HARD RIGHT INTERVIEW: DuXXX

Bam! Water surface explodes; the Dolly Llama jerks under in a wrist-busting color-spray snap of silver fin and red gills. I whoop , steady my back foot and set the 8-ft bamboo rod. Zing the line tightens and sings. Floating hook-up Llama has caught the beauties upper lip and even without a barb that curved gristle will hold it tight.

“Damn the bamboo and her sister. Set the rod-tip higher. She’s running …. keep her away from that log.”

Sunlight catches cold spray, shiny droplets splintering gold with each jump … another battle … smile and take a selfie with fish. And when Sargent Toombs finishes releasing the 12-pounder her sister Moe lasts only through a 2nd cast into our boat-wake. The strike pinches my chest, where sutures freshly removed yet not forgotten nest and I feel alive. Boiling on the surface that flashy migrant fin twice running me down to backing, catches 20-lb air and against an easting breeze and slack line snaps my tippet.

“Six … that’s enough Sargent.” Enough, yet I madly tie on a golden-hair streamer almost fit for the bottom before I start the jig.

Yaks the big shouldered farmer. “General said I was supposed to keep you here till milking time. I ain’t never milked a cow at 2-PM.”

My cast lays over a yellow and black butterfly … the nearest rise prefers. Sweat creases my cheek. “Banski say what else I shouldn’t do?”

“General Bansky said ...”

ZINGpaZING … the 20-mm sniper round … first of a glorious sunlit spring day pinches a wake-bubble 40 feet astern and hopscotches into a flood of orange poppy decorating the north bank. First , I think. Usta be more, while Redding and Yuba burned and Federal snipers easily penetrated north’ard a weak Militia grasp on rebelista Sacramento.PaZINGAPABING … snaps another shot 20 feet on our bow. Generous of him, to move crosshairs back-to-front. Is a Federal marksman playing with our sense of sport?

“Heard it from there … the plum orchard ...”

Another one. Banskys’ thrust-and-jab crush of rebelista resistance had left money-shot fanatics all over. If Scrums people hadn’t begged me to come … “Perhaps we should move Sargent Toombs.” The 2nd shot had got me wondering … if the rusted Evinrude pushing our 18-ft runabout was fit for the game.

“General Bansky says you want to be in San Fran, before 5-PM. Frisco, Mr Scranton … Bagdad-on-the-Bay what’s left of it … at the St. Francis bar and don’t make 5-PM wait for you.” Winks. “Never know … a handsome guy like you might find a hot date.”

Streamer tucks into its cork nest while Toombs madly ratchets the starter. “Date? After Vegas medicine I just don’t feel like a gay blade.”

Puff … chuckle. “I’ve found dating between battles is like shaving … a nick here a nick there pretty soon the cut starts bleeding.”

“Another couplet and Bierce would love you.”

Laughing. “Better dress decent too, just you and ...” Toombs crews on the spif and blows a long thin stream of grey smoke toward the otter frisking shallows. “Don’t worry about the motor,” comes casual, “help is on the way.” And just as casual stands us rounding on our rooster-tail toward the channel center and pulling for’ard a battered campaign cap rushes us down stream.

Blue spring sky coats the horizon north of Sacramento , and the river runs fiercely clear to the clay banks. Clear water these days streaming a rocky bed to the joy of migrating salmon. Frisky river and fish like the otter … all had destruction of Shasta and Keswick dams to thanks for it. Acts of the now-ended civil war. Militia had taken out hydro-production to hurt Federal manufacture in Sacramento , while Federals after losing the city had punched-out the spillways … to deprive militia farmers of crop-water. Doubly weakened , heavy spring run-off two years before had washed away all, but a few lonely steel girders and concrete pilings that held no more water than pencils in a coffee-cup.

“Did you make somebody angry Sargent Toombs? Rape … pillage … looting … I understand Silvercoin wanted to cumberbun Sacramento before some local Militia begged for their childrens lives.HE’S A GOOD BOY THEY PLEADED ...Silvercoin was not happy … Got that from the horses mouth.”

“Heard from Banskis new bitch most likely … Info officer … she was yours for a while … I hear ...”

“You hear lots Toombs ...” I chew a wet Camel and Toombs Zippo lights it.

“Can I do a selfie for HRI … I’ve got the teeth for it.” She smiles at me … “The fish pics gotta make tomorrows webzine?”

“Data’s easy … like HRI.” Laughter. “Up and pout. We … Frisco … we’ll never make it.” And HRI needs skin, from a 1st-person female.”

“Like this?”

I think … thank gawd the surgeon who rebuilt my forearm left the thumb … I can still shoot three 60-mm slides a second. “If it needs it leads. Ever had a San Fran martini … ever had three?”

Crisp grin. “I said you not us, and the J-boat will make sure of that.” Sargent Toombs brushes a lock of blonde hair from blue eyes, buttons her braless 4-A where a tan-line creases and looks to a well wooded slough coming up starboard like a long green itchy finger pointed into the rice-fields.

“J-boat?”

“You’re slipping, Scranton.”

“Been up-country … hospital … rehab … lost edits … ”

“Everybody knows you were balling that niggar bitch you pulled outa an exploded hacienda. What’s news is that Russia cares the Militia forces hold Alaska. So the J-boats … 2-inch butyl hull over quarter inch titanium … redwood ribs … water-jet propulsion and planing bow courtesy of the same Vladivostok Admiral who drove the Federals out of Anchorage. On rough water she’ll do 60 knots … no TOWs of-course … the Russkis show affectionate protection for their Hitachi products, but pairs of 37-mm scatter-guns make the Js no joke. Kinda like using lipstick for eyeliner … or papas 12-gauge for sage-grouse hunting should a rebelista trawler or longboat appear. They do … sometimes ...” Her eyes slide aside. “There!”

Barely troubling swift swirling current the 50-foot black-hull J-boat creeps from the slough like a dildo from the whore of Babylons girdle. Stern fins extend. Rounded bow sweeps up from dual cylinder forms set along the keel and promising at-speed more air than water beneath them. Darting motion, without a feel of movement … deck looming above us . I reach up …

“Shaken, not stirred,” I hear her shout … words stirred into the Evinrud growl … fading …

A rope ladder tangles over the side. “Non’a yo help needed, boyo ...”

Two bearded faces appear – Virgin of Litvosk pinned to stiff rosy collars – and their ropey arms snatch … up-and-in from the runabout I fly … “You feather … be message to Garcia ...”

I scramble a muddy deck … into a second pair of faces, crisp shaved Annapolis Negro faces fresh from the Mississippi Flotilla lapels sporting the Wild Turkey insignia … me tumbling in a cycle of wet Gortex and muddy boots over unforgiving teak slats before another 20-mm roundZINGS off amidships.

“Rebs don’t know when to give up,” pipes the Ensign. “Or you live under a bad moon?”

PLINGPLINGPLING raps the snipering. We eat butyl. “Captains waiting for you, Scranton with orders … Christ ya smell like a carp!” His Navy cap tips down. “Remember, no ladders on a J-boat so ya gotta hang-N-drop!”

BR-RAP_RAP … BR-RAPRAPRAP returns 37-mm widow-makers and the J-Boat comes about.

“B Pconn pebrta ytka … Ha hahaha ...”

I drop off deck, into a pack of Boris who cheer, slap-backs, push me along DADADA … vodka shot caviar smeared cracker , but I can walk by myself. Inside the J-boat ENDERS GAME consoles pool among sensor panels and loungers all busied by T-shirt blue-striped seaman. Camaraderie seethes! A blue LED flashesENGAGED. All consoles manned, for a few seconds of thrill … then all sense of motion vanishes, and the accelerations feel no more discomforting than a bump to a floating elevator-man.

A dark shadow crosses the halogen lighting. “You Scranton,” raps the delta-accented silver-bar man.

“All day today … Lieutenant. Can’t say about ...”

“Enough of that pansy palaver. Admiral wants no screw-ups! Mebby peaches mebby pears, mebby ducks run up the stairs … Water-bound, and staying current we get a gob-full of mebby from HRI.” White linen serviced top-to-bottom collar starched. Growling ... “Shower’s back there … strip-off ... strap in … and if you don’t finishing reading these three appreciations I’ll toss you short into Oakland Bay beside a million hungry niggars.”

St Francis never saw a wolf he didn’t like. The chair is plush, small and chrome edged like your last girlfriends goodbye, and if it has no arms --- cause bar-chair arms make drinkers wanna smoke --- plastic nut-bowls sit beside chipped quartz chafers not real ashtrays; damp sawdust below makes obeying the relaxed Militia smoking rules easy to manage. I slouch chewing both salty olives of the weak 2nd martini. Too much salt will kill you; people have tried to kill me in worse chairs. Another butt dives from my fingers trailing a grey tail of pleasure and sizzlies when the floor smothers it. Death by splinters. A 180-degree spin from the lean weathered face and khaki trow sitting aside me.

“Count on it Scranton, you-betcha they intend a slaughter … two slaughters, the front-line colonels running our war-crimes trial.”

Our? The clean-jaw close-crop blond mercenary with cold searching eyes and a Molson sharp-cut red-check wool vest does not look like … our! Wide eye … wide yellow eyes like those of fighters exposed early on the northern front to poison gas attacks later declared verboten. “If their way is the highway ...” he says briskly, “and Militia ranks over-rule their superiors and the Council … if that happens then the nine prisoners going to trial are already condemned … and make no mistake they are condemned as plucked Thanksgiving goose you-betcha.”

“Payback is hell,” I manage emotionless.

“Hell?” His cowboys boots tattoo the barwood … he squirms a little while voice carries the somber, pensive tones of a provincial moved-up who read Machiavelli young and didn’t like him. “Like the tenth-circle of Hell those 9 pilgrims will be seated about a 200 foot semi-circle laid out in one of the rebel slaughter-pens. All nine stiff-backed chairs will front thick log posts pegged into the ground behind them. Firing-squad posts. ” Jack Major whiffs at a long-shot of Canadian whiskey, lights a Camel Straight and blows a long thin grey stream of fiction toward the barman. “Plenty of room in those pens for relatives of the Sacramento Militia sympathizers executed by rebelista and Federal poodles in the last days before collapse of their treason. Plenty of room for 1st person testimony, testimony and vengeance. Oh yes you-betcha! While justice never seeks vengeance I give those nine accused not one breath of mercy for murdered civilians or backstabbing treason.” And three shots of 12-Y/O Canadian reserve slide down Jack Majors throat. He coughs. “But, ya can’t execute nine sin-eaters and then you-betcha cumberbunne the entire pestilent city!”

Yeah ya couldn’t do that … but some would. A rusted SandPoint Nazi DC-3 had just flown me back from Weinsteins Las Vegas where Cartelista surgeons and a Negro fem-fatale had closed a hole in my chest. I appreciated the effort … and was half way to Sacramento editing and re-editing vids of a final torrid interview with Jane White before stew unzipped a saga of the rebelistas final collapse … physical, moral, rational collapse and their horrific, murderous death throes. The stew had hinted nothing of the most recent form of decimation.

Neither had Weinstein rolling my wheelchair out the door of LasVegas General … “Pay attention Scranton. I need two-dozen F-28s from Banski. He can trade his daughters to Weitz for them if nothing else serves. ”

Or Air Marshall Weitz. “I’ll see Weinstein with an F-4 wing up his asswhole before he gets landing gear for numero-uno F-28. And get Banski to send a food convoy. My pilots and flight-crews haven’t seen a fresh carrot since October. And Mother Marys virgin ass Scranton when do I see you nekked again?”

A careless man can lose easy a couple different ways. Take the Sacramento rebelista. Wasn’t a War-God prodding Federal strew into that final twitch … not Mars not Ares not Rommel , but poisoner bitch-goddess Achlys. My mouth goes dry thinking about it, and I order 3rd martini dry very dry and no gawd-damned vodka thank you in a drink gin invented.

“Can ya turn down the lights, barman the brights make my eyes water.”

“So sorry sir. Those lights are reflections from computer monitors across the carpet. People like to feel connected.”

“How about mahogany shadow connecting a guys knee to a gals gam?”

Barman cringes under his bow-tie. “That would be sex harassment, sir … or was until the Antifa police deserted … er … moved their operations to Sacramento.” Across the carpet not even a good Persian fake two gals diddle their touch-screen computers. Blueberry shorties show more knee than thigh, but mascara eyes throw furtive love-daggars toward the Molsons thick hair.

“Are American women all that bold,” Major snickers? “Men must not fancy them.”

Despite the long-distance love-bites he hadn’t given them more attention than a Pepsi bottle-cap. “Hope they took out renters insurance.”

