the zeitgeist of the town and was summarily pulled into a garage and stomped nearly to death. Or maybe he did die. How would we ever know?
We now have The Hall Monitors, individuals of all ages who sit at each street corner and check the papers and purpose of passersby.
If you are not going anywhere to kill someone in their sleep, why would you care if you get checked or not?
[Tommy]
The Swarm is everywhere these days.
Even at night. Some people seem them on people’s roofs, sitting in the church after midnight, somebody even saw them riding across the sky.
Wow.
They took William from his store. He’s retarded, but he runs the used movie store anyway.
I saw Christoph on the sidewalk kind of telling the police what to do and he told me that William was a defective.
I want to be a defective when I get older, catch criminals, solve stuff. I think it would be great.
Anyway, William is a defective now. I saw him walk in the police station with Don. I’ll bet he’s got his own office. I’m glad he’s happy. He told me he didn’t think he was going to the Fall Fling ‘cause retards can’t go.
Now I’ll bet he can go.
Hey, ‘jew know we got cameras all over now?
Hey! Hey! I just passed one, now another one! They take your picture and I wave whenever I see ‘em.
Hey!
I stick out my tongue or something sometimes.
Hey!
[Nona]
Hey.
Good afternoon.
It’s morning?
Oh.
I don’t get much sleep.
All night long outside my house this buzzer … buzzes. It’s motion detection equipment or something. They’re trying to catch The Swarm.
I guess The Swarm is trying to break Moon Walking out of the city jail and they might blow up the jail or maybe take hostages.
Don drives fast up and down all the streets in the middle of the night with his siren going and his lights flashing to try to show the people there’s trouble brewing.
Nobody sleeps.
Sometimes I go out for a walk around town ‘cause I can’t sleep and everybody’s lights are on, some porch lights too, backyard lights. You walk down the street and you set off everybody’s motion detection light and it’s just like walking around during the day. It’s okay, kind of different, but then the next day everybody’s tired.
I told you I get to dust around those new Open Your Eyes plastic cards on each table now, plus, plus! Now they’ve got all these other things we are supposed to warn people about, if you’re on The Committee.
The Committee — I’m on it, not sure how I got elected — is supposed to talk to people all the time about being afraid of books, because of eye strain and exploding heads. Okay, I can see that.
But sharks? Really, sharks is on the Be Afraid List. That’s not the same as the list of persons to be afraid of. It’s a different list.
And lightning. If it rains or thunders everyone is supposed to run outside and run around as fast as you can because lightning cannot hit you if you are moving. If it’s a long storm everyone gets pretty tired, and wet, but as long as we don’t get hit by lightning I can see why we have to do it.
And Loogies. What if someone was in a plane passing overhead and decided to hack up a big one and let fly? Yeah, I never thought about it either, but the people on Christopher’s Inner Bunch have thought about it and I’m glad.
That’s the reason for the yellow rain suits that we now have to wear, along with the personal fences, the bee tenders masks that used to be so hard to find, but now every store has ‘em.
6. Meteors
I can see that, too.
That would hurt.
Nicaraguans wearing Colombian sandals.
All I can say is good for the Inner Bunch ‘cause that one goes — zoom — right over my head.
And Giant Jello Blobs Like The Ones Kids Get On Their School Lunch Tray, Only Way Bigger.
I would hate to be out walking some night and run into one of those, and be by myself, all alone, but somebody said they have those more in the city.
Okay, seeya.
Be careful.
I’m serious.
[Tommy]
Hey.
You hear that?
“BE CAREFUL OF THE EVIL-DOERS!”
Hear that?
It’s the radio guy. He has his regular show, but now he’s got speakers all over town, too, for in case somebody doesn’t have a radio or doesn’t have it turned on all the time.
I’m bringing sandwiches to the jail.
Somebody said they won’t give them to her.
I’m gonna try. My mom helped me make them.
I’m going as fast as I can but you have to always slow down ‘cause the fences, you can’t see who’s coming.
I might try going out to Abu Iowa too some time.
Mom says, “forget that,” but I think I should go out. I haven’t seen those guys for a long time.
“Hey, Cleo, Cleopatra.”
They like meow and whoof when you say hi. I don’t know if that’s on purpose or what.
Robert S. Thompson here.
What a beautiful day.
I love fall. Of course, that’s like saying, I like strawberries. It goes without saying, but nevertheless, don’t you?
The Fighting Angus are doing well in football. The volleyball team, not so much.
What with the dissidents all corralled in Abu Iowa and with the jobs that has created, well, it adds a certain gloss to the beautiful red and oranges in the leaves.
I should write a letter to the editor to that effect and maybe I will this time.
There is still the matter of Ms. Moon Walking.
They say now on the radio that she is connected to a network of librarians, a cabal or cadre, web, or something.
That is what happens.
FDR, Carnegie, Murrow.
I could scream but it’s as well that I do not.
