by Tim Dorsey
“Tire ads?”
“Like, I’ll see an ad in the paper: ‘Tire Blowout!’ And it’ll say, ‘Name-brand tires from nineteen ninety-five!’ So I get eighty dollars together and go in there, maybe a few extra bucks for tax. But when I arrive, they start talking about balancing, alignment, stems, disposal fees, and just like that we’re over a hundred and fifty. But the best part is, I can’t even get the nineteen-dollar tires. ‘Oh, no, I won’t let you buy those. They don’t last at all if you do any regular driving.’ And if you really stand firm and demand to see the ones from the ad, they bring out these little lawn-mower tires. And you say, ‘What is this, a joke?’ And they say, ‘See?’ So now I’m into the twenty-nine-dollar tires, ‘which had those terrible Road & Track tests where the treads separated and crash dummies were ejected all over the place.’ So we move up to the thirty-nine-dollar jobs, but they’re no good either. They don’t channel water or something when it rains and go sliding into gas pumps. Of course you don’t want that, so you move up again, and again, and by the time it’s all over, you’re driving away on five hundred dollars of new rubber, scratching your head and thinking, ‘How in the fuck did that just happen?’”
“Interesting,” said the psychiatrist, flipping to a fresh page. “What else?”
“Phone companies that say they’ll show up between one and five, subcontractors who don’t show up at all, drivers who stop side by side in the road to chat, a pop group’s third farewell tour, those smug young professionals and their chardonnay, the quiet voice of golf announcers, Orkin bug-sprayer uniforms with military epaulets on the shoulders, asshole popular kids in high school now making a fortune in Gap ads, the whole El Niño thing…”
“I see. What do you—”
“…gated communities, canned laughter, sesquicentennials, Members Only jackets, little Napoleons on school boards, the inexorable drumbeat of genocidal horror throughout human history, the final episode of Seinfeld, that I can’t get my head around why water expands when it freezes, struggling to get a pizza box into the trash, remembering to set the clocks back, right lane must turn right, ‘MasterCard—It’s everywhere you want to be’…”
“Thank you. I’d like to ask—”
“…bankers’ hours, sellers’ markets, horned dilemmas, vicious circles, conspicuous consumption, hidden costs, private clubs, public opinion, live callers, the death of courtesy, new spellings like ‘lite’ and ‘thru,’ old spellings like ‘shoppe’ and ‘olde,’ celebrity breakups, celebrity breakdowns, celebrity TV chefs, conservatives in general, liberals in particular, youth-oriented beer commercials that extol the social advantages of being drunk and stupid, lawsuits by rejects who can’t perform simple tasks like drinking coffee without putting themselves in the fucking emergency room, the daily double-wide news item on the fatal stabbing over the last drumstick in the bottom of the KFC bucket, ads for hopelessly lame cars that use high-energy rock songs and quick-cut photography so you can’t get a very good look at the vehicle, the ’72 Olympic basketball final, the colorization of The Maltese Falcon, the tags in the backs of my T-shirts, the seams across the toes of my socks, ‘Would you like to take our survey?’ ‘Would you like fries with that?’ ‘What would Jesus do?’ ‘No shit, Sherlock’…”
SERGE IMMEDIATELY LAUNCHED a medication strike, which resulted in a gripping fixation on the wacky sitcom Hogan’s Heroes running in syndication in the dayroom. He began addressing the staff as Schultz and Klink, calling his fellow patients LeBeau and Newkirk. He answered all questions by bolting upright: “I know nothing!”
It was infuriating for the staff, and they bit their lips not to laugh. Serge organized his colleagues into a method-acting troupe, re-creating episodes that immediately degenerated along impromptu plotlines, actors wandering away talking to themselves, Serge running around like a hyper sheepdog herding them back to the stage. “Come on, guys!” The patients straying again, driving imaginary cars, flapping wings, beating off, the staff cracking up in the back of the room.
