Mitch looked back at the dollbabe, further back the coppers pulling away from their crime scene. They'd watched from the corner, spectatin'.
Saw a bearded dude reach down, yank at something, then show the cops. Hot chippie on his arm, but Mitch's was snappier, man. Lots of lips.
They'd met at the State Lake, he had been looking for the Yesla Taproom, walked into the bigscreen viewing of NETIZEN CANE. Cheap ripoff.
Not stag stuff, where the hell did the colors come from. Then his eyes pingponged on the babe in blue with some glowing screen in her lap.
He sat down, bantered up that he was looking for the bar but that's the way the mop flops, she just smiled a smile, said call her Lili, mwa.
That Monroe thing, airkisses. Lili Sirenity. He took her tiny hand, did the Bobby but they call me Pall Mall scripteroo. She winked, said go.
They got gone, walked back towards Michigan Ave and the hotel, she was faster at getting to the short hairs than he had ever been. He moved.
Passed Sinatra, who looked way old. Frankie said he outlived Mitch, damn drunk. Said Mitch wore thick glasses & had jowls, Mitch: die first.
Then the bearded guy, the two chippies sizing each other up & down then up again. Mitch thinking threesome, dump pudge-o. 1 dame at a time.
Surprise, they went to the beach instead, sunset making the sand look like simmering coals. They took a pedway to avoid Lake Shore Drive.
Down steps that smelled like urine and sweat and cachet. The thin, silver, BIG purse Lili carried slapping sexy off her fine toned thigh.
The tunnel was like a bent spine, Mitch wondered if cops walked a beat down here, if they came across one night stands propped against walls?
Idle thoughts as he was led like an adult pull toy. He could smell the water now. Up the steps, heading east into the black, cars honk away.
Meanwhile: things had gotten crazy in the ripped timestream the all-knowing Pall Mall Mitchum UN-knowingly left at the other end of LSD.
Genghis Khan shivered morphed into Edward G. Robinson into J. Edgar Hoover wearing a push up bra and panties, toppling in matching pumps.
Evolvo-humans from the first lunar colony flew above the towers, collided and fell to the concrete as raindrops, Hoover in the mud got wet.
The first mime Pope of the First Vatican Bank signed autographs the year he was born, Sinatra regressed into a backseat toadie, moon sun.
Moon again. Red dot in the sky. Mitch almost stepped on an I LIKE IKE button, shinynew. The rust speck fell slow; no one saw Methane Man.
Drake Hotel, Playboy Building Palmolive Building Hugh Hefner turned 70 50 40 11, a curious case for a future dream, Mitch disruptive doomed.
He wanted to cop a feel, the doll flipped open her purse again, it was a tiny tv screen, fingers flew on silver letters ROBERT then MITCHUM.
He tried typing an apology note to his wife once, gave up, but some goon snapped a photo just the same, ended up in WINK September 1959.
Strange-o stuff coming up on the mini-TV. The doll, legs crossed, heels tossed. His films, STUMBLE UPON THE PAST, BALLAD OF TWITTER ROAD.
CAPE FACEBOOK. Then a photo, the NY POST, July 4th 1997. Mitch right there, saggy baggy and glasses like scotch tumblers. This was a scam.
Told the broad he'd catch her later, a lie. She said her career was coming up next, he shouted suave, Baby, I Don't Care! His signature.
Methane Man hovered close, waiting for Mitch to get out of sight, not that witnesses mattered, but the timestream was tricky: some recalled.
[to be continued]
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
91 Femdelicious jigglybits
Kindred and Sunday Benbow hand in hand on Walton, heading over to Michigan on a rumor. They say Sinatra popped through Overtone's skyrip.
When he was a kid Kindred pushed a bigcar highspeed through the desert with Frankie crooning as his soundtrack. Been in his head ever since.
Cop swarm guns out yellow tape two men down. I knew those guys, Kindred tells Sunday. Not personal, but I've seen their faces on posters.
Sal and Salt, muttered a big sergeant, Who'd a thunk these lugs could go down? Ain't they bin drivin' this bus? This thing is their idea.
Kindred pushed his way into the melee, elbows up. What the? Two humanholograms vibrating on the sidewalk, fakedatamagnets, not real guys.
He thrust his hand into Sal's heaving chest and pulled out the zonecapacitor and flipped it to a detective. It emitted a sadsingsong tweet.
Play that back, he told him. You'll get the whole story: Methane Man, Dick Overtone, Trinity, Kindred Tate... The cop stopped him. Tate?
What's Kindred Tate got to do with it? I heard boywonder timeskipped outta here and he ain't never comin' back. Oh, he's back, Kindred said.
There was a softclatter coming from Salt, like teeth chattering, or... a lobster dancing on a glass table. You hear that? Kindred demanded.
That's a million keyboards tapping, datadancing on Twitter, he's channeling the lifestreams though his capacitor. Vibrating damn netizen.
These guys aren't dead. Aren't even here. They're up in the sky somewhere, pulling strings. That's why Sinatra is on his way now, in 2012.
Limo sharked into the curb and Ol' Blue Eyes slid out, stood looking. Everyone followed his gaze. Pall Mall Mitchum ambling along, icecool.
Mitch glanced at Frankie, turned away, kept on softshoeing. Hooded cobra eyes, sneer, get outta my way bud, I don't care, I just don't care.
On his arm a liquid platinum blonde wearing stilettos, which set in motion all her femdelicious jigglybits as she uphurried to keep apace.
Sinatra mad, climbed back in the car and rolled away toward Oak Street Beach. Kindred put an arm around Sunday's waist and pulled her close.
Methane Man drifted above, what to do? Chicago definitely the coolest place in the universe now, with Dick Overtone's skyrip leaking time.
Clockchaos running rampant, decades tumbling end over end, years intersecting, passing through like lostnighttrains, ghostriders on the sky.
Sadeyed Mitch on the beach, early evening empty, water flat and black, sunlight dissipating. I got me an idea, honey, he drawls to his doll.
She's rubbing bare feet, stilettos off, curve of thigh sweeping up to softplaces a man from the 1940s shouldn't be thinking about in public.
Watch this, he says, and damned if he didn't walk upon the water, Hollywood man like they don't make 'em no more, doin' his own sweet thing.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
When he was a kid Kindred pushed a bigcar highspeed through the desert with Frankie crooning as his soundtrack. Been in his head ever since.
Cop swarm guns out yellow tape two men down. I knew those guys, Kindred tells Sunday. Not personal, but I've seen their faces on posters.
Sal and Salt, muttered a big sergeant, Who'd a thunk these lugs could go down? Ain't they bin drivin' this bus? This thing is their idea.
Kindred pushed his way into the melee, elbows up. What the? Two humanholograms vibrating on the sidewalk, fakedatamagnets, not real guys.
He thrust his hand into Sal's heaving chest and pulled out the zonecapacitor and flipped it to a detective. It emitted a sadsingsong tweet.
Play that back, he told him. You'll get the whole story: Methane Man, Dick Overtone, Trinity, Kindred Tate... The cop stopped him. Tate?
What's Kindred Tate got to do with it? I heard boywonder timeskipped outta here and he ain't never comin' back. Oh, he's back, Kindred said.
There was a softclatter coming from Salt, like teeth chattering, or... a lobster dancing on a glass table. You hear that? Kindred demanded.
That's a million keyboards tapping, datadancing on Twitter, he's channeling the lifestreams though his capacitor. Vibrating damn netizen.
These guys aren't dead. Aren't even here. They're up in the sky somewhere, pulling strings. That's why Sinatra is on his way now, in 2012.
Limo sharked into the curb and Ol' Blue Eyes slid out, stood looking. Everyone followed his gaze. Pall Mall Mitchum ambling along, icecool.
Mitch glanced at Frankie, turned away, kept on softshoeing. Hooded cobra eyes, sneer, get outta my way bud, I don't care, I just don't care.
On his arm a liquid platinum blonde wearing stilettos, which set in motion all her femdelicious jigglybits as she uphurried to keep apace.
Sinatra mad, climbed back in the car and rolled away toward Oak Street Beach. Kindred put an arm around Sunday's waist and pulled her close.
Methane Man drifted above, what to do? Chicago definitely the coolest place in the universe now, with Dick Overtone's skyrip leaking time.
Clockchaos running rampant, decades tumbling end over end, years intersecting, passing through like lostnighttrains, ghostriders on the sky.
Sadeyed Mitch on the beach, early evening empty, water flat and black, sunlight dissipating. I got me an idea, honey, he drawls to his doll.
She's rubbing bare feet, stilettos off, curve of thigh sweeping up to softplaces a man from the 1940s shouldn't be thinking about in public.
Watch this, he says, and damned if he didn't walk upon the water, Hollywood man like they don't make 'em no more, doin' his own sweet thing.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
90 Pall Mall Mitchum
Gold Coast, Chicago. Outside the Drake, SalSalt Suiteries, Pall Mall Mitchum stepped out rakishly and the girls swooned, a few men, as well.
The hat he wore in CAMP FEAR the cigars that one day kill him all over again, tattoed knuckles LOVE HATE souvenier of the preachery flick.
As with the arrowsmith at 39 So. State, a smudge of time had been zipped into Mitch's new fly, the past followed him out the door. Crooning.
Slapping to the beat as Genghis Khan beheaded Sal and Salt and then moved on to the 22nd century. An alleyway turned Technicolor, not good.
People shriked at CineScope, suddenly everyone seemed squished and fishey-eyed. Smoker dopers found it normal and robbed onlookers blind.
Every time Mitch snapped his fingers, he bopped a block south. Above him a faceless gargoyle blithered I Am Spartacus, sonsofbitches silence.
Whiter shades of pale grey and worse, his mission clear. People screaming streaming from the Oriental, he knew it well, screwed a dame here.
In the balcony, he knew the layout and he knew the good lays out in the shivering crowd. This is it: Pall Mall Mitchum vs. Frankenstein.
Lit a cigarette, the signature non-filter. The monster hated fire, not Frankenstein, he was thinking the producer on Babe-A Go-Go Junction.
Monster grunted, Mitchum parried. Took a puff, billboard style. Where were the cameras and where was the scotch? This was hangover square.
Swing a ding ding, Mitch on the ropes, Frank on the concrete steps arms swaying idiot savant clever. I see you, suave man, he stitched out.
To be honest, Mitch would mate with the Monster's Mate, if you know what we mean. But this was the first film, 1931, Frankenstein confused.
The monster swiped at our man Mitch, who mugged the crowds every moment he had. A guy who could beat the bad guy with only his good looks.
Should name this film FRANKENSTEIN CANNOT CLIMB, make all the words rhyme, the first Pall Mall Mitchum Monster Musical, worth Millions.
In the end, Mitch, all boozed out, unreeled the film, frames of monster Frank aflame from the light of Mitch's scotch, fiends by torchlight
grabbing at shards for take home souveniers really, no really, it was him, Pall Mall Mitchum was back from the dead I give you droll Lazarus
Clapped his hands, signed for the sequel (he wanted to boff that white-streaked baby bad so bad), then strolled off to catch the elevated.
Conductor announced: This is Horselover Fat, I'll be tripping you out for the next fifteen stops. Free blotter acid and Cubs tickets here.
He loved being back, not knowing this wasn't his story, the distortions behind him changing immediate futures. Methane Man felt sad re: RIP.
Such a cool adversary for Dick Overtone, but that was for other realities, the snowflake earths, not the ones spit out by Joy Motel turbines.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
The hat he wore in CAMP FEAR the cigars that one day kill him all over again, tattoed knuckles LOVE HATE souvenier of the preachery flick.
As with the arrowsmith at 39 So. State, a smudge of time had been zipped into Mitch's new fly, the past followed him out the door. Crooning.
Slapping to the beat as Genghis Khan beheaded Sal and Salt and then moved on to the 22nd century. An alleyway turned Technicolor, not good.
People shriked at CineScope, suddenly everyone seemed squished and fishey-eyed. Smoker dopers found it normal and robbed onlookers blind.
Every time Mitch snapped his fingers, he bopped a block south. Above him a faceless gargoyle blithered I Am Spartacus, sonsofbitches silence.
Whiter shades of pale grey and worse, his mission clear. People screaming streaming from the Oriental, he knew it well, screwed a dame here.
In the balcony, he knew the layout and he knew the good lays out in the shivering crowd. This is it: Pall Mall Mitchum vs. Frankenstein.
Lit a cigarette, the signature non-filter. The monster hated fire, not Frankenstein, he was thinking the producer on Babe-A Go-Go Junction.
Monster grunted, Mitchum parried. Took a puff, billboard style. Where were the cameras and where was the scotch? This was hangover square.
Swing a ding ding, Mitch on the ropes, Frank on the concrete steps arms swaying idiot savant clever. I see you, suave man, he stitched out.
To be honest, Mitch would mate with the Monster's Mate, if you know what we mean. But this was the first film, 1931, Frankenstein confused.
The monster swiped at our man Mitch, who mugged the crowds every moment he had. A guy who could beat the bad guy with only his good looks.
Should name this film FRANKENSTEIN CANNOT CLIMB, make all the words rhyme, the first Pall Mall Mitchum Monster Musical, worth Millions.
In the end, Mitch, all boozed out, unreeled the film, frames of monster Frank aflame from the light of Mitch's scotch, fiends by torchlight
grabbing at shards for take home souveniers really, no really, it was him, Pall Mall Mitchum was back from the dead I give you droll Lazarus
Clapped his hands, signed for the sequel (he wanted to boff that white-streaked baby bad so bad), then strolled off to catch the elevated.
