2: The National Anthem

There is most of a city between these two. The roads between them split and dip and end, frustrating any chance at a straight line. Concrete walls stop bullets, they swallow one's voice and deny one's image.

Other way round there is most of a planet with valleys and rivers, deserts and oceans, plains and canyons, and towns that read like punch lines on a map. Some of them make for adequate meeting sites.

5: Planet Telex

In his car, hands at ten and two, Kadrey is waiting for the frenzy of coworkers fleeing the parking lot to die down before turning the key. He is thinking about the paycheck already en route as electric impulses to his only account. The one in charge of shelter, sustenance, entertainment and emergencies. The one that can never grow quite large enough to actualize desire. He is thinking about all of these fixed numbers that he lives with: the rent, the cable, the insurance, that kid in South America ("just pennies a day") and so on. All of them will be debited automatically from the account. The mighty paycheck will be reduced to a measly allowance in no time flat. Of course there is time. Time enough to change his automatic settings and live at least for a little while with his full compensation. To look at the screen and see what he is worth for real. And then maybe to apply this power towards something significant. Something unexpected. Fuck the rent, he can take the money and run. But where to? And how far? It isn't that much money.

16: Lucky

21: Pyramid Song

People

Of Course

Matter

But so do Things

Things

Matter

And also Places

On and off the highway a dozen times tonight looking for a bit of real estate from my 5 foot and below days. Evan is remarkably patient. Is this a real memory? Running with some cousins in the woods? i don't really remember their names. i know the occasional flu had me laying in the living room, nursed by Mom and TBS. Swiss Family Robinson. Little House on the Prairie. Didn't one of the Ingalls sisters loose her sight after some illness? Was fever involved? Glad i never lost nothing. Nothing that big. Jasper! The big dumb one was called Jasper. Jasper and then my last name. That's him. Dumb son of a bitch but funny. Funny goes a long way. Bet he's married now. Paunchy with a litter of dumb kids all his own. Living like an adult. Jasper.

Time done ate it up to shreds but the old cabin still squares with Kadrey's description. Lucky bastard, it's like something out of a Paulsen book out here. I should holler, but I'm in no hurry to have him see the place. I imagine of a bunch of kids inside, their life force tied to the cabin, rotting away at the same pace. Moss and crawlers coming out their mouths and ears. Tiny bugs making songs in their hollow bellies. I'm going to be sick. I need a cigarette. I holler out his name.

The cabin was a mess of flames. The men left the woods.

24: The Bends

The man owed them money

and he had money

too much of it probably

he was used to petty childish pleasures

Twinkies before dinner

"I'm not convinced he'll have it, Evan."

"1200 dollars? Not on him. Not likely. Don't get me wrong, we're not leaving town empty-handed, but you better let go of that figure."

"You make it sound like business; this is revenge."

"Revenge is for fucking Cro-magnon. This is not that."

"This feels like that."

"Kadrey, when I play by the rules, I adhere fully. He stiffed us and this is what follows. If so then."

"If so what. Why don't we drop it? We need milk money that bad?"

"The precedent: We give this guy the idea that you can treat labor a certain way then we are partly responsible for every moe he rips off from now till kingdom come."

"That's very Hammer and Sickle of you."

"Kadrey, that's a great idea. You wait here, I'll get hammers."

In the hours we stood there in the narrow shadow of the corridor, the rain teased us several times. Never enough to get wet, but we were moist the whole time; in combination with an unrelenting wind this kept me cold and lucid for every second of it. I counted the windows that offered up some view of the little scene we had planned. I noticed the ridiculous absence of the police force except for a magnanimous meter maid at sunset. I compared, several dozen times, how many seconds it would take our man to get from car to door and how many it would take us to rush from shadow to door and statistically we failed. I checked on that fat nut of fear suspended in my chest. I was not afraid of what Evan was about to do, I had seen him do it several times. You get used to anything. I felt miscast, quite frankly, for this little slice of noir, and something about being made of the wrong stuff, standing on some other man's mark, must have been the source of my fear. I say this because in the deep of my pocket was a pez dispenser as ontologically misplaced as I was in this never ending moment, and the fat nut was obscured every time I slipped a pez out of Deputy Dog's face.

27: Knives Out

The world out the windows is flat and black. The road offers up a long series of soft, small curves, like a string of honey poured by an octogenarian. The forward motion, the push against the wind, the tread on blacktop, it all becomes melody, sweetly vibrating in Kadrey's skull.

