MEMP’IS
BOOK
FIVE – “YOGA IS, as YOGA DOES”
(Saturday,
January 6, 2035)
i
Incident
Report (Part I)
6 January, 2035: 1320-1440 hours
(approximate)
At approximately the first-mentioned time above, Departmental hydrovan P732, bearing the undersigned, Officer Homer Sack
of C-Squad, Officer Deptford, on loan from Patrols and four confidential
informants... Peg Reilly, Terushka Batter, Vona Rae Sletcher and Lola, from
Angola... entered the premises of Stimwood
Academy.
Said CI's are all female, mature and well-nourished, the first
three named Caucasian or nearly so, (Lola, nee Lola Mkwane,
a probationer with incidents of lifestyle criminality, being (as indicative by
her alias of preference) African-American or, possibly, of mixed descent and
sporadic employment). Each has had
extensive correspondence with C-Squad ... written, com and personal... and, were I to make a determination upon their attitudes, prior
to the seminar, I would note that they were not above casting jealous glares at
one another.
Stimwood Academy is located approximately two miles
south of Jatesland, beyond the perimeter of Telecom
property. The physical facility is a large, stone building dating from well
before the K'ball... perhaps eighty years old,
according to the best local memories... with various seminar rooms and
auditoria on the ground and mezzanine floors while Stimwood
"students" reside in private cells or dormitories on the upper three
stories beneath the Director's penthouse.
These upper floors also contain rooms for treatment, research and
confidential purposes (regarding which inquiries are politely but firmly turned
aside). Constructed for an unspecified
institutional use, flooded and seriously damaged in 2005 as well as after the k'ball, it was renovated on personal instructions of Jezekiah Jemaliel Jates between 2026 and 2028; finally being converted... to
"educational uses". This, of
course, is the pleasant fiction that discourages the prying of those
self-righteous foreigners ever alert to cast aspersions upon our tiny fragment
of the former United States which they envied before the K'ball.
There are several outbuildings... permanent and temporary, of widely variant
ages and appearance... also, a residential colony of modular buildings for
staff and faculty. Among the more recent
improvements to the property has been an encircling stone fence with a sublethal (but potent) electric topping, faux-Gothic gates
(black glastic, simulating ancient iron) and a
guardhouse, at which Officer Deptford presented our identification.
"Norlin, party of six, for Henry Hat and Dr. Shore..."
he said. "I will not be entering
the premises."
After checking his clipboard, the guard... a rather elephantine/rhinoceroid mute, in my carefully considered opinion...
provided Officer Sack with six green badges.
"Third
floor annex, West Wing. Turner Crisis
Room," he directed.
As we drove onto the premises, CI Sletcher observed...
"I've never been to a locked Academy before..."
This brought a short, pungent reply from
Lola...
"Luck,
girlfriend, plain kebbin’ luck is the reason why you ain't."
The subject having been raised I shall include, at this juncture,
further exposition as to the premises, our expectations of the seminar, and the
extent to which said expectations were met, exceeded or fell deficient before
continuing with the body of my report:..
Stimwood, for all of its ivied exterior pretension,
is a utilitarian facility within... modern and well-lit throughout, placards of
Jatesian counsel affixed to every empty expanse not
occupied by advertising neons for the JatesBars, soy derivatives and herbal drinks sold in
vending machines. Officer Deptford
remained with P732 at the facility's spacious parking lot while, with green
badges duly affixed, we were admitted onto the premises. We were greeted with merry smiles from people
in our path, except while passing through a geriatric wing, where doddering
habitual lifestyle criminals in orange jumpsuits smoked imaginary cigarettes
and pretended to sip cocktails and spoon the icecreams
of their squandered youth. On one
occasion, a young orderly ran past, holding a potted plant with leaves writhing
and snapping in the air, bellowing...
"Crisis! Make way... crisis!"
The corridor to the Carleton Turner Memorial Crisis Room is lined
with white, spherical cells... some locked, some with doors opened wide, empty;
a few with matriculants pacing or sitting on the
edges of beds, weeping. It is a secluded
wing for women, and more than a few cells have photographs of children confined
within circular or elliptical frames, fastened to the walls... a decor which raised
the ire of Lola, from Angola, who... as I have noted in my four Witness
Profiles, attached, is of an habitually criminal, suspicious and, even,
conspiratorial mien.
"Place
smells wrong..." she determined.
