18) Saturday Evening, 2/14 - Closing Time!
The march from Nakonset Park to FCC headquarters had
begun to deteriorate long before the throng, still a thousand strong, reached
the One World Mall around eleven – drawn, like moths, towards its gigantic neon
beacon of a blue planet with black and white hands clasped in friendship,
flickering through the misty night like the feelgood epilogue of a children’s
cartoon on PBS... which also, unfortunately, could no longer be accessed. The final breakdown began innocently enough,
as natural desires to empty bladders and refuel with beer and snacks caused
dozens, then hundreds, to detour, but overreaction by mall security and
Screaming Eagles who attempt to shepherd the newcomers onto the tail end of the
Giga-Plex holding pen in the closed CD store resulted in scuffles and
confrontations with the weary, pissed-off National Guardsmen. Seeing order disintegrating, Reverend Godwin
hoisted his bullhorn… coincidentally, the very same model as that wielded by
Mark Tenison inside the store…
“OK, folks… folks?… we’re only a
couple of miles from FCC headquarters.
It’s a quarter to eleven, and I know some of you want to make a pit
stop, so we’re gonna resume in fifteen minutes. We’ll be heading straight up the pike for two more miles, so you
can catch up with us, easy… oughta reach the FCC by midnight. Uh, there’s a late night bus goin’ back that
way, stopping at the Hyattsville station… uh…”
Unable to think of anything further to
say, he lowered the loudspeaker, waiting forlornly at the edge of the
construction site as even Trent Lockett bolted for the mall entrance
himself. The marchers quickly merged
with angry, locked-out shoppers roaming the mall as the smaller stores closed
early… even more quickly exchanging
complaints of degradation and disrespect… by the time Lockett reached the gate,
the Eagles had formed a human shield across the entrance, one of their number
reciting a tired mantra…
“This entrance is closed. You wanna television, go down that way to
the CD store that’s lit up… that’s the end of the line…”
“I don’t need a television, officer, just a meat pie
from the Baffler in the Food Court, and…” Trent added…
“And what?” growled the suspicious mercenary.
“Uh… use the facilities, you know?”
“Restrooms are for customers only,” the Eagle screamed back.
“Well, I am a customer.
Will be…”
The Eagle frowned. This was not information contained in the
script that the troops had been given at the start of deployment and, while he
was mulling over whether or not to let Lockett and another dozen marchers massed
behind him into the mall, Captain Capps… deep in disputation with Colonels Knox
of the National Guard, Sergeant Mays from the Mall and that local police
Lieutenant Haberty, who’d oozed up from Nakonset Park with the march… waved him
over. The human shield quickly
crumbling under the press of people leaving
One World, Trent slouched along behind the Eagle, head down, ears open…
Knox was less indignant than
dismissive of the situation and its human collateral. “I’ve received orders to redeploy all Guardsmen to Washington,
where looting has broken out, so we’ll be leaving in fifteen minutes...”
“And I’m not authorized for overtime,
so our men gotta go by twelve,” the Lieutenant chimed in. “Earlier, maybe, depending… Colonel, the
students are acting up in College Park…”
“As usual. But we’re District-Metro,” Colonel Knox pointed out, “the U’s not
in our jurisdiction. You’d have to work
that out with Annapolis…”
Sergeant Mays could scarcely believe
his ears. “Officers! You can’t just leave us hanging out to dry
like this… if there’s looting in DC, what do you think is gonna happen here when you leave?”
Knox looked down at his watch. “Were up to me, I’d shut down,” the Colonel
advised. “Keeping the place open late,
that was his idea, right?” And he jerked
a thumb at Capps.
“Not personally but,” Lester tried
wheedling, “…Colonel, you and the local police have an obligation…”
“To protect life and property? That’s right, Captain… and in that order,”
Colonel Knox reminded the Screaming Eagle.
“Not property, then life. We
gotta be in the District in twenty minutes.
I would strongly suggest you announce you are shutting down, now, if
there’s an immediate problem, we can help.
Otherwise, the clock is ticking…” and he looked at his watch again.
“Tick, tick, tick,” said the police
Lieutenant who, as Trent Lockett had already deduced, was a flaming asshole.
Having heard enough, Trent proceeded
to the Food Court, a nightmare of kids and gangs and drunks weaving out of
Giga-Mart and the two liquor stores, the mighty Dominator blasting out runway
music over the howling and snarling of fighting dogs in the already-closed
Kearsey’s Kennels being baited by more assholes, safely behind the glass window
and chainlink fence. He ordered a meat
pie from Jean-Francoís who, just for the hell of it, pushed the button that
sent the great, black face of Ghede off into a paroxysm of insane laughter.
“Never have I made so much money in
one day,” the meat-pie mogul sighed, “and never so afraid for my life since
sailing away from Baby Doc and the Tontóns.”
“Yeah, pretty fucked up out there,”
Lockett admitted.
Jean-Francoís shook his head, pointing
through the walls towards Giga-Plex.
“Outside, yes, mais ce grand, télévision vampire, il est mauvais
seulement rêvé de par le Duvaliers.”
“Uh… yeah,” said Lockett, whose French
was limited to a few culinary terms, but who had also heard his share of
rumours about the Dominator’s eerie pixillation – some possibly true, most, of
course, mere wild conjecture.
