Constellations

It is a sad poem indeed. The one that showers dim light upon a fiery sky. The thoughts, the words, the warmth from billions of light years away, how did it get here? And why?

As I look at the night, I see not stars that are illuminated by our sun. Nay, they shine of their own light. Or do they? For isn’t their light shared between the giants in the sky? Unlike candle or bulb that radiates from a source alone, the stars burn of their own accord, and they also absorb due to their immense size and gravity.

If our small earth collects light, then so must the sun himself. And due to his undeniable size and station, he must absorb much light from others like him. For when I look into the night sky, I see light that took time to soar, time to travel.

So our sun collects light, and sends it back to us. Is it a gift? Is it a randomizing process to make each new day truly new, truly unique. With even if the same food eaten, the same paths walked, the same water drank, the same people discussed to and discussed with and discussed about…the rays are different. And different as much every time.

Like a powerful and generous king who redistributes the wealth of the land among the land, so doth the sun share the photons and cosmic rays collected from other stars upon our tiny world.

But the night is raw. Raw yet dim. The stars can only send small messages, small whispers from their cosmic relay. But to discount their effort would be like shunning a messenger who walked ninety-thousand miles to deliver a tattered note. Of course his boots have been worn to shreds. Of course his tears have been caked with sand. Of course his cloak is nothing but a collar and belt. But his message, his tiny note of a old tongue…that has value.

So not only do I accept the note, and read it. But I keep the note. I keep a thing that has such little value and little discernible significance, not because it is part of some strange and cumbersome collection.

It is kept because it has travelled far enough.

As I burn my candle late tonight. I do it so the stars have an ally, a friend of sorts. Like a dog that follows a pack of wolves, I wait to see what mountain they will stop at. What vista will catch the eye.

So I send this small note to a few, a few that are burning their candle. So perhaps they too enjoy the night. Not in an attempt to steal the joy of solitude or smother the emotions of tranquility. But to leave a frayed note, at the doorstep, at the threshold.

From one pilgrim to another.

July 12th, 2011 – 2:19AM

The Weary Dime

So you’ve found me.

Among the dirt,

along the road.

Thought you’d never notice.

Don’t pick me up.

Don’t look at me.

I’m bruised.

I’m a mess.

Don’t see me.

In a pocket full of keys and coins I wait.

Waiting to be discarded…

Waiting to be given as a tip to some barista.

Others go in the clear box.

But I stay.

Why?

For I am but a two-thousand and eight coin.

Value does not rest beneath my layers.

I have no magik and no appeal.

But still I travel.

You take me aside and examine me.

The suffering of the bald tires across my face,

the pain of the child with pliers,

the shame of once proud symbols,

now barely recognizable.

I am naked and afraid.

Will you send me away?

Will you return me to the mint?

Have I lost all value?

With a warm hand,

you place me in a box.

One that I’ve never known could exist.

One filled with my brothers and sisters.

Look! There’s old man ’43,

Do you have memories to share?

Oh! A 1901, I shall listen to your wisdom.

And Mr. ’44, my stories must pale in comparison.

I know not, what I have to offer to thee.

But I offer it with all my heart,

and all I have left.

July 1st, 2011

Copyright © 2011

In the damp, dark cottage three doors from Gergenon’s lone brothel, Nathaiu struggled with the black-haired woman under him, desperate to get what he wanted. Her frantic exhales were visible in the faint light of the hearth, like the fear in her gray eyes. Did she not understand his need? As he gained control of her flailing limbs, and she settled a little, as if out of a fatalistic acceptance, he gripped her harder and pressed closer. He saw one eye fix on him and she trembled as she turned her face away, to escape in some small way, it seemed.

****

A week and a day before, a bone-chilling March wind blew across Artago plain, lifting a swirl of dry snow. Nathaiu wandered along Gergenon’s main street. Counting stones and jumping over a stinking drain, he made his way to the early market by the temple of Orotar, the Sun God. He narrowed his blue eyes against the sunbeams slanting over the former border-fort’s jagged old walls, which ran parallel to the street. In the shadow of the temple tower, his dazzled eyes found relief, and the market. Looking for a cheap chicken – one his aged Aunt Enselyta could cook with a little thyme, basil, and salt, if he could get it – he made his way through the murmuring throng.

Nathaiu’s stomach growled as he stopped in front of a chicken-seller and looked at the man’s baskets of half-starved birds.

