Two weeks later, they still hadn't heard the CD. They were sitting around bored one afternoon when Nin asked, "What do you want to do?"
Nan absently replied, "Nothing particular. Anything you want is okay."
Nin leapt up and grabbed the CD case. "Ah, ha! In that case, we are
now
listening to this."
"No! I didn't mean I'd agree to
any
thing."
"Yes, that's precisely what you
did
say, and I'm holding you to it right now."
"Well, let's at least smoke some satistiva first."
"Okay. We can do that."
Nan rolled up a cigarette, and they shared it down to the end before Nin stood up and grabbed the CD case again. Nan was too stoned to object.
The CD player gave Nin a little trouble at first, but in a few seconds, the sound of a faint church bell tolling could be heard. Nin sat next to Nan on the couch and folded the lyric sheet open for them to read.
That's rather cliché
, thought Nan.
He stole that from AC/DC
. And then the buzzsaw lyrics began. Bombs dropping. Okay. Got that. Sector Blue? The blue part of the election map? The Democrats?
Gravel-blind? And two types of apple? This makes no sense. Smashing? Ragnarok? The end of time?
What? The signs come down in flames? Like the pea sign or bean sign or whatever it was? Erasure of agents' names? The buried? The road get taken down? Shit—he is singing about us? "He can't do that," said Nan out loud.
"We're no James Gang," said Nin.
"Listen—what the fuck? He's trying to incite people against us! He wants a lynching!"
"Death to us? Wait—which one's the infidel? Which is god-fearing?"
"Oh, jeez. What are we going to do?"
"Ignore it."
"
Ignore
it? He's going to spread this song around until even the police like it."
"Oh—I remember reading an interview with Mark Mothersbaugh of
Devo
, and he said the scariest thing was that, when Devo was arrested for obscenity, the cops in the jailhouse started a conga line and removed their belts and snapped them in a dance circle to the CD of 'Whip It.' And they sang along, knowing all the words!"
"Maybe that's why he quit Devo and began writing music for
Rugrats
and other cartoons."
"Maybe," said Nin. "I still don't know if I get it all, even with the lyrics right here. The gibberish is beginning to sound like the Beatles' fake Italian in 'Sun King.'"
"Fake Italian or Kobaian?"
"Oh, shut up. Let me think."
"Okay."
They fell silent and went to opposite corners of the room and looked out the nearest window, as if in meditation. The truth was that they both had the dickens scared out of them. Of course, I'm scared of Dickens, too. Horribly out-of-date social satire aimed at targets long since dead. And with Dickens' being paid by the word, by the installment, one could smell something afoul in the air.
"
Snap swing
is definitely a lynching. We've got to stop him."
"Oh, that's easy," said Nan. "Where did he go?"
"Well, I'd say he went on down the road, but—"
"There isn't any road! We tore it up, remember?"
"Okay, so we just follow his direction."
"Did you see the direction he left in?"
"No. We were busy arguing over petty shit."
"Well, I didn't either. And we have no idea the direction he came from."
"I'd guess from the urban sprawl."
"Well, that would make sense. So, he's heading into the wilderness? That makes no sense, because he has to spread his song."
"He could do that on-line. He could have his own internet radio station dedicated to hating us. They could be building an army against us!"
"Calm down! They can't do any of that until Brother Sam gets here. We have to figure out where he went. Or where he came from."
"Wait! We're assuming that he came from a place other than were he is going. What if this was not a stopover? What if it was the destination? He was on reconnaissance."
"No. I don't think so. That guy was a leader of nothing. Even his bullshit was fake. That's it! A guy who bought dozens of novelty gag gifts to spring on his friends EVERY DAY! But that's a different subject. What were we talking about?"
"I don't know."
"How to catch him. How to corner him and collect him."
"Come now—he is human, after all," said Nin.
"
Is
he?"
"You're not back on your Kobaian thing again, are you?"
"No. No. No. Sorry," replied Nan.
