Tales from the Silverwater Tavern, [companion playlist]
“Silverwater would welcome you, but you’ve been here all along”
The Mojave desert sun was getting low and cool above this dusty, relic town of Silverwater. A radio broadcast from a distant rusted tower, on top of some rundown mechanics garage, bounces around the southern canyons called the Hollowlands, seeking its audience.
‘Alright alright, fellow freaks, geeks and ghouls of the Hollowlands. You’ve been listening to Disco Pete’s four o’clock magic hour, I’m Disco Pete, your guide through this netherworld of madness. It’s a balmy but breezy 95 degree Thursday in the thirsty desert. You were just listening to a double dose of Radiohead for any of you paranoid androids and subterranean aliens. You also heard from Sioux on the Banshees, The Pixies, Duran Duran, & Bowie, all kicked off with ‘White Rabbit’ by Jefferson Airplane. Mixed in, a splash of cool from Miles Davis by special request. Some songs out of time for our man out of time – hope that helps the hangover, brother. Later tonight, our old timey radio, midnight marathon – adventures of time and space with special episodes of Dimension X… X… X! Weather, news and traffic at the six. But first up, some delicious beats for those cool and primitive drinks of water over at the saloon. Let’s get strange out there tonight, you cowboys and aliens. This is Disco Pete for Hollowland’s own Silverwater Radio, 91.9! Here’s The Cramps with ‘Primitive.’’
Those low fidelity radio waves echoed along empty desert, through canyon walls and across open plains, searching for any signs of life in the lifeless terrain. And they always found the warmest welcome from a big wooden vacuum tube radio inside the only vintage hotel at the abandoned crossroads of town. The incongruously brilliant two story inn hung her sign above double batwing doors, reading simply: ‘Silverwater Tavern.’ The radio song hummed nicely inside an immaculate room of waxed floors, polished brass, and a glossy oaked wraparound bar at its center. The radio sat on the top of a beat up, hot pink jukebox, with tangled wires running all across shelved walls to worn down speakers. There was plenty of kitsch scattered about, from old vinyls, horse saddles, and polaroid cameras, to Tesla coils and other strange Davinci-like contraptions. None more out of place, amidst the carved crown molding and crystal chandelier, than the life-sized automaton man dressed as a blackjack dealer sitting behind a card table and plugged into the wall.
Behind the bar, underneath a tower of liquor bottles, tapped the boot of the tavern’s dedicated caretaker, the beautiful barkeep who called herself Lyla. Lyla was pretty the way a rattlesnake is charming. Left arm fully sleeved in swirling tattoos, and the right stenciled with clean lines. She had long raven hair, often braided on both sides down to her waist. Today she had it tied up with a red banana, messy in her ‘all business’ bun. Lyla carried a rare sense of calm, comfortable in her skin, even in this eerie ‘land of the lost’ town. She spun her wardrobe across every era from 90’s grunge to peace-child hippy, and even an occasional nod to her Comanche blood. Today she was in 80’s metal, complete with sleeveless denim jacket, washed out Metallica tank, heavy on the eyeliner, and black studded wrist cuffs. She was perched in the back two legs of a barstool, thumbing her dimestore copy of “The Myth of Sisyphus” by Albert Camus, one eye on the clock, and her hard leather boots crossed on the bar with a sharp point that promised to tear a new asshole for any patron that disrespected her barroom rules.
The clock across the mantle, which was usually spinning out of control, had settled to a steady state and, as DIsco Pete had promised, was just past the witching hour of five o’clock. The low shift was waning to the wave of thirsty denizens, her regulars, already arriving at the side tables. A few sun-stroked cowboys in the front window table were playing slow poker hands like zombies. And there was Barnacle Bill, typically, posted on a stool by the service station, always too close, always in the way, always needing to be nudged aside like an arthritic old retriever sleeping too close to the fireplace. Lyla suspected old Bill was probably sleeping right now, upright and frozen stiff like a taxidermied man, although it was hard to say with his cloudy, dead, cataracted eyes.
