SYNOPSIS OF IN THE WINDS
OF TIME
Editorial Prelude (From Freedom To America):
We now know that well over one
daez, or two thousand years, before the of Christianity,
seven Twolaen travelers came to Earth onboard StarFlight Salvation,
One of their crew, Survivalist Hista, volunteered his soul to
the devil and the spread of his selfness curse.
Millennia later, David Daniels,
unemployed engineer from Kansas, Is to uncover enough of Hista's
anathema to rattle his own sense of reality.
Book I of III: LAST MISSOURI
EXIT
Chapter One (Dinner In Kingdom City):
The roadway still swelters in
the late summer afternoon as David Daniels rolls down the highway
of the living again. Eastbound on I-70, David is approaching Kingdom
City, Missouri, when his recently overhauled motor stops running
for no apparent reason. A mysterious Mercedes motorcoach, The
Empire Express, nearly rear-ends David before he's able to
swerve to a stop.
Unable to work on his car with
all the traffic flying by, David asks a raunchy road worker named
Joe Stahlings to help him push his Chevy off the shoulder. But,
before the anorexic bolshevik agrees to help, he swings his rusting
sickle high into the air to slay a helpless garter snake. David
intercedes, and the two of them fight frantically over the destiny
of the homeless reptile,
Victorious in the end, David
tucks the snake under a lonely bush,
ordering Mr, Stahlings to beat
his spear back into a pruning hook.
Disgruntled, Joe nevertheless
helps David push his vehicle down an adjoining cul-de-sac toward
a decrepit construction trailer.
An old gentleman named Mena
Menachem invites David inside the miasmic dwelling, Mysteriously,
Mena tells David he's been waiting for him. Outfitted in biblical
robe and sandals, Mena reclines in an easy chair and chats with
David about his friend from over a century before, Sir A, Conan
Doyle, and about an ancient Athenian vase called The Olive
Harvest
David doesn't know what to make
of it, especially when the old guy asks about David's departed
grandparents and comments on his aborted Bar Mitzvah, Though Mena
looks vaguely familiar, David doesn't remember having ever met
the man before,
Not long after Mena begins to
chant in Hebrew from microfiche of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a young
girl in black leathers dances into the disheveled room, listening
to heavy metal music on oversized headphones. Sadly, Mena introduces
David to his distraught granddaughter Judy,
"The old geezer said you
was comin'," Judy snarls, then begins to pump in place, exposing
her post-pubescent breasts.
The display brings sad memories
to David and he seeks sanctuary outside. David has seen Judy's
kind, and far worse, before, at Farmingdale, the Missouri State
Hospital.
Menachem, sporting a walking
stick of biblical proportion, joins David in the gravel drive
to console him. Together, they proceed around the side of the
trailer to a redwood picnic table where the old gentleman's delinquent
granddaughter brings them coffee.
Judy's sarcasm turns to understanding
as David unfolds a twenty year ordeal he's just endured: a medical
fiasco of abusive analysis, experimental drugs, batteries of shock
treatments, and eventual internment in the State
Hospital to cover up the malpractice
of Dr. Lizabeth Lump, a geriatric dominatrix.
After David's burden is lightened,
Mena asks Judy to prepare a feast, Walking slowly around front,
Mena tells David that he must now begin again, pick up where he
left off two decades before, nurture himself, for no one else
will. When David mentions suing the manufacturer of the particular
drug which had subdued him for so long, Mena advises caution,
noting that Hista himself may be an executive of the neo-Nazi
conglomerate, Pyre Pharmaceuticals of Tennessee, producer of Nullium.
Inside, with the help of a cosmic
Time Base Modulator, young Judy has completely refurbished both
the mobile home and herself in but a matter of minutes, Mena tells
David his visit has greatly accelerated her recovery, and the
three of them feast on Garlic Chicken, while Menachem splashes
himself with Chaz cologne and offers David scriptural lessons
on life and spiritual immortality.
After they consume an entire
kettle of Oolong Tea, Judy tells David about Miss JoAnn Morningstar,
a good friend of theirs who washes cars in Boca Raton, Florida.
David thinks it a strange coincidence that he is on his way to
pick up his parents' car in St. Louis and drive it to Delray Beach
for them, only a few miles from Boca Raton.
Mena begins to chant again,
hypnotizing David with a magic egglace. On awakening, David discovers
a splotch of dried blood above his brow, and Mena complains he
was forced to jumpstart David's Mola for the second time in the
20th century. When David wonders what Mola means, Mena easily
reads his mind and informs David that. Navigatress Fela will soon
be in touch about his Mola,
After Judy sings "Somewhere
Over The Rainbow" beside a magic lantern on the porch, Mena
reminds David to tell Morningstar that he is one of the
crew. He also tells David to
stop by on his way back from Florida to look at their plans for
a new city and, in the mean time, to keep an eye peeled for the
fat, curly haired Hista,
Finally, the old gentleman suggests
to David that his car has most, likely fixed itself, and, sure
enough, the aging musclemachine fires right up,
"See you at The Return,"
Menachem bellows, and, more confused than ever, David continues
toward his parents' Mock Club mansion in St. Louis,
Chapter Two (Tri-County Histarical Society):
Still not totally adjusted to
sleeping sans drug, David hopes aloud not to have a nightmare,
says a soft prayer for Judy, and drifts off on the deodorized
couch in the Daniels' so-called family room,
David's sleep, blessed with
the vision of a heavenly woman named Fela who welcomes him home
to a pastoral Land of Milk and Honey, is rudely interrupted
by his pork-chop father growling like an old hog that just missed
his last turn in the communal mud hole.
After touring his parents' antiseptic
dwelling and, for the first time, realizing that it's not a home
at all, David erases pop's porno collection and jockeys the family
Cadillac east. Sandwiched between the Gateway Arch and St. Louis
stockyards, David contemplates the past, present, and future of
all living things, including Huckleberry Finn.
Well into his journey and coming
upon the Nashville Next Exit sign, David recalls in lucid
detail how an angry mob nearly lynched him two decades before,
He'd been visiting his Uncle Izzy in Clark City, Tennessee, when
someone wrecked his hot rod, knowing Arnold Hussein's Aswan Auto
Salvage to be the only place in the Tri-County where David could
get wholesale body parts to fix it.
That evening, at a cocktail
party in the Pyre Place's antebellum
ballroom owned by Martin and
Xandria Pyre, David was given an Israel Must Live pin for
his jacket. The next morning, he headed toward Dickson for the
discount car parts. Mislead by tampered roadsigns, he flipped
his car into a dusty ravine alongside St. David's Field and fell
into the anti-Semitic hands of the Tri-County Histarical
Society (who just happened to be driving a brand new Mercedes
bus donated by Martin Pyre).
Returning from memories of the
past to the reality of the present, David wonders if he had indeed,
so long ago, been set-up by the mysterious Hista that Mena had
mentioned just the day before. After a short nap in a Georgia
rest area, David discovers a $1000 coupon on his windshield, inviting
him to a "Birthday Blast at Moammar's Giant Fireworks Outlet"
near Dalton.
On the way to the establishment,
David reflects how his Uncle Izzy used to always come to St. Louis
with fireworks for the Fourth of July, an important family day,
considering David's parents had been honeymooning at Pearl Harbor
when it was bombed in the late fall of '41, and his older sister
Victoria was born on July 4th of '42. David missed becoming a
celebrity himself by only two days, born on August 16, 1945, two
days after World War II ended.
His family reminiscing done,
David follows the makeshift signs to Moammar's. Around the side
of the Pyre Technical Institution, David spots a nasty
brown, ragtop VW and the same battered "Empire Express"
bus which nearly backsided him in Missouri, After a closer inspection
of the vehicle, he concludes it to additionally be the Histarical
Society's aging relic. Realizing he's being set-up again, David
decides to play it out. Limping horribly from kicking the tire
of his Chevy when it quit running near Mena's, David enters the
concrete warehouse. Yassir, Moammar's Camel-smoking proprietor,
exchanges monopoly money for David's coupon and tells him that
plenty of drugs and party girls await his pleasure in the back
room.
David stalls for time to think,
and when he asks Yassir if Moammar's handles the big stuff, he's
referring to things like M-80's and Cherry Bombs. But Yassir proudly
displays a steamer trunk of grenades, plastic explosives, and
other instruments of terror, David tells the nervous Arab he requires
twenty canisters of nerve gas, but needs to go to the bank to
get the cash wired from Kansas,
Yassir falls for the ploy, and,
on the way out to his car, David hears a helicopter approach.
Backing out slowly, David sees the chopper land on the roof and
warns Yassir he shouldn't smoke around all the fireworks and hot
asphalt. Purposely sideswiping Yassir's jet-black BMW, David takes
off in a cloud of burning rubber after a fat, ugly man with curly
red hair emerges from the building and bludgeons Yassir with a
pair of chromed Lugers.
At a not-too-distant payphone,
David is dialing the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms,
when he feels the ground quiver and turns quickly around to see
Moammar's joint go up in one gigantic blast,
David is satisfied that justice
has been well served and proceeds through downtown Atlanta where
he's forced to fend off a gang of skinheads with a roman candle
he got for free at Moammar's Birthday Blast,
Still pondering the plight of
the Georgian poor, David secures a cheap room for the night at
the EZ Motel. Before going to sleep, he calls Kingdom City and
tells Mena his memories of Martin Pyre from Tennessee and describes
how the same man just tried to tempt him with moral deprivation.
When David describes an SOS
logo he spotted on the chopper's underbelly, Mena tells him
it's the mark of the Supreme Order of the Swizzlestick, one of
Hista's organizations, David asks why Hista didn't bother him
for so many years, and Menachem explains, "You were no great
threat to his kind with your
spirit drugged,"
David bangs up his hip on a
hard mattress and turns off the makeshift lamp, but the multi-colored
liquor sign which bleeds through the moldy sheet over the window
remind him of that first night at Farmingdale, and his introduction
to its conduct lights.
Finally, David finds sleep and
drifts off to the Land of Milk and Honey. As hostess Fela introduces
him to her two shapely daughters, Sola and Sidra, a hammering
comes to David's motel door.
An old nightmaid named Betty
toddles in and explains her twin-sister Mary Smith's MOP theory.
