SAVAGE SATURDAY
1) Monday, December
30 – ‘HOODS
By
their skies, and by the emanations rising into and above them, overtopping
dwellings; and by markets and the their edifices of worship and governance, the
character and components of certain neighborhoods may be discerned – and we may
come to know them.
Purley
and Dempstertown differ distinctly in that the skin color of the people who
inhabit the former is largely dark; the latter, largely light… their mores and
politics digress (an accident of history), and the situation of one as a
segment of the American capital city named for its founder and first President,
the other being an independent entity just over the Maryland border augurs no
small delineation of identity. From
above, however, their adjacent vistas - tightly packed brick, brownstone or
limestone rowhouses (poor, but still proud - with only a few empty crevices
showing as gaps in the jagged jaws of workingmen well into middle age) are
tethered by a frieze of obsoletes… television antennae! Such horizons were once
almost universal to the nation (indeed, much of the Western world) but, by the
last Sunday of this year of God, a rapidly disappearing species – were all but
extinct in more affluent communities.
Anachronisms, like the streetcar and the buffalo. Curiosities – nearly obliterated at the turn
of the millennium but enjoying limited recovery into this last week of a weary,
old year… the holidays bisected, a change of political regime in the coming
year foreshadowed in the lead-gray skies and equally clouded prognostications
of experts… their restoration owing to lingering malaise of a recessed, if not
wholly depressed, economy, the never-satiated greed of satellite, streaming and
tech companies and the oncoming bullet train of craziness and corruption.
In
one of these humble but tidy domiciles mid-block on Grape Street (cityside,
just before it becomes Robinson Avenue on the other side of the Dempstertown
line), Miz Lottie Soames was availing herself of the free television signals
whirling outwards from one of many high platforms outside town to her own
rusty, but serviceable antenna and its labouring analog/digital conversion box
– beaming the occasion of the day into her living room. The occasion was not religious… Miz Lottie
was devout, but the appointed hours for the local televangelists ceased at the
stroke of noon… nor athletic, (as should have been expected on such an
afternoon), but, rather, the somber trappings of a massive, state funeral
graying over all the still undiscarded Christmas wrappings and
paraphernalia. For those still
uncomprehending… or only recently tuned in, a gray-haired newscaster… well past
retirement age, but all the more trustworthy for years and experience, described
events onscreen for Lottie’s benefit and that of perhaps a million souls within
the purview of those local emanations whirling through the ether, and many more
millions worldwide coupled by satellites or coaxial cables, causing Miz Lottie
and her many dependent relations to sit erect, take notice and ponder on the
irrevocable gravity of routine rituals as they unfolded before the impassive
eyes of television cameras.
“The
procession of corteges is now passing over the Jefferson Davis Highway en route
to Arlington,” the gray man intoned, “and we now have word that the leaders of
Latvia and Uruguay will be joining the President and his entourage on the
reception proscenium, alongside chief executive officers from America’s four
broadcast and three cable media titans, actress/activist L. Madison Blaylocke
and the Secretary-General of the United Nations…”
“Girl
looks thin!” Earline Ottinger opined
from the gray couch left of the matriarch’s own, dark green corduroy throne,
situated directly in front of the venerable, American-made Zenith 32”
television, many years older than most of the squirming brood on the plaid
couch to Lottie’s right, but still clear as a summer afternoon in
“Hush
yo’ mouth, Hitler,” Tyesha Hill fired back imperiously – two years younger than
Earline, she, nonetheless, presumed advantage by virtue of being Miz Lottie’s
granddaughter, while Earline was a great-grandaughter,
one of those accidents of procession that arise from time to time in certain
families. Her mother, Annette, now with
the military in
Earline sulked, then
pointed. “She a… a skeleton,” biting back the expletive that had come to mind in
deference to her great-grandmother’s disapproval (and the cutting board Miz
Lottie wielded in the cause of discipline).
“Need to eat somethin’…”
From her emerald eyrie, Miz
Lottie frowned, as if to remind the room that the funeral was of importance,
attention must be paid.
