Part 4: Night at the Races

A quirky literary trifecta: memoir, manual, and manifesto

This post is the fourth of a four part story. If you’ve read Part 1, 2, or 3, dive right into Part 4 here, and if not click on the links below, starting from the top:

Part 1: Night at the Races

Part 2: Night at the Races

Part 3: Night at the Races

EIGHTH RACE

FOR FOURTY-YEAR-OLDS AND UPWARD NON-WINNERS OF A RACE OTHER THAN MAIDEN, LAIMING OR BARTER
HEARSE: GHOST IN A BETTING MACHINE
DANCE: ELECTRICK!

>SCRIPT
A NIGHT AT THE RACES
An Interactive Fantasy Computer Adventure Game
Copyright © 1991 by lnfomook, Ink. All rights reversed.
A NIGHT AT THE RACES is a trademike of lnfomook, Ink.
Release 01 / Serial number 1503

Second Floor, near the front entranceway
Before you lies the second floor of an off track betting parlor in Chicago’s north Loop area. The floor is extremely crowded with noisy, noisome people, most of whom mill about in front of the numerous television monitors, screaming the name of their favored horse above the din of Phil Georgeff, the track announcer.

To your left is a semi-unoccupied table with one free chair, and to your right stands a SAM machine. A dense crowd lies straight ahead, blocking your only way to the pari-mutuel tellers.

>PANIC
Anyone in your position, with a sound mind and mortal body, would do just this. However, you suddenly realize that you are merely playing a game of interactive fiction on a personal computer: The descriptions have been written by The Author, and your responses are entered in all caps following the ‘>’ symbol.

(A hardcopy transcript of any segment of this adventure is available, should you possess the necessary hardware, and type ‘SCRIPT’
before beginning the session.)

Realizing this now, you regroup, take a deep breath, and decide to have another look at the accessible objects around you.

To your left is a semi-unoccupied table with one free chair, and to your right stands a SAM machine. A dense crowd lies straight ahead, blocking your only way to the pari-mutuel tellers.

>WALK STRAIGHT AHEAD
The crowd is too dense. You’d need a floor supervisor to assist you, or a bull horn.

>INVENTORY
You are carrying:

a lavender and beige pin-striped fake Armani sport suit (being worn)
the lavender and beige pin-stripe fake Armani sport suit contains:

a fake French passport
a fake red carnation (worn on left lapel)
a stolen airline ticket (One Way to Hobart, Tasmania)
a gaudy green and white SAM machine button (on right lapel)
$20 in loose American currency
$20,000 in counterfeit American currency
a bottle of hair tonic
a bad case of dandruff
a betting voucher
a magnifying glass
no bull horn

You are smoking:
a fake French cigarette

>WHO AM I?
You are Jean LeBusted, notorious international gambler and unsuccessful playboy(girl). From the dim corridors in the back of your obsessive compulsive mind, you can hear a voice, and that voice sez:

lls le traquerent avec des gobelets ils le traquerent avec soin
lls le poursuivirent avec desfourches et de l’espoir
lls menacerent sa vie avec une action dechemin de fer
lls le charmerent avec des souririreset du savon

>SCORE
You haven’t in a very, very long time. Considering that sooper-dooper tacky suit you wear and your unwholesome penchant for getting tossed in prison on counterfeiting, embezzlement, and forgery charges in most countries you try to visit, I’m not surprised.

>DIAGNOSE
Although you have an obsessive-compulsive personality and seem to be hearing things, you are not, for all intents and purposes, going looney. Should doubts remain as to the current state of your psyche, take a peek around you: compared to most of the stiffs in this joint, you’re doing pretty well. At least you have a somewhat stabile sense of self, however artificial and tasteless.

>THANKS A LOT
No problem. Any time.

>LOOK FOR FLOOR SUPERVIZOR
I don’t know the word ‘supervizor.’

>OOPS SUPERVISOR
You don’t see any of them around. And besides, being a notorious international gambler with a pocketful of funny money, they’d be the last type of people you should be looking for around here. Don’t you remember what happened to you that time in Monte Carlo when you almost drank yourself unconscious at the kino tables and then sneaked into that private party by assimilating yourself with that entourage of dancing midgets and kazoo musicians?

>NO
That was a rhetorical question.

>FIND SUPERVISOR
Okay, if you insist. You notice a tall, dark haired young man who is dressed like a cross between an undertaker and a used car salesman. He walks with this weird gait, has extremely poor posture, this nervous “hah hah hah” kind of laugh, a goofy giggle, wears his hair completely fucked up, ambling around the length and breadth of the joint with a walkie-talkie in hand, as if ready able and more than willing to throw people out.

You signal to him, and he approaches, rather reluctantly.

>SAY “HELLO”
“Yeah, whaddaya want?” he responds. Up close now, you notice that he is wearing a ‘Mark’ nametag, and desperately needs a shave. His shoes need polishing, and his tie is unspeakably awful. You figure the guy could at least buy a razor, shino, and clip.

>MARK, I NEED TO MAKE A BET
“Then go and wait in line just like everyone else,” replies Mark.

>ACT DISGUSTED
You wince, drool, piss, and moan. You raise your arm above your head and then wave it downwards and to the right across your chest, an expression of complete contempt.

You take a deep drag from your fake French cigarette, throw it to the ground, and exhale a thick plume of toxic smoke containing over ten thousand chemicals, with over twenty known carcinogens, straight into Mark’s face.

You smirk callously, stare at Mark the penetrating stare of an innocent human being wronged for no apparent reason, grinding the doomed butt into the cheap floor tiling.

You gaze up to the ceiling, and shrug, as if imploring the gods to explain why in heaven’s name you must deal with such a total asshole.

You pace back and forth, ask the initial question once again in a dejected, helpless tone.

Mark doesn’t seem to care, since he’s seen this two hundred times before, and is beginning to notice patterns.

Angered that you aren’t making enough ot an impression, you demand to speak to a manager.

Mark informs you that the goddammed management would tell you the same thing, wait in line like everyone else, Jack. No, in this case, Jean.

Suddenly both of you hear shouting coming from the bar area, and Mark is off and running to see if he can throw someone out.

You think to yourself that lucky for Mark, he was forced to leave you alone and dignified, or you would have seriously kicked his ass, punched his fucking lights out, or gone completely over his head and had him fired.

You stand in the entranceway, pleased with how you handled the situation, wondering what to do next.

>WHAT IS A ‘SAM’ MACHINE?
So that’s what you do next, ask a stupid question? Well, here’s your stupid answer: ‘Self Automated Mutuels,’ a way of placing a bet without the aid of a human teller. Works similar to those poker machines in Vegas, menu driven, just another vehicle that makes a gambler’s inevitable demise pragmatically more expedient.

>GO TO MACHINE
You work your way to the right, through drug dealers on leave, off duty Chicago cops, saloon owners, North Shore businesstypes, blue collar folks, welfare recipients, prostitutes, drug addicts, other cheap con men,
compulsives of all types and background, distributed as they are in this veritable vortex of never ending frustration and temptation.

Oscar Wilde once said that nothing is so desired and yet so forever unsatisfying as a cigarette — perhaps the author of Salome never bet on the ponies, or he actually did, once or even twice too often. I want you.

Second Floor, near SAM machine
Before you lies the squat SAM machine, enveloping you in pixellated computer monitor glowings of black, white, and reddish.

SAY HELLO TO SAM
FROM AUTOTOTE™

Above the screen sits a slot through which you must slide your betting voucher, a speaker from which emanates your SAM guide’s pre-recorded electronic voice, and another, larger slot about which is released winning,
losing, losing, winning, losing losing losing vouchers that winning or losing eventually wind up on the floor in front, better watch it, you might fall flat on your ass…

A few moments pass, and the graphics on the screen change:

PLACE YOUR BET
TOUCH THE SCREEN

> TOUCH THE SCREEN
Whoops! Guess the momentum must have thrown you slightly off kilter, your foot suddenly slipping on a loosing ticket, as before you make contact with the screen, you find yourself —

Second Floor, near SAM machine (lying on the ground)
Before and above you lies the squat SAM machine, enveloping you in pixellated computer monitor glowings of black, white, and reddish.

SELF SERVICE BETTING
MADE AS EASY AS
1–2–3

>STAND UP
Okay, you are now standing directly in front of the machine.

>TOUCH THE SCREEN
“Hi! Welcome to touch-screen betting.”

Who could that be? Extensive research into the manner in which people process and respond to information has discovered that all human beings, regardless of age, social standing, or gender, react most rapidly and effectively to the sound of a mature female voice.

Thus the prevalence of synthetic vocalizations that sound suspiciously like Mother, making themselves glaringly apparent when, to cite a few examples: 1) your F-16 is under attack or low on fuel; 2) when you call directory assistance for a phone number you are too lazy to look up in the Yellow Pages, or listen to a generic answering machine message; or 3) watch Sunday afternoon re-runs on Channel Nine of Star Trek episodes you’ve already seen eight hundred times before (buzz, whirr, click! “…working…”buzz, whirr, click!), and, of course, when you operate most of these Self Automated Mutuels machines, or ‘SAM’s’ for short, located sporadically throughout this OTB. Easy as —

“Hi! Welcome to touch-screen betting,” sez the sexy, sauntering, slightly trebly voice, and you aren’t sure whether you want to approach the machine and fondle, hug, grope, squeeze, ask advice from it or implore it to tell you your fortune, beg it to go away, or simply place a bet on “Jacky Wacky” ten bucks to show.

And like maid, mistress, or mother, men have been known to do all of the above, and more, to these gallavanting gizmos, Daryl the Toteman, far from maternal in appearance or behavior, finally showing up six foot six two hundred and twenty buzzed and burnt after being paged on the PA for ten minutes, laughing hysterically “hee hee hoo hoo hoo,” reluctantly and ineffectually pulling caught tickets, drinking straws, CTA tokens, rancid trench fries, chunks of hot dog buns, styrofoam, moist pieces of beer bottle labels, ripped program pages from the poor machine’s sensitive silicon innards, its gentle germanium coated genitalia.

“Hi! Welcome to t-t-t-t-touch-screen b-b-b-betting.”

And you, Jean LeBusted, neither fighter pilot, 411 aficionado, socialite, or Trekkie, irrespective of age, social standing, or gender, knowing that sabotage has not been one of your fortes, at least can experience a momentary sense of calm in the wake of that shocking episode with the floor supervisor whose dire clutches you so narrowly escaped from, whew!

Daryl gives you hiasprofessional shiteating grin, tosses all the loose junk into a plastic garbage bag, and goes running off, back to his hiding place.

>DARYL, HELP ME PLACE A BET
He’s hiding, and he won’t come out.

>SLIDE BETTING VOUCHER INTO SLOT
Zeeeeeep! Gears grumble, motors motorvate, dynamos doddle, dribble, die.

A menu pops on the screen, rows of numbered boxes, command buttons to press, Touch A Pool, Touch an Amount, Touch A Number, Clear, Next Bet, Finished.

“Touch A Pool,” she sez, a technoid tease, reminding you.

>READ PROGRAM
You don’t see any program here!

>SEARCH SUIT
You thoroughly search through your lavender and beige, fake pin striped Armani suit, and find:

a fake French passport
a fake red carnation (worn on left lapel)
a stolen airline ticket (One Way to Hobart, Tasmania)
a gaudy green and white SAM machine button (on right lapel)

…but no program.

Sorry, ace.

“Touch a pool,” repeats the SAM machine.

>HIT FINISHED
You touch the button, and your voucher is released.

>TAKE VOUCHER
Taken.

>GO LEFT
Second Floor, near the front entranceway

>AGAIN THEN SIT DOWN IN CHAIR
North of Entranceway, in front of table
You work your way to the one open table. On the cheapassed formica spread you see an open racing program, two empty beer glasses, and the outstretched, rather muscular arms of the gentleman occupying the chair immediately opposite where you stand.

You occupy the empty seat.

At the Table
Before you lies an open racing program, two empty beer glasses, and the weirdest guy you have seen since you were thrown out of Santa Anita two weeks ago.

The strange mother is dressed all in black, wearing a black cloak, a black tophat, and black cane at his side.

You shudder inexplicably as you go near him, as images of acts unmentionable in a family computer game somehow suddenly flash in your uneasy mind.

“I see you are a visitor as well, my friend — perchance also an Observer?” is what he finally sez in this thick, raspy voice, a noticeable English accent permeating it like a disease, his icy stare sending shivers up your spineless spine. “What might you do for me and my ape?”

>SAVE
Considering your situation, a wise move to make. Your position in the adventure is now saved onto floppy disk. Keep all magnetized material away, don’t spill coffee on it, or use the thing as a coaster at some insane fraternity party, and you’ll be alright.

>SAY “ATTENDEZ-VOUS OUELQU’UN?”
Your fake French doesn’t impress him, as he seems to fully understand the lingo.

Ypres, the gas, Vichy rule come to mind for some reason.

Good try, though.

Regardless, he stands up, with a gaze as though he wants to steal your soul, although overtly he extends his hand, presumably so you can shake it.

Shake baby, shake.

>TAKE PROGRAM
Stolen.

You are now carrying the racing program.

Your action seems to have really pissed this guy off, as if the thing were Holy Writ or something.

He kicks his chair back and lunges for you!

>SMILE
Sorry, champ, but this menacing soul isn’t interested in such pleasantries.

Without staining your fake sport suit too extensively, he succeeds in perpetrating acts unmentionable in a family computer game to your entire
meager body, making you wish from the Other World that you had stayed at the Dairyland Dog Race Track up in that Kenosha, Wisconsin, where the likes of you probably belong, anyway.

**** You have died ****

Would you like to RESTORE to a saved position, RESTART
from scratch, or QUIT?

>RESTORE
At the Table
Before you lies an open racing program, two empty beer glasses, and the weirdest guy you have seen since you were thrown out of Santa Anita two weeks ago.

The strange mother is dressed all in black, wearing a black cloak, a black tophat, and black cane at his side.

You shudder inexplicably as you go near him, as images of acts unmentionable in a family computer game somehow suddenly flash in your uneasy mind.

“I see you are a visitor as well, my friend — perchance alao an Observer?” is what he finatly sez in this thick, raspy voice, a noticeable English accent permeating it like a disease, his icy stare sending shivers up your spineless spine. “What might you do for me and my ape?”

>TAKE PROGRAM
Your action seems to have really pissed this guy off, as if the thing were Holy Writ or something.

You are now carrying the racing program.

He kicks his chair back and lunges for you!

>POINT TO PROGRAM
The Brute in Black stops suddenly in his tracks, gawking at the program.

He seems intent on figuring out which horse you are pointing to.

“So, you know of a secret, a code? This better be The One, or I will find you. I will find you, for you cannot possibly hide from me.”

>SAY “OUI!”
You might look stupid in that suit, but now you appear even more dumb in terms of verbal communication. Parlezvous anglais?

>SAY ”YES!”
You don’t have to yell. He’s right there.

The Mean Mortician remains temporarily transfixed, eagerly waiting for your advice.

Better make this tip a quick one, Jean, or you’ll find yourself floating home, wherever that might be.

>READ PROGRAM
Being kind of near sighted, your magnifying lense tucked away with believe me no time in which to retrieve it, you can make out only the horse names, written in large, bold print, running down the face of the usurped program, thus:

1: Uncle Mephisto
2: Saint Aleister
3: Caponey Baloney
4: Groovie Moovie
5: Bunker Bryan
6: Alkemy Alkie
7: Snark Sandwich
8: Silicon Con
9: Danger Angel
10: Boo Boo Boojum

As you peer at this program, you stop for a second, and rub your eyes.