Its thin cockscomb slumped lazily to the side and its pale red wattle wiggling, one chicken tilted its head and gawked at him with one eye.

“Three coppers?” Nathaiu said, glaring at the thick-bellied chicken-seller and shaking his head. “For these things?! It’s robbery! Why don’t you just sit by the graveyard and poke widows for their offering-coins? Give up the chicken-selling?”

“Raise up your own chickens, if you don’t like it,” the chicken-seller said with a twisted sneer on his lips.

Disgusted, but mostly dispirited, Nathaiu walked away.

Passing out of the temple tower’s shadow, he shaded his eyes from the bright sun again. Ignoring one chicken-seller and the next, he came to the salt-seller’s decrepit booth. Only, instead of the salt-seller, he found an old man in a fur hat peddling incense.

Nathaiu crossed his arms over his thin chest. Now where’s that salt-seller got to? he wondered with irritation, his eyes stuck on the stranger.

The man certainly looked curious. A foreigner, Nathaiu guessed. An outlander to all the seven countries. He had seen a fur cap like that only one other time – on a bear-tamer with a stump for a hand. He had decided then not to think much of a one-handed bear-tamer with a strange accent and hat.

Still, this man, this incense-peddler, wore the long, thin gray scarf of the blessed priests of Orotar. That counted for something. Not even the most foolish vagabond would risk arrest mere footsteps from the temple if he had not been granted the right to the distinction.

Nathaiu waved away the sweet-smelling smoke that curled under his nose and scrubbed at his unkempt, dirty-blonde hair. He watched as the incense-peddler harangued a huddle of pilgrims. Through the haze, Nathaiu made out the man’s empty black eyes, so different from the smile hiding under the man’s drooping mustache. A bit unnerved, Nathaiu turned to go.

But the sudden mention of an incense to send the dead on in peace to Orotar stopped him cold. He turned back and found the man staring at him through the crowd.

The peddler held up a tray of little brown cakes. “Do departed dear ones linger in sadness?” he asked.

Nathaiu’s heart shook. He nodded his head. The peddler waved an invitation to move closer. “Uh…My mother and father, they died of a fever one after the other during Winterfest ‘fore last.”

Solemnity on his face, the man leaned towards Nathaiu and spoke through his flapping mustache. “And they linger now despite most anxious prayers?”

Nathaiu swallowed hard and nodded.

Tears formed in his eyes and against his wishes trickled slowly down his cheek. He brushed them away with the back of a hand. Not a day had passed since his parents died that he had not thought of them, not a day that he had not sensed their troubled spirits. For this reason, he lit a lamp and said a prayer to Orotar every morning just after sunrise, and then one before he climbed into his sagging, creaking cot at night.

“I ask with humility, Shining One,” he would whisper, hands clasped tight as he knelt in front of the small household shrine tucked beside the hearth.

Let not the clinging earth and its devils have them

Let your light lead them away from darkness

Let your love bring them out of sadness

I beg you…

His mind tinged with doubt, Nathaiu blinked away his thought and asked the stranger, “Who are you?”

The incense-peddler gave a weary look and waved his hand. “I am called Thuveoro, Smokemaster.” He shrugged and smiled. “I come with Shining One’s work in mind. How shall I call you?”

Nathaiu couldn’t place the man’s unusual accent. The Smokemaster might come from the east, the north or the south, but Nathaiu couldn’t say which.

One of the pilgrim women followed the conversation, her meek, freckled face turning silently from the peddler back to Nathaiu.

Nathaiu answered with some reluctance. “Call me Nathaiu.”

“Friend of gods?” Thuveoro said, lifting his thick brows. “It is good name, good name. Your father and mother loved you dearly.”

Nathaiu scrubbed his thin, rough hands together against the cold and shrugged. “Nearly as much as I loved them, I guess.”

“Hmm, well… Do you know what delay happy departure of loved ones for Great Father?”

Nathaiu’s mind wandered and he found himself in the presence of his memories. He swallowed hard again. “No,” he answered. Blinking to focus his eyes, he added, a hint of desperation in his voice, “But I seek to know.”

Thuveoro’s coal-black eyes did not move, though a slight grin peeked again from under his gray mustache. “Is sad secret,” the man said, “but I gladly tell.”

I must seem a weepy, superstitious old woman, Nathaiu thought, casting a quick glance at some of the pilgrims. But he didn’t care. The pilgrim woman looked at him with wide eyes, and then blinked. He felt no shame for his tears and curiosity, or at least not much.