Serge didn’t give up. He couldn’t resist the layered black humor and bad taste of putting on a sitcom about a German war camp in a home for the criminally insane. Also, it was perfect cover for his escape tunnel, which was the “fake” tunnel used for the show’s production. He built a tiny cardboard-box “barracks” out in the exercise yard and got the tunnel started about three feet each day before the regular afternoon collapse triggered by Serge’s determination to force screaming claustrophobes into the hole to “face your fears.”
The tunnel wasn’t remotely a secret. In fact, it was high entertainment for the guards, who gathered each afternoon for the daily escape attempt. The digging was not going well. The same problem. Too many different agendas. Guys screaming at dead relatives in the fourth dimension, defecating, eating little rocks, Serge pulling on two wiggling legs sticking out of the collapsed tunnel: “Have you out in a second!”
A month after the onset of his Hogan’s Heroes phase, Serge went around to everyone in the dayroom and informed them the tunnel was finished; this was the day of the Great Escape. He told all the guards, too. “Schultz, you’ve been a good friend, so you have a right to know. I’m escaping today.” Then he gave each of them a big, tearful hug. “I’m going to miss you, buddy.”
“I’ll miss you, too,” they said, trying to keep straight faces. The escape was obviously preposterous. The tunnel had never gone more than a few feet; the fence was fifty yards away. The guards even went out in the exercise yard and checked to make sure. “Nope,” said one of them, crawling backward out of the cardboard box, pointing at a spot on his tape measure. “Only three feet.”
That afternoon’s turnout was the biggest ever. Amused guards from all wards and stations gathered as patients loosely filed out of the building in their pajamas and formed a line at the entrance of the cardboard box. Some brought luggage.
The first patient got inside the box. It began to vibrate. His hand reached back out the flap. “Flashlight!” The box shook some more. Then muffled screaming, the other patients pushing the cardboard away and grabbing a pair of kicking legs sticking out of the dirt.
And while the guards were laughing and pointing, Serge went out the front gate in a laundry truck.
2
Miami—Present
A LARGE AUDIENCE milled on the front steps of Jackson Memorial Hospital. Reporters, undercover cops, bodyguards, onlookers. Uniformed police on hand for crowd control. A TV personality spoke into a camera on the edge of the gathering. It was overcast, cold.
FBI agents Miller and Bixby sat across the street in a Crown Victoria with blackwall tires. Miller adjusted the zoom on a Nikon; the motor drive whirred as the shutter clicked through a series of close-ups.
“Recognize anyone?” asked Bixby.
“Not yet, but we’ll have the boys back in Virginia look ’em over.”
“If they know they’re being photographed, why do they show up?”
“Tradition.”
“Look at all the press, like he’s some kind of celebrity.”
“He is,” said Miller. The zoom went out. Click, click, click.
Miller had a flattop haircut. He was the sixty-four-year-old veteran, which meant patience, sarcasm, and set ways about music. He’d seen it all, from the big gem heist back in ’64 to Ted Bundy, Adam Walsh, and the bloody shoot-out off Old Dixie Highway. Bixby had just graduated from the academy. He was enthusiastic and very smart. He was also young, which meant he was stupid.
Steam rose from twin beverage holders in the Crown Vic. Miller’s side held a plain Styrofoam cup filled from a thermos prepared at home by Mrs. Miller. Bixby’s had a Starbucks.
The younger agent studied the hospital entrance with binoculars. “What’s the public’s fascination with this guy?”
“America has always loved its villains,” said Miller, reaching into a brown bag, unfolding the butcher paper around a BLT.
Bixby took the molded plastic lid off a tray of sushi. He saw Miller lo
oking at his lunch. “What?”
“Nothing,” said Miller, but to him it was yet another small sign that Bixby was going to find some way to fuck up his pension.
Bixby quickly put down the tray. “Something’s happening.”
The crowd across the street pressed forward as the hospital’s front doors opened. A nurse pushed a wheelchair out the entrance. The chair held a frail old man with a hearing aid. A flat golf cap sat on his head, a plaid blanket over his legs. TV people held out microphones on long poles. Dark-haired men with black gloves and black overcoats pushed them back.
