37) Saturday, February 15th: 3:00 PM – “Giggy-up ‘n Go!”
David Lee and Kristi Chaine, together,
departed the elevator on the eleventh and top floor of the FCC where Alice Fletcher,
Vern’s secretary and gatekeeper, frowned even as she said…
“He’s waiting.”
Vern,
predictably, looked terrible – pale and soggy as diarrhea on toast. He’d been up all night but looked more wired
than tired, a squid on meth croaking “sit down”, gesturing with the phone to
his right ear while barking into the one in his left hand…
“No. No!
The President’s not going to
back off,” the Manager told his unseen caller.
“It’s more than just money, now, even national security; the integrity
of the new administration… meaning the fellow’s ego… is on line. On the line. Whose
administration the devil only knows, but that’s not our problem either.
Christ! We just need more law
enforcement… yeah, thank you…” he snapped, hanging up. “Turk Jackson!” He removed his palm from over the mouthpiece
on the other phone pointed Kris and David to chairs overflowing with paper,
mumbled a hasty “gotta go”, and hung up that phone,
too. His console buzzed hellishly –
there were five, no six callers waiting, now.
“What an old woman! Knew damn
well he was slid onto the Commission to do a job, so he could strut about after
retirement saying: “I used to be a
Commissioner! Call me Commish! Mediocre
bastard, well… at least he’s too stupid and pretentious to steal but not, it
would appear, to sell his vote when the wind shifts! Well, we can afford to lose him… you…”
“You said you wanted Mr. Lee present when I gave you my three
o’clock report…” the research manager completed her overlord’s sentence.
Vern made a show of looking at his watch. “Six minutes past three. You’re fired, Kristi. No, you… you, Dickie Lee, whoever you are, you’re fired. No, I’m just messin’
with your heads, but that, that African-American, Trent Lott…”
David sighed. Old joke, no longer funny. “Lockett?”
“Vern, about the
situation in Kansas City,” Kristine interrupted, as if David wasn’t even
present, “it’s not good. A mob out there
got in and trashed the place, communications down, sensitive documents taken…
that new guy out there, he’s way in over his head…”
Cooth nodded.
“Polk. Poke Salad, Annie… I ain’t even had fuckin’ lunch yet, not even a salad. Screw Kansas City, we got a problem closer to
home.” And he turned, malevolently on
David Lee. “Lockett!”
“A good man,” David said.
“He works under my direction. I
set the boundaries and the rules by which he does his job… I do not tell him
what results he has to come up with, nor do I let him misrepresent the facts…
and I compile and check the findings after he is done. So, if you have a problem with Trent, you
have a problem with me…”
“Maybe I do,” Vern muttered ominously, trying to communicate
menace but, instead, radiating a rank effluvia of
neglect and fear. “Maybe I have a
problem with both of you…”
And, as the
manager of the FCC stood, turning his back on his subordinates to gaze out the
window at what were now, fortunately, only a few, isolated fires…
hyperventilating, in a filthy shirt, tufts of graying hair standing on end,
oblivious to the world on the other side of his desk, and its petty
antagonisms, David saw - and smelt - a likeness he couldn’t help mentioning to
Kristi…
“Looks like ol’
Jack Gobleman there, at the final bell,” he
whispered. “Wonder what happened to El Goblin, at least he used to be a decent
sort…”
¾ ¾ ¾
Jack Gobelman, as it so happened, had
not been doing very well. Although
released from jail through the intercession of Peter Myers’ attorney, Mercer,
the sudden, humiliating loss of his job, his townhouse in Bethesda… the wife had
changed the locks, cleared out their joint accounts and filed a restraining
order… and his reduced status had left him seething in a by-the-day motel in a
crummy part of Prince Georges County populated mostly by the bureaucratic
drones who didn’t even rate GS categorizations.
Down to the last two plastic bottles in that case of cheap vodka ‘d loaded into the trunk on a bed of soiled
laundry. He had a few dollars in his
pocket and blasted memories – home, career and family obliterated. Sprawling on a bed aswarm
with wildlife, he clicked the remote again and again at the ancient motel
television, as he had been doing all day, finding only snow. Above that, there came a knocking on the
door…
“I am Babu Patel, sir, I am manager. Mr. Gobelman, you
are four days arrears with rent on this room.
Kindly open the door and have means to pay, or you must leave…”
“Nah goin’!” Goblin shouted
through the plywood. “Big transition
evil for America, all money not Amur’kan
manufacture. David Lee knows, David said
would be crisis…” and he removed one of the bottles. Uncapped it and raised it
to his lips.
“I have key…” the manager warned, before opening the door. Some vestigial sense of pride and shame
caused Gobelman to instinctively lower the bottle to
his lap… but the shock and disgust on the face of Mr. Patel at the condition of
the room was evident. “You must leave,” Babu Patel wagged a fat finger at this dissolute
American. “Keep your rent, simply leave
this place, Mr. Gobelman, check into hospital or
rehab... I shall call for a taxi or ambulance, if you wish, but…” and the
manager, who did watch old Seinfeld videos on cable with his children before
the shutoff, actually added, “…yes, yes, yes!
