25 Fizzle dee dee

Jacked up on joy juice, jittery in the temple. Left one. I was in a city that had a Chinatown snowglobe, that's all I knew. Then I was gone.

I missed my incredible shrinking manhood docdad PsychDaddy T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, give me MORE capital letters and let my manhood bugger.

Clowns in my morning coffee: I drown them, then put them with the mac & cheese for later. Found myself crying because cars didn't have fins.

What the balls, you know? Not a drop of redemption in my shorts. Thought of an old broad at the hospital. Vigil Auntie: Vigilante. Praykill.

And now Auntie is my cleaning lady at Joy Motel. Steroid fueled mopqueen with biceps poppin'. Scours up the spilled blood in my braindrain.

She slips under my sheets when I'm not there, and sometimes when I am. Goes at me with a bristle toothbrush, cleaning my nooks and crannies.

I look ceiling-ish while she's busy. My head full of motor oil and my elbows dipped in sweet grease. Oh mama, gotta get goin' soon, eye hawk.

Postshower hobnobbin' in Tourette's. Meeks jawing about Nixon the Unshaven. Should nuke the North, he says. Flatten Hanoi, end it quick.

Need a plan, K thinks. Not random nukin'. Culhane's maps, coordinates from the Insane Unknown Offensive. Bullseye, bombsights hot white.

While Meeks is pontificating, Kindred's gaze eyeslides ten degrees left and he sees a static event afflict the bar TV mounted in the corner.

Crizzle de dizzle de bop, crackle me smackle on top. Picture fuzzy, image slipping. Weatherman transmogrifies into Bullet Eyes benificent.

He's holding something flat and black in his cupped palms, thumbs flicking cobra-like, tapping tap tapping. Face impassive, concentrating.

Holds it up, tiny screen with an image diffuse. Wait... there, it snaps into clarity on the Tourette's TV. Black man in a black overcoat.

More fizzle dee dee as the static roars in and out like a ghost train in a tunnel. The picture dances and settles. Black man. White teeth.

He's at a microphone in front of a sea of upturned faces. Millions of listeners, respectful connectful rainbow of skin colors, many crying.

Kindred glimpses the Washington Monument, banner says Inauguration. Black man? President? What alternate universe is this? Hallucination?

Twilight Zone? Kindred waits for Rod Serling to fix his universe in crisp, even tones, cigarette ready. You are watching an America where.

But Serling doesn't show and Kindred watches Bullet Eyes snap closed his plastic thingy and dissolve into gray dust and garish advertising.

Meeks flipchanges the channel and Reggie hammers a homer for the A's, white shoes, Catfish in the dugout pumping a fist, America's pastime.

Kindred slurches streetward with his pal Jim Beam snug pocketly and scrunches his collar to kill winter wind. Stands cornerish buswaiting.

Crosstown downtown fullblown paniczone. Snowplow crossways on the bridge jamstuck tween railings, riverice upcracking below, bang crackpop.

Kindred debarked bussish, hoofed it snowblind, Culhane's box tightgripped, begging to be opened, spillage of contents, download Disciples.

Boxfull namegrab defines mission, Kindred ready. Abort bomberama, one by one, stick in his thumb and pull out 12 plums, makepeace on Earth.

CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER