12: Gargantuan, Geothermally-Powered Propellers
(continued from 11: Twentynine-Palms)
So I went for a walk. I was wearing “street clothes” rather than the very biblical robes I had been wearing of late, or the cool, post-modern, scripture-covered bodysuit that I imagined The Nazarene would wear. It was cool inside, but like everyone else I had to exit through the Hotel-Casino-University’s seventeen progressively warmer air locks so that the desiccating, kiln-like heat that makes these places such popular resorts would not flash-cook my cool skin, unprotected by an ablative sheen of sweat, and send me into convulsions, hydrostatic shock, and a fit of lethal embolisms. It was a lovely day outside, without a cloud in the sky and with nothing to block the views except the looming hulk of the seven-hundred story Hotel-Casino-University, whose upper four hundred floors are pressurized and whose top one hundred floors are shielded against the soothing rays of hard radiation sent our way by Mr. Sun.
11: Twentynine Palms
(continued from 10: Patient Zero)
Leonard’s sources indicated that the Great Emaciator was making preparations for something big in California. I wasn’t privy to the exact nature of those sources, but Leonard assured me they were reliable. A demolitions supply company in Arizona had apparently sold a large quantity of exotic explosives to a man fitting Abraham Lincoln Johnson’s description, and several thugs, mooks, and gunsels known to be often in his employ had been spotted in the town of Twentynine Palms, gateway to the vast Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base. Leonard thought, and I concurred, that much as in Oklahoma he must be planning an assault on a military facility, perhaps to weaken confidence in the US government prior to supplanting it in some kind of coup.
I traveled by the fastest available airship to Palm Springs, and from there caught a mule train to Twentynine Palms. I was checking into the Twentynine Palms Resort Inn, University, and Casino, thinking about my strategy for reconnoitering the area, when I realized that it was happening again. Why had Leonard Nimoy sent me here? Surely he had access to special ops professionals, paramilitary cadres, and undercover detectives who would be far better equipped to handle this problem. A shortage of loaves and an overabundance of fishes was hardly likely to deter the desperate gunmen that the Great Emaciator had brought to the area, and whatever way in which a mass of high explosives the size of a humpback whale might be used to mess up a military base wasn’t going to be prevented by curing some eye infections and STDs. This was bad.
10: Patient Zero
(continued from 9: A Freakish Little Blip)
The sunlight swooped through at a lazy, orangey, afternoon angle by the time the rest of my work was finished. There were more ambulances and Fire Department paramedic units than I would have guessed existed in the whole state of Oklahoma, and more police than there were Air Force personnel. No one but me seemed to have a clear idea what had happened, but a team from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta was on the way, and it had been ordered that the area be quarantined, despite the fact that three or four hundred people had already driven away by the time the order came down.
9: A Freakish Little Blip
(continued from 8: The Pirate Plague, part two)
This young man, whom I quickly came to think of as my First Mate, perhaps indicating that the Pirate Plague had begun to affect even me, stayed by me throughout the action that followed, bravely and skillfully protecting me from innumerable dangers by means of a combination of cheerful ruthlessness and Brazilian Jujutsu.
For the next two and a half hours I rushed about the airfield, the hangers, and other nearby parts of the Facility, curing illness in anyone who staggered about on her sea-legs, anyone who carried a nail file like a knife in his teeth, and anyone who just looked way too hairy and grizzled for their gender and age. I laid healing hands on anyone singing Sea Chanties, which a good policy at any time, really. I became exhausted but kept on going. I wished fervently for the car-catching speed of Steve Austin himself, or the indomitable courage and goodwill of his bionic female counterpart Jaime Sommers, winner of the California Teacher of the Year award in 1977, and now, as everyone knows, the US Secretary of Education.
8: The Pirate Plague, part two
(continued from 7: The Pirate Plague, part one)
I did the only thing I could do: I fled. Hey, I’m not Jesus, I just have super Jesus powers. And they don’t include absolutely everything. I mean, would this nutcase have chased after Christ Our Lord? Of course not. He would have been overcome by the unconditional love that was radiating at him, and would have desisted and apologized. Is that a super power? I would say no. I would say that it was Divine Grace or something, which I, not being a deity, just do not have. But even if you think that such an ability (the ability to be too wonderful to mangle with a hook) is a super power, it’s not that surprising that I don’t have it. Does Spider-Man have a venomous bite? As I understand it he does not. Can he lay hundreds of eggs? Again, the answer is no. I hope.
I mention these speculations because they are actually what was going through my mind at the time. In such situations I can process an amazing volume of irrelevant thoughtage at supercomputer speeds. This is not a super Jesus power, but rather a super I’m-scared-out-of-my-wits power, which many, if not all of us possess.
