Part 7 
Index
Subject: CODY: MY STRUGGLE Terminus
From: mithryl@walrus.com (Mithryl)
Date: 1996/11/01
Message-Id: <55dcgq$in8@alice.walrus.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.prose,alt.sex.stories
MY STRUGGLE
By CODY ANN MICHAELS
c. All rights reserved
PART 7 (con't)
Chapter 22
Terminus
It's harder to make a political statement than one might think.
-- Charles Julius Guiteau.
"It was driving them nuts." -- Murdoch on why he pulled the BBC
News from his Star satellite network in 1994 to please China's Communist
masters.
"I'm willing to be another Ronald Reagan... if that's what you
want." -- Dole
I wish Kelly had a tail. I was watching this visual on tv last
night about monkeys in Saudi Arabia, and the male monkeys were dragging
the female monkeys around by the tail. And I thought, that's very
convenient. These were very tough monkeys, and the y beat the shit out of
the females. Those males were really pigs. I mean, they were baboons,
but they acted like pigs. Of course, technically, by analogy, I'm the one
who should have the tail, you know, since Kelly is taking the dominant
role in our re lationship, but I think it would look better on her,
especially with her tuxedo. I called Lenny and asked if he could hook
Kelly up with a tail. He said, "Sure, babe. No sweat." What kind of
tail did I want? I said something long and bushy. With red fur to go
with her hair. Maybe something in fox. Could it be ready in time for her
to meet my mother? Of course, it was for a price. Lenny charges for
everything. Well, you only get married once. Actually, this is my third
marriage, (Kelly's secon d) but you still want everything to be nice. I
asked if it would be strong enough to drag her around. He said yes,
because it would be fixed right into her spine with special fibers. How
about feelings? He said it wouldn't be like her breasts, but it would
still have a full range of sensations.
"I mean, could I hurt her?"
"Hey, come on. It's electronic. What does pain mean? She's
wired. That's all I can tell you."
He asked if I would like one, too. Maybe a cottontail. I said
maybe after Christmas.
The more I watched those monkeys, the more I thought of Kelly,
with their little bare bottoms and big bushy manes. I could almost get
off on them. They looked like Kelly wearing a teddy. I'm not so sure
there's that much difference in the faces, eithe r. After you look at
them for awhile, the monkeys could have been most of the strippers on
Channel 35. Those monkeys would make Robin Byrd's show look like a church
social. I never saw so much grabbing and humping. I wonder if they
should show this st uff to children. I mean, this was on at 8 o'clock.
Prime time. And it wasn't like it could be blocked out. It was the
Discovery Channel, for Christ sake. I bet a lot of kids could discover a
lot, watching that. Especially little boys. The girl monk eys also have
an engaging habit of sticking their behinds up in the air for the male
monkey to put his hand up inside them. Well, Kelly already knows how to
do that. Boy, were some of those monkey masters mean when one of their
women started to mess with someone else. They really got ripped.
At the same time the monkeys were on, on Channel 17 there was a
program about models. I'm not sure what it was. Maybe something
connected to fashion week -- which began Saturday. The models were tall
and sleek; b-level Kates and Lindas, perfectly cool . Some were hobbled
at the ankles. They wore skyscraper heels. There was a leather theme.
One had a whip. The others were docile. I think the narration was from
The Story of O. I taped it. I have more than one tv. Actually, I have
twelve. Which is the number in a coven. Each tv has its own vcr. I tape
everything. Because you never know when you are going to see the exact
image you are looking for. The whole wall of my room is covered with tvs,
like in a store. But not all of them are on at the same time. That would
be crazy. Some of them have split screen functions so you can see more
than one channel at once. Two. Four. Eight. It sometimes gets
confusing with the remotes. Also, some of the tvs are showing videos.
The vcrs are hooke d up so that more than one tv can show the same video
at the same time, don't ask me to explain. Lenny did it. Sometimes I put
on videos of Kelly or me or Kelly and me. Or I could put on a nature
program, like the one about monkeys. Or the models.
At nine o'clock, there was another mystery. Another final
episode. This one was in the Orkneys. I'm a total sucker for English
mysteries. I like to look at the scenary. It's always so beautiful. On
the other hand, the outcomes are invariably disapp ointing. The solutions
don't stand up for ten minutes. This one tonight had a hole in it so big
you could drive the Fifth Panzer Division through it. You could have
taken Moscow. I mean, really. But I'm not going to go on about someone
else's mystery story. Besides, I couldn't explain it to you without
giving away the ending, which would be unfair. A good mystery is like a
fortress, isn't it? It should have only one real pathway to the center.
But it's no fun to huff and puff all the way to the t op of Everest only
to discover there's a motel with a service road up the back way for
tourists. Still, the actors are wonderful, which comes, I think, from the
fact that the English still train actors for the stage and not the telly.
