dissentcontinues
Banned
"Till Armageddon, no Shalam, no Shalom.
Then the father hen will call his chickens home.
The wise men will bow down before the throne.
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crown.
When the man comes around."
-Johnny Cash, When the Man Comes Around
"I fell into a burning ring of fire. I went down, down, down and the flames they went higher.."
-Johnny Cash, Ring of Fire
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Casitas Springs, California, 1965 - Three Years after World War Three Began in Cuba and Ended in Fire
Viv Cash sat in the hilltop house overlooking the run down trailers of Casitas Springs, waiting for that busted up camper Jesse's headlights to show up in the driveway.
Time was, before the bomb dropped, her husband would be out cheating on her with June Carter. June Carter and her whole rockabilly clan were shadows on a wall somewhere nowadays, and when Johnny ran off in the camper out into the wrecked towns of what used to be Ventura County or the hills of the Los Padres forest, it wasn't to two time her. Basically Casitas Springs, Ojai and some of Ventura were the only things in these parts that survived the Russian bombers and missiles and the war, and The Man in Black didn't go out to two time. He went out to scavenge, break up trouble, check on the oil rigs that kept his camper and the other cars and pick ups they had running and hunt for food. He ran what was left of civilization here, with her as a reluctant queen. She knew damn well, if he could've had his way, it'd be her getting envied by the living and June Carter sitting where she was right now.
She lit a cigarette, the only light since they shut off the generators at night. Then, as if answer, she saw the lights.
He came in. In his black. Faint reek of booze on him...or what passed for booze since he ran through whatever he could get from the liquor stores a year after the bomb hit LA, closer to moonshine now. Not as bad as usual though. He wasn't alone though. Had what looked like three or four men she'd never seen before with him.
=========================================
"Johnny, who the hell are they?"
"Other survivors. Found'em when I drove out to the 101 and they were walking over the old tangle of wrecked cars. First people that ain't from this town I seen in a helluva long time, Viv."
"Shame they ain't the Carters and didn't bring you any pills to pop."
"Who says they didn't? Boys, got any uppers, downers, speed, anything else good on ya?"
"Sorry there, fella. Say...ain't you that country singer from before the war hit?"
"Sure as hell am. Run this town now. What's left of it. Most of the other people who came through came the year after the Reds dropped the bomb on Los Angeles. Put'em up in my folks' trailer park across the street. Once we ran out of trailers, we got pitch tents. We'll get some for you and put you to work hunting up some yellow buzzard to eat in the hills or working the rigs or scavenging."
"Well, we rightly appreciate you hitching us a ride, but we want to see if there's more left than one town."
"LA is a big ole burnt scrap heap on top of a graveyard and if there were headstones, they'd be a Hollywood Who's Who. I checked. Wasting your time Mac. You'd have it better here with us. This is my wife, Viv."
"I'm George McDouglas. From Santa Rosa, used to be a salesman before the bombs. This here's Charlie Jensen from up by Humboldt. I don't know what he did, but I found him rooting around some abandoned town's stores looking for booze so I took him with me. Third guy's named Arthur Leigh Allen. Found him near the bombed out shithole that used to be Frisco."
==============================================
George and Charlie settled in and within a few months, had become popular and hard working members of the small community Johnny Cash ruled over. Charlie could play drums, so when Johnny played music for the people, he finally had a drummer.
The people agreed though there was something sort of off about Arthur Leigh Allen. But nobody could put their finger on it right off. He watch an old watch that was stopped with a zodiac symbol on it, and he seemed not all that friendly, but plenty of people in the town were pissed off about something they lost in the war, so most ignored it and let him go about his business.
Until Johnny's cousin Damon Fielder found the body on the road to Ventura.
=========================================
"Fucking hell, Damon. Who was it?"
"One of them hitchhikers you picked up coming down scavenging from the north. That fella George."
"How they'd do it?"
"Big one knife. Maybe a foot long from the look of it."
"I betcha it was that nutcase Allen they brought. Don't much like the look of him. I know fun bad and trouble bad and Devil's bad and he looked like the third."
"Let's go see about it. He's in the trailer park."
They drove up in the camper.
"MA! PA! Where the hell's that Allen?"
