Christopher WunderLee: The Loony: a novella of epic proportions

By the time Albert was sprung (on a technicality, the presiding judge’s hemorrhoids couldn’t stand the prosecutor’s wordy explications and lengthy diatribes), he was a full-fledged disciple of the Herculean negro, a clergyman in the high order, and he sped away in his vermilion Valiant mind belching like a terret’s syndromite on uppers.

Albert continued his swath across the dead pavement of the great belly of America, refused to slow down, got himself involved in six more car chases, one count of larceny in St. George, prostitution of a miner (perfectly of age, but still, words can be confusing even to officer of the law, in this case a Texas Ranger, and the law is the law, you can’t buy sex from a digger), shoplifting charges (little more than a few cans of black label beer and a tootsie pop), and lastly, subversion (when he screamed “God is in a coma, oh no, its serious,” during a friendly parade on Main Street in a little town called Hamlet).

However, Albert finally rolled his by then dilapidated Valiant into the great golden state of California one month to the day of his departure. He stopped, apologetically, at the sign post, which read: “Welcome to California, where fantasy is reality and reality a fantasy,” and stood in front of the miniature sun with its sunglasses and toothy grin, its white gloved arms protruding out of its neck, pointing westward. Eating his lunch of fried chicken toes, he watched passively as cars rumbled Okie-like towards the ocean in great pods, noticed a few girls in convertibles that looked like Hollywood starlets.

When he was finished, the greasy lunch wrapper began to make its way to the ground via a sweeping arch and a ballet tumble, caught somewhere between the earth and the sky. How do you hide from gravity? It seemed to refuse to join the rest of the refuse in the highway’s gutters and got caught in a mighty gust, like some wind spirit was using it as his parachute, lifting skyward, dropping nonchalantly, swaying, spinning, a poetic cursive Albert couldn’t decipher.

As he left, his own bellowing exhaust tossed the soiled wrapper up ever higher, until it was like a child’s balloon let loose at the state fair, departing as if it was a traveler who’s said farewell and began a defined journey. Albert, when he was a child, always wondered if some Chinese boy was standing on the Great Wall, making a living receiving American rainbow balloons and selling them to tourists or other kids as anti-gravity reconnaissance kites, or perhaps, those balloons, those lost, missing balloons of the world, traveled off to some cloudy balloon utopia, or the promise of one, only to discover, once they got there, that they were segregated, like in Homer’s Republic . There was a myth of colors, blue ones were the philosopher kings, red were the soldiers, yellow the commoners, green the servants, and white, pure white, were the slaves. Perhaps that balloon he had lost the last time he ever had one, on a beach in the Gulf of Mexico, was now the emperor of helium, enthroned in a vaporous court, sighing orders to the lesser balloons. The land, Albert assumed, would be called Zeppelin, and it would receive all wayward balloons, because it promised them a country without strings, a world without masters, a nation without pins or needles, a place where an ambitious balloon could make something of that inflated life.

* * *

Of course, Albert had done as he intended, he was not a man to be trifling with false purposes. He drove directly, although somewhat obliquely, due to the state highway system recently constructed on the backs of imported Chicanos, to the ocean.

Just in the nether reaches of the town of Lompoc, Albert first sighted the hazy cobalt of the great Pacific, which excited him breathlessly, causing his delirious accelerator to get a little manic, and he sped up involuntarily. Albert felt the lurch of the curb, as his Valiant smacked directly into it and continued upon its path. The sun, which was the gloating older sister of his dear moon, was just about prepared to let the water sizzle it into oblivion on yet another day, families were packing up whicker baskets of sandy munchies and a few teenagers were stretching the light to finish an enjoyable final match of volleyball, as the car snapped the chain partitioning the highway from the boardwalk. There were no more half-naked young girls strolling beside the waves, no more surfers out tempting sharks to confuse them for sea lions, no more frisbee throwers posturing, no more little kids building intricate sand castles or fishing for shells, only a few stragglers watching the setting sun. The Valiant struggled through the dry sand, but continued to accelerate as he reached the apex of the first dune and clamored wildly as he descended, hit the straightaway, veered around a random life guard’s watch tower, long since abandoned by the young fellow who pumped up on Charles Atlas ads in the back of comic books (he’d never have some buff guy kick sand in his face and walk off with his girl), waved as a mother screamed and clutched her frolicking child to her knees, and drove headlong straight into the water.

The collision was minute, seemingly uninspired, considering what Albert had imagined, the brackish barrier was defeated effortlessly, and he continued onward, his wheels still gripping the wet pebbles of infinity, until he was fully submerged and the car floated gently to the bottom of the reef. The water found its way in through the engine block as Albert lit a final cigarette, pouring in through dashboard nobs, unsealed cracks in the great armor of the doors, and first tickled his sandaled feet. It rose quickly to his lap and he began to shiver. There were no fish to be seen, he’d hoped he’d see a gray predator circling his position, waiting patiently for him to plunge out of the cabin and right into its big, mean jaws. But there was nothing but cloudy water, the silence of submersion, the rush of the water trying to fill the void, the groans of the structural integrity of the car, as Albert sat patiently.

Then, he heard the first thud, he allowed three or four more before he turned his head and saw the swimmer, surrounded by water, his face contorted by the lack of air, his hair wafting angelically, his palm smashing against the hull of the invading object. Albert watched him as though he was from another world, he was seated normally, his feet firmly planted to the solid floorboard, his arms free, his body barely wet, while the swimmer, the young rescuer, floated, fought, argued with the buoyancy of his own body. He looked comical, how heroic he was not, an absurd apparition with desperate eyes and inflated cheeks, pounding on his door. There was no way Albert was letting the freak in, that was for sure, not with the water only half way up his spine. He’d just have to wait. He could rescue the body, that would be admirable, he’d still get his picture in the local paper, maybe even a citation from the mayor of the little town of Lompoc. But no hero was going to ruin Albert’s meeting with Triton.

The swimmer disappeared, Albert was almost sad about it, it was so quaint, so life affirming to see a stranger trying to save him, but now he could get down to business. The water was rising, it licked his collar, a few more minutes and he’d be back in the womb. He considered another cigarette, perhaps a blindfold, but didn’t light it. Dostovesky stood in front of a firing squad and thought he was going to be murdered. He was led out onto the spot, his arms tied behind his back, placed against a pole, the squad raised their rifles, he clenched his eyes shut, waited in anguish for the ring of the powder, and they gave him a reprieve, what delicious torture. That was how he married desperation and god, nothingness and divinity, the urbane and the holy. Strange trials fortify the genius and the saintly.