Howdy! Pirates of Appalachia is an epic absurdist satire releasing as a weekly serial. Think ’90s-era irreverent, nothing and no one’s sacred comedy with a multi-award-winning author’s touch. There be hillbilly pirates, political satire, drone warfare turned arcade spectacle, the litfic malaise of being stranded in a thankless job (+ hostile takeover), and a fantasy world where one family battles valiantly against the sudden appearance of mysterious flying gods who fire explosive spears. Each chapter starts with a Greek Chorus (keeping it theme-oriented: a “pirate” chorus) consisting of the various media we consume in our daily lives. This is a completed novel—not a work in progress. Learn more or navigate around via the buttons below. Happy pillaging!
Previously on Pirates of Appalachia… After a paddle-shot to the noggin for the ages, Adam Patterson began to experience visions of auras and halos, leading him to brave the maze of the Pittsburgh healthcare system, and, in the process, revealed his darkest secret to his campaign manager, Harv.
The Eternal Basilica
Wandering Township, self-governing blocks between Fifth and Bayard
Sunday, October 27, 0026 P.C., 3:06 P.M.
~ 12 days to the conclusion of election season
Two monks ferried a shrouded object across stage, fabulous pink togas rippling at their heels. Wait, were they pink togas or Pledge Week-chic auras? Adam was having a harder and harder time differentiating between the physical and spiritual, a complication made more nerve-racking by the “indefinite delay” in receiving the Disease Sleuth 3000’s results. Perhaps that’s what had possessed him to come to the famed Eternal Basilica, which, despite its name, had only been constructed three years prior but was supposedly made of brick blessed to harden as it aged. About that, Adam wasn’t so sure—granted, s/p the Divine Paddling the spiritual realm had unfurled before him like the Electric Daisy Carnival after six tabs of acid, but the crotchety Poopé Hal Fishman was far from an angelic raver. The charcoal-colored brick was more likely to grow crow’s feet and jowls than get hard, at least not without a handful of little blue pills being added to the mix.
Regardless, it felt good to be among the faithful again, even if most were more interested in monologuing into their selfie drones than communion. The cathedral bell rang, reverberating down from the campanile and ricocheting from the nave through the vestibules forward and back and side to side, then reversing course and gyrating back up again. The building was shaped like a series of interlocking echo chambers so every voice would ring “as eternal as a viral tweet.” While that was well and good for egos and voices, it was another matter entirely when the bell rung. The sound was so concentrated and amplified that it commonly sent people into cardiac arrest. Adam’s pecs popped involuntarily, and the percussion seemed to pack every aura into him at once. It felt like his senses were being gangbanged by a fried food festival. He closed his eyes and covered his ears, but it was too late. The sickly sweetness of Twinkies, the popping of sizzling oil, the aroma of burnt French fries—all battered and deep-fried at 475 degrees—threatened to melt the sculpting right off his skull! He even heard what he perceived to be the thoughts of the congregation wafting through the air like body odor.
He opened his eyes, desperate for the bludgeoning to subside, but as he did he caught sight of the object next to the pulpit. Of all days to come… I should’ve brought Chelsea—fecal scooting is adorable compared to THAT freak show. About the size of a fish tank and covered in a black shroud, it could only be one thing—the Ark of the Toilette. The most repulsive, gag-inducing religious “relic” known to man. It was meant to provide a glimpse into what Hell looked like for lax taxpayers, but all it gave Adam was the heebie-jeebies. He remembered the first time he’d seen it, back when the Poopé was an elected position and Hal was first running for office. He’d foregone the Muskutter shafts and rented an automobile, a minor miracle as all but a single Enterprise Rent-A-Car had permanently shuttered by that time. It wasn’t much of a vehicle, something called a Ford Thunderbird, and the roads were already punch-drunk with ruts and potholes and the fledgling formation of tent encampments, but there was a moment where the people parted and Adam had a straight shot through immaculate gravel. He gunned it! Due to longstanding transmission problems, the Thunderbird didn’t go anywhere at first. The engine revved and a whinny that seemed to come out of nowhere pierced the air, but when the transmission engaged, the Thunderbird shot forward like a lightning bolt! Tires squealed, and wind gushed through the windows, pelting him with pollution particles the size of honeybees. It felt like he was flying—soaring off to undiscovered continents. No sooner had he taken off than he had to slam on the breaks to avoid flattening a Crispy, but he’d never felt more alive. More free. More in tune with the universe.
That all changed the instant he saw the Ark.