Conductor announced: This is Horselover Fat, I'll be tripping you out for the next fifteen stops. Free blotter acid and Cubs tickets here.
He loved being back, not knowing this wasn't his story, the distortions behind him changing immediate futures. Methane Man felt sad re: RIP.
Such a cool adversary for Dick Overtone, but that was for other realities, the snowflake earths, not the ones spit out by Joy Motel turbines.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
89 BigMother MapViewer
Kindred did not know of the tempustrictures, the squuezing of time in seven dimensional terms. And so it caused a dilemma at 39 So. State.
An archer in the old Stevens Building tore time as the arrow hit his target, a huge bastard wearing a Lush Rimbo skullcap and paisley tie.
No Escape button to delete and start over tabula rasa Lushly loose, no thread trapped no magnetic spool of being jammed by fate's fluke.
Over and again, Robin Hood meets Oliver Hardy, timelocked, the same sceneseen 73 days themp clump yell thwip arrow tip Huffington Post-made.
Yet, steps away, life went on, the fight went on, no one seing the worse to come, minor skirmishes for kiosks or subway entrances, new homes
The temportals had dropped like sheets in a morgue, borne on Lake Michigan winds, the Red Balloon Baron watching the MoreOrLessWarOf2012.
Time layers pillowpoked the Trump Tower antennae, RKO beepbeepbeeped scenes from MONSTER OF SIERRA BLANCAS into a hundred pedestrian minds.
They ran screaming, unmissed by the teal construction workers and pizza pie delivery men. Then the Hancock, the insides became discotown.
Burly security guards bumping can you take me to, Funkytown? Nanotube Bandits took a chance to rob three banks. Time was in the air, baby.
Time spread like a blanket and Kenosha, Wisconsin went Neolithic, just likethat snap snap. Cave drawings made you new mayor chick magnet.
Kindred and Sunday, K Tate and Lala, out and about exploring post-war Chicago. Kindred and Sunday naked on top the Grant Park bandshell.
Explicit images blurred like an amateur stag film. They both laughed at the absurdity of it, Kindred's gut was what should be blurred out.
Well, that's what happens when you flaunt it full view as BigMother MapViewer drones overhead. Like reporting news with a gun at your head.
K Tate and Lala were more generic with their affections and their affectations. No blurs there, the sun shone in the flowers in Lala's hair.
Yet, madness was afoot. The State-Lake Theater reappeared where the Oprah Building had stood, the WLS affiliate borrowing 3rd floor offices.
Timewaves passed Art Institute dorms, replaced with destitute SROs and electrolysis doctors. At least Ronny's Steaks #3 was back in place.
Blue skies changed as Tesla coils rose from Snow Route signs. The sandblasted building went back to non-landmark crappiness, Chicago's own.
Culhane as Mr. Saigon in UNKNOWN WARTIME backed by wicked witches and cats. Now greying to dark wounds and stapled body parts. Grunting.
Blocks away, the timewave hit the Drake Hotel, and back from death he came: Pall Mall Mitchum, star of sixty-three films. Carried a big set.
Hawaiian shirt bound, scotch in hand, Pall Mall the Mitch needed a babe on each arm and one playing with his head mop, elevator time, bing!
He passed Bjorn Clooney in the lobby, not knowing one had played the other in a biopic made in Sweden before Scandinavia fell forever gone.
Boppity bop baby I don't care I do NOT care just ruffle my hair let me grab your waist honeybun. Mitch realized he was dressed like a golfer.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
An archer in the old Stevens Building tore time as the arrow hit his target, a huge bastard wearing a Lush Rimbo skullcap and paisley tie.
No Escape button to delete and start over tabula rasa Lushly loose, no thread trapped no magnetic spool of being jammed by fate's fluke.
Over and again, Robin Hood meets Oliver Hardy, timelocked, the same sceneseen 73 days themp clump yell thwip arrow tip Huffington Post-made.
Yet, steps away, life went on, the fight went on, no one seing the worse to come, minor skirmishes for kiosks or subway entrances, new homes
The temportals had dropped like sheets in a morgue, borne on Lake Michigan winds, the Red Balloon Baron watching the MoreOrLessWarOf2012.
Time layers pillowpoked the Trump Tower antennae, RKO beepbeepbeeped scenes from MONSTER OF SIERRA BLANCAS into a hundred pedestrian minds.
They ran screaming, unmissed by the teal construction workers and pizza pie delivery men. Then the Hancock, the insides became discotown.
Burly security guards bumping can you take me to, Funkytown? Nanotube Bandits took a chance to rob three banks. Time was in the air, baby.
Time spread like a blanket and Kenosha, Wisconsin went Neolithic, just likethat snap snap. Cave drawings made you new mayor chick magnet.
Kindred and Sunday, K Tate and Lala, out and about exploring post-war Chicago. Kindred and Sunday naked on top the Grant Park bandshell.
Explicit images blurred like an amateur stag film. They both laughed at the absurdity of it, Kindred's gut was what should be blurred out.
Well, that's what happens when you flaunt it full view as BigMother MapViewer drones overhead. Like reporting news with a gun at your head.
K Tate and Lala were more generic with their affections and their affectations. No blurs there, the sun shone in the flowers in Lala's hair.
Yet, madness was afoot. The State-Lake Theater reappeared where the Oprah Building had stood, the WLS affiliate borrowing 3rd floor offices.
Timewaves passed Art Institute dorms, replaced with destitute SROs and electrolysis doctors. At least Ronny's Steaks #3 was back in place.
Blue skies changed as Tesla coils rose from Snow Route signs. The sandblasted building went back to non-landmark crappiness, Chicago's own.
Culhane as Mr. Saigon in UNKNOWN WARTIME backed by wicked witches and cats. Now greying to dark wounds and stapled body parts. Grunting.
Blocks away, the timewave hit the Drake Hotel, and back from death he came: Pall Mall Mitchum, star of sixty-three films. Carried a big set.
Hawaiian shirt bound, scotch in hand, Pall Mall the Mitch needed a babe on each arm and one playing with his head mop, elevator time, bing!
He passed Bjorn Clooney in the lobby, not knowing one had played the other in a biopic made in Sweden before Scandinavia fell forever gone.
Boppity bop baby I don't care I do NOT care just ruffle my hair let me grab your waist honeybun. Mitch realized he was dressed like a golfer.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
88 Sunday Benbow
The New York bankers attacked at dawn, their skiffs and barges silently bumping against the Chicago docks as wharf rats scurried for cover.
They were led by an unemployed stockbroker named Sunday Benbow, who sported a mane of dirty blonde hair and a scarred leather breastplate.
She commanded some 30,000 urban warriers, refugees from the Climate Change eastcoast floods, known as the "Clamato" floods, (paid sponsor).
She had studied Napoleonic tactics in business school at Wharton, in the guise of learning more effective cold-calling telephone techniques.
Her troops: desperate ex-tellers, laid-off investment advisors, fat Vice Presidents of Office Supply Procurement offered early retirement.
They swarmed up urban canyons, the sadly out-of-shape among them flagging down cabs that saw a windfall financial bonanza in increased tips.
This day, historians said, had to come. America's two great cities at war, the War of 2012, driven by rogue out-of-towners, the Financials.
Methane Man drifting far above, dodging weather balloons and low-flying satellites, saw the insurgents advance toward the heart of the city.
In Joy Motel, Kindred was flipping channels. The morning rush hour news had it all live, breathless reporters stunned by the developments.
They threw together flashy graphics calling the conflict, unimaginatively, Cities at War. Cabbies renamed it NooYawkBastids, which stuck.
Kindred felt a familiar stirring in his loins. No, not that kind of stirring. It was a call to battle, his experience in Vietnam awakening.
He went outside and saw several hundred men armed with baseball bats and garden rakes marching past, angry Chicagoans, ready to rumble.
Kindred fell in and began to organize them from within, a group here, a cell there. By the time they got downtown, he was their leader.
He sent squadrons down sidestreets to work their way around and strike from the rear. He put archers in office towers, claiming high ground.
Those with handguns, assault rifles, mortars, grenades, tripwire, plastic explosives, bazookas, sniper gear, ammo, he moved as chesspieces.
It soon became apparent, after initial clashes by the NooYawkBastids were easily rebuffed, that Kindred knew his stuff. A summit was called.
Sunday Benbow met Kindred for dinner 'n drinks at a swanky eaterie, an intimate soiree led to hankypanky, Do Not Disturb on the doorknob.
They hashed out their conflict between the sheets, Kindred taking a very firm position, Sunday Benbow most receptive, even moistly pliant.
The maid thought she heard moaning, even groaning, perhaps someone was injured in there, or worse, but no, it wasn't that, it was pleasure.
A deal was struck, Kindred withdrew, the troops stood down and a holiday was named: the first Sunday in June became known as Sunday Benbow.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
They were led by an unemployed stockbroker named Sunday Benbow, who sported a mane of dirty blonde hair and a scarred leather breastplate.
She commanded some 30,000 urban warriers, refugees from the Climate Change eastcoast floods, known as the "Clamato" floods, (paid sponsor).
She had studied Napoleonic tactics in business school at Wharton, in the guise of learning more effective cold-calling telephone techniques.
Her troops: desperate ex-tellers, laid-off investment advisors, fat Vice Presidents of Office Supply Procurement offered early retirement.
They swarmed up urban canyons, the sadly out-of-shape among them flagging down cabs that saw a windfall financial bonanza in increased tips.
This day, historians said, had to come. America's two great cities at war, the War of 2012, driven by rogue out-of-towners, the Financials.
Methane Man drifting far above, dodging weather balloons and low-flying satellites, saw the insurgents advance toward the heart of the city.
In Joy Motel, Kindred was flipping channels. The morning rush hour news had it all live, breathless reporters stunned by the developments.
They threw together flashy graphics calling the conflict, unimaginatively, Cities at War. Cabbies renamed it NooYawkBastids, which stuck.
Kindred felt a familiar stirring in his loins. No, not that kind of stirring. It was a call to battle, his experience in Vietnam awakening.
He went outside and saw several hundred men armed with baseball bats and garden rakes marching past, angry Chicagoans, ready to rumble.
Kindred fell in and began to organize them from within, a group here, a cell there. By the time they got downtown, he was their leader.
He sent squadrons down sidestreets to work their way around and strike from the rear. He put archers in office towers, claiming high ground.
Those with handguns, assault rifles, mortars, grenades, tripwire, plastic explosives, bazookas, sniper gear, ammo, he moved as chesspieces.
It soon became apparent, after initial clashes by the NooYawkBastids were easily rebuffed, that Kindred knew his stuff. A summit was called.
Sunday Benbow met Kindred for dinner 'n drinks at a swanky eaterie, an intimate soiree led to hankypanky, Do Not Disturb on the doorknob.
They hashed out their conflict between the sheets, Kindred taking a very firm position, Sunday Benbow most receptive, even moistly pliant.
The maid thought she heard moaning, even groaning, perhaps someone was injured in there, or worse, but no, it wasn't that, it was pleasure.
A deal was struck, Kindred withdrew, the troops stood down and a holiday was named: the first Sunday in June became known as Sunday Benbow.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
87 Daddy baggage
The changes were subtle and Methane Man said nothing. Not yet. It might just be a tempuripple, a quantum burp. Interactive lake squall.
Back in 1954, he had floated high above Fullerton Avenue, silently watched a swirl of Lake Michigan, a suction of dumb fate, move forward.
Slapgrab eleven fishermen rubberbands, returning only three. One man caught a big one, then threw it back out of pity but still took a photo
and eighteen minutes later he was hundreds of feet into the lake, horizons of blue, like 2012 Manhattan, the building fragments Dick O teeth
Methane Man's memories co-existed as one, alkane and parrafin molecules riffing off one another in the confines of the suit, JFK died today
RFK died last week, there were no turbines in Methane Man's brain, he was simply shapeless and formless, the exact opposite of Joy Motel.
Let them enjoy their father and son reunion, let Lala wanderfrollick, Chicago already rebuilding itself, the dead helping the almost dead.
One of the first things Methane Man had sensed, then seen, then knew was wrong. Kindred past his deathtime nodoubtno. The spectrum was true.
Corpses were always teal. And yet here they were upright and moving with decision wearing construction hats or baking pies or shining shoes.
This city had crumbledtumbled in 2009, Methane Man had been in New Zealand then. An impeached governor, a bad toupee, a cult of clout.
Anarchy in the streets worse than the Dem Con in '68, the OJ verdict, the Bulls' six trophies held high as homies burned cabs & storefronts.
Kindred taking a brainsnooze, K Tate now with his LalaLove, look! at the blue sky caressing the blue water not seeing the teal dead at work.
Newsstands were back, using his paraffinic vision, Methane Man scanned to see if Tales to Confound was still in print. It Girl, TimesPast.
SalSalt Quarterly. Reality & SciFi. He was saddened, the only place someone had read his true name. V'aliss. He was no superhero. MM, pft.
Anonymous forever. Yet he could protect these three. Snapsnapsnap three times on the brainpan if you want me. It wasn't the brainstreams.
He understood how those had worked. Corrupt, clean, in-between. Crissycross, blipgone in 1968, he waited for their return, nowhere to go.
Back in 2012, thought it was expected, after all. Chicago and not NY was surprising as was the added daddy baggage. This was all wrong.
He could see hear the tubular whines, workers quintupled by upandatom random dead, more. Rumbles of war, an occasional biplane, WWI again.
