Ever Onward

by Wayne Mee

  11]Set up Punishment Crew.

  12]Public execution for all offenders.

  13]Crucifixions or beheadings?

  14]Heads on poles sends better message

  15]plus bodies can be burned.

  16]Check with Jocco!!!

  Satisfied, Walter put his gold pen down and poured himself a glass of wine. All in all, it had been a very successful morning. In fact, these last two weeks had been the best in his career. Where, he mused as he sipped his wine, had it all started? Ah, yes. With the death of God. Well, not God really, but with the idea of God.

  But then, wasn’t that the same thing?

  A song from the long ago prayer meetings Ma and Pa Pinkton had dragged him to sprang unbidden into his head. The tune was familiar, but the words, like the world itself, had changed.

  ‘Jocco loves me this I know,

  My Baptist background tells me so.’

  God has turned away His face.

  Now Jocco sits in His high place.’

  What had that stupid priest called him? The Antichrist?

  Fool! Jocco had saved the idiot from a useless life of bland ignorance! Just as he had saved Walter J. Pinkton from the same fate!

  Walter reached again for the wine bottle. As he did so his eye fell on a book he had picked up in the Barstow Public Library. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Walter had always wanted to be an actor, a fact that would have sent both his parents to their guilt-ridden knees frantically

  begging their deaf God just where the holy-fuck they had they gone wrong.

  And young wayward Walter hadn’t wanted to be just any actor. Lord Almighty no. Walter had dreamt of becoming a Shakespearean actor, a thespian to the great Bard himself! In his secret heart Walter already was, knowing many of the great one-liners by heart.

  ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!’

  ‘Out, out damned spot!’ or the ever popular:

  ‘To be, or not to be --- that is the question.’

  At Military Collage he had plucked up his courage and nervously tried out for the school’s production of Henry V. All his ‘great skill’ had won him was a nonspeaking part, but at least he had been involved! It had been the highlight to his otherwise uneventful life. The costumes, the color, the pageantry, while all around him the great Bard’s words rang in his ears! Almost breathless with stage-fright, he had been the one to help the young King Harry up onto the cart when he gave his famous pep-talk to his vastly outnumbered troops just before the Battle of Agincourt. Even back then Walter could recite the monologue at ease --- as long as he was alone in front of a locked bathroom mirror. Put another living being in front of him and his traitorous tongue did a swan dive into the crapper. Still, the golden words lingered in his twisted brain.

  ‘He that has no stomach for this fight,

  let him depart! His passport shall be made,

  and crowns for convoy put into his purse.

  We would not die in that man’s company

  That fears his fellowship to die with us!’

  Walter liked that! A ‘fellowship of soldiers’, a ‘band of brothers’, all sworn to win together, or die together.

  As a child Walter had been lonely. Growing up on a poor excuse for a farm with even poorer excuse for parents, young Walter had retreated into fantasy. Comics first; moving quickly through sci-fi and romantic adventures, on to poetry, the classics; then, finally, the Bard himself. But grass-root Fundamental Baptists would have no truck with any of the Devil’s Playthings! Gambling, dancing, rock music --- or acting! All of them were very high up on the very long and often quoted ‘Though Shalt Not’ List.

  When a skinny, bispeckled Walter had nervously announced that he was going into the army, his mother had literally fallen on her knees. What followed was a great deal of wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth. Walter’s father however, secretly fearing that his puny offspring was a sodomite-in-the-making, agreed, saying that maybe, with God’s help, the army could make a man out of him.

  Walter left that very next day and never went back.

  Military College, however, turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment for both Walter and his father. Though his grades were good, his social skills were in the toilet. His classmates found him a geek. His instructors found him a geek. Later, his fellow officers at China Beach found him a geek. Walter firmly believed that his own father also found him a geek, with a side-order of closet-queen thrown in.

  Walter himself was tempted to agree with them. Only when he let his mind roam through the glorious tragedies of Shakespeare did his life seem to take on meaning. Hamlet’s famous soliloquy of self-doubt: "To be or not to be", fit him like a glove.

  Then The Change had happened.

