Dirk Destroyer Part 11 Chapter 5 Part 2

This is the middle of a chapter that is about a quarter of the way through a novel that became obsolete before it could be published because Donald Trump is not mentioned.

For those of you still reading - my apologies.

“You’ve heard of Jonma.” said Akwar, somewhere between a question and a statement.

“Necromancy,” I said. “You find a Same, and the Same channels the thoughts of a dead person. But the Same retains his or her personality and thoughts; you’re never really sure when a Same is telling the truth. Even if you’ve dug up old Uriculous from his hellish vapors, that’s a pretty unreliable way of running your ministry. That’s why people don’t use Jonma much anymore.”

“That would be true,” said Akwar, who was suddenly no longer behind me, but standing in front of a door at the end of the hall, “if we used a Same.” She opened the door into a laboratory. Wires, tubes, and busy photons festooned the lab-like furnishings. Facing the door was a round-faced little man with a blank expression. Three clear tubes sprang out of his largely bald head. Each tube had a different color liquid running through it, blue and red liquids flowed in, brown sludgy liquid flowed out.

Suddenly, the face animated. The unfamiliar features took on a familiar expression. I shook my head in unbelief. “You found a Claim?” I asked.

“That’s right,” said Akwar. “Meet our Jonma Claim, but you may call him Director of MOIST, High Priest of the Thirty-Seven Really Good Ideas, Uriculous the Great!”

“Hello Elmer,” said Jonma Claim with just a hint of a lisp. “I’m happy you’ll be here for the end.”

“The end of what?” I asked, stupidly.

“The end,” said the Jonma, but before he could complete his sentence his face spasmed. A second expression, you might see on a frequently angry person of low intellect momentarily took over the visage.

“Too shmuch money in shpoliticsch!” he sputtered, throwing a gob of spittle onto Lustavious’ bandage. “No sHouse or Shenate member can do sche right shing with sho musch temptaschion!”

“One moment,” said Akwar, adjusting tubes. “Even a Claim sometimes fights back.”

Claims were people of sub-human intelligence. I wasn’t surprised that the Claim said something political; that’s where they were most often found.

Uriculous’ expression reclaimed Jonma Claim, though his eyes looked a little wild, like he’d just been thrown from horse he’d been told was safe and now found himself back in the saddle.

“Don’t think my little… interruptions are going to save you and your Brother, Elmer,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of time to realize my mistake. Now I have a chance to remove the Destroyer curse forever, and in Light Bringer Lustavious Brachenhun, I have just the tool to do it.”

Brachenhun smiled his wide smile. Some people enjoy being called a tool.

“The problem all along,” said Jonma Claim, “was you.”

“Me? I don’t make any trouble.”

“You bring your brother back,” Uriculous’ host sputtered, reliably finding Lustavious’ bandage once again.

“I don’t do a thing!” I protested. “I have no idea how Light Bringers send Dirk into oblivion, or how he comes back. Most of the time I don’t even know he’s back until I run into another Light Bringer.”

“That’s true,” said Jonma Claim. “You are stupid…” Again the Jonma Claim’s face sputtered and spasmed. “Schtupid, I say! I hardly knew Charles Keeting! We shared an elevator once – that’sch it! I didn’t take any money! I didn’t fall into temptation!” This was followed by a screeching caterwaul punctuated by intermittent hisses. It sounded like two cats were fighting inside the Jonma Claim. Akwar was busy working tubes. Lustavious was trying to remove spittle from his bandage using glass cleaner and a rag.

Jonma Claims are, by definition, among the stupidest humanoids that walk upright. There was only one reason that Uriculous’ ghost was having trouble controlling his Jonma Claim – it was that he wasn’t too bright either.

This came as no shock to me. I knew Uriculous Wisehind. Dirk used to torment the man mercilessly, and Uriculous’ only response was the use of governmental power. When people are too stupid to think for themselves, they gravitate to large punitive collectives like government to make them feel smart and relevant. Maybe Akwar and Lustavious were those kind of people as well, because I was the only person in that room that seemed to be comfortable with the empirical evidence that Uriculous the Great was actually Uriculous the Dim.

Who else would retranslate a whimsical “don’t bugger the sheep,” into a planet ruining, “don’t bug the sheep?”

“The transplant is incomplete,” said the restored Uriculous as if he knew what I was thinking. “Millennia of death spread my consciousness across the planet. Soon, I will be complete, and in complete control of this body. Then I will go with you and the Light Bringer’s party myself and make certain that this time – not only will Dirk Destroyer be cast into oblivion for all time… but you will be as well!”

Maybe I was as dim as Uriculous, but I hadn’t seen it coming. All this time doing everything I could to stay out of trouble and now I was to be cursed with eternal oblivion?

