The Intellectual Property Heist or the Great Train of Thought Robbery
Are we to decide how our own story ends?
Would it be then with a whimper?
Some say that’s how they say it all started.
Or, rather, that it began with the Word.
Them, they say it ends with a revelation.
So then somebody learning something for once.
There’ll be trumpets of hail and poison rain fell in a lake of fire, boy.
Unto which all will be revealed in due time.
In confusion and curses and blood.
On that last bit may we all agree.
Hildy had participated in many-a-corporate ceremony. Ground-breakings and ribbon cuttings beget demolitions. (Grand opening, grand closing.) For the former, they’d bring in a sandbox of sorts with soft garden soil, so that the executives, who likely hadn’t shoveled much of anything in their lives, ‘cept big bills and gold coins into their money pits, wouldn’t dislocate one of their dainty shoulders trying to break into the rock hard dirt of whatever superfund site they were digging up this time for subdividing. Undoubtedly unearthing some native burial ground, a headdress-wearing-ass, radioactive skeleton, unwittingly a victim of whatever curse they’d put there after the ground-breaking prior.
Usually, they let you keep the shovel. Hildy had a closet full of them. Many have the patina of being gold-plated. And they’ve all got little plaques on their stained wood handles with her name engraved. Hildegard Wolff. Breaker of grounds.
Likewise there were a pair or two of gigantic scissors in there, from the occasional grand opening.
As for demolitions, she’d even had the distinction of participating in one of them. Always the guest of honour, wherever it was she went, they let her pull down on the plunger. This was a merely symbolic gesture — even moreso than the others — and the plunger was purely a prop. (The golden shovel and giant scissors were functional if not practical.) But the demolition was real. (By happenstance, none other than Thad and Louisa were in attendance for this ceremony. The building in question had been an abandoned mental hospital — they called it a sanitarium in those days — being demolished to pave way for SciTech. As for the twins and their stake in all this, suffice it to say that controlled demolition is something of a shared sibling hobby of theirs, and this had been one of the few opportunities to bear witness to one in person. Usually they’d had to settle for watching demolition compilations on the Internet. And by now they’d seen ‘em all. Even had personal favourites. They’d go back and forth on their all-time top five CD’s. Obviously, the list changes all the time, but talking in terms of precision, scale and engineering marvel, it’s probably the King Dome in Seattle, the Dunes Hotel & Casino in Vegas, the Grand Prince Hotel Alaaska, of course, the Tappan Zee Bridge in NYC and right down the Hudson, WTC7. IYKYK.)
Companies and governments and really all manner of institutions use these rituals to demonstrate progress to shareholders and constituents. As well as to generate goodwill among the public. Look at us go. It’s like how they’ll take any excuse to issue a press release. Product launch. New strategic initiative. Thirty-fifth anniversary. Re-rebranding. Charitable donation. Meet the new CEO. Same as the old CEO.
Hildy had never had the latter. Her capital c-suite coronation. What on account of her predecessor, Wilhelm I, marked the occasion of her ascension by taking a nose dive out of his third-floor bedroom and onto the gravel driveway below. She still got the gig, but it was just that his demise cast a pall on the pomp and circumstances, was all. Yet another rite he’d deprived her of.
As such she’d built up this moment in her head. Announcing the Big Merger. It would be her Graduation. A giant Middle Finger to the Ghost of her Grossvater, who would have done barrel rolls in his grave at the mere suggestion of an Celestial — as he was wont to call the few billion folks from that continent — claiming the Wolffenbeir banner for his own. So she’d really do it up then. Go full Chinese New Year with it. Paper lanterns, dragons, mother truckin’ fried rice food truck, ya dig.
But then came the revelation that these Chinese weren’t really buying the company, such as it was, after all. They wanted their golden goose, Doctor Goodlove. In America, he’d been out of practice for decades. But in China, DG the MD was emergent IP. Why? Nobody knows. Some error of algorithm or alchemy. But with the expansion capital provided by GloBev, he’d be bigger than Jesus. Virtual reality theme parks, ghost kitchens, space tourism. Goodlove would be the furry face of it all.
As for the rest of the grand Wolffenbeir enterprise, fuck all with it, so far as they was concerned. Sure, they’d try to spin off the Brewing Operations to the highest bidder, or keep it running at the lowest common denominator, if only to satiate the stockholders. Because otherwise they’d be more than happy to convert it all into a scrap metal factory. To them, this was all the square root of a rounding error. Recall what we concluded about the competing worldviews of deadheads and Phish phans, that life was either this grand metaphysical mystery, or it was a big cosmic joke, respectively. Well this was neither. Because surely there was nothing mysterious or funny about the way this played out. Nary a big discovery nor even a punch line. This was all linear. Lines. On a contract or a cash flow statement or a death certificate. A line graph pointing down and to the left, intercepting the Y axis at negative six feet.
But, hey, that’s business baby. Hildy would go down with the ship, just so long as she had her golden parachute to cushion the fall. To hell with it, we’ll do it like an Irish wake then? Raise a toast to the good old days. No hard feelings. Maybe we tear down the portrait of Wilhelm I in Hildy’s office like they did Sadaam’s statue in Old Baghdad. Now that sounds like a party. Someone alert the media!
Alas, the pencil pushers at GloBev didn’t even go for that. For one thing, culturally, they had dissenting opinions on the role of a free press in society. But moreso, according to their vision, rather than a funeral or a memorial service or a celebration of life, this would closer resemble a public execution. Assemble all the employees — those lucky few that hadn’t already been automated into obsolescence — and inform them in no uncertain terms that their services were no longer required.
Now, Hildy usually had no problem firing someone on a demerit basis. It’s not like she took a morbid, or even a mildly sexual pleasure in it. But at the end of the day, she was the boss. And it comes with the territory. Sometimes you had to swing the axe. This however would be more along the lines of a highly mechanized mass slaughter. Wilhelm I might’ve gotten off on that, but this wasn’t her kink. Certainly didn’t make for much for a going away party, anyway.
And to get this fiesta started, rather than a big public show of corporate unity and globalist goodwill, the conquering Huns from GloBev simply turned everything off. (Actually, it was Yayo-L who did the honours. He was shocked by how easy it was to dismantle the entire network. Just a few keystrokes.)
The employees arrived one by one, on this a Friday morning like any other. (It’s widely considered a corporate best practice to fire someone on a Friday. Insofar as you send them on their way with one last paycheck. And, hey, at least it’s the freakin’ weekend, amirite! Work’s out for-ever.) Didn’t matter if they were thirty minutes early, right on time or if they snuck in twenty minutes late with an iced vanilla latte. Nor if they arrived to a cubicle or corner office. (The culling was fully cross-functional, ironically only sparing Hildy’s departmental bete noire, Accounting. Them and custodial. Kept around long enough to locate the skeletons in the broom closets. As for her beloved Marketing, well, they’re always first on the chopping block, as fucking well they should be.) On their desk there was a folder embossed with the GloBev logo — a globe, obviously, Easter hemisphere facing out, with kind of a mug handle — stuffed with a single piece of paper informing them of their severance package, such as their was one, to be prorated based on years of service rendered. Phones, computers, tablets … all their screens were black. Did ‘em like Tony Soprano. Don’t stop—
Of course, Hildy wasn’t there to show solidarity or conduct exit interviews. Rather she spent the morning working from home, at the Wolffenhaus, picking at the full English breakfast that was prepared for her every morning. Wilhelm I watching over her from one of his gilded-framed, iron-bolted perches.
There would be a ceremony that day. Albeit not at Wolffenbeir HQ. The New Frontier would play host. Perhaps this also warrants explanation. (You’re so needy.) Mayor Larry, may he long live, had included in his First One Hundred Days initiatives package, a suite of incentives designed to spur foreign investment in companies based within the Edge City limits. These incentives were quite compelling. To the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars compelling, delivered in the form of corporate tax breaks, sweetheart land deals and, if it came down to it, duffel bags full of unmarked U.S. bills. Already a Danish manufacturer of wind turbines had relocated its North American presence to capitalize on Mayor Larry’s generous offer. For a fact, Hildy was just now driving by one of their gigantic blades, spanning several car-lengths on a flat-bed truck, on her way downtown to the Newfy. Who, by nature of its being acquired by Wolffenbeir, before they were in turn acquired by GloBev, allowed the latter company to take advantage of the City’s program, Cultivating Global Investment, as it was formally known. Granted, for the rights to their coveted Doctor Goodlove, they could afford to pay any price. That being said, the yuan-pinching cheap bastards they were, weren’t in the business of turning down free money, neither.
So it was that the Newfy would play host as a kind of Appomatox Court House, wherein Wolffenbeir would be granted its unconditional surrender by GloBev. After they had returned home from their Rockland sojourn, Mick and his counsel Kitty had themselves agreed in principle to Hildy’s terms. Also they offered condolences for her late son, which she likewise accepted out of mere formality.
Then it was up to Zeke in his capacity as event manager and social media coordinator to plan the event. Now a seasoned pro at throwing funeral parties, Zeke set up the card table with the nametags leftover from Hank’s Celebration of Life, and penned a welcome message to their new corporate overlords on the chalkboard outside: Happy Merger Day! GloBev x Wolffenbier ft. Newfy.
