FIRST OF THE FINAL WARS
You looked forward, didn't you?
What type of righter is this? Left here? Alone? Directions are scuffed and the street plates play hide & seek. Invitation printed on worst kind of paper, the ink’s bleeding all making up CMYK under my nails. Weird ass guy handed it to me while I was brushing my teeth this morning. Crazy bracelets wearing a helmet for a haircut. Why is it always the bathroom?
“Oh.
I remember now.
This already happened.”
We all met at the Tower.
Every strange little word. Every reference you didn’t get. The weird personalities with decades of backstory waiting to be invented straight off the dome. Think about all of them. Maybe you’ll recognize a few, feel that back neck scratch where his or her name has been mentioned before. Who knows if the frustration will be eased, like finally getting a face you couldn’t pronounce right. All the smiles matter because they all came from the same place, back to the same place.
We all stood at the Tower.
Click-Click. Prerecorded mix-tape in the kaBoom-Box.
Danke Schwein, Darlin’ Danke Schwein…
♩♪ Thank You for all the Ploy and Vain…
Trickster shows, Beckon Cavalry, ♩♪
♩♪ Must we face Deceit? Reckon Cheat?
Silver Heat? On the Beat?
Hail Babylon. Hail Pinnacle. Bāb-ilim, mighty God-Gate. They made Was and Will-Be into Now: one big paste to keep the blocks together, nice and tight. And The Story, if you didn’t get it before-
The boys and girls and in-betweens sailed up the vines of Gardens Hanging. All the bricks and all the bones to dance the Shinar-Shimmy! Throw em up! Jenga-Jam! Scrape the Sky! Of course God deserves an invitation. Step up! Nick the Stevie-Springs, drink my chrome monologue like a capri-sun. We all speak the same slang here. I love us now, staying up until 5am while we talk about the scary stuff on the dark web and how different our middle schools were! It was recess every day in the Babbling Summertime, back when we were still kids.
God said No. Puzzle pieced the language. Knocked down the Legos. Inviting the crasher to the party was the right choice. It was the only thing to do. The thing It was supposed to do. Fall. Fall.
“ F A L L . ”
Reverse Exodus. Who's back? Whomever you guess will be a correct answer. George Perez splash page of ‘Where's Waldo’ crowd cam dictated by Homer, the Biblical Genealogy was just a short list. People dressed in colors we've no capacity to process, titles with an accent we lack tongues to properly roll. Population of Everywhen standing around like freshmen at Homecoming. Cliqued up and whispering. Anxious and hormonal. Nobody has the courage to dance yet.
Orfeu reveals his Lyre. He starts playing See You In September. It sounds beautiful.
The music turns headsman and splits the crowd in two. They can’t agree on which version of the song Orfeu is playing: is it by The Tempos? Or Gerry & The Pacemakers?
We becomes Us. We becomes Them.
Dis Side: Ahura Mazda. Travesti Trynyti, the Drag-Devil. Orphan Oeddy. The Cadmus Crew. The Host of Julie See-Czar. Mister Mars + his Gemini-kids. Cig-lipped Money-Boy-Beaucoup. The Jungle Gang. The Satan-Ship. Archer-Astra. Brother-Other.
Dat Side: Angra Mainyu. The Riverbed Association. The Great White West. The Bombozos. The Olive-Skinned Men. The Bughouse Bureau. What's His Face's Monster + All You Zombies. The Pantyhose Harpies. The Peanut Gallery. The Fame-Wolf. Ymir.
And we are all Enemy.
He steps out of your eye corner. Tonight’s host. The Party Planner. The Millennial Terror. Urban Shaman comes marching home. He's been waiting here. In the little hole he dug next to The Tower. Writing his gospel. Listening to all the songs you know and love on repeat.
Enter Party Boy. Someone give him a Hallelujah.
Can't you see these prosthetic limbs? Dreamed of movie magic. Silver Screen Armory Forging Funk, just shower-singin & spot on impressions. Eunuch-Me makeover, still same old Grotesque, but with some eyeliner this time. Swat the flies away and put on the Ray-Bands. Or you can use mine... at least until the Epilogue.
