Radio Free
Albemuth
He stood
rubbing
the graying
stubble
of his weather
beaten
face with the
stumps
of his fat, dirty fingers
wrapped in
torn,
filthy rags,
peeling
small black
scabs
from the crags of
his
face ,as he slides
small exact change
across the wood
for
draft beer
said,
"My handle
is
Radio Free
Albemuth.
Bet you don't
know
anything about
the
book or the
place
that inspired
it.
I've been receiving
transmissions
from
outer space
long
before any one
of
you ever
arrived
on this planet,
and
will be, long
after
you're
gone."
I thought,
maybe,
this guy was
doing
some kind of
Martian
two step through the tulips,
it was better to refer him to
a higher authority outside,
closer to the landing site
of
the next divine invasion.
I'd even give him change
for the public phone,
on
the corner of
Quail,
if needed to
call
home collect for
a
pickup.
He looked as
if
he'd lost a
solar
lottery, been
drafted,
shipped somewhere
overseas
and fought the good fight
he never had a chance to
win,
and all he had to show for it
was a nine inch scar
through
his blind right eye, and
discolored
skin from all the
back
blasting napalm
he
had caught dead
on,
in some
jerkwater
jungle town on
the
edge of
nowhere.
He was drinking
over
time now, all day and
all
night, to get back in his
mind
to the place where he’d
left
the dead and the maimed,
back to where he
belonged.
They were
like
unstrung cosmic
puppets
walking around in
some
kind of
comprehensive,
self-induced,
comas.
The leader of the
group
spoke in a dialect of slur,
projected through
cracked,
pale lips by an off-stage
ventriloquist, with an evil
sense
of humor, making
requests
for unattainable, alcoholic
concoctions that could only
be made in an off-world bar
in
a cafe like the one Han Solo
did time in
between
flights, waiting for the
next
Star Wars
episode,
or, at least, that was the
way
I tried to explain his lack
of
communication
skills
in terms he might
understand.
"We're not getting
through
to you," he said, and I
replied,
"At least, we agree on
something."
and found something else
more
important to attend to
while
he awaited new messages
from
home base.
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