The 2008 Blake Review Part One

He was a boy; she was a post-op MTF transsexual. Can it be any more obvious? I know that (that) “it” is ambiguous, but it’s been a long, hard weekend. There have been sleepless nights, pillow fights, sexually confusing initiation rites, and—most of all—Christmas lights.

It all started in rural West Virginia just over fifteen years ago. He was a coal miner's son, squeezed out of the sooty loins of a child bride in a thatched hut on Christmas day, her howls mingling with those of stray coyotes in the hills above. In fact, he had a younger sister who was raised by coyotes for the first eight years of her life. Although she remained feral at heart, she eventually learned the social ways of the human world and found success as a high school ultimate discus player.

He, on the other hand, was born without the gift of athletic prowess. His father refused to come to terms with this, berating the child for his inability to develop bulging lats and glutes by age eight. He was no Richard Sandrak: he could barely complete four pull-ups, and lost in the first round of the second grade arm wrestling tournament to a primordial dwarf with carpal tunnel.

This embarrassment was too much for his father, who turned to the bottle, spiraling downward until, one fateful night, he drank sixteen purple hooters and got arrested for having sex with a picnic table four times in one hour, then smeared his feces all over the back of the police car that carried him off. The local publicity was too much for his poor wife, who whisked the kids away to start a new life in the great state of Minnesota.

She found a job as a sales assistant at the Fantasy Gifts in the Town and Country shopping center in Bloomington, where she met her second future ex-husband, Raymond Cox, who wooed her with erotic gifts: crotchless pantsuits, cashmere thongs, flavored body oils, and more. After a shotgun wedding at the Anoka Knights of Columbus hall, the Coxes moved into a sprawling home in Indian Hills and created a beautiful life for Slim and his still slightly feral sister, Precious.

Five years have passed. Now, Precious is a sophomore at Sarah Lawrence, and Slim is a junior at Edina High School. This is the story of the holiday season experiences of the Cox family in 2008. I hope you enjoy it.

*ACT I*

SCENE I

We begin in the living room of the Cox house, where Raymond’s wife and son are waiting for him to bring Precious back from the airport.

WIFE: It’ll be real cozy with us all here. My mama always said the home and the hearth are like the human womb in the holiday time. Some people may dream of sugar plums, but the sweetest thoughts in my noggin are shaped like cute li’l fetuses.

SLIM: That is so fucking gay. What the fuck is wrong with you, bitch?

WIFE (laughing): I know I’m a bit esoteric, idiosyncratic . . . some have even deigned to refer to me as “wacky.” But that’s what happens when you take a girl from the bucolic outskirts of Yakima, Washington, make her run away from home to escape her stepmother’s crippling dextromethorphan hydrobromide addiction, then set her up with a hard-drinking miner with a taste for light bondage, especially when there’s a full moon or a neap tide.

SLIM: Gross me out! That is some sick shit. Seriously, I’m so glad I haven’t eaten for three days, because I would have just projectile vomited all over your tits.

WIFE: It wouldn’t be the first time, sweetie.

Just then, the doorbell rings. Wife leaps in the air and squeals with delight as Slim lackadaisically throws the door open. Precious and Raymond enter along with a burst of cold air. Precious is wearing pastel pink tights, white fur boots, a vinyl miniskirt, and a sweater with a picture of St. Josephine Bakhita’s stern yet benevolent face on it.

WIFE: My sweet, semi-feral daughter! I’m so glad to see you. My cup runneth over.

SLIM: That’s what she said.

Wife embraces a detached-looking Precious, who growls softly.

SLIM: I was expecting you to look much more lesbo.

PRECIOUS: God, fashion sexual preference identity locationality is so jejune, even the neo-essentialists ask for their goulash, hold the FSPIL.

RAYMOND: Those lesbians sure do like their harnesses, though. They come in and ask for the leather harnesses. I guess the economy hasn’t been too bad for them because they really like to splurge on my high-quality leather harnesses.

SLIM: Subarus must have good gas mileage.

WIFE: I’m going to go check on my baked Alaska. Slim, why don’t you help your sister with her luggage.

SLIM: Is it heavy?

PRECIOUS: It is no heavier than the pendulous testicles of a particularly large steed.

SLIM: You would know!

He grabs a forest green L.L. Bean duffle with the monogram “BWO” and heads upstairs with Precious, who is hauling a trunk plastered with shirtless pictures of “Beautiful Soul”-era Jesse McCartney.

SCENE II

Slim is reclined on a fainting coach in Precious’s bedroom to recover from the exertion of toting her duffle bag upstairs. She is mixing highballs with a vintage stainless cocktail set straight out of “Mad Men.”

PRECIOUS: The whole campus has become a knitting orgy. The frenzied social is merely a woolen happening. People are measuring others’ genitalia to make custom cock socks. I’m not sure if it’s refreshingly unselfconscious or sexually overwhelming. I suppose we have reached an impasse.

SLIM: Dude, that cock sock fad would be pretty cool if it came here.

Precious hands him a cocktail.

SLIM: What is this, Captain coke or some shit?

PRECIOUS: Lord no. It is a virgin brandy stinger.

SLIM: Is that supposed to mean something?