The crescendo Kampf. Struggle climax. Hoping the a-ha's are still in stock. April redux. Something bigger. Heracles couldn't handle this. Way more than Twelve Labors. Greased up dancing shoes. Alpha-Place eye in the sky. Army of incoherence at my beck and call. There’s a Bomb in my pocket.
Read the whole thing a hundred times.
Between the lines.
Between the ears.
Because this shot heard round will end the War.
'Of' is on her way.
Both sides wait in anticipation. Go on, Party Boy… tell us what you’re thinking!
“Hi. I’m Party Boy. Thanks for coming. You all can fight now.”
Blades and bullets thrown to the ground. Knuckles tightened in every color. Orfeu plays the sandstorm as if it were a Superbowl. The Twisting. The Shouting. The Bangin. The Kickin. Everybody sings a different song. But it’s all from the same album. Party Boy hears only one track.
“Scene of Color
Beauty of Light
Of Stone, of Salt
Laying on Blue
In arms of the Cross
I see you Infernal
That Ridge just like
In Honolulu, Caxias, Xerem...
Summer of Babel,
Beneath the Night
I cross my Love...
Oh, Oh, there, there...
Difficult to wrest
Your bad luck games
Easier to understand
Someone's who wants only...
Only wants, Only wants
Your angora lips...
Love…
Brunette
Love...
Brunette
Love...”
Drumbeat hooves sound from other side of the steppe. The Black Mare & The Skeleton Stallion. The Four Horsemen behind them. Lex Macedon & Lady Dharma watch blood paint the sand.
Party Boy waves at them. They don’t wave back. Lady Dharma points to the stars. Look up there. Sky dogs descending. Something to do with Sirius. Wolves and all. What would Willy Lee say?
Best pack pistol for party favors. Fun & Games Will Tell what shatters the glass.
Blindfold's off. Asteroids swim in loomy-gloom. Lacy Dark Red. Summer nosebleeds before bed. All Fall Long. Cain on his way back after all these years. Or something of the like. Lands in the middle of the brawl. God didn’t come down this time. It sent her. His favorite daughter. The Agent Change. An Ice Queen in leather boots. The Dashing Desperado. A voice speaks up for everyone:
“I don’t think that’s John Wayne…”
The Dashing Desperado blows a snot rocket from her right nostril. It catches a pebble before her feet, turns it into a-
B
L H
A O
C L
K E
Monster Mouth, Mummudrai Eventuality, just sitting on porch. Snaps at me to walk up steps. Wants to put me in a headlock. Pin my arm back. Make me say uncle. And then keep going. Choke out the funny bones, arrows in the Achilles, dead leg, big spit in my ear.
The bad brudda known never. The mean one. Strangled in the womb.
Keep Madam-made CONTACT as North Star. Dragonfly Nostalgia. Shakespeare Society throwing soirees every night. No tickets back there. Best to leave them as happy memories.
Let’s ask for help. Guru! Magus! You too Anaxagoras! Open Hallway!
Meet me on the street again! Make a new Remember! I swear I'm not a poser!
"A-gain be-will rel-eased yu! Not Gu-ru yur am-I!"
Out-of-Order drools jumbled words. Standard dyslex-advice. I understand the message.
Magick can bust the jam.
Stick to what I’m good at.
Slam Rap. Battle Poetry.
Here goes Everything:
Movie-Blue.
Velvet You.
Always a Blame Game.
They Said & They Said.
Slice Dice.
Two Legs, Two Blades.
Kill Me to make Me real.
Afternoon Matinee.
At your House with the TV.
Massage in the Mirror.
Soup Cans in Group Hands.
The Tape you annotated.
The Writing never Good Enough to Share.
Was it Romance?
The Singularity is snuffed out. Unborn baby brother back to the Vault. Vomits everyone onto the dirt. Party Boy fixes bowl-cut, sees through his bangs. Someone’s here who wasn’t with us before.
It’s Raw Aloha in bleach black denim. Vanta-Vanta. By her side is The Gun on a leash. Still sobbing for some godforsaken reason. Tomatoes on their breath. They help Party Boy up to his feet.
The Hellenistas ride down the steppe, stopping between them and the Desperado. Four Horsemen corral her, each drawing a Chicago Typewriter. Lex Macedon dismounts, the party flyer in hand.
“You walk between pages. You write with the Argent Alphabet. You breathe in the Sixth Sense. Have you ears for the Chorus of Judgement?”
