Chapter 18: Battle with the Bulge "Anyone here know what God is?" Yes, in spite of his stunning glimpse into the way out of all things, Evolutionary Agent second class, Olney Garkle, poses the question on behalf of irksome smart alecks everywhere. Among the Moon Food's late afternoon clientele, only Chick and Cleola are alert enough to respond involuntarily. "Dipshit wants ta get his face rearranged," Chick says darkly, spooning through his bowl of embalmed fruit. "Sounds like trouble," adds his wife, downing the prize maraschino. "Well, folks, I do. God, if you're ever asked on a quiz show, is a naked Cruzer. And I got a rubberized icon of Her right here in m'pocket." With a velarized snigger drenched in mucous, Olney fishes in his pocket for the balloon. "Here's Her finger," he says, slowly inching it out. Cleola splutters over a few morsels of once-pear. "Listen here, faggot, this is a public place," booms Chick. "Ow," booms Chick again, as Cleola's heel comes crashing down on his toes. "Don't pay no attention to him," she hisses. Helga, on hands and knees below the cash register, has been trying to extract a dollar bill that slipped from her grasp earlier to wedge itself amongst the machine's greasy ganglia. At the sudden uproar, the top of her head meets the bottom of the counter with a mighty thud and her own rendition of "Ow," as she rises pell mell to her feet. Instinctively, she reaches for the dishrag, never far from her grasp. Dester and Grunty busy themselves rolling new smokes. Only Noodles, absorbed for hours in the meaningless statistics of the sports section, remains oblivious. There are no other customers. "You probably think I'm kidding," Olney continues, breathing a shiny new scab on the end of his nose. (A nose, he's beginning to suspect, that belongs on the face of a multiple personality.) Vague nods abound over hurried mouthfuls and torn rolling papers. "Well, you're absolutely right. And to show our appreciation for such an astute observation, we've got a little surprise for you. Marvin!" he commands of no one, though Helga snaps to attention. "Bring these good people their prize: a bra-and neeyew Buick." Reaching into his pocket again, he pulls out the stolen toy car, lifted that morning from Dexter Hent. He tries to roll it down the counter, but the little car stops dead, front left whitewall pigeon-wheeled. "Seriously, though," hurrying now to distract the gattling gun taking aim from between Chick's teeth, "I used to think of poor old God as kinda like Flash Gordon trapped in a L'il Abner comic. Talk about fa-rus-trating." "Just don't you pay no attention," Cleola advises her husband. "He's a dope fiend." "Know what I mean?" Olney happily offers. "Suppose you had all the power of the President and your only outlet was this cafe. Must be the same for God and this wide, wonderful world of dub flubbers. Nothing much to write Absolute Central about. Whenever He takes a gander at Earth, it must cause Him to reach for the bottle." Chick whispers furiously to his wife, "I'm gonna be obliged to take this guy out. He's insultin' everything we believe in." Cleola is beginning to agree. "Yep," says O., "taken to drink lo these many eons, nothing much else to do, 'cept for the usual boredom-relieving potshots at helpless humans such as your happy family motoring along on vacation: 'Ho,' sez He, 'Think I'll send 'em a drunken redneck headon, see what happens. Whoopee. Aw, lookit that ... lonesome little runner over there on the soft shoulder, thrown clear of the fireworks 'n' body bits. Gee. Nice, but not quite what I had in mind. Let's see what happens when the redneck headons an entire city.' Yeah, must be tough on the poor Ol' Fart, huh, Chick." "I think you better knock it off, you blasphemin' heathen," suggests Chick, "or I'll come over there and shove the wrath of the Lord down yr throat. This is a public place, Goddamnit." He rotates his head to face Helga. "Waitress, bring us some coffee." For a moment, Helga's feet dance in place to the six gun soundtrack accompanying Chick's voice. Then, making obeisance gestures typical of bully victims the world over, she waddles over with pot and cups. "This is God's dump," Olney persists, slamming a fist on the counter. His blow bounces the little car into Helga's tepid dishwater. As Chick's eyes depart their sockets over this latest effrontery, Olney quietly gags while conducting an inventory of the tumor-colored stew, ingredients of which include bloated cigarette filters, paper matches, parsley shreds, carrot slivers, lumps of mashed potato, ghastly onion skins, congealed blobs of gravy, soggy