I Also Write Long Fiction With No Commercial Potential

Here's An Excerpt From Trout's Tale, A Pataphysical Mystery About A Planet Populated By Idiots With Unbelievable Names

America, shown here after 50 years of ignoring warnings of unavoidable catastrophic climate change caused by the fossil fuel industry allowing them to drive fast cars made lighter by the use of toxic plastics, is still looking for someone to blame for all this damned disorder.

Trout’s Tale contains 33 chapters, one for each year in the ludicrous life of Alfred Jarry, whose final words were: “You wouldn’t happen to have a toothpick would you?”

It was partially inspired by a short item I read in the Greenville News in 1973 or so which seems to be even more applicable to the daily weather reports we’re seeing today.

Chapter 2

Wayne Trout never made his 894 exam. He never finished his cheese grits. Black Jackrack never again tasted Tender Vittles in the double dish blue bowl Wayne had bought at the Pendleton Bi-Lo the previous New Year. Materex maintains Wayne will never forget that scarred old tom should every shred of neural tissue beyond his medulla oblongata be excised. Materex makes it a point that Wayne’s hatred of the Life Protector will burn as ruthlessly at the end of the world as it did at its birth for having left Jack to fend on the surface of the current ice age.

Wayne’s hatred of the Life Protector sprang full blown into this world, like Athena from the head of Zeus. The only visible symptom of Wayne’s frustration at having lost Jack is the addition of a single declarative statement to his repertoire. “Jack,” he now says, “would have loved this.”

***

When Wayne went to the door on August 17th to answer Black Jack’s wacka wacka, snow was sticking to the road. Two men stood on the porch in ski masks, heavy parkas, woolen pants, and survival boots. Their outfits were snow white from the top of their hoods to the tips of their boots. Each was 6'5" tall, and they shared 430 pounds between them.

“Hi,” Wayne said, taking a seat on the porch swing, “Anybody sitting here?”

“I be Sam,” said Sam, “and he Dave. You Trout?”

“My friends call me Bo,” said Wayne, smiling his best insurance salesman’s smile.

“Don’t trine get cute wif us,” said Sam, “Cuff your coat and come along.”

“But what about Jack?”

Dave pulled a pad from his parka pocket, looked at it briefly, and handed it to Sam, saying: “He be jiving, Sam. No Jack shit on this list.”

“Wacka wacka,” said Jack from behind the door.

“Mind if I sit here?” Wayne said, “I do beg pardon, but he’s the only friend I have.”

“Listen cheer Trout,” said Sam, pulling a boggler from his parka, “We got orders to bring you in, and they be no room for that mangy black tom. So get your shit and hoof it, or you be catch a dose of this.”

“Not really, ” said Wayne.

“You betcher sweet white ass, son, real-lee,” said Sam.

***

Wayne was the kind of guy you’d never lobotomize. It was as if he’d been born without a frontal lobe. He’d accepted the previous 35 years without so much as a whimper. Wayne was the status quo. Two guys dressed in white on his front porch telling him to come along was no more perplexing than following the hints on a can of Campbell’s soup. Wayne never cooked without directions.

So it is hard to figure what made Wayne leap behind his front door, but that’s exactly what he did. “Ah, Jack,” Wayne said as the boggler caught him in the small of the back. He stiffened, bounced off the wall, the door, the wall again, and skitterhopped back out the door, across the porch, and fell backwards into the tea roses, his eyes wide open with only the whites showing, a dark stain spreading down his flannel trouser legs.

“Ah, Jack,” Wayne moaned, as he slipped into darkness.

“Wacka wacka?” Jack replied. 

***

The world froze so suddenly that future expeditions will uncover MacDonalds’ stands with customers frozen stiff in their seats, many with perfectly preserved Egg MacMuffins clamped between their perfectly preserved teeth.

***

Wanda Japan. Wanda, Wanda, Wanda Japan. The name makes the brain marvel the mouth could shape such a thing, but Wanda is more. When history again begins to recount the missing wonders of the world, Wanda will be among them. She could be any age from 13 to 86 and had been for as long as anyone remembered. The Hall of Records lists her date of birth as: “Unknown, Sagittarius, the Moon in Eclipse.” Wanda Japan, bitch spirit, plump and juicy as a mango, Wanda the Cynic, Wanda the Elder, Wanda the Hun.

Somewhere in the intricate maze of the Physical Plant, prowling the air shafts and service routes, Wanda Japan and her small band of commandos are preparing to destroy the Palace. 

