WHITE PICKET FENCES

— Homeland Security ... in a small town

Part two/Conclusion

art by Monty Borror

Talkin' at the Texaco
by James McMurtry


well if you're lookin' for a good time
you're a little bit late
we rolled up the sidewalks
at a quarter to eight
it's a small town
we can't sell you no beer
it's a small town, so
may I ask what you're doin' here

hey what you up to
I already know
I heard the boys
talkin' at the Texaco
it's a small town
I know how you feel
it's a small town, son
and the news travels
quicker than wheels

who you lookin' for
what was his name
you can prob'ly find him
at the football game
it's a small town
you know what I mean
it's a small town, son
and we all support the team

the preacher drove by in his Cadillac
I waved at him but he didn't wave back
it's a small town
everybody knows your face
it's a small town, son
and we all must know our place

I woke up feeling foggy
and I called old Mrs. White
I figured she could tell me
what I did last night
it's a small town
she's bound to know
it's a small town, son
I believe that I better go

[Robert S. Thompson]

Day in and day out The Swarm buzzed the jail.

“What’s that noise?” said one of Moon Walking’s jailers.

The Swarm went around and around, over the top and tried to go under.

The Swarm grew larger, and it sounded more like a machine humming, at least during the day. At night it sounded like locusts, or one locust, one big, breathing, loud, buzzing, buzzing, whirring, humming … thinking.

Hmmmm. Hmmm. Hmmmm.

Inside the jail, Moon Walking tried to see in the dark.

She sat in her cell on the cement floor against the wall. She figured it was the north wall. It was far away from the door, where the slot of light shined at meal times.

She often saw eye shine in the light shaft inside the door.

She imagined things like voices or faces and smells and she felt things like falling from a cold mountain top and water skiing and falling to the bottom of a lake, and hanging.

Through the leaked gossip of the jailers over the days she learned that a kindergartner with plastic explosives in his Depends had been caught just prior to blowing the cafeteria to kingdom come.

And that bottled water, shampoo, toothpaste and Sweet Tarts were no longer allowed on any mini-vans anywhere in town, due to inside information obtained regarding their possible use in ruining the carpeting of the vehicles.

I heard that a reporter from the newspaper, just out of college, was driving around, trying to do research for a column on the zeitgeist of the town and was summarily pulled into a garage and stomped nearly to death. Or maybe he did die. How would we ever know?

We now have The Hall Monitors, individuals of all ages who sit at each street corner and check the papers and purpose of passersby.

If you are not going anywhere to kill someone in their sleep, why would you care if you get checked or not?

[Tommy]

The Swarm is everywhere these days.

Even at night. Some people seem them on people’s roofs, sitting in the church after midnight, somebody even saw them riding across the sky.

Wow.

They took William from his store. He’s retarded, but he runs the used movie store anyway.

I saw Christoph on the sidewalk kind of telling the police what to do and he told me that William was a defective.

I want to be a defective when I get older, catch criminals, solve stuff. I think it would be great.

Anyway, William is a defective now. I saw him walk in the police station with Don. I’ll bet he’s got his own office. I’m glad he’s happy. He told me he didn’t think he was going to the Fall Fling ‘cause retards can’t go.

Now I’ll bet he can go.

Hey, ‘jew know we got cameras all over now?

Hey! Hey! I just passed one, now another one! They take your picture and I wave whenever I see ‘em.

Hey!

I stick out my tongue or something sometimes.

Hey!

[Nona]

Hey.

Good afternoon.

It’s morning?

Oh.

I don’t get much sleep.

All night long outside my house this buzzer … buzzes. It’s motion detection equipment or something. They’re trying to catch The Swarm.

I guess The Swarm is trying to break Moon Walking out of the city jail and they might blow up the jail or maybe take hostages.

Don drives fast up and down all the streets in the middle of the night with his siren going and his lights flashing to try to show the people there’s trouble brewing.

Nobody sleeps.

Sometimes I go out for a walk around town ‘cause I can’t sleep and everybody’s lights are on, some porch lights too, backyard lights. You walk down the street and you set off everybody’s motion detection light and it’s just like walking around during the day. It’s okay, kind of different, but then the next day everybody’s tired.

I told you I get to dust around those new Open Your Eyes plastic cards on each table now, plus, plus! Now they’ve got all these other things we are supposed to warn people about, if you’re on The Committee.

The Committee — I’m on it, not sure how I got elected  — is supposed to talk to people all the time about being afraid of books, because of eye strain and exploding heads. Okay, I can see that.

But sharks? Really, sharks is on the Be Afraid List. That’s not the same as the list of persons to be afraid of. It’s a different list.

And lightning. If it rains or thunders everyone is supposed to run outside and run around as fast as you can because lightning cannot hit you if you are moving. If it’s a long storm everyone gets pretty tired, and wet, but as long as we don’t get hit by lightning I can see why we have to do it.

And Loogies. What if someone was in a plane passing overhead and decided to hack up a big one and let fly? Yeah, I  never thought about it either, but the people on Christopher’s Inner Bunch have thought about it and I’m glad.

That’s the reason for the yellow rain suits that we now have to wear, along with the personal fences, the bee tenders masks that used to be so hard to find, but now every store has ‘em.

6. Meteors

I can see that, too.

That would hurt.

Nicaraguans wearing Colombian sandals.

All I can say is good for the Inner Bunch ‘cause that one goes — zoom — right over my head.

And Giant Jello Blobs Like The Ones Kids Get On Their School Lunch Tray, Only Way Bigger.

I would hate to be out walking some night and run into one of those, and be by myself, all alone, but somebody said they have those more in the city.

Okay, seeya.

Be careful.

I’m serious.

[Tommy]

Hey.

You hear that?

“BE CAREFUL OF THE EVIL-DOERS!”

Hear that?

It’s the radio guy. He has his regular show, but now he’s got speakers all over town, too, for in case somebody doesn’t have a radio or doesn’t have it turned on all the time.

I’m bringing sandwiches to the jail.

Somebody said they won’t give them to her.

I’m gonna try. My mom helped me make them.

I’m going as fast as I can but you have to always slow down ‘cause the fences, you can’t see who’s coming.

