David Ohle - The Pisstown Chaos

Here Moldenke, seemingly disoriented, took a sudden step backward and fell squarely on his head. He lay there a minute, with no one in the audience offering help, then sat up. When he removed his hat it was easy to see that the back of his head had been crushed when it hit the stage floor, yet there was no blood, nor did he show signs of distress or pain.

The host took the stage. "That's all, folks. That's the show for tonight." He lifted Moldenke's feet in his hands and dragged him off the stage.

At the same time, a small company of Hookerite Guards went up and down the aisles, holding gel cans in front of certain faces and looking closely at them. When the can was held in front of Ophelia's, one of the Guards said, "Ophelia Balls?"

"Yes."

"It looks like some strings have been pulled, Miss Balls, by your grandmother. I hear she's being released from Permanganate. You're being sent home."

The news parted Ophelia's lips in a broad smile as two Guards escorted her out of the Radiola, one holding onto each of her elbows.

As she waited for the 9:30 to Pisstown, delighted to be going home, she saw the Reverend blow her a kiss and wave as his pedal car passed by.

William Parker Yockey, adolescent leader of the Hookerites, wants the goods and assets of final-stage stinkers distributed among the less fortunate. Its an old idea with a new twist. Needs are few for stinkers reaching the fourth stage. All the senses dulled, no hunger, no thirst, limited excretory functions. To build remote encampments, where stinkers would simply wait, would not be a costly proposition, say the Hookerites.

Yockey was interviewed the day he turned twelve. He was ensconced in his little Canal-side shanty on Coggshell Avenue, really nothing more than a lean-to made of cratewood, but spacious and weather-tight.

He said "What is a flag, after all? Is it not something like a curtain? On one side of it stand the wealthy and privileged, on the other the rest of us. I have a pile of flags outside the back door. I burn them in my stove when fallwood is scarce. "Here he went out and came back with an armload of flags. "They have so many pigments, " he said, "the flames dance colorfully behind the mica windows of the fire door, entrancing me of a winter's night. You might say I am warmed by the heat of national fervor. "

As the interview progressed, Yockey drank Jake, smoked an urpflanz pipe and fed flag afar flag to the fire. When pressed for details of future plans for his party, he said, "In the next election the Reverend will run and win on a simple idea, that stinkers must be isolated from the rest of us. In a few months we can build ten or twenty camps. Think of it this way-eventually everyone dies, even stinkers, although they take a while longer on average. Hooker says, `Let's put them out of the way once and for all. They can wait in peace and quiet. They can listen to the chirp of sparrows, the croak of frogs, the hum of the bee. Not a worry in the world. '"

Some of the Reverend's Guards are puzzled over an imp keeping a vigil beside an old black shoe. The imp, apparently an abandoned pet, refuses to go farther than fifteen feet from the well-worn size twelve even to eat, a Guard said yesterday, who first noticed the loyal watchkeeping last week. By day the critter stays close to the shoe, now invaded by mold and beetles, along a wooded section of the Canal. At night it curls next to the shoe and goes to sleep whining. "The only time it gets upset is if someone picks up the shoe, " one Guard said.

It comes to me from good authority that property on Square Island is being appropriated by the Administration. Why? Well, the Reverend wants to sink a huge tooth gold mine there. It seems preliminary tests have indicated a massive concentration of stinker remains about sixty feet down. It's hard to differ with the Reverend's view when you consider that he has sole ownership of the only steam shovel on the Island and the only mules to move it.

Once mules were a common sight on any street in Pisstown, until the first great Chaos, when they were slaughtered and canned to feed a meat-starved populace. The cans were labeled "Ideal Food For You, " the inference being that you were able to consume this meat with no injurious effects. Historical accounts, however, tell us differently. The meat smelled putrid and was often wormy.

Roe's shifting orders directed him to travel to a specified address in central Bum Bay, where he would mate with someone by the name of Daisy Doolittle. When he stepped off the pedal tram, a bank of low thunderheads filtered the fading sunlight in such a way that its rays presented a stunning system of converging bars of shadow against the eastern sky. In the wavering light, he was having trouble reading street signs.

A friendly American who saw him looking around in every direction stopped to help. "Let me guess, you've been shifted here to mate with Daisy Doolittle. You want to know where she is and where the line is forming, don't you?"

"I have her address."

"My name's Frank Johnson. I know where she is. We all know. You play the saw, I see. That's got entertainment value. Makes you worth something."

"I'm Roe Balls. Grandmother says I'm a prodigy. Grandfather says I'm a savant." After a deep cough, he had a swallow of the sour-tasting cough medicine Ophelia had concocted. "This is my first shift and my first mating. I'm anxious."

"Daisy's a hard one to mate with. They say there's only one male out here with the key that'll unlock her, if you get my meaning. No other one will fit right. She'll kick you six feet in the air. She's strong as a mule."

"How do I get to this address?"

"Come with me. It's the old Radiola Theater, over in the Heritage Area. People get side-shifted there, like me, like you. Some bug got in the system. Everybody thinks they're here to mate with the Doolittle girl. Ha. We're here to sit around in a broken-down old movie house and wait for the next shift."

"How long?"

"Nobody knows. Whenever the Reverend declares another round of shifting."

Roe followed the fast-paced American, always a few strides behind, until they came to the unlighted dark side. In windows gel cans burned dimly. Street lamps flickered. "From here on," the American said, "power comes and goes unpredictably. This part of town awaits the wrecking ball. As far as Hooker is concerned, it's already a pile of rubble. Whatever works, whatever runs, it's thanks to us, not the Reverend."

When Roe and the American arrived tired and sweaty at the Radiola, other side-shifted settlers waited in line at a glass-enclosed ticket window. The power had come on in the neighborhood and the theater was brightly lit. Above them, a marquee's sagging letters read "Miracle in the Grotto."

"They check new people in here," the American said. "This place used to be a school. Then it was a movie house. Now it's a waiting area. Get in line. I'll meet you at the candy counter."

"Thank you for all the help. I would have been lost."

"No problem. I'm a Johnson. We help out."

Roe reached into his bag. "Let me give you a few bucks."

"We don't expect anything in return, either. See you at the candy counter."

To amuse himself as the line slowly edged forward, Roe took out his saw and prepared to play. Normally, when he played, he sat. This time there was no place to sit, so he stood. With the saw's teeth facing away, he lodged the rag-wrapped handle against his shoulder, placing his left thumb on the blunt tip of the blade and his left fingers on the other side. He pressed down to form a slight "S" curve in the metal and began stroking with his bow. After three strokes, the saw began to sing. The men in line were livened and entranced. "I never heard a saw played like that," one of them said. "That's far above an octave and a half." Another balled up a buck note and threw it at Roe's feet. Quickly other notes were tossed his way and applause erupted. "You should put out a hat. You could make a living," someone shouted. "Can you play `Red River Valley'?"