All these types all over and even in this country as well.
Some days it’s all a person can do to get up in the morning.
There goes That Swarm.
So full of energy and life.
I envy them in a way, going up and around and over everything. The fences don’t bother them. They bother me, in a way. I like to observe and I can’t see anything.
The Swarm used to be mildly amusing on their bicycles, zipping here, there.
Now they circle the jail like Indians, ride over roofs.
I’m not sure what can be done about them.
Or if we have the collective will to deal with them. No stomach for what needs to be done. Not like it used to be.
I used to bring a transistor radio down here to listen to while I sit, but with the new public blasts, I dare say I don’t require one.
Pretty soon they’ll have Coaches Corner. There’s a game tonight.
[Nona]
We do need to keep our shit straight, I mean safe.
“Right?”
Oh, boy. I should at least let you sit down, I suppose.
Coffee?
Cream?
Pretty soon The Swarm would threaten our jobs, family, cars, TVs, right?
That’s what people are saying anyway.
And they think Moon Walking should be electrocuted, as long as that wouldn’t be added to their municipal bill.
Or, some say, a good spanking.
Or deported to Nebraska.
That would teach her.
And what’s so bad about wanting to be safe?
Huh?
Save room for pie?
No, no key lime.
Lemme check.
Cherry, peach, pear.
Yep, just something we’re trying.
Safe. Sound. Secure.
SSS.
Oops, I better keep my trap shut or there won’t be no room on the tables for plates with all the slogans and cards and signs.
&n
bsp; But, really, as long as we can do that, it doesn’t matter if the rest of the world drowns or burns, or what have you.
It really don’t.
Country folk can survive, like the song.
Right?
Can I top that off for you?
Sorry, there ya go.
[Tommy]
The real enemy is the Gestapo itself.
Remember the White Rose.
There is no such thing as The Swarm.
It’s all a hoax to make us afraid.
To let the Gestapo enslave us — even beg them to please enslave us.
Geez, Moon Walking.
She sent me a letter.
One of the jail guards, a big guy from Jason Junction, gave it to somebody who rolled it up and stuck it in my handlebars.
I used to have rubber grips, but they got ripped up and fell off.
Now people can leave messages in there for me about stuff.
Geez.
There’s more in the letter. I’m not sure who all else got one.
I think it’s just me.
Geez. Man.
I wish my dad was here.
I could ask Sheldon the mailman, but he’s out at Abu Iowa.
Geez.
Moon Walking!
Man, oh, man!
[Tommy]
Well, geez, I’m doing what Moon Walking told me.
I’m outside and it’s two.
In the morning.
My Mom will kill me.
I’m dead.
I’m already dead.
I’m only still breathing ‘cause it’s two in the morning.
Tomorrow I will be dead.
Moon Walking said to look up in the sky.
I’m on my bike and I can’t see shit.
I can’t say shit.
I don’t have a light on my bike and if a car comes by it will smoosh me. And I will be dead.
Oooh, cool.
There’s a full moon and because it’s just coming up over the houses it’s really orange and it’s big. It could be a space ship or something.
And there’s people up, sitting on their porches, walking around.
In the morning they will be in big trouble.
They will be dead.
[Robert S. Thompson]
Yes, I have been one of those unable to sleep at night due to The Swarm. They roam the city all day and now all night as well.
I sat in my study window, it’s on the second floor, I have my tea, my books, my radio. I can smoke my cigar and blow it out the window.
Well, there it was, a giant “S” superimposed on the Moon.
And so I decided to have a scotch as well and see what might happen next.
The “S” was replaced by The Swarm.
They flew across the moon, up and down the church roof, across the school parking lot.
I watched until past three, went downstairs, read some old letters from my wife when we were separated that one summer while she was taking the calligraphy course in Minneapolis.
I looked out the window once more when I went upstairs. The lights appeared to be gone.
I pulled the window down and went to bed.
As far as I can tell I was asleep within seconds.
[Tommy]
Hey.
Cleo’s dead.
Cleopatra’s dead.
Somebody ran them over.
They were on the sidewalk.
There were bike tire tracks over them and Swarm T-shirts and Swarm buttons and Swarm leaflets all around them.
It looks like it was The Swarm.
I loved those two.
I was the one who found them. There were guts spilling out of Cleo’s stomach. I tried to push them back in. You can’t not really.
I called 9/11, then Sherry the vet.
She was nice. She came and had a big box and she said she would take care of them.
There’s nobody to talk to.
I wish I could talk to Moon Walking.
The Swarm doesn’t have leaflets.
Sheriff Don answered my 9/11 call on a bicycle I didn’t even know he had.
I’m staying up all night tonight.
I’m out here in the dark.
It’s dark out here.
Well, I’m in Mrs. Cartwright’s cabbage.
I’m not sure why.
I just thought I should maybe hide.
It’s two, probably more.
