Tank Girl

by Alan C. Martin

  “Which one shall I fire first?” asks Booga, his hand hovering above the missile launch buttons.

  “Fuck ’em!” I shout as I push his hand flat against the panel. “Hit ’em all!”

  A barrage of various shaped and sized missiles, bombs, shells, flak, ack-ack harpoons, dum-dums, stones, over-sized soft-nosed bullets and armed warheads cascades out the front of the tank like a violent stream of explosive projectile vomit. We can’t see what’s happening up at the sharp end of our attack, but we can sure as hell hear the fuckers scream.

  “How’s it looking from up there?” I ask Jet Girl.

  “Man,” she radios back, “carnage. Sheer fucking, unadulterated carnage.”

  “So we’re getting ’em?”

  “Yeah,” she replies, “you could say that. Make another volley like that one, two degrees to your left, and you’ll be laughing.”

  “We’re already laughing,” chips in Booga.

  “Then you’ll be belly-laughing,” adds Jet Girl.

  “Great,” says Booga, “let’s do it. I fucking love belly-laughing.”

  I wind down my window and call to Barney that we need to march the tank a couple of degrees over. The giant armadillo does as it’s told and I can feel the steering wheel slipping through my fingers as we turn into the enemy.

  The machine guns have finally run out of bullets, but that doesn’t matter, we’ve got plenty of other shit to throw at them.

  “Same again?” asks Booga.

  “Discharge the whole fuckin’ lot,” I command.

  We push every button in sight. A ton of explosives spew out, scorching the hell out of any living thing in a quarter-mile semicircle in front of the tank.

  “Y’know, it’s kinda funny,” reports Jet Girl, “from up here, what with all the metal scales and your funny tank-nose and all the people running around like tiny, burning ants... you look like an armadillo having its dinner at a termite nest.”

  “Yeah, y’know,” I reply sarcastically, “we’ve already done that one.”

  “Actually,” she continues, obliviously, “you look like an armadillo that’s eaten too many termites and is now throwing up all over the desert... or maybe you’re a robot armadillo that sicks-up fire and death... or you could be a giant toy arma...”

  Enough of this bullshit, now is not the time. “Okay, Jet Girl, we get the general idea. So what, from your superior position, would you say the score is down here?”

  “Kind of difficult to say, really,” replies Jet Girl in a slow, ponderous drawl. “There’s still at least a hundred of ’em. They’re making their way back into the town.”

  “Are you smoking that heavy weed again?” I ask.

  Jet Girl slurs her reply. “Yeah. So? What are you? A fuckin’ copper?”

  “I’m gonna be having words with you later, young lady,” I snap. “Now pull yourself together, we’ve got bastards to kill and shit to blow up.”

  I lean out of my window and bark another order at Barney. “We need to go back to the town, the bastards are retreating. I’m not gonna be able to sleep easy until I know that we’ve wasted every single man-jack of them.”

  “Sure thing boss,” replies Barney amicably, “leave it to me. We’re on our way. You two sit back and have a smoke.”

  “But we’ve given up smoking,” says Booga.

  Booga turns slowly and looks at me in horror.

  I turn slowly back and return his look.

  Oh shit.

  Amidst all of the blood and explosions and gore and resurrections and fun, we’ve forgotten about the one powerful and significant change that we’ve made to our lives this New Year:

  WE HAVEN’T SMOKED FOR NEARLY TWENTY HOURS.

  OH MY GOD.

  A sea of anxiety washes through my blood stream.

  Man.

  How could I have forgotten about that? The most difficult thing in the world to do – giving up tabs – and I’ve already gone through almost a whole day of it.

  But now it’s coming back.

  With a vengeance.

  My teeth are starting to grind.

  I can feel a clot of stagnant, putrid adrenaline dispersing itself into the nicotine-hungry sponginess of my brain.

  And here it is.

  That feeling.

  The feeling that everything is bad.

  The feeling that nothing will ever be right again...

  Unless...

