CSI: American Carnage (Monday, April 22, 2019)
SUNLAND NM — The strike force, reunited with Mohammed, little Timmy’s friend, stands in the cold desert air looking at the fizzling illuminated clown face at the entrance to the amusement park. The Professor says, Let’s go! and warily heads for the clown’s open mouth with its stained yellow teeth and bits of slimy green vegetation hanging down, like rat tails. The clown’s mascaraed black eyebrows shuttle up and down, up and down, and it sounds a piercing, crackly laughter as the strike force passes through. Sarah, Timmy’s friend from the resistance potluck, says, The autocrat has no sense of humor, only a sense of menace. Boris, genial triple agent, says, He make joke, remember, about shooting on 5th Avenue, but no joke about apple and banana on Empire State building. They find themselves standing in a large open court. Above, empty roller coasters rattle up and down hills of tracks. They sound like old subways at night in the city. High above the open entrance court is a series of neon signs, partially dysfunctional. They throw a cold red and blue light over all. NO COLLUSION! NO OBSTRUCTION! FAKE NEWS! WITCH HUNT! GREATEST! TREMENDOUS! flash above. At ground level, in nearly unreadable cursive script, the signs say: NO PAST BUT MY PAST! NO WORDS BUT MY WORDS! To the north: MY STORY BEST STORY! To the west: DESTROY THE VILLAGE TO RAISE THE CHILD! WRECK THE PAST & MAKE THE PAST! Wow, says Timmy, I can’t even remember yesterday. Sarah says, The autocrat fills everything with himself, with his desires, his wishes, his wants. Nothing else matters. The Professor says, Look, over there, the fairway! We should explore it. Mohammed says, That is where we all were when the vigilante militia turned up. It smells of spaghetti and the vigilantes, they seemed to come from nowhere, hungry, like famished ghosts at nighttime. Boris says, This is like a park that Stalin would enjoy. He had great sense of humor too. The Professor says, They all did, all the tinhorns. Timmy says, The hurdy-gurdy music is louder inside here. It’s really disorienting. I forget yesterday. I forget how we even got into this place. What is it doing here? The Professor says, It is a nexus, as Sarah has suggested. Sarah says, The autocrat sucks you in. He makes what he offers seem appealing. You enter his world and your own world of desert and cactus and people dissolves and is replaced by cutouts and shadow figures and dolls created by the autocrat for his own purposes. I almost said his own pleasure, and perhaps that is right. The autocrat takes pleasure in disrupting, in fomenting chaos, in distorting the expected, in making spaghetti and forcing it down your throat. In his way, he is like an pathological artist who decides what is right in his artwork and discards everything else, no matter the value. He cares nothing about what is real, or might be real, or might be hoped for or imagined. Only he determines what is right. He has no interest in anything beyond his own obsessive cares. Only he determines what is true. Only he determines what thoughts to encourage and what tasks should be undertaken. This park is the playground for his will. Boris says, That does not sound good. — Monday, April 22, 2019