Made in China Chapter 18

The origins and the livelihood of the road pirates are fairly simple to explain. They live in the most inhospitable part of the country, across Missouri, Kanas, and Oklahoma, primarily, where pitiless tornados hit at least ten to fifteen times a day, tornados that would make Dorothy Gale wet her pants. Those places are so perilous no one in their right mind would live there. Being in a right mind is not a requirement in being a road pirate. It would be, in fact, a detriment. For the most part, they are escaped convicts from the maximum security prisons which were all but destroyed from the tornados and by the design of mastermind terrorist, the infamous, Mesa-Musa Ali. When government funds were exhausted fighting terrorisms and with the over-issuance of FEMA funds for every calamity in the first few years, there was no money to pay the private contractors who had taken over the prison business in America, completely by 2022. Not that a government prison would have lasted any longer, but the prisons being run as businesses and selling stocks on the now defunct New York Stock Exchange, speedily shut down when they weren’t getting paid and repaired. The greater good of keeping assholes behind bars went out the window when there was no big tit left for them to suckle. So the guards, those who survived, left town and the prisoners took over the ruins of the prisons and ran amuck. The natural tendency of a human being is to form a family unit, however dysfunctional, and since many of these men and women didn’t have families waiting for them to be released, their natural progression led to them to attempt to fill that void by joining one of the gangs that thrived in the no-man’s lands dedicated to highway piracy.

The Priest told me of hundreds of exorcisms he performed throughout his life, proudly like someone explaining their children, or a painter cataloging his proudest works of art. He has exorcised the Devil from almost every life form—cats, dogs, guinea pigs, a circus monkey named Lulu, rats, men, women, babies, a whale at Sea World, a cactus, so on and so forth. I shut off the radio and listened intently. His voice was measured and smooth and he only broke to take swills from a silver flask that has some engraving on it that I could not make out. I asked him what he makes of the zombies and he smiled wryly, and said, “The Good Lord works in mysterious ways.” We went a hundred miles chatting with no sign of The Dead Babies, so it seemed that we were in the clear. He kept the twelve-gauge between his legs. Then it dawned on me that I hadn’t shared with him my encounter with the Devil. Of all things to talk about...! If there was someone I should tell, the Priest was the perfect person, who surely could appreciate the magnitude of such an encounter. I spared no detail and the Priest, outside of checking the rearview mirror for the road pirates or taking more swigs of his whisky, was rapt. But after my spiel he said only three words.

“Sounds like him.” Nothing more.

“So...you believe, I mean, well...you think it was the Devil?”

“Oh, sure,” he says evenly as though nothing I just said was the least bit extraordinary. I couldn’t rightly tell if he was being serious or if he was fooling. Or maybe he was drunk after incessant washes. I frankly didn’t know him well enough to say and it was a few dozen miles before anything else was said so my doubt lingered there like a stale fart. I turned on the radio to break the awkward silence where the only sound was Ruby’s 5.8 liter purring and the gulps of the Priest’s flask. He didn’t seem to even notice the Jesus air freshener. The Dole McMillan News Hour was on the Death Race radio frequency. Since being bosomed-out by Sarah Slip on Tits Tonight, Dole resigned himself to AM Radio news where no one could see his old lizard-like face—where it doesn’t matter if you have fantastic tits or no tits at all, or the face of a komodo dragon. He called the Vermin War like an old pro as though there was a church organ in his throat and a fat lady playing it. His words were splashed with his eloquent old man charm and the Queen’s English. And after giving the ins-and-outs of the “Rat War,” speaking of them as though they had legions of Panzer tanks, machine guns and were commanded by Erwin Rommel himself, Dole said nonchalantly, “In other news, the President of the United States, Jimbo Templeton, died today of unknown causes and has been succeeded by Vice President Harry Rosenbloom, of Broadway fame.”

Ho hum.

The priest reached over with his right arm and turned off the radio. “There are things that you don’t know, Blatz. Nothing is as simple as it seems.”

“I agree.”

“But you are agreeing to something you don’t know.”

“Am I?”

“Blatz, the Devil did come to see you. He came to dissuade you from being in the race. He would have offered you anything not to go through with it. I am the other side of that token. There are two things in this world that you need to understand, only two things. Good and evil. It is the energy that propels life. Stop the car,” he said suddenly but calmly.

Without question I slam on the brakes. Two MIC cars pass us. A few seconds later the sky blackens for a minute and like an angry fat woman to wretch a child, a tornado rips across the highway, carrying with it a few trees and mutilating the cheap cars that pass us, tearing them to scraps. Tires this way, seats that way, drivers whipped like ragdolls. “In an instant you could be gone. Like them. You lived through the Turk for a purpose and are here in this moment for a purpose. You are the candle.”

“The candle...?”

“This race means much more than you can imagine. It began when Satan and God...” And as I drove he told me the remarkable backstory of the world since 2027, and though I know little about The Bible, I realize that no good ever comes from Satan and God talking. Satan was allowed to inject the world with disasters and disease saying to God that he could ruin mankind in less than twenty years, simply. And God, not too impressed with the world as it was anyway, much like a Willy Wonka believing every person in the world to be a malignant cohort of the infamous Slugworth, took the bet.

“How is it that they will win or lose?”

“Well, if Satan effectually eradicates good from Earth, if humanity is overwhelmingly swayed, morally corrupted, this world is his and the Lord will relinquish it. But he owns property all over the Universe,” the Priest winks. “Earth is the asshole of the Universe.”

“How could that be determined?”

The priest looked at the dash cam. He didn’t elaborate.

“Are you God?” I ask.

“Oh, no,” he laughs. “I am a messenger.”

“An angel?”

“Sure. If you so anoint me of that title, I will not refuse it.”

“And Rusty...?”

“Who?”

“The statue... A World War I statue, in front of the VFW... He spoke to me. Told me to...”

“Oh,” he laughs again taking another drink. His flask is bottomless. “Well, that sounds like God to me. God might have taken his form to speak to you. And you listened! You would be surprised at how many people don’t listen, Blatz. Do you know what your birth name was?”

“I have no idea. Do you know of my birth parents?”

“Yes, I am afraid. Nasty people. May they burn in Hell...”

“What was my name?”

“Heidrich Hail Hitler Gestapo Burns.”

 “Wow. That’s a doozy.”

“Fortunately for you, Captain Flash killed them, saving you and your father. Well, you spit the cyanide out. So you saved yourself. But they helped. You were bare-ass and wrapped in a Nazi flag when Flash found you. He gave you to your father who took you home. And, well, here you are.”

The conversation stalled. I didn’t know what else to say or to ask. I nodded my head and refocused on the road. I was getting comfortable driving through Oklahoma. Indian reservations claimed to still exist on twisted highway signs but who knows if they did. Giant man-made dinosaurs once built to attract tourists to small buildings which sold souvenirs, still existed but look more like tombs. Most were torn in half or knocked over but one blue Tyrannosaurus Rex ominously lurches near the highway. Children would have cried excitably for their parents to stop. Tourists would have their pictures taken at the enormous feet and buy souvenirs while they were here. Handmade dolls or braided jeweled-belts, purses, jewelry, hard candy, so on and so forth. Signs for the casinos remain but they are certainly gone, looted, leveled, and burned to the ground. The Priest turns on the radio. Dole McMillan is still at it and going strong. The old lady plays the organ perfectly enunciating with gentle keystrokes. “In the trial of zombie Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s attorneys are challenging the basis of his prosecution stating that a zombie is not responsible for anything done before death. However, this afternoon, Hitler took the stand in his own defense wearing a gray twill suit and blue tie, with his hair parted neatly and clean-shaven, curiously absent his trademark mustache. He claimed that the Devil made him do it. On the lapel of his sports coat he wore a white carnation. He claims to have been possessed by Satan between 1926 and 1945, but shortly before his death, he found God. A priest in fuhrerbunker took his confession. He didn’t commit suicide, he claims, he was murdered by his wife, Eva Braun, who then took poison, confessed her sins to the same priest and was also forgiven. Asked by prosecutors whether he was in Heaven or Hell during his ninety year hiatus, a wistful Hitler said he was drinking brandy and playing shuffleboard with Charles Dickens in the most beautiful garden imaginable. Hitler spends his time in a small cell crocheting dog sweaters for a local animal shelter. Trial will resume on Monday.”