PRECIOUS: What sass! As if the concept of “meaning” can be invoked so casually. It must be right cozy living under the veil of structuralist assumptions. I envy you, really.

SLIM: Bitch, you crazy. But this drank is pretty baller.

PRECIOUS: Yes, few teenage boys can resist the allure of the virgin stinger. In fact, I once knew a lovely coyote called “The Virgin Stinger.” He had the most attractive pouty lips.

She growls suggestively.

SLIM: So, what’s college like? Is everybody constantly fucked up and fucking? My friend Will’s brother who goes to Madison said it was like that.

PRECIOUS: I don’t know what those ignoramus rubes in cheesetown are doing with their time, but Sarah Lawrence is quite civilized. Yes, my roommate was left overnight tied to an Ikea swiveling desk chair, but they made sure she could move her hands enough to smoke clove cigarettes. And anyway, the whole incident was about experiencing the transgression of boundaries, flirting with the erotic kernel of submission.

SLIM: Damn, that makes high school sound pretty lame. The closest thing to that was when that deaf girl got caught giving her deaf boyfriend a blowjob in the language stairwell.

PRECIOUS: Ah, yes. How ironical that was.

WIFE (calling from downstairs): Supper’s ready, children!

Slim and Precious both quickly finish their cocktails and head out.

SLIM: By the way, are you still friends with that one hot bitch, the one with the pink Geo Tracker?

PRECIOUS: You mean Hope?

SLIM: Yeah. I hope I can get inside her pants before New Year’s Day.

PRECIOUS: Actually, she goes by the name of “Boobs Carlisle” now. She’s a stripper at the Vu.

SLIM: Hot damn! We are so headed there tonight. Be still, my beating left testicle.

SCENE III

Precious, Slim, and Slim’s aggressively pubescent friend, Enrico (who goes by the name “Chunky,” which was earned after he was caught doing something at least minimally unsavory with Jif) pull into the Third Street municipal ramp in downtown Minneapolis.

CHUNKY: So, the guy shoves this empty glass jar up his ass, and of course all the guys watching were like, “Whatever.” Like, of course he’s going to shove it up his ass. But then the jar broke and all this blood and shit went everywhere and I started screaming like a bitch and ran to the bathroom because I thought I was gonna throw up but I didn’t so I decided as long as I was already in the bathroom I should probably just beat off.

SLIM: I’m so sick of those videos that start with some guy shoving shit up his ass. That shit is so 2007. The internet needs to have a New Year’s resolution to can it with the objects up ass shit.

CHUNKY: That “sounds” good to me!

Slim high-fives Chunky as they both laugh uproariously. Precious rolls her eyes and delivers a growl of subtle irritation.

They park the car and emerge.

PRECIOUS: It’s colder than Oprah Winfrey’s crotch out here! Bronxville might not be Tahiti but this is just horrific. Why would anyone live here by choice?

SLIM (pointing at Sex World): That’s one reason.

CHUNKY: My brother told me they have free popcorn outside the jack-off booths!

SLIM: Popcorn: America’s healthy snack, now with three hundred percent more protein.

CHUNKY: That is just sick, bro.

PRECIOUS: Before we go in, I want to make sure you guys promise to respect the sex workers. Being a sex worker in the 90’s does not mean you’re happy and free. These bitches have drug problems and most of them probably have the clap and the slightest insult can invoke a violent rage. You don’t want your eyeball torn off by someone’s acrylic bitch nail so keep it polite.

SLIM: How you know so much about whores? Have you been enjoying life south of the border?

CHUNKY: Spending your food money on box lunches?

SLIM: Experimenting with carpet samples?

CHUNKY: Snatch spelunking?

PRECIOUS: Har har har. Your juvenile euphemisms are so witty, I’m stifling a titanic guffaw right now. But actually, I took a class on sex-positive feminism last semester. What an academically bankrupt, essentialist discipline. It almost made me nostalgic for Phyllis Schlafly.

SLIM (to Chunky): Are you sure our fake IDs are going to work?

CHUNKY: Dude, of course. I got them from the same guy in Chinatown who forged a passport for that guy who blew up all those people in Canada last year.

SLIM: It’s just weird that this ID says my name is Michael Cholbi. That sounds really gay and I don’t even fucking know how to pronounce the last name. What’s your name?

CHUNKY: Michael Cera.

SCENE IV

Raymond and Wife sit by a roaring fire enjoying hot buttered rum and gingerbread cookies made with novelty penis and boob cookie cutters from Fantasy Gifts.

RAYMOND: I’m getting worried about that boy of ours. All he does is sit around watching the "World’s Strongest Man" on TV and eating petit fours.

WIFE: You have to understand, honey, that my baby daddy didn’t treat him good. He’s been emasculated so many times. And just look at the contradictory images society projects to teenage boys. They’re supposed to look like Abercrombie models yet walk around in public holding shopping bags with pictures of shirtless Abercrombie models on them.

RAYMOND: That’s why I think he needs to spend some time in a real all-American red-blooded manly man’s place, and I’m not talking about the YMCA locker room. I’m talking about my store. He could earn some pocket money and learn the ropes of the trade.

WIFE: Mixed metaphor aside, are you sure he wouldn’t nearly explode with sexual frustration? He might get all worked up and into a state where the slightest trigger could make him explode. Imagine if that happened in a grocery store, or during square dancing in gym class.