Officer Sack (who is a Jatesist disciple
and, in fact, has booked passage on the next-scheduled Solar Gathering) has
frequently performed invaluably as guide to certain mystifying aspects of Stimwood, but may have been at a disadvantage regarding
certain other facts and practices common to the corrections sovereignty.
"The advanced study of Jatesology can be hard on novices," he corrected Lola, "...distractions can devitalize the seeker. But," he frowned, "I am concerned that the Academy would risk
the influence of comforting scenes from a vestigial past..."
"Ain't
for comfort, those pictures... Rover," Lola responded (not being an
employee of the Trouble Factory, her use of anti-mute slurs is, probably,
beyond the purview of the Compliance Department)... they's punishment!"
The Carleton E. Turner Crisis Room is a spacious, circular lozenge
facing north towards the Jatesaneum - illuminated by
tall, French windows covering the northern exposure, which offer an
invigorating perspective upon the gardens of the Academy and, beyond, a Dane Varrick development rising from the swamps. Upon gaining access by pressing a button, the
pneumatic doors hissed open, revealing the premises to contain a quantity of
folding chairs arrayed against the eastern wall, other apparatus, and a floor was
covered with thin mats (employed, as I was later informed, in martial-arts
training).
There was a single occupant of the Crisis Room - a tall, rather
elderly gentleman in a dark, antique frock coat and neatly trimmed, coal-black
beard, gazing intently outwards. I made
an erroneous presumption…
"Dr.
Shore?"
The man remained with his back turned to myself and my party… a
rude gesture I was prepared to overlook on account of the well-renowned
eccentricity of academics. My expert
witnesses, however, were under no such Compliance constraints, and Lola
presumed to interpret his indifference as a personal insult.
"Din't yo mama
tell you that it ain't right not to look at
someone trying to speak with you, 'specially if the man is a po-lice off’cer? Ain't right… ain't smart, neither!
An' there's nothing out there but those million dollar shacks them bug
people sell on the PeeVee."
And the man's imperious answer, as well as his refusal to turn and
face us, brought a sharp reply from Peg Reilly:
"Mr. Varrick's salespeople are cricket-enhanced, and crickets
are not bugs…"
"They
can be bugs, birds or dogs, Dr. Shore, and we are not here to discuss
classification within the animal kingdom.
I think that you had better turn your face around and get about your business…"
I called Dr. Shore by name, again, but the sentinel at the window
remained at his post, staring fixedly out across his domain.
"There is no Dr.
Shore," he finally said, "only me, myself and I."
"That
well may be," I replied, "but we have wholly cooperated with all
instructions that you provided to Henry Hat - even to the extent of securing
from the Evidence Depository at the Trouble Factory… at a considerable personal
and professional risk, I might add… the garlic that you requested. At the very least," I coaxed, removing
the stinking cloves from a paper bag in my coat, adjoining poor Lisa Marie's
bloody underthings, "please inform me as to the
whereabouts of Henry Hat…"
"There
is no Henry Hat," he repeated, "only me, myself and the privately-I. And we have no need for your contraband
garlic…"
"He's
no Doctor, he's one of those kebbin' inmates…
students…"
Homer Sack corrected himself - it was, after all, a Jatesist institution.
Having braced the spectre at the window…
interjecting himself rather illicitly into that personal space which the
Compliance Doctrine mandates officers of the Trouble Factory maintain between
themselves and those under interrogation... he was courting a Compliance
report; then again, Officer Sack, having already tendered his resignation
(owing to his appointment with the sun), did impel the man I took to be Dr.
Shore to turn, whereupon I could discern that he was full-bearded, clad in
yellow scrubs beneath the antique coat and possessed of a shabby, almost Lincolnesque intensity that bespoke the likely truth of my
subordinate's surmise.
"My
great-grandfather, Hennison Crawford, was a noted
diagnostician in what is now EastAmerica, and I have
inherited his calling, his faculties and his library. All up here…"
The man who presumed himself Dr. Miles F. Shore tapped the side of
his head with a crafty, snaggletooth grin.
Another kebbin' crazy! Although he seemed
harmless enough, I motioned to my witnesses to step back… perhaps it was the
waving of the garlic that ensured their rapid compliance. Rather than making any sort of threats,
however, the tall man desired an audience…
"As
the HUMORG - the human body," Shore explained, "depends upon the
temperance, providence and co-operation between millions upon millions of
MICRORGS. So civilization - the MACRORG - depends upon the moral, physical and
spiritual health and right-doing of each of its constituent HUMORGS. There must be absolutely no tolerance for
wrong living, for the selfishness of just one HUMORG may be the abomination of
a desolation that causes the ruin of the MACRORG.'
