The day started like any
other. I woke up, ate my Frosted Flakes,
and got dressed. I climbed into my Geo
Tracker and fired up its mighty four-cylinder engine, and turned on the
radio. Rocket 101 always had something
good to pump me up in the mornings, and that day I caught the tail end of “
“Panama, Panama-ha, Panama, Panama-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...”
The song ended, looped and started
again. This is when I started getting
creeped out, but I went with it.
“Panama, Panama-ha, Panama, Panama-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...”
The song finally ended, and the DJ
came on the air.
“You just heard ‘
I pulled over to the side of the
road and shook my head.
“I didn’t hear that,” I said, lying
to myself.
Then I checked the rest of my radio
presets. The
Needless to say, I shut off my
radio and drove the rest of the way to school in awkward silence. Something was wrong. There was no traffic, the grass was dead, and
the trees were dead. A thick coating of
viscous mud covered the whole landscape.
When I arrived at school, I found that it had been abandoned for
years. General McLane High was crumbling
from neglect and the damage done by mortar shells.
I was alone.
Most of the
rooms were looted, but I managed to find a place to sit in one of the history
classrooms. There I sat, looking at the
decaying building, thinking of all of the memories that I had there, wondering
what the hell was going on. The walls were lines with old album covers, and the
little American flag at the corner of the board, the one I pledged to, was
gone. Rather, I saw a black flag with a
silver logo sewed unto it. I took this
blasphemous banner down to see that it was the stylized “VH” logo used by the
band Van Halen. I look back at the album
covers on the wall. I wasn’t an ardent
fan of Van Halen, and I didn’t know each of their albums, but I was thrown
aback by the cover of 1986’s Van Halen Forever, and the subsequent
albums that followed it. I picked up
some
torn pages laying on the floor, and tried to piece together
the chain of events leading to this. The
results I discovered had to have been true, for they were more bizzare, twisted
and disturbing that any piece of fiction that I had ever encountered.
Only I can recall the world as the
way it was. The history in my memories,
and the history of I was reading were identical except for one minor detail
that held dire consequences for humanity.
Shortly after Van Halen released their wildly successful 1984
album, their lead singer, David Lee Roth quit the band to pursue a solo
career. This apparently never was. Somehow, I was in a world where David Lee
Roth remained the flamboyant front man for Van Halen.
In 1986, Van Halen released Van
Halen Forever, which had triple the sales of 1984, making them
bigger than Elvis, the Beatles and Michael Jackson together. They released their Subliminal Messages
album in 1988; the year David Lee Roth was elected President. Since the
I didn’t know what to think. “This can't happen! This can't be real! This isn’t my world! How did I come to be in this dismal
place?” I screamed.
Then from behind me, I hear the
bass chords of ZZ Top's “Doubleback,” the popular theme from Back to the
Future III. Sure enough, ZZ Top materialized from thin air in their blue
jeans, white cowboy hats, and leather trenchcoats. They began playing their white fluffy guitars
and sang:
“We brought to this place
not long ago, because you knew the place so well. The people aren’t same ones that you know --
their world’s a virtual hell.
We’re
an alien race, we’re from outer space -- don’t have a heart attack, my
friend! We come here to unwind -- we
wanna save mankind, from David Lee Roth’s Henchmen, from Roth’s henchmen.
You know we’re flying ‘round in
our time machine, when we saw Roth’s might.
Killin' things as well as being mean, and we thought ‘Hey that ain’t
right!’
Though it ain’t fun, you’re the
chosen one; you got to change it back, my friend. You’re of sacred birth, you must save the
Earth, you need to win it back again, win it back again.”
ZZ
Top then went into a guitar solo. Blue
lightning shot from their instruments, and the lightning bolts crashed together
inches from my face. There was a
brilliant flash of white light, creating a silver ZZ Top keychain that fell in
to my hands. The band then started to
sing again:
“So would you take this please,
an’ put it on your keys? That way it
won’t get lost. Until your darkest hour,
then unleash its power, and stop David Lee at any cost!
Now we must go, to our UFO, and
we wish ya’ luck, my friend. You gotta
fight him alone, then we’ll send you home.
You need to win it back again, win it back again.”
Then ZZ Top spun their guitars in a
circle and faded from existence, leaving me with more questions than
answers. I turn to the old textbook for
guidance. I found that David Lee Roth
lives in the nation’s capital...
I climbed out of my seat and went
home. I got my blue suit and something
to drink, that way I could avoid the insane prices of rest stop vending machines
on my way to
I enter the castle and try to find
my way around, but it was unfamiliar to me and I kept getting lost. After forty minutes or so, I managed to make
my way to the grand lobby once more. I
made my way to the centrally located information kiosk. The man behind the desk
had an attitude almost as bad as his comb-over.
