8
The city looked like a
motherboard, gutted from a giant computer.
J. Ronald Nixfeld surveyed the scene unimpressed high in
the tower above. 3,333 feet high above. His blurred eyes spun like slot machine
wheels scanning the sprawling grid, taking Southbridge down to Chipset, turning
left on AGP, right on ATX. The ball bouncing in his spinning brain landed on a
number.
“Eyes On Those Neighbors,” he said on speaker phone. “The
Price Of Liberty Is Service. Resistance Is The Real Slavery. Are you getting
all this?”
From overhead speakers came the voice: “Yes sir.”
“Difference Is Failure. Your Next Life Will Be
Better—Buy Now. No, wait, scratch that. You'll Get Your Life Later—Don’t Be A Freeloader!
Exclamation point.
“All right now, put those out there. I want those
slogans everywhere. That's all for now.”
“Yes sir,” the voice from above replied.
J. Ronald Nixfeld didn't use cell phones. “They cause
cancer,” he often said, and knew whereof he spoke because he owned several cell
phone patents and manufacturing plants. Same thing with soda pop. He didn't ever
drink Punch Drunk. That was only something he owned. Most of what he owned
caused death, one way or another. Of all his possessions, the tower was the
most tangible, dominating the sky. Most tangible, and most visible. A crack
whore once asked him if he wasn't afraid of a plane hitting the tower. J.
Ronald Nixfeld responded by saying nothing, only letting a long wide grin crack
across his face. Then the smile became a giggle. And the giggle became a laugh.
He had walked away, laughing.
Languid crack whores in the next room were calling out
to him. J. Ronald—J.R. to his intimates—had already voice-activated another
call. “Have him sit down for the interview with the microphone receiver in his
ear, away from the cameras. I'll tell him what to say. He'll look like he's
thinking for a moment while he waits to hear what I tell him. Got it?”
“Yes sir.”
“You've already provided the interviewer with the list
of questions?”
“Yes sir.”
“J.R....come on, baby....”
“Hold on, baby,” he called back to the crack whores. “Now
listen, I want you to look into interactive graves.”
“Pardon me, sir?”
“You know! Didn't I tell you? The thing where you pay and
a projection of the dead person appears over the grave and answers prepared
questions or something. I can make more money off people when they're dead than
I can when they're alive. Death lasts longer. You really widen your market base
that way.”
Interactive graves was actually an idea from Wanda. So
was the one where people pay to participate in actual virtual war. She got the
idea of people paying to push the button that fires the gun from the drone at
people on the other side of the world, in real-time, while she was smoking
crack. The ability to safely and comfortably participate in actual warfare,
paying to press the button and see on a big TV a village get bombed by an
unmanned drone was not yet an available product, but J. Ronald Nixfeld was
working on it. And again, it was Wanda the crack whore secretly responsible for
the color coding of the political parties.
High as a 3,333 foot kite, J. Ronald Nixfeld, giggling
uncontrollably, had barely managed to say, “What colors should we use?”
And Wanda the crack whore said, “Oh, fuck! I don't know!
Red and blue!”
“Which color for which party though?”
“It don't matter, baby. You own ‘em both, anyway.”
Wanda and Trixie called out for J.R. again.
“I'll be there in a minute, baby,” he croakingly cooed,
then resumed with the overhead speaker as he turned from the grid of the city spread
before him in the slanting morning rays. “A friend of mine in the
pharmaceutical industry came through for me, so call in a favor with that guy
who owes me at the lab. And don't worry about catching anything. It'll be
pigment specific. Tell the heads of the mortuary industry they all owe me
another one now, by the way.”
J. Ronald Nixfeld’s stubby pud started to stir. So much
talk about death and debt seemed to help the Raisex. The same company was
coming up with an equivalent product for women not yet available for market, to
some extent because it caused cancer. Knowing that, and still providing it to
his crack whores, gave J. Ronald Nixfeld a little extra thrill.
