He blinked himself out of his daydream, clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Okay, figured that out. Now let’s go get something to eat.”
XXX
They found Bill and headed for St. Elmo Station and the Incline Railway. The trolley car’s tracks climbed the steep slope of Lookout Mountain, terminating at Point Park, the Civil War historical site at the top. From the side, the trolley looked peculiar, slanted at a severe angle, but since it traveled up such a steep slope, it meant the passengers could sit in level comfort. The trolley was packed, 80 percent of the passengers male. There was an electric vibe in the trolley car, a spark of eager expectation as they headed to Joey Armageddon’s at the summit.
In some places, the grade was more than 70 percent, and as a kid, Mortimer remembered hearing that the Incline held the world record for steepest railway. He also remembered spectacular views toward the top of the mountain, but night had fallen now and all he could see were flickering pinpricks of light along the mountain and in the valley, scattered campfires and lanterns. He leaned out one of the windows, looked up ahead toward the end of the line.
Shimmering colored light crowned the top of Lookout Mountain, orange and yellow and a crazy purple shot through with searchlight stabs into the heavens. As they inched closer, the music grew louder, some sort of symphonic cymbal-crashing music. If the combined effect had been designed to heighten anticipation, it was working beautifully. Mortimer couldn’t wait to get to the top.
Mortimer no longer felt he was on a quest. The desperate urgency had drained from him. He still wanted to see Anne, still felt some sort of closure would be beneficial, but he had no expectations. What will be, will be. The future was his to shape. Perhaps he would find a house nearby, set up shop. The thought of further travel wearied him. No, he would not think beyond tonight.
He was a Platinum member.
Let the good times roll.
The top of Lookout Mountain hummed and buzzed and bustled with activity. Large stereo speakers hanging in the trees boomed the classical music, which Mortimer now recognized as the theme from Star Wars. More armed but ever-friendly guards in clean black suits watched over the crowd. The passengers spilled out of the trolley car into the throng. The crowd headed for a set of gates that took them on a circular path to the front entrance. Mortimer, Bill and Sheila fell into the slowly moving mass of people. It reminded Mortimer of the few times he’d been to a Tennessee Titans game, the expectant crowds drifting en masse through the turnstiles into the stadium.
Above them, music filled the sky, spotlights danced among the trees; it was the circus and the Super Bowl and a Hollywood premiere all rolled into one. Mortimer was simultaneously awed and giddy.
After five minutes of edging forward in the line, Mortimer saw a small gate in a white wooden fence off to the side. A discreet sign in small lettering read VIP ENTRANCE. He reached in his pocket, came out with the pink Platinum membership card. He grabbed Sheila by the hand, met Bill’s eye. “Come on!” He fast-walked toward the gate, pulling Sheila behind him.
“We’ll lose our place in line,” Bill said, but he followed.
Mortimer went straight up to the iron gate and then backed away immediately when a hand stretched through the bars holding a snub-nosed nickel revolver. The man on the other side of the pistol wore the standard black suit and gleaming white shirt, but a well-crafted, pink pin shaped like a mushroom cloud on his lapel possibly denoted some kind of rank.
He cocked the revolver with a thumb. “Good evening, sir. I’m the V.I.P. host on duty, and my name is Lars. I’m sorry for any inconvenience, but this entrance is reserved for special guests of Joey Armageddon. We thank you for your cooperation in avoiding unnecessary bloodshed and ask you to please step back in line.”
“Uh…” Mortimer took a half step forward, holding the pink membership card in front of him. He readied himself to jump back if need be. He didn’t quite have faith in the card’s ability to stop bullets, no matter how well it was laminated.
Lars reached through the bars with his other hand and took the card, read it, smiled at Mortimer. “Very sorry for the misunderstanding, Mr. Tate.” Lars made the revolver disappear into a shoulder holster and swung the gate open. “If you and your party could step this way.”
They walked through the gate, and Lars closed it behind them.
The other side was gardenlike, well manicured, with tall hedges bordering a path that paralleled the slow-moving line on the other side. Discreet lanterns lit the flagstone path.
