🚀 go-pugleaf

"Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn.
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many."

       _The Waste Land_, T.S. Eliot.

HARD TIMES #5

"Excuse me? We've come to invade your planet? Hello?"

-------------------------------------------------------------

The neon sign on the front of the building was turned off, to save power. Not
that it was needed right at the current moment, the sun standing high
enough that the time had to be somewhere near noon, but it was still off. The
dirty piece of cardboard in the window read "OPEN," though, and that was
good enough for the leather-jacketed man standing outside.

The door squeaked as he pushed it open. There weren't any other patrons in
the bar, and the bartender himself was sitting on a stool, watching the black-
and-white television. With a motion that showed exactly how little he wanted
to ask the question, the bartender turned and asked "What can I get you."
Only the phrasing indicated it was a question; the bartender's tone said
something entirely different.

"Beer," the man in the leather jacket said.

"Sur-fucking-prise," the bartender replied. "What _kind_ of beer."

Briefly, the man considered grabbing the bartender's head and slamming it
into the dirty mirror behind him. The urge passed, but the irritation
remained.

"I don't care. Whatever's on tap."

"We got four beers on tap."

The irritation grew. "Look, asshole. I don't give a good goddamn what your
damn problem is; I don't care what beer I get as long as it comes in a
goddamn glass. Get a glass, put beer in it, and put it in front of me,
otherwise
I'll burn down this fucking bar."

The bartender considered for a moment. There was a lump underneath the
man's jacket, just about the size of a pistol.  There was also the complete and
utter who-gives-a-fuck attitude of those who have no hope, who have made
hope irrelevant to their lives.

The bartender picked up a glass and stuck it under the Bud tap. As the
amber liquid dribbled into the glass, he commented. "Wouldn't mean much to
me, it ain't my bar and it's closing anyway. Be gone at the end of the month."

"Who gives a fuck?" said the man with the gun.

The glass finally filled, and was set down with a thump that sloshed beer
onto the stained counter. "Here. Buck fifty."

"What?"

"Pay as you get it. Buck fifty."

"Oh, jeeee-zus. Here." A literal wad of dollar bills was pulled out of one
of the
pockets of the jacket. Two dollars were untwisted from the mass and pushed
towards the bartender.

The bartender took the two bills and turned to the cash register. He hit a few
keys,
and looked down at the drawer, which failed to open.

"Goddammit." the bartender said. "Thing's jammed again."

"Let's see," the man with the gun said. "Oh. One'a them." He leaned over the
counter, and hit the cash register in the side. The drawer popped open.

The bartender looked down. "How'd you do that?"

"Had a lot of experience opening the damn things."

-------------------------------------------------------------

"Look! Wait! Over here! We've come to rape, pillage, and plunder! Won't
somebody _stop_ and _listen_ to us? Helllloooooo?"

-------------------------------------------------------------

The staff of "Girls! Girls! Girls!" had been through a lot over the years.
Irate
drunks, lecherous drunks, threatening drunks, drunks who wouldn't take no
for an answer, drunks who wouldn't take a baseball bat to the kidneys for an
answer, reformers, lawyers, women's rights groups, men's rights groups,
undecided rights groups, all had been dealt with, one way or another. The
drunks were tossed out, or menaced with a shotgun, or handed over to the
cops, the reformers had been referred to the producers of _Studs!_, the
lawyers had been given free drinks, after which they were dealt with in the
same way that drunks were, and all the various rights groups hadn't even
managed to penetrate the door before being overcome by, among other things,
two men in ill-fitting pinstripe suits.

It wasn't a pleasant place to work, especially for the women who served as
waitresses and dancers, but it at least had the benefit of monotony; you knew
where you stood and what you were supposed to do in any instance. Almost
any instance.
Nearly every instance. Except, of course, for the instance of the trashcan
sitting at table three demanding, in no recognizable language but with
absolutely no chance of any misunderstanding, strong drink, and pinching
everything with two X chromosomes that came within range.

The normal response had failed, and two men in ill-fitting pinstripe suits
were currently unconscious and inserted rather neatly into a nearby
ventilation duct. The backup response, that of unrestrained panic on the part
of the various employees, was in full swing and, it must be noted, making life
unpleasant for Gerald Pescadero, the day manager of "Girls! Girls! Girls!" He
had not experienced the full effect of the errant nuclear device, as he was in
his office, behind two layers of cinder blocks, and with enough soundproofing
that even the sounds of "Trust the Government, Girl" or "Barney's Greatest
Hits" couldn't escape...but he had not escaped completely.

