The Lankville Daily News

By Dick Oakes, Jr.
Senior Staff Writer

File Photo

The little Islander motioned me to a booth, upholstered in red vinyl.  There was no else in the place and half the lights were out.  I vomited into a basket of children’s magazines.

After awhile, he brought me some bullshit on a plate with a couple of crisped rolls.  I was about halfway through the damn thing before I realized that I had no money.  I motioned the little Islander over.

He was so angry, he grabbed the crisped rolls and crushed them into the carpet with his boot.  Then, the lights went out.  I got the hell out of there.

When I woke up, I was in an abandoned gas station in the desert.  From across the canyon, I could see the slow, lumbering approach of a creature that was half rhinoceros and half camel.  It also had an enormous tusk that was bent awkwardly to one side.  I noticed then that there was another bum lying there, beneath a soiled chenille bedspread.  “You’re in Gila Flats, asshole,” he said.  “Better get the fuck used to it.”

I made my way across the gorge.  When I looked back, I saw the monster tip over one of the gas pumps.  There was a small explosion, then a bigger one.  Then there was a colossal explosion, way out of proportion to the others.  I took heed of the old bum’s warning.

Much later, I was able to flag down a red station wagon full of foreign tourists.  They spoke a language that was utterly unfamiliar.  One of them had a color postcard of a gas station.  “It’s gone,” I said.  “It exploded.  I saw it all.”  It was no use though.  The guy just smiled and stared out the window.

They dropped me at a hotel that had an emptied swimming pool.  I kicked in the door to number 13 and found it unoccupied.  I had a bath and then watched some fundraising telethon on TV.  There was a naked guy running around putting his head in bowls of spaghetti.  I couldn’t make it out.

When I awoke, it was dark out.  I figured now was the time to try to make it to Lankville City.

By Dick Oakes, Jr.
Senior Staff Writer

File Photo

I stumbled drunkenly into the Go-Go club.  It was dark and desolate at that hour.  There was a girl on the pole though; she was wearing a red wig and had lovely firm cans that put me in a pacific mood.  Someone in the back yelled out “VAGINA” in a demented voice.  There was a flicker of sunlight as the front door opened and closed.

The next thing I knew, some guy brained me from behind with a wine bottle.  I collapsed onto the stage and was only very vaguely aware as my body was dragged into the dimly-lit bathroom.  Two guys took their belts off and strapped me to a radiator.

An hour later, they unstrapped me and took me outside into a gravel-strewn parking lot.  A tremendous amount of dust had kicked up and the sky was dark and menacing.

The lights of a late-model sedan pierced the darkness and pulled beside us.  I was thrown into the backseat with the guy two goons beside me.  The car pulled off.

I saw it coming before the driver.  The sky had suddenly turned into a thick, syrupy cloud of black gas, descending over the horizon, obliterating everything in its path.  The goons kept poking me with different types of aluminum cans, laughing.  I decked one with a quick left, kicked the other hard in the face and, all in one motion, threw the door open and rolled out into the woods.  The driver tried to stop but the cloud was like a heavy wool blanket.  They were enveloped instantly.

I took off through the woods, away from the gas.  I could hear screaming; a metal sign, painted haphazardly, had been placed on a majestic old oak.  It read, “THE END” and, in a different color paint below, “PENIS”.  I vomited into a hollow.

When I awoke, a man in a gas mask stood over me.  I became slowly aware that I too was wearing a gas mask.  The sky was ashen.  “You’ll have to come with me,” he said.  “We’re eating warmed-through cakes.  We’ve found a special room of warmed-through cakes.”  He looked at the sky.  “Hurry!” he yelled.  He helped me to my feet.  “These warmed-through cakes– they too, will end.”

That night we feasted.

By Dick Oakes, Jr.
Senior Staff Writer

File Photo

I warmed up the case of frozen burritos (beef), then drove out to the truck stop and picked up a couple of 2-liter bottles of Diet Crystals Drink.  Then I drove over to the co-ed dorm.

It was a depressing three-floor walkup made of stucco– very little in the way of adornment.  Bunch of nurses lived there.  They had left their trash cans lying in the mud with the lids off– the effect was frank and startling.  I parked in the rear behind a beveled hedge and unpacked my binoculars from their spongy, springy case.  I glassed the upper floor first as it was lighted.  A couple of girls in bra and panties having a pillow fight. I consumed an entire burrito without even being aware of it.

I glassed the next window.  Petite blonde, in bra and panties, dressing before an antique wardrobe.  She put on a white T-shirt that read, “BRING US YOUR PEOPLE!”  I wolfed down a second burrito and chased it with half the bottle of Diet Crystals Drink.  I thought of tits made moist by a hose.

