Patrick is still nowhere to be found and
Allan continually pinches his left lower hemispherical cheek, making sure all
of this is nothing more or less than a dream, wondering, at the same time, just
where the fuck he is and why he has never seen or even remotely heard in
passing that the skeleton of the school was really some sort of religious
terminal.
With his
hardhat still loping off one side of his head, the videotape in the camcorder
still rolling, Allan continues to march onward, unable to figure out why he
can’t find his way home yet. He is pretty sure that he hasn’t been in Kansas
for quite some time and all he can do is walk the direction he can remember
Patrick telling him is North, thinking that it will somehow reel him back into
the shiny trophy glare of the hallways. Allan wouldn’t even mind going to Mrs.
Brackenhardt’s classroom today and reciting the Lord’s Prayer one hundred plus
times in Latin for missing the morning hours. Something tells him inside his
chest that no one inside the school is ever going to believe this story, even
if he would show the video.
For being
still in the third grade Allan is still considered a leper because of his last
name and his brother and father’s reputation proceeding him. Last spring Allan
brought his brothers doctored bicycle to
show and tell, explaining to the class that all you had to do was to press a certain
orange button on top of the handlebars to make the bike slightly hover in
mid-air. Mrs. Brackenhardt, who, for
some reason, has taught Allan’s class ever since he arrived at CLS when he was
in first grade two years ago, told Allan that puritan’s much more intelligent
than you have been burned at the stake for announcing such heresy. She made
Allan get down on one knee and to confess in front of the class the sin of
pride while, later in the day, Mrs.
Brackenhardt’s was seen wearing all Halloween black and a black dunce cap
screeching through the hallways, motoring the bike in multiple figure eights
until Coach M. ordered her to dismount, saying that it was his turn. VonBehren,
Hale and Patrick had a hell of a time trying to retrieve the bicycle, Patrick,
addressing the mission as operation P.O.W., telling Allan that his vision and
his ideologies were too young to be involved in this sort of conspiracy.
The
hallways are lavender in hue and feel extremely ruffled in texture on Allan’s
trampled feet. Allan heavily steps over what feels like either a thick film of
crust or sand, filling in the sides of his mock Nike Dedalus Pro-wings Helen
purchased in bulk, along with corduroy trousers, from Sam’s club— instruments
of attire that have proven to be a consistent object of torture for the boys as
well as Sair. Allan can still here the
intermittent snorts offered by Stertorous Taurus Sentarious as he continues to
walk. The light on the top of his helmet offers a coned illumination in front
of him, and, as he itches the top of his head to make sure the Caterpillar
helmet has sufficiently surrendered his cowlick, Allan is completely unaware
that the camera is rolling. Completely naïve of what is being filmed on the top
of his brain, loafing like a technological tiara.
Allan can
feel thick webs of gossamers, spooled by spiders in the shape of life size
mandalas. Still he walks, he clops, shouting out his brother’s name, shrouded
in such blackness Allan feels like he should be hollering out the name of
Marco, waiting for a droning echoing response that will perhaps never come. The
snorts have all but ceased. The heavy grunts that made him fled initially even
though Patrick made him pinky-swear that if he ever took him into the nervous
system of the school he would remain within reasonable long hawking distance.
There is a cool breeze and the shuttering hum indicative of a Lennox in need of
repair. Patrick has often told Allan about the Skell, but always making it
sound more like a seldom used mass underground public transportation system
with the sporadic visit from Stertorous Taurus.
If Patrick
were still walking in tandem next to Allan he would tell Patrick that he not
only thinks that they are not in Kansas anymore, he doesn’t believe that they
are on the intergalactic life boat anymore called earth. More sand fills in the
sides of Allan’s shoes like an egg-timer quickly expiring, forcing Allan to
doff them and swing them over the top of his shoulders like a sling. Allan
continues to yell out his brothers name, and, nine yards in front of his, he
can see what looks like a trickling snap of light slowly creeping in the
direction of his battered gait, a golden streak that would surely create a
shadow if the darkness wasn’t so damn overwhelming. Allan thinks that this
flicker of light is what he always imagined the HOLE in the Nuclear Woods to
look like if the boys would ever make it all the way to the back of the HOLE.