Opening them again, you can now swear that these letters somehow appear to scintillate, almost glow with this unearthly light. What up?

“Well, I haven’t got all day, chap. I must know.”

His tone and general demeanor imply a basic, “Hurry up, or I’ll kill you” kind of attitude.

>POINT TO “SNARK SANDWICH” HORSE
“That one is a total longshot! Are you kidding me? Why you — ”

I guess he is unimpressed with your choice.

Before he can grab you, a frilly haired brunette woman appears, dressed all in scarlet, who looks even more ornery than he does, while carrying comparably odd vibes. If you thought things were bad, they are an awful lot worse now.

Have you SAVED your position? Don’t mean to be negative, you know…

>USE FRENCH CHARM
You’ve got to be kidding.

Slightly amused, though, they give you just one more turn before you become greyhound food.

>PANIC
This time, it works.

Heisted program in hand, you impulsively jump out of your seat and make a run for it, straight across and into the seething mass of humanity, joining them in their inexorable obliteration of personality.

>WHO AM I?
You can’t tell, your personality now inexorably obliterated.

All you can do is jump up and down, make lots of noise, and get in everyone else’s way.

>SAY “HELP ME!”
You can’t speak, your personality now inexorably obliterated.

All you can do is jump up and down, make lots of noise, and get in everyone else’s way.

>GO WEST
You can’t move, your personality now inexorably obliterated.

All you can do is jump up and down, make lots of noise, and get in everyone else’s way.

>PRAY
You can’t pray, your personality now inexorably obliterated.

All you can do is jump up and down, make lots of noise, and get in everyone else’s way.

>WHO, ME WORRY?
Who’s me?

John Von Neumann, developer of the atomic bomb and the electronic computer, considered one of the foremost mathematical minds not only of the 20th but of any century, went to the same high school in Hungary as The Author’s mother, who actually had John’s math teacher, very same guy.

“Johnny was a very clever boy,” he had told her.

He sure was. Janoska would go on to outline the fundamentals behind computer design, Game Theory, obscure problems in conceptual mathematics, thermonuclear warfare, exotic dining experiences. With the punctilinious palate and predilection toward highly spiced food characteristic of a Hungarian Jew, he was known to drive more than one hundred and fifty miles outside of Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project geared toward the development of the atomic bomb in order to snag some decent Mexican food. Boy, he loved those burritos and entomadas!

In later life, his obsession became the construction of what has since been called a “Von Neumann Machine”, an electronic device capable of its own replication, bridging the gap between life and machine, the animate and inanimate worlds.

Famous for his hard line politicking against the Soviets during the height of the Cold War (the severity of which he doubtlessly contributed to), Johnny Von was quoted as saying: “If you say ‘Bomb them tomorrow,’ I will tell you ‘Bomb them today.’ And if you then say ‘Bomb them today,’ I will then tell you ‘Bomb them immediately.’” Advocate of a First Strike Policy, making ultra-conservatives look like Edmund Musky, Von N. became intimate with honchos at the Pentagon, and he openly admitted to being in love with that kind of power, enjoying photography sessions, limo rides, and dinner party conversations with five star generals, presidents, corporate heads, financiers, and other Leaders of Men.

He was known to do his best mathematical work in the back rooms at parties held by rich people, the sounds of raucous conversation and hot jazz making those prodigious brain juices flow, those differentials differentiate, dancing on stage and page. Idiot savante, genius without a cause, Johnny did pretty well for himself until the radiation exposure he received from the testing of his techno-toys in the Pacific poisoned his blood and sent him to the VA hospital, Janos cashing his chips before Russia got nuked and computers were taught how to fuck themselves, what a bummer.

Beforing biting the Big One, several CIA, CID, and FBI men surrounded him at his death bed, in order to make sure that in his delirium he would not reveal any secrets, military, scientific, or party dip. He didn’t: all he said was that he wanted to be converted to Roman Catholicism. His wish was granted. Shortly after the priest showed, Janos checked out, first step on his final trip to astral hierarchies he could not understand, those state rooms and executive offices in the sky, poor John exemplifying the human reality that power, corruption, and greed lead not to mastery of self but to its implacable annihilation.

Today, the Cold War is over, and the intellectual effects of the dark side of Von’s character are all but vanquished. That type of thinking still exists, and his compatriot Edward Teller still befuddles science historians and humanists alike, his Star Wars defense ideas scarrier than the worst nightmares from a long long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… But the archetypes of peace and freedom, however sluggish, continue to mature and gain strenghth — we are becoming less tolerant of tyrants, secular, academic, or scientific.

On the lighter side of thangs, astronomers now speculate about and even search for the existence of alien Von Neumann machines, incredibly sophisticated devices programmed to explore the local universe while replicating themselves in the process, technological phylogeny and ontogeny reporting back to their Motherworld, a species creating a species whose life blood and instinctual directive is based upon information, exploration, and wiring that would make Lilly Tomlin freak out, 4.3 x 10^14 ringie-dingie, 5.9 x 10^21 ringie-dingie… while the innards of this particular machine upon which I write remain esaentially faithful to that Von Neumann prototype of over fifty years ago, input, output, CPU, and peripherals, thank you very much.

And you know something irrelevant? Mad Magazine used to be truly funny, a riot. What happened? Like Von Neumann, for good or for bad, for bad or for evil, it had its time. Calmness, patience, non-action are viable solutions,
providing answers by not bothering to ask superfluous questions. Time, time is often the only key…

>ARE YOU DONE YET?
Yes. Your turn.

>BE PATIENT
Why, how Zen of you. Care for a bowl of rice? Some yogurt? Aphoto of a photo of Nothing? Or how about a copy of Pranksterism and the Art of Surfboard Maintenance?

>WAIT
Time passes…

>WAIT
Time passes…

You are suddenly awoken from your stupor at the host desk by Sam, whom you know from his ubiquitous presence on the second floor and Mezzanine.

Sam is a regular patron, in his late thirties, a bit of a queen, and of indeterminate nationality. Aware of his inscrutable morphology, he likes to ask people where they are from, and then, when they return the question, smile amicably, and say “I’m from Mars, hee hee. That’s right, I’m from outer space,” his strange, non-Occidental bug eyes extending, staring straight at you, yikes. Who is this guy?

Some say his name is Benji, though most call him “Sam” by virtue of his peculiar habit, extended over several months, of wearing a green and white SAM machine button, the ones used by the employees in the initial promotional campaign for the automated tellers:

Ask me about
SAM
Machines

Right now, Sam seems pretty agitated, and he jars you up from a bad dream, one in which you were a notorious international gambler and unsuccessful playboy(girl).

Sam is attempting to gain your attention by jumping earnestly and repeatedly up and down, up and down, up and down.

He waves his hands, like a not so pretty butterfly.

>SAM, WHAT DO YOU WANT?
“I told you, Mark, I told you already! You don’t even listen to me! I want a salad. Can they make me a nice house salad? I want a nice house salad with dressing. Some very good dressing. And the bread! Don’t forget the bread! 1 want some bread with my salad, okay? I want my salad, I want my salad right now!

>WHO AM I?
You are Mr. Mook, or Mark, or Mike, or Borus. Is that clear enough for you?

>NO
No? Well, that wasn’t merely a rhetorical question.

Your name might be ambiguous, but your job title less so: this is your very first night as a floor supervisor at an Off Track Betting parlor on north State Street in Chicago.

Better?

>YES
That was a rhetorical question, silly.

Now get back to work.

>INVENTORY
You are carrying:

a walkie-talkie (clipped to your belt)
a nametag (pinned to your suit)
a CTA token
a wallet (containing):

$5 in honest to gods U.S. cashflow
several photo ID’s, all of them oogly
a token used for the video game Galaga™

>DIAGNOSE
You have a slight headache, a slight toothache, and want to go home.

>CALL A WAITER
You look around for Max, see him, and signal him over to you.

>SAVE
Sure, work can be psychologically debilitating, excruciatingly dull, and generally a real downer, but dangerous? Alright alright already.

Your position in the adventure is now saved onto floppy disk. Keep all anesthetized material away, don’t spell “toffee” on it, or use the thing as a toaster at some inane tupperware party, and you’ll be all blight.

Max finally arrives at the Host Station, looking all wigged-out, and wants to know what’s going on.

For some reason, you feel suspicious of him, as if he’s about to pull a fast one.

>POINT TO SAM
Max sez: “Oh, Christ, that faggot? You do this on purpose, don’t you? I know you do, I know you do this for a reason. Well, you know something? You better watch it, man, you better watch it, cause one of these days, one of these days, man,” his eyes bulge, he throws his head back, arms extended, ready to attack. “You know what, man? I’m goin to come at you when you’re leaat expecting it, man, and I’m gonna waste you, you got that. you understand, you know the ropes, man, you get where I’m coming from, I’m serious, really serious, man, I mean, do you get it…?”

>ATTACK MAX
Strictly in an effort to maintain your defensive posture, you put Max into a double nelson.

You take his serving tray away and strike him with it repeatedly across his skull.

You floor him with a karate chop to the neck, a swinging kick to the groin area.

You skewer him horribly with several of those stubby green “Winner’s Circle” pencils.

You call security, and Johnny Nimbusson comes up to the Club and shoots him between the eyes.

You strategically impale him with several dozen plastic cocktail stirrers, paralyzing him from the eyebrows on down.

You hurl him down to a transit platform from one of the third floor windows, where his body is subsequently dismembered by a passing CTA commuter train.

You force him to consume an entire bottle of J&B, after which he receives a number of clonic convulsions, all of them fatal.

You club him, poison him, force him into a life of off track handicapping.

You insult his mother, rob him of his tips, and accuse him of manufacturing LSD in his bathtub.

You spray him into submission with the hot water hose in the dishwashing station.

You throw catsup, vinegar, and hot mustard bottles at his head.

Chicago police arrive, and take him in.

He files assault charges against you from his death bed, and you are convicted of second degree murder.

Sentenced by a unanimous jury decision, thrown in the worst wing of Cook Country Jail, you join a prison blues band and are shortly thereafter killed in a freak laundry accident.

**** You have died ****

Would you like to RESTORE to a saved position, RESTART from scratch, or QUIT?

>RESTORE
Host Station
Up top in the Derby Club, you impress people with your abilities to take reservations by phone, ease social unrest, and spend as much hang-time as you can over at the bar, smoking cigarettes in flagrant disregard for your job duties as floor supervisor.

On the desk is a telephone, a map of the dining floor, a red grease pencil, and a rag.

In front sits a red cushion bar stool.

Sam is here, jumping up and down, up and down.

Max is here, looking all wigged-out, wanting to know what’s going on.

>SCORE
Bummer.

You have 22 points of a total of 36,000, giving you the level of Young Disenfranchised Unpublished Artist Type.

Better luck next time.

Sam is still here, jumping up and down, up and down.

Max is still here, looking all wigged-out, wanting to know what’s going on.

>MAX, ORDER A SALAD FOR SAM
With a sigh, Max takes his order, and retreats to the kitchen.

He gazes back at you, and gives you an evil grin.

Slip suddenly shows up, with a worried expression on his face.

“The Prez is on his way up, Mike. Get set. Look busy, though not busy enough to ignore them. Look observant, though not too observant that you make them feel you are doing it just cause they’re here. Give them special attention, though don’t make them aware that you are giving them special attention. Overall, just make absofucking certain that everything is O.K. with them, you got that? Make sure Max doesn’t screw up. Make sure that they get everything they need, when they need it. Make sure that you cruise to their table every once in while, and make sure they don’t see anyone hanging around doing nothing. This better go over well, they better be perfectly satisfied with our service, or it’s my ass, and if it’s my ass, it’s your ass, too, and everyone else’s. You got that?”

>SAY ’’YES”
“Cool,” responds Slip, “I’ll let Ada and Max know they are coming, too. Hang tight.”

Shortly thereafter, two men approach the host desk, one blondish and youngish, the other middle aged, with short dark hair, glasses, and a mustache.

“Two for dinner, please,” says the latter, giving you The Hairy Eyeball.

>SEAT THEM
You pull out a couple menus from their protective silo within the host desk, ask the two execs to follow you, please, and seat them in table #42 of the smoking section, a four top.

You mention tonight’s specials, and wish them good gastronomy.

After letting them know a waiter will soon be there to take their orders, and bring them drinks, you slowly retreat back to the host desk, perusing the other diners in the process…

Host Station
On the desk is a telephone, a map of the dining floor, a red grease pencil, and a rag. In front sits a red cushion bar stool.

Maximillian returns.

“Which one is the prez: blondy, or the doopy guy in the specks?”

So does Slip.

“What, are you nuts? Keep your voices down, both of you! The guy with the glasses and mustache is him. We have to make sure everything is perfect!”

>MAKE EVERYTHING PERFECT
Elected Emperor of the United States of Love, you bring about sweeping political, social, and economic reforms.

Eliminating the defense budget, you appoint Pee Wee Herman as Secretary of Peace, and allocate seven trillion dollars to a program sponsoring advanced research into preventative medicine, fractal geometry, and psychedelic backdrops for puppet shows.

Citizens of the world dance and sing in the streets, make love on balconies and in the foyers of transient hotels, send and receive unspeakable quantities of junk mail to one another, eat lots of mangos, in the process sending out lots of good vibes to sentient insectisoid beings on the eighth planet orbiting Tau Cati.

Brian Eno, now Minister of Groovy Music, rewrites the “Star Spangled Banner” to encompass exotic smells, interviews in hip record stores, muslim song and dance routines, and synthesized slide guitar.

Traveling around from country village to country village, you distribute raisins, autographed copies of Zippy the Pinhead comics, and electric fans.

Your mission declared a success by the United Libations, you retreat to the Fun Room in the Grey House in Slothington, District of Cunnilingus, where the world’s most tremendous set of Legoland™ building blocks is waiting for your imminent return, servants poised at the ready to categorize the loose pieces according to color, shape, and number of little notches on top…

Just kidding. Good try, though. Leggo my Lego!

>
What? Don’t be shy.

>SIT DOWN
No time for that, as Max comes running over.

“Hey, this weirdo son of a bitch is freaking out! Come over here for a second!”

>FOLLOW MAX
Max leads you to table #50 in the smoking section, agonizingly close to those two corporate big wigs you just sat in #42. Oh oh.

Table #50, smoking section
A two top, set up for one. On the table is an arrangement of a bread dish, two forks, a folded white cloth napkin, a knife, and a spoon.

Sam is sitting at the table, waving his arms up and down, up and down.

Max is here, taking his order, trying to calm the queen down.

>SAM, WHAT’S WRONG?
“He says that the kitchen is closed! And I want my salad! Why can’t I have my salad, only a salad, a little bitty salad, Mark? You tell him! You tell him I want my salad! It’s only a salad, Mark, only a salad. But he says that the kitchen is closed! What can I do, Mark. whatever can I do?”

>MAX, GET HIM A SALAD
With another sigh, worse than the one before, Max retreats briefly to the kitchen.

From the other end of the dining room, you can see Slip seated, urgently gesturing over to you.

>GO TO SLIP
You unobtrusively make your way across the dining room…

Table #14, in the back of the non-smoking section
A four top, set up for one. On the table is a disorganized arrangement of a dirtied bread dish, two forks, a wrinkled cloth napkin, a knife, and a spoon.

In the far corner rests a half-eaten entre, one quarter of a hamburger and about half the trench fries remaining.

“Listen, Mike, what the hell is going on? Calm that guy down, or throw him out. This is looking really bad! The top corporate guys are here, and look what’s going on!”