When David asks if she's the Fela that Mena had mentioned, the
curmudgeon scoffs, "I know I ain't exactly no Jeanette Harlow,
but do I really look like a fella?"
After steering David to a cane
someone orphaned in the hallway, Betty delivers a dissertation
on destiny and providence and tells David to say hello to Mary,
Mary just happens to be the librarian in Lenexa, Kansas, David's
hometown. Additionally, so Betty says, Mary Smith runs a new neon
casino on wheels, The Hound Dog.
At 3:00 AM, David bids Betty
good night, and, with the help of the adopted cane, makes his
way down to the Seville, only to discover its wire-wheeled hubcaps
have been swiped. Not in the least dissuaded from his mission,
David continues south, hoping there is a very special promised
land just waiting for old timers like Betty.
Chapter Three (Morningstar's Hope):
Twenty hours later, David finally
arrives at his folks' brand new condo in Delray Beach, Florida.
Following a difficult night of sleep amidst all its glitz, David
hurries to the airport to meet the Sunbird Express from
St. Louis, After dumping his over-tranquilized parents back at
their Sir Loin
Estates, David dutifully proceeds toward Boca
Raton to have the family canoe washed.
Down at the south end of Alaska
Boulevard, behind the Valdez Exxon station, exactly as Menachem
had specified, David finds Miss JoAnn Morningstar basking in the
sun beside a tiny aquamarine work trailer, David is enthralled
with her gilded youth and asks the Navajo maiden to wash and wax
the car, then polish its chrome, in order to maximize his time
with her. While the athletic lady works away in a clingy swimsuit,
they discuss everything from the recovered Ark of the Covenant
to the fact that she attended high school in St., Louis before
returning home to Arizona,
Hoping to earn JoAnn Morningstar's
affections on his own terms, David doesn't tell her that he knows
Menachem and Judy. After paying JoAnn for the services she so
splendidly rendered, David invites her to dinner at a nearby seafood
buffet on the beach. But, when she runs into the trailer without
an answer, David concludes he's scared her off, Just as he is
about to drive away, Morningstar reappears, stuffs a folded note
in his shirt pocket, then vanishes again.
Back at the condo, David unfolds
the note and is surprised to discover it concerns, of all things,
ousting world dictators, David is further confused when he rides
with his parents to bingo that night and they're almost rear-ended
by the same VW ragtop he'd seen alongside Moammar's,
After fetching refreshments
for mom and dad, David returns to the parking lot and stretches
out on the Caddie's hood under the southern stars. From nowhere,
JoAnn pulls up in a battered blue Camaro, telling David she's
been waiting for him all evening. David has no idea what she's
talking about, but asks if it has anything to do with ousting
dictators. Frustrated and sad, Morningstar tells David to read
the other side of the note and races off in a cloud of oiled smoke
and burned rubber.
After declining a round of ice-cream
pancakes with his parents, David hurries into the Sir Loin Estate,
retrieves the note from his shaving bag, and inspects it again.
On the reverse side, it states plainly; "Meet me at the abandoned
express office outside Vero Beach, any Tuesday an hour before
sundown,"
The following Tuesday, after
seven days of boring aggravation, David stops at Shloyman Brothers'
delicatessen on the way to his tryst, but is shaken when he spots
a Nazi serial number tattooed to the knotty forearm of his waitress,
Sarah. As he's leaving, Sarah tells David she's been waiting
a long time for him to come. David has no idea what, she's talking
about; maybe he met her somewhere before but the shock treatments
erased the memory of it, he thinks.
As destiny will have it, David
runs into his retired Uncle Izzy outside the deli and is given
lessons on American Jewry, parents, and justice. Additionally,
David discovers from Uncle Iz, Martin Pyre just moved from Clark
City to Kansas City in January. David bids his uncle adieu, limps
over to the Caddie, and hurries toward his pre-sundown rendezvous.
When he asks an old Cuban named
Ricky for directions to the Vero Beach hideout, David notices
the Latino is riding an American Flyer bicycle with a fender sticker
that says: "F__K FIDEL!"
At precisely one hour before
sunset, David comes upon a vast and beautiful savannah, with JoAnn
galloping around bareback and nude on her good stallion Hope.
Inside Miss Morningstar's cozy abode, David is told the story
of Stone, a gallant Navajo brave and hero. After much talk of
the heavens and the future, JoAnn heals David's injured hip with
an ovular amulet similar to Menachem's.
As they walk rings around her
abandoned office like beachcombers on the sands of time, she tells
David that he, too, once had an alabaster
egglace, Both their spirits
and Menachem's were born, so she says, in the garden of Twola
on the distant planet Edom in the Paradise Starsystem, thousands
of years before,
David assumes the story to be
an adjunct to the Navajo origin tale, but still can't explain
how his hip has been healed. In the soft silt, Morningstar draws
seven stars to represent the seven crew members. One is darkened
and hangs below the others, the fallen Hista.
"Only the Captain of StarFlight
Salvation can heal your hip permanently," Morning whispers
to David as they lay on her blanket, preparing to share the pleasures
of the flesh.
Their time together is terminated
by macabre laughter and the faltering return of JoAnn's horse,
Falling at Morningstar's feet, Hope appears to be poisoned.
David dashes for the eastern
horizon, toward the heinous laughter, only to see the same dirty-brown
VW speed south into the Everglades. Turning back to the west,
he sees JoAnn gallop toward the opposite horizon on her apparently
healed horse Hope.
The boredom of the following
weeks is lifted only occasionally by diminishing memories of his
passionate meeting with the maiden. On two consecutive Tuesdays,
David returns to the abandoned express office but. finds no trace
of JoAnn, On the third Tuesday, David discovers someone has burned
down the abode, butchered the stallion Hope, and burned an SOS
into its forehead. David reverently buries the disfigured
equine in a very shallow grave, then combs Indian River County
for Morningstar, in vain.
Chapter Four (Baghdad and Moses):
Back in Boca Raton, David finds
JoAnn's carwash trailer gone and her aquamarine chaise lounge
in the oil-soaked gully alongside Alaska
Boulevard, twisted into a ball.
David continues the search for
several days, until his parents fly back to St. Louis and lock
him out of their condo in the process. Low on funds and forced
to abandon the search for the time being, David phones Menachem
before driving north.
After he tells the old gentleman
of Hope's fate, Mena says that Morningstar called just the day
before and said she would stop in Kingdom City for a short visit,
Menachem invites David to stop by on his way back to Kansas to
look at the test borings for their new city, but David becomes
impatient and says he's ready for the whole story. However, just
as Mena begins the revelation, the line goes dead, and when David
calls back, he gets only a busy signal.
Returning to the road north,
David drives nonstop for over twenty hours before taking a break.
The only establishment open for miles either side of Marion, Illinois,
appears to be a Gas and Eats, Unbeknownst to David, a jet-black
Porshe driven by The Raveness (the feline of the Schicklgruber
triplets), has been tailing him since he left Florida,
Inside the ascetic eatery, David
phones Menachem one more time, only to get connected with an answering
machine. After leaving the phone number of the cafe, David drops
into a vacant booth for coffee,
The only other patrons in the
restaurant are a big gaudy dude reprimanding a gaunt little girl,
and a friendly waitress with flaming-red hiair. Upon receiving
a cellular phone call, the sweaty drug pusher, whose name happens
to be Little Baghdad, pretends to be Jewish and spikes David's
coffee with cocaine. When David discovers the deed, he bludgeons
Baghdad and heads for the highway, his cranium still racing from
coke.
Continuing cautiously toward
St. Louis, David can't help but painfully recollect the time his
father's alcoholic heart doctor, Rudolph Cupp III,
cancelled his prescription for
Jitterlin without warning and landed him in the hospital.
Dropping the Cadillac off at
the Mock Club, David has a belated breakfast with his parents
and is told there will be no loan to restart his video production
business. Furthermore, when David asks his mother if she knows
anything about a white egg on a gold necklace, she yawns and says
maybe it's with all the junk they shipped to Florida, but she
can't swear to it. The family brunch is interrupted by a visit
from neighbors, Ronald and Leona Frump, so David cranks up his
Chevy and heads west.
Outside Kingdom City, David
isn't surprised to discover Mena's trailer has disappeared, Only
an aryan construction worker named Kirk Waldheim remains at the
site, He shovels dirt from one well into another, then reverses
the process.
Just past Columbia, David spots
Mena's walking stick in the median, and stops to look. Nearby
is a candlestick with an inspirational note stuffed into it and
a mud-covered construction sign. But, before David can kick the
caked mud off the sign, a highway patrolman hurries him on his
way.
Lenexa never looked so good,
David thinks as he runs out of gas less than a block from his
Kansas home. Broke, David swaps some mopping at O.Henry's Emporium
for three out-of-date poorboy sandwiches. After putting two of
the rubbery snacks in the microwave, David tells Biff, owner of
the convenience store, someone should make 'Thou Shalt Not
Be Selfish' the eleventh commandment.
The microwave buzzes, just as
Biff quips, "Whatever you say, Moses,"
After testing Mary Smith's MOP
theory out on Biff, David collects his things from his Chevelle
and pushes through the mud to his third-floor enclave at Poor
Richard's Apartment House.
A potted cactus, with the small
note, "To Sweets With Love," attached,
awaits his arrival on the welcome
mat. Confused, David props the construction sign up in the shower
to rinse it off and is quite surprised to see what lurks under
all the muck: Welcome to New Jerusalem, Wondering what
it's all about, David, too, takes a quick shower, then crashes
on the sweat-stained couch beside his video equipment,
"God,' he gasps, "it's
good to be alive again," Closing his eyes easily, he hopes
to hear the evensong of the land promised so long ago.
Book II of III: A CANE IN KANSAS
Chapter Five (Out At The Park):
David's dream of a snowy holiday
with Sola and Sidra is rudely interrupted by a midnight visit
from Raven Finance, a collection agency, Ms. Lenore S., their
cross-eyed operative, threatens David, Unless he immediately pays
an overdue hospital bill of $20,000, her higher-ups, who have
just purchased St. Luke's Hospital and re-christened it St. Adolf's,
will be forced to seize his video equipment.
