OTHERWORLD
... It's a country about the future, not the past. It's not about, oh, the government did 9/11. ... It's about what are they gonna do next? — Tim Dillon
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Find all of Mike Palecek’s books here
Terse & funny and dry as a dead Iowa corn snake baking in the sun. Palecek delivers a quick, deadpan slap to reactionary, mindless post-9/11 America.
The sting is delightful.
— Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle,talking about “Iowa Terror”
I’ve read JFK assassination fiction by Don Delillo and Norman Mailer, and can tell you that this new novel (Johnny Moon) not only is Mike’s best book yet, it’s much better than Delillo’s and Mailer’s efforts to do justice to the most important event in U.S. history.
— Dr. Kevin Barrett
Mike Palecek writes with passion, wit, and always with a strong social conscience.
— Howard Zinn
Mike Palecek reminds me of Socrates the gadfly who asked unwelcome questions, Diogenes with his lantern looking in vain for an honest man, Chekhov the man with the hammer challenging the complacent family to share their meal, Kerouac the ever on the move, somewhat hysterical searcher, and he reminds me of many Americans who as children were so blasted with propaganda that they’re devoting the rest of their lives to challenging the lies and all who tell them.
In this land where babies are brought by storks and buildings collapse due to unpatriotic bricks, we need the gadfly because no leader, preacher, guru, or saint will wake us up, though the Doomsday Clock is ticking close to twelve.
— David Ray, American poet
“Personally, since 9/11/2001, I have felt that I live in a world where I am able to see clearly all of the lies of the establishment psychos as if a spotlight is being shined on the propaganda.
Conversely, I cannot understand, highlighted by the recent Covid sham, why most people cannot see what is right in front of their hypnotized faces.
For me, Palecek’s Otherworld contributes to the many-worlds theory of quantum mechanics: we obviously co-exist in different realities; such as: there is one world where Osama bin Laden masterminded 9/11 and another world (more realistic) where nefarious energies collaborated to destroy societies for power and profit, etc. Otherworld encourages us to follow these threads to unity, by, and through, very important truths.”
— Cindy Sheehan
Activist and mother of Spc Casey Sheehan, KIA in Iraq 04/04/04.
… Whether you are super-intelligent, stoned, serious, deplorable or all of the above, Palecek’s latest book keeps you reading to the end.
Who else could combine, JFK, Stephen Stills, Sly and the Family Stone and a kid named Shooter who is on a bike with a banana seat – all in one chapter?
A must read for those looking for wit, combined with real-life wisdom.
— David Namanny, Bellevue (IA) Herald-Leader
… A pleasing, intriguing, well-written, horror-mystery romp. Oh. And it’s important.
— John Hankey
Author: Dark Legacy, George Bush and the Murder of John Kennedy
https://www.youtube.com/@RealHistoryChannel1/featured
“Otherworldly” is what one might label the mission of communicating the MOST IMPORTANT FACTS (objective and independently verifiable) to Earth humans. Soooooooo tortured, poisoned, and mind-controlled since birth, Earthers need literal “help from high places” to escape their sheepled slave status to psychopathic, parasitic, pedavores.
… Mike’s artistic lights shine virtuous truths in other-worldly colors.
— Carl Herman
CARL HERMAN is a retired teacher of US Government, Economics, and History (also credentialed in Mathematics). With an undergraduate degree from U.C. Berkeley in Global Development focused on ending global poverty (1983), and Ed.M from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education (1999), Herman worked as a public education teacher from 1984 until 2022.
Otherworld is a daring, kaleidoscopic journey through the chaos, absurdity, and wonder of the human experience. From its very beginning, readers are thrust into a world that mirrors our own, yet refracts it through a lens of hyper-awareness, dark humor, and imaginative audacity. The Preface sets the tone immediately: a chaotic tapestry of modern life, media saturation, political commentary, and existential dread, all narrated with a voice at once intimate and conspiratorial.