That’s the day I became a politician…
Adam retched at the memory, hot bile pooling in the back of his throat. Fearing a repeat of Vomit Gate, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. All his other leotards were at the dry cleaner’s—he couldn’t afford to soil another. Just breathe, he told himself. You know what to expect. It can’t be any grosser than it was when you were in your twenties.
“In the beginning…” Poopé Hal’s shrill voice grated through the jumbo-sized speakers flanking the pulpit. Surprisingly, perhaps miraculously, it didn’t echo. Adam checked the stage and was surprised not to see the Poopé’s grizzled mug leering back at him. Is this a prerecorded sermon? The sound of muffled voices and heavy panting squashed that notion, as did the Poopé’s confused voice asking, “This way, you say?” More muffled voices. “Oh dear, the Poopé seems to have lost his way. Best to revisit the little chap’s room. The Poopé has to tinkle.” A weak stream trickled from the speakers, followed by the whoosh of a urinal flushing. The flushing did echo, right up the campanile as if the basilica itself was a bidet. “All better now. Poopé liké—now let’s make some mon-né.”
The lighting dimmed, and darkness drained into the nave, bringing the neon light beneath the shroud into sharp relief. Adam couldn’t discern what it said, but it was lime green and pulsing. He rubbed his temples in a futile attempt to soothe his nerves and quell the metastasizing dread, but each revolution of thumb against plaster created a scratching sound similar to the sound of rats chewing through drywall. Better get refreshed ASA-fucking-P before my whole face falls off. The monks returned, swaying across the stage like… trees blowing in the wind? Adam could only describe it as interpretive dance performed by 90-year-olds with artificial hips. And that’s when he recognized them—they weren’t just any monks; they were the Poopé’s disciples. Children born intersex who the One Apple adopted and anointed as incarnations of Mother and Father. They were living shrines. And sideshows. The Prime Divinity present on Earth. And socially awkward backup dancers. Adam had always thought of them as more pawn than prophet, even pitied them for being adopted into a life serving Poopé Hal. But as they danced in slow, pained movements, their auras gyrated and twisted and flipped as if performing in a cheerleading competition. Adam could feel the bass, smell Old Spice spraying over the congregation like sweat, and he couldn’t help but nod with the beat and cover his nose.
“In the beginning…” the Poopé began again. Apparently the disciples dancing had charmed him onto the stage like a snake out of a basket. Adam half-expected—hoped, even—to see a halo similar to The Hawk’s encircling the poopé’s face, but instead he was adorned with a feeble, almost transparent, purple aura trailing off his shoulders like a cape. It smelled of honey and tar, and it ticked like a wound kitchen timer. “In the beginning…” he said again as he reached the podium.
Does he have dementia or is he trolling us?
“In the beginning… there was One and Zero, Mother and Father. And the universe was formless. As empty and useless as Kentucky. But then… a chance encounter. Mother dropped her ones, and when Father helped her collect them, flirty banter ensued. And as it does, flirty banter led to risqué innuendo, risqué innuendo to double shots of Crown, karaoke, dancing, batting of the eyes, and then sweet release—the Big Bang!” Poopé Hal intertwined his fingers and slapped his palms together vigorously, ogling his handiwork with a lurid grin. Adam couldn’t help but think that Hal’s telling of these events was far tawdrier than the Good Trilogy’s. “And it was good. So Mother and Father did it again, and again, and again, banging away like bunnies, experimenting with new positions like college freshman, coming like a milkman in suburbia. And each time they banged, new features of the universe formed. From Cunnilingus, the oceans filled. From a handy spewed the rivers and streams.”
Wait, what?
“The Reverse Cowgirl gave us the sun, and Downward Dog, the moon…”
Adam scratched his head, the sound of rats burrowing through flesh and bone preferable to the Poopé’s gibberish. None of this is in the Good Trilogy!
“An especially unsatisfying missionary sesh formed Scotland, so They mixed things up. Got down with the Donkey Punch, the Hucklebuck, the Tim Allen—but the only thing that came was the itchy red bumps of Appalachia.”
Adam wanted to scream—the “holy of holies” was flat-out making shit up!