He looked back at Thuveoro.

…

(Go to ‘A Cheerful Smoke for the Dead’ at Smashwords.com to get the rest of the story!)

This was quite a mess. I needed to complete Candy’s scavenger hunt, but I didn’t have a teenager without a cellphone. She’d never marry me now! I was about to give up when Amelia suggested that I head back down the mountain and try the small resort town at the base, to see if any of the teenagers there didn’t have cellphones. So, she took me back down the mountain and wished me luck, then left me at the entrance to Gopherville, a resort town that catered to cave explorers. There weren’t any caves nearby, except for an artificial one made out of plaster, so not a lot of people stayed in the town.

I searched all around Gopherville, but only found one teenager texting away while his parents took pictures of an interesting looking stick. So I headed back to my car and drove to the nearest major town, which wasn’t much bigger than Gopherville, but had a much bigger population, since it was next to a factory that produced novelty salt and pepper shakers. As I searched around, I saw a sea of teenagers chatting and texting away as they walked through Shakerville’s shopping district.

“Doesn’t any teenager not have a cellphone?” I screamed. Several people looked over and me and one lowered his phone to his side. “Uh… Well… Joe Spencer doesn’t have one…” He sort of shrugged and put his cellphone back to his ear, but I walked over to him and paid him ten dollars to tell me where I could find this Joe Spencer.

“You don’t have to look far,” he said, after taking my money. “He likes to hang out in the park and feed the squirrels.” I asked him where the park was and had to pay him ten more dollars to find out it was right across the street from us. The only person in the park was a man about eighteen years old, sitting on a bench and tossing acorns across the grass as hard as he could manage. He looked up as I ran over and then went back to throwing acorns.

“Hey,” I said. “I hear you don’t have a cellphone.”

The kid shrugged. “Don’t need one. Not when I have this.” He pulled a couple of cups with strings attacked out from under the bench. “These are going to be much bigger than cellphones. Just have to find some long enough strings.”

This was perfect. Not only was he a teenager without a cellphone, he had a business venture I could get behind. So, we talked for two hours about the marketability of cups and strings, finalizing a business partnership, as well as a signed affidavit to prove to Candy he didn’t have a cellphone. After taking his picture for extra proof, we shook hands and I rushed off to bring the affidavit and everything else I had gathered in the past three days to Candy.

So, I got into my car and drove back home. Unfortunately, one of the towns along the way decided to have parade right down the middle of the highway. It was for an organization called the “Society for the Directionally Challenged” and it took three hours to get them off the road, because a few kept wandering back. Finally, traffic started moving again and I drove my tail off back home, driving as fast as the speed limit would allow. (A speeding ticket was the last thing I needed, especially since Mother said she would put a boot on my car if I ever got one.)

When I made it back home, there were only thirty minutes left until the deadline. It took another fifteen minutes to drive to Candy’s warehouse. I parked in front and rushed inside, with my video of mimes breaking character, letter from an agent thanking me for my advice, and signed affidavit from a teenager without a cellphone, plus a photo to prove he really existed.

Candy was waiting for me, sitting amidst all the baked goods I had delivered to her warehouse three days before. I walked over to her and placed everything at her feet, as if I was making an offering to the Goddess of Pastries. She stood up and laid a hand on my shoulder. “You have done well, Car Johnson. Now let us head out into the world and announce our joyous union.” It seemed Candy was in the personality that thought it lived inside an epic fantasy novel, which gave the end of the scavenger hunt all the more pizzazz. I just hoped she didn’t insist we slay the inflatable dragon outside the local comic shop this time.

She took my hand and led me outside, where the sky seemed brighter and the air smelled sweeter than it did before. Whatever happened in my life, I’d have Candy by my side, through thick and thin, no matter what came about. She helped me grow, she turned me from a kid to a man and she became my other half. The next chapter of my life hadn’t been written yet, but with Candy as the ink, I knew it would be fantastic.

The End

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Read Part 58

“You just don’t understand!”

“That’s because you do nothing but mumble.”

“The only reason why I mumble is because I’m depressed.”

“I’d be depressed too if I was made with a rolling pin instead of a spatula.”

“The only thing you know about rolling is how to use your gambling to weasel every last chip from the casino.”

“Well it looks like I’m at least good a one thing. And that is exactly one more thing than you are good at, my chocolately friend.”