The book’s strength lies in its refusal to follow conventional narrative structures. It moves with the frenetic energy of thought itself, veering from reflections on national tragedy to vivid portrayals of ordinary life, often in the same paragraph. Historical and contemporary references — from Paul Wellstone to Allen Dulles — are woven together with a surreal, almost hallucinatory intensity. This is a book that demands attention, curiosity, and a willingness to ride the wave of its narrative currents.
What makes Otherworld exceptional is its fearless blending of the personal, political, and fantastical. It shifts seamlessly between the absurdities of modern American life, historical reflection, and rich, almost folkloric storytelling. Playful yet probing, it wrestles with questions of mortality, justice, history, and human meaning without ever becoming didactic. The prose is alive with rhythm, repetition, and inventive wordplay; it feels like listening to a storyteller whose thoughts tumble over one another, exuberant and relentless, yet always searching for truth in the noise.
Otherworld is not a book to be read passively. It must be experienced, navigated like the journeys of its characters. It demands imagination, and the reward is a multilayered vision of humanity — absurd, tragic, playful, and hopeful all at once. It challenges the reader to consider how much of life is orchestrated, how much is random, and how much magic exists in the spaces in between.
In short, Otherworld is an adventure — part satire, part fairy tale, part history, part philosophy — leaving readers both exhilarated and contemplative. It is a testament to the power of storytelling, the elasticity of imagination, and the strange, beautiful, often terrifying ride that is modern life.
— Cynthia F. Hodges, JD, LLM, MA
Author:
The Rise of the Reich: Germany’s Resurgence and the Road to War
The Rise of the Reich: Germany’s Resurgence and the Road to War
Plastic Macca: The Secret Death and Replacement of Beatle Paul McCartney
The Splitting Image: Exposing the Secret World of Doubles, Decoys and Imposter-Replacements
https://plasticmacca.blogspot.com
Mike Palecek -- as authentic an American author as Will Rogers and Mark Twain -- provides an intellectual smorgasbord of events old and new in this, his latest book. Unlike six others that he and I co-edited -- on Sandy Hook, the Boston bombing, Orlando and Dallas, Charlottesville, Parkland and (even) the moon landing -- there’s no expectation this one will be banned byLulu. Enjoy the feast!
-- Jim Fetzer, Ph.D.
Preface
It was a great continent, until it wasn’t.
— often attributed to Chief Joseph
“There really are so many new interesting, and I dare say, innovative and intriguing ways to die these days. Have you by chance seen the new glass boxes containing N95 masks inside elevators and the restrooms at IKEA? Break glass in case of cancer, heart attack, blood clot, miscarriage, or sudden death on an athletic field.
“Well, good afternoon.
“Russians. Terrorists. Aliens. Big Bees. Over the nose. It’s good to be here. Good to be anywhere, let’s just be honest for a moment before we get going. God Bless America. God Bless the DEI people of Minnesota.”
Accepting his award at the Kingfield Democrat Women Of Power Babe the Blue Ox Day fall luncheon in the band shell on Lake Harriet — one blood-soaked, black and red, gold-trimmed many color extra cartridges included retractable pen in a Target coffin-like case, for having done one thing for a long time, though not well enough for a watch or side of beef, Stan Ferraro, host of Sports Talk Radio’s afternoon drive-time show, The Nature Of My Game, began his remarks by saying, “Looks like a conspiracy theory to me, let’s call in Mr. Mayo, The Big Blooper himself, and Gerald Posner, to see that these kids died of Covid and three shots from the book depository.
“These days in Minneapolis the sirens blow all day long, just to be on the safe side. And isn’t safety what we’re all about, what we’re after, at the end of the day, here in the great state? A kiss goodnight, knowing all bed bugs have been sent to Siberia with a roll of the eyes for entertaining unnatural thoughts.
“Though, at that, only background noise at best to Kate Smith and the boomba-boomba-boomba bass, niggah—over the nose—niggah—six feet—niggah— safe and effective—niggah, niggah, niggah. And that my friends and amigos, gives me much hope in times such as these.
Seeing someone behind the crowd holding a sign telling him to “Stick ToSports.” “Nobody here yet from your planet, I take it.”
