“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 105: staccato

In our previous chapter, Daphne’s extra-terrestrial father -- "Mac" MacNamara -- began to present our heroes (and our not-quite heroes Frank and Brad) his apologia pro vita sua.

Scene: the bridge of one of the beautiful new 1969 flying saucers -- the ones with the mahogany trim and built-in chrome ashtrays -- in an alternate dimension somewhere between the Earth and the Moon.

(Newcomers may click here to return to the obscure beginnings of our epic.)

Mac ignored this last remark.

Dick came up from the refrigerator with a can of Pabst, turned and picked up the two fresh martinis with the splayed fingers of his left hand.

“Sorry, Mac,” he said. “Excuse me.”

“Not at all, Dick. I think I’ll just have one more splash myself before I have to take the wheel again.”

Dick went past Mr. MacNamara with the drinks, and Mac reached for the bottle of Cutty.

“I wanted to be in the casino to meet you all,” he said, pouring his splash, well, two splashes. “I begged the Home Office to send me out.”

He re-capped the bottle, picked up his glass, swirled the scotch while Dick handed the beer to Harvey and a martini to Daphne, who was half-sitting in Dick’s vacated seat. She started to get up but Dick waved her down.

Mac went on:

“I was afraid of what’d happen with this mook in charge.” Mac gestured toward Frank with his glass. Frank shrugged, and Mac paused, taking a drink.

“But they wouldn’t let me go,” he said. “Said I was too emotionally involved.”

“Q. E. fucking D.,” said Frank.

“But I knew I had to come,” said Mac. “Something didn’t smell right. Especially you, Frank. You didn’t smell right.”

“Ah, dry up.”

“But --” said Daphne, “how did you get back, Papa?”

Buddy answered her question while flicking a couple of switches:

“We hijacked this damn saucer is how we got here.”

“Oh my God,” said Daphne, “look at you two!”

“And ain’t it a beauty,” said Buddy. “I been working on this baby personally for the past five years. State of the art. Travels like a shot through four different dimensions. Man, I couldn’t wait to get this scooter on the road.”

“Buddy,” asked Daphne, “if you don’t mind my asking -- are you human?”

“Sure am, miss,” said Buddy, turning one of several small wheels just a smidgeon back and then forth. “Y’know, I first met the Major back in ’42, when he recruited me for the OSS. Now normally I fuckin’ hated officers, y’know? But the Major was different, he was a Joe. Only later did I realize how different he was. Anyways, we went through the war together, and I been with him ever since on the QT. Everybody thought I was just an easygoing mechanic in Cape May, New Jersey, who liked to go off on fishing trips whenever he felt like it. But actually I was off with the Major someplace helpin’ him out while he headed off some war or revolution in some goddam exotic clime or other.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you, Buddy,” said Mac.

“And so you went back to this other planet with him?” asked Daphne.

“What the hell,” said Buddy. “It was innerestin’. Although I gotta say it’ll be nice to get back to the Earth, get a real hot dog, a real cheesesteak -- a real dame -- hoo boy, just wait’ll I get my hands on a hot --”

“All right, Buddy --” said Mac.

“Sorry, Major.”

“Anyway,” Mac went on, “the truth is, Francis Albert here never wanted to bring you people in on the deal. I don’t know what he told you, but I’ll lay eight-to-five he offered you what looked like one sweet package all tied up with a pink ribbon.”

“I offered ‘em what you wanted to give ‘em all along,” said Frank, “-- power.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet you did,” said Mac. “But who would be the power behind the power, Frank?”

“Hey,” said Frank, “with the Sailor knocked off, it’s my job to, to oversee operations --”

“And for how long have you been trying to get the Sailor out of the way, Frank?”

“What? What?” said Frank. “The sailor and me, we go back, way back -- why, we were makin’ our bones on the Alpha Centauri caper when you were in short pants, pal. I’d’ve given my right arm for that little guy. On my mother’s grave. On all five of my mothers’ graves, may they rest in --”

“No kidding,” said Mac. “Then why’d you arrange for Hans Grupler to get involved in that heroin deal in Saigon?”

“Wha’?”

“Just when you knew Dick and Daphne would be there.”

“Hey,” said Frank, getting up off his seat, and taking a step toward Mac, who was leaning back against the bar, “it’s called coincidence, Mac.” He held up his empty glass. “Hey, Mac, ya mind if I --”

“Coincidence,” said Mac. “Like it was a coincidence that the Sailor left the ramp down on his saucer.”

