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Current mood:  nostalgic Category: Writing and Poetry
This is the first section, and a mid-book section, from my 1999 novel No Aloha. Each section's "title" is the name of singer or group that performed what is broadly known in the United States as "Easy Listening" music. And thus the subtitle). The premise of the story is that in the near future (and remember I wrote this several years pre-Sept. 11), instead of the Soviet Union collapsing, the United States has collapsed, torn apart by religous extremism, natural disaster and civil war. The main characters are some kids trying to work their way across war torn Denver, Colorado.
No Aloha (The Friendly Happy Music Of The Past)
© 1999 Deran Ludd
THE GEORGE BAKER SELECTION
Not-so-distant meat grinding thud and rumble of civil war. Stink of fire and gun smoke over Denver, Colorado. Gun smoke. Aftershave of the Old West, and now of the Late West.
It's the same smoke, dark and acrid, that is drifting in heavy clouds over much of North America. The smoke and fire of market-driven hyper-chaos. Accompanied by a dull slaughterhouse roar of episodic racial and cultural pogroms and low-intensity class warfare.
And oh yes, I am sure you can well imagine the shock! The United States finding itself self-destructing under a little known sunset clause in the nation's founding social compact. But..not only that! Who would have thought! Shopping malls, hog farms and theme parks as the final heirs of this once great imperial adventure game.
And that muck directly below us? The Mile High (in gore) City, Denver. Capitol of that formerly beloved tourist destination, and now Christ-loving and blood-drenched land, the State of Colorado. Crossroads of the continent, and stronghold of many quaint popular End Time enthusiasms. Such as electing a televangelist as tyrant of the state on his promise of full employment through mass murder and/or vivisection of sinners. And when the United Nations finally intervened? It was of course too late..barbarism is almost always a terminal social infection.
You don't believe me? Alright, let's go down there and take a look.
GLEN CAMBELL
Halfway back to the parkinglot marketplace to barter for marijuana the rain comes down again, harder and harder, accompanied by thunder and lightening . The youths are passing a back entrance of a wrecked multi-story office building. The plastimetal overhang above the back doorway is still in place. The three kids leap the two steps up to a narrow landing on front of the door and huddle. Rain drums steadily on the overhang.
A few moments pass, and then, cutting through the storm, an anonymous shriek. And then there are other, louder, male shouts. Gladys, Gus, Maude, all three jump, startled, and press against the battered door. Gladys slides in behind Gus. Gus has his coat open to access his dagger. Maude is already clutching the hilt of hers.
Around the street corner comes a young caucasian boy, running in a blind panic. About Gladys' build and age, with a Red Cross buzz cut. A few rain soaked tatters of girl clothing cling to the running shoeless boy.
He is running, faltering, at the end of his strength. He doesn't register Gus, Maude and Gladys. The boy stumbles.
Gus hesitates, then grabs the running boy, lifts the him off his feet, and shoves the boy in back under his parka against the wall. With the other hand Gus pulls Gladys so she stands between him and Maude. Gus straightens up, pokes his hands into his coat pockets, and backs up some, so it looks like Gus is standing with his back to the battered metal door.
A hooting barking pack of mallrats (five boys, one girl, three white, one black and one mixed-race) come thundering around the corner.
The mallrats careen to a standstill right in front of Gladys, Gus and Maude. They hop and strain to hold still, stoked on adrenaline and amphetamines.
Maude and Gus draw their long daggers. Gladys steps back to one side. The mallrat's hands grip and flex and tear at the air. The marauder's weapons are more deadly than Gus and Maude's blades, but the gang doesn't want just any trouble.
"The faggot! The little faggot!"
Gus grumbles:
"Some kid...went...down there...."
Gus sort of points in the direction the pack was headed. A tall mixed-race american boy yells:
"I get this one first!"
"Fuck you. Let's see who catches him!"
The shaved headed hispanic girl and Maude are staring each other down. Girl considers attacking Maude for Maude's dagger. One of the guys yells,
"Let's go!"
"Don't wanna lose that one...."
"Gonna squeal that little fuck!..."
They leap and dash down the street. In a moment they are far enough away you can't hear them over the rain and thunder.