“I also recall those brave words of a colleague of mine, legendary MPRmorning host, Schmogna Bologna, in a scary, dangerous time. She said, ‘If you have contracted cancer, or had a heart attack, or blood clot or miscarriage on your way to the nursing home monthly birthday party in the med room slash game room, where they have three puzzles from 1972, South Pacific, Gilligan’s Island, and Rock-A-Hula ... or daycare center, remember, it might be time to get that next booster.’
“Thank you. I will cherish this ... six feet, over the nose, stop drop & roll, support the troops. All we have is each other, we are all in this together.”
Raising a clenched fist, he concluded, “Power to the people! Power to you, the Blue Ox ... Democrat Women ... of Kingfield!”
What the hell’s goin’ on out here!
— Vince Lombardi
I understand how. I do not understand why.
— Winston Smith, 1984
Prologue
No matter how paranoid or conspiracy minded you are, what the government
is actually doing is worse than you can imagine. — William Blum
It’s the same day.
The gunshots echo as always around noon down Prairie Avenue. Three. No, I thought I heard five. They came from there. Nope, back there.
When they killed and took away the hope and democracy of El Salvador we had better things to do. When they did the same in Guatemala it was not a good time for us, to become involved or read up on that. When they did the same in Chile, Bolivia, we already had a full plate, and so there wasn’t much we could do. And so when they put full-page false stories, complete with sidebars, award-winning photos, feature stories, and in-depth back stories in the news stand at 45th & Broadway in New York City, at the Barnes & Noble on Webster Avenue in Chicago, at the Casey’s on Dixon Road in Kokomo, at the Kwik Trip on West Dodge Road in Omaha, at the 7-Eleven on Santa Monica Blvd. in Los Angeles ... and announced they were now here, had landed, boots on the ground, to put a brown wingtip up our ass, here, in the United States of America, there were no Salvadorans or Guatemalans or Chileans to speak for us.
All these events are still happening, ongoing, it never ends, in fact it’s culminating as we speak as we breathe as we check the mail on our way to take out the garbage. It’s happening right now. And it’s so hard to imagine. Life is happening right now, this moment, and I can’t believe it’s happening to me, and that it’s up to me, right now to figure out what to do because as the Allen Dulles and Wolf Blitzer balloons float down 6th Avenue, tethered by 66 army snipers from Muncie, the parade hosted by Lorne Greene, Betty White and Willard Scott, Allen Dulles sits there in a chair, nice chair, nice office, puffing on a cigar, Mona Lisa smirk in his eyes, looking right into your face and just knowing you won’t do a fucking thing. Karl Rove smooths into the office, big smile, big laugh, telling everyone that Philip Seymour Hoffman has just agreed to play him in the new Tom Hanks movie, “We’re An Empire Now.”
You see Paul Wellstone’s face on the television screen and the dates below the photo, 1944-2002. Crashed in the woods. And your mind goes to how terrible those last moments must have been. If it were you how would you have handled it? What could that possibly be like. What do we do now? I guess we’ll figure out something.
You see the indescribably sad image on the black and white TV screen of the riderless horse at John Kennedy’s funeral, and then the images burned into your brain of Robert Kennedy on his back in the pantry and the people lining the tracks as his body was passing by on the train.
You see that school children have been shot and killed. And you cannot imagine.
You see two people in a television studio telling you in somber tones about something big that has happened in New York City. And at some dragging yourself from the sea onto the muddy beach, primal ooze level you know that your life has changed forever, your routine, your joy, your smile will not ever be the same. It will all have to be faked.
You see the flames shooting from the buildings and you realize that people are right now burning alive in those buildings and you wonder what you could have done about it. And what that would be like. And what’s for dinner tonight at your house.
You see on the screen the remains of the building, ripped at the seams, down the middle, with its guts hanging out for the whole world to view, and you don’t have time to wonder, they have told you who did it and why and what will be happening next, tonight and tomorrow.
And then, you go about your day because what else is there to do? And there isn’t, anything else to do.
It’s already been done, the deed as well as your seeing the deed. You cannot un-see it or un-feel it.
