Selections from Ice Cream Sunday Times Pez Rex White Out

Salty Office, THE PILGRIM'S PALACE

Putting his feet up on the enormous rosewood desk, JULII rubs his pink stomach through tailored seer-sucker suit. He removes a pale ginger candy from an ornate wrapper

JULII, musing on refinements -
Ginger snaps, they ought to see how the boys in the plant twist off the ends and wrap up, real Michelangelo knot twister.

- A mauled tiger sprawls on the floor- laying back in the ginger fumes- the tiger cradles chipped tin bowl in one paw- the sun through grid haze of windows outside goes down in pale blue florescent glow of swamp gas fattened fire-flies.

JULII answers comcon call over headbone wireless - wooden shipping crates to the ceiling, several open beside the sun tempered, looming desk - ginger snaps, glazes, mints and fizzes spill merrily from the boxes-

"It won't even be a minute...I've worn a Panamanian suit and done my arcane parade routines since my first anthro-zoological tour 20 years ago. Frankly... ", JULII expels a wheeze as he breaks off.

With pale pink nervous fingers, JULII balls, aims, and flicks the discarded ginger wrapper - an ersatz wax wrapper with "Jules' Tummyfull Trips" logo scrawled in the old serpentine hand of the rural carnival billboard. Sailing through the open bank-vault hatch, it hits the tiger in the ear.

"You'll have to forgive the intrusion; poor sod doesn't know his medicene. As I stated earlier, we strive for a harmonious consortium of interests. And strictly untraceable..." JULII crows to his caller. He rarely had business this early in the evening, and rarely more than the ravenous derelicts who exchanged physical tasks and illegal manouevers for his considerable powers of aquisition, and of course, ginger.

No one ever took enough ginger. At his age, his niche was running the front of his multi-industry enterprise, and ginger trading had the advantage of subtlety and regular jaunts through the pulp processing plants where the myriad candies originated.

The bank vault hatch swung shut with lingering sloth. The striped creature, scuttling on one leg, lame across the tile waiting-room floor - A sallow, stoop shouldered giant of a man with far traveling, shark-like eyes lounging in one of the woven chairs, softly chuckling.

"Don't die, Ruben...", he softly calls, with miasmic, sepulchural tones floating in the vague direction of the paraplegic tiger.

- Several un-opened carnival concoction wrappers flit through the air before the bank-vault hatch slams shut - They land in the tin offering bowl tucked loosely under the tiger's single functional paw-

"Tiger Billy mined the Eagle Roost, now he's laid out in the Salt Flats", came the guttural, wafting murmurs of the giant in the chair. Tiger Billy rumbling a grunt at the sound, chants in low, easy voice "..mighty considerate of him, tossing treats at me while I'm sprawled in the Gutter of Motherly Love...you might say I've become a regular fixture here. What is this place, a ####in laundromat? "


...... ....... .....

Department Depot Conference Center USA

Man in flannel suit gesticulates wildly before subordinates and conference video feed-cast

STEVE ENNFERSHER, COL.

According to tooth-edge research... free roving capital, the only force capable of accelerating past terminal decrepitude...or rather, we accelerate entropy past the Spring Crescendo.

Rites of Spring in Steve's head- sweaty in heat: The buzz is clear, fizzy but the body load- Jesus, that's no ulcer! Can they tell my leg is twitching like a Panamanian peach tree behind the Intelli-Soft District Chief after the seventh cup of joe-

STEVE ENNFERSHER, COL.

Ahem, gentlemen...We accelerate entropy via the marketplace vehicle - siphoning the dis-intersphere for leveraged gains, you understand...strictly untraceable - leaves no taste aftermath in the local host body...

Fade out dissolve to Outdoor Liquor Colliseum

Rally FOR Bill Chesepeake, Local Mausoleum Exterminator AND National Candidate

Bill Cigar Chesepeake

Thats's our man, and I'm happy to throw support behind him. He'll make the only apology of his life: A National Apology to King George: Sometimes you don't appreciate someone's noble side till they're gone..

Wiping tears, he's escorted off-camera by his entourage of intellectual entertainers. A reporter's query strikes the gang as insouciant in the extreme.

CUT TO

Puerto Brujo, Dusk

"Medicina, por favor..."

Filed congregations shuffle past - forlorn swamp flats-

CARNY KID

No bueno, extranjero. Mira, no touch pendejo

Whispers in a murky cantina:

"It's a big and easy spot on the river now, but it'll go to the hell-dogs when the bowtie-sportin Pyramid Lamprey's get a whiff of this place"-

Battered radios spill languid on the pier. Sudden turning of channel knob-

" This is Father O'Mallet's Reflection Hour, today we have Bruce Stiff, of the Moral Anatomy Radio Talk Show- Bruce, have at it:

BRUCE STIFF (adjusts bow-tie to correct position)

Ahem...Well, there's always going to be the bottom feeders. The sewers are teeming with them nationwide, real grave consequences ...they chew into the T5 cables that feed the Electric Salvation broad-flex MegaBeacon, then 'fore you know it they all come out in the night!

CUT TO

Carl Panzram's Tenement Rooming House, landing, DUSK

Live video feed-cast with national stakes commentary by renowned Middle American serial murderer Carl Panzram -

PANZRAM

Goddam oxy-porno-tragedy bowtie lampreys sweep up and out leather vultures no returns white out

IN THE STREETS REPORTER (OFF-CAMERA)

What do you have to say on the outbreaks of virulent sexual frenzy cultures?