  Unless I allow myself to spark up one last, perfectly formed, thin cylinder of finely cut tobacco, rolled in light-weight paper and treated with just enough non-harmful chemicals to keep it burning.

  Booga’s ploughing his way into a bag of doughnuts. “I’m just gonna eat myself stupid,” he explains with a mouth full of dough. “It’s the only way to get through it.”

  “Let me see one of those doughboys,” I ask, dunking my hand deep into the bag. I pull out a jammy one and take a big ol’ bite out of the fucker. Mmmm. Tastes good. No wonder I ate such a huge breakfast, these hunger pangs are driving me to distraction.

  But eating myself to death is not the solution. I’ve got to do something else with all of this nervous energy. I’ve gotta let this hen out.

  “How close are we, Barney?” I shout out the window.

  “Fuck knows,” she replies with a shrug. “This side of the town is hardly recognisable anymore. You napalmed the hell out of it.”

  I get on the radio and call Jet Girl. “Jet Girl, wake up. How close are we to the town?”

  “Hey dude,” she’s sounding even more stoned than last time, “what do you mean? You’re in the town already, at least I think you are.”

  “Cool. So which way do we go for the Town Square?” I ask.

  Jet Girl pauses as she takes stock of the ground plan and has a crafty toke on her doobie. “Take a sharp left at the next bomb crater,” she says, trying to talk and hold her breath in at the same time, “carry on past a load of rubble and you’ll come to a huge pile of shit, take the third exit and follow the ditch around to the right.”

  Do you ever have that thing happen when you’re right in the middle of something really important and a stupid thought comes into your head and you just can’t get rid of it? Well, I’ve got one of those right now:

  I’m thinking...

  ...John Travolta...

  ...he got really high in the charts with the song ‘Greased Lightning’... yeah?

  And the lyrics to that song went something like...

  “You know that ain’t no shit

  We’ll be gettin’ lots of tit

  In Greased Lightning...”

  Agreed?

  So how come the Grease album didn’t have one of those Explicit Lyrics/Parental Advisory stickers on the front of its sleeve, huh?

  Okay, so they hadn’t been invented in 1978, but maybe they should have invented them especially for that record. I don’t think that John should’ve been allowed to get away with filth like that. I mean Grease is meant to be a family show for fuck’s sake. I mean...

  WHAT THE FUCK IS ALL THAT SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT?

  JESUS I NEED A CIGARETTE.

  Anyway.

  Here we are, a giant human-armadillo, trundling our way into a halfdestroyed town, nuking anything that crosses our path, and it’s getting dangerously near to teatime.

  It’s high time we wrapped this show up and buggered off.

  Wait on a moment...

  Barney’s stopped walking.

  She’s just standing there.

  I think she’s seen something.

  Or sensed something.

  I think I can guess what it is. I recognise that look in her eye.

  She’s going into a trance-like state. Taking down a big ol’ hit of oxygen.

  She’s tilting her head back and spreading out her arms, cruciform.

  The armadillo has ground to a halt.

  Man, something’s gonna happen, I can tell ya.

  Barney’s gonna scream, I just know it.

  I’m g
onna stick my fingers in my ears...

  “THE FUCKIN’GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!”

  The armadillo immediately crumbles around us. The soldiers are falling onto our roof and tumbling over each other, eager to take the form of their new order.

  Now they’re lining up behind us and standing on each other’s shoulders, making a solid human wall, two men thick and fifty men long.

  And suddenly we’re all left out in the cold: Booga and me in the tank, fresh out of bombs and gasping for a smoke; Dobson standing fast in front of us, holding a bazooka that he’s picked up from somewhere; Sub Girl with her two trusty six-shooters and a blood-smattered cowboy hat that she’s got sitting back on her head; and Barney, standing alone and unarmed, but probably still the most dangerous person on our team.

  It takes a second or two, but eventually I recognise where we are –this is the Town Square, or at least what’s left of the Town Square. A few of our missiles must’ve strayed over here when we were blasting our way along the battlefield. More than half of the buildings are gone, razed to the ground by loose warheads. The place is a mess of mashedup blood, guts, bits of metal, glass and cement dust.