That’s part of the plan, but you do not know about that. How could you? You have been given as a human being all these good things, these eyes, this heart, this mind, this earth, this soul — such that not even the thinnest, rose-gold, most advanced computers, or Google-Facebook-Amazon-DHS algorithm, Aspen Institute or NPR summer-all-employee-picnic-get-together-and brainstorm, RAND or DARPA intellectuals or CIA goat-staring shaman could replicate — and yet, those who have done these things have now inserted into your own interface a virus and it has an effect.
... aaand I would not be convicted, by a jury of my peers, still crazy, after all these years. … Aaannd what ... the fuck ... does that even mean?
That line is part of American History, embedded in our culture. We sing it, recite it, dream it, mumble it as we lean over in the holding tank staring between our knees at our lunch — with passion — driving down the highway going ninety heading straight for our American Dream rightfully, inevitably ours, without knowing what it means, and it does not matter. And there is so much of that out there, in song lyrics, food ingredients, Latin versions of the Holy Mass, and other stuff.
What does it mean?
Maybe nothing, right? I know, right?
Probably nothing. But it sounds kind of cool, kind of edgy, sort of cocky, ambiguous, and what’s that word for when the bigshots do something but it can’t be traced to them. Half a dozen, six of the other-ish. ... Plausibly deniable, two words.
Which, also, while we’re both here, begs the question, and the radical priest comes to give us release, and we is all on the cover a Newsweek. For what? What exactly are you referring to? What did you and Julio do that a man of the cloth must take time from his holy afternoon to escort you and your little hooligan friend out the slammer?
We don’t know.
We will never know.
The files, if they ever existed, are long gone, or, they are sealed tight as all get out in a mayonnaise jar which sits on the front porch of Mr. Funk & Mr. Wagnalls.
And since nobody living in this century knows where that is, or gets that reference, we are left to drift about in silent space forever, only once every great while bumping into Major Tom.
No.
Was all he said.
I just love that line.
It says so much, and nothing, which is probably the perfect way to begin our story.
It means nothing out of context, one probably perfect way, I suppose, to describe the life of all Americans. We eat, drink, sleep, watch either Wheel of Fortune or The Rockford Files.
And that’s about it.
Which is fine, until it’s not.
Though, I’ll allow there’s more, if you know where to look.
And that’s what you pay me for.
Hello.
I am John F. Kennedy Jr.
I know, and you are Marilyn Monroe. I get it, I totally get it.
In any case, I am here.
You are not totally alone, in the U.S.A., United States Algorithm. Not in a certain sense, though it will absolutely, 10/10, 100 percent seem like that most of the time.
Though not as if you realize you’ve just driven nine thousand miles across the width of Nebraska to get Coors to impress a girl back at the party and don’t remember how you got there ... as you criss-cross streets, alleys, parking lots, freeways, rooftops, walking the dog, at last arriving again at your back door, having successfully once again not having encountered another American.
And once in a while it might seem like the author and I, or some disembodied persona, perhaps the ghost of Buddy Holly, are discussing, disagreeing, back and forth, and if it appears like that to you, that’s okay, you’re a good person, and people like you ... and, it’s just a ride.
... for example, por exemplo, as you stare at the glow stars on your ceiling at 3:10 a.m. ... 3:11 ... totally alone, thinking, am I spinning at 1,000 miles an hour.
Maybe this is just what 1k mph feels like, and I’m just used to it.
... as you wonder ... I wonder why a plumber in Minneapolis costs five hundred dollars, for what, about an hour and a half? There were two guys, yet. (But, still.)
... as you think what are the three questions you will have for God. Since that was one of the questions asked at the candidates’ debate last Wednesday, that is now a standard question asked during job interviews in the Midwest, also entertained at some point by any old guys anywhere at morning coffee, and a regular item on Wheel of Fortune, Family Feud, and The Price Is Right.
Of course, only one question is needed.
Who killed John Kennedy?
Once you know about that, everything else falls into line.
