Rehearsal entailed the long-haired college dropout organist-music director arriving five minutes before the service, pounding violently on the keys or the organ or piano as a quick warm-up; the husband and wife arriving with fifteen different instruments between them (while focusing on one each would have made them better musicians), the wife threatening a tantrum because she couldn’t find the clothes pins she used to hold down her music, the cleaning person evidently having dusted; the husband offering five times to run home to get his manic-depressive wife’s glasses, music, or forgotten instrument; and the half-deaf brass player-bassist, oblivious to all this chaos, blissfully playing through the chord changes to “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” and asking, “Are we ready yet?”
I forgot to mention: occasionally, a piano tuner with no ear for pitch who played the saxophone badly sat in with us; that was the case that morning.
Since the organist never remembered the cues he himself had worked out and dictated to us, including how many measures to add or drop or which verses to lay off or play in harmony, and especially since I was reading for a hymnal in concert pitch and not a B-flat transcription—and since I never actually learned to transpose the music up a whole step and really was just playing by ear—and since the bass player was just as likely to be playing the changes to “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” as any other hymn and the saxophonist to be wailing riffs from a half-remembered strip-tease number from a juke joint—it was amazing we could get through a church service without the congregation throwing rotten vegetables at us. But beggars can’t be choosers; the membership of the First Holistic-Humanist Congregation of Cass City wasn’t big enough to sustain a soprano-alto-tenor- bass choir and us volunteer instrumentalists were better than nothing.
Where the First Holistic-Humanist Congregation of Cass City even got the money to stay open was a mystery to me. It certainly wasn’t the mix of cash-strapped college students and professoriat and neighborhood bohemians who filled less than half the pews on Sunday mornings and barely covered the satin-covered bottom of one offering plate, and didn’t believe in an Ibrahimic God in any case—although there never seemed to be a shortage of manpower for the Eats on Feats and other social outreach programs emanating from the building. Presumably, wealthy donors with a high regard for the building’s cultural status as a neo-gothic landmark, and some remote cemetery flush with revenues from burials that I had never visited were the cash cows.
In any case, that Sunday Reverend Enoch preached his usual noncommittal sermon of abstract, cosmic ideas of Other Worlds and Rejoining our Divine Sparks with the One True Source on High to the meager turnout of college types and neighborhood denizens as well as my half-sister Avie (who slept through the sermon since she’d been up all night with theater the night before) and my Mama and her Counterpart from another reality, Alice2, who always came down from Troy to Detroit, all dressed up, just to hear me play.
After the service, the two Alices took Avie and me to a big brunch at the Irony Skillet two blocks down Cass Avenue, during which Mama would always castigate Reverend Enoch as a non-Christian, Leader-Astray-of-Souls. “That New Age mumbo-jumbo is not the Word of God,” said Mama. “It’s the work of the Devil, designed to lead his chosen people to Hell and Damnation. But you sure played pretty, Clarissa.”
“Of course Pastor Enoch’s not a Christian, Mama,” I explained. “He’s a Demiurgical Gnostic, a Marxist-Socialist, and some kind of egg-headed intellectual Taoist. What do you expect from the Holistic Humanists? They practically don’t believe in any Deity at all—they certainly don’t go for that soteriological-eschatological End Times baloney.”
“He wears a clerical collar, doesn’t he?” asked Mama. “He should preach the word of Jesus, not just allude to some abstract ‘Redeemer’ and ‘Savior.’ No wonder our younger generation is living in sin. These intellectual types think man can bring about his own Heaven here on Earth. It doesn’t work that way. We are born into sin and need the blood of the Lamb to be atoned God the Father Almighty.”
“Mama, you have to be open to people experiencing divine revelation a bit differently than you,” I said. I tried to explain my theory that Reverend Enoch was a Multimensional—a being that could traverse time, space, and the Multimensions at will by astral projection, like Doctor Messiah. But it was hopeless; I could never get Mama to understand the concept of the Multimensions, even though her own Counterpart, Alice2, was a living example that there were alternate realities, in this case in which she never had two daughters, but instead became a Megahero called the Mod Puma.
“The Word says, ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth,’” Mama insisted. “That’s one God, one heaven, and one Earth—not your Multiple realities and dimensions.”
“Mama, you’re sitting next to a woman who is you from another dimension. She’s you—if you never had any daughters and fought crime at night.”
“Don’t drag me into this,” said Alice Too. “I’m on your mama’s side; we could all use the comfort of some real, scriptural preaching now and then.”
“Fairy tales and legends,” I said. “Frankly, I get more out of Reverend Enoch’s lessons than from all the fire-and-brimstone histrionics we sat through as children.”
