Forward to Glory

by Brian Paul Bach

  That led Butterbugs to think of an unexpected corollary, loose, but connected. Was this a drug-oid facility? Some sort of ‘dispensary’? All the more reason to be wary now. If indeed one of these was the carnie that Vonda referred to, he, Butterbugs, could perhaps save her from getting sucked into something untoward here. Still, it was a perfectly legitimate act to make his inquiry, here and now. He went undercover.

  The two men passed him on their way out of this container of disarray. They had to brush up against him where a bottleneck of stacked junk and boxes of beer tins presented itself. Butterbugs was more negligent than rude in his failure to back all the way out of the trailer so that they could proceed unencumbered, for his long period of disassociation from the mainstream of society had dulled his sense of manners.

  As they passed him, scruntching somewhat to avoid bodily contact, the turtlenecker registering mild disgruntlement at the close proximity.

  The other, the shaded one, gave pause as he drew close. The action froze. Even with the cool white fluorescence from aside, Butterbugs could not detect any standout characteristics of the man. But the man had, from what he could tell, detected something of him. Illuminated in the pale unflattering wash, the face of the young actor was baldly and honestly presented, and it was a face that now underwent high-powered scrutiny.

  It was only an instant, but something happened. A perfect, seminal moment. The shades passed by, looking back, as if thrown out of gear, as if a plug had perhaps been found within a thick spaghetti of cables and cords, and, plugged into a connector randomly chosen, something of an unknown nature was made to start up or light up or make sense. A further pause, almost excruciating in its tedium, because there was no reason for its occurrence. Both the face and its shaded observer linked in some kind of analysis. It simply flashed by, and was gone.

  The man, encouraged by his associate to hurry up, almost removed his shades, but stole one more glance through them, then organized himself, and exited.

  ‘Whaat? Waaaaschup?’ queried the operator-general of this clowntown. ‘You whitsch them, or whaat?’ he gestured to the ones just departed.

  Butterbugs gave an unconsciously (Montgomery) Cliftian ‘Naaw…’ before doing his own organization regarding the moment.

  ‘I was wondering, uh…’

  The Vonda-drive returned.

  ‘Could you please tell me, are there opportunities to work in motion pictures in this or other facilities hereabouts?’

  ‘Schmart kid, but not-scho-schmart timing, baby.’

  ‘I was –’

  ‘Want an open door, do ya?’

  ‘I was just wondering if –’

  ‘Cool it! I’m schympathetic!’

  ‘Uh, thank you…’

  ‘My name’sch Horniman Gendron. Heard of me?’

  ‘Why, why no…’

  ‘Didn’t think scho. But I worked in picschurs for fifty-schichs gaddamd yearsch. Twenty of ’em as schecund aschischtant director at Maschcot ’n’ Monogram. Even got schum time in at Republic. Now I’m a carnie bum with Darrell’sch discheasche! How’sch that?’

  ‘You should be right proud, Mr. Gendron. I’m sorry about the Darrell’s disease. I know somebody that…’

  ‘Yeah-schuah, proud of puttin’ up with fanschy-panschy directorsch ’n’ schecond-schtring schtars and never ever gettin’ any schkreen credit! I tell ya, if you ever make it in thisch gaddamd horrahschow dump, demand schkreen credit or elsche you’ll hafta schue ’em for schlave labor! Scho what’sch it gonna be, front or back?’

  ‘Beg pardon?’

  ‘Fronta the camera or backa it?’

  ‘Oh, oh, oh. I am seeking roles in the, uh, front.’

  ‘Well, you jescht misched all we got around here, asch far asch what you’re lookin’ for. Guy named Kroger Babb, who ownsch thisch carnie, and he runsch a creaky B picschur unit, with itsch own schtudio, over in Azuscha. He preschented ‘Onkel Tomsch Hütte’ (Nora, 1965) back in schicschty-five. Got a good horsch? It’sch a long ride from here.’

  ‘Well, it’s probably not…’

  ‘You uh, you think that, you’re jescht gonna walk off the schtreet and aschk for a gig? That you can really get away with that?’

  ‘I would be happy to audition…’

  ‘Not in thisch trailer! Gad, if it’sch one thing I can’t schtand, it’sch fanschy-panschy schtarsch! Throw up! Actersch! Yecchsht! I had me a bellyful! Two belly’sch full!’

  ‘Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better be leaving then…’

  ‘Chaysche down Kroger why don’t ya? Better get schkreen credit from ’im, or elsch wring hisch neck – jescht like a chicken!’