  At first he had been terribly afraid. He awoke feeling like the mad King Lear left alone on the wild and tempestuous heath. Demons beset him on all sides. Waving bayonets and M-16’s instead of swords, but demons none-the-less! Killings, rapes, and a host of casual cruelties. And Jocco had led them. The Prince of Darkness gathering his demonic hoard.

  But then something else very strange had happened to him. A type of inner awakening or mental metamorphosis began to take place inside him. With the killing of the priest in Bakersfield, Walter had suddenly realized that not only was the World dead, but that God Himself was dead as well --- if indeed He had ever lived at all!

  The revelation shook him to the very roots of his being.

  Right after that Walter had plucked up his courage and gone to Jocco; had ‘auditioned’ for him in such a way that he won not only a part in the macabre drama, but a major role! A part that called for him to do more than act, but to create as well! To dip into the well-spring of his mind and draw forth all the gloriously pagan fantasies he had kept locked away since childhood!

  Sitting there in his room with a naked love-slave chained to his bed, he sipped from a glass that in his mind’s eye had become a jewel-encrusted goblet, and all the while the Bard’s words thundered across the dream-scape that was his demented mind.

  ‘Tis now the very witching hour of the night,

  When churchyards yawn and Hell itself breeds out

  Contagion to this world.

  Now could I drink hot blood!

  And do such bitter business as the day would

  Quake to look on!’

  Grinning like Yorik’s skull, Walter turned towards the bed. A golden cascade of hair moved on the silken sheets. A wanton slut encased in a virgin’s flawless shell. His. To do with as he so chose. The mere thought of such power made his head spin!

  The wine glass slipped from his hand, spilling its redness into the plush hotel carpet. Hot blood turning swiftly cool. The warmth in his groin suddenly cooling as well. Lust having flown, there remained the lasting residue of love. Not for the thing on the bed, but for the one that had put her there.

  Jocco.

  The Savior.

  The Antichrist.

  The Dark Stranger.

  To Walter he was all these things and more!

  The boy-king Harry spoke again in Walter’s ear, only this time with Jocco’s voice.

  ‘We few, we happy few. We band of brothers;

  For he who sheds his blood for me this day

  Shall be my brother! Be he ever so base,

  This day shall gentle his condition.

  And gentlemen back home abed will think

  Themselves accursed they were not here,

  And hold their manhood cheap!

  Whilst any speaks, that fought with us,

  Upon this glorious quest!’

  When Walter had first read those words he had openly wept. Even now they moved him to tears. Getting drunkenly to his feet, he staggered over to the bed. The creature waiting there for her Lord, cowered back, but the Lord marked it not. Instead, the master of all he surveyed, laid down on the bed, curled up into a ball and slept the sleep of fallen angels.

  Chapter 20: ‘THE LOST BOYS’

  Los
Angeles

  California July 12

  Jocco did indeed reach Rialto Municipal Airport the next day, and he brought with him most of the original China Beach crew. He’d left Bobby-Joe in charge of the new recruits. Walter was also left behind. Flight Lieutenant Sam Waterman, however, was not. Indeed, being the only one who could fly, Sam was the key to the whole operation. The nurse, Shirley Bates, was also there to make sure Sammy-boy did as he was told. As a precaution, Jocco also brought two of the newer females as well. If push came to shove, he could always off one of them and still have the nurse to bargain with. The second one was just in case Sammy-boy got a little testy. Clearly Jocco was a man who believed in planning ahead.

  After some searching, they found a twin-engine twenty seater all gassed up and ready to go. After clearing one runway, Sixteen heavily armed ‘vets’, including Pam the Bitch and Pussbag, climbed on board.

  By 8:30 AM they were airborne.

  The flight plan was simple. Fly west ninety miles and circle over L.A. If things looked kosher, they could then land at Santa Monica Municipal Airport. Beverly Hills was only a dozen miles north-west on Santa Monica Blvd. It had always been Jocco’s life-long dream to live there. Not because of the actors. He knew instinctively he’d have nothing in common with those stuck-up assholes. Something else besides the ‘big names’ drew him; the pool, the maid, the chauffeur, the fucking ‘works’. But most of all, the power!