straps of noodle, crumbling knots of meat loaf, coiled hairs, flakes of dandruff, chunks of ear wax, balls of snot, gobs of phlegm, pimple cores, senile worts, psoriatic scales, herpetic pustules, crusted conjunctival suppurations, and a few dishes. The Insect watches lazily from the shore, under a canopy of stained paper napkins. "Waitress, call the cops!" demands Chick, hoping to render unto seizure his source of displeasure. But Olney puts up a hand in peace, wondering, at the same time, just which self has what in mind; or is the Unc behind this? Just goes to show--he has time to ponder, while Chick snorts and fumes--that you never know who you are until the end. Little or no chance to spend life unmolested by karma, happily gaga, perhaps, as an oologist in tweed, hair forever mussed from climbing trees to inspect dear little nests. Olney would have settled for Wealth without Toil, with his own private Lear and a place to park it in selected airports around the world, and a fast car in each hangar fueled and ready to zoom en ville for a fine bunchagoodtimes, forget hardships, sorrow and death. And everyone he should pass along this Via Veneto of his dreams would greet him with their good will, realized exponents of a worldwide enlightenment forever and ever, amen. "Ok, I'll lighten up on the Old Boy," he promises. "In fact, a little mercy is in order, don't you think? I mean, we expect The Lord to have mercy on us, but maybe we ought to have mercy on Him. Because, as the Father Who Art In Heaven, He sure must feel like a failure. Just look: He's had billions of kids like Slug, and they've always wound up in jail beating their meat on torn mattresses ... oops." "God damn son of a betch," explodes Chick, losing a mouthful of hot coffee to the tabletop à la renowned spewer, Dester Blut. Cleola explodes with a curse of her own, a curse meant to: (1) advise the vermin at the counter that he is about to be sprayed by a lethal dose of the Lord's Own Flit; and (2) remind her husband that his skull contains not the brains he is occasionally proud of, but a densely packed potpourri of random waste solids. Coincidentally, she has also managed to (3) rend the heavens and (4) cause the shredding of yet another pair of rolling papers in the trembling hands of Blut and McGhee. Dester, experiencing an emotional salad of panic, silliness and patriotism, whispers to Grunty, "Let's get outa here, get us a bottle of wine." "Yar," concurs his companion, staring at the mess between them. Chick, meanwhile, is trying to get out of his booth to crucify the AntiChrist at the counter. Unfortunately, his belly, full to pussy's bow from the meal he has just fed it, is now wedged against the edge of the table. He grips both of its heaving sides as he looks over at Olney. "I'm gonna turn you into hamburger, you Satan-loving cocksucker." Cleola comes to his aid by trying to pull the table toward her. Unfortunately, the table is bolted to the floor. An Armageddon of howling winds whipping through a wasteland reserved for rusted razor blades has nothing on the finely honed rage issuing from her throat. "Get him, Chick, beat him to death." "Don't you worry none, I'll get that queer," reassures her husband. He tries shoving his shapeless buttocks against the back of the bench for that inch or two necessary to free his belly. Unfortunately, his shapeless buttocks is already there. "Fuck, I'm stuck!" Chick is just about to give up when renowned Eurekanist Reddi Kilowatt comes to his aid by turning on all 25 watts of power in Chick's brain to reveal a solution. Reddi appears briefly atop Chick's plaid-haired head for a brief celebratory softshoe before exiting, leaving Chick to take up the idea and run with it. "I've got it," Chick exclaims. Pressing on his belly with both hands, he tries pushing it under the table. "Hey, I'm gonna make it." A button on his shirt, however, appears to stand in the way. "Goddamn!" He rakes at it with a free hand, but there just isn't room for it and his belly both. "Fuck, I'm stuck!" "Take a deep breath," snarls his wife. This does the trick. Chick now finds himself sprawled half on the seat and half under the table. Afraid that he looks like a moron, Chick looks beseechingly at Cleola for moral support. "Just what in the hell are you tryin' to do, ya stupid moron?" Chick wants to start blubbering, but resolves to pursue his goal, sure that this apparent confirmation of his imbecility will be redeemed if only he can get that gut to behave! He inhales again, holding his breath till his face turns blue and his chest threatens to explode. Little by little, he encourages