I might try going out to Abu Iowa too some time.

Mom says, “forget that,” but I think I should go out. I haven’t seen those guys for a long time.

“Hey, Cleo, Cleopatra.”

They like meow and whoof when you say hi. I don’t know if that’s on purpose or what.

Robert S. Thompson here.

What a beautiful day.

I love fall. Of course, that’s like saying, I like strawberries. It goes without saying, but nevertheless, don’t you?

The Fighting Angus are doing well in football. The volleyball team, not so much.

What with the dissidents all corralled in Abu Iowa and with the jobs that has created, well, it adds a certain gloss to the beautiful red and oranges in the leaves.

I should write a letter to the editor to that effect and maybe I will this time.

There is still the matter of Ms. Moon Walking.

They say now on the radio that she is connected to a network of librarians, a cabal or cadre, web, or something.

That is what happens.

FDR, Carnegie, Murrow.

I could scream but it’s as well that I do not.

All these types all over and even in this country as well.

Some days it’s all a person can do to get up in the morning.

There goes That Swarm.

So full of energy and life.

I envy them in a way, going up and around and over everything. The fences don’t bother them. They bother me, in a way. I like to observe and I can’t see anything.

The Swarm used to be mildly amusing on their bicycles, zipping here, there.

Now they circle the jail like Indians, ride over roofs.

I’m not sure what can be done about them.

Or if we have the collective will to deal with them. No stomach for what needs to be done. Not like it used to be.

I used to bring a transistor radio down here to listen to while I sit, but with the new public blasts, I dare say I don’t require one.

Pretty soon they’ll have Coaches Corner. There’s a game tonight.

[Nona]

We do need to keep our shit straight, I mean safe.

“Right?”

Oh, boy. I should at least let you sit down, I suppose.

Coffee?

Cream?

Pretty soon The Swarm would threaten our jobs, family, cars, TVs, right?

That’s what people are saying anyway.

And they think Moon Walking should be electrocuted, as long as that wouldn’t be added to their municipal bill.

Or, some say, a good spanking.

Or deported to Nebraska.

That would teach her.

And what’s so bad about wanting to be safe?

Huh?

Save room for pie?

No, no key lime.

Lemme check.

Cherry, peach, pear.

Yep, just something we’re trying.

Safe. Sound. Secure.

SSS.

Oops, I better keep my trap shut or there won’t be no room on the tables for plates with all the slogans and cards and signs.

But, really, as long as we can do that, it doesn’t matter if the rest of the world drowns or burns, or what have you.

It really don’t.

Country folk can survive, like the song.

Right?

Can I top that off for you?

Sorry, there ya go.

[Tommy]

The real enemy is the Gestapo itself.

Remember the White Rose.

There is no such thing as The Swarm.

It’s all a hoax to make us afraid.

To let the Gestapo enslave us — even beg them to please enslave us.

Geez, Moon Walking.

She sent me a letter.

One of the jail guards, a big guy from Jason Junction, gave it to somebody who rolled it up and stuck it in my handlebars.

I used to have rubber grips, but they got ripped up and fell off.

Now people can leave messages in there for me about stuff.

Geez.

There’s more in the letter. I’m not sure who all else got one.

I think it’s just me.

Geez. Man.

I wish my dad was here.

I could ask Sheldon the mailman, but he’s out at Abu Iowa.

Geez.

Moon Walking!

Man, oh, man!

[Tommy]

Well, geez, I’m doing what Moon Walking told me.

I’m outside and it’s two.

In the morning.

My Mom will kill me.

I’m dead.

I’m already dead.

I’m only still breathing ‘cause it’s two in the morning.

Tomorrow I will be dead.

Moon Walking said to look up in the sky.

I’m on my bike and I can’t see shit.

I can’t say shit.

I don’t have a light on my bike and if a car comes by it will smoosh me. And I will be dead.

Oooh, cool.

There’s a full moon and because it’s just coming up over the houses it’s really orange and it’s big. It could be a space ship or something.

And there’s people up, sitting on their porches, walking around.

In the morning they will be in big trouble.

They will be dead.

[Robert S. Thompson]

Yes, I have been one of those unable to sleep at night due to The Swarm. They roam the city all day and now all night as well.

I sat in my study window, it’s on the second floor, I have my tea, my books, my radio. I can smoke my cigar and blow it out the window.

Well, there it was, a giant “S” superimposed on the Moon.

And so I decided to have a scotch as well and see what might happen next.

The “S” was replaced by The Swarm.

They flew across the moon, up and down the church roof, across the school parking lot.

I watched until past three, went downstairs, read some old letters from my wife when we were separated that one summer while she was taking the calligraphy course in Minneapolis.

I looked out the window once more when I went upstairs.  The lights appeared to be gone.

I pulled the window down and went to bed.

As far as I can tell I was asleep within seconds.

[Tommy]

Hey.

Cleo’s dead.

Cleopatra’s dead.

Somebody ran them over.

They were on the sidewalk.

There were bike tire tracks over them and Swarm T-shirts and Swarm buttons and Swarm leaflets all around them.

It looks like it was The Swarm.

I loved those two.

I was the one who found them. There were guts spilling out of Cleo’s stomach. I tried to push them back in. You can’t not really.

I called 9/11, then Sherry the vet.

She was nice. She came and had a big box and she said she would take care of them.

There’s nobody to talk to.

I wish I could talk to Moon Walking.

The Swarm doesn’t have leaflets.

Sheriff Don answered my 9/11 call on a bicycle I didn’t even know he had.

I’m staying up all night tonight.

I’m out here in the dark.

It’s dark out here.

Well, I’m in Mrs. Cartwright’s cabbage.

I’m not sure why.

I just thought I should maybe hide.

It’s two, probably more.

I heard what they said about the moon and The Swarm and all that. Robert S. Thompson told me and he told Nona and so everyone pretty much knows now.

How first the “S” comes out across the sky at night and then The Swarm appears.

They’re saying The Swarm is being called by Moon Walking and her followers to come ride all over the sidewalks and roofs and churches and the moon.

People are really scared now.

They’re calling the city offices asking for more surveillance cameras and for the radio station to turn up the volume on their blasts.