Who would ever have suspected Wanda Japan — Wanda the Warm, Wanda Sweetmeats, Wanda Madonna, Wanda the Primal Cause of a Billion Wet Dreams — O! the young men and old Wanda had lured, seduced and abandoned — Wanda Succubus, Wanda Blackmane, Wanda Browneyes, Wanda Squinchtits, Wanda Japan — who would ever have suspected Wanda would fall in love with Wayne Bo Trout?  Surely not Wayne, nor the Life Protector. Not Field Marshal and President for Life Idi Amin Dada. Not even Wanda herself.

***

No one was sure why the CIA was investigating the weather, but it was, and the first thing anyone knew came in the form of a three column inch dispatch from Yossarian Universal News Service. Fast Ed the Bartender was wiping down the bar when he found out about it. Wanda told him. She had just finished the crossword puzzle which proved a simple task once she decided that “A novel about ITT?” 106 across, was “FORWHOMTHEBELLTOLLS.” She had already finished Gil Thorp where baseball season was winding down. Mimi was telling Coach Thorp to keep watch for a young man named Huey Baugh who was threatening to try out for the football team. “What’s wrong with that?” asked Gil. “There’s a good chance,” said Mimi, “Huey is something of a problem child.” Wanda said: “Hey, beautiful, listen to this.” The dispatch ran under an eighteen-point headline that read:

CIA PREDICTS

WASHINGTON (YU) — The CIA today announced the weather for the next two decades will be marked by erratic fluctuations in temperature and rainfall. Disastrous drought, flooding, and famine can be expected over much of the globe. Storms will grow increasingly violent. Earthquakes will grow in intensity and frequency.

When asked what steps were being taken to deal with the problem, a spokesman refused comment, citing national security, but he did say: “The best thing anyone can do right now is stay at home and ride it out.”

An official at the National Weather Service declined either to confirm or deny the reports, stating: “We are scientists, not fortune tellers.”

“Whatcha think about that?” asked Wanda Japan.

“So they’re fucking with the weather again,” said Fast Ed, “Big fucking deal.”

“Hi,” said Wayne, taking a seat next to Wanda Japan, “Anybody sitting here?”

***

The author admits this ice age didn’t commence as suddenly as he first implied. It will take ten thousand years for the glaciers to reach Kentucky and at least as many to melt back to Canada. No doubt there are still several small areas on the surface of the planet where life goes on, but Charleston, South Carolina, is now more than thirty miles from the ocean. Drought has hunkered down in the rain forests. Rome reports a 24 hour accumulation of 96 inches, zero visibility, with continuing blizzard conditions. Elephants are sporting fur.

It took a mere three years from the first CIA report for most of the world to become uninhabitable. Millions in Africa and Asia starved for what seemed like ages but was only a handful of months. 

On the same August 17th Wayne was boggled, the temperature in New York City dropped to -105° F. By August 20th, New York City was dead.

***

The one slim folder in the Hall of Records under “Lobotomies in Art” contains a single reel of recording tape and two index cards. The first card reads:

 PROBABLY A HOAX. JOHN LEFAIRE DOES NOT COMPUTE.

The tape is a documentary about an artist who undertook a series of performances during which portions of his body were replaced by robot surgeons. At the time of the tape, LeFaire had already replaced his genitals, one hand, one eye, and two or three internal organs.

The performances are described as models of grace and efficiency. LeFaire and his assistant uncrate and assemble the apparatus while the audience struggles into concentric circular rows of folding chairs. LeFaire disrobes, climbs on the operating table, smiles at his guests, waving. His assistant bows and leaves the arena. LeFaire pushes a button on one of the androids and settles back on the table. An anesthetizing probe pierces the nape of his neck, and the surgery proceeds according to the programmed whims of the computer, while a do-it-yourself, step-by-step text of the operation is read by a seventh grade science teacher from Estacada, Oregon, an alternate for the first teacher-in-space.

The mop-up complete, LeFaire’s assistant returns to center stage, bows again, and wheels LeFaire’s gurney out of the room.

Much of the tape discusses aesthetics. Just what is John LeFaire trying to prove? When are the authorities going to step in and put an end to this mockery of art? LeFaire himself is never quoted, and it is implied he is mute.

Professional critics are asked to pass judgment on LeFaire’s performance. Some say: “Each LeFaire event is a celebration of the human body as a work of art.” Others argue: “This man is a totally incompetent suicide who should be put away before he does somebody harm.” The bulk of the program deals with LeFaire as cynic and nihilist, especially the final twenty minutes of the tape where listeners are invited to call the station with their own questions and opinions.