“Mother and Father were in a rut—the first dry spell. The Earth was barren and lifeless. As the Copulation Chronicles tell us, that’s when things turned to kink. They resorted to Pegging, and… it was divine. They reach Nirvana again and again. And it was through Mother’s bulldozing of Father’s zero that humans and all the beasts of the land, air, and sea were created…”
Adam looked around in utter disbelief, eager to share an exasperated expression with another member of the congregation. Alas, his face was sculpted into such unflappable amiability he could never share his dismay, and, besides, no one in the crowd seemed to share his concern or even to hear the words vomiting out of the Poopé’s mouth. Out of respect, everyone had stopped monologuing, but their faces were still washed white by the glow of their iAms. Still… Did they not hear that Mother created humanity by fucking Father in the ass with a strap-on?!?
The Poopé’s hands gripped the pulpit, blue-grey veins bulging and a rueful sneer crinkling across his face. To Adam’s disgust, he realized Hal was getting off on this. Behind him, the disciples broke into a saucy number, which, judging by the syrupy, almost licorice-flavored sparkles in their auras, was a mashup of “Put a Ring on It” and “Like a Virgin” suitable for a high school glee club.
“But having kids was not at all like They had expected,” the Poopé continued grimly. “It sucked—as the parents among us can attest. Mother and Father began to bicker, blaming each other whenever Their flock behaved like sassy assholes. And lo, the teenage epoch was the worst. Banging was no longer on the table. Instead, there were chore lists, pick up and drop offs, play dates—the type of shit that would make even the prime divinity cross…”
He’s getting this part right, at least.
“Their relationship turned into eye-rolls and passive-aggressive bullshit.” Poopé Hal’s green eyes grew wide—“Like any couple spirally towards divorce, They made a last-ditch effort to rekindle the romance.” Oh dear, he’s going off book again. “But rather than rekindle, They combusted! Oh, it was a knock-out, drag-out fight. Curses were hurled. Doors were slammed. And eventually Their fury led to the first hatefuck. And it was so hot and deranged, so regrettable and mind-blowing, that it created the most perverse creature known to the universe.”
Adam clenched his hands into fists. He wanted to groan. To storm out. To ring the bell and send the Poopé to a long-overdue grave. Around him, the auras whipped into a frenzy as they anticipated the climax. The stench of seminal fluids and sweat drenched the nave, and even though every fiber of his being wanted to sprint out of the Eternal Basilica before the group ejaculation, he felt utterly powerless. He couldn’t so much as flinch, shield his eyes, or reach for a moist towelette.
“And beholding the demons Mother and Father had spawned, man asked—‘Why did You create such monstrosities?’ And Father said, ‘Because we needed something to clean up all the shit you leave around.’ And woman asked—’But why?’ And Father said, ‘Because it’s disgusting and smells.’ And man and woman asked in unison—‘But why?’ And hearing this incessant badgering, Mother needed a cigarette. But Her nerves and general clumsiness got the best of Her. She fumbled the lighter, and in doing so lit the entire world on fire! Flames raced across the globe, melting the land into continents and separating humanity far and wide. And through it all, man and woman moaned—‘But why? But why? But why?’ to the heavens, until Father had had it up to here.” Poopé Hal made a chopping motion towards his neck, drool dripping from his bottom lip. “In Father’s frustration, He punished humanity in the most demeaning way imaginable...”
Poopé Hal Fishman stepped out from behind the pulpit, his hands held out like he was about to hug the entire congregation. Adam gasped as he beheld a small but unmistakable bulge in the crotch area of his robe. But why? he asked himself—why couldn’t the cancer have killed me before I’d ventured back into the Church?
Stepping in front of the display, the Poopé took hold of the shroud. Adam braced himself, grateful at least that he was far enough away not to get a good look at the Ark’s contents. Then he heard it—the auras were giggling. Giggling turned to chortling. Chortling to righteous laughter. And righteous laughter gave way to a sticky moisture that made him cringe. Mother and Father, what has Poopé Hal come up with now?
“Strip the But-Why from your soul,” Hal jeered, stripping the shroud from the Ark—“or behold the shit that awaits you at journey’s end!”
Nothing more than a forty galloon fish tank, the horror of the Ark of the Toilette was what lay inside—dung beetles. A whole village of them. Rolling freshly made balls of feces that were rumored to have come from the Poopé himself, and Adam wouldn’t doubt it considering the sickly green color. This was the future of those who questioned Mother and Father. This is what awaited Adam—where politics had gotten him. He felt like he was suffering from sleep paralysis, fully conscious but unable to move as his worst nightmare unfolded around him. But the maniacal cackling of the surrounding auras alerted him that this wasn’t the climax of the spectacle. Fuck, there’s more! Frantic, he looked to the stage with just enough time to glimpse a holographic projector positioned directly behind the Ark.
