Amazon
Category:
Science Fiction
Publisher: Charles Turner
Type: Fiction
Pages: 256
Copyright: July 31, 2024
ISBN-13: 9798227384607
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
Dystopic fiction. A collection of six stories. 1. Quiet Beneath the Moon 2. Over Here 3. From off the Tumbrel Fell 4. Chimpanzee 5. Teapot's Empire 6. The Census Taker
Denny, sometimes called Denny the Wizard, octogenarian, is lured from his isolation by an old running mate from the 60s. He becomes embroiled in a scenario of war, climate catastrophe, and a move hopefully to a refuge from the worst of it.
2nd. "Over Here" - previously our war were fought Over There.
3rd. The executioner could not silence these talking heads.
4th. An escaped lab animal seeks revenge.
5th. "Teapot's Empire" - New species, new rescue of our planet.
6th. The Cansus Taker comes to Earth from far away, one thousand years hence.
Excerpt
QUIET BENEATH THE MOON
CHAPTER ONE
It is evening of a long, trying Sunday. Driven by insomnia, driven by my acute isolation, I spend hours walking on the beach after sunset. Once the unbearable sun has rolled away for the day, I’m toiling like a bug over the deep Long Beach sand. The scudding moon hangs over my shoulder, listening as I ramble on. It makes a good companion, the moon. For its sake I stick to the small talk, not wanting to make him depressed. This evening he’s a white sliver. I call him “Toenail Clipping.” He doesn’t mind. I can call him anything. He sticks with dog-like loyalty. He just wants to hang. But, unlike a dog, he lacks the power to alert me if someone runs up behind me. Which is happening now.
I spin, alarmed, because I hear pounding footsteps over the wet sand at the water’s edge. I freeze, weighing the situation for possible danger.
I see a gangling male start to flail his arms when he hits the dry sand. He gets in my face in the time it takes to slow and quit wind-milling those long arms. By then it’s too late to throw up my hands to block him. He gets nose to nose and stands, panting. I discern big square teeth, a great mustache, a swarthy grin as he grabs my shoulders. “I’ll be damned,” I tell Toenail Clipping; “it’s Doc Ramos.”
Doc draws me into an embrace. “I missed you, Denny the Wizard,” he says through his teeth, looking into my eyes with eyes as black and bottomless as the holes of time.
“Me too,” I say stupidly.
We pause, each waiting to see where we go from here. Doc’s panting is slowly easing. He looks at me in an odd little way that says he’s heard of my doctor’s prognosis, but he doesn’t know whether to mention it. I catch my gaze on the great ship that’s moored directly behind him. It’s the Queen Mary, secured as close to the shore as practically possible. I see pensive, patient Toenail Clipping high over the Queen Mary,
waiting in vain for me to rejoin him. I slide my eyes into Doc’s sad stare, feeling a bit sorry for him. “Don’t worry, Doc; I’m holding stable. I’ve a few alternative programs to sample yet.”
Doc shakes his head. “You’re going to lick it.”
“Yep; I am. Let’s go to my place. I’ve got to piss.”
“Hang it out here.”
“We’ll go to my place.”
“You writing lately? I don’t see a new book in nearly three years.”
“I have pieces of books in boxes. Hell, I’m no good for work anymore. I’m living on Social Security and dribbling-in royalties. What brought you to Long Beach?”
“Looking for you, Denny the Wizard; looking for you.”
“Until the first of February I lived in L.A. How did you know to come here?”
“I called your brother to find out if you’re kicking. He told me how you’ve taken to always walking this beach.”
“After fifty years, you just came to visit?”
“Well -” Doc stops in his tracks and jambs a cheroot between his square teeth. He chips a wooden match with a thumbnail until it ignites. My eyes ride the flame to the
cigar tip and along the shaft to Doc’s teeth. I notice how stained those teeth are, and that there is a chunk out of one. When I last saw them they were still white and clean, in gums that held them as steady as posts in concrete. I note the creased face, the loosening jowl, and I realize, he has aged, same as me. We are old. Two old fucks with broken teeth. I clap his shoulder as he moves ahead again.
We scale a grade that peaks against the grey wall of a sidewalk. We gain that plateau with its high street-side curb and go left to cross Long Beach Boulevard at the intersection.