When I go to someone else's house, like who doesn't have as many
tvs, or even one, I get nervous. Like, I wonder what am I missing? I
always want to get home, where I can be with my tvs. It's going to be
hard in Georgia. Of course, I know it's unreas onable to expect people to
have so many tvs, but I don't see how you can function if you can't see
what's going on. Especially public access. I can see missing a football
game or the World Series. (The Braves lost. Shit.) But I would have
hated to mi ss that program with the models. And I'm glad I saw the
monkeys. Cause it gave me such good ideas. So you see, you really should
have a lot of tvs. There's just no excuse not to.
I wonder about people who will let their kids watch all the
animals they want copulating on tv, but go weak and fluttery at the idea
of two people doing it. I mean, what kind of aberation is that? They say
the animals are in a state of grace. Grace, m y ass. That old bull
elephant the other night was horny as hell. Here in New York, we're
facing a veritable Kristalnacht of sex stores and nudie bars. The sex
gestapo has a new law that forces clubs to be only in desolate out of the
way places like the waterfront. Like, they could care less about the
women who have to walk home from these places late at night. Like, where
do you think you're going to get a cab under the west side highway at
three in the morning? But, of course, the sex nazis figure any woman who
dances in a sex club deserves anything she gets, even rape. Especially
rape. What are people supposed to do? Stay home and watch tv? What
about the tourists? Do they want only people without a sex drive to come
to New York? There was s ome terrific footage on the Discovery program
that showed two baboons fighting. They didn't touch each other, but the
first thing one did was jump on top of a female and fuck her backdoor
while the other one watched. I don't know if he actually penetrat ed her.
He would have made JFK look like a Kama Sutra demonstrator. It may have
been just for show. Those monkeys looked like they belonged on West
Street. Or maybe the U.N. You could almost imagine Clinton jumping on
top of Hillary while Dole stood there shieking "Where is the outrage?"
I did get one idea, though. The second mystery ended in a circle
of stones in the Orkneys, a little like Stonehenge; the ring of Brodgar, I
think it's called (correct me if I'm wrong). There, all was made known.
The stones were brought there and set u p 5,000 years ago. It's a very
sacred place. If it was in America, they would be having a fight over how
many stones to let stand when they built an amusement park and gambling
casinio on top of it. When you've seen one standing stone, you've seen
them all. Right?
The idea I had was to take my tvs and stand them in a circle
around the room. So they would be like the stones. This is much better
than having them stacked up in one place on the wall. The tvs are all
different sizes. Kelly and I got some from pawn shops. Others, we
dragged in off the street. Each tv sets on top of its own vcr. I felt
this would create a much more mystical atmosphere, especially seeing how
it's almost Hallowe'en. Kelly thinks I'm nuts. She says I watch far too
much tv anyway, a nd this is just totally pushing the envelope.
Her tail, by the way, is like totally divine. It's made out of
fox fur, and is big and bushy like a squirrel's. I told her it's normal
for a healthy teenager to watch tons of tv. Why did she think God gave it
to us? Tv is like... like an oracle. And I'm like a high priestess as I
sit in the center of the circle with the clickers. Each tv has one,
except for an old Goldstone that does not have a remote function so you
have to switch channels by hand. The vcrs also have separate remotes. So
do the hookups from Warner-Turner. So that makes 36 clickers, minus the
one without remote. The tv and vcr ones have different shapes, depending
on the makers, but the cable remotes are all identical. Keeping them
straight can keep you busy.
The first night I sat in my circle of tvs, I thought, this is way
cool. I'm never going to leave. It was Kelly's first night back from the
hospital, and she was walking around, batting her tail all over the place.
Showing off. She wanted to go out fo r a drink, but I wouldn't let her.
I said this was much more important. Kelly does not feel the same way
about tv as I do. I mean, she will watch it, but she does not commune
with it. Like, she wanted to know what I was going to do in Georgia?
Like, she didn't suppose my mother had a tribe of tvs sitting around her
beach house. That was true. I began to get nervous.
I heard her talking to Liz on the phone in the other room. "I
think this time she's totally lost it," Pause. "I'll ask her." She came
to the door. "Liz wants to know if you're taking your pills?" I said
they made me feel heavy. "She says no." I d idn't say that. Why do they
always lie? I said they made me heavy. I screamed at her. Kelly said
Liz wanted to speak with me. I said after Jenny Jones. Kelly said that
was MacNeil Lehrer. I said it wasn't MacNeil Lehrer anymore. He quit.
Who?
He wanted to write a book.
Another thing Kelly (and Liz) doesn't understand is that
television is not just a bunch of programs. Tv is a vast continuum, like
the universe. Maybe even vaster. The programs are a little like the
stars, but the spaces between them are even more rele vant. They have to
be studied with observatorios like the ones at Stonehenge and Brodgar.
