning. The other commissioners called me “Citizen Crane” because I was often the lone holdout who was overly sympathetic to the plight of disappointed citizens. I did not mind the nickname. It was a far better moniker than what many outraged citizens called the other commissioners behind their backs.
“I heard you were in Idyllwild?” Big Al chomped on his cigar wi
th vigor. Nobody could now smoke in City Hall, but the law said nothing about mouthing an unlit cigar until it became soggy and limp.
“Yeah.”
“What route did you take after Hwy. 74?”
“Cedar Avenue to East Washington.”
“Ramona Expressway would have been more efficient.”
“Well, I didn’t feel like taking it.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I just didn’t.”
“See!” Big Al moved closer and prepared to pontificate. “What a waste of time and energy. There must be a way to make motorists chose more efficient routes. We must do something about this crisis.”
It never took Big Al much time to get him all riled up over tiny nuisances and recommend a slew of half-baked policies. He had a whole notebook of impending crises stashed in his desk, and fortunately, that was where most of them were buried. We all hoped that none of his hare-brained schemes would ever see the light of day.
It was not that Big Al had a few missing light bulbs up in the attic. Au contraire, he was a pretentious Ivy Leaguer who had accumulated a lot of knowledge, but could not locate it when the need arose. In other words, as they say in Indiana, he was an educated fool. That fact alone guaranteed him a position of power, which put him within earshot range of Mayor Jessie Quinn’s office.
Still, I must admit that Big Al had a point. I hardly ever took the most efficient route to the office or home or to the store. I knew there were shortcuts, but I was too lazy to find them. I guess I just detested rolling up one of those so-called easy-to-roll-up maps.
“The mayor and the council should be informed of this problem,” Big Al said, “and as problems go, this is a really big one.”
“Well, it’s not quite up there with global hunger or nuclear winter.” I loved to tease Big Al.
“I’m serious. We need more controls. When I look out onto the streets, all I see is anarchy. Anybody can drive anywhere, at any time, in any direction. Noon or midnight, people are out there driving without proper planning or knowledge of cartography. They have unfettered discretion and access. That is just plain nuts. Something is wrong. How do we know if drivers are doing the right thing?”
“But!” Tommy had come back into the room. “How do we know they›re doing the wrong thing? You’re assuming every motorist is in error? How do we know? Man… that is rather provincial.”
Big Al eyed Tommy with disapproval; his frown flickered across his broad face, big mouth, and sea-green eyes. “Who are you to say I’m wrong?”
“Who are you to say that I›m wrong?”
“Well, someone must be wrong,” Big Al huffed. “Anyway, don’t you have some work to do?”
“Yeah, I suppose,” Tommy lowered his eyes and looked at the ground without refocusing on Big Al. He turned and reached for his now-cold bagel and departed in haste.
As I watched everyone leave the kitchen, I wondered who was wrong and who was right. I mean, somebody had to make the right decision. Then again, maybe this illustrated the fact that nobody could make decisions for another. Perhaps each individual had to make such choices for themselves. Of course, that assumed that the general population was on the intelligent species list. That was a laugh. After years of dealing with Mr. Public, I had concluded that most citizens were clumsy, self-centered, and rather dim-witted. Most of my co-workers espoused this same notion. They saw citizens as idiots who just happened to pay our salaries.
Chapter 3
Whoever said that your home is your castle? Certainly not I. After working in the City Planning Department for years with a brief stint on the Planning Commission, I knew that nobody’s home was safe from City Hall. Such land grabs were so pervasive that most considered it an acceptable way to do business, except for those who lost their land. These residents were surprisingly vocal. They argued that city officials ran Hemet as their own personal fiefdom. Others dubbed such takings “plain stealing.” I tried to avoid such controversies. That was difficult. Even I had backed a number of eminent domain projects, which riled many of our abject serfs.
Almost everyone wanted our city to grow and prosper and to do that we needed land for bigger roads, schools, and government buildings. I could see that clearly, but when the city began to confiscate land for Q-Mart, sushi restaurants, and church parking lots, I was wary. We would uproot any family and bulldoze any home so long as it increased Hemet’s retail tax revenues. Our power to destroy and create like a godlike entity was frightening. We felt invincible. Nobody messed with our Planning Department. Why, if Joe Stalin had been alive, he would have pinned red ribbons on our chests for outstanding nationalization of the community-at-large.