As Lenore Schicklgruber zooms
away, David peers out the balconette window at her polished-black
Porsche and concludes she's the very same Raveness who
tailed him from Florida,
Long before dawn, David installs
an HMS (Hydraulic Mop Squeegee) at 0, Henry's Emporium for gas
money, takes a video camera to Leon's Loan Office, a downtown
pawn shop, then buys the necessary carpentry supplies to hide
his bedroom door behind a false bookcase. Additionally, David
asks his kindly landlady, Dotty, to advise anybody who might query
his whereabouts that he's moved back to Missouri.
Living as a hermit with his
video equipment in the back room, David
quietly consumes dented can
goods while listening to the anti-Semitic jokes that Eleanore
and her teutonic siblings, Brownie and Heinie, crack out in David's
barren living room when they come to check on his whereabouts
semi-weekly. David finds some comfort in the form of a dusty yearbook,
The Lincoln Log. A picture of senior-prom queen Susan Cole,
his unrequited love, sparks memories and mixed feelings of many
years before.
Finally, determined to find
the funds to satisfy at least some of his teenage dreams, David
visits Leo Leonard, a Kansas Attorney, and fills him in on the
details of the medical fiasco which cost most of his adult life.
Barrister Leo, in tears, tells David that the only thing more
tragic than his past medical plight would be if the law were unable
to award him appropriate recompense.
After Leo's pithy secretary,
Delilah, makes an appointment for David with a young specialist
in Missouri law, Mr, Scott Green, David drives to Veteran's Park
to nap under an old oak tree, optimistic that justice will indeed
prevail.
A bunch of kids on noisy dirt
bikes remind David of the first time he went in search of a promised
land and found Mr. Sam Cohen instead.
Fresh out of the Marines, David
was on his way from St. Louis to California when his motorcycle
ran out of gas crossing Boulder Dam, late at night. Two girls,
pretending to be Nevada co-eds, Rhonda and Donna, came to his
rescue and led him to their uncle's amusement complex, Puberty
Park. Mr. Sam the Crippled Man, a WWII Marine, after testing David's
courage with a loaded ,45, described how he left some of his manly
anatomy on the beaches of Iwo Jima. While Rhonda and Donna showered,
Mr. Sam discussed discipline and sacrifice with David,
However, something was horribly
wrong, Mr, Sam and his nieces hinted, wondering why David didn't
know about The Return. Mr. Sam displayed a
magic egglace and queried whether
David had one. When David had no idea what the seasoned veteran
was talking about, Donna said mysteriously that some things must
simply take longer than others, not realizing David's alabaster
egglace had been confiscated by his own parents,
The curious subject laid to
rest for the time being, a mystical bird named Cyrus led the foursome
out into the Big Top for a private stage show. While Mr, Sam pounded
the electronic synthesizer, Rhonda and Donna performed the magnificently
choreographed dance of an unfeathered eagle,
After the show, back in Mr.
Sam's humid office, the group drank almond schnapps and listened
to Mr. Sam explain his plans for a Magic Carpet, an anti-gravity
blanket
David was impressed to no end
by the old salt's technical wizardry but bilked when invited to
drop down an electrified timewell to some surrealistic world called
Hotel Vegas, After the well-oiled girls jumped into the pit's
vertical laser beam, Mr. Sam attempted to explain that David was
already standing in the time-warp of the clear hole and possibly
his reluctance was caused by a precognizance of some unpleasant
encounter with cranial electricity in the future. Ordering David
to stop at Puberty Park when he's in the neighborhood again, the
boxer-shorted crippled man dove into the Nevada timedrop himself,
A bright light flashing in David's
eyes brings him back to the here-and-now. It's the flashlight
of a Kansas ranger at Veteran's Park, checking to make sure nothing's
wrong. David assures the patrolman that everything's kosher, then
cruises back to Poor Richard's to clean up for a night on the
town. Some free grub and a friendly game of pool at the Goodtime
Grill in Merriarn is just what the doctor ordered (to prematurely
celebrate the fruits of his pending lawsuit against Drs. Cupp
and Lump).
Chapter Six (Goodtimes Again):
Anything but fine food or a
good time awaits David; his favorite non-alcoholic grill now goes
by the name of The Goodtime Bar. After standing in a long
line of beer-guzzling skinheads and micro-skirted parte girls
chewing croke, David displays the VIP card he earned by videotaping
a wedding for the previous owner. When Deacon, the doorman, tells
David that Bishop sold the grill to Pyre Entertainment for $250,000,
David tries not to speculate whether anyone would really spend
that much money just to aggravate him. He doesn't dare fall victim
to DOG (Delusions Of Grandeur),
Following a less-than-warm discussion
with the sultry barmaid, Silk, over why a Virgin Mary costs more
than a Bloody Mary, David uses his cane to cut a path through
the smog of sweat and bullshit
Over at a wobbly table beside
the warped pool table in front of the fake fireplace, David joins
his former fellow patient from Farmingdale, Junior Jones, and
his current sidekick, Lucky Kane. JR tells David that his and
Lucky's fledgling business, Babylonic Appliance and Video, is
doing poorly and they might have to torch it for the insurance
money, David just finishes talking JR and Lucky out of the misdeed
when a pudgy girl pent on self-destruction struggles atop the
pool table and starts a desperate striptease,
"I'm not very pretty, but
I gotta get down," she cries out, repeatedly, as the crowd
chants her on and her garments drop off.
Using his cane as a crowd prod,
David comes to her rescue, promising to get down with her. Off
in the lunchroom alone, David gives Cassey Kinsey a lesson on
self-worth, contrary to what Madison Avenue has taught her. When
Cassey gives him a small kiss of thanks, David can't help but
think about Kathy, the juvenile-delinquent he failed to keep from
jumping off the Farmingdale water tower years before.
Back at tableside, David soberly
tells JR and Lucky that he'll pay Babylonic a visit and see if
he can figure a legal way out of their red. Big Brandy, a one-time
nurse's aide at Farmingdale and now assistant cocktail waitress
at Goodtimes, finishes dumping the melted ashtrays into the false
fireplace and informs David that she has a very special girlfriend
named Carol who she wants him to meet
In no mood for romance, very
special or otherwise, David accidentally spills JR's illicit
supply of Nullium onto the floor and heads for the front door.
Just as he passes the battered jukebox (which happens to be playing
"Eve of Destruction") a gang of scooterheads blast their
grungy machines right through the front window, yelling "Empire!!
Empire Forever!!"
Crawling from the debris and
mayhem, David limps several blocks to his car where he finds Brownie
and Heinie's VW parked in the nightshadow of a nearby massage
parlor/wedding chapel. David nicknames their beatup ragtop Shitler,
but pretends not to notice it, or them. To keep from leading
the Schicklgruber brothers to his video equipment, David opts
to pass the rainy night in Veteran's Park.
During the days that follow,
David earns a few bucks by watching things at Babylonic while
Lucky goes home for lunch and dinner.
Late one solitary night, while
David is snuggled under an old military blanket wondering whatever
happened to his friends from high school, Big Brandy arrives unannounced.
She tells David his phone is bugged and the Swizzleheads know
he's there,
After Brandy helps David move
his furniture back into the living room, he gives her enough money
for a batch of inner-city champagne. Brandy pedals up to 0, Henry's
to purchase the ingredients, but when she returns she's covered
with snow and horribly winded, barely able to tell David how Brownie
and Heinie were tailing her bicycle.
The agitated party girl eats
a handful of tranquillizers, explains to David how his womanizing
father gave her special girlfriend Carol some sort of chronic
infection, then passes out.
indeed, the first snow of the
year has fallen, so David props his pillow up by the open window
and drifts off, Deep-dreaming of a heavenly hike with Sola and
Sidra, David arrives at Tranquillity Bay in the promised land
of Canaan, unaware that Big Brandy, back in the real world, is
being kidnapped as she attempts to wipe the frost from her seatless
bicycle's handlebars.
Unaware of foul play, David
wakes refreshed and heads up to Babylonic. As he crosses Poor
Richard's snow-packed parking lot, Dotty rushes up and tells him
how she caught Brownie and Heinie masturbating in the laundry
room, to a nude poster of Der Fuhrer. Weiland Walker, a local
police officer and part-time maintenance man at PR's, saunters
onto the scene, boasting how he scared the neo-creeps away with
the threat of a .44 caliber castration.
To avoid inept motorists, David
walks slowly up to Babylonic, only to discover Lucky stoned, watching
a porno flick and playing with a plastic doll. Just as David is
about to conclude a lecture on the evils of pornography, an attractive
amazon named April Butler sashays in and sells Lucky a layout
in the city paper for twice the fair market price.
When the dirty deal is done,
Lucky returns to Babylonic's backroom and David makes his way
through the snow to the Hunan House for a lunch special of Moo-Doo-Dai-Pan.
Belching discreetly from too much garlic-duck sauce, David breaks
his fortune cookie open.
"Be Prepare for Real
Big," it advises.
Chapter Seven (Matter Of Mind):
Out on Ling's slippery lot,
the two dirtyshirts are irritating April Butler.
When David approaches, they
scurry back to Shitler and spin away. Miss Butler's battery is
dead, but before David can explain why he's afoot, a yellow-sweatered
yuppie in a matching BMW slides onto the scene and offers April
a free ride,
David makes his own way over
two miles of snowy sidewalk to the cozy Lenexa Library, inspecting
an awesome Superstock Dodge in the librarian's parking spot, David
enters the toasty depository for self-education, A pair of pink-haired
rockers are arguing with the little old librarian about their
so-called constitutional right to smoke wherever they please,
Just as David begins reading Winter of Our Discontent,
the punks play an obscene prank on the old lady.
After David runs the young cream-puffs
off with his cane, Granny Smith instructs him to visit her son
Smitty's market for a couple complimentary steaks. Before he leaves,
Granny supplies David with a book on renewing his right brain
and invites him to ride the streamlined casino, The Hound Dog,
any midnight.