“Oh, so now you’re saying I’m chocolatey. What, are you trying to butter me up?”

“From the looks of things that happened a long time ago.”

Then one of the chocolate chip cookies turned to the scoop of vanilla ice cream and said,

“Hey, Scoop, how come you always stand there, you never get involved? We are battling it out and you think you can just take the high road all the time. Can’t you back me up once in a while?”

Then the scoop of vanilla ice cream said to the two chocolate chip cookies,

“I don’t think I want to get in the middle of this.”

-Tyler
June 2011

It took a whole day for Roger to get back to me. He showed me a letter from the agent and I grabbed it and read as quickly as I could.

Dear Mr. Johnson,

Thank you for your lyrics and advice on how to use them to “take me to the next level,” but I have to decline and ask that you refrain from contacting me again.

Sincerely,

Mike O’Mally, agent to the stars.

Yippee! He thanked me! It didn’t matter that he declined my advice. All I needed was the thanks. Almost all of Candy’s scavenger hunt tasks were completed and I was that much closer to winning her heart in marriage. Now it was time for the hardest task of all, to find a teenager without a cellphone. At first I thought of starting up a program to trade cellphones for concert tickets, but I was afraid that Candy would see it as cheating. So, I got my great uncle Douglas to fly me back home in his Curtiss P-40 Warhawk and scouted the streets for a teenager who would fit Candy’s criteria.

It was Saturday, so a lot of teenagers were out and about, all chatting away with phones glued to their ears or texting people two feet away from them. The only way I could think to find a cellphoneless teen in such a short amount of time was to go to my technology hating second Amelia, who lived four hours away on the top of a mountain, with nothing but her family and tools to work their land. They were a hard working, honest family, and best of all, were guaranteed not to have any cellphones within a ten mile radius of their house.

So, I took the four hour drive up to their house, listening to a self-published book on tape my mother produced about aliens coming to Earth to win a swing dance competition, so they could make their parents proud and scope out cattle to mutilate. It took the whole four hours to listen to one chapter, but it was worth it. Mother always had a way with stories. When I was a kid, she’d tell me about the adventure of Apathy Man, the only superhero in the world to retire after one day on the job, and hear warming tales of Spotty, the super-intelligent dog who took over the world.

Well, time was of the essence, so I got out of my car and started up the trail leading to Amelia’s house. It wound through the windiest forest I’d ever been in, twisting and turning like one of Mother’s mysteries about Mikey the armchair sleuth. When I was a kid, I loved these woods and pretended I was an insurance salesman tracking down the lead of lifetime. But now, all I could think about was getting to the top of the hill and completing task as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, quickly wasn’t much of an option. With all the twist and turns and without one of my second cousin Amelia’s handwritten maps, I was lost. No matter which way I turned, I just found another curve and more trees, and no helpful little woodland creatures willing to show me the way. I even asked a squirrel if he could lead me to Amelia’s house, but he ignored me, no matter how many acorns I offered him. So, I kept walking, hoping to find something familiar.

Then I saw it. One of the trees had all the lyrics to the theme song to an old local children’s show called Manny and the Manic Monkeys. I remembered carving that when I was fifteen and I also recalled that the tree was one of them ones bordering Amelia’s house. A few minutes later, I found an opening and rushed across the lawn to the front door of Amelia’s log cabin.

She came to the door, carrying an axe… and a cellphone. Her three youngest kids came up behind her, also carrying cellphones, even little eight year old Susie, with her pigtails and homemade dress. Stacy and Tracy, the fifteen year old twins I was coming to see, were both busy texting. Amelia took the phone down from her ear and frowned. “Car honey, it’s nice to see you, but what’s wrong?”

“You’re supposed to not like technology,” I said, as I pointed to her phone.

Amelia laughed. “A cellphone isn’t technology silly. It’s a necessity.”

“Mine has unlimited texts,” Tracy chimed in.

Amelia’s husband Claude came in from the other room. “And mine has internet.”

I sighed and looked at my watch. There were only ten hours left until Candy’s deadline and I didn’t have a teenager without a cellphone. Now what was I going to do?

-to be continued-

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Ask Car

Do you think Candy will actually marry you if you complete the scavenger hunt?

Car

Of course. She’s true to her word, no matter what personality she’s in.

