Sickness Of The Young (3)
"Here, here," the assembled council always replied. "Fellow Seekers, we have arrived at a crossroads." The council remained silent, curious about the issue present before them. Flowerman continued, "As you know, we own some one hundred acres of land, all told. And the far southwestern twenty acres have always been under contest with the local county, for as long as this commune has been in existence. Well, I recently received some correspondence from the country judge, via the county clerk, who has made a ruling that the county has confiscated that part of our land. The so-called, ‘his honor’ has written to officially notify us that county officials will come to stake their claim over that which we share with nature in only a matter of days. They specify the day of Wednesday in my documentation…" The council members visibly shook from this drastic news. After a long silence, Large Mouth Bass Owl spoke, "Flowerman, this is a very bad thing. What shall we do?" "I propose that we stage a sit-in, and meet the government officials when they arrive. Of course, we shall not resort to any use of violence, but rather, we shall all sit defiant, arm in arm." "Here, here!" The council saw the wise words of Flowerman, and quickly agreed to this action. So that very Wednesday (the council having convened on Monday evening), the entire commune woke early, and forgoing their chores, dressed in lavish, hand-sewn costumes made in many-hued mosaics of color, and adorned with spices and herbs. The happy group strode across the green hills to the southwest in one long line, covering almost half a mile in length. There were flowers in the hair of everyone. A chorus of gentle songs filled the warm, spring day. They reached the end of the road, which connected to the town, some ten miles away about nine o’clock in the morning. The beautiful people formed a ring of love, encompassing the road. And then Flowerman did something totally unexpected. He took off his army rucksack (having gotten it from serving two years in the reserves, successfully avoiding that wrong war) and laid it on the ground. He opened it up and began pulling out handfuls of very large marijuana cigarettes, passing them to every member. He instructed them to light up when the government officials arrived. Eleven county vehicles arrived at around ten in the morning, a small dust cloud in their wake, rising above the hills behind them. The vehicles stopped some several meters short of the ring of love, cautiously slowing to a halt, got out, and huddled for several minutes in discussion. There were perhaps twenty officials of the county. During this lapse, the whole commune did as instructed and lit up their illegal substances. The government officials soon took notice of the distinctive sent from the illegal smoke that rose, hovered, shifted, and then settled down on their location. Chaos immediately ensued. The mayor of the local town, who was there as well, ordered his sheriff and deputies to turn on their police car’s sirens and lights. The alarming incongruity from the police sirens and lights destroyed the powerful harmony of the gathered circle and many members took off and ran away. The government officials ran after the commune members, but as this was a fine spring morning, following several days of rain, the ground was very muddy. So, many officers of the law fell in the mud, whilst chasing their suspects. Soon, however, after firing several warning shots into the air, the peace-haters were able to regain order, and arrested sixty-nine members of the commune. The press immediately dubbed this group "the sixty-nine who did time," and a huge controversy arose in the following days and weeks. Certainly, the mayor of the town had stumbled upon a mixed blessing. On the one hand, he had single-handedly discovered several known hard-core felons, fleeing from the law, nine to be exact, including Fowerman, Red Leaf, his whole council, and two others members of the commune: Raven Spoken Hamster Goldstein and Two Wolf Whalebone Luigi. The mayor also had a major problem on his hands. Many members of the commune had come from prestigious families who had lost track of their family members for many years, and the controversy soon became a national issue, even with political underpinnings in the next election. Most of the sixty-nine who did time quickly made bail and the small town Western Union got a lot of business, as did the mayor’s office. Then the charges of using and growing an illegal substance and resisting arrest, dropped mysteriously for every member of the commune, except for the nine felons. At least half of the members of the commune went home to their families. The remaining members scattered to the four winds. The county issued an injunction and seized the commune, becoming the overseers of the entire property. Since no one was there to tend to the chores, the crops withered on their vines. Wild animals broke into the vegetable and grain storages and they were ruined. The poorly built log cabins toppled or became otherwise completely dysfunctional. The nine, hard-core felons were transferred to Sing Sing prison, following their anticipated conviction. Under severe pressure from their well-to-do families, the Governor granted a special circumstance proclamation (this being the legal term) and allowed the commune members to stay together, despite three members of the council being female: Red Herring Turning Leaf Johnson, Buffalo Pigtail Magpie Smith, and Feather Rise Beesting Planski Their lives soon fell into typical prison monotony. There were three