>POINT TO LEFTOVER FOOD
“Yeah, thanks, man.”

His mood calms down noticeably.

“Take it back, and tell Max to get that weirdo his food quick, so he can get outta here as fast as possible.”

>TAKE FOOD THEN GO TO KITCHEN
Taken.

You hustle your way toward the kitchen…

…But Sam grabs your arm as you pass, suddenly haulting you in your tracks…

Table #50
Sam is here, waving his arms up and down, up and down.

“HI, Mark. Oh oh oh, what is all that, eh? Nice food, nice food, yes?”

>IGNORE SAM, GO TO KITCHEN
As you brush past him, Sam reaches up and grabs the burger remains(!), laughing hysterically as he does so…

Outer Kitchen, Derby Club
A stainless steel counter and steam table runs the eastern flank of this section.

To the north lies the dishwasher’s station, to the south the waiters’ computer register and coffee station.

Back west, the way you came in, are two swinging doors designed to avoid collisions, the right one for entrances, the left for exits.

Errol is behind the counter, smirking at you.

Thomas is washing dishes, giggling.

Max is in front of the register, extremely confused.

Nullie is in front of the register, helping Max overcome his confusion.

>TELL NULLIE AND MAX ABOUT SAM
“That’s totally gross, man,” sez Max. “Are you sure he took it? God. I don’t even want to get near him when I bring out that lousy salad. Jesus. You see his shirt? It’s filthy — I heard he sleeps in the park. Man, that’s totally gross. Get me outa here.”

“That just makes me want to throw up,” sighs Nullie.

(Take) accounts, arp, barf, blow beets, blow chow, blow chunks, blow lunch, boff, brack, brake, bring a friend, bring up, cack, cackle, country cascade, chuck, upchuck, chuck up, chunder, defood, desnarf, drain the bilge, dreck, drive French horses, dump, dump the pump, earp, flash the hash, flay the fox, fling food, fling up, happy returns, honk the hash, jerk the cat, keck, keckle, liquid lunch, lose a lunch, lose some cookies, make a sale — various word associations and vulgarisms that come to mind, in alphabetical order no less, all so out of context in relation to your affections for Nullie that you feel as though you want to bend over and perk, puke, pump ship, pump a dump, purge, purge the bellows, quake, qualp, ralph, reech, regurgitate, retch, sell out, shoot the works, sick, sick up, skin a goat, sling a cat, snap the oreos, snarfless, snark, spew, spew chunks, spill the beans, spill chow, have a technicolor yawn, throw a map, throw up, toss a meal, toss dessert, urp, urge, varf, vomick, vomitus, voof, whip the cat, york, yonker, yoodle — yuuuuuurggghhhhhhh!

>SMILE
After all that, it proves slightly more difficult than anticipated.

You struggle with muscles in your face, and after a while, muscles in your face give in.

“You have a nice smile, Mike,” comments Errol, blinking, rubbing his profusion of body fat seductively.

“What you doin after work? We goin out to play? Do you wanna play with me, Mike? I know you do. I can feel you do, don’t you? Ooo, I can feel it, eh, baby? Why you scared of me, Mike. I know you like me. Why you be scared of me then?”

“Hahahahahaha!” blurts out Thomas from behind the station.

You cringe.

“Hahahahahahaha! Errol be excited, ooooo-weeee! Hahahaha! Chchchchchchch!” his ‘ch’s’ sounding like a staccato succession of the Scottish ‘ch’ as in ‘loch,’ or the German ‘ch’ as in ‘ach,’ though infinitely more frivolous, funloving, and goofy. Then mimicking Errol, “‘Mike, are
you scared?’ Hahahahahah! Chchchchchch!”

Thomas waves both arms forward and down like some Egyptian servant, a nomadic serf paying homage to the Illustrious Emir.

“What’s going on here?” questions Max, oblivious to all those little green pixels, pixellating confusedly on the CRT before his nose.

“Well,” wonders Nullie, taking a break from her tutorial services, “maybe I should leave you girls to yourselves, huh? Don’t mean to interrupt any of your fun and games.”

>NULLIE, BUT I LOVE YOU!
You start to say that, but stop.

You stop again, and then start.

You start again and then start.

You stop once more and then start where you’ve stopped, only to stop again where you started.

You give Douglas Adams credit for the humorous description of your malaise, and then stop yet again.

Before you are able to start again and utter another twisted and utterly confused monosyllable, you remember, in a flash, that those two corporate fellows are out in the dining room, while Sam has yet to receive his salad, waving his arms up and down, up and down in the process, and Slip all this time no doubt sitting off in the far corner, watching the dam burst from before your very eyes…

>PANIC
With Nullie around? Show a little backbone.

>MAX, TAKE SALAD TO SAM
Much better.

Shrugging his shoulders, leaving Nullie to the circuitry and software, Max removes a serving tray from under the counter, places the house salad, a bread basket, and a dressing container on it, and goes off to Sam’s table.

>FOLLOW MAX
You make your way through the swinging door and back out into the dining room…

Table #50, in the smoking section
Sam is here, waving his arms up and down, up and down.

Max is here, serving Sam his house salad.

Max places Sam’s order down on the table, one item at a time.

All is swell, in perfect operating order, until Sam suddenly grabs the now empty tray from Max’s hand and proceeds to place all the items back.

His task accomplished before you can interfere, Sam jerks himself out of his seat, and goes sauntering past you, saying “I want to eat my salad downstairs, Mark. I am going downstairs to eat my house salad! Bye-bye!”

You hear giggling from several of the other tables, as Slipcomes sprinting over.

“What the hell is going on here?!”

>EXPLAIN SITUATION TO SLIP
“Get after the bastard! You know he’s not allowed to do that, especially with — “ he abruptly pauses, looks slowly behind him, gesturing with his head at Table #42 “ — those two guys from corporate here! Now run after him, making damn sure you don’t create an even worse scene than what we have already, and I’ll watch the floor while you’re gone!”

>FOLLOW SAM
Back Stairs, Derby Club Level
Access to the Club can be gained from these back stairs, in addition to the elevators on the eastern wall.

A dozen or so steps lead down this narrow glass-lined corridor to a rest, where a dozen or so more steps continue, ending down on the Mezzanine Level.

Sam is here, swishing down the lower set of steps, about to turn the corner.

>AGAIN
Back Stairs, Mezzanine Level
One can see up top the back entrance to the Derby Club, and the base of the Host Station, from this vantage point at the base of the stairs.

The pathway winds in a sharp U back to the Mezzanine from here.

A sign adorns the far wall:

JACKET REQUIRED

Old men mill about, consult programs, pace, ash on the floor, stoop down to pick up and examine discarded tickets.

Sam is at the end of the U, scurrying with tray in hand, about to head down another flight of stairs, these leading to the second floor.

>AGAIN
Base of Stairs, Mezzanine Level
To the east is the entrance to the Mezzanine, while straight down is a smooth flight of steps to the second floor.

A group of Oriental men stand, leaning against the balcony, cheering their horses to the finish. Looks like it’s gonna be close.

Sam is headed down the steps, weaving his way through the crowds.

>AGAIN
Base of Stairs, Second Floor
You can take steps to the Mezzanine from here, while behind you lies a cigarette machine.

On the machine is placed a sign that reads:

OUT OF ORDER

The sound of more than one hundred people going totally nuts on the second floor can be heard, and they come spinning around the final turn…

You catch a glimpse of Sam, headed with his tray of food straight into the crowd on the second floor.

>AGAIN
Second Floor, near the front entranceway
Before you lies the second floor of an off track betting parlor in Chicago’s north Loop area.

The floor is extremely crowded with noisy, noisome people, most of whom mill about in front of the numerous television monitors, screaming the name of their favored horse above the din of Phil Georgeff, the track announcer.

To your left is a semi-unoccupied table with one free chair, and to your right stands a SAM machine.

A dense crowd lies straight ahead, blocking your only way to the pari-mutuel tellers.

Looking for Sam, you are suddenly distracted by a strange looking character in a lavender and beige pinstriped fake Armani sport suit, who is smoking a fake French cigarette.

He is waving you over to him.

>SAVE
Your position in the adventure is now saved onto floppy disk.

Keep all asthma material away, don’t spell “jockey” on it, or use the thing as a boaster at some insane handicapping party, and you’ll be all slight in the pocket book.

>GO TO GAMBLER
You make your way through the hyper-dense crowd to the gambler with the flashing outfit.

He acknowledges your approach, and sez “Hello.”

>FIND SAM
You turn around and ignore the gambler, scanning the floor for your mischievous muncher.

Before you find Sam and the weirdo gambler type has a chance to wander off in frustration, the entire Universe ceases to exist, evaporating in a diabolical quandry of time dilation and illogic, as the number of parallel universes spontaneously generated as a result of your careless act floods the informational services of the astral bureaucracy with such mind-bogglingly vast quantities of information that all celestial civil servants become hopelessly backlogged for longer than Eternity, which, including their paid vacations and sick leave, raises, bonus pay, and union meetings, is a pretty long time.

**** You have died ****

Would you like to RESTORE to a saved position, RESTART from scratch, or QUIT?

>RESTORE
Second Floor, near the front entranceway

>GO TO GAMBLER
You make your way through the hyper-dense crowd to the gambler with the flashing outfit.

He acknowledges your approach, and sez “Hello.”

>SAY “YEAH, WHADDAYA WANT?”
He scrutinizes you thoroughly and condescendingly, and finally says “I need to make a bet,” thus complaining that the teller lines are too long, and implying that room should be made for such a high roller and dilettante as himself.

SAY “THEN GO AND WAIT IN LINE JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE”
The gambler winces, drools, pisses, and moans.

He raises his arm above his head and then waves it downwards and to the right across his chest, an expression of complete contempt.

He takes a deep drag from his fake French cigarette, throws it to the ground, and exhales a thick plume of toxic smoke containing over ten thousand chemicals, with over twenty known carcinogens, straight into your face.

He smirks callously, stares at you the penetrating stare of an innocent human being wronged for no apparent reason, grinding the doomed butt into the cheap floor tiling.

He gazes up to the ceiling, and shrugs, as if imploring the gods lo explain why in heaven’s name he must deal with such a total asshole.

He paces back and forth, asks the initial question once again in a dejected, helpless tone.

You don’t seem to care, since you’ve seen this two hundred times before, and are beginning to notice patterns.

Angered that he isn’t making enough ot an impression, he demands to speak to a manager.

You inform him that the goddammed management would tell him the same thing, wait in line like everyone else, Jack. No, in this case, Jean.

Suddenly both of you hear shouting coming from the bar area, and you are off and running to see if you can throw someone out, preferably Sam.

You think to yourself that lucky for this gambler, he was forced to shut his face, or you would have seriously kicked his ass, punched his fucking lights out, or gone completely over his head and had him thrown out of the joint.

You head off to the bar, pleased with how you handled the situation, wondering what to do next.

>GO TO BAR AND LOOK FOR SAM
You head off to the bar, but before you know it, you are swept into the seething masses, your personality inexorably obliterated.

All you can do is jump up and down, make lots of noise, and get in everyone else’s way. Isn’t this fun?

>WAIT
Time passes… come on now, isn’t this a gas?

>WAIT
Time passes… laugh it up a bit, Jackson! Aren’t you having a riot?

>WAIT
Time passes… a party to end all parties, raw excitement, eh?

>NO
You can’t state a denial, your personality now inexorably obliterated.

All you can do is jump up and down, make lots of noise, and get in everyone else’s way.

Ha ha! Gotcha!

>WAIT
Time passes…
Table #42, smoking section
A four top, set up for two.

On the table is an arrangement of two bread dishes, four forks, two folded white cloth napkins, two knives, and two spoons.

A blond haired gentleman in an expensive suit is sitting across from you.

>DIAGNOSE
You succumb to sweeping bouts of megalomania, periodically offset by cascading welters of deep, dark, dank depression and perverse paranoia.

One moment you contribute to such noteworthy causes as UNICEF and Aid
to the Contras, while the next you suspect everyone of betrayal, including and especially your own employees.

Before you became successful at making loads and loads of money, friends, family, and acquaitances thought you were “crazy as fuck.”

Now that you make loads and loads of money, they are excessively nice to you, overflow with praise and good cheer, ask for small, interest-free loans, and playfully call you “eccentric”.

>WHO AM I?
You are President of the Winner’s Circle Corporation.

>INVENTORY
You don’t wanna know.

Suddenly from over at a table directly opposite from your own, you hear a tremendous amount of commotion, followed by the establishment’s night manager running on by, as if launching a desperate attempt at trying to quell the disturbance.

A few moments pass, that tall floor supervisor with the silly grin and bad posture down the stairs and gone as the noise finally dies down, and Slip, Sportsman’s Turf Manager Slip, Sr.’s son, comes slowly up to your table.

“I’m really sorry about all this noise, gentlemen. We’ve got a handle on it, though. I mean, you must know how it goes, what with the new dress code and all. Hope this hasn’t disrupted your meal in any way.’’

>COMPLAIN
Cruel, very cruel.

You express dissatisfaction with the employees (even though you have not met most of them), their service (even though you have yet to be served), the atmosphere (even though you just got here), the food (even though you haven’t eaten yet), the drinks (even though you have drunk nothing but ice water), the clientel (even though they supply you with your over-inflated and chimeral salary, the magnitude and source of which remains thankfully unknown to most of your relatives and the IRS).

You mention that improvements must be made (even though you don’t know which ones), or severe actions will be taken (even though you aren’t sure when), and various drastic changes implemented immediately (even though you can’t say how, for whom, or why).

“No problem,” sez Slip, a little nervous, and justifiably so. “No problem, I’ll get on it, get right on it, right away. Right away!”

>SCORE
Congratulations!

You have climbed the ladder of success, realized the American dream.

You have $300,000 a year and more wealth than you can possibly imagine (although you can imagine a lot), an expense account, a prostitute you visit bi-weekly on the Gold Coast, and a membership in the NRA, reaching the level of Corporate Power Broker.

>MAKE A TOAST
You bastard.

You tip glasses with blondie, who sits back in his chair, glowing with self-satasfaction and power, and who begins to speculate.

“I sometimes wonder what this place really would be like, if we at the corporate offices could finally have our way, you know what I’m saying? No federal regulation, no inter-track controls, no other such interference, meddling, and general bullshit we have to deal with. I wonder.”

He pauses, and a contemplative mood crosses his features, and continues.

“You know something?” He leans across the table, looks quickly to the right and then left, and continues in a hushed voice. “1 think we should muster the balls and actually do something, take these extremely important matters into our own hands. I think we should get someone, you know what I’m saying? Actually go out there and hire someone special to take care of a few things for us, clear the way for what American free enterprise is all about. What would happen if that worked? What would this place really be like, then, if we finally had our way… ?”

>UNSCRIPT
A NIGHT AT THE RACES
An Interactive Fantasy Computer Adventure Game
Copyright © 1991 by lnfomook, Ink. All rights reversed.
A NIGHT AT THE RACES is a trademike of lnfomook, Ink.
Release 01 / Serial number 1503

NINTH RACE

A FANTASY FLASH FOR CHARACTERS REAL, IMAGINARY AND CORPORATE
CREATIVE WAGERING: YOU BET YOUR LIFE (OR SOMEONE ELSE’S)
PURSE: FIGURE OUT WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON, GET OUT ALIVE AND WITH ENOUGH LEFT OVER FOR BUS FARE HOME
DISTANCE: WAY OUT THERE

A tall, ominous-looking man dressed all in black, with a black cap, tophat, and cane, accompanied by a woman dressed all in scarlet, wearing black shoes and sash, walk slowly, almost seductively into the Clubhouse entrance, past the program booth, and through the double doors to the base of the escalator. Victor attempts a greeting, a ceremonial “Watch your step!” but is singularly mesmerized by their presence.

