k |
kkkkkkkkkkkk |
k |
k k k k k k k k |
BLACK
HELICOPTERS EPISODE 17 THURSDAY the SIXTH - 11:11 AM Disson's
innermost office loomed grossest of all of City Hall’s rotting matryoshka excepting, as Andy vaguely remembered from
some ghastly charity brunch, that office of Hizzoner:
Mayor Peter Horatio "Pinhead" Potter himself... but, in no way aped
what one might have expected from a municipal Permits Bureau sanctum. Rather
Andy, and not alone among others, was put in mind of an undertaker's
emporium... a darkened establishment where velvet gloves hid knifelike
talons; dank, unnatural urges quenched… with difficulty… gloomy deities
placated with florid, bloody sacrifices. |
k k k k k k k k |
No electric
lamps burned in Permits' funereal realm, not even a candle; drawn blinds
allowing only a weak gauze of sunlight tentative
admission. Tables and more obscure antique objects of furniture, draped in
damasks of dark hues, were laden with metal or ceramic bowls in which crimson
and violet blooms palpitated in a desultory breeze wafting in through open
windows behind the blinds... waiting, wilting... watching, as several wary
flies circled the premises.
Don Disson was, himself, a short, trim man, expensively clothed
in a fawn, silkish suit with French cuffs; light
brown hair cropped closely at the sides but rising straight upwards some two or
three inches – rather like the kitchen match-headed tonsorial fashion presently
among high-ranking alt-righters (or the North Korean
dictator Kim Jong Un). Bristles, Andy reckoned, on a witch’s
broomstick. A thin pencil moustache enhanced his likeness to one of those
confidence men from old black and white noir movies and far too much cologne...
masking, in fact, a faint, unhealthy criminal tang to the office and its
inhabitant, from whence and whom Andy desired to be gone from the moment he’d
entered. Now, however, it was too late. Disson sat, breathing heavily, eyeing his supplicants... Rael, Marty Lesh, Richard Reid, the glareman, and their attorney, Goldman. Solicitous as
any undertaker but with what, Andy remembered Kerry Donovan telling him, was a
twenty-mile stare, like one of those Roswell aliens put off his saucer for some
nameless and loathsome alien indiscretion, exiled to pass a few millennia among
the lower orders.
Richard
Reid turned his head and coughed a wad of yellow phlegm onto the dark, perfumed
carpet, but Disson never wavered. So much for the
People's Glare!
The
dark, murmuring flowers, however, recoiled – perhaps aroused – and sussurated hungrily in the direction of the gob, seeming to
emit tongues of invisible absorptive toxins… poisons that attacked human
willpower, affecting each of the supplicants in a different, but subtle
manner... Andy could not help wondering whether something from the skid row
diner was still attached to his chin.
Disson leaned forward and waved off Leo's perfunctory
greeting. "So... little worms who have bored into our apple of opportunity
and mean to spoil this splendid Convention that Mayor Potter has brought here,
only to bring some sort of meaning into their spoiled little lives? And now... enlighten me! I am supposed to
hear some sort of a… a demand?"
"Nothing
extraordinary," Goldman said, face neutral but,
as Andy noticed, he'd straightened up some, taking offense at the bureaucrat's
arrogance. "Simple compliance with the First Amendment which, as you may
know, hasn't been repealed yet... despite former Congressman Parnell's noble
initiative..."
"Yes...
that," Disson replied with a distasteful shake
of his head. "So we were talking about... somewhere for human genome,
black ganglords, nuclear nervous nellies
and Hong Kong invasion protesters to join hands with derelicts from Jefferson
Street and march round and round in their little circles... chanting,
singing…"
"You're
chaining the City's disadvantaged to people protesting the CNC," Leo
objected, "just like the Catfish says happens in his book!” Touché! Well, maybe.