  Fuckleberry’s body is still pinned to the road outside the ruined Town Hall. Carrion crows are picking at his dead, crusty, sun-baked flesh. I can see out of the corner of my eye that Booga is looking at him. He nods solemnly. “Fucker,” he says, with an air of finality. He opens his door and nods outside. “Come on. Barney needs some back up. Let’s finish this.”

  We both get out and stand behind Barney. Sub Girl and Dobson join us on our right and left flanks. Jet Girl pulls into view a couple of hundred feet above us.

  Looking good.

  Any bastard that tries to fuck with us now has got to be seriously demented.

  And what do you know? Here she is...

  ...standing in the doorway, right in front of us.

  Barney’s fuckin’ mum.

  Looking terrible.

  “Barnstable...” she pleads.

  “You’re gonna fuckin’ die for that,” blurts Barney, mercilessly. She strides intently towards her mother, pulling the switchblade out that she’s had concealed in her bra and flicking it open. She’s definitely not fucking about this time.

  “Barnstable... please... let me explain...” she pleads again.

  “I’m gonna slit your fuckin’ throat wide open,” continues Barney.

  COWBOOOMF!!

  A shotgun round rings out across the stillness of the square. We all look to the source of the blast – Even Stevens is standing defiantly in the breach of a wall, the smoking gun in his greasy palms. Behind him stands Tony OKVD23, a pistol in one hand and the other arm hidden behind his back.

  Stevens cocks his shotgun and points it in our general direction.

  “Put the knife down, Barney,” he commands officially.

  “Even Stevens...” I remark in an obvious tone, “...I might have known that you were batting for the other side. So all of that stuff in your office and at the pub was just bullshit, huh?”

  “Stevens,” adds Booga, “you’re nothing but a miserable turncock.”

  “Surely you mean ‘turncoat’?” replies Stevens.

  “Not from where I’m standing,” says Booga, smirking craftily.

  Stevens walks over to Barney’s mum and kisses her passionately.

  “Jesus, mum,” exclaims Barney, “what are you? The fuckin’ town bike?”

  “I’m just a lonely old woman,” her mother replies. “You should be happy that I’ve found a hobby to occupy my autumn years with.”

  “What’s wrong with fuckin’ jigsaw puzzles?” screams Barney. “And where the hell is my dad? You’re fucking with my brain!”

  “Your father has joined a monastery,” her mother announces sanctimoniously. “He has gone off of women for good and has sworn a vow of chastity. I will never see him again.”

  Barney is about to blow a fuse; you can almost see her blood boiling. Man, no wonder she’s so fucked in the head. “You people are fuckin’ insane!” she hollers. “Why can’t you just be normal for once? All I ever wanted was to feel like an ordinary kid, just once. But you selfish bastards couldn’t stop thinking about yourselves for a second, could you? Always shagging people behind each other’s backs and playing stupid fucking mind-games...” She stops her rant and takes a moment to regroup her thoughts. Stevens and her mum are just kind of standing there, waiting for her to get it out of her system so that they can get this thing over and done with. She draws a deep breath and prepares to launch back into it. “Well... look... look at what you’ve created. I hope you’re fuckin’ proud of yourself. I’m a fuckin’ mess... a fucked-up, wretched, good-for-nothing waste of space...” Barney collapses to her knees and starts blubbing like a baby.

  “Pull yourself together girl!” snaps her mother.

  I’m thinking that that could well have been the wrong thing to say to Barney when she’s in such a fragile state.

  In one perfect, balletic motion, Barney lifts up her head, brushes her hair from her eyes and flops, with a rag-doll-like grace, face down into the dirt. As she falls, she sends her switchblade spinning towards her mother with an incredible, hateful force. The knife hits home with a bone-breaking THUNK and Barney’s mum staggers backwards uncontrollably, blood streaming down her cheek and the flick-knife handle sticking out of her eye-socket.

  Stevens raises his shotgun a couple of inches and instinctively lets off a round, straight at Barney’s back.