And Homer Sack agreed. "Quite so!"
"We
see the consequences of MICRORG-rebellion in the solipsistic cancers which
afflict the HUMORG… to preserve the MACRORG; therefore selfish, dissolute
HUMORGS must be hunted down without quarter - confined or, if need be,
eliminated. We do not mourn the
sloughing off of dead skin or sheared hair," the tall doctor opened his
hands, "…what is the malfeasance in the removal of a few obstinate HUMORGS
from the greater body?"
I processed these sentiments, inquiring:
"And
you are enrolled in an advanced course of study at Stimwood,
because…"
The doctor actually seemed about to explain this state of affairs
when a hiss resonated from the pneumatic doors.
I turned, observing four persons enter… two of them being Stimwood attendants in the institutional green smocks, a
burly, also fully-bearded (but scruffy) dynamo in workingman's clothes under
his white coat, silver whistle bobbing from a cord around his neck and a
briefcase in his fist, and a pockmarked, sneering LC… an older version of Frank
Desperate… in shabby, green scrubs, a cardboard crown from a fast-food bar
perched precariously over his thinning hair.
The bearded fellow in white lab coat over civilian clothes blew
his whistle, sighed, sneered and extended a tentative hand...
"Corporal? Miles F. Shore, at your service…"
Respectfully Submitted,
James Norlin
– Director, C-Squad
I. DEVIL in DISGUISE
"Doctor S-Shore?" I stammered, looking from him to the man by
the window... Lincoln's (and Dr. Shore's) impostor and the zook with the crown glaring at one another and the
girlfriends wondering after them all.
"The same. Sorry to be late, keeping
students here on track's worse than herding cats. Old saying, not
particularly applicable. Henry's
outside, calming down a few of the more excitable talents - he's a very calming
fellow, you know. How did you get in here, Jud… our Crisis Room is
off limits, except during sessions…"
"The
door was open," replied the champion of the MACRORG.
And the man with the crown,
winked, insinuating…
"Got you there! You been punk'd,
Doc!"
"Shut
up!" And Shore gave a thin, professional sigh. "I must presume that you are Norlin and this is your bunch. Since you have already encountered Judson
Crawford, I'd like to introduce his opposite number, sort of… Jack, King Jack Bard. If you defer to his royal pretentions,"
the doctor sniffed, "Jack can be, well, useful. He has innumerable
contacts among the Baratarian underworld, and he's
always willing to make a deal… is that my garlic?"
And, without awaiting my
reply, the Doctor handed his briefcase over to one of the green-suited
attendants, seized the bag from my hands, dug in and began to cram stinking
cloves between his prodigious teeth - grunting, grinding and gasping like a
donna faking oral exultation in an hourly crib above the Hamorite
Strip. Even the inappropriately attired
King turned away in disgust - I feared that one of the girlfriends might make a
remark that would doom the session to fruitlessness before it had even begun,
but the Doctor's LC delirium was, thankfully, short-lived. Crumpling the package of contraband, he
secreted it within his white coat, coughed, and apologized again.
"This
has been all my fault.
Sometimes I get ahead of myself - don't know where I would be without
King Jack to keep me grounded," he simpered, and the man with the
cardboard crown rewarded us with a modest smile.
"Always ready to help out th'authorities…"
I've met up with plenty of
Jacks, working under Clive and John Crum.
City's rotten with 'em - but if he could help out on the case, I'd
figured, what the keb! Still straining to recover his dignity, Dr.
Shore sighed, pointed and did a little shuffle-step… he wore the same off-white
slippers as were Crawford and Bard.
Compliance, I figured.
"So… Corporal… who's your hound-dog friend?"
"Officer
Sack, from my bureau," I explained.
"And these are my talents - as, perhaps, Henry Hat has recommended
to you…
"Officer
Sack," Shore repeated.
"Well! Let us hope that you
do not prove a sad Sack… pardon my
reference to a war long, long ago and far away.
Well! You have made the
acquaintance of Crawford, and this is King Jack… there are hooks against that
wall for your coats, Officers. Believe
me - you will want to use them. After
that - well, it's time that you and yours met the rest of my, uh…
students…"
The doctor winked. "Thor!