his belly to sway from side to side, willing it on with arduous determination. When it gains enough momentum, he expels a killer tornado of bad breath, giving the whining bulge a mighty shove to freedom. Unfortunately, his timing is a beat off and he's shoved it the wrong way. "It's no good," he mumbles, facing the wall. "Ya dumb shit," Cleola agrees. Helga is about to circumambulate herself from Moon Food tensions when the front door swings open to admit a wiry old man in a wheelchair. Her look of relief is contagious. Trapezius muscles throughout the cafe grow lax after their several minutes of sweating, grimacing and clavicle chinning. The old man wheels to the counter, his face agitated. Helga greets him with an effusive, "Hi-you, Bill. Wan' coffee?" Bill sure does, and what's more, he's got a lot on his mind. First off, has Helga heard about the explosion at the pensioners home, more than a dozen killed, damned tragedy. Olney winces as the man chatters on, for it seems he is communicating through an electro-larynx. His words, undecipherable at first to all but Helga, sound like a hair clipper responding to power surges. Their conversation temporarily distracts the cafe's incipient rumblers, whose ears are mesmerized by the electrical fluctuations of the old man. Chick slaps a pack of Pall Malls on the table, his stomach painstakingly returned to its original position. He and Cleola are going to have a smoke over coffee, come hell or high water. Helga brings them refills and returns to her Varesian chitchat with Bill. Chick lights up. The smoke wends its way seductively toward Olney. It sweeps up his nostrils, heading straight for the rooming house of his mind. Through the open windows it slips, causing a flurry of activity as all inhabitants scramble downstairs to demand of their landlord that he fall to his knees before this benefactor and beg forgiveness, yea, even unto renouncing each and every principle upon which his poverty-stricken life is based. He is to toady, to collaborate, to subject himself to the humiliation of denying all the ideals which heretofore he has so smugly seen fit to inflict upon the world and in particular those fine people, Chick and Cleola, now smoking soothingly in their booth. Plead, Olney. Just one cigarette. But the hapless congluttery of inner roomies is sorely disappointed. Their little lungs huff and puff without hope in the increasingly oxygen-ridden madhouse of home, for their master sees fit to ask, instead: "As members of the Mute Majority just what is your position on the fundamental rights of all human beings, and in particular, the rights of colored commie AIDS victims on welfare?" Chick responds with gusto. "Hopheads, homasexhuls and unemployed bums like you oughta be disappeared." "In the Name of the Lord!" Cleola bellows on the introit. Her glutei roll menacingly in Olney's direction. Bill the Barber wheels around, responding to the recitation thus far. "Amen, friends," he rasps, flanking Cleola's bluffing butt by firing a volley of static at Olney. Jabbing wildly at his throat with the electro-larynx, Bill sounds as if he or it are about to blow up. Chick and Cleola invite him over; Bill wheels to their booth, coffee in hand. "Here, buddy, have a cigarette," Chick offers. Bashfully, Bill points to his throat with the buzzing vibrator-like instrument as Cleola's heel returns brutally to Chick's toes. Olney's eyes follow the red packet of ten minute smokes back to the inside pocket of Chick's coat. Save us, plead his miserable bed-sitters. "I wanta thank you for coming to my aid," Chick says to his new ally. "Our nation needs all the help it can get to fight Godless Ivan's like him." A chubby forefinger points savagely at Olney. "Anytime," saws Bill. "This country's been too easy on atheist scum," Chick continues. His thick bulk--from the chest up--follows his finger. "All that liberal, free-thinkin' claptrap makes me sick. Wipe ya out like flies." "Get the concentration camps ready," sez O., trying to help. "No problem, wise guy. They're already built." "Not surprising. How about the gas chambers, got them built too?" Chick just smiles, the kind of smile that chills Olney's spine while assuring him that justice is the loser and that all the judges and juries have been bought and paid for till the end of time. "So, total extinction is the final solution of the Right." "When it comes to your kind, it sure is." "When it comes to anyone who doesn't worship greed, profit, and intolerance, is that what you mean?" "I worship God 'n' America, God damn it. This is the most wonderful country in the world, and it's