Nin returned to the center of the room. "If you're right, then Brother Sam might just have come from the nearest city over the hill and returned there!"
"I think that must be, Nin."
"Well, Nin, let's go"
"Should we bring umbrellas?"
As soon as they saw a road, Nan broke down. Going on was inconceivable, so they stopped at the closest motel, the Stampeded Antelope.
"Your foot, it needs reinflation," said Nin. They'd been arguing about whether to walk or use the golf cart.
"Yeah, but I rolled," replied Nan, as if that were the answer. Well. Maybe it
is
the answer. What do I know?
Nan rowed while Nin looked at a map.
"What's up there?" asked Nan, pointing to a spot on the map.
"North," replied Nin.
Up the side of a rocky cliff, alongside mountain goats and big horn sheep, stood the Stampeded Antelope.
Naturally, therefore, the motel was decorated with a pirate motif. Rudders, nets, crabs, steering wheels and harpoons festooned the walls.
A coat of arms featured an oar at the fess point of an escutcheon.
Paintings of large vessels were hung in each room. Nin and Nan's room featured a frigate incongruously named
The Estancia
. One assumed she had transported cattle.
"Arrrr...," said Nan, in the best possible pirate accent that could be mustered. "They must have been pirate cattle. Arrrr..."
Why pirates? Who knew? The nearest navigable body of water was the Big River, some 200 miles away. As far as Nin knew, pirates had never broached it.
The lobby sported another incongruity—a loaded and ready freewheeling trebuchet, pointed at the front door in case of a Viking incursion, perhaps.
The motel restaurant was called Captain Snagglebeard's, and Nin and Nan ordered "all-u-can-eat" clam strips from the limited menu.
Nan asked the one-eyed waiter if the restaurant carried HoJo cola, but the waiter stared back blankly and shook his head.
"Ow!" said Nan. "Stop shaking my head!"
"Arrr...," said the waiter, "then don't ask impertinent questions, if ye know what's good for ya."
After the waiter left. Nan asked Nin, "Who are Ye and Ya? Are they cousins of ours?"
"Shut up, will you? Drink your grog."
The atmosphere of the restaurant began changing later in the evening, and the waiters began leading the dining patrons in a sea chanty sing-along and, as Nan called it, Okefenokee Karaoke.
"Our ship, it sails at morning tide— I signed aboard to leave my bride. I'd met her when the night was young and so was she, but not for long. I went to bed aged 24
but woke up with a toothless whore. Ten thousand pints can't wash away what happened to me on that day. Ten thousand knots I now must sail Before I forget that harpooned whale..."
And so forth. Very uncomfortably sexist. Mindless. Of course. He could never mind his manners.
He starts the lawnmower. Now, briefly, he is alone. Then he turns, and you see him. You turn also.
He exceeds the posted speed limit for Buckhorn. 99¢ a 6-pack. And that's just the fine. Old way is different from the new way.
Older is newer.
Only squares get around.
"Our names? Oh, sorry. We are, as you know, Late Night Traditions."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Oh—I was just talking."
"No. You were dreaming," said Nin, propping up Nan.
"'I Have a Dream,'" laughed the collapsible one.
"Okay, over here. Just lie down in bed. Sleep it off." Nin unceremoniously stepped away from being Nan's crutch, and Nan crumpled onto the bed and was out cold.
Good thing's Nan's not face down
, thought Nin.
Nan can't die like Hendrix
.
Nin turned on the TV with the remote. The only TV in the room. Obviously... No.
Fellini's
Clowns
was on. Ah, the unbearable sadness of the clowns who used to be in the late great European circuses! They'd all been out of work for thirty years and still were sad. What a film!
Nin pulled a beer out of the microfridge and nuked some popcorn and began watching just in time to see the closing credits' being interrupted by a station promo for a new sitcom featuring an unsuccessful gas attendant who smokes around the pumps. It's not a question of
if
he'll kill himself, but
when
. Following Monday Night Football. Then a commercial for vaginal cream. I wonder why the station wants us to link those two messages. Then an Army recruitment ad. What's the LCD? "Have a ball"?