The crack whores were probably peaking about now. J.
Ronald Nixfeld ended the call and as he headed into the next room and took a
last look at the giant motherboard glinting in the rising sun.
9
Phil Stein put his writing implements away. It was not
yet seven o'clock in the morning, and he had gone for a quick run in the Carata
Community Forest, in anticipation of having to sit in the car all day driving. He
paused now and again, sometimes jogging in place, sometimes turning slowly
about taking in the full view of the forest around him, which seemed to leap
from the place of myth and dream. And when he did, the oneness that he shared
with the source of myth and dream seemed to have a life that grew and subsided
as well, and troubled him greatly the more he considered the permanent trap of
transition in which life is caught.
Also Phil found burdensome having to see a movie to
review for the paper on Sunday night, because that meant he wouldn't have time
to sleep on it. He'd have to dash it off as fast as he could after hustling
home. (“Home.” It felt strange to apply that word to the attic apartment he
rented. Vaguely he resented that.)
Then his thoughts came around to the car, and the
exultation of possibility quickened his pace. Even when his mind seemed
necessarily and efficiently occupied with a few details of the quick road trip,
there percolated a giddy effervescence attributable to the Pinto.
An hour later—ready as he was, it took him a good twelve
minutes, even booking, before he got indoors, sixteen to shower, five to get
dressed (everything was already laid out), twenty-one to eat and six to dither
around—Phil had the car packed with the big box of videos in the back, back
seat folded down to extend the hatch space, and tossing in an overnight duffel
and a paper Co-op bag for books. Food and drink he kept at arm's reach in the
passenger seat.
His plan was to head out of town at eight, roll into Las
Vegas by seven, stay in a hotel outside the city, and leave at seven Sunday morning
to get back into Carata around six.
It was just after eight now, and Phil was surprised to
find a vocal presence of protesters and counter-protesters lining both sides of
the street so early and near the farmers’ market. With the weather nice, Phil
had the windows down, and wasn't about to try to stretch all the way over to
the handle on the passenger side and chance cranking it up just to avoid hearing
from the horde seething to the right.
“You don't even know history!” he got to hear. Also, “Next
time check the facts!” and “Good answer, good answer!” Plus, “You hate money so
much, but you sure go ahead and use it!”
On the other side, through Phil’s other open window,
which he wasn't about to crank up, could not help but be heard the reply, “You
hate air so much, but you go and breathe it!” And, “We are planet Earth! We are
planet Earth!”
“The people who have done the least harm to Planet Earth
are the ones who are worth the most,” said a guy standing outside Phil’s
window. The lights were slow. Traffic crawled. “Yeah,” Phil said, elbow poking
out. “I know what you mean.”
“What we're saying is, the more you've done to harm this
planet, the more you're going to pay.” Now the guy gave Phil a sad look that
said, “Sorry, love to help, but there's nothing we can do for you,” and he
physically tapped Rozinante's roof, adding, “The bigger the crime, the bigger
the time.”
Meanwhile, back on the
other side of the street it was: “Look at them over there, they sure ain't on
our team,” and, “I heard they got at Wall Street Mart them This Just Ain't Our
Time t-shirts or whatever,” and, “You don't even know facts!”
Some young people nearby on a corner were tapping out
the rhythm of the morning on African drums. On the car in front, all the way out
of town, Phil had to see Why Dance Out Of Step? stuck on one side of the bumper
and We’re Judging You stuck on the other.
Phil Stein was the kind
of a guy who spent a great deal of time by himself. Wondering aloud, he found,
helped sharpen his thoughts. A profitable way to pass the time. He talked aloud
therefore to himself while driving—looking on doing so over long distance as
valuable therapy—but was keen that no one else should see him blabbing to
himself in a moving box. He would actually preempt tunes to do this.
