Salvation by Lunacy (or: Revenge of the Instrumetal Divebombers)

It was 1:00 in the afternoon when I realized I was the only person in Jacksonville dressed like a rock musician. Jarheads were giving my bumper stickers murderous looks at stoplights before rocketing away in their Iroc-Zs. People were blasting squirrels with high powered rifles in the parking lot of the Arby's on Lejeune Boulevard and my loyal assistant was in South Dakota, picking through a junkyard.

It hadn't always been like this. I watched constantly over my shoulder as I nursed my semi-warm domestic beer. These guys are three times my size, I could be taken apart like they regularly dismember their dates and wives. It was Custer's last stand in reverse, and I was trying my hardest to get back to my lodge.

A few nights prior I had seen Irata and The Bronzed Chorus up in Greensboro. They were to be joined by Talons, who are like Pelican with a good drummer, but it was not to be so. The audience was a bizarre mix of music and art nerds and pregnant homeless women smoking cigarettes. Irata blasted the walls of the building apart. The Bronzed Chorus leveled everything on the block. It was so much like the episode of the Simpsons where U2 plays on top of the Springfield wall. It would have been too much if it had been anything but music, but I relished in it and felt my tinnitus worsen.

I was playing the Bronzed Chorus's CD in traffic, my windows open and my sunglasses barely keeping blindness away. The sun is closer to Jacksonville than any other part of the state save Fayettenam. So far, neither have been burned away, but not for lack of trying. "People are staring!" had hissed my assistant, minutes before being whisked away by private helicopter. I don't know how he hires these fucking things.

But people were staring, and he was in the shadow of the Black Hills searching for a 1992 Chevy Cavalier (powder blue) that had been buried, some say, under tons of Ford trucks and wrecked Hondas with Montezuma's gold hidden where the engine block should have been. I'd be getting a call on my cel phone when, and if, he found it.

I was playing with the cracked parts of a broken iPod I'd found outside this shit bar, behaviour like a wildebeest among Nile River crocs. No eye contact, just get through the water. My destination was still Wilmington, my goal was to crash the set of the first movie or TV show I came across. I had a cooler full of PBR tall boys, a 1996 Dodge Caravan retrofitted for silent running, and a foot locker full of paintball guns. I had come to Jacksonville to recruit soldiers, people to man the cannons in my Dodge War Machine, but ended up way over my head. My undersized shirt and sissied up tattoos made me stand out worse than a dreadlocked hippie at an ROTC rally. I was humming a Preacher's Gun song to myself when my phone rang. I stepped out to back door, setting off all number of alarms and abandoning my tab, and hit the talk button.

"I found the car," said my assistant, out of breath. I could hear the barking of large dogs, "But it's not a chunk of gold under the hood. Just a dinged up old engine. Somebody left a Harmony acoustic guitar with a broken neck in the back seat, though."

"Listen," I said, "I need you to get back here before I get rammed through a wall by one of these Neandertals. They've already slashed all four tires on the War Machine and I want to still be alive when Pinback comes to the Cat's Cradle."

"Use the War Machine's self destruct," said my assistant. "Anyway, man, I'm on a chartered flight back to the state. I'll be touching down in Wilkesboro at 3am. Can you come and get me?"

"What in?" I shrieked. I could already hear the bar's patrons, getting louder and louder, having realized that the strange little guy who had set off their emergency exit alarm had walked on his tab.

"Whatever. I know you'll figure something out," and he hung up.

I knew what to do. I took out my keys and pressed the Fear button, which I had wired myself between the Panic button and the Lock/Unlock button. The War Machine exploded, spraying an entire parking lot full of 23 year old soldier types with orange paint.