“So; how’s Mexico?”
Doc chews the cheroot, meditatively. “Painful; desperate; beautiful; maddening; inspiring - It’s very spiritual.”
Doc flips his smoke into some palmettos growing in front of a stucco building. The
building’s outside lights go on. Despite what Doc has said, I privately conclude that it’s something more than a simple visit that brought him here.
Doc goes on about Mexico. “Me? I don’t work. I am like an itinerant preacher. I roam the country, talking about the same things I did during the protest days, only adapted. At first it was hard. They thought I was a lazy hippy. They didn’t trust me. But I was running with Anglos so much I forgot how to be with my own people. So I told them that. I humbled myself to the most menial existence until they felt pity and began to like me. Now when I come to a town the poorest of the poor offers to share everything they have with me. There is so much need there. Sometimes I have to leave there and that’s the
hardest part. I got to recharge the batteries, Denny.”
“Do the authorities bother you?”
“Oh, yeah. I spent two years in jail. But they could never find me guilty of nothing. So they let me out.”
“You’re the only one that hasn’t changed, Doc.”
“That is where you are wrong. That’s a bunch of bull. You’re still the same. You just got disconnected.” Doc takes a turn in front of me and stops. “Do you have a car, Denny?”
“I have a Taurus wagon.”
“You know, you don’t look too good. How do you feel?”
“Aw, I’m all right. There’s a certain strain to being alone in this. But I’m okay. I’m strong.”
Doc digs in his shirt pocket, fishes out another cheroot and fiddles with it. It’s nearly too frazzled to be smoked.
“Doc; why are you really here?”
“Seriously - I got in trouble with some drug people. I wasn’t doing anything, but they think I did. So they want to kill me.”
“What a dumb-ass move.”
“It was a set-up. I didn’t do nothing wrong.”
“Tell it later, Doc, I can’t think when I got to piss.”
“Yeah; let’s get on to your place. Now I got to piss too.”
We approach from the driveway, coming upon the Taurus. It sits, dappled by a
mercury light that shines from above through a chinaberry tree growing too close to the
house. Heavy dust hides most of its sheen. It appears in the darkness to be black, but in fact it’s indigo. It’s so neglected looking because it is. Doc runs a hand across the hood, streaking the dirt. “I got here by bus,” he says, wiping the hand on his pants.
My house is old, with falling gingerbread, peeling paint and crumbly shingles on the low pitched a-frame roof. Too much rain and humidity are ruining all that wonderful craftsmanship. The landlord seems not to care. Inside, the house meets one’s expectations, if they are not high. The sheet vinyl floor shows wear where the sub floor is loose. Dirty beige walls, low ceiling, with a fan light that strains to exude a yellow glow. I’ve furnished with gaudy furniture and outlandish do-dads to counteract the depressing pall.
Doc quick strides ahead of me to get to the commode first, unzipping and pointing in a fluid motion so that an unrestrained stream begins to flow into the pot.
Crap! My bladder’s sides strain like a water balloon. “Hurry, Doc; I can’t wait any longer.”
Wordlessly, Doc keeps pissing.
“Doc - Shit.”
I power walk through the kitchen. The doorknob rattles when I give it a violent turn. I throw the door open; then, in the fenced-in enclosure, where a barbecue pit is nearly lost in an overgrowth of weeds, and the nasty little mosquitoes whet their vampire noses, I hang it out. At last, the piss flows, to a chorus of warbling angels.
After, utterly calm, I’m zipping my fly, floating into the house. Doc’s rifling my 6
books; says he’s looking for a road atlas. “I haven’t been on a road trip in a long time,” he
says.
Doc leaves the books disheveled. He throws himself into the divine softness of the recliner, looking at me with eyes that proclaim his tiredness. “Denny, we got to plan us a
new adventure. Something to say we still count for something in the world.”
I move to the kitchen, stalling an answer. At this point I’m really hungry. “Do you want something, Doc? I’m making myself a concoction of veggie juices. But I can fix you a juicy porterhouse. I’ve been saving that for something, but you’re welcome to it.”
“No, nothing. I don’t eat.”
