Wayne Bo Trout Escapes Death After Being Run Over By Michael O'Donoghue's Truck
Fast Food And Ephemeral Services Can Only Carry A Civilization So Far
Chapter 29
Wayne was the kind of guy who stumbled across Idi Amin removing connective tissue from the abdomen of Ima Cornhusk in the manager’s office of the Palace Bi-Lo.
“Hi,” he said, taking a seat on the late manager’s desk, “Anybody sitting here?”
“We are a supremely gifted cook,” said Idi Amin, looking up from his business briefly, “She will be quite tasty. In Uganda, our American cooks would prepare this meal, but here we travel cheerlessly in a land were food is manufactured and no one knows how to cook. We must feed and fend for ourselves as best we can. And we can do kingly. Just you wait and see.”
“Really?” asked Wayne.
A queer riffle sparkled in the eyes of Field Marshal and President for Life Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, and Commander-In-Chief of the Maldives Armed Forces. His eyebrows crinkling, Idi arose from Ima’s cool cadaver, walked over to where Wayne was sitting, waved his open palm in front of his eyes, and asked:
“You are Wayne, are you not? The insurance salesman?”
“Mind if I sit here?” Wayne asked, gazing over Idi’s shoulder, out through the plate-glass wall across the room, and thence across the width of the Bi-Lo where the President of the United States’ portrait hung above the frozen meat-pie display case.
“You have a very special cat, a coal black cat in which the spirit of the Atman resides, do you not?”
“Not really?” Wayne said.
***
On the first night Amin spent with Wayne in Cateechee, Amin produced a small plastic pouch from which he proceeded to roll a fat ellipsoid doober about as big around as a Schaeffer No-Nonsense pen and almost as long.
Wayne was studying for a 10 a.m. quiz in Tenth Millennium Stairwells. Blackjack was curled in Wayne’s lap like a ratty babushka.
When Amin finished his meticulous rolling, stroking, licking and so forth, he lit the joint and proffered the same to Wayne, saying: “Take a hit of this, man. It’s far off shit, man. Ugandan.”
Just then Jackrack lifted his head and squinted at Amin, yawning. Amin dropped to his knees and shouted: “Ali, Ali, Oxenfree. Ahkbar be praised.”
Jack E. Black cut a fart. “Trout, trout,” the fart went.
***
Wanda was born in Vietnam, a country which is remembered in the Hall of Records as “that wretched stone-age nation against which America suffered its second and most humiliating military defeat.”
Her great grandfather died in the delta fighting Cambodians. Her grandfather died in Burma fighting Japanese. Her father was blown away by the French near Diem Bien Phu, in an area which later came to be known as the Highlands because of the wide-spread drug abuse in the region.
It was here that more than 4,000 young Americans lost their lives one spring while trying to secure a small hill facing heavy hostile fire. Wanda’s brother was among those 4,000 and thus because the first in Wanda’s family to be killed in the service of their enemies.
Wanda’s mother was taken to Sweden by a young French deserter shortly after the fall of Diem Bien Phu as American replacement troops began arriving.
From Sweden, Ariadne Japan and Anatole Trufaux travelled to England and Canada, eventually relocating to the United States. They finally settled in Greenville, South Carolina, where they opened a fast-food restaurant called Wanton Chinese Eats. It was here, behind a counter freshly supplied with egg rolls, pungent hot and sour soup, and chicken lo mein, their only son was born.
Ariadne died in childbirth.
Honore Japan was drafted into the United States armed forces six months after he reached 18 years of age. As he was about to take his step forward at the formal induction, a Marine Sergeant, Blanton Weary, strode into the room and said, “Hold it right there, dink. The Marines need one more volunteer, and it looks like you’re it.”
In his last letter to his sister, Honore wrote: “I am amazed anyone is still alive. Twice we have fought up this hill and twice forced down with heavy casualties. Our uncles and cousins hold better positions on two mountains higher and more cavernous than the one we are dying to capture. This is madness. I have already killed two lieutenants and a captain, but for every officer we manage to frag, command sends another dozen great white hopes.
“Tomorrow we will ascend once more to the place where someone has decided we must be slaughtered. I have many things left to say, but I shall leave them unsaid, fully intending to return to this letter tomorrow evening.
“Wanda of the World Without End, you alone should understand my despair. And if I cannot return to this letter—if you should someday mention how one time your brother walked away from a letter never to return — promise me you’ll say I knew exactly where I was going to die. I even knew when, but I was powerless to continue my life. I was a good American, followed orders, and committed suicide.”
