Crash Gordon and the Mysteries of Kingsburg (58 page)

“I have to go pee…” D.H. whispers in a tiny Gumby doll voice. Skip laughs through his nostrils. Gordon feels himself rising toward normal consciousness, but then he hears Doctor Lemingeller’s soothing words: “
Four
…. Pay no attention to any voice but my own. You’re still going deeper… deeper… deeper into a trance. Very relaxed now, perhaps more relaxed than you’ve ever been in your entire life. Nothing can disturb your deep sense of peace and contentment. And you’re still… going…
deeper
.”

Gordon disappears right back down the rabbit hole of his own mind.

“
Three
…. As you travel deeper into a state of perfect relaxation, you’ll begin to feel your left arm going pleasantly numb. Feel the tingle? That numbness will go away whenever you want it to, but for now just relax and enjoy the sensation of your arm getting lighter… and
lighter
….
Two
…. You’re still perfectly relaxed, but your left arm feels like a balloon filled with helium. It’s so light now that it might even be rising into the air. Don’t try to stop it. Let your arm do whatever it wants to do while the rest of your body stays in a deep, peaceful state of relaxation. You’re in a very deep trance now….
One
…. In a few moments, you’ll open your eyes at my command and take a look around. Your mind will be alert and at ease. You’ll be able to see, hear, and remember everything that happens to you. Feel free to talk. But you’ll still be in a trance, under the power of my suggestion. Are you ready? Okay then, on the count of three:
one, two, three
…. Open your eyes.”

Gasps of amazement and uneasy laughter. About twenty percent of the students in the audience have their left arms drifting in the air above their heads. Some are able to put their arms down, but others can’t–in fact, when they push down on their raised arms, the arms shoot right back up as soon as they let go. Doctor Lemingeller allows everyone to talk for a while, then he shouts above the babble: “I’d like some volunteers to come up on the stage with me for the rest of the show. I’ll take all those in the audience who are already raising their left hands.”

Gordon, Jimmy, and Twinker all have their left arms raised high, so up on the stage they go. Hideous wishes them well. “Have gud time. Maybe next time someone not make pee-pee joke and I go, too.” Hideous glances at D.H. and arranges his pierced features into a scowl.

“They’ll be up there quacking like goddam ducks, Hideous…” D.H. tells him. “You’re not missing much.”

“Put your arms down, you fuckin’ freaks,” Skip says, leaning back in his seat with a grin.

Once everyone is up onstage, Doctor Lemingeller introduces his lovely assistant, Vonda–who could be Vanna White’s slutty, bar-hopping older sister. She’s wearing a low-cut blue spangled dress and fishnet stockings. Her boobs are enormous and as round as fishbowls–obviously artificial. Meanwhile, in the background, stagehands bring out folding chairs for the volunteers–about twenty or thirty, in all. After everyone has taken a seat, Doctor Lemingeller suggests to the volunteers that they’re all in an orchestra. He goes down the line, telling each of them what instrument they’ll be playing. Jimmy gets a cello, Twinker, a violin. Gordon, to his disappointment, has to play an oboe.

Gordon isn’t even sure he knows what an oboe looks like, precisely. He imagines something like a clarinet, only longer–about the length of an ostrich’s neck. That’ll have to do. Some fancy orchestral music starts playing over the loudspeakers. Gordon puckers up his lips and blows. He knows he’s just pretending to play an oboe, but he feels weirdly compelled to do it. The audience is already laughing, but he truly doesn’t care.

The music suddenly segues to Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid.” Doctor Lemingeller tells the volunteers that they all now have guitars and drums. Heavy metal mayhem takes over. Jimmy gets to his feet and starts imitating Ozzy Osborne. He’s good at it. If a live bat were to suddenly fly onstage at that moment, Jimmy would no doubt bite its head off. Noticing Twinker already playing drums like a madwoman, Gordon imagines an electric guitar in his hands. He stands up and starts channeling Ozzy’s former lead guitarist, Randy Rhodes, who died in a plane crash just over a year ago. Maybe that’s in bad taste (for multiple reasons…), but again, he doesn’t care.

The disembodied astral presence of Randy Rhodes doesn’t seem to mind, either. In fact, he’s into it.

“Okay, that’s enough!” Doctor Lemingeller shouts as the music fades away. “Wow, you guys rock!” Even hypnotized, Gordon knows Doctor Lemingeller is patronizing them. The spirit of Randy Rhodes is insulted. He bails.