Sergeant Mays had finally reached Ghanoush on his cellphone, securing
permission to close One World early… a particularly painful blow to Captain
Capps. Minus Knox and the local police…
although a few of Haberty’s men, in uniform, were strolling the corridors of
the Mall and the Food Court, commiserating with the proprietors of eating
establishments (and securing a few snacks and drinks)… the Sergeant, Capps and
their respective entourages trooped back from the One World offices at the far
Southeast end (adjacent to the Sushi Palace and Mad Sam’s Steakhouse) to
Giga-Plex, pushed through the line at its door and confronted Tenison and Big
Sonny.
“Ghanoush has given orders to shut
down, effective immediately. Lester
heard him…”
“Captain?” the tiny Big Sonny glared
at the big Screaming Eagle, as if Capps was two feet high.
“That’s what the fuckin’ Arab said,
though if you ask me…”
“I’m not asking you,” Leland Buford
Sonnenschein cut him off. “Tenison, are
these people buying, or hanging out…”
Mark coughed. “Not so much as earlier… but that’s probably
due to inventory. We have plenty of the
high-end stuff around, but nothing these… people…”
“Well, then, I guess we’d better close
up shop and count our money…” Big Sonny decided.
“But… but,” the Manager fairly
squealed, “…my bonus?”
Sonny patted the young fellow on the
shoulder – Mark reacted as if it were like a kiss of death that a Mafia
godfather gave his least-favoured underling.
“You’ve done a good job, son.
Like the gentleman says… you gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to
fold ‘em. Fuckin’ pansy-ass President,
goin’ public… well, Fred, we’ll just have to hold another big sale on Tuesday, when those old sets go dark
again. That’s the uh… seventeenth. Anything relevant that we can hang a sale
on?”
“What about the Oscars?” suggested the lobbyist. “This way, we get the ladies in…”
“There you go!”
And Sonny waxed sunny again.
“Gives us time for another insert in the Monday papers, too… they’re
usually worthless but people will be reading the sports sections for the game…
maybe we can even do the rounds again, this time with Giga-Boyz…”
“I volunteer!” Faubourg quipped and the Texans
chortled, slapped each other on the back and Mark watched, helplessly, as his
dreams of wealth and promotions began to fly away.
Outside, Reverend Godwin had ventured
a few steps towards the Mall. He raised
his bullhorn and, in a trembling voice, ventured…
“People! People? Everybody who
came from Nakonset Park… it’s well after eleven and we ought to be resuming, we
have to…”
He went no further, for being struck
from behind by Easy, wielding a cutoff poolcue, while Slim addressed him, face
to face…
“Have to do nuthin’, you pathetic
fake…”
“We’re here, Reverend,” Easy added as
he clocked the minister again, Godwin falling face down in the wet parking
lot. “And we’re goin’ shoppin’…”
“Get his money,” Slim barked. “And lemme have that coat, looks like it’s
gonna start rainin’ again, snowin’ maybe…”
“What about me?” Easy protested.
“Wouldn’t fit you,” Slim said, straightening the lapels of Hieronymous Godwin’s
sturdy overcoat and checking his profile in the sideview mirror of an ancient
white van. “Coat was cut for a man.”
¾ ¾ ¾
At ten past eleven, a nervous and frustrated Mark Tenison
raised his bullhorn…
“Attention Giga-Plex shoppers! Attention!” he gave it his all, despite
vistas of winged Benjamins flying off into the rainy night. “This store will be closing early, in order
to restock for tomorrow. Please bring
all purchases to the register. We will
close at eleven-thirty, sharp…”
Outside, in the Mall promenade,
Captain Capps walked down the line of expectant shoppers, counting heads. At twenty, he motioned for two of the GP
renters to draw the velvet rope across the belly of the line, directly in front
of some fat, nerdy slob… the sort who’d probably come to the store for game
cartridges, ergo, least likely to wax violent.
“Okay, listen up!” declared the
commander of the Screaming Eagles.
“Giga-Plex is closing in fifteen minutes, everybody behind this rope
ain’t getting in. You have to go
home. We will be opening at ten,
tomorrow morning, plenty of time to shop…” and he turned, pasting on a hopeful
but rueful smile, “ …folks on this side of the line, can’t guarantee, but you might get in. Or not, depending. If you
know what you’re looking for, grab it and take it to the registers as soon as
you can…”
Predictably the slob hung his head and actually
started to cry, but angrier voices behind him resounded…
“We been waitin’ two hours…”
“Can’t come back tomorrow…”
“Somebody’s
gotta pay for this…”
And, like so many lemmings, most of
the line… even the hopeless ones still confined to the CD store… remained at
their positions. Capps walked back into
the store, having done his job. By
twenty past eleven, however, Mark Tenison was pacing back and forth beside the
registers, making life miserable for the cashiers and customers alike…
“You have to work faster, girls…
faster! Faster! No rainchecks, no
exchanges… no checks drawn on Virginia banks.