Car will answer your questions next week as well. Be sure to email them to car_johnson_rocks@hotmail.com

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Read Part 57 – Read Part 59

“Okay fine,” one of the mimes said as I pumped my hand in victory. Reverse psychology works every time. I walked out of the mime-filled diner with the video proving one of them had talked during a performance and set out to perform the next task on Candy’s scavenger hunt: to get a letter from a professional music agent (and not the one I met at a street corner and used as my own) thanking me for my advice on country music.

This would be easy. Music agents might be in the know, but I was born with country in my blood and cowboy in my soul. My pores dripped with pure essence of fiddle and my feet were possessed by the spirit of Johnny Cash. Now all I had to do was channel all that country goodness into a manifesto of advice for an agent. It would have all the country knowledge I gained over the years, which was mostly how to write great lyrics. Most agents already knew more than I did regarding country music, no matter how much country flowed through my veins. The only thing he didn’t have was my genius in lyric writing.

A light bulb lit over my head. I’d just send an agent some specially crafted lyrics with the advice that they should use them with one of their singers. All I had to do was craft the perfect lyrics. It couldn’t be about cow fetuses or anything else only related to me, but a song that brought out the essence of country in a universal way. So, I put on several country music CDs at once, got in my cowboy pajamas, and watched episodes of Bonanza for ten hours straight. After feeling enough of a country vibe, I sat down to write.

The words swarmed out of me like a cloud of killer bees, buzzing onto the page and depositing wonderful clumps of fresh country honey. It only took me two days to write, but it was a perfect gem, reflecting all of my country soul.

Country boys live everywhere, even those with flaming red hair

So clap you hands and stamp your feet! Us country lads can’t be beat!

It you don’t have a horse, grab a coin operated one. They aren’t as expensive and a lot more fun.

Can’t throw a lasso? Don’t you fret! You can just use a big ‘ole net.

[chorus]Yes, being a country lad is fun. It don’t matter where you’re from.

Bostin or Texas, California or Utah

We all know how to say yee-ha!

My mother once told me to take of my boots and accept I ain’t now cowboy

But I just laughed, put on my hat and fed my steer named Roy.

Roy was made of plaster and sat out on my lawn

I’d be out there every day, singing a cowboy song!

[chorus]

So, all you country folk out there, ashamed of where you are

Just let that country in you shine, ‘cus you can be country, even on Mars!

After writing the song on fancy paper my mother sent me for my birthday, I added a nice letter, saying much I respected a good agent and how my song could elevate his career to a whole new level. Now all I had to do was figure out a way to deliver it and who to deliver it to.. Mail was too slow, since I only had two days left to complete the rest of my tasks. Fortunately, I could do both in one swoop. My third cousin Roger worked as a powerful agent’s secretaries’ hair stylist. I could ask him to find a way to personally hand it to him.

Of course, I’d have to do a favor for Roger before hand. He’d been wanting me to dress as a giant brush and stand outside his hair salon, Snipperz, to pass out coupons to passerby. His salon is in Los Angeles and right across the street from a karate school and a candy store. Every person who has ever donned his brush costume ends up attacked by sugar high kids in karate outfits. But I was willing to put up with that to win Candy’s heart, plus I always wondered what it would be like to dress up as like a giant brush.

Roger was thrilled when I called and told me to come right over. So, I spent three hours waiting for my great uncle Douglas to get done flying around WWII enthusiasts and take me down to L.A. in his Curtiss P-40 Warhawk. After we landed, I grabbed a taxi and headed over to Snipperz. Roger shoved the costume at me as soon as I stepped out of the car and made me where it over my clothes and get straight to work. Several kids swarmed over, as if they could smell the prey of a costumed character, even a brush standing in front of a hair salon. It wasn’t so bad. I even managed to pass out a few coupons though the dog pile of children laughing in my ear.

Finally, the mothers came, scolded the kids, and took them home for dinner. Roger told me he would be glad to find a way for my letter and lyrics to get into the agent’s hands. Now, all I had to do was wait. So, I rented a motel room near the salon and hoped that I’d hear back from them in time.

-to be continued-

-

Ask Car

You have such an interesting life. Can we trade places?

Car

Sorry. I tried that once before and ended up stuck in the middle of nowhere with a squid on my head. Don’t ask me how it happened.

Car will answer your questions next week as well. Be sure to email them to car_johnson_rocks@hotmail.com

Join the Car Johnson Rocks Facebook group!

Read Part 56 – Read Part 58

Without the least sense of yearning I glanced at the Wall Street Journal from the front page of which I was learning. And I walked up to the counter and said with a saunter,

“It looks like you all has quite a few customers, yes?”

