Hi, my name is Al, Al Jr. actually, but just call me Al. I work at The Big Outlet
Store. In the mornings before opening we all stand out in the parking lot and do The Big Outlet Store Chant. The brisk air, the scattered clouds
turned to fire. It builds solidarity. Many customers arrive early just to join in. Then we
go to work...
Our store is the biggest in a five state region.1,000,000 square feet. We give out maps
to customers, we have trams circling the perimeter, we have the biggest selection of
toothpaste in the world. We have a full-sized cabin cruiser hanging from the ceiling,
propellers slowly rotating above our heads, churning through a sea of air, thirty foot
high walls of artificial flowers, giant bins of plushy pillows and, best of all, an
archway made of Styrofoam coolers. I invented that one myself! We have side venues where
you can bank, get a haircut or a nose job or a sex change, yes, we even have a full
surgery! Our shopping carts have linkages like rail cars so serious customers can form
trains of carts. We have a three-cart special, fill up to three carts and you get a free
corn dog. When the store opened a holy man
blessed the place, he got a new gas grill.
I wear a uniform, it makes me feel very important. I keep my area neat and clean,
products arranged to perfection in endless rows. I studied linear stacking theory in
college (Big Outlet Store University). I'm a certified expert on the use of the ShelfMAN
aisle-arrangement software. I did my thesis on the pyramidal arrangement of soda cans. I
sight a disturbance - region 15, sector 20, aisle 53. A customer is having an epileptic
fit. Our lighting is specially timed to discourage rational decision making, some people
are just too sensitive. The customer has disturbed the order of the shampoo, the rigid
arrangement of product and shelf. I become activated, commanding, a general directing his
troops. There must be restoration of order. The offending perpetrator is thrown out into
the parking lot where he lies twitching over an oil spot. Shelves are realigned, shampoo
is daubed off the floor. Peace once again reigns in the world of shopping...
I'm going out with a waitress. Her name is Diane.
We met over a steaming plate of buffalo meat. She's studying to be a teacher. Under a
prison scholarship. She had an abusive husband. One night drunk he beat her son bloody and
then raped and beat her before passing out. Hours later she killed him with a single shot
through the brain. She got 5 to 10 and was out in 3 for good behavior. Her son is still
back in Sinking Springs, he is cared for by a live-in nurse. She is going to buy a
computer with an NRA loan. She was their poster girl last year. She teaches gun safety at
the pre-school. Armed three-year-olds are important for the defense of liberty but safety
always comes first.
Sunday mornings I go to Montoya's Elkhorn Cafe to read the paper and drink coffee. The main Elkhorn is mounted on a plaque made
out the same dark red naugahyde material as the booths. Only difference is no gray duct
tape where the larger customers split the seats. The horns intersect the plaque in a
pleated heart shape and more pleats and buttons give the impression that one rare day the
horns grew miraculously from the warm naugahyde after a particularly long encounter w/ a
diner. On the east wall is a counter w/ a back mirror that reflects the other lessor
elkhorns mounted on the opposite wall. One can sit on a stool and look at oneself w/ what
appears to be horns growing out of ones' head. An endless source of amusement on slow
days. On the ceiling in front of a partition separating the kitchen hangs a large
industrial heater. Behind it on a wall glows a bug zapper. On the outside plate glass
windows are wanted posters for right-wing terrorists hiding in the mountains. At the main table a group of heavyset middle-aged Bikers
for Jesus cavort about, playfully tossing fishes and loaves. There seems to be an
unusually large number of families w/ congenital defects eating here today, three
generations spiraling down to a cusp of drooling imbecility. Some I recognize as shoppers from the Store. Over there are a couple of regulars, Gus and Sam. They're talkin' dozers as usual. I look at the paper:
"Squirrel to Blame for Power Outages!"
In 90 point headlines. They are going to hang the lil' critter in front of the Court
House on Monday at High Noon. I've got to remember to take my lunch break then so I can be
there. Maybe they'll stuff it and place it here in the cafe, next to the register so you
can idly stroke it while waiting for change.
I had a dream last night. It was like one of those flying dreams, I am flying alright,
but through time rather than space. A special view of time, that of entropy and
collapse, human collapse, the collapse of human things, yes, I am seeing the collapse of
human things, first the caves, ten of thousands of years of smoke and dust and scratchings
on the walls, a million mammoth bones, a few chunks of flint, then the dusty broken pots
the ruined kivas the rubble of house and ball court, then things speed up, a mountain
stained red and yellow like a gigantic bleeding heart and an immense staircase like affair
straight up the side up up into the towering heights, yes, but broken w/ beams and
iron rails pointing here and there and long snaky rusted metal cables, some still strong
but others fallen to dust and broken strands and there on the ground a forlorn rag of
rotted canvas, whole cars stripped and beaten to lie like rocks and stumps in the grassy
fields, wooden barns and houses pulled inward as if by strings, the tannery, lonely and
boarded barbed and forbidden lost by the river and now the whole town, yes, a wave is
passing through the valley and at it's edge is collapse, the visual collapse of reality as
the form of things change and it does not break apart like pixels but like a halftone as
the spots get larger, a fuzzy vibrating spotted collapse and behind the wave are people in
the fuzzy broken houses, they look Guatemalan by their clothes and they are taking things
they are taking the last possessions of the houses and stuffing them into great black
bags, great negative holes in the fabric of vision and the wave is sweeping upon me it is
passing toward The Big Outlet Store and I am standing with my co-workers we are trying to
stop it but it is useless it is useless to stop this wave...for it is the wave of the
future...and then a bird flew in my
face, and I awoke .........sigh........these cheese enchiladas are so flat somebody must
of made them w/ a press.