And what about Dirk? If I was the reason he was able to return from his torment, was it fair to take that away? Dirk wasn’t a bad guy. He was kind of fun. Sure, he didn’t have a lot of respect for Uriculous and others who abused power, but that didn’t seem to be a crime worthy of eternal oblivion.

Oh no, trouble for our protagonist! ‘Oh no,’ said my publisher, ‘it took you this long to create trouble for your protagonist!’ So much of life is perspective. What’s that? You don’t see it that way?

Now that we’ve introduced our first true character-caricature of an active politician, they’ll start coming faster. If you’re having trouble identifying these ne’er-do-wells, you can email me at gfreads@yahoo.com, or you can start a group to read the excerpts together and discuss it among yourselves.

Then your friends can buy Trouble in Taos link and Volition Man link.

What? You thought I didn’t like money?

And now, a political spot from Mr. Bean.

You Gonna Eat That?

Hoarders, Preppers, Members of the Church of Latter Day Saints – I have a question for you. I see you out buying large quantities of the stuff you’ll need when civilization crumbles.

Cream of chicken soup

Extra soft (and crumbly) toilet paper.

Non-rechargeable batteries

Knock-off brand Ramen noodles

Disposable lighters

File cabinet-sized boxes of Cheerios

The thing is – most of the stuff you want in a post-apocalyptic age, aren’t much good if the apocalypse is delayed by five or ten years. Apocalypses are notoriously unreliable when it comes to scheduling – just ask the Jehovah Witnesses.

A delayed deadly reckoning leaves you with dead batteries, empty lighters, vermin-infested dry foods, and distended cans of creamed botulism.

Once your goods are ruined – that's when you get the fire from the sky, the burning seas – all that stuff you might have been ready for if your Aloe Vera hadn’t lost its juicy texture.

 It’s almost as if Armageddon has it in for you.

The toilet paper is still good – but I can’t stand that crumbly soft stuff – especially when I’m trying to pass botulism flavored cereal vermin. It’s just the sort of thing to ruin your radio-active, zombie-ridden, unable-to-get-tickets-to-Thunderdome day.

The post apocalyptic world is not for sissies.

Which leaves us with this pre-apocalyptic world (the current one if you’re keeping track,) that is inconveniently cluttered with decaying barges of cheerios, cans of creamed soups, and batteries finding the end of their shelf life. Is this an efficient way of managing the here and now? Seeing as the catastrophic future is sure to disappoint, might we look for ways to make the present age less cumbersome?

After all – image how ironic it would be to have so much put by, just to have your brain become an entrée for the first wave of zombies. Who then will rifle through your collection of lighters looking for one with enough butane to burn the mountainous heap of infected (and only slightly undead) corpses piled up in your veranda?

You do all the work – miss all the fun. And during your last (pre-brain-eaten) days have no space in your home to unfold your ping-pong table.

Is it really worth it?

Maybe hoarding is a bit like those people who groan as they wrestle to reach the 35^th level of Gardens of Futility on the smart phones. Maybe the whole point in prepping is to enjoy the suffering before the entrails hit the fan.

Where-ever you find your joy.

You got any Pop-Tarts in that pile?

Alright - maybe not that funny.

Tee Shirts Again?

Having another Tee Shirt post is like when you have canned chili 6 days in a row because you can’t figure out what else to fix for dinner.

What it means is that I’ve gotten another wonderful issue of Things you never knew existed in my mail box. I sure appreciate the fine folks that I never knew existed for sending me this catalog – especially as I’ve never ordered from them.

What I have done is rip off their Tee Shirt slogans and put them on this blog.  Here's the best from them (that I haven't already ripped off in a previous post.)

People keep pointing this shirt out to me for some reason.

Now with 20% more nitrogen!

Still waiting on the punch line

And here's some from other sources

I knew God created hockey

Sorry clown fans...  Are there any?

So sweet - maybe due to diabetes

That's the spirit

This last group is from a tee shirt trend of making the body part of the message.  A lot of those won't pass the decency test (I failed that twice.)  Here are the cleaner ones.

Nerd-dom free from the weight of tie and pocket protector!

Way to go!

Hurts to look at.

Last couple are for the insufferable.

As long as that means I can go away.

VW did a bunch of these videos.  This is my favorite.

O2

Oxygen to the brain – over-rated, or not? Those of you with remaining grey matter, discuss it among yourselves.

As we get closer (age-wise,) to the big sleep, small sleep becomes more problematic. Sprawling face-down half on the floor, half on the couch after copious beer doesn’t seem to work as well as it did in our late teens.

Now we’re told that alcohol-induced coma is unhealthy and kills brain cells.

And snoring, which was nothing more than a source of amusement to our friends (or annoyance to our partners,) is now a serious symptom of sleep apnea.

