| Prelude |
[Sep. 28th, 2007|03:21 pm] |
Twelve Exits South of Bummfucc-Egypt:
There’s a steady drum roll sailing down the highway out of a four door pick up truck, clearly designed to evoke the twin American virtues of Comfort and Power. It opens up across US 366 at a leisurely 90. An air conditioned front cab, lit up dashboard green, with the Butthole Surfers blasting on the 'more money than you make in a week' sound system. A driver. A passenger. Buzzed but not blitzed with nowhere to go on a Friday night.
"We're lost" Jerry shouts over the Surround Sound.
"What?" Phil stops slapping the steering wheel in time with the beat.
"We're fucking lost man... we were completely s'posed to take that last exit."
"So?"
"So... we're driving right on into Dead Walker country!"
"So?"
"So... I don't want to be stuck out here in the fuckin' desert and shit with no gas!"
"Relax... we got plenty of gas and nowhere to be."
"Yeah well... that ain't exactly what i'm worried 'bout."
"What, Walkers? Mannnnn... i'd like to see some Creep come shufflin' out in front of us ... it'd be the last fuckin' thing he ever saw...."
"Have you ever seen one?"
"Pfff... yeahhhh"
"I don't mean on TV."
".... well... no then."
"We should turn back."
"Hey... you turning pussy on me all of sudden?"
"No, man i'm jes sayin'..."
"Okay, look, here's the deal: Chances are we ain't gonna see one this far up North... but sayin' some stupid horror movie shit goes down and we run into one? Then..." and Phil suddenly takes a sharp swerve into the opposing lane and curves back, "BANG! SPLAT! WHO'S YOUR DADDY?!?!"
Jerry laughs despite himself. Phil nods knowingly at his friend.
"...and we have a story to tell the Bitches next time!"
"I guess..."
"Hey... I ain't stupid, we come up on a buncha them we turn right around, no questions asked!"
"Yeah... alright. Let's find one! Let's play us some Walker Baseball!"
"That's exactly what i'm talking about... now pass that shit." Jerry hands Phil the roach burning between his fingertips. Phil makes the hand off, almost fumbling it between his lap but Jerry keeps it pressed into the pincer grip of Phil's thumb and forefinger. Phil sucks the ember back to life with a long sucking drag. He taps the wheel of the pick up truck in time with the chorus of the Butthole Surfers "Human Cannonball", Jerry cranks up the volume and Phil responds with a stomp of the gas and a shift of gears. The truck revs up into a piston hum and bullets down the Interstate.
But never mind that! It's sing-a-long time with Gibby Haynes...
"Pardon me
I'm only blee-ding
but you cut meeee
to the bone
and toni-ght
you're probably feeling
like a Yoooouuuu-man
Cannnn-on ball!" Jerry launches an empty Rolling Rock from the opened passenger window straight into the star speckled night and Phil, feeling the roach singe the tip of his lips, pinches it between a toothy grin letting the wind blast the smoke down his throat.
The truck takes a sharp corner with a screech of wheels and the bass distorted echo of wailing guitars. As they disappear a Highway Patrol Cruiser rolls up out of the shadows from the side of the road and bursts onto the road in a barrage of sirens.
Jerry's the first to notice the front seat light up with pulsing blue lights.
"Awww fuck-fuck-fuck" he spits craning his neck over his shoulder at the closing cruiser, he turns around and sees Phil's eyes bug wide in the rear view mirror.
"What-are-you-doing?" Jerry shouts hysterically, "Swallow that!"
Phil hisses the roach between his teeth in a gulp.
"Light me a cigarette..." Phil chokes, easing the truck down to 50 and dropping steady. He throws on his signal. Jerry franticly fishes out his Marlboro's from his front pocket desperately attempting not to make any obvious moves. Phil glides thier ride over, parking along the shore of the desert, dials down the volume and both men light up their smokes. The cruiser pulls in behind them, the sirens strobe away flooding the front cab into a disco panic. Phil looks over at Jerry.
"Don't sweat this shit dog. We got this..."
"Yeah but..."
"Just let me do the talking, okay?"
"Well... yeah you're the driver."
"I know, but look, just in case… y’know? Stick to the story: We're just two guys out for a joy ride, okay? White guys at that... hey, i'm just saying! They’ll run our names, get nothing, give us a warning, maybe try to scare us. Worse comes to worse and we get some ball buster trying to make his numbers... fuck it! We spend a few hours in lock up 'til I call Dad. Most likely they have bigger problems this close to Walker Country. Either way we got this..."
