Do Not Resurrect

By Chairman Kingmaker

What do the great twentieth century historian Arnold J. Toynbee, a recluse from Philadelphia named Sevi, and a twenty-first century media conglomerate all have in common? They all want to take over the world. What's more, they're all succeeding.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483528854

Book preview

Do Not Resurrect

Chairman Kingmaker

© 2014 Mad Squid Productions ⚓︎ Justin M. Kolenc ⚓︎ Grand Junction, CO

Section One

Meet Sevi

Severino Verna was a recluse from the Philadelphia area who is believed to be the Toynbee Tiler. Learn more about Sevi & his tiles by watching Resurrect Dead. Read more about the character in this book at DoNotResurrect.com.

1983

Severino didn’t want to talk about it.

"I don’t want to talk about it. Not right now. The seventy-six is cold as Hell tonight. Worse on account of the rain."

The missing floorboards don’t help the heater much, either.

Hey, fuck you buddy. This is just Philly. Sevi’s blue collar upbringing was tearing through his proud, white collar education.

I’m just sayin’.

It ain’t like you’re over here doing any of the work. Sevi was used to suffering through life alone. It was the hearing voices part that was scraping his brain like burnt eggs in a greaseless skillet.

Of course not, that would require that I do some of the suffering.

Lazy bastard. That’s what you are. You don’t understand any of this. You never did.

What do you mean, Sevi? I caused this to happen. I am freaking causal to you. I mean, you get that, don’t you?

Believe what you want, asshole. He said this last bit under his breath, but Mister Duerr heard it all the same. He always did.

At risk of overheating, Sevi was making a good sixty miles per hour in his sans-floored coupe. This low speed wasn’t the car’s fault, mind you. Sevi just wasn’t the vehicle maintenance type. You had to be outdoors on a regular basis to do that kind of thing, and Sevi was usually far too busy avoiding people to get any monkey wrenching done. He was an introvert of the first degree, a grandmaster of reclusiveness. Even so, he was brilliant. Removing the passenger side floorboard from his beater of a car had been a moment of unparalleled genius. Using a recipe for thermite that he foraged from an ancient, dot matrix printout of the Anarchist’s Cookbook, a ceramic sink ripped directly out of the bathroom back home as a lid to shield him from the heat, and a traffic flare, he had simply burned it out of existence.

You’re remembering the floor cutting incident, aren’t you? Did it ever occur to you that you could have ignited the gas tank?

Iron oxide thermite burns at temperatures reaching twenty-five hundred degrees Celsius.

Meaning what, Sevi?

"Meaning that the thin layer of sheet metal that made up the floor board was liquified and then vaporized fast-as-shit, that’s what. Sevi shook his head. No time for a spark to carry."

The sink fell through the floor, Sevi! You weren’t expecting that. How could someone as smart as you forget about the sink?

I didn’t fucking forget, okay? Sevi never forgot a thing. On the other hand, he had an insatiable appetite for overlooking things.

Calm down, Sevi, I’m not here to persecute you.

Then stop talking to me, okay?

In spite of the heat associated with Sevi’s memory of the floor cutting incident, one of the uncomfortable truths of the here and now involved rain bouncing up into the car through the missing passenger floor. It was cold as Hell on the seventy-six that night, and Sevi’s little car heater was operating at full capacity. It so happened that after several years in Sevi’s custody full capacity for that crappy little heater was a whopping thirty percent efficiency, or so said his mechanic. Sevi didn’t really trust him. He figured he was getting at least forty-, forty-five percent out of it. Add to this already risky set of circumstances the fact that Sevi was all alone on the highway that night, and you might imagine the risk of a tongue biting that he was risking to be on the seventy-six at all.

Where are we conducting this operation of ours tonight, Sevi?

Logan Square, just off Vine.

Jesus.

Hey now, watch it. I thought I told you to stop talking. He wasn’t a religious man by any stretch. Any excuse to bitch at the voice that had driven him to engage in all of this flapdoodle was not to be missed.

You did. But you’re not the dance commander here, are you?

Christ.

Hey, watch it now Severino. You’re on thin ice as it is.

Excuse me? On thin ice with who?