Which is what I was doing.
"Cody," Liz said, "I want to talk to you."
Lizabeth is half Indian. Did I mention? She would understand.
"She's been in here for days," Kelly said. "Ever since..."
Since what?
She only comes out to go to the bathroom. She won't even take a
bath. How do you like Kelly's new tail? Liz said it was nice. "What's
up, Cody?"
That was my idea. That she get a tail for the wedding. Do you
think she can fuck with it? Do you think she will be able to fuck me with
her tail? Kelly pulled it down between her legs. I was trying to
triangulate between Wide World of Sports and som ething on Channel 69
about the Jewish Defense League. Those guys are nuts.
"Cody," Liz said. "It's time to get real."
"Yeah. Yeah. Are you coming to the wedding?"
We were going to drive down. If we both drove, we could drive
straight through. All the way to Marietta. What are you watching? I
said it was a tape of Linda. The woman on one of the p.a. channels.
She's pretty. Yeah.
"My God, the smell." Kelly said it wasn't her fault. Liz despises
Kelly. She thinks she's a bad influence. "Did you give it to her?"
Kelly said no. She won't use the toilet. "She's got it in her hair."
The tvs help you to become one with all thin gs.
Liz asked me what there was about Georgia that made me want to get
married there? I said it was a political statement. Have you ever been
there? No. But then I had never been to Kansas, too. She picked up the
book that was lying on the floor next to the desk. Rand McNally Road
Atlas. What route are you going to take?
Huh?
How are you getting there?
I said Kelly would know the way.
Show me.
For some reason, I had a hard time finding it. Until I remembered
it started with g. I was looking in the back of the book. Then I did.
It took me a moment to realize it didn't fit on the page the way Kansas
did. It was turned around. And it had hu ndreds of more names. But it
didn't seem to take up as much space. At the top, there was a big blue
oval with GEORGIA in it. Also the words VALDOSTA
AUGUSTA
ATLANTA, but in different sizes.
Atlanta was the biggest. Why Marietta? Newt Gingrich's from there.
The Specter of the House. In a way, with my tvs, I was like Newt
Gingrich. I could turn them off and turn them on just like he did with
congressme n. Make them blink. Make them change channels. Say different
things. Make them loud. Make them soft. Make them CODY!
I looked up. What?
Tell me about Georgia.
I don't know anything about Georgia.
Don't you?
I looked at the map. What did I know?
It was shaped much different from Kansas. Kansas had been all
straight lines. With just a little squiggle up in the right hand corner
where the Missouri split it from Missouri.
By comparison, Georgia was practically free form. Where was Fort
Bennington? Benning. Whatever. Andersonville. What? Andersonville.
What about it? I don't know. I just thought of it. That's all. I
wondered where it was. Why? I don't know. W hat do you know about
Andersonville? It was a prison. Okeefenokee. Where the hell is Fort
Benning? Chatahoochie. The names are different, too. Weird names. Not
like Kansas. And the counties are all over the place. In K. they were
straight lines. But these look like amoeba. You got a light?
I found Fort Stewart. Andersonville was down here somewhere.
Maybe they took it off the map. I wouldn't blame them. Not be reminded
of it. Tourists coming in and asking to see it. Not like Auschwitz.
Nothing to be ashamed about. Poco was in the swamp. Pogo. What? Pogo.
Not poco. What about him? Pogo was a possum who lived in the
Okeefenokee. Yeah? So? Forget it. Fort Gordon. The woman who started
the girl scouts was named Gordon. Maybe they named it after her.
Dublin. Albany. Warner Robins. Time Warner. Turner Werner. Albany,
Georgia. Where is that damned place?
I couldn't find anything. Except Atlanta, which looked like a scab, and
Marietta which was more like a pimple on the edge of a scab. A small
planet north of Atlanta. The capital. Of that great staat. Where is
this place? We were lost.
Georgia is far older than Kansas. Kansas began as a fist fight
between slave owners and abolitionists. Georgia was a penal colony. They
never fought over slavery. Of course, you might ask about Sherman. But
Sherman was an incomer. He did not unders tand our sacred traditions, our
native customs.
Savannah. I thought she was dead. She killed herself. Her implants got
screwed up. She had had them made bigger, and they didn't come out right.
I think she was in a lot of pain. Route 16 follows approximately
Sherman's march to the sea. A green li ne of interstate like a sword
slash all the way from Chattanooga. Don't these people know how to talk?
What kind of word is that? Cherokee. oh.
The Cherokees once owned all this. Them and the Seminoles. They
were a civilized people. Cultured. With their own schools and
newspapers. In the 1830s, they were resettled in Oklahoma by the U.S.
government. It was called the Trail of Tears. I cou ld have said Bataan
Death March, but that would have been cheap. Atlanta was once called
Terminus.