With
caution, placing one foot in front of the other in strategic heel-to-toe
deliberation, Allan walks into the Pentecostal blink-sized light, the
coarseness of the sand charring his bare feet like coals on the Flying Garcia
clan’s annual Ostrich barbecue kiln next door. The shuttering humming sound
Allan heard before that reminded him of the Lennox his father is always
doctoring mechanical appendages with, has soared into a pleasant hum and Allan
can see that he is looking into what looks like an oriental setting with
emaciated men who look like they could use a couple rounds at the old buffet,
shuffling around in sandals, humming, wearing long orange robes. Allan draws
near. Apparently he is peeping-tommying out of the wall, overlooking a
courtyard of sorts with grandiose embellishments of Chinese dragons and Demons.
Allan thinks of VonBehren Ninja princess Pagoda, thinking that she would feel
quite relaxed in this tranquil atmosphere.
Still
squinting through the aperture it dons on Allan that he has never before seen
or even heard about this section of CLS before, and that, from his periphery,
between the tiled flanks, it looks like it could be another vector of Peoria
outside, only he was never voluntarily aware that Peoria offered anything
remotely close to a China Town, with the exception of Wong’s Great Wall
Sweet-n-sour sushi all up can eat on Main which Warren took them to one year to
celebrate the fourth of July while his oldest son inquired to the hostess if
she was in fact one of those Geisha girls he had read so much about on
specialty late night cable before overtly inquiring if he ordered a certain tossed
eggroll salad what might transpire.
Allan sees
a giant concrete statue of a smiling bald, slightly chubby Chinese man who he
once remembers from one of Reverend Morningwood’s chapels as being the
Anti-Christ of the orient. Many of the
orange toga’d men squat around this statue with their eyes pleasantly sealed,
humming a tune that sounds to Allan like something he would have heard when he
was still behind bars in the crib. Something his mom or the surrogate
sing-a-sleep rattle Warren rigged to chirp out melodies in an attempt to lull
him back into the gentle realm of childhood slumber.
Allan
continues to squint. Unlike his brothers comrade’s who are always nagging
Patrick to peek through the crawl pace in order to garner a better look at his
sister in her slip, Allan’s only remotely fledgling experience with the, as his
older brother Patrick
, the ancient and tantric art of voyeurism, came when
Patrick sat him down at three in the morning and unearthed an extremely
previously viewed copy of PORKY’s from the WHERE THERE’S A WILL THERE WILL BE
AN A educational Beta sleeve. Allan remembers the scene where the protagonist
got his wang choked gratis by the overt lesbian physical education instructor
as the most vivid scene in the movie, Patrick, promising his younger sibling
that, if he thought that was cool, wait until they actually get to high school,
where he’s sure that they’re all sorts of secret passages and shit, providing
‘business opportunities’ to the young and inexperienced. For some reason Allan
felt that if he were to stuff his fragile wang between the slight crevice it
would not only go unnoticed and more than likely get stuck, it would also be
extremely frowned on.
The humming
continues. What looks like little lavender bushes float around in a stream near
the statue. Around a few of the shaved heads, Allan sees what looks like an
‘Aurora,’ which his father showed him how to see after Allan watched Wayne’s
World and inquired to the crackpot Guest’s first appeasing genius where the
proper location was indeed actually located. Warren said that when Allan spots
an ‘Aurora,’ it is like the person’s face is emanating forth with all the nuclear
capacity asof the sun, so that for as long as that person is glowing with this
sort of capacity, he grants life and gravitational stasis to all of those
orbiting around and close to him.
The hum
continues. Allan wishes he could see more of what is on the other side. The
statue of the balding, good natured Chinese dude sort of reminds Allan of what
Hale would look like id he would shave his scalp and momentarily abandon the
stogie.
There is a giant clang, from either
a gigantic symbol or a gong. It reverberates several times and knocks Allan
over, his Caterpillar hardhat with the camcorder duck taped to the top,
tumbling off of his head and into the sand. The noise is shattering and Allan
steps back. He can hear someone say in English, ‘The boot ties be in you,’ and
he wonders what this means before the gong reverberates once more and he steps
back, patting the thick hot sand to locate his hardhat, flicking on the switch
to grant a dome of light in front of him as he steps. The humming has momentarily
dimmed and pieces of the labyrinths ceiling begin to crumble overhead. Without
peering back into the crevice he steps back, into the semi-solid darkness of
the labyrinth, solidly stepping, hoping that he will find his way back to
trophy coated hallways of CLS sometimes soon, perhaps just in the nick of time
for Z lunch.
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