RAYMOND: Insinuating that hours and hours spent among luscious pornographic materials would make a teenage boy sexually frustrated is fundamentally retarded. This is about capitalism, it’s about the economy, and it’s a little bit about leather harnesses, too. But only a bit.

WIFE: I guess we can talk about this with him, but not with that intellectual half-feral feminazi around!

Raymond laughs and nods vigorously.

SCENE V

Precious, Slim, and Chunky share a table at Déjà Vu, sipping Mr. Pibb and watching a stripper wearing a Santa hat and forest green spike heels pole Atlanta-style.

SLIM: You could choke someone to death with those thighs.

CHUNKY: I’ve got something I’d like her to choke!

Boobs Carlisle approaches the table wearing red hot pants with white fur trim and a matching bra.

BOOBS: Precious! Tony said some girl asked for me, but I never thought it would be you.

They embrace warmly.

BOOBS: We could have met somewhere classier.

PRECIOUS: Oh, hooey. I decided to embrace the Xmas spirit and take this little fucker and his friend to see some nice silicon-enhanced tits and heavily waxed bacon strips.

BOOBS: Awww, that’s cute. If either of them wants a lap dance or a table dance or a bed dance, I can suggest some hot bitches.

PRECIOUS: My brother is pretty frail. I think his heart might give out—

SLIM: Fuck you, you half-feral bitch! I get lap dances all the time. I had one the night before you got back.

CHUNKY: Yeah right: you had one right before you woke up in a pool of your own dick juices.

Slim bitch-slaps Chunky, then moans in pain and nurses his hand.

BOOBS: I gotta go get ready for my big number, but if you decide you want some hot one-on-one action, just find Salsa over there.

She points toward a spicy, racially ambiguous woman dressed as a Russian Orthodox nun.

SLIM: I wonder if they touch your unit.

PRECIOUS: Go find out. Just don’t blame me if you die.

SLIM: I’ll show you that I’m a real man right now.

He gets up and walks purposefully toward Salsa.

CHUNKY: USA! USA!

END OF ACT I

Music Releases of 2008

In alphabetical order:

Autodrone: Strike a Match
The Bug: London Zoo
Cold Cave: Painted Nails
The Comas: Spells
Dan Friel: Ghost Town
Dead Leaf Echo: Pale Fire
The Fun Years: Baby, It's Cold Inside
Hauschka: Ferndorf
The Hold Steady: Stay Positive
Paavoharju: Laulu Laakson Kukista
Rustie: Cafe de Phresh
Teenage Filmstars: Star (reissue)

Best corporate music experience: Hearing "Marshmallow World" at Trader Joe's

The 2008 Glenbrooks Review

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The 2008 Apple Valley Review

Sometime over the next seventeen weeks, there will be a major crisis. Nobody knows when or who or how or whether it will interfere with the Young America’s Foundation Valentine’s cruise featuring John Ashcroft, Ed Meese, and other right wing luminaries. Even if you booked your tickets months ago, you may never have the chance to watch the sun set over Vieques while listening to Ashcroft croon a lounge version of “Back That Ass Up.” That’s the nature of crises: like felons, they’re wily and unpredictable; like hooligans, they cause shenanigans—and cockamamie ones at that.

This crisis will be the first major test of Barack Obama’s ability to lead our country. Some say he lacks the experience to lead. Some say his recent comments aimed to deter young men from extensive pants sagging are disingenuous at best. Some say he is a Marxist communist socialist anti-American hater of freedom. We will finally find out when this crisis arrives.

When it does, real Americans will do what they always do: form a line from here to Wasilla and pass buckets of water down that line to extinguish the flames of the crisis. Or some metaphoric equivalent of that. Until then, real America can enjoy itself at the many fine big box establishments in suburban, urban, and exurban areas. What I love is that I can go to Cedar Rapids, or Coon Rapids, or Rapid City, and there will be Chili’s, and Applebee’s. There will also be Red Lobster, but I have a serious shellfish allergy so I normally try not to go there.

Although there are so many big box restaurants I love, I must say my favorite of them all is Old Chicago. Although there are 72 Old Chicagos in 20 states, the one in Apple Valley is special to me for three reasons. First, my favorite waitress, Shellsea, works there. She’s the one with the Sarah Palin hair and accent. Second, it’s where I completed their World Beer Tour, sampling 110 different beers from all over the globe, including Germany, in order to earn a plaque that is proudly displayed on their wall of fame. Third, without checks on government, democracy becomes impossible because the state can ignore or override what people say, making it a prerequisite to all other criteria.

Friday afternoon, I could barely contain my excitement as I headed south on Cedar Avenue. I imaged Shellsea waiting for me, holding a big grilled chicken Caesar with my name on it, and a suggestion from their exciting list of seasonal beers. Unfortunately, though, there was an accident just north of 125th Street: a minibus driven by a sad clown had collided with a school bus filled with chickens. The highway was down to one lane, and it took me 45 minutes to go 20 blocks. I would have to head straight to Apple Valley High School and wait until dinner for OC.