  He topped this off with a sneering sort of laugh.

  ‘Well, I don’t think I’ll be able to…’

  ‘They’ll be back. That I know. I got what they want, and they know it, too.’

  Butterbugs imagined that perhaps the two mystery men might be agents of – (shudder) – human trafficking. Maybe Gendron had Vonda in chains somewhere, and he was negotiating a trade-off or something.

  ‘Not sure what you mean,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘Hah! I got the grodiescht carnie in the Schouthland, baby! They need it for their schitty liddle TeeVee movie. Locationsch are everthang, ya know.’

  ‘Ah, I get it now…’

  ‘Yeah, well you schould jescht git out there an’ tackle Babb for me. Location only if schkreen credit, OK??’

  ‘Oh, one more thing, Mr. Gendron.’

  ‘Yoe, movie-schtar!’

  ‘Did you happen to see a little southern black tot around your carnival today?’

  Gendron turned his puffy neck to the left.

  ‘Mellah, you scheen a tar baby around?’

  Butterbugs was thunderstruck to notice, just down and back from where Gendron was poured into a cheap plastic patio chair, another human installation was similarly located. She was a giant economy-sized thing, practically motionless. Not quite circus-grade fat lady dimensions, but Butterbugs truly thought she was made of a sweaty kind of plaster or something. Or worse, a bad George Segal sculpture, painted in pastel greys and azures, with a dark and greasy bobbed wig on top.

  ‘Yeah, I heard him!’ Mellah announced, with lips so lazy they utilized a ventriloquist’s methods to get their message out.

  ‘Schpeak up then, mama!’

  ‘I ain’t seen no nothin’ of niggahs today, not one here in any kinda way, and that’s the way it should be.’

  ‘You heard Mellah. And don’t mind her too mutsch. We take anybody’sch money! That’sch it.’

  Butterbugs was amazed that this chunk of motionless sloth could make such a claim, but he didn’t know that she was sitting in front of a bank of small 1970s black and white security monitors, keeping a turgid eye on the place, and without lifting a finger, even if something happened.

  Butterbugs trekked back, not thinking his expedition was such a waste of time so much as an eye-opener. The world was very wide indeed, with room enough for every kind of creature God ever made, and while much was beautiful, some of it wasn’t very nice. It took all types to make a world – unfortunately. He’d recently had a taste of the beautiful, so maybe he wasn’t as un-noticing of the not-very-nice as he used to be.

  This, from a guy who now had as much jism in his veins as blood.

  Up where Charna and Varma Lanes link with Flowertown, at about 11:06PM, Butterbugs was crossing that piece, on his way up to Mulholland. Suddenly, an unforgettable sight came around the corner. Something that he would never forget as long as he lived, a sight that was borne to him on the heartless pavement of Sta. Monica Blvd: the iodine-tinted headlamps of a certain Porsche Cayenne.

  ‘Cracker-ass! Am I good and glad to see you! Hey, Maybe-Lover! Git your sweet balls in here, right now!’

  He got in, and she smothered him with kisses and caresses.

  ‘Man, you smell like carnie meat! Where you been, babe, my outhouse? Oh, baby! I just can’t tell you how – Hey, wait a minute. Y
ou drive. I gotta get out from behind this wheel!’

  Vonda swung her black leather butt out of the black leather bucket, over the carbon fiber console, and sat momentarily on Butterbugs’ lap for some more sexy-oh-sexy snogging, before literally shoving him towards the controls. Then she ducked down and crouched in the legroom.

  ‘Drive, baby! Go on up, but not too fast!’ she hissed, grasping the electric seat controls to provide more hide-room.

  A cool fizz of Wrap was on the music track. He could see the mound of her leather-covered crotch, exposed by the un-lady-like squat in the mini-skirt, colored by the electroluminescence from the galaxy of gauges. She was so cool and so admirable, he thought nothing of doing whatever she said.

  Vonda purred down there somewhere, and Flowertown Lane, a magic route towards bliss, would have to be renamed (Maybe?) Love Lane. Its marches were also delightfully un-trafficked, so full freedom to love and be loved reigned supreme.

  Then, sort of a surprise. A big black and bad Hummer Rambler came up alongside the Cayenne, daring to hog the road. Ultra-dark tinted windows would not betray those within, but there was malevolence to be had in a second’s notice.

  The voice came from the floor-pan.