Instead of riding the flowing machine to the top, they choose to walk, slowly, diligently, up up up all the stairs, one step at a time, concentrating, meditating at the threshold, as if each increment were a level of initiation, each step an approach not to a gaming floor, but to hidden chambers of a forgotten though still powerful prince, a silent dignitary demanding the utmost respect, painful admiration and elegiance through absolute submission.

Rising to the top, they make their way effortlessly like a couple hired hands through the crowds on the second floor, the reckless and almost bestial commotion of the evening dissipating with their arrival, creating a corridor equally unconscious by which both of them traverse to the exact center of the game room floor.

The tall man removes his tophat, revealing a perfectly bald head, upon which he places a strange triangular hat, a six-sided star irradiating white light emblazened upon its face. He then removes his cape and coat, exposing a bright red ceremonial robe with belt, the color of which both fascinates and frightens the now silent and awe struck crowd that completely envelopes the two of them in a circle of beastly power.

The tall man tosses his cane to his assistant, who places it delicately at her side, watching.

The tall man stands perfectly still at the exact center of the Circle, and slowly closes his eyes.

THE MASTER THERION (ALEISTER CROWLEY)
He faces east, his eyes remaining closed, stands stock still for a moment, and then draws a deep breath, poised with his right thumb between index and middle fingers, the pointing thumb pressed against his lower lip, and suddenly sweeps his right hand down and out above his head, bellowing forcibly:

APO PANTOS KAKODAIMONOS!

Exhaling methodically through his nose, then drawing back his ever-deepening breath, poised again with his thumb pressed against his lower lip, regaining his composure totally, he then moves same hand and its thumb up slowly to the center of his forehead, and chants:

SOI!

Repeating above procedure exactly as before, only this time moving his thumb straight down in a perfect vertical line across his face, against his neck, chest, and finally against and settling by his groin, he chants:

WFALLE!

Thumb riding straight up that imaginary line from his groin and then back to his chest, sliding it then perpendicularly toward and then firmly pressed against his right shoulder blade:

ISCUROS!

Straight along perpendicular, across chest again, this time toward and firmly pressed against left shoulder:

EUCARISTOS!

Moving thumb from left shoulder to solar plexus, then lifting left hand to join with right, fingers locking together in alternating bands, he places both hands thus joined over his head, forming a triangle whose three vertices are both elbows and the tips of his knuckles, gathering all his strength together in a rhythmic, chanting crescendo of:

IAW!

The Cross Qabalistic, first step of The Star Ruby Banishing Ritual, first degree rite of the Ordo Templi Orientis, now completed, clearing mind and body for the all important opening of the four elemental corners, squaring the Circle, the three into the four, the four off and into the Infinite…

DOCTOR WHOVEE
Sitting back in his cushion chair facing his Whoscope, speaking calmly into the camera:

During the early dawn hours of Thursday, July 11, 1991, a total solar eclipse will grace the fair skies of Hawaii, pass across the oceanic plateau of the eastern Pacific Ocean, and methodically cross over half a dozen major metropolitan areas in Mexico, including that nation’s federal capital, smog shrouded, over-populated Mexico City.

The path of the Moon’s shadow will continue, through the Sea of Cortez, into the southern Caribbean, until the darkness will draw back from the Earth at sunset, far in the teeming jungles of Brazil.

U.S. observers will not be disappointed: a partial eclipse should be visible at that time across virtually the entire breadth of the contiguous United States, reaching as far north as Vancouver, stretching east and south to clip even Chicago and its environs.

Unique until the Christian year 2017, no other eclipse will bring totality to the broad North American mainlands — the celestial rhythms are so closely in harmony that this New Moon will drift silently along with the Sun, obscuring it for an unprecedented seven minutes, a duration unrivaled for more than 141 years to come.

Leaning forward slightly in his cushion chair, coughing silently into a tightened fist, the Doc continues, all the while fidgeting with various whoknobs, whodials, and whoswitches of his Whoscope:

At the root of the complementary relationship between widely present lunar eclipses and well-localized solar ones lies a remarkable arithmetic pattern. At any given eclipse, three rhythms come into step: the Sun-Moon alignment month (the period from one New Moon to the next), the nodal month (the time between intervals when the Moon pierces southward through the plane of the Earth’s orbit), and the monthly cycle of Moon-shadow size (the time between one minimum in the Earth-Moon distance and the next).

Eclipses thus recur in form because 223 alignment times match both 242 nodal returns and 239 distance minima within only a few hours out of 18 full Earth years. This arithmetical coincidence is called the ‘Saros,’ a handy, though ephemeral, mathematical device known even to the eclipse-predictor astrono-priests of the ancients.

Outside the dirty windows of this OTB on State Street, through several layers of pigeon droppings, crusted city pollution, industrial smog, and grimy urban grit, the sun’s disc, as bright as to be expected considering the sombre opacity of these windows, begins to noticeably fade.

As this long internal solar sunset reaches totality in latitudes farther south, the Moon’s notched edge starts to scintillate against the blinding solar blaze, a small portion of the obscured sun’s crimson rim and pearly corona sending an eerie, opalescent light shining through those tired windows. Strange shadows are cast, silhouettes flicker like the flames of candles, and odd perspectives abound. The smell of incense for the first time becomes discernible, rings of smoke rising, swirling maliciously, settling eerily, permeating the entire chamber with a resinous funk.

THE MASTER THERION (A REVVED MAGICKIAN)
Completing this chant after an indeterminately Jong period, he advances to the East, suddenly flings both arms forward, bending his right knee to the fore and his left knee to the rear, roaring at the top of his lungs:

QHRION!

As he calms himself, bringing his right arm back and replacing the thumb into its position between index and middle fingers, inhaling again with thumb against his lower lip, a deep rumbling can be heard within the entire temple, gaining in strength, sending the now totally mesmerized crowd into a strange hypnotic motion, a body rhythm of subservience, a dance of doom.

As if the swaying and wailing of the masses acts as a covert cue to the atrocities to follow, the Scarlet Woman tosses the black cane to The Magickian, who catches it smoothly with left hand, and sweeps it up and above his head, proceeding to draw sigils with it in the turgid, smoky air that now surrounds them all.

Metatron, Ratziel, Tzaphkiel — highest of high to the lowest of low, M.T.‘s charged wand glowing brighter with each successive holy name carved majestically into the air, blazing across the sombre, shadowy sky— Tzadkiel, Khamael, Raphael — the ever-fiery hosts descending, unending — Haniel, Michael, Gabriel — anonymous faces in the crowd swept into the ritual, souls grabbed, tickled, and teased, whose energies are to be used, their tomblike bodies thoughtlessly discarded, as finally, the length and breadth of the Manifest World is brought forth, claimed through invocation, as the name — Sandalphon — is scribed in these letters of glory, the totality of these revealed archangelic names hanging like golden blazings of literary power, suspended in the charged, electrified atmosphere, each presiding archangel summoned with the heraldry and splendor of ten thousand reigning kings…

SECOND FLOOR CROWD (HYPNOTICALLY CHANTING)
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.

As the sorcerer completes this fourth of his ceremony, his arms stretched wide as the Eastern Veil parts, shocking and macabre transformations
ripple through the entire establishment and the world outside its windows.

In a haze of wonderment and frivolity, the standard W. Phelan security people grow in number, level of aggressive demeanor, strength and type of armaments. Entire phalanxes drift through the floors, carrying laser-guided pistols, submachineguns, cluster bombs, phosphorous grenades, and other advanced weaponry, dragging troublemakers screaming for mercy to the fuse room at the Chicago Theatre, elminating them mercilessly with a horrific bevy of screams, sounds of gunfire, pain.

The television monitors seemingly go mad — instead of merely broadcasting the horse races live from Arlington, patrons now watch and are permitted to bet on not only all legal sporting events, but avalanches, earthquakes, fires, floods, nuclear power plant, railroad, naval, airline, and traffic accidents, storms, typhoons, volcanic eruptions, wars, social revolutions, communist insurgencies, coups. The mutuel clerks await bets placed on respective number of fatalities, frequencies of occurence, specific locales and countries to be hit, reaction rates of adequate or inadequate medical response, retaliatory strikes, probability of continued unrest, all wherever and whenever appropriate.

Totalitarian dictators, billionaires, bureaucrats, military technicians, industrialists, Hollywood, and Rock ’n’ Roll celebrities are led up with armed guard to the Derby Club, as thousands grovel outside on the State Street mall for handouts of food, clothing, basic medical care.

Sirens pierce the air, smoke churning and flames belching forth from hundreds of smoke stacks cloud the Chicago skyline, ripping into the sky, as fleets of Stealth equipped jet fighters fly protective formations above, entire divisions of advanced M-1 tanks and other techno-death hardware maintain curfews, uphold martial law, perform executions of rebels on the war torn streets below.

Barbed wire fences, oil burning trenches, pill boxes, mortar enplacements, batteries of anti-aircraft guns, form an unnatural barrier on the hexagon tiles of the State Street Mall, as cordons of heavily armed troops search picture ID’s, confirm social security and credit card numbers at all the doors.

Access to floors are now independent of dress, but are determined by availability of political connections, quantity of investment capital, liquid funds in bank accounts, foreign and domestick. Patrons on all lower floors are periodically searched, interrogated at knife point in the security office, beaten, systematically tortured. Elite guests in the Derby Club on the third floor are summarily treated to hand cranked peep shows, cabaret dancing girls, personal prostitutes, the finest in culinary delicacies including daily specials featuring endangered species, pounded rare metals (as a decorative twist, per ancient Rome), and human flesh. The bar serves rare wines and champagnes from the sixteenth and seventeenth century, bartenders dosing drinks with highly advanced hallucinogenic drugs, endorphines, or pheromones upon request.

A helipad on the roof holds several choppers, ready to instantly escort dignitaries up and away with their earnings, or airlift the rotting, maladorous corpses of insurgents from the mezzanine. Floor supervisors, armed only with walkie-talkies, ill-fitting sport suits and a $200 a week check, their job description quickly narrowing in scope considering these circumstances, greet patrons at the iron door and tell them to take their hats off…

A CONVERSATION WITH YOUR HOLY GUARDIAN ANGEL

HOLY GUARDIAN ANGEL: Wake up, my friend! Arise! Our
World Awaits your calling!

BASICALLY APATHETIC READER: What? Who are you? Aw, leave me alone. Why did you wake me up…? I was snoozing so fine. And I need to get some more sleep…

H.G.A.: You’ve been sleeping long enough. The time has come to act. I am your Holy Guardian, here to inform you that your time has come, your time has come to act.

B.A.R.: Give me a break… (Yawn.) I was sleeping, dreaming…

H.G.A.: Of course you were dreaming, and you still are dreaming, and forever shall continue to be dreaming. When you finally decide to act, you will be acting in yet another dream. We create reality as we live through it, life and the experience of life our very own portrait, motion picture, handiwork, novel, or play.

B.A.R.: Are you on some kind of drug? Speak English, man, or give me some of that shit you took. (Yawn, yawn, ooh.) It’s too early in the morning for this kind of thing.

H.G.A.: No, it’s already too late. Get up. You have extremely important work to do. The penumbra will be crossing your path, very shortly. Your task awaits!

B.A.R.: Yeah, what kind of work? (Stretch.) I’m off today.

H.G.A.: You must assemble The Counterforce.

B.A.R.: The Counterforce? Go to McDonald’s. They should certainly have at least a few dissatisfied employees. There’s one on Wabash. (Scratch.)

H.G.A.: In Our World that is our own creation, each and every one of us must take a personal responsibility for what happens here. You cannot separate the artist from his or her canvas, the writer from the printed page. We are all liable, since we are all a part of the same picture, the totality of our universal experiences.

B.A.R.: I’ve got a job suggestion for you. Have you ever appeared on Oprah?

H.G.A.: Are you familiar with this symbol?

B.A.R.: What symbol?

H.G.A.: This one, glowing serenely before your eyes:

B.A.R.: Wow! (Stunned, sitting up in bed.) I can’t believe this! How did you do that?

H.G.A.: I’m your Holy Guardian, remember?

B.A.R.: Oh. Yeah. Right. I almost forgot.

H.G.A.: You did forget.

B.A.R.: All right, all right already. Now what about this symbol?

H.G.A.: This symbol, this symbol is pointing at you, pointing at You, Here, right Now. No ‘someone else’s,’ no ‘elsewhere’s,’ no ‘later’s,’ no ‘maybe’s,’ but taking action by yourself and for yourself without accepting any excuses. You have lingered, idle, for long enough. Your time has finally arrived, your very own Moment of Truth.

B.A.R.: (Sitting at the edge of the bed, face glowing in the aura of The Symbol.) Hold on tight a second. I suppose I’d take you a whole lot more seriously if you weren’t so trite. Come back as Arnold Schwartzenegger or
someone, and I’m sure you’d be a whole lot more convincing. My ‘Moment of Truth,’ huh? Do I have an option?

H.G.A.: Death. Absolute, eternal, Death.

B.A.R.: Right. Okay. I thought you were my guardian, for whomever’s sakes. Guess you didn’t like that Arnie analogy, eh? Right. Now then, what was that thing I have to assemble, that group you mentioned? Counterstrike, Counterculture, the program counter — Ah! That’s it. The Counterhorse, right?

H.G.A.: The Counterforce, dick head.

B.A.R.: See, you’re sounding more like Arnie already. Don’t get offensive now, though. I think that I’m beginning to follow you…

H.G.A.: In order to begin your initiation, you must assemble a suitable team in order to save our entire Universe.

B.A.R.: You’re serious? You wake me up from happy dreams this mid-July morning, my pecker still stiff, you wake me up on my only day off, to tell me that I have to aseemble some team to save our whole goddammed Universe, or die trying?

H.G.A.: Universe goes, you go. Makes sense.

B.A.R.: Yeah. I suppose that does. I got an ‘A’ in college logic, you know.

H.G.A.: I know everything about you.

B.A.R.: Yeah. That’s just what I was afraid of… Save the Universe?

H.G.A.: Yes. You can only do that by stopping The Race.

B.A.R.: The Race? Jesus. Oh, I’m sorry. Not him. You. Not you? Him? Not him? Never mind. Okay, guy. Anything you say. How, where, and when do I begin?

H.G.A.: Be yourself. This consists of doing anything rightfully in your power. Here. Rightfully in your power is your capacity to stop the betting on The Race. Now… Neighborhoods, streets, apartments, single rooms, the lives of city folks, the over-congested and lonely lives of urban America.

Among the noise, and pollution, we all search the skies for an angel, a
being to take us up and away, or to bring us down and out, to a country villa with green pastures and splendid isolation, to an all-night dance party that never stops, where the band plays until the morning that never comes, the hangover that never strikes.

Horses grazing peacefully, dewy dawns, picnics in the backyard, swimming in the punchbowl, finding the ultimate squeeze for the night, connections to yet another foreverparty in New York, two dozen messages waiting on the answering machine back at home, some cosmo, some pastoral — contemporary life demands it all, at lightning speed, the extremes of all lifestyles polarized into an experiential white noise that can only culminate in personsal annihilation and mass techo-death. And in the meanwhile Before the perpendicular lines join, the intersection intersects? Hedonism, high fashion, fast food: before enlightenment, do laundry — after enlightment, do some more laundry.

