The Fartian Chronicles

Ain't we sump'n. From way back.

The Fartian Chronicles

--Sympaticus--

Mondays are always the worst.

In any occupation, white collar or blue, starting the work week means dying anew. Those urgently needed extra hours of sleep seem only to rip off Saturday morning, and Sunday, far from being a day of rest, quickly becomes a grueling countdown to tomorrow. Weekends are over before they begin.

And for Fartian counselors beginning a new week at the Bureau of Terran Grievances, Monday’s just the first bump in a long slide to nowhere.

The waiting room is always full, the clientele never pleased.

The ever-sensitive Fartians had quickly and magnanimously overhauled the entire building, adding sets, satellite dishes, and routers, so that each waiting Earthling could channel-surf to his or her heart’s content. But Number 231’s TV got better color than Number 175’s, Number 19’s needed way more volume, etc. EatThis and YourMama, two of the kindest and most amenable Fartians to ever wait on a crowd, were recently roughed up over an improperly heated croissant, so now, with two staff in Recovery, UpYours was responsible for Monday’s first shift all on his lonesome.

Patience is not merely a Fartian virtue; it’s a way of life and manner of thinking, as deep and irrevocable as the urge to assist and comfort. Earth had to be appropriated. Had to. After turning their own solar system into an atomic junkyard, Terrans had set about transforming the rest of the quadrant into a radioactive wilderness. The first emissaries from Fartia, coming in peace to beg for reason, were blown to smithereens by a quickly assembled International Guard, which forced the discombobulated Fartians to subdue the planet by nullifying long-range weapons via microwave transmissions. They had to. It was that or write off the quadrant. After accepting the Fartians’ effusive apologies, the United States president gave the conquerors the keys to the planet, free season tickets to Annie, and a signed CD of Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The USA. It was the practice of UpYours to play a loop full blast whenever jingoism transported the clients.

“Number One,” he said pleasantly. “Serving Number One.”

Number One was a scrawny old woman with hair dyed the color of Mercurochrome. UpYours recognized her from last week; he still suffered aural aches and an occasional nasal bleed. Number One immediately jumped up on a table, lifted her skirt, and began thrusting her pelvis in the direction of UpYours while clacking her false teeth and wiggling her tongue. The grievance made no sense to UpYours, but the roaring clients, banging their fists and foreheads on chairs and tables, were clearly pleased. UpYours, nodding and smiling, reached down to switch on the CD.

“Bohn in da USA,” the Boss sang, right on cue and over and over and over and over. “Bohn in da USA!” The crowd went wild. “Bohn in da USA! Bohn in da USA!” A youth with purple and green spiked hair smashed his face into the unbreakable glass separating UpYours from a long overdue Earth-whooping.

“You got that?” the youth screamed. He raised a victorious middle finger. “Number one, fart-face, number one!”

“Serving,” said UpYours.

The woman pulled her dress completely over her head, did a rapid stuttering flamenco on the tabletop, and spun onto the floor.

“Number Two,” UpYours called. “Serving Number Two.”

There was a terrible biting scuffle to his right.

UpYours raised a flipper and hesitated. He prudently switched off the CD player.

A raggedy man stepped free of the raggedy tussle and made his raggedy way to the window. “That’s me, man. What I got to do around here to get some bus tokens? How’m I suppose to find a job walking all over the city? You wanna see the blisters on my feet, man?” He hauled a half-shod horror onto the narrow shelf beneath the glass.

UpYours pouted compassionately. “An abundance of jobs are to be found right here at the center, Number Two. Merely fill out this form and you will instantly be eligible for the occupation of your choice.”

Number Two let his foot slide off the shelf. “I knew it, man, I just knew it. You had to get personal, didn’t you? What you gotta know all about me for?”

“Merely for records, sir, and for the processing of payments. Your merciful government insists that all accounts be scrupulously itemized.”

“Who are you, man, the flipping FBI? Jesus. A guy comes in asking for a little help, and you give him the third degree. And what’s all that got to do with tokens, anyway?”

UpYours pulled out a roll of fifty. “Here are your coins, sir.”

The man licked his lips. His eyes rolled back up. “What’m I gonna do with tokens, man? My car’s sitting outside, and she’s dry as a freaking bone. You’re telling me you want me to put a bunch of damn tokens in my gas tank? Ah, for the love of--”

UpYours placed the roll back in the drawer and pulled out a twenty. He slid it through the small opening at the bottom of the glass. Number Two snapped it up and raised it triumphantly. He was mobbed before he made the door.