Who do you think, Sevi? The Heavenly Father!"

You just blasphemed yourself, jackass. And besides, I thought you said that was all a bunch of garbage?

Not garbage. I never used that word. Fabricated, yes. That’s true.

Then why are you even saying what you’re saying? We’re T minus six. Get the package ready, will you

Funny, Severino. You know I can’t manipulate physical objects. Not in your time, anyway.

Weakling! I genuinely need help here. If I just stop on the road and do this I won’t be able to see anybody coming. There is a roundabout in the square, and Swann Memorial Fountain obscures the view so drivers won’t be able to see me either. In this rain we’ll all be pancakes. Sevi slowed his vehicle to a stop right in the middle of his lane.

Sevi pancakes? He might find that amusing.

He who, asshole? Why can’t you just shoot straight with me?

Sevi, for all you know I don’t even really exist. I think you should focus on the task at hand.

"And that’s supposed to be a pep talk? Wow. I mean, just wow."

Thank you, Sevi. I couldn’t do this without your support. It really means a lot to me, pal.

You’re underestimating me, you know that dipshit? Of this he was certain.

Dipshit? Really? How inanely juvenile of you.

Quiet, we’re on target. Anybody coming or watching?

What do you think I am, paranormal radar? Just execute your orders Sevi, you don’t want to lose your status as a good soldier, do you?

Time for a broadcast?

Lay the package down first. And if you haven’t been transformed into breakfast food by then, you can broadcast on the move as you leave.

Roger that. Laying the package. With that, Sevi delved into the void of his missing passenger side floorboard. Had anyone been watching they would only have seen an odd looking man stop in the middle of the road and disappear, grunting, into the passenger side of his beater. Were he not alone, someone might get the impression that something inappropriate was going on in there. But in truth, he was very much alone.

I need a progress update, Sevi. Quit fooling around and get this thing done.

Excuse me! Everything is soaked down here. How the hell am I supposed to do this in the rain? The glue isn’t going to set in this weather. Sevi’s voice was strained and croaking, a result of being bent in two.

We thought you were the resourceful type, Sevi. Please don’t prove us wrong here, okay?

What’s with all this ‘We’ stuff?

It’s not just me, Sevi. I thought you knew that. It never has been. I was just the first to contact you.

Wish you would be the last, too. People just don’t understand. I’m not interested in their time or their company. I ain’t sending them a message. I’m sending a bottle through time. This stuff has to leave a stain on pop culture for a long damn time. How can it do that with all of this rain?

Adapt and overcome. Isn’t that what you always say?

"Actually, no. No it isn’t, asshole. That’s from a Navy Seal poster that we saw at the mall. Now you’re intentionally trying to portray me as abstracted from reality. I can see where all of this is headed. Your problem is that you can’t see past what you assess to be your final victory over me. You will beat me, here and now. But I’ll deliver the final blow. You have to have seen that, being from the future and all?"

Quiet down. Let’s not discuss classified matters in public, yeah? Just know that I’m not alone in this, and neither are you.

Classified? Ha! Listen, the tile is down, but if it doesn’t stick it ain’t my fault, got it?

No, I don’t ‘Got it’, jackass. Did you use the blowtorch like I told you?

Yes I did. Sevi cracked a sly grin.

Worked like a damn charm, didn’t it?

Like a damn charm. Sevi’s disheveled teeth showed through his hairline lips just then. It didn’t happen often for him, to find cause for wearing one of his awkward smiles, but it happened that night on the seventy-six. It happened in the bouncing rain and in the solace of a silent and chilly September Philadelphia night, and nobody was there to see it.

On to the next one.

No. I’m done tonight.

Done? How do you figure?

"It’s cold as Hell on the seventy-six tonight. I’m done for tonight."

And that was that.

* * *

Tell me again how the whole religion thing works? Severino was speaking very low, casting his eyes about like a hundred bobbers on a hundred fishing poles.

What’s there to tell?

All of it. It doesn’t make sense the way that you tell it. Sevi was making his way very slowly and deliberately down the sidewalk of West Shunk Street. He didn’t like to have random social encounters, which his why he avoided the larger and more heavily trafficked West Oregon Avenue. West Shunk was a ghost town at this time of night, and that was precisely how Sevi liked it.