A car door slamming cuts Phil off. Jerry catches the outline of a figure coming out of the glare of the Cruisers headlights.
Phil shoots Jerry a disarming wink.
A pair of gloved knuckles rap three times on the drivers side window. Phil rolls down the window, slaps on his best hundred dollar smile and coo's a sugar-sweet "Evening Officer"
A chalk white face with black grease painted diamond eyes peers into the cab suddenly. A rot yellow grin, framed by a black patch over the chin, hangs under a toy red knob for a nose.
"Wuh-hell-low Boys" the clown rumbles joyously from a throat coated with cancer and phlegm.
"Dude... what the fuck!?!?!" Phil barks.
The wrong end of a doubled barreled shotgun peeks in over the door and says 'hello' with a blast straight to Phil's face. Jerry is showered in a hail of buckshot, bone and brain. He doesn't scream. He doesn't move. He simply wipes the blood from his eyes and looks over at the clown lifting the barrel to his face.
"Hey, no... don't..." and his last thoughts are sprayed out the window behind him.
A shell drops to the pavement and rattles in front of a pair of skull and cross bone painted steel toes. The clown looks down at the shell and shudders as a fit of giggle gurgling overcomes him. He twitches and his eyes roll into the back of his head. A small cum stain seeps through the front of the loosely fitting plaid bondage pants and the giggling volcano bursts into a fountain of raw laughter.
Vinny:
The clown face melts off the paint and ten years from the clock.
Young Vinny's got the same exact laugh erupting. He's wearing a white paper hat decorated with an anthropomorphic hamburger giving the thumbs up. He's in a blue and white stripped shirt with a bowtie choking back the rivers of veins bulging out of his collar. His pants are dropped to his ankles and he hovers menacingly over the grill with six meat patties sizzling ominously with Vinny's 'Secret Sauce'.
"Mister Keogh..." Marcie wails from behind the register, her face twisted with absolute disgust, "he's doing it again!"
"God damn it" the Man Whale in Glasses steps out from the Soft Drink Station and marches over to Vinny, "This is it! This is the last time you fuckin' freak..."
Vinny doesn't move except for his eyes that swing around like scimitars.
"You hear me! Pull up your pants! Clock the fuck out! And if I ever see you here again i'll have you arrested you sick sunovabitch!"
Vinny nods. But not at Assistant Manager Man Whale. No this is a conclusion that has been a long time in the making. Vinny pulls up his pants, buckles up, zips up and storms out through what can only ostentatiously be called a kitchen.
Man Whale wipes a veil of sweat off his forehead and waddles over to the register, where the last few remaining customers stare at the grill in wide eyed shock.
"Sorry about that everyone, what can I say... sometimes we get a real 'winner' huh?" Man Whale laughs nervously. The last few stragglers drift away except an old woman too deaf to have heard the commotion and too blind to notice the application of Vinny's 'Secret Sauce'.
"Yes, i'll have... lets see" she strains up at the menu for a few seconds then gasps!
Man Whale looks at her with confusion but then hears Marcie screaming. He turns around and see's Vinny, with shoe polished black diamond eyes come straight for him with the Fry Basket in his hands. Before he can say anything Vinny tosses the fries into his face. Man Whale starts screaming, covering his face in rage as the oil boils off his face. Vinny punches Man Whale in the side of the face. Then again. Then again. Marcie doesn't stop screaming. The Old Woman strains through her glasses to see what's going on... Man Whale trips over the grease. There is a loud crash. VInny starts jumping up and down on Man Whale...
... laughing the whole time...
"Hey what the hell are you doing?" Another clown bellows out stepping out from the drivers side of the Cruiser. This one, considerably taller, sports a bright red mohawk with two saber slashes of crimson running down his eyes and wears the same bulbous red nose, "You were supposed to get them out of the car and then wax them!"
Vinny's eyes rolls back into his face, dart over at Red, then back at the two headless torsos dangling from their seatbelts. Without looking over he shrugs.
"Great.. just great" Red hollers in frustration, more to himself than anybody who might hear him, "Yo... Mooseburger!"
The front passenger door opens up and a human mountain of a Hobo Clown comes lumbering out.