Barnacle Bill claimed he had been a pirate, and a pretty successful one, before he decided to follow the boom of the Gold Rush up in San Francisco as a land-lubbing prospector. Layered in tattered vests, gold chains, a long ‘always damp’ trench coat (why was it always damp, he never went anywhere?), and a hat with an unturned front brim – his outfit certainly told the two tales of his life. The only time he really came alive was when peppered to tell a story from his days on the high seas or, better still, tales of stranger things mining across the mercury poisoned desert surrounding Silverwater.
The overhead lights began to flicker a bit, and like someone dropped their end of a piano up on the second floor, the chandelier rattled a large dust cloud into the air. Job was here. Lyla showed the tiniest corner of a smile. She grabbed the jukebox remote and switched it over from the radio, turning up the volume a little on the overhead speakers. Time to build some nightlife momentum with the hard drums of ‘Goin Out West’ by Tom Waits. And although she’d never admit it, it was for Job. And just as she turned back around, there he was, Job Branigan, private investigator.
Job conjured himself onto his usual bar stool, dressed in his well worn, well slept in, light gray suit. And it wasn’t just his wrinkled suit that was on a grayscale. He seemed to follow the shadows like they were part of his wardrobe. And unless in direct sunlight, he seemed to emanate the hue of a silver era movie star. ‘Anyone call for a detective?’ Job knocked on the bar to announce his arrival, giving a courteous nod over to old Barney. Lyla grabbed a polished lowball glass and started a long pour of Jamesons neat. She pushed the glass in front of him with one hand, and used her other to present a neatly folded white bar mop. Job eyed the rag and sighed, ‘Oh come on now, do I really have to wear a diaper?’ Lyla just tilted her head, ‘you know the rules, you old ghost.’
‘Ghost? Please. I self-identify as a poltergeist.’ Job put the towel neatly folded onto his stool and sat back down on it. ‘But let’s face it, I got too much Irish Jew stuffed in me to be anything else.’ He gave his usual ‘here’s mud in your eye’ toast and took a large swig of his whiskey. For a flash of a moment, his face pulsed with color, rosy and flush, before turning gray again. The whiskey drained its glossy path down his transparent throat, before drizzling down through him onto the absorbing towel below. ‘Ah, that’s life coming back, thanks, promise I’ll try to hold onto the next one.’
‘Rough night, Job? Quite the bender you’re on lately,’ Lyla mentioned the racquet he was making all night in the upstairs inn, harassing her guests no doubt, breaking more shit than usual. ‘Any idea how long this one’s gonna last?’ She warned while pouring two shots this time, joining him. Job just shrugged sheepishly. She wouldn’t take his money, only suggested he spend some time upstairs sweeping up the likely piles of shattered vases, glass, mirrors… frightened egos; all the usual aftermath from his fits. She turned and hollered back, ‘And leave my damn guests alone when you’re like that, you know, I always get a heavy ear-full from the big man.’
Job nodded more sincerely. ‘Lookit I’m sorry, you said yourself they’re all getting a little too comfortable here, and nobody knows what’s waiting out there for them, not even us. What’s the harm in me showing them a few scares, be good for them to confront some real terror.’
‘Bumps in the night aren’t the scariest things around this damned place’. Lyla corrected him. Job perked up at the mention of ‘bumping in the night’ and tried to make a lewd suggestion before Lyla stopped him. ‘Pump those breaks, gumshoe, you’re only on your second drink.’