“Yeah we were quite busy, business lately has been the best.”

“You guys were busier than a bunch of bankers bullying barbarians into buying bank bonds.”

“Happy Hour…it’s happy hour…”

The journey to win Candy’s heart in marriage turned out to be a scavenger hunt. She made up a list of fifty things for me to find in the next two weeks, most of which were various types of baked goods. There were three hard to get items, though. One was a video of me causing a mime to break character and start talking in the middle of a performance, the second was a letter from a big name agent thanking me for advice on country music and the third was a signed affidavit from a teenager who didn’t have a cellphone.

I decided to order the baked goods online and then go find a mime to prod into talking. So, I got out my video camera and went mime hunting. The shopping quad where street performers frequented was filled with plenty of clowns and quartets, jugglers and dancers… but no mimes. That was odd. There were usually a few mimes out and about, walking imaginary dogs and trying to get out of boxes that didn’t exist. I asked around and a member of a four man kazoo band told me that Candy had paid all the mimes to hide in one spot, then he handed me a clue to where they were.

The clue was a bobble head of Tom Clancy, which could only mean one thing. The mimes had been hidden at the Red October Bar and Grill. Well actually, there was no such place as the Red October Bar and Grill. But someone had taped a giant piece of poster board to a tree, with the words This way to the Red October Bar and Grill written on it, plus an arrow pointing to a local diner. So, I went over to the diner and stepped inside, finding table after table of mimes, all pretending to eat off of empty plates. It reminded me of when I was a child and dinner guests would feign eating Mother’s cooking, before ducking under the table to snack on candy bars hidden in their pockets. Except in this case, there was no cherry Kool-Ade and kidney pudding to pretend to eat, just air.

The mimes ignored me as I walked through the diner, even when I started to try and introduce myself. They just kept eating their fake food and mouthing fake conversation. Even singing did nothing. Most people cover their ears and begged for silence when I sing without my voice changer, but these little troupers did nothing. So, I decided to try a different tact. My Mother always says if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em and that’s exactly what I did. I found an empty chair and started to bring an imaginary fork to my mouth, while looking around the room. No one even glanced in my direction.

“Come on guys,” I said. “Talk to me.” One of the mimes turned, mouthed silently to me and went back to his faux meal. That did it. I took my fake fork and lobbed some fake food right at him. He wiped his face and then went right back to eating. Well, this wasn’t working. If I wanted to get one of these guys talking, I’d have to do something drastic. So, I got up on the table and made a proclamation.

“If you mimes don’t start talking, I’ll be forced to recite the whole second season of the sit-com my cousin Rina wrote, called Men at a Bus Stop.” They didn’t even look up, so I continued. “It all starts at a bus stop, where two men sit on a bench. One goes ‘I could really go for some chili,’ and the other says, ‘Me too, but my ulcer’s acting up.’”

Men at a Bus Stop was the most boring television show ever conceived. It consisted of two business men talking about chili and ulcers for twenty minutes, with each episode ending with them both getting on a bus. There were no jokes to speak of, just an endless stream of random facts about obscure peppers and advice on the best tasting antacid. Cousin Rina forced me to memorize all seven seasons she wrote in the event that her computer broke and her papers caught fire and she needed an extra backup. It hadn’t been useful until now, as I spouted line after line of dry pepper banter.

Unfortunately, no one seemed to fall under the weight of Men at a Bus Stop, even after two straight hours. Finally, I just sighed and said, “Fine, I give up. You guys win.”

-To be continued-

-

Ask Car

How can I go about being a Carphile?

Car

If you call yourself a Carphile, you are one. It’s a state of mind.

Car will answer your questions next week as well. Be sure to email them to car_johnson_rocks@hotmail.com

Join the Car Johnson Rocks Facebook group!

Read Part 55 – Read Part 57

So, Candy was asking me to marry her, in a way. Marriage is a big deal in the Johnson clan. We take pride in finding families that are just as unique as us. It really isn’t hard, though. Johnsons seem to have a magnetic ability to find someone special who matches our style of unconventional genius. When I was a kid, my father (or Uncle Frank, or both) always told the family fable of an island nation filled with a unique group of people and how they all they all lived in harmony, taming slugs and growing crops of stinkweed. Times were good, at least until the badgers came. They swam to shore from the mainland and attacked the poor islanders, knocking over their orange peel houses and eating their supply of sugar coated chicken beaks.