Major laughs out loud at the bill; I’m looking for a loan, chew a tooth-pick and ponder. When Militia reconquest of Sacramento became certain the trapped, enraged and powerless prog-slut Antifa started gathering all Militia prisoners and any person suspected of favoring POTUS Trumps so-called Make-America-White ansatz. Two-hundred and fifty-thousand starving holdouts … some Mexicans some Molsons some Federal regulars, but most the scrapings of Left-Coast Rawlsian emotocentric elites …. occupied an under-siege Sacramento. Men fighting to the last gasp of a Trotsky-ite fantasy while fully 10% were contra-trapped pro-Militia citizens without weapons or law. In their final frenzy the rebels shot dead all 190 Militia military prisoners and butchered 13,500 civilians by bullet, blunt trauma, ax , knife or in the worst cases forced ingestion of insecticide from a left-over farmers cooperative. This act became their crown-of-creation so long predicted. Rebel leaders sent HRI slaughter vid-streams … which we published under the ANTIFA lable. Sacramento reveled in the 6,000,000-hit days. Propgressive Sacramento indeed lamed the swift … blinded the far-sighted ... dumbed the fluent unable to imagine the BLACK SWAN they so dearly desired to fall on their crippled enemies hovered just above their own heads.

“Who pays you?”

Caught him unexpected. “The same people who pay you.”

“You don’t know the people that pay me.”

“Don’t kid yourself Scranton. You got a worn-out MasterCard! Carpenters , plumbers and half the pearl-skin whores in Spokane won‘t take your paper.”

“What do you want from me?”

Major snaps it out. “Let HRI publish the pre-trial arrangements. Multi-day front page, including the opening remarks of prosecution and defense shysters. Show some emotion not rational Jesuit teeth and claws. . Script it any way you want … any way that makes a reader cringe at butchering-out 100,000 rebels after the jury sits and convictions are delivered.”

“Who wants it that way.”

“History.”

“Dershowitz claims Abraham taught him history, but doesn’t explain how the old shyster drags Hammurabis stone tablets all the way to Mt Sinai.”

“Talking mules!”

“Your masters think they won already?” Though what victory was a nice question. But, Major has a script to stand and deliver.

“Victory? It sides with the bold. Both law and justice falsely succor the little man.”

“Bullshit.”

“Jane White.”

He’s 0-for-3 and still frisky. For me, a slap in the face and staggering I make the barstool swing round. Count my blessings … “War is hell. Weitz left the 3-rd Army and has gone back to SandPoint. For this mission she killed enough 20-YO flyboys.”

“Her type never does. Did she take away a little something , negotiated a special deal with the HRI god? Or was she satisfied with a place in history designed by boys and reporters?”

“You got big ears and long arms … for a Molson mercenary.” My 3rd martini goes empty and puffy green olives don’t look so inviting anymore. “So ... I write a romcom about dead patriots and their Trotsky lovers. What do I get … what does HRI get for the service?”

Major slides from his chair, smiles and stretches legs twitching the confident body language of serious players long-tuned agent. “You understand how time may not exist at the end … and at the beginning, so they can interchange. Puff –- a new America. You get a social disease if ya dance with the ones that brung ya!” He hitches the thick leather belt. “The young financials supporting POTUS Trump want those Sacramento people alive. As an archtype. Dead , murderous traitors can’t buy insurance or iPads. ”

“Do I float head first like Jason or feet-first like ...”

“Imagine the yachts, Scranton not what’s under them.”

“And they pick a Molson to whistle that tune.”

“True for your entire country mate. It’s a test-case not only for Sacramento Federals, but also for every pilgrim who cast lots against the Militia. Gonna kill them all?”

So straight and so fucked and I think about getting scared. “Where did you fight ? Not many units stood-a-line under the Maple Leaf. ”

“Wasn’t our civil war, not that Militia raiding parties cared much for the 49-th parallel , but bigly speaking without moose-drool in the lagar it’s still only rice beer.” He chews down that wisdom with a slice of lemon. “Know what I mean? Queen Markle forbad ...”

“I know what your Niggar Queen forbids. But, she didn’t need to hire a quadroon named Sotero as Racial Equilibration Councilor.”

“Yanks hired him once … why shouldn’t we?” Major chews into his whiskey. “The Crown survived bloody Papist Queen Mary; and Pink Floyd. Surely it can survive a Bantu. What do we lose?”

“Same things American yeomanry hold dear … and why we butchered-out King Georges’ Hessians in 1776.” The almonds are dry , but I munch a pair. “Molsons sent a brigade from Bar River, across Lake Michigan to defend Chicago Black Panthers and wog MuJad from the Mississippi Flotilla. If San Point Nazis hadn’t provided air power the Flotilla would never have driven them out.”

Majors body goes silent. “Canada lost 700 men in that adventure. We thought Commonwealth military values would bring social sense to you Yanks …” Sweat beads on the edge of Majors lip. “After that I fought mostly along the Sierras; close-in skirmishes you-betcha. Then at Paradise Ridge and beyond the lake I grew into bigger caliber guns and much longer range exchanges.” He turns to look over his shoulder at the two girls, who by the fluorescent shine have ordered soy-milk and kiwi Manhattans. He watches the door. “Never could see a shooter … or who I shot at or killed. ”

I scoff or mebby the olives taste bitter. “You … at Paradise Ridge! Not likely … HRI covered Big Sur and the southern front at Paradise Ridge. I spent half the time romping a Mobster, the other half eating dirt and don’t remember seeing or hearing of you. We had three digicams in 24/7 action, and our Z13 can filter worts on a hog.”

“Worts on a hog ...” He laughs. “I officered an AA-unit at the Jolon airfield.”

“Jolon! That was Federal territory until Seattle faggots drilled in three columns that swarmed the northern bunkers.”

“Yes ...”

I cruise lux into Sac on Majors Bombardier 350 … something about a Nob Hill hooker was tying him up. Flying alone isn’t bad if the sherry-rusted Cobb Creek’s cold and the stews skirt shorter than her adverbs … and Federal Nikes don’t hunt your tail like beagles after a crippled rabbit.

“Thanks stew … I am glad to see you.”

“I’m easy, but not that easy,” she swoons. “Out the window, Mr Scranton look below!”

Look? You get cold as slaughter begins to take artistic forms. Chaos is like that, and fresh bodies will fuck their way into new life. So you aren’t special Bosco. Nobody believes Guernica created perverse longings in Picasso , pushing his forms into mayhem and transmuting his soul into a merchantile Trotsky hag. I look!

Aero flys over the State Capitol building before landing; the pulverized apocalypse that HAD been the State Capitol. When California progs decided to send wavering Seattle a message, after the MuJad snipers struck they sent it courtesy of drunk LaRaza pilots. Messages carried on the hard-points of an F-4 quartet. Mexico never had an airforce, until China gifted them the J-20s. Beaners still couldn’t fly. Those bomb-carrying F-4s took out a preschool in China-town, a fully-booked Amazon massage-parlour and the headquarters of Belltown LGBT during a luncheon for the Mayor. Faggots and breeders wept together at Gas Light Park. All F-4s were shot down by museum-piece Nike-Ajax three retired Air Force chiefs had rescued from Hanford. Some blue-dog Democrats called that a turning-point as Northwest rage turned against clawing migrant fanatics and the blue-belly Rawlsians that pimped them.

Wobblies had been blooded. When the civil war really started to crust Seattle, Boeing had been able to protect one experimental F-22 from the Air Force scavengers. With 140,000-lb of thrust the aircraft could carry a triage of scramblers beside three 6,000 lb bunker-busters. While the plane took 24-hours to prep, its vengeful flight after the Seattle bombing put all three busters into the dome of the California State Capitol building, shattering 4-sq blocks and baking every important beaner in the Cali Legislature. Baca, Baretto, Becerra … the socalled 3-burritos and all the condiments now toast. Del Nortes had gathered celebrating the LaRaza festival of Follar Chicos Blancos.Never again … fat-ankle POTUS Hillary Clinton declared a new law making bombing of California illegal except when done with good intentions.

Time flies. Sac Int airport looks like Debaltseve. Taxi-man cursesit was gawddamnedpaybacks the Lyfters had been slaughtered away. Teach the scabs… Dogs roam Holiday Inn rubble, but the Hilton Riverfront has escaped untouched. Somebody made-and-paid my two week bill … and on a California King meant-for-two Sergent Toombs has left a sticky-note covered in lipstick.

Tuesday. Chavez High says the new gold painted stadium banner. The old iron trusses lay beneath them in rubble beside the triple razor-wire fence. An old burned-out M-60 tank has found a ditch worth rusting away its splayed-and-torn steel tracks. Some synthetic sticks to my boots and I scrape it off. Glass stilettos too … the brick and glass school-building next door sits empty, its walls riddled with 25-mm rounds and the glass … there is no glass. I want to think of something makes the rebels more human … elevates their motives above pure-power … ascribes their butchery to bad-luck … anything making them less worthy of cumberbunning. My head hurts.

Guards squeeze me like lemonaide; both carry H&K and electro-optic eye-scanners so when both start laughing at a bit of private intelligence dripping from a cell-phone they are not laughing with me. I need to talk. “Mind telling me what’s so funny?”

“The computer thinks you died in Las Vegas.”

“I tried.”

“That ain’t funny buster. Robots get better every month ...”

“Not mine.”

“What are you a wise guy …” he says pushing at my lapel? I want to kick him in the nuts and boil his eyeballs, but his pitbull pal mutters darkly and pulls him off. I get passed-thru, a large orange-stripe plastic tag stuck to my chest.

People … places … things … It’s new threads with a rumpled lapel. It’s military discipline among barbling noise. Usually I don’t wear that kind of suit. Somebody shouts my name from the rusted bleachers and I pull my cap tighter. Somewhere near mid-field I find a seat on the hashmarks, where grass still grows between a rumpled old bag from the Cleveland Plain Dealer and a sharp-dressed spade gimping the New Orleans Free Press. Ten others … I know most, like a few and we reporting the Militia side have eaten the same cordite-infested dirt from Pendleton to Silver Lake.

“Heard you be dead, Scranton.”

I strip off the Gortex, then a lambs-wool sweater that says USA MADE PENDLETON … and med-staples show bright under the kleigs like a railroad track too short to make a profit , but still hauls the coal.

Spade smirks. “Couldn’t afford a better surgeon …?” But, the rap is pure empathetic envy; the sons-a’-bitch lost his right hand at Goose Lake so I don’t make a bitch about it. I light his stained Gallois and wait till the new plastic hand stops shaking. He says. “Ya know Militia command decide doing this Roman style … LEX something-or-other fuck-all final list of accused and the judge git decided by grift-and-fraud this evening. U-pick-em beats the Semite way of all-in-the-family … I guess. The defense attorney he ship over from NYC want it no other way and rebel bitches put tail-between-legs ..,. ran with de monkey –- cheep-cheep –- Judge picks the jurors … ever hear that shit before?”

“Once, in an Acapulco whorehouse; cartelistas were picking the best blojob ...” Spade never saw a cliché he didn’t love, before or after the hand went traveling with a 76-mm anti-tank round.

Spade spits into the Astroturf. “Well yeah rebelistas git their own … but those shysters might get shot dead ‘fore closing arguments. Faire weather or foul, Federal Council want a clean if not legal War Crimes trial. I heard Admiral Trayvon say that his-self.”

Trayvon … the 13-th killed-in-action Negro Admiral and counting. Who knew … that the American heartland … after war, the Mississippi Federation would be ruled by 30 white-gloved Negro graduates of the Naval Academy. Ruled from the Canadian border to New Orleans … ruled by right of conquest … ruled when the Chicago Alliance dissolved in a toxic brew of ghetto violence and collapse of the Jewish digital currency … ruled when Chicago and Detroit burned … ruled when 19-million white heartland farmers and guildsmen found leaders to put down insurrection in Kansas City, Natchez, Flint, Dearborn, Cincinnati, Vicksberg and creole New Orleans herself. … ruled when white farmers discovered their protectors stepping off riverine flotillas were … black men and naval officers at that.

“The peoples war-crime judge eh …? I estimate that judges lifespan as 36 hours.”

A cold sweat creeps down my neck. There’s a growl, a rumble, a sinister knakering to this wayward event that frosts neck, forehead … gloved fingers. Spring cold blows down from Auburn under a foot of new snow; Militia have always blessed the newly dominant Japanese Current that brings February to May. Bonfire flames in the endzone, whipped by a Sierra wind lick at low evening clouds dark and malicious and overhanging. Two kleig-banks light the playing field making sense of the curved arrays of solders , but between 40-yard lines in the spectator stands only the dimmest apparition of 2,000 capped heads appear. I can snatch nothing from that assembly of personal emotion or history … nothing, but an undifferentiated throbbing like a wounded animal gone-to-ground, unable to attack yet daring a hunter to follow. Probably for the best: everything. Stakeholders occupy those seats, and their standards, flags, banners and chants would make an indoor trial venue an abattoir.

“I don’t know the smoking cigarette pendant. Anything like the rattlesnakes DONT-TREAD_ON-ME ?”

A weasel-face bitch from the London Times answered. “That sigal’s off-coastal New England boys … a Redman pendant. Something only the Cousins consider smart ...” her penciled lips twitched. “ A Lucky Strike, mind .. should you look close. Anti-Federals chose it early on , when Massachusetts was still tar-and-feathering Militiamen, and not half long enough for my tastes …” Her cheeks flush, daring the republican slap. “It signals the 5-Nation Confederacy tabacci engagements which provided cheap copy for Champlains’ pen.” She slaps my hand .. then takes the Camel and sucks billows like a champ. Coughs. “Damned fags worth billions for Philip Morris and M.D. Anderson, but Redmen to stop your Colonial Militia.”