I made my way quickly across the gravel back lot.  There was a fire escape there and as I reached for the ladder, I was viciously tackled from behind and pinned to the ground.  I saw a squat, doughy Islander off in the distance, running slowly down a side street clutching a sheet of looseleaf.  My hands were cuffed behind me and I was lifted to my feet and thrown into an anonymous white van.

Hours later the van stopped in a thick wooded area.  I was led to an execution site and made to lean down.  There was a horrific noise, a loud, deafening clatter.  I heard a man say, “Hey Pete!  Those are those short to the ground wild dogs that travel in packs of one hundred.  We don’t want to be out here.”  They took a couple of half-hearted shots at my head– then ran off.  I heard the van peal out of the gravel drive.

I headed back to the road.  There was a strange black ooze that seemed to be following me but I made a couple of feints and avoided it.

Several hours passed.  I came to a roadside diner that wasn’t open.  I went around to the back and kicked the door in.  There was a girl back there, sitting on a derelict sofa and watching some black and white instructional films.  She didn’t even look up.

I became transfixed by the films.  They showed a man in a paper hat, delicately placing strips of paper into tiny envelopes, then sealing them with an enormous machine.  He smiled unfailingly throughout.  Then I was tackled from behind and shoved to the cold concrete floor.  They dragged me outside into  very early morning light.  I was strapped into the trunk of a car.  I blacked out.

The next thing I remember was a hospital room.  An ugly nurse stood over me.  That was the beginning of my odyssey.

By Dick Oakes, Jr.
Senior Staff Writer

Senior Staff Writer

The Pondicherry Association News is happy to present a new feature by veteran writer Dick Oakes, Jr.

I awoke in a windowless, subterranean bedroom and immediately spit up a surfeit of blood. A haggard blonde with jumbo yams was dressing in a corner. The light from the filthy fixture above was stale. From somewhere I heard carnival music.

The blonde lit a cigarello and said, “Bonjour mon amoreux! J’ai pense a fermer la porte a clef.” I started blankly.

I waved off coffee and stepped into the shower. Many of the tiles were gone and the water spit out onto the wood floor. Suddenly the thin muslin curtain was wrapped around me by two shadowy figures and I was pushed to the floor. Then I was lifted out of the shower and one of the guys brained me with a splintery piece of crown moulding.

When I awoke I was naked, still wrapped in the muslin shower curtain, in the back of an old ice cream truck. One of the goons sat sullenly in the corner, holding a .41 on me. The asshole had a real listless way about him. I decided to play possum.

After about ten minutes his cell phone rang. He snapped it up on the first ring.

“Yeah baby. Where are you?”
Silence.
“Naw. We’re just taking this guy up to the mountains.”
Silence.
“Well, we’re going to set him on fire with some of those leftover posters and some gas that Johnny picked up.”
Silence.
“Well, the posters have this gloss on them so we think it might take awhile. I don’t think I’ll be back before midnight.”

I kicked him hard in the shin and then got him with a perfect uppercut that shattered his jaw. I could hear the crazy bitch on the fallen cell phone, still asking about the goddamned posters. I stripped the guy of his shirt and pants, then ever so slightly opened the rear doors.

They were on the highway.

After about a half-hour they stopped at a breakfast joint. It had started to snow so I nicked the asshole’s jacket and took off into the woods. I could hear a train in the distance and I made for the tracks.

As I came out into a clearing, I saw a series of antique dolls tied to some of the trees. A fire had been recently extinguished and there was a tiny green pup tent set up on an old palette. There was a jar of mustard on the palette and a pair of red plastic tongs. A tiny robot was pushing the tongs around senselessly.  I decided to keep going.

It took another ten minutes, through thick underbrush, but I finally made it to the tracks. It was an old coal engine pulling some graffiti-ridden boxcars. I hopped on the first that had its cargo door open. There was some straw in one corner and before long I had fallen into a deep and troubled sleep. I dreamed of a disturbing redhead, a kittenish piece of used jailbait. She was hanging around with a house-dick. They were making jokes in a darkened hotel lobby, filled with a thick gloom, like gas. When I awoke my pants were gone.

I jumped off the train in a little town and nicked a pair of stone-washed jeans from a second-hand place run by a guy that looked like a gibbon. That’s when I ran into Probationer Talleyrand. “Mr. Oakes”, he said. What are you doing across state lines?” I had no choice but to lure him into a soda fountain, ask everyone to clear the room, and drown him in the sink. I hoped I would have a half-hour start.

But I never did leave that little town.