Not bothering to pick up Brad’s empty glass, Frank took another couple of steps toward Mac and the bar.

“Hey, look,” he said, “do not blame me for the fuckin’ Sailor’s mistake. I told him once I told him five hundred fuckin’ thousand times, do not leave the fuckin’ ramp down. I’m just gonna help myself here, okay, Mac?”

Mac stepped away from the bar, watching Frank closely. Keeping his hands chest-high, Frank sidled past Mac to the bar.

“I knew the Sailor, too,” said Mac, as Frank poured the rest of the Gordon’s into the cocktail shaker without bothering to add more ice. “And the Sailor might’ve been a little screwy but he did not make rookie mistakes like that one. The Sailor took me down my first trip to the Earth, Frank. And the first thing he told me was, ‘Do not ever leave the ramp down.’”

Frank poured the slightly chilled gin into his glass, holding back the ice with a finger, spilling gin onto the counter.

“Hey,” he said, “everybody has their off-days, even the Sailor --”

“Especially,” said Mac, “when somebody else uses remote control to lower the ramp so somebody who doesn’t belong on a saucer can get on a saucer.”

Frank took a gulp of gin, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Fantasy,” he said. “The merest and wildest fantasy.”

“But your plan hit a little snag, didn’t it, Frank? ‘Cause Grupler and Marlene bumped off the Sailor and his buddies, but they didn’t finish the job. They didn’t bump off these three here. You’d underestimated these kids, Frank.”

“You’re fuckin’ nuts, man. You been watching too much earthling TV back home. Too much M Squad, fuckin' Johnny Staccato --”

(Continued here. As featured on the Dumont Network's Old Gold Cigarettes Amazing Adult Fantasy Playhouse, hosted by Walter Pidgeon and starring Edward Arnold, Joel McRae and Frances Farmer (Tuesdays, 9pm EST.)

I/O: god's hobby

by peter greene

illustrations by rhoda penmarq

I/O : god's hobby nobody can get into heaven: it's empty,  everyone stepped outside to take in the light and somebody  left the key behind, a  soft  click  announcing  the beginning of things, cunning lockpicks  fashioned  over millions of years  will  get  us  back  in  and  that  will  be  the  end again! then,     One   fine   evening                          someone  will   suggest  a   promenade ,on  the  clouds  outside, and    with   a  knowing   grin          inside,  we  shall   step           into  the  fire . ©Peter A. Greene 2011.

je propre la nuit, part 46

by jean-claude etranger

illustrated by roy dismas

part forty-six of fifty-two

to begin at the beginning, click here

"how about if we just go back to the station?" muldoon was getting tired of hogan and his little vendetta against clyde. he was tired of the night and the rain and the highway. all he wanted was to get home to a hot rum and bed.

part 47

Whippoorwill

The little girl Emma told her father that she hadn’t worried for a second, because her friend Zach was “an expert at worrying. He took care of everything, Daddy.”

Introducing himself as Henry, the man asked Zach the best place to send a box of Omaha steaks as a thank-you gesture.

(Click here for the first episode; here for the previous one.)

“Not necessary,” Zach said. “Besides, I’m a vegetarian.”

“Are you sure?”

 Zach waved good-bye to Emma and recalled one-upmanship Midwestern style: out-nice the other guy.

The airline had retrieved his carry-on, which was dropped at his feet while a doctor took his blood pressure for the fourth time. Zach signed a release and before he could call a taxi, UNO’s President Larry Blount rushed into the hospital. He drove Zach to his big, cheerful home and asked if he could use a drink.

“Yes, I suppose I could. Thank you.”

“Wait, have you eaten? My wife’s spending two weeks at a spa in Texas but I can grill a few hamburgers.”

“The airline treated us to sandwiches,” Zach said.

Sitting outside, they sipped Hennessy XO.

“Good for the heart,” Larry said, “and the soul.”

And Zach said, “That whippoorwill sounds very close.”

“I keep old branches and thistles in the yard and one comes every summer. Are you familiar with birds, Zach?”

“I used to be, when I was a Boy Scout.”

“That’s right. Eagle and NESA—noticed that on your CV.”