  Now it seemed his dream would soon be coming true.

  Half an hour later, Lt. Sam Waterman banked the plain sharply to the left. A thousand feet below them, the tangled metropolis spread out in all directions. Jocco, sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, looked eagerly down on his kingdom-to-be.

  A vast network of concrete veins crisscrossed the area. L.A., after all, was a city in which the car was not only a status symbol, but a necessity. Without wheels in L.A., you got nowhere. Now, looking down at the endless wrecks and mile-long pile-us, Jocco realized the centre city was lost to him. A wasteland of rusting metal, accessible only on foot. He told Sam to fly north toward West Hollywood. Beverly Hills lay just beyond that. As they flew over the less populated area, they left the clogged freeways behind. To the left the parched, brown hills gave way to the greens of the much higher Santa Monica Mountains. In the far distance the snowy peaks of the Sierra Madres thrust up above the horizon.

  Jocco consulted a detailed map of the area. The tall buildings behind them, he had Sam drop down to three hundred feet and cut his speed. His heart gave a little jump as they passed over the seemingly endless lots of Twentieth Century Fox Studios. Wilshire Golf Course lay spread out beneath him. Off to the right the Hollywood Bowl gleamed like a diamond in the sun. Then they were over Sunset Blvd. Coldwater Canyon led up to the homes of the once fabulously rich and famous and now the very fabulously dead and forgotten. Jocco, heir to the suddenly vacant throne, was about to claim the crown.

  Then he saw them. A yellow jeep and a dark van winding their way down Laurel Canyon Drive. The jeep had three or four people in it. Grabbing his binoculars, he had Sam bank around for a closer look. What he saw did not make him a happy camper.

  The jeep did indeed hold four people. All of them looked like teenagers and all of them were loaded for bear. The van had a section of the top cut away and what looked like a machine gun mounted on the top. A quarter mile in front of the jeep were two motorcycles. Two more brought up the rear.

  “Shit!”, Jocco swore.

  Sam turned his way and grinned for the first time in three weeks. “Looks like you’re not the only one who wants to take a dip in Madonna’s pool.”

  Jocco smiled coldly. “Take us down, fly-boy.”

  Ten minutes later they had landed at Santa Monica Airport. Half an hour after that they were driving up the boulevard with the same name. Their vehicles were two large cargo trucks and a monstrous thing best described as a bulldozer on wheels. Roy Heller led in a small red pick-up with Rat riding shotgun in the back. Jocco was heading for the promised land and he had no intention of going empty handed.

  Pam Gliss, affectionately known as Sergeant Bitch, sat in the back as the open bulldozer wound its way up into Beverly Hills. Her M-16 rested across her lap; the long, 50 round magazine nestled between her thighs. Looking on in wonder at the mansions all round her, Pam tuned to Tim Galt.

  “Look at that one, Timmy! Sheee-yit! We could have landed the fucking plain on the front lawn!”

  Tim, grinning like a fool, nodded. Jocco and his driver, Nathan Height, road up front. Pussbag sat like a living gargoyle on the hood, just behind the dozers triangular scoop. Up ahead, Roy’s red pick-up led the way. Rat stood in the back, a rope holding him upright, his Defender shotgun clutched in both hands.

  They’d been winding through the hills for over an hour now and hadn’t spotted anyone. Wrecks were few and far between. A Rolls here, a Jag there. A little while ago they’d passed a Porsche smashed into a stone wall, but for the most part the going was easy.

  Then they rounded a bend and saw the yellow jeep parked by a large wrought-iron fence. Two teenagers sat drinking and smoking in the shade. Loud rock music blasted from their vehicle so neither one heard a thing until Jocco’s dozer plowed into the rear of the jeep.

  As the sound of grinding metal reached their foggy brains, both jumped up and grabbed for their guns. Both were dead before the weapons were half way out.

  The front gates were unlocked. A nudge from the Toyota made them swing wide. Rat, reloading his smoking Defender, looked back at Jocco for orders. Getting the go ahead, he banged on the pick-up’s roof.