It doesn’t have to make sense, Sevi. It’s history.

No, see, that’s where you’re wrong. It’s the future for me, so I have to take your word on pure faith. Sevi had the disembodied voice of Mr. Duerr, alleged television producer from nearly a century into the future, right where he wanted him. He turned south onto Seventh.

Faith. You hit the nail on the head, kid.

That’s not even an answer! All you did was echo me, essentially. Sevi stopped in front of his door and began to fumble with his keys. He carried several rings with almost two hundred keys in all. One opened his front door. One operated the ignition on his beloved, giant antenna sporting, floor free car. A third activated the short wave pirate transmitter array, which took up the back seat and part of the trunk in that old beater. The other one hundred and ninety-some were decoys.

Would you open the door already?

Hey, your security measures are a bit...cumbersome. Don’t blame me!

In the heat of the argument, Sevi hadn’t noticed the middle aged woman sidle up behind him.

Severino? Are you ok? She had genuine concern in her voice, but it wasn’t clear if it was concern for Sevi or for herself.

Yes! Misses M, yes, I’m fine. He was visibly startled by her presence. In truth there was nothing special about her. She was wearing a lime green and white polka-dot apron over a very simple and modest blouse, which was tucked into a pair of women’s slacks. A pair of gold-rimmed reading glasses hung from about her neck. The chain was tangled up in her silvery white hair, but she pretended not to notice it. Misses M. was the consummate elderly American, and the last person Sevi wanted to talk to just then.

Who were you talking to just now? Again with that ambiguous concern.

What? Nobody, Misses M. I have to go. Good night. And with that he rolled into his lonely little row house, leaving Misses M alone with the green canvas canopy that covered his front stoop. Everyone knew that canopy, too. It was seen more often than Sevi was, and anyone who came looking for him was bound to spend more time with it than with him.

It would be days before anyone saw him again, but this was normal. They would come by, of course, because everyone wanted to talk to the Birdman. Everybody wanted to catch a glimpse of the neighborhood lunatic, but he had ways of thwarting them. He never ever answered the door, for one. That, and the boards on the windows usually did the trick. He couldn’t afford the distraction of those onlookers. To him they were worse than the ambulance chasers, the dark souls who gathered around after a terrible car accident because they wanted to see the bodies, to witness the devastation.

Sevi worked for days on a new batch of tiles. Tile making was tedious, laborious work. A single tile required over twenty hours of labor, in order to get it just right. To make them one had to be good with a blade, have access to spare bits of linoleum tiles, and be willing to endure long hours of exposure to the fumes emitted by asphalt glue. Sevi would start with a single color of linoleum, which he would use as the background of the finished tile. Next, he would trace letters onto this and, using an exacto-knife, cut them out and set them aside for use in another tile. In this way Sevi tried to waste as little as possible. He would then take letters cut from another color of tile, and set them into the background color. He would sometimes add decorative framing, or change color schemes, but for the most part the tiles were all the same. The message they conveyed most definitely never changed:

"TOYNBEE IDEA

IN MOViE `2001

RESURRECT DEAD

ON PLANET JUPiTER"

Oddly enough, there were people out there copying Sevi’s work. They certainly weren’t spending twenty hours on their tiles, of that he was certain. They were cartoonish compared to his tiles, and lewd. Several of these copycat tiles, which he had come to dub the House of Hades tiles, featured naked women with their legs splayed wide open in a ninety-degree angle, forming a half-frame for the tile. Sevi would never have used such explicit imagery on his tiles. They were intended for everyone to see and read, not just filthy minded adults.

At first it had enraged the recluse. How dare they try to be like him? How dare they try to do what he did? He had given up everything in life to pursue his own particular avenue of eccentricity. Nobody but him could possibly understand the utility of his work to the species. They didn’t have the big picture. They couldn’t possibly be playing the long game like Severino was. And who in the hell was this ‘House of Hades’ group, anyway? They were taking away from his credibility, and that was a problem.

Copycat losers! Trying to beat me at my own game. Sevi was thinking out loud. This was also normal.

I hate to break it to you Sevi, but they aren’t playing the game at all.