Gus, Maude and Gladys stand a moment longer. Gus lifts his coat open and looks in back at the crouching trembling boy. He is holding himself tightly. Shivering violently. The boy tries to speak but he is shaking too hard. Gus looks up and down the block. Gus turns his back to the street and holds his coat open and up, so the kid is out of the rain and view.
"Dry him off with something."
Maude uses some of her dirty clothes to wipe water off the boy. Maude looks at the boy, the boy's torn girl clothes. Gladys twists her satchel around front and opens it.
"He can wear my sneakers. And maybe one of my T-shirts...."
The boy eyes the clothes inside Gladys' satchel. Without so much as a howdy-do he jerks out of Maude's grasp and grabs a pair of yellow heavy cotton tights out of Gladys' satchel.
"Hey! Those are mine."
The boy tears off his tattered skirt and underwear and then rolls Gladys' tights up his legs, Gladys yells, even angrier.
"They're girls''...."
Gus grumbles.
"Hurry the fuck up."
The boy yanks off the tatters of his old pull-over top. Maude hands him some dirty clothes. He rubs his torso a bit drier.
The boy looks at Gus, Maude and Gladys. Gus mostly watches the street.
"My name's Walter."
No one gives theirs in return.
Walter puts on Gladys' ratty, knee-length red wool skirt, a blue T-shirt Maude hands him, and Gladys' longish bright floral-patterned sweater. And lastly a gray tarp poncho.
Now Gus looks at the boy, dressed in Maude's and Gladys' clothes. Gus looks at Maude and she shrugs and he says:
"C'mon."
Gladys complains:
"It's still raining."
"Shut the fuck up."
Gus takes off into the rain.
Walter runs along beside Gladys. She looks at him a couple times before she says:
"You're, like, a boy. And...you got, like, my clothes on."
Walter looks at Gladys, shrugs and tries smiling and says:
"I'm, like...your sister."
Walter tries to smile. Gladys frowns.
"You're not like any of my sisters...."
Walter scowls.
The rain pours down steadily. Walter's head is drenched and he keeps wiping the water off his face. Gladys pulls out a blue baseball cap with her second favorite rikishi's tegata on the brim. Walter frowns before he pulls it snug on his head.
"Hamanoshima? Shit."
"Hey. That's, like, totally fucking fine. Give it back."
Walter hurriedly smiles.
"Sorry, Hama's cool...."
Walter looks up ahead at Gus, who hasn't slowed his long strides and is getting quite a ways ahead of them. Gladys finally smiles at Walter.
"I'm Gladys. That's Gus. That's Maude. They're, like, a couple...."
Walter and Gladys share a restrained grimace.
"We're gonna go sleep in a park.... You wanna come with us?"
Gus slops and unfastens his smaller satchel and hands it to Walter.
"Carry this for me. Don't fuckin' loose it."
Maude looks at Walter shouldering Gus' satchel. Maude asks Gus:
"So, we're...gonna keep him?"
Gus glances at Walter and then smiles.
"I dunno."
"You're the one grabbed him. Right?..."
Gus gives Maude a sly look.
"Like, when I grabbed him, I thought he was, you know, a bitch."
Maude frowns. Gus smiles and adds:
"Cute maybe...."
Maude hits Gus in the arm. Hard.
Gus runs off ahead. Once he's a couple meters ahead of his partner Gus turns and looks at Maude and starts chanting loudly.
"New twat, new twat. I...got...some...new twat!... "
"A better fit for your tiny fucking dick. Right? Right, fuckhead?!"
Gus ignores Maude. Maude picks up a bit of rubble, and hefts it like she's about to pitch a baseball. Gus starts sing-songing again.
"New twat, new twat. I got some new twat..."
A short wind-up and Maude pitches a direct hit at Gus' left calf and he stumbles and drops and catches himself as he nearly twists his leg.
"Ouch!! Fuck you, bitch."
"Fuck you, dickface."
The three share with Walter the rations given out by Buddhist and Jewish relief workers in the parkinglot of a burned-out mall. The night is a damp cold now that the rain has stopped. Even after eating the four kids are still hungry. Gus feels mildly nauseous . His guts groan and shivers from the cold and his sick stomach. Gladys and Walter are quietly giggling and talking with their heads together.