And, since we already know the answer, have known for a while now, there really isn’t much to ask Saint Peter, except where is the Foosball table and does it cost. Or, as I was kind of counting on, is it free if you already have a lifetime membership to the after-midnight Player’s Club at Popeye’s.
... 3:12 ... how many ways are there to die.
If I could choose, or was being forced to choose with a needle-nosed pliers up my nose, would it be over-sleeping? would it be over-eating? over-laughing? tickled to death? Would it be having your brains blown out in public around noon, and having everyone talking about it on earth as it is in heaven for the following fifty years. ... 3:13 ... if you do get to heaven, would it be the heaven of your choosing and if that is so, how fucking many heavens would that make and no way would there be room, even if you could Harry Potter expand heaven, no possible way ... and it never ends ... do you want that? Really? You, who cannot sit through a whole baseball game. Can you handle that? Can you even stand thinking about that for the next two minutes?
... 3:15 ... my shoes ... where are my shoes ... I know where my keys are, and I think I know where my billfold ... my phone? hmm.
In the morning, you wake up, and you are thinking, something’s not right.
And you are right. It’s not. Everything is exactly, perfectly not.
When things are not right, it sometimes helps to hear a story.
This is that story.
OTHERWORLD is part & parcel of Jim’s Fairy Tales, also part of the fairy tale antidote, samizdat network necessarily employed as available by partisans.
I have my autographed copy right here. There is also one copy I am aware of, in a locked vertical file in the Command Center of the 33rd Psychological (Mind-Fuck) Operations Wing at Camp Ridley in Minnesota.
In that particular file cabinet there is also the teacher’s editions of the Warren Commission Report and the 9/11 Commission Report.
My father, when he died, did not need to be told who killed him. He asked for this copy of OTHERWORLD, so that he could sign it in unicorn ink, which is all they have where he is, and pass it to his son, me, which is totally possible in a certain context, which I will eventually explain to you in great, understandable detail. Or not.
Also found here will be other voices, inserted into the narrative, albeit a bit unauthorized, as if there is a radio playing from the kitchen as you read. Remember, this is the instructor’s version, copy.
Think of this part this way, these “radio pages” are tuned to the future and the past, the same as the rest of the book. We notice sometimes, most times we don’t, especially when the radio is always on.
And it all washes around like a hundred dryers going at once in the laundromat, like waves smacking the rocks, backing up, hitting again, everything messy, everything roiling, everything confused, everything exciting. But there you have it. How would Tevye put it? Such is life. Tradition!
But we do have his book, perhaps a little less confusing, if only that. It is what is called DARPAHAARP-RAND speak, a fluid document, meaning it updates, yu-up, no matter where it is.
Something like some thing Dumbledore could do, but then he learned it from “them.”
So, yeah, no, as we know, “they” employ the best writers and even these are at least capable of telling the truth, even if a bit out of practice. But, they are the ones who know what is what. We are just wobbly pottery in their hands. Who knows, maybe they put me here right now, and you as well.
Well, happy we are to at least have this, which is about the only way any of us is going to find out much of anything, not to be a Donnie Downer, but as they say in Atlantis, it is what it was.
So, we are getting a bit into the weeds, but that’s where the fun is, mama.
When you take time to really consider America, all these things happening, Mr. Green in the laundry room with the soup spoon, it can seem as unreal as if witches and wizards still exist (or alien cities undersea I would imagine), wrapping your head around that, which they do.
America was founded, dreamed-up, story-boarded, by actors and wealthy men who found a way to loosen themselves from other rich men, and in turn to oppress those around them by giving themselves titles and land and an insurmountable head start. Having read their Locke, Hobbes, Montesquieu, Rousseau, they found goons, muskets plenty enough as well as means to obscure, obviate and dominate.
They understood form and function, and like a seasoned circus clown with a box of balloons, fondled, twisted and manipulated the culture to suit their needs.
They wrote, directed, and produced the plays, the broadsheets, the newspapers, radio, movies, television, Netflix. They wrote, directed, produced the government, the schools, the history books, the churches. Exactly nothing was beyond their purview, if that is a real word. I think that it might be.