Not so bad that dinosaurs would visit from Japan's Lost Isle, not so bad that Trinity would flare up retinas like the Chicago Fire x 100000.
But enough. Floating high, he saw the misanthropic visagery. How long before the unreality wafted to ground level with the teal rebuilders?
Memories happen all at the same time and he watched as a summer sprinkle made K Tate and Lala prance, yet before they had appeared, before.
That same summer shower had happened last week. Time was fracturing. The Red Baron flew as a bright kite. Televisions all tuned to JFK death
If only they would pay attention. The biplane was replaced by the 1964 UFO with reptile man at the controls. Then he saw himself yesterday.
Day became night, awake became sleep. Silence became scream. K Tate was surprised that the shriek had come from Kindred's fatherly lips.
The big man was shaking. Looked like he was crying, made Lala look northward. He said the sky tore, ripped by fingers: Dick Overtone's.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
Back in 1954, he had floated high above Fullerton Avenue, silently watched a swirl of Lake Michigan, a suction of dumb fate, move forward.
Slapgrab eleven fishermen rubberbands, returning only three. One man caught a big one, then threw it back out of pity but still took a photo
and eighteen minutes later he was hundreds of feet into the lake, horizons of blue, like 2012 Manhattan, the building fragments Dick O teeth
Methane Man's memories co-existed as one, alkane and parrafin molecules riffing off one another in the confines of the suit, JFK died today
RFK died last week, there were no turbines in Methane Man's brain, he was simply shapeless and formless, the exact opposite of Joy Motel.
Let them enjoy their father and son reunion, let Lala wanderfrollick, Chicago already rebuilding itself, the dead helping the almost dead.
One of the first things Methane Man had sensed, then seen, then knew was wrong. Kindred past his deathtime nodoubtno. The spectrum was true.
Corpses were always teal. And yet here they were upright and moving with decision wearing construction hats or baking pies or shining shoes.
This city had crumbledtumbled in 2009, Methane Man had been in New Zealand then. An impeached governor, a bad toupee, a cult of clout.
Anarchy in the streets worse than the Dem Con in '68, the OJ verdict, the Bulls' six trophies held high as homies burned cabs & storefronts.
Kindred taking a brainsnooze, K Tate now with his LalaLove, look! at the blue sky caressing the blue water not seeing the teal dead at work.
Newsstands were back, using his paraffinic vision, Methane Man scanned to see if Tales to Confound was still in print. It Girl, TimesPast.
SalSalt Quarterly. Reality & SciFi. He was saddened, the only place someone had read his true name. V'aliss. He was no superhero. MM, pft.
Anonymous forever. Yet he could protect these three. Snapsnapsnap three times on the brainpan if you want me. It wasn't the brainstreams.
He understood how those had worked. Corrupt, clean, in-between. Crissycross, blipgone in 1968, he waited for their return, nowhere to go.
Back in 2012, thought it was expected, after all. Chicago and not NY was surprising as was the added daddy baggage. This was all wrong.
He could see hear the tubular whines, workers quintupled by upandatom random dead, more. Rumbles of war, an occasional biplane, WWI again.
Not so bad that dinosaurs would visit from Japan's Lost Isle, not so bad that Trinity would flare up retinas like the Chicago Fire x 100000.
But enough. Floating high, he saw the misanthropic visagery. How long before the unreality wafted to ground level with the teal rebuilders?
Memories happen all at the same time and he watched as a summer sprinkle made K Tate and Lala prance, yet before they had appeared, before.
That same summer shower had happened last week. Time was fracturing. The Red Baron flew as a bright kite. Televisions all tuned to JFK death
If only they would pay attention. The biplane was replaced by the 1964 UFO with reptile man at the controls. Then he saw himself yesterday.
Day became night, awake became sleep. Silence became scream. K Tate was surprised that the shriek had come from Kindred's fatherly lips.
The big man was shaking. Looked like he was crying, made Lala look northward. He said the sky tore, ripped by fingers: Dick Overtone's.
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86 Rod Serling
Kindred comfortable here: not much has changed in 40 odd years. Same tired old carpet, same torn drapes. Musty molecules turgid in closets.
Dick Overtone long dead now, but his image is everywhere, webburned into the local datastream penetrating the consciousness of every guest.
He is like a sour smell that persists long after its source has been removed, disinfected, purged. His yellow teeth, his mustardstained tie.
Worse, his giggling laugh, mildly annoying when heard in person, but discombobulating when used as the ringtone for every bedside telephone.
DickO is the first thing you see imprinted on your retina when you awaken to dirty sunlight filtering through the skin of the windowglass.
He is the last thing you see when your brain shuts down after midnight, and your dreams of America when it was once mighty, flicker and die.
Psychdaddy, too, is no longer here, though Kindred sat alone in the doctor's room for an hour, waiting for him to emerge from the bathroom.
Docdad's notepads are still scattered across his bed, halfburied under crumpled and faded daisy-patterned pillowcases unwashed for decades.
Out in the hall, the Watcher's woodenchair is tipped back against his doorframe, a gumwrapper folded into the shape of Methane Man below it.
His door is open, the sound of his television playing an episode from the Twilight Zone, snarling Rod Serling biting off acerbic commentary.
Soundtrack fizzes and pops, mixing with running water and the insistent drone of a lazy vacuum cleaner with a full bag picking up nothing.
Kindred arrives in the restaurant of Joy Motel. Menu in pinkchalk on a greasy board, dripping slimesmoke of a thousand overcooked burgers.
Lala is bent over picking up a knife. Kindred automatically absorbs the sweep of her ass, jeanskinned taut denim, his greeneyes pokerflat.
K Tate is swaying at the window, his head angled, soaking up the datastream in the air, breathing it deeply, diving headlong back into 2012.
Methane Man, outside his room for the first time as far as Kindred is aware, is bobbing gently against the tile ceiling avoiding sharpedges.
Familiar diving bell helmet, pipes and tubes, spacesuit fraying, the gasball from Saturn explains why they made a forty-four year timejump.
They had reached the point in 1968 when Sharon Tate's foetus had become K Tate and there couldn't be two of him, even in fetal form.
K Tate's brainstream withered, dried apple on a dying branch, fell through the years. Lala rode it home, sylph duty of interpretation done.
Kindred? He was a problem. By grabbing K Tate's arm, he had joyhitched a wildskyride with his own son into a future beyond his own death.
To go back where he came from, he would have to endure a brainstream of his own. If he wanted to go back. A big if. But he had no option.
If he decided to stay here in 2012, Kindred would die. Wouldn't he? He had to. After all, he was already dead. Unless K Tate changed that.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
Dick Overtone long dead now, but his image is everywhere, webburned into the local datastream penetrating the consciousness of every guest.
He is like a sour smell that persists long after its source has been removed, disinfected, purged. His yellow teeth, his mustardstained tie.
Worse, his giggling laugh, mildly annoying when heard in person, but discombobulating when used as the ringtone for every bedside telephone.
DickO is the first thing you see imprinted on your retina when you awaken to dirty sunlight filtering through the skin of the windowglass.
He is the last thing you see when your brain shuts down after midnight, and your dreams of America when it was once mighty, flicker and die.
Psychdaddy, too, is no longer here, though Kindred sat alone in the doctor's room for an hour, waiting for him to emerge from the bathroom.
Docdad's notepads are still scattered across his bed, halfburied under crumpled and faded daisy-patterned pillowcases unwashed for decades.
Out in the hall, the Watcher's woodenchair is tipped back against his doorframe, a gumwrapper folded into the shape of Methane Man below it.
His door is open, the sound of his television playing an episode from the Twilight Zone, snarling Rod Serling biting off acerbic commentary.
Soundtrack fizzes and pops, mixing with running water and the insistent drone of a lazy vacuum cleaner with a full bag picking up nothing.
Kindred arrives in the restaurant of Joy Motel. Menu in pinkchalk on a greasy board, dripping slimesmoke of a thousand overcooked burgers.
Lala is bent over picking up a knife. Kindred automatically absorbs the sweep of her ass, jeanskinned taut denim, his greeneyes pokerflat.
K Tate is swaying at the window, his head angled, soaking up the datastream in the air, breathing it deeply, diving headlong back into 2012.
Methane Man, outside his room for the first time as far as Kindred is aware, is bobbing gently against the tile ceiling avoiding sharpedges.
Familiar diving bell helmet, pipes and tubes, spacesuit fraying, the gasball from Saturn explains why they made a forty-four year timejump.
They had reached the point in 1968 when Sharon Tate's foetus had become K Tate and there couldn't be two of him, even in fetal form.
K Tate's brainstream withered, dried apple on a dying branch, fell through the years. Lala rode it home, sylph duty of interpretation done.
Kindred? He was a problem. By grabbing K Tate's arm, he had joyhitched a wildskyride with his own son into a future beyond his own death.
To go back where he came from, he would have to endure a brainstream of his own. If he wanted to go back. A big if. But he had no option.
If he decided to stay here in 2012, Kindred would die. Wouldn't he? He had to. After all, he was already dead. Unless K Tate changed that.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
85 Redlatex invitation
K Tate and Lala settled into an easy rhythm, the days sliding under the door and into the void, Chicago streets teeming, Panopticon humming.
The glass globe empty, no sign of activity from Kindred or Dick Overtone, the chase petrified, on hold, if it ever existed, brainstreamed.
K Tate took a job unloading carrots and beets at FoodFeud, pallets disgorging vegetables by the ton, he grew stronger by the day, musclepop.
Lala rode his brainstream through thunderclaps concussive, interpreting future past, but she could sense his timeslippage was nearly done.
Some sudden event, some unexpected smacker, some sneeze or snort or clanger. K Tate on the edge now, it wouldn't take much to send him home.
Brainstream dwindling, the beckoning embrace of 2012, life where it belonged, where data blew through leafless winter oaks, up city noses.
It happened on a dull gray Wednesday at a quarter to three. K Tate had just lifted a bushel of onions onto his shoulder and there he was.
Kindred standing near the powerlift, still as stone, flat eyes cold. K Tate defenseless, Kindred programmed by Dick Overtone, time to kill.
But Kindred softened. How could he kill his own son? He lifted the onions from K Tate's trembling hands, 90 pounds as if the box was empty.
And just like that, K Tate's brainstream ended, he was lit from within neonblue and flaring, countdown to the future, Lala ready to ride.
Kindred: Take me with you. Grabbing K Tate's arm and electronpull surge snapwhipped all three of them forward, tumbling dice, purechance.
Vague impression of the eastern floods, New York awash, bankers adrift in leaking boats, westward ho. Across Ohio and Michigan, 30,000 feet.
In a heartblink they landed exactly where they were, in Chicagoland, behind the same foodmarket, Kindred grasping K Tate's arm, Lala too.
But now it's 2012, past was prologue, gone but not forgotten, K Tate where he belongs, liberator hero, data flowing in the air, freebasing.
Lala bone exhausted, she had been riding K Tate's 1960s brainstream for eons. Kindred wary, carried forward in time well past his own death.
Cats wandered by, skulls burned bald by datastreamsear, painless side effect of submolecular postInternet syndrome. Kindred's head expanded.
Methane Man released a red balloon, skipping pap pap pap scuffing along the brick wall of the Joy Motel, extension of self, explorer cell.
Redlatex invitation, note on redstring: Join me for an evening of realtime discussion in the restaurant at Joy Motel, come one come all.
Your rooms are reserved and paid for, courtesy of Methane Man. You'll be next to me. Kindred on one side, K Tate and Lala on the other.
K Tate pocketing the note, a glance at Kindred: Follow me. Down undulating hallways, turbines rumbling, Overtone there even when he wasn't.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
The glass globe empty, no sign of activity from Kindred or Dick Overtone, the chase petrified, on hold, if it ever existed, brainstreamed.
K Tate took a job unloading carrots and beets at FoodFeud, pallets disgorging vegetables by the ton, he grew stronger by the day, musclepop.
Lala rode his brainstream through thunderclaps concussive, interpreting future past, but she could sense his timeslippage was nearly done.
Some sudden event, some unexpected smacker, some sneeze or snort or clanger. K Tate on the edge now, it wouldn't take much to send him home.
Brainstream dwindling, the beckoning embrace of 2012, life where it belonged, where data blew through leafless winter oaks, up city noses.
It happened on a dull gray Wednesday at a quarter to three. K Tate had just lifted a bushel of onions onto his shoulder and there he was.
Kindred standing near the powerlift, still as stone, flat eyes cold. K Tate defenseless, Kindred programmed by Dick Overtone, time to kill.
But Kindred softened. How could he kill his own son? He lifted the onions from K Tate's trembling hands, 90 pounds as if the box was empty.
And just like that, K Tate's brainstream ended, he was lit from within neonblue and flaring, countdown to the future, Lala ready to ride.
Kindred: Take me with you. Grabbing K Tate's arm and electronpull surge snapwhipped all three of them forward, tumbling dice, purechance.
Vague impression of the eastern floods, New York awash, bankers adrift in leaking boats, westward ho. Across Ohio and Michigan, 30,000 feet.
In a heartblink they landed exactly where they were, in Chicagoland, behind the same foodmarket, Kindred grasping K Tate's arm, Lala too.
But now it's 2012, past was prologue, gone but not forgotten, K Tate where he belongs, liberator hero, data flowing in the air, freebasing.
Lala bone exhausted, she had been riding K Tate's 1960s brainstream for eons. Kindred wary, carried forward in time well past his own death.