Faster…”
Finally,
a flummoxed Vicki Gordon appealed to the Manager. “Mr. Tenison, this man has a Belgian debit card. How much is six thirty-nine forty-two in
Euros…”
“Can’t take it today.” Mark snatched the card from Vicki, returning
it to the Belgian – who stared at the crazy Americans through thick, black
eyeglasses as his lips, broader than Mick Jagger’s, opening and closing like a
beached cod’s. “Pay in dollars or come
back tomorrow, sir…”
“Bah, dollars!” the foreigner scoffed,
looking down at his watch. “I have been
waiting since nineteen hundred hours… can, at least, the lovely lady sign my
Washington Times…”
“Sign his paper, Sara,” Mark agreed…
and Sabra Martin replied…
“Sabra!”
“Whatever!”
Sabra scribbled an obscenity on the
newspaper and the next man in line waved a ticket, hungrily.
“Ring me up for a Westinghouse
nineteen…”
“Don’t, Vicki. We’re out of stock,” Mark told him. “Come back tomorrow, and we’ll show you
something better… out with you, now…
next!”
The summary cancellations brought
Ralph Richards and two other salesmen flocking…”
“Are we gonna get our commissions on
these cancelled sales?” Ralph whined.
“No.
You don’t get paid until the store gets paid… get back to work,” Tenison
ordered. “Don’t sell anything under
thirty inches, unless it’s plasma…” and Mark looked at his watch, “…hell, don’t
sell anything more, period, unless they can take it to a register. Anjie!
Anjie!”
The Amazon marched forward to confer
with Tenison, then marched back to the loading dock with Lester Capps, who
ordered the Eagles and renters outside to form a human barrier at the end of
the receiving line.
“No more pickups this evening past
here…” Anjelika drew her line in the line. “…if you have receipt ticket, must
return tomorrow…”
Now, the angry voices by the loading
dock outshouted those at the entrance…
“What about my Samsung?”
“Been standin’ out here forty
minutes, after waitin’ two hours to get in…”
“Wait till I contact my lawyer…”
And, gradually, the frustration at either end of
Giga-Plex fuses into a single, golden-oldie chant, rippling the length and
breadth of the Mall like an intestinal disturbance…
“Hell, no! We won’t go! Hell, no! We won’t go!…”
And it was at this exact, inopportune moment that
Kristi Chaine and David Lee arrived at One World… Vern Cooth presumably
following. The multiple small
disturbances were starting to coalesce into mass insurrection… gangs roaming
the parking lot, people screaming, answered back by penned-up fighting dogs and
the great, black head of Ghede, the Baffler, the fortunate shoppers hastening
to secure their purchases hurrying through the rain. A big, black SUV with a rolled up prize from Carpet Island on its
roof wheeled out of a space near the gates, and Kristi grabbed the spot, turned
off her headlights…
“I told you so!” David gloated,
gesturing to the chaos all around them.
“You’re a help,” Kristi groaned. “A real help…”
The four Screaming Eagles manning the entrance to
Giga-Plex gave way helplessly as Kristi Chaine flashed her credentials… by now,
the blessed and bereft customers were streaming out of both the exit and
entrance doors, heedless to security’s threats and warnings. With David in tow, the Research Manager
honed in on fat Freddy Faubourg, hanging out at the tech and credit tent (with,
by now, ten prisoners and one apparent corpse manacled to the poles) swilling
something green from a big, clear plastic cup.
Fat Freddy rewarded her with a twinkly
finger-wave. “How’s my grrrl?”
“Ask her,” Kristi nodded at the
dancers, now gyrating atop Giga-Plex cash register as currency, checks and
plastic were rung up. “I am looking for Mr. Sonnenschein… Vern
is on his way, should be here unless he’s been caught up in this, this mess…”
“Ah, but an exquisite mess it is,”
Faugourg answered dreamily, “…probably generating a revenue stream higher than
the week before Christmas.”
“You see a revenue stream,” Kristi
scolded, “I see a few hundred pissed-off rioters who, thankfully, will never
make it to our headquarters…”
Faubourg sipped from his cup, waved to Big Sonny…
still at the center of the henge, expostulating on the Dominator to a rapt
handful of apparent insomniacs. The
entrepreneur seemed oblivious, so Freddie motioned to the registers and,
shortly, motioned to the Grrrlz and then, with Crystal and Rae on either arm,
steered the newcomers towards Sonnenschein.
“This, dear girl, is free enterprise
in action…” he reminded Kristi.
“Some of those people might be taking
“free” literally,” was David’s sour remark.
Fat Freddie pulled Crystal and Rae
closer, as if anticipating that they might have to take a bullet for him. “And who the fuck are you?”
Now, Big Sonny moved to head off an
unpleasantness. “Kristi Chaine!… you
look every bit as marvelous as when I last saw you… it was Dallas, or Denver…
let me think…”
“Vern is on his way,” said the
Research Manager. “He wants to see from
himself that everything’s under control…”
The clock in the Food Court struck
eleven thirty… Big Sonny beaming as his gaze swept across a circus that showed
no sign of ever leaving town…
“What could be more under control than
this?”
¾ ¾ ¾
In Purley, Miz Lottie Soames… secure in her capacities of having performed
yet another miracle… enjoyed the national news and weather but, as Ted Fraser
called upon Evan Augsberg for a final report from outside of the One World
Mall, the household fell silent.
“Thank you, Ted. We’ve arrived at One World Mall with two important
developments in the making. First, the
second march from Nakonset Park after last night’s violence seems to have
broken up short of its intended destination – the Federal Communications
Commission Operations Center in suburban Maryland…”
“That’s Godwin’s bunch – failed again…” Uncle Raoul shook his
head…
To which Miz Lottie replied: “Shush!”