These men, gangsters with parking privileges, wrote, directed, and produced “The Dark Knight,” The Eagle Has Landed, One Small Step, Three Shots In Dallas, Everyone Must Check In, This Is A Drill, I’m Just A Patsy, It’s On To Chicago & Let’s Win There, and many others.
This is a story that begins at the beginning with the immigrants, and like the CIA, the FBI, maybe a bit like Timothy Leary and CIA HQ at the corner of Haight & Ashbury, the hippie cop in the Army shirt and headband, directing traffic, bikers go this way, you Microbus, go that way ... it then goes where it will, water finds its way. It kind of goes where the mind goes, where you don’t even know you can go. Ever had a dream?
You can stare into your coffee to plan your day around the things within your reach, or you could gaze lustily into your mocha latte grande supremoso and imagine dragons, wrap your head around the fact that wizards and witches still exist.
The battleground is here.
Call it flat earth, bumpy earth, call it neo-Okinawa, Gettysburg, Panama City, Saigon ... Fort Benning, Fort Huachuca, Langley, Area 51.
The battlefield is Des Moines, Minneapolis, Mile 8, PS 24, Sandy Hook, Annunciation Church, Utah, boots are on the ground.
Not Afghanistan, which by the way — WTF — the fake hijackers in the fake attacks were from Saudi Arabia, hello. A fairly obvious I would think indictment of our school system, the Neil de Grasse Tyson Memorial Concentration Camp For The Geographically Insane.
It’s time.
And we did not even mention the recent events surrounding Gary, The Loch Wobegon Monster. If you think about it, maybe put a sticky note next to your meds, remind me.
Okay, schlemiel schlimazel, Shlomo, let’s get started.
Chapter one
Pancho was a bandit boy
His horse was fast as polished steel
He wore his gun outside his pants
For all the honest world to feel.
— Townes Van Zandt
... all reduced by the towering structures around to the size of insects, but scurrying, hurrying, intent in the milky morning sun upon some plan or scheme or hope they are hugging to themselves, their reason for living another day, each impaled live upon the pin of consciousness, fixed upon self-advancement and self-preservation.
That and only that.
— John Updike, Terrorist
Someone woke up very early and went right to the guns to see they were still there and all right and safe and clean and happy.
Someone else awakened with a smile to think, just think of the cumulative power of all the months of preparation, finally gonna happen today.
Two persons worried that all the details were in place and what could possibly go wrong.
One person woke up one minute before the alarm, wondering for a moment where he was, rolled to the bed table to check departure times, once again.
Someone else asked someone at the end of breakfast, what about the children.
I’m not totally sure what you’re talking about was the only response before they crumpled cream linen napkins and tossed them along with a couple dollar bills onto plates and went off to meet the plane.
He is so not you.
Due to his youth he resides on a distant planet.
One to which you no longer have access.
He speaks your language, but only out of begrudging habit, rote. In his heart and throat are more than words. The thumpthumpthump! cascade of blood and oxygen, this fiery eruption of spirit is because it is this day.
Shooter Abbott perches on the white banana seat of his red Stingray bicycle, his red Keds planted in the warming concrete, cheeks dimpled as he sucks hard on the thick strawberry shake. His chest pulses from the sugar and the weight of his task. All well-made plans coming to fruition.
Three white sacks of Prince’s hamburgers, fries and ketchup packs rest at his feet, the Friday dispensation granted by Sister Charles Ignatius with a wink and finger to the lips.
Shooter had won the qualifying race across the Holy Trinity playground last week. And so he was now the one to journey the few blocks to buy the food for the fifth grade lunch as they would not be eating at school today.
Not today.
They would be standing at the corner of Lemmon and Oak Lawn in adoration of the presidential motorcade.
The clouds would disappear. Shooter Abbott could guarantee that.
Getting a whiff of the french fries he brushed his black hair from his forehead in the affected JFK manner he has adopted, consciously or not.
His Mickey Mantle fielder’s glove hangs on his butterfly handlebars. Six stiff Beatle cards on clothespins trick-out the front wheel.
