Jungle City

By El Miro

The plot is a preposterous ironic romp through contemporary America that will be appreciated by any reader who enjoys humorous adventures in a fantasy setting. The hero, whose name we never quite learn, has a mostly happy relationship with his live-in girlfriend, a 500 lb. gorilla named Tanga. One day, the nameless hero comes home to discover she is missing, and thus begins his search of odd twists and contorted turns to find her. He and his loyal friend Bert, who won the big prize in the lottery but stays at his hum-drum job because, well, he is loyal, set out in the metropolis to uncover answers. During their quest, they come across an assortment of unusual but dangerous characters, though all are not without a sense of humor: the vigilante football players; the religious cult craving human sacrifice; unscrupulous politicians whose sadism knows no bounds; and mutated mercenary soldiers seeking revenge on society.

Through their trials, both characters mature, having found romantic interests in the vulnerable Michelle, a victim of tragic love lost, and Phaedra, a young wild girl who was farmed out by her mother to the care of an irresponsible Metal Band at an early age. Retro-grade literary passages, stories within the story, word-play riddles, spiritual and philosophical tales, beat poetic moments, rock n' roll excursions, Rap interludes, and fanciful literary forms all fill the pages aimed at the reader's delight in words splayed on the page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: El Miro
• Release date: Apr 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386745471

El Miro

No one dares enter an enticing gravel country road here in Arkansas unless they want to risk getting their head blown off by all manner of folk: ornery red-necks who are too mean to die;meth- amphetamine chemists listening for scrunching tire sounds down the road; crazed recluses zealously protecting their junkyard double-wides; or solitary authors creating surreal landscapes of alternating lyrical phrases and down-home gibberish. It's a long way from Hollywood to Woodsville, but that's what too much LSD can do to you!     

Book preview

Jungle City

CHAPTER 1

L et’s go out and shoot some Mexicans.

No, I said, you wanted to do that last week.

Then let’s make love, Tanga intimated with a humming growl.

Tanga was a five-hundred pound gorilla, and of all the animals that I’ve made love to, she was the best, but something just didn’t feel right.

No, not now, I lamely replied, leaving a stink in the air as strong as Tanga’s scent before she rubs decaying lemon all over her body.

One reason that I was so attracted to this ape was the strength of her vaginal smells.  The genital cavities were surprisingly free of her luscious hair, and her vector of arousal, black all over with a little bit of gray on her banana-big clitoris, oozed forth a feral odor that truly over­whelmed most humans that came close.  The aroma not only came from deep inside her cav­ern but also was educed from scent glands just below her anus.

Her vagina itself, the walls clung tight to anything one put in.  And it was big inside:  one time, I put in a good-sized cantaloupe (she promised me that I could stick my head up her chamber sometime, I was looking forward to that, then maybe I’d dump her).  Yet despite this ovenly space, she could contract the muscles so tightly that you’d swear an octopus was at­taching to your member.

To expand on the previous vaginal washout:  so anyway, shooting defenseless mestizos as the best recreation this beast could come up with.  ‘No,’ I says, ‘let’s imprison wrinkled and shrunken Oriental women and tie them to large billboards and blow them up.’  Now Tanga begun that ape shit routine, you know, bouncing up and down, huffing from deep in her belly, beating her chest, and giving this murderous stare that portended an imminent pounce.  Aw, she did love me.  As usual, it was a bluff and we lunged into the car and started driving to Little Orient Town.

Little Orient Town was not far, just a little jaunt on the freeway, but true to form, this short trip was to change our lives forever.  Kind of like the river mentioned in the forbidden, ancient texts of Glorious Antiquity.  The same river that could be stepped in once or never again, de­pending on your outlook on existence and the vagaries of physical reality and perceptual on­cology, the cancer of subjective experience.  Skin a southeast Oriental and what do you have underneath:  that’s right, a New World Peon.  Or a descendent of slaves that were chained on board mercantile wooden ships.

We are all walking the planks of board rooms, wooden ships of the modern age where a world is being destroyed, never again to be stepped in, by so­ber-minded bigwigs in monkey suits who stuff their notions of Everyman’s Golden Dream unto sub-human vacuums, parading as responsible citizens.  These vacuums suck up what­ever dregs they are massaged with.  It reminds me of the time I did it with one of those pot-bellied pigs, you know the kind, the ones with the wrinkled skin and the stomachs that almost drag on the ground.  They have the cutest snouts, don’t you think.

