Ch 9: Kook Talk 1

Don't know 'bout y'all, but I write to avoid reality. I can't face it. That makes me a loser and that's ok--I'd rather write another reality, and so it goes (thankyou Mr. Vonnegut, you beautiful loser you).


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
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CHAPTER 9--KOOK TALK 1



It’s not that experts themselves are to blame. It’s that we’ve
organized our society in such a way that we think we need them.
--Mayor’s Aphorisms, from the notebooks.

Champ smirked and stretched his arms over his head. His t-shirt lifted, exposing a
taut white belly with scant curlicues circling about the navel, made gold from light deflect-
ing through the glass. He rolled his head forward and back, his fair brown tousles
swaying soft and sensuous like a woman’s. He emitted a soft baby’s yawn. Chattering
voices, light and jovial, scented with French-vanilla, wafted from far tables. “Ah, me
neophytes,” Champ said, smirking again. “The four horsemen tarry at the tavern. The
apocalypse awaits another day.”
Gilbert slouched in his chair and stirred a candy bar into his coffee. The Mayor
shoveled doritos into his mouth, crunching and spilling crumbs. A full can of beer lay
to the right of each. Six empties lined the table’s middle. Neither man looked at Champ.

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“Why the forlorn looks, gents?” Champ pulled up a chair, sat, and cracked
open his own beer. “We’ve got years of drinking ahead of us.”
The Mayor looked up. His lips were orange with powdered cheddar. “It’s not the
same woman we heard earlier Champ. Katie Carnac has been replaced with a shoddy
facsimile.” He licked at his lips and gave Gilbert an exaggerated, bemused pout. “The
lizards are getting sloppy.”
“Yaw. Nutta sum womin Chump,” Gilbert said through a thick mouthful of
caramel. He swallowed it down with coffee and lit a cigarette. “Look man.” Gilbert’s
hand trembled, his pupils large and grave behind glasses. “This chick we just heard giving
us some story of tripping over her microphone chord and spraining her ankle? It’s bullshit.
The voice is all wrong.” He rocked nervously in the chair. “Ask Bruce. The first woman
was terrified and stuttering. This one’s like a reassuring grandmother offering cookies and
milk, saying all is well, and there’s nothing to worry about.”
“A-boot,” Champ giggled.
“Not funny, Champion,” the Mayor said, crushing the empty bag of doritos in his
fist. “We heard what we heard. Now’s the time you need to understand that reality is not
what you’ve been taught to--”
Beep-beep-beep. Champ swung around at the door’s signal. A thin young woman
with perky breast-plums and long brown hair marched toward the table, yanking a wide-
eyed toddler, whose little shoes clattered loudly to keep up.
“Melanie!” Champ said, rushing up to them with arms spread. “And hey little
Meredith! Say hi to uncle Champy!” He scooped up the little girl who squealed and

Guimond/LIVIN’ IN THE LAST DAYS 45

dug into his hair with chubby fingers.
“Uncuh Camey?”
Champ walked off with mother and child. “Mind-controlled,” the Mayor said.
“By a pussy with a baby,” Gilbert said, opening a beer. “The misery never ends.”
Beep-beep-beep. “Hey! May-yor! Spaz-tic!” hailed a man’s voice, nose-stuffed
and gurgling mucous.
Fuck, Gilbert thought. It’s Homo Bullshititus.
“Oh my God,” the Mayor said. “The farce thickens.”
The newcomer grabbed a chair and sat. Greasy black curls framed a sweaty, pale
face dominated by a bulbous nose with panting nostrils. His head bobbled on its neck-
spring like a child’s cheap jack-in-the-box. Fuchsia letters screamed I Love LA! from his
black sweatshirt. A silver chain hung from his neck, affixed to a nameplate engraved with
the word Showtime. Hairy-knuckled fingers rifled through the newspaper, and stopped
abruptly at the crossword page. “Ah, yes,” he droned, extending the syllables ludicrously.
The Mayor belched smoke. “Why aren’t you at work, Showtime?”
“Dol-phins.”
“The sun is cold,” the Mayor said. Gilbert gazed out the window, following the
shifting meat of a passing blonde's butt cheeks.
“Hey, what about the dolphins?”
“The sun is cold,” Gilbert said, spinning to face the Mayor. “The crossword calls.”
“Yeah,” Showtime cast his sleepy eyes down and fidgeted with his pen. “The sun is
cool. The sun is.” His lips suddenly muted, mouthing the words of the puzzle’s first clue.

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“It’s that easy,” the Mayor whispered.
Easy to divert the drug-damaged, Gilbert thought, amused and slurping beer. His
mommy mixed in Ritalin with his cocoa puffs.