“Mr. Palermo, how’s your pacemaker?”
“I feel like I’m twenty,” responded the old man. “What do they say nowadays? I’m going to Disney World!”
The reporters laughed.
“Mr. Palermo, what about the indictments?”
The old man chuckled. “Prosecutors are politicians. Their polls must be down.”
Laughs again.
“But what about your crime syndicate? Meyer Lansky once said you guys were bigger than U.S. Steel. Is that still true today?”
The old man slowly smiled. “Meyer was a family friend, that’s all. I don’t know anything about any crime syndicate. That was something you guys made up to sell papers.”
The men in the black coats shoved a path through the crowd for the wheelchair.
“Mr. Palermo…!” “Mr. Palermo…!”
A white Cadillac with spoke wheels arrived at the curb. A man with thick arms whispered something in Mr. Palermo’s ear. The old man nodded and turned to the press. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a funeral to get to.”
“Mr. Palermo…!”
Bodyguards blocked the media. “No more questions.” The nurse pushed the wheelchair up to the Caddy, and Mr. Palermo got in. TV cameras and microphones pressed against the tinted back windows as reporters yelled more unanswered questions. The Cadillac pulled away.
Across the street a Crown Vic started up and pulled into traffic. It began to rain.
3
Orlando—Present
S IX FAMILIES RODE a squirmingly slow, powder-blue gondola through a dim grotto.
“It’s a small world after all…”
Children pointed with glee at the clusters of tiny, brightly colored, singing people. Little Chinese people, Italian people, Russian people, Hawaiian hula people.
“Look, Mommy.” A small girl pointed.
Two full-size men appeared ahead in the darkness, running along the wall, through the plastic Alps and little Germans in lederhosen.
“Coming through!” yelled Lenny. He and Serge high-stepped over miniature windmills and tulips and cheerful, swaying Dutch people, disappearing around the bend.
It was quiet again, except for the narcotic, piped-in music.
“It’s a small world after all…”
The boat reached France. More commotion. Two breathless security guards hurdled the Eiffel Tower. They stopped beside the boat. “Which way did they go?”
The little girl pointed again.
“Thanks.” The guards disappeared around the Taj Mahal.
“…It’s a small, small world….”
Serge and Lenny jumped the turnstiles and burst out the exit into sunlight.
“I told you!” said Serge. “You can’t smoke dope in Disney. They make you run.”
“They seemed so friendly when we arrived.”
“Now I can’t get that fucking song out of my head.”
They stopped at the Fantasyland crossroads and looked around for an escape route.
Guards climbed through giant teacups. “I think they went that way.”
“Follow me,” said Serge.
They ran past an exhibit entrance and up a service alley where employees in Lion King costumes were walking back out to work, talking about the dental plan.
There was a plain metal service door. Serge tried it. Unlocked.
“Quick! In here!”
The pair felt their way in the darkness.
“I can’t see a thing,” said Lenny.
“Use your lighter.”
Lenny lit a joint.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It sensitizes my optic nerves. And settles my stomach. This place is not relaxing at all…. Oops.” There was a clattering sound on the floor, followed by a metal clang and a distant liquid plunk.
“Don’t tell me you dropped the lighter.”
Lenny got on his hands and knees. “I think it fell through some kind of grate.”
They continued stumbling and feeling their way, led only by the glow of Lenny’s joint.
“What is all this stuff?”
“I think I found a couch,” said Lenny. “I need to rest.”
“I found a mannequin,” said Serge. “Must be prop storage. Where are you?”
“Over here.” Lenny waved his doobie like a tiny homing beacon. Serge joined him on the sofa.
Serge and Lenny. Opposites. Bad chemistry. They had hooked up a few years earlier following Serge’s final escape from Chattahoochee and were now living together in South Florida to cut costs. A scheme here, a scam there, trying to stay off law-enforcement radar while Serge continued his investigation into the missing diamonds and his grandfather’s death, which was chronically derailed by Serge’s clinical passion for travel and Lenny’s relentless pot habit. That’s how they had come to the current moment. Serge wanted to visit the Magic Kingdom and resume his lifelong anthropological chronicle of the theme park with complete sets of photographs every few years to catalog changes in exhibits, visitors’ attire and ever-shifting political sub-texts of the parades. Lenny wanted to get high and eat onion rings.