Nin switched channels and got sucked into the episode of
Monk
that consisted mostly of flashbacks to middle school, when Adrian was stuffed into his locker by a bully.
A cognac from Nin's suitcase and a copy of Kenneth Patchen's
Sleepers Awake
were all Nin needed to begin taking repose.
Nin lay down and started in on his Durante. He caught a big one but was too lazy to get up, so he buried it in his shirt.
Nan was snoring in the other bed. Nin realized that Nan was now face-up. Rolling Nan over again was hell— but Hendrix...
Nan needed a diet. Now!
Nan stopped snoring. Nin remembered a story on NPR about how each year hundreds of college students at party schools choke to death on their own vomit.
Nin personally had clung to toilet bowls and "let his face slide down the cool, smooth tile" like Jim Morrison.
They'd been unable to find out anything at Captain Snagglebeard's.
In the morning, Nan stumbled to the toilet, hung over, and threw up. Nin quickly exited to the hall and almost collided with a man wearing a pink bandana. He turned around and had a pink beard.
"Arrr... I'm Pinkbeard the Pirate" does not instill fear. Nin laughed and walked on. This hotel spares no gag.
"Hurry," said Pinkbeard. "You'll miss him!"
"Who?"
"He's speaking in the conference room!"
"Who?"
"It's the first time he's ever been here!"
"
Who
?"
"Who? Why, Emperor Pinocchibush, of course!"
"That guy with the big donkey ears? Why's he here?"
"Where have you been? This is all newly annexed territory, you landlubber. You are inside the empire."
"Oh, jeez."
Nin stopped and let Pinkbeard hurry on. Oh, no—Nin and Nan were not just criminals—they were criminals inside Pinocchibush's empire. Pinocchibush the Ruthless. Pinocchibush the Patsy. Pinocchibush the Wooden Headed. Pinocchibush the Liar. He had a thousand faces and a thousand names.
The hotel bar was open, so Nin popped in for a shot and beer before facing the Oily One. A greased pig.
Into the crowd, let's be herded.
Politicians all herd their constituents.
There he is, straw hat, barefoot, chewing on dried grass.
"Yew people of the heartland are the heart of the Empire Pinocchibush," he was saying. Nin could have sworn Pinocchibush's nose had just grown.
"We have liberated you from yourselves. Now you will fashion yourselves in our image."
Sounds like the royal "we," thought Nin.
"Bull crap!" comes a yell from a few feet back in the crowd. "You liberated us from our oil! You eat while we starve!"
The outburst was quickly subdued by the Emperor's Secret Service, the notorious ESS.
"That young man is an example of the sort of dissent a free culture cannot tolerate," said the Emperor. "His lies—" at this point his nose grew again "—are anathema to an athematic society." What?
"Your Highness?" yelled a reporter from the front rows. "Would you tell us about your new nose?"
"What nose?" He looked cross-eyed at his nose, but stopped abruptly and said, "My nose is as it always is. Are you mocking your Emperor?" And the reporter was removed by ESS.
People began whispering. His nose! It grows when he lies, like that Italian puppeteer's little masterpiece. Ah, but he can't see it! The Emperor's New Nose!
The joke spread like free beer, and soon everyone was laughing at the Emperor. He got red as a Texas chili pepper and exploded. No—that wasn't him—that was a gunshot!
Nan woke up again later. Nin? Where was Nin? Obviously, there'd been a struggle—furniture was overturned, and the bathroom smelled like the scene of a crime [Nan, of course, did not remember tripping over the furniture in the mad rush to the toilet].
Nan came to the inexorable conclusion that Nin had been forcibly removed. The lack of blood suggested kidnapping.
Nan took the Mauser from the suitcase. Loaded it. Put it in a shoulder holster, strapped the shoulder holster on, put a windbreaker over it—the windbreaker was blue and cotton-lined and had a red C in a blue circle, signifying the Chicago Cubs.