The end. All roads end here. This is it. Dead center.
Atlanta is easy to find on a map. As long as it's a map of Georgia.
Odd that I cannot find the two places I know about in Georgia.
There's a place called Anderson, but that seems to be in South Carolina.
Maybe Fort Bennington doesn't exist. <Maybe it's all made up. But then,
what about the school? The school was the re. I know it. We were both
there. Tell her, Kelly. Please. Kelly said it was there. It had to be.
I mean, I wasn't just making this up.
What up?
I took a magnifying glass and started to look.
Oh please, let it be there, I thought. Please.
Gainesville. Rome. Bremen. Columbus. Phenix City. That was in
Ala. A river formed part of the border. Then there was a straight line.
Americus. Plains. Little bitty plains. God, it was just a dot.
Americus wasn't so hot, either.
"Cody, focus. Come back. What are you doing?"
Looking for America.
Gainsbridge. Reading the map. Trying to get some feel for the
state. I was breathing hard. I could feel it. Maybe they didn't put it
on the map. For ordinance reasons. I tried to concentrate. Why would
they put Marietta and not Andersonville?
Our wedding was going to be at All Souls. Weren't the
Andersonville dead invited? Yes. Yes. Ya'all come. I had to invite
them. I just hope they don't make a mess on the floor. They always want
to refight the war. Keep them away from the Benningto n girls. Some of
those guys haven't had a woman since Gettysburg. Milledgeville. Phenix
used to be a wide open town. You went across the Chattahoochie to do what
they wouldn't allow in Columbus. Athens. Georgia was like a map of the
world. All thes e towns with holes to other places. It was like a swiss
cheese. With the right medicine, you could go anywhere. And then I saw
it. Nesting under the back end of Columbus. Maybe about a hundred and
twenty miles below Marietta. In very small black let ters. Just above
the fold. Like they almost didn't want you to find it. But at the same
time, they had to admit it was there. Okay. Where was Andersonville?
I picked up the glass and looked frantically. Georgetown.
Stewart. Waycross. Jesup. The names made no sense. I had heard it was
in the southwest. Seminole. Baker. Cairo. Like I said. You could go
anywhere. We only had so much time. Finally, I cheated and looked in the
index. There was no Andersonville in the index. At least not in Georgia.
Appling. Atkinson. That was all. They buried it.
I went back to the map. Again I had trouble finding it. I
couldn't believe it. How could they have Fort Benning, and not have
Andersonville? What kind of value system was that? Andersonville was the
Auschwitz of its time. Home to America's only ack nowledged war criminal.
It's ghosts were desperately leaning out to me. How could I send an
invitation? Lizabeth asked which tv the civil war was on. I said it was
that one. Between the Russian front, and the two elephants fucking. She
picked up a c licker and tried to turn it off. But it changed the tv that
had The Universe: the Last Frontier on it. I screamed. She was going to
destroy my calculations. What? Put it back. Hurry! She tried, but she
got a food channel. Some guy in an apron. I took the clicker and
restored the universe. Don't touch them, I said. Different clickers do
different things.
Liz asked me to calm down.
What about the funeral?
Wedding. It's a wedding. No one is going to die.
I meant wedding. I'm sorry.
I said we were leaving Monday. In Kelly's car. We would get
there early Tuesday morning. That evening, her mother was planning a
reception. I told you about that.
No. I don't think you did.
oh. Well, the first thing, my uncle's dogs went apeshit the first
time they got a whiff of Kelly. It was the monkey hormones in her tail.
They wanted to tear her apart. I mean, looks to dogs don't mean a thing.
She could have been Cindy Crawford and they wouldn't mind. It's all
smell. All they could see in Kelly was a stupid ape.
I thought you said it was a fox tail.
Oh, yeah. Well, my uncle raises hunting hounds. They wouldn't
leave her alone.
It must have been terrible.
Yeah. Seeing Jethro do her like that. Right in front of
everybody. I was sooooo embarasssed.
I'll bet.
Jethro is one horny character.
Tell me about him.
He's just a dog. My relations weren't much better. After all, a
tail is one thing on St. Marks Place. It's a whole different story in
middle America. Having a tail is almost de reigeur in the East Village.
My mother was worried about what having a m onkey in the family would do
to her career. I said, she wasn't a monkey. That was just where I got
the idea. She was more like a squirrel. Or a fox. Besides, we weren't
going to be around that long.
Where were you going?
We were going on our honeymoon.
Oh? Where?
We were just going to drive. See where we got to. Two girls in a
Ferrari, with a jeep engine. Out to look for America.
And did you find it?
I don't know yet. I ... we haven't started.
I run cried the fox, in circles, narrower and narrower still...
What's that?
