reX.'s
raMbles! . . .
suN.day.
noV. 18th 2001
maRk
aLLen's oDDysssey...
As
told to Dan-o and Brendan on thier way to a wedding
by an ancient mariner...
... (well,
actually it was just a gay union ceremony and the adventure
was told to us by some giggling waiter at the reception
on board the Queen Mary.)
It was ending
like the beginning of a bad novel, it being a dark and
stormy night. Mark was driving out of Texas and had
just left "the Compound". "The Compound"
was Mark's name for his parents home. The house and
surrounding land seemed excessive and overwhelming for
two people, he thought, and so it had earned the name.
He only stayed long enough to make a respectful visit,
reclaim some of the memorabilia from his youth, and
visit Big Lake Park. The visit to Plano was a mix of
emotions. Part of him had been anxious to see it all
again, part of him had certain trepidation to see any
of it again, and for miles and miles he had been trying
to sort it out. Now it was behind him. "Oh whatever"
he thought, "I'll sort it all out when I get back
to New York." At least he had known he would have
a good time in Austin and did, indeed, have a good time
in Austin.
For now
he was on the road headed to Bakersfield, soon to visit
Casa Rex II. In his passenger seat he could see some
of the cherished Wizard of Oz dolls he had endlessly
played with as a kid. They all made him feel happy,
with exception of the wicked witch doll. She was pure
evil. She made him think of another irritant and that
triggered the thought, "This could be her voodoo
doll. A sort of voodoo-dew doll."
Almost as immediately as he giggled at that, the car
hit what he first thought must be a pot-hole, then the
car stopped responding to the steering controls. There
was a flash of lightening and an immediate crash of
thunder. Frantically Mark tried to steer the car though
the blinding rain and darkness as the storm raged. The
car didn't respond to anything. Mark grabbed at all
the controls, any controls. He blew the horn, stomped
the breaks, threw on the emergency hazard lights. Nothing
reacted. The car continued to swerve, slide and pitch
in the road, if it were on the road. The windshield
wipers were slicing left and right, but nothing was
visible. Mark tried everything again, yanked on the
emergency breaks, sounded the horn, changed the radio
station.
Suddenly
he felt the car being lifted off the ground, lifted
into the air. His mind panicked as he thought of the
car hurtling into some far off land and crashing down
on some unsuspecting witch, only for him to climb out
of the car and be smited by some avenging evil sistah,
or angered relation. Some witches create several alternative
personalities, and so Mark had imagined that the avenging
evil might take the form of some nine-headed hydra beast.
Mockingly, the radio blared the Nine Inch Nails song,
"Help Me I Am In Hell".
Meanwhile, somewhere in Southern California, Dan-o is
singing the repeated bars of "Love Rollercoaster"
by the Red Hot Chili Peppers as he stands next to his
pal Brennie, while Brennie attaches the third trigger
small thermo nuclear bomb to an attraction at Six Flags
Magic Mountain.
"SHUT
UP, will ya?!" Growls Brendan. He tightens a loose
wire and tells Dan-o, "Now hold my drink."
Dan-o stands there, holding two martini glasses unsteadily
while he bobs, rolls, and humms the remainder of the
song. Looking like some queer version of Nick and Nora
Charles gone bad, the two are over dressed and out of
place. If it weren't for the dark of night, the two
would be obvious to any passing policeman or park official.
When his
song ends Dan-o asks Brendan, "So what are we doing
here anyway, Brennie? You said there'd be a party, and
I don't see any party. BRENDAN?! I said I don't see
any party."
Exhausted,
Brendan sweeps his forelocks from his forehead. Dan
had the attention span of Lochlyn Munro, which was the
attention span of a cat. For Chrissake, none of the
three could even correctly spell their own names! "I
explained it to you this morning when we left, three
times while you drove us here, and twice more when we
got out of the car :WE'RE MAKING A BOMB TO BLOW UP MARK
ALLEN!"
"Oh
yea, now I remember." But he didn't. The martini
buzz was causing him to furrow his brow while he considered
his next inquiry, "But I thought we liked Mark?"
Brendan
snorted and looked at Dan-o with distain. "He's
too pretty for anyone to really know or like. And since
he went on this road trip his general public has been
getting dangerously close to knowing him, experiencing
him, toughing him…"
"Uh-huh!"
smiled Dan-o as a band of perspiration beads excitedly
broke out across his brow.
"And
since there's too many of them to annihilate,"
continued Brendan, "we'll kill him off at the height
of his fame, AND THEN HE'LL LIVE FOREVER, FOR ALL OF
US, BEAUTIFUL FOREVER!!" Brendan's face contorted
and grimaced as his eyes glazed over and he let out
a maniacal laugh.
"But
what's that got to do with a party?"
"There
is no party, you idiot! That was just a rouse to get
you to drive with out arousing anyone's knowledge about
our plans."
"I
dunno, my handler said 'party' and that the exposure
was something my image needed."
"Just
shut up and hand me that timing device."
Meantime, some where in the skies over New Mexico, our
hero Mark Allen was slowly coming out of a narcoleptic
daze. His head ached, his body felt bruised and sore,
and the rest of his muscles were too tense to move.
He felt foul and knew wherever he was waking up, he
didn't want to be. The accident, -what had happened?-
did anyone get hurt? He was exhausted and wished he
were back in Austin, curled up safely next to Bryan
in a soft bed in a warm house. But he wasn't. By the
amount of bright light he could at least tell he was
inside. Inside somewhere. Slowly he lifted his lids.
What met
his gaze was no mangled car wreck, no secure antiseptic-smelling
hospital room, but some strange IBM crammed nickel-plated
white floored operating and dog-grooming chamber with
obscene pumps and hoses making the most perverse and
encouraging sucking noises. The light was intense and
Mark had to squint to see. He choked back a laugh as
he thought of Rosalind Russell saying, "Child,
how can you see with all that light?" Slowly his
vision adjusted to the glare and he could make out figures
and objects. Some one was approaching him, some great
heavy being that sent tremors on the floor as he crossed
the room. Mark could feel the tremors and sense the
body heat that radiated from this mountain of flesh.
It stopped
short in front of him. Mark's eyes were cast downward
so the first part of the being he could see were its
feet. Its huge, fat, hairy, unshod, ugly feet. With
six toes on one side and seven on the other, it had
chipped and yellowing toenails, -talons, really- and
shaggy knuckle-hairs matted on the mole-mottled toes.
"Whew-wee!"
thought Mark, "but I've seen worse." And as
his gaze trailed upward, he saw it. Nauseas, he closed
his eyes and tried to block out the sight with the smell
and feel of its hot, damp breath that was beating on
his face.
When he
met the courage to look again he saw the three yellowy
goat eyes staring back at him with intensity. The tiny
flat nose holes dilating and shrinking with every breath
from its gash-like salivating mouth-slash, as it came
closer. In one of its scaly tentacle-like arms it held
a strange device that resembled an egg-beater and triple
syringe covered with disco mirror chips. It moved closer
to mark.
"Oh
my God!" Mark cried at it, "What do you want?!"
What are you going to do?!! ARE YOU GOING TO PROBE ME?!!
ARE YOU?!! ANSWER ME, YOU FUCKIN' BLOB!!!"
With its
other two free tentacles the blob grabbed Mark's right
arm, swabbed the area of his inoculation scar, and jammed
in the egg-beater syringe.
Mark screamed,
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHAAAAAAAAH!!!"
