162 Damage and Collateral

No More Links.


Chust Story.



Ya Know.




Pack your bowl and pour your mug.




Let's go.




We in for a loooooong ride, baby.






Touch, Peel and Stand. ---by Days Of The New







I reached in my pocket for my ID card, and there, upon the gleaming hood of Katheena’s beautiful bitch, I brushed off the desert dust and lined us up.



The black bird spread its wings wide.






Crows record our human condition, lest you have forgotten.



We took a lesson from Katheena’s Mettle Book.




I looked about the surface of the moon.



I made an assessment of the shituation, looking across the road.



Joey joined me. “We going after those fuckers?”



Nope.


I looked down at his face, and then I turned and looked at Katheena, back inside the car.


“Not we. One of us will stay and one of us will go. Katheena been chugging mud, and she ain’t awake.”



Joey looked over at those fuckers whom we thought had caused this. “They need to be paid back for this.”



I thought about that. “Joseph. This shit is mine. Someone needs to take Katheena to the nearest hostibal.”



Joey looked at her. “In this here car? She looks pretty fast. Why you handing her over to me?”


I think he was talking about two things, when he said, "her."





I shrugged. “She is a fast bitch. Now get her south.”




Joey looked up at me and shook his head.


I felt hot under my leather. Katheena needed to be taken away. “Joseph, she has mud in her lungs. You need to get her to safety.”


Joey wasn't having it. “Weeeeee-ill! We both bail on this shit! That other car over there is like a cast iron stove. It won’t go fast! Come back with us NOW!”



I turned around and grabbed him by his leather. Always mind your leather. “Joseph, this shit is chust starting. I will end it.”




Joey looked over at those bastards in the mangled heap with their headlights shining all about. It looked like they had been dancing a tango and then fallen down to take a nice desert dust nap on top of a soft pillow, legs all intertwined.



He looked back up at me. “OK.”



Led Zepplin. The Rover.







After he shot off in the Maserati Bora, heading to a side street that would lead to south, and then to help and a hostibal, something occurred.


Headlamps appeared in the other direction from Joey. Some cars were coming back for us.



To us.


Who were they?



This was not going to be a good thing.


Sean and Tellesco had their own shit to deal with, which will be the description next time.



I did not need to deal with the mangled heap of broken bodies.



Fresh ones were coming.


For me.




Oh.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


I creaked open the heavy door to the old car. She smiled at me from inside. I think she liked me.


I would not treat her well.



But, I think she understood.


You see,


When you have spent your life gathering dust in a garage, instead of maximizing your potential, well, you will welcome a chance to show what it is that you can do.


When you are made out of solid iron, instead of plastic or aluminum, or thin-pressed sheet-metal, you can cause quite a bit of damage to those other cars,


...the younger ones.





Iron Horse.




Do not stand in the way of the Iron Horse.


It’s like a train.



She was an excellent 1957 Chevy.




To you, my friend, that means she was a:




Heavy,


Beautiful,


Unstoppable


Rocket.







a Rocket Ship.




They were built like rocket back then.



And now, she would finally get her chance to fly to the moon.





We would do it together.






We would die together.




We would get revenge.



That was the intention.






God Help You.


God Help Us All.




---willies out.

161 REBIRTH

We are not done yet. We have a long way to go, my friend.







Manchester Orchestra. Virgin.







Whatever you have done, or not yet accomplished, wherever you have gone or not yet have visited, you are not done here.



We are not alone, here, upon a tiny blue marble floating in an ocean of cold black in the vast eternity of space.




We have each other.




It is because we have each other that we know of a greater good.




It is because of the impact we have upon each other that we know that there is something else.




It is, indeed, what you have been looking for, and which you may find, after all.




Look for it.






You will find it.






It is real.







Just sayin'







+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +





Shards of crystal goblets and bone china plates pelted me.


Us.






White and red, rain and dust.




Chill the whites, let the reds breathe.





Desert mettle and ocean salt.



Iron and water.





Rust.




Rust In Peace.








Mud and tears in your eyes.








But,









Never say die.




"Rage, rage against the dying of the light." ---Dylan Thomas





These were the thoughts I had in my head as I slogged away from Orion, the mighty hunter in the night sky, the name of Katheena’s golden bird.



I carried a star on my shoulder to the highway that headed East.



The star.




Katheena had been my star, as well you know.




Taho.







In the crash of the cold tears of the hidden moon above, I felt hot water run down my legs and then I heard a gasp.




I felt Katheena heave over my shoulder.



Her body shivered as she regurgitated water, and she coughed.



Wha?




I set her down in the desert mud and pulled her face up to my face.



She coughed over and over again, into my face.



I can not tell you what it felt like to hear her breathe again.



So I won’t.




I can't.




+ + + + + + + + + + +






Well, I had her dead and buried and I’d gone and moved back to Maine and started a new life as a lumberjack before even reaching the highway and the Maserati that awaited us.







I think it was like that time when the handle of the bale barrow came down on the top of my head when I was nine years old at my gram’s farm in South Freeport, Maine, and I staggered around gibbering nonsense for a few minutes. Cousin Richard, rest his soul, he tried to get me to stop stalking about so he could see if I was bleeding, but I wouldn’t have it.



I had been stunned, in a state of shock.






I picked her up again and carried her properly now, which was not over my shoulder, to the Maserati. She kept coughing.




I think some dust had gotten into my eyes or something as I stumbled along...







Angel Eyes, by Worldwide Groove Corporation.













Joey pulled over to the side of the road as I was placing Katheena in the passenger seat.


“Weeeee-ill!” He came running over. “Who is that?”



I got up from her and his face fell. “Katheeeee-na! Why her face all bloody?!”



I pointed way over to where Orion rested in the darkness. He was unseeable, like a black hole, but you could still feel his pull.



“She crashed her car. I think those bastards over there in that heap of cars had something to do with it. She was following after us. I think she was trying to rescue us.”


We looked down at her, and she was not awake.



Joey whispered, "You don't even want to know who I chust saw..."



Huh.




- - - - - - - - - - - - -




Tellesco pulled up beside Sean and asked why they were stopping now. His window was still up.


Sean got out and smashed the window open with both of his huge hands. He leaned in and shouted. “Tellesco! Where are the others?!”



Tellesco looked back over his shoulder.



Headlights glowed from way back down the highway, in the pelting rain.



They were coming quite fast.





Huh.




= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

I never saw Lorelei again. No one did. She had put me and Katheena back together again.




My watery angel, she with eyes the color of the deep green sea.




Lorelei had once told me, “I chust don’t want you to be so sad.”




You recall that, don’t you?




Perhaps that is what she intended, and she could not rest, wherever she lied, at the bottom of the sea, until she made some sort of closure between us.






Rest in peace, you original punk lady with the white hair was bright like a wildfire on the planet Mercury, closest rock to the Sun.



You opened a new world for me, and for that, I will forever remain grateful.



Never forget.





Never forgotten.





Taho.



You put me and Katheena back together again, and you put the Little Lion Man back into this equation, whatever it was.


But why did you also put Tellesco into this new math?


We may never know.



Or will we?






One must not forget The Glinty, he on his horse-drawn carriage that glowed blue in the night, like Lorelei’s hair had on that night in the desert, when we went off into space on a Moon Shot, baby.