On the way back to PR's, David
comes upon the same yuppie who picked up April, He's trashed his
luxury sedan into the curb and is standing on April's coat to
keep from soiling his precious Reebok's. While David asks the
shivering Miss Butler to stop by Babylonic so they can work-up
a new marketing strategy, the tow truck latches onto Stanley's
car. As the BMW is towed away, a personalized Tennessee license
plate shows itself; S. Pyre,
Limping hurriedly home, David
wonders whether Stanley could really be the aspiring offspring
of Martin and Xandria Pyre, the same little whiner whose second
birthday party David attended the eve of the incident in St.,
David's Field,
intrigued, David telephones
Puberty Park for the fourth time in half as many months, Palooka
Cohen finally puts David through, but warns that her
husband Sam is still very sick.
Not wanting to disturb the old Marine with belated news of the
Menachems' disappearance, David asks whether the magical bird
Cyrus is still alive,
When David agrees to come for
a visit just as soon as he can accumulate some surplus capital,
Mr. Sam orders him to be up at the post office for a special delivery
on Thursday at exactly 4:01PM, says he'll see David at The
Return, then hangs up.
After a long evening of introspective
detective work, to no avail, David visits 0. Henry's. Biff fills
David in on a topless donut joint in Merriam where they sell all
the two-day-old sweets you can carry for 59cents, if you're there
at exactly 2AM.
It's already past midnight and
David just barely makes the multi-mile snow trek, to Merriam in
under two hours. Daisie's Donuts is operated by a sad, big-hearted
anorexic. Annie's hardly eaten since a couple jaded jokers in
brown trenchcoats and dirty panama hats caused topless Daisie
to perish from angina pectoris. When David discovers skinny Annie
hasn't been out of her tiny donutery since early summer, he sequesters
the door key, gives her his coat, and escorts the fragile lady
across the street to her step-father's house,
After promising to bring the
key back in a day or two, David pushes toward Lenexa, singing
to lighten his spirit and rubbing his sore left eye (from flour
dust, he thinks). As he crosses the city limits, Weiland Walker
appears in a polished police cruiser and offers David a ride.
They stop at the Emporium for coffee, but Biff is nowhere to be
seen, Suspecting foul play, Walker draws his .44 magnum and starts
checking the premises.
"Freeze!!" Walker
yells at a floor-shadow, only to discover Biff down on his knees
scrubbing up a mess around the new mop sink. It seems as if the
local newsboy suffered a horrible accident, Blind Herbie mistook
the
hydraulic gizmo for an automatic
commode and nearly ripped his gonads off,
After some good teasing and
laughs, Walker tells Biff he's been working the nightshift ever
since the city annexed 144,000 acres out. west. Walker mentions
an Israeli construction company purchased an option on the land
the previous summer, but hasn't been heard from since. David remarks
that it was most likely Prescott Construction owned by Menachem,
whose disappearance David's already brought to Walker's attention.
A couple cups of coffee and
many donuts later, David is giving Annie's key to Walker, when
his walkie-talkie blurts out a "209 in progress,"
Dropping his mug and Sara Lee's, Walker dashes outside and
launches his Crown Vic into a blur of burning smoke and flashing
lights.
A 209, Biff comments,
is a lady in labor at home.
The next day, when David runs
into April again, getting stoned with Lucky, she says she'll stop
by Poor Richard's that evening to discuss advertising and have
dinner. Making his way up to Sante Fe Drive, David gets free club
steaks from Smitty's Market and goes home to prepare them (per
friendly Smitty the butcher's specifications, to look exactly
like KC strips). Additionally, Smitty notices David's squinting
left eye and furnishes him with a patch.
Tight-suited April arrives with
her denim-skirted college sister she introduces as Stutterin'
Stephanie. It turns out that Steph's been outfitted with a vibrating
kidney belt by none-other-than Dr. Lizabeth Lump, the same dominatrix
who subjected David's brain to countless jolts of direct current.
It seems Liz now runs a string of abortion clinics across Missouri.
When David disconnects Stephanie's belt and she stops stuttering,
April doesn't know how to repay him.
In celebration, she begins a
wild belly dance with David's mysterious potted cactus balanced
atop her head. When it crashes to the floor, April
sees the Tokyo Spyder listening
device that's planted in it, and tells David she's seen identical
units at the Hollywood Inn. Explaining how she puts on explicit
shows for Brownie, Heinie, and whomever happens to be their current
chums-in-arms, she tells David her next appointment with the
boys in brown is that very night.
David asks April to spy for
him, to try and see if she can discover why the brownshirts are
in town. She agrees and leaves for her semi-weekly tryst,
Later that night, just as Steph
disrobes (despite David's displayed disdain), Walker drops by,
Panicky when Walker mentions marandizing David, Steph runs out
stark naked.
Walker informs David that Blanche
Barnes, alias Big Brandy, has been reported missing. However,
when David says he was sleeping when she left, Walker believes
him, mirandized or not
Following a discussion of how
red meat increases one's CIQ (Criminal Index Quotient),
Walker tells David he's going to post a personal watch outside
Poor Richard's, and check if his cousin, who happens to clerk
the graveyard shift at the Hollywood inn, can dig anything up
on the teutonic neo-chickens.
The next afternoon, David stops
by 0. Henry's for a nicotineless smoke to honor the birth of an
idea. He's figured out most of the details on how to convert Babylonic
Electronics to Amore Pizza, Pictures, and Pasta, Just as David
adjusts his eyepatch and lights his Kansas Straight, the Rodriquez
kids come in squealing about two dirty old men who said nasty
things to them,
Escorting them home, David encounters
Shitler just around the corner. David rips off their rotten ragtop
and beats up on one-eyed Brownie, but his toothless buddy flourishes
a gaudy Luger. As David tries to wrestle it from
Heinie's greasy grip, it discharges
through the windshield.
Finally, David snaps Heinie's
skinny wrist and tosses the still-smoking weapon into the storm
drain, just as a strawberry-haired policewoman drives onto the
scene with a bald-headed Doberman,
When the female enforcer inspects
the Swizzletwins' drivers licenses, she finds them foreign, and
expired. Commenting on the Schicklgrubers' birthdate,
six days before Hitler's demise in '45, she warns them that if
they don't behave themselves in Kansas, they'll have to deal with
her good dog Ike.
Shitler hums away and the shapely
officer makes her true identity known, With hair dyed red and
swirled into a tight bun, face adorned with artificial freckles
and eyes covered with chrome sunglasses, she's the lovely Miss
Morningstar. She explains to David how she escaped her captors
and is working the beat in disguise to try and get a local lead
on Mena and Judy's whereabouts.
When Morningstar invites David
for coffee and donuts, he excuses himself. Unable to stomach telling
his love how he's down on his financial luck or how he's been
suffering from double vision, David goes for a solitary walk in
the snow-swept park, satisfied just to be in the same city with
Morning,
The winter-wonder of it all.
Chapter Eight (Dealing Out Justice):
Late Sunday night, David gets
a second call from lawyer Logan's pithy secretary, Delilah. Seems
his Monday appointment at the Lincoln Arms in independence has
been cancelled and rescheduled with a more cunning legal-eagle
in the KCMO Empire Building,
The following noon, when he
discovers the building's given name is
actually M. Pyre Bank and Trust,
David knows he's being set-up, but plays along one more time,
hoping to get a lead on Menachem's whereabouts. As a mindless
oriental secretary named M, Tee shows David into Martin's thirteenth
floor office, the poorly disguised nazi is seen holding the grips
of a chrome gatling gun, practicing for the coming of his fourth
reich.
Noon recreation done, Martin
Pyre (alias P. Martin) tells David that statutes of limitation
will make it impossible to sue Drs. Lump or Cupp, Unless David
agrees to sue Dr. Riddle, the courts will laugh his case out of
court, so M, Pyre says. David explains that Dr, Riddle is the
one who weaned him off Nullium and such action is out of the question,
Smiling devilishly, Martin informs
David that his mother telephoned his office from St. Louis, threatening
to testify that David needed to be medicated all those years,
if he should decide to sue Drs, Lump or Cupp against legal advice.
David plays it cool for awhile.
But, when M. Tee totes in a tray of croak (50% crack, 50% coke),
for M. Pyre to parcel out to The Judge and The Senator,
she drops the costly merchandise. Grappling for the snowy
venom, Martin's silver toupee drops off, exposing red pubic hairs
transplanted into the purple scar tissue of his scalp. Certain
it's the same Hista who got burned at Mommar's birthday blast,
David excuses himself, telling M. Pyre he'll get back with him
after the holidays.
Finding his car towed away by
the Pyre Patrol, David limps home a step at a time, more determined
than ever to see justice done.
Thursday afternoon, his electricity
disconnected again, David goes up to O.Henry's for a hot shave
and is pleasantly surprised to see Morningstar filling in for
Biff. But he's even more surprised when she tells him it's Thanksgiving
and invites him to the club for dinner. After resisting the urge
to make love between the cooler and the commode, David decides
he can't
accept a free Thanksgiving dinner,
heading up to the post office for the package coming from Mr.
Sam instead,
Precisely two hours late, the
special delivery arrives with the eastern winds; a colorful bird
lights atop the floodlit flagpole, then settles onto David's shoulder,
A nylon leg-band offers no name but identifies the fowl as a descendant
of Mr. Sam's Cyrus. In no mood to return to his cold apartment
on a family holiday, David decides to take his feathered friend
on a tour around the Lenexa Triangle,
As it turns out, the bird does
more of the leading than David does, in the alley behind Smitty's
Market, David gets his first look at Granny's glitzy road-cruiser,
The Hound Dog, When Granny drops Doc Riddle and Smitty off to
get the Pipe Club ready for Thanksgiving dinner, David's invited
to help out.
Passing under the Sante Fe Trail
in a mysterious tunnel built by Lewis and Clark, David and Doc
(who needs two canes to ambulate), discuss everything from brain
chemistry to mind evolution and beyond.
Once inside the cozy Pipe Room,
Smitty serves the three-caned twosome his special chowder and
they drift off to sleep in over-stuffed chairs before a roaring
fire.
