♫ K   y  r  i  e    e  l  é  i  s   o  n ♫

♫ E   t    c  u  m    S  p  í  r   i  t  u    t  u  o ♫

♫ Do you care
That I wear
These disguises of in-dif-fer-ence
They travel well
They're comfy
They're a copy of your own
We shrug our shoul-ders
Pass the buck
It's THEM! It's THEM!
We shift the blame
But in our heart of hearts we know that
We and Them are just the same ♫

♫ L   e  a  d    us
G   u  i  d  e    us
Teach us all the rules
Show us what is wrong and right
Standardize the schools
SPEAK
And we will listen
COMMAND
We will obey
Where truth is power
It is to our au-thor-i-ties we pray
D   ó  m  i  n  u  s    V  o  b   í  s  c  u  m
E   t    c  u  m    S  p  í  r   i  t  u    t  u  o ♫

♫ I  I  I  I  I  I  I  I don't     I don't      I don't      I don't
don't want      to go      don't make       me go    
don't make     don't make     don't make      don't make
don't want     to go     no no      no no ♫

♫ No no     don't want     don't make      don't want
don't make     oh please     you fuckers      please you
mother-fuckers please     I don't     I can't      I won't ♫

["A very basic operation. Simple war game. A maneuver. Only difference is your ammo will be live."]

♫ I won't     I won't ♫

♫ Don't go     don't go ♫

["We have intelligence the rebels are entrenched inside the village. A percentage of civilian casualties is inevitable. One wave of Phos-fire, to be followed by immediate ground attack. Do not hesitate. Waste anything that moves."]

["You gotta make 'em laugh, son, proof of the pudding. It doesn't matter what you're thinkin', folks don't give a damn about your personal convictions, entertain them. They got politics for issues. They got schools for education. All they want from us—that's us comedians—is a damn good laugh." My Dad's philosophy in a nutshell. He would let me play accordion, of all things. Dressed me up in a suit and tie, drew lines around my jaw, set me on his knee, on stage, to see how long he could pass me off as a ventriloquist's dummy. When the crowd caught on, he'd take out this accordion with leaky bellows and have me play a few bars of whatever they'd request. Small time. Rarely played to more than fifty people. If he could see this house, he'd somersault in his grave—then do a pratfall. Anything for a laugh. "Gotta make 'em laugh, son." Yeah, Dad, I do. See? They're all in hysterics.]

Q looks tired, I'll say. He's been doin' lots and lots o' concerts. He got rich and famous quick, got heaps o' money, so much that he don't know how to spend it all. He bought a island what we're goin' to real soon; Q says real soon. Soon as maybe Saturday; that's tomorrow. I like the island on account o' no one bothers us and it's pretty. It gots flowers growin' wild all over it and it gots toucans—them's birds with noses as big as Jimmy Durante's. He's Q's favorite.
"Listen to this song, Bo."
"I'm listenin'." And Q puts on "September Song" from a long long time ago. Q says it's simple and it's honest and it's good and he wishes he could be like that but he can't. Sometimes that's how Q is, sad like, like he lost somethin' real important and can't find it nowheres.

He's gonna play for a while all by hisself without no computers. He pushes this button, what says "manual," and that lets 'im. He just done that, pushed it; I can see from here real good. Q likes to do this part the best on account o' it's all made-up this minute. "Like outer space," Q says, when he pushes that button.

[Technique is a liar. I can wow 'em with technique. Big fucking deal. She made me practice the piano. Didn't need to. When you've got Bach figured out at five and you've mastered Liszt at six you really don't need scales—or Montovani—to keep you sharp.]

One note emerges—in a sympathetic key—followed by another, and another, each distinctive yet predestined to contribute to the whole—a string of individual tones expecting harmony. Simplistic, child-like, an otherworldly lullaby is created. It nurses at the nerve-ends of his listeners. It soothes. It is an eye of calm, a womb of comfort, a refuge all too fleeting.

Q scans the crowd.

