My So-Called Newspaper
He took a long drag from his cigarette. Then another. Then he bit the end off and chewed it a bit.
"Hm. Cherry."
He stepped slowly and deliberately towards the window. With his free hand he pulled open the blinds, which were yellowed with age and covered with dust.
"There are a lot of people out there, Mrs. Willows. Literate people." He paused. "Control the media and you control the minds of the masses. You agree, don't you Mrs. Willows?" He let the blinds snap back into place. "This 'newspaper' of yours," he said as curled his first and middle fingers in a virtual quotation mark, "has the potential for greatness. All it needs is a great leader. A visionary. A messiah. Me."
A grandmotherly face looked back at him. "My name is Mrs. Walters, Rico. Now, as you know, we have a screening process for those who want to join the school paper. This..." She looked down at the paper in front of her through her bifocals. "...thing you wrote is not going to help your chances any."
"What? Is it not written well enough for your tastes?"
"It's too well written for what it is."
"That," he emphasized with a jab of his finger, "is art."
She looked at him over her frames. "'Why the Science Department Should be Shot' is not art."
"Is it too avant-garde for you?"
"It's horrible. If you want to submit something to the paper you're really going to have to tone it down."
"What? You would have me lower myself to your standards?"
"I'm sorry, Rico, but you'll just have to try again. Try some..." she whirled her hand in the air as if to catch the right word. "...creative writing or something. But not too creative, alright?"
Rico stood with his arms crossed for a moment, glaring at the old woman. He sighed. "Fair enough. I'll be back." He took his masterpiece and stormed off out the door.
"Take your time."
Some while later, Rico staggered into the cafeteria with several books under each arm. He made his way to his personal table in the corner. A tiny boy already occupied one of the chairs. It was obviously Timmy, for no other student in the school was so small, and no one but Rico's whip would dare to have intruded upon his corner. Rico slammed the books down on the table, anxious to be rid of the weight. The impact shook Timmy's lunch tray, and several green peas rolled across the table. The boy looked up.
"Whassat?" he asked in his squeaky voice.
"As expected, the Man is trying to keep me down again."
The boy shoveled a forkful of peas into his mouth. "Mmm?"
"How can I be expected to advance my agenda when I can't even control the media?"
"Mm...I'ummo."
"Nor do I. That's why I have to write a story that will tear people's faces off with its pure, brutally honest themes, one that will leave the editor weeping at my feet while I seize control of the paper." He began spreading the books out on the table. "To this end I have gathered some classic literature for research. Lord of the Flies. The theme? People suck. Heart of Darkness. The theme? Man is evil. Ethan Frome. The theme? Life sucks so much that not even suicide can save you." He held up each book in turn. "The Scarlet Letter? Society sucks. Of Mice and Men? The American dream sucks. The collected works of DarkkGyrrl666? Everything sucks."
He took a breath. "Now I just have to combine all of these complex and diverse elements in a beautiful, less-than-three-hundred-word story to appease that bloodthirsty hag of an editor. Are you eating your peas?"
"Mhm."
"How?"
The boy swallowed. "I'unno. They're crunchy though."
"They're still frozen."
"Yes."
"...Alright, just get out a pen and paper, and write down what I tell you."
"Yes." He did so.
Rico cleared his throat, and began his story.
"There once was a man from Nantucket. He was happy there, but then he had to move to the middle of Minnesota, and he became very bitter and angry at the world. There was no work for him but to do odd jobs for old men and women who lived in tiny little shacks that smelled funny. And the weather was terrible and there was no indoor plumbing in the area.
Then he snapped like a cheap storebrand pretzel while chopping firewood one day. He buried the axe in the back of one of the farm animals, staining the white snow with red. Then he took off towards the nearest shack. He kicked the door in to find an elderly couple in bed. He grabbed a poker from beside the fireplace and rushed the people. He embedded the point in the pillow as the old man rolled out of bed. Then..."
"Yes?"
"I...don't know."
"Mm...I think I read somewhere you're suppose'ta have a man come into the room with a gun if you run out of ideas."
"...So then a man rushed into the room, brandishing a grotesquely large rifle of some sort. 'Oh no!' everyone screamed. The man fired wildly, the reports as loud as grenades. The bodies fell upon each other in a heap, as a puddle of gore spread out from beneath them. They would never be discovered on those cold Minnesota plains. The end."
"Got it."