The families were forced to build boats and flee their paradise, cast to the winds by the tides and drunken navigators. My ancestors made it to England and became the Johnsons, before eventually coming to America to try and start a consulting business for fur traders. Father told me it was a Johnson’s duty to find the right mate, someone who came from a properly unique family, preferably one with a marriage custom that involved purple sock puppets and miniature golf.

That was all well and good for my father, but I wanted more out of life. I wanted to walk the world, unfettered and free, to do what I wanted, go where I wanted and to have as many women as I wanted. It was a blast. A literal blast that time I went out with a demolition expert. I met women from all walks of life. And even though most of them called me a freak and ran for the hills after a few dates or turned out to be complete psychos, I was happy. Life’s nothing without a little spice, and a lady who thinks she’s a butterfly is a whole jalapeno.

But then I met Candy. She was hundreds of women in one, plus she understood me. No one else ever smiled at my attempt to write a children’s book about the dangers of mold or agreed that the sewer systems were secretly managed by elves. She was the peanut butter to my jelly, the antenna to my television, the whoomp to my there it is. With her, I wasn’t just Car. I was Car 2.0, out of beta and ready to rock the world with my special features. Together, we were Carandy, a mythical beast that feasted on the marrow of life and gave the bones to Candy’s Irish Setter personality.

So, I looked Candy in the eyes and said, “Yes, I’ll marry you.” Unfortunately, she was back in her own personality when I said it and didn’t even remember asking me. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t interested in the idea. She told me that I would have to go on a journey to prove myself a worthy mate. It would involve an arduous task of great risk and I would have to complete in the next five days or she would be forced to find someone else to marry her. Arduous task of great risk? Gee, I hope it’s a pie eating contest.

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Ask Car

I want to be your plastic mould supplier.

Car

How did you know I started a collection of plastic casts of household mold? But I’ll have to say sorry to the offer. I’d rather make them myself. It’s more of a challenge that way.

Car will answer your questions next week as well. Be sure to email them to car_johnson_rocks@hotmail.com

Join the Car Johnson Rocks Facebook group!

Read Part 54 – Read Part 56

The Carphiles followed us back home and set up a permanent residence in an old factory I had bought a a few years back for an amusement part idea called Factory Land. It was an indoor extravaganza of hands on entertainment, where people could sort screws and build clock radios, or take their chances on the conveyor belt roller coaster, which circled the factory at one mile an hour. I built it for all the people who dreamed of living the full factory experience. Unfortunately, no one did.

So, I tore everything down and used the building to store old VHS copies of B monster movies. The Carphiles loved the videos and watched them continuously as they set up their mini city of Cartopia. They’re a pretty ingenious bunch, especially Car number forty-three. I’ve tried to get them to speak in anything other than lines from the Carlightenment board game to learn their actual names, but it’s a losing battle. Besides, it’s fun having a bunch of Cars around. Well anyway, they built cots out of old bicycle parts and and stuff clowns and even created a security system from computer parts, rope and duct tape.

Of course, it wasn’t electronic or anything, just a couple of giant buckets full of circuit boards and old modems that they tied over the factory’s doors. Every time someone walked in, they ended up being bombarded with a shower of geek rain. The only way to safely get into the building was to enter a secret door one of them had cut out out of a wall leading into a supply closet. Too bad they had neglected to inform me of that fact. Getting hit with a bucket of computer parts is not fun.

The Carphiles started to apologize with a musical dance version of To Kill a Mocking Bird. But I assured them it was okay and we went out to eat instead. Since there were three hundred in the group, it would be pretty hard to fit into a restaurant. Good thing the Carphiles built their own place in the factory that they called the Car Cafe. Car number eight was a really good cook and even went over to my mother’s to learn the secrets of her cuisine. Since it was such a wonderful meal, I called Candy and had her come over to enjoy it.