"Getcher fat ass moving and help Vinny clean that shit up!" Red orders, shaking his head and muttering curses to himself. Mooseburger walks over to the truck with the shuffling gait of an especially slow child.
Mooseburger:
The Hobo Clown is sitting at a patio table filled with Dixie cups of red juice and half eaten birthday cake. The sun is out and he is smiling. All around him is the screaming of little children.
"What's wrong?" Mooseburger asks the shrieking crowd, "Doncha like your balloon animal?"
"Oh my God... oh my God... oh my God" the Mother comes running into the backyard dropping a tray with another round of red juice, "What have you done to him?"
She kneels down at her husband, who is laying on his back. His limbs broken, twisted, yanked out of their sockets, tied into an elaborate bow of knotted arm and leg.
"It's happening again!" Mooseburger cries, jumping up from his seat and charging through the mob of small children, knocking some over and stepping on more than a few, as he smashes through the backyard fence Kool-Aid Man style without stopping.
Red walks over to the back seat, opens the door and gives a small bow as he offers his hand to Kiss Me Kate. She refuses the hand instead gripping each side of the door and pulling herself out. With a look that's pure car crash mash up between Vampire Harlequin and Fishnet Kabuki, Kate vibes the quiet confidence of royalty out slumming. She arches her back upwards, standing on the tippy-toes of her thigh high Stomp Boots, then throws herself forward in a cartwheel that ends with a ballerinas pivot. She turns around at Red, brushes aside the peroxide blonde bangs dangling over the red ovals painted across the sockets and smiles... revealing two rows of filed down teeth resembling a barrucudas grin.
Kiss Me Kate:
Mister Dockray stands before the canvases unimpressed.
"Well?" Kate asks leaning on Mister Dockray's desk. Same look, different outfit.
"Honestly..." Dockray sighs, "Faux Art Brut with hints of John Wayne Gacey Serial Killer Chic. Throw in some perfunctory slashes of paint meant to convey a primal legitimacy to an otherwise uninspired effort. Newspaper headlines slapped haphazardly with... surprise... car crash fatalities for what I can only assume is some watered down homage to the Cut-Up method. I expected better Kate."
"Did you now?"
"Actually yes, you have potential, you just don't want to put in the work..."
"'Put in' or 'put out', Mister Dockray?" Kate snorts.
"I don't know what you're trying to imply..."
"Nothing at all... i'm just wondering why you never mentioned this before, like, oh I don't know when you were trying to get down my pants after class."
"I... I was trying to offer you the benefit of my experiences as both your teacher and a fellow artist!"
"Of course... me blowing you would've been quite a benefical experience, huh?"
"You know what? I don't need this from some precocious teenager with a trust fund and illusions of grandeur. I gave you an extra two weeks to turn in your final... and what you've given me frankly is crap. I'm disappointed Kate, at both your work and your attitude. I'm afraid I have no other choice but to fail you for the semester.
Kate says nothing, lifting herself from the desk, stepping over to the canvas, bumping Dockray aside and stops inches from her work, where she studies it wordlessly.
"You're right... they are crap."
"Well at least you're beginning to see..."
"I need something new. Something fresh. Something...different!" and a smile creeps across her face. She lifts an acrylic encrusted brush from the easel. Looks at it, then her painting, then spins around in a blur and jams the pointy end of the brush right into Dockray's ear. Dockray lets out a girlish scream clutching at the brush hanging stupidly from the side of his head. She cuts the scream off with a sudden grip of his throat.
She parts her lips back to reveal a perfect white smile and begins to squeeze...
Red walks over to her, shoots his arm down and a cigarette appears between his fingers. He places the smoke gently between the fangs and with a snap of his fingers a lit match appears. He hovers close when he lights her, she raises her head to his, he drops the match, closes his eyes and leans in for a kiss but Kate weaves out of the way, whispering in his ear...
"Not now Baby... we got company."
Red turns around, follows the funnel of Kate's gaze and spots a man about a hundred yards Southwest walking out of the desert towards them.
The wind picks up and shifts. Above them a massive wing of cloud soars past the moon, the earth lit up a silvery blue in its passing. The shadows sink back from the approaching man. Not walking, staggering, dragging a leg across the sand and limping on one foot aggresively. As the moonlight hits his face the black sockets light up with two flouserscent purple sparks. The white lined cloud bank recedes further across the sky revealing a few dozen silhouettes shambling not much further behind.
