Cosmic Banditos

by Weisbecker, A. C.

  Flash squinted through the marijuana smoke at the unfamiliar instrument panel. His right arm was in a cast and sticking upward at a forty-five-degree angle, like a Nazi salute, so he reached over with his left hand and tried a different combination of up/down switch positions, then hit the start button again.

  Nothing happened. He had never flown a Beech-18 before and was unsure of its starting sequence. All the switch labels had worn off long ago, but Flash was used to that sort of thing. Using his semirandom method of evaluating a switch’s function, he tried another combination. The left engine turned over and fired up.

  “Okay, Aileron.” He pointed out a red-tipped overhead toggle switch. “That’s the left-side magneto.”

  Aileron, sitting in the copilot’s seat, whined.

  “This must be the right-side magneto.” Flash was imprinting the switch system into his short-term memory bank. The 60’s had short-circuited his long-term memory functions, but since he had no recollection of what long-term memory was, he never noticed its absence.

  The right engine fired up. Flash gave Jim and Robert the “thumbs up.” Jim displaced Aileron in the copilot’s seat and yelled over the roaring engines, “How much fuel we got?”

  “Fuck if I know!” Flash yelled back. “Don’t worry about it!”

  “We gotta find those two maniacs before they get in trouble again!”

  Flash nodded vigorously. “Treetop level!” He gave both engines full throttle.

  An hour later they were barreling along the ridge that Jim had calculated José would favor for the trek north. Flash was trimming the topmost layer of the rain forest, using the big twin props like a giant lawnmower. Occasional branches and chunks of debris flew in the open side-cockpit windows.

  Robert passed the mescal up to Flash. Flash passed the joint back to Robert. Jim nursed a fifth of Cuervo Gold.

  Both props were slightly bent from plowing through trees, and the old airframe was vibrating badly. It was in precisely this fashion that Flash had demolished the “Loaded Star” a few weeks ago. As usual, he and Aileron walked away from the crash, Flash with a broken arm, Aileron with his tail badly bent.83

  “You see that?” Jim was trying to look back through the window on his side. “I saw something. I think it was them.”

  “Gimme the bottle,” Robert said, groping for the mescal. He pulled a grenade from his plaid jacket and slurred, “Turn around. I’ll drop this on ’em as a sig-signal.” He belched horribly, filling the cockpit with tequila-and-salsa nerve gas.

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” Jim bellowed. He and Flash stuck their heads out the side windows to avoid suffocation. Aileron bounded aft in fright.

  Flash made a sweeping U-turn and began to retrace the swath he had cut through the jungle.

  The cockpit had just recovered from Robert’s gastric assault when José’s volley of .45 slugs sliced through the aircraft from nose to tail.

  Nobody was hit, but the boys voted to change tactics. They decided that their rescue mission would have to be toned down. They would take a different tack. All sorts of euphemisms were thrown around, but the truth of the matter was that José and his big-bore submachine gun made everybody nervous, even Robert. Until they were able to identify themselves as “friend-lies,” they would keep out of sight altogether. They would have to rely on Plan B, which had already been launched anyway.84

  There is no time which flows equally for all observers. “Now,” “sooner,” “later,” and “simultaneous” are relative to the frame of reference of the observer.

  —Albert Einstein

  21

  Blind Banditos

  A lot has happened. ... Wait a minute-I like that. A lot has happened. A very Subatomic concept. No matter how fast you repeat “a lot has happened,” you still haven’t said it fast enough to invalidate the statement.85

  Of course, certain scientists with Cosmological Leanings might take issue with this. They may say, for example, that no matter how long you wait between repetitions of “a lot has happened,” hardly anything has happened at all. In the grand scheme, hardly anything ever happens. Those two concepts—“a lot has happened” and “hardly anything has happened”—may seem to reflect a serious difference in outlooks. But this is not necessarily the case. What you see is as much a function of where you stand as what you’re looking at.

  Cosmologists seem to keep backing up to get a wider view of things while we Subatomic Enthusiasts have trouble with crossed eyes and smudged noses from trying to get a closer look at Underlying Reality.