“When will the authorities step in and put an end to this mockery of human life?” is asked more than once.

Whether the tape is a hoax should not concern the appreciative reader. Whether the authorities ever stepped in is a moot point, considering the severity of the current ice age. Of particular interest is this: Once LeFaire decided to make himself an artifact, the first performance in Stockholm was a frontal lobotomy. LeFaire’s assistant explained the choice of a lobotomy over such less radical expressions of self assertion as amputation or appendectomy in this way: “You’d have to know John to get the big picture and since the lobotomy that’s just about impossible, and we did replace his vocal cords with bronzed Ronzoni vermicelli. He’s terribly insecure, and any operation can be quite painful, to be perfectly frank, no matter what anyone says. Even a tonsillectomy can leave a patient with months of lingering discomfort. There are numerous documented cases of post-operative suicide among cosmetic surgery patients. But the frontal lobotomy induces a blind acceptance of the status quo, in this case the need to continue the performance. Otherwise, John might have punked out. He sculpted the replacement lobe himself from Silly Putty which was kiln dried in Brussels after I etched the words: LEFAIRE, JOHN. MONUMENT TO THE STATUS QUO. When we finally replace John’s skull with crystal, you’ll be able to see it. John had quite a sense of humor, especially back then.”

On the other card in the folder are these words: 

PROBABLY NOT A HOAX. SUPPRESS.

***

When Wayne regained consciousness on the morning of August 17th, the first thing he said was: “Oh my God. They’ve put out my eyes.”

“Relax Wayne,” a voice said, “They’ve got us in a van.”

“Really?” asked Wayne.

“Really,” said the voice, which belonged, of course, to Wanda Japan.

“Mind if I sit here?” Wayne asked.

That’s the kind of guy Wayne was.

***

The Palace is designed to withstand the advance of the current ice age should the glaciers crunch all the way to Ecuador. Paul Bare designed the Palace on orders from the President of the United States. Bare says he got the idea for the Palace from a mall in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

“You should have seen this place, a fucking nightmare. Could of been King Kong standing there. Across the whole mile-long side of this black wall it said: ‘WELCOME TO FAYETTEVILLE MALL. THE FUTURE IS HERE!’ When I finally got my shit together enough to walk into the place, the first thing I see is this little park. This wimpy artificial park with a rancid little fountain and all these scrawny eucalyptus trees, and each of these skinny trees has a tag tied around one of its pinky-finger branches with one of those green twist ties like you use with body bags.

“You know what that tag said? ‘This planet has been presensitized to withstand the rigors of indoor lighting and humidity,’ not plant — which would have been bad enough — but there it was: planet, plain as the mask on your face. And then I saw this quote from Shelley which the words on the tag said came from ‘The Tentative Planet’, and right then I thought two different things at almost the exact same moment. The first one was: ‘This has got to be a joke.’ The second was: ‘What if it isn’t a joke?’ Karma? Let me tell you about bad karma.”

Bare has since become a fugitive and is armed with the Aldo Ray.

***

The Palace Bare designed is located more than 400 feet beneath the once fertile farmland of southwestern Missouri and contains approximately 1,259 square miles of living space. The Palace can survive repeated direct strikes by multimegaton warheads in rapid succession, since it was expected the President of the United States would take refuge here. A temperature of 65° is maintained day and night. Necessary rainfall, sunshine, and cloudy days are provided by Materex. The most popular song on the jukebox contains these lines: “When it’s cold outside/I’ve got the month of May.” The title of this song is “My Girl”, but on the Palace jukebox, selection Double-A-232 is listed as “The Lord Bitch’s Prayer,” although Materex is neither male nor female, alive nor dead. Materex simply is.

The jukebox is one of many Palace curiosities, taking its design from jukeboxes once found in truckstops — with the main jukebox located in the Palace’s Civic Auditorium and the remote selectors located every hundred yards or so throughout the 1,259 square miles of Palace living space, although only sixteen square miles of the complex are open to public use. The Palace jukebox is far more sophisticated than its predecessors. Each remote selector is actually a video display terminal hooked into the Hall of Records. A Palace resident has access to more kinds of music than most preglacial people could dream of, but Materex has been overriding every other selection since the commandos went on their rampage. The commandos are determined to fill the Palace with protest songs. There are even remote selectors in the air shafts and sewers.

Materex determined who would reside within the Palace and who would become fixtures frozen in drive-ins on the surface. Materex was Paul Bare’s idea, although he would never admit it now.