Mortimer gestured down the path. “That way?” He hoped. It would be a hell of a lot faster than waiting in the huge line on the other side of the hedge.
“You need not walk, sir. I can arrange transportation if you like.”
Mortimer exchanged bemused glances with Bill. “Uh…sure.”
Lars picked up an old-fashioned phone from a pedestal near the gate and dialed three digits. “Yes, I need a sky chariot for a Platinum member and his two guests. How long? Fine.” He hung up.
To Mortimer he said, “It will only be a few minutes. You’re not scared of heights, are you?”
THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH
XXXI
Mortimer had not known what to expect when Lars had ordered a sky chariot. He’d stood for a moment, openly curious, when he’d heard a whoosh and the creak of gears and pulleys. He’d looked up, seen the hot-pink gondola fly overhead, suspended from a thick cable. It had probably been looted from some nearby amusement park. It angled down and landed at a port forty feet away. They crowded in. Lars joined them, explaining first-time Platinum visitors were escorted personally for better service. The open-air gondola (sky bucket, Lars called it informally) was just big enough for the four of them.
So they floated, music wafting up to them, lights playing across the sky. Mortimer began to laugh, deep and throaty, holding his belly. Sheila smiled too, but looked at him curiously.
Bill raised an eyebrow. “What’s funny?”
“I don’t know.” Mortimer kept laughing.
Lars smiled knowingly. “You’ve had a hard journey to get here?”
Mortimer wiped his eyes. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”
Lars said, “First-time visitors often feel a distinct and sudden euphoria that manifests itself sometimes in an uncontrolled burst of laughter. Upon realizing you have miraculously come through certain death and horror, the relief stimulates an endorphin release in the brain, which facilitates the process. Typical after prolonged exposure to stress and trauma.”
“Whoa,” Bill said. “Were you a psychologist or something?”
“Tax auditor for the IRS.”
Mortimer leaned out of the sky bucket for a better look. They passed over a well-lit section of ground, roughly the size of a football field. Rows and rows of men pedaled stationary bicycles. They all wore black shorts and pink T-shirts, and a thick, steamy heat rose from the area.
The sight of the slave riders put a minor dent in Mortimer’s endorphin production, and his euphoria deflated. Mortimer wasn’t any kind of a historian, but he could think of no era in which the haves hadn’t benefited from the labor of the have-nots. Was there something about the fall of civilization that nudged a man toward socialism? Or were the concepts of “fair” and “unfair” simply less abstract when one observed hundreds of bike-pedaling slaves from the safety and comfort of a soaring sky bucket?
Still, and Mortimer hated admitting it to himself, a small part of him thought, Better them than me.
“We can take you directly into the club for seating,” Lars said. “But if I might make a suggestion, you and your party might like to check in to the hotel and clean up first.”
“Sounds good.”
Sheila said, “I won’t need a room. I’m here to sign on as a Joey Girl.”
The slightest possible twitch of anxiety passed across Lars’s face, but he hid it immediately, smiling instead. “Of course, madam. I’d be happy to drive you back to Human Resources.”
“I don’t have any money,” Mortimer said. “I was given membership in Spring City and was hoping to talk to somebody about credit. I probably need some new clothes.”
“I can attend to every detail,” Lars said.
Lars turned out to be a whirlwind of service and efficiency. He met Mortimer and Bill in their hotel suite after the two had showered, bringing with him Armageddon dollars from Mortimer’s account and fresh suits of clothing for both men.
“Lars, you’ve done a hell of a job,” Mortimer said. “Is tipping still in vogue this day and age?”
“Of course, sir. We’re civilized people here after all.”
Mortimer counted out twenty of the coins and dropped them into Lars’s palm. Lars tried to keep his face neutral, but it was clear he was having some kind of interior argument with himself.
“I feel it’s my duty to inform you, sir, that this amount is, in fact, equal to a month’s salary. And I’m considered senior staff.”
Mortimer tossed back a glass of wine, considered. “I appreciate your telling me the truth. I’ve been out of touch, and I still haven’t got the hang of the new economy. Let’s just say you keep that. And if there are any special favors we need but are too stupid to ask for, you can help us out, okay?”