Job took his time-out, grateful to catch his breath, still nursing his hangover, and rubbing his buried forehead on his folded arms. Cocking his head to the door, he noticed those three wranglers playing poker, slow like they were trying to fade into the background. Were they coming from cosplay at a dude ranch? Or were they actually cowboys? Then he muttered a bit confusedly, ‘Don’t I know those guys?’ Job definitely remembered this sinister trio, he wasn’t sure how, but thinks they were wearing black Italian suits. And maybe, gang tattoos, Russian mafia maybe? His memory seemed to be phasing in and out, even more than his body lately. And it would be hard to forget the big fellow, he was nearly seven feet tall, like some brown clay golem bursting through all that denim. Job swore he’d tangled with him before, was it last night, or last month? Lyla would never allow that in her bar. Must’ve been back on a case, something about Chinatown, a case he was working… or is working. God, his head was too fried for this, so he turned back to his whiskey and asked for a lager back.
‘How’s your case going, Job? What was it this time, some femme fatale, suspicious albi, a double blind?’ Lyla was trying to help take his mind off the old cowhands. And it worked, Job put his elbows back on the bar and rubbed his temples, ‘yeah, something like that, but I’m off duty, I think. Let me just solve the case of the missing Irish,’ He rocked his eyes towards his empty lowball. ‘Now, that case I can solve for you,’ Lyla long poured another whiskey.
Before Job could touch his glass, he was shoved from someone passing, then knocked again by two others pressing up to the bar. Before he knew it, the bar was completely full, implausibly full! Shoulder to shoulder full of people out of nowhere. Job spun around in disbelief to see a hundred people? Two hundred? No, it couldn’t be a thousand, not in this small bar. And all wearing the same torn jeans and yellow T-shirt. Was it the same person, he couldn’t tell, his eyes darted around to get a better look, all he saw was blurry faces all in blurry yellow shirts. And they were everywhere. Yellow shirts at the jukebox, yellow shirts crowded around small tables, yellow shirts walking on the ceiling, sitting on the shelves, tossing themselves in the air, intruding behind the bar, pouring themselves drinks, And wait, was that, yes, one of the blurry face men was even shaking a tiny version of himself like a martini. Lyla was busy dispersing the mob with a sharp flicked towel.
‘Is it just me or did this place get impossibly busy. There must be a million people here,’ Job said in disbelief. Lyla sighed and corrected Job, it wasn’t a million people, but an infinite amount of the same person. She had explained this to Job before but could tell he was still pretty hazy in the early twilight. And then it hit him, ‘Ah ha. Particle-man just arrived!’ Job remembered now, Particle-was a nice guy for someone caught between the quantum realm and this one. Had sort of crunchy 70’s Caltech post-grad style, complete with birkenstocks and mad scientist hair, pinned down by a silly headband and silver bobbles. Usually a good drinking buddy, despite his horrendous physics puns, he was the embodiment of ‘spooky action at a distance’, as Einstein had said about all the bizarre things that happened at a quantum scale. And Job admired anyone with a craft for spookiness.
Lyla and Job happened to know that the only good trick to get rid of the crowd, the infinite probabilities of Particle-man, was to focus hard on just one of ‘him’. So they both turned their attention to Job’s left until the multitude of probability waves collapsed into one singularly observable man, sitting relieved on one single bar stool.
‘Phew, that’s better, the cat done died! Thank you for that, friends of Schrodenger.’ The new patron sat upright and smoothed down his yellow tee that read, ‘This shirt is blue… if you can run fast enough.’
‘Our pleasure, how’s everything shaking in the subatomic, Heisenberg?’ Lyla tried to interrupt, warning Job that wasn’t his name and not to encourage him.
‘My love, I’m hurt, of course that’s my name!’ Particle-man mimicked a dagger to his heart, as he thumbed through the bar menu. ‘In fact, that reminds me… where’s your list of Mezcals, oh my lord, look at all those. Would you pick one for me? I’m feeling a bit… UNCERTAIN.’
Lyla rolled her eyes, taking the menu away, reminding him last time he kept insisting his name was Planck, or was it Feynman. Particle-man pulled the menu back, and thumbed straight to the back, ‘Well that’s very true too! Reminds me I need help picking a dessert? I’m always divided by TWO PIs!’ At that, he whipped around to Barnacle Bill, looking very pleased with himself. ‘You get that one, Bill? Two Pi’s… Planck’s length? Divided by the… Jesus, read a math book, people.’