One could only tell, if you actually got down on a knee to look. The high-top Keds were not exactly the same as the ones extolled by Notre Dame coach Frank Leahy. They were Magic Marker red. Also the laces. Like Sister said, you make do with what you have.
The star tattoo at the tip of his left yes is also homemade. The L&Ms in his pocket are factory bought. He reached to tap one out and stopped himself though it would be good after the taste of the shake, and with the busy day ahead it would help him to think. As he was already ten years old he considered many things. He’s got to not smell like an ashtray like Sister says, not today. And he’s got to — before three — get to North Dallas High to get their numbers for the weekend games, also got to make sure they get done at Booker and Skyline.
His mom wants some fancy white tap shoes for his sis’s first communion, and pop’s stuck in traffic or snow or rain or wind up in Jersey. And he knew because he just did she wouldn’t find the right ones, and at the last minute he’d be off all over town. The very last minute. It never fails. Jersey? He guessed probly he could peddle that far. How far could it be. Why the fuck not. Kennedy was telling everyone to do pushups to beat Russia to the moon.
And he knew something would go wrong with the burger sacks. It has to.
Shooter can’t tell you. You do not speak in his tongue any longer. You have lost that ability as he will some day. He can’t explain anything to you, but you can recognize the reflection in his big brown bug eyes — the city is abuzz, a hive excited by the coming of the king bee. The whole world and all time happens right now.
Shooter Abbott, staring off into space, sees himself in the clouds, Davey Crockett, Spartacus, St. Francis, the skipper of PT 109, as he persists in resisting heroically the intoxicating aroma coming from the bulging, greasy white sacks.
Because he will be the hero, racing back, to save the day, throwing the handle bars furiously back and forth, now standing, swiping hair from his eyes, smiling, laughing at the wind, the king of his world.
That could have been the vision he had, he thinks, when during Religion one time as Sister had read from “The Lives of the Saints & The Cowboys” she had said that sometimes these heroes granted visions.
Later, on the playground the kids had said they had seen Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, themselves on the field at Yankee Stadium, mountains of SweeTarts and Fruit Stripe Gum.
Shooter hadn’t seen that exactly.
Geese honk and Shooter spots the uneven “V” as one of those “Wanted For Treason” flyers cartwheels over the parking lot, now pummeled, crumpled mercilessly by the black Mustang flying in.
Shooter takes advantage of the cover of the radio blaring to suck extra hard and vacuum out his cup.
Already, old people are setting up chairs and old people shit on the street, laying umbrellas nearby because they do not truly believe. Texas and U.S flags line the terrace, planted in the new-mown grass. Shooter smells it from here, and the petrichor, he knows the word, says it in his head as he smells it, means prescient rain. Not today. They can have any other day. …
____________________
About the author:
Mike Palecek has worked on newspapers in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. He also produced Penn Magazine, and was a co-founder of Moon Rock Books, along with Jim Fetzer, as well as co-hosting, along with Chuck Gregory, The New American Dream Radio Show. He has written several novels. Now retired after working for twenty years with the disabled, Palecek also served five terms in jail and prison for protests against U.S. military policy, and was the Iowa Democratic Party 5th District candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2000 election, receiving 65,500 votes
.(Banned from Canada)
(Palecek video presentations)
Freedom of the Press False Flags & Conspiracies Conference 2020
https://www.bitchute.com/video/PBDaf07tMm5K/
Freedom of the Press False Flags & Conspiracies Conference 2021
https://153news.net/watch_video.php?v=WGDSDUSWSM78
Radio interviews, KPFA, Pacifica Berkeley,
with Denny Smithson
https://mikepalecek.newdream.us/radio-interviews/
Archives for The New American Dream Radio Show
https://newdream.us
The stream-of-consciousness style here really works for capturing that disoriented feeling of living through historical ruptures. That line about 'dragging yourself from the sea onto the muddy beach, primal ooze level' knowing life changed forever nails somethign most people felt post-9/11 but couldn't articulate. The Shooter Abbott section reads almost cinematic, totally different tone from the prologue.