JACK CADY

WEIRD ROW

WE DRIVE THE RENO STRIP before dawn and it's all bright lights and casinos: gin and tonic at five A.M., fancy ladies with drooping eyelids, the clank of old-fashioned slots and the zippity hum of electronics; an occasional rattle of coins. Dawn sees some gamblers weary with defeat and completely busted. They park before used car dealers and wait for the lots to open. They sell their cars cheap in order to get breakfast and bus fare home.
Me, and Pork, and Victoria (my comrades) drive through this glossy city as morning rises quick above the desert. We say very little, because Pork is dreamy and Victoria is crazed. We flee like refugees, though we don't flee far.
Storyland sits at city limits, between the town and the desert. When we approach, it looks like a hangar for monster airplanes, being of round metal roof and immense. It does not look like a book barn, though it is.
Once inside, Storyland stretches into distance like a stadium with fluorescent lights. Lights hang way, way up there, sending glowing messages from an awkward heaven. This is a freakin' church, a financial cathedral.
My comrades and I take our places before stainless tables, with dumpsters at our backs. I'm in the center with Pork on my left. Victoria giggles on my right. Dust collectors hum, conveyer belts slide slicky-sounding, and we snag packages from conveyors which trundle before us. We open packages. We work like dogs and are paid like dogs. Employee turnover is fantastic. Still, a few genuine nut-cases hang on; plus us. We like it here. We say we're on Weird Row. We're talkin' revolution.
The packages contain books, audios, videos, but mostly books. Thoughts and amusements of two thousand years trickle through our hands.
It works like this: The Corporation owns Storyland and sends books to every country in the world. Packages go out, but packages also come in. Packages arrive because when The Corporation receives orders it shops the Net. It finds needed books at small bookstores in Denver or Ashtabula or Cape Town. The small stores ship the books here for Storyland to resell. Workers who are higher paid repackage the books and send them to customers. Those workers get higher pay because what they do is boring. We, here on Weird Row, get the best part of the job.
Books on necromancy mix with Bibles, and children's picture-books rest beside dusty philosophies from two hundred years ago. History, evolution, how to raise a family cow...you name it, we open it...all kinds and colors of books spit forth, plus: there is packaging.
"Plus," Pork reminds me, "there's Package Police." He checks the terrain with heavy-lidded gaze as he speaks. Conveyers hum all around, and other teams open packages. We don't speak to other teams. Who needs 'em?
Pork looks rested. Many years ago there was a song titled "Mr. Five by Five." That's Pork. Five foot tall and five foot around, like a giant bowling ball with a fluffy head. He has hazel eyes and the kind of beard you find on billy goats.
"There's also denouements." Victoria generally sounds cultured. She is virginal and sweet and only slightly insane. She has no business in a candy-fanny town like Reno. Victoria should be gliding along marble hails while wearing a satin gown. She should be waving a wand that casts sparkles. Victoria is knock-down-dead gorgeous, little and cute, like a movie queen, like Hepburn. "There's visualizations," she says, "and actualizations and excitements. There's also a certain amount of stardust."
I make no big claim to sanity, either. If I am sane, why am I in Reno ? My name...? It seems a guy would remember...I'm sure my mom recalls it, but she lives in New Hampshire. Around here they call me Smoke. Because I do, whenever I can sneak a butt. I'm skinny and going on thirty with bright eyes and yellow teeth; a nice smile to go with it, a tidy little cough. I lust after Victoria. Fat chance. Lotsa luck, buddy.
"Package Police," Pork says, again. Even wide awake and rested, Pork sounds dreamy. Dreamy is dangerous. When he gets too dreamy, Pork fondles books.
The Corporation can't allow that. A man who fondles books is liable to steal something: a notion, an essence, an idea. A man who fondles books might learn a trade, develop a philosophy, found a religion. All through history, book fondlers have been known to commit creative acts. Around here, Book Fondling is a godawful sin.
After all, those books belong to The Corporation, and The Corporation has its own philosophy. The Corporation not only wants its fair share. The Corporation wants to own Everything. The Corporation will not be stolen from. Thus, the Package Police.
"Our plot marches forward," Victoria whispers. She is excited. She places a book titled Teach Yourself Celtic in Your Spare Time on the conveyer, then slowly turns to dispose of packaging. Recycle goes in one dumpster, reusable packaging in another. The Celtic book had been wrapped in newspaper. A headline flatly states:
VAPORS EXCITE CAT SHOW, PULCHRITUDINOUS KITTY DEEDS FURBALL
"No story enclosed, just headline." Victoria speaks with some chagrin.
"None needed," Pork whispers. "We got enough to work with." Pork sounds as excited as Pork ever sounds, which is to say, real dreamy.
"Put a sock in it," I tell them. "We got problems."
A Package-Police cruiser has just pulled a U-ey at the end of our conveyor row. It heads toward us. The cruiser is electric and only big enough to hold one cop and one prisoner.
"Pulchritudinous," Pork says, and says it real dreamy. I give him a good nudge. He sort of wakes up.
This cop has missed his place in history. He's a perfect model for a Storm Trooper or an Alabama Deputy; an Adolf or a Bubba. He chaws on a toothpick and wears short sleeves to show his biceps. His brush cut stands spikey above blue eyes that can't help looking at the front of Victoria's shirt.
