36) Saturday, February 15th: 2:01 PM – “Tom’s Leaning
Tower of Dominators!”
On Grape Street, Reverend Ellsworth Godwin and General
Westmoreland Soames were strolling towards Feargal’s with
Trent Lockett from the FCC, intending to stop by and discuss, further, events
past and future in Nakonset Park. Westy, noticing the
“Superbowl Party Sunday: $40” sign, shook his head,
bidding his companions continue towards the shabby burger franchise across the
street.
Once they were in
the crosswalk, he looked over his shoulder.
“Let’s not go in there…”
“Man’s gotta make a living…” the Reverend demurred.
“Make a
gouging. Not off me, not tomorrow. Not anymore…”
Trent Lockett
eyeballed the bar, declining comment. It
was just visual confirmation of something he’d already seen developing from his
researches into the territory that Kristi had assigned him… Louisiana, north of
Baton Rouge, Arkansas and the eastern quarter of Texas... sans Dallas… the
Street knew that millions of Americans would not have free access to Super Sunday – not on jiggered old analog
sets, not through basic or expanded cable, nor streaming, nor even ordinary Hi
Def. And the Street was going to take
them to Funkytown.
Seated in the
burger joint over a couple of Styrofoam coffees, Godwin waved a sheaf of papers
– not permits, for, as on Friday night, this would be an illegal assembly – but
his speech for tomorrow, before the game (for those who had access to it). Or sermon. Depending on how you viewed it…
“Don’t know what I’m doin’…”
he said, for what must’ve been the twentieth time.
“They won’t jump
on us, not tonight…” Westy predicted.
“How do you know?” Godwin challenged, although
understanding… and appreciative… that Soames now included himself in the
process.
“Cause they
scared. Cause
they know we know now, and they also know that the whole world knows we know
something, even if we don’t know. And
they know better than to draw more attention to themselves by raising the ante
with another massacre. Wouldn’t have
done what they done yesterday if there wasn’t the precedent of that god damn
bloodbath… pardon the French… down in Mexico.
There ain’t no television, but there’s other
ways… kids know, I will tell you, they have
ways. Computers, maybe… you phones?”
“Maybe they’ll
start doin’ with TV that arrifixal
smartness what they have to with computers,” Trent Lockett ventured, “…put ‘em
in the schools and in libraries…”
“Hope not.” Westy took a sip of the coffee, made a face. “Auntie would be up there every day for Oprah
and fightin’ with all them other old ladies who want
their courtroom shows…” and, putting the Styrofoam cup down, he shook his head.
“Don’t know what I’m doin’…” Godwin moaned, again.
“K.I.S.S.,” Westy said, puckering his lips as the Reverend looked
up. “Keep it simple, stupid…bad
joke. Look, you said you just wanted to
finish what you started, march up to that office, do like Martin Luther did,
the original, not King… maybe nail that sad-ass petition to the door…”
“Can’t do that. It’s metal…” Lockett informed them, earning a
scowl from General Westmoreland.
“Don’t you have anything positive to
contribute?”
“Well,
maybe. Not to associate myself with
anything that masked man might have said, but there are some low-powered spaces
on the frequency… even what’s already been sold, you might be able to reach a
hundred city blocks with a transmitter.
Cheap… coupla hundred bucks…”
“Where did you dig
up that Channel 53 character, anyway?” Westy asked
Godwin.
“Kids at Howard. They’re all about inventing the wheel, all
over again. Pirate
radio. Used to have that shit at
Howard, too, back in the day…”
“Wouldn’t make nobody a millionaire if they were to legalize
it,” Trent Lockett warmed to his passion, “but a bunch of ‘em, all over the
country… at least they could make a half-ass living without taking public
money… which means you take the government controls, too. Maybe work out a deal with the networks for
programming…”
“They’d never go for that.
Black folk, poor folk with their own television stations as run anything
more relevant than Steven Seagal or Icy movies... Ice
Cube, Ice T, Ice Pick, ICE killa Mexicans… they might
let Oprah or Obama get away with it, Kanye, with his connections, maybe, or that fat
fellow runs the new, mergered B.I.N. but here?”