Lyla poured some clear agave for the Particle-man. ‘Rocks?’ he suggested a bit unsure. She raised an eyebrow, but he pressed on, ‘I know, I probably shouldn’t. You know I like to roll dice with the universe though.’ And no sooner did she put ice in his glass, did the cubes start shaking violently into a buzzy vibration, just before hitting a crescendoed ‘Pop!’ and disappearing from the drink entirely. Lyla, slow and deliberate, moved his frozen disappointed hand two feet to the left, where an echoed ‘pop’ followed, and three ice cubes fell from the sky, plunking down right back into his glass. Grateful, Particle-man brought the glass delicately to his lips, but not before the whole glass this time started vibrating even more aggressively. It too disappeared from existence with a lip smacking ‘pop!’, echoing again, from the ceiling behind him, and dropping to a shattered mess across the clean floorboards. ‘Sorry. Dammit.’ Particle-man sighed, defeated.
Lyla leaned to Job, ‘His drinks on you, by the way, for teeing up those jokes. I’ll go grab a mop.’ She disappeared after warning Job and Bill to keep one eye on this Schroeder’s box so he didn’t burst back into an infinite number of himself and the infinite amount of muddy feet that she’d have to mop. Heisenberg-Planck-Feynman (or whomever) perked back up, ‘Hey, that’s an interesting problem to solve, by the way. You can clean and mop up an infinite number of people’s footprints… that’s easy, you could do it in under a minute. Think about it…’
Job leaned in amused with the riddle. ‘Let’s see, I think I know this one. Well, I supposed I would spend 30 seconds mopping up after the first person’s muddy tracks. Then I’d spend half that time, say 15 seconds on the second mess. Then half that time again for the next, and half again.
‘Bingo!’ Bill alarmingly yelled out from his coma in the corner. ‘And on and on until you’re spending fractions of seconds on each task, infinitely dividing in half, getting closer and closer, but never quite reaching one minute. But the question really would be, how do you ever get back to the bar if you’re stuck mopping up infinity?’
Particle-man applauded silently, impressed, and took the invitation to go chat up Old Bill. So he rippled into eighteen shadows of himself, past and future, all walking around Job, before settling his trails into one seat again next to Bill. ‘Now listen here, Barney, you’ve been a pirate right? Do you know what pirate’s are supposed to do when they want to cut a physicist’s joke short? No? You make me walk the Planck!’
Barnacle seemed unphased as he scrambled for the story he wanted to tell, ‘Have I ever told you all about some meteor, that wasn’t a meteor, done fell out the sky and turned into a clockwork man? Wait that ain’t right.’ Old Barney stammered on trying to start over.
Job took this opportunity to swing around to face Lyla in her busy work, deciding to try a different tact with his sweet talking. ‘Hi, c’mere, Water Lily,’ switched on his quieter charm, hooking his pinky with hers, leading her back in front of him. ‘Listen, I’m sorry about all the broken shit upstairs, I guess I was hoping you’d come to punish me like the last time.’ He managed to elicit an eye roll, then a small blush in her cheeks. He leaned closer, and reminded her they could break a lot of things together if only she’d let him come haunting her room again.
Lyla finished her mopping and appeared back behind the bar, warming up some saki for a sullen woman seated in a dark corner table. ‘Well, I have no idea what you’re talking about, I work all night, so I couldn’t have possibly ever spent the night with you.’ Job reminded her she’s always had a talent for being two places at once but she sparred back, ‘Even if that were true, it would only have been a one time thing.’ She waved her finger, walking away and smirking a little. Job knew enough to just pause and wait as she broke the silence with, ‘maybe tonight.’