[Him—picking his way with a staggering gingerliness, limbs in disjointed postures, attempting to achieve outward balance while inwardly at sea. Her—girl-child in a whore's make-up, glad-eyeing adult men whose shamefaced hunger creeps—look at it—crawls from peripheral leers. Them—incense from a plethora of armpits, hits on heady joints of anachronistic hemp—die-hards loathe to make transitions into snorting hybrid substances, wineskins hung like bloated bladders, avoiding the metal detectors, drugs in parti-colored satchels like balloons—uppers, downers, fast-tracks. Listen. Don't listen. "Q is controversial," that's enough. Vicarious rebels. "We buy your chips, don't we? Don't we memorize your lyrics? Don't we worship the ground you walk on, spit on, shit on?" The confessional booth: sins of heart, mind, word, deed. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned and have come to relieve my conscience. It was frosted—the glass between us. I could see his silhouette. Whose, God's? No, the priest's. I remember wondering if the glass was clear on his side. God sees everything. God, but maybe not His priestly representative. I made a sign at him once—shot him the finger—as an experiment just to see. He never saw; I got absolved. I once invented some transgressions. They were believed; I was forgiven. And once I even went to a different booth with the very same confession. "Say three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys." The first priest merely assigned me an Act of Contrition. I concluded from these tests that God was unreliable—as is everything human beings create in their own image.]

A tremolo. In the base line. There; again the rhythm alters, causing the melody to throb. To bend. The composition, subtly, is changing, is warping. Tranquility grows self-conscious. Wary. As if on guard. An element of anxiety usurping the former peace—like a child's inanimate doll suddenly come to life. Menacingly. The audience, in conjunction, starts to squirm, feeling 'set up' for something. They have not guessed for what. There are indications, though—hints— that it is apt to be unpleasant.

[Dark hair, dark eyes; her frame was small. She wore a woolen hand-embroidered dress which smoldered slightly—Child—and stood alone; that is, stood among others, but none breathed; not mother, father, or baby brother—Child—as if her soul's persistence asked the simple question 'Why?']

A chord is struck—the crowd's gasp overwhelmed by Q's primal SHRIEK, like that of a man, of a woman who somewhere, some time early in human history, comprehended Death. In its utter finality. Q plays rhapsodically, his prowess awesome; his hands attack the keys, his virtuosity inhuman, its effect supernatural.

The music breeds its own complexity like subdividing cells, until its themes and variations prove too intricate to follow, yet Q plays on, as if in defiance of physical limitations, of technical boundaries. He is on to something, breaking through; he is reaching for rarified air.

The stage goes suddenly and absolutely silent. For a measure or more—unaware they are ineffectual—Q's fingers continue to play. But the stage is a vacuum, a black hole of soundlessness. Power. No power. The electricity has been cut.

Q moves from behind his keyboards and takes a step forward, peering into the darkness, searching for Scratch, who is up in the control booth.

Q activates the mike inside his headphones.

"Scratch? Scratch, where the hell are you?"

"Here, boy. I'm here. Got us some Bugs."

"The mainframe?"

"The law."

"Fuck the law; I need power."

"I hear ya."

"Well nobody else can."

"I know. HEY!..."

"This is Lieutenant Ireland, U.S.H.S. We are canceling this concert and impounding your equipment. You can consider yourself and your entourage under arrest."

Q struts off the stage.

Press Conference

"Is it true Q's been / What exactly are / Will the concert be re / Why / How did Q react / the government / rioting / taken / the tour / Does anyone..."

"Gentlemen, ladies, if you will allow me? I have a statement our staff has prepared."

"... have been dropped."

"But we were informed that Q was found to be in violation..."

"Okay, suspected. But what did the government confiscate? Why did they storm the stage?"

"As I said, they made a mistake. They took exception to some material Q included in this performance..."

"The Special Forces stuff? The I.F.A.T footage? Where did Q get a hold of it?"

"That is precisely what the authorities wanted to know. It isn't theirs, you see. They thought it was, which, understandably, is why they seized it. But Q received that video from an independent source."

"So the government has returned it?"

"As a matter of fact, the government has asked Q to relinquish it—an issue of Homeland Security, so of course we've complied."
 [Why the fuck should we? They're doing all that shit we showed and worse. Homeland Security my ass. Special Forces? Special Interests, is more like it. Where this country ever got the idea that calling an atrocity "covert" made it any less an atrocity—or the culprits any less guilty—Satan only knows.]

"What's Q's real / tour is over / When will / Where does he intend to / Will Q sue for false arrest?"