  If a Cosmologist agreed to a meeting of the minds with a Subatomic Kind of Guy like me, we’d probably meet somewhere in the middle, in the Twilight Zone of our two Worldviews. That Twilight Zone (to us) would be the World as You All Know It. The world of Bananas, Banditos, Contrabandistas and Dope Lords.

  Anyway, about a week ago José, High Pockets and I were squatting in a huge drainpipe just outside Tijuana with a couple dozen wetbacks, also America-bound. We had a few hours to kill before the sprint across the border, so José thought he’d give the poor peasants a quick lecture in order to put their miserable existences in the proper perspective.

  Since we were all fellow travelers, José thought he’d delve into the concept of travel. He first explained that reality is a Space-Time Continuum and bolting across the U.S. border is an example of travel in space. Why not, since space and time are aspects of the same something, consider the possibility of travel in time?

  Seeing José standing in the mouth of a drainpipe, holding a pint bottle of mescal and a Thompson submachine gun and rambling on about Time Travel, made some of the wetbacks nervous. A few tried to inch their way out without being noticed, but High Pockets was sitting by José’s side and discouraged this type of behavior with bared fangs and a low, menacing growl.

  José had a belt of mescal, then got down to the nitty-gritty. Motion in time only proceeds in one direction in the Macrocosmic World, he explained, from the past to present, then on to the future.

  A pregnant pause punctuated by a belch.

  This is an illusory effect, he explained, then delved insightfully into Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. Nothing in the Universe is absolute, he asserted, except for the speed of light. Moreover, as an entity approaches that speed (relative to its coordinate system), several bizarre things begin to manifest themselves, such as time dilation.

  At this point it started to rain. We were all protected from the downpour except José, who paced in front of the drainpipe, gesturing with his mescal bottle. The wetbacks stared wide-eyed at him as he reviewed Einstein’s work.

  One of the best proofs we have of time dilation, José continued, is the behavior of muons, which are formed when certain cosmic rays bombard our upper atmosphere. They are very fast Subatomic Particles. Some travel at .99 percent of the speed of light. They are also very short-lived, so short-lived that none should be expected to reach the surface of the earth before decaying into other Subatomic Particles. In fact many do.

  José finished off his mescal and tossed the bottle over his shoulder. By now it was raining like a son of a bitch and water was cascading off his sombrero in sheets. He had to raise his voice. To us as observers, José yelled, muons “live” seven times longer than they would at rest, a result of time dilation. This, he added, is true to a lesser or greater extent of all Subatomic Entities, of all Cosmic Banditos.

  There was a violent crack of thunder.

  The downpour increased further in intensity.

  José was lit up in chiaroscuro by a bolt of lightning.

  The above special effects made the wetbacks even more nervous. Several crossed themselves, some mumbling about “el Diablo” and pointing at José.

  José finally got to the point, wetback-wise. Why bother to traverse a heavily protected border, he postulated, when just a few years ago, say a hundred, it was totally unprotected? If we could find an incredibly powerful gravitational field like a black hole, José roared over the din,
we could distort the fabric of Space-Time and find ourselves a mellower Coordinate System, saunter across the border and catch a stagecoach to Sausalito, then zip back to this Coordinate System so you guys could pick bananas86 or whatever and the rest of us could get on with this crucial matter of Tina’s father!

  It was a mouthful, I admit, but José was on a roll. He immediately digressed all the way back to the beginning, to his mugging of Tina’s family.87 He was just beginning to review the concept of Tina’s nymphomania when I heard a roaring sound coming up the drainpipe. Evidently someone had opened a floodgate. As I turned to look, I was struck by flowing debris and lost consciousness.

  When I came to it was daylight and I was somewhat disoriented. My first impression was that I was in the back of a limousine watching the “Today” show and holding a glass of champagne.

  I shut my eyes88 and massaged my temples. I heard a giggle. Shit, I thought to myself, then opened my right eye. Not only was I still in the back of the limo but now a bikini-clad teenage girl was sitting next to me, also holding a glass of champagne.