“Look, we all know this isn't something any locals wanted, except for
the commercial sorts, you know? Ukraine all over again! People are coming here from all over the
country, even the world! Extra buses arrive at the station hourly and planes
are packed... given Mr. Tillerman’s alt-alt-right
hoodlums and Parnell lining up with President Biden on that new import tariff
to work off at least some of the National Debt, sort of, I reckon there'll be
five Conk protesters for every delegate. Thousands of 'em! Not a vacant hotel
room within twenty miles and, by the way, you can just tell your boss to
remember to have all the restaurants and stores be sure to thank him for
attracting so much business. This is even bigger than that convention of
gastroenterologists Mayor Klum brought here ten years ago..."
"Those
were doctors," Disson cut him off. There was, at once, something vacant
and something other present in
the Director's eyes which, Andy realized, had flared black as a rodent's within
a thin yellow corona... it was impossible to determine whether there were any pupils
in that school at all, or whether, on the other hand, they were so dilated
they'd overflowed their sockets like rivers in the terrible floods currently
ravaging Washington state. "Doctors! Not derelicts... shaking puny little fists,
whining at the injustices of life and jealously trying to tear down good men
like the Catfish and Austin Tillerman; those were doctors, with money..."
Andy
decided he wouldn't take whatever flight Disson was
enjoying, even if somebody laid it on him.
"Let
me think. Hmmm! Is there a place where
this sort of negative behavior can be officially countenanced?"
Disson looked down at his desk, seeming to meditate and
affording his petitioners the opportunity to react. But Leo had drummed it into
them... no idle talk... and when he looked up, the five of them were still
staring (or glaring) at him, awaiting further revelation. It actually seemed to
unnerve the little bureaucrat, and now he took out a linen handkerchief, coughed
something gray and yellow of his own into it, folded it up and put it in his
pocket, then lifting a number of brightly colored brochures from a drawer,
handing them to Leo with a careless wave to pass them around. Andy hesitated...
the plague might have retreated into the shadows to await another season, but
he still didn't want the Permits man's germs any more than he cared for his
drugs. Those rumours
on social media about men having sex with apes... they seemed less outlandish
now...
"I
think... here!” Disson smiled. “A setting most admirably reflecting the
City's commitment to providing a theatrical, even pastoral, venue for your
First Amendment concerns..."
Richard
Reid was first to break rank. "Hey man, this is fuckin' Sylvania
Park!"
"Why
so it is!" Disson smiled again. "Have you a
problem with this?"
"Yeah,"
Andy replied, folding the Chamber of Commerce handout in half, "it's nine
miles from downtown. Is this some sort of joke?"
"The
site is within City limits," Disson answered,
icily, "well, part of it is. The First Amendment, as I recall, is silent
on the issue of hectoring taxpayers to provide any individual facility for the
free-of-charge promulgation of offensive views. It does protect the rights of
anyone to say anything on private property... I know for a fact that, since
baseball season's still a couple of weeks away, the Municipal Stadium would
quite comfortably hold three times as many of your people as the Journal
believes will be coming to protest the Coalition, and it's only three miles
from Masty Hall. I believe the day rate for rock
concerts and such is fourteen thousand. thereabouts, but if you were interested
in several days, and since it's off-season, and a non-profit enterprise as
well, I've discussed this with Mayor Potter and we think we could ask only, oh..."
and the Director looked down again, as if thinking or pretending to think,
"... twenty five thousand for Saturday and
Sunday? Hell, twenty-two... I feel generous today! No? Well the terms for
Sylvania Park, which I shall recite presently, are reasonable. It has the bandshell. And a gazebo!
End of problem?"
"Uhh, I'm not sure about process, but... is anybody
interested in taking
this?" Andy ventured, feeling something heavy and sibilant wafting down
into his lungs and spreading through his bones. Those fucking flowers! When
nobody had replied, after a decent interval, he said: "No? Well that takes care of that! Now,
let's get down to business."