Cats wandered by, skulls burned bald by datastreamsear, painless side effect of submolecular postInternet syndrome. Kindred's head expanded.
Methane Man released a red balloon, skipping pap pap pap scuffing along the brick wall of the Joy Motel, extension of self, explorer cell.
Redlatex invitation, note on redstring: Join me for an evening of realtime discussion in the restaurant at Joy Motel, come one come all.
Your rooms are reserved and paid for, courtesy of Methane Man. You'll be next to me. Kindred on one side, K Tate and Lala on the other.
K Tate pocketing the note, a glance at Kindred: Follow me. Down undulating hallways, turbines rumbling, Overtone there even when he wasn't.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
84 Nightwind dark
Nightwind dark, floating I go westward, Iowa slipstreams redolent with the sweet airiness of summer corn, yellow sunspots tickle my sensors.
Adrift on American dreams, small boys batting apples in overgrown outfields, someday Yankees, fantasy of everlasting hope, I see all below.
Ancient river canyons carved by determined glaciers scouring the slate to begin anew, brave settlers forging pathways to mysterious horizons
Young lovers in St. Louis skipping handheld across a weathered bridge, her smile a sly promise of futures he hopes come true, life unbound.
Music drifting on slipstreams over New Orleans, run of jazz piano fueling my ascent to thinner atmospheres, higher planes of consciousness.
I bob along untouched by Great Depression, unwounded by shrapnel launched from the bloody battlefields of France, untroubled, soulserene.
Methane Man mission continues nightly, popping free of the confines of the Joy Motel to travel untethered above the hustlebustle of America.
Farmfields plowed row on row, stolen kisses under mistletoe, country church empty save for sinners, every businessman thinks he's a winner.
Ask not what you can do for your country, mythmade heroboy President astride a golden pony in a regal parade, aims at the moon and hits it.
Finned automobiles belching gasfarts on concrete ribbons webbing urban centers pinpricked on a lifemap drawn in bentbacked sweat and toil.
Cities groan and flex below, an infinite succession of big decisions and small collisions, antagonists and lovers, above them all I hover.
Race riots, broken skulls, gang wars, now a lull, dirty needle pokes a vein, hooker's john cums again, cop on the take dumped in the lake.
Puppies play in Pittsburgh, doves dive in Denver, eagles touchdown in Philadelphia, beersoaked fans celebratory, oh say can you see me?
Motorcade rolling through Dallas, me at 3,000 feet eyetracking trajectories of metallic deathbringers fired from book depository window.
Four moptopped lads from Liverpool outshouted by female fans at Shea, I Wanna Hold Your Hand compression waves pushing me over the Hudson.
Mudslicked musiclovers cavort in farmer's fields, Jimi Hendrix gets experienced, the Doors write Riders on the Storm and it's all about me.
Flashlights at the Watergate Hotel, I hover in an alley, perpetrator hesitates when he looks up, sees floating spacesuit, blinks a-thinkin'.
Philip Kindred Dick goes into a drugstore and comes out with a squirt of nasal decongestant, a ream of typing paper, headspinning selfstory.
Phil Kindred goes into Scrip City, comes out with a frosty can of ice cold Coke, a box of condoms, flatlining brainstream with memoryblip.
Turbines pulse bloodred boombeats through artery hallways, Joy Motel quivers and sighs, shivers and cries, I return to my room to be alone.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
Adrift on American dreams, small boys batting apples in overgrown outfields, someday Yankees, fantasy of everlasting hope, I see all below.
Ancient river canyons carved by determined glaciers scouring the slate to begin anew, brave settlers forging pathways to mysterious horizons
Young lovers in St. Louis skipping handheld across a weathered bridge, her smile a sly promise of futures he hopes come true, life unbound.
Music drifting on slipstreams over New Orleans, run of jazz piano fueling my ascent to thinner atmospheres, higher planes of consciousness.
I bob along untouched by Great Depression, unwounded by shrapnel launched from the bloody battlefields of France, untroubled, soulserene.
Methane Man mission continues nightly, popping free of the confines of the Joy Motel to travel untethered above the hustlebustle of America.
Farmfields plowed row on row, stolen kisses under mistletoe, country church empty save for sinners, every businessman thinks he's a winner.
Ask not what you can do for your country, mythmade heroboy President astride a golden pony in a regal parade, aims at the moon and hits it.
Finned automobiles belching gasfarts on concrete ribbons webbing urban centers pinpricked on a lifemap drawn in bentbacked sweat and toil.
Cities groan and flex below, an infinite succession of big decisions and small collisions, antagonists and lovers, above them all I hover.
Race riots, broken skulls, gang wars, now a lull, dirty needle pokes a vein, hooker's john cums again, cop on the take dumped in the lake.
Puppies play in Pittsburgh, doves dive in Denver, eagles touchdown in Philadelphia, beersoaked fans celebratory, oh say can you see me?
Motorcade rolling through Dallas, me at 3,000 feet eyetracking trajectories of metallic deathbringers fired from book depository window.
Four moptopped lads from Liverpool outshouted by female fans at Shea, I Wanna Hold Your Hand compression waves pushing me over the Hudson.
Mudslicked musiclovers cavort in farmer's fields, Jimi Hendrix gets experienced, the Doors write Riders on the Storm and it's all about me.
Flashlights at the Watergate Hotel, I hover in an alley, perpetrator hesitates when he looks up, sees floating spacesuit, blinks a-thinkin'.
Philip Kindred Dick goes into a drugstore and comes out with a squirt of nasal decongestant, a ream of typing paper, headspinning selfstory.
Phil Kindred goes into Scrip City, comes out with a frosty can of ice cold Coke, a box of condoms, flatlining brainstream with memoryblip.
Turbines pulse bloodred boombeats through artery hallways, Joy Motel quivers and sighs, shivers and cries, I return to my room to be alone.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
83 V'lalis
Oh, Jsslyyyn. Perhaps you kept the red men at bay. Molybdenum-based monstrosities. Wells wrote his book, a tangentenil threat. Run scared.
I slept throught what they called the Jazz Age, allowing the silicon in my nanotubes to gel, Glen Gray & the Cosa Loma Orchestra my muse.
In the 1930s I floated high above the dustbowl of Oklahoma, the color of codfish, and watched a young Dick Overtone, my new assignment.
The tempunam who ran our space argent became aware of Overtone when, at the age of eighteen, he sent spider pirates into Wichita, watched.
Gleefully aware, every human thing, every building gone, but for one bright white shining two story building, a glowy third floor: JOY MOTEL
I watched in fastback replay, the ruins sucked into the motel storm cellar door, then spat back out, everything new, everyone alive unawares
Years ticked, Overtone moved like clockwork, assembling disciples. I hovered over desert, so many farmers had migrated to California, quiet.
Danko Drought, a drunk from Sante Fe. Guy named Deedle, loonybinned Denver. Barnum would call them rubes, geeks. Then I met young Kindred.
The only one full of hope. My thoughtstems had evolved, Overtone had created something that snookered my nanotubes into overdrive, fastly.
Power to engines. Turbine to speed. Moving out. A beautiful blonde with eyes for all men, Karin Offal, not a drunk but still a Nazi by heart
They built a bomb, Trinity, vaporized air and separated my limbs, be what they are. I searched for my right arm (I guess) for almost 2 years
Damaged, on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. Seen, touched, left behind. I took my bodypiece, the military laid tinfoil, made jokes of it.
Forty years later, Roswell is still considered a jolly jape. Yet, my fallen outerpiece frightened the military. They bombed Japan & waited.
Aliens would come, grey, reptilian, hairy and orange, from Zeta Reticuli and Sirius, Wolf 359 as well. Exploratory or by accident. No harm.
I was on watch when not near Overtone, mindwashing Lonnie Zamora in Socorro, New Mexico. Sonny Desvergers, the Florida scoutmaster. More.
Overtone slyly created the cult of Ummo, played mind games with Kindred, eventually drove Karin Offal mad with nightmares of Auschwitz.
The Joy Motel was a devious device, powered by massive turbines that reversed the immediate past to become an altered present. Yet again.
Unbeknowest to Overtone, a sentient block of selenium had snuggled up fuzzycozy to become the invisible third floor, they became friends.
However many times Overtone recreated the Joy Motel, I, the Methane Man, the carnynaut, would be welcome to warn Kindred, to save his son.
K Tate and his friend the sylph, now in Chicago, Tower Town again. War avoided, my love lost. This is my story. My name sounds like V'lalis.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
I slept throught what they called the Jazz Age, allowing the silicon in my nanotubes to gel, Glen Gray & the Cosa Loma Orchestra my muse.
In the 1930s I floated high above the dustbowl of Oklahoma, the color of codfish, and watched a young Dick Overtone, my new assignment.
The tempunam who ran our space argent became aware of Overtone when, at the age of eighteen, he sent spider pirates into Wichita, watched.
Gleefully aware, every human thing, every building gone, but for one bright white shining two story building, a glowy third floor: JOY MOTEL
I watched in fastback replay, the ruins sucked into the motel storm cellar door, then spat back out, everything new, everyone alive unawares
Years ticked, Overtone moved like clockwork, assembling disciples. I hovered over desert, so many farmers had migrated to California, quiet.
Danko Drought, a drunk from Sante Fe. Guy named Deedle, loonybinned Denver. Barnum would call them rubes, geeks. Then I met young Kindred.
The only one full of hope. My thoughtstems had evolved, Overtone had created something that snookered my nanotubes into overdrive, fastly.
Power to engines. Turbine to speed. Moving out. A beautiful blonde with eyes for all men, Karin Offal, not a drunk but still a Nazi by heart
They built a bomb, Trinity, vaporized air and separated my limbs, be what they are. I searched for my right arm (I guess) for almost 2 years
Damaged, on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. Seen, touched, left behind. I took my bodypiece, the military laid tinfoil, made jokes of it.
Forty years later, Roswell is still considered a jolly jape. Yet, my fallen outerpiece frightened the military. They bombed Japan & waited.
Aliens would come, grey, reptilian, hairy and orange, from Zeta Reticuli and Sirius, Wolf 359 as well. Exploratory or by accident. No harm.
I was on watch when not near Overtone, mindwashing Lonnie Zamora in Socorro, New Mexico. Sonny Desvergers, the Florida scoutmaster. More.
Overtone slyly created the cult of Ummo, played mind games with Kindred, eventually drove Karin Offal mad with nightmares of Auschwitz.
The Joy Motel was a devious device, powered by massive turbines that reversed the immediate past to become an altered present. Yet again.
Unbeknowest to Overtone, a sentient block of selenium had snuggled up fuzzycozy to become the invisible third floor, they became friends.
However many times Overtone recreated the Joy Motel, I, the Methane Man, the carnynaut, would be welcome to warn Kindred, to save his son.
K Tate and his friend the sylph, now in Chicago, Tower Town again. War avoided, my love lost. This is my story. My name sounds like V'lalis.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
82 Halley's Comet
Tales to Confound: The Misery of The Methane Man. I landed in Fete Noir, Ohio. February 28th 1877, Standard Earth Day. I was 93 years of age
and I could not understand why my antigravitaneous veins did not provide me lift, I assume it was because of the pure pre-Industrial oxygen.
I nudged the fecund dirt, a rusty blimp expelling from a grave, oh I knew lots of words, the innerguide taught me as we passed asteroids.
I spun and bzlfedd, hurfing. Silicon-based, I am. Encased as gas in this suit of reddish-orange. Rust on steel. Then the circus caught me.
I had been on Earth for a week, veinnotes in neon filling microns in my suit. I had been sent as a warning scout from beloved Saturn:warning
Mars was planning an attack. I needed to plant the seeds of a novel into a young boy named Herbert George Wells, a cautionary nightmare.
During the day, I soared high, artist drawings rendered in Midwestern newspapers of the strange airship, the blimp before there was a blimp.
At night, I would revel in the scents and touch, wind through grass electrified my synapses, I spoke to cows, and found myself held tight.
Two tiny men pulled me towards a tent, oh why had the cow not warned me? I now know, or suspect, that the cow was blind. A human spoke to me
twirling a white moustache that looked like the radio waves on Jupiter. "Ho, what manner be you?" Fancy man asked me in an amused tone.
I huffed a greeting: "Askk your nmme," I tried my best at English. "What, you say? My name is Barnum and, why, you say you are an astronaut?
I must tell this word to my friend Jules, he went on. And then he caged me, I had been tricked. I became the Industrial Astronaut for years.
We crissedcrossed America, I made friends with those near me, a boy w/ dog ears, a pig that spoke backwards, a woman with a tail touched me.
The crowds oohed, a woman in Omaha thought I looked like fried butter which made no sense, I saw Chicago recover from the meteor strike:1871
Mars' first controlled maneauver, the giant asteroid moved with lazerious bursts for weeks, burning Manistee & most of Chicago to the ground
Thus was I sent, and I was happy the city was regrowing, I stored images in my stemuling, uploading images to be seen in seventeen months.
In Zenith City, Oregon, I received eye pulses that my partner in our space program, Jsslyyyn you might pronounce her name, would join me.
She would ride the tail of Halley's Comet, Earth would pass through it in 1910, now just three years hence. The airships of 1877 now a myth.
I brainwaved HG Wells bombastic, he wrote news articles, nothing more. I tired of this place called carnival, shrank through my bars easily.
My love never came, the comet passed by that summer as the world panicked then sighed relief. The Martians never came, either. I had hope.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
and I could not understand why my antigravitaneous veins did not provide me lift, I assume it was because of the pure pre-Industrial oxygen.