The kids wander along busy streets. In the near distance there is loud music. A Guitar whines and groans. Heavy bass thud thud thuds. Gladys starts dancing.
"Hey, let's go dance. I wanna dance."
Maude smiles. Gus stops and shakes himself like he might start shimmying.
"Yeah. Something hardcore. That'll warm us up."
Several blocks away, past the hub-bub of the sellers and buyers, is a vast circus-like tent set up. Underneath its canvas lights are pulsating in various colors to the rhythm of music. At the opening of tent is a mass of people trying to get in and in front of the crowd are several large men and women bouncers. Another woman is managing the entry fee and sifting out the trouble makers.
"We can't afford this."
Gus starts to turn back and leave. Maude grabs his coat sleeve.
"We can still dance, dude."
Maude starts dancing and Walter laughs and he and Gladys face one another and join hands and start jumping around and laughing. Maude pokes her boyfriend. Gus's stomach is still ill, so he pulls around his pack and finds the paper with the three marijuana cigarettes they bartered for earlier. Cannabis always settles his stomach for awhile.
"But first..we need to get high..."
"Yes!"
Gladys twirls around and almost falls and Walter catches her.
Gus lights up and takes two deep drags and hands the fat roll-up to Maude. She huffs it a few times and hands it off to the two youngest. Gladys grabs the burning blunt and puffs and puffs and puffs.
"Woohoo! Here."
Walter shies away and then Gladys laughs and pokes him.
"C'mon. It's more fun when your high. Lot's of fun."
Gus has started to move his big, his straightened arms at his sides, one and then the other, slowly front and back as he sways. He leans forward and Maude joins him. Also turning her torso slowly this and that way, arms nearly stiff, slowly flailing forward and back, the left, then the right, in time with the recorded music. She leans forward so her head is pushing on Gus' left shoulder and his head is pressed into her right shoulder. They stomp their feet and wave their arms and push on each others shoulders with their heads.
Walter watches the older two and Gladys doing her own dance and then he puts the fat blunt to his lips and slowly inhales and he coughs. Gladys laughs.
"Good, huh?"
With Gladys' encouragement Walter takes another hit and then hands the cigarette back to her. She takes one more hit and makes a little move so one foot hits Maude and Maude stands up and retrieves the blunt.
And so the time passes. The youths flail and squirm and move to the changing beat from inside the big top tent.
The now four kids make their way back to the hills along the southern edge of the southern of the two parks. Up in the hills they follow the trodden paths around flare-ups of brush and brambles.
Gus is on point. Maude sniffs and scrunches her face.
"Smell that?"
Gus stops and holds out his hand to stop the others The two youngest ignore him and hurry forward.
What was once a human is now a desiccated carcass. Discernible as such only by its framing of bones and scraps of clothing that still cling. Grass and blackberry vines have pushed up through the remnants.
"Eeew."
"Gross."
Maude pushes at it with a boot toe. They all watch. Gladys says:
"It's still a person. "
Walter retorts:
"Bones are not, like, a person."
"Bones are a person. That's their, you know, skeleton."
"Are bones a person, Gus?"
"Get the fuck away from it. Never touch a rotted body. They got all sort of germs and shit."
Maude sees some sort of a satchel under the skeletal remains of clothing. She gets out her dagger and fishes the satchel from the bones.
"Give it a rest, Maude. It's, you know...grave robbing."
Gus steps away and frowns at his partner.
"Once they're that dead, Maude, you gotta leave 'em alone."
The scavenged satchel was long ago cut wide open and emptied, probably back when whoever they were was killed. Gus kicks dirt and leaves at Maude.
"C'mon...."
Walter and Gladys have moved on ahead, holding hands and staying very close to each other, carefully scanning where they are about to step.
It is not hard for the youths to find a place near the top of the hill where the brush and trees are dense enough that the ground is more or less dry. They unfasten their tarps and bedding.
The wind moves aside the cloud cover. Maude gets out her small wind-up radio, cranks it a couple times and then spins the dial, looking for something to listen to. Walter and Gladys are still giddy and get up and sing and shimmy their way through a jumbled medley of four or five current GLOBALSTAR chart-toppers tinny, but clear on the radio. When the radio looses power, Walter and Gladys sit down, the other two sort of applaud. Walter abruptly says to Gus.