Did you forget to remember Sean and Tellesco?




That there is the start of a new chapter.



Next time, my friend.



Ya know.




Let the slag fall from the pure mettle, all around.


Orion was hidden.



He was hidden in the desert, when we went back to find him, and we could not see him, simply because he was a golden car, with gold-tinted windows, and he was covered in desert mud up past his wheels.




A black hole, a former star,

The phoenix would rise again.




The phoenix would ride again.





Orion would rise again.



We would all rise again.






= = = = = = = = = = = = = =






Happy Rebirth Day to you, my friend.




We all have a long path to travel.




Thank you for following me along this path.




It will end well, if you care to continue along.




We simply have many more things to do before the end.





But you know this.










God Help You.



God Help Us All.



---willies out.








My wife of 18 years (I mean, we have been married eighteen years) gets a laugh from this tune below. Hey, she was watching The Sound of Something or other last night while we finished wrapping up stocking stuffers and then she laughed when...


... well, you'll see.


Listen.



Bob River’s Jingle Hell’s Bells







.

160 TDC WEAW Weekend At Willies The Death Of Katheena

Yes,

There are things that we all have done which we might feel good about at the moment, and then later, we regret.

But then there are other things.

Things we actually do quite right, in that moment.

These are the ones that matter most.


You did it right, no matter how much it hurts at the time.


You see, Katheena had bailed on us, with tears in her eyes for what she thought was her betrayal of we band of punks, but her actions were correct.

What happened to her and her lovely golden car with the gold tinted windows and the black Firebird across its hood was not recompense, retaliation, bad karma, nor payback of any sort.



She showed her Mettle, at the end.




She redeemed herself with her sacrifice of her beautiful golden car that she had named Orion, with no thought of her actions when she did it.



That is true Redemption.





Crank this Foos right up baby.








Orion lied on his side and his wheels spun, trying to find traction to take his driver home to safety. I slogged through the watery desert mud as fast as I could over to that golden car with the gold tinted windows.


The rain pelted me with diamond splinters, and my face felt like it was getting sliced up.


I made it to the front, where the lower headlamp was submerged into the pool of rainwater.

The ellipsis of lights, three dots, were now two, one under water.



Just me and Orion.


Soon, there would be only one.



Through the windshield, I could see her lying in the broken glass and desert mud against where her driver's side window has once been, and her head was under water. Katheena was under water.



Drowned in the desert?





No way.







No fucking way.












...no...





















NO!















Rrrrrrgh.









I scrambled around to the roof side, and leaned against it to smash the passenger side window and crawl down inside to get her out.




I leaned against it and punched down at the passenger side window to smash it.



Orion swayed back and forth in the loose desert silt, and then he tottered and fell away from me, and I fell into the hole he left behind.





Orion landed onto his wheels, away from me.



His rear talons spun in the liquid desert dust and searched for traction.




FUCK.




I pulled myself up out of the desert quicksand and got up and dug desert mud out of my eyes.




Her driver's side window was all busted out, and that was a portal for me to get inside and save her.





I dove in and reached across Orion’s interior.




From the light refracted back from the headlamps by the rain in our cloud of watery light, the interior glowed. I pushed the stick shift out of second gear. The engine kept running, but the wheels began to slow.




I turned Orion’s keys and shut him down.




He died, drowned in the desert.



Taho.








I scrambled back out and tried to open the door, but it was dented up into the body. It would not open.



I panicked.




Do not panic.





I reached back in and grabbed her body by her leather where she lied, slung over the passenger side seat from Orion’s fall.



I hauled her out and threw her rag doll body over my shoulder and slogged back to the Maserati Bora, guided by her lights.



It was hard going, but I would not leave her there.






She was Katheena.





Was.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - -


Alone in the desert, with punks and ghosts for friends.



Katheena?



We had parted ways, never to see each other again.




Never the twain would meet.


Again.




Well, ok then.



I could finally go back to Maine and forget about the ugliness of Fuckno, Califuckedmeover, and try to make sense of things.



I would get a job in the woods of lovely Maine, and make use of what I had learned in the desert.



Perhaps that would make sense of everything.



Sometimes, you need to end something, and start over, like a firebird, a phoenix bird, which crashes in the desert and dies.


A new portal.



Evidently, these portals can be found in doors, windows, and opened in walls, if you have an axe.




The woods of Maine beckoned to me. I knew how to use an axe.



I had chopped many cords of wood in my youth, on an island in the mighty Penobscot River.



With such work, I would warm the home of my mother and my sisters.



We would go there.



Solace.





…And…





Rebirth




Out of death, the firebird would arise again, and live for another thousand years, before it dies all over again, and is reborn again.



Again.



And



Again…





You do what you have to do to carry on.


Carrion




Food for the vultures and the crows. Crows record our human existence. You thought it was all road kill.




It is the tie between the roads we travel, and the trash we throw out of our windows, and the Joshua trees with their angry fists waving greenbacks over their heads at the unforgiving sun overhead. Anger at the unjust, the unfair, the pigs, the pffffs, those who have no clue, those who slog through the desert mud of their weak lives, and they do not even try to do something that matters.



Fuck that shit.



What is left for you?


The moon above sheds her tears for us; she in her lovely shroud, for all the things that we have done to our beautiful, tiny blue marble, lost in the eternity of space.




The hardest thing I have ever done in my life to carry the dead body of a loved one across my shoulder, in such an ungraceful manner.




It was wrong.



It was fucking wrong.



I hated those bastards who had done this.



I saw those other headlamps across the highway, down south a bit beyond the Maserati.




They called to me.


I slogged through the desert dust, and in the cold, pelting rain, I wanted revenge.



I would place Katheena’s body gently in the Maserati, and then I would go and go and have a chat with them.




My leather burned.



All of my thoughts became clear then.



I was awake.




In anguish and despair, I found my own Mettle.



I would rise up again.




I would persevere.



I would cause damage.



I would pay them back.



LINK




Blues. Presented to you by Martin Scorsese. Thank you sir.














.

159 Katheena's Sacrifice, The Fall Of Orion

Water in the desert.


It sinks into the ground, it evaporates in the sun, and it opens portals.

Your eyes are portals, windows to your soul.


They are also windows to other souls.


A watery angel, a long forgotten desert cowboy ghost from ze old vile vest, …well, perhaps this little box in which we navigate our short time on a tiny blue marble, alone in the vast eternity of space, is not all there is.



GLINTYS


The rain pummeled the Fuck out of FuckNo, and this left No.


Katheena pressed her accelerator pedal all the way down.

Orion grinned.


Then he opened his throaty valves and sang his demon song.


He screamed in pleasure, and shot in between the two rear vehicles.


You must never attempt the following. It is evil to do such a thing, and you may cause others harm. You may even die.

Katheena swung left and braked.


When she swung left, her Endura bumper nudged the left car over, and its rear wheels lost traction.

That car on the left was in a new trajectory, which was diagonal to the right.


It slammed into the car on the right, and they were married in their new path of life, together.


The went off the road for a honeymoon at The Dunes.


Katheena had braked to avoid that squealing, angry mess that followed. The next couple of cars up ahead saw what she had done, and they braked hard.


She swerved to avoid them and she went into the dunes as well. Then they sped off again.


