We slept in that morning. Waking out of a divine slumber that
(one percieved) held many dreams, we scrambled into our clothes and took
care of the most basic of morning necessities, and hurried out the door
saying our goodbyes to the people in the house as we went. We rode
our bikes down the lanes and avenues and ended up in the parking lot of
the train station keeping a fast pace.
"You go and buy the tickets, I'll catch up to you" she said as she ducked into a store to buy cigarettes.
"Don't do this to me," he yelled back as he kept running without slowing his pace.
He bought the tickets, and she caught up to him - onigiri and other breakfast things in hand.
We found the right train and sat down and caught our breath. We still had 3 minutes, but no time to phone ahead. No biggie.
We sat in the train and ate and read without having to transfer, and soon were there. John picked us up and soon we were at his house meeting his family and cousins. There was a happy vibe. Not too long after that, Mr. Ono (we called him Taxi) showed up with his 8-seater van, and we were off on our trip to the north coast.
There was a main road that we could take up and up. It followed the river that passed through the town we had started from. The road went up hill, up up to the highest point of that part of the spine of Japan. The river had flowed downhill to the southern shore, then at the highest point the same river turned around and ran down the other side to the north shore of Honshu. Stopping in a scenic village, we looked at flowers, parked cars, wandered on a path next to a stream, explored a temple. It was a beautiful place. The next place we stopped was very beautiful, a rest area next to another clear stream, as was yet another which was a temple complex built on a hill. Innoculous, old, wooden, bells, structures, mountain scenery, trees on trees, steps, gates, altars, blossoms, fountains, atmosphere.
Finally at the coast again. Somehow this trip was reminding me of the last time I rode along a road that bridged the midsection of an island, it was in Taiwan and the flashbacks were hurting my brain, stinging my eyes, making my ears ring. Geographic deja-vu is senseless since you can no longer enjoy the diversity of where you are, yet once we were at the bottom we felt like we were in the Gobi desert. It was a huge beach that bordered on the forest vegetation like the kind that I supposed covers the most of Japan. We tried to look for a restaurant since our quest for lunch had been ongoing - it was 2:30 and still not resolved, so after a bit of discussion (and some straying into cheezy tourist boutiques) we found a family diner type place where we ate monster sandwiches on toasted bagettes. Subs, practically.
There was a block of sand near the coast, maybe 2 or 3 kilometers long, one across. It was dominated by a single monstrous sand dune about 100 meters high. I was joking about how they piled up the styrofoam blocks and covered it with sand, somebody else was saying something about dormant Godzillas. We joked a lot. There were also a few blonde jokes, lawyer jokes, Texan jokes... funny people.
Our hotel was just around the corner, so we hopped into the van again and sped forth. Passing more wonderful scenery, our hearts beat in unison and our minds reveled in the masterful beauty. We took a tight road around hairpin turns, towards a scenic harbor and drove along stinky avenues that smelled of rotting fish, and past a white sand beach to a wonderful Japanese-style hotel with modest rooms that weren't too pricey. The place was almost totally empty, it had male and female jacuzzis on the first floor, a gift shop, a restaurant, and 2 floors of rooms. The staff were friendly, if not a little bored. We had drinks and toasted each other before dinner, then went down to the immaculate dining lobby to eat our meal, inclusive in the price. It was a million small dishes of all kinds of funny little things, lots of fish, crab, vegetable, rice, soup, etc. After dinner we were so full that some of us passed out. Others went for a walk, and John's mother fell and sprained her ankle. This means that she was even less mobile than she usually was. Sad funny gal. All night we drank beer in John's room, rolling dice, smoking joints. The weather turned funny, and it began to rain hard and pour down shit. Somebody tore somebody elses clothes off, and all of a sudden dicks were appearing from nowhere. The walls ran blood, and jackals and locusts came streaming in through the windows and worms came out of the holes in the floor. Dream monsters went crazy and a million celebrity bad guys chopped each others heads off until we all went crazy. After that, my wife and I took a communal bath in the lady's bath chamber (probably against the house rules) and had great sex upstairs.