Apple Valley High School is unique among Minnesotan suburban schools in that its design is heavily influenced by recreational psychedelic drug use. Its interior is an explosion of angular, bright-colored design from some forgotten era in the 60s or 70s, created by a team of hippies influenced by the Source cult from Southern California, who practiced vegetarianism and poorly produced free-form psych-rock before it was co-opted by Modest Mouse fans, fashion environmentalists, and gay homosexuals. Not that I have any problem with the gay; like Sarah Palin, some of my best friends are the gay, and as long as they aren’t allowed to get married and Ted Allen is gainfully employed, I’m as happy as a former felon allowed to vote again for the first time, rejoining the community and making a positive difference in the world.

I was privileged enough to spend the day watching and judging fantastic high school debate rounds. I got to hear the brightest young minds of our generation flaunt their extensive knowledge of SAT words, foreign languages (the term “a priori” comes to mind), and that most important skill of all: the ability to present four contradictory positions in seven minutes without wasting time responding to the opposing argument directly. Needless to say, it was a spiritually and emotionally fulfilling day.

To make matters even better, I got to see some of my greatest friends from all over the country. Debate is just one of those activities where you form strong bonds with people; because everyone in the activity is fascinating, unbelievably intelligent, and pathologically competitive, these are the bonds that last a lifetime. During the off-season, we swap shirtless pictures on Facebook, chat on MSN about the housing commission whores and stray Jews in our lives, and wait for the days when we will finally be able to see each other face-to-face again.

When we do meet in person, we exchange hilarious stories about the arguments we hear in debate rounds. These are truly some of the most entertaining stories you will ever hear in your life. One time, we were debating this team from another school that we sort of have a rivalry with, and they tend to run this kind of weird argument by this one post-modernist philosopher. Their cases are based on random books or something. The argument is okay, but we just think it’s weird. Anyway, the story goes on for another 25 pages, but I’ll leave it for another day.

One of my oldest debate friends was judging a very competitive round, and I playfully told him not to fuck up the decision. Immediately, a stunningly fat man wearing a gray Adidas tracksuit ran up to me and said there was no room in the debate community for toilet language, that garbage mouths like me should go back to Mexico to keep America’s children safe from our pernicious influence. “Where are you from?” he asked, threatening to report me to the tournament’s ethics committee.

“St. Louis Park.”

“What a frickin’ surprise,” he said sardonically irreverently.

Even in the face of poorly dressed obese school administrators, hungry for food and power and always trying to impose their formal rigid moralism on us normal debate folks, debate is still the best thing next to arcane Japanese animated erotica.

As the last round of the day concluded, I was sad that the tournament was already half over, but very excited to be minutes away from Shellsea. My last round was in a classroom belonging to a teacher who, like Obama, apparently was consternated by the sagging of the pants, as well as other revealing clothing. The area above the whiteboard was covered in a row of signs with cutesy poems warning children that provocative clothing has no place in a learning environment:

If we can see your thong, you’ve dressed yourself wrong!

If too far you sag, you’ll make them gag!

Keep your ass in your damn pants.

I have to agree with this teacher. Teenagers are already sexually frustrated as it is, but at least most of them can wait until they’re home alone to spend hours surfing the web in a porn cycle, fantasizing about transsexual dwarf amputees or whatever kind of perverse filth is popular with those hairy-palmed adolescent hornbags these days. To them, I say as long as it’s done behind closed doors and does not in any way involve real animals—although stuffed ones or Animatronics are fine—then I don’t care about it and I don’t want to know about it and I don’t want to talk about it.

And don’t get me started on those emos.

Luckily, all these distractions floated away as soon as I entered Old Chicago. It was dreary outside—the coldest day of the year by far with a mix of rain and snow coming down—but entering OC was like returning to the womb, the ultimate homecoming. Shellsea had new lowlights that went well with her uniform, and she enthusiastically hugged me before showing me to my favorite spot at the bar.

“It’s a real chiller outside, isn’t it?” she said. “That’s what ya get living in Minnesota though. They say that under all this Minnesota nice is a real tough cookie.”

“Preach it to me, sister! Now let’s hear about your seasonal beer specials.”

“Ooh, we’ve got some real exciting choices this time. There’s a Winter Warmer from Rooftop Brewery in New Ulm, and of course Autumnal Fire’s always good for what ails ya.”

“Especially if what ails ya is sobriety!” I said.

She cackled with laugher as I chose a stout from Wisconsin. I once knew a man who married a stout from Wisconsin, and boy could I tell you stories about him.

Digressions aside, the evening was as great as I expected—at least until a rowdy group of high school robotics coaches came in. Apparently there was a robotics tournament at Eastview High School. Those damn robotics people always show up to piss on your fiesta. They take money away from debate teams, and they treat us like doo-doo. They’re so classless, too. All the coaches were slamming Purple Hooters and loudly talking about their favorite techniques for pleasurable robot programming. I don’t want to hear about some robot scaring burglars away when I’m trying to focus on enjoying a chicken Caesar.

So I ignored them. Dire Straits was on the stereo, the food was enticing, and I anticipated another day of stimulating debate rounds ahead. After returning home, with a full belly and some leftover buffalo shrimp fettuccini for a midnight snack, I was thankful that real America was still just what is was: real! I fell asleep immediately and had dreams about Sarah Palin baking a variety of dessert bars for an American Legion meeting.