Poem. By Tennessee Williams. About a fox that keeps going back
to the same old places, over and over again, doing the same things, until
it's finally killed. "its brush hangs burning flame at the hunter's
door." Continue this fatal returning to place s that failed me before.
It can't help itself.
Do you do that?
<Maybe.
There was nothing more to be learned from the map. I put it down
and picked up the gun.
We're going to be like Thelma and Louise. Kelly and me. It's
going to be so much fun. Something old. Something new. Something
borrowed and something blue. We're going to borrow my uncle's twelve
gauge. And a Uzi. And a couple of handguns. And ju st take off. Headed
down Highway 95. Charlie Starkweather and friend.
Of course, I couldn't let her live. She would have told. Spoiled
my fun. Hi, mom. This is Kelly. Blam. Blam. You're dead. Fucking
racists. Get down behind the counter. Lie on your face. Put your hands
above your head. No. Move 'em off. Put one on the floor and one on your
back side. No. I might shoot you there. Get up. Go in the backroom.
Take your clothes off. Dance. Drink water from the toilet. Bang bang.
Stinking bigots. It was sort of a backwards hate crime. I killed the
hate rs. So that took away the stain. Canceled it out. Start walking.
Keep your hands up. Don't make any sudden movies. Keep him covered,
Kelly. Now get down. On your knees, buster. Now beg. Kelly shot him in
the face.
It was getting chilly as we walked back to the car. She leaned
against me for support. Her slim lovely body was shaking. I wanted to
take her right there. We took the guy's credit cards and split.
"Cody," Liz said. "This isn't right."
She has long black hair that falls almost to her butt.
"Injun squaw heap good fuck bunny." This wasn't the first time we
had been together, but she always acted as if it was a betrayal of her
professional ethics. Kelly used an assault weapon made by a Cuban company
to take out the beagles. It was the same kind that guy in San Francisco
used, who went through an office building, shooting everyone in sight. It
just sprayed bullets everywhere. It had no real focus. A lazer it
wasn't. Who's that? Liz asked. Kelly. Pretty isn't she? Today the
subject wa s about fathers and daughters. A girl was explaining how she
felt about her father coming on to her. While the old man sat in the
chair next to her. Kelly asked her leading questions. Did you like it?
How old were you when it started? Did you feel a shamed? Like you had
done something wrong? no. yes. a little. Cody, what did you feel like?
I felt like I was watching myself on television.
Is this your video?
Yes.
Can we show it?
Yes. That's why I brought it.
Kelly slipped it into the machine.
Now what do you see? Liz asked.
I see myself naked in the attic.
How old are you?
Twelve.
What do you feel like?
Excited. I left my clothes downstairs. I'm totally exposed.
What else is there?
Old clothes. Boxes. Lots of dust. Some magzines.
What kind of magazines?
Girly ones.
Did you know they were there?
Yes. I found them before.
So when you took your clothes off, you knew what was going to be
up there?
y yes.
Didn't you?
Yes.
But you went anyway. Didn't you?
Yes.
Your witness.
Do you feel your father was to blame for what he did?
no
Why not?
I... entraped him.
Did you even know that word when you were twelve?
I knew what it meant.
You set a trap for a coon. For some poontang. For a squirrel.
But you go on a fox hunt.
Pick up the gun and shoot yourself.
Do it now.
It's not really a gun, is it?
No.
So why don't you do it? You know it's safe.
I...
What?
yes.
So do it. Hurry up.
I have a choice.
What choice?
I can eat a candybar instead.
You'll get fat.
I'll be alive.
With diabetes. Besides, it isn't here. You forgot to bring it.
So do it. Don't make me mad.
A tension was set up. Between a tv doing a Mozart series (75) and
an ad for pay-per-view (43). What was it? Bilko. Jesus. That old
thing. Phil Silvers. He died hard. But he was great. No one could top
him. Not even Steve Martin. She pushed the button on the tv without a
remote. You could still control it through its vcr or the Turner Werner
remote. But it had to be on 3. They all did. It was like an alignment
of the equinnoxes. Go and get it.
We'll see who's the stronger.
This is where it ends tonight. Swiss White. Tablette Blanche.
White Chocolate.
She tore it open. It was like a shootout between two old enemies.
Two anchor women who had known each other all their lives. This was no
o.k. corrale. Or the Norman Tabernacle one either. She broke off two
squares.
Okay. Let's rock.
The tea, the smoke, the chocolate and the liquor stood near to
hand. The two old friends had not seen one another since Wellesley. Let
me look at you? Confection? Daughters of. She glanced at the tray. One
or the other. But which? Which one is Ta ra? I could hardly tell where
to begin. Or when. They hung her at the crossroads. Oh my God, she's
been hanged. Yes. How unfortunate. Miss Otis regrets. Really? And she
seemed like such a sweet girl, too. So docile. I wonder what got into
her. Go on. Have one.
mmmmmm. It was like taking a big creamy white dick into my mouth.
