🚀 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!