On waking, David sees all the
members have arrived and the bounty is being served. As he's busy
in the Commons vestibule, loading his plate with giblet dressing,
April emerges from an adjoining room and starts to pick from his
plate. She shows him the time-lag lipstick camera she intends
to use to spy on the neo-nasty chickenheads, or the Hollywood
inn Consortium, as she's calls them. Morningstar, too, shows up
to partake in the feast, appearing more divine than ever. She
invites David to ride The Hound Dog later, then returns with April
to the D.O.L.L. House annex (Daughters Of Lovely Lenexa),
Back in the Pipe Room, with
David's still-name less bird perched in the chandelier, Doc Riddle
reveals how two smelly thugs in stocking masks recently assaulted
his clinic's cleaning lady and stole David's medical file. On
a lighter note, Walker joins the good group and sings an off-Broadway
love song to his favorite donut-girl, Annie,
After a brief dissertation on
the purpose of laughter and how it ties in with Doc Riddle's TOE
theory (Triange Of Emotions), the gathering adjourns, to join
Granny behind the market for the midnight run of her gambling
casino on wheels.
Waiting in the alley, David
eyes a little moped just the like the one he rode as a kid. Granny's
late, so David offers to go look for her, aboard Smitty's old
moped.
Blasting down the Overland Incline
at a top speed of 35+, David sees he's being pursued by the Shitlerites.
David swerves into the local graveyard and jockeys the nimble
bike up to a foul-smelling mausoleum at the top, but the nasty
little brown VW gives easily up and hums away into the drizzly
night.
Hoping the neo-nuts haven't
buried Big Brandy in the mausoleum, David motors back to the alley
behind the market. The Hound Dog is loaded and three customized
Harley's are parked in front of it, their long-stroked engines
idling in neutral.
Inside the plush gaming cabin,
Granny introduces David to three Hollywood bikers: Al Pino, Sal
Stone, and Suzanne Sunshine, When David learns the down-to-earth
superstars need a place to crash for the night, he offers them
his apartment key and Sunshine accepts.
As soon as Paco, Sly, and Sunny
leave for Poor Richard's, Granny buttons up The Hound Dog's hatch
and heads for the highway. While everyone else bets on lady luck,
David relaxes with Miss Morningstar, in a comfortable seat beside
a teardrop window, listening to an Elvis look-alike named Jessie
blow a bubbling sax.
When Jessie plays "Fools
Rush In," David peers out the tiny teardrop port and can't
help but remember how, even with only a few days remaining before
his discharge, the desire to smash through the window and run
away from Farmingdale was nearly overwhelming.
Feeling so very fortunate to
be free, David wraps his arm around Morning and cracks the cabin
window open. A cool mist sprays in and they both float on dreams
as the miles and music slide by.
But they wake to a yuppie yelling
out, "I win again! S. Pyre is showing you all !!"
As The Hound Dog rocks to a
gentle halt in an open field, David sees it's none other than
M. Pyre's insolent son Stanley (5. Pyre), accompanied by his drunken
matriarch, Xandria (X. Pyre).
Granny announces it's time for
a breakfast break, and David helps Smitty and Doc erect an awning
on the outside of the coach. Not in the mood for more food yet,
David goes for a walk in the rain with Morningstar, only to be
rudely interrupted by a picture-taking helicopter. Returning with
Morning to The Dog after she scares the creeps off with her service
revolver, David wishes the heathens would quit bedevilling him
and be done with it, whatever it is.
Back at breakfast, David roughs
Stanley up for trying to butt into line and tripping Doc Riddle.
In the process, David learns that M. Pyre owns, and lives at,
the downtown Missouri Duck Club.
After the forced debriefing,
Granny feeds David's bird and discovers its name is Polly, But
Granny's in a bad mood; S. Pyre's beating the daylights out of
her at blackjack. David steers the subject to something lighter,
the Lewis and Clark Jewels, and Granny offers up the details of
the local lore with great gusto.
When The Hound Dog gets underway
again, David tells Riddle he's sorry about Doc's crushed Dalmations.
Asking David how he knew about the unfortunate incident, Doc Riddle
subjects him to a lecture on P-Waves, It seems that David Daniels
is the only clinically documented case of Precognizant Waves on
medical record, other than an old gentleman named Menachem in
Freud's time.
With some reluctance, Doc says
David's P-Waves were discovered while testing for Multiple Sclerosis.
David figures that if he had MS and there was something that could
be done about it, Doc would say as much. If he didn't have it,
though, Doc would certainly also say as much, so David has no
reason to ask the diagnosis,
As the coach rolls back into
Lenexa at dawn, Granny outguns Stanley by successfully hitting
a $300,000 soft-seventeen and everybody but the Pyres give seasonal
thanks.
David invites Morningstar for
Christmas eve at M. Pyre's Duck Club, then heads home on Herbie's
moped. The stars are gone, but Sunshine's left David a pair of
train tickets for the New Year's run of Lenexa's Great American
Freedom Flyer. David opens his rear window, inhales the cool morning
air, and relaxes in solitary satisfaction, happy to be among the
living again,
Chapter Nine (Holiday in Hell):
For some mysterious reason,
David can't get the sweet smell of Sunshine's jasmine oil out
of his mind as he motorbikes up to The Pyre Company's business
office in the morning and pays his electric bill with roulette
winnings from the night before.
Monday is Amore's grand opening
and David shows JR how to do the paper work and helps Lucky deliver
pizza, pictures, and pasta (aboard Blind Herbie's moped). By Friday
David's ready to blow his first paycheck in many
moons,
The New York Deli over on the
Missouri side is just what the doctor ordered, David picnics across
the street from the friendly delicatessen, in an alley beside
an unattended synagogue, Waiting for a rabbi to arrive, David
stuffs himself with kosher salami on rye bread with horseradish
mustard and reflects how rabbis had helped him cling to reality
and/or overcome it, on three previous occasions.
No rabbi this time; only a black
limo chauffeured by goodtime Gert from the Marion, Illinois,
Gas and Eats (the same garish carriage David anointed with garbage
the summer before). After exchanging unpleasantries with David,
Little Baghdad does a drug deal behind the temple with a WWII
Mercedes (occupied by M. Pyre himself), The deal done, a tire
blows on Baghdad's stretch limo as it navigates a left turn too
sharply and careens into a fire hydrant. When the fire department
and police come upon the watery miasma, they bust Baghdad with
the merchandise, but not before a computer check on his expired
Washington D.C. tags show a real name of Sadam Berry,
Back in Kansas, with Polly on
his shoulder, David helps Herbie use the library's mainframe to
search for the long-lost Lewis and Clark Jewels.
A couple weeks later, David
is just reflecting on how pleasant all his pizza-customers seem
when he makes a deliver at a weathered mobile home in De Soto.
The converted construction trailer looks familiar and smells fishy,
especially when its present owner, Butch, says he bought the dented
dwelling at an M. Pyre auction for next to nothing. Butch didn't
order a pizza, but when David offers him a free one for the inconvenience,
Butch finds the whop-pie cold and brandishes a shotgun.
Polly looses a few feathers
while David gets away relatively unscathed. On the way out of
Desoto, David painfully recollects the strange case of
Cowboy Carr, the rural Missourian
who pulled a shotgun from his pick-up and blew his unfaithful
wife away on the steps of the Farmingdale Processing Building.
The week before his first unmedicated Christmas in two decades, things
fine. Amore's business is booming;
April Butler's lipstick camera has
caught the boys-in-brown in the act; David is spending an occasional
afternoon on Morningstar's rented ranch and even looking forward
to
attending his nephew Marshall's winter graduation in St. Louis.
But, just the day before Christmas,
David discovers Butch has bought out Amore with a personal-interest
loan from M. Pyre Trust. Butch's Christmas gift to David is half
a paycheck; Butch doesn't want to spoil anyone, With barely enough
cash, David escorts Morningstar to the Duck Club for Christmas
Eve dinner.
Morning's in a bad mood and
won't say why, but nevertheless agrees to eat at the high-dollar
restaurant in the sky, to help David snoop on M. Pyre and maybe
find Menachem, After David has a few heated words with James,
the stoned doorboy, the three lovebirds (including Polly) ride
a glass elevator up the side of the M. Pyre building while Morning
tells David how immature he is.
When the maitre d' asks for
their membership cards, Morningstar tells Starling they're researching
a special holiday feature for Time/Life. Starling escorts them
across the nearly empty dining room and seats them between a pair
of splashing champagne fountains. Vance takes their order; a bald-headed
little jockey-boy named Boss serves bitter mineral water.
David gives Boss a tip and learns
M. Pyre's office is on the far side of the Duck Gallery. While
sad JoAnn stares at monochromatic sketches of ducks in flight,
David hands a note for M. Pyre to the musclehead guarding his
office. It threatens something horrible will happen if Menachem
and
Judy aren't released by midnight.
David chats with Samantha, the
pleasant young lady at the house-harp, then returns with Morning
to the table for Christmas dinner. After Vance uncovers their
platter of Double Duck Shot, David tosses the shrivelled unborn
ducklings into the champagne fountains (burial at sea with a touch
of class), David is charging the meal as an advance on his pending
malpractice suit, when he spots Yassir, the pyrotechnic clerk
at Moammars, skulk into Martin's office carrying an aluminum suitcase.
When David tells Starling to
have a happy holiday, Starling appears less than merry. It seems
that business has been so bad at the Duck Club the past year,
that, unless a miracle happens, M, Pyre will be forced to go into
receivership.
Back at ground level, David
discovers the drugged-up doorboy's had his Chevelle towed away
for parking in the luxury lot. Despite a chronic neuro-muscular
affliction, David is still able to punch James' lights out while
Morningstar summons help.
Walker arrives in his Crown
Vic and gives the lovebirds a ride back to Legler Park where Morning
has taken to living in the watchtower. Before she turns in for
the night, David discovers she's really Rhonda, Mr. Sam's niece
from years ago at Puberty Park.
"Your crew had to keep
an eye on your quixotic adventures," is the only explanation
she gives before hustling up the ladder.
Walker drives David back to
Poor Richard's and tells him that Morning probably has some sort
of female problem.
Determined to attend his nephew's
graduation, David loads up Herbie's moped for a latenight trek
to St. Louis. After escorting him to the Kansas line, Walker advises
David to ride on the shoulder for his own good.
With only a couple hundred miles
to go, David stops at a roadblock in
downtown KC; the Duck Club is
ablaze. David tells the officer-in-charge how he thinks M. Pyre
had his good buddy Yassir set the blaze to collect the insurance
money.
Just as the saucer-shaped restaurant
explodes and plummets twenty stories in a fiery spectacle, Polly
directs David's attention to both Moammar's and M. Pyre's fleeing
automobiles, David passes the information onto the officer and
a quick arrest is made.
