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CRANKYBLANCA
Chapter 19: Panic in the Streets
RBB [voiceover]: We were all exhausted and we were all fed up with the case and with one another. I can't come up with any other reason why Princess and I went to visit Doc Rochelle at the medical examiner's office and stood by while she did the autopsy on Bulworth. Even Doc Rochelle, who usually seemed so unflappable and good-humored, was beginning to fray at the edges.
DOC ROCHELLE: You two just stay over there and don't bother me unless I tell you it's OK to talk. I tell you, this job will be the death of me.
RBB [voiceover]: Princess and I exchanged glances at that, but we decided to keep quiet just as she asked us to. My resolve was tested when she started singing while using her bone saw. It was to the tune of the theme song from the old sitcom "Mr. Ed," and its jaunty melody contrasted terribly with the expression of horror that Bulworth's death had stamped on his face.
DOC ROCHELLE: I am so frustrated by this case that I've made up this song to sing to myself as I work:
A corpse is a corpse, of corpse, of corpse
And no one but me can address a corpse,
Unless, of corpse, that corpse, of corpse,
Is the famous Mr. Dead.
Go right to the source, of corpse, of corpse,
Unless it's an athlete like old Jim Thorpe.
It'll be a soggy, putrid corpse
But not like Mr. Dead!
Most of my corpses will sag and stink
And rot the day away,
But Mr. Dead will never rot
Until he has something to say!
So talk to the corpse, of corpse, of corpse,
This jaunty, mysterious, fresh new corpse,
And this here corpse, you see, of corpse,
Is the famous Mr. Dead!
RBB: It's ... catchy.
PRINCESS OF PMS: It has ... a macabre quality about it.
DOC ROCHELLE: If I'm not careful, I'll end up like that whacko medical examiner in L.A. who helped screw up the O.J. Simpson case.
RBB: Doc, come over here for a second.
DOC ROCHELLE: I don't have time, Richard; I have an autopsy to finish.
RBB: Doc, it's important. Nothing should be more important to you than this right now.
RBB [voiceover]: She tore off her gloves and headed for me, murder in her eye. Then she stopped dead, as with one hand I flourished a beautiful photo of her husband and daughters and with the the other hand I extended her office phone to her.
RBB: Call them now, and remind yourself that there's life and love and health somewhere in the world. You need to do this.
DOC ROCHELLE: Oh ... thanks. I will. Right now.
RBB [voiceover]: While she was on the phone, occasionally laughing and sometimes cooing endearments to the little ones, I looked at the photo, and Princess looked over my shoulder.
PRINCESS OF PMS: Lovely family.
RBB: Yes. She's lucky. Sometimes I wish ... but never mind.
PRINCESS OF PMS: Still thinking about her, are you?
RBB: It hasn't even been two months, Princess. It's hard to turn off a train of thought just like that, let alone feelings.
PRINCESS OF PMS: I know, Richard, I know.
RBB [voiceover]: Once Doc Rochelle had hung up the phone, it was as if she were ten years younger. She set to work on the late Bulworth with a will, and before long she let out an "Aha!" We found her looking at the viewscreen of her pride and joy, her scanning electronic microscope.
RBB: You have something?
DOC ROCHELLE: I do indeed. Bulworth was infected with an AI nanovirus. The damn thing seems intelligent enough to understand speech, and when Bulworth had said enough to make clear that he was selling his pals out, the virus went to work demolishing him from inside.
PRINCESS OF PMS: My God.
DOC ROCHELLE: They probably infected all the members of the conspiracy. There is probably an antidote, because this is an engineered nanovirus, but still ... this means that we'll never take any of them alive, as far as I can tell, unless we can trick them into giving us the antidote, or into administering it to themselves.
RBB [voiceover]: Just then Princess's cellular phone bleeped. She answered, listened for a second, and then went pale. I'd seen that reaction too many times, and each time it was bad, bad news. I steeled myself. She turned to me, and announced the bad tidings in a voice as dead as Bulworth.
PRINCESS OF PMS: That was Ivan. We have to get to Cranky's right away. There's a riot in progress.
RBB [voiceover]: We piled into Princess's car and burned rubber heading back to Cranky's Cafe Americain. We pulled up in the alley behind the building, and went in the back door. Philm Phan met us there, surrounded by four Crankyland police officers..