“This is what I get for sending my first-born daughter to college,” said Mama, splashing hot sauce violently on her scrambled eggs. “Quantum physics and a loss of faith. What do they teach you in grad school, anyway? Blasphemy and irreverence, if you ask me.”
Avie shot me a look over her mushroom-swiss omelet. “She always leaves me out,” she said. Turning to Mama, Avie said, “What do you think I’m learning in theater? I’m among Godless heathens, homosexuals, and ingenues that had abortions before they were seventeen every day and every night; I’m absolutely going to Hell before Clarissa.”
“You’re learning to use your talents, Avril,” said Mama, patting my half-sister’s hand from across the table. “And someday, they’re going to be a blessing to the Lord, I have no doubt. I only wish Clarissa would find the conviction to do the same.”
“I play the clarinet in a dysfunctional music ensemble,” I said.
“You know what I mean, Ms. Megaton Man,” said Mama. “You’re only going to find true contentment when you dedicate your life to Jesus.”
“Too bad you didn’t know Clyde in the Civilian reality,” I said, referring to my biological father. “He became Born Again.”
After Mama and Alice Too’s visit came to an end, it was just Avie and by ourselves in our West Forest apartment to enjoy a lazy Sunday afternoon. I had changed from jeans—I never got dressed up for church—into sweats, and parked myself on the couch in the living room to grade more student papers.
Avie, having been out the night before, checked the answering machine. The only message was from Soren. “Hey, are you guys up?” he asked. “Turn on channel fifty—you’re in for surprise. The fright-night host has a special guest; you’ll get a kick out of it.”
“What’s he talking about?” I asked.
“He must mean the Guygoyle Show,” said Avie.
The “Guygoyle” was the local UHF station creature-feature host, or a postmodern deconstruction thereof. Instead of a campy vampire or vampy scream queen, our midwestern version was just a low-rent, gonzo hippie presenting low-budget B-movies with interspersed taped bits to kill late-night air time, syndicated to blue-collar markets of Cleveland and Detroit. The Guygoyle himself dressed in a blue lab coat covered in eclectic campaign buttons, a matted grey fright wig, dark sunglasses with one lens missing, and a glued-on goatee. Underneath the open lab coat he wore a “Guygoyle Power” T-shirt, faded jeans, and canvas-top sneakers. His claim to fame was playing novelty tunes over so-called comedy segments between the uniformly retched movies, blowing up copies of a vintage plastic frog with M-80 firecrackers (a kind of explosive outlawed as lethal in the 1960s), and blurting out catchphrases like “Overboy!” and “Scratch asphalt! Turn green!” at random intervals.
Avie and I watched the show nearly every Saturday night throughout the seventies, although the Guygoyle often disappeared from the airwaves for long stretches—supposedly because of parental complaints because some kid had blown off his hand mimicking the pyrotechnics—but he would always turn up later on some other UHF station. We had heard he was back on the air and Avie had been taping the shows religiously on her Betamax, but we had been too busy with school to sit down and watch them. She had a backlog of recent episodes we had never played back.
“The one from last night should still be in the machine,” said Avie. She rewound the tape and turned on the TV. “I wonder why Soren would take such a sudden interest in our local culture and traditions.” She looked through the TV listings to see which terrible movie had been broadcast. “The Monster in the Rubber Suit from the Deep Blue Sea,” she said. “They’ve only run that one a million times.”
The tape reached the beginning and shut off. Avie clicked the remote to play it back. The Guygoyle Show began with the usual opening of the Guygolye coming out on a cheap set of movie posters, stolen traffic signs, and carboard cutouts of Marilyn Monroe and Vincent Price.
“We’ve got another treat for you, gang,” the host intoned, reaching into a garbage can and pulling out a clump of thirty-five millimeter film footage. “From the Guygoyle’s Trove of Treasured Trash,” He seldom mentioned the precise name of any film, since he never knew which one from the syndicated package of losers the UHF station would choose to broadcast on any particular night.
“They tape these things in a garage off of Telegraph Road,” said Avie, who could be expected to know almost anything about acting, broadcasting, or the performing arts in the Detroit area. “You know, Vagabond does a perfect impression of the Guygoyle; Bryan says he’s sometimes subbed for the real Guygoyle on-air a bunch of times and no one’s ever been able to tell the difference.”
As the credits for the movie appeared, accompanied by the Guygoyle’s usual overlaid farting and toilet-flushing sound effects, Avie picked up the phone and called Troy. “Hey, Soren, what’s the big deal?” she asked. “Yeah, we’re watching it now.”
Avie clicked the remote and fast-forwarded through the first scene of the movie and the commercials for okra slicers and K-Tel records, stopping at the next Guygoyle segment. The set was now dressed with cobwebs and candelabras; we watched as the Guygolye approached a prop casket laid out horizontally. “I wonder what the cat dragged in,” he said, mock-apprehensively. “What will they dig up next? Some warmed-over leftovers from Halloween, I expect.”