“Least nobody got killed, this time…” Raoul answered,
disobediently.
“It would seem shopping has replaced protest as the
order of the day,” Augsberg said, “and now, as midnight nears, there seems to
be no slack in demand for new HDTV technology, despite the President’s earlier
announcement. I’m in the parking lot
with Joe Gennale, one of many shoppers braving the crowds and elements, this
evening, to secure… what’s that, Joe…”
“It’s a Westinghouse. Bought it ‘cause I thought it was made in America but, of course,
it’s not… made in Turkey… at least it’s an American company, I think,
still. Lucky to get it, they’re selling
out of most anything under a thousand…”
“Quite a day, Joe?
What do you think of the new President’s announcement that the Superbowl
will be televised…”
“Pretty stupid, but I’m still glad I got in
today. Woulda had to, sooner or later…
and I wouldn’t go back there again, not for my life. It’s crazy! Outa control…
lotta fighting…”
Miz Lottie reached for her old rotary
phone and began dialing…”
“There you have it, we’ve tried to get remarks from
the Mall or security, but they’re not talking.
Neither has anyone found out what happened to the rally organizers…” the
newscaster added, “the march just sort of fell apart, as the chance to secure a
TV or converter before tomorrow’s game proved irresistible…”
“I can’t raise Earline,” she told Raoul. “Some recording tells me that the number
ain’t in service…”
“In a funny way, the marches have achieved one of
their main objectives, even in failure and dissolution. Here’s a latecomer, sir… what brings you out
to the Mall…”
“You get in that car of yours,” Lottie ordered her
step-nephew, “go to that Mall and bring back my Earline. I ain’t trustin’ no bus line out there… look
like a moonshine party…”
“Aww, auntie… there ain’t been no
moonshine parties out here in forty years…”
But Miz Lottie would not be moved. She pointed towards the door…
“Git!”
Though it didn’t matter to Miz Lottie,
Augsberg’s interviewee was eerily familiar, a disheveled Jack Gobelman, eyes
darting crazily around the parking lot.
The newscaster, sensing a problem, started to draw his microphone back,
but Goblin pounced, physically wrestling it away from Augsberg…”
“Got blueberry spies a la mode white
vanilla on red China… no more Nightline, no Lost. Cat klum a genies on carpets, floatin’ around and they’re goin’
to the moon, all them signals. Never
namortal, Evan, ‘member from the Bradlee dinner, two thousand four… two
thousand voice, say hey, Harley, what’s that sound…”
Goblin, thrusting the station’s
microphone ahead of him, ran off into the darkness and the rain. Shouting to be heard unamplified, Augsberg
summed up… “and that’s the way it is at One World Mall! That’s how it stands, under that great, blue
neon globe - whose brown seas and yellow continents rotate in synchronicity
with earth and sun, whose clasped hands… black and white, brown over red over
yellow… inspire us to dream better dreams, dreams so often submerged beneath a
material red tide of need, and greed.
Back to Ted Fraser, now, and not a moment too soon…”
¾ ¾ ¾
Network microphone still in hand, singing “Gabba-Gabba-Hey!”
before forgetting the rest of the words, Goblin scampered across the parking
lot towards the vacant CD store whose door and windows were now busted wide
open. Denied access to Giga-Plex,
frustrated shoppers had refused to leave.
They beat on store windows, roamed the Mall fighting and looting
poorly-defended shops… committing acts of grand and petty vandalism upon the
merchants and each other while, in Mark Tenison’s office, the Law… Captain
Lester Capps, Sergeant Mays from the Mall and Lieutenant Haberty of the local
police (Guard and military having already departed)… quickly fell to fighting
among themselves.
“Do as you will,” Haberty wagged a fat
finger at the civilian police, “my men are going off duty, and their
replacements are being redeployed to the neighborhoods. This place oughta be shut down, now!”
“We’re trying,” Mays exhaled. “Frankly, we’re not getting all the
cooperation we should from Giga-Plex and the Eagles…”
“We’ve securing the premises, Lieutenant, and we’re
doing so with what we have. If the
Sergeant can’t get a handle on the situation outside Giga-Plex, it’s not our
responsibility…”
“Secured your premises,” Mays snarled…
“That’s what we’ve been paid for. Tell your Arab brothers to open their
wallets, and we’ll secure the rest of the Mall…”
Meanwhile, Vern Cooth had arrived,
credentials flapping in the wind. Only
providential intervention from Fred Faubourg had got him through the door…
“Whatta fuckin’ mess,” Vern furled his
umbrella, “…I presume Sonny knows about the President…”
“Stabbed in the back,” Faubourg
groaned, “…Sonny’s waitin’ for you…”
They pushed against an angry human
tide of shoppers slowly being driven towards the registers – some with
merchandise in tow, many others empty-handed and angry. In front of the henge of televisions where
Big Sonny was mollifying the Giga-Grrrlz over some issue having to do with
money while Kristi Chaine and David Lee stood by, fuming, the Soft Shell
Dixieland Band were repacking their instruments despite the rather mean-spirited
interference from Sonny’s clowns. A
Mall security guard punched a Screaming Eagle and was promptly floored with a
quick trio of karate chops while prisoners, chained to the tech and credit
tent, cheered them on. One, noticing
Fred Faubourg, spat… the spittle missing, but managing to blanket Vern….