“Number Three. Serving Number Three.”

Number Three rose with the deadly certainty of a cornered cobra. Not since Betelgeuse had UpYours witnessed eyes so fixed and intense. Number Three wore an ankle-length mop of a trench coat over God knows what, and his hair and beard were so long and tangled it was difficult to tell where one began and the other resumed. He gored the little Fartian with his eyes, his right hand repeatedly hurling down something unseen. When he reached the window he heaved a breath that fogged the glass lichen green:

“He-e-e-e-e shall riseth for your sins!”

UpYours nodded energetically.

This would be one of the messenger Terrans, come to retell the fable of the man who flew up into a cloud. The Fartian pulled out a twenty and slipped it into the stainless steel tray.

Number Three, gravely insulted, snatched up the bill and stuffed it in a pocket. “Render unto Caesar…” he muttered viciously.

“Yes, yes,” UpYours breathed, “that which is Caesar’s!” He placed his chin on his folded flippers and looked on dreamily.

Number Three seemed to swell in his rags. “Let His Word come unto thee, that the inequities of the righteous brothers be not in vain!”

UpYours sighed, gazing at Number Three like a schoolgirl admiring a bubblegum dreamboat. The messengers were some of his favorites. They had the uncanny ability to orate for hours on end, reaching dramatic peaks, building again, never tiring, never varying. But after thirty-five minutes UpYours realized his hour was almost through; YouPrick would be coming on shortly, and UpYours was one shy of his four-Terran first shift quota. He hated to do it, but it was unquestionably cut-off time.

“That was absolutely lovely,” he said. “And thank you so very, very much. But sir, the universe is actually a boundless entropic abstraction containing only polarized impulses in equipoise. The resultant impermeable electromagnetic spheres aggregate to a density grasped by the senses as matter.”

He blinked affectionately.

Number Three’s pie hole worked round and round. His eyes gradually clouded, and his hand again hurled down the unseen; first with uncertainty, then with vicious comprehension.

“Number Four,” UpYours called. “Serving Number Four.” From the corner of his eye he saw an identical Fartian through an adjoining door’s glass. YouPrick smiled encouragingly. UpYours returned the gesture.

Number Four was a giant of a Terran, with an arid and inflexible expression carved by years of loitering in the victimhood. Her hair pile was a flaxen, bleached, black-and-auburn exploded squirrel’s nest, her pasty bloated face a fluid flexy-map of street rage wrinkles. She came, bless her, right to the point.

“How many goddam hoops you expect me to jump through to claim my goddam benefits? I wanna know why I don’t get my fair respects around here. And don’t you be giving me any of your goddam interstellar jive about filling out any of your goddam forms neither, cause I’ll kick your goddam little greenman butt, you got me? I don’t have time to be playing your goddam spaceman games. Now you just open up that goddam drawer, stick in your goddam little retard flaps, and Give Me My Goddam BENEFITS!”

UpYours, smiling graciously, killed the speaker. One hand fell on the CD player, the other on his cubicle’s mental survival kit: a microdot copy of the Fartian Ethical Code, a drug store photograph of a mindlessly cheerful Earth family, and a glowing lozenge-shaped vial containing the only dose of Inphinitee® a self-respecting Grievance Counselor would ever need (Fartian lore describes the sentience continuum’s severance as instantaneous and painless. The original producers even claimed a kind of fuzzy ecstatic release). UpYours tapped twice on the kit’s lid, the corners of his perpetually cherubic mouth rising. He genially flipped the OPEN sign to its sweet dorsal side and hit the PLAY button. The Boss laid it down:

“Bohn in da USA! Bohn in da USA!”

UpYours beamed patiently at the contorted faces and deflected spit, his head gently rocking side to side, his whole damnable angelic countenance an infuriating beacon. There was a soft tapping on glass. YouPrick was smiling charmingly, pointing from his left flipper to the wall clock and back. UpYours rose and eased open the door. The two embraced with extrasolar tenderness while the jeering crowd blew kisses and showed limp wrists. YouPrick took the vacated seat, switched on the speaker, and turned the sign back to OPEN. One flipper killed the CD player while the other caressed the survival kit. A Terran hurled a folding steel chair directly against the unbreakable window.