The newscaster was Evan
Augsberg, an octogenarian network anchorman who’d made his bones in Berlin and
the Bay of Pigs, long before even Vietnam or Watergate. In fact, he had retired… several years ago… but, now and again, was pressed
back into service to narrate the tidings of those certain grave, gray occasions
such as that now transpiring before the eyes of all
“Through an emergency… and
rare… joint dispensation of Congress and White House brokered by the outgoing
Senate majority and minority leaders,” Augsberg intoned, “interment at
Arlington has been approved for the two Supreme Court Justices, for Federal
Communications Chair Michael Kopp… not a veteran… as well as Commissioner
Stabile who served with the Navy in Korea, although after that conflict. Congressman Haynes and NFL Commissioner
Prater were also veterans, Congressman Lauter and Governor Mirklee were
included in the dispensation…”
“They catch that goddam
terrorist yet, Mama?” inquired General Westmoreland Soames (who was not,
strictly speaking, a General or, even, a lineal descendant of the matriarch
but, rather, Lottie’s nephew… named after the commander in that conflict that
had taken the life of his father, Lottie’s youngest brother). Outside the walls of
His auntie waved a hand in
front of her face. “You mean that fella
out of the President-elect’s private militia?” she snapped. “Later, boy!”
Westy sighed, looked up towards the ceiling…
“Couldn’t get no turkey,”
he admitted, “but I did manage to purchase three chickens. If you weren’t so altogether Taliban about
ham…”
“Shush!” Lottie hissed,
pointing to the tube.
“I have word from the
studio that there is breaking news out of Homeland Security, so we’ll be going
back to Ted Fraser,” Evan Augsberg declared, and the images onscreen flickered,
transiting to a studio… blue and beige… with three anchorpersons behind a long,
blond desk. Ted Fraser, equally blond…
though showing just enough gray to impart authority without a lessening of
vitality, thanked Augsberg and faced the camera directly, as if looking into
the little house on Grape Street, perhaps not liking what he saw. His brow was constricted, lips pursed…
“The White House claims to
have information from a credible source in Homeland Security that the Christmas
Day missile fired at Aviac Airlines Flight #239 to New Orleans only moments
after takeoff from Reagan National Airport, Friday morning, was of a Chinese
make known to have been acquired by Iran, but also by the North Koreans. That source has emphasized that this
development does not automatically rule out involvement by successors to ISIS,
Al Qaeda or, perhaps, even a non-Islamist terror brigade, but, for the present,
attention is being focused on Tehran, and we now have word that there will be a
statement by the beleaguered lame duck President later this afternoon on the
prospective cancellation, for security reasons, of tomorrow night’s
celebrations in Times Square and across the nation…”
“And a bottle of Andre’s champagne,” Wes added. “If you won’t help me drink it, the girls
will…”
“That’s what I’m trying to
tell you, Nan,” Tom Eppert groaned across the line, almost rising out of his
easy chair, just a few blocks over the line in Dempstertown. “Goddam Washington media, can’t pass up any
opportunities to take a poke at our next President, the way they did at Donald,
even in the midst of… of…”
“Tom, your blood
pressure…” Nancy Eppert warned, from the dining room…
“Screw blood
pressure!” But Tom did sink back into
the chair – less well maintained but clearly more comfortable than Miz Lottie’s
pedestal. “Beleaguered! What the fuck does that mean? Why can’t they
just say call that old fossil by his
rightful name, leave it at that, without throwing in some fake news liberal
crap as would have you believe that he’s still in charge already! Things could change. Those fuckers in Congress could slap
themselves silly and then start realizing that America is in a perilous state,
and changing horses before we chane horses… if
we change horses… would be the worst we could do.”