"He got in a fight with the man in the next tent, Avery, then grabbed a shotgun and ran down the road into the hills in Los Padres. Why?"
"Found that fella George stabbed dead on the road."
"Hell, son. Maybe you two oughta let him leave."
"No...no, cause then he might come back. I got my kids and we all got families. Damon, get a gun. I say I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, and I never did that, and Lord forgive me for my brother, but if I don't get this bastard, he'll shoot us all just to watch us die."
==========================================
Allen had made it Sespe Creek, a condor sanctuary forest in the Los Padres National Forest. He was going to camp out and then go back and kill everyone in that little town of survivors. He'd hunt them like animals, because man was the most dangerous game, and when he was done, all the people in this town would be his slaves in the afterlife.
============================================
They drove the camper around until dusk.
Johnny was nervous and took a swig of whiskey.
"Don't do that now, damn it." said Damon.
"Hell, gotta be a little drunk to fight a killer."
"I can't see straight. Wait...think I saw something move by the river. Drive up, Johnny and when we stop, get your gun."
============================================
A shot rang out. Johnny and Damon ducked.
"Peekaboo! You're doomed!" they heard Allen's voice in the oncoming night over the forest primeval.
Johnny fired his shotgun in that general direction, but nothing happened.
Him and Damon trudged a bit towards the trees.
Then Damon shouted and Johnny turned and saw him grapping with Allen. Allen pulled a long knife and raised it to Damon and then Johnny fumbled with the trigger in the dark. So he raised the butt and hit Allen over the back of his head and he fell down cold.
"Want me to shoot him?"
"Take him back to the road and do it. If we do it here and we miss, might light up the whole damn forest and take the town with it."
"Yeah, and the buzzards. I give a damn about those yellow buzzards because we gotta eat them sometimes."
They took him to the road and Johnny shot a man in Los Padres, not to watch him die, but so he wouldn't kill anyone else.
=========================================
Back in the village the Man in Black, for all his troubles, was greeted with a round of applause.
He looked at the stopped zodiac watch.
"Anyone want his zodiac watch?"
Silence.
"Didn't think so." Johnny Cash chucked it on the side of North Ventura Avenue and hoped this was over so they could go back to getting the world together, one piece at a time.
Then the father hen will call his chickens home.
The wise men will bow down before the throne.
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crown.
When the man comes around."
-Johnny Cash, When the Man Comes Around
"I fell into a burning ring of fire. I went down, down, down and the flames they went higher.."
-Johnny Cash, Ring of Fire
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Casitas Springs, California, 1965 - Three Years after World War Three Began in Cuba and Ended in Fire
Viv Cash sat in the hilltop house overlooking the run down trailers of Casitas Springs, waiting for that busted up camper Jesse's headlights to show up in the driveway.
Time was, before the bomb dropped, her husband would be out cheating on her with June Carter. June Carter and her whole rockabilly clan were shadows on a wall somewhere nowadays, and when Johnny ran off in the camper out into the wrecked towns of what used to be Ventura County or the hills of the Los Padres forest, it wasn't to two time her. Basically Casitas Springs, Ojai and some of Ventura were the only things in these parts that survived the Russian bombers and missiles and the war, and The Man in Black didn't go out to two time. He went out to scavenge, break up trouble, check on the oil rigs that kept his camper and the other cars and pick ups they had running and hunt for food. He ran what was left of civilization here, with her as a reluctant queen. She knew damn well, if he could've had his way, it'd be her getting envied by the living and June Carter sitting where she was right now.
She lit a cigarette, the only light since they shut off the generators at night. Then, as if answer, she saw the lights.
He came in. In his black. Faint reek of booze on him...or what passed for booze since he ran through whatever he could get from the liquor stores a year after the bomb hit LA, closer to moonshine now. Not as bad as usual though. He wasn't alone though. Had what looked like three or four men she'd never seen before with him.
=========================================
"Johnny, who the hell are they?"
"Other survivors. Found'em when I drove out to the 101 and they were walking over the old tangle of wrecked cars. First people that ain't from this town I seen in a helluva long time, Viv."
"Shame they ain't the Carters and didn't bring you any pills to pop."
"Who says they didn't? Boys, got any uppers, downers, speed, anything else good on ya?"
"Sorry there, fella. Say...ain't you that country singer from before the war hit?"