Hildy, as always, insisted on taking the scenic route down Collegiate Ave. Forgoing the interstate freeway banked by billboards for ambulance chasers and chop shops and payday lenders and shotgun shacks, Ari chauffered her past the botanical gardens, the mid-century modern architecture homes, the shopping district of farm-to-table-to-lip fillered eateries and boutiques that sold exclusively trinkets and, of course, the Canaan School, where the American flag was coincidentally flying at half mast, in solemn commemoration of a shooting that had taken place on Thursday in some other state at some other school. Although unlike Canaan, this had been a public school. (Of the three-hundred and then-some school shootings in the twenty-or-so-years post-Columbine, only about fifteen have taken place at private schools.) To be honest, though, this hadn’t been a headline school shooting. Only two dead — one a student, and the other an unlucky member of the custodial staff. Hence perhaps how come the janitor at Canaan had been so diligent about the color guard, ceremony of it all. If it hadn’t of been for the flaccid ensign, it would have been like it hadn’t even happened.
Needless to say if Ari had been there it, it wouldn’t have happened at all. Alas, he was back to serving Hildy’s pleasure as her personal driver. Today he was co-co-piloted by the pair of feral terriers, from whom Hildy announced she required some space this morning. One of them kept attempting to lick the mother of pearl-inlaid gear shifter, whilst t’other was acheiving a contact high on the eucalyptus/cucumber-scented air conditioner/diffuser. As a means of ignoring this, Ari was blasting Deep House on the concert-quality stereo system, although this only served to exacerbate the canines’ acute anxiety and thus further provoke their unfavourable behavioural outcomes. Hildy, however, couldn’t here a nary a peep nor a deep or a drop, as thus she sat blissfully oblivious in her pristinely sound-proof cocoon of a cabin. Her echoless chamber. Scoring the anti-soundtrack to her curated commute. One last ride into town in the company car. (GloBev would be repoing that shit post-haste. Hildy would have to go car shopping. Ugh.)
From the opposite direction, Mayor Larry was likewise en route, driven as always by his patrol detail. Alas there was no partition dividing this absolute aircraft carrier of a sport utility vehicle, so the deputy simply had to suffer along through the Yacht Rock station on Satellite Radio, at the Mayor’s insistence.
But what a fool believes, he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away
Is always better than nothing
Since it was he who’d brokered this imperfect corporate union, in a way, Mayor Larry would be duly compensated in meaningful ways — electorally and monetarily, mainly — except in the one he wanted most. The romantic affection or even mere acknowledgment of his extramarital lover.
His ex-mentee, Jaime, likewise felt jilted. The fact that he wasn’t invited hadn’t deterred him from finding out what time the private ceremony would commence at the Newfy. He would be there with hell’s bells on, ready to object like Benjamin Braddock at Katharine Ross’s wedding, pounding on the stained glass like a preppy lunatic. He certainly had the slick ride, albeit his was a vintage pickup. You know, boxy with the two-toned paneling on the side. The boilerplate blue collar ephemera that modern hipsterdom is trafficked in. Old trucks for new money, if you please. (Credit the New York Times Style Section, arbiter of taste, trends and general tomfoolery.)
For a fact, Carl the Cowboy, the down on his luck dairy farmer moonlighting as a process server, he had this same model truck, but back when it was cherry, fresh off the assembly line, long before it was a fashion statement. It had been a damn good truck, too. But, eventually, they all stop running. Now he had a newer old truck — one not sufficiently aged to qualify as retro — that he used to drive into town for to retrieve spent grain from breweries and distilleries. Motor started every morning; you give her that. But she got worse highway mileage than a dern lawn mower, so mostly for his odd errands and honey-dos he scooted around in his wife’s car if he could help it. She drove a Corolla. A sensible vehicle if there ever was.
Carl’s colleague and Jaime’s assistant, Anna Leigh, had agreed to accompany her boss on this hopeless errand, despite that she desperately didn’t want to give him any more designs on her than he had already. Instead, she harboured the likewise unlikely hope that she could win the fleeting romantic attention of Grace, on whom she was still hung up, indeed quite woefully so. For a fact, she’d been so bent out of shape that she’d backslid and slept with Sasha the snake wrangler again, despite knowing full well that she had a real live pet python in her bedroom that would watch the whole time. Fucking ew, dude.
Despite his rather illustrious record as a vanguard of both the post-harcore and craft beer-inspired battle rap scenes, Jaime didn’t much listen to music anymore. Lately he had been getting really into the nascent podcast scene. (He was even thinking out loud about starting one, and would often invite people to be hypothetical guests on hypothetical future episodes.) If I’m going to be investing my hearing equity by listening to something, as he mansplained to miss Anna Leigh, I want it to have some meaningful ROI. It’s the same reason I don’t read fiction.
This particular program was hosted by a very nasally-voiced guy by the name of Guy. Jaime liked it because he interviewed his fellow entrepreneurs about their entrepreneurial origin stories, such as they were, inexplicably in front of a live audience.
This guy is great, Jaime extolled. Will you reach out to their producer and pitch me as a guest? I think the beer-as-storytelling angle would really resonate with their demographic.
Absolutely, she responded, with no intention whatsoever of following through.
The twins were commuting in to work in the tooth van, which ironically or not, had no bluetooth player for which to play podcasts or any other media on. Perhaps their repartee could have formed the basis for a podcast, were it not for that they would both think that was Gay. Their banter this morning was especially sardonic, as they stared down the barrel of yet another work week. Recall that Friday was their Monday. Imagine that.
Because I’m exiting. Any more questions?
Yeah but the offramp is all the way a-half-a-mile the fuck up there. So to everybody else on the road you just look like an escaped mental patient. And, beside, you’re in the exit lane. That you’re exiting ahead is implied. If rather you were merging back onto the highway, then you could reasonably use your blinker.
If I knew I was going to get a driver’s ed lesson from a special ed student, I would have used my blinker to indicate my swerving into oncoming traffic.
Fuck you, you don’t think I will? I’m ready to die right here in this van. Just so long as I take you with me it will be more than worth it.
Ha, you’re too much of a bitch to commit murder-suicide.
Who said anything about suicide, kimosabe? I’d survive a head on collision, because I’m built different. Your bony ass, on the other hand, would probably get thrown out through the windshield and impaled on a mile marker. Also, for what it’s worth, I’m not going down on a murder rap either. They’ll plea me down to vehicular manslaughter, no problemo. I’ll be out in three-to-five with good behaviour, and the first place I’m going is the cemetery to piss on your grave.
Oh what-ever. You wouldn’t last three-to-five weeks in federal.
Haha, okay — now you’re just being ridiculous. Because I’ve definitely told you my plan to join the Mexican gang and play them off the Neo-Nazis, so you know that it’s fucking foolproof.
For the last time, that’s the plot to Blood In Blood Out, you fucking maricon. And what you’d one hundred percent do in prison, is try to become someone’s bitch. Too bad you’re so nasty nobody would want anything to do with your loose stanky boy pussy.
Aha! Now I know you’re just talking shit. My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. Ah, fudge, I missed the exit!
Skip Engel was listening to The Word. One-oh-seven-point-five The Word, to be precise. Baseball season was over, after all. Ever thus it was Flashback Friday, wherein DJ WWJD spun a selection of classic sermons from way back in the day. Right now he was tuned in to arguably the mother fucking greatest. Billy Graham.
Not to be confused with Bill Graham, — to whom this super-goy was no relation — the rock promoter extraordinaire to the Grateful Dead, Huey Lewis and others. His rock was not their rock. Bill-y Graham, though, was likewise a promoter. And he was damn good, too. Ain’t no preacher man out there could draw a crowd as good as Billy. The Dead, for comparison’s sake, played their personal record biggest show to an estimated six hundred or so thousand over three days at a race track in Upstate New York. Now, that very same summer, of Seventy-Three, the Reverand Graham delivered the gospel unto one-point-one million pilgrims on an airstrip in Seoul, South Korea. Seventy-five thousand of whom thereby committed their life to Christ!
Now, obviously, it’s not a competition. (And if it was, it should be said that some statistically significant segment of the congregation at Watkins Glen thereafter likely devoted themselves to Garcia, but he wasn’t asking for anybody’s soul.) However there would come a time when quibbling over crowd sizes would trickle down from the highest halls of power to temporarily subsume the public discourse. It is all about eyeballs, after all. Always has been. Although it used to be ears. He who has ears, let him hear; friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears. Now the goalposts have shifted further still. Our faith is measured more ethereally. In Influence. And unlike in the old world race for subscribers or ratings, peddling Influence is done on a global scale. Asia. Chickity China, the Chinese Chicken. That’s where the real money is.
The Grateful Dead, for their part, never performed in the Orient. For a fact, apart from that one run of shows in Egypt, they only ever performed on two continents. North America, obviously, and Europe, where the year prior to the aforementioned Summer Jam, they reached their collective nadir, arguably speaking, as improvisational performers. Billy Graham, for his part, preached on six continents. Regrettably, he never did bring a crusade — that’s what he called his tours — to Antarctica, but then according to his website, four researchers at a station outpost on the South Pole did Come to Christ after watching an online sermon in Aught-Five. (Obviously it’s a flex for an evangelist to say he or she converted new followers from a place in the farthest reaches of the Earth, one that isn’t even hospitable to human life, but wouldn’t you be most susceptible there to a religious awakening, trapped inside of a double wide trailer with three other poor penguin fuckers, only going outside during the one hour of daylight into the subzero temperatures and gale force-winds to take permafrost samples or empty the shit bucket?)