  ‘Don’t talk to me, baby. I don’t want them to see your lips move. Straight ahead.’

  Butterbugs kept it steady. The Hummer loomed. The route was hazardous for anyone who would overtake another vehicle on this road, but he kept things calm. So much confidence had entered his mind, it was also perfectly reasonable for him to look over at the darkened glass, and, his face and hand simultaneously highlighted by cold blue and warm red, he managed a courteous wave across the way, just to show that he was downright neighborly.

  Their style cramped and reeking of wild goose chase, the Hummer gave up and hung a left on Sharma Lane, downhill and out of sight.

  ‘They gone?’ Vonda queried huskily.

  ‘Yeah. Gone. No taillights, even.’

  ‘Ditched ’em, nice ’n’ good! That was too easy.’

  ‘What about your license plate?’ he queried. ‘Wouldn’t they know this is yours?’

  ‘Shit, they can’t memorize their own stupid-phone numbers, let alone perform cop-quality track-down. Not having memory-dial on those phones would be worse than not having their diapers changed.’

  ‘Miss Vonda, you are a wonder. In every way!’

  ‘Not bad yourself, baby.’

  He dared to call her… ‘Pretty girl, what was that all about?’

  ‘You saved my pretty ass, baby.’

  ‘My pleasure! For a good reason?’

  ‘Well, let’s just say, knowing my reputation, it would be awful damn unlikely that, for anyone halfway interested in me, to know that as strange a creature as a punk male would ever be caught, dead or alive, in any rig traceable to yours truly. You’re the perfect cover, know that?’

  Flattery, especially from a sexy movie star, bathed in sincerity, was a new glory that hit him like a dosage of – well – superfine smack. Why not?

  Back in the saddle now, Vonda was ready to hie unto the fortress. Mobile open.

  ‘Beak? Lemme in, Beak. I’m back, and I approve of the driver, don’t ya know.’

  Big smile to Butterbugs.

  The driveway court was replenished with the comforting group of Audi, Merc, BMW, Ludge and Maybach blackrigs, looking sharp as Louis Farrakhan’s bow tie.

  ‘Wow. This morning I saw a whole different group of SUVs here…’

  ‘You did? Well, come on in and strip, then we can talk.’

  Her big-wide-white smile was unimpeachable.

  ‘A hard day at the office, but I got some urgent needs.’

  Past the phosphorescent fish, PerspectaSpeakers giving off hushed funkadelic white noise, first in the form of homegrown Wrap music (produced and performed by friends of the family), and then simmering into a more relaxing hot tub with a tad bit of Sinatra, another close associate, the heady VVVDD magic was ignited.

  Pins of crystalline light keyed-in plots to move in and out of. Vonda engineered the scene with turbo effectiveness. Soulish food board. Full bar. Some lounging about. Then: leather yielded to slightly aroused skin, with accents on alerts, and blood headed for engorgement.

  ‘Baby, how can I tell you the tale if I’m sucking you off? Here, you do me. That’s it. Yeah. Good thing you were a first-timer and I had you first. Virgins are better at satisfaction, before they discover their dicks. One of us has to do all the thinking! Oh, yeah. Yeah. Let’s see. No, a little further in. Back off. Yeah. Lemme do the pumping, love-shag. OK, now I can think. Don’t stop. Even if your tongue feels like dominoes going down. I take a while. Yeah. I take my time. Can you dig it? Yeah. You good. It’ll build your tongue muscles. Better than I thought. Maybe-Love may be For Sure-Love. You got what it takes. You know that? A helluva day, huh? Oh! Now I’m relaxed and flowing. Pumping and flowing. I like to talk. I like… Now let’s see. Yeah, baby, you saw those rigs out front. Shit, were they in the wrong place at the wrong time! You know what? I kinda like talking business while making love, you know? Cuz it’s love…! Ya know? Well, while you’re making tongue-love. Nothin’ better than keepin’ a man quiet while he’s on an errand of love! You can have your turn, but later, you understand? A lot later! I’m your honey-dripper. I mean, dipper! Ha ha! No, no, no, fuckin’ dripper! Look at that… More than I’ve ever done…! Mmm! Yeah! For virgin-boy, you got it! Oh, yeah, well, you know… You probably thought the FBI was comin’ down hard on the Vee Vee Vee Dee Dee, right? Probably scared the kid-shit outa you. Not the case, not the case. You know what? Oh, yeah, baby! You know what? Oh fuck. It was a… raid. Fuck-king…! But the wrong ‘team’, understand? Oh man, I love you! Do I taste like love? Uhhh… uh! It’s OK if you grunt. I like that, too. Yeah, OK, so do you, huh? I never dreamed… Well yeah, oh gosh, yeah, well, let’s see, where was I? Some bad boys. I hate ’em. Showed up. It’s ‘Thuh Arsenul’. At the wrong place. I don’t want you to think I’m up to no good. I’m Vonda Van Den Dell! And you in my bed. Yeah. More. Right there. Feel my thighs tighten up again? That’s a good sign! You got a boner tongue, pick-up boy! Ohhhh. Rival tribe from Da Broze. Fuck!! Thuh Arsenul! All of ’em: shit-lickers. A ‘mis-understanding’. They left. No blood here today. They should know not to fuck with someone in love! Oh, more. I tell you Mister Butterbugs, I think I’m past Maybe-Love. You prove to me that. I mean, uh, oh, yeah, you’re the proven one. You think I don’t know? But we’re on top now. And we won’t fall. Huh-UH! You know why? Da GardzADaBody are back in command. Just how it should be. Whoa, baby…GO…! Need to talk… About – About… so many things…! Holy Oly, your tongue’s like a camera! How’d you know? How’d you learn? Yeah. Oh, I tell you. I’m gonna take my time. My time. All my time. Oh, lover! I’m gonna take my time… Ooooooooo… Lots of time… Lots and lots of time…’

