DIEGO RODE his hover scooter through the
cool blue morning down toward the store secure in the knowledge that the
redwoods would rise miles and miles to the sky infinitely, eternally, and
forever without end. Past the restaurant on the right he rode, seafood within
advertised by the giant metal swordfish stuck on top of the pole outside. On
the way back he would pull off to the grassy rise on the other side and, as was
long his habit, chuck rocks at it.
Diego’s
parents worked in neighboring Drakewood four miles down the Avenue, so he had
the whole town to himself. He was thirty-six years old, with the wind in his
hair, and because he had enough credits to download 3-D hologram versions of
favorite old shows, he could look forward to watching Pete Townshend and Keith
Moon smash equipment while he stood next to waist-high Tommy Smothers like a
god. Diego didn’t have enough credits for life size holograms. Not anywhere
near, and his parents weren’t likely even combined to ever get that many
credits in their lives. But still, real 3-D was something, and he couldn’t wait
to watch, from every possible angle and using every feature option, Kirk battle
Spock.
Noiselessly
the hover scooter slid the standard three feet approximate over the road as
though in an invisible gelatinous river. His job was to head over to the high
school and a few other places at some point in the day and check out a couple
things here and there, basically make sure the problem spots in particular
never got a chance to freeze up. He took it slow past Madrani Market and
Madrani Café. You couldn’t take a hover scooter very fast anyway, and most
definitely not his. Past the market, off to the right, the heavily forested
mountain rose forever up, green trees growing and going on and on, past the gray
wisps of clouds hovering kelp-like over the town.
Back
down below, the high school, neat and orderly, sprawled out like a cemetery.
The problem spots there were mostly from water collecting on some wide expanses
of flat rooftops where people liked to climb up and hang out, usually at night.
So he had to put buckets under drips in some of the rooms below, and if it got
to raining really hard make sure the buckets didn’t overflow. But there
wouldn’t be any rain today.
On
the other side of the street at The Burl Barn in the wood yard somebody dressed
up like a Hippie stood among the chainsaw carvings of striding Bigfeet with his
mouth nearly down to his knees. It was agape. He was aghast. Apparently frozen.
Except,
The
guy really did look frozen. And the getup was completely authentic.
“You’re
gonna have to leave,” Diego said, stopping the hover scooter a little way from
the guy in the getup and pulling a fully automatic pistol on him.
“Holy
crap!” the guy in the getup yelled.
“You
armed?”
“No!
Hell no!”
“Submit
to a search?”
“What?”
“I
need to scan you.”
“Scan
me?”
“Just
to check for weapons.”
“I
don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, man, but I can see right now something’s
not right here. I mean like, what the hell is that you’re on?”
“My
hover scooter? You act like you’ve never seen a crappy old hover scooter.”
“No,
dude, I haven’t. It looks like that thing really works. What the hell is going
on here? Who are you, man?”
“My
parents cover the area here, and I’m in charge when they’re gone. I’m licensed
to carry this. You don’t have any license to be here.”
“Oh,
man, I’ve got a bad feeling here. I think I’m—I don’t think—”
“Listen,
I can shoot you. I’m licensed to protect the town.” Diego’s finger was on the
trigger. He really didn’t want to have to shoot, but he was starting to feel
like there might not be any other choice. It was a big surprise to him when the
gun accidentally went off, sending a burst of bullets ripping down across the
street into Just Desserts.
“Hey
man! Do me a favor and put that thing away, okay?” The face on the guy in the
outfit was pleading.
“So
now you think I’m some idiot who doesn’t know how to use a gun right. Relax,
it’s no big deal, I’ll fix everything.”
“There’s
somebody inside there. Look, there are people.”
Diego
smiled as he returned the pistol to the holster at the back of his belt. He
could tell the guy in the Hippie costume wanted to go see. He let him go check
it out.
Glass
was shattered at the front of Just Desserts. Some figures stood inside at the
counter. But it wasn’t until the Hippie approached the broken glass door,
cautiously, concerned, that the figures inside moved. Music came on. The whole
place lit up. Tinkling sounds of coffee cups returned to saucers and the
clinking of plates and utensils mingled with conversation and laughter. Diego
slid over on his hover scooter and saw the Hippie stare in awe at a woman
standing at the counter with a doughnut in her hand and a hole in her head.
Wiring was revealed.