Next day number two: It was colder than Fred Phelps at a Bette Middler concert outside, but that didn’t dampen my spirits a bit. Apple Valley High School was abuzz with competitors and coaches anticipating the first round of the day. As the preliminary rounds come to a close, there are always many epic battles, debates so good that judges have to periodically stop taking notes and simply marvel at the pure logic and intelligence saturating the atmosphere.

After round seven, the novice and junior varsity debaters returned from their respective off-site locations, and instantly the cafeteria was crowded with little kids screaming and crying and biting each other. I escaped to a remote corner of the school to talk about poker strategy with my friends. Stories about poker are almost as prevalent—and certainly as interesting—as those about debate rounds when you’re with forensics people. I was reminiscing about the time I had a big chick in the pocket and everything was looking fantastic until the river delivered a bad beat.

“That totally sucks, man.”

“Speaking of total suckage, I have a hilarious story about what happens when an open limp and a nut hand come together.”

“Is that the one with the donkey with the pocket rocket?”

“Oh, damn! I’ve already told you guys that one. That was my best story.”

And it was a great story. Real America is filled with real Americans and their great stories. If you don’t ask, though, they might not tell them.

After a delicious lunch of walking tacos and juice boxes, it was time for the announcement of which debaters had fought through the field and earned a spot in elimination rounds. The tension was incredible, but it was delightful to see the joyful reactions of those who made the cut. A novice from Scarsdale screamed out in thanks to his Rabbi when his name was announced, and another debater collapsed and started speaking in tongues.

Naturally, the elimination rounds were exciting to watch, difficult to judge, and took place in rounds filled with hygienically challenged kids. The temperature rose to Old Chicago levels, but instead of the delicious smell of pizza and beer, it smelled more like the locker room at a gym for gutter punks.

The rounds progressed toward finals, a match between two debaters that I had no interest in, so I left with my friends for our big night at Old Chicago. I always like to spend the first night there myself, for the pure experience and to reconnect with Shellsea, and save the second night for a communal blast. We sat at our usual round table, ordering several pitchers of Autumnal Fire and the app sampler with onion sticks, freedom fries, broccoli shooters, popcorn beef, and their famous spinach-artichoke dip with bacon, ranch, and corn nuts.

“Remember that time when that one debater had a value of that of teamwork?”

“What a retard!”

“Dude, I know. I haven’t heard anything that stupid since someone went for four-minutes straight Malthus good after the NC ran a spark blip after three Stav off-cases and a phil spec.”

“I haven’t seen a dump like that since the morning after my last dinner at Fogo de Chao!”

“Ho ho ho ho ho ho!”

“That reminds of the time when someone was running felon voting leads to nuke war with that Berube card, and they dropped a McIntyre a priori but still picked up two judges who thought the magnitude was sufficient or some shit.”

“That’s like when the brink overwhelms uniqueness with Wittgenstein hits someone running the gift K in front of mommy judges from Alabama.”

“Or like Mouffe. I mean, how can you take it seriously if her name is Mouffe. What’s next, Wang?”

“Better yet: Schlong.”

“Ho ho ho ho ho ho!”

It was a night to remember, a night in real America, the America we real Americans live in, where we drink American beer and eat American pizza and listen to good old American rock and roll. We are young and old, smart and smarter, men and women, straight and bi-curious, but our love of debate brings us together and keeps us that way forever.

That’s why I know that a year from now, despite how many crises occur in the interim, I will be back with my friends, my Shellsea, my grilled chicken Caesar, and a big smile on my face.

Dedicated to all my boyz in the community. Be real 4ever. Keep your RFD’s straight and your sexual relationships straighter. LOL & pz out 4-reals—

-Gelf-Dawg ‘08

The 2008 Iowa Caucus Review

On Halloween morning, a group of students and adult supervisors from the Twin Cities area met in the parking lot of St. Paul Central High School. They were expecting to spend an enjoyable holiday weekend in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, The City of Five Seasons. This seemingly paradoxical motto is, in fact, a reference to the Chamber of Commerce’s belief that time spent in their fair city is “a time to enjoy life, to enjoy the other four seasons.” Whether or not this makes sense is a question for the ages, like the chicken and the egg, or the Jew and the Cocker Spaniel. What is undoubtedly true, though, is that Cedar Rapids is all about enjoyment: enjoy your time, your life, your friends, and yourself. Since at least some of those are activities high school students tend to enjoy, the trip was a highly anticipated one.

That excitement only mounted—no pun intended—when their bus drove up. It was a futuristic, stainless steel bullet with white leather upholstered seats, individualized flat-screen televisions, and a talking toilet seat in its bathroom. The windows were so advanced that the diagrams instructing riders how to open and close them were completely incomprehensible. They may as well have been in Swahili. For all we know, maybe they were in Swahili. The right side of the bus had a pulsating LCD screen advertising the name of the bus company, Bus Daddy.

Before setting off toward central Iowa, the bus driver, whose nametag simply read “Justice,” laid down the ground rules. “What you got here is more than just a nice sturdy bus, the kind of bus a family could call a home away from home, away from the gridlock and shenanigans of the rat race. It’s my home away from home, and when you’re in my home or my home away from home or my home away from home away from home, you gotta follow three rules. Number wonderful, don’t throw any women’s products—if you catch my menstrual drift—in the shitter. Number two, put your garbage in the bags or the cans or up your craphole for all I care; just don’t put it on the floor. And the most important rule: for the love of all things holy, do not bring any beverage on the bus unless it is in a container with a screw-on top.”