“I’ve come
to see Emperor Roth.” I tell him.
He scoffs
and gives me a disgusted look. “Do you
even have an appointment?” he
snaps. I dangle my silver keychain for
him to see.
“Do I need one?” I smirk.
“One moment please,” he says,
rolling his eyes as he presses the “talk” button on the intercom.
“Sir, the man who was prophesized
to destroy you is here.”
“Send him in Mr. Jones,” the
Emperor replies.
“Send him
in!” sings the rest of the band, just
like they did in the background of “Beautiful Girls”
Mr.
Jones led me to a room next to the great balcony, and I was buzzed in. Roth was in his office with his feet propped
up on his desk, with the remainder of Van Halen behind him with glazed over
eyes, ready to play. He looks me over
briefly.
“Hey
man, that suit is you! You’ll get some
leg too-night for sure!” he exclaims.
“Getting
some!” sings the band, just like they
did in the background of “Beautiful Girls”
“Do they
sing every time you speak?”
“Yeah, they have no minds of their
own.”
“No minds
of our own!” sings the band.
“So what’s
on your mind?” asks Roth.
“What on your mind?” sings the band.
“I question
the legitimacy of your government.”
“What do
ya’ mean?” asks Roth.
“What do
ya’ mean?” sings the band.
“Well,
quite frankly, I want you to reconsider your totalitarian style of ruling.”
“Totalitarian regime? I don’t see where you get that! Man, you
gotta cool down some.” says Roth.
“Cool down some!” sings the band.
“Well seeing as how you have a
single political party, ideology and leader, along with state control of the
economy, communications, and weapons, all safeguarded by a state police that
controls by fear, this is, by definition, a totalitarian regime.”
“Yeah, so what?” scoffs Roth
“Yeah, so what?” sings the band.
“I don’t know what gives you the
right to enslave, imprison, and punish entire nations of people in your
gulags.”
“What gives
me the right? I give me the right! -– I’m the King of the World!”
“King of
the World!” sings the band.
“No, you
aren’t a king, you’re a bully. The
people have a right to eat when they want, breed when they want, work hours
they consent to! They need adequate
food, time with their families, opportunities to succeed -– these are
inalienable rights. Government exists to
support the people, not the other way around.
If a government shifts away from this, and no longer serves its
citizens, then it is the duty of the citizenry to destroy the corrupt
government.” I state.
“I’m sure
that things aren’t nearly as bad as you make them out to be. I’ll make sure you see that, In fact I’ll
have Mr. Jones... show you around!”
“Show you around!” sings the band.
Mr. Jones
showed me out of the room, handcuffed me and locked me in a broom closet. However, using my keen and calculating mind,
I was able to devise a method of escape in a mere twenty-five hours.
Building
security knew that I was in there and began chasing after me once they realized
that I had escaped. As soon as I was
able to free myself, I was being chased and shot at.
Seeing no other means of escape, I
jumped through a window, did a flip in the air, and fell feet first through the
ragtop of my Geo Tracker. I fired up its
bone-crunching four-cylinder engine, straightened my tie, and speed away. I was flying down the highway when I saw a brigade
of policemen trailing me in my rear-view mirror.
I knew they were going to catch up
to me, since the speedometer on my car bottoms out at ninety. I make a hard left and pull the emergency
brake. My car careened off the side of
the road and log-rolled into I-79 southbound, and I laughed as the cops stopped
to see me zip by in the other direction.
I knew that there would be more cops to follow. I ran off the side of the road into one of
the picturesque swamps that line our nation’s highways. Needless to say, I got stuck in the mud and
reeds. I took off my pants (to keep them
from getting muddy) and climbed out of my car to lock out the hubs so I could
throw my car into 4-wheel drive. By
then, the police had caught up to me.
And I tell
you what, those police tasers hurt like a bitch. No dude, you don’t understand,
they really suck. So while I was
fighting to regain control of my muscular system (and retain control of my
bladder), the cops leisurely handcuffed me, then picked up their walkie-talkies
and reported in.
“We’ve located the otherworlder,
what are our orders, sir?” they
“Send him
to Labor Camp 4.” orders Roth.
“Labor Camp 4!” sings the band.
Some were freedom fighters during
the revolution. Some were thrown in to
the camps because they continue to fight The Man. Some were common criminals, and some lost their
freedom when betting on the pod races.
