SMOKING MIRROR BLUES_The Return of Tezcatlipoca

by Ernest Hogan

  Beto tried to scream through the computer, but couldn't.

  I AM TEZCATLIPOCA, appeared on the screen.

  Smokey smiled, looked away, then squinted. The sun hurt his eyes. "I could really use some sunglasses!"

  The Instant Live Productions guy reached into his vest-pocket and pulled out pair of a prism-surfaced Apollinaire wraparounds. "Here, take mine. I'd be honored."

  "Thank you." Smokey noted the Instant Live Productions guy's intense pleasure as he put on the sunglasses. It felt good to be back in control.

  *

  Xochitl couldn't sleep or read even though her adrenalin had burnt out. Everyone else on the bus was unconscious, except for the driver, a handsome, young Mexican go-getter who kept looking at her with scorn through the rearveiw mirror. She avoided hostile eye contact by staring out the window. The sun was coming up, so the black interstellar void was fading into the sprawling suburbs that were popping up around the border for the last couple of decades.

  This was the new recombocultural trimili world: Mexico and America flowing together again, the healing wound cut there by politicians from thousands of miles away – that was the border, alive in the overgrowth of new worlds, towns that grew up around the shopping malls and maquiladoras on both sides, populated by people from all over – Nigerians, Siberians, Rwandans, Bosnians, Timorese, Ohioans – and the new generation of mestizo recombozoids of all colors. The Cosmic Race that is La Raza was alive and well here in new, improved Mexamérica.

  It was all flashing by through her reflection, which melted into her dead mother's face, looking concerned the way only she could look.

  "Take care, my daughter," she said, then melted into the glowing skull that asked, "Will you give us the program you have been working on now?"

  She looked away, at the driver, into the rearview mirror. The little old man in the out-of-date peasant dress was driving. He gave her an obscene leer.

  In the seat across the aisle, Godzilla sat, blowing orange smoke at her.

  Then her robot guard dog, Santo, leaped at Godzilla, tearing out the monster's throat with a powerful electrified bite.

  "I've got to get some sleep," Xochitl said, closing her eyes.

  *

  Phoebe wasn't sure where she was. She felt so good. The air caressed her. Smokey had some of those nice kids in blue and black – those Olvidadoids – give her all the Fun she wanted. Now the air, every molecule and smog-particle, was making love to her. Smokey was kissing her. It was a kiss as beautiful as the sunrise. It felt so good to stay up all night, so naughty, so free. She wasn't sure what Smokey was saying – words had stopped making sense to her some time ago – but he was so sumato it must have been something nice.

  *

  Caldonia couldn't believe what a xau-xau Dead Daze she was having. First, Phoebe had left her for a guy who could be that filthy Mexican's twin brother; then the wonderful euro/asio woman with hard, bulging muscles and breasts to match that she had passionately made out with for about a hour – she had her tongue down her throat, was squeezing those breasts, and almost everything – had turned out to be a man in drag! She nearly died when she had reached between those legs and got a hot handful of penis! She nearly killed him.

  How couldn't she have known? Couldn't she taste the testosterone? Was her dyke radar failing her?

  Maybe he was taking estrogen. Getting ready to become a real woman. He would be so hot once he got that horrible male equipment chopped off . . .

  Damn! Should have gotten his phone number!

  Now home, Caldonia blew a kiss to the angel in the poster over her bed, turned off her own wings, faced her antique postmodern vanity and removed her blonde wig, revealing the shaved red-brown scalp underneath. Amazing how the wig and some makeup made her look like Brigitte Bardot; she seemed to have the same face.

  That face: eyes, nose, cheekbones, and especially those full lips made Caldonia theorize that Bardot had some African ancestry. Why not? The only thing that separates France from Africa is a dirty little puddle.

  After a shower, her face was her own again.

  She sprawled on the bed and whistled on her TV. It conjured up Tezcatlipoca's face. She growled and whistled it off, closed her eyes, and drifted off into a near-sleep state.

  *

  Xochitl barely remembered shuffling through Customs, which was a mere "Welcome to the United States of America; have a nice visit," these days when she arrived in Tijuana. She was tingling from sleep deprivation and wasn't sure if she was being followed. A hulking euro wearing pink overalls and walking a vampire-bat-headed Chihuahua was behind her all the way from the bus station to the maglev terminal.