That syntax elicited a flurry of giggles from the younger students, who misinterpreted the phrase “screw-on top” as something salacious. Just before the bus pulled away, a late straggler ran onboard, holding a large handbag and a Stein of Oktoberfest beef. “Stop it right there, young man. You are in blatant disregard of the rules. You gotta finish that drink outside before you get on the bus. Only screw-on tops!” The confused teen stepped back outside, quickly drained the rest of his brew, and threw the stein into nearby bushes. “Thank you,” Justice said, and the journey began.

The sights, sounds, and smells of late autumn in Iowa entranced and occasionally repulsed the group, or at least those who were unable to sleep through the waves of skunk odor, piercing morning sun, and horrible classic rock emanating from the laptop of some idiot who thought it appropriate to impose his taste in music on everyone else.

Just before noon, the bus pulled into an empty parking lot near the corner of 16th Street and 1st Avenue, near Pizza Daddy, a particularly ghetto Hy-Vee, the rollerblading dart players’ club, and Tobacco and Liquor Daddy, a popular store among the area’s college student and hobo populations. After a restorative meal, everyone regrouped to check into their hotel, the downtown Crowne Plaza, before heading to their tour headquarters, Franklin Middle School. One of the ninth graders attempted to get on the bus with a canned martini from Tobacco and Liquor Daddy, but Justice made him finish the refreshing cocktail before joining the rest of the screw-top rule followers.

Guy, one of the adult supervisors of the group, led his group of students to their room and quickly unpacked his various silk turtlenecks for the weekend before returning to the bus. Their departure was briefly delayed by a child wielding a juice box of wine, but Justice was vigilant as ever and the screw-on rule remained unbroken, much like the spirit of a wily felon having finished his sentence, a punishment that was necessary to respect the moral agency of the criminal, who doubtlessly chose to commit the crime knowing full well he would be caught and deservedly punished and disenfranchised, since there are no socioeconomic factors that could possibly problematize the view of crime as a totally autonomous internal choice.

Franklin Middle school was smack dab in the middle of the west side of the east half of Cedar Rapids, not far from Pizza Daddy, Washington High School, and a golf course ringed with upscale homes, decorated for Halloween with plastic glowing skeletons, devils, and Democratic politicians. Come election day, while felons are rightly reminded that they should not and do not have a say in elections, we’ll see who will ultimately, at the end of the day, when all is said and done, get the very final last laugh. Mark my words: we will see.

Built in 1923, Franklin was originally a junior high school, then a high school, then a junior high school again, and finally transitioned to its current role in the mid-70’s, after the explosive growth in the colonic health industry brought so many jobs and dollars into the once-suffering city. A stately brick building with neo-Gothic concrete details and entrances still marked separately for boys and girls, up and down staircases, and shadowy nooks and corner, Franklin’s eerie charm was undeniable.

The group convened in the theater, which was decorated for the fall musical, “Life: A User’s Manual,” based on the classic novel by Georges Perec. The stage was trimmed with large jigsaw puzzle pieces, and decorated to resemble a gracious drawing room inside an affluent apartment on Paris’s Boulevard Housemann. Ernestine Crawford, a lifelong Cedar Rapidian and feisty octogenarian with the gravelly voice of a woman not inexperienced with unfiltered cigarettes, introduced herself as their guide.

“My parents named me Ernestine after my great uncle Bootsy, who died in the great flood of 1934, when I was younger than any of you are. It happened exactly 74 years ago, this very weekend. Families were homeless for weeks, wishing the government could come in and give them a nice sturdy boat. When Katrina hit New Orleans, us survivors here knew just how they felt: like us, but far, far less white.”

Speaking of racial politics, Cedar Rapids has become quite diverse in the past couple of decades, and fully 26 percent of their black male population are unable to vote because of felon disenfranchisement laws, but there’s no way to stop racism because you would have to dismantle the entire government, and that would lead to anarchy.
“We’re going to spend the rest of the afternoon,” Ernestine continued, “watching a film about the history of Cedar Rapids, narrated by 90’s dance music star Gilette. Then you’ll have time to explore the city before you go back to your hotel for whatever illicit activities you stupid kids do when you’re away from your parents. Damn out of control juvenile delinquent fuckers. In my day, you would have been hung from a post in the town square for a fortnight, and that’s just for starters.”

The video was indeed stirring. Guy hadn’t seen anything this engrossing since the finale of Season Three of “Australia’s Next Top Model,” when Jane showed her roots as a lesbian dark-haired bitch. She and Steph H. were soy bad at modeling. A teen couple in the back of the auditorium were not as rapt, focusing instead on caressing each other’s perfect hips and thighs. Soon enough, they crept out of the theater, heading to the top floor of the school to find a deserted staircase where they could sex.

Near the end of the film, Guy thought he heard a piercing scream, but he wasn’t sure if it was coming from somewhere in the school or the video, which was covering the FBI raid of the notorious Irish strip club O’Boobigan’s, the scene of the most filthy vice Cedar Rapids had seen since the Prohibition era.