meals, TV, and a whole bunch of bridge games. The prison did hold some college classes, particularly after the many complaints solicited from the commune felons. Flowerman Bronson’s heart was broken. He felt badly beaten, but still believed his dream to be infallible. He gathered his council daily by the basketball court, when the inmates were breaking in the courtyard. The council was officially widened to include Raven Spoken Hamster Goldstein and Two Wolf Whalebone Luigi. Sadly, the council became dark, and ideals such as love and peace turned into bitterness and revenge. Many council members took up smoking. Feather Rise Beesting became well versed in prison diction. Large Mouth Bass Owl became a serious weightlifter. Soon, the council began to exert a draconian influence of the prison population. It started benignly enough with this experiment in mind control: join the Seekers as low-level members and receive more cigarettes. The council even worked out a pyramid scheme, with cigarettes at the core, and it worked fabulously. Some prisoners simply changed philosophies, attributing their alteration to the overwhelming influence of Flowerman. The council did indeed change some lives, and certain inmates left their incarceration, only to become future scientists and engineers, in particular. Every night, Flowerman studied astronomy in his cell. There he stumbled upon his grand discovery. Apparently, a huge comet called Dæilåte-Dalörshzurt 00 (named after the two famous German astronomers) would be passing directly overhead in just two days. This was no ordinary comet, but twice the size of Haley’s Comet or Hale-Bopp. Flowerman was extremely angry with himself for not having discovering this fact earlier, but he quietly thanked fate for providing him with this provenance. There was no time to waste. On his next phone call to the outside, Flowerman arranged for a large amount of cyanide to be smuggled into the kitchen, posing as a bag of flour, to a Seeker working there. Then the cook poured the deadly power into a huge vat of grape juice. Simultaneously, Flowerman put the word out for every inmate to get a cup of grape juice at supper. In two shifts, with the first inmates eating the dinner meal not drinking anything at supper, but instead slowly and steadily filtering out of the mess hall to their cells with their Styrofoam cups, provided by Starbucks, inc., whose CEO was a good friend of Flowermans’, the sinister logistics were carried out. Once locked down, each inmate waited patiently until precisely 8:08 p.m. in the evening. Then the second shift of inmates made their way into the mess hall and got their trays of food. Soon, the whole prison was either sitting in the mess hall with a tray of food and a cup of bug juice in a Styrofoam cup or locked down in their cell with a cup of grape juice, silently beckoning them. Flowerman and his council of nine had their own table right in the center of the mess hall. At 8:04 p.m., Flowerman took his last bit of food, which happened to be cheesecake, picked up his own Styrofoam cup of poison, and stood on the table. He did not have much time to say his peace. He knew the commotion would quickly cause the guards to take action. Flowerman calculated they would come over in about five minutes and throw him in solitary confinement, so he only took four minutes to stand and speak, the time measured by head nods from Red Leaf. "My fellow Seekers of The Father of Uranus…the time has come, the stars are in alignment, and the moment of the future is upon us! Fellow Seekers, we shall now board the spaceship known as Dæilåte-Dalörshurt 00 and travel through time to find our answer. Red Leaf, you will assume control of the starship with me. Buffalo Pigtail Magpie, man the guidance systems. Feather Rise Beesting, to sick bay. Long Salmon Sunrise, the weapons system." "Lamar!" "Large Mouth Bass Owl, the science controls with Turniphole Stagecoach Coyote," Flowerman spoke and his words sounded like thunder, as he gestured majestically and triumphantly with his hands. Turniphole, it turned out, so disliked his name that he was the only one in the whole prison to not drink, besides a few skeptical prisoners, and thus live to tell the story. "Raven Spoken Hamster: engineering with Two Wolf Whalebone…all other Seekers shall remain below in the hold for the duration of the journey! Now, the toast!" "Here, here!" Came the loud reply, as instructed. The guards were moving toward the center of the mess hall, at Flowerman’s table. Red Leaf was getting nervous. "Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are the inner planets. Their father is Jupiter. His brothers are Neptune and Pluto, whose ferryman is Charon. The father of Jupiter is Saturn. The father of Saturn is Uranus. Whom is the father of Uranus?" "Whom is the Father of Uranus?" The inmates said back, and then cheered gleefully, as instructed, raising their Starbucks Styrofoam cups up high. "Drink, drink, Sing Sing!" By Mila Strictzer Seventh in order of composition A chapter from Scarecrow Soldier That same day they drove out to the desert and fired off every piece of the weaponry they owned at destroyed Iraqi tanks. Johnson fired off eight boxes of remaining M-60 ammunition at T-55, T-62 and T-72 Russian-built tanks, surrounded by three walls of dirt. Sparks flew up into the sky. Rodriguez and John threw about thirty hand grenades at the tanks, hitting the dirt afterward, and covering their ears as they braced for the violent explosion. Joel fired off the anti-tank rockets (AT-4s), and they all shot off their M-16 and .45 ammunition. John fired