I saw lights flashing about in the Maserati’s rearview mirror, and I had no clue what in hell had happened.


If I had, you know that I would have went right back there.



I chust was not thinking.


Menomena, Evil Bee.






Sean drove faster and faster. I think, looking back, that he was racing the rain. He wanted to escape the desert baptism that would inevitably ensue.


Tellesco kept up to his beloved savior Sean, and Joey was chust along for the ride.



My skin crawled. Those assholes behind us would not give up on trying to follow us.


Something bad had happened, and something else bad was about to happen.


I chust didn’t know it yet.




Fuck it, my instinct screamed at me in my head.


Turn around and fight.


Indeed, this is what my nerves were telling me.


No flee.



Fight.



So I smashed that brake pedal down.



The Maserati Bora began to swing around and around on the slick tar, but we stayed on the tar. Those other vehicles seemed like they wanted to play chicken, but only for a second.


They swung around me and skidded into the mud of the damp desert dust, and they skidded and flung mud everywhere around them. But they got back onto the tar.


I faced south, towards Fuckno.


Against my instinct, I did not get out and fight.



Something else was calling to me.

I had no idea what.



SACRIFICE




The Maserati hummed to me. I pressed her fun button down, and she responded with a silky moan. Then she sang to me.


I needed to go back to the other lights off both sides of the road.



As I drove to them, I passed a horse-drawn wagon heading north.

What The Fuck?


A sole figure rode up front, in the driver’s seat.


As he passed, I turned to look at it. There was a white circle A painted on its side.


Hah?



There was a sideways ellipsis of lights on the right, and beyond, on the left, headlamps shining all around on a hump way off to the left.



An ellipsis looks like this

. . .

A sideways ellipsis looks like this

.
.
.

I pulled over to the car on the right, so see what was going on.



I zipped up my leather and got out. The rain felt like shards of ice.


A long, beautiful golden car lied on its side.


A large pool of rain water reflected the lower headlamp into my eyes.


The car was drowning in the pouring desert rain on its driver side, ass end deep, nose pointing up chust a little bit.




Oh.



No.



Orion.





Katheena.






++++++++++++++++++++



Joey looked behind him and saw some headlights growing closer. Joey pressed down on his old fashioned accelerator pedal, but there was no more for him, from her.


She was an older car who was doing her best to provide him with pleasure, but she was from a different era, when cars did not have fuel injection, or turbo, or Positraction, and they were made out of cast iron stove metal, not with plastic.


Those rich bastards were on their way to him, for him.


Little Lion Man was always ready for a scrap.


In the rain, he saw a solitary figure in the road up ahead. It stood to the side of the road. It held out a thumb. It was hitchhiking.

Hah?




++++++++++++++++++++++



The horse-drawn carriage raced towards the vehicles up ahead. The horse’s metal-shoed hooves clicked blue sparks in the rain, and its mane began to glow with a blue fames. It was overtaking the rearmost vehicles.

It flew up and then drove through them, and went past. It disappeared. And then it was coming back at them. The horse and the carriage were now glowing blue light.


The figure in the driver’s seat stood up and pointed a double-barrel shotgun at them, and then a blast erupted.


The light from the blast scared the hell out them two drivers and they panicked.


Do not panic.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


I slogged over to Orion in the desert mud, with the howl of wind and pelting of rain in my face.


How dare---


Who the fuck had----



I had almost left her----



Orion rumbled on his side and his rear wheels were still spinning.



The one in the dirt had dug a new grave.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


Joey slowed to a stop and looked up at the figure outside of his old, classic car, and he could not see her face.



His skin shivered, even though he had the old heater up all the way.




- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



Sean could not see us anymore in his rearview mirror. This was because Tellesco was tailgating him.


Tellesco would never be abandoned again. He would


Never



Be



Abandoned



Again.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -




God Help You.

God Help Us All.



---willies out








.

158 Baptism And Sacrifice

The Church. Under The Milkyway.



Cars began to follow us. Their drivers were folks waiting for us. Where we were heading, following Sean, a powerful Jeep awaited.



If only we could reach it. Yet, only two knew about this important escape vehicle.



We other two simply followed along in blind faith, and also with a considerable amount of adrenaline.


Somehow, the Gin was wearing off.


Huh.



Those who had run out and gotten into in their sports cars followed many different vehicles, in groups. They would turn out to be young, rich fucks who had worn some of the purple robes inside the mansion.


When the fire alarms blared their trumpets, many of those young fucks had immediately left to their vehicles below, and driven off, either to follow cars, or to sit, to watch those who left the long lane, to await the intruders. Some would follow us. How would these know whom to follow?

We were oblivious.


We also did not know that the three upper floors were also almost completely empty when the baptism from the water tower occurred.


There were old rich fucks in purple robes by the pool, bent over a table, who somehow had a clue about the events that would be occurring.


Perhaps they foresaw that they did not have a chance in stopping it. Maybe they didn’t have a clue about what would be the mechanism of the Baptism.


Or maybe they were doing something else to try to fight it. You see, Sean and Tellesco had been left behind as a sacrifice.


So there we were, driving off in the expensive stolen cars as explosions erupted, and this made us stick out.


We were obvious.


One thing not one of us knew, neither we punk bastards, nor the purple robes following us, was that another one of "we the punks" was awaiting our exit on a nearby street. She kept herself hidden from any sort of overhead streetlight that might make her golden car glint and sparkle.


She figured we would be on foot. She knew that we might not consider running on the street to escape, but she hoped it would be so. Maybe we would escape by running on the streets before the emergency vehicles arrived.


Certainly, hidden as she was, she would not end up in trouble as she would have if she had remained there beside the landscapers' structure, instead of out on the side street where she now sat, waiting for us.


She figured that we would be heading toward the north, away from the emergency help on its way.


That chick could figure out odds.


She was correct. You know, it would have been a bad idea for us to run off on foot behind houses in the desert, up north of Fuckno, and try not get lost there nor awaken intruder alarms or dogs out back.



So when she saw four collector’s vehicles driving north instead of following all the other cars and limousines toward the blackened heart of Fuckno, she got a clue. When she saw other, newer, expensive cars turn their headlights on and go after us, her clue was verified.



She sat there, with her hand on the key in her ignition, as they passed, following the first four.


What the hell was she gonna do?


No, it was not, “What the hell was she gonna do.” I would never doubt her.


It was, “What the Hell was she gonna Do?”


When the last of the line of vehicles passed her, she had a grin on her face.


Gobless Katheena.


She watched a total of twelve cars pass her, but she knew that the four in front were separate from the eight that followed after.


12.



Like disciples.











The moon went out.

















+++++++++++++++++++


Trent Reznor and Karen O. Immigrant song. Fuck yes.






Katheena’s Orion rumbled awake. Her beautiful car purred when she gunned the engine. She stopped at the intersection and looked south. There were red lights fading away, and beyond them, flashing ones growing larger and brighter. She pulled out and turned Orion to point north, to the stars beyond.


She put her petal to the mettle. Orion roared, and then his voice began to howl, and then he was shrieking like a chorus of demons, all eight of them.


His wheels abraded old crumbly tar until both tire and tar smoked, and then they dug in when they were all hot from punishing the tar.


She held on tight and straight to the steering wheel.


