Tuesday, December 4, 2012

All Hail Kah-Pey; 2 of 5



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“Kids these days!” Sam was complaining. “They’re so damn meek and obedient! Now, when I was a youngster, we knew how to rebel! We really gave our elders a hard time!”
            “But Sam,” I chimed in, “now you’re our elder! How do you want me to rebel?”
            But I said that just to bug him.
            He was about to start spinning his beanie propeller – just like you just saw me – when he caught my eye and smiled.
            I asked, “Why do you always spin that thing when I zing you?”
            “This propeller beanie hat has been in our family for generation,” my uncle-cubed intoned. “It symbolizes Wisdom.” Then he gave it a spin.
            That was just when I made the exact same clever remark to him that you just made to me. But Sam just laughed. “Politics,” he explained.
            He leaned back in his bean-bag chair and picked up his copy of the National Liar. I forgot to tell you what he was wearing, didn’t I? Not surprising, my adoptive-uncle-cubed was a very traditional man. He always wore the tribal outfit; star-spangled headband, beads, tie-dyed T-shirt, rainbow suspenders, blue jeans and cork sandals; and he smoke a big meerschaum pipe full of seedless hemp. Just your typical Tortoiseland anarcho-eco-communal techno-peasant.
            So he leaned back in his generations-old beanbag chair (its stuffing replaced ten times, its cover patched, repatched, and piecemeal-replaced twelve times over; was it the same beanbag?) and he picked up the National Liar (“Every Rumor Unfit To Print”; shamelessly dedicated to the cause of subjectivity in the news media; “All Reports Guaranteed False”; if you read it in the Liar, then it isn’t true) and he turned up the fireplace (not a real fire – we hadn’t fixed the scrubbers yet – just a solar-battery-powered heat lamp, but we called it a fireplace just the same) and he scanned the National Liar’s headlines (“JFK assassinates Reagan; Millions Rejoice!” “Stork Robs Sperm Bank” “ELVIS RISES FROM THE DEAD!!! – Thousands Witness Saucer Miracle!” “Photographic Proof  That Pigs Have Wings!” “GOVERNMENT ILLEGAL – Mobs Rule World” “Gay Whale Weds Godzilla – Judge Crater Presides” “HONEST POLITICIAN FOUND!!!” “Solar Nova – World Destroyed”) and he said,
            “Did you know that Elvis was last seen playing cards with Bigfoot and the Tooth Fairy aboard a flying saucer?”
            “No, I didn’t know that!”
            “Well, it isn’t so,” said Sam. “Which goes to show you that you shouldn’t believe everything you read!”
            And he placidly continued to read the National Liar.

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“I vowed to never become like him,” said the ancient Tortoiselander, “but as you can see, I did anyhow.”

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So I wandered off, and straightaway ran into Uncle Ted.
He said, “Do you want to see the mountain? I’ve set up a telescope.”
“Through which monitor?”
“I mean a real telescope, one with lenses, on tripod stilts, that you have to look through! Come on!”
A real telescope on tripods to look through! Naturally I followed him. We went outside in the chill evening air, and my uncle Ted showed me Mount Kah-Pey through an genuine antique brass refraction telescope. It sure was pretty.
I mean Mount Kah-Pey was pretty, though the telescope was pretty pretty too. I didn’t notice; it was getting dark, and Mount Kah-Pey was starting to light up.
Uncle Ted whispered, “Lovely!”
“I’ve never seen it so brightly lit before!” I said. “Everybody has everything on!”
“All the lights… all the machines… on at full power,” Uncle Ted said quietly. Something was on his mind.
“Oh, I get it! They’re holding an Energy Potlatch!”
“That’s right,” said Uncle Ted. “They have so much energy right now that they don’t know what to do with it all. So they deliberately waste some.”
I complained, “We never get to waste energy here!
Uncle Ted explained, “We don’t have to, here.”
We took turns looking through the telescope at the spectacle of people deliberately wasting lots of energy. “Fireworks!” I cried. “Oh wow!”
“Almost as if Kah-pey were still a volcano,” Uncle Ted said quietly.
I sneaked a quick worried look at my uncle. He never liked to use the V-word. But he didn’t look upset, just thoughtful, so I turned back to look at the pretty fireworks.
Eventually Uncle Ted said, “We’d better go. And fold up the ‘scope, will you? No point in leaving it out here.” I carefully folded up the brass telescope so that we could bring it back safe with us.
Sam caught us sneaking in. He groused, “And it’s all the fault of that damn-fool preacher and his rich-bitch doxie, the prude.”
It wasn’t a terribly reverent way to describe the founders of the Neo-Conservative Party; but Uncle Ted didn’t object. He just left, carrying the ‘scope back to the storeroom.
My uncle-cubed asked me, “You know who I mean?”
“I know who you mean,” I retorted. “You mean Reverend Wryzill and Miz Constance!”
“The Reverend Doctor Wryzill, you mean,” he mock-scolded me.
“The Reverend Doctor Jackson Wryzill, you mean,” I retorted. It was a fun game.
“The Reverend Doctor “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” Jackson Wryzill, DD, MD, LLD, DDS, you mean,” my uncle-cubed told me. “And the renowned purity crusader Ms. Prudence Constance.”
I asked, “What’s purity?”
“ ‘Purity’?! Who taught you such a naughty word?”
I said, “You did!”
“Not me; you must mean Miz Prudence Constance. Why, she was chairperson of the Chastity Crusade, recording secretary of the Women’s Decency League, treasurer of the Anti-Sex Harassment Force, and president of the Guardians of, ahem, Purity.”
“What’s chastity?” I asked. “What’s decency?”
Sam sighed hugely. “More naughty words.”
“What’s Anti-Sex?”
“It’s what they were harassing people for.”

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“Now remember to spell it right, sonny! That’s W-R-Y as in wry bread! Z-I-L-L as in Godzilla!” the ancient Tortoiselander insisted. “And pronounce it right, too! That’s ‘rise-ill’, not ‘rizzle’! You hear me?”
“I hear you,” I said.
“And she’s Ms. Prudence Constance! M-S! Period! P-R-U-D-E-N-C-E! Space! C-O-N-S-T-A-N-C-E! Miz PC, you hear me?”
“I hear you,” I said.

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