We all stood under the hot tropical sun, tending to the sickly crops
peeking from the mud. We wore tattered hunter-safety orange coveralls with a
big black “4” on the back. And we had
big black plastic boxes filled with C4 strapped to our necks, so if we were to
pass the invisible fence, our heads would explode, just like in The Running
The commandant of the labor camp
was Julius Sumner Miller. For in this bone-chilling alternate reality, this
gentle-hearted physics educator was appointed to be a bourgeois nobleman,
cashing in from the labors of the prisoners.
He was also a vampire.
His
chauffeur him drove up to me in his white Rolls Royce, and he rolled down his
window. His white hair was puffed into
two lobes, and he wore a flowing red gown along with his 1950’s vintage black
plastic eyeglasses. He looked at me with
his trademark thousand-yard stare and told me in his distinctive madman voice:
“I say to you Mr. Coons, if you
even try to escape, your head shall explode!”
Julius
cackled madly as his Rolls Royce took off into the sky.
It was the perfect system to
control the masses, but they left one variable out of this cold calculus of
mind control -– me. By applying my
knowledge of non-Euclidean geometry, I was able to gnaw through my collar. To blend in, I replaced the live bomb with a
decoy that I had made with an old gallon milk jug, a hot glue gun, and some
spray paint, all of which were in the shed where we kept our farming tools.
But despite what ZZ Top said, I
knew that I couldn’t handle this alone.
I had tried that once, and that’s how I wound up here. Nothing short of an army could stop this
nightmare.
The inmates drudged on from one day
to the next, thinking of the joy they once knew to keep themselves from going
mad. The threat of explosion was the
only think keeping them from expressing their dissent. All I had to do was free them. So when the guards weren’t looking, I gnawed
through one of their collars. Then our
numbers increased exponentially. One
strap gnawer became two, then four, then eight, then sixteen, then thirty-two,
then sixty-four, and so on, until we were all free. Ozzy Osbourne got into it,
and ended up decapitating seven. Very soon we had a free population and big ol’
pile of explosives. I handed my boys
some duct tape and sent them to work.
The next
day we were working the fields again. Well, everyone else was. I wasn’t.
That prompted one of the guards to run up to me.
“Coons! Get back to work!”
“Make
me.”
The guard
sneers at me, and slugs me with a wild hook punch, splitting my lip. I look back at him, taste my blood, and smile
as I thrust the flat face of my hoe into his groin, smashing his nutsack. He bends over in pain, and then I break the
handle on his neck, making him land face down in the mud. The guard looks up
from the mud and grits his teeth in rage. With his military uniform covered in
mud, he almost looked like one of us. He
sees standing in a circle around him, howling in laughter. I spit on him, adding insult to injury.
“You
sonna’va bitch...” he mutters as he signals his buddy in the guard tower.
In the
guard tower, another guard opens the lid of a control panel, and presses a red
button with my name on it.
TWAH-CHOOOM!
A chain of
explosions rocked the foundations of commandant’s mansion. Windows break as flames leap out. A giant support beam collapses atop Julius’
casket, turning his afternoon nap into an eternal slumber. The blazing framework eventually crumbled
into a heap of burning timbers. The
guard climbs up from the mud and looks on in horror. I knock him out with a wild hook punch, which
made a loud “wha-crack,” as though someone broke a pine board off camera. I shake the pain out of my hand and scream to
the workers, ordering them to riot.
We blew up
barracks and guard towers, and bludgeoned the survivors with garden
implements. We destroyed the entire camp
by nightfall, except for the arms depot.
We carefully opened the door to this supply bunker by using a smaller
bomb collar, taken from one of the midgets at The People’s Glorious Midget
Farming Collective next door. For in
this world, midgets are bred in government run laboratories to be sold as
pets. I saw to it that weapons were
handed out to all of my orange clad freedom fighters. The night was aglow from
the flames of destruction. I stand atop
a toppled pillar from the commandant’s mansion, and address the liberated
laborers.
“Gentleman! This camp burns with the fires in your
hearts, and your dreams of defiance have set you free!” I shout.
The denizens raise their torches and cry out in celebration. When they die down, I continue.
“But as we
celebrate, countless others suffer the same indignities that you have.”
“The proletarians have nothing to
loose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the world unite!” shouts V.I. Lenin, who has poles grafted on
to his embalmed arms and legs, so that master puppeteer Jim Henson can make him
walk, talk, and write dirty commie newspapers.
I raise an
eyebrow in confusion, but continue.
“Gentlemen, rest well tonight, for
tomorrow we scavenge, and build, and make ready... for we shall go to VanHala,
and dispose of David Lee Roth!”
“Yeah!” screams everyone.
