No Juice: The Belly of the Beast

CHAPTER TWO

What the commander had referred to as his Rover was this huge fusion of trailer and tank. His command post was a heavily fortified trailer with a monster tank growing up around it. The ‘War-Pig’ was everything that T-Rex was in appearance: a weathered and grotesque-looking combination of stealth, tactic and violence, a looming danger and an affront to the gods. Rumor had it the thing could move like hell-fire, too.

I climbed up a ladder over the huge, man-sized tread of the beast, opened the lid and dropped into its belly. A candle burned slowly inside and the commander sat at his desk, itself a makeshift deal of two sawhorses and somebody’s front door. A candle sat on it and flickered shadows across the ceiling.

“I don’t have my camera,” I said as I settled to the chair he’d left me at the far end of the table from him. “Carmelita has it I guess. I’ve hoarded the battery on it for three years, fought for it with my life at times. Killed for it in Ireland.”

“We need the juice,” his voice rumbled thought the dark interior of the war wagon, “and we’re taking it.”

I hadn’t anticipated this, really. “You don’t understand…” I stammered. To have gone through all this and they were just going to jury-rig it into something else. “But, what about posterity?”

T-Rex laughed like it hurt him to do it. “I keep you on because the Great Oil Wars are what’s going to end up defining us as human beings, for good or ill. Nature’s great experiment with life and intelligence comes to a head when this war does. I keep you here because unlike 100% of every rag-tag collection that still claims to be a fighting force out there, we, the Dirty Rogues are still capable of accomplishing important objectives, do you understand me?”

“Like?” I asked. The pencils were useless without my pad of paper, which, truth be told, were down to the last three sheets anyways.

“What news have you of the last Nexus?” he interrupted my train of thought like a jagged blade. Supposedly Eurasia had created three Nexus class Megatankers, gargantuan beasts that roved the battlefields and stocked up their armies just as ours choke on fumes and barely adequate field moderations. That was the shape of this war, thought by many to be Man’s last; those that had the fuel to keep on going would be the champs and the others would amount to little more than decaying dinosaurs for future generations, if any, to marvel at. Historical curiosities in an earth turned museum/junkyard.

The three megatankers were spoke of as myth on the battlefields, and apparently all sides had heard tell of them. Whose the damned thing had been in the first place depended on the telling. The Asians, the Eurasians, the Continental Americas or the Russians took turns taking credit for them and then would turn around and blame it with derision on the others. It was a dubious distinction to be the creator of those crafts, for they were a feat in modern technology, carrying enough fuel that any force needed but not travelling on said fuels. Some said it was solar and turbine powered. Others said it was purely atomic. What made the distinction dubious was that whoever made the damned things supposedly lost them somewhere in the battlefield, lost in a bureaucratic affair or, as is so often the case in this war, they’d gotten stolen then lost.

Supposedly, of the original three, one was blown up by the Asians, who were about to lose it and didn’t want it to exchange hands. The second was believed to have been found by C.A. forces, dry as a midsummer Texas day. The third was rumoured to be still at large, and at this late stage in the game, a powerful chip on a battlefield full of discarded and decaying hulks. That’s if they’d ever even existed at all.

“A rumour,” I answered him, “a myth.”

“I asked what news you had of it, not your opinion!” He banged his fist on the table, shaking the candle between us. His one good eye blazed angrily at me.

“If it ever existed they haven’t found it yet,” I answered him to the best of my ability, “at least as far as I know.” He looked excited at this.

“And its location, I mean generally, any word on it?”

“Most people agree it’d have to be in the middle east somewhere,” I began, “if the thing has actually been lost.”

“And if it hasn’t been lost?” he asked me, “where then?”

“Well, others think it has been taken, flown back and dropped off to whoever made the thing, to fuel the defence against its own populace.”

“Mount up, you Dirty Rogues!” the shouting voice of Carmelita drifted through the hatch. “We leave tonight!” If she was still reticent about her troops being pushed yet further by the Thunder Lizard, her voice didn’t give it away.

“Ah yes,” T-Rex frowned, “the homefront. How is it out there? Gone to total shit yet?”