Today is going to be quite a day, first a Big Parade and then the Great Duck Race.
Later on a Rodeo featuring a Wild Cow Milking Contest. I'm going to be in the Parade and then meet Diane at the Duck race. The rodeo
somehow reminds her of her ex-husband, we won't be going there.
I am part of the official scooper patrol at the end of the race. There are lots of
horses you know. Part of my duty to my service organization, "Kaiwanis of the Narrow
Mind", they also run the Great Duck Race. I have a shovel and we have a Hummer w/ a
large box strapped to the top. I wear a uniform and am proud to do such an important
service.
The Parade begins...a contingent of shaved
bears lumbers down the street, owned by the real estate companies. Sub-cutaneous
processors mitigate melanin reactions to spell out advertisements on their skin, Coldwell
Banker and Prudential. VR hoods over their faces make them think they are still in the
forest. Next is Gus & Sam's
"Dozers on Parade", a five block long affair w/ everything from roadway
crunching MegaDozers to delicate insect-like household dozers, stepping lightly on six
pointed legs. Here comes a Senator, riding a Phalanx of Semi's,
trying to look like the common man. No one waves or claps. Next lesser politicians,
representatives from the various reservations, horse patrols, horse kings and queens,
clowns, more horses, the boys from Ronnie's Johnies are there, dressed in drag as always,
merrily jumping in and out of Porta holes. Sticking their heads in the honey wagon tank,
it's a high stress occupation...all and all a grand time...Now my turn. A light rain has
turned the road apples to road apple sauce, but we have bags of sawdust to handle that. We
are efficient, quick, the crowd is pleased. Then some teenager calls me an asshole. I whip
around, swinging the shovel in a graceful arch. Me, shovel, road apple and target become
as one in a glorious Zen dance of impact. The police haul him and his buddies away, it is
illegal to be between the age of 13 and 18 in this state anyway, he shouldn't of been on
the street.
Now for the Great Duck Race. At the beginning of the year I dutifully reported to the
biogenetics lab to get my duck (or rather duck egg) and my modification kit. The lab is
one of those fake Santa Fe affairs with rough pink stucco to look like adobe and cement
"beams" sticking out of the walls. A style I don't like. The attendant that day
is a transgenetic, the first I'd seen in this town. Sharp muzzle ending in a dark wet
nose, large canines, sagging lips, a lolling panting tongue. Four rows of teats are
arranged under her modified dress from high on her chest to her lower belly. When she
handed me the egg a drop of drool hit my hand. The only thing I could think of was
"Wut a bitch!"
The purpose is to raise a duck modified especially to win the race. The winning duck is
purchased by Monsanto for further study. Military uses, big bucks. Everyone has their
special modifications, oily secretions that make the duck look like it is shellacked,
oversized feet, although they would often break off, and so forth. The one modification
everyone uses is no rectum. The ducks don't shit. Until the race the ducks are hooked up
to a colostomy bag, but the day before the race this is removed and the incision sealed.
This seems to give the ducks additional recourse to swim, as if frantically trying to
escape their impending doom. And they do explode, often..., the trick is to design them to
make it to the finish line, where relief is waiting. A careful balancing act, I'm not that
good at it but it is my civic duty to try.
We are at the finish line, a bridge now closed to traffic. Just downstream at a landing
are people to retrieve and relieve the winning duck, Monsanto officials and lab techs,
various town bigwigs and the Senator to declare a winner. The starting point is about a
mile up stream at the High School. We listen to the start-up on radios. It is total chaos.
Many of the ducks have exploded prematurely in their boxes, causing a great mess. A
maddened frightened flock has tried to flee for shore where they are met by the football
team w/ hockey sticks who fling them back into the river. Finally a group heads
downstream, the race has started. We wait on the bridge. It's a long wait, children fidget
and fret. The river, swollen by the rain, runs turgid and brown. Diane says she is going down to the landing to get a better look
at the Senator. I didn't know she was political? But she's a quiet type, doesn't say much.
So who's to know? Then, in the distant rapids, there is movement. It's a flock of real
ducks, flying downstream and quacking loudly as if trying to warn nature of the coming
abomination. And here they come! Necks craning, legs pumping, a wake of feet and bills and
assorted duck parts flowing in front of them. None of the ducks is mine. Muffled
explosions rock the bridge. The crowd cheers, a winning duck has crossed the finish line.
They scoop it up w/ a net. The Senator holds it aloft, three more explosions, has the duck
exploded? No, someone has shot the Senator, three red blossoms have appeared on his chest.
Fortunately they didn't drop the duck, a highly modified model w/ TWO PAIRS OF WEBBED
FEET! The town is going to be buzzing about this one for awhile! I find Diane and we head home. A great day has ended, and tomorrow morning
in front of The Big Outlet Store, we'll really have something to chant about!
Al's Photo Album