  “Floor it, Reg. It’s fucking Miller Time!”

  The red Toyota roared up the tree-lined drive, the dozer and the two cargo trucks following.

  Chad Hastings, or Bad Chad as the rest of the Lost Boys called him, was out back by the pool. An original Louis XIV table sat beside him, its gleaming surface holding a crystal punchbowl half filled with pills. A veritable smorgasbord of American Pie. Reds, whites and blues, mixed in with uppers, downers and your ever-popular tabs of LSD. A box of very stale donuts awaited for desert. A fifth of Scotch and a half gone bottle of Southern Comfort was on hand to wash down this sumptuous fair. Fittingly, Janis Joplin blared forth from a giant boom-box near the pool while a couple of naked sun worshippers danced their little teen-aged hearts out.

  Relaxed in a lawn chair, Bad Chad watched as their breasts, one pair small and upturned, the other heavy as melons, bounced in time to the beat. The brunette sitting astride both him and his lawn chair was already in orbit. Her large, vacant eyes gazed dreamily off into space as she simultaneously stroked him with one hand and herself with the other. Bad Chad, however, hardly felt a thing. The uppers he had taken on the way back from the Farmers Market back on Wilshire were just starting to kick in with a vengeance! Somewhere in the fuzzy distance, Janice n’ good ol’ bobby McGee gave way to The Byrds. Eight Miles High n’, fallin’ fast!All around him the rest of the Lost Boys were engaged in whatever depraved little personal activity turned them on.

  Through a world suddenly gone mega-weird, Chaddy-baby saw Gears do a cannon ball off the diving board. The water droplets from his splash seemed to take forever to fall back to earth. Across the pool some blonde was treating Smoke and Moose to a double feature. Through a haze of burnt meat and burnt-out brain cells the Chadmyster saw Cowboy fanning flames at the large Bar-B-Q. Down at the Market they’d picked up a bunch of frozen steaks. Well, half frozen. Since the power had gone off a couple of days ago, the thought flickered through Chad’s chemically intoxicated mind that these might be the last steaks he’d ever eat. For several reasons. So what?, a little voice said from deep inside him. You can always phone out for pizza.

  But even zonked as he was, Chad didn’t need his two years at the U.of Southern Cal. to tell him that the days of fast delivery were over n’ done. Just look the fuck around ya, Bro! The world is deader than a fucking used condom!

  Ya, Chaddy?, the little voice inside hi
m whispered. What about that fucking plane? Federalise on the way? Narc Squad come to bust your lily white ass?

  Chad took a swig of Southern Comfort, but somehow didn’t feel too damn comfortable. Glancing up, he saw that the brunette, now looking a hell of a lot like good old Janis herself, had given up on the hand action and was working on becoming a human shishcabob, using the lower part of himself as the skewer.

  Despite her actions, that little voice in the back of Chad’s head kept churning out the goodies. Its all over, Chad baby. The entire world just packed it in, leaving you and these fun-seeking air-heads as tombstones. The Lost Boys my ass! Gears, Dude, Cowboy, and any other walking-dead you find, don’t mean shit! You can run, Chaddy-Waddy, but you can not hide. Mr. Goodtime always leaves a bill, and sooner or later you have to pay his price!

  Chad shook his head in an effort to still the voice, but only succeeded in making everything spin. The world had receded to a hazy kind of Rockwellian nightmare. Even good old Janis, now deeply in the saddle and wildly riding the range, seemed like a twisted dream. Reality was the worm in his head. That all seeing, all knowing worm that kept on broadcasting the same message over and over. The Timex worm; takes a licking but keeps on ticking.

  And just what the fuck was this all important message?

  Simply this, Bro. That despite the tough front, despite all the guns and the drugs and the never-ending party, Big Bad Chad was scared shitless. The fast talking, cool walking leader of the Lost Boys was no different than any other lost child. Cold, tired and longing to go home.

  But there is no home to go to, Chaddy!, the worm shouted gleefully. What ya see, Babe, is what ya get! Yuka-yuka!