"Herr Hista," David
yells through the officer's bullhorn, "this is David Daniels
and 1 hope you have a happy holiday in hell!! You no-good scumbucket."
The urban bells of St. Pedro's
Cathedral ring in Christmas as David cranks up the little moped
and proceeds on his merry way across Missouri, with Polly paddling
along dutifully in the wet turbulence above his shoulder.
Book III of III: HOME AT
LAST
Chapter Ten (Horatio's Alley);
After a long, bumpy night of
bottomless coffee cups and wondering whether some of his past
troubles and/or present difficulties are really linked to an intra-galactic
past and/or celestial future, David climbs the Wright City incline.
Missouri's last rest stop looks good, so he camps under the overhang
on the wind-free side of the restroom. Carefully peeling off his
frozen eyepatch, David pretends the free-running urinals and occasional
stool-flushings inside the brick bunker are the sounds of the
pounding surf, the tide breaking against the quiescent boulders
of the beach, and drifts off dreaming of the promised land. Prematurely
roused by an old curmudgeon in hip boots, David is told by Freddie,
the fireman, that someone's messin' with his li'l motorsicle.
Across the wet lot, King, a
tanked up Texan in a pickup truck begs David to give his stoned
son's pet monkey a moped ride for a Christmas gift, When David
complies, King and company speed merrily away, leaving David the
adoptive father of a five-pound primate named Jerry,
As semi-retired Freddie hauls
Jerry, Polly, David, and Herbie's moped toward St. Louis in his
old Ford pumper, he reveals himself to be Mary Smith's grandson.
As the mile markers march by, Freddy tells David how good folk
don't get older with the years, just a little wiser and closer
to the finish line.
Learning David's U. City birthplace
has a Biblical name (Mt. Olive), Freddie further advises, "Maybe
you best read the golden text and quit bein' so analytic
in your thinkin' and put a little more faith in it,"
Finally at the Mock Club, Freddie
helps unload the ungainly moped, recommending David visit his
niece Rosie's downtown eatery, O'Grady's Grill, a real clean and
awful well-lit place.
After a friendly exchange of
holiday hopes, David slips quietly into his parents' house. As
he slumbers, his crew-cut sister, the youngest and only family
member in the house, kidnaps Jerry to her bedroom.
At dawn, frustrated Bitsey Bob
gives David an old shoebox of junk that once belonged to him.
Inside the crumpled Buster Brown box, David discovers an empty
foil pouch on a rawhide strand, identical to Morningstar's and
Menachem's, But no alabaster egg.
Late that afternoon, when he
meets the Sun City Express at the airport, David
learns his mother, Kay, got lucky at roulette and is staying over
an extra day. His father, Ray, has picked up a blond bimbo named
Coleen Baxter who's coming to the house to supposedly process
his memoirs.
Bug-eyed Ray and barely clad
Coleen take Jitterlin, slurp cheap champagne, and hunt and peck
at the word processor all night, David tries
not to think about the blonde
bachelorette's bouncing bra and get some sleep.
The next evening, after David
makes another roundtrip to the airport to fetch mother Kay, father
Ray pilots the family canoe to the Mock Mound for a belated Christmas
dinner.
Traversing the couple blocks
to the clubhouse, Ray wrecks into Ronald Frump's parked Imperial,
but blames it on juvenile delinquents. Older sister Victoria,
her husband Flip, son Marshall, and daughter Kimmble have already
arrived at the bourgeoisie biscuit-bucket, sitting at an oblong
table beside Horatio's Alley (a jewelry display for blind children
designed as a tax write-off for the wealthy).
As the evening progresses, it
becomes obvious that the Mock Mound is but a St. Louis edition
of the Kansas City Duck Club. Instead of tuxedos, three-piece
business suits are the uniform of the day. Gelterstain replaces
Starling as maitre d'. Shine Boys, instead of Jockey Boys, pour
chicken bouillon instead of sparkling mineral water, while a Negotiable
Mediterranean Petroleum Security, in lieu of an Empire Bank Note,
is legal tender on the elitist premises.
After dinner, Marshall talks
money-matters with his father Flip and grandfather Ray. Limping
around the recently refurbished clubhouse with sister Victoria
and niece Kimmble, David sees Samantha, the young harpist from
the Duck Club, playing the Mock Mound's electronic mood-synthesizer
(donated by Dr. Rudolph Cupp III), Victoria explains how Samantha,
who's graduating with Marshall the next day, is the abandoned
daughter of David's unrequited sweetheart from high school, Susan
Cole,
Back at the table, David is
joking with Kimmble when Dr. Cupp shows up and issues cat calls
at Samantha. David drags drunken Cupp into the men's room, drops
him in the slop sink, and sets the record straight. "Quit
giving my parents drugs, or else."
When David tosses Cupp into
the latrine, the alcoholic doctor's wallet falls to the floor.
An old Kodachrome photo catches David's eye: a picture of Drs.
Cupp and Lump with three little cross-eyed aryan tykes.
Sure enough, mother Kay stirs
from her Nullium-stupor only long enough to confirm David's suspicion
that they're the Shicklgruber triplets. Actually, med-school sweethearts
Drs. Cupp and Lump, are kissing cousins who adopted the three
little German refugees (Brownie, Heinle, and Lenore) after WWII.
Just as Victoria asks David
to give Marshall a lift to his pre-graduation party, melodic Samantha
comes to the second verse of David's alma mater; "And when
we get to Heaven, we'll find the streets are guarded by United
States Marines."
With his chest still pushed
out, David chauffeurs mundane Marshall downtown in Bitsey's high-strung
CVX. The quasi-sports car self-destructs, piece by piece, as they
bounce over the urban-renewed boulevards and come into
view of Busch Stadium, site of Lincoln High's Snow-Ball Party.
The byway circling the stadium
is blocked with civil unrest, alienated teens demanding equal
education. But the insolent Marshall says they're only pretending
to be poor to get pity.
When the police tell David to
turn around and come back later, he decides to take his natty
nephew for a look at old Sportsmen's Park, with Polly leading
the way. But the old stadium's been razed. Across the inner-city
street from where it once stood is a bemired lot cradled between
the Salvation Army and O'Grady's Grill.
Marshall wants to get back to
his party, but David needs to locate Polly first. In the middle
of the muddy field, David finds his bird perched atop a blanket
draped over an old motorcycle frame, inside the makeshift hutch
is a Korean and a Vietnam veteran, both crippled but determined.
After a brief chat with the
abandoned vets, David makes them a twenty dollar loan, a promise
that their day is very near, and trudges back to the street. He
bribes Marshall to take Bitsey's coat to the homeless vets, then
waits under a disconnected streetlight, for over an hour.
When the graduate-to-be finally
returns, his mohair overcoat and pin-striped suitcoat are gone.
While David steers west, Marshall licks his lips from the sardines
he shared with the vets and explains how he gave all his party
money to them,
following a friendly root-beer
float, David drops his newfound nephew Marshall at home before
heading back to the mock house.
When father Ray announces there
will be a pool party the next night, following Marshall's commencement,
David makes his way down to the rathskellar. Even with a featherweight
cue stick, it's not easy to practice pocket billiards with only
one good eye, a cramped left arm, and a greatly diminished sense
of balance.
Chapter Eleven (Freedom's Not Free):
After swindling a new Eldorado
from his friendly Frump Insurance Agent, father Daniels jockeys
the replacement canoe toward Marshall's graduation.
Pops parks in a handicapped
spot as usual, and, except for an outdoor pool populated with
semi-nude swimmers, the school looks pretty much the same as two
decades before.
As the dysfunctional family
moves past the Olympic pool, David remembers how, while his mother
balked, he barely saved six-year old Bitsey from drowning.
Down at the end of Lincoln High's
computer-coded hallway, just outside a stainless steel vending
area which used to be a cafeteria serving roast
beef and mashed potatoes, Coleen
is selling strawberry milkshakes for Ron Frump, She tells David
that his father dropped her off at the emergency room after she
took too much Jitterlin and Ron picked her up. She whispers she'll
be at pop's pool party later, and the motley crew moves into the
spit-shined gymnasium.
it smells the same as always,
David reflects as he sits between Kimmble and Victoria who've
arrived early, Ray snores, Kay knits in slow motion, and Bitsey
reads a paperback on sexual options, as Dr. Cole, the aging principal
and estranged father of Susan Cole, opens the pithy proceedings.
Garter-belted party-girls deal
out gold leaf diplomas from fishnet satchels as the nickname-calling
commences. Kimmble grooms Polly while David daydreams of his own
socio-political career which ended shortly after grammar school.
After a final pair of jock-strapped
graduates named Zono and Zulu grab their gold, Dr. Cole accepts
the remaining diploma for his grand-daughter Samantha who's working.
The student body cheers as their valedictorian, Marshall Mars,
marches up to the podium. Everybody expects a self-serving discourse
on wealth and success, but Marshall removes his conventional cap
and gown to show a white sailor's cap, and navy-blue jumper. He's
just joined the Navy and Victoria cries with pride as he delivers
a moving "Freedom is not Free" address.
When everybody applauds, Ray
finally wakes his wife. "Kay, I told you so; one night with
David and Marshall's all screwed up just like him."
As the proud crowd pours out
of the gymnasium, David asks the principal about Susan. Dr. Cole
hasn't heard from her in years; but she does send a big check
for Samantha every month. After comforting the old timer, David
limps down to the library to peruse old faculty photos.
Surprised enough to see that
Mena Menachem was actually his wrestling coach Prescott Mathews
and Granny was Ms. 5, his language arts teacher, David is further
baffled when he discovers both left Lincoln High right, after
his commencement,
That evening, back at the mock
house, Marshall chats with Collen behind the bar as dear dad tries
to hustle David, They agree to one game of freeze-out: David's
Macintosh computer against dad's two grand, Ray gets lucky and
just as he's about to stroke for easy victory, the doorbell rings
and he miscues.
Walker, Annie, Granny, Smitty,
and April have come calling all the way from Lenexa, David excuses
himself from the pool duel and follows them upstairs and outside.
Walker tells David that Big
Brandy's grizzly body has been discovered, impaled on three German
beer bottles, one in each major body orifice. The SwizzleSticks
seem to be playing for keeps.