A crowd of reporters, photographers, various government reps, secret service security people, publicists, promoters, ambassadors, dignitaries from significant foreign countries, curious spectators, gapers, rapers, drapers, skyscrapers, are hanging around in front and pushing their way precariously inside of the Washing Well Laundromat and Snack Bar at the corner of Grace and Broadway on the lower North Side of Chicago by the time we arrive there, still sleepy from our early wake up calling.

Pressing through the commotion, we are finally able to make our way toward the exact center of this mass-media energy pool, Washer #11, adjacent to the vending machine selling chips and candy, in the far right corner of the place. Poised in front, sitting cross-legged on a plain wooden stool, is a rather odd looking, decidedly obese fellow, wearing a bright yellow smock covered with red poka-dots, absolutely nothing underneath to speak of, a pair of fuzzy slippers, and a red ribbon tied at the base of one shock of ratty hair at the tip of his pinhead.

He maintains a decidedly goofy expression on his face, and desperately needs a shave. Aside from staring with tremendous excitement and immense concentration at the soapy washing going round and round in the machine, the clothes gurgling and googling with sud churning delight, the washing device going chugchugchugchugchuging in the process — why even bother with cable TV when you can wash and watch at the same time? — he seems almost to be asleep, completely oblivious to the immense crowd gathered around him, a mass of mass media en masse, a bunch of folks who have nothing better to do than watch a weirdo watching his laundry, chugchugchugchugchug!

CBS REPORTER
Pushing a large microphone into the fellow’s face:

Zippy, can give us a few words on how you feel, it being so close now to national election time?

ZIPPY THE PINHEAD
I think that I’m having a mystical experience! Go call Nancy Reagan! I’m In love with Frank Sinatra! Why are you pushing that large pine cone into my face? Do you think I’m sexy? I love you! I love anyone who would come to the aid of a needy chipmunk!

NBC REPORTER
Pushing an even larger microphone into Zippy’s face:

Mr. Zippy Pinhead, can give us a few words on how you would feel, should you actually become the 42nd President of the United States of America?

ZIPPY THE PINHEAD
Have you seen my portable fall-out shelter? I have nude photographs of Sir Georg Solti and Lawrence Welk plastered on all the walls! I have a punctured waterbed in there specially manufactured in Cambodia by Clint Eastwood! Why are you pushing that wasp nest into my face? Did you know that I bite, too? I bit Senator Edward Kennedy on his exposed nipples! Then I spread cherry flavored Jello onto his entire body, and coerced Vanna White into dancing naked on the grand piano! We are expecting triplets together, only I don’t know when I we’ll have them!

ABC REPORTER
Pushing an absolutely enormous microphone into the Zippster’s face:

Zippy, can give us a few words on what you will actually do, how you will actually guide this great nation, if elected President of the United States of America?

ZIPPY THE PINHEAD
I will distribute ding-dongs to all our brave troops stationed in Tasmania! I will sell all of our boxer shorts to Maytag repairmen in Madagascar! I will requisition ten trillion Big Macs so that all the signs have to be changed! I will make botulism Illegal! I will sensuously sodomize Richard Nixon’s poodle on the White House lawn! Why are you pushing that gorilla condom into my face? Are you a female chimpanzee in disguise? Do you really like to suck celery stalks? Will you marry me in Hoboken, New Jersey?

PBS REPORTER
Pushing a large avocado into the Ziphead’s face:

Zippy, can give us a blow Job? Why do you dress like a flight attendant? Do you have Incest with your brother Lippy when you two play Chinese checkers? If elected dishwasher of Yum Yum donuts, will you masturbate into the Bavarian Creme? Why don’t we shove an entire plnata into your face, and smash it with an electric toothbrush dispenser?

ZIPPY THE PINHEAD
I appreciate the honors bestowed upon me, and wish to convey my utmost respect and admiration toward the entire newsmedia, for all they have done during this campaign.

Without the uncensored, unbiased, open dissemination of necessary information to the fine people of our grand and glorious country, democracy itself would be impossible.

I am extraordinarily proud to be an American, and promise to the best of my meager abilities to uphold the law and serve proudly and gallantly these United States of —

ABC REPORTER
Zippy! Zippy! You won! You won! Zippy the Pinhead is now the 42nd President of the United States of America! (He begins a chant:) Zip-py! Zip py! Zip-py!

ZIPPY THE PINHEAD
I refuse to accept. I must sit here and watch my laundry before we are invaded by Admiral Farragut and his kazoo-playing midgets! Nothing will take me away from my appointed task in front of my ‘Whirl-o-matick’ laundry machine! Nothing short of the one chance to save the entire Universe!

BASICALLY APATHETIC READER
Yo, Zip. Pay attention. Come on! We’ve got to rush over and use our one chance to save the entire Universe! How bout it? Will ya join up with me? We’ve gotta hurry though; I’ll have McNeal and Lerner preside over your dirty slippers and smocks, OK?

ZIPPY THE PINHEAD
But only if I can bring along my fifty gallon barrel of Cool Whip, my perfume bottle full of Tabasco sauce, and my life time supply of deodorized bacon bits!

BASICALLY APATHETIC READER
You got a deal. We’ll stop over at a White Zen Pantry on the way. But let’s move, since this story is getting so large that we’re actually running out of RAM computer spaces, credibility (a bunch of my friends are pressing me to finish this thing — Is he for real? Is he just pulling my leg? — and time, as the partial solar eclipse is about to hit! Come on, Zip, we’ve gotta get to the OTB before it’s too late — and I lose all semblance of sanity!

THE MASTER THERION (A REVVED MAGICKIAN)
Opening his eyes, as if somehow in perfect synchronization with this partial eclipse, The Magickian makes his way slowly to the North quarter of the circle, does a sweeping motion with both arms exactly like the opening of a curtain, the parting of a veil as before, and says clearly, resolutely aloud:

NUIT —

A refraction pattern, roughly humanoid in shape, passes silently, menacingly in front of the teller lines, distorting the surrounding light into concentric wavy patterns, blues, reds, yellows scintillating off its surface, still in motion, unnaturally warped images of possessed patrons, tables, chairs, SAM betting machines and disgruntled employees seeming to penetrate the animated shape from the other side, a three-pronged crimson laser beam emanating from roughly eye-level of the light-bending form, scanning programs, tickets, the assault rifles of the para-military troops assembled in formation at all the doors and exits.

Suddenly, the strange moving object shifts closer to one of the tellers, a program suspended in mid air, dangling before the face of the shocked pari-mutuels clerk.

A PREDATOR (ONE OF MANY)
Kkkkkkh. Roo-oo-oooor. Kkkkh.

These sounds here are distorted, muffled by some unseen source, sounds more like noises, really, unrecognizable as any form of human communication, verbal or otherwise.

Kkkkkkh. Roo-oooooor- roo-rooh. Kkkkh.

Clicking sounds, a snap, followed by more c/ickings, a weird electronic kind of buzzing sound, bzzz bzzz.

Kkkkkh. Rooor-roor-rooooh!

An electric motor, some kind of gyro hums, stops, then hums again, another electrobuzz, bzzz bzzz.

Kroo! Kroo!

Click. Clickclick.

TELLER (MEMBER OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICKAL
WORKERS)
Hey! I don’t know who is playing these practical jokes, but whoever is doing this stuff better stop, or we’ll throw the lot of youse guys out.

He stares at the floating program, and begins to look slightly worried.

Hey! Come on now! You’re shutting people out, whoever the hell you are! Hey! Let’s go!

An even more worried look crosses his face, moments after three dots of a scanning reddish-crimson laser beam grant themselves the same honor.

Hey! Hey now! What’s going on here? Who’s the joker? Hey now —

A moment of ghastly ultra-violence ensues, a graphic description of which seems decidedly unnecessary, owing to the even more grisly prospect of the entire Universe coming to its doom as an eventual result of this particular act.

With the teller lines now subverted by these Forces of Evil who have descended from the canopy of sky, betting on The Race apparently cannot be stopped. The Predator, positioning his numerous buddies alongside him, jams the power sources of the clerk machines and automated tellers with various articles of hyperadvanced technostuff, all in order to ensure the lines’ safety from the valiant efforts of The Counterforce.

The extraterrestrial hunting troupe make themselves visible again, thick bands of redirected radiation dissipating, following their normal, undisturbed pathways through the space-time continuum once again, light instantaneously revealing the monstrosities beneath: covered entirely with light refracting netting, equipped with a battery of unidentifiable defensive and offesive capability, armored suit and helmet of some unknown,
seemingly impenetrable alloy, eerie dreadlock hairstyle protruding from their gear and pressing against their hunched shoulders, the unit now
stands guard behind the windows, Beth the assistant pari-mutuels manager flirting with them, allowing them sure, fellas, go right ahead go right
ahead, I sure don’t mind to drink sodas and smoke cigarettes, if they wish.

Most compulsive patrons apparently relieved now that the betting can continue smoothly and with minimal queuing, though many have some degree of trouble communicating their bets to these new clerks, while many more patrons don’t even notice the difference between the usual clerks and these reptilo-insectisoidal beasts, a strange older couple sit off in the back of the smoking section, apparently oblivious.

Both are dressed exceptionally poorly: the older gentleman, wearing thin-framed, round reading glasses the thickness of whiskey bottles, has on a tatty grey suit, black trousers, and shoes that decidedly could use a shining, his hair greased straight back from his forehead, hair thin as his constitution, rickety and tubercular.

His wife, paying no attention to him, has long, stringy brunette hair, wears a cheesie full length dress embroidered with flower patterns, is slightly on the healthy side of the scale, and presses Mother Earth with uncomfortable Parisian walking shoes, less uncomfortable for the ground than for the finely tailored feminine feet that trammel on it.

They both smoke bad cigarettes excessively, ashing thoughtlessly on the floor. When not mumbling under his breath, entering exotic linguistic contests sponsored by Irish tabloids in hopes of winning the prize and thus being able to pay rent this month, trying to coerce Arabs, Africans, and Hindus to have an affair with his wife, the older man broods over his racing program, trying to finally pick a sweep winner in order to again help off-set their incessant state of dire poverty, bordering on malnutrition and plenty of foul mouthed gossip from Trinity College, Dublin.

Unable to find his “Throwaway,” his greatest work still and forever “In Progress,” he loves making elucive and unbelievably cryptic and eruditical puns that no one understands at parties hosted by Marcel Proust, the two of them heading to the punchbowl a few times too often for their own good and that of others, neither one having much to say to each other for all their verbocity on the printed page.

NORA JOYCE (A BORED HOUSEWIFE)
Oh, come now, Jim. I am so horrifically bored, I cannot even begin to tell you. Let us go, let us be gone, already. I don’t understand your fetish for these horses, their diseases, their excrement.

Who really cares about the mythology, Jim? We’re exiles, so we might as well have a good time, right then? I want to have a party and invite some famous people to come and visit.

Go and call your brother — maybe he can lend us some more money. Let us get going, and get on with a wee bit of business, then? Right.

JAMES JOYCE (A N0TICEABLE INFLUENCE)
…

MARCEL PROUST (AN AVOIDABLE INDULGENCE)
…

THE TANSMANIAN DEVIL (A NON-ELOQUENCE)
Owwwwooooh owwwwwoooooh owwwwooooh.

The Devil suddenly begins to spin in place, his entire body washing out into this cylindrical, hurriedly scribbled whirring, Vvwvwvooooooooh! passing effortlessly through tables, chairs, smoothly leaving the shadow-outline of his body straight through the elevator door, Vvvwvvvooooooooh! Vvwvvwoooooooah!

Carving his way bodily out of the lift, The T. Devil continues to spin, a solid hand suddenly reaching out of that scribbled whirlwind, grabbing Marcel Proust by the neck.

He’s got ‘im! He’s finally got ‘im, and there’s nothing that can be done now!

MRS. TANSMANIAN DEVIL (A FEMININE RESISTANCE)
Owwwwooooh owwwwwoooooh owwwwooooh.

The Devil’s wife appears in a similar scribbled whirlwind out of nowhere, a solid hand suddenly reaching out with a rolling pin, clonking Mr. Devil square on his beige and brown, small eared, big boned, furry head, bash!

The impact konks out all that centrifugal beast force, Mr. Tansmanian Devil now swaying in one place motionless, only his tongue moving up and down, while little birdies fly around and around his head— owowowowowowow! — tweep, tweep, tweep.

NORA JOYCE (AN ESPOUSED SPOUSE)
You see that one, Jim? I rather enjoyed that, I should say. Good idea, from that woman. Be careful from here on, Jimmy, as now I have learned a few significant lessons in how to handle a most unabashedly difficult husband.

So, let’s get on with it, or I’ll pummel your blooming arse straight back to that damn Dooblin, I will…

THE MASTER THERION (STILL GOIN STRONG)
Walking slowly from the Northern Quadrant to the West, he repeats the same procedure exactly as before, only this time while parting the Western Veil he whispers:

BABALON

A calm, cool, gently swirling wind blows through the crimson curtains, the ancient embroidered tapestries, across the four-poster bed. White satin sheets rustle quietly, three dimensional sine waves of silk undulating along its surface, around the prostrate through noticeably relaxed body of
a shapely woman, snuggled underneath the covers, soundly asleep.

You approach quietly, mesmerized by the scene, and walk slowly to the Louis XIV portmanteau, removing a sealed bottle of unimaginably vintaged vintage wine.

Skilfully uncorking the bottle, you notice a stirring from the oriental silks — taking the sterling silver serving tray over to the bed, you gently place the tray holding the bottle of wine, two lead crystal glasses, a loaf of bread, and a plate of pate next to the form, still lying there silent, her short breaths raising her belly, lowering it, matching the hypnotic rhythm of the winds.

The body awakens, though her face remains enticingly hidden.

LOVER (AN INCURABLE AUTOMATICK)
Leaning toward the woman, whispering:

Nullie?

Shshshshshsh.

Nullie? Is that you?

Now that we have a few moments to share, I thought I’d bring you something special…

She sighes, deeply. Your curiosity and feelings of urgency now overwhelming, you reach over and delicately pull aside the loose coverings… and nearly collapse in shock next to the form, as the face of Beth stares back at you, smiling wickedly, brandishing a write-up sheet and a set of wooden clapper shoes.

BETH (A NASTY)
So, thought you could pull a fast one, huh? Well the jokes on you, buster! I know all about you, and this time, this time I’m going to nail your ass, nail your ass right to the ground, right to the ground!

I’m going all the way with this, all the way to Winston, and good luck trying to get out of it, too! When I tell Winston what you’ve done, you’ll wish you never even got hired! You’ll wish you were back in those sleazy shithole bars on Lincoln Avenue, or at the Belmont beach, broke, depressed, and doing nothing, which seems to be all you’re ever good at!

Down you go, and don’t come back crying to me for any help, no way! I’ll show you! You better watch out! I’ll show you!

LOVER (REGROUPING)
I just love it when you make me blush! Are you sure you don’t want to Join me with Art Linkletter in Zimbabwe? We’re going penguin hunting with Tiny Tim and CoIin Powell! I want to eat baloney ripple ice cream with you on a boogie board suspended from the Sears Tower!

I just know you are In Love with me, ever since you malled me that fiberglass pencil sharpener! Do you know karate? Come with me to the telethon for deranged sea turtles! I like to listen to old 45’s while sitting on lawnchalrs In the snow!