The pi'tures show how this young girl what's in love with Q tries to tell 'im by gettin' her friends to kind o' throw her over this whole big crowd o' people. They's maybe cheerleaders or somethin' on account o' they throws her real high and she falls down right in front o' Q and all o' his bodyguards. They's worried, the bodyguards is. That part's so. Q only gots one main bodyguard, but at the concerts they's lots, and they's always worried 'cause Q gets threats 'n stuff, like bomb scares and I don't know what all, on account o' he's so popular. But this girl in the pi'tures only wants to show Q what she done. She's real embarrassed to do it—you can tell from the way her cheeks is colored red—but she does anyhow. She pulls her sweater off o' her shoulder to bare her little breast. It gots a Q right near the nipple what's been burned in like a brand—what musta hurt awful, which is prob'bly why she done it. When you love somebody a whole lot but you are too ascared to tell 'em, you gotta do somethin' what will say the way you feel. Even if it's dumb.

Bo spreads the comic book over his lap as if he were handling a precious butterfly. He thinks to close his mouth, and does, but it soon reopens with his reverie.

I done somethin' dumb once on account o' I loved so much this person. It was in school, back where I went in Arizona. This person was in the reg'lar classes, not the "special" classes; not like me. I won't say this person's name on account o' I promised I wouldn't.
"Swear, Bo, you'll never tell another living soul."
"I swear."
And so they took me to where she was, at her house, and no one else was home. Not her parents or her brothers or even her grandma what lived there, too. And they said, "Go ahead, she's waitin' for you upstairs where that light's on." She was there, I'll say. I saw 'er through the curtains back and forth; she was walkin' back and forth just like they said, like she was waitin'. So I went in; the door was open—I wasn't apose to knock.
"Don't make a solitary sound, Bobo."
"No, I won't." I was ascared, though. Shoulda knocked or ringed the doorbell, what woulda been polite, but they said no, she knowed I's comin' so just go on up.

A silver drop of saliva falls from Bo's mouth like a parachuting spider, linking his lips to the comic book's open page.

The stairs was dark 'cause it was nighttime and all o' the lights in the house was off—'cept for that one what I could see at the end o' the hallway. I went tippy-toe, kind o', but it didn't matter 'cause it felt like even breathin' made too much noise. I touched the doorknob, but I couldn't. I just had to knock—what made the light go dim—I could hardly see my own sneakers. Then I heard a tiny voice say come in.

Bo's eyes stare blankly, fixedly, their outward sight replaced by the memory-embedded scene.

She was stark naked, kind o'. Almost. She was layin' on the bed, all pink an beautiful and smilin' till she seen that it was me. I never-ever seen a girl what looked so pretty turn so mean. She screamed.
"Bobo! Bobo Fitzgibbons! What do YOU want? What're YOU doin' here?"
I just stood there like a deer does if you shine your headlights on it. And then I knew for sure she didn't love me back.

Bo finally wipes his spittle. He pulls his shirtfront from his trousers and dabs the wet spot on the page.

I guess I knowed all along.

He blows a stream of air to dry the dampened spot.

But I was dumb, like I said. When I runned home that night, I cried and cried.

"Bo?"

"Yeah, Q?"

"We're out o' here. Got you bags packed?"

"Got 'em, Q."

The plush lounge chair  e x h a l e s  , as Bo escapes its leather, leather like Eskimo women make it—chewed to a pampering pliability. The suite, at large, is a-sprawl with the skin of sundry animals, most extinct, the rest endangered, all indigenous now to first-world decor.

"We gonna d-d-drive, Q?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"Security." Luther enters. "Can't you knock?"

"Yo. Sorry, Q. No limo."

"What?"

"No limo. Crabs."

Q takes a breath as if to let loose his exasperation, checks it, expels it in retreat, slamming the bedroom door behind him.

"You m-m-made Q angry."

"Who's c-c-come?"

"His fans."

"But you said 'c-c-crabs.'"

"Not my term; his. You know what crabs are, don't you, Bobo?"

"'Course I d-d-do. They's the little creatures what runs up the beach at night on the island."

"Not those kind. This kind." Luther claws at his crotch. Bo fails to comprehend. "Crabs. You know, those bloodsucker bugs that eat your testicles alive? Crabs? As in louses? Never had 'em? Lucky you. Itch like mad."