Job let her get back to her duties and announced, ‘Sounds like the Doc just got here. And I’d lay a bet she’s brought you some business.’ Lyla asked how he could tell, after dropping the saki off to the quiet hooded woman. ‘Please. I’m a detective. You hear those shoddy bus tires squeal around the bend outside?’ Then Job was reminded he better move to a darker corner, not wanting to scare off any of the new customers too quickly.
Just then the double doors burst open with the energy of eight, hooting and hollering, Ivy League college boys. ‘SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS!’ Luckily for them, they seemed to be chaperoned by one Doctor Maui Jean, the ‘Doc’. A strange name considering she wasn’t from Maui, but an entirely different ocean’s island, Haiti to be exact. But she did wear a lot of Hawaiian shirts and smoked a lot of Pineapple Express. She had been a real doctor though, claiming she studied at Cambridge, but her practices leaned more now towards homeopathic stuff, like voodoo and other black magic. Regardless, having a witch-doctor slash drug dealer slash tour guide around came in handy more than one might expect.
The spoiled young sons of the upper elite made themselves at home, smacking on the jukebox, rearranging stools, and finger-gun pointing towards the weird cowboys in the corner. They were pretty typical hormonal, look-at-me, posturing college kids with hard-ons and popped collars. Meanwhile Doc blew past them, shaved head and flashy Elvis sunglasses, making her usual rounds and mail drops. She dropped a few packages wrapped in brown butcher’s paper around to the tables, some cigarette cartons for Job, and then a special tight wrapped bag across the bar.
‘What the hell is this?’ Lyla asked while lining up a spread of the cheapest shots of gin on the rail. Maui Jean explained it was a peace offering, something green and stinky to keep her happy. ‘That’s not what I mean, who the hell have you brought me here?’ Lyla had her hand on her hip.
Today, she seemed to have affected some caricatured Jamaican accent, either for her customers comfort or for her own amusement. ‘Fresh meat, Queen Lillith! I picked ‘em up side a da road wit’ der broke down ass rental, on da way sum Spring Break road trip or sum ting. Promised I’d show ‘em cosmic tings that would blow der damn minds out dis way! Course der confused to ‘ell on why dis town aint on no damn map. I said dis all part of da forbidden charm dat money can’t buy…. course i took der money anyways.’’
The good Doctor Jean looked around suspiciously, before exchanging her islander’s accent for her more familiar Essex one. She came in closer, ‘Listen here now, love. Don’t blow this for me, they’re a good racquet a’ight? I’ve already made a monkey just smoking them up in the bus on the way here. And they tip like they’re pissed off at their minted fathers, God love them American trust fund kids. I was going to take them out to the old UFO crash site tonight, skim a few more quid off ‘em. Reckon they can stay here the night, maybe the Boss man wants them to stay longer, if you feel me?’ The Doc flashed her bargainer’s smile. ‘I’ll even waive my finders fee… for favors.’
‘Let me make a call, but I don’t like it. And I don’t think the Boss will want them.’ Lyla hopped on an old black wall mounted telephone and rang upstairs. ‘And how the hell they get here anyways, the steam train?’
‘Not unless that broke down train was pushing a Delorean.’ Doc cueing Particle-man to add, ‘Great Scott!’ She then reminded Lyla it’s her job to be out there scavenging the desert. And these clueless fools were just out there side of the highway, frozen in time, God knows how long, not knowing the world had moved on. Probably felt like minutes for them, bless their damned hearts.
Lyla multitasked, pulling eight pints of pilsner on reflex, as she muttered in a low whisper on the phone. The new horde did their shots, and dutifully paraded their pints around the place like tigers pacing around a cage. One of them took a seat next to Job but lost interest quickly when he started reciting The Ancient Mariner, playing the part of a real piss soaked drunkard. Particle-man was a bit nicer, keeping his composure best he could and enjoying some new company. When someone asked if they ever got live music, he mentioned that he can play anything with strings but he was out of practice. It was a ‘string theory’ joke that no one got, partly because it was too clever, but mostly because it was terrible.