“Most people probably don’t list such an early position, but to this day being an Eagle Scout is my finest achievement.”

“Exactly how I feel, Zach. The BSA is very big here. You know—the Scott Foundation.”

“Oh, yes.” Zach certainly should have known about it. He knew that Omaha supported a symphony, art galleries, museums, an opera, and dance companies. And he knew the Fontenelle Forest Association’s range of biodiversity: over two hundred species of warblers.  How had he overlooked the Scott Foundation, whose name seemed to be everywhere?

The committee meeting was at four p.m. What would Zach enjoy doing? Walking in the forest.

Among the oaks and hickories, Larry told him that he’d seen bald eagles the last five winters. “One year I watched a nest. Ever seen bald eagles in flight, Zach?”

 “Never. When I was a kid, they were still endangered.”

The men were bird-watching until they happened to zoom in on an attractive, slight woman right in front of them listening for woodpeckers. She jumped to her feet and Larry said, “Zach Severins, this is Kristina Marius.”

An hour later, driving back, Larry explained that Kristina taught environmental biology and was very popular with all the students. “Especially this year with the tuition protesters, which is curious because she’s related to all of Omaha’s well-to-do.”

“You mean, Warren Buffet?”

Larry didn’t know about that, only that she was a prominent board member with every enterprise, for profit or non.

What had impressed Zach was her smile. Kristina’s eyes scrunched up, each one curving symmetrically with her mouth. Her eyes and hair appeared to be the same color as her sprinkling of freckles.

Hours later, when Larry issued Zach into the committee meeting, there she was, wearing a turquoise dress and a Navajo squash blossom necklace. Her wispy light brown hair was twisted up elegantly. She stood; the others didn’t. And smiling the same sweet, funny smile, she extended her hand. “Good to see you again, Zach.”

Everyone wanted to hear about the plane’s crash landing. Zach tried to discuss his ideas for urban planning and cleaner transportation.

Finally, the committee acknowledged that his partnership with the Younger Institute’s Director of Development counted as a plus. That in itself was a pleasant surprise. But Larry used it to address Zach’s over-the-top compensation. Ostensibly speaking to Zach, he said: “As you all know, we’re striving to fulfill the growing demand for education and committed to becoming a leading research center. But when we raised tuition last year, we faced a small but vocal group of protesters. Luckily, Zach’s extremely good at raising capital and nurturing long-term development.”

That evening at a very good restaurant, Larry confided that Zach could count on becoming dean and administrator. “Naturally, I would never tell you if I weren’t certain.”

Before driving him to the airport the next morning, Larry showed Zach the Missouri River. The morning sun on the water reminded him of the yearly canoe trips he took with his son Matt—last year being the exception. 

Flying straight from Omaha to visit Vida and the babies, he mapped out a canoe trip on the Delaware River. Three days, three nights: If he and Matt started from Milford Beach, they could land at Kittatinny Point. The trip would include white water excitement without pushing them. For once, Zach wanted adventure without strain.

Matt, however, wouldn’t answer his phone; he had even turned off his voice mail. From his apartment, Zach tried his old home number, because unless Beth had updated the phone, it wouldn’t flash his name.

Matt said, “Hey,” but before Zach said anything, the boy breathed irritably. “No, Dad, I haven’t found a job. Mom thinks something might turn up where she and Wren work out.”

“That’s not why I’ve been trying to reach you, Matt.”

“Yeah? Well, I won’t start as a trainer or anything. Probably laundry.”

“Matt, I’ve mapped out a three-day canoe trip for us—whenever you’re free.”

“Let me check with Mom. I need to know she’s safe.”

 “Matt, she’s looked after you your whole life. Why wouldn’t she be safe?”

“Last year, some guy slugged her. Know anything about that, Dad?”
  
“Matt, did your mother say I hit her?”

“She’d never say that, no matter what you did to her.”

“Ask her, Matt. As I recall, last year she underwent some serious dental work.”

“Is that what you tell yourself? Dental work?”

“Matt—you know…” Zack didn’t say out loud the words making him twitch. Faster than he could grasp, little Emma and her powerful sense of mortality rose in his mind.  So—permit Matt his hostility. Be glad he loved his mother.

“Can I book the trip for July?”

“Make it August.”

“Any three days you’re free, Matt.”

“Fine.”

“Promise?”

“I said, fine.” His son hung up.