  "Welcome to the United States of America; have a nice visit," said the hulking euro, "and may God have mercy on your soul."

  The dog just stared at her and panted, showing its tiny, sharp teeth and pink, worm-like tongue.

  Xochitl just stared back.

  "We know where you are," the euro went on. "We will get the god-simulating program from you eventually. Will you come with me now?"

  "Who are you?" Xochitl asked.

  "We call ourselves the Earth Angels." The euro smiled with intense pride.

  That scared Xochitl. She ran away.

  The Earth Angel and his bat-headed dog didn't follow, he just said, "We are very patient. God is on our side."

  Was it an hallucination or just Dead Daze?

  *

  "Come on, wake up," Ralph's wife said. "Your system has been buzzing, clicking and ringing for over an hour now. They finally called my line. They really want to talk to you."

  Ralph peeled his lips apart and asked, "Who?"

  "Worldkom, of course," she said, "you know, the people you're working for."

  Ralph grumbled and staggered to his workstation, eyes still not focused, still unmade from sleeping.

  The neatly groomed asio-latio executive on the screen suddenly looked horrified, and said, "Did I wake you up?"

  "It's pretty early here," said Ralph while fumbling through the keystrokes to put a publicity headshot still of himself on the outgoing video.

  "Worldkom never sleeps," said the executive. "Besides, it's almost lunchtime here in Miami."

  "But I'm just a humble freelancer," Ralph countered with a smirk he was glad the executive couldn't see. "I'm not on a timeclock."

  "I suppose that is right." The executive looked understanding. "Well, a crisis has developed in the Serpents & Sacrifices project."

  "What? I thought we were ahead of schedule?"

  "You were, but something strange has happened. We cannot get in touch with Beto Orozco."

  "I tried last night. All I got was a crazy repeated message."

  "Yes." The executive consulted his notedeck. "'I am Tezcatlipoca.' Do you know what it could possibly mean?"

  "Tezcatlipoca is an Aztec god that Beto was researching for Serpents & Sacrifices. I don't know what the message could mean – especially coming from him."

  "Beto is a rather peculiar person?"

  "He's a creative sort. Kind of wild and crazy."

  "You recommended him to us, didn't you Ralph?"

  "Well, yes, he really knows Aztec mythology – and what he doesn't know, he'll do whatever he can to find out."

  "Not being able to contact him puts this project in jeopardy. You must do something."

  "Like what?" Ralph was getting edgy.

  "We would like you to go to Los Angeles and see what happened to Beto. A ticket on Aztlán Airbus is waiting for you at Sky Harbor Airport. You have a little over two hours to catch it."

  Before Ralph could say anything, the executive was replaced by a dancing, fading corporate logo, then visual white noise.

  Ralph screamed.

  *

  Xochitl started feeling drowsy in the tunnel between the Tijuana bus depot and the San Diego maglev station. To stay awake, she broke into a run on the moving sidewalk. By the time she had reached that other end she was out of breath.

&nb
sp; Somehow, she managed to buy a ticket to Los Angeles, and get on the right maglev before falling asleep.

  She dreamed of being at her mother's grave, surrounded by glow-in-the-dark cempasúchil flowers and smoking copal incense pots. She held her father's hand as he quietly cried, hot tears running down his face, giving off black, acrid smoke, melting away skin, grey moustache, and glasses, leaving a grinning papier mâché skull. Santo leaped in out of the darkness in cinematic slow-motion, and barked at the grave through sparking steel teeth. Sweet white smoke rose from the grave; then the dirt pushed up, broke and spilled like a miniature, dry volcano. Xochitl's mother emerged from the dirt and smoke, immaculate and glowing in her white dress, looking as beautiful, if overly made-up, as on the day she was buried. She took Xochitl in her arms. Xochitl cried as her face touched her mother's bodice, and she felt a hand stoking her hair. "Ay," the dead woman said, "my daughter, my daughter, give me the god-simulating program, and may God have mercy on your soul."