Granted, it was harder for the Dead to travel. Insofar as they had a bigger tent. (Billy Graham didn’t have roadies.) Also, what with their extracurricular pursuits, you run the risk of some boy scout customs officer finding some or other substance considered to be untoward, according to his or her country’s standards of decency in your carry-on luggage. Next thing you know you’re doing five-to-ten in a Turkish prison or a gulag somewhere, a hard labour bid, awaiting the State Department to negotiate a prisoner exchange for a warlord. So they strayed a little closer to home was all. That being said, they were no lightweights. Not when it came to selling tickets. They filled our finest auditoriums, fairgrounds, colleges, arenas and stadiums. Giants Stadium. R.F.K. Stadium. The aforementioned, Rich Stadium. Curiously though, they never played any of the iconic American ballparks. (Those above three are primarily football stadiums. As is Soldier Field in Chicago, where as you know they played their last. Their home stadium, such as you would say they had one, was Candlestick Park in San Francisco, dually-occupied by the baseball Giants and the football Forty-niners. Although they never gigged it, the Dead, they did perform the Star Spangled Banner on Opening Day in ninety-three, a pre-PEDs Barry Bonds’s home debut with the ballclub. He went two-for-three with a dinger, the first of forty-six in that campaign for which he was awarded his second consecutive and third overall NL MVP honours. The following year the players went on strike, and the year after that Jerry died. As for his and the band’s part in all this, they performed the Anthem, their one-and-only rendition, a capella, in three-part harmony. Garcia, Weir and erstwhile keyboardist Vince Wernick, their last and shortest-tenured full-time player of that instrument. Hired after his predecessor Brent Mydland drank himself to death, Vince was likewise a troubled soul, who following Jerry’s death and a throat cancer diagnosis of his own fell into a deep depression from whence he would not emerge. After being eighty-sixed from any heretofore reunion shows on account of his increasingly erratic behaviour, including a failed suicide attempt on the Ratdog tour bus [bleak], Welnick reportedly succeeded in taking his own life by cutting his throat with a knife in front of his wife, Lori. You say one foul thing about me and you’ll regret it the rest of your life, Welnick’s widow told the San Francisco Chronicle when contacted to provide comment for a retrospective on his life and death. I have been nothing but good to the only man I ever love, she went on. And you can put that in the newspaper.) They say those are our cathedrals. The great American ballparks. Yankee Stadium. Wrigley Field. Fenway Park.
Billy Graham played the former in fifty-seven to great fanfare. He even had a famous opener. The then-Veep, Richard Milhous Nixon. Although he would remain closest to Tricky Dick, with whom he infamously maintained a no-holds-barred telephone correspondence throughout his presidency, in his time Graham would go on to spiritually advise all the American commanders in chief from Truman all the way down to Trump. The latter has claimed to have been in attendance that day in the Bronx. He would have been just ten years old — fucking imagine him as a kid —, packed shoulder-to-shoulder among the one hundred thousand-plus estimated parishioners, a record crowd for that time and venue. Twenty thousand more who couldn’t get in gathered outside. Shakedown Streets of Gold.
Nixon, ever with sweat beading on his upper lip, did a tight five on the doctrine of American Exceptionalism, as it is divinely endowed by virtue of ours being a Christian nation Under God. (His boss, Ike, had added that last bit to the Pledge of Allegiance, as a stove-pipe hat tip to the Gettysburg Address … that this nation, under god, shall have a new birth of freedom. The original pledge was written as part of a promotion for a children’s magazine to help sell flags to schools.) Then Billy got up and riffed on individual salvation. That was his whole trip. And it’s what separated him from your everyday evangelist. A lot of pastors, they preach a more communal and uplifting gospel about the goodness of god. That church is a place for community, where all are welcome to gather together as family and friends and neighbors in worship of His Love. But Graham’s church took place on television and in stadiums, so suffice it to say he had a different sales pitch altogether. Night after night, he got up and he used scripture and cultural commentary and whatever else was on his mind, all in the service of saying more or less the same thing. That we’re fucked, basically. We’re all sinners. This world is damned. Christ is coming back. Like, soon. As in it oughtta be any day now. And unless you come forward and give your life unto Him, completely … well, then see you in Hell, Jack. The choice is yours, and yours alone. I’ll give you up until right now to decide.
That last part was the real kicker, him warning his audience that this would be their only chance. Not tomorrow. Not next week. To-day. Choose you this day, he said, that day in the House that Ruth Built. You may never be this close to the Kingdom of Heaven again.
But Skip wasn’t listening to the Yankee Stadium sermon. To be honest, it’s not his best. You can’t really blame him though; New York City something of an away game for god. Rather, this was a tape of his crusade in the Second City.
Dr. Billy Graham: Almost Persuaded. Soldier Field. Chicago, Illinois, 17 June 1972.
Now this was one was a banger, indubitably. Sunday show of an epic sixteen-day run. (Bakers’ dozen, plusse trois.) It’s a sweltering day on the Lake Shore. Record temps for the Summer of the Chi. We’re talking triple digies. How’s that for a hot dog? A nurse testifies to two-hundred patients being treated for heat exaustion. Graham himself recalls he had to hold onto the pulpit so as to not collapse. But you wouldn’t know it watching the tape. No sir. Billy is in his bag. Hair slicked back. Wayfarer shades. He looks like a goddamn blues brother up there, telling the story of the Apostle Paul and King Agrippa, from the twenty-eigth verse of the twenty-sixth chapter from the book of Acts. Then Agrippa says unto Paul, Almost, thou persuadest me.
Paul offers Agrippa the same deal Billy makes at the end of all his sermons. You can come to Christ, or else. Agrippa says, you drive a hard bargain, Paul. You almost had me, but I’m gonna take a pass. (Keep in mind, Paul is Agrippa’s prisoner in this scenario, and the former is the one threatening the latter with eternal damnation.)
Billy goes on to offer historical context. Sounds boring, but King Agrippa is no ordinary king. He’s the King of Rome, which is very sick. It’s become kind of a meme, but only because it’s true. Dudes love Rome. Rome rocks. However, as Billy explains, Agrippa reigns over a Rome in decline. That’s also okay, though, because one of the things dudes love the most about Rome, is debating about why it declined. You see, because whatever it is dudes don’t like about their lives in the present day — be it illegal immigration, climate change, gayness, famine — they can pinpoint that thing as the reason the greatest empire in human history collapsed … and they’d be right, sort of.
Case in point, Billy cites the author of the titular work on the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon, in arguing that moral decay was the main culprit. Skyrocketing divorce rates among an increasingly sex-crazed populace, militarism and the building of gigantic armaments, unchecked federal deficit spending (lol), the masses appeased by bread and circuses. And it’s quite a compelling case he makes, standing on the fifty-yard line of a football field, in a publicly-financed stadium, named to honor the sacrifice made by soldiers in the most unnecessary and barbaric wars in human history (WWI, although at the time they called it The Great War, because they didn’t know there’d be a sequel), flanked by columns, designed in the neo-Classical style of the Roman Coliseum. Drawing comparison from these cultural decadences of antiquity, to those societal ills that plague our nation to this very day. Worst of all, Billy says, was the dilution of religion. That rather than piety for its own blessed sake, faith among the Romans had become perfunctory. They were just going through the motions. Keeping up appearances.
Aha: but here is where Graham gives up the ghost. Because Fast Eddie Gibbon was a man of the Elightenment, not to mention a Jack Catholic. It is as such that perhaps most of all he points the finger squarely at organized religion, what for hastening the end of the Caesar salad days and ushering in the Dark Ages. Because his is the Hobbsian view of the Church as a phantom presiding over the tomb of Empire. For a fact, he himself testifies that it was his inspiration for embarking on writing TDAFOTRE, he on a Roman holiday, musing among the Ruins of the Capitol on the Ides of October, watching the barefooted fryars sing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter. And to think, some two hundred and two years later, a former tent revivalist would play to stadiums, twisting his words so.
But Skip isn’t familiar enough with the Classics to dispute Billy’s account of matters, Roman nor otherwise. Might as well be Greek to him. For that matter, neither are the two thousand-some proselytes that come to Christ that day in Chicago at Graham’s behest much acquainted with antiquity. And, even if they were, Gibbon’s telling isn’t exactly considered historiographically sound any longer. Though it nonetheless endures for the same reason that BG was able to convince all those people to give up their sin. That he told it good. In a way that perhaps no other historian who came before him had ever been, he was self-deprecating, ironically referential and adherent to his own irreverent voice. Put more simply, Gibbon was funny. (To be sure, so could be Graham, but that wasn’t his superpower.) And over six gargantuan volumes spanning thirteen hundred years of history, he spun a hell of a yarn.