"They must've smelled the blood and gunsmoke" Red mumbles to himself running his fingers through his cherry flavored mohawk, "Whaddya think... we can handle this?"
"Easy!" Kate smirks with an almost insulted confidence, "so long as we keep Mooseburger from trying to go one on one with them."
"Alright, here's how we'll do this. Take point over by the truck. Don't fire until they're close. I'll go get the others..." Red unholsters one of two Taurus 9mms strapped to his large red suspenders while moving quickly over to the Cruiser. Kate flicks out her smoke, walks over to Vinny and Mooseburger who are too busy smearing bloodstains across the upholstery to notice the approaching hoard. Casually she draws her Desert Eagle from her right thigh.
The approaching man bellows out a long, deep moan into the roaring song of the wind. A chorus of sighs, grunts, wails of pained hunger and the gurgling of trapped gas escaping from dead bellies rises up behind him.
What some folks around these parts call a "Ghoul Serenade".
Red reaches into the window of the drivers side of the Cruiser popping the trunk. He walks around back, stops, counts another dozen coming up along the edge of the highway and lifts the trunk. A blast of hot air reeking of day old farts, flat beer, cigarette smoke and spilt anti freeze hits him in a wave.
"Rise and shine you bastards!" Red shouts into the trunk, "We're about to be up to our assholes in Walkers!"
Red steps back.
Slowly an arm reaches out, then a leg, there is a slight whine and a figure begins to crawl free from the trunk.
A Sad Faced Clown with dark blue tear drops running down his whitened cheeks straightens himself out upon hitting the ground. Greased back hair, wearing a mechanics shirt that has a patch that reads "FUCK YOU" in stitched script across the chest with the sleeves rolled up to reveal a pair of baseball sized biceps sporting a gallery of inks including: A Confederate flag, a naked women sitting in a martini glass, fanned playing cards revealing a full house, a Sacred Heart and the face of Bob Dobbs.
The Sad Faced Clown looks around, yawns, tucks his hand into the waistband of his pants (held up by an oversized belt buckle brandishing an image of a Vegas era Elvis done up in full clown make up) and gives his balls a good, long scratch.
"We there already?" he asks somewhat confused.
"No Lucky... not yet. We're trading rides.Got us a truck."
"Fuckin' 'bout time..."
"Yeah well we got some shit to take care of first" Red points at the closing mob with his chin.
One of the strays reaches a dip in the sand that runs parallel along the highway. It has rotting muscle instead of a face. It sniffs the air and slowly turns towards Lucky and Red. It releases a loud roar that seems to verge almost on words but settles on the death rattle of a hungry animal.
Lucky answers with an even louder belch, one that actually seems to echo down both directions of road and reverbetates across the desert until it fades into the horizon. The Walkers all pause in their slow march searching for the source of the sound. Lucky follows the belch with a yank of a Magnum .357 holstered under the shirt and fires a shot that blows a hole clean out the back of the strays head, sending it tumbling down into the ditch.
Lucky:
A shithole of a bar. A small stage packed with a methed out hardcore band. They're playing off tune but fast so no one really minds. The lead singer sounds like a pittbull with tourettes syndrome. The floor, tucked between two dueling bars, is packed with a pit of slamming punks, skins and a handfull of beer bravado Frats. The pit is quickly turning into a brawl. A sea of fists and Docs. Bodies go down, trampled under the combat dance.
In the middle stands sad clown faced Lucy, beating the hell out of one skinhead and beating it back into another one. Ex-biker security type tries to intervene. Ex-biker gets a broken nose for his troubles. Lucky takes a beer bottle to the back of the skull. He feels the back of his head and finds blood glittering on his fingertips. He catches an elbow to the nose and returns it with a fast forward haymaker.
"C'monnnnnnnnnnnn......" Lucky screams at the top of his lungs, bleeding, beaten and having the time of his life!
"Yo, a little help!" a husky voice calls out from the trunk.
Neither Lucky nor Red answer. Each aiming their pistols and choosing their targets carefully.
"So it's like that, huh?"
No answer.
"Fine be that way" and another clown crawls from the trunk, falls face first to the ground, remains there for a second and gets up to help the second emerging clown.
Decked in matching hoodies with white boy dreads, the pair are clearly the lowest rung on the clown social ladder: Jugglo's!