Elisabeth, powerless before your awe inspiring display of ineptitude, winces with confusion and agony, her face slowly, inexorably metamorphising into… Grace Jones?… Norman Mailer’s third wife? … Mary Tyler Moore?… Margaret Thatcher?… Salman Rushdie’s mistress?… or —

JEWELS (A WHINER)
What is wrong with you? Not only are you stupid, but crazy, too! I can’t believe this stuff. You know, they’ve really been hiring a bunch of amateurs here. Why can’t they find any real help? How am I supposed to work?

What’s this pasty stuff on the tray? Liver? That’s totally gross! You expect me to eat that? God! I mean, come on, you went to all this trouble with the lay out of this pad, and you bring me liver? You’ve got to be kidding. Come on, go out now, and get me a Taco Bell Grande, with extra tomatoes, extra salsa, and no onions. I hate onions! Don’t forget that salsa!

You know what I’m talking about, those little plastic packets. And don’t forget some Pepsi, you hear me? No Coca-Cola, you’ve gotta get me some Pepsi, if you can remember such a complicated series of commands. Now go! Shoo. Where’s the television? Don’t tell me you didn’t —

LOVER (A SAMPLER)
Universally that person’s acumen is esteemed very little perceptive concerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitable by mortals with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of that which the most in doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of that in them high mind’s ornament deserving of verneration constantly maintain when by general comment they affirm that other circumstance being equal by no exterior splendor is the prosperity of a nation more efficaciously asserted than by the measure of how far forward may have progressed the tribute of its solicitude for that proliferant continuance which of evils the original if it be absent when fortunately present constitutes the certain sign of omnipotent nature’s incorrupted benefaction.

Falling fast asleep in seconds, Jewels dreams disturbing dreams of Pepsi-less summers in Cancun, her face altering slowly, subtlely, easing into the face of... Bette Davis?... Brigette Bardot?... Lena Horn?… Calvin and Hobbes’ mom? —

NULLIE (A CUTEY)
Yo, what took you so long?… Well, you’re finally hear, so let’s get moving!

They’ve sealed off the lines, so we’ve actually gotta stop The Race, or at least prevent The Pick from winning!

If His horse comes in first, we’re all finished! What’s the matter with you? Don’t you want to save the entire Universe?…

LOVER (A FLUTEY)
…

THE MASTER THERION (A BIT FLUSTERED, BUT HANGIN IN THERE)
Walking slowly from the Western Quadrant of The Ceremonial Circle to the South he repeats the procedure exactly as before, only this time while masterfully parting the Southern Veil he bellows:

HADIT!

Unable to hault the betting and thereby disrupt The Race off track, the horses are moved uninterrupted to the starting gate at the turf field at Arlington, odds shifting with the frothing anticipation of the now hysterical crowd.

With the banishing ritual now virtually completed, all four quarters successfully called and opened, The Magickian begins to spin himself around and around counterclockwise, while recapitulating his path counterclockwise around the entire Circle, wheels within wheels, deeds within dastardly deeds.

As he continues to spin his body around and around in the anticlockwise direction, he chants the invocation of the Goat God, calling forth the grim totality of His devilish energies, drawing them up to momentarily push his Pick through the starting gate and within a few seconds go rushing out and onto the fast moving suburban racing turf:

IW PAN, IW PAN, IW PAN PAN! IW PAN, IW PAN, IW PAN PAN!

PHIL GEORGEFF (TRACK ANNOUNCER)
And the horses, the horses are coming up to the post, ladies and gentlemen. Please hurry, as we’ve got only a few minutes before post. Betting lines are open and clear, for this morning’s Race of Races. No scratches, no overweights, all horses are ready…

Nullie and Zippy the Pinhead make their way stealthily through the bowels of the betting parlor, sneaking inside disguised as Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead (you decide who was supposed to be whom) via the dirty back stairs behind the Grandstand.

Making their way undiscovered to the circuit room, Zip stands guard in a very silly way while Nullie opens the protective gate, behind which she goes about utilizing both her computer know-how and several days experience with the CIA to rewire the power cables to the ventilation fans on the second floor.

Their mission accomplished after but a few moments, Zip suggests while artfully adjusting his white wig and predilection for sentimental bouts of metaphysics that they go next door to Slotnick’s for a BBQ bagel with chocolate mousse spread and head cheese sprinkle, when all of a sudden the lights go out, leaving them in total darkness.

The Zippster is grabbed by an unseen hand, and Nullie makes a run for it, hoping that no one will recognize her on the way out, and ask her whether a self-referential subset of a superset proves axiomatically that any given Set cannot be both Consistent and Complete st the same time…

A MASONICK INITIATION CEREMONY (A MATINEE PERFORMANCE)
The Senior Deacon conducts the Candidate to the door, instructing him to salute the Worshipful Master with the signs of the first two Degree. He retires to be prepared for the Third Degree: both arms, both breasts, and both knees are made bare, and both heels are fuzzy slippered. He wears the Fellow-Crafts apron, yellow with red pokadots.

In the meantime the Gaming Lodge is opened in the Third Degree. The Deacons lay a scratch sheet along the mid-line of the Gaming Lodge some five feet west of the Worshipful Master’s automated betting machine: on this sacred scratch sheet is depicted fancifully the “open horseplayer’s grave,” surrounded by skulls and crossbones, bank withdrawal slips, Chapter 13 notices from the Cook County Courthouse.

When all is made ready, the Tyler gives the Second-Degee knocks.

Inner Guard, with step and Penal sign of the Third Degree: Brother Junior Warden, there is a report!

Junior Warden, also with step and Penal sign: Worshipful Master, there is a report!

Worshipful Master: Brother Junior Warden, inquire who wants admission.

J.W. (Cuts sign, gets pissed off about all this rigamarole): Brother Inner Guard, see who wants admission!

I.G.: (Cuts sign, gets pissed off about J.W. getting pissed off about all this rigamarole, but opens the door anyway): Whom have we there?

Tyler: Brother Zippy the Pinhead, who has been regularly initiated into Freemasonry, passed to the Degree of a Fellow-Craft, and has made such further progress as he hopes will entitle him to be raised to the sublime
Degree of a Master Mason, for which ceremony he is properly prepared.

I.G.: How does he hope to obtain the privileges of the Third Degree?

Ty.: By the help of Dog, the united aid of the Snatch at Campuses, and the benefit of a dirty word.

I.G.: Is he in possession of this dirty word?

Ty.: Will you groove him?

The Inner Guard extends his right hand, and receives the pass quip and dirty word from the Candidate, who leans to whisper it in his ear, while depositing a fruit loop into the Inner Guard’s apron pocket.

I.G.: Halt, while I report to the Worshipful Master.

Closes the inner door, takes step and sign, checks to see who is speaking for Junior Warden, since last time he knew, J. W. was a mute, gesticulating with various unsundry objects and a horn.

Worshipful Master, Brother Z.P.: Who has been irregularly confiscated into Freepornography, passed to the Debris of a Fellow Bereft (Of All Common Decency And Sense), and has made such further digress as his dopes will enbridal him to be hazed to the subliminal Degree of a Masturbating Perry Mason, for which alimony he is properly diapered.

W.M. (Exhaling a thick plume of cigar smoke, hoping that his mustache won’t smear, moving his eyebrows up and down, up and down): How does he cope to detain the neglect of the Herd Decree?

I.G.: By the kelp of Grog, the United Way of the Spare and Cheap-asses, and the counterfeit of a crass turd.

W.M.: We acknowledge the powerful raid by which he reeks of commissions — do you, Brother Thinner Gourd, voucher that he is in obsession of the glass shard?

I.G.: I do, Hockslipful Hassler.

W.M.: Then let the Zippster be admitted in due scorn, Brother Peacans.

At this point all the lights are extinguished in the Gaming Lodge except the candle by the Worshipful Master’s automated betting machine.

The Junior Deacon places the kneeling stool in position, goes honk! honk! honk! and both Deacons proceed to the door.

The Inner Guard opens it, presents the extended points of a pair of compasses to the Candidate’s breasts, and holds the compasses above his head to show that he has done so. The Senior Deacon leads the Candidate to the kneeling stool.

W.M.: Let the Candidate kneel while the blessing of Heaven is invoked on what we are about to do.

The Worshipful Master gives one knock, repeated by the Wardens. All stand with sign of Reverence, and the Deacons cross their wands over the Candidate’s head.

W.M.: Almighty and Paternal Dog, Architect and Ruler of the Universe and New Jersey at whose creative fiat all things first were made, we, the frail creatures of Thy providence, humbly implore Thee to pour down on this
convocation assembled in Thy Holy Defame the continual dew of Thy Blessing, and free draft beers for all the boyz on weeknights in the Eastern Poolroom.

Especially, we besmirch Thee, to impart Thy grace to this Thy servant, who offers himself a Candidate to partake with us the mysterious secrets of a Plaster Pissuoir.

Endue him with such fortitude that in the hour of trial he fail not, but, passing safely under Thy protection through the valley of the shadow of death and all those folks who don’t belong in our Country Club, he may finally rise from the tomb of transgression, the eight dollar seats at Cominskey Park, to shine as the stars and Frank Sinatra for ever and ever.

Immediate Past Master: So mote it be!

The Deacons lower their wands, and the Brethren dismiss sign.

W.M.: Let the Candidate rise.

At which point Zippy the Pinhead gets this gargantuan hard-on, noticeably protruding from his yellow and red poka-dotted apron.

J.W.: Honk! Honk honk honk! honk!

I.G.: Heya, whata is going on here? I tought dat we had dis situation under a controla! I hadda some troubla parking, but since den, I been able to remember all of my linesa!

W.M.: You only remember your lines because you’ve got them written on your arm, you lousy punk. What kind of a Mason are you, anyway?

I.G. A Mason?! I tought I wuz a Raisin! What are youa tryin to pulla on me?

W.M.: A raisin? And I though you were an honest man. Help me out here, will ya Zippy?

Z.P.: Wow! I’ve finally met Spanky and the Gang! I’ve seen all your movies, but loved the ones with Rin-Tin-Tin the best! Do all of you fine fellows want to come with me and Jane Fonda to visit a nuclear power plant accident in Senegal? I just got a new job over at Yum-Yum donuts, where on my very first day there —

I.G.: We donta got no time for dat right nowa. We gotta go and stop Da Race, before dat beautiful woman who izza in lava wit dat homosexual crooner will loosa her hospital!

W.M.: No, silly, that was the other movie, remember? I wonder how I ever made so much money with you bums. At least you know you to play the piano.

J.W.: Honk! Honk! Honk! Honkhonkhonk! Honk! Honk! Honk!

I.G.: Paya attention to him! Followa me!

Inner Guard, alias Chico, turns on all the House Lights, and scurries out of the employee bathroom, with Groucho, Harpo, and Zippy hot on his tail.

They follow Chico around to the main office, now abandoned, where Chico points to the door marked NO EXIT.

Come on, boyz! We gotta go dissa waya!

Groucho: But look at that sign. We can’t go through there —

Oh no! Too late, boyz! As Chico flings open the door, a four-dimensional space-time vortex swallows the four of them up, hurling them instantaneously to the dimly distant reaches of inter-stellar space, that Frank Sinatra nowhere to be found, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

THE MASTER THERION (WIGGING-OUT)
Around and around he spins, counterclockwise counterclockwise, engrossed within his Magickal world, banishing, concentrating, chanting eerily, rooting in his own way for Jean LeBusted’s tout “Snark Sandwich,” the victory of which will solidify this hellish version of the world, forever enslaving the Universe to the whims of Corporate America:

IW PAN, IW PAN, IW PAN PAN! IW PAN, IW PAN, IW PAN PAN!

PHIL GEOR3EFF (TRACK ANNOUNCER)
Aaaaaaaaaannnd they’re off! Brea-king right out of the gate on the inside is Snark Sandwich alongside Caponey Baloney, both ahead by a length. Alkemy Alkie and Danger Angel are tight on the outside with Bunker Bryan and Boo Boo Boojum holding on the outside.

Hee-ere comes Caponey Baloney, Caponey Baloney leading the way with Groovie Moovie making an early move on the rail. Groovy Moovie like a shot, rushing passed Saint Aleister, Alkemy Alkie and Danger Angel, Silicon Con is bringing us up by the rear.

Aaaa-aaaat the quarter post we’ve got Snark Sandwich and Groovy Moovie nudging Caponey Baloney by a solid length, Bunker Bryan and Uncle Mephisto following us through the turn, Silicon Con making a break from the back —

SECOND FLOOR CFOND (A MOB)
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.

Nullie, having made her way undetected out of the building, removes her Alfred North Whitehead disguise in a phone booth at the White Zen Pantry down the street, makes her way back through the fortifications, and enters the Clubhouse as herself, an employee, about to head on up to the Club for
another night of waitressing amidst the mayhem.

Getting off the elevator at the second floor instead, she notices that The Race is already in progress, and proceeds to implement the second part of her plan immediately. Signalling over to Mr. Mook, whose hours have been cut though happens to be here today disguised as a compulsive patron (being compulsive, a rather easy disguise to assume) she ambles on up to one of the Extraterrestrial Pari-Hunter-Tellers.

NULLIE (A WAITRESS)
Hi there, big boy. Where are you from? That’s a sexy outfit you’re wearing, what with all that netting and armor. I just love a man in uniform, I’ll tell you! Doing something after The Race? How bout you and me go dancing? Or better yet, why don’t you take me on up with your conch-shaped space vessel to one of the moons of Jupiter, or a quick weekend vacation to the gambling casinos near the Horsehead Nebula?

A PREDATOR (DATELESS)
Kkkkkkkh. Rooooo-oo-ooooogh. Kkkkkkh.

Zzzzzz. Click. Clickclick. Zzzzzz.

Kkkkkkkh.

Three crimson-colored laser points in the shape of a tight triangle suddenly pass across Nullie’s features, in a sweeping pattern implying a scan whose intentions are far from belligerent.

Clickclickclick. Zzzzz. Click click. Whirrrrrrrrr!

Kkkkkkkkh. Roooo-ooooooh!

Ada, serving a few too few drinks for her own liking, sees what is happening, and joins The Counterforce more out of boredom than anything else. Waving over to Mr. Mook, she adeptly mixes several dozen high-powdered gin and tonics, and gestures over to the teller lines. A phalanx of Predators scan the beverages, note their contents, and begin to head over to her bar, leaving their positions at the lines unoccupied.

Thus distracted by Earth women and booze (when wuz their last R&R, a few of them wonder, could it have been way back before plugging some sentient, dinsosaurlike aliens on the tenth planet orbiting Betelgeuse?), Mr. Mook seizes this opportunity to reach behind the teller lines and flick the switch for the ventilation system that, unbenowst to the Bad Guys behind the bar, has been previously soaped-up to the max by Nullie, only minutes before…

As the switch is switched, the fans start up, only with force enough to send programs, tickets, loose articles of clothing (including and especially hats) flying around and about the whole joint, creating an instant tornado of debris, distrupting the current disruption tremendously.

THE MASTER THERION (UNDAUNTED)
Around and around he continues to spin, redirecting his energies now from The Race to banishing the whirlwind of air and object, concentrating, chanting even more instensely and deeply than before:

IW PAN, IW PAN, IW PAN PAN! IW PAN, IW PAN, IW PAN PAN!

As a smoky black counter gale picks up in strength and sweeps through, bolts of static electricity lash out, their flashes frightening Nullie up to the Club, sending Mr. Mook reeling to the kitchen for more free soup of the day, Ada back to adA, the former complaining to her latter that the new bar arrivals aren’t exactly much fun to converse with, but they tip pretty well, if she can only figure out what to do with all these Altarian hypercoins.