Just need to see for myself.

Mom knows I’m out here. She said, go ahead, she’ll stay up.  She’s making cookies. We’re gonna dunk ‘em.

You ever see that one Charlie Brown show?

Not the Christmas one the … the football-no … Halloween one. The Great Pumpkin, that’s me, looking for the Great Pumpkin.

I don’t know but it’s kind of cold.

I wouldn’t mind having a blanket.

Maybe I’ll just lean back against the garage for a sec’.

Hey.

Did I fall asleep?

Hey!

… There! …

You see that?

There it is again!

See!

Right there! See?

It’s The Swarm.

They are everywhere.

Wow!

Even on the moon.

Night must be their big thing or something.

I think I’ll just watch them for a while.

It’s pretty cool.

Fall is nice at night, too.

My mom is in the window. She’s waving. I’m not that far away, next door.

I can smell the cookies. Butterscotch honey nut.

My stomach can smell ‘em too.

Hey!

See that?

It’s a light stream going over the houses.

It’s following The Swarm wherever it goes.

I wonder if it’s a UFO.

My uncle said he saw a UFO once in the Navy.

Wow! I should get Mom and let her see.

No no time.

Gotta go.

Follow me, c’mon!

I had to yank my leg free of all the old stuff in the garden, then get over that white picket fence with the sharp edges. Good thing I do this all the time so I can do it in the dark.

I made my way slowly down the alley, ‘cause there’s glass in there sometimes and I still want to dunk cookies, not go to the ‘mergency room.

There’s some people on their porch, see, I told you. Why would they be out this late. Maybe they’re watching The Swarm too or they’re nervous about things.

Hey, let’s go. Go, go, go!

[Robert S. Thompson]

Well, as luck would have it, I was also up that night, looking out my window and I did in fact see that young boy running across the street.

And I have to say that I too saw the light stream, the one that had made the “S” on the moon the other night.

As I have heard it told now, the boy followed the light, which he at first glance thought might have been the UFO his uncle had seen off the coast of San Francisco.

He followed it straight to the City Hall and then blessed with the grace of the young and the bold, he found an open door and charged up the marble steps before they could stash away the equipment.

Young Tommy found the City people and Sheriff Don with the projector sticking out the window.

He asked them what they were doing and said he was going to tell his mom and she is a teller at the bank and so they knew it was no use and they bought him an orange pop with the key so they get it free.

And they just spilled the beans.

The City Hall people and the Sheriff, sitting there at three in the morning, on the top floor of the city building — what a symphony of sight that was to these sore eyes — a silhouette in F-Major.

Of course I did not understand what I was seeing until I was able to inquire the next morning.

I got out much earlier than usual.

It didn’t take long.

[Robert S. Thompson & Nona, sitting on Robert’s bench]

Well, as you have no doubt heard.

Here, dear, let me give you a light.

Ms. Moon Walking is back at her desk in the library, in between classes. She really does an excellent job for a high school student in charge of  a major city institution. We’re lucky to have her. Who else would do it? I doubt anyone else on the city payroll can read.

Nona is shaking her head.

Besides, the city crews are busy 24-7 these days, taking down all the fences.

The citizens are helping, too, big-time, everyone out sawing and ripping and tearing down, hauling away.

It rivals Leaf Burning Week for overall activity and excitement, which we just concluded not that long ago.

The National Guard and the fire department are out in their trucks and ladders removing all the electronic surveillance apparatus.

The radio show has gone back inside, where it belongs, I dare say.

Inside of doors is the only place for such a person as that particular announcer. You would think he might be arrested for indecent exposure, letting such obscene thoughts spoil the freshness of our air.

Speaking of recent arrests, Sheriff Don is now in his own jail, which is interesting in itself, how that all works out in the details.

They say he might soon be transferred to Abu Iowa, which has been shut down in its former capacity and is now being transformed into a mental hospital for former law enforcement personnel.

I would think they might conjure up  a brand name and open branches throughout the country.

It is such a beautiful fall day.

Nona is nodding.

We are waving at everyone going by, on bikes, autos, walking.

And there goes the hero of the day, that Tommy boy, riding his bike as ever, going fast again since he doesn’t have to slow down at corners because of the fencing.

He seems to always have a big smile on his face.

We are all very proud of him, it’s true.

Nona is shrugging her shoulders.

You should have brought out your sweater, dear.

Nona is now heading back after her smoke break.

I’ll see you a bit later, dear.

Please save me a large slice of the apple.

I feel like celebrating.

At last.

At last.

________

Next Week:

Holy Crap!

Religion ... in a small town

WHITE PICKET FENCES

— Homeland Security ... in a small town

by Mike Palecek

with

art by Monty Borror

Monty Borror

[Tommy Michael Moskowitz, a kid]

Well, I’ve got to hurry.

They’re building a new fence.

This one’s over behind Foos Foods.

It’s me, Tommy. How you doing?

I’m peddling as fast as I can. Somebody said there’s negroes on the construction crew.

And girls.

They’ve been building fences all summer.

They have to, it’s the law.

There goes The Swarm, ‘bout a million little kids, a whole bunch. Cars are backed up for three blocks. It’s worse than the train my mom says.

“Hey, Cleo. Hey, Cleopatra.”

Those two are brother and sister. One’s a cat. Cleopatra’s a dog. They’re always together. Maybe they don’t have anybody else.

I’m following The Swarm. They’re going over yards, fences, down alleys.

The fences most people have around their yards by now don’t stop The Swarm. It goes under, around, over, through anything — right through a house sometimes, back door to front, taking all the food inside, like locusts.

“Moon Walking!”

She doesn’t see me. I’m going too fast. Nobody can probably see me. I’m flyin’.

She’s the head librarian.

She’s arguing with Don the cop. He’s got a corner post under his arm.

“Hey, Don!”

[Robert S. Thompson, older man on bench on Main Street]

Well, it’s true.

Everyone is putting up fences.

Christopher, or Cristoph, as I believe he has asked his parents to refer to him, our high school student state legislator, was instrumental in getting a bill passed that mandates personal fences.

To go along with the national north and south border fences, the fence now being constructed around the state, and those that will soon be separating counties.