I was standing behind one in the children’s petting zoo where I had taken my third grade class for an outing.  I was trying to get away from the habit of coitus with animals, but this urge took me over completely.  I was showing little Karen the iggly-wiggly tiny tale, curled so daintily above its fatty ham hock when suddenly the pig, for what reason I don’t know, squatted on all fours and then lifted its shapely rear end off the ground and shook it in a ritualistic spasm back and forth, stopped abruptly, and then, almost mechanically, shook it again from side to side. My body went suddenly stiff with a feverish tingle.  I had to have that delicious sow.

But I did have some sense of decorum and responsibility, so I vowed that I’d return that night after safely escorting my students back to the school.  Night came and on some lying pretext or other, I ditched Tanga after promising that I would return home to watch the latest show of Fecal Follies on television.  Ah, the zoo, I could smell that sow so strongly as I climbed over the fence that separated the barnyard animals.  Sure there would be an initial struggle as the poor dumb beast (I take that back.  Pigs actually are quite smart, even rivaling dogs in their intelligence.  And those female genitals, to die for.  Most people think sheep vaginas are closest to humans in all aspects, but really, it’s our old friends, the porkers, that best simulate the human experience.  Probably propaganda from lonely, isolated shepherds has led to this misconception.  Also the Jewish practice of sacrificing lambs has ingrained this prejudice for sheep and against pigs.) would be taken aback at such a tall, dark suitor stealthily approaching her. 

Yet I had worked out the technique through much trial and error.  What you have to do is quickly grab the cute little curlicue of a pig-tail and pull it up to expose the pork pubic and deftly and swiftly stroke the thick but sensitive vulva.  Immediately, the animal jerks to attention and not really knowing or expecting a human to be sexually advancing, will nevertheless, remain poised in anticipation.  Instinct has taken over, and the bull can be grabbed by the horns, so to speak.

Be that as it may, I was ready, and would soon be squirming with that murky smell of piggy that I so loved.  Another human and porcine union was to be lustily consummated, maybe not so kosher, but imminently tasty.  As I bounded toward the pen, I suddenly heard an eerie howling that seemed to be coming from an out building a little down the hill.  Then, an echoing clanging pinged and ponged from that same building.  This unholy racket was really distracting, I couldn’t concentrate nor hope to sneak up on a skittish sow with this kind of infernal, callithumpian razzmatazz.  Besides, it was ruining the loving mood.  I must investigate and put a stop to this if possible.

I glided on down the grassy knoll and came to a garage-like building that was used as a storage depot or something.  It was dark all around, but through the few side windows, I could see that the interior was brightly illuminated.  I crept around to the side and, hidden by bushes, peered in to the scene.  I wasn’t ready for what I was to see.  There was a large rectangular open space, much like a handball court, painted white from top to bottom and blocked off at the back by a plate glass window, or curtain really, that ran from floor to ceiling.  Behind the glass partition were about a dozen men in fine-looking suits; and this is the incredible part, each fine-dressed man held a Damallikoff J-22 field rifle that was mounted through a slot cut in the glass.  Inside the court or chamber, dogs of all shapes and sizes were being released from a side door, and as the unfortunate mutts were running across the floor, these fine-dressed men would open up and fire their weapons mercilessly at these miserable animals. 

Boom, there went the head of a beautiful Dalmatian splintered in a hundred bloody pieces, its brain pinned to the back-board in a pulpy glob.  Pow, the intestines of what looked like a cross between a black Labrador and a golden retriever slithered gracefully across the floor and ended tangled up in the feet of other terrified dogs that tripped and slid trying to escape the inescapable savagery.  Mongrels skittered and slipped in the blood and gore of other slaughtered animals as the fine-dressed man either laughed heartily or cued their aim further with fiery intent.  This was a manfully horrifying spectacle, especially for someone like me who loved animals.  The piteous howling of these terrified animals was mingled with their desperate scratching and pawing against the walls, searching for a door, trying to flee.