“Well, it’s true that
President-elect has announced that he will pardon himself and his family and
fired that Attorney General before they could take it to court,” his wife
replied, “and even though he says he’s in command unless he bungles the job so
badly that we hold a special election in two years, and a new House and Senate
is sworn in. Then the bastards will be
impeached, and when the new Senate is sworn in, he’ll be gone and…I don’t know,
can the Speaker become President before he, or she is Speaker yet?”
“Dunno but… aw hell, if
it’s Iran, we’re lookin’ at World War Three.
You know, the bastards were just waiting for a time like now, just when
there’s all this flap over the North Koreans and China invading Taiwan and the
Russian war and the indictments… gimme another beer! An’ put some of them pretzels in a bowl…”
Tom settled back into the
easy chair - face red, stomach growling.
The living room of the small house on Robinson differed only minutely
from that on Grape Street… for, like Westy, he labored at that certain and
little known (by design) Federal facility where ragged and obsolete currency
was destroyed. There was only the one
couch, beige, against a wall under the family portraiture (white faces, not
black) and the television was a GE, only 30 inches (measured diagonally) but at
least hooked up to basic cable. Both
rooms held floor lamps, knickknacks and American flags; both carpets were old,
but clean The noise wafting downwards
was the clicking and squealing of Tom Junior, playing some videogame on the
computer in his parents’ bedroom instead of the snoring and occasional
exclamation from Uncle Raoul.
Perhaps a million dollars
passed through Westy’s fingers in the course of a week, and ten times that into
FRCOC’s incinerators from Tom’s crane, but only a pittance stuck… the balance
proceeding through shredders which, like Riding Hood’s wolf, possessed very
big, and very sharp teeth.
“If you don’t like what
the man is saying, change the channel!”
Tom sat, dumbfounded, then
smiled. “Good fuckin’ idea!” and he
raised the remote, clicked twice. Ted
Fraser disapparated, the GE’s whirling pixels quickly resolving into the face
of another, less Administration-friendly newscaster… two, in fact… Sam Dreibach,
and the Fox network’s esteemed sportscaster Wallace Kim.
“As predicted, team owners have unanimously
approved elevation of Glenn Radulovich to interim NFL Commissioner, and
Radulovich’s first decree… before boarding a train from New York to attend
Commissioner Prater’s funeral… was that wild card playoffs would resume next
Saturday and Sunday, with all games pushed forward one week, moving Super
Sunday to February 16th. Speculation
that the original date would be maintained by reducing the layover after the
Conference finals was quickly and firmly dismissed by Radulovich, citing
tradition and the desire for both teams to be rested and healthy for Super
Sunday…”
“Well,” Sam Dreibach
interjected, “the weather is hardly a factor, seeing that the game is still
going to be played in New Orleans…”
“Probably played no little part in the
decision by the Interim Commissioner who, let us remember, is an
ultra-conservative Republican and the first ex-NFL player to assume this
all-important position…”
“One who’s been biding his
time since the Trump administration and whom the President-elect may well
elevate once the new Congress is seated and the prospect of impeachment
disappears… not to mention the pardoning issue and, of course, the two seats on
the Supreme Court – which are in the pipeline, once President Burke and the new
Speaker takes office…”
“Which will make
Radulovich’s tenure… well, interesting,” Wallace Kim admitted. “We’ll see how he responds to requests from
all eight playoff teams, next week… including our own wild-card Redskins… er...
Commanders to wear black uniforms.”
“Making them… oh, can I
say it,” Dreibach smirked, “Blackskins?”
“You said it,” Kim
acknowledged, “I didn’t…”
“I love this station,” Tom Eppert chortled.
“Colin Kaepernick comin’
to getcha,” Kim warned and Tom snorted again.