“I
can’t say I always appreciated them when I was younger,” said Diego, stepping
in and examining the damage, “but I’ve grown to.” The plastic doughnut in the
animatronic hand rose to the ripped pinkish latex skin and broken circuitry
exposed where there should have been a mouth. “We’ll fix her. Get her all good
as new. All it takes is shutting her down and ordering some new parts, really.
Anybody else hit?”
The
Hippie looked around. “These are all robots? When did they put robots here?”
“I
think you’ve got to be the most confused-looking person I’ve ever seen in my
life. You mind turning off that switch back there? It looks like an old light
switch on the wall.”
Fumble,
click.
Music
came on.
“No,
that’s Neil Young. ‘Barstool Blues.’ I forget there’s more than one switch back
there. Leave the music on, though.”
All
the animatronic people stopped. The Hippie came over to the counter muttering,
“I’m tripping. Everything’s okay. Everything’s gonna be all right. Yeah.”
“What’s
this now?” Diego wasn’t sure what he’d heard. “Did you say you were—what did
you say—tripping?”
“Delightful.”
“What’s
delightful? Sir, are you on drugs?”
“I’m
down inside a hollow redwood. A great big redwood in the forest.
“World
of the future, huh? What year is it?”
“I
don’t know.”
“You
don’t know what year this is?”
“Perhaps
my mind will show me a calendar.” The Hippie looked around and saw no calendar
on any wall. He shrugged his shoulders. “I guess it’s not important.”
Diego
disconnected the woman with the face shot up. “I don’t understand why you’re in
a tree, though.”
“That’s
where I went with my mushrooms. A very rare variety. Glow-in-the-dark,
actually. My friend turned me on. I went to the tree because I wanted to be in
a safe place, all-natural, you know? And I had been thinking—probably because
of my studies in shamanism—about how all time is happening at the same moment,
and the thing that separates each moment is, not a linear continuum of time,
but levels of vibration. We’re all one. Everything is one. I’ve seen how
nothingness becomes matter, man. Think about that. Everything in existence is a
fractal of existence. We’re all fractals of the universe.”
“So
what year do you think it really is?”
“Well,
I suppose that’s debatable. Man, look at you. What a freakin’ trip.”
“What
year is it?”
“Hmm.
Something about my subconscious needs to focus on time. Fascinating.”
“Hey,
give me a hand, would you? I’ve got to take this one down to the shop. Could
you open that door?”
The
Hippie quite graciously complied. They stepped out of Just Desserts, leaving
the people inside turned off, went past Madrani Café, to a little alley,
practically all the walls covered with some fantastic trippy mural, everything
all blue above, not a chem-trail in the sky, and Diego found what looked like a
fuse box and flipped a couple switches, unleashing Neil on the town, so that
“Cortez the Killer” resounded. On the west side of the Avenue at the gas
station, the animatronic mechanic, which was bent over with the nice vertical
smile on display, went into action when Diego and the Hippie tripped the motion
sensors, jolting VRRP, VRRRRP sounds with the riveting of sockets reverberating
realistically in the garage. Diego and the Hippie took the animatronic woman
inside the garage and down hidden stairs to an animatronic work and storage
space. Diego put the body on the long slab table, the Hippie marveling at the
array of disassembled animatronic body parts arranged in shelves along the
walls and hanging from the ceiling.
“What
are you really doing here?” Diego said. “How did you get here?”
“I
woke up in the tree and came up from the woods. How do you control music
through the whole town?”
“Are
you aware where you are?”
“Sure,”
he said, brushing his long brown hair behind his ears with his fingers and
pulling it back into a ponytail, “of course. I live right up the street.”
“You
do? Where?”
“I’ll
show you.”
Passing
by the metal swordfish on the way back up the hill toward the south end of
town, together on the hover scooter silent as thought through the cool redwood
air, they came to a road, and at the Hippie’s indication turned down, sliding
by a duplex overgrown with ivy and houses with fences and flowers and gardens,
till at the Hippie’s indication they stopped. He hopped off and hit the ground
and turned to Diego and said, “See? There’s my house. That’s where I live.”
“Your
house, huh?”
“Well,
I admit it does look a good bit different. Only in the minor details, though.
Those are imperfections and embellishments from my subconscious.”
“Do
you really think you’re dreaming right now? Because you’re not, I can tell you
that. I’m real. I’m as real as it gets. At first I wanted you to just get out.