Before the crowd’s attentions can be disrupted any further, another Predator beast, obeying Crowley’s unspoken command, sends a triple laser-guided ionic death-torpedo blasting into the ventilation control mechanism, doubtlessly silencing the fury of The Counterforce for this round.

Relieved that the commotion is finally over, the tranced second floor crowd picks up where they were at before:

SECOND FLOOR CROWD (A MOB)
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.

PHIL GEOAGEFF (TRACK ANNOUNCER)
Hee-ere they come, spinning around the first turn, Groovie Moovie and Caponey Baloney taking Snark Sandwich, Snark Sandwich slowing down, Bunker Bryan and Danger Angel racing up on the outside.

Alkemy Alkie and Silicon Con along the inside now with Uncle Mephisto and Boo Boo Boojum toiling it out in the rear.

But there goes Snark Sandwich, coming on strong again, Caponey Baloney slipping back to Alkemy Alkie then back to Uncle Mephisto on the inside, Silicon Con and Saint Aleister pinned behind Danger Angel by a length as here comes Bunker Bryan, Bunker Bryan pressing Snark Sandwich, Bunker Bryan like a shot —

The camera pans down this enormous, futurist gothic corridor, huge windows on either side and directly to the fore revealing a stunningly beautiful space panorama of a desert planet and its two suns, one a red giant, the other blue.

Several other mile-long triangular Star Destroyers share this formation of the Imperial Space Armada, all vessels poised on the brink of battle, tractor
beams and turbo-laser cannons at the ready, sensors scanning whole cubic parsecs of surrounding space for the whereabouts of the Princess’ renegade rebel ship, to which were beamed the Secret Plans of the Empire’s new weapon of doom, The Death Star.

As the camera pans closer to the far window, past rows of control consoles and operators sunk several feet beneath the black polished deck, the back of a sinistral form can be discerned, black boots, cape, a shiny plastic WWII stormtrooper helmet seen from the rear, pained mechanical breathing echoing through the vast control room.

Oddly enough, a small whisp of smoke rises occasionally from inside the mask, out and up through the sterile atmosphere of the bridge. A junior officer, wearing a funny little cap on his head and insignia of the fleet on one generic body suit lapel, approaches the pernicious looking form, and engages him, by command of the Most High.

JUNIOR OFFICER (A SPACE DAGO)
Sir. The Emperora informs us dat he want da plans to da Hidden Rebel Base really fast like, you knowa what I saya to you? We don’t getta dose plans, and you end up doing a very dumm televsion game show with stupid contestants and a duck, you know dat?

DARTH VADER (A SPACE ACE)
Hhhhhhhh, haaaaaa. Hhhhhhhh, haaaaaa.

Leave me alone. Don’t I have enough troubles already?

Hhhhhhhh, haaaaaa. Hhhhhhhh, haaaaaa.

How long until you think they’ll notice all the cigar stubs in the ashtrays? All the pretty blond stormtroopers who never show up for drills?

Hhhhhhhh, haaaaaa. Hhhhhhhh, haaaaaa.

Where’s my agent! I wanna talk to my agent! Was this lousy gig your idea? Go and play a piano somewhere.

Hhhhhhhh, haaaaaa. Hhhhhhhh, haaaaaa.

STORMTROOPER (RATHER OBESE, WEARING FUZZV SLIPPERS)
I want to make love to Jody Foster in a total vacuum! How do you take a leak in zero gravity? I’m sure Clarence Darrow would know! This outfit is so tight, that I feel dellghtfulkt emasculated! Would you like to come over and smell all of my plastics? Why are you breathing so heavy? Are you sexually attracted to the command console?

SCANNER OPERATOR (A SPACE HARPIST)
Sounds coming from one of the tiers of control panels below.

Honk! Honk! Honk honk honk honk!

The Junior Officer and Darth Vader both move over to him, and look down into his console, where the Scanner Operator now gesticulates. First he paces back and forth, back and forth, confused, occasionally looking down at his hands, as if he were reading something.

“A proud father?” wonders the J.O.

“Taxpayer?’ guesses Darth.

The J.O. stops, shakes his head, and tries again.

Both hands chest high, wrists flush thumb to thumb, knees bent, leaning forward, he bobs up and down, up and down in one place.

Every once in a while he takes his right arm and slaps it down in a sweeping gesture, immediately replacing it to its original position.

“An exotic dancer,’ guesses J.O.

“One of my exwives,’ suggests Darth.

Again shaking his head, the S.O. raises both hands to the side of his head, making blinders, and continues the rocking motion.

“A movie camera,” guesses J.O.

“No no no, you idiot. A horse! A horse, right? Horseraces! Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. What an identity crises! Let’s get into action, boyz!”

SECOND FLOOR CROWD (A MOB)
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.

PHIL GEORGEFF (TRACK ANNOUNCER)
At the half it’s Bunker Bryan, Bunker Bryan taking the lead and battling it out with Snark Sandwich, Groovie Moovie and Caponey Baloney slipping to several lengths from our leaders, Danger Angel racing up, still poised on
the outside.

Alkemy Alkie, Silicon Con, with Uncle Mephisto and Boo Boo Boojum roughing it out in the rear.

But there goes Snark Sandwich, holding on strong again, Caponey Baloney leading Silicon Con and Saint Aleister by a few.

Bunker Bryan, Bunker Bryan holding fast, Snark Sandwich there, nose to nose, and boy do we have ourselves a horse race! —

Everyone’s attention rivetted on the monitors, not even the security forces sense the rumbling of the entire structure, and before anyone knows what’s going on, this surreal portion of the story goes off the deep end.

Breaking out of orbit followed by a host of star ships Imperial and Rebellious, alien and illusory, skilfully designed and created plastic models matted onto the screen with the solar eclipse eerily glowing in the background, Groucho and the boyz lead a vast space and air attack against the defensive systems of the OTB

Explosions, the launching of surface-to-air rockets and missiles, penetration of the ground forces by laser cannon wielding forms characterizing the Hollywood monster senaibility going back for decades, an enormous, incomparable onslaught is suddenly underway that surprises even crusty old Crowley.

With the entire place in total pandemonium, the penumbra of Moon about to break, time almost out, The Dark Magickian braces himself and prepares for his final counter-strike.

THE MASTER THERION (ENOCHIAN PHASE)
He chants in that strange tongue of Dr. John Dee, making sigils in the air as each Governor ol the Aethyr is invoked:

TEDOAND! VIVIPOS! VOANAMB!

The tiling of the second floor, in places already destroyed from the battle, expand with his words, the boundaries between tiles becoming concrete, tangible demarkations with the flowing of molten lava, rivers, blowing winds, rock slides.

The crossword puzzle, whose boxes were tables and chairs, whose answers were souls, becomes a mystic chess board, a 27x27 grid of Enochian topography, a veritable matrix of mind. The square-worlds are each self-contained Universes, replete with landscape, inhabitants, reigning bureaucracies, serving or independent populations, histories, philosophies, with their own physical laws and particular correspondences to their neighbors, their governing bodies who reign from higher Aethyrs afar.

As the last syllable of the last Name is pronounced, one particular Enochian square begins to encompass the entire area, a composite square characterized by a thick, impermeable darkness that begins to inexorably spread, forcing the hostilities to cease, as combatants and civvies are forced into blindness, blindness into motionlessness, motionlessness into the deadness of the eternally Dead.

THE CITY OF THE PYRAMIDS
The Magickian‘s chant can be heard bellowing forth from every horizon, from the depths of the sky itself:

“O ye who dwell in the City of the Pyramids beneath the Night of Pan, remember that ye shall see no more light but that of the great fire that shall consume your dust to ashes!”

The beings who dwell here are hardly distinguishable from one another, are dead to the outside, dead to themselves. A vast darkness covers everything, penetrates everyone, like a vast sea. No knowledge, no happiness, not even any more power, or beauty.

For the price exacted by this personal Zero, the beings begin to understand, begin to realize perspectives that can only be finally understood when all sense of self is destroyed, when identity, personal interest, connectivity to the world and its things are lost forever, with no hope of ever gaining their recovery.

AMORPHOUS FORM #1
Hey, haven’t we just left this place? Seems no different than home, does it? What’s the big deal, anyway?… I feel myself kind of drifting, though, drifting away…

AMORPHOUS FORM #2
Snap out of it, whoever you are! We’ll be lost here forever, turned into Compulsives of the Zero if we don’t watch out. Hey! Wake up! Don’t let yourself go! We’ve gotta find a way out of here! Who knows how long we’ve been here: it might already be too late!

AMORPHOUS FORM #3
Yo! I think I feel something here! Kind of like a latch, or door handle! Quick! This might be our only chance out of the darkness. Follow me, hold onto my hands…

They enter a very narrow, very long room, with seats on either side, an aisle running down the middle toward a kind of screen, before which is placed three ascending steps.

Somehow, the Forms all become separated, or are unified into one sensing being. All objects in this mysterious movie theatre are discriminated from one another merely by their relative intensity of blackness: the seats are slightly less black than the walls and floor, the screen and steps slightly less black than the seats.

Hooded, robed like pyramids, the people sitting in the chairs, watching the film, are like the pyramids, centers of initiation on the one hand, forgotten tombs on the other. You know they are there, can sense their presence, and yet you cannot communicate with them, touch them, or even hear them.

Curious about what movie could possibly be playing in a place like this, you turn to watch the screen, and just as your eyes take their first look toward the front, the movie ponderously begins.

A MOVIE (ITS OWN SEQUEL … )
Shades of darkness appear in blotches, move across the screen, disappear into yet more darkness.

A landscape suddenly is identifiable, a rolling countryside, blacks, greys, some browns depict mountains in the distance, a long path winding in the foreground. This landscape continues for several moments, until —

You feel a compulsion to get up, and ascend the stairs. As you move, you cast a shadow onto the screen, look behind you, but see no projector, no light, no dark. You look back at the changing screen, and white letters, numbers, symbols flash sporadically across the landscape, appearing for but a fraction of a second until a new set of cryptograms appear, only to disappear into some others, equally rapidly, equally mysterious.

You are confused, yet continue to approach the stairs. You mount them, slowly, one after another, first left foot on first step, right foot on second, left foot raised to third, and as you rip through the movie screen —

EGYPTIAN EXHIBIT
FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
CHICAGO, IL.
Before your eyes stream hundreds of people daily. Through the thick glass receptacle in which you are placed, you gawk at them, insult them, laugh at their primitive culture, while you covet their ceremonial instruments, and ponder your own past, what could have coerced the gods to lock you forever in such a prison, such an unspeakable hell. Trapped. Trapped in this glass prison, within the tomb of your embalmed body.

As the early morning continues exactly as countless other museum mornings, lunch hour noons, afternoons, late evenings, visited days, darkened lonely nights usually do, as this early morning continues along so monotonously and unbelievably slowly, contempt transforming gradually to grinding, savage boredom, you notice an unexpected shadow passing into the chamber from the one external light source through the far door.

An eerie shadow, a shadow that brings back some of those memories from your distant past. The shadow moves. Odd. You hear words emanating from one of those small, obviously stolen ceremonial boxes of the gods, hand held, battery powered, holy sounds filtered through the hubbub and finally penetrating the glass of your confines:

PHIL GEORGEFF (TRACK ANNOUNCER)
Hee-ere they come, spinning around the final turn, Bunker Bryan starting to trail into the dark, Snark Sandwich pushing here to the front.

On the outside, watch that outside here comes Groovie Moovie and Danger Angel, Silicon Con and Saint Aleister, Groovie Moovie and Danger Angel battling it for second now as they come on into the home stretch, Snark Sandwich out and away as if he were all alone, Snark Sandwich!

Snark Sandwich! Snark Sandwich takes The Race by five lengths! Groovie Moovie coming in second, and Silicon Con to show…

A tall, ominous-looking man dressed all in black, with a black cap, tophat, and cane, accompanied by a woman dressed all in scarlet, wearing black shoes and sash, walk slowly, almost seductively toward you, stop directly in front of you, and tap gently on the glass.

The gentleman is smiling the smile of death itself, as that very same glass before you suddenly shatters, splinters cascading against your body, against the burial shroud covering your lower body, against the floor below you as darkness envelopes you completely yet again, an interminable dark that can only lead you around and back to the shadowy light, the noise of the herd…

SECOND FLOOR CROWD (A MOB)
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.

The Chaos on the second floor ceases instantly as Snark Sandwich’s victory in The Race is made official.

The Master Therion smiles a smile of death, noticeably through the Circle, as the entire spectacle becomes like a dream, a dream that should be over, a friend knocking on your front door, waking you up, images fading into instinctual oblivion, but no, the nightmare must continue now, in the reverse direction, unconsciousness leading to coma, deep coma carrying you to the anteroom of Anubis.

As you greet the Jackel-headed deity with fear and consternation, the Judgement Chamber of Maat through that inner door, doubts settling into you, through you, your heart feeling heavy, much too heavy as Anubis takes you by the hand, leading you toward your Day of Reckoning, the Scale poised, your Scale poised, no one else’s Scale, the Scale that has been waiting for you, only for you, your Scale, your feather, your Book.

The Baboon-headed god Thoth waiting, waiting for only you, now, waiting to carve the glyph commanding, making real your imminent purgatory, your encasement in that glass hell, or scrawling, signing the invitation to attend that Osirian block party, wine, women, song, one or the other, Heaven or Hell, but no, no no no!

The Race has been lost, the trials over, and whatever are we going to do with ourselves now…? But hang on tight, folks. This story, this story is my story, my dream, my journeying. My story is largely arbitrary, while being completely my own, too. I borrow from sources, but which ones will reach the printed page, and in which form, is again my decision.

Remember that Marx Brothers movie, the one that had so little to do with horseracing and yet kind of did? Remember what happened in THE END, when that cheap Hollywood gimmick was used, of letting down the audience, anti-climax generated, all hope Jost, depression, death
abundant, only to suddenly twist the odds, stretch all levels of credibility and probability, make the Good Guys win, but only after you thought they
were doomed?

Well, don’t think I’m immune to that kind of stuff. I mean, in the movie it worked well enough, and regardless of whether it did or not, those cheap devices hold within them a little piece of the action, that bottom level zip and zero that fuels the whole creative process, however successful or unsuccessful that final product happens to turn out. We knock the brute, insult him, but Uncle Mephisto is a decent horse, too, a horse without which you can’t even run that Race, any race for that matter.

So, in a homage to the frivolous, the fun loving, the hope that keeps the world turning and the fire places burning, we’ll recall how Jimi Hendrix once sang that — hey! all right! you know if Six, turned out to Nine, I don’t mind, I don’t mind — Fortunately for Our Heroes, in this Race of Races, then, Seven — yeah! Seven turned out to be Ten, I don’t know why, I don’t know why.

We can attempt some trace of causality, however fictional, and we can circumvent a few more universal laws both internal and external, and concoct something cantankerously clever. But numerous deadlines have already been breeched, and if this story doesn’t get printed out tomorrow
morning at Uncle Luis’ place, well, several weeks might pass, and the tolerance of friends might suffer that very same fate.

In the midst of the final word I am trying to say
In the midst of my hereafter and flee
My time has softly and suddenly vanished away
So ‘Snark Sandwich’ I make ‘Boo Boo Boojum’, you see

As the word gets around that the horses’ numbers were somehow switched, and that “Snark Sandwich” actually lost to “Boo Boo Boojum,” waves of transformation ripple through the entire establishment, no doubt by sheer coincidence perfectly in synchronisation with the conclusion of the solar eclipse over Chicago’s skies.

As the last sliver of the Moon releases totally the Sun, uninterrupted yellow light streaming in the windows again, Aliens, security people, armor, all begin to dissolve, vacate the prremises. The Master Therion has suddenly and adroitly vanished, dithering helpless into the crowds.

