ketchup & fried circuitry

Agent 139 suddenly rose. “I am the monkey flower!” he proclaimed. The waitress grunted and began ambling his way, prepared to tell him to sit in his seat and be a good patron. The Agent gave her such a withering stare that she stopped in mid-stride.

“Hear me out!” he screamed. Even the suits in non-smoking stopped, their forks dangling in their suddenly limp hands.

“Fuck it all. Thirty million years of evolution for ‘Singled Out,’ the Spice Girls, and sublimated brutality. Thirty million years and Eminem is the most forward thinking artist on the air? Come on and come off it, you fucking disappoint me. You’re letting your religious iconography be populated by the likes of DMX and Pepsi Cola? I’ll have another hit off the joint and continue to be mindfucked by the boys on the major networks. I mean, I am, after all, nothing more than a product of this…rightright? That my consciousness is not congruent with the agreed upon world view—that is a fluke, a minor mishap, an inconvenience at my expense? A country based on the rights of the many at the expense of the one—who ever thought that the many consists of the one?—and we expect to have individuality? Individuality is itself a trap, a sham. What does this strip-mall of insecurity, this plethora of sensory overstimulation lack? To use the terminology of our late syphilitic friend, a will to power, a will to meaning.”

At this Frederick looked confused. “Late?” he asked. The Agent did not pause, however. He had a far away, highly ecstatic look in his eyes. The tone of his voice had changed, it was now deep and powerful. Johny could see that he was brandishing a curved hunting dagger behind his back.

“Why do you call yourself 139?” Johny asked suddenly, completely spoiling the mood.

139 looked over his shoulder at him. “Top of mind awareness… branding and marketing haven’t you been listening?”

Then, back to the larger audience, he continued his sermon, “Meaning is not contained within the world as it is. Nor is hope, evil, or justice. It is a human, cultural and subjective reality cast upon a blank set. When a group of people accept the same movie, the general consensus creates ‘reality.’ We could choose anything. Anything at all. This is what we chose? Come on people! It was the intention of religion, then country, now business, to create a world-map to be cast upon the stage, so that large scale transaction, and communal living, may take place. A sacrifice of the individual for the sake of the many. They sold it, you bought it. But don’t you see? You too can be a fisher of men!”

“…What happened when this happened? The ‘shamans’ of all ages determined the agreed upon consensual norm. Our society has grown, bloated, and overstuffed itself. An experiment in nausea—the Television, the flashing lights, the larger-than-life hair—just look around you!”

Johny was listening intently, and felt a deep thrumming sound somewhere in his head. Agent 139 raised the knife high above his head. The sound of clattering silverware resounded from the non-smoking section, as knives, forks and spoons dropped to the table. Most of the people in the smoking section seemed disturbingly nonplused. The waitress’ mouth dropped wide open, and she took a tentative step backwards.

“Just think about it. Our brains trick us into experiencing continuity from a line consisting of dots, that is to say, the film itself is reality, which is projected onto a screen, which is interpreted by our nervous system. The nervous system sends the message to ‘us’—this is a mystery—as a coherent, fluid movement. Hey, if you want to experience some of the way time, and reality for that matter, works without our brain’s proper functioning, decoding and decryption, take a large dose of LSD. Order is human. Chaos is divine. I am not implying that LSD imparts a ‘higher reality.’ Any reality experienced through this fleshgolem here is limited to a singularity, thus ruling out the possibility of it being ‘higher’ or ‘ultimate’ in any sense. What I am implying is that the ‘normal’ operation of our brain is something biologically programmed through evolution, and socially learned. Everything you experience is real… but it is not reality! What about my emotions, my secrets, the things most dear to me? Well, you tell me Barbara. Take a nice hard look at how you function, throughout the day. How you respond, how you feel inside as a reaction to the response, why you do the things you do. Start to detect a pattern? Start to feel a little bit like a white rat in a poorly constructed cage? You’re nothing but meat, Barbara!” Spittle flecked his lips. His eyes were beacons of hellfire. “You’re nothing but meat! Send $19.95 to my account, which I will provide in a moment, and you can break out of that cage!”

“There’s a sucker born every minute,” Jesus said, playing with a plastic crucifix he had hanging around his neck on a hemp cord.

The waitress ran over to the phone to call the police. Jesus rose from his chair and stood beside the Agent, who was staring intently at Johny, running his index finger up and down the knife. Now he spoke.

“Backwards swimming monkeys, hairless ape. Up to their eyeballs, I tell you—columns of smoke, columns of smoke, those monkey’s, the pesky things, munch-upwards-power-sail-to-’em, too, motherfucker! Running an outboard motor and two, count ‘em two, gazelle’s with halfback motor-scooter soups.”

“Deep under the surface of the soupy chowder lies a gem, guarded by a pesky monkey named Iago. I am not I, he said. Krimpets anyone? They’ve got jelly centers! Running around Led Zeppelin Hermes Herpes feet, leaden and jumping up and down. St. Ides. Isn’t that a dog? (No, that’s St. Bernard. The Song of Songs.) Dog star aliens. Keep your eyes out. They’ll be on the ten-o’clock news with Tracy Madesac, selling life insurance. Figures, the aliens wear ties, too. Better taste in food, though. Pigs. Now, in other interrelationships, pork rinds for free! Smack them lips, boy—we’ve got pork rinds. They’re crispy, crispy, crispy, and they don’t wear leather. Crispier art thou, Freetos; How now, Othello? A morning long, spent amidst the throng of the conservatory, waited with baited breath for my arrival. Waited, Waited, I.”

“I have no idea what I’m talking about. I had an idea, but then he told me that this was an equal opportunities joint and split. I had a plan, but it turned out to be an unkempt milkcow. Pull the udder kind of sideways. Beefy-bat-bootch-bandanas all around, folks—it’s time for a celebration!”

The Agent caught the glint of silver running from the back of the waitresses’ uniform. Recognizing an alien transmitter device when he saw one, he brandished his dagger and let out a howl, lunging at her.

Jesus continued to rant all the while:

“I need a club and some cosmic bliss. I’ll settle for less smoke columns and deer heads. Less flies and buzzing of Gorbetrov cocktails bursting in the swollen organ of a disgruntled social worker. Freud this, mother fucker! Less brain, more capons! Fuck fork pork rinds, we have capons! Consume Capons! Spare Castrated rooster, mammary glands—er, I mean ma’am? Ketchup down the gullet! Ketchup down the gullet!”

The Agent pinned her to the side of the bar and let out a horrible shriek of ecstatic frenzy.

“Ketchup down the gullet quick before I think, mommy,” Jesus continued, not about to stop because of his friend’s outburst. “Don’t listen to the weird neighbor, children. He thinks too much. Dems strange words coming out of his mouth. Not like I want you to think that we’re conforming to anything, mind you, but— Johny, quit yer bitin’!”

The Agent stabbed the waitress again and again in the chest, pinning her to the side of the bar with his other hand. Deep red blood washed all over his arms as he cut off her skin, revealing layers of circuitry and wires. Convinced that the grim job was finished, he got to his feet and motioned at Johny , leading him out the front door. Jesus followed happily behind, waving at the absolutely mute patrons. No one in the store made a move.