I stopped to get gas. The automated hose snuck out of the block wall like a python snake, stalking and zigzagging around the car before smartly finding the hole. There were no locking gas caps on cars as there was when Ruby was built because no one has gotten out of the car to pump gas since 2029. Gas was free for Death Racers, of course, so I didn’t need to type in my numbers for credit. The station was like a pillbox; you couldn’t see the face of the attendant inside. I looked at his eyes in the slit suspiciously. He was nervous.

The Priest shook his head, thinking of the news story. “How do you like that? Catholics!”

The attendant spoke from a loud speaker stuck in a giant concrete post on my driver’s side. Any goods would be placed in a capsule and be pumped through a tubular chute. Drive-thru banking was once done this way, I remember my father telling me long ago. “Need cigarettes? Candy? Chewing gum?”

“No, thank you.” I said loudly. Then I turned my attention back to the Priest. “So what about the zombies? Was that Satan, too?”

“No, no. Zombieism is an act of God. Some people deserve a second chance.”

“What? Well, who gets chosen?”

“Those that come back have some unresolved business that they need to take care of. They come back for a reason.”

“Does everything happen for a reason?”

“Everything,” he says confidently.

“I always thought reincarnation was the trick.”

“Ha. Well, you are correct. It is. Have you ever considered that the Universe is so complicated and large that it has room for more than one celestial possibility?”

“I always thought it was all or nothing.”

“That is the problem with you humans. It is always all or nothing with you.”

“You humans...? So what are you?”

“I am as you perceive me. For whatever reason you wanted to see a priest. So I am a priest. You wanted me to have one arm, to be carrying a black bag. Thus, I am. If you wanted me to...”

Just like that the Priest turned into Marilyn Monroe. “Well,” she says in that sultry peroxide-blonde voice, “this is certainly interesting.”

And then into a German Shepherd. “Ruff! Ruff!”

And then into John Lennon. “Imagine!”

Then into Betty Brown. She smiles. Tears in her eyes.

Then to Jana Olavstrauss. Naked except for a leather and metal belt.

Then to Clarence, the angel from the old movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which my father insisted we watch every Christmastime.

Then back to the Priest.

“Of all them I chose you? Why?”

“Who’s to say?” he replies.

In less than a quarter mile from the petro station, just as I shifted to sixth, Ruby slams into a spike strip I didn't see, the wheel spins from my hands, and although it didn’t penetrate the tires we carom out of control and spin violently off the side of the road. I hear clearly the scream of her tires, the miserable whine as she leaves the road reluctantly, and her discomfort with the dirt. I can hear the roaring of the motorcycles that surround us in the instant that follows. I can hear people, maniacal voices, cackles and cursing, gunshots and wild fits of coughing. I must have hit my head on the windshield. I feel woozy and my nose is bleeding. That eyeball on the dashboard is recording it, my last moments. My left arm is pinned between the seat and the door. I can feel the blood trickling down the backside of my arm. We are disqualified if we disabled the cam, so I couldn’t smash it with my free hand. I try to reach for something, anything. I grab a knife from my thigh. I hear boots walking toward me, crushing cinders and ants with every step, spurs jingling. I see Jana Olavstrauss dancing wildly on the back of my eyelids. She makes the same sounds as those spurs. There is a dead scraggly dog in view, maybe a coyote. The Priest must have been thrown from the car. The passenger door hangs open. All that remains on the seat beside me is his flask. I can read the engraving clearly: 

"That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world."