The Poopé had added a new wrinkle.
CANCER TAKE ME NOW!
A beam of blue-white light shot through the tank. The next instant, the neon sign was projected into the room as large and as obnoxious as A.S.S. Tower. Butt Why, it pulsed, so brightly it washed out the carnival of auras. In their place were holographic dung beetles, now the size of linebackers, rolling crap boulders down the aisles, through the pews, and over the congregation. The beetles were so vivid they made the people look like the facsimile. To cap off the scene, the Poopé’s side profile towered up the campanile, his bulge the size of Everest, making it appear as if the beetles were six-legged Sisyphuses toiling for eternity rolling poop up the Poopé’s crotch. It was perhaps the most viral thing Adam had ever seen. With a Herculean effort, he averted his gaze, but even with his head down he could see the colossal ball of shit rolling towards him. He looked up, and as he did he came face to antennae with a beetle striking an uncanny resemblance to The Hawk. With his willpower evacuated, he slumped into his chair and evacuated his lunch.
If only Chelsea were here to help me lick myself clean….
“Believe!” Poopé Hal crowed, thrusting his hips and spanking the air; the projection of his wrinkled hand swept through the nave as if he were slapping the entire congregation. “Silence every question before you too spend eternity as a shit mason!”
“That was some performance, huh?” A resonant voice said from behind Adam. “Gets more elaborate every year. The special effects budget must be through the roof….”
Adam swayed, unable to muster the energy to respond.
“Y-you, uh, got something right... there.” The gentleman peered over Adam’s shoulder and swirled his finger over his entire torso.
Another leotard ruined.
Not that it mattered. The fifteen minutes—FIFTEEN FUCKING MINUTES—the display persisted had convinced Adam that the cancer, the omnipresent auras, even The Hawk’s magnificent halo, were signs he was meant to rejoin the Church. To wander again. To, above all, confess and pay his sin tax to atone for ever questioning Mother and Father. So there he was, standing in an extraordinarily long line, prepared to confess to the Poopé himself.
“First time?” the man asked. “I blew chunks my first time too. If you ask me, the hologram is overkill. Makes it more like a video game. It loses that visceral punch to the gut.”
Adam looked straight ahead with what would have been a dour expression if not for the last vestiges of sculpting still managing to keep his face smiling. Punch to the gut? Try mule kick to the urethra. It felt like he’d been trampled beneath a stampede of cows wearing stilettos. Even the gentle whirl of his selfie drone was giving him a migraine.
“What did you think, Mr. Patterson?”
What did he think? He thought the Poopé was a fucking madman—don’t even think it, he stopped himself. Don’t question ANYTHING. Snatching his selfie drone from the air, he folded it into the off position, then popped a pec. Sometimes the best answers come straight from the chest.
“Mr. Patterson—or should I say, Mr. Guber—I have to tell you I’m a big fan of your hashtags?”
Adam wanted to retort by saying something rude or sarcastic or straightforward, but none of those things were in his nature. Still, these were his final moments before he gave up everything he’d worked on for the last twenty years and relegated himself to Poopé Hal, and he didn’t want to spend them making small talk. Is he going to comment on the weather next? There had to be something witty, or biting, or direct he could say to make it clear he wasn’t up for a chat. He turned to do just that, but the sight of the doughy, kind-eyed black man and his raging technicolored aura left Adam speechless. Who could be rude to someone who simultaneously looked approachable and divine?
“I’m not looking forward to this bill—I’ve been using the wrong pronouns all week. Turns out I forget mine. Can you believe that? Is it hot in here?” the man asked, tugging on the collar of his two sizes too small Pittsburgh Pirates t-shirt. “The weather these days, huh? Crazy…”
Adam nodded, numbly. The weather…
“I saw that vid of your Crispy riding that dog—effen hilarious, man! I hate Crispies like everyone else, but your nugget is half-human in my book.”
Half-human? Do they get reincarnated into half-dung beetles? Suddenly, Adam wished he was a Crispy.
“So how long before you get that forbidden hashtag trending up this city’s a-s-s?”
The forbidden hashtag—how distant the notion of being the next Oblamo seemed when a future of shit-rolling stared you in the face. “I-I, uh…” he mumbled, moving forward with the line. If there was one thing Poopé Hal was good at, it was collecting money, and collecting it fast. “I don’t think I’ll be stuffing anything up this city’s ass.”
“Well, you got my vote, either way.”