After the video, the group returned to the bus, which was finally not delayed by someone brashly violating the screw-on rule, but instead by the absence of two students: the very two students who had left the film to sex. Attempts to phone them proved fruitless, much unlike a Cher concert. The supervisors split into teams and searched the school, a search that ended with a gruesome discovery of two exsanguinated bodies. Their young lives, so full of potential and spirit, had been crushed like a pound of pancakes.

The next morning, two obituaries were prominently featured in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. One of them read: “Congratulations to Tina for a lifetime of accomplishments, including once going 3-3 at a high school debate tournament as a freakin’ junior, and finishing third in a statewide coloring contest at the age of eight. Tina is succeeded by her parents, Christi and Christ, and her older brother Bubba.” The other obituary was in Swahili.

At the morning meeting at Franklin, the mood was somber, tense, saturnine, sinuous, and somewhat inquisitive. Ernestine assured the group that everything was being done to find the evil killer, but there was a hint of disingenuousness in her voice, although that could have been a stray tobacco chunk lodged in her soft palate. Guy raised his hand and asked, “This situation is dead serious, ladies and germs. Riddle me this: How are we going to find who, or what, is responsible for this abortion of that of justice?”

“I made it through the Great Depression, the Great Flood, and the Reagan Era. I can make it through this, and so can you,” Ernestine said.

“Dude, that doesn’t answer my question. Stop trying to weasel your way out of a sticky wicket and—damn it, woman—put your money where your mouth is.”

“I’m getting there,” she said, sounding less than confident. “But right now, I have a more pressing need.” She excused herself and hurried to the female bathroom. A shoe, presumably attacked to a prone body, peeked out from one of the stalls. “Damn elbow-benders and their Halloween hijinks,” she muttered under her breath, expecting to find a passed out drunk bitch. But when she opened the door, what she found was far more troubling: the third victim, exsanguinated, white as a sheet, dead, gone, murdered, killed, gone to a better place, to meet her maker.

Seventeen minutes later, the police arrived on the scene, still with no leads on the first two murders. Sheriff Troons departed from his minibus and surveyed the scene. There was no visible evidence of horseplay or other shenanigans, so his deputies bagged up the body to take back to headquarters. Feeling angry and endangered, Guy asked for a ride back to the hotel, and Troons was happy to oblige. As he sped through the streets, nearly killing a jogger and taking out a lamppost, he told Guy something fascinating: Franklin was rumored to be haunted.

“To be perfectly honest,” Troons said, “I always thought it was hooey, but my daughter said she heard weird noises there, and three of her friends saw the ghost of an old woman in a wheelchair. It scared the living shit out of them, and they really seemed to believe it was real. Sometimes I don’t know what to believe.”

“In an age where felons retain the right to vote in some jurisdictions, I don’t believe anyone who doesn’t say they don’t know what to believe. But riddle me this: why the haunting? Did something happen on that site?”

“That is one darn tootin’ good question.”

“Fuck the hotel. Take me to the library.”

Troons immediately swung a u-turn, causing a hearse to careen into a ditch. “Ironical, that!” he said, laughing maniacally.

Guy spent the next several hours reading old issues of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, determined to find a story about Franklin that would explain the alleged paranormal activity there. His breakthrough came from a 1974 issue, commemorating Franklin’s 41st anniversary. It was just a sentence, a simple reference to something that happened there during the flood. “Things lost in flood” had to mean something. It had to hold the key.

With trembling fingers, Guy fed the October 1934 roll of microfiche into the machine, and scrolled to October 31. There was nothing there, so he tried November, and everything became perfectly clear.

During Prohibition, a bunch of sots and hoochers started a speakeasy in the basement of Franklin Middle School. Its unlikely location led to great success, particularly among the elderly and infirm residents of the enormous Mercy Care Center on nearby 1st Avenue. The weekend of Halloween 1934, the speakeasy was packed with drunkards, dancing and singing and having a generally gay old time, but when the flood started, the emphasis was on “old,” because the able-bodied ran for the hills—literally—while the incapacitated elderly citizens were deserted. With no way to escape, they shrugged and poured another round: a farewell toast to life, and to the great beyond.

Guy turned off the machine and realized he was ravenous, so he ordered a cab from Taxi Daddy and headed to Gringo’s Mexican Eatery for a margarita and a sizzling fajita platter. Before he could finish his drink, the phone rang with more tragic news: there were five more victims, and for the first time, an eyewitness survivor: a young girl in shock, muttering about a posse of ghosts chasing her down the hall in wheelchairs.

It was obvious there was only one thing to be done: get Troons, the police’s ghost hunting unit, and Ernestine, and make the ghosts show themselves. But first, there was a sizzling fajita platter with Guy’s name on it, written in fresh guacamole and queso, and it was time to take a big bite.

Later, at midnight on the dot, the ghost hunting posse crept into Franklin Middle School though the girls’ entrance, thinking that might be the first way to disturb the ghosts. That explained why Ernestine was wearing a men’s suit and a rubber Richard Nixon mask. They stuck together, walking down the stairs leading to the basement, shouting disparaging ageist and anti-alcoholic remarks in the hopes of getting a rise out of their nemeses.

