Our legendary author Larry Winchester (”The sage of our benighted age.” -- Harold Bloom), bowing to the demands of his audience, assumes once again the inimitable voice of Mr. Big Jake Johnstone...
(Go hereto freshen your memory of the previous chapter. Newcomers may click here to return to the long-forgotten first chapter of this masterpiece.)
Everything was just kinda still and quiet like. Great big old dust cloud that the saucer’d stirred up, just kinda hangin’ there over the desert ‘cause there wasn’t much of a wind out, but even so I could see where the saucer’d finally skidded to a stop, because it was still glowin’ this weird kinda soft green like neon or somethin’. The saucer was just restin’ like, ‘cept now all this green smoke starts pourin’ up out of it.
Then, wouldn’tcha just know it, that ol’ saucer just starts slidin’ an’ sinkin’, slow but steady, down into that ol’ sink hole. And then I could see what looked like some kinda creatures runnin’ over the top of the saucer an’ jumpin’ off it.
Then it was gone. The saucer I mean. Disappeared. But through the dust I could see them creatures, five or six of ‘em, standin’ there by the rim of the sink hole.
Well, I had me another hit of that Jack Daniel and, call me crazy or just plain stupid, I started that Caddy up and drove on in to where the saucer’d been. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it was on account of that prayer I’d prayed that the good Lord had seen fit to answer. He’d got me out of that scrape and I’d promised to be a good man if he did. And I’ve tried to live up to that promise. You ask anybody in these parts if I ain’t a changed man. And, well, maybe I figured, hell, I got through that pickle alive, maybe the good Lord wants to keep me around a while. And if I’m gonna be around it might just be in my interest to see what these creatures who’d jumped out of the saucer might have to offer. I mean I figured, hey, they are obviously much more technologically advanced than mankind, but still and all maybe they’d appreciate a savvy earth fella to show ‘em around, show ‘em the ropes so to speak. Maybe set up a few business and political connections for ‘em. Set up a few howdy-dos. Whisper a few words to a few people in the right places and grease a few wheels. Wouldn’t hurt just to introduce myself anyhow. Learned a long time ago bein’ shy is a good way to get nowhere fast in this life, and with all due respect to the Lord Jesus, the meek of this world don’t inherit jack shit in a leaky bucket.
So I headed on in.
Took another good jolt o’ Mr. Daniel and headed on in.
Now I wished I could tell ya what transpired next but I’m afraid I been sworn to secrecy. That’s right. Sworn. And a man ain’t as good as his word, well, that man is just about lower’n whaleshit in my opinion, lower than whaleshit at the bottom of the ocean.
Oh, now, I ain’t sayin’ I never told nobody. Somethin’ like what I’m talkin’ about, ya just gotta tell somebody, otherwise the fact of it’ll just keep growin’ in your brain, growin’ and growin’, like a goddam brain tumor. (Known quite a few people hereabouts what’ve had brain tumors. Knew one feller had a brain tumor got so damn big one day his head just split open while he was sittin’ drinkin’ a beer at Burt’s. Split right open right along the top of his skull, sprayin’ out blood and brain matter just like a fountain. Fell off the stool, smacked his head on the floor and out rolled a tumor size of a softball.)
So I told people, sure.
But the thing was I only told prostitutes. You know, lyin’ there, all calm an’ cozy after gettin’ my weezer wozzled, smokin’ a cigar, maybe sippin’ a little J.D., I’d tell some little gal what happened. Usually it’d be some little Mex gal who couldn’t understand what I was sayin’ no how. (All’s said and done I gotta admit I prefer women what don’t speak English. I find it much more, well, restful that way. And chances are they do too, come to think of it.)
Anyway, I’d lie back an’ tell ‘em all about it, an’ even the ones that did speak English probly just thought I was makin’ it all up. But I wasn’t. An’ even if they did believe it and repeat it, it wouldn’t matter none, ‘cause who gives a fuck what a prostitute says?
(Continued here. Coming soon to better "art" theatres everywhere, under the title Une ville qu'on appelle Disdain, directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring Eddie Constantine, Alain Delon, and Anna Karina.)
Our heroes Dick, Daphne, and Harvey, along with Daphne's father Mac and his faithful companion Buddy (plus Brad, who may be a hero in his own way) have successfully escaped from the flying saucer just before it sank forever into the atomic sink hole, only to confront, emerging from the swirling dust, the bloodied but unbowed Moloch, armed with a Sten sub-machine gun, on this fateful night in September of 1969, in the wasted desert some several miles beyond the outskirts of a town called Disdain...(Go hereto read our previous episode;click here to return to the almost-forgotten beginning of our epic.)”Larry Winchester is the Homer of our age, and A Town Called Disdainis both our Iliad and our Odyssey.” -- Harold Bloom
“You,” said Moloch, and, Sten gun pointed at Dick, he limped closer, his broken leg making a revolting crunching sound with each step.