I like to suck long. And I like to suck hard. I wrapped my tongue around
it. And moved it back and forth. Tasting the sweetness. I pushed it up
against my teeth. Hard. Then, let it drop. It was gradually
disappearing. I gave it one last rub down and swallowed it. I looked at
the other.
Should I take a sip of tea first? Wash out my mouth? Let my
tastebuds come back. This time, it would be with the liquor. I waited.
Go ahead, Cody said. I picked it up and put it in my mouth and just held
it. Not moving. Anything. Holding it susp ended in space. Until it let
down itself. I did not swallow. I reached out for the liquor. And
sniffed it. It was a fresh bottle. We could not allow such mysteries.
She swallowed hard and came back like a whip
i howled
somewhere deep ionside where the probe was going. down. into it
she wavered
like a wounded fawn
at the edge of the clearing
then plunged into the thicket
i followed
born and raised in the brair patch
she ran
I was right behind her
suddenly she was gone
from the clearing
I saved and came back
This time I inhaled first.
Olgar said something about the human rights panel and Sri ducked
missee
try agin
this time they got her
she was dragged back into the clearing and butchered
]this is the holocuaust
it sucks you in.
give up.
it's meant to be
we were still there
we just made this up
about the war ending
and the german's loss
its
oits a drea
a concentration camp dream
the war ends they let us out
he hadn't even touched her
it was all a gag
I just things went wrong
no, they went to georgia
she died
I juwst herrd
jasus
yuopu might at least say it
e've got to recycle the unicycle
are you listening
ring me
back
I got her
whe
s squriming hold her shes like apig in his mouth
sucking everything dry
she's soweeet
I can't live without her
she put a bullet through the television
She shot Broghar. And the firsst lieutenant
how am I going to explain this?
suck
Suck Hard. She killed the eleven o'c;lcock knews
spraywed bullets everywerhere
hit one of the cameras
take out
each set has to have a camera
but does every camera have to have a set?
he walked out on the set and told everyone to go home
the show was over
our cameras now are ended,
we these lonely virgins are but wwsporista of the mind
went off course, sir. I think it's SELF DESTRUCT oh wow, she didn't make it
over the barriers into the ribbon wire
we were in the forefront of the exterior installation come in Project
Alpha. Read you, Catwalk. Secure the perimeter. Kelly, calm down.
Everything will be alright. Here, have a candy. Suck on it. Now tell me
which is better. This or this? That. Slap. This or this? u that one.
Wham. ow. Now do it right. We're all in this together. So why am I the
one who always gets shot? Why not someone else? You're prettier.
Fucking sexist. Have another. This or this? This. Good. He rewarded
her.
You can see stuff on these tvs you never knew existed. Look at
that snow leopard on Ray. Look at that woman in the funny hat talking
about being saved by Jesus. Some of this stuff is totally bizarre.
That's Peter Jennings. My grandmother has the hot s for him. She's 89.
Melissa is showing Channel 1. All the sets have names. I didn't give
them to them. If you sit with them long enough, they tell you themselves.
Hogan is the one without the remote. Portia is next to it. Then there's
Two Trees. Chancellorsville. And Ruby Ridge. I call that one David. I
still don't know his name. It's not like when people name their computer
Hal or something cute like that. That is really lame. I hate cute stuff
like that. It's more like a deep inner know ledge of where the
information comes from. Smoky Joe is showing an old French movie from the
30s. Anous La Liberte. Rene Clair. Channel 75. The channels are a
different thing. The tvs are one thing and the channels are another.
Then there are the s tations. If stations have names beyond their call
letters, I don't know them. That's a whole different area of knowledge.
So one day 75 could be on Friendly Fallout and another it might be on
Star. We still don't know exactly what the rules are. The laws that
determine it. Where things go. We pretty much understand programming,
why a program will appear on one channel and not any of the others, but
I'm still working on why a program can look good on Sony and be terrible
on say, GOP. Sometimes I pu t it on more than one. Sometimes I put it on
all of them. I did that with the debates. All twelve tvs. Dole and
Clinton. But I muted the sound. And then I turned the sets off one at a
time. Very slowly. I wanted to make them suffer.
It's not like I talk to the toaster or anything. It's just that
with a tv, you can establish real rapport. It will respond to you. See,
there's a woman playing with a tiger. She's a pretty blonde. The tiger
is biting on her leg. Now she's down on t he ground, and the tiger is
stepping on her face. You can tell they're playing, because the tiger is
stepping on the woman's face and she's laughing. Now she's pulling on its
tail. The tiger is walking away, and the woman is pulling the tail like a
rop e. It's like dragging her. Maybe it's trained.
"Savages are happier than citizens."--John Adams. Marginalia.