Between bites of cabbage and orange smoothie pudding, we talked about the name for her personalities. The blog voting garnered one response, a suggestion to have them called “The Mexican Candy that Might be Tainted with Lead.” Since Candy wanted to use the name her personalities’ suggestions, we decided on “The Candied Porkchops that Might be Tainted with Killer Cavities,” or Candy’s Crew for short. The Carphiles applauded the decision and Car number eight made Candy a candied porkchop cake to celebrate. As she was eating, a new personality emerged, one that thought she was me and I was her. It was really cool watching her perception of me, as she talked about a new business venture of using the Carphiles to open a dog tattoo service and a town beatification project involving towers made out of those mini umbrellas you find in drinks. It was very surreal, but in a cool way and I played along by being her. It took a few minutes to make a convincing personality change, but pretty soon I was doing a great rendition of Candy’s lifeguard personality trying to rescue the Carphiles from glasses of water and her cute personality that thought it was a songbird with a bad case of laryngitis. After I finished croaking out some chirping sounds, Candy got out of her chair and bent down on one knee next to me. Then she held my hand and asked:

“Candy, will you Marry me?”

-to be continued-

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Ask Car

Can I have my own group of Carphiles?

Car

Not unless your name is also Car.

Car will answer your questions next week as well. Be sure to email them to car_johnson_rocks@hotmail.com

Join the Car Johnson Rocks Facebook group!

Read Part 53 – Read Part 55

I’m being chased by a T-Rex Dino.
He’s green and big and scary.
Why he’s chasing me, I don’t know.
He’s screaming my name out… “Larry, Larry.”

I ran towards a cage, hoping for protection.
Those big, grey, metal bars…perfect for introspection.

So now I stand, banging this gate…cursing this rotten prison.
Yet I am not screaming for my escape, but rather to be let in.

-Tyler Stansfield Jaggers

The road trip was coming along nicely. Everywhere we went, people lined up to hear about my course. Well, the lines were actually from other things, such as movies and the DMV, but once people heard about Carlightenment, the ones with any sense were hooked. We even had people following us from town to town, calling themselves Carphiles and speaking only in lines from the course’s board game. It made it really hard to talk to them. If you asked them how they were feeling, they might say “laugh in the middle of a wedding,” and if you asked them what they wanted for dinner they might say “Panda’s eat bamboo, and you should too.”

It was also hard to figure what to call them, since lines from Carlightenment didn’t have proper names, and I couldn’t ask them who they were. So, I resorted to calling them all Car and assigning each one a number. As the amount of people increased, I had everyone wear a name-tag, which they wore with the pride of people forming a group to follow some stranger’s semi across the country.

Of course, following the semi was getting pretty hard to do, since most of them were on foot. I ended up calling Mother and asking permission to access some of the money I had from my flamethrower lawsuit. She only allowed me to use it for business ventures, and since the throng of Carlightenment fans were part of my road trip, she agreed that they were part of my overall business plan. She wired enough money to buy some buses for them all to fit in, plus some to modify the buses into looking like giant Car Johnsons lying on the ground with newly spouted wheels, like some sort of tired Transformer.

They slowed down the progress quite a bit, but their presence certainly made an impression on potential buyers. We stopped pulling into parking lots, since we ended up being chased by a yarn shop by angry grandmothers after accidentally blocking some spaces. But I realized that empty lots worked a lot better, as long as they were big enough. The Carphiles started setting up a mini city they called Cartopia that attracted many curious potential customers who came to see what all the fuss was about. Some of the people bought my course, and some even decided to stay, entranced by the Carphiles and their spontaneous interpretive dance versions of popular urban legends. All told, there ended up being three hundred Carphiles following us during out trip.

The only problem was with my girlfriend, Candy. She got jealous and wanted a horde of Candy fans who followed her wherever she went. But I pointed out that she already had a horde of people who followed her, right in her very own head, where they’d never call her on her cellphone and demand to make a potty break.

Candy loved the idea and decided to name her inner followers the Candy Corns and proceeded to switch to another personality who thought Candy’s Cavities was a better fit. Soon, all her personalities were chiming in and arguing over what Candy should name them all. The suggestions ranged from the cute (Candied Yams) to the downright frightening (Damned Candies from Hell) to ones that didn’t make a lick of sense (Porkchops.) They couldn’t make up their minds, so I decided to have the readers of the blog where I posted my life story vote on what name her personalities should adopt.

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Help Candy pick a name for her personalities! Email car_johnson_rocks@hotmail.com to vote between:

• Candy’s Cavities
• Candied Yams
• Damned Candies from Hell
• Porkchops

Ask Car

How do you know which of Candy’s personalities is Candy?

Car

She refers to herself as Candy. Plus, I just know. I guess I have a touch of Candy-Radar.

Car will answer your questions next week as well. Be sure to email them to car_johnson_rocks@hotmail.com

Join the Car Johnson Rocks Facebook group!

Read Part 52 – Read Part 54