YouPrick smiled through the glass.

It was, after all, only Monday.

--Pluribus--

“Ladies and gentlemen…the Fartian Ambassador!”

Spotlights searched wildly while the orchestra struggled with the Fartian anthem. It was a trying work, more suited to a wind-breaking choir than to serious musicians, but the theme had been transposed by the Pocoima Pops to an arrangement the crowd could follow. The strutting Ambassador appeared genuinely rapt, while the Terrans had difficulty humming along and feigning enjoyment. But the audience got positively silly as soon as the orchestra picked up that good old English drinking song, the American National Anthem. So ugly was the Fartian Anthem, in fact, that our own agonizing anthem seemed downright lovely by comparison.

The Ambassador slapped his nether flippers up the podium’s concealed steps, cleared his gasbox, and pressed his rubbery lips right up against the microphone.

“Plissyfogs and gerkils. I deeply thank you for your attendance.

“As arranged by this forum’s coordinators, the program will proceed as follows: a brief statement composed by our First Fartian and read by myself, a regulated interrogation from the esteemed panel, and a question and answer session with the audience.

“Now to the First’s Address, in flubschaum may he bifurcate:

“‘O many tribes of Earth.

“It has been our great fortune to meekly serve you, and to proudly saturate your burgeoning outreach programs with every entitlement we can possibly provide. And so with barely suppressed enthusiasm do we now duly beg your continued ridicule and abuse.

“There, however, remain wide dissimilarities in our cultures, and we therefore humbly encourage forgiveness for any and all trouble we may have inadvertently caused. Assimilating as your grateful slaves requires an adjustment to Earth customs we still find puzzling…such as your practice of treating restaurants, cinemas, sidewalks, and roadways as personal living rooms, bedrooms, and lavatories; this strikes us as most peculiar. We Fartians behave respectfully in public, and are literally incapable of giggling, guffawing, or bellowing in the faces of strangers.

“But we are working on it.

“Your diversity astonishes us; you come in so many colors and types. Speaking frankly…yet with the utmost admiration…we are intellectually and fraternally compelled to inform this greatest host nation that we do not understand how your acclaimed ‘melting pot’ can contain so many persons, with so much good fortune, who nevertheless voice a common plaint of victimhood…

“This is all moot--rest assured, our interstellar convoys are even now bringing vast cargoes of wealth and luxuries beyond your wildest imaginings. We can only hope it will be enough.

“Then there is your Earthling insistence on a cosmological creator who made you, us, and everything else…honestly, people of Earth, we look and we look and we look, but…nothing. We simply can find no trace of this entity.

“There is almost too much to ponder.

“Such as the predisposition of your females to paint themselves like circus performers, run around near-naked in public, and titter in the manner of developmentally challenged children; this is most foreign to our way of thinking. Yet you will be quite pleased to learn that our very own Fartian plissyfogs, in an attempt to emulate their astounding Terran counterparts, now proudly flaunt their danglepumps and viletrenches, and perform slop-and-pierce operations wherever and whenever possible. And thank you again and again, but we sincerely do not urgently require, as you so earnestly reiterate, insurance policies and monster wheels for our spacecraft, additional toner for our nonexistent printing equipment, in-vessel family tanning spas, or one-of-a-kind, won’t-last-forever, get-’em-while-they’re-hot lakeside domiciles smack in the middle of the Gobi Desert. Your Terran consideration for our well-being never ceases to amaze us. And your leaders! Most regal are they, to be sure, and most gracious…yet, on our home planet, leaders are selected for their wisdom, compassion, and eagerness to serve. All over this gorgeous globe we encounter premiers, kings, and presidents, all chosen for their photogenic qualities and ability to frustrate. Most peculiar. Also, there is this ubiquitous and absolutely mystifying Terran preoccupation with cell phones. The ability of humans--even adult males--to ‘make chitty-chat’ ad nauseam, in restaurants, in automobiles, in hospitals and morgues, originally struck us as so rude and immature that even a Fartian slimeswiller would flumpergaggle with shame. Thankfully, our Department of Terran Analyses has reached its long-sought conclusion. By noting the striking similarities between ordinary social humans, dung beetles under duress, and Fartian spore squatters in heat, we have inferred a biochemical catalyst causing a kind of brain leak only remedied through electronic venting. So you will surely be pleased to learn we are responding to the seven billion-plus tally from your famous Wish List Foundation--the identical wish from everybody from little Suzie Sunnymuffin of Clinton’s Folly, Arkansas, to Jeez Shackleton of Three Toes And Counting, Antarctica. And so-o-o-o…without further ado, stereo cell phones for everybody!’”