It doesn’t matter what I say, so long as I speak with inflection, that makes you feel I’ll convey some inner truth or vast reflection
Also, that title though. Decline and Fall. Damn. Sounds like it could be a fire mixtape, doesn’t it? Ain’t it funny too how people often malappropriate it to Rise and Fall. According to Gibbon there was no such Rise. Only fall. For it is his opinion that Empire is in a perpetual state of decline. It’s all downhill from here. Maybe that’s all our lot. To grab onto what we can of whatever’s left. Do what you gotta do and justify it however you can. Take your piece and make your peace. Most of it’s beyond our control anyway. Like Billy quotes that day, albeit not from the gospel. From Billy to Billy to Billy. That there’s a tide in the affairs of men. Of Billies.
As the actors took their places, back inside the Newfy the stage was set for the final act. With the command of a veteran director, Zeke surveyed the barroom, blocking the upcoming scene in the theater of the surreal. Commedia del’farte. With his favourite olive green workshirt, he wore a matching military style cap. The one with a shorter brim. That was to be his costume. For a fact, all the Newfy four had their own funny fat.
Kitty, for her part, wore a beret. Whereas Zeke looked a bit out of place in his lid — however, since he was a black person in a craft brewery, he looked out of place from the first, and thus no one noticed —, the Mrs. Mick looked as if she’d been born in hers. The way it sat on her head as if it had been placed their by some higher power, crowning her princess of a new utopian nation. It likewise matched her flowing black romper, the one she had bought as back-to-school clothes.
She stood stage left, behind the stick, drying pint glasses. The perfect mundane task for looking innocuous as you watch a plan unfold.
Back in the brewhouse, behind the curtain, the stagehands were toiling away. Grace’s assigned hat was your standard black cuffed beanie, or so it appeared. She was rolling a J on her lap. Normally, she’d have the professional courtesy to take that outside, but today wasn’t going to be a normal workday.
The Mick, in his trademark hoodie and jeans, wore a cowboy hat, that for the record, he felt fucking silly in. Kitty thought he looked handsome and told him so. It came from the farmhouse. Hank’d likely worn it around the farm. Playing dress up.
Raj was back there with them, making a few final tweaks to the A/V cues. He had on a turban, which he resented as typecasting. Alas, he had it left over from his cousin’s wedding, and the only other hats he had were just regular old ball caps. As for the rest of his ensemble, rather than the traditional Sherwani the turban came with, he wore the Wolffenbeir-branded motocross jersey from the dirtbike barn Edge City. The one with flames on the sleeves.
Mayor Larry, meanwhile, although not a cast member necessarily, was wearing a silk-embroidered tunic, in a rather transparent effort to sartorially endear himself to his benefactees from the Far East. Obviously this wasn’t his first rodeo in kabuki political pageantry. Previously he’d donned a kimono, kilt (you already know he went commando), kente cloth and a full-on Mexican poncho-sombrero combo plate, none of which were remotely successful in engendering goodwill among the respective foreign delegations, who to the businessman were dressed in western-style suits.
Nonetheless, with his Larry’s lackeys — as Hank was wont to call them — in tow, the Mayor was the first to arrive, dressed to the Chinese nines. Hifalutin functions such these, folks tend to show up in order of importance. Thus it fell to the early birds to awkwardly mill about, pecking at the catering spread, waiting for the bigger fish to flipper in.
This time Zeke was undaunted, deftly ushering his Mediocrity the Mayor to take his seat on the far center left of the dais. Likewise the deputy took up his post at the entrance, just waiting for some other would-be assassin to make his day so he could pad his body count.
The deputy’s colleague, Ari, was next through the door, which he held for Wolff One. Hildy for her part had never worn a costume — not even for Halloween — and she sure as shit wasn’t going to start today. Best believe her pantsuit game was on point though, being how she was, after all, the OG Girlboss Supreme. The fabric, a grey sharkskin, flowed about her in such a way that it looked as if she were actually swimming across the parquet floor. Mayor Larry could just about cry. As well could she upon seeing him, this man-boy she deigned to allow to perform oral sex on her, looking inexplicably like a fucking geisha. Without so much as meeting his puppy dog gaze she sat down, leaving a buffer of two empty seats between them.
Next up was Mister X. Whereas Hildy and Mayor Larry, typically self-assured and jovial in their respective demeaners, wore the sullen expressions of the conquested, their conqueror was smiling like a China Cat. Proud walking jingle like the midnight sun he was, strutting into the Newfy to claim his latest bounty. Gleefully he shook hands with whomever he past, including Thad and Louie, who could’ve just met Ghengis fucking Kahn, for all they gave a shit. Zeke was more deferential, dutifully guiding the last variable to the small stage. The Mayor stood and bowed, to which Mister X smiled with bewilderment before continuing on to take the seat next to Hildegard.
This left but one seat empty, for the guest of honor.
Back in Hank’s office, Billy was seated on a director’s chair. For once he wasn’t fidgeting. Instead, he looked straight ahead, right into the camera, breaking the fourth wall of the movie that was his life. Your life. All of our lives. Then, for the first and final time, he put on the mask.
It was the Mick’s turn to talk first. He was supposed to introduce the Mayor, who would then introduce Hildy, who would present her intellectual property, like a proud father giving away his daughter on her arranged wedding day, to Mister X, who would not be making remarks. This according to the Run of Show as it was painstakingly approved by the a litany of lawyers and public relations professionals representing GBNA. Every photo-op made under the GloBev banner was stage-managed to the fucking pixel. This would be no different.
The Mick tapped the mic. This is something people do because they see it on television. It serves no purpose, except perhaps for saving one the embarrassment of speaking into a microphone that isn’t turned on.
Good morning, everybody. My name is Michael. I want to thank you all for being here on this … uh … eventful day. Before I introduce the Mayor, who some of you may know was one of our co-founders at the New Frontier … the other being Hank. Right, um, before I bring up Mayor Larry, my co-workers and I have prepared something to commemorate this … uh … occasion.
Immediately the Mick had strayed from his pre-approved talking points. Of course only Mister X noticed. While outwardly he maintained his his placid composure, internally he cursed the Western imperialist pigs and fantasized about having this curly-headed recusant sent to a work camp.
Yeah-so. Without further ado I guess. Put your hands together for our house band … Neil and the Giant Leap Forward. Hit it boys.
Here the Mick did a little, loopity flourish with his index finger ending with his pointing across his body to cue the musicians. They’ve been here this whole time, setting up in the corner. It’s the same band from the beginning — Hank’s Celebration of Life — albeit they’re no longer dressed like they work at a livery stable. Today they’re wearing matching astronaut costumes. The shiny ones. Don’t worry, it’s all part of the bit.
(Good love and plenty of it)
Here the band settled into an instrumental rhythm. The fiddle player did the syncopated chord progression, the guitar player did kind of that palm-muted staccato arpegio, the standup bass player did a counter-melodic run and the mando player hit a little lead part. It’s not important. Because back on the main stage, the Mick was doing something truly outrageous, for him anyway. Dancing.
If you could fucking call it that. His feet were cemented to the floor, and his hips were hardly moving neither. Rather, he was shimmying his knees and doing this bizarre move with his arms, holding them at his side, and kind of alternating punching outward at a forty-five degree angle. Strange stuff. But, to be honest, it was kind of working for him. Whatever this was, the Mick was committed.
Okay, who’s ready for the big enchilada? There’s someone I want you all to meet. He’s the guy we all came to see. You know him. You love him. Ladies and Gentlemen, please give a warm, Newfy welcome to your favorite physician, and apparently our new boss …
(Hey now you got to have love!)
(Come on, come on, come on … turn on the light)
(You got-ta, got-ta, you got-ta have love)
Whilst the singer was scatting into a sixties-style microphone like they would’ve had on the Ed Sullivan Show, or the one Bob Dylan went electric with, the Mick did the loopity pointy thingy in the opposite direction toward the swinging saloon doors that separated the barroom from the brewhouse, wherein Raj had taken his cue to fire smoke machine. From whence it was that Doctor Goodlove swung said swinging saloon doors open with a flying roundhouse karate kick, landing in a surf stance with his arms spread out in warrior two. Thereupon he jumped straight up and did the fist pumping, dog pound move from the Arsenio Hall Show, on which he’d been a recurring guest, and on his way to the lectern he high-fived Zeke, who was live-streaming the whole thing on his Chinese-made, hand-me-down camera phone.
There on stage, from left to right, the Mayor was smiling like an idiot. He loved Doctor Goodlove without irony, having been a part of the key eighteen to thirty-five year-old male demographic when the Wolff Lite campaign made its heralded debut. He’d be in the breakroom at Cavness-Baumann and say, hey, have you guys seen this new Wolff Lite commercial? What a riot! During one pillow conversation, Larry’d even had the gall to ask Hildy directly, what was he like, in real life?
What was who like, darling?
You know, he said, tepidly. Doctor Goodlove?
To which her eyes rolled just about outside of her head.
Although in this very special moment, even Hildy — who was not prone to outbursts of sentimentality, it should go without saying — felt a pang of nostalgia at the sight of her greatest achievement reanimated before her. Emotionally It was about equivalent to the sharp pinching sensation of getting a flu shot. Perhaps that’s how come she felt the conflicting urge to look away.
Mister X, meanwhile, couldn’t help but watch this train wreck rolling straight toward him. The Disorient Express. The intellectual property that was Doctor Goodlove, albeit highly valuable, was also very fragile, and needless to say none of this choreography had been cleared for approval by the censorship consultants. So much as one wrong dance step could render him a pariah within the party and thus tank his surging cultural appeal on arrival.