"Let's see." Rico pulled the pad of paper across the table and glanced down at it. "The hell?" The paper was clearly marked with some kind of symbols, arranged in some kind of order that seemed to resemble some kind of language. Beyond that, there was nothing comprehensible about it. "Were you listening?"
"Mhm," the boy nodded as he resumed his pea consumption.
"Did you write it down?"
"Mhm."
"Are you sure you didn't just scribble randomly, while ignoring me and imagining what the story might be about?"
"Mhm."
"Eh, whatever. It's good enough for the old lady."
Ten minutes later Rico was sitting at the same table with the same Timmy, but without the peas or status as a member of the school newspaper. He tapped his fingers on the table for a bit. The surface was some stupid plastic covering that only looked like real wood. It was surely all very symbolic.
"Alright, I'm feeling inspired again. This time I'll dictate and write. Willows obviously couldn't read your handwriting; she said the story lacked substance and purpose. But that's fine. This next one is going to be even better. You...just sit there for a while. And listen.
Here's how it went down. I was chilling with my homies down at the drinking hole. Fattie was at the bar, knocking back screwdrivers like they were water, and Slim had been passed out in the corner for hours. The rest of us sat at our table near the back exit, as usual. All the windows were open to air out the stench of liquor and vomit.
A syringe of 'Montgomery Magic' was, of course, making its way around the circle. I watched the others' heads loll around for a while as they drifted off to their own little worlds. The odds were that none of them would come back; none would live to see another high. But then, that's what we were all about, man: defying the odds.
I was about to take my turn when I heard the cars pull up out front. The Man had come for us again. I quickly ducked out the back door. I knew I should run and never look back, but I was too curious. Morbidly curious. And so I peered inside through a dusty window.
Men rushed into the room, brandishing grotesquely large rifles of some sort. 'Oh no!' everyone screamed. The men fired wildly, the reports as loud as grenades. The bodies fell upon each other in a heap, as a puddle of gore spread out from beneath them. They would never be discovered on those cold Alabama plains. The end.
What do you think? Is that not powerful?" Timmy stared back blankly. "Stunned to silence, eh? That's good. If you were so deeply impressed, then Willows should be reduced to tears."
Ten minutes later Rico stood at the table, fuming. Timmy seemed to be even smaller, having shrunk down in his chair. Rico stood very still, making her verbal explosion all the more dramatic. "Obviously," he spat, and Timmy flinched. "Obviously, this paper isn't mature enough to handle mature themes presented in a mature manner. I'll dumb it down for them.
Therefore, Mr. and Mrs. Bunny lived happily in the Gumdrop Forest with their many children and friends, utterly isolated from the outside world. Even as thermonuclear holocaustic global warfare decimated the human race, they hopped and scampered and laughed and played among the licorice-stick bushes. It was always springtime, but there was no pollen or animal dander or other allergens, not that it would have mattered; allergies were unknown in the Gumdrop Forest.
It was a bright, warm, sunny spring day like any other when a new creature happened to stumble into the forest. He introduced himself to the assembled denizens of the forest. 'I'm Mr. Penguin,' he said, 'and my life is empty and meaningless. That makes me sad.' 'Then come play with us!' the little bunnies implored. 'Yes, do play with them,' Mr. Bunny agreed. 'No, I'm afraid I can't,' replied Mr. Penguin. 'For you see, they are all young girl bunnies, and I prefer the company of men.'
And...then some men with ri--"
"Wait!"
"What?"
"Where do the bunnies live?"
"They...ah!
'Well at least have dinner with us, and spend the night at our house tonight,' Mrs. Bunny said. 'Fair enough,' Mr. Penguin responded, and so they retired to the Bunny family's chocolate jackboot house. 'But I'm diabetic,' Mr. Penguin protested, 'and my blood sugar level is already quite high today.' 'That's quite alright,' Mr. Bunny said. 'You can sleep in the Nutrasweet room.'"
"Is that...accurate?"
"Probably.
The point is, Mr. Penguin ate a very lovely dinner in a very lovely house with very lovely people; he had a very lovely night's rest and a very lovely time in general. In the morning, the bunny children went out to play, and again they asked Mr. Penguin to join them. Yet Mr. Penguin was busy talking to his new friend, Mr. Bear. 'Thank you for a lovely time,' Mr. Penguin said, 'But I think I would like to play with Mr. Bear for a while.' And so the two skipped off into the distance.
Mr. Bear and Mr. Penguin were about to consummate when men with rifl--"
"Wait."
"What? I was about to get to the climax."
"Yeah, but...you're already past three hundred words."
