Virtual Eternity (the Serialized Novel) Episode 20 - The Music Festival Part One: Searching for Mike

This is Episode 20 of the serialized version of the novel, Virtual Eternity: An Epic 90s Retro Florida Techo-Pro-Life Love Story and Conversion Journey. These 52 episodes are presented here free for you every Friday. You can buy the paperback version  from Mike Church’s Crusade Channel Store (at a lower price than Amazon!).

Or you can start reading at the Table of Contents: here

The Music Festival Part One: Searching for Mike

On the college campus, near a men’s dorm, I found several groups of students assembling for rides to the concert. A junior named Scott Mecklin, who sold me an extra ticket, drove me and five others in his new red sports utility truck. We darted through the city on its raised superhighway, past its outskirts, past its peaceful families in their allotted spaces of land, and past its malls as large as towns. Acidic black bugs smudged the windshield over and over.

We shared bottles of Mexican, Caribbean, and Irish alcohol.

“Good move buying these bottles. We can take this stuff inside the concert.”

“They might actually last us all day.”

“Drink the tequila straight now. We’ll buy soda for this rum and whisky when we get there.”

We shouted above the music in the truck. The drum beats somehow held together chaotic guitars. The singer wailed his grief. We could not understand the content of his suffering, but it did not matter. Whatever it was had caused him to kill himself, merely eighteen months ago. Later, his wife’s band had prospered and she was granted brief fame. Everyone could relate that singer’s moans to their experiences. Our hearts uplifted in anger and vice.

As we neared the concert, the truck halted. A line of idle vehicles stretched to the horizon. We stared at the bumper of the van ahead for more than an hour, edging closer to that generation-defining event set upon a buried plain of garbage. The concert-goers blared music and danced in the congested road. Their bladders brimmed over, and their discomfort led them to the nearby palmetto woods. One boy vomited on the centerline of the road. Scott’s truck rolled by him as the boy crouched on the blistering asphalt. The guy sitting behind me offered him a swallow of tequila. “Only a sip, but that’s all!” The thought hastened the boy’s stomach in overturning. Retching drowned out our laughter.

We moved on. Several overheated vehicles dropped into ditches as if to drink the rain runoff from the scrub. Their occupants walked the remaining one or two miles. We passed one group of pedestrian young ladies. As Scott talked to them, one decided to climb in. Apparently, our looks or our liquor stock impressed the bony girl. She piled lengthwise on the guys’ laps in the back seat. Someone tried to tear her bathing suit top completely off her shoulders. Her friends climbed on the back bumper, but were flung off when the traffic flowed again. After slowing to five miles per hour, the others tossed out the girl, who had become hysterical.

Again the road clogged. The heat in the engine rose, so we parked in the ditch. Water splashed up as high as the passenger-side door. Nearly everyone else had abandoned their cars now. Some even left them in the middle of the road. Had the builders of this road ever dreamed people would use it for this? How deluded these men from the middle of the century must have been: They thought their roads might carry soldiers to repel Cuban and Soviet invaders, whom no one worried about anymore.

We prepared ourselves for the day. We emptied bottles of brownish and clear liquids into plastic-sealable bags. Using silver tape, we attached the bags to our bodies under our t-shirts. One guy produced a small bag of greens. He spent a quarter-hour emptying it into small papers and twisting them up. The rest of us waited in the back of the truck while he completed the procedure. Finally he emerged.

“I went ahead and rolled the whole bag. We’re set.”

“Cool! And we’re only two hours late.”

After he attached the treasure to his stomach, we trekked on. We walked for a mile past ditched cars and full-bladdered youth.

The amphitheater sat on the horizon. The local warm-up musicians played their imitations of the current masters. The actual concert had been delayed. Distant echoes resonated off the palm trees. Many near me whooped with joy. Several leaped with anticipation. Others sang out. At the concert field, I could see the crowds clustered beneath the tremendous black towers and stage. We went through the gates into the anarchy of youth, past guards who searched us for alcohol. Thousands milled around: a spectrum of hair colors, a medley of body parts pierced, an assortment of clothes shredded, a variety of art drawn on skin, a mixture of ancestries. Play now, I thought, for you must carry the preceding and subsequent generations on your back for the start of a thousand years. Play now, for later you must work.

We looked for a place to spread our bright green blanket in view of the stage. “Go there, near that group of girls, no, away from that puking kid. There.” Within three minutes, mud covered the blanket.

“Here, take one of these.” Scott handed me one of the pot cigarettes.

“The concert’s starting soon. Who’s up first?”

“The High Priests,” a boy behind us said.

