Poverty Rocks! (Rock n' Roll in Outer Space Book 1)

by Douglas Hardee

  Jericho walked into his house and immediately went over to his computer and sat down to look at their finances. Hubie was over in the corner sleeping on his bed.

  Just then, Darlene Pinckney, who is a dead ringer for a young Tina Turner with the same mix of sauce and earthy spice, came swaggering up to his screen door, gave a few courtesy knocks, smiled and walked in. She put her purse down on the kitchen table, looked into the fridge and pulled out a mineral water.

  "Looks like there's some serious happenings on that computer screen," said Darlene.

  Jericho put a finger to his lips, waved his hand in a greeting, and continued to stare at his monitor. He couldn't share what he was reading with anyone but Haskell, even Darlene. She was a jewel, and she'd known him long enough to know that this was a time he needed space.

  Jericho was as much fun as a man could be, but, he was a serious businessman who had the ability to compartmentalize his life. Darlene was looking forward to cooking out tonight. She would make up one of her salads from his garden, and he would smoke his ribs. There weren't any better around these parts. It was going to be a chill, relaxing evening with the smooth-talking man she couldn't quite figure out. She took the mineral water out the back door to the garden to get her fixings ready.

  Jericho's Excel spreadsheet was interrupted by a blinking message on his screen the likes of which he'd never seen before. He put down his water and began to read.

  Dear Jericho & Haskell,

  Message sent via Digital Interferometer...after we came back from our merrymaking, I installed a receptor on Jericho's computer while he slept. So we can communicate. Yes, I can shape shift if needed and I hypnotized Hubie when we returned from the juke joints where we rocked and rolled like fiends from outer space, oh ha, I guess we are.

  Some confessional explanation for our journey to your planet. Sounds from the birth of your rock music would normally take some 40 years to reach some of us on Zeon, originating on Earth in the 1950s. But, by then our scientists had broken through the space-time continuum. We didn't find out this outbreak of sound information until very recently, by a friend in Intel if you must know. Hence Trax and mine's unauthorized patrol to your planet. Remember, our Shapers know of you but want no contact or integration with your planet. Given their distaste for Earth, that is natural. But, being naturally rebellious and curious, we had to trace and discover the source of this sound. We discovered our intelligence operatives have contacts there, and had observed that Earth was evolving as any civilization would that was burdened with assimilating such a diversity of races and cultures and trying to make sense of it. For instance, Zeon is like, well, imagine if Sweden was a planet. We're colder than Earth in general, mostly all one race, except for the Mountain People, who are more like your Midwestern farmers; they are agriculture based, mostly. You could call them Zeon's ‘rednecks.’ And we don't have a subtropical zone that creates intense heat and precipitation. After flying through your cloud, and listening to those sublime sounds, that music that turned our world upside down, grabbed us and shook us by the brains, balls and guts, was, we realize now, rock 'n' roll. Yes those were the sounds our planet's gravimeter detected so many years ago. That is when Zeon actually discovered Earth. So it was the legend of these sublime sounds that lead us to Earth. Our scientists had developed an incredibly powerful listening device; you Earthlings call it a laser interferometer gravitational-wave observatory, which could pick up sounds from billions of miles away. According to our scientific history, it was around this period our scientists registered this unusual sound, like we had never heard before coming from your solar system. They calculated that the sound had traveled from Earth. And, we soon discovered, it was not that far away.

  Yours in Mayhem,

  Zorbane

  Jericho got up from his chair and took a long pull from his water bottle, then sat back down. He no longer had any doubt that this Zorbane was real; that he and his buddy Trax weren't bat shit crazy undercover Fed.

  Now, before, we get back to Zorbane's irregularly scheduled broadcasts, let us give you a preview of a coming attraction. Zorbane will introduce Zeon to the man who introduced sexuality to post-War World II white America. This TV host named Ed Sullivan dropped a billion-megaton culture bomb that would send shock waves through a country back when Ozzie and Harriett, Dragnet, Gunsmoke, Lucy, Lassie, Mitch Miller, Lawrence Welk and Captain Kangaroo were shaping the culture.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Comet from Tupelo

  Elvis was the incendiary atomic musical firebrand loner who conquered the western world.

  –Bob Dylan

  Elvis Presley is the greatest cultural force in the twentieth century. He introduced the beat to everything and he changed everything – music, language, and clothes. It's a whole new social revolution – the sixties came from it."

  –Leonard Bernstein

  A lot of people have accused Elvis of stealing the black man's music, when in fact almost every black solo entertainer copied his stage mannerisms from Elvis.

  –Jackie Wilson

  "It was like Elvis came along and whispered some dream in everybody's ear and somehow we all dreamed it."