Luckily, I did not live in a redevelopment zone. In addition, my abode was almost historical, built back in the 1920s. It was a rather large bungalow with a broad front porch and double-hung windows—the type that is often painted shut because they would never open in the first place. Because of my job, I was confident that City Hall would leave my little hovel alone and not rezone my little plot of land. It was sort of an unwritten rule that nobody in the bureaucracy disturbed another bureaucrat’s territory. As for everyone else, let them eat chipped paint and old plaster.
I usually arrived home before Sarah. I would first feed Natasha, Tommy’s cat, throw on some old grubby clothes, and read the newspaper in the kitchen. In some ways, I resented the routine feeding of Natasha. It was not really my cat. Tommy had rescued the abandoned feline from the animal shelter. She was supposed to stay for only a few days. Tommy promised me he would find a good owner. It has now been four years and counting. I guess he did as promised. I just did not know it was going to be me.
Before I could remove some food from the refrigerator, the witching hour had arrive. This was a sacred time when our relatives and neighbors would dishonor us with their presence. Rant was always the first trespasser. She was Sarah’s half-sister, the baby of the family, but they were completely different. Sarah was meek and demure, but Ms. Elisa Rant had a fervent, forceful, and loud personality. Sarah took a flower-arranging class; Rant practiced Kung Fu. They were like day and night.
I just assumed that Rant had lived too long in war-torn Israel and came back with a nasty shrapnel scar on her thigh and a giant chip on her shoulder. Actually, her real surname was Rantburg, but she refused to be identified by her surname or first name. She went by one simple word—Rant.
She was always looking over her shoulders. I would too if I had her athletic body. Rant was quite stunning in her tight Gothic suit of black leather armor, metal studs, and dark glasses. I have often thought that she resembled Carrie-Anne Moss in the Matrix movies, oozing a raw badness from every pore, just daring anyone to mess with her.
Actually, Rant’s paranoia was justified. Sarah explained that her sister feared a late-night attack by some revengeful skin-headed neo-Nazis. That happened on one occasion in Los Angeles, but she was the one who carved swastikas across their white foreheads.
“Spencer!” Rant shouted, pounding on the door. She was a part-time typesetter for the local newspaper, and worked odd hours, which seemed to encourage her erratic behavior.
“Just come in. It’s unlocked.” It was always unlocked, and she had a key, but she always had to make a grand entrance.
“Spencer!” Rant rushed inside, shut the door and leaned against it as if an angry mob was ready to ram it down with a telephone pole.
“Sarah is not home yet,” I said without paying much attention to her.
“Someone is following me.” Rant quickly whipped off her fashionable sunglasses. “They’re spying on me.”
“Again?”
“I’m almost sure of it. The man had no hair and no neck.” She drew a pistol from under her jacket, lifted it up, and pressed it next to her cheek.
“An admirer, I’m sure.”
In a flash, Rant’s eyes narrowed to beady points and stared at me. The wrath in them could torch the entire room.
“Do you always have
to show off your Glock?”
“Do you know that the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising had only five handguns? Only five! And they held off two German divisions.”
“Did I mention that Sarah is not home?”
“Your lack of concern is appalling.”
Rant had some reasons to be worried. There was gossip that a new skinhead group had come into town. It was more than a rumor. The city police had investigated and determined that the newcomers spent most of their time dancing to hate-rock and drinking beer out of dog bowls. At least, that was how one local newspaper columnist described it.
“By the way,” I asked. “Did you see that fireball in the sky the other night?”
“No!” Rant snarled with a smirk plastered across her face. “I was in Los Angeles at a Defense League meeting. Where were you?”
“Well, I was…”
“I know,” Rant interrupted. “Wandering Hemet’s empty streets with a can of flat beer and Mr. Dead Head.”
“No. You’re wrong,” I retorted. “I made a fortune at Billy’s Bingo Parlor. I made enough money to buy a Rolls-Royce—you know, the itty-bitty matchbox version.”
“You’re a pig!” Rant huffed. “Sarah should have canceled your marriage years ago.”
“Everything in its own good time,” I smiled.
“Your time is up. You’re way past your expiration date. You know why?”
I shook my head, curious about what she meant.
“Because you’re like this town—dead and listless. They could film a zombie movie here and nobody would be able to tell the difference between the morbid residents and the brain-eating stiffs.”
I had to grin. There was a lot of truth to Rant’s statement. I did feel the sheer boredom. Life in Hemet was tedious, lifeless and meaningless. There was little to do or experience in Hemet with no real excitement. We simply loiter around and wait for our inevitable demise. At some point, we keel over in an abandoned parking lot, are loaded into an ambulance, deposited at a funeral home, embalmed with a formaldehyde solution, shoved into a crematorium, and finally poured into an urn. It is not glamorous, but at least it is something to do.
We Are Them Page 2