“Whew,” said Serge, catching his breath. “That certainly was an interesting little adventure.”
Lenny patted the cushion he was sitting on. “Wonder what they use this couch for.”
Suddenly a lurch. Then hydraulics and a mechanical hum. Finally the low rumble of machinery and the feeling that something very large was starting to move.
“What the…?”
Curtains rose in front of the pair as an audience of three hundred rotated and locked into place.
Serge looked around. “Excellent! We’re in the Carousel of Progress. I loved this ride when I was a kid. But I’ve never seen it from up here.”
Stage lights came on, Lenny caught red-handed with the joint. The audience murmured and gestured at the stage.
“We’re trapped,” said Lenny. “What do we do?”
“Act robotic.” Serge began moving his arms in jerky fashion.
The Carousel of Progress was a revolving exhibit depicting technology of various twentieth-century periods. Serge examined the furnishings and gauged the era. He haltingly tilted his head, turning to Lenny on his right, then toward his “wife,” the female animatronic robot on his other side.
“Well, Betty,” Serge announced. “It’s now the sixties, and it looks like little Johnny has turned into a pothead.”
Some of the audience laughed. Others went to get security. A din of conversation rose from the crowd.
“What’s going on?” someone called out.
“I’ll tell you what’s going on!” said Serge, breaking from robot persona and walking to the front of the stage. “Change. Change is what’s going on. It can be good. And it can turn on you. I remember when the Carousel of Progress first debuted at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. After it closed, they relocated the carousel to California and then here. The concept was inspired: this big round stage cut into five pizza slices twenty years apart, a huge wheel of a theater rotating the audience around it. Back then it was General Electric’s Carousel of Progress, and the last of the five chronological sets was Progress City, a domed, Orwellian, climate-controlled Stepford-land powered by GE’s own nuclear power plant. A schmucky retro view of the future. Man, it was so cool!”
“I remember that,” said someone in the audience. “I was a little kid.”
“Me, too,” said someone else.
“It was great!”—half the audience nodding now.
“I think we all remember,” said Serge. “This was the perfect exhibit, and they had to go and muck it up! Progress City is gone. They’ve replaced the last set with a perpetually updating scene featuring the latest in consumer electronics, Grandma trying to figure out the friggin’ DVD. If I want that, I can go to the mall…. Me and my dependency-challenged friend are with the Progress City Liberation Front, and we’re here to demand restoration to its original historic state. We’re taking over this exhibit! Who’s with me?”
Serge began chanting and punching a fist in the air in cadence with each word: “Bring—back—Progress—City!…Bring—back—Progress—City!…Bring—back—Progress—City!…”
A few people joined in, then a few more, mostly smiling and laughing.
“…Bring—back—Progress—City!…”
A door in the back of the hall opened. “There they are!”
Guards charged up the aisle.
“Uh-oh.” Serge and Lenny took off across the stage, opening a door on the side of the set. It led through the partition to the carousel’s next set, then the next, the guards right behind them, traveling back in time, the forties, the twenties, turn of the century—Serge knocking over props to block the guards’ path, icebox, gramophone, gas lamps, Zenith cabinet radio.
They ran off the rear of the stage and out the exit to another service alley, Snow White and the dwarfs eating tuna sandwiches and smoking. Security was right behind. They chased them all over the park: the Country Bear Jamboree, Swiss Family Robinson Tree House, Pirates of the Caribbean, Serge looking back—“I can’t believe they’re still there”—past the Tomorrowland stage, the Jungle Cruise, Cinderella’s castle, the pair opening up a lead at the Haunted Mansion and finally losing the guards outside Hall of the Presidents, blending into the giant mob of teens assembling for the Disney Channel filming of ’NSYNC’s dance-tribute to the bicameral legislative system.
4