"I wanna, like, come with you, to Lakewood.... Please...."
Gladys grabs Walter and she nods vigorously at Gus and Maude. Gladys makes her pitch:
"He can, like, you know...help me,...."
"Do what? Pick out clothes?! Right?"
Maude and Gus laugh. Gladys shakes her head.
"Like, with cooking, and cleaning...."
Gus laughs and shakes his head.
"Who cooks? Who cleans?"
Maude is thinking of other things.
"We could get him set up...with documents...."
Gus looks Walter up and down as Maude adds:
"It'd be another full kids ration. Right?"
"How old are you?"
Walter doesn't answer.
"You gonna be, trouble? Huh? Dressing like that?"
"I won't...."
"What about them kids that was chasing you?..."
Walter looks at Gladys. She is emphatic.
"He's, like, my friend. C'mon, Gus."
She kicks Gus.
"C'mon."
Gus shrugs and smiles at Walter. Walter looks away.
Maude hands Walter a piece of candy and then she hands one to Gus and Gladys. Gus sucks on the cheap hard candy and looks from Walter to Gladys. Maude sits down and then lays back on the bedding.
Maude looks up between the tree foliage up to the sky. Her eyes catch on a satellite tracking across the night sky. Monotonous blink, blink, blink. Far, far over head. On out of sight, around the earth. As the satellite moves out of her sight Maude says:
"He can keep Glad out of our the way...."
Gus points his finger at Walter.
"If you and your girlie clothes...gets us in any hassles...you're out."
Walter and Gladys jump up together. Gus reaches out an grabs Walter's leg. Walter stops and looks questioningly. Gus smiles again at Walter.
"Whaddaya supposed to say, when someone does something...nice for you?..."
Walter hesitates.
"Thank you, Gus."
"That's right."
Maude sits up and raises her eyebrows hopefully.
"So, why don't you two long-lost sisters take a walk. Right?..."
Gus looks at Maude and smiles. Gladys and Walter look at each other and shake their heads knowingly. Gladys digs her own Red Cross-issue wind-up radio out of her satchel. She grabs one of Walter's hands and then says:
"Like, is fucking all there is with you two?"
"Only when we got the time...."
Gus and Maude high-five.
Gus gives the younger two a cigarette each. Gus holds out his small flashlight.
"Emergencies only."
BERT KEMPFAERT AND HIS ORCHESTRA
As soon as they're out of Gus and Maude's range, Gladys and Walter head right down to the edge of the wooded hill where the park begins and they crouch there in the underbrush. Gladys points to one of the plastimetal park benches.
"Let's sit down."
Walter looks doubtful.
"Gus said not to...."
Gladys looks at him.
"Shit, you only known Gus a few hours...and you already act like he's your...dad, or something...."
"OK, not that bench. One that's...more hid."
Around a bend in the trees there's a bench set back in a screen of pruned bushes. The two kids wipe water off the bench and then Walter spreads his poncho on the bench. Gladys opens her big parka and she and Walter sit together on the tarp-covered bench inside her big heavy coat. Gladys can pretty much bring the coat sort of closed around them both.
"We'll smoke mine first."
Walter gets his cigarette piece out of an inner pocket. Gladys smiles and says:
"OK. Here. Like, you put this ear phone in your ear. Like this. Yeah."
She fits the other small ear bud piece in her left ear. Walter lights the cigarette.
Gladys twists the wind-up key in back of the small radio. Fully wound the hand-size set receives for nearly an hour. Tonight, Gladys fiddles with the tuner and finds GLOBALSTAR 3. Always beaming 365/24/7 of Pop, Hip-Hop and Ranchera down on North and Central America.
The two kids huddle on the bench, arms wrapped around each other, legs raised and tucked up so knees are at chin level. Walter hands off the cigarette as he exhales and asks:
"You from Denver?"
"Yeah. Over near the Arsenal."
"I'm from Indianapolis, Indiana...."
"Shit. Indianapolis."
"I've been in more than twenty cities.... Lived in them. "
Gladys gives him a doubting look. Walter purses his lips.