The next morning we all inspected our injuries, and saw that everything was okay, except for John's mother who couldn't really walk on her foot very well (what did she to do injure herself so badly?) and we ate our unusual rice breakfast. There were the usual jokes, friendly comeraderie, and comments on raw eggs, while people decided what they would or would not eat. Most of us ate everything though, and there was the usual hustle of trying to get 8 people washed and ready to check out at roughly the same time, crowding into the van that already had the feel of home to it... and off to and through more scenic locations. We saw a harbor, another harbor, some shops, and we ate lunch in a village that specialized in soba noodles: eaten in a broth with slimy potato paste, raw quail's egg, etc. etc. etc. Getting out of there, almost everybody was getting the feeling that the trip was nearing it's natural conclusion. We finally started driving through familiar roadways, and got to our part of our town in Japan - they drove off the highway, let us out at the side of the road, and continued on the up-ramp back to go on to their home. Everybody was in a good mood, because we had had a great 2 days without any huge problems, and the weather had even remained fantastic for most of the time. Just the 2 of us now, we walked down to the train station to get our bicycles where we had parked them early the previous morning, and went home. It was there that we had found out the bad news.
While we had been gone, most of the people in the world had committed
mass-suicide in the wake of a passing comet, leaving just politicians and
lawyers. The politician used the unrest to all declare war on each
other, while the lawyers were kept busy sueing everybody left alive; there
were mass kidnappings, the victims were tortured and killed in hideous
fashions, the kidnappers were assassinated, and the assassins were executed
by radical right and left-wing factions, who were in turn jailed for terrorist
activities, and their comrades killed when the embassy they were holding
was stormed by commandos. The world was one big graveyard and the
buzzards clawed each others' eyes out trying to get the most tender meat.
We were watching it all on TV until the TV stations blew up, the power
stopped, and we were all deeply fucked! Man, that was really the
shits!
It was a tale as twisted as it was true. Brian was the son
of Sadie and John, although his real father was serving time in jail for
beating up a guy with a pool cue. The guy he beat up once held public
office, so his friend in the police station made sure the assaulting father
got special treatment while in the holding pen. A reporter who knew
one of the clerks in the station, who had overheard the events as they
transpired reported it all in the local newspaper before he was killed
by a robber while he (the reporter) was in bed with the mayor of Walla
Walla, Washington's daughter. The robber wasn't found for many years
until he finally revealed a detail of the murder while being interviewed
by a TV reporter in Seattle, Washington. A lawyer working for the
widow of that reporter heard the interview, and acted fast enough
to prevent this person from disappearing into the sea of faces at the market
where he was being interviewed. A fish monger's wife had seen which
direction he had wantered off in and he was apprehended by the nephew of
the lawyer's husband. Now this nephew had been infatuated with the
lawyer for years, despite his homosexuality, and the lawyer's husband was
oblivious of the fact. The homosexual partner, however, did know
about his partner's hetero fascination, and tried to kill both the lawyer
and her husband, but upon breaking in to do the job, fell in love himself
with the lawyer's husband. The husband, who had never had a homosexual
experience called the police. The dispatcher who answered the telephone,
however, was at that moment suffering from severe cramps related to heroin
withdrawal and lost control of her movements completely. Instead
of directing the police to the scene, she called her dealer who was at
that moment taking a bath. A neighbor, hearing the phone ringing,
thought that her own phone was ringing and picked it up. At that
exact moment, somebody had just called her and there was an instant connection.
The caller was a salesman who was doing a callback on one of the items
that he thought he could peddle off on this woman. Now the salesman
was dying of cancer and needed to make some sales quickly so that he could
pay for the rest of his treatment, despite the fact that the cancer was
terminal. The doctor who was treating him had not told him yet that
his cancer was terminal, at the urgings of his family. Although this
went against his severe convictions as a Christian, he conceded to the
wishes of the dying salesman's family. The salesman's mother, who
was related to the mayor of Walla Walla, Washington by the way, made her
living buying expired groceries and reselling them to housebound elderly
people. She had a regular customer who bought almost only canned
corn who had once worked for the governor of Washington. At the time
that he worked for the governor, he had hidden away a few pictures of the
governor in compromising positions with lingerie models whom he let ride
in his jet and gave key public positions. This was insurance against
other secrets of the governor that the old man knew which might place his
life in danger (working for the governor can sometimes be a hazardous occupation)
however the governor had long since died. Nevertheless, the pictures
remained in a security deposit box in some bank somewhere where it was
regularly fawned over by a bisexual bank worker who knew how to pick locks.
One day as he was looking at the pictures, he was discovered by his manager,
who fired him on the spot. The manager had a brother who published
pornography, however, and as he knew that the governor was dead and the
old man hadn't checked his box for 10 years (it was on the record), he
decided to make some money off of his brother, whom he had always envied.
The fired employee naturally saw these pictures when they were published
and began to blackmail his employer, saying that he wouldn't get off his
back until the manager consented to have sex with the former employee and
allow him to have sex with his wife (he was bisexual, remember?).