Westy drummed his fingers on the formica. “Said they scared. Be
better if this were before elections, not after, but
it can’t hurt to ask… you ask for a
dollar, sometimes they at least toss you a dime…”
¾ ¾ ¾
Taylor, still rubbing his head in the stockroom by the loading
dock, looked up at the clock that told him it was only a smidgen past two,
looked higher up at Tom Eppert in the crane and
cupped his mouth…
“Hey! You, up in the cab! You plannin’
on takin’ a lunch break?”
Tom ignored him,
concentrating on a tower of Dominators mounted on pallets, six high. Even though television inches were counted
diagonally, there was enough fake wood with ersatz Transylvanian carvings and
old-fashioned Communist-era attachments, bells and whistles that each set
checked in at more than eight feet high, which made the pile in the Giga-Plex stockroom… formidable.
(Of course, even the Doms weren’t worth a
tenth of the bundles of currency that Tom sent on their way to perdition every
hour, but, then again, currency didn’t shatter… the bundles broke apart and
wafted to the ground, like confetti.)
One of the Mexicans was strapping the uppermost, reaching for the hook
and slipping it under the elastic on top.
Tom cranked up the gears and the big set began to move off the pile,
then slowly hovered over the fuckin’ dopey foreman for a moment before Tom
eased it down to a waiting flatcar. The
move caused the six other Dominators on the pallet to lean, ever so slightly,
towards the wall. As temporary workers
swarmed to balance the pile, he locked the controls, then
started climbing down. Craig Synch,
Pablo and two others steered the flat to a waiting F-150 backed up against the
loading dock, and the proud, new owner motioned to Taylor…
“Look man, it’s
still raining… you got an extra tarp back there?”
Taylor,
shrugging, glanced up towards the surveillance cameras, then at the customer,
with a wink. “They say it’s easin’ off, maybe half an hour, but… we can shake on it…”
They shook –
Taylor waiting a full minute before strolling past a tower of dishwashers,
slipping the cash into his pocket and pointing, shouting out to one of the
Mexicans…
“Por favor, Pedro, bring up one of ‘em… them cubiertas up over here…”
“Pablo, señor, an’ Mister Mark… he say for
store…”
“Man buys a
thirty-somethin’ thousand set, he deserves a break… vamouse! Craig!”
Exchanging a few
words, but no laughter, with a Salvadoran up for the weekend, the two hauled a
tarp outside and begin fastening it over the set. Tom, having reached solid ground, approached
the guy whose job he’d taken.
“You an’ Synch
only ones ain’t been to lunch yet…” Taylor growled.
“If you… like, I
already lost half an hour this morning…” Tom protested.
“So I heard,”
Taylor snapped. “You do good work, and
we need a man on the lift, so how about I mark you down fifteen minutes when
Comrade X gets back, take a half hour.
Getting’ into a slow period here, relatively…”
And the foreman
glanced out into the store, where Marko Mosrovich was
guiding one of the female customers through the 007 Shop’s display of tasers, lasers and other ostensibly nonlethal weaponry
with, Taylor gleaned, more than amateur facility. He shook a couple of pills from an orange
bottle, dry-swallowed them, burped, and called out “Yo!”
and Marko, exchanging a few more words… and was that a folded slip of paper,
with, perhaps, an address or telephone number on it?… left his quarry,
swaggered back to the loading dock.
“Love all America
womens…”
“Yeah, Romeo, get
back to work, pull these,” and Taylor gave a fistful of cashier’s tickets to
the temp, telling Craig and Tom: “Go to lunch.
Just don’t get lost. God, my head
is killing me…”
¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾
VISIT THESE OTHER
GENERISIS SERIAL ABOMINATIONS…
THE GOLDEN DAWN BLACK
HELICOPTERS
THE INSURGENCE of
CHAN SANTA CRUZ!