“Then and now,” I snipe. “What’s stopping the rebels?” An icy silence rules their side of the playing field.

“Most believe every ex-Federal who speaks will be tried for treason.”

I think … not-far-wrong for enemies as revanchist as they were bloody-handed. But the Militia side … now the united Federal side … just roars with calamity well intended. Flares light along the stepways and for a moment sun shines between fractions of this dim herd. Classical Constantinople sported only GREENS and BLUES. But, the Army militia banner-flag SMOKING CIGARETTE was here the 11-th … Rattlesnake, dead Quaker, bearded Turkey, Riderless horse , wormy Peach, a Sandbar covered in bloated fish, burning Yggdrigal, a heartless Lion, M$ and from band most noisy representing California south of Oxnard the Marilyn Monroe bare-ass up-skirt. Nobody could take it serious, except the fearsome army of armless, legless, faceless men trumpeting Irish dirges into faceless music and waving those banners.

On the playing field three concentric semi-circles have been laid out behind the podium and witness stand. The inner concentric holds Judge Advocate and prosecutor, all 9 prisoners and us rag-tag wash of reporters. All witnesses prosecution and defense and potential jurors occupy the 2nd, while a mix of staff and field officers and foreign observers hold the 3rd.

A sandy-hair gnome in clodhoppers and suspenders and a Norwegian press-card motions. “Usually only Sergents would make up the jury. Ya? Sometimes two master Sergents lead , another only the lowest 3-striper need apply. For trial and execution during battle, two Lieutenants and a corporal are sufficient. I study these things.”

“I’m not surprised if a corporal gets pulled from the stands.” I shake out a pair of Camel straights and he snatches one hungry. “Don’t let cha smoke at home?”

“Wife will call the VAS … the Virtue Assurance Squad. All female and all bitch. If I want to smoke I join reindeer herders for a week. You believe the 9 Boscos over there are condemned without mercy … you have not seen Norwegian virtuettes.”

My Zippo flashes twice into Turk. “You follow the accused, like you do the jury?”

He drags deep on the Virginia blend. “Christ that tastes like womans tit.” And his mood lightens. “ Ya by damn! Norway has it’s own unspoken civil war, with freeholders and Christians attacking MuJad migrants at every chance, while city-bound progressives … Trotsky people defend them by controlling the police.” The Gnome uncrumples to a rangy photographer, Leica telephot cameras dangling front and rear and arms bare. His class-ring says UPPSALA and the small tattoo near his left elbow MOTHERLOVES YOU. Nordic alpha. “Everybody knows … three, three and three,” he spits. “Three civilian IED terrorists, three aggressive Federal soldiers and three men-of-business profiteering during the siege.”

Don’cha hate foreigners getting all-over your battle-ass? “Sound nothing special … just the spoils of war. I saw them dirty-neck and chained when first arrested, and fighting continued, but nobody explained the details. Casual war-crimes were penny-a-whack on both sides. Were all nine prisoners involved in the massacre of Militia refuges? They run kidskin rings? Some soldiers claim ...”

He stares at something thru the Leica range-finder and squints. “Well that’s the funny thing. No No No! None were directly involved in that rebel terror.” His eyes switch around furtive … “Foreign Office pipes intelligence every night , and yes, we report back …” He’s whispering. “These nine Boscos were chosen precisely because they have no direct connection to the butchery. They are guilty only of failing to stop or oppose the atrocity! If this were Norway I’d say the socialist Gub’mnt created a setup, a honey-pot to mislead patriots … but America is not Norway ...”

“What is … America?”

“Micky Mantle,” and he laughs real funny. Gnome has really stretched out now, like a Norwegian pine and can survey the rows behind us. “French and Russian Generals keep watching the crowd … notice … Ya … watching and spitting and taking notes. Expecting a social clue. Have we missed one? Funny business, Gen. Scrum not being recalled beside Banski … birds-of-a-feather don’cha think?”

Yes, a funny connected question. “Some feathers are white, others only brown.”

“Gnomes eyes question. “Do you expect a surprise? Cosmopolitans know what they want!”

“Which is …?”

“Americans are so bottled, insular … don’t you think? I know what the Norwegian Government wants … even the Asian despots prefer quick convictions, followed quickly by complete and inclusive pardons damn the war crimes actually done! Following that, a raft of favorable trade concessions by your Federal Gub’mnt seen as weak and vacillating. Can the jury do that?”

I butt out the Camel and it burns my finger. “Do what? The jury can get fuck-all in the way by demanding decimation … that is self-punishment. But, the judge can issue pardons prior to sentencing faster than a reindeer shits tundra. Guilt is absolute here, but innocence relative.”

“Better your country than mine. Ya?”

After TERRAPIN STATION dribbles away , BOX OF RAIN swoons from Marshalls stacked aside the 50-yd line. It’s a sing-a-long … a hootenanny … a festival of whiskey bottles passed among the strands of wooden seats. Apples fly from bleachers striking among the nine accused. Bare-breasted women dance in the end-zone and smell of weed curls in long acrid helix across the commons. It’s a cluster-fuck, till one barrel-chested Sergent-major medals and campaign-ribbons flaring and wooden mallet twirling about his middle finger thumps through rings of innocent and guilty and mounts the podium.

WhamWham strikes the mallet-head. His brogue snaps across and the song changes …. “Courts Marshall for the 5-th Army, United States of America and yeoman Militia bred calls to order.” Noise decays to a silence so deep you don’t want to hear a thing for anything said must be terrible. “Hear Ye well! Officers of the Court may give one warning, before striking down any disturbance.” Raising a Colt 1911 45-caliber from his satchel he looks through the shrapnel scar crossing his nose directly at the accused. “Any person aware of any reason these nine rebellious bastards ought not be summarily shot dead may now present himself before the court or thereafter keep his peace so help me G*d!”

“Objection! Objection! No accusation has been place in the court record! And no god is permitted to help prosecution.”

Sniggers. “Well mister high and mighty Samaritan white lapel and stoogely defender of criminal imprisons, this court by the grace of G*d is about to get a recorder.”

“You tell ‘em General Bansky you tell ‘um ...” comes the grandstand shouting and a wave of dismay passes among the accused some merely shifting weight and others standing up to watch General Ewall Van Bansky, impressive in faded coveralls and a scrambled-egg campaign hat shake hands among the officers, split prisoners ranks and stiff-necked as a young Sheridan march to the podium. Ms K follows him, her digicam focused close-in on his head, blurring out everything else like the money-shot in a porn movie.

Bansky snatches both Colt and gavel … “You know me. The rebellious city of Sacramento having foully struck its Militia benefactors –- rich in principle and mercy –- while now being firmly in Government hands shivers in the prospect of cold justice. Eschewing submissive tolerance, revanchist Trotsky elements spewed arrogant vengeance and innocent men died. DOJ acts with studied determination. Encumbered by a timeserving agenda they have delegated prosecution of rebelista provocateurs to the Department of War. That’s me. As prudent men often do, when the dogs of war stopped barking I relinquished my command. But, rabid dogs remain unfettered, suppressed only in violence and its consequence. I have been recalled to service after those consequences. Under Articles of War Section 32 we ...”

Again. “Objection!” Shouts the Judge Advocate. I don’t recognize him. A short , sharp-chin curdled man with thin lips and an Irishmans hair he was sent down from the NYC office. Sources claim he carries a heavy resume both of star cases, guilty clients and angry prosecutors who confused fact with conviction. He’s missing a leg, clipped off below the knee in the Veranzano Narrows fight when his DOJ convoy was raided by Newark irregulars who made away with both the niggar IED maker and his flesh. One reporter snarked he was chosen to speak smoothly, hobble broadly and collect sympathy from every open heart. “If it please the court … no judge for the Courts Marshal has yet been chosen, so crimes if any may not be specified. Without a judge you may not even deny this objection,” he says smartly and wiping glasses on his pristine white shirt retains his chair.

“Neither can an objection be accepted,” snipes the prosecutor standing and casually resting his smouldering clay pipe on the table. Another NYC gift from DOJ. Has he ever tried a military case? Has he ever lost a judicial appeal? I don’t know him either, but something about the prosperous cosmopolitan face … seductively fierce … tall and bald, stooped and world worn. He’s been around-the-barrel, but his chin remains strong and his mouth opens and shuts with a pensive, lubricious gulp. “You General Bansky act as Praetor under this jurisdiction applying Roman law and even if some decision is forbidden, no appeal of your decision can be made.”

Crowd sympathy groans with each argument. The Grateful Dead tune fades away. “We need a judge,” moans Banski. “Does Judge Advocate have a preference to nominate ?”

A steely silence grips the stadium. Goldman, the Seattle Times stringer who broke the story on Muzzi-wog gay JiHad kneels down beside me. “Good to see you Scranton. How did you escape Vegas?”

“Weinstein ran out of pain pills.”

“Weinstein’s bluffing,” he chuffs. The bourbon-flavor cheroot flares angry and Goldman spits out the fumes. “Most Gub’mnt types think Bokov the Russki Admiral will get the job. But, I think officers favor Weinstein. He’s pissed cause La. turned against him, he’s got power and soldiers trust his leads-from-the-front style. No political pansy either.”

Shake my head. “Even if Weinstein likes haggling … which he does not half the cartelista north of Sonora are running up his ass-whole. Clashes every night along the Phoenix-Vegas corridor between dozens of mobsters and agros. Talk about pissed. Weinsteins desert raiders beat the Mex even with them loaded up on Chi.com hardware. Mucho loss-of-face. Mucho vendetta.”

Exclusively female. “Weinsteins Las Vegas is spitting out weapons like the civil war just started,” snaps a sharp-eye blonde bomber slinking over Goldmans shoulder. “Mebby he wants insurance on his … investment?”

I think about it …. “He has insurance like you wouldn’t believe.”

More than she has … her eyes shout. “Who's your bet?”

Hesitating … “Silvercoin ? Once bitten not shy.”

“I’m Della, from the Radcliff Retorter …” I take her hand it’s warm and dry, “… you know the Meekly without a man … Silvercoin put-down a Federal Officer during interrogation. War crime number uno, murdering an officer. ” Bomber bites a fat red lip and paws her heaters neck. “Won’t make New York legal types click-their-heels, to have a run-and-gun Redman holding the tomahawk.”

“They liked Liz Waren well enough.”

“She choked on a bowl of Post Toasties and suffocated. Buried in doeskin and feathers much like POTUS Trumps wife on Friday night.”

Bitter … how those went together I cannot understand … “Silvercoin shot the Federal bastard after, not during the interrogation, and from his agitprop spew he was a real prick.”

Eyes roll. “Like you recorded the rap.”

“Yeah in fact after the Ragged Point battle I was recording background vids on-the-pier when au-pair they walked by me. Shoulder to shoulder like samuri used to do it. In the end neither man seemed surprised.”

“Oh ... Oh” she says excited! I think, she must be a real wind-up toy in bed. Bouncing on her toes she shouts ...”At the mic, he’s at the mic. Heads up pilgrims here comes the judge!”

Hobbling about the narrow podium hand raised. “Yes,” booms the Judge Advocate, caressing the prisoners with a lambs gaze. “We believe a choice for judge acceptable to all and manifestly cogent is available and willing. Delayed justice is decayed justice. Beating bush for some teaberry technician serves nobody … or do you prefer Isaac remain forever bound to the kindling?”

Admit it … gawd screwed-the-pooch on that one … we’re close behind says my gut … The ring of officers scan the ring of foreign dignitaries for the nervous clue. Banski finds the teaberry amusing. “Does prosecution concur?”

Rising from his seat, and hashing charms with underage interns. “Indeed we do.”

A wave of ill-advised relief washes across the spectators and onto the field. Flags begin waving while defendant advocates bury heads in hands. Bansky looks surprised as a snake sucking eggs. “Is the choice present at this proceeding?”

What's a scrum to the bleachers madness? Humbled rebelista hide their faces shouting FAIRNESS ... FAIRNESS ... for a fairness they never found for their brother enemy. TO THE GALLOWS ... THE GALLOWS cry Militia bands in chorus. A thousand lost boys snarl for the red meat. Both attorneys nod. “Most certainly,” says the prosecutor and picks up his pipe, chewing the stem like Cyclops must have chewed sailors legs. All men must be sailors I think ... Turns wickedly … “We nominate the journalist Will Scranton as trial judge! Mr Scranton will you step forward to take the oath”

Wednesday. I’ve taken up a sluggards pose, beneath the sun-dappling American River Chestnut tree my bare feet tickling the river and my head … head, hair and neck nestled cautiously within Sergent Toombs spandex-protected breasts. Toombs … a Fresno girl ripe and willing as honey-baked acorn squash … and flush as a sniper on a body-contour A-3 shooters mat.