The lid of the coffin rose and a figure sat up; it was Dana, her arms folded across her chest, her gloved hands touching her shoulders, her spikey Mohawk and blank-white eyes giving her the appropriate—if Goth—fright-night effect.
“Your wish is my command, Master!” she said, in a hypnotized monotone.
“Get out!” I said. “Dana Dorman playing Second Banana to the Guygoyle … what will they think of next?”
The Guygoyle helped her out of the casket; she was in her full Domina leather-G-string regalia, replete with webbed cape.
“How did she get that gig?” Avie asked Soren over the phone. The earpiece crackled an answer. “No kidding.” She covered the mouthpiece and turned to me and said, “I guess some producer connected to The Guygoyle Show discovered her at that Rocky Horror Picture Show screening in Ypsilanti on Halloween—they just taped this episode a few days ago, Soren says.”
“Gang, I want to introduce you to the Guygoyle’s new sidekick,” said the Guygoyle. “The Guygirl!”
At this ad-libbed remark, Dana snapped out of her fake hypnotic trance and went off script, if there had been any. “Like hell,” she snarled, and pulled a long leather bull whip out of the casket. The rest of the segment featured her chasing the beleaguered host around the set before fading out to an acid rock tune and returning to The Monster in the Rubber Suit from the Deep Blue Sea.
“The Guygoyle’s got more than he bargained for,” I said.
“Wow, does Dana know this is supposed to be comedy?” asked Avie.
“Domina has no sense of humor,” I replied. “That’s what makes it so funny.”
After Avie got off the phone with Soren, we fast-forwarded through several more stretches of movie, pausing to watch virtually unedited footage with Dana and the Guygoyle. In the next bit, taped out in an industrial park parking lot, they blew up another plastic frog and smashed a truckload of unsold pumpkins the TV station must have picked up from local grocery stores for cheap. Later, they did a camp send-up of a classic horror movie scene. It started out with the “Guygirl” strapped to an operating table in a makeshift mad science lab, but it ended with the host in Dana’s leg chokehold. The Brilliant Brain even made a guest appearance as himself.
I recalled how the Y+Thems served as unpaid watchmen for the First Holistic-Humanist Congregation of Cass City when they first came to town, but still had to work odd jobs for spending money. It seemed like a promotion, moving to the sleek headquarters of the old Teen Idols up in Troy, but apparently the Youthful Permutations were still broke.
“Soren’s strategy must be to shame ICHHL into giving Troy+Thems a bigger stipend to live on,” I said, “so the individual members won’t have to publicly humiliate themselves for cash.”
We watched to the end of the tape, which only took about twenty minutes. After finishing up my grading and homework, we fixed dinner. It was already growing dark outside. In the living room, the phone rang. I picked up; it was Preston Percy, calling from New York.
“Are you near a TV?” he asked. “You better tune in Six Minutes Ago in a couple of minutes. I tried to keep the story out of the media, but I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do. Call me back later after you’ve taken a look.”
“What’s this all about, Preston?” I asked.
But all I heard in response was a click.
I turned on the TV again and tuned into Six Minutes Ago: The Weekly TV Newsmagazine.
“Who was that?” asked Avie, who came in with dishes of ice cream. “Don’t tell me Dana’s already made the national news.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” I said.
The lead story on Six Minutes Ago was about President Harry Foster Lime’s ongoing reelection bid with voting just two days away. “The President’s campaign had been lagging all summer,” the correspondent intoned, “with his polling numbers way behind those of his challenger.”
The visuals showed the portly, bearded politician, orating before a huge campaign rally in front of a huge poster of his face, the word “LIME” splayed across the top in gigantic letters.
“But his fortunes changed at the party convention when the Silver Age Megaton Man resurfaced,” continued the narrator. “Believed lost in another dimension for a number of years, America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero is currently a member of the Doomsday Revengers in Bayonne, New Jersey—and he’s been an enormous boost to the President’s campaign.”
“That’s blatant racism,” said Avie, shouting at the screen. “Why, they never gave Ms. Megaton Man that kind of coverage when she was America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero—no doubt because she’s black. But as soon as the old white guy turns up, he’s restored to the position like you never even existed.’”
“I was going to school in Ann Arbor, Avie,” I said. “I was too busy to promote myself. Besides, all the national media’s in Megatropolis, where Clyde is.”
“That’s no excuse,” said Avie. “You were in New York last summer; They should have made just as big a deal out of you.”
“I kept a low profile,” I reminded her. “Besides, I would have campaigned for Lime’s opponent.”
The visuals next showed the President and the Silver Age Megaton Man waving to cheering convention delegates through streamers and confetti.