Adam watched the man’s aura bloom like a mushroom cloud upon his shoulders, and he yearned to tell him—I’m black, brother! You can’t tell because after I lost a dozen elections the polling revealed that I looked too much like Oblamo and no one could stomach to look at me. Turns out it’s tricky to dye resculpting plaster, so they bleached and molded me until I looked like a Babyface who turned hearts instead of stomachs, Saint Bill Clinton. That was so long and so many surgeries ago that I forgot I’d ever been called Oblamo’s twin. And now I have to confess. To pay for the high crime of cultural piracy. To go into insurmountable debt. To turn my back on reforming healthcare and hashtags of all shapes and sizes. Adam’s hands shook, and his heart rattled against his chest so hard his pecs jiggled uncontrollably. “I-I’m…” he stammered. “I’m….”
“Next,” a curt voice announced from beside him.
If I can’t confess to my own brother, how am I ever going to come clean to the Poopé?
“Mr. Jiggly Chest,” the voice said. “You’re next.”
Adam turned to see the black mouth of the sin tax booth opened before him like a tomb. It was time. “It was good to meet you,” he said, stepping into the entrance. Then he turned to share one last pec pop—“Brother.”
Adam gagged on the smell of Bengay medicated ointment; it was so potent he couldn’t tell if he’d entered the sin tax booth or the racquetball court at a retirement home. He thought he might hurl. Again. But miraculously he was able to quell the reflex. He exhaled, thankful for the respite from this one bout of agony, but then—
“Ee-uuuch!”
Poopé Hal Fishman retched so gutturally it triggered a mirror-reflex in Adam. The best he could do to avoid vomiting on the holy of holies was to aim it into the crook of his arm. His stomach knotted into a contracting ball of needles, and his chest choked into a burning runway as he expelled his last ounces of dignity. Fortunately, that dignity was minimal, and his misery amounted only to dry heaving, each one triggering a retch from the Poopé, which provoked another heave from Adam, and so forth and so on and so forth…
Each retch echoing eternally like a viral tweet….
“What is that godawful smell?” Poopé Hal sniveled between retches, covering his nose with his robe. “You smell like a frat house after pledge week!”
“Apologies, your highness,” Adam said, bowing awkwardly. “I must confess to, uh, losing my lunch during the presentation.”
With a trembling finger, Poopé Hal dutifully punched the numbers into the cash register. click-clackclack-ding-KACHING.
Blowing chunks, 29.95 MIM.
“The Poopé doesn’t think he can collect your redemption,” said Hal, fanning the air with both hands. “The smell is making the Poopé faint.”
But Adam had to do this. He couldn’t risk cancer taking him before he’d atoned for questioning Mother and Father. He would just have to be quick—“And I used hashtags as clickbait, especially ThrowbackThursday. None of them were throwbacks—none!”
“Ee-uuuch!”
“And I followed people to get them to follow me, then immediately unfollowed.”
Click-tok-click-clack—ding—click-clackclackclack-KACHING.
Clickbait, 10.75.
Douche move, 19.99.
“And-and…” Adam tried to find the words to admit to everything he had done since defecting into politics. The high crimes, the misdemeanors, the shady dealings and fake news. But then he got another whiff of Bengay and couldn’t take it anymore. He ripped open the curtain and gulped in fresh air. The Poopé did the same, his jowl flapping like a crowing rooster’s. Although confessing in front of a live studio audience was less than ideal, it was better than suffocating in Bengay, and Adam couldn’t afford to let this opportunity pass by. For good measure, he stripped off of his leotard, flipped it inside-out, wiped himself down, then threw it out of the booth. The cool air on his bare skin felt invigorating, and his right pec popped as courage built within him. “There’s a lot,” he exhaled, “I need to confess.”
“Ah, the Poopé recognizes you.” Hal rapped a gnarled knuckle against his temple. “Gubernatorial Candidate Patterson! You seem to be trending, my son. That escapade with the Crispy and the hound is the type of thing that wins elections. Trust me—I should know. A dung beetle stunt won the Poopé reelection many moons ago.”
Adam waved away the notion. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to concede the election after what I confess.”
“It was glorious,” said Poopé Hal, either ignoring or uninterested in Adam’s confession. “So much better than the demons today. Befitting a Bring It On franchise of its own, if you ask the Poopé. Titillating choreography. Pyrotechnics. Flips, kicks, hips and dicks! It gave the Poopé’s undercarriage a jolt.”