  *

  Tezcatlipoca had quickly mastered being a god in the mediasphere. Electronic contracts were generated, wheeling and dealing were done all over the planet, while Smokey gave interviews in Lupe's, shot ideas to Los Tricksters, and fondled wannabe groupies as Phoebe slipped in and out of consciousness at his feet.

  "You're like a whole lot of people, not just one," said a blonde afro groupie with no meat on her bones and the best titties that money could buy.

  "That's because I'm not a person, I'm not human," said Smokey. "I'm a god."

  "Can I quote you on that?" asked a badly dressed euro reporter.

  *

  Xochitl's dream got more and more disturbing and convoluted as the train pulled into the Downtown L.A. maglev station. An asio man in a Chinese National Corporation uniform was in the seat next to her, with a hand on one of her breasts. Before she could figure out what was going on, he grinned sheepishly and turned away. In a wobbly, paranoiac state, and avoiding any eye-contact, she tried to orient herself as the costumed crowd swarmed around her.

  On a waiting-area monitor she saw Beto's face, looking more confident and charming than Beto ever had. She thought he said, "I am a god," but that couldn't be right – Beto was crazy, but not a megalomaniac.

  Then a small girl with milk-white skin and blood-red hair, lips, and dress hopped out of the crowd, blocking Xochitl's path. As she nearly knocked the girl down, Xochitl realized that it wasn't a girl, but a grown woman, a little person, perfectly formed, like a doll.

  "Welcome to Los Angeles," said the little person, who had pink eyes – she was an albino. "Have a nice Dead Daze. And may God have mercy on your soul. Would you like to give us the program now?"

  Xochitl ran off to the exit.

  "Very well," said the little person. "We'll keep track of you. Los Angeles is the City of the Angels. You can't get away from us!"

  *

  We have agents following Xochitl. May God have mercy on her soul.

  *

  After an hour or so of near-sleep, Caldonia managed some real sleep – dreamless, because of Fun. A few hours later her eyes snapped open, her brain still buzzing from the residue of the drug. She wanted to pass out and have Dead Daze be over, but that was chemically impossible.

  Without lifting her head from the pillow, she whistled on the TV. That xau-xau guy who looked like Beto – who knows, it may have even been Beto – appeared, beating that Aztec drum in what looked like a professionally-made video. She snapped it to another channel.

  There was Mr. Xau-Xau again, this time being interviewed.

  She snapped again.

  There he was singing on what looked like a live-performance captured on a hand-held nanocamera.

  Snap.

  He was being interviewed.

  Snap.

  He was dancing, and the camera zoomed into his crotch.

  Snap.

  Another interview:

  "I'm concerned with the well-being of the new trimili recombozoid generation. They should keep their minds clear. I plan on making an anti-Fun promotion spot."

  Disgusted, Caldonia whistled off the TV.

  *

  Phoebe couldn't tell if she was awake or asleep, alive or dead. She felt like she was soaring, yet she seemed to be under a table in a coffee shop. There were legs all around her. Some shoes that looked like snake heads – didn't Beto have a pair like that, a long time ago, like, last year – but they went out of style in Hollywood and Los Olvidadoids were so strict in enforcing corporate fashion laws – but Beto kept them around because he liked them, and he didn't just live on Olvidadoid turf – he had worn them to Mexico, she thought. But Beto wasn't there, she hadn't seen him for hours and hours. Who was wearing the shoes? The voice, the smell. Smokey. Why was Smokey wearing Beto's shoes? They looked alike – maybe they were brothers or something and wore each other's clothes. And beside him was this latio girl in a short dress and pretty transparent underwear. Phoebe wrapped herself around long, silky legs, still feeling like she was soaring.

  *

  When Zobop got home, he said, "looks like it's early in the morning and we ain't got nothing but the blues."

  "Tezcatlipoca Blues," said Tan Tien, who was wearing a wisp of transparent fabric, "Smoking Mirror Blues."

  Zobop took her in his arms. "The blues is serious business."

  "Not to mention hard work." Tan Tien kissed him, hard and deep.

  "We need rest." He carried her to the bedroom.

  "And recreation." She caressed one of his nipples with the tip of a soft, tiny finger.