I nudged the fecund dirt, a rusty blimp expelling from a grave, oh I knew lots of words, the innerguide taught me as we passed asteroids.
I spun and bzlfedd, hurfing. Silicon-based, I am. Encased as gas in this suit of reddish-orange. Rust on steel. Then the circus caught me.
I had been on Earth for a week, veinnotes in neon filling microns in my suit. I had been sent as a warning scout from beloved Saturn:warning
Mars was planning an attack. I needed to plant the seeds of a novel into a young boy named Herbert George Wells, a cautionary nightmare.
During the day, I soared high, artist drawings rendered in Midwestern newspapers of the strange airship, the blimp before there was a blimp.
At night, I would revel in the scents and touch, wind through grass electrified my synapses, I spoke to cows, and found myself held tight.
Two tiny men pulled me towards a tent, oh why had the cow not warned me? I now know, or suspect, that the cow was blind. A human spoke to me
twirling a white moustache that looked like the radio waves on Jupiter. "Ho, what manner be you?" Fancy man asked me in an amused tone.
I huffed a greeting: "Askk your nmme," I tried my best at English. "What, you say? My name is Barnum and, why, you say you are an astronaut?
I must tell this word to my friend Jules, he went on. And then he caged me, I had been tricked. I became the Industrial Astronaut for years.
We crissedcrossed America, I made friends with those near me, a boy w/ dog ears, a pig that spoke backwards, a woman with a tail touched me.
The crowds oohed, a woman in Omaha thought I looked like fried butter which made no sense, I saw Chicago recover from the meteor strike:1871
Mars' first controlled maneauver, the giant asteroid moved with lazerious bursts for weeks, burning Manistee & most of Chicago to the ground
Thus was I sent, and I was happy the city was regrowing, I stored images in my stemuling, uploading images to be seen in seventeen months.
In Zenith City, Oregon, I received eye pulses that my partner in our space program, Jsslyyyn you might pronounce her name, would join me.
She would ride the tail of Halley's Comet, Earth would pass through it in 1910, now just three years hence. The airships of 1877 now a myth.
I brainwaved HG Wells bombastic, he wrote news articles, nothing more. I tired of this place called carnival, shrank through my bars easily.
My love never came, the comet passed by that summer as the world panicked then sighed relief. The Martians never came, either. I had hope.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
81 Elephant fart
Truth about Methane Man. An intimate confession, a novel, a jeremiad, a bitter lament, a righteous prophecy, dictated by me, Methane Man.
I am not human, but rather a creature from Saturn, a universal explorer given the despised C3-route in the lottery of 1877 (Earth calendar).
The only thing giving me human shape is this spacesuit. It is basically a diving suit, Jules Verne era. Big round heavy metal head, hoses.
He wrote From the Earth to the Moon in 1865. I landed on your planet in 1877. I was sent here to interview him. That did not work as planned.
I am made of gas. I smell funny. OK, I smell bad. I smell like a fart. Like an elephant fart. You get the idea. Jules Verne was unimpressed.
He opened a window in his hotel and waved a pillowcase and I blew out onto the street and began to disperse. I was in very grave danger.
Across the street, fortuitously, Barnum and Bailey had a circus show called Tomb of The Unknown Astronaut. I fartseeped into the spacesuit.
I was a sensation. People paid a nickel to see me. Lined up all day in sweltering sun. I used my voice modulator to communicate with them.
I was not the most pleasant exhibit in the circus. I leaked fartsmells. Hurled insults. I was throughly obnoxious. The line ups got longer.
When the circus disbanded, I was placed in storage for 70 years in a warehouse by a bridge, my suit sealed inside a box, heavy diving boots.
In 1947 I was sold to the owner of Joy Motel, to be used as decor in the lobby. Fartastronaut from 1877, I don't know what he was thinking.
Eventually he stuck me in a room at the back where the smell from the factory next door made the room unrentable. Methane smell. Perfect.
The factory is still there, leaking methane. I capture it in red tanks. I have about 30 of them stacked in my room. They keep me going.
So that's me. I'm immortal. I left Saturn as a kid with big dreams. Came to a planet with smelly horse droppings on the streets. Not bad.
The thing is, I have visions. I see all. Well, let's not boast. I see pretty much all. I see into the shower next door. I see the Pentagon.
I see flowers blooming in Wichita. I see atomic bombs making mushroom clouds at Trinity. I see Kindred, Dick Overtone, K Tate and Lala.
The red balloon here at Joy Motel is a bit of me, methane filled, floating, exploring, investigating, casing the joint, stretching my legs.
This I know: Joy Motel is a sentient evil presence, breathing in, breathing out, alive and souldead at the same time, driven by turbines.
Dick Overtone is its malevolent technician. When he does not like the way things are going, he reels them in, pulls back, rewinds, reloads.
Then he spews things back out again, alternate universes, new personas, experimenting with truth and lies, the propaganda of life on Earth.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
I am not human, but rather a creature from Saturn, a universal explorer given the despised C3-route in the lottery of 1877 (Earth calendar).
The only thing giving me human shape is this spacesuit. It is basically a diving suit, Jules Verne era. Big round heavy metal head, hoses.
He wrote From the Earth to the Moon in 1865. I landed on your planet in 1877. I was sent here to interview him. That did not work as planned.
I am made of gas. I smell funny. OK, I smell bad. I smell like a fart. Like an elephant fart. You get the idea. Jules Verne was unimpressed.
He opened a window in his hotel and waved a pillowcase and I blew out onto the street and began to disperse. I was in very grave danger.
Across the street, fortuitously, Barnum and Bailey had a circus show called Tomb of The Unknown Astronaut. I fartseeped into the spacesuit.
I was a sensation. People paid a nickel to see me. Lined up all day in sweltering sun. I used my voice modulator to communicate with them.
I was not the most pleasant exhibit in the circus. I leaked fartsmells. Hurled insults. I was throughly obnoxious. The line ups got longer.
When the circus disbanded, I was placed in storage for 70 years in a warehouse by a bridge, my suit sealed inside a box, heavy diving boots.
In 1947 I was sold to the owner of Joy Motel, to be used as decor in the lobby. Fartastronaut from 1877, I don't know what he was thinking.
Eventually he stuck me in a room at the back where the smell from the factory next door made the room unrentable. Methane smell. Perfect.
The factory is still there, leaking methane. I capture it in red tanks. I have about 30 of them stacked in my room. They keep me going.
So that's me. I'm immortal. I left Saturn as a kid with big dreams. Came to a planet with smelly horse droppings on the streets. Not bad.
The thing is, I have visions. I see all. Well, let's not boast. I see pretty much all. I see into the shower next door. I see the Pentagon.
I see flowers blooming in Wichita. I see atomic bombs making mushroom clouds at Trinity. I see Kindred, Dick Overtone, K Tate and Lala.
The red balloon here at Joy Motel is a bit of me, methane filled, floating, exploring, investigating, casing the joint, stretching my legs.
This I know: Joy Motel is a sentient evil presence, breathing in, breathing out, alive and souldead at the same time, driven by turbines.
Dick Overtone is its malevolent technician. When he does not like the way things are going, he reels them in, pulls back, rewinds, reloads.
Then he spews things back out again, alternate universes, new personas, experimenting with truth and lies, the propaganda of life on Earth.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
80 Sunset bound
They left the library and it was smackbam like deja vu. Facing the Michigan Avenue bridge K dad and Dick O were acting all secret crazy.
Tate, having his skiptracing skills of photogenesis, saw the name of the dedication plaque, barnacle white. Still had it in him, job skilled.
Then felt stupid next to Lala, she saw the brainstreams, red and black because black was everything about Uncle Dicky O, shoes, tie, brain.
Slacks, dented chin, cap, future thoughts past. Socks, hopes, expectations. Bowel movements, expunging soul oil. Soil. She'd never tell Tate.
They knew so little of each other's past, how close he was to this Overtone man who could pass for Judas Iscariot Exaggerist, sylph hunter.
The brainstreams stoppedquick hatemasked. She knew K Tate was excited about something, he then explained how you found people. P. I. work.
Not like a Panopticon, it was all wits. Puzzle pieces, quite different than this thing with his freaking freaked-out relatives. Got a look.
Talking too loud. Dude flashed peace said tune in turn on turn your mind around, K Tate wanting to say, man, you don't know the half of it.
Not like 2010 where yo could SlipSlate your memory card and read the notes, add new ones, like having phantom index cards around you coned.
He knew what he'd have to do back nowwhen, no bicellcyles, no touchprints, same same nix nix DNA RNA least of all PbNA. Good luck hippies.
That's why everyone loved each other, the mad mods. They could leave a trail of bad credit and dead bodies, false identities, multiple wives.
Did Dick O have a wife? Did he strangle her and stuff her in a Samsonite tomb? Flipcoin: has he ever been with a woman at all? Ponderous.
They had walked aimlessly back southward, Lala enthralled by foghorn boatwaves below them, river dirty green but oh the scents, freshness.
He saw a tall building looking west, Allerton Hotel, Home of The Tip-Top-Tap (Joy Motel, Home of The Four Hour Nap?!?), real Chicago 1965.
The Palmolive Building, I wonder what that was. An ointment? Food? K Tate knew nothing of brands, just the branding of people. Find a skip.
While Lala was in the library, he checked what they called a phone book. Franklin and Wells, Apollo Sparks, private dick. He could get work.
Walk in, no ID, no questions asked, prove himself fast. Money to live on, cabbage in dick lingo, he and Lala go live at the Allerton, yeah.
Go to that Tip-Top-Tap and let her watch the brainstreams twenty stories down, check the Panopticon for K & O, let them wander & get bushed.
Walking west, holding hands, past elevated trains red and brown, three flat walk up, K Tate now employed. Faces oh so close: sunset bound.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
Tate, having his skiptracing skills of photogenesis, saw the name of the dedication plaque, barnacle white. Still had it in him, job skilled.
Then felt stupid next to Lala, she saw the brainstreams, red and black because black was everything about Uncle Dicky O, shoes, tie, brain.
Slacks, dented chin, cap, future thoughts past. Socks, hopes, expectations. Bowel movements, expunging soul oil. Soil. She'd never tell Tate.
They knew so little of each other's past, how close he was to this Overtone man who could pass for Judas Iscariot Exaggerist, sylph hunter.
The brainstreams stoppedquick hatemasked. She knew K Tate was excited about something, he then explained how you found people. P. I. work.
Not like a Panopticon, it was all wits. Puzzle pieces, quite different than this thing with his freaking freaked-out relatives. Got a look.
Talking too loud. Dude flashed peace said tune in turn on turn your mind around, K Tate wanting to say, man, you don't know the half of it.
Not like 2010 where yo could SlipSlate your memory card and read the notes, add new ones, like having phantom index cards around you coned.
He knew what he'd have to do back nowwhen, no bicellcyles, no touchprints, same same nix nix DNA RNA least of all PbNA. Good luck hippies.
That's why everyone loved each other, the mad mods. They could leave a trail of bad credit and dead bodies, false identities, multiple wives.
Did Dick O have a wife? Did he strangle her and stuff her in a Samsonite tomb? Flipcoin: has he ever been with a woman at all? Ponderous.
They had walked aimlessly back southward, Lala enthralled by foghorn boatwaves below them, river dirty green but oh the scents, freshness.
He saw a tall building looking west, Allerton Hotel, Home of The Tip-Top-Tap (Joy Motel, Home of The Four Hour Nap?!?), real Chicago 1965.
The Palmolive Building, I wonder what that was. An ointment? Food? K Tate knew nothing of brands, just the branding of people. Find a skip.
While Lala was in the library, he checked what they called a phone book. Franklin and Wells, Apollo Sparks, private dick. He could get work.
Walk in, no ID, no questions asked, prove himself fast. Money to live on, cabbage in dick lingo, he and Lala go live at the Allerton, yeah.
Go to that Tip-Top-Tap and let her watch the brainstreams twenty stories down, check the Panopticon for K & O, let them wander & get bushed.
Walking west, holding hands, past elevated trains red and brown, three flat walk up, K Tate now employed. Faces oh so close: sunset bound.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
79 Cobra eyes
Record store window, guy with lushlips, Mick Jagger. Satisfaction. Beach Boys, Herman's Hermits. Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter.
Lala's purse emitting a bluewhite light and a bipbipbip. Panopticon operational, says look at me! Huddling in a phone booth out of the wind.
Two figures in the globe, under a bridge, pallets piled high, caskets. Kindred and Overtone, talking. Kindred listens intently, no audio.
This is like a crystal globe, like a carnival lady once had in a movie I saw, K Tate said. Then thought it looked like Methane Man's helmet.
Lala and K Tate, in Chicago of 1965 while riding his brainstream from 2012, datapacked transluminence Panopticon displaying their pursuers.
This was the city of souveneirs, the Wrigley Building a crosswalk from Tribune Tower. Hide the Panopticon in plain sight, no one would see.
No one would NOTICE, except Kindred and Dick O in a tinglytangly kind of way. This was amazingly weird, made him think about old time TV.
Kindred and Overtone having no sense of being observed, how could they? The watchers existed inside K Tate's bent neuralnet, not realworld.
K Tate not even born yet, but watching 1965, inhabiting 1965, breathing eating living 1965 with a girl who could interpret his brainstreams.
Now K/O go into a door with a carved stone arch. Before it closes, a cat scoots out and is crushedflat under the wheels of a crosstown bus.