Bo smoothes the cover of his comic book, attempting to restore its mint condition, then slips it into a pocket of his carry-on luggage.

Luther sinks into the twin of Bo's easy chair and rubs his wiry wrists against its arms, burnishing the leather (can't sit, can't sit) only to stand back up and resume his restless pacing.

"Stop that gawking!"

Bo averts his face, self-conscious, blinking as if blinded by a flash cube's sudden flash. Luther gestures vulgarly. Q, reentering, gives him a look.

"You've got the soul of a mosquito, Luther."

"What I do?"

"Bo, you seen Scratch?"

"Not since this mornin', at b-b-breakfast; I seen 'im then. Do you want that I should fetch 'im?"

Luther snickers ('fetch 'im.').

Q turns slowly, menacingly. His dark glasses—silvered and impenetrable—issue a silent threat. Luther cringes. Satisfied, Q turns back to Bo.

"Would you, please?"

Bo leaves obligingly.

Luther searches for the courage to rebel (like a goddamn poodle. Keeps that retard like a pet. More like an albatross, or a dodo, is that half-witted, goony-bird. Bobo Dodo.)

"Why do you keep that dumb cluck around. I mean, he's USELESS."

"So are you, and you get a three-figure salary."

"I resent that."

"Fine. From now on you can work for minimum wage."

"Lay off Bo."

"You got it. Sure, man. Yo. Anything you say. Wanna drink or somethin'? Lunch? How's about I call down and order us lunch. How'd that be? Let's..."

"Luther?"

"Yeah?"

"Stop groveling."

"Right."

Q steps toward the windowed doors of his penthouse perch and parts them, feels the air suck, lets it pull him onto the balcony, out to its guard rail, where he looks down at the city. [Call us "the locust people," Peruvians do, for gobbling up land. Call us "the sick ones," knowing that it's US who spread "the disease." The dis-ease. They've heard about IT, even in the most remote towns and villages. Know IT's fatal. Know IT's worldwide. They perceive IT as a purge. I'm sure they're right.]
He dredges phlegm from his throat and leans to spit / stops on noticing a crowd formed far below...
["Thou shalt not have strange gods before me." Graven images. Sing Hosanna. Q, the Golden Calf.]
... then spits irrespective.
["If you hate the people so much, why perform?" I hate them. "Why sing, or play, or record, or do anything at all?" I truly hate them. "Don't want...don't make...don't want...don't make...I won't...I won't...I won't...Don't go." Go where? They forced me. Mandatory Registration. Then the Draft. Then my conscription. "Take your pick, boy—four years regular army or two years special forces." Should've told them to shove it up their jingoistic ass. Too young. They get you young. Like the Catholics. Confirmation—age twelve—slap in the puss; confirmed. Eighteen—pledge of allegiance—zugswang; aim, shoot, and fire.]
The breeze feels coated, leaves a film on the skin like varnish, like gum Arabic, high humidity monoxides—plug in any prefix.
[Sweat would form on the inside surface of each body bag. Ours were semi-opaque, but you could still see the corpse. Break that seal and the stench would knock down a mule. Stank to high heaven. Break that seal and the zip-locked screams tore loose. Echoed all the way to Hell's ground floor.]
An aircraft, lifting its deflectors, shatters the silence with a denture-rattling ROAR.
[Mine among them. Tagged, bagged, zipped, forgotten; the dead can be damned clever. There were wounded. Not among them; we slaughtered them without resistance. Wounded among US, from the crossfire. And from those morons lobbing incendiaries like sparklers on Fourth of July. Couldn't tell, once barbequed, enlisted from the unlucky bystanders. Except for bits of metal: ID, boot buckles, belt buckles, insignia.]
There is sun, and though it is obscured by the coagulated atmosphere, its ultra-violet heat bears down oppressively.
['Daymares' turned into nightmares. The days themselves reverted to beauty beyond belief: alpine passes, azure skies, raindrop mists so pure a walk within them baptized the undeserving. Nights, however, resurrected only charbroiled horrors.]

"Q? He's here. I fetched 'im back."

Q separates past from present and turns to acknowledge Bo.

"You my pal, Bo?"

"You bet, Q. We's buddies always. That's for-true."

Q nods, turns back, looks out, looks down, takes a fortifying breath, then steps back in.