Evan is in the back. Asleep. Maybe. He's so quiet that Kadrey is afraid that he'll die one day, in the dark, and his body will be cold and stiff before morning can reveal the stone-like nature of expired skin.

It is very hard not to think about sudden endings; so many creatures have had their bellies split, theirs skulls caved in on the asphalt band. The headlights define a tiny, ever-changing kingdom. Red trails come in and out of clarity. Blood arabesques to deepen the music.

Strange that there are no carcasses on the road, just evidence of collisions. It must be that the road rejects anything that static. Still, it leaves constant reminders, some of them fresh enough to glint in the beams, that eventually there is not enough space for everyone. We are, every single one of us, headed for a crash.

29: In Limbo

Ten years on and this country is clockwork. You know when to spit out "Yes Sir", when to susurrate "No Bitch". The rules don't change, but that don't mean that they can't be deflected, mutated, digested and shat out as Montelimar.

Just like the old men, you deal in real estate now, like Bobby Baltz or Lee Frost,

you're always on the lookout for soil with potential,

enclosed areas where each angle responds to the previous one,

places where one can stand and feel the rotation.

You are past the point (hell, can you even draw the point)

Where architecture can betray you,

So it knocks you off your game a bit to fall for the old round-the-corner trick.

Shit, shit, shit, Fuck.

It figures they would not disappear

Just because you stopped thinking about them

An awful long time ago.

Ten years of roads spiked with opportunities for contact.

Ten years they've been carrying your features on their own trajectories.

It occurs to you that they probably could not cut you out from the static. They may have the benefit of transportation, but transformation is beyond them. It must be. There has to be a reason you left. There better be. Four men are in the jelly aisle of a grocery store with one nose and one gait to split between them. You start to close the distance, and with every step you get closer to a new kind of comedy.

It's about twenty five paces to the trio

Just don't walk like a dolt at a wedding

Your path is butchered out of this world

You will splice it back after thirty paces

Close enough to tell Ted's asthma's no better

Eyes down they're looking for apricot

Aren't you glad you're strawberry tall

Rounding the aisle you stash the loaf

Bread can wait, the getaway's constant

On the wide open you keep it steady at 75

You make all the left turns they can't

You wish for another dime, at least

39: Street Spirit

Words rush up and bottleneck right behind my voice-box

Collisions and fusions confuse meaning

My body refuses me

Pressure builds

Cannot

And right there

Like a joke

I growl and cough and shout

An impostor

Obscene and vicious

Propelled by my own two lungs

Is poured into the world

It's not today and it's not happening

It's not today and I shut it in

It's not happening not today because I shut it in

It's staying in today

I won't let it happen today

Today I shut it in

I shut it in

I shut it in

I close it down

So it won't happen

Not today

44: Videotape

There's a clean line taunting us, pornographic contact of earth and sky. There is nothing to it, it's just a game of knees and elbows. Up, up, up always up, any other motion is a deception, a feint to come back to up, up, and up. Our signatures are stamped in the dirt, once, twice, thrice a second. We're both Neil Armstrong today and maybe even tomorrow, and maybe even the whole week. As long as it takes for the wind and the lizards and the armadillos to erase us, to forget us.

There is immense silence between the moments where our feet slam into the dirt. We are supersonic jets, constantly booming once, twice, thrice a second. Behind us, an invisible wake, and ghosts made of dust and speed, ephemeral like songs on Mars. We are a Buzz Aldrin dream: ships made of energy. We consume what we are to make distance irrelevant. We exhale and sweat the particles that kissed our mothers and held our brothers. We keep going until there is nothing left but the going.

46: The Morning Bell

INT. CONVENIENCE STORE-NIGHT

[C-NOTE: Let's try to keep as much of this as we can in one shot. Preferably let's not cut until the electrician walks in.]

[S-NOTE: I've asked Jerry to find something that sounds like Morricone for incidental. I'm thinking more Corbucci-Morricone than Leone-Morricone. The Great Silence, shit like that.]

EVAN walks into the convenience store. Everything is bright and shiny and new except for Evan and the CLERK who is the only other person there.

Evan looks like he hasn't washed in days.

The Clerk is a teenager dressed in black, he's bent over a notebook, I-pod buds firmly in place he's probably listening to NIN.

Evan walks over to the chips aisle and ducks. We can't see him.

Evan:

[off camera]This must be your busy time.

Clerk:

[oblivious]...

