I stepped into the American Opinion Bookstore on Garnet, next to the barber shop that had the toy hair clippers still in the package yellowing in its front window, and looked at the 80 year old matron, a riot of wrinkles and mystery creases, who wore a Goldwater sun visor. I asked if they had any books by Gary Allen. She said yes. "God damnit all the fucking hell" I said, "is this the American I know, when I man can walked into a store and get served bullshit brisket at the nod of a head? You make me sick, Madam" I informed her, and then walked into the night air, which was dark and wet and filled with gas fumes and traces alcoholic drink .
Walking briskly towards the Licorice Pizza, I brushed past John G. Schmitz, who was engaged in executing a meaningless hand gesture in tandem with Phyllis Schlafly. He gave me a crazy cockeyed grin as he crinkled up his thin black moustache, mumbling, "We must stop Socialism one twitch at a time..."
I was having none of this flatulent version of righteous backbone and poked this guy in the shoulder, smack dab in the middle of the recycled Zoot jacket he took off a stoned JiveFiver in 53. " See that billboard across the street" I asked. His gaze drifted from my punishing glare and tried to focus on the billboard through the streaking blue and gold trail left by Detroit's wretched progress. He nodded. "See the building under the billobard" I asked. "Fuck you" he said, "all I need to do is get five more signatures and the RotoRooter guy next door to me is a cinch for the school board". He tapped his pencil his legal pad , his face resembling something more in the line of a sunday crossword puzzle done in a blunt magic marker. I decked him,."I AINT GOT NO USE FOR YOUR RED APPLE JUICE." The slobering cretin collapsed like ten stories of glass tile. I looked up from the mess thsi messenger had become and spotted the masses, the Doodletown Pipers, marching up the center of the otherwise dark Garnet avenue."Do you know the way to Maynard"s?" Maynard's was, of course, reserved only for Gus Hall Marxist Scrimshaw gnawing internationalist scrone bags, so I stopped the mass of inane folk music and directed them instead to Cap'n Bs Old Place, where they could find the Cap'n himself gurning for drinks from a from plaster Clydesdale.
Down at Tug's, the Sam Yorty Caucus was planning a putsch of the local Democratic Party that would begin when everyone put down their fork at the upcoming Cobb Salad Social. Hesitant to alter the course of history, I went over to the Big Bear and stocked up on Ruskets Cereal, Squirt and Jonny Cat, preparing for Richard Nixon's second term. On my way out I ran into the old lady I'd encountered at the American Opinion Book Store. Her eyes glinted hard and sharp like tiny flecks of mica; tiny fountains of spittle foamed at the corners of her mouth. "I was just kidding earlier," I said. "Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice..." I then pulled down my pants and blacked out for something like 42 years.
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