One kid with ripped sleeves got the jukebox successfully clicked over to New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’, and threw his fists in the air triumphantly. ‘Gnarly! Bite me, turds, this tunes rad!’ A few of them were poking around the set of stairs that led to the Inn’s main hall. But Lyla shouted them back, saying it was closed, as she was wrapping up her call. They turned their attention instead to the blackjack booth with the odd little automaton dealer, and started pumping their bills into the flashing black box. Barnacle Bill, not doing a great job of looking normal – or really anything other than a taxidermist’s stuffed attempt at a zombified gold miner – shouted over to them. ‘Hey, have I ever told you about the silver city in the clouds up overhead? How one of their own silver metal men fell right off the edge?’
They all ignored him as the cocky alpha of the troop broke off to go harass the quiet saki drinking lady, shrouded in the shadows of her own hoodie. He tried flirting and traced his finger across her bare arms, which were marked wrist to shoulder with an impossible amount of tiny criss-crossed scars. The razor thin lines almost resembled an elaborate tattoo design, and he used it as his opening, asking playfully if she liked to play with knives. Lyla drew his attention back over with a fresh round of gin shots, like a pro, and probably saved him getting his arms chopped off.
‘Here, come harass me instead, handsome,’ as she hung up the phone and made a louder announcement. “Good news, bad news gentlemen, we’re closing down in an hour for renovations, you can order as much as you can drink in that time, and this rounds on me.’ They echoed back in applause, while Lyla shot her told-you-so glance at the Doc, who didn’t seem to care too much. The good Doctor Jean was two steps ahead, already starting to stock up her bus’s beer coolers. She figured she could skim a few more bucks off these lads one way or another. Some of them were shouting already to push through to Vegas, but she’d maybe talk them into the full ‘Area 51’ experience. Even if they didn’t want to pay for it, it would be worth the look on their faces when they see what’s crawling around out there.
The boys were getting well riled up, dividing their oglings between the mysterious girl in the corner and Lyla behind the bar, catcalling her everytime she reached up for a bottle and giving them a good view of her tight midriff. ‘I would be a lot more careful sassing any ladies in this place,’ warned Lyla. The college boys scanned around the bar with their devil-may-care look smirks. But Lyla wasn’t talking about the other bar patrons. Sure they could get whipped up into a tussle, maybe cause a little trouble and a few black eyes. But she explained that the only real bouncer around here was the dealer in the corner, pointing to the cobwebbed metal robot, lifelessly turning over blackjack cards for two of the boys, who were suddenly aware of the group’s attention.
‘Is that right? Stand aside fellas,’ said the cocky frat president, rolling up his sleeves, as he swaggered over to get eyeball to eyeball with this robot dealer in a green visor. He knocked on his head looking for anything menacing. And the robot’s eyes answered with tiny red flashes, sputtering and strobing with the slow turning sounds of an awakening movie projector. ‘This old gadget doesn’t look like much to me.’
‘No, she’s right,’ chimed Job from the cheap seats, always happy to let a good horror story do his dirty work, leaving him to mind the business in front of him. ‘That there is Wiretop Wyatt, and he doesn’t tolerate anything less than chivalry towards the ladies in this saloon.’
‘Wiretop Wyatt! Right, oh, that’s it, now I remember my story!’ Jumped Barnacle Bill nearly jumped out of his stool, which was as startling as a stuffed cat pouncing onto your lap. ‘Have I ever told you the story of Wiretop Wyatt? The robot who fell from the sky and laid waste to an entire town of raiders and rustlers.’ Old Bill started walking around the bar touching each kid on the shoulder like a game of duck-duck-goose, as he told his ominous tale with his cold dead eye holding their attention. ‘Oh he learned how to hate, for a robot. And he hated bullies worst of all. But just before he was called Wyatt, the robot with a tangled mess of wires springing from his head like an electrician’s worst nightmare, before all that, he was simply a silver streak across the sky. A silver streak like a falling satellite, burning up hot in the desert sky, this robotic man crash landed onto soft and hostile alien dunes, unfamiliar with the ways of the Wild West. At least, at the start.’