The crowd’s roar made an instant celebrity of anything green, rectally-gilled, and multi-flippered. Terrans, immediately dialing up audience members to either side, slapped their personal cell phones temple-to-temple in anticipation, launching endless urgent dialogues on everything from American Idol to Wheel Of Fortune to just whose turn is it to take out the garbage, anyway. Women glazed and ran on and on without breath or forethought, men squealed and stamped their clodhoppers with delight.

A great “Chitty Chant” began in the front rows, picked up quickly by the room: “Chitty-chat! Chitty-chat! CHITTY-CHAT!”

The beaming Ambassador gave a down stroke with his flipper. The Fartian Anthem began and the crowd died on a dime. The orchestra shrieked and farted to a close.

“Thus ends our First’s Address.”

The Ambassador raised a flipper to his forehead, then, looking to the monitor with embarrassment, politely placed it on his chest.

“It states here that, having reverently saluted this forum’s host nation, I am to gratefully gush green over…

“Exxon, a distiller of liquid carcinogens…

“Avis, a noted hard-trier, and…

“The McDonald’s Corporation, proud purveyor of the exciting new McMulch Burger and McGooey Pie. In flubschaum may they liquefy.”

The Fartian turned to a trio of podia on his right. “I will now joyously accept questions from our sincere and erudite panel.”

Moderator One’s question was up and out before his colleagues were halfway through their Mister Ambassador’s!

“How long have we been promised this convoy, Ambassador? And why the big secret about its contents? You are obviously aware of our trepidation concerning the possibilities of an insidious takeover.”

The Ambassador raised a flipper, though the audience was hushed.

“Kindly allow me to entertain your queries in the order they were delivered. According to my Terran chronometer, the duration of this promise is, as of this check, thirty-seven seconds. Secondly, there are no secrets regarding the convoy’s cargo. As usual we are importing precious stones and metals, with an accent on diamonds, pearls, gold, and silver as per your demands, along with an abundance of the Fartian schlemburgers and fizzpops your people so urgently crave. And as to your enchanting notion concerning a ‘takeover’, as you term it, our vessels, officers, and records are entirely at your disposal, as always.” He smiled angelically.

The center moderator, a hard-boiled lady anchor from Earth Only News Network, raised her voice so stridently the first moderator was forced to sit right back down.

“Mister Ambassador! These are simple questions; there’s no need to be evasive! Furthermore, I have irrefutable data proving children at Obama Elementary were taken ill after gorging on these ‘fizzpops’ of yours. How do you answer this charge?”

The Ambassador’s whole face pursed. “This is unbearable news! They will be all right? Certainly we will recall the fizzpops.”

“I hardly consider tummy aches and missed classes ‘all right’, Ambassador!”

There was a scuffle in the audience.

A man with a bullhorn called out in regards to the imminent recall: “Indian givers!” Immediately a nearby party of Native American businessmen began hacking at the troublemaker with pickets. Secret Service agents mauled their way to the spot. Pockets of unrest rapidly formed in the crowd.

“Please…” the Ambassador tried. “We are doing our very best.”

Moderator Three thrust forth an accusing forefinger.

“The market will not bear a glut of gold and silver! How long, Ambassador, before these precious metals are no longer so precious?”

“Forgive us,” the Ambassador wept, “for our unconscionable insensitivity and egregious misinterpretation of your magnifi--”

* * *

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Fartian Ambassador has been shot! Ladies and gentlemen, the Fartian Ambassador has been shot! This is Dick Strickly on your morning drive-by with the news, weather, sports, and a crib full of goodies. Apparently a heckler at the Schwarzenegger Convention Center splattered the Fartian Ambassador from here to Andromeda before being taken down by a rabid contingent of Secret Service agen--hold on a second folks. We go straight to our live feed with Rusty Carbunkle at the Center. How they hangin’, Ruster?”

* * *

“Dick, it’s pandemonium here at the Schwarzenegger.