Great, just what I need.

What, me? Or the copycats?

Both. Look, I’ve got a lot of work to do here. The last thing I need is your wretched voice nagging me to work harder.

Not harder, Sevi, faster.

Faster is no good, Mister Duerr.

No names please, they just complicate matters.

How could things possibly get any more complicated?

Trust me, they can.

Can and will. Sevi put down his razor blade, and capped the bottle of asphalt glue that sat on the table next to a tattered old accordion. After wiping his hands on his pants, he picked up the antiquated musical instrument and belted out a few random notes.

How so?

I want an answer to my question from the other night. He continued to squeeze and tug on the old squish box. He often did this when he was restless, usually late at night.

What question was that?

About God, and Heaven, and Hell. You say they are all fabricated, and yet you demand that I respect them, as concepts. He slammed the ends of his instrument together in a horrid cacophony of pseudo music.

Yes?

Well, it doesn’t really jive, does it?

Jive? These things don’t have to jive. They simply are.

Only to you, though. You can see that, cant you?

No. Not really.

No? Well let me ask you this. What would happen if I just stopped all of this? Sevi went back to forcing notes out of his accordion.

Come again?

What if I simply stopped laying tiles?

Why on Earth would you do that?

Severino glanced around his spartan abode. His eyes paused on the broken thermostat. They loitered on the coat hanger antenna jutting up from behind the television set. This was not the lap of luxury. No, not at all. Sevi, who was probably smarter than everyone on his block; Sevi, a man who was likely more intelligent than anyone else in his entire vicinity; Sevi, tile layer and amateur musician, was dirt poor. Sevi had his own doubts, and his own problems, and they were all large enough without the help of Mr. Duerr.

Maybe I’m not the one.

Nonsense. Don’t ever speak like that to me again.

Or what? Sevi dropped one end of the accordion, allowing it to bounce up and down, letting it spit and squirt half notes on every rise and fall. After a few seconds it settled into a low spot, and went quiet. "Or what?"

No answer came back.

Fine. I’ll finish this one tile, and then we’ll come back to the topic. That alright with you?

Sure thing.

Asshole.

* * *

Is everyone here? Where is Eric’s sister? Severino was speaking with his mouth full of a pastrami sandwich. He was known for doing that.

It was a Tuesday, and that meant that the Minority Association was meeting in Eric’s house on South Beulah. They met every Tuesday, come rain, sleet, or snow. They had been meeting every Tuesday for the last two years, except for when it got foggy. Eric didn’t like them driving when it got foggy, on account of how dangerous the roads got in the fog. But for two years the fog had only prevented three meetings, and that wasn’t a bad record by any measure. On this particular Tuesday the Minority Association was dealing with a development that stood poised to threaten their entire campaign.

She ain’t coming, Sevi. Eric was taller than his pastrami eating friend. He was more slender as well, possibly the result of refusing to eat in front of people. She says that she is embarrassed by your car, man.

My car? You mean the lynchpin in our plan to circumvent those bastards at Knight Ridder?

Yeah, that’s the one. She says you’re too lax with that thing, and that you’re going to get us all caught. Eric was standing in front of his sister’s typewriter, rapping his thumbs on the empty chair that sat in front of it like it was a drum.

That’s insane, Eric! If we were going to get caught it would have happened when we started broadcasting to the Soviets. Sevi dropped what was left of his sandwich, mostly crust and mustard. The only other way is to get a man on the inside at one of the television stations, and Frankie here scuttled that idea right out of the gate.

Frankie was the third man in the room. Frankie was always the third man, and unless you knew he was there before you arrived you probably wouldn’t know he was there when you left. That’s how quiet he was. Frankie was a thinker, not a doer, about as passive on the outside as shark on its back. After the prior week’s meeting of the Minority Association, Frankie had been assigned a single, simple task: get a job in the copy room at WPVI on channel six. Once implanted, Frankie was to start slipping little ‘mistakes’ into the copy read by the anchors on the evening news. Over time these mistakes would amount to a complete overhaul of the public’s understanding of big media companies like Capital Cities Communications, who owned stations like WPVI. Unfortunately for the Minority Association however, Frankie had brought several examples of these ‘mistakes’ with him to his first interview, in lieu of more benign samples of his work. Long story short, he didn’t get the job. This had infuriated Sevi, who spent the next three days straight driving around town broadcasting the group’s message from his mobile shortwave transmitter, stowed in the backseat and trunk of his beat up old coupe.