Doctor Goodlove hopped on stage and waved both paws exuberantly to the non-existent audience. There were no customers, of course, because it was ten o’clock in the morning and the bar was closed. He did a little noogie of Mayor Mockinbird’s ripoff of a Kennedy quaff, which delighted Larry to no end. Then he mimed a little karate at Mister X who was not amused in the least. Lastly he gave his creator a big bear hug. No one else could have possibly noticed, but he whispered something in her ear. When their embrace broke, Hildy’s eyes widened and her jaw slackened as the blood drained from her face. Retaking her seat, she looked positively spectral.
Lastly Goodlove approached the Mick, whom he dapped up like an old fraternity brother. Arm-in-arm, they approached the mic stand.
Doctor Goodlove, after your many years of extinction from the corporate mascots ecosystem, it’s my great honour to reintroduce you to the foodstuffs chain. You sir, are an American Icon.
Doc feigned a who, me, bit of modesty before doing the little the prayer hands—I’m So Grateful gesture a la Jaime, who had just now slithered into the bar with Anna Leigh. The deputy lowered his blade sunglasses to give the latter a thoroughly invasive ocular pat down.
And, and, as for the reason we are gathered together here today, not only are you a beloved and admired figure here at home, in these United States, but you are soon to join the ranks of fast food, missile defense systems and democratic capitalism as one of our finest cultural exports. Buddy, you’re flying non-stop to China. Isn’t that something, folks? Let’s hear it for Doctor Goodlove!
Doctor Goodlove did some more fist bumping, as well as some roof raising, as Thadeus and Louisa applauded.
But, hold on just a second, because before we send you off with a song, I’m sure it would mean a lot to everybody here if you’d say a few words. What do you say, everybody? Would you like Doctor Goodlove say a few words?
Yeah, how about you say a few fucking words, Doc!
Louie echoed Thad’s words of encouragement.
By now Mister X’s dumpling was fully steamed. Not only had the representative from the New Frontier made a mockery of the proceedings, but he had invited Doctor Goodlove to talk. This was unacceptable for the following reason.
Doctor Goodlove, does, not, talk.
You see, there are two kinds of mascots. Ones that talk and ones that absolutely do not talk under any circumstances, capeesh. The former are of the new school. They have cute little cartoon catchphrases or they giggle when you poke their tummies. It’s pathetic, frankly.
Real mascots, they don’t need to talk. It’s like silent film or mime — a French fucking art form. Theirs are libidinal forces at play, that they may use to communicate with their audiences telepathically. That’s what makes them such effective brand messengers.
For Doctor Goodlove to say a few words would be for him to sully this illusion. And that’s at the very least. Because, for Mister X’s sake, the stakes were considerably higher. This likewise warrants explanation.
In the aftermath of the debacle at Rockland, Zeke indicated that he had … a plan. In truth he had the concepts of a plan, but conceptually his plan was quite sound. You see, when Zeke had matriculated at West High, the sports teams had gone by the moniker, Warriors. As in, the West High Warriors. Innocuous enough. However the school mascot had been Chief Whippet the Warrior. An already acne-riddled student made up in full red face, headdress and buckskins to boot. This was until around Zeke’s junior year, when there had been a sweeping nationwide referendum on racist mascots, and poor Whippet got swept right up in it. The purpose of a mascot is to unite a community, said Mayor Larry when he offered his two cents on the matter in an official press release. Therefore, as a proud West High alumnus I am officially calling on the student body to once and for all, end Whippet’s divisive tenure as our standard bearer.
And so they did, although they stopped short of taking Lawrence’s offer to name the team after him — the West High Mockingbirds. (Larry aside, actually not a bad idea for a name. Birds in general make good mascots. But pick something off the beaten path. Enough with the Hawks or the Eagles or the Cardinals. Like what about the Hummingbirds. Or the fucking Condors. Whatever. Go Birds. Tweet Tweet.) Rather they kept the name Warrior so they wouldn’t have to pay for new uniforms, signage, etc., and simply ditched poor Whippet. In his stead, wouldn’t you know it that they went with a wolf. As were most school supplies at West, the costume had been a hand-me-down.
Judging by the reverence with which Doctor Goodlove was referenced in the press release announcing GloBev’s pending acquisition of Wolffenbeir, Zeke accurately surmised that he had been more than just a bargaining chip in the negotations. So then his plan, such as it was, was to somehow sully the good doctor’s reputation, to the extent that it would tank the deal entirely.
Actually, said the Mick, that’s not as dumb as it sounds.
Thank you, Zeke replied, genuinely.
Yeah. Especially since I saw on the Internet that Chinese people have these crazy censorship rules they have to follow when it comes to Western media. Like, I heard Winnie the Pooh is an enemy of the state there or whatever. So, maybe we could make Doctor Goodlove out to be some kind of dissident.
Yoo— and we can make that shit go viral, son. All over China, ya feel me. From the window to the mother fucking Great Wall.
But how do you Make something go viral?
Suddenly, Kitty was the skeptic.
Shit, how should I know? Why I always have to got the answers?
Meanwhile Mick was reanimated, Kitty was relieved to see. Hard to say how, but one could tell. Maybe he was a little more emotive in his speech or just standing up straighter. He posed a question to the group.
Well, hold on … let’s play this out. What components does every viral video have?
Obviously, but where are we going to get a funny animal?
Aha. What if we already have one?
No, no. We all love Larry, but cats are bad actors. Too unpredictable. The animal I’m thinking of is highly trained. Like as in he went to four-year medical school. Also he isn’t a real animal.
Goddamn it. You mean Goodlove.
And what if we dress up as other animals. Like the ones he eats in the commercials.
Ooh. Good idea. What else?
Gots to have tunes.
Yep. Gots to. Okay, this is starting to sound pretty viral. But there’s still one thing we’re missing.
What? You don’t mess with furries? You’d be surprised. There’s mad freaks out there.
That’s true, Billy, but not really what we’re going for. No bad ideas, though. Actually, along those same lines, what’s something sex is often compared to?
Yeah, Grace, but what else.
You mean, Zeke said, like dancing?
And Peggy was her name-o.
It was thus that the plan was set in motion.
From there, a cursory Google search immediately yielded a listicle of 26 Things You Won’t Believe are Banned By Chinese Censors. Among them were, any denigration whatsoever of the Chinese Communist Party and it’s glorious history, especially Chairman Mao. Naturally. But also eighty-sixed were — more obscurely — Skeletons, which along with ghosts, vampires, zombies and any other renderings of the undead, are considered highly insensitive to fictionally depict in Chinese culture. For a fact, anything considered to be broadly Supernatural, is a non-starter. Time travel, for example, is expressly prohibited as a narrative device, maybe on account of the moral of such stories is often that only through reckoning with the past, can one change the future. C.C.P. isn’t big on dwelling on the past, suffice to say. (This resulted in the beloved American movie classic, Back to the Future, being labeled as subversive and pulled off of shelves at Blockbuster Video locations all throughout Mainland China.) Also not allowed, not surprisingly, pornography. For the last time, Billy, we’re not making a porno. Although, the last item on the naughty list was of particular interest. Talking animals. Straight up. The regulations are opaque by design, and there are notable exceptions — Peppa Pig is massively popular, for example. But the personification of animals, particularly by endowing them with the power of speech, is thought to be by its very nature, dehumanising. Particularly if those animals are conversing with humans, as they are in such movies as Space Jam, Babe or Babe: Pig in the City.
(There was one other thing they found out about all the Wiggers in China being rounded up and sent to re-education gulags, which gave Billy pause.)
With that, the gang — now numbering six … Billy was finally a part of a crew — started storyboarding their viral video, which played out in one act as follows.
Doctor Goodlove stepped to the mic, right out of the gate, violating the aforementioned sanction on talking animals.
Thanks, Michael. How’s your hemroids?
Thadeaus and Louisa laugh.
Haha, I’m just joshing ya.
But, seriously, what’s up you bedwetters? Damn is it good to be back. As my buddy Mike here just alluded, I’ve been on the shelf a long time. I’m sure you have a lot of questions, and I’ll just say that everything you’ve heard about me is true. However, while I’d love to regale you all of my adventures, being marooned on the Island of Misfit Mascots, rolling blunts with Joe Camel and doing it doggy style with Lassie … I just don’t think it would be right for me to accept this honor as its been bestowed upon me by Senor Equis here and the fine people at GloBev. So I’m going to cede my time to a very good friend of mine, who even more than me, has been criminally underrated and frankly overlooked by the good consumers of this country for far too long. That ends today. Boys and girls, give it up for the one, the only, Howlie!
By now, the otherwise stoic Mister X — Monsoire Ixe — was as red in the face as one of Mao’s little books. As Doctor Goodlove took the empty seat to his left, jovially slapping his knee, the GloBev emissary turned to his right to shoot a death stare at Hildy, who for her part, would have rather had her dead Grossvater come back to life than see Howlie risen like this, from from the medical waste repository of aborted brands.
And, as if this were now a late night talk show, the house band played Howlie’s walk-up music. Quick, think fast — what would yours be? Crazy Train, Enter Sandman … Wild Thing? All good options. Howlie went with Bad Moon Rising. Mother f’n John Fogerty. The obvious choice, although there are a ton of great moon-based songs to pick from. (Fly Me to the ___, Walking on the ___, It’s Only a Paper ___, ___dance, Dancing in the ___light, ___light Mile, among many others.)