“Apparently an Art Bell devotee, claiming his gang-raped great grandmother had recently been teleported into a Fartian wormhole, produced a handgun, shouted ‘Bring back the King Sisters!’ and took out all mankind’s frustration on that little girly worm from the big green apple.

“Panic swept the Center. Don King threw in the towel, Stephen King dashed off a predictably lame Haunted Convention Center trilogy, guest speaker Rodney G. King t-boned the ambulance rushing Larry King and B.B. King to Martin Luther King Hospital.

“The Gay Scouts Marching Band has been postponed indefinitely. The city is in flames. Even as I speak Bono is furiously organizing the entire Western hemisphere for a Full Day Of Really Bad Music, Donald Trump is urging the Fartian Four Hundred to join him in a Sweet Deal Seminar, and…Dick? Dick? The crowd is taking the stage! I see flags, Dick. Old Glory, the Blue-Green Globe…we’re coming back! There’s Gallagher and Oprah and the Hulkster and Stallone, fighting for the camera. There’s Imus and Rush and Leykis and Stern, fighting for the microphone. This just in: Governor Schwarzenegger is riding his stationary bike down from Sacramento, and President Bush has declared complete victory for Fartia. Oh my God, Dick, here come the big guns! There’s Siegfried and Roy with the ghost of Liberace. Sharpton and Sandler and Big Bird and Barbra. They’re holding hands, Dick, it’s work--dear Mother of--a frenzied Mike Tyson just bit off Pee Wee Herman’s much-abused body part! The little guy is being carried off screaming. Oh my God, it’s Michael, oh my God, it’s Jacks--oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! It’s Michael Jackson! He’s coming our way, Dick, leading an entourage of little blond boys in fishnet. The crowd’s going insane! Oprah and Sally, scrabbling to meet him. Carrot Top and Potato Head, struggling to be recognized. There’s Marcia and Johnny and Zsa Zsa and Mork and…the audience erupts--it’s a mindless rush; the glorious Moonwalker is being mobbed. But there’s Stern, towering obscenely. He shoves his way through, and now it’s King meets King, Dick! Stern grabs The Glove and--what’s he doing wi--dear God, Dick! They’re calling out Security! They’re hosing him down with fire extinguishers! The show can’t go on! But wait, wait--put away those remotes, folks, ’cause here comes Gilbert and Bobcat and Tyra and Star. Ryan and Rosie and Rodney and Regis. The Verizon Geek, Mr. Rainbow Wig, Subway’s Jared, and Shrek in drag. They’re line-dancing, Dick, they’re kicking up their heels--it’s Earth’s finest hour! Paparazzi swarming! Cameras flashing! Spotlights spinning! Sweet Mother of Mercy, Dick--Tyson’s gone bananas! He’s snapping at Snoop Dogg, spitting on Spike, stomping on Stevie…he’s breaking his chains! No more cameras! No more cameras! Somebody kill those lights! Oh, the inhumanity. The stage is collapsing, the curtain’s coming down. But wait! Wait! There’s an enormous gasp from the crowd. The spotlights swerve, the cameras swing, and…it’s Elton John, it’s Elton John, dressed in a stunning rainbow-patterned mink-and-nylon body stocking with rhinestone-studded peacock feathers, a floor-length see-through diamond-dusted condom hat, platform-heeled pink suede elf boots, and swirling gold lamé bridal train. He waddles across what’s left of the stage to Jackson’s side. Their eyes meet and sparkle. Jackson drops his best boy, John’s glasses fog over. They throw out their arms. They reach in and embrace…and now they’re…they’re…oh for the love of--Dick, who knew two people could actually do that…but these aren’t just regular guys, no-siree, Betsy. Damn it, this is what all we lesser folk live for--it’s Terran talent at its most entertaining! The crowd whoops and whinnies. They want an encore. But how do you follow a performance like that? Well, color me crimson and kiss my fat aunt Fannie--here comes the Blue Man Crew on unicycles, butting their heads and slapping their thighs. I’m more than proud, folks, I’m Patriotic Proud! And it just makes you want to shake your head and ponder your--Dick! Dick! There’s a fanfare from the pit! The giant TV screen is coming down! I can’t believe it--it’s live from the White House! The crowd falls hushed. The whole world’s holding its breath. There’s the Oval Office, and there’s the Stars and Stripes. The President’s at his desk. He’s looking around. He’s staring at something on his hand. I’m not sure he knows he’s on camera, Dick…Mr. Bush! Look straight ahead, sir! No, sir, over here! Mr. President…darn, we’re going to commercial. But hey, who could ever get enough Cal Worthing--Dick! It looks like we’re back at the Schwarzenegger, where it’s toy flags and cell phones, where it’s corn dogs all around. There’s Latifah and Latoya, Osama and Cher, Milli and Vanilli with Mr. Bean in between. The crowd’s surging, they’re throbbing, they’re flicking their Bics. What’s that? A commotion in the back…Dick, it’s O.J. and Tyson! They’re going toe to toe! Kill those lighters…dear God in…somebody call a veterinarian! Wait, wait, it’s on, it’s on--the Big Screen’s on again! Dick! Dick! Dick! We’re back live at the Oval Office! It’s toy flags and cell phones, it’s Big Macs all around. They’ve fixed the problem. There’s the Stars and Stripes. There’s the President at his desk. He’s looking all around. They’re going to commercial, Dick, they’re cutting our feed. But that’s okay; who could ever get enough Larry and Erwi--wait! There’s a tussle up on the stage. Rosanne’s grabbing her crotch and making for the mic! The band breaks into To Hell With The Chief. It’s toy flags and cell phones, it’s Slurpees all around. What an inspiration--the whole crowd’s standing at attention; they’re simultaneously making chitty-chat and saluting the screen! We’re back, baby, we’re back in charge. Do you hear that great big cheer, you puny little invaders? Are you following right along? Well, you’d better get ready for Round One, because, damn your nasty green hides, the Fartian War has begun!”