She knew she would have to.


Orion dug into the ground with both his talons and then he leaped forward. Chunks of tar flew up and out and skittered across the road into mailboxes, garden gnomes, and other weak shit.


Car and driver, wedded to each other, soared into the black hole that awaited them.


++++++++++++++++++


There were no streetlights now.


It felt like she was floating in space.


The tiny red lights up ahead stopped shrinking, and then they grew brighter.


Katheena flicked on her headlamps, and then she turned on the high beams.


Those little red lights were in both lanes. She caught up to them and smiled. She shifted from lane to lane, slowing down, and this calmed Orion’s fury. That was when a new sound entered her consciousness. Her roof began to vibrate.


What The Fuck?


The red lights just up ahead smeared into a watercolor blur…


She flicked on her windshield wipers. The rain pummeling the shit out of Fuckno from behind had caught up to them.


Now Katheena smiled big. She was going to take the rear couple out, both at the same time.


+++++++++++++++++++


Oh, Sweet Nuthin’ by the Velvet Underground.






Sean led the way past those poor rich bastards pulling rugs and chairs and shit from atop their battered rich cars. The garage exploded behind us as we eased past the white Celica, and I smiled at the damage done to it.


Katheena beat the piss out of that plastic ride.



We waited for the polite, careful drivers as they turned south, each taking the time to look north beforehand to make sure that no one was coming down the old country


lane of Garland Avenue. Fuckers. Get the fuck out of the way.


I knew Sean would head in the opposite direction from them, and then we could escape.




Those other punk bastards had taken the three foremost vehicles, and left the tailgater for me. She was a Maserati Bora, and I thought she liked me.



We zoomed along heading to the northern, dark parts of Fuckno. The roads were quite narrow up there, if you recall, and the tar was especially crumbly. But we knew how to avoid the trouble of Fuckno.



We would head east to Clovis, or perhaps Sean had another idea?



None of us knew that Sean had parked Tellesco’s Ntieth version of a powerful Jeep behind some Joshua trees up in the dunes.


No fig trees for us this time.





Lights in the Maserati’s rearview mirror caught my attention. They kept adding in their number, and they were all behind me. Now, you know that I didn’t get clues all that often back then, but I wasn’t a complete dumbass.



My balls felt tingly, and my back shivered. My instinct was telling me something, and I listened to it. I pulled into the left, oncoming lane and punched the accelerator. Of course, nothing was oncoming down that lane, except a black hole.



I caught up to Sean who was traveling at a leisurely, legal speed, and leaned across the passenger seat to roll down the window.



He rolled down his window. “What!”


I pointed back behind us with my thumb like I was hitchhiking. “Lotta cars coming! Fast!”




His eyes got big, and then they crinkled into half-moon smiles. He shouted back, “We gone have us some fun!”


Then he jetted off.




I slowed to let Tellesco catch up. He smiled and waved at me through his rolled up window. I could see his mouth moving, “Why hi there, Mr. Will! How are you doing?”




I point at Sean up ahead. I jammed my finger in Sean’s direction over and over again. Tellesco looked forward again, and saw that his beloved Sean was leaving him in the dust. He looked back at me with sad eyes. Then he politely waved goodbye at me. He sped off after Sean.




Joey caught up to me, flashed his evil grin and nodded, and he was gone, baby, gone.


I rolled up the window and looked behind me. Those lights were coming fast.


Ya know, I had always wanted to find out what a Maserati Bora could do. Now was my chance.





That was when the rain began to fall.





Join me here next time, won’t you?






LINKS




Here is the video from crimewriter95 that he constructed, and it is Quinton Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, but put together in chronological order.

Caveat, a smoke break if you decide to check it out. When you have watched Pulp Fiction from the 50:00 minute part to the 50:30 minutes part, pause it for a moment, and play the music video below it. Then come back baby. Added value. It’s loud. Turn your shit down.



























Now that You Tube has allowed videos of unlimited length, (see the 50 hour Trolololo song below, play it, turn your volume all the way up, and then lock your computer and then leave for the day if you are quitting your job), well, we will hopefully see many more of these things. Well, not the Trolololololo thing… Maybe someone will put Memento in order?


Trololo 50 hours







Barefoot Bandit gets se7en years.


Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, Wikileaks dude, goes into court. You should follow this.




Japan’s almost but not quite Chernobyl nuclear disaster is now safe. Well, good. Thank you Japan.



Tea Bag Party’s head Mark Meckler arrested trying to bring a Glock and ammo onto a plane. What did you expect?




Antidote: 50 cool pics.





Some Chicago TDCers will be bumming. Sam Hurd faces 40 years for drug charges. Receive wide? Huh. Sorry, EH.












Before you leave here today, here’s a video for you to consider that may help you stick around longer so that you can continue to read the Mighty TDC and also get the willies on the weekends for some extra years.

Nope, not selling you anything. Just a cool 9 minute youtube vid from Dr. Mike Evans about something simple you can do to increase your life expectancy by a shitload. No pharma involved. Nice. A half hour a day of walking? Not all at once? Hah? Cool.


Hey, we here at TDC want you to keep on visiting TDC.





God Help You.


God Help Us All.



---willies out.










OK, Not One More For You.

My response to not getting up off your ass a half hour a day…


The following is not for the faint of heart, nor for the weak of belly, and that’s cool. We have folks who take care of the worst things that can happen to we humans. First Responders, Doctors and Nurses, Autopsy Doctors, Crime Scene Investigators, Funeral Directors, and here, the Forensics Anthropologist, Doctor Murray Marks. Excellent work.


All of those folks described above do the work that remains hidden from our view. God Bless Them.

So here is the link that you will probably not want to click on if you are squeamish, but it is not exploitative, and it is important work. “The Body Farm” helps to discover and establish the time frame of human body decomposition, which is used to assist in investigations of when someone died, and perhaps of what.





































Antidote.





















.

157 Baptism Aftermath

Thank you YES, for setting a fire under my chair and getting me to maintain this back-up blog for the willies tales. I owe you a brewskie.


Number 10 would be a good place to start.



You can click on any number on the right to read that post. No need to download the whole month's load.

I like Blogger's “newest post" button at the bottom, to help along the way, anyway.



Katheena heard the sirens wailing across the desertscape, and she looked up at the pink moon. It looked like it was drowning in rain clouds. It gasped for help.

She looked over to where Stacy lied on the grass by the landscaper structure, and the busted up Celica sitting nearby.

She wanted to wait for us to come.

She really did.


However, she was quite aware that if she waited too long, it would serve no one well. She might end up serving time.


Can you blame her?


+++++++++++++++++++++++

Sean slid down the fuel tank and disappeared around the side. I looked at Tellesco and Joey, and they shrugged at me.


We jumped down and followed him. The side door to the garage was open. A light flicked on inside. Beyond the open doorway, twenty lovely cars of various makes and models gleamed like they had been washed and waxed everyday for ten months without ever having left the garage. These were the sorts of vehicles that collectors regard as pieces of art. Masterpieces.


Hoses covered each tail pipe. Evidently, these cars might not see the light of day all that often, but someone ignited them frequently and let them warm up. The hoses must have been hooked up to a vacuum pump to collect their noxious fumes and eject them to the outside. Each car held a key in its ignition.

