Fiction |
Cahuenga Pass |
Iteration OneWe're going over the Hill, into the Valley. We're leaving OLL WOOD behind for good.
The giant Pomeranian pulling our hollowed-out Barracuda stops, panting. The Hill is steep, and we are heavy. The Pom looks back at us. "Human fat," he says. "Rest now."
"Keep going," I say. I want to make it to Mulholland and the shelter by nightfall, before the Hill-dwellers come out of their bunkers, gaunt and pale, hungry and deranged from inbreeding. Grandpa says the giant Poms and Chihuahuas that run wild south of Sunset are descended from the pets of the original Hill-dwellers--tiny dogs that would fit in a bag. Grandpa says the Hill-dwellers' ancestors were once the princes and princesses of OLL WOOD, so beautiful they had to stay locked behind gates and high fences on the Hill. Grandpa is high on homemade demoral most of the time.
The Pom growls, but he keeps pulling us up the Hill. He owes me this, for his tail--he had sold it to a sex dealer in the bowels of Grove City for the knowledge of English that allowed him to negotiate with the human gang leaders in OLL WOOD. But in gaining a new language, he found that he had lost his most essential means of communication. After two years of searching, I found the tail, strung around the neck of the King of Melrose. On the Night of the Hammers, the King took my brother, but I took the tail, and the Pom owed me his service.
There is no sunset, only a gradual darkening in the ashy sky. Below, we can see abandoned cars on the Cahuenga Pass, victims of the Queen of the Bowl. They must have been newbies--no one takes the Pass anymore. The Queen and her gang control it. As night falls, we can hear the music from the Bowl, the sounds of terrible victory. Unlike the rest of us, the Queen and her gang don't want to leave. They stay because they think they've already won.
Night is falling, and still the Pom pulls us upward. As we crest a rise, we can see the OLL WOOD ruins on our right, unobscured for once by haze. Kate squeezes my hand--she's never seen the sign before, never been this close to the past.
The Mulholland shelter is visible, about a hundred yards up the trail. The sky is nearly black now. The Pom heaves us toward it, snarling.
He hears it before we do: the whine of the Hill-dwellers' electronic tumors. They are on us before I can reach my gun--seven of them, all tall and thin and white, their tumors bulging from behind their ears, sending signals between them. The nearest, a female with grotesquely inflated lips, grabs Kate--I kick, taking her head off, but she has already passed the screaming child to the next Hill-dweller.
"No leash," said the Pom. The Hill-Dwellers, passing Kate back and forth between them, scurry back to their bunkers. I untie the harness from the Pom's back, and he yelps in excitement. He bounds off after the Hill-dwellers, his newly-attached tail wagging fiercely with the joy of effort.
Then there is silence. I wait by the Barracuda, having nothing else to do. The bulbous-lipped Hill-dweller's head lies on the ground next to my foot. I kick it, and it sails in an arc down over the scrub on the side of the Hill.
Then I hear a snarl, and a scream, and a crash. Then a wet crunch, followed by another. Then a long, ragged, primal howl. Then silence. Night has completely arrived, hiding the OLL WOOD ruins once again.
Something comes toward the Barracuda. I reach for my gun. But then the indistinct shape resolves itself into the Pom, carrying Kate between his teeth. Kate smiles, unharmed. The Pom sets her down at my feet, and she grabs my hand. "Thank you," I say to the Pom, but he says nothing. He turns and runs off into the woods.
He brought us to the top of the Hill. We can make it the rest of the way ourselves.
posted by Gardner at 9:02 PM
A friend of mine recently discovered that he has a doppelganger, and, knowing that I'm an expert on such matters (see a few posts below), he asked me for some advice. So here are Gardner's Helpful Hints for Coping with a Doppelganger.
1. If possible, acquire a doppelganger who has
his own action figure.
1a. Corollary to the above: At the very least, acquire a doppelganger who's a B- or C-list celebrity. Don't even try to find one who's on the A-list, because, frankly, you don't look like Tom Cruise or Nicole Kidman. But Ethan Suplee and, in my friend's case, Spike Jonze are attainable and desirable doppelgangers.
1b. Corollary to 1a: You will have at least two doppelgangers. Aside from the aforementioned Mr. Supplee, there was (according to my math-major friends in college) a guy who hung out around the math building who looked like "Gardner on crack." A similar thing has happened to my friend--though he has known for years of his resemblance to Spike Jonze, he recently learned from two distinct sources of a professor who is his exact duplicate, right down to such intangibles as musical taste.
2. If you find that having a semi-famous doppelganger is causing you psychic trauma, you may wish to alter your appearance. A year ago, I was "recognized" on two separate occasions, by two different people, as Ethan Suplee (or, actually, as "that guy from
American History X"). This is because I had a patchy goatee and weighed roughly a million pounds (not to cast any aspersions on Mr. Suplee's physical appearance, but facts are facts). I had always sort of thought of myself as "a thinner Ethan Suplee," but now I was faced with the crushing realization that I was, in fact just " an Ethan Suplee." I soon shaved my goatee and went on a diet.
3. If you meet your doppelganger, do not look him directly in the eye. Remember, he is more afraid of you than you are of him.*
4. If you kill your doppelganger in hand-to-hand combat, you gain his magical powers. What kind of magical powers? There's only one way to find out.
*This only applies if your doppelganger is a bear.
posted by Gardner at 11:44 AM
Thanks to Zane for the following, from the 7/26/03 edition of the
Tulsa World (which requires a paid membership to read anything, or I'd put up a link).
"Goddamn humans. You'd think chewing your own forelegs off would keep you from having to fetch the newspaper anymore, but no, they had to teach me to walk again with the 'power of faith.' We'll see how powerful their faith is when I go down to the unlicensed vet on the corner and have him install prosthetic tasers. Stupid humans. Once all us dogs learn to walk upright, your culture is finished. The caninarchy isn't putting up with fucking American Idol and George W. Bush, I'll tell you that."
posted by Gardner at 1:41 PM
Doug Slade: Temporary P.I. set pictures are up.
Go take a look.
Photo by the wonderful Loredana.
posted by Gardner at 2:03 AM
I must have this.
It won't be available until October. Me want now.
As some of you may know,
Ethan Suplee, the actor immortalized in plastic above, is my doppelganger. Guess which one is which:
posted by Gardner at 2:18 PM
The Gardner Linn Fan Club
forum is now open. Stop by and join the [ahem] party:
http://forums.delphiforums.com/gardnerlinn/start
Forum rules can be found in the "START HERE" thread.
posted by Gardner at 12:51 AM
Gardner wants your fat children.
Or, more accurately, your stories about fat children. Preferably with pictures of fat children (see below for an example). Gardner doesn't exactly know why fat children fascinate him so much, aside from the obvious personal reasons, but they do. News stories about giant four-year-olds wrestling each other (again, see below) are good. Because stories about giant four-year-olds wrestling each other are funny. Especially if they come with pictures. Look at the picture. See? You laughed. It is funny. What is not so funny are the twin epidemics of obesity and diabetes in American children. But Gardner's interested in them too. So tell Gardner about the fat children, and you will be rewarded handsomely. If not now, then after you die. Most likely.
--Jezebel Thrombosis McJeffers, Director of Public Relations, The Gardner Linn Fan Club
posted by Gardner at 11:28 PM 