“Hips and dicks…?” Adam muttered. He’d read memes about the Miracle of Dung—it was the event that led to Hal proclaiming himself Poopé Augustus—but he didn’t remember anything erotic. Certainly not any dicks. “A jolt to the undercarriage?”
Poopé Hal’s beady green eyes gleamed. “Indeed! I gave Mother Mary the Holy Sacrament twice that night!”
This was going off the rails fast. The last thing Adam wanted to hear as he upended his world was the intricacies of the Poopé’s sex life. Doubt crept into his gut, but he squeezed his sphincter tight, held it where it was until he could be relieved of it. As the Good Trilogy says, Clean your conscience, and your colon will follow. “Poopé, I must confess—you don’t truly recognize me.”
“The Poopé doesn’t?” Hal looked taken aback. “Are you not Candidate Patterson?”
“Well, yeah, but you see… that’s not really me.”
The Poopé’s grey face flashed with the blue light of iAms snapping pictures. A few selfie drones buzzed by, sending stringy tufts of hair on both the Poopé and Adam’s heads dancing like worms in the rain. Hal said, “The Poopé doesn’t know how to ring that up—are you saying you’ve been posting on a burner account?”
Shaking, Adam smacked the cash register as if he were whacking a mole. “I have to drop out of the election because…” but before he could finish, his will faltered and he deflated into his seat. His belly gurgled as doubt worked its way down his intestines and up his windpipe. He looked out of the booth, and as he did he locked eyes with his brother. What will he think when he learns what I’ve done? Could he forgive Adam for denying their heritage? For pirating from another culture for his own gain? Could he stomach to ever like or retweet one of his posts again? Adam bowed his head. “I’m a phony,” he said at last.
“Ah, using filters.” Clickity-clack—KACHING. “The Poopé is keen to the Fabio filter himself.”
0.75 MIM.
This was going to be harder than Adam had thought—he hadn’t realized he was going to need to translate his sins to the Poopé. “No, it goes way beyond social media. M-my… My whole life is a sham.”
“We’re all politicians here,” Poopé Hal said with a flick of the wrist. “Garnering voting cred can make you do terrible things. Every day the Poopé asks himself, ‘Does the Poopé have to slap a bitch?’ And sometimes, son—the Poopé does. Will of the voter and all that.”
“No.” Adam clenched his jaw; even the slightest facial movements sent rodents burrowing through drywall. He didn’t know why the answer to “does the Poopé have to slap a bitch” would ever be yes, especially considering the voting for Poopé was now strictly ceremonial—Hal was the only person on the ballot—but that didn’t matter now. He had one job to do, and by Mother and Father he was going to do it. “You see… I can’t be a politician anymore.”
Hal looked at him, his bushy eyebrows twitching quizzically. “But you must. You’re becoming quite the influencer.”
“But I-I… I’m… The thing is…” He popped a pec to steady his nerves. “I’ve been seeing… the spiritual world. EVERYWHERE. Looking out the booth, I-I-I can see everyone’s—”
“Underwear?” Hal interjected, grinning like he’d won at charades. “Why, that’s no crime. It’s an old public speaking trick. The Poopé also imagines everyone in their underwear. But in your case, well, I don’t have to imagine.”
“Not their under… Never mind. The sinful part is, I’ve been… unfaithful. This”—he swirled his finger around his sculpting. “Poopé, I’m—”
“Son, I suggest you practice your talking points. This is a worse performance than you’re last debate.”
“This isn’t a performance. I’m… I’m—”
“Stuttering.”
“No! Well… yes, I am. But only because this is so hard.”
The Poopé leaned forward and said in a hushed tone, “It’s a simple system. You confess. I charge you. You give me money. Everyone else seems to get it.”
“But it’s not about the money….”
“It’s entirely about the money.” Hal placed his hand on his heart as if he’d been insulted. “How do you think the Poopé built the Eternal Basilica?”
Doubt leaked out of Adam like gas, drenching him in the vile perfume rotting in his gut for over twenty years. It’s about the money. The betrayal rocked him harder than any of the potholes he’d hit while driving to the church all those years ago, and scorn, as invisible yet sweeping as any wind, blew away any hope of redemption. The Basilica, the Ark, the disciples, the services—the One Apple is nothing more than a pyramid scheme. And I’ve been an unpaid stooge fooling myself into believing there was passive income at the end of the road. Outside the booth, vibrant auras danced and laughed and chattered. But Hal’s was barely a wisp of dying smoke as quiet as a poisoned mouse. It was by far the smallest and smelliest of all. Then it hit Adam like a holy paddle—Mother and Father couldn’t have had him wander here to follow Poopé Hal. Perhaps, he was here for quite the opposite.