“Organic carrot, spinach, apple and barley juice. One glass, three times a day. Since I’ve gotten used to this stuff, I actually look forward to it.”
There’s no reply. I return to the room, sipping a bit, seeing his sprawling form asleep in the recliner. No wonder Doc’s being so quiet. I pause in that naked moment to look upon my old friend, gratified that he’s come. I marvel that his mustache and hair are mostly black, while my own hair has blown away with the tumbleweeds. I smile. “Rest it; I’ll see you in the morning.”
After drinking my juice up a bit too quickly I find myself cleaning in the kitchen. Juicers are a pain in the ass. As I put all the parts on the drainer and wipe up the counter, Doc begins to snore, becoming louder and louder. Amused, I stand in the doorway and watch him sleep. I wish I could die like that.
Then I spy the little packet of white powder, all but freed from his pocket. It should be no surprise, really, as I continue to look on, now with moistening eyes, cursing the way
life changes, where even the saints can’t remain saints. Suddenly weary, I go to the
bedroom. Giving up seems the only option, as I lie on the bed with all my clothes on,
A few hours later, Doc comes in and shakes the bed, not seeing that my eyes are still wide open. “Hey, fucking gringo.”
He shakes the bed again.
“Hey, Doc. You didn’t rest very long.”
“I got too excited thinking how we are going to be together again. What‘s wrong? You look like you‘re struggling with something emotional.”
“I’m okay. You can nest here indefinitely if you want to, Doc. I’m too settled; not going anywhere.”
“Okay.” A restless hand moves over the content of Doc’s shirt pocket. He darts his
eyes away, but they can’t evade me.
I tell him, regretfully, “If you want to keep going I can take you out along the Grapevine, or I can put you on a bus. ’
“Or you could lend me the car!”
“Out of the question,” I reply firmly. “I’m driving to LA next week.”
My shoes fall over the side, taking my feet to the floor. “Sorry, Doc. I don’t do long trips anymore.”
Doc speaks over my shoulder, following me all the way to the kitchen. “I have to keep moving, Denny. I can’t be sure if they are able to track me. I can’t be out on the road. I can’t take any public transport.”
I put on the light over the sink and begin cleaning up the teapot. “I want to be
supportive,” I begin -
“But, you could give me the key if you want to support me. It‘s the only way.”
“Or I could tell you to keep on traveling the same way you got here if I want to hard ass an old friend.”
“Friend,” Doc laments, his face clouding with what appears to be anger.
There’s no warning, as he attacks, growling like a demented bear. The instant his oversized hands wrap around my wrist and upper arm I cave. “All right, damn it. I’ll drive you.”
To my surprise, the assault continues. He slips his arm about my throat. Our struggle brings us into the living room.
“Give me the key.”
“A-augh - I can’t breathe.”
Doc turns my pocket inside out to wrangle away the key. After, he flings me off to the side. I crash over a table, smashing a vase full of plastic flowers. His heels vanish out the door as I wrestle the table away before I can move. “Doc,” I plead, “don’t take my car.”
Getting myself up, lurching outside.
The car engine revs and the lights go on. The back-up and brake lights work in
unison as Doc positions the Taurus on the driveway. Once he rolls onto the street, I will have to consider reporting my car as stolen.
Inexplicably, he stops. The car shuts down.
I rush the passenger side and Doc obligingly unlocks the door. Scrambling in, as
my ass hits the seat, I become aware there is a squad car parked near the driveway
entrance. The cop face in the window is focused in this direction. Doc huddles, looking the way he did the first time we got arrested protesting, in 1965. “Let me guess,” I snarl venomously. “No license? A warrant? What are you guilty of?”
“Close your hole.”
“No. No, Doc. You practically stole my car. I want to know.”
“I’ll tell you later. Shit. The cop’s turning in.”
In surreal slow motion, the squad car inches near. The cop gets out. A lanky figure, he approaches from the driver’s side, darting a flashlight about the car interior.
“What’s going on?” he says politely.
Doc feigns innocence, becoming wide-eyed in the hard glare of the light. “Come again, officer?”
The cop, jiggling his flashlight, bends to speak directly into Doc’s face. “I saw the two of you running. Why did you come out of the house like that?”