"We
have concluded our business,”
the Permits pharaoh lifted an index finger and wiggled it. ‘You have heard the
City's proposal. Our only and final proposal," Disson
emphasized. "If you intend to conduct yourselves responsibly, see
Sylvester and he will provide you with details. If not, you may leave... I
suggest those of you who have homes or, more probably, squats or cardboard
boxes, crawl back into them and stay off the streets for the next week and,
well, watch television. Or masturbate;
do whatever it is you do when not wasting our time. I think you know the way out..."
And Disson pulled shrouds of paperwork towards him from the far
corners of the desk, burying his nose in them like a vampire drawing his old,
dark cloak close with the nearness of the dawn.
"Hey
man... don't fuck with us!" Marty said sharply,
and Disson looked up with what seemed a prearranged
smirk. "This demo starts Saturday, that's the day after tomorrow."
"If
the City can spend forty thousand dollars of the taxpayers’ money for a party
for the Conks," Rael appealed, "I think it could afford to be a
little bit more generous. We're just concerned about the right of all people to
use the Earth. And what about the
University?" she asked, as Leo slumped back, slapping his hand to his
forehead, then shaking both in a gesture of disassociation.
Now
Disson's undertaker's smile bloomed fully, horribly. "Did I hear something?" he parried,
looking round the dark, miasmatic room. "A little rat, scurrying through the woodwork, sniffing
for a deal? Ah... the University…
well it happens to be the property of the State. We in the City Permits Bureau," he
said, talking slowly, as if to a child or an idiot, "have no authority to
grant access to State property, although we do reserve the right to prohibit any
actions thereon that may be perceived as conducive to terrorism or injurious to
our taxpayers. And I do happen to know that their in-house permits officer has taken
the day off… he’s a delegate, imagine! You'll have to pursue that avenue up at
the Capitol. If you hurry, and maybe break a few speeding regulations along the
way," he suggested, making a show of checking his watch... from where Andy
sat he could determine that it was one of those smart foreign types, full of
tiny pinwheels and antennae, probably hellishly expensive... "you might arrive
in time to achieve an appointment."
"This
is amazing, amazing," Andy repeated. "You're deliberately turning
what obviously would be a routine, peaceable assembly into a police riot."
Disson lay his papers down. "Peaceable? Our police
think otherwise. Threats have been made to public officials, including myself...
you, Mister Morrison, I believe you
are associated with a certain shelter in which felons, some of whom are
undocumented aliens, parolees and mentally unsound persons,
have been known to congregate. You may disguise your voice, but we know that
terrorist calls have been traced, by the National Security Agency, to the pay
telephone in that shelter… a pay
telephone! How Twentieth
Century! The FBI and Homeland Security
have been called in to assess the danger from outside agitators... envious
terrorists who can’t even afford burner cellphones intent on disrupting the CNC
convention to draw attention to themselves. Or loot stores, like in
California, or as they did in that place somewhere around St. Louis. We have this sewn up," the Director hissed, winding
his fingers together into a church and steeple, "even with UNAPIS, through
INTERPOL If Mister Goldman wishes to
pursue legal action after the fact, whether here or with the U.N. up in New
York, or even The Hague, for all I care, that is, of course, his right."
"Funny...
how terrorists have been calling you from the Sanctuary when the phone's been
turned off since January," Andy wondered aloud. "But you're right to
be worried about crazies, so easy to set off. Just throw a few hundred gas 'n club-happy cops in, plus another bunch of spooks
nobody knows who nobody's working for... Chicago, man, remember?
Kyev? Was all that shit the result of people
storming the convention... no, it was them just being there, and somebody with
an agenda better served by having a riot than not. There's plenty of space in
the Plaza opposite Masty Hall... easy to monitor,
it's done all over the country, it’s not like we’re storming the Capitol, or
convention..." he tailed off.
Disson's
malodorous flowers seemed to drinking his very words down, entrapping them in a
black... or, perhaps, deep purple or indigo hole. Violet? Suddenly Andy felt the beginnings of a
migraine.