Sean started them all up.

He went over to the wall and pulled down on the giant power switch near the oil storage. The vacuum fan roared to life.


Then he came back and flicked the light off. He pressed a button near the light switch, and the middle bay door crept up and open.

He came out and smiled at us.

What the fuck was he doing?


++++++++++++++++++++++++




The Kinks. I Gotta Move.





Katheena stood there, and she watched the cars exit the driveway. She crossed her arms over her pert breasts and pressed her fingers to the side of her face. She gently chewed the inside of her cheek.

The sirens grew louder, closer, more threatening.

She paced.

Then she heard a loud crashing noise and saw water come bursting out from up high.


What the Fuck?



She looked again at Stacy, who was bleeding from her nose and beginning to moan.


Water flooded the driveway and ran over Stacy's legs on the rise to the structure.


Katheena ran over to her car Orion and she opened the door and jumped in. She had tears in her eyes.


Fear, and fear.


She had to get away.


Here, this is Mettle. You make a decision to do something that may make others regard you with disdain, anger, or even hatred for your betrayal of them. But you do it because it is actually correct to do it.


Mettle can be a bitch, baby.



+++++++++++++++++++++++++


Sean put his arms around me and Joey’s shoulders. He looked us right in the eyes, back and forth. “You guys wanna take a ride?” He smirked, and then he laughed. “Might as well save a few of them.”


Hah?


From the light of the pink moon, he flicked another switch. A pump came on. He went to a hose with its nozzle chambered in a holster, and he pulled it up and out. “You guys, get in those cars over there, the ones in the middle line. NOW!”

We jumped, and we followed his orders.


He pulled the trigger and set the trigger hold to remain open. Gasoline poured out onto the floor. He slowly walked over towards the rear of the garage, and there he gently laid it down. The hose followed him from overhead, on a suspended swizzle. Each car could be fueled where it sat. Then he got in the car at the head of the middle line. With five aisles of cars to choose from, he had chosen the middle one. Like a middle finger.

Out of twenty cars, we saved four. He drove the first one out, and we followed him.



He stopped, ran back, and then the middle garage bay door began to close.


+++++++++++++++++++++

As we drove forward, folks were clearing rugs and chairs and shit from the tops of their automobiles, and we passed them. I looked to the side structure on the other end, and saw the rear end of a white Celica sitting there.


Stacy’s car was near Orion? Hah? As we got closer, I saw that Orion was no longer there.

Then I saw how fucked up the white Celica was.


I laughed. Holy shit. Katheena was a badass.


Folks turned around and saw the glow of light coming from the garage bay windows. Sean had lit up a rag and tossed it by the side door. The vacuum pulled the exhaust from the cars to the outside, and the cars pulled fresh air in with their hungry carburetors and injection systems. Air that came from the open side door.

The fumes from the large puddle of gasoline under them all also got pulled away from the burning cloth.


Until the puddle reached the burning rag, that is.



How did Sean know to do this?

Evidently, he was pretty smart. He was also kinda evil with his use of his intelligence.


Damn.


I should not have been party to such ugliness. I began to disdain Sean. He used leadership, but in the wrong way. He abused it. He abused my trust.


Or did he? What had happened in the top floors? Would you care to see, in the continuation?


Perhaps you will, in the next chapter.

But, let’s continue here, shall we?




- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -







The garage exploded.

Glass and wood flew out at the cars getting cleaned off and covered them anew. Folks got splinters and cuts. Some were hit by flying boards.


Those vehicles blazed inside there, and tires caught fire. All of their engines kept running, until the belts and wires melted from the intense heat.


And that was when their gas tanks boiled their contents into steam, and the other explosions began.


By this time, we had reached Garland Avenue, and Sean took us to the desert up north, in the opposite direction of the approaching emergency vehicles. You see, when your home is not indicated on any map, it is hard for folks to find you.

Even folks who may coming to your rescue.


It was at this moment when the rain came down. Perhaps the shock wave from all the explosions busted the pregnant bellies of them rain clouds.


The thing was, such a downpour did little to hamper or dampen the fiery hellhole of the parking garage.


Yet we had saved four.


Yeah, that made it all better.


Such a waste.


Damn.



God Help You.


God Help Us All.




---willies out.







OK, One More For Ya.



On my way down to a meeting with fellow air quality scientists at RTP, there was this bartender who works at a certain Legal Sea Foods sort of place in the Philadelphia hub of USAIR. His name is Scott Fields, and here is his video capture of a very funny guy, Reggie Watts, using a sampler live and onstage.

I wouldn't ever give away too many identifiable statistics in an online post without someone's permission. He signed the napkin. God Help You, good buddy!






Radiohead is awesome, and so is this video. "Sorry Thom Yorke."






Thanks Scott. Keep my Fat Tire brewskies cold, young bud.


Shout out to Sir Randy Ashley. I have never laughed so hard at a fucked up phone message.


Evar.




hehehehehe







.

156 Baptism

Katheena sacrificed the last of the magical desert dust, blowing it into the air around her as she spun.


That was her instinct, to sacrifice something she had discovered only that night, which held power and ecstasy in her mind. She was infatuated with it, as is due course for any poor soul who beckons for a dance.


The end of the song would always leave the dancer in the gutter. Never doubt this.


But the idea here is that such powder did not hold any sort of magic power in and of itself. It was something else, which is this: the idea of sacrifice.



It is the inherent intention behind an act that warrants the act itself the strength of magic. In a ritual, a rite, a sacrament, the tools used are not themselves magical. But the focus of the mind makes them so. And, to get it right in one’s mind, then the tools must be something that is held in high regard.


This means it is rare, hard gotten, and therefore precious, to the holder, and to those who witness.



Here on Sunday, folks gather at their meeting place, and it is decorated in order to bring the mind into focus on the intention. All who enter the place are themselves the temple. So the priest or minister or rabbi or emir or what have you will present the ritual tools at the altar.


It is the focus of those who mediate, who pray, that bring to this focal point actual, real power. Real magic.


“Take this, each of you, and drink from it. This is my blood. The blood of the new and ever-lasting covenant.” ---Catholic Sacrament.

Human sacrifice, indeed.


In any ritual, it is the intention behind the sacrifice that brings the power. The chalice and the wafer are intended to represent human flesh. No one actually dies each Sunday on the church altar.


The intention is the key.


Katheena sacrificed her new found love: desert powder, and she did it to protect herself from evil. Ironic, isn’t it, that one form of evil would protect her from another form of evil?



OK, Church is out. Go now and spread the willies. Peace be with you. Rest in peace.




+++++++++++++++++++++

As The Rush Comes   by Motorcycle, Gabriel and Dresden Mix  

Katheena flew from the library into the hallway and headed in the same direction as she had been going on the outside of the lovely mansion. Ya know, when a chick has a good sense of direction no matter what twists and turns appear on the path, there is nothing sexier. Debrouillage, baby.


She found herself near the towel room with the pool that lay beyond, and that is where she ran.


=++++++++++++++++++++++++++=


The door knob would not turn. It was solid, if you tried to twist it. I punched it in my frustration. It clicked and popped out. Then the door crept open and old slats of cedar stripping interspersed with white, hard drips of wall-mudding faced us.


I turned back to Joey and grinned. “Looks like we were walled in---“ BOOM!