  “Tina, is that you?” I muttered, thinking I had actualized in some weird Alternative Branch of reality where Tina’s path and mine had crossed in a normal manner. Perhaps we had just gotten married or were on our way to the prom. But why would Tina be wearing a bikini? Limousines would seem to call for more formal attire. On the other hand...

  “My name isn’t Tina. It’s Marcy,” the girl said, then giggled again.

  “Oh,” I replied. I paused contemplatively. “Listen, uh, Marcy, could you fill me in on a few things, like where we are and where we’re going? I had a rough night last night.”

  “Sure, we’re like going to Newport to like hang out.”

  “Hang out,” I repeated. I was still feeling woozy, so I had a swallow of champagne to clear my head.

  “Your friend is like really gnarly,” Marcy said, then giggled again.

  “My friend?”

  “Yeah, like the dude with the awesome hat.”

  I looked toward the front. The limo driver was wearing a sombrero.

  Sitting next to him was a strange-looking dog with his tongue hanging out.

  “Jose?” I ventured. I was wondering whether I was still the Edition of myself that was last heard from sitting in a drainpipe in Mexico with a bunch of wetbacks listening to José give a lecture on Quantum Theory and Time Travel.

  The driver turned around and grinned. It was José, all right.

  “Cómo estás, hermano?” he inquired.

  “No sé.” I replied.

  High Pockets barked, then erupted in a sneezing attack.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back.

  I still haven’t found out how we got across the border or where the limo and Marcy came from, but I do know that we spent a pleasant couple of days in Newport Beach, California.

  Although we were still flat broke, thanks to José we were well taken care of. He had had the insight to fill his sombrero full of Mexican sensimilla buds before we crossed the border. We spent most of the first night in a hot tub smoking joints with the locals and most of the next day lurking on the beach.

  José was quite popular with the kids. He even got a standing ovation for his go-for-it style of Bandito Body Surfing. He hit the water wearing his Fruit of the Loom shorts, crisscrossed bandoliers and sombrero, then proceeded to wow the local surf crew by continually riding ten-foot swells right into the jetty at a surf spot called the Wedge.

  High Pockets, on the other hand, had problems. He doesn’t care for poodles (neither do I) and the area was lousy with them. About a half dozen of the little bastards ganged up on him while he was snoozing on the beach. If the reader has gotten the idea that High Pockets is somewhat on the timid side, let me set the record straight right here.

  High Pockets may be intimidated by jaguars, Rowdy Banditos, old Indians who belch violently, crazed federales and artillery fire, but he doesn’t take any shit from other dogs, especially dogs with little ribbons in their little hairdos.

  The dogfight was short and one-sided. Suffice to say the doggy beauty salons of Newport Beach (not to mention the veterinarians) were very busy that day.89

  I made discreet inquiries about Tina, figuring she might have cut a sexual swath through Newport on her way back to Sausalito, but to tell you the truth, I had trouble understanding the brand of English spoken around there.

  For example, I have no way of knowing whether Tina is tubular or nontubular since I have no idea what the concept of tubularity means.90

  Anyway, José, High Pockets and I have spent the last few days on the road and have reached San Francisco, gateway to Sausalito.

  Being financially destitute, we’ve been ensconced in a downtown mission for alcoholics and atheists. In order to get something to eat, we are forced to listen to some cretin lecture on God and what He has in mind for us.

  They refuse to feed High Pockets, even though he sits through the lectures like everyone else. I had words with the morons who run the place about this. These people have the attitude that since High Pockets is a dog, he has no soul and therefore is not deserving of sustenance.

  Luckily, José was explaining Quantum Theory to Hispanic hobo and didn’t overhear this so-called missionary’s view of High Pockets.91 José would’ve shot the guy on the spot.92 José and High Pockets are thick as thieves in spite of the language barrier. (As I have mentioned, High Pockets doesn’t understand Spanish.)

  High Pockets is hip to a fact I learned the hard way over the years: If you can only have one friend and ally in your life, choose a Bandito.