Apnea, like alcohol-induced coma, is unhealthy and kills brain cells.

You can’t shut your eyes for a minute without grey matter flying off into the nether regions. No wonder we elect the politicians we do – we are devoid of reasoning material.

Zombies aren’t just a fad on TV - they are us.

I’m not sure if we are more fragile than we were, or have developed a generational obsessive paranoia. Either way, I’m constantly worried that I’m falling apart.

But if this is true of us, shouldn’t it also have been true of generations past?

I remember being a kid watching Dad. Dad would sit in his recliner and snore so loud that he’d wake up the cat. Helix (the cat) looked at Dad with that haughty pissed-off look only disturbed cats can do, and wandered off to find a place where the floor boards weren’t rattling. All of us little Hausers giggled, hoping for another exploit of Dad’s sonorous power like the time his vocalizations vibrated the potted violet off the shelf and shattered the velveteened ceramic Elvis that Uncle Harvey had gotten Mom for Christmas.

The point is back in the sixties and seventies we weren't worried about Dad not breathing – to say nothing about the cat, the violet, or the ugly Elvis effigy. Maybe Dad, being a survivor of the depression and a veteran of WW2, was tough enough to go eight hours a night without O2.

We, on the other hand, are oxygen wimps. I blame Dr. Spock. He spoiled us all.

not

So I guess that not breathing while I sleep is a problem. I don’t want one of those CPAP mini-ventilators, cause I might be confused for a mostly dead organ donor waiting for a patient needing corneas.

Instead, I set a wedge under my pillow, a stiff band-aid across the bridge of my nose, a plastic horseshoe in my nostrils and a gag-inducing retainer in my mouth. I turn on the sound machine to Oceans 2, purge my sleeping area of blue light, and set my air cleaner to “puree.”

If I was capable with all that crap, I might sigh nostalgically, thinking of how little I appreciated Dad’s machismo as he sawed wood in his recliner.

Or my own back in the days of six-pack comas on available couch cushions.

Come to think of it, we really much concerned with brain health in the sixties.

What is Creepy Part 3: Sweet Caroline

This the third post in a series that explores the question: what is creepy? If you want to see the first two posts, you can find them here and here2.

I have a Mormon friend whose favorite show is about zombies. Aren’t Mormons supposed to watch Leave it to Beaver? Apparently, zombies are not creepy. Vampires stopped being creepy thirty years ago. Body modifiers – those who reshape or amputate body parts as a form of expression, stopped being creepy twenty years ago (which I bet pisses some of them off. You cut off a finger and a nostril and people ignore it?)

Even terrorists are starting to become normalized. Sure, they kill people, but so does lightning. It’s just the chance you take with living.

Really?

So what is creepy?

How about Neil Diamond? They play Sweet Caroline during the 7^th inning stretch at Fenway Park, and everyone joins in with the chorus, because no one can remember the verses. It’s a good thing too. The verses are – well, you decide...

Hands, touchin' hands
Reachin' out, touchin' me touchin' you
Sweet Caroline…
But now I, look at the night
And it don't seem so lonely
We fill it up with only two…
Warm, touchin' warm
Reachin' out, touchin' me touchin' you
Sweet Caroline…

“So?” you say to me as if I can’t hear you across the cyber divide of blogdom, “he’s just a horny guy – the world is full of horny guys.”

And you’re right, but there’s a story behind the writing of Sweet Caroline – a story that didn’t come out until November of 2007.

"I've never discussed it with anybody before – intentionally. I thought maybe I would tell it to Caroline when I met her someday."

"It was a No 1 record and probably is the biggest, most important song of my career, and I have to thank her for the inspiration,"

Who was this Caroline that inspired such lust in Neil Diamond so many years ago? It was Caroline Kennedy – then eleven years old.

Asked how Caroline Kennedy responded when he revealed his obsession at her 50^th birthday celebration, Diamond replied:

"I'm happy to have gotten it off my chest and to have expressed it to Caroline. I thought she might be embarrassed, but she seemed to be struck by it and really, really happy."

She was “really, really happy?” She was happy that a thirty-year-old Neil Diamond fantasized about running his hands over her eleven-year-old body back in 1969, and made a song commemorating it?

Of course she was considering a run for the senate seat in NY at the time. So political considerations kept a woman from speaking out against pedophilia?

Politics – one thing that will always be creepy.

But why have that song at Fenway? Wouldn’t Yankee Stadium be a better fit?

Federally-Funded School for Nudist Zombies

My beloved abusive masters at Go Figure Reads dot com (gofigurereads.com) tell me that marketing is all about using key words and phrases that catch search engine interest. They suggested that I use a provocative title like FREE NUDE MONEY for my posts in order to gain readership. I told them I was above such things, and phrases like BEASTS GO WILD VIDEO, or SUPREME COURT JUSTICE EATS BABY, would not find its way onto my blog.