"Gerald! Get that ... that ... that thing out of the place! Please!" Virginia
"Madame Plushcouch and her Five-Toed Dance of Desire" Hornblower was
begging Gerald. This would not necessarily have bothered him; in his line of
work, a certain distance from normal human emotions was a requirement.
The word "callous" indicated a depth of feeling that Gerald only reached
during the climactic scenes of particularly moving mobster pictures. However,
he was definitely being bothered by Virginia's attempt to reach what little
heart he had, primarily because she had both hands and a feather bola
wrapped tightly enough that his vision was beginning to dim around his neck.
She was also beating his head against the cinder-block wall in time to the
musak; this added little to his general enjoyment of life.

"Urk! Ack! Qurrrrrrk!" Gerald remarked, as he noted that his skin was
turning purple. A few ineffectual taps on Virginia's arms did nothing to
release the tension. He considered waving his hands slightly, but decided that
this would not help matters significantly.

"You've got to get that thing out of here! He's ruining everything!" Virginia
heaved and lifted Gerald clean off the floor.

Gerald noted as the world began to blur around the edges that everything
was pretty much already ruined, what with business being off fifty percent,
the Mob starting to demand a bigger cut, and his normal neck size of sixteen-
and-a-half being actively reduced to something closer to eight. However,
considering that Virginia only heard him go "Glrrrrrrrk!", this did not help
matters much. Fortunately for Gerald, at that point, matters were taken out
of his hands and placed into his nose, which began bleeding profusely.

"Aaaagh!" said Virginia, releasing Gerald's neck and letting him slump to the
floor. "Ick! Ick! Ick!"

Gerald did not comment, being more interested in the process of respiration
at that point in his career.

"Kleenex! Where're your kleenex?" Virginia said, as she attempted to wipe
the blood from her arms and wring it from her feather bola. Gerald waved
vaguely in the direction of the box of tissues, and pulled himself to what he
thought were his feet. "I'll," he gasped, "go. Take care of. It."

After all, he figured, whatever 'it' was out there, it couldn't be worse than
being in his office with a panicked Virginia. He staggered to the door, blood
still dripping from his nose, and looked into the main room of the
establishment.

There, standing on a table, brandishing what appeared to be a cutlass, was a
small, pot-bellied metal trashcan with arms.

Gerald closed the door.

"Was that ..." he asked Virginia.

"Yes!"

He opened the door again. Sure enough, it was a small, pot-bellied trashcan.
With a head. And, from somewhere, it had obtained a paper hat of the sort
you can get from Long John Silver restaurants, which was attached to a
bowler hat, which was on the head.

He closed the door again.

"Do something!"

He opened the door again, and stared. It still didn't make any sense.

He turned to Virginia. "What do you want _me_ to do?"

She came to the door and looked out.

"Aaaaaar!" went the trashcan.

"I don't know," she said, "You're the manager, you're supposed to know how to
handle these things."

"Look," Gerald said, "They didn't teach us how to handle ... breadboxes with
Errol Flynn psychoses at night school. Vinny and Guido, they're supposed to
handle this stuff."

"Vinny and Guido are in the air-conditioning vents."

Gerald looked. Sure enough, protruding from the vents above the stage were
a pair of hip boots, with, presumably, hips, knees, calves, thighs, and feet in
them.

"Whoo-boy," said Gerald, as the enormity of the situation became apparent to
him.

The trashcan went "Aaaar!" again, and looked around for more people to go
"Aaaaar!" at. Finding no-one in the main room proper, it looked around again,
and saw Gerald and Virginia. "Aaaaar!" it said with especial gusto, and, from
somewhere not readily visible, produced some sort of cable (which later
turned out to be a power cord from an electric lawnmower, which it threw
over the ceiling fan. It let the cord wrap around the fan for a few moments.

Gerald and Virginia watched it, silently. There didn't seem to be anything to
say.

After it was satisfied with the cord wrapped around the fan, it launched itself
off the table into the air with an undulating cry. It swung towards Gerald's
office, and, as it reached the end of its swing, it reached out, grabbed
Virginia, who was understandably stunned, placed her carefully over its
shoulder, and swung away and out the door to the outside.

Gerald watched the door. After a moment, the trashcan stuck its head back
in, lifted the bowler hat (and attached paper pirate hat) it wore, very
politely,
and wiggled its metal eyebrows. Then it disappeared, and Gerald could hear
the pitter-patter of metal feet and the scraping noise of Virginia's heels
being
dragged over the asphalt fading into the distance.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Wally stared at Lincoln.

"What do you mean, on strike?"

"We're on strike, Wally. Or, at least, the crew's on strike. Management and
design aren't, but without the crew, there's not a whole helluva lot to manage
or design. So, I gave the rest of the team a few days off until we get the
strike
settled."