  Unfortunately, True Banditos are getting more and more difficult to find, what with the encroachment of civilization into the wilds and all. The True Bandito loathes so-called “progress” and the grimy glut of the cities. As he will tell you, a city is good for one thing only: mating. He’ll come into a city once or twice a year, stalk around like the magnificent predator that he is, mate as often as possible, then retreat to his natural habitat, the jungle, usually leaving an impressive array of breathless females in his wake.

  Of course, the profound nature of the mission we are on here precludes this kind of behavior. José and I agree that we are too close to Tina’s father to think on a carnal level.

  We sent our last messages to the whole group (let us not forget Tina, Tom and Gary) two days ago and have been waiting for a reply (in the San Francisco Chronicle) before we move in for the Subatomic Kill, so to speak. This morning we got our answer. Here it is:“MR. QUARK: DINNER.

  TOMORROW AT 8.

  INFORMAL.”

  In order to get everything done that had to get done we needed money, so High Pockets and I went down to Fisherman’s Wharf. I sat down in the dirt with a tin cup, sunglasses and High Pockets (as my seeing eye dog) and begged up about $20. José took off on his own and, God bless him, met me back at the mission with nearly $200. He wouldn’t tell me how he got it, but from the way he took apart and cleaned his .45, I have my suspicions.

  After a lengthy discussion, José and I finally agreed to look up Gary, since he lives in San Francisco. The future seemed very uncertain and we figured this might be our only chance to pay our respects. Unfortunately, our visit to Gary didn’t go exactly as planned.

  Gary’s address is in an area called Noe Valley. We got lost once (José’s fault) and got ejected from another bus (High Pockets’ fault) before finding Gary’s house. After a two-hour stakeout, Gary emerged (I knew it was him), walked down his steep street and caught a bus. High Pockets, José and I followed surreptitiously.

  He got off rather suddenly, causing the three of us way in the back to scramble madly for the door before it closed. We just made it.

  I took one look at the neighborhood and started to get edgy. Gary sauntered over and asked me for a light. I looked at him closely while pretending to grope for a match. He was about twenty or twenty-one, with short blond hair and a slight frame. He wore tight designer jeans, a mauve T-s
hirt, black cowboy boots and matching leather wristbands. You guessed it. Gary was a flaming homosexual.

  This was not a good omen. I made a mental note to ask him about Tina and whether her duplicity had driven him to homosexuality. It was vital that I find out if I was responsible for Gary’s drastic change in lifestyle. Had my messages from South America caused him to run sexually amok? There was so much I needed to know.

  Gary glanced at José, then at me. He smiled. “You guys new in town?”

  “Yeah,” I said, then translated the question for José.

  “Sí, sí,” José said.

  “Come on. I’ll introduce you around.”

  He led us up the street, which was teeming with homosexuals. José, with his wonderfully childlike Worldview, didn’t notice anything was amiss until Gary led us into this leather bar called the Crisco Disco West.

  José was an immediate smash-hit sensation. He was, of course, still dressed in his rawhide-and-buckskin Bandito Outfit, complete with sombrero and bandoliers stuffed with .45 slugs.

  “Fabulous!”

  “Divine!”

  “I’m going to faint!”

  “Macho to the max!”

  And so forth.

  At first José didn’t understand any of this. He just smiled and nodded. Almost everybody in the place was wearing studded black leather and chains, so José was being careful. Gary bought us beers. José thanked him, then asked me if everyone in San Francisco was as tough as these guys.

  “He’s Hispanic!”

  “Did you hear him talk?!”

  “Such an animal!”

  And so forth.

  High Pockets erupted in a sneezing attack, probably brought on by the overpowering smell of perfume and leather.

  I was getting very edgy. I wanted to discuss some vital topics with Gary, but I knew that as soon as José realized what was going on, there was going to be some serious trouble. Major-league trouble.

  I didn’t have to wait long. This one homosexual asked José for a light, making another homosexual jealous, which made that homosexual’s boyfriend upset, which set off a Homosexual Chain Reaction that made everyone in the place upset.