She tickles my nose with a stalk of mustard-flower. “Glad I’m not in your shoes, boyo. Bronco Billy saves-the-circus before you get an honorable discharge. Ever been a soldier? Didn’t think so.”

Soldier in the great war … gawd knows what I told her last night. She starts snatching a love-me-love-me-not with the orange petals; I feel dreamy … disconnected from sprinkling sunbeams … voyaging every rip as petals spiral from their nest down and down again spiraling into clay mud! Did I tear at her last night, a digital Dionesis? Of her gifts I don’t remember damaging a thing.

Gayly. “You Okey … asleep … nuzzling ... I thought so! Nuzzle away! No joy walking picket alone, next to enemy snipers, eh Bunco? Three solders gawd sakes with Geneva rights! Judge Advocate’s bound to make a play in that direction.” Two flower-petals remains and she eats one. “Make way for the profiteers oh yes! Those three business-critters will claim law requires them to maximize profits … law and Abraham wouldn’t want such pestilent creatures cutting illegal merchantile corners just because war rages. Sell stolen penicillin to both sides … drugs and hungry pre-teens without this weeks breakfast! But .. try finding a receipt!” She thinks I don’t snatch glimpses of her face … her cheeks flush. “The three politicians will play Abigail Adams … muse to the real powers … if only they can find husbands what with eating rats and fubared by the media.” Her back straightens. “Look … the otter again! Dare it swim close enough to feed? Sybarite!” She laughs. “Our Intel-Spec-4 considers the lot more innocent than any 9 Federals you could pick from a latrine.”

Twelve and nine … number nine has glazed my eyes since last nights steak dinner. Dry aged steak not salmon, as cooks consider local rivers polluted from wars left-over floaters … and them that did , but don’t any more. Saxon cultures never respect honor. At least the Greeks allowed maids threatened with violation transport to a tree or shrub or … or fish. Now splashes. Somewhere within the watery horizon of a huge boulders backwash a dozen trout are playing whack-a-mole with squadrons of mayflies. Lunging an arc their silver bodies fold to crescents. Folded fat bodies once supple now steeled in an act of violence … certain they could catch-air like butterflies new-hatched yet return to water as ravening fish. Sleepy eyes. It’s a dream ...

“Read them twice, the Negro Ensign had snapped . I stowed the three fat files beside my Raybans and a pack of Camel straights, and dove for the shower. Our J-Boat turbines whine ploughing west on the Sacramento River toward SanFran. The guest cabin had AC and a bed and a day-stand … towel-wrapped I piled the three appreciations on that stand, burn a straight sending a long grey thin stream of Turkish blend toward the ceiling fans and plough into the first file.

It’s creame-rag cover labeled WS/ FOR YOUR EYES ONLY : The 30-page folder – perfect OxBridge English – was signed by three Russian Colonels and dated last month.

Text evaluated the likelihood of war between Russia and America assuming the Russians continued holding Anchorage Alaska and the Aleutians. Sharp-edged and concrete it concluded a physically united Militia/Federal state … eschewing tribalism … would lunge decisively to recover lost territories …. Alaska from Russia, southron New York from New Israel, the Mississippi Valley from the Negro Admirals Federation. Free-cities Las Vegas and cubano-Miami or wasteland Chicago were pointedly included. However, should the split widen between Militia wings favoring a vengeful vs merciful reconciliation with Federal-rebelista chances grew for a 3^rd civil war … and the splintering of a weakened United States would become permanent. This cultural chasm intensifies, continue the Colonels when Militia yeoman proud of their guilds-trade building tools confront Militia Libertarian investors, whose pride grows from their destructive tools-of-winnowing. Without an external enemy that clash of entangled destinies promises an armagedon! They warned of Canadas salacious if febrile eye cast both northward and toward the southron Great Lakes. The tonic here are the masses of Chicom and Muslim imports favored by a sleeping Molson culture. They latch to the American SJWs multiplying force. The Russian colonels figured chance of a 3^rd civil war to be 30%, a number they felt ought to be raised as high as possible as fast as practical and advised mixed-message air-strikes on Chinese properties in Vancouver. A blundered Peking response was unlikely, but the current Canadien Prime Minister hopscotching between boyfriends in Greenwich Village and Myrtle Beach would in-all-events do nothing.

Seaman Volodyn delivered crackers, caviar and vodka and if the pinstripe had been starched any stiffer her 38-specials would have shot me dead. The NO-SMOKING lamp flashed ON again; I felt wanted … as the J-Boat swerved. The 37-mm widow-maker on-deck chirps like a flock of angry geese and PINGZPINZPZ of incoming ricochet stitched my ears. We should be near the thickets of Randall Island; reading became pissy. A Brit Admiral named Blye had signed the 2^nd appreciation, and from the FUCK-THIS and SCREW-THAT text twas clear he had come up through-the-ranks. A Perfidious Albion diplomat of sorts, also as he wondered what trait might form the basis of an alliance between the Brit Monarchy soon shipping over from London with the entire unsunk Royal navy to an all-but-besieged yet loyalist Toronto, and the Mississippi Flotilla American power to the south! Could it be intelligence? Queen Merkle would bring half the OxBridge faggotry with her and most of the signals corp. Dare they imagine only a methylated beta-sheet controlled calcium channel stood between them and the no-nonsense Flotilla commanders? Or lucre … excluding mad-money from the Afgan opium trade … of which Queen Merkle possessed nothing beside the Crown Jewels, and $17,000,000 from the sale of a Louisiana cattle ranch. By contrast, the Mississippi Flotilla taxed 250,000 square miles of town and farms and oil-plots, and the U. Chicago profs who wrote the Randish tax-laws had driven that nail thick and straight and deep. People with no personal knowledge guessed $1-billion per quarter. Could it be love of liberty? Well .. the Brit Sealords would have none-of-that foolishness! Or in the last instance power, for government power not only corrupts personal virtue, but corrupts absolutely! In that instance something might be made. The Flotilla had 85,000 men of-all-races under arms. Their dozen corvettes and two destroyers haunted the Great Lakes slaughtering Muzzi-wog infiltrators the Molsons thought-not to keep out … and hundreds of disciplined marine-manned riverine units patroled the Mississippi between St Louis and New Orleans. All very desirable assets. Ofcourse the Royal Navy had guns and the gobs to use them. And the Brits skipping a step early gawd bless their 1933 cooption and assassination of the Italian physicist Majorana would set sail for the New World with 136 nuclear weapons.

Blye thought nuclear armed destroyers could make it up the St Lawrence … if the Flotilla actively allowed them … that is kept heavily armed New England irregulars from shelling the thin-skinned Brits with 106-mm rifles and TOWs. What part of 136 need be divided among the Negro Admirals to make that happen? Blye thought the number about eight. What the reconstituted AMERICAN Air-Force felt about introduction of novel strategic threats Blye did not opinion. I figured Brit Limeys would be buried-at-sea in Nova Scotia.

I must have fallen asleep. “Port in one hour Mr Scranton … Mr Scranton ...” chirps the female Russian accent ? I look up … and the 38-calibers are walking away. I look down … it’s a yellow circled page from appreciation #3, the heavily redacted unsigned intelligence product I discover of an un-named Mid-East hell-hole. TO THE SECRETARY is printed on the front cover in bold letters. The circled text reads:

Le fédéraliste national lutte contre des batailles arrogantes stupides. Mais, avec une taupe improbable placée au plus profond de l'intelligence médiatique de la milice, Philidelphia peut jouer le long match en toute confiance. L'agent XXX enregistre la conversation et est certain. La taupe touche tous les flux de données de la milice ... la corrompt. Même un effondrement militaire fédéral ne doit être que temporaire.

“Ass in gear, Scranton,” snaps the unfriendly Ensign. “Frisco on the horizon!” Event horizon for a Manchurian Candidate running askew . I must be dreaming.

I must dream. Let me dream Sergent Toombs and I will slap your titties and fuck you raw later. Bugs must mate and fish must eat. Call it a day? Mebby I ought to break-out the flyrod? Did we bring it ? I rub my watery eyes.

Toombs doesn’t care. “All women Will; reporters had serious jabbers about that choice. Females thought it sexist … if overdue. Males lubricious, unless the harem surely confined to short-rations squandered its main chance. How did you find them so quick … what were thinking !” Toombs begins thundering-up a righteous indignation, though how creatures demanding 9-parts-in-10 of every beguiled love can complain of 12-parts all in justice I cannot understand. Fractions are not a womans sharp edge. I will not search out her eyes, but hers mine. “I mean … only four women officers sat jury-row among 50 Militia military. Bansky could have chosen more women – he didn’t! You had to snatch eight women from the bleachers, and a pair turned out not to be soldiers. Didn’t bother you a bit.” Toombs shuffles on her pad, and my head slides from one breast to another … “Snatched them out you scoundrel … slammed them in … tied them down for the duration. Not even a thank-you-madam! Marched off all twelve under-guard and without lipstick or mascara! Gawd sakes you’re a threat!”

She’s making too much of a playful idea … my choosing twelve women as jurors and not twelve officers at that or even twelve soldiers. I got the idea from Alcibiades, the pederast Athenian politician so powerful as the Peloponesian wars began. When the Athenian commons reneged overnight on its original vote to condemn to death every citizen of rebellious Militus Alcibiades rode up in his 4-horse chariot before the assembly and to a man condemned them! He blamed the lack of blood-thirsty fortitude on citizens wives. He claimed on that one night between votes , emotional females whispered mercy while fucking-out the desire of Athenian husbands for empire … and the harsh disciplines on which empire may form and thrive. And who after-all made the olive-and-barley cakes consumed by Militus envoys while racing a trireme to the salvation of their rash population ? Bet on the wives! Alcibiades would have had womens veils ripped off to the lips and chiton to the bare knee as punishment!

Female hormones at rage! Well … I see it different. Athenian females performed admirable service that singular night, to the state of Athens as without a voice in public debate and with the smell of cremated first battle losses still in their nose … Athenian hoplite infantry … they assured the death of 1000 Militus fanatics while preserving for Athens use both Militus sardine fishery and ship-builders no less famous than Rhodians. Athenas pale-skinned sisters, weavers and potters and mistress of window-box melons … say nothing of the marriage couch had never been put to better use. All western history should bow before that pure feminine conquest! Ah … peace. I am relaxed, drifting into a doze.

Toombs will not hear of it! “Men don’t understand how sensitive women are about their knees! Knobby knees, bony knees, fatty knees, knock-knees … women get so emotional about showing their knees which are always just not right unless they can show enough other incidentals to distract what a man looks at! Hems to the butt … blueberry shorties … 9-inch stilettos … ankle chains … or in the worst case an A-line dress that flares like a heavy-creame dispenser!” I find myself rolling … rolling-off into the thick twiggy green turf … rattlesnake territory … brown recluse breeding grounds … and Toombs standing above me shaking grass from camoe shorts belted and snappered and zipped like a cloth jack-knife.

She is shaking a finger … “Why stylishly above the knee , Will? Did the Tailors Guild buy you off? What kind of a jury dress-code is that? I don’t care if Banski agreed to pay for Italian fabric imports , after Judge Advocate objected that Macy Spring Catalog was months behind schedule. And Doc Martins … I could understand an outdoor trial in the rainy season, but not every womans foot is big enough for those clod-hoppers!”

Why indeed a jurors dress-code at all? My decision came right after the oath, and the oath … how can I claim shock swearing to G*d I won’t be a prick … when I have stood beside men eating donuts only the next second to be liqufied by a stray 20-mm tracer, their words an echo and their teeth still chewing … as an excuse shock and awe just fail. I offer. “The Doc Martins come in sizes 4-5-6-7-8-9-10 and extra-wide.”

“Dumbski male … I’m talking about sizing not size? Bet you never bought your squeeze a pair of shoes, even when you were getting it regular ...” Hands-on-hips , lips pouting red. “Are you trying to make this jury a joke? Only the Prosecutor seemed interested in which jurors could hang their clothes in style … and HE has a reputation for pick-of-the-crop behavior. ” She snaps down the lid on an unopened picnic basket. “Maybe ships passing in the night run-aground when daylight strikes.”

There she goes again, burying a couplet into my spinning brain. Why couldn’t she talk about thrust-to-weight ratios or multi-phase radar arrays like Jane White when she is wooing? Couplets gawd-sakes! Something like ...WHEN REPORTERS MAKE TO JUDGE A CASE THEY’D BEST DRINK ‘TURKEY BY THE CASE … burmashave …. would have melded with my continuing and deepening confusion … for nowhere-never in my swollen lake of who-what-when-where paragraphs had the words guilty/innocent ever broken surface. Men were Calvinist whores-of-sin, condemned to evil by a merciful G*d; condemned and sentenced from all eternity. Neither did OBJECTION SUSTAINED … OBJECTION OVERRULED … warm a hidden piece of my awareness … calling forth a metaphor blizzard. Chris-sakes where lives my internal Jesuit? Formal and final causes. A white mans burden … confused. Tomorrow is it … opening arguments tomorrow from prosecution thread-ripper and Tule-fog defense. They ought to rip a bleeding wound from anus to collar-bone. My stomach churns ...