my duty to put un-Americans like you out of their misery." "What about the rest of the world, the billions who aren't American?" "I'm talkin' about you, traitors like you. Folks don't live here don't count. Mostly commies and heathen, anyway, I reckon. Nuke the lot...." "People, Chick. That's who's out there. The living. You hate the living, don't you." "What I hate is lefty scum like yourself, and I'm here to tell you and all like you to keep your hands off America." "How about the rest of the world? See it as a threat too?" "Could be." "What you mean is a wholehearted yes. Because of that attitude, the rest of the world sees you as a threat. America's greatest export is paranoia." "Bullshit. And don't be paying any attention to what's goin' on in Russia, either. The commyanist threat's still as real as ever. Look at Nicaragua. Them Sandinskies'll be back, don't you worry." "How can they do that when your president, the juvenile with advanced senility, killed 'em all? There's more than communists out there who hate you and your empire." "That's why I take the threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness seriously. No one's gonna take that away." "No one but you. Your type is turning America into an armed camp of Christian fundamentalists. Better watch out the fundamentalists from that other religion don't come over and show you how it's done." "Ha-ha. How they gonna do that? God's on our side, chump." "But Allah is on theirs. And His warriors are ready to die in His name, while you Christians would rather stay alive and count the booty." "Makes us smarter doesn't it. We've got all the weapons anyway." "Except for the ones you sold to the Middle East." "There's plenty more where they came from." Olney, knowing better, can't stop. "If American foreign policy hadn't been so arrogant all these years, maybe the terrorists, and consequently the CIA too, could have stayed home and done something constructive. America makes people hate it." "America's the best thing ever happened to this world." "That may've been true in the days of the Continental Congress, but nowadays it has nothing but arms technology and embarrassing television programs to offer." "The hell it has. We've set up industries all over the world, helped gooks and spics and what have you in a million different ways. And we're taking Christianity to Africa and the Amazon and other places. Why, we're the world's number one exporter of Christianity; fact is, we're the world's number one in just about everything." "Why don't you take a trip around the world and see how it regards Number One. Talk to people and find out for yourself. They'll start with jokes, usually about Americans and their big teeth, but give them enough time and booze and they'll reveal their true feelings; they'll tell you that everything America touches turns to hatred. And while you're at it, count the dead in your jungle bible missions, the ones you've killed with your white man diseases." "First, I thank God for the missionaries, because I wouldn't set foot on the filth of the rest of this world, and second, I'd have you arrested if I could for your un-American statements." "Who would ever've believed that America would one day become the kind of place it's made such a business of despising: a paranoid, intolerant state exactly like Stalin's." "Hogwash. We're arming ourselves against a pack of dogs who wanta take over the world is what we're doing. Are you stupid or can't you see America has enemies." "Well, stop enraging them. Everyone's got enemies. Goading only makes them come after you" Was that what Olney was doing? "Unless, of course, you really believe total extinction is the best solution. In that case, you'll go too." "Whatever it takes to make the world safe from commyanism." "Jesus." Why don't I just get out of here, Olney thinks. "You Right wingers are like a cancer on everything decent about the human race. Did you know that, Chick?" "How dare you speak to my husband like that," Cleola hisses. "Calm down, honey," Chick says, patting her bloated hand, "I'll take care of the bastard." To Olney: "How'd you like to step outside." "Just-a-rarin' to kill, eh? But then it's your mission in life to destroy life. You're one of those after-school bullies who grew up to become small businessmen, grass roots fascists, commie killing mercenaries, K Mart Kristians, rednecks itching to tear flesh from bones, a subhuman species whose frontal lobes are stuck up the assholes of their animal brains, whose role model is the shithead who dons combat fatigues and shoots ethnic school children. That's you, eh Bubba?" Chick's