“Those guys are awesome,” Scott said. “I heard they fired their bass player.”

“Yeah, dude,” the boy said. “They got a new one. Nothing’s ever the same with them. Always changing. Choice.”

The first note erupted. The day-long festival of music had begun. Roars exploded from the multitude. One finger movement across a wire induced howls from 70,000 future leaders. A shirtless bald boy ran across the black stage toward the singer. The new bass player swatted the boy with his instrument, wrapping it around the young man’s chest. He entered the five-month-old band’s legends without playing a note. The High Priests leaped up and exploded with a fury of chords and beats. The masses bobbed and screamed.

One charismatic man in the middle of the black stage commanded the wills of 70,000 humans at the start of their adult lives. The High Priests screamed for a couple of hours, exceeding their allotted time. Goaded by the leaders on the stage, the crowd hurled their bodies at each other and crashed back and forth like pink and brown marbles dropped into a wet paper bag.

I joined all the men in casting off our shirts. The women rolled up their sleeves or tied their shirts up under their chests. Some wore bathing suits. Many wore only their brassieres.

“Could I have a light?” I asked a nearby square-jawed girl.

“Ooo. Only if you share what you’re smoking,” she shouted. “Mmmm.”

The contract was sealed.

“I see you brought enough alcohol,” I shouted, motioning toward the cooler of beer her goat-bearded date sat on. “How’d you get by the guards?”

“We came in over there.” She pointed to the collapsed wire fence that dozens of ripple-stomached boys now trampled over. No wonder the concert had exceeded the capacity of the field. Ten thousand must have breached those walls.

As usual, the square-jawed girl had the most beautiful face I had ever seen. Like most people in this land, her skin was dark, except that which her brassiere failed to cover, the white crescent moons arching across her chest.

In this moment, I grasped that creating Beauty and the potential to move toward it, especially human beauty, in words, was a way to know God the Creator by a feeble imitation of Him, to bring life.

“This is excellent!” Scott shouted. “Let’s move to the front.”

We wove through the screaming people. A burly, leather-clad elder shoved Scott face-first into the mud. He whooped as he slid under legs, then jumped up.

Near the stage, people around us started swinging their limbs and knocking bystanders. The fray expanded. Others either ducked away or ran directly into the brawl. One insurgent rammed a girl into a puddle. She stood up, brown and bawling.

***

After noon, all the visitors had arrived with their refrigerated boxes of beer and food. Winnie introduced Maureen to them. Ten men and ten women were there to enjoy the doctor’s wealth that day.

They spread out their coolers on the wooden patio reaching over the dunes before the view of the blue green sea. Footballs and volleyballs flew across the background of the white-capped ocean. From the balcony, the girls admired the spectacle of men running shirtless over sand, grunting, and grabbing each other. After a while, some of the ladies tired of it and stretched themselves fully before the sun.

At the same time, they all drank from beer bottles and smoked cannabis. Then they all chased one another into the sea, as sandpipers and gulls darted from their paths. They rode the surging waves, and the earth’s forces slammed them back as if to warn them they did not belong. They grabbed and submerged each other. Individual men targeted individual ladies. The beer, smokes, and skimpy swimwear overpowered them.

Inside, one of the men, Scott Rodman, cooked with Maureen. She made side dishes to accompany the steaks someone else prepared on the porch. Scott had introduced himself. He had later followed her into the kitchen. Scott was tall. His glossy hair smoothed back on his head. Stringy arms hung out of his tank top.

“This is a killer place,” he said. “You two have this place for the whole week? That’s awesome.”

“We’ ll have long drives to work, but it’ll be worth it,” she said. “Where do you work?”

“Same place as you. A few of these guys work there. I’ve seen you around, but I’m on the road a lot.”

“What do you do?” Maureen asked.

“I’m in Marketing.”

“I know a guy in Marketing: Jonathan Hannah.”

“He’s new. Not on the traveling squad yet. I don’t know him that well. Do you?”

“No, I’ve met him before though.” She slid sliced potatoes into a frying pan.

“He doesn’t hang out with us much,” he said. “He’s afraid to open up to people, and he tends to focus on his work too much. Being detached means people don’t need to see him, but they can see his outer accomplishments.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that about him.”

“He seems like a boring guy.” Scott’s earring twinkled as he dipped his head to swill his imported beer. “Which Magic Theater games do you play?”

“I’ve never gotten into that,” she said.

“Oh, but you must try them. They’re being released publicly next week, so soon everyone’ ll have them. Once you try them, you’ ll see.” He rubbed his long chin.