"...Oh. Alright, fine. Fine. I'll just clip off the greatest sado-masochistic lemon scene literature will ever know. Not that Willows would appreciate it, of course."
Submission. Victory. Subversion. Usurpation. Celebration. Lava lamps. Three months passed.
Rico woke up on the floor of his bedroom in a puddle of congealed soft drink syrup, and surrounded by soiled Linux magazines. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, then his temples. The dull throbbing faded a bit. "What did I do last night?" He looked at the mounds of filth around him; the room was more cluttered than usual. Soda bottles, data CDs, screwdrivers and processor fans lay scattered in random patterns. A coverless PC sat on the edge of the bed, teetering precariously, and his treasured coat was draped next to it. He crawled over to the PC an looked in the case. No fewer than six fans stared back at him; stacked up, side by side, leaning at bizarre angles towards the SIMM. It was beautiful.
Yet it was strange, too. Overclocking was reserved for special occasions. Surely, then, it was a special day; but what? He looked at a nearby pile of clothes and papers, and began tearing through it. Near the bottom he found what he was looking for. It was a calendar as thick as a phone book, and ranging from 1981 to 2041. If there were any important dates, they would be marked somewhere in its pages. Unfortunately, he had stopped crossing off days several years ago, so he had no idea as to the correct month, let alone day of the week. Yet that was alright, for there were only half a dozen important dates in the entire decade, and at the very least he knew the proper year. Maybe.
He began flipping through the pages. January, February, March, April...1981. No. June, July...1984. March, April, May, June...1997. No. He began from the back of the calendar. December, November, October, September...2041? He let a thick section drop down. Lo, he beheld a large red circle around a date in April. In 2026. It was labeled with tiny handwriting, "World domination; Reckoning Day." "It's really not so far off," he mused with a contented sigh. But that wasn't it, so he kept flipping. And there it was. Yes, today was the day the school paper would be distributed. It was not an event to be missed. He grabbed his coat, and perhaps for the first time hurried to school.
He was tempted to skip like a merry young schoolgirl, but he limited himself to a mere saunter into his homeroom. He eased into his seat in the back of the room, next to Timmy.
"Seen the new issue of the paper yet?"
"Huh-uh. 'S fifty cents. I don't have that kind of money."
"Fifty? And I'll never see a penny of it, I'm sure. It's just like them to profit from my labor. On any other day I would plot against them for this, but...I'm in a good mood today."
"I think it's to pay for the materials."
"I think I don't care. I'll just tell you about my glorious article. It's just a piece of my agenda; nothing special really. It has lists of nations that need to be bombed, books which should be burned, a few religions that have to be supported, a few that have to be destroyed, a few suggestions for Constitutional amendments and federal laws to cover some posteriors, and a replacement schedule for the major television networks. That way I'll have some decent cartoons to watch while my new world order is built."
"...Neat."
"Extremely."
Some irreverent snickering broke out from the adjacent cluster of desks. "What the hell is this? Noozles? That cartoon was bad ten years ago, and it'd be even worse now." Some fellow students had apparently taken notice of the six pages of eight-point font agenda in the paper. "Who wrote this trash?" There was the sound of pages being flipped. "Oh, Rico, what a surprise. Ass."
"Hey!" Rico stood up. "Do you have a problem with Pinky and Blinky?"
"Besides the fact that they're stupid?"
"Oh. Oh, that's it. You're just begging to be kicked to Koalawalla land and back again."
The exchange was about to turn ugly, and it surely would have resulted in fisticuffs between Rico and the boy were it not for the intervention of rather large boy who was abruptly introduced to the scene. So instead there were fisticuffs between the boy and the newcomer. Or, rather, the newcomer reached out one unnervingly large, meaty hand, and mashed his opponents face into the desk. He then pushed the unconscious lump off into the corner. He turned to face Rico.
"Brick," he said bluntly, extending one of his fleshy mallet-like hands.
"Lord Rico," came Rico's response as he shook the outstretched hand with a bit of a wince. "Stick with me, and you will be known as Pontiff Brick in my New World Order."
"For real?"
"Yes."
"Sweet."
"Quite. Now come," he emphasized with a sweep of him arm. "We have to prepare the booth."