--Victorious--

Scotty Skatbord hauled his head out of the dumpster, all his bleached-blond locks wagging. “Two cans and a plastic liter!”

“Awesome!” Sackageegaws cried. She handed the treasures to Suki, who placed them neatly in her heavy-duty garbage bag.

“No, homegirl!” EyeBee plucked out the items and flattened them with monster stomps. “How many time I gots to tell you? Make…space!”

Roach shuddered, staring up at the night. “Space…” He looked back down. “And how many times you gotta be told, homey, to not use that word?”

EyeBee nodded grimly and showed his fist. The Klee-shaes all matched the gesture, extending their arms until knuckles met in the gang’s secret street salute.

“To kicking greenman butt!” Roach vowed.

“Hallelujah!” Sackageegaws breathed.

EyeBee stopped dead. “Say what?”

Sackageegaws bristled. “It’s a sacred term. One my people used to fight off the damn Pilgrims, okay? Suddenly you don’t know all about prejudice?”

Suki stepped between them. “Come on, you two! We not lose sight what we fight for!”

“Against,” Scotty amended.

“What--ever! Klee-shae a unit, baby, and we never forget that, or we lose before begin!”

The Klee-shaes punched fists again. Their gang name was an amalgam: “Klee” from a popular brand of tissue, and “shae” from a New York baseball stadium now being used as an arms warehouse in the Fartian War. Since Kleenex, the tissue named, was used for nose-blowing and wiping up residue, the gang’s credo proclaimed: We gonna blow away the greenman like the snot he be, wipe him to da moon and back, and trow his funky little space a*s in da trash where it belong! The Klee-shaes were not to be confused with Da Branededz, a loose assemblage of peripatetic Christian proselytizers, or the Starry o’Types, a Mickey’s-swilling band of steel drummers and bongoheads--all ex-rival gangs, now united in the common war against the despised Fartians.

“Jam!” Scotty swore. “How we supposed to fight those radical little dudes with these sorry pickings?” He raised a plastic 12-ounce Coke bottle in either hand.

“Sometime,” grated Suki, stamping a foot, “I just get so anger! Fartiaman give us ten thousand buck a month, some cheap-a*s condo, and a crapload of food stamp ain’t no good anywhere on street. How we suppose to meet cost of living? When we gonna get another raise? This terrorism bo-sheet gotta end. It gonna end!”

Roach drop-kicked a trash can. “They want us soft, homegirl! Don’t you get it? They want us lazy so we won’t be able to fight back.”

“Klee-shaes,” EyeBee proclaimed, “ain’t soft! We ain’t about to lay down fo no alien hijink. You all stiff?”