Wait a minute.  I recognized one of the assassins.  It was Richard R______,  our own dear mayor of Glitter Town.  And wasn’t that goon next to him with the maniacal smile Richard D_____, the head of Meatyville.  And that care-free fellow caressing the rifle tenderly as if it were a woman, wasn’t that William B_____,  numero uno of Bay City.  Of course, the National Conference of Mayors was being held in our city, and here before me in this house of slaughter were poised a dozen of the most powerful men in the country, firing away at defenseless animals in a gleeful blood bath.

Finally, the shooting stopped and now that the deafening noise had ceased, I could sur­vey the scene of carnage.  It was appalling.  The walls were plastered with fur mingled with flesh, shattered bones and internal organs littered the red, gooey floor.  Heart-wrenching whimpers and yelps of dying animals punctuated the still night.  Suddenly, from the back of the room, a tall, gaunt man, dressed in black flowing robes stepped forward and began applauding.  All the marksmen turned around and looked admiringly at this stranger, but I did not recognize this oddly attired individual, whom all the fine-dressed VIPs seemed to look up to.

Who would like to perform the coup de grace?  beamed the robed one in a deep, resonating voice that commanded respect.  All the bigwigs yelled as sycophants, each one wanting to pull the trigger one more time to put the wounded and mangled curs out of their misery, or perhaps it was to foam up their own blood lust just one more glorious time.

I cannot play favorites, spoke the hellish wizard imperiously.  Listen, I promise you an even greater time if you would do me the honor of attending a, shall we say, a festival of  re­newal, on my estate on the Winter Solstice.  I guarantee you all a spectacle that the world will long remember, and that will fulfill all your highest aspirations of powerful public service.  They all had a good long laugh at this last statement of his, and with a knowing yell of assent, each fine-dressed man glowed hungrily with a beastly twinkle in his eye.

CHAPTER 2

Needless to say, this killed my urge for love-making, and besides, Fecal Follies was starting soon and I did tell that five-hundred pound bundle of joy, Tanga, that I’d be home to watch it with her.  That luscious sow in the barnyard would have to wait for another time. 

I arrived at the house in time for the start of the show and Tanga, as usual, asked me no questions, she truly is quite a gullible gorilla.  Da da da, da da da, daa.  Here comes Fecal Follies, Tanga’s favorite television program, and, I might add, the newest, highest rated tele­vision show on the air.  Each week, they show a different pile of shit from a different animal.  First, there’s a little technical talk about the shape of the organ, how the animal drops it, rate of speed, consistency, and all that kind of thing, quite high production values, but what we really get off on is just looking at the stuff.  What with all the different camera angles and creative lighting effects, Tanga and I sit simply transfixed in front of the old TV screen, and apparently, we’re not the only ones, if you can believe the explosive ratings. 

This week they’re featuring camel dung, it should be a good one.  All right, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, Ship of the Desert, forty days without water (their shit must be really dry, this should be a good one all right), one hump is a dromedary—two humps is a true camel, Arabs have forty words for shit because it is so pervasive in their culture (commendable, re­mind me to re-examine my prejudice against Arabs).  Finally, the pictorial part.  Tanga starts to bellow and jump up and down in anticipation.  She loves shit.  She has been known to take her own formidably sized squat and toss it so that it sticks to the four walls of whatever room she’s in, some sort of territorial ritual brought on by excitement of any kind, this has caused some embarrassment in the past, and now I must be selective whither I take her.

I thought they’d never get to it, the real stuff.  This week they’ve outdone themselves:  they are showing a true camel, two humps, taking a dump with scrawny, robed Arabs standing behind ready to pounce upon the load as soon as it hits the ground.  Kind of an odd thing, if you ask me, not even my gorilla of a girl-friend has taking to eating shit yet.  Okay, here it comes, oooh, this is a big one, close up, zoom in, slow motion, it’s falling, falling, it’s stretching out, it’s kind of a creamy color, much like the color of a camel itself, it’s letting off steam, it’s touching the sand, mushing up, spreading out in lumpy layers, there, it’s done.  Come on, time for a close up and all those changing colors and special graphics these televi­sion techs are so skilled at.  Hey, wait a second, those damn scrawny Arabs are getting in the way.  What are they doing?  God, they are reaching in and grabbing it, I was just kidding before, I thought those were the camel’s handlers.  I guess they are, but in a different way.  Why are they doing that?  They’re wrecking the camera angles. 