The Panopticon fizzes blank. Apparently its signal cannot penetrate stone walls that thick. K Tate impulsively kisses Lala, enigmatic smile.
Kindred and Overtone, out of view, walktalkinging along a long hallway walkway walk this way talk knockknock shockjock radio say hey D.O.
Kindred in ripped military pants, sweatstained T, no jacket, corded sinewy biceps, heavy dented death's head ring, combat boots, cobra eyes.
Dick Overtone wears pressed blackslacks, thin shiny blackbelt and tie, blackwool socks, blackleather shoes, crisp white short sleeved shirt.
They are in a library, booksmell wet from ceiling leak, Overtone on a hunch researching Jeremy Bentham, his turbines told him he just must.
Finds out all about the principles of being observed without seeing your observers, espoused by Bentham and his ultraradical prison designs.
Overtone tells Kindred they are being watched, but he doesn't know who the watchers are. Tingly vibe, non 60s feel, maybe eye from the past.
Kindred, fast twitch survival mode kicks in, Namblam. Instant environmental scan, tracking quadrants in 3D, solar flare from skylight noted.
Sees two figures on an upper balcony, kissing, assesses threat as low verging nonexistent, dismiss, refocus, clear. Kindred and DickO leave.
K Tate watches them go, looking over Lala's shoulder. They descend the stairs, pull Bentham's book from the stacks, stuff it backpackly.
Kindred: So who we chasin'? DickO: Destroyer of turbines, future rebel, liberator of information, addicts snort it up their noses, 2012.
Kindred: We goin' there? DickO: No need. He's here. K: Here? O: Somehow, yes. I don't really understand how. Not yet. K: Okay. Me neither.
K: So, you need me to kill this guy? O: I don't. Society does. Where would we be if data was free? What he has done, will do, is criminal.
K: What's his name? O: Tate. K: For certain? O: Turbines don't lie. K: What else? Who is he? O: Blood. K: What? O: He's your future son.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
Lala's purse emitting a bluewhite light and a bipbipbip. Panopticon operational, says look at me! Huddling in a phone booth out of the wind.
Two figures in the globe, under a bridge, pallets piled high, caskets. Kindred and Overtone, talking. Kindred listens intently, no audio.
This is like a crystal globe, like a carnival lady once had in a movie I saw, K Tate said. Then thought it looked like Methane Man's helmet.
Lala and K Tate, in Chicago of 1965 while riding his brainstream from 2012, datapacked transluminence Panopticon displaying their pursuers.
This was the city of souveneirs, the Wrigley Building a crosswalk from Tribune Tower. Hide the Panopticon in plain sight, no one would see.
No one would NOTICE, except Kindred and Dick O in a tinglytangly kind of way. This was amazingly weird, made him think about old time TV.
Kindred and Overtone having no sense of being observed, how could they? The watchers existed inside K Tate's bent neuralnet, not realworld.
K Tate not even born yet, but watching 1965, inhabiting 1965, breathing eating living 1965 with a girl who could interpret his brainstreams.
Now K/O go into a door with a carved stone arch. Before it closes, a cat scoots out and is crushedflat under the wheels of a crosstown bus.
The Panopticon fizzes blank. Apparently its signal cannot penetrate stone walls that thick. K Tate impulsively kisses Lala, enigmatic smile.
Kindred and Overtone, out of view, walktalkinging along a long hallway walkway walk this way talk knockknock shockjock radio say hey D.O.
Kindred in ripped military pants, sweatstained T, no jacket, corded sinewy biceps, heavy dented death's head ring, combat boots, cobra eyes.
Dick Overtone wears pressed blackslacks, thin shiny blackbelt and tie, blackwool socks, blackleather shoes, crisp white short sleeved shirt.
They are in a library, booksmell wet from ceiling leak, Overtone on a hunch researching Jeremy Bentham, his turbines told him he just must.
Finds out all about the principles of being observed without seeing your observers, espoused by Bentham and his ultraradical prison designs.
Overtone tells Kindred they are being watched, but he doesn't know who the watchers are. Tingly vibe, non 60s feel, maybe eye from the past.
Kindred, fast twitch survival mode kicks in, Namblam. Instant environmental scan, tracking quadrants in 3D, solar flare from skylight noted.
Sees two figures on an upper balcony, kissing, assesses threat as low verging nonexistent, dismiss, refocus, clear. Kindred and DickO leave.
K Tate watches them go, looking over Lala's shoulder. They descend the stairs, pull Bentham's book from the stacks, stuff it backpackly.
Kindred: So who we chasin'? DickO: Destroyer of turbines, future rebel, liberator of information, addicts snort it up their noses, 2012.
Kindred: We goin' there? DickO: No need. He's here. K: Here? O: Somehow, yes. I don't really understand how. Not yet. K: Okay. Me neither.
K: So, you need me to kill this guy? O: I don't. Society does. Where would we be if data was free? What he has done, will do, is criminal.
K: What's his name? O: Tate. K: For certain? O: Turbines don't lie. K: What else? Who is he? O: Blood. K: What? O: He's your future son.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
78 Milkshakes heaven
They sat in the back booth of the Wimpy's, Wabash & Madison. Pre-hologram Chicago, all in the real. Milkshakes heaven. Lala knew that, too.
Picked up on the Bstreams full of pleasure, such a magical divine place. K Tate with the folded letter from Lisa Sestina in his back pocket.
Hidden, the toothpick box and the eye in his leather jacket, bought on Maxwell Street. Lots of pockets, a cop's coat. A dealer's garb. Both.
They'd been in the city for three days. Lala had bought a clunky purse, all the hipster tht girls it girls had them. Inside: the Panopticon.
Lala wanted to rename it the Visagerycon. K Tate thought it sounded too much like menagerie con and she pouted. But they did not fight.
They had money, she had followed a brainstream to Burnham Harbor, a rich man's yacht. Wallet held hundreds. He'd miss nothing, snored away.
I'll still need to work: K Tate. I can skiptrace. Lala: question mark balloon. Find people that don't want to be found, did that for years.
Back in my twenties, before the fall, the corporate buyout of the country. I doubt my father's writings would be this grim, good on him.
Lala, I'm 44, how old are you? You look like a teenager (my daughter? why no one looks sidewise). I'm as old as you think, as you believe.
One day, I'll tell you more (about my true connection to the Trinity Visagerists) Let us just enjoy this-pre-modern world, this lovely city.
They touched hands, people on the street flashed peace signs, a newish thing, the entire room slurping the last of their shakes. He flashed.
Is this how Mickey Milkshake got his name? I couldstay here forever in the vanilla of the gods. Elevated trains crisscrossed above them.
In his past/future, the tracks would be like sutures. Here, they were simply transportation for people who never stopped smiling. Lala spoke
What was that? K Tate said after the train echoed by. We should go to the library, try to understand this Panopticon better. He nodded yes.
Hand in hand, straight up Wabash. That silver building was for Amoco Oil. In 2012, they owned Colorado. Amocoloradoil. Weird, but yeah.
Clothing shops galore. No parking garages, no happy homeless. Glory. Lala would buy bangles and K Tate would watch the passing parade 5/1/65
A woman who sold Lala her current top, a Cubs shirt reading Kessinger Beckert to Banks yer OUT! told her the library was opposite Wrigley.
Keep walking to the big white building, clock up high. Everything seemed like it was on pause. Stopped at the red light, K Tate looked west.
State-Lake Theater. Craned to the roof, would Lisa Sestina wave back? And backwards? Marquee: Robert Mitchum in THUNDER ROAD. Below that:
Steve McQueen THE GREAT ESCAPE. Stifled a laugh, thinking of dad and unc. Lala couldn't see their brainstreams, train tracks a backwards L.
K Tate thinking it through, Lala humming some song someone else was humming when they passed over the bridge. Wrigley ivory tower ahead.
K dad thinks I know something I shouldn't, yet by looking at the Panopticon (call it Opti or something, huh?) when dreams or brainstreams
tell us so, we look down like in a viewfinder, framesnaps of K & O. Crazy as it sounds, K dad would one day impart upon him the knowledge.
Dicky O would spill it, K dad slop it up. The same dilly-o info K dad would want to kill him for. He thought, too, about '68, born again K.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
Picked up on the Bstreams full of pleasure, such a magical divine place. K Tate with the folded letter from Lisa Sestina in his back pocket.
Hidden, the toothpick box and the eye in his leather jacket, bought on Maxwell Street. Lots of pockets, a cop's coat. A dealer's garb. Both.
They'd been in the city for three days. Lala had bought a clunky purse, all the hipster tht girls it girls had them. Inside: the Panopticon.
Lala wanted to rename it the Visagerycon. K Tate thought it sounded too much like menagerie con and she pouted. But they did not fight.
They had money, she had followed a brainstream to Burnham Harbor, a rich man's yacht. Wallet held hundreds. He'd miss nothing, snored away.
I'll still need to work: K Tate. I can skiptrace. Lala: question mark balloon. Find people that don't want to be found, did that for years.
Back in my twenties, before the fall, the corporate buyout of the country. I doubt my father's writings would be this grim, good on him.
Lala, I'm 44, how old are you? You look like a teenager (my daughter? why no one looks sidewise). I'm as old as you think, as you believe.
One day, I'll tell you more (about my true connection to the Trinity Visagerists) Let us just enjoy this-pre-modern world, this lovely city.
They touched hands, people on the street flashed peace signs, a newish thing, the entire room slurping the last of their shakes. He flashed.
Is this how Mickey Milkshake got his name? I couldstay here forever in the vanilla of the gods. Elevated trains crisscrossed above them.
In his past/future, the tracks would be like sutures. Here, they were simply transportation for people who never stopped smiling. Lala spoke
What was that? K Tate said after the train echoed by. We should go to the library, try to understand this Panopticon better. He nodded yes.
Hand in hand, straight up Wabash. That silver building was for Amoco Oil. In 2012, they owned Colorado. Amocoloradoil. Weird, but yeah.
Clothing shops galore. No parking garages, no happy homeless. Glory. Lala would buy bangles and K Tate would watch the passing parade 5/1/65
A woman who sold Lala her current top, a Cubs shirt reading Kessinger Beckert to Banks yer OUT! told her the library was opposite Wrigley.
Keep walking to the big white building, clock up high. Everything seemed like it was on pause. Stopped at the red light, K Tate looked west.
State-Lake Theater. Craned to the roof, would Lisa Sestina wave back? And backwards? Marquee: Robert Mitchum in THUNDER ROAD. Below that:
Steve McQueen THE GREAT ESCAPE. Stifled a laugh, thinking of dad and unc. Lala couldn't see their brainstreams, train tracks a backwards L.
K Tate thinking it through, Lala humming some song someone else was humming when they passed over the bridge. Wrigley ivory tower ahead.
K dad thinks I know something I shouldn't, yet by looking at the Panopticon (call it Opti or something, huh?) when dreams or brainstreams
tell us so, we look down like in a viewfinder, framesnaps of K & O. Crazy as it sounds, K dad would one day impart upon him the knowledge.
Dicky O would spill it, K dad slop it up. The same dilly-o info K dad would want to kill him for. He thought, too, about '68, born again K.
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
77 Panopticon
He didn't know Lala was pulling him because the brainstreams were confusing her, this place was alive and populated. Some with tunnel vision
others not look at that ass wow I should say something no wait until I tell the guys at the plant good thing I took the detour good thing
I took the detour I can surprise Janice with a nice night out, drive into Kankakee maybe man I can't wait to see the stock carstonightmusic
fromalltheradios there was no music where she was from where have al the flowers gone long time passing well we're going to surf city where
you won't come back from deadman's curve well drink drink drink o fiddlydedink I can dance with a drink in my hand I'm girl happy can't U C?
The post office was blessedly quiet. The sole worker named Benny Busman. Lala rubbing her temples, wanting to massage her tits. Can't do.
Girl Happy can't you see a fading echo echo. Busman gave K Tate the key willingly, why was everyone so helpful and unawares in this time?
This apparent hope at everyone's forever honesty is what caused the dystopian lifestyle he had fled, now at the beginning of the end, maybe?
Jiggled open the wooden door, back home you'd need eye imprints on an iron door. Inside, the box Methane Man told him of. Lala, quizzical.
He looked at it, blinked. A snowglobe, minus snow. And everything else. A note, folded up, origami-style, a horse. Only one person knew.
K Tate missed horses. There was her writing, forwards and backwards, she could do this at the same time, turned him on. Lisa Sestina. How?
Hello, K. Lala reading over his shoulder, only the forward style words. I missed you once you left after I gave you that blow job: red face.
Lala didn't seem to care. After three years, I suspected you wouldn't return. I was worried. I wanted to find you, please forgive me, Tate.
I am sending this from the summer of 2015, things are worse. I might walk the land bridge to Scotland, I just don't know. I want you to know
that I had a strange visit from a man who lives at street level here, he breathes through a space suit. He says his name is Sammy Saturn.
He gave me this thing you see here, there is a memory chip attuned to your sperm (sorry!) inside, I know it will seek you out. Funny thing.
spacesuit guy says he never ages, doesn't need oxygen. Doesn't want blowjobs either, but that's another story. Lala laughed, K Tate redfaced.
He gave me the device you have; its a Panopticon. A guy named Jeremy Bentham designed it in the 1700s but I guess it's, well, more refined.
A Panopticon is like a Skinner Box (remember those? the torture cops?), you can see everything, but those observed see nothing. Fourth wall.