“Pretty fucked up,” I responded. If he asked me about the state of the Continental Americas as a nation right now, I wouldn’t know where to begin. When I’d left ten years ago, only the very rich and very stupid were still driving cars, rich because you had to be to get even a spritz of gas for your tank, stupid because it made you a target. And the roads were getting all thrashed anyways.

“It’s getting ugly,” I admitted. “Civil unrest,” I continued, “starvation and disease is becoming a factor on the populace as well. Power’s off more often than on.” That was what finally pulled the plug on Big Media, and with nobody left to proclaim the validity of war, the people had forgotten the evershifting face of evil foreign powers or terrorist bands that had instilled within them such all-encompassing fear for so long and awoke an anger at the powers that be on a more local scale. Can’t perpetuate fear with no juice.

“No juice,” he murmured to himself, then shouted out the hatch. “Number One!” he called out to his next in rank, before turning to me. “Now, you listen to me: what you’ve heard about the Americas, that’s the rumor. That’s the myth. And if I catch wind of you mentioning any of that to any of my troops and I’ll put one of my last bullets into the middle of your brain. My Fighting Rogues don’t need to question what they’re fighting for, or what’s going to be waiting for them when and if they ever get back, you understand me? They are alive today because they believe we can win this war.”

“Get up you filth-ridden dogs!” Thompsen called out into the night, “We’re charged and honor bound to fight the good fight in other climes, not count sheep in the comfort in the warm musk of our mother’s teats! Arise you disgusting savages, for tomorrow is today, right now in fact, and it has been for a long fucking time!”

I could hear the tread of army boots up the side of tank and quickly asked the only interview question I would get in with the platoon leader that particular day. “Can we win this war, d’you think? Is there anything to win?”

“Don’t waste my time!” he shouted angrily as Carmelita’s head appeared upside down. It was in an order to her that I would hear my fate over the next weeks and months. “Media-geek stays. He can interview who he wants as long as he carries his own weight. He learns the subtle art of nicking juice and gets on a siphon team as quick as possible. Give the battery to techie and see what he can use it for.” With each command, Carmelita nodded, and he dismissed her before turning back to me.

“Media is your hobby now. Soldiery is your life. You can’t learn to steal juice you’re dead to me,” he informed me, “and to you. Posterity or no.” With that he rolled out a map on his table and began studying it, and I gathered I was to go. I climbed up and out eh belly of the beast and hopped off the tread.

I glanced at that unnaturally big star, or where the big star ought to have been. I became aware of soft under-humming whisper that was around me and for awhile I was unable to distinguish it from the strange thing that was happening to our stars, our sky. The underhum was the sound of the camp’s voices quietly whispering amongst themselves about what we were all looking at. Where the giant star had been was now a shimmering field that appeared to make the stars behind it move and shudder. It was if some giant shimmering glob was between me and all the stars I’d ever seen. And the super star of how ever many hours ago, was breaking into smaller pieces in front of my very eyes.

*

The ejection of soupy plasma from the exploding black hole races out equally in all directions, faster even than light, though some creatures believed such a thing must be impossible, having only the most rudimentary of ideas about what was really out there, what it was all made of or how any of it actually worked. The plasma between the exploded black hole and a viewer on a nearby spinning planet creates a blurring and shaking effect, the after-image of the same type of explosion that has created and destroyed everything that ever was.

Infernal Dick: Durante's Fall

It’s distressing to know that you’re dying, all the more so when you realize you’re going to the wrong after-party.

I fell. For a long time. Days? Nights? Who could tell? Why Hell and why me? I’d never been an angel; I cursed a lot and drank even more and sure, I’d certainly skinned more than my fair share of broads but had I ever transgressed anything that would lead me to the realm of eternal damnation and suffering? Fuck that! If anything, I’d always felt as kind of a guardian for those around me that were unable to do what had to be done to defend themselves, and I’d taken no small number of pro bono cases when I felt my help was in need but couldn’t be afforded. So what the hell was I doing going to Hell? And murdered by a demon, no less! What kind of shot at life was that?