She followed his gaze through the house to the oceanic panorama. Volleyballs and disks sailed across. The girls on the porch burnt their skin and laughed. What humor did Winnie share with the girls there?

***

The twenty men and women gathered on the wood-planked patio. Magnified by the smokes, their hungers were fulfilled by seasoned red steak, fried potatoes, shrimps and cocktail sauce, beer, fresh asparagus, and bread. “Winnie, you’re not having any steak?” a girl named Lisa asked.

“No, I’ve stopped eating meat. My reader said it was unbalancing me. It was unfocusing me from my center and keeping me from reaching my secret place.”

“Weird, but that’s cool,” someone said.

“Did she tell your future?” Scott asked.

“Yeah. I’m supposed to meet someone this fall that I start dating regularly. Something was supposed to happen with my job this summer. And it actually did. I got no raise. Something was supposed to happen with my family. And my brother got engaged last month.”

“Amazing,” Lisa said.

“And she made you stop eating meat?”

“She also said I should stop eating most vegetables and grains, because they’re living too. I should eat only byproducts of living things, like apples. You eat the apple and the tree still lives. I think asparagus was a living plant. She also told me to separate my trash, meditate, and use brown paper grocery bags.”

“Cool.”

“Where’s Gina and Mike?” Winnie asked.

“I don’t know,” Lisa said. “They said they’ d come. Mike’s been acting strange lately. Like a homebody.”

“I heard they’re having troubles,” someone said.

“Them? Really?”

“Yeah. I saw them at a restaurant the other day. They hardly spoke to each other. She was furious about something.”

“I tried calling him, but I never got an answer. Last week he was out sick. He never gets sick.”

“Maybe they went to the concert.”

“Well, this party’s much better. I can listen to the bands on my CD player and not worry about the hassle. I’d rather be at the beach.”

“Why worry about all the crowds and the fighting for food and bathrooms?” Winnie said. “Just turn on the headphones.”

“Soon we won’t even need to go to the beach,” Maureen said in jest.

“We can simply plug in our Magic Theater beach party, like we do with headphones.”

“That’s no joke,” Scott said as he scrunched his forehead. “That’ll be part of our marketing pitch. They’ll sell relaxation games: The Beach, The Stars from Alpha Centauri, The Old Fishing Hole.”

“I can’t wait for the release next week,” someone said.

“Yeah, we’ve had samples available to us if we work at Vincula,” Scott said to the benefit of those who didn’t. “Next week, they’re gonna have much more.”

Meanwhile, the sun arched up over them. A distant thunderstorm reverberated over the mainland. All day that gray wall lingered there and stopped short of their coast like a blanket pulled up to one’s chin. They felt favored, which heightened their jubilation.

***

The afternoon rain started, and a louder roar burst from the crowd. The already muddy field became a swamp, and the protective layer over the landfill began to erode into nearby creeks.

I breathed in my smokes and watched the escalating fracas of people. Onlookers drenched these gladiators with mud. At the other side of the field, boys flung themselves into the air and slithered down a mud hill like brown snakes. The musicians shouted and beat.

After the High Priests ended their reign, I borrowed several more smokes from my new friends. I moved away to find a drink to mix with the whisky taped to my belly.

After doing this and waiting in the toilet line for one band’s entire set, I began to look for Mike around the edges of the concert field. Near the entrance gates, an enormous tent covered hundreds of people. Rows of booths were tended by the representatives of the generation: anarchists, social democrats, environmentalists, drug prohibitionists, drug de-criminalizers, Native Americans, pro-abortionists, evangelicals, animal rights activists, men’s rights groups, women’s rights groups, and anti-retirement entitlement activists. A booth featuring the soon-to-be-released Magic Theater was there. Slogans I wrote adorned the marquee of the booth. The other booths generated heated discussions. Goateed shirtless boys bellowed at one another at the ozone depletion booth. A tattooed lady with a streak of purple hair declared her right to abort a child. A young teen with a gold ring dangling from his nipple expressed his concern for defenseless Canadian fur-laden animals. A bald Asian girl trumpeted her abhorrence of certain clichés. “You said ‘stick to your guns,’ you violent bastard! That endorses violence!”

The music still poured from speakers nearby. People walked out of the tent with brochures from the environmentalist booth. The leaflets covered the trail leading back to the concert field. Outside the tent, two towers stood with a cable between them. A crowd assembled below it. An announcer stood underneath with a microphone. His voice became clearer over the feedback.

“Okay, here he is! Go for it, dude!”