  –Bruce Springsteen

  Zorbane reads from Jericho's notes:

  “There have been literally hundreds of books written about this guy so we aren't going to try and bring the full weight of his impact to you just yet. This is an introduction, if you could for A while back some folks claimed that the Earthling known as Elvis stole the black man's music. Nah, and don't take my word for it; ask Jackie Wilson or James Brown or Little Richard or The Reverend Al Green: he was like the rest of them. They were all born with only their talent and a burning will to change their fortunes. So out they came from the fields and hollers armed with the energy and spirit of pioneers; that's what they were: guys and gals who were gonna change the game forever. They invented a new dimension of America that the world still reveres. Their spirit and talent is what the rest of the planet wrapped their heads around.

  Okay, some rudimentary factoids.

  Earthling Elvis Aaron Presley was born January 8th, 1935, died August 16th, 1977. His twin brother Jesse Garon Presley died at birth. After the birth, his mother was close to death and both she and Elvis were taken to Tupelo Hospital.

  His mother Gladys always said he had the energy of two people.

  When he was born, his mother was earning $2 a day at the Tupelo Garment Company, while his daddy, Vernon, worked at various odd jobs.

  His father, Vernon, built Elvis' birthplace with help from Vernon's brother, Vester, and father, Jesse. The house had no electricity, or indoor plumbing, and was similar to housing constructed for mill villages around that time.

  In the mid-1930s, in the middle of the Great Depression, East Tupelo was a haven for poor sharecroppers and factory workers whose meager resources still largely outstripped those of Elvis' parents. Not only did Vernon and his wife, Gladys, rely on welfare to pay the $15 that Dr. William Robert Hunt charged for delivering Elvis and his stillborn twin brother, but neighbors and friends also had to provide them with diapers. That's poor-poor.

  Elvis' parents moved from Tupelo to Memphis, Tennessee, into a 66-building, 433-unit public housing project, Lauderdale Courts. Elvis took advantage of the many ways to hear music in Memphis – radio, church, record stores, nightclubs, and more, and also played in a band with four other boys from the complex.

  Elvis worked at various jobs to help support himself and his parents. He bought his clothes on Beale Street and absorbed the black blues and gospel he heard there. He was also a regular audience member at the all-night white and black gospel sings that were held downtown.

  On July 5th, 1954, rock 'n' roll was born at Sun Record
s in Memphis with Elvis Presley, Scotty Moore, Bill Black and Sam Phillips recording "That's All Right Mama."

  On July 6th, 1954, in Memphis, legendary DJ Dewey Phillips played the song on his popular radio show and the switchboard lighted up like a Christmas tree.

  Jericho writes: People can disagree about the man and his later work, but he was the King, period. I'll leave you Zeonese with this.

  "The voice is so melodious, and – of course, by accident, this glorious voice and musical sensibility was combined with this beautiful, sexual man and this very unconscious – or unselfconscious stage movements. Presley's registration, the breadth of his tone, listening to some of his records, you'd think you were listening to an opera singer. But...it's an opera singer with a deep connection to the blues, which leads me to the role of the great enunciator, because he delivered us the greatest cultural boon. Nobody ever did more for the American people. He gave them the great present of black music transmitted through his own sensibility, his own sensitivity. Of course Elvis was a different kind of white purveyor of black music because it was naturally black and it was real and he was a conduit. And America was really changed. I'm talking about American music and our culture in general. We owe far more to Elvis Presley than all the British groups put together."

  –Jerry Wexler, co-founder of Atlantic Records, whose bid of US $30,000 came up short of the US $35,000 offered by RCA, for the purchase of Elvis' contract with Sun Records in November of 1955.

  "Sam Phillips, he recorded Elvis and Jerry Lee, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. Radical eyes that shook the very essence of humanity. Revolution in style and scope. Heavy shape and color. Radical to the bone. Songs that cut you to the bone. Renegades in all degrees, doing songs that would never decay, and still resound to this day."

  – Bob Dylan

  “Jericho; If I did a No Elvis list, we'd run out of time. Just saying.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Running on Empty

  Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.

  –Mark Twain

  Happiness is having a rare steak, a bottle of whisky, and a dog to eat the rare steak.

  –Johnny Carson

  Haskell was unaware of the black sedan following him to drop off a few cases of their Clear Magic at Gaither's Country Store. Mr. Gaither had longed served as a middleman for the distribution of their moonshine.

  Roberta, Eddie Gaither's wife and business partner, walked out on the porch of their store and cast a long glance as the Toyota drove past on the two-lane blacktop.

  Haskell unloaded the moonshine in Wesson Oil boxes.

  "You fellas are developing quite a following. You both know eventually the Feds are going to want a bigger taste," said Roberta.

  "I expect you're right, Roberta, but as long as Orville Bean runs this district, I think we'll get the cover we need," said Haskell as he walked into the store with the first case. “We're really just the descendants of rum runners and smugglers who had no other way to break the stranglehold of the monopolies that dominate things until the demand gets so great the dam bursts," laughed Haskell.

  Just then Eddie Gaither came riding up in his Dodge Ram. He looked grim about the mouth as he walked into his store. "Haskell, we need to talk. Let's go out back," said Eddie.

  "I'd like to hear this too 'cause I'm your partner, Eddie boy," said Roberta as they all pushed open the screen door, which led out back.

