Television. Realtiy bytes for a troubled city?

53.    

They left Flatlands in an airport limo. How bizarre! How well designed! The driver and his associate spoke English without the slightest hint of a Spanish accent. Not only that, they were both blonde and blue eyed. Marian felt a bit confused by it. Reggie dismissed them as children all grown up form the unions of East Bloc and Cuban parents.

They were headed north and then also east. An unscheduled stop or two would be in Glen Head and also in Brookville. Reggie figured Russian diplomats had something to add to the overall equation. It was their zone so to speak. Marian thought they should fall prey to the greatest of misfortunes. They were to be executed. She visualized a Stalinist firing squad obliterating them in the field behind North Shore High School. Their bodies could be dumped in bins at the Osteopathic School thereafter!

Her gloom cam through in her facial expression. She said nothing. Reggie on the other hand knew he had not surrendered his weapon. No need. He had joined up! Frente 26 Julio hired him as a consultant back in Flatlands. His retainer was some first rate hash. Maybe these guys had tainted it somehow? Maybe the Ivans had done the dame for his earlier smokes. Did not matter a lick now! He wanted more and had to have it. They sensed it. They had their hook. They were delighted to have the consummate Ivan killer on their side. Since Marian had become his bitch, she was okay too. She could stay alive too.

They traversed the Roslyn Road area with great skill. You had to circumvent the no fire zone at Albertson. They got out their cell phones and dialed up someone. The limo eased slowly down the roads of a factory district at 15 m.p.h. . An armored personnel carrier met them and a rough looking paratrooper beckoned them to follow. They had to do so without straying off the path in either direction even two degrees.

Marian blushed. Reggie began smoking a pipe. The back of the limo became quite conducive to mellowing out. They passed a burned over combat zone, A battle had been fought there recently? Reggie just nodded. There was a war going on. People were dying. The pipe tasted fine. Suddenly they just came to a stop. He saw a face he recognized. Her hair needed washing. Her make up did not hide her age particularly well. The evening twilight made her seem ghoulish. Buffy would have staked her! Beside her was a cop. Reggie spoke with him years ago. An alright Joe then? How about now?

Maybe this was a hash inspired dream? Nope. He heard Crissy’s voice and knew it was real enough. Marian sat there frozen. Crissy would videotape the final interview with a killer. He and his lady companion would be immortalized. Then, the cop would dispose of them once and for all! Ted and Crissy got in the limo? The car headed north? Toward that ferry rendezvous? Marian wanted to scream.

Ted ignored the pipe smoke. Crissy quickly sized up and scaled down Marian. The driver and his associate backtracked to the Long island Expressway. They moved east. The full moon was up. None of the passengers cared enough to notice.

54.    

College kids can get really excited! A small cadre of media geeks had assembled in the campus television studio. They were the ones to record a serious interview for posterity. They just had to be. Crissy would be at Hillwood Commons soon. Political looking yet artistic dynamite could and would be ignited in the serene setting of what was once a cereal magnate’s estate.

It did not take long for Crissy and a brutish looking man to arrive at their studio. The man was way beyond mellow yet determined to do the interview. Not exactly what the Prof had prepped them to do! H.G. Wells did not use burned out and superannuated hooligans to convince America the Martians had landed. This scare drew upon things that were quite real. Where did the play end? Where did realities begin? Or was it all already real ? Were they faking the news or making the news?

Dina Merrill played here once. But this did not sound like a game! This guy Reggie had to be insane. Was this the plot for a horror movie? He had to be kidding? Shades of Surf Nazis Must Die? The Feds in on it? Fascists and not a few Cubans wiped off the face of this Earth?  A civil war erupted? Nobody told us? Crissy sure got to the bottom of it. She sounded like Crissy in voice only as she came off much differently in her bearing now. She had a heart now. She appeared to be a mentally tough person with oceans of compassion inside?

Nobody who saw this broadcast would ever forget it anytime soon? You could hardly discount it as a bunch of college kids making a Michael Moore flick! Why? How could anyone event a monster as freaky as Reggie? How did they get Crissy? Why did she agree to do it there? How did they engender such a wondrous personality transplant for her? College kids early in a Fall Semester would be hard put to conjure up such a mind blowing spectacle. Unless of course it was real?

Ted seemed pleased by it all. He had Marian and Reggie as well headed off in the well lit night moving toward Syosset. He had said little to the driver or his associate. They might kill the couple. Reggie might kill them. It made him no never mind either way.

Nice to be on a campus again. Brought him back to the days when life was less complicated or so he imagined anyhow. Seemed so long ago. Crissy had graduated from C.W. Post. She delighted in seeing it again. The girls in Alpha Z Delta flag football jerseys made her feel young again as they passed by. Pioneer Spirit still resided within her. Or did it come back due to Ted, learning to love for real and learning to kill for real as well? All of this new stuff in the space of 48 hours? Hours that seemed like an eternity on the one hand and quick blur on the other.

The pseudoscience acquired at Columbia over the course of three years of graduate study faded away when she permanently surrendered her panties? Or did it evaporate when she let loose in the face of those young gangsters? Reggie made little impression on her. Ted had her back the whole time. His laser pistol was trained on the sick fuck’s occipital lobe. She could tell by the pinpoint orange circle lit up there. She would shoot him too if it came to that!

What a miserable cur? And the mouse with him? Marian had lost the essence of life somewhere along the line. Such a nebbish! A failed young single grown prematurely old? Like Crissy herself in some ways before Ted had come along and come elsewhere! Shit. Who cares? Creepy though. She felt an itching sensation. There was a recurrent burning down below? Not from some inelegant STD? The interview left her feeling horny. She hankered for yet another scintillating juncture with Ted.

Ted managed to inform command officers that his investigation was progressing well. In truth, his plan had played itself out to perfection so far. He grew guardedly optimistic about bringing it to full fruition.