I heard what they said about the moon and The Swarm and all that. Robert S. Thompson told me and he told Nona and so everyone pretty much knows now.
How first the “S” comes out across the sky at night and then The Swarm appears.
They’re saying The Swarm is being called by Moon Walking and her followers to come ride all over the sidewalks and roofs and churches and the moon.
People are really scared now.
They’re calling the city offices asking for more surveillance cameras and for the radio station to turn up the volume on their blasts.
Just need to see for myself.
Mom knows I’m out here. She said, go ahead, she’ll stay up. She’s making cookies. We’re gonna dunk ‘em.
You ever see that one Charlie Brown show?
Not the Christmas one the … the football-no … Halloween one. The Great Pumpkin, that’s me, looking for the Great Pumpkin.
I don’t know but it’s kind of cold.
I wouldn’t mind having a blanket.
Maybe I’ll just lean back against the garage for a sec’.
Hey.
Did I fall asleep?
Hey!
… There! …
You see that?
There it is again!
See!
Right there! See?
It’s The Swarm.
They are everywhere.
Wow!
Even on the moon.
Night must be their big thing or something.
I think I’ll just watch them for a while.
It’s pretty cool.
Fall is nice at night, too.
My mom is in the window. She’s waving. I’m not that far away, next door.
I can smell the cookies. Butterscotch honey nut.
My stomach can smell ‘em too.
Hey!
See that?
It’s a light stream going over the houses.
It’s following The Swarm wherever it goes.
I wonder if it’s a UFO.
My uncle said he saw a UFO once in the Navy.
Wow! I should get Mom and let her see.
No no time.
Gotta go.
Follow me, c’mon!
I had to yank my leg free of all the old stuff in the garden, then get over that white picket fence with the sharp edges. Good thing I do this all the time so I can do it in the dark.
I made my way slowly down the alley, ‘cause there’s glass in there sometimes and I still want to dunk cookies, not go to the ‘mergency room.
There’s some people on their porch, see, I told you. Why would they be out this late. Maybe they’re watching The Swarm too or they’re nervous about things.
Hey, let’s go. Go, go, go!
[Robert S. Thompson]
Well, as luck would have it, I was also up that night, looking out my window and I did in fact see that young boy running across the street.
And I have to say that I too saw the light stream, the one that had made the “S” on the moon the other night.
As I have heard it told now, the boy followed the light, which he at first glance thought might have been the UFO his uncle had seen off the coast of San Francisco.
He followed it straight to the City Hall and then blessed with the grace of the young and the bold, he found an open door and charged up the marble steps before they could stash away the equipment.
Young Tommy found the City people and Sheriff Don with the projector sticking out the window.
He asked them what they were doing and said he was going to tel
l his mom and she is a teller at the bank and so they knew it was no use and they bought him an orange pop with the key so they get it free.
And they just spilled the beans.
The City Hall people and the Sheriff, sitting there at three in the morning, on the top floor of the city building — what a symphony of sight that was to these sore eyes — a silhouette in F-Major.
Of course I did not understand what I was seeing until I was able to inquire the next morning.
I got out much earlier than usual.
It didn’t take long.
[Robert S. Thompson & Nona, sitting on Robert’s bench]
Well, as you have no doubt heard.
Here, dear, let me give you a light.
Ms. Moon Walking is back at her desk in the library, in between classes. She really does an excellent job for a high school student in charge of a major city institution. We’re lucky to have her. Who else would do it? I doubt anyone else on the city payroll can read.
Nona is shaking her head.
Besides, the city crews are busy 24-7 these days, taking down all the fences.
The citizens are helping, too, big-time, everyone out sawing and ripping and tearing down, hauling away.
It rivals Leaf Burning Week for overall activity and excitement, which we just concluded not that long ago.
The National Guard and the fire department are out in their trucks and ladders removing all the electronic surveillance apparatus.
The radio show has gone back inside, where it belongs, I dare say.
Inside of doors is the only place for such a person as that particular announcer. You would think he might be arrested for indecent exposure, letting such obscene thoughts spoil the freshness of our air.
Speaking of recent arrests, Sheriff Don is now in his own jail, which is interesting in itself, how that all works out in the details.
They say he might soon be transferred to Abu Iowa, which has been shut down in its former capacity and is now being transformed into a mental hospital for former law enforcement personnel.
I would think they might conjure up a brand name and open branches throughout the country.
It is such a beautiful fall day.
Nona is nodding.
We are waving at everyone going by, on bikes, autos, walking.
And there goes the hero of the day, that Tommy boy, riding his bike as ever, going fast again since he doesn’t have to slow down at corners because of the fencing.
He seems to always have a big smile on his face.
We are all very proud of him, it’s true.
Nona is shrugging her shoulders.
You should have brought out your sweater, dear.
Nona is now heading back after her smoke break.
I’ll see you a bit later, dear.
Please save me a large slice of the apple.
I feel like celebrating.
At last.
At last.
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