It’s all part of Homeland Security.

Fences around towns.

Keeps us safe.

I feel pretty safe.

I guess.

Safe as the next guy.

I do have the bedroom window open a crack all winter, though. I’m not sure how that all works, but they say they’ve heard of some folks going to sleep at night and never waking up. I’m not quite ready for that, just yet.

Christopher says that if we’re going to all that trouble to keep people out of the country and then we just let them traipse around wherever they want, that just defeats the purpose, I suppose.

I’m not going to watch the fence building.

I’ve seen lots.

[Nona, the waitress]

[A waitress]

Last winter the highway department put up snow fence out by the highway like they always do. It keeps snow from Canada or Russia or wherever from blocking the road.

This time they put razor wire on top.

I guess it’s permanent.

Everybody in the café, oh, hello, I’m Nona, everyone in here these days is talking about the fences, fences, fences.

Everybody likes them.

They love ‘em.

They don’t have any choice.

If you don’t put up a fence around your property you go to jail.

But if it keeps everyone safe, that’s what they want.

Safe from what?

Wind from Russia, maybe. I dunno. Let me think about it.

They paint the fences, put up lights, wreaths, paint pictures on them.

They just love ‘em. Just love ‘em.

Can’t imagine how we ever got along without them.

“Commies!”

Oops, that just came out.

Now everyone is looking out the windows and under their tables.

But that’s something the fences might keep us safe from.

Do they still have commies?

[Tommy]

I’m going fast now, really fast.

I can just barely still see The Swarm. I hear sirens.

It’s got to be Don. The new National Guard trucks don’t have sirens. He must have spotted The Swarm.

I’m gonna stop. It’s no use.

I like the new stop signs.

My mom says there are big bees coming up from Mexico to get us. I was just headed out the door and she was still talking when the screen slammed.

I’m pretty sure she wasn’t talking about The Swarm, something different.

Fences STOP Terror. That’s what the signs say.

See?

All they had to do was put the two stickers above and below the STOP.

Gutner had to do that. I rode along on a whole Saturday in the back of the city pickup, keeping the papers from the sticker things from flying out.

Well, seeya.

Hey! Hey-Don! Don!

[Robert S. Thompson]

It’s been a long, hot summer.

Many dark and stormy nights.

There’s now a palpable chill in the air.

When I sit out here on my bench I wear a wool top coat on some days. Other days the sun shines bright, but still the warmth it provides does not match its luster.

Some trees are already golden, some others still green.

The children are back in school, for what reason I have no idea.

I have my fence around my home. Got that done just this past week, finally.

I have not been out to see Abu Iowa.

Some have said it’s lovely.

Some say it’s just a prison. Like all the others.

You do not see drug dealers around here, that’s for sure.

There were none before the prison was constructed, either, but you cannot deny there are none here ever since as well.

Most people feel even safer, knowing it’s there.

Some have seen white vans pulling in there with individuals inside in turbans and towels and sombrero’s. I doubt this account, but an associate of mine said some of those inside the vans have heads shaped like human excrement. Aliens, perhaps.

Or not, but still, it’s odd.

It is much safer here since the controlled movement ordinance was passed by the council.

You find that you really don’t need to be out and about at all hours. You budget your time.

Yet get used to it.

After awhile you don’t notice it.

[Nona]

Hey, good morning!

The special today is, oh, let me check again.

I’m putting out these new Open Your Eyes posters, one for the front window and these little ones at the tables.

It’s bacon and eggs, and you get toast and coffee with that.

Moon Walking, she comes in here, doesn’t want a fence around the library.

She’s been fighting it.

She and some of the wing nuts who come in there to read.

She doesn’t have one at her house either, I guess. Her mother must be kind of weird, too.

The ones who don’t put up a fence get visited.

There’s guys from the Legion and VFW and the Tuesday Night Bowling League, the Roy Scouts, that come to the house, sometimes it’s after midnight.

I heard once it was five in the morning.

After that they put up the fence.

Somebody said something about Moon Walking.

They reported her, I guess. That’s what I heard ‘em say at breakfast a couple days ago.

They said it’s the name.

She can’t be from around here.

Which is all well and good, but then why don’t you just leave then, if she’s not from here.

Anyway, that’s what everybody says.

My parents came from Germany and Ireland, well, my grandparents, and that would really be Germany and Ireland and Norway and Netherlands.

They came here fair and square. They didn’t tunnel under a fence, or go over a fence, or around a fence.

They walked right in through the front door.

They didn’t have to sneak and they didn’t need to hide.

They held their heads high.

[Tommy]

Hey, it’s me.

Me.

Tom-my!

You know.

Know what’s on tonight?

Umm …. Watch People Mow, How Big Is Your House, Big Hamburgers, and Mom Fixed The Bathroom.

Everybody’s watching.

Somebody said they saw The List.

Somebody had it and they saw it.

It’s called Christopher’s List, named after the high school kid legislator who lives in the house with the hoop with the glass backboard on Ninth Street.

Some people are on it.

They said Moon Walking is on it.

On the top.

Robert S. Thompson here.

At your service, as it were.

Well, now that’s a new one.

It says here in the Past-Bugle that the fences are an excellent idea and that there is a brand new ingenious idea about putting up a giant mosquito net over the whole country to keep out aliens.

Some of the citizens’ patrol, the Roy Scouts — all the members are named Roy, or change their name to Roy in order to be admitted, or get deputized as Roys.

Well, they are starting to wear bee tender masks, head gear.

Individual fences.

Ingenious.

They say it makes them proud to be an American.

I can see how it might.

The giant universal mosquito netting is kind of an Eisenhower Interstate Highway Project Thing, on that scope and scale.

Should be quite the deal.

There is also some plan in the works to do something about the wackos who sit in the library reading the magazines and newspapers.

Oh, I used to go there myself, but I haven’t been there in years.

I can assure you.

[Nona]

Some people don’t like the fence project.

They talk, not at breakfast so much.

They’re probably all on The List.

In fact, I thought I saw The List in here the other day on somebody’s table.

I think it was Tulip Booth, three pancakes, coffee, juice. No syrup.

Fifteen-cent tip.