"Sure as hell am. Run this town now. What's left of it. Most of the other people who came through came the year after the Reds dropped the bomb on Los Angeles. Put'em up in my folks' trailer park across the street. Once we ran out of trailers, we got pitch tents. We'll get some for you and put you to work hunting up some yellow buzzard to eat in the hills or working the rigs or scavenging."
"Well, we rightly appreciate you hitching us a ride, but we want to see if there's more left than one town."
"LA is a big ole burnt scrap heap on top of a graveyard and if there were headstones, they'd be a Hollywood Who's Who. I checked. Wasting your time Mac. You'd have it better here with us. This is my wife, Viv."
"I'm George McDouglas. From Santa Rosa, used to be a salesman before the bombs. This here's Charlie Jensen from up by Humboldt. I don't know what he did, but I found him rooting around some abandoned town's stores looking for booze so I took him with me. Third guy's named Arthur Leigh Allen. Found him near the bombed out shithole that used to be Frisco."
==============================================
George and Charlie settled in and within a few months, had become popular and hard working members of the small community Johnny Cash ruled over. Charlie could play drums, so when Johnny played music for the people, he finally had a drummer.
The people agreed though there was something sort of off about Arthur Leigh Allen. But nobody could put their finger on it right off. He watch an old watch that was stopped with a zodiac symbol on it, and he seemed not all that friendly, but plenty of people in the town were pissed off about something they lost in the war, so most ignored it and let him go about his business.
Until Johnny's cousin Damon Fielder found the body on the road to Ventura.
=========================================
"Fucking hell, Damon. Who was it?"
"One of them hitchhikers you picked up coming down scavenging from the north. That fella George."
"How they'd do it?"
"Big one knife. Maybe a foot long from the look of it."
"I betcha it was that nutcase Allen they brought. Don't much like the look of him. I know fun bad and trouble bad and Devil's bad and he looked like the third."
"Let's go see about it. He's in the trailer park."
They drove up in the camper.
"MA! PA! Where the hell's that Allen?"
"He got in a fight with the man in the next tent, Avery, then grabbed a shotgun and ran down the road into the hills in Los Padres. Why?"
"Found that fella George stabbed dead on the road."
"Hell, son. Maybe you two oughta let him leave."
"No...no, cause then he might come back. I got my kids and we all got families. Damon, get a gun. I say I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, and I never did that, and Lord forgive me for my brother, but if I don't get this bastard, he'll shoot us all just to watch us die."
==========================================
Allen had made it Sespe Creek, a condor sanctuary forest in the Los Padres National Forest. He was going to camp out and then go back and kill everyone in that little town of survivors. He'd hunt them like animals, because man was the most dangerous game, and when he was done, all the people in this town would be his slaves in the afterlife.
============================================
They drove the camper around until dusk.
Johnny was nervous and took a swig of whiskey.
"Don't do that now, damn it." said Damon.
"Hell, gotta be a little drunk to fight a killer."
"I can't see straight. Wait...think I saw something move by the river. Drive up, Johnny and when we stop, get your gun."
============================================
A shot rang out. Johnny and Damon ducked.
"Peekaboo! You're doomed!" they heard Allen's voice in the oncoming night over the forest primeval.
Johnny fired his shotgun in that general direction, but nothing happened.
Him and Damon trudged a bit towards the trees.
Then Damon shouted and Johnny turned and saw him grapping with Allen. Allen pulled a long knife and raised it to Damon and then Johnny fumbled with the trigger in the dark. So he raised the butt and hit Allen over the back of his head and he fell down cold.
"Want me to shoot him?"
"Take him back to the road and do it. If we do it here and we miss, might light up the whole damn forest and take the town with it."
"Yeah, and the buzzards. I give a damn about those yellow buzzards because we gotta eat them sometimes."
They took him to the road and Johnny shot a man in Los Padres, not to watch him die, but so he wouldn't kill anyone else.
=========================================
Back in the village the Man in Black, for all his troubles, was greeted with a round of applause.
He looked at the stopped zodiac watch.
"Anyone want his zodiac watch?"
Silence.
"Didn't think so." Johnny Cash chucked it on the side of North Ventura Avenue and hoped this was over so they could go back to getting the world together, one piece at a time.