Big
Sonny was enraged – and these losers from the FCC were a convenient
target. “Your people have told me that
these broadcasts incited a mob to storm my franchise…”
David
shook his head, correcting the pugnacious hawker. “Actually, sir, most of them were headed towards our headquarter, but…”
“Shut up, Lee…” Vern
snapped, “I’ve taken about all I can handle from you…”
But the
dissension had already attracted the ire of Big Sonny... and the magnate chose
to assume that the FCC Manager was calling him
by his first name. “So,” he raged at
Cooth, “you admit you have people on your staff that are trying to tear down
the free enterprise system… probably working hand-in-claw with the President…”
“That’s
Trent Lockett, he’s been fired. You’re
fired, too, Lee…” Vern decided.
“The
hell, I…” Big Sonny stepped back…
Kristi
Chaine objected. “David’s been trying
to help…”
Vern
shook his head, thrust out his fist.
“You’re fired too, Kristi. Clean
out your desk Monday. Why I ever…:
“You
are gonna be so… so litigated against and…”
Too sputtering angry to finish her
threat, she watched as Capps and Mays emerged from the back office and, still
raging, crossed the store. Before they
could reach the firing party, there was a crash, and all heads turned towards
the registers where some nut in cutoff jeans and a white, cutoff t-shirt under
a down vest had hurled a trashcan through the big plate glass window and
crawled in after; ranting and bloody, like a great, white grub… when security
flocked to surround him, a few shoppers bolted for the exit with unpaid-for
merchandise.
“Can’t anybody around here do their job?” Big Sonny wailed.
In the parking lot behind the loading
dock, customers… some still waving receipts… shouted and shoved back at the
Screaming Eagles as Craig Synch and the Mexicans pulled down the metal security
gates while Marko, on the outside, slipped a padlock through the slots as the
crowd realized that he was part of the hated Giga-Plex establishment, swarmed
and dragged him down while a score of angry ticketholders turned their wrath on
the Eagles’ van, rocking it like a porta-pottie…
Back in the stockroom, Anjelika
approached the cherrypicker, climbing halfway to hail Tom Eppert…
“That was good work, Mr. Tom…”
“I can handle myself…” Tom said, with
no little pride, giving Big Sonny’s deputy a closer look – though somewhat
mannish, he figured that the big rootin’-Teuton from Waco seldom got tired,
Nancy’s favorite complaint.
He smiled broadly, tipping his helmet.
“We have a certain problem closing
down the store when some people do not want us closed. But we must close,” Anjelika appealed to
him…
“Those gates outside the windows?” he
ventured.
“I assemble a team, and Captain Capps protects
us with men, and his guns…”
Tom let his hands fall into his
lap. “What’s in it for me?” he
inquired.
“Twenty dollars off that set Mark gave
you…” Anjelika offered,
“He didn’t give me anything, I earned
it. And I’m gonna pay him…” Tom
promised.
“Well, you get a payment off. I’ll speak to Mark…”
“You do that. Yeah… and I’ll do that. OK, you got a deal…” and Tom prepared to
climb down. “Details… well we’ll work
those out later, just remember… you owe me.”
So, while a couple of armed Eagles
held the mob roaming the Mall at bay, Tom joined Anjelika and the Manager, a
couple of burly salesmen from Appliantology and Jurgen of 007 in drawing down
the metal gates. Curses flew off their
backs like raindrops. As falling steel
covered the broken window, two drunks rushed the crew and, while sweating,
grunting Eagles pulled them away, Mark Tenison assumed a pose, declaring…
“I know karate…”
Capps, seeing things under control,
more or less, returned through the security door in the gate over the entrance,
only to be assailed by Big Sonny.
“That’s a dead guy, cuffed to my
property. Get him out of here!”
So, with only the Exit gate remaining
up, Tom helps Capps and two other Eagles finally decuff the corpse from Westy’s
pole… drag the damn thing to the threshold and fling it out into the Promenade,
quieting the crowd long enough for Lester to pull down the gate, affix the
padlock, and return to the store via the security door, followed by a silent,
battered Marko Mosrovich, who’d finally navigated back from the parking lot.
The clock in the Food Court tolled midnight. And the Dominator… now tuned to an infomercial… radiated on, hypnotizing those inside and outside the store.
Uncle Raoul parked his Lincoln a dozen blocks from
Grape Street, walking hurriedly through menacing shadows of twilight, a
battered hat hiding his face from the enraged converter customers he imagined
to be closing in on him from all sides.
He’d shaved his beard off, but to no effect… down the block from
Feargal’s… an angry drunk called out…
“Hey yo, Raoul… gotta talk to you…”
Who was the fuck… Ivan? Ike?
He quickened his step while, down on the corner, another man answered…
“That th’ motherfucker Raoul, took my money?:
And Ike… or Ivan… cried out, again…
“Hey… Raoul…”
He crossed the street hurriedly,
trotting down an alley into the next block… his pursuers were in no condition
to give chase, but seeing lights going on and hearing his name being called, he
backtracked, making a wide circle of the block. Of course they’d know where he was going, but… would they remember? The curb was full of analog televisions, along with the rest of
the garbage for Monday’s pickup… he looked over a few that seemed to have been
put out recently enough not to be damaged by rain, hoisted the likeliest of
these, and loped off, turning a corner at Grape Street.