I might have seen some of who was on there.

Ummm.

Sullivan Oh, that one farmer.

The Mexicans.

Linda the fat lifeguard.

I'd call that fat, wouldn't you?

And my hairdresser, what was her name?

There’s others too.

I suppose.

I didn’t really want to see, but I sure wanted to see if I was on there.

I couldn’t be, I don’t say anything. I don’t talk to anybody. I don’t know anybody.

The lifeguard, I’ve heard about her.

And Jeannie, that's her name. I was in there the other day. I always go Tuesday morning.

She’s a Vietnam Era Veteran, has an MIA flag tacked to the wall.

The other day she says she saw things over there she doesn’t want to talk about.

Delores says, “You didn’t go to Vietnam, Jeannie. You went to Alabama.”

Jeannie says, “It’s too soon, too soon.”

And Sherman the mail carrier, his hair’s about to his butt by now.

Well, little miss Moon Walking was at the city council meeting last night …

Oh, I’m on break now, seeya later.

You smoke?

[Tommy]

Well, Moon Walking went to city council last night.

She had a physics mid-term the next day so she took her book with.

She’s trying to fight the fences. She said she might get some T-shirts made like the one she made for herself. She wore it to the ol’ meeting.

Fuck The Fences.

I can’t say the “F” word.

When it was her turn she went up to the podium. She left her book on her seat.

She told them why she doesn’t want a fence around the library.

“Even if there is a gate, it’s still the idea of looking like we want to keep people out, or that we want to keep our books in.”

“Sit down.”

“High school kid.”

She said she doesn’t know what the big deal is.

She said that one thousand people get killed every year from lightning and nobody from terrorists, so why the fences and why don’t we make everyone wear antenna hats to deflect the lighting bolts.

One thousand people. Every year, she said, as she sat down.

You could get the shop class to make them and sell them to make money to go woods camp in the summer or whatever.

If it saves one thousand lives every year, isn’t that worth it? she said.

“Lock her up.”

People behind her talked while she was talking.

“The whole idea of fences is so wrong,” she shouted from her seat.

“Skinny bitch,” someone said.

“Dead Moon walking.”

[Robert S. Thompson]

Oh, Jan.

Yes, when they came she was at the vacant homeless shelter, cleaning.

Jeannie was at her shop, working on Mrs. Jones’ hair.

Michael Sullivan Oh was walking toward his machine shed at four-thirty in the morning.

Linda the lifeguard had just pulled her car in to the parking lot at the swimming pool to shut everything down for the winter. She was sitting in the front seat lighting a cigarette when they appeared at both windows.

And Seymour the movie theater proprietor was perched precariously on a new ladder setting up the marquee for the showing of  “How High Were My Fences,” when the white van went by taking them all to Abu Iowa.

And The Swarm. Good God.

There’s a lot of talk about them these days.

Little shits.

There’s ads now for a new head lifeguard, and the beauty salon is for sale. And the lonely people’s shelter is going to be a Taco Bell, I heard, if they can get the TIF approved.

Lots of opportunity, things happening.

Shows a vibrant economy.

Some at the UU Church said they’ve had a few new people in church these past weeks. Prison guards, fence construction types, individual netting developers.

That’s encouraging as well.

[Nona]

Hi.

The Swarm never comes in here.

No money.

But they go past the windows all the time, across the lot.

The boss says it looks like an amoeba on a slide, or a group of black birds, forming, swooping, re-forming.

Nobody can catch ‘em.

I heard someone say yesterday —I had my hands and arms filled with Denver Omellete Special plates — why try?

Why try to catch them?

I stopped and stared.

It was Brigitte, Jeannie the hairdresser’s sister.

Jeannie! That’s her name.

I stared right at her. She didn’t notice me, just puffed and flicked her ash.

I didn’t say anything, ‘cause I was too busy.

Brigitte. I wonder where she’s from. Hmmm. Brigitte … that sound Nebraskan to you?

And they all think I don’t hear, but I hear everything ... but what I thought the whole rest of the morning was ... why?

What’s The Swarm hurt by going over fences, around fences, under fences.

At the end of the day it’s all the same.

Everyone’s sitting in their houses watching their TV’s, staring out the windows, wiggling their toes.

What’s the dif?

Moon Walking and her mom were in here a couple hours ago.

Saturday, no school.

Her mother’s name is Regina. She ‘s not so bad.

They asked me to sit down and smoke and drink coffee and eat pie.

It was still morning menu, but they wanted pie, so we had banana crème pie, Marlboros and mocha Java.

We sat in Blueberry Booth, next to the gumball machine and the shopper’s guide rack.

Moon Walking thinks they will make her put up a fence at the library, and her mother thinks she’ll probably wake up one morning and there will be twelve big guys in her front yard putting up a fence around her home.

I didn’t say, but I thought they might want to think about a lot more than that.

The Roy Scouts have coffee in here every afternoon. We have to close the place down for an hour. I put out coffee, rolls, not supposed to hang around, but I’m not going to go all the way home, get all comfortable, just to have to come back here by four.

So, I do dishes, I smoke in the kitchen. I’ve got my book.

There’s a new billboard up right outside.

It’s a big one.

It’s the Open Your Eyes campaign by the Roy Scouts.

The signs are all over town, billboards, house windows, church bulletin stuffers.

The kids bring ‘em home from school, too.

[Robert S. Thompson]

Ms. Moon Walking was headed to the library, walking from school.

Don pulled up in the cruiser on the curb.

He called M.W. over.

Then the new bicycle cops came up behind her and behind them was a black undercover SUV with clouded windows.

Two black helicopters appeared overhead, hovering, shaking down leaves, making everything smell like helicopter oil and leaf dust.

They took Moon Walking to the jail.

Nobody could talk to her or see her.

They told her mother that she wasn’t even in there, but she was ‘cause Tommy that kid on the bike saw them take her.

Tommy told me just a few minutes ago that The Swarm saw it happen as well and followed the officer's car all the way to the jail.

The Swarm comprises dozens, maybe hundreds or thousands of Jimmy’s, Judy’s, Reynaldo’s, Achmad’s, Wayne’s. No one really knows.