* * *
A few guards were making their
rounds outside of VanHala, on another routine patrol. Off in the distance, the guards spot a
convoy, and squint to the horizon to watch it draw near. They quickly fell to the M-60 mounted to the
roof of my Geo Tracker. It turns out my
nimble Geo makes an ideal light support and reconnaissance vehicle, enabling me
to spearhead this operation. I radioed the rest of my army, and we moved in
with tanks and armored personnel carriers that we had made with farm tractors,
fifty-five gallon drums, and an arc welder, a la The A-Team. Entire
platoons of Roth’s guards were mowed down.
I saw Billy Idol destroy the guard posts and send flaming cop cars
rolling into the air by launching Molotov cocktails from a potato gun.
“Superstars!
The time of thrills and spills you, the fans want to see and hear --
return to spender with rock ‘n’ roll inferno!”
he shouts.
“What the hell does that
mean?” I ask. I never did find out because he only
responded with one of his trademark sneers.
We blew the walls open with
leftover bomb collars, allowing the infantry to pour in. Mr. Jones storms into David Lee Roth’s
office, to find him sitting with his feet kicked up on his desk with his orange
sherbet suit, hat and gloves on.
“Emperor Roth!
The resistance has broken through the perimeter and has taken over the
ground floor of the castle!” he
frantically informs.
“Release
the Legion of Horror!” orders Roth
leisurely.
“Legion of Horror!” sings the band.
On the
ground floor, a giant wall of stone opens to reveal hundred of plastic
skeletons standing in rows. Some were
dressed in legwarmers and wore sweatbands.
Some wore winter hats in the summer and had alarm clocks around their
necks. Some wore sweater dresses, and
some wore jeans and T-shirts. They all
just stood there, until their leader -– a skeleton dressed like James Brown
came to life with a “Wa-ow! Uh!”
This made
us curious. This was the Legion of
Horror? This stopped the Coup of
’93? This was Roth’s secret weapon? It didn’t add up.
“Git up, ow!” shouts James Brown as he begins to find his
groove and the loudspeakers start to pump “Living in
“No... there’s no way...” I told myself in disbelief.
“Ow! Knock me out, dig!” shrieks James Brown.
All of the
freedom fighters stopped and looked on in silent terror as they watched an
undead James Brown sing his tune, while the remaining legion of the plastic
skeletons from health class swung and shimmied in the background.
“Supah-highway, coas-ta-coas, easy to git
anywhere... from da transcontinental ovahload, jus-cli behind the wheel, how
does’t feel...” sings skeletal soul-brother number one.
“When there’s no destination...”
shouts the Legion as they wave their arms over their heads.
“That’s too fah....” sings James
Brown “A-somewhere on the way, you might fin-ou who you are!”
“LIVING IN AMERICA!” sings the
Legion of Horror, as they fan out and begin breakdancing in an unnatural, jerky
motion, as though they were stop-motion animated. Some of the skeletons Moonwalk, some do “the
Worm,” and some spin on their heads, but all of them continued to sing. The freedom fighters drop their weapons, and
shriek in terror, for their mortal minds could not process something that
screwed up. I looked around to find that
my army had abandoned me. As I stood
horrified by the skeletal hordes closing in around me, James Brown sneaked up
behind me. He wrapped his arm around me,
pointed his skeletal finger between my eyes, and shouted in my ear.
“You ain’t got no soul,
Brother!” he says.
I screamed, picked up the skeleton
and smashed him over my knee. Then I
ripped the head off and began gnawing on the skeleton’s toupee.
“I ain’t got no spine,
Brother!” shouts the severed head.
I screamed, and then I threw
Brown’s severed head to the ground and jumped it over and over until it
shattered. Parts of the broken jaw moved
away from the top teeth as the skeleton continued to talk.
“I ain’t got no skull,
Brother!” it shouted.
I lost it. I dropped to the floor, curled up into a
fetal ball and started crying.
“You ain’t got no sanity,
Brother!” chattered James Brown’s teeth.
The skeleton army tore off my
pants, and was digging through my pockets.
One skeleton was going through my wallet; another was looking at my
keys.
I looked at the silver keychain
glisten in the stage lights. Yes, that
was right. I was surrounded by an army
of breakdancing skeletons, being taunted by an undead James Brown, and starring
at the keychain given to me by a musical group of time-traveling space aliens
who brought me to this world, and to sung to me personally at my bombed out
high school.
This is when I finally caught on
that this was a dream.
I ripped the skeleton’s arm off,
pried the hand open to get my keys, and fired mystical blue energy beams from
the Enchanted ZZ Top Keychain at the chattering teeth on the ground. There was a brilliant flash of light, and
James Brown was brought back to life. He
was patting himself down –- shocked that he was flesh and blood once more.
“Are you alright?” I ask.