Lars bowed slightly, had already slipped the coins into his jacket pocket. “It is my utmost delight to make your stay here at Joey Armageddon’s as comfortable as possible, and I assure you that your needs will be in my every thought.”
“Great. Now, if possible, my friend and I would like to see naked girls and get shit-faced.”
“Absolutely, sir. And may I say it will be our pleasure to clean up your vomit should you overindulge.”
XXXII
Lars escorted them via golf cart through a VIP side entrance. He’d had the foresight to reserve them a table down front, less than ten feet from the stage. Mortimer couldn’t help the dopey grin on his face.
The place was marvelous.
It was set up like a big, indoor band shell, the room opening wider and taller as it went from the stage back to the front entrance. The stage jutted out in a semicircle, edged with small tables, another identical row of tables behind Mortimer. Above that another tier of tables and behind that the club proper with scattered tables, bars along each wall and sequined women in miniskirts hovering from table to table, delivering drinks and flirting with patrons.
Smash Mouth blasted from the sound system, segued into a brassy big-band instrumental with a new pop flavor.
Above, girls in bikinis hung from trapezes, waving and blowing kisses. Once in a while, a spotlight would land on one of the girls, who would then spin around or perform some other minor trapeze trick, prompting enthusiastic applause.
Mortimer’s grin wilted as he thought of Anne. Had she performed on the trapeze? Who were these women? Wives and sisters and daughters. Mortimer didn’t want to think about it. Thinking about it would ruin it.
A stunning, thin brunette with aquiline features handed Bill and Mortimer a drinks menu.
“I don’t see any of that Freddy’s crap,” Bill said.
“Good.” Mortimer pointed to the Jack Daniel’s on the menu. “It’s only six dollars a bottle. Do you think that’s a misprint?”
“Must be fake stuff they’re just calling Jack Daniel’s,” Bill said. “I’m game if you are.”
They ordered a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and the waitress said she’d return with food menus.
Bill looked at Mortimer for a long second, then said, “You haven’t mentioned your wife.”
“She’ll keep.” Mortimer smiled. “I had an epiphany.”
“Well, I don’t know anything about that, but you’re not puking so much.”
Mortimer cocked an eyebrow. “What?”
“When we first met,” Bill said. “Seemed like you were puking all the time.”
“Give me a break.”
The waitress arrived with a bottle of Jack and two tumblers. They declined ice, and she poured three fingers of Jack into each glass.
“Are you ready to order?”
“It says steaks on the menu,” Mortimer said.
The waitress nodded.
Mortimer asked, “Real steak? Not rat steak or steak made from couch cushions or Soylent Green or something? Steaks from actual cows?”
“Rib eyes.”
“Two steaks, potatoes and whatever vegetable is most fresh,” Mortimer said.
She wrote it down and went away.
“Real steaks.” Bill whistled. “Do I want to know how much that’s going to cost? An arm and a leg, I bet.”
“Two arms and three legs,” Mortimer said. “But I don’t care.”
They drank. Their eyes got big and they looked at the glasses and at the bottle.
“Is it just me,” Bill said, “or is this Jack Daniel’s fucking fantastic?”
“It’s not just you. Do you think it’s real?”
Bill shook his head. “It’s too damn cheap. Maybe we’re just used to that Freddy’s stuff.”
They both laughed.
“I don’t know.” Mortimer grinned. “That Dishwater Lager grows on you.”
“One time I had something called Freddy’s Dung-Brown Tequila.” Bill made a gagging face. “It seriously tasted like ass. I mean it. Sweaty ass.”
They both drank the Jack Daniel’s again. It was just as good the second time.
Mortimer felt pleasantly warm. It started in his belly and spread through his limbs, lightened his head. He looked up, smiled at one of the trapeze girls. He tapped his foot to a song called “I Touch Myself” and tried to remember the group.
The waitress dropped by for a visit, put a soft hand on Mortimer’s shoulder. “The chef will put your steaks on the grill soon. Everything okay here?”
