Chapter VI

(Episodes 34-38)

South Dakota

34.

A rally-lad dissatisfied with the state of this year's Sturgis quickly saw the dilemma occurring in Wall and offered Salome and Billy a night of respite in his dome-tent. They'd better watch their step though for to fall sleeping to the ground atop well trod grasses would mean a demise unpleasant via the hooves of Bison.

-We'll discuss the details on the way!

Said the rally-lad arm and arm with our discriminate couple...

-My hog has a sidecar for you Billy!

-Oh Boy! Rally-lad you really have come to save the day.

The badland's night was like none as they sped between it other and rally-boy continued...

-"Dick" Sweat and Gambit must have dosed you good back there in the bar and grill, they're pushing synthetics from Sioux Falls to St. Paul. And Salome you were quite correct when you thwarted his jam with a reference to Grimace and the dream burros and dream herons, no matter how great or blue, have surely passed by now.

A nod from Salome and an eager smile from Billy as all around them the enormous peaks and recessions in sandy wall-layers betrayed the nature of scale within land once submerged, now exposed.

35.

The dome-tent's sky flap was removed by rally-boy and the trio slid inside. By now Salome was re-broadcasting the Orbison songs, content that rally-boy was her contact-op. She'd never had chance to enjoy "Cryin'" what with hallucinating the talking burro in the bar and grill. Hubris was preoccupied by lunar position until now misinformed and assuming it shared a similar arch to the sun just in a separate layer of time. Lysol skies do that to Jersey boys. He watched the moon with Badlands backdrop as if through a tent-top sized View-master", he ignored the cranial amp to the best of the ability tempted to speak up against the repetition of Roy O.

What's this? Salome could suddenly read his mind? She quickly right in the middle of "In dreams, I walk alone..." comes on "Last Night A DJ Saved My Life" by Dee-lite. Not exactly his first choice but now rally-boy's tent was a rockin'. Where did he go off to by the way? Hubris envisioned him out there in the brush conversing with the Johnny Cash voiced Coyote of the hottest chili pepper trip. Billy always did want to get a lil' sumthin' sumthin' going on with Lady Miss Kier back in his days slinging CDs at Square Circle. He hoped Salome couldn't here this. Fuck, I hope rally-boy has some Alpha-Bits" and whole milk in his mammoth cooler. It'd be a hungry morning for Hubris.

36.

See the way she strolls, across the brown earth and sagebrush. See the way she sashays her bottom in such a way that the lizards emerge from morning catnaps. See Salome pour Billy a bowl of Alpha-bits, pause, make a sketch of it and then summon him with whisper. Her mother was a marketing wizard for Post, practically putting them on the map when Kellogg's smelled like monopoly. Post-pranially they traveled via rally-boy's hog con sidecar to a United States National Park sanctioned viewpoint, an overlook, a vista. They ventured forth and scurried up the cliffs of umber, burnt by the fire of a million dinosaurs dying.

Soon the clouds became time elapsed and sailed towards them, filling the raw sienna cracks in the earth with India ink until they too were smeared with sweet relief as shadows soothed their sun burnt backs. Billy was startled by the moral implications that eroded the symbolism of his daydream; Catholic guilt perched recklessly within the proverbial screen door. Billy was pterodactyl bait still, as various station wagoners made an abrupt departure from the vista point, protective palms pushing their children's shoulders into the car's back seat like tv cops do to the hand cuffed. The rocks stereotyped their visions; all twisted skulls of clichéd agony.

-Hey Billy, I heard you could get the makings of a Seven and Squirt just ahead a few meters...

Did rally-boy just say meters? South Dakota was no place for the metric system; just what was the meaning of this mad fellow.

-Excellent rally-boy! A Seven and Squirt would surely quench and relax me in this climate that blurs the edges of hospitality.

Salome caught rally-boy's metric blunder as well and decided to refer to him as The European Unit in further correspondence with H.Q. They'd expect it.

37.

This land belonged to the Bison and the Dogs of The Prairie, who at the request of the Federal Government, called their great pasture "Heaven."

Rally-boy turned out to be a seasoned b-boy from back in the days of the Rapid City Revolution. Salome thought it was a little over-the-top of H.Q. to continually pair Billy with another break-dancing contact-op but Billy preferred it as his interviews with the freelance market research carrion attest. The skies that evening were Blue Bonnet Margarine, a safe yet unappetizing sunset would follow.

Soon the trio was besieged by under-employed tour-guides, they were polite and took turns.

-Now I imagine all of you have seen Val Kilmer's excellent and unfortunately under-rated performance as a Native American agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Thunderheart, correct?

The other tour guides nodded half-heartedly. Rally-boy, Billy Hubris and Salome Schnell stumbled upon one of Oliver Stone's sweat lodges, waited for the tour guides to enter and began to urinate upon the hot rocks, an old negative mobility trick that John Densmore taught rally-boy when he was a guest star on the mid eighties sit-com Square Pegs. Rally-boy was the key grip. The tour-guides would remain motionless until an out die source could produce a Tom Cruise wig from Born on The Fourth of July. That night Salome would summon an airlift, this place was getting creepy.

38.

They played Canasta on the chopper. Their pilot wore a sleestack costume and spoke Ebonics. Salome in Jamie Summer's tracksuit sat shotgun and broadcasting a false traffic report from her transmitter fillings. Did you mention the chopper looked like Airwolf?

-On the L.I.E., the B.E.Q., Garden State Parkway, I-5 , Marquam Bridge and Major Deegan Expressway cars travel about, to and fro. To and fro. Occasionally a vehicle will stray due to user or mechanical error, and become the direct cause of injuries and casualties along the freeway. In fact almost any time I drive an American Freeway I imagine to myself the injury I could cause to myself and others were I simply to shut my eyes and let go of the steering wheel. Be thankful Chopper Uck up here is driving this Airwolf inspired unit, because if I would I'd unleash some of these canons on your SUV driving asses. Did I mention last night I dreamt I was simultaneously a cop and hanging judge while my niece performed amputations on her schoolmates?

Billy felt uncomfortable hearing Salome in this condition. She's never broadcast soul foul a vision. He felt absolutely comfortable glaring at her ripe bum pressed against the Airwolf cockpit leather in velour tracksuit. She let up after a minute or two, farting silently and trying to blame it on Chopper Uck with eyebrow gestures in Billy's direction. He knew they were headed home if they tried something different he was prepared to scrap. He missed the WaWa.