“Well… I have a Bomb in my pocket.”
Party Boy gives them The Bomb. It's a tape. He tells them to play it on the kaBoom-Box, sitting in his trench next to The Tower. Lex, Lady Dharma, and Raw Aloha walk toward the Pinnacle. Sun is Down. Night dolls up for shift. They find the hole. Lady Dharma doesn’t enter with them.
"Lex, I lied to you. I am working tonight."
He gives zero shits. This moment is bigger than her seduction. Lex Macedon places the tape inside. Presses play. It’s some Brazilian song from the 80’s. Neither of them speak Portuguese.
“Never thought I’d make it to 16 minutes. Do you have anything to say, Bad Guy?”
"I think I want to see my Dad again."
Lex and Aloha embrace. It is an alien closeness. Raw Aloha sheds a tear for the both of them. A Reaper’s chill infiltrates the infant evening. Lady Dharma is gone. And then the tape runs out.
“ B O O M .”
The strings on Orfeu's lyre snap. Everyone still fighting halts to witness the Night sky torn with the bellow of a billion trumpets. The Tower spills like bone broth. Sand spun glass moves in all directions as airborne spores. Silver rubbish snows across the battlefield. The only remains of Raw Aloha & Lex Macedon found in the wreckage are their skeletons, still holding each other.
The Desperado has defeated the Four Horsemen. They never had a chance. She looks at The Gun, who has stopped crying. Gestures to them. They open their cylinder and gives her the Last Bullet.
Party Boy wipes his leaking nose as she approaches. He can't stop himself from smiling.
“Summer & Babel have yielded to The Fall. Don’t know what else you were expecting. Ah. Yes. The other Bomb. In my other pocket. I saved this one for You.”
Party Boy pulls a letter from his pants, reading it out loud to the Dashing Desperado:
It's Sunday Afternoon and I'm looking at You. Like a Seurat in the Chicago Art Museum. The Child & the Mother. Holding hands. Space-Time Pointillism. The Dots & the Strings built across. The Sentences between the Periods. The Letters we sing to fill them. Cute flyers & films were the only things needed to get everyone here. My Maenads have arrived just in time. All those pretty people out & about with stories to tell. I love all of them, the piercings they hide & the conditioner they use & the languages they practice beneath the covers. But I’ve seen the true face of anti-artifice obsession, the magic bullet words. For all my vaudeville, You give me guillotine preaching, like we’re Siamese Over-Gods worshipping at each other’s thrones. Can suicide grant me a ticket into Your own personal heaven? Excuse me while I adjust; my sex has been activated by feeling Your pulse-poetry through our embrace. Restraint is the government of the game, the dirty dream witch hunt. Save fantasy ruin for pillow pondering, like bag bottom grocery store coupons. Is it so bad that I’m not a woman? Lay a billion-billion silver screen sweethearts, save them from Ogre-Oligarchy. Kiss them all for me. Death is Truth is Dharma. Madam Warhol is liberated. No sleepovers necessary. Let’s go back to the afterclass, when mystery still ran side the watering hole. Keep secrets again, there are still so many You’ll never know, sitting between my teeth. Enough with the declarations. Enough patronizing. Enough facade. I still love You like leaves breathe. Like dogs sleep. Like boys run. Like girls smile. Like stars watch. Like winds blow. Like we write.
The Desperado gets the signal instantly. Her gun blows a kiss for the last time. It sounds familiar, like sad Nancy Sinatra. The same story. Over & Over & Over.
Guy. Gal. Gun.
Party Boy falls to his knees, head hanging, golden blood dripping from his breast.
There aren’t any rounds left in the chamber, the Fun & Games are gone, the piece is useless. She drops it in the sand and leaves, knowing how free she’s made him, how free he is to come back.
The remains of the Tower are used to rebuild Wall #4. No one cares. Everyone goes home.
Un-saved thoughts spin in Gold-Sink: The Ferrari is still wrecked. I’m not going to marry her. Grenade Sister in juvie. Mamas & Papas found out about today. I’m getting expelled. Stop signs are torn down. It’s illegal to look around. You could never hear me through the screen. You just imagined it was something that made sense.
Life slow-moves like a galactic soliloquy.
I don’t think anyone misses me.
The Day is done.