As various gangsters, bureaucrats, totalitarian dictators, military planners, industrialists and celebrities leave the Derby Club and walk down the stairs, they begin to sing and chant as if possessed, though in a slightly different way than they have been used to, drums, electric bass, cowbell, keyboard, brass, guitars, woodwinds, all united in this grand Wagneresque, Straussian mode of orchestration, though in a decidedly psychedelic kind of style, a lovely lady’s lovely voice bounding, abounding boundless to the afternoon skies, Milos Forman’s spinning camera spinning angles here, round and round she goes, hey! pass the VO5!

When the moon,
Is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter, aligns with Mars
Then peace, will guide the planet
And love, love will steer the sky
This is the Dawning of the

Age of Aquarius
Age of Aquarius
Age of Aquarius —

Aquarius
Aquarius

Harmony and understanding,
Sympathy and truth abounding,
No more falsehoodl or derisions
Golden living draama and visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind’s true liberation

A-quar-i-us
Aquaaarius
Aquarius
Aquarius!

Keys, however necessary, are easy enough to lose. As this slew of VIP humanity now temporarily transformed and humanized leaves the building, the second floor crowd, dissatisfied that one of the long shots came in, after all, become as wild out of their formal Circle as they were possessed within it.

They stir up the chant again, this time frighteningly present, pervasive, inexhaustible:

SECOND FLOOR CROWD (STILL A MOB)
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.

Through the haze, the seething mass of still chanting humanity on the second floor, a semblance of the remaining character of Jean LeBusted runs into The Master Therion, now infuriated by the happenings of the evening. lncessed that the tip was a Loser, Therion a.k.a. Crowley lashes out at LeBusted, hurling him, swirling him, unfurling him into the depths of the crowd.

Mr. Mike, supervisor, notices the altercation in the crowd, and calls security on his walkie-talkie, Sandy and Bleary showing up just in time to save Jean, and hand cuff Crowley for a swift exit out of the Clubhouse area, and possibly onward to The Station.

At the main entrance, Slip, Johnny, and Leo hang out, holding the Scarlet Woman, making sure that all further nightmares this morning are summarily avoided.

JOHNNY NIMBUSSON (A SKEPTICK)
I don’t understand why you guys are so freaked out about all this.

He shakes his head.

None of it’s real, so why worry about any of it?

His tone is very matter-of-fact.

Everyone says so much about the War in the Gulf, for example, but no one talks about the gerbiles. Gerbiles live out there in the desert, you know. Everyone talks about the horrendous loss of human life, and no one talks about those gerbiles. Human concerns? More farcical fictions. They burrow, they forage, the desert surface is the rightful home of those poor gerbiles.

What do you think all that American bombing did to those gerbiles, their many underground tunnels? Fantasy. Idle and impractical speculation. Schwarzkopf says the enemy’s strength, and therefore their losses, were vastly over-rated.

Let’s just get things together, and worry about the real problems in life. How can anyone survive without medical insurance, for instance? No pension I can understand, but no insurance?

Jesus.

LEO (A ROMANTICK)
To the Scarlet Woman, while pointing up to Crowley at the top of the escalator, with escorts:

Hey, babe. How come ya hang around with a joker like that? He be nothin but trouble for ya, ya should know that.

You gotta come with me. I’ll teach ya some things. I’ll show ya some of them moves, you’ll get the groove, baby. Yep.

SLIP (A DISPEPTICK)
Down Leo, down. I just heard on the walkie that the trouble on the second floor is settling down now. We’ll see what the deal was, and then hopefully get these two cases out of here.

Sandy, Blearly, and Mike escort the cuffed assailant down the steps, and toward the entrance.

Slip rushes over, pointing to The Suspect, recognizes him from the detailed description given during an earlier conversation with the Corporate President, and sez:

Look, guys, we have to let him go. As long as we have no more trouble, we don’t want to make a bigger deal out of this than we have to, you know what I’m saying?

Come on now, Sandy. Unlock those cuffs, take them off. Let’s just all relax, and head on home. We don’t need bigger problems than what we got already. Right?

Let’s move.

BLEARY (AN APOPLEXICK)
We have problems, I see some problems. Borus here is certainly a problem. Let’s cuff him, instead, and make him work the subway detail with me. We don’t need a muzzle, he’ll just act stupid, and intimidate all the evening psychos.

Right Borus?

SANDY (A BEAT COPTICK)
Unlocking and removing the hand cuffs from Crowley.

See? See what I told you, Mike? Do you remember?

Imitating Richard Pryor imitating a white person speaking:

‘Take those cuffs off, go ahead now, take those cuffs off.’

Shaking his head, placing the cuffs back in his police belt, resuming in his normal voice:

Now if managers, owners, the citizens of Chicago would only let us do our fucking jobs, then things would be a whole lot easier on both sides of the law, you know what I’m saying? A whole lot easier on both sides, my man.

Just like Leo said, go ahead, let em drink whiskey, smoke herb out here. And look what happened when we finally let shit get out of hand. Look at what the hell happened out there. Shit. I might as well hang out all night in the security office.

ALEISTER CROWLEY (AN EX-FELON)
Hand cuffs now removed, he rubs his wrists, and smirks.

I confess to dislike Chicago. It resembles New York more than its citizens would like to admit, but lacks altogether the cosmopolitan and man-of-the-world atmosphere of Gotham. It gives the impression of being a pure machine. Its artistic and cultural side shares the deadness of the rest, and you, gentlemen, are doubtlessly the finest specimens of Chicagoan I have encountered.

I worship the god messenger AIWAZ that you shall maintain that distinction by virtue of the complete absence of any more such examples of your kind.

Good day.

LEO (A SUPERVISOR AND GRILL COOK)
Good night, motherfucker. Come by again, and I’ll pop you in yo nose. I’ll buss yo head. I’ll smack da piss outa you. I’ll send yo limey-ass back home, jack. Now rev up and fuck off, fo I call yo mammy on you. Go. Get out. And take that scraggly-assed broad wit ya.

THE SCARLET WOMAN (A MISTRESS OF DOOM)
Throwing her mate’s hand away, running over to Leo.

No! I won’t go with him! Let me stay! Let me stay with you, Leo! I want to stay here, in Chicago, with my Leo!

Oh Leo! I cannot go back with that other one, that animal, that Beast! Never! Please! Please don’t make me go back to him! Leo!

Oh, Leo! Save me…!

ALEISTER CROWLEY (AN EX-LOVER)
Whore! Slut! Harlot! Ape of Thoth! Leave me! I need you not! I have had enough of this!

LEO (A SMOOTHIE)
Hey hey hey, momma. Chill. We’ll get us some pizzas, a case a Old Style, and kick back, watch the Bulls game. You all right. I think you OK, even though you had this loser for a boyfriend. I’ll fix you up pretty good.

Real soon, you’ll be one happenin babe. You like pepperoni? or juss cheese? I like extra cheese, myself. Come on! Less go.

Leo escorts the Scarlet Woman out of the double doors.

MIKE (A TIRED WRITER AND MYOPICK)
Don’t forget to punch out, Leo.

Noticing Nullie ambling slowly down the stairs, wondering what all the commotion is at the door.

Hey, babe, how are you doing?… I know, I know. No one will believe us, what we did for the Universe and all… See?

You wanted to get into public service, some politics.

Hope you enjoyed the adventure.

NULLIE (AN OPTICK)
Well, sure was a bit more than I bargained for. Not bad for an exercise, although to be honest with you, I didn’t really know what the hell you were talking about half the time.

To remain honest with you, I thought many parts were personally insulting. You should watch your mouth, and your words on the page!

Anyway, good luck. If you keep at it, you just might get somewhere, although to be honest with you once again, I don’t really know where you just might get to.

Ta-ta.

MIKE (A CHAUVANISTICK)
To be honest with you, I’m not sosure myself. Hang on to it, though. If I do finally go somewhere, it just might be worth something one of these days. If not, well, at least you’ll have an odd curiosity piece…

Of course, if you wouldn’t have rushed me, you probably would have gotten a tighter story, though. Much, much more intense. I probably would have had the time to remove those offensive parts, since I wrote them a while ago.

And with all the rush, well, the fantasy sequence got abbreviated, I didn’t have a chance to really proof read the thing as I would have like to of, and many of the connections, well —

NULLIE (JUST PLAIN TIRED)
You men are all alike. Complain complain complain, just like little boys, always blaming us for your problems, your hurt egos. The basic problem with you guys is that you never grow up. Peter Pans, all of you, chasing your shadows. All you do is take take take, and expect the whole world to come waltzing to your door. Well let me tell you…

Most sets neither consistent nor complete, their argument continues into the distance, their voices slowly fading into a diminuendo of late night frustration, romantick attack, defense, various counter-measures of the loved and loveless, the turnings and yearnings of the alchemical boygirl girlboy conflict, dynamo of the world and its energies, amorously creative, seductively destructive, the disco dance of Shiva, fuel of the Universe, the creatures who will it daily into existence.

Inside, on the second floor in the meanwhile, the mesmerizing chant continues, growing forever more ominous, more powerful:

SECOND FLOOR CROWD (&ETC.)
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City.
The Jungle shall overtake The City…

TENTH RACE (NIGHT CAP)

FOR COLLEGE DROP-OUTS, FRUSTRATED ARTISTS, GENERAL MAl..CONTENTS YOUR SAVINGS, WEEKLY PAY CHECK, HYPOTHETICAL INHERITANCE, ALL RUNNING OUT
PURSE: GET YOUR TIRED, LAZY ASS BACK HOME
DISTANCE: TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS

Last call for victories. I stand at the base of the escalator, and watch the crowd as it disperses, telling them they cannot bring open liquor out onto the mall area, rip up and toss racing programs onto the foyer floor, knock down the dress code sign, all while occasionally wishing them a good evening.

Most faces are indifferent as they leave — they come too often to allow themselves an excessive amount of emotional reaction. Many are demonstrably upset — they scowl, swear never again to return, go rushing out of the front doors, throwing torn programs into trash cans, up into the air of downtown Chicago, down into the ‘L’ station at Washington Street.

Just another night at this OTB, one of many nights, one of many OTB’s, The Beast defecates its human feces, to slumber silently into the evening’s shadowy dreams.

As the last of them are away, the bowels of this “Winner’s Circle” on State and Lake left to porter sweep and supervisory inspection, Slip descends hastilly down the escalator, and approaches only to hand me a piece of paper, upon which is typewritten:

PROPER LOCK-UP PROCEDURE
I. Take service elevator to 4th floor and complete the following:
A. Lock off all floors in elevator
B. Check all doors and coolers to be sure they are locked
C. Turn off lights in coolers and in hallway
D. Check for stairwell door and gate to be sure they are closed and locked
E. Come back to first stairwell and check door and gate to be sure they are locked…

A managerial note that continues similarly for each respective gaming floor, including the basement. Closing up, I must follow this structural procedure, a literary statement of process, another article to proof read, though this one possessing the capability for some degree of empirical justification and verification. I comply.

Making my way to the abandoned and empty fourth floor, I shut off the lights, inspect the locks. Some say sports gambling will soon be legal in Illinois — no doubt this space is held in anticipation. Extra chairs, bar stools, tables, draped with a soiled canvas spread, are like entombed ghosts up here. Do they listen daily to the commotion below? Might the ghosts of destroyed dreams, vanquished lives dwell up here, cursing the next hapless victim below?

Down the stairs, I inspect the Club kitchen. Ghosts here are edible — I pop a last bit of sandwich into my mouth, slug some leftover coffee, trying to stay awake, trying to maintain on this last stretch of my first stretch. I strike a match, light an oven pilot. I check to make sure everything else is turned off, that all is locked and secure.

The dining room is fine, the bar shut down and closed off, so then I descend to Mezzanine level, wading through the debris. The floor is covered with loosing tickets, discarded programs. Like my first time through the entire place, escorted by Winston, I feel the strange sensation of the patrons somehow being still present, only this time, I have an upside-down kind of feeling, one where I experience the place as though it were abandoned by the ghosts themselves, taking leave of the netherland for worlds even more distant, ever the more fleeting and surreal.

Second floor, lobby, program booth. I hop over uneventfully (the future quakes, but I listen not to the warnings), off to the Grandstand to check it over, and then back through the program booth —

Through the program booth, sign of another initiation, contained, perhaps, within the boundaries of another (per)version, future? Winston Softpack is long gone, dreaming suburban dreams, living a life removed from my own, far away in need, in deed.

My initiation is complete, at least in this first stage. Depositing my closing keys with Slip, I amble out of the building, yearning for a sense of parting symmetry, a semblance of closure, and find myself gripping for words, struggling to keep my late night thoughts coherent.

Somehow, such considerations don’t seem appropriate here. Typos, mistakes from the night, can be corrected in another perversion, another night. I have much much more to learn. The complex has led to the simple, inspite of myself. I feel exhausted, though empowered. I have a job, a job now leading me down to Street. The world comes down, down to this. Objects hold on tight. The ‘L’ is still running. The City is asleep, though still humming.

Connections, meanings, human values are as fleeting and ethereal without this outer world as objects and events are fleeting and ethereal within my inner one. Art sometimes helps to bridge this gap, though in The Race, few have time to dwell on such subtleties, such luxuries. The World goes on, and so does The Race. I am exhausted, and such subtleties are beginning to feel meaningless, an abstraction best left for later times, perhaps tomorrow morning, a new day, a new light, the dawn of new subtleties, new abstractions…

As I slide my CTA token into the turnstyle, push my way through the iron bars, the image of Willie the janitor remains fixated in my mind. I still see him mopping the hall just outside the office, downstairs in the building, off track. As I waited for the elevator to take me up and out, he moved progressively down the corridor, off into the distance, his body swaying in gentle rhythms to his labors, swinging that mop, to and fro, to and fro, leaving a trail of cleanliness behind him.

After the OTB, he will be off to another job on the far South Side, where he will work another full shift. He has a family to support, a family minus his seventeen-year-old son, who was shot to death in a street fight early last year. He has a family to support, and his body forever sways to gentle rhythms of his labors, swinging that mop, lifting that box, carrying that case of booze, cleaning that bar, toiling the toils of a hard working family man who, when taking a brief break, smoking a Kool cigarette in the lounge, might think about the idea of taking his savings and buying a truck to drive deliveries with, might think about his wife back home, the son who remains, the son he lost.

I am getting sentimental, and realize that it’s not on the Proper Lock-Up Procedure list. My train arrives, squealing into the station.

A song drifts slowly through my oogled brain, filling up with a last burst of energy, a second wind of song, as I ride my way back north, hand on my gnarly mop, remaining proud. Proud? Sure. Why not?

I mean, I got life, mothers. I got laughs, sisters. I got freedom, brothers. I got good times, man. I got crazy ways, daughters. I got million dollar charm, cousins. I got headaches, and toothaches, and bad times too, like you. Hey! I got my tie I got my suit I got my shoes I got my root I got my-y-y black socks! I got my card I got my walkie-talkie I got my program I got my att-t-itude!

Cause I got li-ife, motherz, I got lau-au-au-aughs, sisterz, I got free-ee-ee-dom, brotherz, I got good times, good times, ma-an. I got crazy ways, daughterz, I got million dollar charm, cousinz. I got headaches, and toothaches, and bad times too, like you.

Hey!… Hey… Hey… Wha…?

The Night comes to a close.

Perhaps we shall relive it. Perhaps not.

I am Home. Back to No Race.

— FIN —