I see the bad moon a-risin'
I see earthquakes and lightnin'
Rather than making his entrance from the saloon doors, Howlie instead descended from the ceiling — the Newfy had a crawl space … move past it — falling hard to the floor, but springing right up, doing a rather off-axis cartwheel and giving Zeke’s camera phone the Johnny Cash double birds with his two, four-fingered, white-gloved hands, before himself taking the mic.
Haha, bitches! Howlie in motha fuckin Hizzouse.
Ayo, big ups to my brotha from anotha motha, the one and only D-R-G, for the captivating intro. Come on up here, playa, and show your boy H-bomb some of that good love.
Doctor Goodlove stood up from his chair and demurely mimed another, who me?
Yes, you. Get back up here. You’ve been a Bad Boy, haven’t you? A big, bad wolf.
Haha, how’s that, Howlie? Haven’t you ever heard of the Hippocratic Oath?
Now they were sharing the mic, as if they were doing a duet, a la John and June Carter.
Come on. It’s aint like that, doc. I’m not accusing you of being hypocritical, or doing a medical malapropism. Howeva … I’m afraid your transgressions are far more severe. And I think, for the sake of our homies here from Global Beverage, before they pack you up in a kennel and put you on a business class flight back to Beijing, they oughtta know about the things you done.
Whoa. Sounds pretty serious. Well, then, let’s hear it, Howlie. Tell the people what I allegedly did.
Aight, then, let’s begin. Ahem. All rise.
I, the Honourable Howlie, am charging ye ass, Doctor Goodlove, esquire, with high treason. You, Sir, are an enemy of the Craft Beer Revolution.
Here the twins set in with their heckling.
Boo! Boo, Doctor Goodlove!
Yeah! Fuck you, snitch bitch!
Whoa … now, hold on just a second here. I don’t believe this, Howlie! Me, a craft beer traitor? Hildy, what about you? Can you believe this? Won’t you testify in my defence? As a character witness.
Overruled! The court will not hear Mrs. Wolff’s testimony, please. She is an accessory to your crimes, on that which charges she’ll be arraigned, uh, heretofore— forthcoming.
Whether or not they had what they needed to go viral, the Newfy crew had certainly succeeded in shifting the pH in the room. Hildy, for her part, was white as a sheet. Mister X remained red with ire. Mayor Larry, colourless as ever, was mighty fucking confused.
You’re saying I can’t call a witness? That settles it, then. This is a show trial. A miscarriage of justice of the highest order. A kangaroo court! I don’t recognise its authority, Howlie.
Well, that’s all good, but it’s authoritay recognises your ass. And it’s hopping high time you were sentenced. Are you ready to receive it unto?
If you insist, then I suppose I’m ready as I’ll ever be.
Hang his mangy ass, Howlie!
Yeah, Howlie, cut his fucking head off!
Thad and Louie didn’t much have to sell it, did they.
Doctor Goodlove, with the power vested in me as a craft beer mascot and celestial body, I sentence you— I sentence you to d— D— I sentence you to Dance!
At once, the band struck back up with yet another song. Here the mandolin did the dirty work of the highly distorted guitar intro. Three rusty slides into a raunchy bend. Real Chuck Berry vibes, before settling into the classic, blues boogie thing with the power chords as the rest of the fellas joined in. Vocals:
You say you'll change the constitution
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
You'd better free your mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
The band carried on like this, repeating the part about Chairman Mao, like they were a playing a live CD that skipped.
Meanwhile, Howlie perp walked Doctor Goodlove off the small stage and onto the center of the Newfy’s sticky-ass floor. Thus was Thad’s cue to flip the party switch on the far wall, turning the brewpub into a discotheque, as suddenly the gallery wall behind the bar came undead with neons and flourescents and dayglos.
The deputy and Ari, both of who up to this point had hardly been paying attention to the Smothers Brothers routine taking place before them, interpreted the house lights turning off as a threat level-indicator of some possible insurgency. In sync, they hovered their right hands over their sidearm holsters, itching to draw down on one of these fluffy motherfuckers.
However, before they could open fire and blow another crater onto Howlie, the front door opened between them. In came two persons, dressed from the turtle neck down in all black, albeit with a white section around their torsos. Their countenances were likewise made up in black and white face paint, miming the clownlike stylings of Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope. Only on their heads were black hats with, each with two cute little round ears sticking up.
Dear god … were these? Yes. They’re here. The Insane Clown Pandas.
Just then a third Insane Clown Panda came through the front door, likewise dressed as an ICP, albeit riding in on the forklift. Mounted to the front atop a palette was the vintage electric chair from Hank’s office, and seated on said chair was the schoolroom skeleton they got Hank for his sixtieth. The one with the crown of plastic roses.
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
The heat seat was gingerly set down next to Howlie and Doctor Goodlove, and the ICPs began encircling them two and the skelly with a rhythmic menace. Counter-clockwise they shuffled around them, doing a hybrid step landing somewhere’s between a powwow dance, a crip walk and the Electric Slide. Led by his lunar adjudicator, the good doctor himself began moving and grooving with the music, now seemingly a consensual partner in this macabre ritual.
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
Like dueling tribal elders overseeing a doomed parlay, Hildy and Mister X looked on stoically, yet nonetheless overcome with a feeling of helplessness that which was so foreign to their senses, so as to it rendered them in a near catatonic state. The mayor, meanwhile, had resumed tapping his foot, as yet delighted to see two of his favorite brand mascots perform a long-awaited collab.
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
Are you prepared, Comrade Goodlove, to plead your guilt, repent of your sins and swear an oath of loyalty to the Craft Beer Revolution?
Howlie had removed the mic from it’s stand and taken it with him in his comically oversized white gloves.
O, yes, O, Howlie! I beg of thee to show thine mercy. I’ve been to the mountaintop and I’ve seen now that I have been a bad, bad wolf. There is nothing I wouldn’t do or give in offer of my penance.
Then heel! Heel before me, dog.
Obediently, the doctor knelt to grovel at Howlie’s big, plush, moonboots.
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
Now, Howlie … you will make a sacrifice unto Me, the Moon God of Beer. You will aid in dying these dancing bears, three. Now, euthanize these pandas!
Wait … wait! Stop the music!
Now Jaime entered the drum circle to do some groveling of his own. This was not in the script.
Mrs. Wolff, it is I, Jaime, who betrayed You. Billy and I conspired to compel your acquisition of my company, #x_bruing. All of this is just a farce to try and sabotage the deal with GloBev. Billy made me do it, ma’am. He’s so, so dumb.
I beg your pardon, but who are you?
I’m Jaime. Billy’s frie— former business associate. He never mentioned me?
Billy’s dead, dear. And no, you never came up.
Really? Because he said— wait, what? Billy’s dead?
Oh. Well, yeah. That makes more sense. Me too. Do you want me to kill him for real? I’ll fucking do it. Which one of you douchebags is Billy? I bet it’s you, he said gesturing at Goodlove. Come here you fucking mutt. I’m gonna put you down.
Thus a struggle ensued. Jaime lunged, aiming at Goodlove’s headmirror and seizing him by his perpetually panting tongue. Desperately, the doctor tried to keep his head, but being how his paws lacked an opposable thumb, and were furthermore scrubbed up in black rubber gloves, he couldn’t get a good enough grip. With almost a pop, Jaime completed the Scooby Doo-style demasking, falling back onto his own skinny haunches, Goodlove’s decapitated head in his hands. Looking up, he joined the entire barroom, save for Hildy, in a collective gasp.
The human face he unveiled was not that of Billy. But rather, t’was Hank.
You must have been really quite lost.
You could say that I certainly was.
For their part, Kitty and Mick were legit speechless. To be crystal clear, they had assumed it was Billy in the Goodlove costume. He had been during dress rehearsal, anyway. So far as they knew, Hank was still missing—presumed dead. But then just when you thought he was fresh out of magic bullets, Billy’d done pulled another fast one on ‘em, right under their noses.
You know all these poor people presumed you to be dead. I’ll admit that I had as well, although I had a feeling maybe you’d just run off again.
Well, it’s not that simple. It’s true that I had to go away for a little while. And I’m truly sorry to those people whom I left behind, without leaving word. Kitty, Mick, you in particular. You deserved better, and I hope you didn’t waste any time on account of my mourning. You know I wouldn’t’ve wanted that.
Oh to hell with what you wanted, Hank! What about what we wanted?
Kitty spoke up. Hank looked plain sheepish to’ve so upset perhaps his favourite person.
Oh, Katy, please believe me when I say it breaks my heart to have — well — sort of to have left you hanging like that.
Left us hanging? Seriously, Hank! You faked you’re own fucking death. You’re a fucking sociopath!
Hey! David Michael! Now hold on just a cotton-picking minute! Still, with the swearing. The fucking this and the fucking that. This is still a family place, after all. Beside, I wouldn’t necessarily frame it like that. Although I will allow that I left things— ambiguous. Why don’t we leave it at that.
Why don’t you go fuck yourself, Hank. We had a funeral for you, you selfish fucking prick!
I thought the card said Celebration of Life.