Lyla kept the shot glasses full as the boys gathered, mesmerized by the somber tale of strange justice. Particle-man and Job closed their eyes, imagining that they were hearing it for the first time. Even the kids playing blackjack, abandoned his post to join the drum circle. Everyone was so gripped with Barnacle Bill’s tale, no one seemed to notice that the supposed leader of this pack was not listening at all, left staring at the arcade contraption of a man. Frozen and squatting, his eyes transfixed to the glowing red eyes of that metalman dealer, previously lifeless, now appearing to stare right back. The kid was hypnotized by piercing strobe lights, speeding up like a film reel about to tell a different story. A story the boy already knew, the one that he tried so hard to forget, and resided deeply buried and festering in his darkest dreams.
Hypnotized, still frozen, he saw in those robot eyes his own disturbing memories. A fraternity house party. An orgy of pills, beer kegs, and sorority girls. The hooked attraction of an innocent girl, spilled drinks, stumbling and dizzy. Her foggy disappearance to an upstairs bedroom, and his pursuit to find her. So playful at first. Hide-and-seek, followed by hard-to-get. Her resistance. His greedy hands. Her scratch on his face. His violent grip. And then… silence. Ghastly silence.
‘NO!’ The boy snapped himself from the trance, interrupting the yarn Bill was spinning to the rest. Everyone spun around shocked to see him out of breath and trembling. The eyes of the metalman had gone dim, and lifeless. The boy, now feeling so uncorked by the shame of his past, was hit with a tidal wave of shame, the contempt of every woman, every person, he had mistreated his entire life. And his latent guilt now turned itself into a raw and gripping terror. The terror of a wounded animal now acutely aware that the wolves were coming, stalking him, bloodthirsty for the kill.
So he jumped up in his panic, dropped a fifty dollar bill on the counter and rounded everyone up. ‘Sorry fellows, no time for this story, we got to go.’ He feigned a confident rally cry assuring his comrades the fun would continue on the road. Off to Joshua Tree, as intended, maybe that UFO crash site their guide has been promising, then Vegas. The group was a little confused with the abruptness of it all, but reluctantly fell in line as they pushed off their stools, taking their final swigs of beer, and following their trembling tribe leader to the bus.
Barnacle only paused his story long enough to watch them go and shake his head in pity. ‘I bet those poor fellas wouldn’t be in such a fuss to leave if they knew there’s no place to go outside the Hollowlands. And that they can never go back home.’ Job returned to his empty stool, and the rest of them leaned in to hear the rest of the tale, as Lyla switched the jukebox back over to the old wooden box radio.
Good evening, my strange bedfellows, canyon raiders, legs of jello, lullabied by undead bellows. The sun’s stalling low at this seven o’clock hour but the shadows are still getting longer, in case you haven’t made haven’t yet made camp safely from the waking desert canyon’s vampires. And for all those early rising harpies, happy hunting tonight. You’ve been listening to Disco Pete’s sunset drive time hour, I’m Disco Pete, your guide through this existential voyage through the hollowlands, Silverwater radio, 91.9. You’ve heard music by the Cramps, Led Zeppelin, and Depeche Mode, as well as a little ditty by our tavern’s own Barnacle Bill – in case you’re catching on by now, things work real weird around these parts. We’re all one consciousness experiencing our own false sense of individuality through non-linear, subjective expressions after all. We’ll resume that tale about our revenging robot crash landing here from his low orbit after the hour. Traffic, weather and UFO high alerts, just after a few words from our sponsor, Winston Cigarettes. Mmm, tastes good like a cigarette should.
ORDER ‘STRANGELY FIERCE FABLES’ for the full story and more:
Paul Carreo 