The wall exploded. Bits of gypsum struck my turned face and hit my ear. I staggered back and almost fell, then turned and looked at what the fuck.


An axe head gleamed for a moment, and then it was gone. It left a slice, and also an eruption of busted cedar slats and broken wall mudding. You know that another explosion was about to happen, and so did I.


I jumped down and away, just as Sean swung the axe into the wall again from the other side.

A hole appeared.


Sean’s face appeared in it and he saw me below. You shoulda seen how big his eyes got.


He laughed. “I knew it was you guys! Hey, Willie-Boy, why you all dusty? You look like you been to the moon or something! Joey? Why you all half-red?”


I laughed too, all covered in wall-mudding gypsum and cedar slat splinters. “What the hell you doing up here?!”



=+++++++++++++++++++++=



Katheena looked around the edge of the wide entrance to the pool area. There were some purple robes gathered around one of the tables. She crept back inside. There would be other exits, and she needed only one. A window, a door, even a wall can become a portal, evidently.



She headed back to the hallway, and went off in the direction of her Orion.



=+++++++++++++++++++++=


Sean stood back as Joey and I kicked at the wall. We busted those old slats out into the hallway beyond with our boots. Shit got everywhere.



Bright light made our eyes squint. Sean stood there in his trademark long plaid shorts and Birkenstock sandals, and beside him, Tellesco was dressed the same. I chuckled.

“Hippy uniforms! Been smoking your Cheerios again Tellesco?”


They just looked at each other, and then Tellesco smiled at me through his weepy eyes. “Hey, who’s the chick?”




He looked past Joey, who was climbing through the gaping hole in the wall.


I looked to where he was staring, and saw nothing. He said, “Oh, she went back down in there?”


What


The


Fuck?




=+++++++++++++++++++++=



Katheena looked down from the rear window of the hallway and saw a white Celica parked near the land keeper’s structure, which hid her car on the other side of it from open view. She saw a tig bittied chick walk from the Celica and disappear to where Katheena's car Orion sat, waiting.


Katheena growled. “Stacy. That bitch!”


=+++++++++++++++++++++=



“Tellesco, what are you talking about?” I felt the shivers. He could see that dark shape too? How could this be?


Tellesco shrugged. “She went back down the stairs. Where do the stairs go?”


Joey smiled. “This is your escape route. We gonna go down and out, boys. Let’s get the fuck outta here.”


Sean shook his head. “Nope. Not right now. First we going to the roof. We gonna fuck shit up here. We gonna baptize this hell hole. You don't even know what the fuck happened to me and Tellesco here. We will not be going down into the floors below. There is some fucked up shit going on down there. Fuck that shit.”



I wasn’t hearing him. I said, “Tellesco, what did she look like?”


He smiled. “She’s very pretty. She has white hair, but its all wet like you guys. Well, except for you, Mr. Will. You getting kinda muddy from the white chalkboard dust all over your wet self.”



I could not believe it. He had seen Lorelei.



Huh.



=+++++++++++++++++++++=



Rizzle Kicks. Down With The Trumpets






Katheena tried to open the window, but it wouldn’t budge. So she looked around for something to smash it, and saw a potted palm tree. She ran to it, but found it must have weighed a few hundred pounds. She began to panic. That Stacy bitch was going to do something to Orion, she was sure of it.


She ran back to the towel room and found some weights. There was a long bar laying across the bench press on its arms. Although Olympic bars weigh exactly forty-five pounds, Katheena was a strong lady with adrenaline and desert dust fueling her anger at Stacy.


She carried the bar out of the towel room and down the hallway. She smashed the window, cleaned up the shards sticking out the sides with it, and then chucked the bar outside. She flew out the window and landed near the bar. She picked it back up, and she went after Stacy.



=+++++++++++++++++++++=



Sean pointed behind him. “We gonna go knock down the water tower. It has four legs. If we do it right, when it falls it will crash through the roof. I been up there quite a bit. Some parts of the roof are old and weak. I got it all set. I was gonna finish the job with this axe here. When I grabbed it from the hallway firebox, that’s when I heard you guys. You guys sure know how to announce your arrival!”


I was amazed. Joey just grinned. “Sean, you’re pretty bad ass, dude.”


Sean shrugged. “That’s not why I’m doing this.”


Joey nodded. “You need help?”


Sean grinned back at Joey. “I was hoping you’d ask that. I’m all out of breath from busting that wall apart.”


Tellesco just stood there, looking down into the hallway where we would be exiting in a little bit. He was looking for the girl with the wet, white hair that was once a wild fire on the planet Mercury.


=+++++++++++++++++++++=


Katheena rounded the corner of the structure and saw Stacy looking around the other side. Her back was to Katheena. Stacy was looking at the diminishing crowd in front of the lovely mansion, trying to see what had made the sound of breaking glass.


Folks in their vehicles queued to exit the property, and the pink moon above glared down at them with wrath, and it held the fat rain clouds with skeleton fingers. It was about to squeeze the rain from them.


Katheena carried the long metal bar with her as she went to the other side of Orion, into shadow. She held it out on her shoulder, pointing at Stacy.


She waited. Stacy shrugged and turned back around, and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Then she walked over to Orion’s front hood. She had her hands out. She was going to scrawl something on Orion’s hood, and whisper strange things under her breath while she did so.




You know, she had cursed Matilda in the same way.



=+++++++++++++++++++++=



We followed Sean up the stairwell to the roof. It was a newer set of stairs, but still, not used all that often. It smelled musty, like a grave.


The water tower sat at the rear of the roof, over on the other end of the mansion, where the water lines connected the mansion to the city's water supply. At one time, this old place would have been supplied from a very deep well, but the discharge of such a huge place must have cost large amounts of money continuously to maintain the effluent back before it was connected to municipal sewer.


Back then, the tower would provide water pressure. Now, its only purpose was in case of a fire.


The water tower was not in view from those who stood at the front of the mansion. It would have been a sort of eyesore, interrupting the roof line and beauty of the place.



So we were hidden.


“Sean, what do you have in mind?” I walked around the wooden legs of the tower, and my boots felt a soft area of the roof. It sagged in here and there. I could feel that some of the boards were punky from dry rot, and were held in place only by the tarred surface above them, to which they were adhered. Gravel lined the topmost surface. Extra weight.


I already knew, at that point, what he intended to do.


Break the legs, and the beast would fall. It would fall down, bust through the roof, and pour its contents into the top floor below it.


Fucking wow.


Would we have time to escape? How would we escape with all that water exploding inside?


Would we drown in the desert?



Sean just shrugged. “We make the two side legs weak, and then we bust the one on the other side. I will have to do that, while the rest of you bail. Someone has to take that chance, and I’m willing to do it.”


Huh.


He was willing to risk sacrificing himself to save the rest of us.


Well, we could just get the fuck out and not do this.



Of course we could.


Just go home and take nice hot, candle-lit baths and do our nails….


=+++++++++++++++++++++=


Benny Benassi Featuring Gary Go. “Cinema.”









Stacy scrawled her finger tips across the surface of Orion’s hood, and tiny sparks glinted from them on the giant black bird decal there.

Katheena grunted under the heft of the steel bar. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing to my car, bitch?”