Evan:

[standing up] I hope you don't live on commission.

Clerk:

[finally notices Evan. takes one bud out] Do you need help?

Evan:

[striding up and down the aisle, picking up random snacks and putting them down in the wrong places] Help? I think I'll help myself to a little bit of this, little bit of that. Since I'm in the land of plenty and all.

Clerk:

[putting his bud back in, returning to his notebook] God bless America.

Evan:

Not one for conversation, uh? Well it's late, your business isn't chitchat.

Clerk:

[oblivious]...

Evan walks to the back where they keep the beer, crouches down to the cheap, nasty shit, pulls out three cases and with some effort jogs up to the register and slams the cases on the counter.

Evan:

[catching his breath] Your business is convenience.

Clerk:

[standing up straight, pulling out the buds, and looking really uncomfortable] I can't sell you these.

Evan:

What are you talking about? I have cash.[he pulls out a crumpled bunch of bills and lays them on the counter.]

Clerk:

[pointing to a clock behind him] No it's cut-off. We're past cut-off, I can't sell you alcohol.

Evan:

What.. What's the... Who needs to know?

Clerk:

Mister, I can't do that. I really really can't.

Evan:

Yeah? [he pulls out a beer from the top case, pops it open and starts to sip]

Clerk:

Take it. Take it. I just can't sell it to you.

Evan:

[very slowly] But. I. Have. Money.

Clerk:

It's not my job to get fucked up. Just... please take it.

Evan tries to hop over the counter slips on the surface and falls at the clerks feet. The clerk backs up, still afraid of Evan. Evan gets up and returns to his original mission unembarrassed. He takes the clock of the wall, adjusts it and holds it up to the clerk.

Evan:

Now it's eleven thirty. Problem solved.

Clerk:

[pointing to the register] That receipt isn't going to say 11:30.

Evan puts the clock down and goes up to the register. The clerk has noticed a mop in the corner he's trying to disappear into. Evan pushes the register onto it's side. The clerks hand closes around the mop's handle. The door opens. It's some DUDE probably coming from a late shift, he's haggard looking and sweaty. His shirt reads: "if it's not grounded, it's not dead."

Evan:

[to the Dude] Hey! Hey, you know anything about electronics.

Dude:

[hesitantly] I'm an electrician.

Clerk:

Certified?

Dude:

[Grinning] Almost.

Evan:

Good enough. You have time for a job? A quick one.

Dude:

Who's paying?

Evan:

[pointing to the wad] I am.

The Dude trots up to the register. The clerk is more obviously holding on the mop now, but it clearly functions more as a life raft than a weapon. The two men are not interested in his state of mind.

Evan:

I want this to say 11:30

Dude:

[examining the register] But it's past one.

Evan:

I know. I want the receipt to say 11:30

Dude:

[still scrutinizing] Isn't there a simple clock function.

Clerk:

No.

Dude:

No? I don't buy that.

The Dude comes around the counter and produces a small screwdriver and a flashlight from his pockets. He starts prodding the register.

Evan:

These are your official tools?

Dude:

You're paying for the knowledge. Not the hardware.

The clerk has been letting himself slide down. He's now sitting on the floor, wrapped around his mop.

Clerk:

You can just have the beer you know.

Evan:

[looking at the clerk with some sympathy]I know...

Dude:

Shit!

The register has started sparking. The Dude makes a break for it seemingly propelled by expletives. The sparks are turning into small flames. The clerk snaps to, grabs an extinguisher from under the counter and lets loose a jet of white powder.

Evan, exhausted and defeated walks around the counter. He's facing the clerk now. Things are back to square one except for the dead register and the retardant still hanging in the air.

Clerk:

You can have it you know.

Evan:

I know [he grabs one case] It just didn't feel right.

Evan walks out, case under his arm. The clerk watches him leave, waits a moment then pockets the crumpled wad.

50: Everything in it's right place

The scent of the airbag is surprising, the glow of the flames very familiar, the combination is disorienting. As if he needed more of that. There is probably blood but he's in no hurry to find out. Past the flaming hood of his civic, the road stretches out to a black point, two lines whose intersection harmonizes into imperative rather than emphasis. He reaches for the seat belt before he can remember that he never uses it. His finger traces the empty smile of the clasp, then he coughs. The flesh knows what matters. He is standing on the road envisioning with unmitigated clarity every step that could have brought him here, but unable to actually remember any of them. He starts walking towards the convergence, very careful not to blink.