¾ ¾ ¾
What had begun as a day of triumph for Leland Buford
Sonnenschein, a fiscal and egotistical valentine to (and from) himself had,
over the past hour, utterly soured. Not
even the jam-packed parking lot of the One World Mall his limousine prowled,
still in search of parking at quarter to ten lifted Big Sonny’s spirits – the
Giga-Grrls (Effie Lou Wilson… Miss Dominator, 2009… and her jealous runner-up
Sabra Martin to either side, Crystal and Rae squeezed into the oposant seats
surrounding a perspiring, fat Fred Faubourg) were sullen and, at least,
silent. Finally he ordered the driver
to park in a vacated handicapped space, leaving his entourage in the three big
vans… clowns, musicians, two more security goons and placekicker Jarlo Knupp…
to fend for themselves.
Perhaps the worst of it was Faubourg’s
incessant, greasy tide of excuses and apologies…
“I done what I could, you know?” the lobbyist kept
justifying himself, “… it was that damn Werbele, Lee…”
“You don’t call me Lee. Friends call me Lee,” admonished the lord of
the Giga-domain “…Effie here, she can
call me Lee.” He squeezed the model’s
bicep, and not gently, under the wet, fox jacket that sort of matched her hair
-Miss Dominator responding with an obligatory, braying giggle while dark-haired
Sabra sat, smouldering... probably envious that Sonny hadn’t groped her,
relieved that he hadn’t. “People I trust…”
“Werbele’s from Massachusetts,
Indiana, no problem…” Fat Freddie wheezed.
“Just ‘cause he’s like God to all the fundamentalist woo-woos, he’s
gotta be treated special, even though he’s out of office. Time was, Lee… uh, Sonny… time was these
Christian hacks would jump through hoops when you mentioned abortion or the
queers, they rendered unto Caesar what properly belonged to Caeser, meaning
us…”
“When does the President go on?”
“Ten…” Faubourg gave up.
¾ ¾ ¾
Far from Grape Street, Westy Soames has spent the
last hour and a half moving slowly up the line of customers waiting to get into
Giga-Plex. Some retarded son of Jim
Crow had made him wait out in the rain awhile before admittance into the busted
CD shop, where he’d wormed his way towards the door in winding lines worse than
those at the Motor Vehicle Department… finally he’d been allowed to emerge from
the door, into a corridor, partitioned off with a genuine velvet rope, as if
the big box store were a goddam supper club.
Behind the glass, there was an interesting array of weaponry and
surveillance gear to ponder… after moving up another dozen paces in ten
minutes, rows of laptops and accessories apparently designed by and for
leprechauns with tiny fingers. This guy
with a long, white beard and three women in khaki were just closing up the pet
store, reaping bouquets of feline
mewlings and chatter from monkeys and the birds within… by some peculiar
arrangement Westy had heard of but didn’t quite understand, there were no dogs
inside, those were across the mall at Kearsey’s Kennels, where the pitbulls,
Dobes and German Shepherds were referred to as “security companions” with a
wink and a nod… when Big Sonny and his entourage piled out of the limo under
the sullen skies, weeping sleet; pushing their way through knots of angry,
exiting customers berating two Eagles and a few more One World security guards
at the door.
Two of the latter… one maybe eighteen,
the other well into his seventies… tried to detain the Giga-Posse…
“This entrance ain’t good if you’re goin’ to
Giga-Plex,” said the kid, “…you gotta go out, then down that way to the place
with the lights on…” and he poined towards the CD store.
“You’ll let me into GP,
I own the franchise. I own all of ‘em…”
Yeah?
Pleased to meetcha,” said the old man through his remaining teeth, (his
breath an appalling mix of garlic and cheap vodka that induced the Giga-Grrrlz
to hide their noses in their collars) “…me,
I’m Coach Zorn. An’ that fat guy
over there, that’s the Prince of Whales…”
Before his own Eagles and the two
guarding the line could arrive at an accommodation, Sonny had snapped open his
cell, punched out Tenison’s hotline…
“I’m at the door. Some clown holdin’ us up, and he’s not one
of mine…” When Mark launched into a disjointed stream of apologies and excuses…
worse, even, than Faubourg’s…he abruptly handed the phone over to the
mercenary, who listened, nodded…
“OK!”
The old guard handed back the phone and unhooked the velvet rope… which
was a streaky shade of turquoise, not red.
“C’mon in…”
“Easy, Rosko! Your goddam rainy parking lot’s already
ruined my boots,” Sonny looked down, “…they’re crocodile, not any old alligator
out of any old swamp. Twelve hundred
bucks I paid… I oughta sue myself for negligence…”
And Faubourg, as he was paid…
well-paid… to do, giggled obsessively as soon as he recognized the joke that
the security people stubbornly failed to understand. Then, over the vehement protests of the waitpersons nearing the
front of the line, Big Sonny and his posse were escorted into the Mall. Their grumbling lowered as Miss Dominator
and the lesser Giga-Grrrlz in their furs, white boots and short, sheer
minidresses that showed a cornucopia of multihued, wet flesh led the entourage
onward, then trailed off into flat-out grunts of amazement at the straw-hatted
Dixieland Band, six clowns in greasepaint and polkadots, more Screaming Eagles
and the sullen, swarthy Jarlo Knupp (in his uniform numbered 99, football under
his arm) all traipsing through the wrought-iron portals of the Mall and into
the Promenade, between Lester’s Likenesses and Linens-2-Go.