Granny gives David the keys
to her Superstock Dodge and orders him to drive it back to Kansas
instead of Herbie's moped. She also informs David that. Morningstar
has mysteriously disappeared and left a note for him. David pockets
the keys and the note, but turns down a pearl-handled .45 that
Granny offers him.
April's gotten friendly with
Coleen and decides to stay in St. Louis. As the others drive away
west in Walker's Crown Vic, David unfolds his cryptic message
from Morningstar; "Follow the track of Stone!"
David returns to the rathskellar
and outguns dear dad with a beautiful curve shot, only to be bilked
out of 90% of his winnings. Pressing on, David agrees to escort
Kimmble and Victoria to the Startime Marathon down at the Fox
Theatre the next day.
David decides to take Polly
for a latenlght spin in Granny's Dodge and
.
ends up at the moonlit Mt. Olive
cemetery, A miniature egg on Granny's Chrysler keychain glows
gently as David visits the site of his grandparents' final rendezvous.
On his way back to the suburbs,
David rents a second cane at an all-night drugstore. Finally crashing
on an upstairs couch in the Daniels' house, David wonders where
Heaven really is, while the others play pocket billiards downstairs,
Morning comes early and David
escorts his parents to the airport again, for the New Years junket
to Vegas, Their Sandbird Express has been held up
in Detroit so Ray pays Blackie to carry their bags to the
Skyhigh Club,
Driving the rented Eldorado,
David collects April and Coleen from the mock house, On the way
to pick up Victoria's family, David asks Coleen if any of his
father's memoirs mentioned an alabaster egglace. As Kimmble and
Marshall climb into the backseat, Coleen refuses to answer on
grounds of client confidentiality.
When the good group finds the
marathon at the Fox has been delayed, they vote to kill some time
at the art museum. In the Egyptian room, David discovers more
than mummies and jewels. Granny's miniature egg heats David's
pocket as a queenly soul in sandals, burgundy robe, and horn-rim
glasses tells him he has a keen eye for the ages.
After a brief, but inspirational
exchange, David accompanies the regal lady to a rented white Omni.
The queen calls David by his given name and he realizes that she's
Susan Cole, his unrequited love and Samantha's runaway mother.
But she disappears into Forest Park before he can question her,
What was she doing at the
St. Louis Art Musuem? David
wonders as he hauls the others toward the Fox. David drops them
off under the star showcase, then parks in a distant pothole of
urban blight, in front of the infamous Midwood Hotel where he
roomed after Farmingdale, David gives
Wilver and Orbille Wrong a lesson
in self-defense when they call him Captain Cripple and come at
him with a grizzly ginsu.
Finally inside the relatively
safe confines of the refurbished Fox, David descends a purple-velvet
aisleway into the very womb of Hollywood herself, so he thinks,
as he sinks into a seat beside Kimmble and Victoria.
As soon as Spartacus runs
its last reel, Kimmble asks her mother why the martyr had to die.
Victoria says that at least he had his day in the sun, all that
anyone can ask for in this life.
After going for refreshments
with Coleen and April, David steps outside under the marquee for
a breath of fresh air. He spots a chartreuse bus topped with chicken
coops parked near the Skinker intersection. It looks like the
Tri-County Histarical Society's Empire Express and David limps
hurriedly towards it. Just as the battered coach pulls away, a
much different motornoise shakes the night from the opposite direction,
Coleen and April emerge from
the Fox lobby as three fire-belching Harleys come around the turn
from Market Street and skid to an asphaltic halt at the curb.
It's Stone and company.
Granny's three friends from
Tinsel Town ask David to steer them toward a good place to eat
before their appearance in the showcase, Coleen craddles David's
pine cane on back Paco's charcoal-lacquered Lowrider; April hauls
David's fiberglass staff aboard Sly's matching machine; David
himself pilots Sunshine's candy-apple Sportster. Bound for inevitable
glory, David and Polly lead the nostalgic nightriders toward O'Grady's
Grill, the roundabout way.
Chapter Twelve (Blizzard Of Oz):
As their group scooters across
Skinker, David's uncovered eye is peeled for the Empire Express,
but catches no sign of the elusive chicken-coach.
Taking the night-troupers onto
the highway, David circles the city from the south, pulling countless
wheelies in the process. Before too long, the star-studded cartel
bounces back onto the inner-city byways and squeals to a halt
against the Salvation Army's craggy curb.
Sunshine escorts a friendly
old timer into the soup kitchen while David introduces Paco and
Sly to the vets. They've purchased a Big Top teepee from Mr, Sam
with the money Marshall loaned them and their war wounds seem
miraculously healed.
After Paco and Sly get the whole
scoop, they join Sunshine at the bus stop in front of O'Grady's
Grill. The Salvation Army's kitchen is overcrowded, so Sunny's
sending the needy to Ruggeri's steakhouse until Pentacular Productions
can build them a new facility.
Inside O'Grady's, as the crew
sits at a cigarette-burned roundtable and Rosie fills them in
on her grandmother's famous 1903 World's Fair burgers, David can't
help but remember the day his father ate too many raw onions before
dropping him at Farmingdale.
Returning to the subject at
hand, David listens to Rosie explain that her grandma's Jewish
boyfriend originally came up with the idea of steamed onions and
pyramid containers, "Anybody that got to know Menachem seemed
to automatically get smarter."
After the good group chows down,
the boys catch April and Coleen smoking dope in the girls' room.
Following long lectures by all parties present, the three stars
finalize their plans to build a Vets Center and float Rosie
a loan to reopen her main dining room,
David's muscles are getting
more cramped with every exertion and he's barely able to pilot
Sunny's bike back to the Midwood Hotel to pick up the Cadillac.
Paco scares off the Wrong brothers with his saturday-night special
before the group hurries toward the Fox for showtime.
David parks in the Celebrity
Corral. While the others ride the Stellar Elevator up
to the showcase, David leads Sunny across the lobby to say hello
to his family. Sunny invites Kimmble and Victoria up to the showcase,
but hurries away when Samantha and Dr. Cole approach, Marshall
leaves with the Coles for a clamroll at Howard Johnson's after
the show, Victoria and Kimmble follow David over to the elevator
and up to the glitzy open-air balcony,
David barely has time to introduce
his sister and niece to the stars before showtime. The silk curtain
lifts on the elevated veranda and Sly welcomes the maddening crowd
that's assembled down on the avenue, Everyone cheers wildly, until
the spots flicker off and sirens fill the night,
A rookie crowd controlman runs
in yelling, "Snipers!! Snipers on the Diamond Exchange!!"
Everybody in the showcase hits
the deck and David wonders if it's the Swizzlenuts. Alas, a rumpled
police lieutenant named Gumbo arrives and announces it's not.
snipers at all, but two teenage jumpers, Victoria saves the day
by using Polly to ferry notes back forth to the troubled youths
across the way.
The ordeal done and the show
resumed, David queries Kimmble as to the content of her mothers'
messages to the suicidal twosome. It seems that Kim's mom's been
having dreams lately that turn out to be from the Bible, even
though she's never read it. Victoria has simply told the teens
to go home and wait for the New World.
David hopes the New World will
come before he's too crippled with pain to appreciate it. He takes
the stars leave and double-canes his way downstairs and into the
streets where he listens to a special song Sunshine has arranged
just for the occasion. Up in the showcase, April and Coleen shake
a pair of tambourines as Sunny strums a balalaika and leads the
crowd
in a new rendition of "Dancin'
in the Streets." The words which scroll across the Fox's
marquee declare, "We'll demonstrate in Moscow, in Washington
and Warsaw, too. We'll yell atop the Berlin Wall; 'What we want
is Freedom, sweet Freedom, 'til there's elections everywhere.'"
David limps over to the Celebrity
Corral and crawls into the Cadillac with Polly, hoping to hide
from his worsening muscle cramps. He closes his eyes to keep from
seeing himself cry in the mirrored elevator door.
But his pain melts under a soft
blanket of sunlight as they open into the Land of Milk and Honey,
Circling a campfire on the beach of Tranquility Bay, David, mother
Fela, and sisters Sola and Sidra are joined by Mena, keeper of
the Evergreens, and Suma, guardian of the Olive groves. They tell
David a tale of seven travelers from another starsystem who came
to Earth thousands of years ago. With the exception of Survialist
Hista who quickly fell in with the devil, the others lived as
Abraham, Moses, and many other biblical patriarchs and matriarchs.
Their Captain, though, has now been waiting along the Rainbow
of Souls, close to Gola, for over two millenia, to return when
he is needed again, Fela charges David with the mortal mission
of finding him, just as sirens and screams pluck David from his
heavenly vision.
The rookie is knocking on the
overhead door and tells David someone's shot the stars. While
the rookie searches the garage, Lenore Schicklgruber drives by
in her black Porsche, throws an Uzi submachine gun at David's
feet, then zooms away.
But the rookie's seen it all,
and the cross-eyed vixen's attempt to frame David fails miserably.
Discovering Paco and Sly have suffered minor flesh wounds, David
tells Lieutenant Gumbo all he knows about the Schicklgruber triplets
and the Empire Express bus.
Gumbo gives David and the stars
a police escort out to the mock house.
After finding suitable accommodations
for the others, Sunny and David opt for a latenight spin in Granny's
Dodge. Stopping at the all-night pharmacy to pay another day's
rent on his second cane, David tells Sunshine about Good George,
his onetime schoolmate who's been hanging out by the newspaper
vending machine for the last thirty years.
As he waves to George, Sunshine
insists David show her where he was born. A few minutes later,
motoring up Mt. Olive, Sunshine sees a big ranch house with a
cabin for rent and asks David to stop. As it turns out, the ranch
house still belongs to the Connell family. David's good friend
Grant Connell is home from Stanley, Kansas, for the holidays and
invites David and Sunshine in.
It's been twenty years since
David and Grant have seen each other and they shake hands and
slap each other's backs with great gusto. Grant's gifted son,
Kurt, his wife Nan, Grant's wife Nan, and two multi-generational
babies come together for toasted bagels, cream cheese, and strawberry
jam.