Book graffitti. I could just make it out on C-Span 2. The Hunch Back of
Notre Dame. The real one. Not Disney. Esmerelda looks like Kelly. Who
was she? Same face. Same hair. I think they colorized i t. In this
scene, scientists are using the life cycle of maggots and flies to
determine the time of death in a murder case. That little black boy is
going to be killed by a serial killer. The maggots will eat his corpse.
The cycle is very precise. Yo u can almost set your clock by it. In
fact, it is a clock, although you might not want to wear it on your wrist.
Of course, it's not the real victim. They simulate the murder. Those
aren't the real flies, either. Maybe I should keep track of the time when
I see these things.
They were practicing martial arts in the park this afternoon.
Practicing with long sticks. Today was the longest day. Did you ever
notice, how Hallowe'en is the longest day or it comes right before? Like
the longest day is never more than six days be fore Hallowe'en. It has 25
hours. Which means October is the longest month. This is in America. In
other countries I heard it was different. But in America, the longest day
is the last Sunday before Hallowe'en, or it is Hallowe'en. They change
the c locks, too. And, of course, every vcr has different instructions.
Actually, they all have different times, too. I set each clock to match
the different time zones. So I would always know what time it is in
London. But I forgot which vcr is supposed t o represent London. I spent
the entire morning changing clocks. But I think I screwed up. Because
now Thurber's vcr shows mountain time, and he's next to Kurosawa, who's
set for Tokyo. Shit. There's also the question of where to put the extra
hour. I mean, I've only got twelve vcrs. What am I supposed to do? Hold
it in my lap? I wonder what they did at Stonehenge.
Of course, each vcr has to do double duty for two time zones.
Since there are only twelve, the time on each vcr pertains to what time it
is during the day on one side of the planet and on the other side at
night. Wherever it is. I bet you don't know w hat your sister time zone
is, do you? The slice of the planet that's right on the opposite side of
you. I have to admit I don't. If I had a globe I could figure it out, or
a map. But I don't have an atlas. Not of the world. Maybe some place in
the G obi desert. Unless, of course, they are on day light savings while
you are on standard. If they haven't switched over, it can throw the
numbers off. This means the time may be different but the place is the
same. So you have to be careful. It's getting dark.
This is the last night.
Like this is it.
This is the final chapter. I don't care what happens. I'm not
going to write anymore. I promise you. Now kneel. There was one left.
A faculty member. Ah, no shoot. No shoot reverend teacher. Excuse
please. Come with me. I trust I am among gent leman. That always cracks
them up. Bend over. Pick it up. Take it. Still she hesitated. Unsure
of herself. Put your hands behind your head and walk. Kelly, they're
here. Reaching out with her hand, she flipped the square of ecquisite
chocolate in to her mouth and pulled the pin. Now just stay that way.
I'll always remember you like this. Not like afterward, when the thing
went off. I told you not to move your lips.
I need time to think. I can't control it any more. Like, the
doors and windows are always open now. The sets are constantly telling me
things.
I need to get my act together. Take some time off. Just sit and
think. Be alone. There's never time. When we come back from Georgia,
I'm going to be an anchorwoman. Or maybe I'll have my own daytime show.
Don't laugh. That wouldn't be the most bizarre thing in the world.
She pointed the gun at Kelly's head and pulled the trigger.
Dagwood's picture went blank. Linda's on tonight.
She was confused. All her juices were runnning. But they were
running out of her mouth. An old injun trick. Just before you give a
blowjob, you annesticize your mouth so it won't hurt. Cock burns your
throat. It's like acid. She blocked it out. T his wasn't her. This
wasn't Indian Squaw Two Cunts. It was someone else. It was Kelly. So
Kelly is just a device to protect you from the real world? I didn't sayt
that. Her heart was racing. How do you finish this? With what word?
What gesture? What kind of magic do you have to know to get free? That
Glock was a good idea. Magic Talons. Put it against your head and hold
tight. Going on a real vision quest. Now open it up.,
While I waited for Linda to come on, I noticed one of the sets was
showing something about Scapa Flow. It's in the Orkneys. Where the
Germans scuttled their battlefleet. In the summer of 1919. You know, I
could go weeks without hearing about the Orkneys or even thinking about
them. And then, blam, blam, twice within days, only these were not
actors. These were old people who had seen what had happened; had been on
a school outing, on a tug or something, sailing right down between the
German ships that were anchored in the harbor. When the First World War
ended, the German fleet was ordered to be interned at Scapa Flow, which is
something like a bay or harbor in the Orkneys, along with their crews.
Why the Germans agreed to this, I'm not sure. It sou nds pretty strange.
