The Fires

[Pæs]

And, if you hear anything about Mickey fucking Rooney having kicked the bucket... don't believe a word of it.

That's just what he wants you to think.

[hooplala]

The funeral was over.  I staggered down the aisle of the bus, trying to keep my balance as the drunk driver lurched from one side of the highway to the other.  Outside the windows, the dank orange glow of the forest fires bathed the asphalt in sickening light.  Every seat was filled tight with flabby frog-like folk: each with bulbous watery eyes protruding from slack-jawed, wide-mouthed faces, wigs sitting askew at corrupt angles: they were alive, you could hear their quivering choking gasps, but their eyes.  Their eyes were dead.  Those bulging eyes.  The bus was full of them, was it some sort of family reunion? 

One seat was left open.  In the back, the very back - next to the toilet.  The door of which, slapped open with each lurch of the bus, a putrid stench wafting up the aisle: it caused the inhabitants to choke and gasp again, their dewy eyes twitching blindly with the effort.  A wig slipped from one of their heads.  Pushing toward the back, toward the one empty seat, I tried to keep my pressed black suit clean as I shoved through.  A squat white haired dwarf occupied the other seat, and turned its face toward me as I approached.  The face was different: not frog-like: inky eyes full of life: a horse-like mouth overstuffed with teeth. 

I knew that face.

I knew that face: it was Mickey fucking Rooney.

He smiled up at me.  Smile, in fact, is not an accurate description.  He leered up at me: he grimaced up at me.  The grin twisted all his features, which appeared to be fashioned from chewed caramel.  "Pull up a seat, junior!" he called out in a voice hoarse from eighty years of show business, patting the empty seat with a gnarled spotted hand.

Maybe it was the grin; maybe it was the glow from the forest fires outside the bus: he looked absolutely ghoulish.  The frog folk had been unnerving, but Mickey Rooney in bad light was the sort of shit nightmares are made from.

"Pull up a seat, junior." he growled.  All threat.  But the smile never cracked.

I sat down, the teeth now less than a foot and a half from my face.  Swallowing thickly (how had I always swallowed so simply before? suddenly everything was set to manual), I tried to smile.  "Pleasure." I heard someone say.  It sounded like me.  "Pleasure to meet you.  Mr Rooney."

There was no point pretending I didn't recognize him.

"Mickey." he purred.  "Call me Mickey.  I'm Hollywood folk, which means everyone is my friend.  You understand, junior?"

I nodded.  I could feel the breeze in my beard.

"Enjoying the forest fires?" he asked, turning his perfectly round head, his inky black eyes moving toward the flames which licked up into the sky, fifty feet tall.  They raged on both sides of the highway.

"It's a spectacle." I remember saying in response.

Mickey threw back his head and barked laughter at the roof of the bus.  The frog folk all twitched and quivered around me.  Were they people?  Or jello molds?  Mickey seemed hesitant to turn from the fires back to me: and it occurred to me: he was proud of them.  They were his handiwork.

"You did this." I said, suddenly.  I didn't mean to.

"I had to, junior." he said, but there was glee in his voice.  Naked, ugly, glee.  "Like putting down Trigger.  I helped Roy Rogers put down Trigger, did you know that?"  He nodded, his features now suddenly melting into melancholy.  "That was Nineteen Hundred and Sixty-Five, the year old LBJ proclaimed the Great Society.  I put down Trigger..." he said in a low growl.  "...and then I sent the first 3500 troops to slap down the Viet Cong."  His shining black eyes turned to me.  "You see... it HAD to be DONE."

My mouth was stuck in a smile.  My teeth were dry, and my lips wouldn't move.

"And this." he said, as the smile melted back onto his round face, white hair standing up above his ears, glowing in the fire light.  "And THIS." he repeated.  "This had to be done as well.  You know that, don't you, junior?"

I didn't want to answer.  I tried not to. 

"Everyone has their pet addictions today, junior.  Don't you know that?"

I tried not to answer.

"In my day, we had piss and vinegar."  He grinned.  "Oh sure, Judy mainlined amphetamine, but you have to understand, there was a war going on and she needed to stay awake.  She had to keep it all together, junior, and to do that she needed to STAY AWAKE.  You're a friend of Judy's aren't you, junior?"

I tried not to answer.

The fire was licking at the sides of the asphalt.

"This had to be done." he laughed.  His eyes were black, and he laughed.  "This is a keening.  Do you know what that is, junior?"

I tried not to answer.

"This is a goddam keening.  You should know.  You were at the funeral."  Mickey Rooney laughed.  "This is a keening, it is part of the grieving process.  And it HAS TO BE DONE."  He laughed.

Mickey Rooney laughed, and I started to scream.  I started to scream, and I never stopped.

It occurs to me now that I saw it all coming.

[Doktor Howl]

I had forgotten about this.

[hooplala]

As had I. Found it in an old folder just now.

I can't remember if I had seen the "this is fine" meme when I wrote this.

[The Wizard Joseph]

That was excellent! Glad this got bumped

[altered]

Goddamn.

You really did see it all coming.