Indeed, it was so. Within thirty minutes a booth had been set up just inside the front door of the building. Consisting of a table stolen from the cafeteria, wood and nails stolen from the generically named 'technology' wing, and a sign stolen from the armed forces enlistment booth just inside the back door of the building, there rose an 'Army of the New Age' enlistment booth. The two were almost exactly the same, actually, except that some people were actually interested in the armed forces, and those who passed by didn't call out snide remarks about an article in the school newspaper. This was to be expected, for no piece in a school paper was to be respected, not even if it were written by a professional, respected author. It was far from appreciated by the literature club, but this simple fact had been the downfall of many classics in the district, and nobody really cared about what the literature club thought anyway.
So, logically, the agenda would have to be published in an underground paper. This was to be expected, for no piece in an underground paper was to be defied, even if it were written by Rico. It was somewhat appreciated by the literature club, since many classics had been redeemed after being published in such media. For nobody could criticize an underground paper without being branded a fascist bigot Neo-Nazi jerkface thought-policeman. It was the way to get one's ideas out, to affect minds, to garner support. It was, in a word, perfect.
"So get to it already," Rico commanded.
"Me?" Timmy asked.
"Of course. The future king of all would not soil his hands with such a lowly chore."
"But I dunno what's on the agenda."
"Well my printer is, you know, non-existent, so it's up to you. Of course, you'll have to hook it up to my computer, since yours isn't worth to process such glorious words, but do it quickly. Destiny is impatient and bitter at the world. Look at what happened to those Romeo and Juliet people. If this operation isn't off the ground soon we'll spend our days fighting in graveyards and seducing corpses."
"Ech..."
"And I'm not ready for that, people. I'm just...not...ready."
Brick interjected. "Anything I should do?"
"What experience do you have?"
"I can mash things."
"Can you mash them well?"
"Yep."
"Then you will be a professional thug. You can stomp people into the ground."
"Like who?"
"Why, anyone, of course."
"A'ight," and with that he was off down the hallways, tripping and pushing and mocking passersby.
And so it came to pass that, twenty-four hours later, the three sat in the same position at the booth, but one underground paper richer, though Timmy was forty dollars and ten cents poorer after buying a school paper and a new ink cartridge for printing out a few hundred copies of Rico agenda. Also, they had company. Rather, they had recruits, more than the back door booth gathered in a month; that is, six. Indeed, it was a glorious day for the movement. At least, it was until the resistance arrived.
They came in single file, two-dozen strong; they clutched copies of mediocre modern literature and some lesser known antiquities. As they approached the booth they turned, forming a semicircle around it, and through the semicircle there broke a familiar face. Lo, school newspaper editor and literary club founder Mrs. Walters stood defiantly.
"Rico, we've come to protest," she said.
"Yes," he responded.
"Against your policy of book-burning."
"My what?"
"In your agenda, the one you had passed out this morning."
"My what? I did no such thing."
She held up a copy of the paper. "This has your name written all over it."
Rico sat back, and screwed up his eyebrows in a disbelieving kind of countenance. "Mrs. Willows, with what little respect you have due, anyone can publish an underground paper, and certainly anyone can come up with the ideas you saw presented in it. You can't own an idea, man."
"No, I mean this paper has your name on it, along with your address, phone number, and social security number."
"What?!"
"I had no choice but to fax a copy over to the local Human Rights League. They'll want to have a long talk with you."
"You!" Rico pointed and glared at Timmy.
The boy flinched. "What?"
"What is wrong with you? Not content to ruin your own life, you have to go to work on mine as well?"
"I didn't do anything! ...This time. I swear!"
"Oh? And I suppose the word processor just arbitrarily inserted sensitive, private, personal information into its document, like some kind of--" He broke off as he came to a realization. his eyes grew wide. He twitched. He threw back his head and yelled. "Gaaaaaates!" A pause. A sigh. "What am I supposed to do now?"
Suddenly, three sharply dressed men rushed through the front door, brandishing grotesquely large rifles of some sort. "Oh no!" everyone screamed.
Rico jumped to his feet and kicked the booth over. "How are you gentlemen?"
"Human Rights League," one of the men said. "You must be Rico. Come with us, boy."
"You're too late. I have already assembled my troops." He gestured at the six new recruits. "And let's not forget the muscle here." He nodded at Brick.
"We tried doing it peacefully," the man said with a snort.
"As did I. Rush 'em!" Rico pointed his troops at the men, as if it were not obvious that they were a threat.
They fired wildly, then, the reports as loud as grenades. Rico ducked for cover behind the booth. Timmy had already darted away for safety. Brick lurched forward, prepared to get him some. None would ever know the true horror of what transpired on the cold linoleum that day.
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