The manager consented, out of fear of exposure, but was wondering how he
would get his wife to agree since they didn't get along any more.
Little did he know that for quite some time his wife had been developping
an elaborate plan to kill him, without any blame or suspicion falling on
herself. Unfortunately for her, however, the key element of the plan
forced her to rely on a friend meeting the husband that night (unsuspecting
of the wife's plan). The friend didn't come, resulting in the wife
falling for her own plan and dying in a mudslide down the ravine
behind their beautiful house (which had just been renovated to the wife's
specifications at great cost. In a final irony, it was the wife who
was the only one to not enjoy the renovations). The husband, without
an alibi, was arrested for the "murder" of his murderous wife. Still
suffering from bad luck due to his part in a recent fraud of a million
dollars from a local charity, it turned out that the D.A. had been a close
personal friend of the deceased wife as they had both belonged to the same
swingers club before they had gotten married. The D.A. ensured that
the husband served a maximum sentence for the death of his wife.
The charity, seizing it's opportunity, recovered it's lost money and then
some. While in jail, the ex-manager met a bald black man who claimed
that he knew the true murderer of the ex-manager's wife. The man,
now the only one who knew full well that he had not killed his own wife,
believed what the bald black man told him. The bald black man, however,
had been a member of the very same swinger's club and had guessed at the
nature of the true criminal somehow from newspaper reports in the newspaper.
The bald black man actually didn't know how to read, and had all his newspaper
reports read to him by his rastafarian friend. Now this friend had
come to America illegally from Japan where he had been working for the
yakuza. He had been brought to America on a fishing vessel that had
suddenly needed repairs in Hawaii. This was a ruse for the Hawaiian
police to board the vessel and seize the cargo under trumped up charges.
Now at that moment in Hawaii, there was an investigation into Columbian
biker activity. The raid on the ship relaxed pressure on the Columbians
and they successfully went into hiding. As a result of this, the
captain of the Honolulu police was relieved of his duties. The homophobic
governor of Hawaii had long suspected that the chief was gay, and used
this excuse to get rid of somebody he saw as an adversary and even a political
foe. Meanwhile, on a pineapple plantation neighboring the governor's
mansion...
My name is Lee Harvey Oswald, I shot the president of the United
States by myself, as it was proven by the Warren commission. Jim
Garrison wondered why I did it, and nobody knows. I made history
for my country and my moment of action will be remembered by millions as
a period of time where everything that was happening to them will always
be remembered with stark realism... even though nobody really knew what
was going on. My moment has been romanticized infinitely and I have
been alternately been sent to heaven and cast into hell by my supporters
or my detractors. All I know is that one moment I was an ordinary
citizen and the people who approached me approached me in silence and with
care whispering their messages and always bringing gifts or good news of
some sort or another. All I wanted to do was see a movie. Later
I was always among people. Nobody had shot a president for many years.
I was always among people and they were neither speaking softly nor bringing
gifts or good news. Later I was silenced and nobody ever testified.
Luckily I still have a half-brother, his name is Lee Oswald Harvey.
My name is Lee Oswald Harvey. I am a farmer. One day I went to Dallas to sell some pigs, after I sold my pigs I decided not to go back right away. I wanted to see a movie, but it wasn't starting for some time, so I walked around. I found this building and I thought I heard a woman's voice coming from inside the door, that voice even sounded familiar like Marilyn's or Jackie's, I don't know. I walked through the doors and into the darkened building. There was nobody there, so I decided to look upstairs. There were many books in that building, I found out later that it was actually a book storage building called a suppository, although where I come from we would just call it a book storage building. I went up and up the stairs, I was on one of the landings when I decided to try the door to see if it was open so I could look around. It was, so I went into a room where there were many boxes and piles of books. Soon there would be tour guides here. I went over to a window and I could see that there was a lot of commotion outside. I later found out that it was because the president was coming. If I had known that, I would have been more excited. Suddenly, something tapped me on the shoulder. It was a green ghosty. He stuck his tongue out and made strange noise at me, thereby enraging me. He pulled a rifle out of his pocket and flew out through the open window. I picked up the gun, and assuming it was loaded aimed with the intent of firing the weapon and deflating the green ghosty. I looked through the scope and saw it floating and dodging cars that were coming down the road, floating and bobbing until it stopped long enough for me to squeeze off five or six rounds at it. As soon as I hit it a few times, it disappeared - popped? This might have been good and it might have been bad. I threw down the rifle and went to see my movie. Then all these people came in and interrupted my film. They started paying me all this attention, and I couldn't even finish seeing the movie, nor did I get a refund. I should get a refund. All of these events are most unfair and unusual. Lucky I still have a half brother Harvey Oswald Lee.