“Is the your father running for vice president now?” asked Avie.
“No, the Veep is still Jackie Valentino,” I reminded her. “Ol’ Boomer’s still on the ticket, as far as I know. He’s just one of the Hollywood types who likes to stay behind the scenes.”
“The only good liberal is a dead liberal,” the Silver Age Megaton Man extolled to the crowd to rousing cheers. “America is naturally a regressive country—that’s what our Founding Fathers intended! Let the hippie bleeding heart tree huggers go back to Bleeding Heart Tree-Hugging Land where they came from!”
“Yikes! That guy’s more reactionary than the President!” said Avie. “Dog whistles and red meat for the Right Wing. I’m glad he’s your father and not mine.”
“He’s only been apart from Alice2 a short time,” I said. “He’s already reverted to his old, Cold War rhetoric.”
The correspondent’s narration continued. “The Silver Age Megaton Man’s solid conservative politics has proven popular with the party’s base, and tonic for Harry Foster Lime’s campaign. The popularity of the Silver Age Megaton Man with party’s base voters seems to have coattails the President is eager to ride upon. Since August, pollsters have been predicting a groundswell, a sea change, and a landslide.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Avie. “How can an election be a groundswell, a sea change, and landslide all at the same time?”
Footage of Lime’s now-beleaguered opponent flashed onto the screen. “We were expecting the President to pull some kind of ‘October Surprise,’” said the grey-haired politician, with a sullen, hang-dog expression. “But we had no idea it would come in August, in the form of the Retro Silver Age Megaton Man.”
“Retro is right,” said Avie. “This guy’s more rock-ribbed than the Trent Phloog Megaton Man ever was.”
“That’s my biological father you’re talking about, Avie,” I reminded her. But it was still shocking to hear such harsh language coming from his mouth.
“But then,” said the narrator, “an even more unexpected ‘October Surprise,’ this one coming in November, on the eve of the election, just days before Americans head to the polls to cast their sacred ballots.”
The TV screen showed the Silver Age Megaton Man flying, in black-and-white file footage that appeared to be from the sixties, followed by footage of the launching of a NASA rocket.
“While the secret identity of America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero is a closely-guarded national security secret,” said the correspondent, “it is widely known as a matter of fact that the Silver Age Megaton Man is in reality none other than Lieutenant Colonel Clyde Phloog, United States Air Force—the astronaut commander of the Calypso Three rocket that orbited Planet Earth in 1962…”
“They just outed your old man,” said Avie. “On Sunday night TV.”
The picture switched to footage of the Silver Age Megaton Man and the Mod Puma.
“However, since his reappearance in this dimension, the Silver Age Megaton Man has been seen in the company of this woman—Alice James, who goes by the crime fighter name the Mod Puma.”
“Oh, shit,” I said.
Cut to redneck southerners burning their Harry Foster Lime placards in a street bonfire.
“The resulting fallout has caused the President’s numbers to drop among white supremacists, Evangelicals, far-right extremists, and garden-variety racists in rural states that, until recently, had been considered solidly in the President’s column.”
“What a wastebasket of deplorables,” said Avie.
The screen now showed blurry footage of a lithe, primary-colored, flying female figure with burgundy hair.
“Even more disconcerting to the president is the possible existence of this person, rumored to be the offspring of the Silver Age Megaton Man and the Mod Puma.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” asked Avie. “‘Possible existence’?!”
“Well, they got it half-right,” I said. “Mama is the Mod Puma’s Counterpart.”
“This is race-baiting, pure and simple,” said a senator from the same party as the President. “I can’t believe this campaign has stooped to such levels—and that our own hate-mongering has backfired and bitten us in the ass.”
“I believe Americans should be free to sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have them,” said the President, in a recent on-camera interview. “And even though America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero is living in sin and flagrantly crossing the color line, I fully support every American’s right to disgrace themselves in any scandalous way they please. That’s why I’m asking for his resignation, effective noon tomorrow.”
“Oh, my God!” said Avie. “They’re really playing the race card in this election! Just to salvage the redneck, white-trash vote!”
The TV showed a blurry freeze-frame of me, in mid-flight.
“Can you believe that’s the best photo of you they can find?” said Avie, turning to me. “Clarissa, you’ve become a dog-whistle campaign issue!”
“With the White House hanging in the balance,” said the correspondent, “America wants to know: Who is this black woman of mystery with burgundy-colored hair that has upended President Harry Foster Lime’s all-but-certain reelection?”
All I could do was sit there, stunned, twirling my fingers through my burgundy-colored hair.
Next: Hiding in Plain Sight
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| Preston Percy, President Harry Foster Lime, and Dr. Joseph Levitch from Megaton Man #1 (Kitchen Sink Press, December 1984). |
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