They seem like an “it” because that’s what they’re called, The Swarm, and it’s seen as one thing, a thing.

However, The Swarm is really a bunch of who’s and if it were possible to catch it, stop it, put it under a microscope in Mr. Blueberry’s botany lab you would see about a million different faces, some smiling, some angry, some ugly as hell, some too beautiful to behold.

And so that’s why it is possible to imagine, not just possible, but wholly inevitable, that The Swarm had a heart.

It cared. About something. Everyone cares about something.

Right?

And, as it turns out ... The Swarm cared about Moon Walking.

NEXT WEEK:

Moon Walking in Jail.

... The Swarm all over that Jail like sweet on honey.

SWEAT

... global warming in a small town

& Other Tales of THE Great American Western Midwest

by Mike Palecek

Art by Monty Borror

Chapter 16

Hello, Robert S. Thompson reporting from the flood area.

You’ve heard it said, the saying, “If the creek don’t rise.”

Well, the goddamn creek has risen.

There is water running down every gutter in Jennifer Junction.
As for now, my bench appears safe, but for how long.

Jenny Creek has filled and overflowed, no thanks to the melting north and south poles and a chunk of Greenland broken off and free in the Atlantic the size of Uruguay, the Channel 14 weather man now tells us.
My toes are wet.
How nice.
Here we go.

And no one can find The Big Sweats.

Many of our citizens have been forced by circumstances to form improvised grey sweat pants — with the red script Fighting Angus logo — out of bed sheets, overhead awning, Boy Scout tents, parachutes, whatever is at hand.

It’s not the same and maybe it has something to do with Jenny Creek. It’s hard to think rationally with minnows and carp swimming past.

It’s not normal.

Nothing will stay frozen either. Not in the meat freezer at Tim & Tony’s, not in the refrigerators and back porch freezers in any of the homes.

Some people have taken to wearing six and seven pairs of sweat pants to try to reverse events. We’ll know more by the end of the week, I would imagine.

Gutner and The Grey Sweats have intensified their efforts to capture Steve.
So much is happening.

The Fighting Angus lost to Jason Junction last night, 5-4, while our Fighting Cowettes were victorious, 9-2.
Professor Carl and Jesse almost had The Foos, but they got away.

The two sleuths waited in the fire truck in the alley behind The Foo Home, all the lights off in the vehicle except the interior ceiling light.

It was about midnight, maybe a little after, when they coasted up.

They stared in at The Foos, seated at the kitchen table, in the kitchen window, facing the alley.
Talking, just talking.

They kept conversing, talking … with each other.
Back … and forth, is how Jesse describes it in his recapitulation.
Mary Woo … then Lorenzo .... um, Larry.

Back … and forth.
The professor and Jesse took a break to split up a Ho-Ho for snack.
When all of a sudden!
In Jesse’s window and also in Carl’s window!
The Foos!

Just standing there, leaning over like they do, looking in and smiling.

“Ahhh!” said Jesse and Carl.
“How do you do?” says Mary Woo.

Jesse said, fine, and I think Carl nodded, surrepticiously slipping his bit of Ho Ho into his mouth lest it be the last normal food he sees for years.

The Foos invited Jesse and Carl in for jelly sandwiches and milk.

Jesse and Carl walked up to the house with their hands laced behind their heads.
Jesse and Carl didn’t leave until morning.

Larry Foo gave Jesse a jump with the Trailblazer, and then he and Mary Woo just stood in the alley, holding the jumper cables, waving at Carl and Jesse drive away down the alley.

I guess The Foos are no longer suspects in the Sox baby case.

The Foos did not know the Sox’ had a baby, since they are always working.
They would also like to get a Korean baby sometime, they said.

Chapter 17

And there they go!

That’s the third time they’ve gone by, not stopping for the light, old ladies, dogs, nothing.

Gutner and Ron Waters in the light blue, robins-egg blue pickup are chasing Steve The Incredible Pizza Dude all around town.

PizzaMan has attained a sort of cult status around town as The Dude Who Would Not Die because he was able somehow to escape being captured during delivering the cheese, small, thin-crust, which is now on permanent display in the front desk case at the library.

Behind Gutner was Don in the black and white with the lights flashing, sirens, of course, full-blast, windows down so he can smoke during the pursuit.

I heard later that Jesse and Carl would hear all what was going on down where they were sitting on The Foos front porch with Mary Woo and Lorenzo, too.

They were drinking shots of Jack Daniels with water crescents and Twinkie slices. Jesse said its Mandarin cuisine.

Steve stopped at a light and some old people toughs jumped in the back seat. He was zipping and sliding and swerving, coasting through stop signs.

He was busy.

It’s like that song my grandpa had ‘em play at his funeral.

Faster horses, younger women, bigger sweat pants, more pizza.

I’m sitting here, balancing on my bike, with my foot on Robert S. Thompson’s bench. Robert S. is talking to Nona, who came out for her cigarette break when she heard all the commotion.

“You think they’re just about to catch him when he puts it in that extra Jap gear,” says Robert.
“He doesn’t see them,” says Nona.

“He’s in the zone,” I say. “When he’s busy it’s total Buddhist detachment. When it’s over it’ll be like he just woke up. It’s unconscious, like a basketball player who can’t miss from anywhere on the court.”

“Confidence,” says Robert S. Thompson, watching them roar past again.

Nona shook out a cigarette and offered to Robert S.

He took it. She offered her lighter too.

Chapter 18

Hey, it's me, Tommy.

How you doing through all this?

Some of our NASCAR buffs came out to stand in the streets and on the roofs and hoods of their pickups.

Ron In The Morning was giving a play by play each time they roared past the radio station big window.
The bar started happy hour five hours early.

And just as Rick Waters was unloading a big brown box with a Made In Japan stamp on the top and sides from a stone black SUV with darkened windows, Steve and the newly customized pizza car with the spinning pizza on top squealed once more around the main street four corners.

He went right between two sets of elderly chicken fighters, holding each other on their shoulders — they do that in the pool and everywhere now, I guess it's the new thing — in the middle of the street.

He rammed the curb and the impact through him way left, just missing the front window sweat pants display in Rick’s Sporting Goods Store.