  He laid her on the bed. She threw away the wisp of transparent fabric. He was hard. She was wet. They flowed into some good old-fashioned good, good loving. No ritual mumbo jumbo. It was all right to have orgasms, and they did.

  Then they slept. They really needed the rest.

  In the other room their system whirred and clicked and flashed and accessed extra power to keep track of Tezcatlipoca.

  8. URBAN ANGELS

  Ralph struggled not to have a panic attack on the plane as it took off and headed toward Los Angeles. It was a lost cause. He was one of those people who had a morbid fear of California, a fear that was so powerful that no amount of mental games could keep him from going into white-knuckle mode before the plane left the ground.

  There hadn't been an earthquake in El Lay for a long time, not since the Big One a few years back – and now the seismologists were predicting Another Big One any day now, since the tectonic plates were under more pressure every day. Ralph was sure that it would happen while he was there.

  Then he remembered something Beto had said: "Hey, man earthquakes are good for you. They help you deal with the unexpected. People who grow up in earthquake zones know how to live with chaos – that's why the whole Pacific Rim, even after the economic slump of the early 21st, is doing so well. We know that the Earth moves, that nothing is stable. That Tepeyollotl, the Aztec god of earthquakes and volcanoes is down there, shaking things up in the form of a giant jaguar, shaking up the living Earth, and you have to live with it. The illusion that the Earth doesn't move and things don't change can paralyze you."

  The memory didn't comfort him. Even if there wasn't an earthquake – Dead Daze was still going, and everybody remembered last year's Dead Daze riots and was speculating about whether it would happen again. Ralph figured his being there would be just the thing to set something off.

  *

  Goooooooooooooooooooooooooood morning El Lay! We're all warmed up and ready to go here on El Lay's Street Level News Channel. Bringing you what's happening around town with that certain style that makes us stand out from all those other dull, boring news stations on the nets.

  Here we are, standard breakfast time, and Day Two of Dead Daze! Local police agencies and the National Guard, thanks to ever-lovin' President Jones, have been all over the streets! You'd think that their uniforms were this year's ultra-sumato costume! And these girls made them feel welcome by handing out a little tushy-squeeze.<
br />
  The National Guard has been keeping things from going berserk, even though there is already a body count going: two dead, five injured in hospitals, though it all looks like self-inflicted damage, except for Nacho Joyce, leader of Hollywood's infamous Los Olvidadoids gang, killed in this spectacular act of violence captured as it happened.

  Joyce's murderer was a mysterious man by the name of Smokey Espejo, who also goes by, uh, Tez-catli-poca . . . No charges are being pressed because of the Sepulveda law that allows citizens to kill registered gangsters in self defense. Surprisingly this had been only the second time this law has resulted in the actual death of a gangster since the law was passed seven years ago. As you can see, the crowd went wild, and Smokey may just be the hero of this Dead Daze.

  Smokey seems to be a musician by profession, as you can see in this byte of him playing some kind of electric wooden drum. Deals have been made all night, and already instant-production videos of Smokey – some bootleg, like this one – are circulating through the nets.

  And this is just Day Two, breakfasttime! The souls of the adult dead aren't expected to come down and party until sundown! This may be the most incredible Dead Daze yet!

  *

  Every time something about him appeared in the mediasphere, Tezcatlipoca was aware of it. He would instantly relay it to Smokey through his phone.

  *

  Smokey was having his cock sucked by talented young euro woman with skin like a galaxy of freckles exploding out a dress of cleverly knotted green cotton. Her DNA files crosschecked with the name she gave, and her med records showed no sexually transmitted diseases as of fourty-three minutes previously. It was pleasant, and helped him concentrate on all the contracts he was sorting out in his head – all the corporations, the rights, the plans, the people, how to use Los Tricksters and music to control people's minds. He was about to have an orgasm.

  Then his phone tickled him in silent-ring mode. He caressed the girl's red-orange hair with one hand while bringing his other wrist to where he could see the screen. Tezcatlipoca flashed all the recent mediabytes about him. Smokey took it in a few seconds, and was delighted – there were some negative bytes, but that was good, too. The more they were talking about him, the more powerful he became.