  Eddie paced around and then turned to address Haskell. "My nephew, the one who gets the shine for the colleges from me, says that one of his younger fraternity brothers at Ole Miss was run off the road by someone and ended up in a ditch. He was knocked out. When he came to the sheriff had him do a breathalyzer and he flat out flunked it. They hauled him off to jail and now his big shot rich daddy is going to hire a lawyer and go after whoever sold his boy that moonshine. Thing is, my nephew says this boy doesn't even hardly drink at all, maybe a hard cider at most on Saturdays. The boy, he's still in the hospital undergoing tests, told his daddy he doesn't know where the moonshine bottle in the back seat even came from. The thing is, my nephew says the boy has stopped by here a few times for gas and what not, but I can't for the life of me remember the boy, so, I expect me and Roberta are gonna have our hands full soon enough," said Eddie.

  Haskell stood there, stroking his chin.

  Roberta looked at them both. "Damn bad luck, boys, but we gotta put our heads together and find a way to wiggle out of this,” she said as she gazed into the sky. "Orville?"

  Eddie shook his head. "Nothing he can do with this mess," said Eddie.

  "Who ran him into the ditch, dammit," said Roberta, "that's the perp."

  Just then Eddie's phone buzzed, breaking the tension. Eddie squinted at the screen of the phone and read it. "My nephew says his frat brother is pretty sure he was drugged, roofied or something.”

  With that Eddie turned, mumbled something to himself and walked back into the store. Haskell and Roberta looked at each other.

  Their paranoia in this instance was entirely well-founded.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bad Moon Rising

  Moonshiners put more time, energy, thought and love into their cars than any racer ever will. Lose on the track and you go home. Lose with a load of whiskey and you go to jail.

  –Junior Johnston, 50-time NASCAR winner

  Jericho Bright turned off road and onto the heavily wooded rest area. He waited until the blue Toyota 4Runner came into view on the highway. He then pulled behind a semi for about 10 seconds and then pulled back onto the highway in the direction of the Toyota. As he listened to the weather report, he fingered the Glock and set it back down in the bag beside him. Being careful, first as a drug dealer on the streets of Philly, then as a Marine in the alleyways of Fallujah, and finally, as moonshiner down here in rural Mississippi, he was an expert at surveillance, and counter surveillance. He made sure to stay well behind the truck on this long stretch of rural highway. He'd seen this heavily tinted 4Runner just recently, and he knew it wasn't the usual new Feds on the job looking for a bust; this was someone on a different mission. And he was about to find out what it was.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Brothers in Arms

  Karma means I can rest easy at night knowing all the people I treated badly had it coming.

  –Unknown

  FLASH BACK: FALLUJAH, IRAQ

  Haskell had grown up in rural Mississippi playing sports throughout the brutal, humid summers but he'd never experienced heat like this before. Maybe it was because the body armor he was wearing didn't allow much air, what little there was, to cool his body. Hell might be hotter, he thought, but they don't have people wearing suicide vests on every corner, or so he hoped.

  The Marine standing next to him in the hellhole, Jericho Bright, had his own thoughts, and they had him taking a dive into a clear Pennsylvania lake with none of this sweaty gear on. Haskell may be a Southern fried cracker, he thought, but the fucker can run and fight like a fucking maniac and that's the kind of dude I want running right beside my black ass. I think these Al Qaeda types thought they were going to be fighting the Harvard faculty lounge coed softball team. Sorry guys, you in the shit with some crazy jar heads whose tradition includes fighting the original suicide motherfuckers, the Japanese Imperial Army. Tougher than you, smarter than you, with better technology. Suddenly an explosion rocked a house across the street and their squad took off for the next house with their sergeant leading the way. Let's get this over with and get the hell back to Western girls, Jericho laughed to himself as he squeezed off a burst with his rifle as a rocket-propelled missile flew by his head.

  He and Haskell did their tour, as other
s from neighborhoods all over America had done theirs. From all points of the nation; country boys and city toughs, they had all bravely endured the heat and sometimes unremitting violence without too much complaint. Hell, a tour in Iraq was one way to see the world, if your idea of the world is burning hot sands and freezing cold nights with zealots right around the corner praying for the opportunity to capture you and video their torture-thon.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Shape of Things to Come

  Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

  –George Orwell

  How to make everyone happy? Kill all those who are unhappy.

  –Joseph Stalin

  TWO YEARS EARLIER

  Benjamin Morgan was one of the few people on Earth who had received communications from the planet Zeon, from the brilliant man who went by one name, Decleanus. Why he was chosen by this obviously advanced civilization was a mystery to him. It happened late one night a few years back when he was seated at his computer working on a mystery novel that gave him the excitement he missed working as a flak for the FCC. As he was whizzing over his keyboards oblivious to the world, he suddenly realized the keyboards were not responding to his typing, and that his screen was captured. A few years ago, he had reluctantly surrendered his screen to Apple, but that was when he had to solve a problem that was far beyond his capabilities. The message was typed onto his Scrivener page with amazing rapidity.