7: The Pirate Plague, part one
(continued from 6: Garth Brooks Wrote the Magna Carta Here)
The air show was to take place starting at eight AM on a Saturday, and I arrived by Greyhound on Friday night. This gave me some time to kill, so after I had fed and watered the Greyhound, rubbed his belly, and scratched the spot above his tail that caused his left leg to convulse entertainingly, I went into the Goofy Shirt bar. Named for a style of garment made popular by Garth Brooks, the interior of the establishment was decorated with hundreds of authentically goofy shirts in various yoke-collared Western styles and made of a dazzling variety of fabrics and other materials. None of the shirts bore a sign proclaiming that Garth Brooks Wore This, but the implication that he would wear these shirts if given the opportunity was clearly there.
I stood out somewhat here, probably because the simple, homespun tunic and robe I had taken to wearing was so very out-of-step with the totally predominant Cowboy costumes. I smiled weakly as I bellied up to the bar and ordered some water. I tried to show off by turning it into wine, but no one seemed to notice. So after I drank it (it was a nice Merlot, I think) I ordered another water, and tapped the burly fellow next to me on the shoulder.
“Hey, watch this,” I said.
6: Garth Brooks Wrote the Magna Carta Here
(continued from 5: Leonard Prefers that his Hand be Unseen)
Leonard got me some endorsements to helped to pay my expenses. I received an advance of several thousand dollars for future appearances in advertisements for the Candy and Pills division of the One Huge Corporation That Owns Everything Corporation. The product, still only in a couple of test markets, was “Sacra-mints.” Their slogan: “Fresh breath and the Body of Christ all in one!” It seemed like an OK thing to be associated with, so on Leonard’s advice I took the deal. We were approached by the makers of “Sacra-instant,” a powered red wine product that made a surprisingly acceptable table wine out of ordinary tap water, but as our prior sponsor was about to initiate litigation against them for trademark infringement, we really couldn’t consider it, Leonard said.
5: Leonard Prefers that his Hand be Unseen
(continued from 4: Your Average Juvenile Humerus)
This sentence no verb. Man, has anything truer ever been said? Not that I am aware of, although my favorite Zen koan is a contender:
A disciple approached the master to ask him a question. “Master, does a dog have Buddha nature?” The master replied: “Mu!” And the monk was immediately enlightened.
That just about says it all, to my way of thinking. Of course the best part is the end. They all end that way: “And the monk was immediately enlightened.” It makes it easy to write your own:
Disciple: Master, what is on TV tonight?
Master: Hockey, and a rerun of The Love Boat on cable.
And the monk was immediately enlightened.
It’s just that simple. Try it at home. The other part of my favorite koan is pretty cool, too: “Mu!” I’ve frequently tried it on people, both before and since I was bitten by a radioactive Jesus. I’m not sure if any of the people at whom I’ve shouted “Mu!” were immediately enlightened, but I haven’t noticed any real difference in the range of reactions since the Kestlerville radioactive Jesus incident, so it seems likely that my super Jesus powers do not include enlightening people.
4: Your Average Juvenile Humerus
(continued from 3: My Secret Origin, continued some more)
In St. Louis I learned a valuable lesson. Walking through a lovely little park running along the banks of the Mississippi, remembering the enchanting story of Huckleberry Finn in King Arthur’s court–especially savoring the recollection of the whimsical interlude in which Huck tricks Merlin into painting Huck’s racing frog, so that Huck can go convince Becky Thatcher to teach him what it is to be a man–when I witnessed an amazingly tall man staggering and clutching at his chest. It was clear to me from his movements that he was experiencing a dissecting aortic aneurysm, which aside from hurting like the Dickens can kill you right off without a second thought, so I leapt to his aid.
3: My Secret Origin, continued some more
(continued from 2: My Secret Origin, continued)
As I shook her hand, a confused and somewhat alarmed expression took over her face. She seemed to smile for a moment, then said something that sounded like “Gnnrpphppt,” and one of her eyes popped right out of her head and landed on my shoe. I had killed her! I had accidentally done some kind of nightmarish Dim Mak Death Touch, interrupting her body’s meridians of life energy at the precise nanosecond that you would not wish to unless she were responsible for killing your elderly kung-fu master and had thus forced you to spend six grueling years undergoing an improbable regime of training under the tutelage of a cranky, one-legged vagabond who knew the ancient secrets of White Spider Death Touch Kung Fu. Horror exploded within my belly, and I lurched backward, but somehow I didn’t care to let go of her hand. She began to shake, then an amazing transformation occurred.
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