  7.

  The Very Angry, The Very Black, The Very High Priest

  How then, came Rap to be utterly replaced by Wrap, the newest sound in the world? There was only one reason: the man himself, the sole igniter, birther, assembler, architect, producer, realizer, conceptualist, visionary… and determiner of the future: The Angry Black Priest.

  TABP, baby.

  His achievement was such a foundational lightning bolt-cum-thunderclap, it still had the Record Deacons on the floor of their high-elevation offices, rolling around with amazement and gut-capsizing awe. The Deacons, that fraternity of power lords who not only restored the failing recording biz by corporate coup after coup (harvesting unprecedented profits in the process), immediately and robustly adopted the quasi-churchly model for proceeding into this brave new universe of previously-inconceivable musical ideas, as well as their procreation, production, and marketing for the listening pleasure of masses everywhere. From wide-spots-in-the-road like Bluid Cities, Southakota, out to the Asteroid Belt, and on to Pluto’s third moon Nix – and back, TABP was known.

  Taking their tip from he who now inarguably led th
eir way, the semi-lighthearted, semi-dour gesture of posing as deacons before the priestly-themed TABP was a corporate coup of the first water, with legions of lower record execs falling down in praise and fealty to They Who Saved Our Industry.

  But that’s just the political/BS-side of the TABP phenomenon. The Angry Black Priest himself had transcended such crude human activity long before. And he did it all without even declaring what denomination – if any – he was.

  TABP – probably late-40s in age, wise beyond the centuries, was born in Chiggston, Mississippi, of unequal parentage. He worked in a scrap iron yard, scraping rust from junked I-beams and antebellum cast iron balustrades plucked from torched plantations. This occupied him for a number of years before he chanced involvement in the fringe Blues world at T-Melt Packerson’s Creep Room Eatery, which happened to be on the wrong side of the tracks, in Lestertown, MS.

  No hurricanéd damage here in living memory, except a few bead-tosser transplants from Algiers (downriver that is, not Algérie itself), who were into Professor Longhair and such. So, what could possibly be in little old Lestertown for them? Or anyone?

  Badass Lestertown Deepest Blues, that’s what.

  ‘Les-town is More-town’, was what they who were in the know said.

  But something else was cookin’ in that burg, and it wasn’t just meth by honkies in Katrina/Rita/Becca/Moana/Lurleen trailers. (Moana had been the worst by far, making Trina or Sandy look like dainty aunties at Washing Day pageants…)

  At any rate, aside from the passing Nouveau Orleans influences, TABP abided and evolved.

  Developing a sound and letting it out, he linked with High-Tide Harrison, G.X. ‘Crackerballs’ Chamberton, Not Very Little Stevie (famous for his ‘jambosonic’ playing style, and also his ‘whale blubber’-gut, which threatened to engulf his plug-in guitar), and Shimmalong Glass, whom he married for a time. He also jammed with those who had known Big Bill and other bright-blue glows, and they all liked his song.