Integrity is its own reward…

Though I’d rather have money.

Speaking of money – I got a check from Time Warner Cable on Thursday. It was my refund for service not used when I shut down my account almost three months ago. At first they conveniently forgot that my account was closed and billed me for December and January – even got a little snooty about how delinquent I was. Finally, I sent them a certified letter, and six weeks later, they send me this check.

The whole thing felt familiar when I thought about it. It turns out that Time Warner has done this to me twice in the past. Billing a single ex-customer three times after the account was closed has to be a co-incidence. If a company like Time Warner made it a PRACTICE to bill ex-customers for service they weren’t providing, they might make millions of dollars from unwary bill-payers. They would never want to take money that wasn’t theirs by right, would they?

And wouldn’t that constitute mail-fraud?

It must be my imagination.

With the money theme in mind, I looked through my archives for something from that blissful time when I had money – when I was self-sufficient, secure, could afford cable TV, and mostly dry when it rained.

I was a smug SOB, but I can live with smug if it comes with a supply of unexpired Pop-Tarts in the cupboard.

Tell Me Again

This morning I woke to soothing music. I had my choice of many selections. I had control of the volume and the time it began.

I rose from a bed, clean of lice and vermin, covered with fine-spun cloths of many colors. A bed as soft as anything King Solomon might have owned

I stepped upon thick carpet, clean and new and pleasing to my toes

The air had a slight chill to it. I turned a knob on the wall, not doubting a moment that the room would soon be perfectly comfortable.

I walked to the next room where warm water cascaded over my body. I voided my wastes in a chair that sent them rushing cheerily out of sight and smell. I groomed myself with a variety of implements specifically designed for the care of hair, teeth, skin and nails, using cleansers formulated for pleasant smell, feel and taste. I dried my body with a great expanse of softened cotton.

I returned to my sleeping room and pulled from a voluminous closet, items from a large selection of shirts, pants, undergarments and shoes.

I walked to yet another room to prepare my morning meal. In this room was a large appliance that will both cool and freeze food. Next to it, an appliance that bakes, broils, fries or boils up to five foods at once at a variety of temperatures. Nearby sat a device designed to toast pre-sliced bread. Below that was a box to cook or thaw any food in a matter of minutes. A number of other devices that I rarely use cluttered the clean spacious counter.

I ate more than my body required.

I warned myself to stop.

Such abundance leads to obesity.

I left for work in a heated vehicle, enclosed from the elements, with a spring-cushioned seat. Though there were four seats, I traveled alone at a speed faster than any horse owned by Alexander the Great or locomotive used by John D. Rockefeller.

Though it was already two hours past dawn, I was on-time for work. I stopped work an hour before sunset. I didn’t sweat in all my labors. Most of the time, I sat in a soft chair adjusting both height and angle for comfort.

On the way home, I stopped at a beautiful marble building. In the building were rooms full of books on every subject. In one room were hundreds of musical and theatrical performances by the world’s finest performers stored in small packages. I selected a book, a package of music and 2 packages of theatre. I showed the attendant a card and took these items with me without cost.

They even said thank you.

I stopped again at a large market.

Fresh fruits and vegetables lined one wall. Most were out of season or not even grown in my region. They had been brought in from hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

There were milk products, pasteurized and tightly sealed in plastic or waxed cardboard. There were meats carefully wrapped in sanitized containers. There were prepared meals, soups, stews, salads, seasoned vegetables, cheeses, cakes and sweet drinks of many varieties. There were even items designed so that a person could eat or drink larger quantities without becoming obese.

I gathered what appealed to me. Though some items were expensive, most of the items were within my means.

Once home, I put a theatrical performance in a device located in a room I had not yet used that day. I sat in a chair that reclines, and viewed the performance while popcorn popped in an expanding enclosure in the appliance room.

When the popcorn was prepared, I commanded the performers to pause by pushing a button beside me.

Returning with my popcorn and fizzy non-fattening sweet drink, I sat, placing an electrically heated blanket across my legs and pushed two buttons beside me. The performers resumed but at a reduced volume. They showed not the least sigh of resentment.

Could Queen Elizabeth the first have commanded such attendance from Shakespeare’s players?

I yawned in my satisfaction and indolence.

Twenty percent of the world’s population would love to pick through my dumpster.

Census figures show that my income falls in the bottom twenty percent of American households.

Even the mighty hear only one song at a time.

Tell me again how poor we are.

Oh, I never did get to talking about that Nudist Zombie School. I meant to but it seems this post has closed. I blame Time Warner.