You are not good person… therefore, you go…”
“David said there
will be insurrections,” Gobelman promised, “…my buddy
Pete said…”
And then Jack
blinked and hiccuped, unable to remember
anymore. A thin trickle of vomit
dribbled through his lips… ochre, and something else, something red. Blood? Patel was standing by the door, pointing out
into the street – the rain had stopped, but the winter sky was a damp, gray
curtain, already starting to darken with the approach of twilight. Holding the bottle, he hoisted the other
survivor into the pocket of his grimy suit jacket, tried to sweep a pile of
change off the dresser, scattering most of it on the floor. He had only one shoe on… but the hotel
manager was standing by the door, pointing the way out into chaos like a small,
brown, wrathful deity expelling him from Paradise – without an Eve, but with
Russian courage at hand, if not an apple.
Clutching his bottle, the former Research manager staggered down the
rickety steps and out into the night, the hotel TV remote still in his hand…
“Need more… information. Need…”
Goblin looked
down at the clicker, raised it towards the street and clicked – nothing. The transition, of course. Otherwise, one click and he would be back at
home with his family, or at his important job – reading important documents or
talking on the telephone to Memphis or Seattle or one of those other exotic
places that reported to him, Jack Gobelman.
“Broken!” he
snarled, hurling the clicker into the street as a police car passed, siren
blaring, and a couple of cold, wet prostitutes skittered away from the
nut. “Get remote, get television…
information. Go… Giga-go…” he giggled…
Far, far down the
pike, the blazing neon of the One World Mall and Giga-Plex
knifed through the dirty fog like the memory-shaft of a rainbow and Goblin
hobbled off, towards redemption, muttering…
“Go! Giga-go!
Giggy-up, ‘n go!, Oogie Googie Oh… GOGO! GOGO!…”
¾ ¾ ¾
Tom Eppert and Craig Synch ordered
takeaway meat pies from Baffler… Tom, cringing every time the great black head
let loose with one of his sadistic guffaws, saving the
Haitian fast-food delicacy until he’d returned to his eyrie in the crane; Craig
munching on his as he displayed the yellow badge to the scowling temporary
rent-a-cop rationing the flow of angry, but desperate customers into Giga-Plex.
“No food in the
store, young man…” the zealous guard held him back. He needed more hours, and was hoping that
Lester Capps would notice… he idolized the Screaming Eagles.
“Like… I work here, I’m permanent staff? I gotta job to do,”
Craig said, “and if you think you’re going to stop me from doing it, let’s call
Mr. Tenison now…”
Well, the badge did look real. And it was yellow… the color of security,
though how some damn kid scored a steady job while the rent-a-cop, a fuckin’ adult, drifted from gig to hourly gig on
the whim of the wind… well, it was almost too much. Better to take out his frustrations on the
apparently foodless but, only, green-badged Eppert. “He’s
not permanent…”
“So?” replied
Tom, bodily shoving this Barney Fife out of his way, flashing the rent-a-cop a
bird over his shoulder… the security guard’s inaction only further aggravating
those in line who hadn’t heard the exchange and jumped to the conclusion that,
despite their blue Giga-Plex vests, Tom and Craig had
paid or intimidated their way ahead of the rest of them. Grunts, then shouts of: “Why are those guys getting in?” swelled until a
customer feeling no pain after an hour at the bar at Mad Sam’s took direct
action…
“If they can go
in, I can…”
The ensuing
tussle brought two Screaming Eagles running with their batons flailing and tasers tasing – indifferent,
Craig lingered by the register where Vicki was ringing up a converter.
“One ninety nine
with tax… that’s two sixteen, sixty two, less… do you have a photo ID for that
voucher, Mr. uh…Willingsly…”
As the elderly
customer fished through his billfold, scowling, another exasperated man back in
the line cried out…”
“Do you jackboots
have to shake down everybody?”
“Federal
regulations, sir,” Vicki replied, straight off the script that Mark had ordered
her to memorize. Willingsly
still seemed unwilling to cooperate, so an inspiration struck her. “Or, without the voucher, Two-thirty-nine…”
Another customer
further back in the line replied “Two thirty nine, bub! Pay up and git!”
and the register area began boiling over with attacks on and defenses of the
national security while the old man searched for his ID and Craig broke off a
piece of the meat pie and held it up for Vicki…
“I shouldn’t,”
said the cashier, but took a bite anyway, even licking his fingers in a way as
to give hope for a better future.
“Aren’t you busy, back there?”
“Jammed. Late lunch,
this is Tom, I’m showing him ‘round. Need to know…” Craig winked.
The baffled old
man lay his driver’s license and checkbook on the
counter and began writing a check. “Two thirty nine, and… no cents? Do I make it out to Giga-Plex?”
“Plus tax, that comes to, uh…” and as Vicki did the math, the late
lunchers wandered on.
Seeing Mark Tenison turning away from the Tech and Credit tent, Craig steered
Eppert towards the northeast corner, festooned with
satellite dishes and mysterious black boxes.
Tom nodded over his shoulder at the girl, there was plainly something
going on but Craig seemed an OK kid, the sort he wished Tom Jr. would hang with
instead of those Tribe-wannabe bums.