"Which means that I'm out on my ear, right?"

"Which means you're also on a few days vacation."

"But I don't _want_ a vacation!"

"Wally, you're not fired. Once this damn mess with Councilman Morraine
gets settled, we'll get you back on for what I hired you for in the first
place.
Honest."

"Okay, okay. You've got my phone number?"

"I've got your phone number."

"Okay. Well, I'll be seeing you."  Wally turned to go.

"Wally." said Lincoln. "Look, without the crew, I can't justify the consulting
fee I was paying you...but, look, if you want to keep busy, you could do me and
IS a favor."

Wally turned back. "A favor."

"Yeah. Now, look, I'm not asking you to work for free; I'm asking you to do
some work which you might not get paid for if we don't settle this mess."
Lincoln leaned back in his chair. "If this goes the way I expect it to, then
when the city government comes to its senses, we'll have to move fast ...
damn fast, if we're gonna keep our reputation intact. Go out and find
everything in this city that we could use for building; prefabs, concrete,
reinforcing rods, whatever. We won't have time to order fresh, we'll have to
grab what's on-hand. Get me a list ... it won't take more than a day ... of
whatever you can, and when we get the green light to start operations again,
you'll get paid time-and-a-half, okay?"

Wally thought about it. "Okay."

"There's not much of a rush on this, by the way; the earliest that we can get a
strike committee together is next Monday, so it's gonna be a few days. Okay?"

"All right."

"Thanks, Wally."

"No problem, Lincoln."

-------------------------------------------------------------

Imagine a drive through the bad part of town ... whatever town you live in.
Every town has a bad part. The poor shall always be with us, and they shall
always live in the bad part of town.

Take Bob City, for instance; the bad part of town was much larger than it had
been a few months before, but the old and the new parts were not too much
different.

There was the block of old houses, the block containing nothing beyond
scrubby marsh grash, the block of decaying convenience stores, the spaceship,
its exhaust ports steaming gently in the humid air, the block of more old
houses...

Yes, the spaceship. The spaceship sitting on top of the eight or so crushed
abandonded apartment buildings, the one with the massive cannons, the
mean and dangerous attitude, and the five petulant aliens standing in front
of it on the sidewalk, holding large weapons.

One of them, the tallest of the five, and the one with the greenest skin, was
brandishing his extremely large weapon in the air and screaming. "LOOK!"
he said, "WE HAVE COME AN EXTREMELY LONG WAY TO INVADE
YOU, AND SOMEBODY BETTER STOP AND BE INVADED, OR I SHALL
GET VERY ANGRY INDEED!"

"Captain?" the shortest of the aliens said, looking up at the tall one.

"WHAT?"

"Well, don't take this the wrong way but *glrrrk*" The "*glrrrk*" nose, it
must be explained, was the result of the captain sticking his extremely large
weapon up the shorter individual's nose. Meanwhile, an inhabitant of the
next block down walked past, carrying a large stereo, it taking more than a
large and fearsome spaceship and five aliens to faze any inhabitant of Bob.

"Potsdam, any time you say 'don't take this the wrong way,' there is only one
way that anybody can ever take it, and I assure you, that way is the wrong
way. Would you like to reconsider?"

"*gllrk*"

"I'll take that as a yes. What?"

"Well, Captain, perhaps it would help if we actually shot someone?"

"Oh, sure, Potsdam, 'Shoot someone.' Shoot someone indeed. What do you
think we are, barbarians?"

"Well, we _are_ invading them...?"

"There are still rules to be followed, Potsdam. We will not abrogate the
universal rights of sentients unless provoked. Is that clear?"

"Yessir."

The Captain thought for a moment. "At any rate, perhaps we've simply
landed in the wrong place. We shall proceed to another part of this city and
see how our invasion proceeds there. Come, Metz, Jutland, and Somne, and
you too, Potsdam. And don't think I can't see you just because I'm not looking
at you. Tennnshun!"

-------------------------------------------------------------

Wally walked into the bar, and sat down, heavily.

"Beer." he said.

"What kind of beer." the bartender said, flatly.

The leather-jacketed individual at the end of the bar leaned over. "I'd cut
straight to the threats and violence, if I was you."

Wally turned and looked. The person offering this advice looked familiar. He
considered.

Oh, what the heck, he'd been through enough in the last few days. One quick
swipe of his hand and the bartender's nose was being inserted into the
Killian's Red tap. "Does this answer your question?" Wally hissed.

It apparently did, and a beer was sitting in front of Wally within seconds.

-------------------------------------------------------------

The Captain brought the procession to a halt. "We have travelled far!" he
shouted.

Potsdam whispered to Metz. "We've traveled a hundred meters."