voice fires a booming few rounds into the ceiling, while his eyes look berserkly to the other patrons. "I oughta kill the commie fucker." "Kill, Chick, Kill!" urges Olney. "In the Name of the Lord!" mass-murders Cleola. Barber Bill's electro-larynx sizzles and pops as he strives to add his own heartfelt opinion. Helga runs down the counter to stand behind Olney, ready to throw him out. Noodles finishes a dish of vanilla ice cream, puts the newspaper on the counter, carefully lays some money next to it, gets up and leaves. "By 'the Lord,' I assume you're referring to the original serial killer," says Olney, refusing the blindfold, "that adolescent, pimple-popping prop of a demiurge you folks have invented and called 'God.'" "Knock it off, damn it." "'In the name' of a white-bearded psychotic who hates 'His' creation, just as you hate it, the 'One' you're all praying to for a little piece of the action." "I'm warnin' ya." "'The vengeful God is love.' So begin your fodder canons, the last word in doublespeak. And a decadent doublespeak, at that. No Machiavellian cleverness any more, just dumbshit disinformation released regularly by the petty cash mentality running your zombie religion. The trouble with Born Dumb Christians like you is you're factory produced. And every one of you should be recalled because the defect is crucial. They forgot to install you with souls." "May God damn you to eternal hell." "'God' doesn't exist; the universe wouldn't allow it." The door opens quietly and in walks what may be the Odd Chinaman himself. At any rate, he is an oriental gentleman to whom Helga races in need. Taking his cue from her thaumatropic eyeballs, the Chance Chink sits near the cash register, away from the action, ready for another airborn sorta cuppa. Now, there's someone who might just... Olney's condemned rally one last time. But the Odd Chinaman doesn't smoke. That leaves Olney, his adversaries and the two bums. He scoffs at the idea of smoking Tops or Bugler. Not even if Dolly Parton were threatening to pull his toenails out. So, muses he, only the enemy can supply me with the weakness I crave... "Let's finish up Cleola, before I kill the sonvabitch and get m'self in trouble. Waitress, the check," he shouts over his shoulder. "Say," he says to the old man, "why don't you join us for a drink." Old Bill nods affirmatively as Chick throws back his coffee, thinking of a few good buddies who would be happy to help him ironpipe the bastard at the counter. Alone, he is terrified of Olney's relentless vehemence. Helga rushes over with the bill. Chick looks at it, says to his wife: "You pay her, honey, I can't get at my pockets." Cleola snarls routinely as she reaches for her purse and prepares to heave her captured flesh upright. Turning to Olney, she says, "If the President would convince those tennis-playing reds in congress to approve his pro anti-life bill, the country'd soon be rid of the fruits of Satan like you." She turns to her husband. "If he has kids they'd be better off to turn him over to the police. Children should report their vice-ridden parents. The Lord knows what kind of a parent he is." "I'll have you know my darling children are up and coming stars in the porn industry. Why, my youngest, age seven--" Coffee spews from everyone's mouth, except the Odd Chinaman, who never drinks the stuff. "Buddy, I better never see you in a dark alley." Chick pushes his belly under the table and, giving Reddi Kilowatt the flick, does what he should have done before. He pushes against the base of Cleola's seat with his feet while pushing with his hands on his own seat. In this way, he is free within a couple of minutes. Everyone gawps in amazement. "Don't worry buddy," Olney says, "the dark alleys of this world are all yours." Opening the door for Cleola and the Barber of Débile, Chick looks back with a grin of cold hate. "Gonna wipe your kind off the face of the map, cocksucker." But Olney has already stopped listening. As Chick slams the door, Olney is watching his old friends quietly trudge upstairs to their lonely rooms. To a figment they sit on their beds and commit suicide. Dester Blut and Grunty McGhee are going too. They leave a few coins on the table, among numberless shards of tobacco and numerous torn rolling papers. Grunty, his eyes locked on the horizon of a few more bottles to wash down a night of TV, pushes out the door, while Dester, following him, glances furtively back to the madman at the counter, sub-cortically certain he'll be drinking himself into the hospital tonight. "You boys come back t'mahoh," Helga pleads after them. §§§ Chapter 19: |