Tales of Tinfoil: Stories of Paranoia and Conspiracy

by David Gatewood (ed)

  A black-and-white episode of Gilligan’s Island was in progress. Watching the first mate’s wacky antics as he destroyed yet another plan to escape from the island was calming as I ordered another Clevinger’s neat. A double this time.

  Maybe I’d had enough. Maybe I’d just watch old TV and forget about the devil. Maybe there was no devil. And if there was, why would he tip his hat?

  I answered that one quickly. It wasn’t so much an answer as an image. An image of Bill Clinton smiling. Like he knew. Like he knew he was getting away with everything and he knew that you knew he knew. And he wasn’t ashamed of it in the least.

  Crazy.

  But if the devil were ever to tip his hat, he’d do it just like Bill Clinton smiled.

  I thought about the castaways of Gilligan’s Island. Why’d they ever want to leave a tropical paradise? They had everything there. All they’d come back to was Carter and the decline of America. But it was hardwired in them to want to flee paradise. To return to a world of Saved by the Bell and Bill and Hillary Clinton. A fallen world falling a little faster every day. Reaching terminal velocity in time. A living hell where people like Wiggles, or Heather, could only dream of a better tomorrow that would never come.

  The skipper was always in a rage. And a bit of a pig. There’s two of your seven deadlies right there. Anger and gluttony. The guy’s in a tropical heaven and he’s still himself. Where could he go that he wouldn’t be angry? If you can be angry when you’re living on an island with no taxes, no motorcars, and getting banana cream pies and fresh mango by the likes of Mary Ann, well then you just can’t be happy anywhere, can you?

  Anger and gluttony.

  I thought about that.

  Ginger of course would be lust. How could she not be? And that makes Mary Ann, for no sensible reason, envious. Envy.

  Greed’s a no brainer. The millionaire and his wife.

  Sloth and pride threw me for a few minutes. But when I thought about them, I figured it out. The professor is pride because he’s always so impressed with his own ingenuity. And why wouldn’t you be when you can take some coconuts, an old bicycle, and some vines, and make a radio? And sloth is the millionaire’s wife. She can’t be bothered to help anyone in the least.

  I threw back the last of the Clevinger’s and knew I had no way to pay for one more. I put the last of the money down. I wasn’t sad. But the insight that all the castaways on Gilligan’s Island somehow represent the seven deadly sins made me feel like I still had the brain to win the Cold War. That I could still play the long game.

  A thought occurred as I stood up, ready to leave forever. What is Gilligan? There are no more sins.

  Ignorance?

  Ignorance and stupidity are not sins.

  * * *

  I see older Bob Denver at the end of the bar. He looks at me and holds up his drink. His face is deadpan changing to a smile. It’s that way because I realize in the moment before he holds up his drink that he was just staring at me. Then he smiles. Then he holds up his drink.

  That Bill Clinton smile.

  I look back at the TV.

  Gilligan is smiling at me too. Except he seems… evil. There’s a glimmer in his eye. Like he knows way back then when he made this show years ago, that somehow I’d be watching it in the bar at this very moment. That the take, which is what they call it when you do a scene and look at the camera, was for me all these years later. All those years ago.

  Gilligan who is not one of the seven deadlies.

  Gilligan who always wears red.

  Gilligan who always manages to keep them in the hell they wish to escape.

  I left the bar.

  I took a bus, headed east with the night, and I never went back to Hollywood.

  About the Conspiracy Theory:

  Hell, Hollywood, and Suicide Mickey

  Since time began, critics have slandered their rivals with the implication that they’ve sold their souls to Satan for a leg up. The problem with the Hollywood and Hell conspiracy stories is that they hide in plain sight, hidden in a community that manufactures beautiful lies. Meaning: Hollywood makes things up and sells them. Nothing Hollywood ever produces should be taken as truth, including the “news” and The Daily Show. (Consider, for example, that gunfights rarely last more than five seconds and there’s little reloading.)

  Still, many have deconstructed more than a few Hollywood shows and shown that there’s a lot of symbolism being used. Accidental? Who knows, but if you watch closely, yes, more often than not there’s some kind of message being downloaded onto your hard drive by an outside intelligence. Even if it’s just the simple message of intolerant hate toward the oppressor group of the moment as some agenda-driven screenwriter or politically active producer sees it. Have people noticed that The Fresh Prince seems to be an allegorical tale of death? Yes. That the characters on Gilligan’s Island represent the seven deadly sins? Yes. Is there a cartoon called Suicide Mouse? Yes. But it’s probably just some film-school stunt.

  And then there’s Doctor Midnite. He’s made up. He never existed. You shouldn’t go to DoctorMidnite.com and read his deranged rants. Unless you want to end up on a watch list.

  A Note to Readers

  Thank you so much for reading Tales of Tinfoil. For news on additional releases in the Tinfoil series (including upcoming collections on Hoaxes and Unsolved Mysteries), subscribe to the Tinfoil newsletter or join the conversation on Facebook. And if you’re looking for more short stories, please consider these other anthologies edited by David Gatewood:

  Synchronic: 13 Tales of Time Travel

  The Robot Chronicles

  The Telepath Chronicles

  The Alien Chronicles

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