"Howdy there, Q-tip. Y'all lookin' kind o' peaked. O-verloaded, seems like. Lighten up. Shed those blinkers, why don't ya?"

He repositions the mask-like shades; Q does not budge.

"You through?"

"CHARISMA! Did y'all hear that note of authority? Yassah, Boss. I's comin' 's fas' 's my daddy-long-legs 'low me. Massah call my name, I's there lickety-split."

Bo looks on, bowled over by Scratch's impromptu Step 'n Fetchit,(incongruous as it seems, given the Black man's equally Asian features) while Luther tries (and fails) to suffocate a guffaw. Q, deadpan dissolved, ventures a caustic smile.

"I'm 'gone,' alright. At least I'd like to be. My adoring fans, alas, have clogged all the exits."

"Solved. The roof. We call us a 'copter."

Bo, surprising everyone, blurts out an objection to Luther's idea. "NO! You know Q d-d-don't like helicopters."

Q gives Bo a significant, if overly critical, scowl.

[Quiet, Bo. I know you mean well, but never mention things I've told you not to mention. Whirlybirds, they were once called. Toys for toddlers. Hell-icopters, now, destination fixed. Toys for 'torturing' toddlers was the way they were used.]

Suffering Q's displeasure, Bo seems to shrink.

"Does anyone have any money?"                                                       

Scratch frisks his pockets.

"Some. Couple o' megs. Why, you short?"

"Luther?"

"Negative. Chicken-shit change, is all. A few euros, a few yen, a few dollars."

I gots forty dollars, if Q would ask me. Gots it right here in my bag, what I would give him, if Q would ask.

"Bo?"

"GOTS FORTY DOLLARS!"

"So, that makes what; two-sixty, two-seventy?"

"And they call us billionaires? She-it, I use to make more trib shooting craps back in high school."

"Ante up." Bills flutter leaf-like onto the coffee table, forming a paltry pile. "This won't do. Need a volunteer to go buy singles."

"Yo. Back in five."

Luther snags the cash and is out the door at knee-jerk speed (gofer, gofer, gofer, gotta go, gotta get it, gotta go, left, left again; where's the fucking lift? Gotta go, gotta get it, gotta go, right. There! Come and 'fetch' me. Yo, it's open. Cash and carry. Pushin' "Lobby." Ever noticed—goin' down—that elevators play muzak? Pipe it in to cover up the creepy-crawly hush, the I-don't-know-you, you-don't-know me awkwardness of those gone mute? Worried about eavesdroppers, as if the whole fucking elevator world is full of spies and secret agents. Mum. I'm mum. Look; he's lookin'. Hey, I'm mum, man. Won't catch me talkin', no-sir-ree, not in this cooped up box of ups and downs. WHOOPS! My guts just sank to my goddamn feet; this thing drops like a bungee-cord jump. "L." Lobby! Reprieve. Nice meetin' you lovely folks, sure did enjoy our covert conversation. See you all LATER. Luther's gotta go, gotta get it, gotta go. Gotta live up to his rep, gotta prove he's the best, bar none, goddamn gofer in the business.

"You c-c-comin' with us to the island, Scratch? It's nice there. You should c-c-come."

"I may, by and by. Thanks for the in-vite."

"Island's fun. Q b-b-boughts a snorkel for me this time with a mask for lookin' un'erwater. When I learn to swim, that is. Hey, I gots it here; you w-w-wanna see?"

Bo kneels beside his luggage.

Q has disappeared.

Scratch is sitting with his elbows on his knees, forearms dangling—outwardly attending to Bo, inwardly ruminating about his stressed-out employer:
Seen 'im like this before. Like a hand grenade with the pin pulled. Bad Juju. Dangerous to be around. Makes folks jumpy for even tryin' to be his friend. Un-healthy. Un-natural, leastwise, all the time him threatenin' to self-de-struct. Can't talk to him. When he does court conversation, only talks music. Wild the way Q talks, sometimes, about music. "The Holy Ghost,"  he calls it—some kind o' Catholic she-it. Odd, since Q's anti-religious—except when he performs and it's "cross his heart, hope to die." Bo holds up his mask and snorkel. It is professional grade, not a kid's toy. Scratch gives Bo a nod. "Put it on. Let's see how it looks." Bo complies with excitement. This concert-skippin' non-sense gotta stop. Bad sign. Only missed the one—those tabloids lie—but showed up late for at least another three. Never used to do like that. Always loved to play, make the crowds hoot 'n' holler. Last few gigs... Q's dark. Stopped havin' fun. Plays like he doesn't give a two-bit hooker's pension who all's listenin'.