Three blocks from the
Eppert domicile, Robinson Avenue intersects the state highway – from here it
runs three miles, a straight shot, to the One World Mall, seventh-largest in
the D.C. Metroplex and, though taking a beating from the online, drone-delivery
megatliths, still among the top hundred brick and mortar malls nationwide, in
sales, acreage and foot-traffic. In the
Mall’s anchor emporium… the appliance, entertainment, computing and electronics
behemoth Giga-Plex… half a dozen bored clerks and cashiers followed the state
funeral and commentary of Dreibach, Augsberg, and dozens more on the various
broadcast, cable and satellite channels servicing a display floor of hundreds
of quacking, flashing television consoles banked in row upon row upon row to a
height of more than sixty feet, just beneath the maze of catwalks crisscrossing
the ceiling. From tiny three and
five-inch models… weighing less than a well-nourished Chihuahua… to the great
sixty and seventy-two inch mahogany and silver-inlaid high definition plasma
cabinets… even a nonfunctional cardboard prototype of the much-touted ninety-two inch Dominator sets, soon to
arrive; fresh off the boat from factories in Romania (and, even, a transistor
slum of motley analog and common high-def digital models, each bearing the
placard ‘Deep Discount’ and, in tiny lettering, the FCC-mandated admonition,
‘…may require additional conversion utility for on-air and cable operation the
Monday after Presidents’ Day, February 17th… the pixelboxes performed their
antics and awaited adopters.
The phrasing of these
placards had, in fact, been penned by none other than the founder, chief
executive and sole shareholder in Giga-Plex, L. B. (“Big Sonny”) Sonnenschein
who, in memoranda to his three hundred ninety-one store managers, worldwide,
(including the dyspeptic Mark Tenison, head honcho of the flagship One World
outlet) had jacked up Christmas sales by boasting that usage of such obscure
Eurochronology would fool at least half of the big box shoppers into thinking
that these obsolete sets would still work until July, perhaps November.
Sonnenschein, who also, by
the way, owned the Big Sonny’s Giga-Mart franchise across the One World West
Promenade from Giga-Plex… where soap, brooms, plastic furniture and sundries
like toothpaste and toilet paper were sold in implausibly large quantities to
bargain-hunters… stood five feet, six inches in his handcrafted reptilian
boots, with their four-inch heels (the Western hats he favored further enhanced
his stature, as well as concealing his queer, perfectly round, perfectly
hairless noggin which bobbed and grinned in feverish animation when the great
man beckoned from within his television sets, urging all to visit his outlets)…
But, like the Pillsbury
Doughboy, pizza rat, insurance lizard, and like a hundred other advertising
icons, Leland Buford Sonnenschein had been relegated to that shelf where the
smiling faces of American commerce reside during those occasional days of
Jesus, tragedy and somber reflection.
In his stead, Evan
Augsberg lifted a microphone.
“The first of six
carriages – represented as bearing FCC Chair Kopp although, of course, no
physical remains survived this terrorist attack,” the newscaster–emeritus
qualified, “is now passing onto Arlington’s hallowed grounds, where so many of
America’s finest have been laid to rest.
Though appointed by the liberal President, Kopp was both conservative in
the original sense of favoring only gradual technological innovations as well
as true diplomat who, in fact, enjoyed a splendid working relationship with FCC
Manager Peter Meyers, who suddenly has reason for concern about his tenure and
his policies according to our Capitol Hill correspondent Lyle Baker who, I
understand is standing by…”
“What a bore!” opined
stockboy Craig Synch (seventeen, and straining to grow facial hair) as he
rested his elbows on the empty register station of cashier Vicki Gordon (three
years older, and as unimpressed with Craig as with the funerary ritual).
“Man, life’s short, and
then that’s the end of it,” Craig concluded, “so how’s about you n’ I catching
th’ caveman movie across the street – early show, tomorrow…”
“It’s
a Tuesday, and they’re not shutting down… not for those guys,” Vicki
pointed. “So don’t you have school… high school…”
“Yeah,
but…” Craig smiled and favored the cashier with one of those shrugs patterned
after the gestures of a teenaged icon on the marginal cable network. “it’d be
my treat…”
“Wow… sixteen whole
bucks!” Vicki marveled. “We gonna sneak
in our own candy and popcorn?”