K Tate got it, God-like, a face in the clouds. The note continued: spacesuit dude said this part is very important, so here goes, confusing.
Someone is going to be chasing you because you know too much from back here (Lala: brow furrowed). The Panopticon will let you see it all.
Everything your father and your uncle do, everywhere they go, whatever they learn and create, you will know and that knowledge will stay.
One thing this Saturn guy said, watch out for uncle. Your dad kept writing a novel, Going To Hell, but Dick O would erase it from memory.
Your dad kept writing it for years, then forgetting it, the pages being trashed, the book's name changing over the years. So beware uncle.
You activate it by holding it up, spacesuit dude said you'd meet a girl and she could get it working through the brainstreams you so love.
Lala told him her breasts were tingling, it must be right. Dad and Dick unfaded into view. Note ended 2.25.15 51.52.2 Miss you, Lisa Sestina
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
others not look at that ass wow I should say something no wait until I tell the guys at the plant good thing I took the detour good thing
I took the detour I can surprise Janice with a nice night out, drive into Kankakee maybe man I can't wait to see the stock carstonightmusic
fromalltheradios there was no music where she was from where have al the flowers gone long time passing well we're going to surf city where
you won't come back from deadman's curve well drink drink drink o fiddlydedink I can dance with a drink in my hand I'm girl happy can't U C?
The post office was blessedly quiet. The sole worker named Benny Busman. Lala rubbing her temples, wanting to massage her tits. Can't do.
Girl Happy can't you see a fading echo echo. Busman gave K Tate the key willingly, why was everyone so helpful and unawares in this time?
This apparent hope at everyone's forever honesty is what caused the dystopian lifestyle he had fled, now at the beginning of the end, maybe?
Jiggled open the wooden door, back home you'd need eye imprints on an iron door. Inside, the box Methane Man told him of. Lala, quizzical.
He looked at it, blinked. A snowglobe, minus snow. And everything else. A note, folded up, origami-style, a horse. Only one person knew.
K Tate missed horses. There was her writing, forwards and backwards, she could do this at the same time, turned him on. Lisa Sestina. How?
Hello, K. Lala reading over his shoulder, only the forward style words. I missed you once you left after I gave you that blow job: red face.
Lala didn't seem to care. After three years, I suspected you wouldn't return. I was worried. I wanted to find you, please forgive me, Tate.
I am sending this from the summer of 2015, things are worse. I might walk the land bridge to Scotland, I just don't know. I want you to know
that I had a strange visit from a man who lives at street level here, he breathes through a space suit. He says his name is Sammy Saturn.
He gave me this thing you see here, there is a memory chip attuned to your sperm (sorry!) inside, I know it will seek you out. Funny thing.
spacesuit guy says he never ages, doesn't need oxygen. Doesn't want blowjobs either, but that's another story. Lala laughed, K Tate redfaced.
He gave me the device you have; its a Panopticon. A guy named Jeremy Bentham designed it in the 1700s but I guess it's, well, more refined.
A Panopticon is like a Skinner Box (remember those? the torture cops?), you can see everything, but those observed see nothing. Fourth wall.
K Tate got it, God-like, a face in the clouds. The note continued: spacesuit dude said this part is very important, so here goes, confusing.
Someone is going to be chasing you because you know too much from back here (Lala: brow furrowed). The Panopticon will let you see it all.
Everything your father and your uncle do, everywhere they go, whatever they learn and create, you will know and that knowledge will stay.
One thing this Saturn guy said, watch out for uncle. Your dad kept writing a novel, Going To Hell, but Dick O would erase it from memory.
Your dad kept writing it for years, then forgetting it, the pages being trashed, the book's name changing over the years. So beware uncle.
You activate it by holding it up, spacesuit dude said you'd meet a girl and she could get it working through the brainstreams you so love.
Lala told him her breasts were tingling, it must be right. Dad and Dick unfaded into view. Note ended 2.25.15 51.52.2 Miss you, Lisa Sestina
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76 Silver freezepop
Your dad?: Lala, breasts bouncing as they went down the fire escape, both oblivious that the 3rd floor of Joy Motel was sentient yet silent.
Third Floor was blasted with some kind of neutralizing thingie from Overtone's Impossible Wristwatch, he was ready for it, but not methane.
When the dude in the helmet was changing tanks, the gas drifted up through the vents, neutralizer shimmyshake, 3rd floor 2 words: true form.
No one saw, solipsistically speaking, K Tate and Lala were lalong gagone and Dick O and K Dad were checking rooms, never saw the tentacles.
Third Floor shifted back once the methane tank was replaced, Lala surprised the shit out of K Tate by brainstreaming a '64 Dodge Dart, vroom
The two bad guys in this particular story found the room with the trollwalls, the last room seemed was filled with sodomized parakeets.
Methane Man, the Saturnian Agent, held his breath, but the bad guys stopped and did not pass go. They knew the kids had split, secondsmissed
You know where we're going, right? Lala said. K Tate noticed her breasts never really stopped bouncing, maybe that was brainstream storage.
Django told him he did see the streams disappear into her ample cleavage, mysteries to be solved later, lots of them. For now, directions.
This wasn't Ft. Bliss, or even West Texas. No humidity. Grey skies like dull nickel. Know your exits, Uncle Dick O had said: outfox him.
Go the roundabout way, not the way Dick & Dad would expect. Pull a Sons of Dukes of Hazzard, a film before the fall, zip past Scrip City.
Cut left at Schlitz Congoleum and How To Make A Pretty Model Hobby Shop, down a cobblestone alley and into the woods, find a path, go go go.
Sat there for long nascent minutes, K Tate smelling the sweat on Lala's neck. Watch, listen, sure enough, curseswears kickthecan, giving up.
Back out slowwwww, exhaust point north. On the run, for crimes we DID commit, for all they knew. Different times, different places. Chicago.
They were near Chicago, the greensigns said so. 12 miles. Torrance Avenue off-ramp straightaway. Find the damn post office, big importance
Blue sign like the one for St. Vitus, thankfully no missing kid stapled above it. Post office on Torrance Avenue, upsydaisy onramp baby.
He stopped with Joy Motel below, moreso Chicago north and visible from their vantage point. An unruined city, but wrong somehow. No Sears.
No Hancock. A silver freezepop the tallest building. When is this?, first thing in K Tate's brain after thinking about Lala's breasts again.
Streetsign, PO dead ahead. Dad and Dick dead below, back and forth, human lattices only with guns. Blended in with other cars, lookalikes.
Cars with fins, men with hats, old timey films more popular than porn in his time. Except for hentai, but that was because of the Japanese.
Almost missed the place, skid stop. Carhonk polite-like. No road rage here in now. K Tate could like this, settle back, fuck Lala right here.
Saw a billboard advertising the new '65 Chevelle. Might explain something. Lala pulled his sleeve, nervous. Saw shirt front, who was Dylan?
Scanned for other signs of the times, surprisingly few, Plenty of grey sky, in his life, cell phone icons hovered ear level, ads in eyes.
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Third Floor was blasted with some kind of neutralizing thingie from Overtone's Impossible Wristwatch, he was ready for it, but not methane.
When the dude in the helmet was changing tanks, the gas drifted up through the vents, neutralizer shimmyshake, 3rd floor 2 words: true form.
No one saw, solipsistically speaking, K Tate and Lala were lalong gagone and Dick O and K Dad were checking rooms, never saw the tentacles.
Third Floor shifted back once the methane tank was replaced, Lala surprised the shit out of K Tate by brainstreaming a '64 Dodge Dart, vroom
The two bad guys in this particular story found the room with the trollwalls, the last room seemed was filled with sodomized parakeets.
Methane Man, the Saturnian Agent, held his breath, but the bad guys stopped and did not pass go. They knew the kids had split, secondsmissed
You know where we're going, right? Lala said. K Tate noticed her breasts never really stopped bouncing, maybe that was brainstream storage.
Django told him he did see the streams disappear into her ample cleavage, mysteries to be solved later, lots of them. For now, directions.
This wasn't Ft. Bliss, or even West Texas. No humidity. Grey skies like dull nickel. Know your exits, Uncle Dick O had said: outfox him.
Go the roundabout way, not the way Dick & Dad would expect. Pull a Sons of Dukes of Hazzard, a film before the fall, zip past Scrip City.
Cut left at Schlitz Congoleum and How To Make A Pretty Model Hobby Shop, down a cobblestone alley and into the woods, find a path, go go go.
Sat there for long nascent minutes, K Tate smelling the sweat on Lala's neck. Watch, listen, sure enough, curseswears kickthecan, giving up.
Back out slowwwww, exhaust point north. On the run, for crimes we DID commit, for all they knew. Different times, different places. Chicago.
They were near Chicago, the greensigns said so. 12 miles. Torrance Avenue off-ramp straightaway. Find the damn post office, big importance
Blue sign like the one for St. Vitus, thankfully no missing kid stapled above it. Post office on Torrance Avenue, upsydaisy onramp baby.
He stopped with Joy Motel below, moreso Chicago north and visible from their vantage point. An unruined city, but wrong somehow. No Sears.
No Hancock. A silver freezepop the tallest building. When is this?, first thing in K Tate's brain after thinking about Lala's breasts again.
Streetsign, PO dead ahead. Dad and Dick dead below, back and forth, human lattices only with guns. Blended in with other cars, lookalikes.
Cars with fins, men with hats, old timey films more popular than porn in his time. Except for hentai, but that was because of the Japanese.
Almost missed the place, skid stop. Carhonk polite-like. No road rage here in now. K Tate could like this, settle back, fuck Lala right here.
Saw a billboard advertising the new '65 Chevelle. Might explain something. Lala pulled his sleeve, nervous. Saw shirt front, who was Dylan?
Scanned for other signs of the times, surprisingly few, Plenty of grey sky, in his life, cell phone icons hovered ear level, ads in eyes.
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75 Voice metallic
K Tate awoke to the sound of metal on metal. Lala was not there. He had a vague unsettling premonition of rats inside a bulkhead scrabbling.
He rolled over and fought free of a green wool blanket army issue, wrapped around his legs. He was bathed in sweat, skin shiny slippery wet.
Clang again. K Tate slid out of bed. Bloodstained drapes rubbed a viscous oily scum against the misted window, neon splashing backlit blue.
Small brown bedside table, a few coins, a squarish TV bolted to the wall high in the corner. Someone was in the shower, softsteam leaking.
The clang was in the next room. K Tate ran his fingers over the cumstained wallpaper, figures of trolls looking like lost children waifish.
He pounded a fist on the wall and the clanging stopped. Soft scuttling inside the vent, paper rustling, someone clearing his throat, hcchct.
Are you my new neighbor? The voice metallic, harsh, must be computer generated. Can you hear me? Is that you, K Tate? Hello? More clanging.
Who are you talking to? This from the blonde emerging from the bathroom wrapped in terrypink. I heard an odd voice. What's all that racket?
She gestured at the adjoining wall. K Tate shrugged. The voice continued, persistent. K Tate, it said, I am the Methane Man. Listen to me.
You are riding a corrupt brainstream. Do you understand? You must leave here immmediately. You are in grave danger. You should not be here.
K Tate played along. Here? Where is here? Where am I? Some kind of sleazebag motel? I have no idea how I got here, or when, or who you are.
This is Joy Motel and you are going to hell. I am the Methane Man, you must listen to me. Go to the window, look out, be careful, do it now.
K Tate rubbed a circle in the steam on the glass and peered outside. Parking lot. Nothing, he said. I see nothing. A pickup truck idling.
In a few moments, two men will get out of that truck. If they find you in that room, you are dead. The voice rattled through the air vent.
The blonde shimmied into her jeans and pulled a white tee over her head. Red lettering on the front. A design of some kind, a logo: Lala.
The passenger door of the truck opened and a thin man wearing a white shirt and a skinny black tie slithered onto the pavement, reptilian.
The driver door next. The man who emerged seemed familiar. K Tate stared. More clanging from next door. These damn tanks! What do you see?
Two men, he said, I see two men. K Tate went to the door and slipped on the chainlock. He told Lala to climb out the window. Fire escape.
Methane Man gagged. Shit, tank changeover... get out of your room. There is a little green box waiting for you at the post office, box 231.
Past a Coke machine at the end of the long upper floor hallway of Joy Motel they came, two men, one reptilian, the other with an easy lope.
Dick Overtone, orchestrator of the polluted brainstream coursing through K Tate's skullchamber, rewinding history: 'Visagerists and Sylph'.
And Kindred, CIA-trained assassin, NamLurp, son of bombmaker Dr. Kindred, flat throwing knife palmed and killready. They paused at the door.
Methane Man peeking though a slit saw Kindred kick the door in as K Tate and Lala hotwired Kindred's truck and rolled away, Lala frantic:
Who was that? K Tate saw the two men on the fire escape in his mirror. The first guy, I don't know. The other one? Kindred. He was my dad.
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He rolled over and fought free of a green wool blanket army issue, wrapped around his legs. He was bathed in sweat, skin shiny slippery wet.
Clang again. K Tate slid out of bed. Bloodstained drapes rubbed a viscous oily scum against the misted window, neon splashing backlit blue.
Small brown bedside table, a few coins, a squarish TV bolted to the wall high in the corner. Someone was in the shower, softsteam leaking.
The clang was in the next room. K Tate ran his fingers over the cumstained wallpaper, figures of trolls looking like lost children waifish.
He pounded a fist on the wall and the clanging stopped. Soft scuttling inside the vent, paper rustling, someone clearing his throat, hcchct.
