FERTILE MATERIAL

Based on "Boyd's Eye View," a Fertile Material writing exercise from the book, Fear of Writing: "You are star controversial reporter for a popular radio station and you follow your leads via helicopter (with traffic reporting as a bread and butter sideline)."

BOYD'S EYE VIEW Fred Mitchem Copyright © 2002

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"This is the end ..." Jim Morrison sings. The slow thwack-thwack- thwack of helicopter blades. A fever dream. I lie waiting for a mission.

Every morning it's the Saigon Cafe. I head out the door on donuts and coffee. Chopper over the traffic on I-25. Charlie (not Charlie Sheen) squats in the bush, getting stronger. I watch the cars snaking through the concrete jungle; I'm getting close, going 'upriver.' "Eliminate...with Extreme Prejudice," they said back at KURTZ-a.m.

KURTZ, that was the station I worked for. Now I had to go up- county and find the renegade traffic cop who'd gone totally off the deep end, started his own posse in the sticks and gone to seed--resembling an overweight Marlon Brando. Living on nothing but the flesh of traffic violators, Frito pies and Debbie's with sprinkles--running this rag-assed band of rednecks of his.

The crew in the helicopter were mostly kids, rock 'n' rollers with one foot in the grave. Clean, Mr. Clean, kept the vinyl looking ship-shape; Chef, the one from New Orleans, I think resented having to bring the fried chicken--but shiiit, as the man said: "I just wanted to learn to frikken cook, man!" Lance, the star surfer from L.A. I think the light reflecting off the orange barrels on 25 really put the zap on his head.

Then there was Chief. It may have been my mission--but it sure as shit was the Chief's turf.

"Disneyland, man!" Lance was up front lighting smoke-bombs. "Hey, Jim, it's right here..."

If we saw a good fifty-foot peak we'd drop like a Jolly Green and let Lance do his thing. (The fact that there was no water in Albuquerque ... well, Lance was on enough acid to take care of that).

Do Lung Bridge--the last stop before Cambodia--er, Coors and Central. We touched down.

"Boyd?" the leader of the road maintenance crew called out. "The famous reporter? Is that you?"

"Yeah, what is it!"

"Sir, you're in the armpit of the world!"

"Son, where's your boss?" I said. "The urban planning of this city--if there ever was any--leaves a bit to be desired. Who's your C.O.?"

"… Ain't you?"

"Chief, let's forget I-25 at Coors and Central. Just get us out of here." I'd had it.

The Chief said, "Every night they blow the bridges up, and every day they build 'em back up just so the generals can say the road's open. Still wanna go on, Captain?"

"Just get us to the Sunport so we can refuel!"

We arrived at Dickie's, where the renegade traffic cop had set up his compound late that day, surrounded by a dense brown smog. There was a deep portentous throbbing as we entered the heart of darkness.

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All around us were: bodies, strung up, and heads, severed--former Speeders and Double-Parkers.

I couldn't believe what I found inside that crumbling temple of meat: Officer Bacon, the renegade cop, was a tired raggedy-Andy of a trooper in tacky brown shorts, knee-high socks, Smokey Bear hat and a belly the size of Francis Ford Coppola's.

After rubbing his moon-like head (half of it on the dark side) for three hours and teething, disgustingly, on unrecognizable snack-foods from 7-11, he said, in his most squeezed, high-pitched little Brando: "Do you know why they sent you here? I do. I know why they sent you here. Do you want me to tell you why they sent you here? I'll tell you why they sent you here. You're an errand boy, sent to collect the grocery bill."

"No, I'm a reporter!"

"Shut up, I'm not finished talking." And he sponged some water onto his bald head. I'm not sure why. "Do you know the meaning of horror? Horror has a face, and you must make friends with horror."

"I've just come to terminate my story." I objected.

"Stick a sock in it, Junior. We are the Hollow Men, the Stuffed Men. If we don't stick a sock in it--we'll just be the Hollow Men.…"

"What the hell are you talking about???"

Officer Bacon burped. It smelled like slow death in there.

ROLL FILM ...

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FRED MITCHEM, a regular of the Fertile Material writing circle in Santa Fe, NM, is also an artist and a musician.