Rick did not see Steve’s flying spinning pizza-mobile.

He had just sliced open the big box from Nagasaki with two dozen Infinity-X Sumo Sweat Pants with the customized Fighting Angus logo under the waistband.

Rick held up a pair in front of him like a toreador to examine the new stock.

Right behind Steve came Gutner in the city truck, like a bull right through the sweats into Rick.

The truck shoved Rick all the way through the store, slamming into the rear concrete wall.

Behind them came Don in the cruiser, the windshield smeared thick with blood.

Don had been unable to miss the four old people.

The police car cut the old guys at the waist, flinging them and their lovely ladies onto the windshield, bouncing high, then smacking the pavement.

When you see it for real it’s a lot faster and worse sounding and looking than just trying to imagine it.

When you just think about something like that your mind shows it to you way slowed down to make it not so bad.

But it’s very bad.


So, the dee-new-mahn-t, as Carl says, is that Rick Waters was crushed against the concrete wall by Gutner’s city pickup.

He broke his back, or rather Gutner broke Rick’s back and hips and he, Rick, got a concussion where he was goofy for a while and his tongue swelled way up.

But the boxes and boxes of size small sweat pants along the wall probably saved his life.

They took him by helicopter to Jeremy Junction, and the helicopter radio was tuned to My Midget Music hour is what I hear.

All four of the old people ended up dying in the middle of the street.

Gunslingers laid low by new technology.

Their heads exploded like smashed watermelons.

Jesse came in a hurry in the fire truck to try to help, and so did William in the ice cream appendectomymobile.

Then they buried the old dead people that Don hit with the cruiser.

Don’s not going to jail.

He didn’t even lose his job. He got a promotion to two-star sheriff, that’s a new one on me.

And he got a new cruiser, insurance paid off.

This one’s got a cattle catcher on front, folks love it. They point and smile, glad that somebody finally stood up to the old people.

Rick’s in a body cast. All he can get on are sweat pants. He sits in a chair in the front window of his store.
He’s got wide eyes.

They say he’s still got a concussion. If you walk up close you can see he’s got a shotgun on the floor by his chair. My feeling is he’s going to shoot the first pickup that jumps the curb.

Baby Sweat, well, yeah.

Well, they did let LaVerna go.

She wasn’t too happy.

She’s back at the bank drive-up. Some people see larceny in her eyes when they pull up. Some see murder. Some see lust. Some see a Luxembourg mountain scene.

I see pain, real hurt.

I guess there wasn’t a Baby Sweat Sox.

They made it up.

They wanted a baby so bad they just talked themselves into being pregnant.

They talked about it to themselves and then to other people and then when they had to have it, ‘cause it was time.

And then they couldn’t have it go to school ‘cause there wasn’t a kid, and then they didn’t want it do die because that was way too sad.

So they decided to have it be kidnapped.

They thought that it would go away eventually.

But … well you know ...

That could never happen in a small town.

____________________________________

NEXT Week:

"Fences"

... Homeland Security ... in a Small Town

SWEAT

... global warming in a small town

& Other Tales of THE Great American Western Midwest

by Mike Palecek

Art by Monty Borror

Chapter 11

It’s drizzly today.

I imagine myself seated on a bench in downtown London, maybe Duluth.
If I close my eyes it is conceivable.

Jesse in the fire truck — it is actually an ancient brown Honda — is revving up his engine — he likes to think of it as a fire truck and that’s fine.

He is trying to get up enough momentum to beat Gutner in the city truck right beside.
There are not really two lanes.

But since there are no cars parked right now, that allows for Gutner to pull up next to Jesse and agitate.
Those two.

Gutner, I believe, with that thick accent, is European, perhaps Eurasian. Someone said he came here from South Dakota. I rather doubt that account.

To me, he over-compensates by being, or appearing to be, uber-patriotic.

I don’t think that applies to his battles with Jesse. I think that’s just for his own entertainment, but as regards Steve The Supreme Pizza Dude there is more to it than that.

He just wants to fit in, Gut’. We all do. Not me, so much, but others, I believe.

And so he goes on and on about not believing in global warming and wearing sweat pants because as an outsider he sees others doing thus and thus and calling it patriotism.

Gutner, that is unusual spelling.
Maybe Swiss.

I know of a man who was “Jhonny” his whole life because his parents could not spell.

The crimes of our parents forever haunt us.
Hey.

And there they go.

I wear the sweat pants and listen to Sweaty Waters In The Morning, but I do note that Gutner’s belief might be a little misplaced and insincere, not entirely necessary, perhaps.

Jesse had him halfway through the intersection.
But Gutner and that six-banger were just too much.

So Jesse lets off to live another day and turns up the radio in face-saving defiance.
The old people across the street on the corner watched in silence, tossing cigarette butts at the gutter, blowing smoke rings at the police car that just pulled up.

Those people.

Two of the old ladies are sticking their heads in the window of the cruiser, playing with the cop’s hair and hat and tie, while the old guys spray paint “blow me” on the side and let the air out of his back tires.

Chapter 12

That Steve guy had coffee, toast, and a sweet roll.

I think that’s about the second time I’ve seen him in here.
I suppose he eats pizza, ‘cause he is Pizza Steve, and sometimes he just gets sick of it.

Right?

He asked about the pie, pancakes, eggs, but he just ordered toast, coffee, and the sweet roll. They are famous, for about six, seven miles. Then nobody’s ever heard of them. In every direction, north, south, east …

Pizza Guy had on shorts, no socks.

Which is fine, as long as there’s shoes. I got no problem with that.

The old people come in here, take up two, three booths, talk loud, repeat themselves.

They leave butts on the floor, sit around for two, three hours and just order water.

Some of the old guys take their shirts off, out of the arms and just have their shirts hanging around their necks.

When you tell them about the policy, they say, “What? I got a shirt on. What’s this? A halter? A plow?

Well, people are starting to talk.

Not starting, when did they ever stop?

Talking about Steve, how he won’t wear sweat pants and how he took the Sox baby, probably because of the name, got rid of it, probably stuffed it down a wood chipper.

You can rent one in Jason Junction.

In defiance of everyone.