“I like puffed language,” he said to himself aloud. Many
of his most real experiences, some of the most profound, memorable, defining moments
of his life, came about from the sense of clarity he felt defining his
experience in existence vocally to himself. Most people, he came to believe,
were also most themselves in the innumerable moments alone, defined by the same
limits of space and time in finite form. “Notice: I didn't say inflated. I said
puffed. I could have said inflated if I wanted to puff my language up a couple
syllables. Right there I could have said two
syllables instead of a couple. But
I chose to say a couple because I
wanted to take up your time.” (He knew there wasn’t anyone else in the car, and
spoke to his existential you.) “That’s my prerogative. I could've said choices instead of prerogative, but
didn't. I like puffed language because a
tremendous number of individuals do not.
“Has anyone ever really
been in a conversation? What do people talk about? Who listens? Are the best
discussions we ever have when we're talking with ourselves? Conversations with
eternity. Bingo. That's it, right there. Conversations with eternity. After
all, when has communication ever really happened? Do people pretend to listen
if they think that looking like they’re listening will somehow get them
something out of it? When is there ever the genuine sharing of ideas?
“Impoverished. There's a word we have to get rid of. Why
not simply say poor? We should burn the word impoverished alive. Too many
syllables, can't have it. Must have final solution. All words more than one
syllable are wrong. But not syllable. We keep that one. Or maybe call it syll. Or,
Syl. Yes. Less is more. Must have less. And less sentences. Whoops. I mean,
word things. Communication bad. Whoops. Talk bad. Pare down. Less more. I mean,
les mor.
“If it's a time issue, wouldn't it take less to let the
word impoverished stand without
taking the time to complain about it having more syllables than the word poor? Yes. Yes it would. And if the
issue is trying to cut down on pretension, isn't it not only more pretentious
to criticize using the word impoverished instead of poor, but also
hypocritical? Yes. Yes it is.
“Everyone wants to get respect, but nobody wants to give
it! That's it, right there! Not unless it's patronizing. Not unless they get
something out of it. And that's not respect at all. I mean, give me a break.
“Now, everyone in my dreams is only some aspect of
myself. It's clear to me that that is a physical principle of life. We can't
help but dream because that's a smaller version of the bigger picture. Matter
being merely solidified thought. Life is a romanescu cauliflower, geometrically
composed of the same principle within us all. We're only one part. The need to
attribute personal agency over it all is so impossibly infantile, words can
never express it. ‘Whitey in the sky.’ Holy fucking shit. Could an oyster possibly
understand what I'm saying now? No. To oysters, I'm God. So does that mean I
created everything? Nope. Existence extends greater than human beings can
comprehend. Does that mean there's some personal version of us watching over
us, everything we do, and really giving a shit? Nope. If you have to create a
god, how in your story do you explain how God was created? Why not just say
that existence came out of itself? Better yet, why not admit that existence
extends farther than we can see? I know exactly why. It's because monkeys want
to control each other. It's a power issue. It's fear. It seems easier to try to
control others than it is to control the self. Everyone wants to get respect,
but no one wants to give it.”
Phil clammed up as a car went by. He let the car pass a
half a mile ahead before resuming.
“Those people in that Mustang pretended not to be
talking about the Nature of Existence. They're no different from me. They're
exactly like me in every way. I shan't be the one to ruin the game. No game
ruiner, I. They, also, know exactly what I was doing, and still am. Right here
in good old Rozinante.” Phil tapped the dash. “Brilliant, kind fellow
travelers. No different from me at all. A wonderful game.”
The Mustang burned off in the distance. A dude stood at
the side of the road. With his thumb out, Phil had seen, too, before the
hitchhiker noticed the Pinto bearing down the hill. Seeing the guy get passed
by immediately spoke to Phil. He doubted a big dark dude's chances of catching
a ride for lots of reasons out there.
“Hello, part of my dream,” he said slowing down, hating
the wear on and smell of the brakes that he tapped, but pleased with the look
of relief and joy on the face of the hitchhiker. “Hello, version of me in the
same story. Hello, I won't kill you.”
10
“Humbaba became a county
–”
“No, no, no....”
“Humbaba became a county –”
“My friend, my friend, my friend, hey, listen –”
“Humbaba became a county sometime in the –”
“You're right. Go ahead. I apologize.” The hitchhiker,
Pete, whose friends called him Haka, extended his hand for a soul grip which
Phil met squinting. “No, hey,” he said, and coughed. Then said, “Oh, right. So
it became a county sometime in the 1800s. The exact date goes disputed
(Did he just sound like Jeff Spicoli?)
“but it seems some guy in a semiofficial capacity, drunk
on homemade beer, screwed up the name of the county for registering it on the
records and everything, either by accident or on purpose, we don't really know.”
They looked at the trees for a bit.
“Which is actually pretty remarkable either way because,
as it turns out, Humbaba is—in the world's oldest story, the epic of
Gilgamesh—a monster.”
“Where is this from, again?”
“Sumerian. The Land Between the Rivers. The Cradle of
Civilization. The oldest civilization in the world, and birthplace of writing,
the wheel, agriculture. There, also, probably by accident, beer was invented. Which
is strange.”
“Why?”
“Because Humbaba has the highest per capita alcoholism
of any county in the country.”
“We should probably get going,” Haka said, getting up
from the log.
“Right on,” Phil agreed, brushing himself free of debris
and looking at his watch, determining that the fifteen minutes of break taken
still squared with his time frame quite comfortably.
“Well,” he Phil, returning to his conversation as they
drove off, “all I'm saying is, image over substance is the danger. The face of
the politician is a product being pushed. Recognition of the name brand,
recognition of the face, is some sign that advertising works, but it's still
not even in the same ballpark as actually implementing a good idea.”
Haka nodded, tapping his thighs, checking out the view
of passing trees. “I agree with you, bro. You’re saying that if people quit TV,
the candidate, or, product, with the most money for ads and media slant would
no longer be the most bankable winner. And I agree with you. But would that
mean that people would be reading more, and making up their own minds, in a
democracy, based on the substance of ideas?”
“Absolutely.”
“Absolutely?”
“Absolutely. But, I mean, games today on TV are seen as
reality. Entertainment is a total diversion, of course, but on TV you get the
Roman spectacle of might—theater as reenacted history. And, same as with Rome,
we have a majority slave population unwittingly witness to the depletion of
natural resources, the demise of conquered cultures, and meanwhile games are
seen as truth. Meaningless spectacle diverting attention from the real problems
that keep the audience in slavery, with all the values of the vampire elite
held in high esteem.”
Haka had already put on some Frampton, and at this point
started sticking out his tongue way down all bug-eyed and intense in the manner
of the Maori famous worldwide for busting open barrels of intimidation, and he
was getting all into it during the signature Framptone parts of “Do You Feel Like
We Do?” Therefore Phil saw fit to not belabor the point, and instead got into
the groove, with the sunlight casting shadows of the shifting trees on the
winding road and on the hood of the car, trusty Rozinante, valiant steed.
They were in mountainous inland country now, breezing
around corners where great bright boulders loom, boulders looking as though lifted
directly from Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride. Not too far
ahead were a couple of little towns, Bandon and Hope.
Suddenly a red Mustang suddenly came tearing up; it
tailgated a little, then tore off. And it was the same one.
“Those chickenshits,” said Phil.
Haka nodded, tapping. “Same fucking ones, yeah?”
Gassing up in Bandon, Phil paid a woman inside at the
counter, a woman so skeletal and wrinkled, she must have started smoking when
she was nine. Her name was Sharon. Haka started to go for his wallet, but Phil
said the gas and the snacks were on him.
Back on the road in the car, the Pinto’s sound system promptly
screwed up. It was the CD player, not original with the car of course. Still,
somehow it figured.
Phil slammed the heel of his hand on the steering wheel,
barely restraining in order to avoid causing more damage and not look like too
much of a dork. “Goddam,” he said. Forcefully,
but restrained.
Haka tried the radio. All he could get was some scratchy
Styx. He turned it off.
The scenery was nice. Haka waved the bag of French Onion
Sun Chips Phil’s way.
Taking a crunchy handful himself, Haka said, “I remember
after the surprising, and what you might call organic, popularity of ‘Star
Wars,’ cartoons on Saturday mornings were filled with commercials for ‘Star
Wars’ action figure toys. All of that made so much money, more and more movies
followed suit. Then came the corporate merchandising tie-ins that anticipated
popularity. After that came the ad campaigns, all tied tight to the movie,
which forced phony financial phenomena.
“And like they say, things fell apart.
“Three days after Mt. St. Helens erupted, the first ‘Star
Wars’ sequel was released. This was in 1980, the year John Lennon was murdered,
and Ronald Reagan, a former actor of B-movie fame, got into office by making a
closed-door deal with the oil nation enemy of the day. So the empire had struck
back, yeah? All those things were made part of a system bypassing organic
requirement, and the production of film, merchandise, and politicians became
fully operational.”
For a long time Phil nodded, smiling. “Think of the
power we would wield as a people if we stopped the number one source of the
trick simply by not watching TV. I'm not even saying anyone needs to not want
anything ever. I'm saying commercials are poison, propaganda proliferates, TV
pushes dehumanizing messages, it distracts people from serious issues,
desensitizes, trains us to respond to complex issues with color-coded
oversimplifications favorable only to the multinational corporations that own
it, irresponsibly playing with propaganda at global human cost, always pushing
lies harmful to humanity, lies about religion, lies about money, lies about the
natural world, lies about life, all based on the petty pointless greed of a
tiny minority trapped in fear of losing the criminal and unearned privilege
which threatens all life on this our only plant in this the only life, and
that, with minimal effort, anyone will easily be far better off by doing
without TV altogether, and that the more who do that the better, and the fewer
who do that the worse, and if all of that is so incredibly difficult to accept,
you should ask yourself why, because the world in fact is under attack,
someone's running it into the ground, and the more real research you do on your
own, the more you'll find, cutting the cord isn't an end, it's a start.”
“Shit, bro. You've got to take it down a notch, yeah? Hey
what's all this back here? Books? You’re a reader, yeah?”
“Damn straight.”
“What do you have? Ulysses?
The Waste Land, The Hollow Man, Heart of Darkness. What, no Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? Shit
bro, these are all Ivory Tower books. That's your problem.”
“Problem? What problem?”
“You're crazy.”
“Crazy? Me, crazy? I'm not crazy. It's my mission that's
crazy.”
“And what do you see as your mission, bro?”
“I'm on a mission to the heart of money to pick up a TV.”
“You're still crazy. Crazy from too much Ivory Tower.”
The ground was opening up around them, green fields
spreading off with trees dotting. On low hills against the sky white windmills
of a wind farm spun. Haka turned the tuning dial on the radio and they listened
to John Fogarty, Robert Plant, Paul McCartney. Phil thought this was odd. He
was sure he had heard Creedence Clearwater Revival, Led Zeppelin and the
Beatles back in the Shire.
Haka flipped through Phil’s copy of Ulysses. Appraising the fluttering pages of the book as though he
were looking up its skirt. Then he set it down. “I'll grant you Joyce has a structure
in mind. No doubt about it. In his obscure way, he has a loose, dim version of
Homer’s Odyssey. But it has to be
explained. By people who had to have it explained. No offense to Joyce, but why
should I give him the time? I can get great emotional depth, and character
insight, and lyrical language, and you name it, from clear stories with direct
action. Trying to hold up Ulysses is
like trying to hold up batter and call it a cake, yeah? And I could go for a cake
right now. But you're up there in your Ivory Tower. Look at this, what's this,
Frank Zappa?”
“Frank Zappa will always be one of the greatest
recording artists of all time.”
“I think he was a great guy. You've probably listened to
him on YouTube?”