There is a loud, impatient banging at the penthouse door. Bo goes to answer it.

"Aliens, yo!"

Luther flops down prostrate in the hall and rat-a-tat-tats a make-believe burp gun at the mystified Bo—still wearing his diving unit. Only momentarily confused, Bo pulls off the snorkel and mask.

"Whew! Thought the Plutonians had landed." Luther feigns relief, as he gets to his feet, slap-dusting his pants. He pushes in past Bo, and with a flourish fantails the cash. "Where's the main man?" Scratch tilts his head toward the bedroom. Luther heads in that direction, halts, lifts his nose like a bird dog, then makes for the couch instead, whereon he drops the fistful of bills, climbs up on an arm, goes comically rigid, and calling out "TIM-BERRRRRRRRRR" falls like a redwood onto the cushions—misjudging their dimensions, the "WHOOSH" they gasp accompanied by an ill-starred "THUD." "Fuckin' thing 's too short."

"Y'all okay, Luth?"

"Nothin' serious, short of a broken neck. So, what's with the singles; Q say?"

As the bathroom door swings closed, the bedroom door reopens; Bo leaves / Q enters.

"The trib's a diversion."

"A who?"

"Buzz the limo. Say we're on our way."

"But Q, we're surrounded, man."

"Not for long. Make that call, then step out here with me."

Q scoops up the money and walks out onto the balcony again, followed by Scratch, whose expression is skeptical, then Luther (limo standing by).

The crowd far below is still milling, swelling, aiming various ocular aids at the hotel's uppermost floor, all necks craned in a dumb show of steadfast devotion—just a glimpse of their idol would satisfy most.

Q moves to the guard rail.

[Had a little wooden hammer, when I was a kid. Striped. Just a lathe-turned cylinder fixed to the end of a dowel. Made a dull "CLACK" sound when it struck, when it killed. I exterminated bugs. Ants, mostly. "CLACK," you're pulverized. "CLACK," you're smooched. "CLACK, CLACK, CLACK," you're dead, gone, extinguished. My Indian-file executions left the sidewalk littered with carcasses.]

"Look at 'em all. She-it, where'd they come from so fast? I's  w a y  d o w n  yonder an hour ago—nary a single fan. Strange they seem to de-vine whenever Q is about to make an appearance. Like telepathy, or somethin'."

"Like shit-eating flies."

Q appears oblivious to Scratch's sarcasm.

"Ever have a friend, Scratch, who'd do anything for you? Anything and everything, you asked?"

"You mean like Bo?"

"Did she tell you she'd do anything?"

"Like 'my country right or wrong'? I s'pose she did."

"And did you despise her for it?"

"Right. Well, let's see if 'human nature' gets us out of this terrarium. Luther?"

"Yo. Motor's runnin'. Ground floor. Service entrance. Down and out the back."

"Watch 'em murder one another for a goddamn buck."

Q flings the bills. They scatter, fluttering in the wind like parti-colored leaves, somersaulting earthward, gifts from the gods, wealth wept, acid rain.

*

Steam rises clingingly—the bathroom fan is off, the fixtures sweat, the mirror frames a fog-enshrouded figure.

From outer space, I'll say. From a whole other planet!

ET—the extraterrestrial—gazes spellbound, in reflection, at the wheezing apparition, its labored breath sounding guttural through a length of rubberized tubing, windpipe worn on the outside, happily grotesque.

*

"Where's Bo?"

*

A hand, decidedly human, wipes a window in the glass...

*

"YO, BOBO!"

*

...retreats...

*

Luther jiggles the doorknob.

*

...and hastily vanishes.

Bo, clothes damp from the mists of imagination—taps turned on full-tilt to produce the ethereal steam—exits, sans disguise, and looks for his missing luggage.

"I've got your bags, Bo. Get a move on."

Q exits.

"W-W-WAIT!"

Retrieving his mask and snorkel, Bo brings up the rear.