"I can name them..all."
"How long you been wearing girls' clothes?"
Walter takes the earphone out of his right ear.
"Why?"
Gladys shrugs. Walter shrugs back and answers with:
"A long time."
They both giggle quietly.
"Why?"
"Huh?"
"Why do you wear girl clothes?"
Walter makes an unsure face.
In that moment, a tall very pale caucasian woman strides right up to them. Thick black kohl eyeliner, long straight dark hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. Heavy black leather motorcycle coat, a pullover sweater and faded black jeans tucked into nearly knee-high, dirty, brown lumberjack boots.
Deep whisper:
"Stevie?..."
No man's voice answers her. Young girl whispering scared.
"We're just sitting here, lady."
Now a young boy speaks:
"We ain't...seen anybody."
. Two kids stand up. The man in the coat, who might have been Stevie, is two kids, huddled on the bench in one coat. They separate. Walter slings on his poncho. As the woman realizes she was wrong the two kids slink back to the woods.
"Come back...."
The woman's voice is deep, lush to rough.
Walter slows a bit and looks back at her. The woman gets out an old plastic bandaid box that she keeps her cigarettes in and pops the lid and tilts and shakes it toward him. Walter looks at his friend.
"Gladys?..."
Gladys shrugs and grips Walter's right hand. They walk back to the bench.
"You guys smoke?"
The kids nod and keep an eye on this unexpected adult.
The woman's face is broad and pale. Her thick swath of black kohl around her eyes makes her gaze difficult to find.
Gladys and Walter sit on one half of the bench and the woman the other. Again the woman holds out her plastic bandage box of cheap filterless cigarettes. Gladys fishes out two
They all light up and look out over the dark park. The cigarettes are so harsh the kids puff on them like they might cigars.
The woman crosses her legs, one booted foot is rests on her other leg's knee. She sets her smallish satchel on the bench to her left. A definite smell rises out of the bag.
She looks at the two kids. Both the girl and boy are wearing brightly colored skirts and tops. Both have short buzzed hair.
"My name is Norma...."
"Gladys."
"Walter."
The woman nods.
"I knew.... I knew...you were not, Steve."
She looks back out over the park.
"I was confused to see anyone else in Winner's Park...at night."
Walter takes a little puff on his cigarette and stares at the woman. Gladys asks:
"You, like, meet your boyfriend here?"
Norma's cigarette stops in mid-motion to her lips. She scowls a little.
"Steve...was not my boyfriend. We were...in a rocknroll band."
Norma's mind digresses for a moment before she adds.
"But, yes, I used to meet Steve here. When it was a baseball field."
Walter looks around.
"How come, like, they made a baseball field into a...park?"
Norma doesn't answer, her mind has wandered again. Walter prompts her.
"How come?..."
Norma points to the park in front of them.
"Winners."
She points off in the dark toward the identical park in the distance on the north side of the road.
"Heroes."
"Steve was, like, a soldier?"
"Soldier?"
Norma laughs. Low and quiet, more like she is breathing hard. She smokes and looks around the dark park.
"No, he was not a soldier."
Norma looks at Walter and Gladys.
"Stevie was picked up by Team Jesus right away. One of the first, right after the Surgical Jesus Mind Project was launched. And pits..are convenient and easy to build. Just dig up a baseball field for instance..."
She looks back at the two kids.
"In the beginning, Kingson tried to put a good face on everything, as if no one understood what the Surgical Jesus Mind Project really was. Toward the end, Team Jesus just incinerated most of the heads and corpses and dumped the ashes in sewers and rivers... I'm lucky that I know Stevie got buried here."
Norma takes a long drag on her cigarette and exhales a long trail of smoke before going on.
"Once each pit was full of heads and headless corpses tanker trucks were brought in..like gasoline..and they poured acids and liquid quicklime over the dead... Followed by dump trucks of dirt and gravel."
Norma shrugs. And finally, add new topsoil and sod."
Norma smokes for a moment and then adds:
"The beautiful landscaping..."
Norma takes another long drag on her cigarette, the cherry glows brightly and shows her face in dim redness. The cigarette's bright coal jerks away from her lips as Norma points here and there in the darkness.