“We stiff!”

And with that the real war, the war of the streets, was on. The Klee-shaes splintered on Main and reconnoitered at Minor, bivouacked on Major and surfaced at Admiral. This was no haphazard assault: they’d group-fantasized overthrowing the Fartian’s Earthfare complex countless times.

The grounds surrounding the complex extended a good square mile. It looked like Woodstock--if Woodstock had been lit by a vast ring of garland-strung streetlamps, peppered with a thousand carnival rides, with daycare centers, with all-you-can-gobble concession stands, and littered with over three thousand portable outhouses, most used as living quarters by homeless and substance-dependent Terrans--silently suffering soldiers in the guts-and-glory war with the Fartians.

The Klee-shaes pimp-strutted purposefully up the long walk leading to the building’s main entrance, their cylinders a’clickin’.

Veterans of Ease flashed their bedsores and plaque, Mothers of Want raised their fat children high. This was it; the real thing. Men poured along the Klee-shaes’ flanks, chanting “Oof-oof-oof!” in the manner of Cheetos-snarfing Rose Bowlers, while their hysterical women swung their udders and shook their moons.

Now the Klee-shaes, as they approached the steps, could hear a Terran favorite over the great building’s Public Address system--it was Neil Young warbling Keep On Rocking In The Free World, but a Fartian host, misunderstanding the moment, transferred the track to Mollify.

Instantly The Boss was belting it out, right on cue and over and over and over and over and--“Bohn in da USA! Bohn in da USA!” The mob went nuts.

The Klee-shaes vaulted steps and kicked in doors, storming the main hall while demolishing anything green.

EyeBee, stomping imperiously across the lobby, acknowledged his lounging familiars with macho nods and bad-news glares: there were Logy and Wheezil, Sfinkter and Lee Mur, Stickypawz, Shrieking Violet, Gangho, and Boilpuss.

In EyeBee’s camouflage pockets were a cattle prod and brass knuckles.

Maybe it was time to spill a little funky green blood.

Their Fartian smiled politely upon opening the door. “How may I please you?”

“You can start,” EyeBee hissed, “by kissing my shiny black a*s.”

The little worm blushed a deeper, weenier green.

EyeBee could only be restrained by a straight forearm from Suki.

“Enough stalling,” she demanded. “You little poof! How come my TV don’t get no freaking satellite?”

The Fartian hopped flipper to flipper. “But my dear, it was most necessary to ground those satellites. They were emitting gamma--”

“Gamma…” Roach mocked, showing a threatening fist, “…yo’ mama!”

Cheers rang in the lobby.

The Fartian appeared about to faint. “Counselor YourMama is currently unavailable, most esteemed sirs and madams. An accident in Charity Center, you see. Apparently YourMama’s unworthy face presumptuously encountered a flurry of understandably anxious clients. He is in Recovery, but will soon be back in service with manifold apologies.”

Roach rammed him aside. “They ain’t gonna be no recovery, slimeboy. Where you hide your head honcho?”

“Sir?”

“The Jolly Green Giant, you quivering t**d! You know just who I’m rapping about.”

“I…I…”

Sackageegaws stepped in. “Back off, Roach. This here situation calls for a woman’s touch.” She massaged the Fartian’s trembling round crown. “What’s your name, sweetheart? What do they call you?”

“Terrans,” the Fartian managed, “have generously honored me with the lovely appellation ‘DieBitch’, which I graciously respond to whenev--”

Suki threw him into a headlock, a fist pressed against his nasal apertures. “I gonna show you ‘woman touch’, Die Beech.! Now you listen up. You gonna take us to your leader, right now, or like we gonna group-smash you into little pile of kiwi jam.”

EyeBee pulled out his fat brass knuckles.

Their Fartian squirmed free of the headlock. He passionately slapped his sissy-a*s flippers against his cheeks.

The ring compressed. Their less than worthy host knelt, cringed, and violently recoiled.

Scotty rode circles around the knot of Klee-shaes as their prisoner was cattle-prodded across the floor and into a huge storeroom, where an elderly, fagged-out Fartian, no less wimpy than DieBitch, was meticulously ordering parcel allocations: shelves were overflowing with angrily returned televisions, blenders, stereos, and microwaves. Over-sized tags could be seen hanging from the articles, with labels reading: WRONG COLOR! LOUD TIMER! STICKY BUTTON! etc.