PANZRAM

No, I'm not a Democrat, I'm not a racist either. I hate the - whole - goddam human race...

IN THE STREETS REPORTER (OFF-CAMERA)

But there's the controversy over the use of patented organic production by un-licensed elements from...

Panzram folds his Pop-Eye haymakers, stares out the window over endless office husks and tumbleweed parking lots.

-Outta the mines, into your iron lung. Stay smooth in the rough lane, enhance performance with cactus extract-

The flickering advertising zeppelin dwindles to a smudge in the faded oyster-hut sky. Panzram sighs, turns to camera -

PANZRAM

I favor rooted travel economics. Its the Eurasian sensation: You stay up on the highlight cities, keep the temples shiny, trade routes wide-open, a little wu-wei and the border? Constant expansion.

IN THE STREETS REPORTER

Constant...

PANZRAM

It markets itself. Surrender and join the Horde, moving forward, or skull-pile. To the skies if we have to - Protestant bastards have to muck it up every time...

Fade out, dissolve

Slow Fade out, dissolve to

Media Swirl-Scape

Filtered static, wavering signals, Information Indicating Conciousness flickers on campfire broadband, Stone Age nightmares cut the AM

Father O'Mallet
And death is the wage of the sin you bear- What is the nature of that sin? The sin you bear above all is the stinking, agitated flesh covering your pure bones and snowy soul. Washed in the blood of righteousness, you will not fear the flaying knife or the bomb that tears the veil and boils tears from the ducts of heathens. Seek forgiveness from Holy God, and not from our swords, for we are only men...

Hold on to your nuts, Johnny-legs, and buckle your tits Jill Herdsurfer: We're in thrall to the Institute for Tantric Medicene!

The Ignatius Reilly Chim Churhah Chimney Soot Sweep-a-thon!

They say Mortimer Exhale boarded a Vatican steam ship with Julius Vert...

Dissolve TO Wide Shot, Town ON Stilts , Jade Hell Region OF EL Oriente, THE Peruvian Jungle

Man scuttles on back by pushing and retracting leg - Town oozes sulpherous retchings of illicit pharma and sleaze dappled Pachinko parlors-

A small boy with sad frog-eyes in a straw hat carries a sign worn to blankness. The town dissolves into aluminum reek mirage in background.

Carny KID

No puede. Mira, gringo, you pay greenbacks, you watch the show mister. No refundito..

The boy steps out of the path of the single legged man, who rapidly folds and jack-knifes his body into one of the many opalescent slag ditches surrounding the town of Puerto de Brujo.


CUT Dissolve TO Tarnished Dream Memories Of Customs Office, Blank Cancelled Fields Near The Ocean, A Temple Jutting Forlorn And Obscene Through Pale Iridescent Night-

"Documentes, por favor"

Whorls of putrid color drown the rogue ad blips. A Splash-Rift opens in the nocturnosphere, allowing illicit broadcasts with counter-operations in play.


Archives of the Inherited Research Division:

Axis wins WWII, turn on selves: "Every man his own Fuher; breathing space, need...breathing space"....

Dr. Arvurio, late Director of the Institute for Tantric Medicene:

"Staying overnight in the Sacrificial Tomb with looted antique med case- with a case of the blank tide - blue light fever catching the outbound connect below the worn limestone"

BILLY TIGER, speaking in muffled, unrecognizable voice:

I hear he chose Bread-Head Guru numero 777 - He chose poorly- This mummified jerky is something goddam else...


Steve Ennfer's bachelor apartment, 25 years later:

STEVE ENNFER ( RET. COL. )

Goddam back-washed spleen in the AM

- Memories hung up to dry, better off faded at the edges...He could take pills, or something swifter, and there was always the legacy pistol left in the barn loft after everyone moved away. It was simply too messy, too bothersome to move beyond contemplation. Bothersome for others ("Christ, the cop who finds me. Might plug some kid on the way home to relieve nervous tension" ) as well, and Steve hated being a bother or burden to anyone. He chuckled, wondering what his ex-wife would think about that one.

Strange, he mused, that independence agent like myself would end up sled-dogging for some corp recon outfit down in the humid, flower strewn murk and muck of Peurto Brujo.

Steve stares into the mirror.

His face dissolves and writhes down the drain.

His headbones vibrate with JULII's extended media presence.
"Terrible shame old chap, you're wanted with the lads in El Oriente immediately. This is summary teleportation, I hope you'll come by and have some ginger, on the house."

CUT LATITUDE SLANT-WAYS, DISSOLVE IN BLACK ETHER TO -

Puerto de Brujo, sweeping aeriel shot, day

The sandy, blistered heath, fogbank grey slag-heaps, the jutting, smoky wardens that glower over the jungle marshes. Islands of corroded enterprise, they were the monuments to the all-consuming ambition borne in the furthest penetrations of the Vindalmar clan through the yellow-jade ferment of the up-land jungles.

That clan and its subsidiaries, the present owners of legal titles to the properties possessing the dubious classification of "land" ; known for exhibiting atrocity symptoms. Measure the formless vitality of that region in precious concealment: The precarious, remote outpost of a legacy and wealth whose heirs had long since dwindled into the obscure orbits of the ceaselessly profitable.

Consequently, these rightful heirs overlooked the existence of Puerto de Brujo for most of its settled history. That its wealth was discovered in the tropical peat bogs and archaeological sites lurking in the mists and foliage of that region made certain its obscurity in the interests of the Vindalmar clan.

... ... ...
To be expanded, continually