“Sometimes there, yeah.”
“I like to hear him talk. But most of his music, what
I’ve heard anyway, it’s not for me. I would need a musician to explain it to me
all the time. Or a team of musicians maybe. And Edgar Varese here. I see you
actually have an Edgar Varese CD here. I wish your CD player worked.” Haka
turned up Paul Simon. This seemed odd to Phil. He was certain he had just been
listening to Simon and Garfunkel back in the Shire.
“Did you know,” Phil said after a while, interrupting a
long silence, “that only four percent of people are redheads?”
Haka did not reply.
“It's true. One study found that redheads are the people
who are hardest to sedate. We actually take up to twenty percent more
anesthesia.”
“Sure, there have been good shows.” They had parked at a
rest stop and were getting out now. “Not most, though. And with Netflix, no
commercials. So, if you want to watch M*A*S*H, fantastic. Put it on your queue.
Select from the season you want. You choose the episode. You choose the time. No
slaving your schedule around the tube. No having to get stuck watching some
crap you don't even like. You can pause it, back it up, pay attention, actively
participate, ask questions, study, learn. Hey, where you going?”
Haka turned around. “Who? Me? Oh, I gotta get going.”
“You mean like, to the bathroom?”
“Sure.”
“Why do you have your bag?”
“Oh, this? My luggage, right. Because I wouldn't want to
leave it in your car.”
“Who? Rozinante? Isn't she great?”
“Hey, take care, man. This is where I needed to go.”
“I thought you said you’re going to Las Vegas.”
“Well, I'll get there someday, yeah? You take care, bro.”
“All right,” said Phil. “So long.”
Parked next to the Pinto was a greasy-looking guy with a
belly and a broad and a sloppy kid with a dog with no leash. The guy was
sweating, the broad complained of insomnia and the kid apparently suffered wild
mood swings. Outside of Humbaba, Phil noticed, apparently everyone suffers from
withdrawal symptoms. The sticker on the back of these people’s car said Life Is
What You Have To Urn! The dog threatened
Phil as he tried to stretch his legs before getting back in the car, then
suddenly darted after a squirrel, zipping across the ground like a spaz.
11
He was a Third World
dictator trying to turn the profits of his country's labor back into his
country's people. It wasn't good enough, the beer the frat boys brought. The “honor.”
The “prestige.”
Jordan: “Go ahead and get liquored up there, champ. Then
you show us how it's done.
Sampedro: “You wan’ me to show you?”
Jordan: “That's right,
champ. That's right. Drink up. Time to get rough. Get all rough-rough. You
ready for some rough-rough?”
“I'm renny!”
“Can you say rough-rough? Say rough-rough, rough-rough!”
“Rough-rough! Rough-rough!”
He had put a hand on Sampedro's shoulder that day and
put a stop to it. It was an active naked rebellion, and he was a Celtic
chieftain, organizing the disarray, workers under the industrial yoke.
And the awareness was
weight, and he lifted the weight with wide grips on the days he was hitting his
lats.
Tidal power, wave power, solar, wind, geothermal. Pooro
contemplated power as he lifted old car parts and cranked out crunches.
Profit First equals death. Was the system corrupt, or
corruption the system? Where were the Berkeley activists, where the real
fighters? In the structures of political power, where was folk music? Was the
spirit of revolution he felt in the air a coalescence, or dissipation? Without
the true grass roots cause, who then left to oppose the rapid escalation of
war? Who left to question, keep democracy alive, without a thriving counter-culture?
And he did not say it, but he wondered these things,
wondered from the toes up, awash in waves of power, the bone-deep memory of a surging
lift in the social tide, he wondered the fate of the world as he trained,
without any home, without any money, but not without purpose, and the pain that
he caused when he fought was his voice, and he spoke in a language that he
alone could hear, but did not yet understand...
STAY TUNED
FOR MORE OF
THE TOWER
FOR MORE OF
THE TOWER
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