EyeBee didn’t waste time on introductions. He marched straight up to the First Fartian and knuckle-dusted him right in his godawful-alien, just-begging-for-it, mug.

“That’s for Earth!”

Whoops rang in the lobby. It was obvious that salt-of-the-earth Terrans, taxed to their very limits, were heroically re-appropriating their beloved planet.

Roach scooped the old Fartian off the floor, slapped him once for good measure, and sat him back in his chair.

“Now you gonna listen to the Klee-shaes, you stinky-a*s booger, you! You gonna let the whole damn human race know we means business. You gonna put us up on that…”--he snapped his fingers--“on that…”

“Times Square screen!” Scotty blurted.

“That’s the one! That’s Klee-shaes’ Plan A.” Roach shoved Scotty forward. “You tell him. And you make sure him know we stiff.”

“No bo-sheet!” said Suki.

“Jam, dude!” Scotty got right in the First Fartian’s swollen gushing face. “We’re up for a hairy 180, you radical little hodad dude, and it’s like you’re airborne if you’re not like totally shredding it, you dig?”

EyeBee zapped The First with his cattle prod. The haughty invader squealed characteristically while rapidly slapping his flippers against his bashed loser face.

“Do him again,” grated Sackageegaws.

This time the First yelped and hopped out of his chair.

Roach shoved him right back down. “Klee-shaes knows you can do it--cause you done it befo’!” He looked around. “And you done it from right here, in this very room. I recognizes it! This is where you announced, ‘for all beloved calorie-deficient and sensorial-deprived humankind’, endless free, all-you-can-eat, double-swirl chocolate pistachio, peanut butter, marshmallows, and toffee ice cream in honeyed, berry-swirled macadamia and pecan-dipped graham cracker waffle-cones.”

Sackageegaws grabbed the First by his ugly scrawny throat. Her eyes were blazing. “I gained six pounds offa that damned ice cream!”

EyeBee rocked side to side while meaningfully smacking the brass knuckles against his palm. “Move it, fart-boy, or we gonna do a groovy little Rambo dance on your p***y green face.”

The First pressed a button under his desk. A video camera dropped from a ceiling recess. A wall panel rolled aside to reveal a 6 x 4 screen. A red light came on below the camera’s lens.

The First Fartian now appeared onscreen, surrounded by four quickly repositioned Klee-shaes.

He pushed another button and managed, “Thank you so very, very much, all you virtuous men and women of Ear--”

“Yo! Yo! Yo!” EyeBee called over him. “Lissen up, peeps of Earth. We is I.B. Tawkins, Roach Arroyo, Suki Kukinuki, Scotty Skatbord, and Jusplain Sackageegaws. We is the all-American Klee-shaes, babies, and we is here to say we done taked back the planet!”

An insert appeared in the screen’s lower right-hand corner, showing a live view of Times Square. It looked like V-Day. Folks were leaping, handguns were blazing, sailors were necking with…well, with sailors.

“And now,” EyeBee said, “fo a little payback.” Throwing the fading Fartian into a chokehold with one arm, EyeBee began tearing merchandise off the shelves with the other. “So where you keep the big screens and high defs, p***y boy?”

“It just like Fartiaman,” Suki fumed. “Hide alla good stuff.”

“My people,” grunted Sackageegaws, “have suffered long enough.”

She and Scotty tore open the tall doors leading to a closet containing control panels for the Fartian vessel chargers. They staggered back out, dragging masses of insulated cable.

“Come on!” Roach shot. “What we gonna get for all that space jive?”

“Jam!” Scotty said, shaking his head. “What you crappin’, dog? It’s like…copper, man!”

* * *

This has been only one story, of many heroes. What’s important is that the Fartian War is behind us. Earthlings have characteristically risen to the threat.

The extrasolar menace is history.

And so each of us rests easy, knowing our children are secure, knowing our ethos is reborn, knowing our magnificent Continental Constitution is intact, forewarning and protecting us from any more of these vile, dissembling extrasolar marauders.

One future day another invader may make the mistake of testing our God-given will.

Let this plaque be a warning sent gloriously streaming into the cold alien depths--

encased in an Earthling space capsule, with a very Earthling caveat:

DO NOT MESS WITH EARTH!

Punk.