You shoulda seen Stacy’s eyes. Holy fuck. They had a deep red spark inside the pupils. This gave Katheena a start, but Stacy was startled and those sparks disappeared. She jumped back. “Who--?”

Katheena rammed Stacy in the chest with the bar and then heaved it at her.


Stacy went down with the heavy bar on top of her and Katheena flew upon her, wailing her fists at Stacy’s head.


=+++++++++++++++++++++=



We hacked away with the axe, taking turns, and while I rested between my turns at the old, iron-wood structure, I saw that Sean had been busy up there.


He had used a pick axe to clear away the gravel in long lines, and he had sliced the tar roofing away in a grid. This was so that the tar would not keep the roof together when the water tower fell. It would go right through the roofing, and splash its contents inside, away in the other direction from the stairwell structure behind us.



Joey handed the axe to Tellesco and wiped his brow with his leather. “It’s notched pretty good on both of those opposite legs now. Don’t hit them anymore. I think we are ready.”


Tellesco nodded. You see, we had notched the leg on the further side from us in one part of it down low and then in another place four feet above on the same leg.


That leg was ready for a good kick from the axe to make the notched piece fly out.


We had just finished making the two side legs weak with notches.


The fourth leg we left alone, so that the tower would fall away from us.


Indeed, the wood creaked and groaned, and there were tiny snapping noises coming from the side legs.


Sean shouted. “Time! Everyone get the fuck out NOW!”


He grabbed the axe, but I took it from him. He was not fully healed from his punctured lung, and that was why we did not let him do any chopping. Lord knows what he’d done to himself in busting down the wall to the hidden stairwell to let me and Joey through.


He shook his head. “I got this Willie-Boy. You follow them two.” He nodded at Joey and Tellesco who had run off across the roof to the stairwell door.


“NO! Now git. I got this. Move your fat ass and get the fuck outta the way Sean. You need time to get out. I got this.”


He stared at me, and the wood legs snapped a bit. Then he smiled. “Fuck it. Alright. Don’t waste time, Willie-Boy. See you on the other side!”


He ran off, and I went around to the trembling first leg.


I looked up at the huge water tower in the bright light of the pink moon. Red and white, water and sand, ocean and desert. The twain would meet again.


Holy fuck.


What the fuck had I gotten myself into?


What would you have done?


=+++++++++++++++++++++=




The Doppler Effect. Beauty Hides In The Deep.










Stacy lay unconscious, and Katheena dragged her by the legs away from the front of Orion. But she didn’t stop there. She hefted that steel bar back up and stalked off to Stacy’s car.


She had a score to settle. Gobless her.


She smashed the headlights and the windshield, then the side windows. She punched the hood of Stacy’s car with the heavy bar, and a hole appeared. She raised that bar up and then punched it down through the hole. The bar ruptured the top radiator hose and snapped some belts. She pulled it back out and then she ran at the front grill and ram-rodded the radiator.

She left it there.

Coolant dumped out on the ground.


Eye for an eye.


=+++++++++++++++++++++=



I saw Sean disappear into the stairwell structure, and waited for as long as I thought I could. The friggin water tower was moaning and groaning like an old man trying to get out of his death bed.


It was going to come down anyway. I could simply run off and let it do its thing by itself.

But,


…I had to be the reason. Don’t ask me why.




My skin crawled and I felt like I was going to throw up. My knees trembled, and the axe became heavy in my panicked grasp.

I chust stood there like a fool.


I faced down my fear.


I would not run off, not yet.



I waited chust one---


---more---


---second---



Then I swung that axe and saw the notched section fly off into the night sky, to the stars beyond.




I dropped the axe and ran as fast as my legs would go, and heard sharp, loud splitting and shrieking from sun-hardened iron wood squealing in pain as the water tower legs buckled.


I took a lesson from Lot and did not turn around to watch the fall. I dove into the stairwell and slammed the door behind me.


I did not want the water to follow me.


Fuck that. It had other places to go instead.


The roof let out a siren’s wail when the fourth, solid leg tore itself out from the roof and went skyward, as the tower leaned over the other way to take a nice roof nap.

Down

Down

Down.


The mansion shook as the water tower crashed into and through the roof. I could hear the it smashing through the support beams and into the rooms on the other end of the mansion.

Water roared through the rooms and hallways like a dragon with Tiffany lamp teeth. Furniture flushed out into the hallways, and windows exploded into the night with shards of glass and old paintings and such.


I found the hallway with the hole in the wall and on the other end, a wall of water charged towards me.


FUCK



I dove into the hole and stumbled and tumbled down the old stairs in my panic. Someone grabbed me up, but I could not see who. I ran down the stairwell and into the raining hallway, just in time to see Sean exit the servant’s entrance.

Water crashed down the secret stairwell and blew those old filament lights apart in their decades old heat. Finally, they were allowed to sleep.


I ran down the hallway, past the fire alarm I’d pulled on twenty minutes before, and out into the warm night air. I did not stop there. Sean was following where Joey had tugged Tellesco after him, behind the large garage.


All the windows exploded on the top floor, and then the next floor below.


Expensive things flew to the ground in a cloud of water and glass chards, and just before I ducked behind the garage, I stole a view of the front, like Lot’s wife.


The front driveway held the last few vehicles, and some were now covered with ancient rugs and lamps and chairs and shit.



It looked like a yard sale from hell.


The water coursed around our ankles and then the windows on the bottom floor flew apart and out.


We clambered up onto the fuel tanks.



Sean looked down at them.


Then he grinned.


He said, “You know what would be really funny?”




Join me next time for the aftermath, my friend.



LINKS


Cartoon for your Sunday Morning pleasure.





I got your number. Evil Norwegian kid.




Lukas Hammar - 1888 - Hair & Cat from Cobblestone Filmproduktion on Vimeo.




Kind child. Dotta is studying etchings in one of her classes, and here is news of 100 new etchings from Picasso.




Normal child. “I caught my kid looking at pron on the intarwebs! Friggin Christian kids. Jeez.





Church and the next presidential election. By Penn Jillette. Good enough for me on a Sunday.




Steve O gets a wha wha.




Pole dancing for your Sunday prayers.






Be tough, gritty, and don’t take shit from anyone. John Wayne Toilet paper, which is found in the MREs that troops use.




Chust drive, baby. Drive.






Pics of our new home, someday. Mars. From NASA.





Reality Check.


School Portrait (2011) from Michael Berliner on Vimeo.




Julian Astrangeguy: If you have a smart phone, you are being watched by Big Brother. Screwed!







Photomis.






Meat Planet, by Carl Sagan. “Meat-based chemistry.” LOL





Speaking of odd shit, here are history’s most infamous evil duos.




Mmmmm. Fish sticks










Thanks for checking out the TDC today.


God Help You.


God Help Us All.



---willies out.





OK, One more For Ya.


Validation.










.

155 Instinct and Ghosts

INSTINCT




Are you all set to take a dive, a dig, a fall? Get your head set, my friend.






= = = = = = = = = = = =






Always pay attention to the hairs standing up on the back of your arms, on the back of your neck, and any other sort of warning signal from your cerebellum.

To not, is to fail. Darwin told us so.



Katheena did not know magical things. To think that someone knows magic simply because they are from a culture that is different from your own knowledge base is racist.