“It’s his house,” Doc says to shift the focus onto myself.
“It is my house, officer. We were having a disagreement, so my friend here ran away from me. He wasn’t going anywhere, though; just teasing.”
The cop considers a moment, his intelligent brown eyes continually probing, registering, analyzing. Should I call back-up? Any way they’re telling the truth?
We hear his radio garble a short burst in cop language. The cop appears to ignore it. His curiosity about us remains unsatisfied. “Anyone inside the house?”
“No, sir. I could show you around. I have a photo of myself on the bureau and lots
of personal papers at my desk.”
The cop radio spews a long unintelligible message. The cop turns off the flashlight. “You boys be careful.”
He strides to the cruiser and quickly backs it into the street. With flashing lights and blaring siren, he’s gone, leaving us stunned. I look at Doc, inquiringly. “Crazy fucker. What are you going to do next?”
“Still driving out of here. Still giving you the same choices.”
“Look. Doc -.”
Doc explodes. “God damn it, I got to save my own self. At least you got a chance. If I don’t go now, I don’t got no chance.”
“I’ll never see my car again, will I, Doc?”
Doc restarts the engine. “I don’t know. We’ll see.”
As I reach for the door handle, he acts on impulse, putting it in gear and gunning it. The tires spew gravel all the way to the street, squealing, fishtailing the car across the pavement. We race to the stop sign, where Doc taps the brake pedal, then continues around the corner, not affording me the chance to get out. The sun puts its first beam in our eyes as we begin the race toward Doc’s vision, our doom or our destiny.
CHAPTER TWO
“This is the Ridge Route Highway,” Doc maintains. “The Grapevine part of the Ridge Route comes when we pass Fort Tejon. At the end of it we get in the San Joaquin Valley.”
After I don’t reply for the hundredth time, Doc prowls through the glove compartment, picking out a short pencil. He chews meditatively on the eraser end, soon making a face over the rubber taste. Flipping the pencil out the window, he begins patting the steering wheel, singing up-tempo Spanish songs. Abruptly, he finds another topic to flip out at me. “What happened to all those great books you were going to write? Each time I saw your titles I said, ‘Maybe this is it.’ But they were always about insane Martians, space guys trying to get laid, monsters looking like flaccid dicks, slithering across beach sand. That’s crap, Denny, and you know it. You always said you planned to write The Great American Novels, a whole series of them, putting in the stuff the hacks like Mark Twain and John Steinbeck had to leave out. I never understood what that meant, by the way. What? What did they leave out? What did you perceive that anyone else didn’t?”
Doc’s right, of course. When it came down to it, I didn’t measure up. The novels I’ve produced sold pretty well, but the audience couldn’t care less about literary standards. There are some fuck books that are better written. I look out over the Tehachapi Mountains as at some ghost terrain where the spirits of long gone writers blow about with the wind. I tip an imaginary glass of wine to their honor, as Doc rambles on.
Dozing, unwilling to ponder any more - until he breaks through with a touchy subject we both had been avoiding. “My sister lives with some nuns, thank you very much for asking about her. She spends all her time praying and reading little Bibles. Her last guy really fucked her up.” Doc is quiet a few moments. “She always wanted you, you know. You didn’t give her the chance. You should have married her, fucking wizard.” Another pause. “Hey, I’m talking to you!”
I smile, involuntarily. “You know, Doc, I could have had this conversation with you this morning, before you went all Dutch Schulz on me. Now I’m just some object riding along in the car, like that air freshener dangling over the windshield. Wake me when we get to the next populated car stop. That’s when I’m going to turn you in and get my car back to Long Beach.”
“Fucking gringo. At least now you’re talking.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then, God damn it, I’m going to drive like a bat out of hell. If you’re lucky, the cops will stop me. If not, well, who knows about the car?”
“Drive away. We have enough gas to get twenty miles. My credit cards and my money are still in my desk.”
Doc chuckles. “Then we got Suicide Run. See you on the other side, vato.”
But of course Doc would do it. So, I throw in the towel. “Look; If I promise to cooperate, will you be a good boy?”
“If it means you talk to me, yes.”
“Give me back my car?”
“Shee - I was never going to keep it.”
“Then pull over at the next diner. I’m starving.”