“Could
do. So that’s an affirmative?” he
pressed, flush with the confidence of a hunting dog pouncing on a rather slow,
dense bunny… Vicki, wincing at having made the mistake of responding to his
offer, turned her back, facing the console bank where Evan Augsburg had bounced
commentary back to reporter Lyle Baker, broadcasting importantly from in front
of the White House…
“Thank you, Evan. Yes… even while the nation pauses to remember
these dedicated public servants and demand answers to this tragic assault on
our national integrity,
In the Giga-Plex customer
service cubicles, opposite a cluster of stolid, Chinese 48-inch HDTVs, slightly
discounted, Ed “Total” Skinner and Theodore “Thunder” McHale… two young men in
their third and fifth years of engineering curricula at their local branch of
the state college… squinted and prognosticated like a couple of insiders on
yesterday’s “Meet the Press”.
“Guarantee, dude,”
promised Thunder, through the thick lips and hoarse throat of a habitual
stoner, “it’ll be a movie in six months, then a kick-ass game…”
“Give
“Terrorist POV, of course…
“No way! It’s not the ethics…” Total dissembled, “but
where’s the complications? Rocket
powered grenade, shoulder launch… probably Chinese by way of
“What’s Tetris?” Thunder wondered…
“
“At
least try looking busy,” Mark
scowled, jerking his head upwards like a trout on its line, “…why not try
helping that bewildered civilian over there in Accessories to make up his
mind?”
“That Feminoid?” Thunder
snickered. “Trying to decide whether to
spend eight or a whole twelve bucks on a USB?
Why don’t we just shut down and go home…”
“It’s a holiday, a tragic
holiday…” Mark emphasized, “…enjoy your rest, while you can, ‘cause Mr.
Sonnenschein’s getting the digital changeover date moved up and I could put you
out on the loading dock. Thos new
Romanian Dominators are heavy…”
“No need for extremities,”
Total mollified the boss, “the sucker will have questions, and you’ll need us…”
“Maybe.” With another evil glance at the salesmen,
Tenison honed in on fresher, lower-salaried prey… “Now here’s a couple of salaried slackers I could send home…”
“Could pick up,” Vicki
answered, popping her gum. “Besides, you
need three registers… Baldy says so…”
Mark
Tenison looked across the store, then upwards with a sinister grin. “Do you see Mr. Sonnenschein? I don’t… I do see a camera that’s probably
picked up your remarks. Those tapes we send
over to
“No,
sir,” Craig answered (though lowering his head to stifle a grin)…
“If
somebody doesn’t stop chatting up my help and start looking busy,” Mark
implied, “someone might find their job buried deeper than any of those goddamn
dead politicians.”
“Are you talking to me?’
snapped Vicki – certain that Tenison, like every other two-legged creature on
God and Harvey Weinstein’s fuckin’ earth with junk between his legs, wanted only
to get into her pants…
“Of course not, darling,” Tenison replied with an oily smirk,
“…you’re exactly where I want you to…
should be. Mister Synch, however…”
“Me? What?
Look around, I bet there ain’t more than three customers in the store,”
the stockboy complained, “an’ two of them are with Gomez in Junior
Applications, so who cares…”
Tenison lifted his index
finger from the stockboy to the ceiling, where another of Sonnenschien’s
closed-circuit cameras would be whirring away… howsoever silently. Savoring the moment, marveling at the
stupidity of youth, he deliberated a moment… expediency and a crazy urge to
flaunt his authority by firing the kid on the spot briefly warring before, as
usual, expediency won out. The
post-Christmas refund rush would begin on Thursday. He brought the finger down, training it on
Craig’s heart, like the red dot of a sniper’s riflescope.
“Need I remind you naifs that every corner of this store is
being watched, recorded, and,” the manager baited his trap, “when I send the
tapes off to
But the stockboy’s
reaction was not one of shock and awe, in fact, there was a rather threatening
undertone from the previous Presidential election as he shot back…
“Yeah! Mexicans!
They’ll all be on the Immigration buses back to Matamoros within a
month!”