(click here for the next episode)

tales of the hotel st crispian, chapter 38: "in a civilized manner"

by horace p sternwall

illustrated by roy dismas and rhoda penmarq



for complete episode, click here

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 104: righteous

Larry Winchester, that master novelist (not to mention cinéaste, raconteur and gourmand), now responds to the question that’s been crowding our mailbox lately, i.e., “What up with the gang in the flying saucer?”

(Go here for our preceding chapter. Newcomers can go here to start the whole damn thing, absolutely free of charge at least until the next presidential term.)

Harvey had sat down in the seat to the left of Buddy, and as he listened to Mac’s tale he watched the overhead screens, especially the one showing Enid and Hope with Moloch in the truck, riding in convoy with the Motorpsychos in slow motion through the desert night.

Mac paused now, swiveled his chair to the left and stubbed out his cigarette in the built-in ashtray.

Daphne had been half-sitting on Dick’s thigh. She reached over and touched her father’s shoulder. He patted her hand, took a deep breath, shook his head slightly, lifted his coffee cup from its saucer on the console ledge. The cup was empty.

“Do you want some more coffee, Papa?”

He shook his head, put the cup back down. He took out his Chesterfields, paused again, then laid the pack on the ledge.

“Okay,” he said, with another sigh. “I guess that’s when it really changed for me. When I saw you for the first time. When I realized that I had -- well -- helped to create a life.”

A tear appeared in Daphne’s eye.

She stood up, put both her hands on her father’s head, and kissed his cheek.

“Not a dry eye in the house,” said Frank.

Mac cast a cold eye on Frank.

Frank shrugged, picked up his almost-empty martini, plucked out the olive and put it in his mouth.

“Excuse me, Bubbles,” said Mac, his voice thick.

She stood away as he got up and walked over to the refreshments nook. He took down a bottle of Cutty Sark and a rocks glass, uncapped the bottle, poured himself a couple of fingers. He took a drink.

“Anyway, from that day on I realized that what we’d been doing on the earth was wrong.” He took another, smaller drink. “Dead wrong.”

“We didn’t do nothin’ the earthlings weren’t already doin’,” said Frank.

“Maybe so, Frank,” said Mac. “But I knew one thing: I couldn’t do it any more. I decided that from then on I’d do what I could to keep earthlings from killing each other. You see, I’d discovered something we don’t have in our world.”

He took a sip of the Cutty.

Back in Paco’s hut, Derek and Paco were still watching the movie on Paco’s little black-and-white Philco.

“He’s talking about scotch,” said Derek.

“Not scotch, you idiot,” said Paco. “He’s talkin’ about --”

“Love,” said Mac.

“Che marron’!” said Frank.

“So I did what I could,” said Mac, ignoring or maybe not even hearing what Frank had said. “I exercised what influence I could -- with --” he nodded at Frank, “with this schmuck --” Frank raised his glass in salute; Mac went on, “-- with the Sailor, and the Home Office. And on Earth I worked -- behind the scenes. Things got a little dicey a few times, but I think I managed to help avert a few wars. I think I was -- useful -- during the Cuban Missile Crisis. But I could only do so much. You see, if I went too far, if the Home Office found out what I was really up to, they would pull me. But I knew that in the long run I needed help, and I knew it wasn’t going to come from my crowd. I needed human help. And that’s why I kept an eye on you, Dick. I had spotted your qualities from the first time I met you, at that Christmas party at your parents’ place, back in ’53. So I took an interest in your career. Helped to get you into Naval Intelligence.”

“Yeah,” said Frank. “So he spends the next few years pulling off wet jobs for the CIA.”

“That,” said Mac, “I had nothing to do with. Although I’m not so sure you can say the same, Frank.”

Frank made an open-handed Who? Me? gesture.

“I helped to organize Q Section,” Mac went on, “thinking that it would be a useful -- vehicle for you, Dick. And on the personal front I helped fix you up with Daphne --”

“You did?” said Daphne.

“Sure,” said Mac. “You think it was mere chance that you and Dick sat near each other at the Devon Horse Show that day? Y’see, I had this -- this crazy idea. To try to start a new élite on the Earth. An élite who would try to -- to lead the others --”

“Onto the path of righteousness,” said Frank, “and all that other mother jazz.”


Dick finished his martini, picked out the olive and ate it.