Frankie isn’t cut out for cloak and dagger work, Sevi. I told you that when you chose him for the job. You should have sent me, damn it. I could have gotten the job done. Eric was never lacking for self confidence. Empirical evidence in support of that confidence, on the other hand, was in perpetual short supply.

Sure you would, Eric. Sure thing. Except, that’s what you said about WPEN, and you screwed that one up but good, didn’t you? Sevi was referring to the station at nine fifty on the am dial. Eric had been tasked to perform a very similar function to Frankie’s botched job there, several weeks before Frankie got his marching orders. But Eric’s arrogance, mixed with his lack of credentials, had squashed that bug forthwith.

Whatever. The point is you pissed my sister off and now she’s not going to do our typing anymore. Case closed. Eric sat down in front of the antiquated mechanical typewriter, extending his hands out above the keyboard, knowing all the while that he did not know how to type. Realizing this fact, he quickly pulled his arms back in to his body. Didn’t you say that you had a new method? Some other, more permanent way to get the word out?

Yeah, I did, and I also said that you didn’t need to know about it. Look, if we’re going to pull this thing off we have to do it right. That means compartmentalizing everything. Your sister is our typist, Frankie is our silent stalker, you make the sandwiches, and I’m working on this other thing. We have to stick to our roles, Eric.

I ain’t no fucking cook, Sevi. I made that first sandwich for me, you ass. You took it upon yourself to eat it while I was in the pisser. Eric was referring to the theft, by Severino, of his sandwich at their first meeting two years before.

Yeah, and you kept on making me sandwiches this whole time. You’ve had a sandwich here waiting for me at every meeting since. That’s not something to overlook, Eric. I’m not trying to pigeon hole you, you’ve been the grease on our wheels, pal. We need you, and your sandwiches. In a similar way we need Frankie’s silent demeanor, and we need your sister’s typing skills. It’s as simple as that.

Only to you, Sevi. Eric and Severino were both shocked to hear Frankie speak up. Look, every week I come here, waiting for my chance. I thought I had that last week, but I was wrong. Yeah, ok, I messed up at the interview. But you’ve already written me off again. There are no second chances with you guys. I can’t do this. I need to go somewhere I am useful, somewhere I’m wanted, and that sure as shit ain’t here. Frankie stood up, flipped them both the bird, and stormed out of Eric’s front door.

* * *

This is a risky location. Sevi was talking to the voice again.

Nonsense.

No, this is seriously risky.

How is that?

It’s the Schuylkill, that’s how.

And what does that mean to me? I mean really, Severino, do you ever consider things through that lens?

Yes I do, actually. Sevi grinned a little, but not much. I want to know about God.

Silence.

I want to know about God. I want to know about God, and Heaven, and Hell.

Fuck no.

Excuse me? I am pretty sure that we agreed to return to this conversation. I hope you're planning to honor that agreement.

Who says that I’m not?

Well you sure don’t speak up on your own, do you? I have to pry everything out of you like quarters jammed into a nickel coin slot.

I have to speak up? You’re the one who wants to know things, not me.

Obviously so.

What were you saying about this location?

It’s risky

How so?

East and West River Drive. Mean anything to you?

Not really.

Go figure. You’re telling me you don’t have any intel on the East and West River Drive?

None at all, Sevi. I’m not in the business of secret information. Why?

You’re weak, that’s why.

Lay the tiles, Sevi. We don’t have time for this.

Sure thing, boss. Sevi stopped his car in the middle of the road, as he always did when laying tiles.

Boss? Does that mean you’ve reconsidered?

Not a chance. He unrolled a towel with a tarpaper sandwich inside of it.

What are you talking about? Is there a better offer that I’m not aware of?

Well, not exactly. But I have plans of my own, and they are none of your damn concern! Sevi glanced around furtively, double checking that he was alone for the moment. There was nobody in view