The Space Noir Bar by Michael Marino (readict books .TXT) 📖

know you sneak off to roller balls and roller derbys every chance you get. C’mon baby,” she said teasingly, “All that fuel injected estros sports entertainment. Amazon Queens ruling with an iron fist ..Betty Page’s with whip in hand...like the Falcon Doc, these are the things that YOUR  erotic dreams are made of  and there is something about an aggressive Female that piques your curiosity factor not to mention creating Yucatan erections stimulating and simulating a flag at full mast waving high in the dawn’s early light.”

 

Damn her! She could see through me like a broken window. She knew all along I wanted to bang her and now it was public knowledge, or perhaps it had always been public knowledge except to me.

 

Asrini got one final dig in…”Swimming? Don’t forget your backstroke and breaststroke and yes you are a breast man so time to dive in!” Asrini, remember that phrase “a bird in hand is worth two in the bush?  Bullshit..my bird in my hand is not better than my bird in your bush!” There I practically said “I love you” in my own crass way and couldn’t back peddle now. They all laughed and Asrini replied..”Love you too Doc.” We continued to the hill and all I could think of to say to her, as yes, I was in love with her so I simply said. “Get off my back will ya?”

Chapter 28 - The Rudy Valley Hallucination

 

Walking up the small hill was no easy task. I was used to concrete under my feet and level ground in a city that had the  pungent odor of an inner city alley after a hobo convention of cheap comet concoctions that would make a Sterno wino think twice before taking another drink.  It was a insensitive manly environment where danger lurked and testosterone could save a mans life or make him foolhardy enough to get his  asphalt hardened cahones in a sling and leave him in the emergency ward with a couple of broken ribs. It was that rush of the unknown that appealed to the death wish side of my psyche. I didn’t want to know the future. Surprise me sweetheart!

 

All around us were Soma plants in full bloom basking in the red sun of Robotia. I already felt light headed while the pollen drifted upwards as our tramping boots disturbed their slumber and we inhaled the intoxicant and let the Soma plant take root in our imaginations.

 

I was certainly in a real surreal world but questions remained. Big questions.  “Art,” I queried, “If all of you know about the rift in the universe, don’t the Tohos know as well how to get in here?”

 

“The rift is fairly new Yucatan. Only discovered two years ago when a stranger who was trapped inside and drifted with it thanks to a faulty continuum and was found wandering about. He came through it quite by accident and showed us approximately where it was and is today. We keep it hidden and we used recon decoys in the past to lead the Tohos and the Erotibots far from it’s entry point while the rest of us did the jet pack boogie. Today the Tohos dont set foot in the Vortex and the Erotibots haven’t broken through our ghetto defenses. So far now at least we are ha, invisible and still they can’t pull the rabbit out of our mad hatter hat!”

 

Arts tale was interesting enough and impressive I must admit but two nagging questions begged to be addressed and answered. Why in hell were we on foot when we could be jet packing blister free and who was the stranger that brought this drifting rift of a strange land with him and whatever happened to him. I had to know...my curiosity was hot and ready to break the pressure valve of polite decorum.

 

“We don’ t use the packs for travel in here because we don’t know if the propulsion gases will cause enough edible pollution over time to eat away at it and have it go up in smoke leaving us visible and vulnerable. As for the stranger? His name was Ed Wood, Jr. “

 

Ed Wood I understood arrived with a cadre of cretins on the run from a nether realm in another quadrant on the planet Castroid. Ed was a revolutionary from a pathetic planet of droids whose artificial intelligence was similar to the Eroti-bots except for the fact they were not part humanoid, but pure mean machines that developed and learned to act on their own and whose primary goal was to enslave the humans on the planet and raise them as food for the munchie hungry cannabis cannibals  from the Carnal Coitus solar system.

 

 

Ed had designed a scheme to thwart the A-I’s. He called it Plan 8, plans 1-7 sucked and were scraped before they could be implemented. Not disillusioned he buggered on with other like minded revolutionaries. They formed a nucleus of combatants who planned to invade the island headquarters of the A-I high command, assume power and dismantle the machines. They attacked by boats in the dead dread of night and began the invasion at sunrise. They were promised drone support from a neighboring planet as who secretly funded and supported the project. Nobody wants a planetary threat a mere 90 days away from their orb. The promised air support never came and Ed and Che Stadium, his Soma addicted seconal in command, a few remaining troops hid out in the jungles planning their next move.