his M203 grenades. The only ammunition they kept were four clips of .45 bullets, seven rounds per clip. John kept them in his cargo pocket. They dug a field-expedient trench with their entrenching tools and then they all put their chemical weapons gear in the pit along with anything else they no longer needed. Joel poured mogas over their chem gear and lit it on fire in a kind of effigy. The four soldiers watched their chemical weapons gear burn up in the hot air and they were overcome with a sense of relief and purification. All of their ammunition would have to be accounted for, unless it had been used during the war. There was no way to verify what they had fired off, so they got rid of everything they had. Kuwait presented no problems, since the Army had just liberated it, and every citizen of the country only wanted to run up and kiss their hands or get handouts of food and water. Saudi Arabia, however, was not about to take any live ammunition across its borders. Saudi Arabia represented part of the real world and not a war zone. It was the first real step home, not what the soldiers regarded as the civilized world, where they could eat real food like bacon and buy a porno magazine at their leisure, but it was close enough to not take any chances. The soldiers would finish being barbarians when they crossed into Saudi Arabia in a month or so and they intended on being fully prepared. Their hummer was now completely empty of war gear. No longer did boxes of ammunition fill every space. They had even taken time to remove all of the trash and the sandbags on the floorboards. The warm Arabian breeze sliced through the hummer and found its way into every hole that had been shut out for months. The soldiers felt refreshed, like they were starting a new life and leaving an old one far behind. They were about fifty kilometers from Safwan when they happened upon a ranch with a small pond behind the main buildings. They had not seen a large body of water since leaving the Persian Gulf several months ago. Joel carefully pulled the hummer into a large courtyard, through an open gate, snapping tiny rocks underneath the large tires of the hummer as he gradually came to a stop. Joel put the vehicle in park and turned it off. The hummer stood in the middle of the courtyard, a few feet from an old, cracked fountain. John looked at the figures of cherubs poised to spit out water and wondered at the strangeness of this oasis within the vastness of the desert. The white rocks of the courtyard and the white, concrete walls surrounding it reflected the sun’s light intensely. John and his team sat in their vehicle for a few minutes, feeling dazed and confused. Then an old man came out to greet them. He gently bowed and extended his hands in front of him as if to say, ‘My house is your house, great conquerors.’ John and his team slowly exited the hummer with all of their war gear on and slammed the doors shut behind them. "Let’s just leave all of our shit here," John said and they took off all their gear and tossed it through the open windows to their seats, except for their weapons. John was not worried about the old man would stealing anything. John walked over and shook hands with the old man, who had stood waiting patiently. Then the old man turned and led them inside the large, two-storied house to a cool room. John guessed swamp coolers were running somewhere. He marveled again at how different the old man’s farm was from everything else he had seen in Iraq or Kuwait. The old man sat down on the carpeted floor and John and his team followed his lead. After about five minutes of silence while the men just stared at each other, two women covered in black clothes from head to toe, suddenly came out of nowhere, carrying a big metal sheet that looked like a large pizza tray that was full of food, mostly red rice, with assorted vegetables. They put the tray down on the ground in front of the assembled men and quickly scurried out of the room, holding hands. The old man just stared across the pizza tray at John. After staring back for a moment, John finally realized the old man was waiting for his team to eat first. "Johnson, make sure the food isn’t poisoned," John said to the junior ranking man of his team. They all laughed, even the old man. "What am I supposed to do, just scoop the shit up with my fingers?" he asked. "I guess so, like I fucking know. " Johnson grabbed a handful of food and poured it into his huge mouth, chewed, and swallowed. Then the old man reached down, took a small amount of food in his hand, and started to eat. Then the rest of John’s team ate. When they had finished, the women appeared again out of nowhere like bus boys and took the pizza tray away, each burdening herself by awkwardly carrying an edge. "That wasn’t too fucking bad, huh, Sergeant?" Rodriguez asked. "Naw, pretty damn fucking good. You like those rice and beans, huh? Beat’s Army chow," John answered and then asked, "What’s the fuck's up with those women, did you see that fucking shit? That trips me the fuck out." Then John got up and walked over the wall to look at a map. The map was of the Middle East but as he looked at it closer, he noticed Israel was not on the map. In its place was Palestine, extending to the Mediterranean Sea. "Holy shit! Hey, Joel, come check out this fucking map, man. What a fucking trip," John exclaimed. Joel got up, walked over, and stood next to John as he looked closely at the map. Joel was a Brooklyn born Jew. His parents had immigrated to the United States from Israel in the 1940's. "What the fuck, man? Is this old man joking? These