Anyway, they did. They spent the winter of 1918-19 at Scapa Flow. The
next June, however, they sank the ships, all 76 of them, rather than let
the allies divide them up as spoils of war. It was a big surprise. The
children on the tug that day were being given a treat -- to go look at the
German ships. There were a number of battleships such as the Kaiser and
destroyers, including the Hindenberg, and many smaller ships. They had
been lined up and anchored in pairs up and down the harbor. For some
reason, the Royal Navy, which had been guarding them, was away, on
manuevers. The children had been cautioned by their headmaster, who had
been a colonel in the war, not to gloat or make gestures at the expense of
their fallen enemy, a lthough after seeing both programs, it would be hard
to imagine anyone in Orkney had ever done anything remotely impolite since
the time of St. Magnus the Martyr. However, as the tug proceeded along
the corridor of anchored German ships, the children beg an to notice that
first one, and then another, and finally all were keeling over and
sinking. One old woman said it was very entertaining. I'll bet. The
world's bloodiest war had just ended, and here was the whole German navy
going down before their ey es. Think of the term papers. What I did last
summer. Try to keep it to two pages. The men opened the cocks and
smashed the screws with sledgehammers in case anyone might have second
thoughts, and then they abandoned ship -- ships. It was interesting .
The mystery I had watched hadn't said anything about this. All that was
mentioned was the Royal Oak. Which happened 20 years later. In fall
1939, a u-boat slipped into the same harbor and caught an English
battleship named Royal Oak unawares. 800 men died in six minutes. More
numbers. You add them up.
Something about the children on the tugboat sailing surenely
through the German ships as they slowly capsized and sank around them
reminded me of the Ring of Brodgar. It was as if the same thing -- apart,
of course, from a big fuck you on the part of th e Germans -- were trying
to be expressed in a different form or shape just as it was in the caves
with the animals. Or the studio where Linda made her tapes. Or the
circle of tvs in my bedroom. Maybe even by the platoon of monkeys on
Channel 18. The s tones were supposed to be ancient giants who had come
to the Orkneys, maybe for reasons similar to the battleships, where they
had been magically frozen in space-time.
I also seemed to be trying to remember something else about the
Orkneys, something to do with Morgan le Fe. And Mordred. Hadn't he been
born there? Raised by foster parents when his mother abandoned him?
Morgan was 1,600 years ago. A long time, but by that time, the stones had
been standing for thirty four hundred years. Why were they never knocked
over? Did the locals think, leave them for the tourists? The incomers?
New people in the Orkneys are called "incomers." Your family can live
there f or generations, since before the Civil War, and you will still be
considered an incomer. Morgan was from Cornwall. So she was an incomer,
too. Soon I will be Morgan. I think you know, Kelly's last name is
Morgan. Morgan the Pirate. J. Pierpont Morga n. Morgan le Fe. They all
share the same hole. (Pier is a four letter word for Peter.) In this
ring, I thee wed. Cody Ann Morgan. Of course, I will take my husband's
name. Isn't that my right?
One act is haunted by another. Reverberations, like those from a
gun. Can't we at least use it for a parking lot? Hindenberg at Scapa
Flow. And Lakehurst, N.J. Madame, please don't let your sheep piss on
the stones. It discolores the rock. Hindenb erg standing next to Hitler
as he takes the oath of office. The paintings on the caves in France are
between 13,000 and 30,000 years old. All of a light year. Can you
imagine a culture or religion that lasts 17,000 years? What an attention
span. Those old people who remembered Scapa Flow looked just like the
actors who talked about the Royal Oak.
I know this doesn't seem to have anything to do with
alt.sex.bondage. A lot of the people who wrote to me complained I was
hard to follow, that I ramble or go off on tangents. Maybe they're right.
But the real question is not what a.s.b. can do for yo u, but what does
a.s.b. have to do with time and history? And memory? I'm not writing
about sex -- fooled you, didn't I? I'm writing about meaning. And its
non-existence. The pornography and sadism was just a trick, a come on.
Made you look, you dirty crook. Stole your mother's pocketbook. naa
naa.
We are still like doing the dance of the master, the horned god on
the walls of Lascaux. Those old men and women, the German sailors and the
Orkadian school kids, remembered a sunlit morning in June when the whole
world turned upside down and breathed a sigh of relief. The war was over.
Or so it seemed.
*
God, I love a good injun between my legs. An Indian Harley going
down 95. With twin speakers. An easy rider that looks just like you.
Can't tell 'em apart when they're dead. But that one's Cody and that
one's Esmerelda. All clones in the same cradl e. State of the Art
Fighting machines. One just got a little above herself, that's all.
We'll have to fix that., Won't we? She nodded. By this time, she was so
far gone, she didn't know what was happening to her. That state of the
art panty girdle filled with grapefruits. You ever whip a girl with
something like that? Go on. Try it, Amigo. This one won't mind. Will
you? uh no. ooompf
The girls moved off down the interstate. "Do you think they ever
get it?"
"Nope."
- Fin de Chic -
Part 7 Index