Following the latenight brunch,
Kurt and Grant escort David outside and around back to the Connell
racepit. Inside the immaculate machine shop and laboratory, Grant
shows David some of their pet projects. After David supplies Kurt
with the missing link to his gravolectric mill, Grant unveils
the prototype to their Blizzard of Oz, a bomb designed
to burst in the upper atmosphere and replenish the ozone.
Summoned by Grant, Sunshine
helps David ambulate across the backyard and down the long flight
of wooden steps to the cabin. After closely inspecting The
Connell Garden, a miniature ultraviolet ecosystem, David
crashes his weary bones on the lowest bunk.
Sunny showers while David closes
his good eye and wonders if both he and Sunny, not to menion Morningstar,
Menachem, Granny, and Mr, Sam, might afterall be the descendants
of Twolaen travelers.
Before David gets too deep in
thought, though, Suzanne's footsteps return to his side and he
looks up. Long ringlets of wet blonde hair cover both her square
shoulders and the outer hemispheres of her healthy breasts; an
alabaster egglace dangles below the deep cleavage, glowing gently
against her smooth abdomen.
Chapter Thirteen (St. David's Field):
As they walk into morninglight
only three hours later, David wonders how he can be in love with
two wonderful women at the same time.
When David stops at the drug
store to purchase his second cane outright, Good George is no
where to be seen. After checking the back room to no avail, Mr,
Pride, the pharmacist, tells David he saw a dirty green bus out
front just before dawn, David tells him to report George Quail
kidnapped and proceeds, with great anger, west to the mock house.
While Sly and Paco load Herbie's
moped into Granny's trunk, Coleen Invites David into the study
and tells him that his father raped her, She also says that pop's
memoirs mentioned a magic egg in a kitchen wallsafe.
Before David can search for
it, Sunshine summons him into the master bedroom. Assuming a simple
disguise, she shows herself to be the same lady David saw in the
museum, not to mention Susan Cole from Lincoln High and Samantha's
mother. She says Samantha was born nine months after graduation
and she thinks David's the father. Though David never even kissed
Susan, they both had the same lusty dream on graduation eve.
Before David can make any sense
of the mutual dream-turned-reality, Bitsey calls him to the kitchen
telephone to talk with his parents who are still stranded out
at the Skyhigh Club, Just as mom's telling David that a banker
friend has offered them a free ride to Vegas on his private jet,
the house explodes.
Nobody's hurt seriously, but
the house is demolished. Behind the refrigerator, a wallsafe has
been blow open and David finds his alabaster egglace inside, Paco,
who's really Dale Goldberg from high school, tosses David his
.25 automatic while Susan slips the egglace over his neck. Sly,
actually Eddie Weiss, finds David's canes in the debris and helps
his old high school friend out to the Dodge.
With Polly on his shoulder,
David blasts rearward through the garage door, leading the Schicklgruber
triplets' VW and Porsche on a wild chase. After both nazimobiles
end up in a ditch, David motors west toward Columbia, to visit
his nephew Herman at the UMC infirmary before heading home to
Kansas,
UMC's closed for the holidays
and Herman's been moved to Private University on the other side
of town. PU is operated by TLC, The Lump Corporation,
On the second floor David finds his recuperated nephew packing
his things while a familiar young lady writes at the receptionist's
desk, Herman introduces David to his new girlfriend, Stephanie
Butler, April's sister.
When straight-talking Steph
finishes what she's penned, she hugs David warmly and they proceed
downstairs, in the cold basement, Herman holds the parchment and
the nail as David uses Dale's .25 to hammer Steph's Proposed
Equal Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution onto the plywood
door of Liz Lump's abortion clinic,
The deed well done, a long-handled
German grenade comes banging down the escalator and across the
concrete floor. David grabs the grenade, hurls it through Lump's
door, and the abortion clinic is gone for good. Emerging from
the debris, unscathed and all the more determined, David's adrenalin
surges as he ambulates upstairs and out onto the parking lot.
While the Schicklgruber triplets
cackle to each other beside a jet-black
Pyretechnix van parked near a foreboding tree, David
makes his quiet way to Granny's Dodge, Armed with a MAC-10 machine
gun Granny's left just for the purpose, David challenges his three
foes to an awesome firefight.
With Heinie and Brownie temporarily
incapacitated, Lenore surrenders. The Empire Express arrives on
the bloody scene and tangles Heine and Brownie's already mangled
bodies in its undercarriage. As the elderly group piles out, looking
like refugees from the Tri-County Geriatric Home, they too surrender
to David's well-handled weapon.
The day not yet done, an SOS
helicopter hovers nearby. M. Pyre threatens to throw David's parents
out if he doesn't drop his weapon. With mixed emotions, David
concedes. In a matter of moments, David finds himself atop the
bus, his head in a noose hung from the tree.
"I sez we finish up what
we started in St. David's Field twenty yar ago," a rheumatic
Jasper yells to Jethro.
M. Pyre directs the proceedings,
wielding a pair of chrome Lugers, When everything seems ready,
David stares into M. Pyre's bloodshot eyes and speaks deliberately,
"Herr Martin Pyre, if you really are Survivalist Hista from
Twola, I, acting as your captain, order you to put one of those
Lugers to your head and pull the trigger. Now."
When M. Pyre blows his own brains
out, the Histarical Society wants to free David and go home to
Tennessee. But Lenore has other ideas. She takes the wheel of
the bus, guns the motor, and yells, "Dahling David, we shall
finally see if you are really the one the Jews have been waiting
all these years for."
With chicken feathers everywhere,
the messy roof slips out from under David and he closes his eyes,
prays for a quick redemption, and drops to his fate.
Chapter Fourteen (The Return):
David's rigid legs jam against
the ground, then snap at the knees before he finally comes to
a crippled state of rest When his pain becomes too bad to bear,
David's eyes open, upon what he mistakenly takes to be an out-of-body
experience.
A bearded soul of Old Testament
days, Judah Maccabee, beckons David to stand at his side, In a
knee-length robe, David stands proudly beside his partner of old,
his body vibrantly renewed. Together they travel through history,
sifting the sands of time as they go from continent to continent,
year to year.
In the ashes of Hiroshima, David
and Judah watch a young girl named Faith bury her family before
joining their noble journey. The three of them visit a domed city
of chrome and turn its pagan citizens to stone before drifting
across America, where they muster the soldiers of both North and
South from their Gettysburg graves.
From a high field to their front,
come two white horses and a tan mule. They name the white chargers
"Truth" and "Trust." Lancing her right thumb
with Judah's long sword, Faith writes "Determination"
on the side of a Persian caisson, The mule with no name pulls
Faith and a newfound Lamb in the two-wheeled wagon.
In a 1945 Berlin courtyard,
David and Judah resurrect Herr Hitler from a burning pit, to spend
eternity in hell, wide awake above beds of burning coals, on a
meat hook through the back of his neck. From Nero to Stalin to
Saddam Hussein, all who mock the Lord's Covenant share a similar
fate.
Hovering high above once more,
the three travelers and their naked Lamb look down upon Berlin,
then southeast to Baghdad. Their bombed out streets resemble the
final smoothings of a master wheelwright along the inner rim of
time. The living souls of six million Jews lead the way to Heaven
as the
Hebrews lift with every other
oppressed people from the lifeless stacks of the dead reiche,
When clean air shines on their
caisson, Judah points. "Look, down there, the curtain, the
wall, and every other man-made barrier to universal freedom come
down."
Lifting the fallen warriors
of Belleau Woods, Omaha Beach, Guadacanal, the Chosen Resevoir,
and the Mekong Delta, the mighty aramada grows, raising the souls
of the ageless battlewagon Arizona and freeing the angels of Spaceshuttle
Challenger.
After traveling for many more
days, Judah says they should finally rest in a sunny field for
awhile.
When David awakes, Judah, Faith,
and the Lamb are nowhere to be seen, It's a beautiful spring day
and a familiar bird paddles the sky above. Polly leads David east,
between a pair of polished railroad tracks into old town Lenexa.
Granny waits with open arms, and leads David on a stroll around
the Lenexa Triangle, filling him in on what's transpired while
he's been away, both on the local and international scene.
So many good things have happened.
Indeed, the New World has finally arrived, David decides. The
Cold War is over; peace is breaking out everywhere. Birds chirp
in the trees and butterflies flutter in the meadows as Granny
tells David how Herbie's vision has returned.
Continuing to a peach tree opposite
0. Henry's Emporium, David and Granny came upon their crew, standing
in a semi-circle. Tears of joy fill all their eyes as Mr. Sam,
looking more fit than ever, takes one step forward and squares
his broad shoulders. "Suma, Survivalist Two of StarFlight
Salvation, prepared for duty."
Sunshine/Donna/Susan Cole steps
forward. "Sola, Culturist of StarFlight Salvation, prepared
for duty," She smiles, "Samantha's waiting
for us out at the park. She's
helping Judy with the musical arrangements."
JoAnn Morningstar/Rhonda/Joan
Cole moves to her half-sister's side. "Sidra, Navigator of
StarFlight Salvation, prepared for duty," She rests a hand
on her bulging belly. "As soon as our little co-pilot is
born."
Granny Smith/Miss S. joins them,
turns toward David, and adjusts her bonnet, "Fela, Flight-Engineer
of StarFlight Salvation, prepared for duty,"
Mena Menachem/Prescott Mathews
moves two steps forward. "Mena, First-Officer of StarFlight
Salvation, prepared for service, Captain Danu."
"First-Officer Mena,"
David asks, "have you properly initiated the digitized cerebral
vision-code to summon Salvation for our timely return to Edom?"
"Yes, Captain," Mena
responds. "But I was forced to send Salvation away from Venus
and out of Earth's solarsystem with the advent of Voyager and
Soyuz spaceprobes. ft will take a little while to return."
Granny smiles, "In the
mean time, David, I suggest we all go to the park and sing praise
to Gola."
"Then, if you like, we'll
take a look at our New Jerusalem," Mena adds.
So, with Joan on his one hand
and Susan on the other, David leads his crew toward the spring
sun, Polly rides on Granny's Easter bonnet.
Well beyond the 87th
Street berm, they see a pair of white and gold flags wave freely
in the clear blue breeze, blowing outward from their center into
the winds of time,
Thus, David Daniels has come
to savor his days in the sun, at this place, in our time; so the
tale is told.