Mortimer said, “Maybe you can help me. I’m looking for Anne Tate. I’m told she works here.”
A light came on in the waitress’s eyes. “Oh, yeah. I think I know her.” A slight frown. “But it’s been a while since I’ve seen her. They employ so many people here. I can ask.”
“I’d appreciate that. I’m sort of…an old friend.”
“No problem.”
“Hey!” Bill held up his tumbler, swirled the amber liquid. “What is this stuff?”
The waitress looked at him like maybe it was a trick question. “Jack Daniel’s.”
“I know. I mean who makes it? It practically tastes like the real thing.”
“It is the real thing,” she said. “The distillery never closed. You can read about it here.” She turned the bottle around so the back label faced Bill.
“I’ll be damned,” Bill said. “They still make the stuff.” He squinted at the label’s small print.
“Read it,” Mortimer said.
XXXIII
Jack Daniel’s: The Tradition Survives
Much blood has been spilled to preserve the smooth-sipping Tennessee whiskey you’ve enjoyed through good times and bad. Governments might rise and fall, but the recipe for your favorite adult beverage has remained unchanged even when the world as we know it has been through the wringer. You can count on our seasoned and indestructible distillers to continue bringing you the finest whiskey in what’s left of the known world.
A mere three months after the Fall, humanity quickly discovered it did not want to endure the end of all civilization sober, so raiding parties at the Jack Daniel’s distillery were frequent and disruptive. The owners soon gathered the remaining distillery employees into a fighting militia known as the Jack Squad. With the help of some intrepid local NRA enthusiasts, Fort Lynchburg was built and defended. The fort almost fell to a band of wild Civil War reenactors who had replaced their muzzle-loaders with army-surplus M1 rifles. At last, General Ira “Stonewall” Weinstein surrendered his sword before being hung from a Kentucky Fried Chicken sign, where his bones still hang today as a reminder for those who’d fuck with the producers of the finest, smoothest liquor ever made by true Ame
ricans.
So challenges may come and go, but Jack Daniel’s pledges to keep using only the best, purest ingredients available. Unlike those responsible for the short-lived resurgence of Sam Adams beer, Jack Daniel’s promises to use pure spring water, free of radioactive or other toxic materials.
So whether you’re fleeing violent rape gangs, remembering those lost loved ones, or daydreaming of a future where wild dogs no longer roam the streets, we hope you’ll keep making Jack Daniel’s your preferred beverage.
XXXIV
“Pour me another one.”
“Right.” Bill grabbed the bottle, splashed more Jack into each glass. “I have to admit, things have been interesting since I hooked up with you.”
“‘May you live in interesting times,’” Mortimer said. “That’s an ancient Chinese curse.”
“Yeah, I guess. Some of it’s been a curse,” Bill admitted. “Like almost getting eaten and losing my guns and my hat. Stuff like that. But a lot of it’s good too. I like drinking well and eating well and sleeping indoors with flush toilets and electricity. I like Joey’s. But it’s expensive.”
Damn right.
“I’m sort of painfully aware that you’ve been floating me this whole time, and I don’t like feeling that I’m not contributing my fair share.”
“Don’t forget you saved my life,” Mortimer said. “That’s your fair share and then some. When you found me I was on a leash.”
“Yeah, but you saved my life too,” Bill reminded him. “I expect a couple of fellows pal around long enough they’ll save each other pretty regular. No, I need to pull my weight…although I sure as hell won’t say no to that steak when it arrives.”
Mortimer grinned. “Okay, so starting right after you finish your steak, what do you propose?”
“You’ve got the capital and I have the knowledge,” Bill said. “I’m a hell of a good shot when I have my pistols, and I know my way around the country. You sold that stuff to the Spring City Joey’s store for a bundle, and you’re sitting on a pile of cash. But even so much money will run out eventually. You’re going to need to figure some way to earn a living, and I’m tired of not always knowing where my next meal’s coming from. I have a few ideas where we might be able to make a good haul. You outfit us for the trip, and I’ll lead the way. We split fifty-fifty.”
Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse: A Novel Page 15