“I see a few of you have come out of your trances,” says Doctor Lemingeller. “Don’t worry–it’s nothing to be ashamed of–but at this point I’m going to ask you to leave the stage.” He walks along the row of volunteers, tapping the shoulders of the ones he wants to go. When he gets to Gordon he waves a finger in front of his nose like the arm on a metronome. Gordon thinks this is his signal to leave, but then he hears Vonda’s honeyed voice saying behind him, “No, you stay….” Doctor Lemingeller pinches Gordon somewhere between the back of his neck and his shoulder blade, causing his whole body to instantly go limp. It’s the most amazing sensation. Gordon slumps into Vonda’s waiting arms, feeling the back of his head nestle into her unnaturally firm cleavage. She lays him out on the floor of the stage, then leans over him to sweetly whisper in his ear: “You’re going deeper, hon. You’re a real good subject. You musta done this sorta thing before.”

Not that I can recall…
thinks Gordon,
but I love you, Vonda.

Jimmy and Twinker also get laid out on the floor in the same way, as do about ten other students. Everyone else leaves the stage. Gordon watches them go from his vantage point on the floor. He’s as limp as a dishrag. He wonders if he’s drooling–or shitting his pants. He has no way of telling.

Doctor Lemingeller turns to address the audience. “What you’re about to see won’t be funny. If any of you start feeling uncomfortable, please feel free to leave.”

He divides the remaining volunteers into two groups–or actually two clumps, since they’re all still sprawled out on the floor. He instructs the volunteers in the first group–Jimmy, Gordon and Twinker among them–to sit up as if they’re riding in a car. “You’ve been boozing it up all night at a high school graduation party, and now each of you is horribly drunk. None of you should be driving.”

Gordon isn’t sure about anyone else, but when
he
sits up he feels drunk as hell. His gag reflex is even acting up. He might have to roll down the imaginary window and barf.

Doctor Lemingeller moves Jimmy to the front row. “You’ll be the driver,” he tells him, almost cheerfully. “All the panic and guilt will be on your shoulders.”

“
Nice…
” says Jimmy under his breath.

Doctor Lemingeller moves over to Twinker. “You’re going to smash your pretty face through the windshield. You’ll need plastic surgery–”

–
like Vonda!
Gordon thinks.

“– but your face will never be the same. And you–” Gordon feels a tap on his shoulder–“you’ll be paralyzed from the nipples on down. Your new best friend is going to be a colostomy bag. How do you like them apples?”

What about my penis! And my future life with Vonda!
“Can’t you just put me in a coma?” Gordon asks meekly.

“Okay, fine…. You go into a coma and
you
–” tapping the guy next to Gordon, Daniel Fleurbundt, better known as “Fleabutt”–“you get paralyzed for life. Tough break, hombre.”

“Thanks a lot, Gordon…” Fleabutt gripes.

“Nobody’s going to feel any actual, physical pain during this process,” Doctor Lemingeller says soothingly, “but you’ll feel all the emotions that go along with whatever happens to you.”

The second group of volunteers is organized into a second car. They’re a nice suburban family driving to a wedding. The father and two of the children are about to be slaughtered.

“Dad, you won’t be moving at all, because for the purposes of this demonstration you’ll be dead. Decapitated, actually.” Doctor Lemingeller grins. “Mom, it may take you a few minutes to realize you’ve just lost a husband and your two precious baby girls…. Bride, your intestines will be spilling out of your beautiful white wedding gown. You might try pushing them back in.”

A few squeamish girls in the audience head for the exits. Then the lights dim. Four strobe lights pulse rapidly, simulating headlights. The sound of tires slinging rain on wet pavement comes up through the loudspeakers. The diesel rumble of a truck passes from left to right. Then the sound of screeching tires rips through the theater. There’s a terrible crash, painful to the ears. After that comes a moment suspended in time, marked by the tinkling of shattered glass, and then all is quiet–until the moaning begins.

“Oh man! I can’t feel my legs!” Fleabutt cries. Gordon’s glad he missed out on that action. Being in a coma is actually quite peaceful. He dissociated from his body on impact and now his soul–or astral body, or whatever–has risen up to get a 360-degree view of all the action.

The strobe lights are flashing blue, as if police cars are already on the scene. A long, anguished wail goes up from the Car Number Two. Mom–the super-tall Kimmie Swenson–is cradling two limp girls in her arms–both of them blonde cheerleaders, oddly enough (Tracy and Stacy. Gordon lusts after them, even astrally). Kimmie cries out,
“My babies! You killed my babies!”