“Now, let’s not go off half-cocked here, pal,” said Dick. He tossed away his cigarette.
“You,” said Moloch again.
Repetitive motherfucker, thought Dick.
“You.”
Daphne grabbed Dick’s right biceps with both hands. He really wished she wouldn’t do that. He was armed to the teeth of course, revolvers in both jacket side pockets, his Browning stuck in his belt, but the problem was getting one of these out and shooting this idiot before getting shot oneself.
Moloch stopped about ten feet away from their little group. The Sten remained pointed at Dick.
“Fucking hell,” said Brad.
“Shit,” said Harvey.
“Who’s this joker?” said Buddy.
“Zip it, Buddy,” said Mac.
“Yes,” said Moloch. “Zip it, Buddy.”
“So consider me zipped,” said Buddy.
“You,” said Moloch to Dick. “Do you remember -- Songjin? a certain joint British/American commando raid?”*
“Songjin?” said Dick. “Um, sure. Sure I do.”
“And do you remember a certain thin, perhaps to your American perceptions slightly effeminate, British marine subaltern?”
The shock of recognition, through the chaos of more than sixteen years, of the clean-cut earnest young officer in Korea and this bearded, one-eyed, bloody-faced, shambling leather-clad evil wreck before him now.
“No,” said Dick.
“Yes,” said Moloch. His normally euphonious if raspy voice was now rather nasal because of his broken nose, which still sputtered and bubbled fitfully with thick blood. “Oh yes,” he repeated.
“Jesus fuck,” said Dick. “What’s your name again?”
“I am called Moloch.”
“No,” said Dick. “Your real name. Nigel? Ian? Vyvyan?”
“Moloch will do, thank you very much.”
“So,” said Dick, “we’re like -- comrades-in-arms and all.”
“Oh please.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I despise you.”
“What?” said Dick. “’Cause I shot your friend the other day? Come on, pal, as I recall it he was coming at me with a goddam blackjack.”**
“I don’t care a fuck about him. I don’t even care that you and your associates have just smeared my gang into the dust with what appears to be a flying saucer.”
“Well, uh, Moloch, I assure you that that was not intentional. You see, we lost control of the ship and --”
“I just told you I don’t give a fuck about that.”
“Oh. Good.”
“What I care about is you. You. You fucking hero,” said Moloch. “You know, Songjin was my first combat mission. And my last real one, actually. My one chance to prove myself. And I never even got to fire a shot. Whereas you got to be the big Yank hero.”
“What a lot of horse shit,” said Dick.
“And then,” continued Moloch, “just to add insult to injury, you -- you turn up years later, and -- and --”
“And what?”
“And embarrass me in front of my men.”
Dick paused a moment.
“What an incredible load of horse shit,” he said.
“I’ll show you what horse shit is,” said Moloch.
“Now wait a minute, fella.”
“No. I won’t.”
“Look,” said Dick. He was trying unsuccessfully to pry Daphne’s fingers off of his arm. “Moloch, a couple of months of therapy with a good shrink, you’ll be over the whole deal.”
“I have a better idea. I’m going to kill you. Now. And then I’ll kill your friends. I think that would be jolly good therapy. I think that would be jolly good therapy indeed.”
As Moloch spoke Dick was deciding to dive sharply forward and to the left, and, hoping that Daphne would let go of his arm, to pull out the Browning with his right hand, and, provided he was still alive, to squeeze off a few as soon as he hit the ground, all the time knowing that he had a snowball's chance in hell unless of course Moloch’s Sten should jam -- when the oddest thing happened.
A baseball came out of the sky and struck Moloch in the head, ripping a great gash in his skull above his right ear and down he dropped like a sack of shit as the ball rolled along the ground, teetered on the edge of the sink hole, then dropped in and disappeared.*** Well, so much for that, Moloch was able to think. He thought he had been shot, who knew by whom. It didn’t matter now. Some fucker. He looked up at the stars and noticed they were beautiful. So what. And now I’ll be extinct, he thought. And about fucking time.
And so as flights of demons sang him to his rest he felt his chi hissing out of the hole in his head like air from a punctured tire and then the voices faded out and he felt himself fading out. All right then, fuck you, he thought.