Scotty!" he summoned the burly men in green, one of them turning a
key in a panel, allowing the pneumatic doors to hiss open, allowing Henry Hat
entrance into the Crisis Room. With two
more of Stimwood's attendants came
a curious throng who, now, marched in... most doing
that sort of side-to-side shuffle one associates with LC's in leg irons on
their work details. Within, they began pairing off into groups like iron
filings round magnets as Dr. Shore set their keepers to unpacking folding
chairs and arranging them according to Jatesist
symbolism... which is to say, a circular outer perimeter of twelve chairs, each
facing a slightly elevated white glastic dais
containing three rotating chairs (presumably for myself, Hat and Sack) slightly
off towards the side. (If Dr. Shore's
arrangement could be, arguably, compared to the twelve hours of an
old-fashioned, analog clock, the dais could, properly, be said to cover that
space between the hours of one and two.)
Within this charmed circle, Thor and Scotty set four more of the chairs
at each of the cardinal points situated... well, to continue the analogy of the
twelve places prepared by Dr. Shore, corresponding to the face of a clock… at
half past one, half past four, half past seven and half past ten. Dr. Shore then motioned my girlfriends to
sit… Troosh flouncing at once to the first, directly
facing myself. And then, in clockwise
order, Lola, Peg and Vona Rae took their places.
Unsure of their function in
the unfolding medical and police procedure, however, each remained standing by her
chair, staring and bickering.
"Why do I have to look at her back?" Peg Reilly glared, peevishly, at Troosh.
But Henry Hat whispered a
few words; Peg's agitation dissolved into a satisfied smile.
As if making her own
statement now, regarding configuration, one of Dr. Shore's prized students… a
stout, swarthy, middle-aged matron in a floral housecoat over pink scrubs and
matching pink fluffy slippers… blew me a kiss.
Making an effort to better appreciate my surroundings, I observed the
thick, hairy ankles, garish mascara and prominent stubble, and quickly
determined that this particular "talent" was a man (so, by
definition, an L.C.) The rest of the
contingent seemed no less felonious and, perhaps observing my discomfort, Henry
Hat said:
"To
wholly grasp the vissure
of the criminality that this Mondretto poses, it is a
necessity, unfortunately, to seek his leavings from the margins of an otherwise
lawful society…"
"The criminal
MACRORG," I answered, and was gratified to see the man in yellow impressed
by this. Still, the aspect of Stimwood's talents… while not exactly menacing (in light of
my assumption that Dr. Shore had them under control)… was decidedly
undisciplined, and I called out for the attention of that good Doctor, who
really ought to have had better things on his mind than seating arrangements
within the Crisis Room.
I, of course, know better,
now...
Only after verification of
the placement of the chairs according to his plan did Shore clap his hands,
then blow that little silver whistle affixed to a string around his neck once
more. It was very highly pitched -
perhaps better fashioned for summoning dogs than men (CANORGS than HUMORGS?)
and, in fact, Homer Sack put both hands over his ears and groaned. I also noted that the sole mute among Shore's
contingent (whose features, though he stood erect and clothed, were far nearer
feline than human). If he was more
FELORG... and I refer to the characteristics of cats, not felons... than
HUMORG, the doctors who had fashioned him had incited some severe dissonance
among his MICRORGS.
If, as seems possible, this
is the vernacular of the future, Compliance... take
note!
"Fall into line," the doctor ordered, "or
you won't receive your smilk and cookies!"
Whispering and grumbling,
the remaining ten dutifully lined up while King Jack Bard draped a possessive
arm over Dr. Shore. Judson Crawford had
turned his back on us disdainfully, staring out into the garden again, as if
vigilant for stray MICRORGS that might be slithering through the dead flowers
like so many salamanders or pernicious pixies.
The pneumatic door hissed open again.
A Stimwood hireling in green… female, this
one, middle-aged and deferential… pushed a teatray
into the Crisis Room (for all the world, a sister to Skark
- except that the tray contained JatesBars and little
spheres of smilk instead of cups for piss and shit).
Homer Sack had, meanwhile,
been straining to master one of the three chairs on the raised white, glastic platform.
Apparently unfamiliar with the physics of rotating chairs, his awkward
gyrations sent it spinning out of control and migrating perilously close to the
lip of the dais. I gestured to him,
sharply, but without effect…
"It is my hope," Shore
ventured, "that some of these singularly talented Jatesian
students may be coaxed into providing pertinent intelligence and observations
as will help you resolve this matter.
Others, well..." and his voice dropped to a confidential murmur,
audible only to myself and Henry Hat, "I'm afraid
they're simply crazy."
And,
with that, the chair toppled over the edge of its platform, setting up a hue
and cry among the talents that bore only the vaguest of correspondences with
human speech.