Listen. I know. It’s messed up. I said I was sorry. But it’s not all bad. For one, by the looks of things, you and the lovely Missus K — and a hearty congrats on your nuptials, by the way … I was awful sorry to have missed them — you both seemed to have really stepped up in my stead. The two of yous were always going to run this place someday, and I always knew you had it in you. It’s because you surround yourself with great people. Like the twins here. Aren’t I glad to see they’ve stayed out of trouble.
You know I ain’t going back to jail, Hank.
Glad to have you back, boss. By the way, we’re not mad you faked your own death. We think it’s awesome.
Why thanks, Thad. Louie. And I haven’t had the pleasure of officially meeting your two new hires, but judging how they’ve wilfully taken a part in this escapade, they seem like real Newfy material. Solid culture fits. And, and you managed to offload the production facility. To our old keg washer, here, of all people! Dandy Jim! You know, since I’ve been on sabbatical, I’ve had occasion to stop by your new place in the Warehouse District. Not my cup of tea, but good for you, Jamie.
Actually, it’s Jaime now.
Sure it is, buddy. And best of luck with all that. But most importantly, all this has allowed me to start the process of reconnecting with my boy, Billy here.
I love you, dad, Howlie said.
Billy removed his moon face. Howlie was supposed to have been portrayed by Grace, before Billy compelled her to switch with a ten-dollar bribe, hence the confusion.
Thank you, son. That means a lot.
So we’ve established that you’re alive. Great. What are you doing here?
Kitty, now dressed as one of the Insane Clown Pandas (the others being Raj and Grace), still pissed and always to the point.
Same as you. Trying to put a stop to this foolishness about selling our beer companies, to Red China of all places. I mean, can you even imagine? Doesn’t anybody around here remember the Cold War? These are Great American Institutions, for crying out loud. Larry, I’d ’ve known you to open that komono of yours for anybody with a campaign contribution envelope, but you, Hildegard? I mean, I understand that we’ve had our differences, romantically speaking, as well as from a co-parenting perspective, but you and I both know this is bad business. Not to mention it’s a damn travesty.
Hildy, who until just a moment ago had thought her only son and his deadbeat dad for dead, looked serene. Indeed quite eerily so. Because her beauty — and not nobody would dispute that she was beautiful, and indeed quite breathtakingly so — her’s was a severe beauty, rather than, say, a soft beauty. The well-defined muscles on her cheeks and jaw toned by a lifetime spent sneering. Likewise, the scowl lines formed between them, rigid and perfectly symmetrical, as if eroded by a polar ice caps-worth of freezing cold tears. (And it all topped off with just a tasteful touchup of Botox.)
However, now, with a representative cross-section of her life entire — love, family, work — disarrayed before her in complete and utter fucking shambles, she appeared perhaps for the first time in her life to be, at peace.
Then she charged, full speed, at Hank.
Closing the gap in a flash of rage, she lowered her shoulder and absolutely truck-sticked her no-good baby daddy like Terry Tate the Office Linebacker, ranked by Marketing Millenium magazine to be the second most beloved brand mascot behind, well, who else.
Themselves fully improvising now, the band started back in, right where they left off.
You ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow
Don’t you know it’s gonna be
Immediately upon impact of this perfectly executed form tackle, both parties left their respective feet, before they the former lovers landed atop one other in a violent embrace. With Hildy effectively choking him out, her sleek but toned thighs wrapped in a Burmese death grip around his neck, Hank did his level best to block her speedbag of haymaker punches to his temples. The mayor then, in a misguided effort to defend his own honour and come to his now former romantic acquaintance’s defence — unbeknownst to him, but they had been intimate for the last time, if in case there were any doubt —, which needless to say she was in no need of, sought to pull Hildy off his previous business partner. Then maybe he could have a go at Hank, and get his revenge for calling him Larry or other mocking nicknames like Short Pants all those years when he had specifically asked that he be called Lawrence.
Jaime, aiming to settle his own grievance and make this a proper melee, intercepted Larry on his way to Hildy, and open-hand bitch smacked him in the face.
The two commenced grappling. They had both been high school wrestlers. Larry likewise wasn’t afraid to play dirty, and quickly resorted to biting Jaime and pinching his nipples.
Now Billy felt left out. In truth, he had never hit anyone ever. And that’s not to pile on him for being a pussy or anything. Despite popular media depictions of schoolyard brawls as being rites of passage, statistically speaking, most people go their whole life without throwing so much as a punch. According to one survey of more than seven thousand Americans, sixty percent responded they’d never been in a physical confrontation of any kind. As well they shouldn’t. Violence is never the answer …
Unless … well, of course there are exceptions to every rule. Not saying if you’re in such a scenario, it’s anything goes, international waters or whatever. Just, as for all matters in life, there are certain gray areas.
Road rage incidents, bloody revolutions, public golf courses, prison riots, professional sporting events, for example, are situations where hand-to-hand combat is acceptable.
And perhaps most of all, the Great American Bar Fight.
If you find yourself in the throws of one of them, then all bets are off. Hoist a stool over your head, break a pool cue over your knee, smash a long-neck on the bar rail and try to shiv somebody with it. However you want to play it, kimosabe. Find yourself a dance partner and do-si-do.
Now for Billy’s sake, with his emotionally unavailable mother attacking his physically absent father, whilst his mother’s ex-boyfriend was playing tummy sticks with his ex-homie who had recently betrayed him, all four prime candidates for fisticuffs were otherwise engaged. That left Mister X, who Billy didn’t necessarily have beef with on a personal level, but then again he was trying to buy the family business out from under him. And you don’t fuck with another man’s money.
Ay X-Mang. Come and catch these hands.
Billy assumed a crude kung fu fighting stance, of course incorporating the five-pattern animal fist, a foundation of the Shaolin style.
Alas, this bluegrass band didn’t know any Wu Tang — quick PSA: there’s nothing lamer than acoustic musicians doing ironic covers of hip hop or pop songs — so they seamlessly faded out from Revolution Nine into Street Fighting Man, a tune that neither the Grateful Dead nor Phish ever covered to this author’s knowledge.
The little Keith intro part sounded a-perfecto on the harp. A bendy banjo subbed in for Brian Jones’s sitar and the stand-up bass made easy work of that little walkdown at the end of the chorus.
Hey, think the time is right
'Cause where I live the game to play
Well, now what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock and roll band?
'Cause in sleepy London Town
There's just no place for street fighting man, no
Without so much as breaking stride, Mister X walked right up to Billy, fucking judo-chopped him in the neck and continued on out the front door, never to see any of these American Idiots ever again. Billy went down like a sack of potatoes, hitting the deck pretty hard. Kitty ran to his aid.
Meanwhile Mick efforted to pry Hildy off of Hank, before she succeeded in actually killing him for real.
By now Grace was fully making out with Anna Leigh, who herself seemed unperturbed to have the lower half of her face now fully caked in black and white Insane Clown Panda makeup.
Desensitized to violence in all its forms, Thad and Louie were playing backgammon on the bartop, ignoring the polite overtures of Carl the Cowboy for another pint, please.
Ari and the Deputy remained by the door, themselves neglecting their official duties in favour of comparing one another’s pieces. Ari’s Desert Eagle was no doubt the bigger of the two, but the deputy had done bypassed Sherrif’s department regulations to outfit his service weapon with some sick mods, including a red dot sight, an extended clip and a cute little flashlight, only the latter of which had ever come in handy, but for when he dropped his keys in the crevasse of a center consul in the Mayor’s SUV.
That left Zeke, who at this point, assuming he had more than enough footage for a viral video, put the phone away and saw to separating Jaime and Larry. The two were entangled to the extent it was difficult to discern limb from limb. Zeke grabbed at some fleshy extremity, that turned out to be the Mayor’s left leg, and lifted him upside down out of the tussle as easy one of average strength might remove a trash bag from the garbage bin. (The Mayor was very slight in stature.) Turning him rightside up, he placed him gently on his feet and turned back to help Jaime to his.
For those keeping soundtrack at home, the music has now stopped. It was in this viscous silence that the whole bar wafted with a stale air of regret. As in rumpus time is now over.
Indignantly the Mayor dusted off his celestial blouse, now torn along the neckline.
Oh, great. Now my new favorite shirt is ruined. Officer?
The deputy looked up from admiring Ari’s pipe with an annoyed expression as if to say, ugh, what?
Well are you just stand over there with your thumb up your butt while I get assaulted? Arrest this ungrateful jerk, will you? Now … please.
The deputy shrugged, handed Ari back his gun and removed his handcuffs from their little handcuff holster on his utility belt, on which he also carried a full compliment of what’s known in the law enforcement industry as Less-lethal deterrents, including a can of pepper spray, a good old-fashioned billy club and a state-of-the-art TASER 7 model stun-gun. He also carried a bowie knife that would make Crocodile Dundee shit his dungarees, although it was plenty lethal. Quite the EDC, as those macho man-boy scout, prepper types are wont to call it. For a fact, every beat cop you see is walking around out here like Batman, minus the grappling gun and the ninja throwing stars. But let’s not give them any more ideas. Lord knows it’s in the budget.
(If you haven’t had the misfortune of being tased, it for sure sucks, but the consensus is that it’s far preferable to being pepper-sprayed or tear-gassed. That is unless you’re getting hit with a high-voltage, law enforcement-grade probe like the deputy’s here. One intrepid commenter to an online self-defence forum, who presumably had been on the business end of both incapacitants, described the sensation of being tased as shaking god’s hand. Fucking ‘a.)