My name is Harvey Oswald Lee. I am a journalist. My intense hatred for the president of the United States has grown over years to include not just the man in office, but the office itself. Recently, somebody had been feeding me confidential reports that showed me of election fraud, infidelity, and murder of Hollywood acresses that had been going on in the new Camelot that Washington had become. Like my half-brothers before me, and my other half brothers who would follow me, I was caught up in an irresistible series of events that I didn't understand, nor does anyone else. Slowly, suggestions came that I could assassinate the president without putting myself into any danger, but I had to learn about and purchase a series of landmines, then find a way of planting them and arming them so that they would go off under the President's motorcade and blow everything sky high. I had reservations about dealing a deadly blow to Jackie, since she was an innocent lost among the families, but anyone else was guilty. I chose Dallas as the site, since a fatal blow to the presidency would give Texans the push they needed to become independant as they always wanted. I used a friend of mine who worked for the city, to place the mines under a new layer of asphalt that was being paved just prior to the presidential visit. The mines went in, and I installed my friend in the crowd to film the proceedings with the new super-8 camera he had bought with the money I paid him off with. The day came, he was in the crowd, I went to an abandoned building so that I could use my remote control unit to detonate the bombs. I went up to the roof and watched for the motorcade coming. I could see it coming, and my fingers tightened on the remote. As I was up there, I saw some movement from the corner of my eye, and spotted a sniper on the roof of another building. He was holding a rifle. I was unarmed. He fired five shots at me, but he missed me with each shot. Finally he threw the rifle at me and escaped to another rooftop and finally down the stairs. I ran over to the rifle and saw that it was empty. I ran back to the side of the building and saw that something had happened to the motorcade. Many people were gathered around the President's car. I couldn't see the president. The car had stopped between two of my mines. I became even more nervous than I had been. I didn't know what had happened. I ran down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs I looked around for the sniper, who would be on street level with me, but didn't see him. I ran down the street expecting to be chased. I was too tired, I could feel a pain around my heart. I was in front of a movie theater - I bought a ticket, threw the remote into the garbage can inside the theater, and went in and cooled off. I bought popcorn for myself, and a drink, and finished them off. The movie wasn't very good, so I went for more food and drinks. As I sat down, a group of police came in and arrested me. At the head of the crew was the sniper, who with his accusing finger singled me out of the 10 or 12 people in the theater watching movies. I was taken and questioned, and later I was killed. Luckily I still have a half-brother, Harvey Lee Oswald, to do better than I did.
My name is Harvey Lee Oswald. I am 35 years old, and I have lived
in the state of Texas for 20 years. Recently I have established a
new religion which was discriminated against by the state. Legislation
introduced by the governor John B. Connally destroyed my church.
I lost my church, my land, my home, most of my followers, my wife left
me and took my little daughters with her. The police of my state
have practically refused to help me find her, by using crippling stalling
tactics. The same is true for the police forces of other states,
and the F.B.I. won't help me either. Through this my hatered of the
governor grew. He had in effect killed me, since I was helpless to
change my lot in life in this existence through the actions of him and
others. One day one of his footsoldiers, one J.D. Tippett visited
me and threatened me into keeping silent and resisting legislation. After
he left, I knew that I had to take some sort of action. I knew somebody
who could put me in touch with a hitman. I contracted a killer to
murder the governor and his policeman flunky, and I picked November 22nd
to do it, the day that the President would be visiting Texas where the
whole world and especially the President himself could witness what one
man could do with just a little money. I met an assassin I had worked
with before in an innoculous cafe in another state. He demanded more
money than he had before considering the size of the hit. One week
before the visit, he called me and reneged on our deal, although he consoled
me by offering to sell me a good rifle cheap. It would be up to me
to do it myself if I wanted the job done. I found myself in Dallas
on that day with a rifle on the sixth floor of a book depository where
my step-brother worked. I fired 5 shots, I didn't quite see what
I was shooting at. I ran down the stairs, I stumbled over the corpse
of... Mr. Tippett, looking so innocent and serene in death I could not
hate him. I ran to a movie theater to watch a movie (Astro-Zombies,
I think), I was enjoying the movie when the doors open, in walks a posse
of police, headed by my friend the so-called hitman, the informer, the
police murderer. They arrested me, leaving our destiny to our half-brother
Oswald Harvey Lee.