Crap! It’s clear now, to a foggy brain that Gen. Scrum has thrown me to the Militia lions ... me unaware … a byte-size chunk of sour meat intended to slow down , but not possibly stop the most vengeful and obdurate slice of the Militia Council from pronouncing slaughter upon their enemies. They wanted a start, a nucleus, a beginning an archtype for the purification, the cumberbunning of America … and me they settled on.

“Will … Willipoo … what’s wrong cousin? Your face! You look like you just bit into rotten balony! Oh dear you won’t vomit will you. My mother always said that men who vomit have weak gizzards. But, she didn’t mean gizzards … ” Hovering near my head. “You need ginger-ale … here, I’ll open the basket … bet there’s a cold bottle. Oh crap it’s that diet stuff I’m supposed to drink …..” better come-to-mama … Oh gawd … you made it to the river … let me hold your neck … like this, it stinks damn-it what have you been eating? There we go, twice a charm … nice momas baby , drink this water , then the mouthwash … now, your head nesting …. your clammy as a corpse lovr-boy. If sour meat turns your stomach then what spew will tomorrows testimony encourage? What a sensitive pussy-cat you are meow meow … Oh shit I don’t really care if jury bitches cut hems to their twats … or if their blouses only have three buttons … and I can polish my night-school Doc Martins so they shine … dear Will …”

“… your witness, Mr Dershowitz.”

“I move for directed acquittal of all accused, as subsequent true testimony will prove this man perjured. ”

“Move as you wish Mr. Dershowitz, but not into the future. Acquittal denied.”

“I request a three week recess, so I can acquire witnesses neither Negro, nor Mexican nor public school educated.”

“Whiteness has its burdens, but time is not one of them. Recess denied.”

Some smoked, while others chewed the local cud of salvia, weed and roasted hops. Both attorneys wear plaid vests and LL Bean slacks. The three semi-circles of concerned and connected spread across the grass playing field between 40-yard markers. Accused twist in their chairs – which were positioned somewhat to the side . Their steel shackles have been drawn tight. Behind each man an 18” thick redwood post has been driven into the turf … nobody wants to see a shot go wild.

Chavez High: Home of the ThunderChickens spouts the faded stadium banner. A cold spring afternoon has wrapped the bleachers quiet in icicle winds and scrubbed clean the playing field guests with frosty sunbeams. Bleachers pack on both sides, the opposing forces … those to my right in red-caps chanting the paeons of wars victory those left in blue … if the winds carry other from them than moans, sighs of wretched defeat and wet-mouth merciful simperings noone on the playing field can tell. I can’t tell … and have the best and highest seat –- the judges podium raised feet above the rest by stacked grape packing crates.

“Very well … Mr Chan ...”

“Corporal Chan. My discharge papers haven’t appeared yet. I still wear the uniform, obey command structure and walk picket carrying my AR-16.”

“Then you were in full uniform when you saw defendant #3 kill Ms Brown and her two children.”

“No … not at all Gub’na. I had changed to black sweats and a headband … dim cammo ya might say while I helped Ms. Brown plant an IED under a Federal school bus. Part of the MAKE THE SPAWN BGONE program of the Militia resistance.”

“Something your commander approved of …?”

“Before the Sacramento rebels … rebelled we were forbidden to join resistance bands; the wildings, the left-overs, the hand-me-downs the remnants of early Militia units that went door-to-door killing every Trotsky Democrat they came across. That was a wild time, Gub’na when Chi.com trained Trotsky-sluts aspired to wiping out the Cali-Militia. We done righteous killing then … but when ya win ya sin. This here new world order wuz gonna be KumByah baby … that’s what Militia lawyers lectured us. No hanky no panky no sniper action no terror against beaten Blue-Bellies or their politicos. But, once rebelista shot-down Militia pickets, burned a hospital and formed a shadow rev-gov my Company Captain gave permissions.” ALL FAIR CUMBERBUNNING , “he said and we believed him.”

“You previously testified Ms Brown was a civilian. What were Ms Browns kids doing when they were shot?”

“Carrying the Semtex blocks. Three apiece, but they were strong for 11-Y-olds … it let Brown and me dig the hole faster near the bus rear wheels. You would think 4 wheels makes it easier to position an explosive, but it wern‘t that simple. ”

“Not simple … but strong young men, eh … How many children would have been on that bus?”

“Near 36 … it serviced a Kindergarten and you can really pack in the rugrats.”

“Corporal Chan, did you ever see accused #3 hatchet or bludgeon or poison any of the … recalcitrant Militia?”

“I didn’t know recalcitrants; we was pretty klanish and et two-squares a day. But, nope I ner see him pison. … him, nor none a’ the other eight. They was just normal Blue-belly silent killers.”

“So as far as you know the other eight men are innocent.”

“I seen plenty a’ others butchering away at the Militia vitals … plenty a bloody hands a’-standin’ behind these nine.”

“Did you know he was a news reporter?”

“Reporter ya say? Not when I captured him. Later some Spec-4 people said he wrote a life-style column for a Frisco daily. Was a big palsy of that bitch Kamela Harris, till we broke her ski on Plutos Plunge … hehe … what’s life-style?”

“I have no more questions of this witness, your honor.”

“Redirects Mr Spitzer?”

“Were the two children murdered ...”

“OBJECTION ...”

“Sustained. Rephrase your question Mr Spitzer.”

“Corporal … did the two children die the same way as their mother?”

“Not in a coons age. I was 20 yards away, inside a van unloading the last bundle of Semtex. Ms Brown was diggin’ the last piece-a-hole when she got her head blowd off by a 50-cal FMJ . I ducked under the wheel-well. Christ she wuz healthy cause the blood just sprayed … Anyrate perp #3 comes outa a grape arbour, runs cross the street right up to the kids … scared to death and groveling they was … so to speak. He shot both in the neck with a Colt 38-Special. Then shot them in the belly … guess they didn’t bleed enough for his likin’. He was so focused on the kids I could snuck up behind him and swat with my rifle-butt. Down like a dog.”

“OBJECTION!”

“Overruled.”

“I have no more questions of Corporal Chan your Honor.”

“Stand down Sir, and thanks for your service. Prosecution may call it next witness.”

“Commander Hull, please take the stand. Raise your left arm …. and do you recognize accused #4?”

“In my dreams I see him. Major Badman. Can’t miss him with those big ears. We graduated together from the Point, though he was 1^st-in-class and I was last.”

“Both from the Point, eh yet you ended up in the Navy ...”

“Crabs were scarce in the early days. When Admiral Brown called for volunteers to assault Detroit I took my chances. Was a risky time, what with Angel Diaz escaped West and setting up terror cells along the river. Hard men … the MS-13s you had to respect them ...”

“You survived.”

“Lot’s didn’t … the best Blackmen I knew died fighting savages … and The Mississippi Flotilla formed in burning oils and ash atop the Detroit River. ”

“Your command, before Sacramento?”

“After Detroit I worked staff for a year, a real grape then ran a squadron of fitty and TOW armed gunboats out of St Louis. The Geechee kept trying to slip raiders up-river from Alabama.”

“And Major Badman?”

“We nicknamed him WHISPER, because of his big ears. He joined Army Intelligence, I hear and spent a year at Guantanamo. High profile. He vanished shortly after POTUS Hillary was assassinated. Reappeared in Chicago running Federal counter-Intel. Understand how confused we were. Some officers remained with the neutral Military command; others split left or right. Badman caught our attention when Militia agents started showing up missing fingers and wearing concrete shoes. When The Flotilla joined Sand-Point people to bring Chicago under bombardment Badman vanished again. Next we knew he was organizing rebelista in Sacramento and importing Chinese arms on Mex J-20s. When Sac rebelled the 2^nd time the Admiral snatched my command … said any white-boy could run a motor-boat , gave me a new portfolio and pointed me west. ”

“The Admiral had no concerns you might be recognized?”

“The Admiral has no concerns … but the Constitution. Far as he sees just another Niggar that’s me … know what I mean? ‘Course Flotilla Staff did do diligence; legends were constructed for me, but prolly too many people knew something about my assignment. The day after I arrived one of Gen Banskis agents contacted me … a woman reporter … I thought that insecure, but she was loaded with micro-vid tek and wanted documentation. ”

“So you are now ...”

“Can’t say.”

“But, you have been undercover in Sacramento for ...”

“Five months … give or take … long enough to track down Badman. Along with his gun-running he was bossing signal intercept and scramble. Responsible for producing one-time-pads. Careful men … but we ran 4-Ts of hardware; Flotilla byte-farms snatched those re-broadcasts first week; U. Chicago still hand-tools the very best anti-crypto. Boiling pots took another 4 months to vector revanchist sources, while I dodged patrols and ate slim. In the vacancy we busted a half-dozen other rebelista cells … some we bombed, others fell to sniper action. You have no idea how easy a mark well-intentioned patriots can be … patriots on either side. When we did zero Badmans broadcasts I set up a raiding scrum. Eleven rangers went in alongside a distracting artillery strike. We destroyed the hardware, but Badman escaped and I was captured. ”

“Leading from the front ...”

“The Admiral will have it no other way.”

“So after capture you spoke with Badman …?”

“Speak? I listened for a hour, while Badmans tunes and tones reviled me. Happened nearby, in a garage behind this stadium.”

“Tunes and tones …?”

“It’s what we call them, named after the cartoon. Yeah … tones … people … packs of faggoty hangers-on, groomers and sycophants revolving around … polishing egos powerful in the Trotsky left. Man or woman. And tones are the cloying songs they sing to their boss, to each-other and to captives willing-or-not to listen. Femi-nazi alphas like hearing about their sneeze-law entitlements, while Rawlsian academics lisp through cycles of intolerant tolerance . Just the right people … to satisfy egos wish just the right message … to assure egos cankered soul … that’s the cancer of entitled self-satisfaction surrounding dark hearts of every rebel trope .”

“What tone did they play for you?”

“My tone ... you take the high road and I’ll Scotch the low road … tones go both ways …. I learned. After Badmans half-hour rant berating me for collusion with whites and other productives as he called them … he had a 20-mm gunner blow off my right arm at the elbow.”

“I have no more question, your Honor.”

“Your witness Mr Dershowitz.”

“Commander Hull, all my respect to you for a most admirable record of service.”

“Most Negros with my record are dead.”

“War will do that. I notice from your West Point graduation page you had a nickname --- MAPMAN --- does that name bring anything special to mind?”

“Every cadet gets a nickname.”

“Very modest Commander Hull … much too modest. While at the Academy you received numerous awards for wilderness trekking by star-field … orienteering I believe it’s called and won several compass-only gymkanas in an old Tr6. You could always find the quickest route through any terrain … to anywhere night or day. Afterward you produced from memory hand-sketched routing maps that are used in Academy classes as examples of perfect treks to-this-day. ”

“My Uncle drove Mississippi back-roads spotlighting deer for food. I hunted with him as a kid.”

“Never lost-the-touch, did you?”

“OBJECTION your Honor. Defense Councils line-of-questioning supervenes on current security concerns. Pre-trial agreements put these issues off-limits.”

“Prosecution over-reaches, your Honor. No such security concerns apply to present day Militia occupied and well-secured Sacramento.”

“Objection over-ruled .”

“Commander Hull, when Flotilla forces stormed Detroit what maps were you ordered to construct?”

“Commander …..?”

“A modern army runs on centralizing communications, not its belly.”

“What did the Detroit rebelistas run on?”

“Skanks and scabs? Intel zeroed that fast. After we occupied the Lake Erie connection and our motor-launches controlled Lake St Clair , Detroit Muzzi and Nig gangs lost their carbon source; mess reduced to Yohos and Raman . Blue-Belly regulars wouldn’t feed them from slim supplies brought in by seaplane. If yo white you get a bite … thas their revolution idea! Minnesota/Wisconson farmer/labor liberals had decided they really didn’t like ghetto lumpin-proles after all and set their dogs on infiltrators … hunted them down. The rebels only lifeline were power-boat runs from Pele Island; they were big-uns … 24-foot deep Vz with a pair of Evinrude 300s. They beached at swale along MS-13 controlled ghettos in Kingsville, and ran for the cover of civilians. ”

“Why the drama? Didn’t the Flotilla already have long-guns from the Tennessee Valley Arsenal?”

“Yes Sir. Cleaned, tested and mounted! But, the decision had not yet been made to shell the ghettos; both Columbia and Nicaragua had bitched about genociding their citizens and a Cuban built drug factory in Managua supplied 50% of the penicillin and 80% of the sulfa used by both sides along the Mississippi River. Flotilla land attacks against half-starving fanatics were costly, and nobody planned assaulting the Cleveland hell-hole. Stalemate! But, The Admiral had an idea. Detroit rebel food supply depended on precisely timed convoys running the route 401 gauntlet during periods of morning fog. Breaks in the fog cover were reported along the route and relayed backward , so convoy trucks could dodge under friendly cover until another fog-bank rolled in. We had the roadways northern extension gridded with barge-mounted 155s, but ammo was tight. We couldn’t afford to random-fire. So the game played out … they waited for fog … we waited for sudden clearing. But, what if their signaling queered ? What if the rebels couldn’t coordinate convoys and fog?”

“You did that!”

“I led a tac-unit across from Dearborn to infiltrate near route 401. Injun-country all of it; Charlie-Foxtrot territory. We found a roadside pumpkin stand refuges from Cleveland had built. Pure guerrilla grift! Hollow the feral pumpkins, stuff them with nitre and gas-soaked rags and send them back to Cleveland. Homeboys used them as IEDs. Goes to show Red Cross aide is not needed for all refugees. They occupied territory my mission needed. We cut their throats, baked pumpkin pies for teamsters and started mapping the rebel scout points. After zeroing the command transmitters we downloaded malware into their computers from a favored porn-site … Persian Kitty! Every bare nipple held 16-bytes of corruption. Our random number generator connected their fog-scouts with convoy teamsters. Mis-connected into devastation when truckers drove into clear patches of road ! The next day, 47 convoy trucks were destroyed by our 155s … 88 the following day. Third day they ran red-lined Dodge Chargers and we popped 50 of 60. Fourth day their computers went off-line, but we smashed another 30 unit gas-tanker convoy. Burned for days … Bingo!”

“Did Cleveland fall the same way? Fifty thousand civilians starved there.”

“Same everything … all, but the details. Their radio propaganda pleaded for mercy, but their 30-mm AA killed our people anyway. And no civilians lived in Cleveland … ”

“I have no more questions of this witness, your Honor.”

“You may stand down Commander. Gawdsakes will a corpsman see to that bloody bandage? Quiet in the court. Quiet you sons-a-bitches or I’ll have Sergent Major clear the stadium. No chanting no howling. Remember who you are. Now … gentlemen …. attorneys … shadows are growing long. Cooler, also … we are all buttoning vests; but, I believe we shall not starve before a third witness testifies. Mr Spitzer are you prepared?”

“Objection ...”

“Over-ruled.”

“Indeed, your Honor. Prosecution calls General Weinstein.”

“Do you swear ...”

“All the fuckin-A time.”

“Objection ...”

“Overruled.”

“General Weinstein, you are currently the military Governor of Las Vegas?”

“Governor ? You could say that. Potus TRUMP flew in last month to deliver my commission. What with raids and sallies, skyjacking and piracy I’m still fighting a war in the Sonoran desert.”

“You fought bravely in Mexico long before getting a commission. Indeed. Council appreciates your service and your willing testimony.”

“Does that mean I get another twenty F-28s? Bitch Weitz … bitch Air Marshall Weitz won’t release so much as a landing gear!”

“I’m sure the Government understands your issues. How long had you fought in Northern Mexico?”

“Something under two years if you count cross-border raiding.”

“And how many troops did you general?”

“I busted loose from Folsom with 150 men. Moving south past Bakersfield that number rose to 1500 inmates from various Cali-prisons … guards and ex-prisoners favoring the Militia and most with payback in mind. Never expected a swarm … as our column now with light tanks from National Guard Armories and biker chop-shops … jumped to 12,000. East of the Salton Sea the Jesuit Eagan came over from SanDiego with 6,000 Catholics been thru the cumberbunning … real pricks as only Irish Catholics can be. Pick-up truck riding anti-cartel vigilantes met us at the border. Mechanics, farmers and labor from Mexican high0-desert towns … met and joined. A 25,000 man mobile army

can goto war … I knew that … with a smatter of disaffected mainline officers to boss the corps. I never expected the hobbyist jet fighters … or the drones … to join our 24/7 style of punch & duck attack against the Cartelista supported Federal supply lines … but pimped-out Mig-19s and F-86s came anyway. Six months later we could put a heavily armed column of 10,000 men , tanks, 8-Mers and Skanks into a frontal assault while routing equal numbers into fast-moving Agro and Mobster flanking horns. All while supplying a base-camp with food, ammo, medical and C-3.”

“Yes …. do you recognize accused number 9 ?”

“Yeah. My people called him Jabba-the-Rut, cause he couldn’t keep his hands off goyim flight-stews.”

“He is accused of transporting the insecticide used to murder 8000 Militia-favoring citizens of Sacramento.”

“When my rangers got control of McCarin airport they found invoices – part burned, but recoverable – for 300 lbs of powdered, Sarin-based cabbage spray. Flight from Sinaloa to Las Vegas … trans-shipping to Sacramento. The emulsion is manufactured in Mexico and used to control worms on Agave plants.”

“Names on the invoices … payments … ?”

“David ben-Israel! Fucker paid by American Express. ”

“You knew the name ...”

“Objection ... !

“Sustained.”

“Did the name on invoices and payments surprise you?”

“Yeah … like fangs on a viper! I knew him before … from Hollywood, where David ben-Israel repackaged and exported LaRaza wetbacks. Suck them in with a jobs promise … dope-them-up for a girls party … fly-them-out like trussed poultry. Some traveled north ... to scab Chi.com brothels in Vancouver, cause the slants wouldn’t beat a white-skin woman. But, most were reserved for Congolese cobalt warlords. Seems Mexi-cunt bitches scratch less than white women while being raped. Congolese Negros are very proud of their smooth skin. In his odd moments ben-Israel produced music for a band called BANG ME NOT. More about them later.”

“A big fan of diversity … then ...”

“Diversity? Hollywood lizard culture? If birds beaks were good enough for Darwin, then lumps in the red and blue casting couches spawned the Cambrian explosion. When Hillaries Congress passed the first sneeze laws, ben_Israel pimped La. City Council to double down on emotocentric thought-crime suppression. You know the nancy-boi girly concept –- emotional contentment is a human right and normals must empathically entangle with feebs, felons and fops! SJW-sluts pedofiled in private, but in public booo-hoooed like alligators; sneeze-laws became a slam-dunk!”

“Right under your nose.”

“Trotsky-sluts like Cher and Harris and Feinstein work fast. There-after, public speech not only could not attack a protected class, but had to positively support its perv. City Council doubled the number of ACHU hit-squads … ACHU: Audio Hate Crime Units. Kinda funny recursion how the law got named after the gestapo enforcing it. I don’t think the bitches knew recursion, but no mystery concerning their actions. Feral fems purposed to suppress all speech which denies affection to any protected subclass … dykes, beaners, Jews, pet-fuckers, wogs, slants, fags, mongoloids, Niggars, wetbacks, namblas, feebs, felons, … the list grew by-the-week. And the speech category grew more broad … written words came next, as did mime gestures and involuntary facial response. Movies of-course, but sculpture too and paintings … some femi-nazis were plastering-over bare tits at the Getty, cause black womens boobs sag … could’a fooled me … but, fuck-their azzwhole wide and raw songs & bands got roped into the PC corral. No wrist-slap for offenders either as ACHU crimes became felonies.”

“But, Gen. Weinstein you owned your own production company … your talent people won award after award … Surely ways could be found … surely you had work-arounds ... ”

“Yeah … we could still find work; if the actors were willing we did tricks. Insert a single scene where the costar boo-hoos over a trannys newly active HIV. Or have a walk-on character quote John Rawls. But, that kinda slyster time-serving ben-Israel set out to stop! If you talked-at-all … you sought-the-call. He wanted nothing less than a soul-kiss commitment to the Trotsky thought-crime regime. To that end ben-Israel set up his own, private enforcement squads culled from FBI & Swat-squad droppings … thugs who had been removed from policing vis’ excessive use of force. I ran into one ...”

“Everybody knows you were convicted of ACHU thought-crime outrage and sentenced to 5-years at Folsom!”

“Yep that’s him … that’s them ...”

“What happened?”

“At the time I was producing three bands: Little-Slit ... noise-rock grinding bass sound with a flaming-fag lead singer, Lip-Gloss ... violined country-folk headlining a bi-fem vocalist and Jesus Widgets ... Christian blues-swing trio. Best musicians those three and serious young men; I saw them every Saturday at Havdalah.”

“For the fast-track a most unusual stable ...”

“Say that twice … I was proud of them. Then all-three group brewed the flame-war.”

“Objection your honor. Council has tried providing this witness a long rope , but Hollywood gossip stretches all patience to the breaking. How can Weinsteins tale-weaving possibly relate to a crime-of-war? ”

“Allow us to show, Your Honor that David ben Israels crimes of peace-and-war both preceded the Militia victory and continued unabated throughout the Sacramento seige.”

“Objection denied. Continue Mr Spitzer, but note well this bench will be looking for the crime, the whole crime and nothing , but the crime.”

“Thank you, Your Honor. Gen. Weinstein … what flame war?”

“It’s important to understand, that for a year prior to open civil war hostilities the Hollywood music scene went through the so-called BURMASHAVE era. That is, song lyrics during this period mimicked classic BurmaShave jingles. An example:”

Babes with fags

On every arm

Ought not to screw

With false Alarm.

“This couplet came from a song by BANG-ME-NOT … an Incel cross-over sound that ben-Israel touted as the next-big-thing. Non-sex … bad-sex … lonely-sex … who knew how to characterize the Incel crowd: males not-getting-laid while demanding babes-a-plenty. I’ll say no more … but by ACHU regs they were a protected group and could not be criticized or corrected. When the song soared among somber LGBT literatii the sneeze laws didn’t stop LITTLE-SLIT from going ballistic!”

Ugly boys

Can whine and bitch

Their unused prick

Will always itch.

“And Widgets chimed in:”

Girls speak up

And girls talk down

Christ counts the men

Without a sound.

“Two days later a 12-man ACHU empathy-squad of ben-Israels goons stormed the Widgets Sunset Blvd studio. That was a Wednesday … Thursday they came for me.”

“When did you see Jesus Widgets again?”

“I never did … never have. Temple Rabi stonewalled. Sources available to me now say the three boys were castrated by Brentwood dykes, and later shipped as slaves to Pakistan as Pashtun butt-fucks. Auschwitz East! I was tried before an undocumented SLUTS GOT TALENT night-court, of major Democrat donors and sentenced by Judge Tanni Gorre to 10 years at Folsom.” Wandering male libertines will finally be yoked to the multi-sexual continuum. “The slant bitch actually said that! Of-course … I got out earlier … and had a chance to visit her unexpected … ”

“I have no more questions for Gen. Weinstein, Your Honor.”

“Mr Dershowitz your witness ...”

“You raped Chief Justice Gorri, didn’t you.”

“She said he said ...”

“I have a signed and noterized hand written letter from the Judge swearing to just such an attack.”

“Her ex-boyfriend claims she had shaky, unsure paws. If the skank were attacked, and still wrote the letter she must have immobilized her fingers in gelatin. Is the letter sticky at all? ”

“A car with your license plates was photographed near her gated estate. Justice Gorri now endures the pains of Hades. She is undergoing therapy at Esalen Institute with a hypnotist, color manager, five Buddhist Monks, two animal companion dolphins from Monterey Bay Aquarium and a shrink from Chelsea Clintons Bahama salt water spa.”

“Proof of nothing; SJWs are a vaporous sort and chew on sympathy like Santa Monica bimbos chew on Rolex. All sounds pretty circumstantial. Give it up! Aren’t you the one who asserts that 10 guilty-as-sin lubricious panty-sniffing pederasts ought to be freed to continue their child-molesting just so one gene-struck tranny freak does not get pushed to the corner ?”

“Judge Gorri claims in the letter that you assaulted her six times, making paid to percentage. For shame General. Was not a single assault sufficient to satisfy your foul urges?”

“Six times ‘eh … Certainly councilor, when I rate myself around woman who believe they are entitled to get fucked I rate higher than 10/1 ! Now that I think about it, I have seen Judge Gorri exposed. Somebody brewed her page on a website called JUDGESJUGS: www.goatsee/judgesjugs.xxx …. on that site no judge lacks a jury. I mean … doing a woman six times means ya really got personally involved, but from the website pictures I’d say she really isn’t that hot.”

“I have no more questions for this witness.”

Chris-sakes, I think ... who would dare another witness … who would risk another question? I burn a Camel Straight and send a long thin grey stream of irritation toward the 50-yard line. I really must have carpenters lower the judges stand, cause if I fall off … crap! Why didn’t Spitzer re-direct … Gorri is no longer Chief Justice of Cali-Supremes; a removal on medical grounds … A cold wind rips at buttons of my vest and the black judges robe loose and flimsy helps not at all. I shiver. How did the bleachers empty so fast, or did stakeholders not care for the Generals testimony?

Has my court been left-behind? Half the stadium lights have shut-off, and the line of military jeeped away. But, the attorneys stand beside their tables almost at attention. “Gawdsakes gentlemen … meaning well we have stretched the trials first day. The shadows ‘eh … and sunset only an hour in the making. But, lets not chew our leather gloves. Lieutenant Gen Silvercoin, the new Sacramento Military Governor has invited all for a sweetcorn and pig-roast at his new riverside digs. Classy! Used to be a rebelista whorehouse, but no longer. Ask the Sergent Major for directions. Best gals invited and they may dress if they wish …. men may not wear either ties or jeans … Silvercoins new squeeze reads GQ and believes it. Wine will be plonk, but not the scotch. Lots of local greens on the menu ; gawd knows where he got sweetcorn, but the pig I understand is one of those 400 lb feral monsters that have eaten potatoes and turnips and squash for the last year and stuck his nose in one-too-many garden plots. Court’s adjourned.”

“Swede!”

Botticelli crisp and provocative wisps from the orchestra. How graceful the conductor teases nothing from chip and pebbles of the Sac Philharmonic. First chair violin and cello soar. Circling couples tune string sympathy from cut-glass lights and mending waves of folly into the snappy night air. A surf of instrumentals wash in.

Truckin! Gallants call "BRAVO!"

"What courage do you think they find appealing," I wonder? Leather-bound sofas once roamed here, for the Blue-Belly Trotsky-slut elite. Now celebrating the war-crimes trial first testimony Militia women curtsy and dance in consignment-store pre-bellum lace gowns ... Sacramentos recycled low-cut glories ... their frills tickling the parquet and be-damned if pearl necklaces are paste . Goth girls strap-in black leather ... and trail auras of silver silk. Armani men, men in tails, men in tux, men in braided officers uniform ... most carry their sidearms in polished leather holsters. I laugh at how redskin Silvercoin trains them into the geometry of class, and of order.

Celebration surrounds everything I see. Both the manse and estate fall out semi-circles. Orchards of plum, pear and walnut back on the American River, while the sandstone great-house faces south bearing front living billets tangent to a grassy circular drive. Mixed with the Florida rooms administration and military quarters overlook the roiling water. Must have inspired rebelista leaders who worked their poxy resistance from these very rooms. Soft pastel hangings irritate brick and plaster walls more than the eye, though a pair of Bentons quietly rule the library. Trotsky-slut progressives knew how to live ... but, like the do-dah man Silvercoin, I believe knows how to rule.

Across the ballroom, lawyers huddle in a library nook. Spitzer kneels beside them arguing furiously, cheek-to-jaw with the most adamant. They fondle paper briefs and eye me coldly, their eyes like iron hooks trying to drag me across. Iron eyes say I need to be taught ... fussa fussa .. fussafussa fussa ... before I blunder again. I think not, reading the flex and following the spine of Spitzer steel shank. Call me out on republican arrogance of the able. Mary-of-Guise, Genoa, Greeks and Romans built their own concepts and tools of law, from the behavior of people surrounding them. Built for the commons their laws governed ... crafted from daily activity. That form of law will serve well in a new epoch and I will follow what I observe.

Bravo judge galvanized; liquor helps! Along the oak-stained bar I am packed into the reporters ghetto. "To your left, Swede gawd-damm you ..." Candles flicker among newly strung neon tubes … a ballroom side door has been left ajar and like a clean-shaven blue-tinged Colonial Sanders the Swede wanders in with the breeze.

"Whose the feckin-A robins-egg ? One of your stringers, Will you won't share ..." The bronze eyed Seal ... ex-Seal when when he punches out HRIs morning beat, but Seal to his bones. No mercy in those bones ... "Won't or can't ?

Reporters are like chickens ... and can't help pecking. Merrily. "I claim reporters privilege!"

"Privileged? Like ... like how you dribble-in bits & tits of story-line? Which shyster councils drunk and which accused a possible suicide? Meathead is tired of finishing your paragraphs, then racing it up elevators for fill between banner-ads."

"Still using the hemp-wrapped copper lines? I told you guys to run cable. Mebby he needs a faster wheelchair."

"New tool is 60 HP electric. Bella-Jean got to sit on his lap to steer."

Fuck ....... "Other side Swede ... with the pork-pies !" Off to the left generals and colonels gather in a mahogany-coated west-wing long on windows and short on chairs. Grey smoke clouds harry their heads and messengers scurry among them. Why messages, I think ... what messages? To my right kitchen doors had been removed from a galley fit for hungry politicians and the scotch-laden cabinets and diplomats supporting them. Pots boil and pans steam in that kitchen; couples shaking-out introduction test mercy and eat off each-others laps. Shy faces bold faces ... gay ... gaiety sparkles in shy faces otherwise worn. The gawd-damned war will end with couples ... the G*d-damned war ...

"I'll eat one, but damned if I'll wear one," pipes the trim grey-haired La Times harlot. "Ruins my off-the-shoulder style, but his ... where have I see that scared face?" She's nibbling Shepards stew from a silver samovar and snags me a taste. Three-star! Her napkin lingers on my mouth ...

"You'll remember corn-bread ..." Seals military drawl ... he swam underwater demolition when he owned two legs ... The fox missing a smile smirks at him, a young-un, like she had a chance ... like he'd keep her going ... now he just doesn't care conjuring names and copy ram-rodding HRIs morning desk. He turns on me. "A judge watches the company he keeps ... "

For a dinner-party celebrating shit-kicking the progressive enemy our clutch of reporters manage only a downbeat tone. How beatniks celebrate war. I say .. "So does an editor. I still read the charts. HRI banner-revenue from galvanized media up $500-per-day. Do we enjoy archangel delivery service, when business employs?" One rattling snip after another, at the current HRI straw-boss. Griping ... "Since I chose you, whose boardrooms do ya sniff?"

It's never been easy between Seal and me, about the power. I laid-the-egg ... he's a hard case shell-cracker . Seal laughs harsh and punches my shoulder. "Ones with round-heel CEOs, cause both news and the law are very jealous harlots."

"I'm not," snipes a blonde Miami Herald straight-shooter chewing a pencil-point while her 36-caliber stunners sweep the field. She's searching out a new victim scream her stilettos. "What's it like no longer running HRI?"

"Oh my Lord he's not answering that ... Lordy no... not with his women all run askew. Commoners and Air-Marshalls alike; how will he ever get them back without the media?" Wordsniper spills very old scotch from a plastic cup and swills the bottom into his face.

Cocky son-of-a-bitch. I smile at the do-anything blonde, glare at the Tulsa weekly wreck, older now than his age , but usta run CNN morning show wearing cockatoo T-shirts ... an avian Miami Vice ... "Glad you're outa rehab Parrot ... and who says I don't still run it?" A dancing couple waltz by ... his Captains bars and her breasts shine carefree.

Blonde takes aim. "The Seal said so .. all night long. He pillow-talks like a machine-gun."

"New desks are a bitch." We share a smirk; "he used to write good copy."

"So did you," snips blonde between shots of Cobb Creek. You could stay all night with a dame like that. Persistent. "Does Dershowitz get to call a defense witness tomorrow," she penses "or will he recall hot-dog Weinstein for another grilling ? "

"On the QT? You won't believe anyway. His law clerk said Dershowitz calling a computer expert ... on witches! Something about reduced culpability when under a spell. Maybe it's the C++ pointers! What will a jury do with crap like that?"

I snatch a young body against me and take to the dance. Judges do that and she purrs harassment while nibbing gossip into my ear. Do we really need to cumberbunne Blue-Belly? Diamond girl's too thin to be a screamer! Heh 19 who taught you to waltz and melt? She is stunning, long-stemmed and takes-flight applauding only when Stravinsky snatches violins from good taste. I crawl back toward the bar where reporters envious heckle . How I laugh. Martinis appear beside caviar on a dress-uniformed servers tray. Is only the Boodles cracked ...? Servers 45-cal 1911 swings against a crisp blue pinstripe leg. Olives swim in the cold water crystal ... and even the 4-th wouldn't put a news-vixen under the host.

"Who eats salted fish-eggs," spys a pearl-crusted, but uncertain dizzy wench.

"Swede gawd-damm-you ," I shout ... "don't go wandering ... over here!"

Murmurs answer. Human voice become noise, when every man has an opinion, but sings in silence. Porch lanterns glitch once, through the open French doors and dimming return their pumpkin shine seconds later. Silvercoin has spent money well on his command-post ... only defeated enemy would hector. But, it startles blonde. She will save pennies on each glass wall-tile. Family girl, really I think.

Seal has her arm pinched; she likes the discipline. "Dame lies, Scranton. Don't listen to the woman. Only 4 hours between midnight and morning editions. What can you do to tits like hers in 4 hours ...? Rush ... rush ... rush! But, readers want dibs on the dirty end. Want to know when you toss the jury ... load the M1s ... shoot the 9 accused rebels and cumberbunne Sacramento. That no-mercy gig's what readers crave ... so the next blox starts to tumble. Know what I mean? HRI got 900,000 hits last night, on a pose of 12 female jurors circling you like a hungry harem. Photo-Shopped, but what the hell ... Headline reads ...THEY'LL BLEED FOR ROUGH JUSTICE. CAN A RECYCLED WAR-WEARY HRI EDITOR DELIVER ? "Most female comments said you looked ugly, but praised the stylish mid-thigh midnight blue kilts of the jury. You missed your calling ... Will."

Made ya weary ... "Who says I'm weary ..." and pushing away from Seal, scraping past the blonde I bear into the crush of swirling lace and black-tux between the reporters scrum and the last bob of the tall Swedes bare head. I snatch smoked salmon tasting of cherry-wood. Carpet turns to parquet where happy feet can fly. Something early-on calls me. I soak in the melee; these are joyful times, between the killing and the burials. The band has found a polka I haven't heard since 6-th grade. Feet fly and I dodge, but don't get far.

"Remember us, Mr Scranton. Jim and Jill. We weaponized the St Johns redfish." A couple swirls by. The wiry man wears a Majors button and his woman a black eyepatch. It matches a shapely widows gown.

"Kill the bastards," she says careless and gathers me into a polka trio. "We weaponized geese, Mr Scranton." I pull them aside.

Casual Jim. "Ain't she a beauty," he says, glowing over his gal. "Won the MS Carolina contest in 202X -- knocked the judges eyes out. My wife now ... she did the biomod, lacing sweetcorn with Jacobs Ladder and peyote. The geese loved it! Jill always had a feel for animals. I wrote the Cheetos-flavor chip the geese swallowed straight to their dinosaur birdy-brains. Dropped right into the neural mating nets, and when we vectored them on a DNC Beachcraft headed for Epsteins Island they were fit-to-flit! Two giant Vs T-boned the Beachcraft over the Everglades ... boy-O-boy did feathers fly. Got the GOPRO movies to prove it. Spiral-of-death for the airplane! Local Militia Council never believed us. Federals did though ..."

Bitter Jill. "We hung out dimly at an Amelia Isle surf-shop. A SWAT squad of Haitian goons all done up in meth-laced rum came to knacker."

"We out-shot the Haitians ... mostly, and ran to the Everglades ourselves. Jill took a ding ... and the Federal-paid hospitals wouldn't take her."

"The bloody Federals, Mr Scranton." Not a tear in Jills eye. "Corrupt as they are just cut them. Cut them bad. Cut them early and often," she says in cold measure and with her husband whirls away.

This world is a lonely island tossed upon stormy seas. Makes me dizzy. "You're loose, Scranton! Surprised the Generals didn't cashier you into the kitchen, poaching salmon. You let Dershowitz get away with murder today. J-boat images flash. The leather-neck Negro Captain and his pearl-laced lovely stop me dead.

Turning round till I face them. "I ought to have squashed the rape claim?"

"One outa twelve ... two outa twelve will believe the rape ... any rape claim." The lovely stops to light her cigarette. "Birdies tweet a black bitch lieutenant raped you in a Vegas hospital. She might'a been one hot chickee ... and you roddin' on salvia and peyote, but ... well you know ... best to ask ...", and returns the Captains stainless Zippo to a breast pocket. "Birdies say she had no complaints, and you picked a female jury to kinda make up for ... but askin' makes 2nd-round go smoother."

Did lovely ask me something? I cannot recall ... anything, but the exploding hacienda and excuse myself away. Ever felt like a kiwi or mango? Sharp elbows cut on every side. Turned around, cut crystal shines above. Swede is nowhere, but the tall, blue-eye full-bird-Colonal at the West-Wing fringe sigals SA-47. Almost misread the code for A-17 thinking us suddenly under attack. In the weeks before Paradise Ridge the Federals had snatched a triple of close-support aircraft, and decimated Militia Agros and Pickets in the cornfields east of Omaha. Three weeks of terror followed for Scrums mobiles till Sandpoint Nazi F-28s cracked the A-17 flight computers and put them down. Now, SA-47 once a NYC loner; now calls himself Colonel Biggs, sits on the inter-warfare council and runs liaison with all IDF forces East of the Delaware. More too if rumors came close ... I remembered him different ...

Not the two polished Air Force Colonels, who intercept me at the horizon. They sat-out the war in an Enders Game bunker. "You want the real Military opinion, Scranton. Sure ya do. Slaughter the bastards," says the fatty.

"Trotsky was a Christian, " says skinny. "Treat them like brothers."

You can't understand sometimes, why Christ bothered getting nailed to the cross. Biggs leads me onto the cool quiet patio; two Wild Turkeys follow. "Will , you mangy pest it's a joy hearing gums flap, ... dead or alive. HRI still kicks and screams! I hear you're headed straight for the SUPREMES after the Sacramento mess gets cleaned away."