Now I’m not sure if I should even let you leave. If anything went wrong I’d get
in trouble. Thing I can’t figure out is how you got past perimeter security. I
think you better tell me your name.”
“Why
should I do that? I already showed you where I live. Look man, I don’t know who
you are or what you think you’re doing, and thanks for the ride, man, but I
think I want you off our property. I do want you off. I want you to go. Just
leave me alone and go away now.”
Diego
produced the pistol and pointed it at the Hippie. “What do you care, right? You
still think you’re dreamin’.”
“Don’t
shoot me, man.”
“What
do you care, right?”
“Don’t
do it!”
“What’s
your name?”
“Chad
Perlman. Don’t shoot!”
“How
did you get here?”
“I
told you, man! I went down to—I’m not dreaming. Oh god. I went down to the
forest to do some ‘shrooms.”
“A
really rare kind. Glowed.”
“Yeah!
And I just thought it would be a really far out thing to do it in this big old
redwood tree I know that’s all hollow at the bottom.”
“So
what happened?”
“Look
man, could you please lower that? It’s really hard to talk to you right now.”
Diego
went ahead and lowered the gun, and just as he did, finger on the trigger, it
went off again, sending a spray of bullets into the sidewalk and along a corner
of the house. An inarticulate curse tore from his lips and he almost dropped
the gun before setting it down pointed away from the two of them.
“Go
ahead!” Diego said, upset at the gun accidentally going off for a second time.
“Tell me what the hell happened!”
“I
journeyed inside my mind. I thought about vibrations.”
“What
do you mean, ‘vibrations?’”
“Well,
I mean, you know, it’s like, all matter is solidified thought. I’d been
thinking about time travel. How all time happens at the same time. I tapped
into something. I tapped into a part of my mind not used before, a part of the
mind nobody uses, and I understood, and by understanding I made it happen. It’s
not 1975 anymore, is it?”
“1975?
Are you kidding? It’s 2050!”
Low
moans came from the house, followed by agonized groaning and horrific cries.
“You
shot someone. Did you hear that? Someone in the house is hurt.”
The
Hippie raced inside. Diego picked up the pistol and took out the clip. Damn
thing was faulty. You couldn’t get quality anything hardly anywhere anymore.
The house was a two-story. The big perfect white kind like you used to see on
TV. And there was a garden, of course. And a lawn. And flowers. All needing
tending. Somebody had to do that.
Low
moans again. Agonized groans and horrific cries. The Hippie came out of the
house wide-eyed in his tie-dye.
“It’s
a Haunted House,” Diego said. “The gunshots tripped the sensors.”
“So
the whole town is robots?”
“Most
of the buildings here have some sort of animatronic feature. Not all, though.”
“Why
though? Why? Why has this happened? What happened to my town? Where did all the
people go?”
Diego
couldn’t say. “This is Redwoodland. You’re in Haunted Madrani. Usually my
parents caretake the town, but they have to work in Drakewood today. So you
think you’re from 1975?”
“Man,
I am from 1975.”
“You
got any ID?”
“ID?”
“Yeah,
you know, ID. Like something that says who you are. You got a wallet?”
The
Hippie patted his pockets. “Not on me. I left it”—he looked over his shoulder
up at the second-story window—“in my room….” His voice trailed off. He stared
at the ground for a moment with his brows knit, then said, “I wonder what
happened to my family.”
“Okay,
well listen, man. I’ve got work to do and you’re not supposed to be here.”
“I
don’t understand.”
“I
mean you’re not supposed to be here.”
“Well,
what am I supposed to do?”
“How
the hell should I know? That’s not my problem. Your being here is my problem.
Now get out of here before you get me in trouble.”
“Get
out like where? I have no money, nowhere to go, and no way to get there. All I
have in the world is everything you see.”
Ghostly
sounds from the Haunted House had stopped. Trees creaked. For no reason he
could figure, Diego asked if the Hippie was hungry, and when he said that he
was, Diego went ahead and took him back down on the hover scooter to Madrani
Café.
They sat on thickly cushioned swivel stools at the counter. Behind them some of the tables were redwood slabs on burl bases, rich mahogany marbled wildly with radiating rings and peppered with minute constellations of character, and the entire shape of the slab was irregular and unique because it came from burls with knots and roots and pockets milled into two- and three-inch slabs, no two exactly alike in the world. In front of them stood a blonde-haired, blue-eyed animatronic waitress wearing Daisy Dukes, trim white fringe on her tight cutoff jeans fluffy and clean as if fresh from the wash.