“Wow! I feel good!” shouts James Brown.
We all stand in awe of my newfound
power. I turn to the skeletons and sweep
an energy beam across the room, scattering their plastic bones. I then surround myself in a ball of blue
light. When it subsides I had changed
from a BDU shirt and underwear into a sharp outfit consisting of a clean shirt,
new shoes, silk suit, black tie, gold watch, diamond ring, cufflinks, stick
pin, top coat, top hat, black shades, and white gloves. I point the keychain at the ceiling and fire
a beam upwards, cutting a shaft to the top floor, so I can use the keychain to
fly to the balcony level. When I reached
the top, Mr. Jones was waiting for me. I
looked at the bureaucratic drone, and told him how I felt.
“I just
wanted you to know that I spend a lot of time thinking of what I wanted to do
to you when I spent that day in the broom closet.”
He makes a
feeble attempt to give me a stern talking-too, and pokes a finger into my chest
for emphasis.
“I don’t
know ho you are, or who you think you are, but you have no idea what you’re
dealing with here. Emperor Roth will
destroy you and your mangy rebels, and furthermore...”
I grew weary of his innate
ramblings, and interrupted him with a keychain beam, which caused him to
spontaneously combust.
“Aiy-eee!” he shrieks.
I then strut down the corridor in slow motion,
with dramatic backlighting, as I stalk the brightly dressed despot, and corner
him on the balcony.
“Hear me out man!” He shouts.
“Can I have a few last words?”
I stop my approach, and grant his
humble request. He responded to my kindness by kicking me in the head with one
of his aerial splits, knocking me on my ass.
Before I could react, he came down on me with the end of his scepter,
running me through. As I coughed up
blood from my internal injuries, Roth bends down to pick up my ZZ Top keychain,
and runs to the balcony to show it off to the armies below, to tell them all
has been lost.
“Gentleman! As you can see... the power of the keychain
is with meeee...”
Cameramen from DAVE TV, the
national propaganda syndicate focused on Roth.
“...And to demonstrate my
intentions with it...” Roth picks up the end of his scepter, and leans me up on
the carved stone railing of the balcony.
“Your leader, Mr. Coons, will be the first to die, as I end this, and
all future rebellions!”
I cough up more blood, before
muttering: “There... is something... that you’re... forgetting...” It draws his
attention for a second. I use my last
bits of strength to slide off of the scepter, only to collapse.
Roth smiles as I lay in a
heap. Once more I prop myself again, to
show that sides of the gaping hole in my chest are closing in with a bright
blue light. The wounds completely heal
over –- there isn’t even a scar.
“The power... is in me!” I scream.
I jump and summersault in the air, to the balcony entrance. Then I shoot blue energy beams from my hands
at the balcony, causing it to shatter like the thin ice. Out of reflex, I grab the bloody end of
Roth’s scepter as he falls. He clings to
the orb for dear life, as he dangles over the edge.
“You gotta help me man!” shouts Roth as he frantically kicks his
legs. “I’m a changed man! I was wrong!
I’ll fix everything, but you gotta help me! I run this world -– if you want to get
anything done, you’ll need me!”
I look down
at pitiful man, begging for his life when he has taken so many.
“Life goes on without you.” I say as I let go. He screams as he plummets, and lands with a
sickening crack, and twitches for a few seconds before going limp.
“We’re out of a job!” sings the band.
* * *
It’s dusk back at Labor Camp
#4. The camp is alive and joyous, with
many buffet tables to avoid long lines.
Tiki torches lit the night and kept the mosquitoes away.
“Yub-nub!
Eee-chop yub-nub! Atoe meet toe
peachy keen, g’noop-dock fling-oh-ah...” sings everyone to happy drum and
xylophone beats.
Then the moment ends, and turns
somber as one of the freedom fighters light David Lee Roth’s funeral pyre, with
an appropriate overture by John Williams and the London Symphony
Orchestra. I gaze into the flames and watch
the cremation, before a concerned young woman taps me on the shoulder.
“Mr. Coons?”
Having
caught me off guard, I was startled, but I was still polite.
“Yes?”
“If this is all a dream, what will
happen to us when you wake up?” she
asks.
“Yeah, will we die or something?” shouted the concerned populous.
I stopped to think for a moment, to
find a way to resolve this metaphysical dilemma, while still honoring the
fallen, and to allowing the survivors to exist and enjoy their newfound
freedom.
“No, for
when I wake up, I will write you all into a story, so all of you will live
forever in the memories of my readers.”
I reassure them.
“Horray!” the multitudes shout, as they return to their
feast.
“Celebrate the Love --
Yub-Nub!” they sing.