"Beauty bark where you have trouble getting things to grow."
Norma nods her head and gets out her bandaid box of cigarettes, and lights a fresh cigarette from the butt still smoldering between her deeply nicotine-stained fingers. She holds the box toward the kids, but they are still working on their first ones.
Slowly, and with exacting clarity, Norma repeats:
"Beau...ty...bark.... Beau...ty...bark...."
Norma glances at the children for some sort of confirmation. Gladys and Walter look at each other. Gladys hesitantly says:
"Like...everywhere.... I guess?"
Norma smiles, laughs a little, and then looks at the large man's wristwatch she is wearing.
"I never stay more than a half-hour or so."
"What time is it?"
"Nearly four.... The gardeners show up as early as five...."
"I'm cold, Walter."
"Just a minute, Gladys."
"She's right, it's cold. Let's go to our homes."
Norma stands and looks at the two kids.
"Home? No?"
Norma and the kids shrug in unison. Norma hums a some song her band did what seems like many years ago. She starts walking away. Gladys tugs at Walter's poncho. Walter pushes at Gladys and he asks the woman:
"But, why, like, do you come here, Norma? Every night?"
Norma walks back. She is amused. She opens her polycanvas satchel. There are a dozen or so bones and bone fragments in the satchel. The stink from the satchel is a heavy sticking-to-the-brain stink. A couple bones gleam white. Most are dirty with bits of corpse clinging to them. There are not enough bones in the satchel for a whole skeleton.
Norma smiles. Gladys and Walter look up from the bag of bones at Norma's face. She smiles again.
"I have to come at night. The gardeners spend the first couple hours of their day scouring for bone and bits.
"Early spring is the best. The freezing and thawing... Especially after a few days of rain."
She rattles her satchel and looks inside and picks up a small rib, like a child's maybe.
"It's not all Steve, you know...."
Norma looks down at the ground.
"And all that acid...dissolved a lot of the bones...."
Gladys and Walter aren't sure what to say.
Norma scrunches her face negatively.
"The acid-liquefied bone...congeals.... Into...pasty white calcium lumps...."
Norma looks at Walter, he nods.
"I don't pick those...of course.... They crumble. And stink."
Norma wrinkles her nose and sort of rolls the arced rib bone between her fingers. She holds it up. All three strain to study it in the dark.
She plops the bone back into the bag and zips it closed, shrugs and looks at her wristwatch. Norma looks at her wristwatch.
"We should all leave."
Done bone searching for the night, Norma pulls off the hair band and shakes out her long dark hair as she walks quickly away.
Gladys grabs Walter's hand and they hurry to the woods. As they get close to the trees someone hisses from the underbrush. Gladys and Walter jump and squeak, frightened. Gus pops up and gestures for them.
They get closer and Maude asks:
"Who was that?"
Gladys ignores her question and asks:
"Did you get our stuff?"
Gus throws Gladys her satchel. Gus is angry.
"I fucking told you...stay out of the park...."
Gladys yawns by way of ignoring Gus. Maude again asks:
"Who was that? What was she selling?"
"Huh?"
"What'd she have in the fucking bag? That she showed you...."
"Nothing...."
Maude glares. Gladys says:
"She wasn't selling nothing."
"She had something! I could see that."
This time Walter answers:
"Bones."
Gladys adds:
"People's bones...."
Maude raises her eyebrows as she looks at the two youngest.
"Bones?"
Gus does not believe them.
"People's bones? In the park?"
"There's lot's of people buried under these parks. You know, the Surgical Jesus thing..."
"People from rocknroll bands...."
Gus points up the wooded hill behind them.
"Like that one up in the hills?"
"No. Buried. In a pit. Lot's and lots of...."
Gladys looks for a better word. There isn't one.
"People from rocknroll bands..."
With no heads."
Walter adds. Maude nods, willing to accept that, but then she repeats:
"But, who is she?"
"I think...she's a rock star."
"Yeah, right...."
"No, it's true. A guy from her band is there. You know, buried."
Gus looks out at the park lawn spreading off into the darkness. Gladys yawns and shivers.
"I'm tired."
Walter nods.
"Yeah."
(originally published by Semiotext(e), as a part of their Native Agents fiction series)
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