A bright full moon hides our faces. Paws of ribbon-steel grip hard. "You hear what! I hear Banski's gonna make me wash dishes. What does the council have you doing?"

"Keeping Damascus happy. You do know after Aleppo fell, New Israel moved their capitol to Damascus. Lower radioactivity levels ..."

"And a greater Zions payback for the Negev fiasco. What else?"

"Tell you ... I'd need to shoot you. But, any legend is a good legend, for a country, for me and especially for you. The feeling around Philadelphia is you're an experienced man ... a mean-spirited kind of gravitas ... knowing a task from its foul smell and only needing a skeleton setup ... you can figure out the grit. They trust you!"

"Whose feeling ... what feeling ... which skeleton?"

Biggs lights both Camel straights and tips glow an evil red. "It's pretty late to discover we are all just making it up. Solutions that is ... The war has killed 15-million Americans ... that's enough! "

Kick in the kidneys. "You give me Dershowitz and Spitzer for a skeleton? Vinegar and baking soda more like it. Mix well and run. Poof ... it all blows away. "

"We gave you the judgeship to make of it whatever's needed. You know what's needed."

"Did I need Molson?"

Quiet. Then ... "After Siri was murdered I only wanted vengeance ... and to follow her. I could not imagine any positive action. When fighting broke out between NYC militia and IDF 5-th column raiders I figured to die on that firing line. But, we did better. First we exchanged prisoners, then food ... then ... Factions no longer kill each-other on the mid-Atlantic coast! We have government service! Now ... use your paid-down morals and slimy ways to return Western rebelista cities into the fold ... to build a new union ... to work-out a better result than carnage."

WOKE UP, by a Fucking-A glow-worm ... it gets ta wear'n thin. Biggs returns to the Generals and I ... search for a patio lantern to read the short appreciation Biggs had tucked into my shirt pocket. What can two pages say about a 5-year old civil war?

"Something for the weekend sir?" The pickets loose Brit accent challenges me. "Birds in the orchard, may I say of the giggles and wiggles persuasion. Had off the last fellow in wingtips."

"I'm fully booked, corporal even if I'm down on the street all alone" He chuckles, salutes and steps away. Plum trees obscure, but somewhere near the northern edge of Sacramento a column of fire glows silently. Mebby the guard knew what happened? I round a corner walking swift , but don't reach the next lantern. It's bright and technical ... make you wish for the days of whale-oil.

"Doctor Scranton!"

Firefly. She was sitting on a swinging couch, nursing a Chezko IR vidcam, stroking a cat and smoking a long banded cigarette could only be a Chesterfield slim. A campaigners hat cloaked the top of shoulder-length hair and dark Army-T covered the waist of navy bells. Nipples poke at a loose-buttoned A-3, and a Berretta 40-cal has upgraded the Colt. She's weighted down, so I unload. "Why don't you dance?"

"Nobody brung me."

Ain't that the feckin-A wheel-of-fate. "Shouldn't you be filming portraits, Ms K. or is Banski dancing with his jeep driver?"

"Bitter does not suit you Will. He's half-the-fuck you are ... mostly ..."

Well fuck, I was the oldest brother and never liked sharing. "I saw Swede. Have you spoken to him?"

"He blew me off ..."

"Not like the Swede."

"Some men don't age well ... don't adapt ..."

Personal problems? Adaption ... Swedes lack of adaption ...? That's a chip of cold flint. I stare off into the north. "Surprised you aren't hounding the fire. Near the Militia ammo-dump I imagine. Follow the pain, or does Banski keep both you and your work to himself? Seal would give you an HRI page-one. Ever fuck him?" Distant sirens wail into the night.

"I shot vidcams then ... shoot them now. So many men ... so many stories ... so many bylines and so little time." Her cigarette tip glows. "True dinkum ... time is the gravitational boson? It pulls us down! You knew things like that ... before ... " I say nothing. Fag stubs into an oak post. "Sorry danger-ranger, so many chances to put real money aside; I don't ken ending up a bag-lady. I'm in there punching."

"With that whores ass, don't lead with your chin."

"Never ... thanks to you!" She's fussing a purse. "Maybe I should go for page-one and hound that fire ... if it bleeds ..." She consults an iPAD. Complains about too few orgasms. I sympathize ... As if wishes were commands, a dark colored sedan pulls up beside the patio. A guard steps into the headlights ... wandering away. The Apple-capped driver steps out and Ms K. has zoomed to the open patio door. "Busy day tomorrow, Will. Trial and all ... too bad you can't make me those crunchy breakfast treats you like so much. Get the big sleep."

"Yeah kiddoe ... break a tooth ..." and the sedan roars off into a night gone ... gone ... stale and pasty. Climbers share different ropes ... is that it? Feckin-A don't meditate on every fucking thing ...

I turn ... inside the orchestra has broken into a corrupted INAGADDAVIDA and dancers fugg. A young intern leads Dershowitz in a frog-step that calls for sympathy. You go old man ... Our eyes meet ... his mouth forms the word PEACE. Bassoon and bass howl. A disco-ball shatters light. Oceans of noise appear. The Generals mess has lost a dozen braids, but mobs of silver surround a female Major whose minimalist gown hides nothing, but the smile. Mebby I should find Toombs! Mebby I should go to my hotel early and consider the big picture if not the big sleep. Think it through. Imagine ... Funny, about sleep. In the years together Ms K. never bagged-it till 3-AM. It's suddenly warm and Swede pondering what an A-line hem reveals just steps away.

"GOTCHA!"

Hard heals, both facial scars and the cheeks can't quite make a grin. Swede pounds my shoulders from above ... always the player , tear-faced and clean-shaven white as a Casper ... but then the shock!

IF YER-HONOR HAS THE TIME I HAS THE BEER. PART A ME. DRUNK EVERY LAGAR FROM SILVERTHORNE TO OXNARD AND PISSED THEM AWAY ... WE MOSTLY PISSED IN CAVES SO THE BIOSCENT PEOPLE COULDN'T TRACK US.

My mouth freezes open. Gulping ... "What angel returned your voice? How did you make it out of the river? Are the team members close? Where did you fight after Spokane? Was that you took out the Grand Coulee Dam towers? Jeez I think ya gained weight!"

THAT'S AN ENCYCLOPEDIA YER WANT WILL SCRANTON AND ALL I KEPT IS A DIARY. I SPEAK INTO IT EVERY DAY SINCE I GOT THE VOICE. YER LOOKIN' GOOD YERSELF. I FOLLOW HRI. WHAT THEY MUSTA DONE TO YA BEING A JUDGE AND ALL OVER THE BLUE-BELLY RAPES AN MURDERS.

"You're right I had damned little choice. But, that's piss-pot. Who got you the voice? Where's the team?"

A SURGEON IN FRISCO DID THE IMPLANTS ... THROAT VIBRATION SENSORS ... CPU ... MEMORY & UNDER-SKIN SPEAKERS. TAKES ABOUT A HALF-SECOND FOR THE CPU TO DECODE SENSOR SIGNALS AND BROADCAST. ABOUT THE TEAM ... THEY'RE ALL DEAD.

ALL , BUT ME.

"The water ... the Spokane River ... you and the Federal ..."

NOTHING MUCH FOR A NORWEGION TO SWIM WHITE-WATER. THE FEDERAL GOT STUCK BETWEEN TWO ROCKS. I CUT HIS THROAT BEFORE DRIFTING DOWNSTREAM.

WE CHANGED TO SOFT TARGETS ... POLITICIANS ... FINANCIERS ... WE DID FEINSTEIN AND PRITZKER IN THEIR GULFSTREAMS; 4 FUEL LINES 4 RED-MERCURY PELLETS AND CALI-SLUT TRIO CUT TO ONE! FAT TIMES THOSE. NEGRO TOOK A BULLET IN BOULDER ... SHORTY IN SEATTLE FROM AN ISIS SNIPER. FAT TOM GOT BLOWN OFF A UTAH TOWER WE WERE FIXIN TO POP ... TOASTED BY 12,000 VOLTS. NONE LEFT , BUT ME ...

"Sorry ... I ... I didn't know ..."

THAT'S OKEY. NOTHING TO DO ABOUT BAD TIMES, BUT LIVE THROUGH THEM. I'VE BEEN INSTALLING ELECTRONICS IN KINDERGARDENS FOR THE LAST THREE MONTHS. SCAVANGED PIECES ... NO COMPUTERS YET JUST SLATE TABLETS; LOVE THE WORK ... AND GET PAID WITH A ROOM AND MEALS. FUNNY HOW SMART THE YOUNG ONES ARE, BUILDING CIRCUITS WITH A BATTERY AND LED AND PAPER-WIRE. YOU EVER TEACH MR SCRANTON?"

"I ... I don't remember. School was a long time ago, when the Irishman and I did some calculations ..."

"Now don't you boys talk up a storm?" Sargent Toombs looking gorgeous in blue lace smears a red-lipstick kiss across my cheek. "Whose the big guy, Will? Looks like he's fit for game!" She takes my hand warmly and turns me around. "No PDA says the General and I don't believe a word ..."

THUMP ... THUMP ... THUMP ... a creature thumps on the outside walls spackling plaster and dieing to get in. How wild, how deep, how awful the vibration. Music sours ...

BOOMZIRTTT...! The first shrapnel explosion comes all in-a-rut tearing through Sargent Toombs back cutting her heart away from her chest and spilling it onto my face in a rush of wet and heat and time no clock can ever measure.

A string of explosions all 'round flashing and spewing BOMZIRT...BOMZIFT...BOMZIRT ... coddling the cries of separated body-parts first surprise . Parts of the orchestra scatter, filling the air with arms and legs, flutes and oboe and trumpets so many flesh and silver missiles you would think horns had gone-to-war with woodwinds.

TZAR...TZAR ... bullets crackle overhead; the Swede grabs my arm we make a run for it. I have out my 357-cal. A black-shrouded figure shoots at me with a long-gun and thoughtless I return fire -1-2-3 BANGBANGBANG ... Do I even know what that means among the cord-wooded ballroom floor of blackened bodies. "I can't leave her ..."

In shock I am thinking ... you know how ... no, you don't know how enemy skatlings-of-death cut across a war-zone. You hide in a Mobster jacking-off 20-mm , but a guy who knows a guy I know tried explaining the Syrian 120s during Israeli Golan Heights campaign. He said the shell shock-wave would shear off your head belly-down in a foxhole. No no ... no I have not the heart to carry Sergent Toombs gore. BLLAT_BLLAT_BLLLAT... rattles the ancient Thompson as a man screams lead daemons punching him out. WAWAWAWAWAWA ... the baby-death howls KWAWKEWOWKEWYW ... metallic bandsaw snuff reaching down to the core of primal hate while I can't remove Toombs gore from my face .. she is all heart to me.

TZAP...PINGR ... TZAPTZAP ... PINGRPINGR BATQBATQ ... ZPINGR revolver sounds break against a staccato of automatic weapons. Generals have overturned tables ... a firing line and share hot death with shadowy raiders filtering through patio doors. I see men running among the carnage exchanging gunfire. Beams now exposed overhead burn a lick of dirty black flames. BDAMM .. MMM ...Concussion hammers the air and I fly without sense or feeling.

Time. Now there's a tender word. I lay on parquet under parts of the plaster ceiling. Dust clogs the air. Something throbs in my leg. Eyes clear. Yards away Spitzer crabs on the splintered floor, his bloody arms clutching Dershowitz bloodless torn-off head; a yarmulke drags behind. He's testing the fit against one headless torso after another and crying " טלה של אלוהים אשר לוקח את חטאי העולם" Women shriek.

Behind him, an eyeless military toasted black swallows her 45-cal Colt and yanks the trigger.

"No..." I shout ...! KAPMP ... muffled.

A burning beam falls dislodging a head; it rolls by, torn and separated from its heart, scars blackened eyes sightless, but mouth yammering. It cannot be! I think it's the Swede come to prod me up , but his body lags the minds intention. Yet the mouth yammers on, and mylar speaker implants must be in his ears, cause I hear the mouth say.

LIKE BLOWING A HIGH TENSION TOWER, WILL WHEN THE SEMTEX GOES UNSTABLE AND THOUGH THE STEEL TOWER FALLS WHILE YOU HANG ON A STRUT 'LECTRIC SPARKS COME CRAWLING AFTER YOU.

Burrowing pain ripples up my right leg. I think the long-gun shot me. Laughter. Could only be my own. I mumble away a numb jaw. How long had Swede practiced those last lines ... in all the ways humans practice their exit ? Men aren't supposed to know of-course .. know the exit know the lines ... know the accounting. Always an accounting. I tote them up for Swede. He was a good man. And for Toombs .... she would have loved me ... my jaw numbs. Shouts! A hand grabs my shoulder, pulling at the torn vest, then another .. Ha ya poxy bastard ... cards ain't worth a nickle if ya can't lay 'em down.

"Cumberbunne!"

We're home with another HRI. Returning to port , ladies and gentlemen good night.