Tenison
almost lost it, then, waving his finger, side to side, like a metronome or the
tail of a cat, perched atop one of those overstocked Viesa seven-fifty pixel
forty-twos on sale at eighteen eighty-nine (but which Mark, given the
untenanted condition of the floor, this afternoon, had advised his sales staff
to move for as little as seventeen-fifty).
“Don’t fuck with me,” he warned, then presumed an air of superiority, a
gambler’s cool. “And, even if so, so
what? Giga-Plex is untouchable. I could hire Osama fuckin’ Bin Laden and, well…
don’t find out what I can do to you. Big
Sonny has Screaming Eagle security on his Rolodex… those guys kicked out of
Baghdad that the fake news people claim to have shot down the Justices’ plane? They can have you investigated…”
“Better investigate ways
of getting more bodies into the store,” Vicki popped his attitude and her gum
in one movement. Flustered, the manager
looked from the cashier to the cameras above, wondering what
“Sonny’s got that covered,”
he opted for loyalty. “Just you
wait! There’ll be so many cattle movin’
here with all the liberal snowflakes kicked off their jobs and the new
Administration’s people moving in, that your fingers will fairly fall off for
all of the sales ringing up. There’s a
plan afoot,” he winked. “Not even all of
the managers know it, just me and a few others… things are going to start
hoppin’. We’ll even start movin’ advance
orders on those ninety-two inch, plasma Dominators from Romania on Thursday
and, with those on my good side… who knows?”
“So does that mean we get raises?” persisted the
annoying Synch. “Maybe even to the legal
minimum wage? Overtime… at least for
tomorrow and Weduesday?”
“In your dreams,
fuckball. All you turds are independent
contractors, remember? The law is gonna
stay the law for four more years and you can do your jobs or quit. In your fuckin’ dreams! Now get hoppin’,” and Tenison decided to take
out his frustration on his usual victims, the customers. “Mark down those analogs some…” he pointed,
“ten percent, say… and mark up the converters from one eighty-nine to one
ninety-five…”
“There
used to be a government coupon contract out on them,” Craig reminded him. “Is that legal?”
“Big Sonny and Mark-down Mark say so. Move!
Hop, hop, hop!”
So
Craig sidled off, affording Tenison an intimate moment with Vicki, who seemed
as unimpressed with him as with the pimpleboat…
“Mark-down
Mark! Big Sonny! Jesus!”
“Best keep your head down
when you say that… man wants to wear that tall hat and four inch lifts in his
boots, hey, he’s a billionaire, or nearly so.
I’d lick those boots clean, if he told me. Guys like him run the world, young lady, soon
as you so recognize and co-operate life gets a whole lot easier.”
“Figure
he could afford at least another dollar ten an hour and get us off that damn
independent contractor status. Or a cash
Christmas bonus last week, not another of those lame-o ten percent-off
coupons…”
“That’s in addition to the employee discount,”
Tenison calculated. “That makes… uh… twenty percent!”
With
a pathetic smile and a half-assed moonwalk down the aisle of his mostly-empty
store, Mark set off in search of whatever it was he was looking for. Vicki lowered her head and muttered… then
checked her nails, looked up at the bank of Augsberg-station sets…
“Loser can add!” she lip-synched.
“The cortege is holding,
still,” Evan Augsberg declared, “with light rain falling on the Congressmen and
Jamaican Prime Minister, the astronauts and a delegation of youngsters from the
Precious Flower Home in Congressman Lauter’s home district… the NFL delegation,
including players and coaches from the eight playoff-bound teams who will take
the field next Saturday and Sunday and we are still awaiting the arrival of the
soon-to-be former President… and the honor guard of former Presidents Clinton,
Bush Junior, Obama, Trump Senior, Biden and the former and, if rumours of a
Speakerhsip deal hold, next President… uh...”
“If you run and don’t win,
run again and keep running until either you do win or something weird happens
and you sneak back in through the back door!
Where are those Presidents?”
Craig shook his head.
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