“So
what was it like living when ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’ was on?”
“Yeah,
that’s a pretty good one. I haven’t seen him do it for a couple years, but when
my youngest brother was nine or ten, and he’s I guess twelve years younger than
me, he used to go around wearing one of those long metal tennis ball cans all
the way up to his armpit, and wear a long-sleeved shirt over his arm so that
when we punched it or if he crashed into something it would seem bionic. And he
used to squint one eye to show that it was bionic, too. And he would move
super-fast, pretending to go in slow-mo. I guess he’d be eighty-eight now, if
he’s still…you know.”
“Still
alive?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s
sure not impossible. I know people in their nineties and hundreds. You should
try to look him up. Maybe he can help you.”
“You
know, you’re right. That means I’m a hundred. I might not look a day over
twenty-five right now, but I feel a hundred years old inside. I wonder if I’ll
suddenly start aging on the outside to catch up.”
Diego
had his phone out. It was the size of a corn chip, and at the touch of a very
tiny button seemed to expand to a door-sized golden rectangle glittering with
possibility.
“I’m
not seeing any Perlmans in the directory,” he said.
“None?”
“Sorry.”
The
Hippie saw in the door-sized hologram-like screen which was not actually there
clips of advertising firing away, dehumanized women shining and jostled and
screaming in fearful ecstasy the names of products, everything on-screen all
frantic pulsing color spinning to catch attention, and looking to the Hippie
like a jumbled mess of garbage falling constantly apart. Pictures of the world
beyond Redwoodland instilled fear and reverence. Famine and flame and deadly
disease. You couldn’t look away, and there was always more.
“Enjoy,
boys,” Cheryl, the animatronic waitress said, swiveling over with the orders.
“I
keep expecting to see Yul Brynner come in wearing a black cowboy hat,” said the
Hippie between bites of bacon cheeseburger.
“I
know the movie you’re talking about,” Diego said with a mouthful of pizza.
“‘Westworld.’”
“Right!
But it’s not like that here. There are such things as walking androids in the
world, true. They don’t have them here, though. Too expensive. Too much hassle.
These ones here are hard enough to keep up.”
Cheryl
just smiled. Nice midriff. Showed a lot of latex.
The
Hippie thanked Diego for the burger when they’d finished. Diego left his pizza
crust.
“No
problem,” Diego said outside. “I get it at a discount.”
“I
guess I’ll have to figure out how to start getting some of those credits,” the
Hippie said.
“I
guess you better. Where you going?”
“I
think it’s time to take off.”
“Take
off? Where to?”
“Oh,
I think I’ll start by going back to that tree, see if I can’t fall asleep.”
“You
got any more of those weird mushrooms?”
“Nope.”
“All
right then, good luck.”
“Thanks
for being cool with me, dude.”
“No
prob, dude.”
Deep
down the Hippie wondered if maybe Diego wouldn’t be letting him go. Wondered if
he wouldn’t have to turn around to see while he was walking away Diego with the
pistol leveled. But all Diego did was hop on his hover scooter and glide down
past the high school.
Suddenly,
the sound of something moving. He’d tripped a beam, he knew, before the voice
came, a voice from above.
“A
decade is no mere number of years.” The Hippie looked up the nearby redwood at
the huge talking burl. “A time is a spirit. If the time is a positive one, it
needs to be carried on.” The mouth of the big fake burl clacked when it talked.
“So be sure to stick to the rules, and remember, anything you can see can see
you, too. Our Redwoodland Security family finds the darnedest ways to keep a
real good eye on us to make sure everybody stays safe. Lookout for Bigfeet now,
be sure to visit our gift shops, and keep on stayin’ groovy!”
Slowly,
the conical brown heads of Bigfeet rose on neckless shoulders from behind
fallen logs and large clumps of brush, and as he moved along the trail, slowly
they descended. Little woodland creatures lingering unnaturally seemed to the
Hippie like camera-laden spies, but he made it at last to his tree, a great
redwood with a split at the base revealing a cave-like interior. Trembling, he
went inside. Naturally everything he had experienced was all too much to bear.