“You got it. Damn I’m glad we’re going to be friends again.”
“Wrong, Doc. Friends level with each other.”
“Fuck it, then.”
That exchange leaves me grinning and Doc hunched darkly over the wheel.
I am wrapped into sarcastic thinking when Doc pulls into a place off the freeway, so I don’t know where we are. I think at first it’s a Stuckey’s, but it’s a private operation. I opt for a table until Doc becomes fixated on the woman at the counter. He slides in to sit before her and I of course follow suit. The woman has a cowboy face, long braids to the sides and a crooked smile. Very Kerouac. I note how the smile never really goes away. She’s wearing a pink cafeteria style dress that says little about her figure, short-sleeved, so we see her arms have blotched skin. She pauses from wiping up something from
behind the counter. “Coffee?”
“Two,” blurts the old Docster
“I’ll have iced tea.”
“That hair natural?” Doc inquires playfully.
“Coffee for you,” she deftly slips the cup in. “What, honey?” She scoops ice in a tall glass and places it under the spigot.
“Your name Alice?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“I was wondering, because you look like Alice.” Doc sugars the coffee, dumping in
two creams, singing barely audibly, “’You can get any thing you want…’.”
Then he says, “I want a pack of them Mississippi Crooks to take with me. Two, I mean.”
“And a chicken salad,” I decide.
With her duties fulfilled, the woman busies herself at the far end of the counter, wrapping silverware, while Doc sips and I eat. I’m studying the rack of pies, trying to guess at the filling in each one, when Doc slips off his seat, saying, “See you in a minute,” heading to the restroom.
“First give me the key, asshole. I’m driving if you’re doing what I know you’re doing.”
To my surprise he transfers the key right away. Working on my salad, I continue to examine the pies, narrowing the scrutiny to what just could be blackberry. As I verge on ordering a piece, Doc breezes by and out the door. “Pay up,” he says in passing.
Disappointed, yet relieved, I forgo the sugary mouth watering concoction. I shove the remnants of the salad back and approach the register.
“Can I have a water to go?” I say down the counter, bending to reach in my sock for a credit card.
“Sure can, honey.” She hands the water, talking as she runs the card, her jaded green cowboy eyes scanning the Taurus. “Big boy like you, kid like that; something’s not right here.”
“I’m the designated straight guy.”
“You be careful, you hear?”
“No promises; I’ll try.”
Her crooked little smile goes away for a moment. I go back and place a tip by my platter.
Doc is oddly silent as we hit cruising speed. It‘s me driving. He follows my actions at first, then settles to watch the traffic, his eyes inexorably beginning to shut. All the way into the San Joaquin Valley, he’s still. I develop a tunnel vision, forgetting about him, barreling into a summer shower, the brief, heavy pelting kind. I ponder the cocoon-like state of today’s auto passenger, the smooth ride, how we climb in, then get out a thousand miles away, almost as fresh as we began. Not like the old days, when travel was an adventure. Yes, sir. That was when we were each and every one of us Indiana Jones. All of a sudden, I find myself free-wheeling. Who should drop into the space between us but Salmon Rushdie! “Have you read my book?“
“Only a few pages.“
“Did those pages create for you anti-Muslim sentiment or corrupt your perception of my religion?“
“No; I didn’t get anything out of it. I was not mentally prepared to read such a book. I could not relate to the opening - found it boring.“
“I see.“ Wise, impermeable pause. “Do you think you will read it in the future?“
“Look, I’m driving a treacherous road here. Do you think we could postpone this to a later date? I’m busy. You understand.“
Wordlessly, Salmon continues his descent through the floor. He waves at me as he plunges out of sight.
Already, the rain is ending. Bright eye glare. I reach for sunglasses, noting Doc’s face as I lean over him. The thought hits me: “He’s dead; if not, dying.” Oh crap! Don’t let him be dead. What am I going do? Get him out of the car! Walk him! Flag someone down!
With the car wheels in the weeds, I fight like a wild animal to get him out on his
feet. I end up dragging his body over twenty yards, but his dangling legs don’t move. We collapse on the gravelly shoulder. Weeping, I roll him on his back, repeatedly pressing on his chest. I won’t give up until help arrives.