PHILM PHAN: A rumor seems to have started that Crankyland will be destroyed in forty-eight hours, and the Crankizens are running wild.
OFF. MASTERLESS: It's bad out there, Professor. They're screaming threats and brandishing clubs and everything.
OFF. CONVENOR: Yes. It's as bad as the scene at the climax of FRANKENSTEIN when the mob is closing in on the castle.
PRINCESS OF PMS: Who's out there controlling the mob?
OFF. MASTERLESS: Sergeant BookWorm and Officers Nicky, Homeboy, and Beelzebubba, but they have their hands full, and they're being assisted by Wolfman and his boys from Cranky's Cafe security.
RBB: You and we had better get out there, too.
RBB [voiceover]: We headed towards the front door of the cafe, but we stopped at the security office, where Jason Cranky himself handed out stun guns and riot gear. I looked narrowly into his eyes; he was exhausted and depressed, so depressed as to be devoid of hope. I grabbed his arm and pulled him aside for a moment.
RBB: Talk to me, Crankster.
JASON CRANKY: It's all over, Richard. We've been hit over and over again -- people killed, raids on the Cafe, me shot, an attempt on Hans's life, and now this. Why should I keep fighting any more?
RBB [voiceover]: I didn't know what to tell him, and then I remembered something that was quoted to me by the woman who would not leave my heart even though she'd left my life.
RBB: Jason, remember something that Winston Churchill once said: "When you're going through hell, keep going."
RBB [voiceover]: He managed a faint smile at that.
Armed and outfitted, we headed to the front door and eased our way through it. It was a madhouse. There were maybe a couple of hundred Crankizens, screaming and chanting.
MOB: We WON'T be DOOMED. We WON'T be DOOMED. We WON'T be DOOMED. We WON'T be DOOMED. We WON'T be DOOMED. We WON'T be DOOMED.
SGT. BOOKWORM: Please disperse, ladies and gentlemen. There's nothing going on here, and you ought to go about your business.
RBB [through bullhorn]: Nobody's going to be doomed! This little display will solve nothing. Go back home, please!
VIOLET BEAUREGARDE: We don't want to die!
FAT_ED: No, we don't want to die!
SGT. BOOKWORM: Nobody's going to die unless somebody here does something transcendently stupid!
GODMOTHER: Everybody knows this place is doomed! What is Cranky going to do about it?
SMITTY_MARINE: He's not going to do ANYTHING about it!
RBB [through bullhorn]: If you panic, this place *is* doomed!
BICKLE: You're safe. You've got someplace to run. What about US?
OFF. BEELZEBUBBA: Professor, they're not going to listen to you.
OFF. NICKY: This is the ugliest-looking crowd I've ever seen.
RBB [through bullhorn]: The authorities have all of this under control, so just go back to what you were doing before you all freaked out, OK?
RATT: You're a know-it-all, but you don't know what's going to happen, do you?
LIQUID-SUNSHINE: You're just another Crankyland elitist; you cower in your basement while the rest of us will be doomed!
SGT. BOOKWORM: Please, folks, just go home. Nobody is doomed! Nobody's going to die!
FIERCE MOLLY: You're just another solemn jerk. If we're going to be doomed, let's all embrace it! Everything is funny! Come on, people! Say it with me!
MOB: EVerything is FUNNY! EVerything is FUNNY! EVerything is FUNNY! EVerything is FUNNY! EVerything is FUNNY! EVerything is FUNNY! EVerything is FUNNY!
OFF. HOMEBOY: Oh, crap. All we need -- a Discordian mob.
RBB [voiceover]: It was looking bad. People were starting to throw things -- at first just some rotten fruit here and there, but occasionally I heard a stone or a brick bouncing off the walls of the cafe. Fortunately, Eamon J Doyle had thrown closed the switch that activated the hurricane shutters, so no windows were broken. If one had been broken, that sound would have touched off the mob and nothing could have controlled it.