“We call this
corner our Sputnik Station,” Craig spieled, like a tour guide navigating a
busload of sightseers through official Washington, “…don’t do all that much
dish business ‘cause the companies have their own models, but we’ve got some
high-end stuff, universal they say…” and his voice dropped half an octave, as
he pointed “…they say that one can pick up not only Al Jazeera, but all those
secret channels that terrorists use. Or,
you can eavesdrop on police frequencies in
Tom nodded. “Impressive.”
“Over here are
the converters, of course. Bargain bin…
old analog sets and ordinary hi-def, last year’s phones, this year’s calendars…
half price. And then
the stars of the show, at least this week… Mark says…”
And Tenison loomed up behind Craig and Tom like a furtive
superhero with strange and somewhat disturbing powers. “What
do I say…”
Craig turned, feigning
unconcern. “That we’ve moved almost
forty Dominators in five days, I mean… counting the advance orders.”
Pride battled
anger as the manager contemplated this vision of the only guy who knew jack about
loading policy and the temp who operated his crane because Taylor was too
damned injured or stoned to do his job… pride winning out. “Forty-six,” Mark corrected. “Aren’t you two supposed to be back… there?”
Craig held up the
remains of the meat pie. “Late lunch! Just
showing the new guy where stuff is on the way back, ‘case he has to know…”
“Doesn’t have to know.
He’s a temp.” And, as Tom
instinctively flinched at the naked contempt in Tenison’s
voice, the manager, apparently deciding that he needed someone with a steady
hand on the crane, turned and apologized, “nothing against you, of course, but
we’re under the gun, here…”
Tom, hearing
opportunity knock, shuffled and grinned the way bosses expected his kind to
behave. “Understood. Quickly though, I wondered if I could take…
well, if you could set something aside so that, like, with my discount… way
stuff is flying out the door, might be all empty by tonight…”
“Well… you’re the
guy who gets a buck more an hour for working the crane?” Mark pretended to
remember.
Tom smiled
broadly, the way that he remembered that crook… Raoul, that was his name, Westy’s cousin… grinned as he sold him the dud
converter. “That’s me…”
“What do you
want?” Tenison worried.
“What can I
afford, is more the question… house brand, twenty-seven inch, mega, of
course? Those have been going really
fast…”
“I know. Craig, set one aside for Mr. uh… Eppert? Just get back there, now…” Mark urged, “I
don’t want Taylor coming anywhere near the crane today…”
“Right you are…”
Craig saluted. They had wandered into
the appliance section, sparsely populated except for one of the salesman,
explaining the virtues of a Smart Bed… coffeemaker, three-tiered alarm, vibrations… to a young, hopefully wealthy couple on
the prowl for the perfect President’s Day treat to themselves.
“Too many Luv Cubs,” Tenison scowled
at a bargain bin bursting with the plush, talking bears full of Valentines’ Day
hearts and aural ooshy-gooshy platitudes, waving the
dyspeptic salesman Ralph Richards over.
“Mark those down to twenty… no, nineteen ninety-five.” Past the refrigerators, Craig could see his
Mexicans scurrying around the open area between the stockroom and offices, as
if some disaster lay in the offing…
Which it did.
Back on the
loading dock, Pablo, two other Latinos and Khost, the
haughty temp who’d called himself a Persian were pleading with Taylor in a
cacophonous mix of Spanglish, Iranglish and a few
choice Anglo-Saxon expletives as he climbed the crane… hand over hand over
hand. Marko Mosrovich
leaning against a pile of laptops, smoking furtively, watched his progress with
wry amusement.
“Push ‘em on the
people,” Tenison waxed enthusiastic. “Valentine’s Day’s over and I don’t want Big
Sonny reminded about what…” and his voice dropped, “…what a stupid move that
was.”
“Do we still get
the two-percent commission on the old price?” Ralph trembled.
“What, forty
cents ain’t worth your while? At Giga-Plex,” Mark
puffed himself up, “there is no such thing as a small sale. Get hopping… or I’ll cut you back to
one-percent again.”
Craig had emerged
out into the open where, to his right, he had a view of the Loading Dock
manager’s ascent through the open door.
Occasionally, Taylor would turn and, swaying as he held onto the ladder
with one hand, waved his pursuers off with a fistful of order tickets. “Go way!
Vamoose! Gotta
bunch of customers, they want their 42-P’s n’ I’m their man!”
He lunged into
the cab, threw the wrong gear and it rotated sixty degrees, then
backed towards a bank of televisions, already strapped. Without somebody atop of the pile to guide
the hook, it caught the center of the strapping and pulled a dozen sets away
from the pile, but there was a tearing sound – the hook had pierced the straps
at their center, and begun to rip them apart.
Loading dock workers instinctively scattered to avoid being crushed by
the falling sets, each exploding in turn; Craig, Tom and Mark arriving, but too late.
Caught in the act, Taylor leaned out the window and waved…
“Sorry!”
¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾
VISIT THESE OTHER GENERISIS SERIAL ABOMINATIONS…
THE GOLDEN DAWN BLACK HELICOPTERS