I was falling towards a huge glowing red haze and it was when I first noticed the haze was actually a sprawling metropolis with each building ablaze that my hair and eyebrows first singed then burst aflame. I stopped trying to put out the fire with my hands when I realized that they too were blazing hot and I was only making it worse. I mourned my hair for about a second –hey, I’d managed to keep a full head of hair in spite the ravages of time and a hard life- then turned my mind to the situation. That’s one thing about being not just a detective but a great one: you gotta roll with the punches and work on what’s comin’ at you next.

So, why does a demon travel to the living world to kill little ol’ me? I had to go on the assumption that, strange as it sounded, my murder wasn’t personal. Which meant it was vocational. Old Man Weatherington was pretty connected, but nobody’s that connected and if the Santorelli gang had the pull to send a full-fledged devil from hell after me they would have done it a long time ago.

I was puzzling over that when a hoard of winged demons circled towards me, cackling viciously with pitchforks a’waving. I could see another poor soul already skewered on the end of one of these bastard’s forks, crying and moaning and strange as it may seem, I hated him more than I hated the demon. I vowed they wouldn’t find such an easy ke-bob in this soul and readied myself.

Fights aren’t like in the movies with those big, gorgeous roundhouse swings all the time. Fights are fast. Fights are dirty. You ever find yourself in a fight, what I’ve found is the faster guy generally wins, every time. You get in more shots and more accurately and he’s lyin’ on the ground and not you, which is a good thing. Because then you can start kicking him. Hey, I told you I’m no angel!

Now, if you ever have the misfortune of being unarmed against more than one armed attacker it’s of quintessential importance that you make an example of the first one, and you want to take his weapon away from him. Which I did.

I knew he was going to try to spear me like his buddy did the other ass-soul and when he did I grabbed the shaft and twisted it from his grip, just like I did former Golden Gloves boxer turned bodyguard for scumbags “Knuckles” Kazlowski when he came at me with that mop handle, and I took all his momentum and swung him behind me. Old Knuckles had crashed unconscious into the trophy case where Weatherington had cleverly hidden the Jade Seal, but I wouldn’t be so lucky with this demon. Or his buddies. But I’d never been real lucky anyways. Just ready.

The next one that came in was entirely unprepared for me, which is why I was able to jab him right in the face. Hit ‘em where it hurts, that’s always been my motto and it’s served me damned well over the years. His shriek was girlish and he spiraled harmlessly away from me and I laughed the first laugh since, well, my death, I guess. But there were so many more coming, like hoards, one would say.

I figured if I was going to Hell because of some asshole demon I’d make the whole shit-heap pay. For me and for Margie. I twisted my body so I was falling head first, tucked my arms at my side and my legs together so my body was like a knife. Or a missile.

I blew through the hoard like a hot knife through butter as my body picked up tremendous speed. I was screaming, laughing, burning, insane as right near the end I tucked my body into a cannonball. It’s an odd plan, setting out to put a dent into Hell, but a good dick has always has a plan.

DAWN of the DISH-PEOPLE (part I)

Dawn of the Dish-people


Bath-robe and flip-flops, hung to the gills at three in the afternoon on a week-day. What a slob! What a headache. Some of the functions of my brain had just turned on, like the first guys on shift, the keeners. Stomach and thought alarms had rung off in my throat and stomach and I coasted to the kitchen on some distant and shrouded archetypal impulse power.

That particular morning (and I acknowledge that my definition of morning is vastly different from the contemporary) I walked slowly and painfully to the fridge, my sustained sluggishness having had lost out to the very driest of mouths. I chugged back the last mouthful of milk in the fridge, knowing full well that my stomach would soon crave cereal and give me grief for this decision.

Mental note: still have two beers left. Good deal.

It was right after I’d tossed the big, plastic milk container carelessly behind me in the rough vicinity of the garbage pile in the corner when the tiniest piercing noise appeared, just barely within the range of my hearing. It was enough to pierce my sensitive brain -currently so dehydrated that it had adhered itself entirely to the left side of my skull, playing hell with my equilibrium- and enough that hurting as I was, I knew I had to hunt down the source of that sound and extinguish it at all costs.

Such a tiny sound is difficult to track down, but eventually I tracked it to the worst of places, the vilest most disgusting place in my whole apartment. My kitchen sink and the dishes therein had been festering and coagulating for so long that I’d actually entered a whole new level of irresponsibility, actually buying paper-plates instead of just washing the damned things. Previously I had only washed what few dishes I needed for each meal, however, the pile was such that washing anything now was pure folly.