“Ee-uuuch!” Hal retched, slumping over the register. “What is that smell?”
“Me,” proclaimed Adam, the cracks widening in his façade of amiability. “That. Smell. Is. ME.”
“Someone light a match.”
“And sin tax is about atonement,” he added, his doubts about the Poopé leaking out as silent and deadly as carbon monoxide. “About sacrifice.”
The Poopé pinched his nose shut. “As the Good Trilogy says, You have to charge taxes to spend taxes.”
He knows nothing about the Good Trilogy.
“I think it’s time you settled your tab,” Hal said, fanning the air with a laminated paper that listed various tax deductions. “The Poopé doesn’t want people dropping out of line.”
Adam’s toes curled and the muscles in his arches tensed. “It doesn’t say that.”
“What doesn’t say what?”
“The Good Trilogy doesn’t say anything about charging taxes to spend them.”
“Oh, the Poopé believes it does.”
“There’s no belief about it.” Adam’s calves tightened. “They’re words on paper. They say what they say.”
“On this,” said Poopé Hal, “we disagree.”
“What do you do with the beetles?” Adam asked abruptly, the tension from his calves rising to his hamstrings and quads then clamping around his pelvis and glutes. Everything had gone to shit—it suddenly felt imperative that he know where the shit-takers were going. “When they die, when the presentation is over—what do you do with them?”
Leaning in as if imparting a sacred confidence, Hal whispered: “I could ask you the same thing about that Crispy of yours. He looks delicious, though maybe a bit tough to chew. Fuck ’em or eat ’em—it’s what any good public servant does. As the Good Trilogy tells us, of course.”
He eats them…?
He eats the fucking dung beetles!
And he compared Harv—my friend, my only friend—to his dung-totting lunch…
“The Good Trilogy doesn’t say that either,” Adam seethed, his groin tensing so profoundly it changed his private from an outie to an innie.
“Perhaps it will,” said Hal with a wave of the hand. “The Poopé is working on the translation for the second edition now.”
“A second edition?” His lower back, his abs, his chest—every muscle flexed as if he were preparing to be punched. “A second edition?!?”
Poopé Hal clacked away at the register. “Creating traffic in the sin tax lane, 50.00 MIM.”
Adam looked at the block numbers on the register. He owed 111.44 MIM, and he hadn’t even confessed to anything of consequence yet. “What do you mean you’re translating the Good Trilogy?”
Looking pleased with himself, Hal crossed his hands. “The expanded second edition will be translated into the immortal language, the sacred tongue, the inscrutable jargon—emojish.”
Adam’s jaw dropped, the rats-through-drywall scratching replaced by the cracking and crunching of a roof caving in. Every muscle from his toes to his shoulders flexed and throbbed. The wildfire of auras, the cathedral, the booth, all of it vanished as his vision narrowed to a single red point on the Poopé’s self-satisfied smirk. “But why?”
“Remastered versions generate renewed interest, and with renewed interest comes new customers. Perhaps the next Eternal Basilica will have a froyo stand.”
Adam could feel his lips trembling beneath his sculpting. Nerves that had been severed or sedated through countless surgeries burned hot as coals, triggering long paralyzed muscles in his neck and face to tingle and flex, tugging and pulling and ripping until his Mona Lisa smile contorted into a severe frown. It felt like his face had been ripped off at the cheeks, and although it was more painful than any paddle-shot, it was such a relief that a tear shot down his face. “But—WHY?”
The Poopé looked at him, the façade of a kindly old kook disintegrating into something dark, even sinister. He stood, and as he did he cast a shadow so far and wide Adam thought it might consume the Basilica and everyone in it. “Does the Poopé have to slap a bitch?”
Adam’s body froze. Everything went silent and black, except for the Poopé’s sneer.
“Now settle your tab and get the fuck out of here,” said Hal, patting Adam’s cheek. “And don’t forget to tip.”
He didn’t feel his body do it. Pushing the chair back. Flipping the table over and firing his arm forward. None of it registered. But he did feel Hal’s clammy cheek against his palm. Watched in slow motion as the holy of holies spilled out of the Sin Tax Booth like beans from a burlap sack. And then they came back to him—the sensations. The fried food festival. The laughter. The tickling. The sea of undulating, luminescent souls. And standing in the middle of it was his brother, a stunned, giddy smile on his face as he held his hand up for an epic high five.