His system couldn’t handle it. If he could just go to sleep, probably he would
wake up and everything would be fine in 1975. And he would never do mushrooms
again. Inside it was dark, the wedge-shaped opening allowing little of the
filtered forest light. The problem now was being wired. He tried to sleep, but
was too wired to be tired. When the omnipresent thought of what on earth he was
going to do became too much, the Hippie jumped out of the tree and ran through
the woods tripping beams that sprang striding Bigfeet to life and made talking
burls clack behind him as he ran pit pat down the forest path.
It
was in the wood yard at The Burl Barn that the Hippie saw Diego again.
“I
figured,” Diego said, crunching across the gravel drive, “figured you’d come
out at the Old Graveyard, or on the Avenue, or from up behind The Burl Barn
here.” The hover scooter was over by a wolf-bear-raven-Bigfoot totem pole, and
next to that was an animatronic chainsaw-carving tableau, featuring a
plaid-clad carver covered in sawdust releasing from a block of wood a standing
bear holding a salmon, and also featuring a guy with an ax in his hands
perpetually preparing for the Standing Block Chop.
“I
recognize this guy’s name,” said the Hippie, reading from a brass plaque. “So
little Carl wound up a Timbersports champion.”
“They
say that one’s modeled on what the actual guy looked like. They got a bunch
like that.”
The
Hippie wondered aloud if he’d see one of himself. This thought was a big
adjustment from having sat in front of “All in the Family” what was for him
only a matter of hours before.
“I
don’t think so,” Diego said. “I think I’d recognize you. At least you get
represented. Nobody from my world gets that here at all. And now here you are,
no ID and no idea what a credit is. You have to be a citizen to get credits,
but you don’t even have any paperwork at all. Undocumented, and nowhere to go.
Man, you’re lucky if I even hide you out. What kind of skills you got?” This
last he said barely retaining a snort of contempt. To his surprise the Hippie
said that he was pretty good with carpentry.
They
worked out a deal, stopping on the way back up to the house to chuck rocks at
the swordfish. Diego had the master remote control with him now, having left
the pistol at home, and they listened to Neil Young’s Zuma again through the motel recreation room jukebox without ever
setting foot inside.
When
they got to Diego’s house, his parents, in their seventies, still weren’t back
from work. Diego gave the Hippie the tour of the house from the outside,
explaining where he was not to go, and basically gave him the lay of the land
while he took the Hippie to the van.
It
was a little bit overgrown. Weeds grew up around the antique tires, which were
flat. It was a brown van in its time, and yellow. A rusty door squeaked open
and a musty smell came out. The carpet inside didn’t look too bad. Shag.
“I
can put some of my credits on another card for you. You can get what you need
down at the café. Most days the park has guests, so it won’t look like this all
the time, that’s for sure. But I can pretty much always scrape up something for
you to do. Like right now if you want to start on those bullet holes in the
wood over at your old house.” Diego showed the Hippie where they kept the
tools.
There
were still a few hours of daylight left. Together in that time they could get a
lot done preserving ancient heritage. At least the Hippie managed to scare up
some place to crash. He was the last Mohican now.
From inside the Haunted
House, the screams, groans, and cries rang out as they worked.
VISIONS FROM THE GUTTER “Resurrection of the Lizard” – A Jim Morrison
android living in the redwoods develops a cult following. “I Am Become
Celebrity” – In a world where genetically-engineered pop stars reach
their peak before they’re even born, unemployed Serling Young finds
himself ready and willing to do anything for fame. “Age of Indigents” –
Homeless conservative Everett Fagle experiences inner growth living in a
hollow redwood. “Rhapsody Grove” – Growing success with Victory
Eviction Services rewards Rich Christianson with the coveted chance to
attend a prestigious private gathering, but at what cost to his
beautiful, dutiful wife? “Trip Van” – A Hippie wakes up one day to find
the world is not at all what it seemed. “Redwoodstock” – For desperately
unemployed George Hicks, a Woodstock-like concert held in Humbaba
offers an out-of-this-world opportunity to get ahead in business.
AVENUE OF THE GIANTS While visiting Humbaba, Beau Black encounters a hot
old flame desirous of a no-strings fling. When she takes him for a ride
in her midnight blue Karmann Ghia, Beau goes on a midlife crisis trip
through the landscape of his youth, where a Gothic Convention awaits,
and a date with otherworldly destiny.
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