“This is 2006!” I had exclaimed aloud to my apartment one day not too long ago, “why should I sully myself with this heinous clutter? Paper plates is the answer!” So off I went to the corner store congratulating myself for the idea and humanity in general for the invention, and bought a pack of 200, most of which are now in the garbage pile in the corner amidst an omnipresent haze of fruit-flies that I fire-bomb biweekly. I am a bachelor and remain defiantly unshamed about any of this.

So anywho, there I stood, perplexed, having determined after an extensive auditory search that the noise was emanating from somewhere within that nasty dish-pile. This didn’t make a lick of sense, but I strained my ears anyway. It was not just a hum but some light melody drifting barely beyond recognition.

The human brain is complex and intricate, able to do several different things at the same time. This was one of those instances, as my brain simultaneously expounded on the true wonder of the moment (what the fuck!?!), received ultimately unanswerable signals from my stomach declaring it to be empty (need cereal, no milk left), identified the melody that I was hearing ("the Age of Aquarius," by the Mamas and the Papas, and instantly wrote the whole thing off as impossible and somewhat disturbing so therefore unworthy of anymore of my time (isn’t there a football game on?). I shuffled off, rubbing my temples, entirely unaware of the complex mental gymnastics that had just happened, and on a hung-over day to boot.

Because the human brain is so complex and intricate, mine eventually came around again to the strange phenomena that I couldn’t have just witnessed. I turned off the World Cup prelims (Ireland was getting their asses handed to them anyway) and all other extraneous noise sources. I approached the sink and as I did, well, there it was again: “Aquaaaaarius, A-quar-i-us, bonnanannanana, bonanananana…” but it was really fast like the Chipmunks used to do it back when white paint was cheap.

“What the Christ?” I asked aloud. Aquarius stopped at that time (where had I heard that song before?) and then the dishes actually spoke to me for the first time ever.

“WhattheChrist?” a tiny voice, or voices, responded. “Uh,” I began, unsure how one actually addresses suddenly animate cutlery and chinaware, “hello?”

“Hello!” the voices returned, and my dishes actually cheered. I admit to being thoroughly creeped out about then. If my mouth were open any further I’m sure the top of my head would have fallen off. Save me money on haircuts.

“Listen, just what the hell is going on here?” I asked, feeling ridiculous, which was a little better than thoroughly creeped out.

“I’m afraid I don’t get your meaning,” a single tiny voice responded to me, ultra-fast. “We certainly don’t mean to disturb you…” Was I imagining that this response was a little bit slower this time? And where had I heard Age of Aquarius, was it last night? Who plays that damned song these days anyways?

“To disturb me?!?” I blurted out wondrously. “Jesus-jumped-up-Christ in a sidecar!”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite get your meaning, sir. Should I call you sir or…?” Whoever it was let the sentence hang.

“What, do you want my name or something?” I asked incredulously, “you’re my dishes for Christ’s sakes!”

There was a pause then, and I took that time to absently scratch my head and my nuts at the same time.

“Hello?” I asked again, thinking I must have just imagined this wacky phenomenon. I remembered this urban legend about a guy who’d had an acid party at his house, and had unwittingly lost one of these tabs of acid in his carpet, only to have stepped on it some eight months later! As the legend goes, this poor bastard had just stepped out of the shower and got all prepped and prissied for a job interview, drives off in his car, gets to the place and starts peaking in the waiting room. A total-surprise, hallucinogenic time-bomb just implodes his day. Was I in for some kind of hellish psychadelic mind-trip? “What the hell,” I thought, “didn't have a whole lot on the agenda today anyways.”

“Sorry about that,” came the voice, “I was just consulting our meta-physicists about that dishes thing. They assure me that from your point of view we can in fact be considered your dishes.”

“Well that’s a relief now isn’t it?” I responded peevishly. “Of course you are! What the hell else could you be? From your point of view?”

“Well we might just be a civilization capable of recognizing and responding to the signals of another life-form,” the voice responded somewhat haughtily, “that’s what the hell else we could be, for one thing!”

End Part One