  Barney manages to push herself up for a second, and then collapses back down into the dirt, lifeless.

  That’s it.

  That’s e-fuckin’-nuff.

  “How about it, Dobson?” I ask, intoning that Zulu should blow the fucker’s head off with his bazooka.

  Dobson doesn’t need to be asked twice; he sends a shell screeching into Stevens’ belly. Stevens is punched off of his feet and lands heavily on his back, the shell firmly imbedded in his guts. We’re waiting...

  ...and waiting...

  ...the damn thing hasn’t gone off.

  Stevens is wriggling around on the ground, squealing like a stuck pig.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” replies Dobson, examining the switches on his weapon. “Oh shit... yes I do... there’s a delay setting... the thing is set to go off in a hundred and twenty seconds. There’s no way of changing it.”

  Tony 45RPM is starting to get a bit irate. He’s waving his gun at us in a wrong-handed kind of way. “What are you doing?” he asks, flustered. “Can’t you see that the man’s in agony? Finish him off, for fuck’s sake.”

  “No,” I reply defiantly, “you do it.”

  “What?!” gasps Tony. “You’re telling me to shoot a man dead in cold blood?”

  “Well that’s what you’re telling me to do, fuckwit. He’s gonna blow up in about a minute anyway.” I look at Tony for a couple of seconds; I can feel my face contorting into an expression of exaggerated disbelief. “Tony,” I say with complete astonishment, “what the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be dead.”

  “Why?” he replies sarcastically. “Because you shot my hand off? Well think again, missus. I was saved that night by my fast-acting friends. They rushed me into the toilets and stopped the bleeding with a roll of toilet paper. Look...”

  He reveals the arm that he’s been hiding behind his back; his hand is missing, but there is a whole roll of bog-paper where it used to be, stuck on with dried, clotted blood.

  I’m totally gob-smacked.

  Booga can’t control his laughter.

  “I bet that comes in handy for wiping your arse,” quips Sub Girl.

  “Shut up!” he screams. “It’s not fucking funny.”

  “Au contraire,” I retort, “it most definitely is really fuckin’ funny.”

  BANG!!!

  There goes Even Stevens.

  Everywhere.

  We’re all covered in blood, guts and burnt fl
esh.

  “There...” notes Booga, monotone, “...he lays, round about, deep and crisp and even.”

  “Shut up!” shouts Tony.

  There’s an added emotional twist to his voice and we’ve all noticed it.

  “What’s up, Tony?” I ask, teasing him like a bully. “Did your boyfriend go pop? What was he to you anyway? You’re supposed to be a sleazy hoodlum, what are you doing hanging around with a sheriff?”

  “He’s not a sheriff,” sobs Tony, “he’s my dad.”

  “This is getting far too complicated for my little brain,” I declare. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  “Wait a minute,” says Dobson, closely examining the exploded remains of Even Stevens. “Check this out: Stevens was wearing a synthetic mask... that wasn’t his true face at all!”

  Dobson peels the mask away from the disembowelled head and shoulders, revealing the face of a much skinnier, gaunt looking man.

  “That’s not my dad,” says Tony, holding back a sob.

  “No,” comes a voice from behind us, “that’s my dad.”

  We all turn around to see who’s speaking.

  “Barney!” I scream with delight. “You’re alive!”

  I jump on her and hug her down to the floor. We roll about laughing until Barney stops the proceedings.

  “Argh! My back!” she squeals. She puts her hand up the back of her shirt and pulls out an exercise book riddled with buckshot. “That thing has been making me uncomfortable all day.”

  “How did you know to put that up there?” I ask.

  “It’s a habit I got into at school after the Headmaster gave me six of the best. Since then I’ve always had a jotter down the back of my trousers, just in case. Luckily today, what with all the running around and stuff, it had worked its way up out of my pants and had stuck itself to the small of my back with sweat.”

  “And your dad tried to kill you, but you got up just in time to see him explode!” I enthuse.

  “Yeah,” reflects Barney, “I guess he didn’t like the fact that I threw a flick-knife into my mum’s brain.”