Arabs really do fucking believe Israel is not a country! I mean, fucking Palestine! What the fuck is Palestine? Is that even a fucking country?" Joel asked loudly as he stared closely at the map, getting more agitated as he spoke. The old man looked confused and got up to walk over, deeply concerned about his guest’s sudden chagrin. John thought he would try to settle the problem by honestly explaining to the old man in his best universal language why his buddy was mad. He hoped the old man would offer a simple solution to resolve the issue, not that John or any of his team really cared if they pissed him off or not. So John turned to the old man and slowly spoke, "My friend is Jewish. He--is--a--Jew!" John grabbed Joel’s shoulders and shook the thin soldier. The old man’s eyes suddenly widened and a look of horror passed across his features. "This map," John continued and pointed at the sliver on the map with his index finger where Israel should be, "No Israel. Only Palestine. Why is this?" He asked and hunched his shoulders. The old man looked very concerned. He let out a deep groan. "Noooo, Is-re-al is no. Palestine, yes. In his-tory, my friend," the old man said, and then turning his back on Joel, and only addressing John, added after a long pause in an icy voice, "All Israel must die." Joel threw his head back in exasperation and let out a groan and then he lunged for the old man. He grabbed his throat with both of his hands and started squeezing tightly. Joel started violently shaking the old man by his throat as he yelled in his face, "Hey you old fuck! Israel is a nation! I am over here fighting in your fucking stupid war and…" The old man’s head bobbed back and forth a couple of times as Joel screamed at him before John quickly stepped in between the old man and Joel, grabbing Joel's wrists and wrenching them free from the old man’s neck. Released from the death grip, the old man stumbled backward a few steps as he heaved over heavily, trying to suck air back into his stinging lungs. "Go back to the vehicle, Joel! Go to the vehicle! Now! Rod, take Joel to the fucking hummer now!" John said to Rodriguez, who came over and grabbed a fistful of Joel’s BDU jacket and pulled him away, out of the door. Joel was resisting and Rodriguez had to drag him out of the room. "Let me kill the fucking old bastard, Sergeant! Let me fucking kill him! Slit his throat! Who the fuck will know? Who the fuck will know? Allah? Fuck that fucking rag-head mother-fucker..," Joel was screaming as Rodriguez was forcing him out the door. John stared at the old man for a moment. The old man was looking back at him, standing humbly in front of his map on the wall. John did not really care about the argument between him and Joel but he was very irritated that the old man had made his buddy mad. He felt like knocking him out with his rifle butt. John thought that the old man sensed this. As Joel had said, no one would know. "Fuck it. I don’t even think he knows a damn thing," he finally muttered low, to himself. He turned to Johnson and said, "Let’s get the fuck out of here." They walked out to the hummer. Joel had already started it and Rodriquez was sitting behind him, watching him carefully. John and Johnson were putting their web gear back on with the doors open when the old man came running up behind them. John heard the old man coming up, but before he turned around, he looked up, across the inside of the hummer at Joel and said, "Just keep your fucking cool, Joel." Then John turned around as the old man cautiously walked up. He handed two fifths of Cutty Stark whiskey to John. The old man bowed deeply. "Thank you, sir!" John said and took the bottles and put them on his seat. Then he shook hands with the old man vigorously. John wanted to thank the old man from the bottom of his heart. A profound sense of happiness flooded over him and he smiled broadly. The old man smiled back and then respectively withdrew. John climbed into the hummer and shut the door, still wearing a big smile on his face, stretching from ear to ear. Joel put the vehicle in drive and slowly pulled out of the courtyard, snapping the tiny white rocks underneath the big tires. "You see, Joel, it all works out in the end. Holy shit! We can rack up. What do these people need? They have food and water, apparently. Fuel! I bet they need fuel. Tomorrow, we load up the five-gallon containers with mogas and hit all the farms for booze. Tonight, we party. Let’s get back to camp. Move out. I need to call ‘Caesar, The Great’ and hook this one up," John said, referring to their Squad Leader, Sergeant Camacho. "Joel, is this on the platoon frequency?" John asked. Joel looked straight ahead at the flat Arabian sands they were driving across. "Yeah," he answered coolly. "Okay, let me work my silver tongue here," John said and reached down, grabbed the mike and keyed it. The radio revved up. John waited a moment to make sure it was fully powered, knowing whoever had their radio on would hear that professional pause. "Tango four foxtrot, this is Romeo fife tree, over," John said in as professional, military sounding voice as he could muster. It was must have been convincing because there was an almost immediate answer. "Go ahead, Romeo," came the reply. "Fuck! It’s the Lt. Where’s Caesar? Probably fucking off too," John said and then continued, "Tango, my team will be conducting a route recon for a possible alternative route to the rear...break...break…we may arrive a little late tonight, over," John said.
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Copyright © 2002 Mila Strictzer |