When Nan found Nin carrying on in the company of the enemy, thoughts of betrayal took over.
No—the room was not overturned in a struggle! Nin had arranged it to look that way. Nin was selling them out for thirty pieces of silver. To save Nin's own ass, Nin had betrayed them. Nin would get off easy for collaborating. Nan would fry. Oh, that's how it's going to be, is it? No way. I can't permit that.
Nan rushed towards Nin, pulled out the Mauser, pointed it at Nin and fired while tripping over some idiot's stupid feet.
The bullet lodged itself in the Emperor's ample behind. Before Nan could think, an insanely motivated Nin leapt up from the orchestra seats and landed at Nan's side, spun Nan around and pushed Nan through an exit into a waiting cab at a speed too fast for even to ESS to react to.
"For the border," said Nin. The cabbie turned around. For a second Nin thought the cabbie was Brother Sam— from behind the hair was similar. Thank goodness it wasn't. Or, rather, curses that it hadn't been!
Nan said, "This is great, just great! Now they're probably after us for attempted ass—"
"Shh!" Nin said, clapping a hand over Nan's mouth. "Taximeter cabriolets have auditory capabilities."
"And you! You were about to betray us!"
"No—not in a million years."
"But you were up there."
"Just an innocent spectator. I was carried there by the throng of the crowd."
"I thought—I was going to—"
"Shoot me? Ha ha! You've never been able to hit the side of a farm."
"A barn."
"That, too," laughs Nin. "You'd never have hurt me. It was all an accident."
"But—"
"It was all an
accident
. Now, drop it. We have to find Brother Uncle Sam."
"Excuse me!" the cabbie interjected. "You're lookin' for Uncle Sam the musician?"
"Yep."
"You're in luck. Look over there." The marquee at the Dune Beetle Lounge announced "One Night Only—In His Last Officially Permitted Concert—Uncle Sam Slammassasoit!" Apparently, the Emperor was not going to tolerate American propaganda.
"Quick!" yelled Nin, throwing a couple of bills at the cabbie. "Here we are!"
The thick, putrid aroma of thick, putrid people came pummeling all who approached, compounded by a pounding that could loosen fire hydrants from their moorings.
On stage, Uncle Sam, solo acoustic again, was caterwauling some inhuman sex song. The audience was grunting in unison.
Nan didn't want another explosion, but Nin pushed. When the god-awful noise ended, Nin rushed up to Sam, pulled his hair down towards his shoulders for attention, and said in his ear, "You will not play that song."
"What? What song?"
"Don't give me that.
The Nin and Nan Song
, you perv."
"No—not a perv. Just an opportunist. But Pinocchibush is shutting me down anyway."
"Have you done the song?"
Nan came up, too. "Yeah, have you done the song yet?"
"Sure—a couple of places before I visited you."
"Here?"
"No."
"You're lucky."
"Hey, I hate that pig Pinocchibush as much as you do. I'll tell you what—I'll lose that song forever if you can help me get artists' rights reestablished in this country. The media's been bought out by the Emperor, and the artists dominating all the charts are plants."
"What?" asked Nan. "Venus Flytraps?"
"No, goofball," said Nin. "Like government spies."
"Like revenuers?"
"Exactly like revenuers."
"Then Old Brother Sam here isn't a revenuer?"
Sam started laughing. "Me? A revenuer? That'd be the day. I spit on revenuers."
Nan looked confused. "But the song..."
"A tribute, man," replied Sam. "I heard about what you two were doing from some old sheep herder, and I thought it was cool. So I wrote the song. It's sarcastic."
That shook Nan's head. "Oh, boy," was all Nan could say.
"Cabbie!" yelled Nin once they were outside, pointing at one.
"Don't do that—I have a van. Here—help me load my equipment and I'll drive."
"Drive where?" asked Nan.
"I'm assuming you want me to help you find the shepherd."
"Excellent. Let's go, Brother!" said Nin.