Are you my new neighbor? The voice metallic, harsh, must be computer generated. Can you hear me? Is that you, K Tate? Hello? More clanging.
Who are you talking to? This from the blonde emerging from the bathroom wrapped in terrypink. I heard an odd voice. What's all that racket?
She gestured at the adjoining wall. K Tate shrugged. The voice continued, persistent. K Tate, it said, I am the Methane Man. Listen to me.
You are riding a corrupt brainstream. Do you understand? You must leave here immmediately. You are in grave danger. You should not be here.
K Tate played along. Here? Where is here? Where am I? Some kind of sleazebag motel? I have no idea how I got here, or when, or who you are.
This is Joy Motel and you are going to hell. I am the Methane Man, you must listen to me. Go to the window, look out, be careful, do it now.
K Tate rubbed a circle in the steam on the glass and peered outside. Parking lot. Nothing, he said. I see nothing. A pickup truck idling.
In a few moments, two men will get out of that truck. If they find you in that room, you are dead. The voice rattled through the air vent.
The blonde shimmied into her jeans and pulled a white tee over her head. Red lettering on the front. A design of some kind, a logo: Lala.
The passenger door of the truck opened and a thin man wearing a white shirt and a skinny black tie slithered onto the pavement, reptilian.
The driver door next. The man who emerged seemed familiar. K Tate stared. More clanging from next door. These damn tanks! What do you see?
Two men, he said, I see two men. K Tate went to the door and slipped on the chainlock. He told Lala to climb out the window. Fire escape.
Methane Man gagged. Shit, tank changeover... get out of your room. There is a little green box waiting for you at the post office, box 231.
Past a Coke machine at the end of the long upper floor hallway of Joy Motel they came, two men, one reptilian, the other with an easy lope.
Dick Overtone, orchestrator of the polluted brainstream coursing through K Tate's skullchamber, rewinding history: 'Visagerists and Sylph'.
And Kindred, CIA-trained assassin, NamLurp, son of bombmaker Dr. Kindred, flat throwing knife palmed and killready. They paused at the door.
Methane Man peeking though a slit saw Kindred kick the door in as K Tate and Lala hotwired Kindred's truck and rolled away, Lala frantic:
Who was that? K Tate saw the two men on the fire escape in his mirror. The first guy, I don't know. The other one? Kindred. He was my dad.
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74 Going to hell
He wanted to talk, to explain. Lala hushed him, told him they knew everything, his brainstream separated from docdad and Lindred by tonals.
Picked up on those good vibrations, she told him, but she could see in his eyes that he wanted to talk. But she knew everything he could say
K Tate confronted her with simple truth, or so he hoped. Otherwise, he was insane. I can tell you what I hoped to do here, right? Unknown?
Tell me it's unknown. How can you read a brainstream that hasn't happened yet? So I do have something I can tell you. Lala kept to herself.
I came down here because I wanted to see the home I grew up in, you know of my adventures since I left the East Coast Ruins. Never got home.
Missing kids signs knocked me off my center, plus I was feeling homesick. Grabbed up those toys, symbols of my youth, K Tate shrugged.
He was in a robe now, as was Lala. Astronaut white. Her eyes blue dot Earth, mouth red-lipped Saturn. Go on, she encouraged him. (Bad idea).
If I hadn't seen those signs, those toys, I would have gone home, I saw myself peeling away old wallpaper in the kitchen, where I wrote some
odd phrases, I can't recall. Maybe it would've meant something, maybe the place was fixed up and the whole wall was gone. I should still go.
Tell me what you think you wrote, Lala's voice so soft. I wrote lots of things, Lala, sweet Lala, I wrote all over that house. Fed notes
to the rats, I fed them to the rats. Everything I knew. While my dad fucked that Nazi bitch I thought looked like Supergirl because I was 9.
Lala felt K Tate tense above her, she stared at the church in its glory. Let it all go, let it leave. To be a, a brainstream believer and ah
a homecoming queen. Is this what he thought of her? Someone to love? Take the last brainstream to Clarksville, I'll be there by four thirty.
Here's how it worked, me and all those notes ahead of my time, brainbopped equations quantumlifically, am I holding you too tight now, Lala?
She couldn't answer, the lightmonucules that led from her heart to K Tate's brain above was colorshifting fast. If you must know, I'll say.
I could have been with Karin Offal, not that fat slug dopepopadoping fool the words harshsound ingoffan dwrong ggh I fixed him the bastard.
I'd kill him with his own wait a better idea even Lala saw Roy G. Biv big time, mnemonics redorange yellowgreen blueindigo viol--snapped.
Newcolor faint. No longer K Tate's voice, no longer a body still in its vice words spun like turbines smelled like desperation sweat.
The Joy Motel is a singularity, a black hole in which not even the light from your suckable brainstreams can escape. So much fun to mess up.
The pull of this, let's face it, STUPID PLACE, this black hole that Kindred ended up shaping into a populated landscape while taking a crap.
In his sleep mind you, shitting up ideas in his sleep. I owned him though, bitter love betrayal. Angling walls, creating identities, pasts.
Histories, past and present. Am I squeezing you too hard, dear? Tell me when I do. Lala could smell his breathcough. He carried that guilt.
Trinity. Fretted of those films, the grainies, the buildings bitblasted. He sighed Going to hell in 1945 and I thought he said joy motel.
At least I won, he can't ever escape each reality. Turn see me, La la. Brainstream teal. Squeezehard errr. I was here couldn't talk nothing.
I was Uncle Dick O, grinning through smoke, methane man in a broken helmet, missing one eye. I'm an Exaggerist, he/I said, strangling Lala.
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Picked up on those good vibrations, she told him, but she could see in his eyes that he wanted to talk. But she knew everything he could say
K Tate confronted her with simple truth, or so he hoped. Otherwise, he was insane. I can tell you what I hoped to do here, right? Unknown?
Tell me it's unknown. How can you read a brainstream that hasn't happened yet? So I do have something I can tell you. Lala kept to herself.
I came down here because I wanted to see the home I grew up in, you know of my adventures since I left the East Coast Ruins. Never got home.
Missing kids signs knocked me off my center, plus I was feeling homesick. Grabbed up those toys, symbols of my youth, K Tate shrugged.
He was in a robe now, as was Lala. Astronaut white. Her eyes blue dot Earth, mouth red-lipped Saturn. Go on, she encouraged him. (Bad idea).
If I hadn't seen those signs, those toys, I would have gone home, I saw myself peeling away old wallpaper in the kitchen, where I wrote some
odd phrases, I can't recall. Maybe it would've meant something, maybe the place was fixed up and the whole wall was gone. I should still go.
Tell me what you think you wrote, Lala's voice so soft. I wrote lots of things, Lala, sweet Lala, I wrote all over that house. Fed notes
to the rats, I fed them to the rats. Everything I knew. While my dad fucked that Nazi bitch I thought looked like Supergirl because I was 9.
Lala felt K Tate tense above her, she stared at the church in its glory. Let it all go, let it leave. To be a, a brainstream believer and ah
a homecoming queen. Is this what he thought of her? Someone to love? Take the last brainstream to Clarksville, I'll be there by four thirty.
Here's how it worked, me and all those notes ahead of my time, brainbopped equations quantumlifically, am I holding you too tight now, Lala?
She couldn't answer, the lightmonucules that led from her heart to K Tate's brain above was colorshifting fast. If you must know, I'll say.
I could have been with Karin Offal, not that fat slug dopepopadoping fool the words harshsound ingoffan dwrong ggh I fixed him the bastard.
I'd kill him with his own wait a better idea even Lala saw Roy G. Biv big time, mnemonics redorange yellowgreen blueindigo viol--snapped.
Newcolor faint. No longer K Tate's voice, no longer a body still in its vice words spun like turbines smelled like desperation sweat.
The Joy Motel is a singularity, a black hole in which not even the light from your suckable brainstreams can escape. So much fun to mess up.
The pull of this, let's face it, STUPID PLACE, this black hole that Kindred ended up shaping into a populated landscape while taking a crap.
In his sleep mind you, shitting up ideas in his sleep. I owned him though, bitter love betrayal. Angling walls, creating identities, pasts.
Histories, past and present. Am I squeezing you too hard, dear? Tell me when I do. Lala could smell his breathcough. He carried that guilt.
Trinity. Fretted of those films, the grainies, the buildings bitblasted. He sighed Going to hell in 1945 and I thought he said joy motel.
At least I won, he can't ever escape each reality. Turn see me, La la. Brainstream teal. Squeezehard errr. I was here couldn't talk nothing.
I was Uncle Dick O, grinning through smoke, methane man in a broken helmet, missing one eye. I'm an Exaggerist, he/I said, strangling Lala.
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73 Past Saturn
light fractalstream pouring through pinprick holes in computer punchcards, spraying detail across the neuralnodes of the sylph's receptors
illuminating desire, fear and hatred, for those are the big three, whitehot flashpoints of cannonfire reshaping history according to whim
trinity is there, PKD's brainstream begins with mushroom cloud ascendant heavenward, goats floating on airy vibrato musical muscles flexing
the watcher crouches until the shockwave passes, then topples over backward to twitch on desert sand, eye gouged out gone, blind to meaning
pink sandstorm scours headlamps clean to shine dark lies under clear skies, high today 107 and still climbing great god almighty the creator
K tate flinches as the sylph adjusts the amplitude of the brainstream she is monitoring to damp down the soundtrack a few decibels, shotgun
K dad's childhood blastflashes through the expiring brain of g-man falling, zipforward to nam and hauling culhane across wetfields dripping
lala's eyes flitflickering at rem speed as she retransmits the brainstream across the nightsky for the visagerists, white-robed worshippers
music of the gods, brainstream tonewaves resonate to PKD's favorites, country joe and the fish, grateful dead, stones, jefferson airplane
audible gasp from the throng mindriding the headwave pulsing from lala's fingertips, blueinvisible electricity drives humming turbinepulses
some of the women are panting eyes closed hipgrinding, involuntary reaction to the thrumming lifeenergy transmission, sexual rhythms bumping
their white-robed pastor arms akimbo, howling gibberish as they race past saturn, universal mist of eons etched in neon on retinas burning
K tate slumps in his chair then rises bodily toward the ceiling, three men lunging to grab his foot and pull him down like a bobbing balloon
they open a door and take him outside, a bonfire sending sparkcrackles into the night air, a baby is crying in dead decades gone, oh glory
waiting for the sign, they watch lala as she projects long pulseblue beams that warp around stars to light the heavens, brainstream moonbeam
she nods and they release K tate and he floats rapidly away until he is a mote in god's eye and the visagerists hum incantations primeval
whalesong sparrowcry muzzleroar thunderclap backfire whistlepeep doorcreak gurglerush yawndown hisswish bombfall keyboardclack heartbeat
K tate appears hovering above the desert floor and drifts down as the visagerists scramble to make an opening, lala's enigmatic sunsmile
they rush to touch him and some tear away his clothes as keepsake souvenirs, beltbuckle, shoelace, anything, everything, until he is naked
K tate lies down with lala in a clearing behind a dune and centuries pour through him as ocean waves pull memories, interplanetary wisdom
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
illuminating desire, fear and hatred, for those are the big three, whitehot flashpoints of cannonfire reshaping history according to whim
trinity is there, PKD's brainstream begins with mushroom cloud ascendant heavenward, goats floating on airy vibrato musical muscles flexing
the watcher crouches until the shockwave passes, then topples over backward to twitch on desert sand, eye gouged out gone, blind to meaning
pink sandstorm scours headlamps clean to shine dark lies under clear skies, high today 107 and still climbing great god almighty the creator
K tate flinches as the sylph adjusts the amplitude of the brainstream she is monitoring to damp down the soundtrack a few decibels, shotgun
K dad's childhood blastflashes through the expiring brain of g-man falling, zipforward to nam and hauling culhane across wetfields dripping
lala's eyes flitflickering at rem speed as she retransmits the brainstream across the nightsky for the visagerists, white-robed worshippers
music of the gods, brainstream tonewaves resonate to PKD's favorites, country joe and the fish, grateful dead, stones, jefferson airplane
audible gasp from the throng mindriding the headwave pulsing from lala's fingertips, blueinvisible electricity drives humming turbinepulses
some of the women are panting eyes closed hipgrinding, involuntary reaction to the thrumming lifeenergy transmission, sexual rhythms bumping
their white-robed pastor arms akimbo, howling gibberish as they race past saturn, universal mist of eons etched in neon on retinas burning
K tate slumps in his chair then rises bodily toward the ceiling, three men lunging to grab his foot and pull him down like a bobbing balloon
they open a door and take him outside, a bonfire sending sparkcrackles into the night air, a baby is crying in dead decades gone, oh glory
waiting for the sign, they watch lala as she projects long pulseblue beams that warp around stars to light the heavens, brainstream moonbeam
she nods and they release K tate and he floats rapidly away until he is a mote in god's eye and the visagerists hum incantations primeval
whalesong sparrowcry muzzleroar thunderclap backfire whistlepeep doorcreak gurglerush yawndown hisswish bombfall keyboardclack heartbeat
K tate appears hovering above the desert floor and drifts down as the visagerists scramble to make an opening, lala's enigmatic sunsmile
they rush to touch him and some tear away his clothes as keepsake souvenirs, beltbuckle, shoelace, anything, everything, until he is naked
K tate lies down with lala in a clearing behind a dune and centuries pour through him as ocean waves pull memories, interplanetary wisdom
CLICK TO READ NEXT CHAPTER
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