Califormication

By Robert N. Lee

1969. The freewheeling, mind-opening sixties are disappearing down the throat of a vortex of hardlined isms, and in the land of manmade paradises, unmade paradises, and things you don’t talk about, the Ad Man is just doing his thing, man, wow, doing his Ad Thing, mesmerizing you into thinking you belong, or thinking you stand out, whatever it is you’re after, man.

What’s everybody after?

There’s power, here, if you have what kids are after. There’s gold in the hills of Hollywood and cash in the capital temples of amusement. Three unholy alliances are tumbling in a bloody niner rush to stake the Lost Youth of America, armed with sex and drugs and rock and roll and black, black magick, poison versus charm versus cure.

The Ad Man’s not worried, man, he’s just got his assignment to stick to, but the mission is still a mystery to him when our captivator becomes captive, you dig? From the boxy hands of Ayn Rand & Ken Anger’s Angelus Temple thugs, to the depraved amenities of Jack Parsons & L. Ron Hubbard’s inside-out Magick Kingdom, the Ad Man hasn’t even warmed up for the unconstrained lunacy that lies ahead when he’s delivered to S.M.I.L.E. But the Ad Man’s working out a peace he can sell, a commodity like any other, if he can just figure it out.

What’s everybody after?

What’s everybody after?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert N. Lee
• Release date: Oct 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311399359

Robert N. Lee

Born in New Jersey, Robert N. Lee has lived all over the place, since, including Vietnam, Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest, and now lives in Florida. He has held somewhere around fifty jobs, ranging from commercial hot tar roofing to cooking in restaurants to designing software and web services for SAP, Microsoft, McAfee, the World Health Organization, and Planned Parenthood. He has had stories and essays published in Fantasy Magazine and Clarkesworld and Shimmer, among other places. He has many cats and dogs, and two human children. He is working on his first novel, Them Bones, which will be out real soon now. His Xbox gamertag is Vee Ecks. He does not do Facebook.

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Califormication

Robert N. Lee

Published by

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013

There are no real people in this story.

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666ties

1960 - Santa Medusa Novela

1961 - City of Fountains

1962 - Prick Six

1963 - Beirut

1964 - Killin' Dylan

1965 - She's Not There

1966 - Untitled Bruce Lee/Phil Dick Project

1967 - The Live Lady of Down Town

1968 - Finest Kind

1969 - Califormication

We enter a curious new phase in our society. Moral values are in flux. The muddy depths are being stirred by new monsters and witches from the deep. Trolls walk the American night. Caesars are stirring in the Forum.

—Gore Vidal, 1961

1. THE BORDER

DIG: the Ad Man at the Cali Crossing, declaring no fruit and getting away with it. Again.

"...it’s about what you’re seeing when you’re really seeing, and then what and when you’re really seeing. You see what I mean? He laughed like a child, a twentywhatever-year-old child with flying saucer-blown pupils framed with beard and beard and feathered hair, but not too feathered. His teeth flashed white abominations in the border guard’s face. Seeing. Polanski. Fantastic. Chills, I’ve got."

"Man, why your teeth so white?" the guard asked, fixated on the flashing, flashing.

You like? The Ad Man grinned big, then chomp-chomp-chomped, Morse coding X-ray Tango Charlie, clacking rapidfire. The guard’s face went even slacker.

Would not have bored you so long with the Oh Wow, Man, I’m Tripping story, but it took somebody long enough to find out what you’re on, drugs wise. The Ad Man cocked an angry eyebrow at his own crotch. Then he reached out and straightened a wilted daisy in—Jaco, was it?—Jaco’s leather vest pocket. It was getting in the way of the peace sign patch. On further consideration, he plucked the dead flower and tossed it on the ground. Better.

But you don’t care now, do you, Jaco? Even though you’d have turned me over for rejuvenation a minute ago if you’d seen this. The Ad Man’s dilated pupils were shrinking back to normalcy. He was right, Jaco didn’t care. He thought he was at a nice garden party with fancy ladies, like that.

Fantastic. The Ad Man clapped Jaco on the shoulder, then pulled in close and embraced him. When he pulled back, there were tears sparkling on his cheeks and Jaco’s. Bystanders, people waiting in other lines for other guards and the guards themselves, they noticed. Surely here was a moment, an epiphany, a mutual enlightenment. Namaste, berakhah, amen. Some of them wept, too.

The Ad Man shouldered his genuine Ceylonese brat sack stuffed with religious trinkets and disguised space race weapons, each bearing its own automatic death sentence one step into Yugoslavia, never mind California, and walked away slowly. Five steps, he half-turned and made his fingers into an upraised V, then turned the V into a gun, a love gun, and fired it at Jaco. Kapow. Jaco slapped at the entry point, went Man... and shook his head, too cool... The seeker rubes just about shit themselves.

The Ad Man knew when to stop doing encores and just exit, so he did.

The tears were a little much, Sheila. The Ad Man was talking to his dick in the first men’s room inside