By now, General Westmoreland Soames
had advanced past the shuttered Third-Fifth Bank and the gunshop and was
standing in front of Lester’s… a whole family of very white people staring
blindly back at him… near enough to the corner to watch the procession
pass. An old guy with a troubling
cough, standing in front of him, turned and leered…
“Shows whatcha can do, bring along a
few pretty girls…”
“Must be money,” Westy ventured, “sure
ain’t his looks…”
Reality be damned, Big Sonny’s vanity
induced him to slough off Lester the Greeter’s effusive welcome and gaze at his
own alabaster likeness as it rotated, larger than life-sized… while the old One
World Mall rent-a-cop who’d let him by told the waiting customers…
“That Sonny… he ain’t so big…”
A fawning, groveling Mark Tenison
quickly attached himself to Big Sonny’s entourage – escorting the entrepreneur
past the registers, tech and credit tent… now holding three miserable
prisoners, condemned without trial nor consultation with attorneys, to blowing
up balloons… and into the circle HDTVs (most tuned to the NFL precast, a few
others broadcasting police and reality shows) that last month’s script from
Waco had decreed be called the “henge”, after those ancient rings of stone
obelisks found here and there, with the imposing Dominator… like a black-robed
Druid priest… at its center..
A genuine plasma set, though, not a
cardboard replica.
“Dom’s all wired and ready to go…” Mark Tenison
bounced up and down like an excited puppy.
Big Sonny removed his cigar. “Bad news, boy. President’s goin’ on the air in…” he looked down at his watch,
“…thirteen minutes, movin’ transition back to the seventeeth to appease the
looters and rioters. Gutless
wonder! I want every one of these
fuckin’ sets turned to the gayest programming on the air, cable or satellite -
something that ain’t got nothing to do with football, has no chance of runnin’
that speech…”
“Try Project Runway on Bravo…” Fred
Faubourg suggested…
Big Sonny lifted an eyebrow. “How would you know?”
The lobbyist shrugged. “Can’t help it, I’m a fool for skinny
women…”
Tenison kept bouncing up and down
alongside the big boss. “Nothing but
problems,” he burbled, “…but they’re good
kind of problems. Compressor busted,
ran out of hotdogs, pony got sick…”
“Kid, you’re breakin’ my heart!” And Big Sonny shoved his cigar back into his
mouth, snapping his fingers, and… under one of many No Smoking, Criminal
Penalties signs… Effie Lou lit it for him.
While Sonny inspected his oldest store, eight more
customers departed… half with small purchases in hand, the other four holding
tickets that would secure them a place in another line out back behind the
loading dock… and the Screaming Eagles overseeing admissions lifted the sad,
blue velvet rope, allowing eight more standees into Giga-Plex. General
Westmoreland Soames, seventh in line, was immediately confronted by Lester, the
Greeter…
“Welcome to Giga-Plex!”
¾ ¾ ¾
At 9:59 PM, Uncle Raoul set the scavenged
TV atop Miz Lottie’s scorched table as an army of curious kids and cynical
teenagers converged on him.
The matriarch was less than
pleased. “Why are you doin’ that,
fool! They don’t work, them people on
the television news that the ladies at Mount Zion with cable heard say so…
Rima, I gonna whup your ass for letting his cock-a-roach into my home…”
“Might at least work, not not-work, you know?” was Raoul’s
convoluted explanation. “Set’s not too
wet, not burned, I’ll go down to Giga-Plex tomorrow an’ buy one of them real converters, swear to God, so’s you
an’ Westy an’ the kids can see the game.
“‘Least you got money!” Miz Lottie said, scornfully.
“That’s right,” Raoul said,
defiantly. “I earned it…”
Rima snorted. “You’re too late, as usual. Westy already gone off to Giga-Plex to get a
whole new set… he pawned title to the car again…”
Miz Lottie scrunched up her face,
beginning to shake and extending a wavering, accusing arm…
“Uh oh, she fixin’ to hex…” Tyesha groaned. “She gonna turn Raoul into a hopfrog!”
Raoul answered warily, but with just a
little dash of indignation. “Whuffo you
tryin’ to hex that set I paid good money to bring out here…”
His autie, shivering and gasping,
exclaimed: “S’a good hex, I makin’ sure
that at least it don’t start no more fire…”
She rose from the green chair, shut
her eyes, moaned, then gaves a climatic squeal that had Tyesha, Rima and Uncle
Raoul recoiling in wonder, opened her eyes and pointed to Raoul..
“Now
plug it in…”
“OK,” he answered, deferentially, “but
it still won’t work til’ I buy that converter.