"You two fuck-heads gonna stand there with your thumbs up your ass all night or give us a hand?" Red barks at Mark and Mike following it with a shot off his 9 that pegs another stray right between the eyes.
"What's up?" Mark asks Mike.
"Dunno... I just got here." Mike answers Mark with a shrug.
Mark and Mike:
Sitting on a couch that seems to float on a sea of empty pizza boxes, dirty clothes, roach infested cartons of Chinese take out and spread eagle porn mags. They watch the TV without interest, a bong rises out of the trash between their feet with a cashed out bowl.
An hour passes with only the slightest flicking of the remote.
Another hour.
Mike finally turns to Mark.
"Hey... know what'd be cool?"
"What?" Mark answers without interest.
"If we dressed up as clowns"
"Pffff... sounds pretty gay to me."
Mike doesn't say anything and goes back to watching TV.
Ten minutes later he turns back to Mark.
"What if we dress up like clowns... and do some serious crime!"
Mark looks over at Mike confused. Thinks about it...
... another ten minutes...
"Like those guys in ICP?" he finally adds.
"Totally" Mike answers.
Mark says nothing. Mike says nothing. Both go back to watching TV.
Finally Mark just nods during a commercial.
"Yeah... that sounds pretty cool."
The Walkers are only a few yards away now and closing.
Kate opens fire. Four bodies stagger back and five more drop. Vinny and Mooseburger drag out the dead bodies from the truck and toss them into the ditch. Mooseburger makes that he wants to 'play' with the 'silly dead people' but Kate reigns him in with promises of candy. Vinny seems nervous but anxious nervous. An eager virgin ready to blow his first paycheck at the local whorehouse. Red orders the other three to back her up. As they move off he steps into the back of the Cruiser and takes a seat by a Highway patrol man tied up with what appears to be luggage cords and gagged with a pair of Kate's panties.
"Helluva party going on out there officer" he says with exaggerated familiarity and in answer several rounds of gunfire crackle across the silence between them, "...but it's getting kinda late and our rides here. So I think we'll be saying goodbye now."
The Patrolman tries to mumble something through the panties and squirms frantically against the cords in vain.
"I know... i'll miss you too but we have a date with a sheriff down the road and we're running late as it is ... but hey... at least we're not leaving you alone out here." as if in answer another chorus of moaning erupts between volleys of fire, "They're not really very talkative... but I think they'll really open up to you."
Red gets back out of the Cruiser leaving the door wide open. Without looking he downs another Walker and heads over to the truck.
Red:
A well dressed young man sits in front of his bosses desk in a very expensive three piece suit. The boss, flanked by identitical shaved gorillas in turtlenecks, well past retirement age and just a few months shy of mummification, sighs loudly through a puff of acrid cigar smoke.
"I've known you a long time now... how many years?"
"Too many" the young man replies.
"I've watched you go from running numbers to making full fledged solider. Not once have you let me down..."
"Thank you"
"But for the life of me I just don't get this... this... I don't even know what to call it."
"What ...?" the young man says his voice straining to hold back the annoyance in his tone.
"At first I thought it was just something to... y'know... spook the competition some... but its been five years Tommy. Five fuckin' years of this shit and its gotta end tonight."
"I can't do that..." The young man states flatly.
"I'm not asking here... i'm tellin' you Tommy. The clown routine is over!"
"It's, not, a, routine" the young man answers bolting out of his chair, drawing his pistol from under his jacket and putting two shots in each of the gorillas. He trains the pistol back on the old man, his face twisted with rage contrasting with the Bozo smile and bright red trianges painted under his brow "This is who I am!"
And fires one more shot into the old mans withered up heart.
Red wades through the other clowns who have formed a small defensive circle around the truck.
"Alright play times over" Red barks saddling into the front seat of the truck, "Everybody in."
Mooseburger takes shotgun. No one wants to tell him no. Vinny, Kate and Lucky take the back seat. Mark and Mike get the cab.
Doors slam. Ignition started. Gas reved. The Butthole Surfers come back on.
Red floors the pedal and punches a hole in the crowd of Walkers that have amassed around the truck.
He lights up a cigarette and looks over at the three in the back through the rear view mirror.
"Next stop... Unity!"
Of Clowns and Cowboys: Prelude
Run Away And Join The Circus |
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