“Oh man…” moans Jimmy, “what’ve I done?” He peers over an imaginary dashboard and starts to gag.

Hey, I was just about to do that!
thinks Gordon. But his stomach feels just fine, now that he’s out-of-body. The only downside is that his body won’t be able to move if Jimmy starts puking on it.

But rather than puking, Jimmy staggers to his feet and runs through the imaginary wreckage toward stage left.
That’s just like him,
thinks Gordon,
fleeing the scene of a crime.

Twinker has her hands up to her face. She’s trying to put it back together. Gordon is reminded, sickeningly, of his father’s face as he sat strapped in the pilot’s chair after crashing his Cessna into their living room. No lower jaw. Exposed tongue drooping like a flower stamen.
His teeth in the back pocket of my jeans….
Suddenly this isn’t so much fun anymore. Gordon gets pushed or sucked right back into his body. Even though he’s supposed to be in a coma, he starts to weep.

Helpless, Gordon watches through tears as the bride tries to stuff her imaginary intestines back through the hole in her imaginary wedding gown. He flashes on Mike Shriver lying sliced open on the white silk couch, his large intestine swimming out of him like a giant worm. There was nothing imaginary about that.
That could’ve been me
, thinks Gordon.
If I hadn’t gotten into that argument with my dad that day, I might have died with him, instead of Mike.

The human body is such a frail, easily damaged thing…. Lying there on his back, unable to move, Gordon weeps copious tears for his dear old dad–for the first time, ever. He even cries for poor, misguided Mike Shriver.

“Okay, let’s put a stop to this… I think we’ve all seen enough,” says Doctor Lemingeller as the blue strobe lights stop flashing. “It’s time for you volunteers to go back to that place of deep relaxation and contentment. This situation was just a figment of your imagination,” he says. “You’ll never experience anything like these emotions again. But you’ll be able to remember what you experienced and think about it in an objective way.”

Doctor Lemingeller turns and addresses the audience like the portentous narrator of a Government Public Service Announcement: “The kids on this stage will never drink and drive again. But for some, it’s already too late. Somebody is paralyzed.”

“I think I’ve got some feeling back in my toes,” Fleabutt volunteers.

“Others are dead. One person ended up in a coma.” Doctor Lemingeller crouches next to Gordon, who is rubbing salty tears from his eyes with a trembling fist. Doctor Lemingeller asks him: “How did it feel to be in a coma?”

“Up yours…” Gordon croaks.

Visibly taken aback by Gordon’s untowardness, Doctor Lemingeller bounces up to address the audience: “I apologize for that outburst,” he says. “Hypnotized subjects are usually quite polite. But I guess everyone here was pretty shaken up by what just happened. And that’s the whole point. I want you to talk to about this demonstration with your friends. Laugh about it, joke about it, cry about it–even
curse
about it
.
But the next time you’re out drinking, please think twice about getting in a car and driving. Okay? And now let’s get back to the fun part of our show. Volunteers, I want each of you to pretend you’re a happy little duck in a duck pond and someone is feeding you bread….”

□ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □

“Anything I can get from my subjects under hypnosis, I can also get from them in a post-hypnotic suggestion…” Doctor Lemingeller is saying. Gordon finds himself sitting back in the audience again, not remembering how he got there. Jimmy sits beside him, while Twinker is still up on the stage. Doctor Lemingeller continues: “There’s even speculation that self-hypnosis, initiated by TV programs or movies, can get at least
some
of the same effects.” Doctor Lemingeller pauses to mop the sweat from his bald skull with a frilly black handkerchief. “What I’m saying, basically, is… those commercials for Lay’s Potato Chips? They really know what they’re doing. On an unconscious level, they’re giving you a kind of post-hypnotic suggestion when they say, ‘You can’t eat just one.’ It’s a false belief they’re implanting, but if you’ve been lulled into a self-hypnotized trance by watching some dumb TV show, then your unconscious mind goes right along with it. So you end up doing exactly what they tell you. No wonder we’re all getting so fat, huh? Except for Vonda, of course.”

The voluptuous Vonda blows Doctor Lemingeller a kiss.

Doctor Lemingeller hams it up, clamping his hands over his heart. He’s as fake as Vonda’s breasts. Recovering from his swoon, he says: “You guys have already seen me giving post-hypnotic suggestions to some of the volunteers now sitting in the audience. They’ll be acting on those suggestions later. But to
really
give you an idea of how powerful post-hypnotic suggestions can be, I’ve held back Isabelle here for one final demonstration.”