If it’s alright, all we get is a buncha snow and noise, if not, I guess
I can find… can buy another…”
“Tol’ you!” Rima laughed. “Copped that out of a garbage can…”
With a weary, wary smile, Raoul
plugged the foundling television in, then leaped back as static filled the
screen… coalescing, within a few seconds, into the grave, even tortured face of
Evan Augsberg filling the screen…
The newscaster seemed to have aged
another twenty years over the past week – as if there was a corpse hiding
behind the angry eyes and ponderous jaws… a corpse that refused to rot away
but, instead, had been inhabited by something, something that had journeyed to
the edge of time and space, returning with terrible news, terrible
prophecies. “Ted, I’m here with the
White House corps where the President is about to make an important
announcement, concerning the highly unpopular analog to digital conversion that
took place forty-six hours ago, a move that some say benefited special
interests at the expense of lower-income and working Americans who would be
losing access to Superbowl Forty-Three… the President is at the podium now…”
“Ssssh!” Miz Lottie pointed.
“That’s the President!”
“My fellow Americans! In the course of our nation’s noble and inevitable march forward
on the path of technological progress, we occasionally arrive at an obstacle in
the road… a pothole, if you will, or a fallen branch from some dead tree,
above. Such obstacles cannot be
ignored, they have to be overcome, with resolution and good old elbow grease,
sometimes. Though it may smart to have
to step back and deal with these problems instead of forging blindly ahead,
there are times when prudence dictates a course of action that needs… not
reversal, for that would be wrong… but a temporary correction.
“So it has been with the dawn of the
digital epoch. For most of us, the
advent of high definition television has been a blessing. Vital spectra occupied by cumbersome analog
broadcasting have been freed up for use by our national and local security…
police, fire departments, educational applications. And the sale of surplus frequencies to the growing new
communications applications that will be the foundation of American enterprise
over the next century will provide important revenues allowing us to reduce
your tax burden, and continue the rebate program begun by my predecessor. In fact, I am confident that I speak in a
wholly bipartisan sense when I reiterate that it is morning in America!”
And then the President halted, voice
taking on a softer, folksy tone. “Of
course that isn’t literal, we’re still at night, the middle of the night…
except, I think, in Hawaii and some of the Pacific territories, but the premise
is sound…
“Anyway, I was speaking of the
occasional obstacle on the road to tomorrow morning, and, within the past few
days, the dilemma of those Americans to whom morning means another day of
poverty and deprivation has come to the fore – as it will, from time to
time. Ours is not a perfect society,
but it is a good society. And one of
the ties that bind us together are the common rituals we enjoy together, as
Americans, throughout the course of a year.
Christmas… or those Jewish holidays around that time… the Fourth of
July. Hotdogs and fireworks,
parades! Easter and Halloween… the
first robin of spring, summer’s long days with watermelons, corn on the cob. That isn’t a racial comment, by the way… we
all love watermelons… black, white, even Hispanic. We enjoy these seasonal gratuities, and, for them, are Americans.
“We also enjoy our culture… most of
us… whether it be from high-class art museums and symphonies, Hollywood or the
Gospels. Our summers are bracketed by
the exploits of professional baseball… now hopefully free of the scourge of
drug abuse… from spring training to the World Series that, more or less,
signifies October. We have basketball’s
March Madness, Indianopolis, the Kentucky Derby… many other events we can count
on as assuredly as the fingers on which we count these days and mark the
passing of the years. Perhaps above
all, we have tomorrow, Super Sunday.
The best of the best meeting to determine America’s champions, it is the
epitome of our culture… and, if I may inject some small partisanship into this
discussion, we in Washington have a special interest in tomorrow’s game, as… I
am sure… do the loyal citizens of Oakland, and California.
“Now, it has come to my attention
that… wholly by accident of the weather, and the aftermath of an insidious
attack by terrorists whom we remain in hot pursuit of… the digital transition
period which began Thursday night may inadvertently deprive some of a chance to
join in the common jubilation of Superbowl Forty-Three. Mistakes have been made… angry voices
raised. Legitimate concerns have been
exploited by special interests, some violent, therefore… and with bipartisan
consent from the Congress and Senate, I have issued an Executive Order that
pushes the transition date back to next Tuesday, so that all may enjoy Super
Sunday as Americans have done since the days of Johnny Unitas, Joe Namath and
Washington’s own Joe Theisman. Those of
you with digital sets will still be able to enjoy the full measure of the world’s
best broadcast, satellite and cable technology but, effective immediately,
analog broadcasting will resume from this moment until Tuesday, midnight,
“To those who worry that America has
reneged on its contract with tomorrow, I answer that experts… qualified
experts… have assured me that there will be no negative impact on public
safety, as the full measure of new frequency applications are to be phased in
over months, if not years.
Manufacturers and retailers – members of the business community, these
few extra days will not result in a loss of sales, rather, an enhancement. And, I am ordering a crash program to repair
and rehabilitate the much-criticized converter box voucher program, which this
administration has inherited.
“We are all Americans,” the President
concluded as the camera panned back, showing the blue wall behind the Chief
Executive, well-stocked with inspirational and motivational words and phrases… “Freedom”, “Progress”, “Technology”,
“Competition”. In the name of security, peace and progress,
I thank you for your time, and bid you all enjoy tomorrow’s game. Even in Oakland!”
And the President was replaced by some
cops… in progress… doing the same cop-things that they had always done before
the transition.
“Damn!” exclaimed Raoul.
“Damn right!” Miz Lottie warned
him. “I can hex the President’s ass,
don’t even make me think ‘bout what I can do to yours!”
RETURN to
“SAVAGE SATURDAY” HOMEPAGE
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