***

Excerpt: Life Protector’s Office — 9/14

(at a meeting during which Paul Bare protests his authorship and the authority of Materex)

BARE: My fucking ass I did!

Let history reveal, however, that on October 23rd — nearly a decade prior to the day the world’s finest technicians commenced sinking the first shaft toward or printing the first circuit board for Materex — Paul Bare participated in the following discussion.

BARE: You’re kidding.

THE PREZ: No, Mr. Bare. I’m afraid I’m not kidding. Our intelligence has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt — and our intelligence is the best there is, mind you — that this country now faces the most grave crisis in its glorious history of two hundred years.

We thought we were prepared for anything. Just look at this country, Mr. Bare. No one could say we haven’t been preparing for something. We’ve got factories, universities, research centers, movie houses, shopping centers and government buildings that can take a direct nuclear strike. If the air outside were ninety percent chlorine we could carry on about our business. We are a proud people, Mr. Bare, an alert and ever vigilant people. Our symbol is the wary bald eagle. Oh, I know the bird is nearly extinct. But that’s a small price to pay for progress. In a few years we will be able to clone more eagles in a single week than this continent has ever been able to supply on its own. That’s the American Way.

Do you realize there are more than 4 billion people living on this planet, Mr. Bare, and fewer than 5% of them are Americans? These are difficult times. What if the other 95% of the people decided to pack up and move, where do you think they’d go? 

The Russians and the Chinese both have entire cities constructed underground for use in the event of catastrophe, even though their intelligence isn’t worth a damn. But there was a time when Americans were building underground shelters in their own backyards. There wasn’t any planning involved because that’s the American Way, but if some catastrophe had struck, what do you suppose would have happened with every American holed up in his own little survival bubble? Our military defense budget appropriations would have dried up. The other 95% of the people on this planet would have stormed across this continent like a plague of insects. Even you can imagine the difficulty we would have had in dealing with terrorists and dissidents when the entire nation could leave their jobs during an impending crisis and cuddle up in their own private caves for a couple of days. Economic recovery would have taken decades. The Great Depression would look like a Sunday School picnic.

Have I made myself clear? Do you enjoy pain? Is that it? You have been brought here, Mr. Bare, to stop the end of the world. My world, Mr. Bare, the United States of America. You have been chosen, and you will answer the call. And get that stupid grin off your face. I don’t like your attitude at all, Mr. Bare. Must I use the earphones again? I can’t stand your, your, what do you young people call it? Vibrations? No, wait, it’s on the tip of my tongue. Karma, that’s it, isn’t it? I’m not completely out of touch. You give me bad karma, Mr. Bare.

***

It is at this point that Bare launches into a tirade about Fayetteville Mall, previously presented. Tempers flare. There is much shouting. The President says he has been to Arkansas and it is a wonderful state. Some of his best friends are from Arkansas.

“Why, as a matter of fact, Mr. Bare,” the President says, he was at the game the day Bare claims to have been at the Fayetteville Mall, a marvelous place, built by one of the President’s close personal friends, constructed according to an advanced design plan supplied by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Bare ultimately insists he doesn’t understand why it’s got to be him who designs the Palace, to which the President replies: “Because, Mr. Bare, it’s my turn to choose and you’re it,” and suddenly it seems that this transcription of the October 23rd meeting has begun possibly 1800 feet prior to the fifty or sixty words with which Paul Bare conceived of Materex, the Palace necessity which he is now bent on destroying.

***

BARE: Okay, fucker. I keep telling you the same thing over and over and you keep telling me the same thing over and over and we’re getting nowhere.

THE PREZ: You’re getting nowhere, Mr. Bare. I am the President of the United States. I have nowhere to go. I am America herself.

BARE: You’re fucking crazy is what you are. You want to build a bunker…

THE PREZ: A Palace, Mr. Bare. It shall be a Palace, The Palace, and good, hard working Americans will build it according to your specifications, Mr. Bare, or perhaps you still have trouble hearing.

***

The author has spent the past half hour searching for the word to describe what has happened to his faith that Materex sprang full-blown from the lips of Paul Bare, and neither of the two verbs he has narrowed his choice down to — erode and melt — can hope to connote his present bewilderment.

Both melting and erosion call to mind actions which strip layer by layer from the surface of an object while the solid core, adamant and obstinate as ever, remains. Neither concept describes this case.

***

For now, the reader need only recognize that Paul Bare roams the inner workings of the Palace he allegedly designed. He’s quite possibly armed with the Aldo Ray and is reportedly committed to destroying that which he has made.

—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