Then I heard the sound of a powerful automobile engine. I looked in that direction and I saw the "geodesy for President" van being driven by the candidate herself. She leaned on the horn, and the mob's concentration was broken. They looked up and saw the van heading straight for them, and the crowd parted, with people pushing and shoving to get out of the way. The van pulled up, just in front of the front doors, and geodesy got out and climbed onto its roof. She stood there, and her commanding presence somehow began to quiet the crowd. She waited until things had settled down, and then she pulled a cordless microphone from her blazer pocket.
geodesy: You're a *fine* group of Crankizens. You hear a rumor that something bad is going to happen, and you all start running around like chickens with their heads cut off, and somehow you get the lame idea that you'll accomplish something by storming this place. Well ... so what *would* that accomplish? Does anyone here have an answer?
grundle: It will get rid of the government that's trying to oppress us! The free market will come up with all the answers we need to fight for our lives!
JabBerwoCk: Oh, shut up already with that. Everybody is sick and tired of that crap!
geodesy: Is that the best you people can do to justify what you're doing?
FIERCE MOLLY: Everything is FUNNY!
geodesy: Oh, really? Suppose I were to belt you across the mouth. Would THAT be funny?
J_SMITHERS, ESQ.: Who cares about that? Do we want our fate entrusted to that blowhard academic who can't do so all he does is teach?
geodesy: So what have you ever done, little man? You show up here only to rag on people and, when the going gets tough, you skedaddle. None of you has earned the right to tear this place down. You can criticize, you can carp, you can nitpick, but NONE of you has earned the right to tear this place down. So knock it off and go back to what you were doing. Because if you are going to continue with this mob crap, you're going to have to come through all of us.
RBB [voiceover]: By this time, Wulfgar and Ivan and Philm Phan had come outside, armed to the teeth. And with them were Captain Hunter and Lieutenants JYD and zeppo, who had driven up quietly while geodesy were speaking. They also were fully armed and wearing riot gear. The cold professionals swept the crowd with measuring eyes. I could feel the tension ... and then it broke.
JabBerwoCk: Let's admit it, people. We were fools, and we were wrong. Let's go back to doing what we usually do at Crankyland.
grundle: But you don't understand -- we have the chance to pull down the oppressive governance of Crankyland and institute a free-market libertarian paradise. You can't leave now!
RBB [voiceover]: What geodesy had started and JabBerwoCk had shoved forward, grundle finished off. geodesy had cowed the mob, JabBerwoCk had shamed them, and now grundle was boring them. They began to scatter, some of them throwing at grundle the rotten fruit that they'd meant for Cranky's Cafe. Within five minutes the street was deserted, except for grundle, who had sunk to his knees in despair. I walked over to him, Lieutenant JYD and Captain Hunter following me.
RBB: grundle, get out of here. Go home and think about this.
grundle: I won't listen to you. You're a Democrat and all Democrats are evil. They want women to kill their babies and they want the government to shoulder families aside in raising children and they want...
LT. JYD: Kid, the Prof is right. You're a fuckwit. Now go home.
grundle: You don't have the right to tell me what to do.
RBB [voiceover]: Then Captain Hunter grabbed grundle by the collar and hoisted him up to glare at him eye to eye.
CAPT. HUNTER: This badge says I have EVERY right to tell you what to do. And so does this Glock. And so does the riot gear I'm wearing. And so does the oath I took when I joined the force. Now go home.
RBB [voiceover]: The poor bastard still wouldn't admit that he was beaten, but he looked at Captain Hunter, imposing in riot gear and looking as grim as Bob Dole doing a Viagra commercial, and he nodded. The Captain let go of him, and grundle stumbled off, still talking to himself.
PRINCESS OF PMS: That was close, Richard.
RBB: I know, and it's going to happen again. You know that jen and her pals fomented that one. They're not going to let up. Captain.
CAPT. HUNTER: Yes, Professor?
RBB: All your men who were here tonight -- especially that Sgt. BookWorm; he's good at what he does -- form them into a specialized unit. We may well need their help for a special operation soon.
CAPT. HUNTER: Who will authorize it?
RBB: If Jason Cranky can't authorize it, he knows who can, and he'll lean on them to make it happen.
CAPT. HUNTER: Very well.
RBB [voiceover]: While the mob was chanting, I formed the germ of an idea. It had been planted by Wulfgar and by Ender, but I wasn't ready to voice it yet, not even to Princess. I had some serious thinking to do.
[...to be continued...]
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