The tale of Bagger Vance is an example of the magical black man idiotology, (on a golf course). There are many more examples in literature that one could use here, but that is not the point here; to harsh the writing style or subject matter of anyone else who contributes to the story telling culture of which we all partake.











Here we go.




Katheena had a mental toolbox from her years of culture that her mother had taught her, and this educated her instinct all along her own path, and exhibited itself, when she needed it the most.


These teachings were her wings.



Amen.





The point here is that she listened to her instinct, finally. And that is one of the essential components of what is known as Mettle.




++++++++++++++++++++++++




Joey had made up his mind to forge ahead, and this solidified my own resolve. Let the slag fall from the pure Mettle.





We crept up the narrow, creaking, dusty steps that turned to the right every thirteen of them, and at the top, found ourselves in front of a door. We had no idea what lay beyond it, but we were full of energy from desert dust inhaled and the adrenaline from me seeing The Glinty.





I did not tell Joey that I smelled Lorelei’s perfume all over me.



Ya know.





Perhaps he thought I had some cologne on? Or maybe the shower spraying down in the ground floor came from a water tower filled with perfume?


He didn’t ask, and I didn’t answer.




“Weeee-ill. We ain’t got no weapons.”




I thought about that. Then I turned back to look down at him, three steps below. “Joseph. We are weapons.”




Little Lion Man grinned. “I’ll go with that!”



“Shhhhh!”





++++++++++++++++++++



Katheena’s instincts were correct. She had listened to them. The tendrils of shadow shrank back from her and she shrugged the willies from her skin, under her leather. She looked at how far she would need to traverse the darkened path ahead, behind the lovely mansion. The warm light from the windows on her left invited her in.




The light shined upon a wrought-iron patio set with chairs, on this cobble-stone walkway.




Oh yeah.





+++++++++++++++++++++




I turned back to face the door. “All set?”




Joey whispered, “Fuck yes. Let’s go.”




I grabbed the door knob. It would not twist. I mean, there was no wiggle at all. It was set solid, like drilled into a wall.




WTF?





We did not know that this stairwell, with the ancient filament light bulbs glowing all the time from when they were first installed back when the mansion was built, with the not-too-dusty steps built in case of a needed escape from the top floors…


…well, that this stairwell had not been traversed in ages.




In fact, no one alive at that time even knew that they existed.



No one alive.




Alive, that is.




So, the other side of this door was a wall with years of wall board and wall paper over it, and that is why the Little Lion Man and I would have to bust through it to exit the stairwell and enter whatever lay beyond.





We chust didn't know it yet.






++++++++++++++++++





Katheena picked up the closest wrought-iron chair and swung it around, and then she let it go, into the window in front of her. The glass exploded into what appeared to be a library.





She took another chair and held it, fueled by adrenaline and dust, and she smashed the shards away that might cut her arms once she went in through, by dragging it across the sill and up the stiles.







Then she flew into the library.





What do you suppose were written on the spines of those old books? You can imagine. She found herself inside a secret place.




It held many secrets.



++++++++++++++++++++





“Joseph, it won’t budge. We need to break it down.”


“OK, but won’t that give us away?”





“I guess, but there is no other way to get through.”


“How we gonna break it down?” He looked around. There was nothing. No fire axes hanging on the wall, no trusty batter ram, no TNT laying there for our sudden help.


MacGuyver hadn’t been created then, either.




“Joseph, we will have to use our Doc Martens. That’s all we have left. Come up here beside me. Put your hand over there on the wall. Now don’t grab on me if you fall back! I wouldn’t do that to you. No need for us both to get fucked up. Just saying.”






We each took a deep breath, and then we kicked with all of our might, and the door flew apart into a million splinters and the hallway exploded with our vengeance and then we saved everyone and got home and ate nachos.




YAY!










Hey, I’m a nanabush, a jokester, but you knew that.





So, Nope.





Our Docs kicked us the fuck back from the solid wall in front of us, and we grabbed each other and fell back down the stairwell.




Thumpity fucking thump


thump



thump.







Our heads rang like alarms from our fall.




Far below, we heard new alarms begin to ring. Katheena’s glass-smashing had caused them to awaken.




Intruder! Intruder!




Soon, the other, far-off sirens of help-on-the-way from in-town would arrive, and it would become a cacophonous symphony of catastrophe for us all.




GHOST.

Joey groaned. I groaned. No, this was not some pleasurable groaning. We were heterosexually all mingled and mangled betwixt and between each other.





The twain had met and was bleeding, anew. Brown and red, black and blue. Clickety Clack. Choo fucking choo. What the fuck would happen to you?





Hey, always mind your leather.



Your leather will protect you.







“Weeee-ill… That was a bad idea…”




“Uh, …Joseph… ...Shut the fuck up... …Ooooofffffff…”




I felt myself from the inside out, gently turning, and although I was in pain, nothing seemed to be broken with bones poking through skin. “You OK, dude?”


He grunted. “Uh, no. But I think I can get up.”





I slowly pulled my legs from under the Little Lion Man’s own, and then he slid back down a few more steps.



Bonkety Bonk.





“Fuuuuuck!”



“Sorry, man. Shit.”





I rolled over onto my side, still upside down, and then struggled to get myself right.




The pain had brought tears to my eyes, and as I looked up at the old fucking door, I saw the dark figure standing there, chust before I wiped my tears away from my eyes on my leather.



I opened my freshly dried eyes again, and she was gone.





Hah?





Why could I see that shape only with eyes filled in water, when in a car escaping from a bad dinner party in the offskirts of Clovis above, or in a raining hallway below, or up on the top of an old, dusty stairwell where the Little Lion Man and I struggled to make sense of things?





It was a watery ghost in the desert, you see.




Do you see?




Do you see at all?














++++++++++++++++++++++++




Katheena could not take her eyes off the rows of aisles of old, dusty books. Each one whispered to her, calling to her from decades of ancient knowledge, and each wanted her to open it and take a sniff, a gulp, or even a glint.



She felt drawn to them. But her Mettle allowed her to take only mental snapshots of some of the titles upon their spines, and she steadied herself.


She would need to exit that dank, dusty tomb of words and find the escape route to her vehicle, which she called “Orion.”



As far as we know at this point in this tale, she did not touch a book, not did she stop to peruse and snatch a few of them.


Or course she didn’t. Katheena was not that kind of lady.


Ya know.



She had all kinds of alarms going off and shit.



Of course she wouldn't steal treasures.



++++++++++++++++++++



Joey and I heard voices from the other side of the door up at the top of this dank old stairwell.


This is what we heard:




“Tellesco! Shut the fuck up and stop crying! I heard some shit from this wall!”



“But Sean! (Boo Hoo) I want to leave here now! I can’t take this any longer! What you waiting for?! (Boo Hoo).”




Uh, Wha?



My friend, I apologize to you for having left you in this stairwell for a couple weekends. Sadly, I have to head off on travel again next week, and won't be able to write anymore again for you until another week has passed.







But why not join me here tomorrow for the end of this chapter? My column will be quite long, and it may be hard for you to take in.






I hope you can do it.





I'll have some links for you tomorrow, because you like that stuff.







God Help You.


God Help Us All.



---willies out.











Manu Chao. Me Gustas Tu.









.