“There was already something brewing,” said Mac. “Nowadays they’re calling it the Spirit of the Sixties, the Aquarian Age, whatever --”

“Gimme a fuckin’ break,” said Frank, lighting up a cigarette and clicking the lighter shut with an insolent snap. “That’s a lot of hippy-dippy horseshit and you know it.”

“Well, for once,” said Mac, “I agree with you, Frank. But -- call me nuts --” he poured himself another shot of Cutty, then leaned back against the counter --”but -- I thought that if I could get people like you, Dick, and Daphne and Harvey here, and Hope, if we could get you together, maybe mankind could -- take another step. Stop the killing, stop the fighting.”

“Never fucking happen,” said Frank.

“That’s your opinion,” said Mac.

“That is my educated opinion,” said Frank. “I know these people. I have worked with these people. For some several fuckin’ millennia I been working with these maniacs. Do not tell me my business.”

“Look,” said Mac, “our race stopped having wars. The human race can, too.”

“You are walking on the street of dreams, my friend,” said Frank. “You are gone. Like way gone. I mean like out there, daddy-o.”

“But, Papa,” said Daphne. She still stood by Mac’s empty chair, and she was chewing her olive, having finished her drink some time ago, “why did you leave?”

Dick had gotten up, and he now took Daphne’s empty glass.

“I started getting static from the Home Office,” said Mac. “In Frank’s parlance I was ‘blowing the operation’.”

Dick brought Daphne’s empty glass and his own over to the refreshments nook.

“Go on, Mac,” he said, "I’m just going to reload these.”

“Good boy,” said Mac, getting out of Dick’s way, as Dick went to work mixing up a new batch of martinis. "Anyway, I got orders I was to stop working on my own. And they wanted me to concentrate on stepping up activity in Vietnam. I refused, and I demanded to take the next saucer back. And that’s where I’ve been these past five years -- arguing my case. I knew I couldn’t get operations suspended on the earth, but at least I hoped to be able to arrange to give earthlings a little more control over their destiny. My selling point was that this would make the ongoing human melodrama more interesting to the paying customers back home. But what I didn’t tell them was that my real plan was for mankind to get its shit together enough that it’d be something a little bit more than the entertainment industry for my race. And -- after five years of conferences, red tape, negotiations, infighting, compromise -- I finally got the Home Office to agree to give a certain amount of power to you, Dick --” Dick was pouring out two fresh martinis, “and to Daphne, and Harvey, and Hope.”

Dick popped an olive into each of the martinis.

“Excuse me, Mac,” he said. “Another beer, Harvey? Or a whiskey?”

“I’ll take another Pabst, sir,” said Harvey, still sitting in his chair by the console.

Dick pointedly did not ask Frank or Brad if they wanted refills.

“Please go on, Mac,” he said, and he opened the refrigerator.

“So the Sailor was sent down to pick all of you up,” said Mac. “Of course, things didn’t quite work out as planned.”

“No kidding,” said Frank.

(To be continued because the show must go on.)

timor mortis: it's in the wee hours

by peter greene

illustrations by rhoda penmarq

timor mortis: it's in the wee hours it's in the wee hours that you can see the nothing, that far too small door that we all have to go through ; also,  that's when my nanomechanical tiny toy swordsmen defeated the ants! Charged by the sunlight, they'd guarded my bed, eyes glowing yellow pink amethyst blue in the darkness, claymores and lead longswords held ready. Then! When the brutes advanced , they swung  into action,  chopping some   heads and shearing  many limbs; the  fearful clatter       as one of them was dragged  away       into the hive was echoed by  shouts  of woe  and  i                  awoke ,    turned  on   the lamp -too   late , their              charge  had   gone  and  they stood  silent,   metal          hair   long  and proud  in  Eastern              braid  and    Northern                                             ragtail -all             dull  with  fighting , their                    grey toy surfaces   and              blunt                     their great and tiny swords - one            missing, but O!                            last  night                                      they  slew  a  horde. the             corpses                     in the morning                                       of course                                                had been              dragged away by                            ant - crews                          and    by                                  ghoulish   little  beasts of prey -                      survivors   eaten  ,one  way  or the other - only                                nicks  scratches  and  a  certain                               look    in    blank metal  eyes - only  those           remain                                                     those,  and a couple of                                                                                         lone  legs. ©Peter A. Greene 2011.