The brightness of a large hubcap, the stepping down of booted feet and Wrangler clad legs, a deep voice.
“Heart attack?”
“A bad dose of something illegal. I think he’s dead.”
“Let me have a go at him.”
The trucker begins working Doc’s limbs and slapping him from time to time.
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
He rotates his big head, tilting to see beyond a cowboy brim.
“Nope. Did you?”
“No. I hope you called an ambulance?”
“I did do that.”
We attempt to walk him between us, but Doc remains limp as a dead bullfrog. When the siren sound touches our ears we drop him, a bit hastily, grateful that the professionals can now make the call.
“Thank God,” the sweating trucker grunts, pulling the plug from his mouth, spitting. His beer belly in a Harley Davidson tee shirt becomes the focus of my attention for the moment until they arrive.
It’s like the beach at Normandy as the screaming vehicles swoop to the scene. Two rescue trucks, five cop cars, two or three VFDs. They swarm out, a highly trained battalion, each to their specific tasks. Paramedics go over the corpse. Right away, they strap it on a litter, then a lady cop asks me if the deceased belongs to me.
“No. I knew him from way back, but he just tapped me for a ride this morning.”
“Next of kin? Where’s his family?”
“Fresno. I forget the street.”
“Put your name and address here. They may get in touch.”
Surprised that I don’t have to follow the ambulance, I say my thanks to the trucker.
We shake hands. Stumbling in the weeds, sweating profusely, I hike to my car. Luckily, we moved Doc’s body far enough along the road to not block me in. I look down the highway as far as I can probe, in a momentary wistful glimpse of the past, almost able to see a young man in the heat waves trekking up the road, thumb out, heart on the hunt. He vanishes like a good little apparition.
Overlook this callous façade; Doc’s absence is a hole in me. I intend to celebrate the man in my own quiet way. In the time of Denny the Wizard, we served together as ringleaders of the Waves of Love, loose-knit group of all-purpose-demonstrators and sometimes-runners-of-draft-dodgers-across-the-Canadian-border. That he was a Mexican so swarthy adds to the romance of the situation.
During the Chicago cop riot outside the Democrats’ convention, near the spot where the Yippies nominated Phil Ochs’ pig for president, he was the rescuer when I became the fallen comrade, with one planting his boot in my chest after swatting me to the ground with his club. Through teargas tears he took me beyond the maelstrom, then returned to do what he could for others.
After my parents both perished in a fiery freeway accident, I got really close to his family, to Mama Linda, and Nellie (Manuella). I still have the gas and indigestion from Linda’s cooking, I think.
And Doc could sing. His rendition of America the Beautiful blows me away, over forty years later.
“Give concerts,” Linda, and I often pleaded.
Unmoved by the requests, he preferred spontaneous renditions when one least suspected it. The proud peacock, he shunned the performer’s spotlight. Go figure.
Somehow he found the time to read, for he knew the best sellers and would also quote the like of Yukio Mishima or John Steinbeck, at the drop of a hat. In endless discussions he goaded me to write, until I caught on fire, with my quickly failed magazine, The Moloch Eaters, being my first public effort.
As all of our friends took to proclaiming themselves ecologists, we knew then it was over. Nixon was having his way, despite all that the opposition could throw at him.
The only meaningful protests were being waged by the Veterans Against the War. Comrades in arms, Dale and Carl, had already drifted off and I had my writing to tend to. Doc’s heritage called on him, urging the move to Mexico.
I am still unforgiving of the man who hijacked my car and claimed to be the same person. I don’t bend easily. Perhaps in future days I may have a new slant on it.
A bit of history:
Conceived by me in the ‘60s, The Moloch Eaters magazine would be an antidote against the minions of Moloch, “eater of children.” Figuratively, his beasts to be stripped naked and publicly flogged for their evil deeds. I’d be doing a small part in helping to break the power held over this land by predators of politics, engineers of war, leeches of commerce, purveyors of racism, oppressors of women. Everything making the people less secure. For, yes, these creatures from Moloch were and still are very real, to be fought with fury and conviction until a final struggle has been won.
My magazine became an early victim of miscarriage when my circumstances continually shifted and I was forced to abandon the project.
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