This final filial letter to Wanda Japan was signed: “Your most vincible brother, Honore Jarry Japan.”
***
“The funniest thing ever happened to me,” Fast Ed said one drunken Saturday afternoon between halves of a football game between Clemson and Georgia Tech, “was while tripping in Vietnam. It was a bummer sometimes, sure, but I don’t think I ever laughed so hard anywhere in all my life.
“One time we’d been pinned down for three days, and for three fucking days we had our planes dropping napalm so close all the guys on perimeter had Florida tans. Concertina wire was little shiny beads on the ground. Every now and then one of the guys would tell a joke, didn’t make no difference how funny it was, and no one would laugh except the guy told it.
“A cobra would zing in blowing up big clumps of trees and vines, but the only Huey got anywhere near dust-off caught a round in the fuel lines and fell out of the sky like a big metal duck, medics and corpsmen smoking down on the sandbags like plump greasy feathers.
“Couldn’t stop Charlie though. Soon as the ground got cool enough to walk on, he’d open up. Blast the nose off a louie, shoot a wad of ground glass up the sarge’s ass. Pretty soon wasn’t no officer or noncom left. Guys started drawing straws for open command positions, but nobody wanted to be anything except general, because none of us had even seen a general except in the movies. The ranks we came close by had as good a chance getting their balls blown off as us.
“Got to where if two or three guys had enough of some dipshit gung-ho son-of-a-bitch, they’d just start calling him Louie or Mage or Kernel or Cappen. And hey, bite my ass, but if that guy didn’t catch his death by sunrise. Before long, we was down to 30 guys still breathing.
“Fire stayed so bad we couldn’t bury no one. The place stank like a pig processing plant. Such a sweet sick smell hung in the air, but then this dude from Nebraska spotted the tallest stand of grass anyone ever seen. We were in a forest of grass. The ground was covered with fronds of bud as big around as my leg and twice as long. We had dug our foxholes down through humus made of aged buds.
“Fatback called for Phantoms to scorch a target half a klick upwind. And we laid back and breathed deeply and got stoned to the fridges on the fringes of South Vietnam’s Marijuana National Forest. Charlie must have thought we were crazy.“
“Only because you were,” said Wanda Japan.
“That’s right,” laughed Ed, “We were fucking loonies over the there. Hell, we’re loonies over here. But we have a good time.”
***
Bambina Broccoli just yelled at the author, having brought him a fresh clown of coffee. She was upset about the mess in his chambers. She worried about his health. She questioned his sanity. The only way he managed to put an end to her pestering was promise to make an appearance at the afternoon jog.
She also mentioned Dias the Mechanic has been missing for several days.
***
Wayne was the kind of guy who bought all the late night movie record collections. It would never have happened if sponsors didn’t run each new commercial for three consecutive nights.
One night while Wayne was calling the toll-free number to reserve his collector’s edition of Bobby’s Greatest Hits (headlining such famous Bobbies as Bare, Darin, Goulet, Rydell, and Vinton) coupled with a special bonus LP featuring 96 all-time favorite twist songs, Amin the Libyan, Wayne’s terrorist roommate, offered him a hit of his own, saying: “Hey, good buddy. Take a toke on this. Real meltdown shit, man. Is Afghani.”
***
Two nights later, Wayne was run over by a truck driven by Amin, as the drunken Libyan and his friends raced to contaminate the Michelin Tire plant with thirty-thousand pounds of nuclear waste. Wayne was not seriously injured in the mishap, although the rear right wheels of the bright red and yellow tanker ran directly over his solar plexus.
***
The first person to reach Wayne, as Amin roared away with Pablo and Adam laughing and drinking beside him, was Harriet Tupperells. As she knelt down and put her hand on Wayne’s forehead, asking where it hurt, and telling him not to move, Wayne opened his eyes.
“Hi,” he said, “Anybody sitting here?”
—30—
Epilog In Media Res
It occurs to me that some straggler might want to read all of Trout’s Tale in its God-given order, assuming I live long enough to publish all of it. I guess I could start another stack and publish it in order there, but where’s the fun in that?
Instead, what I’ve currently decided to do is add this epilog as an index to previous posts in the order in which they were not written, but in the most recent order they have appeared in the Hall of Records. Links will become active as new URLs are generated.
Pataphysics is the science of imaginary solutions.
Trout’s Tale thus far…
Frontal Matter And Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33