Adam stepped over the Poopé’s limp body, slapped his brother’s hand, and waltzed out of the Eternal Basilica with the flashes of iAms and selfie drones nipping at his heels.
There would be no third miracle today.
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Sneak peek at next week’s installment
Chapter 22: Me Reel
Autonomous Segregation Solutions, Bartleby cube #6661
Independent City of Pittsburgh
Sunday, October 27, 0026 P.C., 4:21 P.M.
~ Take Your Child to Work Day
A.S.S. had fixed the climate control problem, which, in Brick’s estimation was a minor miracle. Maybe even a major one if not for the building now smelling like, well, ASS. Instead of a continuous flow of cold air, the A/C panted steamy breath down your neck like a supervisor angling for a promotion. He could handle that—especially if it was Ms. Barbie RN-and-so-forth doing the panting—but what he couldn’t handle was the absolute, entire, complete and utter lack of anything resembling a “tall” school anywhere within a thousand miles of the CoC. He’d tried numerous search engines, the dark web, scoured every social media site from Facebook to Myspace, developed an artificial intelligence protocol to scour the entire interweb, and… nothing. It was as if there was nowhere a person could go to grow.
So, where the fuck was his son?
In hindsight, he probably should’ve recognized that the idea was absurd. A tall school? Pulleys!? How would that even work? Frustration churned knots in his shoulders, and he grabbed a pillar on each side of his Bartleby cube and leaned from left to right, stretching his deltoids and trapezii, unbraiding the knots like shoestrings. And in what could be called the second miracle of the day, the tension melted away and the knots that had felt as large as porkbarrel barns on the side of a skyscraper ground into grains of salt. He groaned—or more precisely, he moaned—lost in the almost erotic release. A thick rope of drool unrolled from his gaping jaw, and there was no stopping the delirious “Ahh-ahhh-ahhhhhhh….” that swung down with it.
Something banged against his cubicle, but he couldn’t be bothered to respond, open his eyes, or even quiet his teenager-stumbling-upon-Pornhub-for-the-frist-time moaning. It was probably one of his coworker’s brats playing in the aisles again. For the life of him, he couldn’t understand why anyone enjoyed “Bring Your Child to Work” day. It was always held on Sunday and inevitably resulted in confusion, delay, and a myriad of injuries. But as the knots in his shoulders separated like good little ones and zeros, Brick’s stance on the topic softened, and he resolved to bring Brick II next year so he could participate in the festivities and marvel at his papá’s corporate prowess.
Another bang—this one much harder—jolted Brick from his chair. He coughed, choking on mid-moan saliva. The knots ballooned anew in his shoulders, growing three sizes bigger and doubly as cruel, pinching his neck and needling his nerves like schoolyard bullies. Brick could hear them as clear as Siri’s Me Reel, jeering in unison that, per POSHA safety guidelines, Crispies weren’t allow in the sorting chambers. He gagged as it occurred to him that his soft tissue tyrants were right—“My son’s a tripping hazard!”
The Bartleby cube cracked open and before Brick could turn to investigate he felt a stiff slap across the back of his head. It felt like someone had backhanded him; then he heard Oliver Pantsov’s belligerent voice, and although he had no idea how he’d gotten out of his cube before their recharge-refresh break, he knew the inbreeding imbecile was his assailant. His nerves roiled and a piercing ring set off in his ears: He was going to throttle him! Right there. Right now. In front of Mother and Father, A.S.S. management, and all the little children. He wheeled around, every muscle throbbing with fury, his hands clenched into meaty wrecking balls, but instead of Pantsov’s shit-eating grin, he was confronted by a behemoth bigger than any A.S.S. She wore a pantsuit that smelled of freshly minted MIM, and her defined cheekbones, long eyelashes, and piercing green eyes were superficially handsome, even comely. But the unhinged sneer on her face and the way her shoulders heaved beneath the sex paddle she held like an axe separated him from any sense of righteous indignation. His eyes fixed on the two holes sawed out of the shaft of the paddle, making it both impractical for use as an paddle and more aerodynamic for kinky spanking.
“Don’t touch another one or zero,” she said, her voice as deep and bloodthirsty as a phantom unleashed upon the opera. “You’re no longer employeed by TIDY.”
“TIDY?” Brick rubbed the quickly-rising knot on the back of his head. “I work for A.S.S.”
More to come next week!