My name is Oswald Lee Harvey. I was hired by Robert
Kennedy to kill his sister-in-law. He was always jealous of Jackie.
He was wildly jealous of his brother for having married the object of his
desires, first lady Jackie Oh, she had taken him away from the family,
she was manipulating him, he finally hated her for resisting him at times,
welcoming him at others. He was insane, he knew he had been manipulated.
He wanted me to kill first Jackie in Dallas, then John in Cincinnati.
He knew that Jackie was more popular in the south than John, and John more
popular in the north of the US. He wanted to play off north and south,
by blaiming a northern assassin for Jackie, and a southern assassin later
for John. He even wanted John Kennedy Jr. to be the assassin in Cincinnati.
His madness knew no bounds. He gave me a gun with charmed bullets,
he said that a potion had been poured over the bullets from a potion concocted
out of Jackie's used pads. Presidential celebrities are always exposed
to this type of celebrity vultury, but this is the first time a first-brother
has been involved in such foul deeds as far as our recorded history can
tell us... I chose sites in several cities that would be on the presidential
tour, I knew it had to be Dallas because the devil inside me told me that
this was to be the city where John and Jackie would cross dress and appear
in public as each other, and my intended target would be posing as her
husband. I stood on the hilly glade with barely anyone around me,
and when the sun was at its brightest the motorcade swung around, I put
two bullets into the president, knowing that it was Jackie in disguise.
My target had not outwitted me. As chaos erupted, I calmly blended
into the surroundings and took a stroll up into the book suppository to
get a better view. There he was, another sniper crouched over the
body of J. Tippett, his rifle smoking. I offered the gentleman my
assistance in helping him escape the eventual police intrusion. His
rifle-shot had certainly alerted everybody, hence the flurry of activity
outside. We got through the net and found a movie theater.
I paid for his ticket and told him I'd meet him inside. While the
fool went in, I placed an anonymous call with the police, informing on
my poor delerious cousin. My next mission was to confirm the kill,
so I went to Dallas Country Hospital and in the guise of the lead surgeon,
performed the autopsy on the piece of meat that I had shot from the hilly
glade. A quick snip of the surgeon's scissors revealed that this
was no cross-dressing Jackie, but really John. I knew that I had
been tricked myself by the man I had set up for the murder, they were his
shots that had finished off the president, not the governor as we had planned
it all along. It took me some time to formulate a plan, I eventually
assumed the guise of Jack Ruby and shot that other phony assassin as he
was leaving the county jail. I was apprehended and have been imprisoned,
but the poison that I have eaten provided by the now-defunct KGB I won't
have much time to set things right. Luckily I still have a
half brother Oswald Harvey Lee.
My name is Oswald Harvey Lee. My life is like any other man's
although I think myself special at times, since I can speak several languages
and have travelled to several countries in my time. Some would be
envious, but most wouldn't. Life is a strange series of events, and
I have had my share of personal joys and griefs. Who knows what it
will all come to and by the time we die will we be better off, will we
have done great things, or will we have failed miserably. From where I
sit I think I understand what happened, but I am unable to tell anyone.
Nevertheless, on that day I was in Dallas to see the president. I
had a feeling that this might be one of my last chances, knowing what unsettled
and semi-violent times the Sixties were becoming. I arrived at the
road that would be the route of the President's passage on into Dallas
from the airport, but I found it so full of people that I couldn't get
anywhere at all. I looked around me for good spots to witness the
motorcade and my eyes eventually scanned further and further afield, and
then eventually up to the skies. I saw some people were already in
one of the buildings next to the road, and figuring that they had the best
view of the proceedings, I decided to join them. Up I went, to the
second-highest floor of the building. I opened the door quietly,
not certain if I was supposed to be there or not. I looked into the
room that appeared to have been used to store books and boxes of books.
I heard some movement, and before long I could make out 5 men, each of
them holding an old Italian bolt-action rifle. I recognized them
as my 5 half brothers, but with such looks on their faces - such evil resolution
- I almost couldn't recognize them. Since they hadn't noticed me
yet, I walked out of the room, down the stairs, with increasing speed and
desparation, caring less and less for the noise I was making on the rattling
staircase... going down and down and down until I was back on the street.
I heard what sounded like firecrackers going off, there arose a sound of
incredible confusion. I walked into a movie house, I bought a ticket,
I entered Hell...
Return to Home Page:
Return to Caveat Emptor Press contents page:
Return to Caveat Emptor Press overview page: