I was bitten by a radioactive Jesus

(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.

“Whut?” he inquired. But he was looking, so I did the trick. I beamed. He said nothing.

“It’s wine,” I explained. “I changed it.”

“Yew changed it. So?” He was so unimpressed that I could barely speak, but I tried to make clear to him the coolness of what I had done.

“I took plain water, and without adding anything to it, I turned it into wine,” I proclaimed. “It’s a bit like the Catholics’ Transubstantiation, but less gross.” I looked at him expectantly. Without a word he turned away and resumed staring into his beer.

Feeling foolish and a bit despondent, my dismay no doubt compounded by the exhaustion of an all-day dog ride, I got up to leave. I realized that I was too tired to do anything except crash in my luxurious, seven-room, spa-equipped suite at the beautiful Burnett Comfort Lodge. I left six dollars on the bar, figuring that would be about the price if I had just ordered two glasses of wine rather than making them. I feel strongly that my super Jesus powers don’t give me the right to cheat anyone out of their livelihood, except perhaps doctors, but theoretically they shouldn’t mind.

Turning my head for a last glance at the room just as I passed through the door, my peripheral vision caught a glimpse of a strange, tall figure standing near the jukebox. He was very thin, and was dressed all in black. He had a high forehead and a dark beard, and was holding some kind of largish black cylinder in his hands. I stumbled a bit outside as I clumsily reversed my course, and when I went back in and looked at the jukebox area, he was gone. In my brief glimpse it had seemed that he was staring straight at me, but now there was no sign of him. I walked around the bar for a couple of minutes hoping to discover where he had gone, but he was just not there.

Great. Now I was hallucinating! The last thing you want to add to super Jesus powers is any kind of psychological instability. I made a mental note to pick up some of that over-the-counter anti-psychotic they advertise on late night TV - “Voices Be Gone.” As you doubtless know from seeing it on the shelf at Rite-Aid, it comes in a big, molded plastic bottle shaped like a pygmy chimpanzee with his hands clamped over his ears. There must be a drugstore in one of these little towns, I thought.

The next day was the airshow. I still didn’t know why Leonard had sent me here. He could be rather taciturn and enigmatic sometimes. He probably thought it would be good for me to discover my mission on my own, and he was probably right.

Not having a gigantic pick-up truck with a gun rack, I walked out to the base, which I quite enjoyed in the cool morning air. The guardhouse at the main gate had been converted to ticket sales duty, and after paying my thirty-five dollars I followed the signs past the Wing HQ., across the sports fields, and out onto the vast, paved steppe that was the runway area. I made my way to the stands, had a seat, and prepared to enjoy the spectacle.

I couldn’t help but think of my brother Stephen. He always had a fondness for aircraft, and he would have really enjoyed seeing all these planes. And the name of the Facility itself resonated enough with the lore of the mighty Steve Austin to bring an old joke bubbling up in my mind. “Steve Oster, a man barely alive.” Our last name is Oster - have I ever mentioned that? Anyway, Stephen never liked that bit, especially the part about rebuilding him and making him better, stronger, and faster. He likes sports even less than I do.

The program was a full one, featuring the Air Force’s precision flying team the Thunderbirds (who are not, as I had assumed they would be, puppets), as well as the famous D.B. Cooper Parachuting Team, Bill Seligman and his Gyrocopter, and a bunch of famous aerobatic pilots flying things so old that decades of maintenance have replaced every single part at one time or another, as is done with major Japanese shrines, which are often 400 year-old buildings made entirely of wood cut within the last five years.

The announcer emitted a steady stream of bad jokes and good aircraft specifications, and the crowd roared enthusiastically at every stunt. Bob Harkin did a harrowing series of Snap Rolls in his Waco biplane, Gail Castaneda took her Extra 300L through an impressive Reverse Cuban Eight, and Jay Moore and his Sukhoi SU-29 did what was apparently the most graceful Split-S that anyone had seen all year.

It was at that point that someone swung a heavy steel hook at my face. If my attention hadn’t been caught by the guttural “Arrrr” sound he made just before he did it, he might have caught me in the nostril, yanked my head right off, and tossed it to some kids to play soccer with behind the stands. As it was he scratched me cheek in a way that I could only hope would leave a manly and rakishly attractive scar, and scared the Kibbles and Bits out of me.

As I scrambled away from him, regrettably stepping in someone’s chili dog and knocking over someone else’s Mountain Dew, I could see that he was dressed in a manner that was arguably stranger than my own tattered but flowing attire. He wore a long waistcoat, knee-high boots, and an improbably large tricorner hat. His right eye was covered with a patch, which helped to explain why he had missed me, and in place of his right hand was a sharp and shiny hook, which both made his choice of weapon a no-brainer and suggested some possible reasons that he was so cranky.

I later learned that his name was Ernest Formby, but let’s call him Patient Zero.

to be continued…