"Crazies!"
the Director commiserated, lifting his head so every petitioner could have a
good view into his eyes, the destination of all their appeals. He folded his hands, lay them flat on the desktop, the jewels on his many
rings shimmering in murky light. "We've been negotiating with the Capitol
for years for more beds for the mentally disturbed in the Regional Hospital,
here; that and... as Jack Parnell advocates... more flexibility in the law
regarding involuntary commitments." His hands, separating, migrated to
either end of the desk, which he grasped, now, as if intending to lift it
bodily and hurl it at the visitors. "You speak of crazies when it is
you... you! who've... assaulted me!"
And,
with all the vapor from the flowers exploding from the Director's eyes like a
tin can shoved into a microwave, Disson gripped the
desk, smashed his face down hard, three times, then glared up at them again
through a mask of angry bruises and a bloody nose, probably broken. He repeated
this act once more for emphasis, making a bloody mess of his mouth and
blackening one of the demented eyes, then actually did push the desk over...
flopping and rolling on the carpet; the screaming bureaucrat writhing in
convulsions, kicking over several of the tables and their fleurs
du mal…
Rancid
water, aswarm with wriggling little creatures,
spattered Andy as Disson screamed and moaned, like
the centerpiece of a berserker’s Christmas diorama in which blood, petals and
official papers floating down from the ceiling had taken the place of
artificial snow.
"Help!"
he shrieked, voice ratcheting up into a falsetto. "Help!...
Sylvester, call Security! I'm being assassinated!"
Assassinated? What a fuckin’ ego! wondered
Andy, but only for a moment as the Director rose to his knees, lunged into the
chairs containing his visitors and rammed his head into Goldman's midsection,
tackling the lawyer viciously and wrestling with him on the dampened, boogered carpet as Sylvester poked his head through the
door, gasped and retreated.
"Now
just you... wait!... you wait!" Disson gurgled through the foam of blood and spittle
cascading over his lips. Pushing away from Goldman, he hurled himself backwards
into another tower of creepy flora, tumbling as three City Hall policemen
charged in, guns drawn.
"He's
acting!"
Andy thought to say, but bit his tongue, not making a move for his shirt was
soaked, and though it was only water from Disson's flowerpots, the police had no
way of knowing that it wasn’t blood.
"They're
murdering me!" Disson wailed, scrunching backwards under the drapes and
towards a corner like some wet, tan insect, overturned and sprayed, writhing
off on its back to die.
"Freeze!"
one of the cops ordered, drawing and covering the stunned petitioners.
"You
have the right to remain silent," one of the other cops began reciting
tediously. "You have the right to speak..."
"Can
it, Chuck!" said the first, still waving his gun around, much too
excitedly for Andy's liking. "We stopped having to read that shit last
month! Remember?"
Disson, reaching his corner, drew his knees up towards his
battered face, as though to melt back into the wall, or the womb. "Help
me!" he blubbered, lifting a bloody, bejeweled finger, pointing...
"Them! They're the madmen from those telephone calls, the terrorists!
They’ve assaulted me!"
kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk |
k |
RETURN to "BLACK HELICOPTERS" directory
VIEW CURRENT COLUMN by JACK "CATFISH" PARNELL... "ENTROPY and RENAISSANCE"
Go to the Generisis HOMEPAGE, at which
useful information might be obtained!
Check out the unique Generisis LINKS and REFERENCES!
Take an excursion through the GENERISIS catalog...
Have a glance at the current episode of our occult
serial, wherein a young American encounters bizarre foreign artists and occultists
– from Aleister Crowley and William Yeats to Alfred Jarry and a young, feral Adolph Hitler…
When the FCC moves the Superbowl to a premium channel accessible only by a scarce and
expensive black box, hordes of desperate football fans storm the local electronics
outlets to fight for their right to watch, in…
Follow the path of the dictator’s imperial army
under the command of a mad General through the jungles of southeastern Mexico
to the occult, ceremonial capital of its revolted Indians during the last
successful Native American revolt in…
"THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA
CRUZ!"