And how if we don’t do something about him then we’re not going to get on the Today Show maybe for fighting global warming and nobody is ever going to hear about us, and our kids will be huge nobodies and maybe we might as well die like Jonestown and their Koolaide. That stuff Winnie made the other day would about do the trick. I poured it all out.

It’s more fun to think about having the whole smiling town schmoozing like maniacs in the middle of the street with Willard Scott than being a bunch of Jennifer Junction Angry Cows losers forever before and now forever-after.

The grill is sizzling.
Omelettes.
Eggs.
Steve.
Willard Scott.

Chapter 13

I was riding past the deli windows of Foos Foods.

And I could see Prof. Carl and Jesse sitting in there in disguise.

Carl was wearing a headdress of eagle feathers, war paint, and smoking his pipe.

Jesse had on a pilgrim’s costume with his yellow firefighter helmet. Probably the people who rented the costume before turned it back in without the hat.


It’s happening.
They’re all coming for The Pizza Dude.

There’s pitchforks and blazing brooms and torches made out of rags and yardsticks, and screaming and somebody has tossed a rope over the stoplight.

There’s old people and little people and everything in between.

They are going to burn the whole town down if that’s what it takes to find him.
Before they burn him and hang him they are going to — a couple of fat people — are going to sit on his legs and arms and make him put on sweat pants.

And pull the waist string tight as it will go, then a little more.

Well, actually, what’s going to happen is I think someone is going to call in an order for a large supreme and when Steve shows up to deliver, they might try to tackle him.

Then they will either try to de-pants him or pull the grey sweat pants over his shorts.
And I think they’re hoping he’ll be worried that anytime he walks up to a door to deliver a pizza there could be people waiting to take him down and sit on his arms and put sweat pants on him and pull the strings pretty tight.

Tighter than normal.

Carl and Jesse were watching The Foos. Mary Woo was behind the cash register and Kung Stu was hurrying around, serving a line of customers at the breakfast bar.
I don’t see nothing suspicious about that, but I have not taken the CCC Trained Neighborhood Observer course either.

It’s now part of the adult ed. curriculum.

Anyway, people are hoping that Steve will give in to the pressure and everyone can relax.

Chapter 14

I was just in talking to Moon Walking.

She’s pretty smart. Pretty and smart.

She’s beautiful.
She’s the head librarian.

Her hair is braided into dreadlocks. She doesn’t mind talking to kids.

I found that out the time I went in there for summer reading Harry Potter Week and I was the only one who came.

Moon Walking didn’t mind.

We spent the whole week wearing wizard robes she made with stuff her mom had. We made brooms and potions. She said I was Harry and she was Hermione Granger.
It was a blast.

Moon Walking is an activist.
She told me.
She’s a junior at JJHS.

She’s an anti-global warming activist.
She’s the only one there is.

She doesn’t wear the sweat pants. She wears like pajamas and beads and she’s got earrings in her tongue and ears and other places.

She smells like cinnamon and lilacs.
M.W. Head Librarian.

That’s what the wooden name plaque says on the front desk.
She got the job when she showed up to volunteer and there was nobody there.
There was a cigarette burning.
There was hot coffee in the pot and coats on the hangers, a hat on the floor.
There was poop in the pot and bikes in the rack.

It was a librarian abduction.
So she stayed and she became the head librarian. It’s a big job for a high school student, but she seems to like it, like Don the cop and Nona the waitress. I don’t know what they’re like when nobody’s around. Maybe they throw things.

If we knew about the Wal-Mart greeter at the time, M.W. says, we could have called him in to CSI the library, but she cleaned so we can’t.

M.W. says global warming is nature fighting back.

She says it’s bears shooting hunters. And skinning them and gutting them.

And geese dive-bombing those big whitish green hunks of poop into hunter’s mouths, and rivers puking up blood, and fields rolling and bucking like a horse and throwing the farmer into the ditch with a big gash in his head and maybe across his arms.

She says it’s the woods stabbing the lumber man in the stomach, with three, four or sometimes nine guys on one pokey branch.

Sometimes I walk her home from the library on my bike.
She doesn’t seem to mind.
She likes everybody.

Chapter 15

The ones who tried to capture The Pizza Man were in here this morning.

It happened last night.
Coup d’et ha … ha.
Attempted.

They used Radio Guy’s house and still Steve fell for it.

It was a small cheese, thin crust. The city’s assassination budget must be tight.
It was Gutner and the Waters boys and Don the cop was sitting there in the cruiser.
All of them were crowded into Sunshine Booth whispering about it.
Idiots.

It didn’t really happen.
He got away.

When Steve pulled up to the house numbnuts Don had his stupid cop car parked out front with the lights flashing and the siren going.

So Steve was kind of on alert when he came to the door, is how they tell it.

“He knew,” said Don.
“Of course he knew,” said Rick Waters. He drank the rest of his water and began crunching ice in his front teeth, staring at Don.
“Why?” said Rick Waters.
“Standard operating procedure,” said Don.
“S.O.P.”
Rick shook his head and rolled his eyes.
“Not … when you are doing the crime, ding-dong,” said Rick.

Gutner began arranging the salt and pepper and napkin holder.

While the others argued and began shoving each other across the table/under the table with their feet, Gutner nudged the shaker toward the edge, pushing the salt to hang over.

He pulled dental floss from his shirt pocket and tied one end around the napkin holder and the other around the neck of the salt shaker.

Then he gave the salt a final finger flick, sending it over, hanging in mid-air, banging against the table, sending salt across the floor.

“Da Peeza must die. He vil drag de whole town, then entire plant, vith him, iv ve do nuthingk.”
“Nuthingk?”
Ron laughed and looked at his brother to say, nuthingk?
“How does that get Sweat Sox back!” said Don.
He had to holler because just outside the window the cruiser was parked in the lot with the lights flashing and the siren blaring. Don had decided to do that until the town crises had been overcome, global warming and the missing Sweat.
“Who carezabout dat?” said Gutner. “If he wilt not ware da svets ve vil alsuffer de consequenzes.”

Who do they think cleans up the salt around here?

Fucking Nazis and their fucking salt, all over my floor. Just who do they think is going to clean that up?

Not their mothers.

... To be continued.