"You creeps, again," he says, and gives me a shove just hard enough to mess up what I'm doing. "Keep workin'."
I place a book titled Ergonomics and Policy Reform in 13th Century Mesopotamia on the conveyor. The packaging was bubble wrap. I toss it into the reusable material dumpster. Pick up another package.
This particular cop always shoves me when he's after Pork...something, Victoria always explains, that they teach you in cop school.
"You moved your lips funny," the cop says to Pork. "Say it again."
"Cheese burgers for lunch," Pork tells the cop. It's one of our ready-made words. We have ready-mades for occasions like this. "We were talkin' lunch," Pork says. "Before that we were talkin' breakfast."
"And now you're talkin' bull." The cop knows full well he's in the presence of subversion. He knows we're stealing thoughts, but doesn't have enough to hang us.
We got rights. The cop doesn't even have enough on us to justify a mild beating. He's one frustrated jockstrap.
"With French Fries," Victoria says, and says it most sweetly. She zips open a package containing Pachyderms of the Circus: Their Wit and Wisdom. This one is wrapped in newspaper. She deftly, and with no seeming regret, tosses the paper into recycle. We who know her, though, feel her sorrow. We caught a fleeting headline, something like: SYMPHONY GOES 0 AND 1 AGAINST MENDELSSOHN.
Something to think about. And we will. As soon as we get rid of Adolf.
"We'd ask you to join us for lunch," I say in a loud whisper, "but then we'd be fraternizing." I figure the cop is so dumb he'll think it's a compliment. I think rightly.
"Another suck-up," he says. When he finally leaves we shelve Mendelssohn for the moment, then once more discuss a question of law.
It is true we steal words and thoughts, but we're not stealing them from the books. We're taking them from the packaging. Plus, things fall out of books: pressed flowers, locks of hair, clippings (usually obituaries or marriages), bookmarks, snapshots, postage stamps, love letters, receipts, and postcards. It's all throwaway stuff.
So, if it's junk, who owns it? The Corporation says, "Throw it away."
"You can't steal something that's been thrown away," Pork always explains. "That's our fall-back position. When we finally get caught, and finally heal up from the beating, and find ourselves in front of a judge, that's our defense."
"Pulchritudinous," Victoria murmurs. "Nobody is gonna throw something like that away. That'll be their claim."
"Plus," I say, "they got lawyers. They own the judge. We got minimum wage."
"And the joy of combat," Pork tells me. "We got the pleasure of taking stuff right under The Corporation's drippy little nose." Pork can talk vicious when he wants.
"Every day," Victoria murmurs, "I take an idea, or an image, or a word away from here. I set it loose in the world. That, I believe, is Pulchritudinous." Victoria sometimes gets a dazed look whilst talking philosophy.
She is describing our mission. Our mission is not to defy The Corporation, but to subvert. We are warriors. That's the truth.
When books go out of here, headed for Bangkok or Plymouth-in-England, or Carrolton, Kentucky, they look just great. The Corporation has slicked them. Spots on covers have been cleaned. Torn dustjackets have been repaired. Lots of them look new, and all of them look snazzy. Like Reno.
But, I've seen inside some of those books. The words are still there, the ideas, the theories, the stories; but somehow life is gone. It's like everything in them is written on a dying desert wind. The books show color but have no heat of impassioned brains or beat of loving hearts. It's a giant gyp. The Corporation keeps the life of the book and sells the husk. Just like Reno.
Our subversion comes because we hijack words, ideas, dream-stuff, and yeah, occasional stardust. We hijack entire concepts, plus screwball visions. We can take a headline, a cat show, and talk it through. Then, we take it outside of Storyland and set it free. If our new idea or vision can make it beyond the city limits, it has a strong chance for a healthy life.
"Lunch," Pork says, and really means it.
We get take-out burgers at a roadhouse, then roll the car a mile into desert. The land is flat and covered with sage. In some places small hills rise, also sage-covered. We choose our spot with great care because The Corporation has spies. If we get caught doing what we're about to do, the least that will happen is fractures.
I smoke a butt, smoke another. In the distance Reno seems to dance through heat waves, a tired and faded dance. The Corporation fits right into Reno. The Corporation came here because of tax stuff and central shipping. Birds of a feather.
We chaw on burgers, pretending that we hold a conversation about nothin'. We look here, there, every place. When we spot no spies, Victoria murmurs a little chant, tosses in a small but mystical spell. Then Victoria moves her delicate hand as if she waves a wand. She opens her hand. Pulchritudinous flies free.
Pulchritudinous dances like a tiny blue flame beneath a desert sun. It rises above desert sage, skimming like a splendid little bird. It bounces playful. It dives, circles, and sports around us as it seeks a destination. It finally heads out in the general direction of Tennessee. It's gonna have one whale of a hard time making it in Nashville, but at least it's free of Reno.
"What is the difference?" Pork murmurs, "between Storyland and The Strip." He's talking, of course, about the Reno Strip.
"Us," Victoria says quietly.
I know what she means. Of course, Victoria is crazy, even if she does have smart brains. I search across the desert, but nothing out there moves. It looks like we've pulled off a successful stunt, but a day will come when someone spots us. Scary thought, but I don't think that any beating we get, or even any jail sentence, will allow The Corporation to reclaim Pulchritudinous.
"Time to get back to Weird Row," I tell my comrades. "We still got to deal with Mendelssohn."