A man appeared out of a small door on top of the tower. He stepped onto the rope fifty feet in the air. He balanced himself with a pole as sheets of rain pelted him. The crowd grew.

“Go! Go! GO !” they chanted. The band boomed over our heads.

“Faster, you dweeb!”

“Wrong way, queer! Go!”

“You’re lame! Too slow!”

The man tiptoed ahead. He leaned too far left, then regained himself.

“Go back, lame queer!”

“We’re waaaaaaiting!”

He reached the middle of the cable. His face was despondent. He stepped forward again, but his pole dipped too far and he fell. The crowd cheered as he plunged down and indented the earth. His twisted body lay twitching in the muddy old newspapers his fall had dug up. Only when the gathering dwindled could the medics reach the groaning acrobat.

After they hauled him away, I looked back at the field. The fourth band, Onyx Box, leaped and erupted on the stage. Guitarists caressed the long stems of their instruments. The lead singer climbed the scaffolding framing the stage, up and up, near the top, a hundred feet above. He lost his grip, but regained it, inches from turning an upcoming decades-long career to immediate long-term paralysis.

The crowd tossed mud missiles among themselves and toward the band. If only a religion could harness such energy, I thought. The ministers romped around on the black altar, offering the chords and beats to the rain and sky. They tossed holy mud on now-80,000 disciples as lightning danced on the horizon.

“Mike!” He too had been watching the wire walker.

“Jonathan. How you been? Played any Phase 3 Magic Theater lately?”

“Where is it, Mike? Where’s the card?”

“It’s where I wish I was. At home. I can’t believe Gina talked me into coming here.”

“Where is she?”

“I lost her. To hell with her. I’d rather be playing my Phase 3. Imagine my surprise when I went to get Kevin’s computer and found your smart card next to it.”

“You’ve been playing the games?”

“Every day and night. I’ve woken up with helmet-hair every morning this week.”

“I need the card back.”

“No way. I got your Phase 3 access now. Don’t stand in my way, Jonathan. I could send you to prison for that scheme with Kevin.”

“You don’t understand, Mike. I need to play.”

“But you are playing, Jonathan, as far as Vincula knows. Let me do this, Jonathan.”

“What have you seen in the games?”

“Oh man, they have this new playmate game. It’s softcore, but it looks realistic. I also like the new Hunt for the Height-Challenged Persons. The Jack Willager All-Pro Football is cool.”

“That’s all?”

“I played the Moon Volleyball once. It was okay.”

“You didn’t play any games about concentration camps, or a news reporter in hell? Nothing strange like that?”

“Nah. Those do sound bizarre. I’ll need to look for those. But to me, Phase 3 is boring.”

“Be careful, Mike. I think it’s what killed Kevin.”

“Ha! They’re just games. Stop trying to scare me. You’re not getting the card back. Just stay away from me, and you’ll stay out of prison. The shuttles are starting up. I’m outta here.”

Mike turned and melted into the crowd.

“Wait!” I stepped after him but a mohawked fat guy moved in front of me. I dodged him, but the detour allowed Mike enough time to escape. I tried to wait for him near the gate, all during Putrid, but he was gone.

Later, I found a remnant of our green blanket, but my group was still thrashing near the stage. I brought out another smoke, and the square-jawed girl recognized me.

“Hey! You’re back!” she shouted. “Having a good time?”

“Not at all. I’m hungry. Come with me.”

She nodded and followed me without a glance to her goateed date, who bobbed up and down and stared at the stage, his head wrapped with earphones.

After waiting in line for a drink, we found the food counter, which required another wait. There we smoked and drank the whisky failing to mix with the rising bubbles of my cola.

“Oh, that is too good,” she said. “Do you have more of that weed?”

“Yeah. I made some generous new friends. They grow it in their dorm. What’s your name?”

“Felicia. Do you go to college here?”

“No, I work up the coast. Like the concert so far?”

“It’s awesome. But I’m starved. It must be all this pot.”

We finally bought fried potatoes, ate, and returned to the trash swamp. Felicia clung to me now. I tried to study her face: narrow eyes, long face, and square jaw, maybe the face of a Pole. I mistrusted my perceptions, but she still neared flawlessness to me. Delights lay under the mud and sweat covering her.

Thus, I continued my imagined tour of Europe at a festival in Warsaw, one night removed from an Adriatic celebration with Celia, five weeks removed from a Munich Oktoberfest with Lana. I reminded myself to look for Mike, but reminders popped in less and less as the day proceeded into a fog of smoke and alcohol.

Next week: Episode 21 - The Music Festival Part Two: Searching for more perfects

Copyright © 2022 Christopher Rogers.

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