"And now, we shall launch another offensive!"

Potsdam whispered again, "Against who?"

"Don't think I can't hear you, Potsdam! We shall conduct our operation
against those puny humans in that establishment! Over there!"

Potsdam looked. Sure enough, there seemed to be two or three humans in the
"Bar," whatever that was, across the street.

"Forwwwwward! March!"

Potsdam, Metz, Jutland, and Somne all shouldered their heavy guns and
trotted across the street.

-------------------------------------------------------------

"More beer," said the punk in the leather jacket.

The bartender didn't argue.

Suddenly, the door burst open, and five individuals tromped in. Their skins
were various shades of green, they all had bowl haircuts, and four of the
five...

"My god," said Wally, who was a Buddist anyway, "It's the Beatles. They've
come to get me for saying all those bad things about Wings."

"Please be quiet, puny human!" shouted the tallest of the five, who bore no
resemblance to anyone in particular, besides a vague and unpromising
similarity to Buddy Holly.

"'Please' be quiet?"

"We are the Royal Verdun Invasion Force! And we will have quiet!"

Metz raised his hand. "But what about the inherent rights of sapient beings?"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. And we will have quiet if it's all right with you!"

Wally was unimpressed; he'd been captured by Space Shriners, met several
Deadheads from Planet X, and so on. Furthermore, sharing an apartment
with the nefarious Doctor Fu Manchu tends to make you a bit blasé about
things. The punk was unimpressed; he'd stolen his gun from Space Shriners,
and figured that anybody not actually shooting at him could be knocked over
the head and robbed later. The bartender was unimpressed; he was a
bartender in Bob City, after all, and got into more impressively dangerous
situations before breakfast.

Wally spoke first. "Royal Verdun. Invasion Force. Puny humans. So, and
check me if I'm wrong, you're aliens, right?"

The Captain nodded and brandished his gun. "Right! We have come many
light-years in our trusty spaceship _Crimea_ to invade this puny world!"

"Your trusty spaceship."

"Right!"

The punk took a sip of his beer.

"Which you left...where, exactly?"

"Ha! You expect us to tell you where we left our..."

Metz broke in. "It's just outside."

The Captain turned and glared at Metz. "Well, it's only polite."

"We're not here to be polite!"

Potsdam raised his hand. "Captain? Actually, we are supposed tobe polite. It's
part of the Rules of War."

"Aaargh!"

"You left your spaceship just outside?"

Metz nodded. "Oh, yes. Just a little ways up the road."

"In this neighborhood."

Metz began to get a bit nervous about this line of questioning. "er, yes?"

"Did you leave anyone on guard?"

"Ah, no?"

Suddenly, from outside, there came a roaring, grinding noise, which lasted for
about fifteen seconds, and then stopped.

The Captain looked at Potsdam. Potsdam looked at Metz. Metz looked at
Jutland. Jutland looked at Somne. All five ran outside.

Wally took a drink.

There came five simultaneous screams.

Wally nodded at the bartender, and wandered outside. There, on the sidewalk
in front of the bar, stood the five aliens, their jaws wide open, standing in
aposture of utter shock. Wally looked down the street.

There, on top of eight crushed apartment buildings, sat the gutted and no-
longer impressive form of an alien spaceship. The guns were gone, the
engines were nowhere to be seen, even the radio seemed tobe missing.

The empty and ravaged frame sat on top of four cinder blocks.

Wally tapped each of the aliens on their shoulders. "Come on. I'll buy you a
beer."

Still in shock, the five aliens followed Wally back into the bar. The Captain
slumped, face-first, onto the counter, and the other four merely sat, their
eyes
wide, wide open, at the bar. "Beer." Wally said, and inserted the Captain's
massive gun into the bartender's nose. This seemed to improve service a bit,
as beers materialized in front of each of the aliens, so he repeated the trick
and got another for himself.

As he lay the gun down and lifted his beer, the door burst open again. Wally,
the punk, and all five aliens turned.

There, silhouetted against the afternoon sun, stood a small, trashcan-shaped
figure with a paper pirate hat, a bowler,  a cutlass, and the limp form of
Virginia Hornblower, who had fainted as they were passing Thirty-Second
Street, over its shoulder.

"Aaaar," it said, as it tromped into the bar. "Hubba-hubba."

-------------------------------------------------------------

WHY HAVE I INTRODUCED FIVE ALIENS INTO THE MIX?

WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH FU?

WHERE DID PINKY GET TO?

AND JUST WHAT IS GOING ON IN THIS STORYLINE?

THESE QUESTIONS AND MORE WILL BE ANSWERED IN THE NEXT
EXCITING ANAGRAM OF ...

        SEPURGY!