Now the narrator is coming back on.  The men are sifting through the camel dung and picking out the whole grains of oats that went undigested through the camel’s bowels.  Apparently, after our Air Force bombed the shit out of their cropland, you might say, during the last war, there has been a rather severe famine in their chastised country, and people are reduced to gathering whatever bits of sustenance they can.  That’s better, they’ve got another unobstructed close-up of the star of the show, and this time it’s flashing colors, I love special effects.  Tanga does too.

That reminds me.  I have to go Downtown tomorrow and register her at the Department of Animal Regulation.  What a hassle, but I couldn’t face the consequence of her being impounded if somehow they found out that she was unlicensed. And what do you know, here she comes now, all jumping on me with simian glee, stimulated by that great TV show, atitter  with joy at the up-coming prospect of a woofull night in bed.  And believe me, change of narrative time from past to present or not, I was ready too, except that the ugly episode at the zoo kept appearing in my brain.

CHAPTER 3

School being out for the year, I was free to pursue my personal interests for a couple of months until the start of the next rat race. And the first order of business was to enroll my precious pet, Tanga, in the municipal wild animal directory.  Then, that vacation in the tropics that I promised myself: exotic, alcoholic fruity drinks with the little umbrellas sipped from a coconut shell while lounging under a swaying palm on the white sand beach in a place where they never heard of cliché responses to perfunctory greetings.

Downtown in our bustling burg was no great shakes.  A cluster of out-moded cement monstrosities done in the pseudo-Roman, monumental style that was supposed to awe, impress, and generally make us all feel insignificant in their presence was the extent of our Civic Center.  I entered the City Hall, which did have one interesting sculpture in the lobby.  It was a copy of the Death of the Laocoon, an ancient Greek stone rendering of the myth of a father and his two sons being enveloped and bitten and suffocated by large serpents because they had offended the god of intelligence.  A fitting theme for this den of vipers and dimwits. 

I had to go to the eighth floor to conduct my business, now, my old buddy, Bert, owned a lunch wagon around the corner, maybe I could catch him for lunch on the way down.  La de la de la la, when is this elevator ever going to get here, two generations of cockroaches could be born, annoy us, and die before this iron cage would descend to pick us up.

As I was counting the imitation gold leaves engraved on the ornate elevator door, I heard a male voice behind me say, Did you see that show last  night, Fecal Follies, wasn’t it great?

I don’t think so, said a sweet but skeptical voice in return, that’s disgusting.  Anyone that watches that show is a disgusting moron.

Again, the disgusting moron.  Not according to the ratings, that’s the number one show in the country.

Number one or not, it’s still repulsive, replied the angelic doubter.

I had to see who was doing the talking and turned around to witness truly a vision that smote me smitten. (Will she get on my elevator?  I have to meet her, I am all bounded with excitement.  Tanga won’t mind, what does that stupid ape know anyway, forgive me, I really do care for her, but after all, she is a gorilla.)  He was a loser, but she had long, blond hair down to her shoulders, pouting red lips that formed a perfect circle, like a halo, if you imagined such a thing drawn from the corners of her mouth around and up to her ivory white, delicate forehead.  Such grace and purity, or so I imagined, in one woman, was too much to bear, and my heart started beating wildly, I felt an injection of blood and animal lust fill my bones and body.  I had to break in, and my opportunity was not long in coming.

The moron spoke, Listen, you should give it a try,  I’ve got tickets to the show, live, next week, how about it?

The angel seemed to sing, although (albeit) it must have been angrily, I was in a trance and couldn’t really tell, Bruce, you’re not only a pig, you’re pig shit.

That’s the spirit, that’s what it’s all about, he impudently spurted.  I know you really want to, just say yes.

Can’t he take no for an answer, time for a little heroics here.

Look, that show is disgusting and the lady said no, can’t you take a hint?  I pressed with my most noble and firm tone. 

What’s it to you, moron?

How odd, he was the disgusting moron and here he projected his failings upon me.  It’s nothing, I diplomatically countered, "but unless you’re ready to start something right here