 

 

This was when Ed Wood, designed his revolutionary Plan 9 while out of his mind in outer space. He built a large army of followers, mainly trashy transvestites and drug addicts and assorted sordid characters from the other planets nearby, including some a hardcore group of mercenaries called the Ru Pauls who arrived in black mesh stockings and angora sweaters and women's underwear led by a two headed hydra known far and wide as Glen and Glenda dressed in women’s clothing. It was the Flying Fagman from Outer Spaced!

 

 

Joining GG as he liked to be called were some heavy hitters in the mercenary universe including the brassiere wearing Ro-Man-Wo-Man and his bubble blowing machines of death and the feared Killer Klowns from Outer Space...the Russian mafia of the galaxy.

It was a drag queen extravaganza that under the big top of the cosmos will leave a lasting image of  revolutionaries with two or more heads in  space helmets wearing garters and  fabulous angora sweaters...there will be monuments to Ed Wood, Space Revolutionary and Che Stadium, both  in full drag..laughing their heads off.

 

Unfortunately they were overwhelmed and defeated but miraculously, as will happen in space, Che discovered a vortex by accident where they  could hide and he led the remaining fighters including Ed into into unaware of what lay ahead. It was Ed however who discovered that there many “doors” inside  the vortex. Some leading to other dimensions..some to distant  quadrants across the void of space ...some to other spaces and places in time. He became so familiar in fact he became a real Casey Jones driving this train when he discovered Robotia and the revolution.

 

He and Che decided to hide out here, join forces with the revolutionaries and fight the Tohos and those errant Eroti-bots.  When he met the Rabbit and she asked him why he would align himself with her forces, he said, “Look, I’m a revolutionary and an outlaw now...I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too. just somethin' I been thinkin' about.”

 

I couldn’t wait to meet this group...a pair of fishnets, and I don’t care who’s wearing them attitude and a rush of Soma makes any day interesting. As we reached the summit of Soma Hill we saw a precision military encampment laid out below us in a small verdant valley, not at all unpleasing to the senses. Crude huts dotted the panorama with a large lodge not unlike a small fortress commanded the enclave. We paused before making our descent into the plateau.

 

“This is the Rudy Valley and that’s Ed Wood’s army and in the large building you’ll find Ed himself,” Art Deco informed us. “First line of defense to protect the Rabbit. Nobody would be able to break through.” We made our way down the north side of the hill and into the camp where we were immediately surrounded by a swarm of combat hardened vets. Asrini and Maddie ran ahead and started embracing  individuals in the group while others came up to us shaking hands with Art, Lon Wang and Wang Chung. Again I was the odd man out and after much explaining of who I was and how I came  infiltrate their peaceful, yet very wary existence I was welcomed with a few polite yet cautious grunts.  

 

“He’s OK,” Asrini assured them as only a woman can do, and  that pin we made our guarded way to the “big lodge” by what I finally deduced was a rag tag band of juveniles. “These are rebels? They can’t be more than teenagers.” I whispered to Maddie.

 

“They were teenagers when they arrived here. Buck up Yucatan, once here you remain at your present age, but once you leave your current actual age catches up to you.” Not only was I in  parallel universe, but somehow had checked into the Heartbreak James Hilton Hotel in some time warped Shangri-La!

 

The Peter Pan legacy of angst laden juveniles who fend for themselves was alive and well it seemed here in The Rudy Valley The pan-demonium of psychotics from Lord of the Flies to the Lost Boys to Alex and his violence prone Droogies in A Clockwork Orange. In all cases, these kids, these James Dean rebels with a cause  are examples of the classic Pan Syndrome, just add pixie dust, mental illness and someone singin' in the rain, and you have all the ingredients.

 

This cadre of kids never grew up, nor had reason to. They had it made to Never Land wearing tights that showed off a lost boys lost bulge in a region we now know as the Sansa Belt Action Zone. Is that a Peter Pan in your pants or are you just playing with your tinkerbell? These kids never made it with the prom queen to my knowledge and it was hilarious hermaphrodite homage at the very least and had all the potential for a gay bar in paradise lost at the most. Hey, it's 5 O'Clock Somewhere and happy hour is about to begin.

 

Peter Pan himself couldn’t have done better. Not a tough Sam Spade character but more of a cross between a young Leo Dicaprio and Ru Paul. It's like having Mickey Rourke play Barbarella (now that could be interesting!)

 

These kids, I found out