Jaime didn’t resist. Rather, when the cold stainless steel shackled around his wrist, he was terrified, that the only thing he ever really wanted — let’s be honest, to be famous, but then to shun fame, as if he were too good for it — would never be.
Meanwhile the Mick had finally removed Hildy from Hank, who was now presumed alive albeit in bad fucking shape, what between a bloody lip, a visibly-broken nose, an impressive shiner and a ping pong ball-sized lump on his temple. Hildy herself looked no worse for the wear. Not a smudge of makeup nor a strand of hair out of place. In a moment she composed herself and returned her attention as well as her ire to Billy, whom Kitty had finally gotten to his wobbly feet. As had Larry before her, Hildy summoned her henchman.
Ari, honey, forget about the shopping list I gave you for this afternoon. I want you to escort my son someplace for me. I’m giving you their card with all the relevant details.
(You already know Hildy pronounced Details the fancy way, with the soft E.)
You are to accompany Wilhelm, forcibly if you must, until he is in the custody of the proprietors of this institution, dubious though it may be.
Hildy handed Ari a business card, the name on which he read aloud in his silly accent.
Hearing that name again snapped Billy right up out of his stupor.
No, you can’t send me back there.
I’m sorry but you’ve left me no other choice.
It’s too late, sweetheart, even for asking nicely. I’ve already confirmed your reservation, and I’m afraid it’s non-refundable.
But I’m not a minor anymore. They won’t take me. It’s for troubled teens.
That is true, dear, but in your case, they’ve agreed to make an exception for a very troubled twenty-something. Of course in exchange for a modest donation. That may be your legacy. From your school days and beyond: a veritable compound of academic buildings and performing arts centers and athletic facilities and now, the Betty Ford Bridge Program for Post-adolescent Re-assimilation, is our working name for it. To be quite honest at this point we’re running out of conservative women with whom to bestow upon your honour.
Hildegard, please. Don’t send him away to that awful place. I’ll take him. He can work at the Newfy.
The Mick didn’t say anything but his eyes widened and he looked at Hank as if to say, what the fuck he will.
Oh? So now you’re offering to take responsibility for him? As his father? Need I remind you both that you each arrived — independently, I might add — at the conclusion that faking your own death was the best course of action forward from the precise moment when life didn’t go exactly your way. Forgive me for not leaping at the opportunity to have you influence my only son, at least any more than you already have genetically. You may have been the one who chose to exit our lives, but when you did I made a choice of my own that day, that gone you would remain.
Be that as it may, Hildy, you can’t just have the boy committed involuntarily. Not in this state, anyhow. Suffice it to say I’m familiar with the statutes.
I’m quite sure that you are, Henry, but my lawyers say otherwise. You’re welcome to pony up for his defence, but I highly doubt the gun-tooting attorneys from Frontier Justice Law Partners have the litigious firepower to take on my in-house counsel. Is that alright? You then, be a good boy and go with Ari.
No, mom. I won’t do it. I won’t go back. I want to go live with dad.
Ugh. Ari, will you please?
Ari stepped to Billy, who human-shielded himself behind Kitty. Ari would lunge to one side and Billy would juke to t’other, until Ari committed and Billy scurried over the bar.
The band also didn’t know Yakkitty Sax, so rather they settled into a fittingly soulful cover of When the Circus Comes to Town, something of a Phish standard, by the Grateful Dead contemporaries, Los Lobos.
Could have had a chance to get out of this wreck
The time that you came and the day that you left
Again, Billy shuffled to and fro while Ari mirrored him, step for step. (For their part, the twins didn’t so much as look up from their backgammon game.) For all intents and purposes, Billy was trapped. He looked over his shoulder for some kind of weapon. There was the thunder bow on the wall, but he probably couldn’t loose an arrow off before Ari subdued him. (The katana was woefully just out of reach. It used to be lower on the wall, but there had been incidents, so Hank hung it a little higher.) Beside, he hadn’t done any archery since his last stint at WR.
Raj had come to the rescue, appearing at the end of the bar through the swinging saloon doors, holding a large device in both hands, which he then slid down across the bartop to Billy. Aha! It was the patent-pending Beer Can-non! (They had gotten the Goodlove costume out of a storage locker, where it was collecting dust alongside a treasure trove of relevant ephemera, including Hildy’s wireframe sketches of the character, when he was originally called Doctor Ezekiel Lupenstein, a framed photo of the three of them with Nancy Reagan when she was First Lady of the Nation and a signed first edition copy of his first book, Alpha: My Life as a Beer Mascot, Medical Doctor and Interspecies Sex Symbol.
Sensing his opportunity, as well as imminent danger (they are same), Ari lunged over the bar at Billy, who instinctually aimed from the hip and fired, scoring a direct hit of a full beer can to Ari’s solar plexus. Ari flew back several feet in the air and landed harmlessly at Hildy’s feet.
Never thought I could make it this far
With a dent in my soul and a hole in my heart
Billy looked down at the barrel of the Beer Can-non in disbelief.
Holy fucking shit! That was siick, he said, cackling. Hey Ari, he asked, leaning over the bar. How’s my D taste?
With Jaime now safely in custody, Mayor Larry made another last-ditch attempt to endear himself to Hildy, deputizing his sheriff’s detail to detain Billy.
Hey, Dingleberry … will you apprehend him, please, before he kills somebody with that thing!
Alas, this thing’s ammo was a fifteen-year-old special edition Parachute Can of Pack Light, of which Billy didn’t have any others on his person.
But the deputy didn’t know that, so he felt obliged to draw his service weapon and aim it directly between Billy’s eyes, as indicated by the red dot dancing on his browline.
Aight, aight. It’s empty. Bruh. Sheesh.
Billy dropped the Can-non at his feet.
Now let me see your hands! Above your head!
Half-assedly, as if he had something better to do, Billy raised his Mickey Mouse ass-hands in the air.
I’m already still, stupid.
As the deputy approached, he holstered his gun, and pulled out his spare set of zip ties from his special belt, so that he could now handcuff the moon.
Now put your hands on the bar, slowly.
Okay, okay. Like this? Billy lowered his hands and said:
He grabbed the cowboy’s pint glass and threw its half-full contents into the deputy’s eyes. (Alas, his chunky white plastic sunglasses had been wrapped around the back of his bald head.)
Those who have been maced can well attest it’s a little bit like IPA in aerosol form, so suffice it to say that the deputy was thoroughly disabled, ocularly.
He responded to having his sight as such compromised by redrawing his pistol and firing it indiscriminately in Billy’s general direction. This at last got Thad and Louie’s attention, as they didn’t hesitate in hitting the fucking deck, whereas Billy took off running. A cascade of rounds exploded behind him, detonating a controlled demolition of the assorted bric-a-brac on the bar wall. Chinese lanterns, Tibetan prayer flags, African fertility masks, the Newfy Mug Club mugs, all turned to dust.
Head first, Billy dove over the bar whilst bullets continued to fly. As the deputy turned in their direction to follow his target, the rest of the patrons went down. All except for Zeke, who subconsciously pulled back out his phone and frantically scanned for the camera app. His was an overwhelming instinct to help, to protect Billy and put a stop to this violence, but all he could do in the moment was try to record it.
But when the lights are turning 'round
And wheels are rolling on the ground
That day I'll burn this whole place down
When the circus comes to town
Billy barrel-rolled under a four-top and somersaulted into a booth as the deputy put a fist-sized bullet hole in the standup bass. Billy dove head first, sliding on his belly the remaining length of the parquet floor toward the exit. Finally, the extended clip was emptied. In the echo of this cacophony of semi-automatic gunshots and shattering glass and acoustic instruments, the only sound remaining was the deputy’s voice-cracking war cry, and the impotent clicks of his aftermarket carbon fiber trigger.
With the ceasefire, the Mick leapt to his feet and took down the deputy, who crumpled without the slightest resistance. His gun likewise fell to the floor, whereupon Kitty grabbed it and threw it out the back window stained glass rendering of Dirtbike Jesus.
Is everybody alright? Mick cried out. Is anybody hit?
One by one, they each rose. Hank, Hildy, Ari, Larry, Grace, Anna Leigh, the Cowboy, Thadeus and Louisa.
All except for poor Zeke. He lay still. His body was prone. Grace saw first and rushed to turn him rightways up. His eyes were open, but this time they didn’t move to avert her gaze. The entrance wound was through his left chest. A tiny little hole, right beside the name badge embroidered on his work shirt, as if dotting it like a period. Zeke. Grace sprung back up, out of utter shock. By now they all gathered around him. Kitty held her hand to her mouth as tears welled in her eyes. Mick embraced her attempting to console her best as he could. Mayor Larry, the cat, appeared. He licked Zeke’s lifeless hand, where the phone rested still. Mayor Larry, the person, looked around in a panic, whereas Hildy and Hank looked straight ahead, steely in their resolve. The cowboy knelt down and covered Zeke’s face with his ten-gallon hat. At last Billy cried, with the knowing this had all been his fault.
The front door opened once more. It was Skip Engel, the delivery driver. And there he stood silhouetted in the doorway.