“You dirty old boozehounds deserved to die!”

“Washed out in a flood of booze, and then a flood.”

“No offense, but I seriously hate all old people.”

A piercing noise, like broken glass and guitar feedback played backwards through blown speakers, ripped through the room. The hunters all froze in terror. A pale green light appeared from the top of the stairs, and an old man on a flying wheelchair slowly descended. Drops of water from his hair and his chair left a trail on the floor.

“We knew you would come, you who dare taunt the victims of the flood. All we want is peace, not a bunch of stupid kids walking all over our territory. We’ve shown you fair warning, yet you didn’t listen. So now you must die.”

The walls began to crumble as dozens of wheelchairs surrounded the group, creeping ever nearer. It was like the “Thriller” video, only not as popular with Filipino felons, whose disenfranchisement reflects the government’s need to exclude citizens who fail to respect the social contract. Guy opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. A pale, bony, moist hand approached his throat.

*

“Wake up, Guy,” a cheerful voice said. It was Tina, Christ’s daughter, a frickin’ junior who was riding the bus to Cedar Rapids with him. “We’re already here. It’s dinner time.”

They had stopped on Collins Road to enjoy a variety of big box options before their first night in Cedar Rapids. The Perkins Guy chose was handsomely decorated for Halloween, and Sasha, the waitress, served up soft drinks and chicken Caesars with élan.

After dinner, the bus was about to leave when a latecomer ran aboard holding a goblet of red wine. “For the last time, finish that outside. The screw-top rule is not optional,” Justice said.

The bus dropped the group off at Franklin Middle School, where their tour of Cedar Rapids was to begin with a historical video followed by a Halloween derive. But Guy was too disturbed by his dream to pay attention to the video, and left to check out Pizza Daddy. There was a full moon outside and the streets were empty, save two masked trick-or-treaters running away from 1st Street.

Guy turned onto it, crossing 19th, which took him to the Mercy Center. Outside the building, behind a wrought iron fence, a row of men and women in wheelchairs, wrapped in white blankets, stared silently at Guy. The wheelchairs were lined up, single file, and spanned the entirety of the long block: behind, ahead, and right where he was. Their dead eyes stared not at Guy, but into him.

Ten Halloween Movie Suggestions

Unfortunately, Killer Workout (AKA Aerobicide) is only available on VHS and very hard to find, but here are 10 horror film suggestions for the upcoming holiday weekend:

1. SLEEPAWAY CAMP

The transcendent Felissa Rose stars as Angela, a quiet camper hiding a secret that may or may not have something to do with her deranged aunt, a tragic boating accident, or the unbelievably tight and revealing clothes the male campers at Camp Arawak wear. Her cousin saunters into the mess hall in a cowboy hat and gets in a slap fight with a bunch of guys. A boiling cauldron of corn kills a pervy cafeteria worker. Did I mention the clothes?

2. MASSACRE IN DINOSAUR VALLEY

Sometimes labeled incorrectly as a sequel to Cannibal Ferox, this questionably dubbed tropical trash-fest focuses on a somewhat random group of people whose plane crashes in Indian territory. Will the Vietnam vet with the alcoholic Julie Masking-lookalike wife snap? Will the brothers who look like Zagat from Street Fighter II resurface? Will someone explain why there is so, so, so much unnecessary nudity? Will that obnoxiously repetitive steel drum soundtrack go away?

3. PIECES

This Spanish delight, directed by Jean Piquer Simon--whose oeuvre also includes Slugs and Mystery on Monster Island--centers on a college campus where someone is killing and chopping up young women. Featuring the most riveting delivery of the word "bastard" ever captured by celluloid, Pieces is also a brilliant psychoanalytic text, a quaint commentary on homosexuality in the early 80's, and very unusual clothing, a recurring theme in its genre.

4. THE SEVENTH CURSE

A truly surrealistic Honk Kong fantasy horror movie from the director of the unimpeachable Riki-Oh, The Seventh Curse is a rare opportunity to watch Maggie Cheung and Chow Yun-Fat together before they were superstars. The convoluted plot involves a jungle tribe, supernatural flying monsters, the fantastic Old Ancestor, and too much more to mention.

5. THE GRUESOME TWOSOME

A crazed wigmaker who talks to a stuffed cat terrorizes coeds who spend their days at the beach and their nights eating buckets of KFC at slumber parties. It's 1967 and these are the contents of Herschell Gordon Lewis's brain. As usual, he's put together hilariously incompetent actors, overlong gore scenes that are almost shockingly unrealistic, and inexplicable stylistic flourishes like an opening discussion between two bewigged foam heads in a shop window.

6. THE BEYOND

Lucio Fulci's New Orleans zombie gross-out experience features poisonous spiders, eyeball scenes, acid corroding skin, and a spicy soundtrack.

7. NIGHT OF THE COMET

Valley girls navigate immediately post-apocalyptic Los Angeles and remain totally bitchin'.

8 and 9. NIGHTBEAST and SHRIEK OF THE MUTILATED

One has the most unrealistic laser effects and thick Baltimore accidents. The other has full frontal male nudity. I won't tell you which is which.

10. TROLL 2

Jaw-dropping.

The Antichrist